rogue, meet hero

[peterxy]

Most of the time, patrolling is a dull, uneventful affair, somewhat akin to the Ankh-Morpork City Guard ringing their bells and calling "All's well!" at night.

Sometimes, it's not.

Dauntless was not expecting to run into two unpowered Asian gangs (Japanese and Korean? that's what it looks like at a distance) duking it out in the middle of the street. Granted, it's the evening, and it's not quite the most well-frequented of streets, but still.

He decides to call for backup, not because he wouldn't be able to take them on, but because he's supposed to do that whenever confronting another parahuman or a large number of non-capes, at least until he graduates. He turns the comm on and describes the situation - a bit over a dozen people on each side, arguing and brandishing blunt weapons and in some cases guns - then waits and watches.

Comments

[thinkering]

"My cape email is lorica@protectorate.gov but I have a bot handle everything."

[mxglam]

"...dot gov. Damn. That's so sexy. Another point in favor of joining up." They shake their head quickly. "Anyway. What does the bot actually do?"

[thinkering]

"Trashes spam, replies to routine queries, very rarely runs into something it's not sure about and brings it to my actual attention."

[mxglam]

"If I sent it something like 'Hi it's Glam this is my email' would it think it's spam?"

[thinkering]

"No, but it'd probably say 'Hi, Glam, you spelled my name right'."

[mxglam]

"Why would it say that?"

[thinkering]

"Well, mostly because it's always supervising me to pick up more information about how I'd reply and I just suggested it, but also because it's an innocuous reply to a first message from a source that doesn't seem to have gotten my email in a context where it could be copy-pasted."

[mxglam]

"Huh. That's interesting. Why'd you set the bot up, anyway?"

[thinkering]

"I use it for other things too."

[mxglam]

"...would asking what things skirt too close to the fishing-for-secret-weaknesses-and-similar-information impression?"

[thinkering]

"Li'l bit. But one thing it does is monitor forums for some topics and comment for me."

[mxglam]

They blink. It's quite comical, a drawing of a face blinking on the mask. "Why would you do that? Commenting on forums is fun!"

[thinkering]

"Spending all my spare time in a Tinkering fugue is more fun."

[mxglam]

"Hmm. Tinkering fugue. That does sound kinda like a fun thing to have."

[thinkering]

"I like it."

[mxglam]

"Is it like flow, or completely different, or like it but much better?"

[thinkering]

"It's like flow on steroids."

[mxglam]

"...part of me really wants to know what that's like but another part is scared of wireheading. Although you and other tinkers seem to be pretty functional and not suffering from withdrawal all the time."

[thinkering]

"Withdrawal takes a while to set in and feels sort of like wanting to, like, go for a walk, or pick up a book you had to put down in the middle of a good part."

[mxglam]

"Does it get better or worse if you spend longer without doing it? If I spend a while without picking a book up eventually I kinda forget about it, or just don't think about it much."

[thinkering]

"Plateaus."

[mxglam]

"Well that's not too bad, then. And at the end you have a shiny new thing made."

[thinkering]

"Yeah."

[mxglam]

"And what does it feel like, actually making the thing? How does the knowledge- appear? I don't even know what questions to ask about it. And this time I did look it up online before asking, but I'm curious about a first-hand account."

[thinkering]

"What does it feel like to - assemble a sandwich? You already know what things go in sandwiches, you can vary which things you put on a sandwich depending on what you're in the mood for and whether you think relish goes with turkey, you won't usually have hilariously wrong ratios of mustard to bread or put all of your lettuce on one side, and at the end you have a sandwich. It's like that. Only more so."