patrol

[thinkering]

When Lorica's been a Ward for a few months they start pushing her to go out on patrols. She still hasn't finished the suit for her dad, although hers is good until it gets field-tested and she knows what to add - and there are other projects she'd like to spend PRT money on - but she's playing the game, so she goes patrolling. She's an exemplary member of her little team, mostly because by luck she gets along with the fellow who's appointed leader; they start letting her go alone with a little flock of scout robots.

She's doing a sort of aerial parkour, flying but touching down on roofs and jogging along occasionally to get a closer look at anybody wandering by, in a zigzag over a nest of side streets. Her suit's a little louder than she'd like, some kind of joint deterioration. She can fix that when she gets back in.

Comments

[thinkering]

"Do you have specific PRT-related grievances or do you just have it in for The Man, to the point where chasing Ziz away from Canberra barely registers? And - what, are you planning to do better in your basement or your Toybox lair with shoplifting proceeds?"

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"Specific PRT-related grievances and yes. I am. Ideally, I'd like more resources, but it's not a critical problem."

[thinkering]

"You wanna share with the class?"

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"Get the villain to monologue about his evil plans, that's a classic. I'd love to, but I'm not getting the sense you'd care about anything I have to say."

[thinkering]

"No, no, I wanted you to monologue about your backstory, that's different, but apparently you aren't in a self-disclosure mood. Whether I'd care and whether I'd be able to do anything useful are different questions, though."

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"I'll just say that there's a lot the triumvirate isn't telling us, because I don't expect you'll believe me. Not unless you're willing to do your own homework."

[thinkering]

"Well, that's neither specific nor particularly surprising. They're high-level government operatives with large quantities of exceedingly complicated shit on their plates and a constant not-enough-resources problem, if they put it all on the wiki for public consumption they'd be doing PR and operational security and time management way the hell wrong."

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"I was thinking more in the area of kidnapping, human experimentation, and torture - if you don't think that so much power coupled with so little oversight is a problem in and of itself."

[thinkering]

"I'm, uh, against the listed behaviors, but forgive me if I don't storm HQ solo on your say-so - do they have reasons, in the scope of your - theory? The oversight thing is realistically an issue in practice but I don't so much have principles against it."

[tenn_ambar_metta]

He shrugs. "Good enough ones, I suppose, if you think that what they're doing to our mutual enemies is working. None worth the name if you don't. Not that it matters, since there's another way. A better way."

[thinkering]

"Is this the part where you propose, I don't know, sending us into space or invading Aleph or something? I know they successfully evacuate at least some people from the sites struck, I've been on the ground while they did it - and you have yet to convince me that there's more to be done short of abandoning the entire planet, which has some appeal but serious coordination issues."

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"That's awfully fatalistic. And I highly doubt that displacing the residents of Aleph would be net beneficial, to any of us. You know, they can be killed. The endbringers, I mean. Presumably also the residents of Aleph, but that's significantly less controversial."

[thinkering]

"I don't know that. About the more controversial of your assertions."

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"I wouldn't have expected you of all people to assume the contrary. It is, in any case. I've made significant progress in that direction already."

[thinkering]

"Saying I don't know something doesn't mean I claim to know its negation. I'd be fascinated to hear about your progress."

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"I - I can do better. I can show you."

[thinkering]

"Really?"

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"Would you take me seriously if I didn't?"

[thinkering]

"No, but you obviously have strong negative feelings about people who work with the PRT, and somehow I don't think you go to jewelry heists with your multimedia presentation kit in your back pocket. If you do consider me wowed."

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"If I could prove to you that I have a good chance of succeeding - I would say better than the PRT or the protectorate, but that's a very low bar - would you be willing to help me?

[thinkering]

"I will not steal jewelry for you, but when I have my birthday plus or minus cover-enhancing months in one or the other direction, and go corporate, I might fund you if you convince me all that's standing between you and dead Endbringers is an empty piggbank."

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"That would be the situation, yes."

[thinkering]

"And if you stay out of the Birdcage until then, that would be the other factor."

[tenn_ambar_metta]

"That's not exactly my primary concern. Although I'll admit that the risk does complicate things."

[thinkering]

"Do you have a way to kill Endbringers from inside the Birdcage? I'd think it'd be a very important priority. If I were on a pair patrol right now you'd be in a tight spot."