Seshat's mind turns back to her projects. She doesn't have a lot of time tonight, but she can at least make progress on her pistol. Maybe Ishte can help with ideas.

All the while, she keeps an eye on her media inbox. This is going to be wild.

"Obscure routing problems" describe most of her life.

Climbing the steps, she has a moment to worry. She quickly summons a group of Ahati and scarabs from the base to hang out in the basement - after all, Liberation knows exactly who she is and she just fucked them soundly.

"Hey Mom! I captured Ken Cedilla! I used tractor beams and couldn't bring myself to shoot him with a plasma cannon, so I piled scarabs on him until I could lift him off the ground and disable him that way."

It sounds funny when she says it out loud.

"That's right!" She goes up to steal some veggies, glad to be free of her gear. She washed up at the base before coming. "How was your Saturday, Ummah?"

"I note that you aren't saying no~ what astounds me is that you can get up to all that and still have time to wow me with culinary delights. There's no real doubt which side of the family I get my polymath tendencies from."

She flops onto the couch to head-text Kenan, on that note. 'So... what're you up to tonight?'

Samantha feels a bit of a pang at that, for a couple reasons. One, they don't get to hang out with their families like she does, and two, they get to have this great evening together.

There's a certain temptation in power to do stupid things with it. For instance, to possess one of her Ahati and come hang out with them while she's here with her mom and put both sides of herself to work. Frankly, though, she can't see how that wouldn't be creepy to anyone other than herself.

It's a weird thought, because she doesn't usually see a clear distinction between herself and her creations, and it's a reminder that she should probably consider Kin-and-Six to be a part of herself. Or should she? After all, she's composed of cells that had their root in the woman beside her, but they're distinct people. Maybe not, then. Telepresence is considered impolite by society at the present time, too.

'That sounds great. Wish I could be there.'

She eats up, compliments her mother's cooking, and washes up, before returning to the couch, collecting some material from a scarab. It has a design like a sleek pistol with smooth surfaces and a guarded hand-grip. She opens it up to start marking up the insides while she watches. Fun thing about a gun she makes is that she can design it only to accept energy directly from her, like her taser, which this will replace. She snaps the crystal battery out of that tool and plants it in the holster for what will soon be a passable laser/electrolaser.

"I feel bad for the kids back at the YPA. They're the ones who are stuck there because their parents are gone, they're abusive, or they were rejected."

She's got a practice area for that at least!

"As far as moms go, you're pretty top shelf." She gives her a bright smile.

"Agggh, my heart. They're having a wonderful evening and apparently it's because I inspired them." She turns the gun over thoughtfully. If she just understood principles a little more sophisticated than she does, this would be a piece of cake. As it is, she's brute-forcing creating a laser weapon a couple decades ahead of her time. "I think joining them was one of the best things to happen to me, and them. Weird how that worked out."

'That's so sweet!!! I'd love to~'

"I admit," she says, snuggling in, "I don't like aspects of it. I'm worried about what will happen if I'm called in to, say, suppress a race riot or am expected to police things and other stuff I'm not sure I could in good conscience do. Considering the coerced nature of my presence, that would be a fraught situation."

She nestles her head against her, putting the weapon aside. That seems emblematic of her concerns - a gun capable of blowing a hole through a human being - with a stun setting, sure, but still a powerful weapon. It doesn't have a trigger, because if she shoots she's doing it with her mind. She wants no illusions between her and violence, so it never becomes easy - and if she ever has to do it, it's precise.

"I'm still glad I found them. After we graduate, I want to form a proper team, I think. Something with lower commitment and better rules."

'Kenaaan I need some help.'
She displays the schematics for the gun. 'I'm being really inefficient here - I know I can tighten this up, but I'm stuck in writer's block.'

"And there it goes. I am now officially a nationally recognized superhero." She brushes her hair back, considering her power situation. Yes, he's exactly right - the double helix would be far more efficient.

'Thanks! Will share progress. Oh, and, check Twitter.'

Her second thought stream gets to it, responding to questions in a limited way. She's mindful of the fact that every tweet and reply is being monitored by the YPA, so it's pretty tame. She gives the majority of the credit to Fia and Syali, downplaying her own role. She explains that she wasn't personally present, having acted through remote control, but yes was within a mile of the fighting in her walker (pictures of that exist.) Yes she did use both the soldiers and the flyers (she corrects her names for them, "Ahati" and "Scarabs.") She posts particular praise for the elders, and says how proud she was to be working with such experienced capes in taking down a notorious terrorist.

Refuse to comment regarding why she was selected to come. Refuse to comment on the specifics of how he was captured. Refuse to comment on what his aims are. Refuse to comment on rumors that she hacked their devices afterwards (that's alarming, it must have leaked.) Refuse to comment on whether she can assume direct control of her creations. Refuse to comment on the moral and ethical implications of government-sanctioned force and hacking. Refuse to comment on the rumors that Cedilla made her an offer just a few days ago. Profess unawareness of any privacy or legal violations, with a link to the YPA legal office.

Honestly, what she doesn't say is almost more interesting than what she does.

While she pops it open, she sets an order for the new power assembly and gets to work.

----

Inspiration roll:
17-3d6 = 17-(5+4+2) = 6

8 hour roll (to be completed over the evening):
17-3d6 = 17-(4+5+5) = 3

That got her a fair bit of the way. She has a complete creation, but it needs a lot more work for its full deployment.

Beam Pistol (Incomplete)
Pistol: Breakable, DR 5, Complex Mechanism, SM-6, -30%; Can Be Stolen, Quick Contest, Cannot be Used -15%; Radiant -10%
Accessory (HUD Link): Provides an augmented reality aid that shows where you're shooting. +1 Acc within 300 yards (not compatible with other targeting aids) and can aim around corners, see Ultra-Tech. [1]
Accessory (Power Holster): Built with a light gravity generator that provides +4 Fast-Draw (Pistols) for this gun only, see Ultra-Tech. [1]

Stunner: Affliction 1 (Stunning HT-0, 1/2D 10, Max 100, Acc 3) [5]
Alternate Mode, Laser: Tight-Beam Burning Attack 1, Accurate 3, Increased Range 3 (1d6 burn, 1/2D 100, Max 1000, Acc 6, RoF 1, Bulk -2) 5 (/5 for alt) [1]

18 more until it's at full intended strength.

As it works with natural movements and her creation, Power Talent applies. Total skill is 14, before Accuracy.

----

It's a little terrifying how natural it feels in her hands. She can perceive it on a level no normal human can hope to. The little gravity generator lets it glue to her side and then snap out with a thought, and she finds she can see exactly where it's pointed. She's already practiced with the Horus guns, but this is something else - this gun was built for her.

At this stage, it's a step above a toy. A highly-accurate, low-power gun that's technically less lethal than a Derringer at the moment. She could honestly cause as much damage with a judo throw - well maybe not. If she shoots someone in the eyes she can still blind them.

The real useful bit right now is the stunner.

More worrisome is that, a few hours into her crunch time, a user posted on a Cape forum comparisons between phone footage of her Scarabs flying, her plasma cannon firing, and the distortion commonly seen around Six-Ankh when he flies and his own beam attacks. She tags that one and sends it off to her dad to let him decide what to do.

'Near certain the government knows already. Dunno if you want to do anything about it to deal with public. Looks like it's getting buried, though, users are making counter-posts comparing me to other tinkers.'

There's a fair number who are suspicious of her opaqueness, too, but she'll live with it. No one is going to be 100% happy with her - whether the government at how much she does say or activists at how little - but that's what she's gotten herself into.

Finishing work for the evening long after she told her mother good night, she clamps the pistol to a wall for later and heads to bed. Maybe she can get some training at fast-draw with the Wetzstein soldiers - right now she's liable to shoot her foot off rather than actually pull it off, even with the tech-assist.

'Good night, Kenan.'

She nearly trips on her face when Mystery darts between her legs on the second floor. She rubs her ears, grumbling. "And you are getting an upgrade tomorrow night."

The following morning, she replays this event for Ishte as best as she can recall it, painting it onto her onboard computer the moment she realizes she's awake and messaging her.

'Is that your sister or someone else?' she asks as she goes to brush her teeth.

'I definitely need to spend some time in the isolation tank when we get back tonight, then.'

Spitting, she cleans up and gets ready for the day. Part of this is sorting through social media and her email. She notes a somewhat irritated email from the suits about handling her own social media presence but ignores it. That said, she does create an AI to turn all current and future interview and media requests over to the PR office, and wonders if any of that will ever bear fruit. Death and rape threats from people sympathetic to Liberation or pissed off about her feminism - those she has an AI field, either finding their families and tagging them in a blank reply, flagging them for admins, and/or turning them over to the YPA. Nice try, suckers, she has tools to deal with you.

AI curate most of her media anyway.

By the time she's done with her morning shower and routine she's moved on to checking progress in the YPA workshop, her soldiers marching out. "Morning, R&D!" one calls to Kenan in passing.

{Morning Kin-and-Six. How's tricks?}

"Morning, Mom!"

{Putting you on the deep web is almost guaranteed to run you into shard-enhanced threats. I'm going to talk to R&D, my colleague. For now, good job and thank you - I'm not disabling your network link, so you're free to explore the surface net.}

Time to review the database, looking for anything interesting. Even if she doesn't find anything good, she can use them as raw material to train up a learning program.

To Jake, not that he'll be awake for several hours: 'What's news in the world of science problems we can solve?'

'So K,' she continues to Kenan, 'you remember that AI I made?' Of course he remembers, this is just a starting conversation. 'I'm going to upgrade that "maybe hard volitional" to "yes definitely."'

"Yay croissants!" She slides into a seat, nibbling. "Were you ever a chef at any point in your life?" Without much of a pause, she continues. "That AI I built is going pretty steadily."

To Jake: 'Do we want to try creating our own patents or renting out partitioned space?'

To Kenan: 'Ha ha ha! Ha, ha. Haaaa. I'm a bit worried about that, people taking advantage of her and all. Would you like to talk to her?'

"I'm starting to unravel secrets behind the nature of shards. Still a lot to do, my records are pretty spare right now, but I sincerely think I might be able to backwards engineer them. Heck if I know what that'll do to the world."

To Jake: 'Eh, we should not patent life-saving discoveries, but we do need some money. Start with graphene, you can use my base to test it. I could really use graphene in my creations anyway.'

'Kin-and-Six? This is R&D, he's my colleague and someone who would like to talk to you.'

Finishing up, she goes to give her mother a kiss on the cheek and giggles. "Cute image~ Okay, Mom, I'm heading to 'work.' You have fun with Avery, say hi for me~"