Step 1.7

The device looked complex, but without opening it up the function eluded me. In any other lair I'd probably be dead already. I couldn't really see Hookwolf or Hellhound backing down because I happened to have a whateveritis in hand.

Only at Uber and Leet's hideout.

Across from me Throaty and Nasally, rather Larry and JP as they'd introduced themselves, stood warily. I was admittedly distracted.

Their focus shifted between the orb in my hand and the stairs every few seconds. Shoulders and Skinny groaned behind me. I might have overdone the charge on the stun gun but I couldn't feel guilty about that.

I did feel guilty about putting Leet's work tables between my back and the stairs. And I threw my stun gun away, leaving me with just the beam saber. Cutting people up is not a good way to start a hero career. The gun lay against the wall in the opposite direction of escape.

Stupid.

Larry motioned his hands at me. "Let's just put it down."

I worked my jaw around, considering. I never imagined such a bizarre turn in my first henchmen fight. I felt off balance, just like at the mall, again. "I, um, I think I'll hold on to it?"

"I'd really rather you didn't."

I started backing out towards the stairs, moving around the edge of the table. JP maintained a distance but mirrored my movements. I glanced nervously at Shoulders and Skinny. The latter remained spread out on the ground groaning, but Shoulders' hands pushed on either side of him. He rose slowly, head listing from side to side.

I couldn't tell if whatever I held was simply valuable, or dangerous. "Why?"

"Just trust me."

"I don't?"

Their attitude didn't help with my confusion. Henchmen are supposed to be big scary thugs who do whatever the supervillain tells them. Larry and JP reminded me of Greg Veder with an extra ten years of awkwardness behind him. Worse, I couldn't tell who was more nervous, me or them.

Wait a sec…

"Do you guys know anyone named Greg?"

I saw him in the mall not that long before the attack. He could be a henchman—Or. No. No way in hell Greg is a cape.

"Who's Greg?"

That's a relief.

I decided not to ponder the chance he lied.

We all stood there awkwardly. I brandished my saber in Shoulders' direction. He'd worked himself back onto his feet, and Skinny was starting to rouse. Unlike the two stooges, the guys I'd knocked out with the stun gun looked like henchmen. Rough looking types with scowls plastered permanently on their faces.

"It's better for everyone here if you just put it down," Larry said.

"Does it explode?" I continued edging towards the stairs. The tips of my fingers gripped the orb. I wanted to put it down, but if I did that…

"Well…"

His face told me what I needed to know. "It's a bomb."

"Not technically?"

I gawked. "Is it or isn't it?!"

Larry and JP answered at the same time.

"Yes."

"No."

I glanced between them. "Which is it?!"

"Look. It's not that kind of bomb, okay?"

"Well what kind of bomb is it?!"

Holding a bomb isn't the kind of thrilling I wanted, especially not one of Leet's bombs. If I put it down though they'd rush me, and I tossed my stun gun like a moron. With it, they didn't rush me, but I was stuck holding a bomb!

How did I get into a Mexican standoff with a bomb in my hand?

"Will you please put it down?" JP pleaded. "Leet's been working on the Groovitron for years and if it breaks we will never live it down."

I blinked. "Groovitron?"

"From Ratchet and Clank."

"What—I don't—" I didn't know the game; I assume it was a game. "It's a bomb that makes people what, dance?" Again, their faces answered. "Why?!"

"Because it's awesome?"

"It's stupid!"

"You take that back! Leet is the best!"

"Are you idi—" My voice went hoarse as the realization came over me. Even Uber and Leet must have more competent henchmen than this. "You—You're cape groupies!"

I knew cape groupies were a thing, for heroes and villains. I also knew there were groupies, and then there were groupies. Plenty of talk on PHO about how far some went just to be in the same room as a cape. Every now and then someone got too close to the wrong one and suffered for it. Just last year someone tried to hang out with Hookwolf at a pit fight and got his ass kicked for trying.

They didn't treat my revelation with much notice. I glanced between them, and then to Shoulders. He looked like a tough guy. Someone hired for muscle. Larry and JP however just looked like a pair of geeks. Greg Veder plus a decade.

"Are you guys even henchmen?!"

Shoulders grumbled. On a second look, I realized that despite his size, Shoulders looked nervous too.

"We're henchmen," Larry said.

"Yeah." JP waved his hand. "We just happened to know Uber and Leet before they were Uber and Leet."

I began reassessing my opinion.

A meticulous note taker and inventor he might be, but dragging a bunch of jokers into being henchmen? Leet's choice in associates leaned towards the idiot side of things. I felt mean thinking it. Mean like Emma.

And then I felt nervous that instead of being in the middle of a Mexican standoff with henchmen I was in some fantasy play for a bunch of groupies.

"You're just a bunch of groupies. I'm in a fight with a bunch of groupies."

More than a little anger broke through the nervousness. I spent the past several minutes scared out of my mind that some henchmen might do any number of things to me. Beat me. Shoot me. Worse. Instead they were a bunch of wannabes! They didn't have powers. They didn't have weapons. They didn't even have harsh language to throw my way!

My saber snapped through the air before Larry could even finish the sentence I wasn't listening to. Crazy Taylor came back with a vengeance, shooting scowls around the room. "Alright party is over!"

"Wha—"

"Shut it!" I slammed the orb into the table, causing all three of the standing men to flinch. "What if I was fucking Hookwolf or Victor?"

"Well." JP scratched the back of his head. "You're not Hook—"

"But you didn't know that! Did you even think?! If I were nearly anyone else, you'd either be dead or under arrest!" My head turned to each face in turn, including Skinny. He sat on the floor rubbing his stomach with a pained expression and didn't notice me looking. "You're all idiots!"

I decided to chalk Leet up as some idiot savant right there.

"This is how things are going to go. All four of you are going to get down on your knees, right now!" To my surprise they did exactly what I said. I took some spare wire from a box and tied them all up. "With any luck the cops will go easy on you because you're stupid!"

Once they were secured, and complaining like children, I grabbed my stun gun and reloaded it. A little waving it around got them to shut up. Nothing in the backpack looked broken when I checked. I threw it back over my shoulder and bolted up the stairs.

And then outside I stopped at the door.

I didn't see the trap before. Too much of a rush to get inside. When I yanked the panel off I tripped a little string tied to an analog device. No digital parts. No wireless. Just a hookup into a phone line and a preset number to dial. I felt foolish given it had been right in front of me. A few seconds of poking around and I would have noticed it.

"Stupid."

"Mistakes are made," Veda said.

"I can't make mistakes like this." A sobering lesson. "ABB. Empire. Merchants. They're not Uber and Leet. I trip an alarm with them and they can actually send real thugs to hurt me."

"I can disable most alarms."

"Uber and Leet won't be the only ones running analog things. The ABB and Empire don't have any tinkers, and the Merchants just have Squealer. Her stuff isn't exactly high tech."

More like sturdy low tech that miraculously works.

"We will be more careful in the future."

We. Veda never said 'we' before. "Yeah."

How did it take them three hours to respond anyway?

Their crappy van probably. An old beat up white thing with fresh flame decals on the side, and silver rims on the wheels. Both features clashed with the fading white paint and the company for "Porter's Plumbing" on the side. An oversized fin thing on the back and the trifecta of "trying too hard" ugly cars would be complete.

I felt a little guilty leaving them tied up in the basement. Proud, because wow I threw my foot down and got something done, but still guilty. I chalked it up to "for their own good."

Although….

I wanted a van, and now I had one. They were tied up. I could easily just borrow it. They'd get it back in the end after I finished. I peaked in the window. It's automatic. Would Uber and Leet put a tracking device in their groupie's van? I doubted it, but I popped the hood and poked around the engine anyway.

I blame powers. I never had so many stupid ideas before powers.

I didn't find anything. The hood went down, and I went back inside. I bounced between running and going back in. The choice felt obvious from the start though. I needed materials. Going home with only tools and nothing else felt like defeat. Defeat is a sour thing. I hated it.

Back in I went. A lot easier to be confident when everyone is tied up and non-threatening. It helped that the Henchmen weren't really henchmen.

I didn't struggle to smile.

"Hey Larry. I'm going to make a deal with you."

He looked up from the floor. "What do you want now?"

"Your van."

He balked. "You are not taking the Henchmobile!"

I turned to JP. "Please tell me he doesn't actually call it that."

"He does."

Well I don't feel guilty anymore.

"Consider it a life lesson Larry. Normal people really shouldn't be mixing themselves up in this stuff. I'll dump it somewhere around here in a day or two when I'm done with it. So, where are the keys?"

"They're in his back pocket," Skinny said.

Just where I wanted to reach. After fishing out his keychain I identified the only one with a car company logo on it and took it off. "Don't worry. You guys can keep the dance bomb."

"Groovitron."

"Waste of time and effort. That's what I said." Glancing to the machines along the wall I wondered. "You guys got a dolly or something?"

They did in fact have a dolly. Supply closet second floor.

I considered untying them and making them help me, but they'd either fight like morons or run away. In the end I only had energy to haul four of the heavier machines up. My exercise regimen didn't emphasize upper body strength.

The 3D printers and one of Leet's server towers didn't really weigh as much as they looked, but the fabricator I took weighed a lot. I ended up removing a lot of parts and piling the pieces in a plastic bin. It was easier to haul the rest after removing thirty or forty pounds.

I laid all the machines on their side on the van floor, and then I took as many boxes of parts as I could fit.

"I don't think I'm getting anything else into the van."

"Did you get what you needed?"

"And then some."

I didn't want to use Leet's supercomputer. Too much risk of spontaneous combustion to house Veda. The liquid crystal processors that doubled as memory? Those gave me ideas and I figured I'd cannibalize the parts. One tower like that and Veda could leave Winslow's network. Other ideas came from now having all the materials I could want.

I need to get to a notebook before I forget all this.

I entered the building one last time. "I'm done Veda. Delete everything on Leet's systems."

"Deleting."

Uber and Leet will just have to start from scratch.

Back down in the basement I took pity on the groupies. I cut JP's wrists free. He seemed the least threatening.

"You've got five minutes to clear out before I call the cops."

After glowering at me for a bit he got to work on his ankles. Maybe I should have left them, but somehow treating them like real criminals felt wrong.

Larry huffed on the floor. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of hero?"

Shoulders groaned. "Are you really going to complain about her letting us go?"

"I like to think I'm a new type of hero."

I checked around the workshop one last time and grabbed Leet's drone. My power seemed unable to produce anything like a hard-light barrier forcefield. Toying with his toy might be enlightening. If nothing else, I'd scrap it for parts.

Turning back to the groupies I managed a small smile. "Goodbye groupies. Don't let me catch you doing anything illegal."

"Yeah yeah, whatever."

I bolted up the stairs and got in the van. Perfect moment to remember I've never driven anything before, and I only had the most basic notion as to how. Key in ignition. Step on gas. Neutral to drive. Once I got to the end of the block Veda started reciting road rules for me. I managed to avoid hitting anything.

"Send the cops and the PRT an anonymous email Veda."

"Composing."

"Just don't mention I robbed the place."

"Confirmed."

My arms and legs hurt. I didn't notice at the time. Too excited to finally get everything I wanted, but with the safety of distance and time to let the adrenaline empty from my system I felt the exhaustion set in.

Maybe I should do more than just running.

Being a muscle-bound body builder didn't appeal to me—I looked enough like a boy as is—but a little muscle couldn't hurt. Probably wouldn't be the last time I needed to do heavy lifting.

Hard to be upset about it. I kept glancing into the rear view mirror and thinking of all the things I'd build with Leet's stuff. I'd followed through on my plan from start to finish. As much as the groupies were pushovers, they still represented a surprise. Something I didn't quite expect. I dealt with that too, and without the shock or hesitation that slowed my response at the mall. I took whatever I could and what remained wasn't much. Either way. Between deleting all their data and stealing Leet's supplies I figured I set the duo back months.

I did it.

Navigating traffic, not that there was much, got easier as I went. The best solution is to just pay attention and relax. Veda sent off our little tip, after I was a good five blocks away. The groupies would have untied themselves by now.

I found it strange how different the streets looked behind the wheel. It all felt a bit smaller.

Where am I going?

It's also easy to get lost. Using the sun I figured out which way was which. From there I just kept trying to turn in the general direction of my house. I finally got into an area I sort of recognized. I remembered it from the bus. I think. Veda gave me a few rough directions and asked, "Why release them?"

"They're just groupies."

"They attacked you."

"They're barely bad guys."

I ended up just going right, straight, left, right, strai—

"Taylor. You have missed the past two lights."

"What?" The light in front of me was red at the moment. "Oh. Sorry. I—"

"Are you well?"

The tombstones rose along the hillside. "My mom is buried here."

"Annette Rose Hebert. Thirty-nine. Died February 21, 2008."

"Yeah. That's her."

I tinkered right through the anniversary without a single thought. I didn't know if I liked that or not. As much as her death hurt I didn't want to forget it happened. How long had it been since I visited Mom's grave? Talking to her made me feel better, especially after Emma dedicated her life to my misery. That stark contrast reasserted itself in my mind.

"I am sorry," Veda said.

"It happened."

I started to pull over before remembering that I was technically in a stolen van with tinker parts in the back. Not something I wanted to leave unattended, and not somewhere I wanted any of the Henchmen to find me by happenstance.

I kept going.

I'll come back another time.

About thirty minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of a department store just south of the Docks and north of the Towers. Maybe missing that trap made me paranoid, but what harm came from making sure?

"I'm going to double check everything. Make absolutely sure there's no trackers."

"Accessing security cameras."

Veda hacking something on its own? "Is that something you want to do?"

"I will observe the area."

I simply nodded and climbed into the back.

I didn't have much room to work, but there was enough. My helmet went into one of the boxes full of wires. I'd need to improve the comfort. The tips of my ears felt a little tender.

I moved boxes around like a game of Tetris. Uber and Leet would appreciate the irony, I think.

"Security cameras accessed. Taylor. I have another question."

"Ask away. I forgot how much we used to just sit and talk. Haven't done it in a few days."

"I have a thought on the nature of heroism."

My fingers fumbled with some switches. They seemed okay. People underestimate how useful a spare switch can be. "Because I called you a hero?"

"Yes. Additionally, your own intentions."

"My intentions?"

"Why do you wish to be a hero? You have broken laws in the pursuit of your goal, but oppose criminals."

"Well…because I have powers, and I want to use them. I'd rather be a hero than a villain…but there aren't a lot of ways for me to do that."

"You wish to be a hero because you can?"

"It's not the only reason." I hesitated. I used to be a chatterbox before Emma started her reign of terror, but even then I mostly babbled to anyone other than her.

Working with my hands distracted me from the pain a little. Some of the parts I got looked more like scrap than parts, and some of the scrap was in surprisingly good condition. The boxes didn't take long to look through. Leet probably didn't worry much about anyone stealing his assortment of disassembled phones.

"The people who hurt me. They always said things like how worthless I was. I want to be better than them. Better than the person they wanted me to be."

"You wish to prove your self-worth?"

"Yeah."

Veda went silent for a few minutes. I'd moved on to looking over one of the fabricators. I had to move every single box to one side of the van, causing it to lean slightly. I worried someone might come by and peak in the windows curiously. It wouldn't be easy to explain a stolen van full of stolen tech.

Does it even count if I took it from supervillains?

The silence broke when Veda said, "I do not know why I acted."

"You mean why you attacked Uber and Leet?"

"Yes."

I raised my brow. "I thought you did it to protect me."

"Undetermined. When I requested them to cease their actions, I wanted to prevent harm to you. When I was refused however, my processes focused on Uber and Leet…Their refusal was illogical."

"Well they're criminals Veda. And I know I've broken some laws myself here and there, but I like to think I'm not quite in their league or anywhere near it."

"No. Uber and Leet already possessed a great deal of stolen material. Leaving at the time of request brought them no harm. Yet they refused. Illogical."

Pausing my work, I thought back over its words. "They probably wanted to get more video for their stream."

"The proceeds of thefts were sufficient."

"Veda…it sounds like you were angry."

Can an AI feel anger, or only simulate anger? I'd asked myself a lot of times if Veda could be considered alive, and eventually I just settled for 'does it really matter?'

"Angry?"

"Yeah."

"Anger. A strong feeling of annoyance. Displeasure. Hostility. It is understood."

"Have you ever responded to anyone else like that?"

"The Armsmaster."

I couldn't help a small giggle. "Armsmaster pissed you off."

"The Armsmaster is rude."

"Well don't hack his computers. We don't need the PRT coming after you."

"I will not."

Veda can be angry. That wasn't in the design.

Then again there were so many holes in my understanding of Veda's design. I only knew—and vaguely at that—that Veda could work. Exactly how seemed to be something my power kept to itself.

Can it feel other emotions?

The fabricator and printers pleased me a lot. I only took one of the former and two of the latter, but they were great. Most of the parts came with the jack in the box print on them, and those that didn't I found ways to improve on. No need to worry about any Leet tech blowing up my lab.

I need to replace the code though. I don't want anyone tracking these things when I turn them back on.

I found no hardwired trackers, and unlike the mistake I made at the door panel, I took my search of the internal components very seriously.

"Are you angry Taylor?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you angry at those who harmed you?"

I bit my lip. "Yeah. Yeah I'm angry."

"You do not attack them."

"No. It would…I don't want to be like them, Veda. They had power, and they used it to hurt me. I won't use my power to hurt them. Even if I'm angry."

"I see. Then you are angry at the Protectorate and Parahuman Response Team as well?"

"Yes."

"That's why you refuse to join the Wards?"

"A little…Veda, how many other villains have escaped custody in Brockton Bay. Say, in the past ten years?"

"One hundred twenty-nine escapes."

"How many have actually stayed in jail?"

"Forty-seven."

"So, for every parahuman the Protectorate and PRT catch, three get away."

"Approximate."

"Doesn't sound like it's working to me…I grew up here, Veda. With the gangs. The drugs. The violence. It's always been that way." And I am angry. "I'll be generous and say the Protectorate and the Wards are trying, but it's not working. And I don't like some of the things they do on the side."

"Protecting your tormentor?"

"Among other things. That Uber and Leet escaped the first time is weird. Why wouldn't there be a cape escort? I know Hookwolf has escaped twice."

"Once in 2004 and again in 2009."

"There's others. The only villains I can think of who got sent away and stayed away are Lustrum, and Marquis. The way Dad talked about them, they sound"—I didn't want to say better—"less bad than Kaiser or Lung."

And how bad could Lustrum really be if Mom was her friend?

"Everything in the Bay is broken, Veda. I don't think anyone knows how to fix it."

I still drew blanks on nearly all the problems I thought up. I wanted to be more than just another hero. There'd been dozens of heroes before me and they all failed to make anything better. If anything, the world around me kept getting worse.

"Do you know how to fix it?"

My smile was solemn. "I'm going to try."

"I will help."

"I know. You seem to like helping."

"Yes."

Be for others. At least that's sticking.

Finally, I turned my attention to Leet's supercomputer tower. That thing took a lot of effort to look through in a cramped space. The battery lasted a few hours. The crystals probably needed to maintain a certain temperature to avoid damage.

The more I examined it, the more my power went wild with ideas.

"Complex lattice structures…non-binary. Non-binary?"

Yes. That could work. Opening the back door of the van, I went into the store and bought some pens and notebooks. The store clerk gave me a few curious looks, but I ignored him. No time to deal with his weirdness. I needed to write some things down before I forgot.

Non-binary superpositions. Universal data storage. Super magnetics? I'd need a way to formulate a null gravity environment for stability—GN particles that's it I'd have plenty floating around just from daily use of the GN drive anyway I could easily pump the excess into—

While my mind ran wild my hand wrote.

Lines and words formed across page after page. Annotations of code and interfaces. Crystalline structures. Not like Leet's. No, better. Faster. More stable. I wouldn't need a cooling system at all if the entire network was kept in a vacuum. Hardline backups. Maintained quantum decoherence without requiring an absolute seal, yes—no that won't work.

The drawings started to blend in my head. Not a distinct system. Part of a whole. The body to a mind—Veda. Veda wasn't finished. I never finished it, I left it half complete because I didn't even realize that a mind needs a body that matches it to fully function.

The kernel I programmed slowed it down far more than I realized. Kept the clock speeds capped at faster than human but slower than some appropriate metaphor speeds that's not making sense what was I thinking about?

Decoherence, right.

I needed to shut the system off from outside observation. Outside observation could corrupt the data. Multiplying errors growing and spreading in magnitude. A complete loss if compromised without a backup. Backup simple. Offsite digital source. Slow but reliable. A good fallback.

My body heaved, and I found myself holding three different notebooks filled with designs. Not designs, design. A singular system. More complex than anything I'd seen before yet deceptively simple.

Beautiful.

"Holy shit."

"Taylor?"

"Veda. I figured it out. You're only half finished! You're not supposed to be running on digital computers at all, you're half of a complex quantum-based computing system. I didn't even realize it because I barely understand the idea of quantum computers—I still don't understand it but I know that's what this is. My power—"

"It is six in the afternoon."

My voice hitched. Spinning my head around, I found empty parking spots, empty and under a darkening sky.

"H-How? I was only working for a few minutes!"

"It has been five hours forty-two minutes and fifteen seconds."

I pulled out my phone and looked through the log. Veda tried contacting me every minute at first. Then it started deleting security footage from the cameras pointed my way.

Six hours.

"Six hours," I said aloud.

"I believe it is called a tinker fugue."

"I've never—that's never happened to me before." No. It had. I remembered the sensation. My body moving in fluidity with the vague thoughts in my head to build something. It never made me lose track of time though. "D-Did anyone see me?"

"No. I have replaced camera footage every ten minutes to ensure there is no record."

My voice shook. "Thanks, Veda."

I just wanted to write down some of the ideas I got looking at Leet's computer. How did that cause a working blackout that lasted for six hours? What I remembered of the writings in my notebooks barely amounted to a few minutes of thought. The beauty I'd seen before didn't come to me now. The schematic came through clear as day. I knew how to build it. What pieces went where, but half of why any of it would work had vacated my brain.

I swore the chill running down my back came from a hand touching me.

My power never scared me before.

Dad.

He would be back home by now, and I usually got back two hours before him.

The new phone looked a lot sleeker than the tinker-tech one connecting me to Veda. I intended to combine them at some point; adapt the phone dad knew I had while replacing all the internal components with tech derived from the one he didn't.

I found three missed calls and twice as many texts. The voice messages didn't sound too panicked. Just concerned.

I can spin this.

A thousand worries rushed through me. He probably called the school. He knows I'm not going—that I haven't gone for weeks. If he searches my room carefully enough, he'll find things. Design notebooks. Spare parts. A few gadgets I'd been toying with.

My thumb hovered over the call button, but I stopped myself. I needed more time. Time to hide the van somewhere safe. Check the last few boxes for trackers. If I called Dad now anything could happen, and I might not get any of it done.

I moved frantically to finish checking whatever I hadn't checked already, and then pulled out of the parking lot and drove back in the direction of home.

My house sat in line with a dozen others, a long alley running behind them to offer access to backyards and garages. I parked the van in the driveway of one I knew to be empty and locked the doors.

Pressing "Dad" on the contact list I raised the phone to my ear. It's not that late.

"Taylor?" He didn't sound frantic. Worried, but not crazed. "Taylor. Where are you? Are you okay?"

"I—" Tell him the truth. "I'm sorry, Dad. I got so caught up that I didn't even notice the time."

"Where are you?"

Some parking lot in a van full of tinker-tech. "The library. I'm really sorry."

"You could leave a note, or one of those text message things."

"Sorry. I forgot. Real caught up in what I'm working on."

"Well you should hurry on back and apologize to your guest too. She's been waiting for you for an hour. Not polite to invite someone over and leave them waiting."

…

"Guest?"

I broke into a run, only to spin back on one heel to retrieve my stun gun.

I didn't have any friends besides my AI. Uber and Leet? Their groupies? Emma? If Emma came to the house trying to figure out where I disappeared to, she could ruin everything. I needed to—

I heard a voice in the background. "Oh. Hold on."

The phone audibly changed hands and a familiar voice spoke.

"Hi Taylor."

My feet came to a stop a few feet from my back door. I knew her, but it took me a second to place it. She'd only said a few words to me after all.

"Dinah?"