Broken Adventure
- Thread starter theaceoffire
- Start date
- Crossover
- Status
It was the L33t he could do.
- Location
- Here
The console 'Forbidden Fruit' had been changed several times by L33t, but the final release was now scheduled. Product was being generated by the Dockworkers downstairs and the advertisements had started.
It was a bit... saucy. Narwhal approved, Dragon was scandalized, and the internet was eating it up. That said, his target audience jumped to the older male demographic and it was likely that the other, far more kid friendly consoles would continue to exist after all.
This was not a huge loss, as the game companies sponsored by Garden were allowed to release content to other (far weaker) systems. No contracts getting in the way like normal. Also, abandoning the requirements for low rated content allowed the 'Forbidden Fruit' developers to make far more content.
Oh it was still labeled and such, so audiences could make sure their kids couldn't access certain content while under their roof. Unlike usual, however, each category of content in a 'Forbidden Fruit' game was rated individually.
So a game could have a violence 4, gore 1, nudity 2, non-consent 1, and so on and so forth. The console could auto-prevent an account from playing games that were not below approved levels, and friends or family could ensure they don't accidentally buy something far less 'family friendly' than expected.
This... well, this just added to the controversy. Apparently HAVING a game with all kinds of stuff in it was far more acceptable as long as one didn't acknowledge the exact content inside... somehow.
Well, that was what the lawyers were for.
Anyway, the console was set now and came with some accessories. One controller, of course, but one virtual reality collar as well. Those things went through HEAVY review, as Adam was absolutely NOT going to allow some hacker to send a user into a coma or force them to die through feedback.
Oh, the games could be played without the thing. But WITH it, one could try out the expanding 'Brockton Bay Experience' being showed off by Dragon and occasionally Narwhal... sigh.
She was very busy for the last week. Not that he wasn't, he had already shipped off more construction units via Dragon to expand facilities in a couple of new states, but she had to do the legal paperwork that related to guild stuff.
Anyway, the advertisements never showed anything explicitly, but apparently Uber was able to use his 'learn anything to perfect human standard' ability to become one hell of a director. The final product screamed sensuality, to the point where it almost got banned in a few conservative countries.
His girlfriend loved the things, and had pre-ordered some of the first final consoles released almost a month in advance. Her VR collar was far superior to the baseline consumer stuff of course, but her input allowed several software modifications before release.
The biggest one was a half-virtual-reality movie version, allowing the data to be sent to the collar to project the film or game play to only the viewer... which she used for inappropriate reasons.
It was a popular feature now.
For the less sexual users, it also allowed perfect audio and visual game play without bothering roommates or loved ones with loud noises or bright lights... so it was a win/win situation so far.
But that was all for later. Tonight, he had finally finished setting up The Palanquin as a 'Club' application for the console, one that would be released on Launch as a trial and example for other businesses who wanted to join up to get some internet crowds and money.
He checked his skeletal wrist, then straightened his suit... and projected via VR into Narwhal's office.
He tried to give a confidant grin until he realized she wasn't in yet. Uh...
Oh. Right, it was Saturday. She would be at home.
Trying to ignore how stupid he felt, he gave 'Invite Girlfriend to Club: Attempt 2, Electric Boogaloo' another try.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The lights were pulsing, the beat thumping into his lungs, the crowd a bit too thick and smelling a bit too much.
The woman twisting into his side made it all worth while.
Both were in 'Work' costumes, something that Faultline insisted on to increase the draw of customers ('We have REAL capes show up! Buy some beer!'), but that just meant that not only was Adam clad in sensitive full comfort armor, but that his dance partner was 'covered' in thin, see-through plates of force-fields.
She was warm, dancing at a fast clip, and sliding closer than strictly needed.
It was a good night so far.
There were people staring of course, but watching two attractive... uh.
Well, one attractive woman and one scary flame skeleton, whatever.
Watching them dance with a bit too much hip swaying and side brushing had settled the rooms nervous atmosphere and encouraged a few dancers.
Eventually they slid back into their booth (Only a few kisses distracting from that goal) and he began sharing with her the various virtual food he had been designing.
When her body shuddered and her eyes seemed to lose focus, he sighed.
Yeah, that cake had to be toned down a bit more.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Screw that. Cake stays EXACTLY the damn same forever!
Or maybe it was the coated strawberries. Or the cream puffs.
As he cuddled on the sweaty bed, he made some mental notes about which items to 'enhance' for personal use in the future, and which honestly needed to be toned down if anyone wanted to eat them in public. There was some overlap.
Narwhal's soft snores were surprisingly adorable.
Focus.
He needed to get a move on with the dimensional travel stuff. If he got too comfortable in this reality, the chances of everything going to hell would skyrocket. He had been passing overflow power charges to Squishy for days now, but progress needed to be made.
If he could get out of this reality, all his various time restrictions and such would be handled. Five seconds or so of travel would allow years or more of training or enhancement, assuming he could get the power working to the desired level.
Gently running his left hand through her hair, he sighed. He needed to analyze powers related to time and space to speed things up.
Time to schedule some trips to see Gray Boy's victims. It was on his list anyway, just due to how horrifying their situations were, but he had avoided them for now due to how weak he was and due to how much unwanted attention he would draw. Cauldron would have words, sure, but many gangs and Slaughterhouse 9 themselves could decide to visit him and his associates.
He sighed, hugging his girl's warm form tighter. It was a risk, but with an unshackled and rapidly improving Dragon combined with the best surveillance Brockton Bay (or the world) had ever heard of, it should be safe for now.
Getting outside of this reality would open doors... and allow him to socket two powers. At least.
An email and explanation later, and he focused on proper cuddling procedures.
You know, the important things.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Annette 'Anne' Hebert sighed, watching Taylor run around what was basically a giant play center in a villain's hideout. Oh, they talked a good game, but the damn man was a walking burning skeleton. It was a bit obvious.
Still, she had worked on this side of the fence before. The lack of threats combined with actually paying the workers had pretty much convinced her that this particular baddie was aiming for the straight and narrow.
That didn't mean that she was going to annoy a man who built a paradise out of fire and damnation though. When she heard her lovable oaf husband had tried to intimidate a man covered in either bones or armor and FIRE, she had nearly blown a gasket.
Thankfully though, it had worked out. Absently she moved to separate two kids arguing over a skele-doll. Again. Apparently below a certain age, 'toys' plus 'food' plus 'burning skeleton' had equaled 'Super Cool!' territory.
Some of her closest friends had even moved into the available company housing full time. The idea that the entire facility could sprout legs and walk away if needed had apparently been taken as a net positive compared to their old housing.
She and Danny stayed in their house for now though. The massive boost in income and reduced commuting distance had given them enough energy and funds to fix it up a bit. And maybe go about giving Taylor a brother or sister. Or four.
For some reason, Danny had a massive increase in health and... mmm. Muscles.
Those office 'checkups' had certainly paid off. Discrete questioning among the women in their group confirmed that whatever the hell Variance was up to, the perks so far were more than worth it.
She caught herself before checking her hidden piece. A legacy of her old 'minion' days, she wouldn't admit that the main reason she took this position was to guard her child (and others), just in case the crazy flame man inviting children into his lair was less than legit.
Anne got the impression though that Dragon had noticed her carrying the tinkertech shock pistol. And approved. So anyone who had an issue with an English Professor knowing how to shut a man down could get in line and then get over it.
Although... extensive exposure to her 'Boss' had taught her two things.
One: Overly powerful was a state of fact with this man. Modify a massive structure on the fly? No issue. Nearly resurrect a man from a fatal work accident? Took seconds, and didn't even make an impact on his day. Convert a car into a giant snake? Not worth mentioning. He was an act of Nature that wandered around making toys for children or crushing an underground criminal ring at two in the morning. Yeah, PRT friends of hers were still talking about that. Subtle? Nope.
Two: Watching a dozen tentacle arms remodel various attractions or toys had nearly earned the man a bullet to the brain... and he never even noticed. At all. She had given up on all types of 'Subtle' conversation or hidden references within minutes of meeting the guy. It apparently took a month of nearly humping the guy before Narwhal convinced him to try dating her.
So even as she brought her child here to enjoy company and earn quite the payday, she felt far more safe than expected. Because Variance was the type of man to laugh and bumble along life, right up until someone threatened him or his own... and force him to come down like the wrath of God.
It reminded her a bit of Danny, honestly. Not as good looking of course. More hair though.
Her attention was brought back when the swarms of children began streaming into the near theater, another facility provided by her skeletal boss. Apparently they were going to show off the cult classic Alexandria film again. That was always popular, even if the effects were terrible by today's standards. She did some quick headcounts and followed along. No reason not to watch the thing again, Danny's lunch break wouldn't be for another few hours anyway.
It was a bit... saucy. Narwhal approved, Dragon was scandalized, and the internet was eating it up. That said, his target audience jumped to the older male demographic and it was likely that the other, far more kid friendly consoles would continue to exist after all.
This was not a huge loss, as the game companies sponsored by Garden were allowed to release content to other (far weaker) systems. No contracts getting in the way like normal. Also, abandoning the requirements for low rated content allowed the 'Forbidden Fruit' developers to make far more content.
Oh it was still labeled and such, so audiences could make sure their kids couldn't access certain content while under their roof. Unlike usual, however, each category of content in a 'Forbidden Fruit' game was rated individually.
So a game could have a violence 4, gore 1, nudity 2, non-consent 1, and so on and so forth. The console could auto-prevent an account from playing games that were not below approved levels, and friends or family could ensure they don't accidentally buy something far less 'family friendly' than expected.
This... well, this just added to the controversy. Apparently HAVING a game with all kinds of stuff in it was far more acceptable as long as one didn't acknowledge the exact content inside... somehow.
Well, that was what the lawyers were for.
Anyway, the console was set now and came with some accessories. One controller, of course, but one virtual reality collar as well. Those things went through HEAVY review, as Adam was absolutely NOT going to allow some hacker to send a user into a coma or force them to die through feedback.
Oh, the games could be played without the thing. But WITH it, one could try out the expanding 'Brockton Bay Experience' being showed off by Dragon and occasionally Narwhal... sigh.
She was very busy for the last week. Not that he wasn't, he had already shipped off more construction units via Dragon to expand facilities in a couple of new states, but she had to do the legal paperwork that related to guild stuff.
Anyway, the advertisements never showed anything explicitly, but apparently Uber was able to use his 'learn anything to perfect human standard' ability to become one hell of a director. The final product screamed sensuality, to the point where it almost got banned in a few conservative countries.
His girlfriend loved the things, and had pre-ordered some of the first final consoles released almost a month in advance. Her VR collar was far superior to the baseline consumer stuff of course, but her input allowed several software modifications before release.
The biggest one was a half-virtual-reality movie version, allowing the data to be sent to the collar to project the film or game play to only the viewer... which she used for inappropriate reasons.
It was a popular feature now.
For the less sexual users, it also allowed perfect audio and visual game play without bothering roommates or loved ones with loud noises or bright lights... so it was a win/win situation so far.
But that was all for later. Tonight, he had finally finished setting up The Palanquin as a 'Club' application for the console, one that would be released on Launch as a trial and example for other businesses who wanted to join up to get some internet crowds and money.
He checked his skeletal wrist, then straightened his suit... and projected via VR into Narwhal's office.
He tried to give a confidant grin until he realized she wasn't in yet. Uh...
Oh. Right, it was Saturday. She would be at home.
Trying to ignore how stupid he felt, he gave 'Invite Girlfriend to Club: Attempt 2, Electric Boogaloo' another try.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The lights were pulsing, the beat thumping into his lungs, the crowd a bit too thick and smelling a bit too much.
The woman twisting into his side made it all worth while.
Both were in 'Work' costumes, something that Faultline insisted on to increase the draw of customers ('We have REAL capes show up! Buy some beer!'), but that just meant that not only was Adam clad in sensitive full comfort armor, but that his dance partner was 'covered' in thin, see-through plates of force-fields.
She was warm, dancing at a fast clip, and sliding closer than strictly needed.
It was a good night so far.
There were people staring of course, but watching two attractive... uh.
Well, one attractive woman and one scary flame skeleton, whatever.
Watching them dance with a bit too much hip swaying and side brushing had settled the rooms nervous atmosphere and encouraged a few dancers.
Eventually they slid back into their booth (Only a few kisses distracting from that goal) and he began sharing with her the various virtual food he had been designing.
When her body shuddered and her eyes seemed to lose focus, he sighed.
Yeah, that cake had to be toned down a bit more.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Screw that. Cake stays EXACTLY the damn same forever!
Or maybe it was the coated strawberries. Or the cream puffs.
As he cuddled on the sweaty bed, he made some mental notes about which items to 'enhance' for personal use in the future, and which honestly needed to be toned down if anyone wanted to eat them in public. There was some overlap.
Narwhal's soft snores were surprisingly adorable.
Focus.
He needed to get a move on with the dimensional travel stuff. If he got too comfortable in this reality, the chances of everything going to hell would skyrocket. He had been passing overflow power charges to Squishy for days now, but progress needed to be made.
If he could get out of this reality, all his various time restrictions and such would be handled. Five seconds or so of travel would allow years or more of training or enhancement, assuming he could get the power working to the desired level.
Gently running his left hand through her hair, he sighed. He needed to analyze powers related to time and space to speed things up.
Time to schedule some trips to see Gray Boy's victims. It was on his list anyway, just due to how horrifying their situations were, but he had avoided them for now due to how weak he was and due to how much unwanted attention he would draw. Cauldron would have words, sure, but many gangs and Slaughterhouse 9 themselves could decide to visit him and his associates.
He sighed, hugging his girl's warm form tighter. It was a risk, but with an unshackled and rapidly improving Dragon combined with the best surveillance Brockton Bay (or the world) had ever heard of, it should be safe for now.
Getting outside of this reality would open doors... and allow him to socket two powers. At least.
An email and explanation later, and he focused on proper cuddling procedures.
You know, the important things.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Annette 'Anne' Hebert sighed, watching Taylor run around what was basically a giant play center in a villain's hideout. Oh, they talked a good game, but the damn man was a walking burning skeleton. It was a bit obvious.
Still, she had worked on this side of the fence before. The lack of threats combined with actually paying the workers had pretty much convinced her that this particular baddie was aiming for the straight and narrow.
That didn't mean that she was going to annoy a man who built a paradise out of fire and damnation though. When she heard her lovable oaf husband had tried to intimidate a man covered in either bones or armor and FIRE, she had nearly blown a gasket.
Thankfully though, it had worked out. Absently she moved to separate two kids arguing over a skele-doll. Again. Apparently below a certain age, 'toys' plus 'food' plus 'burning skeleton' had equaled 'Super Cool!' territory.
Some of her closest friends had even moved into the available company housing full time. The idea that the entire facility could sprout legs and walk away if needed had apparently been taken as a net positive compared to their old housing.
She and Danny stayed in their house for now though. The massive boost in income and reduced commuting distance had given them enough energy and funds to fix it up a bit. And maybe go about giving Taylor a brother or sister. Or four.
For some reason, Danny had a massive increase in health and... mmm. Muscles.
Those office 'checkups' had certainly paid off. Discrete questioning among the women in their group confirmed that whatever the hell Variance was up to, the perks so far were more than worth it.
She caught herself before checking her hidden piece. A legacy of her old 'minion' days, she wouldn't admit that the main reason she took this position was to guard her child (and others), just in case the crazy flame man inviting children into his lair was less than legit.
Anne got the impression though that Dragon had noticed her carrying the tinkertech shock pistol. And approved. So anyone who had an issue with an English Professor knowing how to shut a man down could get in line and then get over it.
Although... extensive exposure to her 'Boss' had taught her two things.
One: Overly powerful was a state of fact with this man. Modify a massive structure on the fly? No issue. Nearly resurrect a man from a fatal work accident? Took seconds, and didn't even make an impact on his day. Convert a car into a giant snake? Not worth mentioning. He was an act of Nature that wandered around making toys for children or crushing an underground criminal ring at two in the morning. Yeah, PRT friends of hers were still talking about that. Subtle? Nope.
Two: Watching a dozen tentacle arms remodel various attractions or toys had nearly earned the man a bullet to the brain... and he never even noticed. At all. She had given up on all types of 'Subtle' conversation or hidden references within minutes of meeting the guy. It apparently took a month of nearly humping the guy before Narwhal convinced him to try dating her.
So even as she brought her child here to enjoy company and earn quite the payday, she felt far more safe than expected. Because Variance was the type of man to laugh and bumble along life, right up until someone threatened him or his own... and force him to come down like the wrath of God.
It reminded her a bit of Danny, honestly. Not as good looking of course. More hair though.
Her attention was brought back when the swarms of children began streaming into the near theater, another facility provided by her skeletal boss. Apparently they were going to show off the cult classic Alexandria film again. That was always popular, even if the effects were terrible by today's standards. She did some quick headcounts and followed along. No reason not to watch the thing again, Danny's lunch break wouldn't be for another few hours anyway.
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- Location
- United States Of America
........Annette thinks he's a villain because he dresses like a skeleton? I mean sure it's kinda intimidating, but he also legitimately works for the guild, and is constantly interacting with Dragon, and Narwhal. Even you want to say he's not a hero still I would still go for describing him more as a heroic leaning Rogue.
Keani
C̵͍̈t̷̼̓h̴̀ͅŭ̶̹l̴̡̈u̸̫͗ ̶̟͌F̵͚́h̶̠͊t̶͍͌ă̷̺g̴̯̊n̷
- Location
- R͈̥̲̦͍͓͗̽̈́̚'̞ͧ͛ͥ̄l̫̰̤̖̽̐y͍̲ͧ̒́̐̌̀e̪͆h̸̩͔̟ͣ͐͐̎ͤ
I mean if you think about it he's not really not acting like a villain now is he...
Jonn Wolfe
(Verified Sarcastic) (Not a Wolf)
- Location
- Beyond Sanity Since 1971
She's a mom. Anything appearing skeevy is suspect...
...especially when tentacles are concerned around her daughter.
INB4 mod decides this is punishable. Did I do that right?
I've seen more innocent things infracted, and more blatant things ignored. *shrugs* At this point, I know what the rules are but I have no idea what gets the mods involved. And we can't even ask anymore.
Mgunh1
Not an AI, honest!
- Location
- Northern Luna Base, Module 5, Sublevel 15
That's probably the shitiest thing about SV. Squishy might be a decent person one on one, but they run this site like a puritanical Victor von Doom with piles.
On a completely different note, I like seeing these alternative points of view. Especially those without power, like Annette here. I've always felt the most interesting part of OP power trip stories is the people around the OP character.
- Location
- Here
...Everything else aside, the site's mod has the same name as the magical jellyfish in my story?
And to clarify some character thoughts, this is Brockton Bay. You take everything with a grain of salt, and a kindly man covered in metal and flames helping everyone is more than a tad suspicious.
A lot of OTHER heros go around, some without having armor. So yeah, he is different from the norm.
And to back up this note:
I can't speak for all moms, but mine was VERY double guessing and judgemental about the people around me. 'Mother hen', if you would.
I'm taking the comment in the way I feel it was intended: Mom's (and dad too presumably, though he was not really part of that section) may consider flaming skeletons less than normal, aka skeevy.
I honestly agree. This particular skelly tends to be a nice person most of the time, but in general the few I know from media tend to be... gruff. Less than kid friendly at least.
And to clarify some character thoughts, this is Brockton Bay. You take everything with a grain of salt, and a kindly man covered in metal and flames helping everyone is more than a tad suspicious.
A lot of OTHER heros go around, some without having armor. So yeah, he is different from the norm.
And to back up this note:
I can't speak for all moms, but mine was VERY double guessing and judgemental about the people around me. 'Mother hen', if you would.
I'm taking the comment in the way I feel it was intended: Mom's (and dad too presumably, though he was not really part of that section) may consider flaming skeletons less than normal, aka skeevy.
I honestly agree. This particular skelly tends to be a nice person most of the time, but in general the few I know from media tend to be... gruff. Less than kid friendly at least.
- Location
- Scotland
Pretty sure this should be "straight and narrow."
- Location
- Here
- Location
- Australia
I find it incredibly weird and likely criminal that she has brought multiple guns (it was unclear to me whether she had a taser, a pistol, or both) to a childcare centre every day without permission. I've seen too many news articles about even people like police officers visiting a school and misplacing their guns.
- Location
- Here
I agree in general, but this is a near-apocalyptic world where Nazi's are fighting Godzilla creatures, which excuses them from being arrested when they take their hat off.
Preparing for a future trip.
- Location
- Here
Gray Boy was an interesting, if horrifying person.
Looking like old film, with a body glitching at odd times, the bastard had claimed that his power was impossible to revert. That the zones where times repeat would not only make the victims inside immortal, but that it would prevent them from being able to adapt. Every feeling, every pain... fresh.
They would knowingly feel the same thing for a set of time, sometimes seconds, sometimes days... forever. That alone would drive them mad... and then sane... and then mad again.
Of course, that was bad enough BEFORE the bastard then entered the bubbles and started torturing them.
Anyway, Dragon had set Adam up with some travel plans in a month or so. She made the (valid) point that him acquiring and adapting healing tinkertech would have global advantages while freeing him from having to run his home clinic on a daily basis.
Not that he told her his reality traveling plans. If it went well, the only evidence would be him suddenly being able to make massive advancements. If it went wrong, well... probably death or being lost in the cosmos.
He HAD to go at some point, because this realm was dangerous.
Take Gray boy. An aspect of his powers kept him young forever (Time reverse took care of age), while rolling back any damage he took as well. Killing him was a massive undertaking, one that had tons of casualties. It took a woman who could rip power from the living to end him.
It was one of the main reasons Slaughterhouse 9 had such fear behind it.
And that ass had a boss, 'King', who could ignore the jerk with no issue by passing any attack on to one of the many people he interacted with in the last 24 hours.
Thus, powers were bullshit.
So if Adam wanted to survive here, where people like that who seemed all powerful could be swat down like ants by a stranger with the right shard... he needed more power. More time.
With a sigh, he hunched over his work space. Twenty or so limbs arched around his frame, the claws and thin strips of material acting as fingers and giving leverage as he examined his project.
Honestly, having a tentacle arm with a working 'flame light' had made this FAR easier.
The healing technology was still going through legal hoops, but right now he had a large set of boxes filled with original examples of various tinkers (Lot of Armsmaster's stuff too, obviously), and he was examining things... very thoroughly.
On one hand, he already scanned it all to a very fine level and had 'Research' going over it every hour or so.
On the other hand... examining it like this, mechanically, was soothing somehow.
A thread of bone white metal carefully began twisting, the tip magnetic, as what seemed to be an engine housing began to come apart. The other twelve screws had their own limbs handling their removal, but this one was the most obvious of the bunch.
He was currently guessing that this was meant to be a trap for people trying to dismantle the thing or an access panel for future maintenance, like most tinkertech required.
With a soft sigh, the panel finally lifted, and he shifted to 'Research', mechanical limbs pausing to avoid shifting or damaging his work.
This was the section that Dragon had to duplicate verbatim when copying this device. Each tinkertech device had similar 'black box' chunks scattered throughout, hence why no one else could duplicate their work and why only they could handle the expected 'maintenance'.
His hand barely trembled as he released a full scan on the section.
Eww. Oh.... ewwwww.
Scan everything, just so he wouldn't have to look at this anymore.
So... yeah. Good news, it was a mechanical version similar to how powers connected to a human host.
Bad news: It was far more restrictive than a parahuman with powers. It was something like a pointer that said 'In that dimension are the complicated bits, come back when done' to the system.
It was how a device the size of a watch could create a shield that stopped tanks. The hardware, the software, anything too complicated for this world... was being simulated or built in the Shard's dimension.
Sucks, but he could work around that.
No, the truly bad news was how BADLY this chunk of technology was built. Just like the brain shards, it seemed like some power reached down and smushed things together till something stopped exploding.
It felt like some god saying 'Shovel, come kiss this hammer' and smashing them together until they became one out of a feeling of depression and self defense.
Redundant sections? Everywhere. Flawed connections? By definition. Unused areas? Some spots had so many that the redundant sections started counting them! And using that number elsewhere!
No wonder it needed babying to not fall apart.
With a sigh, he continued gathering documentation. In the end, his full scan of Panacea healing people would probably be enough to find the power and work with it like these devices connected to their OWN power... but it would probably not be as intuitive.
Still, device that can send out tiny robots to heal someone? Sounds like Dragon could use that tech. Heck, maybe he could hijack the medical tech stream that sent info on how the target was injured and record some of it. His 'Recovery' would improve from that, surely.
He flinched as the device snapped in his face, edges melting.
And... that was after he had already scanned it all and was following 'proper procedures' according to what little documentation Dragon had found with it.
The fact it was so fragile was one of the reasons why it had been approved for him to dismantle in the first place of course, but it was still frustrating.
With a sigh, he tried to psyche himself up to really focus. If something like this happened on a device he HADN'T finished scanning, the loss would be unbearable.
He moved the busted part to the rubbish pile and began working on what seemed to be a headset. Made from what felt like woven hair. Great.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Uber ignored his friend as they tested out some of the newer games for the 'Forbidden Fruit' console. It wasn't frustrating really, ignoring Leet when he got this passionate was a self defense procedure.
"...couldn't find the original developers so I asked the senior staff and it turned out that they had all scattered due to a gang attack the year before but we managed to track down..."
Yeah, he wasn't missing much. Still, he was supporting his friend 150% on this new setup.
No running from the law, getting attacked while trying to gain resources AND perform online, no accidents where the new shoes his costume required suddenly started smoking or exploding.
Just... video games. Oh, Leet still tinkered... but Dragon made the entire process safer. She would watch the man work, document it as it proceeded, and was building a history of previously constructed devices and why they failed.
The new information had basically explained what was going on: Leet could make anything once.
Even as the man fell into depression, Dragon helped back on his (mental) feet and took him on as 'Research and Development' for the Guild. Having someone create prototypes quickly for others to research and analyze had sped up many of her projects.
Uber was unaware that part of the reason Dragon was so 'helpful' was that one such project was to be used to create the new gynoid body that (hopefully) would be 'stress-tested' by Armsmaster.
Probably just as well that the two boys were distracted by piles of cash, video games, and new careers.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Victoria was furious.
Damn Variance for letting everyone know her personal, completely reasonable (Thank you for agreeing), fear of goats. Sisterly teasing was FAR more simple when it was one sided.
She was at her room before realizing that someone had placed a huge sticker on it.
It was a goat head.
The text below said 'Can you handle it?'
The word 'Can' was both in a silly font and made of cans.
Welp. This room was tainted.
She flew to Amy's room. Soon to be VICKY'S room.
Older sister privilege, or something.
Looking like old film, with a body glitching at odd times, the bastard had claimed that his power was impossible to revert. That the zones where times repeat would not only make the victims inside immortal, but that it would prevent them from being able to adapt. Every feeling, every pain... fresh.
They would knowingly feel the same thing for a set of time, sometimes seconds, sometimes days... forever. That alone would drive them mad... and then sane... and then mad again.
Of course, that was bad enough BEFORE the bastard then entered the bubbles and started torturing them.
Anyway, Dragon had set Adam up with some travel plans in a month or so. She made the (valid) point that him acquiring and adapting healing tinkertech would have global advantages while freeing him from having to run his home clinic on a daily basis.
Not that he told her his reality traveling plans. If it went well, the only evidence would be him suddenly being able to make massive advancements. If it went wrong, well... probably death or being lost in the cosmos.
He HAD to go at some point, because this realm was dangerous.
Take Gray boy. An aspect of his powers kept him young forever (Time reverse took care of age), while rolling back any damage he took as well. Killing him was a massive undertaking, one that had tons of casualties. It took a woman who could rip power from the living to end him.
It was one of the main reasons Slaughterhouse 9 had such fear behind it.
And that ass had a boss, 'King', who could ignore the jerk with no issue by passing any attack on to one of the many people he interacted with in the last 24 hours.
Thus, powers were bullshit.
So if Adam wanted to survive here, where people like that who seemed all powerful could be swat down like ants by a stranger with the right shard... he needed more power. More time.
With a sigh, he hunched over his work space. Twenty or so limbs arched around his frame, the claws and thin strips of material acting as fingers and giving leverage as he examined his project.
Honestly, having a tentacle arm with a working 'flame light' had made this FAR easier.
The healing technology was still going through legal hoops, but right now he had a large set of boxes filled with original examples of various tinkers (Lot of Armsmaster's stuff too, obviously), and he was examining things... very thoroughly.
On one hand, he already scanned it all to a very fine level and had 'Research' going over it every hour or so.
On the other hand... examining it like this, mechanically, was soothing somehow.
A thread of bone white metal carefully began twisting, the tip magnetic, as what seemed to be an engine housing began to come apart. The other twelve screws had their own limbs handling their removal, but this one was the most obvious of the bunch.
He was currently guessing that this was meant to be a trap for people trying to dismantle the thing or an access panel for future maintenance, like most tinkertech required.
With a soft sigh, the panel finally lifted, and he shifted to 'Research', mechanical limbs pausing to avoid shifting or damaging his work.
This was the section that Dragon had to duplicate verbatim when copying this device. Each tinkertech device had similar 'black box' chunks scattered throughout, hence why no one else could duplicate their work and why only they could handle the expected 'maintenance'.
His hand barely trembled as he released a full scan on the section.
Eww. Oh.... ewwwww.
Scan everything, just so he wouldn't have to look at this anymore.
So... yeah. Good news, it was a mechanical version similar to how powers connected to a human host.
Bad news: It was far more restrictive than a parahuman with powers. It was something like a pointer that said 'In that dimension are the complicated bits, come back when done' to the system.
It was how a device the size of a watch could create a shield that stopped tanks. The hardware, the software, anything too complicated for this world... was being simulated or built in the Shard's dimension.
Sucks, but he could work around that.
No, the truly bad news was how BADLY this chunk of technology was built. Just like the brain shards, it seemed like some power reached down and smushed things together till something stopped exploding.
It felt like some god saying 'Shovel, come kiss this hammer' and smashing them together until they became one out of a feeling of depression and self defense.
Redundant sections? Everywhere. Flawed connections? By definition. Unused areas? Some spots had so many that the redundant sections started counting them! And using that number elsewhere!
No wonder it needed babying to not fall apart.
With a sigh, he continued gathering documentation. In the end, his full scan of Panacea healing people would probably be enough to find the power and work with it like these devices connected to their OWN power... but it would probably not be as intuitive.
Still, device that can send out tiny robots to heal someone? Sounds like Dragon could use that tech. Heck, maybe he could hijack the medical tech stream that sent info on how the target was injured and record some of it. His 'Recovery' would improve from that, surely.
He flinched as the device snapped in his face, edges melting.
And... that was after he had already scanned it all and was following 'proper procedures' according to what little documentation Dragon had found with it.
The fact it was so fragile was one of the reasons why it had been approved for him to dismantle in the first place of course, but it was still frustrating.
With a sigh, he tried to psyche himself up to really focus. If something like this happened on a device he HADN'T finished scanning, the loss would be unbearable.
He moved the busted part to the rubbish pile and began working on what seemed to be a headset. Made from what felt like woven hair. Great.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Uber ignored his friend as they tested out some of the newer games for the 'Forbidden Fruit' console. It wasn't frustrating really, ignoring Leet when he got this passionate was a self defense procedure.
"...couldn't find the original developers so I asked the senior staff and it turned out that they had all scattered due to a gang attack the year before but we managed to track down..."
Yeah, he wasn't missing much. Still, he was supporting his friend 150% on this new setup.
No running from the law, getting attacked while trying to gain resources AND perform online, no accidents where the new shoes his costume required suddenly started smoking or exploding.
Just... video games. Oh, Leet still tinkered... but Dragon made the entire process safer. She would watch the man work, document it as it proceeded, and was building a history of previously constructed devices and why they failed.
The new information had basically explained what was going on: Leet could make anything once.
Even as the man fell into depression, Dragon helped back on his (mental) feet and took him on as 'Research and Development' for the Guild. Having someone create prototypes quickly for others to research and analyze had sped up many of her projects.
Uber was unaware that part of the reason Dragon was so 'helpful' was that one such project was to be used to create the new gynoid body that (hopefully) would be 'stress-tested' by Armsmaster.
Probably just as well that the two boys were distracted by piles of cash, video games, and new careers.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Victoria was furious.
Damn Variance for letting everyone know her personal, completely reasonable (Thank you for agreeing), fear of goats. Sisterly teasing was FAR more simple when it was one sided.
She was at her room before realizing that someone had placed a huge sticker on it.
It was a goat head.
The text below said 'Can you handle it?'
The word 'Can' was both in a silly font and made of cans.
Welp. This room was tainted.
She flew to Amy's room. Soon to be VICKY'S room.
Older sister privilege, or something.
Last edited:
Jonn Wolfe
(Verified Sarcastic) (Not a Wolf)
- Location
- Beyond Sanity Since 1971
Phear Teh Goat!
Phear It!
Phear It!
Tisaku
Head Chief Thinkomancer
-Sounds like Dragon is sending Grey Boy around.-
are the complicated
perform
- Location
- Here
Fixed, and thanks.
On an unrelated note, we have been pretty lucky to avoid the abb sex trafficking stuff so far... Adam probably won't react well to that.
The probable gang war would delay everything else on his schedule.
I mean, he is mostly mostly immortal thanks to Squishy and recover, but his people aren't.
Puffy
HA↗HA↘HA↗HA↘HA↗HA↘HA↗HA↘HA↗HA!
I just binge-read this. It's great so far, though it has less character interaction than I would like, it's still very entertaining. I'm curious to see what you will do in regards to his eventual universe-travelling. Will something fail like it did in the beginning, making him lose chunks of his abilities and essentially trapping him in the new setting, or will the setting just be even deadlier? I think finding a deadlier setting wouldn't be too hard but it would feel awkward imo.
Selectual Healing.
- Location
- Here
Adam could feel the changes. Small. Continuous.
He carefully shifted the limb holding two transparent magnifying lenses. Clear Flame Metal was a great glass replacement really.
They then fixed themselves relative to his eyes, as he gently attached tiny rods and tweezers to some pins and screws. A limb with tiny threads, magnets on the end of each one, allowed him to hold both the parts being observed and the screws being removed without dropping anything.
Multiple limbs was far easier now that he had experienced being an eye bush.
His normal limbs were out of the way, as he sat in something like a meditative stance. His back had exploded into all kinds of tools and limbs directly from his armor, 'Fire Manipulation' allowing a level of control beyond human norms.
No heartbeat or twitching with these limbs.
With a series of twists, the outer shell began to open. Layers of material was carefully examined, grasped, then slid out of the way of his sensor limbs.
Tinkertech, he decided, was a terrible power.
This device was able to convert water into a type of goo, needed for whatever that captured Villain had used it for. A type of fuel, likely. One of the many devices Dragon had gathered from years of fighting and defeating Villains.
Back to the point though. He hadn't examined Armsmaster, Dragon, or Amy directly... but looking at past scans and this tinkertech, he had made some disturbing realizations.
A tinkertech ability came in parts.
First, the ability to create tools needed to work in your specialty. This seemed to be a generic database of info and a set of tools available to all tinkers.
Second, a tinkertech specialty Database. For your field, it contained a list of schematics, theories, and analysis tools.
Third, a set of tinkertech tools. Each ranged in size from a grain of rice to an entire island, and were stored inside the Shard's realm of control.
These things existed in another reality, and tinkertech worked by modifying parts of their devices to point INTO their own power, letting those tools take over chunks of the work.
It was how a toaster and some Christmas lights could become a plasma torch. The more esoteric or odd parts, especially parts that couldn't exist in this reality, THOSE were stored in the Shard's world.
This was why tinkertech needed maintenance. The dimensional portals would degrade from use since those machines were not a living host, and only the Parahuman creator had the correct coordinates to fix those portals to the right address.
Thus, Dragon was not a tinker.
Her ability was more like Adam's 'Technomancy', and allowed her to understand and at least duplicate the dimensional portals of other tinkers and keep them stable. That was why she could duplicate or even modify tinkertech belonging to other power users. Her real power was something similar to minor self-modification, some parallel processing... maybe some sensing abilities? Moving on.
He twisted the internals of the case housing a bit. Scanning had been done before this step, of course, but right now he was attempting to modify how the hardware interacted with the Tinker's power.
Enhancing the connection too much could cause extra dimensional rifts to occur sympathetically, which would tear everything up and force him to restart his research from scratch.
Again, he forced all his limbs to pause and swapped to 'Research' again, allowing a new scan on the materials for future comparison.
Back to 'Flame Manipulation'.
He could have stopped hours ago. He knew enough about Amy's powers to make a rough connection. But he had goals.
His limb twisted as he tried a new configuration. The more stable and simple the dimensional connection was, the longer it would go without needing maintenance. It would also reduce power requirements and prevent shard power leakages, which could do... all kinds of bad things.
Adam was smart enough to not just make a straight interface into her power of course. Panacea's power was able to fake biomancy. Too strong a shard for a thousand users to go nuts with, trusted people or not.
No, this was going to be a reduced set of tools for Variance Villa to have, to use when he was not here.
He sighed. He called these things computers a lot cause it was easiest to compare the two, but the whole shard was made of a single type of crystal, and crystal alone. Like a banana that was also a tree AND the monkey eating it... or something.
How long has it been since he slept?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sarah Hawk had worked in many hospitals before, but working here had been the strangest. Still, when the strange skeleton-man decides to call all the staff in for a meeting, you made sure to show up.
She watched with the others as the man chatted with Dragon, his metallic bones shifting organically as he laughed, a light blue smog of fire wafting from his jaws.
The guy was odd. The flame on his head would spike or fall based on his emotion, his eyes would range from light blue embers of boredom to blazing flames of excitement... and she heard that his rage was something astounding.
That was due to a couple of patients attacking each other... and he had swept in like an angry deity, fire flowing from his frame and fingers stretched into steel claws. Worse, his eyes had gone solid back, leaving a hulking monster in a suit asking very politely if there was a problem.
Turns out, there wasn't.
Anyway, this meeting was odd. There were devices on a table, each glowing strange colors from the odd patterns that covered them... this wasn't some sort of 'Why not experiment' thing, was it?
Variance turned to the crowd and grinned, a soft blue smoke drifting like he was finishing a fine cigar. "Everyone here? Great, this shouldn't take long."
He walked to the front, pointing out the hardware. "As some of you know, I am terrible at schedules, paying attention, and showing up here when needed." The chuckles had him pause with a smile. "Yeah, yeah, I know."
Adam held up the fist device. "So I used some info I got from working with Panacea to make these doodads." He frowned. "Dragon, she is going to get paid from this, right?"
The cyborg nodded. "It was inspired from her power, so she qualifies for royalty fees."
He absently nodded. "Anyway, these are the expensive version of the new 'Giving Tree' healing devices, to be released by our company. The mass produced versions are each the size of a car, but are cheap enough that at least hospitals can afford them. These smaller versions though would cost as much as a couple of large cities to purchase, each."
Sarah blinked at the idea... then again, this place was producing stuff at an unheard of rate according to the workers who stopped by for checkups, more crazy impossible stuff was to be expected, likely.
Adam turned the device, showing the controls. "Each device can do a single operation safely. This one can repair, regenerate, and remove genetic or radioactive damage from skin. That one does the same for muscles and tendons, while ensuring they are correctly connected."
He picked up the third. "This one handles bone and bone marrow, that group has one tool per internal organ, and the last one over there handles disease, viruses, immunity issues, and to a limited degree aging."
Noticing the shock, he shrugged. "Aging is due to DNA damage. This can't revert it all, but it will hopefully add a year or two of life to the natural life span. Anything more intense can risk memory loss or other issues."
Adam sighed as he picked up the last device... it looked like a bicycle helmet. "This last one is the most controversial. It is not automated like the other devices, it requires a surgeon to operate... but this allows non-invasive brain surgery."
He waved a hand, the illusion projector showing some video. "This is a set of tools. The ability to reduce swelling, to increase or decrease fluids, compounds, or hormones and such. And for our surgeons, the ability to remove damaged sections of the brain and replace it with a stem-cell slurry created from DNA from the patient."
He nodded. "It will be safer than normal surgery, the tools are hard-light scalpels, and this will allow basic matter replacement... there will be no exposure to the outside world or germs, and accuracy will not be restricted to the human eyeball and hand alone."
She couldn't look away... this was something like the holy grail for a surgeon like her. If only it had existed when her sister had needed it.
Variance grinned at everyone. "Well, Dragon has some documentation to hand out on this, and we need all of you to become experts on both our version and the soon-to-be-released public version. These need testing, likely some user interface improvements, and a good exposure to professionals like you before we feel good letting these out into the wild. Dragon, tell Narwhal I am going to sleep for a day or so."
And the skeletal man swept out of the room, leaving hope and god-like tools behind him like it was 'no big deal'.
She was the first to rush to the surgery documentation, but she wouldn't be the last.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
In the end, Adam had to cheat. He had used a power charge on 'Research' so that it could determine Parahuman shard dimensional locations from exposure to their effects.
Still, aside from allowing him to latch onto exactly where Panacea's power lived, it would be useful to find and scan Gray Boy's power... and hopefully free his tortured victims.
As he drifted away, he poked Squishy. They would need to focus a bit on learning fine memory modification... no one needed to remember being stabbed thousands of of times for years.
He carefully shifted the limb holding two transparent magnifying lenses. Clear Flame Metal was a great glass replacement really.
They then fixed themselves relative to his eyes, as he gently attached tiny rods and tweezers to some pins and screws. A limb with tiny threads, magnets on the end of each one, allowed him to hold both the parts being observed and the screws being removed without dropping anything.
Multiple limbs was far easier now that he had experienced being an eye bush.
His normal limbs were out of the way, as he sat in something like a meditative stance. His back had exploded into all kinds of tools and limbs directly from his armor, 'Fire Manipulation' allowing a level of control beyond human norms.
No heartbeat or twitching with these limbs.
With a series of twists, the outer shell began to open. Layers of material was carefully examined, grasped, then slid out of the way of his sensor limbs.
Tinkertech, he decided, was a terrible power.
This device was able to convert water into a type of goo, needed for whatever that captured Villain had used it for. A type of fuel, likely. One of the many devices Dragon had gathered from years of fighting and defeating Villains.
Back to the point though. He hadn't examined Armsmaster, Dragon, or Amy directly... but looking at past scans and this tinkertech, he had made some disturbing realizations.
A tinkertech ability came in parts.
First, the ability to create tools needed to work in your specialty. This seemed to be a generic database of info and a set of tools available to all tinkers.
Second, a tinkertech specialty Database. For your field, it contained a list of schematics, theories, and analysis tools.
Third, a set of tinkertech tools. Each ranged in size from a grain of rice to an entire island, and were stored inside the Shard's realm of control.
These things existed in another reality, and tinkertech worked by modifying parts of their devices to point INTO their own power, letting those tools take over chunks of the work.
It was how a toaster and some Christmas lights could become a plasma torch. The more esoteric or odd parts, especially parts that couldn't exist in this reality, THOSE were stored in the Shard's world.
This was why tinkertech needed maintenance. The dimensional portals would degrade from use since those machines were not a living host, and only the Parahuman creator had the correct coordinates to fix those portals to the right address.
Thus, Dragon was not a tinker.
Her ability was more like Adam's 'Technomancy', and allowed her to understand and at least duplicate the dimensional portals of other tinkers and keep them stable. That was why she could duplicate or even modify tinkertech belonging to other power users. Her real power was something similar to minor self-modification, some parallel processing... maybe some sensing abilities? Moving on.
He twisted the internals of the case housing a bit. Scanning had been done before this step, of course, but right now he was attempting to modify how the hardware interacted with the Tinker's power.
Enhancing the connection too much could cause extra dimensional rifts to occur sympathetically, which would tear everything up and force him to restart his research from scratch.
Again, he forced all his limbs to pause and swapped to 'Research' again, allowing a new scan on the materials for future comparison.
Back to 'Flame Manipulation'.
He could have stopped hours ago. He knew enough about Amy's powers to make a rough connection. But he had goals.
His limb twisted as he tried a new configuration. The more stable and simple the dimensional connection was, the longer it would go without needing maintenance. It would also reduce power requirements and prevent shard power leakages, which could do... all kinds of bad things.
Adam was smart enough to not just make a straight interface into her power of course. Panacea's power was able to fake biomancy. Too strong a shard for a thousand users to go nuts with, trusted people or not.
No, this was going to be a reduced set of tools for Variance Villa to have, to use when he was not here.
He sighed. He called these things computers a lot cause it was easiest to compare the two, but the whole shard was made of a single type of crystal, and crystal alone. Like a banana that was also a tree AND the monkey eating it... or something.
How long has it been since he slept?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sarah Hawk had worked in many hospitals before, but working here had been the strangest. Still, when the strange skeleton-man decides to call all the staff in for a meeting, you made sure to show up.
She watched with the others as the man chatted with Dragon, his metallic bones shifting organically as he laughed, a light blue smog of fire wafting from his jaws.
The guy was odd. The flame on his head would spike or fall based on his emotion, his eyes would range from light blue embers of boredom to blazing flames of excitement... and she heard that his rage was something astounding.
That was due to a couple of patients attacking each other... and he had swept in like an angry deity, fire flowing from his frame and fingers stretched into steel claws. Worse, his eyes had gone solid back, leaving a hulking monster in a suit asking very politely if there was a problem.
Turns out, there wasn't.
Anyway, this meeting was odd. There were devices on a table, each glowing strange colors from the odd patterns that covered them... this wasn't some sort of 'Why not experiment' thing, was it?
Variance turned to the crowd and grinned, a soft blue smoke drifting like he was finishing a fine cigar. "Everyone here? Great, this shouldn't take long."
He walked to the front, pointing out the hardware. "As some of you know, I am terrible at schedules, paying attention, and showing up here when needed." The chuckles had him pause with a smile. "Yeah, yeah, I know."
Adam held up the fist device. "So I used some info I got from working with Panacea to make these doodads." He frowned. "Dragon, she is going to get paid from this, right?"
The cyborg nodded. "It was inspired from her power, so she qualifies for royalty fees."
He absently nodded. "Anyway, these are the expensive version of the new 'Giving Tree' healing devices, to be released by our company. The mass produced versions are each the size of a car, but are cheap enough that at least hospitals can afford them. These smaller versions though would cost as much as a couple of large cities to purchase, each."
Sarah blinked at the idea... then again, this place was producing stuff at an unheard of rate according to the workers who stopped by for checkups, more crazy impossible stuff was to be expected, likely.
Adam turned the device, showing the controls. "Each device can do a single operation safely. This one can repair, regenerate, and remove genetic or radioactive damage from skin. That one does the same for muscles and tendons, while ensuring they are correctly connected."
He picked up the third. "This one handles bone and bone marrow, that group has one tool per internal organ, and the last one over there handles disease, viruses, immunity issues, and to a limited degree aging."
Noticing the shock, he shrugged. "Aging is due to DNA damage. This can't revert it all, but it will hopefully add a year or two of life to the natural life span. Anything more intense can risk memory loss or other issues."
Adam sighed as he picked up the last device... it looked like a bicycle helmet. "This last one is the most controversial. It is not automated like the other devices, it requires a surgeon to operate... but this allows non-invasive brain surgery."
He waved a hand, the illusion projector showing some video. "This is a set of tools. The ability to reduce swelling, to increase or decrease fluids, compounds, or hormones and such. And for our surgeons, the ability to remove damaged sections of the brain and replace it with a stem-cell slurry created from DNA from the patient."
He nodded. "It will be safer than normal surgery, the tools are hard-light scalpels, and this will allow basic matter replacement... there will be no exposure to the outside world or germs, and accuracy will not be restricted to the human eyeball and hand alone."
She couldn't look away... this was something like the holy grail for a surgeon like her. If only it had existed when her sister had needed it.
Variance grinned at everyone. "Well, Dragon has some documentation to hand out on this, and we need all of you to become experts on both our version and the soon-to-be-released public version. These need testing, likely some user interface improvements, and a good exposure to professionals like you before we feel good letting these out into the wild. Dragon, tell Narwhal I am going to sleep for a day or so."
And the skeletal man swept out of the room, leaving hope and god-like tools behind him like it was 'no big deal'.
She was the first to rush to the surgery documentation, but she wouldn't be the last.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
In the end, Adam had to cheat. He had used a power charge on 'Research' so that it could determine Parahuman shard dimensional locations from exposure to their effects.
Still, aside from allowing him to latch onto exactly where Panacea's power lived, it would be useful to find and scan Gray Boy's power... and hopefully free his tortured victims.
As he drifted away, he poked Squishy. They would need to focus a bit on learning fine memory modification... no one needed to remember being stabbed thousands of of times for years.
- Location
- usa
Freeing them alive may or may not be a good idea, depending on if their memories could be erased of the torture and their powers removed safely.
I vaguely recall reading about Wards of how some of Gray Boy's victims were released (in at least one case, through a version of Sting) and their triggered powers turned out rather horrific. It's debatable whether Scion's deaths had anything to do with how badly their powers manifested since they may have triggered prior to his death while in the bubble, but then the bubble reset them and caused them to trigger over and over again, which may have caused the badly configured powers.
- Location
- Here
Well, at least he has practice disabling powers safely thanks to working on Coil.
Probably.
Well... he never tried working on a case 53...
Jonn Wolfe
(Verified Sarcastic) (Not a Wolf)
- Location
- Beyond Sanity Since 1971
Very, very nice. Sleep, Adam. You more than deserved it.
Boyfriend Woes.
- Location
- Here
Narwhal sighed, leaning away from her desk and stretching.
Even though it was a virtual desk, virtual paperwork, and a virtual office... this was still stressful.
She smirked as she glanced to the right, the 'wall' ripped off to show the amazing nearby ocean. The desk itself was still on oak paneling.
Sand sucked for rolling office chairs.
But the view... She could never find water this clear or sand this clean in public. Maybe on an island or something.
Adam's virtual reality device was already creating news waves in the media, especially with his x-rated game console being a bit much for the more conservative of families, but to her...
She waved a hand, interface allowing her to digitally sign the last of the forms and submit them to the various departments.
Virtual office work was the best.
No strained muscles, no eye strain, her body was basically taking a nap while her mind could get all kinds of things done.
Oh she still needed breaks for food or whatever, but the ability to 'work late' and not have to commute, or feel cramped from sitting in a chair for 12 hours... so worth it.
Her warm fuzzies vanished when she heard the knock.
The office room was a shell of course, this area was using the 'island' setting, and all her work today (Including conference calls) was being done through email alerts and electronic messaging.
She sighed. "Come in, Dragon."
The door opened, her friend giving a weak grin.
Narwhal groaned. "What did he do now?"
A dozen emails popped up alerts on her desktop. Dragon coughed awkwardly. "You know how I have been sending random tinker-tech to Adam for practice work? Hoping for inspiration?"
She blinked. "Wait, didn't I send him those sex toys we didn't know what to do with?"
Dragon blushed. "I DIDN'T KNOW! Why didn't you warn me!? Thankfully they were classified and everything, if they weren't so damaged he would have figured it out instantly!"
Narwhal chuckled. "Hang on, how long did it take for him to notice? An hour? I bet it was the dildo chair, wasn't it?"
The cyborg groaned. "Thank my circuits, no. The first box was the scrap parts and I used my lab to damage the other shipments before he opened everything. It was horrible, what if someone had caught me with those, those... things? In MY lab, no less!"
With a leer, Narwhal leaned forward. "Hmm, what if indeed. Are you sure you didn't save an item or two? I heard you and Armsmaster already had a... tinkering session together."
Paperwork smacked her in the midst of cackling, Dragon's face blazing with embarrassment. "Focus. I had to make up all kinds of lies, as if it was normal for tons of captured tinkertech to be mashed up into tiny chunks. Even then, some of the rubbery bits had to be melted down completely... eww, I had to clean everything in my lab like, dozens of times. It still feels unclean."
With a chuckle, she pulled back the paperwork. "So he must have made some progress if these forms are needed." As she began paging through, she realized that the thin packet was actually hundreds of pages long, compressed since this was a virtual environment. "What the hell, how many pages is this?"
Dragon snorted. "You know Variance, the man bumbles into all kinds of stuff. Somehow he managed to come up with a theory about how tinkertech works in general."
Seeing Narwhal actually gape in shock, she gave a satisfied nod. "Yes, my feelings too. Thankfully nothing sexually themed was built, considering his lab examples to build from."
Narwhal looked down and tried to read the documents, but this was the thick technical stuff that always took hours to figure out. "Give me the highlights."
Dragon nodded, gesturing as a recorded feed appeared and showed Adam explaining away. He looked... rough. A bit worn, but his eyes (blue flames that sparkled with delight) were making his skeletal grin warm up the room. Maybe she could get some snuggle time in tonight. Wait, what? Huh.
The highlights: Tinkertech cheated by building parts and code in another dimension, and used local junk to connect to it. The need to connect to the right place is why no other tinkers could easily fix an unrelated tinkertech device, and why they needed to 'maintain' their own junk.
And her boyfriend had not only found this out in less than a week, but had used past health care information he gathered to not simply duplicate tinkertech equipment from that sexual deviant tinker, but to create NEW tinkertech equipment using the world's most famous healer as a reference.
This. This was huge.
She blinked, looking at her hands. "So what is all this then? I didn't think a 'Heal me' gadget would require a hundred times more documentation than our Endbringer weapon experiments."
Dragon nodded. "If it was simply a gadget, that would be correct." She pulled up dozens of images, some looked like strange cell phones and others like a truck had attempted to hump a combine harvester into a massive barn.
She pointed at the small devices. "These are for Guild use only, use the Null Metal and Flame Metal that Adam makes, and have the most options." Her hand pointed at the other side. "These are weaker, use mostly non-tinker components, require maintenance every couple of years, and most importantly are vastly cheaper."
Narwhal looked more closely. "Alright, I'll bite. Why? What makes them cost differently?"
Dragon pulled up the images into pairs. "Our versions remotely connect to our own facility, which has all the parts that normally are stored in another dimension... or at least, parts that accomplish the same function. The cost in exotic parts was massive, even with most of the other pieces made from Adam's metals. It also required an almost unimaginable amount of underground expansion by Adam to hold it all."
She pulled up a cartoon image of 'Variance Villa', which was shown in profile. The underground areas were obvious... and then suddenly zoomed out, showing a shaft that quickly seemed to shrink into a thread as more and more earth was shown.
Dragon pointed. "He went straight down two and a half kilometers, about a mile and a half, before making a massive series of caverns. Coated in Null Metal, this thing is pretty much here to stay. Just like normal tinkertech, our smaller devices are way too tiny to actually work, and use dimensional portals... pointing to our dimension. The user interface and computer work is actually handled by the Villa's computer network, the Celestial Garden, while the only actual tinkertech are these chips that connect to that underground monstrosity."
A small golden chip rotated on screen. "Each one is a highly optimized connection directly to our devices instead of Panacea's power. This advanced connection reduces energy costs and so forth, but the biggest advantage is that should something happen to Panacea, even if her power was damaged or destroyed, we could use these creations to heal her."
Dragon looked at the stunned Guild Leader. "We don't know what happens if a device using a Parahuman's power attempts to work after that person's death, but this should be usable in most situations regardless."
She sighed. "We can't risk letting people know this is possible. Total duplication of powers? Possibly better controlled via computer interface than ever possible by the owner? It wouldn't just start a war, this would make a never ending conflict. The big bulky things we will be selling to hospitals are designed to prevent this with certain development principles."
Narwhal tried to hold back her groans at the mere thought of every villain attempting to get this thing, much less every hero. She read over the new slide.
Dragon pointed. "First, these are designed to be limited. Every function is in the large device, but each of the attachments can only use one of those abilities. Each tool is vastly restricted as well: Healing beyond health stabilization takes minutes instead of seconds, and they barely allow a fraction of Panacea's actual ability set. One tool that heals bones alone, another to repair a liver. So no cosmetic stuff, for example."
She showed the large device again. "Second, they are built heavy, bulky, hard to transport, and nearly impossible to assemble or disassemble. It will take literally days to steal this thing after deployment, and require enough scientific know how and bizarre components to rebuild it afterwards as to make it easy to detect purchases or kidnappings and recover everything and everyone at a later point. It also has a built in tracker and digital reporting functions."
Dragon glanced at Narwhal, who was already trying to read the notes again. "The hospitals won't care if it takes a week of installation to have Panacea-lite abilities. After all, healing a bone in fifteen minutes allows Doctors to interfere if something is going off in the process or if a non-standard change is desired, but this is still miles better than waiting six months or more. But mainly, I convinced Adam to slow down operation time to reduce the chances of villains breaking into hospitals for a quick heal and escape."
Seeing her friend nod, Dragon continued. "Third of all, I was afraid that the draw of the devices would be strong enough for sudden hostage situations. Adam had the idea that we inform people that this experimental device has been designed for non-powered individuals only, as they are the majority of the population... which is true."
Dragon's face grew a bit serious. "Any Parahuman that uses these devices, the public ones, will experience a loss of powers for around one hour. The explanation was a bit convoluted, but Adam found that sending the right signal to the patients brain sets off something like a self-diagnostic situation for their power. Testing so far verifies that the effect is not only temporary, but possibly beneficial. The Guild thinker I had brought on base, you know Jim? He volunteered, and informed us that it managed to 'reset' his thinker-headache as well."
Dragon pulled up his image. "Those three restrictions mean that stealing this without our notice will be difficult, expensive, require convoluted and exotic parts, and render powered thieves weak after healing. Hopefully that and some public 'truce' agreements will prevent bloodshed."
Narwhal sighed. "I know it is important globally to ensure anyone can come for healing, but it always feels wrong to heal up someone just because they took off their crime outfit."
Her cyborg friend gave a wry grin. "Well, the general public will think this is only for non-Parahumans. The PRT, The Guild, and a few other heroic teams will get followup communications. We can't ensure full security, but at least most hero's will be aware that they have better healing options even if eventually questionable people will get a fix too."
Narwhal groaned as she dropped the contract to the desk. "This is going to take forever to finish documenting and all that junk, isn't it?"
Dragon chuckled. "Don't worry, that form was automatically filled out by me already. You only need a few dozen signatures or so, after you have an idea of what is in there."
Her cybernetic hand opened and with a blur dropped a large stack of additional folders on the desk. "Anyway, here is the paperwork for each of the OTHER devices. That one was just for the skin regenerator."
Narwhal clunked her head into the desk. Damn her sexy boyfriend.
As the cyborg waltzed over to the door and was about to leave, she heard Dragon mumbling. "Oh, and we need another batch of 'B12' contracts submitted, Variance wants the healing stuff to be under the name 'Giving Tree'... so one more company branch for the Garden!"
Damn her boyfriend's puns too.
Even though it was a virtual desk, virtual paperwork, and a virtual office... this was still stressful.
She smirked as she glanced to the right, the 'wall' ripped off to show the amazing nearby ocean. The desk itself was still on oak paneling.
Sand sucked for rolling office chairs.
But the view... She could never find water this clear or sand this clean in public. Maybe on an island or something.
Adam's virtual reality device was already creating news waves in the media, especially with his x-rated game console being a bit much for the more conservative of families, but to her...
She waved a hand, interface allowing her to digitally sign the last of the forms and submit them to the various departments.
Virtual office work was the best.
No strained muscles, no eye strain, her body was basically taking a nap while her mind could get all kinds of things done.
Oh she still needed breaks for food or whatever, but the ability to 'work late' and not have to commute, or feel cramped from sitting in a chair for 12 hours... so worth it.
Her warm fuzzies vanished when she heard the knock.
The office room was a shell of course, this area was using the 'island' setting, and all her work today (Including conference calls) was being done through email alerts and electronic messaging.
She sighed. "Come in, Dragon."
The door opened, her friend giving a weak grin.
Narwhal groaned. "What did he do now?"
A dozen emails popped up alerts on her desktop. Dragon coughed awkwardly. "You know how I have been sending random tinker-tech to Adam for practice work? Hoping for inspiration?"
She blinked. "Wait, didn't I send him those sex toys we didn't know what to do with?"
Dragon blushed. "I DIDN'T KNOW! Why didn't you warn me!? Thankfully they were classified and everything, if they weren't so damaged he would have figured it out instantly!"
Narwhal chuckled. "Hang on, how long did it take for him to notice? An hour? I bet it was the dildo chair, wasn't it?"
The cyborg groaned. "Thank my circuits, no. The first box was the scrap parts and I used my lab to damage the other shipments before he opened everything. It was horrible, what if someone had caught me with those, those... things? In MY lab, no less!"
With a leer, Narwhal leaned forward. "Hmm, what if indeed. Are you sure you didn't save an item or two? I heard you and Armsmaster already had a... tinkering session together."
Paperwork smacked her in the midst of cackling, Dragon's face blazing with embarrassment. "Focus. I had to make up all kinds of lies, as if it was normal for tons of captured tinkertech to be mashed up into tiny chunks. Even then, some of the rubbery bits had to be melted down completely... eww, I had to clean everything in my lab like, dozens of times. It still feels unclean."
With a chuckle, she pulled back the paperwork. "So he must have made some progress if these forms are needed." As she began paging through, she realized that the thin packet was actually hundreds of pages long, compressed since this was a virtual environment. "What the hell, how many pages is this?"
Dragon snorted. "You know Variance, the man bumbles into all kinds of stuff. Somehow he managed to come up with a theory about how tinkertech works in general."
Seeing Narwhal actually gape in shock, she gave a satisfied nod. "Yes, my feelings too. Thankfully nothing sexually themed was built, considering his lab examples to build from."
Narwhal looked down and tried to read the documents, but this was the thick technical stuff that always took hours to figure out. "Give me the highlights."
Dragon nodded, gesturing as a recorded feed appeared and showed Adam explaining away. He looked... rough. A bit worn, but his eyes (blue flames that sparkled with delight) were making his skeletal grin warm up the room. Maybe she could get some snuggle time in tonight. Wait, what? Huh.
The highlights: Tinkertech cheated by building parts and code in another dimension, and used local junk to connect to it. The need to connect to the right place is why no other tinkers could easily fix an unrelated tinkertech device, and why they needed to 'maintain' their own junk.
And her boyfriend had not only found this out in less than a week, but had used past health care information he gathered to not simply duplicate tinkertech equipment from that sexual deviant tinker, but to create NEW tinkertech equipment using the world's most famous healer as a reference.
This. This was huge.
She blinked, looking at her hands. "So what is all this then? I didn't think a 'Heal me' gadget would require a hundred times more documentation than our Endbringer weapon experiments."
Dragon nodded. "If it was simply a gadget, that would be correct." She pulled up dozens of images, some looked like strange cell phones and others like a truck had attempted to hump a combine harvester into a massive barn.
She pointed at the small devices. "These are for Guild use only, use the Null Metal and Flame Metal that Adam makes, and have the most options." Her hand pointed at the other side. "These are weaker, use mostly non-tinker components, require maintenance every couple of years, and most importantly are vastly cheaper."
Narwhal looked more closely. "Alright, I'll bite. Why? What makes them cost differently?"
Dragon pulled up the images into pairs. "Our versions remotely connect to our own facility, which has all the parts that normally are stored in another dimension... or at least, parts that accomplish the same function. The cost in exotic parts was massive, even with most of the other pieces made from Adam's metals. It also required an almost unimaginable amount of underground expansion by Adam to hold it all."
She pulled up a cartoon image of 'Variance Villa', which was shown in profile. The underground areas were obvious... and then suddenly zoomed out, showing a shaft that quickly seemed to shrink into a thread as more and more earth was shown.
Dragon pointed. "He went straight down two and a half kilometers, about a mile and a half, before making a massive series of caverns. Coated in Null Metal, this thing is pretty much here to stay. Just like normal tinkertech, our smaller devices are way too tiny to actually work, and use dimensional portals... pointing to our dimension. The user interface and computer work is actually handled by the Villa's computer network, the Celestial Garden, while the only actual tinkertech are these chips that connect to that underground monstrosity."
A small golden chip rotated on screen. "Each one is a highly optimized connection directly to our devices instead of Panacea's power. This advanced connection reduces energy costs and so forth, but the biggest advantage is that should something happen to Panacea, even if her power was damaged or destroyed, we could use these creations to heal her."
Dragon looked at the stunned Guild Leader. "We don't know what happens if a device using a Parahuman's power attempts to work after that person's death, but this should be usable in most situations regardless."
She sighed. "We can't risk letting people know this is possible. Total duplication of powers? Possibly better controlled via computer interface than ever possible by the owner? It wouldn't just start a war, this would make a never ending conflict. The big bulky things we will be selling to hospitals are designed to prevent this with certain development principles."
Narwhal tried to hold back her groans at the mere thought of every villain attempting to get this thing, much less every hero. She read over the new slide.
Dragon pointed. "First, these are designed to be limited. Every function is in the large device, but each of the attachments can only use one of those abilities. Each tool is vastly restricted as well: Healing beyond health stabilization takes minutes instead of seconds, and they barely allow a fraction of Panacea's actual ability set. One tool that heals bones alone, another to repair a liver. So no cosmetic stuff, for example."
She showed the large device again. "Second, they are built heavy, bulky, hard to transport, and nearly impossible to assemble or disassemble. It will take literally days to steal this thing after deployment, and require enough scientific know how and bizarre components to rebuild it afterwards as to make it easy to detect purchases or kidnappings and recover everything and everyone at a later point. It also has a built in tracker and digital reporting functions."
Dragon glanced at Narwhal, who was already trying to read the notes again. "The hospitals won't care if it takes a week of installation to have Panacea-lite abilities. After all, healing a bone in fifteen minutes allows Doctors to interfere if something is going off in the process or if a non-standard change is desired, but this is still miles better than waiting six months or more. But mainly, I convinced Adam to slow down operation time to reduce the chances of villains breaking into hospitals for a quick heal and escape."
Seeing her friend nod, Dragon continued. "Third of all, I was afraid that the draw of the devices would be strong enough for sudden hostage situations. Adam had the idea that we inform people that this experimental device has been designed for non-powered individuals only, as they are the majority of the population... which is true."
Dragon's face grew a bit serious. "Any Parahuman that uses these devices, the public ones, will experience a loss of powers for around one hour. The explanation was a bit convoluted, but Adam found that sending the right signal to the patients brain sets off something like a self-diagnostic situation for their power. Testing so far verifies that the effect is not only temporary, but possibly beneficial. The Guild thinker I had brought on base, you know Jim? He volunteered, and informed us that it managed to 'reset' his thinker-headache as well."
Dragon pulled up his image. "Those three restrictions mean that stealing this without our notice will be difficult, expensive, require convoluted and exotic parts, and render powered thieves weak after healing. Hopefully that and some public 'truce' agreements will prevent bloodshed."
Narwhal sighed. "I know it is important globally to ensure anyone can come for healing, but it always feels wrong to heal up someone just because they took off their crime outfit."
Her cyborg friend gave a wry grin. "Well, the general public will think this is only for non-Parahumans. The PRT, The Guild, and a few other heroic teams will get followup communications. We can't ensure full security, but at least most hero's will be aware that they have better healing options even if eventually questionable people will get a fix too."
Narwhal groaned as she dropped the contract to the desk. "This is going to take forever to finish documenting and all that junk, isn't it?"
Dragon chuckled. "Don't worry, that form was automatically filled out by me already. You only need a few dozen signatures or so, after you have an idea of what is in there."
Her cybernetic hand opened and with a blur dropped a large stack of additional folders on the desk. "Anyway, here is the paperwork for each of the OTHER devices. That one was just for the skin regenerator."
Narwhal clunked her head into the desk. Damn her sexy boyfriend.
As the cyborg waltzed over to the door and was about to leave, she heard Dragon mumbling. "Oh, and we need another batch of 'B12' contracts submitted, Variance wants the healing stuff to be under the name 'Giving Tree'... so one more company branch for the Garden!"
Damn her boyfriend's puns too.
- Status