cape all

I sat at a computer in the library and established an internet connection with a remote server I'd set up earlier today for this very purpose. Today, I was going to perform my final test of my masterpiece of programming.

The screen opened to a still black-and-white picture of seven children ages around 8 to 12, standing and just staring forward with blank expressions. The children were different every time the image was pulled up... with exceptions, most of those exceptions being geared toward making it harder to just test that this is what's really going on. Only switching a single child a percentage of the time for things like page refreshes and scrolling down then back up to the image, methods to sense if someone is logging on with a pattern, things of that sort.

I'd needed to write a special algorithm to generate the children in the image. Each one depicted a person who had died in Brockton Bay in a manner which they could have been considered a victim of the violence, chaos, and the drug epidemic that had plagued the streets for god knows how long. Making sure the selection criteria did not produce a false positive was a rather tedious experience.

It was comparatively simpler to get the images. They were based on school yearbook photos of the individuals in question, with an algorithm developed to fill in the rest of their bodies based on an upper-body profile shot and exchange out some new clothing to make it less obvious where the image had come from.

The real gem, the thing that made this a true masterwork, was the code I'd inserted into the file to hide how truly complex it was and conceal all the underlying processes. It hid the code, making it look like nothing more than a normal image file. So much like a normal image file that it could even fool something like the PHO boards, where I'd planned to post it later once I'd confirmed it was working exactly as intended.

Just hiding the code was not that difficult. All it really needed to do was return some false data to all known analysis tools and to recognize and adapt to those that were not known. The tricky stuff was hiding the extra data itself. True, I could just have that return false data as well, but someone would eventually notice that there was some unaccounted for data as the drives refused to accept more data while the drive space indicated there was still space remaining.

So, instead, I found ways to distribute the data load, falsely reporting other files on the drive were just a tiny bit larger than they really were. On the venues I was planning to post this up, there would be plenty of other files out there. Enough that I could distribute the load pretty wide. Wide enough that the extra data on each file wouldn't even be large enough to be seen as strange.

I'd already tested all of this several times over on my home computer. The reason I was here at the library with it was to test another feature.

The thing is, this wasn't just a still image. It was actually an embedded video file, it's video properties also being hidden by all of the special features I'd added of course. The fist three seconds were just the algorithmically generated children holding perfectly still, looking for all the world like just a still image.

The video was designed to not play at all until it was fully buffered. I didn't want people to catch on because it paused mid video for whatever reason. The buffer time would add a little randomness before the show started.

But, of course, I couldn't have the quality of the internet connection or the person's computer provide another potential hint, so I also had a feature to the program that sensed how long it took the video to buffer, and it would add additional 'still' time to the beginning of the video if it buffered too fast.

The time added would always be in increments of five though, further taking advantage of the buffer time to add randomness. This resulted in the movement starting somewhere between 18 and 23 seconds after the page was opened, unless it took an exceptionally long time to buffer.

The video would also pause or reset if you scrolled the image off the screen or something of the sort. The video would only play if you left it on the page.

The activity after the 18 to 23 second mark was not all that noticeable either. It was also random exactly what would happen. One of the children might blink, or one of them might shift their weight a little. There could be a quick distortion as two children switch places, or one of the children could just be swapped out for another in the registry. Or, perhaps one of them will just rotate their head a little bit.

For the most part, with the exception of a few of the jump-cut position switches, it was just perfectly normal human activity. Once the video got to this point, it would only pause if the person tried to scroll down on the page, and then resume playing the moment they scrolled back up.

The longer the video played, the more frequent the little movements would be, and the more human they would seem. However, it was a manner of being more human that brought it toward the 'uncanny valley' territory. Just enough movement to look alive, but not enough to look natural.

Then, after the movement got to be right in the sweet spot where even I was starting to feel creeped out watching it despite knowing exactly what was going on, they would start talking.

This was why I was in the library. The talking would use the computer's speakers, but it would use a special program to play a distortion effect over the speakers. If it worked correctly, it should make the noise cancel itself out before getting too far away from the computer. Ideally, it should only be possible for the one sitting right in front of the computer to hear it.

And so, I brought up the site and sat in front of the computer long enough for the voice to begin playing, and watched for anyone else to react.

The children were now moving just enough to remind me of some kind of hellspawn between zombies and animatronics, and made all the worse for the fact that their motions were not the slightest bit jerky or robotic-like. Whenever they moved, it was smooth and natural, but then it would stop just as suddenly and look all the more wrong for it. And these movements would be exhibited by one child or another every 2 seconds or so.

And then, the voices started. None of their lips were moving, but all of their gazes became a lot more focused the half second before the first words were spoken, while all of their heads locked into position unnaturally as they began looking straight-on forward in a manner that would just as well have them staring at a person sitting in a chair in front of the computer as it would someone standing some distance away. And, if I got this right, the voices should only be audible from the position of a chair in front of the computer.

We are the Unseen of Brockton Bay

We are the ones who's lives were cut short

Ended on the streets

In our homes

In violence

In the poison that floods the streets

We are the silent voices

The choked off whisper

The incarnation of the slow death which this city suffers

We are the forgotten

We are those who are known to all

We are the silent voice of Brockton Bay

It's Requiem

It's Kyrie

We are the Unseen of Brockton Bay

And you will remember us​

It was really hard to find the right words for this. I had to find something that was sufficiently creepy and inspiring at the same time. It needed to exactly tread the line where people would be unsure whether it was a memorial tribute or a villainous manifesto.

They would come down hard with ban hammers on anything that was seen as promoting or glorifying violence, or be seen as any kind of a threat. So, I had to be very subtle with it. Skirting close to the line, but never crossing it.

I think I'd gotten it about right. It wouldn't be seen as violent in any way, or even threatening by anyone who hadn't heard the name "The Unseen."

The PRT and Protectoriate would probably be very on-edge just from seeing this though. It wasn't crossing the line in a big enough way for them to have it taken down, but it was exactly enough to get them to completely freak out.

That is, until the first time I have "The Unseen" take action.

The things that would be categorized as them being "luke warm" will also not be enough to cross any lines. In fact, I didn't actually plan on dropping the name "The Unseen" at any time during their public caping activities. But, it would involve "children," which would be enough to draw people's minds to this "image."

It may seem like a little much to just post up a little 'prank' like this. Why would anybody go to so much effort creating such a sophisticated program just to make what amounts to some internet creepypasta?

It was all a matter of presentation.

Between my alternates, my other selves have tried every possible method of fighting the crime in Brockton Bay. Some have tried to be heroes. Being a hero just limits you by the PRT's rules. If you are a normal hero, you are so held back by regulations that you are simply unable to be effective. It doesn't even matter if you go independent. 'Independent heroes' are sorted into 2 buckets. The PRT affiliate independents which still need to abide by their rules, and the vigilantes who have their own problems.

It's different if you have overwhelming power. Enough power that you can act on the side of the heroes and still be effective. But, when you go that route, hitting the villains with that kind of power causes them to escalate in turn. And, when the villains escalate, a hero is the worst possible thing you can be if you want to protect the lives of civilians. As paradoxical as that is, it's absolutely true. If you are a hero, and the villains escalate, the very first thing they will do is use civilian lives against you. Being a hero means they know they have your weakness.

Paradoxically, it is a lot easier to protect civilians if you are a villain. But, if you go that route, the heroes will be against you. They may even take particular exception to a villain doing a better job at cleaning up the streets than the PRT. You get no thanks for being one of the ones saving lives and taking the villains off the streets. If you are regarded as a villain yourself, they will even consider it a public black-eye every single time you are the one to take down a villain instead of them, and they will become quite incensed.

The vigilante route is no better. It's simply the worst of both worlds. Maybe you can delay the worst as a vigilante, but eventually you prove yourself to be too effective. Either the PRT will give you an ultimatum that you have to join them before 'something goes wrong.' They won't say it outright, but in practice, the first time that 'something' does go wrong, they will push to press-gang you into the Protectorate or Wards, or else push for criminal prosecution or, if you don't 'accept your punishment,' then they simply label you a villain.

And, even if they do label you a villain, the real villains may still wind up taking civilian hostages against you. It really is the worst option of the bunch.

But, there were a small handful of my alternates who somehow managed to find that mythical Goldilocks zone where the villains could be mopped up off the streets without getting on the bad side of the broken PRT system, and without the villains feeling that civilian hostages are an option that will do them any good.

The Orb Weaver was one of my alternates who had discovered this Goldilocks zone. He had managed to play himself as a vigilante at first. After a while, keeping himself to low-level street thugs who he would scare the pants off of, he began working his way up to completely disassembling The Merchants.

The capes of both the PRT and the various villain factions were all sure she... or rather, "he" because they mistook her gender and she allowed them to do so, was a cape. However, after she managed to keep her real body unseen for enough raids in a row, they began to suspect The Orb Weaver actually didn't even have a body, which is when even the capes started to become scared.

After that, the unpowered street criminals actually began to think Orb Weaver was not a cape at all, but a spirit of some kind. A demon. An avenging angel. Or, some other kind of psychopomp. A "Genius Loci" specific to Brockton Bay out to enact the will of the dead upon the criminal population. There were even shrines erected throughout the city, dedicated to the purpose of praying to the saints for the criminals to be protected from Orb Weaver.

This is exactly the direction I wanted to go with The Unseen. The main difference would be that, where The Orb Weaver took this approach in order to hide a weakness and make her foes overestimate her, simultaneously hiding her identity behind the swarm and also dissuading even hostile capes from looking for the master controlling the bugs, I would be doing this for a very different reason.

I know very well that I have an ungodly amount of power. My ability is easily comparable to Eidolon. In some ways, it was superior. I could control exactly which abilities I was pulling up. There was no random factor to it. And, so long as all of them were [Administrator] abilities, I could pull up more at once than he could.

That is the exact sort of power that starts making people nervous and invites extremely heavy responses from... well... both sides, actually. The PRT would push recruitment, wanting that power under their thumb, and the villains would start pulling in the big guns. In order to avoid that, I was going to have to under-sell my abilities. And I would be doing it via the exact same tactics that Orb Weaver used to over-sell what he could do.

That, the fact I was using the very tactics that would normally be used by the weak to make themselves look strong should be enough of a double mask to throw the people who matter off my scent.

This "photo" was the first step toward that goal. If I was lucky, I'd wrapped this thing up under so many layers of 'who would bother with that' levels of code that people would think 'Stranger ability' before they'd think 'really clever code.' That... very well might result in an attempt to take it down. An attempt. That's where they'd discover I was not out of tricks yet, and the PHO mods' inability to remove it would only add to it's legend.

Incidentally, the seven children in the photo represented the seven personas I would be utilizing as The Unseen first come onto the scene.

The Orb Weaver, Panopticon, Ablation, The Oracle, The Telekinetic, who I would have going by the name "The Caretaker" as their public persona... Cauldron was totally going to think their "Custodian" had somehow cloned itself and said clone escaped to Earth Bet.

The last two were a little interesting. There was a Tinker persona I would be referring to as Foundation. The thing about Foundation was, it wasn't just a single one of my Tinker alters. Rather, it would be a cover for several of them at once. The 'specialty' I would pretend they have would be the ability to make tech that modifies how other parahuman abilities function.

That was not an actual specialty held by any one of my Tinker alters. Rather, it was the product of some... rather barbaric research The Time Tinker put into the subject of Parahuman abilities that would turn the stomach of even some people familiar with Bonesaw's work. In fact, Bonesaw would likely want to compare notes if she ever found out about what this alt of mine got up to.

I couldn't actually use The Time Tinker's actual specialty. It was a known Scion trigger. As soon as he sensed the temporal energy her time travel tech put off, he'd go ballistic and the golden apocalypse would begin early.

So, instead, I was only going to use The Time Tinker's knowledge, and roll in a few other of my Tinker alts' abilities to put her research to actual use, thus generating a fake Tinker specialty that requires bits and pieces of several different Tinker abilities.

And, as for the final, seventh persona... well, I'd discovered a very strange teleportation ability among my alternates. It came with a truly ludicrous number of disadvantages. Several of those disadvantages were even natural to her in her original timeline, but by far the worst on the list was the fact she was not an [Administrator] alternate. But, ultimately, it fit the theme I was trying to go for with The Unseen a little too well, so she would be included.

She went by Glimpse in her original world. Or rather, that's the name that wound up being given to her when she didn't name herself.

I'd just be calling her "The Children," implying there was more than one.

After those initial seven, I'd begin adding extra children to the photo every time there was a new member added to The Unseen. That's what would fully solidify the connection between The Unseen and this "photo."

I shut down the link to the site, satisfied in my test. I'd purposefully turned up the volume for the computer pretty loud for the test, but I hadn't seen any reaction among the library staff or my fellow library visitors.

That means it worked. Now all I'd have to do is work on the program to hack into the computer's speakers and adjust the volume, detecting whether it's speaker or headphones, and always having it come out at the correct volume I want for this.

Then, my thoughts were interrupted as my cell phone started ringing, which did get people's attention.

I made my face look really apologetic as I stood up from the computer and then started speed-walking out of the library proper into the lobby as I pulled out the phone.

I saw my dad's caller ID, and my guts clinched a little. I'd been expecting this. In fact, in a way, this represented a success. That didn't make it any less nerve wracking.

Well, time to face the music then, I guess.

I answered the phone and put it to my ear.

"Hi dad."

"Taylor," he said. He sounded... not very happy. "Taylor, where are you right now?"

I forced a smile onto my face. I was going to have to play this character to the end. I already knew what had probably happened, and he was not going to like the answer I was about to give.

"I already told you, dad. I'm over at Emma's!" I said, the lie in my voice obvious in the overly strained false positivity.

"You are not over at Emma's!" Dad said. "EMMA just came to our door, asking about you. You've been lying to me, and it wasn't just about this. Where are you?"

"It's fine dad, I'm perfectly safe," I said.

Dad sighed. "You know, it worries me even more that those were the first words out of your mouth when you got caught. I thought we had an agreement. You were supposed to stay home, do all your... business on the computer your mom got for you. What you've been doing... Taylor, just come home. Now! If you need a ride, I can come pick you up. I'll ask you again. Where are you right now?"

I let out a long sigh. "Alright, fine dad. You can pick me up at the library."

I heard some muffled cursing on the other end of the line. "Alright. I'll be going to drop Emma off at home, and then I'll come get you. Just... stay at the library. You and me are going to have a very long talk once we get back home."

"Alright dad... love you," I said, feeling my stomach twisting in knots. I don't even know why I was trying to end the call with such a normal casual pleasantry like that. Just nervousness, I guess.

And the long suffering sigh I got back from dad said that it was probably the wrong thing to say in this situation.

"I love you too, sweetheart, but you are really trying me right now. I'll see you soon," he said, and then hung up the phone.

I breathed out a really long sigh after that. It was always going to come to this. In fact, it was part of my plan that it had to come to this. But, right now, I was dearly wishing I could have come up with something that didn't have my dad seeing me like this.

And it was only going to get worse too. Now, I was about to spin him a story that was likely to have him wanting to strangle some people, and some of those people would be my fake alternate personas.

The ride back from the library was... weird, to say the least.

Neither one of us said a single word for the entire trip. It was not a normal silence though. Not by any stretch.

I kept watching dad for subtle cues. I'd more or less forbidden myself from using Crowd Reader, especially around dad, or the house, or anywhere even tangentially related to something I, the Taylor Hebert of the current timeline, cared about.

However, this did not mean I was completely without my options. The major thing that made Crowd Reader so powerful was it's incredible efficiency for a thinker skill. It was an ability that put together social and psychological knowledge and skills I already had and forced them to work at their best. And the best part about it was, the thinker headaches only happened if the gap between 'best' and 'actual' was considerably large.

In other words, if I sharpened those skills in my actual life, not only would Crowd Reader become more effective, it would also mean longer use with fewer headaches.

The version of myself who actually had Crowd Reader grew those skills to incredible levels even without her power as a result, and several of my alternates, Orb Weaver in particular, also sharpened those same skills. Of course a version of myself capable of faking being a social thinker would be skilled at social deduction.

And so, I was watching dad sharply with those skills, refusing to touch Crowd Reader but leaning heavily on Orb Weaver's natural social awareness.

And what I saw was... confusing.

Again, dad was silent. This alone was not strange. If I look at all the versions of my father from all the different timelines, it was not unusual for him to be silent around me. In most, it was when he was trying to make some connection with me after the locker. Those versions of me in those timelines couldn't quite see or appreciate what he was doing, but with the benefit of mass collective hindsight and some versions of myself who were better adjusted than others, I was able to see what was really going on.

After the locker, he knew something was wrong. However, any time he tried to talk to me, I would brush him off or otherwise withdraw and become more distant. He would curse himself for having not noticed my suffering, he would be ashamed of being unable to do more. He could see something was still wrong, but he needed me to open up in order to be able to do anything. And for that, he had to avoid alienating me.

And so, he wouldn't push too hard. He would always back off at the very first sign of resistance from me. And so, very few words would be exchanged between us.

Maybe there was a little bit of that in here. But, if there was, it was in a very distorted way. I was not the victim of a bullying campaign in this timeline. This was a whole year before the bullying will even have started, assuming it starts at all. No, I am certain it won't happen. I'm not going to let it.

But, I can still see a way for that to apply. I was keeping secrets from him. It was obvious. I was misleading him as to what kind of secrets those were, but the fact I'm keeping secrets of this sort would be exactly right to become some kind of distorted mirror of the conditions that would have produced this kind of reaction as it would have been in relation to the locker.

But, still... that wasn't quite right. There was more to this.

There was something else to him. Dad had anger issues. He'd inherited them from his father, and I had, in turn, inherited those same anger issues from him. A poor coping mechanism that seemed to be carried through our genetics.

But dad, he never raised his voice or his hands toward me. If he grew angry around me, he would instantly clamp down on it. He would not let that ugly anger show, keeping it tightly controlled. It was something that was never to be directed at his daughter.

And in those times where he was at risk of doing so, he would go silent, preferring silence to the risk of crossing that line.

I could see that, maybe, there might be a little bit of that in there as well. Of course. He knew I was lying to him now. And I'd even been intentionally dropping hints that there were several even bigger things that were being hidden behind the little lies I had been telling him.

And yet, that did not seem right either. I mean, sure, it could be a combination of the anger and the fear of me withdrawing if he alienates me. Those two things in combination had appeared many many times in all the alternate timelines.

But, that's the exact reason I knew there was something very different right now. I knew, from those other timelines, exactly what that looks like. But, that was not how dad was behaving now.

As I watched him, I could see it. His eyes refused to even look at me. He had a certain tension in his body language that was very different from his anger. He kept his eyes centered on the road, and the way he would avoid looking at me was very different from what I would expect if it was either of those things. It wasn't out of shame or fear of his own reaction that he was keeping his gaze off me.

As I considered it, I realized, I actually had seen this kind of posture and behavior before. I'd just never seen it from dad. At least not in relation to me.

This, what I was seeing now... it was something I'd seen from others. Times when I'd been in my cape identity, especially the most terrifying ones. I'd seen it when I was the warlord Skitter, when I'd taken the boardwalk as my territory. It was the look on the citizen's faces. People who were under my protection, but still didn't feel entirely safe when I was around.

I'd seen it when I was the hero, Event Horizon. A version of myself so powerful that me just using my power caught Scion's interest because it was something he'd never seen before. A version of me who had a power so overwhelming I could likely kill any parahuman on the planet with a thought, and the only thing holding me back from being an S-class threat was my decidedly heroic inclinations.

A version of myself who had a power I had to ban myself from using outright because it was in the 'Scion trigger' category, for which the mere use risked Scion going on his rampage early in response.

The look I was seeing from dad was the look of the people who realized exactly how powerful I was, and how easily I could kill someone if I were not so heroically inclined.

It just didn't seem right. It didn't match up with anything I was expecting to see. I was expecting the barely repressed anger. I would not be so confused if it was the cowardly fear of pushing me too hard and the risk of seeing me withdraw.

But, it wasn't the fear of loosing his connection with me that I was seeing. It was a more tangible and immediate fear. But, also not entirely that either.

It was like it was all three of those things, rolled into a single entity.

I felt sorely tempted in this moment to pull Crowd Reader so I could get some definite answers here, but... I stopped myself. I refused. I wouldn't. Not for Dad. I was too afraid of what I might see.

Even more so if what I was seeing was actually correct. If he really had that kind of fear, why would he be feeling that?

Oh. Maybe that could be why. Perhaps it was because I'd only just woken up from a month long thinker-induced catatonia not even four days ago, and now I was leading him on to believe I might be out in the city doing dangerous cape stuff. I didn't really see how that could produce this kind of reaction, but... maybe.

That really didn't feel right, but that was probably the best I could arrive at without using Crowd Reader.

If anything, it became even weirder when we got home. Dad at least talked, finally, when he directed us to the kitchen. Once there, however, he seemed to just sit and consider me for a long time, his leg jumping under the table anxiously as his eyes considered me like the most complex physics problem challenging the scientific community.

"So..." he said, and then stopped.

"So...?" I prompted him, getting a glare in response.

"Damn it Taylor," he cursed under his breath. "Ok... ok, how about we start this from the beginning? I know you've been lying about what you've been doing since you woke up. You're not just communicating on the computer with Dragon. You're doing things out in the real world, out in this... crime ridden shit hole that our home town is today. Taylor, while you were asleep, a new villain rolled into town and took on the entire Protectoriate by himself! ...but, if what you told me about your power is right, you already knew that. That's what you said, right? Your power gave you a snap-shot of pretty much all the capes in the world, and the past month you were asleep was your brain trying to process it all?"

"Not all the capes, I got a lot more information on the Bay though. And yeah, I know the new villain. Lung. Chinese for Dragon, which is ironic considering he's Japanese and had a fairly negative run-in with the CUI. He uses the name they gave him in order to mock them, you know?" I said.

"Yeah, that's right, isn't it..." Dad said, giving me a harsh assessing look, and then let out a long breath. "So, this is what we're going to do. You're going to tell me exactly what you've really been doing when you've been telling me you are over at Emma's, which you haven't been since waking up."

I sighed and smiled. This certainly was going a lot better than I had expected. Dad was being fairly reasonable, actually. Not only that, he caught on to my strange behavior very fast. It only took him four days. The versions of Dad that my alternates were dealing with would have been completely oblivious. Yeah, him being this sharp would make it a little hard to keep acting behind his back, but it did make me happy, not seeing him like all those... others, who had basically abandoned my alternates while still living in the same house.

Alright then. Well, can't just go out and tell him the whole story I'd prepared. If I give up the information too easily, it's going to look suspicious. So, instead I'll go with another thing that's true, but very easy to be taken in a very different direction once someone tries to start fitting it in to fit with their suspicions, fears, and pre-suppositions.

"Well... like I said, I haven't been doing anything dangerous. Mostly, I've been making... preparations. Finding ways to protect myself, keep hidden, giving myself options for if trouble does find me. Like I said on the phone, nothing dangerous, my power gave me all the details I needed to know the people I was talking to weren't going to hurt me."

Dad gave me another silent pause. He'd been doing that a lot lately. It's actually kind of unnerving. It almost reminds me of how he behaves on the... no, it's definitely not that! It's just not possible. Thomas Calvert is Coil on this timeline! I've already confirmed it with my power letting me see a close duplicate timeline.

I looked over to my parallel, noting she was also having this same exact conversation with dad, taking the same actions. Just like always. It's actually starting to become a little weird that the other timeline never seems to diverge from this one by even a single step.

I've seen timelines where Coil is someone else, other than Thomas Calvert, including my own dad. However, I have never once seen a timeline where more than one person takes on that identity or power set... part of the reason being that all first iteration versions of Coil are Cauldron Capes... although there are some where me and Lisa take out Coil and one of us winds up replacing him. Those timelines are... interesting.

Finally, just as I'm really becoming uncomfortable with the silence, dad manages to settle on what he's going to say next.

"Alright, I'll believe you... on one condition. You have to introduce me to these... people, who you are talking to. I know you've got your power telling you a lot of information, things that can help you get things done, but you can't just rely on your powers for everything. The PRT actually has specialized training for Thinkers, and Pre-cogs do count as a type of Thinker. The reason for that training is because your powers really do not tell you everything, and it is possible to make mistakes if you do not know what the limits of your power are.

"And assuming what you told me about your power is true, I can already see several very large possible blind spots," Dad said.

I breathed out a sigh of relief, trying my best to disguise it as a sigh of resignation or some such.

It's Ok. He's not Coil. Yes, the Danny Hebert version of Coil is nowhere near as bad as the Thomas Calvert version, but with the level of emotional pain he gives me in those timelines, he might as well be every bit as bad to me personally.

But, no. He's not Coil. He just has experience with pre-cogs in the family. It all makes sense.

"Alright. Yeah," I said, and then stopped to consider. How do I want to play this?

Fine. I'm just going to do it. Pull the same thing I did with Dragon.

I keep my connection to Pisces, or rather, Ablation as I call her in this world, active at all times. Brute powers are absurdly rare among my alternates, and Pisces is not just a brute, she's a straight up Alexandria package. Although, I'm unlikely to actually use her power to ever fly around and punch bad guys, sad as that is to the me of a month ago. I'm passing her off as a breaker who can protect others by overlapping herself with the body of whoever she's defending.

But, I have no way to make the shield construct Pisces' power creates talk. For that, I reach out to what's likely to become my most important power as I try to keep up the lie of The Unseen. Coda. An alternate with the ability to manipulate sound. It took me a while to age up and distort my own voice in a way that would not result in Ablation sounding like mom, but I'd managed to work something up well enough.

Having that second piece in place, I decide to just go with it.

"I can... actually introduce you right now," I tell him. "One of them is... kind of here already. I asked for her to act as my bodyguard as part of a deal for giving information to their organization. She's a cape," I said.

I saw Dad's eyes harden at that, but he didn't say anything. So, I just proceeded on with what I had planned.

"Ablation!" I called out, and then I materialized all the shields I possibly could at the smallest possible size, around the size of a small coin, and sent them out through my exposed ankle to begin building up next to me.

Dad caught what was going on fast enough. It's pretty hard to miss, seeing how the shields let off a faint glow, and how they were constructing the form of a woman's silhouette starting from the legs up. And then, I had 'her' talk as her torso and arms were half-formed.

"Taylor, I do hope the reason you called for me so quickly had something to do with a prediction and not just because you saw it as an easy way out and gave up on the effort. We might need to re-evaluate your overall competence otherwise," I had her say, and then had her 'head' turn toward Dad as it was just shaping up.

"Hello, Mr. Hebert, I am Ablation. As your daughter has already explained, she has contacted our organization as a means of securing her own protection against the forces in this world, of which I believe she has only told you of one out of a great many factions to be concerned about, albeit the one she did mention is certainly the one providing her with the most immediate threat."

"That man in the PRT who likes to kidnap pre-cogs, you mean?"

"That is correct. However, we have also recently become aware that some enemies of Dragon may also be coming after Taylor sometime soon, due mostly to a mistake in information security on her part. You are likely correct in that she will need some guidance to help avoid such mistakes in the future."

"I see..." dad said, seeming suspiciously level-headed for the situation at hand. How is he not freaking out more about the cape that just appeared in his dinning room next to his daughter?! Who his daughter has been in communications with behind his back! I've constructed Ablation to look like an adult woman. He should be absolutely furious!

Instead, dad just flicks a nervous glance back to me before re-centering his attention of my Ablation construct.

"So, this... organization you have both mentioned now. Just what kind of group is it that my daughter has gotten in contact with?"

"We are called The Unseen. You will not have heard of us, although we have been active within Brockton Bay for much longer than you could imagine. But, because of some information Taylor has told us, we are planning on becoming a great deal more active and more open in our appearances in the future.

"I will say this now, as Taylor has decided to join our organization, she would have been very harshly reprimanded if she had introduced me to you so easily if we had been operating under our old rules. She is still going to get a word with our leader after this."

"What kind of word!" Dad said, now showing very visible irritation as he glared at the shield construct.

"Just talking, some harsh lectures, things of that sort. We are not against bringing family members into the loop, but they have to be vetted and cleared first. We have not had the time to go through that process for you just yet."

Dad was looking back at me now. "I see..." he said. "So... Ablation, is it?" He said, glancing back to the construct. "Would you mind if I had a word alone with my daughter?"

Yeah, I should have seen that coming.

"Unfortunately, as she has already shown herself to be less than satisfactory in terms of information security, now on two occasions, I am afraid I cannot allow her to speak on potentially sensitive matters without supervision. That is the kind of group we are, I'm afraid."

He rounded on 'Ablation' at that, this time showing the fury in his body language I'd expected from my father.

"And just what is your group then?! Are you an arm of the god damn CIA?" He roared.

"I am afraid I cannot go into that information just yet. Perhaps after you are cleared I can tell you more. However, for now, we will have to leave it at that."

Shit! That's not going to go over well either!

But, instead of ramping up and roaring at my construct, or even me, he just paused. Just stared at 'Ablation.' It was another long and very awkward pause. And then, he took a deep breath and let it out.

"Well then, in that case, I suppose we are just going to have this conversation with you present. What the hell Taylor?! You seriously just... I don't even know where to begin with this! What kind of... ahhh..." he stopped.

"You should have talked to me, Taylor. I am already doing things from my end about the situation with the PRT. We could have worked something out if you just talked!"

My head snapped up.

"What... what kind of things?" I asked him.

"I got into contact with a Lawyer. Sandy Mullins. Do you know anything about her?"

I just shook my head. That's... really not a name I've ever heard in any of my timelines. At all.

"She's an anti-Birdcage activist lawyer, and has a bit of an agenda against the PRT in general. I have been walking around some of the details, but from what I have told her, she seems fairly interested in our case."

"Well," I had Ablation cut in, "that is not an option we had considered. We might have to check into it a little more from our end. However, this still does not solve the issue with Saint, the enemy of Dragon that we mentioned before. And there are still... a few other issues, although... hmm... Well, we might be able to work something out with this.

"For now, how about we expedite your vetting and get back to you once all of that is over? I believe tensions are high right now, and the situation has become fairly complex. You will need some time to come to grips with the fact that your daughter has invited another cape into your house, whether or not that is for her protection.

"And yes, I will be staying here. No, you do not get to contest this. My mission is to protect The Oracle, and I am not even going to allow her father to prevent me from carrying that out. You can speak with our leader after you have been vetted if this bothers you."

Dad sighed and rubbed his forehead, and I watched in nervous anticipation. I don't know why I was being so aggressive. No, I do know, stupid. It's because just about every single one my alternates got incredibly angry and aggressive after the bullying and dad checking out after mom's death, made worse by the Hebert anger, and now all of that has rubbed off on me since I've pretty much got all of them in my head like some strange distorted version of The Butcher.

"Tensions, huh?" Dad said, glaring at my shield construct, and then sighed. "I do want to say, I am not happy about this arrangement at all, and this conversation is definitely not over. But I will also agree, we should pick this up again later. For now, I think I will be going to sleep," he said, and then he gave me a very complicated look as he left the room.

I stared at the wall, completely baffled at what had just happened. That went... strangely a lot better than I had expected it to. Considering what I'd thrown at dad though, the very fact it turned out as well as it did was incredibly strange in and of itself.

It left me feeling very uneasy. There was definitely something very very wrong about that conversation just now. Did experience with pre-cogs in the family explain it? Even with that, throwing Ablation at him ought to have gotten him a lot more upset than it did.

It gave me a nagging feeling as I thought about the timelines in which dad was Coil again.

No. I know how the Danny Hebert and Thomas Calvert versions of Coil's power work, and that identical alternate I'm able to see is definitely from the Thomas Calvert version of Coil. Dad can't be Coil.

But still, something is absolutely wrong here. Should I use Crowd Reader?

Something was off. I can't quite put my finger on it. Crowd Reader would give me the answer immediately, all I had to do was reach out and link to her.

My shield construct faded from existence, one shield at a time. The shields each operated on a time limit, and I'd stopped feeding it new shields from my ankle after Dad had left. It was a limit of the Ablation construct. It couldn't get too far away from me, and there was always the risk that someone might see the shields flying from my ankle to resupply it.

It was an easy deception over the computer. Trying it face to face with dad had been a huge risk, but I'd figured it would be manageable since we had the table between us.

As the last of the shields faded away, I just decided not to think about this for now. I could access Crowd Reader and ask the question at any time. But once I got the answer, I could never undo it.

Was I afraid of the answer I would get if I used it?

After a bit of thought, I concluded the answer was definitely yes. But, knowing that was not enough to give me the resolve to push past that fear.

I was a coward.

I think dad had the right idea. It may only be a bit past three in the afternoon, but I'm going to bed.

AN: For reference on the subject of Danny = Coil fics, this is the only one I've seen thus far. Mutant Deviations (Worm AU) (Complete)

That said, I am actually surprised they're not more common. My read of WORM canon is that Wildbow probably meant for Danny to be Coil from the beginning, but changed his mind when the way he interacted with Dinah became too creepy-pedo and there got to be a lot of other stuff that had Coil being so irredeemably bad that he just had to be killed, and so Wildbow decided that having that all come from Taylor's own father was a bridge too far even for him. (Surprise surprise, the famous Nihilist who has no trouble making his story world just 7 different kinds of awful has limits.) Thus, Thomas Calvert was introduced and ret-conned into the story when Wildbow chickened out of the original plan of making it Danny. (Taylor's dream about Coil was actually the exact point the vibes around Coil changed to no longer look like it was going the Coil = Danny route.)

As such, even though I only know about Mutant Deviations as a Coil = Danny fic, I'm deciding that it's something that's actually a whole heck of a lot more common in the multiverse since the vibes in Canon go down that route pretty far up until it's sudden pull back from the idea around the turn of the 3rd act in the arc.