endbringer, meet gun

[peterxy]

...Very unseasonable rains can be seen in the distance from the shores of Acapulco.

The Brockton Bay Protectorate starts organizing volunteers to be transported or teletransported in batches to it. Heroes, rogues, villains, anyone's assistance is appreciated. A rendez-vous point is set for non-Protectorate capes wishing to volunteer, and Protectorate capes are informed of the situation via communication devices.

Comments

[thinkering]

"So that's good. Let's see, what else can we check indoors..."

[mrglam]

"There was one other thing."

"Figuring out what counts as paying attention? Like it clearly isn't line of sight, as per Santuario's forcefield situation, but I'm not sure what it is."

"It's not just thinking about a thing, I've tested this, though maybe that was because of range."

[thinkering]

"So... describe what you do and don't know about this part in more detail."

[mrglam]

"If I don't think about a thing I've made at all for about thirty minutes, it ceases to be."

"If I think about it but I'm reasonably far away, it ceases to be."

"If I think about it and it's close by, it apparently does not."

[thinkering]

"How do you time thirty minutes of not thinking about a thing, anyway?"

[mrglam]

"Right, that's why I said 'about' thirty minutes, I can't actually time it. It's mostly a thing I've noticed over the years."

"Uh, I've had this power for a long time."

"Like ten years."

[thinkering]

"Shit. Okay. Um. What counts as 'thinking about' the thing?"

[mrglam]

"Having a conscious and noticed thought about the thing? I'm not sure, my main checks there were basically remembering the thing should exist and then going to it to check on whether it still does."

[thinkering]

"What would happen if you made a ludicrously complicated Rube Goldberg machine so you couldn't remember all the parts, and then set it off?"

[mrglam]

"I dunno."

"We're actually wrong, aren't we?"

"Yes, we are. We just realized we don't need the thought of the thing we made to be all that conscious."

"Santuario's proving more informative than he's ever hoped, I'm sure."

[thinkering]

"What do you mean?"

[mrglam]

"His forcefield thing kept working even though I'm pretty sure I spent more than half an hour at a time not being directly aware of it on a conscious level."

"But subconsciously it was always there, I didn't expect the forcefield to wink out."

[thinkering]

"Okay, so thirty minutes is if you don't interact with it at all over that time including mentally."

[mrglam]

"'Parently."

[thinkering]

"Convenient."

[mrglam]

"...well that's one way to look at it."

[thinkering]

"As opposed to?"

[mrglam]

"The fact that there's a time limit at all being pretty annoying."

"I mean, it's good that I don't just leave stuff lying around, I suppose."

"But conversely that could have interesting uses."

[thinkering]

"Come on, in sheer utility terms your power is already stupidly good. On zero prep time you can self-duplicate an arbitrary number of times, control avatars in any shape you can convince yourself might be able to twitch, produce anything that doesn't need permanent presence, fake decent Tinker quality, fly, and do teekay. You're just shy of Triumvirate quality and I bet your power is more convenient for everyday."

[mrglam]

"...true."

"But this situation's pretty atypical in that there's only my expectations working at the moment. We don't have to also find a way to hack your brain into believing me since my power apparently doesn't care about what your brain thinks."

[thinkering]

"Your stuff shows up on video," Lorica points out.

[mrglam]

"What do you mean? The Coke?"

"I did have to explain to Windflower that I was going to nudge the can before I actually managed to do it."

"...hey is my Coke still there?"

It is not.

[thinkering]

"My point is that you can record yourself doing stuff, alone with no one else to foul you up. You can put it on the internet and more people in the general population will have seen your powers working flawlessly."

[mrglam]

They look at each other. They blink. Then at Lorica again.

They do not say anything.

[thinkering]

"Come on, it's a good idea! You'll have to clear it with Branding but I can tell her I'll run all your videos through a bot, she doesn't have a problem with me."