6.

As I packed up my bags at the end of school, I spotted Taylor walked and talking with an older man who was probably her father. She seemed mostly happy about the situation, so I guessed things were going okay. I gave her a small wave as I left which she returned with a small smile. That was enough to make me finally decide I had done the right thing.

My sister joined me at the bus stop as always and gave me a searching look. She wasn't the only one that I had noted looking at me weird and I guessed me getting called to the office over the intercom was the likely reason.

"I heard four girls got suspended today because they got into a fight with you." She said with wide disbelieving eyes.

It seemed that the rumour mill was turning at high speed.

I shrugged, "I didn't know that but probably because they were bullying a girl, I got involved, they lied trying to get us in trouble with the Vice but a teacher witnessed it. Unsure why four, there were nine there."

"You got into a fight with nine girls over another girl, who is this girl?" She said that with a smirk that made my shoulders slump.

I considered not telling her but that would probably just make it worse, "Taylor Hebert."

Tracy scrunched up her face in though for a moment, I only just resisted the urge to tell her she was making her nose look like a raisin.

"Right, the tall girl with the beautiful dark hair in your year. The one that the short blondie and runner tease a lot. The one from the locker."

"The locker?" I asked wondering about that one reference. The rest I understood.

"Didn't you… ooh... you were at music camp still. From what I hear the short blondie and runner girl filled her locker with all sorts of … stuff and locked her in it the first day back. Your girl had a breakdown and was out of school for weeks."

I just stared at my sister for a moment, "What? But that doesn't make sense. Why would Mrs. Keller even believe those girls for a moment if they got in trouble for that in January?"

"No one got in trouble. Runner girl and her pose strutted around for weeks whilst Taylor was in hospital. 'No one saw anything'", she made the air quotes with her fingers, "and I don't know what Taylor said, but since she was getting therapy maybe she wasn't able to remember or something. Don't know how they got away with it since multiple people were talking about how they saw the whole thing I think some even said they had videos of them pushing her in though I'm not sure if that's true or not."

I tried to process that. Thinking back, I couldn't remember if I had noticed Taylor missing when I had returned to school, I had been pretty focused on my music and the camp. I was pretty lucky that I was still able to go to it. Dad had booked it something like eight months in advance, a few months before he'd lost his job. He probably could have got a refund but was adamant that I still went. He'd even had to pay extra to have me stay a few more days. Originally, we were all coming back together after the rest of the family had a small holiday. That holiday he had cancelled.

"But hey, don't let that put you off. I'm sure she is a nice girl."

It took me a moment to work out what she was talking about. I decided there would be no point telling her that we were barely acquaintances so I tuned out my sister who started talking about how our kids would probably have beautiful long hair.

Thankfully the teasing didn't last long as a couple of her friends joined her and they started discussing the latest news, something about Lung being caught. At this point I put in my headphones, I didn't want to think about parahumans and especially not supervillains. I could still recall the noise and everything flying towards me whilst I crawled around the back of the van.

With the music playing and seated in the bus I started checking emails, both mine and dad's. It hadn't been too much work to hack up an email server to intercept and redirect mail with a few filters so I could catch any discussions about pay. Luckily it seemed that things were going well, and he'd jumped onboard without delay.

At the rate he was working I'd have to make sure to spend at least a few hours every night to create enough of a buffer to cover the shortfall in what they were paying.

"Sparky's rescued his girlfriend from bullies today!"

I shook my head as mum turned to face me, but she didn't take the hint.

"Really, what's she like?" mum asked eagerly with a broad teasing smile.

"I'm going to my room to get changed. Are you still able to give me a lift to Access Computers?"

"Sure son, you can tell me all about your day on the way."

I shook my head; I could deal with a bit of teasing. I went to my room as Tracy started talking about Taylor in detail. I was kind of impressed just how much she knew considering both me and Taylor were a couple of years below her. Still if Taylor had been big news a few months back that could explain that.

I quickly got changed and spent the fifteen minutes I had left to grab a drink and put in a few more bids for jobs. I had enough work lined up for most of the week, but I really needed something meaty to give me a regular income to bring into the family. I already knew that dad and mum wouldn't accept any of money I earned at the computer shop though I could probably sneak a bit into the grocery kitty.

I had to take a few deep breaths before I got in the car but I don't think mum noticed.

"So, tell me about Taylor. What's this about her being bullied?" mum asked once we were driving.

"Today a bunch of girls had cornered her after class. I just helped her out a bit. I don't really know her, been in her group in class a few times. She's a bit of a loner though that might be because she is bullied a lot." I was watching the traffic a lot more closely that normal. I tried to stop myself, but I couldn't stop tensing each time we came to an intersection.

"Tracy says she's quite pretty, long curly dark hair and tall."

"I guess." I answered as I focussed on the road. I couldn't see anyway to get out of this.

"If you want to take her out, I can give you some money for movies or whatever you want to do."

"Thanks mum, but apart from today I don't think I've ever said a word to her outside class. It's just not something I'm thinking about at the moment."

Mum nodded, "Okay, well the offer is still there and also I'm really proud of you for standing up for someone."

I really smiled this time, "Thanks. It actually felt really good…" My smiled faded, "I wish I had done something earlier. I think it's being going on for a long time." I didn't actually think that; I knew that.

"Hey, don't think like that. It's what you did today that matters. Focus on that. Okay, it's somewhere along here."

"Up past the pedestrian crossing." I pointed out.

She nodded and pulled off into the parking area in front of a strip of small stores that included Access Computers. It sat between a laundromat and shoe shop.

It was at this time that my powers decided to overlay the interior of the car with another series of rooms. I had the sense that I could push it away but given that I had no idea what that would do and knowing my mum would take a few minutes to park, dad had told her she was overly cautious many times, I decided to just let them roll past.

The first room was like being inside a supercomputer. Towers of complicated components, wiring and pipes made up the walls, roof, and floor with only a metal catwalk around a large metal pedestal providing a place where someone could stand. My viewpoint moved quickly through the room and out a large doorway.

The second room was inside a circular stone room with a spiral stairway heading up. A pair of tall bookcases with strange knickknacks and a few books were the only decoration and due to the small size of the room I was through and out through another doorway in seconds.

I could see mum carefully lining up the car checking the mirrors every few inches and I was glad at least this time there was no traffic behind us being held up.

The third room was a strange mix of the quintessential mad scientist lab with beakers filled with bubbling liquids connected by twisting pipes, large jars of glowing liquids and various best forgotten parts of creatures, and the kind of lab you would expect to see connected to the space program, with highly technical blueprints stuck to the wall, 3d printers, soldering stations and some expensive looking hi-tech machines and microscopes.

I gave up on trying to find a pattern to these visions.

The final room was fairly simple. Tiled floor, simple light blue walls, and a slightly lighter blue roof but something was a little off. The room felt a little too square, the texture of the surfaces a little too even. Apart from the doorway that was likely behind me, I certainly wasn't going to twist around whilst I was actually sitting in a car next to my mum to check, the only thing feature of the room was a rectangle pedestal. By rectangle I mean it was a pure block of dark blue something. Perfect sides and corners and seemingly merged with the floor. On it were two items. An inch wide metallic bracelet which looked just like someone had applied a generic spaceship hull texture to a 3d model and a small metal strip.

A few seconds after the bracelet and metal strip vanished and I felt something appear around my left wrist and a faint weight pull down my shirt pocket. I only just managed not to jump or make a noise though I did stiffen for a moment. Thankfully mum was carefully inching her way towards the curb and wasn't paying me any attention.

With my right hand I gently felt my left wrist and determined that yes, under my shirt sleeve there was a metallic bracelet that I was fairly sure matched the dimensions of the one I had seen in my vision. I was going to have to revisit my thoughts about what exactly my power was capable of. There was no denying that my power was evolving, and I wasn't going to try and pretend that maybe I was imagining things. Either I had totally lost connection with reality, or this was really happening, and I was going to go with the latter.

I could feel there was information on my new power just waiting for me to access but I carefully focused on the here and now instead.

"Do you want me to hop out and see how much room you have mum?"

"Oh yes please, that would be helpful."

I hoped out and directed mum to move the last two foot till she was near enough the curb that she wouldn't complain about sticking out too far. Considering that the car was a tiny hatchback there wasn't any chance of that even if she had left a couple of feet, but I knew better than to point that out to her.

"Good luck dear, if I'm not in the shoe shop I'll be waiting in the car for you." She kissed my forehead before heading to the shop.

"Thanks mum."

Access Computers was a small glass fronted shop. A large rack of equipment filled the window and though some effort had been made in areas to present graphics cards and SSDs in a good light most of the items on the shelves looked as if they were just stacked in where-ever available space had been. Through the glass door and between the items on the shelves I could see most of the public area of the shop.

A tall counter stretched across two thirds of the back wall allowing a gap for access and also for a door leading further back. Behind it sat more shelves where the more valuable motherboards and graphics cards sat. One side wall had a few stands of cables and accessories. The other was covered in posters and had a small table with a few chairs at it. In the middle of the room was a stand with a flashy computers with glowing fans and liquid cooling systems.

As I entered a small bell attached to the door rang and a middle aged man looked up from behind the desk.

"Hi, can I help you?"

"Hello Sir, my name is Robert and I'm here to meet with James Curtis." I replied politely.

"Hi Robert, that's me. Pleased to meet you." He came around the desk and we shook hands before he led me to the small table where we both sat.

"So, tell me about yourself."

I handed over the CV I had put together over the weekend and gave a decent summary of my interests and experience though that really only consisted of the session musician work I had done.

As he glanced at the CV my powers choose that time to present a new room to me. I tensed as instead of travelling from room to room I appeared in a large modern looking laboratory. This, unlike the mad scientist lab that had occurred only minutes before, looked like something that I would find in any university or pharmaceutical research lab. Fridges, centrifuges, microscopes were the most recognizable items.

Then, just as quickly as it appeared it vanished just as James nodded and looked up and nodded, "Seems fine, fill this out as best you can."

I looked down at the pen and paper he pushed across the desk. It looked very muck like he had grabbed a page of general IT questions from some website IT primer and printed them out. They were easy enough to fill out, but I took it slowly as I explored my new Chemistry knowledge. I now knew how to create drugs, steroids, medicines, and even deadly toxins like nerve gas.

"Well, you certainly look to know your computers. Come over and let me run through how to use the cash machine. Would only be for small purchases like cables and phone accessories. All the big sales use our purchase order system. That is a whole different beast."

He ran me through the process, and I quickly proved through a few test transactions that I wouldn't have any issue using it and with that I had a three hour shift lined up for Saturday morning. Paperwork in hand I left and found mum waiting in the car for me.

Apart from a quick summary of what happened and answering a few questions I lost myself in the world of Chemistry. This wasn't a tinker power. I understood the theory and could easily relate it to my prior knowledge. I already knew how to make a vast range of common drugs and medicines, includes recreational, and was quite sure that any non-tinker drug that I could get a sample of I would be able to duplicate given the correct raw materials.

Tinker drugs were not like that, tinkers were not like that. Either I was the weirdest trump, or I was something else.

I had a lot of thinking and testing to do once I got home.

Celestial Forge Perks - Companion Bracelet / Soft Stick - World Seed - 200cp / Chemist - Batman Beyond - 200cp