Taylor, Tinker, Thinker... Spider? (Patreon)

Amy Dallon, otherwise known as Panacea scowled at the parahuman on the hospital bed that was freaking out about a force field only she could see. Normally she would have already told a doctor to schedule a psych consult but the girl that she'd healed was clearly a parahuman which meant that she might not be insane or at least she might have a reason for seeing things. "Keep your voice down!" she snapped in a voice not much louder than a whisper.

"Sorry, you just walked through my field and now I can conjure a spider that could give people biokinesis…" Taylor trailed off when she realized what she'd just admitted.

"What?" Amy asked warily.

"Can you just ignore that?" Taylor asked hopefully, wondering if floating translucent game-like windows that explained things were common for powers, she was guessing no, because otherwise Leet would have made a bigger deal about it.

"How far does your field extend?" Amy asked, suddenly a lot more concerned about fields that she couldn't see.

"Five," Taylor paused when she focused on the field and the field grew to cover most of the room. "I'm not sure, it used to cover the bed and a bit more then it grew when I thought about the range."

"Let's ignore that for a second, can you conjure a spider?" Amy asked, curious how the girl's power worked, because she was really hoping she was imagining the part where she could hand out copies of her power.

Taylor focused on the creation button and mentally 'pushed' the button, conjuring a dark purple spider the size of a nickel. "I wasn't expecting that to work."

"Do you mind if I check your spider?" Amy asked, curious if the spider was a projection or a biological creation.

"Go ahead," Taylor replied, fairly sure the spider wouldn't hurt Panacea without her direction, mostly because she could sense it and see through its eyes which was really weird.

Amy reached out and carefully poked the spider when it didn't react negatively to her finger getting closer. "It's a biological construct and it injects a marker that your power probably uses to tag someone. Any idea how you're supposed to get it to bite someone?"

"Probably just, little shit!" Taylor snapped, glaring at the spider that had just bit her on the hand. "What the hell?"

"Bite?" Amy asked, seeing if the spider was voice controlled. "I don't think it's voice controlled, subconscious?"

Taylor stared at Amy. "Did you just try to get the spider to bite me?"

"No?" Amy offered, not sure she actually believed herself, mostly because she'd figured there was a small chance that it actually would bite her again. "Can I check your biology and what the marker is doing?"

"Please," Taylor agreed, figuring it would be her best chance to figure out what was going on with her power. She blinked when a small translucent window opened in front of her showing two slots labeled Thinker and Tinker, with the Tinker slot filled with Biokinesis. "Huh…" she trailed off as her new power kicked in and details of her spider's biology rushed into her awareness. "It's like I can see everything, how much venom it has, its muscles and nerves…" she trailed off as she got a sense of Amy's biology when the healer poked her hand. "Is this what it feels like every time you touch something?"

Amy checked the marker in Taylor's blood then pulled her finger back, not particularly interested in touching a biokinetic in case she tried to modify her brain or something. 'Take a breath and relax, she's not a villain, don't make her one.' She forced herself to relax or at least tried to relax. "What does it feel like?"

"I could feel your biology, get a sense of your medical condition and make tweaks if I wanted to, not that I would without permission," Taylor hastily assured her.

Amy sighed as she realized how much Carol was going to bitch about letting an unknown trump copy her power. "Some of the doctors have an idea, but can you avoid mentioning the details of my power?"

"That would make it harder to give a couple of nurses a copy of your powers, you could use a break," Taylor pointed out.

Amy took a breath then let it out as she realized there wasn't a point in lying, not when she had her power. "Can I talk you into not sharing my powers?"

"Secrets or ethical concerns?" Taylor asked.

"Yes," Amy replied, not particularly happy with the idea of people running around with copies of her powers. "In theory, you can probably copy other capes that walk into your field."

Taylor shifted uncomfortably. "I'm fairly sure I only have two slots for extra powers."

"What makes you think that?" Amelia asked, studying Taylor's face.

Taylor glanced at the door and listened for a second to see if she could hear anyone outside the door. "Because your power is listed on my power's heads up display under the Tinker slot and my Thinker slot is empty. I don't have slots for anything else which probably means I'm limited to Thinker and Tinker abilities."

"Heads up display?" Amy asked in surprise.

"My power comes with an interface, is that unusual?" Taylor asked, fairly sure it was given the strange look Amy was giving her.

'Fucking trumps,' Amy thought as she shook her head. "Powers are weird but yeah, I can't recall anyone that has a heads up display for their powers. I can't tell you how to use your power, but can you give me a couple of days to think about which doctors and nurses won't go crazy with a copy of my power before you start handing it out?"

"Can I trust you to keep the fact that I'm a cape to yourself?" Taylor asked, fairly sure she didn't want her name in a database.

"Deal," Amy replied.

"Can I talk you into fixing my eyes so I don't need glasses?" Taylor asked hopefully, figuring her vision counted as a medical issue, unlike her breasts even if adding a cup size would be appreciated.

Amy frowned as she thought about all of the girls that used to ask her for upgrades to their breasts or tweaks to their appearance. "I don't normally do upgrades."

"I'd be willing to offer upgrades once I figure out what I'm doing," Taylor offered.

"I'll take a rain check on my end of that, until I know you're not going to screw something up but sure, I'll fix your eyesight." Amy held out her hand then quickly adjusted Taylor's eyes when she touched her hand, giving her exceptional if still human vision. "You're in the top 1% for vision, if not the top point five percent of the world for vision."

"Thank you," Taylor replied as she took her glasses off and realized that things were exceptionally clear.

Amy checked the marker again then pulled her hand back, reasonably sure she could duplicate the marker or at least create something that would produce it. "If anyone asks, you got some junk in your eyes and I fixed them."

"No worries," Taylor assured her. "What happens now?"

Amy glanced at the clock. "That depends on what you want but honestly, I suggest withdrawing from Winslow. Someone is obviously trying to kill you and testing out or swapping schools shouldn't be that hard, especially when I file a report with the hospital about the bacteria in her blood that you got from scraping your hands. They should be more than happy to give you a settlement to make the problem go away because they're responsible for your safety while you're under their 'care'. Personally, I suggest talking to a lawyer before you deal with the school, I've heard stories."

"I can't exactly afford to hire a lawyer," Taylor admitted.

"You can't really afford not to," Amy replied as she pulled one of New Wave's business cards out of her pocket. "Most decent lawyers would take a case like that without any money up front, if you don't get paid, they don't because the district will write them a check rather than see it go to court. I suggest talking to your guardians about everything, mostly because unless you have a pressing reason not to tell them about being a cape, you're going to want to."

"I was hoping to avoid causing my father more stress," Taylor admitted.

"Knowing that you're a rogue or hero is probably going to be less stressful than finding out you're sneaking out at night," Amy pointed out. "Not to mention, you're going to need supplies for being a hero and being a hero is dangerous. You're going to want to discuss things and at least give them a heads up. Even if the powers you can hand out are only half as good as my power, people are going to want to kidnap you or threaten you to make sure you're under control, your family deserves a heads up before anyone finds out what you can do or at least the adults do."

"You're saying I shouldn't be a hero?" Taylor asked in frustration.

Amy shook her head. "No, I'm just saying that independents generally run into legal issues or get killed because they don't have support. You're going to want to hire people that you can trust and you're probably going to need a decent lawyer. I suggest taking a couple of days to make a costume and sort things out with your family, they might have more contacts."

"Probably," Taylor admitted, knowing her father knew a lot of people in the union that were trustworthy and looking for work.

Amy grabbed a pen from her pocket and wrote her PHO account on the card then handed it to Taylor. "Make a PHO account for your cape identity and send me a message. Once you've talked things over with your parents, I can probably give you a place to start."

"Thanks," Taylor replied as she slipped the card into her book that someone had left sitting on the nightstand.

"Even if you just want to be a masked healer, I could use the help," Amy admitted, turning to look at the door when she heard footsteps.

"Don't worry, we'll figure something out," Taylor promised as the door opened and her father walked in.

"You're awake," Danny said, relieved that she hadn't slipped into a coma and seemed lucid.

"I flushed the toxins out of her system and fixed her eyes. You're going to want to call a decent criminal lawyer because I didn't hear about anything that would cause the CDC to storm the school and I should have with the crap I found in your system," Amy suggested.

"Thank you and I'll look into it," Danny offered as he walked further into the room so he wasn't blocking the door.

"You're welcome," Amy assured him as she walked to the door, finding herself in a decent mood, mostly because there was a light at the end of the tunnel and some hope of actually getting backup. "You should be good to leave, just talk to the floor supervisor."

"Thank you," Taylor offered.

Amy gave the girl a smile then stepped out of the room and let the door close, hoping the girl wasn't the next Teacher or mob boss. 'It's not her fault that her power screams mob boss or tech support. Hopefully her power doesn't have a Master component like Teacher’s.' She grabbed the girl's file and headed towards the front desk, feeling a touch guilty as she checked the girl's name on her file, mostly because it felt like an invasion of privacy. 'Sorry Taylor, but you'd never believe me that all of the names blur together and I want some insurance.'

0o0o0

"Five bodies, I can make five bodies vanish," Danny muttered to himself, less than pleased to find out that his daughter's former best friend had put his daughter through hell for the last year and change.

"You're not killing people," Taylor replied with exasperation, glad that he wasn't rushing out of the door to have a 'chat' with Alan, though that could have been because she'd confiscated his keys before she started explaining or the fact that he was slumped in his chair. "Wait, five?"

"Sophia, Madison, Emma, Alan and the principal," Danny replied with a scowl.

Taylor shook her head. "I'm reasonably sure Madison is just a hanger on and doesn't deserve death."

"Four bodies is easier," Danny replied, only half joking.

Taylor gave her father a less than impressed look. "Skipping the ethical considerations, let's not kill anyone that I'd be the prime suspect for."

"That's fair enough…" Danny trailed off as he turned and saw the half dozen nickel sized spiders trying to haul his keys up the stairs. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

"Want?" Taylor mused. "No, I don't think so."

Danny pointed at the keys. "Does that mean I need a newspaper?"

"Oh, that," Taylor admitted. "I'm still working on controlling my spiders, if I'm not paying attention they have a mind of their own."

"How long?" Danny asked, fairly sure it was the locker but wanting to check that it wasn't because he'd checked out for a couple of months after Annette died.

"I woke up like this," Taylor complained, trying not to think about the locker.

Danny took a deep breath and let it out, reminding himself that he wasn't angry at his daughter and that she had a valid point about her being a suspect if they suddenly dropped dead. "What can you do?"

"I can basically copy Tinker and Thinker powers then hand them out using spiders or at least that's what my power is telling me," Taylor said, not sure what was going on with her power and not sure why it had everything written out.

"How does that work?" Danny asked.

"Sort of like the Earth Aleph Spiderman movie, only with less of a physical power set," Taylor offered, not sure why her power had fixated on the movie she'd watched last night.

"It's been a long day, I feel like hitting something, can we talk about this in the morning?" Danny asked, feeling guilty that he couldn't focus but needing time to try to work through everything they'd talked about. "I'm going to need my keys."

"In the morning," Taylor replied as she got off the couch and walked to the stairs, snagging the keys on her way up the stairs, figuring he'd thank her in the morning.

'Probably for the best,' Danny thought as he grabbed the remote and turned the television on, looking for something to distract himself from thinking about how to get away with beating the shit out of Alan for not noticing that his daughter had lost her marbles.

0o0o0

"Hey," Danny offered as Taylor walked into the kitchen, not sure what else to say after the rather long and somewhat heated discussion the night before. "Can I have my keys?"

Taylor glanced at the large cup of coffee her father was holding then looked at his clothes, fairly sure that he was wearing the same ones as yesterday. "How much sleep did you get and are you still planning on breaking Alan's jaw?" she asked, figuring that was a lot more likely than him doing something more drastic now that he'd calmed down.

"A couple of hours," Danny admitted. "I fell asleep watching television."

Taylor gave her father a look. "I noticed that you didn't say anything about Alan's jaw."

Danny finished the last bit of his coffee then set the mug on the counter. "Do you want me to lie?"

"No, but I'd appreciate you saying that you'll wait for him to take a swing first or that you'll hit him somewhere there aren't any witnesses," Taylor replied as she dropped his keys on the table.

Danny studied his daughter's face. "That's surprisingly practical considering Emma's behavior."

"Like I said last night, I've got no idea why Emma went nuts or if Alan or Zoe noticed. They should have noticed that I wasn't coming around. I would have expected a phone call or something asking what happened but at this point, I don't care. They're obviously not half the people I thought they were but that's fine, I'm not the bubbly, happy girl that I used to be. If Emma stays the hell away from me, I'll leave her alone, if she doesn't, I'm going to bury her."

"Figuratively, right?" Danny asked, knowing she'd inherited his temper.

"Sure, let's go with that," she said sarcastically, hoping it didn't come to locking her former friend in a coffin and burying her to get her to leave her alone.

Danny gave Taylor a look, fairly sure the best thing for Alan and Emma's health was if they stayed away from Taylor. "Before you do anything drastic, let me call one of the union's lawyers, he owes me a couple of favors."

"You know a lawyer that owes you a couple of favors?" Taylor asked in surprise, ignoring the part where she'd been the one that had to talk him out of doing something drastic.

"I've tossed work his way before," Danny explained. "If nothing else, he'll let me know who I need to talk to. Either way, you're never going back to Winslow, even if we can't get you transferred to Arcadia, there are a decent number of online programs that would let you work at your own pace which is probably going to be important considering your future cape shenanigans."

"That implies that I'm going to cause trouble," Taylor complained.

"You're a parahuman, it's part of the deal," Danny replied, thinking of some of Annette's stories.

"Do you have any suggestions for how I'm supposed to avoid getting kidnapped by the gangs?" Taylor asked, wishing her power had included a brute rating or a force field.

"That depends, how exactly does your power work?" Danny asked.

"I have a field that allows me to copy Thinker and Tinker powers and that helps stabilize the powers I can hand out," Taylor explained.

"How far can you expand your field?" Danny asked, wondering if there was a way to detect her power.

"From what I can tell from the display's description, the size of the field changes how it affects the marks from the spider bites. They normally last a week. If I limit my field to a thousand feet, the marks will regenerate, gaining more time before they fall apart, roughly one day per hour they spend in the field. Between a thousand feet and a mile, the marks don't degrade while they're in the field. If I push things to five miles, the marks will degrade at double the speed and I can't copy any abilities, any more than that and I start getting a headache."

"You should probably avoid that," Danny warned her. "Since they normally last a week outside the field, what's the point of pushing things to five miles?"

"No real point in pushing things except that I can track…" Taylor trailed off as a window popped up showing a grayed out map that showed her house, the hospital and a wide path between the two locations in color. "Huh, my display has a map function. That should help me keep track of the people that my spiders bite."

"You should probably avoid mentioning that part of your powers unless you have to," Danny warned her. "Eventually, you're going to want to look into the various laws surrounding power copying and trumps but this is probably a case of it's better to ask forgiveness than permission."

"What are you thinking?" Taylor asked.

"From what I've heard the Bay has five or six Tinkers and at least a couple of Thinkers," Danny mused.

Taylor ran through the list of names people talked about at school, only coming up with five. "Armsmaster, Gallant, Kid Win, Squealer and Leet, who am I missing?"

"From what I've heard Coil's people have tinkertech weapons. It's possible he bought them from somewhere else but tinkertech has a nasty tendency to break down without regular maintenance so there's a chance that they're in the city or that Coil is the Tinker. Normally, I wouldn't suggest you get anywhere close to a dangerous villain but if you can copy powers from anywhere within a mile of a cape, it's probably worth taking a day and driving around."

"Or I could take the bus to the library," Taylor suggested, knowing her father should get back to work and didn't want him hovering all day.

"Let me call Castle and see what he can dig up or if he has a recommendation for moving forward then I'll call Winslow and tell them you're not going to be there today. I want to hear what the lawyer says before we officially pull you out," Danny explained, wishing he could just call them and tell them to fuck off but figured that wouldn't be productive.

"I'll zap some pizza," Taylor said as she headed for the fridge.

"Don't worry, we'll figure something out," Danny promised her.

0o0o0

Taylor felt like she was in the Twilight Zone because the world had stopped making sense, mostly because her father had picked up the phone and rained holy hell down on the world or at least the school via calling in a favor. By the time she'd finished her pizza, gotten a shower and dressed, there was a pair of officers at the front porch that wanted a copy of her journal and were willing to listen. She'd given her statement, handed over her journal of dates and times and the officers had left, looking ready to crack some skulls. "What just happened?"

"It's called networking," Danny offered. "I called the union's lawyer, he called his daughter who happens to be a police detective in our district. Her boss hates Blackwell because his kid goes to Winslow so he sent a couple of officers to check the dumpsters and supply closets for chemicals they shouldn't be using and traces of shit in your locker."

"Do you think they'll find anything?" Taylor asked, wondering if it would be enough to get Blackwell fired.

"That depends on the substances used and what they found," Danny admitted. "With any luck, Blackwell will find herself in prison for not calling the CDC. Even if she avoids prison, we can probably convince the school board to get rid of her."

"Hopefully they'll be able to dig something up on Emma and Sophia," Taylor grumbled, not hoping someone had proof.

"Emma never struck me as particularly tech savvy so she probably left evidence. If the police can't find anything, you can probably pick up a Thinker ability that would let you dig up evidence," Danny suggested.

"Can you use evidence from parahumans in a case?" Taylor asked, not sure how many of the parahuman law shows she half remembered had any relation to actual laws.

"It depends on the quality and reability of the Thinker and the evidence they can find," Danny admitted. "It would certainly give them a place to start looking. Even if you can't find evidence against the girls, you can probably find something that gets half the staff fired with enough work."

Taylor shook her head. "Probably not worth using powers against them unless they decide to track me down outside of school, I don't need anyone connecting the dots, which probably means I shouldn't hire anyone in the union."

"I'm sure we can figure something out," Danny said, knowing some of the people could keep their mouths shut and could use the money. "I'd be a lot happier if you had a team."

"Same," Taylor admitted. "Can I talk you into giving me a lift to the library on your way to work?"

Danny shook his head. "I'm not going to work. I barely got four hours of sleep, I'm running on caffeine and I'm close to losing my temper. If you give me a couple of hours to get some sleep, I'll drive you around town so you can copy powers. If we time things right, we'll be able to swing by Arcadia before they leave for lunch which should let you copy a couple of Tinkers."

"Sure," Taylor agreed when she noticed how tired her father looked, "that gives me a chance to draw up some plans and see what I can find about the local capes online."

"Don't make any accounts from the house, we're going to have to get you a cellphone for your cape stuff," Danny admitted reluctantly.

Taylor stared at her father. "Are you sure?"

Danny took a breath then let it out. "If your mother hadn't been on the phone, she might have managed to get out of the way, but she was stopped at a light so the asshole might have hit her anyway. It's almost impossible to find payphones anymore, which means you're going to need something to call the police or call for help if you're in trouble."

Taylor nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"I need a couple of hours, I'll set an alarm," Danny assured her then headed for the stairs.

Taylor headed for the computer to look up information on the local capes to see if she could map out a route that would let her copy the people she needed to copy. 'I wonder if I can find a therapy thinker?'