With a little help my friends, chap 2
* February 10, 2010 *
"Skiddy, are you sure about this?"
Skidmark's comments were a number of anatomically impossible or at least unlikely things.
"There's talk about the Docks lately. THINGS at the Docks," tried Mush.
"Docks area is Merchant territory!" insisted Skidmark. "All that talk about 'things' in the dark? That's just someone cutting their stash with Tinker-meds. Tinker-narcs do weird things. Y'know that."
Mush glanced at the various normals around them, then at the fence they were rapidly approaching. He reached for some of his homemade gummies and began chewing because he'd heard WAY too many stories of late.
Skidmark went straight to the gate. "HEY YOU MOTHERHUMPING GLUESACKS... wait, that didn't sound right."
Mush offered his bag of consumables. Skidmark sniffed and made a shooing gesture.
"Don't need that weak little crap you like. Really, weed edibles?" asked Skidmark.
"They sell really well to the upscale types," pointed out Mush.
"Yeah, you should save that shit for that type," said Skidmark. "HELLO, YOU SHITSTAINS! I'M TALKING HERE! YOU COMING OUT, OR I'M COMING IN!"
There was silence for a few seconds, then a girl's voice began speaking somewhere nearby.
"Queen? If you would?."
"That some kinda..." Skidmark's voice trailed off as something came around the edge of the building.
It was a spider. A spider almost half the size of a human. It looked at him with all eight eyes. Skidmark wasn't sure how he knew that, just that he knew.
"Some ugly little bug is supposed to impress me?" asked Skidmark, taking aim with a pistol and setting up a field to accelerate the bullet further.
A scream behind him caused Skidmark to look away and see what had prompted that.
"That musta been some really bad weed," said Mush.
There were dozens of them. Huge. Large dog-sized spiders. Lined up on roofs and coming out of trash cans. Black legs stretching out from a wrecked car, another waving from a broken window. A manhole cover rattled as if something was just on the other side, preparing to pop up and strike.
"REALLY bad weed, man," commented Mush.
"Uhm, boss?" asked one of the men. "I'm an arachnophobe. Can I go home now?"
"NO! WE DA MERCHANTS AND WE GLK GLB GLB GLB!"
The various gang members saw Skidmark getting swarmed and wrapped up in silk. They broke, or at least tried.
* PRT ENE HQ *
Emily Piggot didn't smile. She didn't show any signs that she was happy about the situation at all. "So. Skidmark and Mush captured, along with twenty-five formerly heavily-armed drug addicts. Seven of whom have to be heavily sedated, all of whom require cleaning before processing."
"That's one way of putting it," said Sergeant Sanchez. "Mythos was experimenting with making garments from spider silk and so called up something from a world where the giant insects of the Carboniferous Era never completely died out."
"How big were these spiders?" asked Director Piggot, passing a cell where Mush was in a corner shivering.
"Most were about three feet long, some were hand-sized, ten were human-sized, one was bigger," said Sergeant Sanchez, pulling up an image on her phone and handing it off to the Director.
"I see you have one of your troopers in the picture to give an idea of scale," said Director Piggot. "Who is that?"
"Corporal Murrue, sir," said Sanchez.
"Considering that she's standing next to a spider almost twice her size, I admire her ability to keep a straight face and her gun pointed well away from the cooperative giant monster," said Director Piggot.
"Apparently Mythos wants to make spider silk in quantities that could be used for body armor," said Sanchez. "We cut the prisoners out of the coccoons and sent the samples we could to the lab. Stuff was difficult to cut, tough but very flexible."
Director Piggot grunted. "Anything else?"
"The only other cape that gang has is Squealer but she's a tinker, so we can expect a jailbreak attempt," said Sanchez. "We're preparing what measures we can considering we don't know what it'll be - besides loud."
"Get the gangers to the police as soon as we can, that'll be one less problem to worry about," directed Piggot. She thought a moment. "Have Legal check and see what the NEPEA laws say about tinker-made materials, that would provide a precedent for whether she can sell and we can buy spider-silk armor."
* Cauldron *
* February 11, 2010 *
"It appears to be an Agent that is capable of a wide variety of activities, all centered around the concept of acquiring assistance," stated Doctor Mother as she went through the summaries prepared by various branches of the PRT. "The limits on summoning are clear. She cannot summon the same individual more than once every five days. She cannot summon a particular individual for longer than one hour, two minutes, thirty-seven seconds before they return to where she summoned them from. She has a one-hour time between summons though if she waits an additional two minutes and thirty-seven seconds she is able to summon again without strain. Beyond such limits, it is considerably less clear, she can summon things and beings that are in some way 'legendary' - Raptor Red and her family being an example. She went for summoning the top predator of that time period. The tyrannosaur is another example, being the top predator of THAT time. Likewise the triceratops, hadrosaur, anklyosaur, and dire wolf pack are all their respective species' pinnacle of capability regarding intelligence and physical capacity. Also, if a summons is 'killed' in our universe it automatically returns to its own time but can be resummoned after a suitable amount of time. The mechanism of such is unknown since artifacts of the creature such as hair can remain after the creature returns to its own space/time."
Doctor Mother had to stop and get a drink after that.
Alexandria tapped her fingers against the table as she considered. "I've only met Mythos the once, when she was prompted to summon the alternate universe Hero. Should we get her out of Brockton Bay?"
"Difficult but not impossible, and the loss of her abilities would seem less than optimal," admitted Doctor Mother.
"What of her helpers, her ability to modify existing animals?" asked Eidolon. "It doesn't seem to be an ability I have access to."
"Her school scores on physics, biology, and chemistry were high average before her trigger," said Doctor Mother. "Since then, she's only missed questions where she had a better idea of what was involved than the twenty-year-old textbooks."
"In order to successfully manipulate biology she would have to know something of biology," added Alexandria. "Understood. The only problem is - as I indicated - that she is in Brockton Bay. Where our parahuman feudalism experiment is running."
"As long as she helps her group, this 'Dockworker Union' to maintain territory," said Doctor Mother. "She is another player on the board, is she not?"
* March 3, 2010 *
Lung folded his arms in front of him and stared down at the little girl. The little girl stared back.
"Your letter said you wanted to speak?" asked the little girl's father.
Lung nodded, his gaze never leaving the little girl. "You eliminated a minor annoyance bordering my territory. In doing so, I made inquiries. The word I received is that you can summon heroes, legends of the past. Is this true?"
"Yes," answered the little girl.
"There is one I wish to meet. To speak with," said Lung. "In return for this boon, the ABB will not dispute your currently held territory."
The little girl cocked her head to the side, then glanced at her father before returning her gaze to him. "Who?"
* March 5, 2010 *
"She did WHAT now?" asked Director Piggot.
"Filed paperwork for refurbishing the Ship's Graveyard," said Deputy Renick. "Clearing out the wrecks, dredging the channel, some relatively minor things."
"Relative to those two things still leaves a lot of ground," said Director Piggot. "What could Mythos field to deal with those sorts of problems?"
"It's mentioned here," said Deputy Renick. "Notice the wording. She's not just summoning legendary fighters or monsters. Those dinosaurs aren't technically heroes or anything of the sort. Simply the pinnacle of their species."
"Your point?" asked Director Piggot.
"So what would happen if she wanted the best engineer?" asked Deputy Renick. "The best painter? The best salvager? I have reports on Lung approaching her and wanting to talk to someone from legend though the informant wasn't sure who it was - just that they looked Chinese and as if they stepped off some old painting."
"Okay, that's potentially all sorts of possibilities - both terrifying and amusing." Director Piggot considered briefly. "See if you can narrow down who Lung spoke to. That seems like the sort of detail we'd regret not looking into."
* Meanwhile... *
Lucy Yeung sighed wistfully as she looked out the window as her father drove her to what promised to be a thoroughly boring piano recital by a guy with a Germanic name but whose music sounded like someone dragging a wildly struggling cat across the piano keys. What the heck WAS it when phrases like "trailblazing new artist" and "impressionistic neo-classicist jazz" were in play?
The boredom was quelled a bit when her father bit off a curseword, pulled abruptly to the side to stop, then unbuckled his safety belt in order to twist and look at something that would have been behind them.
Rapid beeping could be heard as soon as her window came down and she immediately swung into action. If by action you meant getting her cellphone out and the camera running.
She was not disappointed.
A truck with several tattooed men who looked thoroughly disreputable, two in the pickup's cab and two more in the bed. All of whom appeared to be screaming. The driver was apparently the one beeping as rapidly as he could while trying to drive in a most erratic manner. One of the men in the back was fumbling with an assault rifle (or at least it looked like an assault rifle to Lucy) and dropped the little ammo-thing while the other guy in the back fired his pistol twice and then threw the gun at something.
The something that was chasing the truck came into view immediately, and Lucy was so very glad her camera was running and that she had a full charge on the battery.
(WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM!)
"KKRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH!"
There was silence for a few seconds before her father broke it. "That was a T-Rex."
"Yes," said Lucy. "Big one too."
"What the hell is going on that we have a T-rex?!" asked her father.
"I don't know but it's chasing that truck," pointed out Lucy as she stopped recording and set the clip up for uploading.
"Who cares? They're Nazis," noted her father.
Lucy considered that. "True."
"I think we're going to miss the recital," noted her father.
"Oh darn," said Lucy. "On the other hand, we got to see a T-rex."
"There IS that," admitted her father after a few moments.
* Brockton Bay Police Department, Station 13 *
"You know, my little kids at home? They think I'm the coolest dad ever now," said Officer Michelson.
"Because you've gotten pictures of yourself with velociraptors and now a T-rex?" asked Corporal Klinger.
"They're Utahraptors. Real velociraptors are about the size of a turkey," said Officer Michelson. "And, yes, that may play a part in it."
"Huh. I just wish Mythos didn't scare them so much. It's nice they confess to their crimes and all rather than face her again, but we're running out of replacement pants." Corporal Klinger shook his head. "It used to be so much more sane around here."
"What? During Marquis' time?" asked Michelson.
Corporal Klinger almost laughed. "Nah, back in the '70s the worst we had usually around here was a brawl or nice normal robberies. Then the capes came and you end up with some guy stealing cars by picking them up and flying off with them or some other garbage. And now there's dinosaurs running around the streets. Crazy times I tell you."
"Bad as it was in Korea?" asked Michelson.
"Eh, Korea was a lifetime ago. If I had to go on the streets nowadays I'd have taken that retirement offer before now. Even at these wages."
* April 5 2010 *
"WARK!"
Uber and L33t glanced at each other. "Those... those..."
L33t nodded once, swallowed, and then ran out into the street to pick up a single yellow feather longer than his hand. "They're not holograms. They're not robots. They're REAL."
"Chocobos. The freaking Wards are riding Chocobos, which were based on the prehistoric gastornis or 'terror birds'," said Uber.
"You know what this means," stated L33t, examining the feather.
"Yeah, but we already knew that Mythos has a very cool ability due to the videos online," said Uber.
"If only she was a villain," lamented L33t. "Maybe one of our charity events though... No. I meant what THIS means?"
"A chocobo feather for your cap?" asked Uber.
"No. I just got an idea for a cloning machine," said L33t happily.
Uber paused. "We could SELL chocobos. I'm pretty sure the copyright holders aren't around anymore and they're not EXACTLY like the ones in those old games."
"Always nice to have a Plan B if our channel stops making money," agreed L33t.
* Kid Win *
Newest Ward. Still working on his hoverboard. Tinker without most of his tools.
Out on what could best be described as a "PR Patrol" - being visible and approachable (at specific stops) to the general public.
He had seen videos before. Vista riding a T-Rex. Vista accompanied by a squad of Utahraptors. Once or twice with other supplied minions from the Master 8 of Brockton Bay, Mythos. An independent who worked closely with the PRT.
Kid Win checked his wrist-comp display. 35mph and a fairly smooth ride. On a bird the size of a horse.
What the HELL was with Mythos' power? Originally she'd had a range of one mile for her constructs, then she'd gradually over the past year gotten to the current eight miles as long as it was something she'd manifested before. Same with the duration - both the birds and the raptors were just over two hours now.
People got powers and those powers never changed. You could get better with them, sure. But things like range and duration didn't change.
Go for the two hours on the patrol, backed up by their mounts - who COULD and WOULD fight if things got rough. Then a stop without and then back to base. Simple and straightforward for the most part. He could get back to tinkering.
"Wark?"
Kid Win leaned down to pat the side of the neck of his riding-bird. "It's okay. Just thinking."
"The wolves the other day just before you joined were so cool," said Vista.
Kid Win hmphed about that. He'd seen the pictures. A pack of wolves all weighing about one-hundred thirty pounds. What were called Northwestern wolves or Mackenzie Valley wolves.
Vista had loved them. The video had also shown that the wolves' reaction had initially been 'what the hell is this funny biped doing?' it became much more friendly in short order. Two of the wolves had even done full-body rub-againsts on Vista to indicate they considered her a pack member.
The video also showed that Vista loved doing "behind you!" jumpscares where she put Mythos' minions into place using her distance-compression ability. The wolves also seemed to love this, opening their mouths in what seemed to be canine grins about the experience.
He knew all this and had met Mythos, who had been a bit distracted by something and had gone on about equipment and the possibility of summoning something mechanical in nature.
He'd believe that when he saw it. It was one thing to summon a T-Rex but a legendary machine? What would even qualify?
"Hey, it's the Wards!" yelled someone at the Boardwalk as they passed through.
On the other hand, it was kind of nice to be racing around like this. Eventually he'd get his hoverboard working right and he'd use that instead of riding someone else's power.
That would be better.
* Cauldron HQ *
"-so he can provide a stalking horse for when we want plausible deniability, plus Balminder may turn up some leads or data we can use ourselves," explained Doctor Mother. "Alexandria, there was something in a Brockton Bay report?"
"We may have to uprate Mythos' Master rating," stated Alexandria, she clicked a button to bring up a display on the large monitor.
"Wolves?" asked Eidolon.
"Inspection of fur left behind puts them down as ranging in North America about 1400 years ago," said Alexandria. Click to the next picture. "Smilodon populator, a species of sabretoothed tiger." Click, next picture. "Terror bird, or gastornis." Click, next picture. "We've seen before where Mythos pulls the 'most successful' individual from a given time period. We've seen where she can pull legendary figures out though she lacks control over their thoughts or actions once they arrive. This is an indication that she's just touching the full potential of her abilities."
"A car?" asked Doctor Mother.
"It's KITT!" said Eidolon.
"The wha?" asked Doctor Mother, used to knowing everything and being off-balance when she didn't.
"TV series. Knight Rider. Ran in the early to mid eighties," said Alexandria. "The car has an Artificial Intelligence and a set of various gadgets. Mythos was able to summon an artificial intelligence device who then spent most of his hour conversing with Armsmaster and Dragon."
"So what's the..." Doctor Mother stopped. "She can access worlds with advanced technologies that we do not possess."
"Apparently she can only do ones that are 'legendary' in some respect," added Alexandria. "Hence the main character of a TV series that some consider classic."
"I thought Hasslehoff was the main character," put in Eidolon.
"Did you ever watch the series?" countered Alexandria. "In any case, there's an investigation to see if the technology can be duplicated without Tinker involvement."
"Huh. Okay, that's something to keep an eye on," noted Eidolon.
"She's fourteen now, maybe we can get her to an Endbringer battle, those wolves or raptors could be useful in Search & Rescue," noted Doctor Mother.
* May 7 2010 *
* Emma Barnes *
In another world, another time, she'd have changed her attitude towards the sometimes-chatterbox friend she'd grown up with. In another world, another timeline, she'd have turned cruel and preoccupied with status more than she was here and now.
After all, her best friend was Mythos. Anyone who let her ride her dinosaur (or currently - a chocobo) was going to be a big deal to her way of thinking.
"Woo hoo!"
Emma Barnes knew her place in the world. Model, though strictly on a local stage at present. Not the best student in terms of scholastic scores, but hardly the worst either.
Her hair streaming behind her as she rode a chocobo down the street, fully aware of all the pictures that were being taken.
You never know, this might just get her the attention of one of the more major agencies and it wasn't too early to be thinking of one's future career after all.
In time, Emma suspected that she and Taylor would go their separate ways. After all, her career path and adult responsibilities would take more and more time and lead her far away from Brockton Bay. The same would happen to Taylor with her career as Mythos. For now though, there was the daily trial that was high school and living here in this city.