"She's pretty sweet. I've run some diagnostics on her, and unless it's very well-hidden she's clean. She uh, asked if she could call me 'mom', first out, but I don't know how I feel about that so I suggested we figure out our relationship. She hasn't repeated it since, so I dunno if that's something. The gender and voice, I have no idea, I've never seen one take shape so fast or with so much room."

She pulls her tablet out, popping up a projection to show relatively speaking how much processing and data is involved. It's a live historical monitor.

Haha oh Jake. You silly.

She shapes her a virtual network interface and hooks her up.

{I'd like you to make a full database of heroes, including all known powers, and in particular, I want my attention brought to revealed Seed tattoos. Keep this strictly legal for now. Good luck - if you feel bored, you can do it by the by.}

"Yeah, that popped to mind. She's easily one of the most powerful computers on the planet and I can only hope I don't mess this up. Oh - "

She shows the deposit slip. "Look what came in."

Aww, that's adorable - and she doesn't even need to breathe. How curious.

She pops up a projection, a washed image of her memory of the shard right before it impacted her husband and seeped into Baby Seshat.

"I can't help but wonder sometimes what would have happened if I hadn't been there."

"I bet. One of the things Cedilla told me, and I suspect he got it from Ishte's brother somehow, is that the storm of shards is only getting more intense as time goes on. He wanted me, and my power, badly enough that he made the pitch. If he's right - and I have no reason to think he isn't - then the world's going to change a lot."

She frowns. "There's still so much I don't know, and my attempts at speculation so far have been so off base that I'm better off trying to clear my mind of assumptions rather than making them. I didn't even recognize a shard impact when one happened right in front of my face, which is just embarrassing. Won't make that mistake again.

"And the real irony? Getting arrested may have been the best thing to ever happen to me, considering the opportunities it's opened up. I spent years in a hole in a ground and only now am I really getting anywhere. Nice thing about the hole, though, is no one was watching as I did it - none of this massive game of cloak and dagger and terrifying knowledge when other girls my age are worrying about school clubs and boys... not that I'm not worrying about boys, or girls. Ahem.

"Point is, it's a little overwhelming, and I'm profoundly aware of my vulnerability. I want to, by the end of the year, have a powersuit and a mech to slot it in, and by the end of the year after that - when I'm free, or the year after that - a flying, maybe teleporting invisible whatever fortress to slot that in, and a massive bank of seed tattoos that I can use to do almost anything. Be way better if I can figure out how to replicate Impacted powers, too. That'll give me the personal power to resist coercion, in addition to whatever political links I've formed. If I have the power to understand all of this, I don't want anyone to have the power to force me to use it for them."

She sighs, rubbing her neck. "And yet, they'll always have leverage on my friends and family, because I'm not a sociopath. Damn it - this is going to be hard."

Samantha nods into her and hugs her tight, sighing into her side. "Thanks, ummah - I love you, and you're the actual best."

Eventually, she parts, and on a little thought she frowns, calling and replaying the video of the girl at the bakery with the light fading into her belly.

"...I might have made another assumption. Specifically, if she's pregnant... I dunno. Man, that's some bullshit if women are just cut out completely if they just happen to be with child when the moment hits. I don't know, though, that might just be the shard settling in."

She pings Ishte to ask for clarification, if she knows.

"Oh good, it's hers. Apparently it has to be indirect, so no one received it. My example is still weird - by their logic, I couldn't have been affected. I hope I'm an accident, I have to admit. I like sequence breaking.

"Speaking of, I'm going to take a bath and get to bed." She kisses her mother's cheek. "Good night~"

And by a bath she means a float followed by a bath.

'Hey Dad, you might have heard, but this weekend and Monday I've been requisitioned by La Lame, so my visitation might have to be delayed.'

"You could have done worse than a quiet, bookish little girl who just had to have every kind of paint, clay, Lego, and fabric imaginable~"

An entire life spent seeking to put her vision into reality. To take what was inside her and bring it out. If that isn't a massive metaphor for her powers, she has no idea what.

Sliding into the pod in her bathing suit, she takes care of a few final tasks before having her wireless take a nap. Only a faint connection to be activated in case of emergency. One of those tasks is letting Ishte know she's trying to trigger that state again.

"Shut," she orders the pod verbally, and lets herself float in infinite darkness and silence.

Brain stimulation could probably push her further. Going fully out is unacceptable for a variety of reasons.

"I'll call that a successful test! Of course, now I have no idea what to do here. I haven't discovered any new tattoos or how to read them. At least I can study the ones I do know in detail."

She glances at her echo of Ishte. "Could you show me the shard that Impacted the bakery girl?"

She knows her name, but she thinks she's funny.

"This is great - I have a way to look at shards of impacted people, too, and - hooooold the phone. Who the fuck is that, in the cloak?"

"Shame this shard vision can't arbitrarily search through. It'll do, though." She focuses in on Scope, eyes narrowed. "What about hers? Or Cedilla? Or do I need more information?"

"You're more than enough for now, my friend." She squeezes her shoulder, reminding herself to talk to the proper Ishte after this, exhausted or no.

"I hope to have both of you here, talking to me and figuring this out. Maybe together we can reverse the relationship and find your other lost sister."

She looks back at the earth, thoughtful. "Once I have a full database of heroes together, I should be able to get some good data. For now, I'm signing out."

She closes her eyes, focusing on the faint signals distracting her, untils he's back in her real body, splashing a little in the salty water.

"...uhhhnpen..." she mumbles, yawning. "Open."

Climbing out to sit on the little step, groggy, she looks up to Ishte's room. "Works! Kiiinda ready to pass out."

"Soon!"

She smiles at Mystery. Sometime she's going to take the time to give her a proper upgrade.

Concentrating, she lets Kenan know the test was a success and sends him her mental video of the person in the cloak. 'Think we can run this through the city's security footage? Any sign of a cloaked asshole wandering around.'

'Gait or stance tell you anything about gender and disposition?'

People like R&D are exactly why operational security is a higher priority now than ever.

She comes over to hang out with Ishte a bit, seeing what she's up to. "How do you like the minifab, by the way?"

'We've got a profile, at least, even if isn't a good one.'

Sam claps, beaming. "Nice work! I really sympathize with the need to make a mark on the world around me, if not to your degree. I'm glad I could offer you that."

She yawns, stretching. "I'll see you tomorrow - then we'll be spending a lot of time together."