“The siVis Incident Protocol involves eliminating any possibility available to the victim,” Conrad turned his attention back to the “round table”. “With the knock on wood in mind, this should be fairly easy. She seemingly relies on melee, so the usual bells and whistles should do it. Bombard with Dizzies, have the Enforcers in formations to stun, bind, contain. We appeal to whatever heart’s in there, and if nothing looks back at us? Then we do the improvised Null Rays idea and bottle her up for further research.”

“And no humanitarian option for a mercy kill?” Diami responded to that.

Conrad sighed, “If any of that doesn’t work? Then we shoot to kill, yes. I feel like the public would at least respond favorably as long as we were steady and did everything we could have. Is any of this to everyone’s satisfaction?”

Before anyone could voice their responses, there was a pinging sound that startled Tabby (she then wanted to look down at her ORACLE, but that would be giving everything away so she proceeded not to be stupid).

“Incoming call from the Masters Family…” Genichi confirmed. At this point, Tabby could barely keep her heart in her chest, feeling it raise within her throat. Still had to act natural, as every important person in the world suddenly started to show up at once.

“The prodigal daughter returns…” Arthur sighed out.

“Maybe this IS dire than we thought—” Joy quipped.

“Put them on the line,” Conrad commanded.

Another slither of screen came online, but it was way different from the others. Whereas the others had their faces and clothing in full detail, despite the blue/teal hue—the Masters appeared as inverted silhouette (Tabby mentally self-slapped herself for such a botch of a description)—in the sense that they were colored in a blue/teal hues, save for their simplistic expressions.

Grace Masters, her expressions were of grave worry.

“We’ve just heard the news and we’re on our way,” Grace had her hands together. “It might take a few days, but—”

“It hasn’t changed your usual involvement, so no need to add anything else,” Arthur snarked at her.

In those few moments of silence, Tabby gleamed Grace’s expressions. Instant annoyance, then sadness, bitterness, a flare of anger, quickly cooling into resignation. Bitterness.

It could’ve been the side effect of her siVis, to present such raw and complicated emotion—or the fact she wore her heart on her sleeve in her own nature. Which came first, Tabby wondered.

“And you Extant continue to lash out underhandedly under P.R. theatrics while having no idea what you’re talking about,” the tallest brother spoke, the screen even animating his headdress. Alvis rose his hand to his chin, “The status quo works both ways, I suppose.”

“We don’t need this right now,” the stocky brother Hale bluntly stated. Nothing but a bulky specimen, especially for his age. “Not when people are in dire need right now.”

“Well said, son!” the hearty father had his hands on both brothers shoulders, and is behind Grace, towering over her. Muscly himself, but his tallness even things out better, and despite the flowy robes he wore along with the rest of his children, both were still way too noticeable. Despite all of this, he still sounded like a regular dad, a bumbling Joe (“Joe Normal”).

Owen began to speak again, with light confusion and a bit of worry in his tone. “Should we avoid Davenport in that case then? I sense that we’re not needed…”

“Oh no, it’s just that we always welcome you or your acolytes—it’s just that you tell us no every single time when we needed heavy lifting the most, is all—” Joy responded.

“You know exactly why—” Grace became sharp with her tone.

“Yes, you are afraid of the power imbalance with you having as much as power as you do—referring it as being a ‘superhero’, if I can remember,” Bogdan scratched at his sideburns. “And as we continuously tried to offer you in our many talks, we would be happy to check and balance your reach without it becoming tilted in either of our favors. Our current relationship, as it stands, with you offering yourselves as a humanitarian relief effort—is more than enough right now. We are associates, not partners. Co-workers.”

“Meaning that you can’t join personal meetings like these unless there’s been updates,” Arthur finished with a shrug. “I’m sorry, but you pushed us away with legitimate reasons, so we’re a bit confused and irritated that you keep barging in—”

“Limited time table, people—” Diana reminded, pointing at her bare wrist.

“Okay, fine, we’re all bound to politics or whatever—” Grace rolled her eyes. “We’re coming in a few days to help, if there’s more Awakenings and one of our members want to help—if they can, let them help. We stopped the possible Drought-siVis-Ability problem where Quadale, California—”

“Love you, despite the ragging—” Arthur added.

Grace chuckled. “Okayfinethatwasveryneededandabitfunny, but yeah… If things really hit the fan, at least hold out until we come and try to find contact with us. You guys look like you need it so I’m bending my usual rules a bit.”

“Understood, Ms. Masters,” Conrad nodded. “And trust me, if all else fails, I think we’d be desperate to even use your littlest sibling.”

Each of the family had a reaction to that. Alvis shook his head in bemusement, Hale hummed a bit neutrally, while Owen chuckled nervously.

Grace just winced a bit. “Hopefully, we’ll be there faster than you opening that can of worms, yeah.”

Tabby in that moment wanted to turn on her ORACLE, to fish out an image or an article she wrote about Joan Masters—to get a fresher image in her mind other than the current one she had. All she remembered was how guarded her existence was, how the world at large never knew about her until she was 12, how she was just as strong—possibly more so—than Grace, who is a literal superhero in real life.

While Tabby didn’t have a fresh image, she did remember her blank, bored stare. And with that memory, the link of information—the fear—that she’s the first of an upcoming generation of children. Affected by siVis, affected by Shifts, thus molded by them versus the little penance of life ever could. Thus alien minded, distant. Uncaring.

Tabby got the concern instantly, as it plunged and the coldness of it stabbed her in her chest.

“Anyways, please, try to survive this. I know you can,” Grace waved, along with her family, as they signed off.

“We might as well call this meeting adjourned,” Conrad stated. “We’ll be receiving aid both in supplies and emergency transport ships, we must remedy the public trust by not only negating this incident, but showing them that we are on the cusp on returning to normalcy, and thus—more aggressive methods to show this must be discussed on a latter date after this incident is contained. We hope to help Desiree Schwartz by taking her in to study her condition, but a mercy killing is the last resort. These are the results, we are forever Extant.”

Each Extant head nodded, and signed off as they did, letting Tabby to finally exhale.

“…You say it to each other as well--?” Mr. Davenport regained confidence to be annoying again.

“Again, you’re with me, Mr. Davenport,” Conrad begun to turn around, with Professor Blake in tow.

Tabby jumped up, running to the trio. “I—uh, just a few questions for him, won’t take long, I promise!”

Professor Diana irked an eyebrow, “Fate of the world, and you wanna do an interview with him?”

Tabby bit her lip, eyes scanning for whatever as her mind tried to conquer the freshest bullshit.

“Aaaaas one of the children he damned, I kinda wanna talk about his fault in that. Apart of my angst, y’know? I get to finally unload~”

Diana rolled her eyes with a groan, but crossed her arms so she could respond professionally. “Up to you, Miller.”

“…Just make it quick, dear,” Conrad began to roll away, with Diana in tow as the vault opened, causing them to make haste.

Tabby turned to Davenport as it closed, eyeing him dismissively.

“If you really want an explanation,” Mr. Davenport drily began. “I really think—despite all of this breaking you all and depriving you of the life you were promised; I truly think your generation has the potential to end this mess. We survived equally worse in previous eras, just that this one involves metaphysics being a thing—”

“I’m only gonna ask for two things,” Tabby narrowed her eyes. “Can’t really stand the sight of you, so that’s why I’m making it quick, more than anything—”

“For?” Mr. Davenport instantly perked up. “So, you’re not going to drag my name across the Aether after all… Again--?”

Tabby looked down at her ORACLE, “I fashioned this mess out of some spare ORACON parts—It’s my ORACLE, get it? Get it?” She fumbled, taking the lens, and detaching it—a rather square chunk coming off as she offered it to the man. “It’s in a mode where it’s still recording things passively. I need you to take it with you and let it move around.”

Mr. Davenport wasn’t surprisingly flummoxed at the demand this girl was making to him, but the fact that she made this.

“You modded a camera into a… Into a passive surveillance item?!” he tilted his head.

“It’s a hooobby,” Tabby bemoaned. “Don’t act like I created something new, pal—”

“Well no but—you can do a lot more with a camera, make it a drone, create it as a light cannon that robs nearby electronics of power, even a makeshift trap where you create a very poor replication of reality where you capture your enemies with a flash—but this is still impressive… Forget ‘potentially’, you kids can definitely stop all this at this rate!”

“I know that you have ORACON on your person in the event of emergency, so just let this thing have legs or some hover device—nothing complex that gets in the way, but you literally said trap camera, so I’m having second thoughts—”

“I’ll give it legs, girl, just to spite you—” Mr. Davenport frowned at him, taking the lens, looking at it while shaking his head. “And the second thing?”

“Give me the keys to use Shiftication—” Tabby ordered.

“Now you’re just escalating into possible danger--!” Mr. Davenport waved his arms.

“I know the transport functions are locked and only used for emergencies,” Tabby crossed her arms. “I’m risking it—I need to do a live coverage of this thing.”

Mr. Davenport looked down at her, face softening a tad. Tabby shivered and felt weirded out, about to voice her uncomfort—

“What’s your motive…? To keep doing this…?”

That caused Tabby to soften a bit as well, looking down before shrugging.

“I like being a celebrity, in a sense. I like it because I can use my resources and influence people properly. I can… Like, guide people and I don’t have to have the ego of a prophet or anything. I’m me, and people look to me because they see themselves with power to do things. It’s a weird thing, but I’m happy to be a weird that that’s beneficial for once nowadays. It’s a scatter thought of me needing to be kind so people can be kind themselves.”

“So you still have a Messiah complex, right,” Mr. Davenport surmised, causing Tabby to legitimately growl at him. “But hey. At least you know it is and you’re nursing it healthy.”

The man pulled a brace out of his pocket, silver and white rectangular button, he grabbed Tabby’s left hand and slapped it on her wrist.

“Telling you right now,” Mr. Davenport looked in her eyes. “It’ll ruin you one day—sharing your heart with an entire people. They grab it in various directions that cause you to seize up in pain, and in directions you’re just not able to stretch far into. And once your heart tears, you’ll end up a husk on autopilot. No recovering from that. Your heart is yours and you need it.”

The worst part for Tabby, staring at this man’s eyes made her find the human that was once there, long ago. She broke from him, and looked at her clad wrist.

“Just a button? That’s really it?”

“You never know, buttons can literally determine your life…” Mr. Davenport leaned to the side. “My life’s been ruled and defined by buttons, of all colors.”

“…You’re a strange man, y’know that?” Tabby grimaced at him.

Mr. Davenport shrugged and had a hand in his pocket, “I’ll make it have legs as I walk, kid. Plus a reactive motion sensor so it can crawl to the most important thing, but of course it’ll be wonky. I’m guessing you want it in the Enforcer briefing as well?”

“If you’d be so kind, or have a kind bone in your body after all—whatever makes Hell colder,” Tabby quipped.

“You know it’s not your night when the supposed ‘nice one’ is chewing you out too…” Mr. Davenport begun to walk out, hand still in pocket as Tabby caught his covered hand making movement. “I’m serious about not losing that heart, kid. Don’t be like me. Or, don’t end up people like Taber. We all go out the same way, so tired that you don’t care that it’s the end of you.”

The girl sighed, sensing the wisdom in the words dreadfully. “Sure. Keeping it in mind.”

She walked to the vault after, and saw it open, stepping out only to be greeted by the guards.

“Shall we escort you to a nearby shelter?”

“Please…”

She walked with the guards, back down the ramp and into the way she came in. But she couldn’t care any more about that.

She donned the ORACLE again, putting it on as she cracked the lensless side and popped a button, causing another scouter—built in and shorter, to take it’s place. There, she could see Davenport’s fingers as if they were cyrtids, blurring the shot without any sound. Soon, something—the lens—was beginning to move, shaking as it latched onto something.

Tabby glanced back to reality and nearly bumped into an Extant people of the Nexus, and somehow became MORE awkward as instead of bumping into them, Tabby immediately frozen in a way where she stiffened in the middle of the floor and nearly tripped—

“Sorry sorry!” Tabby waved her hands and found her balance. The Enforcers kindly stopped and resumed walking.

She continued to watch the footage and her blood ran cold when she was already shaking due to embarrassment (and possibly getting caught by a crowd of smart people).

Davenport had the lens right out in the open, basically on his knee. It took awhile for her mind to slow down from sheer panic to get that he did the unthinkable.

He fashioned it into a ring. A fat ring that no one ever seen him wear, in the literal command room.

She wanted to scream, she wanted to curse, but she was at the teleports already, and was forced to take the ORACLE off and step inside.

Closing her eyes, she imagined the various, terrible ways Mr. Davenport could get his just desserts.

She didn’t care about how long the teleportation took and the flash, as soon as she could get out and be on solid ground, and put on the ORACLE again.

There, she saw a ton of people, crowds of people, just on Aethernet. Families crowded together, people alone, people that were unwillingly alone. She realized that it was her normal sight, not the footage.

But she looked at said footage anyways, to distract her a bit. While Mr. Davenport hasn’t gotten caught yet—all Tabby could see was an A.R. grid, Enforcers huddled together in the hundreds, and Conrad drawing a circle, then a square within it, and finally a triangle—at a single dot. Clearly the target.

The guards appeared behind her, and she turned around.

“I gotta whizz, boys—” Tabby couldn’t make that sentence more obtuse. “Been nervy since this all happened. No need to guard me to them.”

“Fair dues,” the Enforcer gestured to his right. “That way.”

Tabby gave a thumbs up, and turned to that way as the Enforcers and the Extant heads mobilized, a door opening leading to who knows where.

Davenport remained, lifting his hand up on the knee to look at his face and giving a cheeky wave. Tabby huffed, before she saw the hand lower back down, and then the footage shook.

The lens must’ve launched from his finger, and is following the troops’ footsteps.

Good. He has some… Honor, at least.

Once Tabby got into the bathroom, she hit the wall with her back, looked around, and hit her new bracelet. Causing the Shiftication to swallow her whole, she let her pod steadily bring her to the surface.

“What’s it going to be…” She mused to herself. “Another incident, another reason to hate this place—be resigned in the daily tragedies once more…? Or this being the breaking point…”

She looked at the footage, and what she saw…

Dead of night. The Enforcers were in formation, as the Lens crawled away to a view that captured the left flank, but captured the rest of the long, now neutered, Steppe Ave street. White barrier pulsating.

And without warning, a screaming, veiny monster emerged from the veil, causing the Enforcers to stay steady, but march towards their possible doom.

“Whatever it is… Whatever the conclusion to this… Dictates the future of our feeble existence. I just hope for another chance.”