PRT ENE Building; Power Testing Labs: Armored Bunker; March 15 2008 1:15 PM
Armsmaster led Kotoro down underground into an area off to the side from the rest of the building to a location which appeared to be a heavily reinforced structure split into different labs suited to testing different kinds of powers.
"I will be observing, but most of these tests will be carried out by medical and science staff. I've provided suggestions based on your description of what your powers are and how your powers work, but the remainder is up to them. If you do decide to join up, I may occasionally ask you to use your powers in my lab with some higher powered sensor arrays and do more in-depth study about the mechanisms of your powers, but for today you'll be undergoing more standardized power testing. Before we do any of that however, we'll be doing a medical exam and providing you with a barebones costume. We need to make sure that people aren't relying on tinker-tech that they're hiding from us or incapable of producing themselves, perhaps being supplied by another cape.
If you were a tinker, we'd be testing your tech separately. Rarely, some tinkers obtain a grab-bag of powers, so they'll be in for more than just tech-review and safety checks. As you aren't a tinker, none of that applies to you. Just be careful not to do too much damage if you can help it, unless the techs specifically ask you for more.
They arrived at the medical room and a wizened old lady, with her white hair tied neatly in a bun, was in the room reading Kotoro's dossier muttering to herself about how crazy everything has been for the last 28 years and despite that things keep getting weirder. Hearing their footsteps, she stood, adjusted her glasses and leaned on her cane. "The man of the hour! If you're willing to put up with this ol' biddy for just a bit, I'll have your vitals all measured right quick. My name is Dr. Eleanor Hill, like the one I'm over." she cackled to herself gleefully. "Nice to meet you young Kotoro, if you'll take off your britches behind the curtain there and put on the green gown like you see in the picture on the wall, we'll get started."
When Kotoro emerged, Dr. Hill started for a second, recovering quickly, "well that's somethin' else. You've got a tail. Armsy didn't mention that in his briefing, so I'm guessin' it didn't come up.". She looked him over on all sides "Don't see no tattoos though, not sure what to make of it. Sometimes powers bring minor mutations, guess its one of those." Dr. Hill worked fast getting readings such as body temperature and blood pressure, and checked his ears, nose, throat, eyes, and skin for lesions and damage.
Soon enough she ran into a snag. "Dy'a mind helpin' me out lad? Can you you pierce just a tiny place on your fingertips for me and another place on your arm for the other needle? I can't seem to get the needles to go in." Kotoro manifested a tiny, but still high powered, KI blade, and did as directed, allowing a small blood sample to be collected from his finger and a rather larger sample from his arm. Both wounds healed closed within the next minute when the needles were removed. "That's some mighty fast healing m'boy, and there ain't no hide nor hair of the holes ya made remainin'. Reckon that'd make surgery a pain in the keister though." Finally she arrived at the tail. She stared at it for a while, clearly fascinated, eventually resuming her exam, lightly tapping on it commenting "I don't rightly know how to check the health of this, but I'd like to get an image of it in the MRI all the same. If nothing else it'll give us a reference state in your charts for later." She led Kotoro into a back room where a noisy machine was waiting and had him lie in the center of it while it did some scans of his body.
Before long she'd completed the scans, and ushered him back to the main room. "Yer about the healthiest thing I've laid eyes on in a long time, near as I can tell. Yer all done here boyo. Not unlike other brutes that have come through here, ya don't have much in the way of body fat. You're sculpted, but you're not beefy. Blood chemistry and RBC / hematocrit will be measured within the next day or two. We'll have ya come back now'n'agin if ya join up for periodic tests checkin' your metabolism and such. Not that you look like you'll need it, but we research people with powers as much as we can. Have fun with the rest of your tests! ... If you can..." she trailed off, knowing that the power testing usually bored people by the end.
Next was brute testing. The group of technicians running this testing facility weren't very talkative and were all business, simply giving orders regarding where to stand and what to do. They started out slow with each new damage type, ramping up slowly. Of the various things they subjected him to, which included blunt force, projectiles, explosives, sharps in stabbing and slicing form, and more, almost none of them did anything notable. Eventually they hit their limits on what was available and how hard they could hit and had to stop for lack of anything more they could try. One tech suggested checking if he was immune to radiation, but they quickly nixed that idea, as if things went poorly they might make him ill without warning or any way to mitigate the damage.
Kotoro figured he must be at least a little resistant, as the Saiyajin piracy operations had faced radiation based weaponry in the past to no immediate significant ill effects beyond a short duration of slight weakness and nausea in the weaker warriors. Increased exposure might do more though. He had no intention of telling anybody about that particular aspect of his past if he could help it. At least not until he had built up some trust and good will. Even then, he wasn't proud of his participation anymore, even though he had been at the time.
Eventually they ran out of ideas, and they made the switch to testing how hard HE could hit things. He put a fist sized hole right through the first blunt force measuring machine they tried, despite trying to hold back, and when he tried to dissipate the force of his next blow to avoid putting a hole in the next one, it crumpled into a heap. Giving up on getting direct numbers, they had him strike various materials in different ways to see how they deformed or reacted, taking notes all the while. Eventually they ran out of new things to have him hit, or ways for him to strike, and they asked him to demonstrate his rapid healing again by damaging himself in a small site on his arm much like he had in the doctor's office, observing the entire process with high speed cameras. After that, they ushered him to the next set of tests in a neighboring lab.
The next tests were of his blaster abilities. There were a great deal more sensors in this room. They had him do similar things that he had previously done with his limbs, but this time with his ki blasts. He had a bit of an easier time manipulating KI directly as opposed to modulating its effect on his muscles and physical might, although not enough to stop him from obliterating a good number of the weaker test dummies and targets. When he demonstrated the ability to levitate objects with his ki, they experimented a bit with that as well.
He had mentioned that his powers would improve over time through training and use, but that wasn't easy to test on a short time scale, especially given their current inability to measure precisely how strong and resistant he was, so they relegated their investigations into that aspect of his powers to longer term observation of his performance in the field. He had not told them about the Saiyajin ability to gain boosts in strength from surviving near brushes with death, and even if he had, they didn't have anything on hand that could harm him enough to demonstrate it. It was unlikely they'd be willing to try to test that kind of thing anyway, due to their ethics guidelines and regulations.
Finally they put his mover powers to the test. They asked him to activate his flight powers, scanning him with all manner of different devices while he did so, and to demonstrate his super speed. Not wanting to show them quite the full extent of how fast he could be, he held back from putting in full effort, and tried to aim at being impressive without being overwhelming. They also had him demonstrate the extent to which he was able to interact with the world fully while employing these abilities, which, as he had told them, was as much as he normally could. They had him clocked at just under the speed of sound, although he knew he could travel much faster if he pushed himself. He'd save those demonstrations for later, if ever. Hopefully he'd get a chance to demonstrate he could be trusted and they'd be less spooked by the truth in the future.
Kotoro ended the power testing session hoping that he'd demonstrated himself useful while sandbagging enough to prevent them from seeing him as an imminent threat. Armsmaster met him as he exited the final testing lab, handing him the equipment and armor that he had shed in the doctor's office.
"You may put these back on. Thank you for your cooperation. Its good to know that your powers do not cause you to emit any harmful radiation, gases, or materials that we'd need to be overly concerned about, aside from the blasts themselves. Director Piggot has been sent a complete briefing on the results we've compiled so far, as well as an abridged summary. She ought to be ready to meet with you within the next 2 hours to discuss what we can do for you. Until then you have some free time. As you've been quite busy for most of the day, you're probably hungry."
At that, Kotoro nodded vigorously.
"There is a cafeteria on the second floor. I'm scheduled to go on patrol in 10 minutes, so I'll have to take my leave for now. If you wait here, Ms. Militia will take over as your chaperone for the remainder of your visit today. She will escort you to the cafeteria for a meal, and later to your meeting with the Director."
PRT ENE Building; Cafeteria; March 15 2008 7:30 PM
Kotoro and the drone piloted by Epistēmē approached the main elevators, and waited for their new chaperone to arrive. Kotoro had been thinking all day long about the risk of being made to accidentally expose the truth of his Saiyajin nature regarding the moon. Given the lunar cycle was only about 28 days on this planet, and for a portion of the year night came earlier and earlier the further away you got from the equator, it was a real problem. He didn't want to remove his tail and give up the optional advantage that it provided should he need to call upon it, but he also did not want it to activate against his will. An idea had occurred to him while he had been working with the power testing technicians, though, which might put a band aid over the problem until a more thorough solution could be arranged.
"Epistēmē, do you think we could make a set of impact resistant goggles that could black out all blutz waves from passing through them, or barring the ability to be that selective, black out my vision entirely on schedule with the lunar cycle? It would make me somewhat less useful to the team to be fully blinded until I can learn how to do KI sensing, but I have done some training on how to deal with fighting blind, and my other senses are quite sharp, so I can probably make do if I can't beg off of my duties. It'd be easier to defend my using it by saying exposure to full moonlight causes me extreme discomfort or something, or we could tell a second half truth and say it makes my power unstable, as justification for using something like that so they don't order me to remove it."
"I don't know if I've got any designs that can screen out blutz waves. It never occurred to the Saiyajins that any such technology would be desirable or useful, so they never attempted to make anything like that. I'll start experimenting with the idea at the first opportunity. I'll need you to make an artificial moon for me while wearing blinders, so I can test what will block the waves and what won't, unless you want me to wait to test prototypes until the natural full moon comes out." the AI said in response.
"I think that would be best for now, at least until you can build me a set of reliable blinders, or if we can find a remote location to test it. I do NOT want to risk transforming where anybody can see it happen." Kotoro confirmed.
A young olive skinned woman in a military outfit met with Kotoro and introduced herself as Ms. Militia. Upon seeing Kotoro she looked a bit sad and clucked her tongue. "so young" she said under her breath. She held a green and black blur of energy that repeatedly reshaped itself into different sorts of weapons They were mostly firearms, but occasionally other types of weapons would appear as well.
"You are Kotoro and Epistēmē correct?" she asked? They responded in the affirmative and she motioned for them to follow. "I am Miss Militia. Armsmaster told me you're interested in joining the Wards. I'll be your escort for the remainder of the day. Please follow me to the cafeteria."
While they walked Miss Militia inquired about them. "I've only just gotten back from patrolling. I had a very brief glimpse at your dossier compiled by Armsmaster, but I haven't been able to read it in full yet or the addendum with initial power testing results. Do you mind filling me in a bit? I'm curious."
Epistēmē filled her in on the relevant details without revealing too much. She also inquired about Kotoro's parents and background. She was told that they weren't in the picture at the moment, but wasn't given much more than that, the AI indicating that there were some elements of their background that probably shouldn't be discussed out of closed doors as they might end up being deemed classified by the director or her superiors, but that the information was probably in the reports.
"Its been a long time since a parahuman triggered with a set of powers like that. Brutes who are also movers can be dangerous in combat. I prefer to remain at range and snipe, due to how my power works. Movers who can close that gap quickly can be a problem. I can usually take down a regular mover with a shot or two, but when they're also brutes it complicates things, especially if I don't know how their powers work to select an optimal weapon or ammunition for a quick and non-lethal takedown. My powers allow for a wide range of customized tactics, but brute powers can be tricky to work around. I'm glad you're on our side. Your mere presence could be a force multiplier, even just in terms of PR and acting as a deterrent to the criminal parahumans in town."
"We're glad to be of service Madam. I may not technically be a hero or a parahuman myself, but I'm certainly willing to offer logistical and tactical support to any organization my charge is working with. As for young Kotoro, hes been cooped up with me for months now. He needs to get some fresh air and socialize. Being stuck in the lab with me is no good for him." said Epistēmē.
Conversation slowed down after that, and Kotoro had enough time to get through one standard human sized serving of food by the time Miss Militia received word that the director was ready to see him. He was still hungry, but they weren't yet entirely out of provisions on the Techne, so he resolved to eat his fill later. He would raise the issue of his higher than normal food requirements during his contract negotiations though. He followed Miss Militia to the Director's office.
PRT ENE Building; Director's Office; March 15 2008 8:00 PM
When he entered the office, he found a heavyset blonde woman sitting at a well organized desk, whose face seemed to wear a permanent scowl. She leveled her discerning gaze on him and seemed to ooze disapproval with every fiber of her being as she looked at him, but whether it was directed at him or the world in general, he could not say. "Please have a seat. We have much to discuss. My name is Emily Piggot, pronunciation 'pig oh', do not pronounce the 't', and I am the director of the PRT East North East, situated here in Brockton Bay. I know you told a lot of your information to Armsmaster during his interview with you, but if I ask any questions i'd like you to reiterate. I would like to hear the story from you directly."
She asked how they had come to be in Brockton, starting with how they arrived within this particular universe. Kotoro, through his AI translating for him, explained how they were refugees fleeing conscription by an invading empire. She indicated concern about them being followed and Epistēmē explained the various methods they had used to ensure they would not have been tracked to their Earth by Kind Cold's forces, let alone another universe, and that he would be unlikely to have any interest or care to follow them even if he knew where they had gone. After her curiosity was satisfied, mostly involving any potential threats to Brockton and Earth Bet in general, as well as the specific circumstances and history of Kotoro himself, she moved on.
"Your power testing results are impressive. You are probably one of the highest rated brutes we've ever seen, and your other abilities are versatile and complement each other quite well. There are more specialized testing facilities oriented toward testing high level brutes located elsewhere in the country, but there tends to be a lot of red tape to get access for wards, especially those who aren't stationed nearby. We can put in for access, but it may be months or years before they grant it. This should suit us anyway, as you mentioned that you can get stronger, waiting shouldn't be an issue, and continuous testing with a power like yours may eventually become moot."
Privately she was quite worried that despite not technically being a parahuman, Kotoro would still fit the same mental caricature she had regarding capes being like a room full of toddlers all having been given AK47s. She still had a job to do, despite her misgivings. His powers could make him a danger, but he could also be useful, and he would still exist even if she turned him away. Putting a person like that out on the street with no legal status was a recipe for disaster, especially if it created bad blood between him and the heroes. There appeared to be far more positives in taking him on than it turning him away, and quite a few negatives for the latter.
"I'm willing to extend an offer, and to sweeten the deal for you a bit, given your circumstances, but we'll be setting some requirements and ground rules. Due to the expectations and norms of the culture in this country, and your age, you will need to be placed with a foster family or guardian. Due to the semi-frequent appearance of case 53s, there is a program already established with a list of volunteers who have already been through the required training and signed pre-emptive NDAs. We will also be requiring you to attend educational services. Ordinarily the wards are granted admittance to Arcadia if they're of high school age or a nearby affiliate middle school run by the same organization. However, as both of these are fairly prestigious, they do have minimum requirements that apply even to the wards, and i'm sorry to say, through no fault of your own, you won't make that minimum.
As such you'll be attending a public school based on the address of your guardians according to the normal school placement rules, but we'll be telling the administration just enough about your background, leaving out the classified details, to ensure that they understand why you will have not learned the usual world and cultural history subjects and you will be placed into an English as a second language curriculum until you can demonstrate fluency.
In order to maintain eligibility for participation in the wards, you will need to maintain at least a C average in your coursework, although you'll be facing some sanctions to ensure that you have sufficient time to focus on your studies if you don't maintain at least a B. Secondly, your debut as a member of the wards will be delayed until you can improve your English sufficiently to be able to appear at a public announcement and answer questions.
After you debut, operationally, you're forbidden from engaging non-brutes until you can get a handle on your powers. You're at risk of turning someone into hamburger. You indicated that this was in your plans, so see to it that you get right on that.
Lastly, I gathered from your descriptions of the culture where you grew up that your life was not unlike that of a child soldier. That kind of existence can cause harrowing experiences and psychological damage, even if one isn't aware of it. We cannot risk a ward having psychological problems, beyond the norm that we see in parahumans in general at any rate, so you'll be assigned to therapy sessions, though this will have to wait until your language skills have progressed enough to carry on a conversation without the help of your friend here."
She handed over a stack of papers, explaining "Other than those additional stipulations this is the usual wards contract. Look it over and see if you have any questions"
Epistēmē spoke up on Kotoro's behalf "We'll need to put in a stipulation regarding caloric intake. Kotoro's powers cause him to burn through calories at a much higher rate than normal, and as a result he needs significantly more food on an ongoing basis than a human usually eats."
Piggot's eyebrow raised, but the ever-present scowl remained firmly planted, "How much more?". After they attempted to explain she got the gist of it and cut them off with, "Its not a problem, we've seen effects like that in other capes. I'm sure we'll manage. I'll write something into the contract to cover that for you, but we'll have to deal with it on base, eating that much at school or out in public out of costume will almost certainly out you as a cape. Under no circumstances should you be outing yourself through any easily avoidable activities. You'll need to hide that tail somehow, I see that your current attire has a built in hiding function for it, we can probably replicate something that for your civilian wear, or at least provide you with the materials needed to make more."
She turned to face the drone. "As for you. You're not a parahuman, or technically a human at all, but despite that you appear to be capable of engineering and scientific feats that place you beyond the current human norm. I'm told your designs are replicable by non-tinkers. Given that, and your lack of powers, I suppose that means it wouldn't be technically accurate to classify you as a tinker, but since much of your technology depends on principles beyond our current understanding, they're effectively black-boxes without the accompanying theories, rendering much of it effectively tinker-tech for most of the world. As a result we're assigning you the classification of tinker anyway. It saves on the paperwork.
We can probably justify lifting the restrictions usually applied to tinker tech in the future, given that it can be understood by any engineer or scientist with appropriate education in the required fields, but until such time as our scientific community has had a chance to catch up, we will be instituting similar rules for your technology as for tinker tech. Consider it a work in progress. We urge you to consider affiliating or joining up with the protectorate in some form or fashion. It would make it easier for you to work closely with Kotoro in his endeavors with us.
We're not really sure how to proceed with this, as our legal system does not provide for recognition of persons who are not carbon-based organisms. We're wading into uncharted territory, and the nature of your existence could cause some people distress. Our culture has a history of fiction involving murderous AI which has implanted a fear of such technology into the public consciousness. We'll see what we can do for you despite that."
"It is ever thus. We have similar problems on my homeworld, despite the technology having been around for 5 generations to no ill effect. Thank you for your consideration Director" Epistēmē said.
"Don't thank me yet, this city is a powder keg ready to blow and we need all the help we can get. I've been requesting additional manpower from the Protectorate and Wards chapters in the rest of the country, but nothing ever materializes. Unless its home grown, but we have had little luck in that regard. We have the highest cape concentration per capita in the USA, but almost all of them are villains! You'll have your work cut out for you."
Epistēmē's scanners pinged on something and he directed his focus on the Director's body. She had clearly been on the receiving end of multiple nasty injuries. He resolved to try to do something about that for her. Even if she was a somewhat gruff and unpleasant person, a wrecked body like that had to be awfully painful and some of her organs were either not functioning at all or barely functioning. Some were missing entirely.
Epistēmē and Kotoro looked over the contract and discussed it. Everything looked to be in order, except for the ownership of the rights to his image. They agreed to amend the contract stipulating that only any emblems or costume designs created by the PRT's own image and PR departments would be included within said ownership and that Kotoro would benefit to a greater extent from the use of his image if it included his body and tail, such as in action figures as opposed to costume sales, and that any aspect of the costume that he and Epistēmē designed, or that which came from Saiyajin or Centurion culture and technology would not be owned by the PRT or Protectorate and would instead be for legal purposes wholly owned by Kotoro and licensed to the PRT for free as part of the contract. They forwarded this in electronic format to Piggot's email address.
After reviewing the changes, Piggot commented "I don't think the bean counters are going to like that change you made. They'll probably try to raise a fuss, but I think we can justify it given the power testing results and the fact that the stipulation is there in part to avoid accidental cultural appropriation on our part."
She printed it out and all parties signed on the dotted line. She also had everybody in the room sign NDAs regarding Kotoro's background, and had Arms-master sign his copy electronically via his visor, as he was still out patrolling. Certain aspects of Kotoro's and Epistēmē's background were being classified at a high level, so that only the leadership of the PRT and Protectorate would be allowed to know about it. They would present Kotoro to the public as a case 53 and would be somewhat more open about Epistēmē if he so desired, claiming that he was found with Kotoro, as that was pretty much the truth.