It brings all the Tinkers to the Yard
(By CmptrWz)
"This is getting ridiculous," Lisa said, looking over her notes while they waited for Amy to arrive after an emergency call had her visiting the hospital. "How did you showing us your free electricity box, or maybe just telling us about it, grab so much attention? Every tinker in town, shortly followed by every tinker in New England, and three quarters of the thinkers in New England all apparently wanting to come around to fill their sudden urge to examine something, even if they don't know what it is. Apparently the protectorate has been fielding transfer requests for tinkers and thinkers from all over the country and has reports of tinkers and certain kinds of thinkers abandoning independent and villain groups, likely to head here. Dragon reported something similar with the guild, and the PRT has been getting requests from all over the planet for visits too."
"You would still be staring at the thing if I hadn't vanished it," Taylor said. "Zephron said it took you an hour of staring at the power box for the compound before you gave it up as a lost cause due to the EDM enclosure after I went home. For some reason tinkers and thinkers, or their powers at least, are incredibly interested in unlimited energy."
"Tinkers I fully understand, it is the ultimate power source. Linda, Kevin, Armsmaster, Dragon, and Kid Win all seemed to think so, anyway. As for thinkers, it is mostly those that analyse things or data, from what I can tell. On that note, my power is still somewhat angry at you for not letting it poke more," Lisa admitted. "Though we both still need frequent breaks trying to understand your math this time around, so it is content enough there."
"It is very interesting," Varga interjected, shifting a mini-dragon to Raptaur to join in the conversation. "I am starting to suspect that we have run into one of the goals of whomever or whatever is granting parahuman powers. Though how they expected to accomplish it with the way things were going I have no idea."
"Huh, that is weird," Lisa said, staring off into space. "My power not only outright confirmed that, but is essentially jumping up and down waving celebratory pom-poms around. Based on it's reaction to the fact that your automated matter creation trick could only generate temporary matter I wonder if they are looking for infinite mass solutions too? Huh, yea, they are."
"Your power can tell you that when you ask," Taylor said slowly. "But never bothered to volunteer it?"
"I think it had given up on it ever happening or something," Lisa said after a moment's thought. "And then when it did happen it got too excited about it to mention any more?"
"Definitely something to think about," Varga said. "Knowing even this much about their motivations could be very important."
A few minutes later Amy showed up, an odd look on her face. She didn't bother getting Ianthe out, merely sat at the table. Taylor and Lisa exchanged glances before the former made a stick and poked Amy with it across the table.
"Oh, sorry, hi," Amy said, shaking herself and focusing on them. "Did you know that Toybox apparently relocated here last night?"
"Really?" Lisa said, obviously thinking about it. "I suppose being tinkers they would be just as interested as any other tinker in looking at Taylor's power box."
"The emergency I was called in for was related to them setting up defenses to protect the town," Amy said. "A test-fire injured several tinkers, not that they all told me they were parahumans. They did ask me to pass on a request to have members of the family visit their current base of operations to be permanently excluded from the targeting systems."
Taylor banged her head on the table. "I just wanted to keep the DWU powered with all the issues the electric grid was having. How did it balloon into all of this?"