Issue 1 Downtime

There's a faint shuffling sound outside Will's office, followed by a couple knocks on the door.

"C'mon in," Will called.

For a moment or two nothing happens, then the door creaks open and Teri pokes her head in. "We hope we're not interrupting anything..." she says carefully.

"Of course not, what can I do for you, Teri?" Will said, closing the notebook he had open.

"We were wondering if you still need people for the X-Teams." she says, stepping into the room.

"We're always looking for candidates. What brings your interest after all this time?"

"We've been working on pulling our mind together better. Professor McManus has been very helpful and we've been thinking about what we want to do. We didn't use to mind being aimless but lately it has made us feel... restless? And that makes us less coherent. So we started thinking about what we could do that would be helpful." she says a bit nervously.

"When you say helpful, what do you mean by that?"

She looks contemplative for a moment, apparently trying to find the right words.

"There's a reason why we are the this way and we wish to find it. Someone suggested a pest control business once but we think we might be able to do better than that."

"You're looking for a purpose, you mean."

"Yes. We thought being immersed and part of the world was it but that only buried our mind in mindless roaming." she says, pointing at a fly that's crawling around the inside of the window, occasionally taking flight only to bump itself into the glass.

"Mindlessness is no way to go through life. Take it from me."

"It is very calming. But treacherous. Professor McManus says I think too much at once so I coped by thinking about lots of mindless things."

"...such as?"

"Them." she says, pointing at the window again but now there's a significantly larger amount of creepy crawlies outside the window. "It's easy to not just be us but them too. Just being all around and walking through forests of grass or flying around looking for pollen. It's peaceful but that's because they're mindless and they obscure us. Teri, that is." she clarifies after a moment.

"You'll forgive me for having no practical sense of how that works."

She seems to try and think for a moment, then shrugs. "We don't know how to explain it better. But we're getting better at being Teri. At being... me." she says like someone testing out a new word. "And we want to help."

"Well, THAT I get. And we're always eager to let new people get involved with the teams. What do you thing you'd bring?"

This seems to be the question that she was nervous about, judging by her fidgeting. "Lots of bugs and spiders. We sense what they do and we've been working on our range. We can reach parts of Maldon from here and we think they could overwhelm people too. Even tough ones."

"How far do you think your range is?"

"Maybe a quarter mile. But it gets really fuzzy at the edges."

"And how aware of you on what's going on that far out? Like, for reconnaissance and whatnot?"

"Fairly, if there are enough bugs. Their sight is terrible, even when there's a lot of them, but they feel air pressure. It's like hearing someone move." she says, moving her hand through the air and making a strange sound somewhere between a whistle and going 'woosh'. "When there's a lot lot of them we notice almost anything, but that means the room would be swarming with them." she says, quickly realizing that explaining the actual sensations to people is likely a lost cause.

Will nodded. "Well, I'll give you this much--your powerset is certainly, uh, unique."

"You don't think we can be of much help..." she says, sounding dejected.

"That's not what I said at all! It just sounds like you're not really looking forward to the punchy-kicky aspects as much, which is nice for a change."

"Oh. We don't look forward to that, no. But we can do it." she adds just in case that matters for any decisions on Will's part.

"Well, I don't think I'd send you on TOO many 'punch out the baddies' missions, but that's the thing--everyone knows THAT part, but not everyone's equipped to check things out without causing a huge scene. We can always use eyes on the field--even if they're compound."

"That's great!" she smiles.

"Glad to have you on board! We'll see how this goes--ease you in for a bit."

She nods. "Is there anything we should know or do?"

"We'll probably get you working out with a team at some point--just get you used to teamwork. You didn't participate in capture the flag, did you?"

"No. But we're good at working together."

"Sorry, the pronouns are throwing me. Working together with yourself, or working together with others?"

"Ourselves." she admits.

"Well, I'm sure you'll pick up on it quickly. After all, it's what you do, right?"

"It is!" she smiles. "Thank you, sir."

"Looking forward to working with you," Will grinned.

Teri looks like she's about to bounce and skip out of the office but instead she just bursts into a cloud of locust that rapidly expands out into the hallway. After a couple seconds the swarm has disappeared down the hallway.