lung, meet rewind

[msrewind]

She gets the note just before lunch. She's in the PHQ in less than twenty minutes, then she knocks on Piggot's door politely.

Comments

[thinkering]

"Yeah, I know, it just startled me and I'm mostly naked which is not a condition in which I like to encounter spiders. I don't mean actually a spiderweb, anyway, more like a three dimensional grid."

[mrglam]

He makes the spiderweb disappear, then brings both hands together and spreads them apart, generating a spiderweb-like thing between them. "What properties should this have?"

[thinkering]

"Maybe it can constrict suddenly if something touches one of the strands."

[mrglam]

"Hmmm... Without an actual mechanism for that it'd be relying on my and whoever-else's expectations."

[thinkering]

"Okay, maybe it does need a spider in it. For effect."

[mrglam]

"But then he'd notice the wires and not actually be tripped by them."

[thinkering]

"Tripping isn't the point, locating and holding is."

[mrglam]

"Right, that's what I meant, he'd need to not know they're there otherwise he could just avoid them."

[thinkering]

"Not if they were dense enough."

[mrglam]

"Oh, you mean, like, conjuring them around him? Or around the area where he was?"

[thinkering]

"Yeah, what were you thinking?"

[mrglam]

"Conjuring it somewhere he might go so he'd run into it. His own expectations would run counter my conjuring around him so I'd need some witnesses on our side who knew what was about to go on, probably."

[thinkering]

"Wouldn't be too hard to get."

[mrglam]

"No, indeed not, especially if we were broadcasting bots' vision to tactically relevant people here in the PHQ."

[thinkering]

"Of course then we'd have to be authorized to take potshots at the S9."

[mrglam]

"They all have a kill order on their heads, I'm pretty sure we're authorized pretty much whatever's not immediately and obviously terrible."

[thinkering]

"I mean authorized in terms of risk-taking, not in terms of desired results."

[mrglam]

"Oh, yeah. I mean, they will invariably attack either Brockton Bay or wherever the next Endbringer attacks, after I Siberian giant monster butt."

[thinkering]

"Yeah, then we're probably good to go."

[mrglam]

"I can probably have something mechanically plausible if I design some sort of black box machine at the edges of the wires. It might help if some tinker actually comes up with a layout or something."

[thinkering]

"Not quite my area, but maybe I could finagle it."

[mrglam]

"Finagling is fine, it's what my power runs on, it's just, stuff that works even badly on its own is easier to make work than literal magic."

[thinkering]

"Fair enough."

[mrglam]

"Which leaves only the Siberian and Jack himself to deal with. And it still makes no sense that Jack can manage to survive."

[thinkering]

"Yeah. It might be something I cut through like butter but it might not."