Abaddon had gained so much from humanity, its only right that it would give a gift in return. and if the one that receives the gift gathers even more data for abaddon, well that's just a happy little coincidence
Abaddon’s gift
- Thread starter werfred
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Beginnings
My preparations had begun 2 months ago and i was only now feeling equipped and trained enough to go to the prt HQ without looking like a clueless greenhorn. Before going I decided to do a final equipment check and to practice my presentation one last time. My suit doesn't look too bad for something built with household items and I have my secondary ability to thank for that, without it I would have had no choice but to become a protectorate hero just so I could have the materials to tinker with. With it, any material can be used for any purpose, clay can be used as a structural material, aluminum foil can protect me better than any commercially available Kevlar, wood can be made fireproof and most important of all, it eliminates the need for maintenance.
It also happens to be the main subject of the deal I want to strike with the prt and the most important thing I can bring to the table for now. My other pieces of equipment include head protective gear with inbuilt infrared and night vision visor, forearm and leg protectors made out of of reinforced aerogel covered in three layers of reinforced aluminum foil, the chestplate was made the same way. My undersuit was made with reinforced microfibers making me knifeproof if not bulletproof in my less protected areas.
I'm not really worried about injuries because of my secondary ability but I need to appear professional if I want the prt to take me seriously. My last pieces of equipment are a pair of electrified brass knuckles and a medium weight quarterstaff. At first glance my equipment looks to be in good condition but I still activate ''adaptive repair'' on them one last time before leaving.
My vehicle isn't something I even consider a piece of equipment, it's temporary at most and will be replaced the second I have a higher budget. It's isn't something I made from scratch, just a bicycle I bought and modified to have a lighter frame and better gears. I'm already designing a small one person car for when I have the materials to build it. I arrive in front of the prt HQ just as I finish the thought. It's 8:30 in the morning, 15 minutes before my appointment with the director. The date is the twenty third of may 2005 and my hero career officially begins today, the emotion I feel is a mix between excitement and apprehension.
Ready or not, I enter the building. The place is clean and the displays of the gift shop are packed with miscellaneous parahuman merchandise, maybe I too can have toys made in my image one day but for now I need to actually think about the coming meeting instead of daydreaming.
As I walk to the front desk the receptionist catches a glimpse of me and a look of recognition crosses his face, he must've been expecting my arrival any time soon because an escort arrives within seconds and I am brought to a waiting room just outside the directors office.
As I wait for permission to enter, I think about what i know about the director, she's and ex prt trooper who was injured in an unnamed mission and from the press conferences she did I can understand that she's a no nonsense, all business kind of woman meaning that I should cut the chitchat to a minimum and keep it professional if I want to give a good impression.
They let me bring my briefcase with me but I have no doubt that they have hidden scanners in the walls to verify that I'm not carrying a bomb, if him lucky then the rising star armsmaster himself will be there to scan it. It's always a good thing to get tips from more experienced tinkers, not that I think I really need it but any help is good. As my thoughts wander further and further from the meeting I hear a voice coming from the office telling me to enter.
As I enter the office, I catch sight of the director siting at her desk, a blonde woman showing the beginning signs of obesity, the second thing that caught my eyes was armsmaster's armour. It was a thing of beauty with a design so much sleeker than anything I could currently build. The small bit of his face that was visible showed a short goatee. My observations were finished just as I took a seat in front of the directors desk.
After a few seconds of silence the director fixed me with a hard stare and began speaking "you called a few days ago to tell us that you have a business proposal to give, unfortunately, you didn't deem it fit to give us any more information than this" she took a small pause and continued "now luckily for you, my obligations as director of the local prt include meeting with independent parahumans when possible" she said, then after another short pause
"however, in the future, it would be appreciated if you could give us more information before asking for a meeting. Now I hope for you that you have a serious proposition to give me and that you didn't waste my time. You have 15 minutes to convince me to continue dealing with you in the future" she finished
My posture had been getting stiffer and stiffer as she spoke, now that it was my turn to speak I brought my briefcase on her desk and began opening it, armsmaster and the director had a look of apprehension as I did so. They were probably suspicious of what I had in there. Once the briefcase was opened I turned it towards them to show its contents.
When they saw what was inside their looks quickly shifted from apprehension to confusion. After all, why the hell would I bring a briefcase containing glass panes, clay, shards of metal and a roll of aluminum foil to a business meeting. Before either of them could start to question me I started giving my presentation
"Those materials are not particularly relevant to this meeting but are necessary for me to demonstrate what I have to bring to the table" as I finished my sentence I took a bit of clay and took out the aluminum foil and started explaining what I was doing with them
"As you probably realized from my equipment, I'm a tinker. What you probably don't know is that I have a secondary power" just as I finished saying that, I had also finished shaping an object with the clay and covering it with aluminum foil "this secondary ability is something I like to call adaptive repair."
After taking a small pause to catch my breath and to examine the newly created clay figurine, I resume speaking.
"To demonstrate it, I'd like either of you to destroy this foil covered clay figurine in any way you want. Crush it, cut it or burn it into a puddle, do whatever you want with it" as I slide the figurine towards the director, armsmaster pulls out a small plasma cutter from somewhere and begins methodically destroying it into equal pieces.
Once satisfied with the damage done, armsmaster hands me back the pieces, they are deformed and scorched at the edges, it is destroyed to such a degree that I wouldn't know what the object originally looked like if I wasn't the one that created it mere seconds ago.
Once back in my hands, it doesn't even take a blink of the eye before the pieces are back in one piece and looking exactly as they had originally. As I look up I see that their eyes are slightly wider than before but I can see that they are still not sold although armsmaster seems to be realizing the possibilities of the ability.
Once done with my observation, I slide the figurine back to them and start speaking again, "as you can see, the destroyed object is seamlessly repaired, now that I have showed you the repair part of the name, I think it's time I explained the adaptive part of it" I took a small pause then continued
"Things that are repaired have more average durability than before and are particularly more durable against the general type of damage that broke them in the first place" I said.
"If armsmaster wants to test my claim, the figurine should take a bit more time and energy to cut than before. I'm also quite certain that by now armsmaster must have figured that my ability can drastically reduce the upkeep a piece of tinkertech and remove it entirely after some time" As I finished saying that, I can already see armsmaster nod at my statement.
Clearly seeing their interest, I decide to go for the coup-de-grace, "but that's not the main thing I want to propose. You see, my ability isn't manton limited, meaning that it can be used for healing" I said. The second I mentioned healing the director's posture stiffened just a tiny bit. I could understand why, there are only 16 known parahumans in America with a power that can be used to heal, with my appearance that number was now 17 and here I was offering my services to her department.
As her posture loosened I could see her face shift to a look of apprehension, she was probably thinking that my price for healing would be ludicrous, luckily for her, I preferred to play the long game. I'd heal for cheap and that would give me leverage in the future for more lucrative transactions with the prt. I continued speaking in order to keep my momentum going.
"my proposition is this, for 1 hour a day, 5 days a week, I will come and heal anyone you want me to heal for 200 dollars per person with the price doubling if the healing happens any other time than the scheduled time" I take a pause to breathe before finishing my offer, "furthermore, I would like to consult armsmaster at least once in the following month for help with my tinkering" and just to make sure to get the deal, I added.
"I'm also willing to submit myself to power testing if you're doubtful of my claims"
with my piece said, I wait for the directors response
———————————————————–
To say that the negotiations went well after that would be one hell of an understatement. Hell, the only thing that needed to be done was to write up the healing schedule and to clarify a few things before putting them in a contract. The deal was accepted and signed on within an hour of my sales pitch.
I think what really sealed the deal was the fact that I won't charge more than the regular cost to heal protectorate heroes. In a city like Brockton bay, keeping your heroes alive and ready to fight is an absolute must. All the better if you can do it cheaply.
The only thing that was even close to bad is the clause that stipulates that the contract is null if they don't like the results of my power testing session which doesn't really worry me all that much.
Said power testing session is to happen Monday next week at 10 a.m. all that I can do in preparation for it is to gather the notes I made on the adaptive repairs power and to show up on time at the given date. Other than that, the next few days are going to be my first patrols as a hero. My hero name is already chosen and my current costume will probably be the one I use for the foreseeable future. Tonight, I go on my first patrol under the cape name Everyman.
I just need to make absolutely sure I have everything ready before going out, the patrol route has been in advance so that I pass trough gang territory and I already built all of the most essential things that I might need ranging from portable cover and bulletproof cloak to tranquilizer and wound sealant. My main weapons are a pair of electrified brass knuckles but I've decided in advance to only use them once my repeating bolowrap is empty.
After all, hand to hand combat doesn't really bother me, What I'm worried about is the chance of getting sued by a criminal for using excessive force. It might happen anyway but at least then I can say the brass knuckles were my last resort. I also doubt that I'll have to fight more than 15 criminals at a time so I shouldn't run out of ammunition in one night.
I'll still bring a few extra magazines either way, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it as my dad used to say.
The only thing that I might need but can't have yet is an electronic hearing amplifier which would help me detect criminal acts from further away but I don't have the tools or the materials to build it and my current design is too clunky for field use so it'll have to wait until after I build a universal 3D printer and a multipurpose machining unit.
After finishing my visual check up, I also use repair on my equipment just in case there's internal damage. I don't have a scanner yet so I'll have to do this every time before going out, or at least until my consulting session with armsmaster which I'm planning to use as an excuse to build myself a 3D printer with armsmaster's tools.
After the last of my equipment is repaired, I make my way out of the house and begin the long bicycle ride to the city, the calm ride trough the forest reduces my nervousness. I originally didn't plan on starting my cape career so early, I thought it wouldn't matter if I prepared for a few more months before going out, leviathan's attack on Newfoundland was a big wake up call for me.
It made me realize something, every second I spend slowly building up my tech without resources is a second I could have spent better by getting experience on the streets and obtaining resources from the prt. I just think that if I went to the prt 2 months ago, maybe I could have made a difference. I scoff to myself as I finish the thought, I should focus on stopping gangers and villains before deluding myself into thinking 2 months would have been enough to make a difference against an endbringer.
Technology takes time to build up and I'm not even sure if the strongest weapon I can think of has the strength to kill an endbringer without absolutely massive collateral damage. What's the point of killing an endbringer if you kill more people than you save in the process.
For now though, I just need to plan ahead. The first thing I'll need after I build a 3D printer is palladium, the other energy sources I can build are much harder to build and produce way less energy than the one that needs palladium. Once I have the 3D printer and the reactor to power my lab then I can start producing a micro factory and any other tools I need to create my first suit of power armor. It'll incorporate multiple different types of armored exoskeleton technology and will give me enough protection and offensive capabilities to fight low level brute. I'll also equip it with a much wider arrangement of non-lethal weaponry, that should allow me to neutralize the average gangster much faster than any of my current equipment can.
After about 30 minutes of riding through the forest, I arrive near the outskirts of Brockton bay. In another 10 minutes I'll be at the docks and I'll finally begin making this world a better place.
AN: this is the first story I post online, feedback would be appreciated and I hope you like my story. More chapters will be coming eventually but I don't have a posting schedule yet.
It also happens to be the main subject of the deal I want to strike with the prt and the most important thing I can bring to the table for now. My other pieces of equipment include head protective gear with inbuilt infrared and night vision visor, forearm and leg protectors made out of of reinforced aerogel covered in three layers of reinforced aluminum foil, the chestplate was made the same way. My undersuit was made with reinforced microfibers making me knifeproof if not bulletproof in my less protected areas.
I'm not really worried about injuries because of my secondary ability but I need to appear professional if I want the prt to take me seriously. My last pieces of equipment are a pair of electrified brass knuckles and a medium weight quarterstaff. At first glance my equipment looks to be in good condition but I still activate ''adaptive repair'' on them one last time before leaving.
My vehicle isn't something I even consider a piece of equipment, it's temporary at most and will be replaced the second I have a higher budget. It's isn't something I made from scratch, just a bicycle I bought and modified to have a lighter frame and better gears. I'm already designing a small one person car for when I have the materials to build it. I arrive in front of the prt HQ just as I finish the thought. It's 8:30 in the morning, 15 minutes before my appointment with the director. The date is the twenty third of may 2005 and my hero career officially begins today, the emotion I feel is a mix between excitement and apprehension.
Ready or not, I enter the building. The place is clean and the displays of the gift shop are packed with miscellaneous parahuman merchandise, maybe I too can have toys made in my image one day but for now I need to actually think about the coming meeting instead of daydreaming.
As I walk to the front desk the receptionist catches a glimpse of me and a look of recognition crosses his face, he must've been expecting my arrival any time soon because an escort arrives within seconds and I am brought to a waiting room just outside the directors office.
As I wait for permission to enter, I think about what i know about the director, she's and ex prt trooper who was injured in an unnamed mission and from the press conferences she did I can understand that she's a no nonsense, all business kind of woman meaning that I should cut the chitchat to a minimum and keep it professional if I want to give a good impression.
They let me bring my briefcase with me but I have no doubt that they have hidden scanners in the walls to verify that I'm not carrying a bomb, if him lucky then the rising star armsmaster himself will be there to scan it. It's always a good thing to get tips from more experienced tinkers, not that I think I really need it but any help is good. As my thoughts wander further and further from the meeting I hear a voice coming from the office telling me to enter.
As I enter the office, I catch sight of the director siting at her desk, a blonde woman showing the beginning signs of obesity, the second thing that caught my eyes was armsmaster's armour. It was a thing of beauty with a design so much sleeker than anything I could currently build. The small bit of his face that was visible showed a short goatee. My observations were finished just as I took a seat in front of the directors desk.
After a few seconds of silence the director fixed me with a hard stare and began speaking "you called a few days ago to tell us that you have a business proposal to give, unfortunately, you didn't deem it fit to give us any more information than this" she took a small pause and continued "now luckily for you, my obligations as director of the local prt include meeting with independent parahumans when possible" she said, then after another short pause
"however, in the future, it would be appreciated if you could give us more information before asking for a meeting. Now I hope for you that you have a serious proposition to give me and that you didn't waste my time. You have 15 minutes to convince me to continue dealing with you in the future" she finished
My posture had been getting stiffer and stiffer as she spoke, now that it was my turn to speak I brought my briefcase on her desk and began opening it, armsmaster and the director had a look of apprehension as I did so. They were probably suspicious of what I had in there. Once the briefcase was opened I turned it towards them to show its contents.
When they saw what was inside their looks quickly shifted from apprehension to confusion. After all, why the hell would I bring a briefcase containing glass panes, clay, shards of metal and a roll of aluminum foil to a business meeting. Before either of them could start to question me I started giving my presentation
"Those materials are not particularly relevant to this meeting but are necessary for me to demonstrate what I have to bring to the table" as I finished my sentence I took a bit of clay and took out the aluminum foil and started explaining what I was doing with them
"As you probably realized from my equipment, I'm a tinker. What you probably don't know is that I have a secondary power" just as I finished saying that, I had also finished shaping an object with the clay and covering it with aluminum foil "this secondary ability is something I like to call adaptive repair."
After taking a small pause to catch my breath and to examine the newly created clay figurine, I resume speaking.
"To demonstrate it, I'd like either of you to destroy this foil covered clay figurine in any way you want. Crush it, cut it or burn it into a puddle, do whatever you want with it" as I slide the figurine towards the director, armsmaster pulls out a small plasma cutter from somewhere and begins methodically destroying it into equal pieces.
Once satisfied with the damage done, armsmaster hands me back the pieces, they are deformed and scorched at the edges, it is destroyed to such a degree that I wouldn't know what the object originally looked like if I wasn't the one that created it mere seconds ago.
Once back in my hands, it doesn't even take a blink of the eye before the pieces are back in one piece and looking exactly as they had originally. As I look up I see that their eyes are slightly wider than before but I can see that they are still not sold although armsmaster seems to be realizing the possibilities of the ability.
Once done with my observation, I slide the figurine back to them and start speaking again, "as you can see, the destroyed object is seamlessly repaired, now that I have showed you the repair part of the name, I think it's time I explained the adaptive part of it" I took a small pause then continued
"Things that are repaired have more average durability than before and are particularly more durable against the general type of damage that broke them in the first place" I said.
"If armsmaster wants to test my claim, the figurine should take a bit more time and energy to cut than before. I'm also quite certain that by now armsmaster must have figured that my ability can drastically reduce the upkeep a piece of tinkertech and remove it entirely after some time" As I finished saying that, I can already see armsmaster nod at my statement.
Clearly seeing their interest, I decide to go for the coup-de-grace, "but that's not the main thing I want to propose. You see, my ability isn't manton limited, meaning that it can be used for healing" I said. The second I mentioned healing the director's posture stiffened just a tiny bit. I could understand why, there are only 16 known parahumans in America with a power that can be used to heal, with my appearance that number was now 17 and here I was offering my services to her department.
As her posture loosened I could see her face shift to a look of apprehension, she was probably thinking that my price for healing would be ludicrous, luckily for her, I preferred to play the long game. I'd heal for cheap and that would give me leverage in the future for more lucrative transactions with the prt. I continued speaking in order to keep my momentum going.
"my proposition is this, for 1 hour a day, 5 days a week, I will come and heal anyone you want me to heal for 200 dollars per person with the price doubling if the healing happens any other time than the scheduled time" I take a pause to breathe before finishing my offer, "furthermore, I would like to consult armsmaster at least once in the following month for help with my tinkering" and just to make sure to get the deal, I added.
"I'm also willing to submit myself to power testing if you're doubtful of my claims"
with my piece said, I wait for the directors response
———————————————————–
To say that the negotiations went well after that would be one hell of an understatement. Hell, the only thing that needed to be done was to write up the healing schedule and to clarify a few things before putting them in a contract. The deal was accepted and signed on within an hour of my sales pitch.
I think what really sealed the deal was the fact that I won't charge more than the regular cost to heal protectorate heroes. In a city like Brockton bay, keeping your heroes alive and ready to fight is an absolute must. All the better if you can do it cheaply.
The only thing that was even close to bad is the clause that stipulates that the contract is null if they don't like the results of my power testing session which doesn't really worry me all that much.
Said power testing session is to happen Monday next week at 10 a.m. all that I can do in preparation for it is to gather the notes I made on the adaptive repairs power and to show up on time at the given date. Other than that, the next few days are going to be my first patrols as a hero. My hero name is already chosen and my current costume will probably be the one I use for the foreseeable future. Tonight, I go on my first patrol under the cape name Everyman.
I just need to make absolutely sure I have everything ready before going out, the patrol route has been in advance so that I pass trough gang territory and I already built all of the most essential things that I might need ranging from portable cover and bulletproof cloak to tranquilizer and wound sealant. My main weapons are a pair of electrified brass knuckles but I've decided in advance to only use them once my repeating bolowrap is empty.
After all, hand to hand combat doesn't really bother me, What I'm worried about is the chance of getting sued by a criminal for using excessive force. It might happen anyway but at least then I can say the brass knuckles were my last resort. I also doubt that I'll have to fight more than 15 criminals at a time so I shouldn't run out of ammunition in one night.
I'll still bring a few extra magazines either way, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it as my dad used to say.
The only thing that I might need but can't have yet is an electronic hearing amplifier which would help me detect criminal acts from further away but I don't have the tools or the materials to build it and my current design is too clunky for field use so it'll have to wait until after I build a universal 3D printer and a multipurpose machining unit.
After finishing my visual check up, I also use repair on my equipment just in case there's internal damage. I don't have a scanner yet so I'll have to do this every time before going out, or at least until my consulting session with armsmaster which I'm planning to use as an excuse to build myself a 3D printer with armsmaster's tools.
After the last of my equipment is repaired, I make my way out of the house and begin the long bicycle ride to the city, the calm ride trough the forest reduces my nervousness. I originally didn't plan on starting my cape career so early, I thought it wouldn't matter if I prepared for a few more months before going out, leviathan's attack on Newfoundland was a big wake up call for me.
It made me realize something, every second I spend slowly building up my tech without resources is a second I could have spent better by getting experience on the streets and obtaining resources from the prt. I just think that if I went to the prt 2 months ago, maybe I could have made a difference. I scoff to myself as I finish the thought, I should focus on stopping gangers and villains before deluding myself into thinking 2 months would have been enough to make a difference against an endbringer.
Technology takes time to build up and I'm not even sure if the strongest weapon I can think of has the strength to kill an endbringer without absolutely massive collateral damage. What's the point of killing an endbringer if you kill more people than you save in the process.
For now though, I just need to plan ahead. The first thing I'll need after I build a 3D printer is palladium, the other energy sources I can build are much harder to build and produce way less energy than the one that needs palladium. Once I have the 3D printer and the reactor to power my lab then I can start producing a micro factory and any other tools I need to create my first suit of power armor. It'll incorporate multiple different types of armored exoskeleton technology and will give me enough protection and offensive capabilities to fight low level brute. I'll also equip it with a much wider arrangement of non-lethal weaponry, that should allow me to neutralize the average gangster much faster than any of my current equipment can.
After about 30 minutes of riding through the forest, I arrive near the outskirts of Brockton bay. In another 10 minutes I'll be at the docks and I'll finally begin making this world a better place.
AN: this is the first story I post online, feedback would be appreciated and I hope you like my story. More chapters will be coming eventually but I don't have a posting schedule yet.
Suspicions
To be honest, I expected my first night as a hero to be more eventful but reality tends to be disappointing. I started going on patrol 4 days ago and the only thing of note that happened was when I healed the victim of a mugging gone wrong that was left to die in an alleyway. Sure, a man is alive because of me but the mugger is still out there and my chances of finding him before he makes another victim are slim to none.
Most of my patrols ended up with me not finding any gangsters and spending my time fixing potholes as I roamed around the city. It was only a coincidence that I found the mugging victim. I just happened to pass by the alleyway he was in as he was yelling his last desperate call for help. He was a few minutes from dying when I found him but he was back to full health with one use of repair. The police was called and I went on my way.
I also used my time when not on patrol to write the code for my first 3D printer and to create a small folder of blueprints to bring when I borrow armsmaster's lab, might as well compensate him for his time since I plan on using his tools.
The blueprints don't really have a theme to them, just pieces of technology that I thought would be useful. A small and compact power source, designs for artificial muscle fibers, the chemical structure of a fireproof material that should hold up to sustained assault from a blaster 4, the blueprint for a fist sized device that can dampen sound in a 10 meter sphere and a set of papers describing a process that can be used for an atomic scale 3D printer.
I probably didn't need to include some of the designs I included but it's not like I can build many of them any time soon so I might as well give them to someone who can do good with them in the meantime. As long as armsmaster's out there doing good with my designs i can focus on catching up on the time I lost working without a steady budget.
Since the power testing session is happening in three days, I'm going to make a few notes on what I already know on my adaptive repair power to bring to the meeting. I'm not expecting to find anything new with their tests, I'm mostly going in order to prove that my power works as advertised so I can finalize the contract.
From what I've already observed, adaptive repair makes the repaired object around 6% more resistant to the type of force that damaged it. A piece of wood that is damaged by a knife applying 20 pounds of force will need 21,2 pounds of force from the same knife to cause the same amount of damage.
The most interesting part of it is what happens when the damaged material has shards of a stronger material stuck in when adaptive repair is activated. Let's say a piece of clay is burnt and shards of glass and aluminum are stuck in before it's repaired. The end result would be a piece of clay that lets a bit of light through, is conducive and is about as durable as aluminum. Without that part of my power, I would have had a much harder time creating my current equipment.
Other than that, the repair itself seems to be instantaneous as far as I can tell with a pocket watch. I've also decided to bring along some samples of materials I've created with my power for analysis. I need to appear as professional as possible if I want to establish as working relationship with the prt.
———————————————————–
The power testing session ended up being more worthwhile than I expected. The staff where polite and the tests were arranged in advance from the description I gave of my power during my meeting with the director. The whole thing took about two hours to complete and taught me a few things. Turns out I can repair stuff without touching them although for some reason adaptive repair has a longer range than just repair.
That really came as a surprise for me, I never thought to even try repairing things without touching them because I never had a need to. Everything I've ever used my power on was already within arms reach. Other than that, the analysts discovered that adaptive repair gets weaker the further away from me the target is with a maximum range of 30 feet.
While I was there I took the opportunity to give my blueprints folder to armsmaster. He seemed dismissive of my folder but he still took it so I'm sure he'll give my it a look eventually. He barely even talked to me long enough to collect my folder and to give me a date for his mentoring session before going on patrol.
I ended up going back the next day to finalize the contract and to set up a schedule for my healing hours. The director also made me do my first healing session on that very same day. The session didn't last long since there were only 8 injured people present and I left the building 1600 dollars richer.
I'm scheduled to have my tinkering time with armsmaster in a week and I'm presently using my meager funds to buy a cheap car that I'll strip apart for materials. I could have bought the materials directly but buying a car is much less suspicious. I want to eventually unmask since I'm a big fan of the new wave movement but I'd rather have a good suit of power armor before I do that.
I like new wave's message of accountability for capes but not all of us have multiple parahuman family members to protect us and some people have more to lose than to gain by following their philosophy. Some people have families they don't want to put in danger, I just so happen to not have a family to lose.
———————————————————–
By the end of the week, I'm starting to feel like the world is playing a cosmic joke on me. Before I had powers, muggings and criminal acts were a common thing that I came across and fell victim to in Brockton bay and yet now that I have powers and that I'm actively looking for it, I can't find a single thing going on that would necessitate a hero.
I've helped 3 lost tourists find their way to an hotel, repaired 5 people's flat tires and I'm pretty sure that by now a third of the city is free of potholes and despite all that, I haven't found a single drug dealer, not even a mugging in progress. Hell, there's barely any people injured when I show up at the prt and in a city like Brockton bay that's absolutely abnormal.
I don't know if there's something going on in the city since nobody at the prt informed me of anything important but I've already decided to ask armsmaster later today when I'm at his workshop.
At least I received some good news the other day. Someone on a cape nerd forum posted a video of armsmaster's bike being completely silent despite going faster than usual which makes me pretty sure he finally checked my tinkertech folder. Although I'm wondering why he would install the noise dampener first instead of integrating the power source to his armor. I mean, what's the use of a silent motorcycle in a cape fight. I'm pretty sure lung doesn't give a shit whether you attack him silently or noisily. Might as well also ask him about that while I'm there.
Before leaving for the prt HQ, I download my future 3D printer's software on a USB drive and finish my daily maintenance on my equipment. After regularly using adaptive repair on them, none of my armor pieces get scratched even if I rub them with sandpaper, they just stay mirror clear no matter how hard I try to scratch them.
By now the receptionist at the HQ's lobby is familiar with me and he lets me go to the upstairs waiting area on my own. I don't have to wait long for armsmaster to show up since I'm only 5 minutes early. He arrives at exactly the scheduled hour and silently leads me deeper in the building without wasting time on small talk.
When we arrive in armsmaster's lab, the doors lock behind me and I get a bad feeling. Once he reaches his workbench, armsmaster motions for me to take a seat. His lab is wonderful but I can't help but feel nervous due to the atmosphere of the situation. Once I'm fully seated, armsmaster begins speaking and things start making sense.
"Before we begin working, I have a few questions to ask you on behalf of the director" he takes a pause and the his next words clearly make him uncomfortable "depending on how you answer them, we may have to arrest you" despite feeling light headed and the dread building up in my stomach, I nod. Armsmaster continues speaking after confirming my agreement.
"Some of the designs in the folder you gave me have biological components including a DNA based data storage device, a computer unit using artificial neurons and a modified plant that secretes a powerful paralytic agent" armsmaster takes a pause to take a breath and continues speaking but with a much harder tone than before.
"The directors first question is this, do you have access to technology that would normally be attributed to a biotinker" as he finishes, armsmaster silently waits for my answer and I know that I should phrase my response very carefully if I don't want to end up in prison. People are still sensitive about elisburg and with the slaughterhouse nine recently recruiting bonesaw, the bias against biotinkers is higher than ever. After a few seconds of collecting myself I begin speaking.
"I do indeed have access to technology that would fall into the biotinker category but it is in no way my primary focus in tinkertech" as I finish, I can clearly see that armsmaster isn't totally satisfied with my answer but since I'm not currently in cuffs I'll take that as a win. After a few seconds, armsmaster resumes speaking.
"The director second quest pertains to what your limits are with the technology"
The second armsmaster finishes the question, I immediately know that I'm in trouble no matter how I answer. There's just no way of making the ability to wipe out humanity in one week with a plague sound good. My only chance of getting out of this is to downplay that aspect and making it sound like keeping me around is better than burying me in the deepest darkest hole they can find. I audibly swallow before answering.
"I don't know exactly how prt threat ratings work but I suspect that I would rank pretty high, however, my primary focus tinkertech wise is in machines with the biotech only being used to supplement a machine in most case. I could create purely biological tinkertech but am disinclined to do so since normal tinkertech is often easier to produce and more effective" I take a deep breath as I finish my answer, armsmaster seems to be silently nodding to himself at the last part of my statement before continuing with his questioning.
"The director's last question is this, do you have intentions on using biological tinkertech in the future in order to cause harm or to kill" as armsmaster finishes, I can't help but feel relieved. Finally a question I can answer without being worried about life in prison. I quickly start speaking as armsmaster sternly listens.
"I never had intentions on using any biological tinkertech to harm or to kill anyone, most of what I intended to create were performance enhancing drugs that I planned to use to achieve peak physical fitness as fast as possible and to maintain that level with minimal time requirements"
Armsmaster visibly perks up at my last words before nodding to himself, seemingly satisfied with my answer. After a few seconds of anxious waiting, armsmaster finally starts speaking.
"Happily for you, it seems our thinkers have validated the veracity of your answers, you are no longer at risk of being arrested although that can change at any moment depending on your future actions" the door behind me unlocks as he pauses to type something on his computer before turning back to me and speaking again.
"Now that your innocence has been confirmed, we have a tinkering session ahead of us and a lot of my time has already been wasted" I can't help but release a sigh of relief as armsmaster gestures for me to follow him deeper into his workshop. Looks like I'm not going to jail today but in the future I'll have to be more careful about what I show to them.
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Later that evening, I'm back home with my new 3D printer and a few miniaturized versions of the blueprints I gave armsmaster. Normally I would be starting the building process for my tools but I'm too tired. Today has been extremely exhausting and I'm still processing the fact that I was almost arrested by the heroes despite committing no crime.
AN: im definitely not sure about the quality of this chapter, I feel like it doesn't flow as well as the previous one and I feel like the dialogues are a bit awkward. Let me know in the comments.
Most of my patrols ended up with me not finding any gangsters and spending my time fixing potholes as I roamed around the city. It was only a coincidence that I found the mugging victim. I just happened to pass by the alleyway he was in as he was yelling his last desperate call for help. He was a few minutes from dying when I found him but he was back to full health with one use of repair. The police was called and I went on my way.
I also used my time when not on patrol to write the code for my first 3D printer and to create a small folder of blueprints to bring when I borrow armsmaster's lab, might as well compensate him for his time since I plan on using his tools.
The blueprints don't really have a theme to them, just pieces of technology that I thought would be useful. A small and compact power source, designs for artificial muscle fibers, the chemical structure of a fireproof material that should hold up to sustained assault from a blaster 4, the blueprint for a fist sized device that can dampen sound in a 10 meter sphere and a set of papers describing a process that can be used for an atomic scale 3D printer.
I probably didn't need to include some of the designs I included but it's not like I can build many of them any time soon so I might as well give them to someone who can do good with them in the meantime. As long as armsmaster's out there doing good with my designs i can focus on catching up on the time I lost working without a steady budget.
Since the power testing session is happening in three days, I'm going to make a few notes on what I already know on my adaptive repair power to bring to the meeting. I'm not expecting to find anything new with their tests, I'm mostly going in order to prove that my power works as advertised so I can finalize the contract.
From what I've already observed, adaptive repair makes the repaired object around 6% more resistant to the type of force that damaged it. A piece of wood that is damaged by a knife applying 20 pounds of force will need 21,2 pounds of force from the same knife to cause the same amount of damage.
The most interesting part of it is what happens when the damaged material has shards of a stronger material stuck in when adaptive repair is activated. Let's say a piece of clay is burnt and shards of glass and aluminum are stuck in before it's repaired. The end result would be a piece of clay that lets a bit of light through, is conducive and is about as durable as aluminum. Without that part of my power, I would have had a much harder time creating my current equipment.
Other than that, the repair itself seems to be instantaneous as far as I can tell with a pocket watch. I've also decided to bring along some samples of materials I've created with my power for analysis. I need to appear as professional as possible if I want to establish as working relationship with the prt.
———————————————————–
The power testing session ended up being more worthwhile than I expected. The staff where polite and the tests were arranged in advance from the description I gave of my power during my meeting with the director. The whole thing took about two hours to complete and taught me a few things. Turns out I can repair stuff without touching them although for some reason adaptive repair has a longer range than just repair.
That really came as a surprise for me, I never thought to even try repairing things without touching them because I never had a need to. Everything I've ever used my power on was already within arms reach. Other than that, the analysts discovered that adaptive repair gets weaker the further away from me the target is with a maximum range of 30 feet.
While I was there I took the opportunity to give my blueprints folder to armsmaster. He seemed dismissive of my folder but he still took it so I'm sure he'll give my it a look eventually. He barely even talked to me long enough to collect my folder and to give me a date for his mentoring session before going on patrol.
I ended up going back the next day to finalize the contract and to set up a schedule for my healing hours. The director also made me do my first healing session on that very same day. The session didn't last long since there were only 8 injured people present and I left the building 1600 dollars richer.
I'm scheduled to have my tinkering time with armsmaster in a week and I'm presently using my meager funds to buy a cheap car that I'll strip apart for materials. I could have bought the materials directly but buying a car is much less suspicious. I want to eventually unmask since I'm a big fan of the new wave movement but I'd rather have a good suit of power armor before I do that.
I like new wave's message of accountability for capes but not all of us have multiple parahuman family members to protect us and some people have more to lose than to gain by following their philosophy. Some people have families they don't want to put in danger, I just so happen to not have a family to lose.
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By the end of the week, I'm starting to feel like the world is playing a cosmic joke on me. Before I had powers, muggings and criminal acts were a common thing that I came across and fell victim to in Brockton bay and yet now that I have powers and that I'm actively looking for it, I can't find a single thing going on that would necessitate a hero.
I've helped 3 lost tourists find their way to an hotel, repaired 5 people's flat tires and I'm pretty sure that by now a third of the city is free of potholes and despite all that, I haven't found a single drug dealer, not even a mugging in progress. Hell, there's barely any people injured when I show up at the prt and in a city like Brockton bay that's absolutely abnormal.
I don't know if there's something going on in the city since nobody at the prt informed me of anything important but I've already decided to ask armsmaster later today when I'm at his workshop.
At least I received some good news the other day. Someone on a cape nerd forum posted a video of armsmaster's bike being completely silent despite going faster than usual which makes me pretty sure he finally checked my tinkertech folder. Although I'm wondering why he would install the noise dampener first instead of integrating the power source to his armor. I mean, what's the use of a silent motorcycle in a cape fight. I'm pretty sure lung doesn't give a shit whether you attack him silently or noisily. Might as well also ask him about that while I'm there.
Before leaving for the prt HQ, I download my future 3D printer's software on a USB drive and finish my daily maintenance on my equipment. After regularly using adaptive repair on them, none of my armor pieces get scratched even if I rub them with sandpaper, they just stay mirror clear no matter how hard I try to scratch them.
By now the receptionist at the HQ's lobby is familiar with me and he lets me go to the upstairs waiting area on my own. I don't have to wait long for armsmaster to show up since I'm only 5 minutes early. He arrives at exactly the scheduled hour and silently leads me deeper in the building without wasting time on small talk.
When we arrive in armsmaster's lab, the doors lock behind me and I get a bad feeling. Once he reaches his workbench, armsmaster motions for me to take a seat. His lab is wonderful but I can't help but feel nervous due to the atmosphere of the situation. Once I'm fully seated, armsmaster begins speaking and things start making sense.
"Before we begin working, I have a few questions to ask you on behalf of the director" he takes a pause and the his next words clearly make him uncomfortable "depending on how you answer them, we may have to arrest you" despite feeling light headed and the dread building up in my stomach, I nod. Armsmaster continues speaking after confirming my agreement.
"Some of the designs in the folder you gave me have biological components including a DNA based data storage device, a computer unit using artificial neurons and a modified plant that secretes a powerful paralytic agent" armsmaster takes a pause to take a breath and continues speaking but with a much harder tone than before.
"The directors first question is this, do you have access to technology that would normally be attributed to a biotinker" as he finishes, armsmaster silently waits for my answer and I know that I should phrase my response very carefully if I don't want to end up in prison. People are still sensitive about elisburg and with the slaughterhouse nine recently recruiting bonesaw, the bias against biotinkers is higher than ever. After a few seconds of collecting myself I begin speaking.
"I do indeed have access to technology that would fall into the biotinker category but it is in no way my primary focus in tinkertech" as I finish, I can clearly see that armsmaster isn't totally satisfied with my answer but since I'm not currently in cuffs I'll take that as a win. After a few seconds, armsmaster resumes speaking.
"The director second quest pertains to what your limits are with the technology"
The second armsmaster finishes the question, I immediately know that I'm in trouble no matter how I answer. There's just no way of making the ability to wipe out humanity in one week with a plague sound good. My only chance of getting out of this is to downplay that aspect and making it sound like keeping me around is better than burying me in the deepest darkest hole they can find. I audibly swallow before answering.
"I don't know exactly how prt threat ratings work but I suspect that I would rank pretty high, however, my primary focus tinkertech wise is in machines with the biotech only being used to supplement a machine in most case. I could create purely biological tinkertech but am disinclined to do so since normal tinkertech is often easier to produce and more effective" I take a deep breath as I finish my answer, armsmaster seems to be silently nodding to himself at the last part of my statement before continuing with his questioning.
"The director's last question is this, do you have intentions on using biological tinkertech in the future in order to cause harm or to kill" as armsmaster finishes, I can't help but feel relieved. Finally a question I can answer without being worried about life in prison. I quickly start speaking as armsmaster sternly listens.
"I never had intentions on using any biological tinkertech to harm or to kill anyone, most of what I intended to create were performance enhancing drugs that I planned to use to achieve peak physical fitness as fast as possible and to maintain that level with minimal time requirements"
Armsmaster visibly perks up at my last words before nodding to himself, seemingly satisfied with my answer. After a few seconds of anxious waiting, armsmaster finally starts speaking.
"Happily for you, it seems our thinkers have validated the veracity of your answers, you are no longer at risk of being arrested although that can change at any moment depending on your future actions" the door behind me unlocks as he pauses to type something on his computer before turning back to me and speaking again.
"Now that your innocence has been confirmed, we have a tinkering session ahead of us and a lot of my time has already been wasted" I can't help but release a sigh of relief as armsmaster gestures for me to follow him deeper into his workshop. Looks like I'm not going to jail today but in the future I'll have to be more careful about what I show to them.
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Later that evening, I'm back home with my new 3D printer and a few miniaturized versions of the blueprints I gave armsmaster. Normally I would be starting the building process for my tools but I'm too tired. Today has been extremely exhausting and I'm still processing the fact that I was almost arrested by the heroes despite committing no crime.
AN: im definitely not sure about the quality of this chapter, I feel like it doesn't flow as well as the previous one and I feel like the dialogues are a bit awkward. Let me know in the comments.
Serious planning
June 7th, Monday, 2005, Brockton Bay
After thinking about it for a bit, I just can't bring myself to actually hate the prt for what they subjected me to. Their suspicions were reasonable and they could have handled the situation in worse ways than they did. They could have just arrested me during one of my patrols without letting me explain my side of the story.
Although I might be able to understand their reasons for almost arresting me, I can't afford to be killed or arrested, I need to be alive and free if I want to make a difference.
This means I need to prepare something that'll stop the heroes from arresting me. For that, I'll need to create and activate the insight program. Once activated, I should have access to the civilian identities of most capes in Brockton bay within half a month. The code for the program should take me about a week and a half to write due to how complex it is, my fingers can only type so fast after all and I also have other things to do with my time.
My suspicions about the lack of crime being abnormal were right. Armsmaster explained to me that I was under observation for a few days and that the information that a biotinker was on the loose was leaked by an unknown party to the gangs. Turns out biotinker's have a bad enough reputation for the gangs to hunker down for a week in order to not risk getting killed by a plague. Things should go back to normal in a few days which should give me the time to do a partial upgrade of my tools.
Luckily I won't have to sell anymore furniture from my parents old house to buy parts, the materials I got from the car should last me until the end of the month if I'm careful. The rest of my budget will be used on food for a specialized bodybuilding diet that should boost me from my meager 5'8 to a solid 6'2 within five months.
A year from now, I'll have changed so much that not even my dead mother would recognize me. The failure of a man I was 4 months ago will have been completely replaced by the successful hero Everyman. For now though, I still have a lot of work to do to be worthy of calling myself a hero.
Part of the work I have to do is designing a suit of power armor strong enough to withstand an Endbringer fight. The next one in the cycle is the simurgh and I can't risk her copying my tinker specialization so I'll have to design the suit with a fight against Behemoth in mind. This means the suit has to be resistant against multiple types of energy and it needs to be mobile enough to stay out of Behemoth's kill aura.
I probably won't have the durability to get close enough to do damage but that doesn't mean I can't prepare a durable and lethal weapon to give to a high level brute for the duration of the battle. For the foreseeable future, the best weapon I can get ready in time will be a mono-atomic blade with brute 8 level durability. Anything else I can get ready in 6 months will unavoidably end up being some type of energy weapon and I wouldn't want to use that around Behemoth. I don't expect the blade to survive the fight but I still won't give it to a villain just in case it does.
The battle itself won't matter all that much since fights against Behemoth always have immense collateral damage and death tolls. What I'll need to focus on is survivability and my capacity to reduce collateral damage as much as possible. That means placing high radius mute field emitters around important infrastructure, going around the battlefield extinguishing fires and placing superconducting lightning rods around the city. The most important thing to bring will be large stores of RadAway and Rad-X.
It'll be a lot to transport so I'll absolutely need to have at least two portal devices built by then. One placed in a large storage space and one that I'll bring with me to the battle. The portal will have to be the size of a minivan for me to bring some of the pieces of equipment through so the portal device I bring with me will have to be foldable otherwise it's going to be hard to transport.
By my estimates, the power armor I'll use against Behemoth will be too heavy for any currently known teleporter to bring me to the fight. To get there on time, I'll have to ask the PRT to bring the foldable portal device on site with instructions for any tinker present to set up the device. Just in case no other tinkers are there, which I really doubt, I'll have to make an emergency hypervelocity suit and put on the Endbringer suit once I'm at the location of the fight.
My plan for the fight is to minimize Behemoth's impact on wherever he attacks and to keep as many people alive as possible. To do that, I'll need to focus on repairing the city's infrastructure at the same rate as behemoth damages it. I don't know if my repair power has a limited amount of uses but if it does, I'll probably reach that limit during the fight.
The most important thing for me to do in the next few month will be to upgrade my tools by a few orders of magnitude and to collect the necessary materials for the equipment. I'll probably need several tons of basic materials and at least ten kilos of various exotic materials. Even the armor by itself will weigh just under 1500 pounds and each individual mute field emitters will weigh around 300 pounds.
The sword on the other hand will probably cost me an arm to make. I'll need a few pounds of extremely pricey resins, at least a few pounds of steel based superalloys, a few thousand sheets of 4 atoms thick graphene, one ingot of saturnite-1293 alloy and a specialized forge that does the opposite of a mute field, dumping energy inside the radius of effect.
By my estimates, just the materials for it will cost me around 15 thousand dollars. Just the thought of it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, being a tinker really messes with your way of thinking about money. A few months ago I was broke and struggling to keep a roof above my head and now I'm planning on making 15 thousand dollar swords.
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June 10th, 2005, Brockton Bay
I really shot myself in the foot with how much I lowballed the deal with the PRT, I underestimated how much money I would need for my projects and now I'm most likely gonna have to find another way to fund my hero career. Luckily for me I have more options than the average parahuman but I'll still have to verify the legality of a few of those next time I see armsmaster. I'm not about to get arrested for fraud just after dodging life in prison.
For now though, healing at the PRT will have to do. Especially now that I know for sure that the number of injuries will return to normal in a few days. In fact, while the contract I have with them is skewed way more in their favour than mine, I still set it up in a way that would make me money. It may seem disingenuous to some people but I timed most of my healing sessions during hours of the day where crime is statistically lower. In other words, I'm likely to be called for overtime at least four days a week and if the average number of injuries remains consistent, that should net me around 12000 dollars every week in the unlikely event that I don't get called for overtime during the weekends.
Before I triggered, that would have seemed like a huge amount of money to me, maybe enough to house and feed me for a few months. Now though, it's barely enough for me to gradually upgrade my tools and to buy the materials for higher end tinkertech. If I want to keep a steady pace of improvement in my creations, I need to spend that money wisely and efficiently. This particular need is what brought me to the city hall earlier today.
Two of the advantages I have over the average tinker are that I already have a steady source of income as starting capital and that I live in a city desperate to save money anyway it can. Now normally, the city's money grubbing ways wouldn't really be an advantage for me if the same city wasn't also home to an unnatural amount of parahumans and a boat graveyard that is too pricey on the city's budget to get rid of.
In this sad state of affairs comes Everyman, here to save the day, or the city's wallet if we're being honest. Two days ago, I sent an email to the city's administration that can be summarized as stating my intention to buy one of the bigger boat carcasses and to provide free repairs to government owned properties in exchange for a cheap price on boat remains. Today, I went to the city hall for a face to face negotiations on what amount I'm willing to pay to get what I want.
I fully expect the administration to have already called the PRT since the transaction is to happen in my cape identity. Luckily for me, that actually made the negotiations go smoothly since the PRT already knows how well my repair power works. The only reason I even needed to go there was because the city kept trying to haggle for a higher price on the boat than what I'm willing to pay.
The contract should be approved and signed on by the end of the week. The deal ended up costing me twelve thousand dollars and three months of weekly repairs on government infrastructure. It's been 2 hours since the negotiations and I'm still not satisfied that I didn't manage to get the boat for under ten thousand. The fact that I'm going to be the proud owner of over 50 000 tons of raw materials is the only thing that's keeping me from being angry. A lot of that material being rusted isn't even a problem since I can just purify it.
The only things I can do to pass the time until the contract is signed is to start building harvesting tools and to solve the three problems I have with the situation. Obviously I can't harvest 50 000 tons of materials by myself no matter how good my tools are, I'm just one man after all. That means I'll have to contact the dockworkers association to employ at least 10 helpers and a truck for an undetermined amount of time. The second problem is that I can't have the dockworkers storing the materials on my property unless I want to get unmasked before I'm ready.
My second problem means I'll probably need to dish out even more money in order to rent a storage unit until I unmask. When that time comes, I'll just store things on my property since secrecy won't be needed anymore. Like my second problem, my final problem is also a temporary one. My bike isn't exactly fast enough to transport any meaningful amount of raw materials in a reasonable amount of time.
In order to transport enough materials for me to tinker with without being seen, I'll have to make two human sized portal devices. One for my home and the other placed inside the storage unit. Doing that will not only reduce my chances of being discovered exponentially, it'll also reduce my transit time from home to the city to just about zero. I only have to make sure the portal device placed inside the storage can detect intrusions. I don't want to open the portal if someone breaks into the storage unit otherwise it'll give them a path to my house.
Unluckily for me, neither my current 3D printer or the next one I'm planning to make are good enough to print a portal device. That wouldn't normally be a problem if I was trying to create almost any other thing than a portal device, a slight delay at most, but the device also needs exotic materials to work. Exotic materials that I can't buy online as Everyman because my cape identity doesn't have a bank account, I've been making all my transactions with cash after all. The problem is that I can't buy them in my civilian identity either unless I want to raise all kinds of red flags.
This means I'll have to order the materials through the PRT which is also a problem. It'll probably lead to questioning since I'm sure they can't just sell me radioactive materials without at least asking me what I'm planning on building with it.
Once they know I need it for a portal they'll inevitably ask me if I can make dimensional portals and I'll have no choice but to answer truthfully since they have access to thinkers to confirm my answers. Even if the portals I can create are extremely limited compared to Professor Haywire's, it'll still be one hell of an headache to explain and I'm not exactly in limited supply of stress recently.
Even so, I don't really have a choice about it, the information I'll obtain from the insight program is only to be used in a worst case scenario, not to blackmail the PRT into giving in to my whims. I also doubt that they'll even think of arresting me since my dimensional tech is so limited. I'm just not looking forward to that particular conversation.
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June 12th, 2005, Brockton Bay
Designing the tools that are gonna be used to dismantle the boat didn't even take me a day, what took the most time was the printing process. Every kit of tools took about three hours to print and with me planning to employ ten dockworkers, the printer ended up needing 30 hours to create enough for everyone.
The toolkits were pretty simple, all things considered. Just four pieces of equipment per kit consisting of one air filtration mask, a pair of highly durable protective glasses, one medium sized automated packaging unit and a precise resonant frequency gun. The last piece of equipment is what took up most of the printers time since it's the most complicated part of the kit. The gun should be able to break down metal close to it down to the individual grain and it should be able to do it relatively quickly.
The last few things needed before I can go negotiate a contract with the dockworkers association is a large and rapidly deployable tent to put over the working area, if I don't set that up then some metal dust is pretty much guaranteed to be released into the air and I don't want to cause anyone lung problems.
I'll also have to plan on which part of the boat to start with if I don't want the whole thing to collapse and kill someone due to poor planning. The most important thing to happen in the last two days was a bit of a review on a small part of my plan, I initially wanted to rent trucks to bring the metal dust bags to the storage unit but I realized that it would be more efficient to just build the second portal device on the boat instead of inside a storage unit. That way I eliminate both the need to pay for a storage unit and the risk of someone finding where I store the materials.
Next week is going to be extremely busy, I'll need to go sign the contract with the city on Monday, meet up with a dockworkers association representative to present my offer on Thursday and finally, go to the PRT to buy materials on Friday. I'm both anticipating it and feeling anxious about it. It's been hard on me, going from trying to earn a livelihood day by day to worrying if my efforts are going to be enough to make a difference. From worrying about myself to worrying about other. I just hope I'll at least become someone my parents would have been proud of by the end of it.
A.N: sorry for not updating this story for a while, I had a rough draft ready weeks in advance but I decided I could write something much better by taking into account some of the advice I received in the comments. I'll try to post more regularly from now on. Also one of the next few chapters I'm planning to write is an interlude, I'd like to know if you would like me to post the shard perspective interlude first or abaddon's interlude, just know that no matter your vote, I'll write both of them eventually, your votes will only affect which one is posted first. Till next time.
After thinking about it for a bit, I just can't bring myself to actually hate the prt for what they subjected me to. Their suspicions were reasonable and they could have handled the situation in worse ways than they did. They could have just arrested me during one of my patrols without letting me explain my side of the story.
Although I might be able to understand their reasons for almost arresting me, I can't afford to be killed or arrested, I need to be alive and free if I want to make a difference.
This means I need to prepare something that'll stop the heroes from arresting me. For that, I'll need to create and activate the insight program. Once activated, I should have access to the civilian identities of most capes in Brockton bay within half a month. The code for the program should take me about a week and a half to write due to how complex it is, my fingers can only type so fast after all and I also have other things to do with my time.
My suspicions about the lack of crime being abnormal were right. Armsmaster explained to me that I was under observation for a few days and that the information that a biotinker was on the loose was leaked by an unknown party to the gangs. Turns out biotinker's have a bad enough reputation for the gangs to hunker down for a week in order to not risk getting killed by a plague. Things should go back to normal in a few days which should give me the time to do a partial upgrade of my tools.
Luckily I won't have to sell anymore furniture from my parents old house to buy parts, the materials I got from the car should last me until the end of the month if I'm careful. The rest of my budget will be used on food for a specialized bodybuilding diet that should boost me from my meager 5'8 to a solid 6'2 within five months.
A year from now, I'll have changed so much that not even my dead mother would recognize me. The failure of a man I was 4 months ago will have been completely replaced by the successful hero Everyman. For now though, I still have a lot of work to do to be worthy of calling myself a hero.
Part of the work I have to do is designing a suit of power armor strong enough to withstand an Endbringer fight. The next one in the cycle is the simurgh and I can't risk her copying my tinker specialization so I'll have to design the suit with a fight against Behemoth in mind. This means the suit has to be resistant against multiple types of energy and it needs to be mobile enough to stay out of Behemoth's kill aura.
I probably won't have the durability to get close enough to do damage but that doesn't mean I can't prepare a durable and lethal weapon to give to a high level brute for the duration of the battle. For the foreseeable future, the best weapon I can get ready in time will be a mono-atomic blade with brute 8 level durability. Anything else I can get ready in 6 months will unavoidably end up being some type of energy weapon and I wouldn't want to use that around Behemoth. I don't expect the blade to survive the fight but I still won't give it to a villain just in case it does.
The battle itself won't matter all that much since fights against Behemoth always have immense collateral damage and death tolls. What I'll need to focus on is survivability and my capacity to reduce collateral damage as much as possible. That means placing high radius mute field emitters around important infrastructure, going around the battlefield extinguishing fires and placing superconducting lightning rods around the city. The most important thing to bring will be large stores of RadAway and Rad-X.
It'll be a lot to transport so I'll absolutely need to have at least two portal devices built by then. One placed in a large storage space and one that I'll bring with me to the battle. The portal will have to be the size of a minivan for me to bring some of the pieces of equipment through so the portal device I bring with me will have to be foldable otherwise it's going to be hard to transport.
By my estimates, the power armor I'll use against Behemoth will be too heavy for any currently known teleporter to bring me to the fight. To get there on time, I'll have to ask the PRT to bring the foldable portal device on site with instructions for any tinker present to set up the device. Just in case no other tinkers are there, which I really doubt, I'll have to make an emergency hypervelocity suit and put on the Endbringer suit once I'm at the location of the fight.
My plan for the fight is to minimize Behemoth's impact on wherever he attacks and to keep as many people alive as possible. To do that, I'll need to focus on repairing the city's infrastructure at the same rate as behemoth damages it. I don't know if my repair power has a limited amount of uses but if it does, I'll probably reach that limit during the fight.
The most important thing for me to do in the next few month will be to upgrade my tools by a few orders of magnitude and to collect the necessary materials for the equipment. I'll probably need several tons of basic materials and at least ten kilos of various exotic materials. Even the armor by itself will weigh just under 1500 pounds and each individual mute field emitters will weigh around 300 pounds.
The sword on the other hand will probably cost me an arm to make. I'll need a few pounds of extremely pricey resins, at least a few pounds of steel based superalloys, a few thousand sheets of 4 atoms thick graphene, one ingot of saturnite-1293 alloy and a specialized forge that does the opposite of a mute field, dumping energy inside the radius of effect.
By my estimates, just the materials for it will cost me around 15 thousand dollars. Just the thought of it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, being a tinker really messes with your way of thinking about money. A few months ago I was broke and struggling to keep a roof above my head and now I'm planning on making 15 thousand dollar swords.
—————————
June 10th, 2005, Brockton Bay
I really shot myself in the foot with how much I lowballed the deal with the PRT, I underestimated how much money I would need for my projects and now I'm most likely gonna have to find another way to fund my hero career. Luckily for me I have more options than the average parahuman but I'll still have to verify the legality of a few of those next time I see armsmaster. I'm not about to get arrested for fraud just after dodging life in prison.
For now though, healing at the PRT will have to do. Especially now that I know for sure that the number of injuries will return to normal in a few days. In fact, while the contract I have with them is skewed way more in their favour than mine, I still set it up in a way that would make me money. It may seem disingenuous to some people but I timed most of my healing sessions during hours of the day where crime is statistically lower. In other words, I'm likely to be called for overtime at least four days a week and if the average number of injuries remains consistent, that should net me around 12000 dollars every week in the unlikely event that I don't get called for overtime during the weekends.
Before I triggered, that would have seemed like a huge amount of money to me, maybe enough to house and feed me for a few months. Now though, it's barely enough for me to gradually upgrade my tools and to buy the materials for higher end tinkertech. If I want to keep a steady pace of improvement in my creations, I need to spend that money wisely and efficiently. This particular need is what brought me to the city hall earlier today.
Two of the advantages I have over the average tinker are that I already have a steady source of income as starting capital and that I live in a city desperate to save money anyway it can. Now normally, the city's money grubbing ways wouldn't really be an advantage for me if the same city wasn't also home to an unnatural amount of parahumans and a boat graveyard that is too pricey on the city's budget to get rid of.
In this sad state of affairs comes Everyman, here to save the day, or the city's wallet if we're being honest. Two days ago, I sent an email to the city's administration that can be summarized as stating my intention to buy one of the bigger boat carcasses and to provide free repairs to government owned properties in exchange for a cheap price on boat remains. Today, I went to the city hall for a face to face negotiations on what amount I'm willing to pay to get what I want.
I fully expect the administration to have already called the PRT since the transaction is to happen in my cape identity. Luckily for me, that actually made the negotiations go smoothly since the PRT already knows how well my repair power works. The only reason I even needed to go there was because the city kept trying to haggle for a higher price on the boat than what I'm willing to pay.
The contract should be approved and signed on by the end of the week. The deal ended up costing me twelve thousand dollars and three months of weekly repairs on government infrastructure. It's been 2 hours since the negotiations and I'm still not satisfied that I didn't manage to get the boat for under ten thousand. The fact that I'm going to be the proud owner of over 50 000 tons of raw materials is the only thing that's keeping me from being angry. A lot of that material being rusted isn't even a problem since I can just purify it.
The only things I can do to pass the time until the contract is signed is to start building harvesting tools and to solve the three problems I have with the situation. Obviously I can't harvest 50 000 tons of materials by myself no matter how good my tools are, I'm just one man after all. That means I'll have to contact the dockworkers association to employ at least 10 helpers and a truck for an undetermined amount of time. The second problem is that I can't have the dockworkers storing the materials on my property unless I want to get unmasked before I'm ready.
My second problem means I'll probably need to dish out even more money in order to rent a storage unit until I unmask. When that time comes, I'll just store things on my property since secrecy won't be needed anymore. Like my second problem, my final problem is also a temporary one. My bike isn't exactly fast enough to transport any meaningful amount of raw materials in a reasonable amount of time.
In order to transport enough materials for me to tinker with without being seen, I'll have to make two human sized portal devices. One for my home and the other placed inside the storage unit. Doing that will not only reduce my chances of being discovered exponentially, it'll also reduce my transit time from home to the city to just about zero. I only have to make sure the portal device placed inside the storage can detect intrusions. I don't want to open the portal if someone breaks into the storage unit otherwise it'll give them a path to my house.
Unluckily for me, neither my current 3D printer or the next one I'm planning to make are good enough to print a portal device. That wouldn't normally be a problem if I was trying to create almost any other thing than a portal device, a slight delay at most, but the device also needs exotic materials to work. Exotic materials that I can't buy online as Everyman because my cape identity doesn't have a bank account, I've been making all my transactions with cash after all. The problem is that I can't buy them in my civilian identity either unless I want to raise all kinds of red flags.
This means I'll have to order the materials through the PRT which is also a problem. It'll probably lead to questioning since I'm sure they can't just sell me radioactive materials without at least asking me what I'm planning on building with it.
Once they know I need it for a portal they'll inevitably ask me if I can make dimensional portals and I'll have no choice but to answer truthfully since they have access to thinkers to confirm my answers. Even if the portals I can create are extremely limited compared to Professor Haywire's, it'll still be one hell of an headache to explain and I'm not exactly in limited supply of stress recently.
Even so, I don't really have a choice about it, the information I'll obtain from the insight program is only to be used in a worst case scenario, not to blackmail the PRT into giving in to my whims. I also doubt that they'll even think of arresting me since my dimensional tech is so limited. I'm just not looking forward to that particular conversation.
—————————-
June 12th, 2005, Brockton Bay
Designing the tools that are gonna be used to dismantle the boat didn't even take me a day, what took the most time was the printing process. Every kit of tools took about three hours to print and with me planning to employ ten dockworkers, the printer ended up needing 30 hours to create enough for everyone.
The toolkits were pretty simple, all things considered. Just four pieces of equipment per kit consisting of one air filtration mask, a pair of highly durable protective glasses, one medium sized automated packaging unit and a precise resonant frequency gun. The last piece of equipment is what took up most of the printers time since it's the most complicated part of the kit. The gun should be able to break down metal close to it down to the individual grain and it should be able to do it relatively quickly.
The last few things needed before I can go negotiate a contract with the dockworkers association is a large and rapidly deployable tent to put over the working area, if I don't set that up then some metal dust is pretty much guaranteed to be released into the air and I don't want to cause anyone lung problems.
I'll also have to plan on which part of the boat to start with if I don't want the whole thing to collapse and kill someone due to poor planning. The most important thing to happen in the last two days was a bit of a review on a small part of my plan, I initially wanted to rent trucks to bring the metal dust bags to the storage unit but I realized that it would be more efficient to just build the second portal device on the boat instead of inside a storage unit. That way I eliminate both the need to pay for a storage unit and the risk of someone finding where I store the materials.
Next week is going to be extremely busy, I'll need to go sign the contract with the city on Monday, meet up with a dockworkers association representative to present my offer on Thursday and finally, go to the PRT to buy materials on Friday. I'm both anticipating it and feeling anxious about it. It's been hard on me, going from trying to earn a livelihood day by day to worrying if my efforts are going to be enough to make a difference. From worrying about myself to worrying about other. I just hope I'll at least become someone my parents would have been proud of by the end of it.
A.N: sorry for not updating this story for a while, I had a rough draft ready weeks in advance but I decided I could write something much better by taking into account some of the advice I received in the comments. I'll try to post more regularly from now on. Also one of the next few chapters I'm planning to write is an interlude, I'd like to know if you would like me to post the shard perspective interlude first or abaddon's interlude, just know that no matter your vote, I'll write both of them eventually, your votes will only affect which one is posted first. Till next time.
Heroics 101
June 16th, 2005, Brockton Bay
Ever since I triggered, I've had to think a lot about what's needed to be a good hero. Do I need offensive power strong enough to take down any brute? Not really, most criminals a hero faces are baseline humans. You don't need the power to destroy mountains to fight those.
Is it speed so fast that no criminal could hope to escape? I don't think so, most criminals can't run faster than even my slowest power armor. Speed wasn't the true answer to my question, at most, it was only a small part of what I needed.
Was it perhaps defence? Definitely not. A strong defence isn't needed against the average criminal and any injuries could be taken care of instantly with adaptive repair. Defence also wasn't what I was looking for. Don't get me wrong, a good defence is needed but it doesn't make a good hero on its own.
The answer I found was simpler than I originally thought. A good hero needs a bit of everything, strength, speed and defence but most of all, it was preparation. A good hero needs to be prepared for any situation and for any enemy. A good hero does not back down and is never blindsided, he anticipates every possible problem and prepares for them. Most importantly, a hero should be focused on saving as many people as possible and getting better at doing it over time.
Despite having found my answer, I quickly realized that being a good hero is hard. For a while, in my case, I simply didn't have the resources needed to answer my own expectations. Now though, after months of slow progress and after having finally taken the steps needed, that is no longer an issue.
The wreck i now own may look horrible to the residents of the city but to me, it is a great treasure that will allow me to be the hero I envisioned months ago. With it, I'll be able to make equipment for any situation. The only thing left for me to do is harvest it and to do that, I'll need help. This is what brings me to the dockworkers association office today.
The contract transferring ownership of the boat carcass to me was signed two days ago. Today, I'm here to acquire the workforce needed to do something with it.
I decided to hire the dockworkers instead of a big company because they honestly need the work more. I know how it's like to struggle to find work in a city like Brockton Bay and from what I've heard, the dockworkers have fallen on hard times recently. Would I really be a hero if I didn't try to help in my own way?
Of course, I don't intend on overpaying them but the work I need them to do will be more than profitable. I'm not about to pay them minimum wage for something as important as this, the materials they'll be collecting will be fueling my hero career for years. No way am I underpaying for that.
In preparation for the meeting, I packed up one of the harvesting kits and wrote up a short instruction manual on how to use it, all that's left to do is actually speaking the representative.
My thinking is interrupted by an older looking secretary telling me the representative is ready to see me, the walk from the waiting room to his office doesn't take all that long and I am quickly seated.
There are a few seconds of silence between us, I don't blame him. We must look quite weird from an outsiders perspective, a tall and skinny man with glasses on one side of the desk and a hero dressed in black with shiny metallic armor on his body on the other side.
The silence doesn't last and the man sitting in front of me starts talking in an even tone of voice.
"i hope you can understand why it took us a few days to get back to you." He sighs "It's not often that a parahuman contacts us for business in his cape identity and we had to make a few calls to know who we were dealing with."
"i can understand. As you said, it's not everyday something like this happens. I hope that this contract can be profitable for everyone involved despite that"
The representative resumes speaking and I can tell from his tone that my words have at least reassured him a bit.
"although it took us a a bit of time to call you back and to set up this meeting, it doesn't mean we didn't take a look a your proposal." At least that should make this meeting shorter. "Your offer was rather easy to understand and the only details I'll want to discuss with you are the payment and working hours."
"yes, you'll have to excuse me for excluding those from the proposal. This is my first time negotiating a large contract like this and I wasn't sure wether you'd want to go for a lump sum contract or a time and materials contract." I take a quick pause to catch my breath. "as for the working hours, I thought it would be better to negotiate on them face to face instead of sending a mail"
His response comes fast. "from the amount of work detailed in the proposal you sent, I think a time and materials contract would be the better choice. There are just too many variables in play for a lump sum contract to be advantageous for any of us." I nod at his words and he resumes speaking. "I doubt you want to overpay for a contract of this size nor do I want my employees to get underpaid due to some unforeseen variable"
He takes a pause while he takes out a note pad from his desk before continuing. "since you're the client, why don't you tell me what hourly rate you were thinking of and how many hours you need my workers for and we'll negotiate from there if we have to"
My answer came quickly since I had prepared for similar questions in advance. "for the working hours, I was thinking a regular 8 hour days with a 30 minute lunch break and two fifteen minute breaks would be good enough." My expectations don't seem to surprise him but his eyebrows start to rise at my next words. "as for the hourly rate, I was thinking 20 dollars an hour would be reasonable since this work is important for me and I expect you to assign me trustworthy workers for a wage like that"
I can tell from his expression that he was expecting much less, my offer must have been a total surprise for him. I'm offering more than double the minimum wage for unskilled workers after all. He quickly takes on a calmer expression before speaking again.
"the working hours are satisfactory and the hourly rate is more than good. The only detail left is the duration of the contract and also adding a clause in the contract that guarantees the workers health. The boat graveyard is dangerous and no amount of payment will sway the workers if you can't guarantee their safety." The last part of his offer doesn't surprise me, the boat graveyard hasn't been safe for a while. A lot of homeless people and junkies roam around the place and there's been rumours of a new gang recruiting around there. I don't plan on letting anything happen to the workers.
"adding a clause like that to the contract is perfectly ok with me, I wouldn't be much of a hero otherwise. As for the duration, I'm not sure how long the work will take so the contract should last 4 months for now and we'll see if it needs to be extended by then. Are there any other details you want to discuss?" He gives a quick nod at my question before answering.
"everything seem satisfactory at the moment. Of course, we'll still need to finalize the contract in an official manner but you can consider my words as a verbal agreement for the moment. My secretary will contact you again in the next few days for you to come read the finalized contract."
With everything done, I get up from my chair and stretch a bit. One stressful thing done, another left to do.
———————————————————–
On Friday morning, just a few hours before my materials request, I already know things are going to be shit. The day before had been nothing but bad luck after bad luck. Yesterday, I overcooked my lunch, the 3D printer broke down, I ran out of processed materials in the middle of a project and I burnt through the last bit of palladium I have left.
The thing that annoyed me the most was when animal noises kept waking me up throughout the night. Now it's the morning and I'm tired, irritable and unfocused. The ride to the PRT HQ did little to calm me down and by the time I was there, I was in my own world. I also had a healing session scheduled just before my appointment.
Normally I would have taken the opportunity to socialize with the troopers, maybe see what kind of injuries they had. Today wasn't a normal day and I couldn't bring myself to care. Maybe if it was, I would have noticed a patient that was definitely out of place, I never received coma patients before and you don't get muscle atrophy by being a PRT trooper. As it was, I was entirely too unfocused to even notice.
The session didn't last long with only seven people injured and I was quickly on my way to the materials request department. Ironically, the guy manning the desk there seemed as out of it as me, he didn't even ask me why I needed radioactive materials. He just approved my request, quickly wrote down what I needed and sent me on my way.
I didn't even question it, I was just grateful to have dodged the headache and eager to get back to bed. My automated chemical mixer should be done making a tranquilizer by now, nothing will interrupt my sleep.
———————————————————–
Turns out something did interrupt my sleep, at least I got six hours in bed before my phone woke me up. Despite being angry and still tired, I answered the call, it was coming from the PRT after all. My previous feelings about being woken up instantly left me when the panicking PRT medic on the line told me both Velocity and Miss Militia were in critical condition after a fight with lung. I quickly told them "I'll be there" and hung up.
Without wasting a moment I ran to my workshop. The bike isn't fast enough so I need to put on the unfinished hypervelocity suit, it doesn't have any weapons equipped yet and the inertia dampeners are barely working but that doesn't matter to me, I just need to get there in time.
The two minutes it takes me to put on the suit are probably some of the most stressful in my life. I'm in such a hurry that I simply ram through the garage door rather than waste time opening it manually. Despite this moment being the first time I fly, I'm too worried to enjoy it.
The suit works as intended and within seconds of taking off I'm already approaching supersonic velocity, the inbuilt mute field generator is the only thing keeping the sonic boom I'm creating from wrecking every window in my path.
Not even a minute after take off and the PRT HQ is already in sight, my stress won't even allow me to marvel at my suits speed. I completely disregard the safety procedures for slowing down, I simply decelerate as fast as possible and repair my body at the same rate as the g force breaks it, the pain is unimaginable but last seconds at most. By the time I land, the inside of my suit is coated with a layer of my own blood and the few gaps in my armor are leaking a mix of blood, bile, and hydraulic fluids.
Activating the emergency eject would waste precious seconds so I run through the building with my leaking suit instead. The troopers don't even try to stop me and I ignore the medics trying to guide me to the infirmary. I don't need their directions, I've been there enough time to know the way.
By the time I arrive in the operating room, Velocity is already flatlining and Miss Militia isn't too far from that point either. Most of their bodies are covered with third degree burns and lacerations and Miss Militia is missing a leg. By the time my observations are done I've already activated repair and the changes are instant. It's like looking at a glitching tv screen instantly switching from one frame to the next.
One second I have two almost unidentifiable burned bodies in front of me and in the next all that's left are perfectly healthy looking people. Nobody would be able to guess they were near death just seconds ago. I don't have time to be relieved before the medics quickly lead me to another room where the injured troopers are being operated on.
They don't look much better than the two heroes did moments before and I quickly activate a wide range repair, everyone in the room is healed perfectly in an instant. Finally able to relax, I release a sigh of relief before activating the emergency eject. I immediately fall outside of my armor into a pool of body fluids and oil. I don't even have the time to be disgusted before I fall unconscious.
A.N: the last parts of the chapter might seem a bit rushed but both have a reason story wise. I'm not sure if I made one of the plot points too evident with the way I wrote the hints but just in case, I'll say this: this story takes place in a parallel universe to the canon story, most events are the same but some things might have happened slightly differently or have had different results. Keep that in mind when reading and look out for details that might point toward the differences. Till next time, hope you enjoy.
Ever since I triggered, I've had to think a lot about what's needed to be a good hero. Do I need offensive power strong enough to take down any brute? Not really, most criminals a hero faces are baseline humans. You don't need the power to destroy mountains to fight those.
Is it speed so fast that no criminal could hope to escape? I don't think so, most criminals can't run faster than even my slowest power armor. Speed wasn't the true answer to my question, at most, it was only a small part of what I needed.
Was it perhaps defence? Definitely not. A strong defence isn't needed against the average criminal and any injuries could be taken care of instantly with adaptive repair. Defence also wasn't what I was looking for. Don't get me wrong, a good defence is needed but it doesn't make a good hero on its own.
The answer I found was simpler than I originally thought. A good hero needs a bit of everything, strength, speed and defence but most of all, it was preparation. A good hero needs to be prepared for any situation and for any enemy. A good hero does not back down and is never blindsided, he anticipates every possible problem and prepares for them. Most importantly, a hero should be focused on saving as many people as possible and getting better at doing it over time.
Despite having found my answer, I quickly realized that being a good hero is hard. For a while, in my case, I simply didn't have the resources needed to answer my own expectations. Now though, after months of slow progress and after having finally taken the steps needed, that is no longer an issue.
The wreck i now own may look horrible to the residents of the city but to me, it is a great treasure that will allow me to be the hero I envisioned months ago. With it, I'll be able to make equipment for any situation. The only thing left for me to do is harvest it and to do that, I'll need help. This is what brings me to the dockworkers association office today.
The contract transferring ownership of the boat carcass to me was signed two days ago. Today, I'm here to acquire the workforce needed to do something with it.
I decided to hire the dockworkers instead of a big company because they honestly need the work more. I know how it's like to struggle to find work in a city like Brockton Bay and from what I've heard, the dockworkers have fallen on hard times recently. Would I really be a hero if I didn't try to help in my own way?
Of course, I don't intend on overpaying them but the work I need them to do will be more than profitable. I'm not about to pay them minimum wage for something as important as this, the materials they'll be collecting will be fueling my hero career for years. No way am I underpaying for that.
In preparation for the meeting, I packed up one of the harvesting kits and wrote up a short instruction manual on how to use it, all that's left to do is actually speaking the representative.
My thinking is interrupted by an older looking secretary telling me the representative is ready to see me, the walk from the waiting room to his office doesn't take all that long and I am quickly seated.
There are a few seconds of silence between us, I don't blame him. We must look quite weird from an outsiders perspective, a tall and skinny man with glasses on one side of the desk and a hero dressed in black with shiny metallic armor on his body on the other side.
The silence doesn't last and the man sitting in front of me starts talking in an even tone of voice.
"i hope you can understand why it took us a few days to get back to you." He sighs "It's not often that a parahuman contacts us for business in his cape identity and we had to make a few calls to know who we were dealing with."
"i can understand. As you said, it's not everyday something like this happens. I hope that this contract can be profitable for everyone involved despite that"
The representative resumes speaking and I can tell from his tone that my words have at least reassured him a bit.
"although it took us a a bit of time to call you back and to set up this meeting, it doesn't mean we didn't take a look a your proposal." At least that should make this meeting shorter. "Your offer was rather easy to understand and the only details I'll want to discuss with you are the payment and working hours."
"yes, you'll have to excuse me for excluding those from the proposal. This is my first time negotiating a large contract like this and I wasn't sure wether you'd want to go for a lump sum contract or a time and materials contract." I take a quick pause to catch my breath. "as for the working hours, I thought it would be better to negotiate on them face to face instead of sending a mail"
His response comes fast. "from the amount of work detailed in the proposal you sent, I think a time and materials contract would be the better choice. There are just too many variables in play for a lump sum contract to be advantageous for any of us." I nod at his words and he resumes speaking. "I doubt you want to overpay for a contract of this size nor do I want my employees to get underpaid due to some unforeseen variable"
He takes a pause while he takes out a note pad from his desk before continuing. "since you're the client, why don't you tell me what hourly rate you were thinking of and how many hours you need my workers for and we'll negotiate from there if we have to"
My answer came quickly since I had prepared for similar questions in advance. "for the working hours, I was thinking a regular 8 hour days with a 30 minute lunch break and two fifteen minute breaks would be good enough." My expectations don't seem to surprise him but his eyebrows start to rise at my next words. "as for the hourly rate, I was thinking 20 dollars an hour would be reasonable since this work is important for me and I expect you to assign me trustworthy workers for a wage like that"
I can tell from his expression that he was expecting much less, my offer must have been a total surprise for him. I'm offering more than double the minimum wage for unskilled workers after all. He quickly takes on a calmer expression before speaking again.
"the working hours are satisfactory and the hourly rate is more than good. The only detail left is the duration of the contract and also adding a clause in the contract that guarantees the workers health. The boat graveyard is dangerous and no amount of payment will sway the workers if you can't guarantee their safety." The last part of his offer doesn't surprise me, the boat graveyard hasn't been safe for a while. A lot of homeless people and junkies roam around the place and there's been rumours of a new gang recruiting around there. I don't plan on letting anything happen to the workers.
"adding a clause like that to the contract is perfectly ok with me, I wouldn't be much of a hero otherwise. As for the duration, I'm not sure how long the work will take so the contract should last 4 months for now and we'll see if it needs to be extended by then. Are there any other details you want to discuss?" He gives a quick nod at my question before answering.
"everything seem satisfactory at the moment. Of course, we'll still need to finalize the contract in an official manner but you can consider my words as a verbal agreement for the moment. My secretary will contact you again in the next few days for you to come read the finalized contract."
With everything done, I get up from my chair and stretch a bit. One stressful thing done, another left to do.
———————————————————–
On Friday morning, just a few hours before my materials request, I already know things are going to be shit. The day before had been nothing but bad luck after bad luck. Yesterday, I overcooked my lunch, the 3D printer broke down, I ran out of processed materials in the middle of a project and I burnt through the last bit of palladium I have left.
The thing that annoyed me the most was when animal noises kept waking me up throughout the night. Now it's the morning and I'm tired, irritable and unfocused. The ride to the PRT HQ did little to calm me down and by the time I was there, I was in my own world. I also had a healing session scheduled just before my appointment.
Normally I would have taken the opportunity to socialize with the troopers, maybe see what kind of injuries they had. Today wasn't a normal day and I couldn't bring myself to care. Maybe if it was, I would have noticed a patient that was definitely out of place, I never received coma patients before and you don't get muscle atrophy by being a PRT trooper. As it was, I was entirely too unfocused to even notice.
The session didn't last long with only seven people injured and I was quickly on my way to the materials request department. Ironically, the guy manning the desk there seemed as out of it as me, he didn't even ask me why I needed radioactive materials. He just approved my request, quickly wrote down what I needed and sent me on my way.
I didn't even question it, I was just grateful to have dodged the headache and eager to get back to bed. My automated chemical mixer should be done making a tranquilizer by now, nothing will interrupt my sleep.
———————————————————–
Turns out something did interrupt my sleep, at least I got six hours in bed before my phone woke me up. Despite being angry and still tired, I answered the call, it was coming from the PRT after all. My previous feelings about being woken up instantly left me when the panicking PRT medic on the line told me both Velocity and Miss Militia were in critical condition after a fight with lung. I quickly told them "I'll be there" and hung up.
Without wasting a moment I ran to my workshop. The bike isn't fast enough so I need to put on the unfinished hypervelocity suit, it doesn't have any weapons equipped yet and the inertia dampeners are barely working but that doesn't matter to me, I just need to get there in time.
The two minutes it takes me to put on the suit are probably some of the most stressful in my life. I'm in such a hurry that I simply ram through the garage door rather than waste time opening it manually. Despite this moment being the first time I fly, I'm too worried to enjoy it.
The suit works as intended and within seconds of taking off I'm already approaching supersonic velocity, the inbuilt mute field generator is the only thing keeping the sonic boom I'm creating from wrecking every window in my path.
Not even a minute after take off and the PRT HQ is already in sight, my stress won't even allow me to marvel at my suits speed. I completely disregard the safety procedures for slowing down, I simply decelerate as fast as possible and repair my body at the same rate as the g force breaks it, the pain is unimaginable but last seconds at most. By the time I land, the inside of my suit is coated with a layer of my own blood and the few gaps in my armor are leaking a mix of blood, bile, and hydraulic fluids.
Activating the emergency eject would waste precious seconds so I run through the building with my leaking suit instead. The troopers don't even try to stop me and I ignore the medics trying to guide me to the infirmary. I don't need their directions, I've been there enough time to know the way.
By the time I arrive in the operating room, Velocity is already flatlining and Miss Militia isn't too far from that point either. Most of their bodies are covered with third degree burns and lacerations and Miss Militia is missing a leg. By the time my observations are done I've already activated repair and the changes are instant. It's like looking at a glitching tv screen instantly switching from one frame to the next.
One second I have two almost unidentifiable burned bodies in front of me and in the next all that's left are perfectly healthy looking people. Nobody would be able to guess they were near death just seconds ago. I don't have time to be relieved before the medics quickly lead me to another room where the injured troopers are being operated on.
They don't look much better than the two heroes did moments before and I quickly activate a wide range repair, everyone in the room is healed perfectly in an instant. Finally able to relax, I release a sigh of relief before activating the emergency eject. I immediately fall outside of my armor into a pool of body fluids and oil. I don't even have the time to be disgusted before I fall unconscious.
A.N: the last parts of the chapter might seem a bit rushed but both have a reason story wise. I'm not sure if I made one of the plot points too evident with the way I wrote the hints but just in case, I'll say this: this story takes place in a parallel universe to the canon story, most events are the same but some things might have happened slightly differently or have had different results. Keep that in mind when reading and look out for details that might point toward the differences. Till next time, hope you enjoy.
Aftermath
June 19th, 2005, 3 A.M, Brockton Bay
The first thought that crosses my mind when I wake up is that I'm lucky to be alive. The inertial dampeners on the armor held out during my acceleration but failed when I slowed down. I went from flying at 3000 meters per second to motionless in about two seconds. Despite my state of shock, my mind quickly supplies the answer to my unasked question, I endured 152 Gs of force. The only reason I'm even alive is because I burst activated adaptive repair.
It's also probably the reason I passed out shortly after healing the troopers. Even if I repaired my body at the same rate I received damage, the list of injuries I took between each repair would have been enough to kill me in the long run. The stress of the situation and the adrenaline are the only things that kept me going through the pain and when both were gone, my body immediately dropped.
I'll have to do more thorough testing when I'm home but for now I can only guess at what changes adaptive repair has made to my body. I can only use 10 repairs per burst repair so that already limits what I have to account for. Every usage of adaptive repair adds six percent of directed durability and one percent of average durability meaning that at most, I'm sixty percent more durable to crushing forces under 13 thousand newtons and ten percent more durable to everything else. That should mean more durable organs and blood vessels at the very least.
I haven't opened my eyes yet but my body doesn't feel all that different so any additional information will have to wait until I can get home. For now though, I'm sure the director will have questions to ask me. Making a bit of noise is all it takes for a nurse and doctor to come check on me. Despite my words, they insist on doing a few checkups which quickly show them I was right, my body is perfectly healthy.
My walk to the waiting room doesn't take long since the infirmary is only separated from it by a floor, it's important for it to be the closest possible to the back entrance lest troopers in critical condition die due to a longer delay. The waiting room is practically empty at this hour, the only people here are me and the tired receptionist that informs me the director will be ready to see me in five minutes.
When I enter her office, the director is reading through a stack of paperwork taller than a dictionary. Whatever she's doing must be important because she keeps reading for a few minutes before even acknowledging my presence. When she does eventually look at me, it is with a sour look on her face.
The directors sour expression shifts to an unpleased one before speaking "at first, I had some disturbing guesses as to where all the blood came from, I thought it couldn't possibly have come from you." Her expression quickly settles into a glare before resuming "that was before armsmaster informed me that you were reckless enough to fly at hypersonic speeds without acceptable protection" harsh but true, at least her next words alleviate some of my worries.
"despite how much I want to, I can't berate you for your stupidity because your recklessness is the only reason I'm not two heroes short" After a short pause to gauge my reaction, she resumes speaking and her next words cause me no small amount of surprise. "i am thankful for your actions but next time, take the necessary precautions. You're more useful to this city alive than dead due to your own stupidity."
she clearly doesn't look happy about having to say her next words. "onto different matters, I've received a request by the chief director to put you in contact with any PRT branch that requests it. Since the contract you signed with us only pertained to our local PRT, they most likely want to set up their own arrangements with you." She sighs. "as such, I'll personally approve your materials request if what you build with it allows you to remain ready for overtime from anywhere you are" I give a silent nod to show that I'm listening.
"three departments have already sent different proposals and I'll be expecting you to pick up printed copies before leaving. Now get out of my office, your armor is waiting for you in armsmaster's lab" now that I'm finally allowed to relax, I can't help but think the director is rather intense when she's angry, she just kept speaking without allowing me to put a word in.
The next few minutes are spent mindlessly walking towards armsmaster's lab, I don't know any details about the proposals I've received but I have to really think before I accept any of them. My obligations here already take up one to two hours a day and I'll have to supervise the harvesting work on the boat at least a few hours everyday, I'm even planning on resuming my daily patrols soon too.
I have to think to myself, even with a portal placed in every city that wants a contract with me, do I really have the time to spend hours everyday in other cities if I want to keep my progress steady?
When I arrive at armsmaster's lab, his desk being covered in newly drawn blueprints and my disassembled armor inform me that he's in the middle of a tinker fugue. His attention is so focused on analyzing one of my partially disassembled repulsors that he doesn't even notice me entering his domain. I would have probably considered just leaving my armor here if it didn't take five days to print and a few hundred pounds of material to make.
When I used the armor yesterday, it wasn't completed in the first place. The 3D printer broke down during the printing process of an important part of the inertial danpener leading to a unusable part. It pissed me off so much at the time because I can't repair something that was never broken. Fixing the printer wasn't the problem, it was the fact I would have to restart the printing process from scratch and my current printer takes hours to print anything on the cellular scale.
My thoughts are interrupted by a loud noise. The repulsor armsmaster was working on just burnt out with a high pitched whine. The thing must've been in pretty bad condition from the amount of stress I put on it during deceleration. A quick repair brings it back to peak condition and my intrusion startles armsmaster out of his fugue. He's as shameless as I've known him to be, he doesn't even apologize for disassembling my armor, he simply says
"why didn't you include this propulsion system in the blueprints you sent me? I would much rather have received a blueprint like this instead of plans for an automated coffee maker" his words don't even shock me, in the short time I've known him, armsmaster has shown himself to be tactless to a high degree. My response comes quickly.
"don't insult the automated coffee maker, that thing is a gift from god that saves me minutes every morning." He doesn't even look like he's listening. "and what the hell are you doing disassembling my armor, you should know by now that I would've given you the blueprints for the repulsors if you'd have just asked for them"
My words seem to bring back his attention and he seems to realize what he was doing and what he said, his response comes quick. "sorry, i was initially only interested in cleaning your armor since it was leaking all over my workshop but then I started cleaning the inner parts and I was so fascinated by some of the components that I fell into a tinker fugue"
At least his attempts at an apology are more understandable, you can't control when you go into fugue after all and his initial intentions were good enough for me.
I'm not even angry at him, armsmaster just has a way of speaking that pisses off anyone that interacts with him for even short amounts of time. It's probably the reason a rising star like him ended up in a dead end position in Brockton Bay. Instead of giving him a response, I start reassembling my armor and he quickly starts helping me do so.
While putting the pieces together, a question springs up in my mind which I decide to ask armsmaster. "hey armsy, is there any legal way to set up something like Toybox? As in only selling to PRT approved buyers. I tried looking online but most parts of the NEPEA-5 bill are written in legalese which is a language I'm not fully fluent in." My question seems to have blindsided armsmaster and he takes a few moments to think before answering.
"the sale of tinkertech while not completely illegal is heavily regulated, the NEPEA-5 bill was written mostly to prevent thinkers from gaming the system which is the most important reason the PRT refused to support Uppermost. They were the primary offenders of this type of behaviour" his next words come after a small pause "of course, if the organization is up to code and follows regulations, then the PRT would have no problems with it. In some cases, local tinkers even sell and maintain tinkertech for the local PRT branche. If it's alright to ask, what brought on this question? From your recent purchases, I would've thought you were set up for years to come in terms of resources?"
That information is good and his question is reasonable so it doesn't bother me that much to answer honestly. "as far as me having enough materials for a while, you would be right. My interest with creating such an organization lays more in having access to different tinkers. My best guess on my specialization is something to do with custom made tinkertech. That may seem powerful but it limits and empowers me in ways other tinkers aren't." I take a pause to catch my breath before resuming. Armsmaster is listening intently to my words.
"while I can create almost anything, a lot of what I can access will never be better than what a tinker with the right specialization could build. I haven't read through the whole list of known specializations yet but out of the two hundred that I've seen, I have the potential to surpass at most forty of them and most of that tech is so far out of reach that I'll only begin to approach it years from now." With a sigh I continue.
"due to this, I can give relevant advice to almost any tinker and I can benefit from working with almost any tinker. By creating an organization like Toybox, I can help and benefit from multiple tinkers and I can also make enough money to speed up my rate of progress" armsmaster nods at my words, he's all about efficiency after all so a plan like that must sound good to him.
With my piece said, we resume silently reassembling my armor. By five a.m, the armor is back to working condition and I'm getting ready to leave. Just as I'm about to exit his lab, armsmaster puts a hand on my shoulder and starts speaking.
"when you're ready to start that project of yours, come see me. I have some contacts that might be interested"
"will do" I say as I pass through the door.
———————————————————–
June 25th, 2005, Brockton Bay
The last week has been so occupied that I didn't even have the time to assemble the portals despite having the parts, the proposals I've received from other PRT branches are still sitting unread somewhere in my workshop. The gangs are back in force after almost two weeks of low activity. Rumour on multiple forums is that the gangs think the leaked information about a biotinker in town was a scheme by the PRT to get them to settle down for a while so now they're retaliating against perceived trickery.
Of course, being more informed than most forum goers, I know the gangs are making a show of force because of the misunderstanding I caused. The gang war erupted on Monday and I spent the last few days patrolling or doing overtime for the PRT healing troopers and unlucky bystanders.
I haven't participated in a cape fight yet, the closest I've been to it was when I was called in to reinforce armsmaster against Hookwolf and Alabaster but they retreated by the time I arrived. Only things of note I did that day was repairing armsmaster's armor and arresting ten gangsters in an alleyway. With my newest non lethal weapon, it wasn't even a fight, I just blasted them with a sound that caused high levels of vertigo and tied them up until the police got there.
My meeting with the dockworkers representative was also postponed until the gang war settles down. I still had to go collect a few hundred pounds of materials by myself bit by bit over the week just to make sure i didn't run out of materials for tinkering. I also didn't have much time to analyze my body, all I know for now is that I'm unlikely to receive a concussion from anyone without a medium brute rating and that I should be able to survive two times deeper than most people underwater.
Despite being so hectic, this week is also my most profitable to date. I've been healing twenty five troopers on average every day and most of those were during overtime so I currently have access to more money than I've ever earned in my life, I have just under fifty thousand dollars hidden in a tinkertech container in my basement. That money should be enough to pay for any exotic materials I need until I manage to build a transmutation unit efficient enough not to burn through an arc reactor in half a day.
My daydreaming is interrupted by a phone call from the PRT, looks like I don't have time for idle thoughts when I'm needed elsewhere. I just hope this gang war settles down quickly and doesn't end up too badly.
A.N: I'll take this opportunity to answer a question I received in the comments, adaptive repairs doesn't make the target stronger directly. You won't suddenly get abs of steel because your chest was shredded a few times, what you'll get is a chest with stronger molecular bonds that won't shred as easily but will otherwise look normal. However, it can make the target stronger indirectly if, let's say, the user shreds his muscles and tendons trying to lift something incredibly heavy while under an adrenaline rush. Most of our strength is unavailable because our bodies can't handle it but adaptive repair can make the body resistant enough to do so, pair that up with the ability to create adrenaline injectors and you have a frightening combination. Of course, most of the time it's simply better to make power armor because no normal human can beat a suit of power armor. Till next time. Your comments are appreciated and taken into account when writing a new chapter.
Additional info: In my opinion, a brute 1 rating mostly means the brute is either knifeproof, regenerates a bit faster than a regular human or is a bit stronger than peak human.
The first thought that crosses my mind when I wake up is that I'm lucky to be alive. The inertial dampeners on the armor held out during my acceleration but failed when I slowed down. I went from flying at 3000 meters per second to motionless in about two seconds. Despite my state of shock, my mind quickly supplies the answer to my unasked question, I endured 152 Gs of force. The only reason I'm even alive is because I burst activated adaptive repair.
It's also probably the reason I passed out shortly after healing the troopers. Even if I repaired my body at the same rate I received damage, the list of injuries I took between each repair would have been enough to kill me in the long run. The stress of the situation and the adrenaline are the only things that kept me going through the pain and when both were gone, my body immediately dropped.
I'll have to do more thorough testing when I'm home but for now I can only guess at what changes adaptive repair has made to my body. I can only use 10 repairs per burst repair so that already limits what I have to account for. Every usage of adaptive repair adds six percent of directed durability and one percent of average durability meaning that at most, I'm sixty percent more durable to crushing forces under 13 thousand newtons and ten percent more durable to everything else. That should mean more durable organs and blood vessels at the very least.
I haven't opened my eyes yet but my body doesn't feel all that different so any additional information will have to wait until I can get home. For now though, I'm sure the director will have questions to ask me. Making a bit of noise is all it takes for a nurse and doctor to come check on me. Despite my words, they insist on doing a few checkups which quickly show them I was right, my body is perfectly healthy.
My walk to the waiting room doesn't take long since the infirmary is only separated from it by a floor, it's important for it to be the closest possible to the back entrance lest troopers in critical condition die due to a longer delay. The waiting room is practically empty at this hour, the only people here are me and the tired receptionist that informs me the director will be ready to see me in five minutes.
When I enter her office, the director is reading through a stack of paperwork taller than a dictionary. Whatever she's doing must be important because she keeps reading for a few minutes before even acknowledging my presence. When she does eventually look at me, it is with a sour look on her face.
The directors sour expression shifts to an unpleased one before speaking "at first, I had some disturbing guesses as to where all the blood came from, I thought it couldn't possibly have come from you." Her expression quickly settles into a glare before resuming "that was before armsmaster informed me that you were reckless enough to fly at hypersonic speeds without acceptable protection" harsh but true, at least her next words alleviate some of my worries.
"despite how much I want to, I can't berate you for your stupidity because your recklessness is the only reason I'm not two heroes short" After a short pause to gauge my reaction, she resumes speaking and her next words cause me no small amount of surprise. "i am thankful for your actions but next time, take the necessary precautions. You're more useful to this city alive than dead due to your own stupidity."
she clearly doesn't look happy about having to say her next words. "onto different matters, I've received a request by the chief director to put you in contact with any PRT branch that requests it. Since the contract you signed with us only pertained to our local PRT, they most likely want to set up their own arrangements with you." She sighs. "as such, I'll personally approve your materials request if what you build with it allows you to remain ready for overtime from anywhere you are" I give a silent nod to show that I'm listening.
"three departments have already sent different proposals and I'll be expecting you to pick up printed copies before leaving. Now get out of my office, your armor is waiting for you in armsmaster's lab" now that I'm finally allowed to relax, I can't help but think the director is rather intense when she's angry, she just kept speaking without allowing me to put a word in.
The next few minutes are spent mindlessly walking towards armsmaster's lab, I don't know any details about the proposals I've received but I have to really think before I accept any of them. My obligations here already take up one to two hours a day and I'll have to supervise the harvesting work on the boat at least a few hours everyday, I'm even planning on resuming my daily patrols soon too.
I have to think to myself, even with a portal placed in every city that wants a contract with me, do I really have the time to spend hours everyday in other cities if I want to keep my progress steady?
When I arrive at armsmaster's lab, his desk being covered in newly drawn blueprints and my disassembled armor inform me that he's in the middle of a tinker fugue. His attention is so focused on analyzing one of my partially disassembled repulsors that he doesn't even notice me entering his domain. I would have probably considered just leaving my armor here if it didn't take five days to print and a few hundred pounds of material to make.
When I used the armor yesterday, it wasn't completed in the first place. The 3D printer broke down during the printing process of an important part of the inertial danpener leading to a unusable part. It pissed me off so much at the time because I can't repair something that was never broken. Fixing the printer wasn't the problem, it was the fact I would have to restart the printing process from scratch and my current printer takes hours to print anything on the cellular scale.
My thoughts are interrupted by a loud noise. The repulsor armsmaster was working on just burnt out with a high pitched whine. The thing must've been in pretty bad condition from the amount of stress I put on it during deceleration. A quick repair brings it back to peak condition and my intrusion startles armsmaster out of his fugue. He's as shameless as I've known him to be, he doesn't even apologize for disassembling my armor, he simply says
"why didn't you include this propulsion system in the blueprints you sent me? I would much rather have received a blueprint like this instead of plans for an automated coffee maker" his words don't even shock me, in the short time I've known him, armsmaster has shown himself to be tactless to a high degree. My response comes quickly.
"don't insult the automated coffee maker, that thing is a gift from god that saves me minutes every morning." He doesn't even look like he's listening. "and what the hell are you doing disassembling my armor, you should know by now that I would've given you the blueprints for the repulsors if you'd have just asked for them"
My words seem to bring back his attention and he seems to realize what he was doing and what he said, his response comes quick. "sorry, i was initially only interested in cleaning your armor since it was leaking all over my workshop but then I started cleaning the inner parts and I was so fascinated by some of the components that I fell into a tinker fugue"
At least his attempts at an apology are more understandable, you can't control when you go into fugue after all and his initial intentions were good enough for me.
I'm not even angry at him, armsmaster just has a way of speaking that pisses off anyone that interacts with him for even short amounts of time. It's probably the reason a rising star like him ended up in a dead end position in Brockton Bay. Instead of giving him a response, I start reassembling my armor and he quickly starts helping me do so.
While putting the pieces together, a question springs up in my mind which I decide to ask armsmaster. "hey armsy, is there any legal way to set up something like Toybox? As in only selling to PRT approved buyers. I tried looking online but most parts of the NEPEA-5 bill are written in legalese which is a language I'm not fully fluent in." My question seems to have blindsided armsmaster and he takes a few moments to think before answering.
"the sale of tinkertech while not completely illegal is heavily regulated, the NEPEA-5 bill was written mostly to prevent thinkers from gaming the system which is the most important reason the PRT refused to support Uppermost. They were the primary offenders of this type of behaviour" his next words come after a small pause "of course, if the organization is up to code and follows regulations, then the PRT would have no problems with it. In some cases, local tinkers even sell and maintain tinkertech for the local PRT branche. If it's alright to ask, what brought on this question? From your recent purchases, I would've thought you were set up for years to come in terms of resources?"
That information is good and his question is reasonable so it doesn't bother me that much to answer honestly. "as far as me having enough materials for a while, you would be right. My interest with creating such an organization lays more in having access to different tinkers. My best guess on my specialization is something to do with custom made tinkertech. That may seem powerful but it limits and empowers me in ways other tinkers aren't." I take a pause to catch my breath before resuming. Armsmaster is listening intently to my words.
"while I can create almost anything, a lot of what I can access will never be better than what a tinker with the right specialization could build. I haven't read through the whole list of known specializations yet but out of the two hundred that I've seen, I have the potential to surpass at most forty of them and most of that tech is so far out of reach that I'll only begin to approach it years from now." With a sigh I continue.
"due to this, I can give relevant advice to almost any tinker and I can benefit from working with almost any tinker. By creating an organization like Toybox, I can help and benefit from multiple tinkers and I can also make enough money to speed up my rate of progress" armsmaster nods at my words, he's all about efficiency after all so a plan like that must sound good to him.
With my piece said, we resume silently reassembling my armor. By five a.m, the armor is back to working condition and I'm getting ready to leave. Just as I'm about to exit his lab, armsmaster puts a hand on my shoulder and starts speaking.
"when you're ready to start that project of yours, come see me. I have some contacts that might be interested"
"will do" I say as I pass through the door.
———————————————————–
June 25th, 2005, Brockton Bay
The last week has been so occupied that I didn't even have the time to assemble the portals despite having the parts, the proposals I've received from other PRT branches are still sitting unread somewhere in my workshop. The gangs are back in force after almost two weeks of low activity. Rumour on multiple forums is that the gangs think the leaked information about a biotinker in town was a scheme by the PRT to get them to settle down for a while so now they're retaliating against perceived trickery.
Of course, being more informed than most forum goers, I know the gangs are making a show of force because of the misunderstanding I caused. The gang war erupted on Monday and I spent the last few days patrolling or doing overtime for the PRT healing troopers and unlucky bystanders.
I haven't participated in a cape fight yet, the closest I've been to it was when I was called in to reinforce armsmaster against Hookwolf and Alabaster but they retreated by the time I arrived. Only things of note I did that day was repairing armsmaster's armor and arresting ten gangsters in an alleyway. With my newest non lethal weapon, it wasn't even a fight, I just blasted them with a sound that caused high levels of vertigo and tied them up until the police got there.
My meeting with the dockworkers representative was also postponed until the gang war settles down. I still had to go collect a few hundred pounds of materials by myself bit by bit over the week just to make sure i didn't run out of materials for tinkering. I also didn't have much time to analyze my body, all I know for now is that I'm unlikely to receive a concussion from anyone without a medium brute rating and that I should be able to survive two times deeper than most people underwater.
Despite being so hectic, this week is also my most profitable to date. I've been healing twenty five troopers on average every day and most of those were during overtime so I currently have access to more money than I've ever earned in my life, I have just under fifty thousand dollars hidden in a tinkertech container in my basement. That money should be enough to pay for any exotic materials I need until I manage to build a transmutation unit efficient enough not to burn through an arc reactor in half a day.
My daydreaming is interrupted by a phone call from the PRT, looks like I don't have time for idle thoughts when I'm needed elsewhere. I just hope this gang war settles down quickly and doesn't end up too badly.
A.N: I'll take this opportunity to answer a question I received in the comments, adaptive repairs doesn't make the target stronger directly. You won't suddenly get abs of steel because your chest was shredded a few times, what you'll get is a chest with stronger molecular bonds that won't shred as easily but will otherwise look normal. However, it can make the target stronger indirectly if, let's say, the user shreds his muscles and tendons trying to lift something incredibly heavy while under an adrenaline rush. Most of our strength is unavailable because our bodies can't handle it but adaptive repair can make the body resistant enough to do so, pair that up with the ability to create adrenaline injectors and you have a frightening combination. Of course, most of the time it's simply better to make power armor because no normal human can beat a suit of power armor. Till next time. Your comments are appreciated and taken into account when writing a new chapter.
Additional info: In my opinion, a brute 1 rating mostly means the brute is either knifeproof, regenerates a bit faster than a regular human or is a bit stronger than peak human.
Last edited:
Murphy’s law
June 28th, 2005, Brockton Bay
'I shouldn't have expected Murphy to be anything else than a bitch' is the main thought going through my head as lung swings me through an abandoned warehouse wall. The only thing keeping him from cooking me to death is my hastily installed heat absorption field generator.
I didn't have enough time to install anything else when I received news lung was rampaging through the docks. Hell, I'm not even halfway through the printing process of my lungbuster armor. The heat absorption field generator was a last minute addition that I finished printing barely an hour before lung started wrecking shit up.
Luckily I thought to take it with me, it's the only thing keeping the careful balance that's preventing me from dying. Ironically, lung's escalation is also the only thing keeping me in the fight. The cycle goes like this, the absorption field sucks out all the energy from lung's flames and funnel the energy through my armor, the energy is used for stronger repulsor blasts, lung escalates and his flames get hotter as a result.
The only thing keeping this cycle going is adaptive repair. By now, the energy absorbed from lung's flames is so high that both the heat absorption field generator and my repulsors would have burnt down if their durability hadn't also ramped up as the fight raged on.
Unfortunately, I'm rapidly approaching the threshold where my heat absorption field won't be able to work anymore. That threshold is currently at about five thousand degrees Fahrenheit. This is really bad for me because although my armor won't be damaged even when red hot, the same can't be said for me. I really don't want to test if my burst repair is fast enough to keep me from being fried to death instantly. At those temperatures, all the water in my body will turn to steam in seconds and I don't want to experience that at any cost.
There's also some good to be found in this situation, I've been directing the fight towards the ocean since it started and all that's left for me to do is to pick up lung and throw him deep into the water. Eh, easier said than done.
I have to endure lung pummeling me through solid concrete for at most forty seconds before an opportunity presents itself. As lung's fifteen feet tall reptilian body rushes towards me, I shoot two overcharged repulsor blasts on one side of his body. The force is just enough to turn lung's body 180 degrees allowing me to grab his back and begin lift off.
Lung immediately starts to trash around the second he realizes what I plan to do and his body's growth accelerates by a small margin. As I approach the water, lung does something equal part unexpected and painful. Two of his four arms bend backwards and start to crush me against his back.
His strength is much greater than it was minutes before, my armor instantly starts to buckle and bend against his arms and despite the pain, I have to keep going. The further I bring him and the more time I keep his attention, the more lives I save.
Within seconds, the strain overwhelms what little resistance my armor had left and one last thought goes through my head before being bisected 'oh shit'.
Then, the most intense pain I have ever felt in my life assaults me, 'god damn it, I can't feel my legs' without a thought, I activate repair and my mind bursts back into clarity. I'm tumbling through the sky and the few glimpses my spinning body give me of lung show me that he's in much the same condition as me. Unfortunately for him, I can fly and he can't.
My body is quickly stabilized into an hovering position and I get to watch lung crash through the waters surface and promptly sink into meters of vaporized water. The last sight I see of him is his struggling body going deeper into the ocean before I rush back to shore.
The second my armor lands on the beach, my adrenaline runs out, the pain rushes back to me and I'm instantly vomiting inside my helmet. The armor is still red hot and the vaporized remains of my vomit go into my lung. A last minute emergency repair is the only thing keeping me from passing out. One thought is looping through my mind 'he cut me in half, he fucking ripped me apart' my heartbeat is through the roof and my stress couldn't possibly be higher, I just survived being bisected. I need to sit down a minute to process the fact.
Five minutes later, armsmaster finds me lying down on a ruined patch of beach. The last thought going through my mind before unconsciousness takes me is this. 'I need to be better, I don't want to feel this pain ever again'.
———————————————————–
June 29th, 2005, Brockton Bay
My head was in a daze throughout most of my meeting with armsmaster, all I can remember of the conversation is him giving me his number before I left. My focus also wasn't there during the flight home, all my mind could conjure up was images of my bisected body tumbling through the sky.
I only regained my focus six hours after getting home and after falling into a tinker fugue, by then, I'd somehow built a new 3D printer better than my older one by an order of magnitude with the spare parts laying around my workshop. I can't even bring myself to care, all I can feel is a sense of urgency.
The half printed lungbuster armor is dragged into the smelter, after fighting lung directly, I know the current design isn't enough. With my current tools, I can do better. More importantly, I need to do better.
The first step is designing a better heat absorption field generator, with my current tools, I can make it both much smaller and more powerful. This time, instead of having it send the energy to the repulsors, I'll hook it up to multiple force field generators placed in the armor. That way, lung's fire will be nullified and the energy gained will strengthen the force fields. I'll also have to do an extensive break and repair cycle on it so I don't have to focus on repairing it during a fight.
The next step is making the armor stronger, I kept getting manhandled during the fight because my previous armor couldn't keep up in anything but speed. The next armor will need to incorporate stronger hydraulics and artificial myomer muscles placed in the best positions to amplify each other. Together, they should give the armor a brute 6 rating in terms of strength. To make anything stronger, I'll need to upgrade my tools by at least one order of magnitude.
Another thing I'll have to change is the propulsion system, by using repulsors, both my hands and legs are needed to remain stable which stops me from using them in a fight most of the time. To replace those, I'll install a boosted aegis landing system that should allow me to fly at relatively low speeds, around two hundred kilometers per hour. Furthermore, I'll install multiple smaller but more powerful repulsors in strategic location to further boost my strength. One behind each elbow and feet with the rest placed in the right locations to accelerate my limbs and body in any direction I want.
The structure itself will have to be changed completely in order to accommodate all the other upgrades I'm planning to make. The most important thing to add will be multiple slots for the new energy source I'm planning to build. It's the easiest of the advanced power sources I can make, it only requires a specific alloy and a small particle accelerator. I'll need to make at least five disks of it to power the armor with each disk being three to four times more energetic than an arc reactor depending on their quality.
Of course, every part of the armor will be made with materials stronger than any I've used before. The fifth step is to design a weapon to use against lung. For that, a shaped heat absorption field generator will be the best. The field will be shaped to look like a staff and the smaller field size will strengthen the absorption effect. Anything that passes through the field will be cooled to minus fifty degrees Celsius within half a second. However, it's absorption threshold will be at about four thousand degrees compared to the one used on the armor which will have a threshold of six thousand degrees Celsius. That should allow me to disable lung before he ramps up too much.
The last thing I need to do is create a machine learning algorithm to simulate and test the best ways to utilize the armor's capabilities.
Most of the blueprints are completed by midnight, all that's left to do is to write the code for the machine learning algorithm but I'm too tired to do it right now, too much risk of making an error. For now, I'll start the printing process and go to bed. Anything else can be done tomorrow. Two weeks from now, my new armor will be done printing and then, I'll be back for round two.
———————————————————–
July 6th, 2005, Brockton Bay
The gang war ended up slowing down a few days ago when the gangs realized the PRT wasn't running out of troopers and that every injured hero was back to fighting condition within the same day of being injured.
So far, a few low quality videos have surfaced online showing parts of my fight with lung. The highest quality one I found yet shows me in my red hot armor landing on the beach and falling to my knees.
Since then, I've finally assembled the two portals and read the three proposals, all of them boiled down to asking for a meeting with me so I responded to all of them by saying that I'm currently too busy but that I'll be free next month.
I also signed the paperwork for my contract with the dockworkers yesterday so the harvesting work should begin by Monday next week. With all that happened in the last few days, I also realized that a single 3D printer isn't enough to create everything I need so i used my old 3D printer to create new ones. By now, I have four of them assembled and even if they're only good enough to print structural parts, it should speed up my production considerably.
What I'm the most exited about is the meeting with New Wave on Friday. It was hard to organize but needed, I can't unmask publicly until I know all the legalities involved in doing so. If all their answers point toward me being ready, the only thing I'll need to do before I publicly unmask is finish building the lungbuster armor. Once the armor is done, I should be able to fight off almost any single parahuman in Brockton Bay.
If the Endbringers follow their usual schedule, the simurg will be attacking sometime next month. That means I have a bit over four months to properly prepare for Behemoth. Despite being my most advanced suit yet, the lungbuster is only a primitive version of what will eventually be my Endbringer fight armor. Hopefully it won't be one of their unusual cycles where they switch their parts of the schedule around.
I'll also have to contact other tinkers until then to see if I can get anything useful for the fight. Maybe I'll even try to contact sphere, from what I heard on the forums the guy is always eager to receive help from other tinkers for his moon base project. Even if I don't get anything out of it, it'll still be useful in establishing the contacts I'll need if I want to create a tinker's association.
Despite all the planning I'm doing, I have a gut feeling I'm forgetting something important. In my twenty two years of living, I've learned that you can't force yourself to remember, it'll come back to me eventually.
A.N: when writing this story, I always try to take into account cause and effect. Sometimes, I'll either make the cause of an effect known in the story and at other times, I'll let the readers guess what caused an effect. Sometimes the cause won't even have hints because it happened so far away from the characters perspective. To answer aconitum's comment, I'm trying to make this story believable but in the world of worm, you have to prepare yourself for wacky timescales for tinkertech production. Some tinkers can create powerful laser guns without any tools in one afternoon with only a television and a toaster as materials, other tinkers need extremely specialized resources and tools to make anything of quality. What I'm trying to do is create a believable middle ground between the two extremes.
Additional info: the Heat Absorption Field generator will be written as HAF generator from now on.
'I shouldn't have expected Murphy to be anything else than a bitch' is the main thought going through my head as lung swings me through an abandoned warehouse wall. The only thing keeping him from cooking me to death is my hastily installed heat absorption field generator.
I didn't have enough time to install anything else when I received news lung was rampaging through the docks. Hell, I'm not even halfway through the printing process of my lungbuster armor. The heat absorption field generator was a last minute addition that I finished printing barely an hour before lung started wrecking shit up.
Luckily I thought to take it with me, it's the only thing keeping the careful balance that's preventing me from dying. Ironically, lung's escalation is also the only thing keeping me in the fight. The cycle goes like this, the absorption field sucks out all the energy from lung's flames and funnel the energy through my armor, the energy is used for stronger repulsor blasts, lung escalates and his flames get hotter as a result.
The only thing keeping this cycle going is adaptive repair. By now, the energy absorbed from lung's flames is so high that both the heat absorption field generator and my repulsors would have burnt down if their durability hadn't also ramped up as the fight raged on.
Unfortunately, I'm rapidly approaching the threshold where my heat absorption field won't be able to work anymore. That threshold is currently at about five thousand degrees Fahrenheit. This is really bad for me because although my armor won't be damaged even when red hot, the same can't be said for me. I really don't want to test if my burst repair is fast enough to keep me from being fried to death instantly. At those temperatures, all the water in my body will turn to steam in seconds and I don't want to experience that at any cost.
There's also some good to be found in this situation, I've been directing the fight towards the ocean since it started and all that's left for me to do is to pick up lung and throw him deep into the water. Eh, easier said than done.
I have to endure lung pummeling me through solid concrete for at most forty seconds before an opportunity presents itself. As lung's fifteen feet tall reptilian body rushes towards me, I shoot two overcharged repulsor blasts on one side of his body. The force is just enough to turn lung's body 180 degrees allowing me to grab his back and begin lift off.
Lung immediately starts to trash around the second he realizes what I plan to do and his body's growth accelerates by a small margin. As I approach the water, lung does something equal part unexpected and painful. Two of his four arms bend backwards and start to crush me against his back.
His strength is much greater than it was minutes before, my armor instantly starts to buckle and bend against his arms and despite the pain, I have to keep going. The further I bring him and the more time I keep his attention, the more lives I save.
Within seconds, the strain overwhelms what little resistance my armor had left and one last thought goes through my head before being bisected 'oh shit'.
Then, the most intense pain I have ever felt in my life assaults me, 'god damn it, I can't feel my legs' without a thought, I activate repair and my mind bursts back into clarity. I'm tumbling through the sky and the few glimpses my spinning body give me of lung show me that he's in much the same condition as me. Unfortunately for him, I can fly and he can't.
My body is quickly stabilized into an hovering position and I get to watch lung crash through the waters surface and promptly sink into meters of vaporized water. The last sight I see of him is his struggling body going deeper into the ocean before I rush back to shore.
The second my armor lands on the beach, my adrenaline runs out, the pain rushes back to me and I'm instantly vomiting inside my helmet. The armor is still red hot and the vaporized remains of my vomit go into my lung. A last minute emergency repair is the only thing keeping me from passing out. One thought is looping through my mind 'he cut me in half, he fucking ripped me apart' my heartbeat is through the roof and my stress couldn't possibly be higher, I just survived being bisected. I need to sit down a minute to process the fact.
Five minutes later, armsmaster finds me lying down on a ruined patch of beach. The last thought going through my mind before unconsciousness takes me is this. 'I need to be better, I don't want to feel this pain ever again'.
———————————————————–
June 29th, 2005, Brockton Bay
My head was in a daze throughout most of my meeting with armsmaster, all I can remember of the conversation is him giving me his number before I left. My focus also wasn't there during the flight home, all my mind could conjure up was images of my bisected body tumbling through the sky.
I only regained my focus six hours after getting home and after falling into a tinker fugue, by then, I'd somehow built a new 3D printer better than my older one by an order of magnitude with the spare parts laying around my workshop. I can't even bring myself to care, all I can feel is a sense of urgency.
The half printed lungbuster armor is dragged into the smelter, after fighting lung directly, I know the current design isn't enough. With my current tools, I can do better. More importantly, I need to do better.
The first step is designing a better heat absorption field generator, with my current tools, I can make it both much smaller and more powerful. This time, instead of having it send the energy to the repulsors, I'll hook it up to multiple force field generators placed in the armor. That way, lung's fire will be nullified and the energy gained will strengthen the force fields. I'll also have to do an extensive break and repair cycle on it so I don't have to focus on repairing it during a fight.
The next step is making the armor stronger, I kept getting manhandled during the fight because my previous armor couldn't keep up in anything but speed. The next armor will need to incorporate stronger hydraulics and artificial myomer muscles placed in the best positions to amplify each other. Together, they should give the armor a brute 6 rating in terms of strength. To make anything stronger, I'll need to upgrade my tools by at least one order of magnitude.
Another thing I'll have to change is the propulsion system, by using repulsors, both my hands and legs are needed to remain stable which stops me from using them in a fight most of the time. To replace those, I'll install a boosted aegis landing system that should allow me to fly at relatively low speeds, around two hundred kilometers per hour. Furthermore, I'll install multiple smaller but more powerful repulsors in strategic location to further boost my strength. One behind each elbow and feet with the rest placed in the right locations to accelerate my limbs and body in any direction I want.
The structure itself will have to be changed completely in order to accommodate all the other upgrades I'm planning to make. The most important thing to add will be multiple slots for the new energy source I'm planning to build. It's the easiest of the advanced power sources I can make, it only requires a specific alloy and a small particle accelerator. I'll need to make at least five disks of it to power the armor with each disk being three to four times more energetic than an arc reactor depending on their quality.
Of course, every part of the armor will be made with materials stronger than any I've used before. The fifth step is to design a weapon to use against lung. For that, a shaped heat absorption field generator will be the best. The field will be shaped to look like a staff and the smaller field size will strengthen the absorption effect. Anything that passes through the field will be cooled to minus fifty degrees Celsius within half a second. However, it's absorption threshold will be at about four thousand degrees compared to the one used on the armor which will have a threshold of six thousand degrees Celsius. That should allow me to disable lung before he ramps up too much.
The last thing I need to do is create a machine learning algorithm to simulate and test the best ways to utilize the armor's capabilities.
Most of the blueprints are completed by midnight, all that's left to do is to write the code for the machine learning algorithm but I'm too tired to do it right now, too much risk of making an error. For now, I'll start the printing process and go to bed. Anything else can be done tomorrow. Two weeks from now, my new armor will be done printing and then, I'll be back for round two.
———————————————————–
July 6th, 2005, Brockton Bay
The gang war ended up slowing down a few days ago when the gangs realized the PRT wasn't running out of troopers and that every injured hero was back to fighting condition within the same day of being injured.
So far, a few low quality videos have surfaced online showing parts of my fight with lung. The highest quality one I found yet shows me in my red hot armor landing on the beach and falling to my knees.
Since then, I've finally assembled the two portals and read the three proposals, all of them boiled down to asking for a meeting with me so I responded to all of them by saying that I'm currently too busy but that I'll be free next month.
I also signed the paperwork for my contract with the dockworkers yesterday so the harvesting work should begin by Monday next week. With all that happened in the last few days, I also realized that a single 3D printer isn't enough to create everything I need so i used my old 3D printer to create new ones. By now, I have four of them assembled and even if they're only good enough to print structural parts, it should speed up my production considerably.
What I'm the most exited about is the meeting with New Wave on Friday. It was hard to organize but needed, I can't unmask publicly until I know all the legalities involved in doing so. If all their answers point toward me being ready, the only thing I'll need to do before I publicly unmask is finish building the lungbuster armor. Once the armor is done, I should be able to fight off almost any single parahuman in Brockton Bay.
If the Endbringers follow their usual schedule, the simurg will be attacking sometime next month. That means I have a bit over four months to properly prepare for Behemoth. Despite being my most advanced suit yet, the lungbuster is only a primitive version of what will eventually be my Endbringer fight armor. Hopefully it won't be one of their unusual cycles where they switch their parts of the schedule around.
I'll also have to contact other tinkers until then to see if I can get anything useful for the fight. Maybe I'll even try to contact sphere, from what I heard on the forums the guy is always eager to receive help from other tinkers for his moon base project. Even if I don't get anything out of it, it'll still be useful in establishing the contacts I'll need if I want to create a tinker's association.
Despite all the planning I'm doing, I have a gut feeling I'm forgetting something important. In my twenty two years of living, I've learned that you can't force yourself to remember, it'll come back to me eventually.
A.N: when writing this story, I always try to take into account cause and effect. Sometimes, I'll either make the cause of an effect known in the story and at other times, I'll let the readers guess what caused an effect. Sometimes the cause won't even have hints because it happened so far away from the characters perspective. To answer aconitum's comment, I'm trying to make this story believable but in the world of worm, you have to prepare yourself for wacky timescales for tinkertech production. Some tinkers can create powerful laser guns without any tools in one afternoon with only a television and a toaster as materials, other tinkers need extremely specialized resources and tools to make anything of quality. What I'm trying to do is create a believable middle ground between the two extremes.
Additional info: the Heat Absorption Field generator will be written as HAF generator from now on.
- Location
- U.S.A
Who is the main character? Because it doesn't seem to be Taylor. If it was mentioned then I missed it.
I am a bit lost on what this guy's tinker specialty is. I noticed the mention of Rad-X and Rad-Away, but it doesn't seem like his technology is limited to Fallout universe. Or maybe it is? I know there is plenty of crazy technology in Fallout. Does their tinker specialty reflect the protagonist in some way? He has no real personal life at all, and what life he used to have before powers was not great. Usually tinkers trigger some long standing issues from an unsolvable problem finally coming to a climax. Like a realization that things are only going to get worse and they will never be able to overcome their issue.
What you have written is pretty cool so far, technology wise. Little to nothing had been revealed about your protagonist, other than he has no close relationships with anyone else in the world. Actually, I am assuming the protagonist is a man, but there hasn't been much to definitely indicate either gender other than a few lines. It feels like the protagonist is avoiding thinking about themselves. I'm hoping the reveal of their identity to New Wave will introduce more about the protagonist and why their life is completely devoid of anything personal. Maybe the protagonist is trying to abandon their old life and completely define themselves by their new hero identity.
I'm looking forward to the meeting with New Wave and the character interactions there. It should reveal more about the protagonist and his personality.
What you have written is pretty cool so far, technology wise. Little to nothing had been revealed about your protagonist, other than he has no close relationships with anyone else in the world. Actually, I am assuming the protagonist is a man, but there hasn't been much to definitely indicate either gender other than a few lines. It feels like the protagonist is avoiding thinking about themselves. I'm hoping the reveal of their identity to New Wave will introduce more about the protagonist and why their life is completely devoid of anything personal. Maybe the protagonist is trying to abandon their old life and completely define themselves by their new hero identity.
I'm looking forward to the meeting with New Wave and the character interactions there. It should reveal more about the protagonist and his personality.
Accidental gains
July 12th, 2005, Brockton Bay
The god damned insight program, that's the thing I forgot. I left it running for ten days over the planned period and it used that time to prove me how much I tend to underestimate myself.
In that time, the program didn't stop compiling information since I didn't think a completion condition was needed at the time I wrote it. Now, I'm in the awkward position of having access to massive amounts of personal information pertaining to a quarter of every cape in America.
Since the program had no stopping conditions, it simply kept analyzing data state by state in a slowly growing bubble around Brockton Bay. When I finally remembered to stop the program, it had just finished compiling a list of every parahuman in Missouri. I haven't checked on any of the data outside of Brockton Bay yet and I'm seriously considering leaving it untouched until I absolutely need to.
The only reason I even launched the insight program in the first place was self preservation, that was a good justification for doing it. I don't have a single justification for having access to the civilian identities of every parahuman in twenty six different states. Hell, if the information ever gets out, I'll have every criminal organization on the continent wanting my head just for being able to write a program like that.
What's more scary to me is the possibility of another tinker with the right specialization being able to do make something stronger than the insight program. I haven't heard about any tinker with a specialization in software yet so I don't have anything to compare myself to. Is software one of the things I can do better than a dedicated tinker or do I have to worry about someone crashing the internet on a whim?
One thing's for sure, Brockton Bay is home to way more capes than any official numbers declare. The number of known parahumans is just under thirty. With the profiles the program built, that amount jumps up all the way to thirty seven. Of those unknown capes, at least half of the are either villains or mercenaries.
Luckily for me, all three unknown tinkers present in the city show heroic tendencies. The only underaged one of the three is the one struggling the most to acquire resources so I'll have to direct him to the wards when I meet him, it wouldn't be right of me to put him in danger. The PRT can take care of him better than I could.
The most shocking one yet is Kaiser's profile. That asshole's civilian identity is Max Anders, CEO of one of the only companies keeping Brockton Bay afloat. The information is shocking but answers so many questions it's not even funny. A lot of high ranked members of the empire work in key positions at Medhall and the company's earnings are the reason the empire is so well supplied.
Despite the shock, the information pisses me off more than anything else. It means I can't take down the empire until either the city's economy is stable or until there's another company big enough to support the city's economy when Medhall goes down.
Problem is I can't do much to help in either of those things, the tinkers association might bring more tourism to the city but that would be months from now. Months during which the empire will remain free to kill, rape and lynch people. A faster solution would be to make my healing powers known publicly to give rise to medical tourism.
Even then, tourism can't be the only thing supporting the city's economy, otherwise it all comes crashing down when the reason for tourism disappears. In this case, that would mean my death and with my line of work, that's more likely than I'd like to admit. Furthermore, I can't heal every single injury or medical professionals will be out of a job. That means I'll have to limit myself to mortal illnesses and genetic diseases.
I'll also have to check with armsmaster first to see if setting up a small private hospital for parahuman healing is legal. Despite armsmaster's comments on the NEPEA-5 bill, the documents wording is still ambiguous as fuck and doesn't tell me much about what's illegal and what isn't. I suspect it was done like that on purpose so that the bill can be interpreted differently on a case by case basis.
All those plans are going to have to wait a bit anyway, at least until I unmask next week. From what Brandish told me, I should make the least amount of purchases possible until I unmask, that way putting my taxes in order will be easier. Despite the quality of her advice, the woman really needs to calm her nerves. Even removing my mask in front of them didn't seem to bring her tension down.
In other news, harvesting work on the boat wreck started earlier this week and the workers have been collecting seven thousand pounds of metal dust per day on average. Due to this, I've rapidly started running out of storage space so I created an industrial scale 3D printer and started printing medium sized storage units on my property. The printer can only build one durable storage unit every three days due to its low quality so I should have one ready tomorrow.
Most importantly, the components for the lungbuster armor finished printing yesterday and all that's left for me to do is to assemble it. I've also bought some more exotic materials from the PRT and I've started the printing process on my next generation of tools. Since the complexity of some of the components needed is just at the edge of my current printers specs, the printing time should be around ten days long, the assembling process won't be a small endeavor either.
I've also finally had the time to make a deeper analysis of my body, only problem is that I wasn't able to determine what changes came from my stunt with the hypervelocity armor and which came from my fight with lung. Some of the changes were easy to categorize, like my highly increased resistance to fire and heat in general.
Despite only having to repair my own body once in my fight against lung, even six percent higher resistance was enough to make one hell of a difference when taking into account the temperature lung's flames were at when he cut me in half. By my estimates, my body should be able to tolerate temperatures of up to around 165 degrees Celsius. My skin didn't even become reddish when I put my hand in boiling water as a test.
As far as other changes go, every organ in my body now seems to incorporate low amounts of an unknown material. I haven't been able to synthesize the any of it yet but tests show that it can transform kinetic energy into electricity when it receives a shock above a certain threshold. The electricity produced is stored inside newly introduced battery-like cells spread around my body.
Unlike the kinetic material, my tinker power quickly supplies me with ways the battery cells could be used or improved on. I write down a few notes before cutting off the supply of blueprints when they start to go into unethical directions. The battery cells also seem to be perfectly integrated with my body, they mainly absorb excess energy produced by the kinetic material and store it until any part of my body needs it.
As I theorized before, the kinetic material will absorb blunt force up to around the amount of force a brute 2 can output and interestingly, the absorption seems to be triggered subconsciously. Meaning that an attack's energy will be absorbed but the absorption won't kick in to negate the kinetic energy generated when I throw a punch, I haven't been able to trigger it consciously yet. The energy conversion also seems to be impossibly efficient, the material transforms almost one hundred percent of the kinetic energy absorbed under its threshold into electricity but the conversion rate lowers exponentially when receiving energy above its threshold.
Other than that, the changes are minimal. My body is a bit tougher in many different ways but not to any superhuman levels in anything but resistance to blunt force trauma and heat. I don't know yet if the changes are coded into my DNA yet since I don't have a gene sequencing unit but I suspect they are. My body would have phased out the changes in a week otherwise.
The only other thing of note to happen in the last few days is sphere's public announcement that he wants to host a meeting between heroically aligned tinkers in a month and that the meeting is open to any tinker willing to make the trip to his facility. I'll also have to prepare a few useful pieces of technology to bring with me, that's the best way to advertise my abilities. Of course, going to this meeting is an opportunity I'm not going to miss so I'll have to clear up my schedule in preparation for it.
I'm sure the PRT can survive without me for three days.
———————————————————–
July 14th, Monday, 2005, Brockton Bay
Despite having finished assembling my armor, the most critical component has yet to be installed. The power source used to fuel this armor has the most dangerous production method of any of my creations to date. Keeping that in mind, I think it's understandable that I wanted to take as many security measures as possible before firing up a house sized particle accelerator.
The thing didn't take much time to build, most of its weight is in the structural material and it only needed a few complex components to function properly. The accelerator isn't even that advanced, maybe fifty years ahead of modern technology.
The alloy used in the reaction isn't all that hard to make either. The two components aren't really that special when separated. A slightly advanced particle accelerator and an alloy that's basically useless for anything. What's special is what happens when they're used together.
By hitting the alloy with just the right particles going at just the right speed, the collision essentially transforms the alloy into what I call ascendant matter. Despite having a fancy name, most types of ascendant matter don't have any useful properties. Their name comes from the fact that instead of experiencing particle decay, the material experiences particle ascendancy.
Another fancy name with an explanation that can be boiled down to this, the particles ascend into higher dimensions at varying rates dependent on the production method used to create the material and they leave behind particle sized dimensional gaps that last one billionth of a second in general before disappearing.
What makes the particular type of ascendant matter that I'm creating right now so special is that the small dimensional gaps left by its constituant particles remain open just barely long enough for higher dimensional energies to trickle down into our lower dimension.
By harvesting the energy produced by the phenomenon, each power source can generate around nine to twelve gigajoules every second based on their quality and quantity. Just one of them would be enough to power this city for a century, the lungbuster suit will have five of them installed and the Endbringer fight armor is likely to need even more.
Tonight, I just finished creating the last one I needed. It probably wouldn't have took me the whole day if I didn't decide to spend time analyzing each disk in order to optimize the next one but at least it allowed me to find the perfect ratio of particles needed to create my highest quality power source to date.
Before inserting the power sources into the lungbuster, I can't help but admire my latest armor. Compared to anything else I built before, this armor is like a piece of art.
Every component has been assembled perfectly by hand over painstaking hours of precision work. Every single electronic component vacuum sealed in cooling fluid and all armor plates placed to allow for the best compromise between flexibility and protection. Every artificial muscle attached in the best position to allow for both speed and power higher than most brutes can output. Even the miniaturized force field emitters are placed in order to minimize energy expenditure.
With how well I placed the armor plates and with the artificial muscles being visible in multiple places for all to see, the armor looks like an upscaled human body with corded muscles and form fitting armor plates. Only the armor is colored in my distinct black and dark silver grey color scheme instead of any human skin tone. When wearing it, I'll be almost seven feet tall.
When I finally insert the disks, the armor comes alive and begins self diagnostics. As expected, the results I receive on my computer show that the armor is in perfect condition. All that's left to be done is to take it for a test drive.
After a short five minutes, the helmet comes on and the armor quickly pressurizes. With my armor on, every motion I make feels powerful and I'm relieved in knowing that I've never been better protected than right now.
A.N: to better visualize the lungbuster armor, you can imagine the first version of the Crynet nanosuit except with more muscle fiber and with many armor plates around parts that don't move too much(forearms, segmented chest plate, legs, etc...). As for the color scheme, the artificial muscle fiber is colored a dark silvery gray and the armor plates are a mix of mat black and metallic black. There's also a total of three repulsors attached to each limb and five reactors which are covered by the chest plate but still radiate a blue glow that's visible in the gaps between the armor. As for the helmet, it's almost the same as the hellbat armor but it doesn't have bat ears and it has two blue eyes instead of a single red one. Onto other matters, sometimes I'll try to write in some pseudoscientific explanation for tinkertech but I won't do it every time. Mostly when I think it fits in well with a chapter. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Till next time and as always, advices and comments are appreciated.
The god damned insight program, that's the thing I forgot. I left it running for ten days over the planned period and it used that time to prove me how much I tend to underestimate myself.
In that time, the program didn't stop compiling information since I didn't think a completion condition was needed at the time I wrote it. Now, I'm in the awkward position of having access to massive amounts of personal information pertaining to a quarter of every cape in America.
Since the program had no stopping conditions, it simply kept analyzing data state by state in a slowly growing bubble around Brockton Bay. When I finally remembered to stop the program, it had just finished compiling a list of every parahuman in Missouri. I haven't checked on any of the data outside of Brockton Bay yet and I'm seriously considering leaving it untouched until I absolutely need to.
The only reason I even launched the insight program in the first place was self preservation, that was a good justification for doing it. I don't have a single justification for having access to the civilian identities of every parahuman in twenty six different states. Hell, if the information ever gets out, I'll have every criminal organization on the continent wanting my head just for being able to write a program like that.
What's more scary to me is the possibility of another tinker with the right specialization being able to do make something stronger than the insight program. I haven't heard about any tinker with a specialization in software yet so I don't have anything to compare myself to. Is software one of the things I can do better than a dedicated tinker or do I have to worry about someone crashing the internet on a whim?
One thing's for sure, Brockton Bay is home to way more capes than any official numbers declare. The number of known parahumans is just under thirty. With the profiles the program built, that amount jumps up all the way to thirty seven. Of those unknown capes, at least half of the are either villains or mercenaries.
Luckily for me, all three unknown tinkers present in the city show heroic tendencies. The only underaged one of the three is the one struggling the most to acquire resources so I'll have to direct him to the wards when I meet him, it wouldn't be right of me to put him in danger. The PRT can take care of him better than I could.
The most shocking one yet is Kaiser's profile. That asshole's civilian identity is Max Anders, CEO of one of the only companies keeping Brockton Bay afloat. The information is shocking but answers so many questions it's not even funny. A lot of high ranked members of the empire work in key positions at Medhall and the company's earnings are the reason the empire is so well supplied.
Despite the shock, the information pisses me off more than anything else. It means I can't take down the empire until either the city's economy is stable or until there's another company big enough to support the city's economy when Medhall goes down.
Problem is I can't do much to help in either of those things, the tinkers association might bring more tourism to the city but that would be months from now. Months during which the empire will remain free to kill, rape and lynch people. A faster solution would be to make my healing powers known publicly to give rise to medical tourism.
Even then, tourism can't be the only thing supporting the city's economy, otherwise it all comes crashing down when the reason for tourism disappears. In this case, that would mean my death and with my line of work, that's more likely than I'd like to admit. Furthermore, I can't heal every single injury or medical professionals will be out of a job. That means I'll have to limit myself to mortal illnesses and genetic diseases.
I'll also have to check with armsmaster first to see if setting up a small private hospital for parahuman healing is legal. Despite armsmaster's comments on the NEPEA-5 bill, the documents wording is still ambiguous as fuck and doesn't tell me much about what's illegal and what isn't. I suspect it was done like that on purpose so that the bill can be interpreted differently on a case by case basis.
All those plans are going to have to wait a bit anyway, at least until I unmask next week. From what Brandish told me, I should make the least amount of purchases possible until I unmask, that way putting my taxes in order will be easier. Despite the quality of her advice, the woman really needs to calm her nerves. Even removing my mask in front of them didn't seem to bring her tension down.
In other news, harvesting work on the boat wreck started earlier this week and the workers have been collecting seven thousand pounds of metal dust per day on average. Due to this, I've rapidly started running out of storage space so I created an industrial scale 3D printer and started printing medium sized storage units on my property. The printer can only build one durable storage unit every three days due to its low quality so I should have one ready tomorrow.
Most importantly, the components for the lungbuster armor finished printing yesterday and all that's left for me to do is to assemble it. I've also bought some more exotic materials from the PRT and I've started the printing process on my next generation of tools. Since the complexity of some of the components needed is just at the edge of my current printers specs, the printing time should be around ten days long, the assembling process won't be a small endeavor either.
I've also finally had the time to make a deeper analysis of my body, only problem is that I wasn't able to determine what changes came from my stunt with the hypervelocity armor and which came from my fight with lung. Some of the changes were easy to categorize, like my highly increased resistance to fire and heat in general.
Despite only having to repair my own body once in my fight against lung, even six percent higher resistance was enough to make one hell of a difference when taking into account the temperature lung's flames were at when he cut me in half. By my estimates, my body should be able to tolerate temperatures of up to around 165 degrees Celsius. My skin didn't even become reddish when I put my hand in boiling water as a test.
As far as other changes go, every organ in my body now seems to incorporate low amounts of an unknown material. I haven't been able to synthesize the any of it yet but tests show that it can transform kinetic energy into electricity when it receives a shock above a certain threshold. The electricity produced is stored inside newly introduced battery-like cells spread around my body.
Unlike the kinetic material, my tinker power quickly supplies me with ways the battery cells could be used or improved on. I write down a few notes before cutting off the supply of blueprints when they start to go into unethical directions. The battery cells also seem to be perfectly integrated with my body, they mainly absorb excess energy produced by the kinetic material and store it until any part of my body needs it.
As I theorized before, the kinetic material will absorb blunt force up to around the amount of force a brute 2 can output and interestingly, the absorption seems to be triggered subconsciously. Meaning that an attack's energy will be absorbed but the absorption won't kick in to negate the kinetic energy generated when I throw a punch, I haven't been able to trigger it consciously yet. The energy conversion also seems to be impossibly efficient, the material transforms almost one hundred percent of the kinetic energy absorbed under its threshold into electricity but the conversion rate lowers exponentially when receiving energy above its threshold.
Other than that, the changes are minimal. My body is a bit tougher in many different ways but not to any superhuman levels in anything but resistance to blunt force trauma and heat. I don't know yet if the changes are coded into my DNA yet since I don't have a gene sequencing unit but I suspect they are. My body would have phased out the changes in a week otherwise.
The only other thing of note to happen in the last few days is sphere's public announcement that he wants to host a meeting between heroically aligned tinkers in a month and that the meeting is open to any tinker willing to make the trip to his facility. I'll also have to prepare a few useful pieces of technology to bring with me, that's the best way to advertise my abilities. Of course, going to this meeting is an opportunity I'm not going to miss so I'll have to clear up my schedule in preparation for it.
I'm sure the PRT can survive without me for three days.
———————————————————–
July 14th, Monday, 2005, Brockton Bay
Despite having finished assembling my armor, the most critical component has yet to be installed. The power source used to fuel this armor has the most dangerous production method of any of my creations to date. Keeping that in mind, I think it's understandable that I wanted to take as many security measures as possible before firing up a house sized particle accelerator.
The thing didn't take much time to build, most of its weight is in the structural material and it only needed a few complex components to function properly. The accelerator isn't even that advanced, maybe fifty years ahead of modern technology.
The alloy used in the reaction isn't all that hard to make either. The two components aren't really that special when separated. A slightly advanced particle accelerator and an alloy that's basically useless for anything. What's special is what happens when they're used together.
By hitting the alloy with just the right particles going at just the right speed, the collision essentially transforms the alloy into what I call ascendant matter. Despite having a fancy name, most types of ascendant matter don't have any useful properties. Their name comes from the fact that instead of experiencing particle decay, the material experiences particle ascendancy.
Another fancy name with an explanation that can be boiled down to this, the particles ascend into higher dimensions at varying rates dependent on the production method used to create the material and they leave behind particle sized dimensional gaps that last one billionth of a second in general before disappearing.
What makes the particular type of ascendant matter that I'm creating right now so special is that the small dimensional gaps left by its constituant particles remain open just barely long enough for higher dimensional energies to trickle down into our lower dimension.
By harvesting the energy produced by the phenomenon, each power source can generate around nine to twelve gigajoules every second based on their quality and quantity. Just one of them would be enough to power this city for a century, the lungbuster suit will have five of them installed and the Endbringer fight armor is likely to need even more.
Tonight, I just finished creating the last one I needed. It probably wouldn't have took me the whole day if I didn't decide to spend time analyzing each disk in order to optimize the next one but at least it allowed me to find the perfect ratio of particles needed to create my highest quality power source to date.
Before inserting the power sources into the lungbuster, I can't help but admire my latest armor. Compared to anything else I built before, this armor is like a piece of art.
Every component has been assembled perfectly by hand over painstaking hours of precision work. Every single electronic component vacuum sealed in cooling fluid and all armor plates placed to allow for the best compromise between flexibility and protection. Every artificial muscle attached in the best position to allow for both speed and power higher than most brutes can output. Even the miniaturized force field emitters are placed in order to minimize energy expenditure.
With how well I placed the armor plates and with the artificial muscles being visible in multiple places for all to see, the armor looks like an upscaled human body with corded muscles and form fitting armor plates. Only the armor is colored in my distinct black and dark silver grey color scheme instead of any human skin tone. When wearing it, I'll be almost seven feet tall.
When I finally insert the disks, the armor comes alive and begins self diagnostics. As expected, the results I receive on my computer show that the armor is in perfect condition. All that's left to be done is to take it for a test drive.
After a short five minutes, the helmet comes on and the armor quickly pressurizes. With my armor on, every motion I make feels powerful and I'm relieved in knowing that I've never been better protected than right now.
A.N: to better visualize the lungbuster armor, you can imagine the first version of the Crynet nanosuit except with more muscle fiber and with many armor plates around parts that don't move too much(forearms, segmented chest plate, legs, etc...). As for the color scheme, the artificial muscle fiber is colored a dark silvery gray and the armor plates are a mix of mat black and metallic black. There's also a total of three repulsors attached to each limb and five reactors which are covered by the chest plate but still radiate a blue glow that's visible in the gaps between the armor. As for the helmet, it's almost the same as the hellbat armor but it doesn't have bat ears and it has two blue eyes instead of a single red one. Onto other matters, sometimes I'll try to write in some pseudoscientific explanation for tinkertech but I won't do it every time. Mostly when I think it fits in well with a chapter. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Till next time and as always, advices and comments are appreciated.
The main character is an oc and the story starts a few weeks after Leviathan sinks Newfoundland.
Origin story
July 20th, 2005, Brockton Bay
My public unmasking wasn't as public as the name implies, it mostly consisted of me putting up a profile on the official New Wave website and going to the city hall to put my taxes in order. A public unveiling would have been better for publicity but I'm not confident in my public speaking skills so I chose the easier option.
It's only been a few days and I've already received requests by three different news channels for an interview and I got berated by the director just yesterday. She said something about warning her in advance next time I pull a stunt like this, she contacted me late enough that I was half asleep for a good part of the call so I probably missed a few things.
The most exciting thing to happen in the last few days was the lungbuster armor's test run. Unlike my previous armor, the lungbuster needed much more testing since it incorporated many new pieces of technology I've never used before. More importantly, I had to test some of the maneuvers created by the machine learning program. Most of them consisted of evasive maneuvers but the program surprised me with a few repulsor enhanced spinning kicks.
Unfortunately for me, I had nowhere to test any of the kicking moves since their estimated power would wreck any structure I tested them on. I mean, where the hell would I test a mach four spinning kick?
Beside the maneuvers, every other gadget in the suit worked perfectly. The HAF generator was able to freeze a car sized circular patch of water within ten seconds and the force fields didn't even flicker when I hit the water's surface with a repulsor enhanced jab. Better yet, using everything at full power didn't even take a toll on my energy reserves. In fact, the HAF generator was mostly self-sufficient due to being fueled by ambient heat.
The most entertaining thing to test was the HAF generator staff. Using it on water almost felt like drawing with a giant 3D pen using ice instead of plastic. The experience reminded me of how much I like building things by hand, I'm even thinking about making myself a tinkertech 3D pen to work with from time to time.
Unfortunately, the fun didn't last that long before I was called in for an overtime healing session. Since then, I've been spending my time attending to my different obligations, a bit of time healing at the PRT, a few hours a day supervising the workers in the boat graveyard, going on patrols every night and trying to brainstorm ideas for sphere's meeting. Keeping myself busy mostly, I also have to mentally prepare myself for an interview sometime next week.
The way I answer questions during the interview will have a major impact on how the public views me. As such, I'll need to prepare my answers in advance. Public opinion might seem unimportant to some people but in some cases, it can make the difference between life and death. A civilian that respects you and thinks of you as someone worth listening to will follow instructions faster than someone that thinks of you as a clown. In a war zone, that distinction often saves or loses lives.
Despite being a massively stressful situation, the interview is also and opportunity to advertise myself and to make my plans known. Instead of carefully orchestrating a series of event which lead to a 'lucky' encounter with a tinker, advertising my plans for a tinkers association is easier and less time consuming. By advertising my plans for a cheap and accessible hospital for people with incurable illnesses, I can influence the people into pressuring law makers for greater leniency towards healers.
If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that every choice you make can have positive and negative consequences. Before I triggered, I didn't have much control on what would happen but now, now I can make sure my actions have positive consequences.
Speaking of positive consequences, I told armsmaster a bullshit story about finding a new tinker getting resources from a specific scrapyard near the docks. Of course, the bullshit part of the story is HOW I found the tinker but the part about the scrapyard is true. From armsmaster's reaction to my story, I expect the city to have a new Ward soon.
The kid probably won't like it but he needed help the most. The two other tinkers have good enough jobs to afford resources to tinker with. The kid on the other hand, doesn't have a job and can't buy materials without looking suspicious. Furthermore, it seems his specialization doesn't lend itself well to generalized crime fighting equipment. From the profile the insight program built, his specialization is most likely in power sources.
Normally, a specialization like that would be rather powerful. Unfortunately for the kid, he can do power sources and nothing else, unlike other tinkers who can deviate slightly from their specialization. On top of that, the kid is stuck thinking inside the box. He's letting his power limit him instead of bending the limits towards his goals.
All in all, he'll be safer being part of the Wards. He'll have access to more resources, more time to tinker and more importantly, he'll have armsmaster there to help him figure things out. A lot more than what most twelve year olds get in Brockton Bay.
I also have a problem that started becoming apparent just a few days ago, I'm collecting resources faster than I can build storage space for it. The workers haven't even harvested a tenth of a percent of the wreck and I already need three storage units just to store it all. At this rate, I'll run out of space before the boat's gone. Luckily for me, sphere's meeting presents a good opportunity to rid myself of excess materials. I just have to keep building storage units until then.
For now though, I have other things to focus on.
———————————————————–
July 24th, 2005, Brockton Bay
All things considered, the interview went way better than i expected. Most of the personal questions I stressed about were talked about by the interviewer in a short informative segment just before the real interview started. Turns out they did a bit of investigative journalism on me in the days before the interview so they already had every relevant piece of information they needed.
The informative segment mostly consisted of the juicier bits about my life prior to becoming a hero. Some of the details they put in brought up some unpleasant memories, things like mentioning my father's death in a gang war followed by my mother's subsequent suicide barely a month after. Despite having over six years to grieve, my parents death was still a sour subject.
The interview proper was mostly about my plans for the future and my reasons for unmasking. Both questions were easy to answer and the interviewer seemed both surprised and hopeful when I mentioned my plans to build a hospital for cape healing. My motivations for unmasking were also rather simple to explain, people don't think of capes as humans beings with real emotions, they hold us up to higher standards without asking themselves if they could do any better in our shoes. By unmasking, I wanted to become a reminder. A reminder that capes are human and that the only things different between the public and us is our desire to help others before helping ourselves.
Now I'm not delusional enough to believe every hero thinks that way. For some, it's just another job and for others, it's a path to fame. In my case, my beliefs could be closely tied to my trigger event and the type of person I was before that. When I was young, I was called gifted by everyone around me. There wasn't a skill I couldn't learn in a week when it came to physical work. Because of my giftedness, I developed a kind of innocent arrogance, the belief that I could help anyone with anything and that it was only a question of time before I helped to make the world a better place. I was obsessed with improving myself and helping with other people's problems.
Unfortunately for me, my giftedness didn't extend itself well to academic pursuits and when my parents died, I was forced to quit school to become part of the workforce. In any other city I would've been put into the foster system but this is Brockton Bay we're talking about. I spent around four years doing odd jobs trying to pay rent on my meager appartement and during that time, my innocent arrogance was beaten down gradually. My ability to learn physical skills rapidly meant nothing if I didn't have any qualifications and nobody was there to help me, I couldn't even help others to stop myself from thinking about my parents, I had to focus on myself to survive.
Worst of all, I couldn't even receive my inheritance since I didn't have the money to pay the debts that came with it. As a consequence, my inheritance was claimed by my grandmother with whom I had a strenuous relationship. Being kept from my parents house was painful but I couldn't do anything about it. At least the house was still in the family and I'd likely inherit it when my grandmother died.
Ironically, my grandmother's death and my subsequent acquisition of my parents house was the straw that broke the camel's back. I spent so much time focusing on keeping a roof above my head that I didn't even think of how I would afford to keep my parents house. It took a few months for reality to set in, my inheritance money would run out within a year and no job in my reach could pay enough for me to afford the house.
That realization absolutely broke me and all I was thinking before blacking out was how much of a failure I was. 'Why did I think I could make a difference, I can't help anyone let alone myself'. That's how I imagined my situation, everything breaking down around me and no path forward, no improvement to be had.
In a way, triggering saved me. I don't think I could've maintained my sanity much longer. I probably would've ended up dead in a ditch by the end of the month. Instead of my predicted fate, I woke up with the power I needed to get my life back together. On that day, my innocent arrogance was reignited and I vowed to myself that I would become someone my parents could be proud of.
I'd say I did well for myself since then, despite my slow beginning. The interview lasted around forty minutes in total but I expect the released footage will be shorter due to editing. All in all, it was short and stressful but it went better than I expected.
———————————————————–
July 26th, 2005, Brockton Bay
The interview has probably been put on air by now but I've been too occupied to really see how the public's reacting to it. I've spent the last two days dealing with my obligations and trying to brainstorm ideas on what to bring to sphere's meeting. My new set of tools should be ready by the end of the month which means I'll be able to create much more useful and varied technology.
I've already decided to bring three pieces of equipment maximum and my first one has already been decided. When thinking about the necessities of a moon base, the most important one in my opinion is artificial gravity. Without it, living in space is much less pleasant and health problems can rise up in the long run. That's why choosing a scalable artificial gravity generator as my first showpiece was a no brainer.
In fact, choosing things to bring isn't the problem. What's bothering me is narrowing down my current list to two choices.
In the end, I chose the three most basic necessities, gravity, food and safety. I already have a cheap and energy efficient design for the first one but the other two are causing me some problems. The food item has also been chosen but writing down the genetic sequence for my genetically modified strain of the chicken of the woods mushroom is gonna take me weeks if I do it by hand. I don't have that much time to waste on something like food.
To solve that problem, I'll have to create a full dive virtual reality program with a variable time differential. I don't even have to program a full world, just code in a virtual classroom and set the time dilation to around four. That way I can write down the genetic sequence in virtual reality and transfer the information from the program to my organic 3D printer. Creating a small classroom in virtual reality should take me three days at most and my new unfinished printer should be able to build the hardware in four.
The reason I chose that particular modified strain of mushroom is it's growth rate. With the right conditions, one mushroom occupying a microwave sized space can grow fast enough to feed seven adults indefinitely as long as it's harvested weekly. The mushroom can't grow beyond a certain size after all. Most importantly, I made that strain unable to multiply, only grow. Each new mushroom must be created with my organic 3D printer and each individual has a limited growth size.
Comparatively, finding ways to provide security was much easier. My portals can help provide both easy evacuation points and a cheap way to move materials to the colony. While not on the same level as professor Haywire's dimensional gateways, my portals are still leagues above any other tinker I'm aware of. Despite being low level compared to the high end teleportation devices I can think of, my current portals still have an immense advantage over the closest competitor.
They have absolutely not range limit. As long as there's a portal device at the destination, even a trip to the andromeda galaxy is instantaneous. Their only downside is how dangerous they are, because the portal is essentially two superimposed areas of space-time, the edges are a Planck length thick. Normally a cut at the Planck scale wouldn't do a goddamn thing since the fundamental forces would keep everything together, problem is the two parts being separated aren't even in the same area of space-time anymore. One piece remains at the starting position and the other one is left behind at the end point of the portal.
Despite the dangers, they still remain my most convenient creation in the grand scheme of things. The closest thing to it is ascendant matter which is also what I'm planning to use against Leviathan next time he shows up.
I'm getting ahead of myself again. I should focus on preparing for sphere's meeting and surviving my first Endbringer fight before I think about actually attacking any of them up close. I just feel like my time is running short.
A.N: sorry for the late upload, I've been trying to write at least two thousand words every two days but I have an exam coming this Friday so I had to use my time wisely. Next chapter should be in two to three days. I hope this chapter was good enough to explain the characters motivations and the type of person he is. I understand some of the tinkertech explanations might be long winded but I like to make them and sometimes the information I put in can be used to deduce a future piece of equipment I plan to make. As always, comments are greatly appreciated. Hope you enjoyed, till next time.
My public unmasking wasn't as public as the name implies, it mostly consisted of me putting up a profile on the official New Wave website and going to the city hall to put my taxes in order. A public unveiling would have been better for publicity but I'm not confident in my public speaking skills so I chose the easier option.
It's only been a few days and I've already received requests by three different news channels for an interview and I got berated by the director just yesterday. She said something about warning her in advance next time I pull a stunt like this, she contacted me late enough that I was half asleep for a good part of the call so I probably missed a few things.
The most exciting thing to happen in the last few days was the lungbuster armor's test run. Unlike my previous armor, the lungbuster needed much more testing since it incorporated many new pieces of technology I've never used before. More importantly, I had to test some of the maneuvers created by the machine learning program. Most of them consisted of evasive maneuvers but the program surprised me with a few repulsor enhanced spinning kicks.
Unfortunately for me, I had nowhere to test any of the kicking moves since their estimated power would wreck any structure I tested them on. I mean, where the hell would I test a mach four spinning kick?
Beside the maneuvers, every other gadget in the suit worked perfectly. The HAF generator was able to freeze a car sized circular patch of water within ten seconds and the force fields didn't even flicker when I hit the water's surface with a repulsor enhanced jab. Better yet, using everything at full power didn't even take a toll on my energy reserves. In fact, the HAF generator was mostly self-sufficient due to being fueled by ambient heat.
The most entertaining thing to test was the HAF generator staff. Using it on water almost felt like drawing with a giant 3D pen using ice instead of plastic. The experience reminded me of how much I like building things by hand, I'm even thinking about making myself a tinkertech 3D pen to work with from time to time.
Unfortunately, the fun didn't last that long before I was called in for an overtime healing session. Since then, I've been spending my time attending to my different obligations, a bit of time healing at the PRT, a few hours a day supervising the workers in the boat graveyard, going on patrols every night and trying to brainstorm ideas for sphere's meeting. Keeping myself busy mostly, I also have to mentally prepare myself for an interview sometime next week.
The way I answer questions during the interview will have a major impact on how the public views me. As such, I'll need to prepare my answers in advance. Public opinion might seem unimportant to some people but in some cases, it can make the difference between life and death. A civilian that respects you and thinks of you as someone worth listening to will follow instructions faster than someone that thinks of you as a clown. In a war zone, that distinction often saves or loses lives.
Despite being a massively stressful situation, the interview is also and opportunity to advertise myself and to make my plans known. Instead of carefully orchestrating a series of event which lead to a 'lucky' encounter with a tinker, advertising my plans for a tinkers association is easier and less time consuming. By advertising my plans for a cheap and accessible hospital for people with incurable illnesses, I can influence the people into pressuring law makers for greater leniency towards healers.
If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that every choice you make can have positive and negative consequences. Before I triggered, I didn't have much control on what would happen but now, now I can make sure my actions have positive consequences.
Speaking of positive consequences, I told armsmaster a bullshit story about finding a new tinker getting resources from a specific scrapyard near the docks. Of course, the bullshit part of the story is HOW I found the tinker but the part about the scrapyard is true. From armsmaster's reaction to my story, I expect the city to have a new Ward soon.
The kid probably won't like it but he needed help the most. The two other tinkers have good enough jobs to afford resources to tinker with. The kid on the other hand, doesn't have a job and can't buy materials without looking suspicious. Furthermore, it seems his specialization doesn't lend itself well to generalized crime fighting equipment. From the profile the insight program built, his specialization is most likely in power sources.
Normally, a specialization like that would be rather powerful. Unfortunately for the kid, he can do power sources and nothing else, unlike other tinkers who can deviate slightly from their specialization. On top of that, the kid is stuck thinking inside the box. He's letting his power limit him instead of bending the limits towards his goals.
All in all, he'll be safer being part of the Wards. He'll have access to more resources, more time to tinker and more importantly, he'll have armsmaster there to help him figure things out. A lot more than what most twelve year olds get in Brockton Bay.
I also have a problem that started becoming apparent just a few days ago, I'm collecting resources faster than I can build storage space for it. The workers haven't even harvested a tenth of a percent of the wreck and I already need three storage units just to store it all. At this rate, I'll run out of space before the boat's gone. Luckily for me, sphere's meeting presents a good opportunity to rid myself of excess materials. I just have to keep building storage units until then.
For now though, I have other things to focus on.
———————————————————–
July 24th, 2005, Brockton Bay
All things considered, the interview went way better than i expected. Most of the personal questions I stressed about were talked about by the interviewer in a short informative segment just before the real interview started. Turns out they did a bit of investigative journalism on me in the days before the interview so they already had every relevant piece of information they needed.
The informative segment mostly consisted of the juicier bits about my life prior to becoming a hero. Some of the details they put in brought up some unpleasant memories, things like mentioning my father's death in a gang war followed by my mother's subsequent suicide barely a month after. Despite having over six years to grieve, my parents death was still a sour subject.
The interview proper was mostly about my plans for the future and my reasons for unmasking. Both questions were easy to answer and the interviewer seemed both surprised and hopeful when I mentioned my plans to build a hospital for cape healing. My motivations for unmasking were also rather simple to explain, people don't think of capes as humans beings with real emotions, they hold us up to higher standards without asking themselves if they could do any better in our shoes. By unmasking, I wanted to become a reminder. A reminder that capes are human and that the only things different between the public and us is our desire to help others before helping ourselves.
Now I'm not delusional enough to believe every hero thinks that way. For some, it's just another job and for others, it's a path to fame. In my case, my beliefs could be closely tied to my trigger event and the type of person I was before that. When I was young, I was called gifted by everyone around me. There wasn't a skill I couldn't learn in a week when it came to physical work. Because of my giftedness, I developed a kind of innocent arrogance, the belief that I could help anyone with anything and that it was only a question of time before I helped to make the world a better place. I was obsessed with improving myself and helping with other people's problems.
Unfortunately for me, my giftedness didn't extend itself well to academic pursuits and when my parents died, I was forced to quit school to become part of the workforce. In any other city I would've been put into the foster system but this is Brockton Bay we're talking about. I spent around four years doing odd jobs trying to pay rent on my meager appartement and during that time, my innocent arrogance was beaten down gradually. My ability to learn physical skills rapidly meant nothing if I didn't have any qualifications and nobody was there to help me, I couldn't even help others to stop myself from thinking about my parents, I had to focus on myself to survive.
Worst of all, I couldn't even receive my inheritance since I didn't have the money to pay the debts that came with it. As a consequence, my inheritance was claimed by my grandmother with whom I had a strenuous relationship. Being kept from my parents house was painful but I couldn't do anything about it. At least the house was still in the family and I'd likely inherit it when my grandmother died.
Ironically, my grandmother's death and my subsequent acquisition of my parents house was the straw that broke the camel's back. I spent so much time focusing on keeping a roof above my head that I didn't even think of how I would afford to keep my parents house. It took a few months for reality to set in, my inheritance money would run out within a year and no job in my reach could pay enough for me to afford the house.
That realization absolutely broke me and all I was thinking before blacking out was how much of a failure I was. 'Why did I think I could make a difference, I can't help anyone let alone myself'. That's how I imagined my situation, everything breaking down around me and no path forward, no improvement to be had.
In a way, triggering saved me. I don't think I could've maintained my sanity much longer. I probably would've ended up dead in a ditch by the end of the month. Instead of my predicted fate, I woke up with the power I needed to get my life back together. On that day, my innocent arrogance was reignited and I vowed to myself that I would become someone my parents could be proud of.
I'd say I did well for myself since then, despite my slow beginning. The interview lasted around forty minutes in total but I expect the released footage will be shorter due to editing. All in all, it was short and stressful but it went better than I expected.
———————————————————–
July 26th, 2005, Brockton Bay
The interview has probably been put on air by now but I've been too occupied to really see how the public's reacting to it. I've spent the last two days dealing with my obligations and trying to brainstorm ideas on what to bring to sphere's meeting. My new set of tools should be ready by the end of the month which means I'll be able to create much more useful and varied technology.
I've already decided to bring three pieces of equipment maximum and my first one has already been decided. When thinking about the necessities of a moon base, the most important one in my opinion is artificial gravity. Without it, living in space is much less pleasant and health problems can rise up in the long run. That's why choosing a scalable artificial gravity generator as my first showpiece was a no brainer.
In fact, choosing things to bring isn't the problem. What's bothering me is narrowing down my current list to two choices.
In the end, I chose the three most basic necessities, gravity, food and safety. I already have a cheap and energy efficient design for the first one but the other two are causing me some problems. The food item has also been chosen but writing down the genetic sequence for my genetically modified strain of the chicken of the woods mushroom is gonna take me weeks if I do it by hand. I don't have that much time to waste on something like food.
To solve that problem, I'll have to create a full dive virtual reality program with a variable time differential. I don't even have to program a full world, just code in a virtual classroom and set the time dilation to around four. That way I can write down the genetic sequence in virtual reality and transfer the information from the program to my organic 3D printer. Creating a small classroom in virtual reality should take me three days at most and my new unfinished printer should be able to build the hardware in four.
The reason I chose that particular modified strain of mushroom is it's growth rate. With the right conditions, one mushroom occupying a microwave sized space can grow fast enough to feed seven adults indefinitely as long as it's harvested weekly. The mushroom can't grow beyond a certain size after all. Most importantly, I made that strain unable to multiply, only grow. Each new mushroom must be created with my organic 3D printer and each individual has a limited growth size.
Comparatively, finding ways to provide security was much easier. My portals can help provide both easy evacuation points and a cheap way to move materials to the colony. While not on the same level as professor Haywire's dimensional gateways, my portals are still leagues above any other tinker I'm aware of. Despite being low level compared to the high end teleportation devices I can think of, my current portals still have an immense advantage over the closest competitor.
They have absolutely not range limit. As long as there's a portal device at the destination, even a trip to the andromeda galaxy is instantaneous. Their only downside is how dangerous they are, because the portal is essentially two superimposed areas of space-time, the edges are a Planck length thick. Normally a cut at the Planck scale wouldn't do a goddamn thing since the fundamental forces would keep everything together, problem is the two parts being separated aren't even in the same area of space-time anymore. One piece remains at the starting position and the other one is left behind at the end point of the portal.
Despite the dangers, they still remain my most convenient creation in the grand scheme of things. The closest thing to it is ascendant matter which is also what I'm planning to use against Leviathan next time he shows up.
I'm getting ahead of myself again. I should focus on preparing for sphere's meeting and surviving my first Endbringer fight before I think about actually attacking any of them up close. I just feel like my time is running short.
A.N: sorry for the late upload, I've been trying to write at least two thousand words every two days but I have an exam coming this Friday so I had to use my time wisely. Next chapter should be in two to three days. I hope this chapter was good enough to explain the characters motivations and the type of person he is. I understand some of the tinkertech explanations might be long winded but I like to make them and sometimes the information I put in can be used to deduce a future piece of equipment I plan to make. As always, comments are greatly appreciated. Hope you enjoyed, till next time.
- Location
- Lost in the hive mind
Well it will be fun for at least one party attending the meting.
Shocking news
August 4th, 2005, Brockton Bay
Being inside a full dive virtual room is extremely uncanny, I consciously know that the room around me doesn't exist and yet both my mind and body disagree with me vehemently. Everything about this room is realistic to such a degree that anyone uninformed about its nature wouldn't suspect a thing.
This realism can only be achieved by thoroughly measuring and quantifying every single one of my senses and having the program simulate the room using this data. The process works so well that every detail about the room feels as real as the real world sown to the last detail. In order to make the virtual reality more distinct from the real world, I added video game-like control screens that can be used to customize the room's settings and to exit the simulation.
Realism notwithstanding, the room also includes various 3D sculpting and modelling programs of my own designs. My prior method consisted of drawing the blueprints on paper and using a program on my 3D printer to interpret them before printing which would usually take a few minutes to complete. The modelling programs are both easier to use and will save me quite a bit of time in the long run.
Even then, using the modelling programs by themselves would save me only a few minutes on every project which is negligible in the grand scheme of things. That is, if you don't account for the variable time dilation experienced in this virtual world. With the ratio currently being set at four to one, a complicated blueprint that would have taken me an hour to draw on paper is modelled in seven and a half real world minutes. Of course, in virtual reality those seven and a half minutes feel more like half an hour.
Normally, the mental fatigue associated with experiencing an extra few hours of consciousness every day would be enormous. This problem is completely negated by the nature of this virtual reality. The program works by using a piece of hardware to sends signals to different areas of the brain corresponding to the different senses. Because none of the signals have to be interpreted by the brain or by the sensory organs, the brain spends considerably less energy than it would when awake in the real world.
The only change in my daily life needed to accommodate for those virtual hours is an extra hour of sleep every day. Worth it in my opinion for the amount of progress it allows. Of course, the programs time dilation can be set higher but not for any lengthy amount of time. At some point the amount of signals needed to simulate the accelerated room becomes too much for the brain to handle. I don't plan on going above four to one often anyway so it shouldn't be a problem for me.
All things considered, this isn't nearly the best virtual reality I can think of but it's good enough for my current and near future needs. The disconnection is nearly seamless on the programs part but the instantaneous change in environment is still nauseating on my senses.
Exiting the virtual classroom isn't the only thing making me feel nauseous. I guess my mind still hasn't come to term with the fact Hero is back. It's already been two days since the PRT officially announced his recovery and the whole country is still reeling from the shock.
Five years ago, the only thing that kept Hero alive after being bisected by the Siberian was Eidolon's quick use of a healing power and despite escaping death, he was still left in a coma. For a while, everyone in the country hoped for his recovery or for a parahuman to heal him but after four years waiting, people lost hope. After all, if Eidolon couldn't wake him up then the changes of someone else doing so were low.
As a result, the unplanned nationwide announcement by the PRT took pretty much everyone off guard. The sceptics were quick to claim the person a fake but I couldn't bring myself to doubt the PRT on something this big. With the amount of thinkers they have employed, not even the highest rated stranger could fool everyone.
The shock experienced by the public couldn't even begin to rival the one felt by the tinker community, almost any tinker younger than thirty had grown up looking up to the man after all.
Hero's subsequent announcement yesterday declaring his intention to attend Sphere's meeting in order to catch up to modern tinkers did little to calm us down. To the public, the news was only considered as more gossip to had to the discussion but for tinkers, there was only one way to interpret it. Sphere's meeting is an opportunity to both meet and show off to the tinker community's greatest idol.
I expect the number of tinkers attending the meeting to rise exponentially, anyone with the means to come will want to be there and I'm no exception. For me, the stakes have risen to unbelievably high levels. The meeting went from a small opportunity to get some publicity to the single greatest gathering of tinkers since the advent of parahumans within two days. In other words, I have to make a great impression.
Luckily for me, my upgraded tools are just good enough to support my competitive spirit. My list of equipment to bring will remain the same but I plan to upgrade and install anything I can in the ten days left before the meeting. I don't expect to get much sleep.
———————————————————–
August 10th, 2005, Brockton Bay
Being stuck in a tinker fugue for over twenty eight hours isn't healthy for anyone but I can't argue with the results. I probably haven't eaten in days and I feel like my eyes have been flash dried but the pain is well worth the reward. The first sight that greets me when my mind clears up is a handheld universal transmutation machine. Despite having no recollection of building it, my tinker power quickly supplies me with information about the machine.
The thing needs four ascendant matter disks to work and somehow incorporates multiple miniaturized particle accelerators and micro foundries which makes it capable of replenishing it's reserves of ascendant matter. It's also capable of low complexity transmutation which means it's able to make alloys as long as there's no more than three component elements. The thing works a bit slow but that's acceptable considering it's nature as a handheld device.
Despite being the most useful, the transmutation device isn't the only thing I built in the last six days. Besides the transmutation device which is something I've never built before, everything else is either an upgrade or a new take on something I made in the past.
For transportation, I built a swarm of eight unmanned micro drones capable of projecting portals of varying sizes depending on their position. The biggest portals they can create are house-sized and each drone can reach speeds similar to my hypervelocity armor which makes them my fastest way to transport massive amounts of materials over long distances. I plan to use an even bigger swarm for the Behemoth fight.
These drones are a testament to how far I've come, they're my only creation I'd consider first rate due to how many functions they have. Each one incorporates miniaturized mute field emitters, stealth systems, force field generators and adaptive programming. The swarm is controlled by a low level A.I that learns from every situation it's used in and they each went through a lengthy break and repair cycle.
For weapons, I made my single most lethal piece of equipment to date. In simple terms, it's a highly powerful railgun that shoots portal bullets. The railgun by itself is merely lethal but the portal bullets are overkill. Each projectile is essentially an extremely miniaturized portal generator with sensors connected to a small computer that decides when to open the portals. When the bullet reaches the target, it essentially cuts a thumb-sized hole through them regardless of durability. Only a few types of brutes, a few breakers and certain force field users have a chance to survive.
I've also made a miniaturized image printer which contains copies of every blueprint I've made to date. That way I can have all of them on hand if needed. I can even go into a ten to one virtual room at any time if I want to quickly create any blueprint I haven't made yet.
The two final pieces of equipment work in a pair. The first one is a flash forge which is just a fancy name for my fastest type of 3D printer. At the expanse of being unable to print any truly complicated tinkertech, the flash forge is able to print things like EMP grenades, flashbangs and emergency shelters in under five minutes.
The second part of the pair is called the inventory system, it's essentially an automated storage unit which sorts and stores whatever the flash forge prints. What makes it special is that each storage shelf can generate a portal connected to my drone swarm which means I now have access to any extra equipment I leave there. I'm no longer limited to what I can carry.
Besides all of that, everything I plan to showcase for use in the lunar colony has been completed and tested. My meal tonight will be chicken of the woods mushroom with mashed potatoes and broccoli. The portals have already been tested by my daily use of them to get from my house to the boat graveyard.
Unexpectedly, the artificial gravity generator has unreal entertainment value. I spent at least an hour after building it just fooling around with the settings. Walking on walls and on the ceiling was pretty fun but nothing can rival the childish joy I felt jumping around the room under zero gravity. For a moment, it almost felt like all the world's problems disappeared. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to enjoy it but I swear I'm going to make my own zero gravity room after the meeting and I'm going to spend all my spare time in it.
I've also received news from armsmaster that he'll be going to Sphere's meeting along with over three hundred PRT employed tinkers AND Brockton Bay's newest ward. I'm happy for the kid, the meeting is any tinker's single greatest opportunity for improvement and recognition and it would be a shame for him to miss it. Coincidentally, the other two unknown tinkers just happen to be going on vacations suspiciously close to the meeting location in just about four days.
Since I'm done with every project I wanted to do, all I can do until the meeting is spend the time attending to my obligations and writing some programs I'll need for future projects. Maybe I'll go see armsmaster and meet the new Ward to check if I can help him figure things out.
———————————————————–
August 12th, 2005, Brockton Bay
I don't know why I didn't expect this, I should've know armsmaster wouldn't be able or willing to help the kid much. The guy is so career oriented that I'm pretty sure the only reason he recruited him in the first place was so he'd get another achievement on his resume. The only reason he'd spend time helping the kid is if he had something gain from it and as far as I know, the kid hasn't made any designs for something better than my arc reactor yet. There's also the compatibility problems to consider, armsmaster's specialization doesn't require him to think outside the box so he wouldn't be of much help on that front.
Even worse, with Sphere's meeting rapidly approaching, armsmaster's been holed up in his lab for a week trying to prepare. As a result, I took it upon myself to help the kid at least a bit, it's the least I can do since it's my fault he's stuck with armsmaster as a mentor. Now I've been stuck listening to the kid complaining for the last thirty minutes.
His whiny voice interrupts my thoughts and I'm once more forced to pay attention to his childish rambling.
"And none of this stupid shit works! I've been trying since last week to make equipment so the adults let me go on patrol but my stupid power won't let me do what I want." I can't help but sigh at his way of thinking. Just as I was about to speak, the kid interrupts me.
"And what am I supposed to do with power sources if I don't even have any equipment to power? Eh? Why don't you answer my question since you adults always seem to think you know everything."
And now the kid just changed my annoyance into anger, my response might be more rude than it needs to be but I don't care anymore.
"Listen kid, a power is only as good as it's user and from what you've been telling me, you've been a shitty user." Just as the kid tries to interrupt me, I shush I'm and continue speaking. It may be impolite but his pissed off look is worth it.
"Don't try to deny it, you've just been blaming your power for not giving you the final answer when you're not even willing to do any of the mental gymnastics yourself. Just as a test, why don't you tell me the average problems and advantages of a regular power source?"
Despite his surprise at my question, the kid quickly interprets it as an opportunity to get one over me. The kid's expression is smug as he rattles off a surprisingly long list.
"Well a power source can have meltdowns, it can have a breach, some power sources create radiation and others create heavy elements after a while but most of my power sources can produce a lot of energy." Despite being longer than expected for his age, the list is still short for any half decent tinker but it's more than enough to teach him a lesson.
"Now I'll show you why you've been a shitty user with your own answer. First of all, a power source can be designed to meltdown explosively on command which can be used to make one-time use grenades. Even better if you can make a power source that creates an EMP on meltdown."
The kids anger and smugness quickly turns to a look of interest, his eyes rapidly dilate in what I'm assuming to be a sign of tinker thoughts. Now that I have his complete attention, I list off the rest of ideas.
"Secondly, a power source can be designed to breach in a controlled and continuous manner. Depending on the design, this can provide either thrust or cutting tools using plasma ejections." By now, the kids eyes are half glazed over and he's absently taking notes.
"Finally, power doesn't actually have to come from the generator. By that, I mean a power source that absorbs ambiant energy. This can include heat, electricity, wind, sounds, light and you can even extract some energy from the earth's gravity or magnetic field. Such a power source can be used to cool down or freeze a place, stop electronics from working by depriving them of electricity, make something immune to radar by absorbing the radio waves, create a zero noise area similar to my mute field emitters and can even be used for visual stealth by absorbing every bit of light that touches the power source to cover the power source in absolute darkness."
By the end of my short rant, the kid is only half listening and is already well on his way to a tinker fugue. I take the opportunity to leave and the kid is so focused he doesn't even notice my exit. Despite being a little shit, I'm still happy I could be of help to him. I'll have to talk to armsmaster about at least trying to be a good mentor for the kid. My suggestions should be enough to show armsmaster how much potential the kid has.
Now that I'm free, all I can do I wait. My portal drones were sent on their way to Sphere's complex in Texas earlier today and should have arrived quickly. I guess I'll go there tomorrow by portal and set up an emergency shelter a few kilometers from the meeting location. That way I'll be sure to arrive on time.
The meeting has also been changed from a simple meeting and exchange of ideas between a few dozen tinkers to something akin to a tinker themed comicon. I've been assigned a stall position by mail yesterday and multiple meetings are planned to happen throughout the five days of the event. Sphere supposedly wants to meet every tinker there personally over the course of five days. I'm not sure how he's planning to do that since the current number of attendees is in the hundreds and rapidly approaching a thousand.
For now though, I have to go to bed early. Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day.
A.N: this chapter is a bit packed with information but I'm trying to be detailed and since the story is told from a first person perspective, the chapters are as busy as the situation warrants. As of this chapter, some of the differences that make this a parallel universe are shown. Hero was in a coma instead of dead. The reason he's now healthy was hinted in previous chapters but the hints only make sense in hindsight when you know Hero was never dead in this parallel universe. Hope you enjoyed, till next time.
Being inside a full dive virtual room is extremely uncanny, I consciously know that the room around me doesn't exist and yet both my mind and body disagree with me vehemently. Everything about this room is realistic to such a degree that anyone uninformed about its nature wouldn't suspect a thing.
This realism can only be achieved by thoroughly measuring and quantifying every single one of my senses and having the program simulate the room using this data. The process works so well that every detail about the room feels as real as the real world sown to the last detail. In order to make the virtual reality more distinct from the real world, I added video game-like control screens that can be used to customize the room's settings and to exit the simulation.
Realism notwithstanding, the room also includes various 3D sculpting and modelling programs of my own designs. My prior method consisted of drawing the blueprints on paper and using a program on my 3D printer to interpret them before printing which would usually take a few minutes to complete. The modelling programs are both easier to use and will save me quite a bit of time in the long run.
Even then, using the modelling programs by themselves would save me only a few minutes on every project which is negligible in the grand scheme of things. That is, if you don't account for the variable time dilation experienced in this virtual world. With the ratio currently being set at four to one, a complicated blueprint that would have taken me an hour to draw on paper is modelled in seven and a half real world minutes. Of course, in virtual reality those seven and a half minutes feel more like half an hour.
Normally, the mental fatigue associated with experiencing an extra few hours of consciousness every day would be enormous. This problem is completely negated by the nature of this virtual reality. The program works by using a piece of hardware to sends signals to different areas of the brain corresponding to the different senses. Because none of the signals have to be interpreted by the brain or by the sensory organs, the brain spends considerably less energy than it would when awake in the real world.
The only change in my daily life needed to accommodate for those virtual hours is an extra hour of sleep every day. Worth it in my opinion for the amount of progress it allows. Of course, the programs time dilation can be set higher but not for any lengthy amount of time. At some point the amount of signals needed to simulate the accelerated room becomes too much for the brain to handle. I don't plan on going above four to one often anyway so it shouldn't be a problem for me.
All things considered, this isn't nearly the best virtual reality I can think of but it's good enough for my current and near future needs. The disconnection is nearly seamless on the programs part but the instantaneous change in environment is still nauseating on my senses.
Exiting the virtual classroom isn't the only thing making me feel nauseous. I guess my mind still hasn't come to term with the fact Hero is back. It's already been two days since the PRT officially announced his recovery and the whole country is still reeling from the shock.
Five years ago, the only thing that kept Hero alive after being bisected by the Siberian was Eidolon's quick use of a healing power and despite escaping death, he was still left in a coma. For a while, everyone in the country hoped for his recovery or for a parahuman to heal him but after four years waiting, people lost hope. After all, if Eidolon couldn't wake him up then the changes of someone else doing so were low.
As a result, the unplanned nationwide announcement by the PRT took pretty much everyone off guard. The sceptics were quick to claim the person a fake but I couldn't bring myself to doubt the PRT on something this big. With the amount of thinkers they have employed, not even the highest rated stranger could fool everyone.
The shock experienced by the public couldn't even begin to rival the one felt by the tinker community, almost any tinker younger than thirty had grown up looking up to the man after all.
Hero's subsequent announcement yesterday declaring his intention to attend Sphere's meeting in order to catch up to modern tinkers did little to calm us down. To the public, the news was only considered as more gossip to had to the discussion but for tinkers, there was only one way to interpret it. Sphere's meeting is an opportunity to both meet and show off to the tinker community's greatest idol.
I expect the number of tinkers attending the meeting to rise exponentially, anyone with the means to come will want to be there and I'm no exception. For me, the stakes have risen to unbelievably high levels. The meeting went from a small opportunity to get some publicity to the single greatest gathering of tinkers since the advent of parahumans within two days. In other words, I have to make a great impression.
Luckily for me, my upgraded tools are just good enough to support my competitive spirit. My list of equipment to bring will remain the same but I plan to upgrade and install anything I can in the ten days left before the meeting. I don't expect to get much sleep.
———————————————————–
August 10th, 2005, Brockton Bay
Being stuck in a tinker fugue for over twenty eight hours isn't healthy for anyone but I can't argue with the results. I probably haven't eaten in days and I feel like my eyes have been flash dried but the pain is well worth the reward. The first sight that greets me when my mind clears up is a handheld universal transmutation machine. Despite having no recollection of building it, my tinker power quickly supplies me with information about the machine.
The thing needs four ascendant matter disks to work and somehow incorporates multiple miniaturized particle accelerators and micro foundries which makes it capable of replenishing it's reserves of ascendant matter. It's also capable of low complexity transmutation which means it's able to make alloys as long as there's no more than three component elements. The thing works a bit slow but that's acceptable considering it's nature as a handheld device.
Despite being the most useful, the transmutation device isn't the only thing I built in the last six days. Besides the transmutation device which is something I've never built before, everything else is either an upgrade or a new take on something I made in the past.
For transportation, I built a swarm of eight unmanned micro drones capable of projecting portals of varying sizes depending on their position. The biggest portals they can create are house-sized and each drone can reach speeds similar to my hypervelocity armor which makes them my fastest way to transport massive amounts of materials over long distances. I plan to use an even bigger swarm for the Behemoth fight.
These drones are a testament to how far I've come, they're my only creation I'd consider first rate due to how many functions they have. Each one incorporates miniaturized mute field emitters, stealth systems, force field generators and adaptive programming. The swarm is controlled by a low level A.I that learns from every situation it's used in and they each went through a lengthy break and repair cycle.
For weapons, I made my single most lethal piece of equipment to date. In simple terms, it's a highly powerful railgun that shoots portal bullets. The railgun by itself is merely lethal but the portal bullets are overkill. Each projectile is essentially an extremely miniaturized portal generator with sensors connected to a small computer that decides when to open the portals. When the bullet reaches the target, it essentially cuts a thumb-sized hole through them regardless of durability. Only a few types of brutes, a few breakers and certain force field users have a chance to survive.
I've also made a miniaturized image printer which contains copies of every blueprint I've made to date. That way I can have all of them on hand if needed. I can even go into a ten to one virtual room at any time if I want to quickly create any blueprint I haven't made yet.
The two final pieces of equipment work in a pair. The first one is a flash forge which is just a fancy name for my fastest type of 3D printer. At the expanse of being unable to print any truly complicated tinkertech, the flash forge is able to print things like EMP grenades, flashbangs and emergency shelters in under five minutes.
The second part of the pair is called the inventory system, it's essentially an automated storage unit which sorts and stores whatever the flash forge prints. What makes it special is that each storage shelf can generate a portal connected to my drone swarm which means I now have access to any extra equipment I leave there. I'm no longer limited to what I can carry.
Besides all of that, everything I plan to showcase for use in the lunar colony has been completed and tested. My meal tonight will be chicken of the woods mushroom with mashed potatoes and broccoli. The portals have already been tested by my daily use of them to get from my house to the boat graveyard.
Unexpectedly, the artificial gravity generator has unreal entertainment value. I spent at least an hour after building it just fooling around with the settings. Walking on walls and on the ceiling was pretty fun but nothing can rival the childish joy I felt jumping around the room under zero gravity. For a moment, it almost felt like all the world's problems disappeared. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to enjoy it but I swear I'm going to make my own zero gravity room after the meeting and I'm going to spend all my spare time in it.
I've also received news from armsmaster that he'll be going to Sphere's meeting along with over three hundred PRT employed tinkers AND Brockton Bay's newest ward. I'm happy for the kid, the meeting is any tinker's single greatest opportunity for improvement and recognition and it would be a shame for him to miss it. Coincidentally, the other two unknown tinkers just happen to be going on vacations suspiciously close to the meeting location in just about four days.
Since I'm done with every project I wanted to do, all I can do until the meeting is spend the time attending to my obligations and writing some programs I'll need for future projects. Maybe I'll go see armsmaster and meet the new Ward to check if I can help him figure things out.
———————————————————–
August 12th, 2005, Brockton Bay
I don't know why I didn't expect this, I should've know armsmaster wouldn't be able or willing to help the kid much. The guy is so career oriented that I'm pretty sure the only reason he recruited him in the first place was so he'd get another achievement on his resume. The only reason he'd spend time helping the kid is if he had something gain from it and as far as I know, the kid hasn't made any designs for something better than my arc reactor yet. There's also the compatibility problems to consider, armsmaster's specialization doesn't require him to think outside the box so he wouldn't be of much help on that front.
Even worse, with Sphere's meeting rapidly approaching, armsmaster's been holed up in his lab for a week trying to prepare. As a result, I took it upon myself to help the kid at least a bit, it's the least I can do since it's my fault he's stuck with armsmaster as a mentor. Now I've been stuck listening to the kid complaining for the last thirty minutes.
His whiny voice interrupts my thoughts and I'm once more forced to pay attention to his childish rambling.
"And none of this stupid shit works! I've been trying since last week to make equipment so the adults let me go on patrol but my stupid power won't let me do what I want." I can't help but sigh at his way of thinking. Just as I was about to speak, the kid interrupts me.
"And what am I supposed to do with power sources if I don't even have any equipment to power? Eh? Why don't you answer my question since you adults always seem to think you know everything."
And now the kid just changed my annoyance into anger, my response might be more rude than it needs to be but I don't care anymore.
"Listen kid, a power is only as good as it's user and from what you've been telling me, you've been a shitty user." Just as the kid tries to interrupt me, I shush I'm and continue speaking. It may be impolite but his pissed off look is worth it.
"Don't try to deny it, you've just been blaming your power for not giving you the final answer when you're not even willing to do any of the mental gymnastics yourself. Just as a test, why don't you tell me the average problems and advantages of a regular power source?"
Despite his surprise at my question, the kid quickly interprets it as an opportunity to get one over me. The kid's expression is smug as he rattles off a surprisingly long list.
"Well a power source can have meltdowns, it can have a breach, some power sources create radiation and others create heavy elements after a while but most of my power sources can produce a lot of energy." Despite being longer than expected for his age, the list is still short for any half decent tinker but it's more than enough to teach him a lesson.
"Now I'll show you why you've been a shitty user with your own answer. First of all, a power source can be designed to meltdown explosively on command which can be used to make one-time use grenades. Even better if you can make a power source that creates an EMP on meltdown."
The kids anger and smugness quickly turns to a look of interest, his eyes rapidly dilate in what I'm assuming to be a sign of tinker thoughts. Now that I have his complete attention, I list off the rest of ideas.
"Secondly, a power source can be designed to breach in a controlled and continuous manner. Depending on the design, this can provide either thrust or cutting tools using plasma ejections." By now, the kids eyes are half glazed over and he's absently taking notes.
"Finally, power doesn't actually have to come from the generator. By that, I mean a power source that absorbs ambiant energy. This can include heat, electricity, wind, sounds, light and you can even extract some energy from the earth's gravity or magnetic field. Such a power source can be used to cool down or freeze a place, stop electronics from working by depriving them of electricity, make something immune to radar by absorbing the radio waves, create a zero noise area similar to my mute field emitters and can even be used for visual stealth by absorbing every bit of light that touches the power source to cover the power source in absolute darkness."
By the end of my short rant, the kid is only half listening and is already well on his way to a tinker fugue. I take the opportunity to leave and the kid is so focused he doesn't even notice my exit. Despite being a little shit, I'm still happy I could be of help to him. I'll have to talk to armsmaster about at least trying to be a good mentor for the kid. My suggestions should be enough to show armsmaster how much potential the kid has.
Now that I'm free, all I can do I wait. My portal drones were sent on their way to Sphere's complex in Texas earlier today and should have arrived quickly. I guess I'll go there tomorrow by portal and set up an emergency shelter a few kilometers from the meeting location. That way I'll be sure to arrive on time.
The meeting has also been changed from a simple meeting and exchange of ideas between a few dozen tinkers to something akin to a tinker themed comicon. I've been assigned a stall position by mail yesterday and multiple meetings are planned to happen throughout the five days of the event. Sphere supposedly wants to meet every tinker there personally over the course of five days. I'm not sure how he's planning to do that since the current number of attendees is in the hundreds and rapidly approaching a thousand.
For now though, I have to go to bed early. Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day.
A.N: this chapter is a bit packed with information but I'm trying to be detailed and since the story is told from a first person perspective, the chapters are as busy as the situation warrants. As of this chapter, some of the differences that make this a parallel universe are shown. Hero was in a coma instead of dead. The reason he's now healthy was hinted in previous chapters but the hints only make sense in hindsight when you know Hero was never dead in this parallel universe. Hope you enjoyed, till next time.
First day and first interlude
August 14th, 2005, somewhere in Texas
Honestly, the number of tinkers present is starting to overwhelm me. My power is working on overdrive trying to analyze every bit of tinkertech equipment being worn around me and my head is starting to ache. Using repair doesn't seem to be doing anything to dull the pain so I guess I'll have to power through it.
It isn't all bad, mind you. The headache is dulled by my excitement, the entrance to Sphere's facility is packed with tinkers and my head is overflowing with inspiration. Despite being filled mostly with tinkers I don't recognize, sometimes the crowd moves just enough for me to catch a glimpse at a piece of tinkertech so amazing my power stops analyzing everything else just to focus on it.
So far, I've been able to extrapolate the presence of a few legendary tinkers by the information my power feeds me. There's Dynamo and his brute nullifier armor. I caught a glimpse of Schrodinger and my power even informed me about a piece of tinkertech whose producer is almost certainly Euclid. I'm assuming he's employed by Sphere since there's no way his facility has enough space to accommodate everyone.
Everything else my power scanned so far ranges from regular tinkertech to ground breaking. Unfortunately, the ones with ground breaking equipment almost always squander their potential. Those that don't generally become highly respected members of the community and are usually ranked in the top one thousand tinkers worldwide. People have been trying to estimate how high Hero would rank since the ranking system emerged but I guess we'll know for sure by the end of the event.
There's also been a few incidents but that's expected even at an event of this size. Since the event officially began, five disguised Yangban capes have been captured within a period of eight hours. I don't know why they even tried. The only place more protected than this is the Watchdog's headquarters.
There's a few employees at the front of the facility distributing maps and giving us tinkertech bands meant to display our identity but the number of attendees is just too large for them to deal with so the waiting time to get in is quite large. I could've entered earlier but I went to the back of the crowd just so my power would have more time to analyze tinkertech.
I've spent the last eight hours waiting for my turn in virtual reality with my armor on autopilot. I'm getting a live feed from my helmet cameras displayed on a small screen in the virtual room so I can look around and tinker at the same time. My power doesn't care either way, it analyzes things even when I'm not looking so being in VR is a better use of my time. I also started to design a small tinkertech business card to pass around once inside.
In preparation for my tinker's association project, I plan to advertise myself as someone who can help any tinker regardless of specialization and who has access to vast amounts of resources. In order to display that, each card will have an extremely small ascendant matter power source as a testament to my abilities. I don't have many people to compare myself to but I'm most likely in the top one percent tinkers worldwide in terms of power sources. After all, just the small amount of ascendant matter in each card is able to power a city block for years.
I'll also have to ask around to make sure my portals won't interfere with whatever Euclid did to Sphere's facility. With Euclid's reputation, his tech breaking down would most likely kill everyone on site. I remember him causing quite the scandal a few years ago when one of his broken pieces of tinkertech killed a villain by fusing her body into a concrete wall. His career hasn't been going all that well since then and an accident on this scale is the last thing any of us needs.
My focus is broken by my power suddenly diverting all its attention on a teenage girl near me. From what my power is telling me, her gauntlets allow for high level telekinesis and are only limited by available energy. The possibilities are amazing.
Seeing the opportunity, I call three of my portal drones to my side and reach on the other side of a newly opened portal for one of my finished business cards. The action seems to startle a few nearby tinkers but my attention isn't on them. I approach the girl and throw her a card that she catches with telekinesis.
I quickly start talking to ward of any awkward silences. "Call me if you need anything. Your tech has a lot of potential and I want to see how far you can go with the right resources."
Her response is interrupted by an employee asking me not to cause any commotions. Seems like it's my turn to enter.
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I now understand why it took so long to enter. This whole place is like a god damned maze, a four dimensional maze at that. Multiple places are superpositioned on top of each other and one corridor can take you to five different cafeterias despite only having enough place for one on paper. The closest thing to it I can think of is that magic school from that earth Aleph kids book but more confusing. Luckily for me, my suit's computers seem to understand the map well enough for me to trust the autopilot.
On the way to my assigned stall, I stopped at the information office to get my portals approved and I bought a pretty good hologram generator for a few hundred pounds of processed steel at another tinkers stall. She was friendly so I left her a business card and an offer for cheap optic cables printed to her specifications.
Each stall has enough space to demonstrate a few things but I decided to connect mine by portal to my personal testing area in Brockton Bay anyway. I could've set a virtual testing area but I doubt most people will trust me enough to try so the portal is the next best thing. Other than the food, I don't have much else that can be demonstrated here. My artificial gravity generator supposedly interferes with Euclid's tech so testing for that has to happen on the other side and my portals are demonstrated by simply using them to get to my testing area.
The list of things I can show off back home is much longer though. There's every variation of my mute field emitters, a few 3D printers, I can show my power sources and there's even a shooting range for the portal gun.
For now though, I'm in a ten to one virtual room making basic blueprints out of everything my power analyzed. I'm not interested in copying other tinker's designs but every bit of improvement that can be jammed into my tech is good. The most interesting thing my power analyzed was the teenage girl's telekinetic gauntlets, the things essentially work by making energy reactions in higher dimensions using lower dimensional energies like electricity which has a trickle down effect of creating motion in our world.
As I thought before, the tech is only limited by available energy but there's also another factor to consider. The higher dimensional energy reactions used are a bit like chemistry, the better you understand the cause of a reaction, the better you can fine tune it. You can make it more powerful or more efficient with the right reaction. The girl's problem is that her power doesn't seem all that good at higher dimensional chemistry. Her current recipe is about as efficient as black powder being compared to a nuclear bomb.
If she had the right formula, she could produce brute 8 level force for barely a gigajoule of energy. Preferably, most of the reaction's power would come from higher dimensional energies. Problem is that none of my current 3D printers are good enough to even copy her current telekinesis gauntlets. I don't know how she built hers but I suspect she's one of those bullshit tinkers who can make high-end tinkertech with their bare hands and minimal materials.
Since the event will go on for four more days and I'm only supposed to be on a meeting in the next two days, I think I'll stay at my stall for at least half the day and spend the rest looking around other stalls for interesting tinkertech. I'm not worried about any thieves since all my equipment is either on me or equipped with EMP shielded trackers.
Just as I exit the virtual room to go exploring, a hero stops in front of my stall and looks around. It takes me a moment to recognize Chevalier since he's not wearing his distinctive medieval armor, the only thing identifying him as the famous hero is a knight helmet painted in his color scheme. I wonder why he's not wearing armor.
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(Short Chevalier interlude)
This event is quickly turning into a headache. Euclid's tinkertech is stopping me from wearing my usual equipment and I keep getting visions from people I can't see. There's also an anomaly, multiple visions everywhere in the facility that are somehow all related to each other, thousands of them in fact.
Each and every stall is filled with ghostly images of researchers observing and talking to each other. Even weirder, some of them have stopped to look at me as if aware of my observations. My initial mission was to observe a list of tinkers but finding the anomaly's origin takes precedent. Anomalous visions often mean a stronger power.
The amount of ghostly researchers gets higher the closer I get to a certain place and by the time the stall is within sight, the number is staggering. The space is so filled with them that some of the ghosts seem to fuse with each other to make space for more. When I finally arrive, the anomaly's origin surprises me. It's the cape that saved Hannah. The one that unmasked in Brockton Bay and more importantly, the one that woke up Hero.
He's sitting in a reinforced chair in front of a desk filled with some kind of orange mushroom. Interestingly, the room is almost empty of ghosts. The only ones present seem to be the result of countless fusions if the way their edges are blurring together is any indication. Some of them are even going inside of him temporarily and other densely fused ghosts from outside the stall keep making their way to him and entering his body.
The sight is unnerving in a way quite different from any previous vision. Some of the ghosts look like children and some look like old people, the only similarity between them is the intense stare they send my way. Looking at the more dense ghosts is headache inducing and I keep getting flashes of memories but none of them make sense to me. I guess I'll have to talk to him if I want more information.
"I've been told you're the one responsible for saving Miss Militia's life" his response seems almost startled.
"I just did what I needed to do, it's partially my fault she got hurt in the first place." At least he's honest about it.
"I'd still like to thank you for saving my friends life, your involvement in the chain of events that lead to her injuries matters little to me." He remains awkwardly silent so I keep speaking. "I'm also here to inquire about buying some tinkertech materials for my equipment and I've been told you have a pretty broad specialization."
His response is a bit informal but I can allow that from the one that saved Hannah and Hero. "well, you'd have to give me some specifications before I propose anything but I'm confident I can make anything you could need." He stops his speech for a second as some hidden drones form a circle at the back of his stall. The portal that ignites surprises me for a second but my lack of focus lasts only a moment.
"if you would follow me, this portal leads to my workshop in Brockton Bay and I have some materials there you could test" he doesn't leave me much time to think before going through. "oh and stay away from edges, I could heal you but losing a limb is always painful no matter how short it lasts."
Despite being surprised by the portals range, I quickly step through and decide to do a little test once on the other side. I take out one of my spare aluminum masks and push it against the portal's edges. The mask is cut in two pieces with absolutely zero resistance, the line left by the cut has a mirror finish to it. The shock doesn't even have time to settle before I hear Everyman say "I told you so, those edges will cut through just about anything under brute 9 in durability."
Now that I'm not focused on the portal, I can see that we're inside Everyman's workshop. He gestures towards a table with a few knives displayed and starts to explain each of them. "The one on the right is made from an alloy called saturnite, it can cut through metal like butter and it keeps a good edge for a long time but it absorbs and maintains heat way too well for its own good. You leave that thing in the sun for half an hour and it'll be boiling hot for half the day."
To demonstrate, he picks up the knife and embeds it through the three inch thick metal table it just sat on with little apparent difficulty. Since apparences can be deceiving and he's wearing power armor, I decide to test it for myself.
Without much effort, the knife slides out of the table and I try to stab the table myself. The same result happens although it takes me a bit more effort than shown to embed the knife through the table. Everyman resumes his explanation once he sees I'm satisfied with my test.
"The second knife is made from a mix of multiple exotic resins and cuts even better than the first one on top of being so durable that I doubt anyone besides Alexandria could break it." I don't have any way to test Everyman's claim about its durability but the sharpness isn't a lie, this knife can probably cut through my current armor with minimal force. The knife is a bit too lethal for everyday crime fighting but I'll probably use it in Endbringer fights if I end up buying it.
Compared to the previous two, the last knife isn't sharp or durable. Instead, what makes it special is the craftsmanship. The blade is made of Damascus steel and the metal's pattern twists into the image of a forest along the blades length. I personally wouldn't use it in a fight but I know for a fact many collectors would pay exorbitant amounts of money to make it a part of their collection. It's certainly beyond my means. Everyman brings back my attention with a small cough and resumes speaking.
"all in all, a blade the size of your cannonblade would cost you around five thousand dollars and would be ready a week after this event is done." The price is oddly low for something this useful, my job expenses can cover it.
By the time we're done talking business, I'm no closer to understanding the ghosts but I've gained a great deal of information about Everyman. His business card is tucked away in my coat pocket and I'm satisfied knowing my effectivity in Endbringer fights will rise soon. The ghosts weren't doing anything hostile as far as I can tell anyway, just another weird quirk that comes with high level powers.
The return to Sphere's facility brings back the headache inducing amount of visions and I can't help but think that the next four days will be horrible.
A.N: this is my first try at an interlude and it was way harder than I expected. I hope it was good enough either way but I want to improve on that in the future. Some details about the protagonists powers have been revealed and by now I've put enough small details around different chapters that some people might be able to guess what Everyman's tinker power is. Small hint, his power is similar to Dragon's meaning that it's more of a thinker power that allows for tinker like abilities. I'm planning to make the Sphere's meeting arc' last a few more chapters but no longer than four. Hope you enjoyed, till next time. Comments and advice are always appreciated.
Honestly, the number of tinkers present is starting to overwhelm me. My power is working on overdrive trying to analyze every bit of tinkertech equipment being worn around me and my head is starting to ache. Using repair doesn't seem to be doing anything to dull the pain so I guess I'll have to power through it.
It isn't all bad, mind you. The headache is dulled by my excitement, the entrance to Sphere's facility is packed with tinkers and my head is overflowing with inspiration. Despite being filled mostly with tinkers I don't recognize, sometimes the crowd moves just enough for me to catch a glimpse at a piece of tinkertech so amazing my power stops analyzing everything else just to focus on it.
So far, I've been able to extrapolate the presence of a few legendary tinkers by the information my power feeds me. There's Dynamo and his brute nullifier armor. I caught a glimpse of Schrodinger and my power even informed me about a piece of tinkertech whose producer is almost certainly Euclid. I'm assuming he's employed by Sphere since there's no way his facility has enough space to accommodate everyone.
Everything else my power scanned so far ranges from regular tinkertech to ground breaking. Unfortunately, the ones with ground breaking equipment almost always squander their potential. Those that don't generally become highly respected members of the community and are usually ranked in the top one thousand tinkers worldwide. People have been trying to estimate how high Hero would rank since the ranking system emerged but I guess we'll know for sure by the end of the event.
There's also been a few incidents but that's expected even at an event of this size. Since the event officially began, five disguised Yangban capes have been captured within a period of eight hours. I don't know why they even tried. The only place more protected than this is the Watchdog's headquarters.
There's a few employees at the front of the facility distributing maps and giving us tinkertech bands meant to display our identity but the number of attendees is just too large for them to deal with so the waiting time to get in is quite large. I could've entered earlier but I went to the back of the crowd just so my power would have more time to analyze tinkertech.
I've spent the last eight hours waiting for my turn in virtual reality with my armor on autopilot. I'm getting a live feed from my helmet cameras displayed on a small screen in the virtual room so I can look around and tinker at the same time. My power doesn't care either way, it analyzes things even when I'm not looking so being in VR is a better use of my time. I also started to design a small tinkertech business card to pass around once inside.
In preparation for my tinker's association project, I plan to advertise myself as someone who can help any tinker regardless of specialization and who has access to vast amounts of resources. In order to display that, each card will have an extremely small ascendant matter power source as a testament to my abilities. I don't have many people to compare myself to but I'm most likely in the top one percent tinkers worldwide in terms of power sources. After all, just the small amount of ascendant matter in each card is able to power a city block for years.
I'll also have to ask around to make sure my portals won't interfere with whatever Euclid did to Sphere's facility. With Euclid's reputation, his tech breaking down would most likely kill everyone on site. I remember him causing quite the scandal a few years ago when one of his broken pieces of tinkertech killed a villain by fusing her body into a concrete wall. His career hasn't been going all that well since then and an accident on this scale is the last thing any of us needs.
My focus is broken by my power suddenly diverting all its attention on a teenage girl near me. From what my power is telling me, her gauntlets allow for high level telekinesis and are only limited by available energy. The possibilities are amazing.
Seeing the opportunity, I call three of my portal drones to my side and reach on the other side of a newly opened portal for one of my finished business cards. The action seems to startle a few nearby tinkers but my attention isn't on them. I approach the girl and throw her a card that she catches with telekinesis.
I quickly start talking to ward of any awkward silences. "Call me if you need anything. Your tech has a lot of potential and I want to see how far you can go with the right resources."
Her response is interrupted by an employee asking me not to cause any commotions. Seems like it's my turn to enter.
———————————————————–
I now understand why it took so long to enter. This whole place is like a god damned maze, a four dimensional maze at that. Multiple places are superpositioned on top of each other and one corridor can take you to five different cafeterias despite only having enough place for one on paper. The closest thing to it I can think of is that magic school from that earth Aleph kids book but more confusing. Luckily for me, my suit's computers seem to understand the map well enough for me to trust the autopilot.
On the way to my assigned stall, I stopped at the information office to get my portals approved and I bought a pretty good hologram generator for a few hundred pounds of processed steel at another tinkers stall. She was friendly so I left her a business card and an offer for cheap optic cables printed to her specifications.
Each stall has enough space to demonstrate a few things but I decided to connect mine by portal to my personal testing area in Brockton Bay anyway. I could've set a virtual testing area but I doubt most people will trust me enough to try so the portal is the next best thing. Other than the food, I don't have much else that can be demonstrated here. My artificial gravity generator supposedly interferes with Euclid's tech so testing for that has to happen on the other side and my portals are demonstrated by simply using them to get to my testing area.
The list of things I can show off back home is much longer though. There's every variation of my mute field emitters, a few 3D printers, I can show my power sources and there's even a shooting range for the portal gun.
For now though, I'm in a ten to one virtual room making basic blueprints out of everything my power analyzed. I'm not interested in copying other tinker's designs but every bit of improvement that can be jammed into my tech is good. The most interesting thing my power analyzed was the teenage girl's telekinetic gauntlets, the things essentially work by making energy reactions in higher dimensions using lower dimensional energies like electricity which has a trickle down effect of creating motion in our world.
As I thought before, the tech is only limited by available energy but there's also another factor to consider. The higher dimensional energy reactions used are a bit like chemistry, the better you understand the cause of a reaction, the better you can fine tune it. You can make it more powerful or more efficient with the right reaction. The girl's problem is that her power doesn't seem all that good at higher dimensional chemistry. Her current recipe is about as efficient as black powder being compared to a nuclear bomb.
If she had the right formula, she could produce brute 8 level force for barely a gigajoule of energy. Preferably, most of the reaction's power would come from higher dimensional energies. Problem is that none of my current 3D printers are good enough to even copy her current telekinesis gauntlets. I don't know how she built hers but I suspect she's one of those bullshit tinkers who can make high-end tinkertech with their bare hands and minimal materials.
Since the event will go on for four more days and I'm only supposed to be on a meeting in the next two days, I think I'll stay at my stall for at least half the day and spend the rest looking around other stalls for interesting tinkertech. I'm not worried about any thieves since all my equipment is either on me or equipped with EMP shielded trackers.
Just as I exit the virtual room to go exploring, a hero stops in front of my stall and looks around. It takes me a moment to recognize Chevalier since he's not wearing his distinctive medieval armor, the only thing identifying him as the famous hero is a knight helmet painted in his color scheme. I wonder why he's not wearing armor.
———————————————————–
(Short Chevalier interlude)
This event is quickly turning into a headache. Euclid's tinkertech is stopping me from wearing my usual equipment and I keep getting visions from people I can't see. There's also an anomaly, multiple visions everywhere in the facility that are somehow all related to each other, thousands of them in fact.
Each and every stall is filled with ghostly images of researchers observing and talking to each other. Even weirder, some of them have stopped to look at me as if aware of my observations. My initial mission was to observe a list of tinkers but finding the anomaly's origin takes precedent. Anomalous visions often mean a stronger power.
The amount of ghostly researchers gets higher the closer I get to a certain place and by the time the stall is within sight, the number is staggering. The space is so filled with them that some of the ghosts seem to fuse with each other to make space for more. When I finally arrive, the anomaly's origin surprises me. It's the cape that saved Hannah. The one that unmasked in Brockton Bay and more importantly, the one that woke up Hero.
He's sitting in a reinforced chair in front of a desk filled with some kind of orange mushroom. Interestingly, the room is almost empty of ghosts. The only ones present seem to be the result of countless fusions if the way their edges are blurring together is any indication. Some of them are even going inside of him temporarily and other densely fused ghosts from outside the stall keep making their way to him and entering his body.
The sight is unnerving in a way quite different from any previous vision. Some of the ghosts look like children and some look like old people, the only similarity between them is the intense stare they send my way. Looking at the more dense ghosts is headache inducing and I keep getting flashes of memories but none of them make sense to me. I guess I'll have to talk to him if I want more information.
"I've been told you're the one responsible for saving Miss Militia's life" his response seems almost startled.
"I just did what I needed to do, it's partially my fault she got hurt in the first place." At least he's honest about it.
"I'd still like to thank you for saving my friends life, your involvement in the chain of events that lead to her injuries matters little to me." He remains awkwardly silent so I keep speaking. "I'm also here to inquire about buying some tinkertech materials for my equipment and I've been told you have a pretty broad specialization."
His response is a bit informal but I can allow that from the one that saved Hannah and Hero. "well, you'd have to give me some specifications before I propose anything but I'm confident I can make anything you could need." He stops his speech for a second as some hidden drones form a circle at the back of his stall. The portal that ignites surprises me for a second but my lack of focus lasts only a moment.
"if you would follow me, this portal leads to my workshop in Brockton Bay and I have some materials there you could test" he doesn't leave me much time to think before going through. "oh and stay away from edges, I could heal you but losing a limb is always painful no matter how short it lasts."
Despite being surprised by the portals range, I quickly step through and decide to do a little test once on the other side. I take out one of my spare aluminum masks and push it against the portal's edges. The mask is cut in two pieces with absolutely zero resistance, the line left by the cut has a mirror finish to it. The shock doesn't even have time to settle before I hear Everyman say "I told you so, those edges will cut through just about anything under brute 9 in durability."
Now that I'm not focused on the portal, I can see that we're inside Everyman's workshop. He gestures towards a table with a few knives displayed and starts to explain each of them. "The one on the right is made from an alloy called saturnite, it can cut through metal like butter and it keeps a good edge for a long time but it absorbs and maintains heat way too well for its own good. You leave that thing in the sun for half an hour and it'll be boiling hot for half the day."
To demonstrate, he picks up the knife and embeds it through the three inch thick metal table it just sat on with little apparent difficulty. Since apparences can be deceiving and he's wearing power armor, I decide to test it for myself.
Without much effort, the knife slides out of the table and I try to stab the table myself. The same result happens although it takes me a bit more effort than shown to embed the knife through the table. Everyman resumes his explanation once he sees I'm satisfied with my test.
"The second knife is made from a mix of multiple exotic resins and cuts even better than the first one on top of being so durable that I doubt anyone besides Alexandria could break it." I don't have any way to test Everyman's claim about its durability but the sharpness isn't a lie, this knife can probably cut through my current armor with minimal force. The knife is a bit too lethal for everyday crime fighting but I'll probably use it in Endbringer fights if I end up buying it.
Compared to the previous two, the last knife isn't sharp or durable. Instead, what makes it special is the craftsmanship. The blade is made of Damascus steel and the metal's pattern twists into the image of a forest along the blades length. I personally wouldn't use it in a fight but I know for a fact many collectors would pay exorbitant amounts of money to make it a part of their collection. It's certainly beyond my means. Everyman brings back my attention with a small cough and resumes speaking.
"all in all, a blade the size of your cannonblade would cost you around five thousand dollars and would be ready a week after this event is done." The price is oddly low for something this useful, my job expenses can cover it.
By the time we're done talking business, I'm no closer to understanding the ghosts but I've gained a great deal of information about Everyman. His business card is tucked away in my coat pocket and I'm satisfied knowing my effectivity in Endbringer fights will rise soon. The ghosts weren't doing anything hostile as far as I can tell anyway, just another weird quirk that comes with high level powers.
The return to Sphere's facility brings back the headache inducing amount of visions and I can't help but think that the next four days will be horrible.
A.N: this is my first try at an interlude and it was way harder than I expected. I hope it was good enough either way but I want to improve on that in the future. Some details about the protagonists powers have been revealed and by now I've put enough small details around different chapters that some people might be able to guess what Everyman's tinker power is. Small hint, his power is similar to Dragon's meaning that it's more of a thinker power that allows for tinker like abilities. I'm planning to make the Sphere's meeting arc' last a few more chapters but no longer than four. Hope you enjoyed, till next time. Comments and advice are always appreciated.
Pretty interesting read. Small changes here and there would make it very good. It's one of those cases where more words would make it cleaner and smoother.
Not sure what his specialty really is, but he seems to be a generalist.
Just a quick comment, you're actually supposed to capitalize the first letter in a quotation. John said, "I am John." The only time you don't quote is when it's not actually a full sentence you're quoting. So if I were to partially quote what I just said, I'd say, "full sentence you're quoting." Pretty interesting grammar rule since you clearly have the rest of it handled.
Not sure what his specialty really is, but he seems to be a generalist.
Just a quick comment, you're actually supposed to capitalize the first letter in a quotation. John said, "I am John." The only time you don't quote is when it's not actually a full sentence you're quoting. So if I were to partially quote what I just said, I'd say, "full sentence you're quoting." Pretty interesting grammar rule since you clearly have the rest of it handled.
New status
Turns out I massively underestimated how marketable my power is, the amount of tinkers willing to pay to reduce the need for upkeep is astounding. I've been told how useful my power is quite a few times throughout the day. I honestly should've realized sooner, time spent repairing equipment is time not spent advancing forward. If every tinker on earth had no need for upkeep, tinkers would've probably ended up at the top of the parahuman food chain years ago.
I've also underestimated how frustrated most tinkers are. Most of them spend months figuring out the intricacies of their specializations and pretty much all of them have to do it alone with only their point of view and experiences directing their tinkering. For them, having a second opinion from someone that understands their specialization just a well as they do is invaluable. It shows them the paths not taken, the opportunities missed and new ways their limits can be pushed.
A tinker like Brockton Bay's new Ward would've most likely spent most of his career creating substandard equipment and barely making any improvements only to end up dead months or years down the line, their efforts wasted and forgotten. Those that don't suffer from problems like that still don't achieve their full potential and only the lucky few who have support reach the top.
Hero is one example, despite how much the community respects him, none of us can deny his status as the most privileged tinker the world has ever seen. From day one, he was supported by the largest parahuman organisation in the world. He had unlimited support and resources from day one and as a result, he reached the top. Despite this, the community still respects him not only for his position as the first to be called the greatest but also for what he represents, someone who has achieved the pinnacle of his craft. Something all of us wish to achieve, to see the end of the road and being able to proudly say, I did it.
What I've been told throughout the day is that my willingness to share resources, my capacity to help any tinker and my ability to erase upkeep makes me the greatest opportunity for most tinkers to reach for the top. I can give them resources, support and a new perspective. If Hero is the pinnacle, then to the forty tinkers I helped today, I am the path leading to the summit.
Despite the shock that comes with the realization, I can't help but ask myself if I'll be able to match up to their expectations. This revelation wasn't something I was ready for, my day began rather normally. I went to my stall after sleeping at home for the night and I got my second curious client at around nine a.m. A young girl accompanied by her two masked but evidently civilian parents, she wanted to get some materials and the cape I bought the hologram projector from directed her my way.
I decided to be charitable and give her some resources for free but the conversation turned towards tinkering after a few minutes. The girl had figured out her specialization to be force fields a while ago but she wanted to focus more on offence while her parents wanted her to focus on defence.
I didn't even want to speak about tinkertech with the girl but she started an argument with her parents in front of my stall so I had to cut in. I convinced her she could compromise between the two by having electrified force fields around her body for protection and to take down villains. Her parents were thankful for my help and the small family went on it's way shortly after.
What really kicked up the ant's hill was my second client of the day. The guy had overheard my conversation with the girl and was wondering if I could help him with his own problem. The guys main weapon was a laser sword and he was having trouble making it non-lethal. The problem was quickly solved when I mentioned some types of lasers having the ability to conduct electricity while being harmless to humans. The precise moment which changed the course of my day was when his laser sword broke down just as he was leaving.
Being the gentleman that I am, I instantly repaired his sword and he promptly freaked out. A short explanation later and the guy was happily leaving with my business card. He must've spread the information around because the number of people coming to see me started steadily rising from that point on. Now it's four p.m and I talked with over forty tinkers in the last few hours.
I've received all kinds of offers and I made deals for things I never would have tried to sell before. Five tinkers were willing to join my tinkers association as long as they got unlimited access to everything I have to offer ranging from repairs and resources to advice and access to my 3D printers. Ten other tinkers left with my business card and are supposed to call me back to buy 3D printers from me. The rest of them left with my cards and quick promises to call me soon. Almost all of them asked for repairs on their most commonly used piece of equipment.
Even more surprising to me, ten of them inquired about getting their own personalized virtual rooms with the hardware needed to run them. Turns out even the low level VR I'm using is considered a cut above the rest. My current hardware consists of a small thumb-sized chip capable of adjusting it settings to imitate your senses perfectly in only thirty seconds, you just need to place it in your helmet or mask and you instantly have a few more hours everyday to improve yourself. The modelling programs only make it more desirable.
I'll probably have to run a few more tests and include a few more features before I even think about letting anyone buy it. No way am I selling an unfinished or substandard product. Like my specialty, everything I sell is custom made. Every single one of my creations to date has been completely unique in design, each one made to answer a specific need in a very specific way and I'm not about to lower my standards just because I'm making something for somebody else. I won't accept giving anything but my best.
The various discussions I've had today haven't only been worthwhile for others, I've also benefited massively from them. Already, five people want to join my tinkers association and I've gotten a better idea of what tinkers want to buy. I also got to more closely observe tinkertech from forty different tinkers, thirty five of them had potential for tinkertech better than mine. By observing them, my own potential in their specialization has risen.
The first girl I interacted with today had extremely efficient force field designs. From inspecting her equipment, I've already found ways to make all my field emitters thirty percent more efficient without even needing a better printer. The guy with the laser sword gave me an idea for a better version of something I plan to use against Leviathan.
Each tinker I spoke to gave me a little something in a way, some more useful than others admittedly but everything is appreciated. The most important one came from a simplified technology tinker. I don't know how but seeing a part of his armor gave my power a flash of insight and it supplied me with a way to make a 3D printer two orders of magnitude better than my current one that only requires me to make a few modifications to my latest printer.
Because of that, my timetable for making the Endbringer fight armor has been shortened by two whole months. I might even be able to make a low level portal blade in time for Behemoth.
The upgrade this brings me cannot be understated. The next 3D printer I make will render all my current equipment outdated. The lungbuster armor? That thing is shit compared to what I'll be able to make with the new printer. The handheld transmutation device? Dogshit compared to the most basic transmutation device the new printer can make. This revelation is the only thing keeping my mind off of my new status as the tinker community's messiah.
Despite how happy I am, I'm also dreading the tinkering session I'll need to improve my equipment. I'll probably have to slowly build up resistance to higher time dilation virtual rooms. That or I'll have to make a few genetic modifications to allow my brain to endure high amounts of electricity, that way I won't have to risk having an aneurysm. Either way, twenty to one is the maximum amount of data my brain can process if I don't make some gene modifications.
There's also something else I have to plan for that I'll need to do after the Behemoth fight but that can wait a few months. I'm the only one dumb enough to search for what I'm looking for anyway.
———————————————————–
Just as I'm about to head home for the night, I'm interrupted by the sound of chatter coming my way.
My annoyance at being kept from my bed is quickly squashed when I realize it's Hero and a group of PRT tinkers heading towards my stall. I don't have much time to compose myself before the small group reaches my desk.
"Sorry for coming so late, I've been held up in meetings all day long and I've only managed to free a half hour now." I'm surprised enough that I can't think of something to say before Hero resumes speaking. "Of course, I heard you're pretty good at giving tinkering advice so I had to see you at some point, my goal here is to catch up after all"
My mind finally decides to work and I respond quickly. "Since you only have thirty minutes, would you mind joining me in a virtual room. I can adjust the time ratio there and thirty minutes can be made into two hours easily. Of course, I understand if you don't trust me enough to do so." By the end of my sentence, I'm holding a few VR connection devices to the group and surprisingly, Hero picks one up without hesitation and attaches it to his iconic visor. To make sure not to cause a misunderstanding, I quickly explain the chips fonction.
"You might feel weird for the next few seconds. You'll probably suffer from visual and auditory hallucinations and there's a high chance of synesthesia occurring between all major senses, I recommend sitting down." All the other tinkers are giving me angered looks so I quickly add "The process is necessary for the device to adjust to your senses. You see, everyone has a slightly different perception of reality and I imagine experiencing virtual reality through someone else's senses can be quite disorienting."
Seeing as everyone is accepting of my explanation, I put on my own chip and sit down. "I'll have to be inside the virtual room first in order to give you access so I hope you don't mind if I sit down. I'll be waiting for you inside." I tap the side of my chip at my last words. The transition is as nauseating as ever but I've been getting better at enduring it.
My control display receives some entry permissions after the expected thirty seconds and I quickly press 'accept all'. The second I do so, the group of serious looking tinkers appears behind different desks and instantly start making groaning noises. "The nausea shouldn't last more than a minute but you can take your time, we have all the time in the world right now.
Hero is the first one to recover, the rest only take a few more seconds once they realize Hero has overcome the nausea. The PRT's top tinker is quick to speak. "Impressive, I can confidently say I've never experienced something like this in my time. This room feels as real as the physical world." He takes a short pause to look around before resuming.
"I can think of a few friends who would be quite interested in acquiring such tinkertech. Now, onto the reason I came to see you. My freeze ray had reached a bit of a bottleneck before my untimely break, watching some of the footage of your fight with Lung leads me to believe you might be able to help me in some way. One of my freeze ray's biggest weaknesses is it's inability to work at high temperatures. Your fight with Lung clearly demonstrates you don't have such a problem." He's looking at me with an expectant expression but instead of explaining, I open up my blueprint library on a display and select my latest HAF generator design before sending the display towards Hero's desk.
The action seems to surprise him slightly but he's quick to recover and his attention is focused solely on my blueprint within seconds. The next few virtual minutes are filled with silence, the group of tinkers are exploring their own displays and Hero is analyzing my blueprint. After ten minutes observing the 3 dimensional blueprint, Hero looks up and speaks.
"While the mechanism behind your HAF generator is quite different from the one operating my freeze ray, I can still see how integrating bits of your design could completely erase my heat problem. You've answered all my questions for the day but I'll probably see you again when I have the time. I'm interested in acquiring my own virtual room, the time dilation is just too much of an advantage to miss."
"Well, if you don't have anything else to ask me today, I'd like to go to bed so I'll just disconnect everyone and be on my way"
"Oh, of course. I'm thankful for your help." the exit is just as nauseating as the entrance but I'm used to it by now so I simply make my way through the portal and close it behind me.
Today's been a long day and processing what just happened is a task I'll leave to tomorrow's me. The embrace of sleep comes quick.
A.N: this chapter turned out better than the last one in my opinion, the flow was better and I was writing something I have experience writing. It still isn't as good as I would've wanted it to be. I'm a big fan of having every detail in a story be significant in some way, either as an explanation for something else or as a result of a past action. To me, every detail in a story must have a viable explanation in the story's setting. Since I'm a beginner at storytelling, I might not be the best at using details but I'd like to think I'm not the worst and that I'm improving. My muse was good so I wrote this chapter a day early to compensate for posting the last one a day late. Hope you enjoyed, till next time.
I've also underestimated how frustrated most tinkers are. Most of them spend months figuring out the intricacies of their specializations and pretty much all of them have to do it alone with only their point of view and experiences directing their tinkering. For them, having a second opinion from someone that understands their specialization just a well as they do is invaluable. It shows them the paths not taken, the opportunities missed and new ways their limits can be pushed.
A tinker like Brockton Bay's new Ward would've most likely spent most of his career creating substandard equipment and barely making any improvements only to end up dead months or years down the line, their efforts wasted and forgotten. Those that don't suffer from problems like that still don't achieve their full potential and only the lucky few who have support reach the top.
Hero is one example, despite how much the community respects him, none of us can deny his status as the most privileged tinker the world has ever seen. From day one, he was supported by the largest parahuman organisation in the world. He had unlimited support and resources from day one and as a result, he reached the top. Despite this, the community still respects him not only for his position as the first to be called the greatest but also for what he represents, someone who has achieved the pinnacle of his craft. Something all of us wish to achieve, to see the end of the road and being able to proudly say, I did it.
What I've been told throughout the day is that my willingness to share resources, my capacity to help any tinker and my ability to erase upkeep makes me the greatest opportunity for most tinkers to reach for the top. I can give them resources, support and a new perspective. If Hero is the pinnacle, then to the forty tinkers I helped today, I am the path leading to the summit.
Despite the shock that comes with the realization, I can't help but ask myself if I'll be able to match up to their expectations. This revelation wasn't something I was ready for, my day began rather normally. I went to my stall after sleeping at home for the night and I got my second curious client at around nine a.m. A young girl accompanied by her two masked but evidently civilian parents, she wanted to get some materials and the cape I bought the hologram projector from directed her my way.
I decided to be charitable and give her some resources for free but the conversation turned towards tinkering after a few minutes. The girl had figured out her specialization to be force fields a while ago but she wanted to focus more on offence while her parents wanted her to focus on defence.
I didn't even want to speak about tinkertech with the girl but she started an argument with her parents in front of my stall so I had to cut in. I convinced her she could compromise between the two by having electrified force fields around her body for protection and to take down villains. Her parents were thankful for my help and the small family went on it's way shortly after.
What really kicked up the ant's hill was my second client of the day. The guy had overheard my conversation with the girl and was wondering if I could help him with his own problem. The guys main weapon was a laser sword and he was having trouble making it non-lethal. The problem was quickly solved when I mentioned some types of lasers having the ability to conduct electricity while being harmless to humans. The precise moment which changed the course of my day was when his laser sword broke down just as he was leaving.
Being the gentleman that I am, I instantly repaired his sword and he promptly freaked out. A short explanation later and the guy was happily leaving with my business card. He must've spread the information around because the number of people coming to see me started steadily rising from that point on. Now it's four p.m and I talked with over forty tinkers in the last few hours.
I've received all kinds of offers and I made deals for things I never would have tried to sell before. Five tinkers were willing to join my tinkers association as long as they got unlimited access to everything I have to offer ranging from repairs and resources to advice and access to my 3D printers. Ten other tinkers left with my business card and are supposed to call me back to buy 3D printers from me. The rest of them left with my cards and quick promises to call me soon. Almost all of them asked for repairs on their most commonly used piece of equipment.
Even more surprising to me, ten of them inquired about getting their own personalized virtual rooms with the hardware needed to run them. Turns out even the low level VR I'm using is considered a cut above the rest. My current hardware consists of a small thumb-sized chip capable of adjusting it settings to imitate your senses perfectly in only thirty seconds, you just need to place it in your helmet or mask and you instantly have a few more hours everyday to improve yourself. The modelling programs only make it more desirable.
I'll probably have to run a few more tests and include a few more features before I even think about letting anyone buy it. No way am I selling an unfinished or substandard product. Like my specialty, everything I sell is custom made. Every single one of my creations to date has been completely unique in design, each one made to answer a specific need in a very specific way and I'm not about to lower my standards just because I'm making something for somebody else. I won't accept giving anything but my best.
The various discussions I've had today haven't only been worthwhile for others, I've also benefited massively from them. Already, five people want to join my tinkers association and I've gotten a better idea of what tinkers want to buy. I also got to more closely observe tinkertech from forty different tinkers, thirty five of them had potential for tinkertech better than mine. By observing them, my own potential in their specialization has risen.
The first girl I interacted with today had extremely efficient force field designs. From inspecting her equipment, I've already found ways to make all my field emitters thirty percent more efficient without even needing a better printer. The guy with the laser sword gave me an idea for a better version of something I plan to use against Leviathan.
Each tinker I spoke to gave me a little something in a way, some more useful than others admittedly but everything is appreciated. The most important one came from a simplified technology tinker. I don't know how but seeing a part of his armor gave my power a flash of insight and it supplied me with a way to make a 3D printer two orders of magnitude better than my current one that only requires me to make a few modifications to my latest printer.
Because of that, my timetable for making the Endbringer fight armor has been shortened by two whole months. I might even be able to make a low level portal blade in time for Behemoth.
The upgrade this brings me cannot be understated. The next 3D printer I make will render all my current equipment outdated. The lungbuster armor? That thing is shit compared to what I'll be able to make with the new printer. The handheld transmutation device? Dogshit compared to the most basic transmutation device the new printer can make. This revelation is the only thing keeping my mind off of my new status as the tinker community's messiah.
Despite how happy I am, I'm also dreading the tinkering session I'll need to improve my equipment. I'll probably have to slowly build up resistance to higher time dilation virtual rooms. That or I'll have to make a few genetic modifications to allow my brain to endure high amounts of electricity, that way I won't have to risk having an aneurysm. Either way, twenty to one is the maximum amount of data my brain can process if I don't make some gene modifications.
There's also something else I have to plan for that I'll need to do after the Behemoth fight but that can wait a few months. I'm the only one dumb enough to search for what I'm looking for anyway.
———————————————————–
Just as I'm about to head home for the night, I'm interrupted by the sound of chatter coming my way.
My annoyance at being kept from my bed is quickly squashed when I realize it's Hero and a group of PRT tinkers heading towards my stall. I don't have much time to compose myself before the small group reaches my desk.
"Sorry for coming so late, I've been held up in meetings all day long and I've only managed to free a half hour now." I'm surprised enough that I can't think of something to say before Hero resumes speaking. "Of course, I heard you're pretty good at giving tinkering advice so I had to see you at some point, my goal here is to catch up after all"
My mind finally decides to work and I respond quickly. "Since you only have thirty minutes, would you mind joining me in a virtual room. I can adjust the time ratio there and thirty minutes can be made into two hours easily. Of course, I understand if you don't trust me enough to do so." By the end of my sentence, I'm holding a few VR connection devices to the group and surprisingly, Hero picks one up without hesitation and attaches it to his iconic visor. To make sure not to cause a misunderstanding, I quickly explain the chips fonction.
"You might feel weird for the next few seconds. You'll probably suffer from visual and auditory hallucinations and there's a high chance of synesthesia occurring between all major senses, I recommend sitting down." All the other tinkers are giving me angered looks so I quickly add "The process is necessary for the device to adjust to your senses. You see, everyone has a slightly different perception of reality and I imagine experiencing virtual reality through someone else's senses can be quite disorienting."
Seeing as everyone is accepting of my explanation, I put on my own chip and sit down. "I'll have to be inside the virtual room first in order to give you access so I hope you don't mind if I sit down. I'll be waiting for you inside." I tap the side of my chip at my last words. The transition is as nauseating as ever but I've been getting better at enduring it.
My control display receives some entry permissions after the expected thirty seconds and I quickly press 'accept all'. The second I do so, the group of serious looking tinkers appears behind different desks and instantly start making groaning noises. "The nausea shouldn't last more than a minute but you can take your time, we have all the time in the world right now.
Hero is the first one to recover, the rest only take a few more seconds once they realize Hero has overcome the nausea. The PRT's top tinker is quick to speak. "Impressive, I can confidently say I've never experienced something like this in my time. This room feels as real as the physical world." He takes a short pause to look around before resuming.
"I can think of a few friends who would be quite interested in acquiring such tinkertech. Now, onto the reason I came to see you. My freeze ray had reached a bit of a bottleneck before my untimely break, watching some of the footage of your fight with Lung leads me to believe you might be able to help me in some way. One of my freeze ray's biggest weaknesses is it's inability to work at high temperatures. Your fight with Lung clearly demonstrates you don't have such a problem." He's looking at me with an expectant expression but instead of explaining, I open up my blueprint library on a display and select my latest HAF generator design before sending the display towards Hero's desk.
The action seems to surprise him slightly but he's quick to recover and his attention is focused solely on my blueprint within seconds. The next few virtual minutes are filled with silence, the group of tinkers are exploring their own displays and Hero is analyzing my blueprint. After ten minutes observing the 3 dimensional blueprint, Hero looks up and speaks.
"While the mechanism behind your HAF generator is quite different from the one operating my freeze ray, I can still see how integrating bits of your design could completely erase my heat problem. You've answered all my questions for the day but I'll probably see you again when I have the time. I'm interested in acquiring my own virtual room, the time dilation is just too much of an advantage to miss."
"Well, if you don't have anything else to ask me today, I'd like to go to bed so I'll just disconnect everyone and be on my way"
"Oh, of course. I'm thankful for your help." the exit is just as nauseating as the entrance but I'm used to it by now so I simply make my way through the portal and close it behind me.
Today's been a long day and processing what just happened is a task I'll leave to tomorrow's me. The embrace of sleep comes quick.
A.N: this chapter turned out better than the last one in my opinion, the flow was better and I was writing something I have experience writing. It still isn't as good as I would've wanted it to be. I'm a big fan of having every detail in a story be significant in some way, either as an explanation for something else or as a result of a past action. To me, every detail in a story must have a viable explanation in the story's setting. Since I'm a beginner at storytelling, I might not be the best at using details but I'd like to think I'm not the worst and that I'm improving. My muse was good so I wrote this chapter a day early to compensate for posting the last one a day late. Hope you enjoyed, till next time.
For those of you that are interested, more chapters are available on fanfiction . Net. The word count is currently at 55k over there. I mostly post my already written chapters here whenever i have the time or when I think about it.
You can find the story the under the same title, my username is also the same there.
You can find the story the under the same title, my username is also the same there.
- Location
- Louisville KY
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You might consider putting a link either in a signature or on your profile page. Link here for anyone curious: Author: Werfred | FanFiction
The meeting
A.N: sorry for putting an author's note at the beginning but i thought it was important. Since superpierce figured out Everyman's tinker power in the comments, I'll be including a short list at the end of every chapter talking about which universe a piece of tech came from. Feel free to recommend tech from fiction or from the real word, I do a lot of online research for this story but I'm just one man.
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(Chapter start)
I've talked to so many people today that the faces are starting to blend together, I'm starting to remember people by their specializations and by the profiles I have on them. Only the memorable ones are clear in my mind.
My meeting with Sphere begins in two hours and I've seen one hundred and eighty people since this morning. I've had to make speaking in virtual reality mandatory just to have enough time for everyone. It's barely two o'clock and I've already spent thirty four virtual hours talking, helping and making deals with various people. I can count the number of tinkers I remember by name on my two hands.
I've had to set the virtual room to dilate time by six to have enough time and I've started to have intense migraines after the fifteenth hour, repair helps but the migraines keep coming back. It's not all bad at least, my pain has been compensated many times over throughout the day. I've made deals for 3D printers, for personalized virtual rooms, for materials and I've received thirteen conditional offers to join my tinkers association.
Pretty much every conditional offer can be summarized as requiring access to my resources or needing me to heal someone for them to join. There's also a large quantity of tinkers that told me they had to think about it for a bit before joining, around thirty of them.
Besides that, I've also had multiple breakthroughs from interacting with a few different tinkers. Helping a guy with a specialization in energy transferral tech lead my power to give me roided up versions of all variants of my mute field emitters. The new design for the HAF generator can essentially flash freeze everything in its area of effect faster than I can blink at the expense of needing over fifty break and repair cycles to even work after one use without becoming a superheated sludge of metallic plasma. The energy has to go somewhere after all.
The new mute field emitters can absorb shockwaves on the level of nuclear detonations. Normally, that would be a good thing but a mute field that powerful also brings unique problems with it. At that level, the mute field absorbs every bit of kinetic energy from the air making it impossible to breath in or to exhale, the air is completely static. Even moving becomes hard as the air reacts like a solid surface against your body. I probably won't use the strong ones as area of effect but they'll be extremely useful as shaped fields.
I can use a shaped field to make solid surfaces anywhere using static air and that can be used as shielding against kinetic energy or to redirect projectiles. If I make the emitters small enough, I can even give them to civilians in combat situations as protection or I can use them to stop falling rubble from a distance. I can even use them to immobilize low level brutes without having to fight, just hold them in place with a field that covers their whole body and wait for them to fall unconscious from oxygen deprivation.
The most useful in my opinion is the boosted version of the electricity injector, the thing can now dump enough energy inside a machine to fry any electronic parts. In simple therms, I can negate tinkertech even if it has EMP shielding. This is the last thing I needed to have before being ready to participate in Simurgh fights. The amount of tinkers present in fights against her is null so I can just put a electricity injector with wide area of effect in my armor to nullify a whole aspect of her power. She'll be limited to my specialization and nothing I have at lower levels can counter a strategy like that or greatly affect the battlefield, she can't even skip the steps needed to reach higher level tech since the precision engineering needed is way higher than any of her known telekinetic feats.
The last design to receive an upgrade was the heat injection field which is also the thing I was planning to use against Leviathan. Before the upgrade, it could vaporize large quantities of water in under ten seconds. Now though, it can vaporize huge amounts of water instantly which essentially makes me immune to Leviathan's water echo. I just have to worry about staying away from people and visibility since the steam will block my view. Even then, I just have to make scanning equipment to remove one of those problems.
Every other breakthrough can't compare to what I received from the first but each of them is still a massive benefit. By now, my current armor design for the Behemoth fight is one hundred and fifty percent more powerful than the initial one I drew months ago. At this rate, I might even be able to survive Behemoth's kill aura in time for our second encounter. To date, the only tinker to manage that was Dynamo and his armor was a malformed mess after only one blow, one blow able to level buildings and killing high level brutes was survived by a normal human in power armor. That feat is Dynamo's main claim to fame, I plan to be the second to manage the feat.
All in all, despite the migraines, this days has been my most profitable to date. Twenty people made orders for mark two 3D printers at two thousand dollars each and ten people ordered mark 4 3D printers at seven thousand each. Once all of them are sent and I've received all the payments, I'll have made one hundred ten thousand from 3D printers alone.
The other orders will make me less money despite being bought more because I priced them lower. Customizable virtual rooms with the hardware to run them were sold at five hundred each and made me thirty five thousand and I've made another ten thousand from selling raw materials at five cent under market value. If I put all my earnings together, I have enough capital to fund all my large projects.
I can buy a cheap warehouse, demolish it and build my hospital with industrial scale 3D printers on the freed land. I can buy ten boat carcasses with the remaining money and use them to fuel the tinkers association for years and I can use my own land to build the association facilities. My parents old house has ten acres of land, I have no personal use for the space and the property is isolated from Brockton Bay. In other words, the perfect place to accommodate the tinkers association headquarters.
My thoughts are interrupted by a knock on my desk and the facility employee makes sure I'm paying attention before speaking. "Since your meeting is to happen soon, I've been sent to inform you on the rules of the meeting." He explains.
Seeing my nod, he continues. "Now the way the meeting goes down is quite simple, the only reason employees like me need to explain things to tinkers like you is to save time in the meeting room. Sphere's time is packed enough as it is, he doesn't need interruptions on top of everything else." By the end of it, the employee seems almost angry.
One deep breath later, the employee resumes speaking. "The meeting is thirty five minutes long and you'll have to share your time with twenty two other tinkers, each of you will have a minute and twenty seconds to say whatever you want. That's all the time you have, once it's gone, you'll have to wait until the last five minutes of the meeting to speak." He says. "That's all you need to know, your assigned time to speak should have been sent to you in the same letter that gave you your stall position."
And just like that, the guy leaves my stall. If I didn't have personal experience in customer service myself, I probably would've called the guy and asshole for his attitude. Despite his lack of tact, the information was delivered efficiently and I'm left to think on it. I won't be able to fit everything in under two minutes so I'll have to speak mainly about one equipment and mention the other two briefly. Speaking about the portals seems like the way to go, I can't show my artificial gravity generator because of Euclid's tech and speaking about food will undersell my ability to contribute.
With my mind set, all that's left to do is wait.
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In the last fifteen minutes, I'm pretty sure I've heard just about every variation possible for solutions that can be summed up as ideas hypothesized by scientists years ago made with tinkertech. Zero original answers, five guys gave different thruster designs, a guy proposed lasers as propulsion and some idiot proposed metallic hydrogen as rocket fuel.
Seriously, who would use metallic hydrogen as rocket fuel? That thing's dangerous as fuck. Even my portals can be made safe with the right mesures but metallic hydrogen can be destabilized by many different factors that require high end tinkertech to mitigate. Considering metallic hydrogen explodes with fifty one times more force than TNT, I'd consider it a pretty big problem. You can't risk a colony ship blowing up with the power of a nuclear bomb and equipping each rocket with the tinkertech needed to keep the fuel stable would cost way too much.
From the looks the other tinkers are giving him, I'm not the only one with that opinion. Even Sphere looks like he's tired, poor guy's probably been stuck receiving dumbass answers like that for three day straight. Luckily for him, my turn is coming soon and his suffering will be alleviated.
Just as I finish the thought, the guy before me runs out of time and my turn begins. With under two minutes to spare, I need to make this quick. "My name is Everyman, I'm one of the fifty or so tinkers that had a place on this meeting before Hero announced his participation. I brought three pieces of tinkertech to show off but one of them can't be used without interfering with Euclid's tech and I doubt any of us plan to die today. My second piece of tinkertech is a food item which can be eaten at my stall." I take a small breath before quickly resuming.
"Luckily for me, the most important one can be tested here. My portal drones have no range limits and can project house sized portals when in high numbers. Using them, you can bring people and materials to and from the moon instantly and most importantly, safely. That's all." With my part said, I sit down.
Sphere has a clear look of interest and the tinkers after me look dejected as they propose their solutions which have almost all been invalidated by my portal drones.
Fifteen minutes later, the questioning section begins. The last five minutes of the meeting are used by Sphere as an opportunity to ask more questions about a tinkers offer. For this meeting, his questions are focused on me.
"If your statement on your portal's ranges is true, your participation would be invaluable. I'm also interested in hearing about the two other projects you brought, I haven't received many solutions for most of the problems associated with a moon colony and your mention of food has me interested." His piece said, he gives me a gesture to speak.
"When thinking about the most important necessities of a moon colony, my choices were food, gravity and transportation. As such, I brought my portal drones, an artificial gravity generator and a modified strain of a tasty and edible mushroom. Unfortunately, the artificial gravity generator can't be used near Euclid's tech. On the other hand, i didn't have enough time to discuss the food." I take a breath and call my drones to me.
Once close enough, I put my hand through a newly opened portal and pull out a slice of mushroom. With the food item in hand, I resume speaking. "What I have in my hand is a modified specimen of chicken of the woods mushroom. With proper care, it grows fast enough to feed seven adults indefinitely and only takes up the same amount of space as a microwave." Sphere seems interested in hearing more but unfortunately, the isn't any time left. Before I leave the room, Sphere tells me a few quick words.
"I'll be contacting you soon."
A.N: this chapter is a bit shorter but I couldn't justify making it longer considering how short the meeting is and I'm sure tinkertech infodumps will get tiring if I make them too long. I'll try to make the next chapter a bit longer and the 'Sphere's meeting arc' should finish on chapter fourteen. Hope you enjoyed, till next time.
Universe of origin for tech
VR chip: ready player one/chappie/future Elon tech crossover universes. (Advanced version of Neuralink, virtual world programming from ready player one and Chappie's brain signal interpreter)
Mute field emitters and variants: multiple alternate universes of Call of Duty: Advanced warfare(mute charge)
Lungbuster armor: the shades of multiple alternate tony starks working together with dozens of engineers from unnamed and named universes(Cyberpunk 77 and Deus ex)
3D printers: result of combined work from shades of scientists from hundreds of different universes.
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(Chapter start)
I've talked to so many people today that the faces are starting to blend together, I'm starting to remember people by their specializations and by the profiles I have on them. Only the memorable ones are clear in my mind.
My meeting with Sphere begins in two hours and I've seen one hundred and eighty people since this morning. I've had to make speaking in virtual reality mandatory just to have enough time for everyone. It's barely two o'clock and I've already spent thirty four virtual hours talking, helping and making deals with various people. I can count the number of tinkers I remember by name on my two hands.
I've had to set the virtual room to dilate time by six to have enough time and I've started to have intense migraines after the fifteenth hour, repair helps but the migraines keep coming back. It's not all bad at least, my pain has been compensated many times over throughout the day. I've made deals for 3D printers, for personalized virtual rooms, for materials and I've received thirteen conditional offers to join my tinkers association.
Pretty much every conditional offer can be summarized as requiring access to my resources or needing me to heal someone for them to join. There's also a large quantity of tinkers that told me they had to think about it for a bit before joining, around thirty of them.
Besides that, I've also had multiple breakthroughs from interacting with a few different tinkers. Helping a guy with a specialization in energy transferral tech lead my power to give me roided up versions of all variants of my mute field emitters. The new design for the HAF generator can essentially flash freeze everything in its area of effect faster than I can blink at the expense of needing over fifty break and repair cycles to even work after one use without becoming a superheated sludge of metallic plasma. The energy has to go somewhere after all.
The new mute field emitters can absorb shockwaves on the level of nuclear detonations. Normally, that would be a good thing but a mute field that powerful also brings unique problems with it. At that level, the mute field absorbs every bit of kinetic energy from the air making it impossible to breath in or to exhale, the air is completely static. Even moving becomes hard as the air reacts like a solid surface against your body. I probably won't use the strong ones as area of effect but they'll be extremely useful as shaped fields.
I can use a shaped field to make solid surfaces anywhere using static air and that can be used as shielding against kinetic energy or to redirect projectiles. If I make the emitters small enough, I can even give them to civilians in combat situations as protection or I can use them to stop falling rubble from a distance. I can even use them to immobilize low level brutes without having to fight, just hold them in place with a field that covers their whole body and wait for them to fall unconscious from oxygen deprivation.
The most useful in my opinion is the boosted version of the electricity injector, the thing can now dump enough energy inside a machine to fry any electronic parts. In simple therms, I can negate tinkertech even if it has EMP shielding. This is the last thing I needed to have before being ready to participate in Simurgh fights. The amount of tinkers present in fights against her is null so I can just put a electricity injector with wide area of effect in my armor to nullify a whole aspect of her power. She'll be limited to my specialization and nothing I have at lower levels can counter a strategy like that or greatly affect the battlefield, she can't even skip the steps needed to reach higher level tech since the precision engineering needed is way higher than any of her known telekinetic feats.
The last design to receive an upgrade was the heat injection field which is also the thing I was planning to use against Leviathan. Before the upgrade, it could vaporize large quantities of water in under ten seconds. Now though, it can vaporize huge amounts of water instantly which essentially makes me immune to Leviathan's water echo. I just have to worry about staying away from people and visibility since the steam will block my view. Even then, I just have to make scanning equipment to remove one of those problems.
Every other breakthrough can't compare to what I received from the first but each of them is still a massive benefit. By now, my current armor design for the Behemoth fight is one hundred and fifty percent more powerful than the initial one I drew months ago. At this rate, I might even be able to survive Behemoth's kill aura in time for our second encounter. To date, the only tinker to manage that was Dynamo and his armor was a malformed mess after only one blow, one blow able to level buildings and killing high level brutes was survived by a normal human in power armor. That feat is Dynamo's main claim to fame, I plan to be the second to manage the feat.
All in all, despite the migraines, this days has been my most profitable to date. Twenty people made orders for mark two 3D printers at two thousand dollars each and ten people ordered mark 4 3D printers at seven thousand each. Once all of them are sent and I've received all the payments, I'll have made one hundred ten thousand from 3D printers alone.
The other orders will make me less money despite being bought more because I priced them lower. Customizable virtual rooms with the hardware to run them were sold at five hundred each and made me thirty five thousand and I've made another ten thousand from selling raw materials at five cent under market value. If I put all my earnings together, I have enough capital to fund all my large projects.
I can buy a cheap warehouse, demolish it and build my hospital with industrial scale 3D printers on the freed land. I can buy ten boat carcasses with the remaining money and use them to fuel the tinkers association for years and I can use my own land to build the association facilities. My parents old house has ten acres of land, I have no personal use for the space and the property is isolated from Brockton Bay. In other words, the perfect place to accommodate the tinkers association headquarters.
My thoughts are interrupted by a knock on my desk and the facility employee makes sure I'm paying attention before speaking. "Since your meeting is to happen soon, I've been sent to inform you on the rules of the meeting." He explains.
Seeing my nod, he continues. "Now the way the meeting goes down is quite simple, the only reason employees like me need to explain things to tinkers like you is to save time in the meeting room. Sphere's time is packed enough as it is, he doesn't need interruptions on top of everything else." By the end of it, the employee seems almost angry.
One deep breath later, the employee resumes speaking. "The meeting is thirty five minutes long and you'll have to share your time with twenty two other tinkers, each of you will have a minute and twenty seconds to say whatever you want. That's all the time you have, once it's gone, you'll have to wait until the last five minutes of the meeting to speak." He says. "That's all you need to know, your assigned time to speak should have been sent to you in the same letter that gave you your stall position."
And just like that, the guy leaves my stall. If I didn't have personal experience in customer service myself, I probably would've called the guy and asshole for his attitude. Despite his lack of tact, the information was delivered efficiently and I'm left to think on it. I won't be able to fit everything in under two minutes so I'll have to speak mainly about one equipment and mention the other two briefly. Speaking about the portals seems like the way to go, I can't show my artificial gravity generator because of Euclid's tech and speaking about food will undersell my ability to contribute.
With my mind set, all that's left to do is wait.
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In the last fifteen minutes, I'm pretty sure I've heard just about every variation possible for solutions that can be summed up as ideas hypothesized by scientists years ago made with tinkertech. Zero original answers, five guys gave different thruster designs, a guy proposed lasers as propulsion and some idiot proposed metallic hydrogen as rocket fuel.
Seriously, who would use metallic hydrogen as rocket fuel? That thing's dangerous as fuck. Even my portals can be made safe with the right mesures but metallic hydrogen can be destabilized by many different factors that require high end tinkertech to mitigate. Considering metallic hydrogen explodes with fifty one times more force than TNT, I'd consider it a pretty big problem. You can't risk a colony ship blowing up with the power of a nuclear bomb and equipping each rocket with the tinkertech needed to keep the fuel stable would cost way too much.
From the looks the other tinkers are giving him, I'm not the only one with that opinion. Even Sphere looks like he's tired, poor guy's probably been stuck receiving dumbass answers like that for three day straight. Luckily for him, my turn is coming soon and his suffering will be alleviated.
Just as I finish the thought, the guy before me runs out of time and my turn begins. With under two minutes to spare, I need to make this quick. "My name is Everyman, I'm one of the fifty or so tinkers that had a place on this meeting before Hero announced his participation. I brought three pieces of tinkertech to show off but one of them can't be used without interfering with Euclid's tech and I doubt any of us plan to die today. My second piece of tinkertech is a food item which can be eaten at my stall." I take a small breath before quickly resuming.
"Luckily for me, the most important one can be tested here. My portal drones have no range limits and can project house sized portals when in high numbers. Using them, you can bring people and materials to and from the moon instantly and most importantly, safely. That's all." With my part said, I sit down.
Sphere has a clear look of interest and the tinkers after me look dejected as they propose their solutions which have almost all been invalidated by my portal drones.
Fifteen minutes later, the questioning section begins. The last five minutes of the meeting are used by Sphere as an opportunity to ask more questions about a tinkers offer. For this meeting, his questions are focused on me.
"If your statement on your portal's ranges is true, your participation would be invaluable. I'm also interested in hearing about the two other projects you brought, I haven't received many solutions for most of the problems associated with a moon colony and your mention of food has me interested." His piece said, he gives me a gesture to speak.
"When thinking about the most important necessities of a moon colony, my choices were food, gravity and transportation. As such, I brought my portal drones, an artificial gravity generator and a modified strain of a tasty and edible mushroom. Unfortunately, the artificial gravity generator can't be used near Euclid's tech. On the other hand, i didn't have enough time to discuss the food." I take a breath and call my drones to me.
Once close enough, I put my hand through a newly opened portal and pull out a slice of mushroom. With the food item in hand, I resume speaking. "What I have in my hand is a modified specimen of chicken of the woods mushroom. With proper care, it grows fast enough to feed seven adults indefinitely and only takes up the same amount of space as a microwave." Sphere seems interested in hearing more but unfortunately, the isn't any time left. Before I leave the room, Sphere tells me a few quick words.
"I'll be contacting you soon."
A.N: this chapter is a bit shorter but I couldn't justify making it longer considering how short the meeting is and I'm sure tinkertech infodumps will get tiring if I make them too long. I'll try to make the next chapter a bit longer and the 'Sphere's meeting arc' should finish on chapter fourteen. Hope you enjoyed, till next time.
Universe of origin for tech
VR chip: ready player one/chappie/future Elon tech crossover universes. (Advanced version of Neuralink, virtual world programming from ready player one and Chappie's brain signal interpreter)
Mute field emitters and variants: multiple alternate universes of Call of Duty: Advanced warfare(mute charge)
Lungbuster armor: the shades of multiple alternate tony starks working together with dozens of engineers from unnamed and named universes(Cyberpunk 77 and Deus ex)
3D printers: result of combined work from shades of scientists from hundreds of different universes.