Rise 7.3
Dinah Alcott2011, January 24: Brockton Bay, NH, USA
Every question gave me an answer, a probability that I just knew was right. That would have been fine. It wasn’t as cool as being Alexandria or Glory Girl, but I would have been happy with being Math Girl if my power didn’t also hate me.
Every answer that popped into my head came with a headache that made me feel like I’d been hit with a baseball. It wasn’t that bad at first, but the pain lingered and I couldn’t do anything about it. There was a dull throbbing behind my eyes that pulsed with my heartbeat now.
I thought I could tough it out, make it through the school day. I could not. Today was especially bad because I had to give a presentation in English class. After the presentation came questions. How did I feel about the book? What did the poem at the end mean? What moral lessons was the author trying to convey?
All questions made my head hurt, but questions that couldn’t be simplified to a single percentage felt so much worse. Fifty-two point one-one-six percent chance that the author just thought the poem sounded romantic. Seventy-nine point three-six-four percent chance that the author was on drugs when she wrote it. One hundred percent chance that I don't give a damn.
When I kept my head down all second period, the teacher sent me to the nurse. The nurse was nice. She gave me a Tylenol and an ice pack then let me stay in her office. I liked her, but that was almost as bad as the classroom because she kept asking me even more questions.
She was trying to help.
It didn’t help.
I wanted to scream. I bit my nails even though mom gave me the nasty-tasting nail polish. The fleshy edges were red and raw and she was going to be mad again because it wasn't ladylike. That didn’t help either and now I felt guilty because I promised mom I’d stop.
The recess bell rang and I thanked the nurse before hurriedly rushing out. I knew by now that only one thing could make me feel better: sleep, but I'd settle for a few minutes of blessed silence.
I snuck into the gymnasium while all the other kids hung out at the quad. The supply closet was great. There were no questions, no bright lights, and no reason to get cold sweats every time someone opened their mouth. There, I rested my head on a cool, metal filing cabinet and prayed for the school day to be over.
I gave up. I couldn’t even last the day on my own. I tried toughing it out when I first got powers, but it was so much harder now that I knew someone else believed me, now that I had hope.
I texted the number. I thought I’d be kept waiting, but The GOAT got back to me right away, almost as if they knew I’d text them.
Dinah: Hello? Are you there?
The_GOAT: Hello, Dinah. I trust that you are in a lot of pain. I promise I won’t ask you any questions even if we talk on the phone later. Please, ask what you want and I’ll do my best to answer.
Dinah: Thank you. Are… Are you really a hero?
Dinah: How did you find me?
The_GOAT: I am a hero and a thinker, like you. Thinkers are parahumans who receive information they should not normally have, such as your numbers.
The_GOAT: What you are experiencing now is known as a thinker headache. We get those when we use our powers too much.
Dinah: I don’t even want to use my power! How do I turn it off?
The_GOAT: That… I'm sorry, there is no easy way to fix your headaches. In many cases, thinker powers trigger automatically. Yours seems to activate whenever you receive a question.
The_GOAT: You have a very powerful ability, but with little control. I'm sorry that there is little I can do for you over the phone.
I felt my stomach sink. The GOAT was my last hope. They left an email on Saturday night telling me to reach out. I read on PHO that they helped Creed and Kid Win and thought that they could maybe help me, too.
I should have known better. I wasn’t a tinker and The GOAT couldn’t fix me. Not even Panacea could because she couldn’t fix headaches.
Dinah: What do I do? I can’t go to school like this. It hurts so much.
The_GOAT: For now, let’s get you out of school.
Dinah: You can do that?
The_GOAT: Of course I can. I’m going to falsify a minor disturbance in your area and get you picked up by your mother.
The_GOAT: We can talk later, Dinah. Don’t worry, nothing bad is happening.
The bell rang. Just as I was dreading going back to class, I noticed something different. This was not the recess bell, the one every kid was taught since we were in kindergarten. No, this one was for active shooters in the school zone. I’d only ever heard these in drills before, because not even the gangs were dumb enough to attack schools.
“Minor disturbance,” they said. The GOAT was a lying liar who lied. We locked ourselves in our classrooms. The teacher tried to reassure us. The boys pretended they were brave.
It was a little funny, knowing that there was nothing really wrong. Still, I kept my mouth shut. No one was asking me questions anymore and I wanted to go home.
Forty-five minutes later, mom came to pick me up. She said the police learned about a “dangerous person” who was on the run and that parents were told to take their kids from school.
I thanked The GOAT. They didn’t really help my headache, but they didn’t make it worse, either. Back in my room, I texted them again.
Dinah: Was that you? How did you do that? Can I also learn this power?
The_GOAT: Haha, in time, young grasshopper. Though perhaps it would be too much power in your hands.
The_GOAT: I just played with the incoming police incident response reports, that’s all. Don’t worry, there is no fugitive.
The_GOAT: Now, while I can’t help you directly, I think Creed can. He’ll have to look you over to be sure. If you let him, he’ll take a scan of your brain and we’ll have a better idea of how your power works.
Dinah: Is… Is it going to hurt? I don’t want it to hurt. He’s a hero, right?
The_GOAT: It won’t hurt, I promise. And yes, Creed is a very heroic person. He thinks he isn’t, but I think that is what makes him a hero.
Dinah: I don’t get it.
The_GOAT: That’s okay. Would you be okay with him visiting you tonight?
I waited for the expected throbbing. It didn’t come. Reading questions was okay, it was just hearing them that made me want to bite someone.
The GOAT probably knew that. I wished I had a cool thinker power, something that made me like The GOAT. Instead, I couldn’t even give a presentation in English class without sounding like a calculator and wanting to throw myself out the window.
I thought about it. Mom and dad said I should never meet strangers, especially in this city. They especially, especially shouldn’t be invited inside. Then again, The GOAT already knew where I lived. Things could hardly get worse.
Dinah: I don’t think I can sneak out. Is he going to come over?
The_GOAT: That's right. Creed will visit you when your parents are asleep.
The_GOAT: …
The_GOAT: I’ll be sure to delete records of this conversation. This sounds far too incriminating.
Dinah: Stranger danger :P
Dinah: But… Okay. He can come.
The_GOAT: Understood. See you tonight, Dinah.
X
Bryce Kiley
I had SAINT scrub that conversation from the records, for my own peace of mind if nothing else.
The actual mechanics of talking to Dinah was surprisingly easy. There was the faraday cage over Arcadia to consider, but I had so many ways around it at this point that it was almost a nonfactor. And at this point, SAINT knew me well enough that he could more or less act the part of The GOAT when necessary.
Now that I thought about it, there was the Chameleonbot to consider. It was a jackbot, but unlike the usual drones made by Jack Spicer, it was a robot capable of perfectly disguising itself as a human, even replicating some of the monks’ abilities. Of course, it was evil, had its own personality, and often betrayed Jack, but that was an issue of software, not hardware. And, wasn’t SAINT the ultimate software? Hadn't I already perfected the art of creating cyberduck-shaped holes in my programming for him to seamlessly slot into?
Certainly something to consider. I was busy making wu, but perhaps I’d put Sabah on it. For now, I simply had SAINT turn the faraday cage off altogether. If no one tried to send messages because the school was in class, then no one would ever notice.
Truthfully, I didn’t have any urgent questions for Brockon’s very own Oracle of Delphi at this time. Helping her was one-part vanity project and one-part cultivating a good relationship. As a reader of Worm, I naturally wanted her to have a better go of things. I’d already taken care of Coil so there wasn’t any reason she shouldn’t join the Wards.
I supposed that keeping her out of the Wards had some merit, seeing how they'd undoubtedly pester her for any information about me. Then again, Dinah was most powerful when they knew the right questions to ask in the first place. All else aside, I didn't consider intel about my fledgling organization to be worth manipulating Dinah over.
That said, I fully expected to need her help eventually. Canon had been taken out back and shot. My information wouldn’t be good for much longer. I was sure Armsmaster or Kid Win could fashion something for her, but being the one to reach out would hopefully net me a few favors down the line.
Plan tentatively set, I settled in to listen to the lecture. At lunch, I was not the first to arrive at our table. I found Calos and Dennis having a spirited argument. Well, Dennis was spirited. Carlos, ever the taciturn leader, just nodded along with an indulgent smile.
Definitely-not-Clockblocker saw me coming and tossed me one of the two bananas he’d been holding. Face as serious as I’d ever seen him, he demanded. “Quick, Bryce, how do you open a banana?”
I examined it suspiciously. I doubted he could boobytrap a banana, but then again, if anyone could, it was Dennis. “Is this safe? What’d you do to this, Dennis? Carlos, what did he do to this?”
“Dude, it’s a banana. You don’t trust me?”
“About as much as I'd trust Kaiser in a synagogue. Carlos?”
The older boy shot Dennis a smug look. “See? Even the freshman is smart enough to not accept food from you. But yeah, Bryce, that really is just a banana.”
“Okay… So what’s the question again?”
“Dennis is convinced that there is a singular, correct way to open a banana.”
“I mean, you open it from the top,” I said, mildly confused now. I wondered if I should have eaten lunch with Eric and the other freshmen today.
Dennis slapped his hands on the table. “Aha! But where is the top? Is it the little, brown nipple? Or the stem?”
“The stem is the top. The little nubbin is the bottom, even if bananas raise their asses into the air.” I grabbed its stem and twisted, causing the tip to rupture a bit. “See? The stem becomes a handle for you to peel with. Why is this even a debate?”
“Dennis thinks we’re uncivilized because we peel bananas from the stem,” Carlos said dryly. “You lose less banana this way, though. If you peel from the butt, you have to crush the tip more.”
“You two are monsters, circumcising the banana is a crime,” Dennis said. He aimed a second banana at Dean, who’d just arrived with the Dallon siblings. “See? Watch, Dean agrees with me and we all know he’s the height of sophistication and class.”
Dean nodded expectantly. “I am, but what are we talking about?”
“Banana. How do you peel it?”
“With a fork and knife, as the Queen of England intended,” he said, face deadpan. “You mean you don’t?”
Seeing how Dean had no interest in this debate, Dennis looked around a third time. He found Vicky and Amy. “Okay, final round. Amy. Panacea. The final word on all things biology. Ames, tell these heathens that there is in fact a correct way to peel a banana and that it’s from the little nipple.”
I couldn’t help it. “Amy wouldn’t know what to do with a banana.”
She rolled her eyes. Snatching the offered fruit from Dennis’ hand, she peeled it, from the stem, like a normal person. “There. What the fuck are you idiots even talking about?”
“Ah, I take it back. Amy does know how to handle a banana. She starts from the tip.”
“That sounded like a dick joke, so fuck you.”
X
I worked on my wu some more after school. The first was ready. The second was about twenty percent complete. Good progress all around. That night, I packed up every scanner I’d ever made and skated over to Dinah’s house.
In an ideal world, I’d partially sever her connection to her Shard via organic alchemy. Essentially, I’d scan her brain using the Pledge Regalia and prune the neurons connected to her corona. With a bit of trial and error, I could probably lessen her thinker headaches, or at least give her power a manual on/off switch so she could choose which questions she wanted to answer. Better yet, I could have Amy do it for me.
Unfortunately, while Amy made a lot of progress, I doubted she’d be willing to perform lobotomy on a tween girl at my say-so. I’d still take scans of Dinah’s noggin for later reference, but this wasn’t an option.
My second idea was far less controversial. I’d made plans for a pair of ear accessories and necklace that synced with a nondescript reading tablet, more or less an Amazon Kindle.
The ear accessories were based on the Pledge Regalia. Except, unlike the real deal, they didn’t need to be able to disassemble a mecha with sound waves alone. At the press of a button, they emitted a constant reciprocal frequency that canceled out all incoming sound.
I couldn’t remember if she had her ears pierced so I made them clip-ons that attached flush against the shell of her ears. They were lightweight, breathable, and hopefully wouldn’t be too uncomfortable to wear long-term.
They were connected to a tablet that transcribed everything Dinah would have heard. Writing a program that filtered out the information Dinah found irrelevant was a breeze compared to writing software for SAINT, jackbots, APEP, the doom laser-telescope, or any number of things I’d made by now. It even use some basic machine learning principles so the “AI” would get better at its job over time.
The necklace was a copy of the disguise module found in my Essentia outfit. The field was limited to her ears, which saved on battery life. It projected a fleshy textured disguise that masked her ear accessories so no one would ask questions. Dinah could switch them on or off by pretending to brush her hair.
She’d need to convince her teachers that she needed a transcribing tablet, though. I didn’t see it being a problem, but I could only hope. When she eventually joined the Wards, I was pretty sure the PRT would come up with the falsified medical records to straighten this out.
I loved this little project, not because it was the cutting edge of what I could make, but because it blended so many of my specializations. Air Gear for the sound manipulation. Pokemon for the disguise module and programming knowledge. Despicable Me for the spycraft miniaturization.All of it made with the highly durable polymers and metals from Germa and Wapol of One Piece.
I found Dinah waiting for me. It was midnight and only her desk lamp was on. She eyed me with a mixture of wariness and hope through thick bags under her eyes. Not that I blamed her; my costume was mostly gray and black, not exactly gallant looking.
After a bit of finagling, I climbed in through her window. I had to be careful not to hit anything; I was also using the disguise module because I’d yet to fully repair everything since the race.
“Hey, kid. How’re you holding up?” I asked with a friendly wave.
“One hundred percent chance of a thinker headache,” she winced, muttering under her breath. She glared like a very angry bunny.
“Oh, shit, sorry about that. But hey, I come bearing gifts,” I said, holding out a tablet. On it were the design schematics for the ear clips and necklace. “See? Gifts. The GOAT told me what’s going on and said I should help you out. I owe them a bunch so I figured I’d pay it forward.”
“They’re just pictures. And math.”
“Well, yeah. I haven’t built anything yet. The reason I needed to come here myself was so I could get a scan of your brain, remember? Oh, and your ear too, so everything fits comfortably.”
“They look ugly. And I don’t have piercings. I want some, but mom says they're for grownups.”
“The ear clips go over the shell of your ears, there,” I said, tapping her ear. “And they don’t need to be pretty because they’ll be invisible.”
“Really?”
“Yup, the necklace will have a little button you can use to make sure no one sees. You can pick the color for the necklace, though.” I swiped to the next page, showing her some of my designs.
I figured she’d be happier with this if I let her have some input. Hell, given my material transmutation abilities, I wouldn't mind if she wanted to wear enough bling to make the British Museum jealous.
“Oh, the purple is pretty… But what if we…”
I talked with Dinah for an hour or so, explaining everything I planned to make for her. She didn’t seem too thrilled about reading all her responses, but didn’t make much of a fuss. Compared to the constant thinker headaches, a bit of blessed silence must have sounded like heaven.
When she felt more comfortable around me, I took out the electric guitar I’d modded into the Pledge Regalia and strummed a quick tune. It was a nice chance to use it, the first since I’d switched from Kururu’s tombstone configuration.
Sound became my hands and feet. The air swirled around us, forming a bubble from which no vibration could escape. Those vibrations were directed inward, probing everything in the room. A perfect, 3D map of Dinah’s room formed in my HUD.
Then, everything about Dinah herself appeared. Her bones, her organs, every crease of her gray matter. “There we go. Now, hold still, please.”
“That’s it? You’re just playing your guitar a little,” she asked, surprised.
“Heh, yeah, that’s it. ‘Brain scan’ sounded really scary, didn’t it?”
“One hun–Ow, stop that!” she yelped. At the same time, the model on my screen flared.
“Sorry, no more questions. But I needed to get a scan of your brain while your power is active as well. You know, so I can compare the two.”
“You’re mean. The GOAT was nice.”
“I’m sure they were.”
“H-How long until they’re ready?”
“A few days,” I promised, setting my guitar aside. I took her hand. “You’re going to have to be strong until then, Dinah.”
“I… Okay. I can do this. I just… I just need to wait,” she said, more to herself than me. “But… What happens after?”
“That’s up to you and your parents. The Wards would be happy to have you. When they do, I’ll be sure to share with them everything I’m making for you so they know how your power works.”
“What if they take these away?”
“Then I’ll beat them up until they give them back or Armsmaster and Kid Win make you something that’s at least as good.”
“Promise?”
“I promise, Dinah. You’ll be alright. Good night.”
“Good night, Creed.”
Author’s Note
I distinctly remember having that conversation about bananas with my idiot friends at some point. No reason for it; it’s just one of those random memories that sticks out to me inexplicably.
Animal Fact: Birds have gizzards. It’s like a second stomach that stores rocks. Because they don’t have teeth, they use this to “chew,” before passing the weathered, rounded rocks out painlessly.
Ostriches, because they’re huge and they super-size everything, can store up to 2.2 pounds (1 kilo) of rocks in their gizzards.