Genius [Background]

Doyce's post reminded me that I should get this out there, because Leo has three possible Moments of Truth and this is the explanation for one of them. ---- Leonard Carson walks the halls of Ithaca High School. He's a newbie freshman, sure, but he's also the hero of Code Red, FIRST Robotics team 639. Cornell University sponsors the team. They have a full ride waiting for any kid who did what Leo managed in his first two weeks. The World Championships are in reach, if nobody messes things up. "Hey, Leonard." The voice is foreign. The tone is familiar. The school is notable for its ice hockey teams, and the boys on that team are muscular, insular, and aggressive. Leo keeps walking. "I'm talkin' to you, Leonard ." Leo feels presences behind him, around him. There's a gang of them. Well, good. I was getting bored. "You're makin' us look bad. Little Red is the game around here, not your robotics bullshit." The lead boy Leo dubs Flat-Top. He's accompanied by Acne, Helmet Hair, Horse 'Roids, and Duh. "Go crawl back in your hole, Leonard ." "Yeah, Leonard !" The name is dorky enough already, but these kids know how to twist it for maximum embarrassment. There's a logical chain of reasoning that leads from "get set up for college" backward to "get a scholarship", passing through "ace the robotics challenge" and terminating at "don't rise to the bait". Leo cuts the chain off at the head with a wide, unsettling smile. "Hockey, huh?" What he comes up with won't win any comedy awards, but Leo is quite impressed with it at the time. "Go puck yourselves." He doesn't quite remember who threw the first punch. ---- Jarett Powers has a short-cropped hair style and rocks a sweater vest and necktie combination. He has a placid expression on a good day. When the security officer escorts Leo into his office, he looks like one of those Easter Island statues. The two review the security camera footage in silence. Leo watches Helmet Hair come at him, only to be neutralized with an expert jab. His recorded self slam into the hockey jock, send him tumbling into Acne and Horse 'Roids. Duh comes after him with a meaty fist, and gets a leg sweep, bringing him to his knees. Video Leo's elbow comes down on the crown of his head. In the office, Leo winces out of sympathy. "I don't know if this is tae kwon do, Muay Thai, or something else," Principal Powers finally says. "The martial arts are good for physical exercise and self-defense. But you hurt these kids. Do you understand that, young man?" Behind him, the screen is frozen on Flat-Top. His face is a rictus of fear, the blood of his teammates smeared over his cheek where Leo hit him a moment ago. A blurry knife hand is on its way toward his left temple. "I .. I don't practice any martial arts, Principal," Leo hears himself say. How the hell is that going to help? Powers looks at him with disdainful disbelief, which Leo realized immediately was going to happen. Those are definitely some sweet moves, but he really can't do them. So what's the deal? The Principal starts to talk. There's a catalog of standard adult lectures. Leo listens long enough to classify this one. "Suck It Up" is the patriarch of a very big family. "Sticks and Stones", "You Need To Keep Your Temper", "Think About Your Future". Symbiotic lectures like "Your Parents Will Hear About This" often follow. This particular one is "Think About Your Future", crossbred with "You Need To Be The Responsible One". "None of those boys are seriously injured, which is a miracle. We're going to have to explain this to their parents. And we will most definitely be talking to yours. For now, you are suspended from school." Leo nods, and leaves. He doesn't feel sad, sick, upset, or really anything at all. Just... oh well. ---- His father - the Minion Maker - has him. Leo watches the displays, the monitors, the holographic projections. He recognizes the readout as data from his own brain, piped through the chip in the back of his head. His father is studying the screen with great interest. "This. This is what I need," he says at last, pointing at a spike in the sea of neural noise. "Do you know what you did here, boy?" Leo wants to shake his head. He can't move. He's clamped to the gurney, wired up, immobile. Rossum actually waits for a moment, as though waiting for an answer and settling for silence. The veneer of politeness is eerie, inhuman. "Neural cascade. The chip should damp down on this nonsense. This'll kill you if unchecked. But every once in awhile, it's safe. Quite healthy, actually." "The creative mathematical areas. The dorsal superior parietal lobule, here. The posterior parietal cortex, here, separated by the intraparietal sulcus, governs motor functions. Posner molecular activity spikes here, here, and here.. Mathematical and spatial reasoning. But these neurons wired together.. Basal ganglia, punching through the IPS barrier. You've got the start of a cyst there, I'll take care of that. I imagine you get headaches when you get into little scrapes like that, I bet?" He turns away from the displays, back to the gurney, and leans in. The fatherly facade makes Leo cringe. "Not enough neuroscience in that high school of yours? I'll explain. Your genius short-circuits you to the right answers in mathematics and reasoning, yes? Your inventions. That annoying car of yours. This part of your brain, this one here, allows that." "You, my boy, have somehow associated fighting with math. The pain of growing up an intelligent young man in a school that favors athletics over academics, perhaps, having to defend yourself. Hmm. So basically.. your brain has wired these centers together. The mutation naturally follows. When you throw a punch, when you are attacked, and this center activates... Motor skills. Coordination. Kinematics are just the equations of the body, and you can solve them just as intuitively. Your genius for math becomes a genius for combat. You'll always make the perfect attack. You'll always hit the most vulnerable weak spot. Every time." Rossum steps back, making clawing motions with his hands. "I need to understand this. I need time with you, with your brain. If I can replicate this effect, I can build robot brains in your image, perfect fighting robots, drones that are unstoppable. You will be my general, Leonardo, you will be my masterpiece. You will lead my soldiers to victory. It will be glorious!" His father leans very close now, eyes boring into Leo's. "I need to see this reaction take place. I need to see it trigger. So... I just need to make you fight." ---- Leo is back in Ithaca. Principal Powers has left to be Superintendent of the Union Springs Central School District. The school robotics team did .... okay. The hockey team did great. AEGIS found him, rescued him. The details are a blur. Leo was in the hospital for two weeks. The doctors assured him he was okay. Ted Waters was there. He didn't say much. He had questions. Leo had no answers. All they could do was find him a new place, a new home. "I know some people, a place you'll be safe, really safe," Waters says. "I gotta talk to a guy. I'm sorry, kid. I feel like I let you down. But.. is there anything you wanna tell me about what went on with your dad there?" Leo swallows. Dad did such things. And if I gave in once, he'd win, and I'd be in charge of an army of unstoppable bad guys. I can flip out and hurt anyone, no problem. AEGIS would put me in a cell and throw away the key if I say anything. "I uh, I need some time," Leo says lamely. "A lot happened." "Okay," says Agent Waters. It's not okay , Leo thinks.

I don't know if Dave has thought about it, but I find it hard to imagine that Rossum and Dr. Achilles Chin never had any interactions.

Bill G. said: I don't know if Dave has thought about it, but I find it hard to imagine that Rossum and Dr. Achilles Chin never had any interactions. Oooh. Or, hell, that Byron did. Something I've been poking at for awhile now is Jason's deal. If he's a second-gen genius, and this sort of mutation problem you've introduced is systemic to all 2nd gen super-geniuses (which is certainly how I'd play it - we've all got our hands on the world-building tools here), then what did Byron do to keep Jason from getting geniused to death. We may have scratched the surface on that with the scene with Li'lalycia and if that's how Dave wants to play it, with the bots also as a kind of brain-throttle to keep things under control, that's cool. But to be honest I'm also toying with the idea that Jason's first gen, and Bryon was just a regular old genius with a penchant for action adventure. Dunno if it's fair to unpack that in your thread Bill, but it's definitely something to talk about at some point.

Doyce T. said: If he's a second-gen genius, and this sort of mutation problem you've introduced is systemic to all 2nd gen super-geniuses (which is certainly how I'd play it - we've all got our hands on the world-building tools here), then what did Byron do to keep Jason from getting geniused to death. We may have scratched the surface on that with the scene with Li'lalycia and if that's how Dave wants to play it, with the bots also as a kind of brain-throttle to keep things under control, that's cool. But to be honest I'm also toying with the idea that Jason's first gen, and Bryon was just a regular old genius with a penchant for action adventure. This is absolutely the thread for it. I think Dave gets to write the answer for Jason and Byron, and I hope I left even this vague enough to not box him in, but here's my suggestions for him. Byron, Jason, etc. have a broad, general, low-intensity version of the "genius of combat" thing here - they'll always make the right jump, always slide under the scramming reactor door perfectly, always expertly shoot the gun out of the other guy's hand, whatever. Having the mutation turns you into Doc Savage, basically. Leo's robotics skill is just that potential focused in a different area. It doesn't make you infallible at decision-making, it just means your physical reflexes and coordination give you the best possible outcome in high-stress situations, but that covers a lot. Batman needs to hit 100% of the time with his grappling hooks over however many years he's been doing it, or he's street pizza. But Batman must still practice with the grapples to be capable of that. Even with that, Batman can be wrong, Batman can be shot, hurt, trussed up by bad guys, and so on. Beyond that... The problem is universal, the chip is real . Rossum isn't lying to his son, second-gen geniuses need stabilization by nature. If you need a reason why the world hasn't been bred full of super-intelligent humans by now, this is a good one. On the other hand, this may be one very good reason why (for example) Alycia needs her genius dad to get back here and help fix her. Or barring that, may need to cut a deal with someone else. The problem isn't universal . Maybe there's several avenues to super-intelligence, this was Rossum's, and only he and specific people like him will ever have kids who need help. The Quill and Chin dynasties have many problems of their own, but this isn't one of them. The problem isn't what Rossum thinks . 50% of Leo's genetic heritage is unspecified right now. Maybe it's due to that, or because of two recessive traits that came together. Maybe Byron and Achilles married for beauty rather than brains and avoided this issue. Rossum also doesn't have a lot of mad geniuses to dissect, so he may be generalizing from what he knows ("every Big Brain I know is some kind of crazy") to identify his kid's condition. I threw out a  suggestion that Byron may have designed Jason's nanobots for dual control. In an extension of option 1, he did that to try and test a fix for Alycia, in case Achilles hadn't (and it seems perfectly in character to me for Byron to butt in on the parenting of somebody else), and Jason has everything he needs to help her out, except her trust. Good luck. The nanobots may need some further wiring from Leo to actually do the job, but he's 100% willing to provide that for one or both of them.

I'm in no way comparing this to the Spark from Girl Genius, by the way. Nope.

+10

So a few thoughts: I love the scenes above , Bill. The whole Leo backstory is touching, horrific, and wrenching.  I had been toying with a "Jason and genius" post before this came out, specifically the first three seconds post-body swap and how Jason's brain analyzes it (since that's about the size of the present window to work with before Numina walks into the family room). I may very well write that, depending on how today's schedule looks (or how this thread evolves). While the idea that Byron is just really, really smart , not a meta-genius, has a certain appeal, I kind of liking the parallels here between these second-gen geniuses, and think that's the "actual" thing going on (though the probability clouds haven't collapsed in on that reality quite yet) My original thinking around Jason was that he was -- well, gifted, smarter than the average bear, but not a genius like his dad. This was an area of shame and frustration for him. His protestations of stupidity to Leo were not an exercise in self-pity but very much how he feels in comparison to his father and his father's expectations.      That thinking has evolved a bit over the past few RT weeks, inspired by some thoughts Doyce and Bill dropped (noted above, plus others) how the nanobots were far, far more than just a protective vest, and that there may have been some further actions Byron took to keep Jason under control in a variety of ways -- memory manipulation has been hinted at, and perhaps emotional manipulation (psychological or perhaps more overtly intrusive). In that scenario, Jason's frustration over being the "stupid" one is a designed reaction, a way to short-cut away from even trying to exercise those cognitive skills, a self-fulfilling prophecy and self-defeating perception-becomes-reality.      I'd like to think, at the moment, that this was designed for Jason's own good, to deal with that 2nd-gen brain-burnout issue, vs. some crazy Byron "My son must never get so smart he can turn against me!" thang, which seems more Rossum's shtick.      Jason and Alycia -- Hmmm. If Alyicia is also a 2nd-gen genius, then maybe Byron's whole "I don't like the two of them hanging out together, so let's tweak those memories" is less "My son must never consort with the spawn of that fiend" and more "Holy crap, what would happen if those  genes got joined up -- an exploding brain in utero  or an unstoppable world-dominating intelligence are only the least awful scenarios I can think of" preemptive action. Hmmm. If we assume that real-Alycia is in the same boat (not necessarily -- she's very smart, but she could be simply gifted with other perceptions that assist her cognition, not enhanced cognition itself -- Option #2, for lack of a better summary), what solution did Achilles Chin come up with for her? Are those real  memories of going off to military school? And, with Chin out of the picture for a year now. are those protections starting to wear off / break down? (And is she perhaps aware of that?)       [I wrote this bullet before reading Bill's parallel speculation above.]      (At some point, Jason is going to sit bolt upright in bed, suddenly wondering, "Wait, if I 'lost' a bunch of memories about Alycia, did she 'lose' them, too? Or has she been manipulated in some other fashion?" And that just set up an entire Moment of Truth / Face Your Doom idea for me.) Rossum and Achilles Chin have certainly had interactions. It's already posited that Chin has been willing to use practically anyone to his purposes, and Rossum's robotic genius would be a natural for him to exploit. That said, Chin is a user, not a colleague, with his monomania over his cause. Working with Achilles Chin often ends poorly, esp. once he's gotten what he wants from you (in this case, some next-generation robot spider macguffinry, which Chin was theb smart enough to understand once Rossum had invented it, thus ending the need for a further relationship). That whole interaction could have ended anywhere from "Well, that was a profitable venture, but I suspect I'll have to kill him and dissect his  brain next time" (best case scenario) to the Lair in flames, all the robot guards crushed in the rubble, and Rossum having lost his control hat (a very bad plan).      ("The effrontery of that half-rate engineer, thinking he could turn on me! Why, I've a mind to arrange for my son to ally himself with Chin's nemesis' son, so that they can band together to destroy his daughter! Wouldn't that  be a fitting test! What data I could collect afterward! From all  the bodies!")

*** Dave H. said: That whole interaction could have ended anywhere from "Well, that was a profitable venture, but I suspect I'll have to kill him and dissect his  brain next time" (best case scenario) to the Lair in flames, all the robot guards crushed in the rubble, and Rossum having lost his control hat (a very bad plan). Rossum's limited scope works to his advantage here, and might actually have kept them more amicable than otherwise: the Minion Maker is just that, a specialist. He creates toys and tools for other people, rather than engaging in the general Science Villainy capers it sounds like Chin is doing. As such, he'll never be a threat to Chin's regional ambitions. If it ever came time to blow up/take over the entire world, that's a problem, but it's a problem that Chin has with every other villain out there (Mr. Big explains why  here ). Other general notes: Byron may have had benevolent (for him) motives for putting some kind of limiter on Jason. You have this recurring thread of him wanting to protect his boys from "the life" somehow, and capping Jason's capabilities would do that, yeah? Whether Dr. Chin feels the same way, or whether he'd put in something different that depended on regular doses of something to keep Alycia on the leash (A leash, yeah?), is an open question. "Would you do any less if your sons became disciples of my path, Dr. Quill? But, no, not attack her. I would simply ... cut her off." -  here .

Bill G. said: ? Whether Dr. Chin feels the same way, or whether he'd put in something different that depended on regular doses of something to keep Alycia on the leash (A leash, yeah?), is an open question. "Would you do any less if your sons became disciples of my path, Dr. Quill? But, no, not attack her. I would simply ... cut her off." -  here . Opening another spin on that quote is just genius. Well played.

Bill G. said: Having the mutation turns you into Doc Savage, basically. I will, as always, plug my preferred term for this:  Action Science and its... perpetrators,  Action Scientists .

Mike said: I will, as always, plug my preferred term for this:  Action Science and its... perpetrators,  Action Scientists . That's fair. The specific Doc Savage reference is there for another reason - the Man of Bronze would also do a "delicate brain operation" on his defeated foes (a trick repeated in the Stainless Steel Rat), here we've given that a second spin.

Doyce T. said: Bill G. said: ? Whether Dr. Chin feels the same way, or whether he'd put in something different that depended on regular doses of something to keep Alycia on the leash (A leash, yeah?), is an open question. "Would you do any less if your sons became disciples of my path, Dr. Quill? But, no, not attack her. I would simply ... cut her off." -  here . Opening another spin on that quote is just genius. Well played. Oh. Oh, that's neatly  done. Completely unintentional, but it fits quite nicely. Chin has something that keeps Alycia's brain 'splosion under control. Either she is aware of what it does, or she is aware (from what her father has told her) that it's something  that she needs and she feels progressively more and more strange the longer the treatment is left off, lending credence to the tale.  Which would add another dimension as well to her urgency in getting her father back. Alternately (perhaps even better), she has a chip-in-the-head (or analogous permanent solution), too, even more restrictive, and the regular "treatments" are to let her exercise as much of her genius as is safe; lacking them, she's doing a slow  Charlie Gordon to a fully "throttled" state of "normalcy". Which, again, would lend her some urgency in trying to find a recovery path for her dad  now. (This would be more in keeping with Achilles than Byron -- nothing cruel, mind you, just -- efficient in making sure that she never rebels effectively against him.)

Bill G. said: The specific Doc Savage reference is there for another reason - the Man of Bronze would also do a "delicate brain operation" on his defeated foes (a trick repeated in the Stainless Steel Rat), here we've given that a second spin. Doc Savage reference are always  welcome. Esp. in the context of Action Scientists (or Science Adventurers).

No worries, I was just looking for a good enough quote to shoehorn in  Action Science as a phrase.  It's a  personal favorite .

Me: *goes into excruciating detail on Leo's neuroscience* Also Me:

Making a note to do monster of the week and add the action scientists Playbook for Mike. I think there's probably some mileage at the juxtaposition of the unintentional and negative side effects the Nanobots have on Jason's psyche, and some kind of intentional design of Byron's that was meant to allow the Nanobots to function as a sort of release valve to handle the second gen Super Genius overflow. perhaps the Nanobots are meant to be some sort of memory overflow buffer,  and then they're supposed to feed those overflow bits back later. It's just that the "feed back" part isn't actually happening? 

0:00.0 Whoa. Teleported across the room. How did that --? No, senses are all wonky. Color spectrum matchup is wrong, strange sensations in my extremities, weight, kinesthesia -- proprioceptors -- something's way off. Weird, whistling murmur all about me, almost like voices ... 0:00.5 ... real voices, all of them, the others, not talking yet, but guttural sounds, exclamations, interjections, inhalations, shock, panic, surprise, but it doesn't sound right -- hollow, pitch off, different sub-tonal -- Not a teleport. My hands are translucent -- and not my hands -- Cognitive transfer. My eyes snap up, the room is hazy, not quite real, wavering like I'm a bit drunk. Effect of the transfer, or something about the body I'm?  My eyes meet my eyes -- Jason Quill, eyes of blue, but not me , because I'm here , so who's there --? 0:01.0 -- no, it's not Charlotte (I'm in her body -- file the immediate three dozen existential questions into follow-up files, tagged for psychology, biology, powers, weirdness) it's Leo , has to be, recovering just as fast as I have, figuring out the same things, already spotting the owner of the body he's ... Charlotte's magical gewgaw, telepathic comms for the dinner tonight -- yes, it worked , I can hear the babble in my head as well as with my ears ghost ears (file it for follow-up, dammit!) -- misfired. Magic is only science not yet understood but I don't trust what I can't understand -- -- voodoo ceremonies, Tibetan mummies walking, a man in long ceremonial robes and a curved knife held over Amir's -- --and cases like this prove why. Leo darts my eyes to the side, to his own body, helmeted, limbs beginning to flail -- I can hear someone, a girl's voice, yelling about being in a box: Charlotte is there , three-way transfer, but Harry and Adam are both quietly but clearly freaking out so they've swapped, too, what directed who went where, is there something the three of us have in common? Discipline asserts itself. Can it be reversed? Undetermined. Inventory in the warehouse scrolls past for possible use -- anything in Dad's files? Will it wear off? Also undetermined -- insufficient data, and only a second's time for analysis. What are our capabilities, what is the meaning of self and mind and ego, cogito ergo sum doesn't help much here, what does it mean to have the mind transferred, don't believe in metaphysics (magic!) or religion or Bronze Age sky fathers, all that, but is there an essence, a soul beyond cognitive processes and memories, and how can I be thinking and perceiving in a body that isn't even truly human and -- I need time, more time, experiments, research, time to figure this out before we face the next threat -- 0:01.5 Leo spots her first, me a fractional-second later (Do ectoplasmic reflexes mirror protoplasmic limitations? By fact or by expectation? File it!) -- Numina walking in, she's a sculpture in living light -- Venuses from several dozen European galleries Dad dragged me to flash before my eyes, Botticelli at the Uffizi my favorite -- and her mouth opens, my thoughts already slowing, and I hear, "Well, I think it's time for you to get headed to dinn--" She notices it as quickly as we did. "Wait, what's happened?"

I really really like how Jason is suddenly conscious of the unconscious use of the Bots as a filing and follow-up system.

Doyce T. said: I really really like how Jason is suddenly conscious of the unconscious use of the Bots as a filing and follow-up system. On that note, it didn't come out during their talk, but Numina giggled at Jason's repeated "not-dad, shut up" because she's convinced the real Byron is gonna come back, Jason's going to unconsciously say that to him , and then he's grounded forever.

Doyce T. said: I really really like how Jason is suddenly conscious of the unconscious use of the Bots as a filing and follow-up system. No, no, it's just a cognitive metaphor his ... father ... taught ... ... him.

Also, I'm not SURE Jason thoughts would slow down. At least not exactly; GG doesn't have the same mental  qualities as he does, but her protoplasmic structure effectively makes her mind a quantum computer. It's just that he doesn't have the off-loading capability now, because without the Bots he has to do all of the thinking remembering and to do listing himself. He has WAY more processing to do.

she's convinced the real Byron is gonna come back, Jason's going to unconsciously say that to him , and then he's grounded forever. Heh, The probability cloud around Jason's reunion with Byron is boiling furiously. I can't yet imagine what it's going to collapse into, should that happen, just that it's going to be very different than what it was when Byron left, and even from when the game first started.

*** Dave H. said: Doyce T. said: I really really like how Jason is suddenly conscious of the unconscious use of the Bots as a filing and follow-up system. No, no, it's just a cognitive metaphor his ... father ... taught ... ... him. I'm building this timeline in my mind in which Byron sees Jason struggling and teaches him to 'file' things using mental exercises and a 'mind palace' sort of practice.  That works for a long while, until it doesn't, so he supplements this with the bots? Just needs more help with handing all of it? (I'm using question marks because all of this is just proposal, not carved in stone.)  I like the parallels we're drawing here, where Rossum is dealing with a physical mutation with physical/mechanics, Chin is treating a related but not identical problem chemically, and Byron is using a mix of mechanical support and mental training. Super interesting. 

Swear to God there's a great SF novel in here. (Which is exciting to be fleshing out and actually playing.) I was thinking of the mind palace stuff without actually wanting to name it, but I'm liking your idea of the bots serving a multitude of roles -- cognitive / mnemonic overflow / pressure release / expansion kit, plus protective gear, possibly with some other manipulative effects. The lack of tuning and maintenance, coupled with Jason's over-use / extended use / "violating the manufacturer's warranty by using in an unsafe and extreme fashion" is having a multitude of effects both DOOM and otherwise. 

Well it's not functioning correctly which is one of the reasons Jason hasn't realized all of the options. The return Loop for him just isn't happening. Or at least isn't happening reliably. and I agree about the SF novel thing.

Doyce T. said: Well it's not functioning correctly which is one of the reasons Jason hasn't realized all of the options. The return Loop for him just isn't happening. Or at least isn't happening reliably. Sounds like he just needs a built-in, real-time Heart Factory doing mental merges, if that's the problem. and I agree about the SF novel thing. Started this awhile back. Probably not exactly what anyone had in mind, but starting points rarely are.&nbsp;<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AfOJBIr30YcFWC2zyNtpDnB0pG5zGfguH5-mHYVkeKM/edit?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AfOJBIr30YcFWC2zyNtpDnB0pG5zGfguH5-mHYVkeKM/edit?usp=sharing</a>

Bill G. said: Started this awhile back. Probably not exactly what anyone had in mind, but starting points rarely are.&nbsp; <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AfOJBIr30YcFWC2zyNtpDnB0pG5zGfguH5-mHYVkeKM/edit?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AfOJBIr30YcFWC2zyNtpDnB0pG5zGfguH5-mHYVkeKM/edit?usp=sharing</a> Nice. I can see Jason settling down into that kind of a role quite nicely, esp. with the right "A".

*** Dave H. said: Numina walking in, she's a sculpture in living light -- Venuses from several dozen European galleries Dad dragged me to flash before my eyes, Botticelli at the Uffizi my favorite -- and her mouth opens, my thoughts already slowing At some point in the near future, Leo's gonna have to notice how Jason is acting, and have a talk with him. It won't be what Jason might expect. Right now we got a full plate, but it's generally fun watching Jason's evolution here and nudging it along (or watching it totally derail....)

Bill G. said: *** Dave H. said: Numina walking in, she's a sculpture in living light -- Venuses from several dozen European galleries Dad dragged me to flash before my eyes, Botticelli at the Uffizi my favorite -- and her mouth opens, my thoughts already slowing At some point in the near future, Leo's gonna have to notice how Jason is acting, and have a talk with him. It won't be what Jason might expect. Right now we got a full plate, but it's generally fun watching Jason's evolution here and nudging it along (or watching it totally derail....) Jason's body and mind (even without the xfer) are lagging and echoing about six episodes right now, unable to catch up to a single coherent chain of thought when it comes to his complex desires for relationship. I won't say he's punch-drunk with the personalities thrown at him, but either Numina or Alycia (the real one, at this point) can distract him just by walking into the room, and he isn't really aware of the dichotomy, nor of the implications. He was going to have a&nbsp; long think-through about it , but then got even more distracted / blindsided by Li'lycia, nanobots, and then Freaky Friday.&nbsp; Of course, he also put down as his "One person I'd like to kiss" character item, waaaaaay back in the day,&nbsp; Charlotte , for a variety of reasons. So who knows what being trapped in her body will do to his wandering (and by "wandering" I mean more like "staggering") eye.