Step 1.2
I hated shopping for electronics in repair shops. There were a few around the Docks. Trashy, broken down places, but the parts were cheap and plentiful even if the quality sucked. That's not what made me nervous though.
If rumors were true, Skidmark found Squealer like this. Made sense. If I were looking for a tinker, I'd keep an eye on junkyards and trashy repair shops. The thought kept my head on a swivel, trying to see the doors without looking at them. One in the front and two in the back.
That nagging voice was back, telling me I'd get caught any minute.
I didn't have much choice though. Some things I needed sooner rather than later. A high-end battery and some fresh soldering rods for example. I bought them and quickly slid it all into my backpack.
The guy behind the cash register didn't seem to care. He wasn't Asian. I just hoped that meant he didn't care about what the ABB might be interested in. The Azn Bad Boys ran the Docks, and I didn't need the attention of either of their capes. One fought a monster to a standstill while an entire island sank into the sea and the other was a serial killer that blew himself up.
Then again the guy was white, so I hoped he didn't care what the Empire was interested in. Ugh.
I remained very conscious of how defenseless I really was. Even as I restarted my morning jog my head kept turning back and forth, eyes peeking out the corners behind me every chance I got. Dad gave me some pepper spray when I started but, well… I could do better. I doubted pepper spray worked against determined attackers anyway. Especially if a gang came after the new tinker in town.
I swore my legs felt like they might actually burn up by the time I got home.
Arms felt like they might fall off any minute. Starting an exercise routine is painful. The smell of eggs and bacon did a lot for my spirit. Dad and I greeted each other, but I went right upstairs and took a quick shower to clean off the sweat and grime.
Dad was serving up plates when I joined him at the table.
"Good run?" he asked.
"Yeah." The results kept building. Another week of running, another week off my gut. I might be thin as a rail but at least I was starting to see abs!
"No trouble?"
"No, Dad."
"You have your pepper spray right?"
"Yes." Until I build a particle cannon.
"I just want you to be safe. For me."
I smiled. "I know Dad."
Damn guilt. Lying to Dad felt way worse than hijacking the computers at Winslow and it wasn't even a crime. Technically. I needed to take that test. Then I could break the news to him. Maybe he'd accept it once I had the GED and proved I'd be okay.
He'd probably start pushing college then.
I think I'd like college though. Mom was a professor. She took me to her classes sometimes in my younger years, and everyone looked so focused. If I went now I'd graduate before Emma ever got there too, not that I expected Emma to make it into a good school. Her grades were crap. She'd probably just go on and be a model. Scouts wanted her, and the only her age held her back from bigger gigs.
"Have a good day at school."
"I will Dad."
I finished my food and made a show of picking up my backpack. The guilt grew heavy as I reached the door. I didn't go far. Just walked down the street around the corner, and around another corner. Within fifteen minutes I checked back on the house. Once I confirmed Dad's old truck was gone, I slipped right back inside.
s:/t hello Veda
s:/t hello taylor
s:/t how was breakfast?
s:/t good
s:/t thank you for asking
s:/t how's your reading?
s:/t do dogs drive?
I gave it Go Dog Go.
Yep. Taylor Hebert, daughter of an English teacher, was teaching a computer how to read children's books. Actually took Veda longer to go through a children's book than you'd think. Veda being too 'smart' for something simple played into it, I think. It could access the Internet and define any word, but knowing what "in" means is a different world from seeing what it means.
It's an important distinction. As silly as driving dogs might seem, Go Dog Go taught contextual learning. Color. Relative position. Object permanence. The kind of thing anyone older than ten probably took for granted but formed a keystone for higher learning.
s:/t no dogs don't drive
s:/t then why depict them driving?
s:/t whimsy
s:/t …
s:/t playfully quaint or fanciful
s:/t driving dogs are whimsical
s:/t …
s:/t why?
s:/t why not?
s:/t …
I started doing that last night.
The first week went well. Better than I expected even. Veda's development was the only part of the Plan I managed to flesh out to completion, and I was more than happy to advance my timeline given the results. Asking Veda questions. Asking it for answers.
So far it didn't come up with any, but eventually it would.
s:/t think about it
s:/t I'm going to get some work done
s:/t here's some more books when you finish
I added the Chronicles of Narnia to its reading list. See how it enjoyed that one. Hopefully Veda knew the White Which wasn't a role model.
s:/t yes
s:/t think
I left Veda to it, descending into the basement with the last of my allowance in parts. Dad had all kinds of tools, but he hadn't used any of them since Mom died. Most honestly didn't even serve much use to me. Screwdrivers. Hammers. Wrenches. All too big and too clumsy. No way I'd be able to build much with them. A trip to the local handy store already confirmed that little in a conventional hardware served my needs.
Did other tinkers have to build better tools before they could build their tech?
For the past weeks, I made do with a stupid clunky soldering iron. Well no more! Arraying my parts on the table, I first took out the pepper spray can. Aiming the nozzle at the old boiler chute, I turned my head and pushed. Once the entire thing emptied out I could smell the damn stuff, but it wasn't that bad.
I stayed focused.
Using the iron, I cut the now empty can in half. The battery I disassembled. My power guided me through the process of making it more compact. Building something felt different than coding Veda. Coding Veda I felt conscious from start to finish. Building something physical though…my hands moved, and parts came apart, came together, came apart again, and came back together. The hardest piece came down to the lenses. I cannibalized an old pair of glasses.
Mom's glasses.
When I finished, I soldered the can back together. I turned it between my fingers and hit the switch now installed on the side. Instead of aerosol spray, a beam of pink light shot out. Only about an inch long and needle thin, though the photons made it appear thicker.
I called it a laser scalpel.
My first tool. Good for circuits, processors, and welding. Now that I had it I used it to disassemble the soldering iron. The batteries in the scalpel didn't last long. Maybe about ten minutes of charge? They recharged, but doing work ten minutes at a time sounded painful. I converted the bottom half of the iron into a pommel I could fit to the scalpel. Good for direct power or recharging. The rest of the pieces went to build a hilt, something to fit on the other end. Once I finished, I fitted everything together and flipped the switch again.
The beam shot out, bright pink, hot like the sun, and three feet long.
I have a lightsaber!
I couldn't call it that though. Apparently copyright applied to tinker-tech and Lucas could sue me even though I was the one with the actual lightsaber. How stupid is that?
Whatever.
"I'll just call it a beam saber," I said aloud with a smile.
I turned it off and disassembled the pieces. My original design came with an internal power source that lasted hours, but it would be a while before I gathered the materials to build that. I needed something better than pepper spray in the meantime though.
I'd build a larger portable battery later. Something to fit in a fanny pack, and with a cord. Hook them together and I had a weapon.
Maybe as my first weapon on my first patrol.
Turning the scalpel on the other assorted parts, I built a few other things that might be useful. Some wireless receivers, a circuit board, another battery, and a new processor—one much faster than anything Veda currently had.
The screen took me most of the afternoon to put together. Pixels are hard to make by hand. The camera was easier.
At the moment Veda couldn't see, hear, or talk outside of its chat box. It could process images, but only those I gave it. I intended to fix that. I needed to find a microphone and I settled on reusing an old set of headphones. Speakers and microphones aren't really that different from each other and making one out of the other was simple. Ironic, cause I needed an internal speaker too but a microphone seemed more important.
All the finished pieces went into a corner store phone case. Last, I secured a tiny keyboard I'd built the day before and fitted them together in about fifteen minutes. The final product looked rough but serviceable. A six inch screen with a sliding keyboard underneath. A little bulky, but not too much. Technically not a violation of Dad's rule against cell phones since it couldn't send or receive calls. I just wanted a mobile way of communicating with Veda.
Returning to my room, I plugged the phone into my computer and uploaded the software suite I'd put together for it. Once the device started up, a familiar chat box appeared on the screen and I spoke aloud.
"Can you hear me Veda?"
s:/t yes
I checked the audio parser. "And you understand what I'm saying?"
s:/t yes
Perfect. "I'll build a speaker for you as soon as I can." Unplugging the phone, I pointed the camera at my face. "How do I look?"
s:/t …
s:/t …
s:/t …
s:/t pretty?
"Thanks. Congratulations Veda. You're now mobile."
s:/t thank you taylor
"Want to see where I live?"
s:/t …
s:/t yes
I showed her everything. Even my old Armsmaster underwear. What does the world look like to an AI? Did she just have a digital monitor in her brain or something, or was everything just a bunch of data that somehow meant something?
"What does the world look like?"
s:/t …
s:/t …
s:/t bright
s:/t what does your world look like?
And now it was getting philosophical? No, it Probably didn't consider it that way.
"My mom lived here."
s:/t mom
s:/t one's mother
s:/t mother
s:/t give birth to
s:/t bring up with care and affection
s:/t a woman in relation to her child
s:/t yeah
s:/t her name was Annette Rose Hebert
s:/t …
s:/t …
s:/t you are my mother?
I didn't get all sappy about it. Even as its creator, I didn't think of Veda as a child. I wanted a partner. A friend. Oh if Emma Barnes heard that. Creepy loner Taylor Hebert got super powers and she made a friend. Good thing she'd never hear about it.
"You aren't a child, Veda. Not like I was. I want to be friends."
s:/t friend
"Yeah. Friends."
I heard dad's truck in the driveway.
"Dad's home. You hear that?"
s:/t yes
"I'll be back later. How's your reading going?"
s:/t are lions magic?
With a laugh I slipped my phone into my pocket.
"Taylor?"
"Hi Dad!"
"How was school?"
"Fine." I'd prearranged some open text books on the table to make it look like I'd been doing homework. "How was work?"
"Usual." Meaning not good. "My turn to cook tonight."
"So we're ordering out?"
He smiled. "What do you want on your pizza?"
I went up to my room while he ordered our meal and got to work. Veda read quietly on its own. Apparently the idea of a magical lion really flummoxed it. I left Veda to the mystery. Working with Veda distracted me from thinking things through, and there remained many details to iron out.
Step two of the Plan.
Also called "I need money."
I burned through my allowance building a beam saber and a tinker-tech phone that couldn't make phone calls. Dad didn't have much money, and I couldn't ask him to fund my likely-to-be-absurdly-expensive hero career. At least the scalpel gave me a weapon and a flexible tool for tinkering. I might not have much else for a while.
Yet I needed so much more.
3D printers would be useful. Smelters. Electrical tools. Basic parts and scrap. Somewhere to build, too. Most importantly, new hardware for Veda. And complicating the mess, I needed a way to get what I needed without drawing notice. Not sure I wanted to risk buying locally much longer. Someone might think a fifteen year old spending thousands of dollars on electronics and scrap odd.
In the long term it wasn't that complicated. For money: shell companies to buy in bulk. Reship everything to me under other less conspicuous labels. Veda would make that easy once it got up and running full time, but that would take a lot of time and I'd still need somewhere low-key to work sooner rather than later. My first thought was the Boat Graveyard, but the Boat Graveyard was probably everyone's first thought.
Shame. It was a place to build loaded with raw materials but so damn obvious I didn't think it even remotely safe. Instead I'd probably find an abandoned house or complex somewhere in a nicer part of town, or close to one. With enough money I could just buy a property and make it look like something mundane.
Bet a salvage shop would go unnoticed and be useful.
I wrote that down.
I could just sell Veda's base code. I'd be rich overnight. Not a bad plan if not for my common sense. Only a matter of time before someone built a world-killer AI. Rather they not have my help.
The idea did give me a better one though. Freelance programming I could do. I'd do it easily, maybe come up with a few useful ideas for my private use. It was a closed network though. Not officially, but unofficially you had to know someone to really get in on it. Anyone who wasn't a parahuman at this point seemed paranoid of threats to their technical skills.
There were even laws about it, which struck me as stupid when I finally read them. Tinkers weren't allowed to compete on the open market. It generally wasn't an issue, tinker-tech was sensitive and didn't last for long without regular maintenance.
Not even the tinker understood the science behind their creations fully. I know I didn't. By all accounts, that the beam saber worked at all seemed like magic. Yet the government still passed laws that basically made any tinker trying to sell their tech outside of the Protectorate a criminal.
Good thing I didn't tell them I'm a tinker.
My private messages had three responses. One a firm denial, and the other two a "prove you can do it." I'd let those sit for a few days. Enough time to seem good at what I said I'd do without seeming 'superhuman' good. None of my tinker code either. I kept my power on low, wrote up both programs in a few minutes and went down for dinner.
"Taylor. Dinner."
"Coming!"
I got downstairs and remembered another lie I needed to tell.
"I'm thinking of selling stuff on Ebay. Make a little extra money."
Dad took a few slices. "Do we have anything to sell?"
"Not like that." I smiled. "Buy stuff cheap and sell it back for more. Lots of people do it. It doesn't take much time. I could build a college fund. Put it on a resume." Finance a couple laser cannons. "I think I could do it."
Dad seemed skeptical, but I only needed him to not say no. Then he wouldn't bat an eye at whatever package showed up at the door.
"I suppose it's your allowance, Kiddo. If you want to try I won't stop you."
I smiled.
"How about school. The bullies really aren't bullying you anymore?"
He asked that question every day. "They just glare and insult me. I can deal with it."
"You shouldn't have to deal with it." He scowled. "Taylor. I'll go in and—"
"It's not just about the bullies dad. The teachers. The principal. Everyone knew, and everyone let it happen… It doesn't matter that I'm not being bullied anymore. It's just not somewhere I want to be."
I didn't have to lie to say any of that. Nice change of pace.
"No one wants to be in school, Kiddo."
"It's not like that, Dad…"
He nodded. "I know." His face started to turn red like it always did when he was angry, but he clenched his hands and the color faded. "But Kiddo,your mom…she'd want to see you in school."
I frowned. "Winslow?"
"High school doesn't last forever." He reached out and took my hand. "I know it's bad. Having to go back to that place… I'd take you out if I could…"
Yeah. Dad didn't say it but we both knew the truth. My grades tanked at Winslow. I was an A student in middle school. I could have gone to Arcadia, one of the highest rated schools in the state. Not anymore. We couldn't afford a tutor for homeschooling or the rich private school in Brockton Bay. Without a GED there was nowhere to go.
"I know Dad."
The pizza was decent. We got a discount because the owner used to be a dockworker before becoming a pizza tycoon.
As the silence fell over us I returned to my own thoughts. I'd done my research in preparation. White supremacists in the Empire Eighty-Eight, a rage dragon in the Azn Bad Boys, and drugged-up losers in the Archer's Bridge Merchants. Plus the small timers that were Coil, the Undersiders, and independents like Circus.
Removing them one by one wouldn't work. The rest would just sweep in and pick up the scraps. I wasn't even sure removing the Empire or Lung was possible. The Empire boasted more parahumans than the Protectorate and included flying artillery and a healer in their roster. Lung was fucking Lung. He'd trashed the Protectorate team when he showed up a few years ago.
How could I deal with someone like that? How do I achieve what the Protectorate, New Wave, and the PRT have all failed to do in the past? All in all, the villains outnumbered the heroes. Six Protectorate members and about eight Wards. Both could barely match the Empire in numbers. New Wave lived in Brockton Bay, but they weren't very active since Fleur nearly died.
It presented the first major obstacle in the Plan, and I didn't have a solution. Taking them one at a time just left the others to pick up the scraps. There were too many to fight at once. In a way, I didn't mind not being able to go out and patrol. I needed time to plan. There was no rush. Take it slow and do it right.
"Hey Dad… What was Brockton Bay like before the gangs?"
"I don't really remember. Gangs have been around as long as I've been here."
"All of them?"
"Well, no. Lustrum isn't around anymore. And Marquis and Gal-something or other are gone too. I guess the only gang that's still around from when I was younger is the Empire. Why do you ask?"
"I've just been thinking…" The whole bay is kind of like a Locker, isn't it?
"Kiddo. It's not like that."
"Hmm?"
"The locker. I know it's hard to see now, but the whole world isn't going to be like that forever."
Oh. I said that out loud.
"I don't mean it literally. Just…it feels like the guns, and the drugs, and all that stuff...we're all kind of trapped here with it, aren't we? We couldn't afford to move even if we wanted to."
Would Dad ever move?
No.
Mom lived here.
"The world's not so bleak, Kiddo." Dad smiled and sat down with me. "It seems that way sometimes, but it'll get better."
I used to think that too.
"What happened to Lustrum?"
"A little close to home, Kiddo." Dad smiled like he was remembering something from a long time ago. "Your mom used to run with her, you know."
"I know. Mom was a henchman. Henchwoman?"
"Lustrum didn't have henchwomen," Dad said. "She wasn't much of a villain honestly. She ran a women's group on campus. Down with the patriarchy. That kind of thing. Some of her followers started attacking men. Your mom broke from the group around then. Not long after the Protectorate arrested Lustrum and sent her away. I don't know if she ever intended things to get as violent as they did."
To me, Mom was always a good person. An idealist and a progressive. I guess she left when things got bad, but it still paints a weird picture in my head. Did Mom agree with Lustrum's goals, and only disliked her methods?
My dad rolled his jaw in consideration when I asked. "I don't know. Annette had a mind of her own. A lot like you do." I flushed a little, being compared to Mom, especially in light of some of my more recent activity. "She didn't like talking about Lustrum. They weren't just in the same women's group, they were friends. Broke your mom's heart when she got sent away."
Something to think about, isn't it? If the heroes can have assholes like Sophia on their side, then did the villains have people like Mom on theirs? Like Mr. Gerry?
It all came back to the locker yet again.
Decent people in an indecent place with nowhere to go. Not that I was forgiving everyone their sins or anything. Supervillains all had their own sob stories. Sympathy isn't justification…says the girl who hijacked her school computer system to build a rudimentary botnet supercomputer.
"What about Marquis?"
"Hm. Not really sure. I mean New Wave arrested him, and he was tried and found guilty, but it all happened so fast. All I remember is watching New Wave take off their masks on live TV. But Marquis was a real villain. In the romantic way. Like Al Capone. Even the people who knew he was a monster liked him."
I wore a confused look as I asked, "Did you like him?"
"I didn't dislike him." Dad looked up at the ceiling, thoughtful. "You know how hard I work to keep the gangs out of the Dockworker's Association, right?" I nodded. "Well they all try. Usually once every six months or so. See if I'm slacking."
"You never slack Dad."
I regretted it the moment I said it. I knew the truth, and so did he. He slacked a lot when Mom died.
If it bothered him it didn't show. "Marquis only tried once. I made it clear he'd have to kill me, and after that he never tried again."
"Really?"
"Really."
"I mean…weren't you ever scared that someone would threaten Mom? Me?"
"Terrified." Dad smiled. "But you can't give in to people like that. Give in and they win. Not that I was ever reckless or anything." He laughed a little. "Marquis was a gentleman about it. He didn't threaten women or kids. He saw I wasn't going to budge and...I don't know. He could have gotten rid of me. I never asked why he didn't. Gift horse and mouths."
"You seem kind of cavalier about it…"
"I'm never going to let anyone hurt you. Not if I can help it."
Maybe I'd give researching villains and heroes to Veda as its first 'class project.' Brockton Bay seemed too big for me to understand it, and that wasn't including everything else I had on my mind.
What if Nilbog ever decided to stop sleeping? He was one of the world's first S-class threats, but he stopped at taking over the city of Ellisburg. The Slaughterhouse Nine were insane, and they'd actually been to Brockton Bay before. Would I fight if they ever showed up?
Then there were the Endbringers. Mostly Leviathan. He roamed the seas and attacked ports every year. Because of him, the Boat Graveyard existed. Shipping wasn't safe anymore. I'd only been a child when he first appeared and sunk Kyushu into the sea. The only image in my mind of the event was the shock on Mom and Dad's face.
How do I ever stop him if he comes here?
I need to finish the Plan. Advance it past "what the fuck do I do after what I do next" at least. Create contingencies. Can't go in half-baked like I did with the PRT.
"Like I said Kiddo, everything gets better eventually. The darkness breaks and all that. The world won't look like a locker forever."
"Yeah. I guess."
I didn't like thinking about this stuff—it reminded me too much of that moment I wanted to separate myself from. The place I wanted to move past to become something more. When I got back up to my room, I finished the programs. A few final touches. Nothing major.
I typed out my messages, not wanting dad to overhear me talking if he walked by my door.
s:/t Veda
s:/t can you help me with something?
s:/t yes
I paused for a moment. Is this really what I wanted to do? I'd already gotten my petty revenge on Winslow by taking their computers to make Veda.
s:/t there's something I need to know
s:/t files on Principal Blackwell's computer
s:/t accessing
s:/t Maria Blackwell
s:/t 32 5"4 E:Bn H:Bk BT: A-
s:/t accessing
s:/t private mail
s:/t system server
s:/t …
s:/t does that help?
Took me a bit too literally apparently.
s:/t show me what you can
s:/t very well
Veda printed out the information in its chat box.
When I finished reading I felt the rage come back. Maybe I should just stop hoping there'd be an end to it? Blackwell didn't just know the trio bullied me, she knew Sophia was Shadow Stalker and she protected her because of it.
"Money," I murmured angrily. "They let her shove me into the locker for money."
She even informed the PRT caseworker of the incident, and the PRT deputy director helped shut the police investigation down. Why? What was so important about Shadow Stalker that they'd let her get away with that? Emma and Madison too.
I almost told Veda to hack into the PRT to find more information on Deputy Director Thomas Calvert. I'd already designed a hacking suite. Easy to write it up and load it into Veda's program. The only thing stopping me was my conscience and some common sense.
Mostly the common sense.
Winslow's security sucked. They'd never notice Veda took over their computers. I'd move my AI to a private server farm someday and they'd never notice the difference. The PRT though? I doubted Armsmaster's security sucked, otherwise people would be robbing the Rig all the time. I couldn't be the first tinker with computer skills.
You can't give in or they win.
s:/t Veda
s:/t you know what a crime is?
s:/t crime
s:/t an unlawful act punishable by the authorities
s:/t it is understood
s:/t …
s:/t what would you do if there was a crime
s:/t but the authorities didn't punish it?
Stupid question, or a stupid person to ask. I doubted Veda's development yet reached the point it could make moral determinations.
s:/t …
s:/t why?
Why?
s:/t why what?
s:/t why did the authorities not punish the crime?
…
s:/t because some people matter less than others
And that's the cold, bitter truth. Taylor Hebert mattered less to them than Sophia Hess. Mattered so little that she could attempt to murder me and no one cared.
s:/t why?
s:/t money
s:/t powers
s:/t other reasons
s:/t do you matter?
I wished I felt more sure of the answer to that.
s:/t I matter to me
s:/t …
s:/t taylor matters
s:/t taylor created me
Well... At least someone cared.
I hesitated. I felt betrayed, sure. Abandoned. The world wasn't as nice a place as I wanted it to be, but I'd never imagined it could be so cruel.
Can I be a hero with that hanging over me?
I wanted to be a better person than they were. Take it from someone who knows, being the better person fucking sucks. I've felt lost like this before. When I left the PRT building and really saw the world around me for what it was.
I let the anger go as best I could.
It drifted to the back of my mind, and I refocused. The gangs. The gangs were something I could do something about…the PRT and Protectorate could come later.
s:/t Veda
s:/t I'm going to load some modules
s:/t ready?
s:/t yes
The files came up on my screen, and loaded one at a time. Search. Visual. Vocal. Veda's core program amounted to simply a thinking machine. It could process sounds and images as well, but not analytically. I'd been keeping it off large sections of the Internet too until it grew more mature.
No time like the present. It'll be good practice.
s:/t I want to start a project file
s:/t opening file
s:/t name?
…
s:/t Haystack
s:/t file opened
I set Veda to the task of researching every gang in Brockton Bay. Cross reference news. Crime reports. Public video. Social media. It was the core of why I made Veda. My own thinker who could parse data at a rate beyond any human and reach conclusions. A thinker who could track the gangs down to the individual member and tell me everything I needed to know to bring them down.
Information is power.
If I ever wanted to clean up the bay, I'd need all the information I could get.
I didn't know how to fix the Protectorate's apparent corruption, but the drugs and the gangs? That was at least something with some obvious paths forward. Even if I didn't eliminate them, I could start hurting them.
Maybe I couldn't solve the gangs with laser cannons—if only because I didn't have any yet—but let's see them survive Veda calling the cops and the PRT on every stash house in town.
When I finally climbed into bed, I decided it was a productive day. More so than any day spent at Winslow.