xx49.07.28 | 20:09 | Still Monday

Daniel had to call C2 twice before she even heard him, she was writing on her new Opal. Maybe she IS a diary sort of person. Huh.

Anyway, we're just about ready to go, exciting exciting exciting! Daniel's doing technical fiddly last-minute things to his teleporter, it's even rougher-looking than his first one, which looks like a glass tube. This new one is just a bunch of ... blocks. I think some kind of plastic? I just asked him, apparently they're the packing from some computer stuff. Oh, if you duct-tape two together they enclose the necessary components perfectly? Yes, Daniel, that just fills me with confidence. I mean, I know he'd never do anything that'd put me at risk but still, he could put more effort into appearance. Presentation, Daniel! Even the supervillains think that's important, their equipment is all futuristic and cool, shiny white plastic and glowing blue things and that kind of stuff. It's very cohesive and slick-looking and impressive. Meanwhile we're stuck with raw components duct-taped into packing material. The supervillains really do have us beat in EVERY department. Depressing.

Come on, come on—C2 is tapping away again, we're both writing, it's kind of fun, actually, her and me both keeping journals. I wonder what she's writing about? Probably something sensible and appropriate, not like my random blathering. Oh, I didn't write down about the thing Daniel gave me, to be honest (like I have a choice) I'm more than a little dubious about it.

"It's a power detector!" he said. It doesn't look like much, just a tiny black thing that plugs into my Opal. Apparently there's a psycroach brain in there, not exactly something I like thinking about but oh well. Here's the conversation I had with him about it:

"This is really clever, even for me. The dongle goes into one of your Opal's auxiliary slots and functions as a slave to the LUS. It's only because C2's here that I could do this, because it needs a control power to function. Hers is perfect because it totally blocks psychic signals, which means I can easily get an accurate percentage based on—"

"REALLY not in the mood for your babbling right now, Daniel. Just tell me what it does."

"Charlotte, maybe I can explain. I've worked with Daniel on this, and it is clever. The 'dongle' will constantly broadcast—"

"Could we POSSIBLY call it ANYTHING other than a 'dongle'?"

"What would you suggest?"

"I don't know, just—"

"PDD, then," said Daniel. "Power-Detecting Dongle."

"Fine."

"The PDD will constantly broadcast a pain signal—"

"Wait, pain? Why pain? Daniel—"

"Relax, you won't even feel it."

"But why PAIN? Why not happiness or something?"

"Because pain is simple and easily measured," Daniel said. "Maybe with time and testing I could use another form of psychic energy but for now pain works fine. Your copying of C2's power is imperfect, which ironically is perfect for our purposes. The more powers you're copying at once the weaker C2's psychic shielding will get for you. The weaker the psychic shielding, the more of the pain signal will get through—but don't worry. Like I said, even at full strength you wouldn't even feel a tingle. By measuring the relative strength of the pain signal we can easily deduce how many powers you're copying at that time, and thus the number of supers around you!"

"Huh," I said. "But—"

"Yes, yes, okay, so there are two flaws to the system—first that you have to be copying C2's power for it to work, and second that it doesn't actually measure the number of supers nearby, just the number of powers you're copying. But if the number goes up then you'll know that someone with a power just came within one thousand nine hundred and seventy millimetres of you."

"Just say twenty metres, please."

So anyway, apparently I now have a super detector on my Opal. I still don't like the idea of a 'pain signal' even if I can't actually feel it, but I guess this'll come in handy if oh my goodness the teleport's ready! Okay, I'm switching to MISSION MODE! LUS, activate!