5.7
o0O0o0O0o
With my strike team in Boston done, I had sent them back to Brockton Bay. Since they got back yesterday, I was deciding what to do with them. Accord had set me up with an email account on a very well protected service before I left, so that we could keep in touch. I was keeping him appraised of the progress in Canberra, and he occasionally sent me a minor update or correction based on the new information. The biggest improvement so far had been how fast we were moving forward on Scramjet's workshop. It was now a true tinker's workshop. Minimally stocked and shy of some of the more elaborate equipment, true, but it was now self powered and capable of turning out whatever project Scramjet wanted.
Right now, he was working on building himself a sophisticated prosthetic arm. In addition to functioning as regular hand, it had a small compressed air tank from a paintball gun so it didn't need external connections. It also had a bevy of integrated tools and a single shot, last ditch air gun.
As far as the favour from Accord goes, I eventually decided to get his assistance crafting a plan to catch the ones who had kidnapped my runner. Since his planning grew better the more sophisticated the problem, I also added the conditions that I should be able to do it without being detected by any uninvolved parties and be able to get revenge on the group that took it.
He responded that he would get back to me with an appropriate plan by the end of the week.
I figured that I would leave my strike team in the bay for now, to see if their presence would be required for Accord's plan. It they were not, I would send them out with the new planters that would be emerging tomorrow. I didn't mind delaying my cross America base building road trip by a day or two in order to escort them with some better firepower and the ability to remain linked with my network.
I would send the first three planters out across America with an escort of a commando each, and the next batch of three would start across the sea floor. My leader, I decided that I would let go hunting. The Slaughterhouse Nine had kill orders on them, and I figured I would be able to take several of them out before the leader died. My biggest concern was that I would be identified by the corpse of the leader, but if it came to that, I would simply point out that it wasn't field use, it was a personal project. Under normal circumstances it would never fly, but the bureaucrat that thought they could get me in trouble for killing some of the Slaughterhouse Nine would have to be a special kind of stupid.
If revealing some of my capabilities was the price for taking out some of the Slaughterhouse Nine, I thought that would be a pretty good compromise. Besides, it was just as likely that Crawler would decide to eat the corpse. Maybe I would try to leave him for last so that I could be more sure of that happening?
I was mostly letting these thoughts distract me from school. It was Monday, and classes dragged by for my human body as I mostly withdrew my awareness form that body altogether. It was only fair to give the other students in the class a fighting chance after all. Withdrawing my awareness in this way actually made the body more stupid than if it were disconnected from my network entirely. I was still running my network on its brain, using up some of its capacity, but I wasn't using that network to run the body at all. I estimated that the human-shaped body that was sitting in class was only slightly dumber than I had been before I got my powers.
My attention snapped back to the body in class when the lunch bell rang. Making my way to the cafeteria, I smiled when I saw Amy waiting at the Wards lunch table for me. She didn't get along great with the other Wards, but I was pleased that I had finally managed to convince her that sitting with her sister's friends wasn't helping with her mood. Amy was rather introverted, and for all that Vicky and her friends were friendly and cheerful, I'm not sure they even knew the word introvert. I think what had finally convinced her today was that Dean was sitting with Vicky today, instead of at the Wards table. Amy might not get along with most of the Wards, but she really didn't like Vicky's boyfriend. She had apparently mellowed on the issue a little since I had joined the Wards, but she still didn't like to be around him. I just tried not to pry, and she seemed to appreciate it.
I was the last one to the table, since my classroom before lunch was on the third floor on the other side of the school. As I approached, Amy gave me an imploring look that I understood immediately. Dennis was on one of his usual tangents, and making jokes at the expense of everyone else at the table. The other Wards would put up with it, but Amy had no patience for it. On my way to my seat, I dropped a hand on Dennis' shoulder and squeezed a little bit. He would have jumped in his seat, if I weren't holding him down.
"Perhaps that's enough of the jokes for now Dennis. It doesn't look like everyone else is enjoying them as much as you are." I kept a level voice, letting him know that I wasn't joking. Dennis was usually in good humor, but he never really knew, or cared where the line to stop was.
I was glad when after making a protesting sound, he looked at my face, and decided not to pick an argument over it.
"Thank you Taylor, it was getting a little tiring." Carlos spoke up, staying diplomatic about it.
I got a relieved smile from Chris as well. He wasn't really good at sticking up for himself very well, and Dennis could get under his skin without meaning to.
I wouldn't call Dennis a bully exactly, he never meant any harm by his jokes, but it was good for him to have others around him that could enforce the boundaries a little. Or perhaps more than one person. With just me, or just Carlos trying to reign him in, it didn't always work.
Amy budged over a little to allow me room to sit. "Hey." She spoke just loud enough to be heard over the cacophony of the lunch room.
"Hey, yourself. I see you finally decided to take me up on the offer of a seat over here. I would ask if there were any particular reason, but I can guess." This got me a brief smile.
"Yeah. But more than you think. I wanted to ask you about the 'project' we've been working on. Have you got all the paperwork done for it?" She sounded a bit like she was trying to avoid getting her hopes up. It had been well over a week after all, so I really should have by now.
I grinned at her. "Not just that, but according to Chris, I wouldn't be surprised if the approval for it comes in some time today. After you signed for it, it only needed the final step of the approval process. It might already be done, I just have to go pick it up after school."
She looked surprised. "Really? It would go that fast? Not that I'm complaining, but I had thought-"
Shaking my head, I tried to explain it to her. "Amy, I don't think you realize how valuable that stuff will be. You can stabilize a patient easily, but for normal first responders, getting a wound dealt with so that the patient is safe for transport is a huge deal. It would be political suicide to hold up the process getting that spray approved once you've already signed off on it. Your name carries a lot of weight, partially because you don't throw your name around much."
She seemed to think on that for a moment. "Huh. Well, the reason I wanted to ask you about it was to see if you would mind going to the hospital with me on the weekend after it gets passed and introduce it to the staff. With the merchants acting like angry hornets the past two weeks, there have been a lot more gunshot wounds coming through the doors lately and the spray would be a big help for taking some of the load off of me. If you think it will be done this week, would you mind coming in with me on Saturday or Sunday?"
I nodded as soon as she finished her question. "No problem. I'll make sure I have some of the production units ready by then so they can start spitting out the spray bottles. I'll let you know by the end of the week whether Saturday or Sunday will work out better."
Now I had something to look forward to this weekend.
o0O0o
After school, I headed straight to the PRT HQ to check if my approvals had come through. Turns out that I was almost correct that the medical spray would come through before the taser balls. I ended up getting both of them, plus the tranquilizer approved over the weekend. I texted Amy to let her know that we were on for the weekend.
I started on the medical spray station. If supplied like the police net gun machine, it would spit out another spray bottle every day. I had some interesting ideas for a tree that would grow medical foam fruit, but that would be a future project.
The taser balls were authorized for general patrol use, while the tranquilizer was only authorized on certain targets. Essentially it boiled down to anyone with a kill order, or the local villains with regeneration. In practice that meant that I would only get to use it on Lung or Night. Anyone else who it would be safe to use it on, like Alabaster, it wouldn't be effective at any rate.
Just in case I got the opportunity to use it on Lung, I started growing an armour piercing injector. I figured I could submit the paperwork for it on the weekend, but I would need a copy to send in for testing.
I also decided to stop by and see how Chris was doing with his alternator Cannon. So far it was still mostly the frame, with some internals fleshed out already, but he said that it was coming a lot faster now that he knew his specialty.
Now I just had to wait for Carlos to show up, and I would be ready to patrol.
o0O0o
In Canberra, I finally had enough infiltrator bodies that I felt comfortable tracking down Sinker again. With more than two hundred bodies around the city, each one only had a few square kilometers to search for a scent before I found her. When I knew she was close, I let the body with Smash n Grab and Ad Lib know. Smash n Grab brought Ad Lib to north Tuggeranong, which the closest 'flag' he had. After they arrived, I led Ad Lib to where she was, then backed off so that my powers wouldn't interfere with his.
It was only fifteen minutes later that a nervous looking Sinker came out of the house, followed by a smiling Charlie. He walked up to introduce us.
"Myriad, meet Sophie aka Sinker. Sophie, meet Myriad. She's the one I told you about."
I gave her a handshake and a closed mouth smile.
She looked to be a little nervous still, but at least she was willing to hear me out. "So you're the one who spoke to me the other day? The invisible one?"
Both Charlie and Zach looked at me. They had heard that I approached Sophie, but not that I was invisible. How to explain this...
"Sort of. That was Invisible Man, we work together, but he's not around as often. I can get him to come and meet you to apologize for the other day if you want though."
She didn't look enthused by the idea. "No. No thank you. I'm fine if he just stays away from me. Charlie said there was something I could help with?
Nodding, I started explaining, as we walked back Scramjet's workshop in Civic.
On the way there I was explaining to Wesley what I wanted. If we could just get a proof of concept to work, I was sure that we could convince Sinker that her help was essential to helping rebuild the community.
Once Sophie and I arrived, Wesley came out to greet us. Sophie stared. I think it was the missing arm.
"Hi Sinker! I'm Scramjet, I have a small set up over here for something we'd like to test with your power if that's alright?"
He led her over to the side of the garage, where he had set up a small box with fine, clean sand packed tight in the box. There was a swirled depression in the sand that held the specific shape of a complex part that Scramjet wanted for one of his most efficient compressor designs, but so far he didn't have the tools necessary to cast the parts with the required tolerances. He could make the molds, but he couldn't cast them without impurities ruining the strength necessary for the high speed part.
He held a chunk of high grade aluminum, ripped out of old medical equipment.
"Could you please melt this metal into the mold for me?" He asked with a smile. Wesley was excited to work with Sinker, it would make many of his largest projects possible. When I had told him about the possibility, he had seen the implications immediately.
Sophie still had a distracted air about her, but took the aluminum scrap and held it over the mold. It dribbled through her hands, filling the mold to slightly overfull. Wesley just scraped the excess liquid off with a metal ruler. As soon as Sinker removed her hands from near the box, Wesley eagerly dug the part out of the sand and inspected it, brushing off some sand.
"Yes! It worked perfectly! This will be a huge help. Especially with the windmill project. I've never heard of cast wood before, but it should work just fine for making the large blades out of a solid piece of wood." He was grinning at the part, still examining it from every angle.
Sophie finally spoke up. "Oh? Would you mind telling me about your project? It sounds interesting."
It looks like the two of them had already forgotten I'm here. I'm fine with that, they were going to be working together quite a lot in the future.
Cast wood. What a novel concept. Although, like all of Accord's ideas, I bet it works.