Taylor Hebert remained silent, her eyes fixed on the white-painted door, listening to Danny's footsteps receding down the hall.
Hebert sighed and sank a little deeper into her bed's pillows. She stopped suppressing her emotions and decided to confront them in this moment of rest, now that she was alone, ready to use her expected volatile temper as an excuse if she were caught.
"(Shaper. We need to talk about the next step)," Taylor thought, closing her eyes to visualize the data nexus in her mind. "(I need a duplicate. A flesh puppet so that when Danny leaves town, he'll be seen with it in his car... I also need it to dissolve into thin air after a certain time or distance.)"
[Analysis: Creation of Independent Replicating Unit (Duplicate). Status: Not Recommended / Low Efficiency.] Shaper. Who, just a few hours earlier, had seemed eager to reshape Danny's biology. I delivered a torrent of information that felt like a bucket of cold water.
Taylor frowned. "(Why? I can't auto-create, but you have my genetic map and cellular control. Just organize the biomass.)"
[Explanation], Shaper vibrated, sending a cascade of biological models into her consciousness. [Creating a complex organism from scratch requires a massive investment of metabolic energy. The skeletal structure, vascular system, and, above all, the functional neural network cannot be instantly assembled from what is available. Without a processing core, the brain is directly connected to the Administrator; the duplicate would be a mass of inert tissue in less than four hours. The effort required to maintain homeostasis remotely would exceed the Host's current capabilities.]
Disillusionment hit Taylor hard. She had imagined himself walking out of the hospital triumphant as a duplicate fooled the world, but the technical reality of his fragments was far more rigid.
"(Are you telling me you can't do it?)." She asked with a hint of irritation.
[Correction: It's possible, but the cost in high-quality biomass and the minimum gestation time of over 120 hours make it unfeasible for immediate replacement. The result would be an unstable aberration. Suggestion: Prioritize optimization of the main body and control of smaller external units.] Shaper.
Taylor opened her eyes, frustration tightening her jaw.
If she couldn't leave a duplicate, her escape plan became more complicated.
After all, the sudden departure of Danny, a father who, after losing his wife in an accident, only had one daughter, a daughter who could have ended up in a coma from being covered in dirt after suffering repeated abuse and assault, was normal and something that no one would discover or investigate.
Ideally, that would have been what allowed for a clean exit. One that would leave Taylor calm, allowing her to wash her hands of it and forget about it over time. "(If Danny leaves and I'm left here alone, they're going to think something's wrong)," Taylor reasoned. "(They're going to put me under surveillance. And with that snake playing both sides, it's only a matter of time before she tries to use me or eliminate me.)"
[Disclosure: The risk of parahuman detection has been previously mitigated.] QA, who until that moment had remained silent, overseeing both her companions and the small insect network, intervened.
Taylor tensed. "(What do you mean, Administrator?)"
[Cloak Protocol], QA replied. [Moments before the healer known as Panacea initiated the Host's restoration, a direct order was issued to Shaper to suppress Corona Pollentia activity. The fragment was instructed not to reveal the activation of the connection during the healer's touch-scanning process.]
[Due to the urgency of the case and the traumatic nature of the injuries, the healer focused exclusively on repairing damaged tissue and removing toxins. She did not perform an in-depth neurological analysis. Under this Administrator's direction, the parahuman nexus ended up as inert scar tissue.] Shaper accompanied.
Taylor let out a sigh she hadn't known she was holding in. "(So... no one knows?)"
[Status: Unknown to third parties], Shaper confirmed. [The hospital has full confidence in its healer's judgment. And since Panacea did not report an active corona, the support staff assigned for possible parahuman activity has classified the Host as civilian. No in-depth analysis has been performed, nor have the Impact Brigade's surveillance protocols been activated.]
This revelation changed everything. The weight Taylor felt on her shoulders lightened considerably. If the hospital and the PRT believed she was simply a normal girl who had survived brutal bullying, Danny's departure wouldn't be scrutinized. It would simply be seen as the erratic behavior of a broken man and an incompetent father.
In a town like Brockton Bay, where social services were overwhelmed by the Capas' crises and the difficult task of distinguishing between illicit and legal money, someone leaving town with their daughter after a trauma wasn't a priority.
"(Then I don't need the duplicate)," Taylor realized, a cold smile spreading across her face. "(I can ride along with Danny for a while, just far enough to be seen leaving town, and then walk back or find my way back.)"
[Confirmed] added Shaper, sounding relieved not to have to waste energy creating a defective clone.
Taylor leaned back, beginning to weave a web of far more ambitious plans. "(Very well)," feeling the buzz of a fly landing on the doorknob, Hebert sighed. "(If we're not going to waste energy on a duplicate, we'll use it for something better…Shaper, I want you to start thinking about possible upgrades, prioritizing them based on their importance and considering their potential delay or cost. By the time Danny finally leaves, I want to be ready for my first hunt."
[…]
[Consultation… proposal.]
.
.
.
Taylor looked at her hands in the moonlight streaming through the window. They seemed like normal hands, the hands of a girl who had suffered too much.
When the headlights of a passing truck touched her, Hebert closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the city's traffic through thousands of tiny beings. Every single one of them was hers.