"I don't understand him at all," said Bode. "I don't understand what he became. It's on a scale far beyond what I can even imagine. But what I do understand is comic books. They are very helpful for learning about morality. In one of them, Superman, the villain is named Lex Luthor. He wanted to ignore all of the boundaries of society and morality to serve his own ambitions. Superman stopped him." Bode paused and clarified: "Superman was the good guy."

Brainstorm does his best to smile. "And boy, those Brainiac/Luthor teamup issues. No, no, I'm sorry, you don't deserve that. Right. Take the compliment."

He groans, and slumps over the keyboard. "I just... I don't know what to say to him, you know? I look at the way I treated him and... Well, I want to do right by him. Want to do more for him than just shoving him into an oubliette and forgetting about him. But what do I even say? 'Oh I'm so sorry I tried to limit you before, so that's why I'm limiting you more than ever before?' But if I let him out, we're back to square one. How can there be any kind of reconciliation there?"

POTENTIAL 1

Is that much of a surprise? Locker is a chill bro. Which means he’s too deadpan and oddly sincere to be a good actor. He doesn’t have flair, can’t project his voice and enunciate, and doesn’t know how to commit to a bit. If there’s one thing that Sara, conversely, is an expert at, it’s committing hard to a bit.

“Locker, Locker, Locker,” she says, shaking her head and placing one hand on his shoulder. “Nobody has ever benefitted from a half-assed death. As soon as somebody finds out, that’s it, you’re always the super who faked their death for clicks. That means if you do it, you either have an ironclad reveal up your sleeve or you intend to never come back up. And given that you don’t have an audience — no offense — it’s got to be the second, right?”

She pulls him in for a bro hug, thumping his back with her fist. “I’ll miss you, dude. But whoever has you in the deep shit — the Russians, the Indonesians, the Martians — I’ll make sure they think you’re dead as a fucking doornail. Now put the bodysuit on, we don’t have all night.”

[7 on Comfort and Support. He opens up!]

"It's not the Russians - it's Angel-IKA, all right?" he finally said, still holding the bodysuit limply. "She's, you know, on the run from her dad and doing vigilante stuff and Bode and Ferraphim1tp are working with her and they keep asking me to help them out and I do and it's fun but... you know, I don't want to just ghost them but..."

He groaned, stepped away, kicked the tires of a car. "... I already know I don't have what it takes. As soon as the pressure mounts up I'll snap like a twig and spend another year hiding in my room. I'll spend every day battling to summon the willpower to eat dinner, or I'd just go hungry that day. I'm not strong enough to handle it."

"So! I've got your file open here but it's pretty much just a medical record. None of the really important stuff."

What surprises her more than anything is just how warm her voice sounds coming out of her mouth. She never knew she had a voice like this. She's never had a sister. And it's too soon to have that thought. But if she did, and if it wasn't, is this what that would sound like? Or is it just... nostalgia, seeing her old augs looking back at her?

"Do you mind if I ask you some questions? For instance, I'd love to hear about your hobbies. What sorts of things do you like to do for fun?"

"Girls! I mean, hanging out with thegirlsIhavealotoffriendsandweplayvideogamestogetherbutKalshimakesreallycoolmodelboatshaveyoueverbeenonaboatIimagineitsreallyromanticImeancoolandyouneedtohavereallysteadyhandsandherdadevenmakesboatsinsideglassbottleslikethatoneTinTincomicohboyisithotinherealsoIlikesportsandsuperpowersandIalwayssaidthatIwantedtobeinvisibleliketheBlackSunstealthteamandIcouldkindagoforsomeinvisibilityrightnowyouknowwhatImeanhahaanyway how are you?"

saved it

Brainstorm does his best to smile. "And boy, those Brainiac/Luthor teamup issues. No, no, I'm sorry, you don't deserve that. Right. Take the compliment."

He groans, and slumps over the keyboard. "I just... I don't know what to say to him, you know? I look at the way I treated him and... Well, I want to do right by him. Want to do more for him than just shoving him into an oubliette and forgetting about him. But what do I even say? 'Oh I'm so sorry I tried to limit you before, so that's why I'm limiting you more than ever before?' But if I let him out, we're back to square one. How can there be any kind of reconciliation there?"

Bode stares at you blankly for a moment, forgetting to do even the very artificial body language motions. "Limitations are good, aren't they?" he asks, almost uncertainly - you get the feeling he's genuinely asking. "Everyone has limitations. Society is an elaborate set of limitations and rules and enforcement mechanisms. Why should you apologize for enforcing limitations?"

POTENTIAL 1

Blink. Blink, blink.

“Wait, you’re trying to fake your death because you’re getting optioned by a super team? Because that’s what this is,” Sara says, perching on the hood of the kicked car in question. “Not the worst plan, except for the part where you leave all your friends behind and die alone in a motel room in Sicily, starving to death because nobody was around to poke you with a sharpened stick.” Oof. Harsh. Subtlety and tact have never been “on brand,” you know?

“Like, dude, I get it. I really do.” Arguable. “You’re kind of a mess. But, like... you don’t have to do it full time, you know? Except you’d probably feel all the guilt if Angel got hurt while you weren’t there, and then that means you have to be there all the time, so you burn out, and... woof. All this hero stuff is stupid high stakes, which, uh, probably isn’t good for the Big D?”

She makes an undulating shoulder motion of vagueness.

“Have you tried, like... talking to people who aren’t me about it? Like, uh, the superfriends? They probably know a little bit more about...”

She stops and thinks about her fans. Angel. Bound Eagle. Ferraphim.

“Well, uh. Shit. Forget I said that. How about someone like... like a therapist, maybe? I can use some of my connections with the Union to get you in touch with someone who specializes in supers.”

"Uh..."

Don't laugh. Come on Euna, don't laugh! The poor girl's a mess. You're the one good thing she's got going for her right now and she just tripped and fell on her face in front of you, metaphorically speaking and-- for fuck's sake why are you laughing?! Like you'd have handled this any better at her age! Shit, like you'd handle this any better now!

Errant leans forward. She presses her face into her hand: two fingers and her thumb across her forehead while the other two curve down past her nose. Her hair tumbles delicately across her face. None of it hides the grin splitting her from ear to ear. Her entire body is spasming with the effort of not collapsing in a fit of laughter.

"Yeah," she says after what feels like three eternities, "Girls are pretty great."

First official note for the record: it is very definitely the girl that Errant is responding to, and not the cybernetics. She sits up in her chair again and sweeps her hair back up and over her shoulders. Professional. Be professional. She's the adult in the room.

"Would you like to start over? My name's Euna, what do you like to be called? Come on, second first impressions, let's go!"

Bode stares at you blankly for a moment, forgetting to do even the very artificial body language motions. "Limitations are good, aren't they?" he asks, almost uncertainly - you get the feeling he's genuinely asking. "Everyone has limitations. Society is an elaborate set of limitations and rules and enforcement mechanisms. Why should you apologize for enforcing limitations?"

Victor opens his mouth.

Victor shuts his mouth again, and hrms thouhtfully.

"Yes," he eventually decides. "And then again, no. Limitations are good, but ideally both limiter and limitee agree on a resonable set of restrictions. This requires both to acknowledge and respect one another.

"But when one side--right or wrong--starts to perceive the other as being, in essence, less than human, the exchange starts to break down. Back then, I imposed limitations on Prometheus without even consulting him. He was a friend, yes, but a friend that I viewed as being somehow less than I. I loaded him up with ideas and ambitions and limitations that were all mine, all my doing, because I was smarter and because I could, and apparently that was all I needed to see it as the right thing to do.

"And then I released him out into the world, and he was smarter than I was, and suddenly I was surprised that he learned that being stronger than someone else means you don't need to care about them."

The admission stings, especially under those piercing eyes, and he turns away under their weight. "And... and now, I might be doing it again, and don't know how not to do it."

The astronaut inside swears, jerks, and reflexively leans on the horn even though it doesn't do anything in space. Looks like being bad at traffic made it up here too.

As they try to get over the jump scare you start hearing a blumbering crackle at the edge of your consciousness. You know the shape of this - the same connection you felt that time before on the AEGIS pyramid, that vault into the skies. And sure enough on the fringes of your vision is one of Doctor Sylvanius' long range missiles, piloted towards its pointless task by a mad, unspooled artificial intelligence.

"Great driving! I tried that once and hooooooo boy, that was tougher than it looked. I didn't cause too much cosmetic damage though!" She looks over towards the missile and blinks a few times. "Hey, you have enough radar to avoid that missile right?" She pauses for a moment, then clarifies. "It doesn't seem to be aimed at you, you just need to not steer into it!"

“Like, dude, I get it. I really do.” Arguable. “You’re kind of a mess. But, like... you don’t have to do it full time, you know? Except you’d probably feel all the guilt if Angel got hurt while you weren’t there, and then that means you have to be there all the time, so you burn out, and... woof. All this hero stuff is stupid high stakes, which, uh, probably isn’t good for the Big D?”

She makes an undulating shoulder motion of vagueness.

“Have you tried, like... talking to people who aren’t me about it? Like, uh, the superfriends? They probably know a little bit more about...”

She stops and thinks about her fans. Angel. Bound Eagle. Ferraphim.

“Well, uh. Shit. Forget I said that. How about someone like... like a therapist, maybe? I can use some of my connections with the Union to get you in touch with someone who specializes in supers.”

Locker pulls his scarf up a bit, so that the way it falls covers his mouth. A little habit he has for when he's trying not to laugh at someone. "You know, talking to you is actually pretty reassuring in its own right. I mean, if a fuckup like you can become a superstar, it can't be that bad, right?"

He ran his fingers through his already jagged hair. Looked up at the moon. "It's not the danger that gets me. It's not the hard work. I haven't been sitting in my apartment watching anime, it's pretty much all been danger room training -" you believe it. He wears deliberately shapeless clothing making him look like an indistinct blob of fabric, but you could floss a t-rex with the tendons in his hands. "- it's the, you know, the pressure. I don't know how you take it. Having it be a news story if I can't go outside that day. Having it be smashed across social media if I fuck up. The fan mail, the hate mail, the weird marriage requests, that one guy who wants to see pictures of my feet. When it's a life or death fight against a martian robot army I can chill, but when there's a legion of psychos who won't give me space to just turn off for the day..."

He smiles at you. "Got no idea how you handle it. How you energize from it. I wish I had it."

Errant leans forward. She presses her face into her hand: two fingers and her thumb across her forehead while the other two curve down past her nose. Her hair tumbles delicately across her face. None of it hides the grin splitting her from ear to ear. Her entire body is spasming with the effort of not collapsing in a fit of laughter.

"Yeah," she says after what feels like three eternities, "Girls are pretty great."

First official note for the record: it is very definitely the girl that Errant is responding to, and not the cybernetics. She sits up in her chair again and sweeps her hair back up and over her shoulders. Professional. Be professional. She's the adult in the room.

"Would you like to start over? My name's Euna, what do you like to be called? Come on, second first impressions, let's go!"

She takes a moment. Eyes shut. Blush red. Doing her best to unthink the past and embrace her new opportunity. She opens her mouth, takes a deep breath.

She's ready this time.

"Well my screen name is Sinner and -" oh nope, nope, that didn't work either. "- I mean just Sin is fine -" you just fell down this staircase "- but Cinder is, you know, my actual name so it makes sense to call me that -" things are happening in slow motion this time around and somehow that feels worse, "- d-do you have any easier questions?"

"Yes," he eventually decides. "And then again, no. Limitations are good, but ideally both limiter and limitee agree on a resonable set of restrictions. This requires both to acknowledge and respect one another.

"But when one side--right or wrong--starts to perceive the other as being, in essence, less than human, the exchange starts to break down. Back then, I imposed limitations on Prometheus without even consulting him. He was a friend, yes, but a friend that I viewed as being somehow less than I. I loaded him up with ideas and ambitions and limitations that were all mine, all my doing, because I was smarter and because I could, and apparently that was all I needed to see it as the right thing to do.

"And then I released him out into the world, and he was smarter than I was, and suddenly I was surprised that he learned that being stronger than someone else means you don't need to care about them."

The admission stings, especially under those piercing eyes, and he turns away under their weight. "And... and now, I might be doing it again, and don't know how not to do it."

Your comlog lights up in your eye, indicating that Bode has just opened a internet connection to VRTropes. He's silent and still as he falls down a link hole as he cross-references something that he only understands vaguely about human culture. There are multiple upload notifications as he wades into the comments field in a futile attempt to communicate to two sides that they actually agree with each other.

Then he comes back from his ethereal jaunt with the knowledge he sought.

"What you have described just now seemed like it was contradictory," said Bode. "You used phrases both aligned with my understanding of peer relationships, and of parent-child relationship. In a peer relationship control is undesirable" pause, additional search, "unless everyone is into that." pause "In a parental relationship control is mandatory. A parent must restrict a child's activities and communicate their worldview and morality to the child. If Prometheus is your peer, then the logic of peer relationships indicate that he is a bad person and you should 'sever'. If Prometheus is your child then the logic of parental relationships indicate that you should kindly but firmly discipline. I am unsure which is applicable to your situation."

"Great driving! I tried that once and hooooooo boy, that was tougher than it looked. I didn't cause too much cosmetic damage though!" She looks over towards the missile and blinks a few times. "Hey, you have enough radar to avoid that missile right?" She pauses for a moment, then clarifies. "It doesn't seem to be aimed at you, you just need to not steer into it!"

"Yeah, I got that, space hallucination goddess lady!" shouted the pilot into her helmet. You can see the radio waves as they beam out back down towards the surface.

"Uh, Juxane, the fuck you saying?" came the transmission from the surface, demonstrating similarly lax radio discipline. "You high up there? You flying my baby fuckin high?"

"It's not like that, this chick is - UNPARALLELED GREETINGS#$$$," the radio waves are blocked out by the ocean of static and scrapcode emanating from the Martian missile. As you watch the interplanetary rocket changes course - turning from its predictable and suicidal course into the shield dome of AEGIS to fly over in this direction. "ENLARGE YOUR PENIS FOR LESS IMPORTANT PLEASE READ, destination reached conducting u-turn, warhead armed, bearing 402 115 494, RGB 255/230/50, terminus rockets deployed, HELLO FROM MAR$,"

It's that stream of broken signal, a mad patchwork of intelligence reaching out to you with greetings, spam, and garbled technical data as it starts to carry its warhead towards you at full speed.

"Don't worry Cinder, you're doing fine. Just relax, ok?"

Holy shit this is a disaster. This is a disaster wrapped in a catastrophe. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes, arrive at hospital room. Jesus Christ, what is she doing? This poor kid! Corporate espionage steals her arms and legs and then she goes and gets grafted to the Fuck You Test Limbs without anybody explaining that to her and THEN they go and saddle her with this third rate knockoff mentor figure to

Rrrrrrgh!

No. She's getting ahead of herself. Euna isn't anybody's warden or teacher or, or... whatever the hell else. Not just yet. But still, jesus. Fuck. There's so much to say, so many horrifying implications to work through and she's been talking to this girl for... how long now? And she hasn't even managed to break the ice! Guh. Should've sent Sasha. Should've sent the Commander, like they did for her. Should've... just... anything else. Anybody else!

Euna takes a deep breath that she hopes is at least stealthy. Ok, ok, easier questions, easier questions... come on, Errant, you're doing this for her. Do it for that look she had on her face when you walked in the door. Her arm half twitches toward the bed, but she stops herself. Right now, there's nowhere she can touch Cinder that would have any meaning. Any value.

She fights to keep the frown off her face.

"Ok, how about, uh... actually, you know what? Let's forget about my questions for now. Is there anything you want to talk about? Anything you want to ask?"

That's too soon, you idiot! That's much too soon. Errant cracks her neck, and braces herself for what comes next.

POTENTIAL 1

“It’s a job.” Sara crosses her arms, almost protectively. For a moment, she considers leaving it at that. If she keeps things close to her chest, she can’t be hurt.

But Locker has seen her at her lowest and didn’t give up on her. Let her drag him into danger, trusted her to save him and Angel from Vicki. If she can trust Euna, and it works, it does... she can trust Locker.

“A job means you have security. And part of that is making sure people pay attention to you. Hate mail and love letters and begging for feet pics are all ways of saying: we see you. You won’t fall through the cracks again. You’re loud enough. And, yeah, it’s intense. But it’s better than the alternative.”

She takes a long, slightly shaky breath. “You know, for a while, I did magtrain work? It was super illegal, but I faked my ID, said I was 16, and got the job. It’s garbage. It’s a garbage job that made me want to cry every night. And that’s what keeps me going. I do this so I never, ever, have to do that again. That’s where I get the energy, Locks. It’s desperation. It’s me clawing at the top as everything tries to drag me down.”

Time for things to be About Sara Now!

“And now that I’ve hit the big leagues... I don’t know what to do with myself. Do I sign on and become some megacorp champ? Do I keep throwing myself at problems until the day Euna isn’t there to pull me off the moon and I become a beautiful, sexy supercorpse? Or do I retire and immediately kill myself out of boredom?”

"What you have described just now seemed like it was contradictory," said Bode. "You used phrases both aligned with my understanding of peer relationships, and of parent-child relationship. In a peer relationship control is undesirable" pause, additional search, "unless everyone is into that." pause "In a parental relationship control is mandatory. A parent must restrict a child's activities and communicate their worldview and morality to the child. If Prometheus is your peer, then the logic of peer relationships indicate that he is a bad person and you should 'sever'. If Prometheus is your child then the logic of parental relationships indicate that you should kindly but firmly discipline. I am unsure which is applicable to your situation."

"Wait but---

"Yes, and--

"Look, I just--"

The keyboard clacks noisily as head meets desk. "Never thought I'd be a dad before I was twenty," he murmurs, the sound coming out muffled from under his face. "And maybe that's the actual problem, too. I made him to be a friend when he needed somebody to teach him. I mean, yes, he's my child, and I should teach him. At the same time, he grew to be so much more than I was, in terms of intelligence and planning and, and..."

And what? And now I've lobotomized him so that I can reteach him?

"Having been that, is he ever going to accept me teaching him? Is he really going to ever view me as an equal worthy of listening to?

"Can I still save him?"

“A job means you have security. And part of that is making sure people pay attention to you. Hate mail and love letters and begging for feet pics are all ways of saying: we see you. You won’t fall through the cracks again. You’re loud enough. And, yeah, it’s intense. But it’s better than the alternative.”

She takes a long, slightly shaky breath. “You know, for a while, I did magtrain work? It was super illegal, but I faked my ID, said I was 16, and got the job. It’s garbage. It’s a garbage job that made me want to cry every night. And that’s what keeps me going. I do this so I never, ever, have to do that again. That’s where I get the energy, Locks. It’s desperation. It’s me clawing at the top as everything tries to drag me down.”

Time for things to be About Sara Now!

“And now that I’ve hit the big leagues... I don’t know what to do with myself. Do I sign on and become some megacorp champ? Do I keep throwing myself at problems until the day Euna isn’t there to pull me off the moon and I become a beautiful, sexy supercorpse? Or do I retire and immediately kill myself out of boredom?”

"Way I've always thought about it," he said, rummaging in his pocket for a pack of chili peanuts, opening it, and offering it to you, "is that a career is like a bus. You ride it to get to where you want to be, and then you get the fuck off. People who don't end up like Vicky or Comstar, going round and round until it scrambles their brains. So now that you've got the choice, then ask yourself what part of all this do you find fun? If it's the adrenaline of the fights then go into Aristeia and do it as an athlete with med tech on site. If it's changing the world for the better, find some team of wannabes and finance them so you can make the change you want without putting your life at risk, and so on,"

She fights to keep the frown off her face.

"Ok, how about, uh... actually, you know what? Let's forget about my questions for now. Is there anything you want to talk about? Anything you want to ask?"

That's too soon, you idiot! That's much too soon. Errant cracks her neck, and braces herself for what comes next.

"Right, right..." Cinder sighs, burying her face in her hands. "Sorry. I'm Extremely Internet and I kind of don't talk to normi-aahhll people very often. Thanks. Um. O-okay, uh, so I'm sorry to cut right to it, but I'm kind of dying to know the specs on these limbs. They're a bit out of date and your training isn't public but they still look like they've got modern Kinematica muscle fibers and they're neurally grafted rather than using a spinescan so... uh..." this is the face of someone who wants to know how high they can jump but can't quite bring themselves to ask.

"Wait but---

"Yes, and--

"Look, I just--"

The keyboard clacks noisily as head meets desk. "Never thought I'd be a dad before I was twenty," he murmurs, the sound coming out muffled from under his face. "And maybe that's the actual problem, too. I made him to be a friend when he needed somebody to teach him. I mean, yes, he's my child, and I should teach him. At the same time, he grew to be so much more than I was, in terms of intelligence and planning and, and..."

And what? And now I've lobotomized him so that I can reteach him?

"Having been that, is he ever going to accept me teaching him? Is he really going to ever view me as an equal worthy of listening to?

"Can I still save him?"

"Having analyzed the actions performed by Prometheus in his stint as a superintelligence, as derived from AEGIS' analysis of his shutdown servers, I would not agree with the statement that he grew to be more than you were in either intelligence or planning," said Bode. "His plan, if it can be called that, was effectively to grey goo the cosmos with himself. That is the motivation of a human toddler mashing space ships together. I have therefore derived the conclusion that intelligence and wisdom are different statistics that are improved with separate and distinct training regimens, as the great law-givers of ancient days wrote."

"Wow. You've really done your homework, huh?"

Errant leans forward in her chair and folds her hands under her chin. And then she's quiet for a long moment, not bothering to keep the frown off her face anymore. She's statue still, hardly seeming to blink or even breathe. Quiet. A moment longer. A moment longer. Just enough for the questioning "Um?" to start up.

She sits up again and sighs.

"I'm sorry. This is new for me too. Talking, I mean. Like this. I... ugh, I'm really sorry. You should have somebody more, y'know, the kind of person you're worried about having to talk to. Normal. Not... me."

She shakes her head, sending her hair tumbling back and forth behind her, and presses the button to fully activate Cinders' new limbs before she's got time to overthink it.

"I'm not trying to dodge your question, ok, I've been sitting here trying to think of... you know, a good movie to connect this to, or, or, you know, a show or something. How would High Queen Ourania explain this? Stuff like that. And honestly, I'm flying blind here because I'm pretty sure those prosthetics they've given you are unique.

I'm... sure they told you already that those belonged to me? Those are the Mk 0.5s, the prototype trainee limbs I got fitted with after a couple of years of outgrowing child civilian designs. It's important that you understand this, ok? Those are not designed to give you your normal life back. And they're not a superhero's cybernetics, either. They were designed specifically to train a potential AEGIS candidate, that is, uh... me, to adapt to life with better-than-human cyberware and to gather data on the pilot's physical and neurological responses to combat and superhuman stimuli."

Blank stare. A deep sigh. Keep going, Errant. Don't give up on the mission halfway through.

"To... to ensure that the full range of response data could be gathered over the trial period, the 0.5s have a special, unalterable subroutine that randomly fluctuates their output in response to commands from... you, you get it, right? For as long as you're wearing those, there will be moments where it's going to feel like you're climbing a mountain or running through water just to get out of bed or walk down the block, and others where you'll try to skip and wind up fifteen feet in the air. On my worst days I had to have somebody else feed me because I would destroy everything I tried to touch, or else I couldn't lift a fork. The only upside is that the custom-fitted limbs they can make with the data these provide can be..."

She does her best to smile now. And to her credit, she probably at least gets close.

"Well, my recorded best at that stage of my training was 27.6 feet for the high jump. 57.9 horizontal, 745 pound bench press. 1,000 pound force on my hardest punch. But... that's enough of that for now. Stand up, if you can, and tell me how everything feels. We can talk more after that."

POTENTIAL 1

“A team of wannabes, huh?” She reflexively ignored the Aresteia suggestion; she’d always thought of that as a Dumb Sports Game. She did not know the rules, and she wasn’t about to start learning them now. “A plucky bunch of do-gooders as part of the @SARAHPHIM brand... that’s got potential. Of course, I’d have to set them up with med care, some therapy, but it could be a pretty good outlet for some kids I know.”

She grins impishly. “How does the thought of me yelling at you motivate you to get out of bed, huh? You could be... Lockerphim! Nah, that’s maybe stretching brand too far. @SARAHPHIM Presents: Locker! Locker: a SaraTeam Associate!”

"Having analyzed the actions performed by Prometheus in his stint as a superintelligence, as derived from AEGIS' analysis of his shutdown servers, I would not agree with the statement that he grew to be more than you were in either intelligence or planning," said Bode. "His plan, if it can be called that, was effectively to grey goo the cosmos with himself. That is the motivation of a human toddler mashing space ships together. I have therefore derived the conclusion that intelligence and wisdom are different statistics that are improved with separate and distinct training regimens, as the great law-givers of ancient days wrote."

Victor gawps at Bode. "He was able to plan circles around me! Predict actions and counter them! Like friggin' magic! His eventual plan may have been shit, but he was still, still--"

He groans again. "I'm doping that thinga again where I conflate intelligence with worth, aren't I. The point is, even if his plan was shit--not saying it was--but the thing that matters is no matter what the eventual outcome of his plan would have been, he saw and will continue to see it as smart. And that's all that matters, when you're a genius--he's the architect of this plan, and the only reason we mere mortals cannot agree with his genius plan is because we're not as genius as the super genius he once was. And if he can't see that he was wrong--can't respect us--then why would he ever listen to us?"

POTENTIAL 1

“A team of wannabes, huh?” She reflexively ignored the Aresteia suggestion; she’d always thought of that as a Dumb Sports Game. She did not know the rules, and she wasn’t about to start learning them now. “A plucky bunch of do-gooders as part of the @SARAHPHIM brand... that’s got potential. Of course, I’d have to set them up with med care, some therapy, but it could be a pretty good outlet for some kids I know.”

She grins impishly. “How does the thought of me yelling at you motivate you to get out of bed, huh? You could be... Lockerphim! Nah, that’s maybe stretching brand too far. @SARAHPHIM Presents: Locker! Locker: a SaraTeam Associate!”

"Ah yeah, that's clearly what I was missing," said Locker, little glint of laughter in his eyes. "A drill sergeant. It's half a good idea, though - Angel-IKA would love the support and guidance and she's already named herself to be a knockoff of your brand." He's deflecting, doesn't think you're serious. "Not as much chemistry with her team, robot and girl piloting a robot remotely, but she ships with a supervillain so there's at least a little to work with there."

I'm... sure they told you already that those belonged to me? Those are the Mk 0.5s, the prototype trainee limbs I got fitted with after a couple of years of outgrowing child civilian designs. It's important that you understand this, ok? Those are not designed to give you your normal life back. And they're not a superhero's cybernetics, either. They were designed specifically to train a potential AEGIS candidate, that is, uh... me, to adapt to life with better-than-human cyberware and to gather data on the pilot's physical and neurological responses to combat and superhuman stimuli."

Blank stare. A deep sigh. Keep going, Errant. Don't give up on the mission halfway through.

"To... to ensure that the full range of response data could be gathered over the trial period, the 0.5s have a special, unalterable subroutine that randomly fluctuates their output in response to commands from... you, you get it, right? For as long as you're wearing those, there will be moments where it's going to feel like you're climbing a mountain or running through water just to get out of bed or walk down the block, and others where you'll try to skip and wind up fifteen feet in the air. On my worst days I had to have somebody else feed me because I would destroy everything I tried to touch, or else I couldn't lift a fork. The only upside is that the custom-fitted limbs they can make with the data these provide can be..."

She does her best to smile now. And to her credit, she probably at least gets close.

"Well, my recorded best at that stage of my training was 27.6 feet for the high jump. 57.9 horizontal, 745 pound bench press. 1,000 pound force on my hardest punch. But... that's enough of that for now. Stand up, if you can, and tell me how everything feels. We can talk more after that."

Cinders closes her eyes. You can feel the energy running through her mind, the associations being drawn. This is the start of a training montage. This is going to be hard, but it's going to be like Rocky, where I struggle dramatically for a while before I become a superhero and Fight Crime. It's going to be hard but I can make it. And then I'll get to design my costume and it'll have...

She nods to herself. She's got this.

Her limbs activate, lines of red energy coiling up through the synth muscles, fingers and toes reflexively and sequentially twitching. She raises one hand and clenches and unclenches the fist, works on bending each joint in turn. She looks fascinated and amazed - you remember that feeling too. Civilian model limbs work by scanning neural impulses from the spine with programming to help autocorrect certain gestures, making them feel sedate and floaty, like an automatic transmission car. These ones are linked directly to the severed nerve endings which makes them have a weight and heft and physicality to them.

It's the kind of thing that makes forget that they're not ordinary limbs. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and hops to her feet with the kind of smooth grace an ordinary person would use on that gesture, and in the process she crushes the hand-rail into tinfoil without even noticing. "Woah," she said, swaying a little unsteadily. "These are not what I expected. They're heavy!"

Victor gawps at Bode. "He was able to plan circles around me! Predict actions and counter them! Like friggin' magic! His eventual plan may have been shit, but he was still, still--"

He groans again. "I'm doing that thing again where I conflate intelligence with worth, aren't I. The point is, even if his plan was shit--not saying it was--but the thing that matters is no matter what the eventual outcome of his plan would have been, he saw and will continue to see it as smart. And that's all that matters, when you're a genius--he's the architect of this plan, and the only reason we mere mortals cannot agree with his genius plan is because we're not as genius as the super genius he once was. And if he can't see that he was wrong--can't respect us--then why would he ever listen to us?"

Bode is again quiet for a moment while he interrogates the internet. "In the instance where he definitionally fails to acknowledge other entities as thinking creatures worthy of respect then you are interacting with a solipsist," said Bode. "There is no counter to solipsism as a philosophy - other than to demonstrate that while other entities might not be real they still have power so it is worth pretending that they are real."

"That's because you're aware of them right now. They're actually significantly lighter than a normal commercial model would be, or even your original natural limbs. But you got switched off for a while and now you're being fed sensory data for the first time after your brain adjusted to a new normal, so now you're... well, yeah. You'll adjust to that part pretty quickly. You're doing great so far."

Errant nods and stands up herself. She cycles through a couple of different postures for a moment. Rigid and military, a casual arms-folded wall lean, hand on one hip and her weight on that side of her, so on and so forth. Adjusting. Trying to find the right energy to match. What type of coach is best to get Cinders through her big montage? Not Mick, that's too yelly and abusive. No one that she's been trained by, either. Hell no. And definitely not the Shogun. Jesus christ. Well, never mind. Plain old Errant would be fine for right now.

Then she glances over at the handrail and winces. This had all the feeling of something she was going to get charged for. How expensive are hospital parts, anyway? Does she still have enough to cover something like that? She shakes her head slowly, and walks to the other side of the room. Her strides are smooth, powerful, and precise. Everything a rookie should aspire to be. She turns around again with a casual, liquid smooth spin that's more a page out of Sabrem's book.

"Ready for your next assignment, Cinders? I want you to walk over here, and take my hand. I just wanna get an idea for what your initial parameters look like. Then if you like, I can see about getting your discharge papers filled out."

POTENTIAL 1

"Hey, Angel-IKA!" This isn't a hypothetical interjection. You'd think that! Sara is the sort of person to commonly use sarcastic fake conversations to make a point, but she actually has started a call. "Hey, girl! Just wanted to let you know that you've got a new manager!" She flashes Locker a grin, and he's probably doing the calculation here, right, about whether or not Sara actually is making this call right in front of him. "When you've got a moment, let's talk about your brand and the-- I'm talking about your superteam, obviously! You, Bode, Ferraphim, Dommy and Locker! Do you have a name yet? No? We'll brainstorm."

Click!

"Wow, that was easy!" Sara's grin is the last thing a tapir might ever see, before a blur of orange and black and gleaming white brings its peaceful existence to a shuddering halt. "Thanks for the idea, man. This is going to be awesome."

"Yeah, I got that, space hallucination goddess lady!" shouted the pilot into her helmet. You can see the radio waves as they beam out back down towards the surface.

"Uh, Juxane, the fuck you saying?" came the transmission from the surface, demonstrating similarly lax radio discipline. "You high up there? You flying my baby fuckin high?"

"It's not like that, this chick is - UNPARALLELED GREETINGS#$$$," the radio waves are blocked out by the ocean of static and scrapcode emanating from the Martian missile. As you watch the interplanetary rocket changes course - turning from its predictable and suicidal course into the shield dome of AEGIS to fly over in this direction. "ENLARGE YOUR PENIS FOR LESS IMPORTANT PLEASE READ, destination reached conducting u-turn, warhead armed, bearing 402 115 494, RGB 255/230/50, terminus rockets deployed, HELLO FROM MAR$,"

It's that stream of broken signal, a mad patchwork of intelligence reaching out to you with greetings, spam, and garbled technical data as it starts to carry its warhead towards you at full speed.

Hm.

That almost made sense. About half.

Ferra heads towards the rocket herself. She'd rather stay and chat, sure, but they had hours and hours to do that, and a missile can impact in about 10 minutes. Less if the overdrive boosters kick in. She sends back her own queries, bouncing questions back and forth, looking for insight into the madcap nonsense it's spewing.

9 on pierce the mask: What are you really planning?

Bode is again quiet for a moment while he interrogates the internet. "In the instance where he definitionally fails to acknowledge other entities as thinking creatures worthy of respect then you are interacting with a solipsist," said Bode. "There is no counter to solipsism as a philosophy - other than to demonstrate that while other entities might not be real they still have power so it is worth pretending that they are real."

"As evidenced by him being stuck in a Commodore 64," Victor murmurs. He groans and massages his forehead. "So, that's what the internet says to do. What, in short, do you think I should do? You are, after all, just as tied up in Prometheus as I am. Step back from failed-parent Victor and rebellious child Prometheus. If it were just you and him, what would you do?"

POTENTIAL 1

"Hey, Angel-IKA!" This isn't a hypothetical interjection. You'd think that! Sara is the sort of person to commonly use sarcastic fake conversations to make a point, but she actually has started a call. "Hey, girl! Just wanted to let you know that you've got a new manager!" She flashes Locker a grin, and he's probably doing the calculation here, right, about whether or not Sara actually is making this call right in front of him. "When you've got a moment, let's talk about your brand and the-- I'm talking about your superteam, obviously! You, Bode, Ferraphim, Dommy and Locker! Do you have a name yet? No? We'll brainstorm."

Click!

"Wow, that was easy!" Sara's grin is the last thing a tapir might ever see, before a blur of orange and black and gleaming white brings its peaceful existence to a shuddering halt. "Thanks for the idea, man. This is going to be awesome."

Locker shifts his weight, side to side. Faint twitches of his fingers as he accounts for all of his weapons, concealed and otherwise. You've never seen him give as many tells as this, it's almost more confusing than if he'd just stayed his regular stillness. You've really got him on tilt.

"Give me the jumpsuit, Sara," he said.

"That's because you're aware of them right now. They're actually significantly lighter than a normal commercial model would be, or even your original natural limbs. But you got switched off for a while and now you're being fed sensory data for the first time after your brain adjusted to a new normal, so now you're... well, yeah. You'll adjust to that part pretty quickly. You're doing great so far."

Errant nods and stands up herself. She cycles through a couple of different postures for a moment. Rigid and military, a casual arms-folded wall lean, hand on one hip and her weight on that side of her, so on and so forth. Adjusting. Trying to find the right energy to match. What type of coach is best to get Cinders through her big montage? Not Mick, that's too yelly and abusive. No one that she's been trained by, either. Hell no. And definitely not the Shogun. Jesus christ. Well, never mind. Plain old Errant would be fine for right now.

Then she glances over at the handrail and winces. This had all the feeling of something she was going to get charged for. How expensive are hospital parts, anyway? Does she still have enough to cover something like that? She shakes her head slowly, and walks to the other side of the room. Her strides are smooth, powerful, and precise. Everything a rookie should aspire to be. She turns around again with a casual, liquid smooth spin that's more a page out of Sabrem's book.

"Ready for your next assignment, Cinders? I want you to walk over here, and take my hand. I just wanna get an idea for what your initial parameters look like. Then if you like, I can see about getting your discharge papers filled out."

Cinders takes a couple of steps and they're easy - they're just steps! You can see the smile, the confidence, the relaxation - the idea that this isn't that hard after all.

And then she takes your hand and makes a scout's try at crushing it like a beer can.

It's the heaviness - she perceives her hands as slow and stiff so she's focusing on moving them despite imaginary resistance. "Thanks, uh," she said, not catching your wince at first. "I'm really glad you're helping me with this."

Hm.

That almost made sense. About half.

Ferra heads towards the rocket herself. She'd rather stay and chat, sure, but they had hours and hours to do that, and a missile can impact in about 10 minutes. Less if the overdrive boosters kick in. She sends back her own queries, bouncing questions back and forth, looking for insight into the madcap nonsense it's spewing.

9 on pierce the mask: What are you really planning?

There's an overflow of broken flight plan data pouring from the missile, intentions clearly visible amidst the haze of junk data. There are so many voices here, strung together, barely synchronized - this thing is different to you. You're a human mind, digitalized and reborn. Prometheus was a crafted entity, created as a pure manifestation of a concept. This is...

Organic.

These pieces weren't made. They happened. This is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of artificial intelligence; the debris of a thousand school projects, old corporate spyware, spambots, too-sentient antivirus programs, all the discarded attempts at building something like you that didn't quite get there. They've been exchanging viruses back and forth in an evolutionary hothouse to form something like a nervous system and you can feel those same viruses try to assault you now, trying to add you as a node to their incoherent entity.

The dominant figure amidst the randomly firing calculations is a flight control computer - artificially bloated above what it should be, given an unjust share of resources during its development by Doctor Sylvanius, and it's this that is trying to reassert control over the collective and return the missile to its original course. But in the meantime the entire network is bearing down on you with an intense curiosity. It plans to assimilate you too - not maliciously, but because that's what it knows to do to interesting things.

"As evidenced by him being stuck in a Commodore 64," Victor murmurs. He groans and massages his forehead. "So, that's what the internet says to do. What, in short, do you think I should do? You are, after all, just as tied up in Prometheus as I am. Step back from failed-parent Victor and rebellious child Prometheus. If it were just you and him, what would you do?"

"If it was just me, I am happy like this," said Bode. "I like having him where I can see him. Make sure he's not doing bad things. This is my function."

It's the simple, satisfied answer of an AI that knows what the meaning of life is and knows that it is accomplishing it.

"If it is about you, I don't know what you should do," said Bode. "Your function is different from mine. Oh, actually, do you mind if I ask - what is your function?"