xx49.07.28 | 19:33 | Still Monday | [LUS]

More testing for Daniel. At least I'm getting the hang of this LUS system now—

"It's just LUS, saying 'LUS system' is redundant."

Daniel's here, of course. All of this is going up on the screen. Yes, hello Daniel. I can see you reading this. You. Are. Often. Annoying.

"Haha, good one."

Case in point.

"Oh, hey C2."

"Hello. Hello, Charlotte. Are you testing the LUS?"

"See? C2 gets it right. Yep, I'm pretty sure all the major bugs are worked out, but I need to get Charlotte riled up to really test its limits."

"What? I don't want to get 'riled up', that's stupid—"

"Hey, Curls, I've actually been thinking about this whole supervillain thing. It's pretty sad that none of the other supers are really helping us."

"Oh, right? They're supposed to be our allies, they're SUPPOSED to be HEROES. It's terrible that they're not doing anything—more worried about their Public Identities, like THEY'LL have any value once the world gets taken over by supervillains. Huh. You know what I think? I think they're so comfortable in their Public Identities that they've FORGOTTEN they even HAVE Secret Identities."

"Okay, that's good," says Daniel. He's looking at the big screen. "You can settle down now—"

"Oh right, I can just 'settle down', like it's that easy—this problem is NOT getting solved by 'settling down'. 'Settling down' is what got us in this mess in the first place—if every single hero hadn't 'settled down' and hidden or whatever then MAYBE we would've NOTICED—"

"Seriously, Curls, calm yourself. I'm not worried about the LUS but you look like you're about to pop a vein or something."

"Huh. HUH."

"You're frustrated," C2 says to me. "And you feel disappointed in the other scientifically promoted individuals, those who your parents once called allies."

"You going somewhere with this?" Daniel asks.

"I was wondering. Is it possible that Mr Falchion would help you? He is wealthy and powerful, and his influence—"

"Yeah, exactly. He's accepted by the mundanes, why would he risk that?"

"Risk? RISK? I'll tell you what 'risk' is, 'risk' is doing NOTHING and just LETTING—"

"Curls, you're just repeating yourself. Yeah, I get it, I agree, it'd be great if we could do something to fight these supervillains, but they're just too careful. We're never going to catch them except by luck."

"Then we have to at least put ourselves in a position where we might GET lucky!"

"I agree." C2 smiles at me—a proper smile. "I agree with Charlotte. It's clear that these people are organised and highly motivated, and skilled at keeping their operations secret. Their plan has been progressing for a long time unopposed. Even now, it may be too late to stop it."

"Not doing such a great job of cheering me up."

"I'm sorry. My point is that you are correct; someone has to fight. More active investigation is necessary, we must do more to uncover the plans and motivations of these people."

"It's fine to say that," says Daniel, "but unless—"

"I believe we should go to Powerstone City."

Daniel and I both stare at C2.

"Huh?" Daniel says. "You ... huh?"

"I have three reasons; separate, but interrelated. First, as we discussed, Powerstone City's lack of significant change over the past two years is suspicious. If those behind Segregation are based there then they may be avoiding suspicion by controlling or influencing criminal activities in their local area. Another possibility is that they are planning an operation centred in or near Powerstone City, in which case they would not risk drawing attention to the area beforehand—to clarify, they would not conduct 'small' operations before conducting the 'large' operation. This leads to my second and third reasons. As previously discussed, the georod plant in Powerstone City is the largest in Nowhere Zone and one of the largest in the world. Additionally, it's not just a production plant. It is also a recycling facility. It is possible that spent georods may be just as valuable to the supervillains as live georods."

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Daniel is looking kind of stunned. I think I am too. I mean, I knew C2 was smart, but this is something else entirely.

"Earlier," she continues, "I made the point that georods are the only power source in the world to have an aura. Generally speaking, this is correct. I believe that most people would not include unique power sources in such a statement, and so I did not."

"You're talking about the powerstone," Daniel says. "You're right, it does have an aura. One of the strongest in the world."

C2 nods, pleased.

"If the supervillains are interested in auraed energy sources," she says, "then they must see the powerstone as an object of desire."

"Even without the aura," I add, kind of not wanting to be left out, "just ANY supervillain would love to get their hands on the powerstone. It's just so, I don't know, tempting."

"But there's a reason no one's ever managed to steal it," Daniel says. "You know, Curls, probably better than me, I bet you could name every supervillain who's tried and failed—"

"Well, Distraxion was technically the first but really he wasn't actually trying to steal the powerstone, he just wanted to use it to—oh okay fine," I say, at Daniel's growing look of mock-horror, "but you did ASK—"

"I didn't, actually, I just said that you could name every failed attempt, not that you should. My point is that in the..."

"Seventeen attempts."

"—to steal or otherwise 'use' the powerstone, nobody's even come close to succeeding. Right? I mean, it's right in the middle of Galaxy Tower, the security there is unbelievable—well, it's powering the whole city and most of the rest of the country, of course they'd protect it well. Hah, you'd need an army just to..."

Daniel trails off, frowning.

"An army," I repeat. "Like the one the supervillains have with all the Segregated people."

"Okay, okay, sure, let's just step back from this a moment," Daniel says. "Even if all of this is right, it's not up to us to do anything. We should just tell Mum and Dad, let them and the others know—"

"What? Are you kidding? They won't do anything—Daniel, I love Mum and Dad as much as you do but you have to agree that they're useless for this stuff. All they do is react, that's not going to help us here—"

"Calm down—"

"They're just not going to listen to us! Or actually they WILL listen to us and then they'll say something like 'those are certainly potential possibilities that we'll keep in mind for a very careful, useless investigation at some far future—possibly theoretical—date by which time it'll be too late anyway'."

C2 is frowning. "I'm almost certain that they wouldn't say that—"

"You get my point! Even if they listened to us and agreed that we might have a lead here they wouldn't actually do anything about it, nothing useful anyway, and definitely not soon enough. We're already so far behind these supervillains, we've got to run to catch up—and if that means sacrificing a little caution then so be it."

"Well, okay," Daniel says. "You might have accidentally stumbled over a couple of relevant points there. But aren't you forgetting something, Curls?"

I blink at him.

"Something Dr Tsezch did before he left?"

More blinking. More failing-to-recollect.

Daniel rolls his eyes. "The teleporter?"

"What about it?"

"Come on, Curls, I thought you were supposed to have this perfect memory—he put a lock on it. I don't have the key."

"Oh."

That's definitely a big obstacle. Without Daniel's teleporter—

"Of course, that's only on my prototype model."

"Huh?" I say. C2 is smiling down at her hands, that cute secret smile of hers. "C2, what's going on here?"

"I've been helping Daniel with some experiments. His new teleportation system. Being rezzed is quite thrilling."

"What?"

"Catch up, Curls. I was gonna do a big 'haha actually we CAN teleport you!' thing, but since your actually-not-at-all-perfect memory failed you, you kind of ruined it for me. So, yeah. Actually we CAN teleport you. Tah-dah."

"Well ... okay, well, good. Good! Then let's—"

"But it'll take a while to set up. The new system is more accurate and allows non-phased matter to be transported, but it requires a lot of prep work."

"Like ... days?"

"What? No! An hour at the most. It's ... early afternoon in NoZo right now—look, if we're going to do this we'd better figure out your plan—"

"Don't worry, I've got that covered. The Force and Motoplasm are in Powerstone City, so I'll just get in with them, they'll be my 'local contacts'. They might even already have some information about strange goings-on!"

"That guy Chass is operating out of Powerstone too," Daniel says. "You could—what's that face? Curls, why are you making that face?"

"Chass? Seriously? He's not even a real super, just some weird vigilante guy with a suit of homemade armour, I don't even want to talk to him."

"Have you read the reports, though? The dude's a total badass—and he gets into the really grubby places, the parts of the city the security firms won't touch, he might—"

"I don't care. Whatever he knows, I'm sure PROPER superheroes like The Force and Motoplasm will ALSO know."

"I just don't think you should dismiss the guy, maybe he's a little brutal but ... okay, fine, whatever. I'm pretty sure we've got an address for Motoplasm's clinic-thing here, I'll zap you nearby. Somewhere secluded, okay?"

"Good. Yes. Do that. C2, let's go get ready."