Step 5.4

After taking my seat on the floor, my eyes kept drifting to my hand.

How does it feel to shake hands with a celebrity?

About the same as shaking hands with anyone else it turns out. I mean, mostly the same.

I didn't consider myself that much of a Peacecraft fan. Peace through pacifism? Yeah. I can see Kaiser going for that. He'll just stop beating up minorities in the street and achieve his dream of the great white utopia by kindly asking everyone who didn't belong in it to leave. Problem solved everyone! Peace for all time!

There's no way for that plan to go poorly.

Still though, girl's famous. Only a few years older than me and already running her own city-country-place. She toured the world, talked about nuclear disarmament. I knew who she was years ago. She'd been doing her thing for years. That counted for something.

And I saved her from some psycho assassination attempt, sort of. That's kind of cool, right?

"Are you into girls?" Lafter asked.

"No," I said. "Why?"

She sat beside me, hands folded behind her head. "Because you keep staring at your hand."

"I've never shaken hands with a celebrity before."

Her smile turned coy and she said, "A likely story."

I do not need this from another pretty girl. "I like boys, Lafter."

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"I don't have time for boyfriends."

"Mhm."

I frowned. "Do you have one?" It sounded clever when I asked.

"I grew up in a convent," she noted. "What's your excuse?"

I'm ugly and no boy would be that interested in me.

And that thought stung.

Why did I keep harping on myself that way? I threatened an entire city of villains, dragged two super villains into custody, and saved a world leader from assassination. Maybe one of those things happened by coincidence, but so what? I didn't need to walk down a runway in a nice dress, get all the boys in the yard or whatever the vapid song is.

Screw being some pretty diva, I did cooler shit.

Well…I wanted to do cooler shit. I would do cooler shit. If I ever get out of this garage.

"Do we check the bazooka?" One guy with a clip board asked another. "Is it part of the vehicle, or a separate mechanism?"

"How should I know?" the other guy asked. "You know how the regs are written."

"Poorly?"

I could be spending my Saturday morning hunting down that other truck, ask who is vaporizing people. I could be tinkering in the workshop. I could be planning Othala's capture.

Instead of any number of useful things I might do, I sat in the PRT's garage watching a bunch of poor mechanics navigate nonsensical legalisms.

At least I had the good sense to leave O Gundam at the workshop. Didn't need anyone getting ideas about subjecting my suit to any safety inspections. Just wish I remembered to unload the weapons too.

"Does it count as self-driving or automated?"

"Aren't those the same things?"

"Not according to the regs. Self-driving means the car drives itself. Automated means the car mostly drives itself."

"That sounds like the same thing to me."

Sounded like the same thing to me too.

"I'm starting to think they don't know what they're doing," Lafter mumbled.

"Welcome to the PRT," I replied.

"They have their moments," Stratos said. He stood against the wall behind us, arms crossed over his chest. "You know you two don't have to wait here, right?"

He glanced to the techs as they started debating if the mechanical arms qualified my van as a "vehicle" or a "mecha." Apparently, that's two wholly different sets of nonsensical regulations. The words "so many better uses of my time" almost qualified as my theme song at this point.

"This is probably going to take a while," he concluded.

"You could just let me leave," I mumbled.

"Yeah, but then Armsmaster will hunt you down and hand out a ticket every time you drive that thing around town."

He made that pretty clear a few hours ago. "I can fly around in a suit armed to the teeth but driving around in a tinker tech van is going to get me ticketed."

"Your suit counts as a costume," Stratos pointed out. "Way fewer laws on that."

"That's a stupid distinction," I replied.

"You'd like to have it inspected then?"

Government regulations start looking a lot dumber when you deal with them regularly.

"I hate tinker tech laws."

"Technically that's Congress' fault.".

"Yeah, blame the politicians."

"Gladly," Stratos cheered. He shook his head. "Come on, this is silly. Pretty sure most of the Wards are in. You two can spend a few hours associating with your peers like normal teenagers."

Lafter got up without a thought, saying something about wanting Vista's autograph.

I didn't really want to go, no more than I wanted to be here in the first place. Armsmaster threatened to give me a ticket if I didn't show up first thing in the morning. He'd do it too. Standing on the roof waiting for me to light up the sky with a pad in one hand and a pen halberd in the other seemed just his style.

But as much as I didn't want to admit it, I still felt shaky about partnering with Lafter. Maybe Stratos meant well. Maybe someone above him still had money on the "get Newtype to join the Wards" plan. Or, failing that, get Lafter to join the Wards. She might decide I was crazy, or that the Wards were better.

Technically the PRT could force the issue.

Lafter's identity got leaked with a whole bunch of others. I deleted the files that got out, but someone probably noticed her lack of legal residency. If the PRT wanted, they could arrest her on immigration charges.

Which is naturally why I suggested she stay at the workshop. She refused, pulled on her costume, and came anyway. I wanted to fight her on it, but I didn't want to start an argument and scare her off.

So she came with, and now she wanted to go get Vista's autograph.

"Come on Green," I said. "Orange, stay."

"Okay, okay!"

I got up and followed to keep an eye on her. Not sure if that made me pathetic, altruistic, or desperate…Maybe all three. I chose to justify it by remembering I agreed to play nice with the Wards to keep Piggot off my back.

Or at least, less on it.

I took out my phone as we got into the elevator.

sys.t/ any luck on that truck?

sys.v/ the vehicle is unregistered
sys.v/ I am checking social media for images

How to track our would-be assassins, or maybe lackeys, if the truck eluded us? That might be a challenge.

Cracker Jack's death—and I still found it hard to take that name seriously—made the rounds through the Merchant's phone network. No one seemed all that alarmed. Too high to care, or maybe he didn't matter that much. To them, that is. I never heard of him before, so not some big wig in the group.

With a stupid name like that he sounded like a wannabe more than anything.

Mystery cape, Relena Peacecraft's body guard that is, suggested they got hired as bait.

Suppose if I wanted to kill a nominal head of state I'd try and pin it on a local criminal gang too. Smart. The Merchants did stupid stuff all the time. Lots of people might buy that they killed a visiting dignitary just for the hell of it. A good way to throw attention off the real culprit.

And that opened a whole other barrel of fish. It's amazing how many enemies a self-proclaimed pacifist can accumulate in a few short years.

sys.t/ and no luck on our photo?

sys.v/ none
sys.v/ the image matches no capes I can find
sys.v/ there is an icon on the shoulder
sys.v/ it is too blurry to identify

sys.t/ if I can get a better picture of him?
Sys.t/ her?

sys.v/ perhaps

The other mystery cape.

I needed new cameras, ones that took higher resolution images.

Even after cleaning up the image, I couldn't tell if our "guy" was in fact a guy, or a girl. The build looked like a "he," but the long hair seemed more "she." They wore a simple domino mask and some utilitarian body armor.

And why am I looking into this at all? It's not my business.

Maybe because someone set up a literal murder trap, in the middle of a street. I don't think they cared who died. That could have been anyone getting vaporized, but even criminal scum had family to miss them.

The elevator dropped us off on a hallway I remembered. Stratos led us down the hall, and we waited the five seconds it took for the door to open.

Hold up. "Are we even allowed down here?" I asked.

Stratos smiled. "It'll be fine. Probably. We let the Dallon girls down here all the time."

The door opened.

"Strat!" A voice called. "Hey, what—"

Lafter walked in, followed by me.

Clockblocker sat in front of the console in full costume, one hand raised in a frozen wave.

"Well, hello then," he greeted.

I watched the door close, wondering when they changed the door from a sliding door to a swinging door.

"Wards," Stratos called. "I thought the girls could use something better to do than sitting and watching our mechanics stumble through a safety inspection."

Clockblocker leaned forward, asking, "Oh? Is this the fabled super van that carries someone's death bot to and fro?"

"It's not a death bot," I mumbled.

Lafter glanced to me. "But it could be right?"

"Please don't encourage him."

Vista sat on a couch to our right, school books spread out in front of her. She wore a domino mask over her face, and casual clothes otherwise. A t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Odd, the attire made her look older than her costume suggested.

"He's bad enough as is."

Her eyes flickered to my side. Green popped up onto his feet, turning to look around the room.

Clockblocker sat at the console, and Vista on the couch to one side. On the console monitors I saw four dots in two pairs. They all bore initials by them; AG and BB, and MM and TR. Aegis and Browbeat, Miss Militia and Triumph, I guessed. Opposite Vista, a boy with messy black hair watched us from the other side of another couch. Big letters spelling "pause" ran across the TV in front of him, and—

Lafter went forward, eyes fixed on the screen.

"Oh! Is that the new Smash Bros!?"

"Yeah," the guy said. Valiant. I recognized his voice.

"Is it true the Super Sentai are hidden characters?"

"Yup."

"Neat. Let me play!"

"Have fun." Stratos approached the console and looked over the monitors.

I casually followed Lafter. She took a seat and grabbed another controller off the coffee table. Vista watched us from the other side of the room, pencil tapping the pages of her book. Green hopped up onto the couch, taking a seat behind Lafter's head.

"Is that the robot that puts cat ears on everyone?" Vista asked.

"I think it's Purple and Pink who do that," I said. "But they can see what Green sees. You'll all have cat ears before the day is over."

"Awesome," Clockblocker said. "Can mine be extra fluffy?"

"You would ask that," Vista groaned.

"I would," he replied. "So, welcome to casa de Wards? Getting a tinker tech car inspected, eh? Does Squealer know you're infringing on her power?"

"It was a secret," I grumbled for maybe the fifth time in the past twenty-four hours.

Only a matter of time till all the villains knew. They'd be on the lookout now. Hiding my workshop meant taking more care than before. Changing the paint job probably covered me in general. Lots of generic utility vans in the Bay after all, but the clock ticked regardless.

"Well you know what they say about secrets," Clockblocker mused.

"Never tell them to you?" Vista asked.

"It always comes out eventually," he retorted. "Like the knowledge that my favorite cartoon is Sailor Moon…I still don't know how PHO found out about that."

I swore I saw Valiant snicker.

Clockblocker started filling Stratos in on the Console when the older cape asked. Vista went back to her books. Lafter and Valiant started picking characters and a level.

Wait…

Is that it? A few hellos, and let's play some video games? No one staring at me like a freak for running out the last time? No questions about why I refused to join the Wards? Not even a recruiting pitch thrown Lafter's way?

No, I know Newtype totally ran out of here as fast as she could last time so try not to chase her off again?

Apparently, yes. No such questions would be asked or answered.

That left me, what? In a room surrounded by people more-or-less my age with no idea what to do?

Lafter jumped right into playing a video game. That seemed normal. Vista went about doing her homework, and Clockblocker started joking around with Stratos like they were best buddies. Going over it again in my head with different terms didn't change anything.

Meanwhile, I stood there looking conspicuous…

I really didn't need more reminders of my social failings.

One of the side doors around the dome shaped room opened, and Kid Win poked his head in.

"Hey, I heard the alarm. What's up?"

"Visitors," Vista answered.

"Hello!" Lafter waved.

I gave him a courtesy nod and wow that feels so half-assed, why am I worse at this than normal? I got along with people at Arcadia fine, mostly. The ones who weren't named Victoria Dallon.

"Oh. Hey. What are you two doing here?" Kid Win asked. He glanced between us, not nearly as surprised by Lafter's presence as I'd expected.

Actually, no one asked about that yet. Why didn't anyone have questions about that?

"Newtype's super van is getting inspected," Clockblocker explained.

"Oh." Kid Win stood up straighter. "OH. That's how you've been getting your suit around with no one noticing. I wondered how you did that."

"Yeah, well, now everyone knows." Special thanks to Armsmaster.

"Um. Sorry?"

"TGBO does tend to spoil the fun," Clockblocker said.

"Don't call him that," Vista warned. "You know what happened after the last time."

Clockblocker shrugged. "I'm still sitting in this chair, aren't I?"

"Tell him I said it," Valiant suggested. "I don't mind being confined to base."

"Because you sit there and play games all day," Vista said.

"Exactly."

"We should get one of these in our base," Lafter said. "We got that whole side room with nothing in it, and you already have a bajillion PlayStations."

I flinched and I need to talk to Lafter about things not to say in public.

"Why do you have a bajillion PlayStations?" Kid Win asked.

"Super computer," I said. No AI to be seen there. Move along please. Damnit Lafter.

"Oh. I heard about a university doing something like that. It was cheaper to buy a bunch of game consoles and network them than to get the real thing."

"It is."

Kid Win walked over and stood with me behind the couch.

The rest of the room went about it's business, so I just felt more and more awkward. Kind of called attention to the naivety of thinking I could lead anyone to anything. Can't even relate to my own peers in a moment of "exactly the opposite of a crisis." If out on the street I'd find having the Wards around maybe a little stressful, but at least I'd know what to do with them.

Deal with the crisis at hand. Stop the bad guy. Protect innocent people. Easy. This? This felt like high school during a dress up party.

"Hey, um, can you maybe look at something for me?"

I glanced at Kid Win. "Hm?"

"I mean. If you want to? It's an idea I've had for a while, but I'm not really sure how good an idea it is and last time we talked it really helped me figure out my hover board which is working now and I'm still talking aren't I?"

I blinked. "What? Like something tinker related?"

"Yes."

I didn't see—No. Scratch that. "Sure." Get me out of this room, please and thank you.

One Ward is infinitely easier to be around than four. I'd deal with my social awkwardness some other time.

Though, leaving Lafter alone with Stratos and the other Wards, anything might happen.

I beat that thought down. However impulsive and goofy Lafter might be, she didn't seem fickle. She just joked about putting a TV and game station in the workshop. She didn't plan on going anywhere.

So, I trusted her to stick with me and told my paranoia to shut up. If I ended up disappointed I'd deal with it later.

I followed Kid Win into a narrow hall. The doors along it all bore a Ward's name, their cape name that is. Only one sat open, Valiant's by process of elimination. Stereotypical boy's room. Clothes strewn about, old pizza boxes stacked into a castle on a table, and enough gamer memorabilia to make Greg Veder blush.

We kept on down the hall and went into the door at the end.

"This is the tinker lab," Kid Win said. "It's technically for any tinker on the team, but I'm the only one so…"

I nodded. The door opened into a big room with clean and white walls, like the PRT's garage. They said they built that place to handle explosives and rampaging criminals being brought in. Made sense to build a tinker's workshop the same way.

The room didn't look nearly as organized though. Tools and unfinished devices lay scattered about, papers and pens here and there.

"I tend to just leave things where they are," Kid Win admitted, sounding a little embarrassed.

"I do the same thing," I admitted back. I imagined my workshop wouldn't look much better if the Haros didn't keep the place tidy. "So, what is it?"

"Over here." He pointed and started walking.

He led me to a table against the wall on the right. Tracing paper covered the surface. A few tools sat on the edges and a partially constructed chest plate sat in the center.

"Upgrading your armor?" I asked. It looked too big for Kid Win. More Armsmaster's size judging by eye.

"No," he answered. "I think I got the idea from your suit, but your suit doesn't make a whole lot of sense to my power."

My brow went up behind my visor.

Kid Win arranged some of the tracing paper as he spoke. Most of it looked like random lines and formula to me. That is, until he started layering the papers over one another.

The image took shape, and I leaned in to get a better look.

I saw what he meant about taking the idea from my suit. I mean, it was a suit. It had arms, legs, helmet, and everything. Maybe slightly smaller than O Gundam, but bigger than a normal set of tinker armor. I saw the resemblance, but outside of the most basic elements, he built it using different principles and materials.

Obviously, no GN particle or particles compressors to name one point of difference. The frame consisted of titanium alloys and a variant of fiberglass. The armor I needed a few seconds to make heads or tails off. An advanced titanium-steel alloy, I thought. Not something easily manufactured.

"You can't make that on Earth," I explained.

"I know. I've been working on a way to artificially build a low-gravity environment."

And didn't that sound somewhat familiar.

I needed the Foundation's help to replicate a Jovian atmosphere to complete the GN Drive. A low-gravity environment sounded much more feasible in comparison. Probably about the strength of the moon should do. I never considered how variations in gravitational forces might affect a chemical reaction, though that was dumbing down the manufacturing process significantly.

"What's the power source?" I asked.

"A fusion reactor."

"Will that generate enough power?"

"Yeah. Your power source got me thinking about particles and stuff. I don't know how yours worked, but if I inject this"–he pulled two pieces of paper showing a physics formula–"with this, then the output goes through the roof. I think. I can make it pretty small too, but not small enough for my current armor."

"A helium-three reaction?" I mumbled. I noted a few obvious errors in the formula. "That's odd."

"Is it?" Kid Win asked.

Right. He didn't look at his designs and see how they worked, only that they did work.

"A little. I wouldn't have thought of it, but it's more conventional than what my power lets me do."

"Would it work?"

"Depends on what you want it to do. You probably won't be able to fly, but that just means you can put more thought into armor and weapons." I added a lie, saying, "I have to consider weight constraints on O Gundam or else I can't fly."

"O Gundam? Is that what you call your suit?"

"It stands for General Utility Nonlinear Dynamic Assistance Module Zero."

"That's…a lot."

"That's why I call it O Gundam."

Kid Win nodded. He held up the papers. "It's name is Jim."

Well, at least Jim had character to make up for a boring name.

"I thought about maybe using the tech from my hover-board, but the power needed to make that work is way too high. Even this reactor doesn't come close."

"You might be able to enable yourself to hover," I suggested. "Could boost your ground speed and break falls. Maybe a powered jump here or there."

Kid Win nodded again. He grabbed a pencil and wrote something down on one of his papers.

Looking it all over he put even more work into this than I did. Suppose he didn't have Veda to do a lot of the work for him, but still.

"Have you shown this to Armsmaster?" I asked.

"No. He'd just point out everything wrong with it."

And that did not surprise me. Kid Win sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"And I'll probably never get it past PR anyway," he continued. "They don't like helmets that completely hide the face. Or anything that's bulkier than it needs to be. Not to mention the cost. The materials to build the reactor are ridiculously expensive."

"I thought Ward tinkers got a big budget?"

"It's not this big." He frowned. "I don't even know if Armsmaster could swing it, and then there's the safety checks. I don't know how I'd ever get through that processes, my math is too bad."

"Well, I—" I stopped. I know that frown.

I watched Kid Win's face. Even with the visor over his eyes, I felt damn sure I knew that whole expression. It's a special blend of self-depreciation, lack of confidence, and frustration.

Goddammit why does this shit keep happening to me?

I glanced around and found another chair.

"What's wrong with the safety?" I asked as I sat.

"What isn't wrong with it? Did you see how high the temperature needs to be to induce fusion in that reactor?"

"For Helium three? Something in the range of a billion Kelvin."

He shook his head. "I might as well rename myself Burning Alive. There's no way to contain that kind of heat."

"What if you used deuterium?" I asked.

Kid Win raised his head. "Deuterium?"

"Yeah. Heavy hydrogen? It's more conventional. You can achieve fusion at a lower temperature. I mean, it'll produce radioactivity, but tinkers the world over have produced all kinds of ways to contain and use radioactivity, so that's not really much of a drawback."

Thinking about it, I added, "You could probably just feed the radiation into a containment field and use that to store the heat for other uses. Maybe a thermal weapon or something. Or ion thrusters."

Kid thought for a moment, and then grabbed a blank piece of paper and started doodling. His math was bad. Is that because he struggled with math, or because his power didn't teach him math like mine did?

He finished one page and went on to the other.

I grabbed it, took up a spare pencil, and corrected a few things. Only a few. I mean, I didn't figure anything out for him. I just fixed his math.

Part of me thought it too typical of me. Pathetic Taylor Hebert, as usual, finds skulking off doing tinker stuff easier than talking to people.

Except this time someone else was tinkering too.

I decided to call that progress and stop worrying about it.

"PR might go for it," Kid Win mumbled. "They like ways to sell action figures. This would make a cool action figure."

"Probably." I corrected a few "twos" and set another piece of paper aside. "You get royalties right?"

"Yeah."

"So, maybe it'll help pay for itself?"

Weird.

He said he didn't get how my suit worked, but the more math he did the more one wave length came up. A byproduct of fusing the helium three. Not GN particles, they weren't that exotic, but looking at it in my head it behaved in similar ways.

Kid Win asked, "How do you manage to pay for all your tinkering?"

"I find ways," I said.

"Lots of people on PHO keep wondering if you're going to start selling your own merchandise. There's a lot of people already making bootleg t-shirts."

I shrugged. "I don't know. I don't really like the idea of making action figures of myself. Clothing is okay, but I don't have the means to make them." Like hell I'd ever sell Newtype underwear. Ugh.

The Haros should pay for themselves, and then some, once I got the factory going. Except, the settlement might not come in for weeks. It depended entirely on how slow Blue Cosmos rolled that ball, and then the PRT might need time to clear up their end.

It put a serious bottleneck in my plans for the foreseeable future. I'd be lying if I said that didn't bother me.

Maybe a month till the next Endbringer attack? I wanted to build a few ideas for that. Plus the Tierens, Queen Gundam, and whatever I ended up designing for Lafter. My means simply didn't cover everything I wanted to do.

"I don't really like the action figures either," Kid Win said. "I mean, it's cool, but it's kind of childish, you know? I'd much rather have something like Dragels."

"Dragels?" I asked.

"Yeah. Dragon Models? There aren't any action figures of Dragon. I guess because she doesn't like to go out in public or something? The Guild makes models of her suits and ships though. They come in the sprue and you don't even need any glue to assemble them."

"And they're called Dragels?"

Kid shrugged.

"That's a stupid name."

"You said it, not me," he replied.

Well, Dragon did have some cool stuff. I'd see people…buying…models…

Wait a minute.

Nice action figure.

It's a model.

You left your action figures out.

It's a model.

Dragels.

It's a model.

Its name is Gundam.

It's a model

After blue screening for a little bit, all I came up with as a response was, "Oh."

"Are you okay?" Kid asked.

"Merely lamenting that for all the bullshit my power is, I am still an idiot." And I just said that out loud, great work Taylor.

Kid stared at me. "Um. Okay?"

"Never mind," I said quickly. "Let me see that."

I grabbed the last sheet of paper and looked it over.

All and all, he managed to come up with a flexible cold fusion reactor. Well, not cold. Thermodynamically neutral is more accurate, but it might as well be the same thing. Nicely sized too. The full reactor wasn't much larger than the GN Drive, and he could scale it up or down to a degree.

"Not bad," I thought. "This would work."

"Would it?"

"Yeah. I mean, it's still ludicrously expensive to build"—And he looked defeated again shit fuck what did I say wrong?—"but it's not like my GN Drive is any less ridiculous." I needed to simulate a whole other planet for that.

I set the paper down with the rest and said, "It's probably too absurd to design it just for a suit, but you could make it modular and it's value as a design goes through the roof. The PRT might go for a general use reactor."

Kid Win perked his head up. "Modular?"

"Yeah. You know. Plug and play?"

"Modular…"

And then Kid Win started blue screening. How did I manage to keep making this so hard?

The door opened, and I quickly turned around looking for rescue.

"Ramius?"

"Newtype." She walked in with a file tucked under her arm. Her eyes flickered over to Kid Win. "Kid Win?"

Fuck. "I—I think I broke him."

"Just thinking," he replied. "Modular. Mod-u-lar."

"I swear it was an accident."

"He's fuguing," Ramius said with a small smile. "I wouldn't worry about it. Happens all the time to tinkers."

Fuguing? "Is that what it looks like?" I asked.

"Yes."

I felt grateful I never installed any mirrors in the workshop.

"Do you have a moment?" Ramius asked. "I heard you were in the building and thought I'd catch up on a few things."

"Um, yeah I guess." I looked at Kid Win. "Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine."

Felt a little weird to leave him like that, except I noticed the time. Two hours. I'd been in his lab correcting his math and chatting for two hours. That is far more time than I wanted to be at the PRT.

"If you say so," I accepted.

I got up and followed her to the door.

We stopped in the hall and Ramius asked in a low voice, "Blue Cosmos?"

Right, conspiracy time. "They called. We had a meeting yesterday after school."

"What do they know?"

"They know that Shadow Stalker is at Mount Horeb, and that a body double is pretending to be Sophia in Providence."

Ramius nodded. "Then the details we leaked made it to the right ears."

I blinked. "You leaked that stuff?"

"Welcome to the ugly side of politics," Ramius said. "Sometimes you give the other side the details it needs to hang itself. You still want to settle this as quietly as possible?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"I'll make sure Director Armstrong knows."

And then Ramius stared at me.

"Is there something else?" I asked.

Ramius blinked. "No. No it's nothing. Don't worry about it."

She turned down the hallway, folding the folder behind her back.

I glanced back to Kid Win's lab, but I'm not sure I wanted to break him any further. Not to mention two hours is enough time for—Oh fuck, where is Lafter?

I walked up the hall after Ramius and returned to the Wards room. We found everyone, including Stratos, and now Aegis and Browbeat, huddled around the couch.

Oh no.

I walked over slowly.

On the screen, the red plumber guy blew a stream of flames at some girl with pink hair and a lightning sword.

"Get him!" Lafter shouted.

Valiant blew raspberries, while Clockblocker cheered, "Go! Go! Go!"

I don't really know what happened. I'd never played the game.

One second the red plumber guy seemed to be pushing the pink haired girl toward the edge of some space ship. Then the pink haired girl did a roll and threw the red plumber guy off the side. He jumped in mid-air, only to be hit again and fall off the screen.

And then the screen said game over.

"Bullshit," Valiant grumbled.

"Only because you can't use your power to cheat," Lafter declared with a smile. "Cheater, cheater."

"Told you that would come back to bite you," Stratos said.

Wait a minute.

I leaned over, glancing down at the couch around the crowd.

The only ones with controllers in their hands were Valiant, and Green.

"Did he just lose to Green?" I asked.

"He lost to StarGazer," Vista corrected.

"It seemed like a fun game," Veda said. "Are you well? You have been gone a long time."

"Oh. Um. I might have broken Kid Win. Sorry?"

"He's just fuguing," Ramius repeated for the room. "They were working on something and it must have given him an idea."

Well at least that didn't make me sound lik—

"Oh-ho?" Lafter rose up with a smile I instantly hated. "Spending some tinker time together, hmm?"

"Don't even think about it," I said sternly.

"Oh, I can think about it."

"We just won't say anything," Clockblocker added.

Fuck me.

"Great," Vista mumbled. "There's two of them now."

Ramius faked a cough. "Your van is finished by the way."

Oh thank god get me out of here!

"Time to go," I announced.

"I'm so teasing Kid about this," Clockblocker said.

"No, you won't," Aegis warned.

"I will tastefully imply, then."

"No, you won't," Vista said.

"You never let me have my fun."

"I'll do it," Valiant offered.

I walked out the door, Lafter and Green following behind me. Ramius and Stratos followed my brisk pace.

My phone shook, and I slipped it from my pocket.

sys.v/ I have located the truck

Thank you, Veda.

sys.t/ is Dinah ready for pick up?

sys.d/ Dinah is ready

My van looked exactly like I left it. The techs handed me some forms to sign, which meant I read all the pages to check for legal traps. After not finding any, I signed, got my safety permit, and tossed it in the glove box to be forever ignored.

The techs cleared us to leave, and Veda drove on out.

"Are you ready to beat up some goblins?" I asked.

"Sure," Lafter said. "Who's the victim?"

"Whatever idiots tried to kill Relena Peacecraft last night and are still alive to spill about it."

"Saving the damsel in distress then? Sure, you're not into girls?"

"Yes." Very sure.

We swung by the library and parked off on a little used side road. Dinah walked up, and Lafter scooted into the back of the van with me.

Dinah took her seat, and the dread set in.

We needed to go pick up O Gundam before doing anything. That meant dropping off Dinah, but Lafter and I still needed to get to Shanty Town with my suit in the back of the van.

"Fuck," I grumbled.

"What?" Lafter asked.

"She needs to build a bigger van," Dinah answered.

I groaned.