Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Amelia, Ch 242- Emma


Ninety five percent? Holy shit. Who? I ruled myself out immediately. Given the issues with my biology, it would make a lot more sense for me to just give Zach permission to cheat than it would for me to participate in anything. Dinah and Riley were thirteen and twelve, although developmentally Dinah was a year or so behind the curve thanks to her captivity, and Riley was setting up to be an early bloomer. Then again, Dinah's prediction didn't have a time stamp on it, for all I knew this wouldn't occur until we were all in our twenties.


There were a few uncomfortable glances exchanged, to say the least. Theo looked like he was about to apologize to Missy for something he didn't do. Riley looked a little... frightened? Zach, well, my lovable moron looked like he wanted to apologize, too. Only in his case he should.


Trevor coughed uncomfortably, then spoke up. "Well, I'm just going to say it's easier just to pretend no one asked that question. How's that sound? Whatever may or may not happen in the future, I'm sure it'll make more sense then. In the meantime, let's talk about something completely unrelated."


"Sounds like a plan," Zach agreed readily, and everyone else nodded their agreement. "Well, my monkey's paw has been properly high fived. Next time I'll ask boxers or briefs. So, who else wants to try their luck? You can't possibly top mine."


"Chances my sister, Aster, becomes a parahuman?" Theo asked. Of course he'd want to know that.


"I can't see that," Dinah replied. "My powers are still limited by the Taboo. I have been meaning to ask if you had a way to work around that. It would be extremely helpful for all of us."


"Not in the way you're hoping for," I admitted. "We can install memories of things that are Taboo, but that won't allow you to remember new Taboo information, nor will it allow retain new memories of Taboo information you might pick up in the future. We believe it's only possible to completely break the memory blocks if you have a trigger event after receiving the memories. And as of right now, we have absolutely no way to break the blocks on Thinker powers on Trigger Events, Endbringers and Scion. Believe me, we've tried everything we could think of. Which, admittedly, isn't much."


"A pity," Dinah replied. "Do we have any other questions?"


Trevor took a deep breath. "Chances my mother accepts me when I go public with my sexuality? She'll pretend she does, I'm sure. I just need to know if she'll ever actually mean it."


Dinah looked away. "Eleven point six three," she answered. "Sorry."


"Nothing I didn't already expect," he sighed. Oh, Trevor. "Well, that's her problem. Not my fault if she can't handle it, and no one will be able to say I haven't done my part to care for my family."


Theo reached over and put a hand on Trevor's shoulder. "Sorry, man. Believe me, I've been there."


"Woah, back up a second," Zach raised his hands and affected shock. "You're gay? That is such a relief. I thought all those magazines were Theo's and I was losing so much sleep trying to figure out how to tell Missy the bad news."


Trevor chuckled. "Fuck you, Zach."


"Ordinarily I'd turn that down," Zach replied. "But the precog has spoken. I'm gonna have to ask you to wear a wig, though."


Trevor gave me a smirk. "Would you?"


It took me a moment to realize that he wasn't propositioning me. At least, not for the obvious result. It took Zach longer, so he wasn't remotely prepared when I dug a thumb up into the nerve under his armpit. Not too hard, or his corrective teleport would have undid my effort.


"Gah!" Zach jumped away from me. "Okay! I'll be good!"


"No you won't," I teased. He may be an idiot, but he's a good man, always there to lighten the tense situations with humor.


"Yeah, probably not," he replied.


"I have my question," Riley asked softly. "Will I ever be able to do enough good to make up for the bad things I did as Bonesaw?"


So much for lightening the mood. Missy was there first, pulling the girl into a hug. I could probably ask the same question, I thought. And everything I've ever done is nothing compared to what Bonesaw was guilty of on an average weekend.


"I can't answer that kind of question," Dinah replied. "My power follows numbers. Good or bad aren't able to be put into numbers. I don't know if our Passengers are capable of comprehending such ideas in the first place. I do know you've helped. A lot. The Nilbog mission alone improved the numbers by a full percentage point, and up to half a million extra lives. But... I've been trying to remind myself that there are people behind my numbers. Faces and names and lives, instead of just data. So, I want you to know how much you helped Sam and Rory."


"Sam?" Missy asked. I was drawing a blank as to who Dinah was talking about, too. For that matter, who's Rory?


"You'd know her better as Prism," Dinah replied. Oh, right, one of the ones we revived from Bakuda's glass bomb. "She came as my cousin's date for my uncle's Christmas gathering. She's the head of one of New York's Protectorate teams, and Rory's second in command of a different team. They wouldn't stop talking about it. Oh, and they're going to get married in a year. But don't tell them, they don't know about it yet. Or the baby."


"Wait, she didn't keep her powers when she was revived," I interrupted.


"She got a new set," Dinah replied.


"Her too?" I asked. Thank you distraction. "That's two of the five we restored, already. There has to be some kind of undetected bias, since none of them should be any more likely to get powers than any random person on the street. What abilities did she get?"


"She creates copies of other parahumans that are in her line of sight, now," Dinah answered. "She can generate a maximum of three clones per day, and they have duration limits that deplete faster as they use their abilities. Thinker and Tinker are especially bad for the duration. My power, for example, she can only ask one question to a clone, then it pops. More generic brute or blaster powers can last for potentially hours, depending on how powerful they are."


Zach let out an appreciative whistle. "Some people have all the luck. Even if the only thing you do with that is find out what powers an enemy cape has, you're golden."


"That's a lot stronger than her original ability," I added. "However, it is similar. Prism used to be able to create dupes of herself and then absorb them for temporary ability increases. Now she dupes others, complete with powers. Compare to Victoria, who in both cases got brute, mover and energy generation powers. Riley, do you think there could be a pattern?" Here we go, Tinker talk, think about that instead of self pity.


"Unknowable with such a small sample size," Riley replied. "It's an interesting theory, however. What's more significant is the potential for additional data from pre and post trigger brain mapping. Every piece of data we can pull together on how trigger events work, the better. With enough samples, I might even be able to build devices that let us modify powers."


That's right, that was one of her projects. As good as my powers were, they weren't nearly a match for Riley's in trying to understand how powers worked.


"I will make certain to let her know," Dinah replied. "This could be the reason the numbers get better."


She's uncertain. Not lying, but her power's not seeing benefits to the process. I blinked, realizing that my power switched into 'biotinker' state. The nature of these repeat triggers are still part of the Taboo, of course she couldn't know what would come of that research. It was something of a miracle that she could even see Scion's actions enough to know there was an apocalypse in the first place.


I glanced at my friends. Zach remained his usual baseline, with the slightly slower than average aging process. He was more alert than most of us, to his body he had just woken up refreshed and alert only a few minutes ago. Everyone else besides me had been up since this morning.


Missy was mainly concerned over Riley, as was Theo. Riley was torn between her Tinker nature and her foray into self pity. Something that was occurring more frequently than ever, of late. Tinker productivity loss alone could account for a number change.


Trevor was still caught up in his family issues. Sadly, there was very little I could do for him in that regard past being a sympathetic ear. He wasn't lacking in people who could understand what he was going through. None of us in this group had what could be called a good home life. One of the things I most envied Taylor for, her relationship with her father. I think mine would have disowned me if he thought he could get away with it. Going public with everything I'd done, well, unintended side effect was that it hurt my dad's reputation.


"I have my question," I finally spoke up. "You don't need a lot of details, do you? I could, say, ask you if a plan would work without you needing to know the details of the plan, right?"


"Yes," Dinah answered. "Minerva often uses questions of that nature."


"I have one of those plans," I replied. "If it succeeds, how much do the odds change in the end?"


"Point five percent increased odds of the apocalypse occurring," Dinah replied, her eyes widening. "But if it does occur, the number of survivors increases by almost one hundred and fifty seven million people." Her eyes met mine. "What exactly are you planning?"


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Bonus scene:

"What are the odds the author's going to be a dick and not tell the audience what's going on?"

"As if you even need to ask."