Looking up at the entrance to Arcadia, Taylor was still uncertain if going to school again had been the right decision or not, but she was going through with it regardless. It had taken two weeks for the paperwork to go through and get her schedule finalized after her prior visit, now February had arrived and school with it.

Students were beginning to filter in, though she had arrived a bit early just to ensure she was well situated. A quick visit to the secretary saw to her schedule, and a hug to congratulate her on being mobile again.

That had been all well and good, and she used the given map of the school and her classes to update her own digital map and add markers and routes to her HUD. Her first class was in the east wing and she had well over thirty minutes to get there. She took her time, making her way to her locker first, grimacing at the memories that came unbidden, but this locker was only half-size compared to Winslow. Nobody would be cramming her inside.

From there, she made her way to the classroom.

“Bullshit!” someone exclaimed when she was almost to the door. Turning, she saw Amy Dallon, Panacea, marching over to her. “There’s no way you could be walking.”

“Just broadcast that for everyone to hear,” Taylor said as she got close. “I think a few people missed your pronouncement.”

Huffing, Amy grabbed her hand without permission, eyes turning glassy for a moment before they snapped up, looking her right in the eyes. “The fuck? You don’t have a brain.”

“Rude,” Taylor said. “What is it with capes insulting my intelligence like this?”

Amy stared blankly for a moment. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“Perhaps,” Taylor said, glancing at the students that were pointedly ignoring the conversation they were obviously not listening in on. “Surgeon visited me, she helped get me back on my feet.”

“Surgeon?” Amy asked, her face scrunching up in confusion. “She is notoriously difficult to get assistance from, hell, even my request went unanswered.”

“I got lucky,” Taylor said with a shrug. “I’d be happy to go into more detail once we don’t have a dozen people eavesdropping.”

Amy jerked back and let go of her hand before quickly glancing around and seeing the crowds quickly start to move on. Amy grumbled out an apology, but she only half listened to it as she scrambled the recordings of the few students that had tried to record the conversation.

Taylor sighed and started back off towards her class, but Amy kept pace with her. “Given my late transfer, they’ll probably start to assume I’m a new Ward or something.”

“You’re not?” Amy whispered. “I assumed you were after hearing about the trigger blackout from Vicky. Given Surgeon visited you, I figured you signed up.”

“Glad to hear that gossip spreads even when it shouldn’t among the heroes,” Taylor said. “No, I’m not joining the Wards.”

“Are you even a cape?” Amy asked and Taylor wanted nothing more than to slam her own head into a wall. Being an open cape seemed to have removed her sense of tact on the matter.

“I do not put on a costume and run around in the dead of night beating up gang idiots.”

“Oddly specific,” Amy muttered, then glanced at her watch. “Shit, I’m late for class!”

“Good luck with that,” Taylor said with a bit more glee than she should have.

As Amy took off at a run, she stepped into her own classroom, feeling oddly smug about the encounter. Idly, she pulled up her messenger app and fired off a message to Lisa, and replied to Riley’s update on the people who were hurt during the Nine’s weekend assault. She had included a request for a digital interface as well as suggestions for tweaks to the design of the controller module she’d built for her previously.

The Faraday cage limited her ability to access the net, but didn’t impede it entirely. She needed to find a workaround that allowed her full bandwidth again. Using a spoofed repeater exception and the connections of all the teachers would likely raise red flags in the system if she overdid it, even with the rewriting of the records.

Actually, she could just completely black out all her connections and see if anyone noticed the surge in the data stream. Trying just that, Taylor connected to her lab back at Toybox, uploading the schematics and began working in earnest. Making arms she could control remotely suddenly jumped up her priority list when she realized that she could be working on her shell remotely. How that had slipped her mind, well, Taylor could slap herself later.

With a smirk, Taylor created a new project file and began to run simulations on the updated module as the teacher came in and began their lecture. Taylor grinned and began to take notes for the class, enjoying that her cyberbrain allowed such a level of multitasking.

***

Lunch rolled around and Taylor felt trepidation working its way into her stomach. Memories of Winslow were coming unbidden as she forced herself to walk through the doors and get into the food line.

She could feel eyes on her, hear the whispers about the new girl, about how Panacea had confronted her in the halls. It was a saving grace that she wasn’t a Ward, because she would have been outed in an instant otherwise. Thankfully, the only new addition to the Wards so far was Shadow Stalker back in October, so she should be in the clear.

Of course, knowing her luck, a new female Ward would be introduced soon enough and everyone would assume it was her. She did her best to put that idea out of mind as she grabbed some pizza, then quickly surveyed the room and saw a grinning blonde waving at her from across the hall.

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Taylor scowled, recognizing Glory Girl was easy enough, and worse, she could see Amy at the table with her and that was just something she didn’t want to deal with on her first day. Glancing around, she saw a table with only a few people that was far enough away so as to not draw the blonde’s attention without making a scene.

She took a seat and began to eat her pizza. The pair across from her were eying her warily, but made no effort to talk to her, which was just fine. A ping in her mind showed Lisa was finally awake and they began exchanging pictures of cute cats to pass the time. It was almost funny that she seemed to be getting along with villains more than any of the heroes she had met.

She finished the pizza too fast for her to realize her mistake. She didn't have a physical phone, which meant she couldn’t fake being preoccupied and the redhead across from her seemed to take that as an open invitation.

“You’re the new girl?” he asked.

Taylor snorted. “What gave it away?”

The brown haired boy next to him rolled his eyes. “You mean besides everyone assuming you’re a Ward like they do with every new student we get?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Taylor said as dryly as she could. “People will believe whatever they want, and besides, I’m used to people talking about me.”

The redhead winced and Taylor wished she had an excuse to just leave, but there was still over half an hour left of their lunch break.

“Any hobbies?” the brown haired boy asked. “Oh, I’m Chris by the way, I think we kinda skipped introductions.”

“Taylor,” she said.

“Dennis,” the redhead tossed in.

Taylor considered the question, they were obviously trying to make small talk, and while she had been an unwilling recluse at Winslow, she didn’t want that reputation to follow her to Arcadia.

“I was fairly good at programming at Winslow, it was the only class I enjoyed.”

She still enjoyed it, even if her power did give her a leg up on what she could now pull off, the base knowledge certainly helped. Relying purely on her power was usually good enough, but sometimes it helped to consult actual science journals to get the best results. The more one’s power had to fill in the blanks, the more maintenance has to be done to keep it working.

“Never was very good at that myself,” Chris said with a wince. “Numbers and I aren’t friends.”

That was an interesting tidbit, and there were any number (heh) of explanations for that, but prying wouldn’t be productive to building a friendship.

“Programming can be pretty cool,” Dennis said. “Most of what I've done is just copy code from Aleph onto compatible hardware.”

Chris perked up, a twinkle in his eye. “Oh, you finally got the Game Boy Advance dump working?”

Dennis nodded, pulling a small device from his pocket. “Yeah, there’s a lot of games that never made it over from Aleph since Nintendo went out of business shortly after Kyushu.”

Taylor winced at the mention of the Endbringer attack, and it dawned on her that one day she might end up fighting one of the monsters currently tearing her world apart. Even with the most dangerous tech her powers could conceive, she couldn't think of anything that might make a difference in the fight itself, but teams of disposable shells working search and rescue were certainly doable, nevermind some of the tank designs.

Until those were an option, she would only join the fight if it was local. There was no point throwing her life away if she wouldn’t be able to make a difference.

Dennis seemed to realize that he had sunk the mood as well as the conversation and turned back to his own tray instead. Deciding that she was done, Taylor stood, but turned to the two boys.

“Last note aside, the conversation was pleasant, mind if I sit with you two going forward?”

Chris’ eyes widened a bit before he nodded enthusiastically. “Sure, we don’t mind, do we?”

Dennis shook his head. “Not at all, you’re always welcome Taylor, so feel free.”

She smiled, but left it at that, taking her tray with and dropping it off at the collection station. She had fifteen minutes still until the warning bell, but she thought she might be able to squeeze in a call with Lisa before her next class when movement caught her eye. Amy was coming right for her.

Just perfect.

Rather than deal with that, Taylor turned and made her exit, but the healer stayed right on her heel. She considered putting some of Riley's enhancements to use to lose her, but that would only serve to delay the coming conversation. Checking her map, Taylor located one of the few empty classrooms and made her way there, ignoring Amy's indignant protests about slowing down.

Once inside, she waited for the heroine to come inside and then shut the door behind them and locked it. The healer jumped, spinning in place at the sudden noise, a look of alarm quickly replaced by wariness.

“Let’s get this over with. Yes I’m a cape, no I’m not active in Brockton Bay, yes I’ve joined a group, Toybox specifically, which is how I met Surgeon.”

Amy’s mouth snapped shut, whatever question on her lips dying with Taylor’s rapid fire explanation. Amy leaned back against the closest desk, a frown now on her face.

“Okay, that explains some of it, but why can’t I see your brain? There is a massive dead zone in your head to my power.”

“I thought you couldn’t do anything with brains.”

“Do no, see yes,” she answered with a bit of a snarl. “It’s like you have a foreign object there instead.”

“Because I do,” Taylor said, tapping the side of her head. “I’m a cybernetics Tinker. With the help of Cranial and Surgeon, I put my brain into a computerized case and reinstalled it into my head.”

Amy blinked, leaning forward a bit on her perch. “That’s insane, how would you even start a process like that?”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “With the help of fellow experts in your field. I was going to do it on my own, but the others insisted they call in some favors and do it right.”

“Still insane,” she grumbled. “Toybox isn’t exactly known to be heroic in nature, you know.”

“I’m aware, but you want to know something funny?” Taylor asked. When all Amy did was glare at her, Taylor let out a weary sigh. “Every hero I have met has harassed and hounded me relentlessly, you included. The villains have been better. Toybox has treated me like family, the Empire took no for an answer, and the other villain I met was polite as shit and we’re sharing cute pictures of cats in our spare time.”

“Cats?” Amy said with a monotone voice.

Taylor knew she needed to get a phone just for appearance’s sake. Once school let out she would see if Lisa could help her pick one out. Singling out the signal from Amy’s phone, she forwarded a few of the pictures to her number, resulting in several pings sounding. Amy pulled out her phone, alarmed at what she saw.

“How?”

“Tinker bullshit,” Taylor answered. “If you want to be friends, I’m okay with that, but please stop running me down or trying to out me as a cape in the halls. I had enough harassment at Winslow, thank you. I just want to go to school in peace, and I really hope that isn’t too much to ask.”

Taylor let the statement hang in the air and exited the classroom, slamming the door behind her as she did. Just in time too as the warning bell sounded. With a sigh, Taylor activated her navigation suite and followed the overlay to her next class. She was silently hopeful that the rest of her day would be free of bullshit.