They say people make sacrifices for art, for science, and that nothing worthwhile was ever done without the risk of failure. They aren't wrong. Even something as simple as a variable-setting laser pistol takes forever to grow from the seed of an idea to the guts and wires on a table to a functioning pre-approval prototype. The process of creation is taxing, painful, and occasionally embarrassing. Everyone knows that making things is hard, but what almost no one talks about is what you do with your work once you've actually finished it.
I look down at the alternator canon. I built it so I would have something to whip out for when I ran into an A-class threat. When, not if. Armsmaster likes stressing the importance of preparation. It works well with his specialty. He can have a tool for every occasion, every situation, all because he can somehow manage to cram all the tech he could need into spaces so small even other Tinkers want to call it ridiculous.
Me?
I just try to have a tool period.
I pick up a power screwdriver with a groan and start pulling apart the one thing, the one piece of work, that I was actually proud of. Gone because I couldn't wait to show off.
The first thing that I extract is the power source. Power plant, really. Enough energy for a basically unlimited number of shots in succession. I leave it on a table with another three half-completed projects and put a sticker on it, a big red "X" on a white background. Piggot wanted it dismantled, but she never specified how small she wanted the pieces. Maybe I can salvage something from it?
The rest of the dissection is an exercise in emotional control and patience. I didn't make a lot of these parts for easy removal, and it shows. A few things break and get tossed into the scrap bin for recycling. A few more get out intact but are too niche to justify hanging onto. They get placed by the way side, to be disassembled into even smaller parts and tossed in bins of generically useful stuff. There's a lot of pedestrian crap that's not worth trying to organize. I'm eventually left with a hunk of metal and disconnected wires, the vital organs and beating heart, all laid out next to each other, some broken, some not.
I look at the result of my hard work. Then I tear my gaze away from it and look at what's left.
The power source. It generates more energy than I can use right now, but if I keep it intact I might be able to cut time off other projects in the future. It's small enough to fit in a backpack, so power armor? I shake my head and push it off to the side. That's a long term thing. Really long term, for when I know what I want a full suit to look like.
The control panel. Too complicated to take apart easily and it's got a lot of buttons. What about a multi-purpose controller for stuff? Again, keeping it in storage could shave a few days off other projects by using this as the interface for turrets or something. I might have to reconfigure it to make sure that all my future projects can actually connect to it, but that's a problem for future-Chris.
I examine the anti-grav ring for about six seconds, then move on. The first thing that springs to mind when I look at it is a projectile launcher that can take any sort of munition. The next thing is that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to spin a railgun to the advisory board after this screw up. That, and I've got plenty of guns. No, I need something new, preferably something that's not one hundred percent offense-oriented. A non-combat tool that doesn't scream "amatuer Tinker at work."
The focal drive. The thing that gathered all the different energy inputs and put them together. Mixing energy sounds cool, even if I can't use it right now. A floating force multiplier, maybe? I've only seen it mix together traditional stuff like electricity and heat, but if I could modify it to take Blaster emissions and ambient radiation I could get a similar effect to the cannon...
I cut off the sudden rush of ideas, barely, and nod firmly. Different song, same tune. Still a long-term project, but a little more achievable than a new suit of power armor. Also not a non-combat tool, but since it would need teamwork to fire it would sound better than "super-sonic rock-thrower."
"Chris?" I startle a little at the voice and turn towards the door. It's Carlos, mask in one hand and a smile on his face.
"Yeah?" I ask. He points at the clock on the wall. I look at it. It's nearly five. Right. Home. "Just give me a minute to pack some of this stuff up," I say, motioning to the mess scattered around me.
"I'll be waiting," Carlos says, waving casually as he walks out of the room. I watch him leave and sigh.
It must be nice having such a simple power. Hard to put down, good mobility, and reasonably family-friendly as long as no one catches him trying to shove his liver back into his torso. I look back at the scattered viscera from the alternator cannon and sigh again.
It's going to take a long time to make up the ground I've lost today.
It takes maybe thirty minutes to drive from the PRT HQ to the Medhall lab were I'll be working. The agents in the back of the car don't speak much, but I don't take it personally. Piggot's come down harder on breaches of discipline ever since Missy started "borrowing" some of their more creative swear words, and while it hasn't stopped them from making the occasional dry comment when they overhear us ranting about the public it did put a damper on the small talk.
The PRT agents escort me through the building along a pre-planned route until we get to a pair of double doors where I'm greeted by a man in a lab coat holding his phone out, tapping at the screen furiously. That quickly gets put back into his pocket, and a broad grin spreads across his face as soon as he sees me.
"Welcome Mr., uh, Kid Win?" The scientist stumbles over my name, sheepishly scratching the back of his head and looking at the impassive visors of the PRT agents. He's gone grey early, but his hairline isn't receding and he has a lot of laugh lines on his face. I wave my hand casually and put on a public event-grade smile even as I hear the click clack of combat boots walking away.
"I'm not really a mister yet. Just call me Kid. Or Win. Either/or," I say. "What's your name?" Gallant's the best with people, but I take second place. It's one of those things I can get right without my screwed up brain getting in the way, and getting those little wins helps hold back the bitterness of coming near dead-last in every other category. Sometimes.
"Well, Win," he says, almost stumbling over the word, "It's a pleasure to meet you!" He extends his hand and I give it a shake. He holds it for a moment too long, then awkwardly lets go and motion towards the doors. "Anyway, here's the lab. And I'm Dr. Singer," he adds, name almost an afterthought. I nod in acknowledgement and push into the room to start looking around. I'm serving punishment detail, but it's a punishment detail where I get to tinker, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise. As I take in my surroundings, I revise my expectations. Beakers, bottles, burners, and a lot of other stuff I see at school in chem, except bigger and more expensive-looking. All of it pretty useless to me.
"Um, is this it?" I ask, motioning around at the lab. When Singer gives me a look, I clarify. "I mean, I'm not sure what I can do with a bunch of chemicals. I typically make my batteries and stuff out of metals." Armsmaster can make some really weird drugs, which is one of those fuzzy areas where sometimes wet and dry tinkering overlap. I haven't tried anything like that yet mainly because I don't want to accidentally give anyone a heart attack when my tech screws up.
I see the realization dawn on the doctor's face as he slaps his forehead. "Right! Sorry, when you asked for a lab I thought science lab, not an engineering shop." He shakes his head and walks over to a computer. "I'll try to see if anything is available, but I wouldn't hold your breath. The prototypers tend to be pretty jealous of their tech time." I sigh and hop up onto a lab stool. My legs don't even touch the ground. Eventually, he groans in frustration and drops his head to the desk.
"I got us some time on Tuesday, but until then," — I see his shoulders slump further somehow — "This is the only lab that's open. Damn, damn damn." His last words are quiet enough that I think I'm not supposed to hear them.
"I mean, it could be worse," I say. When the doctor turns to fix me with a flat glare, I hold up my hands in surrender. "I mean, I'm not a great Tinker. It'd be different if it was Armsmaster cooling his jets, but me? You're not missing out on much." The doctor snorts derisively.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a Tinker to share a lab with a normie?" Singer asks, shaking his head as he sits across the table from me. "You're quite literally the second one I've ever worked with, and the first one used his lab materials to escape." I laugh at that.
"You don't have to worry about that," I joke. "Piggot would skin me alive if I tried to get out of this." He has a chuckle at that, then the room descends back into an awkward silence as we stare at each other, trying to figure out something else to say.
Just because I'm the second best at PR doesn't mean I'm good at it. Why are people so hard?
"So you don't work with chemicals?" Thank you for picking up the thread, Dr. Singer. I wiggle my hand up and down and shrug one shoulder.
"I mean, it's more that the review process for stuff that affects people is a lot more intense than the process for working on tools," I say. "Armsmaster can self-approve some of his own stuff because he has a lot of experience, but if I wanted to make an extra-strong coffee it'd take five forms, three meetings, and an interview." I mean, it makes sense, but that doesn't mean it's not a pain. Dr. Singer nods.
"Like getting funding for basic research compared to getting funding for practical research," he says. When I give him a blank look from behind my visor, he clarifies. "Basic research is asking questions like 'how do people respond to seeing different colors in a stressful situation?'. Practical research is 'should we make traffic signs red or purple?'" I nod sympathetically, not quite seeing the connection but not wanting to alienate him. He continues on. "So, you haven't worked with chemicals because you don't want to handle the paperwork?"
"That, and I don't want to hurt anyone," I add. Never let a second-rate Tinker mess with your body. Singer makes a dismissive noise and waves his hand.
"That's what lab rats are for. Want to give it a shot while Medhall is paying for the specimens?" I lean back a little, trying to keep my face neutral.
"I don't really want to hurt rats either," I say quietly. Singer tilts his head.
"You know we breed them to die, right?" I nod.
"Still doesn't make me want kill them," I answer. He sighs.
"Right, not a med student." I'm not sure if I should be offended, and it must show on my face because Singer waves his hands in front of himself, more than a little sheepish. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to come across like a jerk. It's just that a lot of the people I work with have gotten used to testing on mammals. You get used to accepting that you're going to mess up, and that messing up is going to have consequences. Better to mess up on a rat than on a person. Am I making sense?" he asks, scratching the side of his head. I think about all the time I've spent shooting at dummies to make sure that my tech won't accidentally blow a hole in a person.
"Yeah, I kinda I get it," I answer. Singer nods.
"If you don't want to test your stuff on rats, how about crayfish?" I blink.
"Crayfish?" I ask. Singer nods.
"Crustaceans. Dumb as rocks, breed like mad, and not much higher up the totem poll than insects. If you don't want to hurt a small furry animal, how about the ugly-as-sin cousin of a lobster?"
"I don't think that addresses the main problem of hurting things," I say slowly, trying to steer the conversation away from making drugs.
"C. elegans?" he presses. "They're so simple that we've mapped their growth from birth to death almost completely. It's like experimenting on really big bacteria."
"Why are you trying so hard to get me to work on drugs?" I ask. He raises a hand, pauses, and groans, the hand going to the side of his head as he leans back and grimaces.
"Ugh, sorry, it's just," he fumbles for words, waving his hands around his head a bit before giving up and looking at me. "You have a power, right?" I nod slowly. "And it's one that maybe, just maybe, can help advance medicine, which would help a lot of people. Even if us regular mortals can really only 'get' one percent of it, it could still help a lot. Like, we discovered a new non-addictive pain killer by just looking at one of Sweetwater's drugs. I can't force you to do stuff you're not okay doing, but I can try to pitch as many ideas to you as I can and hope that one of them sticks because I honestly think that I could learn something from watching you mess around with biology. I'm trying to frame the messy parts of biology in a way that makes you more comfortable with the idea of pushing boundaries." He runs a hand through his hair and leans forward onto his arm. "You've got the power here. Literally and figuratively. If you don't want to do wet science, you're not going to do wet science. That doesn't mean I can't try to convince you to give it a shot anyways."
He stops talking and I take a moment to reassess him, looking for more than just general feelings this time. He clearly wants to press the issue more, to get me to do something, but he tightens his jaw and doesn't go any further.
I don't like the way he's been talking to me. It sounds like a lecture, and even though he's trying not to be too condescending it's still pretty obvious he doesn't see me as an equal. Maybe he's just not good in social situations, but even so he's coming across as kind of a dick.
On the other hand he's trying. That, and sitting around drawing stuff isn't going to pay off my debt.
"First we're going to need something to test," I say. Singer's face lights up and he leaps to his feet, slapping his hands on the table and causing me to jump a little.
"Fantastic! What do you need? We've got a lot of common stuff on hand, and if you need something more complex we can synthesize it in a few hours." He stands up and drags over a whiteboard, pulling out a marker and pacing in front of it as energy suffuses him. I look around and start thinking, heart rate spiking.
"Um..." Great. Now I'm freezing up. "I'm open to ideas?"
"What's your specialty?" he asks, turning around with his pen ready to write. I wince.
"I don't know." He lifts his free hand and shrugs with one arm.
"What have you made that you're proud of? Start with whatever you think is coolest."
"The alternator canon," I answer immediately. Then my mind catches up with my mouth and I cringe, looking down at my lap. Singer doesn't seem to notice, though.
"What's that?" he asks.
"... the thing that wiped your data banks," I mumble quietly.
There's a moment of awkward silence.
"Well, what did it do?" I look up. He's a little less excited now, but he's still attentive. "I mean, it'd be pretty poetic if what got you into this mess got you out of it," he says, a corner of his mouth quirking up. I smile back nervously.
"It mixed a lot of different types of energy together," I say, trying to keep it simple. "Radiation, electricity, kinetic, heat, a bunch of stuff. It could also moderate it. Beam dimensions, intensity-" I cut myself off. "Basically a lot of power with a lot of control."
"Could you make something that did that with drugs?" he asks, scrawling 'lots of stuff into one' on the board. "Maybe something that scans blood, diagnoses problems, then mixes up a cocktail to treat them?"
An image flashes through my mind of a device that looks like an IV drip with a lot of different vials attached.
"The injector, yeah," I answer, forcing myself back to earth. "I think someone would have to put in the actual medicine request manually, though." He writes 'fast drug mixer' next to a bullet point and makes another one.
"What about an autodoc?" I shake my head.
"Too complicated," I say. "I can't code that well."
"What about a tool that can change in response to a changing situation?" he presses, flipping the pen in one hand. "A scalpel with variable length, a drug that can can do multiple things depending on where it's applied, flesh grafts that can go anywhere-"
"The scalpel," I interrupt, a design flashing into my mind. "A multi-tool, with a head that can be changed out."
"What can it do?" he asks, drawing a line to divide the board in half and writing 'variable-use surgical instrument' at the top of it.
"Tweezers, flesh separation, flesh repair, sterilization..." I keep going, he keeps writing, and when I run out of steam he flips over the board and starts throwing out more ideas.
By the time the PRT agents come by to pick me up and take me home, we've moved off the white boards and onto a computer, writing in a word doc filled with shorthand ideas. We shake hands and he waves as I leave.
"Looking forward to tomorrow!" he says, smiling honestly.
"Me too!" I say, waving back. To my surprise, I mean it. Somewhere in the conversation we stopped being cape and scientist and became into two people discussing creation.
Maybe this won't be so bad after all.
Four days later I'm busy lathing a port for a vial of chemicals when an idea hits. Those have been coming more and more frequently, and while I'd normally push them to the side when I'm working, this part of the build is simple enough that I feel comfortable letting my mind wander. There's no reason the injector needs to be only an injector, is there? I could make it a multi-purpose instrument with delivery tools that can switch between aerosol, intravenous delivery, and pill creation. Come to think of it, why don't I try that with my guns? Broad blasts for crowd control, continuous beams for Brutes and Shaker constructs, rapid-fire for multiple targets, anything and everything. There's no reason I need to limit myself to using just one at a time-
I have an epiphany.
"I. Am. An idiot," I say, keeping enough presence of mind to stop the machine and step away from it as I slap my hands over my face. "Such an idiot!"
"What do you mean?" Singer asks. I turn towards him. He's looking up from a carton of Chinese take-out, genuinely curious.
"Switching stuff out. That's it. That's the thing that's always there. That's the common thread!" I say. I'm starting to ramble, I know. I grab a pen and walk over to another whiteboard. "The multi-tool? The handheld scanner? The cannon? All of them did different things!" I start sketching out anything that comes to mind, too many images in my head to be coherent. I think I get the gist of them though, and more images keep coming and I curse my hand because it can't keep up.
"You're not making any sense. One's a tool, one's a camera, and one's a gun. Of course they do different things," Singer says. I hear the soft slap of rubber against ceramic as he walks towards me. "What are you on about?"
"My specialty!" I say, spinning around. His eyes go wide, but I keep going. "Multiple parts, multiple settings, multiple modules! The reason I can't get a project done is because it's never done! I need to get an idea, start with a core, then just keep making parts for it and swap them out when I need to! I need to make things I can upgrade, that are future-proof!" It makes so much sense! All my guns, floating around my anti-grav ring to deliver whatever munition I need. A suite of medical devices, all slaved to the same control board. The control board! I still have it, I can use it to-
"Win?" I snap out of my fugue and notice that Singer is staring at me.
"You kind of zoned out there," he says, eyes tight with concern.
"Sorry, I got carried away," I say sheepishly. Jeez, freakout much? I take a deep breath, then let it out. And again. When I feel back at baseline levels of Win, I sit down by the lathe and go back to smiling. "I just," I wave a hand at the air as the other starts re-securing the part. "It's like everything suddenly makes sense now!" Armsmaster can have a million tools available because he can shove them into a space that's too small to be sensible. I could have a million tools available because all my tools are other tools too!
"Win." I snap out of my daze again and turn to face Singer. He's back at the table and his eyes are focused on me again. "You just zoned out again."
"I'm better now," I assure him, turning back to the lathe.
I get way more done in that one afternoon than I did in an entire weekend of tinkering before knowing which paths to look down. I get an impulse? I ask if it helps me make something more versatile. If yes? Apply. If no? Ignore it.
When I leave, I'm practically skipping with glee. I send an email to Armsmaster telling him the good news and asking for ideas. I also request a look at his tech, too. Maybe now I can make a useful suggestion and start paying him back for all of the help he's given me.
I'm halfway through creating yet another head for the multi-tool when a group of PRT agents burst into the lab, weapons drawn. Singer puts his hands up immediately as one of them trains a rifle on him and I sit bolt upright, tinkering forgotten, as another agent levels their weapon at me, visor impassive.
"Kid Win, Master/Stranger password. Now." I blink in surprise, but instinct takes over and I rattle mine off.
"Kilo Mike Sierra One-One-Six-Eight."
"Eight-Zero-Niner Alpha Fiver Delta," the agent says back, nodding once. "We've got to go. Leave anything that's not going to explode."
As I step away from the table I catch a glimpse of Singer watching me with wide eyes. Then he's gone and I'm being escorted down the hall, out of the building, into a van loitering in the parking lot.
Once we're underway, I turn to the officer escorting me. "What's going on?"
"Medhall is a front for the Empire," he says, voice flat and emotionless. "Your contract with them is now null and void. A separate team will retrieve your tech as soon as possible, but getting you out took priority."
I sit there, processing. I try to reconcile the memory of Hookwolf slapping Vista aside with the one of Singer and I cheering over a successful test of the auto-stitcher. I try, and I can't. Medhall. Empire. Singer. Kaiser. They don't match. This doesn't make any sense.
"We're not sure how deep it goes," the agent says quietly. Implicitly, the PRT isn't certain that Medhall employed only Nazis. Maybe Singer's one of the good ones? "It's going to be looked into. You are not culpable for anything your tech does. I'm sorry," he adds.
The rest of the ride is silent.
The city is still reeling, still trying to figure out how to deal with the loss of Medhall when the sirens sound. I pack up my stuff, call Mom to tell her I'm going, then head to the rally point. Once I'm there, I find Armsmaster talking to Legend. Their conversation is short, and once Legend walks away I ask Armsmaster what I should do. He tells me to stay in the backlines and play support. I don't have any tech that can hurt Leviathan, and there are never enough capes that know how to heal. Glamorous? No. More important than trying and failing to hurt an Endbringer with my low-power armaments? Yes. Medhall even sent my stuff back as soon as the sirens sounded, along with the personnel most familiar with it.
I take a look at the results of three weeks of tinkering. Tinkering where I knew what I was doing, where I managed to work with my stupid scattered thoughts to get projects ready for the field. The two multi-tool handles with a dozen different heads, waiting for injuries. A syringe gun and backpack of chemicals, ready to mix up nearly any combination of drugs a patient could need. A full body scanner that fits in one hand, the thing that ties it all together. The refitted anti-grav ring, now supporting half a dozen different guns that I can control from my helmet. I'm an even better shot when blasting from the eye.
All thanks to a Nazi.
Singer didn't know Mehall was a front. He didn't know that Max Anders was Kaiser, or that his company was systematically depriving people of service based on their race.
He did support the Empire though. He had gone to a few rallies, and a look into his internet browsing habits and criminal record showed a few things that made my stomach turn. He didn't know, but he probably wouldn't have cared if he had.
When I get to the medical tent Singer is waiting with Othala and Victor, talking with them in a somber tone. I meet his eyes. He has the decency to look ashamed. Victor looks between the two of us, comes to some conclusion, then slaps Singer's shoulder and walks away, Othala trailing behind him. I walk over to Singer and we stare at one another silently for a moment.
"I'm, uh," he begins, but I shake my head and he stops. I hand him one of the multi tool handles. He takes it gingerly.
"You know the most about this stuff besides me," I say quietly, moving into the tent and standing next to a table. "I don't know enough about how injuries work, and the scanner is still finicky." I look at him. "I'll need your help. If you need the tool's head changed out, let me know."
Singer nods and we wait for the battle to begin, for the injured to come.
It doesn't take long.
