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triscribe · 3 years

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Swing Batter Batter

Part of a larger fic posted on AO3 over here, in which token metahuman abilities are pretty common, and it’s not unusual to encounter a circus kid who can fly, or a cop who gets impressions of a person’s intentions when shaking their hand, or in this case, a street thief with super strength.

-Swing-

When he registered the Bat standing over him, Jason didn’t think, he just grabbed and swung as hard as he could. If he’d been a regular scrawny street kid, he didn’t doubt the tire iron would just bounce off with barely a bruise to show for the effort. But Jason stopped counting as ‘regular’ last year, and his skinny arms were plenty strong enough to land a blow that knocked the Bat clear off his feet.

Jason then promptly ran for his life.

He made it to the end of the alley and swerved first around the corner, and again into the narrow gap between wall and dumpster. There he froze, heart pounding, hands shaking, as he waited for either Batman’s footsteps to go past his hiding place like so many others, or for one of those big hands to grab his hoodie and yank him out into the open.

...a couple minutes of nothing went by.

...and then a few more.

Jason’s heart kept pounding at breakneck speed, but shifted from running on adrenaline to fear. He eased himself back out from behind the dumpster, and peeked around the alley corner. Just to double check; maybe the Bat decided to chase him from above, and that fourth tire could be retrieved after all-

Except two thick-soled boots were laying next to the fancy car.

Shit.

He’d killed the Bat.

Shit shit shit - every crook in Gotham would be out for Jason’s blood, looking to curbstomp the little pest trying to make a name for himself. Or worse, someone nuts would show up like the effing Joker in order to get revenge over not getting to off the Bat himself-

One boot shifted. A deep voice wheezed. Jason nearly fell over in relief.

And then, because the Bat didn’t move again, and because Jason was an idiot of the worst kind, he edged his way back towards the car and the crimefighter lying prone beside it. “Uh. Batman? You gonna be okay?”

Another wheeze. Jason got close enough to peek around the car’s fender, and saw the man just staring upwards through the narrowed lenses of his mask. It took a second, but the Bat could apparently tell when he was being watched, because he tilted his head and the lenses opened up a little more so he could stare back. “...’f Robin were here,” the man grumbled, “He’d ask, if you swing for the Knights...”

Jason’s face spasmed as he tried not to laugh. “Nope. Maybe when I’m older, if they pay good.”

Batman snorted, and then wheezed again, one hand starting to grab for his stomach only to stop and clench into a fist. “Got the same spot, as Killer Croc, two nights ago.”

At that, Jason winced. He’d only ever seen Croc in newspaper pictures before, but the guy was definitely huge, and it didn’t take a leap of logic to assume he hit hard, too. “Uh. Sorry?”

The Bat gave an aborted huff. Slowly, he pushed himself up, palms flat to the ground. Then he rolled, to pull one knee underneath himself, and gradually stood while leaning against the car. Jason made sure to keep out of arm’s reach.

After that, the man just braced himself and breathed for a minute, before shifting enough to once again peer down at Jason. “I assume you took the tires to sell.”

He nodded.

“How much?”

Jason lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Depends on which chop shop I take ‘em to. At least a hundred apiece, maybe a bonus if I get all four.” That probably wouldn’t be an option, seeing as he’d wasted enough time for the Bat to get back to his feet. Honestly, Jason needed to run at this point, but he still felt kinda bad. Batman was just about the only good thing in Gotham as far as working folks were concerned, and even if he wasn’t dead, it didn’t seem right to leave him alone and hurting in Crime Alley...

Jason blinked when a roll of green suddenly appeared in front of his face. “Five hundred,” Batman said dryly, “If you bring back the other three.”

Well hot damn.

In the space of twenty minutes, Jason not only brought back the tires he’d spirited off, he went ahead and put ‘em back on the car, just ‘cause the Bat didn’t seem inclined to bend and use his stomach muscles any time soon. And besides, five hundred dollars. That would be food and rent and even new clothes when the weather turned cold.

As he worked, though, Jason couldn’t help but feel Batman’s gaze on him. It didn’t seem angry, didn’t raise the hairs on the back of his neck like when certain guys leered, but he still started to feel just the slightest bit antsy. And then, right as he was tightening up the bolts on the final tire, the Bat made his move. “You don’t want to go into foster care, do you.”

Jason scoffed at that.

“Have you been flagged as a meta?”

“‘Course not, never told anyone. Didn’t get strong until after I was on my own, and I’m not stupid enough to put a target on my back to get ‘recruited’ by any of the gangs.”

The Bat hummed.

-Swing-

Jason Peter Todd-Wayne

Date of Birth: August 16th, 1996

No Known Meta Abilities

“Man, rich people get away with anything,” Jason huffed. “Park wherever you want, buy shit you’re not s’posed to have, falsify your paperwork...”

Bruce just grunted, but it was an agreeable sound rather than an annoyed one. And, privately, Jason couldn’t help but feel pleased by the adoption paperwork, his brand new name right at the top of the page.

Which just left the matter of deciding on his other name.

When Bruce had found the pages torn out of a notebook with costume designs sketched out and messy notes in the margins, he’d glanced at Jason out of the corner of his eye and haltingly said he could be the new Robin. And part of Jason felt thrilled by the idea, but-

But.

Robin flew. He soared around skyscrapers, did somersaults mid-air, zipped along just above the ground to take crooks out at the knees. Jason didn’t do that - Jason couldn’t do any of that. The closest he’d ever get to flight would be grappling from perch to perch like Batman did. Which, admittedly, was really insanely awesome, but still.

Jason couldn’t be Robin.

-Swing-

...at least, not until he sat on the Manor roof one evening a few weeks later with Dick Grayson, who sighed and smiled at him. “You could wear them, y’know. My colors. My suit.”

“But- our powers-”

“Are different,” Dick agreed, “But that just means we bring different strengths to the playing field. Literal strength, in your case.” He grinned and ruffled Jason’s hair.

Batting away the playful fingers, Jason took a few moments to consider it. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. I will.”

(Dick still argued viciously with Bruce in nine out of ten conversations. But every so often he’d come by to pick up Jason, and they’d go flying over the forested property, or drive into the city to get ice cream, or a dozen other things Dick very firmly insisted on referring to as Civilian Brotherly Bonding Activities. And a couple years later, when Jason started having his own problems with Bruce, and found his birth certificate in an old box with a different woman’s name listed as his mother-

Well.

He knew just who to go to with it.)

#Jason Todd #bruce wayne #dick grayson #batman au #fan fiction #fix-it fic #metahuman au #DC comics

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whispersafterdusk · 3 years

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Lost in Time - ch 9

With one of the Flying Pigs standing watch up above (and since they were camping out here anyway there would ALWAYS be someone watching the entrance) Arlo and the rest of the Civil Corps were free to head down into the facility to help herd the scholars along. With the power still off they had to drag around the power stone brackets still if they wanted overhead lighting rather than relying on flashlights and lanterns; Arlo was getting pretty practiced at opening up the wall paneling and wiring those up now and was looking forward to having the facility's lights powered properly so he wouldn't have to do that every time the scholars moved on to a new room.

Today wasn't especially exciting; the scholars had picked one of the floors full of the dorm rooms (but free of skeletons) and were carefully examining each room and taking copious amounts of notes on each and every item inside, where it was sitting, and, in the case of the technological gadgets left behind, what its function was (or what they THOUGHT it was - Eli was downstairs with Petra and Mali so she wasn't available to confirm or correct their guesses). He wasn't paying close attention to the scholars or their note-taking - it was very easy to be distracted by the thought that he was standing inside some ancient person's home; all the other ruins he'd been in previously had all been industrial and manufacturing, not domestic. It was a strange feeling to catch a glimpse of one way that Old World people had lived, and aside from the technology it...didn't seem all that different from his own room. ((Continued below cut))

For one fleeting moment he wondered if in another three hundred years they'd be studying what existed now but considering a Calamity was what put them in this current situation in the first place...he certainly hoped people in the future wouldn't need to study his time period in this manner. It was a good thing to know history but he felt there'd be a big difference between studying what was LEFT of a civilization compared to studying the PAST of a civilization.

He was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps in the hall behind him; as Arlo stepped out of the doorway he could just spy Selene approaching in the dim light.

"Trouble?"

Selene shook her head at him and waited until she was closer to respond. "Nope! I've got the tool - well, tools - done. All shined up and ready to go. Had a small problem with air bubbles in the first casting but these are attempt number two and seem to be perfect."

Arlo nodded to her then gestured for her to lower her voice. "Eli, Mali, and Petra are downstairs somewhere. I'm babysitting up here."

"Oh." Selene's face scrunched up. "Well, that throws a wrench into things."

"How's that?"

"Well, Paulie wasn't free today and we might need muscle. I figured you'd be willing to come along to get that panel loose. Guess I should've asked someone up top to come down as back up."

Arlo blew out a sigh and looked over his shoulder toward the room the scholars were poking around in; he'd been told not to leave them alone, no matter how safe it seemed. And he didn't want them underfoot while they were trying to repair whatever this relay box thing was. "I can't really leave this group alone otherwise I'd be happy to come lend a hand."

Selene ran a hand through her hair, huffing. "All right...uh... I'll just pop back up top and get Asher to come do it, or take your place, or something."

"You know, between you, Mali, and Eli, you might not NEED extra muscle," he called after her as she turned to head back the way she'd come.

She waved over a shoulder to him but didn't turn around. "Not taking that chance!" was her reply, and then she was little more than a distant silhouette in the gloomy lighting.

"Something the matter?"

Arlo turned to find Edgar poking his head out of the room. "-nah. Nothing at all," he replied. "How much longer did you all plan to be down here?"

Edgar squinted at him a moment, then licked his lips and pulled a small, battered pocket watch out of his jacket. "Let's see... Was about half past ten when we got to this floor and -- hrm. We HAVE been at it a bit."

Being as he didn't carry any time pieces himself Arlo actually had no concept of how much time had passed. "Maybe a break is in order?"

"Let me..." Edgar trailed off as he ducked back into the room, and Arlo could hear a murmur of voices inside.

After a moment it occurred to him he could possibly catch Selene before she got too far - if this group was going to go take a lunch break then he wouldn't have to babysit. "Selene? Selene!" He jogged down the hall, trying not to inhale the little puffs of dust wafting up from the old carpet as he went.

------------------------------------------------------

"I question how we can even get all the ones we've found out of here."

Mali's voice echoed strangely in this room; it looked like a conference room, or maybe a classroom. Eli knew they'd already been in here but it had been a quick scan and then back out - no one had died and been left behind in this particular room so the first time through they hadn't looked too closely but now they'd returned to check for any doors they'd missed on the first sweep, and to also check on all the doors they'd assumed went to closets or other such storage areas.

"I'm...not really sure," came Petra's voice from the other side of the room. "We need to do it soon, and respectfully of course - we can't just toss them into baskets, but the skeletal remains are dry and loose and they won't keep together if we try to move them."

Eli was only half-listening from her spot at the door, fiddling with the inner bits of the panel next to the doorway; they had a cluster of the power stone brackets they were hauling along with them to patch into the lighting system and this one was proving especially tricky to hook up. It looked like the original wiring to this room had been shorted out at some point, and whoever had replaced the wiring had picked the cheapest wiring in existence; each time Eli tried to clear a bit of the wire coating to wire the bracket in the bared section seemed to disintegrate and begin unraveling.

In the far distance she heard a ding of the elevator opening, and not long after a concentrated beam from a flashlight began to flick up and down the floor back where the hall didn't have any brackets wired in. Eli clicked the torch off and returned it and the snips she held to the toolbox she'd borrowed from Selene, then rubbed the palms of her hands against her thighs to scrub away the grime as she stood to meet whoever it was coming down the hall. Eventually Arlo and Selene came into view and Arlo turned the flashlight off once they reached the lit section of the hallway.

"Hey, you two. What's the word?"

Selene grinned widely at her and waved her hands at her; in each hand she held two tools apiece - they were long-handled and glinted in the light. "Are you ready to pop a panel free?"

Eli chuckled; the last she'd asked the builder about those tools Selene had explained some issue with air bubbles in the cast that meant she had to redo it but now, here she was with the tools in hand. "As ready as I can be since we don't know what's gone on behind it." She moved away and into the room, picking out where Petra and Mali were now both working at prying open a door on the left wall that had been tucked between two built-in shelving units that had effectively hidden the door from view if you were standing in front half of the room. "-hey, Selene's got the tools done."

"That's good news," Mali grunted. She and Petra together shoved and the door grated open and slid into the wall to reveal a storage area that was litle more than a short hall lined on either side with floor to ceiling shelves. "-would you look at this - this one isn't empty."

Not empty? Eli jogged over, leaving Arlo and Selene in the hall; inside this storage area were boxes of more manuals and textbooks. "I wonder why there's so much emptied, and then random little spots like this that've still got things in it."

Petra carefully pulled a manual free and thumbed through it. "I haven't seen or heard of anything like this one before."

Eli looked over her shoulder - it appeared to be a technical readout of the inner wiring of some sort of machine but she didn't immediately recognize it. She gestured for and then was handed the book and turned it over to read the title: Surgical Veterinary Assistant Guidance System. "...starting to get a real weird feeling about this place if now we're finding animal texts in here." She turned it over in her hands a couple of times - why would there be a veterinary-based surgical machine manual down in a research center, but no hint of anything animal related?

With a shake of her head she returned the book to the box and led Petra and Mali out into the hall to meet back up with Arlo and Selene - they'd already grabbed the toolbox and some of the brackets out of the hall. "Seems we've got tools to work with - time to go see if we can get into that relay box."

It was a bit of a walk from this floor to the correct one; on the way down in the somewhat crowded elevator she found herself wondering how she ought to be feeling about this.

The relay box was basically the last remaining obstacle between her and the All Source AI -- between her and finding out what happened here so long ago. It felt a bit like a massive monolith just beginning to peek over the horizon, with it growing ever bigger the closer she got to it: she was walking toward something that was certainly going to crush her, one way or another, and yet she needed it to, no matter how much it was going to hurt. But the problem with gargantuan things toppling over is oftentimes other people got caught in the crush radius too...

When the doors dinged open Eli cleared her throat. "Can I ask a favor?"

They all stepped out onto the landing and paused there, waiting for her; Eli moved out behind them, and for a moment paused to wonder if what she was about to ask would be for the best. Or even if they'd agree to it.

"When we get the All Source on, I'd like to privately talk to it first," she continued. "I'd rather not have what personally happened to me broadcast to a group of people before I get a chance to reconcile with it. All I'd need is an hour, give or take, to get my questions out of the way."

"Seems reasonable to me," came Arlo's immediate answer. As he looked between the other two Eli waited and fixed her gaze on some indeterminate point further down the darkened hall.

"I have no problem with that," Mali replied.

Selene nodded. "Me neither."

Eli blew out a breath she'd not been fully aware she'd been holding. "Ok. Great. Thanks." That had been easier than she'd thought...whether that was a good or bad thing remained to be seen.

They trudged down the hall in silence then until they came to the reinforced paneling that hid the relay box (or, as Eli suspected, hid the maintenance tunnel that accessed the box). Selene plunked the toolbox down and carefully sat the special-made tools on top of it, then began to feel along the edge of the paneling to check the bolt heads there.

"None of these seem broken or the heads stripped out," the builder murmured as she inspected. "Assuming we've got the elbow grease needed to pop them loose I think we'll be fine."

Eli glanced over the tools again; they all looked mostly the same except for varying thickness in the necks, shafts, and sockets. "Do we want to try just one at a time or one on each side of this panel at the same time?"

Arlo bent to pick up one of the tools, hefting it. "Let's try one at a time first to see how hard it is." He stepped up beside Selene and fit the socket of the tool over one of the bolts.

"Righty tighty lefty loosey," Eli said, standing off to the side to avoid being in the way but also so she'd have a clear view as he tried to get the bolt loose.

He checked to make sure the socket was on all the way and tight, then began to push; Eli could see him straining almost immediately -- despite his own muscle and utilizing a bit of his own body weight as well it didn't look like it was enough (he seemed like a fairly strong man so she assumed it was more the fact that bolt hadn't moved in over three hundred years moreso than any suggestion of his actual strength).

"That doesn't seem like it wants to budge," Arlo finally puffed, stepping back and panting a bit. "Maybe we can pick a lower one for better leverage."

Leverage...ah. Eli bent down and sat the spare tools off to the side, then opened the toolbox and rummaged around until she found a ratchet wrench with a large enough hole in one end that it could slide over the end of the bolt tool. "Here, try this." She slipped it into place and stood back; it added a little over a foot of additional length to the handle.

Arlo stepped up to try again and Mali moved up with him as, with the added length, there was enough room for both of them; on Arlo's count of three the two of them began to push and finally, just barely, the bolt began to turn. It took several more minutes of huffing and puffing but finally there was a tinkling of metal hitting the floor as the bolt was freed and bounced down the hallway several feet.

At the look on their faces Eli chuckled. "There we go - one down, nineteen more to go."

----------------------------------------------------

The bolts thankfully had been the hard part; actually muscling the panel out of the way had been a simple task, and then they were greeted with the sight of a claustrophobic access tunnel stretching off into the dark. Eli ducked into the opening and shone a flashlight up the tunnel to reveal an absurd number of pipes, cables, and electrical panels lining otherwise plain concrete walls to either side with an equally plain concrete floor beneath their feet.

She knew what a relay box looked like but had zero idea where it'd be back here. "All right...I'm going to head in and look around. There's not a lot of room back here or anything to see so stay put until I find it, then bring the tools on in and we'll see what we're dealing with."

"Do you think you can fix it?" Mali called after her as she began to head down the tunnel.

"I know HOW to fix it. Whether I CAN is going to depend on what's needed and what tools we have," Eli called back over a shoulder.

The light of their headlamps grew more faint as she got further along; there was something oddly comforting to be surrounded on all side by things she found familiar. She could almost pretend she was...home. That all of Dubei was still above her head.

Don't think about it.

The tunnel stretched on for quite a distance - enough so that she had to turn off her own flashlight to catch a glimpse of the lights from where she'd come from - and then abruptly she smelled...dirt. Rock. Dust.

'Oh come on - please don't let this section be caved in...'

She didn't have a great mental map of this place yet but if where she was currently was in roughly the same quadrant as the cave in that had collapsed part of the room with the tubes...

"Oh thank the Three," she muttered as finally, up on her left, a gigantic blocky box marked with all sorts of hazard stickers and warnings appeared in her flashlight's beam. There it was - the relay box. Wherever the dirt she was smelling happened to be it wasn't an immediate problem.

Pauline hadn't been able to tell them what was wrong with the relay's connections, only that some connection error had occurred and that as a result everything had been taken offline as a precaution - there was roughly a 50/50 chance it could be a major problem. Wedging the flashlight between her shoulder and the side of her head Eli ran both hands along the relay box's outer edges - if this thing was locked that was going to be a hassle but typically things kept behind secured panels didn't also have keys to worry about. She found a latch that was molded to fit over a handle but it was thankfully not locked down and also wasn't fused in place from age; she flicked it open and then had to struggle a bit to get the handle to turn but soon she was swinging the door open and finally looking over the inside of the relay box.

A familiar array of switches, buttons, screens, fuses, and several neat bundles of wires were inside and at first glance nothing seemed amiss. Taped to the inside of the door was a handwritten maintenance schedule and she could just barely make out the names and dates in faded ink -- it looked like the routine was checking roughly every three months which was at least proof that people had been doing what they were supposed to be doing so, theoretically, there shouldn't be any other missed issues that might have occurred prior to everything going to hell-

Don't think about it.

Experimentally she reached out to rattle a few switches; they moved without too much protest so she took it as a good sign that the hardware wasn't too ravaged by time. Now to just...figure out what went wrong and where, fix it, and then get power to the signaler inside (it was usually hooked to a battery back up but that would definitely be dead by now) so it would in turn signal back to the reactor that everything was back in working order.

Then, assuming nothing else had broken in the system, everything ought to start coming back online. And they'd probably have enough time, if they hurried, to get from this floor down to the AI's room and be there when it "woke" up.

She reached up to grab the flashlight off her shoulder and then rotated her neck a bit to work out the cramp that'd been forming due to the awkward position that was basically trying to press her ear to her shoulder with a flashlight between the two; it was a quick jog back to fetch the others and lead them to here, and then while she, Petra, and Selene stayed behind to examine the relay box Mali and Arlo decided to move ahead to look for the source of the earthy smell.

"Ok..." Eli muttered. Where to even start... Nothing looked wrong so they'd have to check everything, piece by piece. "Let's start with the wire bundles. See the connectors on the end? There's a trio of screws holding each end in place - do you have a screwdriver that'll fit those?"

She moved aside to let Selene get closer; the builder woman eyed the nearest connector for a few breaths then bent down to her toolbox and dug around. "I think I do. I know I've got a couple pocket knives with blades thin enough to slip in there if need be." She popped back up with three screwdrivers in hand and carefully tried each before returning one of them to the box. "-all right, I've got two."

"You and Petra get to work disconnecting the bottom connectors on these bundles here, and I'm going to try and get that screen worked loose so I can get check the inner bits."

It was a bit cramped working in such close quarters together but Petra had a steady hand, Selene never seemed to tire, and both of them were paying enough attention that they weren't tripping over each other or Eli down in the floor working on a lower screen. By the time she'd worked the screen free they had all the wires loose and ready for her to inspect.

"Did you notice any damage?" she asked as she stood.

"I did, actually," Selene answered. "One of these connector rings was cracked, and the little...um, what's the term..."

Eli stretched a bit before focusing on the wire end Selene had in hand -- at first she didn't see anything odd but then Selene turned the end toward her and there, glinting dully, was the issue. "Aha. How the heck did that happen..."

The connector end had a pattern of pins inside it - several were visibly bent and a few of those were reduced to fragile, corroded needle-like remnants. It was anyone's guess how the pins had been bent, or when -- it could have been an unnoticed factory defect, or a careless worker. Whatever had caused the pins to bend they hadn't been bent enough to completely lose contact with the receiving socket, meaning this wire wouldn't have been plugged in securely and those pins would have had just enough contact to be steadily damaged by uncontrolled arcing until it reached an error threshold letting the system know something was awry.

She was only vaguely aware of Selene at her elbow snapping fingers and going "pins! That's the word" as she looked the end over. There was no chance in hell anyone could make a connector like this - not anymore. And it would be a simple thing to switch out if this place hadn't been mostly emptied. There was the one hastily converted storage room down on the same level as the All Source where they'd found replacement components for various things but there wasn't a guarantee they'd find the correct connector piece down there...there was a slim chance they'd find another storage closet that still had things in it, like Mali had earlier, but still there wasn't a guarantee they'd find what they needed.

Eli blew out a sigh and looked around. "All right...here's our choices: we backtrack down to that one room that had the cords and lightbulbs in it, and hope we get lucky. Option number two is we hope we come across another closet that happens to have what we're looking for in it. And then there's option number three, where we play everyone's favorite game."

She trailed off, thinking back to what she'd already walked by; those had all been smaller boxes, it wasn't likely they'd have the same connectors as the relay...

"...a game?" Petra repeated, looking puzzled.

Eli looked over at her and smiled. "The name of the game is 'What system can we take apart to make a more important one work?'" She dusted her hands off and stepped around Selene to head back down the hallway to take a closer look at the individual power boxes.

"That sounds like an awful game," came Petra's response behind her, along with her footsteps following along.

"It is. But it's a good game to know," Eli laughed. "I'll sweep this hall first and see if I can save us a trip."

--------------------------------------------------

Selene loved the fact that each time she came down here she learned something new about Old World tech. Today's lessons were how to beat the 'game' Eli had introduced them to, and how to dismantle most of the room-sized generator that was the auxiliary power unit of this place; Arlo and Mali had found where the walls and ceiling had buckled further along the maintenance tunnel but in an intact room before that point they had found the aux power generator, and they'd all spent several hours painstakingly taking it apart and looking for the correct wire end. Then, she'd watched Eli splice the new end on, plug everything back together, then Selene learned how to patch in "battery" power (which was just a power stone bracket, of course) to get a signal sent to the main reactor.

And then, a few minutes later, a deep hum rumbled through the entire facility a few moments before lights began to flicker back on.

It was incredibly exciting to see the halls completely lit, as they'd been three hundred years ago. And when they'd gotten down to the All Source's floor that middle glass-enclosed section was lit up with a soft white, all the way around -- like the glass itself was glowing.

This place seemed a lot more inviting now that everything was lit up like it was supposed to. Eli had gone in to speak with the All Source AI Stewart, and the rest of them had detoured into that one storage room to take inventory and more closely study the crates of texts left behind. It was definitely easier to carry out both tasks with an overhead light as opposed to a lantern or flashlight and Selene was amazed to see that the printed words and illustrations in the books hadn't faded at all despite their age. The manuals probably wouldn't be too useful right now since they were for machines that didn't exist anymore (MOSTLY didn't exist...there WAS a manual for what looked like the same type of machine as the Uplifter but it wasn't the same company - the one they'd found was by the Xander Company, and this manual was for a Surgitech) but there were anatomy books galore and quite a few that detailed diseases and injuries and their treatments.

'This room is a doctor's treasure trove,' she found herself thinking, and then giggled a bit at the thought of how much studying Dr. Xu would be doing -- would he want to learn everything himself and then teach others? The university in Atara would definitely be interested in these books too...the thought of transporting them anywhere felt unreasonably risky to her though, the more she thought about it. She could very well be holding information no one on the planet knew anymore, and to risk losing that information to accidents, or theft, or... It was information that needed to be taught to the doctors of the Alliance as well as their allies but it was faintly nauseating to think how easy it'd be to lose this knowledge again.

And some of these manuals, geez... They were definitely worth hanging on to just in case they ever found any of these parts or the machines themselves but it was such a depressing reminder of how much the Old World'd had, and how little progress they'd made to claw their way out of the Age of Darkness. She'd thought they'd been doing well with the small factories (her own included) and the recovered relics...ha. It seemed like a big joke now with it spelled out in front of her face in printed text, nevermind the fact they were walking around in a massive reminder of what the world had been like once. At the very least if, in the future, they had the means to reproduce these parts, they already had the technical read outs to assemble everything. It wasn't much but it was a small silver lining.

Selene stood and stretched, and plopped down three more texts into a crate they were going to carry up tonight. "Do you think the clinic is secure enough to hold these?"

Mali didn't look up from the text she was thumbing through. "You think someone would try to steal them?"

"It's a possibility, isn't it? We've had break ins at the Research Center and the like. If someone decides Old World knowledge isn't worth keeping no matter what the subject matter is..."

Arlo lifted down a crate from a chair to the floor, carefully closing the crate's lid. "It's a possibility but I don't think it's a very high possibility. There's a lot more than just books that a thief could take from the clinic - things that would probably be more valuable to your typical thief and easier to use or sell, and they would have to know the books are even there before they could be tempted to break in to take them."

"It's likely the university will request to take custody of these," Mali said. "We can make sure they stay safe while in Portia and if or when the university requests them I'll make sure they're well-guarded on the trip there. I might not be a medical expert but these could be the most valuable things we've ever found."

They kept sorting in silence for a bit then; they were making good headway on getting everything sorted by subject matter and re-packed into crates. If Selene brought her wheeled dolly down (the one that converted into a sort of wheeled platform, not the one you piled things on and leaned back) they could get ALL the book crates out in two trips. That would leave just the component crates down here and those probably should stay down here where they'd be close to the things they belonged to...would be rather silly to carry something out only to need it later and have to tote it back down.

Speaking of later, how long had they been in here? Eli had wanted an hour or so but none of them had a watch to know how much time was passing.

"I'm going to go peek in at Eli," Selene announced into the silent room. "Check up on her, you know?"

No one seemed to have a problem with that so she headed out of the storage room and around the curved glass wall with its soft white light illuminating every step until she came to the door that led into the All Source's room. It was still wide open but when Selene poked her head around it she was surprised to see the room was empty save for a--

Eli had said the All Source was a mobile model, so that...that weird looking thing in the middle of the room near the pillar with the screens and door had to be it. It looked like a jointed doll about six feet tall and was a mix of smooth white metal with silver accents that glinted under the ceiling lights, and across its back and on the backs of its arms and legs Selene could see various sizes of sockets -- which made sense as she knew AIs, living or otherwise, had to be able to connect with some sort of power source or computer system. When the AI turned to face toward the door Selene saw its head was a near perfect oval with a projection of a face hovering out in front of a smooth "face" dotted with tiny glass spots that she assumed was the source of the projection.

She watched that facial expression change from an idle look to one that looked generically friendly - like someone trying to look as non-threatening as possible.

"Greetings, human. May I know your name?"

"Uh..." Selene blinked at the AI - whatever she'd expected to find in here, this wasn't it. "Selene."

The AI's expression flicked briefly to a "!" symbol and then back to a more casual smiling face. "Aha - I know you from Pauline's logs. A pleasure to meet you face to face."

"Likewise...uh, Stewart, right?"

"Correct. I am this facility's All Source AI."

"Where's Eli?"

Stewart's expression flickered again, rapidly switching between what she could only describe as surprise, alarm, and uncertainty before returning to its smiling one. "Ah. Well. After our discussion she wanted some time to mull things over. -- oh, yes. She asked me to make certain you or one of your companions took this to the surface."

The AI smoothly moved over to a nearby computer console and picked up what Selene thought was just a piece of paper; she noticed as Stewart moved that his head remained at a stationary height - sort of like what chickens did if you picked one up and moved them around. She extended a slightly shaking hand to take the paper from him and found herself holding an itemized print out with...

"Are these names?" she asked, looking between the AI and the paper. It looked like names with a string of alpha-numeric information after it.

Stewart nodded. "They are - names, as well as location designations. Pauline's logs were limited to what personnel had access to her services - MY logs encompass the entire facility. This is the list of missing persons that, according to various factors including logging or clocking in and out and biometric readings, did not make it out of this facility when Dubei was attacked."

Selene looked the list over again and then looked back to Stewart, eyes wide. "There's over three hundred names on this!"

"Indeed. We - and largely Dubei - were not prepared for what we suffered that day. Many did not make it out to safety."

"But...but...we've not even found all the people Pauline said were missing. How can there be almost two hundred more people down here?"

Stewart clasped his hands behind his back in a strangely human way. "You will note I've provided the last known locations of every person I am aware...expired, so to speak, down here. I am also aware that I have no sensor activity in well over half this facility so I imagine if you haven't found them yet they are within the half that I have no access or contact with. Likely due to catastrophic damage."

Over half the... Oh. There was one entire side of the elevator shaft leading down here that they couldn't open -- they had tried to pry one of those doors open and found a hallway with its ceiling just barely hanging in there and holding back the tons of earth and rock over it. Dana had said it was way too dangerous to try and fix the hallways on that side so they'd built over it and reinforced everything to keep it from collapsing further. "Yeah, there's...there's an elevator down here and the western side was in danger of caving in further. We shored it up and closed it off."

Stewart nodded, then his face disappeared and the projection grew in size; Selene jumped back a bit as suddenly a giant 3D map was hanging in the air between her and the AI and then stared in amazement at a towering building reaching into the sky and deep into the ground -- this was a full map of what she was standing in, including a detailed visual of what the above-ground building had looked like over three hundred years ago.

"Based on what I can 'see,' so to speak, and what I can't, I believe your missing personnel would be located in these places-"

The above ground portion flashed red several times and then became grayed out; below it were what looked like a half dozen elevators but all but one of these also flashed red then grayed out along with the floors they connected to. Along the one remaining elevator the western side of it turned a bright red and traced along all the connecting lines of the map to outline what Selene knew was the half of the facility they could no longer access -- this place, in its prime, had been nearly four times as large as what they'd already explored!

In the reddened western part of the map circles began to appear around rooms across various floors, and then in the side that she and AI stood in more circles began to appear as well. She didn't think there were three hundred total circles but considering the level of detail that would be needed to show that it was probably for the best - the projected map would need to fill this entire room to avoid clusters of visual clutter that would happen with individual circles for every person missing.

"Geez..." Selene whispered, backing up a bit more to try and take it all in at once. She tore her attention away from the floating map to stare down at the list of names in her hand; Gale wanted a list of the persons so they could be carved into a memorial but...

Oh.

Oh wait.

A name caught her attention - Darren Summers.

"Stewart - who was this?" she asked, jabbing a finger at the 27th name on the list.

The map disappeared, leaving afterimages in her eyes, but soon Stewart's face returned and the AI carefully bent over to look at the list as Selene hastily turned it over so it wouldn't be upside down to it. "-ah. Yes. Well. I imagine you can guess already, if you're asking me about it."

Stewart's floating face switched to something resembling discomfort and embarrassment, and Selene had to fight to keep herself from balling up the list of names and chucking them across the room.

"Where did she go?"

"Back to surgical lab 3948A9-Z1."

Selene almost tripped over the edge of the door as she turned around and ran for the elevator; when she got back to the room with the tubes, where they'd found Eli in the first place, she was out of breath and the ever-present cold air down here hurt to inhale.

But, there she was.

Eli sat in the floor near the base of the tube she'd inhabited for over three hundred years; she had one leg tucked under her, and the other leg was bent at the knee and pulled in to her chest so she could wrap arms around it and rest her chin on them. When Selene came in Eli looked up at her, expression blank and eyes dull.

"...Eli, are you ok?" Selene asked quietly - so quietly in fact she wasn't sure if Eli could ever hear her at this distance.

For a long moment there wasn't a response, and it wasn't until Selene was almost across the room to her that Eli stirred a bit where she sat.

"You know," the woman started, voice low and catching a bit. "It was a lot easier to pretend that maybe he lived out the rest of his life, to the best of his ability, while the world fell apart around him."

On the run down here Selene had, despite her best efforts, somewhat crunched up the list of names; she smoothed it out between her palms and looked again at the 27th name.

Darren Summers, surg. lab. 3948A9-Z1.

#Lost in Time #lit #Lost in Time - ch 9 #Arlo #Builder #Mali #All Source AI #Petra #My Time at Portia

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junker-town · 6 years

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What happens when the NCAA vacates wins? And why do they do it?

In official record keeping, kiss the victories goodbye.

So your school has traversed the lengthy and arduous process that is an NCAA violation and both the ruling and the likely appeal have been lost. In the suite of penalties handed down, one of them is the vacation of a certain amount of wins from the period during which an ineligible player or coach participated.

As fans, we watched the game and we remember what happened. Nobody can strip away the memories that everyone involved enjoyed. But the NCAA can strip the records from the equation, and that’s what vacating wins is really about.

What happens to the titles and banners that a team may have won?

Those are gone.

Louisville's 2013 NCAA national championship banner has already been taken down at the KFC Yum Center https://t.co/nuqONbiGMc pic.twitter.com/Ao5UVT1xy5

— Courier Journal Sports (@sports_cj) February 20, 2018

While the NCAA’s only done it once apiece in men’s basketball and football, if a player played ineligible in a national title campaign, then the penalty will strip that title away since it was technically a win. It’s happened to USC’s 2004 football title and Louisville’s 2013 men’s basketball title.

Still got this fat ass ring which means my guys definitely won a chip, if I’m not mistaken of course.

— Kevin Ware (@AirWare5) February 20, 2018

The famous Fab Five Michigan Wolverine basketball team had its two Final Four banners taken down from 1992 and 1993 in perhaps the most notable case of the NCAA vacating wins from a non-championship winning team. Louisville will also have to vacate its 2012 Final Four appearance.

Do losses get vacated too?

Nope, it’s just the wins. Back in 2016, Notre Dame was hit with sanctions from the NCAA, including vacating some wins from an academic fraud case. While the vacation of wins was one of many things the NCAA chose to use to remedy the situation, it’s the only thing Notre Dame actually appealed in the case while still expressing concerns over broader academic autonomy within the organization.

So the only penalty Notre Dame contested to the NCAA regarding the academic misconduct was its wins being vacated. pic.twitter.com/NQ3z25q9hc

— Dr. Saturday (@YahooDrSaturday) November 22, 2016

The reason why has to do with history. When wins are vacated, the school cannot officially acknowledge that the wins took place without an asterisk. But the losses remain. So Notre Dame’s 2012 season officially ends with an 0-1 record. There’s a specific reason why that’s a problem for Notre Dame.

Notre Dame and Michigan open the 2018 season in South Bend. Notre Dame’s all-time winning percentage previously was .7288, and Michigan’s was .7291.

But since there are no ties in college football anymore, a win by the Irish on Sept. 1 would have bumped their percentage up to .7296 and Michigan’s down to .7286. Not anymore. By nixing 21 wins between the 2012 and 2013 seasons, the decision drops ND to 885 wins all-time, and a .7123 all-time win percentage. That’s also behind Ohio State, Boise State, Oklahoma and Alabama, for sixth all-time among FBS programs.

Do other teams get added wins?

No, but they do keep the losses. While it’s funny for every team that lost to, for instance, that 2013 Louisville national title team to say that the game didn’t happen, it did. The NCAA upholds the loss on the losers’ record, but not the win on the winners’ record when a game is vacated.

Who is actually doing the vacating here?

To get extremely technical about the whole situation, the group that levies the penalty is actually the NCAA’s committee on infractions. It’s a group of up to 24 people who hear NCAA rules violation cases. The committee can include conference reps, university faculty, members of the general public with legal training and current or former administrators and coaches. They serve defined terms, and can re-up when those terms are done.

When it comes to the penalty phase of the investigation. There are a few ways the COI puts down penalties on NCAA member schools. Vacating wins is one big way to “get” a school for things that happened in the past after a player or a coach has left the program.

NCAA sanctions must be legitimately punitive to be effective. The intent of penalties is to ensure they are sufficient to deter schools from breaking the rules again and that they remove any competitive advantage that may have been gained. For this reason, penalties can be retrospective (such as a vacation of records) or prospective (such as scholarship losses or recruiting restrictions). Usually, based on the specifics of the case, it is a combination of both.

After a 2013 decision simplified the connection between penalty and enforcement, the COI essentially has a menu that makes things more straightforward in regard to discerning what violation lines up with what penalty.

How often does it happen?

A 2016 study funded by the NCAA conducted by Temple University looked at 61 years of NCAA cases and found that in over 500 cases, the NCAA takes away wins least often.

Temple University

Part of that has to do with a former member of the NCAA’s admission that vacating wins isn’t the most effective way to deter violations.

The membership has on multiple occasions acknowledged that postseason bans, scholarship reductions and coach suspensions offer the most effective deterrent to potential rule breakers – and they are also the most effective in addressing the advantages gained as a result.

Why do schools make it a big deal when it happens?

The vacation of victories can have some real side effects in record keeping, if only for appearances.

This came into play with Florida State and Virginia Tech last fall. Former coach Bobby Bowden and the Noles had 12 victories stripped due to an academic cheating scandal back in the mid-2000s. That included an Emerald Bowl victory in 2005. Florida State has played in 36-straight bowl games after its Independence Bowl win over Southern Miss,.But the NCAA’s record book doesn’t acknowledge the record.

The Noles acknowledge the Emerald Bowl appearance while noting the ruling.

And FSU calls a spade a spade when it comes to bowl appearances with some careful wording.

36 straight bowl games. We're headed to the @IndyBowl! 12/27 | 1:30 PM ET pic.twitter.com/ti7GgWAf6D

— FSU Football (@FSUFootball) December 3, 2017

Common sense leads you to believe that of course the Noles bowl streak continues, but technically Virginia Tech can — and does — claim the inverse to assert that their streak of active bowl games leads the nation.

Ahem, @ESPNCFB Here are the longest bowl streaks recognized by The @NCAA You're welcome! #Hokies pic.twitter.com/eq2ezd3doh

— VT Football (@VT_Football) December 2, 2017

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touristguidebuzz · 7 years

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Battle of the Premium Credit Cards: Earn and Burn Showdown

Chase, American Express and Citibank have all made changes to their ultra-premium credit cards in the last nine months, so it’s a great time to compare the bonus categories and direct redemption options amongst all three.

To be clear, a credit card isn’t only about points. Although that’s often the primary focus, there are tons of additional benefits that come with each of these cards, such as the broad $300 travel credit on the Chase Sapphire Reserve, Centurion lounge access on The Platinum Card from American Express and the 4th Night Free perk of the Citi Prestige Card. But this particular showdown is about points, so we’re going to focus entirely on that particular perk.

Of course, the value that comes from using each card will depend on two factors — what purchases you make and how you redeem your points. So we’ve set up a series of showdowns with different scenarios on both the earning side and the burning side so you can pick the option that’s closest to your own personal patterns and habits.

The Earning Side

First, let’s take a look at the bonus categories across all three cards…

Chase Sapphire Reserve American Express Platinum Citi Prestige Airfare + Hotels 3x 5x 3x Dining 3x 1x 2x Entertainment 1x 1x 2x Everyday Spend 1x 1x 1x

Keep in mind that for the Amex Platinum, you have to buy airline tickets directly with the airlines or through the American Express Travel portal to get 5x points, and only prepaid hotels purchased at amextravel.com count for 5x at hotels. Both the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Citi Prestige are significantly less restrictive, since you can book directly with airlines or hotels, or at an online travel agency such as Orbitz or Expedia and still get the bonus multiplier.

Let’s also examine the redemption options for airfare and hotels on each card’s travel portal, taking a look at how many cents in value you’ll get per point and also taking a look at TPG’s valuation of each currency. This is a little trickier since we know the Citi Prestige will be changing the amount you can get for direct redemption starting on July 23. So we’ll do our calculations for both pre- and post-July 23.

Chase Sapphire Reserve American Express Platinum Citi Prestige (before July 23) Citi Prestige (after July 23) Airline Tickets 1.5 1.0 1.6 on American, 1.33 on others 1.25 Hotel Rooms 1.5 0.7 1.0 1.0 TPG Valuations 2.1 1.9 1.6 N/A

Now, the first question is “how do you spend your money?” Two people might both spend $20,000 annually on their credit card, but the person who spends the majority of that on airfare is going to want to use a different card than the one who spends the majority on dining.

With its 5x bonus categories for airfare and hotels, the Amex Platinum could be a smart choice for those who spend a lot on travel.

So let’s take a look at several different spending mixes. In our first scenario, our premium credit card is in the hands of a busy traveler, so half of the $20,000 annual spend is on airfare and hotels (in the Amex Platinum‘s case, we’ll assume the purchases are made directly with airlines or at Amex Travel). Another $5,000 is spent on dining, and the rest gets divided equally between entertainment and everyday spend. How many bonus points does that get us on each card?

Chase Sapphire Reserve American Express Platinum Citi Prestige Airfare + Hotels 30,000 50,000 30,000 Dining 15,000 5,000 10,000 Entertainment 2,500 2,500 5,000 Everyday Spend 2,500 2,500 2,500 TOTAL POINTS 50,000 60,000 47,500

In this case, the Amex Platinum is the winner by at least 10,000 points. But now let’s hand our premium credit card to a foodie who spends half of his or her $20,000 each year at restaurants, with half of the remaining purchases in everyday spend ($5,000) and the rest on airfare and hotels with nothing at all spent on entertainment…

Chase Sapphire Reserve American Express Platinum Citi Prestige Airfare + Hotels 15,000 25,000 15,000 Dining 30,000 10,000 20,000 Entertainment 0 0 0 Everyday Spend 5,000 5,000 5,000 TOTAL POINTS 50,000 40,000 40,000

All of a sudden, the Chase Sapphire Reserve takes the gold and the Citi Prestige ties with the Amex Platinum. But what if now we give our card to someone who neither travels nor dines out a great deal, and spends an equal $5,000 in spending across all four categories…

Chase Sapphire Reserve American Express Platinum Citi Prestige Airfare + Hotels 15,000 25,000 15,000 Dining 15,000 5,000 10,000 Entertainment 5,000 5,000 10,000 Everyday Spend 5,000 5,000 5,000 TOTAL POINTS 40,000 40,000 40,000

So in this case, all the cards are equivalent, right? Nope. Because earning is only half the story — more points don’t always equal more value.

The Burning Side

Until July 23, the Citi Prestige is hard to beat for American Airlines redemptions.

Take that last example where all three cards tied. What happens if we redeem all 40,000 points we earned on each card directly for flights on American at each card’s travel portal?

Chase Sapphire Reserve American Express Platinum Citi Prestige (before July 23) Citi Prestige (after July 23) AA Tickets $600 $400 $640 $500

Aha! The 40,000 points earned on the Citi Prestige are the most valuable of the three cards when we’re redeeming them that way, at least until July 23, when you’ll no longer be able to redeem ThankYou points for 1.6 cents apiece toward American flights. At that point, the Chase Sapphire Reserve will be the best choice for redeeming points on AA.

But most people won’t be redeeming all their points on American, so what happens if we redeem only half of our 40,000 points on American and the other half for tickets on other airlines?

Chase Sapphire Reserve American Express Platinum Citi Prestige (before July 23) Citi Prestige (after July 23) AA Tickets $300 $200 $320 $250 Non-AA Tickets $300 $200 $266 $250 TOTAL VALUE $600 $400 $586 $500

Now the Chase Sapphire Reserve edges the Citi Prestige by a nose, at least until July 23. Interestingly, the Amex Platinum is far behind both cards, even after the Citi Prestige devaluation happens, but in these scenarios we’re not considering the possibility that you might also have The Business Platinum Card from American Express OPEN. With that card, you’d get a 50% rebate on all points redeemed directly for first and business class airfare and on any ticket with the one airline of your choice, so in that case, the value of the Amex points would double and it would be the winner with $800.

The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes out on top for airline redemptions across all carriers.

But the real question is what does a mix of all these redemption options look like? So let’s see what happens when we redeem our 40,000 points in 10,000-point batches across all four categories…

Chase Sapphire Reserve American Express Platinum Citi Prestige (before July 23) Citi Prestige (after July 23) AA Tickets $150 $100 $160 $125 Non-AA Tickets $150 $100 $133 $125 Hotel Rooms $150 $70 $100 $100 TPG Valuations $210 $190 $160 $160* TOTAL VALUE $660 $460 $553 $510

*For the purposes of this comparison, we’re assuming the same value for ThankYou points after July 23, which may or may not end up being the case.

This broad mix scenario has the Chase Sapphire Reserve winning with a 16% advantage over the Citi Prestige and even more over the Amex Platinum and the post-July 23 Citi Prestige.

Bottom Line

When it comes to picking a premium card, consider your spending habits along with how you want to use your points.

As you can see, the way you earn and burn your points makes an enormous difference when it comes to the value of each of these cards, so it’s important to consider your spending patterns and your redemption methods when deciding which card to put in your wallet. But it’s certainly great to have so many valuable options to choose from, which makes it much easier to find the premium card that’s exactly right for you.

Which of these premium cards offers the best earning and burning options best on your spending habits?

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