Director Piggot briefly glossed over the report on her desk before raising her eyes to the two parahumans waiting silently in front of her desk.
"Report," she said sharply while giving Armsmaster a glance.
Armsmaster's lips twitched in annoyance, as it's all clearly written in the report. "He's an Alexandria package minus the flight but add on tinker abilities. Extraordinarily strong, on Alexandria's level of brute strength, however, he doesn't seem to be as tough as her. However, the pistol he made is quite fascinating, crude but that is to be expected from the generic components we keep on hand for the test. The primary discharge seems to be a low-lethality bolt of green energy which explodes on contact, it imparts a large amount of kinetic force, heat, and an electrical discharge."
"Low lethality?" the director asked
"Like a low-level Taser, combined with the force equivalent to a punch from a mid-to-high-weight professional boxer and some minor burns from the energy involved. It's somewhat similar to the force of Gallant's beam minus the emotional alterations. It seems to work by inducing inertial cavitation in a ball of plasma in air charged with"
Piggot cut him off, "Is it usable?"
Armsmaster frowned and continued, "This one... well the range is terrible and it only had a few shots in it. But yes this plasma shot is usable in the Wards, it's far less hazardous than Kid Win's current lasers. However the most interesting part is that it looks like it might be mass producible."
The director stiffened and sat up in her chair a bit higher, "Explain."
"As you know most tinker devices are extremely difficult to service or make, however, his plasma pistol seems to be designed to be easy to make and easy to service. The one he produced mostly used off the shelf components for the majority of the gun. The most exotic pieces seem to be an odd resonance chamber and a heavily altered microwave emitter. I sent a scan of it along with some of my notes to Dragon and she agrees that the pistol itself could be easily produced in a factory."
Piggot sat in silence for a few moments digesting this before leaning over her desk, pointing to Armsmaster. "First off, we don't need the other PRT directors protesting the fact that we effectively now have three tinkers in house. Keep a lid on information about his tinker abilities and give him access to either your or Kid Win's lab until he settles in. Make him comfortable here so that he refuses to leave when the other Directors get wind of our third tinker and try to lure him away or try to cause a political shitstorm to try forcing our hand."
She grinned slightly at Armsmaster "After all it's the most efficient way of doing things, with two other tinkers on base to check over his work and your connections to Dragon he has the best tinker support structure right here in Brockton Bay. Armsmaster, just try to be supportive for once."
Armsmaster nodded subtly
Piggot pointed towards Miss Militia, "Now yours."
Miss Militia started with her unofficial report, "Socially, he's fitting in with the rest of the Wards quite well. Missy seems to be particularly fond of him and tends to treat him as a pet. The other Wards tease him a little about it. During the requested spar it became apparent that Gallant's emotion beam worked on him. However Gallant has also told me that he can't pick up any emotions from him."
"Odd and unfortunate, any other issues?"
"Yes, in addition to having his clothing tailored, some of the furniture and things like the occasional doorknob around the base have to be changed to lever handle doors with a rope hanging off of them and a few toilet seats around the base might also have to be changed out so he can use them."
That got a raised brow from the director, "Toilet seats?"
"The hole is too big apparently, there seems to have been already been an incident. There are apparently some toilet seats on the market that have an extra folding layer which reduces the standard hole size to a smaller one for people of diminutive sizes." Miss Militia said while trying her best to keep a straight face.
The director's lips curled up in amusement before she motioned for Miss Militia to continue.
"More problematic might be the fixed height electronic things like the eye scanners, fingerprint readers, numeric pads, light switches and the elevator buttons. He's stated that footstools in front of them or nearby would be fine. I've already submitted the requests to the accounting office to purchase most of the equipment in question."
The director interrupted, "I'll have the accounting department see what the case fifty-three fund covers or check to see if the Americans with disabilities act might cover some of those expenses. Anything else?" she looked back and forth towards Armsmaster and Miss Militia who stayed silent.
Piggot turned to Armsmaster, "He'll be starting classes at Arcadia next week, Colin since he's living on base can you make sure he gets up in time? I'll have someone from the motor pool to drop him off and pick him up."
She continued,"The PR department is also sending over some costume designs, they'll be on your desk by tomorrow. I expect him to make his decision by the end of the week to send back to them."
"Dismissed"
Colin frowned at the pile of torn up and shredded costume ideas laying all over his desk. He hadn't even looked at them himself yet. Some of them even looked like they had been chewed on with bite marked-sections missing from them. A large portion of them were wet and covered with a thick glue-like substance to stick them all together.
Disgusting
A new, poorly drawn out sketch in crayon sat on top of the shredded, wet mess depicting a blue "Six-two-six" in a red jumpsuit like outfit with yellow triangular patches on it. Hmm, nothing objectionable about it, he plucked it off the top and took it over to a scanner to send to the costume department.
As the scanner warmed up Colin looked around and at the secure door to his office and lab. Six-Two-Six shouldn't have access to his lab, how exactly did he get in here?
Six-Two-Six waddled down the street, short legs rapidly swinging back and forth as he kept pace alongside the taller Ward whose costume was decorated with clocks.
Clockblocker set a fast pace as he jogged, keeping just in front of the short blue dog-like parahuman while panting heavily. Sweat soaked into the fabric of his clock-covered full-face mask as they came to the end of their run.
The little blue six-limbed dog-like thing in it's red jumpsuit looked over at his heavily panting partner, "Soo.. why are we running on patrol?"
The teen huffed a bit before finding a spot to sit, collapsing onto a reasonably clean cement stair for the business behind him. Before grabbing his bottle of water and gulping down some of it before replying.
"I just... need to run sometimes."
The blue furred thing nodded, it's ears shifting to the back a bit before it took a seat on the lowest stair, several of its hands smoothing over its outfit while others adjusted it's multiple pistol harness as it sat down.
They both sat in silence for a while as Clockblocker cooled off.
After a few minutes of silence and watching the pedestrians walk past them. Its ears twitched a bit before it spoke up, "So... Clockbuster how do you like being a hero?"
Clockblocker shrugged and wiped his brow, only managing to tug his fabric face-mask awkwardly to one side, "It's okay, the perks are nice, the adoration of fans, women throwing themselves at you and naming their children after you."
It grinned, it's mass of teeth gleaming in it's far-too-wide mouth. "Funny, I can even imagine someone naming their kid Clockblocker and the reactions that would get."
The teen chuckled, "Yeah, that would be pretty funny. Well, there's also the free food at PR events, putting on our gowns for the dances and hobnobbing with the snobs. It's totally worth the mind-numbing patrols and the occasional deadly fights with people who can incinerate you with a breath. Oh, did I mention the minimum wage pay for Wards?"
The fluffy thing sat for a while before it tucked its legs up against its body, grabbing onto its knees with its lower hands. It seemed to struggle for a while with something.
"I.. Bliznak.. I don't know what to do…"
"What to do about what?"
"This world, it's Bliznaked… Beesa sota... Aroomba Micha Nigicha Aba Tooka" It said
"Urr..You're not speaking English, I can't follow that."
The little blue thing looked shocked.. before calming itself back down and started again.
"The world is all messed up, it's dying and I don't know what to do about it." It paused for a second.
"This world, this body, I can't... I can't make anything strong enough to kill endbringers it's not enough. I can't save the world." It grabbed its own ears with its upper hands and tugged. "It's.. pathetic.. I'm. pathetic.. Questa." the six-limbed thing slumped against the stair and folded its arms around itself.
Clockblocker waved his hand in negation "Whoa whoa, kinda out of left field with this. I'm not sure I'm the one you should really be talking to about this either. Besides, why are you trying to save the world, it's hard enough just getting by and living in it."
Six-Two-Six looked down at his own knees, rubbing the fur on them lightly and tugging a bit on the edge of the suit. "Then why am I here, why am I like this."
Clockblocker looked awkward behind his skintight mask and very quietly replied, "That's.. probably what all the other case 53's ask themselves."
The furry blue creature looked over at him with wide sad eyes. It said softly, "Is that all I am.. just another once-human thing with a less scrambled mind than the others. Maybe.. maybe I am just another one..."
Clockblocker raised his arms in defense. "Hey, hey. I'm probably the last guy you should asking about this sort of thing. This…" Clockblocker put his hand on the back of his head and sighed. "...This kinda thing is too heavy for me. I just try to get by with a few jokes, get a few laughs and roll with the punches."
Clockblocker sighed and leaned back against the wall behind him. "Why are you worried about that anyways? You've been doing great just building more of those pistols for the PRT."
"It's... it's not enough." Six-Two-Six replied while tugging on his suit and looking down at his bare elephant-like feet.
"Who says that isn't enough, I think you should just keep tinkering and you'll do plenty of good. I mean Kid Win still doesn't know what his specialty is and he's struggling too."
"Maybe, It just doesn't feel like it's enough."
"Well, maybe an idea or something will come to you later. I wouldn't worry about it too much, you'll never be good enough to outshine me."
Six-Two-Six looked up at Clockblockers fully covered face and said, "Wha.. oh haha."