Step 1.5

Almost an hour later I found the driveway empty.

I figured Dad was still back at the mall, or somewhere nearby, looking for me. Probably scared out of his mind thinking I got hurt when I was really at home. I might have doubled back after dumping the shirt-mask, but no. Showing my face in the same clothes as the new tinker was asking for trouble.

This way at least I got the chance to change my clothes and hide my injury.

My very painful—aching please make it stop—injury that only got worse after an hour of walking.

I turned the lights on. Hopefully Dad would see them when he came home and realized I was okay. My bloody pants went in the bin out back under last night's trash. I wanted to shower to wash off the blood, but looking at the stitches in my thigh I stopped before stepping under the water.

"Veda. Can I shower with stitches?" I didn't remember the guy in the ambulance saying anything. Armsmaster basically chased him off, and then I ran off.

"Web MD suggests keeping fresh stitches dry for twenty-four hours."

Medical advice from the Internet. I didn't bother questioning it, too tired. I'd have that talk about not believing everything on the Internet with Veda in the morning.

Instead of a shower, I wet a washcloth and scrubbed myself before dunking my head under the shower head and cleaning my hair. Veda suggested replacing the gauze around my wound, but the family first aid kit as it turns out didn't have any. Our pinkies were well covered though.

When I finally returned downstairs in fresh clothes I…realized I didn't know what to do. What does a hero do after helping people and catching bad guys? I never thought about it before. Not that I exactly did much, but Veda pulled the weight and I made Veda. I figured I deserved some credit.

Going home from a day of heroing to kick back with a beer in front of the TV seemed out of place, and not just because I wasn't old enough to drink yet.

Read a book? I liked reading, and wow I hadn't read any books in a while. Too busy working with Veda or planning. After leaving Winslow behind I left homework behind, so no work there to occupy my time. Didn't have any friends other than Veda…

Despite my elation at Uber and Leet's capture, and the hand I played in it however small, I felt listless. The whole incident only lasted fifteen minutes in total. Another twenty or so before Aegis found me. Half an hour to completely throw me out of whatever plans I had. Positive into a negative?

No amount of planning will let your plan survive contact with the enemy. Important lesson in that. I sort of knew that from the start, but knowing and experiencing are two different things.

Turning to the kitchen I remembered.

My turn to cook.

I started the stove and got working on some pasta. I expected Dad to freak out completely whenever he got back, even after finding me safe. The past two months however taught me plenty of ways to avoid thinking of my problems. While mixing in the sauce ingredients my mind traveled back to Armsmaster, or rather, the matter he brought up that worried me.

"Veda." I set my phone on the counter by the stove. "Is there any way to tell if anyone recorded my face on a cell phone?"

"Unable to determine. I deleted all security camera footage."

"Yeah. You did good… I just didn't think about cell phones until Armsmaster mentioned it."

"Is that bad?"

"If someone notices that the unmasked skinny girl is wearing the same clothes as the tinker with a shirt wrapped around her head, yeah. Wait."

"It is illegal to reveal a hero's identity."

"People still do it Veda. The Internet is a big place… Are you still blocking Uber and Leet's stuff? Their website? Servers?"

"Yes."

Damn. I didn't know a lot about denial of service attacks, but keeping one going this long seemed impressive. Two hours…

"Can anyone track your attack to Winslow?"

"Tracers rerouted."

So someone is trying. Hopefully just Leet.

"The ones you know about…cut the attack for now. Uber and Leet are caught. We can leave it be."

"Very well."

"Just have to hope no one has me on a cell phone." The thought terrified me. If my identity got leaked, the PRT and Protectorate might be my only choice. I couldn't put Dad at risk. "How did you do all that by the way? I never installed a hacking suite for you. Did you code all that by yourself?"

"No."

"No? You just did it?"

"Yes."

It was possible. Modules I put together gave Veda abilities it didn't already have, but there's no reason to think it couldn't develop new abilities on its own. That was the whole point of AI right there. Apparently that included developing new skills it didn't even know about.

"Should I not?"

Should it? Uber and Leet were hurting people, I decided, and I said as much.

"I wanted to help you," Veda said.

"You did. You stopped Uber and Leet's computers from working, and that let the Protectorate catch them." At least they can do something right. "You did the right thing. You're a hero, Veda."

"A hero?"

"Yep." That sense of pride and terror came back up. "But maybe, just to be safe you should run things like that by me before you do them."

"To protect people?"

"Yeah. Uber and Leet deserved it, but I'd rather you didn't hack the cops just because I got arrested for having particle weapons or something." Does the second amendment cover beam projectors? I can look that up.

"Setting… You are not angry?"

"Why would I be? I knew you'd start coding yourself eventually. Didn't think you'd grown that much."

"I've grown?"

"Mhm.

I'd just started making the pasta when the engine pulled up in the driveway. "Dad's here."

"Understood."

I almost forgot to slip the phone into my pocket as the door opened. "Hey Dad."

"Taylor?!" My teeth slammed together when he tackled me, the pain in my leg biting anew after walking home. "I tried finding yo—what happened are you alright?"

"Yesh."

"You're alright?"

"Canth breeth."

He pulled back, finally giving me a chance to breathe. I inhaled, trying to remember the last time he hugged me that hard. Not the hospital. Before Mom died?

"I'm fine, Dad."

His face turned red, but not in the way it got when he worried. Despite only two or so hours passing, he looked like a man who hadn't slept in days. Ragged, worn down, bloodshot eyes, and his thinning hair looked a little wild.

"I-I ran outside before Uber and Leet locked everyone else in. There was nothing I could do and I kind of just freaked out and came home."

I think the smile worked. For all of ten seconds.

"What happened to your leg!?"

The smile faltered. Turning my gaze down, I saw a red stain on my pants. "Um. Nothing?"

"Your leg is bleeding, Taylor!"

He closed the door and sat me down on the couch. "It's fine, Dad. Really. The guy in the ambulance said I was going to be fine. It's already stitched up."

And now he looked angry. "So you lied about running out?"

"No… I just kind of ran after the robots blocking the doors got turned off instead of before." The words sounded so unconvincing I figured he'd call me on it immediately. Thankfully my dad didn't seem to be able to tell the difference between nervous lying teenagers and freaked out and scared teenagers.

"Sit down," he said with a long sigh. "I'll finish the cooking."

"Kay."

It did feel nice to be off my leg.

Dad took over the stirring and draining of the pasta. "Now tell me what happened."

"I was in the Sears buying a camera. For my Ebay stuff. To take pictures with. This big wave of people trying to get out the doors kind of…knocked me into a jewelry display."

He didn't turn away from the stove. "And that's how you got cut?"

"Yeah."

I like to think I abbreviated after that point rather than lied. Easier that way.

"It's not that bad. Honest. The paramedic said I'd be fine. I kind of freaked out at first, but he said that nothing important got cut and I wasn't in any danger. We all hid by the doors together until we could leave."

"And you didn't come find me because?"

"I was scared. I just came home."

"And you didn't have any trouble getting back?"

"No." At least that wasn't a lie. "I'm okay Dad." Putting on a smile, I added, "Never been in the middle of a cape crime before."

Dad got real quiet as he served up plates. When I finally got a good look at his face my heart dropped. I remembered him in the hospital. The look of utter failure he carried. This wasn't that bad, but it was pretty bad.

"Dad…"

His head jerked back and he met my gaze. "I shouldn't have let you go in there alone. This is my fault."

"No it's not. I was fine. I freaked out but I think Uber and Leet were just trying to rob the stores and snatch some purses." And that isn't helping say something else. "There was this new cape. Some girl with a shirt on her head. She pulled out a lightsaber and started slashing up the robots."

That got his attention.

"Y-Yeah. She kind of told this one guy off. I think he was a Blue Cosmos member 'cause he kept giving her the evil eye."

"What's her name?"

"Don't know. Didn't tell us. Never heard of her." And every word of those three sentences sounded like guilty denials. Great acting, Taylor.

"Well at least she isn't a villain. We've got enough of those running around the city." We ate quietly, conversation only resuming as our plates emptied. "If you didn't want to go to school tomorrow I can call in. Today wasn't a very good one."

"N-No. No don't do that. I'm fine really."

"It's alright. I don't mind."

"Dad after the locker, Uber and Leet were barely anything at all. Honestly."

It took more convincing, but I didn't have much choice. If Dad called any of my teachers to excuse me, someone would mention not seeing me in weeks. That Veda's simple trick with the attendance system still covered me was rather damning for Winslow's already damned record. He must have asked if I was "really okay" another five times before I managed to slip upstairs.

"I'm going to get us cell phones."

I paused halfway up the steps, the shock of those words enough to stop my heart. "What?"

"Cell phones," Dad said. "You could have called me. Said you were okay. I could have picked you up." He folded his hands together on the kitchen table, looking poisoned. "You could have called me from the locker and gotten me to come get you."

I didn't register that last one. "But, Mom—"

"Would want you to be safe…and I haven't been keeping you safe."

I just went upstairs after a few seconds of standing there. I didn't oppose the idea. It just shocked me. Hell must be freezing over. Danny Hebert wanted to get a cell phone.

Sitting down at my computer, I quickly distracted myself.

s:/t any trouble?

s:/t no

s:/t Uber and Leet are still in custody

s:/t Chelsea Alcott is reportedly recovering

s:/t The mayor thanks Saber Girl for her help

I blinked.

s:/t Saber Girl?

s:/t that is the name PHO has adopted for you

s:/t Saber Girl

s:/t really?

s:/t other names used include:

s:/t Foil, Riposte, and Chevalier

Foil wasn't bad. Actually why hadn't that one caught on? And who the hell suggested Chevalier? The Protectorate already had a hero by that name. A pretty famous one.

I logged onto PHO to poke around. How long had it been since I last looked at the forums, or the wiki? Since before Veda and the locker, I think. I missed lots of news.

Canary's thread was locked after a whole bunch of people started comparing her to the Simurgh, and then the Blue Cosmos thread got locked for continuing the debate. Apparently Victor and Othala recently got thrown around by some new vigilante in a blue outfit and the Empire fanatics wanted to start another fight about it.

s:/t guess I'm not the only new trigger around

s:/t evidence suggests twelve possibles

s:/t twelve?

s:/t possibles

More than I expected.

s:/t are you tracking them?

s:/t no

s:/t data is tertiary to Haystack

s:/t low priority

Best not to be caught tracking potential heroes.

Saber Girl had her own thread on the Brockton Bay boards. That was… weird. People were talking about me on the Internet. The honor came with comments from a PRT agent thanking me for stepping in and protecting people, and another agent encouraging me to contact the Wards.

Kid Win.

He wanted me to come in and get my power tested. Guess the heroes didn't get the hint. Most of the other posters debated my specialization, a few suggesting I wasn't really a tinker. Most people accepted I was definitely a hero, while others thought I was a vigilante, and a select few theorized my secret life of villainy.

Maybe it's just because I now found myself on the other side of the human-parahuman line, but a lot of the things people said sounded really presumptuous and a little insulting. Void_Cowboy seemed convinced I was actually a Jedi from a galaxy far far away. Someone else thought I was a "fine white woman" and would soon "support my race."

Worst of all, though, were the names.

Other than those Veda mentioned, I saw people call me Discount Vader, Shirt Face, and Mary Slash'n. The second one was already a meme of some kind that read "no one cared who she was till she put on the shirt." Yeah. Saber Girl, definitely the worst of all evils after all.

Some people really have nothing better to do I guess.

I got lost in the forums for a little while. I didn't know it but Dinah's mom was Mayor Christner's sister, and helping her earned me a new best fan. It felt hollow to see the official response from his office. I barely did anything other than sit and hold her hand. A good thing sure, but not really heroic.

Beyond that, I found I really fell behind on the news. The Brockton Bay Protectorate inducted one of the Wards into their ranks a week ago. Some madwoman apparently tried blowing up Cornell University because she got a B. The Mad Bomber's thread reached nearly eight hundred pages in the first nine hours.

When my head broke water, the clock said past midnight.

s:/t I need to pick a cape name

s:/t and it won't be Saber Girl

s:/t tomorrow

s:/t I'm going to go to sleep Veda

s:/t it's been a long day

s:/t here's a few more books for your time

s:/t thank you

I gave it copies of every Percy Jackson novel, and Nancy Drew. Growing up or not, I didn't want Veda reading anything too dark just yet. Terry Cook and Kelly Armstrong could wait till later. Maybe then we'd move on to philosophy and Veda could read back through all the books again and see what it learned.

At its present rate, Veda would be smarter than me sooner rather than later.

I checked on Dad one more time, assured him I was okay again, and got ready for bed. The pain in my leg dulled but continued to disrupt my comfort. The moment I laid down I didn't ever want to get back up again.

"Goodnight Veda."

"Goodnight Taylor."

Sleep didn't come easily. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Fun is not the right word. A little pride. A little satisfaction. Accomplishment? Empowerment. That's the word. After nearly two years of being beaten down by Winslow anything felt like an improvement, but helping the people in the mall felt better than staying at home with Veda, or just tinkering with spare parts.

It's what I wanted since waking up with powers. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to prove the worthless wretch that Emma tried to beat me into didn't exist. Turning on the beam saber and cutting up some robot zombies certainly satisfied that need…

Why do I still feel listless?

Sleep continued to elude me. The floor creaked outside my room—just Dad going to sleep.

Dinah's mom came to mind. Maybe not her so much as how she seemed to represent the entire mess. If I'd been more prepared, more ready, I could have done more. I kept the zombots at bay before anyone really got hurt. With just my beam saber I couldn't do more than I did, let alone the blank shock that left me just stumbling around for a minute or two.

The sense of achievement buried it but the disappointment remained. The sensation as I held a helpless woman's hand that I was not doing enough. Just more plans and schemes and safe plays.

It felt like part of me expected to do more, demanded I take action…and I agreed. I should be doing more, and I should have taken action immediately instead of letting myself get tossed around. What kind of tinker tinkers for two whole months and builds three things?

I can do more than that.

I tried to sleep but the thoughts never left. Sitting up in bed, my head turned to the window.

"I'm stalling…"

Veda piped up in response. "Taylor?"

"I'm stalling. It's been two months and I've barely achieved anything." I considered Veda might be insulted by those words. Did it know how to feel insulted? "Sorry Veda. I'm just—"

"Can I help?"

The smile came in clear with my voice. "Yeah."

Sitting at the computer I yanked a fresh notebook from a drawer. I had filled nearly a dozen with half-baked or incomplete ideas in the past weeks. The way people talk about it, tinkers go stir crazy without tinkering.

I never felt much compulsion to disassemble the toaster or improve the fridge. Developing ideas seemed sufficient to satisfy my needs. I thought I'd just work on some to calm myself down. Not like I could do much with what little money and material I had on hand.

Nearly every tinker in the world, hero or villain, built power armor. I focused on that, namely developing a design superior to all the others I toyed with. Turning to my power, I thought of exactly what I wanted. Armored. Flexible. Not boxed in to any particular situation or strategy. Brockton Bay's villains were too numerous and diverse. Modularity? Overcomplicated, but I needed flexibility. Something basic but strong. Oh, and flight.

I always wanted to fly.

My power took the thoughts and started churning. Hands moved, pencil sketching out line and formula. Code followed, and alterations. The structure that took shape on the page pleased me. Strong geometric lines. A little imposing, but Alexandria did the imposing hero thing. Why not me?

s:/t Veda

s:/t can you run some numbers

s:/t processing

Other ideas came as I worked. Armsmaster might be an ass, but he wasn't wrong about the beam saber. Eviscerating people isn't exactly what I had in mind. I needed something like it for brutes probably. Hookwolf and Lung if they ever came after me…but why not something I could use against a brute or a non-brute?

Blades with dulled edges. No particles, just a blunt edge. With GN particles, sharp. Anti-brute and non-brute with the flip of a button.

I jotted down rough sketches of those ideas and set them aside. The armor mattered more.

s:/t processing complete

s:/t here's some more

s:/t processing

I kept the basic components simple. Compact servos and nano-mesh weaves for strength. E-Carbon frame for durability and particle-infused plates for armor. A harness for the solar furnace. I needed something to direct the particles. Antenna? Helmet with vents for filtering air. Flight came easily. Gravity negating particles. GN particles. Good enough name, I guess. Harness baryon decay to provide power in the furnace itself.

GN Drive. Build the solar furnace and the flight system into a singular module. A flywheel to generate thrust.

The longer I worked at it the more excited I became. In essence it was a simple design. Maybe overly simplistic, but it was flexible. Generalized for utility, and dynamic in the way I could build on it over time.

The finished design ended up stretching over a dozen pages.

Beautiful.

I could build it. Technical concerns accounted for, the materials weren't too demanding. Buckets of sand and the right fabrication system could do nearly all the work. It needed a zero gravity environment to kick start the solar furnace, but that could be simulated.

Whatever rigging I built only needed to last a second or two. Funnel the GN particles back into the system to maintain the effect. A self feeding loop with a cut off. A few rare earth metals. Pricey but not too pricey, and a couple rare alloys—

I slammed the notebook down and groaned.

And I still don't have half of what I need!

A simpler design? I dismissed that thought. Call it selfish but I liked this one. The others might be impressive in their own ways but they felt too basic. Generic. Nothing that set them apart. I liked what I saw in front of me, and the dread started clawing at my chest as I found no recourse from my inability to build it.

I envied Leet. Isn't that a pleasant emotion? Leet of all people. He somehow managed to produce a literal army of stick robots for a damn Internet video. All in all, he couldn't possibly make that much money by robbing everyone in the mall or from his subscribers.

He must have a way of making the things cheap. Armsmaster mentioned a machine. A machine that builds robots. Clever.

What I could do with that sort of—

…

No. No that's crazy…

I kept my voice a low whisper. Veda would hear it, no matter how quiet. "Veda."

Veda matched my volume, which I found much harder to hear. "Yes?"

"Uber and Leet got caught today. Have they been caught before?"

A few seconds passed. "Yes."

This is such a bad idea.

"When?"

"In 2007 and 2009 on various charges."

"Then they broke out of custody?"

"Yes."

Then they might break out again. Veda pulled up the files when I asked and what I found surprised me. "It's like the Protectorate and PRT want them to escape…"

No cape escort during their first escape. Leet used a bomb to break out of the transport trucks taking them to court. The second, they wound up in a minimum security prison and Uber pulled some disguise thing and they walked out. Made sense. He could master any skill he put his mind to. Why not learn to be an expert actor?

They escaped twice. They might again.

"How long did it take them to escape the first time?"

"Nine days."

"And the second?"

"Twenty-one days."

So did the heroes learn a lesson from the first time? Maybe they won't break out this time.

"Veda, can you break back into their servers without being noticed?"

Drawing up my keyboard, I started looking through the lines of code Veda added to itself. Cleaning the algorithms a bit, helped streamline the process.

"What is that?"

"The firewall."

I waited. Nothing happened. "Can you get through?"

"It is different from before."

"Adaptive?"

"Probable."

I made a few more changes. Then some more. And more after that. The system tried to trace the attempted intrusions, but Veda kept sending the trail off and far away. Maybe with someone behind the controls they'd be able to do more, but the system clearly wasn't intended to function under attack while unattended.

I noticed the servers routed through Uber and Leet's website to help mask itself. Another DDoS attack knocked that little trick out. An hour later Veda broke right in and started looking around again. Everything it found went up on the monitor for me to review.

The smile that came over my face was slow but wide.

"He has everything I need. Here." Despite Veda lacking the ability to see, I pointed at the screen. "This is an inventory. All his spare parts. Scrapped projects and ideas. Tools. Maintenance schedule. Detailed notes on his projects… What?"

I examined his notes more closely. Leet held the reputation of a joke villain in large part because his inventions tended to explode on him. People called him lazy or half baked. Lots of other things, but the basic assumption said Leet was lazy or stupid.

His notes however told a completely different story. Detailed reports and examinations. Simulations. A veritable skill tree of interrelated tinker devices and blueprints identifying parts individually and their risk of failure. Leet's stuff didn't explode because of shoddy construction. His power came with the absurd limit of everything being one of a kind! My jaw slackened at that.

"He's a genius. He's a genius and his power is screwing him."

I felt bad for him. How many ideas did he burn out before even realizing the limit? A machine to build robots made a lot more sense. If he could only build things once before they started becoming fire hazards, a machine that built machines got around the limitation.

"This is…sad."

"Do you have this limit Taylor?"

"No! I mean—No. No… I hope…" I never tried building anything twice. "I'll find out. Soon as I can."

The thought frightened me. Dragon famously built hordes of suits, and Armsmaster supposedly kept an entire armory of halberds on the Rig. Being forced to build things just once at risk of explosion on subsequent attempts couldn't be common.

I pushed that from my mind and focused. Nothing I could do about it at the moment anyway. "How much money do they have?"

"Four thousand two hundred nine dollars, and forty-two cents."

"That's it?" I didn't expect much but that seemed rather low. "And they keep it all in one bank? I was hoping for…more."

"You intend to take it?"

"I could use it."

"Would Uber and Leet not want their money back?"

"What are they going to do? Call the cops?"

No way Leet afforded everything I saw in his inventory on barely anymore money than I had. I didn't see any other documentation though. They protected their money somehow. Kept it somewhere they probably didn't put on a computer.

"Stealing is a crime," Veda said.

"Not when you steal from supervillains… well okay I think that's still a crime but I'm going to do it anyway." Remembering my thoughts before Dad picked me up at Winslow, I added, "But if you don't want to break the law, that's okay, Veda. I'll handle it myself."

"I will help."

"If that's what you want."

Nine to twenty-one days. If Uber and Leet broke out, I guessed I had at least a week. At most a month. The plan for the money came easily. Open accounts at a few different banks and have Veda transfer Uber and Leet's money to them, then empty the accounts with money orders and close them. Even if Uber and Leet found the accounts they wouldn't be able to find me.

Four thousand dollars I didn't have before helps with the money problem.

"They keep everything in one place. Can you find out where it is? Where is the server located?"

"Cleveland, Ohio."

"I don't see a reference in any of these files to an address… What does Haystack have for Uber and Leet." I hesitated. "Are they in Level Seven?"

"No."

And the data in Haystack didn't tell me enough. "What about Gerry. Gerry…"

"Gerry Douglas?"

"Yeah, him. What does Haystack have on him now?"

"Searching."

The monitor became a map of Brockton Bay. Bit by bit, pins appeared on the streets. Most people didn't know but social media tended to geo-locate when you posted on it. Well the entire Internet did, but social media occupied a unique position in how frequently people posted. Plus the companies that ran most social media sites sold the data, and it didn't take much effort to get, even without paying for it. Makes it real easy to map out some stranger's life with the right software.

Unfortunately Gerry wasn't a prolific social media user.

"Do we have any other potential henchmen working for Uber and Leet?"

"No other data is available."

I weighed the options, but I didn't see another route. Leet's workshop contained everything I needed and more. "Veda…are you willing to hack into the cell towers around the city?" Pulling up Gerry's page, I found his phone number right on it. "We can use them to figure out where he's been making calls. Getting texts."

"Yes." I nodded and let Veda work. Cell towers referred signals for every phone call. Once connected to them, it didn't take long to discretely enter the phone company servers.

The sense that the Protectorate might kick down my door any moment returned. I didn't plan on hurting anyone, but hacking into AT&T definitely counted as a crime. A victimless one, the way I went about it, but still.

"Complete."

"Map the data through Haystack."

Gerry got around, but mostly stayed in the docks. Outside the docks he frequented three areas of Brockton Bay regularly. A bank branch around Captain's Hill. Guy probably cashed his checks there. Maybe Uber and Leet's too? Worth looking into. Had to be more money somewhere and I felt no qualms about ripping off supervillains.

The second site was one of Hookwolf's fighting rings. Veda tracked it through some not-so-discrete IRC channels low level Empire members used a week before. So Gerry went to a racist's fight ring. Not what I wanted.

That left another building in Captain's Hill. An old apartment complex listed as abandoned, or at least with no residents.

"That's it Veda. Uber and Leet either keep their stuff there or something that might lead us to it."

Probably with security. Security they kept separate from the server Veda accessed. Probably a closed network. It's what I'd do, and Leet's notes showed a far smarter tinker than anyone thought.

Nine to twenty-one days. Set up some accounts, make a few gadgets… I jotted down some quick ideas. Something to open doors. A device to disable security systems. I scratched that one out and instead designed an upgrade for my tinker-tech phone. Veda might need a hard line, but once I got it inside it could disable any security.

Henchmen? Something less lethal than my beam saber. Transportation. Best not to hedge all my bets on Uber and Leet staying in their cells forever.

Straightforward. Take what I need and anything else I can carry. In and out.

"I need an abandoned building, Veda. Somewhere the gangs aren't active." I looked over the results, again pointing at the screen. "There. That'll work. The old auto shop at Wallace."

Veda brought up an image of the building for me, and a listing. Old Sal's went on the market seven years ago but no one wanted to buy it. It wasn't even that expensive. Easy to move in and start using it, then pay for it later. Wallace street ran between Merchant and ABB territory, but off to the side a little.

Neither gang spent much time in that area. There was a police station on one end and abandoned apartments on the other. No point fighting over corners that couldn't make any money.

Best of all, the trip there from my house took twenty minutes, and didn't cross through any streets the ABB liked to hang around.

Slip over during my morning run and break a lock. Make sure it's abandoned.

"I'm going to need a stun gun, Veda…and a big van."

We went over a few more details before I noticed the sun coming up.

I'd been up all night. Felt like I'd be doing that a lot soon. The night gone and done, I rose to run. Dressing just took a minute. Before leaving, I looked over my armor design one more time. I could get Veda to start a file on it. It needed a name. A generalized utility based design I could take any number of ways?

General utility nonlinear dynamic assistance module?

I tapped my pencil against the page.

I'm going to need an acronym for that.