Armsmaster/Colin Wallis.
You can't be good at everything. You always have to sacrifice efficiency. This was a simple truth Colin had learned a long time ago. Some people were less corresponding for this rule, and some — more. And in his case, that rule treated him with all its effective cruelty.
The armored man was well aware that he was definitely a good Tinker. And that's not about alignment. One of the Hero's few disciples, one of the key members of the Protectorate... People could say a lot about him as a hero, but almost no one could say anything about him as a person. And Colin couldn't blame them for that.
He was well aware of how narrow his social interactions were, and how weak he was in what people called "empathy." He tried to compensate for these shortcomings through the use of his abilities — so there was his visor with a built-in lie detector and social ties analyzer. But even so, he was far from being a normal person. And he was quite willing to sacrifice the effectiveness of his "I" for the sake of his heroic role. But not always this efficiency came to his hand, and he could not but admit it. So it happened now.
His social behavior predicting software again showed its imperfection, not allowing him to draw the necessary conclusions. The Director did not mention what exactly was written in Hebert's diary, and Colin had jumped into the wrong conclusions. It was simple. Unpredictable calculation error leading to a decrease in efficiency to critical levels.
And now he needs to neutralize the cause of these disturbances, while the whole system is not rolled downhill, completely losing all efficiency. As quickly as possible
An outsider, if he knew in any form how his mind actually worked would be shocked beyond comprehension, but for the Tinker himself it was just a simple mental trick that allowed him to interact with reality and society on acceptable level — he only perceived that reality as tinkertech.
Suddenly, a light chime sounded from costume inner dynamics. Incoming call request. Glancing at the caller ID, he immediately accepted the call.
"Dragon, you were given direct access to my communication systems. Why don't you use this?"
"My father always taught me to knock before I came in. Just some good manners. Hi, Colin".
"Hello... Dragon" - Canadian Tinker, a mysterious girl with agoraphobia, was probably the only person who in Armsmaster's opinion approached the meaning of the word "friend."
Their communication was... productive. The dragon willingly helped Colin in his overall tinkering, also they work together to develop some projects that could help not only "Guild" and the Protectorate, but generally around the world. Therefore, in her presence, if you could call "presence" an audiovisual two-way communication channel, he allowed himself to be a little more... ineffective, if they were not busy with any urgent work. That, however, happened rarely.
"I... I heard what happened. I feel so sorry for these people... Colin, it's not your fault. Director admitted it herself"
Colin shook his head.
"I was wrong."
"We're all wrong, Colin. All of us. But we all have to learn from our mistakes"
There was a brief silence as the Armsmaster headed toward his workshop. Before he went inside, he sighed to answer his partner... and friend.
"It's effective. Would you help me find the Shadow Stalker?"
"Sure, Colin. Getting access to security cameras all over the city right now. If she catches a glimpse of at least one — I will know."
"Thanks, Dragon." and he was honest in his words. That was efficient
"That's what friends are for."
He admitted, that sometimes even the most inefficient and affectionate things seemed... satisfying.
Piers Polkiss was a very ordinary man. How ordinary can be a simple shopkeeper on the Empire 88 territory. He praised the gods for the fact that the Kaiser and his henchmen did not dig up his family tree further than to his grandparents, and therefore he could easily be a carrier of the eighth part of the Jewish blood while keeping his small but quite profitable business on gang territories. Of course, part of the income he had to give up to Empire, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make...
On its territory, the gang tried to maintain order and legality. Polkiss even witnessed a few skirmishes between the stray bandits and Empire patrols. The ending was predictable. This, however, did not stop petty crime like stealing. Deliverance of such crimes was tantamount to completely get rid of cockroaches is to get rid of you can, but sooner or later they will come back.
But in this exact moment, he was would be glad, if Keiser's men worked out with street punks, which, proud of its "association with Empire", that in common language meant "potential cannon fodder", were really getting on his nerves
They knew the rules, of course. Nothing more than a shoplifting and some really bad formulated treats (praise the gangman educational level). But that was
Today these punks cornered again. A group of skinheads with tattoos of varying degrees of nationalism dropped into his shop with the appearance of kings inspecting the plebs. And it would be another ordinary day if these gentlemen didn't insolently abduct two crates of beer!
There was nothing he could do. Police reacted very inertly to calls from "gangster" areas, and there was no solid evidence on skinheads because he didn't have any CCTV.
Sitting in his flat and groggily surfing the web, mostly through the CCTV catalog he felt mostly fatigued. Another shoplift. Another loss.
But something changed
Suddenly, Mr. Polkiss felt a sudden surge of determination. In the end, the police and Empire will not be able not to respond if he will be able to provide the evidence?
With these thoughts, Mr. Polkiss Pressed the "add to cart" button, and the brand new security camera with good color correction and a night filter began its journey from the warehouse to its new owner…
Thomas Calvert/Coil.
Reading the official release, he compared it with the same one, but provided by his mole within the PRT and designed for internal use. Not to say that the information was very different, but the conclusions could be very, very interesting.
Trigger event by existence was not out of the ordinary, especially here in Brockton Bay, where the population of the capes in proportion to the total number of inhabitants surpassed many other cities in America. But such powerful trigger, high body count, unusual, if not unique powers... That was interesting. And terrifying of course.
Even Nilbog, may he rot in hell, during his trigger wasn't as deadly as the Undertaker girl. Coil was to some extent grateful for the fact that the Undertakers projection stopped before it can go outside the hospice. Calvert had enough unpleasant memories of the ghost towns to make him not want to repeat the situation in a place that he rightfully considered by an object of his interests.
And there was the only Birdcage with the backdated trial, but Coil was able to read between the lines. Usually, PRT was very quick in anything that can be related to PR. But there was no press release, no inside leaks, nothing. PRT tightened its informational security to the maximum. Even internal reports were poor on the information. Coil tracked hospice records, glanced through the patient lists. Did some background check… and somehow it all made sense. There was a really short list of things that could really get PRT bothered. And their Wards program was one of those. And there was only one Ward with such problem-generating potential...
At the moment, Coil was trying to assess the potential benefits of certain moves. With one hand he could try to recruit Shadow Stalker into the Undersiders, however, he doubted in expediency such a course. Stalker and Undersiders already have a story and not a good one.
On the other hand, he could take Stalker into the category of... more specific assets. With her psychological portrait and worldview… well, she had the potential. The right training, some psychological manipulations - and he would get a very good assassin for himself. Not on her level of course, but it would be something worth.
On the third hand, both recruitment options were very unprofitable for the simple reason that the Stalker was already known as Cape and her abilities were all but exposed to the public. Furthermore, PRT also had her civilian identity. There were rules about it, yes. But he knew how less these rules applied when they were talking about PR and PRT.
There was a second option, quite logically derived from the first. Recruit The Undertaker. New, obviously powerful Cape, high-level Master with very impressive Projection, she would be a great addition to Undersiders, given some similarities to the family circumstances of other team members. But even without his abilities, he's seen quite a number of obstacles. Starting with the fact that PRT again knew Undertaker's identity, and ending with the fact that the girl's physical condition was far from any norm, and if in the situation with Noel, her physical condition was in his hands, in the case of the Undertaker, the picture was the opposite.
Of course, there was a fourth option — to do nothing, letting the whole situation take its course. But the potential for lost profits, which he saw in all this situation, made him stubbornly deny his own idle impulses.
But before he will begin to act, he needs to ensure that the effort invested will not go in vain. To calculate all the outcomes he can not, but to make two elections the most right — on, that he knew how.
Comfortably seated in his chair, Calvert set both directions for the development of realities and prepared to observe the outcomes.
Split
E*^&R^*&R↕→ O0R
That... was something new. Coil knew the limitations of his power, which did not work, being aimed at the Endbringers and some... personalities, of which he would prefer not to think more necessary. But all these characters dropped out for his definition of "normal capes", with which his power did not give failures. Until this moment.
Coil tried again
Split
E*^&R^*&R↕→ O0R
After that, he felt numbing pain starting to develop somewhere in his head. That was definitely something completely new. Thinker headaches. He had never experienced those. Maybe it wasn't Thinker one but it's clearly something similar to the occasion.
To confirm his thoughts he tried one last time
Split
E*^&R^*&R↕→ O0R
Thus the fact was cemented. The power of the Coil, his power, suddenly stopped working. And something, or more likely, someone jammed his power completely. And to say that Thomas Calvert liked that outcome was a blatant lie.
Now he'll have to deal with that too. And if he understood the cause of the... jamming correctly, he might have to take advantage of the past... of some members of his personal supervillain team to effectively and quietly eliminate the threat.
But first, he needs to make some important calls
Location unknown.
An emergency meeting was called. At a small table in a spacious room with dim lighting, there are several people. Without masks, as everyone here knew the others too well.
If there were an outside observer here now, he would be amazed at the personalities of some of the people here, too well known even to the common man in the street. However, the appearance of an outsider here was definitely impossible.
And that was the reason. But nobody knew everything about them. As no one outside this relatively small, but ridiculously powerful group knew about this place.
"What happened?" a woman asked.
There was hardly a man who could call this woman unattractive. But the look in her eyes, cold and tired, could just as easily scare away ordinary people as her appearance easily attracted them.
"I would also be interested, why such urgency? " the second woman, also at the table, asked.
An ordinary woman, who could not be less than forty and not more than fifty. But, despite the usual clothes with a medical gown thrown over her shoulders and a complete lack of communication with some entities, this woman had every right to be at this table.
"Path has changed. It's shorter right now." This was the simple answer of the third woman sitting at the table. But these words stirred everyone else. They didn't expect to hear something like this.
"How much shorter?" there was a very quick response
"More than everything we encountered before" that was a quite enigmatic answer to that, but somehow that seemed legit to these people.
"What exactly happened? Where?"
"Variable. There was a factor of chance. Unlikely. But it occurred".
"Where was this variable?"
"Unknown. The Path stopped seeing her a few hours ago."
There was a tense silence. The news brought by the woman in the suit were overwhelming.
"Then what are we waiting for? We need to find this "variable" and understand what it is and how to work with it." — said the man in the green suit enthusiastically.
"Not the right time." was short, but the quick response of the woman in the suit. "The Path does not see the variable right now, but until then the first step was unambiguous."
"And what was it?" a woman in a medical gown asked.
"To wait".
AN: It's a chapter, yay! Well, I tried to download some English proofing software. Maybe it is better this time. Path has changed and the world is reacting to it.