As they drove through the docks, Mike Renick looked around with slight puzzlement. All the roads they were on seemed far too new for this part of town, which admittedly he hadn't been through in at least four years. It was still run down, the entire area was, which wasn't a shock considering how many gang fights had happened throughout the place since, and indeed before, the riots. It had been on the long slow slide to irrelevance even then, long before his time in the city, and after the cargo ship was scuttled across the bay entrance during that period of upheaval the slide had only become faster. The economy of the whole city was far below what it used to be when it was a thriving port, decades ago, with only parts of it still bringing in a real income.
Which of course left little money for civic improvements, this feeding on itself to promote urban decay that left large sections of the city looking like the aftermath of a pretty grim end of the world movie. And ripe territory for the sort of constant background crime that only made things worse for everyone.
However, now… He peered down a side street as they passed. Now all the main roads seemed to have been patched up, quite professionally although he could see where the potholes had been, quite a few of the more dangerous-appearing buildings seemed to have had their doors and windows blocked off, and some of the dodgier looking alleyways had been barricaded over with very solid-looking steel constructions welded up from scrap metal but done very well.
Even the road signs had been replaced. Which was near enough a miracle.
Who had done it and how had they paid for it all?
Yet another mystery. The city wasn't short of them, true enough, but this was a new one, and new mysteries so often turned bad around these parts.
He glanced in the side mirror, seeing the rest of the cavalcade his truck was in the lead of following along behind them. Armsmaster's bike could be seen a couple of vehicles back. The Tinker had, somewhat unusually, not rushed ahead and had seemed distracted from the moment he arrived.
Turning his attention to the screen in front of him, he studied the images from the VTOL aircraft orbiting two thousand feet up. "It's definitely stopped," he said into his earpiece mic. "Right next to the DWU facility, in the shallows. No signs of any anomalous technology visible, or other Parahuman involvement, as of yet."
"Well, it didn't just get bored and fly away on its own, so someone is behind this," his immediate superior's voice grated in his ear. "I want to know who that is, how they did it, why they did it, and who they're working for."
"Hopefully we'll be able to determine the answers to at least some of those questions," he replied as calmly as possible. Which wasn't completely calm, of course, as for all they knew they were driving into some bizarre Parahuman ambush...
"We'd better. I'm getting heat from upstairs already. Some idiot posted video of that damn ship flying around like it was a kite on the internet and the news is going to town on it." Her voice was even more sour than usual, making him grimace a little. The woman was very competent but by god she could be awkward to deal with when she was in a less than charitable mood. And she really didn't like surprises.
Rounding the last corner before their destination, they rumbled down a long access road heading towards the shoreline, huge old cranes easily visible towering above the buildings, and through the gaps in the latter glimpses of the water could be seen. Bright sunlight made it all look fresh and clean, hiding the grime of a slowly decaying industrial landscape and turning it into something almost beautiful. They drove past a side road, which went off at an angle to end in a very long wharf that stretched close to a quarter of a mile out into the bay, the far end forming a platform to which half a dozen smaller ships were tied up, bobbing up and down in the waves. Ahead, he could see the tall rusty chain link fence surrounding the core of the old Union facility, with a gate in it behind a pair of red and white striped barrier poles next to a small security hut.
His vehicle pulled up just short of this. A grizzled-appearing man in his forties, wearing a cap and sunglasses, stuck his head out of the window of the guard hut and inspected them. After a moment the head disappeared again, the rest of the man following it out the door as he exited his post and stomped over to them, one hand holding a very large flashlight in a grip that Mike knew full well meant he knew exactly what he was doing.
"Yeah?" he grunted as Mike rolled the window down. "Waddaya want?"
"Mike Renick, Deputy Director, PRT ENE," he replied, showing his ID card. "We'd like to speak to whoever is in charge."
"What, all of ya?" the man asked after taking the card and examining it very closely. He looked back along the row of vehicles. "Got a problem?"
"We don't know yet," Mike said, smiling a little. "That's what we want to speak about."
The man returned his attention to Mike, stared at him for a few seconds, then turned around and went back into his hut. He popped back out again a moment later with a radio to his ear, talking into it quietly enough that Mike couldn't make out what he was saying. He appeared to read off the details on Mike's ID to whoever he was talking to, then walked a few feet into the road and looked at the license plate of the truck, reading that off too.
Mike looked at the driver, who looked back and shrugged.
After about thirty seconds, the man nodded and put the radio in his pocket, then came back to the window. He handed the card over. "Boss says you can go in, but if anyone starts anything there's going to be trouble. Got me?"
Slightly amused, Mike nodded. "I understand."
The guard went back to his hut yet again and leaned in through the window, did something that made the barriers rise, then a few seconds later the gate slowly retracted with a metallic screech of badly oiled wheels on rusted steel track. When it was fully open, he waved them through. "Turn left, follow access road B to the end, hang a left," the guard called. "Don't go anywhere else. Don't go faster than ten miles an hour. Boss will be waiting for you."
"Thank you," Mike called back. The guard merely stood and watched them all go past, then went back into his hut. As they followed the signposted route, Mike could hear the gate squeal closed again.
"Kind of paranoid," he commented.
"Strange people around here," the driver replied, looking at the signs then carefully taking the correct path past a series of open workshops which were emitting lots of mechanical sounds and the occasional shower of sparks from some welding operation or something of that nature. The whole place seemed busier than Mike would have expected from what he'd heard about it. "You wouldn't believe some of the stuff I've heard about the Docks."
"Places next to the sea do seem to attract tall stories," Mike chuckled.
The driver gave him a dark look. "Not all of them are 'stories'," he muttered in a low voice.
Renick looked at him, then decided it wasn't worth commenting on and went back to studying their surroundings. More workshops passed, a number of men and a few women looking back at him as they went by. Some of the expressions were neutral, some were a little unfriendly, but none of them seemed actively hostile. Most of the people just went back to their work.
Eventually they reached the end of the access road they'd been slowly crawling along, finding another one at right angles to it between them and the shoreline, which itself had a raised wall made of concrete and huge chunks of ancient wood lining the edge. To the right it led back along the shore past all the wharves with other roads joining it every now and then, while in the direction they'd been told to go it curved back into what appeared to be a large yard lined with yet more buildings as far as he could see.
However, he raised a hand, saying, "Hold on, I want to have a look at this," before the driver could turn. The man put the brake on and Mike opened the door, standing on the running board to get a good view over the sea wall.
"God, that's a big ship," he mumbled, staring at the enormous vessel that blocked the view of the rig. It was rusty, streaks of red running down the sides from the green superstructure over the dark blue of the waterline, and showed signs of the years of neglect out in the bay. The flying bridge at the back was missing most of the glass, only one of the radar antennae was still in place although it was badly bent, the other two mere stumps, and he could see places where someone seemed to have torn or cut various parts off the deck in the past, but on the whole it was a lot more intact than he expected.
And a crap load bigger. You didn't really get the full impression until it was only a hundred yards away.
Thinking that this thing had literally flown here, completely out of the water, was mind boggling. After taking a couple of photos with his phone, he got back into the truck and closed the door, noticing that several of the others with him had also taken the opportunity of a better view. "OK, let's get on with it."
The driver didn't bother to reply, merely took his foot off the brake and moved away. The truck rumbled over the somewhat pitted road surface until it entered the side yard at the head of the small convoy, which spread out and stopped. Armsmaster parked his bike next to Mike's truck and turned it off, dismounting and looking around.
A small welcoming committee was standing near one of the buildings, which was on the larger size of those surrounding them. Next to it were parked two semis, both new, and painted gloss black with no identifying marks at all, along with a heavy duty SUV and half a dozen cars. The three people waiting for them were a tall skinny man with glasses, who looked like a roughly forty year old accountant, a considerably older man probably in his sixties, white haired but appearing in very good condition for his age and wearing a turtleneck sweater over casual clothes, and a heavyset man who was about twice the width of both the other combined. He was only about five foot eight but had a sort of massive quality about him that spoke of a hell of a lot of physically hard work, while his face was somewhat battered but seemed cheerful nonetheless.
Mike got out of the truck, walking over to join Armsmaster, who glanced at him, then followed as he kept going to meet the three men waiting patiently.
"Deputy Director Renick, I assume?" the skinny man asked as he and Armsmaster came to a halt in front of them.
"That would be me, yes. I imagine you recognize my companion."
"Armsmaster is well known to most of the US, never mind just Brockton Bay," the man replied with a small smile. He held his hand out. "Danny Hebert. DWU hiring manager and CEO of Gravtec Engineering, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brockton Bay Dock Worker's Union. Pleased to meet you."
Mike, who had reached instinctively for the offered hand, paused briefly as what the man had said went through his mind leaving a trail of questions, then completed the action. "Likewise."
"This is Professor Angus Drekin, an old friend and our liaison with Brockton Bay University's Gravitational Physics department. Also the chief science officer of Gravtec." He motioned to the older man, who smiled and also shook Mike's hand. "And on the end there is George Kilton, our security chief."
Kilton also offered his hand, looking rather more amused at the expression Mike was probably wearing than seemed reasonable.
"So, how can we help the PRT today, Deputy Director? Or is this just a social call?" Mr Hebert seemed also to be showing a degree of humor, although it was mixed with mild wariness and a certain level of anticipation. His voice was entirely casual though.
Mike very deliberately looked over his shoulder to where the stern of the huge ship only a few hundred feet away could be seen towering over the buildings, met Hebert's eyes, and raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
The other man raised his as well in an inquiring manner.
Sighing faintly, Mike pointed. "There is a considerable amount of confusion in official circles about the circumstances that led to that being here, rather than approximately eight miles away where it's been for sixteen and a half years," he said flatly. "There is a lot more confusion about how it actually got here. People tend to notice flying cargo ships. Even in Brockton Bay."
All three men followed his finger, then exchanged glances. "We moved it," Hebert said calmly. "It was in the way, aside from anything else. The Mayor seems fine with it."
"He knew about it?" Armsmaster demanded.
Hebert rocked a hand from side to side. "We might not have bothered to mention it to begin with, but we told him when it was on the way," he smiled. "Marine salvage laws allow us to lay a claim to the wreckage, and the city relinquished all ownership of it years ago, after they ended up stuck with the thing. Like most of the other wrecks out there, in fact."
"I'm told that when he stopped gaping he danced a little jig on his desk, then started calling up a few shipping companies," Kilton commented with a smirk. "Man seemed pretty pleased about the bay opening up for work. Gonna do the economy a world of good."
Mike looked at all of them, seeing that each was clearly enjoying this, and sighed. Rubbing between his eyes with one finger he looked at Armsmaster, who was studying the people as well, his face blank. Which was fairly common to be honest. "That's not quite what I meant," he said after contemplating and discarding a number of other responses. "What I am in fact getting at is the little fact that you flew a thirty five thousand ton ship across the bay! This is… unusual. The assumption is that you have one or more Parahumans working for you, which is something we're quite interested in for a number of reasons. Leaving aside the problems with the NEPEA laws, that was a highly irresponsible and very obvious stunt that..."
Hebert held up a hand. "Let me stop you there, Mr Renick. Firstly, the entire move was entirely in keeping with OSHA rules as they currently stand, and we have the paperwork to prove it, including an environmental impact study done by BBU, a risk assessment study done by the experts at the DWU, and all other relevant documents which we're happy to provide copies of to you. Secondly, NEPEA doesn't apply. And thirdly, we have to my knowledge no Parahumans among the DWU or Gravtec, although we don't care all that much if we do. We just don't need them."
Mike stared at him for several seconds. Eventually he said, "I think I'm going to need more than that, since I saw an enormous ship fly fifty feet in the air with my own eyes. There's no other way to do that than a Parahuman ability to my knowledge. Unless you bought some very expensive Tinker tech. Toybox, perhaps?"
"No, all the technology we use is locally produced," Professor Drekin put in, seeming to find the entire exchange highly entertaining. "And has absolutely no connection to Tinker work, I can assure you of that."
Turning to him, Mike asked, "How can you be so sure?"
"Because I understand the theory of the design myself, it's fully documented, and in fact has acquired a patent within the last three days. As you probably know you can't patent Tinker tech." Drekin smiled.
Armsmaster raised his hand, opened his mouth, and paused. Everyone looked at him. After a moment he said, "It is correct that you cannot patent Tinker tech, although there have been many patents as a result of insights into the study of it," and lowered his hand, giving Mike the impression that what he'd said wasn't what he'd initially intended to say.
"Indeed," Professor Drekin nodded. "However in this case, Gravtech's proprietary technology is entirely unrelated to any Tinker invention."
A few more seconds passed, then Mike sighed. This was going to get strange, he could feel it in his bones. "Please excuse me, I need to talk to my superiors," he said.
"No problem, take as long as you want," Hebert replied magnanimously. Mike turned and walked back to the truck, got in, closed the door, and rubbed his eyelids with his fingertips. Then he tapped his earpiece.
"Well?" Emily didn't sound all that patient. "What's going on?"
"Things just got very complicated," he said tiredly.
"Explain."
He did. When he'd finished telling her what had happened, while watching Armsmaster stand where he'd left the man, apparently carefully studying the entire area, with the three others watching both him and Mike, there was a long silence.
Eventually Emily growled under her breath. "Bullshit. It's got to be Tinker hardware somehow, or maybe some form of powerful telekinesis, a flying Brute, or something else like that. It's definitely connected with Parahuman crap. Find out what they're hiding."
"We actually have a fairly weak case, Director," he said carefully, mindful of her current short temper. "We're on private land, I'm not sure a crime has actually been committed if they're right about the ship's legal status, and merely suspecting they have a tame Tinker or something like that isn't really good grounds for going in hard."
"They flew a nine hundred foot long ship across the entire bay!" she snapped. "That sent a message. They could fly it across the city just as easily and if they dropped the damn thing..."
He winced, able to see her point, paranoid as it was. In this line of work paranoia wasn't always a bad thing.
"True," he admitted. "On the other hand, they didn't make any form of threat, they seem to have been careful about what they did do, and if Hebert is to be believed they even have the paperwork showing the whole thing."
"I don't really care right now," she growled in his ear. "I'm getting flak like you wouldn't believe from way above your pay grade, several people I'd rather never have anywhere near me are threatening to come and investigate, and the press is going crazy. Find out what happened, how it happened, and who did it. Now."
Suppressing a sigh, he replied, "All right, I'll do my best."
"Do better than that." She disconnected with a click, making him wince.
"God, Emily, who pissed in your wheaties this morning?" he grumbled as he climbed out of the truck again. Behind him the driver suppressed a slight snicker.
Rejoining the others, he said, "My superiors are… not entirely convinced that the event in question was not the action of Parahuman abilities. They are also concerned that the… display… could under some circumstances be considered potentially threatening, and as such are asking for more assurances that this is not the case. And towards that end they have directed me to continue my inquiries."
Danny Hebert looked at him for a long moment, then turned to Professor Drekin and held out his hand. The professor sighed a little and handed him ten dollars.
Putting it in his pocket with a momentary grin while Kilton chuckled, Hebert said, "Your superiors are even more paranoid than I expected, although I'm genuinely impressed with how you put that." He seemed to mean it. "All right. We knew this was going to happen, and we'll allow you and Armsmaster inside. However!" He held up one finger. "This is a private facility, with a significant number of proprietary designs present, which represents a considerable investment of time and money from our company and our customers. As such, before you can come in, you need to sign NDAs."
Mike stared at him as he pulled a folder out from an inner pocket of his jacket, opened it, and removed two sets of stapled together paper, about nine pages each. He handed one to each of Mike and Armsmaster, while the professor held out two pens.
Eventually Mike shook his head, quickly skimmed through the NDA seeing it was pretty standard as such things went, carefully read the last paper, sighed, and signed it on behalf of the PRT ENE. He gave it back to Hebert who popped off the duplicate back page and gave it back. "Thank you."
Armsmaster had signed his without comment, although Mike was pretty certain he'd read the entire thing. The man was a ridiculously fast reader, he knew that from long association with him.
When Hebert returned the copy to Armsmaster, who folded it and put it away in his armor, he smiled. "Excellent. Please follow me, gentlemen."
Turning, he walked back into the building, the professor next to him, and Kilton bringing up the rear. Armsmaster followed as did Mike. They went through a heavy and apparently armored door into a modern and well equipped office suite quite out of keeping with the exterior of the building, past a series of rooms with a total of about twenty people working on computers in them, and stopped in front of another door, even more heavily armored than the first one had been. It had a high security lock to one side which made Mike stare slightly, as it was not only similar to the ones the PRT itself used, but was clearly a more advanced and newer model. Which was… odd… as they were hellishly expensive and very hard to lay hands on, needing government authorization to purchase.
His sensation that things were becoming far more complex than he expected was growing by leaps and bounds.
Hebert put his hand on the scanner, allowed it to do the relevant operations, said "Two guests," and waited. The system pondered the situation for half a second then there was a clunk and the door unlocked, before sliding sideways into a much thicker than seemed reasonable wall.
"Your security is exceptional," Armsmaster commented with interest, watching all this.
"Thanks," Kilton replied. "Although obviously that's not all of it."
"Obviously," the Tinker nodded, striding forwards through the opened door after Hebert and the professor. Mike, feeling like this was getting out of hand, followed. Once they were all through the door slid closed and relocked with a solid crunch.
On the other side was a long corridor that led about a hundred yards or so, probably all the way to the end of the building, with a few doors down one side. The other side was blank. Mike tried to work out the geometry and decided that side was basically the edge of the building itself. So there must be something like a fifty yard space to their left, giving a significant amount of room since the building was about three stories high from the outside. It had looked like something that had once been used for storing trawlers or something of that nature, although it had clearly had a major upgrade recently. The smell of fresh paint lingered, as did a faint scent of concrete still setting.
Wondering yet again who was paying for all this, and if they were involved with all the work on the way here, he followed as the small party passed several doors with cryptic labels on, finally ending at the last one. This had 'No Entry Without Authorization' written on it in serious letters, over the words, 'Caution – Risk of Gravitational Shear. Do Not Cross Hazard Lines When Lights In Operation.'
'Oh, that's not worrying at all," he thought numbly.
Armsmaster read the sign, then slowly nodded. He seemed impressed.
Hebert put his hand on another lock scanner, this one not apparently requiring a verbal password, then depressed the handle and opened the door. Standing aside, he said, "After you," with a rather evil grin.
Despite his misgivings, Mike walked in through the door, finding himself rather unexpectedly on a steel catwalk about twenty feet up, showing that the building was actually over a large cavity in the ground. It became apparent that it had in fact once been an indoor dry-dock or something like that many years ago. The area he was looking at was one huge room, painted white, with a bright yellow overhead gantry crane that seemed to have been recently refurbished. Dozens of high powered lights hung from the ceiling above them. Off to the side there was a control room that stuck out about thirty feet over the yawning space, a number of people visible inside it through the glass windows. Yellow hazard lights were rotating in a number of places around the room, sending flashes of illumination across everything.
He took all that in with a glance, but his attention was inevitably drawn to the thing right in front of him as he slowly approached the safety railing and put his hands on it. Dimly aware of Armsmaster doing the same, he simply gaped at the thing hanging in mid air fifteen feet off the floor, showing no signs at all of caring that there was nothing surrounding it other than empty space.
No one said anything for a while. Eventually he pointed. "What is that?" he asked weakly.
"Our spaceship?" Professor Drekin sounded highly amused. "It's a spaceship. Prototype, of course, it's basically just the hull and the gravity control system so far, and as you can see there's quite a lot of work to do yet. But the pressure hull is complete and the airlocks are installed. We used something designed for small submersibles."
Mike kept looking at the cigar-shaped thing, eighty feet long and about twenty in diameter at the widest point, with wide eyes.
"The whole thing is loosely based on a submarine, in fact," Hebert added. "You'd be surprised how closely a lot of marine designs fit a spacecraft one when you look at it in the right way. We salvaged the bulk of the hull from a number of pressure tanks we had lying around, welded them together, and added the rest. It's a work in progress."
"Nice and shiny though," Kilton said.
"Of course, spaceships are always supposed to be shiny, everyone knows that," Hebert agreed mildly. "Anyway, that's not really why you're here, is it. You want to see proof that we don't use Tinker tech. All we're using is superscience, which is an entirely separate field outside your specific mandate, but we'll play ball. Come this way." He turned and headed for the control room, Mike and the others trailing along behind him. Mike kept looking at the thing floating blithely in the middle of the room with amazement.
Just before they reached the control room, a young female voice echoed through the large space, "Test run twenty-nine complete. Power draw nominal, no errors logged, stand by for shutdown."
She sounded like a schoolgirl, but one who was practiced at her job.
"Area is clear. Powering down in three… two… one. Field decay rate as expected." The floating machine gently lowered itself to the ground, settling into a cradle made to hold it. "Gravitational reference frame resync complete. Area is safe to enter."
The warning lights went out and a subliminal hum that Mike hadn't consciously noticed until it wasn't there any more died away. Hebert reached the door to the lower level of the control room and opened it, waving them through. Inside was a large room that was clearly an electronics and mechanical engineering workshop, with lathes and milling machines down the back, and down each side long workbenches covered in more electronic test equipment and tools than Mike had ever seen in his life. Armsmaster stopped dead and looked around, his lips actually curving up slightly in one of the most clear examples of respect the other man had ever seen out of him.
"Highly impressive, Mr Hebert," he stated, walking over to inspect one machine tool closely. "The model 817. An excellent choice."
There were about a dozen people in the room working at the benches, and one of the milling machines, which was emitting a faint whirring sound as it carved a block of metal into something else, white coolant mixing with chips all over the inside of the transparent shield surrounding it. A couple of them looked up for a moment, then went back to their work as if an unexpected Armsmaster in their midst was not worth commenting on.
Mike watched as a couple of them, a man and a woman in their mid twenties, who looked like university students, carefully assembled a machine about a foot tall on the bench in front of them. A dozen or so more identical ones were off to one side, apparently finished, while on another bench several more were having their external casing fitted. Around the room were a number of other such devices of different sizes, while directly opposite the door another young man was connecting a cable to a fist sized version. He fiddled with the computer in front of him, then nodded in satisfaction when the thing lifted off the bench and hung in the air about a foot up. Reaching out he prodded it, then pushed hard, nodding again when it refused to move in any direction.
After a number of seconds, Mike looked around once more, seeing that the far end of the room from the machine tools had a single large window overlooking the area outside, while in the corner was a set of stairs that led up to the next floor. One of the technicians disappeared up the stairs as he watched, then came back moments later carrying a laptop computer.
Shaking his head, he turned to the three other men. "OK, I'm impressed. What am I impressed by? This could still all be Tinker stuff, although I'll admit I've never seen a Tinker lab like it."
Every other person in the room turned to look at him.
He looked around, feeling a little intimidated by the attention. Then one of the women giggled. "Tinker technology isn't technology," she said calmly before resuming whatever it was she was doing. "Gravtech is."
"Sally is right, but allow me to prove it," Professor Drekin chuckled. "Come with me, please." He led the way to the stairs, ascending them quickly, with Mike and Armsmaster following. Hebert stopped to have a word with one of the people working at a bench, then came after them. At the top of the stairs they entered another large room, this one filled with almost nothing but computers arranged around the walls and on a couple of consoles across the middle of the space, like pictures Mike had seen of the old Apollo mission control. Much of the hardware looked brand new, although some was clearly not.
He noticed that a girl, about fifteen or so, was sitting at one of the consoles examining a large monitor covered with dense graphs, nodding to herself as she followed one line with the eraser end of a pencil, before scribbling something in a notebook. She looked about the right age to have had it be her voice he'd heard earlier.
Professor Drekin led them to the back of the room, which had a number of dividers separating the final ten feet into several smaller rooms. He went into one and waved them to some chairs. Armsmaster sat rather cautiously since his armor was very heavy, but while the chair creaked a little it held. Mike took the one next to him, while Hebert sat in the last one. "As you've seen, we're actively researching the practical applications of Gravtech's gravitational control technology here. The theoretical work is largely done at BBU. The Union has provided us with the facilities to perform some of the larger work, and we hand them the heavy industrial jobs as they have a vast amount of experience in such things. Between us, we have quite a lot of capability."
He picked up a small faceted machine from the desk he was sitting at, turning it over in his hands reflectively. "This is the one that started the whole thing," he mused, studying the device with a small smile. "The key to a field that will..." He shook his head. "Unless you're a physicist you have no idea how important the concepts behind this little invention are. But they have a large number of useful applications we've barely tapped yet."
Holding it out he pressed a switch, then let go. Mike watched as it entirely failed to drop to the floor. Gently flicking it with a finger, the professor slid it through the air towards Armsmaster, who raised a hand and stopped it as it reached him. He leaned in closely and studied it, before experimentally pushing down on it with an armored hand.
Nothing at all happened. He pressed harder, until Mike could hear the servos in his power suit whine under the load. Releasing the pressure, he put a hand under it and lifted, with the same complete lack of result. His mouth twisted into a thoughtful grimace and Mike suspected that if he could see the man's face his eyebrows would be lifted quite a bit.
"Very impressive. I assume it is producing an internal reference frame that overrides that of the standard one surrounding us, producing in effect an immovable object?"
"Essentially yes, although it's somewhat more complex than that, of course," Drekin nodded, smiling. "You know more about this than I expected. No disrespect intended."
"Understood," Armsmaster replied absently, prodding the floating machine sideways, then back again. He located the power switch and pressed it, his other hand under the device, which landed in his palm. Lifting it to his face he closely examined it. "Excellent work, for what I assume is an untrained individual? Good tolerances, superior soldering skills, very neat and efficient use of space given the constraints of repurposing commercial circuitry." Turning it over, he looked in through one of the holes in the side, nodding slowly. "And the hand assembled parts are remarkably well done. Your work?"
"No, I'm merely a theorist, practical work of that nature is well out of my expertise, although I can appreciate when I see it," the professor smiled. "The one who invented that is far past me in such things."
"Your Tinker, I assume," Mike said.
Armsmaster leaned over and handed the device back to the older man. "You said you could prove this is not Tinker technology?" he asked mildly. Professor Drekin looked at him, glanced at Mike, then pulled a sheaf of papers out of the drawer on the desk. He handed it to Armsmaster without a word.
The Tinker accepted the bound paperwork, examined the cover with interest for a moment, then started flipping through it. The page turning slowed after the first four or five, slowed further after another dozen, and stopped entirely after two more.
Renick watched as he stared at one page, then turned back several and ran his finger down the columns of equations. After about a minute he nodded, his lips moving slightly as if he was silently having a conversation with someone, before he went back to his original place. Slowly turning the pages he read the next five, then flipped quickly through the rest, pausing on an appendix full of schematics and drawings. Finally he lowered the document and stared into space for some time.
Both Hebert and Drekin were watching him with what looked like amusement. Mike was wondering what had just happened.
"This is not Tinker tech," Armsmaster finally said in an almost dreamy voice, totally unlike anything Mike had ever heard from him before.
"No. It's not."
"This completely rewrites at least forty percent of accepted physics, opens up a number of fields previously thought impossible, and implies a number of quite unusual things about the nature of the universe itself," the man added, still in that odd tone.
"Indeed it does." Drekin was smiling.
"I actually understand how it works," Armsmaster said very quietly.
"Hits you hard, when you realize, doesn't it?" Drekin chuckled. "I had the same reaction."
Looking back and forth, Mike wondered what the hell was going on. "Are you saying that it's definitely not the work of a Parahuman, Armsmaster?" he asked cautiously.
The man didn't respond for a couple of seconds, then twitched and handed the document back to the professor who accepted it and put it on the desk. Turning to Mike, the Tinker replied, "The technology is not Parahuman in nature, that much is clear." He shook his head slightly. "I cannot say for certain that the individual who invented it is not a Parahuman, however."
As Mike was about to ask another question, the girl from outside, who was tall and gangly with long curly hair, stuck her head through the door. "Sorry to interrupt. Dad, Brendan is here, he's brought some more equipment and a purchase order too. Project Hawkflight got approved. He wants to discuss the next phase."
"Thanks, Taylor," the man said. "Sorry, I have to leave for a moment, but I'll be back," he added as he turned to Mike and Armsmaster. "Got to keep our backers happy. They're paying for a lot of this." With a quick grin he followed the girl out of the small office and disappeared.
"What is project Hawkflight?" Armsmaster asked curiously.
"Not covered by that NDA, so I can't tell you, I'm afraid," Professor Drekin replied, smiling. "However, going back to your comment moments ago, the inventor of this device, and a considerable number of other breakthrough technologies, is definitely not a Parahuman. We had an MRI scan done to prove it." He shrugged. "A polymath on the level of Tesla or Da Vinci at least, definitely, with more raw ability in a number of fields than anyone I've ever had the pleasure of knowing before, but it's entirely within normal human ability. Admittedly at the extreme end of it, but within it. As such, it's nothing to do with the PRT or the Protectorate."
He leaned forward, smiling a little toothily. "Believe me, we checked. We knew this was going to come up sooner or later." Sitting back, he shrugged.
Pondering his words, Mike glanced at Armsmaster, who was staring at the small machine on the professor's desk. Eventually he said, slightly reluctantly, "My superiors are still going to want proof of that, I'm afraid."
"Not going to take our word for it, then?"
"I'm afraid I can't do that."
"Will you take my word for it, son?"
Mike turned at the unexpected voice, to see someone wearing more military decorations than he'd ever personally encountered standing in the door to the office looking at them. He was about sixty or so, tall and fit with a military haircut and a small white mustache. Mike thought he looked vaguely familiar, but couldn't place him.
"Hello, Angus," the man, a brigadier general in the Air Force by the insignia, said to Professor Drekin. "Trouble?"
"No, Brendan, I think we've got it under control, it's just what we expected to happen," the other man replied. "The Deputy Director's superiors appear to be a little… insistent."
"That would be Emily Piggot, I believe," the new arrival nodded. "Good woman, practical, but hard on herself as much as anyone else. She's probably getting pressure from above. I'll look into it."
"Thanks, that would probably help," Drekin replied.
Turning to Mike, who stood, he held out a hand. "Brigadier General Doctor Brendan Calhoun, DARPA," he introduced himself. Mike rather numbly shook the hand offered. "You can go back to Director Piggot and assure her that nothing happening here is anything she is directly concerned with. Entirely Tinker free, I can assure you. And our resident genius is certainly not a Parahuman. We did check rather carefully for a number of reasons." He smiled, his mustache twitching. "One of those obviously being in anticipation of exactly this moment."
"What is DARPA doing in Brockton Bay?" Mike managed to say.
"Investing in our future, son," the man chuckled. "A future that's going to be a little different. But that's above your pay grade, so you should probably go back to your Director and pass on the word that everything is in hand and shouldn't cause her any issues with her own jurisdiction."
Standing, Armsmaster turned to Mike. "I believe we have no reason to stay any longer, Deputy Director. I have learned what I needed to know." He looked at Professor Drekin. "Thank you."
"You're more than welcome."
"I will locate and examine your patent, and I may wish to talk further about licensing it for my own purposes," the Tinker continued.
"We're open to such arrangements, of course," Drekin smiled. "I'll have the marketing department send you an information package."
"That would be acceptable." Armsmaster paused, then said, "While I now believe that this is not a Parahuman-involved operation, there are those that won't, or won't care. Attracting the attention of certain parties is almost inevitable. What will you do if one of the gangs attempts to… insist… on acquiring your knowledge and abilities?"
General Calhoun chuckled. "Deal with the problem," he commented. "And we're not limited to your rules of engagement if a domestic or foreign terrorist attempts to attack a facility funded in part by the US government."
'Oh, god, this is not going to end well,' Mike thought with dismay.
He was still thinking that when he walked into Director Piggot's office and sat down for a very likely difficult conversation.
