Bugs In The System

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Spoiler: Fanfic Disclaimer

The fanfiction I write is entirely for fun, with no commercial use implied, intended, or permitted. All original copyright holder's rights are acknowledged.

More specifically, as a basic, non-exhaustive disclaimer for main line or omake story elements currently used to date:

Worm belongs to Wildbow

Other elements may belong to other authors.

Basically, if you recognize it from a movie, comic, book, or other published work, it's owned by the rightsholders for that work. Anything else is my fault.

Reader contributed Omakes may incorporate other elements not listed above, and are otherwise © their respective authors. And much thanks is due to those authors for adding to my and your enjoyment!

Does anyone even read these? Does anyone even care about these?

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This introduction may change as time goes on, as I will answer common questions and address issues here, as well as announce the status of the story should it change. Check here first if you have any queries. I can't promise that you will always find an answer, but I'll try

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Yet again this is something that started in my snippets thread, wouldn't leave me the hell alone, tried desperately to become a real story, and finally wore me down enough to force itself into the open with its own thread. For that I can only apologize. Updates will be in bursts as time and inclination hits, and I have no bloody idea where it's really going to go, but I suppose we'll find out together...

It's also likely to be very silly. Try not to take it seriously, that way lies madness. If you start seeing five dimensional cubes in your dreams, stop reading and seek help

As always, I will say the following, my standard boilerplate for a story:

I'm always open to corrections, typo spotting, math error checking, and all sorts of things like that, and I like hearing ideas about the way things could go and suggestions for interesting scenes. Or even simply discussing the story. Make a good point and I will probably use it in one way or the other if I agree with it.

On the other hand I will ignore demands to change parts of the story to fit your particular likes. This is not in any way meant to be rude, but the first rule of fanfiction is the same as the first rule of life, which is:

It's entirely impossible to please everyone at the same time with anything.​

Trying to do so is an exercise in frustration for all involved and therefore pointless. I would rather concentrate on writing the story rather than arguing about how to write the story, especially as that is a zero-sum game in the first place.

Bear in mind that this is an alternative universe, which means that some of the canon powersets may work in slightly different ways if it made it more convenient for the story. Most are meant to be more or less unchanged, though, so it's not impossible I made a mistake. If you aren't sure, don't worry about asking for clarification, I don't mind at all. I respond well to polite questions and genuine interest in why something happened the way it did.

 

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This one needs some background, as it is somewhat AU...

Things worked out quite a bit differently in some ways to canon due to some fairly small changes that kind of butterflied a bit. Appropriately enough...

Annette lived, Lung fucked up big time and took Kaiser down with him, the ABB collapsed, which means Bakuda and Oni Lee aren't an issue, and because of the whole process that led to Lung fucking up, Emma and Alan were never in that alley to be attacked by the ABB gangers. So Emma didn't meet Sophia, who in turn got lifted by the PRT rather earlier than in canon, before she'd managed to cock things up as much as she would have done, and became a reluctant Ward without needing Alan on her side to keep her out of jail...

Taylor obviously went to Arcadia and this time Emma put in the effort to follow her friend there, which she managed to pull off. Winslow is no longer a stain on the face of Brockton Bay either, which is one good outcome of Lung losing the plot. Sophia gets shoved into Arcadia with the rest of the Wards, and told extremely firmly to put on her A game and not fuck up.

She fucks up. Of course.

Sophia being the ray of sunshine she is, she decides that a little recreational bullying is a good stress relief method, and in the process of this comes to the conclusion that hassling Taylor Hebert is a stunningly cool idea. This ultimately leads to her engineering a situation that bears some relationship to canon, although it differs in the details. However, it was amply trigger-worthy and so Taylor gets the gift of trauma and super powers.

This time, though, there are other Parahumans within range, and QA gleefully helps herself to useful additional input because this is obviously going to produce some really good DATA. And it helps what she's already decided is Best Host.

Taylor gets something very close to her original abilities, but somewhat better, as they include not only arthropods but a lot of other 'lower lifeforms,' and of course she gets all the multitasking. That's QA's thing after all. But within the relevant range at the time of the Trigger were Panacea, Kid Win, and Gallant.

So she also ends up with a variant on Shaper's life sculptor functions, a level of Tinker ability linked to the same concept, both of which work very well together and link up nicely with QA's default skillset, and a Thinker ability which helpfully enhances the synthesis of those three power sets.

And, as a somewhat unexpected bonus, all this gives her a much deeper link to QA than even QA expected, to the point that the Shard is finding the whole experience nearly as strange as Taylor is, but both of them are also very satisfied with the outcome. And because of this, Taylor isn't nearly as affected by the 'conflict drive' thing, which means that she's been contented to stay out of the Caping lifestyle and just quietly explore her abilities. QA is finding the DATA produced exceptionally high grade and is completely content with the arrangement...

But that doesn't mean that both of them aren't perfectly happy to experiment when they finally work out what to have a go at

Then Taylor runs into a curious mantis, one thing leads to another, QA suggests a few ideas too, Taylor's hobby of reading science fiction among other things might have popped up some other ideas, and before you know it...

Lots of excessively intelligent insectoids with a distinct bent towards the technical skills and far too much enthusiasm. And a Hive Mother who is fine with this

Some may in future point to this as the point that things started to spiral rather out of control. The Hive considers this to be the point things got interesting.

Also, as a background thing, Sophia and a number of others got expelled on the spot because Arcadia, unlike Winslow, is a competent school and doesn't tolerate 'pranks' that many would call 'attempted murder,' the PRT gets shouted at a hell of a lot and so Sophia is no longer involved in the story, the Heberts get a pretty decent payoff from both the PRT and Arcadia, and apologies from both, and the PRT gets a sufficiently black eye for their part in it that they decided to stay as far away from the Heberts as possible because Danny Hebert holds a grudge, and Annette Hebert makes him look positively forgiving. And knows people who spill the beans on just who Sophia really was...

I feel that this will not be a particularly serious story, but it should be fun. We shall see.

The chapters will generally be fairly short, in all probability, but that is subject to circumstances and the phase of the moon. This is how it works.

 

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Taylor lay back on the ground and closed her eyes. The sound of insects and birds around her was soothing, as was the light breeze in the grass and bushes. For a moment, she was at peace.

That moment was shattered by the sound of a gunshot in the distance. The girl sighed, wishing that people would stop being such shitheads to each other.

Unfortunately that didn't seem likely to happen, at least without a lot of effort. Her own life was proof enough of that.

Her mind drifted back to the worst day she'd ever had, a few months ago just after she'd started at Arcadia High School. The fallout of what that horrible girl Sophia had done was still rumbling on in more places than you'd think plausible. How someone like that could have gotten accepted at Arcadia was a mystery, unless you knew certain critical facts most people weren't aware of.

If it hadn't been for Winslow, undoubtedly the worst school in the city if not the state from what her Mom said, being destroyed when Lung and Kaiser got into it last fall, that Hess girl would probably have ended up there. It was apparently full of people like her, violent and unpleasant. Luckily she had the grades to have never been at risk of going to the place, and now that it was rubble, no one had to go there.

Pity about the four teachers that had died in the process though. She'd heard rumors that they weren't very nice people, especially the principal, but she'd certainly never know for herself. And, of course, Lung had managed to get a kill order on himself for that, which despite his reputation had seen him flee the country within days, and Kaiser was in the Birdcage.

That had sure changed the gang situation around the place overnight, she knew, although there were still way too many idiots with guns, or super powers, or super powers and guns, to make it really a safe place. But she like so many others was used to that sort of thing and just lived with it.

Sometimes Taylor wondered if other cities had people who barely even noticed a bullet whining past from some distant crime in progress…

"Taylor? Where are you?" her mom called. She lifted her head and waved an arm rather lazily.

"Down here," she called back, not opening her eyes. It was far too nice a day to bother with getting up in her opinion.

Footsteps on the grass approached, a familiar tread that made her finally turn her head and look. She smiled at her mother as the older woman held out a glass. "Lemonade?" she asked.

"Yes, please," Taylor replied, sitting up and accepting the glass. She took a long swig from it and sighed with pleasure.

"Your dad will be home in about two hours and I need to finish baking your birthday cake, but I thought you might like a drink," her mom said as she also dropped to sit on the grass next to Taylor. "It's a hot day."

"It's a great day," Taylor grinned.

"How does being fifteen feel?"

"Like being fourteen but plus a year," she replied, laughing as her mother smiled. The woman leaned to the side and hugged her quickly.

"I'm glad you've recovered from the attack," she said quietly. "It's nice to see you happy like this."

Taylor sighed a little. "Sophia and those other girls got expelled, the school paid all the bills and gave us a lot of money, and I got better," she replied after a second or two. "It could have been worse. And it was six months ago anyway."

"Emma still wants to find Sophia Hess and break her legs," her mom commented with a small smile.

"Emma has a violent streak," Taylor snorted, smiling.

"You, of course, are entirely calm and placid."

"Of course. As far as anyone knows." They shared a look of amusement.

"I still can't believe what those girls did to…" her mom said a moment later. Taylor put her hand on the woman's wrist and squeezed it gently.

"It's over, Mom. It was…" She swallowed as she suppressed a very unpleasant memory. "...horrible, but it's over."

Stroking her hair, the older woman gazed at her. "Sometimes you really impress me, dear."

"What about the other times?" Taylor asked with an impish smirk.

"Those times are… unusual," her mom laughed. "But generally positive." She looked at her watch. "I have to get that cake in the oven. Don't get sunburned."

"I put sun cream on before I came out."

"When is Emma getting here?"

"Um… I think four or so?"

"And the others?"

"Probably a little later. Everyone should be here by five."

"Good." Her mom nodded. "Danny said Kurt and Lacey should be here about half an hour after he gets home, and Alan, Zoe, and Anne will turn up around then too. We should be ready by six at the latest." Hopping to her feet, the older woman smiled down at her daughter. "I think this will be a nice little party."

"I think so too," the girl replied, finishing her lemonade then handing the glass back. "Thanks, Mom."

"It's no trouble, dear." Her mom turned and walked away. Taylor watched her go, seeing that there was no trace of the limp she'd had for months after that car accident that could have been a lot worse than it was. Luckily the other driver had managed to nearly miss her mom's car, although he'd still made a mess of it. And her, of course. Her hip had taken a long time to heal properly and if it hadn't been for Panacea she'd still probably be limping.

Oh well. No point dwelling on things that might have happened in another life. She only had this one and it wasn't too bad, despite certain issues.

And the damned gangers, she thought with irritation as another gunshot sounded, further away than the previous one. She could faintly hear sirens in the distance, suggesting that the cops were sufficiently annoyed to be doing something about it. Hopefully they'd manage to get whoever it was.

Flopping back onto the grass Taylor closed her eyes again and just let nature do its thing around her, her hands digging into the grass as she pondered life and her position in it.

A little later something tickled her nose. Twitching it, she nearly sneezed. The tickle came back, finally prompting her to open one eye.

She got an extreme close up view of a tiny, inhuman, and obviously curious face. Relatively enormous faceted eyes met her gaze as the creature hanging from a long strand of grass that bent under the small weight to droop over her head from behind reached out one foreleg and tapped the end of her nose a third time.

Taylor grinned. "Hello," she whispered to the green mantis, which cocked its head at the sound and seemed to be watching her. Lifting a hand she extended a finger, the insect looking at it, then back to her face, before lightly hopping onto the digit. Tiny claws dug into her skin making her giggle. "You're very pretty," she said, admiring the creature, which was quite large for an insect at about four inches long.

It tilted its head back and forth, examining her with apparently as much interest as she was examining it. She got the impression of something a lot smarter than most people thought insects were.

Curiously, she extended her special senses towards the mantis. The susurration of life that surrounded her to a range of nearly half a mile faded into the background as she concentrated on the tiny creature sitting on her finger.

Human mind met insect mind. Both were intrigued.

"Oh, my," Taylor finally said as the mantis leaned closer to her and waved her, for it was a female, antennae at her in a friendly sort of way. "That is interesting, isn't it? So much potential…" She looked around a little guiltily, seeing and sensing that her mother was in the kitchen, and none of the neighbors were close enough to see into the back garden. She couldn't do much more than sense humans or most higher life forms, but that was enough to be very useful.

It was the smaller ones that were interesting, anyway. And where her particular talents, forged from a ghastly experience she tried not to think about, lay.

Taylor carefully sat up and moved a few feet to the side to lean against one of the trees that grew in the back garden, out of sight of the kitchen window. The mantis stayed on her finger the entire time, not showing any signs of wanting to fly away. When she was settled, Taylor went back to studying her new small friend.

They gazed at each other for some time, the insect and the girl examining each other with mutual interest. Eventually Taylor grinned slowly. "Why not?" she said to the insect, which twitched a wing case. "I can see some really cool things happening if we're careful. And I have to use this power for something useful sooner or later, right?"

The insect rotated its head nearly upside down for a moment, looked at her from that position, then moved it back. Taylor laughed quietly. "Glad you agree. All right. Let me think, then we'll do something neat. And don't worry, it won't hurt."

Very carefully going over in her head what she wanted to do, and feeling something very alien but very fond of her watching curiously while feeding her data, she finally made a decision and got to work.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Four months later, Armsmaster, the premier Tinker in Brockton Bay, came back from checking out a possible sighting of Hookwolf to find his prized motorcycle in pieces on the ground. He stopped dead in his tracks and gaped at the five foot tall insect-like creature, which was wearing a sort of vest festooned with small pockets out of which protruded all manner of tools and equipment, that was currently wielding a quarter inch socket driver in one forehand as it separated the power module from the engine of the bike.

"What the fuck?" he finally said, unable to think of anything else in any way appropriate.

The creature looked like a vastly enlarged and somewhat modified praying mantis, the size of a small human and a rather attractive cyan color as far as the exoskeleton went. It stood on four legs while four more limbs, the lower pair of which appeared to possibly be capable of doubling as legs as well, served as arms. The top set terminated in very dexterous clawed fingers which were using the tools with clear expertise. A somewhat heart-shaped head, with two enormous faceted eyes and a pair of two foot long antenna, sat on top of a flexible neck. He could see how flexible it was by the way the thing was tilting that head to peer inside the power unit. Mandibles moved and a whispery voice said, "Inefficient, although neat and tidy."

"Excuse me?" he snapped at the comment, his indignation at the offense committed to his bike abruptly outweighed by the annoyance of the offense caused to his Tinker abilities. "The efficiency of that unit is within zero point six four percent of the theoretical maximum."

"Only if you ignore the fundamental design error in the phase transfer coupling," the insectoid replied, not looking up from where it was now prodding inside the power unit with some sort of test probe which was making intermittent beeping sounds.

"Fundamental design error?" he sputtered, stomping closer and slamming his halberd back onto his armored back. Folding his arms, he loomed over the creature which was still not paying attention to him. "What fundamental design error?"

"This design uses a six phase power conversion method, with resonant magnetics," the thing said, putting the tool back into its vest and removing a different one, with which it indicated a few components on the circuit board of the unit, now missing the cover. "Moving to an interleaved eight phase system with electrostatic coupling would nearly double the total power handling capacity while reducing the mass by at least sixty percent and the heat loss by nearly forty."

Armsmaster paused with his mouth open, about to say something in anger, then thought hard. "Ah… I see. You may have a point, interestingly."

"Obviously the circuit would require a higher Q than this implements to shape the waveform correctly, and I'd recommend an aluminum oxide circuit board with gold tracks to handle the power flow, but there's definitely room for improvement," the insect explained, pulling out a notebook and a pen with the two spare hands. It quickly sketched a design with a remarkable degree of exactitude, then tore the page off and handed it to him. He took it and examined it with great interest. The strange creature looked up at him for a moment, then started reassembling his bike at great speed as he thought over the suggestion.

By the time he looked up the thing had put his bike back together entirely, which made him stare in shock.

It cocked its head, made a gesture that somehow conveyed respect with all four hands, and said, "It was quite interesting meeting you, Armsmaster. Until we meet again."

It pulled a small device out of its vest and made a couple of quick adjustments to it, then added, "The hive mother will be wondering where I am, so I have to leave." Clicking a button on the small device, it waved then vanished in a cloud of special effects.

He spent some time staring at where it no longer was, before finally looking around a little helplessly. There was absolutely no sign of the thing, or for that matter anyone or anything else, within range.

Finally, with a sigh of confusion, he very carefully folded the piece of paper he was still holding and put it away in his armor, then got back on his bike.

It was only then that he realized the damned bug had stolen his spare halberd.

"Fuck!"

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Emma looked at the scene, then turned to Annette, who was standing at the top of the basement stairs with her arm around her husband's waist. Both of them were also looking down at a view of something many people would find somewhat odd.

"This is weird, right, Auntie Annette?" the red-head asked, her voice confused. "It's not just me?"

"No, Emma, it's not just you," Annette sighed fondly. She moved a little to the side to let one of Taylor's insectoid friends squeeze past and go down the stairs. He flicked his antenna in a gesture of thanks, but had his hands full of technology, some of which looked suspiciously like something the PRT would be annoyed to have misplaced. The basement itself, which was rather larger than it should really have been, now extending much deeper under the back yard than before, was a hive of activity.

Literally, she thought with a certain sense of resigned amusement.

"A spaceship? Really?" Emma shook her head in wonder. "How did they do that?"

"They're very very smart," Annette replied quietly. "And very fond of Taylor. From their point of view she's their mother, after all."

Emma was quiet for a few seconds, then shrugged and ran down the stairs to join her friend and her friend's friends.

Turning to her husband, the woman said rather wryly, "I can't help feeling that we should probably have stopped this a while ago."

"Way too late for that," he chuckled. "Way too late."

"Hive Mother!" A whispery shout from behind them made both turn to see a familiar insect-like figure scuttle in through the back door. "I successfully acquired the target!" He ran between then and down the stairs, proudly holding up something Annette recognized. She started laughing, as did her husband.

"Oh, he's not going to be happy about that!" Danny commented with a wide grin.

"Serves him right, the egotistical twit," Annette sniffed. Removing her arm from his waist, she went on, "I'm going to make some lemonade. Who wants some?"

"I do!" cried about fourteen or fifteen voices, most of which weren't human. Smiling to herself, she raised an eyebrow at her husband, who nodded, then turned to go into the kitchen.

She hadn't planned on being a grandmother this early, nor had she expected grandchildren quite like the ones downstairs, and it had to be said she'd never thought she'd have so many of them, but there was no denying it made her rather proud.

Even so, she suspected that in the fullness of time some very strange things were going to happen around these parts...

 

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"Oh, god, now what?" Armsmaster sighed as he pulled to a halt and watched the scene in front of him.

It was worth watching, although it was also extremely strange.

"Listen here, you little shit," an extremely pissed off female voice screeched from inside the mechanical monstrosity that was blocking the intersection. "That's mine."

"I fixed your engine, this is payment," a familiar whispery voice replied, somehow remaining whispery even though it was easily audible outside the bizarre vehicle. "The Hive Mother requires it."

"She can't fucking have it, you fucking insect!"

Sounds of a struggle emanated from the open hatch, accompanied by a clanging like metal being hit with a big wrench, several zapping noises like small electrical discharges, a sizzle that brought to mind an arc welder, and finally a near-simultaneous yelp of pain from two separate voices.

"Ouch! That goddam hurt!"

"You hit me with a wrench! You could have cracked my exoskeleton!"

"Of course I did, you thieving bastard! You shot me with that zap gun!"

"It's a non-lethal stunner, weird human tech master. Why are you still conscious?"

"Call that a stunner? This is a stunner!"

A much louder zap sounded.

"Hah! You missed! Hive Mother be praised for good reflexes. Take this!"

"Fucking ow!" A completely different zap was accompanied by a scream of pain and a level of almost incoherent swearing past most Armsmaster had heard before.

When it finally died down, the whispery voice asked, sounding baffled, "What is a hippo felcher?"

The female voice, who he knew the identity of, explained at great length and high volume. He winced, because it was disgusting.

There was a long pause.

"Mammals are weird," the other voice stated, sounding like it agreed with him.

"Give me back my cloaking unit!" Squealer, because it definitely was her, yelled.

"It's my cloaking unit now," the insectoid he was all too familiar with by now replied as his head appeared in the hatch of the improvised armored vehicle. "Hey! Let go of my leg!"

"No! I want it back!"

"We can't always have what we want. The Hive Mother taught me that."

"Did she teach you to steal things?"

"No, that's my own work," he replied immediately, looking back into the tank and waving his antenna in an irritated manner. "And that statement is funny coming from you."

Despite himself Armsmaster couldn't help but agree.

"You're crazy, you crazy bug."

"I'm not. The Hive Mother even had me tested. I'm as sane as all my brothers and sisters are."

"That doesn't prove anything!"

"Let go!"

"Make me!"

"Fine! You asked for it!"

The non-human head vanished inside the tank again as Armsmaster shook his head very slowly. A moment passed, then there was a loud thump from in there and a cloud of violet smoke erupted from the hatch. He could hear two voices coughing now.

"What the fuck was that for?"

"It's a gas grenade. You should be unconscious. It normally works on humans."

"I feel great. Damn, that's some good shit."

"Oh. Whoops. I forgot to account for your excessive consumption of psychoactive compounds. I need to make a note. Where's my pen?"

"This it?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"You're welcome, little bug dude. Woah. Head rush."

"...Hmm. The formulation seems to work but needs tweaking, I think," the insect-like creature muttered as Armsmaster's microphones picked up a thud that his instruments determined matched that of a Squealer-sized human body falling over to a confidence of greater than 91.4%. After a few more scraping sounds, the creature re-emerged from the hatch and pulled himself out onto the hull. Holding a lump of tech in one upper hand, he quickly brushed dust off his vest with the lower two, while waving to Armsmaster with the free one.

"Tech Master Armsmaster," the bug called cheerily. "Hello!"

Armsmaster simply stared stonily at the creature, who didn't seem to notice. He made a whistling sound and two more like him emerged from the rear compartment of the huge improvised tank, bent under the weight of the Tinker-tech on their backs. "Salvage squad, we return in triumph!"

"Glory to the Hive!" the others, which were slightly different colors, chorused.

"You're all under arrest," Armsmaster grated, reaching back to retrieve his halberd to drive the point home.

His questing hand paused, then felt around. Then felt around some more. Eventually, he looked over his shoulder.

A fourth bug was holding his missing halberd and inspecting it curiously. "That is my property," he stated menacingly. "Return it immediately."

"Catch," the thing replied, tossing it to him. He did, then looked up just in time to see the fading effects of the insectoid's teleportation system.

"Damn it," he muttered in great irritation. Sighing, he turned back to check, and sure enough the first three had vanished as well.

It was only when he had retrieved Squealer and called for a PRT wagon to pick her up as well as a tow unit to remove her home-made tank that he discovered his bike's toolkit was missing.

"Mother fucker!" he snarled in fury. "That's the fifth damn time in a row!"

The expressions on the faces of the PRT crew didn't help, it had to be said, and he was not a happy Tinker when he got back to the Rig.

Dragon giggling in his ear the entire time was just adding insult to injury.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Uh, Danny?"

Danny Hebert looked around to see one of his co-workers standing there with a bemused expression on his face. "Yeah, Jeff?"

"They're back," Jeff said. He pointed past Danny's shoulder. Looking in that direction the other man watched for a moment then sighed very quietly.

"I'll handle it, Jeff."

"Thanks, Danny. Sorry, but they kind of freak me out."

"They're mostly harmless."

"I know, but they're also five foot tall bugs who are all probably at least twice as smart as I am and don't have much impulse control," Jeff grumbled. "Most people would be freaked out about that."

"I'm sure you'll get used to them eventually," Danny grinned. Jeff didn't look all that convinced, but shrugged and wandered off, faintly mumbling to himself under his breath. Danny watched him go for a moment, then turned and headed for the far end of the dockyard, where a couple more of his coworkers were leaning on a large forklift watching half a dozen colorful not-quite-insects dismantle a broken generator left over from when the trains were running. It was a very large piece of equipment based around a stationary gas turbine and in its day could have powered a small town, but hadn't run for at least twenty years.

Stopping next to the two men, he glanced at them, then went back to watching as his daughter's little friends kept working industriously, tools clinking. A large amount of the device was lying on the ground around their feet, and one of them was almost entirely inside the casing, only her lower feet exposed. He could hear muffled swearing in a strange but familiar voice coming from in there.

"You think they really know what they're doing?" Kurt, one of the two men, idly asked.

"They fixed the trawler engine, and that old track-laying unit everyone thought was scrap," the other one, a welder called Zach, replied with a grin. "Wouldn't want to assume they don't."

"Your daughter is a menace at times," Kurt commented to Danny, who merely shrugged. "Although I have to admit these guys are kind of fun."

"Armsmaster doesn't seem convinced of that," Zach chuckled. "Way I heard it, he's been complaining that they keep stealing things from him."

"He's just salty because they're better at Tinkering than he is," Danny snickered. "Even though it's not actually Tinkering. Or probably because it's not actually Tinkering…"

"The man is a bit tightly wound, so I can see it," Kurt nodded, his face twitching.

"I got it! Pull me out!" the creature almost buried inside the turbine called. Two of her friends grabbed her feet and yanked, the insectoid popping out in a cloud of soot, her antenna filthy but at a set that indicated she was basically smiling widely. "Look, it's just the main bearing," she said, waving a greasy lump in one hand. The others gathered around to inspect it. "We can remake this and the rest is easy."

"I'll get the portable fabber," another one said, disappearing behind the generator. Shortly he came back with a box that looked much too large and heavy for someone of his size to carry, but managing it with ease. He dumped it on the ground as Zach whistled, impressed.

"Those little guys are strong," the man commented. All three of them watched as the box was opened and a very complex machine unfolded from inside, two of the creatures immediately setting to work on the built in computer system with a flurry of action. Only a few minutes later the right side of the machine glowed a strangely iridescent violet-blue color for a handful of seconds, then it beeped. One of the operators opened the hatch and retrieved a perfectly made and brand new version of the lump of junk that had been pulled from inside the turbine. The first insectoid grabbed it and disappeared back inside the huge machine again. Various tinkering noises echoed from the interior as all three men exchanged glances.

Twenty minutes later the female flipped two switches on the reassembled generator, turned a valve a few times, tapped a couple of gauges, then hit a button. A motor started whining, the sound growing louder, then another much deeper whine began slowly winding up. When it hit a pitch that apparently satisfied her, she flipped another switch. A loud thud came from the generator and a big cloud of white smoke billowed from the exhaust, quickly clearing away as the turbine whine rapidly accelerated to a deafening roar. Danny and the other two put their hands over their ears, but the one at the control panel merely cocked her head and watched the gauges, her antenna twitching in excitement.

After a few seconds she opened the valve two more turns, the turbine noise becoming deeper and more throaty, and pulled a large breaker. The machine's roar changed as the generator began spinning, and meters jumped showing it was producing power.

All of the insect-like creatures waved their hands in the air jubilantly. She quickly flipped switches, shutting the machine down again, the sound of the turbine whining down to silence. Across the yard, a lot of people were staring their way, and Danny could hear echoes coming back off the bay.

"Success! Another victory for the Glory of the Hive!" the female cried.

"For the Glory of the Hive!" the rest echoed, raising their upper arms and making a gesture, then relaxing and beginning to pack away their tools and equipment into a number of large boxes. The female insectoid turned and scuttled over to Danny, making a gesture of respect to which he responded with a smile.

"Hive Grandfather, we have once again helped."

"So I see," Danny replied mildly. "Well done."

She waved her antenna happily. "Thank you. We shall return to the Hive now, as we have much work to do."

"Don't get too caught up in it, you need to relax and enjoy yourselves sometimes," he advised. She cocked her head to the side a little and regarded him with those huge compound eyes.

"We are relaxing and enjoying ourselves," she replied with what was definitely a tiny smirk for her kind. He chuckled as she nodded to him, then Kurt and Zach, before zipping back to join the others who'd finished packing up by now. "Repair Squad, we return with another mission successfully completed! We shall partake of the Lemonade of Triumph with our heads held high!"

"The Hive Grandmother Provides!" the chorus shouted. Moments later the entire collection of insectoid crazy people vanished with the now-familiar effect of their teleporter.

None of the three said anything for a moment, until Zach shook his head and remarked with a grin, "Gets stranger by the day, doesn't it?"

"You don't live with it," Danny sighed, but he was also grinning.

"Hive Grandfather?" Kurt was giggling to himself. Danny sighed again.

"Kids. What can you do?"

"Hive Grandfather?"

"Stop snickering, you idiot. Come on, we need to get this thing moved over to the depot now it's working," Danny replied with a shake of his head, putting his hand on his old friend's back and shoving him towards the main building. Kurt was still snickering under his breath when they went inside.

 

[mp3.1415player]

"What in god's name is going on around here?" Emily shouted, waving a hand at the screen on the wall. "I go away for medical treatment for a month and come back to find this… this… insanity! Renick, I left you in charge, and I hoped you'd at least keep the fucking city on an even keel at worst, and maybe, just maybe, figure out some way to improve it! But this?"

She glared around the conference room, which she'd called an all-hands-on-deck meeting in the moment she'd come into work after her surgery and recovery let her return to the city. While she'd been in Canada at the medical facility in Toronto, she'd missed all the things going on back here, which were peculiar even by the highly skewed standards of what might well have been the largest collection of mad people in North America. At least partly because she'd been in a medically induced coma for two weeks, and recovery from that for another ten days.

On the up side, the transplant operation had been a complete success and the new antirejection therapy, she had been assured, would give her cloned replacement kidneys the same effectiveness that her original ones would have had absent what had happened in her past. Which was good.

On the down side there was whatever this was…

Which was, in her considered opinion, not good.

An opinion she was quite prepared to share at length and high volume to the entire collection of lackwits she called her staff.

Breathing heavily, and maliciously thankful that her improved, and steadily improving, health allowed her to express her feelings properly, she met each pair of eyes in turn, noting which of them looked guilty. It was, annoyingly, most of them.

"Well? Why do we have giant insect people running around doing whatever the hell it is they want to do? Stealing PRT equipment, taking Armsmaster's bike for a joyride, giving all the gangs a hard time, and now taking down Squealer. Apparently by accident. You all do, I hope, realize this is all completely ridiculous? Where the hell did they come from? What do they want? What are they trying to do? Why is there…" She blinked a few times, stopping in mid rant, as she glanced at a motion on the other side of the armored window behind Armsmaster.

He looked at her, apparently puzzled. "Director? You were saying?"

"Why is there one of them waving at me from the other side of the window, eighteen stories up?" she grated.

Everyone stared at her, then as one person turned their heads.

The giant blue bug on the other side of the window waved again in a cheerful manner, then climbed up the window, disappearing out of view. No one said anything although Assault got up and walked over to the window, peering upwards with his face on the glass, before turning around and shrugging with a weird expression.

Emily sat down again, put her head in her hands, and sighed very heavily indeed. Around her she heard several people shouting orders, and lots of running around happening. But she knew in her heart that by the time anyone got outside, the fucking bug would have vanished again. Probably having cleaned the windows first.

"Why me," she moaned. "What did I ever do to deserve this pestilential city?"

As always there was no answer to the question.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Greetings, Tech Master Leet!"

"GAH!"

Leet clutched at his chest as his heart skipped a few beats, slipping off his stool in the process and landing heavily on the floor of his workshop. His right elbow smacked into the side of the stool on the way down and the bolt of pain that ripped up his arm to his shoulder made him hiss in agony. Moments later his head bounced off the much too thin and very worn carpet with a clunk that made him see stars.

"ow."

The Tinker whimpered slightly as several places registered their disapproval with the abuse, his eyes closed as he tried to recover. Some seconds passed, then he slowly opened them again and stared at the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling two stories up.

Rather slowly, in a manner that for some reason conveyed embarrassment, a very unusual face moved into his sight-line from somewhere behind him, so it was upside down. Even though there wasn't a hint of anything recognizably human about it, he got the distinct impression of a rueful smile.

It was something about the angle of the antennae, he thought somewhat dazedly.

"Er… Sorry about that, Tech Master Leet." The giant bug or whatever it was nervously rubbed its mandibles with one slender-fingered and clawed hand as it gazed down at him.

"What the fuck, man?" Leet finally said in a pained voice. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"My apologies. It won't happen again. Please don't tell the Hive Mother, she would be quite irritated with me. Again." The bug-thing seemed embarrassed. The somewhat strange voice conveyed the impression quite strongly.

"I'm no narc," Leet replied, sitting up with a twinge of pain from his abused back. It was only about then that he really paid attention to a couple of important points, namely that not only was he staring at a clearly sapient giant bug, which now that he noticed had a vest filled with all manner of tools on its thorax, but the aforesaid sapient giant bug was in his workshop. Leaving aside the oddity of what and who he was looking at, the issue of how it got here seemed rather critical.

"Ah…" He looked around, a certain amount of cautious worry rolling over him. "Where did you come from? And how did you get in here? How, now that I think about it, did you even know where 'here' is?"

It was a good question in his view as he and his best friend and more or less literal partner in (very mild) crime had gone to some effort to remain discreetly hidden from other people.

If Über was here he'd probably ask the same question, likely more forcefully.

The bug held up a small device in one of the four hands it had. "My teleporter," it chirped in a cheerful voice. "Tracing the output of your technology was simple, and this let me get here without having to go through all the effort of dismantling your defenses."

"Your teleporter," Leet repeated in a rather stunned way. "Of course. Why didn't I think of that. Obviously you have a teleporter."

"We all do," the thing replied, still giving off an air of good humored happiness now it wasn't being all embarrassed. "It was one of the first things the Hive invented after the Hive Mother created us. It's very useful."

"I can imagine it would be," he croaked, after absorbing the comment and coming up with a lot of potentially very weird ideas from it.

"Yes, we're very pleased with the utility of the teleport system," the thing carried on, putting the device away in one of the pockets in its vest, then looking around his workshop with interest. "The range isn't quite as high as would be ideal but it suffices for… Is that a fusion power cell?" It pointed to one of his old inventions.

He followed the digit, then looked back to the unexpected and inexplicable visitor. "Yes?"

"Impressive," the bug said, scuttling over and picking the now non-functional unit up and examining it closely. "It's substantially smaller than the systems we're working on at the moment." Cradling the thing in two hands, it used the other two to remove some tools from its vest and as he gaped managed to completely dismantle the device in about two minutes flat. His workbench was rapidly filled with the innards of the broken fusion cell as the creature studied the parts, its head cocked a little to one side. "I see. Intriguing. Why did you design it with this weak point?"

"Weak point?" he echoed, still wondering if he'd hit his head hard enough he was now hallucinating. The insectoid picked up one of the sub-assemblies and showed it to him, indicating a section that showed signs of having been exposed to high temperatures judging by the discoloration of the titanium structure.

"The way the containment coil is wound allows excessive plasma leakage at this specific point," it commented, tapping a part of the inner fusion compression liner. "Which ultimately melted through the field shaper, see? It's odd because everything else is very well designed, but with this flaw it would inevitably fail. After… about sixty two hours of operation, I'd say."

"It died after sixty three and a half hours of run time," Leet managed, staring.

"I was close," the thing said with a gesture from one hand and a flick of the antennae that seemed to suggest amusement.

"How the hell did you work that out in five minutes?" Leet queried, standing up and moving to take the part from his weird visitor.

"I'm very good with technology," the creature replied modestly. "We all are, but I like to think I'm better than most. I'm very grateful to the Hive Mother for my abilities. Admittedly I'm not a Tech Master like you, but I do know what I'm doing."

With a look at Leet's stool the bug laughed with a minor amount of embarrassment in his voice. "Most of the time. Perhaps she was right when she said I was too impulsive…"

Leet just looked at it.

"Anyway…" Pulling out some more tools, the bug-thing lifted the unit from his hand and put it on the bench. "If we just cut this section out like this," he said, flicking on one tool which produced a fine beam of energy that made quick work of the job, excising a neat inch diameter circle of aerospace-grade titanium alloy, "And rebuild the melted part with…" He looked around as Leet watched in mild disbelief. "Aha! That will do." Grabbing a sheet of the same alloy left over from an old anti-gravity project, the bug quickly sliced it up and produced a suitable new piece, then bent it between two hands with a minor grunt of effort. Leet gaped as the eighth-inch-thick extremely tough alloy creaked and warped, complaining about being cold-worked like that.

The bug was a strong little bastard.

"There we go. Just weld this back in here like this…" The same tool was adjusted, the beam changing color from a pale violet to a bright blue-green, and with a small shower of sparks the patch was neatly welded into the hole, leaving barely a trace of a seam. "That should do it. Now all we need to do is rearrange the containment coil winding a little to remove the weak point."

Another minute's work saw the coil windings carefully separated, shifted, and refastened into place. "Done."

Leet sat back on his stool and stared as the bug rapidly reassembled his fusion cell, almost as fast as it had taken it to pieces. Only minutes later the foot-tall device was sitting on the bench completely intact. "Where do you keep your fusion fuel?" the creature asked.

He pointed a little weakly at a pressure bottle under the bench. "Excellent." Retrieving it, the insectoid connected it to the fusion cell input port and opened the valve, a short hiss sounding as compressed deuterium gas filled the fuel reserve. Removing the hose, the creature checked over the fusion unit, then flicked a couple of switches and hit the ignition button with a thumb.

A muted thud was followed by a rising hum and actinic light shining from the viewing window on top of the fusion device. It settled down to a steady rumble, the glow on the ceiling lighting the room. "There we go. All fixed. That should stop it failing again."

His visitor seemed pleased with himself, somehow. Leet looked at the bug, then at the fusion cell, then back at the bug, his mouth open.

"How… what…" He took a very deep breath. "Holy fuck. You fixed my fusion cell."

"Yes, I know, I just said that," the bug replied, giving him an odd look.

"You fixed my fusion unit."

"Um… Yes?"

"In under a quarter of an hour, you diagnosed the fault in a piece of Tinker tech and fixed it."

"That's… right, yes. We do that."

"How?"

The bug shrugged. "We're just good with technology like I said. The Hive Mother designed us like that. Although she has said she didn't expect it to work so well." He looked shiftily from side to side, then leaned closer. Leet did the same, despite himself.

"Between you and me I think she's a lot better than she believes she is, but she's too modest sometimes. The First said something similar once."

"The First?" Leet repeated.

"The first of us. The one she made first. Hence 'The First,' you see?" The bug looked smugly at him, although he had absolutely no idea how he knew that face was doing a smug look.

"Her actual name is Zex, but she's still The First to the rest of us," the bug went on, in a somewhat reflective manner as it put its tools away. "She was the start of the Hive. All of us are the children of the Hive Mother, but Zex is… like our older sister in human terms? Something like that."

"I can't believe this," Leet muttered, gaping at the running fusion reactor, then the weird happy bug that had somehow repaired it. Something he had failed to do for over a year. He hadn't even been able to work out what was wrong with the fucking thing, as if he'd had some sort of blind spot that the fault was hiding in.

How the fuck had this creature just looked at his tech and fixed it like it was repairing a leaking tap?

He remembered some of the strange stories that had been on PHO recently and suddenly believed all of them.

"What's your name?" he finally asked, levering his eyes off the reactor with significant effort and returning them to the bug.

"I'm Kilzen," the bug replied, holding out a hand. He shook it, finding the feeling of the exoskeleton a bit weird but not bad.

"Nice to meet you, Kilzen," Leet said, grinning.

"Likewise, Tech Master Leet."

Leet shook his head a little, then looked around the workshop. "Hey, any idea what's wrong with this?" he asked, picking up a random invention and examining it, trying to work out what it actually was before recognizing it as the Space 1999 laser pistol they'd used in one of their events.

Kilzen took it from him and inspected it closely. "Beam emitter seems somewhat misaligned," he muttered, turning it over in his hands, one of the lower ones pulling out another test tool. "Perhaps… Oh, yes, I think… Ah." He quickly removed the casing and tapped the main lasing cavity driver. "This failed due to a voltage spike, I think, and cracked the excitation crystal."

"Can you fix it?" Leet queried, feeling tense as he leaned forward.

"I'll need a portable fabber to make a new one, but yes, it's not a complex repair," Kilzen nodded, looking up from his examination of the gun.

"Fabber?"

"Oh, yes, they're very useful," Kilzen replied, flicking his antenna excitedly. "It's an outgrowth of the initial teleport technology, of course. The operating principle isn't identical, as the fabber uses matter to energy to matter processes while clearly that is sub-optimal for actual teleportation of living creatures for reasons I'm sure you know, so we just warp space to allow direct transfer without the damage that might occur otherwise, but there's a certain amount of overlap in the basic principles behind both methods." His voice had gotten faster and faster as he spoke and Leet's Tinker senses were tingling violently from what he was hearing.

"You made a Star Trek replicator," he said wonderingly, understanding exactly what was being described.

"Sort of?" Kilzen replied with a gesture of uncertainty. "But not quite? The concept isn't entirely dissimilar, I agree. Do you want me to fix this?"

"I would like that very much," Leet replied with deliberate calmness.

"All right. I'll be right back." Kilzen produced his teleport widget and pressed a button on it. Leet stared at the resulting effect, then shook his head in amazement.

Within two minutes the insectoid reappeared, carrying a surprisingly large and obviously heavy box, which he carefully lowered to the floor. As the Tinker watched, he opened it and very quickly had set up a complex machine, which he turned on, then started rapidly designing a replacement excitation crystal on the computer system that was part of the thing. "You see, the software lets me design the parameters of what we want, like this," Kilzen explained, all four hands working at a speed that was slightly disturbing, a very complicated CAD display rotating and zooming rapidly on the screen, until it suddenly stopped. "And then when we've got the final design, we just send it to the matter recombiner." He entered a couple of commands, then only seconds later after some interesting light effects, opened the output panel and removed a half-inch diameter semi-organic crystalline rod and held it up.

"Holy crap," Leet breathed, taking it from him in wonder. "It took me two weeks to make the original one of these."

"I was wondering why it had that weak point in it," Kilzen replied, flicking his antennae curiously. "Possibly you made a mistake?"

"Weak point?" Leet asked. Again. And feeling somewhat worried…

"Yes, it had a stress point on one of the facets, where the impingement angle was slightly wrong." Kilzen looked at him. "You didn't notice?"

"No."

"Odd. Very odd." They stared at each other for a second or two, then simultaneously looked at the fusion unit. "Very odd indeed… I need more data, but let's get this working first," the insectoid finally said in a thoughtful voice as he picked up the dismantled laser gun and started removing the crystal holder. Plucking the new crystal from Leet's fingers as the Tinker stared at the fusion unit a little blankly, he quickly installed the replacement part and reassembled the gun. "There we go."

He handed it to Leet, who took it absently, twitched a bit, and looked down. After a moment he flicked the power on, waited for the gun's diagnostics to run, which resulted in a green light after less than a second to his complete lack of surprise, then aimed the weapon at the floor on the other side of the room safely away from anything important. Pressing the trigger resulted in a sharp zap sound and a flash of energy.

"You fixed this too," he said in a numb voice, despite himself being somewhat shocked.

"Yes," Kilzen replied, sounding satisfied.

Turning the weapon off Leet put it on the bench next to him, then stared at it for quite a long time. Eventually he turned to the patiently waiting insectoid. "Why did you come here to begin with?" he asked, a question he should have put to his visitor some time ago, he realized.

"The Hive collects useful technological information and examples of interesting technology," Kilzen promptly replied. "For our own interest mostly although it helps with some of our projects. Some Tech Masters are… a bit strange." He shrugged, seeming amused. "They get all funny about letting you look at their inventions. Armsmaster is all 'Stop, that is Protectorate property, you do not have clearance to handle it' all the time." His whispery voice took on a gruff tone that made Leet snicker, as it was actually a pretty good impression. "We may have had to borrow some of his equipment when he wasn't looking."

Leet laughed again. "You stole his gear?"

"We gave it back. Most of it." Kilzen appeared somewhat shifty for a moment. "Eventually."

"He must love you guys."

"Not as much as you'd expect," Kilzen chuckled. "I even paid him with several new ideas for his bike but he didn't appreciate it nearly as much as you'd think. And Tech Master Squealer is just strange. And violent, and smells funny, and swears a lot…" He shrugged ruefully. "She nearly cracked my exoskeleton that time. Which was rude."

Shaking his head in wonder, Leet got up and circled the faintly humming fabber in the middle of his workshop. When he arrived back next to Kilzen, he asked, "So you're collecting Tinker hardware?"

"Essentially, yes."

"You will be assimilated…" he muttered under his breath.

"Our technological distinctiveness is quite effective already but we're always willing to add to it," Kilzen replied with an amused flick of his antennae. "The Hive Mother likes that show."

"And since I didn't hit you or try to arrest you, you're willing to just talk?"

"Of course! Talking is best. We don't choose violence if there's a better way to do things. The Hive Mother always says we should try to be nice to each other instead of fighting." Kilzen managed to emote a smile without any of the equipment needed to do it for real. "Although the Hive Grandmother says that if you can't be nice, you should at least win the argument in other ways."

Trying not to wonder exactly what that meant, Leet nodded thoughtfully. Then he looked around his workshop at the vast number of devices he'd invented, as well as through the door into the larger room beyond, which was full of the larger stuff. Most of it no longer worked, of course. "You guys open to a deal?" he asked slowly.

Kilzen rubbed his hands together, his antennae curling forward with interest. "I expect the answer would be yes," he replied eagerly. "What did you have in mind?"

Leet grinned widely, putting his arm over the armored shoulders of the insectoid and gently urging him towards the door. "Let me show you a few of my favorite inventions, and we'll talk," he invited. The bug nodded, appearing very interested. "I can't help thinking this is one of the best days of my life," he added happily.

"The Hive thanks you for your cooperation," Kilzen's voice drifted back from the other room. "Oh, while I think of it, I did wonder one thing."

"Which is?"

"I've heard that you can invent anything once, which is an amazing skill. Truly you are a Tech Master among Tech Masters. But I also heard that you can't make something twice."

"Ah… Yeah, that's pretty much true. It pisses me off, to be honest."

"I'd think it would do. My question is this. Why don't you invent a machine to reset your Tech Master abilities to get around that limitation?"

A very long pause was followed by a lot of swearing, then a lot of Tinkering. By the time Über finally returned with a couple of pizzas, he found a very strange scene which took him by considerable surprise...

 

[Terra1125]

Another thread made by Pie? Well this is something that makes my day!

 

[mp3.1415player]

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♦ Topic: This bugs me...
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Brocktonian of Brockton Bay (Original Poster)
Posted On Oct 23rd 2010:

OK, can someone PLEASE explain to me what the HELL is going on around here? Where did all the giant bugs come from, and why are they apparently all Tinkers?

I mean, look at this. Does anyone notice something weird about this photo? Like the man-sized insect guy fixing the traffic lights at the corner of Marine and Sixth?

Because that's what I took a photo of.

Why there is a man-sized insect guy to begin with is something I'm having trouble with anyway, but this is Brockton, I guess, so the weird shit happens here all the time. Still, even by our standards this is kinda strange in my view.

But it's a lot stranger that these guys, and yes, there are more than one of them from what I'm told, are wandering around fixing things. Or, according to one guy I know, stealing stuff from Armsmaster...

He wasn't happy about that

So yeah, hilarious in a way, but also bizarre as fuck. One insect guy, fair enough, really weird but Case 53s are a thing. Snag is that there are at least four of them according to the rumors I've heard, all different colors, and yes, they've been seen in the same place at the same time.

Four insect people Tinkers? The fuck?

Any ideas? Do we need to buy industrial quantities of Raid? Or just start running now before everyone panics and ruins it for all of us?

Yeah. I'm kind of freaked out, to tell the truth.

Throwing the thread open for comments. I'll put important updates here as is the usual practice. Come on, people, let's figure this out!

Edit 1: So there are at least eight of them, from what you can see here and here . It's getting weirder, people.

Edit 2: Video of one of them taking Armsmaster's bike to pieces like it was lego, then putting it back together. Armsy looks... kind of confused?

Edit 3: More Video , this time of I think the same one based on the color and those patterns on him (her?) lifting Armsmaster's toolkit off his bike. It gets worse, these guys can TELEPORT!!

Edit 4: Another two videos of a whole squad of them dismantling one of Squealer's latest offenses against automotive design. Then stealing Armsmaster's toolkit AGAIN! (Note, apparently they've done that about four times at least so far, and I heard they got his spare halberd twice too...) And they even knocked Squealer out in the process somehow, so Armsmaster arrested her.

Edit 4A: She escaped two days later. Of course

Edit 5: This is fucking hilarious. This time they took the entire bike! Same bug as before, riding it down Marine Drive at about a hundred miles and hour and whooping like a lunatic Armsy is NOT HAPPY about it. Apparently he confiscated one of the PRT troop transports and was in hot pursuit for nearly half an hour. Bug-guy is a good bike rider, I'll give him that!

They found the bike parked in the PRT building's underground lot, with a note on it pointing out places it could be improved.

...I have no words about that.

Edit 6: Glory to the Hive? What the hell? And who is the Hive Mother? This gets stranger by the day. At least the bugs seem to be HAPPY bugs And polite too, which is nice...

(Showing page 29 of 42)

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Yeah, it's real, my friend, I've seen them at least four or five times now, just wandering around apparently fixing anything that they spot. Last night I drove past the electrical substation on Forge Way, the one that was damaged when some of those E88 assholes tried to rob an armored car making a pickup from the bank across the road and fucked it up. Five bugs in there replacing a transformer, and repairing all the wiring the electricity company's been saying they'd get around to eventually. They waved to me as I went past, which was a little... odd.

When I came back twenty minutes later or so, they were gone and everything looked brand new and was working perfectly.

Brockton Bay, man. We get some weird shit around these parts

►SenorEel
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

I thought I'd pretty much seen everything your bizarre city was capable of doing, then you get sapient bugs...

Yeah... I haven't seen everything yet. Cool, I guess, but still weird

►AlienLizardDemon (Probably not an Alien Lizard Demon) (We think...)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Honest, this is nothing to do with me

But I approve of their work ethic and sense of civic responsibility.I wonder if they're union?



►Smith of Guns (DWU)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

They're hard working little guys. Turn up at the yard every now and then and fix things here too. So far everything they've got their claws into works like it was brand new, so as far as WE'RE concerned they're all right. Although I'll admit some of my friends are a bit freaked out by them. Giant bugs, right?

But they're basically harmless as long as you don't threaten them, and even then they'll probably just teleport away, rather than fight. Pretty peaceful bugs on the whole.

►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Sorry?

Teleport?

The bugs can TELEPORT?

That's really cool! And might explain why Armsmaster is so annoyed about not being able to catch one of them

He's not happy about his toolkits always vanishing.

He's REALLY not happy about them turning up again in his lab.

Oh.

Teleporting, that would explain a LOT of things that have been bugging me

Yes, I meant that pun. Live with it.

►Smith of Guns (DWU)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Yeah, they can teleport. Some sort ot Tinker thing I think, although someone said that the bugs claim they're not Tinkers. I'm not technical enough to really be able to tell one way or the other.

But they have these little widgets that seem to do the work, Pull it out, hit the button, lots of special effects and no bug Doesn't make a sound although the light show is impressive

HERE is a video to prove it.

►Brocktonian of Brockton Bay (Original Poster)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Thanks, Smith. I've added the video to the thread start. Keep them coming, everyone!

►Miss Mercury (Protectorate Employee)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

The Proctorate, yet again, urges our new insectoid friends to contact either us or the PRT and answer a rather long list of questions we both have.

We urge the public not to interact with these people as we currently don't know their motives or goals, and public safety is paramount.

►Laser Augment
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

I'll bet you have some questions to ask them

Like how they managed to get Armsmaster's bike into the PRT underground garage without anyone noticing?

Because that's the story I heard from a source who would probably know

​

End of Page. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

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(Showing page 30 of 42)

►Miss Mercury (Protectorate Employee)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

The Protectorate cannot either confirm or deny this rumor.

►Laser Dream (Verified Cape) (New Wave)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

So that's a yes then

►AlienLizardDemon (Probably not an Alien Lizard Demon) (We think...)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:



Poor Armsmaster...

Was the list of improvements useful?

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

No comment

►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Armsy is simultaneously furious and delirously happy.

It's hilarious. Also disturbing

As are the bug guys, but there you go. That's Brockton Bay for you.

►Zex, First of the Hive
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Tech Master Armsmaster is a worthy opponent in the great game. Our people respect his abilities very much.

Glory to the Hive and the Hive Mother.

►Chrome
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Um...

WTF?

►Office Drone #2710
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Tech Master? What the hell is that?

► BadSamurai
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

I think whoever that is, is using that term to refer to a Tinker?

It's... not actually wrong, now I think about it.

►Feychick
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

The Hive? That sounds kind of ominous. Appropriate, sure, but... ominous.

How many bug people are IN a 'Hive'...?

And where IS it?

​

End of Page. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32

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(Showing page 31 of 42)

►Zex, First of the Hive
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Our numbers are sufficient.

We come in peace.

Glory to the Hive and the Hive Mother.

►AlienLizardDemon (Probably not an Alien Lizard Demon) (We think...)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Nice one, Zex

►Brocktonian of Brockton Bay (Original Poster)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

That doesn't actually HELP if I'm completely honest with you. And I have even more questions now than I did yesterday...

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

So do we, believe me

►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Maybe they're alien bugs!

That's what you're expecting me to say, isn't it?

Hah! Not this time.

They're probably just some biotinker's work.

►FoxStudent
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Oh, that makes it SO much better.

You absolute muppet.

►Hank from the Bank
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Why the hell aren't the PRT doing something about this?

►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

I'm sorry. Have you met the PRT?

They don't like surprises, yeah, but they're not really all that good at doing anything about them.

I can point you at other threads to prove my point if you want.

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

We do what we can, but we can't be everywhere.

►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Being anywhere would help a lot of the time.

​

End of Page. 29, 30, 31, 32, 33

​

(Showing page 32 of 42)

►Zex, First of the Hive
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

I'm sure that the Parahuman Response Team does their best, my friend.

Despite what the Hive Grandmother sometimes says...

Glory to the Hive and the Hive Mother

►Tin Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Zex, if you can DM me with some form of proof that you are indeed one of those connected to this... unusual... situation, I can arrange a suitable tag for you.

►Zex, First of the Hive
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

I have sent you an image I hope will be sufficient, Tin Mother.

It should prove a number of helpful facts

Glory to the Hive and the Hive Mother.

►Tin Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

...

Yes, that will suffice. Your tag has been approved.

►Zex, First of the Hive (Verified Hive Member)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Thank you. Glory to your Hive too, Tin Mother

Although we prefer our own.

Glory to the Hive!

And the Hive Mother, of course.

►L33T (Verified Cape)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Expect some cool new videos on our channel soon, everyone.

And thank you, you buggy little crazy people

GLORY TO THE HIVE!

►Zex, First of the Hive (Verified Hive Member)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

You're welcome, Tech Master Leet. The Hive is happy to have been of assistance.

►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Why do I suddenly have a chill running down my back?

►Tin Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

You're not the only one, trust me.

►Hive Mother (Verified Hive Mother)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

Zex, stop worrying people. We talked about that.

Leet, be good.

​

End of Page. 30, 31, 32, 33, 34

​

(Showing page 33 of 42)

►L33T (Verified Cape)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

I'll be good.

Honest

►Tin Mother (Moderator)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

How did you get a Verified Hive Mother tag?

►Zex, First of the Hive (Verified Hive Member)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

The Hive Mother is very talented

Glory to her.

►AlienLizardDemon (Probably not an Alien Lizard Demon) (We think...)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

And the Hive?

►Zex, First of the Hive (Verified Hive Member)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

I thought that went without saying

►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Oct 27th 2010:

I have NO idea what is going on right now, but it's really cool

​

■​

♦ Topic: L33T's tech
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Sothoth (Original Poster)
Posted On Oct 31st 2010:

OK, I was under the impression that L33T was unable to rebuild his old inventions, and I KNOW that this robot horse got destroyed by Squealer running it over with a tank. Because I SAW it.

So where did THIS come from?

And why is he laughing like a crazy man?

And why is there one of the Hive Bugs running after him?

Someone please make this make sense? Please?

​

■​

 

[mp3.1415player]

"Hey, Taylor."

Taylor looked up from the textbook she was studying in Arcadia's library, it being a free period, at the sound of a familiar voice and a thud. Amy Dallon was just sitting down on the other side of the table from her, having dropped her bag onto the thing before slumping into the chair. "Hi, Amy. How's it going?" She peered at the other girl. "You look tired. More than usual, anyway. Are you getting enough sleep?"

"No," Amy sighed, scrubbing at her face with her hands, then dropping her head back onto the rear of her chair. "No, I'm not."

"You really shouldn't stay up late playing at the hospital, Amy," Taylor remarked, grinning when Amy moved her fingers apart enough to glare at her.

"I'm not playing, I'm saving lives, you know that," Amy grumbled.

"Sure you are. Everyone knows that, and everyone appreciates the hard work you do."

"...not everyone." The mumble was rather quiet but Taylor heard even so.

"Everyone who matters," she said firmly. "You do a lot of good. Don't let… certain people… persuade you otherwise. But at the same time you need your sleep. I'm sure most of the healing you do isn't an emergency, right?"

"Some of it is," Amy protested, lowering her hands.

"Of course some of it is, but not all of it is. Brockton Bay isn't so dangerous that the Trauma department runs flat out 24/7. Certainly since Lung and Kaiser aren't around these days. And considering how quickly you can fix most people, and how competent they are, I'm pretty certain that you could probably only go there once or twice a week to deal with the non-urgent stuff and they could call you in if they need you for the emergency cases. Vicky can get you there in under five minutes if she really tries, and you've got a car, you can drive there in fifteen."

The Dallon girl sighed. "I'd feel guilty if someone died because I was thirty seconds too late."

"You can't ruin your own life trying to fix everyone else's, Amy," Taylor pointed out firmly. "Everyone needs a break. You work harder than any two normal doctors and I know they're massively overworked." She leaned back, pushing the book she'd been reading to the side a little, then reaching up and lifting the baseball cap she was wearing a little to scratch her head for a moment before replacing it. Amy followed the gesture with her eyes before returning them to meet Taylor's. "Slow down before you give yourself an ulcer, and work smarter, not harder."

"Easy for you to say, you don't have lots of people depending on you," Amy snarked, shaking her head.

"We all have people depending on us in different ways," Taylor chuckled. "Everyone does, after all. That's how life works."

"Life. Don't talk to me about Life," Amy growled, making Taylor snort with laughter again.

"Got a pain in the diodes all down one side?" she asked. The other girl tried to look dour, but then the corner of her mouth started twitching. A moment later she shook her head.

"It's a pain in the ass more than a pain in the diodes," she replied.

"Your mom again?"

"She's… not as helpful as she could be," Amy prevaricated.

"A mother should always support her kids no matter what," Taylor sighed, after looking at her for a few seconds. Taking her hat off, she looked at the HM embroidered on the front then put it on the book and ran her fingers through her hair. "Even if they sometimes do things that sometimes annoy her. They mean well for the most part. And you're a good person, despite being all growly and sarcastic all the time."

"Me? Sarcastic? Never," Amy replied entirely deadpan. "I am the very model of a cheerful high school student. Look at how I light up the room by merely walking into it."

They stared at each other until Taylor started laughing again. "I'm sure you're right," she giggled. Amy grinned for a moment, the sudden change of expression making her fairly plain face become much more alive and cheerful. Taylor wished she'd be like that more often. While not her closest friend, she liked the healer very much.

"Seriously, Amy, cut back on the hours and find another hobby if you need to. You really do need a break."

"I know, I know, but… It's not exactly as simple as that." Amy sighed, propping her head up on one hand and staring at Taylor's hat, before reaching out and picking it up with her free hand to spin it around on one finger. "Carol is not the easiest person to live with."

"So you've said. I'm sorry about that."

"Not your fault, or your problem," Amy mumbled. "Nice hat."

"It was a present from a friend," Taylor replied, catching it when it slipped off Amy's forefinger and flew past her. She plopped it back on her head.

"I need to figure out a better way to do this." Amy sighed heavily. "I wish I could fly or something. It would make getting to the hospital easier and then maybe I could take a break now and then."

"You need to learn to teleport then," Taylor said with a smirk. "How hard can it be?"

They exchanged a look and laughed together. "Yeah, that would be handy," Amy admitted. "Hey, maybe I can borrow one of those weird Hive bug guy's teleporters! I wonder if they take commissions."

"They seem to be working with Leet well enough," Taylor commented.

"Yeah, what the hell is up with that? Leet, of all people? He's a villain!"

"Not much of one, though, is he? He and Über are more interested in their show than actual crime crime. Most of what they do is barely illegal at all as far as I've seen."

"Armsmaster would probably disagree."

"He's kind of strict," Taylor smiled.

"And not all that pleased about the Hive," Amy grinned. "Did you see that latest thing on PHO? Where he was trying to catch one of the bugs and another one snuck up behind him and stole his spare halberd again? That's like the fourth time or something. I think they're doing it mostly because they think it's funny at this point."

Taylor shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips. "They do seem to have decided he's a valid nemesis, but I'm sure it's in good spirits. If he'd just let them look at his stuff without getting all funny about it they'd probably leave him alone by now."

"I wonder how many of them there are, really?" Amy mused, propping her chin on both hands and looking intrigued now, her earlier bad mood apparently gone. "As far as I can see from PHO, there's at least a dozen of them known so far. Someone was claiming it was over twenty confirmed different ones. And every single one of them is a Tinker, which is just… weird. Powers don't work like that. Where did they even come from and where do they go when they disappear?"

"Back to the Hive?" Taylor suggested with a sly grin.

"Well, sure, but where is that?"

"Somewhere… Hive-like?"

"Very helpful."

"I do what I can to help, you know that."

"I know you think that but you really don't sometimes." Amy smiled as Taylor looked comically hurt. "Although sometimes you do."

"Was this one of those times?"

The Dallon girl looked reflective for a while, then nodded. "Yeah, I think it was. Thanks."

"Glad to be of assistance," Taylor replied, smiling widely. "Now, with the social niceties out of the way, have you done Mr Wilson's essay yet?"

"Just about." Amy rummaged in her bag and extracted a binder, opening it to look through the pages. "I was stuck on the whole Shakespeare allegorical meaning thing though, and was going to ask you what you thought about it."

"Dick jokes."

Amy raised an eyebrow. Taylor grinned. "It's dick jokes. Most of Shakespeare is, when you get down to it, dick jokes. Or worse. He had a filthy mind."

"He's a classic of English Literature."

"He wrote smutty plays that a modern audience lacks the context to appreciate in the manner his contemporary one would have done and most people don't realize that his works are full of dick jokes and horrible puns. It's hilarious when you do understand that, though. Mom's always laughing about some of the interpretations her own students put onto things that are basically meant to be played for laughs."

"Is she talking about how rude The Bard was again?"

Both girls looked up to see Emma standing next to them, Vicky approaching from behind the red-head. Emma was grinning.

"Seems that way," Amy agreed, shaking her head a little.

"You want to hear Auntie Annette go on about it," Emma said, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. "She has very… strong opinions… about it. And don't get her started on Romeo and Juliette unless you want a ten minute lecture about an under-aged murder-suicide pact that's been hopelessly romanticized by an unthinking public…"

"She does get a bit heated about that," Taylor confided.

All four girls laughed, then the topic moved on to other things, the small group expanding as their other friends drifted in.

Taylor was enjoying her life, and had made a few mental notes about things that could be arranged to help others enjoy theirs.

Which was always a goal to strive towards in her view.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Everyone looked at the text on the big conference screen, then they turned to see Dragon's avatar's face on the smaller one next to it. The Canadian cape's expression was… somewhat odd, in Emily's opinion. Rather more uncertain than it typically appeared, which was slightly disturbing. "The PHO threads have produced a certain amount of information we were lacking up until this point, although they have also raised more questions than they've answered," Dragon commented. "Zex is… something of a troll, I suspect. Or at least has a fairly unusual sense of humor."

"Which fits with the rest of them," Battery put in. "They are definitely doing a lot of what they're doing because its funny to them as far as I can tell."

"I fail to see the humor in their activities," Armsmaster grunted, his arms folded across his chest and a less than pleased set apparent in the general mouth area. "Most of which in my personal experience seems calculated to irritate me."

"It's because you react like that," Dragon pointed out, smiling for a moment in a manner that made it clear she found the whole thing hilarious. Emily, despite herself, had in private snickered at a couple of his reports, although she'd never admit that to anyone. The bugs, while worrying, definitely had a certain way of doing things that was occasionally funnier than it should have been…

Which in itself annoyed her, but not as much as it annoyed the Tinker.

"They're always polite, you have to admit, even if they have borrowed…"

"Stolen."

"Borrowed your equipment. You've gotten all of it back. Eventually." Dragon smirked slightly as he growled under his breath. "And they do seem to be remarkably good at distracting you."

"Not to mention they caught Squealer for us, and Cricket too," Dauntless remarked. "It's not their fault Squealer managed to escape."

"An accidental take-down of another villain while engaged in theft or vandalism is hardly a valid reason to assume good intentions," Armsmaster grumbled, looking irritated.

"Most of the vandalism they've done is actually fixing things," Assault pointed out with a grin. "You'd be amazed at how many people like the bugs. They keep repairing stuff the city can't or won't fix, and it's made a big improvement in all sorts of places. I like the bugs. They've got a good sense of humor."

"Which is far too close to your sense of humor to be called 'good'," his superior snapped. "Don't think I didn't see the photos of you posing with two of them yesterday."

Assault just looked pleased with himself. Emily suppressed a groan. This was becoming a farce. Her city was infested with annoyingly cheerful and helpful giant insect people who wandered around the place alternately, or concurrently, committing acts of minor thievery or civic repair almost randomly and no one had the faintest idea where they came from, where they went, what they wanted, or even what they were.

If it wasn't for the fact that they were so clearly people, even if very strange people, she'd be even more worried, but the sole good thing about the entire idiotic situation was that the bugs were about as non-hostile as you could hope for. Even in the face of provocation, they either teleported away, or non-lethally dealt with the provocation then teleported away. Squealer's take-down being a good case in point.

That didn't mean she was pleased about the current state of affairs, though, because she definitely wasn't.

Her own superiors seemed much less concerned about it than she felt warranted and were apparently disinclined to provide any support to aid in the search for the bug's origins or creator. Which was clearly some form of Biotinker, although nothing remotely like anything they'd run into before. Unless you took the viewpoint that some did that they were aliens or something similarly idiotic.

She'd almost prefer them to be aliens, really.

Her improved health had lowered her stress levels enough that she could ponder the Biotinker concept without immediately calling for the city to be burned and the ashes salted, but it still made her very uncomfortable, and somewhat baffled as to why the Chief Director seemed to be largely ignoring the whole bizarre situation.

"Their sense of humor aside, what do we know?" she asked, interrupting a low level argument between Assault and Armsmaster. Both stopped and turned their attention back to the meeting, thankfully, as Dragon looked at her.

"Zex claims to be 'the First' of 'the Hive', implying that she is their leader, and the insectoid's group or whatever we wish to term it is referred to by the latter term," Dragon replied. "However, adding to the complexity of the situation, they all refer to someone they call the 'Hive Mother,' who they seem to hold great respect for and loyalty to. That said, from comments made initially, this doesn't appear to be blind loyalty, but more form of enormous respect and admiration for whoever this person is. We currently have no idea whether the Hive Mother is one of them, or a human. Or more likely a Parahuman if we take the approach that they are the result of a wet Tinker. If they are we're faced with a unique state of affairs as by all indications I can find they're all completely sapient individuals, which show both extremely high intelligence, and apparent Tinker abilities of their own."

"We have never encountered a truly sapient Biotinker creation, to the level where one would term the result an independent person, and certainly nothing remotely approaching this level of complexity or numbers," Armsmaster added, seeming to be drawn into the discussion and no longer mildly sulking about it. "Nilbog converted former humans into his warped creations, and while sentient as far as we know they're not sapient. Neither are they independent to the level the Hive members are. Incidentally, they are not insects, as insects have six limbs. These have eight."

He looked around as everyone stared at him. "In the interests of accuracy," he said defensively. "Correct taxonomy is important."

Dragon, who seemed to be suppressing a small smile, waited for them to look back to her. "Armsmaster is right about Nilbog. Blasto can't, or at least doesn't, produce anything even as sentient as Nilbog does. Outside North America, there have been a number of other wet tinkers who have manufactured minions of one sort or another, but there too nothing quite as… engaging… as the Hive is. And we've never seen a Parahuman power produce other Parahuman powers, but all indications are that the Hive consists entirely of very gifted Tinkers. They've shown more than enough evidence of anomalous technology to prove they are easily the equal of any Tinker I'm aware of, and have been seen to dismantle, repair, and reassemble Tinker-tech devices of a wide variety of specialties with little effort. That alone is… unprecedented."

"They sure picked holes in your tech, Armsy," Assault commented with a grin. Armsmaster's lips thinned. "And that one bug is a damn good motorcyclist."

The Tinker growled deep in his throat while Triumph coughed to hide a chuckle.

"They also, of course, have their teleportation technology, which appears to be of their own design and nothing we have on record," Dragon hastily continued. "We don't know all that much about it other than it works very well and has at least city-wide range. And there are reports they also have some form of rapid manufacturing capability as they've been seen to fabricate new parts on site in a matter of minutes, even very complex parts. We don't know the details of how this is done yet."

"Probably some sort of alien bug magic," Assault helpfully interjected, causing Emily to sigh and close her eyes, then reopen them and glare at him.

"An extraterrestrial origin seems… pretty unlikely," Velocity commented. "Unless they show off a spacecraft I think we can probably discount that hypothesis."

He grinned and shrugged, but didn't say anything.

"Reference has also been made on PHO to the 'Hive Grandmother,' which just adds to the strangeness," Dragon went on, after momentarily looking at Velocity with an odd expression which cleared instantly. "We don't know anything about either of those people, nor really anything more about the Hive members other than what we've already discussed and has been posted. It's mostly observation and rumor so far. And Zex has politely declined all invitations to meet with anyone so far."

She stopped talking and hesitated, looking somewhat uncertain again. Emily got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. "There's a problem other than the obvious, isn't there?" she sighed.

"Ah… Yes, Director, you might put it that way." Dragon looked around at them. "When Zex initially posted to PHO, she was asked to provide proof that she was indeed connected to the Hive. She did."

Leaning forward Emily studied the Canadian Tinker's avatar, which was accurate enough to let her see that Dragon was a little baffled. "What was the proof?" she slowly asked.

Dragon replied, "A photo. This photo."

The text on the big screen was replaced with a very high quality image. Everyone looked at it. Complete silence filled the room for a number of seconds.

Emily felt a chill go down her back.

"Um… What are we looking at?" Assault sounded a touch worried.

"That would be some forty six Hive members posing with what, as far as I can work out, is a spaceship," Dragon sighed. "In a cave, I believe. A very large cave. Filled with an absolutely ridiculous amount of technology most of which I have completely no understanding of."

They stared some more, then exchanged glances.

"Oh, dear," Battery finally commented in a worried voice.

Emily pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why me?" she moaned very, very quietly as she felt a migraine start.

"Can I be the Ambassador to the alien bugs? Please?" Assault said, sounding eager.

She put her hands over her eyes and tried to stop her brain leaking out of them, wondering if it was too late to claim her surgery was causing complications and ask for early retirement...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Healer Panacea! Greetings!"

Amy yipped and spun around, then stared at the creature that had somehow appeared behind her in the back yard. She'd been standing in the snow, thinking about Taylor's words the week before, and wondering if her friend was right about cutting back at the hospital. Or more accurately, knowing full well she was right but not sure how to do anything about her problem without making her mother go all funny, or causing her own stress to rise to the point something broke.

Everyone else was out at the moment, her parents over at Aunt Sarah's house, and Vicky on a date with Dean, leaving her alone to stew over her own thoughts. Which she'd been doing outside since while it was cold it was also sunny and crisp, which was weather she rather enjoyed.

And now there was one of the Hive bugs standing not ten feet away.

"Jesus," she said when she caught her breath from the shock. "Don't do that!"

"My apologies, Healer Panacea," the bug replied, making a complex gesture with all four arms and both antennae, which gave the impression of showing respect. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"What did you mean to do?" she asked acidly, her hands on her hips.

The thing seemed to emote a sly grin, its head tilted a little to the side. "Bring you something you might find helpful," it, or she, Amy thought, replied calmly. "We have heard… rumors… that you are overworked. PHO is a useful resource indeed."

Amy sighed faintly. "PHO is full of idiots," she muttered.

"Indeed it is, but it is also often full of truth," the creature chuckled. "The trick is winnowing one from the other. I have read enough to believe that I'm correct. And if my understanding of humans is accurate, which I think it is, you seem stressed. So I thought it would be… hmm… how to put it? Ah, let's say it's an act of good neighbor relations to someone who has done much for the well-being of the city, shall we?"

"What is?" Amy asked suspiciously.

"This is," the bug replied, producing a small device and tossing it to her. Amy caught it reflexively then looked at it. The thing in her hand was about half the size of her phone and matte black, looking like a very high tech widget of some sort. There were a number of controls on it, labeled with cryptic symbols.

"Second question?" Amy said, looking up at the bug, which waved its antenna in a cheerful manner. "What's this?"

"A teleport node," her visitor replied immediately, with a somewhat pleased-with-herself note to her voice. "I thought you'd find it useful."

Amy stared at the bug, then at the thing she was holding. "A… teleport node?" she finally managed to say.

"Even so, yes. Very useful devices, we find." She got the impression of a grin again. "I suspect you will as well." Skittering across the snow, the bug stopped next to her and handed her a small booklet. "This is the operation manual. It's simple enough to use and it's already programmed with several destinations, one being the roof of Brockton General where I believe your sister normally takes you, another being right here. The helipad of both the Rig and the PRT building are two others. And there's an emergency recall override which will take you to a place of safety if you ever find yourself in need of that. The device is biolocked to you, so no one else can use it, and tamper proofed. Just in case someone such as Armsmaster decided to confiscate it. He does seem to be a little… highly strung… where we're concerned for some odd reason."

The bug flicked one antenna in a manner that suggested a wink. Amy couldn't help snickering. "If someone steals it and tries to use it, it'll just teleport itself back to us and alert us that you're in trouble. The Hive would respond appropriately in that case."

"Who are you?" Amy asked wonderingly, accepting the small booklet that she was being offered. As she did so, her fingers brushed those of the bug.

Some time later, she blinked, seeing the creature watching her with interest. "I'm Zex," the thing replied to her question as she reeled from the fascinating information she'd got from the touch, which had completely overwhelmed her. "First of the Hive. And, if you'll accept it, a friend."

Amy felt a smile grow across her face. For some reason she felt better than she had for a long time. "I believe I would like to be your friend too, Zex."

"Very gratifying indeed, Healer Panacea. It's a great pleasure to make your acquaintance." Zex made a gesture of respect again, dipping her head for a moment. "Would you like me to show you how the teleport node works?"

"Yeah, I would," Amy nodded, inwardly thinking that Taylor and her other friends were never going to believe this. And also feeling that her mother was going to be annoying about it. On the other hand…

She looked at the device she was holding.

On the other hand, she had a way to get out of that argument now.

 

[mp3.1415player]

Vicky stared at her sister, who was looking back at her with a fairly out of character devious grin on her face. That face was inside the hood of what had been her normal Panacea costume, but was now… something rather different.

"What the hell, Ames?" she finally said, walking around the other girl who was standing in the middle of her bedroom. "Are you rebranding or something? Where did you get the work done?" She felt the shoulder of the modified costume, impressed by the quality of the cloth. Apparently it wasn't even originally a Panacea costume, it was a completely new one made in the same pattern, but out of a very high quality material.

She was quite familiar with this sort of thing due to both personal interest in clothing and her AP Parahuman Studies course, which included a lot of detail on costumes and all the accessories the average cape used. Or, she suspected in this case, lusted after. Because whatever else it was, this costume was not cheaply made. Not even slightly.

"A friend made it for me," her sister replied, turning to face her again. "We were talking and it kind of… happened." The other girl grinned once more, in a way that was distinctly unusual but looked happier than she often appeared. Vicky was all too aware that her beloved sister was overlooked by their mother far more than she in any way deserved, and was well aware why, as was Amy herself. Neither of them was remotely stupid and they'd long since worked out that Carol Dallon had severe issues with Amy's biological father, whoever he'd been.

Amy thought probably a villain. Vicky wasn't quite convinced, but didn't dismiss it out of hand. The main problem with that theory is how had their mother ended up in custody of a villain's daughter? That said, the way their mom changed the subject every time it even hinted at coming up was suspicious, and Aunt Sarah was oddly unhelpful there too. Which was quite unlike the older woman who generally was open and honest with her nieces.

To Vicky it didn't matter one whit, though. Amy was her sister and that was the end of that. One day she might have to talk rather sternly to their mom if she kept on the way she was though, which certainly wasn't something she was looking forward to.

She was also aware that Amy put in far too much work at the hospital, as she generally was the one who took her there, and carried her home again, usually asleep, when she was done. The blonde knew that the doctors were worried about her sister's workaholic nature and had tried to get her to slow down, for the most part, as had she and several of their other friends. Taylor seemed to have come closest to succeeding from what she'd noticed that time in the library about ten days ago. Perhaps she had succeeded?

If so, Vicky owed her a big favor. The tall slender brunette was a very calm and cheerful girl, but she also had a way with words that could make you stop and think when she wanted. It was like Aunt Sarah, in some ways, only more so.

Inwardly grinning, Vicky thought Taylor would make a good mom herself one day. When she raised an eyebrow at you and looked skeptical about something you'd said it was almost impossible not to immediately try to explain yourself in detail.

It was almost a super power, she thought with amusement. Mom-Girl's abilities were legendary.

Giggling under her breath at her own internal dialog, she felt Amy's sleeve again. "Is this some sort of armored cloth? It feels… odd."

"Yeah, it's rated to stop up to a rifle round at close range," Amy grinned. "Really good stuff. And a hell of a lot safer than those crap robes are. They'd barely handle a knife. A bullet would go right through."

Staring at her in mild confusion, Vicky asked, "Why do you need armored clothing? You're not going out in the field…"

Amy snorted. "Do you have any idea how many fuckers the hospital security has had to shut down in the last six months?" she asked with her hands on her hips, looking annoyed. Vicky shook her head, rather startled, and having never really thought about it. "At least four people with handguns, six with knives, and maybe a dozen who just went mental in the Emergency ward."

"Jesus, Amy!" Vicky exclaimed, horrified.

"Yeah, there are a lot of junkies out there who turn up in a very weird state of mind looking for drugs, or in need of attention because of drugs," Amy grumbled. "The security guys do their best, and they get most of the weapons, but every now and then some asshole manages to smuggle something in anyway. You wouldn't believe some of the places I've seen them hide the fucking things in." She wrinkled her nose as Vicky thought, then did the same. "And only three weeks ago we had one guy who looked like a perfectly respectable office worker who suddenly lost the plot and pulled out a switchblade. I had to heal his original problem and a broken arm after Ed the security guy broke it for him."

She sighed a little. "I was really tempted to leave it alone, to be honest. He nearly got one of the nurses I really like. Bastard."

"Fuck me." Amy gave her sister a look of amusement at the gasped exclamation. Vicky was feeling very worried now.

"Hospitals get some strange, strange people and they're mostly having a really bad day. So sometimes they want to share the pain."

"I had no idea," Vicky finally said after a long pause.

Amy shrugged. "Any emergency worker faces the same problem. People shoot at ambulances and fire trucks all the time. Even when they're coming to help them, which is completely insane, but then so are a lot of those assholes too. I may not be running around beating up Nazis but that doesn't mean I get a completely free ride sometimes."

Abruptly hugging her, Vicky felt extremely worried. "No wonder you look so tired all the time, Ames," she whispered into her sister's shoulder.

Amy patted her on the back. "It's just a thing that happens, Vicky," she replied quietly. "I've been lucky, and they're really on the ball at the hospital. But this…" She waved down at her new costume. "This makes it a lot safer. Luck runs out. Good armor is more reliable."

Releasing her and stepping back, Vicky looked her up and down again, then nodded slowly. "I guess it is. Why the style change though? You look… well, you look like Panacea crossed with something out of a fantasy book."

"Someone I met said I was basically the healing sorceress and should dress the part," Amy giggled. "He's weird, but I thought about it, and you know what? He's kind of got a point. So…" She spread her arms widely, allowing the sleeves of the modified costume to drape downwards, her face obsured by her hood and when she tilted her head a little only allowing her grin to be seen in the shadowed interior. Combined with the silver trim around the sleeves and down the front of the robes, the silver and blue sash around her waist, along with the familiar Panacea red cross symbol on one side of her chest, the effect was both impressive and just familiar enough to make it certain it was her sister. Even while being different enough to really differentiate old-style Panacea from the new style one.

"What do you think? Do I make a good sorceress of healing?"

Vicky inspected her, her smile growing as she examined the costume with interest rather than surprise. "To be honest, yeah, you do. You need something else though…"

Amy laughed, then trotted across her bedroom and rummaged in the closet for a moment, before turning around holding…

"Like a staff? A staff of magic?"

Vicky sat on the edge of Amy's bed and started laughing as well. Her sister was now holding a dark wooden staff with silver bands every few inches. The staff was as tall as she was, and the bottom of it had a metal cap, while the top was carved into a familiar shape, having a snake wrapped around it for the upper third of the length, then curling down from above to leave a gap between the head and the top of the staff. Held in the open jaws of the snake was a glowing blue crystal the size of a chestnut. It was clearly based on the rod of Asclepius, the ancient symbol of a healer or doctor. A symbol that had been in use in one version or another for literally thousands of years.

"That is amazing," the blonde said admiringly as her sister posed with the staff held across her body, one hand lifted in a gesture that looked like she was going to cast a spell. "I'm not sure Mom will approve, but Aunt Sarah would laugh her ass off and love it."

"I don't much care if Carol approves or not," Amy replied, shaking her head and dropping out of the pose. "This is really cool, it was a present from a friend, and I need a change before I go nuts. Taylor was right."

"Who's the friend?" Vicky queried, trying to think who might have had both the ability and the money to make, or commission, something like this for her sister. "Parian?" she guessed.

Amy shook her head, a devious grin on her features as she pushed her hood back and leaned on the staff. "Nope. Guess again."

"Um… Accord?" She grinned as her sister started giggling. "Armsmaster?"

"No, not Accord, I've never met that guy, and Armsmaster? Are you kidding? First he'd never make something cool like this, it would end up being power armor seven feet tall, and second he's kind of a dick. I mean, full marks for talent, but you have met him, right?"

With a nod Vicky acknowledged the comment. She respected Armsmaster, and his abilities, but in person he was… gruff… at best.

"I have no idea then," she finally admitted, shaking her head. "Leet?"

"Funny you should mention him," Amy started, then stopped as Vicky's eyes widened comically and began laughing. "No, he didn't make this."

"I give up," Vicky said, shrugging.

As Amy opened her mouth to say something, the door to her bedroom swung open unexpectedly. Both girls jumped, then looked to the side. "Amy, have you…" Vicky winced a little as their mother's eyes fixed on Amy, who shrank back for a moment then obviously decided to stand up to the older woman, her posture straightening as she moved the staff to her side and stood staring back.

"What is that," Carol demanded dangerously.

"What is what?" Amy asked innocently, looking around as if she had no idea what her mother was talking about. Vicky had to bite her lip not to laugh, as to be honest it was pretty funny. Although she was also waiting for the explosion.

"THAT!" The older woman pointed imperiously at Amy. "Where did you get that, that… costume? It is not your approved New Wave one."

Amy looked down at herself, then met Carol's eyes again. "Isn't it?" she replied calmly.

"NO, IT IS NOT!" Carol said loudly as she stomped into Amy's room, Vicky shifted nervously on the bed, not wanting that ire directed at her, but unwilling to let her sister get both barrels either. Their mother had buttons, and Amy had managed to mash one good and hard by the looks of it. "You know full well it is not what we arranged for you. And I haven't heard you ask for a different one. Certainly not something so…" She looked the girl up and down, her lip curling a little. "Extravagant. Where did you get it? How did you pay for it? What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that I'm bored and depressed and wanted a change, mother," Amy growled back. "And I'm thinking I want something that could actually help if some drug-addled lunatic opens up on the trauma ward like last month. This is bulletproof. It could save my life. That other one is not."

Carol opened her mouth then closed it again when Amy went on, "And it didn't cost me anything. It was a gift from a friend."

"A friend?" Carol asked skeptically.

"A friend, yes," Amy said defiantly. "I'm allowed to have friends."

"Of course you are, but I was unaware that any of your friends were wealthy enough to commission something like that," Carol snapped.

"They didn't commission it, they made it for me," Vicky's sister replied. The blonde was looking back and forth between both of them like she was at a tennis match, not sure if she should intervene or not.

"Made it for you?" Carol repeated. "Who is this friend?"

"I don't think I want to tell you if you're going to be like that, Carol," Amy said with a dark look. "You'd only get even more angry about it anyway."

Folding her arms, Carol glared at her adoptive daughter. "Why does that make me believe someone is being a bad influence on you?" she said angrily.

"Your paranoia is flaring up?" Amy commented, almost smiling for a moment. Vicky put her hand over her eyes. This wasn't going to end well.

"What did you say, young lady?" Carol hissed.

"You always take the worst possible view on anything I do," Amy replied with a shrug. "I know it, you know it, Vicky knows it… So there's no point trying to be nice about it. You're my mom, sure, but you're also paranoid and a control freak. I'm not a villain, even if my dad was. Stop trying to run my life for me. I'm perfectly capable of doing that myself."

Their mother's mouth was opening and closing wordlessly when Vicky peeked through her fingers. Amy's tone was completely reasonable although the words were not something Vicky had ever expected her to say to Carol's face like that. On the other hand, nothing she'd said was actually incorrect, even if it was… undiplomatic.

"You will take that off and give it to me, then we're going to have a very long talk, Amelia," Carol finally managed to say in a voice that could have frozen helium.

"No."

"You will do as I say."

"Nope. I'm keeping it."

"Amelia Dallon, you are trying my patience."

"Carol Dallon, you are annoying me."

Vicky raised a finger, then leaned back as both of them snapped their heads around to glare at her. "Nothing," she said very quietly.

"Take it off or I will take it off for you," Carol said when she looked back to Amy, who simply shook her head, raised her hood, and stood there smirking at their mother.

"You cannot take the robes of the Healing Sorceress," Vicky's sister said in an oddly calm voice, sounding to Vicky like she was trying not to laugh. Her staff was raised in her hand, while her other hand was inside her robes, and Vicky thought the end result was remarkably imposing in a weird way. "I'm going to go and talk to Aunt Sarah. She's much less irritating than you are."

"You are going nowhere, young lady!" Carol said loudly.

"Wanna bet?" Amy grinned at her, turned her head to Vicky and winked, then waved the staff in a grand gesture. "Portal Away!" she intoned.

Neither Carol or Vicky said anything for some seconds, they just gaped at the light effects as Amy disappeared.

Very familiar light effects, if one watched videos on PHO.

"What… what… What?" Carol stuttered, still staring at where Amy wasn't.

Vicky collapsed back onto her sister's bed and started laughing helplessly. She suddenly had a very good idea who Amy's mysterious new friend was and wondered how on Earth her sister had met the Hive bugs.

"Glory to the Hive," she said through her giggles, then got up and slipped out of the room even while Carol was still looking around in a bewildered manner as if she was expecting to find Amy hiding under the desk. Seconds later she was flying rapidly towards her Aunt's house, wanting to talk about all sorts of things with her sister. And still giggling.

 

[mp3.1415player]

"Armsmaster."

"The girl simply will not respect my authority."

"Armsmaster."

"She just laughs at me, then teleports away! It's infuriating. I need to examine that device. It holds the key to dealing with the Hive."

"Armsmaster!"

Emily pinched the bridge of her nose as the Tinker kept muttering in an aggrieved fashion, largely ignoring her, as he rapidly sketched on his design tablet. Assault was leaning sideways and watching with an expression that was a strange mix between highly amused and rather disturbed. Everyone else was looking alternately between her and Armsmaster.

"I refuse to let a collection of alien Tinker bugs continue to steal my equipment, spaceship or no spaceship," he went on, still not paying attention. "I will catch that specific one and we will have words. Yes. A lure here, the pulley here, I will stand here."

"ARMSMASTER!" she finally shouted. Miss Militia jumped in her seat, and the Tinker looked up, his face showing puzzled annoyance.

"Yes, Director? Did you need something?"

Sighing heavily, Emily stared at him.

"Stop attempting to confiscate Panacea's new toy. All you're doing is making a fool of yourself, annoying New Wave, and giving the public far too much in the way of new material for memes."

"She is not authorized to use alien technology," he replied evenly.

"No one is authorized to use alien technology, since there is no such thing as an alien technology authorization!" she shouted. "The Hive teleport device is obviously safe, as she's been bouncing around all over the fucking city for the last week and is still alive. They gave it to her, neither the Hive nor New Wave are part of the Protectorate, and legally there's not much we can actually do about it. Yes, they're incredibly irritating, I agree, but on the other hand the public seems to like them more than they do us half the time. If nothing else they've caught more villains in the last month than we've managed in six. Mostly accidentally as far as anyone can tell."

"Über and Leet were not captured," he began, only to stop as she held up a hand.

"They're not committing crimes right now and frankly I'll take that as a win," she growled. "If they're happy to join in with those crazy bugs doing whatever the hell it is they're doing and not run around causing total chaos, from my point of view it's better than it was. We have far more than enough trouble we can work on to waste time chasing a bunch of insane insects and their friends without apparently any hope of actually catching them. "

"I need to examine that device," he insisted, folding his arms across his chest and looking like a ten year old who'd been denied a cookie.

"Well, you're probably going to have to politely ask to do so, and live with it if they say no," she sighed. "Because from where I'm sitting you're having precisely zero luck demanding to look at it. And trying to confiscate it from Panacea is only going to end up causing her to refuse to help us if we need her. As much as I don't like owing New Wave any more favors than I need to, she is vitally important to our operational functionality and I'm damned if I'm going to let your pettiness lose us the best healer on the planet."

"Yeah, Armsy, haven't you ever played video games?" Assault chuckled, making the Tinker glower at him. "Never upset the healer. It never ends well. And especially don't piss off the White Mage or god knows what will happen."

"Panacea is not in fact a sorceress despite what she may believe," Armsmaster grumbled.

"She sure looks like one right now," Assault grinned. "I love that girl. She's got a wicked sense of humor. I never realized that before she got her new costume, I have to admit. Seems to have cheered her up a lot too. Which as far as I'm concerned is a good thing, because the girl was starting to look like she wanted to kill someone. Leave her alone and let her have fun." He shook his head as Armsmaster gave him an annoyed look. "She's not doing anything wrong. Weird, sure, but not actually wrong. Just because she's got some strange friends isn't actually against the law as far as I can tell."

"The legal status of the Hive is very… difficult to determine," Miss Militia noted. "But on the whole I'd agree that they're less villainous than they are chaotic." She shrugged a little helplessly. "I'd prefer it if they were somewhat easier to contain but… alien bugs. Or whatever they are. It could be a lot worse."

"Yeah," Assault agreed, his grin widening. "Alien demons. Or demonic aliens. Hey, what about lizard alien demons like that one guy on PHO talks about! That might be fun."

"Please stop talking now, Assault," Emily groaned. "Armsmaster, leave Panacea alone, and let's all just go back to dealing with the normal type of insanity rather than the sort involving the Hive, shall we?"

With ill grace, Armsmaster nodded, but for the next hour he kept surreptitiously making little alterations to what Emily was certain was going to be a plan that got him on PHO and YouTube again…

And not in a good way.

That was how things seemed to work these days.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Greetings, Tech Master Kid Win," a cheerful voice said from nearby, making Chris nearly shit himself as he'd been under the impression he was alone in his lab. Jumping violently he dropped the screwdriver he'd been using to dismantle one of his laser pistols, which had developed, yet again, a problem with the aiming system. The damn thing was shooting off axis by a random offset of up to about ten degrees and he had no idea why, so he was going to have to totally strip the gun once more in an attempt to fix it.

Looking to his right he saw one of the Hive bugs standing there as if it was completely normal, which in his view it really wasn't. How had it gotten through all the security?

He recalled at that point they could teleport, and sighed a little. Obviously that was how. It was undoubtedly how they kept returning all the stuff they pinched from Armsmaster, which had a tendency to turn up in his lab when he wasn't looking. Which was driving him around the bend in all honesty.

Chris found it more than a little funny but he'd never dare to say that. The older Tinker was not the sort of person he wanted angry with him. Disappointed with him was bad enough as it was.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he hissed, looking at the door. "You don't have authorization to be in the building. If the Director finds out she'll go insane. She's already kind of pissed off about you guys and Armsmaster is really getting weird about it too."

"Tech Master Armsmaster is a worthy opponent and very good training," the bug replied with a set to his antennae that quite clearly conveyed a grin despite not having anything remotely normal as far as a face went. The Hive members were familiar enough now though, due to videos and having met them a few times in the street, that Chris was pretty sure he was right about the meaning. They seemed to use quite a lot of body language to convey emotions and there was an entire thread on PHO trying to decode it, which he'd been following with interest.

"You're stealing his stuff just to annoy him now, aren't you?" Chris asked, having got up and made sure the door was firmly shut just in case. He didn't want anyone walking in on this or he'd never hear the end of it, but he was suddenly very curious about what the bug wanted. Considering every single member of the Hive was apparently a high level Tinker, it might well be very interesting. And probably very weird but that was just normal around the bugs as far as he could work out.

The creature made a gesture and chuckled. "There is an element of that I must confess," he replied in good humor. "His reactions amuse the Hive considerably and the Hive Grandmother finds it particularly hilarious. I believe she may have some minor issue with Tech Master Armsmaster."

Chris couldn't help snickering. The older Tinker did seem to find the Hive very vexing and the idea that they were mostly winding him up for the amusement value was, he had to admit, more than a little funny.

"As to my presence here, I wished to meet you," the bug went on, answering his earlier question as it looked around curiously, then tilted its head a little and examined him. "We find studying the work of various Tech Masters highly interesting and have so far managed to do that with several. But not you so far." He performed a peculiar four armed shrug. "I thought it might be time to introduce myself. I am Kilzen." The bug held out a hand.

Chris looked at it, then shook both his head and the offered appendage. "Nice to meet you, Kilzen. I guess."

"It is an honor," Kilzen replied, nodding. "I won't take up too much of your time. I was merely hoping to examine a few of your designs for our own interest. It's easier to ask, of course."

"And if I refused?" Chris queried, smiling a little.

Kilzen waved his antennae in a somewhat devious manner. "We would still examine it," he said dryly.

"You'd just steal it first."

"Borrow it. Stealing implies we wouldn't return it." Kilzen's voice was amused.

"From what I hear Squealer didn't get some of her stuff back," Chris grinned.

"Tech Master Squealer was particularly obstructive and more violent than seemed reasonable," Kilzen replied calmly. "The Hive Mother said in those cases we don't have to give things back if we don't want to."

Unable to help himself, Chris laughed. "Fine. Why not? Maybe you can figure out what's wrong with this damned thing because I can't," he replied, waving at the partially disassembled laser gun.

Kilzen picked it up and looked it over, then pulled some tools out of his vest with two of his hands. Within seconds he'd fully dismantled the gun, making Chris stare, as it was much faster than he could do it. "Ah," the bug said, peering at the components. "A quite clean design, although it does appear somewhat over-complex for the required functionality. Interesting." He held up the main resonator cavity unit and studied it closely, then ran a small device over it and looked at the display for a moment. "You would get a significant efficiency boost if you lengthen the optical cavity by sixteen point four percent."

Chris looked at him, then turned and picked up a notebook and pen. Flipping to a new page he wrote that down. Kilzen kept working, making suggestions here and there, all of which Chris carefully noted. Everything the Hive member was saying was making his Tinkering instincts very happy indeed and giving him many new ideas.

Twenty minutes later Kilzen reassembled the laser pistol and handed it to Chris. "It should work correctly now," he stated. "The final output stage was mode hopping due to excessive heat buildup and that was causing an alignment issue. I've modified it slightly to eliminate that issue."

Extremely impressed, Chris nodded, taking the gun and turning it over in his hands a couple of times before he put it down on the notebook, which had about four entire pages of suggestions. "Thanks," he replied.

"It was my pleasure, Tech Master." Kilzen nodded to him. Then he pointed to the original prototype hoverboard which Chris had been planning on reworking into something else for a while but never seemed to get around to. "Why do you make all your subassemblies in this modular fashion but never apparently complete the interconnection functions?" he queried curiously.

Chris looked at the board too, then back to Kilzen, his brow furrowed. Something in the back of his mind was hopping up and down for some reason. "Interconnection functions?" he repeated slowly.

Kilzen retrieved the board and turned it over, then deftly removed the front antigravity generator housing. Extracting the generator he showed it to Chris. "Most of your designs, from what I can see, appear to use a common interconnection assembly, but they're not fully integrated with the designs," he said, indicating the power and signal port on the generator. Grabbing a power unit off the bench with a spare hand he held it up. "You see? Clearly this is designed to be a fully modular design with maximum interconnectivity across a wide range of sub-units, but I find myself puzzled as to why you don't use it to its full potential. Only parts of the functionality appears in each of your devices. If you expanded the basic concept a little you'd have something which would allow a remarkably wide range of different subassemblies to work together with minimum effort."

Staring, Chris very slowly reached out and took both the power unit and the AG generator in his hands, then spent the best part of two minutes looking between them His eyebrows were rising higher and higher the entire time as his mind spun in place. "How did I never see that?" he finally whispered. "It's so obvious."

"Sometimes the very obvious is the least obvious thing of all," Kilzen chuckled. "One can be too close to a problem to see the solution, as the Hive Mother has said more than once. She is very wise in such matters."

"She is," Chris agreed faintly. "Oh my god. This is…" He shook his head. "Unbelievable." Looking up at his visitor, he added, "Thank you so much," in a very heartfelt manner. Kilzen had somehow managed to spot something he'd been trying to determine for far longer than he liked to think about.

He finally knew what his Tinkering specialty was.

"It's my pleasure, Tech Master," Kilzen replied with a four-handed gesture. "I take it my suggestion is valid?"

"It's so, so valid," Chris murmured as he turned to his workbench, his mind whirring. "I need… where's… Ah, there it is." Grabbing a pencil and another pad, he started sketching frantically, the outside world disappearing into a blur of Tinkering thoughts.

When he looked up quite a while later, he was alone, but his prototype hoverboard had been reassembled and there were some notes on how to improve the output of the AG units sitting on top of it.

Smiling a little, he went back to work. He didn't get to bed until very late that night but didn't mind at all.

 

[mp3.1415player]

"I believe we now have enough information to complete the project, Hive Mother," Kilzen said, looking up from the display he and a number of his brothers and sisters were clustered around as Taylor walked over. "We certainly have the right parameters determined to pass along to Tech Master Leet, who I think will be able to produce the required equipment. With our aid, of course."

"To prevent him blowing himself up?" she asked wryly. Kilzen wiggled his antennae in a smile.

"He does appear to need a certain level of… supervision," he replied with a chuckle.

"He is not the only one," Zex commented from next to Taylor, giving him a severe look. "Stop annoying Tech Master Armsmaster, please. It's gone past being hilarious into being a little excessive."

Kilzen ducked his head and laid his antennae back, but Taylor could feel him smirking in the way of his kind. Literally. There was a matching smirk from the rear of her mind from her companion, who found the entire thing nearly as amusing as she herself did, and the Hive as a whole. And her mother, who definitely had some beef with the Tinker, but she wouldn't go into details.

Her father mostly just sighed a lot and tried to keep out of it.

Emma spent a lot of time watching the recordings and laughing, and admittedly so did Taylor, but Zex probably had a point even so. It was starting to feel like teasing a toddler, which she inwardly felt poor Armsmaster would not appreciate as an analogy…

"We've extracted all the data we need from his designs by now so I think we can move onto someone else," Zex added, shaking her head. "We may need to expand our operations further afield, since we seem to have run out of local Tech Masters to study."

"The teleport system has sufficient range with the latest upgrade to allow us to cover most of North America, so that won't pose an issue," Kilzen noted, tapping a few keys on the keyboard to pop up a detailed report on the network, which everyone studied closely. Taylor nodded thoughtfully. Her special ability and her ideas had come together far, far more effectively than either of them had expected when she'd created first Zex, then the rest of the Hive, and they really were remarkably able at technology. She understood a lot more of it than she probably should have been able to, but they were definitely working on a level past what she could directly get to grips with. For now, at least, although she was working hard with Zex's help to learn as much as she could. Even so, she could follow the data on the screen with an ease that few outside the Hive could manage.

"Do we know why his power seems to be trying to kill him yet?" she queried curiously. She rather liked the not-quite-a-villain Tinker and his associate Über, and didn't like thinking of either of them coming to harm despite past… indiscretions. Ones that seemed now to be going to stay in the past, as Kilzen's out of left field but obvious to him suggestion on how to let Leet reset his power had so fundamentally changed the way the man worked that he'd mostly spent the intervening weeks just designing everything he could think of. He didn't have time to commit any crimes, aside from anything else, and Über was apparently having immense fun coming up with new ideas too.

"We've got some theories, but not enough solid proof yet, Hive Mother," one of the other Hive members called Salgar said from the side. She was one of those specifically concentrating on the origins of Parahuman powers and their group, with Taylor's companion's help, had come up with some very interesting conclusions. Worrying ones, for that matter, but still interesting. "Our current working hypothesis is that it is basically stuck in a loop of requiring a level of use he's not providing, specifically because it didn't correctly define its operational parameters, therefore almost forcing him to avoid that very use out of self preservation. It set conditions up to fail and probably doesn't realize that, so it's trying to force a reset, but can't directly do so."

"So it's more or less trying to get him accidentally on purpose killed?" she asked, frowning.

Salgar nodded with a gesture of one upper hand, seeming disgusted. "Most likely. Very inefficient, and not at all intelligent in many ways. That does seem to be commonplace with many Parahuman abilities. However, at the same time it's showing a certain amount of imagination which most of them clearly lack, so it may well rank fairly well as far as such things go. Obviously they have quite varied levels of… sapience, I suppose. And his in particular does appear to have an incredibly broad specialization matched to a vast database that's much larger than most Tech Masters have access too. With proper direction he's producing some exceptionally useful data on the whole system."

Taylor nodded thoughtfully, and next to her Zex was looking somewhat annoyed. "I would be quite upset if it succeeded in harming Tech Master Leet," the latter commented. "I find him extremely entertaining as well as in most respects a decent individual despite his other tendencies."

"I like him too, Zex," Taylor said, putting her hand on her friend's carapace for a moment. "We'll keep him alive. Even if we have to have words with his ability directly." She and Zex looked at each other, and their smiles were remarkably similar despite the completely different physiological makeup. And, of course, if you knew how to recognize a Hive smile…

Returning her attention to Kilzen, who was listening closely, she nodded. "All right. Get the requirements written up and give them to Leet, and we'll see what he comes up with. Just keep an eye on him and try to keep him from losing any important body parts, OK? I mean, we can fix him, but it's better not to need to in the first place." Taylor grinned as Zex shook her head in ironic agreement and Kilzen looked amused.

"I will do what I can to keep him intact," Kilzen chuckled.

"Great." Taylor looked over her shoulder, then back to him. "How's this coming along?" she asked, jerking a thumb in that direction.

He looked past her, his antennae waving excitedly. "Excellently, Hive Mother. We are close to completion of the prototype." He got up from the strangely shaped chair equivalent his species used and scuttled past her, Taylor and Zex turning to follow. The trio walked down a long ramp to the construction floor of the enormous space that had been excavated in the last few months deep under her house, and extending far out towards the outskirts of the city.

Teleportation made such immense efforts much easier than it had any right to be, she reflected as she followed him towards their goal. She was fairly sure that making a space this huge with other methods wouldn't have been remotely practical. Arriving at their destination, all three peered upwards at the gleaming hull of their first spaceship, which spread out overhead for nearly two hundred and fifty feet fore and aft, and better than eighty side to side. Four immense landing legs, which would fold up into the elongated egg shape of the main hull, supported it twenty feet off the floor.

"Both the primary, secondary, and tertiary fusion cell arrays are in place and fully tested," Kilzen explained, gesturing with all four hands, "And the deuterium tanks are close to full. The processing plant has been running for two months, fed from the bay, and we've increased the capacity again to improve the overall efficiency of the system. We'll fill the tanks onboard within two days, and then divert the output to the main tanks in the Hive. Tech Master Leet's fusion design was very helpful in allowing us to maximize the output of our own system, and we've incorporated a number of improvements derived from it."

"The antigrav drive?" Zex asked.

"Fully operational and performing well above our initial design goals," he replied immediately. "Primary, secondary, and tertiary systems all integrated. Shield generators are also functional. Scans of Victoria Dallon that the Hive Mother provided have allowed us to improve their effectiveness significantly. Interestingly our method was very similar to the one provided by her ability, although not quite as efficient, due to the differences in how we implemented the quantum layering. We'd have arrived at the same solution eventually but the data allowed us to skip a number of steps. And we fixed the weakness, or more likely the engineered limitations, in the process, of course."

"Of course." Zex nodded.

"The posigravity drive is nearly finished, but while we're fairly sure we managed to overcome the issues with generating a gravity field that large inside an existing gravity well, no one is particularly interested in testing that aspect until we're sure the drive works correctly in other respects," Kilzen went on after a short pause. He made a gesture of worry. "An error in calculation would be… bad."

"Very bad," Taylor commented, wincing. She'd seen the simulations and fully agreed that accidentally making a stellar-level gravity field anywhere near Earth was probably an exceptionally bad idea until they were certain the shielding method actually did what it was supposed to…

"Agreed," Zex said with a shake of her head. "Let's try not to destroy the planet accidentally."

"We'll do what we can not to destroy it on purpose either," Kilzen replied with a shrug, his antennae set to the sides in humor.

"That would no doubt be much appreciated by everyone," another voice said from behind the three, making them turn to see Taylor's mother smiling at them all.

"Hive Grandmother! Greetings!" Kilzen said with pleasure, grandly bowing. "Welcome once again to the Hive workshop."

"I was here only four hours ago, Kilzen, there's no need to be so dramatic about it," the older woman laughed. He looked at her with his head cocked on the side, an air of amusement showing.

"I like the drama," he replied slyly.

"That explains far too much," Zex sighed. She glanced at Taylor, who was grinning. "Possibly you made a small mistake with him?"

"He's fine, don't worry about it, Zex," she assured her first Hive friend, who looked a little dubious but nodded even so.

"I'll take your word for it," the eldest Hive member muttered, giving Kilzen a narrow look, he peering back without a trace of embarrassment and waving one antenna at her in a sarcastic manner.

"How generous of you," he riposted.

"It is, yes," she grumbled. "I still think there's something wrong with you. But the Hive Mother is wise."

"Glory to her," Kilzen laughed. Taylor giggled, and her mother shook her head with a smile.

"Leave poor Kilzen alone, Zex, he means well," the older woman remarked. Kilzen looked smug, and Zex shook her head in despair. Turning to peer up at the spacecraft, Annette Hebert put her hands on her hips and made an impressed sound. "That thing looks incredible every time I see it. When's the first flight?"

Taylor and Zex looked at each other, then at Kilzen, who thought for a few seconds, ticking things off on his fingers while mumbling to himself in arcane engineer speak. Eventually he looked up at them all. "I think, given nothing going too far wrong, we will be ready for a test run in approximately… three weeks? We need to be certain everything is fully functional, finish integrating all the control systems, do the final testing of the drives, fill the coffee-makers… Yes, three weeks should be right."

"I'm looking forward to it," she smiled. "Good work, by the way."

Kilzen bowed again. "We live to please the Hive Grandmother."

Zex smacked the back of his carapace with one hand. "Stop that," she complained, making him laugh. "Are you sure about him, Taylor?"

"I'm sure," Taylor snickered, as always highly entertained by how different all her friends were, even while sharing so much in common. Kilzen looked smug once more and Zex sighed again.

Turning to Taylor, her mother said, "Emma and Anne are coming over in about an hour, by the way. They called a little while ago. There's a new movie out they wanted to invite you to, and the Dallons."

"Oh, great, I wanted to see that one," Taylor replied with interest. "OK, I'll be right up."

"All right." Her mother nodded to them all, then triggered her teleporter, vanishing in the usual shower of lights. Taylor looked at her remaining companions. "Great work, Kilzen. And the rest of you guys. I'll be back later and we can talk more. Keep an eye on Leet, OK?"

"I will, Hive Mother," he replied.

"And I will keep an eye on him," Zex commented, giving him a suspicious look. "Just in case…"

Giggling, Taylor also teleported out of the Hive, leaving them to their fun.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Hey, Kilzen, that what you were talking about the other day?" Leet asked as his Hive friend appeared in his workshop. The teleportation effect was so familiar by now he barely looked up from his work, glancing at the folder the buglike creature was holding for a moment, then going back to what he was doing right at the moment. "Hold still, will you, Fess?" he added irritably.

"You try holding still while some crazy Tinker is fiddling with your innards and see how you like it," the acerbic reply came back from over his head.

"That crazy Tinker built you, you snarky machine," he grumbled, carefully adjusting a series of small coils.

"And got me blown up, and left me in pieces on a shelf for two solid years."

"But I fixed you, and you're better than ever."

"So why are you still poking around then?"

"Because I came up with a better power system."

"One that won't blow up? Because I remember that quantum dimensional tap… Uber says you can still see the glow on a dark night."

"That was a minor miscalculation."

"It was a fucking major explosion and I for one do not want that to happen inside me!"

"It won't. Anyway, this is much better than that thing was. The cloak works fine, doesn't it?"

"Because Squealer, despite being even crazier than you are, which trust me isn't easy, is at least able to make something that doesn't instantly try to kill everyone in the room."

"Hey, my stuff is really reliable now!"

"Only because the Hive keeps fixing it."

"And? It's still reliable. I'm the idea guy, they're the ones who take those ideas and run with them."

"Yet you are still poking around inside me even though someone competent is standing right there laughing at you."

Leet sighed, and slid out from under the incredibly lifelike, very intelligent, fully sapient, and extremely sarcastic robot horse he'd made the mistake of building. The thing was glaring at him, its neck twisted back to let it fix a rather eerily blue-glowing gaze on him. "You are really annoying sometimes," he complained as he stood up.

"You are really annoying all the time," Fess grumbled. "Kilzen, will you please check this idiot hasn't doomed the city or something?" He stomped a hoof with a metallic clunk on the floor even as Kilzen snickered, handed Leet the folder, and ducked under the robot to peer up inside the opened belly port.

"You should be more grateful to your creator," he advised as two hands went into the opening and the other two reached for some test equipment from his vest. "As we are to the Hive Mother."

Fess snorted. "Your creator isn't an accident-prone Tinker with a tendency to sabotage his own work without realizing it," he muttered. "And she hasn't got any of you guys run over by another Tinker with no aesthetic sense."

Chuckling, Kilzen kept working underneath him, while Leet shook his head, sighed, and sat down to read the contents of the folder. Halfway through, his Tinker senses were tingling, and his eyes were wide.

"Holy shit."

A large head descended over his shoulder as Fess also read the page he was staring at. After a few seconds, their eyes met, then turned to regard Kilzen who was putting his tools away.

"Do you think he can do it?" the robot asked.

"We do, yes," Kilzen nodded, slipping his test probes back into their case.

"So do I," Leet commented, his mind already dancing with ideas. "Pen. Where's a pen?"

Kilzen handed him one, along with his design notebook, then stood watching with Fess as the Tinker started frantically scribbling away. They glanced at each other.

"He's gone for hours now," the AI horse sighed.

"I know, but he'll produce something intriguing when he gets back from wherever his mind is," Kilzen nodded. "You're fine, by the way. He didn't make any mistakes this time."

"Maybe he's learning," the horse snarked. "Or just got lucky."

Kilzen patted him. "You know you care."

Fess looked at Leet, then around the room, before leaning down to Kilzen's level. "Don't tell him or I'll bite your antennae off," he hissed very quietly, making the Hive member laugh.

"Would you like to see our spacecraft?" he offered after a moment.

The robot stared at him.

"Yes, I think I would like that," he replied slowly.

Moments later Leet was alone. He didn't notice, and didn't even look up until Über wandered in two hours later with some beer.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Lying in bed after a good evening out with her friends, a funny movie, some excellent food afterward, and a bit of annoying Armsmaster who was still trying to steal her teleport node, Amy grinned to herself. She was incredibly grateful to Zex for giving her the thing, and Leet for suggesting the costume idea which had been a stroke of genius. It was also a massive hit among the public at large, and for that matter everyone else in New Wave aside from her mother, who still tended to mutter under her breath when she saw it.

Rather to Amy's amusement, the only two people who seemed annoyed by it were in fact Carol Dallon and Armsmaster, for very similar reasons. And she thoroughly enjoyed ignoring both of them when they got irritating about it.

Her sister found the entire thing incredibly funny, of course, and as far as she could tell so did Aunt Sarah, who was firmly on her side over the entire thing, and had spent a long time shouting at her sister that first time when she'd explained what had happened.

"Glory to the Hive indeed," she whispered to herself, feeling that life was much better recently than it had been for quite a while. In many ways.

Rolling over, she closed her eyes and relaxed. It had been a good day all around. Everyone had had a lot of fun, and she was looking forward to going out again at some point soon. This socialization thing was neat when it wasn't some imposed double date, which she'd been getting very tired of but hadn't quite summoned up the impetus to tell her sister wasn't doing anything for her.

Luckily, somehow Taylor had divined something of the truth and had a quiet word with Vicky, who had let up a lot on the whole thing as a result, and in fact apologized for it when she'd finally realized she wasn't really helping as much as she'd thought she was.

Amy was grateful yet again to the Hebert girl, who was in her own quiet and friendly way much more perceptive and helpful than most people were. And was able to channel her mother far more effectively than you'd think plausible.

Smirking a little, Amy shook her head on her pillow. Taylor would make a good mother one…

Very abruptly, quite a number of tiny clues came together in her mind, all finally coalescing around a mental image of a hat. And the insignia on it.

"Mother fucker," Amy breathed as her eyes snapped open. "Taylor!?"

Oh, they were going to have words tomorrow.

 

[mp3.1415player]

Pinching the bridge of her nose with her eyes shut, Emily counted silently to ten. Then repeated the exercise backwards just to be sure, before opening her eyes again and lowering her hand. Fixing Armsmaster with a look that portended pain for all involved, she growled out, "Will you please stop trying to steal Panacea's toys? You are not doing either yourself or the rest of us any favors in the public's eyes by not only annoying the local healer, but failing at what you're trying to do. That damn girl is running rings around you and PHO is lapping it up. Just stop and accept the fact that the only way you'll get your hands on one of the Hive teleporters is if they give you one."

The mouth below the visor was set in a grim line, but the Tinker eventually, slowly, and obviously reluctantly nodded. "It may well be that my efforts have reached the point of diminishing returns," he begrudgingly allowed, even as Assault was laughing at him and most of the rest around the conference table were looking like they'd like to as well.

"They did that about three weeks ago," the other hero commented, getting an irritated look from his superior in return, which did absolutely nothing to wipe the smirk from his face. Emily, despite her own best judgment, for once found herself in agreement with the pain in the ass man. Although she'd never admit to it.

"I still fail to understand why the girl is so reluctant to comply with my request," Armsmaster grated, giving Assault another glare, then looking back to Emily. "I can only put it down to teenaged rebellion. However, for now I will gracefully admit temporary defeat and move on to the next phase."

"The next phase?" Emily echoed, feeling a horrible sense of impending stupidity. Again.

"Of course, Director. We still need to gather more information on the Hive, and to date we've been entirely unsuccessful in capturing any of them."

"Unsuccessful is a mild word for what's happened," Velocity commented with a nearly Assault-level grin. "Incredibly pointless and very, very funny would be more accurate. That's certainly how people online are putting it."

"Some of the videos are hilarious," Dauntless added, grinning as well. "I liked the one that Über and Leet set to Yakety Sax. Really professional editing, that was. Like a live action cartoon, only better..."

Emily groaned, recalling the video in question, which was one of the most popular ones the unbelievably annoying duo had posted to date, and worse, wasn't even something they'd had to do themselves. All they'd done was capture phenomenally high quality video of Armsmaster making a complete tit of himself once more. She almost felt sorry for the Tinker, until she remembered that she had specifically instructed him to not keep trying to catch one of the bugs, because it was blatantly obvious that they were much too slippery for anything but the most excessive attempts to ever succeed. The results were just embarrassing for everyone.

Armsmaster's teeth could be heard grating clear on the other side of the table as his jaw worked for a moment. "I would prefer not to think about my… minor lapse of professional standards."

"I'm sure you would," Dauntless chuckled.

"Dragon laughing her ass off when she showed it to us probably doesn't help, right?" Assault queried, looking like he was having some trouble avoiding doing the same.

The stylus in Armsmaster's hand snapped, but he didn't reply.

"Just what does this 'Next Phase' encompass?" Emily asked when the three men looked like they'd stopped for the moment. "Please tell me you're not going to do something ridiculous."

"Of course not," Armsmaster replied immediately. "I am merely going to scan the entirety of the city and surrounding area with high resolution ground penetrating sensors to locate the Hive itself, then arrange to insert stealth drones into the facility to gather useful intelligence."

Everyone stared at him.

"Study of captured Squealer stealth equipment has paid off significantly in recent weeks," he added happily. "Between us Dragon and I were able to duplicate much of the functionality of her design in a far more efficient and miniaturized format, and create a drone system utilizing it along with new sensory methods we designed. A swarm of approximately three hundred such drones can effectively map the entire area with a resolution of better than six inches in roughly two and a half days. This will let me find the Hive itself, I have little doubt. Then…" He interlaced his fingers on the table and looked very pleased with himself. "We shall have words."

No one said anything for a little while, although a lot of glances were exchanged. Emily, very carefully, rubbed her brow as she tried to come up with just the right response…

"You're trying to find the alien bugs, the ones with the spaceship, and invade their own base to 'have words' with them?" Assault asked before she could open her own mouth, his tone somewhat incredulous. "You really think that's going to actually work? Considering they've been running rings around us for nearly two months without even really trying as far as I can tell? You want to piss those guys off to the point they start trying, that sounds like the right way to go about it."

"And I can't help thinking about the old advice of never attacking a Tinker in his own lab," Dauntless commented uneasily. Emily had been thinking almost exactly the same thing. "There's an entire crapload of Tinkers somewhere around here, and god knows how long they've been there. You haven't got the faintest idea what they might have available. What we do know about their abilities is already terrifying if you sit down and really think about it. Luckily they mostly seem to want to help, but if you upset them enough, that might not be a thing any more."

"We need to discover the truth," Armsmaster insisted.

"Because it's out there?" Assault asked, shaking his head. "Good move, Mulder. You're going to get yourself killed, or worse, on PHO again, at this rate."

"Isn't scanning the entire city like that going to be a little, you know… kind of completely illegal?" Battery asked with a worried tone, glancing around the table. "I mean there's enough paperwork needed to use thermal cameras on private houses as it is, unreasonable searches being a thing, and by the sound of it you're going a long way past that."

"The data will not be retained beyond that necessary for the prime purpose of the task," Armsmaster replied calmly, looking pleased with himself. "I thought about that, of course."

"But if anyone finds out, you're going to cause a lot of people to get really upset even if that's true," she kept on, shaking her head. "Because no one will actually believe it. You know what the public is like. They already think there's villains and the government spying on them half the time as it is, and now you're actually going to do it?"

"I'm not spying on anyone, I'm gathering useful and critical background intelligence on a potential threat to the city, which is precisely one of the main tasks within our rules of engagement," he riposted.

"I doubt the public at large will see it that way, and I know the Parahuman population won't," she snapped. "This is getting past the point of ridiculousness. Think of a better way, one that won't potentially set us all up for something horrible to happen as a result."

"This is the most efficient method." The Tinker looked around at them all.

Sighing, and feeling that this job was like herding heavily armed and drug-addled cats at times, Emily fixed him with a hard look. "Battery has a valid point, Armsmaster. Your suggestion is over the top and without a better reason than finding the Hive annoying I can't permit something that invasive. Permission is denied to deploy your proposed drone swarm."

He merely looked back at her, not reacting with annoyance as she'd expected. After a moment, a dawning realization made her groan.

"You've already deployed it, haven't you?" she sighed, putting her hand over her eyes. "When?"

He looked at the clock on the wall, then back to her. "Two days, eleven hours, and sixteen minutes ago, Director. The scan will be complete approximately…"

The tablet lying on the desk next to him beeped.

"...now," he finished, sounding supremely satisfied as he picked the device up and studied it.

"Oh, hell," she muttered under her breath, shaking her head and watching as he worked rapidly, tapping the screen with a replacement stylus. Everyone present watched as he mumbled very quietly, talking to either himself, Dragon, or both, until about two minutes later he stopped dead mid-motion.

They exchanged glances a little uncertainly, the Tinker staring at his tablet with a grim expression, one that slowly changed to… uncertainty?

Emily squinted at him. Had he paled somewhat?

"Armsmaster?" she prodded.

He twitched, swallowed, and looked up. "I have located the Hive, Director," he replied finally, his voice somewhat hoarse. The man swallowed again.

She was feeling like she wasn't going to like the next part…

"Explain," she said firmly.

His mouth opened, closed, opened again, then closed once more as he looked back at the tablet.

The large screen at the far end of the table blinked on a moment later, Dragon's familiar digital avatar appearing thereon. She also looked rather shocked, although was handling it a lot better that the other Tinker was. "I think I can probably explain it better, Director, if you don't mind," the Canadian cape said. Emily nodded and waved for her to continue, not asking if she'd been listening to the meeting because she knew full well Armsmaster had likely given her a direct feed as he often did unless ordered directly not to. Dragon could be trusted to be professional.

Her avatar shrunk to a small square in the top right of the screen, and a satellite map of the city and surrounding area appeared filling the rest of it, the bay in the right middle, extending back from the ocean all the way to Brockton River on the far left. This was a familiar sight to all of them. Next, an overlay in translucent red appeared on the screen, an irregular series of blotches and snaking arms that extended over a startlingly large amount of the area.

"What's that?" Assault asked curiously, studying the image as they all were, his eyebrows raised.

"It's a common belief that Brockton Bay is underlaid by an aquifer," Dragon said. "This belief is in fact erroneous, due to the New England geology being completely wrong for that sort of thing. It requires something like deep sandstone rock, which is sufficiently porous to store large quantities of water, underneath a cap of impervious igneous rock or something similar such as thick clay layers. The US Midwest is an example of that type of geological mechanism. However, most of this state is sitting on various volcanic extrusions and limestone layers, which aren't compatible with what's typically referred to as an aquifer."

She highlighted the red area with a brighter border, showing how it extended out under the bay, and as far east as the ocean coast. "What is under much of the city, and for that matter a lot of the countryside to the north and west, is an interconnected series of caves, most of which are flooded. They're almost entirely much too deep to have any usable entrances that would let anyone access them, leaving aside being full of water, of course. A number of underground rivers flow through them, ultimately ending up under the continental shelf and presumably slowly percolating up into the ocean. The few artesian wells around this area are fed from such rivers, and a significant quantity of the city's water supply comes from wells drilled into the caves decades ago. That's probably why people think 'aquifer' since most people aren't geologists."

The Tinker took a breath, pausing for a moment, then went on, "The total volume of this cave system, taken as a whole, is on the order of tens of cubic miles, although it's been thought for a long time that the likelihood of any particularly large caves is quite small. Much of the network is ancient subducted volcanic fissures, lava tubes, and that sort of thing. Or at least, that's what was assumed…"

Emily was feeling somewhat baffled, and for some reason, uneasy. "Go on," she said after Dragon had been quiet for a few seconds.

"The deep sensor scan drones were more effective than we expected," Dragon resumed, looking somewhat worried. "And they've managed to map the caves to a level never before seen, as shown on the map. All this is part of the cave system, although it extends well past the zone scanned." She hesitated, then a section of the red highlighting turned deep blue. "This part of the system has some anomalies present."

"Such as?"

"It's got no water in it, although it should have," Dragon replied, almost reluctantly. "And almost all of it is lined with, and contains, artificial structures. Using alloys our scanners can't identify. There are also several very, very large energy signatures detectable." Half a dozen bright yellow points appeared, scattered around what must have been more than a square mile of the total area, underneath the eastern part of the city towards the general Docks direction. "The best fit to the energy readings is an advanced fusion system."

No one could say anything as they all gaped at the screen.

"You're saying that this is…" Emily finally managed.

"The Hive. Yes. Almost certainly, Director," Dragon replied, nodding. "And it's just a little larger than we expected."

Again, silence fell, until Assault turned to Armsmaster. "Still feel like going and knocking on the door to have a word with them?" he asked almost cheerfully, although with an undertone of worry.

The Tinker looked at him, down at his tablet, back at the screen, then cleared his throat. "Phase two may require a minor rework," he admitted, his voice a touch unsteady.

"You think?"

Rubbing her eyes tiredly, Emily tried to work out whether retiring now was the best approach or not. And wondering just how she was going to explain this to the Chief Director, because sooner or later she was going to have to.

Fucking Hive.

And fucking Brockton Bay.

The two were made for each other, she felt, and unfortunately she was stuck right in the middle.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Amy walked up to Taylor in the library, reached up, and removed her baseball cap with a quick tug. Holding it up, she turned it so the 'HM' logo faced her friend. Taylor looked at it, then at her, an eyebrow going up along with a small smile appearing.

"We are going to talk, you and me," the healer hissed quietly.

Taylor plucked her hat from Amy's fingers and dropped it back on her own head, grinning at the shorter girl. "I was wondering how long you'd take to work it out," she giggled, as Amy put her hands on her hips and glared at her. "It was longer than I expected."

Both of them looked up as the bell rang for the next period, then Amy prodded Taylor in the sternum. "After school. A long talk, and some explanations. All the explanations."

"OK," the other girl replied agreeably. "Bring Vicky, might as well tell both of you at once."

"She'll laugh her ass off," another familiar voice said from behind them, making Amy look to see Emma grinning at her.

"You know too?" she exclaimed, then put her hand over her eyes. "Of course you know."

"Yeah, it's cool," Emma laughed. Putting her arm around Taylor's shoulders, and the other one over Amy's, she pulled both of them closer. "Now let's go learn shit. Talk later. And get pizza."

"Sounds like a plan," Taylor agreed happily. "Hey, Amy, you ever want to go to space?"

Amy stared at her as they headed towards their first class of the day, wondering what the hell that meant...

 

[ForwardRewind]

"Sounds like a plan," Taylor agreed happily. "Hey, Amy, you ever want to go to space?"

Amy stared at her as they headed towards their first class of the day, wondering what the hell that meant...

Click to shrink...

Amy's probably glad she didn't say that out loud. Otherwise she might have been given a definition for 'space'.

 

[TypoNinja]

I've noticed a theme in your stories.

You like to give Piggot migraines. A lot.

She ends up serving as the Straight Man in a crazy world/city.

 

[glorandar]

So ya went and did it. Another story joins the fleet. Awesome!

Thanks for sharing the wordz. It's appreciated.

 

[mp3.1415player]

I've noticed a theme in your stories.

You like to give Piggot migraines. A lot.

She ends up serving as the Straight Man in a crazy world/city.

Click to shrink...

Poor Emily. It's a tough job but someone has to do it

 

[SNS84]

Space? Going to go to space? Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace! Yay space! Granted now I'm thinking of the Hive and the Kerbal's meeting for cooperative space studies... This is going to make nice dreams tonight. Thank you for the words good author!

 

[Swarmer31857]

Yet again this is something that started in my snippets thread, wouldn't leave me the hell alone

Click to shrink...

All hail the great and powerful O'Make. Somebody get that man another beer. And a notepad for MPPi!!
Thank you for the wordz sir!

 

[zScruffy]

Still happy this Emily has not gone insane over thinking this is Nilbog 2.0 and started calling down everything possible. Even after finding how large the Hive is.

 

[PoisonedWit]

Oh nice, new chapter and its own thread!

I wonder how Ziz will react to the Hive ship as it blasts on by...

 

[Matrix Dragon]

Armsmaster, you IDIOT.

 

[Daemion]

What are the chances the Hive has infiltrated the PRT and now knows that they know? Maybe Dragon or Kid Win will get an invitation to visit the Hive and look at the spaceship?

 

[TypoNinja]

Poor Emily. It's a tough job but someone has to do it

Click to shrink...

If only she could find somebody stupid enough to take it from her.

 

[Jormuungaand]

If only she could find somebody stupid enough to take it from her.

Click to shrink...

Somewhere, a skinny man in a black costume with a snake sneezes.

 

[Tawsnrrtsyip]

Again, silence fell, until Assault turned to Armsmaster. "Still feel like going and knocking on the door to have a word with them?" he asked almost cheerfully, although with an undertone of worry.

The Tinker looked at him, down at his tablet, back at the screen, then cleared his throat. "Phase two may require a minor rework," he admitted, his voice a touch unsteady.

"You think?"

Click to shrink...

Ah, Armsy. He's a better example of a high INT low WIS character than most I've seen, but this version of him is taking that a step further. I can't wait for karma to hit him!