Gadget 3.1
The first thing I felt when I woke up was that I was wet, the kind of wet you got when you were six years old and you had a little accident, but moreso. In fact, my entire body was covered in wet clothes. That wasn't the worst thing. I was also pretty suspicious that this wasn't actually my room. The first thing that caught my eyes was the fact that I didn't actually have any trees in my room. The second was that I had an actual bed, instead of a pile of leaves probably filled with snakes or something.

I heard the crackling of fire behind me. The smell of burning wood in my nostrils. When I stood up, I found out that I was still wearing my clothes, which were totally wet.

Wait a second, these were the clothes I used for… Where was my helmet?

I turned around and saw the fire, as well as the guy that created it. The man was sitting by the fire, warming himself. He looked big, both in size, as in just general impression. Like a lumberjack or something, but bigger. There was a short beard, not well-trimmed, but not the type crazy woods-people had either. More what you'd get if you forgot to shave for a week or so, I think. I didn't have too much experience with growing beards, me being a teenage girl and all.

More noticeable were the scars and scratches, as well as what looked like a weird pattern of light burns on his skin, like a weird structure covered most of him, but some radiation or something went through.

He was resting his head in his palms, looking down at the fire. When I stood up, trying to get a better view of the situation, he noticed me.

"Ah, I see you're awake, little thiefling."

Shit, he knew who I was, knew what I was. But who was he? Some sort of crazy woodsman or something? It'd help If I could actually remember how I got here.

I'd stolen the car, and crashed into a building on the pier. There, something happened. Horn had been there hadn't he? And some crazy woman? Hallucca.

Shit, that was it, Hallucca was the mayor of Westlake. I had to….

No, something told me that that little bird had flown. She'd been running around in a pantsuit yesterday, not a costume, people probably already knew.

Okay Sely, try to remember, what happened then... Horn had fallen down, but he'd come back… I'd had the pills over the edge of the… Then something had happened. I just, couldn't quite remember what, but it was something big wasn't it?

And in the water, I'd never been very good with swimming, the helmet and the stuff I was carrying hadn't been helping, had this man saved me then? It suddenly dawned on me.

"Horn…" I said, identifying who the man was.

His hand disappeared into a pocket in his jacket. I could see it now, the extra holes in his clothes, where the horns usually grew out. He wasn't a shabby woodsman, he was a crazy vigilante…

Was he getting a gun? Was he going to execute me in the middle of the forest?

"You must be hungry, here." When his hand came out of his pocket, it contained a granola bar or something. He threw it to me. It was just the bar, no wrapper. It was probably completely gross. Still, I was pretty hungry.

I took a bite. It was dry, soft and moist at the same time. Yuck, how long had that been in his pocket? How had he kept it dry while swimming in the lake. Where the fuck were we?

Good question, that last one. "Where are we? Mister Horn?"

He looked at me, as if he hadn't understood the question. " We're in the forest, can't you see that? Did something happen to your eyesight, little thiefling?" He seemed slightly worried, but accusatory at the same time. I got the feeling he didn't like me. Maybe it was the part where he kept calling me a thief. It was true, but still.

Not happy with the non-answer he'd given me, I summoned my phone. No service. Still, GPS worked with planes or something, that should work right?

No, wait, sattelites. That made way more sense than planes. But then why would sattelites want to know where they were? Couldn't you just look at them to find them? Or was that the problem? Still, sattelites moved pretty fast. Create an interferometric device to scan the night sky to locate fast-moving satellites too small to see with the eyes, connect that with an online database, and bam, you'd have a locator. My power was amazing.

Although, to do that, I would need an online database with satellite positions, as well as view of the sattelites. I could just use normal GPS. But still, that didn't make my idea any less awesome, just less, well, practical.

Then, Horn noticed that I'd been staring into nowhere with my phone out, and decided to do something about it.

"Give that here." He said, standing up.

"Okay" I replied, throwing the phone at him. He caught it, and looked at what I'd been doing on it or something. In the meantime, I checked the back of my mind. Yep, still two remaining. I summoned another copy of my phone, and went straight for the map app.

Somewhere to the North of town. Quite a bit to the North. How had he gotten us here? Super-Motorcycle? Parachutes? Teleportation? Maybe a teleporting motorbike with parachuts? That could help with both height differences as well as quick deceleration not dependent upon the road surface. In fact, I could probably create a device that automatically deployed several different kinds of parachutes for deceleration for when I went flying somehow. Link the trigger to an accelerometer, calculate necessary extra drag for safe landing, suck on my thumb because Horn just ripped my second phone from my hand rather roughly.

And he didn't stop there. After he'd thrown my second phone into the fire as well, he grabbed me by the shoulder with one hand, and started patting me down with the other, looking through my pockets.

I didn't say anything about it, probably a smart idea given the angry look on his face.

When he was done, he looked over what he'd found in my pockets. Typical things that every teenager had really. Several packets of gum, a fancy lighter, a fountain pen, some Protectorate cards (I'd acquired a holographic Chubster last Wednesday) , a slightly souped up Laster-pointer (Math was boooring), some cash, an extra hallway pass, and a whole lot of things I'd grabbed from Hallucca's place, most if which I'd thought I'd put in a gab instead, but apparently hadn't.

Before I could ask for my stuff back, he grabbed me by the neck again, and forced me to sit down on a log besides the fire. It was warm, and would help with my wet clothes, but I hated the forceful movement. The only thing I hated more than Horn pushing me around, literally, was the idea of him punching me. He already thought I was a criminal, he would probably do it.

Horn sat down too, close enough for his clothes to brush against mine. I wasn't sure if he was a pervert, paranoid I was going to try something, or just really socially awkward, but I didn't like it either way. He smelled like sweat and smoke. Not cigarette smoke, but the kind that comes from campfires like the one we were sitting in front of.

"I need your help" He said. It sounded forced, as if he didn't want it, but still needed it. "You're a tinker right? You design advanced stuff."

Well, there was more to it than that, but sort of? "Yeah, I guess?"

"I'm too slow"

Well, that was an understatement. Or was he not talking about that kind of slow? Did he want me to make something that made him faster? Some sort of crazy power armor or something? I was pretty sure I couldn't do that in the middle of the forest…

"So, I need you to figure out how I should grow my horns."

"You need me to make your horn grow? Seriously?"

He grimaced at that. I guess he wasn't the type for humour. Even if he made it so easy…

"You know what I mean… don't you? You tinker-types are really smart, so figure it out."

He seemed annoyed when he called me smart, jealous. I guess he was the type of person who wasn't very smart, but was smart enough to know he wasn't, and that that annoyed him.

He pointed to his forehead, and several areas near the joints of his limbs, and I could see new horns appear.a demonstration? Except he just kept on going, until he was partly covered.

He moved to a bag, and grabbed a rifle, some zip-ties, and a sketch-block with some pencils. Then, he walked back to me. He put the rifle and sketch-block aside, and motioned for me to give him my arm, holding the zip-ties.

"Sorry but ehm… I'm not really into that stuff you know? Me being fourteen and all?"

He looked at me, and grimaced again. Come on… was he completely unaware of how creepy tying up a girl in the middle of the forest was? Wasn't he supposed to be some sort of hero, instead of a super-creep? Although… He did get kicked out, maybe they'd covered up the real reason for him getting fired.

When it became reasonably clear to him that I wasn't going to give him my arm, he grabbed me by the shoulder again, and tried to get his hands on my arms himself. I tried to struggle, but he was already much bigger than I was, and the added strength he gained from growing horns wasn't really helping my cause.

He'd tied my wrists, together, as well as my legs, before he began speaking again.

"I'm going to hunt us something to eat. You are going to sit here and make me a better design, or you are going to regret it. Do you understand thiefling?"

I wondered about it. Did I understand? What would he do if I said no? Would he repeat himself, but even slower than he already talked, or would he get angry, and 'make me regret it'.

Still, right now, I couldn't help him even if I wanted to, after all, my arms were still tied. "Ehhm, you know I can't draw or anything while you have my hands tied up right?"

He looked at me, then at my tied together hands, and eventually at the note-block he'd grabbed. After a few long seconds, he grabbed the zip-tie around my arms, and ripped them with his bare hands, which were basically bear hands. Then, he pushed the note-block and some pencils into my still hurting hands. "Behave yourself!" was the only thing he said, before he walked off into the forest.

Once he was well and truly gone, I looked over the sketch-pad., thinking about what to do. I could just summon a knife or something and cut myself loose, but from what I'd seen, I was still a pretty big distance from the city, and Horn could catch me in the meantime, he looked to be an experienced woodsman. I could also make the design, but what would he do if he no longer needed me afterwards? Just get rid of me? He'd been crazy enough to kidnap me, even though he also saved me from Hallucca. I just really wasn't sure how to interpret the guys' actions.

In my sleeve, I had something that could help me with that. I grabbed Horn's wallet, and started looking through it.

There was some cash money, a large-ish amount of notes, with some change. There was also a drivers license, as well as an Alcoholics Anonymous coin, at least, that was what it said. I wasn't sure why a gathering of alcoholists would need those coins. Maybe to pay for beer or something?

There was a membership card for a bowling competition, some papers regarding the NRA, and what looked like hand-made calling cards, similar to the posters I'd seen in style. There were also a few business-cards that belonged to other people. I saw Horn, some PRT guy, and some from out of town heroes. One of them even from some sort of South-American cape.

There were also some notes, probably personal stuff he wanted to remember. There was one page about me, which contained several lines of information.

Hacked camera's, Nocturnal drones, Screaming device, Weird helmet? Neural activator? Healing gun?

Tinker? Stealth-based? But why the sound? Works for Hallucca? Works against? Gang-war in Westlake?

From there, the note started making less and less sense. Something about me being a ghost, or a Japanese movie, something about something called a "case 53". Lots of weird stuff.

Still, after going through all that stuff, and thinking it over, I'd been able to think of something that was sort of like a plan. I would turn Horn's power against him when he returned.