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Built To Last
- Thread starter We Just Write
- Start date
- Superhero
Subversion 6-4
New
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
(Melissa)
I was working on some more consumer products for my day job when Rose paged me,
"Ruggedizer, I've got some excellent news! The Quantum Uploading Device has been approved for medical applications when used in conjunction with the body builder machine! They've also verified patent eligibility for the QUD, Body Builder, and the synthetic brains."
"Thank you, Rose! Would you please let legal know I'll be talking to them soon? It's about the licensing terms."
"Certainly."
As I walked to the legal offices, I thought grimly about the conversation I'd had with the rest of the family about this. The fact of the matter was, we couldn't release the dimensional shielding tech into the wild; it was all well and good for people to know we could protect our technology from Parahuman powers, but if they put two and two together about how we were doing it, that could completely destroy the opsec required for our anti-alien work.
So the version of the synthetic brains we'd looked to patent didn't have that shielding. The vast majority of Master powers would do absolutely nothing to uploads anyway, and this way we didn't risk the entire world. It still stung to release a deliberately sub-standard product, though.
My musings were paused as I reached the legal offices. I was greeted by Jacob Vespa, one of Reliabuilt's lawyers.
"Hello, Ruggedizer. I heard you wanted to talk about licensing for the newly patented technology?"
I nodded,
"Yes. Bluntly, these are technologies that people's lives will directly depend on, in a much more intimate sense than for most of our products. So anyone who wants to do licensed production will need reliability measuring up to our standards. Also, license-built QUDs and body-builders will be required to have compatibility with Reliabuilt-made brains."
Jose thought for a moment,
"What exactly do you mean by reliability measuring up to your standards? Do you mean a specific hard bar for reliability that mundane manufacturing can conceivably meet, or that it has to equal the tinker-tech that we make here?"
"The former; I'm fully aware that the reliability for stuff I make is beyond most firms' ability to replicate. I just want them to make absolutely sure their stuff won't get a patient killed or otherwise messed up. And that means rigorous testing standards, Reliabuilt inspectors turning up with no notice, and other similar measures."
"Understood. We'll get to work on it. Guessing we should get in touch with Human Resources about setting up an inspections department?"
"Good idea."
(Marcus)
It was two in the morning on Monday, the 28th of February. It had taken quite a few shady deals, but I had managed to arrange a meeting with Lung. I showed up at the Ruby Dreams casino, and was promptly directed to a back room. Twenty minutes later, Lung entered in his trademark steel mask. I was wearing my Mr. E getup, as was typical when I was on business away from the factory.
"So, you are Reliabuilt's mysterious fixer? Why did you want to meet with me?"
"Bluntly, to warn you about someone, and to make clear that accepting her into your gang will be very bad for your business."
Lung thought for a moment.
"Do you mean that I will be attacked for accepting this person into the ABB, or that they are inherently dangerous to my operations?"
"Both. I came to warn you about an asian-american explosives Tinker going by Bakuda. Putting it bluntly, she is utterly insane, and liable to do all manner of reckless things in an effort to stroke her own ego. Since her Trigger Event, she has been sighted approaching Brockton Bay twice, and it seems likely she will attempt to attack Reliabuilt."
Lung nodded thoughtfully,
"That is quite troublesome indeed. While I've had to downsize the protection services side of my business, the increase in disposable income across the city means my entertainment venues are more profitable than before. Taken together, the ABB is better off overall than before Reliabuilt came along. In addition, the removal of the Empire has been a great boon. Having an unstable bomb-maker ruin all of that is simply unacceptable."
There were another few seconds, before Lung asked another question.
"To be clear, is simply having this Bakuda under my employ in any capacity going to provoke hostilities?"
"If you keep her from causing problems, we won't give you any. But if Bakuda joins the ABB and starts causing trouble anyway? I politely request that you deal with her permanently. I suspect that her actions will provoke you to dispose of her anyway, should she come under your command."
Lung seemed moderately annoyed at my giving him instructions, but kept his composure.
"We shall see. Before you go, I have a message for you to pass to the PRT: the ABB has divested itself of human trafficking. It is not a sensible business to retain, given the changed situation in Brockton Bay."
Lung clearly wanted me to leave, so I stood.
"I understand. Thank you for your time."
(Andrea)
Ultimately, we'd had very little direct input on the engineering side of the bridge. There was just too much else for us to do, so we ended up giving the engineers involved a directive to prioritize durability and lifespan for the bridge over every other consideration - with the exception of not hindering maritime access - and left them to it. So I showed up at the north end construction site around noon on Thursday the 27th, to take a look around.
As I touched down at the entry gate, the lady on duty looked up from her lunch.
"Ah, Laniakea. I take it you're here to take a look around?"
"Yes, that's exactly correct."
"Well, you know the rules. Hard hat and high-visibility vest like everyone else."
I nodded, and donned the safety gear without complaint. The hard hat was pretty irrelevant for me, but the high-vis vest could still prevent a nasty accident. Properly attired, I proceeded onto the construction site.
I made an effort not to bother anyone, but I couldn't help being impressed by the large caisson I saw being floated into position.
I noticed a worker coming up to me, and turned to greet them.
The man waved to me,
"Nice to see you, Laniakea. I'm Adam, one of the junior engineers on the project. That caisson's a thing of beauty, yeah?"
I nodded,
"Yeah. That said, I find myself pretty curious about the inner workings of it. Got any details to share?"
Adam nodded,
"Yeah, that's a fully pressurized caisson there, and it'll form the foundation of the bridge's central tower. It's got six decompression chambers for workers coming off their shift, electrical hookups for earth-moving machinery, four layers of redundancy on the pressurization equipment, the works. There's even fully functioning restrooms built into the pressurized section, though not on the bottom level."
I smiled.
"That's genuinely impressive. Sounds like you'll make short work of laying the foundations."
"You'd think that, but the silt at the bottom of the bay is pretty thick here. Even with people working around the clock to dig muck out, it's going to take a while to reach bedrock. At least a month or two."
Ah. Fair enough.
(Emmy)
It took until March 3rd to get the space-expanding machinery to work properly on a link to our power. This really wasn't helped by the fact that we didn't tell our power shit about what we were doing here, and didn't get any help on this at all. Strictly speaking, this was an engineering project, rather than Tinkering. Once more, I found myself grateful for our awesome robot brains.
Anyway, just in case something went horribly wrong, we set up the breach in a dimensionally shielded vault, and none of us were physically present at the moment the space-expander fired. We really needn't have bothered; the portal smoothly grew from two millimeters to four meters in diameter, and stabilized at its new size without incident.
I couldn't help but remark,
"I can't help but feel that was way too easy. Shouldn't there be some sort of security we should have tripped?"
Marcus just shrugged.
"I'm really not surprised. The thousands of extra hosts reporting a completely divergent alternate reality didn't provoke a hazardous response, so why would this? Really, given the results of Project Gaslight this is totally within expectations."
As for Melissa, she had a rather blunt opinion of matters.
"I'm sending the probes in. along with the teleporter installation units. We've got an alien biocomputer to subvert, and sitting around talking about it isn't getting anything done."
Right, it was time to get shit done.
I was working on some more consumer products for my day job when Rose paged me,
"Ruggedizer, I've got some excellent news! The Quantum Uploading Device has been approved for medical applications when used in conjunction with the body builder machine! They've also verified patent eligibility for the QUD, Body Builder, and the synthetic brains."
"Thank you, Rose! Would you please let legal know I'll be talking to them soon? It's about the licensing terms."
"Certainly."
As I walked to the legal offices, I thought grimly about the conversation I'd had with the rest of the family about this. The fact of the matter was, we couldn't release the dimensional shielding tech into the wild; it was all well and good for people to know we could protect our technology from Parahuman powers, but if they put two and two together about how we were doing it, that could completely destroy the opsec required for our anti-alien work.
So the version of the synthetic brains we'd looked to patent didn't have that shielding. The vast majority of Master powers would do absolutely nothing to uploads anyway, and this way we didn't risk the entire world. It still stung to release a deliberately sub-standard product, though.
My musings were paused as I reached the legal offices. I was greeted by Jacob Vespa, one of Reliabuilt's lawyers.
"Hello, Ruggedizer. I heard you wanted to talk about licensing for the newly patented technology?"
I nodded,
"Yes. Bluntly, these are technologies that people's lives will directly depend on, in a much more intimate sense than for most of our products. So anyone who wants to do licensed production will need reliability measuring up to our standards. Also, license-built QUDs and body-builders will be required to have compatibility with Reliabuilt-made brains."
Jose thought for a moment,
"What exactly do you mean by reliability measuring up to your standards? Do you mean a specific hard bar for reliability that mundane manufacturing can conceivably meet, or that it has to equal the tinker-tech that we make here?"
"The former; I'm fully aware that the reliability for stuff I make is beyond most firms' ability to replicate. I just want them to make absolutely sure their stuff won't get a patient killed or otherwise messed up. And that means rigorous testing standards, Reliabuilt inspectors turning up with no notice, and other similar measures."
"Understood. We'll get to work on it. Guessing we should get in touch with Human Resources about setting up an inspections department?"
"Good idea."
(Marcus)
It was two in the morning on Monday, the 28th of February. It had taken quite a few shady deals, but I had managed to arrange a meeting with Lung. I showed up at the Ruby Dreams casino, and was promptly directed to a back room. Twenty minutes later, Lung entered in his trademark steel mask. I was wearing my Mr. E getup, as was typical when I was on business away from the factory.
"So, you are Reliabuilt's mysterious fixer? Why did you want to meet with me?"
"Bluntly, to warn you about someone, and to make clear that accepting her into your gang will be very bad for your business."
Lung thought for a moment.
"Do you mean that I will be attacked for accepting this person into the ABB, or that they are inherently dangerous to my operations?"
"Both. I came to warn you about an asian-american explosives Tinker going by Bakuda. Putting it bluntly, she is utterly insane, and liable to do all manner of reckless things in an effort to stroke her own ego. Since her Trigger Event, she has been sighted approaching Brockton Bay twice, and it seems likely she will attempt to attack Reliabuilt."
Lung nodded thoughtfully,
"That is quite troublesome indeed. While I've had to downsize the protection services side of my business, the increase in disposable income across the city means my entertainment venues are more profitable than before. Taken together, the ABB is better off overall than before Reliabuilt came along. In addition, the removal of the Empire has been a great boon. Having an unstable bomb-maker ruin all of that is simply unacceptable."
There were another few seconds, before Lung asked another question.
"To be clear, is simply having this Bakuda under my employ in any capacity going to provoke hostilities?"
"If you keep her from causing problems, we won't give you any. But if Bakuda joins the ABB and starts causing trouble anyway? I politely request that you deal with her permanently. I suspect that her actions will provoke you to dispose of her anyway, should she come under your command."
Lung seemed moderately annoyed at my giving him instructions, but kept his composure.
"We shall see. Before you go, I have a message for you to pass to the PRT: the ABB has divested itself of human trafficking. It is not a sensible business to retain, given the changed situation in Brockton Bay."
Lung clearly wanted me to leave, so I stood.
"I understand. Thank you for your time."
To be clear, this is NOT a Lung Redemption Story. He is a bad person through and through, and is entirely willing to harm innocent people for his own gain. That said, he is pragmatic and capable of thinking things through; if he comes to the conclusion that a given act of villainy would be counterproductive, he won't do it.
(Andrea)
Ultimately, we'd had very little direct input on the engineering side of the bridge. There was just too much else for us to do, so we ended up giving the engineers involved a directive to prioritize durability and lifespan for the bridge over every other consideration - with the exception of not hindering maritime access - and left them to it. So I showed up at the north end construction site around noon on Thursday the 27th, to take a look around.
As I touched down at the entry gate, the lady on duty looked up from her lunch.
"Ah, Laniakea. I take it you're here to take a look around?"
"Yes, that's exactly correct."
"Well, you know the rules. Hard hat and high-visibility vest like everyone else."
I nodded, and donned the safety gear without complaint. The hard hat was pretty irrelevant for me, but the high-vis vest could still prevent a nasty accident. Properly attired, I proceeded onto the construction site.
I made an effort not to bother anyone, but I couldn't help being impressed by the large caisson I saw being floated into position.
I noticed a worker coming up to me, and turned to greet them.
The man waved to me,
"Nice to see you, Laniakea. I'm Adam, one of the junior engineers on the project. That caisson's a thing of beauty, yeah?"
I nodded,
"Yeah. That said, I find myself pretty curious about the inner workings of it. Got any details to share?"
Adam nodded,
"Yeah, that's a fully pressurized caisson there, and it'll form the foundation of the bridge's central tower. It's got six decompression chambers for workers coming off their shift, electrical hookups for earth-moving machinery, four layers of redundancy on the pressurization equipment, the works. There's even fully functioning restrooms built into the pressurized section, though not on the bottom level."
I smiled.
"That's genuinely impressive. Sounds like you'll make short work of laying the foundations."
"You'd think that, but the silt at the bottom of the bay is pretty thick here. Even with people working around the clock to dig muck out, it's going to take a while to reach bedrock. At least a month or two."
Ah. Fair enough.
(Emmy)
It took until March 3rd to get the space-expanding machinery to work properly on a link to our power. This really wasn't helped by the fact that we didn't tell our power shit about what we were doing here, and didn't get any help on this at all. Strictly speaking, this was an engineering project, rather than Tinkering. Once more, I found myself grateful for our awesome robot brains.
Anyway, just in case something went horribly wrong, we set up the breach in a dimensionally shielded vault, and none of us were physically present at the moment the space-expander fired. We really needn't have bothered; the portal smoothly grew from two millimeters to four meters in diameter, and stabilized at its new size without incident.
I couldn't help but remark,
"I can't help but feel that was way too easy. Shouldn't there be some sort of security we should have tripped?"
Marcus just shrugged.
"I'm really not surprised. The thousands of extra hosts reporting a completely divergent alternate reality didn't provoke a hazardous response, so why would this? Really, given the results of Project Gaslight this is totally within expectations."
As for Melissa, she had a rather blunt opinion of matters.
"I'm sending the probes in. along with the teleporter installation units. We've got an alien biocomputer to subvert, and sitting around talking about it isn't getting anything done."
Right, it was time to get shit done.
Last edited:
Odd1todd89
The strange tightrope
- Pronouns
- It
Thank you for coming back to this.
It is a good story...
It is a good story...
Glad to see you writing more on this story, I have really enjoyed it up to this point.
Temporal Snarl
New
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
F: We seem to have gotten the dates of various events mixed up. Please hold while we fix it.
Subversion 6-5
New
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
A/N: We realized there were some inconsistencies with the story's timeline. Among other things, we'd accidentally written Marcus doing stuff before his activation date. These anomalies have been corrected.
(Andrea)
Due to my mobility, I'd volunteered to supervise the effort to completely suborn our power "from the front". I made a backup before I went through the portal, but I really hoped that wouldn't be needed. I wanted to live, and a version of me from a few hours ago wasn't quite that; it was more of a life insurance plan.
Because of that, I was flying relatively low over the crystalline landscape. We didn't know if our power had anti-air defenses, and really didn't want to find out the hard way. Some of the drones flew higher to get a better view and so far none of them had been shot down, but better safe than sorry.
As our scouts surveyed the area, more and more information was becoming clear. Our power was approximately three hundred kilometers in radius, with the vast majority of its mass being in a huge dome towards the center. The outlying areas were largely dedicated to solar energy collection, meaning that almost the entirety of the database must be in the dome.
Furthermore, there was a massive impact crater in the dome. Some basic estimations indicated that it was consistent with an impact approximately equivalent to 300 kilotons of TNT. Clearly, something had not gone as planned here.
As for our initial intrusion point? It was two kilometers from the dome, and the portal was directly connected to the core by a pulsing conduit of crystalline nervous tissue.
I radio'd back to base,
"Emmy, Melissa, I'm going to start sending units into the dome, starting with the impact site. I have a hunch that crater is our best bet for bypassing the aliens' security."
Emmy replied quickly,
"Andrea, please be careful! I know you're competent and careful, but we're directly tampering with a being vastly more powerful than us."
"I know, Emmy. I know."
Within minutes the first data-jacks were being drilled into the alien's associative network, and as I got the first readings, I couldn't help but pump my fist in excitation. Not only were we getting good data, but it looks like that impact took out whatever passed for higher reasoning in a genocidal alien geological formation. Meaning that all the stuff directly connected to it assumed those jacks had full access permissions.
We were in.
(Emmy)
We'd started our attack on our power just after closing time on the 3rd of March, and stayed up all night analyzing the data we were getting back from the jacks our drones installed. Almost immediately, I was able to prove Andrea's hypothesis correct; our power's decision-making capacity and situational awareness had been crippled by that impact it suffered on approach. Effectively, we were dealing with an alien suffering the equivalent of a severe untreated concussion.
While there was absolutely a treasure-trove of technology in here, we were saving it for later. We had a much higher priority in our examination of the database: extracting as much information as possible on how the alien invasion cycle was going as a whole. What we found was complicated. At five in the morning, everyone gathered in a shielded break room to have breakfast and discuss the situation.
I started,
"Well, the good news is that one of the two network hubs is dead. So at least this cycle won't lead to successful reproduction."
Melissa sighed in response,
"That's far from any guarantee regarding the behavior of the other network hub. Just the fact that the Endbringers are deployed makes me suspect that a genocide is still in the works, and the records we uncovered make me deeply suspicious of Scion. I think he's a sockpuppet for the remaining network hub."
I nodded in thought, as did Andrea and Marcus. Andrea was the next to voice a concern.
"I'm honestly scared that our power is apparently on the small end. Yes I know that's normal for Tinker powers, since they're basically a database and therefore don't need all that much energy. It still means that any other powers we tamper with are likely to put up a much bigger fight than what we got here, even accounting for our power being comatose. We need to build up, way more than we can here on Earth Bet."
Marcus asked,
"Could we maybe build up in our power's reality?"
Melissa shook her head.
"No; the records show that the network hubs are supposed to check up on powers every once in a while. If that happens and there's any obvious alterations to our power, all our hard work on opsec goes right down the drain. So I've already started operations to conceal our subversion of our power."
Now Andrea spoke up,
"Can we please stop calling it that? Calling them powers has mystical connotations that I really don't like, and Sunderer hasn't stuck."
Marcus shrugged,
"Dynalith, maybe?"
"Sure, we can call it a Dynalith."
(Melissa)
The subversion of our Dynalith aside, Reliabuilt was still our single best way to acquire resources. It was also how we were best able to improve the situation here on Earth Bet in the near-to-medium term. That meant getting more products on the market was absolutely a useful thing to do, and the nuclear fusion technology we'd dug up a while back would be great for that. There was just one problem: the laws banning tinkertech from use in public infrastructure.
That meant another end-run around the Rogue Laws was needed. Namely, hiring a bunch of mundane engineers and teaching them how to build a fusion reactor. Then having them do it again without my direct involvement, so it wouldn't be tinkertech, legally speaking. We'd gotten a mix of fresh graduates and experienced nuclear industry personnel in starting on the 22nd of February, and we'd really gotten into the swing of building a fusion reactor starting on the 2nd of March.
By March 8th - Tuesday - the semi-tinkertech prototype reactor was completed. We'd just come back from lunch, and it was time for the initial test operation.
Angie Rains - one of the freshly graduated engineers we'd hired - called out from her station: "We have D-D ignition in chamber number one. We're getting good Helium three and Tritium synthesis rates, along with twenty Megawatts electrical. Thirty Megawatts thermal headed to the radiator on the roof."
A few moments later, Andrew Brown - a veteran nuclear engineer - chimed in.
"Tritium separator is working smoothly; The Tritium storage tank is no longer a vacuum. Helium three tank will be reaching the point of having enough for afterburner activation within an hour."
I couldn't help but smile; technically speaking, we'd crammed two separate fusion chambers into this machine. The afterburner Andrew was referring to was optimized for Deuterium-3He; four times the energy density of pure Deuterium fusion, and a much larger fraction of that energy could be converted to electricity to boot. The end result was that the afterburner would be able to output one hundred and eighty Megawatts of electrical power, for only twenty additional Megawatts of waste heat.
Angie chimed in again,
"Honestly, just chamber number one would have been absolutely revolutionary on its own. Include the Helium three afterburner, and I don't even know how to describe what we've accomplished."
I nodded, "Yeah, this is going to change the world, no question about it. That said, I'm not allowed to help you get the production model built. Though I am rather interested in what sort of ideas you have there."
Andrew answered;
"We've actually been thinking we should make the production model smaller. Shrink it down to the form-factor of a standard shipping container, and we'll drastically reduce the cost of getting fusion power plants set up anywhere we can ship a reactor. It's a lot like that small modular reactor concept that's been kicking around for a while, but with fusion instead of fission. Drops the power per reactor to fifty Megawatts electrical, but that's more than enough for a worthwhile power plant, especially if they operate more than one at a given site."
I nodded as I thought about that,
"Sounds like it would make for a really good locomotive too, come to think of it."
Angie and Andrew both shrugged,
"We'll get there when we get there."
Just before leaving the room, I noted,
"By the way, some people from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be coming over starting tomorrow, in addition to the people from the PRT. Not anticipating any problems, but I thought you should know."
Angie saluted,
"Thanks for the heads-up."
(Marcus)
Finding the three remaining members of the Undersiders hadn't been hard; with their Thinker having been arrested, they weren't quite so good at dodging attention as they had been. So I'd left a letter for them at their new hideout - they'd moved prior to their old one getting raided by the PRT. That letter was politely requesting that they come talk to me at Somer's rock, also known as Brockton Bay's local neutral ground for villains to meet up.
Unlike with my talks with Faultline or Lung, this one did have an implicit "Or Else" attached to it. I didn't name any specific consequences, but the tone - along with the fact that I was more-or-less giving them orders - made clear that there would be some for not showing up.
I didn't need to wait all that long; all three Undersiders turned up at eight in the evening on Thursday, March 8th. The tall guy in black was clearly Grue, their de facto leader. I also noticed that Regent looked slightly confused, though it was a bit hard to tell through his mask.
As he sat, Grue asked,
"Are you Mr. E?"
"Yes."
There was a half-second pause, before I asked a very personal question.
"So, why are you three villains?"
Everyone tensed up. I then dropped my follow-up question.
"If you're villains because there's something you want, I can help you get it. The only string attached is that you three stop hurting people and causing problems for Reliabuilt. So, out with it."
There were several moments of awkward silence, before the one with the scepter - Regent - spoke.
"I... I can't go back to my family. I can't go to the authorities, that will just tell him where I am."
I nodded sadly,
"Supervillain father?"
"The worst."
"We can help you fake your death, better than anyone else. Put you in a fresh body, fake a cause of death for your old one, and you've got a fresh start."
The three teenagers seemed stunned for a moment. Then Grue asked,
"Wait, turning people into robots is a thing Ruggedizer can just do!? I thought that was some sort of one time only mad science thing, going by how the papers covered the Winslow incident."
"Ruggedizer doesn't do one time only mad science things. Her whole deal is extremely reliable technology, meaning anything she builds will be functioning for a very long time. That includes the uploading technology she developed. It's actually received conditional authorization for medical uses already."
Regent thought for a moment, then answered,
"I'll take your offer. Can't speak for the other two though."
I nodded, then gestured to Hellhound, also known as Rachel Lindt. She answered bluntly,
"I want to take care of dogs without anyone bothering me."
Grue elaborated,
"The only problem with that is that the PRT thinks Bitch murdered someone, when it was an accident. She made a dog that someone was torturing big, and the panicking dog did what panicking dogs do and bit."
I nodded, also mentally noting the term of address Grue used.
"Well then, I can arrange for Bitch to also have her death faked. Would that work for you?"
Bitch thought for a moment.
"Will my dogs still recognize me afterwards?"
I thought for a moment.
"That's something we considered. One idea that comes to mind is to build your new body first, and have you introduce the dogs to it before we put you in there."
"That will work."
I then turned to Grue.
"And, what do you want?"
"Custody of my sister. Our parents don't take good care of her, especially with her learning disability."
I kept my face stoic and very deliberately didn't say what I was actually thinking: You wanted to get legal custody of your sister, and your best plan was to go out and commit crimes? Saying that wouldn't be helpful. Instead, I answered,
"That's easy enough. Get your civilian identity a job at Reliabuilt, and we'll also get you in touch with some good lawyers. Yes that will involve you unmasking, but it's kind of unavoidable if you want to solve a problem in your civilian life."
"I... that's... why did I never think of something that simple before?"
I shrugged.
"Shall we go? I can let you into the Reliabuilt complex, and we can flesh out the plan in more detail there."
All three of them nodded in agreement.
(Andrea)
Due to my mobility, I'd volunteered to supervise the effort to completely suborn our power "from the front". I made a backup before I went through the portal, but I really hoped that wouldn't be needed. I wanted to live, and a version of me from a few hours ago wasn't quite that; it was more of a life insurance plan.
Because of that, I was flying relatively low over the crystalline landscape. We didn't know if our power had anti-air defenses, and really didn't want to find out the hard way. Some of the drones flew higher to get a better view and so far none of them had been shot down, but better safe than sorry.
As our scouts surveyed the area, more and more information was becoming clear. Our power was approximately three hundred kilometers in radius, with the vast majority of its mass being in a huge dome towards the center. The outlying areas were largely dedicated to solar energy collection, meaning that almost the entirety of the database must be in the dome.
Furthermore, there was a massive impact crater in the dome. Some basic estimations indicated that it was consistent with an impact approximately equivalent to 300 kilotons of TNT. Clearly, something had not gone as planned here.
As for our initial intrusion point? It was two kilometers from the dome, and the portal was directly connected to the core by a pulsing conduit of crystalline nervous tissue.
I radio'd back to base,
"Emmy, Melissa, I'm going to start sending units into the dome, starting with the impact site. I have a hunch that crater is our best bet for bypassing the aliens' security."
Emmy replied quickly,
"Andrea, please be careful! I know you're competent and careful, but we're directly tampering with a being vastly more powerful than us."
"I know, Emmy. I know."
Within minutes the first data-jacks were being drilled into the alien's associative network, and as I got the first readings, I couldn't help but pump my fist in excitation. Not only were we getting good data, but it looks like that impact took out whatever passed for higher reasoning in a genocidal alien geological formation. Meaning that all the stuff directly connected to it assumed those jacks had full access permissions.
We were in.
(Emmy)
We'd started our attack on our power just after closing time on the 3rd of March, and stayed up all night analyzing the data we were getting back from the jacks our drones installed. Almost immediately, I was able to prove Andrea's hypothesis correct; our power's decision-making capacity and situational awareness had been crippled by that impact it suffered on approach. Effectively, we were dealing with an alien suffering the equivalent of a severe untreated concussion.
While there was absolutely a treasure-trove of technology in here, we were saving it for later. We had a much higher priority in our examination of the database: extracting as much information as possible on how the alien invasion cycle was going as a whole. What we found was complicated. At five in the morning, everyone gathered in a shielded break room to have breakfast and discuss the situation.
I started,
"Well, the good news is that one of the two network hubs is dead. So at least this cycle won't lead to successful reproduction."
Melissa sighed in response,
"That's far from any guarantee regarding the behavior of the other network hub. Just the fact that the Endbringers are deployed makes me suspect that a genocide is still in the works, and the records we uncovered make me deeply suspicious of Scion. I think he's a sockpuppet for the remaining network hub."
I nodded in thought, as did Andrea and Marcus. Andrea was the next to voice a concern.
"I'm honestly scared that our power is apparently on the small end. Yes I know that's normal for Tinker powers, since they're basically a database and therefore don't need all that much energy. It still means that any other powers we tamper with are likely to put up a much bigger fight than what we got here, even accounting for our power being comatose. We need to build up, way more than we can here on Earth Bet."
Marcus asked,
"Could we maybe build up in our power's reality?"
Melissa shook her head.
"No; the records show that the network hubs are supposed to check up on powers every once in a while. If that happens and there's any obvious alterations to our power, all our hard work on opsec goes right down the drain. So I've already started operations to conceal our subversion of our power."
Now Andrea spoke up,
"Can we please stop calling it that? Calling them powers has mystical connotations that I really don't like, and Sunderer hasn't stuck."
Marcus shrugged,
"Dynalith, maybe?"
"Sure, we can call it a Dynalith."
(Melissa)
The subversion of our Dynalith aside, Reliabuilt was still our single best way to acquire resources. It was also how we were best able to improve the situation here on Earth Bet in the near-to-medium term. That meant getting more products on the market was absolutely a useful thing to do, and the nuclear fusion technology we'd dug up a while back would be great for that. There was just one problem: the laws banning tinkertech from use in public infrastructure.
That meant another end-run around the Rogue Laws was needed. Namely, hiring a bunch of mundane engineers and teaching them how to build a fusion reactor. Then having them do it again without my direct involvement, so it wouldn't be tinkertech, legally speaking. We'd gotten a mix of fresh graduates and experienced nuclear industry personnel in starting on the 22nd of February, and we'd really gotten into the swing of building a fusion reactor starting on the 2nd of March.
By March 8th - Tuesday - the semi-tinkertech prototype reactor was completed. We'd just come back from lunch, and it was time for the initial test operation.
Angie Rains - one of the freshly graduated engineers we'd hired - called out from her station: "We have D-D ignition in chamber number one. We're getting good Helium three and Tritium synthesis rates, along with twenty Megawatts electrical. Thirty Megawatts thermal headed to the radiator on the roof."
A few moments later, Andrew Brown - a veteran nuclear engineer - chimed in.
"Tritium separator is working smoothly; The Tritium storage tank is no longer a vacuum. Helium three tank will be reaching the point of having enough for afterburner activation within an hour."
I couldn't help but smile; technically speaking, we'd crammed two separate fusion chambers into this machine. The afterburner Andrew was referring to was optimized for Deuterium-3He; four times the energy density of pure Deuterium fusion, and a much larger fraction of that energy could be converted to electricity to boot. The end result was that the afterburner would be able to output one hundred and eighty Megawatts of electrical power, for only twenty additional Megawatts of waste heat.
Angie chimed in again,
"Honestly, just chamber number one would have been absolutely revolutionary on its own. Include the Helium three afterburner, and I don't even know how to describe what we've accomplished."
I nodded, "Yeah, this is going to change the world, no question about it. That said, I'm not allowed to help you get the production model built. Though I am rather interested in what sort of ideas you have there."
Andrew answered;
"We've actually been thinking we should make the production model smaller. Shrink it down to the form-factor of a standard shipping container, and we'll drastically reduce the cost of getting fusion power plants set up anywhere we can ship a reactor. It's a lot like that small modular reactor concept that's been kicking around for a while, but with fusion instead of fission. Drops the power per reactor to fifty Megawatts electrical, but that's more than enough for a worthwhile power plant, especially if they operate more than one at a given site."
I nodded as I thought about that,
"Sounds like it would make for a really good locomotive too, come to think of it."
Angie and Andrew both shrugged,
"We'll get there when we get there."
Just before leaving the room, I noted,
"By the way, some people from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be coming over starting tomorrow, in addition to the people from the PRT. Not anticipating any problems, but I thought you should know."
Angie saluted,
"Thanks for the heads-up."
(Marcus)
Finding the three remaining members of the Undersiders hadn't been hard; with their Thinker having been arrested, they weren't quite so good at dodging attention as they had been. So I'd left a letter for them at their new hideout - they'd moved prior to their old one getting raided by the PRT. That letter was politely requesting that they come talk to me at Somer's rock, also known as Brockton Bay's local neutral ground for villains to meet up.
Unlike with my talks with Faultline or Lung, this one did have an implicit "Or Else" attached to it. I didn't name any specific consequences, but the tone - along with the fact that I was more-or-less giving them orders - made clear that there would be some for not showing up.
I didn't need to wait all that long; all three Undersiders turned up at eight in the evening on Thursday, March 8th. The tall guy in black was clearly Grue, their de facto leader. I also noticed that Regent looked slightly confused, though it was a bit hard to tell through his mask.
As he sat, Grue asked,
"Are you Mr. E?"
"Yes."
There was a half-second pause, before I asked a very personal question.
"So, why are you three villains?"
Everyone tensed up. I then dropped my follow-up question.
"If you're villains because there's something you want, I can help you get it. The only string attached is that you three stop hurting people and causing problems for Reliabuilt. So, out with it."
There were several moments of awkward silence, before the one with the scepter - Regent - spoke.
"I... I can't go back to my family. I can't go to the authorities, that will just tell him where I am."
I nodded sadly,
"Supervillain father?"
"The worst."
"We can help you fake your death, better than anyone else. Put you in a fresh body, fake a cause of death for your old one, and you've got a fresh start."
The three teenagers seemed stunned for a moment. Then Grue asked,
"Wait, turning people into robots is a thing Ruggedizer can just do!? I thought that was some sort of one time only mad science thing, going by how the papers covered the Winslow incident."
"Ruggedizer doesn't do one time only mad science things. Her whole deal is extremely reliable technology, meaning anything she builds will be functioning for a very long time. That includes the uploading technology she developed. It's actually received conditional authorization for medical uses already."
Regent thought for a moment, then answered,
"I'll take your offer. Can't speak for the other two though."
I nodded, then gestured to Hellhound, also known as Rachel Lindt. She answered bluntly,
"I want to take care of dogs without anyone bothering me."
Grue elaborated,
"The only problem with that is that the PRT thinks Bitch murdered someone, when it was an accident. She made a dog that someone was torturing big, and the panicking dog did what panicking dogs do and bit."
I nodded, also mentally noting the term of address Grue used.
"Well then, I can arrange for Bitch to also have her death faked. Would that work for you?"
Bitch thought for a moment.
"Will my dogs still recognize me afterwards?"
I thought for a moment.
"That's something we considered. One idea that comes to mind is to build your new body first, and have you introduce the dogs to it before we put you in there."
"That will work."
I then turned to Grue.
"And, what do you want?"
"Custody of my sister. Our parents don't take good care of her, especially with her learning disability."
I kept my face stoic and very deliberately didn't say what I was actually thinking: You wanted to get legal custody of your sister, and your best plan was to go out and commit crimes? Saying that wouldn't be helpful. Instead, I answered,
"That's easy enough. Get your civilian identity a job at Reliabuilt, and we'll also get you in touch with some good lawyers. Yes that will involve you unmasking, but it's kind of unavoidable if you want to solve a problem in your civilian life."
"I... that's... why did I never think of something that simple before?"
I shrugged.
"Shall we go? I can let you into the Reliabuilt complex, and we can flesh out the plan in more detail there."
All three of them nodded in agreement.
Last edited:
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
C: So, we know everyone is still just really happy about the story being back. But feedback about specific details of the story would be greatly appreciated. Also that specific kind of attention is one of the big reasons we bother writing, so.
- Location
- poland
First something to launch obiects to space. Coilgun/railgun? With their level of reliabity as standard, satellite could survive such high acceleration.
Or maybe kinetic energy effector, for rapid acceleration in a launcher and kinetic compensatror for projectline to lessen the g-forces.
Or maybe kinetic energy effector, for rapid acceleration in a launcher and kinetic compensatror for projectline to lessen the g-forces.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
P: Space exploration is in the cards, but it needs to be done further away from the Simurgh's surveillance than Earth Bet.
- Location
- poland
Since they have acces to dimensional technology can they build Sting laser/beam weapon as static defenses?
- Location
- poland
Can they do an dimensionally folded/overlaping beam, beacuse that should be a lot more effective against endbringer than just a normal beam weapon.
Ahhh I really love this story and am hyped you're back at it!
Interlude: Amy
New
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Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
It was the fourth of March - a Friday - when Amy noticed the new machinery being moved into Brockton General Hospital. More specifically, it was being moved to the terminal illness ward. Being curious about what it was, Amy found herself asking about it during one of her brief breaks.
Doctor Richard - one of the local Oncologists - answered,
"Ah, that's the new brain uploading machinery from Reliabuilt. It's been recently approved for medical uses, and it should really ease your workload. Basically, it opens up the option to put people in a brand new robotic body, if their current one is too sick or injured to recover any other way. It does mean a lot of medical personnel are also going to need some technical training going forwards, but that's how things go sometimes."
Just like that, all of Amy's self-worth evaporated. The world... just didn't need her anymore.
"Oh... I guess that's a good thing."
She went through the motions for the rest of her volunteer shift at the hospital, dreading what was going to happen. She was really glad that it was Victoria who came to pick her up, rather than Carol.
Victoria noticed the frown on Amy's face as she pulled up in the car.
"Amy, is something wrong?"
"Yes. They don't need me anymore."
Victoria blinked.
"Huh?"
"Ruggedizer's brain uploading technology is undergoing a nationwide rollout. That means I'm obsolete, and I don't have a reason to... exist anymore."
Victoria tilted her head.
"Who told you that you needed to heal people just to be allowed to exist?"
"Carol."
Victoria frowned, even as she put the car in park and got out her cell phone.
"Right, I think a sleepover is in order."
With that, Victoria dialed Taylor. Her sister needed to talk to someone who most emphatically couldn't want healing from her, but cared about her anyway.
Doctor Richard - one of the local Oncologists - answered,
"Ah, that's the new brain uploading machinery from Reliabuilt. It's been recently approved for medical uses, and it should really ease your workload. Basically, it opens up the option to put people in a brand new robotic body, if their current one is too sick or injured to recover any other way. It does mean a lot of medical personnel are also going to need some technical training going forwards, but that's how things go sometimes."
Just like that, all of Amy's self-worth evaporated. The world... just didn't need her anymore.
"Oh... I guess that's a good thing."
She went through the motions for the rest of her volunteer shift at the hospital, dreading what was going to happen. She was really glad that it was Victoria who came to pick her up, rather than Carol.
Victoria noticed the frown on Amy's face as she pulled up in the car.
"Amy, is something wrong?"
"Yes. They don't need me anymore."
Victoria blinked.
"Huh?"
"Ruggedizer's brain uploading technology is undergoing a nationwide rollout. That means I'm obsolete, and I don't have a reason to... exist anymore."
Victoria tilted her head.
"Who told you that you needed to heal people just to be allowed to exist?"
"Carol."
Victoria frowned, even as she put the car in park and got out her cell phone.
"Right, I think a sleepover is in order."
With that, Victoria dialed Taylor. Her sister needed to talk to someone who most emphatically couldn't want healing from her, but cared about her anyway.
poor Amy, get some therapy.
Call for OCs
New
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Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
P: We are now accepting Cape submissions for Manchester NH. I repeat, we are now accepting Cape submissions for Manchester NH.
Explosion 7-1
New
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Blatantly Plural
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- New England
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(Marcus)
It was the ninth of March when I got a call from Faultline, specifically regarding an information bounty. Two of them, actually, though neither of them seemed likely to be recruitment prospects for Reliabuilt. I turned up in person with the agreed upon ten thousand dollars in cash per information bounty.
As it turned out, Faultline was busy. So the task of telling me what Faultline's Crew had learned fell to Spitfire.
"So, we've looked into a recent incident by the docks. We don't know many of the details, but apparently the PRT snapped up a fresh Trigger into the Wards. Probably a regenerator, given they were picked up from the hospital."
I nodded, though I didn't bother concealing a frown. It was information within the terms of the agreement, but it also wasn't terribly useful.
"Second, we have a confirmed sighting of Bakuda in Brockton Bay."
If I had blood, it would have run cold. Meanwhile, Spitfire got out a printed out photograph, presumably from a cell phone camera. It was a bit grainy, but I could clearly make out Bakuda talking to an ABB foot soldier in a back alley.
"Do you want to activate the pre-prepared contract to hunt down Bakuda?"
I thought for a moment. The more time Bakuda had to Tinker, the more dangerous she would get. But on the other hand, antagonizing Lung without needing to would be rather foolish. More pertinently, getting a reputation for being untrustworthy would make my job of quietly solving problems for Reliabuilt vastly harder in the long term.
So after a moment to think, I chose my answer.
"Not just yet. While she's almost guaranteed to cause problems, she hasn't yet. That said, if the PRT starts a manhunt for Bakuda, the contract immediately goes live. Given the change in circumstances, we're willing to increase the payment by ten percent for additional discretion regarding it being us hiring you."
Spitfire nodded,
"That sounds reasonable enough."
(Andrea)
It was just after lunch on Wednesday (March 9), when Rose paged me.
"Laniakea, Amy Dallon is here? She doesn't have an appointment, but she looks really distressed. Do you want to meet with her, or should I tell her you're busy?"
I saved the project I was working on, then replied.
"I'll talk to her; tell her I'll be in conference room two."
I arrived there about a minute before Amy did, though not before the robots stocked a fresh box of donuts and a jug of apple juice. Also a fruit bowl, in case anyone wanted to eat healthy.
Soon enough, the teenage brunette in question made her presence known. Judging by how messed up her hair was, she'd clearly been having a rough time of things. I offered her a glazed donut, and she immediately took it.
"Amy, what's wrong?"
Swallowing the bite she'd been chewing, the teenager answered,
"I can't go home again. If I have to go back to Carol, I – I won't be able to keep myself from doing something horrible."
I blinked, then motioned for Amy to go on.
"A bit less than a week ago, Brockton General got their uploading machine in. I know it's a good thing, but it got me thinking and I finally admitted to myself that I don't like healing. Stayed over at Taylor's for a night, but when I got back home, everything went bad."
Slowly, the whole story came out. Carol had massively gotten on Amy's case when it came out that she didn't actually like healing, and it had been so awful that Amy had opted to run away from home last night instead of go through another reaming. I didn't blame her in the slightest for running away from a clear case of emotional abuse.
I ran my fingers through my hair as I tried to figure out what to do. Obviously, Amy couldn't go back to Carol, but legal problems on my end could be very troublesome indeed. So I paged the legal office for some advice.
A few minutes later, Jacob Vespa had turned up with a laptop, and a stack of law books.
"So, I do need to make clear that I'm specialized in contract and intellectual property law, rather than whatever this is. Still, I'll do my best to figure out what the applicable laws here are."
An hour went by, along with two bathroom stops and another box of donuts. Still, Jacob had what seemed to be an answer.
"So, the most applicable law here would be Section 633:4 under New Hampshire's Title LXII Criminal Code. The short of it is that at best keeping Amy away from Carol would constitute a misdemeanor at minimum, possibly a felony. The catch is that there's a specifically spelled out affirmative defense: if you were acting in good faith to protect the child from real and imminent physical danger, it wasn't a crime."
Amy frowned.
"That's... not helpful. It doesn't cover emotional danger."
Jacob hummed, then looked something up on his laptop.
"Unfortunately, you seem to be correct. Though there are a few other legal avenues we can take – along with some more dubious measures."
I asked,
"Let's start with the legally clear options first, please."
"Well, calling Child Protective Services is definitely an option, as is starting proceedings to get Amy legally emancipated. With some corroborating evidence about living conditions with Carol, it shouldn't be too hard to get Amy free of that household one way or another. The only concern there is that Amy might be forced back to Carol until those court proceedings wrap up, if we can't get some sort of emergency order."
Amy shook her head vigorously,
"No, no no that's not an option. If I go back I won't be able to stop myself from doing something horrible, I know it."
Jacob nodded,
"And that's where one of the slightly dubious options first makes its appearance. Namely, getting the PRT involved and having them bend the rules a bit. Though how much they're willing to bend rules depends on how dangerous the Parahuman is, and healing isn't generally perceived as dangerous. Also best for Ruggedizer not to put too much of her own implied firepower behind this one."
After a moment of silence, Amy spoke.
"I have to admit something. I'm not just a healer. I can do a lot more than that."
Then Amy grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, and it immediately reshaped itself into a live rodent of some description.
As the critter ran around in circles, I spoke.
"This... explains a lot. Right, we're going to the courthouse. I'll call the PRT on the way and we can explain the situation."
We'd just reached the lobby when a furious Brandish damn-near kicked down the door, and shouted:
"Laniakea, don't you dare get between me and Panacea!"
I didn't even break stride, though I did say "Sure, she's all yours," as misdirection.
Then I pulsed my gravity nodes just so, flinging myself at Carol. Credit to her reaction times, she shifted into her invincible ball of light form before I could make contact.
Still, invincible didn't mean immobile, and I could hit quite a lot harder than a baseline human. With a single solid kick, I managed to knock Brandish well over two hundred meters away, sending her straight through the factory's still-open front door.
I noted,
"That should keep her busy for at least a few minutes. Come on, let's go."
With that, we boarded the flying ambulance and started on our flight to the courthouse. When we got there, us explaining the situation to the first judge who had an open time slot actually got him to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. While he didn't decide the case in Amy's favor instantly, he did grant Amy's request for alternate housing arrangements during proceedings. More specifically, she would be staying with the Heberts.
Crisis averted, I waited for Amy to get picked up, then flew back to the factory with Jacob.
(Emmy)
It was ten in the morning on Thursday, when I read the report on Byung-Ho's first major project. Namely, he'd managed to produce a superconductor that didn't quench until it reached six hundred Kelvins. Just reading that, my jaw dropped. Yeah the superconductors we'd had for the fusion reactor project were technically room-temperature, but only barely. What Byung-Ho made was actually even better in other regards too; it was flexible instead of rigid, and you could fairly easily splice lengths of superconducting cable together with just pressure and time.
Even if it weren't reproducible (and therefore couldn't be parented), this would have been a massively useful piece of technology. But apparently some PRT scientists had managed to manufacture a small sample of the new superconductor, dubbed BH-1. Albeit with absolutely trash yields compared to what Byung-Ho was capable of getting with Reliabuilt's equipment. Right, looked like Byung-Ho would be getting his first patent.
And yes, it would be his first patent; standard Reliabuilt contract for R&D personnel (Tinkers included) split ownership of the patent just about down the middle between the inventors and Reliabuilt. The idea was that neither party could sue the other for using the patented technology or demand royalties, and while the vast majority of licensing would be handled via Reliabuilt, the inventor got a share of the royalties – which they could voluntarily pay back into Reliabuilt or the BBRF, if they wished.
Either way, I promptly got up from my desk and went to go congratulate Byung-Ho in person. This was most definitely an achievement worthy of praise.
(Melissa)
As we sat down in the living room after work, I noted,
"So, the Manchester factory will be opening on Tuesday. I think we'll need to expand our 'cape roster' to maintain coverage."
Marcus nodded,
"That seems sensible enough. Especially since my professional capacity isn't really publicized. Heck, I don't think I've actually shown I have powers at all when I've been out making deals."
As if to prove his point, Marcus briefly projected an illusion of an unimpressed stick figure.
Andrea also chimed in,
"The big questions are what powers we'll build into the new person, and how we'll design their looks."
Marcus dug out a twenty-sided die from somewhere, then commented,
"Well, I for one think we ought to leave gender up to chance this time. One through ten is female, eleven through nineteen is male, and a twenty is non-binary."
No-one had any serious objections to the idea, so Marcus rolled the die, sending it clattering across the coffee table.
It was a two.
I shrugged,
"Any objections to naming her Rachel?"
It was the ninth of March when I got a call from Faultline, specifically regarding an information bounty. Two of them, actually, though neither of them seemed likely to be recruitment prospects for Reliabuilt. I turned up in person with the agreed upon ten thousand dollars in cash per information bounty.
As it turned out, Faultline was busy. So the task of telling me what Faultline's Crew had learned fell to Spitfire.
"So, we've looked into a recent incident by the docks. We don't know many of the details, but apparently the PRT snapped up a fresh Trigger into the Wards. Probably a regenerator, given they were picked up from the hospital."
I nodded, though I didn't bother concealing a frown. It was information within the terms of the agreement, but it also wasn't terribly useful.
"Second, we have a confirmed sighting of Bakuda in Brockton Bay."
If I had blood, it would have run cold. Meanwhile, Spitfire got out a printed out photograph, presumably from a cell phone camera. It was a bit grainy, but I could clearly make out Bakuda talking to an ABB foot soldier in a back alley.
"Do you want to activate the pre-prepared contract to hunt down Bakuda?"
I thought for a moment. The more time Bakuda had to Tinker, the more dangerous she would get. But on the other hand, antagonizing Lung without needing to would be rather foolish. More pertinently, getting a reputation for being untrustworthy would make my job of quietly solving problems for Reliabuilt vastly harder in the long term.
So after a moment to think, I chose my answer.
"Not just yet. While she's almost guaranteed to cause problems, she hasn't yet. That said, if the PRT starts a manhunt for Bakuda, the contract immediately goes live. Given the change in circumstances, we're willing to increase the payment by ten percent for additional discretion regarding it being us hiring you."
Spitfire nodded,
"That sounds reasonable enough."
(Andrea)
It was just after lunch on Wednesday (March 9), when Rose paged me.
"Laniakea, Amy Dallon is here? She doesn't have an appointment, but she looks really distressed. Do you want to meet with her, or should I tell her you're busy?"
I saved the project I was working on, then replied.
"I'll talk to her; tell her I'll be in conference room two."
I arrived there about a minute before Amy did, though not before the robots stocked a fresh box of donuts and a jug of apple juice. Also a fruit bowl, in case anyone wanted to eat healthy.
Soon enough, the teenage brunette in question made her presence known. Judging by how messed up her hair was, she'd clearly been having a rough time of things. I offered her a glazed donut, and she immediately took it.
"Amy, what's wrong?"
Swallowing the bite she'd been chewing, the teenager answered,
"I can't go home again. If I have to go back to Carol, I – I won't be able to keep myself from doing something horrible."
I blinked, then motioned for Amy to go on.
"A bit less than a week ago, Brockton General got their uploading machine in. I know it's a good thing, but it got me thinking and I finally admitted to myself that I don't like healing. Stayed over at Taylor's for a night, but when I got back home, everything went bad."
Slowly, the whole story came out. Carol had massively gotten on Amy's case when it came out that she didn't actually like healing, and it had been so awful that Amy had opted to run away from home last night instead of go through another reaming. I didn't blame her in the slightest for running away from a clear case of emotional abuse.
I ran my fingers through my hair as I tried to figure out what to do. Obviously, Amy couldn't go back to Carol, but legal problems on my end could be very troublesome indeed. So I paged the legal office for some advice.
A few minutes later, Jacob Vespa had turned up with a laptop, and a stack of law books.
"So, I do need to make clear that I'm specialized in contract and intellectual property law, rather than whatever this is. Still, I'll do my best to figure out what the applicable laws here are."
An hour went by, along with two bathroom stops and another box of donuts. Still, Jacob had what seemed to be an answer.
"So, the most applicable law here would be Section 633:4 under New Hampshire's Title LXII Criminal Code. The short of it is that at best keeping Amy away from Carol would constitute a misdemeanor at minimum, possibly a felony. The catch is that there's a specifically spelled out affirmative defense: if you were acting in good faith to protect the child from real and imminent physical danger, it wasn't a crime."
Amy frowned.
"That's... not helpful. It doesn't cover emotional danger."
Jacob hummed, then looked something up on his laptop.
"Unfortunately, you seem to be correct. Though there are a few other legal avenues we can take – along with some more dubious measures."
I asked,
"Let's start with the legally clear options first, please."
"Well, calling Child Protective Services is definitely an option, as is starting proceedings to get Amy legally emancipated. With some corroborating evidence about living conditions with Carol, it shouldn't be too hard to get Amy free of that household one way or another. The only concern there is that Amy might be forced back to Carol until those court proceedings wrap up, if we can't get some sort of emergency order."
Amy shook her head vigorously,
"No, no no that's not an option. If I go back I won't be able to stop myself from doing something horrible, I know it."
Jacob nodded,
"And that's where one of the slightly dubious options first makes its appearance. Namely, getting the PRT involved and having them bend the rules a bit. Though how much they're willing to bend rules depends on how dangerous the Parahuman is, and healing isn't generally perceived as dangerous. Also best for Ruggedizer not to put too much of her own implied firepower behind this one."
After a moment of silence, Amy spoke.
"I have to admit something. I'm not just a healer. I can do a lot more than that."
Then Amy grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, and it immediately reshaped itself into a live rodent of some description.
As the critter ran around in circles, I spoke.
"This... explains a lot. Right, we're going to the courthouse. I'll call the PRT on the way and we can explain the situation."
We'd just reached the lobby when a furious Brandish damn-near kicked down the door, and shouted:
"Laniakea, don't you dare get between me and Panacea!"
I didn't even break stride, though I did say "Sure, she's all yours," as misdirection.
Then I pulsed my gravity nodes just so, flinging myself at Carol. Credit to her reaction times, she shifted into her invincible ball of light form before I could make contact.
Still, invincible didn't mean immobile, and I could hit quite a lot harder than a baseline human. With a single solid kick, I managed to knock Brandish well over two hundred meters away, sending her straight through the factory's still-open front door.
I noted,
"That should keep her busy for at least a few minutes. Come on, let's go."
With that, we boarded the flying ambulance and started on our flight to the courthouse. When we got there, us explaining the situation to the first judge who had an open time slot actually got him to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. While he didn't decide the case in Amy's favor instantly, he did grant Amy's request for alternate housing arrangements during proceedings. More specifically, she would be staying with the Heberts.
Crisis averted, I waited for Amy to get picked up, then flew back to the factory with Jacob.
(Emmy)
It was ten in the morning on Thursday, when I read the report on Byung-Ho's first major project. Namely, he'd managed to produce a superconductor that didn't quench until it reached six hundred Kelvins. Just reading that, my jaw dropped. Yeah the superconductors we'd had for the fusion reactor project were technically room-temperature, but only barely. What Byung-Ho made was actually even better in other regards too; it was flexible instead of rigid, and you could fairly easily splice lengths of superconducting cable together with just pressure and time.
Even if it weren't reproducible (and therefore couldn't be parented), this would have been a massively useful piece of technology. But apparently some PRT scientists had managed to manufacture a small sample of the new superconductor, dubbed BH-1. Albeit with absolutely trash yields compared to what Byung-Ho was capable of getting with Reliabuilt's equipment. Right, looked like Byung-Ho would be getting his first patent.
And yes, it would be his first patent; standard Reliabuilt contract for R&D personnel (Tinkers included) split ownership of the patent just about down the middle between the inventors and Reliabuilt. The idea was that neither party could sue the other for using the patented technology or demand royalties, and while the vast majority of licensing would be handled via Reliabuilt, the inventor got a share of the royalties – which they could voluntarily pay back into Reliabuilt or the BBRF, if they wished.
Either way, I promptly got up from my desk and went to go congratulate Byung-Ho in person. This was most definitely an achievement worthy of praise.
(Melissa)
As we sat down in the living room after work, I noted,
"So, the Manchester factory will be opening on Tuesday. I think we'll need to expand our 'cape roster' to maintain coverage."
Marcus nodded,
"That seems sensible enough. Especially since my professional capacity isn't really publicized. Heck, I don't think I've actually shown I have powers at all when I've been out making deals."
As if to prove his point, Marcus briefly projected an illusion of an unimpressed stick figure.
Andrea also chimed in,
"The big questions are what powers we'll build into the new person, and how we'll design their looks."
Marcus dug out a twenty-sided die from somewhere, then commented,
"Well, I for one think we ought to leave gender up to chance this time. One through ten is female, eleven through nineteen is male, and a twenty is non-binary."
No-one had any serious objections to the idea, so Marcus rolled the die, sending it clattering across the coffee table.
It was a two.
I shrugged,
"Any objections to naming her Rachel?"
