finally done with this, hopefully this will inspire someone to make this kind of tinker taylor. feel free to use any ideas you find here its fanfic. ENJOY AND REVIEW!
I don't own Worm
I moved through the dark empty corridors with a flashlight on one hand, the extended handle of a beat up hard-case luggage in the other, backpack on my back, I honestly look like someone who just got off the airport; creaks following my footsteps along with soft roar tracks of my suitcase. This sucks. The building was so old that parts of the floor had broken off to the floor bellow and the smell was so strong that it snuck past the bandana I wore protect both my identity and my sense of smell.
"KYAAA!" I let out a shriek when a large rat, about the size of small dog, squeaked its way past me; I held my chest and shook my head as I turned the corner headed to the last flight of stairs while calming my self. It really sucks. I quickly made my way up the extra creaky staircase to the last floor. I looked around. I honestly didn't know if the building was abandoned completely but I figured that the top floor would be a good place to hideout and experiment without drawing too much attention, and if I did catch the wrong attention, I'd have options to escape instead of being trapped in the basement with my exit blocked.
I would honestly love to do this at home but I didn't want to accidently break something and have to explain it to my dad. And there's a huge possibility that someone would know I was up to something, besides I had to be here anyway. My superpower, though it isn't flashy, it's definitely loud and required a lot of power. From a tall building at night I could steal power from the transformer nearby. The night before I had set something up to skim electricity, luckily no one was around to watch me.
I got to the room that was close to the transformer. I checked the door. Locked.
"Right," I muttered. I smiled. Time test. I turned to stare at the suitcase, frowning at the dents. I found it in the junkyard, luckily closed with nothing inside, the wheels were broken off so I searched for a similar set of wheels, played around with plastic and super glue and it was good to go. I quickly unzipped it.
Inside was a mess of clothes I used to protect the objects inside. I pulled out what many people would think was a flash light at first glance, in fact it actually was one until recently. It was a nine-ish inches long, inch or two in diameter, the end where the light came out was replace with a homemade speaker, and there was switch you pushed forward with your thumb to turn on the light, but now serves to turn the device on.
"Alright, lets see if it works," I muttered as I pushed the button forward, then the altered flashlight let out all sorts of whirling sounds as I pointed it at the door handle. In essence, my device is what a bunch of syfy enthusiast would call a "sonic screwdriver," at least it was in the way it worked in the tv show. I didn't think much of it at the time and my dad just calls it nonsense, since no tinker has made one including the resident tinker who could build anything from any tech tree, but after I triggered….
I smiled as I heard a click in less than three minutes and uttered a "yes," in victory. I was honestly afraid that it would fail especially since I might need it a lot tonight. I mostly just tested it on old padlocks I scavenged, screws, and different types of doors I could at least discreetly scan, no need to mess up my own crap right? I programed it to unlock stuff after I read up on the sonic screwdriver on all the things it could do in the show's wiki site, and I could do it too…if I had an unlimited energy source and had more knowledge that was outside my specialty.
At the moment my sonic screwdriver can only open stuff, not close or hack electronics (I still can't do that with my laptop). Here's my process, I scan things via-various sound waves and frequencies, use the data I collected and program with it on my laptop to unlock things, then I see if it works. I think I'll be finally done creating an algorithm that would already work to open doors and locks that have not been scanned before and even work with similar doors. I would like to be able to do more but I'm still learning how to do more with my specialty and solve my energy problems. So my designs were powered by a variety of store bought batteries, my sonic screwdriver is no exception. It could let out those noises for ten to twelve minutes uninterrupted. At best I can recharge the batteries but realistically, in fight, needing to switch out batteries is a huge drawback. So I have few ideas but none seem as practical as simply buying and swapping out batteries.
I quickly opened the door and walked in with the suitcase, making sure nothing fell out. Locked the door behind me, noting how hot the lock was. Something to work around I suppose. I looked around the room with my actual hand crank flashlight. Not my first pick but a room is room, it should serve its purpose quite well.
The wooded dining table, I'm assuming, was on its side, the chairs were thrown about, a single mirror near what I assumed is the dining room bisected by a cracked plastered counter from kitchen was broken. The room had a bunch of graffiti, I would have wondered how they got in without opening the door but the window was broken, figures. I quickly set the table up and place upon it the fruits of my labor. I walked to the window, careful of the glass here and there, opened it so that I get a good view of the transformer. I walked to my suitcase, and took out another odd invention. I set up what was basically recycled metal umbrella stems that collapsed easily, they were used for legs in my tripod contraption, connected to it was repurposed telescope that had broken legs, and cracked lens I found tossed away, took a lot of cleaning and cutting but I was able to make use of it, a boom stick mic I improved was installed at the end with a homemade speaker right behind the mic. I quickly put the "sound wheels" in place, and then I set up a small sound carousal near the end to catch any excess energy, it was just thing iron rod with two plastic bottles, nothing fancy. Last but not least, I put in a small double a battery that powered the speaker, at least initially. I checked with a cheap laser pointer to see if it was aligned right; satisfied that it was, I walked back to my suitcase, pulled out an inflatable chair and a pulled out an air pump from my backpack, and I started pumping.
"Fuck, I'm out of shape," I muttered by the end of it as I wiped the sweat off my brows, noting it was cold. I wish I was able to layer more, but I looked weird as it was. That's when it hits me. The loud music playing, I turned my head to the window and quickly crept towards it, peeked outside and saw a bouncer at the back entrance of a building looking bored and smoking along with a few other employees, bartenders looks like, all wearing their respective outfits and ties. I couldn't help but smirk, "Right, on time." I grabbed my backpack while I turned on the mic and speaker and powered my laptop. I quickly opened a window for my Bluetooth connections and was not surprised to see a new window pop-up asking to connect to the power skimmer I made. I clicked yes and turned it on. After a second the sound of running electricity reached my ear and the "sound wheels" began to spin backwards with a clack-clack-clack and the sound carousal begining to spin followed by a high pitched barum-barum pulsing from the speakers.
My power skimmer had two parts to it, the first part is the homemade speaker I connected to the transformer that would send concentrated sound wave in a certain direction. Unfortunately I couldn't do much with it unless I wanted to attract attention, which is why it sounds just like static, that way no one would bother to look too much into the sound. I waited for the cover of night and for the nightclub I was near to start playing loud music (I could freaking feel it from where I was) for added protection. The second (forced) part is the mic/speaker-telescope power receiver I built, it used the sound it picked up and converted it into an electrical signal for speaker to release a sound at a certain frequency to move the sound wheels almost like a water wheel would (making the dimension and material of the repurposed telescope just perfect) in a river, and like that I have a small power generator. Anything left would bleed out the end or vibrate the telescope causing the sound carousal to move and more or less help power the speaker/mic. All in all, it was tinker bullshit, but one someone might actually be able to copy.
Incase it wasn't blatantly apparent; I'm a tinker/thinker, specialty, acoustics. A couple of months ago, I knew I felt different after being verbally abused again, a particularly harsh one, I guess that led to my specialty. When I got home I was more sensitive I guess. I mean I thought I was making tea with an old kettle rather than heating water in microwave for nostalgia sake and playing with the vibrations it produced with a string because I was bored. It was when I wanted to listen to a song in my old CD player and realized the headphones were smashed to bits, courtesy of being stupid enough to take it to school with me, that I found out I was tinker. I really wanted to listen to music and before I knew it, I had made a speaker out of household appliances without even trying, it barely even took half an hour to make, though I did break a few things and ruined a butter knife.
After that I started doing research. Acoustics, incase you didn't know, acoustic is the study of sound which includes the sound's production, transmission and effect. I didn't have to be a thinker to know my tinker powers could worm its way into other fields, for example, the hospital uses ultrasound to investigate the body without needing to cut, most popular use is looking at unborn children. Another popular use, mine anyway, is making super crunchy and yet fluffy french-fries. There's underwater acoustic, there's architectural engineering to effect sound, I can even build the same exact room they have in a college somewhere where you can't hear anything besides your own heartbeat; there's psychoacoustics which studies human behavior and reaction in regards to sound, ECT.
Then when I was researching, I ran into a little trouble…While my specialty can worm its way into other fields and does help me with the mundane task of using and creating soft ware and actual devices, it is still extremely difficult. If anything I work better using what I already have access to; already made speakers are easier to modify than to make my own and saves me a lot of time, modifying objects to transmit certain sounds and frequencies is easy, using free online software and bootlegged voice synthesizers is a lot easier to alter and suit most of my needs (for now anyway) than to spend weeks on end to make one. That's why I think I'm a hybrid between a thinker, who focuses on information gathering, and tinker, who creates devices beyond comprehension of modern science. I'm not a true thinker or a true tinker, just something in-between.
Well despite all that, I still felt a desire to try and create something, my tinker part's influence I assume. Honestly it was like a puzzle for me and I'm searching for pieces, some I have, others I have to scavenge and or make, my thinker influence I guess. And after I gather all the pieces? After I do that, I have to straightened out the metaphorical string, thread the needle with a very tiny hole and weave with it like I'm knitting a glove or scarf only with a very thin thread; the influence of both halves of my power. The process frustrates me, really frustrates me, it even infuriates me, but when I complete what I build, even if it needs improvements or isn't quite there yet, I get this HUGE sense of satisfaction…which makes me repeat the whole process all over again…fuck my powers.
All of this leads to my being inside an abandoned building behind a nightclub with loud music. Tonight was either going to benefit greatly or fuck me so bad I'd wish I never triggered.
I put a bunch of batteries to charge on my power skimmer, then I took out a repurposed boom box, plugged it into the power skimmer, and turned it on to let out certain sounds and frequencies that rats and creepy crawlies tend to avoid. I sat down took out a mobile modem, plugged it into my laptop and connected to the internet. I checked the power really fast, around 97%, I nodded to myself as I opened up the browser and up logged into a private window in the deep web.
A lot stuff on the ParaHumanOnline website was interesting but it was mostly fan discussions, with the occasional cape greeting the fans. It didn't have realible information for newly minted capes to catch up to speed with. So I downloaded an onion program and accessed the dark web.
A lot of people don't know that the web is basically a giant iceberg, the top portion above the water, that's the web everyone can access, beneath the surface, that's the dark or deep web that requires special programs to use and not be tracked, and it had a lot more sites then the web everyone has access to. What I found was definitely more…"uncensored" information that you would not find on the PHO site. And I found good guides for new parahumans and newsfeeds that do not make it on the news or the PHO site, some stories do cost sadly. Also, I found that tinkers were, basically, the earth aleph version of pokemons, you gotta catch 'em all.
And the things I found about how gangs "recruited" stubborn tinkers made my blood run cold. Lets not even talk about the thinkers who get cocky. I already knew to play it safe, but after what I read, I needed a weapon I could keep on me. I mean don't get me wrong even before I triggered I never wanted to harm anyone or anything, not even the worms my mom used to fish when she was still around. I was content to just use my powers for my on benefit. But if I was being honest, I guess I became more…attuned to with what I want deep down; its like listening to music, when you feel the right rhythm or the right beat, you tap your foot or rock your head, right? Well when I get taunted or in a physical altercation, the more and more I want to fight back, even if I get my ass kicked. It was part of the reason I was here.
I need money.
As newly minted tinker I don't have access to any good resources, in my case stuff I could repurpose, and my dad is struggling to support us as it is so I couldn't just ask him for money. So I did what I could with my specialty. I downloaded songs, I mixed them up sent them to a few folks poking around the deep web for that kind of stuff, and I got sent jobs, mostly mixings a few songs for cheap, making nightcore versions, or altering stuff for electric swings, or cleaning up a few audio bits, even transcribing some audio. Some of the jobs I got was uh…adult films…yeah, others were indie films, and then there were weird audio bits that, honestly, some of the recordings made me reconsider my current line of work. My last one left me pale and shaking because it was basically, after I cleaned it a bit, a woman getting murdered in a very brutal manner. Still, I cleaned up the audio to the best of my abilities and got paid and stopped taking request. It got me enough funds to start making things without bleeding my dad's wallet and then some to make it easier on him. After I collected my money from a PO Box, I began to browse the deep web for a new way to make money. That's when I got contacted by Pan Pizza.
Soundbite [20:42]:
I'm about to start testing soon. Are you sure the info on Faultline is correct?
I typed into the window. I sat the laptop down and walked towards the table and started to assemble my various devices.
When I was looking for a new way to make money that didn't lead me to listening to…sensitive information, I was looking for good versions of voice synthesizers I could download without viruses, that's when I got an email from Pan Pizza. I was freaking out, he somehow tracked my IP address and sent me link to a site that didn't store conversations and was hard to monitor. He quickly apologized for the scare and asked if I wanted a job, apparently my work was too good for the rate I charged and too professional, he made an educated guess that my sense of value and the good job I did was the result of my being a tinker or thinker. He wanted to see if I could be professional so he sent me the audio of the woman being murdered, turns out it could have been evidence to convict a killer…sadly the victim's boyfriend killed the killer then committed suicide. I did not hear the end of that rant.
We started talking about what I wanted to do, villain, hero, I'll admit that I did want to be hero but that was way too much responsibility. From what I could tell, the wards was more or less heavily regulated on their actions, the protectorate heroes barely had free time, tinkers, according to Pan, lost their rights to their creations and are constantly under a microscope, and anyone who would employ shadow stalker even in the hopes to correct her behavior was out of their minds. According to Pan, the PRT didn't even make either shadow stalker or any of the other wards in Brockton Bay see a psychiatrist. Yeah, not going into that time bomb. Solo hero was plain too dangerous for me as a tinker and there really wasn't an independent hero group in the Bay that didn't reveal their identities and lets not even talk about being a villain. Then he offered, "why not just go mercenary?"
PP [21:13]:
Sorry for the late reply, that idose you made is awesome. Um all of it should be correct. The virus I brokered for you works, though I'm sure you altered it, ride is set up, just tell me when I should send it. Again, the tech should be extremely hot but not radioactive. If anything, FL would have it set to blow at best, but that's just the hard drive to be honest. You're seriously intent on storming her club?
Yeah, the nightclub belonged to Faultline, a striker mercenary who could separate the molecular bonds of any non-living object, living or organic one of the two. Thank god for the Manton Effect. And my plan was to basically storm Faultline's home.
Soundbite [21:17]:
I was barely able to afford your services and still be able to afford hacked modem, which I'm still renting and now I'm bankrupted. This is the fastest way to improve just about everything I want. Still, I want to know why you even bothered with this? I figured you'd want to keep me alive for my tech.
I typed back. As I waited for his reply I reviewed the map he sent me and a few testimonies of girls who went up to the "parahuman" floor and buy Newter's drug, a case 53 who was orange and had a tail with a twist that his body was the essence of a hallucinogen, so basically they were buying his body…did he have them lick his-NOPE NOT GOING THERE! Anyway, what I want should be on the second floor, through door way and into the hallway.
PP [21: 25]:
Tried to broker a deal between FL with another client of mine, she didn't even bother to listen to me and it hurt my rep; as a broker my duties involves satisfying the needs of my clients, regardless of how idiotic it is. That and you paid upfront. You pull this off it'll damage her reputation and build up your credentials. If you think you can do it, I'm inclined to see what you can do, if you fail, well its no hair off my chest. I got paid and Faultline isn't the murdering type anyway, not unless one of her rosaries are down for good. But I have to ask, are you going to be okay? The fact that you are testing right now is not comforting.
Soundbite [21:33] :
Not for all of them, it's just a final check to make sure everything is perfect condition. I'll let you know when I begin. Just make sure my ride is there by the time I'm done. Also, can you send me a list of stuff I should be aware? Files or trinkets that might be worth a lot?
I didn't like stealing but it was the fastest way to improve my tech and fill my wallet, maybe get an in, not even sure I wanted it. Besides, Faultline is a mercenary, sure the Merchants, a group of addicts and druggie capes, were basically a freebie but I doubted I could hide or recover any of Squealer's tech without her finding me and running me over with a giant monster truck. At least it isn't as bad as it would be if I stole equipment from the hospital, god I'd love to get my hands on some of those, or an innocent person I guess. Yeah it's faulty logic but beggars can't be choosers and this was as good as it gets. As soon as the batteries were done I would start my final testing.
I nearly cursed when I almost forgot to plug my sonic screwdriver to my laptop. I scanned a bunch of stuff as discretely as I could with my screwdriver, taking it in and out of my suitcase, hopefully no one ever caught me and by the time I'm done testing, it would have figured out how to quickly vibrate materials to lock and unlock as well having an algorithm in place to calculate how to unlock unknown scans. But then I have to change the pad an-I quickly shook my head and got to work. One step at a time.
I took a large black stereo-boom box, the type you see oldschool stereotypical black guys or white old-school wannabes rappers carry on their shoulders, only mine had very weird antennas on top and has detachable microphones on the side. This one used 12v 9ah type batteries, had to buy it, cost 25 bucks…I sighed.
I plugged a cord I made to my laptop and turned on the boom box, it let a series of sounds. I quickly opened a program I repurposed earlier and saw the variety of information pour in. A lot of people don't know about this but electronics let out sound waves for miles that only radio towers can pick up, and through the medium of sounds I could steal data by turning those sound waves and frequencies into a binary code and translate that, all this from devices that aren't even connected to the internet, hell even from devices that aren't designed to give out information, that was one of the my boom box's purpose. I couldn't do much with the data but eventually I would be able to hack into devices using sound, but I'm not there yet. I mean I could mess up and more or less control things using accelerometers a bit, things like smart phones, airbags, ECT. to a certain degree but that's about it. But data is data and the more I collect, the better idea I get about how to improve my tech.
As that was done I got up, grabbed a few batteries and headed to the table. The first thing I check was a series of mini-speakers I was able to get from the local super market, they were cheap pink capsules, four now but it used to be six, $8.45 a capsule. I modified them to work sort of on timer, like the ones some people have in their kitchens, then I throw it; once the timer hits zero it lets out a variety of loud frequencies that hurt people's ear drums, leaving them death (for a while), disoriented, off balanced and hopefully distracted before the battery blows destroying the important bits. I tested one on the beach near the shipyards on a group of merchants. I was far away with a pair of binoculars my dad had in the basement, I knew the merchants had some sort of barbecue-drug enduced-orgy or something setup, so I just planted the two capsules somewhere where they didn't stand out, and it worked for the most part. Luckily they thought it was a prank and just went back to their…party I guess.
I nodded and as I made sure they powered up. Then I shut them down. I could throw them and they'd survive long enough to do the job, as long as didn't throw too hard I assume. Once more I nodded and set them aside along with three clear-ish balls. Now to the big toys.
I couldn't help but smile, I even let out a small laugh, my next design was so stupid and bit overcomplicated. It was just a very lightweight pneumatic trumpet gun I built from scraps, it was just a handle and a trigger, a spot to put in 6 CO2 cartridges, inside the stock, a pressure gauge, the rest was a trumpet with a bunch of home built speakers added to it with glue and duct tape. I connected the batteries, two laptop battery packs, and turned the speakers on, and then it began to let out low frequency rumbles. I put the recycled backpack webbing attached to the trumpet gun over my shoulder then I walked over to the pile of old clothes I used as cushion in my luggage. Was this wasteful yeah, but they were clothes that didn't fit anymore on account of me being too big, plus a lot of these were ones that Emma picked out. I checked the gauge, the pressure was good; I inhaled and pulled the trigger. The trumpet let out a loud sound as I held the trigger, a PORUMMMMMMM. I took my finger off the trigger and the sound quickly died down. I walked to the window and smirked, the bouncer still smoking and talking to one of the two bartenders, the other was resting his eyes I think.
I walked back to the clothes and crushed them with the heel of my boot. I enjoyed the crinkling sound as the clothes shattered to pieces. My pneumatic trumpet gun? Pretty much a freeze gun where the gas in the cartridges underwent a sonic treatment inside the trumpet and shot out as liquid CO2 (for an instant) that was (again for an instant) colder than liquid nitrogen when it shouldn't be. Granted liquid oxygen and liquid helium is colder than nitrogen but you get my point. This gun was tinker bullshit.
I nodded as I turned off the devices on the trumpet and let the gun hang from my hip as moved to the next one. The gun I would be using as my offensive weapon.
I went through a lot of designs for this one gun.
It was a large gun; unlike my trumpet/freeze gun it required two hands to manage, both by design and by the weight. It was around three feet long and it looked fake as hell. I thought about mounting it on my shoulder but I decided against it. It was the only thing that could help me if I'm forced to use my trump card.
Originally I was inspired by the Mantis shrimp to make this gun. Dad and I were huddled up one night watching whatever happened to be on, it was a documentary about mantis shrimps from people who were not scared to go into the deep waters Leviathan has claimed. Or built a drone or something in earth aleph through radio instructions and doing it there. It was interesting. The Mantis Shrimp has claws that are so powerful that it inspired many people and tinkers who deal with modern body armor. It can strike at a newton force of 1500, the strike is so powerful that it can produce a unique phenomenon called Sonoluminescence where its shockwave creates a unique frequency that causes cavitation bubbles and at the same time the low pressure bubble generates a heat akin to the surface of the sun for just an instant and then for some reason scientist, tinkers and thinkers are still trying to figure out, light is produced. No one really knows what exactly creates the light but this theory is that the left over materials, like argon, that have not been evaporated heats up and the vapour briefly turns into plasma.
After two weeks of testing and tinkering, I found a few things. One, I can match the frequency that causes cavitation but that requires a medium for the sound to travel through, so I would have to hit the target physically with a gun or sonic baton or something and it is guaranteed to rupture organs…not something I wanted to do unless I absolutely had to. This led to my second discovery while trying to make a projectile, I can both make solid edible water and water balls sealed with a biodegradable seaweed based clear-wrap, I got the idea from paintballs and data from the research on what a few colleges were working on it to eliminate plastic bottles. Sadly that led to my third discovery, I could make plasma from the water and shoot the sealed water ball and solid water, but it still required close contact and both water ball and solid water exploded. The best I could do was combine the solid water with the necessary chemicals, wrap it in biodegradable wrap, and center the solid water with a tiny capsule/speaker that when squished shut the capsule would let out the frequency after three beeps, and turn the whole thing into a short-lived, extremely hot, plasma ball that destroys everything, no explosion so not a grenade. Not that useful by itself, so I gave the ball two layers, the outer layer was the wrapper that can be pulled off, the inner layer was a sticky layer that could stick on to anything only for a minute or two (realistically I only needed a few second so it isn't a problem). I tested it already without a tiny capsule, it stuck to my hand, so I altered a pair of gloves that wouldn't get caught and it worked like a charm, the real challenge was making the inner layer sticky…not a fun project.
I have three made plasma balls that got as hot as the surface of the sun, useful in a few situations but not by much, and I still lacked a weapon. That's where I got my second burst of idea, from plasma. It was ionized gas, which got me thinking of electricity.
The gun I now had in my hands was bulky, like I said before three feet long, looked more like a cosplay weapon (Greg showed a lot of his homemade ones in art class and the sad thing is that they looked better that what I had built) than an actual weapon. It just looked like a fake blocky gun by all means, I even spray painted it black hoping it would look more intimidating but just came of as fake. But that was just the protective casing. I picked up a sonic screw drive, an actual sonic screwdriver, not a door opener, and unscrewed custom screw that would not be possible without it and removed the top casing revealing the inner workings. Honestly it looked someone took acid and a collected bunch of bongs, bottles, beakers and metal whatnots with weird loops connected them all for some weird obscured reason, leading to the business end of the gun. All along the weird loops and beakers were custom speakers that emitted a variety of frequencies at different points. I couldn't help but sigh as I plugged in more laptop batteries. I really wish I had a better battery source that weren't bulky
After I made sure everything was in place, I went to my backpack, picked up three spray cans I had Pan gather for me. This was a bit of a design fault, I had to put the cans inside and that was it, no way to reload. I didn't like that so I made it so I could fit in a few CO2 cartridges, it helped a little but not by much. It wasn't a conventional gun but I still have to make every "shot" count. I put the casing back on, screwed it in. turned it on and felt the gun purr, chills ran through my body as I shivered.
I turned to the door, left hand near the business end of the gun, underneath the block barrel grabbing on to custom handle, my right hand on the handle in the back-thumb on a slide that went up and down that changed the volume of the gun.
Quickly, pulled the handle with my left hand back then down to release the spring loaded collapsible stand while the end connected to the gun (that was in front of the handle) moved to the center of the gun, got on my right leg used the gun to hold my self up, the stock of the weapon going under my right arm. I gave the gun a few experimental moves and twist, it was as good as it was gonna get. I quickly collapse the thing and aimed at the door, before I figured it would be a better idea to go somewhere darker. Luckily I found a bathroom, not big enough to walk in and fire the gun but I figured firing it from the door was a good enough. I aimed at the cracked tiled walls and pulled the trigger, I took a second but soon green lighting shot out in a stream just like water would out of a water gun!
SKRI-KRIK-SKRI sounded off the electricity!
Quickly I used my thumb to raise the volume and it looped. As soon as I saw the wide loops propagate to the size of hula-hoop, I let go of the trigger and the electricity died out. Quickly I made my way to the window and smiled. The bouncer had lit another cigarette, and the bartenders were going back inside after casually tossing their buds.
I backed off and smiled at my gun.
Initially I wanted my gun to shoot out a chemical gas cloud propelled by soundwaves, the friction of the chemical gas cloud moving would generate electricity almost like dirty thunderstorm over a volcano. I wanted the handle for my left hand to control the cloud via sound waves, since I'm not the best shot. Sadly it used up too much power and would just push the cloud away before I could even decide to maneuverer it or it would be too slow, or worse, this actually happened on a small model, the gas would expand and dissipate before it hit a target. Besides, the control on the left hand handle would have been hard to use reliably in fight. Next I thought about just shooting a gas canister in an area and just use sound waves to cause an electrical current, a good idea but not when you wanted to just point and shoot, still, idea saved for crowd control. For a while I gave up and thought about just making a gun that could shoot concentrated version of the brown note at single targets, its actually a lot different than the one myth buster did. However when I was chatting up with Pan and some how the discussion ended up about him having some friend in the toy company who sells him names of clients and what they buy, Fault Line ended up being a power generator that was like lighting in a bottle and that's how I'm here. I wanted that battery and it gave me a brief inspiration I needed.
My lighting guns runs on sort of the same sound treatment as the trumpet gun or more accurately the trumpet gun recycled the sound treatment I used for my bulky gun; the various gases under go a sound treatment at different location and intervals, and when fired the gases shoot out as something close enough to a liquid, the movement and sound vibration creating a friction allowing for what I can only describe as "liquid lighting" to exist and it behaves a bit like water (at least when vibrated) and it last up to 7 meters and you do not want to touch it.
I walked back to the table to look at my last item, portable stereo. Honestly it was just one giant speaker with a plastic handle with the ends fixed on opposite ends of the speaker, allowing it to be carried like jack-lantern trick-or-treat bag. I turned it on grabbed a blue tooth electronic watch, I check to see if I had a signal. I nodded as I turned the stereo off. This is my trump card and it scares the hell out of me.
I built it just because I caught a glimpse of what Greg reads in computer class. Some sort of comic book with cowboys and some sort cripple who shoots his nails, I'm not sure what it was about but that inspired me to create this. I wasn't even thinking of away to weaponize it, that's just the way it came. I adjusted it a bit so that, in case I can't recover it, I can blow the battery up with my watch to destroy the essential bits and to turn it on. The function of this device built on a whim…I honestly have no idea how to even defend MYSELF against it, let alone how anyone else could.
Dragon, the best tinker in the world, probably could if she remote-pilots her suit. Maybe her and Armsmaster could find away to do it if they could record the frequency, meaning next time I used it I had to do something that would prevent that. The bay's local shield heroes probably aren't able to defend themselves against it, after all they can hear just fine with their shields on. Shaterbird from the psychotic mass-murdering group Slaughterhouses 9 might be able to (if I had the opportunity to get close enough), if she knew to counteract the sound wave before hand but I already thought of that and that just means she's creating it and it still effects her. Bonesaw, the best biological tinker on earth might alter the brain but even then I doubted it, maybe she could alter the body to react better to it. Assault, a local protectorate mover who can manipulate kinetic energy, might but I seriously doubt it. Velocity and Shadow Stalker are breaker-movers who can shift their body into a state where physics react differently to them, the former being able to move fast and hits are nothing to him but his hits are practically nothing either, the later can phase through walls and objects, so they might be immune, but that could also mean they are potentially super sensitive to the frequency as well. Aegis, a ward with Alexandria package of flight, strength, and durability might handle the frequency well thanks to his adaptive biology, but whether that actually applied to his brain or not isn't really known, maybe not immunity but might be able to adapt to the frequency's effects on his body. No way to know until I get to that bridge I guess.
I walked back to the laptop and sat down on the inflatable chair. Pan replied back saying that he didn't really have a list. Just grab whatever catches my eye and he'll see what it cost, in the hands of the right party of course. I shrugged as I looked at my other projects. I sighed as I looked at the data my boom box recorded, I got a wide arrange of information from variable that were constantly shifting and moving, humans probably, and some that remained more or less the same. The other purpose for my boom box was mapping through echolocation, like a dolphin or bat. Sure there were some programs like that but I couldn't find one to download and the currents ones required you to be IN the room you wanted to map. So I had to make my own, sadly. I worked a little bit on a program that would take all data collected from the stereo and turn it into a 3D rendition of the area. I rubbed my eyes in frustration, at most I got "walls" and geometric shapes, nothing like the movies or what I assume other true tinkers could do. Still the data on the moving shapes could help me later in my tinker career. I only need to write more helper functions and complex instructions to shape the program into what I want it to be.
I checked on the other data, the one for electronics, and found something interesting. I got data from the usual stuff you would expect to be in a nightclub: laptops, cash registers, tap beer dispensers or whatever they're called, phones, DJ's equipment like turntables, ECT., stuff I have gotten before, but I also found other unusual data for stuff I haven't encountered. Tinker tech my mind quickly put together. That's understandable; Fault Line is using tinker power generators, so of course she had to have other tinker tech lying around. But from what I can tell when I cross-referenced the location on the geographic data, testimonies and blueprint, it was coming from areas outside of the predicted office with the desired tinker tech. I shrugged. It was on the way so I could afford a look. But the weirdest thing I got were error messages on some of the recorded data. I shook my head. I could go through it later and pick it apart. I checked the time and sighed. Less than hour until midnight.
"No point prolonging this," I said to myself.