As the mech appeared out of more or less nowhere, Armsmaster actually stepped back, making a surprised grunt, Dragon froze in shock, and Doctor Ikari started swearing in Japanese under his breath, which caused Taylor to snicker. She said something back to him in the same language, surprising Lisa since she had no idea her friend spoke it. He looked at the lizard-girl, raised an eyebrow, and nodded.
Doctor Wilson stared for several seconds, then grinned like a lunatic. "Incredible," he breathed. "That's some form of dimensional pocket storage, correct?"
"It's her work, not mine," Linda said, indicating Taylor's aspect with a thumb over her shoulder. "I was as surprised as you were the first time. But it's fucking useful I can tell you."
"I can imagine," the scientist agreed. "Do you mind?" He motioned at the mech.
"Help yourself," she invited, looking at Dragon and Armsmaster as well. Both Tinkers followed the taller man over to the machine, inspecting it closely. Doctor Ikari said something to Taylor, who replied, then both of them chuckled, before he followed his colleagues.
"He said that considering the things the Family had done so far he shouldn't have been surprised, but it wasn't every day you saw a pool ball turn into a science fiction prop," Taylor explained as she looked at Lisa, who grinned.
{Since when do you speak Japanese?} she asked in Famtalk.
{Since about three days ago, Varga taught me the same as he did this language,} her friend replied, looking somewhat smug. {The bizarre thing is it's the language Princess Luna's people spoke, almost. It was close enough that we could easily learn the differences. I think I've got a strange accent, though. People look at me oddly when I speak it.}
{You do realize that there are a lot of reasons other than your accent why people might look oddly at you, I hope?} Lisa said with a smirk. Taylor shrugged, returning it.
{I can believe that.}
{So why did you want to learn Japanese in the first place?} the black lizard queried. {What the hell are you up to now?}
{It is… a secret.}
{You really are a pain in the ass sometimes.}
{Takes one to know one.} They shared a look, then joined the others. Linda had climbed up and opened the cockpit, then activated the mech and lowered it as far as it would go into a squat, both scientists looking into it as she explained the controls. Armsmaster was listening intently, scanning the thing at the same time with what looked like Leet's tricorder, while Dragon was walking around it with her head tilted a little, looking inquisitive and curious.
Taylor inspected the instrument the Protectorate Tinker was manipulating with interest, then looked at Lisa, who was doing the same. {Looks like Dragon was successful,} she said in a low voice, nodding to where the Canadian had produced an identical one.
{Seems like it. That will please him. And it's a good sign, although I wonder how she's coming along with the audio inducer.} They were talking quietly enough that apparently Armsmaster didn't notice.
"Our information is that you are using superconducting electric motors for the drive systems," he commented, fiddling with his tricorder and giving off a slightly frustrated impression. "The outer hull being constructed of EDM is blocking my scans, of course." Lowering the device, he studied the mech. "Based on the recordings I've seen, the mechanism works very smoothly and well."
"Thanks," Linda said, looking down at him from where she was standing in the cockpit. "That's correct, it's using superconducting linear motors. They're extremely powerful, very light, and don't take up much room compared to hydraulic systems. And they're much more efficient as well. Not to mention vastly faster in operation. EDM bearing surfaces make them virtually frictionless. Each actuator is specific to the application but they share characteristics."
Armsmaster and Dragon looked at each other. "What superconductor material are you using?" the latter said, turning her head back to look up at Linda. "Where do you keep the liquid helium reservoir? Do you have an onboard cryostat, or does it run total loss?" She examined the mech more closely. "I can't see any outgassing or venting of coolant."
"Liquid nitrogen and a high temperature superconductor, perhaps?" Armsmaster suggested, also looking at the hulking machine.
"Still no venting. No low temperature spots, although the EDM hull would tend to mask that."
Lisa watched and listened with inner amusement as they went through a number of possibilities, with Doctor Wilson giving his input as well. Linda was leaning on the rim of the cockpit enjoying the show.
Doctor Ikari looked at them all, then slowly turned his head to peer at the Saurial aspect who was standing next to him wearing a small, slightly evil, smirk. He said something in Japanese to her, which made her chortle with glee and nod, then reply at length. His impassive look briefly showed surprise, then a faint smile.
"Gentlemen, and Dragon, I suspect that you may be overlooking something," he said after another minute or so of Tinker talk. Dragon, Armsmaster, and his PRT colleague all looked at him. He indicated the lizard girl. "Remember the matter creation ability we've recorded Saurial and her sisters using."
Linda was appearing amused now. "I can design more things than you'd believe," she said, causing them to look up at her now. "Including specialist materials with some very useful properties. She can make them." She tapped the side of the mech. "Case in point. I sure didn't fabricate most of this myself, only the Family can make and work EDM."
'Saurial' held out a hand, in which a rod of the black superconductor appeared. She handed it to Doctor Ikari, who looked at it closely, then gave it to Armsmaster who came over, pointing his scanner at it for a few seconds. "This is the superconductor material in question?"
"It is," Taylor replied with a nod.
"What's the critical temperature?" he asked curiously, putting his scanner into a cavity in his armor, then experimentally bending the foot long, half inch diameter rod. It easily flexed, acting like rubber in his grip. "It appears similar to some of the high temperature ceramic superconductors, although it's clearly not a ceramic substrate. My scans are inconclusive."
"The critical temperature is just below the melting point," Linda said as she jumped out of the mech cockpit, Both she and Dragon joining the others. Doctor Wilson was listening but still inspecting the tail plasma emitter.
"Which is?"
"Two thousand nine hundred and sixty-four degrees centigrade. Approximately."
Total silence fell over the room for some seconds, broken only by the very faint hum of the forcefield generators.
"Excuse me?" Dragon, very carefully, said. "Did you say…?"
"Two thousand nine hundred and sixty-four degrees centigrade. Yes, I did," Linda grinned.
"You're saying you have an electrical superconductor material that remains superconducting to very close to three thousand degrees centigrade?" Armsmaster asked in tones of disbelief, as if he was thinking he'd misheard twice.
"You're holding a piece of it."
Both Tinkers stared at the dull black rod in his hand, then looked at each other, before turning to look at the mech again. Doctor Wilson was now gaping at both Taylor and Linda, looking stunned.
"Keep it, run tests on it," Taylor suggested. "It's not very important right now, it's only one small part of the design."
"A fairly critical part," Linda put in.
"Well, true, but it's not the main point."
"Agreed."
After close to thirty seconds, Dragon said in a slightly awed tone, "When this testing is over, I think we need to talk again."
"That can be arranged," Taylor smiled. "We have a few other things we want to discuss at some point anyway." She looked meaningfully at the tricorder in the armored gauntlet of Dragon's suit. The Tinker raised it, looked at it, then her.
"Yes, I was intending to talk to you about this very soon," she said with good humor. "Sorry, I got caught up in the moment. I've got his original unit and some of the pre-production ones to return to him. I'll be in contact shortly, if that's all right."
"Any time," Taylor replied.
Armsmaster was now scanning the sample in his hand, in a way that even with half his face hidden produced the effect of considerable surprise, as did his scent. "This is..." He didn't seem to be able to work out what to add to the sentence.
"Something of a game changer, I expect," Doctor Wilson said as he came over and looked at the black material. Armsmaster handed it to him after a few more seconds of scanning, before turning to look at the mech and Linda yet again.
"That is a good summation," he remarked, sounding a little faint. "Not only room temperature superconductivity, but extreme high-temperature superconductivity… The number of fields this would revolutionize is hard to overstate." He looked back at the lizard-girl. "And you can make it on demand? It's not something that requires Vectura as the creating Tinker?"
Taylor held up another rod of the stuff. "It's her design, not something I came up with, but I can make any quantity we need. Why, do you think it's something we could sell?"
She looked innocently at him as he made a faint choking sound. Dragon, who was looking back and forth between them, shook her head in what looked like the manner of someone trying not to laugh. Doctor Ikari was wearing a small, private, and restrained smile, while emitting a scent of someone who was enjoying himself.
"I have no doubt it has significant commercial application," Armsmaster finally said with a tiny sigh. "As do almost all the things your family and friends come up with. I wish to talk further about this when we all have more time, as I expect Dragon will also do."
"Definitely," the other Tinker nodded, sounding enthusiastic. "I can think of literally dozens of places that stuff would make a huge impact just in my own products."
"We'll discuss it when we talk about the tricorders," Taylor promised. She handed the second sample to Doctor Wilson who had come over to stand next to his colleague, the man taking it reverently. "But for now, let's get back to Vectura and her testing. What next?"
"Agreed," Armsmaster replied, facing the mech. "We could spend hours going over the specifications of this machine, and I would be interested in doing exactly that, but you're correct, now is not the time. Vectura, if you could briefly demonstrate the operation of your mech while we record it for later analysis, that would be very helpful and a decent first test."
"Sure," the cat-woman said, moving back in the cockpit and sitting down. They could see her upper torso as she fastened the restraints. Moments later, the transparent top half closed and locked into place with a quiet clunk, the mech then standing up smoothly and almost silently as she activated it. There was a click that echoed around the vast room as she turned on the external PA system. "Can you hear me properly?" she asked, her voice ringing out clearly and a little too loudly.
"Turn it down a bit," Taylor called.
"How about now?"
"Perfect."
"OK." The mech took a couple of steps away from them, the footfalls solid but much quieter than seemed plausible. Linda spun it to face them, then made it gesture at itself with both hands. "As you can see, the machine is fast, stable, very smooth in operation, and almost silent." She waved at them with one metal hand. "I'll go over the full specifications later if you want details."
"We're aware of the basics from Sergeant Foxton's report, thank you, Vectura," Doctor Wilson said, watching with great interest. "I would appreciate more data if it's available, though."
"Of course. Right, there isn't enough room in here to go anywhere near full speed, but I can put it through some simple routines." The feline Tinker spun the machine again, then jogged off across the room. When she was a safe distance away, she proceeded to run it back and forth, both on two and four legs, jump more than half-way to the ceiling, do a forward somersault like the one that the Varga had managed, and even make it stand on one leg.
"Truly remarkable," Dragon muttered, watching closely. "The liquidity of the motion control is excellent, better than anything I've ever seen in something even close to that size and mass." Raising her voice, she asked, "What is the control system?"
"It's a hybrid of a network of digital processors for the main CPU cluster, with a large array of analog processing running a form of nested neural network which does the low level motion drive. The system is pre-programmed with a basic set of control logic which is sufficient to get it running adequately well for the pilot to operate it, but it's heavily adaptive and learns on the fly to work at peak efficiency." Linda sounded pleased with her work, Lisa mused, as well she should be.
"It can compensate for uneven ground, or weight distribution, different operators, different terrain, high winds, underwater operation, you name it. Even lower or higher gravity. If one leg failed, for example, it would adapt to the loss and work around it in under a second." She waved at Taylor, who seemed to expect this, dashing closer and making a huge block of steel with a handle on it, twice the size of an oil drum. Linda's mech picked it up, shifting its weight as it took the load and making it look trivially easy. She proceeded to jog around the room again, moving the several ton weight from hand to hand as she went. The mech compensated for this so smoothly with motions of hips and tail that it was entirely seamless.
Doctor Wilson whistled to himself, shaking his head in wonder. Doctor Ikari was making note after note, watching the demonstration very closely, with a definite impressed expression trying to break through the otherwise imperturbable one he clearly cultivated.
Coming to a halt fifty feet away, facing them, Linda put the block down. "The control electronics are adapted from commercial high-speed FPGA and GPU arrays intended for massively parallel computing in graphics generation, while the analog processing section is my own design, put together from a signal amplifier and processing system intended for a radar receiver. We just connected a shitload of them together in a block, using very thin EDM heatpipes to cool everything. The next generation is more powerful and a lot smaller, Saurial made them based on this prototype."
"It's the same little block of surprisingly simple electronics repeated over and over," 'Saurial' explained when Armsmaster and Dragon looked curiously at her. "I'm still learning about this sort of thing, and at the moment the digital electronics are a little past what I can duplicate, but I'll get there. It's very interesting seeing how this sort of technology works. But Vectura knows a hell of a lot more about it than I do."
"How much of this technology can you duplicate without Vectura's input?" Armsmaster asked, sounding fascinated.
"I can make all the mechanical parts, the electrical bits, and some of the electronics so far," Taylor replied. "Vectura still needs to do whatever it is a Tinker does to the processing boards, write the software, that sort of thing, and the power units don't work unless she fiddles with them. None of us can work out why, yet. I mean, I understand that's normal with Tinker tech, but it shouldn't be."
She frowned a little. "The power supply unit isn't exactly simple, but even so I sort of see what's happening with it. I'm still working on the math, but it appears to pull power through a small spatial warp of some sort, although I'm not sure where from. Even so, I can make all the parts, put one together exactly like Vectura does, and it doesn't work. If I take it apart again and give her all the same bits, when she builds it, it works fine. There's something very weird going on there."
"As you say, it's very common, to the point of nearly being an immutable fact," Doctor Wilson said, having been listening with a thoughtful look and much interest. "I'm not aware of many Tinker designs, certainly in the technological areas rather than biological or chemical, which can be duplicated by anyone other than the originating Tinker at all. Dragon has a definite gift for doing that, and there are a couple of others who can do much the same with certain technology, but it's very rare indeed."
"I remember Armsmaster talking about it some time ago when he and Dragon visited our office," Taylor nodded. "It still seems strange to me."
"If you do ever manage to work out what the root cause of it is, please let me know," the scientist said with an honest smile. "I would be totally fascinated to find out. It's something that we've puzzled over from the very first time Parahumans came on the scene, with no good or even particularly believable answer so far put forward. There are a lot of theories but very few can even be tested, never mind disproved."
"I'll keep thinking about it," she assured him with a smile. "If I work it out, I'll tell you."
Doctor Ikari made some more notes, then looked up. "I would also be interested in any insights you might obtain, Saurial," he said in a calm voice. "The nature of powers is my entire field of expertise but I'd be among the first to admit we do not yet have a coherent explanation that fits at all well. However, this is somewhat beside the point at the moment, I feel, and should perhaps be left for another time."
They resumed watching the mech, as Linda activated the tail plasma blade and brought it around, slicing a piece off the huge steel block. The red-hot surface exposed by this action slowly cooled down and went dark. She flicked out one of the arm blades and cut another slice off about as easily as someone using a knife on a block of cheese. Armsmaster looked impressed, and appalled, in equal measure. Once again, Doctor Ikari made copious notes. When she'd finished putting the machine through an abbreviated version of the initial test, Taylor called out, "Show them the sound suppression system."
Everyone looked at her, Lisa with a grin, the rest appearing slightly puzzled. "Sound suppression?" Doctor Wilson queried. "You can hardly hear it right now, why would it need..."
He blinked, several times, then started chuckling in a sort of awed way. Armsmaster stared, turned to Dragon who was audibly suppressing a faint laugh of her own, and said in a flat voice, "And it turns invisible."
"It turns inaudible," Taylor corrected with a smirk. "The invisibility is a side effect. Vectura has put in a lot of safety features. Construction or demolition can be dangerously noisy. This fixes that problem."
"Of course." Dragon snickered. "I understand completely. Perfectly reasonable."
"You are not helping," Armsmaster muttered under his breath. Lisa tried not to laugh. The mech faded back into view, a grinning Linda visible inside. She lowered it to the floor, powered it down, and vaulted over the edge of the cockpit, grabbing the top section and making it start to lower on the way down. Landing nimbly next to it, she waited for the canopy to hiss closed and lock, before she put her hand on the activation point for the dimensional storage mode. Moments later, she bent down and retrieved the small spherical form that was left, walking over to them with a definite air of satisfaction.
Everyone looked at the ball which she slipped back into her pocket.
After a short silence, Doctor Ikari raised his pen and attracted her attention. "May I ask how long it took you to design and build that machine, Vectura?"
Linda thought for a moment. "Um… The design phase was probably… three or four days?" She glanced at Taylor and Lisa who nodded. "Something like that. I was thinking about it for a week or so before I started making the plans, and I guess I've wanted to make something like it for years, but never had the resources. When it turned out Saurial could make any custom exotic material I could describe, that made a fucking enormous difference to the design and I started all over again on the motors."
"It took about two days for us to make the first set of parts," 'Saurial' added. "My sister and I went through a few versions before Vectura was happy with the results. Then another two or three days to put it together, wire it all up, and write the software. She was doing that while we were making the parts, in fact, so it all worked out pretty neatly."
"Elapsed time from beginning of planning phase to a working prototype of approximately a week, then," the man noted, writing some more. His eyebrows had gone up a little. "Very good indeed. I would imagine that the fabrication talents your family can bring to the table speeded that up enormously."
"It would have taken a lot longer to do it the normal way," Linda nodded. "Assuming I even had the resources in the first place. And it wouldn't have ended up as good as it did, I'd probably have gone for high pressure hydraulics which are shit compared to the linear motors."
"I understand." He looked up from his notebook. "How long would it take to duplicate?"
"The next dozen took about two days to build," Linda said cheerfully.
After a second or two, Doctor Ikari bent down and retrieved his pen, which he'd dropped. Armsmaster was breathing a little heavily, Dragon was staring fixedly at her, and Doctor Wilson was grinning widely again. "Oh, I like you lot," he said with laugh.
Lisa winked at him.
"To be fair, we've only assembled six of them completely so far, but we've made a dozen sets of parts so she has some spares for experimentation," Taylor explained, looking amused at the reactions. "Vectura improved the design, making it simpler to produce, after the thorough testing all the DWU people gave it. They had a lot of really good suggestions for improvements, too."
"Some of those guys are unbelievable at this sort of machine operation," Linda put it, shaking her head. "Just off the scale good. Years and years of practice. I'd be an idiot not to listen to their ideas, and I like to think I'm not an idiot."
"I feel sure in saying that you are in no way an idiot, Vectura," Dragon said slowly. "How many mechs are you planning on making?"
"We're not sure yet," the cat-woman shrugged. "At least a dozen or two, there are that many people who need them for the work we're doing at the DWU. We're still thinking about commercializing them, but even if we never do, it'll be useful to have them available. I still need to add the flight mode systems, improve the control and feedback issues, finish the underwater drive, life support, maybe a better canopy, add cameras to the underside..." She cocked her head, thinking. "Lots of improvements. But it's very modular so I can upgrade them easily. The mark 2 units are much neater internally than this one is."
She tapped her pocket with a finger. "Everything more or less snaps together. When the manual is finished, we could easily have the mechanical department at the DWU build them. It depends on how many we end up making."
Everyone other than Lisa and Taylor were listening with odd expressions. The latter two exchanged a glance, smiling a little. This seemed to be a theme at the moment.
Eventually, Doctor Wilson cleared his throat, making them look at him. "Shall we get on with the rest of the tests?" he suggested, indicating the tables full of equipment and parts. "I've already got a fairly shrewd idea of a tentative rating, but some more testing should let us nail that down better, and work out if there are other categories than Tinker in play."
"Sure," Linda replied, following him over to the tables. The others accompanied them. Lisa and Taylor stood off to the side, watching, as both scientists started going over what they wanted to do, Armsmaster observing carefully and apparently over his earlier shock. Dragon glanced at them, then him, before coming over to join them.
"This will take a while, I expect," she said.
"What are they going to do?" Taylor asked curiously, keeping her voice low so as not to interrupt them. Lisa was pleased to see that Linda now seemed completely calm and was obviously enjoying herself, the demonstration of her mech having had a good effect on her even as it somewhat unnerved the others.
"There are a number of different ways to test Tinker abilities," Dragon explained. "Some as simple as presenting the person being tested with as large a selection of random parts and equipment as possible and seeing what happens. A newly Triggered Tinker typically starts drawing or planning projects almost unconsciously. That's one of the key signs, as is them going looking for parts in places like junk yards, second hand shops, that sort of thing. It's one of the things both the PRT and the gangs look out for. Unfortunately it's often the gangs who get there first, of course."
She watched as Linda picked up a few different circuit boards from the pile of them at one table, inspecting them, then putting them down again. "Luckily your friend there found you. You can provide her with safety, friendship, and help with her designs, probably better than almost anyone could." Turning to look at the lizard-girl, she paused for a moment, then asked, "If you don't mind the question, how did you meet her?"
Taylor nodded sideways at 'Metis.' "My cousin came across her a while ago. She was in a bad place, hiding from people she really didn't want to meet again. And terrified of both the gangs, like you said, and in a way the PRT. She doesn't entirely trust them. To be honest, with her background, which I think was pretty unpleasant, she doesn't trust most people."
"She trusts you. And Metis. I can see that clearly just in her body language." The armored Canadian woman looked back at Linda for a moment. "She was very nervous when you got here, and didn't like to get too far away from either of you, I noticed. Showing off that incredible mech relaxed her a lot but she's still a little cautious, even though she's trying her best. She keeps looking at either you or Metis, almost unconsciously, like she's worried that you might vanish."
"I know, I can see the same thing," Lisa sighed. "Trust me when I say that she had a very nasty time of it the last few years and she has… a number of issues. We offered her sanctuary, somewhere to live, and a job. She agreed. The DWU is good for her, they simply accept her. I don't think that ever happened before, certainly not since she Triggered. Which from what I know was under some highly upsetting circumstances, even for a Trigger event."
"What about her family?" Dragon asked. Lisa and Taylor exchanged a look. It was obvious the woman was probing for information, which was to be expected. Much of it would go back to at least Director Piggot, there wasn't much doubt of that, but it also seemed likely that the Tinker would use discretion. On the whole, both of them trusted her quite a lot.
"I think her parents are still alive, but I know she hasn't seen or spoken to them in nearly a decade," Lisa replied after thinking it over. It was true, after all. "And from what she said, she has no intention of ever contacting them again. I don't have all the details but she was definitely relieved to leave her home town. She told me once that she was pretty sure she'd be dead now if she hadn't."
"Nasty."
"Yes." Lisa shrugged. "The woman has reasons to be both distrustful and wary of other people. It's gone bad before and she was lucky to get away."
"If you don't mind the advice, I suspect she could benefit from talking to a therapist," Dragon remarked after nodding thoughtfully. "More so than most Parahumans could, and the bulk of them definitely need at least a little psychological counseling all things considered. It comes with the whole Triggering problem."
"We've discussed it," Taylor replied. "She's aware of it herself. Vectura hides it well, but sometimes she goes quiet and I can tell she's remembering things she doesn't want to think about. I can literally smell it when it happens. But we'd need to find someone very discreet who could be trusted." Glancing at Dragon, she added with a small smile, "No disrespect meant but that probably precludes anyone associated with the PRT."
The woman sounded mildly amused when she spoke. "I understand. To be honest, there aren't enough good therapists to go around in the PRT already. Director Piggot is very irritated about that, she's been trying to get someone assigned to Brockton Bay permanently for at least a year or so. As far as I know Chief Director Costa-Brown was looking into it, but nothing has happened yet. Hopefully it will soon."
"We've got a few possible leads," Lisa told her. "Amy Dallon knows a couple of people who might be able to help, or know someone who could. We can easily pay for it, so that's not a problem."
"Would you have her seen as Vectura or in her civilian ID?" Dragon asked, looking at her again.
"I'm not sure yet. It would be up to her, of course. It presents some difficulties either way, but we'll figure it out."
"Good luck. If I can help, let me know."
"Thanks."
They fell silent again, observing as their friend wandered around the tables for a while, picking out parts here and there. She seemed to have something in mind for them. Armsmaster was staying out of the way but was clearly very interested indeed in her selections, while the two scientists were taking notes and occasionally discussing what she was doing in quiet voices.
"I'll get some nachos and stuff," Rudy said as he looked over at the concession counter. "Who wants some?"
"I'll take it," Benny replied, glancing at his wife and Ella.
"Grab me a hot-dog and some vanilla coke, Rudy," Ella said.
"Christ, I don't know how you can drink that shit," Rudy complained.
"I like it," she replied, hands on hips. Benny smirked, this was a familiar scene. Rudy hated the stuff with a passion, his wife loved it.
"Nachos and water for me, please, Rudy," Clara said, nudging the other woman to get her to stop the argument she was about to have. "Benny, let's find a lane." She looked past the video games that were scattered around the entrance area towards the rear of the large building from where the typical sounds of bowling were coming, and people were wandering around. Many of them were in their twenties and quite a few of those had beers in hand and smiles on their faces. "Looks busy. I hope there's a free one."
"This place has like sixteen lanes or something," Ella said, shrugging. "There'll be one free."
"I'll pay, love, you and Ella find a good place," Benny said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. Rudy was now heading for the junk food dispensing area. The two women nodded and turned around, disappearing into the main bowling area. Walking over to the counter, Benny attracted the attention of one of the two middle-aged men working there. "Four," he said when the guy came over.
The transaction was swiftly completed, and he put the receipt into his wallet and his wallet back into his pocket. As he was heading past where the bowling shoes were kept, Rudy joined him again, holding a tray piled with nachos and soda cups. "Fuck, you got a tapeworm or something?" Benny asked with a grin. "We just finished a meal."
His friend shrugged. "Can't go bowling without snacks," he pointed out in an entirely reasonable way.
"Good point." Going toward the lanes, they stopped and looked around. "Clara's right, it is pretty busy." It looked like all the lanes were in use at the moment, with bowlers ranging from some teenagers who should have been in school to a group of old men which probably had something like eighty as the lowest age of any of them. "We may have to wait."
"Where are the girls?" Rudy asked, peering up and down the large area. The clash and clatter of falling pins mixed with the noise of balls going down lanes, background music, and lots of people yelling in either disappointment or triumph.
"Rudy!" A yell from a familiar voice to their right attracted their attention, both men looking to see Ella waving frantically at them from the lane on the far right next to the wall. Clara was sitting down on the semi-circle of seats around the computerized scoring console, talking to someone half-hidden behind the low wall that separated the console ends of the lanes from each other, down three steps from the main floor that they were on.
"Looks like they found someone leaving," Rudy said, turning in that direction. Whoever it was appeared to be retying their shoe, bent over so only their back was visible. Both of them went over, smiling at their wives. Ella seemed in a good mood and Clara was laughing about something the guy had said.
They were about ten yards away when he straightened up.
Both men stopped dead, gaping in horror.
"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me," Benny moaned, feeling the blood drain from his face, apparently heading for his shoes. Rudy had made a little pained sound and was now totally silent, the tray in his hands starting to tilt and the things on it in danger of falling off.
Ella ascended the steps and hurried over to meet them, grabbing the tray just before Rudy dropped it. "Careful, Rudy," she admonished her husband. "Isn't this nice? Mr Hebert recognized us from the restaurant and said we could join him, all the other lanes are full."
"Of course he did," Rudy sighed, almost inaudible over the background noise. He looked at Benny, who looked back. Both of them swallowed hard. Boss Hebert turned towards them and smiled, waving them over. Feeling uncomfortably like he was walking to his doom, Benny began moving again, his friend by his side, fine beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead and neck.
"It's good timing, I was just about to start another frame," Boss Hebert said in a jovial manner, waving at the console which Clara was entering their names onto. He looked down. "You'll need the shoes though."
"We were going to get them after we found a lane," Rudy mumbled. He looked at Ella, then the tall thin man watching them with a knowing, amused look, before hurrying off again.
"I'll… I mean I… Be right back," Benny said, gesturing vaguely back towards the shoe collection area. He also turned and walked away as fast as he could without making it look like he was running.
"So, Mr Hebert, do you bowl a lot?" he heard Clara say brightly from behind him.
"Please, Clara, call me Danny," Mr Hebert said. "I used to, with my wife and daughter, but when my wife passed away..." He trailed off.
"Oh, that's so sad." Ella sounded sympathetic as Benny passed out of earshot.
'He's doing this on purpose,' the man thought with dismay. 'He has to be. People like Boss Hebert, there are no coincidences. It looks like there are, but that's the point.' Joining Rudy in collecting bowling shoes in their and their wives sizes, the two men exchanged a glance, each seeing similar thoughts in each other's eyes. 'What did we do to attract his attention and how do we lose it?' He picked up the two pairs of freshly cleaned shoes the attendant handed him, took a deep breath, pasted an unconvincing smile on his face, and turned around to go back to what he was pretty sure was going to be a very scary bowling game.
Which wasn't helped by the way both women were hanging on every word out of Boss Hebert's lips, and being very impressed by the way he'd raised his daughter on his own. Left unsaid was that the girl was probably already more dangerous than Gino if she'd been brought up by this man and his reptilian friends…
Eventually, after some time and a lot of discussion with the scientists and Armsmaster, who were apparently trying to discern what she was interested in for each selection, Linda stopped with one table full of harvested equipment. It ran the gamut from processing boards through optical emitters to various bits that Lisa thought were heavy duty power control electronics. She looked over at them, smiling through the faceplate of her helmet. "I need you now, Saurial. Time to make something new."
"Anything good?" Taylor asked as she walked over. Linda looked very pleased with herself and nodded.
"Remember that idea you had a couple of days ago? From the movie?"
The reptilian girl cocked her head, thought for a moment, then started to grin. "Oh, yes, definitely do that."
"It'll need some fractal storage, to make it work."
"Power source?"
"The standard module, I brought some with me." Linda reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a box, which she opened to reveal several of the power modules she'd designed, which she now had quite a pile of in her lab. "This new one is much smaller and more reliable, it'll do the job well. OK, I need a diamond lens like this..." She started sketching rapidly on a large pad of paper she produced from another pocket of her costume. Doctor Ikari was apparently fascinated by the process, and Doctor Wilson, Armsmaster, and Dragon had all come over to watch over her shoulder as she drew.
Lisa sat back on her tail and enjoyed the show, while her friends quickly fell into a practiced routine where Linda designed things and Taylor made the parts, both of them working like they'd been doing this for years. The machine they were making grew steadily on the table, as the PRT scientists and the other two Tinkers watched, appearing more than a little startled at the speed of the process.
"OK, an EDM tube about fourteen inches long, an inch and a half in diameter. This shape."
"Got it."
"This part needs to be made of an alloy of forty-six percent ruthenium, two percent zirconium, fourteen point two percent silicon, and the balance iridium."
"Like this?"
"Um… Add some osmium. Half a percent."
"Half a percent of osmium always helps, and it tastes nice, too."
"So you keep saying. OK, that fits. Now a superconducting coil, but it needs to be a möbius strip, two hundred and forty-three turns. We need two of them, mirror images."
"Yep. Here you go."
"I need another diamond, this one an octagonal prism. Put a hole in it here, and another one here, like this. Fill the holes with an alloy with this atomic structure."
"Ohh, very pretty. It glows nicely."
This process went on for about an hour. When they were finally done, Linda connected the last of the subsystems, typed on the laptop she'd brought for another ten minutes, verified a few measurements with a series of test meters she pulled out of various pockets, then smiled. "Everything checks out. Fold it up." She disconnected the half-dozen cables plugged into the close to a cubic yard of equipment on the table.
Taylor did something to the odd-looking device, causing it to make an extremely disturbing visual effect, a sound like a very heavy door slamming at a great distance, and collapse into a tube about a foot long, capped with a black rubberized grip on each end. Linda picked it up and turned to the watching group, who mostly seemed shocked. "All done."
After some confused silence, Doctor Wilson stepped forward. "All right. You made… that. In a way I've never encountered before in all the time I've been in this job, I have to admit. The question is..."
"What does it do?" Armsmaster finished for him.
"This," Linda grinned, grabbing the ends of the rod, twisting, and pulling.