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]

"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."

[mxglam]

They blink again. "Well but, like, a sandwich is, I mean, you can just look at one and see the things that are in it, and I'm not completely confident I'd invent something that's exactly a sandwich if one didn't exist and wasn't available before."

[thinkering]

"If I had to think of something that you would invent that nobody else has invented before, we'd be here all week."

[mxglam]

Pause. "Okay, point, but still, tinkers have specialties, and the particular way you do things is different- but okay, I guess as far as subjective sensations go, I'm starting to get the picture."

[thinkering]

"That's the idea."

[mxglam]

"Changing subjects, you mentioned you don't like talking much to your branding person?"

[thinkering]

"Not especially, no. I mostly convinced her to leave me alone after she consulted on my color scheme and have her seventy-five percent convinced that it would make me completely inoperable to make any aesthetic concessions that don't come to me mid-fugue, and don't want to remind her I exist."