Starburst looked around the main PRT HQ infirmary in curiosity.
It's been four days since the Bakuda incident, and three days since she, Dennis and Dinah got benched by a furious Director Piggot. The dressing down by Director Piggot over their actions was blistering. The portly Director with the unhealthy pallor didn't shout, threaten or escalate. She concisely and firmly delivered her points with a smouldering anger, like a dragon gathering it's flame. One part of Taylor was indignant over the Director's reprimands; they were training to be heroes, aren't they? Another part felt resentful; she hadn't wanted to feel powerless, again, to change things. Another part (or two) sympathizes with the Director's anger; the Ward's safety were her office's responsibility, and allowing Wards going up against Lung, who had solo-ed an entire team of Protectorate members and won, wasn't anyone's idea of 'safe'. A different part of her wanted to shy away from the anger, while another part wilted a bit at the superior's rebuke. A final piece was feeling upset at herself for making others sad and worry. As Taylor struggled mentally with these conflicting thoughts, she wisely outwardly stayed calm and silent and wordlessly accepted the Director's punishment.
At least Taylor's Dad had been understanding, after he had recovered from how pale he got when he first heard of the story from her. While he was a little upset at the decision, he couldn't fault her for it. He and his wife didn't raised a kid that would stand aside if they could help. So, he had only grounded his daughter for two days instead of following Director Piggot lead of a week.
In the end, the three Wards were barred from active Ward duties and slated for retraining for a week, with the possibility of the Director extending the punishment for another week if she felt like it didn't take. So, for the last few days, her daily routine had been rather unchanging. Morning jog and exercise, commute to PRT HQ, studying for the Arcadia entrance exams, undergoing the remedial training sessions and being grilled for Wards response protocols. She couldn't even talk to the other unpunished Wards yesterday, since the entire Wards team (minus her, Clockblocker and Forecast) had mysteriously been absent from the common room for the last two days. So when Armsmaster had requested Taylor to assist him and Dragon with some power testing of thaumaturgic energy, she'd practically pounced on the opportunity to break the monotony.
The tall and lanky masked teen looked about the infirmary that's currently packed with additional equipment. She didn't see any doctors or nurses or even orderlies inside, but two of the beds were occupied by PRT Troopers in hospital smocks. Starburst had recognized them as some of the regular Troopers who had volunteered to train the Wards in physical training and techniques. Troopers Stevens and Yu. The stocky Caucasian man has one arm in a splint but Starburst couldn't see anything wrong with the muscular Asian woman. Both Troopers looked a bit bored just lying there, but they perked up and waved at Starburst in greeting when she had walked in.
"Hey, there's our hero!" Trooper Stevens called out with a grin.
Starburst blinked owlishly at them and pointed a finger at herself.
"We really owe you one." Trooper Yu answered with a smile. "The Shield Watches and Nighty Night guns you made really saved our skins."
"Oh" Starburst said, before smiling back nervously. "Glad you're happy with them." she said. "But Dragon and Armsmaster did most of the work."
The two Troopers chuckled good naturedly. "But you're the brains behind them." Yu pointed out. "So, as I said. We owe you one."
"Um. You're welcome." Starburst said. Thankfully, the two Troopers relaxed themselves back into their respective cots. She took the opportunity to inspect the equipment in the infirmary.
Surrounding the beds were pieces of equipment that Starburst didn't recognized, including several camera-like things equipped with wide angle lens on tripods, large devices resembling boom-mikes and radar dishes perched on stands and a large humming fridge-thing that most of the extra non-infirmary equipment were plugged into via large cables that snaked all over the floor.
Two pieces of equipment caught her attention; a standalone teleconference setup with a large screen stood near the wall, and a trash can sized thaumaturgic energy crystal battery sat a table between the beds. The battery has a device on it that has two long metal rods sticking out into the air like rabbit ears. Starburst had to admit, the size of the battery had took her by surprise. She didn't even know solid crystals can get that big. Where had Dragon and Armsmaster even find something like this?
Starburst's musing were cut short when the door opened and a man in a doctor's labcoat, Armsmaster and Panacea walked in. Armsmaster was outfitted in a slimmed down armor suit and Panacea, while she still had her usual robes costume had took the hood down, letting the girl's frizzy hair shake free as the weary and grumpy looking healer looked around the room.
"Starburst." Armsmaster greeted. "This is Mr Henderson, from PRT R&D." He gestured to the labcoat wearing man. Panacea simply grunted a 'hello' in greeting. The screen on the teleconference rig winked to life, showing the head and shoulders of Dragon's digital face. "Good afternoon, everyone." she chirped pleasantly.
Armsmaster nodded. "Now that everyone is present, we can begin shortly." he said before moving to one of the camera devices set in a corner of the room, allowing it an unobstructed view of everything in the infirmary. He fiddled with a panel on the side of base of the machine and stepped back as the camera whirs to life and twitched and rotated on it's waldo that's raising the camera to a higher vantage point.
Armsmaster cleared his throat, and the camera turned to focus on him as he began to speak. "Testing. Testing." As he moved his head, the camera dutifully tracked his movements. Armsmaster nodded in satisfaction and moved back to near the beds where everyone else is gathered. "This is Armsmaster acting as primary researcher, commencing Power Testing experiment Gamma 3, Extended investigation into the properties of thaumaturgic energy and its interaction with living biological matter, set in controlled conditions of an isolated infimary," he said before recited the time and date. "Present here is the collaborative researchers Dragon of The Guild and Dr Robert Henderson of PRT R&D Brockton Bay." He then gestured to the rest of them. "Panacea of Brockton Bay New Wave and Starburst of PRT ENE Wards are present as independent contractors to assist in performing the experiments and verify experimental results. Troopers Stevens and Yu of Brockton Bay PRT have volunteered to be utilized as test subjects for the experiments." he said in a somewhat robotic and even tone. "Supplementary readings will be attached to experiment file after the conclusion of today's experiment." He paused before adding in a quick note. "We have deactivated the anti-silicakinesis field projectors in the PRT HQ building for the time being to obtain cleaner results."
Armsmaster then began to walk around and gestured to the machinery around the infirmary. Most of them were actually sensors tuned to detect thaumaturgic energy that were created and developed by him and Dragon. The fridge-like thing was a Tinker Tech supercomputer made by Armsmaster that could quickly crunch the data from the various sensors, renders them into a single unified sensor fusion data display and puts it on the screen mounted on the wall next to Dragon's teleconference rig.
Armsmaster first took some baseline readings, both on the environment (he asked Starburst to stand further away for this.) and the Troopers. He gestured Panacea forward to take readings of her own. Then he switched on the device on the thaumaturgic battery.
Said device began to hum, and the rod glow slightly in a white-ish hue. Then a small rainbow appears between the two rods.
Starburst blinked at the odd sight. Panacea looked a bit taken back as well.
The rainbow moved up the rods, while stretching longer and longer over the widening gap. When the rainbow reaches the tip, it fizzled and then popped like a soap bubble in a burst of glittering sparkles that faded away in the air. Starburst felt like a gentle wave of something smoothing wash over her body, and the room seems to be more vibrant somehow in a way she couldn't put her finger on.
"It's literally spitting out rainbow and sparkles." Panacea muttered befuddledly as she watched the spectacle.
Armsmaster spoke as he gestured to the screen. "As you can see, the thaumaturgic energy can be discharged into the air, akin to electrical ionization of the air, but it seems to be behaving simultaneously like a radiation source and a gas or liquid." The screen showed, like that of a thermal camera display, a large white 'bloom' radiated out on the device on the thaumaturgic battery, with 'layers' that gradually shifts from white to yellow and then orange and red as it gets further away from the battery. Curiously, there seems to be 'streamers', 'tendrils' and 'pools' of 'hotter' and 'cooler' thaumaturgic energy flowing in and around the objects in the room.
"As seen here." Armsmaster continued. "While freely discharged thaumaturgic energy passes through most objects, it exhibits a different behavior when it encounters different materials. Some materials like copper causes the energy to flow along it while certain materials like granite appears to be blocking it and forcing the energy to flow around it."
"Huh" Starburst said as she studied the display.
"While the different properties shown here have interesting uses, we're focus on it's interactions with the human body." Dragon remarked.
Armsmaster nodded. "Indeed." he rumbled, before fetching one of the cameras. "What's interesting was that while the thaumaturgic energy goes through human tissue and bone with no difference to flowrates, there seems to be areas that 'attracts' thaumaturgic energy." He gestures to the display. In it, it show Trooper Yu's bodies, and there's seems to be 'patches' of thaumaturgic energy that 'pools' in certain places as it flows through the body, centering around the heart, brain and stomach.
Panacea stepped forward and place a hand on Trooper Yu's bare skin. "There's no change in the body biological processes anywhere in the body compared to before the rainbow device was turned on. No hormone changes, nothing. Not even a raise in heat." she reported after a moment of concentration. "Weird." she muttered. "I can't see the energy moving through the body at all. It's like there's nothing affecting the body at all."
"Starburst, can you step into the sensor camera?" Dragon gently asked. "I'm a little curious about something."
Starburst obediently stepped into the camera. The results were plain to see. In contrast to Trooper Yu's scan, the freely discharged thaumaturgic energy seems to swirl around and through her. Within her body, there's a white-hot source within her brain that flows down to various parts of her body. Strangely enough, the energy that 'pools' in her hands, feet, between her shoulder blades and middle of her forehead were 'hotter' than the ones at her heart and stomach.
Dragon hummed. "It seems that since that Starburst has her own internal source of thaumaturgic energy, there's an active interaction between her body and the freely discharged energy in the air." Dragon commented. "Starburst, can you activate one of your powers?"
Puzzled, Starburst created a small teal buckler shield. "That's different." she muttered.
"What is?" Dr Henderson asked, his pen at the ready on the clipboard.
"It feels different." Starburst said with her eyes close as she focused her attentions inward. "It's like- like-, okay, say you want to move a balloon across a room without touching it. Before, I did the equivalent of blowing at the balloon with my own lung power. But now, "she paused. "it's like I'm flapping my hand in the air at it."
Armsmaster's brow furrowed. "Different methods for the same effect. It appears that your ability changes its methods for drawing energy for activation depending if there was an external source or not. Absent that, it automatically draws upon your own internal reserves."
"Kind of like wireless charging" Panacea commented idly. She blushed a little when others in the room look at her. "...I've read it in articles discussing Earth Aleph's tech advances when there were downtimes at the hospital."
"Let's move on to our next phase." Dragon announced. "Yu, as we discussed?"
Trooper Yu nodded at the screen, reached over to the bedside drawer and took out a harmonica. She then started playing a jaunty tune.
Dr Henderson hummed as he studied the display. "Look at this. There's an reaction in the field. No changes in overall intensity, but there's are streamers and tendrils that are swirling a bit more vigorously when she started playing. Like some sort of harmonizing effect."
Dragon frowned. "Interesting. We know it showed no reaction when we tested using a simple tone generator, so it can't be just sound waves..."
"Bakuda's nullification bombs emit an intense pulse of electromagnetic waves at certain harmonic wave pattern, so we know that EM waves can affect thaumaturgic energy." Armsmaster pointed out.
Starburst raised a hand. "An EMP? With harmonic patterns? So my power can be cancelled or recreated with electricity alone?" The incident had bugged her a bit. It also annoyed her that she had to replace her civilian made phone as well.
"No" Armsmaster bluntly said. "What Bakuda did was the equivalent of finding a crack, the one part of thaumaturgic energy that does interact with electromagnetic forces, and used a lot of brute force to cause the thaumaturgic energy patterns to destabilize and collapse." he explained.
"Oh." Starburst said. "So, why the interest in the harmonics now?" she asked.
Armsmaster glanced at Dragon. "The Wards uncovered something unusual when they're fiddling with the thaumaturgic battery in the Wards common room." Dragon carefully said. "That's why they were indisposed for the last two days while we checked them over."
"Though it seems we are unable to replicate the phenomenon on demand." Armsmaster grunted.
"Perhaps it is connected to the situation at the time?" Dragon speculated. "It is possible that there are other factors involved, like emotional states."
Dr Henderson frowned. "If that's the case, perhaps trying to force it to happen on demand may be a lot more difficult than we initially thought."
Armsmaster shook his head. "In that case, perhaps we should move on to the other part of today's testing while we put this one on hold until we can conceive of a different method." He turned towards Starburst. "Starburst, you have mention earlier before that your power has created a healing power? And a diagnosing one?"
**************************
Panacea concentrated inwards, focusing on using her power to assess Trooper Stevens newly healed arm. "Amazing, and all this uses the stuff in the air instead of the bodies own biomass." she commented, before opening her eyes. "Did it tire you out?"
Starburst shook her head. "No. Something small like this didn't. But the energy requirement goes up if the injuries are more severe."
Armsmaster nodded."It makes logical sense."
Panacea cocked her head as she looked at Starburst. "I'm kinda wondering. Can your healing power fix brains and diseases?" she inquired.
Starburst frowned. "I'm... not sure? I think it depends on what was affecting it. Addiction to drugs, probably. Psychosis? Probably no. Most diseases it can handle, if I'm reading the power's description right." she admitted.
"Speaking of which," Dragon cut in. "You said that there's one part of the description that you cannot parse?"
Starburst frowned. "Yeah. It's like... a different language, no, no different method of communication got shoved in." She gesticulated. "It's like... that one... word has an entire library of meanings and explanations crammed into it that unfurls if you look deeper at the word itself." She rubbed her temples. "Everytime I focused on it, a felt like.. my brain just can't handle the information overload and just gave me a massive headache. But I think it's connected to powers."
"Healing power that gave the user headaches." Panacea snarked under her breath.
Dr Henderson leaned in. "Are you sure this shard word is related to parahuman powers?"
Starburst nodded. "Yeah. When I made the request to my Trump power, I was referring to cases like Noelle, where her power was fucked up."
"Interesting." Dr Henderson said as he contemplated the idea. "Too bad you are unable to write down the meanings you got from it."
Starburst shook her head. "Whenever I tried, it felt like someone rammed a dagger into my head. Everything came out in a jumble." she admitted.
"Pity." Dr Henderson sighed.
"Well, now that we have concluded all we have set out to test today, "Armsmaster said as he began to shutdown the various equipment in the infirmary. "You all are free to go. Thank you for your cooperation."
"Finally." Panacea snappishly said as she leaves the room.
Starburst frowned at the departing figure. "Was she usually like this?" she wondered.
"Don't be too hard on her." Dragon said. "She puts a lot of pressure on herself."
"Pressure?" Starburst asked.
Dragon shook her head. "Not my place to tell."
Starburst could only furrow her brow in thought.