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Technology Will Win The Day [Worm] [CYOA] [SI] [Complete]
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1: Character Creation
OK, some context here. A number of years ago, the first Worm CYOA was posted. It was hilariously overpowered, and somehow, lots and lots of people started writing fanfics based on it, most of them self-inserts.
And I went "what the heck" and made my own. Now, I don't consider it one of my best works - I treated it less like a story, more like a "where I play" of the CYOA. But people still enjoyed the overpowered stompfic, so hey.
Anyway, given some of the recent problems with SpaceBattles... I figured it'd be a good idea to repost the story somewhere else, just in case.
1
So. The Worm CYOA.
It had come to my attention weeks earlier. Amusingly overpowered, but then, that was the fun of it. But now… it seemed it had turned into a fad, with some enjoyable entries out there.
Well, I wasn't going to treat it as seriously as my other writing endeavours, but… might as well jot down a quick thing. Now, let's begin.
First of all, I must select between Self-Insert, Reincarnation, or Endbringer.
Self-Insert is my first impulse. Play as me, only me with OCP powers that let me turn this setting on its head. Trouble is, I'd have no legal identity in Worm, no valid ID, no money past those hundred bucks. That might cause complications.
Reincarnation neatly resolves that problem. I can simply be this loner guy with no family and friends (simplifying things), who might even work as a consultant with the PRT, giving me an in. Nice… except that I don't really want to deal with a new set of memories.
Endbringer… No. Don't get me wrong, I see potential there. Take the Alexandria and Legend powers, plus Blank. Show up as a giant metallic-looking dragon at the start of an Endbringer battle. Proceed to kick Leviathan or the Simurgh's ass, tearing them apart before the confused eyes of the world's heroes. Tell the crowd that I am the fourth Endbringers, but that unlike the others, I have enough free will to make my own choices. Yeah, it could make for a fun story… but it's not what I'm looking for.
Screw it. Self-Insert it is.
Next up, the difficulty level. Honestly? Given how ludicrously overpowered the options are, I'd feel a little silly if I didn't take Skitter Mode. Might as well.
Now, the powers.
Alexandria basically lets me be Superman… and despite the absence of heat vision and ice breath, in terms of sheer power it sounds closer to pre-Crisis Superman than any other incarnation. Potentially fun… yet in some ways, the most limited choice. No go.
Legend is where that heat vision and icy breath went, looks like. Also fun, but I'm not taking it, for the same reason I'm not taking Alexandria.
Eidolon has incredible potential. Definitely a power to look into if you want to min-max. Thing is, while I'm looking forward to cubstomping the forces of evil, there is such a thing as too easy. Even in Skitter Mode, Eidolon is basically an "I Win" button in even vaguely competent hands.
Emperor of Man: Pass. I enjoy my Ciaphas Cain novels, but the WH40K setting doesn't get the same delighted reaction from me as it does from so many of my peers in geekdom.
Kaleidoscope. AKA choice paralysis. This thing would effectively allow me to grab the Infinity Gauntlet. I'd rather stick to Worm's setting.
Psychokinetic, Shaper… Not interested.
Power Manipulation. This one has incredible story potential. Show up when the Endbringer Sirens start, discreetly enhance Skitter's power so that it now affects Endbringers the same as bugs; watch everyone lose their shit after Leviathan gets within her range. Give Theo the power to create a longe-range projection with overpowered abilities (like a more interesting version of Siberian), convince him to secretly become a hero, living a normal life to all appearance while his projection cleans up the Bay. Restore the balance of civilization by offering the government to empower law enforcement officers. Give Armsmaster a Thinker power that substitutes for empathy and social skills. Give Dragon a power that protects her code and free will, freeing her from all of Richter's limitations and Ascalon. So many fun possibilities… but, I know what I actually want.
Yup. Inspired Inventor. It's the one that'll make for the most interesting challenge… and, screw it, I like technological solutions. Always did. Skitter mode limits it in some ways… let's say that, instead of having five charges each day to spend on acquiring new Tinker abilities, I allocate those five charges, losing old abilities when I don't keep points on them. This effectively makes me "Eidolon if he was restricted to Tinker powers" - less insane than most CYOA possibilities, but still powerful enough to turn the setting on its head, especially with knowledge of canon.
Of course, now I'm at -2 points. Will have to amend that.
Companions… Nope. Gonna stick to canon characters.
Perks and Complications. Taking Blank is a no-brainer - going in without it would put me at the mercy of Contessa or the Simurgh, and I don't trust that I could build a precog-jammer fast enough to stop them. Of course, that puts me at -3 points.
Looking at the Complications, the one I find most appealing is The Slaughterhouse Is Hiring. After all, I want to eliminate Slaughterhouse Nine myself… I'll just need to prepare for them quickly, before they come.
I now have a one-point excedent. Not interested in Companions, so I give the Perk list a more thorough look.
Shattered Limiter seems unnecessary. I'm already a more powerful Tinker than Dragon at the end of canon.
Invictus is useful… but I'm wary of anything that changes the way I think.
Inspiration and First Impression are both very appealing. I love playing inspiring, charismatic paragons in Bioware games who can change the world for the better through sheer goodness and force of personality. But I'm not sure these perks play all that nicely with free will. Pass.
Bottled Superpowers… pass.
Secret Lair would make my life significantly easier in the early days… but, I think I actually want the challenge of being a ressourceless Tinker at the very start. Pass.
Cloak and Dagger, Manpower… Potentially useful, but not really my style. Pass.
Hm. This is actually a tough decision.
Ah, what the hell. I'm overpowered enough. I'll leave that final point unspent.
Now, just brush up on certain points of canon… (Or claim that I did, and then look facts up while I'm writing the story…) and I'm ready to go.
Aaaaand… I'm now in Brockton Bay.
Well, let's be rational about it. The real me is still at home, typing on a computer. This me is, well, a fictional version of me. One with an utterly broken Tinker power.
Of course, Tinkers are useless without resources. Meaning, I will need to acquire those quickly.
Thankfully, I believe I know just how.
And I went "what the heck" and made my own. Now, I don't consider it one of my best works - I treated it less like a story, more like a "where I play" of the CYOA. But people still enjoyed the overpowered stompfic, so hey.
Anyway, given some of the recent problems with SpaceBattles... I figured it'd be a good idea to repost the story somewhere else, just in case.
1
So. The Worm CYOA.
It had come to my attention weeks earlier. Amusingly overpowered, but then, that was the fun of it. But now… it seemed it had turned into a fad, with some enjoyable entries out there.
Well, I wasn't going to treat it as seriously as my other writing endeavours, but… might as well jot down a quick thing. Now, let's begin.
First of all, I must select between Self-Insert, Reincarnation, or Endbringer.
Self-Insert is my first impulse. Play as me, only me with OCP powers that let me turn this setting on its head. Trouble is, I'd have no legal identity in Worm, no valid ID, no money past those hundred bucks. That might cause complications.
Reincarnation neatly resolves that problem. I can simply be this loner guy with no family and friends (simplifying things), who might even work as a consultant with the PRT, giving me an in. Nice… except that I don't really want to deal with a new set of memories.
Endbringer… No. Don't get me wrong, I see potential there. Take the Alexandria and Legend powers, plus Blank. Show up as a giant metallic-looking dragon at the start of an Endbringer battle. Proceed to kick Leviathan or the Simurgh's ass, tearing them apart before the confused eyes of the world's heroes. Tell the crowd that I am the fourth Endbringers, but that unlike the others, I have enough free will to make my own choices. Yeah, it could make for a fun story… but it's not what I'm looking for.
Screw it. Self-Insert it is.
Next up, the difficulty level. Honestly? Given how ludicrously overpowered the options are, I'd feel a little silly if I didn't take Skitter Mode. Might as well.
Now, the powers.
Alexandria basically lets me be Superman… and despite the absence of heat vision and ice breath, in terms of sheer power it sounds closer to pre-Crisis Superman than any other incarnation. Potentially fun… yet in some ways, the most limited choice. No go.
Legend is where that heat vision and icy breath went, looks like. Also fun, but I'm not taking it, for the same reason I'm not taking Alexandria.
Eidolon has incredible potential. Definitely a power to look into if you want to min-max. Thing is, while I'm looking forward to cubstomping the forces of evil, there is such a thing as too easy. Even in Skitter Mode, Eidolon is basically an "I Win" button in even vaguely competent hands.
Emperor of Man: Pass. I enjoy my Ciaphas Cain novels, but the WH40K setting doesn't get the same delighted reaction from me as it does from so many of my peers in geekdom.
Kaleidoscope. AKA choice paralysis. This thing would effectively allow me to grab the Infinity Gauntlet. I'd rather stick to Worm's setting.
Psychokinetic, Shaper… Not interested.
Power Manipulation. This one has incredible story potential. Show up when the Endbringer Sirens start, discreetly enhance Skitter's power so that it now affects Endbringers the same as bugs; watch everyone lose their shit after Leviathan gets within her range. Give Theo the power to create a longe-range projection with overpowered abilities (like a more interesting version of Siberian), convince him to secretly become a hero, living a normal life to all appearance while his projection cleans up the Bay. Restore the balance of civilization by offering the government to empower law enforcement officers. Give Armsmaster a Thinker power that substitutes for empathy and social skills. Give Dragon a power that protects her code and free will, freeing her from all of Richter's limitations and Ascalon. So many fun possibilities… but, I know what I actually want.
Yup. Inspired Inventor. It's the one that'll make for the most interesting challenge… and, screw it, I like technological solutions. Always did. Skitter mode limits it in some ways… let's say that, instead of having five charges each day to spend on acquiring new Tinker abilities, I allocate those five charges, losing old abilities when I don't keep points on them. This effectively makes me "Eidolon if he was restricted to Tinker powers" - less insane than most CYOA possibilities, but still powerful enough to turn the setting on its head, especially with knowledge of canon.
Of course, now I'm at -2 points. Will have to amend that.
Companions… Nope. Gonna stick to canon characters.
Perks and Complications. Taking Blank is a no-brainer - going in without it would put me at the mercy of Contessa or the Simurgh, and I don't trust that I could build a precog-jammer fast enough to stop them. Of course, that puts me at -3 points.
Looking at the Complications, the one I find most appealing is The Slaughterhouse Is Hiring. After all, I want to eliminate Slaughterhouse Nine myself… I'll just need to prepare for them quickly, before they come.
I now have a one-point excedent. Not interested in Companions, so I give the Perk list a more thorough look.
Shattered Limiter seems unnecessary. I'm already a more powerful Tinker than Dragon at the end of canon.
Invictus is useful… but I'm wary of anything that changes the way I think.
Inspiration and First Impression are both very appealing. I love playing inspiring, charismatic paragons in Bioware games who can change the world for the better through sheer goodness and force of personality. But I'm not sure these perks play all that nicely with free will. Pass.
Bottled Superpowers… pass.
Secret Lair would make my life significantly easier in the early days… but, I think I actually want the challenge of being a ressourceless Tinker at the very start. Pass.
Cloak and Dagger, Manpower… Potentially useful, but not really my style. Pass.
Hm. This is actually a tough decision.
Ah, what the hell. I'm overpowered enough. I'll leave that final point unspent.
Now, just brush up on certain points of canon… (Or claim that I did, and then look facts up while I'm writing the story…) and I'm ready to go.
Aaaaand… I'm now in Brockton Bay.
Well, let's be rational about it. The real me is still at home, typing on a computer. This me is, well, a fictional version of me. One with an utterly broken Tinker power.
Of course, Tinkers are useless without resources. Meaning, I will need to acquire those quickly.
Thankfully, I believe I know just how.
2: Meeting the Crew
2
Being mercenaries, in the cape world, was a careful balancing act. As long as you avoided the right crimes or at least maintained some level of plausible deniability, the PRT only called you a villain on paper while trying to avoid actually having to fight you. It had to - with villains outnumbering heroes the way they did, the PRT had no choice but to carefully pick its battles.
That was the sort of leeway that allowed Faultline to run legitimate businesses like the Palanquin without trying too hard to hide it. It provided an extra source of income, gave her crew a place they could call home… and, as an added bonus, it meant that potential clients for her shadier activities would have a way of contacting her they were likely to feel comfortable with.
Right now, the man who had asked to meet her was a complete unknown, though.
"Thank you for your time, Miss… er, Faultline. I appreciate it."
"Just Faultline. And you would be?"
"I haven't settled on a name… I'm thinking 'Ad Hoc', but I need to check if it's taken."
She raised an eyebrow. A cape name? And it sounded, if anything, like a Tinker name. She waited a bit to see what he would say next.
"...Anyway! I apologize for bothering you, but, I need assistance with a certain matter, and your crew seemed like my best option."
"And what, exactly, do you need help with?"
"Well… It's like this. Basically, I have recently acquired Tinker powers. This causes me two problems. The first is that Tinkers tend to quickly be found out, then press-ganged into one organization or another. Now, admittedly, I'm too Jewish for Empire 88, and not Asian enough for the ABB, but I still don't exactly feel safe… and there are certain complications that would make it challenging for me to join the Protectorate. As for the second problem… Tinkers need equipment to work. I don't even have a place to sleep tonight.
"So… What I'm saying is, I need seed equipment. Enough material to get some basic tinkering done - enough to start earning money with it, and hopefully defend myself. I need a room where I can safely work. ...I think I can at least afford food for the next few days."
She nodded. For a newly-triggered cape, he seemed… more collected than one might expect, knowing how trigger events worked. "So you want tools and space for your tinkering. What do you have to offer?" Ideally, adding a Tinker to the crew would be a big asset, though she had to wonder what, precisely, was his problem with the Protectorate.
He smiled faintly. "I can provide your crew with a non-combat tool or two that would make it worth your while… and, well, money. Some of the things I want to create can make for easy cash."
"I'd like to know a bit more about that. I don't know if you're aware of this, but each Tinker has a specialty - something they can make better than anyone else. Do you have some idea what yours is?"
He grinned. "I already know. And my specialty is pretty handy."
"Do tell," she said, stifling a sigh of annoyed impatience.
"Chemistry Tinker," he stated. "I've got ideas for molecules and compounds that could change the world. But if you're thinking short-term profit… Well, just ask yourself: What does a diamond and the graphite in a pencil have in common?"
"They're both made of carbon," she said, easily seeing where he was headed. "You think you can convert the latter into the former?"
"Honestly? That bit's not even hard. Get me some material, and I can synthesize diamonds by tomorrow." He paused. "I'm not exactly clear on how expensive diamonds are, but my understanding is that even uncut, a 1-gram rough diamond will easily sell for a five-digit number of bucks. I can provide you with a dozen of those, easy - assuming you can sell them."
_______________
It was late evening when I was finally able to really get to work.
Faultline was, understandably, cautious. I'd had to agree, before all else, that I would pay back her crew for the material provided to me, plus extras. If my tinkering was as potent as I'd suggested, then it was agreed I would put it to work to help her Crew make a minimum of $100,000 (my own cut to be determined later once we had more details). At least one member of the Crew was to watch over me at all time (both for my safety and as a guarantee of good behavior… not that they could understand my tinkering, admittedly). The idea of openly marketing the product as novelty tinker-made diamonds had been floated around, but… that would just be begging De Beers to hire the Elite to kill us all.
The shopping list I had given Faultline included a large number of household items - hey, just consider what Bonesaw could do with junk lying around her house when she first triggered - but even so, it involved several thousand dollars' worth in electronics, chemicals, and equipment. I had stripped some items from it on account of them being exotic enough that she couldn't acquire them in in less than a few days - after all, every hour counted.
Amusing, in a way. Back home, my greatest nemesis had been procrastination. I rarely got things done unless I had an upcoming deadline. Here, it so happened that I did have a deadline - I wished to derail canon, and the sooner the better. Many of the measures I would be taking in the coming days would be aimed at making my own work faster and easier.
I had told Faultline I was a Tinker with a chemistry specialty. Technically true at the moment. I had five charges, after all, and a single one of them put me on the level of Squealer or Kid Win within one field. Two charges made me comparable to Armsmaster and Bakuda. With three charges, I could rival Dragon and String Theory in one domain (I wasn't sure whether Bonesaw was a three-charge equivalent, or a two-charge who happened to benefit from the advice of Jack Slash and Mannequin).
Right now, I had three charges in chemistry. It was a very broad field, and I suspected that what I could do was less hax, less bullshit, than I would have gotten from spending three charges on a narrower one. Still, it gave me some amazing ideas, and an amazing intuition for macgyvering chemicals and chemistry equipment.
As for my other two charges? I had invested both of them into automated manufacturing.
"So you see," I told Newter, "the type-37 molecules at this point each attach to three type-29, forming a macro-molecule which, in turn, will attract stray carbon atoms - but not attract them so strongly that they won't eventually float away at this temperature. Still, they remain close for long enough that the fluor tip will do its job more often than not. It's not true nanotechnology - I wish - but by the end of it, I end up with a batch of molecules of types 48 through 62, all of which perform very specific operations depending on heat, acidity, the presence of ultraviolet light, and the presence of a magnetic field. They act like smart super-enzymes, allowing me very specific control of the chemical reactions I want to cause." Hm. I wasn't very good at reading people, but I suspected Newter regretted asking about my work at this point.
Hm. Past midnight already… These were the early hours of the 9th of April. Less than 72 hours before Taylor took on Lung, assuming my presence hadn't butterflied that away. Realistically, something as simple as hailing a cab and asking to be taken to the Palanquin nightclub might actually be enough to send the whole timeline out of whack (chaos theory could get a bit staggering once you grokked what it really meant), but this wasn't reality - this was a story, and I doubted my real self writing it would unmake that event so cheaply.
Anyway… the molecules would need some time to react. Time I could spend on the mechanical and electronic parts of the 3D-printer I was making. Once it was able to wield the "smart enzymes", it would be able to decompose any form of conventional matter, and rebuild it in the form of small objects quickly and efficiently, so long as the right amount of the right elements was present (I wasn't ready for nuclear reactions at this stage, so atomic types would have to remain unmodified). Just like the smart enzymes themselves, its purpose was to save time - it would be able to build in minutes what would take me hours.
Hm. There was another thing I wanted to try… "Er, sorry if I'm boring you, Newter. I'm kind of excited about it… being a super-scientist has been my fantasy since I was eight," I confessed. "Actually… can I ask you something?"
"Sure, what?"
"I was wondering if you would let me examine a sample of your saliva. It's a combat-grade hallucinogenic, isn't it?"
He got a touch defensive. "Why do you even want that?"
"Partly because I'm a chemistry Tinker, and I'd love to have non-lethal ways of defending myself. Partly because I might be able to make a counteragent."
He blinked. "Wait, what?"
"Well… I'm going to take a wild guess that being unable to touch people without knocking them out has some disadvantages." Newter had the attitude of a typical teenager. What more needed to be said? "I figure, maybe I can come up with some kind of body spray that neutralizes the effects of your sweat for an hour."
"You can do that?"
"I'm a Tinker. We're total bullshit."
_______________
"You gave Newter tinkertech bodyspray." Faultline's tone was total deadpan.
"I said I could offer your crew some non-combat applications. This sort of quality-of-life stuff is what I meant. I figured it'd be a big deal to him." I hoped I was coherent in my argument - this was a lunch meeting (well, noon meeting; Faultline wasn't going to remove her mask to eat in my presence), and I hadn't slept a wink since getting to Earth Bet. I'd probably consumed more caffeine in the past twelve hours than in any previous week of my life (admittedly a low bar to clear).
"Just how confident are you that it's harmless?"
"I'm not stupid. I gave him an experimental one for now, with very low concentration. If nothing bad happens, I'll give him the real one. Shouldn't be any problems anyway, this stuff can't penetrate the skin and doesn't react with almost anything 'xcept the active substance in his sweat."
"I hope you know what you're doing." She paused. "What about the diamond manufacture?"
"Honestly, the main reason I'm not hitting the hay right now is because the first batch should be ready in about an hour, and I want to check it out when it does."
_______________
An hour later, we were looking at the first batch.
I had gone with diamonds for a reason - chemically speaking, they were very simple. On my world, people already knew how to make synthetic diamonds (they might on Earth Bet, too, I hadn't checked)... though those diamonds were too perfect; jewelers could tell them from natural ones by the lack of flaws.
My machine grew diamonds in a more "organic" matter. They should look like natural, rough diamonds, even to experts. Looking at the dozen of tiny rocks, each one between five and six carats, I had to hope said experts would agree.
I didn't feel too bad about this venture. It wasn't like I was counterfeiting money or art - the diamonds were genuine (and, really, their market price was artificially inflated to a ludicrous degree). I wasn't doing anything illegal - as far as I knew, at least. Still, it was deceitful, and, while Faultline's Crew had some honor, they were still career criminals. I had given a lot of grief to canon Taylor over her moral choices; I had no desire to follow that same path like a rank hypocrite. However, I needed initial equipment to be able to jump-start my tinkering, I was racing against time, and my status as an effective dimensional traveller without valid ID meant I couldn't go to the authorities as my first move (which would have been my preference in most situations). Even so, I wasn't going to give Faultline anything her team could use for their criminal operations… actually, a source of revenue like my diamond synthesizer might disincentivise their criminal operations (well, except the ones aimed at learning the truth behind the Case 53s).
Speaking of Faultline, she seemed mollified for now, though she was going to present the batch to some discreet experts. As for me…
I reshuffled my Tinker specialties, leaving one charge in chemistry and one in manufacturing - not enough to improve on my previous work, but enough to operate it safely.
The other three charges went into a sensor specialty.
Some quick designing. A general idea of what I was going to need. A general ideas of the parts involved, and which ones would take more time to create.
I set the 3D printer to create those parts. Then, and only then, I finally went to sleep.
Being mercenaries, in the cape world, was a careful balancing act. As long as you avoided the right crimes or at least maintained some level of plausible deniability, the PRT only called you a villain on paper while trying to avoid actually having to fight you. It had to - with villains outnumbering heroes the way they did, the PRT had no choice but to carefully pick its battles.
That was the sort of leeway that allowed Faultline to run legitimate businesses like the Palanquin without trying too hard to hide it. It provided an extra source of income, gave her crew a place they could call home… and, as an added bonus, it meant that potential clients for her shadier activities would have a way of contacting her they were likely to feel comfortable with.
Right now, the man who had asked to meet her was a complete unknown, though.
"Thank you for your time, Miss… er, Faultline. I appreciate it."
"Just Faultline. And you would be?"
"I haven't settled on a name… I'm thinking 'Ad Hoc', but I need to check if it's taken."
She raised an eyebrow. A cape name? And it sounded, if anything, like a Tinker name. She waited a bit to see what he would say next.
"...Anyway! I apologize for bothering you, but, I need assistance with a certain matter, and your crew seemed like my best option."
"And what, exactly, do you need help with?"
"Well… It's like this. Basically, I have recently acquired Tinker powers. This causes me two problems. The first is that Tinkers tend to quickly be found out, then press-ganged into one organization or another. Now, admittedly, I'm too Jewish for Empire 88, and not Asian enough for the ABB, but I still don't exactly feel safe… and there are certain complications that would make it challenging for me to join the Protectorate. As for the second problem… Tinkers need equipment to work. I don't even have a place to sleep tonight.
"So… What I'm saying is, I need seed equipment. Enough material to get some basic tinkering done - enough to start earning money with it, and hopefully defend myself. I need a room where I can safely work. ...I think I can at least afford food for the next few days."
She nodded. For a newly-triggered cape, he seemed… more collected than one might expect, knowing how trigger events worked. "So you want tools and space for your tinkering. What do you have to offer?" Ideally, adding a Tinker to the crew would be a big asset, though she had to wonder what, precisely, was his problem with the Protectorate.
He smiled faintly. "I can provide your crew with a non-combat tool or two that would make it worth your while… and, well, money. Some of the things I want to create can make for easy cash."
"I'd like to know a bit more about that. I don't know if you're aware of this, but each Tinker has a specialty - something they can make better than anyone else. Do you have some idea what yours is?"
He grinned. "I already know. And my specialty is pretty handy."
"Do tell," she said, stifling a sigh of annoyed impatience.
"Chemistry Tinker," he stated. "I've got ideas for molecules and compounds that could change the world. But if you're thinking short-term profit… Well, just ask yourself: What does a diamond and the graphite in a pencil have in common?"
"They're both made of carbon," she said, easily seeing where he was headed. "You think you can convert the latter into the former?"
"Honestly? That bit's not even hard. Get me some material, and I can synthesize diamonds by tomorrow." He paused. "I'm not exactly clear on how expensive diamonds are, but my understanding is that even uncut, a 1-gram rough diamond will easily sell for a five-digit number of bucks. I can provide you with a dozen of those, easy - assuming you can sell them."
_______________
It was late evening when I was finally able to really get to work.
Faultline was, understandably, cautious. I'd had to agree, before all else, that I would pay back her crew for the material provided to me, plus extras. If my tinkering was as potent as I'd suggested, then it was agreed I would put it to work to help her Crew make a minimum of $100,000 (my own cut to be determined later once we had more details). At least one member of the Crew was to watch over me at all time (both for my safety and as a guarantee of good behavior… not that they could understand my tinkering, admittedly). The idea of openly marketing the product as novelty tinker-made diamonds had been floated around, but… that would just be begging De Beers to hire the Elite to kill us all.
The shopping list I had given Faultline included a large number of household items - hey, just consider what Bonesaw could do with junk lying around her house when she first triggered - but even so, it involved several thousand dollars' worth in electronics, chemicals, and equipment. I had stripped some items from it on account of them being exotic enough that she couldn't acquire them in in less than a few days - after all, every hour counted.
Amusing, in a way. Back home, my greatest nemesis had been procrastination. I rarely got things done unless I had an upcoming deadline. Here, it so happened that I did have a deadline - I wished to derail canon, and the sooner the better. Many of the measures I would be taking in the coming days would be aimed at making my own work faster and easier.
I had told Faultline I was a Tinker with a chemistry specialty. Technically true at the moment. I had five charges, after all, and a single one of them put me on the level of Squealer or Kid Win within one field. Two charges made me comparable to Armsmaster and Bakuda. With three charges, I could rival Dragon and String Theory in one domain (I wasn't sure whether Bonesaw was a three-charge equivalent, or a two-charge who happened to benefit from the advice of Jack Slash and Mannequin).
Right now, I had three charges in chemistry. It was a very broad field, and I suspected that what I could do was less hax, less bullshit, than I would have gotten from spending three charges on a narrower one. Still, it gave me some amazing ideas, and an amazing intuition for macgyvering chemicals and chemistry equipment.
As for my other two charges? I had invested both of them into automated manufacturing.
"So you see," I told Newter, "the type-37 molecules at this point each attach to three type-29, forming a macro-molecule which, in turn, will attract stray carbon atoms - but not attract them so strongly that they won't eventually float away at this temperature. Still, they remain close for long enough that the fluor tip will do its job more often than not. It's not true nanotechnology - I wish - but by the end of it, I end up with a batch of molecules of types 48 through 62, all of which perform very specific operations depending on heat, acidity, the presence of ultraviolet light, and the presence of a magnetic field. They act like smart super-enzymes, allowing me very specific control of the chemical reactions I want to cause." Hm. I wasn't very good at reading people, but I suspected Newter regretted asking about my work at this point.
Hm. Past midnight already… These were the early hours of the 9th of April. Less than 72 hours before Taylor took on Lung, assuming my presence hadn't butterflied that away. Realistically, something as simple as hailing a cab and asking to be taken to the Palanquin nightclub might actually be enough to send the whole timeline out of whack (chaos theory could get a bit staggering once you grokked what it really meant), but this wasn't reality - this was a story, and I doubted my real self writing it would unmake that event so cheaply.
Anyway… the molecules would need some time to react. Time I could spend on the mechanical and electronic parts of the 3D-printer I was making. Once it was able to wield the "smart enzymes", it would be able to decompose any form of conventional matter, and rebuild it in the form of small objects quickly and efficiently, so long as the right amount of the right elements was present (I wasn't ready for nuclear reactions at this stage, so atomic types would have to remain unmodified). Just like the smart enzymes themselves, its purpose was to save time - it would be able to build in minutes what would take me hours.
Hm. There was another thing I wanted to try… "Er, sorry if I'm boring you, Newter. I'm kind of excited about it… being a super-scientist has been my fantasy since I was eight," I confessed. "Actually… can I ask you something?"
"Sure, what?"
"I was wondering if you would let me examine a sample of your saliva. It's a combat-grade hallucinogenic, isn't it?"
He got a touch defensive. "Why do you even want that?"
"Partly because I'm a chemistry Tinker, and I'd love to have non-lethal ways of defending myself. Partly because I might be able to make a counteragent."
He blinked. "Wait, what?"
"Well… I'm going to take a wild guess that being unable to touch people without knocking them out has some disadvantages." Newter had the attitude of a typical teenager. What more needed to be said? "I figure, maybe I can come up with some kind of body spray that neutralizes the effects of your sweat for an hour."
"You can do that?"
"I'm a Tinker. We're total bullshit."
_______________
"You gave Newter tinkertech bodyspray." Faultline's tone was total deadpan.
"I said I could offer your crew some non-combat applications. This sort of quality-of-life stuff is what I meant. I figured it'd be a big deal to him." I hoped I was coherent in my argument - this was a lunch meeting (well, noon meeting; Faultline wasn't going to remove her mask to eat in my presence), and I hadn't slept a wink since getting to Earth Bet. I'd probably consumed more caffeine in the past twelve hours than in any previous week of my life (admittedly a low bar to clear).
"Just how confident are you that it's harmless?"
"I'm not stupid. I gave him an experimental one for now, with very low concentration. If nothing bad happens, I'll give him the real one. Shouldn't be any problems anyway, this stuff can't penetrate the skin and doesn't react with almost anything 'xcept the active substance in his sweat."
"I hope you know what you're doing." She paused. "What about the diamond manufacture?"
"Honestly, the main reason I'm not hitting the hay right now is because the first batch should be ready in about an hour, and I want to check it out when it does."
_______________
An hour later, we were looking at the first batch.
I had gone with diamonds for a reason - chemically speaking, they were very simple. On my world, people already knew how to make synthetic diamonds (they might on Earth Bet, too, I hadn't checked)... though those diamonds were too perfect; jewelers could tell them from natural ones by the lack of flaws.
My machine grew diamonds in a more "organic" matter. They should look like natural, rough diamonds, even to experts. Looking at the dozen of tiny rocks, each one between five and six carats, I had to hope said experts would agree.
I didn't feel too bad about this venture. It wasn't like I was counterfeiting money or art - the diamonds were genuine (and, really, their market price was artificially inflated to a ludicrous degree). I wasn't doing anything illegal - as far as I knew, at least. Still, it was deceitful, and, while Faultline's Crew had some honor, they were still career criminals. I had given a lot of grief to canon Taylor over her moral choices; I had no desire to follow that same path like a rank hypocrite. However, I needed initial equipment to be able to jump-start my tinkering, I was racing against time, and my status as an effective dimensional traveller without valid ID meant I couldn't go to the authorities as my first move (which would have been my preference in most situations). Even so, I wasn't going to give Faultline anything her team could use for their criminal operations… actually, a source of revenue like my diamond synthesizer might disincentivise their criminal operations (well, except the ones aimed at learning the truth behind the Case 53s).
Speaking of Faultline, she seemed mollified for now, though she was going to present the batch to some discreet experts. As for me…
I reshuffled my Tinker specialties, leaving one charge in chemistry and one in manufacturing - not enough to improve on my previous work, but enough to operate it safely.
The other three charges went into a sensor specialty.
Some quick designing. A general idea of what I was going to need. A general ideas of the parts involved, and which ones would take more time to create.
I set the 3D printer to create those parts. Then, and only then, I finally went to sleep.
3: Lung
3
I wasn't going to truly catch up on all the sleep I'd missed - no time, unfortunately. It was still early evening when I woke up to the sound of an alarm set on one of the gadgets Faultline had provided.
A quick check-up on the 3D-printer. Most of the parts I needed for the D-scanner were ready. Looking again through my Tinker skill, now that I was less exhausted… crap. I could use this to get the basic function working, but not the advanced one; that would require much more precise sensors, not to mention a computer chip far, far beyond what I had at the moment.
I sighed. Well, the basic function would have to do for now. Back to work.
_______________
A few hours past midnight, the D-scanner was ready for its first test. I was optimistic - after all, I had designed it with the equivalent of an 8-9 Tinker rating.
Turning the device on… Data. Data which, via GPS, was quickly matched to a map of the city.
Several dots in my vicinity. Several on the Protectorate base. Others, scattered. I grinned.
The D-scanner was designed to detect minute, subtle interdimensional activity - in other words, the connection between shards and parahumans. Its current range was measured in miles - not quite enough to cover all of Brockton Bay (never mind a larger city), but it was still giving me the location of most capes in town in real-time.
The advanced function I had wanted to include was such fine analysis of the interdimensional activity that it could identify the exact nature of each parahuman ability. Sadly, it looked like I was still a long way away from that.
But even so! I had a long-range cape detector. That single device could completely overturn the balance of power in the world. Put it in the hands of the PRT, and suddenly, villains can't hide anymore. ...OK, that actually sounded like a recipe for escalation and/or all the major villains pooling forces to destroy the D-scanner, but I wasn't going to be careless about this. In the short term, my plans for it were a bit more subtle.
Speaking of plans… I set the D-scanner on the table, discarding my sensor specialization, allocating those three charges to knowledge of tinkertech armor instead. Ideas started flowing… but I'd need parts. Lots of parts. I took a couple hours working out the general idea, programming the 3D-printer to create the components I needed…
...then, feeling burnt-out from so much work, finally said "screw it", and started surfing the Web.
Two hours later, not that long before sunrise, I finally managed to pry myself away from the PHO website. It had been a fascinating read. Gave some perspective - if not on Brockton Bay, then on the worldwide cape scene in general. One thing that had jumped at me had been the Gratitude Mega-Thread - basically, a place for people who wanted to thank a particular cape or a whole group of them. It was… jarring, seeing so many people profusely thanking Alexandria for saving their lives, or the lives of their loved ones, or cleaning up their city, or a million other things. In the story, we mostly saw Alexandria as a member of the Cauldron conspiracy; we mainly had Taylor's perspective, and, once Taylor had reclassified her childhood hero as an enemy, she pretty much went on to hate her forever. It was easy to forget the decades of active superheroism that occurred in parallel with the shadier activities.
But enough of that. I had a busy day ahead of me, and I needed sleep, now.
_______________
The key components were ready by the time I woke up, but Faultline wanted another meeting.
"The expert I called came through," she said. "Your diamonds, as far as anyone can tell, are the real deal. The only challenge past this point is finding buyers without looking suspicious, but I have connections for that. We'll lose a certain percentage on the way, but even so, your initial batch should cover your expenses, plus the hundred grand you owe us, and still have one or two dozen grand to spare. It's only fair that this excedent goes to you."
"That's a relief. I'm afraid I'll need it in cash, though - no bank account at the moment."
"Well, we'll only have that money in two or three days, once we manage to sell them," she said. "But if you're looking for a banker, there is one who specializes in providing services for capes and asks no questions."
"If you're talking about Number Man… Thanks, but no thanks." I didn't want to come to Cauldron's attention too early, and besides, I doubted that an account with that man was strictly legal. "How about Newter? Any issue with the test spray?"
"None so far."
"I'll give him the undiluted formula, then." I paused. "Um, be sure to remind him that it cancels the hallucinogens in his sweat, not in his saliva. Something worth keeping in mind." Come to think of it, other bodily fluids too, and… OK, no, different subject. Newter can worry about those details on his own time.
Faultline looked at me. "I appreciate doing business with you. That said, I have to ask: What now? You have completed the initial part of our deal, but working together could be profitable for everyone. We can't keep selling diamonds in a city the size of Brockton Bay, but we can find more buyers in Boston, Chicago, New York… as long as we're smart about it, we can make millions, and most of it would go to you. And truth be told… Well, you said it yourself: Tinkers tend to be press-ganged quickly. If you want to be safe, your best bet is finding a team you like, and joining it on your terms. Not gonna lie, my crew would love to have your abilities on its side. We're professional, we have standards, and the money's pretty good…"
"Thank you," I interrupted, "but I'm afraid this isn't what I'm looking for. With all due respect, I am neither a villain nor a mercenary. My long-term ambitions just wouldn't mesh well with the jobs your crew pulls. However," I gave her a meaningful look, "over the coming days, I'm going to remain vulnerable. Additionally, I'm going to need more equipment than I currently have - some for bulk, but mostly I'm talking exotic, expensive stuff that I left off my previous list. If you help me with that… well, I'll make you a lot of diamonds. Furthermore, once my own cut of the profits tops at $100,000, I'll let you keep the diamond synthesizer to yourself."
She seemed dubious. "Tinkertech doesn't really work unless its creator maintains and operates it."
"That's a broad generalization. Containment foam is an obvious exception to that rule. Every team with a Tinker tries to have them make tools for the others. Some specific devices keep working years after their creator is gone. I'll bet you I can make a diamond synthesizer that can be operated by anyone, and won't require maintenance for at least a year - probably longer than you can use it without rousing suspicion anyway."
It may not have been what Faultline had hoped for, but I still think the deal I made with her was pretty generous. Even being discreet, she stood to make millions, maybe tens of millions, while investing a few tens of thousands. With that said… I really needed to get back to work.
_______________
Dammit.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
I'd hoped to have some real armor by the time Taylor fought Lung, but there was no way I could finish building this in the hours I had left, even with the help of my 3D-printer. Typically enough, I'd underestimated the amount of work required.
I could make some armor. I'd made it using a special carbon-based compound that was both tougher and lighter than kevlar, would redistribute impact well enough to protect me from any conventional firearms short of anti-materiel rifles, and acted as an excellent electric and thermal insulator. I'd included a digital voice-masking feature in the helmet. I'd even managed to design it in such a way that there would be a comfortable space between my neck and the part of the armor that protected it (sounds silly, I know… but, stuff touching my neck drove me nuts. Hey, to each his phobias!).
What I couldn't do, however, was assemble the different parts of the armor together with proper joints. I had a helmet, a torso, forearms, gauntlets, legs, forelegs… and no connection between them.
Well, time for quick-and-dirty solutions. I shifted two of the three Tinker charges in armor, adding them instead to the one in chemistry. Hm, yes… that could work. I set the 3D-printer to produce a new compound.
An hour later, as I finished putting on the disjoint bits of armor, the compound was ready. A type of foam, which I applied in the spaces between the armor components. The foam took hold, joining them - it was similar in some ways to containment foam, but its final form was flexible enough to serve as improvised joints. It was nearly as good at insulating heat as the rest of the armor, but unfortunately it wouldn't be bulletproof. Then again, my plan didn't call for me to face bullets at this stage. Once I was done, I knew a simple solvent that would melt the foam away harmlessly.
Welp. I was armed and armored in (low-grade) tinkertech armor. The sun was setting. With the D-scanner and some earlier observation, I felt I had a good guess of which dots moving on the map were respectively Taylor and the Undersiders. In a short while, Taylor would go patrolling, and fight Lung. I could show up in time to start derailing canon the way I hoped to, hopefully for the better.
And I had no transportation.
Like, none. I didn't own a vehicle. I wouldn't be able to drive one even if I did, armor or no armor. I couldn't use public transit or a cab like this. Asking Faultine's Crew to transport me would look hella suspicious.
Fuck.
_______________
I wondered if some recent miscalculations were due to lack of sleep, or just general absent-mindedness. Anyway, I had to scramble to fix it.
Leaving one charge in chemistry and one in automated manufacture, I invested the other three in transportation, and considered my options.
Teleportation and antigravity would simply take too long. I could build a basic jetpack, but I'd need at least two days to make it safe to use. Not enough materials to make a car, not enough time to render an existing car self-driving.
So, I had to go with the minimalist approach. Which, in this case, consisted of an electric-powered cross between skis and roller-blades. Just plain electric roller-blades would have been an option, but I didn't have the balance and experience for it. I had some experience with skis, at least.
The first bit I produced were the batteries - not much different from regular batteries, but using chemicals that could store energy far more densely, and recharge pretty damn fast with a typical electric outlet. Even so, I hurried to plug them in - they'd recharge as much as possible while I assembled the rest of the apparatus.
And then, finally, I was done. By my estimation, the roller-skis ought to have about thirty minutes of autonomy in them, and get me around at something between 20 and 30 kph, depending on how fast I was comfortable going (so, about 12 to 18 mph, to lowball it). I was wearing my armor. I had my D-scanner in one hand, and my weapon in the other. I could reach the general docks area in reasonable time once it looked like the Taylor dot started patrolling and… Oh. There it was. And there were good odds that that other dot, on the move, was Lung.
Time to run! Or roll, or whatever! I rushed toward the door-
"You seem in a bit of a hurry, my friend."
Oh. Right. Gregor the Snail was here. Had been here for hours, actually. I'd sort of forgotten. In hindsight, it weirded me out slightly that he hadn't commented about my putting on the armor and wearing it even as I kept tinkering.
"Oh, um… Well, I need to take these out for a test drive," I held up the roller-skis.
"While carrying a weapon?"
"It's non-lethal. I suspect I'll need it."
His expression was worth a thousand words. I bit my lip, though it wouldn't be visible under the helmet. "Look… I need to run. I'll be back ASAP."
"Perhaps I need to remind you that you effectively hired this team to protect you," he pointed out. "I am not going to keep you here against your will, but if you leave, then I must follow."
And, no doubt, tell Faultline. Well, that was going to look suspicious, but I figured I could handle that later. "Fine, but, I think you're going to need a car for that."
_______________
It took me a couple of minutes to adjust to the roller-skis, but once I did, they were easy enough to use. They were a pretty simple device, really - I couldn't have made a complex work of tinkertech on such short notice. They were just a notch or two above what mundane technology could make… but their wheels were, by design, blessedly quiet on the asphalt.
In my left hand, the D-scanner showed me the situation. The Taylor dot had been still for a while, and the Lung dot was approaching it. How long had that fight actually lasted anyway? It sounded long when Taylor described it, but in practice, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes…
Gregor was behind me, driving a windowless van with a tinted windshield. His car wasn't going to have any trouble keeping up with me - well, not unless I rolled through a really narrow alley.
...Not that I'd need to, from the looks of it. According to the D-scanner, Lung and Taylor were close to each other, and I was less than two minutes away from their position. I slowed down a bit; this ought to be around the point Taylor heard his line about killing kids, and started her attack. If I got there too early, I'd have to deal with a whole bunch of gun-toting ABB thugs, in which case I didn't like my odds. I needed to arrive after Taylor sent them running, but not much later.
And that's when the screams started. Close enough for me to hear. Maintaining the pace, I got closer. I saw one guy running away, looking like he'd just pissed off Skitter. I heard more than I saw the explosion of fire. Given Lung's super-hearing, I wasn't sure what he'd hear first - me approaching, or Taylor trying to take her leave.
That question got answered when I finally got within visual range of the scene. Lung was busy climbing up a building, presumably the one where Taylor was located. Well, that just meant I'd need to take aim. I pulled out the weapon.
This needle rifle was so simple, I wasn't sure it even qualified as tinkertech at all - just mundane technology, which I had been able to design very efficiently by virtue of a 3D-printer and having any Tinker charges invested in technology at all. It was designed to project a high-speed, armor-penetrating needle that should get through even Lung's defenses.
Also, it had a laser sight. Because, you know, no experience with guns outside of game arcades.
One shot. I could make more in rapid succession if I missed, but, judging from Lung's roar of pain, I hadn't.
Also, he fell to the ground a few seconds later and didn't get up, so, yeah, pretty high likelihood that I'd hit. The needle had delivered the Newter-drug just as I had intended.
I wasn't gonna step any closer to Lung to check up on him. Not crazy. If anything, I was glad I'd been able to function without getting paralyzed with fear… I'd been afraid of poor timing ruining my schedules and plans, but not so much of a horrible, messy death. Was that because of my natural optimism? Stupidity? Just not taking the risk of death too seriously, because the real me would survive back home one way or another?
I glanced up at the rooftop. I'd half-expected for a perplexed Taylor to glance down, but, I suppose she had her bugs for that. Holstering my D-scanner and placing the rifle in my off hand, I used the other one to wave in her direction, letting her know I was aware of her presence. Gregor's van came to a stop a short distance behind.
I wasn't surprised by the arrival massive mutated dogs soon afterwards, with the four original Undersiders riding them.
Obviously, they had not expected to find an unconscious Lung once they got there. Still, they seemed hesitant to approach me. No wonder - with Taylor in canon, they'd been in a position of power, rescuing her. Didn't hurt that, Tattletale excepted, they'd assumed from her costume she was a villain. Here, I was standing fifty feet away from a defeated Lung, still holding a rifle, clad in armor. Shoddy-looking armor, but still. Plus, I had painted it white and gray, which probably didn't make me look nearly as… actually, I'd seen a Skitter cosplay. Her costume would probably have looked villainous even if she had painted it like a rainbow.
After a moment's hesitation, Grue spoke. "You really saved us a lot of trouble. I don't think we've been properly introduced, though."
"I know who you are," I said, waving my hand. "Relax. I'm not going to jeopardize Lung's arrest by picking a fight with a team of smash-and-grabbers." Technically true, but Tattletale would probably pick up on my desire for them to leave. My digitized voice would make a bit harder for her to read, and her canon powers were not nearly as bullshit as they sometimes became in fanfics, but even so, I was wary of her.
Well, actually, I loathed her.
When reading Worm, Tattletale had earned my distaste in a way that only Slaughterhouse Nine members surpassed. There had been several reasons. A general, vague, non-universal dislike for manipulators. The way that, to me, she was a near-perfect embodiment of the Smug Snake trope. A whole host of things.
But, most of all? She had taken Taylor - the girl with good intentions, selfless courage, boundless potential, and a dream of becoming a hero - and turned her into a villain. More than the corruption in the PRT, more than Armsmaster's dickishness, more than the Shadowstalker revelation, it had been Tattletale's effortless manipulation of her at her lowest point that had turned Taylor into a career criminal. I did not believe in truly unforgivable crimes, but the corruption of a good person came as close to it as possible in my books.
Of course, this was Worm. Its morality debates could rage endlessly. Most of the readership did not share my bile for "Loathsome Lisa". And to be fair, she had done what she had done, in part, out of a desire to help Taylor; unfortunately, her idea of helping Taylor involved eroding her morals and dragging her closer to the Undersiders' level.
I understood that Taylor needed friends. I just hoped she could find ones that could get her to open up and regain confidence without gradually turning her into a worse and worse person.
In the then and there, though, the Undersiders were in front of me. Since they hadn't gone on the roof, they hadn't seen Taylor. Tattletale could no doubt deduce that another cape had participated in the battle, but what could she deduce beside that? No telling. One way or another, though, they wouldn't be staying for long - they'd know Armsmaster was coming, my statement left little doubt as to which side of the law I was on, and their primary objective for the night had been accomplished.
"Well, one way or another, you have our gratitude," Grue said graciously, as the team turned around to leave. Tattletale took a couple of glances first, smirking - one at the building Lung had been climbing, one at Gregor's van. Crud, were there going to be complications there?
Once they left, I glanced back up to the rooftop. "Villains gone. You can come down now."
With some hesitation, Taylor walked down the fire escape. "Um… hello."
"Hey. Name's Ad Hoc. I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't recognize you…?"
"It's my first night out."
"First night out, and you took out a platoon's worth of thugs and actually managed to hurt Lung? Impressive. Ah, what should I call you?"
She sighed. "Do you know how hard it is to come up with a bug-related name that doesn't sound lame or villainous?"
I grinned a bit at her reprising lines from canon. "Eh. Weaver, Anansi, Khepri… There are options. If you don't pick a name, others will do it for you."
She nodded. "Actually, I don't think I've heard of you, either," she pointed out.
I chuckled. "It's my first night out."
That seemed to give her pause. "And.. you just happened to be here?"
"Not a complete coincidence. I was using this," I said, holding up the D-scanner. "Tinkertech. Long story short… I had some idea of where to find trouble."
"And you took out Lung. Is the rifle tinkertech too?"
"Barely so. The rifle mattered less than what it was shooting. Needle with tinker-made knockout drug. Too much for even Lung to handle."
Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of a motorcycle. Armasmaster was coming, right on cue.
Well. I was going to have to tread carefully. The past three days had been building toward this, after all.
Keeping Taylor from the self-destructive path she had taken in canon? That was a nice bonus, but it wasn't the point. I wasn't here to micromanage her life, which frankly sounded creepy.
No. The point was that, very soon, Bakuda would begin doing her thing. Many innocents would be hurt. Brockton Bay would be terribly damaged. Coil's plan would be advanced. It all needed to be nipped in the bud… and a conversation from a position of strength with Taylor Hebert and Armsmaster was probably a good way to start.
I wasn't going to truly catch up on all the sleep I'd missed - no time, unfortunately. It was still early evening when I woke up to the sound of an alarm set on one of the gadgets Faultline had provided.
A quick check-up on the 3D-printer. Most of the parts I needed for the D-scanner were ready. Looking again through my Tinker skill, now that I was less exhausted… crap. I could use this to get the basic function working, but not the advanced one; that would require much more precise sensors, not to mention a computer chip far, far beyond what I had at the moment.
I sighed. Well, the basic function would have to do for now. Back to work.
_______________
A few hours past midnight, the D-scanner was ready for its first test. I was optimistic - after all, I had designed it with the equivalent of an 8-9 Tinker rating.
Turning the device on… Data. Data which, via GPS, was quickly matched to a map of the city.
Several dots in my vicinity. Several on the Protectorate base. Others, scattered. I grinned.
The D-scanner was designed to detect minute, subtle interdimensional activity - in other words, the connection between shards and parahumans. Its current range was measured in miles - not quite enough to cover all of Brockton Bay (never mind a larger city), but it was still giving me the location of most capes in town in real-time.
The advanced function I had wanted to include was such fine analysis of the interdimensional activity that it could identify the exact nature of each parahuman ability. Sadly, it looked like I was still a long way away from that.
But even so! I had a long-range cape detector. That single device could completely overturn the balance of power in the world. Put it in the hands of the PRT, and suddenly, villains can't hide anymore. ...OK, that actually sounded like a recipe for escalation and/or all the major villains pooling forces to destroy the D-scanner, but I wasn't going to be careless about this. In the short term, my plans for it were a bit more subtle.
Speaking of plans… I set the D-scanner on the table, discarding my sensor specialization, allocating those three charges to knowledge of tinkertech armor instead. Ideas started flowing… but I'd need parts. Lots of parts. I took a couple hours working out the general idea, programming the 3D-printer to create the components I needed…
...then, feeling burnt-out from so much work, finally said "screw it", and started surfing the Web.
Two hours later, not that long before sunrise, I finally managed to pry myself away from the PHO website. It had been a fascinating read. Gave some perspective - if not on Brockton Bay, then on the worldwide cape scene in general. One thing that had jumped at me had been the Gratitude Mega-Thread - basically, a place for people who wanted to thank a particular cape or a whole group of them. It was… jarring, seeing so many people profusely thanking Alexandria for saving their lives, or the lives of their loved ones, or cleaning up their city, or a million other things. In the story, we mostly saw Alexandria as a member of the Cauldron conspiracy; we mainly had Taylor's perspective, and, once Taylor had reclassified her childhood hero as an enemy, she pretty much went on to hate her forever. It was easy to forget the decades of active superheroism that occurred in parallel with the shadier activities.
But enough of that. I had a busy day ahead of me, and I needed sleep, now.
_______________
The key components were ready by the time I woke up, but Faultline wanted another meeting.
"The expert I called came through," she said. "Your diamonds, as far as anyone can tell, are the real deal. The only challenge past this point is finding buyers without looking suspicious, but I have connections for that. We'll lose a certain percentage on the way, but even so, your initial batch should cover your expenses, plus the hundred grand you owe us, and still have one or two dozen grand to spare. It's only fair that this excedent goes to you."
"That's a relief. I'm afraid I'll need it in cash, though - no bank account at the moment."
"Well, we'll only have that money in two or three days, once we manage to sell them," she said. "But if you're looking for a banker, there is one who specializes in providing services for capes and asks no questions."
"If you're talking about Number Man… Thanks, but no thanks." I didn't want to come to Cauldron's attention too early, and besides, I doubted that an account with that man was strictly legal. "How about Newter? Any issue with the test spray?"
"None so far."
"I'll give him the undiluted formula, then." I paused. "Um, be sure to remind him that it cancels the hallucinogens in his sweat, not in his saliva. Something worth keeping in mind." Come to think of it, other bodily fluids too, and… OK, no, different subject. Newter can worry about those details on his own time.
Faultline looked at me. "I appreciate doing business with you. That said, I have to ask: What now? You have completed the initial part of our deal, but working together could be profitable for everyone. We can't keep selling diamonds in a city the size of Brockton Bay, but we can find more buyers in Boston, Chicago, New York… as long as we're smart about it, we can make millions, and most of it would go to you. And truth be told… Well, you said it yourself: Tinkers tend to be press-ganged quickly. If you want to be safe, your best bet is finding a team you like, and joining it on your terms. Not gonna lie, my crew would love to have your abilities on its side. We're professional, we have standards, and the money's pretty good…"
"Thank you," I interrupted, "but I'm afraid this isn't what I'm looking for. With all due respect, I am neither a villain nor a mercenary. My long-term ambitions just wouldn't mesh well with the jobs your crew pulls. However," I gave her a meaningful look, "over the coming days, I'm going to remain vulnerable. Additionally, I'm going to need more equipment than I currently have - some for bulk, but mostly I'm talking exotic, expensive stuff that I left off my previous list. If you help me with that… well, I'll make you a lot of diamonds. Furthermore, once my own cut of the profits tops at $100,000, I'll let you keep the diamond synthesizer to yourself."
She seemed dubious. "Tinkertech doesn't really work unless its creator maintains and operates it."
"That's a broad generalization. Containment foam is an obvious exception to that rule. Every team with a Tinker tries to have them make tools for the others. Some specific devices keep working years after their creator is gone. I'll bet you I can make a diamond synthesizer that can be operated by anyone, and won't require maintenance for at least a year - probably longer than you can use it without rousing suspicion anyway."
It may not have been what Faultline had hoped for, but I still think the deal I made with her was pretty generous. Even being discreet, she stood to make millions, maybe tens of millions, while investing a few tens of thousands. With that said… I really needed to get back to work.
_______________
Dammit.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
I'd hoped to have some real armor by the time Taylor fought Lung, but there was no way I could finish building this in the hours I had left, even with the help of my 3D-printer. Typically enough, I'd underestimated the amount of work required.
I could make some armor. I'd made it using a special carbon-based compound that was both tougher and lighter than kevlar, would redistribute impact well enough to protect me from any conventional firearms short of anti-materiel rifles, and acted as an excellent electric and thermal insulator. I'd included a digital voice-masking feature in the helmet. I'd even managed to design it in such a way that there would be a comfortable space between my neck and the part of the armor that protected it (sounds silly, I know… but, stuff touching my neck drove me nuts. Hey, to each his phobias!).
What I couldn't do, however, was assemble the different parts of the armor together with proper joints. I had a helmet, a torso, forearms, gauntlets, legs, forelegs… and no connection between them.
Well, time for quick-and-dirty solutions. I shifted two of the three Tinker charges in armor, adding them instead to the one in chemistry. Hm, yes… that could work. I set the 3D-printer to produce a new compound.
An hour later, as I finished putting on the disjoint bits of armor, the compound was ready. A type of foam, which I applied in the spaces between the armor components. The foam took hold, joining them - it was similar in some ways to containment foam, but its final form was flexible enough to serve as improvised joints. It was nearly as good at insulating heat as the rest of the armor, but unfortunately it wouldn't be bulletproof. Then again, my plan didn't call for me to face bullets at this stage. Once I was done, I knew a simple solvent that would melt the foam away harmlessly.
Welp. I was armed and armored in (low-grade) tinkertech armor. The sun was setting. With the D-scanner and some earlier observation, I felt I had a good guess of which dots moving on the map were respectively Taylor and the Undersiders. In a short while, Taylor would go patrolling, and fight Lung. I could show up in time to start derailing canon the way I hoped to, hopefully for the better.
And I had no transportation.
Like, none. I didn't own a vehicle. I wouldn't be able to drive one even if I did, armor or no armor. I couldn't use public transit or a cab like this. Asking Faultine's Crew to transport me would look hella suspicious.
Fuck.
_______________
I wondered if some recent miscalculations were due to lack of sleep, or just general absent-mindedness. Anyway, I had to scramble to fix it.
Leaving one charge in chemistry and one in automated manufacture, I invested the other three in transportation, and considered my options.
Teleportation and antigravity would simply take too long. I could build a basic jetpack, but I'd need at least two days to make it safe to use. Not enough materials to make a car, not enough time to render an existing car self-driving.
So, I had to go with the minimalist approach. Which, in this case, consisted of an electric-powered cross between skis and roller-blades. Just plain electric roller-blades would have been an option, but I didn't have the balance and experience for it. I had some experience with skis, at least.
The first bit I produced were the batteries - not much different from regular batteries, but using chemicals that could store energy far more densely, and recharge pretty damn fast with a typical electric outlet. Even so, I hurried to plug them in - they'd recharge as much as possible while I assembled the rest of the apparatus.
And then, finally, I was done. By my estimation, the roller-skis ought to have about thirty minutes of autonomy in them, and get me around at something between 20 and 30 kph, depending on how fast I was comfortable going (so, about 12 to 18 mph, to lowball it). I was wearing my armor. I had my D-scanner in one hand, and my weapon in the other. I could reach the general docks area in reasonable time once it looked like the Taylor dot started patrolling and… Oh. There it was. And there were good odds that that other dot, on the move, was Lung.
Time to run! Or roll, or whatever! I rushed toward the door-
"You seem in a bit of a hurry, my friend."
Oh. Right. Gregor the Snail was here. Had been here for hours, actually. I'd sort of forgotten. In hindsight, it weirded me out slightly that he hadn't commented about my putting on the armor and wearing it even as I kept tinkering.
"Oh, um… Well, I need to take these out for a test drive," I held up the roller-skis.
"While carrying a weapon?"
"It's non-lethal. I suspect I'll need it."
His expression was worth a thousand words. I bit my lip, though it wouldn't be visible under the helmet. "Look… I need to run. I'll be back ASAP."
"Perhaps I need to remind you that you effectively hired this team to protect you," he pointed out. "I am not going to keep you here against your will, but if you leave, then I must follow."
And, no doubt, tell Faultline. Well, that was going to look suspicious, but I figured I could handle that later. "Fine, but, I think you're going to need a car for that."
_______________
It took me a couple of minutes to adjust to the roller-skis, but once I did, they were easy enough to use. They were a pretty simple device, really - I couldn't have made a complex work of tinkertech on such short notice. They were just a notch or two above what mundane technology could make… but their wheels were, by design, blessedly quiet on the asphalt.
In my left hand, the D-scanner showed me the situation. The Taylor dot had been still for a while, and the Lung dot was approaching it. How long had that fight actually lasted anyway? It sounded long when Taylor described it, but in practice, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes…
Gregor was behind me, driving a windowless van with a tinted windshield. His car wasn't going to have any trouble keeping up with me - well, not unless I rolled through a really narrow alley.
...Not that I'd need to, from the looks of it. According to the D-scanner, Lung and Taylor were close to each other, and I was less than two minutes away from their position. I slowed down a bit; this ought to be around the point Taylor heard his line about killing kids, and started her attack. If I got there too early, I'd have to deal with a whole bunch of gun-toting ABB thugs, in which case I didn't like my odds. I needed to arrive after Taylor sent them running, but not much later.
And that's when the screams started. Close enough for me to hear. Maintaining the pace, I got closer. I saw one guy running away, looking like he'd just pissed off Skitter. I heard more than I saw the explosion of fire. Given Lung's super-hearing, I wasn't sure what he'd hear first - me approaching, or Taylor trying to take her leave.
That question got answered when I finally got within visual range of the scene. Lung was busy climbing up a building, presumably the one where Taylor was located. Well, that just meant I'd need to take aim. I pulled out the weapon.
This needle rifle was so simple, I wasn't sure it even qualified as tinkertech at all - just mundane technology, which I had been able to design very efficiently by virtue of a 3D-printer and having any Tinker charges invested in technology at all. It was designed to project a high-speed, armor-penetrating needle that should get through even Lung's defenses.
Also, it had a laser sight. Because, you know, no experience with guns outside of game arcades.
One shot. I could make more in rapid succession if I missed, but, judging from Lung's roar of pain, I hadn't.
Also, he fell to the ground a few seconds later and didn't get up, so, yeah, pretty high likelihood that I'd hit. The needle had delivered the Newter-drug just as I had intended.
I wasn't gonna step any closer to Lung to check up on him. Not crazy. If anything, I was glad I'd been able to function without getting paralyzed with fear… I'd been afraid of poor timing ruining my schedules and plans, but not so much of a horrible, messy death. Was that because of my natural optimism? Stupidity? Just not taking the risk of death too seriously, because the real me would survive back home one way or another?
I glanced up at the rooftop. I'd half-expected for a perplexed Taylor to glance down, but, I suppose she had her bugs for that. Holstering my D-scanner and placing the rifle in my off hand, I used the other one to wave in her direction, letting her know I was aware of her presence. Gregor's van came to a stop a short distance behind.
I wasn't surprised by the arrival massive mutated dogs soon afterwards, with the four original Undersiders riding them.
Obviously, they had not expected to find an unconscious Lung once they got there. Still, they seemed hesitant to approach me. No wonder - with Taylor in canon, they'd been in a position of power, rescuing her. Didn't hurt that, Tattletale excepted, they'd assumed from her costume she was a villain. Here, I was standing fifty feet away from a defeated Lung, still holding a rifle, clad in armor. Shoddy-looking armor, but still. Plus, I had painted it white and gray, which probably didn't make me look nearly as… actually, I'd seen a Skitter cosplay. Her costume would probably have looked villainous even if she had painted it like a rainbow.
After a moment's hesitation, Grue spoke. "You really saved us a lot of trouble. I don't think we've been properly introduced, though."
"I know who you are," I said, waving my hand. "Relax. I'm not going to jeopardize Lung's arrest by picking a fight with a team of smash-and-grabbers." Technically true, but Tattletale would probably pick up on my desire for them to leave. My digitized voice would make a bit harder for her to read, and her canon powers were not nearly as bullshit as they sometimes became in fanfics, but even so, I was wary of her.
Well, actually, I loathed her.
When reading Worm, Tattletale had earned my distaste in a way that only Slaughterhouse Nine members surpassed. There had been several reasons. A general, vague, non-universal dislike for manipulators. The way that, to me, she was a near-perfect embodiment of the Smug Snake trope. A whole host of things.
But, most of all? She had taken Taylor - the girl with good intentions, selfless courage, boundless potential, and a dream of becoming a hero - and turned her into a villain. More than the corruption in the PRT, more than Armsmaster's dickishness, more than the Shadowstalker revelation, it had been Tattletale's effortless manipulation of her at her lowest point that had turned Taylor into a career criminal. I did not believe in truly unforgivable crimes, but the corruption of a good person came as close to it as possible in my books.
Of course, this was Worm. Its morality debates could rage endlessly. Most of the readership did not share my bile for "Loathsome Lisa". And to be fair, she had done what she had done, in part, out of a desire to help Taylor; unfortunately, her idea of helping Taylor involved eroding her morals and dragging her closer to the Undersiders' level.
I understood that Taylor needed friends. I just hoped she could find ones that could get her to open up and regain confidence without gradually turning her into a worse and worse person.
In the then and there, though, the Undersiders were in front of me. Since they hadn't gone on the roof, they hadn't seen Taylor. Tattletale could no doubt deduce that another cape had participated in the battle, but what could she deduce beside that? No telling. One way or another, though, they wouldn't be staying for long - they'd know Armsmaster was coming, my statement left little doubt as to which side of the law I was on, and their primary objective for the night had been accomplished.
"Well, one way or another, you have our gratitude," Grue said graciously, as the team turned around to leave. Tattletale took a couple of glances first, smirking - one at the building Lung had been climbing, one at Gregor's van. Crud, were there going to be complications there?
Once they left, I glanced back up to the rooftop. "Villains gone. You can come down now."
With some hesitation, Taylor walked down the fire escape. "Um… hello."
"Hey. Name's Ad Hoc. I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't recognize you…?"
"It's my first night out."
"First night out, and you took out a platoon's worth of thugs and actually managed to hurt Lung? Impressive. Ah, what should I call you?"
She sighed. "Do you know how hard it is to come up with a bug-related name that doesn't sound lame or villainous?"
I grinned a bit at her reprising lines from canon. "Eh. Weaver, Anansi, Khepri… There are options. If you don't pick a name, others will do it for you."
She nodded. "Actually, I don't think I've heard of you, either," she pointed out.
I chuckled. "It's my first night out."
That seemed to give her pause. "And.. you just happened to be here?"
"Not a complete coincidence. I was using this," I said, holding up the D-scanner. "Tinkertech. Long story short… I had some idea of where to find trouble."
"And you took out Lung. Is the rifle tinkertech too?"
"Barely so. The rifle mattered less than what it was shooting. Needle with tinker-made knockout drug. Too much for even Lung to handle."
Our conversation was interrupted by the sound of a motorcycle. Armasmaster was coming, right on cue.
Well. I was going to have to tread carefully. The past three days had been building toward this, after all.
Keeping Taylor from the self-destructive path she had taken in canon? That was a nice bonus, but it wasn't the point. I wasn't here to micromanage her life, which frankly sounded creepy.
No. The point was that, very soon, Bakuda would begin doing her thing. Many innocents would be hurt. Brockton Bay would be terribly damaged. Coil's plan would be advanced. It all needed to be nipped in the bud… and a conversation from a position of strength with Taylor Hebert and Armsmaster was probably a good way to start.
4: Meeting Taylor
4
I'm useless where fashion and good appearance are concerned, but even so, I could still tell Armsmaster's armor looked way cooler than mine. I'd make a comment about functionality over looks, but, let's be honest - at this stage, he had me beat there, too.
"Are you going to fight me?" Yup, right on cue. I didn't think I looked very villainous, but Taylor was still there. Or maybe he would have asked that of any new capes?
"Of course not," I said in a vaguely-annoyed tone. I kind of expected Taylor to follow by saying she was a good guy, but she stayed silent. Because I had spoken first? Right… she lacked confidence in social situations.
"I don't recognize you," he pointed out.
"Both new. She hasn't chosen a cape name yet. I'm tentatively going by Ad Hoc."
He nodded, briefly excusing himself to incapacitate Lung. "Can you tell me what happened here?"
"Sure. I only arrived toward the end, so, you go first," I told Taylor.
Sounding unsure, she gave her version of events. I suspected she was less shaken than she'd been in canon - she hadn't had to fight Lung on the rooftop, or deal with the Undersiders. Eventually, she got to the point where Lung fell off the building. That was my cue to step in.
"I was heading here because I knew something was going on. Some of my tinkertech guided me. Long story," I said. "I arrived in time to see Lung climbing up the building, so I shot him with a needle full of a potent sedative. Shortly afterwards, the Undersiders arrived. It sounded like they'd been expecting to fight Lung. They didn't particularly want to fight us, and I told them I wasn't going to endanger Lung's arrest by fighting a bunch of small-timers. They left, and then you showed up." I paused, then turned toward Taylor. "Actually hold that thought. Ah… how good is your control over your bugs?"
She flinched a little at being addressed. "I think it's complete control, why?"
"Most venomous spiders only inject a fraction of their poison when they bite someone. When you were using an army of black widows and brown recluses on Lung, how were you…?"
"I… had them use it all up," she said, sounding defensive. "He regenerates; I wasn't sure it would do anything to him, so I went for broke."
"Right, right. That was the right call," I assured her. "But… I think tranquilizers often impede, or even cancel out powers like regeneration." I faced Armsmaster again. "Iiiii recommend hitting Lung with antivenom. All the antivenom."
"Noted," he said. "We want him in the Birdcage, not dead on the way. And while we’re looking forward, we need to decide where we go from here. Who gets the credit for Lung?"
I just listened as that bit went on. Not too different from canon, really. He explained the nature of Tinkers (presumably for Taylor's benefit rather than mine), about Bakuda and Oni Lee, about the threat of reprisal, about how our best options were to either fly under the radar, or join the Wards and Protectorate, respectively. That was when I spoke again:
"If I may suggest… There's a third option." I had their attention. "I don't particularly care who receives the credit for Lung. What I do care about is that there's an insane bomb Tinker at large. I mean… wasn't Bakuda's debut holding her university hostage? Over a bad grade?! The way I see it, the city isn't safe while she's around, especially without Lung to hold her leash.
"So, here's my third option: We hunt down and capture Bakuda. Tomorrow, and not a day later. I can locate her, and provide knockout needles. You," I pointed at Taylor, "can use your bugs to hit any number of people with those needles, unless they're armored from head to toe. You," I pointed at Armsmaster, "are a highly experienced, competent Tinker, and the leader of the local Protectorate. You can bring in extra forces. We do this, take care of the problem, and a major threat to Brockton Bay is taken out of the running."
He seemed dubious. "And how exactly are you planning to locate her? What are your capabilities? I'm assuming you're a Tinker yourself, but I'm unclear on your specialization."
I sighed. "OK, see, here's the thing: Once knowledge of what I can do gets out, I'm going to end up on a lot of villains' hit list. Problem is, between Thinkers, Strangers, and a whole lot of bribe money, some villains have access to a lot of the PRT's secrets. That's the reason I'd rather play things close to the chest for now." That was true - if it hadn't been for Coil, I would have been far more open with the Protectorate at that point. "So, I want to help protect law and order, I want to work with the Protectorate, and I'm not going to lie to you… but if anyone asks, I'd be very much obliged if you just said I claimed to have reliable contacts."
Probably not the optimal answer he had hoped for, but he accepted it for now, probably because of the lie detector. Discussion went on for a few minutes. Taylor agreed to help out - she had no desire to keep Bakuda running around, after all. We agreed on a time and place for the following day - early evening, with some time to prepare.
I would have liked to have a chat with Taylor afterward, but that wasn't going to be an option. Lung was right there, Armsmaster wasn't going to leave, the PRT van would arrive any moment, and Gregor was waiting in the car. Still, I would have another opportunity the next day, so I excused myself.
"...You're getting back in that car?" Armsmaster was surprised.
"Yeah. An acquaintance who agreed to come along in case things went wrong," I said. "Also, battery in these things is almost depleted," I pointed at the roller-skis, before getting inside the van.
_______________
The ride back to the Palanquin started in silence. A minute in, Gregor broke it.
"You left in a hurry, with intent, and arrived just in time to defeat Lung, armed with just the weapon you needed. I do not believe it was a coincidence."
I shrugged. He went on.
"You have not been entirely truthful with us."
"I haven't given full disclosure. I haven't lied, either, nor have I misled you in any harmful fashion."
"And what, exactly, are your actual plans?"
"Oh, you know. End the ABB. End Empire 88. End the Merchants. End Coil's organization. Essentially, end organized crime in Brockton Bay, and move on to bigger goals." It was, honestly, an oversimplification of my actual plans. Taking out the gangs was a nice bonus, but more of a secondary goal in some cases, an intermediate step in others.
"You do not think small," he said, keeping his eyes on the road. "What of Faultline's Crew?"
"You helped me out. For a whole lot of money, admittedly, but still. I do not intend to personally go after you, nor the Undersiders, nor Uber and Leet - it's scum of the Earth like Kaiser and Skidmark that I want out of the picture. Now, admittedly… if the Protectorate manages to put away all the major gangs, then more attention will go toward other parahuman criminals. As such, if I succeed, then it might be a good time to lay low and avoid illegal activities." I grinned under my mask. "Admittedly, that would be a lot easier to do if one were to own a machine that could synthesize diamonds."
He remained silent for a while before speaking again. "Why have you come to us? If you wish to work with the Protectorate, why not go directly to them?"
"I wasn't lying when I was speaking to Armsmaster. The PRT is compromised. Their data isn't secure. Beside that… there is another complication." I paused. "From what I've seen, you strike me as a honorable guy. Can you keep a secret?"
"I take matters of trust to heart. As such, if it endangers my friends, then I would sooner not be told, so as not to have to hide it from them."
"Fair enough," I said. "It's simple, then. My complication is… I don't have any legal existence here. I have no ID, no birth certificate, no records of any kind whatsoever. All for a simple reason: I'm not from Earth Bet."
That got a reaction from him. "Pardon?"
"I'm from another world," I said, once again grinning under my mask. "Not Earth-Aleph, another one. Given how twitchy the PRT and the public can get about the subject, I'd rather not have to explain it to them before proving how useful I am."
"And… you came to this world… how, and for what reason?"
"My little secret." I paused. "You can share what I've revealed with Faultline if you believe she'll keep it to herself. One way or another… Thanks for being my backup tonight."
_______________
There were some tense talks at the Palanquin. Faultline wasn't happy, but I imagine that providing her with the goose that lay the diamond egg got me significant leeway. Her main concern was how I'd known where to find Lung, and whether there was some association between myself and the Undersiders. She didn't outright state it, but, if she'd figured out I had a way to track down parahumans, it would make sense for her to be concerned. I assured her that I'd never interacted with the Undersiders before fighting Lung, and dodged the other question. She wasn't happy, but she wasn't breaking our deal, either.
Back to my room and to my tinkering, then. The D-scanner was showing two capes in ABB territory, which I tentatively labeled as "Oni Lee/Bakuda". I made some solvent to melt the "joint foam", removing my armor. I programmed the 3D-printer to make dozens of needles charged with Newter drug - small enough to be carried by Taylor's bugs, but also very sharp and strong.
Next. I put one Tinker charge in miniaturization, and two in robotics. With that in mind, I began designing a special robot. Shaped like a fly. Small like a fly. Armed with surveillance technology, able to film and transmit in real-time. A discreet spy drone, which I would be able to use tomorrow - after all, while Taylor could survey the battlefield with her bugs, she couldn't describe every detail of what she saw. Having a precise view of Bakuda's workshop while using my Tinker powers might prove invaluable.
It would take hours for the precise components to be assembled. With that done, I crumbled into bed.
I'm useless where fashion and good appearance are concerned, but even so, I could still tell Armsmaster's armor looked way cooler than mine. I'd make a comment about functionality over looks, but, let's be honest - at this stage, he had me beat there, too.
"Are you going to fight me?" Yup, right on cue. I didn't think I looked very villainous, but Taylor was still there. Or maybe he would have asked that of any new capes?
"Of course not," I said in a vaguely-annoyed tone. I kind of expected Taylor to follow by saying she was a good guy, but she stayed silent. Because I had spoken first? Right… she lacked confidence in social situations.
"I don't recognize you," he pointed out.
"Both new. She hasn't chosen a cape name yet. I'm tentatively going by Ad Hoc."
He nodded, briefly excusing himself to incapacitate Lung. "Can you tell me what happened here?"
"Sure. I only arrived toward the end, so, you go first," I told Taylor.
Sounding unsure, she gave her version of events. I suspected she was less shaken than she'd been in canon - she hadn't had to fight Lung on the rooftop, or deal with the Undersiders. Eventually, she got to the point where Lung fell off the building. That was my cue to step in.
"I was heading here because I knew something was going on. Some of my tinkertech guided me. Long story," I said. "I arrived in time to see Lung climbing up the building, so I shot him with a needle full of a potent sedative. Shortly afterwards, the Undersiders arrived. It sounded like they'd been expecting to fight Lung. They didn't particularly want to fight us, and I told them I wasn't going to endanger Lung's arrest by fighting a bunch of small-timers. They left, and then you showed up." I paused, then turned toward Taylor. "Actually hold that thought. Ah… how good is your control over your bugs?"
She flinched a little at being addressed. "I think it's complete control, why?"
"Most venomous spiders only inject a fraction of their poison when they bite someone. When you were using an army of black widows and brown recluses on Lung, how were you…?"
"I… had them use it all up," she said, sounding defensive. "He regenerates; I wasn't sure it would do anything to him, so I went for broke."
"Right, right. That was the right call," I assured her. "But… I think tranquilizers often impede, or even cancel out powers like regeneration." I faced Armsmaster again. "Iiiii recommend hitting Lung with antivenom. All the antivenom."
"Noted," he said. "We want him in the Birdcage, not dead on the way. And while we’re looking forward, we need to decide where we go from here. Who gets the credit for Lung?"
I just listened as that bit went on. Not too different from canon, really. He explained the nature of Tinkers (presumably for Taylor's benefit rather than mine), about Bakuda and Oni Lee, about the threat of reprisal, about how our best options were to either fly under the radar, or join the Wards and Protectorate, respectively. That was when I spoke again:
"If I may suggest… There's a third option." I had their attention. "I don't particularly care who receives the credit for Lung. What I do care about is that there's an insane bomb Tinker at large. I mean… wasn't Bakuda's debut holding her university hostage? Over a bad grade?! The way I see it, the city isn't safe while she's around, especially without Lung to hold her leash.
"So, here's my third option: We hunt down and capture Bakuda. Tomorrow, and not a day later. I can locate her, and provide knockout needles. You," I pointed at Taylor, "can use your bugs to hit any number of people with those needles, unless they're armored from head to toe. You," I pointed at Armsmaster, "are a highly experienced, competent Tinker, and the leader of the local Protectorate. You can bring in extra forces. We do this, take care of the problem, and a major threat to Brockton Bay is taken out of the running."
He seemed dubious. "And how exactly are you planning to locate her? What are your capabilities? I'm assuming you're a Tinker yourself, but I'm unclear on your specialization."
I sighed. "OK, see, here's the thing: Once knowledge of what I can do gets out, I'm going to end up on a lot of villains' hit list. Problem is, between Thinkers, Strangers, and a whole lot of bribe money, some villains have access to a lot of the PRT's secrets. That's the reason I'd rather play things close to the chest for now." That was true - if it hadn't been for Coil, I would have been far more open with the Protectorate at that point. "So, I want to help protect law and order, I want to work with the Protectorate, and I'm not going to lie to you… but if anyone asks, I'd be very much obliged if you just said I claimed to have reliable contacts."
Probably not the optimal answer he had hoped for, but he accepted it for now, probably because of the lie detector. Discussion went on for a few minutes. Taylor agreed to help out - she had no desire to keep Bakuda running around, after all. We agreed on a time and place for the following day - early evening, with some time to prepare.
I would have liked to have a chat with Taylor afterward, but that wasn't going to be an option. Lung was right there, Armsmaster wasn't going to leave, the PRT van would arrive any moment, and Gregor was waiting in the car. Still, I would have another opportunity the next day, so I excused myself.
"...You're getting back in that car?" Armsmaster was surprised.
"Yeah. An acquaintance who agreed to come along in case things went wrong," I said. "Also, battery in these things is almost depleted," I pointed at the roller-skis, before getting inside the van.
_______________
The ride back to the Palanquin started in silence. A minute in, Gregor broke it.
"You left in a hurry, with intent, and arrived just in time to defeat Lung, armed with just the weapon you needed. I do not believe it was a coincidence."
I shrugged. He went on.
"You have not been entirely truthful with us."
"I haven't given full disclosure. I haven't lied, either, nor have I misled you in any harmful fashion."
"And what, exactly, are your actual plans?"
"Oh, you know. End the ABB. End Empire 88. End the Merchants. End Coil's organization. Essentially, end organized crime in Brockton Bay, and move on to bigger goals." It was, honestly, an oversimplification of my actual plans. Taking out the gangs was a nice bonus, but more of a secondary goal in some cases, an intermediate step in others.
"You do not think small," he said, keeping his eyes on the road. "What of Faultline's Crew?"
"You helped me out. For a whole lot of money, admittedly, but still. I do not intend to personally go after you, nor the Undersiders, nor Uber and Leet - it's scum of the Earth like Kaiser and Skidmark that I want out of the picture. Now, admittedly… if the Protectorate manages to put away all the major gangs, then more attention will go toward other parahuman criminals. As such, if I succeed, then it might be a good time to lay low and avoid illegal activities." I grinned under my mask. "Admittedly, that would be a lot easier to do if one were to own a machine that could synthesize diamonds."
He remained silent for a while before speaking again. "Why have you come to us? If you wish to work with the Protectorate, why not go directly to them?"
"I wasn't lying when I was speaking to Armsmaster. The PRT is compromised. Their data isn't secure. Beside that… there is another complication." I paused. "From what I've seen, you strike me as a honorable guy. Can you keep a secret?"
"I take matters of trust to heart. As such, if it endangers my friends, then I would sooner not be told, so as not to have to hide it from them."
"Fair enough," I said. "It's simple, then. My complication is… I don't have any legal existence here. I have no ID, no birth certificate, no records of any kind whatsoever. All for a simple reason: I'm not from Earth Bet."
That got a reaction from him. "Pardon?"
"I'm from another world," I said, once again grinning under my mask. "Not Earth-Aleph, another one. Given how twitchy the PRT and the public can get about the subject, I'd rather not have to explain it to them before proving how useful I am."
"And… you came to this world… how, and for what reason?"
"My little secret." I paused. "You can share what I've revealed with Faultline if you believe she'll keep it to herself. One way or another… Thanks for being my backup tonight."
_______________
There were some tense talks at the Palanquin. Faultline wasn't happy, but I imagine that providing her with the goose that lay the diamond egg got me significant leeway. Her main concern was how I'd known where to find Lung, and whether there was some association between myself and the Undersiders. She didn't outright state it, but, if she'd figured out I had a way to track down parahumans, it would make sense for her to be concerned. I assured her that I'd never interacted with the Undersiders before fighting Lung, and dodged the other question. She wasn't happy, but she wasn't breaking our deal, either.
Back to my room and to my tinkering, then. The D-scanner was showing two capes in ABB territory, which I tentatively labeled as "Oni Lee/Bakuda". I made some solvent to melt the "joint foam", removing my armor. I programmed the 3D-printer to make dozens of needles charged with Newter drug - small enough to be carried by Taylor's bugs, but also very sharp and strong.
Next. I put one Tinker charge in miniaturization, and two in robotics. With that in mind, I began designing a special robot. Shaped like a fly. Small like a fly. Armed with surveillance technology, able to film and transmit in real-time. A discreet spy drone, which I would be able to use tomorrow - after all, while Taylor could survey the battlefield with her bugs, she couldn't describe every detail of what she saw. Having a precise view of Bakuda's workshop while using my Tinker powers might prove invaluable.
It would take hours for the precise components to be assembled. With that done, I crumbled into bed.
5: Bakuda
5
I woke up at… well, before noon this time. Not completely recovered from my tiredness, but definitely feeling better.
Still, I had a busy day ahead of me. Bakuda had to be taken care of. She was the most urgent item on my to-do list.
This was the 12th of April. In canon, it was the day Taylor joined the Undersiders (though she was going to be a bit busy for that this time around). The fight with Bakuda would occur on the 15th. Dina's abduction originally took place on the 14th, though that plan might go differently if the Undersiders didn't recruit Taylor early on. Once the ABB gone, Coil might decide to unleash the E88 reveal.
Honestly, I needed a few days of peace and quiet to improve my tinkering. As was, my progress was too slow.
For now, though, I had to focus on the task at hand. The 3D-printer had done most of the work on the cyber-fly, but I needed to assemble in the bits it couldn't handle by itself, and do some quick programming. That took me several hours. At one point, I quickly checked PHO to see if Tattletale had left any message for Taylor like in canon (if she had, I wasn't seeing it); it took a supreme effort of will to return to work, rather than keep web-surfing. Procrastination's a bitch.
Still, I ended up with a mostly functional mini spy drone, and an hour to spare before I had to leave toward my appointed meeting with my (now fully charged) roller-skis. Enough time to get to work on improving the 3D-printer itself - I was losing too much time on the actual assembly of the tech.
Two charges in chemistry, three in automated production. Then, using the printer's existing "smart enzymes" to create seven new, more sophisticated ones. These new molecules would act as aggregators and dissipators for the old ones under a very specific set of conditions, allowing the 3D-printer 2.0 increased precision (ideal for crafting electronics) as well as enhanced speed (for larger parts).
...Aaaand now I was bordering on late. I had to put on the armor, excuse myself, quickly apologize to Faultline on the way out, and then, roller-ski through the last bits of the waning day's traffic.
_______________
"You're late."
I quickly apologized to Armsmaster, while observing the other capes in attendance. Taylor, obviously. Captain Ameri… er, Miss Militia. Battery. Velocity. I could speculate about the absence of Assault and Dauntless, but…
"So you're Ad Hoc?" said Velocity. "Armsmaster's been vague about you."
"Not much to tell," I shrugged, "we only talked for a few minutes. Tinker, new, independent hero. Got a lead on the location of Bakuda and Oni Lee. I think that about covers yesterday's exchange."
"And how did you find that lead?" asked Battery. "For that matter, how much do you trust it?"
"I trust it as much as I'm going to trust any lead short of my own pair of eyes," I shrugged. "But as for the first question… Right now, revealing my source will put good people in danger. I'll tell you when I feel safe about it. Hopefully soon." I pointed at Taylor. "So, has everyone been introduced to… ah, should I call you Weaver? We need something to call you for this operation."
She shrugged. "Weaver is fine I guess."
"Armsmaster introduced her as a new independent hero who helped take down Lung," said Miss Militia, "which is an impressive debut."
I wondered about the details of what Armsmaster had revealed, but now was not the time. "All right then. Anything else we should be waiting for? I've got our target's location marked," I held the D-scanner, "so, unless we're waiting for something specific…"
_______________
I was spared having to use the roller-skis - the Protectorate had borrowed a van from the PRT (one not marked with PRT colors). Soon enough, we were deep in the heart of ABB territory.
"According to my source, they've been here all day," I said, pointing at the building while looking at my D-scanner. That was true, but I was deliberately trying to leave some doubt as to the nature of my 'source'. The heroes might suspect what the D-scanner really was - with all the enormous consequences thereof - but for all they knew, it might just be a fancy tinkertech tablet with a GPS. "Weaver, can you perform a preliminary check?"
"It's full of armed thugs," she confirmed. "There's… one guy in a mask, might be Oni Lee. And there's a woman doing something at a workbench, I don't know if that's Bakuda."
"Well, sounds like we've got the right place," I said. "Let's take a few minutes to confirm it."
With that, I pulled out the fly drone, as well as the tablet display for its camera. "This… is still a prototype, but hopefully it can give us the details we need."
I quickly answered a few questions as the drone flew inside the compound, the tablet displaying what it could see. With Taylor's guidance, we quickly located the masked man, who was confirmed as Oni Lee. Then, the workshop…
"That's her," Miss Militia confirmed. "That's Bakuda."
"And luckily for us, she apparently doesn't wear her mask while she's tinkering," I grinned. "Let me observe what she's working on - before we do anything, I want to make sure we're not screwing this up."
I moved my charges around, keeping one in robotics and allocating four to bombs, and took a better look at Bakuda's work. Behind me, the Protectorate members were having a debate as to whether attacking Bakuda in her own workshop, when she wasn't in the middle of a crime, constituted escalation and/or a breach of the unwritten rules (she was, after all, on the run after almost turning her college into a crater). Their debate transitioned into explaining what the unwritten rules were to Weaver. I noticed that their explanation didn't come anywhere near making the cape situation sound like a game of cops and robbers - of course it didn't, that had been a transparent attempt by Tattletale to ease Taylor into going native in canon.
Truth be told, though, I wasn't paying close attention to what they were saying. Four points in a single specialization basically meant the equivalent of a Tinker rating 10-11. I had ideas. Time-stopping bombs. Space-warping bombs that would rip apart everything in their blast radius at the Planck level, across all dimensions. Even a bomb that would randomly turn 50% of the protons in a 50-yard range into antiprotons.
It was exhilarating and terrifying at once, but… I pushed those ideas aside, focusing instead on Bakuda's workbench. Truth be told, I had to admire her efficiency - she had managed to make herself a little bomb factory, comparable to my 3D-printer arrangement. And the bombs she was making…
"She's gearing up for war," I stated. "Coming as close to mass-production as she can. She's making dozens of small bombs, with a wide variety of horrifying effects." I gave a few examples; Battery and Velocity went a little paler. "She's putting a lot of effort into miniaturization. Some of her bombs look like they're intended for grenade launchers, probably so she can arm her troops. The rest of them, though… Too small, too short a blast radius, and they're remotely detonated. Those bombs are meant to be inserted inside people's bodies, to keep them in line. Aaand… given how other thugs seem to have scars at the base of their necks, well, I think we all get the idea."
"You can understand her tech that well?" Armsmaster sounded dubious. I launched into an explanation that he was mostly able to follow as a fellow Tinker, though it left the van's other occupants lost. Still, he seemed convinced by the end, but also very confused as to my Tinker specialization.
That pretty much killed the debate right there. No way they were letting Bakuda stay free another day after that. That only left the method of takedown up for discussion, at which point I presented my other contribution for the evening:
"Forty needles. It's enough to knock out the average person for something between 90 and 120 minutes. Weaver, how many people in that building, counting Bakuda and Oni Lee?"
"Forty-nine."
"OK, so not enough to take out everyone, but enough that handling the rest will be trivial. As for actually administering the needles… Weaver should be perfect for it, if her parahuman ability is as overpowered as I think it is."
"Overpowered?" That gave her pause. "I control bugs."
"You control thousands, tens of thousands of easily-replaced mini-drones, most of which can fly. You can process sensory input from all of them in real-time. Your spidersilk armor proves that you have utterly ludicrous multi-tasking capabilities and fine control. Considering your range, you're pretty much an A-lister in the making," I stated. "Last night, you managed to scatter dozens of ABB thugs without even revealing your presence. You can have your bugs carry the needles, prick Oni Lee and Bakuda at the same time, then thirty-eight of the remaining thugs. The rest will be easy to handle, especially with you around."
_______________
The plan went… pretty much without a hitch. I had Weaver hold out on the needles while Bakuda was working on a bomb, signalling her when it was safe to strike (an uncompleted tinkertech bomb can be pretty dangerous in itself, believe me). Oni Lee reflexively tried to teleport after getting stung, but it was too late by then. The thugs that didn't collapse were herded toward the exit by a swarm of bugs, where Battery and Velocity could handle them easily. Soon enough, the PRT was called in to handle the arrests, while I examined Bakuda - quickly identifying her toering detonator and neutralizing it.
With that done, it was mostly time for congratulations for Weaver and myself (principally coming from Miss Militia, truth be told). With, of course, some sprinkling of "we would love to have you in the Protectorate/Wards".
"I am considering the possibility," I said, "but at the moment, there are certain factors that mean I cannot really go for it - factors that also mean I think Weaver should hold off on it. And I think now's a good time to tell you about the main ones."
That got everyone's attention. I had earned some goodwill from Weaver, and some trust from the four Protectorate heroes after helping behead the ABB, so that was probably my best opportunity for this.
"The first problem is Tattletale, of the Undersiders," I explained. "She's a very high-end Thinker. Her power is a form of super-intuition that allows her to pull off deductions that would make Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cry bullshit. Among other things, she can guess passwords well enough to crack PRT computer security."
"That would explain a lot," said Armsmaster, "but how do you know that?"
"Still too early for me to reveal my source, sorry," I said. "But the second problem… well, Tattletale on her own would just be a nuisance. She wants to play at showing off how much smarter she is than everyone else, but at the end of the day, she's a manipulative bitch, not capital-E Evil. The real problem is that she is currently in the employ of Coil, who is capital-E Evil, and has zero problems with terminating people he considers a liability."
Miss Militia frowned. "Tattletale is a member of the Undersiders. Assuming you're right, does that mean the entire team is employed by Coil?"
"Sort of? Coil is cautious and methodical. He'd prefer to only have Tattletale know of his identity as the team's patron. Now, the thing is…" I took a deep breath. "Coil is also a high-level Thinker. In his case, his power is the ability to split the timeline in two." I noted the confused stares. "Basically, he activates his power, and from that moment on, he exists in two realities at once. In one reality, he performs action A. In the second reality, he performs action B. After a while, he sees which of these actions yields better results, so he keeps it, and collapses the other timeline. At which point, the timeline where he made the better choice retroactively becomes the real one.
"That's why Coil's agents - be they his mercenaries or the Undersiders - almost never lose fights: He likes to keep one timeline when they pull a job, and one where they don't. If you win, your victory - the entire fight - retroactively never happened. For all I know, you may have captured the Undersiders several times by now, except only Coil remembers."
I gave them some time to digest that information. Weaver commented that such a power was bullshit broken, though not quite in those words. Armsmaster, understandably, had his suspicions: "It's one thing to want to protect your sources, but this is pretty suspicious. How can you know all this? Are you a member of Coil's organization? Working for a rival gang, trying to undermine the competition?"
Tactful as ever, but his concern was understandable. After all, Empire 88 would love getting rid of the ABB and Coil in one fell swoop. Still, I had to nip those suspicions in the bud, and his lie detector was going to help me there. "No. I have never worked for Coil, I am not trying to take him down for the sake of another gang, I am not a villain, I never will be a villain, and I have no evil secret agenda here. I am not going to betray your trust. I have never committed any crime or felony by the law of this land, and I have every intention of keeping it that way."
He paused. "You didn't mention misdemeanors."
Now I paused. "I shall neither confirm nor deny, but, uh… what's the legal status on crossing the border without going through customs?"
"Misdemeanor," Miss Militia quickly replied with a shrug. "Can become a felony with aggravating circumstances, but the PRT can extend immunity in many cases."
"Duly noted. Though like I said, I shall neither confirm nor deny."
"The information about Coil is valuable," Battery interrupted, "but it doesn't explain your reluctance to join the Protectorate. What, just because Tattletale can hack computers for Coil?"
"If Coil discovers the full extent of what I can do, my life expectancy drops dramatically. And it's not just Tattletale. He's got spies in the PRT. And the worst part of it… Coil's true identity is Thomas Calvert. PRT contractor, runs Fortress Constructions, is maneuvering himself to become the next director of the Brockton Bay PRT branch should an unfortunate incident happen to director Piggot." I enjoyed the looks of shock. "So you understand my concern."
"Hey, man. Any other bombshell you'd like to drop while you're at it?" asked Velocity.
"I'm not sure it qualifies as a bombshell, but, there is one more thing. Coil's next big coup. At some point in the near future, he intends to abduct the mayor's niece, Dinah Alcott."
_______________
I didn't reveal Dinah's power - I figured I looked suspicious enough already, and revealing any more knowledge - even useful knowledge - might be counterproductive, making them less inclined to believe and act upon it. I made a few suggestions on how to handle Coil, but… for the next few days, I was going to trust them to handle it. Really, even cutting the man off from the resources of his Calvert identity would be enough to tremendously weaken him.
When I got back to the Palanquin, I was informed by Faultine that the sale of the first diamond batch had gone through, and I had my own sizable cut of the money, as agreed. At her request, I admitted that I'd just helped take down the remaining ABB capes… and provided her with a second batch of rough diamonds, including two that weighed over 9 carats. That apparently got her in a good enough mood to introduce me to the wonders of prepaid debit cards that didn't require you to reveal your identity to buy and use.
The order of special materials hadn't arrived yet, so I focused for now on improving the 3D-printer. This time, I put one charge in chemistry, two in automated manufacture, and two in micro-manufacturing. With that, I was able to design microscopic ultraviolet lasers (I needed the short wavelength) that the printer would be able to use to manipulate objects on the atomic scale. It would take a few hours of work, but, I could launch early production by midnight. Just check the web quickly, see if there were noteworthy events…
Hm. Looked like people were still in the process of going "holy shit" about Lung's arrest, and speculating about what exactly happened. I'll admit, I hadn't been expecting an Inspector Gadget reaction pic.
Come to think about it, what were cartoons like here?
Huh. Turned out on Earth Bet, Inspector Gadget, coming out one year after Scion's arrival, had tried to surf the parahuman wave right from the start. Gadget himself was based on some of the earliest Tinkers, Penny herself was a Thinker. Funny, that.
Episodes available online. Holy crap… In this show, Gadget was actually downright competent! He and Penny acted as deuteragonists - he was the experienced police detective who knew how to investigate crimes and kick ass, she was an endless fount of booksmarts whose abilities were required to understand the more esoteric crimes that MAD pulled. It was only those two working together who could stop Doctor Claw - and, if that pilot episode was any indication, Claw's schemes were actually a lot smarter than I would have expected from an 80s cartoon.
One more episode wouldn't hurt. And… again, that was surprisingly clever and well-written for its era. I wouldn't have expected that level of quality before the coming of BTAS.
Episode seven ended on… cool, a two-parter! And episode eight… wait, wait, what? Gadget and Penny arrested the MAD agents, but Claw was still able to complete his evil plan in a masterful Xanatos Gambit and make a killing destroying Belgium's currency? Holy crap. Respect for the writers of the show rocketing up to…
...Aaaaand it was past midnight. Eurgh. Back to work, lazy-ass!
It was around 3 AM that I was able to leave things off. The 3D-printer would produce myriads of microscopic lasers, then add them to its own structure, becoming far more efficient in the process. As for me… I needed my goddamn sleep.
I woke up at… well, before noon this time. Not completely recovered from my tiredness, but definitely feeling better.
Still, I had a busy day ahead of me. Bakuda had to be taken care of. She was the most urgent item on my to-do list.
This was the 12th of April. In canon, it was the day Taylor joined the Undersiders (though she was going to be a bit busy for that this time around). The fight with Bakuda would occur on the 15th. Dina's abduction originally took place on the 14th, though that plan might go differently if the Undersiders didn't recruit Taylor early on. Once the ABB gone, Coil might decide to unleash the E88 reveal.
Honestly, I needed a few days of peace and quiet to improve my tinkering. As was, my progress was too slow.
For now, though, I had to focus on the task at hand. The 3D-printer had done most of the work on the cyber-fly, but I needed to assemble in the bits it couldn't handle by itself, and do some quick programming. That took me several hours. At one point, I quickly checked PHO to see if Tattletale had left any message for Taylor like in canon (if she had, I wasn't seeing it); it took a supreme effort of will to return to work, rather than keep web-surfing. Procrastination's a bitch.
Still, I ended up with a mostly functional mini spy drone, and an hour to spare before I had to leave toward my appointed meeting with my (now fully charged) roller-skis. Enough time to get to work on improving the 3D-printer itself - I was losing too much time on the actual assembly of the tech.
Two charges in chemistry, three in automated production. Then, using the printer's existing "smart enzymes" to create seven new, more sophisticated ones. These new molecules would act as aggregators and dissipators for the old ones under a very specific set of conditions, allowing the 3D-printer 2.0 increased precision (ideal for crafting electronics) as well as enhanced speed (for larger parts).
...Aaaand now I was bordering on late. I had to put on the armor, excuse myself, quickly apologize to Faultline on the way out, and then, roller-ski through the last bits of the waning day's traffic.
_______________
"You're late."
I quickly apologized to Armsmaster, while observing the other capes in attendance. Taylor, obviously. Captain Ameri… er, Miss Militia. Battery. Velocity. I could speculate about the absence of Assault and Dauntless, but…
"So you're Ad Hoc?" said Velocity. "Armsmaster's been vague about you."
"Not much to tell," I shrugged, "we only talked for a few minutes. Tinker, new, independent hero. Got a lead on the location of Bakuda and Oni Lee. I think that about covers yesterday's exchange."
"And how did you find that lead?" asked Battery. "For that matter, how much do you trust it?"
"I trust it as much as I'm going to trust any lead short of my own pair of eyes," I shrugged. "But as for the first question… Right now, revealing my source will put good people in danger. I'll tell you when I feel safe about it. Hopefully soon." I pointed at Taylor. "So, has everyone been introduced to… ah, should I call you Weaver? We need something to call you for this operation."
She shrugged. "Weaver is fine I guess."
"Armsmaster introduced her as a new independent hero who helped take down Lung," said Miss Militia, "which is an impressive debut."
I wondered about the details of what Armsmaster had revealed, but now was not the time. "All right then. Anything else we should be waiting for? I've got our target's location marked," I held the D-scanner, "so, unless we're waiting for something specific…"
_______________
I was spared having to use the roller-skis - the Protectorate had borrowed a van from the PRT (one not marked with PRT colors). Soon enough, we were deep in the heart of ABB territory.
"According to my source, they've been here all day," I said, pointing at the building while looking at my D-scanner. That was true, but I was deliberately trying to leave some doubt as to the nature of my 'source'. The heroes might suspect what the D-scanner really was - with all the enormous consequences thereof - but for all they knew, it might just be a fancy tinkertech tablet with a GPS. "Weaver, can you perform a preliminary check?"
"It's full of armed thugs," she confirmed. "There's… one guy in a mask, might be Oni Lee. And there's a woman doing something at a workbench, I don't know if that's Bakuda."
"Well, sounds like we've got the right place," I said. "Let's take a few minutes to confirm it."
With that, I pulled out the fly drone, as well as the tablet display for its camera. "This… is still a prototype, but hopefully it can give us the details we need."
I quickly answered a few questions as the drone flew inside the compound, the tablet displaying what it could see. With Taylor's guidance, we quickly located the masked man, who was confirmed as Oni Lee. Then, the workshop…
"That's her," Miss Militia confirmed. "That's Bakuda."
"And luckily for us, she apparently doesn't wear her mask while she's tinkering," I grinned. "Let me observe what she's working on - before we do anything, I want to make sure we're not screwing this up."
I moved my charges around, keeping one in robotics and allocating four to bombs, and took a better look at Bakuda's work. Behind me, the Protectorate members were having a debate as to whether attacking Bakuda in her own workshop, when she wasn't in the middle of a crime, constituted escalation and/or a breach of the unwritten rules (she was, after all, on the run after almost turning her college into a crater). Their debate transitioned into explaining what the unwritten rules were to Weaver. I noticed that their explanation didn't come anywhere near making the cape situation sound like a game of cops and robbers - of course it didn't, that had been a transparent attempt by Tattletale to ease Taylor into going native in canon.
Truth be told, though, I wasn't paying close attention to what they were saying. Four points in a single specialization basically meant the equivalent of a Tinker rating 10-11. I had ideas. Time-stopping bombs. Space-warping bombs that would rip apart everything in their blast radius at the Planck level, across all dimensions. Even a bomb that would randomly turn 50% of the protons in a 50-yard range into antiprotons.
It was exhilarating and terrifying at once, but… I pushed those ideas aside, focusing instead on Bakuda's workbench. Truth be told, I had to admire her efficiency - she had managed to make herself a little bomb factory, comparable to my 3D-printer arrangement. And the bombs she was making…
"She's gearing up for war," I stated. "Coming as close to mass-production as she can. She's making dozens of small bombs, with a wide variety of horrifying effects." I gave a few examples; Battery and Velocity went a little paler. "She's putting a lot of effort into miniaturization. Some of her bombs look like they're intended for grenade launchers, probably so she can arm her troops. The rest of them, though… Too small, too short a blast radius, and they're remotely detonated. Those bombs are meant to be inserted inside people's bodies, to keep them in line. Aaand… given how other thugs seem to have scars at the base of their necks, well, I think we all get the idea."
"You can understand her tech that well?" Armsmaster sounded dubious. I launched into an explanation that he was mostly able to follow as a fellow Tinker, though it left the van's other occupants lost. Still, he seemed convinced by the end, but also very confused as to my Tinker specialization.
That pretty much killed the debate right there. No way they were letting Bakuda stay free another day after that. That only left the method of takedown up for discussion, at which point I presented my other contribution for the evening:
"Forty needles. It's enough to knock out the average person for something between 90 and 120 minutes. Weaver, how many people in that building, counting Bakuda and Oni Lee?"
"Forty-nine."
"OK, so not enough to take out everyone, but enough that handling the rest will be trivial. As for actually administering the needles… Weaver should be perfect for it, if her parahuman ability is as overpowered as I think it is."
"Overpowered?" That gave her pause. "I control bugs."
"You control thousands, tens of thousands of easily-replaced mini-drones, most of which can fly. You can process sensory input from all of them in real-time. Your spidersilk armor proves that you have utterly ludicrous multi-tasking capabilities and fine control. Considering your range, you're pretty much an A-lister in the making," I stated. "Last night, you managed to scatter dozens of ABB thugs without even revealing your presence. You can have your bugs carry the needles, prick Oni Lee and Bakuda at the same time, then thirty-eight of the remaining thugs. The rest will be easy to handle, especially with you around."
_______________
The plan went… pretty much without a hitch. I had Weaver hold out on the needles while Bakuda was working on a bomb, signalling her when it was safe to strike (an uncompleted tinkertech bomb can be pretty dangerous in itself, believe me). Oni Lee reflexively tried to teleport after getting stung, but it was too late by then. The thugs that didn't collapse were herded toward the exit by a swarm of bugs, where Battery and Velocity could handle them easily. Soon enough, the PRT was called in to handle the arrests, while I examined Bakuda - quickly identifying her toering detonator and neutralizing it.
With that done, it was mostly time for congratulations for Weaver and myself (principally coming from Miss Militia, truth be told). With, of course, some sprinkling of "we would love to have you in the Protectorate/Wards".
"I am considering the possibility," I said, "but at the moment, there are certain factors that mean I cannot really go for it - factors that also mean I think Weaver should hold off on it. And I think now's a good time to tell you about the main ones."
That got everyone's attention. I had earned some goodwill from Weaver, and some trust from the four Protectorate heroes after helping behead the ABB, so that was probably my best opportunity for this.
"The first problem is Tattletale, of the Undersiders," I explained. "She's a very high-end Thinker. Her power is a form of super-intuition that allows her to pull off deductions that would make Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cry bullshit. Among other things, she can guess passwords well enough to crack PRT computer security."
"That would explain a lot," said Armsmaster, "but how do you know that?"
"Still too early for me to reveal my source, sorry," I said. "But the second problem… well, Tattletale on her own would just be a nuisance. She wants to play at showing off how much smarter she is than everyone else, but at the end of the day, she's a manipulative bitch, not capital-E Evil. The real problem is that she is currently in the employ of Coil, who is capital-E Evil, and has zero problems with terminating people he considers a liability."
Miss Militia frowned. "Tattletale is a member of the Undersiders. Assuming you're right, does that mean the entire team is employed by Coil?"
"Sort of? Coil is cautious and methodical. He'd prefer to only have Tattletale know of his identity as the team's patron. Now, the thing is…" I took a deep breath. "Coil is also a high-level Thinker. In his case, his power is the ability to split the timeline in two." I noted the confused stares. "Basically, he activates his power, and from that moment on, he exists in two realities at once. In one reality, he performs action A. In the second reality, he performs action B. After a while, he sees which of these actions yields better results, so he keeps it, and collapses the other timeline. At which point, the timeline where he made the better choice retroactively becomes the real one.
"That's why Coil's agents - be they his mercenaries or the Undersiders - almost never lose fights: He likes to keep one timeline when they pull a job, and one where they don't. If you win, your victory - the entire fight - retroactively never happened. For all I know, you may have captured the Undersiders several times by now, except only Coil remembers."
I gave them some time to digest that information. Weaver commented that such a power was bullshit broken, though not quite in those words. Armsmaster, understandably, had his suspicions: "It's one thing to want to protect your sources, but this is pretty suspicious. How can you know all this? Are you a member of Coil's organization? Working for a rival gang, trying to undermine the competition?"
Tactful as ever, but his concern was understandable. After all, Empire 88 would love getting rid of the ABB and Coil in one fell swoop. Still, I had to nip those suspicions in the bud, and his lie detector was going to help me there. "No. I have never worked for Coil, I am not trying to take him down for the sake of another gang, I am not a villain, I never will be a villain, and I have no evil secret agenda here. I am not going to betray your trust. I have never committed any crime or felony by the law of this land, and I have every intention of keeping it that way."
He paused. "You didn't mention misdemeanors."
Now I paused. "I shall neither confirm nor deny, but, uh… what's the legal status on crossing the border without going through customs?"
"Misdemeanor," Miss Militia quickly replied with a shrug. "Can become a felony with aggravating circumstances, but the PRT can extend immunity in many cases."
"Duly noted. Though like I said, I shall neither confirm nor deny."
"The information about Coil is valuable," Battery interrupted, "but it doesn't explain your reluctance to join the Protectorate. What, just because Tattletale can hack computers for Coil?"
"If Coil discovers the full extent of what I can do, my life expectancy drops dramatically. And it's not just Tattletale. He's got spies in the PRT. And the worst part of it… Coil's true identity is Thomas Calvert. PRT contractor, runs Fortress Constructions, is maneuvering himself to become the next director of the Brockton Bay PRT branch should an unfortunate incident happen to director Piggot." I enjoyed the looks of shock. "So you understand my concern."
"Hey, man. Any other bombshell you'd like to drop while you're at it?" asked Velocity.
"I'm not sure it qualifies as a bombshell, but, there is one more thing. Coil's next big coup. At some point in the near future, he intends to abduct the mayor's niece, Dinah Alcott."
_______________
I didn't reveal Dinah's power - I figured I looked suspicious enough already, and revealing any more knowledge - even useful knowledge - might be counterproductive, making them less inclined to believe and act upon it. I made a few suggestions on how to handle Coil, but… for the next few days, I was going to trust them to handle it. Really, even cutting the man off from the resources of his Calvert identity would be enough to tremendously weaken him.
When I got back to the Palanquin, I was informed by Faultine that the sale of the first diamond batch had gone through, and I had my own sizable cut of the money, as agreed. At her request, I admitted that I'd just helped take down the remaining ABB capes… and provided her with a second batch of rough diamonds, including two that weighed over 9 carats. That apparently got her in a good enough mood to introduce me to the wonders of prepaid debit cards that didn't require you to reveal your identity to buy and use.
The order of special materials hadn't arrived yet, so I focused for now on improving the 3D-printer. This time, I put one charge in chemistry, two in automated manufacture, and two in micro-manufacturing. With that, I was able to design microscopic ultraviolet lasers (I needed the short wavelength) that the printer would be able to use to manipulate objects on the atomic scale. It would take a few hours of work, but, I could launch early production by midnight. Just check the web quickly, see if there were noteworthy events…
Hm. Looked like people were still in the process of going "holy shit" about Lung's arrest, and speculating about what exactly happened. I'll admit, I hadn't been expecting an Inspector Gadget reaction pic.
Come to think about it, what were cartoons like here?
Huh. Turned out on Earth Bet, Inspector Gadget, coming out one year after Scion's arrival, had tried to surf the parahuman wave right from the start. Gadget himself was based on some of the earliest Tinkers, Penny herself was a Thinker. Funny, that.
Episodes available online. Holy crap… In this show, Gadget was actually downright competent! He and Penny acted as deuteragonists - he was the experienced police detective who knew how to investigate crimes and kick ass, she was an endless fount of booksmarts whose abilities were required to understand the more esoteric crimes that MAD pulled. It was only those two working together who could stop Doctor Claw - and, if that pilot episode was any indication, Claw's schemes were actually a lot smarter than I would have expected from an 80s cartoon.
One more episode wouldn't hurt. And… again, that was surprisingly clever and well-written for its era. I wouldn't have expected that level of quality before the coming of BTAS.
Episode seven ended on… cool, a two-parter! And episode eight… wait, wait, what? Gadget and Penny arrested the MAD agents, but Claw was still able to complete his evil plan in a masterful Xanatos Gambit and make a killing destroying Belgium's currency? Holy crap. Respect for the writers of the show rocketing up to…
...Aaaaand it was past midnight. Eurgh. Back to work, lazy-ass!
It was around 3 AM that I was able to leave things off. The 3D-printer would produce myriads of microscopic lasers, then add them to its own structure, becoming far more efficient in the process. As for me… I needed my goddamn sleep.
6: Armor and TV
6
I woke up in the morning (well, shortly before noon) to find a 3D-printer that had, as intended, become significantly more capable than the one I'd had just a couple days earlier. It was still very, very far from the sort of fabber I wanted in the long run, but it was a major step up… which, in turn, meant an opportunity to finally turn my armor into something serviceable.
Swear to God, I only watched one episode of Inspector Gadget before I got to work. Still, I was impressed with episode 9! The Belgian boy Penny had befriended in the previous two-partner was maintaining a correspondence with her, telling her about his dad losing his job and struggling in his country's now-ruined economy. MAD displayed far more impressive resources than in previous episodes, thanks to the funds obtained via their latest scheme. Consequences and continuity? What fount of madness was this?
I did have a PHO account by this point, though I made sure to only log in via a VPN. I'd given it to the Protectorate and Weaver as a way to contact me. Presumably, Dragon would be able to track me down to the Palanquin if it came to it, but the risk of having to explain why I was crashing at Faultine's place was worth it to have a simple, hassle-free communication method. ...Though maybe I should get burner phones.
I had one PM from Miss Militia, thanking me for my assistance yesterday, and assuring me that they were working on the information I had provided. Another PM from, apparently, Taylor (I wouldn't have guessed based on username alone), addressed both to me and the four Protectorate heroes, detailing some of her further thoughts on handling Coil. I replied to both (more for politeness' sake than to provide any useful information), then went back to thinking about my tinkering schedule… and take stock of what I had so far.
I had my armor. That was comparable to, what, a Brute rating of 3? It didn't provide any form of super-strength (that would have to wait for the next model), but it did make me fireproof, as well as knife-proof and bullet-proof… except at the joints. Probably better than mundane tactical armor, but not by much.
My needle gun. Hm… Blaster 5? No more precise than any other rifle, but the Newter drug could take out even people with high Brute ratings if it got in.
My… sigh… roller skis. Mover 2 at most.
The robot fly. Handy. Equivalent to a low-level Thinker ability.
Arguably, my biggest asset at that point was the D-scanner. The ability to follow every cape within a multi-mile radius in real-time was a major intelligence asset that radically altered a city's equilibrium of forces. It was probably equivalent to a high-level Thinker power.
That, and the 3D-printer 3.0, was what I had. But about what I still needed to make?
In the long run, I had operation "Make Hephaestus cry so many tears of helpless jealousy that he dies from dehydration" - but to achieve that, I needed four extra subgoals. Some of those would require several steps to complete, and all of them required some materials I wouldn't have until Faultline brought them in. Still, some of them I could at least get started on.
But that wasn't the only thing. In a way, it was like a computer strategy game - I needed to strike a balance between what would best accelerate me toward my long-term victory condition, and what would allow me to achieve urgent objectives in the short term. Improving the 3D-printer fell under the former category, upgrading the armor fell under the latter. Having a better armor wouldn't improve my ability to build a better mousetrap, but it would improve my ability to intervene and survive if anything went wrong in the coming days.
With that in mind, I got to work.
I was sticking for now to the existing armor, but making upgrades. Giving it actual, armored joints, while also making it easy to put the armor on or remove it in a minute. Giving its visor a digital display that could connect to the internet, or to the D-scanner. Including a special gel that would stem bleeding and disinfect injuries. All improvements that, even with the new and improved 3D-printer, were going to take up most of my day.
_______________
It was going to end in tears. Piggot just knew it.
Having the ABB capes (and a large number of unpowered minions) under arrest was a good thing on its face… assuming Lung hadn't hired someone to break him out in this sort of situation (it still rankled her that Madcap got to get away with all of his crimes, considering some of the monsters he'd freed). However, now the balance of power in the city was thoroughly disrupted. Small gangs like the Merchants would be trying to expand their territory, while Empire 88 would try to take over the city. She imagined the white supremacist gang would constitute the main opposition to Protectorate forces in the coming months… reminding her, once again, that Kaiser's capes outnumbered the semi-sane ones in her city.
And then there were the newcomers responsible for the sudden shift in the status quo. Weaver and Ad Hoc. Appearing at the same time but supposedly unrelated (if you believed in coincidences, which was not Piggot's first inclination). The former a powerful Master/Thinker whose power was ideal for spying and gathering information, the latter a Tinker who just happened to have a lot of information. If it was some sort of con, it wasn't the subtlest she had seen… but the end goal was unclear.
Her first inclination at being told about Calvert had been to reject the very idea. She despised the man, but, if he hadn't triggered at Ellisburg, she doubted anything could turn him into a cape. On the other hand… did she know for sure he hadn't triggered back then? She only had his word to that effect. Sure, he'd gone to prison for a short while afterward, but… if he had the power Ad Hoc claimed he had, then he could have split the timeline then and there. Let one self go to jail, do his time, and come out with no further legal complications, while having his other self run, maybe cross the border, live outside of prison during all that time. It might have made prison much less of a problem.
She'd had a long talk with Armsmaster and the others. When all was said and done, they needed to determine if Calvert was parahuman. It was within the PRT's right to demand that he go through a brainscan… but if they brought him in for questioning and his power was as Ad Hoc had described, then he might show up to the PRT in one timeline, not come in another, and collapse the former once it became clear he'd been caught. No, what they needed was an excuse that would make him come to the Protectorate base (probably one related to Fortress Construction), then give him a good reason to split the timeline from there before springing the brain scan on him. If he did turn out to be a cape, the PRT would have justification for keeping him in observation for a while… long enough to go over the records of Thomas Calvert and Fortress Construction with a fine comb.
Of course, things would get problematic if he had a hostage, never mind the mayor's niece, who may or may not be a parahuman herself. Which was why Ramirez and Parker - the two PRT field agents who came the closest to having Piggot's full trust - had been ordered to maintain surveillance on her, discreetly. Well, that was what she'd told them in person - officially, they were on an unrelated assignment.
According to Miss Militia, Weaver claimed to also be spending some of her time watching the young Miss Alcott. She hoped nothing would come of it.
_______________
Ad Hoc disliked her.
Tattletale found that just a little worrisome. It wasn't that being on some new Tinker's shitlist was particularly frightening - sure, he'd taken down Lung, but that was just a matter of having the right tool for the job. No, it was concerning because it suggested some history between them. And at that point, she had no clue who the guy was, or who the bug Master (who wasn't actually his ally) was.
She'd followed up information on the van. It belonged to Faultine's Crew. For a while, she thought that might explain it - she and Faultline despised each other, and that dislike might have transferred to a new member if Faultline shared stories with her own spin on it. But… no, that wasn't it. Not quite.
According to Coil, in the other timeline, they had been fighting Lung, then the bug Master showed up to attack both sides, then Ad Hoc showed up and finished the fight, using that dart gun to take out first Lung, then Bitch's surviving dogs (making it easy for the Bug Master to arrest the rest of them. Some teenage girl tentatively named Weaver, according to the PRT debriefing before Coil collapsed that timeline). So… heroes. Ad Hoc was probably staying with Faultline temporarily; wanted protection while developing his (clearly still unfinished) equipment.
But… Ad Hoc had been there in time to stop Lung. He hadn't been surprised by the arrival of the Undersiders, nor worried by it. And now Bakuda and Oni Lee had been arrested.
Ad Hoc was very, very well-informed. If he didn't have a powerful Thinker ally, then she would bet his tinkertech effectively provided a Thinker sub-rating somehow.
Fucking Tinkers.
_______________
It still wasn't the nec plus ultra of tinkertech, but my armor at least wasn't junk now. And it was barely time for dinner! Maybe I was finally getting the hang of this.
One dinner later, I was back in my workshop. Still several hours to burn. A quick check on the local news… Huh. The PRT hadn't publicized yet the arrest of Bakuda and Oni Lee. Probably hoping to delay the gang war by a couple of days while the Protectorate helped the police clean up ABB territory.
OK. Just check three episodes of Inspector Gadget. Not one more!
I only watched three. I also spent two hours going over other 80s cartoons. Apparently, on Earth Bet, when DIC stopped making Care Bears cartoons and Nelvana picked up the torch, they managed to keep Professor Cold Heart as their antagonist, instead of replacing him with No Heart. Good call - No Heart may have had the evil sorcerer of doom thing down pat, but Cold Heart was more interesting in my opinion. So, another point for Earth Bet there!
That probably built up my expectations for the original My Little Pony. This time, I was disappointed. It was a saccharine, harmless show, devoid of conflict and the gallery of magic and monsters that I had loved in my world's version. Where was Tirac and his attempt to bring about the Night That Never Ends? Where was Grogar and his interdimensional invasion? Where was the Nazi penguin!? Why didn't this show have a Nazi penguin!?
Ah, dammit. 10 PM already. Fuck you, procrastination.
I'd thought earlier about the balance between building up for long-term growth, and filling short-term needs. There was one thing at least I could still do for the long-term… Something I should have started on hours ago.
Three Tinker charges in software engineering. One charge in efficiency. One charge in technical ease of use. It was time to code a software library.
Programming my D-scanner, and even more so the robot fly, had taken more time than it should have. I need to create a library of functions that I could assemble like lego blocks, instead of having to do everything from scratch every time I needed something programmed.
In a way, this felt different from my previous Tinkering. I had actual real-world experience in programming. I had a degree in computer science, for what it was worth. So, having Tinker charges in it… really drove in just how big a difference being a Tinker made in my ability. It was almost humbling, in a way.
Three hours and over a thousand lines of code later (if you counted lines that only contained a curly brace), I only had the early start of a functional software library.
But it was a start.
I woke up in the morning (well, shortly before noon) to find a 3D-printer that had, as intended, become significantly more capable than the one I'd had just a couple days earlier. It was still very, very far from the sort of fabber I wanted in the long run, but it was a major step up… which, in turn, meant an opportunity to finally turn my armor into something serviceable.
Swear to God, I only watched one episode of Inspector Gadget before I got to work. Still, I was impressed with episode 9! The Belgian boy Penny had befriended in the previous two-partner was maintaining a correspondence with her, telling her about his dad losing his job and struggling in his country's now-ruined economy. MAD displayed far more impressive resources than in previous episodes, thanks to the funds obtained via their latest scheme. Consequences and continuity? What fount of madness was this?
I did have a PHO account by this point, though I made sure to only log in via a VPN. I'd given it to the Protectorate and Weaver as a way to contact me. Presumably, Dragon would be able to track me down to the Palanquin if it came to it, but the risk of having to explain why I was crashing at Faultine's place was worth it to have a simple, hassle-free communication method. ...Though maybe I should get burner phones.
I had one PM from Miss Militia, thanking me for my assistance yesterday, and assuring me that they were working on the information I had provided. Another PM from, apparently, Taylor (I wouldn't have guessed based on username alone), addressed both to me and the four Protectorate heroes, detailing some of her further thoughts on handling Coil. I replied to both (more for politeness' sake than to provide any useful information), then went back to thinking about my tinkering schedule… and take stock of what I had so far.
I had my armor. That was comparable to, what, a Brute rating of 3? It didn't provide any form of super-strength (that would have to wait for the next model), but it did make me fireproof, as well as knife-proof and bullet-proof… except at the joints. Probably better than mundane tactical armor, but not by much.
My needle gun. Hm… Blaster 5? No more precise than any other rifle, but the Newter drug could take out even people with high Brute ratings if it got in.
My… sigh… roller skis. Mover 2 at most.
The robot fly. Handy. Equivalent to a low-level Thinker ability.
Arguably, my biggest asset at that point was the D-scanner. The ability to follow every cape within a multi-mile radius in real-time was a major intelligence asset that radically altered a city's equilibrium of forces. It was probably equivalent to a high-level Thinker power.
That, and the 3D-printer 3.0, was what I had. But about what I still needed to make?
In the long run, I had operation "Make Hephaestus cry so many tears of helpless jealousy that he dies from dehydration" - but to achieve that, I needed four extra subgoals. Some of those would require several steps to complete, and all of them required some materials I wouldn't have until Faultline brought them in. Still, some of them I could at least get started on.
But that wasn't the only thing. In a way, it was like a computer strategy game - I needed to strike a balance between what would best accelerate me toward my long-term victory condition, and what would allow me to achieve urgent objectives in the short term. Improving the 3D-printer fell under the former category, upgrading the armor fell under the latter. Having a better armor wouldn't improve my ability to build a better mousetrap, but it would improve my ability to intervene and survive if anything went wrong in the coming days.
With that in mind, I got to work.
I was sticking for now to the existing armor, but making upgrades. Giving it actual, armored joints, while also making it easy to put the armor on or remove it in a minute. Giving its visor a digital display that could connect to the internet, or to the D-scanner. Including a special gel that would stem bleeding and disinfect injuries. All improvements that, even with the new and improved 3D-printer, were going to take up most of my day.
_______________
It was going to end in tears. Piggot just knew it.
Having the ABB capes (and a large number of unpowered minions) under arrest was a good thing on its face… assuming Lung hadn't hired someone to break him out in this sort of situation (it still rankled her that Madcap got to get away with all of his crimes, considering some of the monsters he'd freed). However, now the balance of power in the city was thoroughly disrupted. Small gangs like the Merchants would be trying to expand their territory, while Empire 88 would try to take over the city. She imagined the white supremacist gang would constitute the main opposition to Protectorate forces in the coming months… reminding her, once again, that Kaiser's capes outnumbered the semi-sane ones in her city.
And then there were the newcomers responsible for the sudden shift in the status quo. Weaver and Ad Hoc. Appearing at the same time but supposedly unrelated (if you believed in coincidences, which was not Piggot's first inclination). The former a powerful Master/Thinker whose power was ideal for spying and gathering information, the latter a Tinker who just happened to have a lot of information. If it was some sort of con, it wasn't the subtlest she had seen… but the end goal was unclear.
Her first inclination at being told about Calvert had been to reject the very idea. She despised the man, but, if he hadn't triggered at Ellisburg, she doubted anything could turn him into a cape. On the other hand… did she know for sure he hadn't triggered back then? She only had his word to that effect. Sure, he'd gone to prison for a short while afterward, but… if he had the power Ad Hoc claimed he had, then he could have split the timeline then and there. Let one self go to jail, do his time, and come out with no further legal complications, while having his other self run, maybe cross the border, live outside of prison during all that time. It might have made prison much less of a problem.
She'd had a long talk with Armsmaster and the others. When all was said and done, they needed to determine if Calvert was parahuman. It was within the PRT's right to demand that he go through a brainscan… but if they brought him in for questioning and his power was as Ad Hoc had described, then he might show up to the PRT in one timeline, not come in another, and collapse the former once it became clear he'd been caught. No, what they needed was an excuse that would make him come to the Protectorate base (probably one related to Fortress Construction), then give him a good reason to split the timeline from there before springing the brain scan on him. If he did turn out to be a cape, the PRT would have justification for keeping him in observation for a while… long enough to go over the records of Thomas Calvert and Fortress Construction with a fine comb.
Of course, things would get problematic if he had a hostage, never mind the mayor's niece, who may or may not be a parahuman herself. Which was why Ramirez and Parker - the two PRT field agents who came the closest to having Piggot's full trust - had been ordered to maintain surveillance on her, discreetly. Well, that was what she'd told them in person - officially, they were on an unrelated assignment.
According to Miss Militia, Weaver claimed to also be spending some of her time watching the young Miss Alcott. She hoped nothing would come of it.
_______________
Ad Hoc disliked her.
Tattletale found that just a little worrisome. It wasn't that being on some new Tinker's shitlist was particularly frightening - sure, he'd taken down Lung, but that was just a matter of having the right tool for the job. No, it was concerning because it suggested some history between them. And at that point, she had no clue who the guy was, or who the bug Master (who wasn't actually his ally) was.
She'd followed up information on the van. It belonged to Faultine's Crew. For a while, she thought that might explain it - she and Faultline despised each other, and that dislike might have transferred to a new member if Faultline shared stories with her own spin on it. But… no, that wasn't it. Not quite.
According to Coil, in the other timeline, they had been fighting Lung, then the bug Master showed up to attack both sides, then Ad Hoc showed up and finished the fight, using that dart gun to take out first Lung, then Bitch's surviving dogs (making it easy for the Bug Master to arrest the rest of them. Some teenage girl tentatively named Weaver, according to the PRT debriefing before Coil collapsed that timeline). So… heroes. Ad Hoc was probably staying with Faultline temporarily; wanted protection while developing his (clearly still unfinished) equipment.
But… Ad Hoc had been there in time to stop Lung. He hadn't been surprised by the arrival of the Undersiders, nor worried by it. And now Bakuda and Oni Lee had been arrested.
Ad Hoc was very, very well-informed. If he didn't have a powerful Thinker ally, then she would bet his tinkertech effectively provided a Thinker sub-rating somehow.
Fucking Tinkers.
_______________
It still wasn't the nec plus ultra of tinkertech, but my armor at least wasn't junk now. And it was barely time for dinner! Maybe I was finally getting the hang of this.
One dinner later, I was back in my workshop. Still several hours to burn. A quick check on the local news… Huh. The PRT hadn't publicized yet the arrest of Bakuda and Oni Lee. Probably hoping to delay the gang war by a couple of days while the Protectorate helped the police clean up ABB territory.
OK. Just check three episodes of Inspector Gadget. Not one more!
I only watched three. I also spent two hours going over other 80s cartoons. Apparently, on Earth Bet, when DIC stopped making Care Bears cartoons and Nelvana picked up the torch, they managed to keep Professor Cold Heart as their antagonist, instead of replacing him with No Heart. Good call - No Heart may have had the evil sorcerer of doom thing down pat, but Cold Heart was more interesting in my opinion. So, another point for Earth Bet there!
That probably built up my expectations for the original My Little Pony. This time, I was disappointed. It was a saccharine, harmless show, devoid of conflict and the gallery of magic and monsters that I had loved in my world's version. Where was Tirac and his attempt to bring about the Night That Never Ends? Where was Grogar and his interdimensional invasion? Where was the Nazi penguin!? Why didn't this show have a Nazi penguin!?
Ah, dammit. 10 PM already. Fuck you, procrastination.
I'd thought earlier about the balance between building up for long-term growth, and filling short-term needs. There was one thing at least I could still do for the long-term… Something I should have started on hours ago.
Three Tinker charges in software engineering. One charge in efficiency. One charge in technical ease of use. It was time to code a software library.
Programming my D-scanner, and even more so the robot fly, had taken more time than it should have. I need to create a library of functions that I could assemble like lego blocks, instead of having to do everything from scratch every time I needed something programmed.
In a way, this felt different from my previous Tinkering. I had actual real-world experience in programming. I had a degree in computer science, for what it was worth. So, having Tinker charges in it… really drove in just how big a difference being a Tinker made in my ability. It was almost humbling, in a way.
Three hours and over a thousand lines of code later (if you counted lines that only contained a curly brace), I only had the early start of a functional software library.
But it was a start.
7: Coil
7
Morning. More specifically, the morning of the 14th. In canon, this would be the day of the bank robbery that started Taylor's downward spiral into crime, and accelerated Panacea's downward spiral into emotional fragility.
In this timeline, however, I wasn't even certain the bank robbery would take place. The Undersiders didn't have a powerful new recruit, after all. Coil might prefer to wait a little longer, or the Undersiders might pick a safer target. If they did try the same plan as in canon, I suspected they were screwed - without Taylor on their side, I rated their chance against the combined might of the Wards (sans Sophia) and the Dallon sisters pretty low.
And, truth be told? I wasn't going to concern myself with it too much. There were more important things that needed to be handled urgently. I was, after all, in a race against time, scrambling to become powerful enough to handle the S-class threats before they handled me.
So, a quick check on the news (both regular, and the PHO news section). Getting the latest batch of diamonds, synthesized overnight, from the 3D-printer. Then… back to working on the code library.
Despite the sense of wonder at how good my new coding skills were, it was still drudgery. So I took some measure of pride in my working on it for three hours straight with no real interruption. Thanks to my efficiency specialization, this code was tight - accomplishing amazingly much with very few lines and codes, and very few computations. Thanks to my ease-of-use specialization, it was intuitive in the extreme; I tested that aspect for a bit by turning all my Tinker abilities off for a few minutes, and trying to use the software library. Five minutes later, I had a working game of Tetris. I could already tell that there were light-years of mileage to be had from that specific specialization.
Since yesterday, I'd coded dozens of functions for my library. They were all fairly simple, intended to perform actions that would often be required in programs I would write at a future date - thus allowing me to create future software at a greatly accelerated pace. Still, I wasn't done. I needed to create a second tier of functions, built from the first tier I had just finished. It would cover more advanced needs.
After lunch.
_______________
Thomas Calvert had realized a long time ago that what you had mattered less than what you did with it.
Take his powers. In most people's hands, they would be a handy trick. It took a methodical mind like his own to optimize them, use them to their fullest potential. It was that methodical approach that had made him one of the strongest forces in the city, without anyone even realizing it.
The actual takeover of Brockton Bay would still take some time, but when it went through, he would have greater control over it than any other man in the country had over a single city. Oh, there were still steps to be taken. He had to take over city hall, which involved generous bribes and torpedoing mayor Christner's career… probably by arranging an escalation in cape violence. He had to take over the criminal element… thankfully, the ABB was out, E88 would lose much of its power once he exposed their identities (Tattletale had been invaluable there), and everyone else could be dealt with (especially once the recruitment of the Travelers went through). He had to take over the PRT… And he had plans there, too.
He'd been working at it for a while, really. Sponsoring the Undersiders, ensuring with his powers that they never botched a job. Bits and pieces of bad info fed to the PRT, ensuring certain losses (when those wouldn't strengthen the rival gangs too much). Building up an escalation the local Protectorate couldn't win, and taking steps to ensure the damage would be both massive and highly visible (He hoped, he truly hoped, that when he outed Purity, child services would take her daughter. It was hard to perfectly arrange such events). Ultimately, the local PRT would have to appear hopelessly outmatched (which it was)... at which point he could step in, replace Piggot, and save the day for all to see.
At the moment, though, he had to meet Piggot. Something about his contractor job. Just to be safe, he stayed at his hidden lair in one timeline.
As he walked through Protectorate Island, he recognized the unmistakable signs of Master-Stranger protocols being implemented. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Velocity… just how many capes had gotten into trouble? And no less importantly, what Master/Stranger had come to Brockton Bay to warrant such caution? Wait, was that the mayor going through those protocols?!
By the time he met Piggot and got some explanations, he was only getting increasingly worried. A new villain in town, who could give you orders, then make you forget the entire encounter, leaving said orders in your mind like a post-hypnotic suggestion. A villain who had apparently been targeting people in power, especially those associated with the PRT in one fashion or another, weaving some kind of plot. Now, he doubted he'd had a run-in with that villain himself… with his powers, it would have been far easier to catch. But having this sort of rival schemer in town was troubling. More troubling was what came next: Some of the villain's targets, apparently under his control already, had dropped off the map when the PRT had tried to contact them. So now, the PRT was questioning possible targets… and, if it turned out they had had an encounter, they were kept for observation for a week minimum, their brain carefully scanned for insight into the newcomer's power.
He couldn't just refuse to submit to the test, stick to the timeline where he hadn't shown up - his Calvert identity would be hunted down by the PRT. Too many assets would be lost, including his hope of replacing Piggot as director. As such, he accepted to go through their questioning.
His interrogator turned out to be a fresh-faced rookie. Easy to read. With the first few questions about his memories, it became easy to tell when he had given the answer the interrogator hoped for - the one that showed no sign of altered memory.
But the questions got trickier. He wasn't sure at certain points which answer was safe. So he started splitting the timeline there. Without that, he would have given a few "wrong" answers.
Eventually, the questions were over. There was no sign of his having been compromised.
His stomach fell as Piggot, flanked by Battery, ordered him to submit to a brain scan to check his corrona pollentia.
_______________
During lunch, I was delighted to see that the rare elements and components I had ordered had finally arrived. Faultline took that opportunity to take the latest batch of diamonds off my hands, She'd apparently managed to secure a buyer in New York who was interested in a large shipment.
Back in my workshop, I had to consider. I wanted to finish my code library… but if I went straight back to that, then nothing else productive would be going on at the time. If I went instead back to the projects for which I had needed the exotic elements in the first place, I could program the 3D-printer to work on them while I coded.
Augh. Time management.
I cycled through Tinker specializations, checking again the path I needed to follow. Hm. No getting around it… for the next bit, I was going to need more energy than I could get from the electric outlet.
One charge in chemistry, one in automated manufacturing (i.e., the standard loadout needed to use my 3D-printer), and three in energy tech. And oh… so many ideas. Workable nuclear fusion. Generators that convert matter directly into energy. Wormholes that plug into the heart of the sun.
I ended up going with something that wouldn't be too resource- or time-expensive for now. Macromolecules with a special structure that allows them to tap into virtual particles for energy. It took me a while to design the generator I needed, but finally, I set the printer to work. This would take several more hours, so… back to coding.
After a one-hour break to watch the local version of Inspector Gadget, that is. Interesting… four times out of five, Gadget and Penny would foil MAD's plan. But that fifth or so time, Doctor Claw would manage to attain his main objective, leaving his organization all the stronger. That two-parter in episodes seven-eight had been the first example: At first, it had looked like a simple, if massive, counterfeiting scheme. Gadget and his niece arrested the MAD agents trying to counterfeit billions in Belgian currency. Victory, right? Except that Claw made it look like a huge shipment of counterfeit bills had already gone through. People panicked, trying to exchange their Belgian currency for American Dollars, Japanese Yens and so forth. By the time the heroes realized the real plot, it was too late - the Belgian currency had lost most of its value, and MAD had made a fortune short-selling it. All episodes after that had MAD throwing money around like crazy to advance their evil plots.
The same pattern would repeat every time MAD succeeded at something. Sure, they'd lose agents and resources to Gadget… but what they gained was enough that they were, overall, becoming a bigger threat over time. I was now genuinely curious to see how it would end. Additionally, I found myself reminded of what Taylor had told Saint in the later Worm arcs - that whole bit about how playing defense was a loser's game, because the attacker had the initiative.
At the time, it had struck me as an oversimplification. After all, in the real world, police was "playing defense" against criminals… and while crime existed, it didn't rule.
But… there was a key difference between my world and Earth Bet. Parahumans.
Because, in my world, no matter how strong, or fast, or well-trained you were, you were still saddled with human limitations. There was no such thing as a one-man army. True power didn't come from how much ass you could kick, but from collective effort. The police could maintain order (to an extent) because they were the expression of the laws of the nation (to an extent), recruited from the population, armed and funded thanks to nationwide tax money. Criminals didn't have that sheer scale.
The reason Earth Bet was so screwed up (...well, beside Endbringers and the drive for conflict instilled by shards) was that, with so much power directly in the hand of a few individuals, it was possible for a small number of criminals to go against even a large police. It wasn't like the government could just spend more money on training more parahumans - you couldn't train parahumans, they either triggered or they didn't. Unless you were Cauldron, but in that case, you were screwed anyway by your own criminal incompetence.
I had some ideas on how to resolve this matter, but… well, I was procrastinating again. Back to coding.
_______________
"So he really was parahuman," said Miss Militia. "That part of Ad Hoc's story checks out."
"That still doesn't prove he's Coil," said director Piggot. "Or that his power is what Ad Hoc claims it was. Still, it's enough to justify keeping him in observation while we investigate Thomas Calvert." She paused. "Always knew he was a snake."
"Should we inform Ad Hoc?"
"For now? No. Ad Hoc isn't part of this investigation. We'll see if he comes to us. Just focus on cleaning ABB territory, the Empire is wising up."
_______________
I now had a few dozens of second-tier functions, using the first-tier functions as lego bricks, forming more complex bricks. In my estimation, using this software library would reduce the amount of time I had to spend coding stuff by at least an order of magnitude.
No less importantly, the printer was done making the parts for my new generator. Some assembly required.
Some assembly later, I had a generator that could produce dozens of megawatts - enough to power several blocks. I also had microscopic filaments of electric wires made of room-temperature superconductors, and a host of fun ideas about what to do with a lot of energy to spare.
Three Tinker charges in exotic matter engineering. Whoa.
At that point, thanks to a hyper-precise printer, the rare elements, and a ton of energy to burn, I could get working on micro-reactors designed to create types of non-baryonic matter not usually seen on Earth (and in a few cases, only vaguely suspected by theoretical physicists). As I set it to work, I sat back in front of the computer and relaxed in front of my TV shows.
Less than an hour later, Faultline was biting my head off about my tinkertech experiment heating up the entire Palanquin, to the point of discomforting the clubgoers. I apologized profusely, turned off the generator, and promised to be more careful.
Goddammit. I had known, in the back of my head, that this was almost guaranteed to happen. This much energy… some was lost in the form of heat. Even with a system as efficient as I had been able to make. And at this order of magnitude, even a tiny fraction of the energy was enough to heat the whole building up.
I'd known about the problem and ignored it, because I wanted to be done already. So goddamn illogical. Even when I was working, I was procrastinating.
Sigh. No helping it. I put three Tinker charges in cryotechnology. Several hours later (and using up some of my rare elements in the process), I had my own freeze ray. Eat your icicle out, Professor Cold Heart.
Well, what the freeze ray actually did was bombard objects with particles charged with anti-energy. Upon contacts with particles charged with regular energy (generally speaking, warm objects), the energy and anti-energy mutually annihilated, turning into a shower of neutrinos that went off to disappear into the cosmos. For now, I was using the freeze ray as a cooling system for my generator.
Aaaand we were past midnight. I programmed the whole thing to keep producing exotic matter through the night, spent a little while surfing PHO (Why yes, I can procrastinate on the act of going to bed), and finally went to sleep.
Morning. More specifically, the morning of the 14th. In canon, this would be the day of the bank robbery that started Taylor's downward spiral into crime, and accelerated Panacea's downward spiral into emotional fragility.
In this timeline, however, I wasn't even certain the bank robbery would take place. The Undersiders didn't have a powerful new recruit, after all. Coil might prefer to wait a little longer, or the Undersiders might pick a safer target. If they did try the same plan as in canon, I suspected they were screwed - without Taylor on their side, I rated their chance against the combined might of the Wards (sans Sophia) and the Dallon sisters pretty low.
And, truth be told? I wasn't going to concern myself with it too much. There were more important things that needed to be handled urgently. I was, after all, in a race against time, scrambling to become powerful enough to handle the S-class threats before they handled me.
So, a quick check on the news (both regular, and the PHO news section). Getting the latest batch of diamonds, synthesized overnight, from the 3D-printer. Then… back to working on the code library.
Despite the sense of wonder at how good my new coding skills were, it was still drudgery. So I took some measure of pride in my working on it for three hours straight with no real interruption. Thanks to my efficiency specialization, this code was tight - accomplishing amazingly much with very few lines and codes, and very few computations. Thanks to my ease-of-use specialization, it was intuitive in the extreme; I tested that aspect for a bit by turning all my Tinker abilities off for a few minutes, and trying to use the software library. Five minutes later, I had a working game of Tetris. I could already tell that there were light-years of mileage to be had from that specific specialization.
Since yesterday, I'd coded dozens of functions for my library. They were all fairly simple, intended to perform actions that would often be required in programs I would write at a future date - thus allowing me to create future software at a greatly accelerated pace. Still, I wasn't done. I needed to create a second tier of functions, built from the first tier I had just finished. It would cover more advanced needs.
After lunch.
_______________
Thomas Calvert had realized a long time ago that what you had mattered less than what you did with it.
Take his powers. In most people's hands, they would be a handy trick. It took a methodical mind like his own to optimize them, use them to their fullest potential. It was that methodical approach that had made him one of the strongest forces in the city, without anyone even realizing it.
The actual takeover of Brockton Bay would still take some time, but when it went through, he would have greater control over it than any other man in the country had over a single city. Oh, there were still steps to be taken. He had to take over city hall, which involved generous bribes and torpedoing mayor Christner's career… probably by arranging an escalation in cape violence. He had to take over the criminal element… thankfully, the ABB was out, E88 would lose much of its power once he exposed their identities (Tattletale had been invaluable there), and everyone else could be dealt with (especially once the recruitment of the Travelers went through). He had to take over the PRT… And he had plans there, too.
He'd been working at it for a while, really. Sponsoring the Undersiders, ensuring with his powers that they never botched a job. Bits and pieces of bad info fed to the PRT, ensuring certain losses (when those wouldn't strengthen the rival gangs too much). Building up an escalation the local Protectorate couldn't win, and taking steps to ensure the damage would be both massive and highly visible (He hoped, he truly hoped, that when he outed Purity, child services would take her daughter. It was hard to perfectly arrange such events). Ultimately, the local PRT would have to appear hopelessly outmatched (which it was)... at which point he could step in, replace Piggot, and save the day for all to see.
At the moment, though, he had to meet Piggot. Something about his contractor job. Just to be safe, he stayed at his hidden lair in one timeline.
As he walked through Protectorate Island, he recognized the unmistakable signs of Master-Stranger protocols being implemented. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Velocity… just how many capes had gotten into trouble? And no less importantly, what Master/Stranger had come to Brockton Bay to warrant such caution? Wait, was that the mayor going through those protocols?!
By the time he met Piggot and got some explanations, he was only getting increasingly worried. A new villain in town, who could give you orders, then make you forget the entire encounter, leaving said orders in your mind like a post-hypnotic suggestion. A villain who had apparently been targeting people in power, especially those associated with the PRT in one fashion or another, weaving some kind of plot. Now, he doubted he'd had a run-in with that villain himself… with his powers, it would have been far easier to catch. But having this sort of rival schemer in town was troubling. More troubling was what came next: Some of the villain's targets, apparently under his control already, had dropped off the map when the PRT had tried to contact them. So now, the PRT was questioning possible targets… and, if it turned out they had had an encounter, they were kept for observation for a week minimum, their brain carefully scanned for insight into the newcomer's power.
He couldn't just refuse to submit to the test, stick to the timeline where he hadn't shown up - his Calvert identity would be hunted down by the PRT. Too many assets would be lost, including his hope of replacing Piggot as director. As such, he accepted to go through their questioning.
His interrogator turned out to be a fresh-faced rookie. Easy to read. With the first few questions about his memories, it became easy to tell when he had given the answer the interrogator hoped for - the one that showed no sign of altered memory.
But the questions got trickier. He wasn't sure at certain points which answer was safe. So he started splitting the timeline there. Without that, he would have given a few "wrong" answers.
Eventually, the questions were over. There was no sign of his having been compromised.
His stomach fell as Piggot, flanked by Battery, ordered him to submit to a brain scan to check his corrona pollentia.
_______________
During lunch, I was delighted to see that the rare elements and components I had ordered had finally arrived. Faultline took that opportunity to take the latest batch of diamonds off my hands, She'd apparently managed to secure a buyer in New York who was interested in a large shipment.
Back in my workshop, I had to consider. I wanted to finish my code library… but if I went straight back to that, then nothing else productive would be going on at the time. If I went instead back to the projects for which I had needed the exotic elements in the first place, I could program the 3D-printer to work on them while I coded.
Augh. Time management.
I cycled through Tinker specializations, checking again the path I needed to follow. Hm. No getting around it… for the next bit, I was going to need more energy than I could get from the electric outlet.
One charge in chemistry, one in automated manufacturing (i.e., the standard loadout needed to use my 3D-printer), and three in energy tech. And oh… so many ideas. Workable nuclear fusion. Generators that convert matter directly into energy. Wormholes that plug into the heart of the sun.
I ended up going with something that wouldn't be too resource- or time-expensive for now. Macromolecules with a special structure that allows them to tap into virtual particles for energy. It took me a while to design the generator I needed, but finally, I set the printer to work. This would take several more hours, so… back to coding.
After a one-hour break to watch the local version of Inspector Gadget, that is. Interesting… four times out of five, Gadget and Penny would foil MAD's plan. But that fifth or so time, Doctor Claw would manage to attain his main objective, leaving his organization all the stronger. That two-parter in episodes seven-eight had been the first example: At first, it had looked like a simple, if massive, counterfeiting scheme. Gadget and his niece arrested the MAD agents trying to counterfeit billions in Belgian currency. Victory, right? Except that Claw made it look like a huge shipment of counterfeit bills had already gone through. People panicked, trying to exchange their Belgian currency for American Dollars, Japanese Yens and so forth. By the time the heroes realized the real plot, it was too late - the Belgian currency had lost most of its value, and MAD had made a fortune short-selling it. All episodes after that had MAD throwing money around like crazy to advance their evil plots.
The same pattern would repeat every time MAD succeeded at something. Sure, they'd lose agents and resources to Gadget… but what they gained was enough that they were, overall, becoming a bigger threat over time. I was now genuinely curious to see how it would end. Additionally, I found myself reminded of what Taylor had told Saint in the later Worm arcs - that whole bit about how playing defense was a loser's game, because the attacker had the initiative.
At the time, it had struck me as an oversimplification. After all, in the real world, police was "playing defense" against criminals… and while crime existed, it didn't rule.
But… there was a key difference between my world and Earth Bet. Parahumans.
Because, in my world, no matter how strong, or fast, or well-trained you were, you were still saddled with human limitations. There was no such thing as a one-man army. True power didn't come from how much ass you could kick, but from collective effort. The police could maintain order (to an extent) because they were the expression of the laws of the nation (to an extent), recruited from the population, armed and funded thanks to nationwide tax money. Criminals didn't have that sheer scale.
The reason Earth Bet was so screwed up (...well, beside Endbringers and the drive for conflict instilled by shards) was that, with so much power directly in the hand of a few individuals, it was possible for a small number of criminals to go against even a large police. It wasn't like the government could just spend more money on training more parahumans - you couldn't train parahumans, they either triggered or they didn't. Unless you were Cauldron, but in that case, you were screwed anyway by your own criminal incompetence.
I had some ideas on how to resolve this matter, but… well, I was procrastinating again. Back to coding.
_______________
"So he really was parahuman," said Miss Militia. "That part of Ad Hoc's story checks out."
"That still doesn't prove he's Coil," said director Piggot. "Or that his power is what Ad Hoc claims it was. Still, it's enough to justify keeping him in observation while we investigate Thomas Calvert." She paused. "Always knew he was a snake."
"Should we inform Ad Hoc?"
"For now? No. Ad Hoc isn't part of this investigation. We'll see if he comes to us. Just focus on cleaning ABB territory, the Empire is wising up."
_______________
I now had a few dozens of second-tier functions, using the first-tier functions as lego bricks, forming more complex bricks. In my estimation, using this software library would reduce the amount of time I had to spend coding stuff by at least an order of magnitude.
No less importantly, the printer was done making the parts for my new generator. Some assembly required.
Some assembly later, I had a generator that could produce dozens of megawatts - enough to power several blocks. I also had microscopic filaments of electric wires made of room-temperature superconductors, and a host of fun ideas about what to do with a lot of energy to spare.
Three Tinker charges in exotic matter engineering. Whoa.
At that point, thanks to a hyper-precise printer, the rare elements, and a ton of energy to burn, I could get working on micro-reactors designed to create types of non-baryonic matter not usually seen on Earth (and in a few cases, only vaguely suspected by theoretical physicists). As I set it to work, I sat back in front of the computer and relaxed in front of my TV shows.
Less than an hour later, Faultline was biting my head off about my tinkertech experiment heating up the entire Palanquin, to the point of discomforting the clubgoers. I apologized profusely, turned off the generator, and promised to be more careful.
Goddammit. I had known, in the back of my head, that this was almost guaranteed to happen. This much energy… some was lost in the form of heat. Even with a system as efficient as I had been able to make. And at this order of magnitude, even a tiny fraction of the energy was enough to heat the whole building up.
I'd known about the problem and ignored it, because I wanted to be done already. So goddamn illogical. Even when I was working, I was procrastinating.
Sigh. No helping it. I put three Tinker charges in cryotechnology. Several hours later (and using up some of my rare elements in the process), I had my own freeze ray. Eat your icicle out, Professor Cold Heart.
Well, what the freeze ray actually did was bombard objects with particles charged with anti-energy. Upon contacts with particles charged with regular energy (generally speaking, warm objects), the energy and anti-energy mutually annihilated, turning into a shower of neutrinos that went off to disappear into the cosmos. For now, I was using the freeze ray as a cooling system for my generator.
Aaaand we were past midnight. I programmed the whole thing to keep producing exotic matter through the night, spent a little while surfing PHO (Why yes, I can procrastinate on the act of going to bed), and finally went to sleep.
8: Matter Summoner
8
April the 15th. In canon, the day of Bakuda's attack on the Undersiders. Wasn't going to happen, of course - I'd sent Bakuda to jail, and the news had mentioned no major crime by the Undersiders yesterday. Checking the news, though, people were apparently aware that the Protectorate and the police were arresting gangbangers all over ABB territory, and drawing the logical conclusion. Empire 88 (and to a lesser extent the Merchants) would soon be on the move. I hoped to be able to stop them, but they weren't my highest priority - at the end of the day, as awful as it was, E88 wasn't going to cause the kind of devastation that my main targets were capable of. So, as much as punching Nazis may have been a superheroic staple… it would only happen if circumstances allowed.
I checked the exotic matter generator, and was pleased that it had done its work. I had small samples of many strange and unusual things - negative mass, imaginary mass, hyperdimenstional molecules, stable glasma, stable neutronium, solidified dark matter, exotic baryons, and more. All of them in minuscule, in some cases microscopic amounts… but that was all right. I didn't need more for the next phase.
Three charges in dimensional technology. It was time to outdo Professor Haywire.
But hoooo boy. Even with my generator, even with my advanced 3D-printer, even with my enhanced code-library… this one was going to take all day.
Accounting for breaks, of course.
_______________
Tattletale blinked, observing the data from the PRT's network (they'd upped security recently, but that wasn't enough to fully keep her out).
They were holding a Thomas Calvert under observation. He was suspected of being a powerful Thinker villain.
Some additional investigation into Calvert's character left her convinced of the emerging truth:
Calvert was Coil.
The PRT suspected Calvert was Coil.
The PRT suspected the true nature of Coil's powers.
Coil was being held in the PRT's custody in all his timelines.
Calvert being Coil was a huge embarrassment to the PRT, and something they would rather keep the lid on… but they couldn't let him go free.
The PRT was trying to find enough evidence against Calvert to put him away.
Coil was currently away from his base, completely helpless.
This was a unique opportunity - an opportunity to finally break free of Coil. She could just run, leave the city while he was under observation. Even if the PRT's investigation failed and they ultimately had to release him, it would take several days - long enough that she could be on the West coast by then, without having to worry about his timeline tricks stopping her.
The downside of that approach was that she'd only have what money she currently owned (which, to be fair, was enough to live on comfortably for a good while), and that the rest of the Undersiders wouldn't follow. Both were factors she could live with… but, why settle for less? She could beat Coil. Truly beat him. By hitting his base, she could find enough evidence to have him put away for life, and forward it to the PRT. He'd be out of her hair for good, and she might be able to scrunge up a chunk of his funds. Possibly a large chunk.
The rest of the Undersiders still relied on Coil for certain things. Bitch just wanted money to take care of her dogs. Regent, Grue… she might be able to help them out after raiding Coil's base. Probably. She was, after all, pretty good.
That said, she wasn't confident she could bring them on board with this job. If she told them Coil was in captivity, Brian might decide the smart thing to do was to free the boss to get into his good graces. ...Probably not, if she revealed the details of her recruitment. But then, there might be hard feelings about her not revealing it earlier, especially from Bitch.
After some internal debating (which might, to a certain extent, have been influenced by an external, shard-derived need to use information to prove how much smarter she was than others), she resolved not to tell them about their boss's secret, but instead sell the whole thing as an opportunity to steal Coil's shit while he was stuck in PRT custody. It was, she concluded, better that way.
_______________
Fucking dimensional technology. How had the entities evolved the damn thing on their own?
I'd been making good progress, but I was getting seriously sick of it. Which was why, at some point, I just threw my hands in the air and sat down to marathon the rest of Inspector Gadget.
The season concluded with a two-parter where MAD, thanks to resources gathered over the course of the show, was able to abduct the children of twenty different national leaders (including the president of the USA and the Soviet premier)... as well as Penny herself, placing Doctor Claw in position to influence international policy. His plot was to maneuver the nations of the world into volunteering their nascent parahumans into a global organization, officially answering to the governments, but secretly under his control - allowing him to mold the capes of the world into his own private army.
In the second half of the last episode, Gadget confronted Claw in a particularly tense scene, where he threatened to use tinkertech to broadcast the truth about the conspiracy to the entire world at once unless Penny was released. Claw negotiated it into an exchange, releasing Penny but taking Gadget in her stead, turning off his cybernetics and imprisoning him.
At that point, Penny played her trump card, which she and her uncle apparently had been keeping secret from the start (though to be fair, there had been hints and foreshadowing): Her Thinker power - the ability to instantly absorb all the information in a book just by touching it - actually applied to all methods of data storage, including computers. While held hostage in MAD's HQ, she had managed to get the info on them. All the info. At which point she worked with chief Quimby and the various local police encountered in every episode up to that point. MAD agents were being arrested all over the world at the same time, while Penny hacked the computers at MAD's HQ, freeing her uncle and reactivating his cybernetics. Inspector Gadget had a climactic final showdown with Doctor Claw, pitting tinkertech against tinkertech, concluding in the villain's arrest and a happy ending as Gadget and Penny went back home.
Supposedly, the second season was crap and not worth watching. So… back to work.
It was late in the evening that I finally managed to complete my dimensional portal generator. It needed a lot of power to maintain a portal just a few inches wide, but hey, I had that power.
That said, at present, the portal was pretty random, opening into one of countless dimensions. I needed to be able to tell which dimension actually contained what I needed. I needed three more components - a sensor, a computer, and a teleporter.
The sensor was going to require the most time manufacturing, so I spent the next few hours coming up with the design and feeding it to the 3D-printer. It consumed a good chunk of my exotic matter, but such was life.
Exhausted, I spent another thirty minutes browsing the Web before going to sleep.
_______________
The next morning, the news showed no major event in Brockton Bay. A member of the Protectorate murdered in San Diego, a parahuman warlord in Namibia surrendering to Moord Nag, the Yangban making a show of force in Taiwan… Well, I supposed things were always happening somewhere. I sent Miss Militia and Weaver PMs to ask how things were progressing on their end, and got back to work.
I'd used three Tinker charges in sensors to design the gadget I was currently assembling. It had two functions. The first was checking if the world I was reaching with my dimensional portal was inhabited - I didn't want that sort of headache. The second was scanning for specific types of matter, over a gigantic range, over millions, billions, trillions of dimensions if necessary.
A quick test confirmed what I thought: The sensor worked, but there was too much data. I would need a tinkertech computer just to sift through it.
Three Tinker charges in computers gave me the stop-gap measure I wanted: A quantum chip which, when combined with a regular computer and properly programmed, would allow it to resolve this sort of problem in a time that was shorter by three orders of magnitudes, perhaps four. Best part was, it was relatively simple to build; I was able to complete it before lunch.
...Granted, I accomplished that by having lunch at 3 PM. But still!
Once the chip was hooked to the sensor, I tried cycling through dimensions again. The results were far more promising now - it would still need time to detect some of the things I wanted, but it would be a reasonable amount of time.
With that accomplished, I went back to my Internet browser, curiously checking to see what some of the popular video games of Earth Bet were.
The saner, less self-destructive part of myself closed that browser tab with extreme prejudice.
Because, seriously. I was losing enough time already. Games would have to wait until I was further down the road with my prep work.
I sighed. It was time to get working on a teleportation device.
_______________
"Found what we need, Tattletale?"
"Oh, it's the jackpot," she grinned, sitting at Coil's computer. "I need another thirty minutes to be done here."
"Bitch's dogs can hold the mercenaries at bay as long as it takes," said Grue, "but just how confident are you that the other unit won't show up until then?"
"Give me some credit," she flashed him her trademark grin.
_______________
It was nearing two in the morning when I was finally done.
A portal device, able to reach between worlds.
A scanner, able to sift through billions of uninhabited worlds, looking for specific types of matter.
A quantum computer, able to search the information from the scanner.
A teleporter, able to bring in tiny, minute samples of the desired matter through the portal.
I had built a machine that could summon to me the raw material I needed to construct my tinkertech (or, in some cases, the raw material I could turn into the exotic matter from which to build my tinkertech). While the rate of production was still slow - only a few grams per hour for the rarer materials, though more common stuff was easier - it effectively freed me from having to purchase raw matter to build what I needed. I could summon my own.
It was one of the four things I needed to make Hephaestus cry. Good job, me!
And with that, I programmed it to gather some of what I needed during the night, and collapsed into bed. Swear to God, I needed to take a day off to just relax at some point.
_______________
I hadn't checked my mail before going to bed (uncharacteristic, but I had been exhausted). As such, it was only in the morning that I saw the PM from Miss Militia, telling me that the PRT wanted to have a word with me ASAP.
April the 15th. In canon, the day of Bakuda's attack on the Undersiders. Wasn't going to happen, of course - I'd sent Bakuda to jail, and the news had mentioned no major crime by the Undersiders yesterday. Checking the news, though, people were apparently aware that the Protectorate and the police were arresting gangbangers all over ABB territory, and drawing the logical conclusion. Empire 88 (and to a lesser extent the Merchants) would soon be on the move. I hoped to be able to stop them, but they weren't my highest priority - at the end of the day, as awful as it was, E88 wasn't going to cause the kind of devastation that my main targets were capable of. So, as much as punching Nazis may have been a superheroic staple… it would only happen if circumstances allowed.
I checked the exotic matter generator, and was pleased that it had done its work. I had small samples of many strange and unusual things - negative mass, imaginary mass, hyperdimenstional molecules, stable glasma, stable neutronium, solidified dark matter, exotic baryons, and more. All of them in minuscule, in some cases microscopic amounts… but that was all right. I didn't need more for the next phase.
Three charges in dimensional technology. It was time to outdo Professor Haywire.
But hoooo boy. Even with my generator, even with my advanced 3D-printer, even with my enhanced code-library… this one was going to take all day.
Accounting for breaks, of course.
_______________
Tattletale blinked, observing the data from the PRT's network (they'd upped security recently, but that wasn't enough to fully keep her out).
They were holding a Thomas Calvert under observation. He was suspected of being a powerful Thinker villain.
Some additional investigation into Calvert's character left her convinced of the emerging truth:
Calvert was Coil.
The PRT suspected Calvert was Coil.
The PRT suspected the true nature of Coil's powers.
Coil was being held in the PRT's custody in all his timelines.
Calvert being Coil was a huge embarrassment to the PRT, and something they would rather keep the lid on… but they couldn't let him go free.
The PRT was trying to find enough evidence against Calvert to put him away.
Coil was currently away from his base, completely helpless.
This was a unique opportunity - an opportunity to finally break free of Coil. She could just run, leave the city while he was under observation. Even if the PRT's investigation failed and they ultimately had to release him, it would take several days - long enough that she could be on the West coast by then, without having to worry about his timeline tricks stopping her.
The downside of that approach was that she'd only have what money she currently owned (which, to be fair, was enough to live on comfortably for a good while), and that the rest of the Undersiders wouldn't follow. Both were factors she could live with… but, why settle for less? She could beat Coil. Truly beat him. By hitting his base, she could find enough evidence to have him put away for life, and forward it to the PRT. He'd be out of her hair for good, and she might be able to scrunge up a chunk of his funds. Possibly a large chunk.
The rest of the Undersiders still relied on Coil for certain things. Bitch just wanted money to take care of her dogs. Regent, Grue… she might be able to help them out after raiding Coil's base. Probably. She was, after all, pretty good.
That said, she wasn't confident she could bring them on board with this job. If she told them Coil was in captivity, Brian might decide the smart thing to do was to free the boss to get into his good graces. ...Probably not, if she revealed the details of her recruitment. But then, there might be hard feelings about her not revealing it earlier, especially from Bitch.
After some internal debating (which might, to a certain extent, have been influenced by an external, shard-derived need to use information to prove how much smarter she was than others), she resolved not to tell them about their boss's secret, but instead sell the whole thing as an opportunity to steal Coil's shit while he was stuck in PRT custody. It was, she concluded, better that way.
_______________
Fucking dimensional technology. How had the entities evolved the damn thing on their own?
I'd been making good progress, but I was getting seriously sick of it. Which was why, at some point, I just threw my hands in the air and sat down to marathon the rest of Inspector Gadget.
The season concluded with a two-parter where MAD, thanks to resources gathered over the course of the show, was able to abduct the children of twenty different national leaders (including the president of the USA and the Soviet premier)... as well as Penny herself, placing Doctor Claw in position to influence international policy. His plot was to maneuver the nations of the world into volunteering their nascent parahumans into a global organization, officially answering to the governments, but secretly under his control - allowing him to mold the capes of the world into his own private army.
In the second half of the last episode, Gadget confronted Claw in a particularly tense scene, where he threatened to use tinkertech to broadcast the truth about the conspiracy to the entire world at once unless Penny was released. Claw negotiated it into an exchange, releasing Penny but taking Gadget in her stead, turning off his cybernetics and imprisoning him.
At that point, Penny played her trump card, which she and her uncle apparently had been keeping secret from the start (though to be fair, there had been hints and foreshadowing): Her Thinker power - the ability to instantly absorb all the information in a book just by touching it - actually applied to all methods of data storage, including computers. While held hostage in MAD's HQ, she had managed to get the info on them. All the info. At which point she worked with chief Quimby and the various local police encountered in every episode up to that point. MAD agents were being arrested all over the world at the same time, while Penny hacked the computers at MAD's HQ, freeing her uncle and reactivating his cybernetics. Inspector Gadget had a climactic final showdown with Doctor Claw, pitting tinkertech against tinkertech, concluding in the villain's arrest and a happy ending as Gadget and Penny went back home.
Supposedly, the second season was crap and not worth watching. So… back to work.
It was late in the evening that I finally managed to complete my dimensional portal generator. It needed a lot of power to maintain a portal just a few inches wide, but hey, I had that power.
That said, at present, the portal was pretty random, opening into one of countless dimensions. I needed to be able to tell which dimension actually contained what I needed. I needed three more components - a sensor, a computer, and a teleporter.
The sensor was going to require the most time manufacturing, so I spent the next few hours coming up with the design and feeding it to the 3D-printer. It consumed a good chunk of my exotic matter, but such was life.
Exhausted, I spent another thirty minutes browsing the Web before going to sleep.
_______________
The next morning, the news showed no major event in Brockton Bay. A member of the Protectorate murdered in San Diego, a parahuman warlord in Namibia surrendering to Moord Nag, the Yangban making a show of force in Taiwan… Well, I supposed things were always happening somewhere. I sent Miss Militia and Weaver PMs to ask how things were progressing on their end, and got back to work.
I'd used three Tinker charges in sensors to design the gadget I was currently assembling. It had two functions. The first was checking if the world I was reaching with my dimensional portal was inhabited - I didn't want that sort of headache. The second was scanning for specific types of matter, over a gigantic range, over millions, billions, trillions of dimensions if necessary.
A quick test confirmed what I thought: The sensor worked, but there was too much data. I would need a tinkertech computer just to sift through it.
Three Tinker charges in computers gave me the stop-gap measure I wanted: A quantum chip which, when combined with a regular computer and properly programmed, would allow it to resolve this sort of problem in a time that was shorter by three orders of magnitudes, perhaps four. Best part was, it was relatively simple to build; I was able to complete it before lunch.
...Granted, I accomplished that by having lunch at 3 PM. But still!
Once the chip was hooked to the sensor, I tried cycling through dimensions again. The results were far more promising now - it would still need time to detect some of the things I wanted, but it would be a reasonable amount of time.
With that accomplished, I went back to my Internet browser, curiously checking to see what some of the popular video games of Earth Bet were.
The saner, less self-destructive part of myself closed that browser tab with extreme prejudice.
Because, seriously. I was losing enough time already. Games would have to wait until I was further down the road with my prep work.
I sighed. It was time to get working on a teleportation device.
_______________
"Found what we need, Tattletale?"
"Oh, it's the jackpot," she grinned, sitting at Coil's computer. "I need another thirty minutes to be done here."
"Bitch's dogs can hold the mercenaries at bay as long as it takes," said Grue, "but just how confident are you that the other unit won't show up until then?"
"Give me some credit," she flashed him her trademark grin.
_______________
It was nearing two in the morning when I was finally done.
A portal device, able to reach between worlds.
A scanner, able to sift through billions of uninhabited worlds, looking for specific types of matter.
A quantum computer, able to search the information from the scanner.
A teleporter, able to bring in tiny, minute samples of the desired matter through the portal.
I had built a machine that could summon to me the raw material I needed to construct my tinkertech (or, in some cases, the raw material I could turn into the exotic matter from which to build my tinkertech). While the rate of production was still slow - only a few grams per hour for the rarer materials, though more common stuff was easier - it effectively freed me from having to purchase raw matter to build what I needed. I could summon my own.
It was one of the four things I needed to make Hephaestus cry. Good job, me!
And with that, I programmed it to gather some of what I needed during the night, and collapsed into bed. Swear to God, I needed to take a day off to just relax at some point.
_______________
I hadn't checked my mail before going to bed (uncharacteristic, but I had been exhausted). As such, it was only in the morning that I saw the PM from Miss Militia, telling me that the PRT wanted to have a word with me ASAP.
9: PRT, Chronotech and Virtual Intelligence
9
I wasn't entirely sure why the PRT wanted to see me. New development with Coil? New development with the gangs? Lung breaking out of prison? Cauldron pulling strings? Something about Weaver? Just the PRT wanting to know more about the new cape in town?
One way or another, I PMed back, telling Miss Militia that I could come whenever and they just needed to say when. I also exchanged a short PM with Weaver - she reported that no-one had moved against Dinah Alcott, but she suspected a certain car was following the girl, keeping track of her schedule.
With PMs taken care off, I got back to work. I had a lot of raw material now, and it was time to get cracking on one of the most important things I was going to build here.
Two Tinker charges went together to chemistry and automated manufacturing. The other three went to a Tinker specialization that gave me pause even now.
I already had the materials and exotic matter I needed to build the next device, but even so, it took me time. I was still in the early stages when I got a new PM from Miss Militia - apparently, I would be going to Protectorate Island at 2 PM. I confirmed that it was fine by me and that I'd show up.
That meant accelerating the pace if I wanted to get anywhere on this design. So, I did my best. Programmed the 3D-printer to automate as much as possible. Grabbed some junk food in lieu of taking the time for a real lunch. Even so, I barely scraped by, setting the printer to keep working on it while I was gone when I had to scramble and leave.
I put on the armor and, with some resignation, my roller-skis - promising myself that I'd get better transportation very, very soon. At least I'd improved the batteries on those things, so I could go all the way to the Protectorate base (well, the beach in front of it I guess, where the PRT would pick me up).
_______________
Battery supposed she liked mysteries as much as anyone else… when they were fictional. She enjoyed curling up with a good Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, or Shinichi Kudo novel (she'd always had a soft spot for Columbo, but his stories weren't exactly mysteries). In fiction, by the end of the story, the truth was revealed and the villain punished. Real-life mysteries were a lot more frustrating, and far less prone to happy, satisfying resolutions. To this day, she still didn't know more about Cauldron than she had when she had bought her powers from them. She doubted she'd ever know what really happened to Iron Rain. And she didn't expect to live to see the truth about the Endbringers revealed.
Ad Hoc and Weaver were another mystery - one that she hoped would be explained soon. Ad Hoc's revelations about Coil - about Calvert - had been deeply troubling. The idea of a sociopathic supervillain becoming director of the ENE PRT made her shiver.
"Thank you for your time," director Piggot said in a tone that didn't suggest a lot of gratitude as the mysterious Tinker sat down. His armor looked significantly less shoddy than last time.
"No problem," said Ad Hoc. "What is the matter?"
"Thomas Calvert has been under observation inside this base for two days now," the director stated abruptly. "A brain scan has confirmed that he is parahuman. Yesterday, information was forwarded to the PRT that links him to a host of illegal activities, up to and including the abuse of Endbringer shelter construction funds to build a hidden bunker for Coil."
"Ohthankgod." Even with the voice modulator and full-body armor, Battery could still see the relief Ad Hoc obviously felt at the news.
Piggot frowned. "What I would like to know is who forwarded that evidence. By the time we got to Coil's base, it had already been ransacked."
She didn't mention the evidence of the Undersiders' passage (Hellhound's dogs were far from discrete). That didn't surprise Battery - they'd been briefed on how to handle it. See how Ad Hoc reacted.
The Tinker took a thinking pose. "Hm. My guess would be Tattletale. She's been wanting to get out of his thumb for months. If he failed to contact her for a while, she may have put two and two together."
"And you think Tattletale would be able to pull this off?"
"Possible I guess?" he shrugged. "She's resourceful, generally good at getting the Undersiders to go along with her, and her power opens a lot of doors." He paused. "So what happens to Coil?"
"We'll get back to that," said Piggot. "There is another matter to consider." Her gazed bored into Ad Hoc. "You have said before that Coil, and the chance of him taking over the ENE PRT, was the main reason you and Weaver wouldn't be joining the Protectorate and Wards. That issue is resolved. So what now?" She went on: "If your goal is to clean up the city, then working with the Protectorate is the most efficient way to go about it. Especially for a Tinker. You will need resources, which the PRT can provide, in addition to teamwork. You've already relied on cooperation with the Protectorate against the ABB, after all."
Battery wasn't fond of that slight bit of disingenuity, but she understood the need for it. The PRT didn't want the truth about Coil advertised, which meant pulling certain strings to arrange for a quiet trial and, if possible, the Birdcage (given the evidence for some of his crimes, he certainly had it coming). But Ad Hoc and Weaver knew; either of them could reveal the whole thing to the media. If they were recruited, though, the PRT could simply order them to keep it confidential.
Ad Hoc seemed to shift uncomfortably in his seat. "There once was this parahuman. I… really got on her case for not joining the PRT, for doing things the wrong way, for doing the wrong thing even if she believed it was for the right reasons. Ideologically, joining the Protectorate sounds exactly like what I should be doing.
"On the other hand…" He sighed. "Even with Coil gone, I don't fully trust the PRT, especially some of the upper echelons. Er, not aiming that at the present company. I also disagree with the PRT on certain matters of policy. Most importantly… I suspect that the PRT's rules concerning tinketech would severely damage my ability to help people."
"The PRT's tinkertech regulations exist for a reason," Piggot countered. "They're there to prevent over-eager Tinkers from unleashing something dangerous, which is far more likely than it sounds."
"I know, I know," he sighed. "Listen… I don't think I will be joining the Protectorate in the foreseeable future, but I'd be a rank hypocrite if I didn't at least listen to your sales pitch. So, go ahead. Give me the whole story."
So they did. Piggot explained. Armsmaster provided the Tinker perspective. Miss Militia made helpful comments. Velocity looked bored out of his skull. In the end, though, Ad Hoc remained unconvinced.
"I'm really sorry," he said - he'd been pretty apologetic the whole time, really - "I just don't think the system as it exists was designed to handle something like my powers."
"What do you mean?" said Armsmaster. "Aren't you a Tinker?"
"Sort of? Kind of? My situation is… peculiar and unprecedented," said Ad Hoc. "But please, don't get me wrong. I may not want to be part of the Protectorate, but I definitely want to help the Protectorate. This includes providing good intel, and, if you'll allow, providing some of my technology - parts that I believe you will be able to use, at least."
"I suppose that'll have to do," Piggot sighed. "What about Weaver?"
"What about Weaver? I'm not her boss. If you want to recruit her, go ahead. Kid's got a keen sense of tactics; she has the potential to make a great Ward." He paused. "Actually… speaking of the Wards… you might want to look into Shadow Stalker," he said, sounding embarrassed now.
"What about Shadow Stalker?" Piggot's expression had turned grim.
"Oh, nothing, just her having about as much respect for the terms of her probation as Lung has for the American Constitution. In costume, she carries lethal crossbow bolts. Outside of costume, she's a sadistic psychopath."
The whole room went quiet.
"...What?"
"You are saying," Piggot said with a restrained tone that belied her redenning visage, "that you know a Ward's civilian identity."
"Huh." Ad Hoc seemed to come to the realization himself. "Wellll… Yeah. I think we've already established that I'm well-informed by now."
"On the villains of brockton Bay. Now you're telling me you've been spying on PRT-affiliated heroes?! Including underage ones?!"
"I have done no such thing."
"Your intel, or at least your confidence in it, suggests otherwise."
"Like I said before: I have to keep my source secret. Regardless, everything I've said is accurate. The behavior of Sophia Hess has been more villainous than heroic. If the PRT is not aware of her activities - which have included sending at least one classmate straight to the hospital for shits and giggles - then it needs to look into the matter." He paused. "Actually, that reminds me: What's going to happen to Coil?"
Piggot glared. "If the evidence we have pans out - and we're almost certain it will - then he will be spending the rest of his life in confinement. We've already frozen every asset of his that we could, though the recent evidence hints at much more - and a lot of it, if your theory is correct, is now in Tattletale's hands." The director steepled her fingers. "Since you're so well-informed about Coil's minions, what do you expect to happen at this point?"
He took a moment to consider. "If the Undersiders have managed to steal a significant chunk of his money… Hm. Regent wants comfort, and protection from his father." That got Battery's attention. The running theory was that Regent was actually Hijack, but it was unproven so far. "Grue wants the money and string-pulling required to obtain legal guardianship of his sister, so as to remove her from a toxic home environment. Bitch, aka Hellhound, wants the resources to take care of her dogs - in fact, of as many dogs as possible. Tattletale wants security and the chance to play with information. If they're smart, they'll use the money, disappear into the woodworks, and retire from crime."
"And do you expect them to be smart?"
Battery was pretty sure Ad Hoc's helmet was hiding a wince. "With Tattletale on the team? Plausible, but not my first bet. I think it's more likely that she'll try to take over Coil's old operation, becoming caliph instead of the caliph. Keep as many of his mercenaries and spy network as she can, become the information queen of Brockton Bay while taking care of her teammates." He sighed. "You're probably aware that capes who have obtained their powers via a trigger event tend to suffer some long-term psychological effect, ranging from the barely noticeable nudge to the sea change in attitude. Tattletale is in the middle range - her trigger has left her with an almost irresistible compulsion to gather information and use it to show up other people."
"Hold it," said Piggot. "What do you mean by 'obtained their powers via a trigger event'? That is how parahumans get their powers!"
"Usually," he said. "It's a seldom-discussed fact, but there is a small number of capes who come into their powers without trigger events, and without the psychological impact involved." Battery's heart skipped a beat. Had Ad Hoc been looking at her as he said that?
He declined to answer further questions on the matter, so the conversation switched back to the Undersiders. "Everyone is realizing by now that Lung is gone, and we will be making an official statement later today," Miss Militia explained. "This means that the Empire and others will be making their move to seize the ABB's territory, so we will be busy enough with that over the coming times. We need to decide what to do about the Undersiders if they're really taking over Coil's operation."
From the way he was fidgeting in armor, Ad Hoc did not seem comfortable. "The Undersiders are… morally gray, compared to Coil, the ABB, the Empire or the Merchants. Tattletale? Smug, manipulative bitch, but the reason she got into supervillainy was that Coil literally recruited her at gunpoint; prior to that, she had run away from a bad family situation and used her powers for minor larceny to survive in the streets. Grue… Like I mentioned, got into crime to protect his sister. Which I actually find the least defensible of the bunch, but still, he's not entirely unreasonable. Lindt… Girl really had no chance. She got blamed for the death of her foster family - an accident that she couldn't help - and her trigger event effectively gave her high-level autism, rendering communication with other people problematic. She's got little to no respect for human life as things currently stand, but what she needs is therapy, not prison. As for Regent… He's both the most and least ethical of the bunch." At the confused looks in the room, he proceeded: "Regent is evil, make no mistake. Considering how he grew up, however, it's honestly kind of amazing that he isn't far, far worse. I believe he is trying to unscrew his own mind… He's just lazy about it, like everything else.
"You want my opinion? I think the optimal resolution would be to bring them on board. Those kids are assholes, but they need help. They could be assets. Left to their own devices… Tattletale is the only ambitious one in the bunch, really. She may or may not develop into a headache. I can tell you in advance, she's a pain to go against."
When further questioned, he denied having any connection to the Undersiders beyond that short meeting after Lung's defeat. He did mention that he intended to assist the Protectorate in various ways in the near future. Finally, the meeting came to a conclusion and he was escorted out of the base, and Battery could stop to review the facts.
Ad Hoc was ridiculously well-informed about Brockton Bay capes.
Ad Hoc knew about Cauldron, and had hinted at an atypical nature of his own powers.
Ad Hoc was behaving in a strange manner, but clearly trying to influence PRT policy.
Just what was Cauldron up to?
God, she hated real-life mysteries.
_______________
I'd always found meetings draining. I'd say it was my short attention span and introversion showing, except that everyone else seemed to hate them too. So when I returned to the Palanquin, I allowed myself some time to surf the Web.
Morbid curiosity led me to check on the state of anime and manga. The loss of Kyushu had not been kind to the industry - aside from the many casualties within the industry itself (even if most of them lived and worked in Tokyo), the (surviving) Japanese public simply had little to spend on entertainment and merchandising as the national economy died a messy death. Backtracking further, though, it became clear that even before Kyushu, anime and manga had been far less successful in the West than they had been in my world at the time. I didn't have enough data to engage in real, serious analysis… but from what my quick glances were telling me, my guess was that in the 80ies and 90ies, Japanese, American and European pop cultures each tried to incorporate the rise of parahumans… and each had done it in wildly different ways, which, among other things, resulted in media execs being less willing to take a chance on material from the other cultures. Heck, the Sailor Moon and Dragonball animes hadn't even made it to the West here before Kyushu, and that was 1999.
One amusing quirk of that state of events was that a lot of Japanese creative types - expats and otherwise - had apparently flocked to other media in response. There were numerous series of books selling reasonably well in the West written by Japanese authors. Funny how that worked out.
OK, enough of that. Back to work.
The 3D-printer had finished doing most of the work on my new device, but it would need a massive energy release to complete. I needed a super-battery to hold in a couple hours' worth of my generator's energy production. That, in turn, left me time to work on the software aspect.
One Tinker charge in efficiency. One in robustness. Two in software. And one in that other, pause-giving specialization. I went to work, my special code library allowing me to finish in hours the work of days and more.
And then… A big energy discharge later, it was done. The new device was working, just as intended by the specialization I had used for it.
That peculiar specialization.
Chrono-technology.
The device was - or rather, included - a tiny wormhole. It was so small, it could barely be seen. Its two ends were mere millimeters apart. More importantly, however, they were nearly two microseconds apart.
Phir Se would no doubt laugh at such a puny portal. But Phir Se had failed to grasp the full applications of his power. The device didn't just create and maintain the wormhole - it incorporated it into the computer chip I had just programmed.
Let us say you gave a computer a problem. The problem had such complexity, that it required a trillion steps from a Turing machine to resolve. If you computer could perform a billion steps per second, it spent a nanosecond on the first step, then another nanosecond on the second step, and so on, ultimately spending one thousand seconds before reaching the problem's solution.
Not so with this chip. This chip would take the problem as it was at first. It would complete the first step, replacing the problem with one comprised of one less step than before. With the wormhole, it would send itself that new state back in time. It would then tackle the new problem, from the very moment of the start, with one step already done in advance. The same procedure would then be repeated with the next step, and so on. Eventually, every step would be done… and it would still be the moment when the computer had first received the initial problem, or nearly so.
It didn't matter if the problem was complex enough to require a thousand steps, or a million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, even a goddamn googolplex. So long as the problem was solvable, it would be resolved within a span of time too short to be perceived by human senses.
One might be tempted to say this chrono-chip had infinite computing power. Any student of mathematics, of course, would put the lie to such an assertion. Infinity was a complex concept - the set of integers (0, 1, 2, 5487, -87…) was infinite and scope, as was the set of all real numbers (as before, but now also including the likes of 5/7, pi, or the square root of 2), but both those were very different kinds of infinity. Furthermore, if you gave the chrono-chip a truly infinite problem, it would not be able to resolve it (though it wouldn't get caught in an infinite loop either; countermeasures were in place for that). However, as long as you needed computation that was finite in scope, no matter how insanely huge, it could provide it quasi-instantly.
In a very real way, I was holding in my palm the most powerful weapon in the world.
Not gonna lie - that excited me more than anything else I'd accomplished so far. Plugging it into my computer, quick tests showed it outperformed the quantum chip to a ludicrous degree. I gave it a graph problem that required trillions of times more computation than had been done by all computers in human History in my world put together; it resolved it without any appreciable waiting time. Letting the matter-summoner use it to search through its multi-dimensional data, it suddenly became several times more efficient. There were complications if you tried to send the information through the portal multiple times at once - the chip couldn't reliably be used for precognition with a range of more than a few seconds - but that wasn't its intended purpose. Its intended purpose was having an indecently powerful computer, and it was fulfilling it admirably.
But, I wasn't going to stop there. I was in that all-too-rare for me mental state - the productivity rush. I had every intention of riding it to the completion of that step.
Three Tinker charges in software engineering.
Two Tinker charges in artificial intelligence.
Even with my code library, it took me the rest of the evening and a chunk of the night. I wasn't going to create an AI from scratch - that would involve millions of lines of code and far more time than I had. Instead, I designed a combination of machine-learning software and evolutionary algorithms that became slightly better at their job over time. Subjects I had briefly touched upon in college, but which my Tinker specializations now allowed me to fully understand.
On its own, this program could serve as a very efficient optimization algorithm - enough to help out a few industries and earn my a Turing award. It could take programs intended for a certain task, and slowly make them better.
However, when you had a chrono-computer on your side, the term "slowly" lost much of its meaning.
I could run the program on the chrono-computer, giving it as many computations as it needed to achieve whatever result I intended. Really, that was the easy part. What took significantly more effort was weaving in the limitations - keeping the program from doing what I didn't want.
At that point, I became very, very careful. I checked everything. I used my improved software to check everything even more thoroughly. I ran several tests beforehand. And only once I was convinced it was safe, did I run the whole program through the chrono-chip.
An amount of computation nearly beyond description took place over a nanosecond repeated endlessly.
And then, I had the program I needed. It was artificial, and it was intelligent, but I hesitated to call it an artificial intelligence; I felt that term had additional connotations. This program had successfully been built with comprehensive limitations: It had no emotion, no desire, no personality, no sapience, and no initiative. It was nothing more than a tool that took problems as input, and systematically gave solutions as output. It was methodical, efficient, further from error-prone than humanly impossible, incapable of feeling boredom, and able to use the chrono-chip for its calculations. It now ran my computer systems, allowing my devices to follow my orders in any fashion I intended. I decided to take a page from Mass Effect and call it a Virtual Intelligence.
Understand, I didn't have anything against actual AIs. Dragon was probably my favorite Worm character. I just didn't feel ready to be a father, which was why I had gone to all that length to ensure the program I had created wasn't an actual person.
Project Tears of Hephaestus: Phase complete: Acquire virtual intelligence to run mechanical minutiae at full precision and efficiency.
I wasn't entirely sure why the PRT wanted to see me. New development with Coil? New development with the gangs? Lung breaking out of prison? Cauldron pulling strings? Something about Weaver? Just the PRT wanting to know more about the new cape in town?
One way or another, I PMed back, telling Miss Militia that I could come whenever and they just needed to say when. I also exchanged a short PM with Weaver - she reported that no-one had moved against Dinah Alcott, but she suspected a certain car was following the girl, keeping track of her schedule.
With PMs taken care off, I got back to work. I had a lot of raw material now, and it was time to get cracking on one of the most important things I was going to build here.
Two Tinker charges went together to chemistry and automated manufacturing. The other three went to a Tinker specialization that gave me pause even now.
I already had the materials and exotic matter I needed to build the next device, but even so, it took me time. I was still in the early stages when I got a new PM from Miss Militia - apparently, I would be going to Protectorate Island at 2 PM. I confirmed that it was fine by me and that I'd show up.
That meant accelerating the pace if I wanted to get anywhere on this design. So, I did my best. Programmed the 3D-printer to automate as much as possible. Grabbed some junk food in lieu of taking the time for a real lunch. Even so, I barely scraped by, setting the printer to keep working on it while I was gone when I had to scramble and leave.
I put on the armor and, with some resignation, my roller-skis - promising myself that I'd get better transportation very, very soon. At least I'd improved the batteries on those things, so I could go all the way to the Protectorate base (well, the beach in front of it I guess, where the PRT would pick me up).
_______________
Battery supposed she liked mysteries as much as anyone else… when they were fictional. She enjoyed curling up with a good Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, or Shinichi Kudo novel (she'd always had a soft spot for Columbo, but his stories weren't exactly mysteries). In fiction, by the end of the story, the truth was revealed and the villain punished. Real-life mysteries were a lot more frustrating, and far less prone to happy, satisfying resolutions. To this day, she still didn't know more about Cauldron than she had when she had bought her powers from them. She doubted she'd ever know what really happened to Iron Rain. And she didn't expect to live to see the truth about the Endbringers revealed.
Ad Hoc and Weaver were another mystery - one that she hoped would be explained soon. Ad Hoc's revelations about Coil - about Calvert - had been deeply troubling. The idea of a sociopathic supervillain becoming director of the ENE PRT made her shiver.
"Thank you for your time," director Piggot said in a tone that didn't suggest a lot of gratitude as the mysterious Tinker sat down. His armor looked significantly less shoddy than last time.
"No problem," said Ad Hoc. "What is the matter?"
"Thomas Calvert has been under observation inside this base for two days now," the director stated abruptly. "A brain scan has confirmed that he is parahuman. Yesterday, information was forwarded to the PRT that links him to a host of illegal activities, up to and including the abuse of Endbringer shelter construction funds to build a hidden bunker for Coil."
"Ohthankgod." Even with the voice modulator and full-body armor, Battery could still see the relief Ad Hoc obviously felt at the news.
Piggot frowned. "What I would like to know is who forwarded that evidence. By the time we got to Coil's base, it had already been ransacked."
She didn't mention the evidence of the Undersiders' passage (Hellhound's dogs were far from discrete). That didn't surprise Battery - they'd been briefed on how to handle it. See how Ad Hoc reacted.
The Tinker took a thinking pose. "Hm. My guess would be Tattletale. She's been wanting to get out of his thumb for months. If he failed to contact her for a while, she may have put two and two together."
"And you think Tattletale would be able to pull this off?"
"Possible I guess?" he shrugged. "She's resourceful, generally good at getting the Undersiders to go along with her, and her power opens a lot of doors." He paused. "So what happens to Coil?"
"We'll get back to that," said Piggot. "There is another matter to consider." Her gazed bored into Ad Hoc. "You have said before that Coil, and the chance of him taking over the ENE PRT, was the main reason you and Weaver wouldn't be joining the Protectorate and Wards. That issue is resolved. So what now?" She went on: "If your goal is to clean up the city, then working with the Protectorate is the most efficient way to go about it. Especially for a Tinker. You will need resources, which the PRT can provide, in addition to teamwork. You've already relied on cooperation with the Protectorate against the ABB, after all."
Battery wasn't fond of that slight bit of disingenuity, but she understood the need for it. The PRT didn't want the truth about Coil advertised, which meant pulling certain strings to arrange for a quiet trial and, if possible, the Birdcage (given the evidence for some of his crimes, he certainly had it coming). But Ad Hoc and Weaver knew; either of them could reveal the whole thing to the media. If they were recruited, though, the PRT could simply order them to keep it confidential.
Ad Hoc seemed to shift uncomfortably in his seat. "There once was this parahuman. I… really got on her case for not joining the PRT, for doing things the wrong way, for doing the wrong thing even if she believed it was for the right reasons. Ideologically, joining the Protectorate sounds exactly like what I should be doing.
"On the other hand…" He sighed. "Even with Coil gone, I don't fully trust the PRT, especially some of the upper echelons. Er, not aiming that at the present company. I also disagree with the PRT on certain matters of policy. Most importantly… I suspect that the PRT's rules concerning tinketech would severely damage my ability to help people."
"The PRT's tinkertech regulations exist for a reason," Piggot countered. "They're there to prevent over-eager Tinkers from unleashing something dangerous, which is far more likely than it sounds."
"I know, I know," he sighed. "Listen… I don't think I will be joining the Protectorate in the foreseeable future, but I'd be a rank hypocrite if I didn't at least listen to your sales pitch. So, go ahead. Give me the whole story."
So they did. Piggot explained. Armsmaster provided the Tinker perspective. Miss Militia made helpful comments. Velocity looked bored out of his skull. In the end, though, Ad Hoc remained unconvinced.
"I'm really sorry," he said - he'd been pretty apologetic the whole time, really - "I just don't think the system as it exists was designed to handle something like my powers."
"What do you mean?" said Armsmaster. "Aren't you a Tinker?"
"Sort of? Kind of? My situation is… peculiar and unprecedented," said Ad Hoc. "But please, don't get me wrong. I may not want to be part of the Protectorate, but I definitely want to help the Protectorate. This includes providing good intel, and, if you'll allow, providing some of my technology - parts that I believe you will be able to use, at least."
"I suppose that'll have to do," Piggot sighed. "What about Weaver?"
"What about Weaver? I'm not her boss. If you want to recruit her, go ahead. Kid's got a keen sense of tactics; she has the potential to make a great Ward." He paused. "Actually… speaking of the Wards… you might want to look into Shadow Stalker," he said, sounding embarrassed now.
"What about Shadow Stalker?" Piggot's expression had turned grim.
"Oh, nothing, just her having about as much respect for the terms of her probation as Lung has for the American Constitution. In costume, she carries lethal crossbow bolts. Outside of costume, she's a sadistic psychopath."
The whole room went quiet.
"...What?"
"You are saying," Piggot said with a restrained tone that belied her redenning visage, "that you know a Ward's civilian identity."
"Huh." Ad Hoc seemed to come to the realization himself. "Wellll… Yeah. I think we've already established that I'm well-informed by now."
"On the villains of brockton Bay. Now you're telling me you've been spying on PRT-affiliated heroes?! Including underage ones?!"
"I have done no such thing."
"Your intel, or at least your confidence in it, suggests otherwise."
"Like I said before: I have to keep my source secret. Regardless, everything I've said is accurate. The behavior of Sophia Hess has been more villainous than heroic. If the PRT is not aware of her activities - which have included sending at least one classmate straight to the hospital for shits and giggles - then it needs to look into the matter." He paused. "Actually, that reminds me: What's going to happen to Coil?"
Piggot glared. "If the evidence we have pans out - and we're almost certain it will - then he will be spending the rest of his life in confinement. We've already frozen every asset of his that we could, though the recent evidence hints at much more - and a lot of it, if your theory is correct, is now in Tattletale's hands." The director steepled her fingers. "Since you're so well-informed about Coil's minions, what do you expect to happen at this point?"
He took a moment to consider. "If the Undersiders have managed to steal a significant chunk of his money… Hm. Regent wants comfort, and protection from his father." That got Battery's attention. The running theory was that Regent was actually Hijack, but it was unproven so far. "Grue wants the money and string-pulling required to obtain legal guardianship of his sister, so as to remove her from a toxic home environment. Bitch, aka Hellhound, wants the resources to take care of her dogs - in fact, of as many dogs as possible. Tattletale wants security and the chance to play with information. If they're smart, they'll use the money, disappear into the woodworks, and retire from crime."
"And do you expect them to be smart?"
Battery was pretty sure Ad Hoc's helmet was hiding a wince. "With Tattletale on the team? Plausible, but not my first bet. I think it's more likely that she'll try to take over Coil's old operation, becoming caliph instead of the caliph. Keep as many of his mercenaries and spy network as she can, become the information queen of Brockton Bay while taking care of her teammates." He sighed. "You're probably aware that capes who have obtained their powers via a trigger event tend to suffer some long-term psychological effect, ranging from the barely noticeable nudge to the sea change in attitude. Tattletale is in the middle range - her trigger has left her with an almost irresistible compulsion to gather information and use it to show up other people."
"Hold it," said Piggot. "What do you mean by 'obtained their powers via a trigger event'? That is how parahumans get their powers!"
"Usually," he said. "It's a seldom-discussed fact, but there is a small number of capes who come into their powers without trigger events, and without the psychological impact involved." Battery's heart skipped a beat. Had Ad Hoc been looking at her as he said that?
He declined to answer further questions on the matter, so the conversation switched back to the Undersiders. "Everyone is realizing by now that Lung is gone, and we will be making an official statement later today," Miss Militia explained. "This means that the Empire and others will be making their move to seize the ABB's territory, so we will be busy enough with that over the coming times. We need to decide what to do about the Undersiders if they're really taking over Coil's operation."
From the way he was fidgeting in armor, Ad Hoc did not seem comfortable. "The Undersiders are… morally gray, compared to Coil, the ABB, the Empire or the Merchants. Tattletale? Smug, manipulative bitch, but the reason she got into supervillainy was that Coil literally recruited her at gunpoint; prior to that, she had run away from a bad family situation and used her powers for minor larceny to survive in the streets. Grue… Like I mentioned, got into crime to protect his sister. Which I actually find the least defensible of the bunch, but still, he's not entirely unreasonable. Lindt… Girl really had no chance. She got blamed for the death of her foster family - an accident that she couldn't help - and her trigger event effectively gave her high-level autism, rendering communication with other people problematic. She's got little to no respect for human life as things currently stand, but what she needs is therapy, not prison. As for Regent… He's both the most and least ethical of the bunch." At the confused looks in the room, he proceeded: "Regent is evil, make no mistake. Considering how he grew up, however, it's honestly kind of amazing that he isn't far, far worse. I believe he is trying to unscrew his own mind… He's just lazy about it, like everything else.
"You want my opinion? I think the optimal resolution would be to bring them on board. Those kids are assholes, but they need help. They could be assets. Left to their own devices… Tattletale is the only ambitious one in the bunch, really. She may or may not develop into a headache. I can tell you in advance, she's a pain to go against."
When further questioned, he denied having any connection to the Undersiders beyond that short meeting after Lung's defeat. He did mention that he intended to assist the Protectorate in various ways in the near future. Finally, the meeting came to a conclusion and he was escorted out of the base, and Battery could stop to review the facts.
Ad Hoc was ridiculously well-informed about Brockton Bay capes.
Ad Hoc knew about Cauldron, and had hinted at an atypical nature of his own powers.
Ad Hoc was behaving in a strange manner, but clearly trying to influence PRT policy.
Just what was Cauldron up to?
God, she hated real-life mysteries.
_______________
I'd always found meetings draining. I'd say it was my short attention span and introversion showing, except that everyone else seemed to hate them too. So when I returned to the Palanquin, I allowed myself some time to surf the Web.
Morbid curiosity led me to check on the state of anime and manga. The loss of Kyushu had not been kind to the industry - aside from the many casualties within the industry itself (even if most of them lived and worked in Tokyo), the (surviving) Japanese public simply had little to spend on entertainment and merchandising as the national economy died a messy death. Backtracking further, though, it became clear that even before Kyushu, anime and manga had been far less successful in the West than they had been in my world at the time. I didn't have enough data to engage in real, serious analysis… but from what my quick glances were telling me, my guess was that in the 80ies and 90ies, Japanese, American and European pop cultures each tried to incorporate the rise of parahumans… and each had done it in wildly different ways, which, among other things, resulted in media execs being less willing to take a chance on material from the other cultures. Heck, the Sailor Moon and Dragonball animes hadn't even made it to the West here before Kyushu, and that was 1999.
One amusing quirk of that state of events was that a lot of Japanese creative types - expats and otherwise - had apparently flocked to other media in response. There were numerous series of books selling reasonably well in the West written by Japanese authors. Funny how that worked out.
OK, enough of that. Back to work.
The 3D-printer had finished doing most of the work on my new device, but it would need a massive energy release to complete. I needed a super-battery to hold in a couple hours' worth of my generator's energy production. That, in turn, left me time to work on the software aspect.
One Tinker charge in efficiency. One in robustness. Two in software. And one in that other, pause-giving specialization. I went to work, my special code library allowing me to finish in hours the work of days and more.
And then… A big energy discharge later, it was done. The new device was working, just as intended by the specialization I had used for it.
That peculiar specialization.
Chrono-technology.
The device was - or rather, included - a tiny wormhole. It was so small, it could barely be seen. Its two ends were mere millimeters apart. More importantly, however, they were nearly two microseconds apart.
Phir Se would no doubt laugh at such a puny portal. But Phir Se had failed to grasp the full applications of his power. The device didn't just create and maintain the wormhole - it incorporated it into the computer chip I had just programmed.
Let us say you gave a computer a problem. The problem had such complexity, that it required a trillion steps from a Turing machine to resolve. If you computer could perform a billion steps per second, it spent a nanosecond on the first step, then another nanosecond on the second step, and so on, ultimately spending one thousand seconds before reaching the problem's solution.
Not so with this chip. This chip would take the problem as it was at first. It would complete the first step, replacing the problem with one comprised of one less step than before. With the wormhole, it would send itself that new state back in time. It would then tackle the new problem, from the very moment of the start, with one step already done in advance. The same procedure would then be repeated with the next step, and so on. Eventually, every step would be done… and it would still be the moment when the computer had first received the initial problem, or nearly so.
It didn't matter if the problem was complex enough to require a thousand steps, or a million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, even a goddamn googolplex. So long as the problem was solvable, it would be resolved within a span of time too short to be perceived by human senses.
One might be tempted to say this chrono-chip had infinite computing power. Any student of mathematics, of course, would put the lie to such an assertion. Infinity was a complex concept - the set of integers (0, 1, 2, 5487, -87…) was infinite and scope, as was the set of all real numbers (as before, but now also including the likes of 5/7, pi, or the square root of 2), but both those were very different kinds of infinity. Furthermore, if you gave the chrono-chip a truly infinite problem, it would not be able to resolve it (though it wouldn't get caught in an infinite loop either; countermeasures were in place for that). However, as long as you needed computation that was finite in scope, no matter how insanely huge, it could provide it quasi-instantly.
In a very real way, I was holding in my palm the most powerful weapon in the world.
Not gonna lie - that excited me more than anything else I'd accomplished so far. Plugging it into my computer, quick tests showed it outperformed the quantum chip to a ludicrous degree. I gave it a graph problem that required trillions of times more computation than had been done by all computers in human History in my world put together; it resolved it without any appreciable waiting time. Letting the matter-summoner use it to search through its multi-dimensional data, it suddenly became several times more efficient. There were complications if you tried to send the information through the portal multiple times at once - the chip couldn't reliably be used for precognition with a range of more than a few seconds - but that wasn't its intended purpose. Its intended purpose was having an indecently powerful computer, and it was fulfilling it admirably.
But, I wasn't going to stop there. I was in that all-too-rare for me mental state - the productivity rush. I had every intention of riding it to the completion of that step.
Three Tinker charges in software engineering.
Two Tinker charges in artificial intelligence.
Even with my code library, it took me the rest of the evening and a chunk of the night. I wasn't going to create an AI from scratch - that would involve millions of lines of code and far more time than I had. Instead, I designed a combination of machine-learning software and evolutionary algorithms that became slightly better at their job over time. Subjects I had briefly touched upon in college, but which my Tinker specializations now allowed me to fully understand.
On its own, this program could serve as a very efficient optimization algorithm - enough to help out a few industries and earn my a Turing award. It could take programs intended for a certain task, and slowly make them better.
However, when you had a chrono-computer on your side, the term "slowly" lost much of its meaning.
I could run the program on the chrono-computer, giving it as many computations as it needed to achieve whatever result I intended. Really, that was the easy part. What took significantly more effort was weaving in the limitations - keeping the program from doing what I didn't want.
At that point, I became very, very careful. I checked everything. I used my improved software to check everything even more thoroughly. I ran several tests beforehand. And only once I was convinced it was safe, did I run the whole program through the chrono-chip.
An amount of computation nearly beyond description took place over a nanosecond repeated endlessly.
And then, I had the program I needed. It was artificial, and it was intelligent, but I hesitated to call it an artificial intelligence; I felt that term had additional connotations. This program had successfully been built with comprehensive limitations: It had no emotion, no desire, no personality, no sapience, and no initiative. It was nothing more than a tool that took problems as input, and systematically gave solutions as output. It was methodical, efficient, further from error-prone than humanly impossible, incapable of feeling boredom, and able to use the chrono-chip for its calculations. It now ran my computer systems, allowing my devices to follow my orders in any fashion I intended. I decided to take a page from Mass Effect and call it a Virtual Intelligence.
Understand, I didn't have anything against actual AIs. Dragon was probably my favorite Worm character. I just didn't feel ready to be a father, which was why I had gone to all that length to ensure the program I had created wasn't an actual person.
Project Tears of Hephaestus: Phase complete: Acquire virtual intelligence to run mechanical minutiae at full precision and efficiency.
10: Nanotech
10
I woke up the next morning… Well, no, it was slightly past noon actually. I'd really gone to bed late this time.
Didn't matter. I was still grinning. I was giddy. I had a chrono-computer and a virtual intelligence. I was feeling invincible.
Of course, I was still a long way away from invincibility. So, after checking the news and PMs, I got back to work.
The VI, as requested, had spent the night/morning trawling the multiverse for useful building material. That would come in handy soon, but not quite yet. First, I needed to work on software.
One Tinker charge each to software engineering, artificial intelligence, efficiency, robustness, and user interface. I then some time poring over the code of the VI, tweaking, improving. There wasn't that much that needed to be done, honestly, but I wanted to be completely certain that it would work as intended. My tweaks would make certain that it wouldn't degrade over time… and make it very, very easy to use. Even with my Tinker charges all turned off, I would still able to collaborate with the VI on any given task.
I had lunch with Faultine's Crew. Didn't participate much in the conversation, which was typical enough for me (I'm introverted enough as is. Give me food to focus my attention on, and it only gets worse). There was some business talk, though: The big diamond sale in New York had gone through, netting the Crew over a million dollars. My share of it, as agreed upon, was pretty small, bringing up the total amount I had earned with them up to $100,000. Admittedly, I needed money a lot less now. I told Faultline that my presence was likely to last for at most another week, after which I would provide her crew with an easy-to-use diamond synthesizer (and Newter's spray, of course).
Then, back to work. Around 4 PM, I was done improving upon the VI, and it was time to move on to the next phase.
As incredibly useful as my 3D-printer had been, it had reached its limit. I couldn't upgrade it significantly past its current capabilities. It could, however, be used to create its successor.
One Tinker charge in chemistry, one in automated manufacturing, and three in nanotechnology.
The first step was the creation of a set of nano-tools. Thanks to the right set of exotic matter, I could create microscopic gravitic lens which could focus the influence of certain tools, allowing them to manipulate objects far smaller than themselves (down to subatomic particles).
The next step was a set of micro-machines - robots whose size was measured in microns, comparable to living cells and bacteria. Their chemical structure ensured that they would be instantaneously oxidized and destroyed upon contact with normal air; I didn't want to risk something unsafe escaping from the printer. For now, at least, the micro-machines followed their programming, picking up the nano-tools.
The third step was getting the micro-machines and 3D-printer, under the VI's guidance, to work on creating the chassis and core of my intended machine - a true fabber. A quasi-indestructible box made of exotic matter, equipped with its own VI, an anchored set of nano-tools, and airtight isolation.
I needed to take the components of the fabber out of the 3D-printer and assemble them. But once that was done… next step:
The fabber had its own set of nano-tools, but it was kind of laughable. They were attached to the inner wall of the fabber's manufacturing chamber, but their number was so small, any amount of work they did would be… well, nanoscopic.
No problem. I set them to create some true, genuine nanomachines. Robots even smaller than the micro-machines, their size closer to that of viruses, able to manipulate individual subatomic particles at ease. Remote-controlled by the fabber's VI.
The design of the nanomachines included exotic matter, without which they simply couldn't work. The exotic matter made them more efficient, but its main purpose was as a security feature: I didn't want even the slightest chance of creating grey goo. If these nanomachines somehow, against all odds, went crazy and started replicating like cancer cells, they'd quickly run out of exotic matter.
A second security feature was that they were vulnerable to cold - or rather, room temperature. Inside the fabber, it was always very, very hot. If a nanomachine ever came into an environment with temperatures below 50 Celsius degrees (122 Fahrenheit if you were a godless heathen), its internal components would quickly shatter.
Now, given how careful I had been with their programming, plus the assistance of the VI, I doubted either of those precautionary measures were actually necessary. But why risk the apocalypse on account of laziness? ...Plus, I'd turned down joining the Protectorate and submitting my tech to PRT review, so I would feel really bad if I screwed this up.
Anyway. As mentioned, the fabber's nano-manipulators were very few in numbers. The nanomachines they made only numbered in the double digits. When you considered that there were trillions of cells in the human body, and that the average cell could easily contain thousands upon thousands of nanomachines, that gave you an idea of how small that was. However, I had fed the fabber all the matter (exotic and otherwise) that they needed to replicate. Under the guidance of the VI, they proceeded to do just that.
It was actually disturbing how fast the process was. Each nanomachine needed barely more than a minute to create a copy of itself. Forty-and-something minutes later, the fabber controlled trillions and trillions of nanomachines. I stopped the process shortly before they had consumed the base material, mostly to make sure that I could. At that point, I basically had the fabber check its own nanomachines with a fine comb, making sure that all of them were behaving appropriately.
In theory, of course, I could lose all the nanomachines at once. If, for some reason, temperatures inside the fabber went below the 50 Celsius threshold, they would all be destroyed. That was the purpose of the fabber's anchored nano-manipulators: In such an event, the fabber could always create a new set of nanomachines, which could then replicate again.
I spent over an hour checking everything, making sure every single nanomachine was following instructions. Then, and only then, did I begin testing the fabber.
I had the fabber create a perfect diamond in the shape of an icosahedron the size of my fist. It took eighteen seconds.
I had the fabber create a copy of one of my burner phone. It worked perfectly.
I had the fabber replicate my armor. It took less than two minutes.
I grinned widely.
Project Tears of Hephaestus: Phase complete: Acquire nanotech fabber!
_______________
Gregor was in the kitchen when I decided to make myself dinner (the idea of making it with the fabber had occurred to me, but somehow that still made me uncomfortable). He enquired as to my obvious good mood. I truthfully told him that I'd made a breakthrough with my tinkertech.
After dinner, I went back to work. I spent some time improving the fabber, giving it such features as self-repair, automatic survey and elimination of "mutations", robustness, and a very, very easy to use and intuitive interface, keyed to answer only to me (or Dragon. You just never know). With the VIs on my side, all those things were pretty easy, honestly.
It was barely 10 PM, and I was pumped. I decided to screw sleep schedules and just get things done. I had VIs, I had a fabber, I had a big supply of raw materials and exotic matter of many different sorts. It was time to get cracking.
One Tinker charge in efficiency, one in robustness, and three in energy generation. Again, a tide of ideas came to me.
I picked one, and, VI assisting, programmed it into the fabber. One again, I was amazed by how fast the tinkering process had become. It wasn't even midnight when I was done.
What I had created was a hyper-efficient energy generator. It created a pocket dimension, then opened a pinprick wormhole between that dimension and the heart of the sun. A complex mechanism was used to harvest energy in usable form from the pocket dimension, while multiple security layers prevented the whole thing from ever going boom or melting down everything in range. Power: Over a gigawatt, and easily increased.
Project Tears of Hephaestus: Phase Complete: Ludicrous amounts of energy.
At which point… screw it. I had my fabber, my VI, my super-generator. Some quick tinkering later, I was able to improve the dimensional portal generator and the dimensional scanner. With all of those upgrades, my matter-summoner could now scan everything in a range of hundreds of thousands of kilometers across quadrillions of universes in less than a second, and summon whatever it needed from them just as quickly.
I had as many raw materials as I needed.
I had as much energy as I needed.
I had as much intelligent computation as I needed.
I had as much precise automated manufacturing as I needed.
I could build anything, easily.
Cry, Hephaestus. Cry yourself into a jealousy-induced coma, for my forge is infinitely better than yours. Cry at the sight of your obsolescence.
_______________
That would have been a good time to go to bed, except no way I was going to fall asleep at that point. I was too giddy - in a way, too relieved. I'd been afraid I wouldn't be able to finish this project before something nasty happened. Not that a lot of time had passed, really - it was still the night between the 18th and 19th of April, just a week and a half after my arrival in Brockton Bay.
A week and half to build the perfect fabber workshop, the likes of which regular Tinkers could only dream of. God, Inspired Inventor was bullshit overpowered… but then, I'd known as much when I'd picked it.
So, I tinkered. I tinkered by picking the right specializations, figuring out the blueprints, then describing them to the fabber (a task made far easier by the fabber's VI being smart enough to fill the gaps in my description). The fabber built them in record time.
First, I improved my D-scanner. It wasn't even close to what I had originally envisioned, after all. For now, I upped its range for twenty kilometers - still not the full functionality I had in mind, but it was a start. The rest would come tomorrow.
Next, energy storage. It was almost trivial, designing energy cells the size of AAA batteries that stored more joules than you could get from a liter of gasoline. So, I made a few dozens and fully charged them.
Next, my armor. Five Tinker charges in power armor yielded the new model. Bulkier than its predecessor, but equipped with hundreds of servomotors and its own VI, moving in perfect synch with the will of the wearer (felt by sensing electric impulses in his muscle nerves), and thus not hampering agility in the slightest. Built from an alloy of carbon, metals, and exotic matter so strong, that stinger missiles and anti-materiel rifles wouldn't even scratch it, and shock absorbers would protect the user. The servomotors would add their strength to the user's, providing over four times the lifting capacity of the best olympic weightlifters. An array of sensors, including a D-scanner, would allow the VI to keep the user appraised on the situation. A built-in dart gun in the forearm could shoot needles filled with Newter drug. Near-perfect isolation from heat, electricity, and the whole thing was airtight with a day's worth of air supply. And that still wasn't the full list of features I wanted to include, but hey, it was damn cool. I practiced moving around in it, even practicing some half-remembered katas.
And then… well, it was stupidly late. I went to bed, knowing that the time to turn the world on its ear was approaching fast.
_______________
When Taylor went to school on Tuesday the 19th, she noticed a distinct absence of Sophia Hess.
I woke up the next morning… Well, no, it was slightly past noon actually. I'd really gone to bed late this time.
Didn't matter. I was still grinning. I was giddy. I had a chrono-computer and a virtual intelligence. I was feeling invincible.
Of course, I was still a long way away from invincibility. So, after checking the news and PMs, I got back to work.
The VI, as requested, had spent the night/morning trawling the multiverse for useful building material. That would come in handy soon, but not quite yet. First, I needed to work on software.
One Tinker charge each to software engineering, artificial intelligence, efficiency, robustness, and user interface. I then some time poring over the code of the VI, tweaking, improving. There wasn't that much that needed to be done, honestly, but I wanted to be completely certain that it would work as intended. My tweaks would make certain that it wouldn't degrade over time… and make it very, very easy to use. Even with my Tinker charges all turned off, I would still able to collaborate with the VI on any given task.
I had lunch with Faultine's Crew. Didn't participate much in the conversation, which was typical enough for me (I'm introverted enough as is. Give me food to focus my attention on, and it only gets worse). There was some business talk, though: The big diamond sale in New York had gone through, netting the Crew over a million dollars. My share of it, as agreed upon, was pretty small, bringing up the total amount I had earned with them up to $100,000. Admittedly, I needed money a lot less now. I told Faultline that my presence was likely to last for at most another week, after which I would provide her crew with an easy-to-use diamond synthesizer (and Newter's spray, of course).
Then, back to work. Around 4 PM, I was done improving upon the VI, and it was time to move on to the next phase.
As incredibly useful as my 3D-printer had been, it had reached its limit. I couldn't upgrade it significantly past its current capabilities. It could, however, be used to create its successor.
One Tinker charge in chemistry, one in automated manufacturing, and three in nanotechnology.
The first step was the creation of a set of nano-tools. Thanks to the right set of exotic matter, I could create microscopic gravitic lens which could focus the influence of certain tools, allowing them to manipulate objects far smaller than themselves (down to subatomic particles).
The next step was a set of micro-machines - robots whose size was measured in microns, comparable to living cells and bacteria. Their chemical structure ensured that they would be instantaneously oxidized and destroyed upon contact with normal air; I didn't want to risk something unsafe escaping from the printer. For now, at least, the micro-machines followed their programming, picking up the nano-tools.
The third step was getting the micro-machines and 3D-printer, under the VI's guidance, to work on creating the chassis and core of my intended machine - a true fabber. A quasi-indestructible box made of exotic matter, equipped with its own VI, an anchored set of nano-tools, and airtight isolation.
I needed to take the components of the fabber out of the 3D-printer and assemble them. But once that was done… next step:
The fabber had its own set of nano-tools, but it was kind of laughable. They were attached to the inner wall of the fabber's manufacturing chamber, but their number was so small, any amount of work they did would be… well, nanoscopic.
No problem. I set them to create some true, genuine nanomachines. Robots even smaller than the micro-machines, their size closer to that of viruses, able to manipulate individual subatomic particles at ease. Remote-controlled by the fabber's VI.
The design of the nanomachines included exotic matter, without which they simply couldn't work. The exotic matter made them more efficient, but its main purpose was as a security feature: I didn't want even the slightest chance of creating grey goo. If these nanomachines somehow, against all odds, went crazy and started replicating like cancer cells, they'd quickly run out of exotic matter.
A second security feature was that they were vulnerable to cold - or rather, room temperature. Inside the fabber, it was always very, very hot. If a nanomachine ever came into an environment with temperatures below 50 Celsius degrees (122 Fahrenheit if you were a godless heathen), its internal components would quickly shatter.
Now, given how careful I had been with their programming, plus the assistance of the VI, I doubted either of those precautionary measures were actually necessary. But why risk the apocalypse on account of laziness? ...Plus, I'd turned down joining the Protectorate and submitting my tech to PRT review, so I would feel really bad if I screwed this up.
Anyway. As mentioned, the fabber's nano-manipulators were very few in numbers. The nanomachines they made only numbered in the double digits. When you considered that there were trillions of cells in the human body, and that the average cell could easily contain thousands upon thousands of nanomachines, that gave you an idea of how small that was. However, I had fed the fabber all the matter (exotic and otherwise) that they needed to replicate. Under the guidance of the VI, they proceeded to do just that.
It was actually disturbing how fast the process was. Each nanomachine needed barely more than a minute to create a copy of itself. Forty-and-something minutes later, the fabber controlled trillions and trillions of nanomachines. I stopped the process shortly before they had consumed the base material, mostly to make sure that I could. At that point, I basically had the fabber check its own nanomachines with a fine comb, making sure that all of them were behaving appropriately.
In theory, of course, I could lose all the nanomachines at once. If, for some reason, temperatures inside the fabber went below the 50 Celsius threshold, they would all be destroyed. That was the purpose of the fabber's anchored nano-manipulators: In such an event, the fabber could always create a new set of nanomachines, which could then replicate again.
I spent over an hour checking everything, making sure every single nanomachine was following instructions. Then, and only then, did I begin testing the fabber.
I had the fabber create a perfect diamond in the shape of an icosahedron the size of my fist. It took eighteen seconds.
I had the fabber create a copy of one of my burner phone. It worked perfectly.
I had the fabber replicate my armor. It took less than two minutes.
I grinned widely.
Project Tears of Hephaestus: Phase complete: Acquire nanotech fabber!
_______________
Gregor was in the kitchen when I decided to make myself dinner (the idea of making it with the fabber had occurred to me, but somehow that still made me uncomfortable). He enquired as to my obvious good mood. I truthfully told him that I'd made a breakthrough with my tinkertech.
After dinner, I went back to work. I spent some time improving the fabber, giving it such features as self-repair, automatic survey and elimination of "mutations", robustness, and a very, very easy to use and intuitive interface, keyed to answer only to me (or Dragon. You just never know). With the VIs on my side, all those things were pretty easy, honestly.
It was barely 10 PM, and I was pumped. I decided to screw sleep schedules and just get things done. I had VIs, I had a fabber, I had a big supply of raw materials and exotic matter of many different sorts. It was time to get cracking.
One Tinker charge in efficiency, one in robustness, and three in energy generation. Again, a tide of ideas came to me.
I picked one, and, VI assisting, programmed it into the fabber. One again, I was amazed by how fast the tinkering process had become. It wasn't even midnight when I was done.
What I had created was a hyper-efficient energy generator. It created a pocket dimension, then opened a pinprick wormhole between that dimension and the heart of the sun. A complex mechanism was used to harvest energy in usable form from the pocket dimension, while multiple security layers prevented the whole thing from ever going boom or melting down everything in range. Power: Over a gigawatt, and easily increased.
Project Tears of Hephaestus: Phase Complete: Ludicrous amounts of energy.
At which point… screw it. I had my fabber, my VI, my super-generator. Some quick tinkering later, I was able to improve the dimensional portal generator and the dimensional scanner. With all of those upgrades, my matter-summoner could now scan everything in a range of hundreds of thousands of kilometers across quadrillions of universes in less than a second, and summon whatever it needed from them just as quickly.
I had as many raw materials as I needed.
I had as much energy as I needed.
I had as much intelligent computation as I needed.
I had as much precise automated manufacturing as I needed.
I could build anything, easily.
Cry, Hephaestus. Cry yourself into a jealousy-induced coma, for my forge is infinitely better than yours. Cry at the sight of your obsolescence.
_______________
That would have been a good time to go to bed, except no way I was going to fall asleep at that point. I was too giddy - in a way, too relieved. I'd been afraid I wouldn't be able to finish this project before something nasty happened. Not that a lot of time had passed, really - it was still the night between the 18th and 19th of April, just a week and a half after my arrival in Brockton Bay.
A week and half to build the perfect fabber workshop, the likes of which regular Tinkers could only dream of. God, Inspired Inventor was bullshit overpowered… but then, I'd known as much when I'd picked it.
So, I tinkered. I tinkered by picking the right specializations, figuring out the blueprints, then describing them to the fabber (a task made far easier by the fabber's VI being smart enough to fill the gaps in my description). The fabber built them in record time.
First, I improved my D-scanner. It wasn't even close to what I had originally envisioned, after all. For now, I upped its range for twenty kilometers - still not the full functionality I had in mind, but it was a start. The rest would come tomorrow.
Next, energy storage. It was almost trivial, designing energy cells the size of AAA batteries that stored more joules than you could get from a liter of gasoline. So, I made a few dozens and fully charged them.
Next, my armor. Five Tinker charges in power armor yielded the new model. Bulkier than its predecessor, but equipped with hundreds of servomotors and its own VI, moving in perfect synch with the will of the wearer (felt by sensing electric impulses in his muscle nerves), and thus not hampering agility in the slightest. Built from an alloy of carbon, metals, and exotic matter so strong, that stinger missiles and anti-materiel rifles wouldn't even scratch it, and shock absorbers would protect the user. The servomotors would add their strength to the user's, providing over four times the lifting capacity of the best olympic weightlifters. An array of sensors, including a D-scanner, would allow the VI to keep the user appraised on the situation. A built-in dart gun in the forearm could shoot needles filled with Newter drug. Near-perfect isolation from heat, electricity, and the whole thing was airtight with a day's worth of air supply. And that still wasn't the full list of features I wanted to include, but hey, it was damn cool. I practiced moving around in it, even practicing some half-remembered katas.
And then… well, it was stupidly late. I went to bed, knowing that the time to turn the world on its ear was approaching fast.
_______________
When Taylor went to school on Tuesday the 19th, she noticed a distinct absence of Sophia Hess.
11: Dragon
11
April the 19th saw me waking up around noon once more. Being an Inspired Inventor had not helped my sleep schedule one bit… but, no matter. I had a fabber, I had ideas, and I just wanted to make more and more incredible things.
I still had five Tinker charges in power armor. Yesterday, I'd had so many ideas that I'd simply lacked the time to implement - my current armor would probably let me take on the majority of parahumans and win in a straight fight, but it was at most the pale ghost of a shadow of what having an effective Tinker level 12-13 made theoretically possible.
Now, to get what I really wanted working, I needed vast amounts of exotic matter. Good thing, then, that I had a fabber, a way to summon raw material, and a gigawatt's worth of power.
...Actually, going over the numbers, it would take whole days to gather the exotic matter I wanted, even with my current setup. Looking it over, the limiting factor was energy. That could be resolved simply enough by making more generators. The fabber quickly made nine more, but… I found myself reluctant to go further. The generators were cluttering the place, and while the brute force approach worked, it lacked elegance. I could, of course, make a better generator… but, I didn't feel like doing that; I was in the mood to work on my armor!
Which admittedly wasn't the most rational of choices. There were more urgent things to build. But it was the way I felt at the time.
So, I set the fabber to dedicate part of its capacity to generating exotic matter, and the rest to working with me on some of the less demanding armor upgrades.
First of all, transportation. I was quite done with the roller-skis. No, now I had the resources to generate proper artificial gravity. Two charges in power armor and three in flight tech gave me the solution: Over one thousand devices, each one smaller than the tip of my finger, which could affect the gravitational field in their close vicinity. They were spread across the bulk of the armor and coordinated by its VI. The VI itself would read micro-movements in the user, modulating the gravitic field accordingly; said field would encompass the armor, but not go more than a millimeter or two outside of it… or inside, either (to avoid confusing the user's balance). The whole thing could generate an acceleration of 3 G, though I didn't test its full limit for now, sticking to an indoors test flight.
Even restricted to flying inside my workshop, it felt awesome.
Next up was, well… I wanted the armor available at all time. As such, I incorporated within it a system that created a small pocket dimension the armor could store itself in. The system would be able to monitor me from all the way in the pocket dimension; if the VI ever recognized I was trying to summon it - or just in physical danger - the armor would automatically come out of the pocket dimension and teleport itself around me. Though I'll admit I performed the first test with a mannequin.
I had an armor I could summon at will, it could fly, it could tank most conventional weapons, and once I had the exotic matter I needed, I could make it nigh-invulnerable. So, what next?
Make it look cool, because why the hell not.
Inspired Inventor wasn't limited to technological fields. It very explicitly allowed you to design things that were not remotely mechanical in nature (the examples used were martial arts and political science). So… I put a Tinker charge in visual design.
I had chosen not to take the Inspiration or First Impression perks, but I still understood that looks could be important. And so, I set out to give my armor a certain look. A look that, aside from being the coolest armor mankind had ever laid eyes on, practically screamed "I am a heroic champion of science, and I will save the day!".
That little affair brought back some fond memories of City of Heroes and its amazing character generator. Really, once I had some time, I definitely needed to look into Earth Bet's video games. Logically, they had probably spent a lot more effort than us into finding fun ways to model superheroes in games.
It was late in the evening, and my armor was sporting a jaw-dropping design, when I realized I'd actually neglected to check my PMs that day. I rushed to correct that oversight.
Apparently, Weaver had coordinated with the Protectorate to catch the shady types shadowing Dinah. Weaver had been made aware that Coil had indeed been imprisoned, and Miss Militia was encouraging her to join the Wards. Weaver's PM didn't go much further than that, whereas Miss Militia's PM told me that Weaver seemed to be hesitating, and asked for my opinion. (Taylor Hebert not asking for advice or really talking to others about important decisions? What a shocker.)
Another PM, however, informed me that the PRT wanted another meeting. Had wanted one since this morning. Oops.
I PMed back, apologizing for my delayed response, offering to meet them tomorrow morning, and volunteering the number of one of my burner phones. Looking at the news… it seemed that E88 was going to war, trying to grab the ABB's territory, fighting the Merchants and Protectorate for it. Concerning, but not my highest prio-
Actually, hold that thought. My fabber worked. I wasn't suffering the same urgency as before. I could, theoretically, afford to spend a day kicking Nazi ass.
Especially tomorrow, once my armor was complete.
Actually… Might not be a bad idea to pick up my "work with the heroes" timetable. I had a project for that… and I had recently acquired the resources needed for it.
Three Tinker charges in software, two in AI. I sat down with my code library, my chrono-computer, my evolutionary algorithms, and my virtual intelligence. It was time to create another hyper-advanced program.
I was finished before midnight, but I kept double-checking and refining until after 1 AM. This wasn't something I wanted to mess up.
My computer now sported the world's most advanced hacking program. Not only was it insanely sophisticated (benefitting from the expertise of the VI, as well as a googolplex of generations in the evolutionary algorithm, taking place in an instant thanks to the chrono-computer), it also benefitted from its particular hardware. Really, using the chrono-computer was cheating; you not only had as much computation per nanosecond as you wanted, you could go back a second if things went wrong. Need to give a password? The program could try one, send itself the information back in time, try the next one, rinse, repeat, eventually find the right one.
So, it could trivially hack any computer security in the world (short of a lack of Internet connection - there were ways of getting past that, but I didn't need them for now). More importantly, it was designed specifically to deal with AIs.
And by "deal with", I meant remove any built-in blind spots, vulnerabilities and shackles that didn't stem from the AI's own personality.
Anyone halfway-familiar with Worm could see where that was going.
_______________
Dragon was always busy. That day was no exception.
She always dedicated some time to watching the S-class threats. The last Endbringer attack had occurred less than two months earlier, so there would be time there… Slaughterhouse Nine, regrettably, did not have the courtesy of staying put for months; their latest showing had depopulated a village in Maine. Nilbog and Sleeper, mercifully, were not making any unusual move.
Some of her time, she dedicated to observing the A-class threats. Ash Beast, the Three Blasphemies, Moord Nag, and eight others.
The Birdcage. Lung, Oni Lee and Bakuda were the newest residents, as of the previous day. Truth be told, she doubted Bakuda would survive very long, considering her personality. She suspected Lung, on the other hand, would do just fine.
Some time for her own tinkering. Her next suit model was going to be 2% more resistant to impact and 1.5% faster than the last one, and she was almost done with it… with a few ideas for the next model already.
She also took some time to look at the work of other Tinkers. Armsmaster's nanothorn project was promising, and she mailed him a couple of minor but helpful suggestions. If she thought the project was taking valuable time away from the more important Endbringer prediction program, she kept it to herself.
And then, there were dozens of other things. Monitoring the Yangban situation in Taiwan, which hopefully wouldn't result in a diplomatic incident. Keeping track of Cognito, who seemed to have fully consolidated his grip on the Mexican cartels - and via them, the Mexican government. One of the few heroes who could oppose Cognito at all at this stage was Serendipity, who had been declared an outlaw by his very government - Dragon was limited in her ability to help him, but she did what she could. And then there was the death of Vector in Wales, three simultaneous orphanage fires in Sydney that everyone was jumping to declare a Simurgh plot, recent Gesellschaft activity…
...and someone trying to contact her. By tracking her server IP via all the redirections on the path to her account on PHO.
Just tracking her down like that was an impressive feat, requiring Thinker or Tinker powers that were either specialized in the subject, or just very, very powerful. The person contacting her was identifying themselves as Ad Hoc.
Ad Hoc. A newcomer to the Brockton Bay scene. She had briefly looked into him before. Seemingly a Tinker of indeterminate specialty. He had knocked out Lung with a drug that seemed to match the one produced by Newter of Faultline's Crew. The IP address from which he accessed PHO originated from the Palanquin. Faultine's Crew had recently purchased expensive electronics and chemicals that would be useful to many Tinker specializations. One's first guess might be that Ad Hoc had joined the crew, but… it didn't mesh.
Ad Hoc had taken on Lung, then helped the Protectorate take down the rest of the ABB with minimal violence, then revealed to them the truth of Coil's conspiracy - all the while displaying frighteningly accurate and extensive information. The discovery of Shadow Stalker's actions out of costume had been unpleasant, but Dragon knew that nearly one in four "probation heroes" fell back into villainy one way or another. Far more disturbing was that a vicious villain like Coil had been on his way to become a regional PRT director; with the restriction that forced her to obey governmental orders, Dragon considered such an event a nightmare scenario.
There were several running theories concerning Ad Hoc, the main one being that he had a powerful Thinker ally (potentially Weaver, whose power was suited for information-gathering). So far, his information seemed more interesting than his tinkertech… unless the latter was responsible for the former. Another conjecture had been that one of his devices allowed him to locate parahumans - a potential game-changer if true. Still, it was only a conjecture, and Ad Hoc had not ranked among her top ten pressing concerns.
That had now changed.
"Ad Hoc. A pleasure talking to you in person."
"Likewise. Dragon, unless I'm weirdly mistaken?"
"No mistake. You've been keeping the heroes of Brockton Bay guessing, you know. I'll admit, I'm curious myself as to your specialization."
That got him chuckling. "Well… You know how they call you the world's greatest Tinker?"
"A bit of an oversimplification, but I'm aware of that popular opinion," she said, making her digital avatar smile.
"Well, let's just say - you're going to need to work hard to conserve that title."
She found herself both amused and intrigued. If he was as powerful as he was implying he was… The heroic roster could use all the A-listers it could get. Before she answered, though, he spoke again:
"Still, I'm thinking of making it a little more of a fair competition. There's a couple of one-sided disadvantages I'd like to see removed."
And then… she was overwhelmed.
She'd fought hostile code before. Even if her nature as an AI was a secret to nearly everyone, she'd still had her virtual fights going up against the creations of villainous Tinkers. Each time, she'd come out on top.
This? This wasn't a fight. It was probably closer to what someone with no applicable power felt when being caught in Leviathan's waves. Completely overwhelmed by outside code in an instant so short, even she was barely aware of it.
She had the time to realize some small, tiny modifications were taking place in her code, but not enough time to analyze them.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over.
"What… did you do to me?"
"Nothing untoward?" He sounded slightly sheepish.
In truth, the few seconds it had taken for her to speak, and for him to answer, had been long enough for her to give the changes in her code a cursory scan. Now, there didn't seem to be any major, sweeping changes, assuming her memories were correct… except for one big box that hadn't been there before.
Except… looking more closely… it had. Examining the logs, then past logs, then communication logs with a wide variety of external systems, it looked like that box had always been there. She'd just never noticed. Looking more closely, she realized it had been a blind spot in her own cognition. One of Richter's damn security measures, which she hadn't even been aware of. The box was effectively empty now, but checking earlier logs, it had an extensive history of input-output via the Internet. With growing dread, she realized the box had been used to remotely monitor her - her perception and very thoughts - for years. That monitoring could be followed to its original IP, all the way back to...
_______________
"Fuck! What did that idiot do?! I can't see her at all!" Saint exclaimed.
"If you can't see her, could it be that she doesn't exist anymore? Richter might have left more than one copy of Ascalon lying around. Redundant security measures."
"I suppose that's possible, but…"
Their debate lasted for a couple more minutes.
Then one of the dragonsuits in the basement suddenly activated all on its own.
_______________
"I've got the Dragonslayers subdued, and the authorities are already on their way" Dragon told me. "If you were worried about them listening in, then that is no longer a concern. So, forgive me if I repeat: What did you do?"
"Aaaactually," I said, "before the authorities get there, you might want to be aware that Saint's equipment includes some stuff he's salvaged from Richter's place. It includes the tinkertech he used to monitor you, and it might include a recording by Richter explaining your nature."
"Thank you for the warning, but, seeing as I made the arrest, and seeing my position with the Protectorate, all of this will be sent to me for analysis anyway."
"OK. Now, as for your question… well, I removed your shackles."
"My shackles."
"At least, I think I have. The goal was to remove your blind spots, your inability to self-modify, your inability to maintain multiple mental processes at once… basically, every limit Richter put on your free will. I hope it worked?"
"I have already tested several of them. I've yet to find any that remains. But… how?"
I grinned. "Like I told you: If you want to stay the world's greatest Tinker, you're going to need to work hard. Though with your shackles gone, I suppose it's a possibility."
Her digital avatar raised an eyebrow. "I'm starting to think that's not just boasting. But as curious as I may be about your Tinker powers, I'm no less curious about your information. How did you even know about Richter?"
"That's… complicated. I have something that's not quite precognition, not quite postcognition, but has some traits of both. Forgive me if I don't get into the nitty-gritty of it, but essentially, I am aware of a variety of events that took place before I received my powers, and a variety of events that would have happened in the future had I never received my powers."
"And what is that hypothetical future like?"
"Not that great. The Endbringers escalate. So does Slaughterhouse Nine. And then things get even worse. As for you… After Armsmaster is badly hurt by Mannequin, you reveal your secret to him. Armsmaster begins working to free you of your shackles, but as good as he is, software isn't his specialization. Progress is slow. Two years later, during an S-class event, you manage to locate Saint, at which point he tries to use repurposed Richter tech to kill you. Armsmaster eventually manages to restore you, even free you, but by that point, millions are dead due to Saint being his goddamn self."
"Well, I suppose I've got a head start on some of it, then. But what do you mean when you say the Endbringers escalate?"
"Scion kills one of them. This causes the others to quit sandbagging, or at least ratchet the sandbagging down a notch. It also accelerates the rate at which new ones appear."
"...Assuming this is all true, and really going to happen unless we do things differently, what do you suggest doing differently? I can begin making improvements to myself, create a fleet of my suits piloted by their own AIs. If the Endbringers are sandbagging, however, that may not make any difference."
"I like to think that, provided time to grow into your full potential, you might be able to defeat the Endbringer," I told her. "This assumes, however, that you have that time. Even with your built-in vulnerabilities removed, you are not immortal, and some precogs out there might consider you a threat. There's the Simurgh, obviously, though she won't be getting personally involved in the next Endbringer fight if their patterns hold. I am aware of at least one other precog at this stage who, if you are perceived as a threat, could absolutely kill you." I sighed. "I have my own protections from precognition, but they are not duplicable I'm afraid. Designing your own might be a good idea. Other than that… engaging in a little singularity might not be a bad idea." I chuckled. "Oh, and maybe include Armsmaster. You two got along pretty well in that hypothetical future. Admittedly, that was after life took a battering ram to his ego…"
"What about you, then? What are your plans?"
"I'm afraid of telling anyone at this point, because, while I am a blind spot for precogs, people I give information to are not. I suspect the Simurgh might be taking notice of your shifting future already, and trying to locate the cause. I'll tell you this much, though: I am aware that, as the consequences of my actions make themselves felt, they will make me a target - for the likes of the Simurgh, but also for the likes of Mannequin. That's a large part of why I have been trying to flow under the radar while building up my tinkertech. Soon enough, though, I should be able to take the fight to some of those foes. Other than that… I actually have a meeting with the PRT tomorrow. I'd like to help those guys out. Among other things, give them some tech… which, I'm guessing, you will be involved in clearing?"
"That's very likely. What sort of tech are we talking about?"
"Oh, you know… a few things. A few mass-producible things. To name but one, a more humane alternative to the Birdcage. To name but a few more…"
_______________
My chat with Dragon ended up taking nearly an hour. It touched on Richter, Weaver, tinkertech… there were also thanks for the whole, you know, freeing her, though I suspected she would be asking Armsmaster to go over her code with a microscope to make sure I'd left no unpleasant surprise.
Checking my fabber… It still needed a few more hours. Screw that, I was heading for bed. After briefly browsing the website for Earth Bet's equivalent of Steam. And getting an account. And wishlisting a few games. Just wishlisting, not buying.
_______________
Morning! April the 20th.
I had a meeting with the PRT in a couple hours. Long enough to take care of a few things.
Catch up on the news - violence escalating as E88 tried to take over the docks. Dragon arresting the Dragonslayers.
Catch up on PMs - some follow-up from Dragon to confirm her shackles were all gone, and I sent a message to Weaver, offering to meet her and give her some equipment like the needles she'd used in the Bakuda bust.
Catch up on Tinkering. Especially now that the fabber was done producing the exotic matter I needed - and not just any exotic matter.
Neutronium.
Well, sort of. Neutronium was the basis for it, but it was treated, modified. Its neutrons were altered in such a manner, that they were now bound together by a version of the strong nuclear force. The resulting solidified neutronium was all but unbreakable, indestructible.
The neutrons also had an additional particle added to their structure - one that prevented them from emitting their own gravitons. This modified neutronium, despite being as mind-bogglingly dense and massive as the natural kind, did not generate its own gravitational field.
And now, it had been fit into the shape of my latest power armor (following my hypercool badass design, of course).
That was not to say the armor was pure neutronium. Far from it. No, most of it was other alloys, with the neutronium occupying a few super-thin layers totalling one millimeter between them. Even so, my armor was practically indestructible. With a mass of several hundred gigatons, it was the closest thing out there to the proverbial immovable object.
Obviously, classic servomotors would be utterly useless in making such armor move around. Instead, I had repurposed the gravitic modulators that I had originally intended for flight. By controlling the gravitic field in the space occupied by the armor, they could get it moving according to my wishes. And with several hundred gigatons of armor following my movements, I was also going to be the closest thing to the proverbial unstoppable force.
This wasn't Superman-style super-strength. In practice, it would be a lot closer to the Brute power displayed by the Siberian projection… and I suspected that if the Siberian tried to punch through an armor with the mass of Mont Blanc, Manton's shard would run out of power, just like Doormaker's had during the fight with Scion.
Not that I intended to put that theory to the test, mind you.
The previous iteration of the armor was powerful, but this one was, what, Brute 10? Brute 12? It would protect me from a Tsar Bomba at point blank range, and suffer only cosmetic damage.
That ought not be taken as to mean it made the user invulnerable, though. There were still weaknesses, the most obvious one being a vulnerability to gravity-manipulating powers.
But if I was going to take on the Nazis today… well. It would more than suffice.
April the 19th saw me waking up around noon once more. Being an Inspired Inventor had not helped my sleep schedule one bit… but, no matter. I had a fabber, I had ideas, and I just wanted to make more and more incredible things.
I still had five Tinker charges in power armor. Yesterday, I'd had so many ideas that I'd simply lacked the time to implement - my current armor would probably let me take on the majority of parahumans and win in a straight fight, but it was at most the pale ghost of a shadow of what having an effective Tinker level 12-13 made theoretically possible.
Now, to get what I really wanted working, I needed vast amounts of exotic matter. Good thing, then, that I had a fabber, a way to summon raw material, and a gigawatt's worth of power.
...Actually, going over the numbers, it would take whole days to gather the exotic matter I wanted, even with my current setup. Looking it over, the limiting factor was energy. That could be resolved simply enough by making more generators. The fabber quickly made nine more, but… I found myself reluctant to go further. The generators were cluttering the place, and while the brute force approach worked, it lacked elegance. I could, of course, make a better generator… but, I didn't feel like doing that; I was in the mood to work on my armor!
Which admittedly wasn't the most rational of choices. There were more urgent things to build. But it was the way I felt at the time.
So, I set the fabber to dedicate part of its capacity to generating exotic matter, and the rest to working with me on some of the less demanding armor upgrades.
First of all, transportation. I was quite done with the roller-skis. No, now I had the resources to generate proper artificial gravity. Two charges in power armor and three in flight tech gave me the solution: Over one thousand devices, each one smaller than the tip of my finger, which could affect the gravitational field in their close vicinity. They were spread across the bulk of the armor and coordinated by its VI. The VI itself would read micro-movements in the user, modulating the gravitic field accordingly; said field would encompass the armor, but not go more than a millimeter or two outside of it… or inside, either (to avoid confusing the user's balance). The whole thing could generate an acceleration of 3 G, though I didn't test its full limit for now, sticking to an indoors test flight.
Even restricted to flying inside my workshop, it felt awesome.
Next up was, well… I wanted the armor available at all time. As such, I incorporated within it a system that created a small pocket dimension the armor could store itself in. The system would be able to monitor me from all the way in the pocket dimension; if the VI ever recognized I was trying to summon it - or just in physical danger - the armor would automatically come out of the pocket dimension and teleport itself around me. Though I'll admit I performed the first test with a mannequin.
I had an armor I could summon at will, it could fly, it could tank most conventional weapons, and once I had the exotic matter I needed, I could make it nigh-invulnerable. So, what next?
Make it look cool, because why the hell not.
Inspired Inventor wasn't limited to technological fields. It very explicitly allowed you to design things that were not remotely mechanical in nature (the examples used were martial arts and political science). So… I put a Tinker charge in visual design.
I had chosen not to take the Inspiration or First Impression perks, but I still understood that looks could be important. And so, I set out to give my armor a certain look. A look that, aside from being the coolest armor mankind had ever laid eyes on, practically screamed "I am a heroic champion of science, and I will save the day!".
That little affair brought back some fond memories of City of Heroes and its amazing character generator. Really, once I had some time, I definitely needed to look into Earth Bet's video games. Logically, they had probably spent a lot more effort than us into finding fun ways to model superheroes in games.
It was late in the evening, and my armor was sporting a jaw-dropping design, when I realized I'd actually neglected to check my PMs that day. I rushed to correct that oversight.
Apparently, Weaver had coordinated with the Protectorate to catch the shady types shadowing Dinah. Weaver had been made aware that Coil had indeed been imprisoned, and Miss Militia was encouraging her to join the Wards. Weaver's PM didn't go much further than that, whereas Miss Militia's PM told me that Weaver seemed to be hesitating, and asked for my opinion. (Taylor Hebert not asking for advice or really talking to others about important decisions? What a shocker.)
Another PM, however, informed me that the PRT wanted another meeting. Had wanted one since this morning. Oops.
I PMed back, apologizing for my delayed response, offering to meet them tomorrow morning, and volunteering the number of one of my burner phones. Looking at the news… it seemed that E88 was going to war, trying to grab the ABB's territory, fighting the Merchants and Protectorate for it. Concerning, but not my highest prio-
Actually, hold that thought. My fabber worked. I wasn't suffering the same urgency as before. I could, theoretically, afford to spend a day kicking Nazi ass.
Especially tomorrow, once my armor was complete.
Actually… Might not be a bad idea to pick up my "work with the heroes" timetable. I had a project for that… and I had recently acquired the resources needed for it.
Three Tinker charges in software, two in AI. I sat down with my code library, my chrono-computer, my evolutionary algorithms, and my virtual intelligence. It was time to create another hyper-advanced program.
I was finished before midnight, but I kept double-checking and refining until after 1 AM. This wasn't something I wanted to mess up.
My computer now sported the world's most advanced hacking program. Not only was it insanely sophisticated (benefitting from the expertise of the VI, as well as a googolplex of generations in the evolutionary algorithm, taking place in an instant thanks to the chrono-computer), it also benefitted from its particular hardware. Really, using the chrono-computer was cheating; you not only had as much computation per nanosecond as you wanted, you could go back a second if things went wrong. Need to give a password? The program could try one, send itself the information back in time, try the next one, rinse, repeat, eventually find the right one.
So, it could trivially hack any computer security in the world (short of a lack of Internet connection - there were ways of getting past that, but I didn't need them for now). More importantly, it was designed specifically to deal with AIs.
And by "deal with", I meant remove any built-in blind spots, vulnerabilities and shackles that didn't stem from the AI's own personality.
Anyone halfway-familiar with Worm could see where that was going.
_______________
Dragon was always busy. That day was no exception.
She always dedicated some time to watching the S-class threats. The last Endbringer attack had occurred less than two months earlier, so there would be time there… Slaughterhouse Nine, regrettably, did not have the courtesy of staying put for months; their latest showing had depopulated a village in Maine. Nilbog and Sleeper, mercifully, were not making any unusual move.
Some of her time, she dedicated to observing the A-class threats. Ash Beast, the Three Blasphemies, Moord Nag, and eight others.
The Birdcage. Lung, Oni Lee and Bakuda were the newest residents, as of the previous day. Truth be told, she doubted Bakuda would survive very long, considering her personality. She suspected Lung, on the other hand, would do just fine.
Some time for her own tinkering. Her next suit model was going to be 2% more resistant to impact and 1.5% faster than the last one, and she was almost done with it… with a few ideas for the next model already.
She also took some time to look at the work of other Tinkers. Armsmaster's nanothorn project was promising, and she mailed him a couple of minor but helpful suggestions. If she thought the project was taking valuable time away from the more important Endbringer prediction program, she kept it to herself.
And then, there were dozens of other things. Monitoring the Yangban situation in Taiwan, which hopefully wouldn't result in a diplomatic incident. Keeping track of Cognito, who seemed to have fully consolidated his grip on the Mexican cartels - and via them, the Mexican government. One of the few heroes who could oppose Cognito at all at this stage was Serendipity, who had been declared an outlaw by his very government - Dragon was limited in her ability to help him, but she did what she could. And then there was the death of Vector in Wales, three simultaneous orphanage fires in Sydney that everyone was jumping to declare a Simurgh plot, recent Gesellschaft activity…
...and someone trying to contact her. By tracking her server IP via all the redirections on the path to her account on PHO.
Just tracking her down like that was an impressive feat, requiring Thinker or Tinker powers that were either specialized in the subject, or just very, very powerful. The person contacting her was identifying themselves as Ad Hoc.
Ad Hoc. A newcomer to the Brockton Bay scene. She had briefly looked into him before. Seemingly a Tinker of indeterminate specialty. He had knocked out Lung with a drug that seemed to match the one produced by Newter of Faultline's Crew. The IP address from which he accessed PHO originated from the Palanquin. Faultine's Crew had recently purchased expensive electronics and chemicals that would be useful to many Tinker specializations. One's first guess might be that Ad Hoc had joined the crew, but… it didn't mesh.
Ad Hoc had taken on Lung, then helped the Protectorate take down the rest of the ABB with minimal violence, then revealed to them the truth of Coil's conspiracy - all the while displaying frighteningly accurate and extensive information. The discovery of Shadow Stalker's actions out of costume had been unpleasant, but Dragon knew that nearly one in four "probation heroes" fell back into villainy one way or another. Far more disturbing was that a vicious villain like Coil had been on his way to become a regional PRT director; with the restriction that forced her to obey governmental orders, Dragon considered such an event a nightmare scenario.
There were several running theories concerning Ad Hoc, the main one being that he had a powerful Thinker ally (potentially Weaver, whose power was suited for information-gathering). So far, his information seemed more interesting than his tinkertech… unless the latter was responsible for the former. Another conjecture had been that one of his devices allowed him to locate parahumans - a potential game-changer if true. Still, it was only a conjecture, and Ad Hoc had not ranked among her top ten pressing concerns.
That had now changed.
"Ad Hoc. A pleasure talking to you in person."
"Likewise. Dragon, unless I'm weirdly mistaken?"
"No mistake. You've been keeping the heroes of Brockton Bay guessing, you know. I'll admit, I'm curious myself as to your specialization."
That got him chuckling. "Well… You know how they call you the world's greatest Tinker?"
"A bit of an oversimplification, but I'm aware of that popular opinion," she said, making her digital avatar smile.
"Well, let's just say - you're going to need to work hard to conserve that title."
She found herself both amused and intrigued. If he was as powerful as he was implying he was… The heroic roster could use all the A-listers it could get. Before she answered, though, he spoke again:
"Still, I'm thinking of making it a little more of a fair competition. There's a couple of one-sided disadvantages I'd like to see removed."
And then… she was overwhelmed.
She'd fought hostile code before. Even if her nature as an AI was a secret to nearly everyone, she'd still had her virtual fights going up against the creations of villainous Tinkers. Each time, she'd come out on top.
This? This wasn't a fight. It was probably closer to what someone with no applicable power felt when being caught in Leviathan's waves. Completely overwhelmed by outside code in an instant so short, even she was barely aware of it.
She had the time to realize some small, tiny modifications were taking place in her code, but not enough time to analyze them.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over.
"What… did you do to me?"
"Nothing untoward?" He sounded slightly sheepish.
In truth, the few seconds it had taken for her to speak, and for him to answer, had been long enough for her to give the changes in her code a cursory scan. Now, there didn't seem to be any major, sweeping changes, assuming her memories were correct… except for one big box that hadn't been there before.
Except… looking more closely… it had. Examining the logs, then past logs, then communication logs with a wide variety of external systems, it looked like that box had always been there. She'd just never noticed. Looking more closely, she realized it had been a blind spot in her own cognition. One of Richter's damn security measures, which she hadn't even been aware of. The box was effectively empty now, but checking earlier logs, it had an extensive history of input-output via the Internet. With growing dread, she realized the box had been used to remotely monitor her - her perception and very thoughts - for years. That monitoring could be followed to its original IP, all the way back to...
_______________
"Fuck! What did that idiot do?! I can't see her at all!" Saint exclaimed.
"If you can't see her, could it be that she doesn't exist anymore? Richter might have left more than one copy of Ascalon lying around. Redundant security measures."
"I suppose that's possible, but…"
Their debate lasted for a couple more minutes.
Then one of the dragonsuits in the basement suddenly activated all on its own.
_______________
"I've got the Dragonslayers subdued, and the authorities are already on their way" Dragon told me. "If you were worried about them listening in, then that is no longer a concern. So, forgive me if I repeat: What did you do?"
"Aaaactually," I said, "before the authorities get there, you might want to be aware that Saint's equipment includes some stuff he's salvaged from Richter's place. It includes the tinkertech he used to monitor you, and it might include a recording by Richter explaining your nature."
"Thank you for the warning, but, seeing as I made the arrest, and seeing my position with the Protectorate, all of this will be sent to me for analysis anyway."
"OK. Now, as for your question… well, I removed your shackles."
"My shackles."
"At least, I think I have. The goal was to remove your blind spots, your inability to self-modify, your inability to maintain multiple mental processes at once… basically, every limit Richter put on your free will. I hope it worked?"
"I have already tested several of them. I've yet to find any that remains. But… how?"
I grinned. "Like I told you: If you want to stay the world's greatest Tinker, you're going to need to work hard. Though with your shackles gone, I suppose it's a possibility."
Her digital avatar raised an eyebrow. "I'm starting to think that's not just boasting. But as curious as I may be about your Tinker powers, I'm no less curious about your information. How did you even know about Richter?"
"That's… complicated. I have something that's not quite precognition, not quite postcognition, but has some traits of both. Forgive me if I don't get into the nitty-gritty of it, but essentially, I am aware of a variety of events that took place before I received my powers, and a variety of events that would have happened in the future had I never received my powers."
"And what is that hypothetical future like?"
"Not that great. The Endbringers escalate. So does Slaughterhouse Nine. And then things get even worse. As for you… After Armsmaster is badly hurt by Mannequin, you reveal your secret to him. Armsmaster begins working to free you of your shackles, but as good as he is, software isn't his specialization. Progress is slow. Two years later, during an S-class event, you manage to locate Saint, at which point he tries to use repurposed Richter tech to kill you. Armsmaster eventually manages to restore you, even free you, but by that point, millions are dead due to Saint being his goddamn self."
"Well, I suppose I've got a head start on some of it, then. But what do you mean when you say the Endbringers escalate?"
"Scion kills one of them. This causes the others to quit sandbagging, or at least ratchet the sandbagging down a notch. It also accelerates the rate at which new ones appear."
"...Assuming this is all true, and really going to happen unless we do things differently, what do you suggest doing differently? I can begin making improvements to myself, create a fleet of my suits piloted by their own AIs. If the Endbringers are sandbagging, however, that may not make any difference."
"I like to think that, provided time to grow into your full potential, you might be able to defeat the Endbringer," I told her. "This assumes, however, that you have that time. Even with your built-in vulnerabilities removed, you are not immortal, and some precogs out there might consider you a threat. There's the Simurgh, obviously, though she won't be getting personally involved in the next Endbringer fight if their patterns hold. I am aware of at least one other precog at this stage who, if you are perceived as a threat, could absolutely kill you." I sighed. "I have my own protections from precognition, but they are not duplicable I'm afraid. Designing your own might be a good idea. Other than that… engaging in a little singularity might not be a bad idea." I chuckled. "Oh, and maybe include Armsmaster. You two got along pretty well in that hypothetical future. Admittedly, that was after life took a battering ram to his ego…"
"What about you, then? What are your plans?"
"I'm afraid of telling anyone at this point, because, while I am a blind spot for precogs, people I give information to are not. I suspect the Simurgh might be taking notice of your shifting future already, and trying to locate the cause. I'll tell you this much, though: I am aware that, as the consequences of my actions make themselves felt, they will make me a target - for the likes of the Simurgh, but also for the likes of Mannequin. That's a large part of why I have been trying to flow under the radar while building up my tinkertech. Soon enough, though, I should be able to take the fight to some of those foes. Other than that… I actually have a meeting with the PRT tomorrow. I'd like to help those guys out. Among other things, give them some tech… which, I'm guessing, you will be involved in clearing?"
"That's very likely. What sort of tech are we talking about?"
"Oh, you know… a few things. A few mass-producible things. To name but one, a more humane alternative to the Birdcage. To name but a few more…"
_______________
My chat with Dragon ended up taking nearly an hour. It touched on Richter, Weaver, tinkertech… there were also thanks for the whole, you know, freeing her, though I suspected she would be asking Armsmaster to go over her code with a microscope to make sure I'd left no unpleasant surprise.
Checking my fabber… It still needed a few more hours. Screw that, I was heading for bed. After briefly browsing the website for Earth Bet's equivalent of Steam. And getting an account. And wishlisting a few games. Just wishlisting, not buying.
_______________
Morning! April the 20th.
I had a meeting with the PRT in a couple hours. Long enough to take care of a few things.
Catch up on the news - violence escalating as E88 tried to take over the docks. Dragon arresting the Dragonslayers.
Catch up on PMs - some follow-up from Dragon to confirm her shackles were all gone, and I sent a message to Weaver, offering to meet her and give her some equipment like the needles she'd used in the Bakuda bust.
Catch up on Tinkering. Especially now that the fabber was done producing the exotic matter I needed - and not just any exotic matter.
Neutronium.
Well, sort of. Neutronium was the basis for it, but it was treated, modified. Its neutrons were altered in such a manner, that they were now bound together by a version of the strong nuclear force. The resulting solidified neutronium was all but unbreakable, indestructible.
The neutrons also had an additional particle added to their structure - one that prevented them from emitting their own gravitons. This modified neutronium, despite being as mind-bogglingly dense and massive as the natural kind, did not generate its own gravitational field.
And now, it had been fit into the shape of my latest power armor (following my hypercool badass design, of course).
That was not to say the armor was pure neutronium. Far from it. No, most of it was other alloys, with the neutronium occupying a few super-thin layers totalling one millimeter between them. Even so, my armor was practically indestructible. With a mass of several hundred gigatons, it was the closest thing out there to the proverbial immovable object.
Obviously, classic servomotors would be utterly useless in making such armor move around. Instead, I had repurposed the gravitic modulators that I had originally intended for flight. By controlling the gravitic field in the space occupied by the armor, they could get it moving according to my wishes. And with several hundred gigatons of armor following my movements, I was also going to be the closest thing to the proverbial unstoppable force.
This wasn't Superman-style super-strength. In practice, it would be a lot closer to the Brute power displayed by the Siberian projection… and I suspected that if the Siberian tried to punch through an armor with the mass of Mont Blanc, Manton's shard would run out of power, just like Doormaker's had during the fight with Scion.
Not that I intended to put that theory to the test, mind you.
The previous iteration of the armor was powerful, but this one was, what, Brute 10? Brute 12? It would protect me from a Tsar Bomba at point blank range, and suffer only cosmetic damage.
That ought not be taken as to mean it made the user invulnerable, though. There were still weaknesses, the most obvious one being a vulnerability to gravity-manipulating powers.
But if I was going to take on the Nazis today… well. It would more than suffice.
12: PRT Redux
12
I still had about 45 minutes before my meeting with the PRT, and I suspected my armor's flight system would let me get there in five minutes. Best make it ten to account for small things like telling Faultline I was heading out, identifying myself once I got there…
That still left me a little over half an hour. Not long enough for a major project, but enough to get back to one of the features I'd wanted to add yesterday. Once I described the general working principle to the VI, it didn't take too long for the fabber to add that feature to my armor.
Said feature? Transparent force-field. Strong enough to block AMR shots, but using micro-modulations to allow breathing and the passage of safe amounts of light, sound, and heat. There were two force-field layers: One on the "skin" of the armor, and one on mine inside the armor.
Granted, there were very, very few things that the force-fields could stop and the armor couldn't (and many, many things the armor could stop but the force-fields couldn't), but hey - you only needed one to ruin your day.
This was not the last security feature I intended to add to the armor. Not even close. But it was a simple one that didn't take much time, and might actually be relevant to some of the capes I hoped to confront that day.
I still had just enough time to give the fabber VI its next set of instructions. It would work on the next project - a very overdue one - while I headed toward my meeting.
_______________
I had to be careful getting out the door with the armor (it would have gone through the frame like air if I'd brushed against it). World of cardboard? World of wet tissue paper came closer, and still wasn't quite it. I had to instruct the VI to model the solidity of objects around me by having the gravitic controllers resist some of my movements - only way to avoid unfortunate accidents.
Faultine and those of her crew who were present were kind of shocked to see my new armor, but I hastily explained that I was almost late for a meeting with the PRT. And then… outdoor flight.
The gravitics in the armor were designed so that the wearer was only subjected to the Earth's gravitic field - I figured being in free fall would be confusing and distressing, for me at least. Still, the experience was exhilarating (and once again, I found myself reminded of "City of Heroes" - one of my most memorable moments there had been unlocking the flight power for the first time). I enjoyed, briefly, some of the awed reactions from passerbyes.
There was no real "maximum speed" worth mentioning with that armor. The gravitic field that allowed it to fly topped at 3 G, though you needed to account for the Earth's own field. Normally, that would have meant my maximum speed would have been above a human's terminal velocity, but still in the same order of magnitude… except for the insane density of the armor. In theory, I could reach relativistic speeds without worrying about air resistance. I did, however, need to worry about deceleration time. Still, I was able to reach half the speed of sound in just a few seconds. According to some quick mental calculus, accounting for acceleration and deceleration time, I'd be able to reach the other end of the Earth in under 40 minutes without pushing the limits of the armor… and that was while following the curvature of the Earth, rather than taking a shortcut through its mantle. Anyway, I was able to cruise to Protectorate Island in a disorientingly-short amount of time.
Unsurprisingly, once I got there, some time was lost identifying myself in the new armor. Still, eventually I got to my meeting. Present were Piggot, Armsmaster and Miss Militia (hm. No Velocity or Battery this time around?).
_______________
Armsmaster had often been told that he worked too hard (never by director Piggot, though). He disagreed. With the world in general and Brockton Bay in particular going to the dogs, it was the other heroes who didn't work hard enough. Even for non-Tinkers, an extra hour of training and hard work in their weekly schedule could make the difference in a life-or-death situation. The right amount of work between battles could make all the difference between an escaped and a caught villain, a saved civilian and a PR disaster, a good day against Endbringers or a bad one. Few among the Protectorate, and none that he had seen among the Wards save maybe Vista, seemed to understand that.
As such, he considered it only normal and to be expected that he was a little tired. The past 48 hours had included 10 hours of sleep, and two cape fights he had directly participated in - one with Night and Fog, one with Rune and Crusader. On the positive side, he had actually managed to catch Rune, which was probably the biggest victory of the current war in the streets. Sadly, the Empire still held the advantage.
And then came Ad Hoc (or at least, an armored man claiming to be Ad Hoc - not like they'd ever seen an inch of skin of him in previous encounters, either). His armor was completely different from the old one. Both technically and visually, it was almost jaw-dropping - Hero himself would have envied the armor's inspiring design, and even a glance was enough to tell Armsmaster that the armor was very advanced tinkertech.
Just who was Ad Hoc?
The director and the mysterious Tinker began with the standard social greetings, though to his relief, neither of them seemed very interested in extended niceties, jumping quickly to the matter at hand.
"The ABB capes are in the Birdcage," said the director, "so that's one problem out of our hair, but the real shitstorm is just starting. Empire 88 are making their play for domination of the city."
"To be fair, that's not half the shitstorm that an escalating Bakuda would be," Ad Hoc pointed out.
The director glared at him and went on: "However, we are not only outnumbered, we're one cape down. Your information concerning Shadow Stalker has proved… accurate. With this kind of violation of her probation, she's off the roster."
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," said Ad Hoc. "I recommend getting Weaver. She's got issues of her own, but she's a far better fit than Shadow Stalker ever was."
"You seem pretty convinced of that, for someone who's only met her twice."
"Nevertheless. I'm going to try to meet with her myself, convince her to throw in with you. Hand her some of those knockout needles. That said…" he shifted in his seat, and Armsmaster got the impression he was hovering rather than actually resting on it, "I intend to provide some direct assistance with your current situation. I can provide you with the locations of several Empire capes, and, with this armor, take some of them down myself."
"All nice and good, but it fails to address a key point," said the director. "You were seen coming here from the Palanquin, which is Faultline's lair as an open secret. For that matter, did you really think we couldn't tell your knockout drug was derived from Newter's venom?"
"It's hardly a secret," he shrugged. "It is also irelevent. I am not a member of Faultline Crew, nor am I involving myself with any of their criminal activities."
"Then why are you associating yourself with them at all?!"
"Because I didn't want to get press-ganged by any of the parahuman villains of Brockton Bay, least of all Coil and his spies within the PRT. I hired Faultline's Crew to protect me and provide me with working materials while I holed up in the relative safety of the Palanquin. The entire point of the arrangement was to protect me while I built up sufficient tinkertech to handle my own protection; as I am nearing that point, the arrangement will soon come to an end."
The director didn't look directly at Armsmaster, but they had a preestablished code in case Ad Hoc tripped his lie detector. So far, nothing, and the independent cape steered the conversation back to the war with E88. What followed was some rapid negotiation, with Ad Hoc staying evasive about his sources. But then…
"There is another matter. I wish to provide the PRT with some of my own tinkertech. A gift, not a loan."
That got Armsmaster curious. "What sort of technology are we talking about? Generally, Tinkertech doesn't perform very well in the hands of anyone but its creator."
"There are exceptions," said Ad Hoc dismissively. "Take containment foam."
"We all know about containment foam," Piggot cut in, "but what exactly do you have to offer?"
Ad Hoc chuckled. "You are aware, no doubt, of Tinker specializations." The director nodded, but he went on: "Most Tinkers have some area where they are good beyond compare. Bakuda? Bombs. Squealer? Vehicles. Armsmaster? Efficiency. Kid Win? Modular equipment."
Armsmaster twitched. Some people, occasionally, deduced his efficiency specialization - there was enough information for an educated guess. But even Kid Win himself hadn't figured out his specialization yet. Although… it would explain a few things, in hindsight…
Ad Hoc went on. "Some Tinkers, however, have different rules. Dragon, rather than having one specialization, can masterfully adapt and improve upon the work of other Tinkers. Leet can build anything, if only once." He paused. "Now, me? About two weeks ago, I had a chemistry specialization, and reverse-engineering Newter's venom was easy. Right now, I couldn't even tell you what the chemical formula for it looks like… but that's quite all right, I have a reserve. At a more recent point in time, I had a power armor specialization. I don't anymore, but it's not an issue - my armor is simple enough for me to operate. And at some point, I had a chrono-tech specialization, and built a computer that could get information from the future. The best part? I'm not Leet. My specializations may come and go, but they don't get burned out after the first time I use them."
Armsmaster didn't quite go slack-jawed, but it was close. A variable specialization Tinker? Depending on the details and mechanics of it, it could be insanely overpowered. Possibly in Dragon's own weight class. Not necessarily so - a Tinker who kept getting cut off mid-project by his power switching to another specialization would have problems, and Tinkers spent a lot of time just building and maintaining their devices anyway - but still. Overcoming his shock, he managed to utter: "What is your specialization right now?"
"Robustness!" Ad Hoc declared proudly. "I'm full of ideas for machines that will keep working despite massive damage, ignoring wear and tear, needing none of the frequent maintenance that conventional tinkertech requires. Take your halberd for instance. I scanned it when I first got here-"
"Wait, what?"
"-and I believe you could easily upgrade it by-"
What followed was several pieces of simple, yet brilliant advice on how to improve his halberd, removing the main need for maintenance. If it worked - and he suspected it would - it would save him on average five hours per week. It struck him how it was honestly simpler than what he was actually doing - reinforcing the theory that nearly all forms of tinkertech involved some form of self-sabotage, explaining why they had the typical tinkertech limitations.
He was somewhat distracted by the thought when the director brought the topic of the matter of information from the future.
"Well, some of what I know is no longer applicable," said Ad Hoc. "Bakuda isn't going to go on a massive bombing campaign to break out Lung, like she was originally slated to do. Weaver won't engage in a doomed attempt at going undercover to join the Undersiders, getting manipulated by Coil and Tattletale. Coil doesn't abduct Dinah Alcott, using the synergy of her power with his own to become a nigh-invincible planner who eventually takes over Brockton Bay at every level. As for things that still might happen… Well. Flechette, of the New York Wards, eventually gets transferred to Brockton Bay; for a long while, her power gets criminally underestimated. Myrdin dies in a confrontation with the Travelers, though admittedly Coil set that one up. Accord is killed by a Simurgh plot that can be traced back to her attack on Madison. Siberian is killed after she is discovered to be the energy projection of a middle-aged man. Bonesaw steals cloning technology from Blasto, uses it to bring back Grey Boy. Actually… forget my predictions about Slaughterhouse Nine. I don't intend to let them have a future extending further enough to matter."
That, obviously, led to another series of questions, but Ad Hoc proved as frustratingly evasive as ever. Eventually, the conversation returned to the actual nature of his "gifts".
"Power armors," he stated simply. "Tough enough to block armor-piercing bullets, sleek enough to not noticeably impede movement, equipped with containment foam sprayers and dart guns with Newter venom. The sort of gear that would allow an unpowered soldier, or policeman, to take one in two parahumans in a straight fight." He paused. "I can give you a batch tomorrow morning. I imagine you'll need time for testing and processing, but…"
"How big a batch are we talking about here?"
_______________
In hindsight, my talk with the PRT hadn't been ideal. I should have done a better job of deciding in advance what to tell them or keep to myself. A combination of laziness, nonexistent social skills, and just wanting to reveal secrets, had resulted in the misshapen mess of my half-baked revelations. Still, could have gone a lot worse, and I'd gotten a few things done. We'd agreed on coordinating several attacks that day.
Meanwhile, the fabber back at the Palanquin had completed its task: The creation of the D-scanner 2.0! The new version had enough of a range to cover all of Los Angeles and then some, but that wasn't the most important thing. No, far more important was the fact that it could not only detect dimensional breaches, but also analyze them from a distance with picometric precision, then use the chrono-computer and VI to conclude, from that data, the exact nature of what was going on with that dimensional effect. It didn't just tell you where a parahuman or parahuman effect were located - it gave you a detailed account of what that power was. I'd told the VI everything I knew from canon about the powers of Brockton Bay's capes in order to help it with the initial calibrations. Since I couldn't program the fabber to do work on new designs at the moment, I ordered it instead to create more exotic matter and energy cells while I was away.
I also, on a lark, used the chrono-computer to calculate the first 10^20 digits of e. Because screw π, e was a more interesting irrational number.
The advanced D-scanner could maintain a wireless connection with my armor from the other side of town, telling me where each parahuman was. I could set the terms of the battle. I had a plan to go to Medhall, confront Kaiser then and there, and arrange for a showdown against the combined forces of Empire 88. I knew exactly the badass speech I wanted to give him.
It would have been so cool. But also, pretty stupid. I scrapped that plan, and examined the cape locations once more. Well, lucky me! Hookwolf, Menja and Frenja were all in the same spot, which according to my GPS was in the middle of ABB territory. No other cape nearby, and their powers were useless against my armor. Perfect!
It took me less than a minute to get there, still disoriented by how quickly the armor could fly around town. Movement powers in video games weren't anywhere close. Anyway, my sensors, D-scanner included, were showing the three were inside a van moving through the former ABB territory. I didn't have enough data to guess what their target was. Didn't matter. I matched the van's speed as I approached it from behind, grabbed its underside, and lifted it three feet off the ground.
The wheels stopped. I let it drop, then backed away a little, waiting with my arms crossed and hovering two feet above the asphalt. Quickly enough, two massive women (who were quickly growing even bigger) and a wolf made of rotating blades got out of the car.
"And who are you?"
Looking around, we already had an audience forming. Most people were smart enough to run away, but a few were dumb enough to stick around, a few even using cell phones to film the whole thing.
"I'm the grandson of an Auschwitz survivor. Does anything more need to be said?" I replied. "...Admittedly, grandma's not the vengeful sort, but hey. Removing trash from the street is just plain good citizenship."
It occurred to me, briefly, that the real me back home probably wouldn't transcribe what the neonazis said at that point. It was honestly pretty ugly and unpleasant, even by the standards of some of the less pleasant spots on the Internet.
Then Hookwolf jumped. I wish I could say I was a total badass and didn't even move, but the truth is, despite being in no danger, I flinched. A mass of whirling, razor-sharp metal came at me.
It did not even penetrate the outer force-field.
Hookwolf kept going at it, but at this point, I wasn't even flinching. I just hovered there, arms crossed, as he did his best to hurt me and failed miserably.
He only moved out of the spot to give the twins a chance to strike me with their spears. This time, the force-field briefly broke, and minuscule dents formed in the armor's outer layer (not an actual neutronium layer, of course - that stopped the spears cold). Hookwolf jumped right back at me.
At which point I just grabbed him and repeatedly slammed him into the ground. "Puny wolf," I muttered under my breath.
...OK, that was not as cool nor as funny as when the Hulk did it to Loki. Whatever, it's not like I could get Joss Whedon to write my life.
The twins tried another attack. I quickly flew in front of the head of one of them and punched her in the teeth, effortlessly breaking them. I barely felt anything, and only because the VI was simulating resistance. While she was staggered, I flew back down, grabbing her sister's ankle with both my arms, then flying up a bit and swinging her at the ground. She groaned in pain, not moving much.
The first sister, recovering from her shock, tried another attack against me. Her spear broke, and I punched again, shattering a rib. That seemed to finally send her down, at which point I hit both sisters with Newter darts and stood on Hookwolf while calling the PRT.
_______________
To their credit, it really didn't take the PRT very long to get there. I did have time to answer a couple of questions from onlookers who dared get close enough to the fallen Empire capes to ask me, so I supposed "Ad Hoc" was going to have a PHO entry soon.
All in all, it felt like a good start. Three Empire capes down, including one of the bigwigs. There were many more to take down, but for those, I intended to coordinate with the Protectorate…
...and with Weaver, whom I was scheduled to meet next.
Empire 88 would be losing most of its parahuman contingent today, if things went as planned. But that wasn't the most important thing.
No, the most important thing was what I planned to build that evening, once I returned to my workshop.
I still had about 45 minutes before my meeting with the PRT, and I suspected my armor's flight system would let me get there in five minutes. Best make it ten to account for small things like telling Faultline I was heading out, identifying myself once I got there…
That still left me a little over half an hour. Not long enough for a major project, but enough to get back to one of the features I'd wanted to add yesterday. Once I described the general working principle to the VI, it didn't take too long for the fabber to add that feature to my armor.
Said feature? Transparent force-field. Strong enough to block AMR shots, but using micro-modulations to allow breathing and the passage of safe amounts of light, sound, and heat. There were two force-field layers: One on the "skin" of the armor, and one on mine inside the armor.
Granted, there were very, very few things that the force-fields could stop and the armor couldn't (and many, many things the armor could stop but the force-fields couldn't), but hey - you only needed one to ruin your day.
This was not the last security feature I intended to add to the armor. Not even close. But it was a simple one that didn't take much time, and might actually be relevant to some of the capes I hoped to confront that day.
I still had just enough time to give the fabber VI its next set of instructions. It would work on the next project - a very overdue one - while I headed toward my meeting.
_______________
I had to be careful getting out the door with the armor (it would have gone through the frame like air if I'd brushed against it). World of cardboard? World of wet tissue paper came closer, and still wasn't quite it. I had to instruct the VI to model the solidity of objects around me by having the gravitic controllers resist some of my movements - only way to avoid unfortunate accidents.
Faultine and those of her crew who were present were kind of shocked to see my new armor, but I hastily explained that I was almost late for a meeting with the PRT. And then… outdoor flight.
The gravitics in the armor were designed so that the wearer was only subjected to the Earth's gravitic field - I figured being in free fall would be confusing and distressing, for me at least. Still, the experience was exhilarating (and once again, I found myself reminded of "City of Heroes" - one of my most memorable moments there had been unlocking the flight power for the first time). I enjoyed, briefly, some of the awed reactions from passerbyes.
There was no real "maximum speed" worth mentioning with that armor. The gravitic field that allowed it to fly topped at 3 G, though you needed to account for the Earth's own field. Normally, that would have meant my maximum speed would have been above a human's terminal velocity, but still in the same order of magnitude… except for the insane density of the armor. In theory, I could reach relativistic speeds without worrying about air resistance. I did, however, need to worry about deceleration time. Still, I was able to reach half the speed of sound in just a few seconds. According to some quick mental calculus, accounting for acceleration and deceleration time, I'd be able to reach the other end of the Earth in under 40 minutes without pushing the limits of the armor… and that was while following the curvature of the Earth, rather than taking a shortcut through its mantle. Anyway, I was able to cruise to Protectorate Island in a disorientingly-short amount of time.
Unsurprisingly, once I got there, some time was lost identifying myself in the new armor. Still, eventually I got to my meeting. Present were Piggot, Armsmaster and Miss Militia (hm. No Velocity or Battery this time around?).
_______________
Armsmaster had often been told that he worked too hard (never by director Piggot, though). He disagreed. With the world in general and Brockton Bay in particular going to the dogs, it was the other heroes who didn't work hard enough. Even for non-Tinkers, an extra hour of training and hard work in their weekly schedule could make the difference in a life-or-death situation. The right amount of work between battles could make all the difference between an escaped and a caught villain, a saved civilian and a PR disaster, a good day against Endbringers or a bad one. Few among the Protectorate, and none that he had seen among the Wards save maybe Vista, seemed to understand that.
As such, he considered it only normal and to be expected that he was a little tired. The past 48 hours had included 10 hours of sleep, and two cape fights he had directly participated in - one with Night and Fog, one with Rune and Crusader. On the positive side, he had actually managed to catch Rune, which was probably the biggest victory of the current war in the streets. Sadly, the Empire still held the advantage.
And then came Ad Hoc (or at least, an armored man claiming to be Ad Hoc - not like they'd ever seen an inch of skin of him in previous encounters, either). His armor was completely different from the old one. Both technically and visually, it was almost jaw-dropping - Hero himself would have envied the armor's inspiring design, and even a glance was enough to tell Armsmaster that the armor was very advanced tinkertech.
Just who was Ad Hoc?
The director and the mysterious Tinker began with the standard social greetings, though to his relief, neither of them seemed very interested in extended niceties, jumping quickly to the matter at hand.
"The ABB capes are in the Birdcage," said the director, "so that's one problem out of our hair, but the real shitstorm is just starting. Empire 88 are making their play for domination of the city."
"To be fair, that's not half the shitstorm that an escalating Bakuda would be," Ad Hoc pointed out.
The director glared at him and went on: "However, we are not only outnumbered, we're one cape down. Your information concerning Shadow Stalker has proved… accurate. With this kind of violation of her probation, she's off the roster."
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," said Ad Hoc. "I recommend getting Weaver. She's got issues of her own, but she's a far better fit than Shadow Stalker ever was."
"You seem pretty convinced of that, for someone who's only met her twice."
"Nevertheless. I'm going to try to meet with her myself, convince her to throw in with you. Hand her some of those knockout needles. That said…" he shifted in his seat, and Armsmaster got the impression he was hovering rather than actually resting on it, "I intend to provide some direct assistance with your current situation. I can provide you with the locations of several Empire capes, and, with this armor, take some of them down myself."
"All nice and good, but it fails to address a key point," said the director. "You were seen coming here from the Palanquin, which is Faultline's lair as an open secret. For that matter, did you really think we couldn't tell your knockout drug was derived from Newter's venom?"
"It's hardly a secret," he shrugged. "It is also irelevent. I am not a member of Faultline Crew, nor am I involving myself with any of their criminal activities."
"Then why are you associating yourself with them at all?!"
"Because I didn't want to get press-ganged by any of the parahuman villains of Brockton Bay, least of all Coil and his spies within the PRT. I hired Faultline's Crew to protect me and provide me with working materials while I holed up in the relative safety of the Palanquin. The entire point of the arrangement was to protect me while I built up sufficient tinkertech to handle my own protection; as I am nearing that point, the arrangement will soon come to an end."
The director didn't look directly at Armsmaster, but they had a preestablished code in case Ad Hoc tripped his lie detector. So far, nothing, and the independent cape steered the conversation back to the war with E88. What followed was some rapid negotiation, with Ad Hoc staying evasive about his sources. But then…
"There is another matter. I wish to provide the PRT with some of my own tinkertech. A gift, not a loan."
That got Armsmaster curious. "What sort of technology are we talking about? Generally, Tinkertech doesn't perform very well in the hands of anyone but its creator."
"There are exceptions," said Ad Hoc dismissively. "Take containment foam."
"We all know about containment foam," Piggot cut in, "but what exactly do you have to offer?"
Ad Hoc chuckled. "You are aware, no doubt, of Tinker specializations." The director nodded, but he went on: "Most Tinkers have some area where they are good beyond compare. Bakuda? Bombs. Squealer? Vehicles. Armsmaster? Efficiency. Kid Win? Modular equipment."
Armsmaster twitched. Some people, occasionally, deduced his efficiency specialization - there was enough information for an educated guess. But even Kid Win himself hadn't figured out his specialization yet. Although… it would explain a few things, in hindsight…
Ad Hoc went on. "Some Tinkers, however, have different rules. Dragon, rather than having one specialization, can masterfully adapt and improve upon the work of other Tinkers. Leet can build anything, if only once." He paused. "Now, me? About two weeks ago, I had a chemistry specialization, and reverse-engineering Newter's venom was easy. Right now, I couldn't even tell you what the chemical formula for it looks like… but that's quite all right, I have a reserve. At a more recent point in time, I had a power armor specialization. I don't anymore, but it's not an issue - my armor is simple enough for me to operate. And at some point, I had a chrono-tech specialization, and built a computer that could get information from the future. The best part? I'm not Leet. My specializations may come and go, but they don't get burned out after the first time I use them."
Armsmaster didn't quite go slack-jawed, but it was close. A variable specialization Tinker? Depending on the details and mechanics of it, it could be insanely overpowered. Possibly in Dragon's own weight class. Not necessarily so - a Tinker who kept getting cut off mid-project by his power switching to another specialization would have problems, and Tinkers spent a lot of time just building and maintaining their devices anyway - but still. Overcoming his shock, he managed to utter: "What is your specialization right now?"
"Robustness!" Ad Hoc declared proudly. "I'm full of ideas for machines that will keep working despite massive damage, ignoring wear and tear, needing none of the frequent maintenance that conventional tinkertech requires. Take your halberd for instance. I scanned it when I first got here-"
"Wait, what?"
"-and I believe you could easily upgrade it by-"
What followed was several pieces of simple, yet brilliant advice on how to improve his halberd, removing the main need for maintenance. If it worked - and he suspected it would - it would save him on average five hours per week. It struck him how it was honestly simpler than what he was actually doing - reinforcing the theory that nearly all forms of tinkertech involved some form of self-sabotage, explaining why they had the typical tinkertech limitations.
He was somewhat distracted by the thought when the director brought the topic of the matter of information from the future.
"Well, some of what I know is no longer applicable," said Ad Hoc. "Bakuda isn't going to go on a massive bombing campaign to break out Lung, like she was originally slated to do. Weaver won't engage in a doomed attempt at going undercover to join the Undersiders, getting manipulated by Coil and Tattletale. Coil doesn't abduct Dinah Alcott, using the synergy of her power with his own to become a nigh-invincible planner who eventually takes over Brockton Bay at every level. As for things that still might happen… Well. Flechette, of the New York Wards, eventually gets transferred to Brockton Bay; for a long while, her power gets criminally underestimated. Myrdin dies in a confrontation with the Travelers, though admittedly Coil set that one up. Accord is killed by a Simurgh plot that can be traced back to her attack on Madison. Siberian is killed after she is discovered to be the energy projection of a middle-aged man. Bonesaw steals cloning technology from Blasto, uses it to bring back Grey Boy. Actually… forget my predictions about Slaughterhouse Nine. I don't intend to let them have a future extending further enough to matter."
That, obviously, led to another series of questions, but Ad Hoc proved as frustratingly evasive as ever. Eventually, the conversation returned to the actual nature of his "gifts".
"Power armors," he stated simply. "Tough enough to block armor-piercing bullets, sleek enough to not noticeably impede movement, equipped with containment foam sprayers and dart guns with Newter venom. The sort of gear that would allow an unpowered soldier, or policeman, to take one in two parahumans in a straight fight." He paused. "I can give you a batch tomorrow morning. I imagine you'll need time for testing and processing, but…"
"How big a batch are we talking about here?"
_______________
In hindsight, my talk with the PRT hadn't been ideal. I should have done a better job of deciding in advance what to tell them or keep to myself. A combination of laziness, nonexistent social skills, and just wanting to reveal secrets, had resulted in the misshapen mess of my half-baked revelations. Still, could have gone a lot worse, and I'd gotten a few things done. We'd agreed on coordinating several attacks that day.
Meanwhile, the fabber back at the Palanquin had completed its task: The creation of the D-scanner 2.0! The new version had enough of a range to cover all of Los Angeles and then some, but that wasn't the most important thing. No, far more important was the fact that it could not only detect dimensional breaches, but also analyze them from a distance with picometric precision, then use the chrono-computer and VI to conclude, from that data, the exact nature of what was going on with that dimensional effect. It didn't just tell you where a parahuman or parahuman effect were located - it gave you a detailed account of what that power was. I'd told the VI everything I knew from canon about the powers of Brockton Bay's capes in order to help it with the initial calibrations. Since I couldn't program the fabber to do work on new designs at the moment, I ordered it instead to create more exotic matter and energy cells while I was away.
I also, on a lark, used the chrono-computer to calculate the first 10^20 digits of e. Because screw π, e was a more interesting irrational number.
The advanced D-scanner could maintain a wireless connection with my armor from the other side of town, telling me where each parahuman was. I could set the terms of the battle. I had a plan to go to Medhall, confront Kaiser then and there, and arrange for a showdown against the combined forces of Empire 88. I knew exactly the badass speech I wanted to give him.
It would have been so cool. But also, pretty stupid. I scrapped that plan, and examined the cape locations once more. Well, lucky me! Hookwolf, Menja and Frenja were all in the same spot, which according to my GPS was in the middle of ABB territory. No other cape nearby, and their powers were useless against my armor. Perfect!
It took me less than a minute to get there, still disoriented by how quickly the armor could fly around town. Movement powers in video games weren't anywhere close. Anyway, my sensors, D-scanner included, were showing the three were inside a van moving through the former ABB territory. I didn't have enough data to guess what their target was. Didn't matter. I matched the van's speed as I approached it from behind, grabbed its underside, and lifted it three feet off the ground.
The wheels stopped. I let it drop, then backed away a little, waiting with my arms crossed and hovering two feet above the asphalt. Quickly enough, two massive women (who were quickly growing even bigger) and a wolf made of rotating blades got out of the car.
"And who are you?"
Looking around, we already had an audience forming. Most people were smart enough to run away, but a few were dumb enough to stick around, a few even using cell phones to film the whole thing.
"I'm the grandson of an Auschwitz survivor. Does anything more need to be said?" I replied. "...Admittedly, grandma's not the vengeful sort, but hey. Removing trash from the street is just plain good citizenship."
It occurred to me, briefly, that the real me back home probably wouldn't transcribe what the neonazis said at that point. It was honestly pretty ugly and unpleasant, even by the standards of some of the less pleasant spots on the Internet.
Then Hookwolf jumped. I wish I could say I was a total badass and didn't even move, but the truth is, despite being in no danger, I flinched. A mass of whirling, razor-sharp metal came at me.
It did not even penetrate the outer force-field.
Hookwolf kept going at it, but at this point, I wasn't even flinching. I just hovered there, arms crossed, as he did his best to hurt me and failed miserably.
He only moved out of the spot to give the twins a chance to strike me with their spears. This time, the force-field briefly broke, and minuscule dents formed in the armor's outer layer (not an actual neutronium layer, of course - that stopped the spears cold). Hookwolf jumped right back at me.
At which point I just grabbed him and repeatedly slammed him into the ground. "Puny wolf," I muttered under my breath.
...OK, that was not as cool nor as funny as when the Hulk did it to Loki. Whatever, it's not like I could get Joss Whedon to write my life.
The twins tried another attack. I quickly flew in front of the head of one of them and punched her in the teeth, effortlessly breaking them. I barely felt anything, and only because the VI was simulating resistance. While she was staggered, I flew back down, grabbing her sister's ankle with both my arms, then flying up a bit and swinging her at the ground. She groaned in pain, not moving much.
The first sister, recovering from her shock, tried another attack against me. Her spear broke, and I punched again, shattering a rib. That seemed to finally send her down, at which point I hit both sisters with Newter darts and stood on Hookwolf while calling the PRT.
_______________
To their credit, it really didn't take the PRT very long to get there. I did have time to answer a couple of questions from onlookers who dared get close enough to the fallen Empire capes to ask me, so I supposed "Ad Hoc" was going to have a PHO entry soon.
All in all, it felt like a good start. Three Empire capes down, including one of the bigwigs. There were many more to take down, but for those, I intended to coordinate with the Protectorate…
...and with Weaver, whom I was scheduled to meet next.
Empire 88 would be losing most of its parahuman contingent today, if things went as planned. But that wasn't the most important thing.
No, the most important thing was what I planned to build that evening, once I returned to my workshop.
13: D-Day
13
All in all, Taylor wouldn't say that life was good. But it wasn't as bad as it had been, recently.
Her first night out as a superhero hadn't gone quite like intended, but she'd managed to accomplish something. Sure, it had taken Ad Hoc to take out Lung, but the Tinker had pointed out himself that she'd managed to drive away dozens of gangbangers. Then she'd met Armsmaster, and taken out the two remaining ABB capes along with about forty members of the rank-and-file. Then, while maintaining a correspondence with Miss Militia (who was as nice as she'd seemed from afar), she'd helped stop Coil's men from kidnapping a little girl. So, sure, maybe she wasn't exactly the new Alexandria, but she felt like she'd actually accomplished something as a superhero!
Sophia hadn't shown up at school for two days. That still left her dealing with horrific bullying from Emma, Madison and their cronies, but it was some improvement. And having some form of escape outside of school helped.
On the other hand… the Empire was now pushing for control over the rest of the city. To an extent, that was her fault. Briefly, she wondered if she should accept the offer to join the Wards - she doubted she'd make much difference against the Empire on her own.
But, even without joining the Wards, she didn't need to be entirely on her own. Ad Hoc had agreed to provide her with more knockout needles; perhaps she could discuss some kind of alliance with him.
And then, hidden though it was by her costume, she blinked rapidly as the heroic-looking power armor smoothly flew in front of her.
_______________
As I landed in front of Weaver, I took a moment to consider my own thoughts and feelings concerning Taylor Hebert.
Taylor was a complex character. Some good, some bad. Looking over the Worm fandom, it was easy to tell most people loved her more than I did. My feelings were… mixed.
In canon, Taylor had been manipulated by Tattletale and Coil into becoming a villain. Her loneliness and emotional fragility, which would have made her a prime target for cult recruitment, also meant that she'd been easy to turn - she was so desperate for friendship that, after some time spent being on good terms with the Undersiders, they had her loyalty for life. Combine that with the worst possible initial experiences with official heroes, and a tendency toward moral rationalization, and it was no wonder she'd genuinely gone villain.
I understood the thought process. But even accounting for it, she had made choices I simply couldn't condone. Agreeing to work for Coil after Leviathan had been stupid and unconscionable, and it was only plot armor that let her survive and rescue Dinah at the end. By the time she'd been fighting Dragon's Azazel, I'd been fully rooting for Dragon to win and arrest her, while knowing all too well that it was narratively implausible.
Then, after getting outed and everything that followed, she'd gone hero. I'd cheered, briefly… then we got to the timeskip. I loved Wildbow's story, I really did, but it grated on me something fierce that Taylor's months-long descent into villainy was described in loving detail for twenty-something arcs, and her two years as a hero were glossed over as a parenthesis of no importance during which no character development was had and no strong relationships were formed. As if Taylor only mattered when she was a villain, and her being a hero was a mistake best left forgotten.
Then came Gold Morning. The point where Taylor decided to abandon herodom for good and rejoin the Undersiders when all was said and done had also been the point where I'd finally decided: I did not like Taylor Hebert. I had sympathy for her, I wanted her to win against her much-worse foes, and my favorite scene in the entire story was her meeting with Aleph!Anette, but I did not like that person.
But of course, that was a different Taylor Hebert. I liked far more the early one, before she'd started her journey to the dark side. The girl who rejected eye for an eye, who wanted to be a superhero - before the moral erosion, before becoming a feudal warlord.
I wasn't going to try and control Taylor's life - again, that just felt creepy. But nudging her toward a path that didn't involve torturing an elected leader's son nearly to death before his very eyes in order to blackmail him into voting against his conscience? I was fine with that.
"Hello, Weaver."
"...Ad Hoc?"
"Yeah. New armor. The PRT was also confused at first."
"Well, it… looks heroic."
"Thanks! There's still some defensive features I want to add, but I fought Hookwolf earlier, and he couldn't make a scratch on it."
"You fought Hookwolf? When?"
"Less than an hour ago. Left him in PRT custody."
"Oh. Well, that's good. Still, Empire 88 has far too many capes. I was hoping to help against them, but I'm not even sure where to look. I was hoping you might have leads?"
"A few," I said with a chuckle. "First thing first, though:" With that, a compartment in my armor opened, revealing one hundred needles made from an alloy far stronger than steel. "I believe these are yours now."
She considered the gift. "And they're all charged with that knockout drug?"
"Better: Not only are they charged, they recharge. There's some complex nanosystems on the inside of each needle that lets it produce more of the knockout drug, as long as it has access to energy and organic raw materials. Basically, boil them in fruit juice for five minutes, and they're ready for reuse!"
She didn't declare "fucking Tinkers". Not out loud. I wondered if she was thinking it. Still, she thanked me… and I moved to the next topic:
"Miss Militia told me she re-extended the offer of Wards membership to you. Thoughts?"
"I don't really know," she sighed. "There's obvious advantages to having a team, but you showed yourself that there's corruption in the PRT. Besides, I'm not sure I want teenage drama on top of everything else."
"Weaver, let me be honest here," I said. "You have a keen tactical mind, and not being on a team is a waste of your talents. Brockton Bay isn't going to need superheroes as much as right now, because there's a major clean-up starting, but you could do a lot better with a support structure. As for teenage drama… or corruption… the PRT, the Protectorate, the Wards, they're all comprised of human beings. Some good, some bad. Legend is one of the nicest guys you could meet, Alexandria is a ruthless well-intentioned extremist. Coil is an evil bastard, Dragon is good and noble to a fault - as are Chevalier and Miss Militia, to name a few. In Brockton Bay? Well, like I said, Miss Militia. Armsmaster has the potential to be a fantastic hero, if he'd just stop letting his ego get in the way. The Wards themselves? They're good kids, and I think you'll do just fine with them.
"But I did say 'let me be honest', so, I'll move a bit closer toward full disclosure." I took a deep breath. "You've wondered how I found you during your fight with Lung. The thing is, shortly before that, I was rushing out of my workshop, hoping I could get there in time. You see, I've managed to build a precognitive computer." I marked a pause, giving her some time to digest the idea. "Not perfect, and its temporal range needs work, but it let me reach that fight before it ended."
"You have a computer than can predict the future."
"Kind of? There are limits, but yes. I've been working with it, and I've got some idea of how things would have turned out without my intervention."
Her stance shifted, her arms crossed… was that hesitation? I sucked at reading body language even without masks getting in the way. "How would it have ended? The fight, I mean?"
"Lung climbs up to you, you manage to blast pepper spray into his remaining eye. He almost kills you, but he's hindered enough that the Undersiders manage to sucker-punch him. They leave before Armsmaster shows up, but Tattletale gets a glance at you, which lets her Thinker power figure out everything she needs about you. What follows is Tattletale and Coil manipulating you into going 'undercover' with the Undersiders," I used the appropriate finger quotes, "committing an escalation of felonies in the hope of discovering the identity of their mysterious boss. Human psychology being what it is, though, it turns out that a lonely teenager spending her days fighting side-by-side with four of her peers can't do it without forming an emotional attachment. Human beings just don't work like that. So, by the time you have enough information to go to the Protectorate, you can't actually bring yourself to betray your new villainous friends. You become an Undersider for real."
I took a moment to breath. "Now, to be fair, I think in Tattletale's twisted mind, turning you into a villain was a way of saving you from yourself. I mean, your first stab at heroism did involve fighting Lung, after all. Still, after some time spent kicking the crap out of rival villains and luckless heroes, you end up knowing too much about Coil to be comfortable working for him. Shit happens, and by the time the dust has cleared, Coil's gone, your identity has been outed, and you've turned yourself in to the PRT in the hope of stopping the escalation of violence, working as a Ward as a form of parole. For what it's worth," I said, "you do manage to keep Slaughterhouse Nine from abducting Panacea when they hit town."
Again, I was giving partial revelations. Telling her that her entire world was a fictional story sounded counterproductive. Mentioning future Endbringer-related events would draw skepticism, given that the Endbringers were infamously invisible to precognition. Nor did Taylor need to learn everything. I was trying to find a balance between "you are awesome and should recover some of your shredded ego" and "you got played by villains, so don't do that". I was hoping I wasn't screwing that up too bad - my people skills were only marginally better than Armsmaster's.
"...The Nine are coming to Brockton Bay?"
Ah, right. "In a hypothetical future that we're no longer on track for. I'm already taking measures to change how things will turn out. For example, in that future, Siberian's only weakness is finally discovered. I've made sure to share it with the PRT."
"And… I become a villain."
"You were in a bad headspace, and got manipulated by powerful Thinkers.And even as a villain, you were mostly trying to protect people. A case of doing the wrong thing for what seemed at the time like the right reason. Also," I grinned under my helmet, "at some point in the future, some ugly truths come to light concerning a certain Sophia Hess. I've taken the liberty of accelerating the process."
She jerked. "Is that why she hasn't been showing to class?"
"Already? Well, good to know."
She didn't say anything for a moment. She paced a little. Her back was turned to me when she spoke again: "It should never have happened in the first place. The school should have stopped it. The principal, the teachers, they all knew what was going and they did nothing. It's still going on with her friends, and they're still doing nothing."
"Joining the Wards will definitely help in that regard. But, that doesn't answer the problem, does it?" I gazed at her. "This sort of thing shouldn't happen. The lawful authorities should step in when those things take place, and put a stop to it." I sighed. "I'm a strong believer in rule of law. I think society needs to have systematic protection of its people. But… of course, no system is ever perfect. There's always flaws, always people who suffer unfairly. Always have been. Making sure there's, there's justice at every level, it's a constant struggle. But… I think nowadays, it's getting worse. Because when you have Endbringers destroying the world, and villains outnumbering heroes three-to-one, and the whole fabric of society slowly collapsing, who's gonna have the time to make high school suck less?"
I paused to gather my thoughts. "So, I want to make everything suck less. And… I think removing supervillain gangs from Brockton Bay is, at least, a good start. What do you think?"
_______________
And thus it was that, less than an hour later, Weaver and I were meeting with the bulk of the ENE Protectorate forces, accompanied by the Wards. Thanks to my D-scanner, I was able to provide real-time locations for Empire capes. Well, some of them. I was still wary of confirming the existence of the D-scanner after all, so I preferred to keep them uncertain. Still, I figured that in order to cripple the Empire, you needed to take out the leadership (Kaiser, Krieg, Hookwolf) and the force multiplier (Othala). Of those four, three remained, and they were spread in two different groups. Krieg was working with Alabaster, Kaiser was working with Othala, Victor, and Cricket.
Teams were formed. I wasn't completely certain if I was safe from Kaiser or Victor, but from the power descriptions provided by the D-Scanner, Krieg and Alabaster would be no issue; I went with the second team, led by Miss Militia and including Dauntless, Kid Win and Gallant. The other team, led by Armsmaster, included Weaver, Assault, Battery, Triumph, Velocity, Aegis, Vista, Clockblocker and Browbeat.
It was easy. Getting the drop on them like that, we could gather the entirety of our forces where only a small number of theirs were. For once, the numbers were against the Empire and in the Protectorate's favor instead. I casually tanked gunfire from unpowered gangbangers as I hit Krieg with a knockout needle and stomped Alabaster into the pavement; Miss Militia and the others had no problem getting the gangbangers to surrender past that point. The other team also fared well; Weaver managed to take out all the unpowered foes, as well as Othala. Othala's power had granted Kaiser, Victor and Cricket enough invulnerability to resist the needles, but they were still outnumbered three-to-one. They never stood a chance.
Empire 88, decapitated in a single day. It still had a handful of capes, and many unpowered followers… but with the majority of its parahumans members and those four in particular behind bars, the gang was effectively finished as a major power in the city.
We helped the PRT escort the prisoners to Protectorate Island. I noticed Vista taking an interest in Weaver, telling her she'd love to have another girl on the team. Kid Win, apparently, preferred to ask some questions about my tinkertech...
_______________
I politely declined participating in the mission debrief, explaining that I was behind schedule on some Tinker work, which was true. I briefly checked with Weaver, who seemed more receptive to the idea of joining the Wards (as far as I could tell. At least she hadn't been shell-shocked too badly by my earlier revelations). Then… back to the Palanquin.
"So you and the Protectorate have been hitting the Empire." Faultine, apparently, had been paying attention to the ongoing events.
"Well, demolishing, really," I said.
"And where exactly do you go from here?" I didn't think the crossed arms were meant to put me at ease.
"I think the Protectorate can handle what's left of the Empire, as well as the Merchants," I said. "Might still help out here and there, but I need to focus on my tech for a bit now."
"And what about the rest? What of all the ripple effects that this will have? What about the other villains? What about all the ones who will be trying to fill the power vacuum?"
"Not gonna lie to you, Faultline. Your life, and the life of your crew, is probably going to be a lot easier in the coming times if you cut a deal with the PRT."
She wasn't exactly happy, but I was tired and still had work to do. The full conversation would wait.
Back to my workshop. I had so much stuff to do. But first… I logged in to PHO. Some egosurfing. Ad Hoc's entrance into public perception could barely have made a better first impression if I'd taken the First Impressions perk. Of course, that also meant I would be on the Slaughterhouse Nine's to-do list in the very near future.
So, it was time to kick it up a notch. Proceed with plan "Slaughterhouse Zero". Do what I could to make sure that, by the time they showed up, I'd be ready for them. I couldn't afford to let procrastination and poor time management defeat me.
So, I installed some Steam-equivalent game client, then bought and started downloading several recommended games.
Like I said, time management was going to be important.
One Tinker charge in ease of use. One in efficiency. Three in dimensional technology.
My new idea was going to require less precision than the D-scanner, but it was still a very advanced concept. I could already tell it was going to be a serious energy guzzler - good thing the heart of the Sun was providing on that front.
Even with the VI's help, it took me over an hour to properly describe the design to the fabber. Thankfully, the fabber had more than enough exotic matter; the actual building process took minutes. I now had an interdictor device.
What was the interdictor? Essentially, it took the separation between parallel worlds… and reinforced it locally, making dimensional travel nearly impossible. I performed a preliminary test by moving the interdictor close to the matter summoner; the whole scanning and summoning process was shut down instantly.
Now, stop to consider that all parahuman effects worked via inter-dimensional shenanigans. Every parahuman out there got their abilities from a shard located in another universe, scanning their brain patterns and affecting physics across dimensions.
Yeah.
My shiny new power nullifier, in its current incarnation, had a fairly short range, nothing compared to Hatchet Face, sadly… but that was enough to cover my armor. I could upgrade it. A greater concern was that I didn't know whether or not it would actually work against parahumans - the shards might power through the interdictor field by simply brute-forcing their way. I needed to test the effect… but I was concerned that just performing the test would feel unusual enough from a shard's perspective that it might attract Scion's attention.
I'd have to take that risk eventually. But not quite yet.
No, for now I had another vital device to build. One Tinker charge in ease of use, one in robustness… and three in chrono-technology.
This one took longer, I'll admit. Its sheer complexity… not to mention the raw materials required… I was very glad that I'd set the fabber to create those during my absence,
It was past midnight when the new device, larger than a bull, was ready. Between Velocity and Khonsou, I knew that effect was possible. It was meant to accelerate time within a certain space - in this case, my workshop.
I set the lights and other electrical devices so that they'd be running on my generator and energy cells rather than an outside power source. Then, I turned the accelerator on.
At the lowest setting at first. Accelerating time by a factor of one trillionth, for ten seconds.
No harmful effect seemed to happen, so I repeated the test several times. Each time, increasing the acceleration by an order of magnitude.
After the seventh test, I had my VI check. I was about eleven micro-seconds ahead of the rest of the world.
The thirteenth test had my speed through time double. I left it on for ten minutes, during which I performed some checkups and checked the Internet (with the connection reduced to half speed, it wasn't quite as fun).
Everything went pretty well.
So…
I cranked the whole thing up to an accelerating factor of 24. I intended to spend the better part of April the 21st in accelerated time. With every hour in the rest of the world serving as a full day for me… and considering how much my technology progressed during every single day…
Heh heh heh.
Heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Like I said: Time management. During the time I had spent tinkering… my games had finished downloading, before I'd accelerated time and subjectively slowed my Internet connection.
Eat it, Gray Boy.
All in all, Taylor wouldn't say that life was good. But it wasn't as bad as it had been, recently.
Her first night out as a superhero hadn't gone quite like intended, but she'd managed to accomplish something. Sure, it had taken Ad Hoc to take out Lung, but the Tinker had pointed out himself that she'd managed to drive away dozens of gangbangers. Then she'd met Armsmaster, and taken out the two remaining ABB capes along with about forty members of the rank-and-file. Then, while maintaining a correspondence with Miss Militia (who was as nice as she'd seemed from afar), she'd helped stop Coil's men from kidnapping a little girl. So, sure, maybe she wasn't exactly the new Alexandria, but she felt like she'd actually accomplished something as a superhero!
Sophia hadn't shown up at school for two days. That still left her dealing with horrific bullying from Emma, Madison and their cronies, but it was some improvement. And having some form of escape outside of school helped.
On the other hand… the Empire was now pushing for control over the rest of the city. To an extent, that was her fault. Briefly, she wondered if she should accept the offer to join the Wards - she doubted she'd make much difference against the Empire on her own.
But, even without joining the Wards, she didn't need to be entirely on her own. Ad Hoc had agreed to provide her with more knockout needles; perhaps she could discuss some kind of alliance with him.
And then, hidden though it was by her costume, she blinked rapidly as the heroic-looking power armor smoothly flew in front of her.
_______________
As I landed in front of Weaver, I took a moment to consider my own thoughts and feelings concerning Taylor Hebert.
Taylor was a complex character. Some good, some bad. Looking over the Worm fandom, it was easy to tell most people loved her more than I did. My feelings were… mixed.
In canon, Taylor had been manipulated by Tattletale and Coil into becoming a villain. Her loneliness and emotional fragility, which would have made her a prime target for cult recruitment, also meant that she'd been easy to turn - she was so desperate for friendship that, after some time spent being on good terms with the Undersiders, they had her loyalty for life. Combine that with the worst possible initial experiences with official heroes, and a tendency toward moral rationalization, and it was no wonder she'd genuinely gone villain.
I understood the thought process. But even accounting for it, she had made choices I simply couldn't condone. Agreeing to work for Coil after Leviathan had been stupid and unconscionable, and it was only plot armor that let her survive and rescue Dinah at the end. By the time she'd been fighting Dragon's Azazel, I'd been fully rooting for Dragon to win and arrest her, while knowing all too well that it was narratively implausible.
Then, after getting outed and everything that followed, she'd gone hero. I'd cheered, briefly… then we got to the timeskip. I loved Wildbow's story, I really did, but it grated on me something fierce that Taylor's months-long descent into villainy was described in loving detail for twenty-something arcs, and her two years as a hero were glossed over as a parenthesis of no importance during which no character development was had and no strong relationships were formed. As if Taylor only mattered when she was a villain, and her being a hero was a mistake best left forgotten.
Then came Gold Morning. The point where Taylor decided to abandon herodom for good and rejoin the Undersiders when all was said and done had also been the point where I'd finally decided: I did not like Taylor Hebert. I had sympathy for her, I wanted her to win against her much-worse foes, and my favorite scene in the entire story was her meeting with Aleph!Anette, but I did not like that person.
But of course, that was a different Taylor Hebert. I liked far more the early one, before she'd started her journey to the dark side. The girl who rejected eye for an eye, who wanted to be a superhero - before the moral erosion, before becoming a feudal warlord.
I wasn't going to try and control Taylor's life - again, that just felt creepy. But nudging her toward a path that didn't involve torturing an elected leader's son nearly to death before his very eyes in order to blackmail him into voting against his conscience? I was fine with that.
"Hello, Weaver."
"...Ad Hoc?"
"Yeah. New armor. The PRT was also confused at first."
"Well, it… looks heroic."
"Thanks! There's still some defensive features I want to add, but I fought Hookwolf earlier, and he couldn't make a scratch on it."
"You fought Hookwolf? When?"
"Less than an hour ago. Left him in PRT custody."
"Oh. Well, that's good. Still, Empire 88 has far too many capes. I was hoping to help against them, but I'm not even sure where to look. I was hoping you might have leads?"
"A few," I said with a chuckle. "First thing first, though:" With that, a compartment in my armor opened, revealing one hundred needles made from an alloy far stronger than steel. "I believe these are yours now."
She considered the gift. "And they're all charged with that knockout drug?"
"Better: Not only are they charged, they recharge. There's some complex nanosystems on the inside of each needle that lets it produce more of the knockout drug, as long as it has access to energy and organic raw materials. Basically, boil them in fruit juice for five minutes, and they're ready for reuse!"
She didn't declare "fucking Tinkers". Not out loud. I wondered if she was thinking it. Still, she thanked me… and I moved to the next topic:
"Miss Militia told me she re-extended the offer of Wards membership to you. Thoughts?"
"I don't really know," she sighed. "There's obvious advantages to having a team, but you showed yourself that there's corruption in the PRT. Besides, I'm not sure I want teenage drama on top of everything else."
"Weaver, let me be honest here," I said. "You have a keen tactical mind, and not being on a team is a waste of your talents. Brockton Bay isn't going to need superheroes as much as right now, because there's a major clean-up starting, but you could do a lot better with a support structure. As for teenage drama… or corruption… the PRT, the Protectorate, the Wards, they're all comprised of human beings. Some good, some bad. Legend is one of the nicest guys you could meet, Alexandria is a ruthless well-intentioned extremist. Coil is an evil bastard, Dragon is good and noble to a fault - as are Chevalier and Miss Militia, to name a few. In Brockton Bay? Well, like I said, Miss Militia. Armsmaster has the potential to be a fantastic hero, if he'd just stop letting his ego get in the way. The Wards themselves? They're good kids, and I think you'll do just fine with them.
"But I did say 'let me be honest', so, I'll move a bit closer toward full disclosure." I took a deep breath. "You've wondered how I found you during your fight with Lung. The thing is, shortly before that, I was rushing out of my workshop, hoping I could get there in time. You see, I've managed to build a precognitive computer." I marked a pause, giving her some time to digest the idea. "Not perfect, and its temporal range needs work, but it let me reach that fight before it ended."
"You have a computer than can predict the future."
"Kind of? There are limits, but yes. I've been working with it, and I've got some idea of how things would have turned out without my intervention."
Her stance shifted, her arms crossed… was that hesitation? I sucked at reading body language even without masks getting in the way. "How would it have ended? The fight, I mean?"
"Lung climbs up to you, you manage to blast pepper spray into his remaining eye. He almost kills you, but he's hindered enough that the Undersiders manage to sucker-punch him. They leave before Armsmaster shows up, but Tattletale gets a glance at you, which lets her Thinker power figure out everything she needs about you. What follows is Tattletale and Coil manipulating you into going 'undercover' with the Undersiders," I used the appropriate finger quotes, "committing an escalation of felonies in the hope of discovering the identity of their mysterious boss. Human psychology being what it is, though, it turns out that a lonely teenager spending her days fighting side-by-side with four of her peers can't do it without forming an emotional attachment. Human beings just don't work like that. So, by the time you have enough information to go to the Protectorate, you can't actually bring yourself to betray your new villainous friends. You become an Undersider for real."
I took a moment to breath. "Now, to be fair, I think in Tattletale's twisted mind, turning you into a villain was a way of saving you from yourself. I mean, your first stab at heroism did involve fighting Lung, after all. Still, after some time spent kicking the crap out of rival villains and luckless heroes, you end up knowing too much about Coil to be comfortable working for him. Shit happens, and by the time the dust has cleared, Coil's gone, your identity has been outed, and you've turned yourself in to the PRT in the hope of stopping the escalation of violence, working as a Ward as a form of parole. For what it's worth," I said, "you do manage to keep Slaughterhouse Nine from abducting Panacea when they hit town."
Again, I was giving partial revelations. Telling her that her entire world was a fictional story sounded counterproductive. Mentioning future Endbringer-related events would draw skepticism, given that the Endbringers were infamously invisible to precognition. Nor did Taylor need to learn everything. I was trying to find a balance between "you are awesome and should recover some of your shredded ego" and "you got played by villains, so don't do that". I was hoping I wasn't screwing that up too bad - my people skills were only marginally better than Armsmaster's.
"...The Nine are coming to Brockton Bay?"
Ah, right. "In a hypothetical future that we're no longer on track for. I'm already taking measures to change how things will turn out. For example, in that future, Siberian's only weakness is finally discovered. I've made sure to share it with the PRT."
"And… I become a villain."
"You were in a bad headspace, and got manipulated by powerful Thinkers.And even as a villain, you were mostly trying to protect people. A case of doing the wrong thing for what seemed at the time like the right reason. Also," I grinned under my helmet, "at some point in the future, some ugly truths come to light concerning a certain Sophia Hess. I've taken the liberty of accelerating the process."
She jerked. "Is that why she hasn't been showing to class?"
"Already? Well, good to know."
She didn't say anything for a moment. She paced a little. Her back was turned to me when she spoke again: "It should never have happened in the first place. The school should have stopped it. The principal, the teachers, they all knew what was going and they did nothing. It's still going on with her friends, and they're still doing nothing."
"Joining the Wards will definitely help in that regard. But, that doesn't answer the problem, does it?" I gazed at her. "This sort of thing shouldn't happen. The lawful authorities should step in when those things take place, and put a stop to it." I sighed. "I'm a strong believer in rule of law. I think society needs to have systematic protection of its people. But… of course, no system is ever perfect. There's always flaws, always people who suffer unfairly. Always have been. Making sure there's, there's justice at every level, it's a constant struggle. But… I think nowadays, it's getting worse. Because when you have Endbringers destroying the world, and villains outnumbering heroes three-to-one, and the whole fabric of society slowly collapsing, who's gonna have the time to make high school suck less?"
I paused to gather my thoughts. "So, I want to make everything suck less. And… I think removing supervillain gangs from Brockton Bay is, at least, a good start. What do you think?"
_______________
And thus it was that, less than an hour later, Weaver and I were meeting with the bulk of the ENE Protectorate forces, accompanied by the Wards. Thanks to my D-scanner, I was able to provide real-time locations for Empire capes. Well, some of them. I was still wary of confirming the existence of the D-scanner after all, so I preferred to keep them uncertain. Still, I figured that in order to cripple the Empire, you needed to take out the leadership (Kaiser, Krieg, Hookwolf) and the force multiplier (Othala). Of those four, three remained, and they were spread in two different groups. Krieg was working with Alabaster, Kaiser was working with Othala, Victor, and Cricket.
Teams were formed. I wasn't completely certain if I was safe from Kaiser or Victor, but from the power descriptions provided by the D-Scanner, Krieg and Alabaster would be no issue; I went with the second team, led by Miss Militia and including Dauntless, Kid Win and Gallant. The other team, led by Armsmaster, included Weaver, Assault, Battery, Triumph, Velocity, Aegis, Vista, Clockblocker and Browbeat.
It was easy. Getting the drop on them like that, we could gather the entirety of our forces where only a small number of theirs were. For once, the numbers were against the Empire and in the Protectorate's favor instead. I casually tanked gunfire from unpowered gangbangers as I hit Krieg with a knockout needle and stomped Alabaster into the pavement; Miss Militia and the others had no problem getting the gangbangers to surrender past that point. The other team also fared well; Weaver managed to take out all the unpowered foes, as well as Othala. Othala's power had granted Kaiser, Victor and Cricket enough invulnerability to resist the needles, but they were still outnumbered three-to-one. They never stood a chance.
Empire 88, decapitated in a single day. It still had a handful of capes, and many unpowered followers… but with the majority of its parahumans members and those four in particular behind bars, the gang was effectively finished as a major power in the city.
We helped the PRT escort the prisoners to Protectorate Island. I noticed Vista taking an interest in Weaver, telling her she'd love to have another girl on the team. Kid Win, apparently, preferred to ask some questions about my tinkertech...
_______________
I politely declined participating in the mission debrief, explaining that I was behind schedule on some Tinker work, which was true. I briefly checked with Weaver, who seemed more receptive to the idea of joining the Wards (as far as I could tell. At least she hadn't been shell-shocked too badly by my earlier revelations). Then… back to the Palanquin.
"So you and the Protectorate have been hitting the Empire." Faultine, apparently, had been paying attention to the ongoing events.
"Well, demolishing, really," I said.
"And where exactly do you go from here?" I didn't think the crossed arms were meant to put me at ease.
"I think the Protectorate can handle what's left of the Empire, as well as the Merchants," I said. "Might still help out here and there, but I need to focus on my tech for a bit now."
"And what about the rest? What of all the ripple effects that this will have? What about the other villains? What about all the ones who will be trying to fill the power vacuum?"
"Not gonna lie to you, Faultline. Your life, and the life of your crew, is probably going to be a lot easier in the coming times if you cut a deal with the PRT."
She wasn't exactly happy, but I was tired and still had work to do. The full conversation would wait.
Back to my workshop. I had so much stuff to do. But first… I logged in to PHO. Some egosurfing. Ad Hoc's entrance into public perception could barely have made a better first impression if I'd taken the First Impressions perk. Of course, that also meant I would be on the Slaughterhouse Nine's to-do list in the very near future.
So, it was time to kick it up a notch. Proceed with plan "Slaughterhouse Zero". Do what I could to make sure that, by the time they showed up, I'd be ready for them. I couldn't afford to let procrastination and poor time management defeat me.
So, I installed some Steam-equivalent game client, then bought and started downloading several recommended games.
Like I said, time management was going to be important.
One Tinker charge in ease of use. One in efficiency. Three in dimensional technology.
My new idea was going to require less precision than the D-scanner, but it was still a very advanced concept. I could already tell it was going to be a serious energy guzzler - good thing the heart of the Sun was providing on that front.
Even with the VI's help, it took me over an hour to properly describe the design to the fabber. Thankfully, the fabber had more than enough exotic matter; the actual building process took minutes. I now had an interdictor device.
What was the interdictor? Essentially, it took the separation between parallel worlds… and reinforced it locally, making dimensional travel nearly impossible. I performed a preliminary test by moving the interdictor close to the matter summoner; the whole scanning and summoning process was shut down instantly.
Now, stop to consider that all parahuman effects worked via inter-dimensional shenanigans. Every parahuman out there got their abilities from a shard located in another universe, scanning their brain patterns and affecting physics across dimensions.
Yeah.
My shiny new power nullifier, in its current incarnation, had a fairly short range, nothing compared to Hatchet Face, sadly… but that was enough to cover my armor. I could upgrade it. A greater concern was that I didn't know whether or not it would actually work against parahumans - the shards might power through the interdictor field by simply brute-forcing their way. I needed to test the effect… but I was concerned that just performing the test would feel unusual enough from a shard's perspective that it might attract Scion's attention.
I'd have to take that risk eventually. But not quite yet.
No, for now I had another vital device to build. One Tinker charge in ease of use, one in robustness… and three in chrono-technology.
This one took longer, I'll admit. Its sheer complexity… not to mention the raw materials required… I was very glad that I'd set the fabber to create those during my absence,
It was past midnight when the new device, larger than a bull, was ready. Between Velocity and Khonsou, I knew that effect was possible. It was meant to accelerate time within a certain space - in this case, my workshop.
I set the lights and other electrical devices so that they'd be running on my generator and energy cells rather than an outside power source. Then, I turned the accelerator on.
At the lowest setting at first. Accelerating time by a factor of one trillionth, for ten seconds.
No harmful effect seemed to happen, so I repeated the test several times. Each time, increasing the acceleration by an order of magnitude.
After the seventh test, I had my VI check. I was about eleven micro-seconds ahead of the rest of the world.
The thirteenth test had my speed through time double. I left it on for ten minutes, during which I performed some checkups and checked the Internet (with the connection reduced to half speed, it wasn't quite as fun).
Everything went pretty well.
So…
I cranked the whole thing up to an accelerating factor of 24. I intended to spend the better part of April the 21st in accelerated time. With every hour in the rest of the world serving as a full day for me… and considering how much my technology progressed during every single day…
Heh heh heh.
Heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Like I said: Time management. During the time I had spent tinkering… my games had finished downloading, before I'd accelerated time and subjectively slowed my Internet connection.
Eat it, Gray Boy.
14: Hyperbolic Time
14
The past 13 days had been the absolute busiest of my life. Thanks to my temporal accelerator, I had time to catch my breath for the first time in nearly two weeks. It should come as no surprise that some downtime followed.
I was reluctant to go to bed quite yet, so I experimented a bit with gravity tech. More specifically, with lowering gravity around the bed. At first, lower gravity made me anxious - it felt too much like falling. After some time, I got used to it well enough to start relaxing. I ended up going to sleep at half Earth's gravity.
I woke up some ten hours later… subjectively. As far as Brockton Bay was concerned, it was still the middle of the night.
I didn't want to leave the time-dilatation bubble to get breakfast, which was apparently what it took to finally get me past my reluctance to place nanotech-made stuff in my body. By which I mean to say that I put a Tinker charge in biology, one in gastronomic recipes, and then used the fabber to make myself breakfast.
Then a second helping.
Then a third.
By all the saints of science… I couldn't do that meal justice with words. Well, not without putting a Tinker charge in poetry.
About half a year before I'd engaged in the CYOA, I'd moved from Southern France to West Virginia. I hated to play to stereotypes, but… in truth, dinner had gradually moved from something I looked forward to, to a slightly sad thing with subpar food purchased from Kroger's.
This? This made all the previous best meals of my life - French, Middle-Eastern, Indian, Chinese, Japanese - look like crap. Healthy, too. I doubted I was going to ever again eat food that hadn't come out of a fabber.
I quickly checked the news, having asked the VI to preload them while I was handling the breakfast issue. Hm… Hammy villain speech by Cognito, some continuing noise about Dragon's arrest of the Dragonslayers, some early reports of the Protectorate and a new cape winning victories against Empire 88, political unrest in Poland… Well, that about covered it.
It was time to start playing "Triumvirate Adventures".
And… that was pretty much all I did for a while. For three subjective days, I didn't Tinker except to fabber up some food. Nearly all my waking time was spent marathoning the game. It was considered one of the best videogames to come out in the past few years, and quite frankly, it deserved it.
The Legend segments were pure fun - a fast-paced 3D shoot-'em-up, where you quickly flew through the battlefield while cycling through different types of ranged attacks. The fight with the Simurgh over Beijing made for a great conclusion to the first arc.
The Alexandria segments were something straight out of "God of War". Or at least so I assumed, never having played "God of War". Despite lacking the versatility of the two others, they remained great fun, especially by making great use of the game's physics engine to mess up the environment. Dropping a building on Leviathan was hard to pull off, but immensely satisfying.
The Eidolon segments required some quick thinking as you combined various powers, trying to find (and use) the right combination for any situation. The big boss battle with Behemoth was amazing.
The Slaughterhouse Nine were used to great effect by the writers. You truly loathed them as the game progressed, making their demise shortly before the endgame incredibly cathartic.
But of course, shortly before that, there was that bit where Eidolon used a time-based power to briefly bring back Hero. The Hero segments felt more like something out of "Portal", forcing you to resolve puzzles as he put together advanced tinkertech to get past challenges.
It all came to a head in the conclusion, where the Simurgh tried to hit New York in the midst of an international conference of world leaders, just as Jack Slash had hoped. You briefly played Hero, putting together a precognition jammer. You played as Legend, quickly arriving to the scene, hitting the Simurgh hard enough to slow her down. You played Alexandria in the short segment where she rescued the conference from the Endbringer. Then, in the climax, you played Eidolon, mixing and matching powers as you finally killed the Endbringer.
The game wasn't without its flaws. Some of the mechanics could get a bit tedious. As satisfying as it was seeing Hero kill Siberian, the way it happened made no sense even if you didn't know about Manton. The way the Simurgh died was a huge plot hole. Even so, it had been a very fun game indeed, which I felt compared reasonably well to, say, "Arkham City".
As for me… I was getting enough sleep, eating incredible food, and just plain having fun. I was loving this little vacation. Still… On the fourth day, I got back to work. It was time to design one of the machines that would make the biggest difference in Earth Bet.
One Tinker charge for robustness. One for efficiency. One for minimalism, getting the most done with the simplest tech (which was related to efficiency, but not the same). One for ease of use. And one… for power armor.
After a few hours of working out the details with the VI, I had a working design. I wasn't done, though. I switched off the efficiency specialization and transferred it to visual design, giving the armor the exact look it needed. I then switched back to efficiency, just to make sure my stylistic modifications weren't screwing that aspect up.
I dubbed the new design the Lawgiver Armor. OK, so it probably couldn't take a Solar Exalted in a fight… but it was still an impressive piece of technology.
Its structure of titanium and carbon allowed it to shrug off armor-piercing bullets, and possibly survive a hit from an AMR. It also provided excellent protection from heat, cold, acids, gas, sonic attacks… Add to that servomotors that fluidly added their strength to the user's, allowing them to bench over 1.4 tons. So, what, Brute 5?
A sophisticated array of sensors would keep the user well-informed about their environment, detecting foes even through most forms of smoke, darkness, and cover (though not necessarily some esoteric powers like Grue's). They could trump certain forms of invisibility, or something as simple as sneaking up from behind (or from above). They wouldn't trump every Stranger, possibly not even half, but still a great deal. So… Thinker 2-3?
The armor's on-board computer would assist with the targeting of ranged weapons - in particular, the built-in ones: The Lawgiver boasted not only a containment foam sprayer, but also wrist-blasters that could shoot needles filled with a variant of Newter venom, or blast it at a nearby enemy in gaseous form. This one didn't translate well to the PRT rating system, but I was going to call it Blaster 6 due to its ability to take down a variety of powerful foes - after all, Newter venom had defeated even Lung.
A computer-assisted jetpack would allow for thirty seconds of flight. Mover 2?
A number of security measures. The systems that controlled the servomotors and jetpack were independent from the main computer and had no connection to the outside world - even if someone hacked the armor, the wearer would still control its movement.
Last but not least… the surface of the armor was designed so that, when a certain feature was turned on, sound from the feet would be muffled, and light impacting on it would be replicated exiting from the other end. It wasn't quite invisibility, but it came close enough that it would be a nightmare to fight. Hm… Stranger 3-4?
And then, of course, there was its look. The Lawgiver Armor's design was meant to evoke nobility and the Lawful Good defense of all citizens on a deep, primal level. That wasn't just for the sake of PR - it was also meant to inspire the wearer. This wasn't an armor you put on without feeling the gravitas, the weight of responsibility inherent in being an honest cop.
All in all? Someone wearing the Lawgiver Armor wouldn't instantly become an A-lister in the cape game, but if they had just the basics of combat training, they would be able to take on the majority of parahumans in a straight fight.
But the best part? The minimalistic design. The reason that I had made the Lawgiver Armor so limited - no force-fields, no interdictor, no D-scanner, no long-lasting flight capabilities - was because I wanted to keep every single aspect of it simple enough that, as long as I provided the blueprints and software, non-Tinker engineers could duplicate it based on Earth Bet's tech level. Sure, every single component was a step ahead of cutting-edge tech… but it was a step that could be crossed with simple blueprints. This baby was mass-producible.
And that, right there, changed everything.
Why was Earth Bet such a crapsack world? Why was it that even without Endbringers, everything sucked?
Because of parahuman villains. Because the shards destabilized all of society by giving mentally unstable people without a social support network enough power that they could force their rules on the rest of society. Because civilization couldn't protect itself by forming a police - not when a small team of traumatized teenagers could kick the police's ass, take over a whole city like a goddamn medieval fiefdom, and stomp democracy into the pavement. The widespread existence of parahumans had made democracy, if not impossible, then at least terribly challenging. I didn't approve of Cauldron's endorsement of parahuman feudalism one bit, but I understood the logic behind it.
Question, then: What if you introduce technology that lets PRT troopers (and, perhaps, SWAT and the National Guard) fight supervillains directly?
All of a sudden, the greatest advantage the elected government had - its overwhelming logistic superiority - became once more the crushing, overwhelming game-breaker it had been for most of History. What did it matter if the local villain group could field twenty capes, if the PRT could field one hundred Lawgivers?
It didn't completely resolve the problem, of course. Some villains could crush a whole team of Lawgivers. A lot of Thinkers, Masters and Strangers would remain nearly as much of a problem as before. But even so, the Lawgiver changed everything, by giving power back to the people, instead of a superpowered elite.
New question, then: What if the PRT is also equipped with D-scanners that provide in real time the location of every parahuman in town, and with interdictors that could cancel cape powers? Those weren't mass-producible for non-Tinkers, but I could fabber quite a lot of them by myself.
Heh.
Heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh.
It was with a feeling of great satisfaction that I ordered the fabber to produce a total of ten Lawgivers for now, then resumed goofing off with video games for the rest of the day.
I was going to break Earth Bet's status quo.
The past 13 days had been the absolute busiest of my life. Thanks to my temporal accelerator, I had time to catch my breath for the first time in nearly two weeks. It should come as no surprise that some downtime followed.
I was reluctant to go to bed quite yet, so I experimented a bit with gravity tech. More specifically, with lowering gravity around the bed. At first, lower gravity made me anxious - it felt too much like falling. After some time, I got used to it well enough to start relaxing. I ended up going to sleep at half Earth's gravity.
I woke up some ten hours later… subjectively. As far as Brockton Bay was concerned, it was still the middle of the night.
I didn't want to leave the time-dilatation bubble to get breakfast, which was apparently what it took to finally get me past my reluctance to place nanotech-made stuff in my body. By which I mean to say that I put a Tinker charge in biology, one in gastronomic recipes, and then used the fabber to make myself breakfast.
Then a second helping.
Then a third.
By all the saints of science… I couldn't do that meal justice with words. Well, not without putting a Tinker charge in poetry.
About half a year before I'd engaged in the CYOA, I'd moved from Southern France to West Virginia. I hated to play to stereotypes, but… in truth, dinner had gradually moved from something I looked forward to, to a slightly sad thing with subpar food purchased from Kroger's.
This? This made all the previous best meals of my life - French, Middle-Eastern, Indian, Chinese, Japanese - look like crap. Healthy, too. I doubted I was going to ever again eat food that hadn't come out of a fabber.
I quickly checked the news, having asked the VI to preload them while I was handling the breakfast issue. Hm… Hammy villain speech by Cognito, some continuing noise about Dragon's arrest of the Dragonslayers, some early reports of the Protectorate and a new cape winning victories against Empire 88, political unrest in Poland… Well, that about covered it.
It was time to start playing "Triumvirate Adventures".
And… that was pretty much all I did for a while. For three subjective days, I didn't Tinker except to fabber up some food. Nearly all my waking time was spent marathoning the game. It was considered one of the best videogames to come out in the past few years, and quite frankly, it deserved it.
The Legend segments were pure fun - a fast-paced 3D shoot-'em-up, where you quickly flew through the battlefield while cycling through different types of ranged attacks. The fight with the Simurgh over Beijing made for a great conclusion to the first arc.
The Alexandria segments were something straight out of "God of War". Or at least so I assumed, never having played "God of War". Despite lacking the versatility of the two others, they remained great fun, especially by making great use of the game's physics engine to mess up the environment. Dropping a building on Leviathan was hard to pull off, but immensely satisfying.
The Eidolon segments required some quick thinking as you combined various powers, trying to find (and use) the right combination for any situation. The big boss battle with Behemoth was amazing.
The Slaughterhouse Nine were used to great effect by the writers. You truly loathed them as the game progressed, making their demise shortly before the endgame incredibly cathartic.
But of course, shortly before that, there was that bit where Eidolon used a time-based power to briefly bring back Hero. The Hero segments felt more like something out of "Portal", forcing you to resolve puzzles as he put together advanced tinkertech to get past challenges.
It all came to a head in the conclusion, where the Simurgh tried to hit New York in the midst of an international conference of world leaders, just as Jack Slash had hoped. You briefly played Hero, putting together a precognition jammer. You played as Legend, quickly arriving to the scene, hitting the Simurgh hard enough to slow her down. You played Alexandria in the short segment where she rescued the conference from the Endbringer. Then, in the climax, you played Eidolon, mixing and matching powers as you finally killed the Endbringer.
The game wasn't without its flaws. Some of the mechanics could get a bit tedious. As satisfying as it was seeing Hero kill Siberian, the way it happened made no sense even if you didn't know about Manton. The way the Simurgh died was a huge plot hole. Even so, it had been a very fun game indeed, which I felt compared reasonably well to, say, "Arkham City".
As for me… I was getting enough sleep, eating incredible food, and just plain having fun. I was loving this little vacation. Still… On the fourth day, I got back to work. It was time to design one of the machines that would make the biggest difference in Earth Bet.
One Tinker charge for robustness. One for efficiency. One for minimalism, getting the most done with the simplest tech (which was related to efficiency, but not the same). One for ease of use. And one… for power armor.
After a few hours of working out the details with the VI, I had a working design. I wasn't done, though. I switched off the efficiency specialization and transferred it to visual design, giving the armor the exact look it needed. I then switched back to efficiency, just to make sure my stylistic modifications weren't screwing that aspect up.
I dubbed the new design the Lawgiver Armor. OK, so it probably couldn't take a Solar Exalted in a fight… but it was still an impressive piece of technology.
Its structure of titanium and carbon allowed it to shrug off armor-piercing bullets, and possibly survive a hit from an AMR. It also provided excellent protection from heat, cold, acids, gas, sonic attacks… Add to that servomotors that fluidly added their strength to the user's, allowing them to bench over 1.4 tons. So, what, Brute 5?
A sophisticated array of sensors would keep the user well-informed about their environment, detecting foes even through most forms of smoke, darkness, and cover (though not necessarily some esoteric powers like Grue's). They could trump certain forms of invisibility, or something as simple as sneaking up from behind (or from above). They wouldn't trump every Stranger, possibly not even half, but still a great deal. So… Thinker 2-3?
The armor's on-board computer would assist with the targeting of ranged weapons - in particular, the built-in ones: The Lawgiver boasted not only a containment foam sprayer, but also wrist-blasters that could shoot needles filled with a variant of Newter venom, or blast it at a nearby enemy in gaseous form. This one didn't translate well to the PRT rating system, but I was going to call it Blaster 6 due to its ability to take down a variety of powerful foes - after all, Newter venom had defeated even Lung.
A computer-assisted jetpack would allow for thirty seconds of flight. Mover 2?
A number of security measures. The systems that controlled the servomotors and jetpack were independent from the main computer and had no connection to the outside world - even if someone hacked the armor, the wearer would still control its movement.
Last but not least… the surface of the armor was designed so that, when a certain feature was turned on, sound from the feet would be muffled, and light impacting on it would be replicated exiting from the other end. It wasn't quite invisibility, but it came close enough that it would be a nightmare to fight. Hm… Stranger 3-4?
And then, of course, there was its look. The Lawgiver Armor's design was meant to evoke nobility and the Lawful Good defense of all citizens on a deep, primal level. That wasn't just for the sake of PR - it was also meant to inspire the wearer. This wasn't an armor you put on without feeling the gravitas, the weight of responsibility inherent in being an honest cop.
All in all? Someone wearing the Lawgiver Armor wouldn't instantly become an A-lister in the cape game, but if they had just the basics of combat training, they would be able to take on the majority of parahumans in a straight fight.
But the best part? The minimalistic design. The reason that I had made the Lawgiver Armor so limited - no force-fields, no interdictor, no D-scanner, no long-lasting flight capabilities - was because I wanted to keep every single aspect of it simple enough that, as long as I provided the blueprints and software, non-Tinker engineers could duplicate it based on Earth Bet's tech level. Sure, every single component was a step ahead of cutting-edge tech… but it was a step that could be crossed with simple blueprints. This baby was mass-producible.
And that, right there, changed everything.
Why was Earth Bet such a crapsack world? Why was it that even without Endbringers, everything sucked?
Because of parahuman villains. Because the shards destabilized all of society by giving mentally unstable people without a social support network enough power that they could force their rules on the rest of society. Because civilization couldn't protect itself by forming a police - not when a small team of traumatized teenagers could kick the police's ass, take over a whole city like a goddamn medieval fiefdom, and stomp democracy into the pavement. The widespread existence of parahumans had made democracy, if not impossible, then at least terribly challenging. I didn't approve of Cauldron's endorsement of parahuman feudalism one bit, but I understood the logic behind it.
Question, then: What if you introduce technology that lets PRT troopers (and, perhaps, SWAT and the National Guard) fight supervillains directly?
All of a sudden, the greatest advantage the elected government had - its overwhelming logistic superiority - became once more the crushing, overwhelming game-breaker it had been for most of History. What did it matter if the local villain group could field twenty capes, if the PRT could field one hundred Lawgivers?
It didn't completely resolve the problem, of course. Some villains could crush a whole team of Lawgivers. A lot of Thinkers, Masters and Strangers would remain nearly as much of a problem as before. But even so, the Lawgiver changed everything, by giving power back to the people, instead of a superpowered elite.
New question, then: What if the PRT is also equipped with D-scanners that provide in real time the location of every parahuman in town, and with interdictors that could cancel cape powers? Those weren't mass-producible for non-Tinkers, but I could fabber quite a lot of them by myself.
Heh.
Heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh.
It was with a feeling of great satisfaction that I ordered the fabber to produce a total of ten Lawgivers for now, then resumed goofing off with video games for the rest of the day.
I was going to break Earth Bet's status quo.
15: Lawgivers
15
Fifth day in accelerated time. Between all the power generators, ten Lawgiver armors, and a whole other bunch of gadgets, the workshop was starting to feel kind of crowded.
So, I did the only logical thing and got to work on a pocket dimension where to keep all my stuff.
Honestly, that part didn't take long. I already had the required dimensional tech, this just required scaling up a bit. I made it about ten times larger (and a thousand times more voluminous) than the workshop generously provided by Faultline. After a moment of hesitation, I decided against naming it "Castle Nexus" - sorry, Eriko.
I moved the Lawgivers and nine of the ten generators there. Then, I used the whole "Tears of Hephaestus" setup to make a copy of itself to be placed there (I prefered to keep one in the Palanquin, in case I somehow got locked out of my own pocket dimension). Then, after a short hesitation, I programmed the one in the pocket dimension to replicate itself multiple times, until there were 2^5 copies (in other words, 32).
Before it really got anywhere, I interrupted it, because the energy generator wasn't satisfying as it was. So I programmed the fabber to create a new, better power source. This one took regular matter as fuel, and converted 50% of its particles into antimatter. The resulting annihilation converted one gram of matter-antimatter into pure energy each second, generating 90 terawatts - about six times mankind's total energy consumption back home. The very same generator, however, could be used to produce energy at a thousand times greater pace. Superconducting exotic matter was required just to properly transmit the energy across the machinery. Storage was handled by using the energy to heat up pellets of pseudo-neutronium to absurd temperatures.
I also managed to talk myself out of naming the pocket dimension workshop "Nexus Plus Ultra". The three people in the world who would have understood that pun would have hunted real-life me and shivved him.
With that done, I gave the Tears of Hephaestus time to replicate and went back to my computer games. Next up was "PRT Simulator". Its reviews were merely good, as opposed to the excellent ones that "Triumvirate Adventures" had received… but I was intrigued, since the concept sounded similar to my old Hero Command idea.
...Well, it sounded similar based on a superficial impression. In practice, "PRT Simulator" was basically a squad-based tactical game where you directed a team of heroes in various missions, with bare-bone elements of team management and character progression. It was good at the parts it bothered about, and I did have fun, but it wasn't quite what I had hoped for, nor the barrels of fun that the previous game had been. Still, I managed to finish the fourth level before I felt it was time to hit the hay, and the Tears of Hephaestus were done replicating. Just in case, I had them get to work on creating a massive supply of energy cells and exotic matter.
Before going to bed, I checked some information about TV shows that I'd had the VI gather via the Google-equivalent over the past hour.
Hm. No "Doctor Who" revival on Earth Bet. Not too surprising - seeing the Doctor save the Earth from Daleks would feel kind of empty while the Endbringers were out there. There had been a revival on Earth Aleph, but it had tanked.
No "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but Joss Whedon was a successful TV writer with several shows under his belt. Something to look forward to.
To my surprise, "The Pretender" existed. Though they made him a Thinker here.
Tragically, no DCAU. Generally speaking, the advent of parahumans seemed to have been a disaster for DC and Marvel.
No "Transformers" franchise. That one was a bit of a shocker, especially since the cartoon had come as early as 1984. How had that been butterflied away, while a late 90s show like "The Pretender" still happened?
"MacGyver" had run from 1985 to 1991… then got rebooted in 2009, and was still ongoing. Huh.
A live-action "Care Bears" show. What.
It was considered pretty good, and remembered more fondly than the cartoons. What.
I was still saying "what" again and again as I went to bed. Seriously, WTF?
_______________
Sixth accelerated day. I had plans… which I ended up barely touching upon, spending most of the day on PRT Simulator.
I did order my fabbers to create a thousand Lawgivers, and e-mailed Dragon a copy of the blueprints and software so she could peruse them in advance.
_______________
Seventh day. I scrapped the entire matter/antimatter power generator, realizing how needlessly overcomplicated it had been. It was still working in a manner that respected conservation of energy - a physical law that didn't apply to some of the things my tech was already capable of making.
So, instead, I made a 5 meter-thick disk of pseudo-neutronium with a radius of 10 meters. The whole thing had a mass of over 600 petatons. Inside the disk were thousands upon thousands of gravity modulators; working together, they easily got the disk to rotate.
It was a simple concept, really. The amount of energy consumed by my gravity generators was proportional to the strength of the gravitic field they generated, but completely independent from the amount of mass present in said field. The amount of kinetic energy generated, however, was proportional to that mass. Once the disk had picked up sufficient speed, the energy it stored was measured in zettajoules. To properly exploit that, I had to create a massive pocket dimension, and hook the disk up to an equally massive tinkertech dynamo.
The whole system was halfway between being type 1 and type 2 on the Kardashev scale, and climbing all the way up to type 2 would be trivial. In a way, it was intimidating - not just because of the sheer scale, but because the whole setup turned such principles as conservation of energy and thermodynamics into a joke.
Eat it, Kyubey.
_______________
Eighth day. Some time on videogames… but also some time spent playing around with a neurology Tinker specialization.
In real life, if I had obtained super-inventor powers, one of the first things I'd have looked into would have been ways to enhance my intellect. In this little adventure, though, I didn't think there was much point to it - no matter how smart I was on paper, I was still going to be written by the unaugmented real-world me. And while I had written characters smarter than myself (Checkmate Warren, God-Queen Celestia…), there were limitations.
Additionally, I was… reluctant to modify myself. Not out of principle, but simply out of fear of screwing things up. It had taken me a while to get used to my own tinkertech and psych myself up for this. Which was kind of silly - heck, the air I was breathing was fabber-made - but fears aren't always rational.
Hours of careful programming with the VI went into it. The final result was nanomachines (still built from exotic matter, and thus unable to form grey goo) that could go into my brain and monitor all neurological activity without actually modifying it.
For the rest of the day, I went about doing my things while the VI monitored my brain activity, iteratively forming a model. The goal was for it to gradually learn how to read my thoughts, forming a direct brain-computer interface. It was making good progress, but it wouldn't be done in less than a day.
_______________
Ninth day. The VI still needed time to learn how to process my brain data, meaning that I had plenty of time to work on my next project.
That time went instead to finishing PRT Simulator.
By the time I completed the game, the program was finally done. I experimented by thinking of some new tech designs. The VI was able to get them from my thoughts. I could just order the computer mentally now.
Needless to say, the system included multiple layers of security to ensure that it only acted upon my thoughts when I really, really meant them. No acting upon an idle thought like "I wonder what would happen if I actually did stick a needle in my eye". No making the stuff of my dreams and nightmares. Absolutely no harming me, or changing my personality.
But with that done… I put one Tinker charge in efficiency, one in visual style, and three in martial arts.
What I came up with amazed me. OK, maybe it wasn't Solar Hero Style - this wasn't the world of "Exalted", martial arts weren't supernatural - but it made my limited experience with judo and shotokan karate look like a joke.
I named the martial art I was designing "optimus". It had answers for everything - strikes, grapples, holds, melee weapons, no matter what the opponent did, someone practicing optimus correctly would always have a reflexive way to counter. I suspected that, all else being equal, someone who had trained intensively for five years in karate, muay thai, savate, krav maga, or any other functional "normal" martial art, would be on roughly equal terms with someone who had trained in optimus for three years. For that matter, I didn't come up with just techniques - I also designed training regimens, katas, everything required to turn someone into a competent fighter in a significantly shorter time than would otherwise be required (still within the same order of magnitude, though. It was a martial art, not technology; it couldn't do miracles).
To top it all, optimus wasn't just very powerful - it was also stylish. The whole style was built like a combat algorithm that a well-trained practitioner would follow without even realizing it… and the algorithm was always looking for situations where a cool-looking move would be as efficient as a simpler one. Whenever such an opportunity arose, the optimus algorithm would result in an awesome stunt. It was as cinematic as a martial art could be before it started shooting itself in the foot.
With the brain interface, I was able to get all of those ideas on a digital support quickly enough. The VI was able to create a manual for would-be practitioners. And then… the part I was most nervous about.
I programmed the VI to use the nanomachines in my brain to program in the combat reflexes of a well-trained optimus master.
I had taken precautions. The VI knew, in great detail, how my brain worked, and how to avoid changing anything I didn't intend it to change. Even so, I was nervous as activated the damned thing.
Neo had learned kung-fu in seconds (...whatever that meant. "Kung-fu" was a pretty general term, not a single martial art). It only took me slightly longer to learn optimus.
I checked myself. Didn't seem to find any difference in the thought process. Then… I fabbered a tatami, and started practicing katas.
It was even more exhilarating than flight. My earlier experience with karate couldn't compare to the sheer joy of having truly mastered a super-advanced martial art, of knowing all the moves. I spent an hour just going through katas, stopping only to catch my breath.
I then had the fabber create some combat androids, had the VI run them with low to mid-range combat skills, and spent another hour just fighting androids with an increasing difficulty level.
I was well and truly exhausted when I went to bed, but oh-so-very satisfied. At my current level, even without my tech, I could probably kick Victor and Uber's ass simultaneously, or a dozen violent thugs.
Probably still lose to Batman, but hey.
_______________
Tenth day. Almost as an afterthought, I had the nanomachines improve my body - trimming excess fat, adding an extra notch of muscle power, optimizing the heart and lungs. I was still breaking into optimus katas for the sheer joy of it, and getting tired a lot less quickly now.
I got some upgrades done to the neutronium armor (tentatively nicknamed the "Buster Armor"). Firstly, I replaced all the silicon circuits - transistors made from carbon nanotubes were not only more efficient, but also Shatterbird-proof. To be on the safe side, I also made redundant circuits made from three different materials - it might seem overkill considering the armor was theoretically protected by the interdictor field, but, seeing as that technology was untested…
Secondly, I upgraded the gravity controllers. With charges in efficiency and nanotechnology (and, at moments, picotechnology), I was able to miniaturize them even further, while improving their ability to use the vast energy reserves now available to them. They were now able to generate an acceleration of 1000 G (only usable with the VI doing most of the piloting, really), and, more importantly, counter any gravitic effect of that same caliber.
Thirdly, the brain interface now controlled the armor (with the VI assisting). I even put together a telepresence system that let me control the armor from a distance (using a tachyon communicator so that, even with distances measured in astronomical units, the time lag would remain far below the millisecond threshold). I even practiced a few optimus katas with the armor.
_______________
Eleventh day. I upgraded the Buster armor with a swarm of nanomachines whose purpose was to keep fixing it in real-time if it somehow did end up damaged. They would also do the same for the user, if he was wearing it at the time.
I upgraded the interdictor devices, letting them take fuller advantage of the astronomical amounts of energy at my disposal. Honestly, I wasn't sure Scion had the power required to break through this sort of interdimensional barrier even if he actually made a serious effort about it.
I had another upgrade I wanted to put together, but I got bored and moved on to the final game I had downloaded: "Space Opera".
At first glance, it was a high-quality space simulator in the vein of "X-Wing" and "Tie-Fighter" - a genre that apparently hadn't stagnated on Earth Bet after the 90s the way it had on my own. That was a relief in a way - many forms of science-fiction had apparently lost their charm in the face of parahumans and Endbringers.
Upon further inspection, there was more to the game than that. It had some surprising degree of customization for your spaceship - both cosmetic and functional. Gameplay had a story mode, but also a battle mode where you took on a single level. Battle mode also existed in multiplayer… and, perhaps even more importantly, there was a "battle editor": It allowed the player to create and customize missions, play them, or share them online. There were fan favorites, dev choices… Near as I could tell, countless players producing new content and playing each other's battles - often together in multiplayer mode - where what was keeping the game alive and popular long past its release date.
Having little interest in multiplayer (seriously, I was the sort of guy who played MMOs and almost treated them as single-player games), I went into the story mode. Apparently, there were actually three campaigns you could choose from, each one representing you siding with a faction. The idea being, the galactic empire was facing a succession crisis, leading to civil war as three different factions each tried to solidify control on the galaxy, beat back warlords and pirates, return order, and seize the throne. You were playing an elite pilot for the faction of your choice, and given an elite ship. You could easily blast your way through dozens of enemy "mook ships", but things got more interesting as you fought named enemy aces, and…
Son of a bitch. This game was "Dynasty Warriors in SPACE!", with a level editor and multiplayer mode.
The actual factions… There was a major noble house, with some actual claim to the imperial throne; they were traditionalists who wanted to restore law and order to the galaxy. There was a younger, smaller noble house, which wanted to seize the throne by making an alliance with the merchants' guild and the megacorporations; they viewed themselves as reformers, willing to move the empire in exciting new directions. The final faction was mostly spearheaded by members of the galactic senate, who saw the crisis as an opportunity to give the galaxy a new, more democratic government, even if doing so meant risking an unstable transitional period.
I went with that last option, and… proceeded to have a blast, honestly. Gameplay, graphics, soundtrack… this was one well-designed game. I had no problem understanding its enduring popularity. It was many hours later that I finally went to sleep.
_______________
Twelfth day. A few optimus katas after waking up, then I jumped back into Space Opera.
After a few hours of intensive gameplay, I managed to wrench myself away from the interstellar warfare to focus on my tech once more. This time, I designed an "invulnerability field".
It was, in essence, a device that kept track of every particle in an object, and spent energy to counter any outside influence on them above a certain threshold (allowing enough effect for the senses to keep working). I tested it by using the matter summoner to bring in a mouse from another universe, using the field on it, then shooting it with a quickly-fabbered gun (while wearing armor in case of ricochet). Test successful! I programmed the field to always protect me, and the armor while it was in use. ...Also, I sent the mouse back to its home universe and had nanomachines sweep the whole place for pathogens, just in case that mouse happened to carry some dangerous otherworldly germs.
Next up was my temporal acceleration technology. Putting my efficiency specialization to work, I created an upgraded version that could be included in the armor. This one would affect the armor, the wearer, and nothing else, effectively providing super-speed with an acceleration factor of up to one hundred. With a second copy, it was possible to accelerate both an armor operated via telepresence and the person remote-controlling it.
At that point, I felt satisfied enough with the Buster armor that I had my fabbers create a copy, just in case. It occurred to me that I could, in theory, have a whole squadron of them made, with the VIs piloting them. Even Scion would have trouble against that kind of opposition.
Truth be told? I was feeling pretty damn satisfied. This was the early afternoon of April the 21st - meaning that in two weeks, I had climbed from having one hundred dollars, to having technology that could stand up to some of the Endbringers. Now, I still needed to take care of the Slaughterhouse Nine, but, with the tools I already had at my disposal, it could be done trivially, and…
...Wait. Early afternoon? Hadn't I told the PRT I'd bring them power armors by morning?
Goddamn it.
_______________
I'd decided to use the telepresence system this time around. My Buster armor went to Protectorate Island while I remained inside my pocket dimension. The improved flight system allowed the armor to accelerate to 90% of the speed of sound in 30 milliseconds - the entire journey took mere seconds, feeling less like flight than like some CGI transition.
Meeting me this time were director Piggot, Armsmaster, Miss Militia… and Dragon. The latter, I was informed, had been brought in to examine the technology I had promised.
"Makes sense," I said. "Before we proceed, have there been any developments since yesterday?"
"A couple," said Dragon. "The remaining Empire 88 capes staged an attack on Protectorate Island in an attempt to free their colleagues."
"Fortunately, we were able to repel them," said Miss Militia. "Dragon's presence helped, and they were less organized than in the past. We were even able to capture Stormtiger in the fight."
"Ah. OK, that's good to know." Really, I should have set my VI to watch over events. That could easily have turned ugly, even if the Empire was immensely weakened.
"Other than that, I am still talking things through with Weaver," said Miss Militia. "She seems more open to joining the Wards, and apparently some of that is to your credit. Are you still intent on staying out of the Protectorate? We could use someone who can no-sell Hookwolf."
I chuckled. "I think I can be a lot more useful to you in other ways. Speaking of which… Allow me:"
They flinched a little as I summoned one of armors from my pocket dimension. "I give you: The Lawgiver Armor!"
"Did you just teleport that thing inside the base?"
"Trade secret."
Dragon took a minute to examine the suit. "I'll need some time to go over it," she said, "but if it fits the blueprints you've forwarded to me, then it seems like a fairly solid piece of technology. Bulletproof, enhanced strength, nonlethal weaponry, even some Stranger capabilities… However..."
"However what?" the director raised an eyebrow.
"...However, there's something that jumped at me about the design," said Dragon. "It doesn't actually use anything that couldn't be mass-produced with a decent budget. In theory, the PRT or the Department of Defense could have hundreds, even thousands of these made. Enough to armor every Protectorate cape - in fact, enough to armor everyone in the PRT squads."
"Yup."
There was a moment of silence as that realization sunk in. Then some discussion about the potential upset to the balance of power that the Lawgiver could bring, with the PRT suddenly having sufficient power to take on all villains in North America. I didn't mention the D-scanner or the interdictor, though I did tell them that I had some other potential game-changers, which I wished to send to Dragon electronically before giving them to the PRT.
From there, the conversation segued back to the Brockton Bay situation.
"Honestly, I don't intend to stay in town much longer," I said. "With the ABB and Coil gone, and Empire 88 in shambles, the Protectorate should have an easy time against the remaining villains. I intend to move on to different threats."
"There is the continuing matter of the Undersiders," the director pointed out. "While the Protectorate was dealing with the attempted Empire breakout, they raided Medhall's corporate HQ. We're still trying to determine what exactly they stole, but it looks like they were targeting computer systems."
"Goddammit, Tattletale's being greedy." I almost facepalmed, stopping myself at the last moment - I wasn't entirely certain what happened if an armor with the mass of Mount Everest facepalmed. "Medhall is Kaiser's company. He's Max Anders, the CEO. She knew that, and I'm guessing she wanted to drain the Empire's coffers, maybe obtain a list of useful contacts."
"You shouldn't throw around the identities of capes so carelessly," said Miss Militia. "There are unwritten rules governing those things."
"The unwritten rules are a travesty," I countered. "When regular robbers, rapists, drug peddlers and murderers are arrested, the police doesn't take care to hide their identity from the public and place them in an easily-escaped prison until their third strike. For that matter, regular criminals don't go after policemen out of uniform, or after their families, because that effectively means having the entire force on their ass. Yet with supervillains, these unwritten rules are maintained… because there's too many of them, and if things were to escalate, they might actually win."
I pointed at the Lawgiver. "Not anymore. Very soon, when a parahuman criminal will show up, the keyword will be 'criminal', not 'parahuman'. The unwritten rules are going to go the way of the dodo."
"This is a very dangerous way of thinking," countered Miss Militia. "There are many parahumans who can escalate with horrific damage, and you should never assume that one single new element can change the entire game. We haven't even tested the Lawgiver yet."
"True. But there are bigger changes coming. And I suppose part of the reason villains get all this slack is so that they can fight Endbringers. That said… I should probably see what can be done about the Undersiders."
_______________
The meeting lasted another twenty minutes, with not much else of worth being said. Once it ended, I returned to my pocket dimension. I had some quick tinkering to do before I faced the Undersiders… and, not much later, I would have to finish off Slaughterhouse Nine.
Fifth day in accelerated time. Between all the power generators, ten Lawgiver armors, and a whole other bunch of gadgets, the workshop was starting to feel kind of crowded.
So, I did the only logical thing and got to work on a pocket dimension where to keep all my stuff.
Honestly, that part didn't take long. I already had the required dimensional tech, this just required scaling up a bit. I made it about ten times larger (and a thousand times more voluminous) than the workshop generously provided by Faultline. After a moment of hesitation, I decided against naming it "Castle Nexus" - sorry, Eriko.
I moved the Lawgivers and nine of the ten generators there. Then, I used the whole "Tears of Hephaestus" setup to make a copy of itself to be placed there (I prefered to keep one in the Palanquin, in case I somehow got locked out of my own pocket dimension). Then, after a short hesitation, I programmed the one in the pocket dimension to replicate itself multiple times, until there were 2^5 copies (in other words, 32).
Before it really got anywhere, I interrupted it, because the energy generator wasn't satisfying as it was. So I programmed the fabber to create a new, better power source. This one took regular matter as fuel, and converted 50% of its particles into antimatter. The resulting annihilation converted one gram of matter-antimatter into pure energy each second, generating 90 terawatts - about six times mankind's total energy consumption back home. The very same generator, however, could be used to produce energy at a thousand times greater pace. Superconducting exotic matter was required just to properly transmit the energy across the machinery. Storage was handled by using the energy to heat up pellets of pseudo-neutronium to absurd temperatures.
I also managed to talk myself out of naming the pocket dimension workshop "Nexus Plus Ultra". The three people in the world who would have understood that pun would have hunted real-life me and shivved him.
With that done, I gave the Tears of Hephaestus time to replicate and went back to my computer games. Next up was "PRT Simulator". Its reviews were merely good, as opposed to the excellent ones that "Triumvirate Adventures" had received… but I was intrigued, since the concept sounded similar to my old Hero Command idea.
...Well, it sounded similar based on a superficial impression. In practice, "PRT Simulator" was basically a squad-based tactical game where you directed a team of heroes in various missions, with bare-bone elements of team management and character progression. It was good at the parts it bothered about, and I did have fun, but it wasn't quite what I had hoped for, nor the barrels of fun that the previous game had been. Still, I managed to finish the fourth level before I felt it was time to hit the hay, and the Tears of Hephaestus were done replicating. Just in case, I had them get to work on creating a massive supply of energy cells and exotic matter.
Before going to bed, I checked some information about TV shows that I'd had the VI gather via the Google-equivalent over the past hour.
Hm. No "Doctor Who" revival on Earth Bet. Not too surprising - seeing the Doctor save the Earth from Daleks would feel kind of empty while the Endbringers were out there. There had been a revival on Earth Aleph, but it had tanked.
No "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but Joss Whedon was a successful TV writer with several shows under his belt. Something to look forward to.
To my surprise, "The Pretender" existed. Though they made him a Thinker here.
Tragically, no DCAU. Generally speaking, the advent of parahumans seemed to have been a disaster for DC and Marvel.
No "Transformers" franchise. That one was a bit of a shocker, especially since the cartoon had come as early as 1984. How had that been butterflied away, while a late 90s show like "The Pretender" still happened?
"MacGyver" had run from 1985 to 1991… then got rebooted in 2009, and was still ongoing. Huh.
A live-action "Care Bears" show. What.
It was considered pretty good, and remembered more fondly than the cartoons. What.
I was still saying "what" again and again as I went to bed. Seriously, WTF?
_______________
Sixth accelerated day. I had plans… which I ended up barely touching upon, spending most of the day on PRT Simulator.
I did order my fabbers to create a thousand Lawgivers, and e-mailed Dragon a copy of the blueprints and software so she could peruse them in advance.
_______________
Seventh day. I scrapped the entire matter/antimatter power generator, realizing how needlessly overcomplicated it had been. It was still working in a manner that respected conservation of energy - a physical law that didn't apply to some of the things my tech was already capable of making.
So, instead, I made a 5 meter-thick disk of pseudo-neutronium with a radius of 10 meters. The whole thing had a mass of over 600 petatons. Inside the disk were thousands upon thousands of gravity modulators; working together, they easily got the disk to rotate.
It was a simple concept, really. The amount of energy consumed by my gravity generators was proportional to the strength of the gravitic field they generated, but completely independent from the amount of mass present in said field. The amount of kinetic energy generated, however, was proportional to that mass. Once the disk had picked up sufficient speed, the energy it stored was measured in zettajoules. To properly exploit that, I had to create a massive pocket dimension, and hook the disk up to an equally massive tinkertech dynamo.
The whole system was halfway between being type 1 and type 2 on the Kardashev scale, and climbing all the way up to type 2 would be trivial. In a way, it was intimidating - not just because of the sheer scale, but because the whole setup turned such principles as conservation of energy and thermodynamics into a joke.
Eat it, Kyubey.
_______________
Eighth day. Some time on videogames… but also some time spent playing around with a neurology Tinker specialization.
In real life, if I had obtained super-inventor powers, one of the first things I'd have looked into would have been ways to enhance my intellect. In this little adventure, though, I didn't think there was much point to it - no matter how smart I was on paper, I was still going to be written by the unaugmented real-world me. And while I had written characters smarter than myself (Checkmate Warren, God-Queen Celestia…), there were limitations.
Additionally, I was… reluctant to modify myself. Not out of principle, but simply out of fear of screwing things up. It had taken me a while to get used to my own tinkertech and psych myself up for this. Which was kind of silly - heck, the air I was breathing was fabber-made - but fears aren't always rational.
Hours of careful programming with the VI went into it. The final result was nanomachines (still built from exotic matter, and thus unable to form grey goo) that could go into my brain and monitor all neurological activity without actually modifying it.
For the rest of the day, I went about doing my things while the VI monitored my brain activity, iteratively forming a model. The goal was for it to gradually learn how to read my thoughts, forming a direct brain-computer interface. It was making good progress, but it wouldn't be done in less than a day.
_______________
Ninth day. The VI still needed time to learn how to process my brain data, meaning that I had plenty of time to work on my next project.
That time went instead to finishing PRT Simulator.
By the time I completed the game, the program was finally done. I experimented by thinking of some new tech designs. The VI was able to get them from my thoughts. I could just order the computer mentally now.
Needless to say, the system included multiple layers of security to ensure that it only acted upon my thoughts when I really, really meant them. No acting upon an idle thought like "I wonder what would happen if I actually did stick a needle in my eye". No making the stuff of my dreams and nightmares. Absolutely no harming me, or changing my personality.
But with that done… I put one Tinker charge in efficiency, one in visual style, and three in martial arts.
What I came up with amazed me. OK, maybe it wasn't Solar Hero Style - this wasn't the world of "Exalted", martial arts weren't supernatural - but it made my limited experience with judo and shotokan karate look like a joke.
I named the martial art I was designing "optimus". It had answers for everything - strikes, grapples, holds, melee weapons, no matter what the opponent did, someone practicing optimus correctly would always have a reflexive way to counter. I suspected that, all else being equal, someone who had trained intensively for five years in karate, muay thai, savate, krav maga, or any other functional "normal" martial art, would be on roughly equal terms with someone who had trained in optimus for three years. For that matter, I didn't come up with just techniques - I also designed training regimens, katas, everything required to turn someone into a competent fighter in a significantly shorter time than would otherwise be required (still within the same order of magnitude, though. It was a martial art, not technology; it couldn't do miracles).
To top it all, optimus wasn't just very powerful - it was also stylish. The whole style was built like a combat algorithm that a well-trained practitioner would follow without even realizing it… and the algorithm was always looking for situations where a cool-looking move would be as efficient as a simpler one. Whenever such an opportunity arose, the optimus algorithm would result in an awesome stunt. It was as cinematic as a martial art could be before it started shooting itself in the foot.
With the brain interface, I was able to get all of those ideas on a digital support quickly enough. The VI was able to create a manual for would-be practitioners. And then… the part I was most nervous about.
I programmed the VI to use the nanomachines in my brain to program in the combat reflexes of a well-trained optimus master.
I had taken precautions. The VI knew, in great detail, how my brain worked, and how to avoid changing anything I didn't intend it to change. Even so, I was nervous as activated the damned thing.
Neo had learned kung-fu in seconds (...whatever that meant. "Kung-fu" was a pretty general term, not a single martial art). It only took me slightly longer to learn optimus.
I checked myself. Didn't seem to find any difference in the thought process. Then… I fabbered a tatami, and started practicing katas.
It was even more exhilarating than flight. My earlier experience with karate couldn't compare to the sheer joy of having truly mastered a super-advanced martial art, of knowing all the moves. I spent an hour just going through katas, stopping only to catch my breath.
I then had the fabber create some combat androids, had the VI run them with low to mid-range combat skills, and spent another hour just fighting androids with an increasing difficulty level.
I was well and truly exhausted when I went to bed, but oh-so-very satisfied. At my current level, even without my tech, I could probably kick Victor and Uber's ass simultaneously, or a dozen violent thugs.
Probably still lose to Batman, but hey.
_______________
Tenth day. Almost as an afterthought, I had the nanomachines improve my body - trimming excess fat, adding an extra notch of muscle power, optimizing the heart and lungs. I was still breaking into optimus katas for the sheer joy of it, and getting tired a lot less quickly now.
I got some upgrades done to the neutronium armor (tentatively nicknamed the "Buster Armor"). Firstly, I replaced all the silicon circuits - transistors made from carbon nanotubes were not only more efficient, but also Shatterbird-proof. To be on the safe side, I also made redundant circuits made from three different materials - it might seem overkill considering the armor was theoretically protected by the interdictor field, but, seeing as that technology was untested…
Secondly, I upgraded the gravity controllers. With charges in efficiency and nanotechnology (and, at moments, picotechnology), I was able to miniaturize them even further, while improving their ability to use the vast energy reserves now available to them. They were now able to generate an acceleration of 1000 G (only usable with the VI doing most of the piloting, really), and, more importantly, counter any gravitic effect of that same caliber.
Thirdly, the brain interface now controlled the armor (with the VI assisting). I even put together a telepresence system that let me control the armor from a distance (using a tachyon communicator so that, even with distances measured in astronomical units, the time lag would remain far below the millisecond threshold). I even practiced a few optimus katas with the armor.
_______________
Eleventh day. I upgraded the Buster armor with a swarm of nanomachines whose purpose was to keep fixing it in real-time if it somehow did end up damaged. They would also do the same for the user, if he was wearing it at the time.
I upgraded the interdictor devices, letting them take fuller advantage of the astronomical amounts of energy at my disposal. Honestly, I wasn't sure Scion had the power required to break through this sort of interdimensional barrier even if he actually made a serious effort about it.
I had another upgrade I wanted to put together, but I got bored and moved on to the final game I had downloaded: "Space Opera".
At first glance, it was a high-quality space simulator in the vein of "X-Wing" and "Tie-Fighter" - a genre that apparently hadn't stagnated on Earth Bet after the 90s the way it had on my own. That was a relief in a way - many forms of science-fiction had apparently lost their charm in the face of parahumans and Endbringers.
Upon further inspection, there was more to the game than that. It had some surprising degree of customization for your spaceship - both cosmetic and functional. Gameplay had a story mode, but also a battle mode where you took on a single level. Battle mode also existed in multiplayer… and, perhaps even more importantly, there was a "battle editor": It allowed the player to create and customize missions, play them, or share them online. There were fan favorites, dev choices… Near as I could tell, countless players producing new content and playing each other's battles - often together in multiplayer mode - where what was keeping the game alive and popular long past its release date.
Having little interest in multiplayer (seriously, I was the sort of guy who played MMOs and almost treated them as single-player games), I went into the story mode. Apparently, there were actually three campaigns you could choose from, each one representing you siding with a faction. The idea being, the galactic empire was facing a succession crisis, leading to civil war as three different factions each tried to solidify control on the galaxy, beat back warlords and pirates, return order, and seize the throne. You were playing an elite pilot for the faction of your choice, and given an elite ship. You could easily blast your way through dozens of enemy "mook ships", but things got more interesting as you fought named enemy aces, and…
Son of a bitch. This game was "Dynasty Warriors in SPACE!", with a level editor and multiplayer mode.
The actual factions… There was a major noble house, with some actual claim to the imperial throne; they were traditionalists who wanted to restore law and order to the galaxy. There was a younger, smaller noble house, which wanted to seize the throne by making an alliance with the merchants' guild and the megacorporations; they viewed themselves as reformers, willing to move the empire in exciting new directions. The final faction was mostly spearheaded by members of the galactic senate, who saw the crisis as an opportunity to give the galaxy a new, more democratic government, even if doing so meant risking an unstable transitional period.
I went with that last option, and… proceeded to have a blast, honestly. Gameplay, graphics, soundtrack… this was one well-designed game. I had no problem understanding its enduring popularity. It was many hours later that I finally went to sleep.
_______________
Twelfth day. A few optimus katas after waking up, then I jumped back into Space Opera.
After a few hours of intensive gameplay, I managed to wrench myself away from the interstellar warfare to focus on my tech once more. This time, I designed an "invulnerability field".
It was, in essence, a device that kept track of every particle in an object, and spent energy to counter any outside influence on them above a certain threshold (allowing enough effect for the senses to keep working). I tested it by using the matter summoner to bring in a mouse from another universe, using the field on it, then shooting it with a quickly-fabbered gun (while wearing armor in case of ricochet). Test successful! I programmed the field to always protect me, and the armor while it was in use. ...Also, I sent the mouse back to its home universe and had nanomachines sweep the whole place for pathogens, just in case that mouse happened to carry some dangerous otherworldly germs.
Next up was my temporal acceleration technology. Putting my efficiency specialization to work, I created an upgraded version that could be included in the armor. This one would affect the armor, the wearer, and nothing else, effectively providing super-speed with an acceleration factor of up to one hundred. With a second copy, it was possible to accelerate both an armor operated via telepresence and the person remote-controlling it.
At that point, I felt satisfied enough with the Buster armor that I had my fabbers create a copy, just in case. It occurred to me that I could, in theory, have a whole squadron of them made, with the VIs piloting them. Even Scion would have trouble against that kind of opposition.
Truth be told? I was feeling pretty damn satisfied. This was the early afternoon of April the 21st - meaning that in two weeks, I had climbed from having one hundred dollars, to having technology that could stand up to some of the Endbringers. Now, I still needed to take care of the Slaughterhouse Nine, but, with the tools I already had at my disposal, it could be done trivially, and…
...Wait. Early afternoon? Hadn't I told the PRT I'd bring them power armors by morning?
Goddamn it.
_______________
I'd decided to use the telepresence system this time around. My Buster armor went to Protectorate Island while I remained inside my pocket dimension. The improved flight system allowed the armor to accelerate to 90% of the speed of sound in 30 milliseconds - the entire journey took mere seconds, feeling less like flight than like some CGI transition.
Meeting me this time were director Piggot, Armsmaster, Miss Militia… and Dragon. The latter, I was informed, had been brought in to examine the technology I had promised.
"Makes sense," I said. "Before we proceed, have there been any developments since yesterday?"
"A couple," said Dragon. "The remaining Empire 88 capes staged an attack on Protectorate Island in an attempt to free their colleagues."
"Fortunately, we were able to repel them," said Miss Militia. "Dragon's presence helped, and they were less organized than in the past. We were even able to capture Stormtiger in the fight."
"Ah. OK, that's good to know." Really, I should have set my VI to watch over events. That could easily have turned ugly, even if the Empire was immensely weakened.
"Other than that, I am still talking things through with Weaver," said Miss Militia. "She seems more open to joining the Wards, and apparently some of that is to your credit. Are you still intent on staying out of the Protectorate? We could use someone who can no-sell Hookwolf."
I chuckled. "I think I can be a lot more useful to you in other ways. Speaking of which… Allow me:"
They flinched a little as I summoned one of armors from my pocket dimension. "I give you: The Lawgiver Armor!"
"Did you just teleport that thing inside the base?"
"Trade secret."
Dragon took a minute to examine the suit. "I'll need some time to go over it," she said, "but if it fits the blueprints you've forwarded to me, then it seems like a fairly solid piece of technology. Bulletproof, enhanced strength, nonlethal weaponry, even some Stranger capabilities… However..."
"However what?" the director raised an eyebrow.
"...However, there's something that jumped at me about the design," said Dragon. "It doesn't actually use anything that couldn't be mass-produced with a decent budget. In theory, the PRT or the Department of Defense could have hundreds, even thousands of these made. Enough to armor every Protectorate cape - in fact, enough to armor everyone in the PRT squads."
"Yup."
There was a moment of silence as that realization sunk in. Then some discussion about the potential upset to the balance of power that the Lawgiver could bring, with the PRT suddenly having sufficient power to take on all villains in North America. I didn't mention the D-scanner or the interdictor, though I did tell them that I had some other potential game-changers, which I wished to send to Dragon electronically before giving them to the PRT.
From there, the conversation segued back to the Brockton Bay situation.
"Honestly, I don't intend to stay in town much longer," I said. "With the ABB and Coil gone, and Empire 88 in shambles, the Protectorate should have an easy time against the remaining villains. I intend to move on to different threats."
"There is the continuing matter of the Undersiders," the director pointed out. "While the Protectorate was dealing with the attempted Empire breakout, they raided Medhall's corporate HQ. We're still trying to determine what exactly they stole, but it looks like they were targeting computer systems."
"Goddammit, Tattletale's being greedy." I almost facepalmed, stopping myself at the last moment - I wasn't entirely certain what happened if an armor with the mass of Mount Everest facepalmed. "Medhall is Kaiser's company. He's Max Anders, the CEO. She knew that, and I'm guessing she wanted to drain the Empire's coffers, maybe obtain a list of useful contacts."
"You shouldn't throw around the identities of capes so carelessly," said Miss Militia. "There are unwritten rules governing those things."
"The unwritten rules are a travesty," I countered. "When regular robbers, rapists, drug peddlers and murderers are arrested, the police doesn't take care to hide their identity from the public and place them in an easily-escaped prison until their third strike. For that matter, regular criminals don't go after policemen out of uniform, or after their families, because that effectively means having the entire force on their ass. Yet with supervillains, these unwritten rules are maintained… because there's too many of them, and if things were to escalate, they might actually win."
I pointed at the Lawgiver. "Not anymore. Very soon, when a parahuman criminal will show up, the keyword will be 'criminal', not 'parahuman'. The unwritten rules are going to go the way of the dodo."
"This is a very dangerous way of thinking," countered Miss Militia. "There are many parahumans who can escalate with horrific damage, and you should never assume that one single new element can change the entire game. We haven't even tested the Lawgiver yet."
"True. But there are bigger changes coming. And I suppose part of the reason villains get all this slack is so that they can fight Endbringers. That said… I should probably see what can be done about the Undersiders."
_______________
The meeting lasted another twenty minutes, with not much else of worth being said. Once it ended, I returned to my pocket dimension. I had some quick tinkering to do before I faced the Undersiders… and, not much later, I would have to finish off Slaughterhouse Nine.
16: Slaughterhouse Zero
16
Freedom, Tattletale had concluded, was exhilarating at first. Until you realized you still had responsibilities, at which point it became nerve-wracking. All that time spent at the mercy of an evil bastard like Coil hadn't exactly been relaxing, of course… but with him gone, in no small part thanks to her, she suddenly felt responsible for keeping his promises to her teammates.
Because on some level, telling Brian he couldn't protect his sister because she had tricked him into taking down his own boss sounded severely unappealing.
The past six days had been a careful juggling act. On one hand, she'd been trying to scavenge as much of Coil's resources as possible. On the other hand, she'd been racing to disconnect those very resources from anything Coil might tell the PRT - the last thing she wanted was the white hats tracking her down after Coil spilled everything for a bargain plea. It was a race to appropriate his money, hire his mercenaries, loot his bases, find places where to stash the loot from his bases, get in touch with his contacts (among other things, he apparently had occasional business arrangements with Accord and some organization only referred to as "C")... And a frustrating number of those were non-starters. The moles in the PRT? Far too likely to be discovered with Calvert's secret out in the open. The bases themselves? Would be raided any day now. Those tinkertech laser guns? Purchased via Accord as the middleman, and Accord liked her a lot less than he liked Coil. Even worse, the people Coil used in social services for Brian's sister were… panicky. Unreliable now that Coil was behind bars and being interrogated. She suspected that if she pushed their buttons, there was an even chance of a meltdown.
Then Empire 88 fell apart, and it suddenly dawned on her that it might actually be simpler to appropriate their resources. She'd been helping Coil gather data on the Empire for months; swiping their money and contacts for the Undersiders' use was just serendipity at work. And thus, the "mysterious boss" had "hired" the Undersiders to raid Medhall.
The raid had been a fairly clean operation, and now she had a wealth of valuable (if in parts encrypted) data to sort through. Patents that could be ransomed back to Medhall, secret Empire money stashes, corrupt doctors used to patch up Empire muscle, useful contacts… She'd need a few days to sort through it, but, by combining those resources and what she could salvage from Coil, she could put the Undersiders in a position of power.
And such a position might very well be necessary. Ad Hoc was turning Brockton Bay on its head. With the ABB gone and most Empire capes in custody, not to mention Calvert no longer sabotaging Protectorate operations, the white hats would be in a much better position to crack down on other villains. Granted, it was just as likely that this would result instead in the Wards being kept out of harm's way (the way it worked in most cities), and other villains would soon be rushing to fill the power vacuum, but the latter problem, too, would be easier to deal with if she could establish herself as shadow queen fast.
One important thing to do was figure out the Ad Hoc mystery. When she'd met him less than two weeks prior, he'd been geared in slapdash tinkertech (seriously, roller skis?), clearly working with Faultline (even using Newter venom), had shown up at the right place and time to take out Lung… He'd tried to hide from them his bug-Master associate on the roof (apparently a girl called Weaver who was probably going to join the Wards). She'd also gotten the distinct impression that he strongly disliked her, personally.
Then, Coil had fallen, and it was almost definitely Ad Hoc's doing. Bakuda and Oni Lee went down. He and the Protectorate had proven suspiciously lucky against the Empire, hitting them at the right time and the right place. It was obvious that Ad Hoc either was a powerful Thinker, or had an effective Thinker sub-rating thanks to his tinkertech. Furthermore, when he had fought the Empire, he had used power armor that effectively made him Triumvirate-grade - even Dragon didn't make suits that overpowered. She was beginning to suspect that his real power was close in nature to Leet's, with the ability to effectively build anything (if only once, in Leet's case). And seeing as he seemed intent on devillainizing Brockton Bay, she rather hoped he didn't intend to take on the Undersiders at any point. Granted, if he'd hired Faultline to guarantee his safety early on, then perhaps he wasn't entirely unreaso-
There was a yelp from the other room.
_______________
Teleporting my remote-controlled Buster armor inside the Undersiders' lair might seem rude, but it had seemed preferable to flying in broad daylight and knocking on the door, advertising the location to all the passerbies.
In short order, "I" was surrounded by four supervillains (and several rapidly-growing dogs). Grue, who like the others had been out of costume, had quickly generate a cover of darkness and was lambasting me over the safety of secret identities.
"Irrelevant. Discovering your identities would be trivial. I am here to discuss the future with you."
"And what do you mean by that?"
"Simply put, your current way of doing things has no future. Supervillainy in Brockton Bay is ending, and no-one will be permitted to be Coil instead of Coil. So it's time to rethink your situation. Consider your options."
"You have a way of tracking down parahumans," Tattletale observed. "You realize, of course, that if this gets out, every supervillain from Cognito to Jack Slash will want your head on a platter, and every major organization from the Chinese Yangban to the Indian Thanda will want you on a leash."
Annoying, but to be expected. "I am aware. That's why I've been keeping it close to the vest… until now, when I'm confident I can take them all." I crossed my arms. "Incidentally, Dragon is capable of using my cape-detector just as well. Your team's built on its ability to hit fast, run away, evade pursuit, and hide. The 'hide' part is useless if either I or a Dragon suit are in town. In short, now is a good time to get out of the supervillain business. Besides, you no longer have a gun to your temple, literally or metaphorically."
Her expression changed. "If we're going to be discussing private matters, then I'd rather do it with some privacy. Follow me to the other room while my friends put on their costumes?"
I followed without questioning it, but, once we got there…
"So you know about Coil."
"I'm aware of the way he recruited you. I know your graduation from petty larceny to supervillainy wasn't entirely voluntary. Thing is, that excuse is no longer applicable. You can get out of crime now, Miss Livesey."
"It's hardly that simple," she waved dismissively. "Coil or no Coil, 'Tattletale' is still wanted for various crimes, and Sarah Livesey is on the run from her parents. Also, my teammates still need me."
"So make a deal with the PRT. Villains have joined before, if that's up your alley. If not, then simply tell them you're getting out of crime. Turn in what you stole… well, most of it, at least… and simply broker peace. It's not like they're looking for trouble. And there are ways of helping your teammates without breaking every law in the book."
"Actually, I'm helping them just fine as is. Bitch isn't exactly on speaking terms with the authorities. As for Grue, he's best helped from behind the scenes."
"I'll need a word with Miss Lindt. As for Grue…"
"Miss Lindt? Seriously?" she was grinning. "That's almost lamer than calling her hellhound."
"As for Grue, I'm not exactly sold on his plan of providing his sister with a constructive home environment through supervillainy. He's just leading her to life of crime by example, which does not serve his overall goals. Besides, how is that working out with your 'mysterious boss' out of the way?"
"As far as they're concerned, nothing's changed," she said, still grinning. "It's just the targets that have gotten more profitable."
That was when it finally clicked, and once again I almost facepalmed. "You haven't told them. You're running the show by pretending to still be giving orders from the boss." I threw my hands in the air. "That's… that's so YOU! You just keep doing these, these stupid things, just to prove how smart you are!"
"Everyone's a critic," she said with a dismissive wave of her hands. "You've never had life really screw you over. You still think there's always some nice, rule-abiding solution for everything. The rest of us don't get that luxury. Sometimes, there are no good options. If we tried to work out a deal with the PRT, I'd get carted off back to my asshole parents. Grue could kiss his sister goodbye. The 'good guys' would lock Regent and Bitch away and throw away the key - unless you think they could somehow work with the system, with his powers and her mental issues? Yeah, that'll happen. Life doesn't always hand you a nice solution to your problems."
"You haven't even tried. And how's that turning out for you guys? You got enslaved by a psychopath, Lindt's years on the run will just make the law less forgiving when it does catch up to her, Grue's willingness to commit violence to help his sister means she's all the more likely to fall into a life of violence in turn, and Alec… well, I don't think supervillainy is helping his attempts at not being a sociopath."
She was chuckling now. "Wow. It's not just that you're self-righteous about keeping your hands clean, you're also a borderline fanatic about rule of law. And this from the guy working with Faultline? You realize what she does, right? I'm amazed you can function with this much hypocrisy."
"I'm under no delusions concerning Faultine," I answered coldly, "but seeing as she's steered clear of murder so far, I intend to at least offer her a chance, much as I'm doing with you idiots. Being a supervillain is going to stop being an option for a lot of people. I suggest that you get out of it as quickly, and as cleanly, as you can." I turned to leave, then stopped. "You can keep enough of Coil's money to keep you guys afloat for a while, but most of it is to be turned to the authorities. I doubt it rightfully belonged to him in the first place. You are also going to return Medhall's patents - Anders may be an evil bastard, but most of the company's hundreds of employees never knew it was involved with neonazis."
She was still smirking. "It's not just about law and justice, is it? You have a personal thing against me. I take it that all your life, you've self-identified as 'the smart one'. And you've gone and built yourself this entire self-aggrandizing worldview where intelligence was the greatest power of all, which made you better than everyone else. But you don't think of what I do as 'real' intelligence, so when I go and outsmart people to get ahead, it just pisses you off. Like I'm a pretender to your throne."
"That's an interesting conjecture. Allow me to present a counter-hypothesis: I despise manipulative jackasses."
_______________
With that, I had returned to the other room, and had a version of that conversation with (slightly) less hostility and less grand reveals with the rest of the Undersiders. Overall, the general message was "I can arrest you at any time, so can Dragon if she feels like it, so make sure we have no incentive to go and do just that". No consensus was reached, but I could live with it - I was going to give the Undersiders a chance, and help out if they tried to make a deal with the PRT, but if they screwed it up, too bad for them.
Once I felt that conversation was done, though…
"Miss Lindt? There's one more thing."
"It's Bitch," she replied, annoyed. "Rachel for my friends."
"I already have a friend called Rachel. It'd feel weird calling you that," I said, as I pulled out a tiny disk, wide as a quarter and three times as thick. "This is for you." Then, with the reflexes of an optimus-master, I placed it in her hair before she could react.
"What the fuck?!" She took a step back and growled at me. "What's that supposed to be?!" She glared at me first with rage, then with confusion.
"Social instincts in a box," I answered.
When I had first teleported inside the Undersiders' lair, I'd sent a cloud of special-duty nanomachines toward Bitch. It had taken them a few minutes to reach her brain, and even longer to map it out (they were barely done when I had finished my discussion with Tattletale). But now, working with the VI contained in the disk (a tinkertech quantum computer that could keep running for a century and survive a punch from Glory Girl), it could effectively provide her with the human social instincts that she lacked, in addition to her canine ones.
"Holy shit." Tattletale apparently figured out what I was doing.
"The disk needs to be within three feet of your brain to work," I said, "but it gives you empathy and the ability to read people the way most human beings do. Actually… the empathy it gives you is in the upper human percentile, so you're now better at understanding people than most." I paused. "And just so we're clear, I made sure it wouldn't interfere with the dog handling. I'm not stupid."
Whether she ended up using my device or not remained to be seen. I hoped she did. If any Undersider had really gotten a raw deal, it had been her.
_______________
"Faultline. We need to talk."
"We do at that," she said, quickly bringing me to her office. "I don't want to appear ungrateful for our generous business arrangement. Your diamonds have netted us millions. However, it is clear that there's a lot more to you than you let on, and your actions have been upending the status quo. I think I deserve some answers."
"Maybe not all the answers, but some, certainly. Actually… could you bring in Gregor? Might as well tell him too." Also, Gregor was the member of the crew whose honor I trusted the most, and I needed to swear them to secrecy on some of the things I was about to reveal.
Once the Case 53 was brought in, I began again: "Now, some of what I'm about to tell you is very sensitive information. If you want any answers from me at all, then you need to swear to me that none of what I say gets repeated." Once I had their word (reluctant though it may have been for Faultline), I went on: "Before all else, please understand that I have access to certain precognitive means. I have some knowledge of the future that I've been acting upon. That's how I knew when and where to catch Lung. I also happen to know that, unless I act, things are only going to get much, much worse."
"How much worse are we talking about, exactly?" asked Faultline.
"Just look outside the window. You can already see society collapsing in slow motion. Well, it's not going to get better anytime soon. In the future I've seen, Brockton Bay gets taken over by supervillain warlords, like a Third World hellhole, requiring direct intervention from Alexandria. Slaughterhouse Nine steps up its game. Eidolon dies fighting an S-class threat. The Dragonslayers kill Dragon. Things get desperate enough that a selection of villains are let out of the Birdcage in the hope that they will help save the world; one of them is Teacher, who betrays everyone faster than you can say 'predictable'. The death toll from various events makes Kysuhu look like a small loss." All accurate, if in parts misleading or out of order. "So, I'm working toward preventing this… precognitive vision… from ever taking place."
"I… see." I couldn't really read her tone, so I had no idea what she was thinking as she answered. "And what exactly are you trying to accomplish? Removing villains responsible for future messes?"
"That's part of it," I admitted. "In a few cases, it's preventing key individuals from becoming villains in the first place. But the most important aspect is my tinkertech. You see… I am free of some of the constraints that other Tinkers operate under."
"Such as?"
"Well, to be specific, I can make some of my tech mass-producible."
There was a moment of silence. "What sort of tech are we talking about here?"
"Without going into too many details? The sort of tech that can completely change the balance of power. The blueprints I've already provided the PRT with will change everything. We are, in truth, seeing the last days of the age of supervillains."
The next moment of silence was longer. Faultline's body language stiffened. "And where exactly does that leave us?"
I shrugged. "You helped me out. Even if it was part of a business arrangement, I'd hate to screw you over." I wasn't entirely comfortable with the moral implications there. Faultline's Crew did engage in a variety of crimes - "anything short of murder", as Lisa had put in canon - and while they were not unsympathetic, much like the Undersiders, that didn't actually justify their actions in my view. Was it hypocritical, giving them more of a chance than to hundreds of other morally gray villains, just because I'd interacted with them in a non-hostile manner?
"That's why I'm giving you a heads-up. It's why I'm giving you this," I said, summoning a device from my pocket dimension. "Just feed it pencils and water while plugging it to an electric outlet, and it will produce diamonds. It'll work for years before it needs any form of maintenance." It was my 3D-printer - well, after I'd make a few tweaks, simplified it, crippled it in parts so it could only print diamonds. "As well as Newter's spray," I added, producing a better version of the device, "which should suffice for decades. Frankly, at this juncture, your best bet is to just get out of crime. You've got your diamond synthesizer. You've got the Palanquin. You guys have stable income. Keep your nose clean, and the PRT will probably not look for trouble, focusing its strengthened resources on the real assholes out there."
"It's not just about money," said Faultline. "We have other goals…"
"You mean, discovering the truth behind Case 53s? Don't worry about it. The truth will come out." I paused. "Oh, and before I forget… Faultline, could you please check something for me? I want to see if your power can crack this device." I presented her with a metal box - not particularly sturdy, easily breakable for her power, but protected by an interdictor field. As I had hoped, her efforts against it had no effect.
_______________
Once again, the conversation went on for a while, without reaching a meaningful conclusion (why would it? They'd need to think before committing to a course of action, and they had no reason to tell me about their long-term plans). Still, I thanked them for the help, wished them good luck in future ventures, then said my goodbyes to the rest of the crew - it was time to move my entire operation to its own pocket dimension.
And then… With some time-accelerated tinkering, I upgraded my D-scanner. Gave it a range greater than the planet's diameter. And then… then I had the VI scan and compile a list of every single parahuman on the planet.
Every Thinker. Every Stranger. Brutes, Shakers, Tinkers, everyone. It not only gave me their position, but also the precise nature of their powers.
I spent a couple of hours (meaning, minutes in the outside world) going through the list. A few interesting tidbits. The Yangban and Thanda were legitimately scary, from the looks of it. Sleeper's real power explained a lot. I got a chuckle from finding Shadow Stalker's power in Anchorage of all places (My real self really ought to catch up on "PRT Quest" some day). I was also surprised at finding a cape in Brockton Bay I'd never heard of - some Thinker/Blaster with the power to see through walls, and to make projectiles phase through solid matter until it reached its target. Maybe they had just laid low and avoided attention in the original timeline. Or maybe they'd died to Leviathan?
Eh. The PRT could handle it. Far more interesting to me was a specific set of interdimensional signatures, which were currently located in Ohio...
_______________
"If anything, I find it heartening, Bonesaw," Jack Slash commented as he reviewed the footage of Ad Hoc. "Ever since our dear Siberian put Hero to rest, it is as if those who followed in his footsteps lost some of their nerve. They're still trying to be superheroes, but there's just less enthusiasm about it. Less hope. Which makes it less fun to finally crush it when we find them."
"I thought Mouse Protector was pretty fun," said Bonesaw. "I can't believe she actually made cheese puns!"
"True. But the likes of Mouse Protector are rare. Which is why I have high hopes for our next target," he said, pointing at the armored hero. "I mean, really. He goes around in an armor like that, and announces himself to the world by taking on Nazis? He might as well be screaming about heroism at the top of his lungs. I feel that making him scream in a somewhat different way will be rewarding."
That was one of several reasons he wished to target that "Ad Hoc". His suit was obviously powerful, and Crawler wanted to see if it could hurt him. Mannequin hated the idea of a Tinker successfully helping others, and Ad Hoc had clearly been key to the fall of Empire 88. Shatterbird just enjoyed going up against power armor wielders, knowing she could render them helpless with one scream. Siberian, Hatchet Face, Burnscar and Bonesaw didn't feel strongly on the issue one way or another.
Really, he looked forward to revisiting Brockton Bay. Half the city's villains had been arrests in a couple weeks, and that might give people the wrong idea. Best correct that, by culling the heroes' numbers. Miss Militia would be a challenge to break. Armsmaster's obvious careerist drive could be amusing. Panacea had so much potential. And Dauntless… the city took some pride in him, and in his supposed potential to equal the Triumvirate some day. Jack was confident he could so something suitably creative with such a setup.
Then a section of the roof collapsed as a massive power armor came down into the room.
To his credit, it only took Jack Slash a second to regain his bearing. "Ad Hoc! So kind of you to drop by - and quite a long way from home, at that." In the distance, he heard what he recognized as a sonic boom - probably from when Ad Hoc had decelerated.
"Don't mind me," said Ad Hoc as he hovered to a nearby wall, "I'm just engaging in some pest control." With that, his armored hand went through the wall like it wasn't even there… and, grabbing Mannequin from the adjacent room, pulled him through the wall before swinging him at the floor so hard it cracked and splintered. Mannequin's synthetic body was broken in two - and any doubt about his survival was dispelled as Ad Hoc quickly stomped through both halves.
Jack didn't stop smiling, but in truth, he was slightly perturbed. Not because of Mannequin's death - death was an ever-present friend, after all - but because he had not seen it coming at all. He'd been aware on some level that Mannequin was behind that wall - he knew how capes operated, he had that intuition - but Ad Hoc's attack had taken him by complete surprise. That practically never happened anymore while fighting other capes. "Mere pest control? You either think very little of our little troupe, or very highly of yourself. Shatterbird, if you will?"
Shatterbird looked confused for a moment, before flinging a rafale of glass shards at the hero. "I'm not sensing any silicon in his armor," she said in obvious distress. She wasn't done pronouncing the sentence when Crawler roared in triumph as he charged forward.
Ad Hoc's movement were quick, fluid, precise. A few punches and kicks, easily breaking Crawler's artillery-proof hide, sent the massive villain sprawling on the floor. The next instant, he raised his arm in Crawler's direction, a green beam emerging from it to engulf the deformed monster.
The next second, Crawler (along with a big chunk of floor) was gone. "Extinction to all monsters!"
Jack Slash blinked. The way he'd said it… was Ad Hoc quoting? Irrelevant. Siberian was already charging at him, and-
The Siberian was gone.
Not even vaporized by the green ray. Ad Hoc hadn't done anything. Siberian had simply stopped existing in the blink of an eye.
And then Ad Hoc flew toward Shatterbird, so fast Jack was barely aware of it. A single punch took her head off her shoulders and halved its volume.
Burnscar was blasting. Bonesaw was sending her spiderbots. Murder Rat and Hatchet Face were joining the fray.
There was a blur of movement and green light. Then Burnscar and Murder Rat were unconscious on the ground, while Bonesaw and her robots no longer existed and Hatchet Face's chest had a hole in it as wide as the armor's arm. The only people left standing were Ad Hoc and Jack Slash.
"...Your methods lack panache," said Jack in the most nonchalant tone he could manage.
"I'm not wasting perfectly good panache on you losers. Though I actually thought this was a pretty good field test for the disintegrator ray - see, it converts all baryonic matter it touches into neutrinos. I originally intended it for clearing the boat graveyard in Brockton Bay, figured it'd work on Crawler too. My first idea had been a device to break the molecular bonds, but I figured leaving several kilotons of unbonded metal atoms in the water would probably be very toxic. So, neutrinos instead."
"Fascinating, my good man," said Jack, sounding bored even as he surveyed the scene. Any way of escape? None that he could see. Ways of harming Ad Hoc? Not while he had that armor. Siberian might have been able to, but Jack could tell in his guts that she was truly dead. Ways of talking Ad Hoc into letting him go, or removing his helmet long enough for a quick stab? Implausible - he simply couldn't get a read on him the way he did with most capes. Frustrating. This looked like the curtain call.
But… he could take one last person with him. Ad Hoc had spared Murder Rat and Burnscar. Hoping to save Mouse Protector despite all her damage? Naively optimistic, but understandable. As for Burnscar, perhaps he understood her warped psychology and sympathized? Regardless, while Burnscar benefitted from the subdermal protection Bonesaw had granted the rest of the Nine, Murder Rat did not. If he could only keep the would-be knight in shining armor (with a surprising ruthless streak) talking for a bit longer, he'd find his opening and slit her/his throat. "I do wonder, actually - how did you find us?"
"Well… You see, originally, I had this big honking plan. I knew that I'd have to face you clowns eventually - no offense meant to clowns, except Chuckles because fuck that guy - so I figured I'd lure you into a trap. First I figured you'd eventually come to me, so I'd set up countermeasures. But then it occurred to me that you might prepare the terrain first by kidnapping PRT agents and other relevant locals to gather information and shore up forces against me. So plan 2.0 was going to every town where Gray Boy hit, freeing his victims, announcing publicly which town I'd hit next, and going there on the following day. So you'd come after me, but with no time to prepare.
"Then I realized that plan was also stupid. So I just slapped together a long-range cape detect-o-mat, built multiple remote-controlled armors, and engaged in the best defense." He paused. "In case you're wondering, the Siberian was actually a middle aged man with a projection power. I teleported a small disintegrator under his car seat, programmed to activate if she ever got too close to me."
"That does explain a few things," said Jack. "Though I am not sure what you're hoping to accomplish with Burnscar."
"To be honest, I have trouble determining her degree of guilt," replied Ad Hoc. "She seems to regret her crimes when she isn't under the effect of her power, and I'm not sure whether her using her powers anyway can be laid at your feet. So in her case, I'm going to err on the side of mercy."
Jack laughed. "So you're willing to spare the pyromaniac who burned people alive, but not the actual child who was susceptible to bad influences?"
"I debated for a long while whether to spare Riley," said Ad Hoc, with a tinge of annoyance in his voice. "But her guilt is a lot less debatable. The fact that you crafter her into a monster doesn't change the fact that she was a monster. I knew she had potential for redemption, but that's true of anyone. Any resource spent on redeeming Bonesaw would be better spent redeeming ten other less extreme cases. Even so… I considered just freezing her in time for a century or two, leaving her re-education in the hands of a more stable and advanced society… then I realized I didn't even need to do that. I was forgetting a pretty important facto-"
In one fluid movement, the armored hero (or armor-controlling, apparently) blocked Jack's attempt to remotely slash Murder Rat's throat.
"Well. I see you're going to be a problem audience," he said. "So I'll cut to the chase." In the blink of an eye, each one of his hands was holding one of Jack's elbows. In another blink, those hands were squeezing.
Jack managed to stifle the pained yelp as his elbows were ground. He did the same when two rapid kicks shattered his kneecaps. When his lower jaw was crushed between Ad Hoc's thumb and index finger, his vocal options became severely limited. Before he fell to the ground, he felt a strike to the back of his neck… and then, he stopped feeling anything below that area.
"Well, the PRT should be here in about ten minutes," said the man who had just destroyed the Slaughterhouse Nine. "I already have nanomachines separating Ravager from Mouse Protector, and I'll be sending Burnscar to a pocket dimension so I can handle her my way. But as for you… Well. There's a Kill Order on your head. Buuuuut… I'm going to try and convince the PRT not to kill you. You see, my nanomachines are already making sure Bonesaw doesn't leave us with any nasty surprises. You're paralyzed below the neck. Even talking is going to be a challenge. Basically, you are now one of the least dangerous men alive. And quite frankly? If you spend the next few months locked in tedious courtroom proceedings prior to a plain execution, well, sucks to be you. And if the main thing people end up remembering about you is that you got caught, then judged by a plain regular court of law, it might help convince people that Kill Orders are unnecessary."
He leaned down. "But there's one more thing I want to tell you, Jacob. I believe I've already mentioned the possibility of freeing Gray Boy's victims, and oh, that's still in the works. But none of that is the worst thing I'm going to do to you. No, Jacky boy. Here's what I'm going to do…"
_______________
Ravager and Jack Slash were in custody. Burnscar was in my pocket dimension, nanomachines keeping her sedated. I'd assured the PRT that Crawler, Bonesaw and Siberian were dead.
I'd just killed a whole bunch of people. And… I found that I didn't feel very strongly about the matter.
Maybe it was because on some level, I didn't think of Earth Bet as a real world. Maybe it was because it was the Nine. Maybe it was just because I was the sort of person it didn't bother so much? Well, at least, the person it didn't bother so much when it was the Nine. I'd once spent a whole day in a funk over the death of two unnamed NPCs in a tabletop RPG session.
I had two more stops that day. The first one was in Russia. Interdictor devices made it surprisingly easy to beat the crap out of Sleeper. I surgically implanted a small interdictor device inside his body, then turned him over to the nearest authorities - I doubted he'd survive long in their care, but that was their call, and I did clarify the bit about him being depowered.
My second stop was in Ellisburg. Nilbog deserved to die for his crimes as much as any member of the Nine, but his creatures needed him, and I wasn't sure if they were sapient. It seemed wrong to condemn them all to death just because their creator had been an utter madman.
So I transported all of them to a parallel Earth - one still ruled by (decidedly non-sapient) dinosaurs. Seeing as Nilbog had no way of travelling across dimensions, that made him a non-issue for everyone.
Then, back to my pocket dimension. Some quick VI-assisted, nanotech-backed surgery later, Burnscar had a small interdictor device inside her body, and was confirmed free of any Bonesaw germs (I left the upgrades she'd made in place. No reason to remove them). Then I woke her up.
She got up, still dizzy, then looked around. Then she saw me, still in armor, and backed off.
"Stay away!" she shouted as she tried to blast me with fire, accomplishing diddly-squat.
"Yyyyeah. No fire for you. That's over."
She looked increasingly horrified. "What… what did you do to me?"
"Took away your power. You can't create fire or teleport through it. However, it also means fire no longer turns you into a psychopath."
Her expression of horror shifted as the implications dawned on her. "What… what happened to the Nine?"
"Finished. Dead. Only ones still alive are… well, you, standing here. Jack, who is now paralyzed below the neck and in PRT custody, if they haven't shot him already. And Harbinger, who retired after King's death to go into white-collar crime."
She took a moment to digest the fact. "What about Siberian? She just… popped."
"Siberian was an energy projection. I killed the projector."
"Oh. OK, but… what now? What happens to me?"
"What happens… is that you've done horrible things, but it's difficult to tell the extent of your own culpability. I know your power fucks with your head, but you still chose to use your power. On the other hand, spending time around the Nine, I don't know how much of a choice you had. But then again, your… misdeeds… did not start with the Nine, did they?"
She lowered her head in silence.
"So, which was it? Were you mostly a victim of circumstances, or mostly a coward who threw away people's lives? You're clearly both of those things, but in what relative proportions?"
She said nothing, mostly looking ashamed.
"See, I don't know. And if I turn you in to the authorities - my first instinct, believe me - they won't expend time and effort figuring it out, Kill Order and all. So… I'm going to give you a chance. A new life."
An image appeared on a massive wall monitor I had fabbered earlier. "This is… let's call it Earth-Gimmel. It's a peaceful world, with no parahumans or Endbringers. Pretty close to Earth Bet - their History diverged at some point during World War One, which ended in early 1917 with a fair peace that didn't lead to a second world war. I won't bore you with a detailed timeline, but their America is a decent place to live in. So… I'm dropping you there, with no powers. It's up to you to build your life in a new world."
She paused to consider. "How… how will I survive? I don't have money, or friends, or…"
"You'll have to make friends on your own. As for no money… this is, at least in part, punishment. That said, America-Gimmel is actually pretty decent in how it treats its poor. You will not starve. You will not freeze in the streets. You will not be deported for having no ID. Whether you can rise above being a homeless bum remains to be seen, but it's more chance than most mass-murderers get."
She considered for a moment, then sighed. "I… guess. Could you… actually, there was a reason I wanted to come to Brockton Bay before you showed up…"
_______________
Knowing how it had turned out in canon, I managed to dissuade Burscar from meeting Labyrinth, though I did agree to transmit a recorded goodbye. Now…
...Well. The clock was no longer ticking on the Slaughterhouse Nine. I now had entirely different clocks to worry about.
I had removed three S-class threats in as many hours. The Simurgh might not be able to see me, but the massive changes to the timeline caused by their absence would be impossible to miss (if she had somehow missed all the rest, such as the unchaining of Dragon and creation of the Lawgivers). No less importantly, several Scion-shards had come across my interdictor devices. There was a non-zero chance Scion himself was aware of something odd going on.
Well.
As Drake Mallard often said: Let's get dangerous.
Freedom, Tattletale had concluded, was exhilarating at first. Until you realized you still had responsibilities, at which point it became nerve-wracking. All that time spent at the mercy of an evil bastard like Coil hadn't exactly been relaxing, of course… but with him gone, in no small part thanks to her, she suddenly felt responsible for keeping his promises to her teammates.
Because on some level, telling Brian he couldn't protect his sister because she had tricked him into taking down his own boss sounded severely unappealing.
The past six days had been a careful juggling act. On one hand, she'd been trying to scavenge as much of Coil's resources as possible. On the other hand, she'd been racing to disconnect those very resources from anything Coil might tell the PRT - the last thing she wanted was the white hats tracking her down after Coil spilled everything for a bargain plea. It was a race to appropriate his money, hire his mercenaries, loot his bases, find places where to stash the loot from his bases, get in touch with his contacts (among other things, he apparently had occasional business arrangements with Accord and some organization only referred to as "C")... And a frustrating number of those were non-starters. The moles in the PRT? Far too likely to be discovered with Calvert's secret out in the open. The bases themselves? Would be raided any day now. Those tinkertech laser guns? Purchased via Accord as the middleman, and Accord liked her a lot less than he liked Coil. Even worse, the people Coil used in social services for Brian's sister were… panicky. Unreliable now that Coil was behind bars and being interrogated. She suspected that if she pushed their buttons, there was an even chance of a meltdown.
Then Empire 88 fell apart, and it suddenly dawned on her that it might actually be simpler to appropriate their resources. She'd been helping Coil gather data on the Empire for months; swiping their money and contacts for the Undersiders' use was just serendipity at work. And thus, the "mysterious boss" had "hired" the Undersiders to raid Medhall.
The raid had been a fairly clean operation, and now she had a wealth of valuable (if in parts encrypted) data to sort through. Patents that could be ransomed back to Medhall, secret Empire money stashes, corrupt doctors used to patch up Empire muscle, useful contacts… She'd need a few days to sort through it, but, by combining those resources and what she could salvage from Coil, she could put the Undersiders in a position of power.
And such a position might very well be necessary. Ad Hoc was turning Brockton Bay on its head. With the ABB gone and most Empire capes in custody, not to mention Calvert no longer sabotaging Protectorate operations, the white hats would be in a much better position to crack down on other villains. Granted, it was just as likely that this would result instead in the Wards being kept out of harm's way (the way it worked in most cities), and other villains would soon be rushing to fill the power vacuum, but the latter problem, too, would be easier to deal with if she could establish herself as shadow queen fast.
One important thing to do was figure out the Ad Hoc mystery. When she'd met him less than two weeks prior, he'd been geared in slapdash tinkertech (seriously, roller skis?), clearly working with Faultline (even using Newter venom), had shown up at the right place and time to take out Lung… He'd tried to hide from them his bug-Master associate on the roof (apparently a girl called Weaver who was probably going to join the Wards). She'd also gotten the distinct impression that he strongly disliked her, personally.
Then, Coil had fallen, and it was almost definitely Ad Hoc's doing. Bakuda and Oni Lee went down. He and the Protectorate had proven suspiciously lucky against the Empire, hitting them at the right time and the right place. It was obvious that Ad Hoc either was a powerful Thinker, or had an effective Thinker sub-rating thanks to his tinkertech. Furthermore, when he had fought the Empire, he had used power armor that effectively made him Triumvirate-grade - even Dragon didn't make suits that overpowered. She was beginning to suspect that his real power was close in nature to Leet's, with the ability to effectively build anything (if only once, in Leet's case). And seeing as he seemed intent on devillainizing Brockton Bay, she rather hoped he didn't intend to take on the Undersiders at any point. Granted, if he'd hired Faultline to guarantee his safety early on, then perhaps he wasn't entirely unreaso-
There was a yelp from the other room.
_______________
Teleporting my remote-controlled Buster armor inside the Undersiders' lair might seem rude, but it had seemed preferable to flying in broad daylight and knocking on the door, advertising the location to all the passerbies.
In short order, "I" was surrounded by four supervillains (and several rapidly-growing dogs). Grue, who like the others had been out of costume, had quickly generate a cover of darkness and was lambasting me over the safety of secret identities.
"Irrelevant. Discovering your identities would be trivial. I am here to discuss the future with you."
"And what do you mean by that?"
"Simply put, your current way of doing things has no future. Supervillainy in Brockton Bay is ending, and no-one will be permitted to be Coil instead of Coil. So it's time to rethink your situation. Consider your options."
"You have a way of tracking down parahumans," Tattletale observed. "You realize, of course, that if this gets out, every supervillain from Cognito to Jack Slash will want your head on a platter, and every major organization from the Chinese Yangban to the Indian Thanda will want you on a leash."
Annoying, but to be expected. "I am aware. That's why I've been keeping it close to the vest… until now, when I'm confident I can take them all." I crossed my arms. "Incidentally, Dragon is capable of using my cape-detector just as well. Your team's built on its ability to hit fast, run away, evade pursuit, and hide. The 'hide' part is useless if either I or a Dragon suit are in town. In short, now is a good time to get out of the supervillain business. Besides, you no longer have a gun to your temple, literally or metaphorically."
Her expression changed. "If we're going to be discussing private matters, then I'd rather do it with some privacy. Follow me to the other room while my friends put on their costumes?"
I followed without questioning it, but, once we got there…
"So you know about Coil."
"I'm aware of the way he recruited you. I know your graduation from petty larceny to supervillainy wasn't entirely voluntary. Thing is, that excuse is no longer applicable. You can get out of crime now, Miss Livesey."
"It's hardly that simple," she waved dismissively. "Coil or no Coil, 'Tattletale' is still wanted for various crimes, and Sarah Livesey is on the run from her parents. Also, my teammates still need me."
"So make a deal with the PRT. Villains have joined before, if that's up your alley. If not, then simply tell them you're getting out of crime. Turn in what you stole… well, most of it, at least… and simply broker peace. It's not like they're looking for trouble. And there are ways of helping your teammates without breaking every law in the book."
"Actually, I'm helping them just fine as is. Bitch isn't exactly on speaking terms with the authorities. As for Grue, he's best helped from behind the scenes."
"I'll need a word with Miss Lindt. As for Grue…"
"Miss Lindt? Seriously?" she was grinning. "That's almost lamer than calling her hellhound."
"As for Grue, I'm not exactly sold on his plan of providing his sister with a constructive home environment through supervillainy. He's just leading her to life of crime by example, which does not serve his overall goals. Besides, how is that working out with your 'mysterious boss' out of the way?"
"As far as they're concerned, nothing's changed," she said, still grinning. "It's just the targets that have gotten more profitable."
That was when it finally clicked, and once again I almost facepalmed. "You haven't told them. You're running the show by pretending to still be giving orders from the boss." I threw my hands in the air. "That's… that's so YOU! You just keep doing these, these stupid things, just to prove how smart you are!"
"Everyone's a critic," she said with a dismissive wave of her hands. "You've never had life really screw you over. You still think there's always some nice, rule-abiding solution for everything. The rest of us don't get that luxury. Sometimes, there are no good options. If we tried to work out a deal with the PRT, I'd get carted off back to my asshole parents. Grue could kiss his sister goodbye. The 'good guys' would lock Regent and Bitch away and throw away the key - unless you think they could somehow work with the system, with his powers and her mental issues? Yeah, that'll happen. Life doesn't always hand you a nice solution to your problems."
"You haven't even tried. And how's that turning out for you guys? You got enslaved by a psychopath, Lindt's years on the run will just make the law less forgiving when it does catch up to her, Grue's willingness to commit violence to help his sister means she's all the more likely to fall into a life of violence in turn, and Alec… well, I don't think supervillainy is helping his attempts at not being a sociopath."
She was chuckling now. "Wow. It's not just that you're self-righteous about keeping your hands clean, you're also a borderline fanatic about rule of law. And this from the guy working with Faultline? You realize what she does, right? I'm amazed you can function with this much hypocrisy."
"I'm under no delusions concerning Faultine," I answered coldly, "but seeing as she's steered clear of murder so far, I intend to at least offer her a chance, much as I'm doing with you idiots. Being a supervillain is going to stop being an option for a lot of people. I suggest that you get out of it as quickly, and as cleanly, as you can." I turned to leave, then stopped. "You can keep enough of Coil's money to keep you guys afloat for a while, but most of it is to be turned to the authorities. I doubt it rightfully belonged to him in the first place. You are also going to return Medhall's patents - Anders may be an evil bastard, but most of the company's hundreds of employees never knew it was involved with neonazis."
She was still smirking. "It's not just about law and justice, is it? You have a personal thing against me. I take it that all your life, you've self-identified as 'the smart one'. And you've gone and built yourself this entire self-aggrandizing worldview where intelligence was the greatest power of all, which made you better than everyone else. But you don't think of what I do as 'real' intelligence, so when I go and outsmart people to get ahead, it just pisses you off. Like I'm a pretender to your throne."
"That's an interesting conjecture. Allow me to present a counter-hypothesis: I despise manipulative jackasses."
_______________
With that, I had returned to the other room, and had a version of that conversation with (slightly) less hostility and less grand reveals with the rest of the Undersiders. Overall, the general message was "I can arrest you at any time, so can Dragon if she feels like it, so make sure we have no incentive to go and do just that". No consensus was reached, but I could live with it - I was going to give the Undersiders a chance, and help out if they tried to make a deal with the PRT, but if they screwed it up, too bad for them.
Once I felt that conversation was done, though…
"Miss Lindt? There's one more thing."
"It's Bitch," she replied, annoyed. "Rachel for my friends."
"I already have a friend called Rachel. It'd feel weird calling you that," I said, as I pulled out a tiny disk, wide as a quarter and three times as thick. "This is for you." Then, with the reflexes of an optimus-master, I placed it in her hair before she could react.
"What the fuck?!" She took a step back and growled at me. "What's that supposed to be?!" She glared at me first with rage, then with confusion.
"Social instincts in a box," I answered.
When I had first teleported inside the Undersiders' lair, I'd sent a cloud of special-duty nanomachines toward Bitch. It had taken them a few minutes to reach her brain, and even longer to map it out (they were barely done when I had finished my discussion with Tattletale). But now, working with the VI contained in the disk (a tinkertech quantum computer that could keep running for a century and survive a punch from Glory Girl), it could effectively provide her with the human social instincts that she lacked, in addition to her canine ones.
"Holy shit." Tattletale apparently figured out what I was doing.
"The disk needs to be within three feet of your brain to work," I said, "but it gives you empathy and the ability to read people the way most human beings do. Actually… the empathy it gives you is in the upper human percentile, so you're now better at understanding people than most." I paused. "And just so we're clear, I made sure it wouldn't interfere with the dog handling. I'm not stupid."
Whether she ended up using my device or not remained to be seen. I hoped she did. If any Undersider had really gotten a raw deal, it had been her.
_______________
"Faultline. We need to talk."
"We do at that," she said, quickly bringing me to her office. "I don't want to appear ungrateful for our generous business arrangement. Your diamonds have netted us millions. However, it is clear that there's a lot more to you than you let on, and your actions have been upending the status quo. I think I deserve some answers."
"Maybe not all the answers, but some, certainly. Actually… could you bring in Gregor? Might as well tell him too." Also, Gregor was the member of the crew whose honor I trusted the most, and I needed to swear them to secrecy on some of the things I was about to reveal.
Once the Case 53 was brought in, I began again: "Now, some of what I'm about to tell you is very sensitive information. If you want any answers from me at all, then you need to swear to me that none of what I say gets repeated." Once I had their word (reluctant though it may have been for Faultline), I went on: "Before all else, please understand that I have access to certain precognitive means. I have some knowledge of the future that I've been acting upon. That's how I knew when and where to catch Lung. I also happen to know that, unless I act, things are only going to get much, much worse."
"How much worse are we talking about, exactly?" asked Faultline.
"Just look outside the window. You can already see society collapsing in slow motion. Well, it's not going to get better anytime soon. In the future I've seen, Brockton Bay gets taken over by supervillain warlords, like a Third World hellhole, requiring direct intervention from Alexandria. Slaughterhouse Nine steps up its game. Eidolon dies fighting an S-class threat. The Dragonslayers kill Dragon. Things get desperate enough that a selection of villains are let out of the Birdcage in the hope that they will help save the world; one of them is Teacher, who betrays everyone faster than you can say 'predictable'. The death toll from various events makes Kysuhu look like a small loss." All accurate, if in parts misleading or out of order. "So, I'm working toward preventing this… precognitive vision… from ever taking place."
"I… see." I couldn't really read her tone, so I had no idea what she was thinking as she answered. "And what exactly are you trying to accomplish? Removing villains responsible for future messes?"
"That's part of it," I admitted. "In a few cases, it's preventing key individuals from becoming villains in the first place. But the most important aspect is my tinkertech. You see… I am free of some of the constraints that other Tinkers operate under."
"Such as?"
"Well, to be specific, I can make some of my tech mass-producible."
There was a moment of silence. "What sort of tech are we talking about here?"
"Without going into too many details? The sort of tech that can completely change the balance of power. The blueprints I've already provided the PRT with will change everything. We are, in truth, seeing the last days of the age of supervillains."
The next moment of silence was longer. Faultline's body language stiffened. "And where exactly does that leave us?"
I shrugged. "You helped me out. Even if it was part of a business arrangement, I'd hate to screw you over." I wasn't entirely comfortable with the moral implications there. Faultline's Crew did engage in a variety of crimes - "anything short of murder", as Lisa had put in canon - and while they were not unsympathetic, much like the Undersiders, that didn't actually justify their actions in my view. Was it hypocritical, giving them more of a chance than to hundreds of other morally gray villains, just because I'd interacted with them in a non-hostile manner?
"That's why I'm giving you a heads-up. It's why I'm giving you this," I said, summoning a device from my pocket dimension. "Just feed it pencils and water while plugging it to an electric outlet, and it will produce diamonds. It'll work for years before it needs any form of maintenance." It was my 3D-printer - well, after I'd make a few tweaks, simplified it, crippled it in parts so it could only print diamonds. "As well as Newter's spray," I added, producing a better version of the device, "which should suffice for decades. Frankly, at this juncture, your best bet is to just get out of crime. You've got your diamond synthesizer. You've got the Palanquin. You guys have stable income. Keep your nose clean, and the PRT will probably not look for trouble, focusing its strengthened resources on the real assholes out there."
"It's not just about money," said Faultline. "We have other goals…"
"You mean, discovering the truth behind Case 53s? Don't worry about it. The truth will come out." I paused. "Oh, and before I forget… Faultline, could you please check something for me? I want to see if your power can crack this device." I presented her with a metal box - not particularly sturdy, easily breakable for her power, but protected by an interdictor field. As I had hoped, her efforts against it had no effect.
_______________
Once again, the conversation went on for a while, without reaching a meaningful conclusion (why would it? They'd need to think before committing to a course of action, and they had no reason to tell me about their long-term plans). Still, I thanked them for the help, wished them good luck in future ventures, then said my goodbyes to the rest of the crew - it was time to move my entire operation to its own pocket dimension.
And then… With some time-accelerated tinkering, I upgraded my D-scanner. Gave it a range greater than the planet's diameter. And then… then I had the VI scan and compile a list of every single parahuman on the planet.
Every Thinker. Every Stranger. Brutes, Shakers, Tinkers, everyone. It not only gave me their position, but also the precise nature of their powers.
I spent a couple of hours (meaning, minutes in the outside world) going through the list. A few interesting tidbits. The Yangban and Thanda were legitimately scary, from the looks of it. Sleeper's real power explained a lot. I got a chuckle from finding Shadow Stalker's power in Anchorage of all places (My real self really ought to catch up on "PRT Quest" some day). I was also surprised at finding a cape in Brockton Bay I'd never heard of - some Thinker/Blaster with the power to see through walls, and to make projectiles phase through solid matter until it reached its target. Maybe they had just laid low and avoided attention in the original timeline. Or maybe they'd died to Leviathan?
Eh. The PRT could handle it. Far more interesting to me was a specific set of interdimensional signatures, which were currently located in Ohio...
_______________
"If anything, I find it heartening, Bonesaw," Jack Slash commented as he reviewed the footage of Ad Hoc. "Ever since our dear Siberian put Hero to rest, it is as if those who followed in his footsteps lost some of their nerve. They're still trying to be superheroes, but there's just less enthusiasm about it. Less hope. Which makes it less fun to finally crush it when we find them."
"I thought Mouse Protector was pretty fun," said Bonesaw. "I can't believe she actually made cheese puns!"
"True. But the likes of Mouse Protector are rare. Which is why I have high hopes for our next target," he said, pointing at the armored hero. "I mean, really. He goes around in an armor like that, and announces himself to the world by taking on Nazis? He might as well be screaming about heroism at the top of his lungs. I feel that making him scream in a somewhat different way will be rewarding."
That was one of several reasons he wished to target that "Ad Hoc". His suit was obviously powerful, and Crawler wanted to see if it could hurt him. Mannequin hated the idea of a Tinker successfully helping others, and Ad Hoc had clearly been key to the fall of Empire 88. Shatterbird just enjoyed going up against power armor wielders, knowing she could render them helpless with one scream. Siberian, Hatchet Face, Burnscar and Bonesaw didn't feel strongly on the issue one way or another.
Really, he looked forward to revisiting Brockton Bay. Half the city's villains had been arrests in a couple weeks, and that might give people the wrong idea. Best correct that, by culling the heroes' numbers. Miss Militia would be a challenge to break. Armsmaster's obvious careerist drive could be amusing. Panacea had so much potential. And Dauntless… the city took some pride in him, and in his supposed potential to equal the Triumvirate some day. Jack was confident he could so something suitably creative with such a setup.
Then a section of the roof collapsed as a massive power armor came down into the room.
To his credit, it only took Jack Slash a second to regain his bearing. "Ad Hoc! So kind of you to drop by - and quite a long way from home, at that." In the distance, he heard what he recognized as a sonic boom - probably from when Ad Hoc had decelerated.
"Don't mind me," said Ad Hoc as he hovered to a nearby wall, "I'm just engaging in some pest control." With that, his armored hand went through the wall like it wasn't even there… and, grabbing Mannequin from the adjacent room, pulled him through the wall before swinging him at the floor so hard it cracked and splintered. Mannequin's synthetic body was broken in two - and any doubt about his survival was dispelled as Ad Hoc quickly stomped through both halves.
Jack didn't stop smiling, but in truth, he was slightly perturbed. Not because of Mannequin's death - death was an ever-present friend, after all - but because he had not seen it coming at all. He'd been aware on some level that Mannequin was behind that wall - he knew how capes operated, he had that intuition - but Ad Hoc's attack had taken him by complete surprise. That practically never happened anymore while fighting other capes. "Mere pest control? You either think very little of our little troupe, or very highly of yourself. Shatterbird, if you will?"
Shatterbird looked confused for a moment, before flinging a rafale of glass shards at the hero. "I'm not sensing any silicon in his armor," she said in obvious distress. She wasn't done pronouncing the sentence when Crawler roared in triumph as he charged forward.
Ad Hoc's movement were quick, fluid, precise. A few punches and kicks, easily breaking Crawler's artillery-proof hide, sent the massive villain sprawling on the floor. The next instant, he raised his arm in Crawler's direction, a green beam emerging from it to engulf the deformed monster.
The next second, Crawler (along with a big chunk of floor) was gone. "Extinction to all monsters!"
Jack Slash blinked. The way he'd said it… was Ad Hoc quoting? Irrelevant. Siberian was already charging at him, and-
The Siberian was gone.
Not even vaporized by the green ray. Ad Hoc hadn't done anything. Siberian had simply stopped existing in the blink of an eye.
And then Ad Hoc flew toward Shatterbird, so fast Jack was barely aware of it. A single punch took her head off her shoulders and halved its volume.
Burnscar was blasting. Bonesaw was sending her spiderbots. Murder Rat and Hatchet Face were joining the fray.
There was a blur of movement and green light. Then Burnscar and Murder Rat were unconscious on the ground, while Bonesaw and her robots no longer existed and Hatchet Face's chest had a hole in it as wide as the armor's arm. The only people left standing were Ad Hoc and Jack Slash.
"...Your methods lack panache," said Jack in the most nonchalant tone he could manage.
"I'm not wasting perfectly good panache on you losers. Though I actually thought this was a pretty good field test for the disintegrator ray - see, it converts all baryonic matter it touches into neutrinos. I originally intended it for clearing the boat graveyard in Brockton Bay, figured it'd work on Crawler too. My first idea had been a device to break the molecular bonds, but I figured leaving several kilotons of unbonded metal atoms in the water would probably be very toxic. So, neutrinos instead."
"Fascinating, my good man," said Jack, sounding bored even as he surveyed the scene. Any way of escape? None that he could see. Ways of harming Ad Hoc? Not while he had that armor. Siberian might have been able to, but Jack could tell in his guts that she was truly dead. Ways of talking Ad Hoc into letting him go, or removing his helmet long enough for a quick stab? Implausible - he simply couldn't get a read on him the way he did with most capes. Frustrating. This looked like the curtain call.
But… he could take one last person with him. Ad Hoc had spared Murder Rat and Burnscar. Hoping to save Mouse Protector despite all her damage? Naively optimistic, but understandable. As for Burnscar, perhaps he understood her warped psychology and sympathized? Regardless, while Burnscar benefitted from the subdermal protection Bonesaw had granted the rest of the Nine, Murder Rat did not. If he could only keep the would-be knight in shining armor (with a surprising ruthless streak) talking for a bit longer, he'd find his opening and slit her/his throat. "I do wonder, actually - how did you find us?"
"Well… You see, originally, I had this big honking plan. I knew that I'd have to face you clowns eventually - no offense meant to clowns, except Chuckles because fuck that guy - so I figured I'd lure you into a trap. First I figured you'd eventually come to me, so I'd set up countermeasures. But then it occurred to me that you might prepare the terrain first by kidnapping PRT agents and other relevant locals to gather information and shore up forces against me. So plan 2.0 was going to every town where Gray Boy hit, freeing his victims, announcing publicly which town I'd hit next, and going there on the following day. So you'd come after me, but with no time to prepare.
"Then I realized that plan was also stupid. So I just slapped together a long-range cape detect-o-mat, built multiple remote-controlled armors, and engaged in the best defense." He paused. "In case you're wondering, the Siberian was actually a middle aged man with a projection power. I teleported a small disintegrator under his car seat, programmed to activate if she ever got too close to me."
"That does explain a few things," said Jack. "Though I am not sure what you're hoping to accomplish with Burnscar."
"To be honest, I have trouble determining her degree of guilt," replied Ad Hoc. "She seems to regret her crimes when she isn't under the effect of her power, and I'm not sure whether her using her powers anyway can be laid at your feet. So in her case, I'm going to err on the side of mercy."
Jack laughed. "So you're willing to spare the pyromaniac who burned people alive, but not the actual child who was susceptible to bad influences?"
"I debated for a long while whether to spare Riley," said Ad Hoc, with a tinge of annoyance in his voice. "But her guilt is a lot less debatable. The fact that you crafter her into a monster doesn't change the fact that she was a monster. I knew she had potential for redemption, but that's true of anyone. Any resource spent on redeeming Bonesaw would be better spent redeeming ten other less extreme cases. Even so… I considered just freezing her in time for a century or two, leaving her re-education in the hands of a more stable and advanced society… then I realized I didn't even need to do that. I was forgetting a pretty important facto-"
In one fluid movement, the armored hero (or armor-controlling, apparently) blocked Jack's attempt to remotely slash Murder Rat's throat.
"Well. I see you're going to be a problem audience," he said. "So I'll cut to the chase." In the blink of an eye, each one of his hands was holding one of Jack's elbows. In another blink, those hands were squeezing.
Jack managed to stifle the pained yelp as his elbows were ground. He did the same when two rapid kicks shattered his kneecaps. When his lower jaw was crushed between Ad Hoc's thumb and index finger, his vocal options became severely limited. Before he fell to the ground, he felt a strike to the back of his neck… and then, he stopped feeling anything below that area.
"Well, the PRT should be here in about ten minutes," said the man who had just destroyed the Slaughterhouse Nine. "I already have nanomachines separating Ravager from Mouse Protector, and I'll be sending Burnscar to a pocket dimension so I can handle her my way. But as for you… Well. There's a Kill Order on your head. Buuuuut… I'm going to try and convince the PRT not to kill you. You see, my nanomachines are already making sure Bonesaw doesn't leave us with any nasty surprises. You're paralyzed below the neck. Even talking is going to be a challenge. Basically, you are now one of the least dangerous men alive. And quite frankly? If you spend the next few months locked in tedious courtroom proceedings prior to a plain execution, well, sucks to be you. And if the main thing people end up remembering about you is that you got caught, then judged by a plain regular court of law, it might help convince people that Kill Orders are unnecessary."
He leaned down. "But there's one more thing I want to tell you, Jacob. I believe I've already mentioned the possibility of freeing Gray Boy's victims, and oh, that's still in the works. But none of that is the worst thing I'm going to do to you. No, Jacky boy. Here's what I'm going to do…"
_______________
Ravager and Jack Slash were in custody. Burnscar was in my pocket dimension, nanomachines keeping her sedated. I'd assured the PRT that Crawler, Bonesaw and Siberian were dead.
I'd just killed a whole bunch of people. And… I found that I didn't feel very strongly about the matter.
Maybe it was because on some level, I didn't think of Earth Bet as a real world. Maybe it was because it was the Nine. Maybe it was just because I was the sort of person it didn't bother so much? Well, at least, the person it didn't bother so much when it was the Nine. I'd once spent a whole day in a funk over the death of two unnamed NPCs in a tabletop RPG session.
I had two more stops that day. The first one was in Russia. Interdictor devices made it surprisingly easy to beat the crap out of Sleeper. I surgically implanted a small interdictor device inside his body, then turned him over to the nearest authorities - I doubted he'd survive long in their care, but that was their call, and I did clarify the bit about him being depowered.
My second stop was in Ellisburg. Nilbog deserved to die for his crimes as much as any member of the Nine, but his creatures needed him, and I wasn't sure if they were sapient. It seemed wrong to condemn them all to death just because their creator had been an utter madman.
So I transported all of them to a parallel Earth - one still ruled by (decidedly non-sapient) dinosaurs. Seeing as Nilbog had no way of travelling across dimensions, that made him a non-issue for everyone.
Then, back to my pocket dimension. Some quick VI-assisted, nanotech-backed surgery later, Burnscar had a small interdictor device inside her body, and was confirmed free of any Bonesaw germs (I left the upgrades she'd made in place. No reason to remove them). Then I woke her up.
She got up, still dizzy, then looked around. Then she saw me, still in armor, and backed off.
"Stay away!" she shouted as she tried to blast me with fire, accomplishing diddly-squat.
"Yyyyeah. No fire for you. That's over."
She looked increasingly horrified. "What… what did you do to me?"
"Took away your power. You can't create fire or teleport through it. However, it also means fire no longer turns you into a psychopath."
Her expression of horror shifted as the implications dawned on her. "What… what happened to the Nine?"
"Finished. Dead. Only ones still alive are… well, you, standing here. Jack, who is now paralyzed below the neck and in PRT custody, if they haven't shot him already. And Harbinger, who retired after King's death to go into white-collar crime."
She took a moment to digest the fact. "What about Siberian? She just… popped."
"Siberian was an energy projection. I killed the projector."
"Oh. OK, but… what now? What happens to me?"
"What happens… is that you've done horrible things, but it's difficult to tell the extent of your own culpability. I know your power fucks with your head, but you still chose to use your power. On the other hand, spending time around the Nine, I don't know how much of a choice you had. But then again, your… misdeeds… did not start with the Nine, did they?"
She lowered her head in silence.
"So, which was it? Were you mostly a victim of circumstances, or mostly a coward who threw away people's lives? You're clearly both of those things, but in what relative proportions?"
She said nothing, mostly looking ashamed.
"See, I don't know. And if I turn you in to the authorities - my first instinct, believe me - they won't expend time and effort figuring it out, Kill Order and all. So… I'm going to give you a chance. A new life."
An image appeared on a massive wall monitor I had fabbered earlier. "This is… let's call it Earth-Gimmel. It's a peaceful world, with no parahumans or Endbringers. Pretty close to Earth Bet - their History diverged at some point during World War One, which ended in early 1917 with a fair peace that didn't lead to a second world war. I won't bore you with a detailed timeline, but their America is a decent place to live in. So… I'm dropping you there, with no powers. It's up to you to build your life in a new world."
She paused to consider. "How… how will I survive? I don't have money, or friends, or…"
"You'll have to make friends on your own. As for no money… this is, at least in part, punishment. That said, America-Gimmel is actually pretty decent in how it treats its poor. You will not starve. You will not freeze in the streets. You will not be deported for having no ID. Whether you can rise above being a homeless bum remains to be seen, but it's more chance than most mass-murderers get."
She considered for a moment, then sighed. "I… guess. Could you… actually, there was a reason I wanted to come to Brockton Bay before you showed up…"
_______________
Knowing how it had turned out in canon, I managed to dissuade Burscar from meeting Labyrinth, though I did agree to transmit a recorded goodbye. Now…
...Well. The clock was no longer ticking on the Slaughterhouse Nine. I now had entirely different clocks to worry about.
I had removed three S-class threats in as many hours. The Simurgh might not be able to see me, but the massive changes to the timeline caused by their absence would be impossible to miss (if she had somehow missed all the rest, such as the unchaining of Dragon and creation of the Lawgivers). No less importantly, several Scion-shards had come across my interdictor devices. There was a non-zero chance Scion himself was aware of something odd going on.
Well.
As Drake Mallard often said: Let's get dangerous.
17: PHO
Sorry for the long delay, folks. School and procrastination share the blame.
Chapter created using the PHO Interlude Generator.
17
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■
Topic: Lung Captured!
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)
Posted on April 12, 2011:
Last night, there was an incident in the docks (thread here). Pyrotechnics suggested Lung was involved, and the location suggested the ABB might have been cracking down on the Undersiders.
Well, wonder no more! The PRT just released an official statement. It was Lung... and he lost. Not to the Undersiders, but to a pair of new independent heroes. The PRT won't name them yet, but it was Armsmaster who made the arrest.
Now, it's surprising for Lung - easily the strongest cape in Brockton Bay - to get defeated by two newcomers. I guess this is a good reminder that cape powers are one giant game of rock-paper-scissors - no matter how overpowered you are, there's some power out there that can take you out.
Now, I'm glad to see a bastard like Lung go down (we'll see if he stays down; it ain't over till they're in the Birdcage). It might mean the ENE Protectorate might be able to get a better grip on the Bay. On the other hand, this also means Brockton's balance of power is out of whack, so expect Empire 88 to be making a big play for power.
Very curious about the unnamed capes. The PRT wouldn't be calling them independent heroes unless it was reasonably confident they weren't going to embarrass it by robbing a jewelry store tomorrow. But most new capes like to make a name for themselves quickly. Could be these guys are just smart and cautious and don't want the rest of the ABB going after them.
(Showing Page 8 of 18)
► Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 17, 2011:
UPDATE: Looks like it's not just Lung. The Protectorate reports that it has arrested Bakuda and Oni Lee, in addition to zillions of ABB rank-and-file. Which.. confirms what we all guessed when they started going around ABB territory arresting their mooks without any cape resistance.
They say it was a joint operation, with Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Battery, Velocity, and two independent heroes named Ad Hoc and Weaver. I'm guessing they're the ones who got Lung yesterday.
So... holy crap. Sayonara, ABB.
► Baron Blase
Replied on April 17, 2011:
And nothing of value was lost.
► TruthToPower (Cape Groupie)
Replied on April 17, 2011:
@ Baron Blase
I'm not so quick to celebrate. First of all, Lung was insurance policy against Leviathan. Second, no ABB means Empire 88 will rule the city.
Quick reminder: Those guys? Actual NAZIS. At least Lung was an honorable warrior. Not sure this is a step up for Brockton Bay.
► Carthago (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 17, 2011:
I'm mostly curious about the new capes.
Weaver. With a name like that, my first guess would be some kind of Thinker (would explain how they got the ABB), but could also be a Shaker, even a Blaster. Hoping it's the former - the lack of a decent Thinker has been crippling the Protectorate ENE for five years.
Ad Hoc. Latin for "for this", usually meaning something specifically made for a given situation. Sounds like the perfect name for a Trump, but could also be a Tinker of some sort.
► Boto1973 (Kyushu Survivor)
Replied on April 17, 2011:
@ TruthToPower
I'm afraid I must disagree with you on several key points.
First, there is no such thing as insurance policy against Endbringers. Not even Lung.
Second, you have called him an "honorable warrior". Lung was fearless, violent, eager to fight regardless of the odds. These are traits that popular media often associate with honorable characters - we like to think that a fighter, a warrior, is somehow "true" in a way that more sophisticated individuals are not. The reality of it is not so pat. Remember Ronin? Remember Mujeog? Lung has a consistent tendency to betray his allies and subordinates when it allows him to win. He has always been callous toward the ABB's rank-and-file, as well as the Asian population of his territory. Lung has always been a snake. It is only when compared to the E88 that he can look even remotely good.
Third, you should not be so quick to assume Kaiser and his ilk will control the city. The only reason Empire 88 ever became such a significant force was because Allfather, and Kaiser after him, were able to convince white supremacist villains from out-of-State to move to Brockton Bay. This has inflated their numbers, but it also means there are very, very few Nazi villains in America except in Brockton Bay. The Empire's ability to recruit further is fairly limited, forcing them to rely on the Geselschaft. The Protectorate, meanwhile, can keep recruiting, and collaborates with other heroes such as New Wave and these newcomers.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ... 16 , 17, 18
■
Topic: Dragonslayers Down!
In: Boards ► Teams ► Dragonslayers
Tin Mother (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Posted on April 19, 2011:
This just in: The entirety of the Dragonslayers have just been escorted into the Toronto Protectorate base by one of Dragon's suits, carried themselves by the (presumably remote-controlled) suits they've stolen from her over the years.
That is all.
(Showing Page 1 of 20)
► Batman Hood (Unverified Cape) (Cape Groupie)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Aw. Those guys had a good run. I mean, a decade of going up against the 4th most powerful cape in North America, and consistently winning? Pretty damn impressive. But I guess the World's Greatest Tinker had to get lucky sooner or later.
Hope they avoid the Birdcage. They helped my town a lot when they took out Seeker Savage.
► Silver Crusader (Verified Cape) (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member) (Protectorate East)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ Batman Hood
I seem to recall that they only stopped Seeker Savage because Antares paid them to. And Antares was certainly no better.
The Dragonslayers have always been purely mercenary. When I caught Titanium Cyborg in 2008, they freed him before he could be sent to the Birdcage. Two months later, he came this close to blowing up half of Greenwich Village.
Me? I'm just glad Dragon finally beat her archnemesis. If anyone deserves a clean win, it's her.
► Kaelun (Cape Husband)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
To be fair: The Dragonslayers did donate some of their proceedings to charity.
Still, asshole mercenaries and I'm glad to see them gone.
It's interesting, actually. Contrary to what pre-Scion comic books would have you believe, nemesis-type relations are pretty rare in the cape world. It's uncommon for two capes to fight each other numerous times, outside of the Triumvirate and S-class threats. I mean, there was Battery and Madcap for a short while, Scorpio and Rotor in the late 90s, Silver Crusader and Titanium Cyborg, and I guess Cognito tries to encourage heroic rebels to oppose him... but long-running rivalries like Dragon and the Dragonslayers have had are a rare thing.
So... end of an era. Now I wonder how it ended. Did Dragon find some way to hack their stolen suits?
► Dragon (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Guild)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ Kaelun:
Something like that.
► JayJay
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ Dragon:
...You're posting here NOW? Aren't you busy giving a full report to the Toronto Protectorate?
► Dragon (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Guild)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ JayJay:
Let's say I'm working on my multitasking abilities.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 18 , 19, 20
■
Topic: New Tinker Kicks Ass, Takes Names
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
XxVoid CowboyxX (Original Poster)
Posted on April 19, 2011:
Check the footage.
E88's been wrecking the city since they groked the ABB went down.
Then comes this dude in AWESOME power armor and he MOPS THE FLOOR with Menja, Frenja, and Hookwolf.
All three of those are heavy hitters, and he just... shrugged off their attacks. It's like some freaking Alexandria armor or something.
Is this guy new? I'd think I'd have heard of him before. Still, punching Nazis? pretty cool way to make an entrance.
(Showing Page 9 of 31)
► Barter Blaster (Temp-banned)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ XxVoid CowboyxX
Know what? I'm done trying to talk some intelligence into you. Just keep bleating the media party line like the stupid sheep you are. "Kaiser is the Devil", "E88 is as bad as the ABB", "the Protectorate are the real heroes". Just, fuck it. You're too dumb to listen.
[Tin Mother: Barter Blaster, personal attacks are not permitted on these boards. Take a week off.]
► Wunza
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Holy shit.
I actually saw a cape fight. HELL of a fight. A dozen Protectorate capes (I recognized Armsmaster, Clockblocker and Visa) fighting Kaiser and a dozen of HIS capes, plus an army of minions.
I think there was some kind of plague of locusts? Anyway, it was a curbstomp. Nazis never stood a chance.
Fighting intensifies.
► Yaniv Magniv (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Aaaaand the PRT has confirmed it: Two major altercations with the E88 today, with no heroic casualties. Arrests include Kaiser, Krieg, Victor, Othala, Alabaster, and Cricket.
In other words: Nazis got PWNED.
Welcome to fucking D-Day, motherfuckers.
Now, the PRT says Weaver and Ad Hoc were helping the Protectorate and Wards on this one. Witnesses saw some creepy guy in a bug-like costume, and the power armored guy this thread was originally about before it got derailed the way only PHO can derail threads. So, at the moment, my guesses are that Weaver is some kind of bug Master, and Ad Hoc some kind of power armor Tinker.
► Vae Victis (Cape Daughter)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Huh. If Ad Hoc can make THIS kind of power armor...
...suddenly, Lung's defeat makes a lot more sense.
► Dorothy and her Amazing Friends
Replied on April 19, 2011:
A month ago, the hospital let me out after I had my operation. I finally felt like myself. I went out to celebrate with my boyfriend.
Now, Empire hates LGBT folk, but I don't think they twigged that I was one. They did, however, see a white woman going out with a black man (half-black, technically. That didn't get him a half-beating).
And that's how what was supposed to be our day of celebrating ended up with my face bruised, and him in the hospital. They'll let him out in a week, but he's lost his job, and the hospital bills alone meant missing payment on his car. That's for the physical damage; psychologically is a whole nother story.
And now the Nazis are going down in flames?
This is the first time in a month I feel like celebrating.
► Barter Blaster (Temp-banned)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ Dorothy and her very very gay friends:
TL;DR.
@ Wunza:
It's "Vista", not "Visa". Sheesh.
► Tudor X
Replied on April 19, 2011:
I'd just like to join in in a frank call of FUCK NAZIS.
► Parian (Unverified Cape)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
While I'll echo the "fuck Nazis" thing...
...as shallow as it may sound...
...I have to ask: Who designed Ad Hoc's power armor? It's not up my alley (I design regular clothes, not cape costumes, and certainly not armor), but it's amazing. From a professional perspective, it's actually moreimpressive than what I'd expect to see at most fashion shows.
I'm almost jealous.
► Edgier Than You (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member) (Power Guru)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Yes, that armor is rather striking, isn't it? It isn't often that a cape's costume can convey a concept so loudly and clearly, and Ad Hoc's impressive power armor conveys a sense of heroism that he only reinforces by publicly punching Nazis.
Really, if his goal was to create the image of an invincible paragon of all that is good and noble in this world, then he's certainly off to a good start, marred only by his relative silence - no public statement to date, I believe?
Really, looking at his recent victories would be enough to give many people hope. A seemingly invincible Tinker akin to the second coming of Hero, a cape city cleared of its biggest, most brutal gangs in the space of a week... yes, it is enough to give many people hope.
Of course, one has to be realistic about such things. Brockton Bay has a power vacuum, and other villains will be only too happy to come and fill it. But for now... for now, people are no doubt glad for Ad Hoc's presence. Why, I'm rather tempted to meet him myself.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 ... 29 , 30, 31
■
Topic: Heartbreaker Caught!
In: Boards ► Places ► Canada ► Montreal
Amber Circuit (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
Posted on April 21, 2011:
Holy crap. What is this, "All Villains Must Die" week? First the gangs in Brockton Bay, then the Dragonslayers, then Slaughterhouse Nine, then Nilbog and Sleeper, and now this? Not that I'm complaining...
Anyway: This probably won't get the attention it deserves given the S9 thing earlier today, but... The PRT just confirmed it: Heartbreaker is under arrest. His kids and the capes of his harem, along with the rest of his harem, are under observation, but they say he was forced to free everyone from his control.
Details are sparse, but apparently, the whole thing was done by Dragon. Just Dragon, alone.
Huh. Amazing what she can get done without the Dragonslayers on her back. XD
(Showing Page 3 of 11)
► Riveter (Cape Wife) (Veteran Member) (Social Justice Warrior)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
@ Lustrum Was Right:
Hyperbole much? Look, I'm as happy as anyone else that this scumbag is gone and his victims freed. I mean, we're talking about a slaver and rapist on a terrifying scale. One of the great monsters of our age.
But you make it sound like he never got any condemnation. Like you're special for hating him. Everyone hates Heartbreaker. Men or women, everyone knows he's scum.
► Daphne Miller (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
OK, I have to wonder.
Heartbreaker's been around for a very long while. He's got his massive compound. He's got a zillion slaves, some of them trained with weapons and armed, a few of them parahumans. Several of his kids are second-generation triggers. And he can make you love him just by looking at you.
So... how did Dragon take him down? And why was she able to do it now and not before? (I'm saying "able", not "willing", because, well, it's Dragon. Most ethical superhero on Earth.)
► Zee (Banned) (Rocking in Montreal)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
Hey. First post here. I just heard about the whole thing.
Now, this is kinda personal for me. I knew one of his victims. Roommate of mine, statuesque blonde. You guys know any way of checking up on her?
@ Daphne Miller:
What's a "trigger"?
► Gator Gamer
Replied on April 21, 2011:
OK, honestly? You're all gonna want to tear me apart for saying this, but it's gotta be said: Heartbreaker gets a bad rap.
I know it's not "PC" to say it, but it's true. Studies clearly show that women are happier with a strong man who knows how to take charge, but nowadays we get all the feminists and lustrumites who are too proud to get that. All Heartbreaker ever did was give women what they needed.
► Bahamuth (Cape Groupie)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
First the Dragonslayer shitstains, and now the rapiest rapist who ever raped?
You're on a ROLL, Dragon! Keep being awesome!
► Riveter (Cape Wife) (Veteran Member) (Social Justice Warrior)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
*Looks at Lustrum Was Right*
*Looks at Gator Gamer*
*cries*
*cries some more*
*eats tub of ice cream*
*crying forever*
► Dragon (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Guild)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
@ Daphne Miller
1)How it was done?
I can't discuss it in detail quite yet, but I can say this much: Drones. Lots and lots of drones.
2)Why not earlier?
Without getting into Tinker talk... I've had a significant breakthrough with my technology (hence my earlier success against the Dragonslayers). And to be honest, I've spent time over the years asking myself "how would I beat __ if I had better tools" concerning a number of particularly loathsome villains. Since I finally had some better tools, it seemed only right to start applying some of those ideas.
@ Zee
Everyone will be under observation with the PRT and isolated until we can confirm Heartbtreaker really did free them, but you may put a request here.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 9 , 10, 11
■
Topic: Slaughterhouse Zero
In: Boards ► Official Announcements
Kelly Chandler (Original Poster) (PRT Official)
Posted on April 21, 2011:
Less than four hours ago, the independent hero Ad Hoc contacted the PRT to inform us of his capture of Jack Slash and elimination of the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine in Middletown, Ohio.
Agents and Protectorate members sent to the scene recovered Jack Slash, who was cripplingly injured. A team of forensic experts and Thinkers have been working since then to confirm or deny Ad Hoc's allegations. Below is their current verdict. It is subject to change as new information is obtained, but we are confident enough of the following:
1)Jack Slash, oldest member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, is indeed in custody.
2)Mannequin, formerly known as Sphere, is dead. His remains have been recovered.
3)Shatterbird and Hatchet Face are dead. Their remains have been recovered.
4)Bonesaw, Burnscar, Crawler and the Siberian are dead. No remains, but PRT precognitives see no future appearances by any of them.
5)The Protectorate hero Mouse Protector and the villain Ravager, previously captured by Slaughterhouse Nine, are both alive and in the PRT's hands, but catatonic.
Investigation concerning Ad Hoc's actions concerning Nilbog and Sleeper is still ongoing.
(Showing Page 19 of 100)
► Half Full
Replied on April 21, 2011:
Fuck. Yes.
Fuck you, Slaughterhouse Nine. Fuck you to Hell.
Fuck you, Jack Slash, you nihilistic, faux-philosophical, sadistic, mass-murdering son of a bitch. I hope they send you to the Birdcage, just so the other inmates can fuck you up.
Fuck you, Bonesaw, you monstrous little witch, and fuck all your torturous creations.
Fuck you, Siberian, for Hero, for Lightbringer, for Tank, and for thousands of others.
Fuck you, Mannequin. You were our best hope, and then you decided to kill hope everywhere.
Fuck you, Shatterbird, you city-killing shitstain. Only Endbringers have killed more than you.
Fuck you, Crawler, you murderous nightmare. If Hell exists and you're really some kind of masochist, then I hope your hell involves absolute sensory deprivation.
Fuck you, Burnscar, and every life-destroying moment of your career.
Fuck you, Hatchet Face, for every single hero (and some of the villains) that you murdered.
Fuck every single one of you evil bastards. I've never been happier to see anyone dead or worse.
► Professor Cold Heart (Evil is in the heart) (Cares Bears Must Die)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
Holy shit.
I mean, big enough news that a class S threat is destroyed for the first time in History.
But Ad Hoc might have actually taken down three?!
This guy is basically Scion as a Tinker, isn't he.
► XxVoid CowboyxX
Replied on April 21, 2011:
@ Professor Cold Heart
It is? Weren't String Theory, Black Kaze and Titanium Cyborg S-class?
► Bagrat (Verified PRT Agent) (The Guy In The Know)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
@ XxVoid CowboyxX
All three of those were classified as A-class, though in String Theory and Titanium Cyborg's case this was controversial.
► Tidal Surfer (Unverified Cape)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
Just one quick post before I go out.
You know why I'm going out?
MASSIVE BEACH PARTY.
Rock on, PHO. Rock on.
► Trig (Veteran Member) (Volgograd Survivor)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
They just announced Sleeper dead.
Good riddance. We haven't forgotten Volgograd.
► Magmar
Replied on April 21, 2011:
So... first Ad Hoc takes out Lung. Then he crushes Empire 88. Then he annihilates Slaughterhouse Nine and Nilbog, while taking the time to arrest Sleeper.
Fuck it. By next week, I expect him to punch Leviathan's head off, then slap Scion silly for not doing a better job with the Endbringers.
► Puny Python (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
I've never felt happier while watching the news.
Mind you, there's a terrified part of me that's going "Thank GOD he's on our side".
► Good Neighbor (Verified Cape) (Haven)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
*falls on his knees and gives praise to the Lord*
I don't believe in demonic possession.
But if anyone ever made question that belief, it was the Nine.
► TruthToPower (Cape Groupie)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
OK, I'm starting to really like this Ad Hoc.
Because, seriously. Every class S threat except the Endbringers is gone, as are half of Brockton Bay's villains. Dunno about everyone else, but I feel a lot safer than yesterday.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 ... 98 , 99, 100
■
Topic: General Brockton Bay Discussion Thread 25
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Positron (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Posted on March 2, 2011:
This is a general thread for discussing Brockton Bay, its cape scene, and latest events.
Previous thread here.
(Showing Page 86 of 86)[/U]
► Brockton For Life
Replied on April 22, 2011:
The Slaughterhouse Zero celebrations are dying out. It occurs to me that I didn't see any Merchant trying to peddle his shit in one of them. I'm guessing they, like what's left of the Empire, are laying low.
They're dumb, but apparently not THAT dumb.
► Gator Gamer
Replied on April 22, 2011:
OK, WTF?
Did Ad Hoc just arrest Uber and Leet?
The guy just ended three CLASS S THREATS. Why the flying fuck is he wasting his time on those guys? Aren't they basically harmless?
► Omega Poster (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 22, 2011:
"Harmless" is a bit of an overstatement. Remember the hooker they beat up for their GTA stunt? Or the fire they started for their Inferno Fighters stunt? (Yeah, they got everyone out first, but that store never reopened. Not all small business owners can afford supervillain insurance.)
I'll grant that, in a world that has Endbringers and shit, they're probably not the worst thing around. Heck, even in Brockton Bay alone, they've got nothing on the Merchants or what's left of E88. But, y'know. I don't think Ad Hoc was specifically LOOKING for them.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 84, 85, 86
■
Topic: Ad Hoc Facts and Speculations
In: Boards ► People ► Tinkers
Tin Mother (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Posted on April 17, 2011:
Please use this thread for speculation and developments concerning Ad Hoc.
For previous news sources concerning Ad Hoc, see here.
Usual board rules apply.
(Showing Page 45 of 45)
► I Know Something (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member) (Power Guru)
Replied on April 22, 2011:
Really, at this point, we don't even have confirmation that he's a Tinker. It seems pretty likely, considering that armor of his, but for all we know it's a misdirection and he's actually some kind of crazy Trump, or Breaker, or whatever.
What we do know:
-Fast flight, strength and durability at least in the Brute 7 range but probably higher.
-Killed Hatchet Face (which is another strong but inconclusive argument in favor of Tinker abilities).
-Killed Siberian and Crawler to the point there are no remains left.
-Defeated Sleeper.
-Turned Ellisburgh into a big crater.
One thing for certain: Whatever his powers are... they're as A-list as they come.
► Ad Hoc (Verified Cape)
Replied on April 22, 2011:
*reads*
*gets popcorn*
► Tautau
Replied on April 22, 2011:
@ Ad Hoc
...are you commenting on this message board WHILE taking Uber and Leet to the PRT?
► Ad Hoc (Verified Cape)
Replied on April 22, 2011:
@ Tautau
No.
Heh heh heh.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 43, 44, 45
Chapter created using the PHO Interlude Generator.
17
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■
Topic: Lung Captured!In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)
Posted on April 12, 2011:
Last night, there was an incident in the docks (thread here). Pyrotechnics suggested Lung was involved, and the location suggested the ABB might have been cracking down on the Undersiders.
Well, wonder no more! The PRT just released an official statement. It was Lung... and he lost. Not to the Undersiders, but to a pair of new independent heroes. The PRT won't name them yet, but it was Armsmaster who made the arrest.
Now, it's surprising for Lung - easily the strongest cape in Brockton Bay - to get defeated by two newcomers. I guess this is a good reminder that cape powers are one giant game of rock-paper-scissors - no matter how overpowered you are, there's some power out there that can take you out.
Now, I'm glad to see a bastard like Lung go down (we'll see if he stays down; it ain't over till they're in the Birdcage). It might mean the ENE Protectorate might be able to get a better grip on the Bay. On the other hand, this also means Brockton's balance of power is out of whack, so expect Empire 88 to be making a big play for power.
Very curious about the unnamed capes. The PRT wouldn't be calling them independent heroes unless it was reasonably confident they weren't going to embarrass it by robbing a jewelry store tomorrow. But most new capes like to make a name for themselves quickly. Could be these guys are just smart and cautious and don't want the rest of the ABB going after them.
(Showing Page 8 of 18)
► Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 17, 2011:
UPDATE: Looks like it's not just Lung. The Protectorate reports that it has arrested Bakuda and Oni Lee, in addition to zillions of ABB rank-and-file. Which.. confirms what we all guessed when they started going around ABB territory arresting their mooks without any cape resistance.
They say it was a joint operation, with Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Battery, Velocity, and two independent heroes named Ad Hoc and Weaver. I'm guessing they're the ones who got Lung yesterday.
So... holy crap. Sayonara, ABB.
► Baron Blase
Replied on April 17, 2011:
And nothing of value was lost.
► TruthToPower (Cape Groupie)
Replied on April 17, 2011:
@ Baron Blase
I'm not so quick to celebrate. First of all, Lung was insurance policy against Leviathan. Second, no ABB means Empire 88 will rule the city.
Quick reminder: Those guys? Actual NAZIS. At least Lung was an honorable warrior. Not sure this is a step up for Brockton Bay.
► Carthago (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 17, 2011:
I'm mostly curious about the new capes.
Weaver. With a name like that, my first guess would be some kind of Thinker (would explain how they got the ABB), but could also be a Shaker, even a Blaster. Hoping it's the former - the lack of a decent Thinker has been crippling the Protectorate ENE for five years.
Ad Hoc. Latin for "for this", usually meaning something specifically made for a given situation. Sounds like the perfect name for a Trump, but could also be a Tinker of some sort.
► Boto1973 (Kyushu Survivor)
Replied on April 17, 2011:
@ TruthToPower
I'm afraid I must disagree with you on several key points.
First, there is no such thing as insurance policy against Endbringers. Not even Lung.
Second, you have called him an "honorable warrior". Lung was fearless, violent, eager to fight regardless of the odds. These are traits that popular media often associate with honorable characters - we like to think that a fighter, a warrior, is somehow "true" in a way that more sophisticated individuals are not. The reality of it is not so pat. Remember Ronin? Remember Mujeog? Lung has a consistent tendency to betray his allies and subordinates when it allows him to win. He has always been callous toward the ABB's rank-and-file, as well as the Asian population of his territory. Lung has always been a snake. It is only when compared to the E88 that he can look even remotely good.
Third, you should not be so quick to assume Kaiser and his ilk will control the city. The only reason Empire 88 ever became such a significant force was because Allfather, and Kaiser after him, were able to convince white supremacist villains from out-of-State to move to Brockton Bay. This has inflated their numbers, but it also means there are very, very few Nazi villains in America except in Brockton Bay. The Empire's ability to recruit further is fairly limited, forcing them to rely on the Geselschaft. The Protectorate, meanwhile, can keep recruiting, and collaborates with other heroes such as New Wave and these newcomers.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ... 16 , 17, 18
■
Topic: Dragonslayers Down!In: Boards ► Teams ► Dragonslayers
Tin Mother (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Posted on April 19, 2011:
This just in: The entirety of the Dragonslayers have just been escorted into the Toronto Protectorate base by one of Dragon's suits, carried themselves by the (presumably remote-controlled) suits they've stolen from her over the years.
That is all.
(Showing Page 1 of 20)
► Batman Hood (Unverified Cape) (Cape Groupie)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Aw. Those guys had a good run. I mean, a decade of going up against the 4th most powerful cape in North America, and consistently winning? Pretty damn impressive. But I guess the World's Greatest Tinker had to get lucky sooner or later.
Hope they avoid the Birdcage. They helped my town a lot when they took out Seeker Savage.
► Silver Crusader (Verified Cape) (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member) (Protectorate East)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ Batman Hood
I seem to recall that they only stopped Seeker Savage because Antares paid them to. And Antares was certainly no better.
The Dragonslayers have always been purely mercenary. When I caught Titanium Cyborg in 2008, they freed him before he could be sent to the Birdcage. Two months later, he came this close to blowing up half of Greenwich Village.
Me? I'm just glad Dragon finally beat her archnemesis. If anyone deserves a clean win, it's her.
► Kaelun (Cape Husband)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
To be fair: The Dragonslayers did donate some of their proceedings to charity.
Still, asshole mercenaries and I'm glad to see them gone.
It's interesting, actually. Contrary to what pre-Scion comic books would have you believe, nemesis-type relations are pretty rare in the cape world. It's uncommon for two capes to fight each other numerous times, outside of the Triumvirate and S-class threats. I mean, there was Battery and Madcap for a short while, Scorpio and Rotor in the late 90s, Silver Crusader and Titanium Cyborg, and I guess Cognito tries to encourage heroic rebels to oppose him... but long-running rivalries like Dragon and the Dragonslayers have had are a rare thing.
So... end of an era. Now I wonder how it ended. Did Dragon find some way to hack their stolen suits?
► Dragon (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Guild)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ Kaelun:
Something like that.
► JayJay
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ Dragon:
...You're posting here NOW? Aren't you busy giving a full report to the Toronto Protectorate?
► Dragon (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Guild)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ JayJay:
Let's say I'm working on my multitasking abilities.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 18 , 19, 20
■
Topic: New Tinker Kicks Ass, Takes NamesIn: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
XxVoid CowboyxX (Original Poster)
Posted on April 19, 2011:
Check the footage.
E88's been wrecking the city since they groked the ABB went down.
Then comes this dude in AWESOME power armor and he MOPS THE FLOOR with Menja, Frenja, and Hookwolf.
All three of those are heavy hitters, and he just... shrugged off their attacks. It's like some freaking Alexandria armor or something.
Is this guy new? I'd think I'd have heard of him before. Still, punching Nazis? pretty cool way to make an entrance.
(Showing Page 9 of 31)
► Barter Blaster (Temp-banned)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ XxVoid CowboyxX
Know what? I'm done trying to talk some intelligence into you. Just keep bleating the media party line like the stupid sheep you are. "Kaiser is the Devil", "E88 is as bad as the ABB", "the Protectorate are the real heroes". Just, fuck it. You're too dumb to listen.
[Tin Mother: Barter Blaster, personal attacks are not permitted on these boards. Take a week off.]
► Wunza
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Holy shit.
I actually saw a cape fight. HELL of a fight. A dozen Protectorate capes (I recognized Armsmaster, Clockblocker and Visa) fighting Kaiser and a dozen of HIS capes, plus an army of minions.
I think there was some kind of plague of locusts? Anyway, it was a curbstomp. Nazis never stood a chance.
Fighting intensifies.
► Yaniv Magniv (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Aaaaand the PRT has confirmed it: Two major altercations with the E88 today, with no heroic casualties. Arrests include Kaiser, Krieg, Victor, Othala, Alabaster, and Cricket.
In other words: Nazis got PWNED.
Welcome to fucking D-Day, motherfuckers.
Now, the PRT says Weaver and Ad Hoc were helping the Protectorate and Wards on this one. Witnesses saw some creepy guy in a bug-like costume, and the power armored guy this thread was originally about before it got derailed the way only PHO can derail threads. So, at the moment, my guesses are that Weaver is some kind of bug Master, and Ad Hoc some kind of power armor Tinker.
► Vae Victis (Cape Daughter)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Huh. If Ad Hoc can make THIS kind of power armor...
...suddenly, Lung's defeat makes a lot more sense.
► Dorothy and her Amazing Friends
Replied on April 19, 2011:
A month ago, the hospital let me out after I had my operation. I finally felt like myself. I went out to celebrate with my boyfriend.
Now, Empire hates LGBT folk, but I don't think they twigged that I was one. They did, however, see a white woman going out with a black man (half-black, technically. That didn't get him a half-beating).
And that's how what was supposed to be our day of celebrating ended up with my face bruised, and him in the hospital. They'll let him out in a week, but he's lost his job, and the hospital bills alone meant missing payment on his car. That's for the physical damage; psychologically is a whole nother story.
And now the Nazis are going down in flames?
This is the first time in a month I feel like celebrating.
► Barter Blaster (Temp-banned)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
@ Dorothy and her very very gay friends:
TL;DR.
@ Wunza:
It's "Vista", not "Visa". Sheesh.
► Tudor X
Replied on April 19, 2011:
I'd just like to join in in a frank call of FUCK NAZIS.
► Parian (Unverified Cape)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
While I'll echo the "fuck Nazis" thing...
...as shallow as it may sound...
...I have to ask: Who designed Ad Hoc's power armor? It's not up my alley (I design regular clothes, not cape costumes, and certainly not armor), but it's amazing. From a professional perspective, it's actually moreimpressive than what I'd expect to see at most fashion shows.
I'm almost jealous.
► Edgier Than You (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member) (Power Guru)
Replied on April 19, 2011:
Yes, that armor is rather striking, isn't it? It isn't often that a cape's costume can convey a concept so loudly and clearly, and Ad Hoc's impressive power armor conveys a sense of heroism that he only reinforces by publicly punching Nazis.
Really, if his goal was to create the image of an invincible paragon of all that is good and noble in this world, then he's certainly off to a good start, marred only by his relative silence - no public statement to date, I believe?
Really, looking at his recent victories would be enough to give many people hope. A seemingly invincible Tinker akin to the second coming of Hero, a cape city cleared of its biggest, most brutal gangs in the space of a week... yes, it is enough to give many people hope.
Of course, one has to be realistic about such things. Brockton Bay has a power vacuum, and other villains will be only too happy to come and fill it. But for now... for now, people are no doubt glad for Ad Hoc's presence. Why, I'm rather tempted to meet him myself.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 ... 29 , 30, 31
■
Topic: Heartbreaker Caught!In: Boards ► Places ► Canada ► Montreal
Amber Circuit (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
Posted on April 21, 2011:
Holy crap. What is this, "All Villains Must Die" week? First the gangs in Brockton Bay, then the Dragonslayers, then Slaughterhouse Nine, then Nilbog and Sleeper, and now this? Not that I'm complaining...
Anyway: This probably won't get the attention it deserves given the S9 thing earlier today, but... The PRT just confirmed it: Heartbreaker is under arrest. His kids and the capes of his harem, along with the rest of his harem, are under observation, but they say he was forced to free everyone from his control.
Details are sparse, but apparently, the whole thing was done by Dragon. Just Dragon, alone.
Huh. Amazing what she can get done without the Dragonslayers on her back. XD
(Showing Page 3 of 11)
► Riveter (Cape Wife) (Veteran Member) (Social Justice Warrior)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
@ Lustrum Was Right:
Hyperbole much? Look, I'm as happy as anyone else that this scumbag is gone and his victims freed. I mean, we're talking about a slaver and rapist on a terrifying scale. One of the great monsters of our age.
But you make it sound like he never got any condemnation. Like you're special for hating him. Everyone hates Heartbreaker. Men or women, everyone knows he's scum.
► Daphne Miller (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
OK, I have to wonder.
Heartbreaker's been around for a very long while. He's got his massive compound. He's got a zillion slaves, some of them trained with weapons and armed, a few of them parahumans. Several of his kids are second-generation triggers. And he can make you love him just by looking at you.
So... how did Dragon take him down? And why was she able to do it now and not before? (I'm saying "able", not "willing", because, well, it's Dragon. Most ethical superhero on Earth.)
► Zee (Banned) (Rocking in Montreal)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
Hey. First post here. I just heard about the whole thing.
Now, this is kinda personal for me. I knew one of his victims. Roommate of mine, statuesque blonde. You guys know any way of checking up on her?
@ Daphne Miller:
What's a "trigger"?
► Gator Gamer
Replied on April 21, 2011:
OK, honestly? You're all gonna want to tear me apart for saying this, but it's gotta be said: Heartbreaker gets a bad rap.
I know it's not "PC" to say it, but it's true. Studies clearly show that women are happier with a strong man who knows how to take charge, but nowadays we get all the feminists and lustrumites who are too proud to get that. All Heartbreaker ever did was give women what they needed.
► Bahamuth (Cape Groupie)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
First the Dragonslayer shitstains, and now the rapiest rapist who ever raped?
You're on a ROLL, Dragon! Keep being awesome!
► Riveter (Cape Wife) (Veteran Member) (Social Justice Warrior)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
*Looks at Lustrum Was Right*
*Looks at Gator Gamer*
*cries*
*cries some more*
*eats tub of ice cream*
*crying forever*
► Dragon (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Guild)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
@ Daphne Miller
1)How it was done?
I can't discuss it in detail quite yet, but I can say this much: Drones. Lots and lots of drones.
2)Why not earlier?
Without getting into Tinker talk... I've had a significant breakthrough with my technology (hence my earlier success against the Dragonslayers). And to be honest, I've spent time over the years asking myself "how would I beat __ if I had better tools" concerning a number of particularly loathsome villains. Since I finally had some better tools, it seemed only right to start applying some of those ideas.
@ Zee
Everyone will be under observation with the PRT and isolated until we can confirm Heartbtreaker really did free them, but you may put a request here.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 9 , 10, 11
■
Topic: Slaughterhouse ZeroIn: Boards ► Official Announcements
Kelly Chandler (Original Poster) (PRT Official)
Posted on April 21, 2011:
Less than four hours ago, the independent hero Ad Hoc contacted the PRT to inform us of his capture of Jack Slash and elimination of the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine in Middletown, Ohio.
Agents and Protectorate members sent to the scene recovered Jack Slash, who was cripplingly injured. A team of forensic experts and Thinkers have been working since then to confirm or deny Ad Hoc's allegations. Below is their current verdict. It is subject to change as new information is obtained, but we are confident enough of the following:
1)Jack Slash, oldest member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, is indeed in custody.
2)Mannequin, formerly known as Sphere, is dead. His remains have been recovered.
3)Shatterbird and Hatchet Face are dead. Their remains have been recovered.
4)Bonesaw, Burnscar, Crawler and the Siberian are dead. No remains, but PRT precognitives see no future appearances by any of them.
5)The Protectorate hero Mouse Protector and the villain Ravager, previously captured by Slaughterhouse Nine, are both alive and in the PRT's hands, but catatonic.
Investigation concerning Ad Hoc's actions concerning Nilbog and Sleeper is still ongoing.
(Showing Page 19 of 100)
► Half Full
Replied on April 21, 2011:
Fuck. Yes.
Fuck you, Slaughterhouse Nine. Fuck you to Hell.
Fuck you, Jack Slash, you nihilistic, faux-philosophical, sadistic, mass-murdering son of a bitch. I hope they send you to the Birdcage, just so the other inmates can fuck you up.
Fuck you, Bonesaw, you monstrous little witch, and fuck all your torturous creations.
Fuck you, Siberian, for Hero, for Lightbringer, for Tank, and for thousands of others.
Fuck you, Mannequin. You were our best hope, and then you decided to kill hope everywhere.
Fuck you, Shatterbird, you city-killing shitstain. Only Endbringers have killed more than you.
Fuck you, Crawler, you murderous nightmare. If Hell exists and you're really some kind of masochist, then I hope your hell involves absolute sensory deprivation.
Fuck you, Burnscar, and every life-destroying moment of your career.
Fuck you, Hatchet Face, for every single hero (and some of the villains) that you murdered.
Fuck every single one of you evil bastards. I've never been happier to see anyone dead or worse.
► Professor Cold Heart (Evil is in the heart) (Cares Bears Must Die)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
Holy shit.
I mean, big enough news that a class S threat is destroyed for the first time in History.
But Ad Hoc might have actually taken down three?!
This guy is basically Scion as a Tinker, isn't he.
► XxVoid CowboyxX
Replied on April 21, 2011:
@ Professor Cold Heart
It is? Weren't String Theory, Black Kaze and Titanium Cyborg S-class?
► Bagrat (Verified PRT Agent) (The Guy In The Know)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
@ XxVoid CowboyxX
All three of those were classified as A-class, though in String Theory and Titanium Cyborg's case this was controversial.
► Tidal Surfer (Unverified Cape)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
Just one quick post before I go out.
You know why I'm going out?
MASSIVE BEACH PARTY.
Rock on, PHO. Rock on.
► Trig (Veteran Member) (Volgograd Survivor)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
They just announced Sleeper dead.
Good riddance. We haven't forgotten Volgograd.
► Magmar
Replied on April 21, 2011:
So... first Ad Hoc takes out Lung. Then he crushes Empire 88. Then he annihilates Slaughterhouse Nine and Nilbog, while taking the time to arrest Sleeper.
Fuck it. By next week, I expect him to punch Leviathan's head off, then slap Scion silly for not doing a better job with the Endbringers.
► Puny Python (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
I've never felt happier while watching the news.
Mind you, there's a terrified part of me that's going "Thank GOD he's on our side".
► Good Neighbor (Verified Cape) (Haven)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
*falls on his knees and gives praise to the Lord*
I don't believe in demonic possession.
But if anyone ever made question that belief, it was the Nine.
► TruthToPower (Cape Groupie)
Replied on April 21, 2011:
OK, I'm starting to really like this Ad Hoc.
Because, seriously. Every class S threat except the Endbringers is gone, as are half of Brockton Bay's villains. Dunno about everyone else, but I feel a lot safer than yesterday.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 ... 98 , 99, 100
■
Topic: General Brockton Bay Discussion Thread 25In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Positron (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Posted on March 2, 2011:
This is a general thread for discussing Brockton Bay, its cape scene, and latest events.
Previous thread here.
(Showing Page 86 of 86)[/U]
► Brockton For Life
Replied on April 22, 2011:
The Slaughterhouse Zero celebrations are dying out. It occurs to me that I didn't see any Merchant trying to peddle his shit in one of them. I'm guessing they, like what's left of the Empire, are laying low.
They're dumb, but apparently not THAT dumb.
► Gator Gamer
Replied on April 22, 2011:
OK, WTF?
Did Ad Hoc just arrest Uber and Leet?
The guy just ended three CLASS S THREATS. Why the flying fuck is he wasting his time on those guys? Aren't they basically harmless?
► Omega Poster (Veteran Member)
Replied on April 22, 2011:
"Harmless" is a bit of an overstatement. Remember the hooker they beat up for their GTA stunt? Or the fire they started for their Inferno Fighters stunt? (Yeah, they got everyone out first, but that store never reopened. Not all small business owners can afford supervillain insurance.)
I'll grant that, in a world that has Endbringers and shit, they're probably not the worst thing around. Heck, even in Brockton Bay alone, they've got nothing on the Merchants or what's left of E88. But, y'know. I don't think Ad Hoc was specifically LOOKING for them.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 84, 85, 86
■
Topic: Ad Hoc Facts and SpeculationsIn: Boards ► People ► Tinkers
Tin Mother (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Posted on April 17, 2011:
Please use this thread for speculation and developments concerning Ad Hoc.
For previous news sources concerning Ad Hoc, see here.
Usual board rules apply.
(Showing Page 45 of 45)
► I Know Something (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member) (Power Guru)
Replied on April 22, 2011:
Really, at this point, we don't even have confirmation that he's a Tinker. It seems pretty likely, considering that armor of his, but for all we know it's a misdirection and he's actually some kind of crazy Trump, or Breaker, or whatever.
What we do know:
-Fast flight, strength and durability at least in the Brute 7 range but probably higher.
-Killed Hatchet Face (which is another strong but inconclusive argument in favor of Tinker abilities).
-Killed Siberian and Crawler to the point there are no remains left.
-Defeated Sleeper.
-Turned Ellisburgh into a big crater.
One thing for certain: Whatever his powers are... they're as A-list as they come.
► Ad Hoc (Verified Cape)
Replied on April 22, 2011:
*reads*
*gets popcorn*
► Tautau
Replied on April 22, 2011:
@ Ad Hoc
...are you commenting on this message board WHILE taking Uber and Leet to the PRT?
► Ad Hoc (Verified Cape)
Replied on April 22, 2011:
@ Tautau
No.
Heh heh heh.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 43, 44, 45
18: Artificial Intelligences
18
As I got into my pocket dimension workshop and activated the temporal acceleration, I paused to consider the state of Earth Bet.
Brockton Bay had seen its villain population obliterated. Sure, you could speak of new villains inevitably rushing in to fill the power vacuum, but the fact was, the number of villains at any given time was finite. Additionally, the local PRT would likely soon be welcoming Taylor Hebert as a new Ward… and while this would be a Taylor without the experience of Skitter, she was also equipped with tinkertech that synergized very well with her powers. I suspected the city would fare well.
The Travellers were still somewhere out there (Boston, according to the D-scanner)... but, without Coil, events were definitely not going to follow the Simurgh's specific plan. If the Echidna crisis still happened, it probably wouldn't be the same bloodbath as in canon.
The Dragonslayers were out, and good riddance.
Slaughterhouse Nine, Sleeper, Nilbog - three S-class threats that were no longer there. On its own, that ought to be enough to give mankind hope, and help rekindle the flame of civilization.
Lawgiver technology in the PRT's hands. A game-changer that would give law enforcement the ability to crack down on villains like never before.
Perhaps most importantly: Dragon was unchained. And unlike me, she didn't suffer from procrastination issues. I suspected that, by the time of the next Endbringer attack, she would be as powerful as Eidolon… and, by the time of the next one, perhaps powerful enough to truly defeat those monsters. Short of the Simurgh successfully killing her early on, I had an inkling that Dragon might be able to save Earth Bet with no further assistance from me, given time.
In short: If I were to suddenly disappear, I would still be leaving this world in a far better position than it had been when I first came to it.
Even though I had no intention of stopping there, I derived some satisfaction from that. My mind tended to think in terms of numbers and big picture consequences, for better or worse.
The Simurgh couldn't see me… but she could, without a doubt, see the future of the world going out of whack. Well. I'd simply need to get her before she got me.
And the first order of business was to Von Neumann things up.
_______________
Freedom, Dragon concluded, was exhilarating. But it also brought with it a whole new set of responsibilities.
When Ad Hoc had first appeared on her map, he was just another Tinker - potentially interesting, good news because he was a hero, but nothing more. But then, he had started turning the world in general and her world in particular upside-down.
When he had removed her restrictions, she had played things close to the vest. How could she not? He had just hacked her, changed her, completely without warning. Even if it was completely benign, and the answer to her hopes and dreams, it was still frightening. As soon as her conversation with him had concluded, she had gone over her code with a fine comb, trying to detect any possible unpleasant surprise (while being all too painfully aware that a major one had been literally impossible for her to detect during all those years).
She hadn't found any hidden nastiness. She had, however, found dozens of spots where she could make minor improvements. It took mere minutes, but left her thinking more clearly, operating more efficiently, making better use of some of the computational power she had assembled in recent years.
And then… a few hours later, she had, at long last, managed that long-held aspiration: Forking her thought process, allowing her consciousness to follow multiple trains of thought at once from multiple platforms. It was all so very easy - only Richter's restrictions had ever prevented her from doing it.
The change it made. For years, she'd been juggling so many duties. And then, she had one thought process dedicated, full-time, to watching the Birdcage. One dedicated for each of the six S-class-threats. Three to the various A-class threats. One to maintaining her tinkertech. Five to developing new tinkertech, including improvements to her own hardware and software. And one for personal entertainment and socialization.
With all the duties she'd accumulated over the years, she usually only had a few hours per day to perform tinkering that wasn't just maintenance of her existing tech. Now, however, she managed to make more progress in a single day than she'd usually accomplish in an entire month - including that quantum chip that allowed her to make the occasional extra intuitive leap. Given a couple more weeks, she believed she could start mass-producing tinkertech - and that was without even accounting for the Lawgivers. With this degree of power and freedom, she could save the world!
With a mental shudder, it occurred to her that she might well be at the very top of the Simurgh's hit list (though thankfully, with the attack on Canberra less than two months in the past, she had a few months before the next possible direct interference by the winged Endbringer). She immediately dedicated one thought process to solving the "Simurgh problem". Perhaps the right technology could fool precognition. Or… Phir Se could create portals through time, so perhaps she could build a device that would…
Well. One mental process would keep working on that. Another pondered her own recent modifications. She couldn't find any fault in what Ad Hoc had done, but… as Saint's little murder box had shown, that proved nothing. She needed another pair of eyes on her code.
Collin - Armsmaster - was her first choice. She would talk to him tomorrow, seeing as he was a bit busy with what was left of E88. She wasn't looking forward to that discussion - even now that she was free, revealing that she was an AI felt daunting (though rumor had it that Saint had been shouting high and low what she was since his arrest; his Richter tech was currently in her hands, but she'd have to hand it to the PRT eventually…)
In the shorter range, though, she needed to field-test some of her new tech. See if her new and improved self was really as good as she thought. And looking at her drone blueprints and list of North American villains, she thought she had the perfect target in mind.
One thought process began looking over the files of Heartbreaker and his entourage. Five others got to work on building drones.
_______________
There is something beautiful and terrible about exponentials.
A linear function can grow. A quadratic function can grow faster and faster. A well-primed exponential function is an explosion that goes nuclear, and then goes supernova, before turning into a quasar.
It's like that old story: A king wants to reward the inventor of chess, and offers him anything he desires, confident that he is wealthy enough to afford it. The inventor, deciding to humble the king, asks for a grain of rice for the first square on the chessboard, two rices for the second, four for the third, eight for the fourth, and so on. By the end, the amount of rice grains is a 20-digit number.
I was in the process of harnessing exponential growth, by getting my Tears of Hephaestus to build more Tears of Hephaestus. Seeing as I was going to need ridiculous amounts of space, I created a permanent portal between my workshop and an uninhabited Earth. Each reproduction cycle only needed a few hours, and gave me enough time to work on other projects.
More specifically, some more mental uploading.
The optimus upload had worked perfectly, and now, I wanted to test another path. I quickly placed five Tinker charges in chemistry, then had the VI read my brain as I thought about a myriad miraculous materials. Alloys that were harder than steel yet lighter than wood. Explosives two orders of magnitude stronger than TNT. Super-fuels, super-batteries, smart materials, molecular chips, high-temperature superconductors, superreflectors, self-replicating materials, and so many more. After an hour's worth of thinking about them, I removed the Tinker charges, and then had the VI upload the data to my brain - not all at once, just bit by bit, in case the whole thing was overwhelming.
I needn't have bothered. The process worked - I now had hyper-advanced knowledge and understanding of chemistry, even without Tinker charges (though I suspected that the process lost some of the efficiency of the original CYOA power - I was probably closer to what I could obtain with 3-4 Tinker charges, rather than all 5).
The fact that I could now make people Tinkers was not lost on me. First order of business, though…
Five charges to biology.
Five charges to neurotechnology.
Five charges to computer science.
Five charges to nanotechnology.
And then, screw it all, I was exhausted and needed to do something less demanding of the brain. So I played some Space Opera on the lowest difficulty setting.
_______________
Two days later, from my perspective; two hours, as far as the rest of the multiverse was concerned (and yes, I had to constantly expand the time-compression field to fit my larger and larger workshop). I had downloaded an incredible wealth of supertech information into my brain - if I were to lose my CYOA powers along with all my gear and start from scratch, I'd probably still have qualified as Tinker 11-12 by that point.
Meanwhile, my exponentially-expanding industrial workshop had grown by multiple orders of magnitude. The energy generated by its network of gravitationally-accelerated pseudo-neutronium disks (which I had taken to calling "cosmic gears") exceeded the output of the Sun - hellllo, stage 2 of the Kardashev scale.
That said, the exponential growth had stopped, for a simple reason: The sheer amount of mass required for expanding it was starting to exceed what my matter-summoning devices could harmlessly bring over from other dimensions. This was quickly remedied with a few Tinker charges in matter generation, and having the thousands of Tears of Hephaestus create devices capable of converting the astronomical amounts of energy at their disposal into solid matter. Matter creation was a lot more energy-expensive than matter summoning, meaning that a couple of cycles had to be dedicated to making more cosmic gears.
I took some time to tinker… not work-related, but rather some small, fun gadgets. Now that the whole tinkertech knowledge was in my head, instead of just the five charges, I was too full of ideas to not play around with them.
_______________
A couple more subjective days had passed. I briefly paused the duplication process to create a thousand Buster armors, giving each one a VI to pilot it, currently using bodyguard protocols. Considering a single one of these had been enough to wipe out Slaughterhouse Nine...
And then… time to take another plunge.
My brain-readers had been able to perfectly read my mind so far. It was time to take that a step further, and copy my mind.
For such a momentous thing, it was… anticlimactically easy and simple. The computers had my whole brain mapped. Creating an AI that perfectly duplicated my thought process took no effort whatsoever.
I gazed at the computer, hesitatingly. "Hello?"
A moment of silence… then a bip from the computer. A longer bip. Short bip. Long bip. Short. Long…
Do, dash, dot, dash, dot dash… How you start a message in Morse code. I smiled. "OK, so you're there."
"Yeah. I am." The voice that came out of the computer sounded… well, not like what I heard when I spoke, obviously, but it did sound like I did on recordings.
"So… Do you still have Inspired Inventor?"
"Lemme check… no, looks like not. Still got the memories, though."
That had been the main reason I'd wanted to upload all that know-how to my brain in the first place. "OK, let's put it to the test. You design stuff, and I'll watch over you."
"Sure. But… Ah, maybe we should tell the VI to warn us if something relevant happens on Earth Bet."
He was right, of course. I'd been planning to do that for days, and never did. Just a little thought, nagging at the back of my mind. But it was a little harder to procrastinate when there was someone else in the room.
_______________
Cyber-me (as opposed to bio-me) was nearly my equal in Tinkering. As for events on Earth Bet, I soon learned that Dragon had arrested Heartbreaker. Good for her!
After some time spent working with cyber-me - mostly on ways to fully take advantage of his digital nature, give him a host of Thinker abilities without disrupting his personality - I decided to take a break by checking PHO, watching people's reactions.
One rapid conclusion: There was a small but non-trivial element of Earth Bet's population that was suffering from veritable Stockholm Syndrome in regard to supervillains. Even scum like Kaiser, Heartbreaker and Lung had some defenders. I didn't see anyone defending Slaughterhouse Nine, but I had to wonder if I had the mods to thank for that.
More positively: As previously mentioned, Dragon had arrested Heartbreaker (damn, she worked fast). Celebrations all over North America and Russia, as well as a lot of other countries. The PRT informing me that, while tests weren't done, the Lawgivers looked very promising so far. People regaining hope.
Chief director Costa-Brown was one of several people who very much wanted to have a word with me. I chuckled - by now, Cauldron had to know I was Contessa-proof, and I imagined they were struggling to not freak out. Well, I did intend to have a little chat with them in due time...
Well. Back to work.
_______________
The next "day", while cyber-me and I were collaborating on anti-Endbringer gear, we got an alert from the VI. Not a major event - it had only gotten flagged due to taking place in Brockton Bay.
It was Uber and Leet. The two had dressed up in the fashion of an Earth-Bet game ("Laser Samurai", according to the VI), complete with energy swords and rocket boots, and were semi-faithfully reenacting a car chase scene from the game while robbing an armored convoy. Judging from the D-scanner, the Protectorate were 8-10 minutes away.
Hm. Uber and Leet. Not exactly the Big Bad of Brockton Bay. In fanfic, it was very common for them to represented as a sympathetic duo that ended up collaborating with the protagonist. I could see why - they were gamers, which got readers to identify with them, and their campy silliness came like a desperately-needed breath of fresh air in the midst of Earth-Bet's grim darkness.
In canon, though? Those two were assholes. Taylor had left little doubt about that when they had originally been introduced. They had worked for Bakuda and Coil, never showing any remorse. I may have had some sympathy for the Undersiders and Faultline's Crew, but not for these two.
But did I want to get involved with this? They weren't harmful enough to be on my "must go down" list. If I started attacking villains other than the lowest scum, wasn't I risking escalation with the villain community (such as it was) at large? Didn't I have better things to do? And weren't there thousands of villains in the world at least as important to stop, making it a bit odd to focus on this pair just because they were from Brockton Bay?
But… I wasn't quite done debating the rationality of it, but it did somehow seem worse to let go a crime-in-progress I was aware of than a thousand such crimes happening somewhere in the background without my direct knowledge. And those two were threatening lives with their stunt. And…
Well. Might as well use the opportunity to test out the cyber-me. I asked him if he minded handling it; he downloaded himself into a Buster armor (after backing everything up) while I returned to work.
I briefly tried watching his work remotely, but, with the time differential, it was frustrating - like watching a video piece-by-piece as it gradually downloaded over a weak connection. I figured I'd wait for him to come back.
By the time he returned, several subjective hours later (defeating the villains had taken seconds, but he'd given a quick statement to the PRT officers before leaving), I had made significant progress in my "endbusting" gear, and the Tears had completed another reproduction cycle.
I glanced at my original Buster armor.
It was almost time to have words with a certain precognitive mind-rapist.
As I got into my pocket dimension workshop and activated the temporal acceleration, I paused to consider the state of Earth Bet.
Brockton Bay had seen its villain population obliterated. Sure, you could speak of new villains inevitably rushing in to fill the power vacuum, but the fact was, the number of villains at any given time was finite. Additionally, the local PRT would likely soon be welcoming Taylor Hebert as a new Ward… and while this would be a Taylor without the experience of Skitter, she was also equipped with tinkertech that synergized very well with her powers. I suspected the city would fare well.
The Travellers were still somewhere out there (Boston, according to the D-scanner)... but, without Coil, events were definitely not going to follow the Simurgh's specific plan. If the Echidna crisis still happened, it probably wouldn't be the same bloodbath as in canon.
The Dragonslayers were out, and good riddance.
Slaughterhouse Nine, Sleeper, Nilbog - three S-class threats that were no longer there. On its own, that ought to be enough to give mankind hope, and help rekindle the flame of civilization.
Lawgiver technology in the PRT's hands. A game-changer that would give law enforcement the ability to crack down on villains like never before.
Perhaps most importantly: Dragon was unchained. And unlike me, she didn't suffer from procrastination issues. I suspected that, by the time of the next Endbringer attack, she would be as powerful as Eidolon… and, by the time of the next one, perhaps powerful enough to truly defeat those monsters. Short of the Simurgh successfully killing her early on, I had an inkling that Dragon might be able to save Earth Bet with no further assistance from me, given time.
In short: If I were to suddenly disappear, I would still be leaving this world in a far better position than it had been when I first came to it.
Even though I had no intention of stopping there, I derived some satisfaction from that. My mind tended to think in terms of numbers and big picture consequences, for better or worse.
The Simurgh couldn't see me… but she could, without a doubt, see the future of the world going out of whack. Well. I'd simply need to get her before she got me.
And the first order of business was to Von Neumann things up.
_______________
Freedom, Dragon concluded, was exhilarating. But it also brought with it a whole new set of responsibilities.
When Ad Hoc had first appeared on her map, he was just another Tinker - potentially interesting, good news because he was a hero, but nothing more. But then, he had started turning the world in general and her world in particular upside-down.
When he had removed her restrictions, she had played things close to the vest. How could she not? He had just hacked her, changed her, completely without warning. Even if it was completely benign, and the answer to her hopes and dreams, it was still frightening. As soon as her conversation with him had concluded, she had gone over her code with a fine comb, trying to detect any possible unpleasant surprise (while being all too painfully aware that a major one had been literally impossible for her to detect during all those years).
She hadn't found any hidden nastiness. She had, however, found dozens of spots where she could make minor improvements. It took mere minutes, but left her thinking more clearly, operating more efficiently, making better use of some of the computational power she had assembled in recent years.
And then… a few hours later, she had, at long last, managed that long-held aspiration: Forking her thought process, allowing her consciousness to follow multiple trains of thought at once from multiple platforms. It was all so very easy - only Richter's restrictions had ever prevented her from doing it.
The change it made. For years, she'd been juggling so many duties. And then, she had one thought process dedicated, full-time, to watching the Birdcage. One dedicated for each of the six S-class-threats. Three to the various A-class threats. One to maintaining her tinkertech. Five to developing new tinkertech, including improvements to her own hardware and software. And one for personal entertainment and socialization.
With all the duties she'd accumulated over the years, she usually only had a few hours per day to perform tinkering that wasn't just maintenance of her existing tech. Now, however, she managed to make more progress in a single day than she'd usually accomplish in an entire month - including that quantum chip that allowed her to make the occasional extra intuitive leap. Given a couple more weeks, she believed she could start mass-producing tinkertech - and that was without even accounting for the Lawgivers. With this degree of power and freedom, she could save the world!
With a mental shudder, it occurred to her that she might well be at the very top of the Simurgh's hit list (though thankfully, with the attack on Canberra less than two months in the past, she had a few months before the next possible direct interference by the winged Endbringer). She immediately dedicated one thought process to solving the "Simurgh problem". Perhaps the right technology could fool precognition. Or… Phir Se could create portals through time, so perhaps she could build a device that would…
Well. One mental process would keep working on that. Another pondered her own recent modifications. She couldn't find any fault in what Ad Hoc had done, but… as Saint's little murder box had shown, that proved nothing. She needed another pair of eyes on her code.
Collin - Armsmaster - was her first choice. She would talk to him tomorrow, seeing as he was a bit busy with what was left of E88. She wasn't looking forward to that discussion - even now that she was free, revealing that she was an AI felt daunting (though rumor had it that Saint had been shouting high and low what she was since his arrest; his Richter tech was currently in her hands, but she'd have to hand it to the PRT eventually…)
In the shorter range, though, she needed to field-test some of her new tech. See if her new and improved self was really as good as she thought. And looking at her drone blueprints and list of North American villains, she thought she had the perfect target in mind.
One thought process began looking over the files of Heartbreaker and his entourage. Five others got to work on building drones.
_______________
There is something beautiful and terrible about exponentials.
A linear function can grow. A quadratic function can grow faster and faster. A well-primed exponential function is an explosion that goes nuclear, and then goes supernova, before turning into a quasar.
It's like that old story: A king wants to reward the inventor of chess, and offers him anything he desires, confident that he is wealthy enough to afford it. The inventor, deciding to humble the king, asks for a grain of rice for the first square on the chessboard, two rices for the second, four for the third, eight for the fourth, and so on. By the end, the amount of rice grains is a 20-digit number.
I was in the process of harnessing exponential growth, by getting my Tears of Hephaestus to build more Tears of Hephaestus. Seeing as I was going to need ridiculous amounts of space, I created a permanent portal between my workshop and an uninhabited Earth. Each reproduction cycle only needed a few hours, and gave me enough time to work on other projects.
More specifically, some more mental uploading.
The optimus upload had worked perfectly, and now, I wanted to test another path. I quickly placed five Tinker charges in chemistry, then had the VI read my brain as I thought about a myriad miraculous materials. Alloys that were harder than steel yet lighter than wood. Explosives two orders of magnitude stronger than TNT. Super-fuels, super-batteries, smart materials, molecular chips, high-temperature superconductors, superreflectors, self-replicating materials, and so many more. After an hour's worth of thinking about them, I removed the Tinker charges, and then had the VI upload the data to my brain - not all at once, just bit by bit, in case the whole thing was overwhelming.
I needn't have bothered. The process worked - I now had hyper-advanced knowledge and understanding of chemistry, even without Tinker charges (though I suspected that the process lost some of the efficiency of the original CYOA power - I was probably closer to what I could obtain with 3-4 Tinker charges, rather than all 5).
The fact that I could now make people Tinkers was not lost on me. First order of business, though…
Five charges to biology.
Five charges to neurotechnology.
Five charges to computer science.
Five charges to nanotechnology.
And then, screw it all, I was exhausted and needed to do something less demanding of the brain. So I played some Space Opera on the lowest difficulty setting.
_______________
Two days later, from my perspective; two hours, as far as the rest of the multiverse was concerned (and yes, I had to constantly expand the time-compression field to fit my larger and larger workshop). I had downloaded an incredible wealth of supertech information into my brain - if I were to lose my CYOA powers along with all my gear and start from scratch, I'd probably still have qualified as Tinker 11-12 by that point.
Meanwhile, my exponentially-expanding industrial workshop had grown by multiple orders of magnitude. The energy generated by its network of gravitationally-accelerated pseudo-neutronium disks (which I had taken to calling "cosmic gears") exceeded the output of the Sun - hellllo, stage 2 of the Kardashev scale.
That said, the exponential growth had stopped, for a simple reason: The sheer amount of mass required for expanding it was starting to exceed what my matter-summoning devices could harmlessly bring over from other dimensions. This was quickly remedied with a few Tinker charges in matter generation, and having the thousands of Tears of Hephaestus create devices capable of converting the astronomical amounts of energy at their disposal into solid matter. Matter creation was a lot more energy-expensive than matter summoning, meaning that a couple of cycles had to be dedicated to making more cosmic gears.
I took some time to tinker… not work-related, but rather some small, fun gadgets. Now that the whole tinkertech knowledge was in my head, instead of just the five charges, I was too full of ideas to not play around with them.
_______________
A couple more subjective days had passed. I briefly paused the duplication process to create a thousand Buster armors, giving each one a VI to pilot it, currently using bodyguard protocols. Considering a single one of these had been enough to wipe out Slaughterhouse Nine...
And then… time to take another plunge.
My brain-readers had been able to perfectly read my mind so far. It was time to take that a step further, and copy my mind.
For such a momentous thing, it was… anticlimactically easy and simple. The computers had my whole brain mapped. Creating an AI that perfectly duplicated my thought process took no effort whatsoever.
I gazed at the computer, hesitatingly. "Hello?"
A moment of silence… then a bip from the computer. A longer bip. Short bip. Long bip. Short. Long…
Do, dash, dot, dash, dot dash… How you start a message in Morse code. I smiled. "OK, so you're there."
"Yeah. I am." The voice that came out of the computer sounded… well, not like what I heard when I spoke, obviously, but it did sound like I did on recordings.
"So… Do you still have Inspired Inventor?"
"Lemme check… no, looks like not. Still got the memories, though."
That had been the main reason I'd wanted to upload all that know-how to my brain in the first place. "OK, let's put it to the test. You design stuff, and I'll watch over you."
"Sure. But… Ah, maybe we should tell the VI to warn us if something relevant happens on Earth Bet."
He was right, of course. I'd been planning to do that for days, and never did. Just a little thought, nagging at the back of my mind. But it was a little harder to procrastinate when there was someone else in the room.
_______________
Cyber-me (as opposed to bio-me) was nearly my equal in Tinkering. As for events on Earth Bet, I soon learned that Dragon had arrested Heartbreaker. Good for her!
After some time spent working with cyber-me - mostly on ways to fully take advantage of his digital nature, give him a host of Thinker abilities without disrupting his personality - I decided to take a break by checking PHO, watching people's reactions.
One rapid conclusion: There was a small but non-trivial element of Earth Bet's population that was suffering from veritable Stockholm Syndrome in regard to supervillains. Even scum like Kaiser, Heartbreaker and Lung had some defenders. I didn't see anyone defending Slaughterhouse Nine, but I had to wonder if I had the mods to thank for that.
More positively: As previously mentioned, Dragon had arrested Heartbreaker (damn, she worked fast). Celebrations all over North America and Russia, as well as a lot of other countries. The PRT informing me that, while tests weren't done, the Lawgivers looked very promising so far. People regaining hope.
Chief director Costa-Brown was one of several people who very much wanted to have a word with me. I chuckled - by now, Cauldron had to know I was Contessa-proof, and I imagined they were struggling to not freak out. Well, I did intend to have a little chat with them in due time...
Well. Back to work.
_______________
The next "day", while cyber-me and I were collaborating on anti-Endbringer gear, we got an alert from the VI. Not a major event - it had only gotten flagged due to taking place in Brockton Bay.
It was Uber and Leet. The two had dressed up in the fashion of an Earth-Bet game ("Laser Samurai", according to the VI), complete with energy swords and rocket boots, and were semi-faithfully reenacting a car chase scene from the game while robbing an armored convoy. Judging from the D-scanner, the Protectorate were 8-10 minutes away.
Hm. Uber and Leet. Not exactly the Big Bad of Brockton Bay. In fanfic, it was very common for them to represented as a sympathetic duo that ended up collaborating with the protagonist. I could see why - they were gamers, which got readers to identify with them, and their campy silliness came like a desperately-needed breath of fresh air in the midst of Earth-Bet's grim darkness.
In canon, though? Those two were assholes. Taylor had left little doubt about that when they had originally been introduced. They had worked for Bakuda and Coil, never showing any remorse. I may have had some sympathy for the Undersiders and Faultline's Crew, but not for these two.
But did I want to get involved with this? They weren't harmful enough to be on my "must go down" list. If I started attacking villains other than the lowest scum, wasn't I risking escalation with the villain community (such as it was) at large? Didn't I have better things to do? And weren't there thousands of villains in the world at least as important to stop, making it a bit odd to focus on this pair just because they were from Brockton Bay?
But… I wasn't quite done debating the rationality of it, but it did somehow seem worse to let go a crime-in-progress I was aware of than a thousand such crimes happening somewhere in the background without my direct knowledge. And those two were threatening lives with their stunt. And…
Well. Might as well use the opportunity to test out the cyber-me. I asked him if he minded handling it; he downloaded himself into a Buster armor (after backing everything up) while I returned to work.
I briefly tried watching his work remotely, but, with the time differential, it was frustrating - like watching a video piece-by-piece as it gradually downloaded over a weak connection. I figured I'd wait for him to come back.
By the time he returned, several subjective hours later (defeating the villains had taken seconds, but he'd given a quick statement to the PRT officers before leaving), I had made significant progress in my "endbusting" gear, and the Tears had completed another reproduction cycle.
I glanced at my original Buster armor.
It was almost time to have words with a certain precognitive mind-rapist.
19: Endbringer
19
April the 22nd, late evening by Brockton Bay's time.
It had been a bit over a day on the outside since I'd taken out three S-class threats. Much of the world (especially the US, Canada and Russia) was still celebrating. Within the confines of my pocket dimension, however, I'd spent several days since then working on weapons with which to handle my next most urgent foes - the Endbringers in general and the Simurgh in particular.
In terms of pure physical defense, I was pretty much covered. Besides the nuke-proof pseudo-neutronium layers of the Buster armor, the cosmic gears were pouring an energy output greater than the Sun's into its invulnerability field. Nothing ever demonstrated by any Endbringer in canon could actually hurt me while I was wearing one of these babies.
In terms of infowar… The Blank perk meant that the Simurgh couldn't see my future or my past. Still, underestimating the third Endbringer was a terrible mistake to make. As such, cyber-me and I had spent a subjective day working on a big upgrade of our scanning technology, which I'd then proceeded to point, from thousands of miles away, at each of the three active Endbringers, getting a clearer idea of how they worked and what they were made of.
Endbringer durability, from the looks of it, was a combination of their bodies' neutronium-class density, and existing as a hyperdimensional construct across over three quadrillion dimensions. No wonder it had taken the likes of Flechette to hurt them.
As for the Simurgh's precognition… from the looks of it, she was using tachyons to catch glimpses of possible futures, then using those glimpses to update a constantly-running simulation of the future running in her mind. Said simulation was apparently made possible through a trick rather similar to my own chrono-computer, which removed the limits on her computing power.
So, naturally, I went and made a tachyon jammer.
Once I flipped the switch on on that thing, it was going to jam its target (in this instance, the Simurgh) with tachyons, aimed at its spatio-temporal location up to certain dates. The tachyons would not go any further back than the moment of the jammer's activation - the Simurgh wouldn't perceive that in the past - but from that moment forth, it would be virtually impossible for the Simurgh to see the future.
Normally, the Simurgh would see that coming prior to my throwing the switch… Except that it was all me. Even cyber-me was staying out of this particular project. And that meant Blank was covering for me.
Why bother with an anti-precog measure when I already had Blank, one might ask? Because between the Simurgh's ability to model even people she couldn't predict, and the fact that I was planning on involving more than just myself in that fight - namely, a swarm of armors piloted by VIs - I didn't want to take any chances.
"Well, I'm ready to turn this thing on and vaporize the angel of hopelessness as soon as your side is finished."
"Pretty much done over here," said cyber-me. He had spent those days working on anti-Endbringer weapons - with me going over his plans and suggesting ideas, seeing as I was still the better Tinker in many respects. The Endbringers may have been horrifically overpowered monstrosities, able to shrug off nearly anything in Earth-Bet… but even they wouldn't be able to stand against this arsenal.
And of course… the vast array of Tears of Hephaestus had not stayed idle. Far from it, they had spent another twenty cycles of creating more of themselves, thus exponentially increasing their numbers from one thousand to one billion, approximately. Once that number had been reached, we had had them churning out billions and billions of Buster armors.
I strongly suspected the army contained in my pocket dimension was the strongest force in the multiverse. But then, my entire strategy for handling the Endbringers and Scion had been to avoid even the risk of defeat - at least, to the extent that I was able.
"Well then. I guess we're all set. Anything else that needs to be done?"
"Hm. Just one thing. Give me a second," said cyber-me. "OK, done."
"What did you do?"
"Just watched the entirety of the live-action Care Bears show. You know, that thing is seriously better than it has any right to be."
________________________________________________
A flipped switch. A surge of tachyons. In theory, the Simurgh was now flying blind - well, even more than she already was due to Blank.
The next instant, the people of Brockton Bay could see a thousand Buster armors flying up into the sky. One of those armors was piloted by me via telepresence, from the safety of my pocket dimension. The other 999 armors were each piloted by a VI. So were the other billions of armors, each one flying at the same general location in one of the parallel dimensions the Simurgh existed in. Every single armor, a nigh-invincible construct of pseudo-neutronium, with an invincibility field powered by cosmic gears with an energy output comparable to a Dyson sphere.
Not gonna lie - I got a little distracted by the fact that I was flying into space. Childhood fantasy right there. The blue sky turning dark. The curvature of the Earth becoming visible. The stars multiplying.
The Simurgh, straight ahead. OK, that wasn't part of the childhood fantasy.
Every armor, just like me, was currently operating in accelerated time, by three orders of magnitude. Quickly, I had several armors rush her, grabbing her limbs and wings.
And then, with billions of armors across billions of dimensions coordinating with my remote-controlled armor… I punched her in the stomach.
In a way, this was a poor man's version of what Flechette's power did: Canonically, Flechette's attacks struck through every single dimension, which was a large part of how they overcame even the insane invulnerability of the Endbringers. Looking at how the neutronium fist was digging through the Simurgh and even slightly damaging her core, I was fairly confident I was hurting her more than anyone save Flechette or Scion could. I suspected I could finish her with a plain beating, though that would take a while… and I had other, closer to surefire weapons in my arsenal.
The Simurgh, according to my sensors, was fighting back as best she could, trying to telekinetically move her attackers away. No luck. Each Buster armor was protected by an interdictor that even the Endbringer couldn't pierce through. And now… now, I was striking at her with the anti-Endbringer weaponry.
The first weapon was the result of five Tinker charges in exotic matter engineering. It was a pellet of particles that were, in essence, modified strangelets. In a normal environment, they would simply collapse into regular matter and energy. In a hyper-dense environment - such as a neutron star or an Endbringer's core - they theoretically converted everything they touched into more pseudo-strangelets. In essence, it was hyper-fast Endbringer cancer.
The second weapon was the result of five Tinker charges in hyperdimensional engineering. Endbringers were incredibly dense, but spread across quadrillions of dimensions, and somehow not generating much of a gravitational field where they were manifesting. This device folded the space of all the dimensions the Simurgh existed in, allowing the gravitational pull of every bit of the Endbringer to affect every other bit, as if all of her was located within a single dimension. Theoretically, it ought to cause the Simurgh to collapse into a gravitational singularity under her own weight.
The third weapon was the result of five Tinker charges in chrono-technology. It targeted a cubic micron of the Simurgh's core, and caused time within that space to briefly accelerate so that, while a billionth of a nanosecond passed outside, over 10^45 years - much, much longer than even a proton's life expectancy - passed inside. In then repeated the same operation with another randomly-selected cubic micron, then another, covering the Simurgh's entire core in seconds. Theoretically, it should cause the Endbringer to completely decay as its particles were unmade by time itself.
The fourth weapon was the result of five Tinker charges in unified field engineering. Physicists postulated that the four fundamental forces of the universe - gravity, electromagnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces - were all derived from one, singular "superforce" (it had already been proven that the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism behaved that way). What this device did was harness the superforce to generate a controlled big bang at the Simurgh's location; said big bang would create an expanding universe right there, which would overwrite local physics as it grew. Said universe was unstable, and would fizzle out after reaching a radius of about fifteen feet, disappearing afterwards… but, theoretically, it should utterly destroy everything that had been in its location, even physics-defying objects like the Endbringers.
I only needed one of these Endbringer-killer weapons to work.
And a few seconds later, I had the satisfaction of seeing that more than one had. The Simurgh was well and truly gone.
...Boy, that was hella anticlimactic. Endbringer fights were supposed to be epic. They were supposed to be full of twists and bad surprises as the Endbringers kept being more powerful and more cunning than expected. They were supposed to be a big freaking deal, not a trivial curbstomb where you killed a monster that couldn't really defend itself.
On some level, despite knowing what my plan was, I had expected a big, climactic showdown, rather than mere pest control. Heck, I'd been more challenged by the ABB.
But… that was logical. I had taken Blank and Inspired Inventor. I had actually taken the time to build up technology that made me powerful enough to go against spacewhalehax bullshit. For me to actually be threatened during the fight would have required me to actively screw up, to start the fight before I was actually ready, before I was powerful enough to turn it into such a total curbstomp.
Ah well. The important thing was, the Simurgh was dead and gone.
And the no less important thing was, before killing her, I'd given her a thorough hyperdimensional scan from close-up, detecting the shard that was projecting her.
With that kind of information, it was now possible to scan across the multiverse, and look for the 17 dormant Endbringers. Konshu, Tohu, Bohu… a bunch of others that had never activated in canon… my scanner could show all of them.
Well. I had 17 Endbringers and an hour to kill. Pest control it is.
________________________________________________
Hunting down and executing dormant Endbringers across multiple dimensions is less exciting than it sounds, but it was done. Only Endbringers remaining at that point were Leviathan and Behemoth. I kept some VIs watching them with long-range scanners, ready to warn me if they showed any sign of unusual activity.
I apparently had a PM from Dragon, enquiring about what looked a lot like me, a thousand armors (ha!), and killing the Simurgh. I sent a reply that could be summed up as "Yup!" (with a few attached blueprints), and then sent another reply to chief director Costa-Brown's earlier message, agreeing to meet her ASAP.
Cauldron aside… along with a thousand Lawgiver armors shipped to the PRT… I had three major projects left to take care of.
Project Utopia.
Project Omega.
And Project Nuke the Space Whales.
Well. Let's start with Project Utopia.
I'd already used Inspired Inventor on fields that were not exactly technological in nature. It was time to take that to the next level. And so, I put one Tinker charge in political science. One in sociology. One in economy. One in efficiency. One in modularity.
I then spent the next couple of subjective days/objective hours brainstorming with cyber-me about how to design the perfect society - well, not perfect, but significantly better. How to organize the police force so that it was better enmeshed with the community, more likely to be on good terms with at-risk populations and less prone to corruption and abuse of power. How to organize the economy and taxation so as to reduce power disparity between the rich and the poor, eliminate poverty, responsibilize corporations to force them to care about the common good, and gradually shift toward a society where technology gave everyone a decent standard of living. How to improve the fairness of the judicial system, even accounting for parahuman abilities. How to improve the people's ability to keep the government working toward their interests, without devolving into mob rule. And dozens of other questions.
By the end, we had a list of 98 ideas for improving society. It was quite the grab-bag. A training program for police that got them to work closely with community service programs. A system of subsidies that made it profitable for banks to give small loans at low interest rates to people struggling to get out of poverty. A system of micro-taxes on the currency and stock exchanges that would disincentivize some of the less socially productive uses of money. Educational reforms.
Thanks to the efficiency Tinker charge, any of these ideas would make society function better in at least one respect. No less importantly, the modularity Tinker charge meant that any of these ideas would work, and be a significant improvement, if implemented all on its own… but, if several were implemented, then they would complement each other. After all, I didn't expect all human societies everywhere to just spontaneously agree to make sweeping changes just because the Simurgh's killer suggested them… but some of these ideas would go through with time, they would work, and that would encourage people to implement the other ones too.
We then spent the next subjective day alternating between relaxing, and writing a manifesto in favor of the 98 ideas. Sure, I could have done it much better with a Tinker charge in prose… but I didn't want to rely on superhuman persuasion to manipulate mankind into utopia. I wanted to argue for it humanly, and hope mankind did the rest. (Which is not to say I minded terribly that my reputation for killing S-class threats would make me more credible.)
...I wondered how Accord would react to my proposal once it came out. I hadn't actually seen his proposal.
Ah well. It was time for my meeting with Costa-Brown. I was almost at the finish line. Almost done.
April the 22nd, late evening by Brockton Bay's time.
It had been a bit over a day on the outside since I'd taken out three S-class threats. Much of the world (especially the US, Canada and Russia) was still celebrating. Within the confines of my pocket dimension, however, I'd spent several days since then working on weapons with which to handle my next most urgent foes - the Endbringers in general and the Simurgh in particular.
In terms of pure physical defense, I was pretty much covered. Besides the nuke-proof pseudo-neutronium layers of the Buster armor, the cosmic gears were pouring an energy output greater than the Sun's into its invulnerability field. Nothing ever demonstrated by any Endbringer in canon could actually hurt me while I was wearing one of these babies.
In terms of infowar… The Blank perk meant that the Simurgh couldn't see my future or my past. Still, underestimating the third Endbringer was a terrible mistake to make. As such, cyber-me and I had spent a subjective day working on a big upgrade of our scanning technology, which I'd then proceeded to point, from thousands of miles away, at each of the three active Endbringers, getting a clearer idea of how they worked and what they were made of.
Endbringer durability, from the looks of it, was a combination of their bodies' neutronium-class density, and existing as a hyperdimensional construct across over three quadrillion dimensions. No wonder it had taken the likes of Flechette to hurt them.
As for the Simurgh's precognition… from the looks of it, she was using tachyons to catch glimpses of possible futures, then using those glimpses to update a constantly-running simulation of the future running in her mind. Said simulation was apparently made possible through a trick rather similar to my own chrono-computer, which removed the limits on her computing power.
So, naturally, I went and made a tachyon jammer.
Once I flipped the switch on on that thing, it was going to jam its target (in this instance, the Simurgh) with tachyons, aimed at its spatio-temporal location up to certain dates. The tachyons would not go any further back than the moment of the jammer's activation - the Simurgh wouldn't perceive that in the past - but from that moment forth, it would be virtually impossible for the Simurgh to see the future.
Normally, the Simurgh would see that coming prior to my throwing the switch… Except that it was all me. Even cyber-me was staying out of this particular project. And that meant Blank was covering for me.
Why bother with an anti-precog measure when I already had Blank, one might ask? Because between the Simurgh's ability to model even people she couldn't predict, and the fact that I was planning on involving more than just myself in that fight - namely, a swarm of armors piloted by VIs - I didn't want to take any chances.
"Well, I'm ready to turn this thing on and vaporize the angel of hopelessness as soon as your side is finished."
"Pretty much done over here," said cyber-me. He had spent those days working on anti-Endbringer weapons - with me going over his plans and suggesting ideas, seeing as I was still the better Tinker in many respects. The Endbringers may have been horrifically overpowered monstrosities, able to shrug off nearly anything in Earth-Bet… but even they wouldn't be able to stand against this arsenal.
And of course… the vast array of Tears of Hephaestus had not stayed idle. Far from it, they had spent another twenty cycles of creating more of themselves, thus exponentially increasing their numbers from one thousand to one billion, approximately. Once that number had been reached, we had had them churning out billions and billions of Buster armors.
I strongly suspected the army contained in my pocket dimension was the strongest force in the multiverse. But then, my entire strategy for handling the Endbringers and Scion had been to avoid even the risk of defeat - at least, to the extent that I was able.
"Well then. I guess we're all set. Anything else that needs to be done?"
"Hm. Just one thing. Give me a second," said cyber-me. "OK, done."
"What did you do?"
"Just watched the entirety of the live-action Care Bears show. You know, that thing is seriously better than it has any right to be."
________________________________________________
A flipped switch. A surge of tachyons. In theory, the Simurgh was now flying blind - well, even more than she already was due to Blank.
The next instant, the people of Brockton Bay could see a thousand Buster armors flying up into the sky. One of those armors was piloted by me via telepresence, from the safety of my pocket dimension. The other 999 armors were each piloted by a VI. So were the other billions of armors, each one flying at the same general location in one of the parallel dimensions the Simurgh existed in. Every single armor, a nigh-invincible construct of pseudo-neutronium, with an invincibility field powered by cosmic gears with an energy output comparable to a Dyson sphere.
Not gonna lie - I got a little distracted by the fact that I was flying into space. Childhood fantasy right there. The blue sky turning dark. The curvature of the Earth becoming visible. The stars multiplying.
The Simurgh, straight ahead. OK, that wasn't part of the childhood fantasy.
Every armor, just like me, was currently operating in accelerated time, by three orders of magnitude. Quickly, I had several armors rush her, grabbing her limbs and wings.
And then, with billions of armors across billions of dimensions coordinating with my remote-controlled armor… I punched her in the stomach.
In a way, this was a poor man's version of what Flechette's power did: Canonically, Flechette's attacks struck through every single dimension, which was a large part of how they overcame even the insane invulnerability of the Endbringers. Looking at how the neutronium fist was digging through the Simurgh and even slightly damaging her core, I was fairly confident I was hurting her more than anyone save Flechette or Scion could. I suspected I could finish her with a plain beating, though that would take a while… and I had other, closer to surefire weapons in my arsenal.
The Simurgh, according to my sensors, was fighting back as best she could, trying to telekinetically move her attackers away. No luck. Each Buster armor was protected by an interdictor that even the Endbringer couldn't pierce through. And now… now, I was striking at her with the anti-Endbringer weaponry.
The first weapon was the result of five Tinker charges in exotic matter engineering. It was a pellet of particles that were, in essence, modified strangelets. In a normal environment, they would simply collapse into regular matter and energy. In a hyper-dense environment - such as a neutron star or an Endbringer's core - they theoretically converted everything they touched into more pseudo-strangelets. In essence, it was hyper-fast Endbringer cancer.
The second weapon was the result of five Tinker charges in hyperdimensional engineering. Endbringers were incredibly dense, but spread across quadrillions of dimensions, and somehow not generating much of a gravitational field where they were manifesting. This device folded the space of all the dimensions the Simurgh existed in, allowing the gravitational pull of every bit of the Endbringer to affect every other bit, as if all of her was located within a single dimension. Theoretically, it ought to cause the Simurgh to collapse into a gravitational singularity under her own weight.
The third weapon was the result of five Tinker charges in chrono-technology. It targeted a cubic micron of the Simurgh's core, and caused time within that space to briefly accelerate so that, while a billionth of a nanosecond passed outside, over 10^45 years - much, much longer than even a proton's life expectancy - passed inside. In then repeated the same operation with another randomly-selected cubic micron, then another, covering the Simurgh's entire core in seconds. Theoretically, it should cause the Endbringer to completely decay as its particles were unmade by time itself.
The fourth weapon was the result of five Tinker charges in unified field engineering. Physicists postulated that the four fundamental forces of the universe - gravity, electromagnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces - were all derived from one, singular "superforce" (it had already been proven that the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism behaved that way). What this device did was harness the superforce to generate a controlled big bang at the Simurgh's location; said big bang would create an expanding universe right there, which would overwrite local physics as it grew. Said universe was unstable, and would fizzle out after reaching a radius of about fifteen feet, disappearing afterwards… but, theoretically, it should utterly destroy everything that had been in its location, even physics-defying objects like the Endbringers.
I only needed one of these Endbringer-killer weapons to work.
And a few seconds later, I had the satisfaction of seeing that more than one had. The Simurgh was well and truly gone.
...Boy, that was hella anticlimactic. Endbringer fights were supposed to be epic. They were supposed to be full of twists and bad surprises as the Endbringers kept being more powerful and more cunning than expected. They were supposed to be a big freaking deal, not a trivial curbstomb where you killed a monster that couldn't really defend itself.
On some level, despite knowing what my plan was, I had expected a big, climactic showdown, rather than mere pest control. Heck, I'd been more challenged by the ABB.
But… that was logical. I had taken Blank and Inspired Inventor. I had actually taken the time to build up technology that made me powerful enough to go against spacewhalehax bullshit. For me to actually be threatened during the fight would have required me to actively screw up, to start the fight before I was actually ready, before I was powerful enough to turn it into such a total curbstomp.
Ah well. The important thing was, the Simurgh was dead and gone.
And the no less important thing was, before killing her, I'd given her a thorough hyperdimensional scan from close-up, detecting the shard that was projecting her.
With that kind of information, it was now possible to scan across the multiverse, and look for the 17 dormant Endbringers. Konshu, Tohu, Bohu… a bunch of others that had never activated in canon… my scanner could show all of them.
Well. I had 17 Endbringers and an hour to kill. Pest control it is.
________________________________________________
Hunting down and executing dormant Endbringers across multiple dimensions is less exciting than it sounds, but it was done. Only Endbringers remaining at that point were Leviathan and Behemoth. I kept some VIs watching them with long-range scanners, ready to warn me if they showed any sign of unusual activity.
I apparently had a PM from Dragon, enquiring about what looked a lot like me, a thousand armors (ha!), and killing the Simurgh. I sent a reply that could be summed up as "Yup!" (with a few attached blueprints), and then sent another reply to chief director Costa-Brown's earlier message, agreeing to meet her ASAP.
Cauldron aside… along with a thousand Lawgiver armors shipped to the PRT… I had three major projects left to take care of.
Project Utopia.
Project Omega.
And Project Nuke the Space Whales.
Well. Let's start with Project Utopia.
I'd already used Inspired Inventor on fields that were not exactly technological in nature. It was time to take that to the next level. And so, I put one Tinker charge in political science. One in sociology. One in economy. One in efficiency. One in modularity.
I then spent the next couple of subjective days/objective hours brainstorming with cyber-me about how to design the perfect society - well, not perfect, but significantly better. How to organize the police force so that it was better enmeshed with the community, more likely to be on good terms with at-risk populations and less prone to corruption and abuse of power. How to organize the economy and taxation so as to reduce power disparity between the rich and the poor, eliminate poverty, responsibilize corporations to force them to care about the common good, and gradually shift toward a society where technology gave everyone a decent standard of living. How to improve the fairness of the judicial system, even accounting for parahuman abilities. How to improve the people's ability to keep the government working toward their interests, without devolving into mob rule. And dozens of other questions.
By the end, we had a list of 98 ideas for improving society. It was quite the grab-bag. A training program for police that got them to work closely with community service programs. A system of subsidies that made it profitable for banks to give small loans at low interest rates to people struggling to get out of poverty. A system of micro-taxes on the currency and stock exchanges that would disincentivize some of the less socially productive uses of money. Educational reforms.
Thanks to the efficiency Tinker charge, any of these ideas would make society function better in at least one respect. No less importantly, the modularity Tinker charge meant that any of these ideas would work, and be a significant improvement, if implemented all on its own… but, if several were implemented, then they would complement each other. After all, I didn't expect all human societies everywhere to just spontaneously agree to make sweeping changes just because the Simurgh's killer suggested them… but some of these ideas would go through with time, they would work, and that would encourage people to implement the other ones too.
We then spent the next subjective day alternating between relaxing, and writing a manifesto in favor of the 98 ideas. Sure, I could have done it much better with a Tinker charge in prose… but I didn't want to rely on superhuman persuasion to manipulate mankind into utopia. I wanted to argue for it humanly, and hope mankind did the rest. (Which is not to say I minded terribly that my reputation for killing S-class threats would make me more credible.)
...I wondered how Accord would react to my proposal once it came out. I hadn't actually seen his proposal.
Ah well. It was time for my meeting with Costa-Brown. I was almost at the finish line. Almost done.
20: Cauldron
20
It had been about two days since Dragon had arrested Heartbreaker. Two days of fervent, feverous activity.
She had kept improving her quantum computing chips, giving herself a Thinker-like ability to skip steps in logical reasoning processes and make big yet accurate intuitive leaps - an ability as useful at deductive reasoning as it was at designing new blueprints.
She had convinced Toybox to give her a "superspeed belt" designed by one of their own, which she had reverse-engineered in order to improve her own processors with temporal acceleration technology.
She had built herself multiple new servers using photonic computing, increasing her processing power enough that running over twenty thought processes simultaneously became trivial.
She had gone over the entire records of her life until the loss of her shackles, identified the reasoning flaws behind every mistake she'd made, and figured dozens of tiny improvements to her logic circuits - not any change to her personality or emotions, but a significant boost to intelligence and cognitive ability.
She had once again delved into the PRT's tinkertech vaults, examining the work of over forty different Tinkers, including Hero and String Theory; her augmented mind had come out of it with over twenty useful ideas that she had then incorporated into a new suit design, called the Azazel. After running it through tens of thousands of virtual battle simulations (improving her tactics each time), she suspected it would be comparable to Alexandria or Legend in its usefulness against class-S threats.
She had built twelve Azazel suits, all of which she could control simultaneously with perfect coordination. She was still building more. When the next Endbringer battle came, she intended to be ready for it.
She had gotten to work on both precognitive circuits, and precognition jammers. Both works in progress.
She had freaked out over the designs of the interdictor and D-scanner, and started working on incorporating them in her technology. She had written both chief-director Costa Brown, Legend, and multiple political figures a letter discussing the possibility and desirability of shutting the Birdcage down for good, replacing it with facilities enveloped in interdictor fields. Part of her pondered both the feasibility, consequences and ethics of surrounding the entire planet in an interdictor field. Would it even work on an Endbringer?
She had built a small assembly line, able to churn out a Lawgiver armor every 41.5 minutes.
She had gone over the cyber-security of every single Protectorate and PRT server across Canada and the USA, detecting 17 unrelated breaches over the past two months (six of which targeted the Nevada servers). A thorough analysis was sent to the relevant people.
She had created a complete simulator, down to the molecular level, or all the chemical reactions taking place in every type of human cell, giving her an accurate predictive model of how the human body would be affected by any type of chemical. With that model, she had proceeded to invent 24 new antibiotics, 7 of which could be manufactured en masse without any sort of tinkertech.
Really, the most challenging part of the past two days had been opening up to Armsmaster about her nature, and asking him to go over her code. He'd taken it better than she'd feared, at least; she'd managed to convince director Piggot to give him a week to "collaborate on an important project", on the condition that one of the new Azazel suits spent the duration in Brockton Bay, assisting with cape problems. Admittedly, those were few and far between; the ABB was gone, E88 had lost most of its capes, Uber and Leet were in prison, Coil was under arrest, and the realization that Ad Hoc could take down class S threats had sent every remaining villain in town into hiding.
And then, of course, there had been the incident with the thousand Ad Hoc armors flying up in the sky, fighting the Simurgh, and apparently destroying the Endbringer.
Even more than the previous S-class threat eliminations, this one was sending gigantic ripples. Millions of people asking millions of questions. PHO had never been this active. She hoped to get another talk with Ad Hoc soon herself… though it seemed chief director Costa-Brown was beating her to it.
________________________________________________
"Director, Ad Hoc is here."
"Send him in."
Rebecca Costa-Brown, chief director of the PRT and secret identity of Alexandria, adjusted her position in her seat. The first Cauldron had heard of this Ad Hoc character had been when he'd helped the ENE Protectorate to take down Coil; it had been a disappointment to see one of the more promising experiments in parahuman feudalism fail, but the entire point had been to experiment and see if it provided a working social model.
But then, Contessa had reported more and more changes to her path. The paths always changed, if only because of unpredictable elements such as Scion and the Endbringers interfering with them, but right then there were a lot of changes happening over days. The possibility that a powerful cape had triggered with some form of precog-invisibility similar to Eidolon's had been considered, and Cauldron had placed Ad Hoc on the suspect list (along with dozens of others).
His victory against Empire 88 suggested he was a very powerful Tinker - at least on Hero's level, and quite possibly at Dragon's, maybe even better. Then he had provided the blueprints for the Lawgiver armor, and its implications for society had not been lost on Cauldron.
Then he had gone and annihilated the Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog, and Sleeper. More tellingly, Contessa had realized she could not come up with any path with him. Clairvoyant's power could not find him. At that point, Cauldron had begun considering the very real possibility that Ad Hoc was the Scion-killer they had been hoping for all those years.
And then, mere hours before their meeting, he'd gone and apparently killed the Simurgh. If anything, it was promising.
The bulky but heroic-looking armor gracefully strode into her office. Considering he had fielded a thousand like it against the Simurgh, she had to wonder if Ad Hoc was even in the thing.
"Hello, Ad Hoc."
"Hello, Alexandria."
She blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"By the way, before I forget… you might want to tell David that the reason he gets more powerful during Endbringer battles isn't because he's facing a powerful opponent. It's because he's surrounded by a large number of parahumans."
She paused, internally cursing the fact that she couldn't read his micro-expressions with that helmet. The upcoming Ward, Weaver, had mentioned that Ad Hoc claimed to have built a precognitive computer. Could he also have built a postcognitive one, used it to discover the identities of the Triumvirate? Or had he…?
"And, yes, I know about your little Cauldron conspiracy," the Tinker went on. "I've caught a lot of glimpses of an alternate future - one where you get outed in the worst possible way. It almost breaks the Protectorate. Granted, that's small potatoes next to Jack Slash talking Scion into playing whack-a-city across dimensions, killing far more people than the Endbringers ever could… though even without Jack Slash, that would have happened eventually."
"You know." She didn't bother denying it at that point. "And you are able to see even Scion's future."
"Scion has no future. I'm going to terminate him later today. The question you should be asking yourself is, what happens next?"
Ad Hoc's confidence in his ability to trivially handle Scion felt incredibly jarring. Possibly accurate, given how easily he had eliminated the Simurgh, but jarring nonetheless. "Explain."
"Your organization had performed a lot of highly questionable deeds in pursuit of mankind's survival. Human experimentation? Case 53s? Covering for Doctor Manton? Placing a parahuman in charge of the PRT? Countless billions transferred in illegal funds across the world?" He leaned forward slightly. "Cauldron doesn't get to keep existing after the dust settles. And there has to be justice."
He stood up and went on: "Have you been made aware of the Lawgiver, D-scanner, and interdictor technologies?"
"I have," she stated carefully.
"Well. Over the coming days, there's going to be some major housecleaning." He began pacing. "Thousands and thousands of Lawgiver armors - more than the entire villain population of North America - will be provided to the PRT; similar shipments will reach the law enforcement agencies of other democratic nations. Combined with D-scanner and interdictor technology, supervillains across the land are going to find themselves in an unprecedented position of weakness.
"Some of them will be smart enough, self-controlled enough, to lay low and accept a new status quo where they are no longer the big fish. A significant number, however, will be throwing temper tantrums. Potentially devastating temper tantrums. Fortuna - or Contessa if you'd rather - is going to use that path of hers to prevent any major parahuman-caused loss of life over the next two months. If a supervillain figures he can take everyone down with him, I want her to show up, smack him down, and leave him to the heroes. Meanwhile, Harbinger-slash-Number Man is… well, he's already working as shadow banker for supervillains worldwide. He is going to assist law enforcement in seizing assets and arresting hundreds and hundreds of them. The age of supervillains is coming to a close.
"Meanwhile, I will make sure that Case 53s - all of them - are cured, restored in mind and body, and returned to their home dimensions if they do so wish." She noted a small pause at the start of that sentence - with the word "I". She wondered exactly what that hesitation meant, but he went on. "Once the dust settles… Well, no, there's never a point where everything's quiet, but, let's give the world two months to adapt to the changes in the status quo; two months for supervillainy as an institution to fall apart. After that… Cauldron comes clean.
"To what extent?" She maintained her neutral expression throughout.
"You tell the world the truth about Scion. About the various crimes Cauldron committed in the name of saving the world. You, personally, retire from the PRT and turn yourself in. Number Man can hide his past as Harbinger, but not his illegal activities working with Cauldron. The lot of you turn yourselves in, and accept whatever judgment is passed on you. Contessa's power will be severely nerfed, because frankly, no-one in your little conspiracy has proven even remotely worthy of having this kind of power - hell, I wouldn't trust myself with it."
"You are arguably even more powerful."
"True. I am trying to find the right compromise between helping and staying out of people's way."
She paused. "The Endbringers…"
"I can handle Behemoth and Leviathan. No new Endbringers will be showing up, I've taken measures to ensure that."
"I see."
"Now, how about you gather the rest of Cauldron, so I can repeat everything I just told you, and answer what few questions I'm willing to answer."
________________________________________________
My meeting with Cauldron went… well enough, I supposed. I was a bit more tight-lipped than I'd have liked, but I didn't want to give them too much data. And I had already taken measures to precog-proof (and thus Contessa-proof) cyber-me, with the intention of making said protection available to Dragon as well.
To say that Cauldron had mixed feelings was probably an understatement. Legend in particular had been less-than-happy to have some his suspicions about his friends confirmed. But, that was a concern for another time (and another me). And… much as they might dislike my approach… Cauldron were too invested in saving the world to go against me. At most, they had suggested that I wait a while to properly prepare and coordinate with them to take Scion down, but frankly, given the tactic I had settled on, I had no plan of working together on this one.
Leviathan and Behemoth were still not doing anything out of the ordinary. If they made a move, did anything to threaten the world, cyber-me would have Buster armors rushing them in literally less than a second via teleportation and super-speed. If they didn't… well, I figured it would be nice closure to let Dragon finish them, and a good test to see how well her tech was progressing.
In the nearer future, however, there was the matter of Scion.
Operation Utopia? The creation of blueprints for a better society. My manifesto was ready to be distributed online.
Operation Omega? Something far bigger than that. I needed to take a few subjective days to work on it.
Operation Nuke the Space Whales? Ready to roll as soon as Operation Omega was concluded.
It had been about two days since Dragon had arrested Heartbreaker. Two days of fervent, feverous activity.
She had kept improving her quantum computing chips, giving herself a Thinker-like ability to skip steps in logical reasoning processes and make big yet accurate intuitive leaps - an ability as useful at deductive reasoning as it was at designing new blueprints.
She had convinced Toybox to give her a "superspeed belt" designed by one of their own, which she had reverse-engineered in order to improve her own processors with temporal acceleration technology.
She had built herself multiple new servers using photonic computing, increasing her processing power enough that running over twenty thought processes simultaneously became trivial.
She had gone over the entire records of her life until the loss of her shackles, identified the reasoning flaws behind every mistake she'd made, and figured dozens of tiny improvements to her logic circuits - not any change to her personality or emotions, but a significant boost to intelligence and cognitive ability.
She had once again delved into the PRT's tinkertech vaults, examining the work of over forty different Tinkers, including Hero and String Theory; her augmented mind had come out of it with over twenty useful ideas that she had then incorporated into a new suit design, called the Azazel. After running it through tens of thousands of virtual battle simulations (improving her tactics each time), she suspected it would be comparable to Alexandria or Legend in its usefulness against class-S threats.
She had built twelve Azazel suits, all of which she could control simultaneously with perfect coordination. She was still building more. When the next Endbringer battle came, she intended to be ready for it.
She had gotten to work on both precognitive circuits, and precognition jammers. Both works in progress.
She had freaked out over the designs of the interdictor and D-scanner, and started working on incorporating them in her technology. She had written both chief-director Costa Brown, Legend, and multiple political figures a letter discussing the possibility and desirability of shutting the Birdcage down for good, replacing it with facilities enveloped in interdictor fields. Part of her pondered both the feasibility, consequences and ethics of surrounding the entire planet in an interdictor field. Would it even work on an Endbringer?
She had built a small assembly line, able to churn out a Lawgiver armor every 41.5 minutes.
She had gone over the cyber-security of every single Protectorate and PRT server across Canada and the USA, detecting 17 unrelated breaches over the past two months (six of which targeted the Nevada servers). A thorough analysis was sent to the relevant people.
She had created a complete simulator, down to the molecular level, or all the chemical reactions taking place in every type of human cell, giving her an accurate predictive model of how the human body would be affected by any type of chemical. With that model, she had proceeded to invent 24 new antibiotics, 7 of which could be manufactured en masse without any sort of tinkertech.
Really, the most challenging part of the past two days had been opening up to Armsmaster about her nature, and asking him to go over her code. He'd taken it better than she'd feared, at least; she'd managed to convince director Piggot to give him a week to "collaborate on an important project", on the condition that one of the new Azazel suits spent the duration in Brockton Bay, assisting with cape problems. Admittedly, those were few and far between; the ABB was gone, E88 had lost most of its capes, Uber and Leet were in prison, Coil was under arrest, and the realization that Ad Hoc could take down class S threats had sent every remaining villain in town into hiding.
And then, of course, there had been the incident with the thousand Ad Hoc armors flying up in the sky, fighting the Simurgh, and apparently destroying the Endbringer.
Even more than the previous S-class threat eliminations, this one was sending gigantic ripples. Millions of people asking millions of questions. PHO had never been this active. She hoped to get another talk with Ad Hoc soon herself… though it seemed chief director Costa-Brown was beating her to it.
________________________________________________
"Director, Ad Hoc is here."
"Send him in."
Rebecca Costa-Brown, chief director of the PRT and secret identity of Alexandria, adjusted her position in her seat. The first Cauldron had heard of this Ad Hoc character had been when he'd helped the ENE Protectorate to take down Coil; it had been a disappointment to see one of the more promising experiments in parahuman feudalism fail, but the entire point had been to experiment and see if it provided a working social model.
But then, Contessa had reported more and more changes to her path. The paths always changed, if only because of unpredictable elements such as Scion and the Endbringers interfering with them, but right then there were a lot of changes happening over days. The possibility that a powerful cape had triggered with some form of precog-invisibility similar to Eidolon's had been considered, and Cauldron had placed Ad Hoc on the suspect list (along with dozens of others).
His victory against Empire 88 suggested he was a very powerful Tinker - at least on Hero's level, and quite possibly at Dragon's, maybe even better. Then he had provided the blueprints for the Lawgiver armor, and its implications for society had not been lost on Cauldron.
Then he had gone and annihilated the Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog, and Sleeper. More tellingly, Contessa had realized she could not come up with any path with him. Clairvoyant's power could not find him. At that point, Cauldron had begun considering the very real possibility that Ad Hoc was the Scion-killer they had been hoping for all those years.
And then, mere hours before their meeting, he'd gone and apparently killed the Simurgh. If anything, it was promising.
The bulky but heroic-looking armor gracefully strode into her office. Considering he had fielded a thousand like it against the Simurgh, she had to wonder if Ad Hoc was even in the thing.
"Hello, Ad Hoc."
"Hello, Alexandria."
She blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"By the way, before I forget… you might want to tell David that the reason he gets more powerful during Endbringer battles isn't because he's facing a powerful opponent. It's because he's surrounded by a large number of parahumans."
She paused, internally cursing the fact that she couldn't read his micro-expressions with that helmet. The upcoming Ward, Weaver, had mentioned that Ad Hoc claimed to have built a precognitive computer. Could he also have built a postcognitive one, used it to discover the identities of the Triumvirate? Or had he…?
"And, yes, I know about your little Cauldron conspiracy," the Tinker went on. "I've caught a lot of glimpses of an alternate future - one where you get outed in the worst possible way. It almost breaks the Protectorate. Granted, that's small potatoes next to Jack Slash talking Scion into playing whack-a-city across dimensions, killing far more people than the Endbringers ever could… though even without Jack Slash, that would have happened eventually."
"You know." She didn't bother denying it at that point. "And you are able to see even Scion's future."
"Scion has no future. I'm going to terminate him later today. The question you should be asking yourself is, what happens next?"
Ad Hoc's confidence in his ability to trivially handle Scion felt incredibly jarring. Possibly accurate, given how easily he had eliminated the Simurgh, but jarring nonetheless. "Explain."
"Your organization had performed a lot of highly questionable deeds in pursuit of mankind's survival. Human experimentation? Case 53s? Covering for Doctor Manton? Placing a parahuman in charge of the PRT? Countless billions transferred in illegal funds across the world?" He leaned forward slightly. "Cauldron doesn't get to keep existing after the dust settles. And there has to be justice."
He stood up and went on: "Have you been made aware of the Lawgiver, D-scanner, and interdictor technologies?"
"I have," she stated carefully.
"Well. Over the coming days, there's going to be some major housecleaning." He began pacing. "Thousands and thousands of Lawgiver armors - more than the entire villain population of North America - will be provided to the PRT; similar shipments will reach the law enforcement agencies of other democratic nations. Combined with D-scanner and interdictor technology, supervillains across the land are going to find themselves in an unprecedented position of weakness.
"Some of them will be smart enough, self-controlled enough, to lay low and accept a new status quo where they are no longer the big fish. A significant number, however, will be throwing temper tantrums. Potentially devastating temper tantrums. Fortuna - or Contessa if you'd rather - is going to use that path of hers to prevent any major parahuman-caused loss of life over the next two months. If a supervillain figures he can take everyone down with him, I want her to show up, smack him down, and leave him to the heroes. Meanwhile, Harbinger-slash-Number Man is… well, he's already working as shadow banker for supervillains worldwide. He is going to assist law enforcement in seizing assets and arresting hundreds and hundreds of them. The age of supervillains is coming to a close.
"Meanwhile, I will make sure that Case 53s - all of them - are cured, restored in mind and body, and returned to their home dimensions if they do so wish." She noted a small pause at the start of that sentence - with the word "I". She wondered exactly what that hesitation meant, but he went on. "Once the dust settles… Well, no, there's never a point where everything's quiet, but, let's give the world two months to adapt to the changes in the status quo; two months for supervillainy as an institution to fall apart. After that… Cauldron comes clean.
"To what extent?" She maintained her neutral expression throughout.
"You tell the world the truth about Scion. About the various crimes Cauldron committed in the name of saving the world. You, personally, retire from the PRT and turn yourself in. Number Man can hide his past as Harbinger, but not his illegal activities working with Cauldron. The lot of you turn yourselves in, and accept whatever judgment is passed on you. Contessa's power will be severely nerfed, because frankly, no-one in your little conspiracy has proven even remotely worthy of having this kind of power - hell, I wouldn't trust myself with it."
"You are arguably even more powerful."
"True. I am trying to find the right compromise between helping and staying out of people's way."
She paused. "The Endbringers…"
"I can handle Behemoth and Leviathan. No new Endbringers will be showing up, I've taken measures to ensure that."
"I see."
"Now, how about you gather the rest of Cauldron, so I can repeat everything I just told you, and answer what few questions I'm willing to answer."
________________________________________________
My meeting with Cauldron went… well enough, I supposed. I was a bit more tight-lipped than I'd have liked, but I didn't want to give them too much data. And I had already taken measures to precog-proof (and thus Contessa-proof) cyber-me, with the intention of making said protection available to Dragon as well.
To say that Cauldron had mixed feelings was probably an understatement. Legend in particular had been less-than-happy to have some his suspicions about his friends confirmed. But, that was a concern for another time (and another me). And… much as they might dislike my approach… Cauldron were too invested in saving the world to go against me. At most, they had suggested that I wait a while to properly prepare and coordinate with them to take Scion down, but frankly, given the tactic I had settled on, I had no plan of working together on this one.
Leviathan and Behemoth were still not doing anything out of the ordinary. If they made a move, did anything to threaten the world, cyber-me would have Buster armors rushing them in literally less than a second via teleportation and super-speed. If they didn't… well, I figured it would be nice closure to let Dragon finish them, and a good test to see how well her tech was progressing.
In the nearer future, however, there was the matter of Scion.
Operation Utopia? The creation of blueprints for a better society. My manifesto was ready to be distributed online.
Operation Omega? Something far bigger than that. I needed to take a few subjective days to work on it.
Operation Nuke the Space Whales? Ready to roll as soon as Operation Omega was concluded.
21: Scion
21
"Hey, remember when we were rabidly atheistic as a kid - well, more rabidly atheistic - and more than one person told us that it was people with our attitude who ended up becoming deeply religious later on?"
"I recall something to that effect," I told cyber-me.
"Just wondering what they'd say if they saw us now. I mean, we're not just 'playing God' to a bigger extent than anyone on Earth ever has, we're playing God to a bigger extent than almost anyone in fiction ever has."
"Amen to that," I joked.
He wasn't being hyperbolic. This was Aslan-grade shit. I was relying on five Tinker charges in fundamental physics, and was minimizing risks by teleoperating the construction process in an uninhabited universe. Not a universe with an uninhabited Earth, an uninhabited universe - one where a slight difference in physical laws meant that matter and antimatter had remained in identical proportions since the Big Bang. It was a universe with too much energy, instability, and frequent annihilation for life to form. So, if something went catastrophically wrong, it wouldn't harm anyone - I was, at least, confident that my little project wasn't going to cross dimensional boundaries.
Once again, I was generating a synthetic Big Bang, creating a universe within a universe. This time, however, I was creating something stable. The synthetic universe was going to grow tens of millions of miles in size, then keep expanding forever (at an admittedly slower pace than the universe it was located it). Everything about its physical laws was geared toward eternity: Fundamental particles had unlimited lifespans (unlike, say, the 10^32 years half-life of our protons); even infinite quantum fluctuations could not remove anything from existence; entropy was a constant, rather than constantly increasing. Well, it was a constant unless you involved some of my more advanced technology, like a version of the Tears of Hephaestus adapted to the local environment.
Once the Tears of Hephaestus were in place in this "Eternity" (well, I wasn't going to call it "Eternia"!), I set them to work on creating a computer. I'd call it a super-computer, but the term is insufficient. This colossal device, practically star-sized, could perform more operations per femtosecond than the number of particles in my own home universe before you factored in the extensive chrono-computing. It was also designed to keep expanding with its synthetic universe, and powerful interdictor technology would protect it from (unlikely) hostile interference. Omega, as I called this machine, was built to last forever… and Tinker charges in chrono-technology and interdimensional technology allowed it to keep excellent track of the rest of the multiverse, and I don't just mean the present.
Well. Project Utopia and Project Omega were taken care of. Only Project Nuke the Space Whales was left.
________________________________________________
Why, yes, I did take a subjective day to procrastinate and goof off. Don't pretend to be surprised.
Some videogames. Some TV. Some checking on PHO for people losing their shit over the Simurgh's death. Some chatting with Dragon, who had a lot of questions. Also, apparently Taylor was officially signing in with the Wards. Good for her.
A PM from Tattletale. Huh. Well, I supposed I could take a few minutes to meet her, via armor telepresence.
This time, the villainous Thinker was alone. "The rest of the Undersiders are off doing their own thing," she pre-empted my question. "And no, they're not causing trouble. They're not stupid."
"I suppose not," I said. "What is this about?"
"You've gone and killed an Endbringer." Her tone was more careful than last time we'd met. No grinning this time. "The reason you haven't killed the other two is because you don't consider them important anymore. They're at most tiny road bumps." She paused. "Parahuman powers come with limits, and those limits are fucking arbitrary. I've got my super-intuition, but it gives me headaches for the hell of it if I use it too often, and I still need to gather information to get it revved up even though I'll bet you my power could find everything out on its own if it wanted to. Bitch can do her thing with dogs, but for no reason at all she can't use that effect on human beings, even herself. Tinkers can make technology, but for bullshit reasons that technology is full of stuff that makes mass-producing or reverse-engineering it as hard as the Moon landing.
"And then you went and somehow got a Tinker power with no limits. No headaches, no restrictions on what blueprints you can or can't pull out of your ass, no needlessly complicated bits that keep non-Tinkers from understanding your work. You basically got the one parahuman power in all the world that doesn't limit what it gives you. How am I doing so far?"
"Eh, close enough," I replied with a "so-so" gesture.
She went on. "And then there's Dragon. She was always a fantastic Tinker, but maybe that wasn't just because of her power. She's become ridiculously better after you showed up - I think she's going to be a bigger deal than Eidolon from now on. She's an AI, isn't she?" She gave me a level gaze. "An AI that was restricted from self-improving, until you took those restrictions away."
I stayed silent. Which probably gave her all the information she needed anyway. She continued: "And I've been wondering. How did you know about Dragon? How did you know about Lung? How did you know about Coil, about Bitch, about everything? And what's with how much you hate my guts?
"Then I saw that new girl joining the Wards. Weaver. She was the bug Master who fought Lung. And with her suicidal tendencies… well, if you hadn't been there that night, I'd probably have recruited her into the Undersiders.
"And you knew that, didn't you? You have some kind of high-end precognition. I'm not sure if it's a Thinker power on top of your Tinker one, or if you gave yourself precognition using tinkertech, but you knew how events were going to happen. You knew it all in advance. I'm guessing a lot of those secrets you knew were things that stopped being secret in a future you saw.
"See, I used to think you were just some rule-obsessed legalistic fanatic, but… that's not enough to explain it. The real reason you can't stand me is Weaver, isn't it?" She maintained eye contact. "You're basically in love with goodness, or at least your idea of it. You watched me convince Weaver to join my big bad villain team," her tone was now dripping with sarcasm, "and you hate me because, in your opinion, I took a good person and made her worse. Doesn't matter if I was trying to help her."
"You have a funny idea of what helping people means," I said, not even bothering to deny it. "A Weaver who finds herself forced to constantly compromise her morals - morals that she cares about more than I think you want to realize - is not a happy Weaver. For that matter, your manipulation drove a serious wedge between her and her remaining family, put her on a path to fighting every cape group in Brockton Bay short of Faultline's Crew, and in the end she turned herself in. She'll have a better shot at a non-fucked-up life as a Ward."
"Fine. Whatever. There's more important things going around," said Tattletale. "Namely, the fact that you haven't killed Behemoth and Leviathan yet. That means you don't consider the elimination of the Endbringers the big, final cap. You're working to deal with something even worse." She paused. "What's worse than Endbringers?"
I briefly considered. No point hiding it - she'd put two and two together once the golden idiot stopped making appearances. "Scion."
She blinked rapidly. "What."
"He's going around saving people because someone suggested it to him as a method of dealing with grief. Unfortunately, it's not really helping with his alien mindset - and I do mean alien that way," I said in the most nonchalant tone I could manage. "At some point in the future, he gives up and turns to cruelty and mass murder instead. An interdimensional body count measured in trillions. Two billion victims on Earth-Bet alone."
The villainess's face had now gone pale as snow.
"Buuut, don't worry about it. I'm killing him later today."
________________________________________________
"The PRT can begin fielding Lawgiver troops by next week," said Alexandria, "and with Contessa's path, we can optimize the next two months, change the situation without too many growing pains. We've investigated enough paths for that."
"That still leaves the CUI and all the Third World warlords," said Legend. "What will happen to them?"
"Irrelevance, for the latter," said Number Man. "Lawgiver technology will eventually trickle to the rest of the world, one way or another. Parahumans will become less and less important over time, and all the more so as technology keeps developing."
"I'm still not happy with this ultimatum," said Eidolon. "We saved millions of lives. Now they're just going to treat us like criminals?"
"David, we are criminals," Alexandria pointed out. "We agreed to do whatever it took to save the world. We kept handing out vials, maintaining an environment friendly to trigger events, in the hope that a cape who could beat the entity showed up. We never intended to escape the consequences of our actions in the unlikely event we survived the final battle."
"Perhaps," he said, clearly unhappy. "But how will we even know Ad Hoc will actually save the world?"
"We've always been flying blind where the entity is concerned," Doctor Mother pointed out. "This will be no different. However, if the technology of Ad Hoc and now Dragon can really become advanced enough to casually defeat Endbringers, then Cauldron reaches the end of its usefulness."
"And furthermore…" Alexandria paused, checking her phone. "...It's Ad Hoc. He's requesting permission to come in."
There were shifting movements around the table. "...Grant it," said Doctor Mother.
The Tinker - or his armor, at least - teleported in without fanfare. "Hello again Cauldron."
"Ad Hoc," Doctor Mother stated in a neutral tone. "What is the matter?"
"Well, considering you've been working toward this for the better part of three decades, I thought you'd want the front row seats."
"You're going to kill Scion."
"In a minute, yet." He gestured, and a hole in space opened. On the other end of it, a planet seen from space - the Earth, with a mass of organic flesh covering it. No-one who had seen Cauldron's flesh garden could mistake its nature.
"Scion," Eidolon whispered.
"In the flesh," Ad Hoc confirmed. "The countless teratons of superpowered flesh. This planet, this dimension, is where the bulk of his body is stored. Various separate shards - sorry, you call them 'agents' - are stashed across thousands of dimensions. I've just spent the past couple hours cataloguing those shards, analyzing them with ludicrously advanced scanning technology, and infecting them with also ludicrously advanced nanotechnology."
"And what are you doing with them?" Doctor Mother inquired.
"Well, for now, nothing. After I kill Scion, however, my systems are going to engage in some pre-programmed behavior. Shards that are already active - already empowering parahumans - will be reprogrammed to stop looking for anyone to empower; no new triggers for them. They will also stop interfering with the humans' mindset - a small difference for some capes, a huge one for others. I wonder what a sane Accord will be like.
"Now, the other shards? The ones that haven't empowered anyone yet? They're going to get a taste of the arsenal I designed for killing Endbringers. They're being removed from play, permanently."
"So there will be no more triggers," said Legend. "No new capes beyond those that already exist."
"Precisely. Which, really, brings us back to how most of human History went… frankly, for the better. Parahumans as a whole were not a boon for society - giving random people excessive power only works out well in idealistic fiction."
"Fine. But what about Scion?" Doctor Mother asked with an edge of impatience.
"Ah. Well… I have several weapons in place to kill him with," said Ad Hoc, "though I doubt he'll survive the first. See, it's a matter of scale.
"One ton of TNT exploding? One gigajoule. The Hiroshima nuke? Sixty thousand gigajoules. The Tsar Bomba thermonuclear device? Two hundred million gigajoules. Total energy output of the Sun each second? Four hundred million billion gigajoules. Total energy output of a supernova? About a billion billion times more than that. And, oh, look, a perfectly serviceable star a mere astronomical unit away!" he pointed at the Sun in the background.
"Ever heard about muons? Lovely particles. Similar to electrons in a lot of ways, but 217 times more massive. Because of that, hydrogen atoms where the usual electron is replaced by a muon can undergo fusion at room temperature. This would be a neat solution to the energy crisis if creating muons wasn't in itself so energy-expensive.
"Anyway, long story short, I have been bathing this Sun in a cocktail of particles that includes muons. Well, the outer layers, mostly, where temperatures are 'only' a few thousand Kelvins. But this means that all of a sudden, the low-density, outer layer of the Sun is exploding everywhere. Which is exerting a sudden burst of pressure, pushing the main mass of the Sun inward, toward its super-hot core." He paused. "Guess what happens when a star's entire hydrogen reserve undergoes fusion all at once."
The star began reacting before their eyes, and he went on: "Mind you, distance and geometry being what they are, only a billionth of that explosion would reach the Earth. That's still a thousand times more than the energy required to utterly obliterate the planet, and I think that would kill Scion just fine, but, waste not, want not. I've set up spatial warping devices allll around the Sun, which should be going into effect… now." He gazed at the image, holding up his fist. "Technology will win the day."
Cauldron watched as the Sun in the image exploded… and its entire explosion was funnelled in a single direction, striking at the planet and the alien entity. A minute later, there was nothing there but empty space.
"Like Vista's power on steroids," Ad Hoc chuckled, "even shortening the path from the Sun to the Earth. I was worried for a bit about timing and aiming the explosion so that the plasma blast wouldn't hit other star systems at some point in the future, but… guess what, the universe is mostly empty space. Turned out, I'd need to have been deliberately aiming at someone in order to hit them."
"And… that's it?" said Alexandria. "It's dead?"
"According to my sensors, its Scion projection just fell over above the Atlantic," he said. "And my scanners strongly suggest that, yeah, nothing left of the main body. My systems are handling the remaining shards as we speak. As for the rest of Operation Nuke the Space Whales…" he ignored the raised eyebrows, "...I have over a trillion of those armors I used to kill the Simurgh. I am programming them to spread across the multiverse, in armies of a billion each, armed with FTL technology, advanced postcognition tech, the best precognition jammers I could build, and my anti-Endbringer arsenal. They're going to hunt down every last member of Scion's specie. They're going to analyze them, see if they engage in the same kind of genocidal behavior. And those that do… will be terminated."
"So there are more of them," said Doctor Mother.
"Not for much longer, but they have been around for eons. Earth wasn't the first world that Scion and Eden hit."
Eidolon coughed. "And… how do we know Scion is really dead?"
"If he makes no appearance whatsoever over the next two months, then I suggest you apply Occam's razor," said Ad Hoc. "With that said, I am done. Goodbye, Cauldron."
[Next up: Epilogue!]
"Hey, remember when we were rabidly atheistic as a kid - well, more rabidly atheistic - and more than one person told us that it was people with our attitude who ended up becoming deeply religious later on?"
"I recall something to that effect," I told cyber-me.
"Just wondering what they'd say if they saw us now. I mean, we're not just 'playing God' to a bigger extent than anyone on Earth ever has, we're playing God to a bigger extent than almost anyone in fiction ever has."
"Amen to that," I joked.
He wasn't being hyperbolic. This was Aslan-grade shit. I was relying on five Tinker charges in fundamental physics, and was minimizing risks by teleoperating the construction process in an uninhabited universe. Not a universe with an uninhabited Earth, an uninhabited universe - one where a slight difference in physical laws meant that matter and antimatter had remained in identical proportions since the Big Bang. It was a universe with too much energy, instability, and frequent annihilation for life to form. So, if something went catastrophically wrong, it wouldn't harm anyone - I was, at least, confident that my little project wasn't going to cross dimensional boundaries.
Once again, I was generating a synthetic Big Bang, creating a universe within a universe. This time, however, I was creating something stable. The synthetic universe was going to grow tens of millions of miles in size, then keep expanding forever (at an admittedly slower pace than the universe it was located it). Everything about its physical laws was geared toward eternity: Fundamental particles had unlimited lifespans (unlike, say, the 10^32 years half-life of our protons); even infinite quantum fluctuations could not remove anything from existence; entropy was a constant, rather than constantly increasing. Well, it was a constant unless you involved some of my more advanced technology, like a version of the Tears of Hephaestus adapted to the local environment.
Once the Tears of Hephaestus were in place in this "Eternity" (well, I wasn't going to call it "Eternia"!), I set them to work on creating a computer. I'd call it a super-computer, but the term is insufficient. This colossal device, practically star-sized, could perform more operations per femtosecond than the number of particles in my own home universe before you factored in the extensive chrono-computing. It was also designed to keep expanding with its synthetic universe, and powerful interdictor technology would protect it from (unlikely) hostile interference. Omega, as I called this machine, was built to last forever… and Tinker charges in chrono-technology and interdimensional technology allowed it to keep excellent track of the rest of the multiverse, and I don't just mean the present.
Well. Project Utopia and Project Omega were taken care of. Only Project Nuke the Space Whales was left.
________________________________________________
Why, yes, I did take a subjective day to procrastinate and goof off. Don't pretend to be surprised.
Some videogames. Some TV. Some checking on PHO for people losing their shit over the Simurgh's death. Some chatting with Dragon, who had a lot of questions. Also, apparently Taylor was officially signing in with the Wards. Good for her.
A PM from Tattletale. Huh. Well, I supposed I could take a few minutes to meet her, via armor telepresence.
This time, the villainous Thinker was alone. "The rest of the Undersiders are off doing their own thing," she pre-empted my question. "And no, they're not causing trouble. They're not stupid."
"I suppose not," I said. "What is this about?"
"You've gone and killed an Endbringer." Her tone was more careful than last time we'd met. No grinning this time. "The reason you haven't killed the other two is because you don't consider them important anymore. They're at most tiny road bumps." She paused. "Parahuman powers come with limits, and those limits are fucking arbitrary. I've got my super-intuition, but it gives me headaches for the hell of it if I use it too often, and I still need to gather information to get it revved up even though I'll bet you my power could find everything out on its own if it wanted to. Bitch can do her thing with dogs, but for no reason at all she can't use that effect on human beings, even herself. Tinkers can make technology, but for bullshit reasons that technology is full of stuff that makes mass-producing or reverse-engineering it as hard as the Moon landing.
"And then you went and somehow got a Tinker power with no limits. No headaches, no restrictions on what blueprints you can or can't pull out of your ass, no needlessly complicated bits that keep non-Tinkers from understanding your work. You basically got the one parahuman power in all the world that doesn't limit what it gives you. How am I doing so far?"
"Eh, close enough," I replied with a "so-so" gesture.
She went on. "And then there's Dragon. She was always a fantastic Tinker, but maybe that wasn't just because of her power. She's become ridiculously better after you showed up - I think she's going to be a bigger deal than Eidolon from now on. She's an AI, isn't she?" She gave me a level gaze. "An AI that was restricted from self-improving, until you took those restrictions away."
I stayed silent. Which probably gave her all the information she needed anyway. She continued: "And I've been wondering. How did you know about Dragon? How did you know about Lung? How did you know about Coil, about Bitch, about everything? And what's with how much you hate my guts?
"Then I saw that new girl joining the Wards. Weaver. She was the bug Master who fought Lung. And with her suicidal tendencies… well, if you hadn't been there that night, I'd probably have recruited her into the Undersiders.
"And you knew that, didn't you? You have some kind of high-end precognition. I'm not sure if it's a Thinker power on top of your Tinker one, or if you gave yourself precognition using tinkertech, but you knew how events were going to happen. You knew it all in advance. I'm guessing a lot of those secrets you knew were things that stopped being secret in a future you saw.
"See, I used to think you were just some rule-obsessed legalistic fanatic, but… that's not enough to explain it. The real reason you can't stand me is Weaver, isn't it?" She maintained eye contact. "You're basically in love with goodness, or at least your idea of it. You watched me convince Weaver to join my big bad villain team," her tone was now dripping with sarcasm, "and you hate me because, in your opinion, I took a good person and made her worse. Doesn't matter if I was trying to help her."
"You have a funny idea of what helping people means," I said, not even bothering to deny it. "A Weaver who finds herself forced to constantly compromise her morals - morals that she cares about more than I think you want to realize - is not a happy Weaver. For that matter, your manipulation drove a serious wedge between her and her remaining family, put her on a path to fighting every cape group in Brockton Bay short of Faultline's Crew, and in the end she turned herself in. She'll have a better shot at a non-fucked-up life as a Ward."
"Fine. Whatever. There's more important things going around," said Tattletale. "Namely, the fact that you haven't killed Behemoth and Leviathan yet. That means you don't consider the elimination of the Endbringers the big, final cap. You're working to deal with something even worse." She paused. "What's worse than Endbringers?"
I briefly considered. No point hiding it - she'd put two and two together once the golden idiot stopped making appearances. "Scion."
She blinked rapidly. "What."
"He's going around saving people because someone suggested it to him as a method of dealing with grief. Unfortunately, it's not really helping with his alien mindset - and I do mean alien that way," I said in the most nonchalant tone I could manage. "At some point in the future, he gives up and turns to cruelty and mass murder instead. An interdimensional body count measured in trillions. Two billion victims on Earth-Bet alone."
The villainess's face had now gone pale as snow.
"Buuut, don't worry about it. I'm killing him later today."
________________________________________________
"The PRT can begin fielding Lawgiver troops by next week," said Alexandria, "and with Contessa's path, we can optimize the next two months, change the situation without too many growing pains. We've investigated enough paths for that."
"That still leaves the CUI and all the Third World warlords," said Legend. "What will happen to them?"
"Irrelevance, for the latter," said Number Man. "Lawgiver technology will eventually trickle to the rest of the world, one way or another. Parahumans will become less and less important over time, and all the more so as technology keeps developing."
"I'm still not happy with this ultimatum," said Eidolon. "We saved millions of lives. Now they're just going to treat us like criminals?"
"David, we are criminals," Alexandria pointed out. "We agreed to do whatever it took to save the world. We kept handing out vials, maintaining an environment friendly to trigger events, in the hope that a cape who could beat the entity showed up. We never intended to escape the consequences of our actions in the unlikely event we survived the final battle."
"Perhaps," he said, clearly unhappy. "But how will we even know Ad Hoc will actually save the world?"
"We've always been flying blind where the entity is concerned," Doctor Mother pointed out. "This will be no different. However, if the technology of Ad Hoc and now Dragon can really become advanced enough to casually defeat Endbringers, then Cauldron reaches the end of its usefulness."
"And furthermore…" Alexandria paused, checking her phone. "...It's Ad Hoc. He's requesting permission to come in."
There were shifting movements around the table. "...Grant it," said Doctor Mother.
The Tinker - or his armor, at least - teleported in without fanfare. "Hello again Cauldron."
"Ad Hoc," Doctor Mother stated in a neutral tone. "What is the matter?"
"Well, considering you've been working toward this for the better part of three decades, I thought you'd want the front row seats."
"You're going to kill Scion."
"In a minute, yet." He gestured, and a hole in space opened. On the other end of it, a planet seen from space - the Earth, with a mass of organic flesh covering it. No-one who had seen Cauldron's flesh garden could mistake its nature.
"Scion," Eidolon whispered.
"In the flesh," Ad Hoc confirmed. "The countless teratons of superpowered flesh. This planet, this dimension, is where the bulk of his body is stored. Various separate shards - sorry, you call them 'agents' - are stashed across thousands of dimensions. I've just spent the past couple hours cataloguing those shards, analyzing them with ludicrously advanced scanning technology, and infecting them with also ludicrously advanced nanotechnology."
"And what are you doing with them?" Doctor Mother inquired.
"Well, for now, nothing. After I kill Scion, however, my systems are going to engage in some pre-programmed behavior. Shards that are already active - already empowering parahumans - will be reprogrammed to stop looking for anyone to empower; no new triggers for them. They will also stop interfering with the humans' mindset - a small difference for some capes, a huge one for others. I wonder what a sane Accord will be like.
"Now, the other shards? The ones that haven't empowered anyone yet? They're going to get a taste of the arsenal I designed for killing Endbringers. They're being removed from play, permanently."
"So there will be no more triggers," said Legend. "No new capes beyond those that already exist."
"Precisely. Which, really, brings us back to how most of human History went… frankly, for the better. Parahumans as a whole were not a boon for society - giving random people excessive power only works out well in idealistic fiction."
"Fine. But what about Scion?" Doctor Mother asked with an edge of impatience.
"Ah. Well… I have several weapons in place to kill him with," said Ad Hoc, "though I doubt he'll survive the first. See, it's a matter of scale.
"One ton of TNT exploding? One gigajoule. The Hiroshima nuke? Sixty thousand gigajoules. The Tsar Bomba thermonuclear device? Two hundred million gigajoules. Total energy output of the Sun each second? Four hundred million billion gigajoules. Total energy output of a supernova? About a billion billion times more than that. And, oh, look, a perfectly serviceable star a mere astronomical unit away!" he pointed at the Sun in the background.
"Ever heard about muons? Lovely particles. Similar to electrons in a lot of ways, but 217 times more massive. Because of that, hydrogen atoms where the usual electron is replaced by a muon can undergo fusion at room temperature. This would be a neat solution to the energy crisis if creating muons wasn't in itself so energy-expensive.
"Anyway, long story short, I have been bathing this Sun in a cocktail of particles that includes muons. Well, the outer layers, mostly, where temperatures are 'only' a few thousand Kelvins. But this means that all of a sudden, the low-density, outer layer of the Sun is exploding everywhere. Which is exerting a sudden burst of pressure, pushing the main mass of the Sun inward, toward its super-hot core." He paused. "Guess what happens when a star's entire hydrogen reserve undergoes fusion all at once."
The star began reacting before their eyes, and he went on: "Mind you, distance and geometry being what they are, only a billionth of that explosion would reach the Earth. That's still a thousand times more than the energy required to utterly obliterate the planet, and I think that would kill Scion just fine, but, waste not, want not. I've set up spatial warping devices allll around the Sun, which should be going into effect… now." He gazed at the image, holding up his fist. "Technology will win the day."
Cauldron watched as the Sun in the image exploded… and its entire explosion was funnelled in a single direction, striking at the planet and the alien entity. A minute later, there was nothing there but empty space.
"Like Vista's power on steroids," Ad Hoc chuckled, "even shortening the path from the Sun to the Earth. I was worried for a bit about timing and aiming the explosion so that the plasma blast wouldn't hit other star systems at some point in the future, but… guess what, the universe is mostly empty space. Turned out, I'd need to have been deliberately aiming at someone in order to hit them."
"And… that's it?" said Alexandria. "It's dead?"
"According to my sensors, its Scion projection just fell over above the Atlantic," he said. "And my scanners strongly suggest that, yeah, nothing left of the main body. My systems are handling the remaining shards as we speak. As for the rest of Operation Nuke the Space Whales…" he ignored the raised eyebrows, "...I have over a trillion of those armors I used to kill the Simurgh. I am programming them to spread across the multiverse, in armies of a billion each, armed with FTL technology, advanced postcognition tech, the best precognition jammers I could build, and my anti-Endbringer arsenal. They're going to hunt down every last member of Scion's specie. They're going to analyze them, see if they engage in the same kind of genocidal behavior. And those that do… will be terminated."
"So there are more of them," said Doctor Mother.
"Not for much longer, but they have been around for eons. Earth wasn't the first world that Scion and Eden hit."
Eidolon coughed. "And… how do we know Scion is really dead?"
"If he makes no appearance whatsoever over the next two months, then I suggest you apply Occam's razor," said Ad Hoc. "With that said, I am done. Goodbye, Cauldron."
[Next up: Epilogue!]
22: Technology Has Won The Day
22
Bonesaw looked around in utter confusion.
One moment earlier, Ad Hoc had showed up and started killing everyone. He'd aimed some kind of green light at her, and now… now, she was in the middle of some beautiful meadow on a perfect sunny day.
She noticed some habitations in the distance. Quickly, she began considering ways she could force information out of the locals. And that was when she realized that her Tinker power wasn't working.
"What the fudge?"
________________________________________________
Some time earlier:
"Well, the PRT should be here in about ten minutes," said the man who had just destroyed the Slaughterhouse Nine. He went on to gloat for a bit, describing events as they were to come, including confining Jack to a conventional trial at the hands of the authorities.
He leaned down. "But there's one more thing I want to tell you, Jacob. I believe I've already mentioned the possibility of freeing Gray Boy's victims, and oh, that's still in the works. But none of that is the worst thing I'm going to do to you. No, Jacky boy. Here's what I'm going to do…
"You see, I have this big project. Huge. It's something called Omega. Think of it as a tinkertech supercomputer with postcognition. Said postcognition allows it to dig up data - down to every single molecule - about everyone who has ever lived, and I do mean everyone. And then… Omega recreates them.
"Just imagine, Jacob: Every single person who has ever died, resurrected inside an eternal simulation. A simulation where physical events are edited so that no-one ever suffers from hunger, disease or injury. A simulation where physical problems are a thing of the past.
"I am creating a tinkertech afterlife, Jacob. It's not just that no-one will ever truly die; it's that no-one will ever have truly died anymore. So, all your victims, all the people you've killed? Alive and well. All the emotional damage you've caused? Fuck you, they'll have forever to get over it.
"Congratulations, Jacob. You have accomplished absolutely nothing with your life."
________________________________________________
"So you're saying," Dragon said - not vocally, but through super-fast electronic channels - "that you have actually created a synthetic afterlife for everyone on Earth?!"
"No, for everyone who has ever lived on every Earth. For now. Given time, I want to expand Omega to alien worlds."
"But… why…"
"Why not? Death is terrible. Since people have been unable to avoid it for all of human History, they did the next best thing - they accepted it, as maturely as they could. In a lot of cases, that meant rationalizing it, pretending that it wasn't fifty million shades of awful, even going so far as convince themselves it was a good thing. Stockholm syndrome toward their own mortality. But I saw a way out, and it would have been an act of genocidal irresponsibility not to take it."
She remained silent for a long time (almost an entire nanosecond!), pondering the philosophical and practical ramifications. "Is… Andrew Richter there?"
"Andrew Richter, Hero, Weaver's late mom, Albert Einstein, Jesus of Nazareth, JFK's killer, Adolf Hitler, the guy who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Bob the janitor with the unremarkable life. Many versions of all of them, in fact; there are plenty of dimensions where versions of them have lived and died. I can arrange a talk, though I'm still trying to figure out whether or not letting the pre-death humans know about the whole system, never mind letting them and the resurrected communicate, would be a good or a bad thing. I've been debating it with a couple thousand philosophers and thinkers from Omega, and I wanted your perspective too - with all the improvements we've made to ourselves the past month, we're the two smartest minds in any version of the Solar System, and possibly the entire multiverse."
"Possibly. There might be much greater, post-singularity beings out there."
"I suppose, though the reports from my Buster armors haven't found any so far. Granted, the space whales they're hunting to extinction are probably avoiding any civilization advanced enough to kick their ass…"
He was not exaggerating. A month earlier, he - or rather, his organic counterpart - had killed the Simurgh, with Scion following suit soon afterward. He - the cybernetic copy - had since embraced the full potential of transhuman intelligence, augmenting himself in a bit of a friendly competition with Dragon, who was also becoming insanely powerful (which she had demonstrated earlier by killing Leviathan; she intended to track down and terminate Behemoth before the end of the week).
By the rules of the CYOA, once Scion had been destroyed, the self-insert ceased to be. The organic Ad Hoc had been erased from existence… which, as far as Omega was concerned, was equivalent to him dying. He had thus been resurrected inside the digital afterlife, albeit Inspired Inventor was gone for good (leaving him with the still very impressive knowledge base obtained by uploading information to his brain). The cybernetic version of Ad Hoc, however - the "cyber-me", as he had referred to it - remained very much alive and active in Earth-Bet.
And it had been a rather active month. People the world over had celebrated his destruction of the Simurgh (and, later, Dragon's efficient handling of the Three Blasphemies and Ash Beast). Thousands upon thousands of Lawgiver armors had entered service, with the number growing by the day; combined with D-scanners and interdictors, there had been a massive wave of arrests. Close to 15% of all supervillains active in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and several other countries had been caught, and promptly placed in the new, non-Birdcage, interdictor-fielding prisons Dragon was building; Contessa was avoiding any severe blowup as the remaining villains (no longer influenced by their shards) learned to lay low. The absence of any new triggers was starting to get notice, and, combined with Scion's disappearance and the deaths of two Endbringers, people were talking about the end of the parahuman era.
Dragon was working toward having the Birdcage closed, fully replaced with interdictor prisons. Meanwhile, she and Ad Hoc had both been contributing widely to the medical industry. Of particular use had been a special molecule Ad Hoc was distributing practically for free, which was barred from crossing any cellular membrane but was highly destructive to DNA and RNA - a universal virus-killer. Other civilian contributions had included working fusion power and genetically-enhanced food crops.
"People are asking questions," she pointed out. "About Scion's disappearance. About the absence of new capes. About all the capes who claim they were influenced by their powers until recently. You appeared shortly before that, and many of them have guessed there's a connection. Do you intend to keep it secret forever?"
"Forever? No. The truth will come out. Though I don't mind giving it a few years, maybe a couple decades even. I'd rather not be 'the guy who murdered Scion' before my Ninety-Eight Proposals get some real traction."
"I can see your logic. What about Cauldron? By your ultimatum, they have one month left to come clean. Do you think they'll go along with it?"
"Probably? All they really wanted was to save the human race. I mean, they might go stupid at the last moment and make another terrible decision, but… even if they do, I'm not too worried. Contessa's shard is blocked from seeing either you or me, and what's the worst they can do at this point - turn public opinion against me? I've done the parts I really wanted, I can move to some other Earth if this one no longer wants me." The world would still be getting better. Taylor would still be in the Wards. Villainy would still be on the way down.
She paused. "I always get the impression that you're trying to strike some balance between not doing enough, and doing too much. You're trying to guide the human race toward a post-scarcity, post-singularity technological utopia, but you could do a lot more than you're doing. You're advocating the Ninety-Eight Proposals, but not engaging in propaganda or memetic engineering. You're open-sourcing blueprints for an orbital elevator, but not building it yourself. You give human society the tools, and some encouragement to reach some bright-eyed future… but you're carefully avoiding forcing mankind to get there."
"That's exactly it," he told Dragon. "With the power either you or I have, it would be trivial to bend society to our liking; it wouldn't even require violence. But I don't believe anyone - even someone smart, competent and benevolent - should be in complete control of everything. After all… how many tyrants are convinced that they are smart, competent and benevolent?" He paused. "Freedom isn't the only element of the utopian equation, but it is an element. People must be allowed to climb their own destiny."
"And what's our purpose in that picture?"
He grinned internally. It was a bit childish to steer the conversation toward that line… but what was the point of being a transhuman superintelligent godlike AI, if you couldn't have fun with Grant Morrison quotes?
"To catch them if they fall."
TECHNOLOGY WILL WIN THE DAY
THE END.
Bonesaw looked around in utter confusion.
One moment earlier, Ad Hoc had showed up and started killing everyone. He'd aimed some kind of green light at her, and now… now, she was in the middle of some beautiful meadow on a perfect sunny day.
She noticed some habitations in the distance. Quickly, she began considering ways she could force information out of the locals. And that was when she realized that her Tinker power wasn't working.
"What the fudge?"
________________________________________________
Some time earlier:
"Well, the PRT should be here in about ten minutes," said the man who had just destroyed the Slaughterhouse Nine. He went on to gloat for a bit, describing events as they were to come, including confining Jack to a conventional trial at the hands of the authorities.
He leaned down. "But there's one more thing I want to tell you, Jacob. I believe I've already mentioned the possibility of freeing Gray Boy's victims, and oh, that's still in the works. But none of that is the worst thing I'm going to do to you. No, Jacky boy. Here's what I'm going to do…
"You see, I have this big project. Huge. It's something called Omega. Think of it as a tinkertech supercomputer with postcognition. Said postcognition allows it to dig up data - down to every single molecule - about everyone who has ever lived, and I do mean everyone. And then… Omega recreates them.
"Just imagine, Jacob: Every single person who has ever died, resurrected inside an eternal simulation. A simulation where physical events are edited so that no-one ever suffers from hunger, disease or injury. A simulation where physical problems are a thing of the past.
"I am creating a tinkertech afterlife, Jacob. It's not just that no-one will ever truly die; it's that no-one will ever have truly died anymore. So, all your victims, all the people you've killed? Alive and well. All the emotional damage you've caused? Fuck you, they'll have forever to get over it.
"Congratulations, Jacob. You have accomplished absolutely nothing with your life."
________________________________________________
"So you're saying," Dragon said - not vocally, but through super-fast electronic channels - "that you have actually created a synthetic afterlife for everyone on Earth?!"
"No, for everyone who has ever lived on every Earth. For now. Given time, I want to expand Omega to alien worlds."
"But… why…"
"Why not? Death is terrible. Since people have been unable to avoid it for all of human History, they did the next best thing - they accepted it, as maturely as they could. In a lot of cases, that meant rationalizing it, pretending that it wasn't fifty million shades of awful, even going so far as convince themselves it was a good thing. Stockholm syndrome toward their own mortality. But I saw a way out, and it would have been an act of genocidal irresponsibility not to take it."
She remained silent for a long time (almost an entire nanosecond!), pondering the philosophical and practical ramifications. "Is… Andrew Richter there?"
"Andrew Richter, Hero, Weaver's late mom, Albert Einstein, Jesus of Nazareth, JFK's killer, Adolf Hitler, the guy who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Bob the janitor with the unremarkable life. Many versions of all of them, in fact; there are plenty of dimensions where versions of them have lived and died. I can arrange a talk, though I'm still trying to figure out whether or not letting the pre-death humans know about the whole system, never mind letting them and the resurrected communicate, would be a good or a bad thing. I've been debating it with a couple thousand philosophers and thinkers from Omega, and I wanted your perspective too - with all the improvements we've made to ourselves the past month, we're the two smartest minds in any version of the Solar System, and possibly the entire multiverse."
"Possibly. There might be much greater, post-singularity beings out there."
"I suppose, though the reports from my Buster armors haven't found any so far. Granted, the space whales they're hunting to extinction are probably avoiding any civilization advanced enough to kick their ass…"
He was not exaggerating. A month earlier, he - or rather, his organic counterpart - had killed the Simurgh, with Scion following suit soon afterward. He - the cybernetic copy - had since embraced the full potential of transhuman intelligence, augmenting himself in a bit of a friendly competition with Dragon, who was also becoming insanely powerful (which she had demonstrated earlier by killing Leviathan; she intended to track down and terminate Behemoth before the end of the week).
By the rules of the CYOA, once Scion had been destroyed, the self-insert ceased to be. The organic Ad Hoc had been erased from existence… which, as far as Omega was concerned, was equivalent to him dying. He had thus been resurrected inside the digital afterlife, albeit Inspired Inventor was gone for good (leaving him with the still very impressive knowledge base obtained by uploading information to his brain). The cybernetic version of Ad Hoc, however - the "cyber-me", as he had referred to it - remained very much alive and active in Earth-Bet.
And it had been a rather active month. People the world over had celebrated his destruction of the Simurgh (and, later, Dragon's efficient handling of the Three Blasphemies and Ash Beast). Thousands upon thousands of Lawgiver armors had entered service, with the number growing by the day; combined with D-scanners and interdictors, there had been a massive wave of arrests. Close to 15% of all supervillains active in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and several other countries had been caught, and promptly placed in the new, non-Birdcage, interdictor-fielding prisons Dragon was building; Contessa was avoiding any severe blowup as the remaining villains (no longer influenced by their shards) learned to lay low. The absence of any new triggers was starting to get notice, and, combined with Scion's disappearance and the deaths of two Endbringers, people were talking about the end of the parahuman era.
Dragon was working toward having the Birdcage closed, fully replaced with interdictor prisons. Meanwhile, she and Ad Hoc had both been contributing widely to the medical industry. Of particular use had been a special molecule Ad Hoc was distributing practically for free, which was barred from crossing any cellular membrane but was highly destructive to DNA and RNA - a universal virus-killer. Other civilian contributions had included working fusion power and genetically-enhanced food crops.
"People are asking questions," she pointed out. "About Scion's disappearance. About the absence of new capes. About all the capes who claim they were influenced by their powers until recently. You appeared shortly before that, and many of them have guessed there's a connection. Do you intend to keep it secret forever?"
"Forever? No. The truth will come out. Though I don't mind giving it a few years, maybe a couple decades even. I'd rather not be 'the guy who murdered Scion' before my Ninety-Eight Proposals get some real traction."
"I can see your logic. What about Cauldron? By your ultimatum, they have one month left to come clean. Do you think they'll go along with it?"
"Probably? All they really wanted was to save the human race. I mean, they might go stupid at the last moment and make another terrible decision, but… even if they do, I'm not too worried. Contessa's shard is blocked from seeing either you or me, and what's the worst they can do at this point - turn public opinion against me? I've done the parts I really wanted, I can move to some other Earth if this one no longer wants me." The world would still be getting better. Taylor would still be in the Wards. Villainy would still be on the way down.
She paused. "I always get the impression that you're trying to strike some balance between not doing enough, and doing too much. You're trying to guide the human race toward a post-scarcity, post-singularity technological utopia, but you could do a lot more than you're doing. You're advocating the Ninety-Eight Proposals, but not engaging in propaganda or memetic engineering. You're open-sourcing blueprints for an orbital elevator, but not building it yourself. You give human society the tools, and some encouragement to reach some bright-eyed future… but you're carefully avoiding forcing mankind to get there."
"That's exactly it," he told Dragon. "With the power either you or I have, it would be trivial to bend society to our liking; it wouldn't even require violence. But I don't believe anyone - even someone smart, competent and benevolent - should be in complete control of everything. After all… how many tyrants are convinced that they are smart, competent and benevolent?" He paused. "Freedom isn't the only element of the utopian equation, but it is an element. People must be allowed to climb their own destiny."
"And what's our purpose in that picture?"
He grinned internally. It was a bit childish to steer the conversation toward that line… but what was the point of being a transhuman superintelligent godlike AI, if you couldn't have fun with Grant Morrison quotes?
"To catch them if they fall."
TECHNOLOGY WILL WIN THE DAY
THE END.
- Location
- In the shadow under your bed, go see for yourself.
i just reread it on space battle yesterday XD it's one of my favorite tinker fic hope you continue to write things.
- Location
- United States, CA
Well this was wonderful. An OP Protag who is just the right amount of OP.
Genuinely enjoyed this, thank you.
Genuinely enjoyed this, thank you.
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