Disclaimer, I own nothing, Worm is Wildbow's and is wonderful, if you haven't read it (yes all 1.7Million + words) go read it, it's great, and I may spoil it and you owe it to yourself to not let such a wonderful story be ruined, don't worry, I'll wait, I'll be right here when you're done.
This story involves the Empire 88, and several of its members, being characterized as flawed human beings, rather than cardboard nazi cutouts. There is an attempt to explore how people can fall into the slippery slope inherent in this sort of hateful ideological group. I am not a nazi, a nazi-sympathizer, or anything approaching it, but I also believe that dehumanizing people who have fallen victim to the slippery slope can be just as dangerous as earnestly platforming them.
Story is dead because I recieved too many PM's accusing me of being a nazi. As well, this story was much easier to write when it was a more abstract thought exercise, because actual neo-nazis weren't yet being earnestly platformed in our political discourse. Though I have attempted to not further the aims or rhetoric of the ideology through this story, I don't consider myself a talented enough writer to walk that line finely enough that I'm comfortable publishing any further.
The first things I replaced were my eyes. The ones I was given at birth were poor, dysfunctional, and ugly. My new eyes replaced my painfully sub-par eyesight with a sense of it beyond natural humanity. I could cycle between the (normally) visible spectrum, infrared, ultraviolet, and x-ray wavelengths with no more than a thought. In addition, rather than my natural dull, ugly, brown, these could cycle through any retinal hue or configuration I desired, normally I sported a deep, purplish blue. On a whim, I also added in a sort of heads-up-display, which immediately tracked anyone visible to me, in any of my spectrums.
If anyone came within fifty yards of me I could call up a tagline displaying their name, and add tags to specific people. I was currently utilizing one of those very helpful tags to avoid the beautiful, athletic, shitsack of a person that was Sophia Hess, as I navigated my way through the swiftly emptying halls.
A few months ago, I was put through an experience to scar a lifetime by said shitsack. I have no desire to revisit that particular memory, but out of the horrifying experience came a few, well I wouldn't say benefits, but reparations might be more appropriate.
For one thing, I learned that my flesh-and-blood was vastly inferior to what it could be, and luckily also learned the skillset to fix that particular issue. For another, we got a small settlement of a half million dollars from the feds, who had quickly taken the case away from the police after hearing the details of the event.
Of course, I can't blame them, knowing what I know now. A month ago, after I installed my new eyes, I glimpsed through a wall our resident shitsack (funny how she keeps coming up) having locked her gym clothes in her locker. Rather than re-open the door she simply reached through the door to retrieve them.
Now, I may be wrong about this, but in my experience, the average person cannot reach through a solid metal door to retrieve a set of clothes, and of those who can, only one calls Brockton Bay home. That little observation clicked everything into place for me.
See, the shitsack may be a horrible excuse for a human being, but she has her name on a roster list of so called 'heroes' who are 'protecting' this fine city of ours, and as such gets to do whatever the fuck she wants to.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
…
But those sort of thoughts lead nowhere, so I snapped myself back to the present, and the school wall I was presently leaning against. Sophia Hess, Shadow Stalker, was on the lookout for me. Perhaps I wasn't present for enough of my daily beatings today, or maybe she just had a difficult test last period, I've heard even remedial algebra can be difficult when taught to savages… or animals.
I grinned at myself just as Sophia's tag began elevating itself, perhaps going to try to find me on the second floor. Personally I know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I took my cue to slip out of one of the side doors she was prowling around just a few seconds ago.
After disengaging with the small crowd of students wallowing outside the door, I made my way out to the sidewalk and turned my way toward home. That made a full week since I had been accosted in the hallway after school. I figured that deserved a little celebration, so, after slipping off the fake glasses I still wore (the lenses were just flat panes of glass) I stopped by the convenience store a block from school and bought myself a coke.
--Ex Machina--
Sipping on the sweet nectar, I made it the rest of the way home and set down my school bag at the foot of the stair. Summarily unburdened, I turned my attentions to the other staircase and made my way to the (formerly) underutilized basement.
The familiar lack of adequate lighting and smell of grease met me like an old friend. The former was negated by my augmented eyes and the latter was heartily accepted by my olfactory senses. All the time working with machinery had taught me the beauty of the scent that wafted from a good, strong oil. Weaving my way through discarded boxed of scrap wood and newspapers led me to a small door partially hidden behind an empty, dusty bookcase. After quickly sliding the bookcase out of the way, I opened the door, relishing in the silence granted by its well-oiled hinges, and stepped into the small room beyond.
A little family history for you, my grandfather lived in this very house, and it's where Dad grew up. Consequently, the house itself is rather old. As in 'has an old storage room for the coal that was used to heat the house in the winter' old. It's this coal storage room that I had repurposed for my own use. The small 6x6 room was packed with my tools and items for my tinkering and implementation.
See, I was different from most any tinker I had ever heard of, and I was a tinker, of that, I'm sure. Most were able to build themselves powersuits or vehicles or laser guns or the like, real flashy tech stuff. That wasn't what my particular set of skills had given to me. Instead I created tech meant to be implanted within the body, to replace or augment existing systems. Cybernetics, I think was the 80's sci-fi term for what I created.
Following that, my 'workshop,' such as it is, doesn't have racks for hanging my arsenal, or a stand holding a gleaming suit of armor. Rather it has a rather crude cot build into the wall, taking up almost a third of the room. Next to the wall was a makeshift set of surgical waldos and a control panel for utilizing them.
Taking up the opposite wall is a workbench, on one side of which rested a computer setup made from an old monitor and a tower of scavenged parts. As I didn't need it for anything more advanced than writing code, it served my purposes. The rest of the workbench was covered in scattered metals, composites and wires. It was there that I had made what augments I had so far completed.
Along with my eyes, I had inserted several neural 'switches' into myself, the most important of which shut down all pain processing in my brain so that I could operate on myself with perfect clarity, rather than passing out from the pain of having my eyes, heart, and lungs replaced by their superior successors. I actually had to make a fully mechanical heart so that I could live long enough to make the necessary adjustments to my preexisting one. Three extra chambers, improved valves, and a carbon-steel mesh which would protect the organ from as much as a .308 round fired at it from ten feet away were the baseline upgrades I was able to install with my crude setup here.
My lungs were similarly improved with the mesh and a reorganization and addition of alveoli that more than tripled their surface area, allowing drastically improved respiration. Finally my feet and ankles were implanted with miniature pistons and servos to make my footsteps completely silent and allow me to run faster and jump higher, though I would have to wait until I could augment my legs completely before the full effect could be implemented. Along with a few quality-of-life improvements, mostly tool implants so I could work more efficiently, that rounded out my current repertoire.
Today though was an exciting one. Today I implanted my first offensive augment. I had finished the small dart-launcher last night. It would slip inside of my right wrist, with a small opening at the bottom of my palm. It would also have the side benefit of replacing many of those pesky baseline bones in the wrist, which are so prone to breaking, with a more durable subdermal reinforcement, so barring a sledgehammer or a greatsword, my wrist shouldn't ever break.
After making a few final adjustments to the gas-pressure chamber and the toxin synthesizer, I brought the small piece of tech over the table next to the cot and swallowed the last drops of coke. After disposing of the bottle, I laid myself down on the cot. After mentally snapping off my pain receptors and strapping my wrist down, I reached for the control panel with my left hand and began the delicate replacement surgery.
The waldos whirred to life as a small monomolecular-edged scalpel slid down and opened up my wrist. After supplying the necessary oxygen and nutrients to the cells of my right hand to keep it fully alive for the duration of the operation, I severed all bones and blood vessels in my wrist, removing the inferior natural parts to make way for my created improvements.
Fifteen minutes later, a waldo was reattaching the skin of my wrist over my installed augmentation. After lining the seam with a bio-enhancer gel which would clear up the scar and any traces of the operation by the time Dad got home, I unstrapped my wrist and swing my feet over the end of the cot. I tested my finger, palm, and wrist motion and found them satisfactorily improved by about 7.48 percent according to my ocular readout. I opened up my workshop door and stepped out into the basement proper.
After sliding the bookcase back into place, I glanced around my basement and spotted a cardboard box filled with old wood scrap about ten feet away. Snapping my wrist up so my palm was perpendicular to my arm, I mentally flipped the 'switch' to enter into the 'firing mode' for my dart launcher. A small targeting reticule appeared in my vision on the side of the box, as I moved my arm the reticule moved with it, tracking the destination of the dart, should I launch it.
After playing with the system for several moments, I eventually refocused on the box. Sending the command to launch an envenomed dart, I heard a small whiff and saw a minuscule hole appear in the side of the box. I went over to examine my handiwork and, after a few minutes of searching, finally found what I was looking for. Letting out a small whoop, I took a look at the results of my creation. Embedded less than halfway into one of the wood scraps was a small needle of bone-like tissue less than a quarter of an inch long.
Despite it being hollow, the needle didn't so much as bend, and the three holes a third of the way back from the tip were unimpeded for the clear liquid of the venom to seep out. I plucked the needle from the wood and tossed it in the garbage can next to the stairs as I made my way up. Because of the small size of the needles, the launcher had a capacity for twenty shots and enough paralytic neurotoxin for each.
The needles and venom were synthesized at a rate of roughly two per minute assuming sufficient nutrients were present to create them. As both of them were prominently calcium based, this had the horrifying result of me craving a glass of milk somewhat more often. It's been said before on every forum and PHO board out there, but tinkers are apparently quite bullshit. As I finished my rumination, I got out a large pot, I was making chicken soup for dinner tonight.
--Ex Machina--
This was a mistake. Why did I decide to install a weapon that I could discreetly use and no one would catch on that I even did anything? It was Monday, and I hadn't made it two hours before the urge to shoot a paralyzing needle into Emma's stupid face almost overtook me.
It wasn't so much that what was going on was any worse than anything they've done before. No, in retrospect shoes covered in orange juice was one of the tamest things they've done in awhile, it's that now I've given myself the capability to strike back and its taking every single last ounce of my willpower to not fill her and her lackeys with enough paralytic needles.
As I pushed my way past the small crowd I distantly heard the redhead's taunting about something something I'm ugly or something similar to that. Taking deep breaths into my much-improved lungs to calm myself down and flood my blood vessels with oxygen. I walked down the hallway breathing deeply through my nose and turned the corner to my next class.
After sitting down in my desk and opening up my notebook, I started doodling ideas for my next augment, maybe I'd add in some subdermal armoring, or perhaps an electromagnetic…
I finished the day with no more than soggy shoes and a shoulder-check into the stairwell banister, courtesy of Winslow's very own junior superhero, so I'd call today a success. The biggest surprise though was that after getting slammed back-first into the steel railing most people completely ignored it.
Most people, not everyone. Progress.
Passing by me, going up the stairs was an older girl, with longer white-blonde hair and an incredibly pale complexion. She didn't say anything mind you, but she fixed the oblivious Sophia with a glare that could make Behemoth cry, were he knowingly on the receiving end of it. She continued on her way down the stairs afterward, but that's still more than anyone's done to support me for several months.
So although no one is actually helping me and I'm still getting relentlessly bullied by a goddamn superhero, at least there's a single person in this entire school who disapproves of the trio's actions.
I've probably grown rather cynical over the past eighteen months haven't I?
No matter, I'll take what I can get, and the fact that a single person noticed and acknowledged my plight is good enough for today.
--Ex Machina--
Day two of having access to weaponry and now my desire to perforate Emma with several dozen paralytic needles has spread to her lackeys. Honestly I don't know how much longer I can go without lashing out at someone. It's in the quiet and peace of the third-floor girls bathroom stall during lunch that I have a wonderful idea.
Since naturally I can't blatantly attack my schoolmates, I'd go out and hit some gang members, after all that's what heroes do right? I'd need a mask and costume, but what better catharsis is there than beating up druggies right?
Perhaps not the best thought out plan, but I really feel the need to hit something right now.
With that cheery thought, I pull a sandwich out of my backpack and begin enjoying the turkey and cheese while sketching costume designs in a notebook.
--Ex Machina--
The Dockworkers' union had its semi-annual rally tonight, and if I judge by personal experience, that means I should have all night tonight to work on the finishing touches before going out this weekend. For the past several years, ever since Mom's accident, Dad had used these rallies to get incredibly painfully drunk and then inevitably crash for the night at Kurt and Lacey's.
While I worried for his health and well-being, this unfortunate habit of his actually serves my purposes for tonight. The mesh that I have covering several of my vital organs is incredibly simple to make, in fact I made a machine to automate the process halfway through the first lung. This mesh, if thinned down and modified to be more flexible would make for a great subdermal reinforcement.
The problem is, doing a full-body operation to essentially slip armor under most of my skin would be a long process, and Dad happening to find me strapped to a table with half my skin sliced open to insert the armor probably wouldn't be conducive to anything positive.
My worrying was interrupted by my mesh fabricator (I really need a snappier name) dinging that its task is complete, and I step over to examine its work. A few of the growth joints were misaligned, but the rest looked as good as if I had hand-made the entire set. After fixing the errors with a miniature plasma cutter in my fingertip, I placed the whole pile of the mesh on the table and stripped down. Once my gangly form was bared for all the old coal-storage room to see, I strapped myself down for the operation, flicking off my pain receptors.
After several commands, the waldos whirred to life and reached down to my legs, slicing them open and beginning the insertion of the armored reinforcement.
--Ex Machina--
Three and a half hours later, I clicked off the last of my tools and sat up from the cot. Running my fingers over the nigh-invisible seams, I could feel an almost-imperceptible honeycomb pattern nested just below my dermis. Running through a full battery of stretches and motions, I found myself incredibly pleased by the results.
The armoring wasn't powered or mechanical at all, so it could only reduce mobility, not aid it, despite that, according to my ocular readings I was still operating at 99.4 percent mobility. Considering I was functionally immune to bladed weapons and small-caliber firearms, I would count today as a great success.
Glancing at the clock, it was only about 8:30 so I had a few hours before it truly got dark enough to go out and find some crime to stop or anything of the like. So I went upstairs and made myself a dinner of microwaved leftover chicken and watched old reruns of western movies to pass the time.
Three hours later I shut down the rolling credits of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and donned what costume I'd procured for myself over the past week. A supple black trench coat I'd picked up at the market near the boardwalk went over a dark grey turtleneck and a pair of dark jeans. I had fingerless leather gloves on my hands, but my feet were left bare, no boot would be sturdier or quieter than my augmented feet.
To finish the look, I pulled a black knit scarf over my lower face and flipped a final mental switch. A thin pair of opaque (one way) black glass lenses slid down from small slots in my brow to create the effect of my wearing a pair of futuristic-looking sunglasses. I quietly shut and locked the door behind me before stealing off into the night, wondering what trouble I could get into.
--Ex Machina--
So when I mentioned trouble, I assumed that would mean a few coked-up drug dealers who I could put to sleep and call the cops on. What I did NOT mean was being sought out by a sociopathic teleporting serial killer.
Yes the ABB's very own Oni Lee was among the small gathering of drug dealers I had engaged. In hindsight, even with his back turned I should have been wary of the guy wearing a full black bodysuit, but in the dim light I had figured it was just a hoodie or something. Nope, I had forgotten to factor in the legendary luck of Taylor Hebert and as such did not register that I was accidentally assaulting the second-most dangerous member of the ABB on my first night out.
As I lay crouched in the shadow behind a dumpster, the sound of grenades exploding off in the distance, I reconciled that at the very least it wasn't Kaiser or Lung I had inadvertently decided to engage. That's small comfort though as the explosions sound off, progressively nearer to me, shivering in the darkness afforded to me by the alleyway.
The most bullshit thing though is that Lung may have been easier to deal with. I've stuck Lee twice by this point, both times, he wavered and crashed to the ground, only to fade into ash and a demon-faced assassin to appear, leaping at where I had shot from.
An explosion sounds off at the end of the alley and I realize with a start that eventually he'll find me, and if for no other reason than I don't want Dad to lose me along with how he lost Mom, I find the determination to slowly begin making my way down to the other end of the alley.
I'm almost halfway down when I feel a change in the wind blowing onto my back. I freeze up and slowly turn my head. Standing behind me brandishing a pair of knives that look like those curved Japanese swords, except only about ten inches long, is a black garbed, demon masked, teleporting serial killer, who I had royally pissed off.
"Little girl," begins an emotionless but heavily accented voice from the cape. "You have offended the ABB and for that you mus-"
He is broken off by a loud crack and suddenly one of the knives, along with the arm holding it is blown off to clatter against the wall of the alleyway.
The remaining arm immediately begins swinging its blade at my neck, without so much as a flinch. I manage to get my palm, where my armoring is closest to the surface, in front of the blade, and it stops it handily, sinking hardly a sixteenth of an inch into the epidermis.
Before I can be impressed with the quality of my augmentation, the now armless Oni Lee crumbles into ash before my eyes. I turn around behind me to find the source of the shot and see a hunk of stone floating maybe twenty feet in the air, with two figures on standing on it.
As I watch, the stone begins floating its way toward me and the two figures hop off. One is a girl about my age wearing crimson-red robes inscribed along the fringes with black script. Her hood is pulled low over her face, but I can spy a black lacquered mask covering her features from the nose up.
Next to her is a man wearing red and black body-armor culminating in an embossed V on his chest. Slung on his back is some sort of sniper rifle, undoubtedly missing at least one bullet in the clip.
As the rock lands, the hooded figure hops off, while the armored sniper carefully steps down with an amazingly-practiced grace. I run an internet check through my eyes and, yes, my suspicions are correct, these are Rune and Victor, or Viktor apparently, of the E88. What are they going to do I wonder. Will they attack me too, or extort information or my identity or any number of other horrible things?
"Hi," Rune says brightly, lowering her hood with one hand to reveal her half-mask covered face and white-blonde hair. She reaches out a delicate-looking hand to me as I stand there stupefied. "I'm Rune and this is Viktor, are you alright? Lee's kinda an asshole what with the teleporting and exploding and stuff, we can get you a healer if you need it, Othala's nearby."
I can only listlessly shake my head at the teenaged supervillain who just saved my life. I hold up my palm in lieu of an explanation, and the through the split in my glove, a small metallic honeycomb is visible where the blade cut into the skin.
"Oh neat are you some kind of tinker or something, that looks like it stopped the blade completely. Hey Vik, come take a look at this."
I glance over and see the armor-clad supervillain leaning over the severed arm of the ABB parahuman.
After a moment, Viktor comes over to me, holding the knife Oni Lee hadn't swung at me.
"Assuming he was using similar blades in each hand," he began, speaking with the candor of a lawyer and the confidence of the blacksmith who forged the weapon. "The fact that you deflected his weapon is no small feat. This blade has been specially tempered, probably from a toybox tinker or something similar, to have an almost monomolecular edge and be incredibly resistant to dulling."
"Um…thanks I suppose, for, um saving me from Oni Lee and um the… um."
"Don't mention it, you actually gave us the opening to do more to Lee than we ever really have, we can't kill the guy cuz then the PRT will be on our asses, but he'll be way less effective with only a left arm so we're pretty much even."
"Al-alright then, so… do we just leave now or..?"
This time Viktor speaks up, silencing the younger parahuman. With a voice so smooth, I'm almost entranced by the pure tone of his voice that I almost don't register the words, or I would be, if I didn't instinctively know that I could aug a better voice than any skill he could steal.
"I suppose you could, but Othala is nearby if you'd like a brief checkup or tuneup and the night is still young miss..?"
I register that he's asking for a cape name from me, I flounder about a bit before throwing out the first and most obvious I can think of.
"I… um don't have a name yet. I tinker with human implantable technology though."
Probably revealing myself and my power to the supervillain wasn't my best idea, but he and Rune did just save my life and he probably has some sort of skill pertinent to picking out cape names right?
I wait while Viktor and Rune let out short hmm's until the skill vampire snaps his fingers, with a very full, pleasant sound.
"Machinamentum, until we get something better. Literally 'the machine,' what do you think?"
I shrug and tell him that it's a bit of a mouthful, but it would work for now. He lets out a winning smile and gestures to the hunk of stone. I look over at Rune, who gives me a genuine, if toothy, smile and hops up onto it. I mentally shrug and step up, how much weirder could tonight get?
--Author's note--
Shorter chapter today, but I decided to use what time I had last night rather than doing nothing with it, so here you go.
--Ex Machina--
Chapter III: Introduction
Once safely perched on the concrete, Rune shoots me another toothy smile and we lift off into the air. Viktor was still clutching Oni Lee's arm and knife in one of his hands, and scanning the horizon with a practiced eye.
After a very short while, we begin to descend, until the concrete chunk drops into a distinctly concrete chunk-shaped hole, likely its origin, and the two Empire capes step off.
Were I functioning better right now, I probably would be evaluating the life decisions I had made that led me to accepting a ride from Nazis to meet another Nazi, but I was still somewhat in shock at the revelation that these Nazis are actual people and a hell of a lot more pleasant to be around than the only 'hero' I know I've met.
As the three of us land, our ride returning to the sidewalk from whence it came, a fourth figure steps out from the alleyway and awkwardly jog/walks toward the three of us. Closer inspection reveals a woman in a black dress with maroon trim and a lacquered mask similar to Rune's.
When she reaches us, she immediately grasps for Viktor's hand, which he holds out for her appreciatively. Viktor sighs in relief at the figure's touch before letting go and turning to face both her and Rune and I.
"O, this is Machinamentum, a tinker we found fighting against Oni Lee. We decided to lend her a hand and managed to knock an arm off the chink for our troubles. Machinamentum, this is Othala, my betrothed.
The woman steps closer, into the illumination of the streetlight and I finally get a good look at her. Shorter than me, she couldn't have been older than nineteen or twenty, which would put at least three or four years younger than her apparent betrothed, and she had that sort of 'unblemished Disney princess' look about her, from her tumbling jet black hair to her perfect skin.
"Then Machinamentum, you have my sincerest thanks for aiding in crippling that menace, many of the good people of Brockton Bay have been harmed by his actions, and any permanent damage will severely limit his threat from here on out."
She said this all with a sight accent, much softer and more controlled than the fast, harsh accent native to Brockton Bay. After executing a little bow straight out of etiquette class she reached out her hand to me, offering to shake. After some hesitation, I take the offered appendage and instantly a surge of something rushes through my veins. It feels like alternating fire and ice, but cleansing and refreshing rather than scalding and freezing.
After we break contact, she touches a pair of fingers to her soft, pale chin and lets out a small gasp.
"Oh dear, you're not in good shape at all are you? That bit of regeneration should clear out any lingering issues you had, but that was long overdue, I'm not sure if it's my place, but do try to begin eating a bit healthier if you want that to stick."
I stand there in shocked silence for a few seconds before what she said to me finally registered.
"Wait you mean you… regenerated me? But what about…" I broke off and cycled through half a dozen different optical settings, reading the data as it came to me. In fact all of my augs weren't destroyed or ruined, but… maintained. The small kinks in my meshes were smoothed out, while my various other implants were refueled, relubricated, and refurbished, as if the regeneration merely treated them as… part of my… body.
Hmm.
I was broken off my searching by the sound of Rune snapping her fingers next to my ears. I turned around just in time for her to call out "Heloooo, Bet to Machina, anybody home?"
"Sorry, I was just running some diagnostics, what was going on?"
"Well after O regenned you, you muttered for a bit and then went silent for like thirty seconds and I was wondering if she put you in factory reset mode or something."
She finished with one of those joking smiles and I returned with as flat a look as I could deliver behind sunglasses and a scarf. She seemed to get the message, because she let out a little chuckle and stuffed her hands into some sort of hidden pockets in her robes.
Viktor, who had been watching the whole exchange, interrupted the silence just before it got awkward by clearing his throat.
"I'm not going to give you a sales pitch or anything, because it seems you've had quite enough events for one night, but," he held out a small slip of cardstock to me, which I reached for with some hesitation, "if you're ever out and need some backup, just give me a call, we take care of our own, especially with much of the city overrun with more… unsavory types. The might of the Empire will aid you in a time of need for your part in crippling the ABB's lieutenant."
The card he handed me was a soft textured cream color, with a thick black ten digit phone number embossed onto one side; I started pulling it toward a pocket of my trench coat before a floating pen blocked my path. Rune's arm flicked put and a finger brushed the card in my hand and it began to hover in front of her next to the pen.
"I'm like nintery-nine percent sure you're high-school age like me and since Clarendon is like ten miles across town from where we found you and you're not a stuck-up bitch from what I've seen like the people at Arcadia are, I'm going to assume we share the honor of attending the city's armpit.
"If you ever need any help with anything, like homework, or assholes, or you just want to talk to someone, slip a note into the slots in this locker and I can meet you whenever," at this. The card flipped over, revealing the embossed number to me as the floating pen began scribbling out what I assumed to be a locker number on the reverse side. "Totally no obligation or anything, and if I called it wrong and you go somewhere else then no problem, but there offer's there if you want it."
After she finished she took a deep breath, as if she hadn't breathed through her whole speal because she was too afraid of stopping, and the pen cap floated back onto the pen, and the pen floated into Rune's pocket, while the card floated into the pocket I had been moving to put it into anyway before her little declaration.
I realized that it was my turn to speak up, so I summoned my most eloquent rhetoric to reply to the friendly Nazis looking expectantly at me.
"Um… thanks I suppose, thui was all like a lot of… stuff to take in, so I'm going to go home for the night, but… um… yeah."
Viktor chuckled and took Othala's hand as the turned and began strolling their way down the dark empty sidewalk, looking for all the world like two carefree superpowered young lovers. Rune gave me one last smile, this one a lot softer, and seemingly more genuine than her previous over-the-top expressions.
"Hey, I mean it; if you need anything at all don't hesitate to contact me or something I… I think, if you're up for it, I could use a friend too."
She turned before I had a chance to respond and jogged to catch up with Viktor and Othala down the sparsely-lit street.
I watched the three of them make their way down for a few second before slowly turning and walking home, the events of the past night weighing heavily in my thoughts.
--Ex Machina--
I awoke from my four hours and thirty-six minutes of required sleep with a bit of a start. I had gotten home well after one in the morning, and had flopped into bed around two after pouring myself and downing a tall glass of milk.
After the short boot-up sequence for all my augs finished, I sat up in bed and rubbed my 'eyes,' more out of habit than necessity, as the lenses were self cleaning and repairing.
That morning ritual over with, I leaned back against my headboard with only a single thought running through my head.
'What the hell happened last night?'
After a brief time spent pondering why I had never considered that Nazis could be people too, and furthermore that they're, from the three that I've seen, better people than most others I interact with on a daily basis, namely one so-called 'hero,' I swung my legs over the bed and mechanically proceeded to the rest of my morning rituals.
Of course I can chalk part of that goodwill down to gratitude for my part in crippling Lee, which is an entirely different thing to freak out about, but now is not the time, and part of that to my skin-shade being in their defined range of 'acceptable,' but even so, the closest thing to friendly interaction with one of my peers that I've had in eighteen months is with someone the government defines as a villain, a menace to society.
I pulled out card from my bedside table and glanced at the scrawled number on its backside while I got up and started making up my bed. 3248, only half a hallway from my own locker, a supervillain stores her schoolbooks and homework, the only difference being the number embedded on its front and the lack of a lingering smell of industrial disinfectant.
I don't honestly know at this point if I'll take her up on her offer; that could lead to a very slippery slope that I maybe don't want to start making my way down. At the same time, the tinker part of my brain, which is currently designing an aug which would automatically brush my teeth for me, is telling me that the resources Kaiser would lavish on me for my tinkering would open up so many possibilities for augs or implants. All it would take is being labeled as a Nazi and supervillain by the same system that labeled Sophia Hess as a superhero.
I broke off that chain of thought before it got too dangerous by throwing on some old clothing and making my way down to my painfully inadequate workshop to see what toys I could come up with to clear my head before Dad gets home. While I was no CQC expert like Oni Lee, it would be nice to have a few options, should I ever find myself in another hand-to-hand engagement…
In the end, it took almost two weeks before I finally took Rune up on her offer. In the intermittent time, I had installed hidden batons which I could store in my forearm which were made entirely from a custom ceramic compound that wouldn't trip metal detectors and was lighter and harder than carbon steel. I had only gone out once since that first night, and it was for less than an hour and a half.
All that really happened that second night was taking down a trio of (merchant) dealers hawking wares on the street corner. I slept the first two with the dart launcher and when the third approached with a knife sloppily drawn, I took him down with the batons. The two collapsing two-foot lengths of ceramic performed admirably, one blocking the knifes strike and the other smashing the wrist holding it, not so much as a scratch on either, and once the druggie was hit one last time in a nerve ending below the armpit he dropped like his brothers.
After calling the police on one of the druggie's phones and leaving it on near their collapsed forms, I walked back home satisfied with the implant's field test. After finishing up, I held them in my hands in a very particular way and they collapsed themselves, sliding into hollow holsters in my forearms.
I'm snapped back to reality from my reminiscence by the end of lunch period bell and I quickly drop the note through the slots in locker 3248 before heading to my next class.
--Ex Machina--
Brooke tossed her brown paper bag in the trash can in the corner of the dimly-lit cafeteria and headed to her locker to get her books for her next period class. As she walked through the overcrowded hallways she thought back on the cape she had met almost two weeks ago. Perhaps Machina (or Machinamentum, but that's a mouthful, even in her head) did actually attend one of the other schools or had otherwise simply not wanted to meet her.
Either way, she had not heard from the other girl, and that was a little disappointing. Although after hearing the report Kaiser had encouraged her to make nice with the tinker, Brooke hadn't been lying when she told her that she could use a friend, almost everyone she knew from the Empire was a ridiculous radical and/or twice her age, and most people in this shithole of a school were assholes or… undesirables.
Even if she didn't hold any particular animosity for most of the other races, at least not to the level of most of the Empire, the thought of how furious Uncle James, and by extention Kaiser would be if she made a non-white friend sent fearful shivers down her spine.
With somewhat shaking fingers, she spun the combination on her locker, only for a torn piece of notebook paper to flutter out. With a little spark of excitement, Brooke picked the paper off the floor and flipped it over, reading the reverse side where a scrawl in black pen had been hastily written a short message onto it.
R,
Roof, after last period.
M.
Grinning slightly to herself, Brooke crumpled up the paper and stuffed it into her pocket, before grabbing her books and heading to her English class.
--Ex Machina--
The final bell rang and I packed up my stuff from art class, Sophia was gone today, probably out 'saving' the city from a bank robbery or something so I at least knew I wouldn't be stalked and assaulted on my way to the meeting.
I'm still wary about this, but the past two weeks have been more brutal than usual, and this was my first chance that I knew I wouldn't be followed after school. Once I had everything together, I zipped up my pack and stepped out into the hallway, making my way to the stairwell and heading up toward the roof access.
I was very familiar with the roof, as it was my last remaining undesecrated lunch sanctuary. Naturally I couldn't go there every day or it would get found and ruined like everything else, but on days when life was being even shittier than usual, I could go up there and relax in the smog and traffic of an old east coast city without interruption.
I made my way to one of several busted air conditioning units and popped the pistons implanted in the soles of my feet, launching me the three or so feet upwards so I could land sitting on the old metal box and wait for pmy potential friend the supervillainess to arrive.
I wasn't kept waiting long, only about five minutes of reading through some Earth-Aleph aggregate site called greenit through the internet uplink in my sunglasses. As I heard the door open up, I closed out of the cat picture I was currently admiring and listened to the new arrival.
"M, you there? It's me, you dropped a note..?"
Deciding to have a little fun, I changed my eye color display to appear to be an orb of solid gold behind my sunglasses and turned to the voice which tripped the recognition scanners I had upgraded my HUD with.
The door closed just as I called out, "Over here, by the AC units."
As I heard footsteps approach and turn the corner, I hoped off my perch, landing just as Rune turned the corner.
She was… shorter… than she appeared in costume, with a petite build dominated by whites, from the pallor of her skin to the white-blonde hair which flowed down her back in a smooth sheet. She obviously also came from money, as attested to by her designer clothing and handbag, which I'm sure are in the height of fashion.
At the same time I was sizing her up, she was doing the same to me, eyeing my too-tall, thin gangly form with a neutral expression on her face. The girl I vaguely recognized as one year my senior from passing by in the halls walked forward and held out her hand to me.
"Hi, I'm Brooke, Brooke Fliescher."
I shook her hand and at the same time I retracted the sunglasses into my brow.
"Taylor Hebert."
"It's good to sorta meet you Tay- augh what the hell, what's up with your eyes?"
I snorted at her shocked expression at seeing the two golden orbs implanted into my sockets. I quickly cycled through pure black, pure white, and then finally back to my now-resting setup of normal-looking eyes with irises a striking deep indigo blue, all with a knowing smirk on my lower face.
It took about three seconds looking at her frozen expression of shock before I finally broke into a fit of laughter. I hadn't been able to laugh like this in several months; I almost forgot how good it could feel. Eventually Rune, or Brooke, started laughing too and we stood there together for almost two minutes, alternating fits of giggles before we both managed to pull ourselves together.
"That was horrible, you really scared me for a minute there," Brooke said, breaking the silence.
"But it was pretty funny," I countered her with.
"Point, so why did you end up setting this up Taylor?"
I uneasily shifted from foot to foot not really finding an answer that I was happy with so I eventually responded in the most honest way I could.
"I… don't really have any like… friends or anything and when I met you like two weeks ago, you were the first like… person who wasn't a total bitch to me for no real discernible reason in such a long time. As for now, it was the first time I knew we wouldn't get… interrupted."
"Why don't you tell me how you really feel though?" she said with a small nervous giggle. Before I could start glaring at her, she elaborated, "Sorry, I'm not great at this whole 'social' thing, but honestly, that's basically the same reason I offered to meet like this. I'm not going to go all 'hey, you should join the Empire now,' this isn't a sales pitch or anything, If Kaiser really wanted that he probably would have had you meet with Othala or Viktor.
No, I really just wanted to see if I had finally met someone worth a damn. So far, I think I have. What did you mean by the way when you said today we wouldn't get interrupted?"
"I… uh… ever since freshman year I've been kinda… bullied by these three girls almost every day, one of them wasn't here this afternoon so I figured they probably wouldn't try anything today." I finished with a small shrug and waited for the response from the girl in front of me, who had a ponderous look gracing her features.
Suddenly her eyes widened and her mouth opened a bit drawing in a breath of air. "Oh that's, you're, son of a bitch that n-… black girl and her two lackeys are the ones doing it aren't they, and that… thing after winter… fuck, my bad I should have… fuck."
"No, really its…"
"Do not say its fine, it's not fine, you need help, and I have just the thing. Wanna come hang out for awhile? I think my Mom's home and Monday is brownie day."
"Wait but what about…"
"Look, it feels like there's nobody on your side and sooner or later you're probably gonna lash out and do something reckless, trust me I… trust me, this never resolves itself any other way. Come on, you need brownies, and then we can do mundane friend things like watch crappy movies on TV and struggle through homework, okay?
"That sounds… pretty alright I suppose, I guess, lead the way then?."
She turned and started making her way to the stairwell door. She slapped the door itself with her open palm and it opened itself to make way for the two of us. After I walked through, the door slammed shut behind us as Brooke led me downstairs and to a parking lot outside, where she pulled out the keys to a newish Volvo and clicked the unlock button twice.
We both got in and she started driving. We had a much more casual conversation about the perils of Winslow and schoolwork. It was nice. It felt like having a friend. Someone who cared.
That afternoon went exactly how Brooke had described it; we laid out our homework, and over the course of an hour and a half, did approximately half of it, owing chiefly to the brownies and bad TV soap operas we couldn't not make fun of. Eventually though, the time that I had to leave to get home before Dad encroached upon us, and in response, I turned the integrated equation lens I had designed to figure precise measurements and engineering on a micro-scale to my tenth-grade trigonometry homework.
Brooke rightly exclaimed that tinkers were bullshit, and I proudly agreed before packing up the homework and saying one last goodbye to the Fleischers. Brooke's mother, Kathryn, from whom Brooke drew almost her entire appearance, jovially bid me farewell, and implored me to come back sometime. It brought up memories of another friendship so many years ago. I buried the memories before I began to dwell on them, and returned Mrs. Fleischer's farewell. Brooke's father, apparently some sort of high-level accountant at a local pharmaceuticals firm was at a conference in Providence, and wouldn't be back in Brockton for several days.
As I left out the front door and headed for the bus stop, I took one last look at the residence behind me.
My initial assessment wasn't far off, I mused as I glanced over the three-story home in the heart of the west side subdivisions (firmly in Empire territory). The entire exterior was red, grey, and maroon cobblestone blocks, with a front door marked out in an ornate stone arch. Wrought-iron decorated the windows and porch, as well as forming a fence around the property, a field of grass which, while not exactly lush here in the New England early spring, was certainly showing more signs of life than most of the others around it, and definitely more than the yards around my own home.
It was the kind of home fit for someone firmly in the upper-upper-middle class of society, which here in Brockton put them firmly into the upper strata of the population. As I climbed into the bus, the niggling hope bit at me that all that familial income was obtained legally.
--Ex Machina--
"Taylor," Brooke began, breaking the amicable silence we had adopted during our lunch break inside an abandoned classroom on the third floor, "would you mind doing me a huge favor?"
She put her sandwich down onto a paper towel spread across the cheap plastic desk and looked up at me, giving me honest-to-God pleading puppy dog eyes.
"No Brooke," I responded with an overly drawn out sigh of exasperation. "I will not give you laser eyes, at the very least I get them first, no arguments."
"No, well yes, but no a different favor," she replied with a nervous laugh. "See after that night we met you, Viktor and Othala gave their reports to the higher-ups, and eventually um… Kaiser heard about it."
I gave her a wary glare, and beckoned her to go on.
After taking a drink from her water bottle and audibly swallowing, the pale teenager in front of me started speaking in a rushed tone, so as to get everything out before I stopped her again.
"Ok so after Kaiser heard about it, he told me to talk to you if you contacted me first and see if I could make all nice with you. I had already given you the card by that point so I just waited and eventually we did that rooftop thing, and then we've like chatted and hung out for the past week, and then Kaiser told me again to ask you if you would meet with him and me and a few other people from the Empire for like dinner to talk about if you'd like to collaborate at all or anything, and that this isn't a recruitment pitch unless you want it to be."
She said the last part all as one rushed flow of words, and then proceeded to hide behind her sandwich in the guise of taking a bite while I reeled a bit at her requested 'favor.'
After several moments of quietly sitting and thinking, I responded.
"If it's not a recruitment, than what, exactly is it?"
"Well there's about half a dozen independent rogues and, um, villains that we contract for specialty work every once in awhile, so maybe that. I- I don't know for sure, I was just told to make the offer."
Naturally I knew why the Empire would be interested in me. They famously boast one of the deepest benches of any gang on the eastern seaboard, but don't have a single Tinker to their name. It's obvious that they would be interested in me, but...
They're villains, Nazis, a gang that has caused untold violence to me home city. And yet, a traitorous voice in the back of my head reminded me, they're people too, and from what I've seen so far better people than those 'protecting' us. Brooke's house was firmly in the heart of Empire territory, and everyone there seemed well-off, and safe, and content with their lives. And also white.
That's the rub isn't it though? The Empire is arguably doing a better job protecting their 'charges' than the PRT or Protectorate, they're just more selective about whom and what they fight for.
Do I want to help people? Obviously yeah, I do.
Can I become a hero and join the Protectorate, as least while they maintain that that African shitsack is one of their 'heroes?' Fuck. No.
Is remaining independent a viable option, especially with the materials cost for the tinkering I plan to continue doing? Not really, no.
That's one choice made then I suppose.
While I had been pondering all this, Brooke had been quietly nibbling on the remains of her lunch, casting furtive glances at me every few seconds. When she looked up again, I caught her eyes and, holding the connection, slowly nodded once.
Brooke almost seemed to collapse in relief; perhaps she had more riding on my agreement than she had initially let on. Regardless she pulled from her backpack an expensive-looking cream envelope, with the word Machinamentum printed on the front in flowing gold script.
After carefully breaking the seal, I slid out a similarly-colored sheet of actual parchment paper, with that same flowing script, this time a dark black printed on it.
Machinamentum
I would very much like your presence this Saturday evening at Das Beste Essen
We have a private dinner at the restaurant, one of the Bay's finest, on a monthly basis, and would very much enjoy the opportunity to talk with you about future opportunities, for the both of us.
Rune will meet with you at seven-thirty if you choose to accept the offer.
Please come masked, the restaurant expects our presence, so worry not about inquisitive looks from the patrons.
I believe this could represent the beginning of an incredibly profitable partnership, for both sides, and we are prepared to finance any endeavors you would like to undertake.
We can better discuss proceedings and specifications on Saturday in person.
I dearly look forward to making your acquaintance.
All the Best,
Kaiser.
I looked up after finishing the note and Brooke gave me a nervous but hopeful smile. "So, will you at least hear this out?"
"You promise me there's no obligation, no trap, nothing to stop me from walking out halfway through without repercussions."
"What, you think we're the ABB? No, we wouldn't force you into service, and you're free to leave at any time, and you'll never hear this offer again unless you personally invite it."
"Okay then, I'll hear it out at least; perhaps I may actually get something from it."
Oh Scion, what have I gotten myself into?
--Ex Machina--
"You never said anything about this, why do I have to do this."
"Taylor," Brooke began, dressed in a crimson-red evening gown trimmed in black, with her face covered by her costumes lacquered mask. "You can't eat at the nicest restaurant in the city wearing jeans and a sweater, I already bought you the damn dress, just put it on."
From a bag hovering by her side draped out a night-black dress with gold edging. I noted with disgust that it was a beautiful garment and that it somehow matched my ridiculous measurements.
I threw one last scowl at my friend before growling at her to just give me the stupid dress. The garment folded itself back up in midair and floated gently into my hands. Once I had hold of it, I walked into the upper-floor bathroom of Brooke's house and shut the door behind me.
Several minutes later I stood in front of the mirror, looking at the figure appearing in it. The elaborate braid Brooke had given me with a wave of her hand set off the gown beautifully and the fabric made my overly pale skin look intentional rather than simply poor genes.
With a final thought, the black lenses slid from my brow to cover my eyes and upper nose and just like that, I was no longer Taylor, the skinny, bullied high schooler, but Machinamentum, the Tinker with an overly long temporary moniker. Who was about to be wined and dined by the largest criminal organization in the city.
This should be exciting, at the very least.
--Ex Machina--
After I finished my changing/introspection session, I slipped on a pair of soft black flats and stepped back into Brooke's room. After the necessary finishing touches and appreciation of both our outfits, we stepped to the conservatory on the upper corner of the Fleischer home.
The corner room had two walls and most of a ceiling made entirely of windows, which gave a great view of the surrounding property and the neighboring houses almost a quarter of a mile away. Around the room were scattered a few light-colored sofas and chaise lounges. A large oak bookshelf filled with novels to partake in lined the wall near the door. It was this very bookshelf that Brooke (Rune now, as we were both masked) walked to.
Reaching behind some trashy romance novels, I heard an audible click and two of the larger windows swung open letting in the cool night air. Rune led me over to a circular stone in the center of the room and, pulling one foot out from her short heeled shoe, poked the stone with her big toe. The large flat stone, which the two of us were stood on, lifted up and flew out the open window.
As we cleared the sill, Rune lifted us up into the night air, and turned toward downtown Brockton Bay.
After several mesmerizing minutes of soaring above the brightly lit city, we started descending to the roof of one of the larger buildings, a fancy hotel, which had chains in just about every big city in the world.
Eventually, we landed on the roof, near a stairwell access and the two of us stepped off the stone. We walked toward the door, Rune taking the lead and opening up the passageway to a brightly lit stairwell.
After descending a floor, the sounds of dining were made audible and Rune took me to a wood-paneled door with a bronze plaque along the side which read Das Beste Essen. Gesturing for me to follow, Rune walked forward and lightly touched the door, which smoothly opened up for us.
I was immediately struck by two scents. The smells of steak and beer wafted around the restaurant which was decorated exactly like any other high-class restaurant atop any other high-class hotel, with massive windows and wood paneling everywhere.
Rune began walking down a hallway away from the main dining area which had kitchen doors on one side and rooms named after famous Brocktonites along the other. Eventually we stopped in front of the David Sarif room, and Rune pushed (Not telekinetically, but with her actual hands) the dark wood-paneled door open to reveal one of the scariest and most amusing sights I have ever seen.
Along the far wall was a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the three or four blocks before the Bay and the Bay itself. In the center of the room was an elaborately set table with a white tablecloth and several miscellaneous wine bottles and hors d'oeuvres were scattered across the table, but it was neither the food nor the view that drew my eye.
Rather it was the half-dozen masked individuals seated around the table that had all looked up at our arrival. Kaiser, wearing a tuxedo and sporting an ostentatious metal crown-helm of blades what left open his mouth for the wine glass he was currently raising to his lips, sat at the head of the table.
To his left was a woman in a radiant white evening gown, who was almost leaking luminescence. To Purity's left sat Othala and Viktor, who looked much the same as they did the night I met them, albeit somewhat more 'cleaned up' than they were when I met them wearing 'street level' costumes.
To Kaiser's right sat a single Blonde woman in a metal Valkyrie helmet and a steely grey dress, who looked as if she had walked directly out of one of those magazines printed to make women feel bad about their bodies and buy whatever beauty product was being advertized.
To her right was a man dressed in what seemed to be an old-fashioned German soldier's dress uniform, complete with eagle-shaped medals and black military cap.
Rune immediately left my side and went to sit next to the soldier-looking cape (Kreig I think), leaving the only open chair at the other head of the table, directly across from Kaiser.
The gang leader gave me an unnervingly pleasant smile and nodded toward the empty chair at the end of the table. I slowly walked forward, feeling somewhat awkward moving around in the expensive dress. Eventually I reached the wooden high-backed chair and slid it out with no more sound than a whisper of cloth foot-bottoms on the polished wooden floor.
There was a few awkward seconds of silence, with everyone at the table looking at the new arrival before Kaiser again broke it. Raising his half-empty wine glass her looked directly at me across the table with that same smile and spoke in a clear, hard voice.
"Welcome Machinamentum, I'm so very glad you could meet with us today. Before we get into business discussion, I would be incredibly grateful if you would deign to share this meal with us."
As his word, the door I entered through opened once again, making way for a trio of kitchen staff in spotless white garments pushing carts which held an assortment of delicious-smelling food. In a flurry of activity, a cut of steak, a tail of lobster, a crisp salad, and a glass of red wine was placed before me and everyone else seated at the table.
I looked down at the assortment of food laid in front of me and accessed a guide on etiquette through the uplink in my eyes. Pulling the large cloth napkin from its ring, I unfolded it halfway and placed it carefully in my lap. I looked up to see everyone else mirroring my movements before beginning their dinner.
I picked up the small salad fork and began eating once I had seen everyone else begin.
The conversation over dinner was incredibly strange.
There were polite but meaningless questions exchanged back and forth between not only the Empire capes and I, but also between the Empire capes alone. They spoke of their costumed efforts and the progress of the Empire as a whole as if it were as natural a topic as the latest football game. I was somewhat uncomfortable knowing that cocaine sales were up by half a percent this week, but at the same time, it was incredibly interesting to hear the way they spoke of such normally taboo subjects as though they were perfectly normal business endeavors.
Which, I mused, they probably were these days.
I was silent most of the time, speaking only when spoken to and enjoying the meal we had been served. That's one point for the Empire I suppose, the food served during meetings was delicious.
Almost an hour later, all the plates and glasses, including my now half-empty wine glass I had drank from after some persuasion from Rune, were cleaned off of the table, leaving it bare. As the last of the kitchen staff left, trays full of empty dishes with them, Kaiser dramatically clapped his hands together, silencing all lingering conversation.
As he did, all eyes turned to him, but he looked only down at me sitting across the table.
"Machinamentum, I thank you once again for your presence this evening, the addition to the conversation was quite refreshing. Now that that delicious meal is finished we can move on to business." He indicated with a tilt of his head that he was expecting an answer from me, so I slowly nodded my head and cautiously responded in the affirmative.
"First of all, I would like to reaffirm to you how impressed I am with what work you have shown already, surviving a pursuit by Lung's dog is no mean feat, opening him for the opportunity to inflict a permanent wound even more so.
Even if you reject the initial invitation to formally join our ranks, I would like to contract you out for some freelance work, I am prepared to expend quite a bit of our vast resources to ensuring you can reach your full potential as a tinker."
"What sort of contractual work," I began, "are you meaning, and what resources are you implying you'll expend for my sake?"
"If you agree merely to a sort of 'freelancer' position with some small exceptions, I am willing to provide for you a fully-stocked and secluded workshop for you to work in, as well as contact information for some of our more… exotic materials dealers, specifically rare metals and minerals. In addition if ever you are threatened, the might of the Empire will fully support you, and for each contract you fulfill, we will pay you very handsomely for your work.
As for the sort of contracts, it would vary, but in general they would be requests from our Parahuman force to augment their capabilities in some way.
You would be under no obligation to complete any requests we give to you, but you will of course not be paid for jobs you don't complete. You will retain use of the workshop for as long as you remain within the contractual obligations. Also, though materials will not be given freely, any job you do for us will pay well enough for you to fully finance your own endeavors for some time."
He finished with a slight smile on his face whilst I sat there absolutely gobsmacked. A fully-stocked workshop would be a significant upgrade over my current accommodations in a coal-storage room in my basement. Meanwhile the thoughts of what I could make if I had access to not only more expensive materials, but also the machinery to properly make use of them had the tinker part of my brain almost salivating.
"And what," I said after a long, palpable silence of everyone expectantly looking at me, "Would be those 'contractual obligations' you mentioned earlier?"
Widening his confident smirk ever further Kaiser responded to mu query.
"Oh simple things really, don't do any work for the ABB, Merchants, or Protectorate, though if you wanted to work in a hospital to help the sick and injured as Othala here or Brockton's famous Panacea are known to do, that is perfectly acceptable.
In addition, don't disrupt Empire business work, and don't work directly against our interests."
So basically I don't have to join the Empire, they'll pay me to be what amounts to a vigilante who doesn't work with the Protectorate and doesn't target the Empire. That in fairness seems like a good deal, though my judgment may be clouded by the image of a functioning workshop where I can finally accomplish the work I had been designing for months, but had lacked the resources and machinery to fully realize.
Before I could fully think through the inebriation of both tinkerlust and alcohol (with my build I'm the very definition of a lightweight), I had accepted Kaiser's offer.
Does this make me a villain now? Does that label even mean anything anymore? I don't know, but it seemed that my acceptance was the cue for everyone to get up and begin leaving. As they passed by, the various Empire capes offered me words of encouragement.
Viktor and Othala shook my hand and told me they looked forward to working with me. Kreig and the Valkyrie offered curt nods and reassurance that I had mead the 'correct' choice. Purity only took me by the shoulder and asked me to 'be careful.' And Kaiser had simply turned and began staring silently out the window, out at the Bay.
Eventually, Rune took my hand and we made our way back to the roof, where our stone was parked. The only thing she said to me was a quiet thanks for accepting. There was more subtext there, I knew, but she seemed too silently relieved to interrupt with a question of that sort.
Once we had gotten on the stone, Rune tapped it and we took off, flying in the night back toward her home.
Brooke breathed a sigh of relief as the stone took off from the hotel's roof. Those dinners were always nerve-wracking. Brooke was sure that Kaiser wouldn't immediately stab her through the throat if she forgot which fork to use for the salad, but damn did it feel that way at times.
That was enough most nights, but Brooke was even more anxious going into the dinner tonight. She was immensely grateful that her new friend had accepted Kaiser's offer of dinner, and immensely relieved that she had agreed to become a semi-freelancer. Of course Taylor hadn't known, but the very idea of how Uncle James, Kaiser's right-hand man, would have reacted, had Brooke failed to adequately 'convince' the tinker before Kaiser's offer, was frankly horrifying enough that the thought sent cold shivers running down her spine.
On the flip side, the guilt of knowing full-stop that she had convinced the bullied girl to contract out with a criminal gang out of (even partially) selfish reasons ate away at her. Looking over at Taylor, however and the slight gleam behind those artificial eyes of hers (she had retracted the sunglasses to look over the lights of the city at night) put a little spark in her heart.
Brooke knew that even now, Taylor was visualizing all that she could possibly make with access to machinery and space and materials, and to be honest, Brooke was a little excited too.
Taylor had only descended into tinkerbabble once in the week since their meeting on Winslow's rooftop, and Brooke had struggled to understand every fifth word, but even so the sheer excitement in Taylor's voice and expression was infectious. With every mention of how she could improve or optimize internal somethings or some improve whatever doodads, the very human gleam in her artificial eyes grew brighter and brighter, as though some deep-seated desire within her yearned to make these fantastical devices and improvements she was describing.
Brooke sighed, conflicted with herself. On the one hand, she had convinced her new friend to join the criminal gang she had been a part of in some fashion ever since Uncle James had come to the states from Munich, reinforcement from the Gesellschaft. On the other, she mused, she had helped her new friend get exactly what she wanted, the means to tinker up just about anything she could envision. And from what Taylor had described, the potential for that was pretty exciting in and of itself.
--Ex Machina--
When Rune and I landed back in her house, the windows closing shut behind us as the circular stone found its rightful place again, the first thing she did was hand me a pad of paper and a pen.
"Here, write down whatever you think you'll need to get started and accomplish the first few projects before you start getting contracted."
If I had less active control over my automatic responses, I would have had to stop myself from salivating. Finally I could start to really fix my fleshy, imperfect, meatsack of a body that I had been given at birth. Visions of augs danced through my head, sensory and reflexatory improvements, internal sound and inertial dampeners, even more outlandish things like adaptive camouflage and anti-grav boosters for movement and even flight were things I knew were eventually possible. All I really needed would be materials, equipment, and time. Soon I would have all in abundance.
For now though I wrote down general materials I would requite for basically all of my augs, pure silver for wiring, high-carbon steel and boron for casings, and other metals and minerals for various internal components. Once the list stretched to a dozen different materials and perhaps half that many items for lab equipment (operating table, more advanced surgical waldos, and machinery for refining the materials for use in my augs), I handed it back to Brooke, who had slipped off her mask and was watching me furiously list items with a poorly hidden look of amusement dancing across her pale features.
After taking the list, she looked over my neatly ordered columns of materials, masses, and equipment and proudly announced that she knew perhaps half of the words before her.
I snickered and she laughed back at me, her face lighting up in a toothy grin of amusement at my mirth and her own expense.
Once we had both regained our composure, she folded up the list and placed it in a manila envelope which had mysteriously appeared on her bookshelf while the two of us were at dinner. Without a word she sealed the envelope, scribbled something on it with the pen I had used to make my list, and placed it back on the bookshelf.
I cocked an eyebrow, and she merely responded by giving me a 'don't worry about it' look. Since she was basically my contact to Kaiser and his mysterious 'suppliers' I just went with it.
That whole business taken care of, Brooke led me out of the conservatory and back to her bedroom. The couch along one wall had been made up with blankets and a pillow while we had been at dinner, which Brooke indicated I would be sleeping in before turning into her bathroom to change for bed.
I wasted time browsing the internet through the uplink in my eyes while I waited for her to finish in the bathroom. It took her fifteen minutes to change out of her dress and clean the makeup off of her face, but eventually she walked back into the room wearing a pair of thick-rimmed eyeglasses and a set of flannels a size too big for her.
She promptly hopped into her bed and pulled some doorstop of a sci-fi novel off of her bedside table while I walked into the bathroom to change.
Closing the door behind me, I stopped for a moment to look myself in the mirror one last time. I extruded the sunglasses and looked at the figure staring back at me. She was tall, standing straight and confident, her lower face showing an assured smile and her upper an impenetrable pair of sunglasses that resembled something between an opaque black visor and a pair of Ray-Bans. She was dressed in a deep black dress that made the pallor of her skin radiantly shine, like it was the healthiest, purest shade in all the world.
Pandora, I decided to myself. The first created woman, made perfect by the gods themselves, and blessed with every gift they could give. The only difference here were that the 'gods' were me, and the gifts were so much more than the Greeks had ever envisioned.
I stripped off the dress, recessed the sunglasses, and scrubbed the makeup from my face. I changed into a loose white tee-shirt and a pair of running shorts before leaving the bathroom and heading to the couch for the night. I turned off the lights, leaving only Brooke's bedside reading lamp to illuminate the room.
Once under the covers, I called out. "Goodnight Brooke."
"Goodnight Taylor," she responded, then paused for awhile.
"Hey Taylor, thank you."
I paused for a minute to consider how to answer, eventually I responded with the simplest, truest answer I could think of.
"You too Brooke, thanks."
--Ex Machina--
It was a week later when my workshop was fully set up and ready for my use. I had somehow managed to neither flip out on Emma and co. nor go out to beat up ABB or Merchant mooks to relieve stress built up from the lack of tinkering.
While I remained uncomfortable in my disgusting, fleshy, body, I placated my impulses by throwing myself into designing augments that were for the first time more than merely a pipe dream. In a week I had filled a fifty page sketchbook with intricate pencil drawings of components, mechanisms, and composites.
I nervously ticked down the seconds as my last period art class slowly crawled to completion. When the bell rang, I slung my backpack over my shoulder, turned from my desk to walk out the door to meet Brooke, and found myself a faceful of Sophia Hess.
With a predatory grin, she looked up at me and slowly started walking forward. I backed myself up at the same rate until my back impacted the wall of the swiftly-emptying classroom. The remaining students were pointedly not looking at the scene in front of them. Rather, they were making every effort to finish cleaning their workstations and clear out of the room before I could indicate them as witnesses to whatever tragedy was about to befall me.
Sophia looked around, one hand keeping hold of me while she did so. Once the last of the students had made his way out of the room, head bowed and pace quickened, she turned back to look up at my taller form.
To this day I had yet to install any true 'strength' augs so I couldn't shove her away even If I wanted to. As a track runner and super 'hero' I'm sure she got plenty of exercise to tone that athletic meatsack she resided in. It was nowhere near what I could be, but for now was shamefully superior to what I had.
"What do you want Sophia?" I asked, in an almost bored tone. While I couldn't actually get away unless I wanted to tranq her or go at her with the batons, both of which would be a terrible idea considering she was a cape with a direct line to the Protectorate, she couldn't actually hurt me anymore because of the subdermal armoring I had implanted almost two weeks ago.
"Oh you know Hebert, just the usual." She punctuated her statement by jabbing an elbow below my ribcage. I had to feign being injured, though I had hardly felt the strike. Sucking in air, I doubled over somewhat, pretending to be having trouble breathing. While I was hunched, she kicked out at my shins, sending me toppling forward onto the ground.
I breathed a silent sigh of relief, nothing would actually be done today, Sophia was just getting in her jollies. She'd probably kick her boot into my ribs a couple times and call it a day.
"Hey Taylor, what's… what the hell is going on in here?"
Sophia looked up at the new arrival, a shorter junior with long white-blonde hair and a pale complexion. Said complexion was currently plastered with the deepest expression of loathing I had ever seen, honestly seeing it on Brooke kinda reminded me once again that I had in fact made friends with a criminal, a supervillain.
Sophia's only response was to sneer and stalk toward Brooke, leaving me forgotten against the wall.
"That's no concern of yours, why the fuck would you even associate with a worthless pieces of shit like Hebert down there?"
"That's no concern of yours," Brooke shot right back, glaring daggers at the African girl. "Why the fuck to you get your jollies by beating down on others. Are you still stuck in such a primitive mindset that you think brute force makes you in some way superior to someone? Because I've got news for you darkie, you're nothing, not worth a damn except as a stepping stone for your betters."
Sophia just kept staring at Brooke, a growing look of hatred in her eyes. I saw her tensing, as if she was about to pounce on Brooke before, abruptly, she barked out a harsh, guttural laugh and stepped to the side, making her way out the door.
Just as she was exiting she called back.
"Pay attention Hebert, you may just learn something."
The second Sophia was out the door, Brooke rushed over to me. By this point I had sat up, my back against the wall, and I smiled weakly up at her, not because of the pain, as there was literally none, but because of the scene I had just witnessed.
When she got to me, she slid down along the wall to take a seat next to me on the floor of the empty classroom. She slid an arm around me, pulling me into a one-armed hug before she began talking.
"Taylor, oh my god, are you alright, any bruising or anything, I'm sorry I should have come to find you sooner, but I had never thought that."
"I'm fine; really, it literally didn't do a thing to me." I responded, trying to assuage her worries before she did anything rash.
"How can you just let her do that, how have you never struck back or anything?"
I removed her arm from around me and turned to face her, shrugging slightly, I started explaining.
"It would cause more trouble than it would solve, If I start hitting above my weight class someone would know something's wrong, and you know that if I'm found to be what I am and get reported for assault with a parahuman ability, it won't matter the reason, the courts will take the side of the popular girl with a spotless record and over the parahuman with a poor academic and disciplinary record, never mind that those are her fault as well."
"Taylor… I…"
"Drop it, its fine, trust me. Let's go to the workshop, I think the best therapy for now would just be building something."
The stood up and offered her hand to me, as she pulled me up, she started talking again.
"Ooh, I know, you should make-"
"I'm not making you laser eyes."
"Please?"
"Maybe later, I have a few ideas I want to try for now."
"Yay, okay follow me, I'll drive us there."
--Ex Machina--
--Author's Note--
I was going to write about the workshop in this chapter, but then the scene with Sophia got longer than I intended and It's already been awhile between updates and I didn't want to go any longer. So Chapter VII will likely be a tinkering montage.
After a fifteen or twenty minute ride in Brooke's Volvo, we pulled to a stop by an unremarkable seven-story office building in the heart of downtown. The lettering on the top floor pronounced its allegiance to Medhall Corporation, one of Brockton Bay's largest remaining nationwide businesses. It was a pharmaceuticals company whose headquarters downtown was a seventy-story skyscraper, the tallest building in the city by almost a dozen floors.
I worried for a moment at the implications behind a criminal empire (no pun intended) setting me up with a workshop in a building belonging to the corporation that was, in many ways, one of the lifebloods of Brockton Bay, before shrugging and accepting them. After all, I hedged, if what I guess is true, that just means they'll have a deeper pool of resources for me to play with.
Brooke locked the car and flashed some sort of laminated card in front of the parking meter. It immediately began flashing the 'paid for' graphic, and the timer beside it changed to 99:99. After a few seconds I noticed that it wasn't counting down either.
Brooke flashed me a sly grin as she turned toward the building and called out for me to follow. I obliged, turning from the parking meter to trail the supervillainess into the glass and steel construction.
The lobby was entirely unremarkable, white tile flooring in a largish room lined with black leather chairs and dark wooden tables on which were scattered various magazines. The front desk was manned by a young woman, perhaps in her early thirties with dark hair and light skin, who was presently reading something on her smartphone. On the front end of the desk was engraved the Medhall logo
A bell on the door chimed as we entered, and the receptionist looked up to the two teenagers walking into the lobby. Rather than make her way to the front desk, Brooke simply flashed the same card she had used on the parking meter toward the receptionist and walked with purpose toward the bank of elevators on the far wall. The woman behind the desk, after catching sight of the card in Brooke's hand, went back to her cell phone, the two of us entirely forgotten.
Once in the elevator, Brooke punched the button for the sixth floor, one below the top. The small screen above the numberpad displayed a request for 'authorization' and Brooke shot me a knowing smile, she had been awfully quiet this whole time, and slipped the passcard she had used into a slot next to the numberpad.
The light behind the '6' button lit up and the elevator slid into motion. Reaching into her backpack on the floor, Brooke pulled out her black 'Rune' mask and put it on over her face. Getting the hint, I extruded my sunglasses/visor.
A soft ding was broadcasted just as the sunglasses had finished sliding into place. A second or so later, the elevator doors slid smoothly open, revealing a small foyer populated by a black leather divan, a glass and steel coffee table, and an unremarkable man in a white collared shirt and subtle blue tie.
At our arrival, the balding man sprang to his feet, a sheaf of papers in his left hand as his right flew out to greet the two of us. Rune and I took turns shaking the man's hand, exchanging the customary pleasantries.
"Ah good, you've arrived, I just need a few things before I can turn the workshop over to you. If you could just read over and sign this contract, the terms of which I believe were discussed with you at an earlier date..?"
As he trailed off, he looked up at the two of us, who nodded affirmation back at him.
Nodding back contentedly and readjusting his thin wire-rimmed glasses, the balding man continued. "Excellent, I'd recommend giving it a read-through just in case, but I doubt there's anything you need worry about in it."
Rune indicated the leather divan, which I took, while the man turned to look out the window across the way.
I opened the first page of the document, expecting to bombarded by legalese and was instead surprised to find… bullet points.
Things such as "The contracted shall not without permission from Kaiser or his replacement in case of an incident create 'tinker-tech' based devices for any parahuman or civilian affiliated with the criminal gang Azn Bad Boyz (ABB)," populated the two and a half pages in my hands.
Rune read over the contract as I did, and pointed out that they misspelled contracted as 'cntracted' in the seventh bullet point, espousing that I not to create 'tinker-tech' based devices to implant within Empire members without their express consent. With that exception, the contract was simple to understand and agreeable, or at least acceptable, on every front. I especially appreciated that they vowed to take no action to discover my civilian identity, and that any members who presently know it were under obligation to not share it without my express consent.
At the bottom of the third page was a line marked 'Contracted please sign here with desired Cape/parahuman name, note signing of the contract with this pseudonym is considered legally binding
From my right ring finger, a small ballpoint tip extruded itself, and with such perfection it looked to be programmed (it was) I signed the word Pandora on the line in an elegant, yet perfectly legible, script.
After taking a look at my signature, the supervillainess beside me gave a little 'hmm' of approval and cleared her throat. The man immediately turned from his vigil at the window to take the sheaf of papers from my hand. After looking at the back page on which my moniker was signed, he gave me a 'thumbs up' and began to make his way to the elevator.
Just before the doors he stopped and turned back to the divan on which we were both still seated. From a pocket in his pants he pulled out a small white business card. Handing it to me, he said, "My name is Martin by the way, Franz Martin, I'm one of the… organization's lawyers, if you ever have any trouble call me up, I'm at your service.
I accepted Martin's card and he bid the two of us farewell. He pushed the 'down' button on the elevator, and after a soft ding he stepped onto it and pushed one of the numbered buttons. The doors smoothly slid shut and I looked over at Brooke, who had demasked and offered me her hand. I gladly took it and she pulled me up, leading me to the black metal door across the foyer from the elevator.
She pulled out that same card and swiped it through a slot next to the door. The small LED above the slot switched from red to green light and I heard a small click. Taking the handle, Brooke dramatically pushed the door open, beckoning me to follow her in.
I was dumbstruck by the sight before me. The entire sixth floor of the building had been retrofitted as a massive tinker workshop. Floor-to-ceiling tinted windows dotted three of the walls, giving me a view over all of downtown Brockton Bay. One side of the room was covered in heavy-duty machinery. Lathes, power hammers, and an expansive rack of mundane and powered hand tools were arrayed along the wall behind them.
A computer terminal was set up in one of the corners with a massive 32" monitor mounted on the wall. Next to the computer desk was, curiously, a dark oaken square dinner table with four matching chairs around it. Past the table was a small kitchenette with a pantry and miniature refrigerator, along with a microwave, oven, and small stovetop.
One entire side was floored in a grey tiling, contracting the white linoleum which covered the rest of the floor. The grey tiled area was fitted with several target dummies and other tools for measuring and testing actual usages of my augs.
The center of the room though was the eye-catching piece. A large, luxurious surgical table was installed under an array of waldos and gadgets. A terminal was mounted into the array looking downward, so I could see when augmenting myself. A chair near the table had a similar monitor and control box for use when I augmented others.
I had been staring silently for almost a minute at the workshop before me before it dawned on me that it was really, truly, mine. I turned to look at Brooke, who had a knowing grin on her face, and was watching me as I looked over the workshop before me.
As I moved to speak, she beat me to it.
"What, did you expect this to all be hidden in the basement of some run-down warehouse in the docks? No way; we're not the ABB after all."
"This is so… so much more than I had even dreamed of. I… I need to…"
Brooke laughed at my excitement; I was probably all but twitching to start tinkering. She handed me the plastic card she had been using to gain access to everything.
"Here, take this, you'll need it to get in and out. I'm gonna clear out before you start going all 'tinker mad' on me, so I'll see you tomorrow at school, tell me all about what you make alright?"
I nodded my assent as I took the card, It was completely white, with the exception of a black magnetic strip running along one side. I slipped the blank card into my back pocket and waved goodbye to Brooke. She returned the favor as she stepped through the door into the small foyer.
Once the door had closed, I turned back to my workshop, I probably couldn't implant anything tonight, but there's several builds I've been meaning to start.
--Ex Machina--
The timer beside the workbench dinged that it was 6:00 and I stepped back from the second aug I had used my new workshop to construct. I had first stepped into it a week ago, and had returned after school every day. The first four days, I had spent working on constructing the most experimental aug yet.
It all stemmed from my desire to work as long as I could and not have to spend time riding the bus home to arrive before dad returned from work. To that end I had thrown myself into designing some means of rapid transportation between home and the workshop. Lo and behold, my tinkering had come up with something beyond even my wildest hopes for accomplishing such a thing.
As I was signaled that the garage door was opening to allow Dad's old pickup to enter, I stepped back from my work on what was essentially a powered replacement for my weak, natural, skeleton. Looking down on the almost completed project one last time, I issued the command; the world went dark for a spit second…
…
And I saw the familiar clutter of my room. I looked up at my ceiling fan to see the small, hidden module I had installed in it several days ago. Essentially it was a quantum projector, that pulled me from some alternate dimension that the aug I had currently resting behind my kidneys functioned to pull me into. I had built only two of the 'projectors,' one installed here at home and another in the lab. As far as I could figure, I could transport myself from anywhere on earth to one of those two points.
The downside though was that both the aug which pulled me into the quantum state, as well as the projectors that released me were tremendous power sinks. Once I finished the skeletal replacement, the next aug on the list was definitely going to be an internal power generator. I had ideas for an energy recall beacon that would draw theoretically free and consistent energy from the flux of the tectonic plates in the earth's crust as they move and shift.
Its… significantly less impressive than it sounds. Still though, I giggled a little bit at the thought that I'm using quantum transportation for something as mundane as the conservation of about an hour of travel time per day. It's not too outlandish, most tinkers made some use of pocket dimensions, but still. I stifled one last laugh as I made my way down the stairs to say hello to dad and start making dinner.
As I'm halfway down the stairs, my thoughts were interrupted by a text message appearing on my HUD. I still hadn't gotten a cell phone, but I could make and receive calls and texts through my eyes anyway so it's not really a big deal. I opened the message to find that it's from my go-between with the Empire (Viktor at the moment, which I wasn't averse to, he was obviously very skilled and professional in just about any job he was given, so he served as a very good taskmaster for general business).
Apparently, my first job for the Empire was for a cape I had already encountered. Viktor had gotten approval from Kaiser to acquire my services for his betrothed, Othala. Her support abilities were obviously invaluable for any kind of operation, but she was, regrettably, a squishy meatsack who could be taken down by any mook on the street if she didn't have any backup.
While up to this point, they had been scrupulous in protecting her, Viktor made known his fears that a single slip up could result in terrible consequences for Othala, and was, as such, requesting my services to design a way to keep her safe.
I liked Othala, at least I did the three times I had met her. The first night she seemed genuine, especially when she expressed concern for my health. At the dinner she was the most approachable, so I spent most of the night chatting amicably with her. And she had even visited me in my workshop four or five days ago, just to see how I was settling in.
After hearing my chosen pseudonym, she immediately laughed and labeled the sixth-floor workshop as 'Pandora's Box.' I was somewhat reticent about the connotations with that particular name, but she had evidently spread the name to the rest of the Empire, so I seemed to be stuck with it. The deal was sealed when Brooke showed up the next day with a brass plaque inscribed with the words 'Pandora's Box' and hung it in the wall over the dinner table.
As I was busy designing the quantum transporters, I hadn't noticed the addition for several hours, and Brooke had evidently telekinetically attached the sign to the wall because it didn't budge to my halfhearted attempts to remove it.
I would have likely accepted to job anyway, but as I scrolled to the bottom of the message, I saw the price that he had vowed to pay for my 'services' and nearly tripped on my way down the stairs. I closed out of the message before all the zeroes could cloud my vision any further, decision made. I put a pot of water on the stove to boil as I began designing Othala's aug in my head, perhaps she'd appreciate a forcefield rather than any sort of armoring…
--Author's note--
This chapter cod be a little longer, But It's been a few days since the last one and I figured I'd use this oppor-tuna-ty to interrupt the pun thread going on.
--Ex Machina--
Chapter VIII: Consultation
I was wrenching in one of innumerable small servos in the joints of my skeleton when my work was interrupted by a chiming ding which echoed pleasantly through the workshop. I glanced up at the clock and, sure enough, it was 4:30 on the dot. I placed my wrench on the workbench next to me and wiped my greasy hands off on an oilcloth hanging from a peg on the wall.
Hands sufficiently cleansed, I hung the towel back up and turned toward the small foyer area that the elevator stopped at. After peering through the door with my augmented eyes and confirming my guest, I pulled open the door from the inside and invited Othala in.
Rather than her Black dress of a costume, the dark-haired young woman was clad in a loose white blouse and dark, form-fitting jeans. Internally I complained about the unfairness of the genetic lottery, but stopped myself when I remembered how, for me at least, all of that was subject to change, once the more important improvements were finished anyway.
She was still wearing the black mask though, which seemed fair, as I had extruded my visor before answering the door. After exchanging the necessary pleasantries, I led her over to the small 'kitchen' in a corner of the workshop. More specifically, the square oaken dinner table on which was sat a small binder I had prepared for this meeting.
I pulled out one of the chairs for myself and offered one to my acquaintance which she graciously took. Once we were both seated I began speaking.
"So Othala, I've been told tha-"
I was interrupted by her holding up a hand, motioning for me to stop for a moment.
"Pandora, if you are going to be operating on me, it would be somewhat ridiculous to expect you to do so while I am masked, no?"
Rather than wait for a response, she lifted her hand up and slid the dark, lacquered mask from its place covering her upper face, and placed it on the table in front of her.
Her face was fairly unremarkable, all things told. It was a bit prettier than most, with a generally soft, approachable mien, much like the ideal of a schoolteacher's, but if I had seen her on the street, I probably wouldn't have given her a second look. Her dark brown eyes had a friendly cast to them, and if I had to describe her in a word, it would be 'approachable.'
"Odette Baldwin," she offered, extending a small, delicate hand. "Although soon to be Odette Pendleton barring any unforeseen events in the next few months."
She shot me a smile filled with that same, approachable, feel that her face gave off. After a second or two I took the offered hand, at the same time retracing the sunglasses to reveal my upper face and my eyes, preset to the strikingly purplish blue color for my irises.
"Taylor Hebert," I offered back, after taking her hand and giving it a firm shake.
Othala, or Odette's, smile brightened when she saw me reciprocate her offer of her identity, she gave my hand a second shake.
"It's very nice to meet you Taylor, now if I may be so bold, might I see what ideas you've cooked up for me? I must admit I am rather excited to see what that mind of yours came up with for me."
I returned the smile and flipped open the binder to a maroon tab I had sticking in about halfway down the stack of papers contained within. With a heave, the papers spread themselves out to reveal half a dozen blueprints of various defensive augments Odette could choose from.
"Before I start building anything I'll need a couple things from you. I'll need a blood sample so I can attune the augments to your DNA and blood type personally. I'll need to scan your insides so I can correctly shape and size the augments so they don't interfere with any other processes. Lastly I'll need you to take a look at the augmentations I've sketched and outlined here and decide on three or four to implant."
Odette was casually nodding as she listened to my little speech, acknowledging that she heard me, but when I got to the end her head snapped up and she looked at me with a quizzical expression.
"Three or four? Why would I need so many, surely a single um… augmentation could suffice no?"
It was my turn to look at her with a confused expression, we looked at each other silently for several seconds, both frowning slightly in consternation, when Odette broke the silence.
"I mean, it's very kind of you to offer, but why would I want so many… augmentations working inside me."
I took a moment to respond, her question had completely baffled me.
"Why wouldn't you want several augmentations inside of you?"
Her face paled a bit at my question and she started stammering out a response.
"Well, I mean… that is to say… I… I was born with this body, I don't know if I'd want to um… I rather like…"
She trailed off, I got the gist of her reasoning, but the sentiment itself still astounded me.
"Does that same logic apply to everything else?" I led with. "For example, if you grew up in like, a shack or something, and you were offered a mansion to live in, why wouldn't you?"
He eyed drooped back down to the open binder in front of her, the diagrams and outlines of several augs staring blankly back at her.
"I'm not sure if that is exactly the same thing Pand… Taylor. And even if it were, perhaps I have a sort of… sentimental attachment to that… shack."
She could keep whatever I replace I supposed, my old eyes are still in a jar in the coal storage room, something of a reminder of how far I've come. Still that argument didn't seem like it would be the most effective at present time.
Instead I acquiesced to her protests until such time as I could convince her, she seemed rather… unwelcome to the idea at present time. Instead I went along with her strange decision in order to further the consultation. Perhaps down the line I could convince her otherwise.
"Okay then, if you really only want one aug, I'd recommend the automatic forcefield generator, anything coming toward you with a strength of more than one hundred Newtons would be dispersed across…"
She seemed to loosen up as I spoke of the small forcefield projector I had designed. For whatever reason though, she refused to allow me to replace one of her kidneys with it and to double its function so it could act as a superior filter to the bloodstream as well as the projector.
After about an hour and a half, along with the full-body scan and the blood sample I had previously requested, we had worked out the minor details such as location (mirroring her heart's location, in the right side of her sternum) and control (always active, unless she manually turned it off). I cleared the dozen or so pieces of sketchbook paper on which I had scribbled notes and models for her to peruse.
After Odette said her goodbye and set a date for implementation a week from today, we said our goodbyes and she made her way out my small foyer and down the elevator to the lobby. I took the final draft of the augment and put it into the computer, using a 3-D modeling program designed by a Toybox tinker I had purchased my second day of having access to the workshop, having all my designs digitized was incredibly convenient.
Either way, once the design was entered, I glanced at the clock, it read 5:57, so I figured I had best wrap up for the night. I set about replacing loose tools I had left lying around on the workbench and moved the skeleton back into sealed storage.
Once all that was done, I flipped a mental command and the world went dark for a split second…
Only for me to open my eyes to my softly lit bedroom. I did one last once-over, checking my clothing for something as conspicuous as an oil spill. Satisfied in my cleanliness, I left my room and headed downstairs to greet Dad, who was currently pulling into the garage, and start dinner.
"Aaaaaannnd… done!" I exuberantly shouted to no one in particular. The cause of my elation was of course the completion of my largest aug to date, a replacement for the frail structure of calcium I was given at birth to use as a skeleton.
The construction before me glimmered in the overhead lights of my workshop, and I took a moment to step back and admire my handiwork while wiping the grease from my hands.
See, the problem with the natural skeletal structure nestled within everyone is that it's so… monofunctional, almost embarrassingly so. It provides structure to the body yes, if protects a few vital organs, yes, but really, it's a massive drain on resources. The muscled which we use to actually move have to work by dragging the inert bones along with them, which only causes more work, and in the end, the greatest evil, inefficiency.
If the muscles could focus on working only on external functions however, their use would be far enhanced. If furthermore, the skeleton itself worked with the muscles, with more strength then even they have? Why, a person's capabilities could be enhanced by several orders of magnitude.
That very philosophy led to the construct laid before me. In general, it looked similar to a natural skeleton. It had jointed legs and arms, rotating hip and shoulder sockets, and a casing with which to cover the torso area. However, instead of the delicate tendons and ligaments holding everything together, it contained innumerable gears, pistons, servos, cogs, and other miniature machinery, providing for further freedom of movement than what is naturally afforded.
The most changed section of the apparatus, I mused, as I ran my hand over the gleaming 'femur' of the augment, is the 'ribcage' area. Rather than thin, brittle, horizontal bones which do nothing to protect should anything slip between them, my construct's sternum was made up of parallel vertical plates of the specially-treated boron-iron alloy from which I had created the entire apparatus. Between the vertical plates was a thick layer of the ballistic mesh that I had covering several of my vital organs, altered so It would expand and contract as I breathed to look perfectly natural.
My reminiscence was cut short by the timer on my workbench dinging 6:00, as this implantation would certainly be the longest operation to date, I breathed out an exasperated sigh and put away my tools for the day. Once everything was secured, I ported home, arriving smoothly in my bedroom.
I headed downstairs to start dinner, when my nose (I hadn't gotten around to replacing it yet, and I was loath to give up the pleasure of scent until I could adequately create an aug which would seamlessly maintain or improve my olfactory senses) was assaulted by a scent wafting in from the garage. As the sound of the garage door closing starting ringing throughout the house, Dad stepped into the kitchen, holding a large flat box.
"Hey Taylor," He called out with a smile to me as I took the final few steps down to join him.
"You've been cooking almost every day for the past week; I figured it was high time you got a day off." At his declaration, he indicated the boxed pizza he had laid out on the countertop.
I shrugged to myself and grabbed a pair of plates and glasses from the cupboard. I set the plated down on the counter next to the pizza box and went over to the sink to fill the glasses with water. I turned around to hand Dad his glass, and my offer was returned with a plate bearing two thick slices of pizza, topped with sausage, mushrooms, and bacon.
We made our way to the living room and sat down next to each other on the couch. Dad turned on the TV to some meaningless sitcom, and we started eating. After a few minutes of companionable silence, broken by the sounds of munching pizza and the show's intrusive laugh track, Dad interjected.
So Taylor, I know we haven't really talked too much as of late, but you seem a bit happier these days, if it's this new friend you've made, I'd really like to meet her."
"Well I was going to be spending tomorrow night at her house," a partial truth, I would be spending most of the evening installing my new skeleton, but I needed an excuse to be out of the house for several hours so I could actually go through with the surgery.
"If you want, I can have her drive me home Saturday morning and she can come in and meet you, how does that sound?"
Dad grunted an affirmative sound at me through a mouthful of pizza and responded that he'd like that very much. We finished our pizza and I put away the dishes, while Dad put the leftover three slices (He had gone back for a third) in the fridge for a later time.
That done, I trudged up the stairs to my bedroom to finish the homework I had put off in lieu of labwork. Thankfully, I could basically to trigonometry in my sleep by this point, so the work was finished in practically no time at all.
That done, I pulled a novel off my bedside table and lost myself for a few hours in the story. Eventually, I grew tired enough to bookmark my place and I crawled into bed. I issued a command and shut down all the nonessential systems running in my body. I sent out only last command, and a modified version of the venom I used in my dart launcher was released into my bloodstream.
I was asleep within the minute.
--Ex Machina--
I pulled a paper towel out of my backpack to wipe the grape juice off of my seat. Madison, two chairs back attempted to conceal a snicker behind a raised hand. I didn't give her the satisfaction of any sort of visceral reaction, instead I just cleaned off the chair and settled down for another of Mr. Gladly's interchangeable lectures.
The man himself walked into the room five seconds after the bell rang, cradling a ceramic travel mug full of coffee from the teacher's lounge. After taking a long sip, he set it down on the cheap wooden desk and began talking to the class.
"Alright, today we're going to be discussing the role of parahumans in the resurgence of organized crime in the United States in the last thirty years. Before the arrival of Scion, that last big 'mob culture' center was Al Capone's 1920's Chicago. Today most every big city in the United States has one or more parahuman gangs running organized crime circles."
He paused for a moment to take a drink, and smiled, evidently pleased with himself that he could speak out the whole paragraph without stuttering or misspeaking. Truly I was astounded by the oratorical skill of Winslow's staff.
"Alright, now can anyone name any of the three large 'gangs' that call Brockton Bay home? Kwan, how about you?"
Kwan, the teenage epitome of an ABB gangbanger, put his cell phone down on his desk and spoke up.
"The Empire 88, big group of Neo-Nazis."
He caught a few evil eyes from a few junior skinheads across the room, and a few chuckles from the yellow-skinned contingent of the room. I, for my part, just sat still, looking for all the world like just another student dully paying attention to Gladly's lecture.
In truth, I was reading a novel through the uplink in my eyes, one of the first additions I had installed when I put them in was essentially an e-reader for situations just like this.
I tuned out the rest of the period; it's not worth listening to Gladly prattle on about situations he knows nothing about.
--Ex Machina--
Finally the last bell rang. As I put away the last supplies for art class, I felt a familiar tap on the back of my shoulder. I finished laying my project on it's designated shelf and turned around, craning my neck downward, I came face-to-face with Sophia.
"Hebert."
"What do you want?"
"Oh not much, just wanted to check in, see how things are going, wondering if you're still the same spineless worm you've always been."
I regarded the smirking black girl in front of me for several seconds before mentally realizing what whatever I do, it wouldn't be worth it. Instead, I just calmly pushed past her and began walking toward the door.
Or at least I tried to.
Halfway through the maneuver, a foot hooked around my ankle and jerked back, bringing me to the floor.
Rather than fall flat, I used the momentum to roll to the side with my landing, narrowly avoiding the foot which was quickly planted where my back would have been just moments before.
I heard a bark of laughter from behind me, but rather than turn to investigate, I scrambled to my feet and dashed for the door.
After crossing the threshold, I turned the corner and sprinted down a side hallway, the pistons in my feet firing with every step to make my strides that much longer. Still I was no runner, and the African shitsack with a hate-on for me was a state-level track athlete. Leave it to people like her to prioritize animalistic physicality over civilized development, like manners or mathematics.
Still, my general superiority in the inside granted by my augmentations, and even my natural human intelligence wouldn't do a thing for me if I'm caught, so I went for a last desperate measure.
As the sound of Sophia's footsteps began echoing through the hallway, I made one last turn, this time into a small maintenance corridor. The second I was out of sight, I issued a command and for a split-second the world went dark.
I opened my eyes to the familiar illumination granted by the large windows of my workshop. With a thought, I flicked on the lights throughout the place and shot Brooke a text to be ready to pick me up in a few hours, and that I'd text her once my installation was finished.
I went over to a small chair I had set up in the 'living room' area of the workshop, right next to where the brass 'Pandora's Box' plaque hung on the wall. I reached down to the floor beneath the chair and found a small wire, ending in an exotic-looking plugin.
I slipped the end into an input below my left armpit, and felt a surge of relief as all the powered augments in my body received the charge.
An inelegant stopgap measure, but the issue would be rectified once I built and implanted a power generator to sustain my implants. I spent the next five minutes sitting in the chair and relaxing my heart rate while everything charged up.
The battery packs inside all of my augments, as well as the emergency power cell I had behind my left femur dinged full t the same time as I got a confirmation text from Brooke. Once everything was taken care of, and the wire tucked back beneath the chair, I moved over to the sealed storage and brought out the skeleton I had spent the last week or so working on.
I carefully laid it out on the surgery table and issued the command to detach the individual parts from each other. With a metallic twinkling, the parts seamlessly separated from each other, letting the three hundred and twenty-seven individual 'bones' sit in their place but be individually manipulated and, of course, implanted.
I stripped out of the green hoodie and blue jeans that had basically become my school uniform at this point, as well as the rest of the clothing I had been wearing, and dropped it all in a bin I had along the side of the operating table. I hopped myself up onto the table and strapped myself in place. I snapped off my pain receptors and activated the control panels next to the operating table. With the flick of a switch, the waldos whirred to life and with the whine of servos, one reached down and began by slicing open my calf and pulling up the armoring mesh I had put in.
That obstacle out of the way, my radius and ulna were summarily extracted and the trio of powered boron-steel 'bones' which would replace them were put into place.
--Ex Machina--
Sophia was excited. It took eighteen months, but the wimp finally almost did something. Sure, she followed it up with sloppily running away, but still, Progress! That roll recovery was actually fairly competent too, taking the landing on an angled shoulder to maintain the momentum to from the fall.
Sophia grinned, reveling in Hebert's new development as she tore out of the classroom, hot on the beanpole's heels. The art room was in the basement, a side effect of some of the louder machinery used in the specialty art classes like metal shop, so the hallway was all but deserted.
Sophia was able to easily spot Hebert's scrambling form, running down the hallway in terrible form, but with unnaturally long strides, which allowed her to at least maintain some semblance of pace.
It still wouldn't be enough, Sophia figured, as she began pursuing Hebert down the hallway. Abruptly the girl turned a corner, and Sophia sped up to catch her.
Sophia rounded the corner Hebert had taken and saw… nothing. There were a few rooms off to either side, so she figured the worm probably had slipped into one of them to hide.
What followed was fifteen minutes of searching through various utility closets and storage rooms, with no avail. Once she had searched the last room, Sophia wiped the sweat from her brow and checked the time on her PRT issued cell-phone.
Realizing she only had twenty minutes to get back to the headquarters, Sophia abandoned her search, her mark had likely slipped from her hiding spot while Sophia was searching a different room.
"Well played Hebert," Sophia mumbled under her breath while walking out from the maintenance hallway, perhaps the girl had finally begun to learn something.
--Ex Machina--
The operation took several hours; I had started the installation at 3:30, by the time I finally unstrapped myself from the operating table, the sun had sunk behind Captain's Hill and the sky was colored a deep shade of bluish purple by the residual light.
Rather than bother with covering every individual seam, I had made up enough bio-enhancer gel to simply cover my entire body in a thin layer of the transparent spread. Once applied, I slipped back into my clothing, simply pulling it over my gel-covered body, which was quickly drying as the material absorbed into my skin, repairing any minor imperfections left by the incisions.
Side note, due to my early discovery of the bio-gel (how it had never been naturally made I don't know, it's just a mixture of honey and olive oil, treated to remove scent and absorb into the skin) my skin was flawless. Aside from my hair, it was the only part of my body I was proud of. Even Emma couldn't find some derisive comment to make at its expense.
Anyway, once I had pulled on my clothes and shot Brooke a text to come retrieve me, I walked over to the small testing and training area of the workshop. I noted with satisfaction as I walked that the thousands of moving parts within my skeleton worked silently and smoothly. Not a single creak or whine of machinery was perceptible to my (unfortunately still all-too) baseline human sense of hearing.
Once I had reached the grey-tiled section, I dropped into what passed for a fighting stance and flicked my wrists. Two ceramic batons shot into my hands and expanded to their full length.
Without preamble I swing my right-hand baton at full strength into the impact measuring device (I'm sure it has a name). I pleasantly noticed the lack of pain due to the recoiling vibrations after the impact of the baton on the hard steel plate as I went around to check the readout.
Again I was met with pleasant results, the impact registered was seven and three-quarters what I had been able to achieve earlier this afternoon when I attempted this very same test before the implantation.
Next I found an open spot of the floor and crouched down, coiling my legs. After holding the position for a second I sprang upward. Throughout most of my workshop the ceiling is a nice, airy ten feet, above the testing area, which I supposed cut off the seventh floor of the building, it was over twenty.
I had to turn in midair to catch myself so my skull, which was still its natural calcium, as I didn't want to risk working too closely around my brain until I had better tools, wouldn't smash into the tiled ceiling. After that little recovery, I dropped smoothly back to the floor, absorbing all the momentum in a crouch at my landing.
I ran myself through another battery of tests, from blunt trauma resistance (that was a fun one) to simple running speed. Eventually, compiling the results, I found that my general physical prowess was enhanced by a factor of five, and that my limb strength was…
"Tayyyyyyyylllooorrrrr, anybody hoooooooomee?"
I hopped back, clearing almost two yards as the voice of my erstwhile friend greeted me from behind my back. I quickly closed out of the spreadsheet docs I had been using to record and interpolate my data.
I whirled on my heel to face the blonde girl, who was wearing a wide, guilty grin and leaning against my operating table.
"You could have called you know."
"Yeah but then I wouldn't have seen that looney-tunes reaction."
Rather than respond, I just glared at her for a few seconds, she matched my stare. After a few seconds of the stalemate, my eyes switched to pitch-black orbs and Brooke broke her concentration, descending into a fit of giggles. After a second or two, I joined her.
After the two of us recovered, she spoke again.
"So I take it your operation was a success?"
"See that pile of bones on the table over there?"
Brooke turned, following my pointing finger until her eyes stopped at my operating table. I had cleaned the bones of any remaining viscera after I extracted them, so they looked just as pristine as any skeleton one would see in a high-school biology classroom.
"Taylor," Brooke said in a very even, flat tone. "How did you replace your entire goddamn skeleton in like five hours?"
I merely shrugged and responded with the stock answer for these kinds of scenarios, "Tinker bullshit."
She seemed to accept the answer, because shortly after, we left. I grabbed a third quantum 'projector' that I had built yesterday, because I had left my sleepover bag in my room, rather than take it to school and risk it getting ruined by assholes. After a short elevator ride down, which I hadn't taken for over a week, we emerged in the lobby of the Medhall office building.
We made our way back to Brooke's Volvo, chatting amicably about this and that along the way. Once we hopped in and swung out into traffic on the way back to her home, Brooke finally asked me what I had replaced the skeleton with.
"Well, I crafted what was essentially a powered replacement endoskeleton made mostly from a boron-carbon alloy that would allow me to…"
"Stop, nevermind, that's pretty cool, I'm sure, please don't make me fall asleep in traffic."
I let out a short huff, I mean, she had asked. The rest of the car ride I fake pouted a little. When we finally arrived at Brooke's house though, and Mrs. Fliescher responded to Brooke's announcement of our arrival with a plate of snickerdoodles, all was forgiven.
--Ex Machina--
We spent most of the evening in Brooke's bedroom, watching movies on the flatscreen across from her bed and consuming copious amounts of overly greasy popcorn. We were both in nightclothes, me in a white t-shirt and pair of running clothes and Brooke in a set of oversized flannels. Currently we were halfway through the Aleph version of David Lynch's Dune movie.
We had discussed the book over lunch two days ago, as Brooke had just finished reading it, and it was one of my favorites from reading it near the end of eighth grade. The movie was odd, but in a good way. Brooke made the point that it was like the myth of the story, while the book was the actual events, once viewed in that light, it became far more interesting.
We were deeply engrossed, a massive sandworm was just about to tear its way across the desert when Brooke's phone chimed, interrupting the movie. After pressing pause, she answered, the side of the conversation that I heard was… not good.
"Hello… um, no, I'm kinda with Pandora right now if… no I understand… yes I can… fuck that bad? Fuck, yeah I'm on my way, but what about… really..? Really? Ok fine, I'll ask her."
She hung up; I had become very interested when she had mentioned my cape name. I looked over at her with a concerned expression, she returned my gaze with a very solemn one.
"Taylor, I… I need to go help Viktor and my Unc… Krieg. They got caught up in a fight with the Protectorate; apparently Armsmaster saw them and started charging in on that bike of his. Both sides have called in reinforcements by this point."
"Ok, so should I just wait here or do you want me to…"
"Actually, that's something I needed to ask you, see, since you're still kind of a mercenary, Kaiser told me that if you helped us out here he'd pay you."
Woah woah waoh, what? Kaiser wants me to fight the Protectorate? That's ridiculous, what if they like, assume that I'm an Empire member? Then what?
On the other hand, a traitorous voice in my head reminded me, that means maybe Sophia will be there, and there's also the matter of…
"How much?" I asked Brooke, who was biting her lower lip while she watched me deliberate
"50k, and a personal favor."
A personal favor from the leader of probably the biggest organization in the city, and all I'd have to do is show up for one fight? I suppose if anything got dicey I could just teleport out so there's no real risk, and that cash isn't bad either…
"Alright, I'll be back in five minutes." Without waiting for a response, I teleported to my room. Out from under my bed, I pulled the duffel bag containing my current costume out from under my bed. I pulled on the black trench coat and the dark jeans and turtleneck. Lowering the visor over my eyes, I shunted myself back to Brooke's bedroom, where I had installed the third quantum projector earlier this evening.
Looking around, I saw Brooke had already pulled on her robes; she took a look at me and, with a grim smile slipped her mask over her face.
We walked out of her bedroom and made out way to her conservatory, on the way, she knocked on her parent's door, and told her mom that we were heading to the 'convenience store.' I'm going to assume that's some sort of code word, because her mom took one look at her robed form and nodded solemnly before telling us to 'be safe.'
We walked the rest of the way to the conservatory and over to the smooth circular stone in the center of the room. Rune flicked a switch behind the bookcase and two of the larger windows swung open, allowing for the cool night air to rush in, and for us to make our exit. Rune joined me on the circular stone and, after we exchanged silent nods, we lifted off, flying away from the suburbs into the city proper, into a cape fight between the 'heroes' and a gang, and I would be fighting for the latter's side.
The large circular stone slowed to a halt and began descending toward the roof of an unremarkable abandoned warehouse in the docks. Well, generally unremarkable, the roof's current occupants made it somewhat more interesting than it would otherwise be.
Standing on the corrugated steel roof of the warehouse were several costumed and dangerous members of the Empire 88. I recognized Purity's blazing white light, which reflected off the metallic armoring of Kaiser and Hookwolf. Behind Kaiser two identical women dressed in medieval Norse-esque armoring, Fenja and Menja. Behind Hookwolf stood a bare-chested man in a tiger mask and a lithe woman with a cage over her head and wielding a pair of miniature scythes.
Rune landed our stone a few yards away from the congregation of supervillains and the two of us stepped off and began walking our way toward the group, Rune significantly more confidently than me. At our approach, the group opened up to allow the two of us into the circle.
"Welcome, Rune, Pandora, excellent to see that you've joined us tonight," declared Kaiser with a smile. Through his welcoming greeting though, I couldn't help but notice Hookwolf and what I assumed was his 'faction' looking me up and down, probably sizing up the new blood.
Rune, getting right down into business broke the silence before anything else could be said.
"What's the situation?"
Kaiser back from his welcoming posture and adopted a demeanor of command immediately before responding.
"Krieg and Viktor, while ensuring our assets in the area were secure, were accosted by Armsmaster. They attempted to withdraw without confrontation, but Armsmaster pursued and engaged them to the point where they had no choice but to fight back to defend themselves.
"When he was unable to apprehend either, Armsmaster escalated the conflict, calling in three other members of the Protectorate, as well as the two Wards who were likely on patrol at the moment."
"And who are we dealing with," Purity this time, who spoke in an almost wary manner, to the Empire's leader.
"According to reports, Assault and Battery, as well as Miss Militia of the Protectorate, along with the wards Clockblocker and Shadow Stalker."
There was a chorus of nods from the gathered supervillains, but I couldn't help but notice how Kaiser bit off his words when mentioning Miss Militia, and almost spat out Shadow Stalker's name.
Well good, I thought, at least there's somebody who won't cover for that shitsacks's every move.
"And what's the plan here? Because sitting still on a rooftop while those fuckers attack our people isn't doing too much good is it?"
Kaiser turned and regarded Hookwolf for a moment before responding, speaking with the practiced tone of a general or tactician who was directing his hundredth battle.
"Menja and I will intervene against Armsmaster, Fenja and Purity will seek and disable Miss Militia, your group," he said, turning to the metal changer and the two capes at his shoulders, "Will manage Assault and Battery, and our newest arrivals," turning to Rune and I, "will take care of the 'junior superheroes' that have joined the fray."
Everyone turned to look at Rune and I, and I almost instinctively took a half-step back under the weight of their scrutiny. Surprisingly, it was Rune who broke the silence by turning on her heel and striding over to the stone. After half a second's hesitation, I followed her. Behind me, the sounds of clanking metals and rushing wind signaled the movements of the rest of the capes. When we got to the stone, it flew up into the air and in the direction of the sounds of screeching metal and smashing pavement that heralded most cape fights. Once we were safely in the air, Rune turned to me.
"Ok, so what's our plan here, we just need to distract or disable them long enough for everyone to get away, and I'm pretty sure that they'll be near the back, the heroes tend to put the wards on guard duty."
I wracked my brain, trying to recall everything I knew about the two wards that are apparently here. If I recalled correctly, Clockblocker was a touch-range time-stopper, so if at all possible remain out of his range, his costume, although it covered his whole body, was mostly just a thin bodysuit, so If I'm lucky, I should be able to take care of him with a single dart. Shadow Stalker though, Sophia, I'm not sure about.
"I'm pretty sure if you can sneak us up to about fifteen yards away or so, I can put Clock to sleep without any adverse side effects, Stalker though, I don't know, how can we disable her?"
Rune nodded thoughtfully before she responded, the stone under us still making its way toward the Protectorate's back line. Below us I caught glimpses of light reflecting off blades, along with the odd bluish glow from Battery's charge and a constant cracking of gunfire from Miss Militia. We were currently bound for where the reports from the gunfire originated, Brooke probably assumed that the back line would be near or behind their longest-range cape.
"According to Viktor, the only time Stalker's run away is when he hears her called back through the handset, except for one time. He had grabbed a taser off of an unconscious PRT guy, apparently the n… she just took one look at it and bolted, straight through a brick wall. So I guess electricity, if you've got any of that?"
The only current I really had was that which was powering my bones and a few other small augs, most of the rest were either passive or used other energies, I told Rune as much, and she pursed her lips, thinking.
"No, we can't really count on that then, still though we should probably-" abruptly, the stone came to a stop.
"Wait, down there, behind that bench."
I looked down and, sure enough, there was a figure in white crouched behind an old wooden park bench, talking through some sort of cell phone and peeking his head over the bench every once in awhile before ducking back down.
I turned back up to look at Rune who nodded to me and flew the stone over the top of the crouched Ward and landed on the roof of the three-story building behind him.
"Can you get a shot off from here?" she whispered to me. I responded with a silent nod and jumped off the stone, landing on the concrete lip of the rooftop, rather than the gravel-covered main area, though I doubt anyone could have heard the impact over the sounds of the fight going on down below.
I took a moment, standing crouched on the lip of the rooftop, to look over the fight going on the street in front of me. Armsmaster's left leg had a wheel coming from the foot, as the leg itself was immobilized by a blade connecting the armor from hamstring to calf. He was half-sprinting half-skating after a fifteen foot woman wielding a spear, who turned every once in awhile to try to knick the armored superhero into one of many patches of razor-sharp steel which continually formed and receded along the road.
A blue flash caught my attention, and I turned my head to see an azure streak, obviously Battery, flay across half the street and launch into the metallic lupine form Hookwolf was famous for. With a tremendous crash, the blue streak continued through to the other side of the changer, sending various needlepoints and hooks scattering across the street alongside her exit.
Nearby, a red-armored superhero was dancing along the sidewalk with Cricket. Any attack the one made was effortlessly dodged with the grace of a dancer, while any blow struck by the other was absorbed and redistributed to send Assault flying this way or that in an attempt to strike Cricket unawares. Winds ripped across the entire battlefield, sending bullets awry and unbalancing the fighting heroes. The source, Stormtiger, was simply hovering near a second-story window, arms crossed across his bare chest as he watch the battle go on below him.
I was snapped back to reality by the sound of a footstep on the gravel a few yards behind me. I heard a very familiar voice shout out, and Rune start calling out my name. I quickly flung my hand to point toward Clockblocker, who was now pulling pieces of paper from a ream and making a makeshift barricade in front of him.
I took half a second to line up the shot amid the sound of crunching gravel behind me and fired once the reticule was firmly locked on the unarmored lower leg of the teenaged cape. The dart launched out, but I was unable to see the results of my shot, as my shoulder was tugged around to face the figure before me on the rooftop.
Clad in a bodysuit of black leather and pointing a fancy-looking crossbow at my face was a cape, masked with the visage of a stern-faced woman, Shadow Stalker started talking, in a very intense, breathy tone.
"Who the fuck are you, don't tell me those Empire bastards recruited another fucking cape."
I was silent as I breathed in and out, confirmation, I had been almost positive, but there was no mistaking that voice. Sophia fucking Hess.
I took a moment to consider my options, but my thinking was cut short by the crossbow being shoved closer my face, my unfortunately, painfully, unarmored face. To avoid getting shot or shoved off the rooftop, I talked, taking care to change my tone and cadence so my voice wouldn't be recognized by the 'heroine' currently pointing a weapon at my forehead.
"My name is Pandora, I'm a… um mercenary."
"Then why the fuck are you working with the Empire?"
I stopped a moment, does she really..?
"You do understand what the word mercenary means… right?"
That gave the 'heroine' pause; I took the opportunity to look across the rooftop behind her. About three yards away, on the large, flat stone, Rune was crumpled, with a crossbow bolt sticking from her calf. I remember reading something about Shadow Stalker using tranquilizer bolts in her crossbow, so I wasn't too worried for her health, but it would still be good to clear out of this situation as quickly as possible.
Suddenly, Shadow Stalker growled out and shoved me forward, or at least she tried to. My new skeleton was firmly planted and my feet were attached to the concrete lip of the roof, so all she really accomplished was unbalancing herself.
"If you want, I can pull up a dictionary definition, it'll just take a second."
That was apparently the final straw, as Shadow Stalker pulled up her crossbow and loosed a bolt right at me. I turned with the shot, so rather than striking my chest it glanced off my arm. It left a shallow cut, but the plunger never sunk in, so the tranquilizer venom never actually entered my bloodstream.
I looked over at Shadow stalker on the roof, who was slowly stepping backwards while pulling another bolt out of a quiver in the small of her back.
I hopped off the rooftop and strode toward her.
"Okay, so what's your plan now, because I'm not planning on giving you another shot."
Abruptly, she dropped her crossbow from her right hand, and lunged toward me, swinging the bolt in her left hand toward my torso. I hopped to the side and swung my right arm upward to impact her left wrist. Surprisingly she didn't change into her breaker form; instead my hit knocked her arm upward and away from my body.
The cut in my arm hadn't stopped bleeding, but I disregarded that, Instead I kept looking at the cape in front of me who was standing, crouched and ready, watching my every move.
I was about to take a step forward when something caught my eye, off on the horizon, a flash of light preceded an enormous sound and wave of pressure. Once I had recovered from the shock, I turned to look, my little bout with Sophia forgotten. On the horizon was a large mushroom cloud. Not of smoke though. No it was instead what appeared to be a massive glass sculpture of an explosion.
Both of us, along with most of the people on the street below us, stopped fighting to look over at the source of the disruption, the mysterious explosion from the trainyard. Suddenly, the relative silence was interrupted, all around us more than a dozen explosions sounded.
All across the city, from what I could see from my vantage on the rooftop were various explosions. The boardwalk was covered in smoke. A portion of the docks, uncomfortably near to us, was on fire. Downtown had a small tornado tearing through it. And various sections of the PRT building kept exploding every two seconds or so.
