111.2 Interlude Grue
Grue stepped through the flickering portal after his sister, leaving whatever weird intermediary space Joe had brought them to and entering Apeiron's workshop. From what he could see through the washed-out grey of the portal, he knew that it would be bigger than the already oversized room they had been taken to, but beyond that he was at a loss for what to expect.
Whatever it had been, it certainly wasn't stepping out onto an immense open plaza under a clear blue sky. It wasn't just that the environment was pretty much as far from his image of a tinker's workshop as possible. It was that they were in the open. Well, apparently in the open. The sky had been overcast when they arrived at the gym. Now he was looking at a bright, clear day. That either meant they had been transported considerably further than he thought, or there was something strange going on.
Of course, with Joe it was a safe bet that there was always something stranger going on, and this definitely counted as strange. The area they had stepped into was as elaborate and overbuilt as anything connected with Joe, but somehow the tone was more opulent that what he would normally associate with Joe. The amount of marble and gilding would have been excessive if it hadn't been so carefully designed. That is, he assumed it was gilding. For all he knew Joe could have integrated large amounts of solid gold into his décor.
The design bordered on decadent, which wasn't what he was used to seeing from Joe. Then again, he's only seen Joe in his field equipment, not in what was basically a second home by tinker standards.
Home. That was another point of concern in the giant pile of concerns that had amassed beyond his ability to even categorize them. This was basically Joe's home, or it might as well be, and Aisha had a place here. It was easy to see what that 'place' was. It was the only building for miles around, overlooking a lake that dropped off into a distant waterfall that looked out over a landscape he couldn't even guess at.
It was a castle. There was really no other way to describe the combination of marble and crystal that Aisha was leading him towards. An entire palace, in the middle of courtyards and gardens that separated it from the other distant structures that he could make out. Structures that he could barely see, but still held a very distinct design, compared to the palace. The palace that was for some reason oddly familiar.
Then the reason hit him, and he swore under his breath.
"What?" Aisha asked, looking back at him. She was still wearing her armor, though with the helmet folded into God knows where. Those heels added a lot of height and it was weird seeing her closer to his eye level. He took a breath before diving into the point of concern.
"This is that toy castle you used to have." He said, gesturing up at the towering structure. It was considerably more impressive than the collection of plastic that he remembered from his childhood, but the similarities were too pronounced to overlook. "The one dad got from that garage sale? Based on that show you used to watch in the mornings?"
"Princess Gwenevere." She said with a nod, not even bothering to deny it. "What?" She asked again as she looked back at him.
"Am I not supposed to be concerned about the fact that Joe has you living in a giant dollhouse?" He asked. He paused and looked around. There didn't seem to be anyone nearby, or any sign of technology that could be observing them, but with how complicated Joe's tech was it could be hidden in plain sight and he'd never know.
"What, you think he lured me in with promises of toys and candy?" She asked in clear amusement.
"Aisha, you can't say something like this wouldn't influence your decision." He said.
"You think this was waiting for me when I joined?" She asked. "You have no idea what the Workshop was like back then." From her tone it was like she was talking about ancient history, not the events of the past few days. "And besides, you're one to talk."
"What do you mean by that?" He asked.
"I mean you've got that playhouse full of video games and junk food and you're warning me about my decisions being influenced?" She shot back.
"That's… different." He said, a little more defensively than he would have liked. "It's for the team, not like this."
"Yeah, for a team of teenagers, and loaded up with all the juvenile and indulgent crap they could want. Well, everything short of alcohol, which was probably the only thing stopping you from growing donkey ears." She replied.
"What… Pinocchio?" He asked, mostly to try to navigate the unexpected diversion. In truth, he had put his foot down regarding alcohol, and everyone had gone along with it, with only some token objections from Alec. "This is serious and you're talking about old Disney films."
"Yeah, it is serious, but probably not in the way you think." She said, shaking her head.
There was a weariness there that he hadn't expected. Frankly, with his sister having something like this he would have expected her to be bubbling with energy and eager to show off every overly elaborate detail of the palace, no matter what kind of entanglements those would have brought. Instead she just seemed exhausted by the idea of what was ahead of her. It was a feeling he could relate to, but not something he'd ever expected to relate to Aisha over.
"Aisha…" He began, but she just cut him off.
"This is nothing." She said, gesturing at the palace. "I was actually going to build something like it myself, but Joe's power kind of beat me to it, and then… Well, it's not really important." She shook her head before turning back to the palace. "Come on, we have a lot to talk about."
"Um, yeah." He said, striding after his sister without asking exactly how she was planning construction projects of this scale. Or how that was any different from just receiving the place directly from Joe. He wanted to know, but they didn't have time for that. "We'll need to get back to the gym soon, before anyone notices we're gone."
Aisha made a dismissive sound as she stepped onto the expansive front steps of the even more expansive palace. "Please. No one's going to notice we're gone, and we've got more than enough time."
A concern, one of the many he'd been juggling, bubbled to the surface. "Aisha, did you… do something? Back at the gym?"
"Well, yeah." She said, turning to face him. "I mean, we were talking right in the open. Did you want everyone to notice what we were talking about?"
His sister had just admitted to casually altering the minds of an entire room full of people, just to… what? Cover up their conversation? When had that even started?
"Aisha, you can't just use your power like that." He said.
She gave him a serious look. "Actually, I can't not." She paused. "Couldn't not."
"What?" He asked.
She let out a breath. One that seemed to have weight to it. When she looked up at him there was a complicated expression on her face.
"Powers suck."
Brian blinked. It was about the last thing he expected to hear from Aisha, particularly given the fact that she was Lethe. LETHE. I didn't even know how to process that.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"I mean, everyone thinks you trigger and then it's all high flying and super fights." She scoffed. "Like most people even get flight." She muttered, shaking her head. "No one tells you how bad it can be, even after you get powers."
Her trigger. The one that happened when she and Dad were attacked. The one immediately followed by finding out what had nearly happened to him. What had happened, and what he had nearly been stuck as. It was something he had avoided asking about, because there wasn't any part of it that could be good.
"Aisha, what happened?" He asked. What he was seeing was concerning, but it was concerning in a familiar way. A way he knew how to deal with as a brother. Right now, he would take any sliver of stability he could find.
Aisha took a breath. "You mean my trigger?" She asked. He nodded. "You can probably guess about that. It was bad, but it let me get through that. Get Dad out of there. But after." She took another breath. "When I got my powers, the default state was 'on'. I could barely control it, and even then, only for a few minutes." She dropped her head. "Barely was able to get Dad to the hospital. Actually called you three times before I could actually get you to register that I was there."
Brian's eyes widened. "But…' He began, not knowing where to start. "I mean, everyone knows your powers only work for a few minutes."
Everyone. It was pretty much the only thing keeping the world from panicking over what Lethe was capable of. The idea that the super stranger who could completely erase her existence, who could erase other people's existence, could only do so for a brief window. That all you needed to do was ride that out and you'd be able to deal with her again, to the extent that anyone could actually 'deal' with someone from Joe's team.
Aisha let out a short laugh. "Yeah, people started assuming that after they noticed me using my power." She said with a small smile. "Wasn't in a rush to correct them." She shook her head. "That was after Joe helped me with my power. Can turn it on and off whenever I want now, even try new stuff with it."
Brian felt a cold feeling settle into his stomach. "You let Joe mess with your power." He said.
Intellectually, he knew Joe was a trump. It was something that got circulated a lot, and he'd personally seen the way Joe's power had grown over time. Joe knew a lot about powers, and from what he'd been able to tell, most of it was accurate. There were all kinds of theories about what he might be able to do, but this was the first time he was forced to confront it directly.
"Don't be so dramatic." Aisha said dismissively. "It's nothing like whatever power warpy stuff you're imagining." She smiled again. "Actually, the first thing he did was make it so HE could remember me when my power was up. Which he did to himself." She added firmly just as Brian was about to interject. "Used a computer on his brain to change the way his memory worked so my power couldn't touch it."
Brian paused. That was better than what he had been imagining, but the fact that Joe had been casually messing with his own mind wasn't much better. It was weird dealing with a version of Aisha who seemed to be reasonable. Who SEEMED to understand what she was doing and wasn't blind or willfully ignorant to the consequences. This was uncharted territory for him, but he didn't have much choice but to soldier through.
No choice. Not when he was effectively stuck here, wherever here was, until either Joe or Aisha sent him back. Assuming that Aisha could send him back without going through Joe. That unsteadiness, the lack of control over any aspect of the situation, it ate away at him, but he pressed those feelings down and focused on the more immediate concerns.
"The people back at that gym? They'll be okay?" He asked. "I mean, there's not going to be any problems with what you did?"
As if altering the minds of an entire building full of people was a minor thing, but apparently Aisha had been altering the minds of the entire planet from the moment she triggered.
"Nope." She said casually. "No problems. Just stopped them from noticing us once Vince split off. They didn't even register when we left."
"Are you still doing that?" He asked. "Making them forget?"
Aisha shook her head. "Not from in here." She said, "Can't, at least not just them, and I don't need a Protectorate alert going out, or people wondering why they can't remember who Grue is."
Brian cringed at the thought, both because of how casually Aisha was able to cause a global panic and the absolute mess that would come from that association. "Alright." He forced himself to say. "But we need to hurry back before they wonder where we went."
"Eh, it'll be fine." She replied.
"Aisha…" He began, but his sister just shook his head.
"No, really. We've got loads of time in here." She explained.
"What do you mean?" He asked, another bubble of uncertainty rising in his stomach.
She let out a breath and glanced away. "Time moves faster in here." She said quickly.
"…time?" Brian said blankly.
"Yeah." Aisha continued. "One of the reasons why it was better to talk in here. Things move ten times faster than they do outside. I mean, it's not all the time in the world, but we don't need to rush."
"Time." Brian repeated. "Joe can mess with time." It was the kind of statement that raised alarm bells, except there was already such a cacophony of alarms sounding in his head that even one that should be a priority just became part of the background noise.
"In a bunch of ways." Aisha confirmed. "I mean, Bakuda was doing it with her bombs. Do you really think Joe wouldn't be able to?"
"Those were time stop fields, not whatever this is." He exclaimed without meaning to raise his voice.
Aisha nodded. "Yeah, stasis fields are a lot easier." She looked around. "This is different. It's a lot to get into, but this is kind of part of Joe's power, not something he tinkered up."
"This?" Brian looked around. The landscape that Aisha's palace overlooked was conspicuously unfamiliar, in a way that was even more concerning than it had been before. "The time thing, or this entire place."
"Yes." Aisha said. Brian whipped his head towards her and she just smirked at him. "Come on, if we're going to get into this we might as well talk inside."
His sister turned and marched up the expansive marble stairs of her crystal princess castle, leaving him to hurry after her. Everything about this place, from the grounds to the building to the frighteningly wide expanse in the distance was feeling more and more unsettling. There was an imposing grandeur to it, but Aisha seemed completely indifferent to the ostentatious nature of the place, casually throwing open the front doors of the palace and striding into a massive entry chamber with all the reverence she would have displayed when returning home from a day at school.
As she walked forward there was another flash and the sound of shifting metal as her armor vanished, but instead of returning to her previous outfit she was wearing a form fitting purple suit. It was close to what she wore for workouts, but the material looked to be a little thicker and there were hints of some kind of technology integrated into it.
"Um…" He began. Frankly, he had too many questions, and this wasn't the place he would choose to start, but it WAS the most recent unknown presented to him.
"Soft suit." Aisha said, as if that would mean something. "Kind of an interface for the armor."
"Right." He said. "And you're wearing it now?"
She just shrugged. "It's comfortable and it was useful when I was learning how to handle the armor. Plus if I'm wearing something practical then Garment won't bug me about updating whatever outfit I have on."
Brian blinked. That was about the last thing he expected. The last thing to actually be a concern that Aisha would need to work around. And another reminder that Garment was at least affiliated with Joe's team. Closely affiliated, based on what Aisha had said.
It did put the number of outfits she had received in a new context. Somehow, the relief at not having to worry about the implied expense of Aisha's new wardrobe wasn't that significant, given the other concerns he had to deal with.
"Does she do that?" He asked, mostly out of a lack of direction for his next question. And mild discomfort from standing in a room that was much too big for something that seemed to have no discernable purpose beyond acting as an entrance for the entire palace that Aisha had to herself.
"What, make clothes?" Aisha asked in a slightly condescending tone. "Yes, Garment makes clothes. As many as she can for as many people as she can. The first time I snuck in here she dragged me off and made a new dress for me. Apparently, she had some issues with my fashion choices."
Aisha shook her head, but there was a slight smile on her face. Given how Aisha used to dress, Brian could understand where she was coming from, but it was a reminder that Aisha had decided to sneak into a tinker's workshop after following them home. It was insanely dangerous, but also exactly the kind of thing she would do.
Would have done. Even now, she seemed to acknowledge that it had been a stupid decision. The kind of admission that he would normally have needed to drag out of her, and even then only been halfhearted, was being treated as an accepted fact. She wasn't trying to defend her earlier action, but she was treating it like a mistake that had already been addressed. That she had learned from before moving on.
It felt like the kind of thing he should address, that he would need to address, but even bringing it up felt almost redundant with how Aisha was treating things.
He took a breath and decided to approach things from another angle. "You said your powers don't work on Garment?" He asked.
She nodded casually. "Yeah, that was how I got busted." She explained. "Spotted me as soon as I walked in. Grabbed me until I could turn my power off." She raised a hand to rub one ear, giving Brian a sudden impression of exactly how Garment had 'grabbed' Aisha. It brought back memories from his own childhood. Apparently Garment subscribed to the same school of grappling as Mrs. Gartenberg.
"And you know that was stupid?" He asked, despite feeling it was unnecessary.
"Of course it was stupid." She said, "I mean, I thought I had a read on Joe, and to be fair I wasn't that far off, but I had no idea what I was getting into. You don't need to tell me that it was stupid to pull something like this."
Brian nodded. Normally he would follow that admission from Aisha with a plan to deal with the consequences of whatever she had blundered into, except at this point the 'consequences' were more than he could even comprehend. He was really at a loss for how to start, mostly because he was at a loss for what he was trying to accomplish. His instinct to just try to undo what had happened had been a long shot before he'd seen the real estate that had been allocated to his sister. This was beyond a sunk cost. He couldn't even imagine how deep this went.
"Aisha, I…" He began, but she cut him off.
"Give me your watch." She said sharply.
"What?" He asked, looking down to the elaborate timepiece that Joe had given him over a week ago, ostensibly as a way to pay back a portion of their debt, but that explanation seemed less likely as time went on.
"The watch Joe gave you. Hand it over. I need to fix it. We can talk while I work." She said, lifting a hand expectantly.
"Fix it?" He asked. The idea of Aisha fixing anything was insane, much less something as complicated as the watch Joe had made. "Is there something wrong with it? Joe said these would last for hundreds of years."
"Yeah, it's going to wear out eventually. That's part of why I need to fix it." She said, "And even if the technology wasn't monstrously outdated, Joe intentionally underbuilt those things."
"What?" He said, looking down at the incredibly intricate watch. Beautifully designed, though not so much compared to Joe's more recent projects. He loosened the band and took it off his wrist to look at the watch more closely. He didn't know what he was expecting to see, maybe some defect like Aisha implied, but it was the same immaculate piece it had always been.
"Thanks." Aisha said, stepping forward and snatching it out of his hand before turning and heading further into the palace.
Brian watched her for a second before rushing to follow her. She strode out of the entryway into a sprawling room with double staircases leading to the upper levels of the palace. A crystal chandelier hung in the center of a mezzanine, with its light reflected in the intricate tile pattern in the center of the floor. On the lower level, between the staircases, a marble arch led to a wide hallway, presumably connecting other rooms on the ground floor. Aisha continued straight through the arch without even glancing at the décor. It was like the amount of crystal, marble, and actual gold was meaningless to her.
The only thing that she did spare a look at were some of the framed oil paintings that had been mounted on the walls of the hallway, like something out of an art gallery. Brian couldn't recognize the style, but it looked different from the historic pieces. Mostly they were landscape pieces, though some were focused on buildings or a particular tall ship.
There was a bit of an odd motif, with most of the landscapes being focused on a silver unicorn with a rainbow mane. It wasn't always the focus of the piece, sometimes it was just tucked into the corner of a field or standing on a distant cliff, but it was odd seeing that kind of feature included in what otherwise seemed to be quite serious artistic pieces.
Aisha noticed him glancing at the paintings and a little smile crossed her lips, like she was waiting for him to ask about them. He did want to know, but right now the artistic content of the house she had inside Joe's workshop was among the bottom of his concerns.
Aisha led him into what looked like an elaborate study. It took him a moment to realize that the intricate desks and shelves actually held tools and equipment, rather than just decorative items. The fact that even the tools and worktables seemed to involve a kind of stylized geometric decoration on their surface didn't help.
Aisha moved to a workbench and set the watch down on the surface before turning back to him. "Kitchen's through there." She said, gesturing towards the far door. "Just had some groceries delivered if you're hungry."
"I'm fine." He said firmly. The fact that Aisha had a kitchen and grocery delivery… well, as much as he hated to admit it, that probably put her ahead of their headquarters. Well, everything about the place was ahead of their headquarters, but he had been thinking of this place as a giant dollhouse, something to distract Aisha or stash her away, not an actual functional residence with a kitchen, groceries, and apparently some kind of workshop. A place that was actually hers, rather than something that was keeping her occupied.
"What?" She said, looking back at him from the worktable.
"It's just… this is really like a home for you, isn't it?" He asked.
"Um…" His sister trailed off, shifting awkwardly. "I mean…"
"I get it." He said, looking around. "This is way beyond anything I've seen, anything I could have imagined. I get why you'd like it."
"Wait, you meant this place?" Aisha asked. "This place specifically?" She gestured at the room around her.
"Yeah?" He said. "I mean, it's really big and impressive-"
"It's not." She said quickly.
"What?" He asked, looking at her unexpectedly serious expression.
"This is not 'a lot'. This isn't even in the same country as 'a lot'. Trust me, you have no idea what counts as 'a lot' around here. This place is a damn rounding error. It's a point below the trivial threshold. It's background noise in the dataset."
Brian blinked as he took in his sister's rant of rather unexpected terminology. "This isn't important?"
"It's… not significant." She said, "It's nice to have my own place on the plateau, but it's not like this was any kind of major project." She shook her head. "Like I said, I was thinking about building something like this, and that was just a side project."
"Plateau?" Brian furrowed his brow. "I think we might need to start over."
"Yeah, I know, a million questions." She said, "At least let me get started on this." She turned towards the watch.
"What are you going to do?" He asked.
"Mostly switch out the outdated crap so I don't need to worry about you getting yourself killed when this thing overloads." She said, looking down at the worktable. "Seriously, this is just embarrassing. Microfusion cells and a direct plasma feed? It's just lucky you never ran into anything serious." She paused and turned back to him. "Which I guess was the point."
Brian shifted uneasily. "What do you mean it was the point?"
"Like I said, Joe underbuilt these. He was worried that if he gave you guys proper force fields you'd end up picking a fight with Hookwolf or trying to take over the city or something."
Brian frowned. "He can't have thought we'd be that stupid."
Aisha shrugged, turning back to the watch. "I think he was mostly worried about Khepri. Besides, didn't Bitch raid an Empire dogfight on her own?"
"That's…" Brian fell silent. It was hard to argue the point when Rachel's actions could be thrown in his face. He wasn't used to Aisha talking him down like this, but Rachel had attacked the Empire and Taylor had managed to convince everyone that she was seizing territory during a rescue operation. As much as he hated to admit it, Joe might have had a point.
"You really know how to modify something like this?" He asked, looking over Aisha's shoulder. She just nodded as she focused on the desk. "Um, I didn't even know you could take them apart."
"You can't. I mean, not really." Aisha said. "Fully enclosed and no seams."
"Then how are you going to? I mean, Joe said it could stand up to…" Well, to anything short of the kind of attacks that could hurt an Endbringer. He had assumed that Joe was grandstanding, or exaggerating things, but as time went on that seemed more and more plausible. "I didn't think they could be taken apart." He finished.
"Not conventionally." Aisha said with a smile. She set down a stylus she had been using to adjust one of the designs on the work surface. Brian looked at the geometric circle in confusion. His sister just grinned back at him and placed her hands on the design.
There was a sudden burst of blue-white light that seared itself into his retinas. He snapped his eyes shut, but could still see that geometric pattern burning in his vision. The sound of crackling electricity bloomed from the workbench and he could hear something shifting, but was more focused on shielding his eyes and blinking away the blinding glare. When the effect finally faded he saw his sister smiling at him smugly and his watch in pieces in the center of the circle.
"Fuck." He muttered. "You could have warned me."
"Where's the fun in that?" She asked, still smiling up at him.
"Right." He said, looking back at the workbench. The bench that apparently had some kind of molecular disassembler built into it. Normally he'd be worried about Aisha using that kind of thing, but as things went he was probably going to have to seriously reconsider the threshold for what it was worth worrying about. "Shouldn't you have been wearing safety goggles or something?" He asked as he blinked away the last of the spots from his eyes.
"Please, that wouldn't have been a problem even before…" She suddenly trailed off as her expression became serious. "I mean, it's not something I need to worry about."
"If you say so." Brian said, looking at his sister. There was something there, and he wanted to dig to find out what it was, but as it stood the stuff he would be digging through was probably more significant that whatever that particular point was.
He watched as Aisha picked apart the components of the watch. The terrifyingly powerful watch, which he had held in equal parts reverence and fear. He had no idea how Joe could have fit all the promised features inside his watch, much less the slimmer models he made for Lisa and Taylor. The interior components had been a mystery, and he'd accepted it staying a mystery.
But not anymore. He leaned forward as his sister expertly sorted the intricate components. Tiny crystalline pieces, strange manifolds, glowing components, and strange shaped metal pieces. Aisha seemed to recognize each of them as she pulled them out of the split casing of the watch. And then tossed them aside.
Not just aside. She dumped the entire contents of the watch into a small trash can like it was nothing. Even the power source with hundreds of years of energy was casually discarded.
"What the hell Aisha?" He asked.
"I said I need to fix it." She said, "That means switching out the parts that are outdated or liabilities."
"That was all the parts." He said.
"Not all." She said, holding up a tiny piece of metal smaller than a dime. "QEC needs to stay to keep the same link. But for the rest, I can either make or source better ones." She said confidently. "See?" She triggered some mechanism and a holographic breakdown of the watch appeared in the air over the workbench. Then it split apart into components, some of which Brian recognized from the disassembly. With a wave of his sister's hand most of the components were crossed off, leaving a handful highlighted.
"These are the only ones I can't build myself." She explained. "But they're easy enough to source."
"From Joe?" Brian asked.
"What?" She said, turning to him. "No. God no. Like, maybe for mods or alterations, but stuff Joe actually made himself? God no."
"Why?" Brian asked. "What's wrong with things that Joe makes?"
"There's nothing wrong with what Joe makes." She explained. "That's the problem. They're too good. You have no idea how overpowered those things can get. It's been that way for ages. It's why he's so careful about what he hands out, and why you haven't gotten anything from him since the watches."
"There were the costumes." He said, correcting her, but Aisha was already shaking her head.
"That was Garment." She explained.
"Really?" Brian asked.
"Yeah. Like, Joe helped with the design and stuff, but if he had actually made those it would have been way too much, even back then." She said seriously.
"Bulletproof, fireproof, self-repairing costumes that are more comfortable than casual clothes aren't too much?" He asked.
Aisha just let out a sigh. "Seriously, you have no idea." She muttered, turning back to the display over the workbench.
"I'm starting to get that." He said as he watched his sister work. He couldn't even guess at the machinery she was able to unfold from over-designed items of the workshop, but it was clear that she knew what she was doing. Which meant that she had picked up enough to at least put together something as complicated as one of Joe's watches, and with upgraded components.
"Did you learn that from Joe?" He asked.
She nodded without looking up. "Joe and the rest of the team." She said. It suddenly occurred to him that she might have set this whole 'upgrade' thing up so that she could get through this without having to look at him. Given the number of times he'd had to stare her down while calling her to task, he could understand why she'd want to avoid that, he just never imagined she'd resort to borderline tinker level engineering to do so.
"How did that happen?" He asked. "I can't believe Joe just started teaching you this stuff after you snuck in here."
His sister snorted. "Roundabout way of asking for the whole story, but fine." She said, "And yeah, it didn't start when I snuck in here."
"What happened?" He asked.
"Like I said. Garment spotted me. Joe did his brain thing so he could remember me when my power was up, then I got dragged away for the new dress." She smiled and briefly glanced back. "You know Garment threw out my old clothes?"
"Which ones?" He asked.
"The tube top and shorts, with the yellow fishnets." She said.
"Ah." Brian remembered that outfit. And apparently he owed Garment one for that.
"Anyway, after that he made some tea, sat me down, and explained how badly I fucked up." She continued.
"Tea?" He asked in amusement. For some reason Aisha scrunched her face up at his tone. "And that worked?" He wouldn't say it, but he was surprised that Joe had been able to get through to Aisha.
"Yeah, well, explaining the whole 'you fuck this up and we all die by Endbringer' did a lot to get his point across." She said, turning back to the workbench.
"What?" Brian gasped. "Why would he… who said anything about the Endbringers?" His voice pitched up as he spoke.
"Seriously?" She asked, looking back at him. "You know how strong he is. That's pretty much what the Simurgh does. Honestly, I'm surprised more people aren't worried about it."
Brian hadn't been, but he certainly was now, and the casual way his sister mentioned the Simurgh of all things didn't help.
"Fuck." He muttered.
"Yep. Pretty much my reaction." Aisha said, turning back to her work with a smile.
"But it's not… I mean, we don't really have to worry about that right?" He asked intently.
"About the Endbringers?" She asked, as if that was somehow a minor concern. "No, we're fine. I mean, it used to be a lot more dicey, and I could have fucked things up just by knowing what was going on, but it's under control now. Been under control for a while."
"How long of a while?" He asked. The subject alone was enough to make him feel lightheaded, and Aisha's casual attitude towards it wasn't helping.
"Since… I guess since Saturday." She said.
Which meant that they had been covered before Somer's Rock. And another piece fell into place, one that Brian hadn't even known was missing. The debut of Joe's team, whoever they were and however he had found them, hadn't happened until his concerns about the SIMURGH were under control. And Joe had said something about security in his workshop. And had been working to deal with the Simurgh from before Brian had even considered that might be a risk.
Joe had kept his team hidden until he was sure he didn't need to worry about attracting the Simurgh's attention. Hopefully, because as impossible as it was, that was what it sounded like. And before that there had been some provision he'd been using, which might have involved his workshop. A workshop that Aisha had blundered straight into.
"Yeah." Aisha said, watching his expression. "Pretty much my reaction. Kind of drives home what you're actually dealing with."
"Yeah." Brian said as he swallowed a lump in his throat. He'd been so focused on what Joe's growth meant for the team, the city, for his own situation, that he hadn't even considered the wider implications. The type of thing that typically happened to tinkers, to capes of that level.
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the feelings of barely avoided dread. He thought Aisha had risked herself by following Joe to his workshop. He hadn't even considered the other risks something like that might involve.
"What was this?" He asked. "When did you sneak in… here?"
"It wasn't exactly like this back then." She said, alluding to aspects of the place that Brian was still struggling with. But there was a lot he was struggling with at the moment. He put that aside as Aisha continued. "Didn't even have a volcano back then." He tried to put it aside as Aisha continued, though from her expression she knew exactly what she was doing.
"It was the Sunday after Bakuda's attack. After the storage yard." She explained.
Brian blinked. "Sunday." He said. "Right after the cape blackout. Right after you-"
"Yeah." She said, avoiding her eyes by turning back to her work.
"You had your powers for less than a day and decided to sneak into a tinker's workshop?" He exclaimed.
Aisha set down the tool she'd been using, a kind of glowing rod that had been projecting some kind of shifting energy from the tip, and turned towards him. "Yes, I did. And yes, it was stupid. I know that. I fucking knew it right after it blew up on me. Trust me, I've had plenty of time to reflect on how stupid that was."
"It's only been a…" He trailed off. "Fuck, it hasn't. It's been ten times as long."
"Longer." Aisha said. "This time thing is kind of recent, and pretty minor. Joe has these computer simulation things that go a lot faster."
"What kind of-" He cut himself off. What she was implying, it was a big concern. Probably one of the biggest ones, but he couldn't get distracted now. "What did Joe do, after he warned you about the Endbringers?"
"Explained how bad it could be. Made sure I knew what was at stake. Told me how to avoid fucking it up, then sent me home." She explained with a shrug.
"Just like that?" Brian asked. "He just let you leave?"
"Well, Garment gave me a bunch of clothes first, but yeah." She said.
"You… You knew who he was, where his lab was. The kind of stuff he was working on and how bad it could be, and he just let you go?" Brian asked, pressing on.
"Yeah." She said, "I mean, what else was he going to do? Mindwipe me? Stick me in a stasis field and hope no one notices?"
The implication that Joe could have done those things didn't sit well with Brian, but few things about the situation were. Repeating that wasn't really helping him deal with the situation, but it felt like if he didn't he would lose track of exactly how enormous this clusterfuck was.
"I get that, but he was really okay with you just leaving?" He asked.
Aisha shrugged. "It wasn't out of nowhere. He knew me from the gym."
"And that helped?" He asked.
"Ha." She said flatly. "But yeah, I guess? Based on that he decided to trust me." She saw Brian's expression. "I know. It was weird for me as well."
"That…" Brian didn't have words for it. He didn't know if he could have words for it. There was just too much to process. He took a breath and did his best to focus. "You left. No agreement to check in or meet or anything?" Aisha shook her head. "Then how did you end up here? On the team?"
His sister suddenly averted her eyes, quickly turning back to the workbench and picking up another strange tool. "Aisha?" Brian asked again. "What happened?"
She paused for a moment, then let out a breath and set down the tool. "What do you think happened?" She said without looking up. "I fucked up again."
Brian felt himself tense. "What happened?"
His sister turned to face her and he could see the reluctance on her face. The same expression she always wore when she needed to own up to something major.
"You remember the Monday after the blackout?" She asked.
Brian nodded. "Yeah. People were regrouping. At least until Joe attacked that ABB building." Instantly he recognized the shift in Aisha's posture. "Wait, you mean…"
"It was stupid." She said, turning back to the table.
"What was stupid?" He demanded. Possibilities were flitting through his mind. A hundred nightmare possibilities with the reminder of what Aisha was prone to getting herself into before this sudden, or maybe not so sudden change.
"I decided to track down the ABB." She said, as if that was at all reasonable.
"What?" Brian asked. "Did Joe put you up to that?"
"Fuck no." She said, "That was all me. You know, on account of what happened to my BROTHER, I thought it would be better if someone took them down."
"And that was going to be you?" He demanded.
"My power doesn't make me invisible." She shot back. "People literally can't notice me, no matter what happens. If they get punched in the face they wonder about the nosebleed, not tracking down the person who hit them."
Brian felt a chill. It was the kind of thing he had heard theories about when it came to Lethe's power, but hearing it directly from his sister was another matter.
"It was still dangerous." He said.
"I know." She replied. "I even knew back then. I wasn't being stupid. Not after Garment. I was avoiding cameras and sensors, tailgating through security doors, that kind of thing."
"That's not enough. Not for the ABB." He said.
"Yeah, I realized that when the guy I was next to exploded into crystal needles." She spat.
"What?" Brian asked, the anger suddenly leaving his body.
Aisha dropped her head. "March had a bunch of people conscripted. Financial types doing stock trades. I tried to see what they were working on, but the timings were super precise, and March had the bombs set to go off after any mistake. The guy died, and I ended up impaled." She took a shaky breath. "Would have been worse without Garment's costume."
"What costume?" He asked.
Aisha smiled. "She hid it in the clothes she gave me. Didn't even tell Joe about it. Kind of an early version of the stuff she made for your team. Held off most of the spikes, made some of the others less bad. Mostly got knocked away from it, but still pinned down."
Brian felt the blood drain from his face as Aisha explained the situation, rubbing her hands over her arms as she talked. "What happened?"
Specifically, how did she get out of that, and how was Joe involved?
She took another breath. "Waited until the people left the room. Turned off my power and called Joe."
"Why Joe?" He asked. The unspoken question was 'why not him?'.
"He was the only one who could remember me when my power was on." She explained. "My only other option would have been to turn it off and get captured. Captured by the ABB." She added for emphasis. Brian could only nod at that.
"And Joe just came charging in?" He asked.
Aisha smiled. "Did you see what happened to that place?"
Brian dropped his head. He's seen the aftermath, and the footage of Joe's fight with Uber and Leet's robots, but like everyone else, he had no idea why Joe had flown off the handle like that. With what he did to the ABB's finances, the assumption was that it had been a target of opportunity, but no one was sure.
Because no one could imagine that he'd be charging in to save a stupid thirteen-year-old girl who had gotten in over her head for the second time in as many days. Brian didn't know how to feel about that. More specifically, he didn't know which of the dozens of reactions was the right one to go with. Outrage, anger, gratitude, fear, concern, and more warred in his head. He slumped as the weight of the situation caught up with him.
Hell, that attack had been one of the things that had set Lisa off. She's been beside herself trying to figure out what had happened and was convinced that any deal Joe made could fly apart at the slightest change to his power or situation.
Instead all of that chaos had been on account of his sister. Oddly appropriate for Aisha, even if it was orders of magnitude more than what she usually accomplished.
"And after THAT, then you joined the team?" He asked.
"Um, sort of?" She said, "It was kind of Joe accepting that I was going to get mixed up in things no matter what he said, so he at least wanted me to have power armor for the next time."
That… Brian felt himself slump further. Back when he'd been trying to cope with the aftermath of Bakuda's attack and keep his team from falling apart, his sister had been dealing with this. Dealing with a trigger and powers and getting caught up in the biggest mess the city had to offer.
In a way it was a relief that Joe's motivation had been to keep Aisha safe. It was better than he could have hope for as a start to this. Things had clearly progressed far past the point of making sure Aisha didn't hurt herself, but for that starting point it was something he felt grateful for.
Grateful, and embarrassed that it had been needed. That he hadn't been there for Aisha when this was happening. He wasn't the one she called when things were at their worst. And even if she had, what could he have done? Try to rally the team while Aisha was captured by the ABB? Or forget her the second she had to use her power again?
No, Joe was the only good option, and he was thankful there had at least been a good option to get Aisha out of probably the biggest mess of her life. Well, assuming you didn't count the scale of her current situation, because calling it 'messy' was beyond an understatement.
"Okay." He said slowly. "But how did you go from that to full member, or whatever."
Aisha dropped her head. "The Ungodly Hour happened." She said quietly, and suddenly Brian felt uneasy.
"Yeah." She said, turning back to him. "Who would have thought I'd need to get used to seeing streaming footage of people close to me splattered across the landscape." There was a bitter humor to her voice. "You and Joe could bond over nearly dying on stream."
"Aisha…" Brian began. "What happened?"
"You mean besides Joe getting blown up, nearly killed, and almost eaten by a super parasite while I couldn't do anything?" Aisha asked flatly.
"Parasite?" Brian asked.
"Proto Aima." She elaborated. "I didn't know about it at the time either."
"That…" He started before managing to focus. "That's not good."
"No shit?" Aisha asked. "Because I was under the impression that it was all sunshine and rainbows."
"No, I mean, obviously that whole thing wasn't good. But if Joe was keeping something like that from you, who knows what else… what?" He asked, looking at the amused expression on Aisha's face.
"Was." She said, "He was keeping it from me, and mostly because I didn't ask."
"What, if you want to know something he just tells you?" Brian asked.
"Unfortunately." She said in a tired voice.
"What does that mean?" He asked.
"It means that stuff that Joe deals with has implications, and if you know about it then, congratulations! You get to deal with those implications as well." She shook her head. "Honestly, I miss the time when I was just a junior member or whatever." She looked up at him. "Responsibility fucking sucks."
Brian couldn't help it. Despite how serious the situation was, the combination of Aisha tone, her posture, her expression, and the particular point she decided to be petulant on all came together in a way that just set something off. He made a failed attempt to contain the first burst of laughter, but the rest erupted forth faster than he could hope to regulate. The way Aisha's pout only intensified at his reaction just made things worse.
"Well, at least you find it amusing." She said, looking down at him. Since at that point he was nearly doubled over from laughing with tears in his eyes, but he couldn't help it.
"I'm sorry, but that's coming from you, of all people." He said, and another fit of chuckles burst forth.
"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. It still sucks." She said, crossing her arms.
He took a couple of breaths and managed to bring himself under control. It wasn't easy, but he managed it. The release of emotion had done him good. All the concerns were still there, but somehow they seemed manageable. Well, maybe not manageable, at least not for him specifically, but it wasn't the insurmountable mounting dread that he'd been struggling with.
It also gave him time to think. Without all the worry dragging him down, things started falling into place.
"That was it, wasn't it?" He asked. "The Ungodly Hour. Things went to hell and you had to step up."
Aisha let out a breath. "From what I heard, a lot of people have been having to 'step up'." She said, "I mean I didn't get a formal promotion or anything, but yeah. That's kind of when things got serious."
Brian nodded. In terms of how his sister could have gotten tangled up with the Celestial Forge, that was more understandable, and less concerning that it could have been. Still not good, but not the nightmare he's been constructing in his head.
"I couldn't do anything, but I had to deal with EVERYTHING." Aisha continued. "And possibly everything of everything." She looked at him and shook her head. "I wasn't ready for that. I don't think anyone could be, not really."
Brian nodded, letting his sister continue.
"And suddenly I was dealing with the most powerful people on the planet and they were looking at me like I knew anything about what was happening or what to do!" She exclaimed. From her tone, it sounded like this had been brewing for a while. "But I dealt with it." She said, "Or the parts I could deal with." She took a breath. "Because sometimes you have to deal with things and it sucks. It sucks a lot, but there's no way around it, except trying to ignore it and just making everything ten times worse, which was bad enough when it was just the kind of stupid shit like what I used to put you through."
Brian smiled at that. "I don't think those days are exactly over." He made a point of looking around the elaborate room.
"Ha." She said, "But yeah, last of the residual stupid shit, so be grateful for that. No more surprises waiting for you."
Brian nodded. He'd heard similar sentiments from Aisha before, but this was possibly the first time he was inclined to believe her.
"The stuff you were dealing with?" He asked. "The rest of Joe's team couldn't handle that?"
Aisha sighed and looked up at him. "They were already dealing with what they could. Or what they could back then." He gave her a confused look. "Their story, not mine. I mean, they probably won't mind if I spill, but it's not my place to tell."
It was more respect and deference than he was used to seeing from Aisha, in that it was a level of respect and deference. Those weren't really things he associated with Aisha. Like, at all. Just the presence of them in an apparently sincere form was inherently strange, but not a bad kind of strange.
"People have been talking online about Joe's team." Brian said. "That they're Case 53s, or something like that."
"Yeah, well, people have been saying a lot of things." Aisha said. "But for what you're getting at, yeah. There wasn't much more they could do back then."
Brian nodded, satisfied to leave things there.
"It sounds like a lot to deal with." Aisha just nodded. This wasn't the angle he expected the conversation to take, but he hadn't expected any of this. "I guess you've had time to get used to it." He continued. "More time than I thought."
"Yeah." She said, quickly turning back to the workbench.
"I mean, all the stuff with Garment and Dad, but if you've actually had weeks…" He said, thinking out loud.
"Eh…." Aisha said, making a nebulous gesture.
"Longer?" He asked. "Cause of the computer? So what, you've been at this for months?"
"Eh…?" She repeated with the same gesture and a higher inflection.
Brian felt his eyebrows rise. "What do you… Aisha, how long has it been?"
She shifted slightly, then turned to look back at him. "Well, I mean, I'm still probably younger than you?"
"Probably?" He demanded.
"Yeah, well, mental development isn't the same as maturity and socialization, so extended time spent in cognitive spaces doesn't have the same impact on effective age, even though it's not affecting physical or chronological features." She said quickly. Brian just stared at her. "Um, I had time to get my GED."
He blinked. That was… it was something grounded. The rest of this was insane, but that was something he could actually grasp on to.
"Well, that's good." He said.
"Yeah." She said, "And like twenty college degrees worth of science and engineering courses." She added in a muttered whisper.
"You?" He gasped. "You've been studying… what? Math? Physics? At a college level."
"Not really at a college level." She said.
"Oh, good." He said, feeling some of the tension leave.
"It's pretty far above college level, so I guess independent research projects? Or experimental concept development?" She continued.
"You." He said. "You're serious?"
She looked at him, then gestured back to the watch. "You think this is easy?"
He blinked. "I thought you were upgrading it, like putting more ram in a computer."
"Please, this is a complete redesign." She gestured again and the holograms reappeared above the workbench. Dozens of blown-up designs that were as incomprehensible as ever. "This stuff is custom on every front. Bespoke designs specifically for this project."
He looked at the array of complex outlines in the air. "Seriously?" He asked.
His sister shifted. "Okay, maybe most of them are modifications, or repurposed stuff from some of my other projects, and these do have to be sourced from people with bullshit crafting powers." A handful of the parts were highlighted. "But it's still my work."
Brian let out a breath as he looked from the hologram to his sister. "So you're a tinker now?"
"Do you mean in PRT threat assessment terms, or from a power mechanics perspective?" She asked. "Because it's no to the first and kind of to the second, and only if you really stretch the terminology."
"But that's…" He began. "No matter how long you work, you can't just teach someone to be a tinker."
"You mean YOU can't teach someone to be a tinker." She shot back.
Brian looked at his sister. He knew she wasn't talking about him specifically. No, just general conventions compared to the kind of thing Joe could do.
Trump effects. More than just the modification to Aisha's power. She was a tinker, or at least able to work at a level close to one. Earlier, that outburst that had just dragged his attention towards her, he'd thought it was some alternate use of her Lethe power, but the way Joe had acted, that didn't seem right. It seemed like it was something new, but also something expected. Either more powers, or more changes to Aisha's power.
"Does Joe have a power that lets you learn this stuff?" He asked.
Aisha pulled herself up. "What because I couldn't learn it on my own?" She asked. He gave her a flat look. "Fine. He has a power that lets him break down complicated topics for people. And some other stuff that helps with learning, but kind of indirectly."
"Like Teacher." He said in a concerned voice.
Aisha's expression turned sour. "Not like Fucking Teacher. It's information transfer, not a power-based alteration technique." She said, "And it's not like anyone else is having a problem with it."
Brian felt a worrying chill. "What do you mean?" He asked.
Aisha smiled. "Notice how people who watch Garment's videos have an easy time remembering details of eighteenth-century court fashion, or sewing techniques, or the history of fiber processing, or whatever."
"Wait, Joe's seriously been using that power on Garment's videos?" He asked.
Aisha shook her head. "It's not a power. Not like you're thinking. It's a way to present information so it's clearer and easier to understand, not some brainwashing trump effect."
"Even if it's a thinker thing instead, it's still dangerous." Brian insisted.
"It's really not." Aisha countered. "You're worrying over nothing."
"I'm not." He said, "This is serious. People who hand out powers are usually dangerous."
"People who hand out powers are hacks." She shot back. "Most of the time either they or the person getting the power doesn't know what's happening. Usually both. It's not like that with Joe."
"Right, because when Joe hands out powers…" He began, then stopped as things fell into place. "Joe handed out powers." He continued.
"What?" Aisha asked.
"Joe. He gave you powers. Other powers." Brian said in a firm voice.
"Well, yeah." Aisha said. She clenched a fist and a purple shimmer spread over her body before fading away. She looked down at the workbench, then turned back to him as various tools and components floated into the air around her. She just smirked as the horror of the situation dawned on him.
"Jesus Aisha, what were you thinking?" He demanded. "What was Joe thinking?"
"Mostly that he didn't want me to end up like he did in the Ungodly Hour." She said as one of the tools floated to her hand.
"So this, all this, was because he was concerned about you?" He asked.
"Pretty much, yes." She said, as the other floating objects settled onto the table behind her. "You fuck up often and badly enough and people get protective."
She looked directly at him as she said that and he felt called out. He shook his head. "Do I even want to know what he did?"
"Do you have time for a lecture on higher level metallic inference resonance?" She asked. He stared at her blankly. "Yeah, I thought so, and that's just for the Valkyrur powers." She shook her head. "I get where you're coming from, but I didn't jump into any of this blind. I had literal months to go over the information for this stuff, and unlike other people, Joe actually knows how his technology works."
"I know he thinks he does, but he's not… Aisha, everyone knows he's unstable." He insisted.
"No, everyone thinks he's unstable because they only see him in short bursts between about twenty powers and five interstellar civilizations of technological development." She shot back. "Everyone's wrong, and I think I'm better qualified to say that than you."
He shook his head and glared down at her. "Aisha, I'm serious, this is dangerous."
She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "More dangerous than working for a mystery supervillain who bribes you with fully stocked playhouses?"
He tensed, taking a half step back. "That's different."
"Yeah, it's completely different. And a lot worse." She said, closing the distance.
"It's fine." He insisted, suddenly wondering how he ended up on the defensive. "And it's what I have to do. You don't have to approve, but I need this for-"
"For what?" She demanded, and suddenly Brian felt rudderless.
It was a point. An obvious point. Something that he had been trying to avoid thinking about. It had been easy to focus on the surface level issues. Aisha had gotten herself into a mess, and he had to deal with that. It was a bigger and more complicated mess than anything she'd caused before, but that part at least was familiar territory.
And maybe, after everything, there was the hope that somehow things could go back to normal. That he could get Aisha out of this mess and get things back on track. Secure custody, get her moved in, keep her safe from their mom and make sure their dad was okay with everything. It was a lot, but it was something he'd been working towards for years. Something he'd been laying the groundwork for, brick by brick.
And that had been crumbling more and more as the conversation had gone on. It was something he was aware of, if not on a conscious level. It wasn't just that the foundation he'd been building had fallen away, it was that it wasn't even needed. The situation was so different, Aisha was so different, that he didn't even know what the future would look like.
"Arcadia." He said. "It was just a cover story, right? It's not like you actually need the school."
Aisha nodded. "Arcadia is a cover story. Garment is a cover story. It's all cover."
"So, what's next?" He asked.
"Well, I've got to finish your watch, then we should get back to the Gym." She replied.
"I meant after that." He said.
"Well, I've got more work in here, and collaborations coming up." Aisha said.
"Aisha." He said pleadingly.
She let out a breath. "Honestly, I don't know." She turned to him. "Talk to me in a week and I might have some idea how this will all play out."
He nodded. He didn't like it, but he could understand. It was the only thing you could do when dealing with Joe. He hadn't dealt with as much of it as Aisha, but with that kind of power, all you could do was try to ride it out and be as ready as you could for what was coming.
"You know…" Aisha looked at him and he swallowed before continuing. "Of course you know. What I've been doing, and why."
"Yeah." She said, "Crime for my sake." She smiled. "I appreciate it, but probably not the best decision."
"It was the best one I had." He said, and it was one he'd make again. Things with Aisha might be completely upside down, but she was still his sister. Which meant he had to be the big brother he'd committed to being, even if she didn't need the same kind of support.
"Maybe at the time." Aisha agreed. "But you should probably reconsider working for Coil."
Brian blinked as his sister's words sunk in. "Coil?"
"Yeah. I mean you had to have had some idea." She looked at his face. "No, really?"
"I didn't, you're sure it's Coil?" Aisha just gave him a flat look. "Uh, right. Fuck."
"Reconsidering some things?" She asked with just a hint of snark.
He frowned as he worked to reassess the situation. He had assumed… well, he hadn't given that much consideration to the situation, but everything seemed to imply someone from outside the dynamic of Brockton Bay. Which did sort of apply to Coil, but only in an exceptionally twisted way.
Which was a good description for the entire situation. "Fuck." He muttered again. Suddenly, so many little requests and policies began to raise alarm bells in his head. Alarms that were actually able to drown out some of his concerns over Aisha's situation and Joe's involvement in it.
"Yeah, things are about as fucked as you're thinking." Aisha said. "But don't worry, Joe's working with Tattletale to bring him down."
There was a pinging sensation in Brian's brain and he briefly wondered if it was possible enough shocking revelations in succession could somehow trigger a brain aneurysm.
"What?" He asked. "Why?"
"Well, she hates Coil and Joe isn't going to leave you guys in a lurch." Aisha explained.
"No, I mean…" He shook his head. "If Joe's trying to bring down Coil, then why isn't it done already?" It seemed like the kind of thing Joe could take care of with thirty seconds of work and the bullshit power of his choosing.
"Timing, contingencies, countermeasures." She said with a shrug. "Seems like Tattletale's big on those." Brian had to give that a reluctant nod. "And there's other stuff we're working on, plus everyone shits themselves whenever someone from the team steps outside, so we're kind of trying to avoid provoking an international incident." She explained. "Or I guess that would be another international incident."
It took him a moment to place what she was talking about. "The Lung blast?"
Aisha nodded. "Visible from three continents. And apparently there are like, international treaties and governance boards about stuff that affects weather in other countries, and they're saying that counted."
"Um, yeah." Not a perspective that Brian had considered on Lung's death, but it made sense. And was another piece falling into place. Namely, why Joe wasn't out wreaking havoc and seemed content to hide away, at least for the moment.
"This is a lot to deal with." He said, slumping slightly. "I mean, my job, work history, savings, the apartment. It's all tied up with Coil."
"Well, if it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure Tattletale is trying to jack that stuff from Coil before Joe brings him down." Aisha explained.
"Right." He sighed. "And if she can't?"
Aisha smiled. "Well then, it would certainly be handy to be on good terms with a team of tech wizards." She said with an insufferable smirk. "One of whom just happens to be able to erase any digital information you might need gone."
"They'd do that?" He asked. "I mean, you'd do that?"
"I'd rather not see you dead or in prison." She said, turning back to the workbench. "Which is part of the point of this."
Brian let out a long breath as Aisha launched back into her work. It was… it was still bad. He didn't believe for a second he could trust Coil. That would have been enough to foster doubts, even with nothing else. But Coil was going down. If Joe was working towards that it was a complete certainty. And someone like Coil wouldn't go down without a fight, without causing as much damage as he could on the way.
Joe and, as hard as it was to believe, Aisha might be able to prevent that, to stop him from being pulled down along with the man, but even if they could save him and preserve every asset and piece of history that had been cultivated with Coil's assistance, that was all they would be able to save.
The team, that would be a thing of the past. He didn't know what would happen there, what Tattletale might try to do if she could get everything she was trying to secure, but it would be a fundamentally different situation.
Frankly, it already was. The team hadn't been the same since Bakuda. Even with their showing at Somer's Rock, with them able to stand on the same level as the other major powers of the city, it had all been pageantry and show compared to the Celestial Forge.
Compared to Aisha's team. Not the team Aisha was attached to, but one she was an active part of. An important and valued member. Hell, Lethe might be the most frightening cape in the group after Apeiron. And that was his sister.
His sister, who was trying to keep him safe. Trying to look out for him and be responsible, in defiance of everything he knew about her. Who might actually be capable of that.
Then it hit him. He wasn't getting Aisha out. She was getting him out.
Or at least she was trying to. It was embarrassing to be looked after by his little sister like that, but then again, she was only 'probably' younger than him. Depending on how things were counted, she could be his older younger sister.
As if the day wasn't complicated enough.
"You doing okay back there?" Aisha asked without looking up from her work.
"Yeah," He said, rubbing his neck. "Just trying to figure out where things go from here. What I'm supposed to do next."
"Well, you could have an existential crisis over the uncertain future, or you could look forward to the sweet ass new super watch I'm building for you." She said, glancing back with a grin.
He returned the smile. "I didn't think you'd be trying to bribe me with tinker tech to smooth things over."
"Please, this watch is going to be awesome on a level that will more than make up for all the Aisha stress you had to deal with." She snarked back.
He let out a short laugh. "Somehow I doubt it." He said, leaning forward. The work was still as incomprehensible as ever, and seemed to be happening on a scale too small for his eyes to follow. "What are you doing, anyway? I thought this was just about making the shield better."
"Well, that was the main point." She said, "The plasma loop to the primary deflector array was overly simplified and used substandard carrier mediums. I mean, it's what was available at the time, but that was ages ago."
Literally, from Aisha's perspective. Still, Brian had to smile at her enthusiasm.
"Talking about it like that, you make it sound like something out of Star Trek." He joked.
"Please." She said in clear offence. "This is better than anything they had on Star Trek. Even with the shared fundamental elements, there's no way they could come close to this kind of work."
Brian began to smile, then he faltered. "Wait, shared fundamental elements?" He asked.
"Yeah." She turned to him. "I mean, it is a deflector shield, when you get right down to it. Charged EM barrier-"
"I get that." He said. "But you were talking about it like it was actually from Star Trek."
Aisha shrugged, but there was a knowing look in her eye. "Well, it's close enough. And who knows where tinker knowledge comes from?"
"Not Star Trek." He said firmly, crossing his arms. "Wait, did Joe get you into that show?"
"Actually, it's Fleet, Survey, and the Matrix who are the biggest fans." She explained.
Brian blinked. "Really? Survey?"
"Name like that and you're surprised she's a giant nerd?" Aisha replied with a grin.
Brian shook his head. It was one thing to know that Aisha was a part of the team, but quite another to hear her sharing anecdotes about the media preferences of world class capes.
Which he supposed also included her. Lethe wasn't just a part of the Celestial Forge, she was one of the most important and frightening aspects of it. A stranger on a level that completely changed engagement protocols and response options. Who redefined what the team could be capable of and how much damage they could cause if opposed.
And she was actually Brian's trouble prone little sister, who might not be so little anymore.
"It's kind of hard to believe." He said, mostly to himself.
A mischievous smile crossed Aisha's face. "Do you want to ask her yourself?"
"What?" He exclaimed. "No!"
"Too late." She said in an almost singsong voice. A tone rang through the room and Aisha turned towards an empty section of it, just as a life-sized hologram of the woman he had briefly seen at Somer's Rock flickered into existence.
The image didn't have quite the impact of seeing Survey in person, but she was still incredibly striking. She wore the form-fitting costume that he'd seen in videos from the previous day, an improvement from what she'd worn at Somer's Rock in both design and detail. Actually, it looked like an improvement over the previous day. Despite the short time, her costume had been refined yet again.
"Aisha." The hologram said, nodding towards his sister.
"Hey." She said, gesturing to him. "You know my brother." It definitely wasn't a question.
"Yes." The hologram of the thinker said. "It is good that you were able to resolve matters satisfactorily with your sister. While no formal arrangements have been made, it is assured that you can rely on a measure of support regarding any instability that may result from your association with Coil."
"Um, thanks." He said. He wasn't sure what counted as a 'measure' of support when it came to the Celestial Forge, but it was nice to have some reassurance outside of Aisha. Despite the fact that he definitely had the impression that the offer was being extended because of Aisha. Just an attempt to look after the family member of a teammate who had gotten themselves in a bad spot.
Oh God, he really had switched places with Aisha. He was never, ever, going to live this down.
"I am also pleased that the revelation of this matter will eliminate the need to avoid the subject in reports and conversation." Survey continued, looking at his sister. "While it was not overly difficult to accommodate, the prevalence of the affected topics was beginning to impact effective communication of analysis."
Aisha dropped her gaze to the floor. "Yeah, sorry about that. Really didn't think it would drag out this long."
"It was improbable that the subject was avoided for such a length of time, but the situation proved to be an interesting case study in information transfer and topic avoidance." Survey said with a nod.
"Well, glad you enjoyed that part of it." Aisha said. She glanced to Brian expectantly, but he remained silent. "Thanks for dropping by."
"There was no trouble involved. Not unless my physical presence would be required." Survey said in response.
"Yeah, no worries there. You're good." She paused, and glanced at Brian. "We're good?"
"By all assessments. No additional measures will be necessary beyond those you have already put forward." Survey said.
"Good. Good." Aisha said. "Thanks." With a nod, the hologram vanished, leaving the two of them alone in the room. Aisha turned to him with a mock look of disappointment. "You didn't ask her about Star Trek." She said with a pout.
"Wasn't going to." He shot back. "Though what she said, Joe really didn't know about me?"
"No." Aisha said, shaking her head. "He doesn't pry, and didn't want to break the unwritten rules. Civilian identities and all that. Survey had to talk around it, but he never picked up on that."
"Seemed like he wasn't surprised when he saw me." Brian said.
Aisha cringed at that. "Believe me, he was." She said. Brian gave him a confused look. "He can do a portable version of the fast computer thing. Was able to have a whole talk about my fuckup in the span of a couple of seconds."
"Ah." Brian said, not quite knowing what to make of that. "But, how did Joe not know?" He asked. "He's Apeiron."
"Well, it helped that we have different passengers." She said.
"What?" He asked.
"Yeah, turns out I'm not a second-generation cape." She explained. "Completely independent passenger."
"The things behind powers?" He asked. He had only gotten brief flashes of… something, back when Joe's bike was shorting out at the storage yard. He tried to put it out of his mind, but then everyone started talking about passenger theory and what it could mean.
Aisha nodded. "Normally, second generation capes are secondary connections to the same passenger, but we have completely different passengers. Independent triggers."
Which meant Aisha had had a full trigger, not the reduced ones that second gen capes were known to have. It also meant that there had been no point in telling her she might get powers. She had, but not because of him.
"How does that happen?" He asked.
A smile bloomed on her face. "Well, passenger connections can jump down from parents if the parents don't trigger. Mine came from Dad, so…"
Brian looked at her for a second, and then the penny dropped. "No."
"Yes." She said, smiling even wider. "Guess who got their powers from Mom."
"That's… no. There's no way." Sure, he had been close to her when he triggered, but that didn't mean…
Fuck. He didn't need to know this, and Aisha was getting way too much enjoyment out of telling him.
"Anything else?" He asked.
"Loads." She said, though there was a serious edge to it. "Though the real question is how much do you want to know. Or I guess how much do you want to deal with today?"
Not much, honestly. Brian was close to his limit, but something she said stuck out to him.
"Are you okay telling me this?" He asked. "I mean, all of this? Bringing me in here? Letting me know about everything?"
"This isn't close to everything." She said, "And I mean, you're my brother. That gets you some trust."
That should have felt good, but he knew where it was coming from. "Because of your trust."
"Pretty much, so I'd appreciate it if you don't waste it." She said.
"I'll try not to make you look bad." He shot back.
"Thanks." She said, "Oh, and don't try to reveal Joe's identity."
"I wouldn't." He assured her.
"Good." She said, "Because Joe cursed the knowledge of his civilian identity. If you try to reveal it, a lot of bad stuff is going to happen."
Brian felt the roiling concern from earlier in the conversation bloom back to full intensity. "When did this happen?"
"Night before last." Aisha said. "He told Tattletale, who I guess was supposed to tell you…"
"She didn't." He said sharply. Probably because none of the team would risk revealing Joe's identity.
He didn't know what this 'curse' was, and didn't want to get into it now. Not with everything else he was dealing with. Of course Joe could do horrible stuff if someone tried to expose his identity. The fact that he had apparently automated that process was still worrying, but not that much more so than everything else he could do or might do in that situation.
And it was a safeguard against him as well, which did explain why they were being so casual about this. That did take a bit of shine off of the trust that had been extended, but frankly he couldn't blame them. He would probably have been ten times as cautious if the situations had been reversed.
"Well, it should be fine as long as you don't do anything stupid." Aisha said. And the fact that it was her saying that to him was enough to cause a mild headache just from the discordance.
"Right." He said, looking back at the table. "How is that going?" He asked, mostly to change the subject.
"Pretty well. I just need the last parts." She paused, her eyes flickering blue again. Another thing that he could ask about, if he wasn't already near his limit. "And they're… here." She said, once again looking to an empty section of the room.
There was a slight crackling sound, then a point of gold appeared in midair that suddenly expanded and filled into a towering armored figure. Once again, one he had seen at Somer's Rock, complete with a scarf wrapped around the armored helm.
"Aisha." The Matrix's voice had a neutral tone and a slightly metallic edge. "The construction and modification of your requested components has been completed."
"Thanks." She said, as if having a giant robot appear in her house was a normal occurrence. "But you could have just sent them. You didn't have to bring them personally."
"Given my involvement in the fabrication of these components, I wished to see the completion of your project." He said, looking down at Aisha. "I also wished to personally deliver your requested power source."
Golden metal parted from the figure's armored hand and a sliver of blue crystal about the size of a pencil floated out, followed by a number of other small components that Brian vaguely recognized from the holographic diagrams Aisha had shown him.
"Thanks." She said, taking the blue crystal and setting the rest down on the work surface. "Miniaturization?" The figure nodded. "Great. I know these are a big deal for you, so thanks for this."
"Presently, there are a surplus of cores, even those adapted to miniaturization principles." The Matrix replied. "I admit to a level of disappointment with the limited deployment."
"Yeah, give it a couple of days." She said, setting the crystal down into a kind of housing that she had been working on. One that fit it perfectly. "Though I guess a couple of days in here…"
The Matrix nodded his armored head. "An excessive surplus. If you have need for any other applications…"
"I'll let you know." She said, "You sure you want to stick around? It's just the transmutation of the final bits, then assembly. Which I guess is more transmutation."
"I would be pleased to observe your work." The figure said, and there was a slight thrumming that Brian swore he could feel though the soles of his feet.
"Right." She said, focusing back on the workbench. "And you know my brother?" This time it actually sounded like a question.
"I did not care to, but I am pleased to make your acquaintance." The Matrix said, looming over Brian.
"Um, likewise." He said, shaking the man's armored hand.
"Oh, are we doing introductions?" A young girl's voice suddenly asked.
Brian flinched at the sudden appearance of a teenage girl with glowing red hair that matched the tones of her mask and costume. Despite his shock, there was no reaction from Aisha, just a tied sigh.
"I guess we are now. Brian, meet Tetra, also known as Proto Aima." Aisha said with a tired gesture. "She already knows who you are."
"Uh, nice to meet you?" He said, but the girl was already shaking his head with what he was willing to bet was supernatural strength. "Wait, weren't you a mink-thing?"
"Yep." She said happily. "I mean, I still am, but I'm a lot more now since Apeiron helped me." She looked up at Brian. "I could-"
"Hey, maybe hold off on the revelations for a little while?" Aisha called from the workbench. She triggered something on the casing holding the crystal and it shrunk down from the size of a pencil to smaller than a grain of rice. "I think we've had enough for one day."
It was a bit insulting to be treated with kid gloves, but given everything that had happened, he couldn't say he didn't appreciate it.
"That's fine. It was nice meeting you. We can talk later." The girl said.
"Thanks." He said, but she had already vanished. He looked around to be sure. "She's gone?"
"As gone as she ever gets." Aisha said ominously. "Might want to look away."
He barely had time to before Aisha brought her hands down on the set of circles she had been modifying on the workbench. Once again, blue-white light filled the room, though this time Brian managed to avoid looking directly at it. Just as quickly the light faded and Aisha was gesturing the Matrix over to the workbench.
"Can you do a final check before I put everything together?" She asked.
"I would be happy to assist, though with the quality of your transmutation, I do not believe there would be any issues." He said as he began examining the pieces.
"I'm more worried I might have messed up one of the other effects." She said.
"Unlikely. Those are particularly robust in their application. The most likely point of failure would be the analysis sensor, and that did not require additional transmutation or modification." He explained in his metallic voice.
"Um, what about…" She tapped the sliver of crystal.
"While the Mantic Core would provide some level of defense, the parallel iterations saw to the obfuscation effect. I believe it would maintain itself through any modification you would be capable of." He explained.
"Good." She said. "Good."
"Um, do I want to know what that's about?" He asked while keeping his distance.
Aisha turned to him from the table. "You know how I said we don't need to worry about the Simurgh?"
He held back a shiver at the casual mention of the name. "Yeah?"
"Well, now neither do you." She said with a smile. Then turned back to her work like nothing had happened. Brian felt his eyebrows climb to his forehead.
"What is that?" He asked.
"Mantic Core." Aisha said. "Or a slimmed down one. Power source that doesn't run out, with some other benefits, but I got them to juice it to help keep you off the Simurgh's radar. You know, in case you try something incredibly stupid."
"I'm not going to try anything stupid." He protested, feeling almost petulant.
"Survey's analysis would disagree, based both on base actions and predictive assessments, contingent on circumstance and external factors." The Matrix interjected. Brian looked at the massive armored man, trying to figure out if that had been as insulting as it seemed. Aisha cleared her throat, drawing his attention back.
"And we're good." She called, gesturing down to the workbench.
The components had been arranged inside the watch casing. He watched through squinted eyes as his sister placed her hands on the design, causing it to light up and erupt with lightning. Through the lightshow, he could see the casing of the watch, that impossibly durable metal, break apart and reform once more into a complete piece.
When Aisha lifted her hands the watch was as good as new. The design had changed slightly, but not in a bad way. She lifted it from the circle and handed it to him. It felt warm and maybe slightly heavier, but otherwise the same. He slipped it on his wrist and it was like nothing had changed.
"I cloned all the data and settings from the last system and put them into actually decent hardware." Aisha explained. "Stripped out some of those arbitrary restrictions, so you're not limited to copying cell phones anymore."
"What about the shield?" He asked. "That was the point of this, right?"
Aisha nodded. "I upgraded everything, full life support and scrubbers so you don't need to worry about time limits, and the shield had unlimited power from the core."
Brian furrowed his brow. "So what, it can't break?"
"Normally it could. Emitters could still be overloaded, but this is where it gets great." She said with a wide smile. "You know how Joe was scanning your power from the watch?"
"Yeah." He said unsteadily.
"Probably didn't know this, but your 'darkness'? It works by dumping EM energy in another dimension." She explained.
"What, seriously?" He asked.
"Yeah. Your powers are actually all about moving between universes." She said excitedly. "Thing is, I rigged it so the shield discharge should be emitted in a band that your power can handle with almost unlimited throughput."
"Um, which means?" He asked.
"Basically, keep your darkness up and the shield won't drop." She said with a bright smile.
"You can do that?" He asked. "Like a trump?"
"It's not a trump." She said, rolling her eyes and muttering something about paranoia. "It's standard tinker stuff. Working with established effects of powers. It just means that the shield is going to hold up forever."
"What, against anything?" He asked.
"Uh, most things." She said, "The upper threshold is pretty high, but enough force can punch through it. It will come back in a single frequency cycle, but that would still hurt. There are also weird power effects that it might not hold against. Like I said, don't do anything stupid like fight the Triumvirate."
"I wouldn't…" He began, but one look at the Matrix suggested that the man probably had an assessment of the chances of his deciding to fight the Triumvirate under assorted situations. "Whatever. We done?"
"That depends. Are you good?" She asked.
Brian shook his head. "Not really. This is way too much." He said, letting out a breath. "But in terms of all this?" He said, gesturing around them. "I guess I can deal. Probably need to sleep on it. Maybe it will be better in the morning."
For some reason, Aisha looked unusually stiff when he said that, like she was holding back something amusing. He put it out of his mind. There was more they'd need to deal with, but they could deal with it. That was the big thing. That this situation, crazy as it was, could actually be handled without turning into a massive disaster for everyone involved.
"Well, that's a start." She said, "And we should probably get back."
"Apeiron has been managing the situation in your absence, though he has requested an opportunity to speak with you prior to your departure." The Matrix said with a nod.
"Thanks." She said, "You ready for another talk with Joe?"
"I guess." Brian said. "Can't be worse than the last one." After all, there were only so many ways you could have your world turned upside down before you started to get used to the situation.
