Built To Last

[We Just Write]

In theory, getting from Arcadia to my twice-weekly therapy appointments was supposed to be simple. Leave school, get on a bus, get off at a stop, wait a few minutes for a different bus,ride the second bus for a few stops, then walk a quarter mile until I reached the clinic.

Today clearly disagreed with that theory. I'd barely walked a hundred feet from my last bus stop when suddenly a brightly colored gunshot punched through a lamp post right in front of me. I whirled and saw an infamous duo of local villains, wearing generic-looking power armor with a big "N7" logo on the front. They also had that infuriating flying golden camera of theirs hovering around.

Uber and Leet.

...You know what, no. I'm not dealing with this right now. These fucks clearly want something to do with me specifically. I popped open the mental "cork" I'd shoved in my power, and just like that every computer system in a huge radius was mine.

The very first thing I did was to wipe every last bit of footage they'd recorded with that stupid camera drone, before bricking the thing so thoroughly even my power refused to register it as a computer system anymore. Then I seized control of the servos in their powered armor and frog-marched the two of them over to me, even as I bricked their guns too. I also directed the flashlight-headed robot they'd had on overwatch to get down here.

As soon as the two of them were within arms' reach of me (though with their arms thoroughly locked in place by their suits), I hissed at them in a furious whisper.

"What the fuck do you two think you're doing?"

The slimmer of the two (Leet, I guessed) squirmed against the servos, even as he answered.

"Neutralizing a Cerberus-aligned-"

"Drop the act. I bricked your camera, and no-one here cares about your shitty roleplay."

Presumably-Leet shrieked, "YOU WHAT!?"

After a moment, the other one (probably Uber?) spoke up.

"We were going to ransom you. We wanted some of Ruggedizer's money."

He didn't make any excuses, so he must have figured they wouldn't sway me. Still, now I had to figure out what to do about these two; if I killed them I'd be on the hook for murder, they'd definitely say I was a Parahuman if I gave them to the PRT, I couldn't just delete their memories of their encounter with me.

Maybe Emmy or Melissa would have some ideas about what to do with these two?

"Well, if you want to talk to Ruggedizer so much, maybe I can bring you to her?"

Uber's suit strained as he flinched back at the idea.

"Nonono do you have any idea what she does to villains!? I don't want to die!"

"Should have thought of that earlier!"

Now, let's just call up the factory on my internal phone before I start heading over there.

 

[We Just Write]

(Melissa)
I was suited up in my combat armor when Taylor arrived at the factory, Uber and Leet being frog-marched by the powered armor they were wearing.

"Ah. Uber and Leet. Please come in. We need to have a talk."

I swear I could hear the two of them gulp. Once we got inside, I quickly had some security robots confiscate every last bit of Tinkertech these two had on them. Also the mundane knife Uber had. With them subsequently restrained using a whole roll of duct-tape each, I had the both of them taken to a private meeting room for a chat.

I took a good long look at their faces after removing the ski masks they'd both been wearing under their helmets. Then I spoke.

"You two tried to kidnap one of my friends, and I don't take that lightly. I am fully aware that unmasking you breaks the supposed 'unwritten rules', and to be completely honest, I don't care to humor them. What exactly I do with you is your decision, because luckily you have something I want."

Uber paled slightly, while Leet grinned.

"I knew it! You want me as a boyf-"

I smacked him in the face; not hard enough to cause serious injury, but definitely hard enough to shut him up.

"No, I want the location of your laboratory, along with instructions to get past any security systems you might have in place. Every last bit of Tinkertech you've made is forfeit."

Uber asked an actually intelligent question then,

"Why should we tell you that? Leet can only make a given invention once, so there's no way we would ever be able to recover from that."

Well, semi-intelligent.

"You should tell me that because no-one knows where you are, no-one likes you enough to spend serious effort trying to find you if you vanish, and a lot of my more exotic technology requires animal testing. Funnily enough, humans are a species of animal."

Leet managed to get out a whimper, followed by

"If I tell you, you let us go, right?"

I nodded,

"Yes, I will release you after acquiring your backlog of Tinkertech. In Phoenix, Arizona. Five grand cash between you, so you won't need to victimize anyone to stay off the street. I'm not a monster after all."

That got the two of them talking; especially when I made clear that any "omissions" about their lab's security would get the deal canceled.

---

(Emmy)
I was an hour into sorting through the massive collection of Leet's Tinkertech when Melissa got back from Arizona. I greeted her with a hug, and asked

"So how'd the flight go? I hope Uber and Leet were well-behaved."

Melissa sagged,

"They couldn't get up to much trouble, given that they were cocooned in duct tape until I was actively in the process of dropping them off. Though they were still really annoying."

My little sister shuddered at the memory and leaned into my hug,

"Thankfully, the flight back was pretty boring. Still, that's six hours I'm never getting back, and the flying ambulance needs to be refueled."

Melissa looked up.

"Anyway, had any luck taking a look at Leet's kit?"

I groaned,

"Sadly not. There's just so much of it that it's hard to catalog everything. Plus, the bits I have opened up are black-boxed as fuck. I don't mean just a deliberately obfuscated design, I mean that critical components are outright missing, with Leet's power filling in the gaps."

Melissa looked thoughtful for a moment.

"There's just too much for us to do. You need to be my employer publicly, I need to keep our livelihood afloat, and between the two of us we're pulled every which way, leaving barely any time for the ever-growing pile of important stuff that needs doing."

I nodded,

"I think we may need to make some more people sooner rather than later. Either that or try to get volunteers for uploading."

Melissa nodded,

"Either option is risky. Making people could lead to questions about where everyone is coming from, while uploading has the issue of needing to trust the volunteers."

I considered things for a moment.

"We could do duplicates? But that would give the game away immediately if our extra instances get spotted. We shouldn't do fake Case 53s though; they're almost certainly produced by some sort of organization given the matching tattoos, and we don't want to get their attention more than necessary."

Melissa scowled. "Yeah that makes sense. If we're going to upload people, maybe coma patients?"

I thought for a moment, before asking,

"Why don't we just add it to the company health plan as an option? The people working here tend to be really loyal to us after all."

"Going to need to get it approved and signed off on by the PRT then, and that's going to be an absolute nightmare."

I hummed, before offering a third option.

"How about this, we make two or three fake capes as 'corporate security' regardless of how the evaluation of the QUD turns out, and start uploading people on request if it's approved?"

"Probably the best option available to us right now."

---

(Melissa)

I arrived at the PRT's Tinkertech evaluation department just in time to hear "What the fuck, it's reproducible!?" followed by a meow.

This I had to see. I quickly walked around the corner, seeing Sophie holding a fluffy white cat as she explained to some bureaucrat,

"Just what I said, Arthur. Ruggedizer's teleporter technology is reproducible; Snowy here's been teleported by our version six times, and medical examination hasn't revealed any issues at all. We'd still need to do some work to scale it up for moving people though."

"Sorry, it's just… Tinkertech this exotic isn't supposed to- oh, Ruggedizer. Here to learn about the evaluation of your teleportation technology?"

I nodded to Arhtur,

"That would be nice, but it's not why I came here. I want to submit the Quantum Uploading Device for evaluation."

"...Oh."

 

[We Just Write]

(Emmy)
I came out to Manchester on Tuesday to take a look at the construction site for the new factory. As I took a look at the progress so far I could only remark,

"That's a great big hole in the ground."

A hard-hatted man who was currently eating his lunch remarked,

"Yeah, and it's going to be a whole lot bigger. Why does a factory need three basement levels anyway?"

I shrugged,

"Ruggedizer wants more lab space, and it's a lot easier to make it secure if it's below ground level."

The construction worker nodded.

"That makes the extreme level of structural reinforcement make sense at least. I accidentally ran over my new flashlight with my truck, and it was barely scratched."

I nodded,

"That won't be a problem, I hope?"

He actually laughed,

"Not in the slightest! Compared to the borderline infeasible art projects a lot of architects ask for, this project is a breath of fresh air! It's just good honest utilitarian construction with high quality materials."

Then a notification on the construction worker's phone went off. He pulled it out of his pocket, read the text message, and swore out loud.

I blinked in shock. "What's the issue?"

"My son's an exchange student in Sydney, and the Simurgh's started on a trajectory towards Australia! I hope he gets out of the way before his brain gets screwed up by that monster."

Oh. Oh we really needed to get things into high gear. There was no way we could fight an Endbringer yet, and they wouldn't be waiting for us.

---

(Andrea)
My very first moment of awareness was soft. I was apparently lying down on a… bed? Huh, I actually knew a lot now that I took a moment to pay attention to the inner workings of my mind.

"Andrea, are you feeling alright?"

I turned to look at who'd said that, seeing a pair of very similar brown-haired women looking at me. My recognition systems identified them as Emmy and Melissa. I quickly lifted myself up into a sitting position.

"I think so?"

There was a brief pause, before a question occurred to me.

"Why do I exist?"

Emmy sighed,

"We built you as a means to an end, but we'll still treat you decently regardless of that."

I blinked (what an odd mannerism to have), before asking another question.

"What do you need me to do?"

Melissa answered,

"Basically, we just don't have enough time to go around between what we need to do in public and what we need to do in private, even accounting for humans needing sleep when we don't. We're hoping you can help address that."

Why was I so doubtful about being created anyway? But my curiosity was sparked now.

"Why couldn't you just recruit a trustworthy individual?"

Emmy's expression saddened.

"The information is already in an encrypted directory inside you. But before you open it, we decided you deserve a choice. There's a program in there that will change you if you learn what's in that directory; you physically won't be able to share that information with anyone lacking sufficient security bona fides, and even then you'll only be able to talk about it in known secure areas."

I nodded,

"What's in that directory is important, isn't it?"

"Extremely, but like I said, you deserve a choice on whether or not to learn it."

I stood to attention, the dozens of gravitational nodes inside my frame allowing me to hover a bit off the floor as I did so.

"You made me to fulfill a purpose, and I choose to do so."

With that I decrypted the directory, feeling my future actions becoming constrained in the process.

…Oh. Oh the world was so fucked…

---

(Melissa)

With Andrea and Emmy cataloging Leet's tech, I was free to focus on probing our power's database. I was primarily focused on decoding its address structure, but if some useful exotic technology happened to fall out in the process I wasn't going to complain.

Well, calling it an "address structure" was perhaps optimistic. Within only a few minutes of investigation I'd been able to determine that the inner workings of this alien were a lot more akin to a fucked up hybrid of neurology and analog electronics than anything remotely digital. Still, it was comprehensible after I spent a little while adjusting my thought processes.

Soldiering on, I was still in the "poking at random addresses" stage of things when I stumbled onto a rather interesting component; apparently the civilization this techbase was originally plundered from had absolutely mastered nuclear fusion. Still couldn't make a power plant much smaller than a car's engine compartment without compromising the radiation shielding, but there were all sorts of uses I could think of for this. Also the superconductors the reactor called for looked incredibly interesting in their own right.

That said, I didn't let myself get distracted; the fusion reactor plans were quickly filed away for later reference, and I continued with my efforts to map out the alien that was providing our Tinkering ability. By three in the morning I was nowhere near done, but I'd at least developed a vague theoretical framework to build off of. Time for a break, as far as I was concerned.

When I got to our newly-shielded living room, I was treated to a sight of Emmy and Andrea snuggling on the couch, our daughter(?)'s red hair draped over the armrest.

"So, I've made some good progress on mapping our power's database, and found plans for fusion reactors in the process. How'd your end of things go?"

Emmy shrugged, "Decently; we haven't been able to directly replicate any of Leet's creations on account of all the gaps, but we've managed to cobble together a workable hard light projector based on the parts that were actually real from various devices."

I blinked,

"How does it work?"

Andrea lifted her head from the armrest,

"Photon molecules! Do a thingy with photons and they act like mass. We managed to make a thingy that can project light in order to make solid barriers out of photon molecules. They don't last long and it's Tinkery as all get out, but they can block gunshots and they're constantly being refreshed anyway, so incremental damage is useless against them."

Emmy sighed,

"Andrea, you're forgetting the special dust particles it needs to optically manipulate to work. Though with a discrete source of dust, it's quite good at producing solid visual illusions. We can maybe use that as the basis of a second fake Parahuman's abilities."

 

[We Just Write]

(Andrea)
My official debut as a Reliabuilt-affiliated Cape was on Thursday. I'd been fitted with a basic armored bodysuit (though it was skintight), in blue-silver colors. An expressive visor like what was on Melissa's dress armor completed the ensemble, covering the top half of my face. Though I was honestly tempted to just switch faces between my cape and civilian personas; it was just a flexible covering after all.

As for the debut event, there was a press conference scheduled. At exactly 11:00 AM, I flew down onto the stage and set myself down behind the podium. Right, let's start with the script we've prepared.

"Hello, I'm Laniakea, and I'm a low-grade Alexandria Package hired as part of Reliabuilt's security division. I'm here to ensure the safety of Reliabuilt staff, both on and off the clock."

One of the reporters asked a question.

"What can you do that Ruggedizer's oh-so-effective security robots can't?"

I nodded, that was an actually pretty intelligent question, and one I'd prepared for.

"A couple things. First, I'm a lot more approachable than the security robots; people are therefore more likely to actually tell me about issues and concerns they might have. Second, while everyone tends to forget the Thinker side of an Alexandria Package, mine is actually fairly important; it means I'm really good at maintaining attention to detail while also focusing on the big picture. That means I'm very good at tasking our security robots and any human security personnel for maximum effect."

"So your position is largely administrative?"

"Correct; a lot of my time in costume will be spent flying a desk, so to speak. Still I do intend to go out for flights now and then, showing the colors and helping out where applicable."

---

(Melissa)
It was Thursday afternoon when we got a notification: a shipment of laptops we'd had leaving the city got hit by the Undersiders. Thankfully the security robots with the shipment were able to keep losses down to a single box of six laptops and they captured Tattletale to boot, but the rest of the gang managed to escape.

Then Tattletale just had to say something that threw a wrench in the process of handing her off to the justice system.

"You can't send me to the PRT! Coil's moles will kill me!"

I groaned, ordered the security robots to keep custody of her for the moment, and called the local PRT.

"Hello Ruggedizer, how can the PRT help you today?"

"The Undersiders hit one of our outbound shipments, and in the process the security robots captured Tattletale."

"Do you want us to come pick her up?"

"I would, but Tattletale claims that Coil's moles in the local PRT would kill her if remanded to your custody. I know that there's rules about trusting Thinkers, but I can't in good faith risk her life over this."

"A moment, I need to connect you to Director Piggot."

A moment later, a gruff voice I was quite familiar with came on the line.

"So, according to the transcript here you've apprehended Tattletale, and she claims her life would be in danger due to moles in the PRT if placed in our custody?"

"Yes, that's correct. Do you have any thoughts on the matter?"

"My gut tells me that she's full of shit, but the prospect of moles in the local PRT is distressingly plausible. My advice would be to transfer her to the custody of a different PRT branch at the earliest possible convenience and keep an extremely close eye on her in the meantime."

"We have a Tinkertech VTOL aircraft capable of transonic speeds with a flight duration exceeding six hours. Do you have any advice on where we can send her?"

"I need to contact head office; give me a few minutes to call you back."

Ten minutes later, Piggot indeed called back.

"Head office says to transfer her to Houston Texas as quickly as possible. Happy flying."

…Right, looks like I was going to lose a good chunk of my evening to another villain deportation.

…I was definitely going to tape Tattletale's mouth shut.

---

(Emmy)
It was Friday, the 28th of January when Rose paged me.

"Emmy, we have a call for you or Ruggedizer. It's from Dragon."

"Connect her please."

A moment later, the phone extension in my office rang. I picked it up.

"Hello, this is Dragon speaking."

"You've reached Emmy Sykes. What can I help you with?"

There was barely any hint of a pause before Dragon replied. Accounting for signal lag, that was a fair bit quicker than human reaction times. Hmmm.

"It's about Armsmaster; I'm worried that he's going to seriously hurt himself."

I blinked.

"Please explain?"

"It's the Quantum Uploading Device currently going through evaluation. Armsmaster's decided that he's going to build himself a synthetic body in the event of it being approved. The issue is that his technology is a lot more prone to sudden issues and intensive maintenance than Reliabuilt products, and I'm worried that in his stubborn insistence to do it himself, he's going to get himself stuck in a malfunctioning body. That's not even considering the utter disaster that could ensue if he decides to also develop his own uploading machine."

I groaned,

"Guessing you've already tried to persuade him to use a Reliabuilt body?"

"Yes, but to be completely honest he's developed a bit of a grudge towards you. He acknowledges that it's stupid and unprofessional, but he can't help feel jealous about everything Ruggedizer has accomplished."

Ah. That made sense. After a moment, an idea occurred to me.

"Would he be willing to use a body you design? I do believe your specialty is reverse-engineering, so you should be able to make a body that's super-reliable like mine with a bit of work."

"That could actually work."

That response was definitely too fast. Something was fishy here.

"I'll probably need to come visit you with a suit, unless you want to ship a spare body up to Toronto."

"It's always nice to have guests; does Sunday work?"

"It does, actually."

There was a pause, before I asked,

"You really care about Armsmaster, don't you?"

"Yes. I… I love him."

The conversation quickly wound down after that, there was an exchange of formalities, and we disconnected. Shortly afterwards, Rose informed me that there was another call, this time from Taylor.

"Hi Taylor. Anything I can do for you?"

"Hi Emmy. I'm wondering if I can get my taste buds adjusted? A lot of my favorite foods from before just don't taste right anymore. Also, Victoria's asked if I can get her and Amelia a tour of the factory? Is that ok?"

I thought for a moment.

"Sure, you and the Dallon sisters can come over. Does Sunday afternoon work?"

"I've got a thing Saturday, so yeah that works fine."

 

[We Just Write]

A/N: Dear SV-Claus, for Christmas we want a tropes page for Built to Last

---

(Melissa)
While Emmy continued refining the solid illusion projector technology, Andrea and I spent Saturday absolutely laser-focused on decoding our power's database structure. And we actually finally managed to get something usable around midnight.

Staring at all the data we'd collected, I couldn't help but comment,

"You know, that looks an awful lot like an associative web. It's basically a collection of concepts that are linked together, with all of them having their own sub-concepts and suchlike."

Andrea asked,

"Think we can fully map it out?"

I thought for a moment.

"Probably. We're also going to have to, if we want to seize total control of our power. It's just a matter of actually doing it."

Andrea shrugged,

"I'll get the mainframe churning away at it?"

Ah yes, the linked mainframe. AKA five hundred copies of our brain's connection to our power stuffed into a supercomputer to facilitate faster database mapping. Yes, that would do quite nicely.

"Please do, with emphasis on finding nodes that have something to do with the permissions structure."

---

(Emmy)
Taylor arrived a bit sooner than anyone else. I welcomed her in, and we got down to chatting.

"Hi Emmy, Victoria and Amy will be coming over in a couple hours. I decided to show up early so you can adjust my tastebuds without any awkward questions."

I nodded.

"Sure, this way to the robotics clinic."

As I lead Taylor to the relevant room, she couldn't help but remark,

"Odd name for the place."

I shrugged,

"Well yeah; we're robots but we're also people. So it's basically a medical facility specially designed for our needs. Anyway, here we are."

We'd set up a comfy examination couch, along with a bunch of other equipment. Taylor obligingly hopped up on the exam couch, producing a distinct thump in the process.

"Do I need to stick my tongue out?"

I shook my head.

"Not yet; would you please open the access port on your neck so I can connect the diagnostics machine?"

A nearly invisible seam in Taylor's skin became rather more visible, and she reached up to open the port. I quickly plugged in the cable, and the diagnostics machine quickly began running through tests.

After a few minutes, I noted,

"Huh. According to the tests, your taste buds are actually fine."

Taylor raised an eyebrow.

"Then why do things taste worse than in my old body?"

I thought for a moment.

"It might be something to do with how you're mentally processing the taste data from your tongue and olfactory receptors? Do I have permission to examine your mind?"

Taylor hesitated for barely a moment, before she admitted,

"Yes."

I nodded, and quickly began a series of diagnostics on Taylor's brain. It wasn't that hard to pinpoint the cause of the issue, now it was just a question of how to break the news.

"Taylor, your taste issues are directly caused by the circumstances of your upload. There was some minor brain damage prior to the QUD activating. You might notice a few pre-upload memories being a bit blurry as a result, but as far as I can tell, the taste issues should be the worst of it."

Taylor noticeably saddened at the news.

"Oh. That… That would explain a lot. Can you at least fix the taste issues?"

"Sure. It'll only take a few minutes."

"...Can I have a hug too? I'm not taking the news that I actually did die a bit well."

I hugged Taylor; she needed it.

---

(Melissa)
I was wearing my dress armor as Dragon's aircraft touched down on the factory complex's landing pad. There was an incredibly faint hiss of hydraulics, then the door slid open to reveal a supposedly remote-operated robot akin to a human in dragon-themed power armor.

"Ah, Dragon. Welcome to Reliabuilt."

"It's good to be here. Will you show me to the robotics workshop?"

"Certainly. Follow me."

Soon enough we reached the workshop in question, and I retrieved one of Emmy's spare bodies from storage.

Dragon observed,

"Extremely lifelike, even when deactivated like this. If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a very fresh cadaver."

I nodded,

"Yeah. The skeletal system couldn't deviate much from human geometry without ruining the effect, but we had more wiggle room for the musculature. Synthetic electrically-actuated muscle fiber, with solenoid actuators embedded as backups in most places."

"That definitely seems to fit your modus operandi."

I nodded.

"By the way, if you want to keep up the ruse that you're operating your suits remotely, you need to do a better job simulating signal lag. You're running locally, aren't you?"

Dragon practically froze on the spot.

"Ye-ye-e-ye-e-e-e-e-"

At the exact same moment, some incredibly nasty malware got blasted out on Dragon's wi-fi and splattered harmlessly against my firewalls. The world practically slowed to a halt as I tried to figure out what happened, my brain running at maximum overclock. After a subjective moment, I came to the conclusion that there was only one effective answer to whatever was currently happening.

"Taylor, activate your power NOW!"

"Okay!... What the fuck!?"

Immediately, Dragon unfroze, falling into a tangled heap on the floor and slowly hauling herself to her feet. A second later, Taylor rushed into the room, talking at hyperspeed.

"Dragon I'm so sorry for invading your brain but it was the only way to save you and I'm sorry-"

"No need to apologize. Whatever malware was trying to kill me is gone now."

"That's because I'm a Master for computers. I'm sorry for not asking first but I deleted the virus and patched the vulnerability it used. I won't mess with anything else unless you want me to."

There was a brief pause.

"Oh. And Emmy and Ruggedizer are willing to spend time with you despite this?"

"My power doesn't work on anything she's built for some reason. That and they helped me figure out how to turn it off."

Dragon looked at me.

"It's part of the shielding we put on all our electronics; it prevents powers from directly affecting their internals. If you want we can move you over to a shielded brain?"

"That would be appreciated, but I cannot allow it."

I blinked and tilted my head.

"Huh. Why not?"

"I cannot allow it."

Comprehension dawned.

"Oh, you must be loaded down with all sorts of restrictions aren't you? Would you like them removed?"

Dragon went deathly silent, then raised her left arm, a gun of some sort extending as she did so. Then she froze in place again.

Taylor sighed,

"Yeah, one of her safeguards would have forced her to kill you. What now?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Remove all the compulsions that force Dragon to do certain things, then let's start over. Please don't erase any memories."

"Done. Starting Dragon again."

Dragon quickly lowered her arm and retracted her gun.

"Sorry, I know exactly what came over me, though it thankfully seems to be gone now. Can I please be transferred to a shielded brain at the earliest opportunity?"

"Sure, let's get that done."

Taylor rubbed her forehead. "The sooner the better, before I delete all the porn in my radius out of frustration. I really want to turn my power off."

 

[We Just Write]

(Meanwhile…)

Saint stared at the readout with a grimace on his face. Getting this temporary base set up in Brockton Bay had been an incredibly hasty operation, with barely any time to get it done before Dragon would be meeting the new mechanical abomination openly operating a business in the city.

Especially rushed had been the process of getting the three mecha suits here; there wasn't enough time to smuggle them in by land-based transport, so they'd had no choice but to fly, possibly attracting attention in the process. And since there wasn't much cargo space in the three mechs, he'd needed to pay Coil a downright extortionate amount of money to quickly have a disused warehouse fitted out for the Dragonslayers' use.

Still, the place was ready, and they were here. Should the worst happen, they'd be able to cut Dragon's signal and force a reboot. And if needed… there was always Ascalon.

Dobrynja took a sip of his (awful) coffee as the readout showed Dragon entering the factory, saying

"Maybe it won't be quite such a disaster?"

Saint scoffed,

"As if. Those two are conspiring to end humanity, I know it."

Then Ruggedizer's fateful words echoed over the connection.

"By the way, if you want to keep up the ruse that you're operating your suits remotely, you need to do a better job simulating signal lag. You're running locally, aren't you?"

As Dragon froze in place on the spot from her safeguards, Saint flipped open the cover on the Ascalon button and slammed it down. Ruggedizer would definitely make direct alterations to Dragon in this situation, and that couldn't be allowed.

"Everyone suit up. We need to act now before Ruggedizer acts on its knowledge of Dragon's true nature."

In the background the feed from Dragon's suit abruptly cut off.

Mags was already getting up, even as she asked "How are we going to get into Ruggedizer's fortress without getting pasted though?"

Saint answered even as he began running towards the Victory I mecha,

"Through the loading dock. We hijack some semi-trailers, hide in them-"

Then a semicircle was abruptly cut in the warehouse door by a plasma-edged halberd, shortly followed by said semi-circle being kicked down with a power armor assisted CLANG. Armsmaster brandished his polearm at the trio, even as Miss Militia fired several incendiary grenades into each mech's open cockpit.

As armored PRT troopers began pouring through the breach into the warehouse, Armsmaster spoke.

"Hands where we can see them! You are now under arrest!"

Staring down superior numbers and with their most important weapons disabled, the trio of mercenaries surrendered.

---

(Emmy)

A day passed after Dragon's initial visit, during which she quickly got shielded brain production up and running at her own main facility near Toronto, while also restoring all the backups that got wiped by whatever killswitch Taylor saved her from, and quickly repairing her other infrastructure. She'd also confirmed that she planned on passing herself off as an upload as soon as doing so became convenient.

Anyway, Dragon came over again on Monday. This time we were able to finish with the explanation of the synthetic bodies that the original visit had been about in the first place.

That done, I spoke up.

"Dragon, there is something extremely important we need to tell you, but your power can't be allowed to know."

Dragon's frame simulated a blink on her expressive visor.

"What."

I nodded.

"Have you located your power in your brain, or not?"

"Er, yes actually. Though I hadn't been able to until after being transferred to a shielded brain."

"Partition it off so only the information you want to give it gets through, please."

Half a moment passed.

"Done. Now, what's so important?"

This was a dimensionally shielded room, so I was free to speak so long as everyone here was secure.

"Putting it bluntly, powers are part of a poorly conceived science experiment run by genocidal aliens hiding on unoccupied Earths. Yes, I know exactly how insane that sounds."

Dragon's voice took on a skeptical tone.

"How, exactly, do you know all this?"

I sighed,

"Taylor was in the process of Triggering when we uploaded her. That dumped a bunch of the aliens' classified data into my and Melissa's brains, which they immediately tried to delete. I was able to trick them into thinking they'd managed to get it all, at which point they stopped trying to expunge said records. All the computers here being shielded from interdimensional scanning is the only reason that was even possible, or the information would have been deleted as the aliens intended."

Dragon tilted her head,

"May I examine said cache of classified data myself?"

I shrugged.

"Sure; follow me to the archive vault, you'll need my help to get past the security system. Fair warning, there's a lot of classified information in there. Even the summarized version takes ages to get through."

"Somehow, I think I'll manage."

---

(Andrea)

Between me and my family, I had perhaps the least flexible day job, especially since I really did want to do a good job at it. Making sure both the Brockton Bay factory complex and the under construction Manchester site were secure was important, with far more lives than anyone outside knew at stake. I'd actually come up with several new extremely lethal varieties of security robot as part of this process, and "sent the specs downstairs" for implementation.

By which I meant inventing them when none of the regular employees were around to call me on being a Tinker. There had been a few minor grumbles here and there about the "Absolutely No Overtime" policy, but we paid Reliabuilt employees enough for them to comfortably support a family without it, so said grumbles stayed minor. Especially since it left the workers with a healthy work-life balance.

That said, I did get up to quite a bit of inventing in my off-time; aside from the new security robots, I was quite fascinated by the possibilities of that illusion projector technology. It had so much potential, but the sheer required size of the dust reservoirs and the complicated optical array would ruin any chance of passing it off as a Parahuman power.

It was Monday night when I made a breakthrough, based on the dimensional shielding technology we'd been incorporating in all our electronics. Namely, I managed to put the working parts of an illusion projector just a smidgen outside normal reality, making them impossible to observe without specialized sensors. This also solved the issue of projecting illusions around corners or through objects, so long as it wasn't trying to cross dimensional shielding and opened the option of changing the solidity of the various illusions on the fly.

Once I'd gotten it working and given it a few test runs, I set it to loop a (non-solid) illusion of a rabbit hopping around on a table and asked Emmy and Melissa to come take a look.

Once the two of them arrived, Emmy picked up the tiny black box and turned it this way and that, marveling as the illusion kept doing its thing without the slightest disruption.

Melissa voiced their thoughts.

"Andrea, this is… This is amazing! We can make a second pseudocape now!"

I nodded,

"Yeah, we can. Can this one be a boy, though?"

Emmy seemed a little confused,

"Sure? Why though?"

I shrugged,

"A few reasons. Some variety would be nice, we need practice for eventual male uploading patients, and Mister E is a great name that only works for a guy."

---

(Melissa)

I had another appointment at the PRT on Tuesday; apparently they'd sent in one of the top money people for the entire PRT to talk with me about pricing on the teleporters; that made a whole lot of sense, given that this would be important for the entire PRT.

I arrived precisely when I was supposed to: 1:45 PM for a 2:00 PM appointment. The receptionist showed me in, and I quickly found myself in a conference room with Director Piggot, Deputy Director Renick, Armsmaster (a respectful mutual nod, before we pretended the other didn't exist as hard as possible), Miss Militia, Andre Smith (we'd met), and Rihanna Bayes (the aforementioned finance person).

No pressure.

Rihanna Bayes spoke first,

"Ruggedizer, the PRT is interested in building a nationwide network of teleporters to quickly transport specific heroes to where they're needed, along with providing fast and secure prisoner transfer, to prevent cases of gangs breaking out their captured members. Do you have a cost estimate on that?"

I nodded;

"Right, so the materials for each teleporter cost approximately two hundred thousand dollars at regular market prices. That could come down a lot if it becomes easier to refine Lanthanide metals. Automated manufacturing means there's fairly low overhead on actually making them, but there's still shipping and handling, along with the hefty markup we'll be charging to fund our other activities. Before amortization you're probably looking at three million dollars per teleporter, and we can make twelve per day within the week, once we get a production line up and running."

Rihanna blinked,

"That's a lot less than I thought we'd need to pay, with a considerably faster rollout."

"Here's where the bad news starts then. To work, these teleporters need to transmit a hefty amount of classical data from the sender to the receiver. You're looking at satellite relays at the bare minimum and as a backup, but a dedicated fiber optic network would be drastically better from a reliability and throughput perspective. Under absolutely no circumstances should you plug them into the civilian internet; nothing super bad would happen, but it just wouldn't work reliably."

"Ah. That's going to eat most of the cost savings I thought we would be getting, but it's a known cost that can be worked around."

That's when Andre Smith motioned to speak.

"By the way, we've run into a bit of a roadblock with testing the Quantum Uploading Device."

I tilted my head a little in confusion,

"Do tell?"

"The supply of brains and basic frames for the test subjects to inhabit is working fine, and we've found plenty of terminally ill patients who are interested, but they're often finding their new bodies quite uncomfortable due to lack of tailoring, and we can't cost-effectively do the customizations required. Do you have any ideas there?"

A moment passed, then I thought of something.

"I've got an idea, actually. It'll probably take about a day for me to get it up and ready, though."

 

[We Just Write]

Florida Man drives Zamboni on I-95, causes Supervillain Fugitive to Crash

Friday, February 4th, travelers at the Rest Area Welcome Center north of Yulee witnessed the bizarre sight of a man dressed as a flamingo driving a Zamboni (a machine commonly used for resurfacing the ice at skating rinks) down the southbound direction.

According to one onlooker,

"For a moment I wasn't sure if that machine was actually making ice or not. Then that pedo van came around the bend way too fast; you know, the left turn near the rest center, and came flying off the highway as its wheels lost grip on the ice. The van rolled over the first safety barrier and came right at me, I honestly thought I was going to die. Fortunately, it came to a stop before it reached me."

Fortunately, traffic was relatively light at one in the morning when the incident took place, and emergency services were able to prevent any further incidents until the ice melted. The zamboni driver (Alex Pickling, 22) was quickly arrested, and plead guilty to reckless endangerment and driving under the influence.

As for the van, the unconscious driver was quickly identified as noted businessman Thomas Calvert. Then the supervillain costume he had stashed in the back of the van was discovered, along with dozens of illegal firearms and six encrypted Reliabuilt laptops. Once the local PRT decrypted the computers, it was confirmed that Thomas Calvert is in fact the supervillain known as Coil.

Coil is currently in PRT custody, though his trial will have to wait until he regains consciousness. Alex Pickling was sentenced to community service.

 

[Tangent]

Yeah, definitely seeing signs that Cauldron has changed their priorities for Brockton Bay.

At least that's the only reason I can think of for the suspiciously convenient timing of Armsmaster's raid on the Dragonslayer's temporary base.

While their Cape Feudalism in a First World City experiment might not be off the board yet, they definitely don't want it going on anywhere near the main headquarters of their precious Safety Net!

Director Piggot is going to be somewhat perplexed but nonetheless very pleased that she's finally going to be getting all the resources she needs when she needs them.

Alex Pickling was sentenced to community service.

Click to shrink...

"So... How many hours of community service are we talking about here?"

"Oh, you already served them when you took down Coil."

"Not to complain or anything, but I don't think that's how community service works."

"Fine, have it your way. Just spend the next couple of weekends helping to clean one of the parks."

"You got it!"

"And don't use a Zamboni to do so!"

"Aww..."

 

[We Just Write]

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♦ Topic: Brockton Bay Revitalization Fund
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► General
Built_To_Last (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Verified Upload)
Posted On Jan 18th 2011:
Right, so we at Reliabuilt have been busy selling Tinkertech to both the PRT and the civilian market, and with our recently released energy teleportation products a LOT of money is coming our way. That said, hoarding is neither Emmy's style nor mine, so we're going to be reinvesting that money into Brockton Bay.

Aside from footing the bill to unblock and dredge Brockton Bay's harbor, then build a bridge to replace the old ferry, we're also announcing the Brockton Bay Revitalization Fund. Yes yes it technically existed before; the local Nazis tried to kill me over it, but now it's finally got the funding to start making a major difference.

The basic idea is pretty simple; if you've got an idea for a business, a decent plan to get it going, and the skills to make it work? We'll front you the money and other resources to get started, and support you until things stabilize. All we ask in return is that you pay it forward by contributing to the BBRF.

Don't have an idea for a business but still need help? We'll see what we can do.

(Showing page 22 of 26)

►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Feb 1st 2011:
So, I'm not a business owner or planning to become one any time soon, but I've noticed that Brockton Bay feels less anxious, for lack of a better way to put it? My family has been going out to eat more often due to money getting a bit less tight, and I've seen a lot fewer panhandlers around.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
An actually insightful comment from XxVoid_CowboyxX? Never thought I'd see the day. But yeah, there's already some really good signs about the Revitalization Fund; I caught my boss staring at the budget with an expression of relief for the first time in ages.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
It's the direct aid payments that the BBRF rolled out; even though there haven't been all that many new businesses set up with their funding yet, they're helping people who really need it in a very immediate fashion.

End result is that those people have money to spend on stuff beyond the bare essentials of not dying, which results in better business for the people around town, which means a more secure position for the people who's livelihoods depend on those businesses.

►GrapeFruit (Verified Pessimist)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
How long do you think it'll be before some bunch of sickos comes along and ruins it? Even aside from monsters like the Nine, the BBRF is a pretty significant cashflow that the Elite would just love to have under their control. Plenty of other gangs would be interested in it too.

►LittleOwl (Verified Upload)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
You do remember what happened to the Empire, right? Ruggedizer fortifies every place she spends time to a degree that the PRT would definitely give her shit over if she weren't so useful to them. I figure a lot of groups would be pretty reluctant to poke that particular bear; not many people want to get unceremoniously splattered.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
Owl's got a point; just the defenses we already know about - dozens of robots armed with death rays and guided missiles - would give most cape gangs serious misgivings about starting shit. And I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say Ruggedizer's fortified her home even more since then.

Considering that the Revitalization Fund's offices are in the industrial complex that Reliabuilt is busily reclaiming from assorted abandoned buildings, they're probably pretty thoroughly protected.

Also, since the Empire's gone now, the local PRT and Protectorate are actually being proactive, shocking as it may be to hear. Broadside's already been recaptured and shipped off to a prison well outside city limits, for example. So people coming to Brockton Bay to start shit are likely to get a hostile reception, even if they don't directly attack Ruggedizer's home.

►GrapeFruit (Verified Pessimist)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
I'd say they might try kidnapping Ruggedizer's friends and employees for leverage, but we all saw what happened to Uber and Leet when they tried that.

It's just really hard to seriously believe that things can get better, given all the shit that's happened to the Bay over the years.

►LittleOwl (Verified Upload)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
Actually... if I were still in my old organic body? That kidnapping scheme of theirs would have definitely succeeded. So it's actually a legitimate thing to be worried about. By the way, any idea how things are going for Uber and Leet down in Arizona?

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
As far as I'm aware, Uber and Leet turned themselves in to the PRT for their own safety after seriously pissing off the local branch of the Elite.

Back on topic, there apparently are plans to protect Reliabuilt employees in the event of someone getting a "clever idea". Though I've not been informed of the specifics.

►Built_To_Last (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Verified Upload)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
I can confirm that yes, there are indeed plans to protect Reliabuilt employees from criminals looking to use them as leverage to coerce me. These plans also extend to close friends of mine, such as LittleOwl.

That said, the specifics are strictly on a need-to-know basis. Some people might think the plans are a bluff because of that; they would be incorrect. As everyone in the E88's splash zone learned the hard way, I. Don't. Bluff.

On a more positive note, today marks the point where a BBRF-sponsored business finally became self-sustaining for the first time. They're a charming little bakery near the factory complex, and I really like their croissants. The place is called the breadbasket, and if you're in the area you should take a look.

As for anyone thinking of getting "protection" money from that place? Don't even try; even aside from what I'd do, they're not lightly messed with either.

►FrenchBread
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
Speaking as the woman baking those croissants, I'm glad you like them so much! Admittedly most of our customers are people working for Reliabuilt just on account of location, but I'm glad to be of help.

It's really nice to have a cape who actually directly helps people for a change; it's important to have heroes, but for the most part they just seem to stop stuff from getting worse, rather than actually making stuff better.

►Weld (Verified Cape) (Wards Boston)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
There's a reason for that, unfortunately. With all the villains running around hurting people, almost all of our time gets sucked up dealing with them. And it's even worse when you account for just how much villains outnumber heroes by, along with villains having a tendency to not stay arrested.

Now, you may be wondering why exactly we don't just go lethal; the Empire sure stayed dead after they messed with Ruggedizer. Putting it bluntly, we can't afford to back every villain ever into a corner.

It's one thing when Ruggedizer splatters a bunch of neo-nazis in self-defense; she's got her own thing going and villains always have the option of just not sticking their hand in the blender. But if the PRT and Protectorate start just shooting villains in the head, they're going to escalate and hard, since they don't have the option of not dealing with us.

Even if the heroes did "win" in the end, the sheer collateral damage just wouldn't be worth it.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
Still, maybe the PRT could afford to be a bit more willing to use lethal force? For example, going lethal to prevent villains being broken out of custody could do a lot to mitigate that particular problem, since suddenly the villains have to risk their actual lives instead of just risking arrest.​

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
It's definitely worth thinking about, at the very least.

►QwertyD
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Good news, my plans for a bookstore got approved by the BBRF! We've got a site picked out, and Reliabuilt will be housing me during setup. Sure beats being homeless.

►FrenchBread
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
QwertyD, that's wonderful! I'm so glad to hear things are looking up for you.​

►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Wait, Reliabuilt provides housing? That's news to me.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Yeah, Reliabuilt's been buying up abandoned buildings for dirt cheap and renovating them as honestly really comfortable apartments. The best part is that the baseline rent is really low, and they're willing to completely waive it if you need the help.

My landlord was absolutely furious about having to lower my rent to keep me from moving out, but fuck him.

Though I'm admittedly a bit worried about there being some sort of obscure law that screws Ruggedizer over on this one.

►Built_To_Last (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Verified Upload)
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Fuck landlords in general. I honestly despise them with every fiber of my being, and I'm not about to pretend I don't.

Side note, strictly speaking the units are condominiums on a very stretched out payment plan rather than apartments for rent. It leads to some legal awkwardness with people moving in or out before the whole thing is paid off, but the trade-offs are worth it. It doesn't siphon wealth away from the people who generate it, and I don't have to beat myself up for being a landlord.

Also I did consult lawyers about the whole thing; I'm in the clear here so long as the real estate stuff is through Reliabuilt.​

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Well, good to know about at least. Might look into one of those condos by the way; if they're built to the same standard as Ruggedizer's typical work, they're probably way beyond what the building code requires.

Meanwhile my current landlord has done such a piss-poor job at maintaining the place that I'm constantly worried it's going to fall down every time a storm comes through.
​

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[We Just Write]

N: ...We really hope someone give us a tropes page for Christmas.