Step 2.1

Arcadia Middle School reminded me of Winslow, and every step sent chills up my spine. My head kept turning, carefully surveying the halls for dangers my rational mind knew weren't there. I tried to remind myself that wasn't me anymore, never the real me.

Pulling out my phone offered no support. No connection, no Veda. A little warning about the Faraday cage over the building would have been nice.

The building looked a lot nicer. No graffiti or gang tags in sight. The windows were clean, and the tile floors didn't crack in the corners when I stepped on them. The lockers looked the same though. Same dull gray paint, worn old combination locks, and the same anti-bullying posters on the wall.

Completely different yet still the same.

Standing off to the side I checked my watch—16:55—and waited.

The bell rang, and students filled the hall. The tallest only came up to my chest in height. Towering over my peers at Winslow I was used to, but being the tallest person in the hall by a full foot and change felt more absurd.

At some point I'll stop growing up and start growing out.

She found me first, navigating the crowds of students like a zombie.

"Hi Taylor."

My own worries filtered away at the sight of Dinah's sunken face. Paler than the first time I saw her, with bigger bags under her eyes. Worse every time I saw her.

I took her hand in mine. "Ready t—" No questions. "Let's go."

We almost reached the front doors when the principal approached us. "Ms. Alcott. Still feeling under the weather?"

I tried not to flinch.

"Yes Ms. Greene," Dinah answered. She lowered her head, hiding the rapid movement of her eyes. "Thank you for asking."

Ms. Greene's focus turned to me. Give her a yard stick and she completed the disciplinarian stereotype. Small round glasses that sat low on her nose, hair done up in a tight bun, and a sleek pantsuit with sharp-tipped shoes. Our first meeting did not go well. A fair amount of "who are you" and "what do you think you're doing" followed by "I can't just take your word for it."

That last one sounded familiar.

17:02

"Mrs. Alcott called this morning, Ms. Hebert. You have permission to take Ms. Alcott off school grounds." She took a note from her pocket and gave it to me. "If anyone asks, show them this slip."

I took it and nodded. "Right. Um. Thank you, ma'am."

A reasonable authority figure who did her job and didn't accuse me of making it harder. I thanked Blackwell for making something so mundane so surprising.

The note went into my pocket.

Ms. Green nodded back. "Carry on."

Outside, I took a chance to glance at Arcadia and wonder what may have been. My grades were pretty good once upon a time, and I enjoyed school too. Arcadia looked almost picturesque, long shadows cast by the building over the hill it sat atop. What could have been.

Dinah relaxed on the bus, her body sinking back into the seat with a sigh.

"Here." I held my hand out, two small black dots resting in my palm. "Put them in your ears."

Dinah took the small buds and pushed them in. She lifted her head, staring at me with a confused gaze.

I typed out messages to her on my phone, saying, "I might think of something better. For now this is the best I can do."

Dinah read the message and nodded. "Thank you."

Together the plugs blocked everything under eighty decibels. Any higher and Dinah might not hear emergency vehicles, gun shots, or Endbringer sirens.

Unfortunately, advanced ear plugs were the best I could offer her. Try going a day without asking, hearing, or thinking, a single question. It doesn't work, and every question set her power off. Even stupid ones like "what should I have for lunch today" or "wonder what that's about."

"You should learn to lip read."

"Lip read." She stated it as a statement rather than a question.

"Yeah." I pointed one finger at my mouth, my other hand continuing to tap out answers. "Seeing what people say by watching their lips. It'll take practice. At least you can cut down on the number of questions you overhear."

"Oh." She tilted her head to one side and adjusted one of the plugs. "I didn't think of that."

Dinah put on a smile the rest of the bus ride. Unlike others I'd seen on her face, it looked genuine. Silence is golden, I guess.

My smile on the other hand felt forced. I didn't understand why she insisted on getting my help, but what kind of hero turns away a desperate kid? She refused to go to the Wards or tell her parents. I didn't like it, but I wasn't exactly one to force her.

My dad still didn't know anything.

Outside of the Faraday cage my connection to Veda came back and I checked the link to my workshop. I went straight to Dinah's school after waking up, so I hadn't seen the shop in a few hours. It left me feeling a little apprehensive. I trusted Veda, but trying to organize the life of Taylor Hebert and the life of Newtype took more work than I ever expected.

I tapped my thumb on the screen, and looked over the list of twenty odd progress reports.

E-Carbon fabrication, good. My plan for beach sand fell through pretty quick. Not enough carbon between all the silicon and calcium. Constantly cleaning out the filters got old. Instead I bought graphite powder in five pound bags. Veda's ongoing coding contracts kept a steady stream coming in, but $500 per armor panel wasn't cheap.

Scrolling down the list, circuit construction was ongoing. Particle condenser simulations were promising. Veda's regular defragmentation sweep progressed smoothly. So far, so good.

The solar furnace simulation was done.

sys.t/ results of the furnace test?

sys.v/ no change

Another hope my little "design flaw" could be solved died a quiet death.

It boggled my mind how productive the first few days were. All of Leet's equipment, spare parts, and tools got cannibalized almost as fast as I touched them. The workshop came together quickly. I cleaned up the garage, repurposed parts from the machines to suit my needs, and went straight to work on everything I needed to start patrolling like a real hero.

And then the solar furnace started pumping out red particles during the first spin up.

I checked my watch again. 17:27.

sys.t/ I really wanted that to work

sys.v/ I am sorry Taylor

sys.t/ It's not your fault

sys.v/ I will run additional simulations

I did what any anxious teenager does and tried to distract myself.

sys.t/ your new processors?

sys.v/ functioning normally

sys.t/ are the little rascals working this time?

sys.v/ yes

Of course, the attempt to distract myself fell apart once I couldn't think of anything else to distract myself with.

sys.t/ how about your new friend?

sys.v/ Beartonac the Unlaughable is gravely injured
sys.v/ twenty-two hit points remaining on Red Drake

I had chalked that original statement up to some cheesy way of telling me who she was, but nope. Dragon really did like Dungeons and Dragons. She even invited us to play the game. I had no idea why. I didn't have the time, but I started worrying that Veda didn't know how to say no. I didn't say anything only because Veda needed to start interacting with other people at some point, and I'd rather it spend time doing something more productive than PHO.

Now they were five sessions into a campaign. I wondered if the rest of the players were heroes or tinkers, but it seemed rude to ask.

The bus came to a quick stop, and I helped Dinah to her feet. We exited onto the open street leading to the steps of the Brockton Bay Library. It looked more like a courthouse, and I think it was once. Smooth stone columns framed wide double doors, and tall windows stretched up two stories into a classical style roof.

With my workshop finally up and running I needed to catch up on academics. Dinah's tutoring excuse gave me a reason not to put it off. Given her power, she might have planned that. Maybe.

We picked out a small corner in the back to sit and work.

In a more normal life Dinah wouldn't need much tutoring, but a lack of sleep and inability to focus showed. Only her math grade seemed to survive it all, contrary to what her father suggested.

"Here." I pointed to a word on her paper, writing out my words in a red pen. "You spelled 'your' when you meant 'you are.'"

I reviewed her written answers and helped her where I could. She nodded, eraser and pencil working to correct mistakes. Her smile remained. The quiet, I think.

I bounced between helping her and looking over my GED prep guide. Nothing about the tests seemed hard, per se. Rather, the issue was catching up on everything the trio cost me. Between the bullying and academic sabotage, I hadn't learned much in the past year under their tender care. Even once I addressed that, I needed to jump ahead to cover material two years ahead of my year.

I didn't need to do any math though. When I looked at a problem, my power forced the answer into my head. Didn't work for history, language, or writing, but somehow it worked for math.

Kind of frustrating how my power let me cheat at trig but didn't let me replicate Jupiter's atmosphere in an enclosed space.

"Hey."

My body jerked back. One arm went over Dinah's shoulder, while the other slipped into my pocket. A new beam saber sat inside, ready to activate with the flick of a switch.

"Oh sorry. Didn't mean to startle you." He held up one hand apologetically and smiled. "Just handing out fliers."

He indicated to the stack of papers held at his side. My body relaxed, and Dinah returned to her work. Just a tall, broad shouldered, kind of cute boy about my age.

Nothing to be concerned about.

"There's a rally over the weekend," he said. "We want concerned citizens to show up and be heard."

"Rally?"

He gave me a flier, and my body tensed up again. The red print stood out from the white background in letters so big they could be read from across the room. The blue earth logo in the top corner, stars set into the continent of North America, told me exactly who printed the thing.

He moved on before I could speak, talking to a group of college kids at a nearby table.

If Blue Cosmos ever cut a cape some slack, I'd have thought it would be Parian. The first time she appeared in public consisted of a denunciation of 'cape violence' and encouraging parahumans to find other uses for their powers. She used hers making dresses and putting on puppet shows for kids.

Puppet shows like the one the local chapter apparently wanted to protest.

Who the hell protests puppet shows for kids?

Dinah leaned toward me. Her eyes were already moving, and when they stopped she went back to her work.

"She's fine. Usually."

I glanced around the library nervously. In part to make sure no one saw, and in part because I couldn't really look at her for a moment.

"Y-You're sure?"

"Mhm. Only one where she gets hurt."

All it takes is one.

"Have—" I cleared my throat to be sure it didn't sound like a question. "I've never seen any of her shows."

Dinah nodded. "She came to school once. She's nice."

I considered warning Parian that some hecklers might crash her event, but did she even take random phone calls alleging possible harm? Most of the time Blue Cosmos just made a lot of noise and a nuisance of themselves.

The flier made a decent ball for the trash on our way out. I saw the guy again during our descent down the stairs. He was handing out fliers with three other people to passersby. Some threw them away, on the street or in the trash. Others kept them or stayed to talk.

I was still watching them when she walked up. Even after she got my attention I barely recognized her. Panacea does good work.

"You must be Taylor."

"Oh-Mrs. Alcott. Mr. Alcott isn't…?"

"A late meeting," she said. "If you need ID to be sure—"

I didn't. I smiled and handed Dinah off to her. Mrs. Alcott reminded me of Mom. Annette Hebert and Chelsea Alcott looked nothing alike, but the same air surrounded them. A protective, motherly demeanor. One that came naturally, I thought.

While we talked Dinah removed the ear plugs. Her face scrunched up, hands jerking back over her ears for a moment before she hung them at her side. I didn't think of that. You get used to it, but a city is a loud place.

"Thank you for taking time from your own studies. Dinah's had so much trouble sinc—"

She stopped herself, glancing down at her daughter. Her calm demeanor snapped. Shoulders tensed, eyes darted around nervously.

"Getting out of the house is good for her," she finally said. The words helped her recover, the tightening of her brow easing back for a smile.

"Of course," I said.

"Is your father picking you up?"

I shook my head. "Bus."

She got a worried look. "I can drive you home if you'd like. The car is right around the corner."

I waved her off. "Thank you, but I'll be fine." She didn't seem convinced, but I assured her, "Really. It might be Brockton Bay, but I've gotten by for fifteen years."

I don't think she believed that, but she didn't press. "Well. I'll see you Thursday then." I nodded. Mrs. Alcott leaned forward a bit and looked down at Dinah. "And you thanked Taylor, Dinah?"

"Yes ma'am."

I worried about Dinah all the way back home.

It was only a matter of time till someone discovered her powers.

When I started using mine I asked myself "how would I find a tinker" and avoided, or minimized, doing those things. After Dinah made it clear she wasn't going anywhere, I asked the question again. Someone with headaches, obviously. Missed school. Excessive doctor appointments. That Dinah was at the mall might not be common knowledge, but it wasn't a secret.

The right questions and cues, all waiting for someone to put them together.

Stepping through the door, I smelled pasta.

"Isn't it my day to cook?"

"You were busy with Dinah," Dad answered. "I thought I'd take over on the days you're tutoring."

"Oh. Okay."

20:40.

I flipped on the television, moving through the stations before settling on some police procedural. I'd gotten too used to having noise around me of late. Quiet made me uneasy.

Dad kept working in the kitchen, calling out to me, "How was Dinah?"

"She's alright," I lied back.

I continued directing the workshop from my phone.

sys.v/ armor fabrication complete

sys.t/ test for irregularities

"Dinner's ready."

I joined him in the kitchen, pouring glasses of water while he set the plates.

"How about school. Everything alright?"

"It's fine." I picked at my food for a moment before asking, "How about you?"

He sighed. "Not enough work for the union. I thought there might be a new contract clearing out some of the warehouses by the port. The city decided not to offer it. Not enough money."

"That's too bad."

"And the mayor turned down the ferry proposal again. We lost five more members today. Won't be much of a union left at this rate."

I didn't know what to tell him. Dad's life was the union, especially after Mom died.

We spent a short silence pensively looking at one another. Dad started and stopped a few times, and I started tucking my chin into my neck.

"I saw Zoe at the market the other day."

"Oh."

I hadn't seen Aunt Zoe in…months? A year? Emma's mom might be the only member of the Barnes family I still cared about. I never spent much time with Anne. Emma and her dad felt like memories best left in the past.

"She asked about you. Said you and Emma don't really talk much anymore."

"We have our own circles now," I said.

He kept trying. He asked about my day and tried to tell me about his. It felt like I was the one letting him down. I just didn't know how to start a conversation, let alone keep it going.

After cleaning the dishes, I went upstairs. After feigning my bedtime routine I switched to darker, and more obscuring, clothes. The packages that came in for my mock Ebay business went into a backpack.

I climbed under my covers and waited.

23:5

Thirty minutes after he went to sleep I slipped out the window. I'd done the same for two weeks. It started with being unable to sleep because of excitement. I wanted to work, so I did. Eventually it reached the point where I worked through the night, jogged home to have breakfast, slept after dad left, and woke up around noon.

I stuck to back alleys and darker streets during the walk there. My neighborhood didn't see much of the gangs, but it's surprising how few steps you have to take to go from a safe street to a dangerous one. So far no one bothered me, and the police station almost looked abandoned after midnight.

Back to the workshop. Finally.

A high-pitched voice answered the opening door.

"Taylor's back. Taylor's back."

The little bot bounced against my leg, and I took a moment to crouch down and pat his head.

"Hey Green."

A foot diameter ball encased the little robot. Panels hid arms and legs, and while the eyes looked small, the interior of the lenses curved to give a very wide range of vision. They weren't smart like Veda, but they were smarter than a dog. Perfectly capable of communication and executing complex tasks.

Heuristic autonomous robotic operator.

I called them Haros.

Looking into his little eye holes I asked, "You finish assembling the compressor? I don't want to hear how the lot of you spent all day watching cat videos again."

What I got for giving them wireless Internet.

Green shook a little, his eyes flashing yellow as he spoke. "Task complete. Task complete."

And I need to fix that verbal tic.

I did not program them to repeat what they said.

00:36

Green followed me into the garage. He bounced and rolled despite the little legs built into his ball form.

Strolling into the lab felt like night and day compared to the first time I saw the place. No sign of the dust, cobwebs, and debris of my first visit. I hate spiders by the way. The walls all got reinforced with E-Carbon pumped out by my new carbon printer—courtesy of Leet's printers, may they rest in peace—and I had replaced all the doors and locks with sturdier ones. Veda maintained complete control over the building, and a few discrete cameras kept an eye on the entire block.

I arrayed the space with work tables close to the office door; shelves of parts and materials on the left, and the printer and fabricator on the right. My versions were twice the size of Leet's and ran twice as loud. I installed some sound proofing here and there to ensure no one heard any racket, and covered the windows with a black film to hide the lamps' light.

"Taylor's back. Taylor's back," Green announced again.

The words echoed through the room as each one answered in identical repeated words.

Really need to fix that.

Since I delegated a lot of basic work to them, each Haro got its own bench. The little shelf sat low to the ground but could rise to my level with the press of a button.

Navy, Pink, and Red worked together on packaging some of the things I bought on Ebay just for resale. They liked working together, even turning and grabbing hold of my backpack all at once when I held it out to them.

Green rolled over to his bench to continue working on a prototype GN compressor, while Purple didn't even acknowledge my presence past the initial repeat of "Taylor's back." I leaned over it to take a look at the flywheel but Purple just stared at me. That one seemed perpetually annoyed.

The little guys developed personalities shockingly quick. I figured it was a glitch coming from limited RAM and how it interacted with their hard drives.

"Hello Taylor. Welcome back."

"Hi Veda. How's the game going now?"

"I am 'rolling' an elf. 1Horn believes it will better suit my 'style.'"

"You have style now, huh?"

"So it seems."

"Well, as long as you're having fun."

"Fun…Uncertain."

I chuckled to myself.

Stepping out of the garage, I crossed into the old office space. Cool air rolled from the door even before opening it. Racks of PlayStations Uber and Leet's money paid for lined the room in three shelves wall to wall. Game consoles are some of the cheapest hardware on the market. A little modification, some custom processors, and lining everything up in sequence gives a surprisingly affordable supercomputer.

It was a decent stopgap.

The machine looked like a sphere, inside a cube, inside another cube, inside a box. The whole thing glowed with a soft blue light. It sat on the bottom of one shelf and needed all the parts salvaged from Leet's computer tower to create.

Veda watched me from the little camera in the ceiling, following along as I worked.

"Dinah is well?"

"No, she's not…I'm worried about her."

"Can I help?"

"I don't think there's much you can do about it right now, Veda. She doesn't even know you exist."

"We can tell Dinah."

"We could."

My hands carefully opened the box, a tool sitting on the shelf taking a spot between my fingers while I poked around inside. My one quantum processor beat out the rest of the room by a few megahertz. Eventually I'd have hundreds of them, all linked together into a single server structure.

"You do not trust her?"

"I don't trust me."

How long till I started trying to use her power? A power that forced her to see people hurt or die. One that kept her awake and unable to focus. How badly I wanted to use it scared me. Guilt won out over practically by a fair few miles.

Once I finished the check I closed the box. "Any updates since dinner?"

"The test plate of armor came back with fourteen structural flaws." Damn. "Additional refinement necessary."

At least I could recycle it.

"Red. Navy. Can you two recalibrate the printer?"

"Confirmed," they repeated.

Red and Navy rolled over to the large machine. The "ear" flaps on either side of their heads popped up, and long snake-like robot arms uncoiled from inside. Red opened the maintenance hatch, and Navy reached inside.

I sat down at the control station. A fancy term for the array of nine monitors, three keyboards, and a mouse I built to manage everything.

I still worried the transition from Winslow might have broken something even a week after vacating the system. Checking over Veda's code showed nothing out of the ordinary.

02:03.

"I'm going to assemble the last Haro," I said. "Don't let me fugue."

"Setting," Veda answered.

The larger reinforced tables served for my bigger projects. On one, Purple worked on the flywheel. The solar furnace, meanwhile, hung suspended in its zero-gravity case, sealed and shut down until I fixed it. Domes capped the cylinder on either end, each with four inlets to allow light in and particles out. I did my best to ignore it. The more I thought about it the more tense I got, and I just wanted to relax and tinker for a bit.

The parts for my last Haro were gathered in a bin on the floor.

"Green, can you bring my tools over here? I left them on the other side of the room."

Processors, coiled arms, little feet, cameras and a speaker-phone all came together, and I fit the whole unit into a ball like the others. The case gave them a cartoonish face almost, with the two tall narrow eyes and the way the two halves of the ball came together to make a sort of mouth line. Once the edges sealed together I flipped it on and dubbed him "Orange."

"Hello. Hello."

I sighed. "Veda, we need a patch for this. It's already old."

"Working," my AI replied.

Orange popped up on his feet and walked around the table, looking at some of my incomplete projects. I lifted a box of completed parts and pushed them toward him.

"Think you can assemble this? Veda, load the schematic."

"Loading."

The Haros couldn't make tinker-tech, I guess for the same reason that an otherwise smart person couldn't. No powers. I made most of the parts myself, but the Haros handled assembly just fine. While Orange got to work on a quantum security lock I wanted to install on the workshop doors, I ran diagnostics.

03:23.

After confirming that Orange worked just fine, I busied myself with a few circuits and looked over Red and Navy's adjustments to the printer.

"It is time, Taylor."

04:09.

"Right."

When I went looking for Toybox I didn't expect to find Dragon. Fear, shock, and amazement flooded that little moment, and doubled after my prodding got her to offer help.

The debate continued even after making my choice.

I called myself Newtype in part as recognition of my feelings toward the heroes I knew. My discontent and disappointment…Did I want help from someone who worked with them? Who might be just like them?

Setting my anger aside seemed the only choice. My attempts to solve the problem weren't working. It felt strange, knowing exactly what I needed but unable to actually put all of it together. The design sat on the edge of my mind, only ever a dim sense of the puzzle pieces and no picture showing me what they should look like together. Worse, it felt like my power knew the solution and refused to tell me.

I convinced myself Dragon wasn't the local Protectorate. She didn't harbor a psychopath who tortured me, or work with some jerk who tried to bully me. Never mind how she appeared in lots of Protectorate merchandise as an honorary member. Dragon was part of the Guild, and the Guild hadn't screwed me over.

Yet.

My costume lay on a table in the corner. A new mask just like the old one, but finely constructed with a display for the visor and communicators for my ears. I made the shirt and pants with carbon fibers modeled after spider silk. Not quite as strong as the real thing, but layered together with some padding it came close. I'd get bruised instead of shot and nicked instead of cut. After slipping on my gloves and tying my boots, a short blue-white jacket went over my shoulders.

The heads-up display kicked on, each of the Haros and Veda's servers marked on the visor covering my eyes. An additional indicator marked the far wall of the garage.

The elephant in the room, as it were.

I felt like the figure cast a weight over the whole room, insisting everything within existed only to make it a reality.

The frame stood a little over a foot taller than me, a mess of circuits, wires, and nano-mesh muscles covering the skeleton. The fingers on the right hand pointed and curled in various directions from my testing. Mock armor plates covered the right arm and leg. They didn't appease my aesthetic sense perfectly, but the fit was right.

The incomplete helmet consisted of a visor and faceplate. I'd built the visor to look like a dark domino mask with two eyes, while the faceplate was vented.

I swear those eyes stared back at me, begging the question.

"Soon."

"Soon what?"

"S-Sorry Veda. Talking to myself."

"I see."

Picking up two beam sabers and my new laser pistol, I turned to the door.

I still felt those eyes bore into me as it closed.

"Let's go talk to Dragon."