Junior Hero

Part Eleven

The Curry boy blinked. "What? A teleporting thief?"

Armsmaster nodded sternly. "There are other teleporters in the city, and we're checking them out, but you're the one we have right here, right now, so I'm asking you. Are you in any way connected to this?"

"I … no, I didn't steal anything," Curry stated flatly. Armsmaster frowned as he checked the readout in his helmet; as it stood, the voice stress analysis program had a thirty percent margin of error; however, that statement read as 77% chance of being true. Which, given the margin of error, put it between 47% and 107% chance of truth.

He decided to accept it at face value; the boy had saved several lives, at the risk of his own, and had made a good impression on the older hero. But perhaps he had asked the wrong question.

"Have you sold any of your teleport devices to someone else?"

Something showed on Curry's face, but it was gone before Armsmaster could figure out what it was. When Curry spoke, his voice was level and firm. "I haven't sold any of my equipment to anyone. At all. Ever. And I haven't chucked out any gear that might have been salvaged, either. Nothing's been stolen. I have everything I have ever built accounted for."

Armsmaster frowned again. The boy wasn't lying; the number showing was significantly higher than 50% at all times. But it had fluctuated rapidly as he spoke; the content of his words was truthful, but something about the pacing was off. Perhaps he was choosing his words carefully, so as not to appear to be lying?

Or perhaps he was just speaking like that because of stress; after all, Armsmaster had more or less walked on in and accused him of using his gifts to steal. He would have to address the pacing and stress factors in the next iteration of the code. In the meantime …

"So you don't know anything about these thefts?"

I chose my words carefully. "Well, now that you've told me about them, I know that they've happened," I stated, perfectly truthfully. "And no, I didn't know that they had been happening until you told me."

Dad cleared his throat. "Uh, sir, my son came in to join the Wards. Are you seriously accusing him of committing a crime, just because he's potentially capable of performing it?"

I turned to him. "It's okay, Dad. Seriously, it's fine. I didn't do it, and as soon as he checks times and dates, I'll be able to prove it."

"I sincerely hope so," Armsmaster noted. "The trouble with clearing a teleporter of a crime, of course, is that travel time is not an issue. If your father or I were accused of committing a crime that went down thirty seconds after we were observed being across town, this would be quickly dismissed. But for a teleporter, you have to be able to prove you were under continuous observation for at least part of the time that the crime occurred. Do you understand?"

"Oh, I understand," I told him. "And I also understand that I'm in an even deeper hole here, because as a Tinker, a theoretical thief could commit one crime, and then hand his unit off to someone else while he struts around in plain view, while his henchman commits an identical crime."

"Precisely," agreed Armsmaster. "But you have already declined any knowledge of the crimes prior to being informed of them."

"I have," I agreed. Reaching into my pack, I pulled out D-1 and placed it on the table. "However they're committing the robberies, they're not using this to do it. And I can prove that; the unit logs every jump I make. I haven't made that many jumps so far; the memory shouldn't be full up yet."

I pushed it toward Armsmaster, but he declined it with a shake of his head. "Unfortunately, we can't accept that as evidence," he informed me. "It's not a sealed unit, and as the creator of it, you would be best suited to altering logged data. Theoretically, any information on it could have been defined by you days ago."

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. "Crap," I muttered. "Okay, who else could have done it?"

"We've already ruled out Oni Lee," the armoured hero told us. "Several factors don't fit his powers and MO. For one, no-one's dead."

"Who else?" I asked.

"L33t's a Tinker, and he theoretically could have created something with the same capabilities as your device," Armsmaster told us, "but there are several factors that make that unlikely. No video game theme, it didn't appear on their site, and the robberies actually went off without a hitch."

There was silence as we thought about that for a moment.

"Could it be someone who could walk through walls?" Dad hazarded. "Like Shadow Stalker, but evil? You know, pretending to teleport?"

"We do have footage of the robber, from a camera just before it's spray-painted," Armsmaster noted. "The thief appears on camera between one frame and the next. One person, which also helps rule out L33t. No identifying markings; bulky dark clothing, a dark hoodie, dark glasses, gloves, a dark scarf over the face. No hair, not even skin colour to go by."

"Can I at least see?" I asked.

Armsmaster shook his head. "I'm sorry. While you're even a tentative suspect, giving you access to evidence could cause problems later on."

"I have a question that's a bit off the wall here," I stated. "This person. If they're committing crimes with this other theoretical teleport device, and they actually put on a costume and take on a cape name, if someone recognised them as who they really were, would reporting that fact be a breakage of the unwritten rules?"

Armsmaster paused. "That's an interesting question. If we could catch this person before they had the bright idea of putting a cape name out there, it would simplify things dramatically. But why would you ask that?"

Oh shit. "I wanted to know?"

Armsmaster's lips thinned. "I think you know who the teleport thief is. I think you made that person's teleport device."

"I told you," I backtracked desperately, "I never sold any of my gear. And nor was anything stolen."

"Which does not cover if you gave a unit away," Armsmaster pressed implacably. "Did you? Did you give a unit to someone else, whom you have just realised is performing thefts with said unit?"

Fuck. I didn't want to lie outright to him; when the truth inevitably came out, I wanted to be able to say that I had never told a lie. But now, he was putting me on the spot, cutting through my evasions. I took a deep breath, tried to calm my racing heartbeat. "No."

His voice was low and even. "I think that's a lie."

Double fuck. "Can you prove it?" Audacity was not my best friend here, but it might just be my only refuge. At least until I can talk to Kate and convince her to give me KD-1 back again. Without it, she would be just another teenage girl. And she'll never want to see me again.

I didn't want to believe that.

"I may not be able to prove it, Mr Curry," Armsmaster stated grimly, "but my word will certainly be enough to shoot down any chance of you joining the Wards."

"Wait, what?" I protested. "Just because you think that I might know something about it? How is that fair?"

"This is law and order, not fairness." Armsmaster pointed at me. "If you supplied this person with a teleport device, and he or she is committing crimes with it, and you know of this and fail to notify the authorities, that is called aiding and abetting. More to the point, if we capture this person, and he or she has a teleport device that can be identified as your work, you will have many questions to answer."

I ran my hands through my hair. "Shit. Okay. Fine. Can we talk hypotheticals?"

His tone had not moderated. "Explain."

"Hypotheticals!" I realised that I had raised my voice. "Legal situations that may or may not be true, but which I'd like to ask your hypothetical response to them."

His arms were now folded across his armoured chest. This was not a good sign; I'd read somewhere that crossed arms were a rejection gesture. "I'm listening."

Right, voice says one thing, body says another. Well, I'm backed into a corner right now, so I don't have many good options. Talking to Armsmaster is not a great option, but it's better than a lot of the other ones.

"Okay, let's posit that I kind of told someone about me being a Tinker. And that person asked if they could have a device like mine. And I kind of made one, and gave it to them. Hypothetically speaking, that is."

"The person's name." Armsmaster's voice was flat.

"Hey, this is hypothetical," I protested. "I'm not saying it happened. Just that it's possible that it might have. Okay?"

I learned that it was indeed possible to be glared at via an opaque visor. Armsmaster's voice might have been the sound of crushing gravel. "Continue."

"So this hypothetical person never told me what they were doing with it. But now I know, I think that hypothetically, if I can get the device back off the person, they're no threat, because they're using it to do all the crime, and without it, they're just a normal person, right? No chance of reoffending."

Armsmaster's voice was even more forbidding than before. "Crimes were committed. That warrants arrest and prosecution."

I played my last card. "Look, you're a Tinker, just like me, right? We both want to be heroes, but that's only really possible with the stuff we can build. I mean, seriously, there's no way I'd be going out there if I didn't have my devices to help me out. Would you go being a superhero if you didn't have your Tinker gear?"

There was a long silence. "I'd like to think that I'd still do my bit," he replied, but his tone wasn't as definitive as before.

"Well, see? It's all about enabling. We get Tinker powers, we decide to do good. Other Tinkers decide to not do good. This person gets a bit of Tinker tech, the temptation gets too much, they decide to make the most of it. But it's all about being enabled. Take away the tech, not a thief any more."

"All the goods would have to be returned," he insisted. "I'm presuming your friend is a minor?"

"Hypothetically, yes, my friend is a minor," I agreed.

"And you call them a friend, even after they get you in trouble like this?" His tone was doubtful.

I rolled my eyes. "If I lost a friend for every stupid boneheaded stunt that I pulled, I'd be the loneliest guy in town," I assured Armsmaster. "Plus, we're teenagers. Bad judgement is kind of what we do. I mean, shit, if I got the powers of Scion tomorrow, I'm pretty sure that I'd be tempted to do all sorts of crazy shit. Some of which might just be illegal. So yeah, I still consider this person to be a friend."

"So hypothetically speaking, what is your friend's name?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No. I give you the name, you swoop in, end of story. You get them, or you don't. They either go to juvey, or they go on the run, and the device malfunctions after a while, and maybe they stop using it, or maybe they don't, and maybe it goes badly wrong and kills them. No, we're not doing it like that."

He shook his head. "You do not get to dictate terms."

"I really think I do," I retorted. "I know who this person is, and where they live. I can talk to them, tell them the PRT's on their trail, get the device back, convince them to return all the stolen goods. Over and done, no skin off anyone's nose." I stared at Armsmaster's visor. "If I pitch it right, they'll beg me to take it back."

He didn't sound convinced. "And if you can't talk them into giving the device back? If the person uses the device to evade us, because you warned them?"

I didn't want to think about that. "I've got … ideas. I'm going to need some pretty esoteric parts, but maybe I can build a teleport tracer, and possibly a teleport jammer."

"What, for any teleporter?" he asked, startled.

I shook my head. "Just for my own brand of it. Well, I'm pretty sure, anyway."

"Hmm." He seemed to be looking at me. "You're sure of this."

I held up my hands. "Look, I just want to make this right, and make sure my friend doesn't get in too much trouble for doing a really stupid thing."

He rubbed his chin. "Very well. You've got three days, or until the next verified robbery from this thief."

I heaved a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you. I won't let you down."

"And we'll be suspending your application to the Wards until the thief has been shut down, and the device is in custody."

"Wait, hold on, suspending?" I yelped. "I'm helping you guys here!"

"And refusing to pass on the name of a very strong suspect to a series of robberies," he snapped. "Be glad I'm giving you the chance to clean up your own mess."

I grimaced. He had a point. Then I paused again. "And what do you mean, the device is in custody? I made it. It's my device."

"And you gave it to a thief," he pointed out. "And it was used in the commission of a crime. It becomes evidence."

Dad put his hand on my shoulder. "Rob, I think you should stop arguing," he advised me. "You've got a pretty good deal at the moment. After all, you can build another device to replace that one, right?"

"Yeah," I admitted grudgingly. "But I don't like it that they can take it away from me for something someone else did with it."

He shrugged. "That's the law, I guess."

I turned to Armsmaster. "Okay, fine. You've got a deal. I get the thing back, and tell you where to find the stolen goods. I hand in the device, and the thief won't be a problem any more."

"And if the thief chooses to not hand it back, you apprise us of his or her identity," Armsmaster pressed.

I nodded reluctantly.

Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

End of Part Eleven