My car was an old Ford Focus, and was very much leaning towards the end of its life. I knew I was going to need a new one soon enough, but I wasn't looking forward to paying for a whole new vehicle. I'd had this one since my senior year of high school, so it had a lot of memories in it. I turned the key in the ignition and waited for it to start. The engine turned over once or twice, and I twisted the key just so, as I'd learned to do in order to get the engine to start. I hadn't realized it before, but it occurred to me that the locking mechanism was bent out of shape from such a long period of use. If I were to replace the mechanism with something sturdier, maybe a high-carbon steel rather than the low carbon stuff they usually made locks out of. With some additional bracing on two points near the edge of the mechanism sheath and a little solder on the wires…
I shook my head to clear it before my thoughts wandered too far. This drive might prove unfortunate if I couldn't keep my head on the road. Still, it occurred to me that maybe I wouldn't have to buy a new car after all. As a tinker, there was no question it was within my ability to repair the thing — probably add some laser guns or something while I was at it. For now, though, I just had to get the car home.
We left the college from the same gate, and I soon lost sight of Dad's car as we merged onto the highway. I set a CD in the player— a bit of Manowar was exactly the thing for a long drive home. I turned up the volume loud enough I wouldn't be distracted by thoughts of load-bearing screws and clutch cables as I headed down the road. I drove at a good clip, the mottled brown and white of the late spring countryside rushing past the windows.
It was a four-hour trip back, and I changed disks several times as I drove. It helped keep me from getting too distracted, as it tends to be hard to focus on gear ratios and hydraulic pressure when you've got heavy metal music blasting into your ears. However, the unfortunate side effect of this decision only later became apparent when I noticed my car slowing down. Pressing on the gas pedal was doing nothing to speed it up, so I put on my hazard lights and pulled over.
I turned off the Hammerfall CD that was playing and popped open the hood. I'd seen a sign a little ways back that there was a town within a few miles, if I could reach it I'd be able to get repairs. I stood in front of the engine and stared at it for a bit— if a Tinker ability could ever come in handy, it was here. Sure enough, designs for a better engine flowed into my mind. I could build a fusion reactor and add deuterium tanks here, or… A pumping cavity for an ultraviolet laser might fit over near the radiator, and…
This wasn't what I needed. I thought back to the way Jedi were supposed to focus on fixing the problem. I need to get this engine to run… I need to get this engine to run…
It was the alternator. I leaned into the engine and unscrewed a doodad I somehow knew instinctively to be at fault. I opened it up and twisted a few of its frayed wires back together, then replaced it. That would get me another thirty miles or so. This whole Tinker thing was going to be pretty handy, even if I didn't decide to be a cape.
I closed the hood and ease the car into the next town. It was about midway through the afternoon, and a little searching brought me to an automotive parts store without too much trouble. I walked in and started browsing the aisles. My ability hit me pretty hard about then. Everywhere I looked, patterns and ideas and inventions poured into my head, a million different combinations I could use to build all kinds of crazy things that no one had ever seen before. A giant railgun, a hovering weapons platform that could lift a whole skyscraper, or an automatic mining probe that could seek out metals and bring them up to whoever I wanted. I stumbled a bit, losing myself in my own head as I tried to imagine building all these things.
"Do you need help finding anything?" an employee asked me. As she came closer, she looked concerned. "Are you all right, mister?"
I managed a nod. Focus, I told myself. I pictured what I would need to fix my car. A short list of items came to me. I considered the prices, and then asked myself, what about if I wanted to improve on what I had? A few more parts came to mind, still within a reasonable price. I walked about the store, picking up the items I needed, then ran them past the cashier. It felt a little rude to fill out the whole transaction without speaking to her, but cashiers as a general rule are accustomed to being ignored.
I headed back out to the parking lot and drove the car around to a spot behind the store's dumpster, out of sight from the street. After a quick glance to make sure there were no security cameras, I opened up the hood and installed the various parts I'd purchased. Of course I couldn't make any major modifications without pulling out the whole engine and taking it apart, but I was able to add a few components to the fuel feed and drive train to give me a bit more speed on the way home. I also took apart the radio and added a handy little jamming device to block the return of police radar guns. Don't ask me how it worked, I just built the thing.
The engine turned over beautifully when I turned the ignition, and I rolled away from that nameless little town back on my way home. With speed cameras and the like less of a concern, I spent most of the drive pushing past eighty miles an hour, and got home just a half hour behind Dad.
"Run into any trouble?" Mom asked as I came into the kitchen.
I shook my head.
"That's good. Car still holding up?"
I nodded.
"That's good. Are you hungry? I could start dinner."
I shook my head. She sighed, but it was quiet enough I could pretend mot to have heard.
Things fell into a routine more or less after that. I would wake up late and drive to speech therapy.
I went past the living room and grabbed my laptop from its bag before doubling back and joining my dad on the couch. He glanced over before his attention returned to college football. It was tedious, but I was going to have to look for something new to do over the summer, as the second bombing at Cornell had damaged the lab I had been set to intern in.
I flipped open the machine and started looking for summer semester programs near our house, where I might make up at least some of my lost semester. My hometown wasn't terribly close to any schools, and all the nearest ones tended to be the rural sorts of colleges— lots of environmental studies or forestry and suchlike. Not much in the way of engineering classes without looking further afield. I reset my search parameters and cast out a wider net of searches. My Google-fu had always been pretty strong, and I had a suspicion my Tinker ability was giving me a slight edge as my cursor seemed to fall of its own accord on a link labeled "Brockton Bay Engineering internships."
I opened the page, and scrolled through. Most asked for more qualifications than I had, but a single entry caught my eye— or maybe it was Tinker bullshit again. Either way, as I read through the requirements and duties, it looked like the perfect fit. A recycling company was looking for an analyst to evaluate the quality and properties of the scrap metal it bought, to be reviewed later by an actual professional who would decide which was the most advantageous source to buy. It would require the bare minimum of person-to-person contact, communication taking place via written reports. I would just have to drive out to various scrap merchants and evaluate their wares. It wasn't engineering in the strictest sense of the word —more like metallurgy with a dash of chemistry— but it was well within my own talents. Smiling, I selected the application button and filled out the form. If I was lucky, I'd know by May.
Until then, I had research, design, and preparation to do. I cracked my knuckles and summoned up my Google-fu once more. Logging in to Parahumans Online, I headed over to the tag labeled "Tinker" and set about researching. Tinkers all had a specialty— that I already knew. The one oddity appeared to be Dragon, for although she was without question a programming genius, she had also done some pretty kick-ass architecture in the case of the Birdcage, not to mention her drones and a bunch of other, smaller accomplishments. No one on the forum had any real clue on how exactly Dragon managed all these things, although one nut-job proposed that Dragon was an AI and we were all living inside her simulated world, Matrix-style.
I found a list of the different subcategories of tinkers— something I hadn't been aware of before. It seemed that like most powers, the effects of being a tinker could be detrimental, as well. Chaos tinkers, for one thing couldn't actually control whatever they built, or mad scientist tinkers had an atrophied sense of risk/reward. So far I hadn't felt very chaotic or obsessive, so that was one more bullet dodged. I jumped as my Dad shifted, but he was just turning off the TV.
"I'm headed to bed, turn off the light when you're done." He said, to which I nodded.
When he was gone, I closed Chrome and opened up AutoCad. This was going to be the fun part. I sketched out a rough human figure, about the same size and shape as myself— five foot elevenish, a hundred and forty pounds. Armor was the first concern, obviously. Scale armor seemed to be the right way to go, providing better protection than chain, but without the colossal weight and inflexibility of plate. I kept it as light as possible, since I'm not very strong. Wearing forty pounds of steel was just out of the question— I wouldn't be able to walk carrying that much weight. At first I made the scale tight and form-fitting, but I scrapped that idea moments later. Instead, I redrew the lines of the armor to cover a somewhat larger volume than I was. I sloped it outwards towards the waist— not enough to inhibit movement, but wide enough that the resulting body looked very much unlike my own.
No, that was bad too. I closed my eyes. I erased the lines again and redrew a new design entirely. This one was uncurved, uncompromising. Rigid lines and blocky protrusions defined it on every angle, like a robot from a 60's science fiction movie. The arms I kept as scale plating, to keep them as movable as possible, ending with chainmail gloves. The legs I armored to the knee, with some light chain mail down to boot height. It wasn't as mobile as I would have liked, but it would be tough as hell— those plates, made of 5083-H32 aluminum plating would stop most incoming impacts. Aluminum was weaker than steel, but it was lighter and had a high albedo, making it better for deflecting lasers and other light-based weapons.
The helmet I saved for last, of course. It would be made of steel, covered in a thin layer of aluminum plate just to keep the color the same. Beneath the steel, I added a few inches of foam padding— it was surprising how many heroes had forgotten that vital part of a helmet. The faceplate would be made of a thick steel grating, like a fencer's mask but much more durable. I colored in the design, just to see the effect. It was an awkward-looking thing, a flat cylindrical torso, with two scale-armored arms and stubby-looking legs. It looked like the fucking Tin Man from Wizard of Oz, minus his funnel-hat and axe.
Dignity be damned, it was a solid design nonetheless. That rounded torso serves as a rough sort of sloped armor, and because it had a lot of clearance from my body within, I'd be able to add all sorts of gadgets, as well as cross-bracing, internal padding, and a host of other systems a skintight suit had to either mount outside the armor, unless the entire thing was scaled up several times (and that had its own issues). The arms were mobile, and the torso shell wasn't so fat that I wouldn't be able to reach all the way around it. I considered the design for a moment longer, then yawned. It was almost two in the morning. I saved the file, closed my computer, and headed to bed.
I woke up the next morning and took a moment to look over the file by daylight— I could've missed something. I opened up my laptop once more. "Untitled project 1". I paused for a moment and thought. I could try "Tin Man", but that was a) stupid, b) someone had probably already done that and c) likely to be copyrighted by someone with a lot of money. Instead, I looked at the outline of the costume itself. Just for a second, I banished all the numbers and calculations and figures from my mind, trying to think of the image I wanted this thing to convey. I typed into the Save As function for a minute, then stepped back in satisfaction.
"Boiler-Plate," the file said.