I hugged my arms tighter against my body, “He’s keeping her strung out so she’ll cooperate, give him his numbers.”

“I don’t think-”

“Shut up,” I cut Regent off.  “Just shut up.  I- I can’t argue with you on this.  Please.”

Yeah, if Taylor’s right, this is extremely shitty.

He stopped.  I looked at the others.  Grue had his arms folded, and was standing very still.  Bitch just had her usual angry look.  Tattletale looked pale, even for the single lightbulb’s worth of light we had in the stairwell.  She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Is that why she went pale? Because she suddenly Knew how the girl was being treated?

“You’d know if you watched the news,” I told Regent, “If you read the paper.  I hate that I have to explain this, when I don’t even want to think about it.  She’s the missing kid.  Remember our bank robbery?  How we were weren’t even front page news because an amber alert took priority?  That was her.  Dinah Alcott.”

Damn.

Well… at least we got a name, eh?

The revulsion and anger that was welling up in my chest and throat made me want to throw up, hit something, right there.  Some of that emotion, a lot of it, was directed at myself.  I looked to Tattletale, “Tell me I’m wrong.  Please?”

I… don’t think she can. Without lying, anyway.

She broke eye contact, which was answer enough.

Yeah.

“Coil?” Tattletale spoke.  She looked a little pale.

“Tattletale, do you know why the numbers would change?  Does your power tell you anything?”

She shook her head, started to speak, but was interrupted.

…?

“Then go,” he ordered her, ordered us.  “I will contact you later, and we will finish this conversation then.”

“I-”

Oh yeah, cutting off the person who knows stuff like this always turns out well. Sure.

“Please,” he stressed the word, “See yourselves out.  This situation, whatever it is, demands my attention.”

Good jorb, Coil.

By the way, I’m hoping we’re going to get a name for this girl. I’m getting sick of just calling her “the girl”, and bringing her up later would be awkward.

“The numbers are wrong, pet.”

She shook her head, raised her voice in a surprisingly sudden fit of anger, “No!  They’re right!  You just don’t want to give me any candy!”

Hehe.

Coil put a hand on her shoulder.  She pulled away, but he held her firm.  He had to raise her voice to be heard over her squeals, and he shook her just a little to be sure she was listening, “Last question, then you’ll get your candy, I promise.”

Better make it count, Coil – not sure that little accident with the last two questions is gonna make the Undersiders much more confident in your abilities.

She began to settle, and Coil was calmer when he spoke again, more like his usual, reasonable self, “Just give me the number, again, if I sent the Undersiders out to fight Kaiser, without giving them my help.  What percentage, that they come back intact?”

“Twelve point three one three three percent-”

Yep, there we go. This time he kept the terms the same as for the last two questions, and she answered accordingly.

Coil stood, swiftly.  He turned to the soldier that stood nearby, “Give her what she wants.”

The soldier guided the girl back through the door.

Coil muttered to himself, “There’s some anomaly at work, here.  The numbers can’t skew that much, that fast.  More than a thirty percent drop…”

It’s a simple case of having to be careful about exactly what you ask for.

I hugged my arms close to my body.  When I glanced at the girl, I caught her looking at me.  I looked away.

“Candy, now?”  She started to bite at her thumbnail.  Looking at her other hand, I saw her nails were bitten to the quick.

Hrm.

He moved her hand away from her mouth, “Four more questions, pet, then candy.  Tell me the numbers for the same situation, but if I sent the Travelers instead.”

“pet”? …not sure how to feel about that.

“Sixty point two one zero zero nine percent chance they all come back.  Forty-four point one seven four three percent chance but someone gets hurt or killed.”

So in other words, the Travelers would be better suited for this job. Makes sense, really. Sundancer’s power, for instance, would be a thousand times better against Kaiser himself than Skitter’s.

“Good girl,” he turned to look at us, “The Travelers are powerful, so it stands to reason their chances are higher.  But I’ve found that your group benefits more from a use of my power.

Interesting. So that means it’s not a constant +x p.p. boost to an outcome’s probability, but it can be represented in such a way, just with varying efficiency. Which also tells me that he can’t simply decide the outcome entirely – there is still room for failure.

As for why the Undersiders benefit more than the Travellers, maybe it’s that the Undersiders rely more on luck?

Pet, tell me the numbers for the same scenario, for both the Travelers and the Undersiders, but let’s say I was helping them in my usual manner.”

“That’s two questions.  Two teams, two questions.  No cheating.  I get really bad headaches when I try to get too many numbers.”

Yeah, I agree with the girl, this is two.

“Okay.  Answer those two, then there’s one more before you get your candy.  I just need to know the chances that the teams will come back intact.”

The girl nodded, a little too quickly and eagerly, “Those people there have a thirty-two point zero zero five eight three percent chance to come back with nobody dead or seriously hurt if you help them.  The Travelers have a forty-one point-”

Wait, did the numbers go down? Maybe it’s because she didn’t specify “nobody seriously hurt” in the last batches.

Which kind of messes up what Coil was trying to do here.

“No, stop,” Coil stopped her, “That doesn’t make any sense.  You gave me different numbers before.  Those numbers are lower than the ones they’d have if I didn’t help.”

“It’s the numbers in my head.”

When adjusting one variable to demonstrate the effect of that adjustment, you need to make sure the terms of the experiment and all other variables are the same. Coil’s mistake, as far as I can tell, was the word “intact”.

Coil bent down and pushed the hair away from the girl’s face.  She looked at him, then looked away.

She absolutely doesn’t seem like she wants to be here.

I… feel like I should mention that I watched all of Stranger Things 2 yesterday, so the topic of young girls having had their powers experimented on is kind of fresh in my mind.

“I need some numbers,” Coil spoke, gently.

“I want candy.”

Numbers?

At least it sounds like they’re treating the girl well enough that demanding candy seems reasonable. Good sign.

“Alright.  Candy after six questions.”

“Three,” she grew more agitated, turned as if to walk away, then turned back in his direction.  She was fidgeting more.

Got a little businesswoman here.

“Five questions.  Is that fair?”  Coil turned and sat on the metal walkway, beside where the girl stood.

“Okay.  Five.”

Nice.

The soldier came through the door, with a girl in tow.  Twelve years old or so, she had dark circles under her eyes, and straight, dark brown hair that was in need of a trim.

Hm. There’s that whole thing that was discussed when Vista was introduced, about parahumans who got their powers at younger ages generally being stronger, and this girl is the same age.

…oh jeez, now that I think about it, that’s another potential motivation behind Heartbreaker’s disgusting behavior. Not only does he try to get an army of parahuman offspring as quickly as possible, but if he can get their trigger event to happen early, he can expect them to be more powerful.

She wore a white long sleeved shirt, white pajama bottoms and white slippers.  She didn’t make eye contact with anyone, staring at the ground.

I’m getting human guinea pig vibes here.

Her right hand gripped her left elbow, and the fingers of her left hand drummed an inconsistent beat against her thigh.

This is a piece of body language that I’ve personally found interesting for a while – for some reason, one hand on the opposite elbow seems to be a universal signal of nervousness or the like, but why?

“Sure,” I replied, noncommittal.

“Now, that leaves one us final issue to remedy.  Your worries for your safety.  I wish to show you that you are in good hands, and I’m prepared to reveal one of my secret weapons,”  Coil came to a stop outside a door.  A soldier stood nearby, smoking a cigarette.

Ooh, this oughta be good.

“Fetch her,” Coil ordered.  The soldier nodded, squashed the cigarette against the wall, pocketed the butt and went through the doorway. 

Her? So is this “secret weapon” a particularly powerful parahuman?

Also, the fact that cigarette stumps are called butts will never stop being funny. “Ugh, I hate how people keep dropping their butts all over the sidewalks.”

Coil walked over to the wall where the soldier had extinguished the cigarette and used his thumb to wipe the smudge on the wall away.

Heh. Good man. Keep that shit off the building.

He spoke to us, “If I told you I knew where Kaiser was hiding out from the heroes, alongside his bodyguards and perhaps a handful of his lieutenants, that I wanted you to defeat them in a nighttime ambush, this would be an example of the sort of situation you’re concerned about facing?”

Yeah, that might be a bit too much for the Undersiders.

“Yep,” Tattletale replied, “Even with your power-”

“-You have your worries, yes,” Coil finished for her.  “Forgive me if I do not elaborate on the subject of my abilities, or give Tattletale permission to do so.  We- ah, here she is.”

Dang it, I wanna know 😦