Side-Step EG

"Why didn't you join the Wards when you first started out?" The interviewer asked. Lovely young woman.

"It's complicated," Newtype answered.

"I'm sure it's complicated for many young people with powers, but you've garnered something of a reputation. Rumors abound of your feuds with Armsmaster and the local PRT. People even say you've managed to make an enemy of New Wave."

The girl shifted uneasily in her seat. A practiced display, the kind the PRT trained its own capes in. Discomfort isn't a bad thing. It's humanizing. Everyone is uncomfortable with personal questions, but not everyone shows it easily. Anger, or defensiveness are less endearing but more natural reactions than physical displays of discomfort. Especially for capes.

"I don't have good experiences with authority figures," Newtype said. "They've let me down in my life. I was nervous about going to the Wards because of that, and some of my first interactions didn't go well." She quickly added, "No one did anything wrong, per se. I think Armsmaster and I just have, between us, a pair of personalities that will never mesh."

"In what way?"

"Tinkering, for example. Armsmaster's tech is about efficiency and versatility of design. His halberd can do a dozen different things at a time. I'm more about performance. My suit can't do a dozen different things. It just does one thing, really well."

"Smash bad guys?"

"My suit is really good at it!"

Clever cover. On the surface, it sounded respectful of the man. Portrayed their differences as personal, like their different styles as tinkers. It undercut the truth. That Newtype resented the PRT's obsession with "doing things right" and preferred to "get things done." She managed to tell the truth while keeping it palatable.

Her PR lady is good.

"So the rumors are just rumors?"

"I mean, yes? And no?" Newtype shifted uncomfortably again. "I disagree with the way the PRT and Protectorate are sometimes. I wish they could do more, but at the same time I realize they don't always have that luxury. My plans have never really gone the way I expect them either. It's hard to be a hero, and that sounds like simple words until you put on a mask. I don't want to sound disparaging. I just worked with the PRT and Protectorate to arrest Damsel of Distress and four members of her group."

"But you still elected to form your own team over the Wards?"

"Yes. I think that there's more I can do with my own team, than by joining the Wards."

The interviewer nodded. "Celestial Being. It's an interesting name."

"I got the idea from Dragon, actually. After I screwed up once, she told me it was okay. We're capes, not perfect beings. That kind of got me thinking about how I wanted to go about things."

"And you picked the name Celestial Being from that?"

"I think we can be more than we are. We can go farther. Higher. We shouldn't be satisfied with accepting the world around us as it is."

"It's a little esoteric."

"But not unique." Her demeanor shifted. Her discomfort vanished, and a chill entered her voice. "I know that there are people who can see it. We're going backwards. Despite everything we've achieved, and the advent of capes, the world isn't getting any better."

"No," the interviewer said. "I suppose that's not unique."

"Celestial Being isn't supposed to be about me," Newtype said. "It's about all of us. I didn't want to just make a hero team. I want to make the world better. To stop this backward slide we're in. That's why I've spent a lot of my time the past few months trying to make a mass production version of the Haros."

His brow raised.

"Mass production?" The interviewer asked. "A lot of people consider that something of a holy grail when it comes to tinkers."

"Revolutionary, and unobtainable."

"Yes."

"I've been working at it with the Foundation, a group of independents. They're the ones who developed the technology the PRT used to put a stop to Heartbreaker."

"I remember, it was a big day. You've been working with them? On what?"

"On deciphering tinker tech for mass production. We have a design that I think can be mass produced. That's why I'm building a factory in Brockton Bay. I want to build them there."

"You want to build your robots in masse?"

She hid her surprise well. Both of them, really. Calling mass production the holy grail of tinkers was no exaggeration. Even Dragon, despite all her efforts and the help of others, could only do simple things. Computer chips that barely beat out non-tinker tech designs. Everything had a shelf life, usually only lasting a year or so. It worked for cell phones when everyone just bought a new one in a year anyway, but for more complex and industrial tasks?

"They won't be exactly the same," Newtype said. "They'll be a lot more simplistic. StarGazer and I have been coding their basic operating system for weeks and it's going to take weeks more because we have to debug it all to make sure it will run without a tinker, but we're getting close on that too."

"What exactly would they do?" The interviewer smiled. "Take over the world?"

"No," Newtype said. "I was thinking medical assistants. There's been an increasingly dire shortage of trained medical personnel around the world for decades."

"You want to replace doctors?"

"Not replace. This technology is nowhere near that level, but it can do a lot of grunt work. The Helpers will be able to monitor patients and assess their conditions. Provide interaction and socialization for people who don't get enough of it. In an emergency they should be able to perform basic life support functions. I can't program them to do brain surgery or anything. That's too complex, but they could apply epinephrine or conduct a tracheotomy. If we make progress, they could be deployed from the air as emergency responders and assess people while an ambulance is trying to reach them."

"That's… very ambitious."

Newtype smiled. As she spoke about her machines she visibly became more excited, more determined. At being called ambitious, she didn't flinch at all.

"It's not ambition," she said. "It's conviction."

The interviewer gave her a curious look.

"Is there a connection between that and the logo you picked for you team? It's created quite a bit of buzz, not all of it positive."

Newtype's face hardened.

"You mean the Simurgh?"

"Yes."

The girl leaned back in her seat. Channeled discomfort, again. Her PR lady really was good.

"Why should the Simurgh have a monopoly on hope?" She asked.

David turned the television off and set the remote down.

He'd heard enough.

She's good. There's natural talent there. Brushing Newtype off as a young upstart may have been the wrong first impression after all. Her body language might be practiced, but her words weren't. She meant what she said.

Conviction?

"That's your play, Lalah? Another naive little girl?"

He felt her hand in it, though trying to gauge her intentions didn't exactly work out for him before. She'd been roundabout ever since she first appeared. Direct isn't the way she did things.

Made her a difficult opponent to deal with.

He might just be paranoid. What use would she get out of a traumatized little girl? Newtype wouldn't matter in the end.

David turned to face the city beyond his window. Malta is a nice enough place to retire, as it were. Secluded and out of the way, with little in the way of heroes or villains. A pleasant little place to sit and watch. To wait.

Time's running out.