behemoth, meet the opposition

[mrglam]

Sadde doesn't seem quite able to focus on homework at the moment. He's fidgeting, and sometimes stares off into space for long periods of time before James has to snap him out of it.

Comments

[thinkering]

"Okay, you can come along if you like." Lorica emails Rewind to let her know.

[msglam]

"Rad!"

Rewind emails back expressing bemusement but saying she's fine with it.

[thinkering]

"It'll be fun."

[mxglam]

Later: power testing!

Rewind's limited to exactly ten minutes, not a second more. When someone's rewound, their colors become shorter, so someone who's been rewound ten minutes is effectively immune to her power for another second or so. She has arbitrary precision; she doesn't actually need to know how much time back she's sending anything, just where in its colour.

There seems to be a Manton-like limitation in how her power interacts with fluids. Rewinding a balloon blown full of air doesn't make the person who filled it feel anything different, but rewinding one whose air came from another inanimate container causes that air to return to said container. If said container is filled to capacity, or such that it would be beyond capacity upon rewind, however, the extra fluid merely disappears. All such considerations apply to water, as well, and she can only see the colors of fluids in those cases.

Momentum is rewound, body and brain states are rewound, and the whole thing corresponds very neatly to an intuitive understanding of the power. Solid objects can't intersect, but fluids get displaced (or, perhaps, replaced) to allow their rewound trajectories. Something counts as "only one thing" when most "reasonable" external interactions would keep it in one piece. That does mean that, for instance, if you tie a piece of rope around someone and then she rewinds them, the rope gets rewound as well.

It also probably means she could de-amputate recent amputees, if they managed to properly and securely attach the amputated bits together. There'd still be some leftover damage from minuscule bits of tissue and fluids lost, but the end result would probably be better than nothing.

Glam watches all of this on video later, because they have only very few memories of the whole thing. They are amused by it.

[thinkering]

"I want to figure out an efficient way to get her working with paramedics."

[msglam]

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. But there's the problem that anything she rewinds basically undoes stuff... I mean, I guess it's still better than nothing in many many cases."

[thinkering]

"Even if all she can do most of the time is make it effectively ten minutes sooner they get to the hospital, it could be a big deal for things like heart attacks and strokes and bleeding out, and if she can get onsite fast enough for traumatic injuries she's a perfect cure."

[msglam]

"Mmhm. Though, when would she do it? Her free time? The Youth Guard would be on us like dogs."

[thinkering]

"No, I'd want to call it a patrol - she'd be bopping around, interacting with emergency services, if she did happen to run into any crimes she could address them."

[msglam]

"I suppose," she says dubiously. "Would Piggot be on board with that? Especially... you know, with the reduced contingent."

[thinkering]

"We are down to four, but we were down to four when Dauntless graduated, and there weren't any special adjustments to patrolling requirements then."

[msglam]

"True, I guess."

[thinkering]

"And patrols usually don't find anything anyway. The cops call us if there's actually capes involved, if there aren't we're not at much of an advantage, I think it's much more constructive to do paramedical work."

[msglam]

She nods. "I mean, I agree with you about being constructive, but. Um."

[thinkering]

"Um?"

[msglam]

"'Um' is 'I do not have the impression that the people in charge are the very best at agreeing with you.'"

[thinkering]

"Well, what kind of resistance do you think I'll encounter?"

[msglam]

"No clue. For all I know I'm being paranoid. I mean, Piggot could say 'no that's not the best way to use her' and that would be that."

[thinkering]

"True. But the downside potential of suggesting it is pretty low."

[msglam]

"Yeah, for sure."

[thinkering]

"And if I want to be really sneaky I make a call to the paramedic department first to ask if they'd be interested in the guise of not wanting to waste Piggot's time..."

[msglam]

"Would she even buy that?"

[thinkering]

"If I don't commit to anything with the paramedics? She might well pretend to."

[msglam]

"Heh. Yeah, sounds like a good idea."

[thinkering]

"I thought so. I'll ask Rewind, first, though."

Rewind gets an email: Are you interested in me trying to arrange a pilot program for an alternative patrol arrangement where you'd work with paramedics in your healing capacity?