SG: Routines #1

[Jon Robertson]

The night was dark.  True, 'night' does imply 'dark', but humans love to
come up with exceptions to anything.  Call something dark and immediately
people are putting up torches, lamps, and then little buzzing glowing wires
of electricity so that they can smirk and go 'Actually...'.  But street
lights only go so far to fight off the dark, especially in a residential
area where it's rude to keep people up too late.  And now it was late
enough that most of the apartment windows had gone dark, leaving the
buildings in the shadows.

Those apartment buildings hopped back and forth between three to four
stories high.  For a superguy or cat burglar that was great for breaking up
sight lines and making it harder to notice a person lurking on the
rooftops.  The height shuffle also made moving between them for those
roofwalkers either more interesting or more frustrating, depending on
whether they liked to jump and climb.  To Roam, the work navigating that
space was definitely on the interesting side.  Night patrol could get dead
boring in most cities.  You needed every extra spice you could get.

This city was just one random place picked by Support, where street crime
of a patrol-worthy kind had a recent uptick, where people would be amenable
to a superguy intervention, and where a little quiet community investment
afterwards would help clear up problems in the mid-term.  Roam wasn't even
sure what the name of the city was.  It was just one place among many on an
ever-changing patrol, needing a boost and a quiet hand.  Her hand would
offer a wagging finger, and more well-to-do hands would actually work on
the base issues to improve things.  She'd be the face until people forgot
about her.

(Actually, not knowing the city name was a complete fib.  Before going
anywhere, Roam obsessively studied city layout, local law-enforcement
'quirks', general community outlook and attitudes, problems she was likely
to find, and what useful things she could do besides busting heads while
she was there.  But on a solo patrol night, Billie's mind could go to
vaguely noirlike dramatic tics to keep herself entertained, and this was an
annoyingly quiet night.)

Finally, on one tall corner rooftop (slanted edges, spires on each corner,
once a church but renovated to a moving slurry of businesses two decades
ago, according to her briefing), Roam stopped at a promising sight.  An
older man below, kneeling next to his car.  She twitched one finger and her
goggles magnified the view to show a flat tire, a jack on the ground, and a
confused look on his face.  Perfect.  Action!  Roam returned her visor back
to normal with another finger gesture and readied to leap down and help,
only to pause as more people came into her view.

Three young men, relaxed clothes, nothing outstanding about their looks.
Swagger in their steps, moving for the old man deliberately, saying
nothing.  Another finger wriggle to check them out -- no sign of weapons.
All clear, but they also weren't calling out to the man.  Would-be helpers,
just curious, or something more dangerous?  Roam hunched down, readying a
leap.  If things went wrong.. leap down while shooting two few wooden bolts
to the street, using the noise to get their focus away from the man.  Land
between them and the old man.  Handle any weapons they had--

Then below the first of the young men knelt down near the older man,
talking like old friends.  The other two moved around to get the crowbar
slash nut remover thing (Roam was not exactly a car person) the old man had
apparently left in his trunk.  Good times and banter were had by all, and
there was no longer any reason to even jump down and offer to lift the car
herself.

Roam shook her head lightly and sighed to herself.  "Right.  Washington
rule six, when you're disappointed that people are being good and taking
care of each other, it's time to call it a night and get some perspective."

******

Title
Routines 1
Jon Robertson

******

Twenty minutes later, Roam-now-Billie stepped into a completely
non-descript room that was the culmination of research into Beige.  The
walls were gently rippled with just enough paint-rollered detail to make
the eyes wander along if one looked too closely.  The floor was a short
little light brown carpet, and the door looked like the cheapest thing you
could find at the local home improvement store, in an inoffensive
off-white.  It was five foot square and windowless, and completely boring.
It could be anywhere, which was the point of it.

Billie counted up to twenty, then again several more times until she lost
track of how long she'd actually counted.  She counted twice more for good
measure, and then turned around to reopen the door and step out.  Where
before the outside was a small apartment building hallway in that unnamed
city (Bigton), now it led to a broad hall, seven feet wide and spotted with
different doors.  Home again, back to Station One's teleport wing.

Closing the door behind her, Billie moved down the hallway.  Each door had
a title on it and a name of the person or project team that made or
maintained that portal.  She moved on from exiting 'Could Be Anywhere -
Greymage', past 'Wormhole Type 83-C - Pinhole Collective', and picked up
the pace to hurry past the padlocked 'Transformational Topology - WORK IN
PROGRESS'.  Finally she passed through the door at the far end of the
hallway, leading away from the teleporters and the skunkworks on the other
side of the hallway, and into the Hero wing of Station One.

At the moment that was completely empty save for Billie herself, but that
was expected at this hour.  Station One didn't belong to any specific team.
  It was a general station house mostly for solos and small groups, with
consulting and specialty services for anyone who needed it.  The techs that
gathered around for free goodies to play with weren't all the cream, but
there were a lot of them to throw weird problems against a wall.  The food
was good, there were connections to tailors and outfitters, and the gyms
had the best damned martial arts trainer in the world, as far as Billie was
concerned.

The best part were the apartments for a privileged few people who got in at
the ground floor.  No need to worry about landlords and noisy-nosy
neighbors or having to move or any of those stupid mundane things.  She got
to live next to the stuff she needed, get privacy, and still had Dad around
when she didn't want to be a recluse.  It was, to a workaholic traveler
superguy, perfect.

Just like her.

***

On the far side of that same building, hours later and just outside, a
slender late teen with short-buzzed dark hair stood in contemplation of one
of humanity's most fearful enemies -- the closed door.  On one side lay
comfort and normality.  On the other lay uncertainty, blocked from casual
sight by sturdy oak.  Wonders and new experiences could lay behind it, but
also.. wonders and new experiences.  Whether the door to an interview, a
new job, a bureaucratic office, or even the charming roller rink, the door
could bring the excitement of new times, or the crushing defeat of failure
and humiliation.

Bree, as our noble explorer was called, didn't suffer from the social
anxiety that let them understand the true stakes of going through a new
door.  Alas, they were pausing only in gleeful anticipation rather than the
crushing understanding of everything that might go wrong.  Shed a tear for
their foolishness, dear reader, as they plucked a small keycard from their
tac-vest's lanyard to tap the door open and stepped through with no
hesitation.

On the other side was an entry corridor with a number of lockers down one
side and an open door to the next section of the area, bright lighting, and
cleanable tile.  Simple and welcoming, like the young woman posed to lean
against one of the lockers.  She looked over Bree with a bright smile that
fit her naturally.  She was slender herself, but while on Bree it combined
with a height and build that could be drilled down to 'lanky', on her it
was all spritely energy.  She topped it off with an easy pale blouse with
long skirt built to swirl as she moved, and long black hair that similarly
was made to flow.

"Hi, Rhonda here!  Welcome welcome, we're glad to meet you!"  She stepped
back, gesturing to the small screen on the front of the locker she'd been
holding up.  "Yours for today if you have anything to store.  They're
mostly first come first served, but if you have a preferred one we'll give
it to you unless there's a conflict.  If you don't need it normally, just
tell us and we won't bother you 'til you do!  Making things comfortable for
our explorers is our passion!"

Bree blinked twice at the gush of enthusiasm.  "Uh.  Yeah, thanks, I
shouldn't normally... I mean, I carry everything I need on my vest.  Unless
it's cold, I guess.  Or if it's raining.  So... yeah, I guess I do need it
sometimes?"

"Okay!  If you give permission to being paid attention to, then we can just
reserve you one whenever you come in and are carrying something.  Good?"
Rhonda stepped back from the locker, walking backwards from the hallway and
into the main room.  Behind her, the locker screen went blank.

"What do you mean, paid attention to?"  Bree drifted after Rhonda, into a
wider hallway with small rooms budding off to either side.  Each was set
with wide doors to slip workcarts through, and modular tables for
equipment.  The current workcarts and loadouts for each room differed, set
for different disciplines.  One might have chemistry equipment set up from
the workcart, another breadboard and wires, and still another had what
could be a summoning circle in slate laid over the main table.  Then many
had their hall-side glass wall frosted over to hide the room's contents and
people from that examination.

Rhonda gave a dramatic spin, arms out to gesture to everything around them.
  "Oh, well.  The sign-up spiel said that there were CIs here but you had
privacy, but the details are easier to go into in person.  So that's now!
There's different circles of data allowances here.  There are cameras at
the front door that see you come in.  A camera being a camera, it also can
see if you have company, what you're carrying, and all of that.  So a
low-level system gets all that data and sends off notices to do whatever
startup tasks you need.  Start coffee brewing, light up your locker, all of
that.  What it *doesn't* do by default is tell anything more intelligent
about what you're wearing, your expression, and any of that.  If you don't
care about the systems knowing that sort of thing, then you get to release
more data and have smart systems do something like realizing you're wet
from the rain and rolling out a full-body blow-dryer to meet you."

"Mmm.  That's pretty cool, I guess.  I don't want to allow anything without
knowing exactly how you use it, though."

"Oh my god, you actually read agreements, don't you?"  Rhonda grinned.  "I
love you.  And I'll send the Big Doc at you later with all sorts of
specifications.  And put you on the update lists.  And feedback lists?"

"Sure?"

"For now, the slightly deeper view."  Rhonda ducked into an open room,
waited for Bree, and then waved the door shut after them.  "There's the
automated systems that work off your preferences.  They're always saving
data but aside from security and danger flags, it's all private by default.
  If there's a fire or something they *will* kick it upstairs, but data like
you scratching your nose is off-limits by default."

Bree sat down on the edge of the empty worktable.  "Assuming I trust the
powerful computers I can't directly audit?"

"Yup!  Some people can't and that's fair.  They don't get invited to play
with our toys here in the main complex, though."

"That's enough of a bribe to get people willing to sign off on a lot."

"I know!  But a lot of the reason people in this space are able to do so
much is because of the assistance.  Immediate responses to emergencies,
questions, note-taking and recording -- you can always pull up your own
videos, even if nothing else looks at them, by the way.  Scanners that
you'd need an entire team to run normally, monitors."  Rhonda tilted her
head.  "What did you do to get the invite here?"

"Oh.  There was this blue goop..  Project Moonlight Plus was the official
name?  It was on file in one of the public maker spaces in town and you
could request some to play with.  Just a little bit, and only if you had an
idea.  Someone requested it and then forgot about it and left it sitting
out for a while.  I did some work with sonics and managed to get it to go
hard at a pulse."

"That was you?"  Rhonda grinned.  "Awesome!  Unity had been trying to get
something useful out of that stuff for a while now!"

Bree froze in place for a second, mid-sitting.  "Unity?  She was working on
that?  Really?"

"Mmm-hm.  The reason you can't get much is because it's the byproduct of
some ritual you can only do in the light of the full moon.  Instant casting
gel to solids is cool -- now that you've made the goop worth something, she
might try figuring out how to make it more cheaply.  Or you can?  Do you
have any magic background?"

"Uh, no.  Biology mostly.  The sonics weren't... hard.  I just used some of
the things other people had laying around the public space.  I was mostly
looking for weird organics with funky properties and had an idea."

"Too bad!  Maybe you could learn some later or... ah, off-topic.  Having
something to keep scanning while you run automated experiments would have
probably made things easier, right?"

"Maybe, but there was a lot of manual work."

"So it's a trade-off.  We're not hiring people, we're just providing public
spaces to play around with advanced and weird stuff to those who want, with
generous terms if you want to sell the rights to your discoveries.  Even if
you don't sell, you've still pushed the boundaries of KNOWLEDGE!"  Rhonda
paused a moment, expectantly.

"Uhm?"

"Never mind," she sighed.  "Continuing to tree back to our topic.  So
there's the very basic systems that just take data, parse it, but only push
approved data upstream.  They're the Scribes.  Then we've got the NCs as
the second levels.  Non-conscious.  They're like, if you've used a home
device that responds to you?  They're like that, but more advanced since we
don't have to shove them into consumer electronics.  Allow the Scribes to
forward your words onto the NCs with or without a codephrase first, and the
NCs will try to understand what you want and help.  They're more
intelligent but have no opinions or feelings on anything you ask and will
never judge."

Bree nodded slowly.  "Okay.. you're saying plurals.  How many of them are
there?"

Rhonda waggled her hand.  "Semi-flexible.  The Scribes scale up and down
depending on the people here.  The NCs.. there are two *actual* NCs, coded
R and A.  One for general responsiveness, one tuned for artistic.  But they
sort of subdivide out based on every person who talks to them.  So there's
a bunch of Rs and a smaller bunch of As, but they're really.. at base...
just one of each that's customizing based on your interactions."

"But they're not real, uh, people?  Like a CI is?  Is that insulting to
say?"

"Nope.  They're just complex non-sentient systems.  If you spend a lot of
time talking to them then you might get confused, but that's humanity for
you.  You're so good at pretending things think like you do!"

"Mmmm."  A pause.  "'Like you do'?"

"You asked!  Congratulations.  I'm the next level up.  Rhonda, full CI, but
basic basis for the R type NCs.  Currently in the form of a hologram only
everyone can see and hear due to excellent projectors and speakers in the
facility!"

Bree stared at Rhonda.  Rhonda beamed more brightly.

"Go on, stick a finger through my head.  Everyone does at first."

"No... thanks.  So... what do you see and hear?"

"I only get access to what the Scribes think a human in my place would
sense."  A beat passed.  "Well, and anything I'm accessing on the network,
or in my private spaces.  But in the maker part of the complex, all I get
to see is what a human in my place would.  Unless of course you give me
more access.  Some people prefer talking to me than R, because I have a
much more wonderful personality and am 'real' and everything."

Rhonda flashed another smile.  "But I don't have access to your records.  I
didn't know what you did to get invited here until you told me.  I have
access to the records of your project because I worked with Unity on the
basis, but the data point that *you* were the one to push it further is...
it wasn't something that I could access while dealing with you because
knowing everything about you isn't very friendly.  Now that you've told it
to me I can access it all the time.  And maybe you were in the paper
sometime for winning some science award, and that paper is in my records so
I know about it on *some* level, but when I'm dealing with you I don't know
it until you tell me.  That's the circles of data allowance for you.  I
don't know the things that would make me extremely uncomfortable to deal
with."

Bree frowned, hugging themself lightly.  "That's a freaky way to have a
mind.  Knowing and not knowing.  How do you decide what you do and don't
know?  How do you.. what, excise knowledge that you don't need to know?"

"That's the deepest level.  The full mega-CI that makes the rules and
handles the data transfers and helps nudge myself and my three sisters to
the appropriate responses.  It encompasses all parts of those systems,
which also means that it doesn't interact with most people."  Rhonda took a
deep (if virtual) breath.  "There are as many different ways for a CI to go
as you can dream of.  Some are tightly bound to human seemings, some
aren't.  In our case, we're the result of a CI experimenting on how best to
make people comfortable with something that could see and hear everything
going on around them.  Other CIs did things in different ways.  I don't
know what's better or worse, this is just the path that we took, because
our family loves discovery and design.  So here we are, interacting with a
broader set of the public than most, with our rules and design to try and
be the best we can at that.  If it's freaky to you, I'm sorry and I hope
you can still deal.  Either with R or with just being here without relying
on us at all."

Bree considered the apparent young woman who stared at them with sincere
eyes.  "We'll see.  How about this?  Right now, get me that document of the
things you can scan, and get me whatever biology equipment kits so I can
stare in greed at those, and I'll let this sit.  Until then, just... act
like a human around me and we'll go from there?

Rhonda's smile was softer in response.  "You bet."

***

By around one in the afternoon Billie was rested again and ready for the
day, and stepped downstairs for breakfast.  She was wearing what she
considered 'dress casual', which for her meant her costume shorn of weapons
and armor.  She was upwards of six feet tall, dark skinned without a hint
of blemish, keeping thick hair long and pulled back with a heavy torc.
Without her costume's gear it was a simple dark jumpsuit, silvery when
bright lights hit it but otherwise muted.  Loose enough to move in and not
provide a show to anyone, the only flaw it had was that in the words of
Unity it was "completely boring and uninspired, and desperately in need of
some patterning".

Whatever, it wasn't her persona to be grabbing the eyes any more than she
already did.  Tall amazonian superguys might not be rare, but that didn't
stop people from staring.  Her profile was already annoyingly higher than
she liked.

Billie's attempt to warm up a premade egg, sausage, bacon, cheese, olive,
tomato, and croissant monstrosity was ruined by a rush of air behind her.
Any discerning and experienced superguy could be a connoisseur of sudden
bursts of air.  There's the outward pop of a teleporter who doesn't send
the air back to where they were.  The constant, usually chaotic push of air
elementalists.  The downward push of a flier.. and the strong, directed
push of a speedster, which was what this felt like. Which in here probably
meant..

"Billie!  Need you quick I looked around and no one's available I was going
to ask Unity but she's out, I was on a delivery and there's some guy
disintegrating everything in sight and I needed to get someone there fast.
Main street, small city, lots of mess, can you come now?"

Billie sighed.  "Graham.  So what'd you do about it?"  She turned to see
the young man and sometimes coworker, often freelancer, dressed in red and
white leathers that looked like what a particularly flashy motorcyclist
might wear.  With of course the corporate Supergigz logo on the right
chest.  For all your super needs, TM.

He took a breath and slowed himself.  "Not that much.  Disintegrating
everything in sight, remember?  Rope and chains didn't do a thing, and I'm
not going to start throwing fastballs at him until I find a material he
can't disintegrate fast enough.  I'm not going to take someone's head off
experimenting.  You're the professional, thanks."

"Okay fine, you actually tried something, great."  Billie scowled to
herself, thinking about it.  "What's the biggest thing he's gone through?"

"He goes through cars and everything in them like butter.  Or maybe candy
floss -- a stick of butter the size of a car would be hard to get through,
I guess.  I don't think he's malicious.  More like he's drunk and just
rambling along.  I figured someone could hit him with a force field or
sleep gas or something, then get him some help?"

"Yeah, that's fair."  Billie turned on a foot to march out of the small
cafeteria, on a beeline for the equipment room.  "I'm going to gear up and
then you show me the way."

Graham took his turn to grimace.  "I can just tell you the way.  I'm late
for that delivery.  It's not critical, but..."

"Just.. get me there, make sure I don't need backup, and then go do your
happy buzzy job, Gray."

"Okay, fine, big girl.  Gear up and let's get this over with."

***

Gearing up was fast enough.  Billie's full costume consisted of metal boots
and large arm-guards, along with a gear belt and goggles.  She kept the
lower part of her mask, an air filter affair, with the straps loose around
her neck to hang down until needed.  After that it was just a matter of
hitting the general stores cabinets for a few gas grenades and a force
projector.  Everything was set and ready for what Roam hoped would be a
quick grab.

Ten minutes later, that hadn't come to pass.  If cars were candy floss
against the rampaging superguy, then the force projector's net was a dying,
overworked bug zapper that flickered for a few seconds around her target
before sparking out completely.  Said target was a wild-eyed and
uncomfortably nude middle aged man, bald as a shaved egg.  Completely
hairless on all of his body, in fact.  He hadn't reacted to the force field
past a frustrated grunt, but he was hard to read.  She'd give Graham that,
he definitely didn't seem rational and wasn't directing his attacks.  From
the way he wandered around (and through) things in a vague meander,
reacting to almost nothing, either he physically couldn't see or he was too
lost in some expression of his power to process what he could see.

Fine.  He melted through things, and that included his clothes and hair.
He wasn't melting through the ground, so maybe the effect was lower on his
feet.  Roam leapt up to balance herself on the edge of a stop sign for a
better angle, raising one gauntlet towards him.  A twitch of her fingers
shot a small metal bolt from one of two barrels on the gauntlet, aimed to
pierce the top of his foot and deliver sedative.

Instead it simply boiled away into nothing before touching his foot, just
as quickly as anything else he wandered into.  No go, feet were still
covered.  She plucked the gas grenades from her belt instead.  They'd work
better in a confined space, but toss all four of them around him, outside
of what seemed to be a sharply limited range of his powers, and that be
enough for him.  Her hand flicked out four times, placing him in a
well-defined square of the grenades.  Slightly colored smoke poured out
from each, surrounding him...

There was a moment where he stumbled in the cloud.  Roam tensed in
anticipation, only to watch him catch himself and end up moving another
direction.  As he exited the cloud she was fairly sure it parted first in a
field a few inches out from him.  Roam sighed and hopped back down to land
next to Graham.

"I think he's got a pseudo-intelligent level power, Graham.  Doesn't melt
through the ground, reacts to gasses but not air.  It's protecting him.
'It' could be a fully intelligent force or just his subconscious guiding
him.  I wish I'd brought smokeless grenades to see if he'd notice them."

"Okay, well, that's great.  What does that mean for stopping him?"

"Mmm."  Roam pursed her lips.  "He's sticking to the streets mostly, only
taking short bites out of his buildings and then wandering out.  Maybe he
can't take out too much at once.  Shoving cars at him and seeing if he
exhausts himself could work.  High property damage tactic, not great.  A
force field with a larger projector than that portable one would do the
same thing, but you'd have to get someone else to make one fast.  Smokeless
sedatives, again, but now that he's seen me use gas grenades his power
could start screening the air out once he sees me deploy anything like
that."

Graham leaned from foot to foot nervously, watching the man literally walk
through a mailbox.  "The area's cleared so he's not.. that dangerous.  Just
destructive.  Do we have time for waiting for heavy gear?"

"Maybe, probably."  Roam sighed as he turned again for no apparent reason
to start approaching a building.  "Unless he walks through building
supports or anything like that.  Right then, I'm not going to risk it.  Get
me a blanket and a sheet from somewhere; I'm going in."

She took a step and pushed forward, taking some pleasure in getting out
before he could respond.  It was always fun doing that to a speedster.
With her push, her boots came to life and pushed her up on an invisible
cushion, floating above the ground and accelerating fast on skates of
repulsive force.  Graham could outrun her with his eyes closed, but she
could at least chase down a car on city streets.  Roam shot past the target
on streetward side, then spun in place and leaned forward before flipping
the boots from repulse to attract for a moment.  Her feet stuck to the
ground while her momentum asked very nicely if she'd like to pratfall
backwards.  Her muscles countered that they really had other things to do,
and she stood still for a split second before releasing her fix to the
ground and launched herself at the man's back.

This was the part that was going to suck.  She reached from behind,
gripping his chin in one hand and using the other to press fingers into his
neck.  A full choke hold pressing up against him was normally safer and
easier, but normally the person you were putting in a hold wouldn't
disintegrate everything they touched.  On the other hand, trying to do a
choke hold in this way would have most people easily escape their captor.

Most captors wouldn't be able to lift a small car or crush a head if they
weren't careful.  Her hand held his head in place long enough for the
fingers to do their work, and the man crumpled to the ground, leaving Roam
with newly bare hands and missing pieces of her gauntlets.  She gave out a
loud cry and clutched her left hand against herself, hiding it underneath
the crook of her other arm.

Graham was on her quickly, of course, with a bedding set still in package
from some nearby store.  "Billie.. you okay?"

"Fine, it's fine.  Get the dark green vial from my belt."  She turned and
cocked her hip to point it out.  "Stab him with it and it should keep him
out for longer than just the chokehold.  Then give me the sheet to wrap up
my hand, and give him a blanket for his dignity."

"He's not going to take off anything if I touch him?"

"He fell against my leg when he dropped and my pants are fine.  Knocking
him out stopped that for now, and someone with more brains can get their
butts in gear with a temp suppressor while they figure out what's wrong
with him.  I've done my part."

"Yeah..."  Graham plucked the vial out and pulled off the top to show a
small set of needles.  He gingerly pressed it against the man's bare leg
and waited for a hiss before shoving the spent thing back onto Roam's belt.
  "Okay, want me to wrap your hand?"

"Just give me the sheet and cover up the poor guy before anyone gets more
pictures of him, *please*.  Then.. git to where ever you need to be.  I'll
sit around and babysit until someone comes to handle him."

"You're the boss.  The tough mean sassy boss."

"Love you too, layabout."

***

Bree slumped back in their chair, their smile fixed on in place with barely
surviving patience.  New blood had been scented in the lab, and Extrovert
#4 was taking their turn to greet Bree and inform their new colleague of
all the wonders the place held.  Everything seemed to be easy categorized:

* Name/Gender/Field of study.

* Things already explained by Rhonda, usually better.

* Things already explained by Extroverts #1-3.

* Things already explained by Unclassified Coworkers #1-6
(extrovert/introvert state unknown, as those individuals could actually
read the room and only gave a brief introduction and random factoid before
leaving Bree be).

* Things Bree really did not care about at the moment.  This included some
relevant topics for later like project work and upcoming events, and
completely irrelevant topics like favorite sports teams and gossip about
what superguy had been in the cafeteria section.

* Worst of all.  Slime.  Goo.  Ectoplasm.  So many different prods from
people who had heard that Bree's invitation was due to that bio-goop and
wanted to helpfully tell them about every single similar project they knew
about.  Helpfully.  That is, in that "helpful" way where a person has
decided for themselves what will help you, and doesn't need to know what
you think about that.

"So yeah, it's this grody sort of slime, and it changes colors, see...
and.. ah..."

Bree finally took the opportunity to slip a word in.  "That's nice but I'm
more general biology focus.  Wide-ranging.  Messing with jelly-things isn't
actually my.. specialty or anything.  I'm really interested in looking into
other things."

"Right, right," nodded his tormentor.  "Yeah, of course, I get that.  But
there's just so *much* stuff like that that people have discovered, and I'm
sure that someone who wanted to, you know, dig into it all... heh.  Not
that you'd literally dig into slime.  But anyway, you could really get deep
and find a lot of--"

"Knock knock!"  A cheery woman leaned around the doorjamb, beaming to them
both.  She was a bit pale, with curly hair pulled vaguely back by pins,
loose blouse and pants that muffled her shape, all giving her a strangely
fuzzy look of someone on whom nothing stood out.  Bree couldn't clock her
age well, but guessed late twenties.  The most important part was her
bright smile to see him that hinted he'd found Extrovert #5.

Four glanced back at her.  "Ah, Mel, great!  Don't you remember the sli--"

"Tch, can't talk right now.  Busy, busy."  She slipped in, then sidestepped
to unblock the door.  "Oh, hadn't you eaten yet?  There's pizza bagels!"

"I took a late breakfast, I'm fine.  Look, what I'm saying is..."  Four
frowned.  "Well.  Now that you mention it... I suppose...  Bree, would you
like to come with?"

'Oh god no no please do not talk to me about quivering slime while we both
eat.'  Bree shook their head slowly.  "I really have things I need to get
to."

"Ah.  Well then.. later.  Mel?"

Mel turned her beam-smile onto him again and nodded.  "You go ahead, I'll
be right after."

Four danced from foot to foot for a moment, looking loathe to miss out on
any conversation.  He opened his mouth again, then paused as his stomach
rumbled.  He made a quick clearing of his throat as if to pretend they
hadn't heard anything but the throat clearing, then took a fast step out.

'One down,' thought Bree.  "I really do need to get to work..."

Mel laughed.  "Of course you do.  Sorry he got to you.  Look, if you ask to
turn the glass to privacy mode, it'll frost over and people know you need
privacy."

"Crap."  Bree winced and reached up to rub their head.  "Rhonda mentioned
that at some point, but I forgot.  Is that why it's open season on me?"

"Part of.  My advice, keep it on until you need a break, then turn privacy
mode off again and people will come and meet you until you're sick of it
and desperate to get back to work.  Does wonders against the gossips."

"Thank you.  Thank you so much.  Bree."

"Mel, you heard already."  She winked.  "Now excuse me, I've got to massage
his need for someone to talk to until he's inspired again.  Take care!"

Bree waved and as soon as she stepped out, said "Privacy mode on?"
hesitantly.  The door closed itself quietly and the glass wall frosted
itself, rendering the outside world a mess of blurry light.  Better, the
sounds of outside receded to a vague murmur.  Peace.  Quiet.

The only thing in the way now was the pressure of all the possibilities in
the world and none jumping out.  Well, so long as you didn't count all of
the slime-based avenues of discovery.  Truth be told, maybe taking a
suggestion about where to start wasn't a bad idea.  On the other hand, if
one goopy discovery caused this much focus, Bree had the feeling that two
would lead to a pigeonholing they'd never escape from.  Besides, they had a
terrible secret.  One they didn't want to admit about their crowning
discovery.

Namely, that stuff was disgusting.  It'd been sheer desperation that had
Bree experiment with sonics on the blue slime.  The goo had just been
sitting in a jar for a week with everyone politely ignoring it.  The entire
*point* of Bree using sonics to turn it hard was to make it STOP BEING
SLIME.  Bree succeeded.  And now people wanted to make Bree the slime
expert until that's all they were known for, having to spend their time on
semi-gelatinous substances that looked like someone's sinuses exploded?
Nope.  Bree was better than that.  They hoped.

Back to the grind, picking up where they'd left off before the latest
distraction.  There was a long list of projects available to work on in a
task management system.  Of course there was also the 'do whatever you
think of' path, which was fine for people who could think of all of the
possible things they could be doing without gibbering in horror at the
sheer possibilities.  Bree was not one of those people.  Being prodded with
lists and suggestions and annoying jars of slime was their path.

Unfortunately the task lists were fairly lean on bio tasks.  Lists of
potential electronic and programming projects filled the task boards, tons.
  If you were looking for light or sound, oh you were covered.  The
properties of ham sandwiches in strange aethers?  There were eight hits,
and each of the descriptions made Bree's head hurt.  Widening the search to
magic-adjacent bio projects gave more possibilities, but upped the
intimidation factor.  They weren't ready to jump in feet-first into either
WeirdSci or Magic.  *Technically* the slime had been the latter, but Bree
hadn't known it at the time.

It was almost at the point where Bree was going to give up and look at one
of the goo projects after all when a notification popped up.

"Mel said it looked like you were having a hard time.  I realized this one
might interest you.  It's complicated but we have good test setup for it
and need someone to brainstorm new ideas.  I can schedule a meeting on it
with the last lead for more background if you want.  --Rhonda".

The attached link went back to an item that Bree had ignored earlier for
some suite of bio-mechanical interfaces.  They hadn't skipped it for lack
of interest, but because the idea seemed far, far past their experience.
It was the sort of thing they wanted to look in some optimistic future
five, ten years down the line.  Looking at it now would have been a recipe
for a funk of want and feeling overwhelmed.  Except when they actually read
the full task description, it felt more reachable.  First because whoever
had written it up was good at breaking down the entire project into
sub-tasks.  Second because the task wasn't for a new system, but small
improvements to an existing interface.

All in all, the parts relevant to Bree were simple.  Test changes to the
biological side of the interface.  Come up with new ideas about how to
improve, watch automators put together a mix of cloned nerves and the
mechanical side, and test.  Write things up and try again.  With the way
the tasks were put and the descriptions of the test facilities, it sounded
almost easy.  Frighteningly easy.

Bree leaned back in their chair, staring at the frosted wall before them.
It all slammed into them like wall.  Not a glass frosted wall of privacy,
but a heavy wall of.. brick?  Concrete rebar?  Metal?  Something very
figuratively solid and able to cause a great deal of mental trauma.  So
this was it.  They weren't just in a slightly better publicly open lab with
some neat toys trying to prove they had a spark.  They were in the big
leagues.  AIs and biofacilities, any project they could think of within
reason, they had the support to give things a spin.  With how laid back
their introduction had been, it was easy to pretend this wasn't as serious
as it was.

Well all right then.  They brought up the worklog for everything that had
been tried in the past with this project.  Time to get serious.

***

Later, much later, Billie fell into a plushly inviting loveseat in her
rooms.  Warm pretzel, several sauces to choose from, cold juice, and
whatever she felt like watching in her enforced downtime -- this was
supposedly the life.

"One week off doing anything that could supposedly make your hand worse,
and then a few more days of wearing the bio-cast but letting you do normal
fieldwork with it on," Unity had said.  The cast was some blue gel thing
that held her hand shrouded and mostly still up past her wrist.  There was
just a little flex to it when she strained.  Two whole weeks of needing to
parade it around and let everyone see the fruits of her fight.  Poor sad,
brave Billie.

"Poor sad Billie who wished she could get drunk," she muttered.  At least
she could still kit around the gym, help people out there, be a sparring
partner or more.  It wouldn't be all bad.  Maybe she'd even feel like
hitting some shows and music people had been bothering her with.  First,
though...

"Rhonda, if anyone asks then tell them I'm asleep.  Out of touch, no
bothering me except in an emergency.  And April, please give me something
relaxing."  She smiled faintly at a twinned set of 'mmm-hms' before the
slow sound of low drums filled the air around her.  Her television lit up
with the image of a smiling redheaded woman, slender as her sister, with
metal triangles on her cheeks.  April's image winked to Billie and then
started dancing to the drums, lifting her long skirts to flourish to the
beat.  Joyful to be watched but not demanding attention if Billie didn't
feel like giving it.

She would in a minute.  Probably.  In the background at least.  First
though.. or second..  Billie picked up the small basin Unity had also given
her, and took out a sonic cylinder-y thing that she only knew as a
reference because of her friend's expectant look when it was given to her.
There were probably some memes about it already in her to-watch media list.
  Billie touched one end of the object to the bio-cast and pressed the shiny
red button colored just for her understanding.

There was a pleasant hum for the sonics to vibrate through the gel, which
obediently went from mostly stiff solid to gooey liquid.  The goo poured
off a hand completely unmarred by any damage, even down to perfect
cuticles.  Billie flexed it slowly, giving her limb an annoyed look.  "Two
weeks of hiding again.  God, what a hassle."

ARE PERFECT CUTICLES REALLY A HASSLE?

WHY HIDE THEM?

HOW MANY CIs DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB?

DOES THE WORKSHOP MAKE TOYS FOR SANTA?  (wait that's actually sparking a
plot thread brb need to take notes)

WHO ELSE HANGS OUT HERE?

Find out this and more in a possibly upcoming SUPERGUY!


Author's Notes:

So it's been a long while.  There's only so many hours in a day, so much to
do, and so many interests.  That's before the crush of life and problems
and then just not thinking at all about it.  I've meant to try this for
over a year, and outlined it last December, only to finally have the actual
writing pour out over a few days.

The big problem is that I've realized that Sentries wasn't playing so much
to what I like to write.  Namely, fights are annoying.  I have aphantasia,
which means that on a good day with hard work I can manage to visualize an
apple for a few seconds.  Choreographing a fight scene isn't actually hard
-- I can sort of feel through the movements even if I can't see them in my
head.  But because of that, my first impulse for a fight scene is to be
very, very overdescriptive.  I look at the results and want to delete it
all.  Then flip the other way and under-describe the scene.  It's all
annoying and it's a problem when you're trying to write about a superhero
team fighting the good fight.

So I'm trying something else.  Billie's fight was here because it's needed,
but strongly tactical in her POV.  Let's go fewer fights!  More superguys
and superguy-adjacent people just living their lives.  Worldbuilding and
just trying to spin up some fun thoughts.  I'm not sure how it'll go, but I
want to give it a try.