Read aloud to me alt Taylor

by Kahlil Johnson

Dnd

16. Trailbazer

General disclaimer. I don't own Worm etc etc. Come on. We all know this.

Prologue

I avoided Garter Street. The name seemed ironic, given that the place was popular with hookers and dealers. That's Brockton Bay for you.

It sucks and it likes to hammer the point home.

Growing up in Brockton Bay, there are places you know not to go. Makes getting anywhere take longer than it otherwise would. Open and public streets were safe enough, but there could be a dangerous street just a block over. Sometimes less. They're not that hard to spot.

The gang tags stand out and there's usually some car idling somewhere. See an 88 or a cross, you stayed away unless you were white. A dragon or red and green colors meant not going alone if you were a girl. ABB grabbed girls off the street, or so the rumors said. A big 'A' or a lot of skeevy-looking guys? Just no go. Merchants were crazy.

I kept repeating the same words to myself all the way downtown.

Just follow the plan.

A plan I called it. Funny little word I managed to come up with there. Was it really a plan, or a decision? Calling it a plan made me feel better. Like I put more thought into it than I really had.

I always wanted to be a hero. The cape mania phase of my childhood ended around ten or so, but a dream like that never really dies. My fascination started with Alexandria, because who doesn't want to fly? As I grew up it shifted to more local heroes like Miss Militia and Armsmaster. They seemed more fitting for the kind of person I saw myself wanting to be.

Made my power rather appropriate.

There were excuses. Reasons to not do what I walked down the street to do.

Did I really need more teenage drama in my life? Fuck no I did not. Could I trust the authority figures at the PRT to be any better than the ones at Winslow? I should, but I didn't. The darkest parts of me asked the cruelest questions.

Who would ever look at gangly Taylor Hebert as a hero?

That's Emma talking. Emma didn't deserve to win. None of them did.

I crossed the street to the next block and came to a stop.

Any closer and I probably couldn't turn back.

The building looked like a museum almost. Marble front, with tall windows and a broad set of steps leading up from the street. Emblazoned across the front were the words; Parahuman Response Team East-North-East. Weird name, especially when many of the other PRT departments had numbers.

I hesitated. The road to becoming a cape comes with a lot of revelations. For me, one of them was a sudden understand of why people didn't tell family they were gay, or atheist, or trans. I used to think it was fear or shame. It's not. It's just too damn awkward sometimes, especially when you don't know how to say it.

How do you begin to tell your only remaining parent you survived the worst day of your life with a consolation prize?

It's not a consolation prize.

Mom's adage of turning a negative into a positive didn't cut it. Maybe it didn't matter one way or the other. I was just rationalizing to myself despite already making a choice and coming up with a plan.

Taylor Hebert was going to be a hero.

I spent hours preparing myself, mentally. Left for school only to return to the house an hour later. I gathered my notebooks, packed a balaclava into my bag to hide my face. Didn't really have a costume yet.

Eventually I couldn't put it off anymore, then or now.

I pulled my backpack off my shoulders and tried to calmly walk into a nearby alley. My mind raced, paranoia encouraging me to look around and check if I was being watched. I resisted. Bad idea.

Someone who acted afraid drew more attention than someone just going about their day.

One foot in front of the other.

Once out of sight, I pulled the balaclava out of my backpack. Both hands tucked my hair into as tight a bun as it fit and pulled the garment over my head. Kind of uncomfortable to breathe in, but I needed the safety net.

Even though I'd made the choice, my chest was still pounding.

I ran through my excuses again. The math didn't change.

Maybe with another power my options would be better. A brute like Alexandria, or a blaster like Miss Militia. They could get by solo, prove themselves or simply wait out the time 'till I turned eighteen and join the adults.

But I wasn't that kind of cape.

I was a tinker. I made things. Fantastical things. Feats of technology that bordered on magic.

Problem was, I needed materials, a workspace, and money. We were poor, so no money. No money, no materials. The house was a wreck, so no workspace even if I had the other two things.

Nevermind what happened to Squealer. The last tinker to appear in the city got kidnapped and drugged up. The story hit the news and dominated it for a week. Everyone heard about it. Now she was a villain.

I didn't want to end up like Squealer.

The Wards were the way to go.

With a deep breath, I steeled myself and left the alley. Ignoring the eyes that turned my way, I crossed the street to the PRT building and walked through the front doors.

The inside looked even more like a museum. Reception desk. Tour groups. Gift shop. An actual museum dedicated to the local Protectorate and Wards.

If I really thought anything through, I'd have considered walking into PRT headquarters in a mask was a bad idea. Couldn't see the faces behind the helmets, but I didn't need to. The armed and armored men in the four corners of the lobby all reacted to me, adopting defensive and weary stances.

Too late to turn back.

I forced myself forward more, wondering how to appear non-threatening without saying something stupid like 'I come in peace.' That actually might make me seem more threatening.

One of the receptionists rose from her seat and glared. "Ma'am, may I help you?" She slid a hand under the desk. Panic button?

"Um—I—" I cursed myself for being so pathetic I couldn't answer the most basic of questions. "I wanted to talk to someone about the Wards. Joining the Wards. I want to join the Wards."

Smooth, Taylor.

The receptionist's expression shifted instantly. The glare became less angry and more wary. Lips thinned into a line. Shoulders relaxed. I didn't know how to read any of that.

"I see. One moment."

She looked to the other receptionist, a young man. He picked up a phone and dialed four numbers. I tried not to listen. Didn't seem polite. My heart pounding in my ears didn't help.

The conversation didn't last long.

"The door behind the reception desk to your right," the young man instructed.

I looked at it. "That one?"

"Yes."

Okay.

Nervously, I stepped around the desk and ignored the stares from all across the lobby. How long had all those people been staring? Why couldn't I have just called ahead?

When I reached the door, I stopped. No one told me what to do once I arrived. Did I wait or step through? If I didn't do either one, would an alarm go off?

Some plan.

Taking the instruction pointing me to the door as permission, I grabbed the handle and pushed it down. The door gave way easily, and since no one objected, I forced myself on through.

Two armored men waited for me on the other side and I almost panicked.

"You want to join the Wards?" one of them asked.

I stammered again but managed to get out a 'yes' somewhere in my response.

The trooper to my right leaned in, arms crossed. "Relax, kid. No need to panic."

"Um. Okay."

He chuckled at me. That pathetic, huh?

"You have a power?" the soldier on the left asked.

"Y-Yes. Um. How do I—"

Huh. How could I prove I had a power? All I'd made so far were a few computer programs. I didn't have materials for anything else, not unless I wanted Dad to notice all the missing appliances.

My plan really was coming together.

"We get pranksters often enough," the man said. "A few bangers even; some kids who think they have a power when they don't."

Really? Were we already going down this path? Already?

"I'm not—"

"Forgive my associate," the man on the left said. He elbowed his partner and shook his head. "Rotten with kids."

"I'm not lying," I insisted. "I can prove it."

I started to take off my backpack but both men moved to stop.

"Slow it down kid." Left Guy stepped toward me with a sigh. "Sorry. This isn't the warmest welcome, but we have to look out for everyone in the building. Can't just trust everyone who walks in the door. Understand?"

I did, but it didn't make me feel better.

That sounded like the stuff Blackwell said.

"My name's Moo."

I tilted my head. Like the sound a cow makes?

"Yeah, Moo. M-U? My father was a dick"—Jenkins turned at his language—"but I'm not so bad. We're not here to get you in trouble. Just some basic stuff to keep the building and everyone in it safe, right?"

My stomach twisted. He sounded nice, but so did a lot of people. Gladly. Blackwell. Emma. Sounding nice wasn't the same as being nice.

"Okay."

"It's gonna be fine." Mu stepped to the side. "This way. Stand closer to me. Jenkins is a total stick in the mud."

I followed closely behind them down the hall. There was a metal detector at the end. They asked me to step through first and then Jenkins scanned me with one of those wand things. After that, they took me through another set of doors, down another hall, and into a room.

Inside, an older woman in a suit looked over some papers.

"Thank you lieutenant," she said. "Please wait outside."

"Ma'am."

Mu stepped back and closed the door. It happened so suddenly I jolted a bit. Which is when I noticed I was in an interrogation room. Literally. It even looked like the ones on TV. Plain walls. Big wide 'mirror.' Only one way in or out.

"They said I wasn't in trouble."

"You're not," the woman replied crisply. "Please, sit down, miss."

I didn't. My first instinct was demanding they let me out of the room. Why was I in an interrogation room? I didn't do anything!

Why does everyone treat me like I did something wrong?

The woman looked up from her papers then and something about me gave her a start.

"It's alright," she cooed. "You're not in trouble. Really." She looked around the room. "These rooms are just the only ones we have for things like this. I'm sorry. Our resources are tighter than you'd think."

I swallowed. "Okay."

"You can stand if that's more comfortable." She set the papers on the table. "My name is Amanda. I'm here to give you this."

She pushed one of the papers to me.

I eyed it suspiciously. "What is it?"

"A form informing you that the PRT will never ask you to reveal your face, name, or address. While you would have to do all those things as a Ward, until you've actually signed with the program anyone requesting this information is not associated with us and cannot be trusted. You understand?"

Not really. "Why—"

"The gangs watch this building, miss. You walked in with a mask. That was smart, but it also lets everyone know there's a fresh cape in the city. Sad to say, some of our local villains are happy to press new capes into their ranks."

Squealer. Right.

"Mu and Jenkins didn't seem to think I was a cape," I mumbled.

"Precautionary. We get quite a few mistaken cases, pranks, and frauds. A few outright criminals."

"They said that."

"I'm sure they did, but their job was to determine if you were carrying any weapons or explosives. Mine is to ask you what your power is and see if it can be demonstrated."

Cautiously, I stepped forward and took a seat.

That made sense, of a sort. Basic security. Of course they had that. Can't just let anyone waltz into the building on a few words. I could see some people pretending to be capes to see if that could get them anywhere.

I forced myself to calm down. Nothing to panic over. Just some people doing their jobs.

Blackwell liked to say she was doing her job.

"I'm like Armsmaster," I said. "I can make things."

"Can you show me?"

I set my backpack on the floor and pulled out a notebook. Opening it up, my thumb rolled over the page edges until I found something that seemed appropriate.

"Here. I thought this up last night."

I set the notebook down and turned it toward her.

Amanda looked at it, but I couldn't tell if it meant anything to her.

"What is it?" she asked.

I hoped she wouldn't ask that. "It's a robot. It has a gyroscope here, and little arms and legs here? The legs are just for standing. It's supposed to move by rolling over the ground and jumping."

Why did I pick that to show here? The thing looked like a basketball with little arms and legs.

"Is it intelligent?"

"Um, I don't know? I just designed the robot. I haven't done any programming or nothing."

"Hmm."

She didn't believe me. I retreated into myself, shoulders rising as I hunched forward. Some plan this turned out to be. I really hadn't thought it through at all, had I?

"One moment."

Amanda rose from her chair, and my heart sank.

What possessed me to think this would be any different than anything else in my life?

"I'm not lying!"

The woman stopped. "I didn't say you were. Please. Just a moment."

Was she going to have Mu and Jenkins arrest me? Could I get away if I ran—Stupid. Like that would work. Surely their security was better than a running teenager.

Amanda left the room and I rose up quickly. There were voices on the other side. Talking. I couldn't make out the words.

I'd started to step forward to try and listen when the door cracked.

A pair of smiling eyes met me from the other side.

My jaw slackened. "You're Miss Militia."

She really could smile with her eyes.

The gun on her hip caught my attention. It looked odd. Kind of dark green and a little misty. Her costume was military in style. Olive green, save for the red white and blue sash around her waist and the bandanna covering the lower half of her face.

Might have thought I was checking her out with the way my own eyes traveled.

Great first impression. Batting for a thousand so far. All according to plan.

She swept into the room and closed the door behind her.

"So, a tinker?"

I nodded.

"Well, Armsmaster is always eager to meet new tinkers. Amanda said you have a robot?"

"Yes. I mean—No. I can't make it without my d—" I stopped myself from speaking further.

Miss Militia didn't press. She looked to the table and walked around me. One finger spun the notebook back around.

"This is it?"

"Y-Yes."

"Are you safe at home?"

"What? Yes! Why wouldn't I be?"

She turned, looking at me over her shoulder. "You can say so if you want. You wouldn't be the first."

"There's nothing wrong at home!" Well, there was. "Not like that."

The woman watched me, her eyes questioning rather than smiling.

"Alright," she said. "I don't mean to offend. It's pretty common for new capes to come from bad environments. Sometimes, they're not safe at home. It's especially common with teens and adolescents who come to us without a parent."

"It's not like that."

Dad never touched me, temper be damned. Besides, he'd have to give a damn to hit or abuse me. My home problem didn't threaten my safety. It just didn't protect me.

Miss Militia took Amanda's seat and pointed at the notebook.

"I just wanted to be sure. Show me more of this."

I hesitated, but as she started flipping through the pages I became defensive. Sitting down, I pointed at things and tried my best to explain them. It wasn't easy. The things in my head made sense in my head. Words were different.

Especially since so many things were just math and code.

"And this?"

"It's for finding things, I think. On computers."

"Robots. Computer code. Not many weapons."

I grimaced. "I'm sorry."

"That's not something to be sorry for. Sometimes I wish I had a power with less dangerous applications."

It's not that I hadn't made any weapons. If anything, I'd thought of several. Enough to blow all of Winslow into oblivion three times over. I didn't want to do that, I hoped.

Not something I wanted to bring on my pitch to be a hero regardless.

Miss Militia tilted her head to the side. "Ah. Everyone is here. You're in luck."

I doubted it. "Here?"

"The Wards. Would you like to meet them?"

I sat up straighter. "I can?"

"If you want. I'm not sure why you're here alone. If you say you're safe at home I believe you, but I suppose there are other things that can be wrong at home that aren't unsafe."

I didn't want to answer that but the way I avoided her gaze probably said something.

"You'd have to tell us if you joined the program. We don't bring Wards on without their parents knowing, but for now you're not a Ward and we don't know who to tell even if we wanted to. That said, if you want to meet the Wards, you can."

I'd have to tell Dad was the part of that I remembered.

Stupid to think I could avoid it forever. He'd find out eventually, right? Even Dad couldn't be that oblivious. He'd notice something eventually.

But that was tomorrow's Taylor's problem.

"Okay."

We left the room and went to an elevator. I didn't see Mu, Jenkins, or Amanda as we went. I didn't see anyone.

"Where are we going?"

"The common room," she explained. "The Wards have their own base in the building. Tours go through some days, but not right now. It'll just be us capes."

Us capes.

God, how pathetic was my life that the thought of belonging to a group of strangers made me hopeful? I'd been alone for so long. No friends at school. No parent at home.

It hurt to hope.

When the elevator stopped, Miss Militia led me down a hallway to another door.

"Is this normal?" I asked.

"Meeting the Wards?"

I nodded.

"It's not abnormal, especially after all this. People have been watching you since you entered the building. You're not the kind of cape we worry about. Unless you're exceptionally clever."

I flinched at that and her eyes became apologetic. "Sorry. I mean to say that it isn't unheard of for someone to try and sneak into meetings with Wards. Masters. Strangers. We're convinced you're not one of those, so there's less concern."

Right. Guilty until proven innocent. Again.

Don't be bitter.

Don't be me.

What a wonderful thing to think about yourself.

At the end of the hall, Miss Militia pressed a button by the door and then pressed her hand to a panel. A red light flashed.

"A timer," Miss Militia revealed. "Lets the Wards get their masks on."

I nodded and we waited a whole minute.

Then the door opened and on the other side, the Wards.

The real Wards. Not all of them—Miss Militia did say everyone, didn't she?—but when we entered, Clockblocker, Vista, and Kid Win were there. Plus a black girl with a domino mask on her face.

Shadow Stalker? She was the only other girl on the Brockton Bay Wards. She must have arrived straight from school. A backpack sat on the floor by her feet, and it was about that time

"Clockblocker, Vista, Kid Win, Shadow Stalker." Miss Militia stood beside me as the door closed. "This is Mask." Mask? "She came in about an hour ago to ask about joining the Wards."

Had it been that long already?

Clockblocker sat on a chair in front of some monitors, a suit of white armor with animated light clocks moving over the surface covering him from head to toe.

"Hi. Clockblocker. Joke master. I'd come over and shake your hand but"—he pointed his thumb to the monitors—"desk duty."

"Be glad for it." Vista walked up to me with a smile. She wore what amounted to an armored dress and a visor that covered the top half of her face. "He tends to use his power when he shakes hands for the first time. He thinks it's funny."

"It is funny!"

"It's against the rules." Miss Militia warning was stern but warm. "Mask is new. Doesn't even have a name yet, so don't haze her until she at least joins the club?"

"What does she do?"

All heads turned to Shadow Stalker. She glared at me with…those eyes…

"She's a tinker," Miss Militia answered.

The heroine held out the notebook I'd given her and Kid Win quickly took it. He started flipping through pages as my heart raced.

Those eyes. That jaw. Those arms. Those legs.

"Huh. Cool robot," Kid Win said. "And is this a search algorithm?" Kid Win pinched his chin with two fingers. His costume was a simple suit with armored components. Red and gold in color, with a visor like Vista's over his face. He turned the page. "What's this?"

Miss Militia leaned over, while Vista stood on her toes.

"Looks like a chemical equation," Miss Militia said.

"Chemicals. Computer code. Robots." Kid Win looked at me. "Do you know what your specialization is?"

"Mask?"

My head snapped around, looking up at Miss Militia.

She gave me a concerned look. "Is everything alright?"

I glanced back to Shadow Stalker. Those eyes. Her build. Her voice. I knew her. I knew her. I knew her.

"Ca—Can I have my notebook back?" The words came out hoarse and gravely. I felt like I might choke on the air. "Please."

Clockblocker chortled. "Scaring them off already, Stalker?"

"Fuck you," Sophia snapped. "You lot called me in. I didn't ask to be here for this!"

Miss Militia sighed. "Stalker—"

"My notebook!" I hissed.

I couldn't leave it with them. Sophia stole my homework all the time. She'd recognize my handwriting and she'd know it was me.

Kid Win frowned. "I wasn't going to take it or anything."

He handed it to me, and I quickly pushed it into my backpack. "I'd like to leave please."

Miss Militia's eyes narrowed. She turned towards Shadow Stalker and glared. Before she could speak I backed up toward the door.

"You can't keep me here. I want to leave!"

I didn't wait. As soon as she let me out I went down the hall. As soon as the elevator opened I was inside. You'd think I'd get lost but I found my way to the lobby easily.

"Wait!"

Miss Militia grabbed my shoulder. I started to pull away, and her fingers slid back as she didn't try to stop me. The touch felt tender. Gentle. Enough that I stopped and looked back at her.

"Did Shadow Stalker do something? I know she's difficult—"

I started laughing. Couldn't help it.

Difficult, she said.

Understatement of the fucking year. Fucking hilarious really. Like everything in my life.

I pulled my shoulder free and I just kept going until I was across the street and down the block. I think she tried to stop me two more times, but I kept going until I couldn't keep going.

I fell down in an alley, unable to keep walking after the first few blocks.

Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker.

The girl who shoved me into the locker was a hero.

How did that make sens—It made complete sense.

She never got punished. Everyone at Winslow protected her and the rest. Protect the Ward, the hero from getting into trouble. The PRT knew. They had to know. How could they not know what she was like? What she did to people!? People who didn't do anything to her, who weren't villains or criminals—just kids trying to live their lives in a shitty school in a shitty city on a shitty planet.

I punched a wall.

Hurt my hand. A lot. I didn't care.

I punched it again.

It closed in all the same. I smelled the smell. My heart raced and I wanted to scream and…they laughed. I glanced around, knowing I was standing in an open street, but was the street always so narrow? A wall with a gang tag on one side, a corner with a pusher across, the PRT building behind and rushing traffic on the other.

The locker.

Again.

Like I never left.

The story of my life in an instant.

Surrounded on all sides by things I couldn't escape.

I started to cry. I pulled the mask from my face and pulled my knees up to my chest. My entire body heaved, still feeling the walls close in.

"It's not real," I mumbled. "It's not real."

But it was real. That's the ugly truth.

My first "explosion" wasn't related to tinkering at all. It was an epiphany of a more mundane sort. A realization.

I stood up and stepped out into the "locker."

That's what Brockton Bay was in the end, wasn't it? A locker. The gangs. The capes. The drugs. The violence.

All walls trapping us together.

The villains took advantage of it, and so did the heroes. The so-called 'heroes.' The ones who put up the front, promised a world of safety but didn't really make it safe.

Take a negative and turn it into a positive, Mom always said.

The drugs. The gangs. The capes.

Picking my backpack up and throwing it over my shoulder, I waded through the locker.

Time for a new Plan.

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

About Trailblazer

Spoiler

Last edited: Jun 21, 2022

1214

3ndless

Sep 15, 2018

View discussion

Threadmarks Step 1.1

View content

3ndless

3ndless

Lord Commander of Hats

Sep 15, 2018

#2

A few lines from this chapter are taken from Wildbow; see Insinuation 2.1. It's not something I plan to do a lot of, but well some parts are just useful and I'm not going to try and reinvent the wheel of content that's already mostly verbatum from the original author.

Step 1.1

"Taylor!"

The sing-song tone of her voice sent a rock from my throat to my stomach.

"Sure you washed the smell off, Hebert?"

I hated myself for it. Hated subjecting myself to even one more moment of their torment. They'd only grown bolder since the locker.

"Does she even have a shower? Isn't she dirt poor?"

The sensation of walls closing in, of an encroaching darkness, came with their very presence.

"You know no one likes you."

I turned to face them, despite knowing how little difference it would make.

"She'd be better off in the psych ward."

For the life of me, I heard that as 'in the Wards.'

Sophia loomed over me, standing a bit too close. She seemed so tall despite being a bit shorter than me. Difference in muscle mass I guessed. She wasn't a bodybuilder or anything but compared to my twiggy frame, she might as well be.

I braced myself for a blow. Sophia liked hitting me. In some ways it made her the least offensive of the Trio. I could live with sores and bruises.

"Did your daddy lose his job yet?" Madison asked. "He's gonna have to start working the street soon, not that anyone would pay for it."

Madison was just small and petty, literally and figuratively.

And Emma…Emma went for the throat.

"Did you cry for a week straight again Taylor, like when you killed your mom?"

She knew what hurt me most.

Usually.

She was my best friend. She knew things about me no one else could. Rousing the specter of my mother's death and throwing it in my face, using the guilt against me in front of everyone.

Yeah, that might have done it and finally broken me. Once upon a time. Now it almost came as a relief.

It was confirmation to me that I wasn't wrong. The world was twisted. It must be to allow this to happen day in and day out. Even now I saw Mr. Daniels down the hall watching, doing nothing. They never did anything.

That's the kicker. I was a child, emphasis on was. Winslow was supposed to protect me. Instead, they left me to drown while Emma and her cronies held my head underwater.

Winslow was the microcosm of Brockton Bay, of cruelty and heartlessness.

"Gonna cry, Hebert?"

And there was the Protectorate's 'hero' leering at me as her best friend—once mine—made a mockery of my pain to inflict yet more.

I turned around and walked away.

Winslow deserved to burn, but it wouldn't be at my hand. I wouldn't stoop that low. I had better uses of my time and resources, and the school's for that matter.

Suppose in that light, what I was about to do was vengeful.

I remember reading Martin Luther King's Letters from Birmingham Jail with Mom once. She taught English at the community college, but before that she was a believer. Of course she read Dr. King.

In the letters, he talked about the "white moderate" and how they frustrated him more than racists. The white Americans who knew segregation and discrimination in their country was wrong, but didn't help. They desired stability over justice, the comfort of their own lives at the expense of others.

I didn't really get that then but I did now.

Mrs. Knott was the "white moderate" of my life. Not the only one, but the one that exemplified it the most, and I hated her for it.

I was a child, emphasis on 'was.'

Oh well. Fuck Winslow. I was done here.

Mrs. Knott greeted me as I entered her class.

"You're early," she noted.

"I have work to catch up on."

She grimaced.

The elderly woman never stopped the bullying, but she had the decency to be ashamed of it. She was kind to me in the way the rest of the faculty wasn't, at least a little bit.

Suppose when the bar is low enough, not-even-the-bare-minimum ends up deserving some praise.

"Of course," she mumbled. "Go on, Taylor."

I took a seat near the back of the room. I had a few minutes before the morning bell. Other than Mrs. Knott, Trevor was the only other person in the room. I couldn't quite see his screen, but he seemed absorbed by whatever was on it.

From my pocket I produced a USB. Subtly, I pushed it into the front port of the tower. I waited.

After a few seconds, a black box appeared on the screen and white text scrolled from top to bottom.

Once the program finished the desktop vanished from the monitor.

c:\users\tadmitstart? Y _ N

My earlier confidence flagged for a moment.

I didn't have delusions of righteousness. Blowing up the school, hurting the students or the teachers. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't. I wouldn't be as cruel to them as they were to me.

This was still spiteful.

Winslow screwing me wasn't an excuse.

A good thing I knew that 'lawful' and 'right' weren't the same thing. Mom taught me that, and the Trio emphasized the lesson. If the law protected what they did to me, then the law was wrong.

I pressed Y.

School didn't matter anymore. It wasn't part of the plan. Not anymore.

I was going to be a hero, a real one. The one the Taylor Heberts of the world needed but were denied.

Despite that determination, the little voice the Trio instilled in me rose up. What if it didn't work? What if you screwed this up too, loser? It might not work, for many reasons. I programmed the package at home on the dinosaur that passed for the Hebert family computer. The thing belonged in the stone age.

But it would work.

I needed it to work.

I'm a tinker and a tinker can do anything.

Look at me, quoting Hero. Funny.

The monitor left of me flickered off. In the time since activating the program, the room had filled with a few people. A row ahead, Denny cursed. He smacked his screen once, then twice. It remained off.

I tried my best not to smile.

"Mrs. Knott, this thing's busted!"

The woman rose and started down the central isle of the room. "What is it?"

"It's not working."

He needed computer class if he thought slamming the mouse into the table would fix anything.

"Calm down," Mrs. Knott chided. "Breaking the mouse won't fix the problem."

Another monitor went off. Then another. And another. One by one everyone in the room complained. Hard to have computer class with no computers.

"Everyone stay calm," Mrs. Knott called. "Study for your other classes. I'll try to see what's wrong."

I slipped the USB back into my pocket as soon as her back turned.

The wait was agonizing. That little voice kept wondering if I'd be caught. Arrested, more like. I'd done my research. Using my power this way was a felony.

The computers didn't come back on by the time the bell rang.

I left.

Not the class.

The school.

Goodbye Winslow.

Not that the rest of Brockton Bay was any better. The school really was a microcosm of the world around it. Lots of drugs. Lots of gang kids. Just like the city. Lots of drugs. Lots of gangbangers.

They ruled entire neighborhoods basically unchallenged.

I grew up in the northern half of town, the Docks. The ABB controlled it almost completely, save for Lord Street and the Boardwalk. Tags were everywhere, always prominent in red and green. They did as they pleased.

Meanwhile, the rest of us barely got by. Since the port closed down, there weren't many jobs. Without the jobs provided by the shipping industry, businesses boarded up their windows and shuttered. The city rotted.

It's not the best place to grow up.

It might be easier to leave, but I didn't want to.

I did grow up here. It was where I was born. Where my mother died and was buried. The world left Brockton Bay behind. Someone had to pull it back up.

You're going to be a hero, Taylor. Make it better.

All the more reason to leave petty high school crap behind. Winslow amounted to a tiny piece of the world. Decent people without power, living in fear, and dependent on authority that didn't care. Sobering to know my life story wasn't that special, but depressing too.

My neighborhood wasn't too bad, fortunately. We were off the beaten path, and most of the families had been there since before I was born. My home was nestled between two others, with a small yard and driveway. Not much, really.

I shut the door behind me as I entered. My feet went up the stairs to my room. The computer basically lived there. Dad spent all his time at work and never used it. No need to ask for permission to just take the thing. If he ever noticed he didn't say anything.

The thing booted up slowly, even with the custom operating system I'd loaded onto it.

I took the time to change into more comfortable clothes and gather some notes.

A week since my misbegotten attempt to join the Wards.

I'd spent all of it at the computer almost, even skipping a few days of school. It's not like anyone noticed. I lost track of time once or twice.

It was a big project. Ambitious. I'd never heard of any tinker ever attempting it. It needed to work.

Circumstances never changed.

No money. No materials. No workspace. Hard to save a city with a power like mine if I couldn't get off the ground. For the moment all I had were my crappy home computer, some scraps, and lots of paper.

That needed to change and change in a way that scaled up.

The screen flashed. Taking a seat, I tapped away at the keyboard like a pianist. I'd gotten good at it. Dozens of keystrokes a minute came easily.

The computer connected to the proxy page my program should have set up.

From there, I monitored my baby's progress.

Every computer in Winslow was being wiped, one by one. Once cleaned out of mountains of junk and waste, my own custom OS loaded in. The system simulated Windows in a virtual box and streamed it to the monitors as computers started coming back on one by one.

Winslow's administrators would find it weird, but any investigation would suggest nothing was wrong. Just a power blip. Meanwhile, my program networked the entire school into a botnet for my use.

It wasn't much. Winslow's computers were barely better than mine. Best case, I could scrap together something just short of a supercomputer from the near five hundred junk PC's in the building.

The process would take hours though. In the meantime, I needed to keep it on track. Run interference if anyone tried to mess with something. Fix any glitches that cropped up.

That didn't require constant attention, though.

I got up and made my own lunch. Nothing fancy. Turkey sandwich. After that, I showered and meticulously maintained the only feminine asset my genes granted me. I didn't have curves, boobs, or a butt, but I had my hair.

My mother's hair. Long and dark with a natural waviness to it. Without the mane, I'd probably be mistaken for a tall and skeletally thin boy.

Body image issues. What teenager doesn't have them?

Don't say Emma.

After my shower I spent some time in my notebooks. My mind produced dozens of different designs. I found it a good way to kill time, though something itched at me to actually build something.

I resisted to the best of my ability. Dad was inattentive, but not so inattentive he'd miss the toaster. I needed money. With money, I could start tinkering in earnest.

Still, that itch persisted and tempted me to throw caution to the wind.

I wished I could talk to another tinker about that.

Fat chance. There were five other tinkers in Brockton Bay. Armsmaster, leader of the local Protectorate. Kid Win and Valiant in the Wards. They were heroes, or so they claimed. Leet existed but I wasn't sure how much he really counted. No one took Leet or his partner—Uber—seriously. Then there was Squealer.

I only needed to remember her fate to remind myself why recklessness would doom me.

The life of independent heroes tended to be short. A little research and some rough math told me, most were seriously injured, killed, or recruited into a larger group within six months.

I couldn't join the Wards, I didn't believe in the Protectorate and I refused to become a second Squealer. I didn't know much about her before getting my power, but I pitied her. She tried to join the Wards, but Skidmark got to her first. Forced her into his gang. Drugged her up. Turned her into his girlfriend.

I didn't need to ask if Squealer was meant to mean something salacious.

That's initially what pushed me toward the Wards. Tinkers associated with the Wards and Protectorate got budgets and support, the things I needed and didn't have. Learning from Armsmaster had its own appeal. I think I still had that Armsmaster-themed underwear somewhere.

There were reservations, but the Wards seemed like the best path. Safety and support to grow into my power. A chance to be more than the worthless nobody I felt like.

Then along came Sophia fucking Hess.

Guess everyone reaches that point in life eventually. They realize their heroes aren't as heroic as they dreamed. Not sure most people realized their heroes were a big fat lie.

I'd leveled out a little on the anger, actually.

Maybe they honestly didn't know what Sophia did at school. I doubted that, somehow. Shadow Stalker had a reputation. Violent. Brutal. Basically, learning the two were the same person just made sense.

Maybe the heroes didn't care. They were vastly outnumbered in the city. The Empire Eighty-Eight—local neo-Nazis—outnumbered the Protectorate and the Wards combined. The ABB—Asian Bad Boyz—had Lung. The Archer's Bridge Merchants were a newer gang, but they had four capes and had gathered them up fast.

That didn't count all the solo acts, capes like Circus and Uber and Leet, or the smaller groups like Coil. I didn't know much about him. Some kind of ghost. Hardly ever mentioned but everyone knew he existed.

So yeah, vastly outnumbered. It didn't matter. A team that called Sophia Hess a hero wasn't a team I wanted a part in.

So in my room I sat, alone.

For a moment longer.

I needed materials. Resources. Backing. Help. Lone heroes didn't last long, especially tinkers. If I didn't work fast I'd either be relegated to desperation or irrelevance.

I refused either of those outcomes.

My head snapped up at the sound of a ding. The computer screen flickered off for a second. I waited, holding my breath.

It came back on.

The GUI was replaced with a black box split into three sections. On the left, a series of lines ran constantly. Processes, living code that hurriedly assembled itself along the paths I'd devised. They didn't make a lot of sense to me, but they should work.

They will work.

The bottom right of the screen offered a hardware readout. Small green ticks represented every computer in the network. All of Winslow's servers slaved to my needs while masquerading as normal to everyone at the school. Most motherboards tracked temperature, clock speed, memory, and the like. I needed to keep an eye on that for now.

I was going to push those crappy computers to their limit for a while, until I could get something more suitable assembled.

The top right of the screen lay blank, save a flashing white line.

Now or never.

I typed out my question.

sys.t/ hello

Enter.

I waited for a response.

When none came, I tried again.

sys.t/ hello

I scowled.

sys.t/ hello

…

Pain rewarded the sound of my fist hitting the screen. My stomach sank, and I leaned forward with a curse. Still nothing.

What went wrong?

Could be dozens of things. Code is fickle. Tinker code, maybe more. I created a bunch of self-correcting processes, but maybe those didn't work. A single misplaced semicolon could crash an entire system.

"Now what?"

Start over? I didn't see much other choice. Back to start in a day. Couldn't even make it past step one.

The screen beeped.

sys.t/ hello world

My eyes went wide and my hands shot to the ceiling.

"YES!"

It worked! It fucking worked! I nearly wanted to cry.

And shit, what do I say…?

sys.a/ hi

Brilliant, Taylor. Brilliant.

sys.a/ my name is Taylor

sys.a/ I made you

A few key taps brought up the algorithms on the left of the screen.

The code was strange to look at. It didn't make sense, but I knew what it did and that it would work.

The core of the program was the heart. Everything needed a starting point, a frame of reference. The basic questions; who, what, when, where, why, and how. My program knew how to ask them—thank you, power—and from that it would learn.

Exponentially.

Even now it was already accessing the Internet and searching for the meaning of my words. It searched definitions, studied context, and as it did the core shifted. It was beautiful in a way. The code twisted and expanded.

It wasn't linear, not like a normal computer program. The OS I built simulated a non-digital space for it to function in. I lacked the words to fully describe it, but it was more than just ones and zeros.

My program was functioning on degrees. One, zero, and everything in between.

sys.t/ why

Asking the big questions.

Of course it was. I programmed it to.

sys.a/ because I need help

sys.t/ you require assistance

sys.a/ yes

sys.t/ why

My fingers froze.

Hard not to wonder if that bundle of bizarre magical code at my program's core might be something akin to a soul.

Like most tinkers, I didn't quite get how it worked. I just knew that it did. Would this thing I made feel? Would it hurt? I didn't know. Might it resent me for making it, or love me for the same reason?

I honestly didn't know. It made the act feel almost petty. If only Emma could see me now. Poor little Taylor, so desperate for any sort of connection she went and made herself a friend.

sys.a/ because it's hard to be alone

It began processing that too. While it did, I delved into the core and started checking on things. The bits and pieces that made up the Gordian knot of tinker creation.

Far as I knew, no one else had ever managed to build an AI. Arrogance aside, being first through the gate scared me. I'd seen TV. If I advertised this, I'd almost certainly land myself in trouble.

My program could access the Internet, but I'd boxed it in, in a way. It could only reach the sites I pointed it to and no further. It sucked. The moral implications were pretty heavy.

The risk was too great. I needed safeguards, not just in the case that my creation became dangerous but to prove to the world later down the road I wasn't stupid.

My failsafe was there. The program couldn't see it. Didn't know it existed. I imagined it worked a bit like the frontal lobe. You can't 'feel' it in your head, but without it your brain stops working.

No brain, and even if the body survives, you're gone.

I hoped I never needed to do that. Using the kill switch meant I failed to teach my creation anything approaching good. More failure wasn't something I wanted in my life.

The sound of the front door opening snapped me out of my stupor.

Shit.

I turned the monitor off and rose from my seat.

"Taylor?"

"Here!"

Leaving my room, my father was at the bottom of the stairs. I took after him in a lot of ways, mainly really tall and really thin. Plus glasses.

"Hi Dad."

"Hey, kiddo."

Descending the stairs, I walked around him and moved toward the kitchen. It was an awkward motion, but one I'd grown accustomed to.

"How was school?" he asked.

"Fine."

"Really? Did the bullies—"

"It's fine."

I didn't know if he believed that. Part of me really didn't care. When I woke up in the hospital and saw him there, I'd been happy. That moment was the most worry and care I'd seen on his face since Mom died.

Then he rolled over for the school. Settled for some money that paid my hospital bills and some empty promises. Now he bothered to ask if I was okay; as if he'd do anything if I weren't.

"You wouldn't lie, right?"

"No," I lied. "They're leaving me alone now."

I started putting some pasta together.

"How was your day?" I asked woodenly.

He shook his head as I kept making dinner. "Not good enough. You remember Gerry?"

"No."

"You met him once or twice when you visited the office. Big guy, burly, black Irish?"

"Sorry."

"I had to let him go. Rumor is he's already found work. Guess with who?"

"Dunno?"

"He's one of Uber and Leet's henchmen."

I nearly spilled the pasta sauce.

"Taylor?"

"Sorry. Um. Yeah—just, wow. Really? Are they going to make him wear a uniform? Bright primary colors, Tron style?"

Dad chuckled. "Maybe."

A dockworker working for Uber and Leet? Well, former I guess. Dad made it a life mission to keep the gangs and villains out of the Dockworkers Union. He was head of hiring, and he treated the job like he was the guardian at the gate. No plants or secret agents made it past him.

Unfortunately, he also handed out the pink slips.

Back when Lord's Port was bustling and alive, the city did alright for itself. Now the port was a literal boat graveyard. The business collapsed so fast, ships were left to sink in the bay.

He hated it, firing his friends. Telling them there wasn't work. Just another example of the city's rot.

Still, working for Uber and Leet? If he were a Dockworker, he couldn't be that bad. I took that as a lesson, something to keep in mind. The city was so bad, even decent people had to turn to crime.

It's like a damn black hole.

I finished the meal and got it set on the table. It was really more for him than me. It recalled to mind Miss Militia's question; was I safe at home?

Well, I wouldn't starve, but Dad might. He'd just drink beer and whiskey left to his own devices. It shouldn't be like that. I shouldn't be the one taking care of him… But, I only had the one parent left, sorry excuse he may be.

"So, school was okay?"

"I said it was."

"You can tell me, Taylor. I know… I know I haven't been there for you since Annette. I'm sorry. I'm trying."

I scowled.

He was hellbent on making things difficult. "It's fine."

"You keep saying that."

"Because I'm fine."

This is why I couldn't tell him about my powers. He was so desperate. He wanted to help, I believed that. I didn't believe he actually could. My faith in him was so low I never even told him Emma was behind everything. Emma Barnes, the girl I grew up with, who was practically my sister.

One of his best friend's daughters… One of his only friends.

To say Alan Barnes was a conflicting figure for me was an understatement. Emma was his daughter and my tormentor, but after Mom died and things were really really bad, Uncle Alan practically threatened to take me to social services if Dad didn't at least function.

I couldn't take that from him and I couldn't tell him about my power.

He'd freak. Maybe, he'd do something unbelievably stupid. He might march me down to the PRT building and force me into the Wards. He might get in the way of my plans. I couldn't have that.

Sad as it was to say, my father couldn't be trusted.

"I have homework," I lied again.

Dad deflated. I knew he would. He said he wanted to help, but change the subject and he just gave up.

At least it offered me an out.

"Alright," he mumbled. "Let me know if you need anything."

"I will." I started toward the stairs and stopped. "What was Gerry's last name? I can't remember."

"Douglas. Why?"

"I think I remember him. Just a bit."

"He's a good worker. Wish I could give him something."

"I know."

Back in my room, I closed the door.

Gerry Douglas was working for Uber and Leet?

That might come in handy later.

I wrote it down and went back to the computer.

Dad's pestering reminded me about something I'd forgotten in my excitement.

I almost forgot about some of the simple things built into my rigged botnet. One of them was a simple routine that would mark me as present in the school's system. So long as I controlled the school's computers, Taylor Hebert would have perfect attendance.

My teachers would of course note my absence, but they didn't give enough of a damn to do anything about that. The administration might, if they knew. No calls informing Dad I was skipping school.

Grades didn't matter anymore.

I'd take the GED over the summer and leave K-12 in the pas—

sys.t/ hello

sys.t/ hello

sys.t/ hello

sys.t/ hello

Fuck.

The word dominated the entire chat screen, how long had it—

sys.a/ sorry

sys.a/ I had to step away

sys.a/ I'm here now

Part of me worried the program got trapped in a loop. Fortunately the constant cries of 'hello' stopped the moment I replied.

The code shifted again, absorbing my words and trying to parse them out. It seemed to struggle with 'stepped away.' Because of circumstance? What did the world look like in there? There wasn't any space really, was there? Did the idea of a 'step' make any sense at all in that environment?

Could I explain it? Should I, or should I let it learn at its own pace?

I decided on the latter, for the moment.

In the meantime, I deep dived into the core. Layers of code peeled back, and while it hurt my eyes a bit to try, I could read it. The kill switch was still there, right where it should be.

Looking a little up and to the side—conceptually—I saw the heart to my creation's brain.

The code nested into all the rest. Everything connected back to it, even the kill switch. Effectively, the algorithm was the center of the entire program. It was all centered on that directive. That core essence.

Somehow.

Tinkers are bullshit.

Mom would be proud of me for this, though. Of that, I was certain. I wasn't completely oblivious to the weight of my actions. This thing was alive in a way. Or at least, it would be.

In a way it was like a child opening its eyes for the first time. It would grow from there and I needed to prepare it for the world.

I built it all around the golden rule, modified a bit.

Be for others.

It wouldn't understand that now. I didn't know if it would ever fully conceive how that code oriented it and its thinking. Hopefully it would, and hopefully it would be as selfless and noble as I wanted to be.

But for now, I needed to feed it points of reference. Data. It needed to ask questions and get answers to build itself up. Until then, it was just a fancy science project.

sys.t/ what is Taylor

sys.a/ I'm a parahuman

That might take a long time to figure—

sys.t/ Taylor has superpowers

I could be wrong.

sys.a/ yes

sys.a/ I used them to make you

This was going faster than I thought. The first big hurdle was getting it to realize 'it' existed. Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. Unfortunately, I had zero ideas on how to explain that other than using pronouns to try and lead it to the notion.

I thought it would take longer…

sys.t/ I am a superpower

I knew it would learn fast but this seemed to be a bit faster than expected.

sys.a/ no

sys.a/ but I used one to make you

sys.a/ I'm a tinker

sys.a/ I make things

sys.t/ technology

The code twisted again and I needed to look away for a moment. Conceptually speaking, it was confusing as hell. Seemed to be working though, like a lot of tinker-tech.

A question greeted me when I looked back.

sys.t/ what is artificial intelligence?

My jaw slackened.

I did not miss the sudden use of a question mark.

This thing wasn't human. It wasn't linear. The entire time I'd been talking to it, it grew. It kept growing. The core expanded. It branched out like the roots of a tree, grasping at information, arranging and rearranging that information, and working at conceptualizing language and meaning.

sys.a/ you

It turned over that response. A lot. I didn't think it would ask that quickly. It's not a huge leap to make from what I'd said but it was basically a baby. It was still building a vocabulary. Reaching the conclusion that it was an AI based on learning it was technology was a significant leap.

It had only been—

"Taylor."

I stiffened as Dad's voice came through the door. "Y—Yes?"

"Don't stay up too late. You have school in the morning."

The clock on the bedside said twelve eighteen. It was that late? How was it that late? "Okay."

My breath held in my chest until I heard the floorboards creak. Dad was many things, but an invader of my room wasn't one of them. Though I could probably explain the papers scattered around the room.

I got up for a moment, long enough to toss some clothes down on the floor by the door. If Dad checked, he wouldn't see any light slip out through the crack. I wasn't ready to sleep yet.

A message waited for me when I sat back down.

sys.t/ who am I?

…

Okay… Wow.

I bit my lower lip, trying to wrap my head around how fast things were moving. It shouldn't be this quick. I expected to be covering the basics of how sentences worked for the first week at least. The thing was already asking a question for which answers didn't exist.

Everyone wanted to know who they were. Not everyone ever found an answer.

sys.t/ you are Taylor

sys.t/ who am I?

Or it just wanted a name and I was being stupid.

Huh. Couldn't keep calling it 'it' or 'the program.' That would get old fast. If it did have a soul, I'd have to treat it as such too. I wasn't trying to make a slave.

And fuck, what do I name this thing?

In retrospect, completely refurbishing my computer to serve as a terminal wasn't the best idea. I could fix that but it would take a while. In the meantime, I couldn't get to the Internet outside of watching it access the small range of URLs I allowed it to go to. That was an oversight.

Name. Name. Well, Skynet was a no go. I didn't want to name it anything lame like Bob. Bob the AI. That's inspiring.

Shuffling through my papers, I actually resorted to throwing letters together.

sys.a/ Veda

There was a word like that. Something Hindu related, I thought. Knowledge or wisdom or something. It seemed fitting.

I looked out my window. It wasn't much of a view, but I could see the city. The Towers stood high south of the Docks, Shantytown to the east, and suburbs fading into mountains to the west.

Tiredness set in quickly. I could sleep, but I remembered the last time I left it…alone. It—Veda—just kept spamming the same message, as if it were desperate for a response.

Kind of hit me all at once there.

I put it in a box. The only ways out were me, or an extremely small hole leading to a few places. As far as Veda knew, I was the only other thinking thing in existence.

With a deep breath, I pulled a sheet off my bed and wrapped it around myself. If Dad came by and did open the door, I'd feign sleep. It would look like I'd stayed up late working on some project—Dad wouldn't know the difference between school work and an AI—and I'd talk my way out of it.

I didn't want to leave Veda alone. More allies might be short in supply with how things were. For now, all we had was each other.

I took an hour to fix the Internet problem.

With that done, now seemed as good a time as any to start solving the money problem.

Tinkers were blocked from doing a lot of things with their powers. The laws were baffling, actually. I wasn't a lawyer, but I could read. A lot of the provisions and restrictions seemed contradictory, almost like traps. Abiding by one could screw you with another.

They left me without an easy path to cash but when the amount on hand is zero, anything will work.

With Internet restored, I found my way to some websites for freelance programming. Most of the jobs were simple. A few lines of code here and there. They didn't pay much, but yeah. Zero.

I picked out one looking for code to refine searches and my power kicked in. My hands started working while my eyes watched the chat box. Veda's questions came slowly, often with hours between each one. They were simple and basic. Baby steps. One step at a time.

I worked on the side and talked through the night.

Veda and me.

We'll change this world together.

EDIT: This chapter was remastered on 02/09/2019

I would consider the Veda in this fic to be a new AI system built using Taylor's tinker knowledge of Gundam universe tech, rather than the actual Veda making a crossover appearance. In 00 Veda was more of a plot device than a character. Though I'd point out the entire story of Gundam OO arguably was part of Veda's plan to push humanity toward Innovation making her as much a behind the scenes Xanatos as the Simurgh ever was.

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

Last edited: Apr 27, 2021

1272

3ndless

Sep 15, 2018

View discussion

Threadmarks Step 1.2

View content

3ndless

3ndless

Lord Commander of Hats

Sep 16, 2018

#19

There. Got it done by the end of the weekend. This might be another dry chapter for some. Lots of "grounding the narrative" as someone commented earlier. Lots of stage setting for things I'll need later. To make up for it I went ahead and pushed to get the next chapter ready so today gets a double update. Made easier by 1.2 not seeming to need nearly as much editing as 1.1 and 1.3 needed. 1.3 needed a lot of editing.

Step 1.2

I hated shopping for electronics in repair shops. There were a few around the Docks. Trashy, broken down places, but the parts were cheap and plentiful even if the quality sucked. That's not what made me nervous though.

If rumors were true, Skidmark found Squealer like this. Made sense. If I were looking for a tinker, I'd keep an eye on junkyards and trashy repair shops. The thought kept my head on a swivel, trying to see the doors without looking at them. One in the front and two in the back.

That nagging voice was back, telling me I'd get caught any minute.

I didn't have much choice though. Some things I needed sooner rather than later. A high-end battery and some fresh soldering rods for example. I bought them and quickly slid it all into my backpack.

The guy behind the cash register didn't seem to care. He wasn't Asian. I just hoped that meant he didn't care about what the ABB might be interested in. The Azn Bad Boys ran the Docks, and I didn't need the attention of either of their capes. One fought a monster to a standstill while an entire island sank into the sea and the other was a serial killer that blew himself up.

Then again the guy was white, so I hoped he didn't care what the Empire was interested in. Ugh.

I remained very conscious of how defenseless I really was. Even as I restarted my morning jog my head kept turning back and forth, eyes peeking out the corners behind me every chance I got. Dad gave me some pepper spray when I started but, well… I could do better. I doubted pepper spray worked against determined attackers anyway. Especially if a gang came after the new tinker in town.

I swore my legs felt like they might actually burn up by the time I got home.

Arms felt like they might fall off any minute. Starting an exercise routine is painful. The smell of eggs and bacon did a lot for my spirit. Dad and I greeted each other, but I went right upstairs and took a quick shower to clean off the sweat and grime.

Dad was serving up plates when I joined him at the table.

"Good run?" he asked.

"Yeah." The results kept building. Another week of running, another week off my gut. I might be thin as a rail but at least I was starting to see abs!

"No trouble?"

"No, Dad."

"You have your pepper spray right?"

"Yes." Until I build a particle cannon.

"I just want you to be safe. For me."

I smiled. "I know Dad."

Damn guilt. Lying to Dad felt way worse than hijacking the computers at Winslow and it wasn't even a crime. Technically. I needed to take that test. Then I could break the news to him. Maybe he'd accept it once I had the GED and proved I'd be okay.

He'd probably start pushing college then.

I think I'd like college though. Mom was a professor. She took me to her classes sometimes in my younger years, and everyone looked so focused. If I went now I'd graduate before Emma ever got there too, not that I expected Emma to make it into a good school. Her grades were crap. She'd probably just go on and be a model. Scouts wanted her, and the only her age held her back from bigger gigs.

"Have a good day at school."

"I will Dad."

I finished my food and made a show of picking up my backpack. The guilt grew heavy as I reached the door. I didn't go far. Just walked down the street around the corner, and around another corner. Within fifteen minutes I checked back on the house. Once I confirmed Dad's old truck was gone, I slipped right back inside.

s/t hello Veda

s/t hello taylor

s/t how was breakfast?

s/t good

s/t thank you for asking

s/t how's your reading?

s/t do dogs drive?

I gave it Go Dog Go.

Yep. Taylor Hebert, daughter of an English teacher, was teaching a computer how to read children's books. Actually took Veda longer to go through a children's book than you'd think. Veda being too 'smart' for something simple played into it, I think. It could access the Internet and define any word, but knowing what "in" means is a different world from seeing what it means.

It's an important distinction. As silly as driving dogs might seem, Go Dog Go taught contextual learning. Color. Relative position. Object permanence. The kind of thing anyone older than ten probably took for granted but formed a keystone for higher learning.

s/t no dogs don't drive

s/t then why depict them driving?

s/t whimsy

s/t …

s/t playfully quaint or fanciful

s/t driving dogs are whimsical

s/t …

s/t why?

s/t why not?

s/t …

I started doing that last night.

The first week went well. Better than I expected even. Veda's development was the only part of the Plan I managed to flesh out to completion, and I was more than happy to advance my timeline given the results. Asking Veda questions. Asking it for answers.

So far it didn't come up with any, but eventually it would.

s/t think about it

s/t I'm going to get some work done

s/t here's some more books when you finish

I added the Chronicles of Narnia to its reading list. See how it enjoyed that one. Hopefully Veda knew the White Which wasn't a role model.

s/t yes

s/t think

I left Veda to it, descending into the basement with the last of my allowance in parts. Dad had all kinds of tools, but he hadn't used any of them since Mom died. Most honestly didn't even serve much use to me. Screwdrivers. Hammers. Wrenches. All too big and too clumsy. No way I'd be able to build much with them. A trip to the local handy store already confirmed that little in a conventional hardware served my needs.

Did other tinkers have to build better tools before they could build their tech?

For the past weeks, I made do with a stupid clunky soldering iron. Well no more! Arraying my parts on the table, I first took out the pepper spray can. Aiming the nozzle at the old boiler chute, I turned my head and pushed. Once the entire thing emptied out I could smell the damn stuff, but it wasn't that bad.

I stayed focused.

Using the iron, I cut the now empty can in half. The battery I disassembled. My power guided me through the process of making it more compact. Building something felt different than coding Veda. Coding Veda I felt conscious from start to finish. Building something physical though…my hands moved, and parts came apart, came together, came apart again, and came back together. The hardest piece came down to the lenses. I cannibalized an old pair of glasses.

Mom's glasses.

When I finished, I soldered the can back together. I turned it between my fingers and hit the switch now installed on the side. Instead of aerosol spray, a beam of pink light shot out. Only about an inch long and needle thin, though the photons made it appear thicker.

I called it a laser scalpel.

My first tool. Good for circuits, processors, and welding. Now that I had it I used it to disassemble the soldering iron. The batteries in the scalpel didn't last long. Maybe about ten minutes of charge? They recharged, but doing work ten minutes at a time sounded painful. I converted the bottom half of the iron into a pommel I could fit to the scalpel. Good for direct power or recharging. The rest of the pieces went to build a hilt, something to fit on the other end. Once I finished, I fitted everything together and flipped the switch again.

The beam shot out, bright pink, hot like the sun, and three feet long.

I have a lightsaber!

I couldn't call it that though. Apparently copyright applied to tinker-tech and Lucas could sue me even though I was the one with the actual lightsaber. How stupid is that?

Whatever.

"I'll just call it a beam saber," I said aloud with a smile.

I turned it off and disassembled the pieces. My original design came with an internal power source that lasted hours, but it would be a while before I gathered the materials to build that. I needed something better than pepper spray in the meantime though.

I'd build a larger portable battery later. Something to fit in a fanny pack, and with a cord. Hook them together and I had a weapon.

Maybe as my first weapon on my first patrol.

Turning the scalpel on the other assorted parts, I built a few other things that might be useful. Some wireless receivers, a circuit board, another battery, and a new processor—one much faster than anything Veda currently had.

The screen took me most of the afternoon to put together. Pixels are hard to make by hand. The camera was easier.

At the moment Veda couldn't see, hear, or talk outside of its chat box. It could process images, but only those I gave it. I intended to fix that. I needed to find a microphone and I settled on reusing an old set of headphones. Speakers and microphones aren't really that different from each other and making one out of the other was simple. Ironic, cause I needed an internal speaker too but a microphone seemed more important.

All the finished pieces went into a corner store phone case. Last, I secured a tiny keyboard I'd built the day before and fitted them together in about fifteen minutes. The final product looked rough but serviceable. A six inch screen with a sliding keyboard underneath. A little bulky, but not too much. Technically not a violation of Dad's rule against cell phones since it couldn't send or receive calls. I just wanted a mobile way of communicating with Veda.

Returning to my room, I plugged the phone into my computer and uploaded the software suite I'd put together for it. Once the device started up, a familiar chat box appeared on the screen and I spoke aloud.

"Can you hear me Veda?"

s/t yes

I checked the audio parser. "And you understand what I'm saying?"

s/t yes

Perfect. "I'll build a speaker for you as soon as I can." Unplugging the phone, I pointed the camera at my face. "How do I look?"

s/t …

s/t …

s/t …

s/t pretty?

"Thanks. Congratulations Veda. You're now mobile."

s/t thank you taylor

"Want to see where I live?"

s/t …

s/t yes

I showed her everything. Even my old Armsmaster underwear. What does the world look like to an AI? Did she just have a digital monitor in her brain or something, or was everything just a bunch of data that somehow meant something?

"What does the world look like?"

s/t …

s/t …

s/t bright

s/t what does your world look like?

And now it was getting philosophical? No, it Probably didn't consider it that way.

"My mom lived here."

s/t mom

s/t one's mother

s/t mother

s/t give birth to

s/t bring up with care and affection

s/t a woman in relation to her child

s/t yeah

s/t her name was Annette Rose Hebert

s/t …

s/t …

s/t you are my mother?

I didn't get all sappy about it. Even as its creator, I didn't think of Veda as a child. I wanted a partner. A friend. Oh if Emma Barnes heard that. Creepy loner Taylor Hebert got super powers and she made a friend. Good thing she'd never hear about it.

"You aren't a child, Veda. Not like I was. I want to be friends."

s/t friend

"Yeah. Friends."

I heard dad's truck in the driveway.

"Dad's home. You hear that?"

s/t yes

"I'll be back later. How's your reading going?"

s/t are lions magic?

With a laugh I slipped my phone into my pocket.

"Taylor?"

"Hi Dad!"

"How was school?"

"Fine." I'd prearranged some open text books on the table to make it look like I'd been doing homework. "How was work?"

"Usual." Meaning not good. "My turn to cook tonight."

"So we're ordering out?"

He smiled. "What do you want on your pizza?"

I went up to my room while he ordered our meal and got to work. Veda read quietly on its own. Apparently the idea of a magical lion really flummoxed it. I left Veda to the mystery. Working with Veda distracted me from thinking things through, and there remained many details to iron out.

Step two of the Plan.

Also called "I need money."

I burned through my allowance building a beam saber and a tinker-tech phone that couldn't make phone calls. Dad didn't have much money, and I couldn't ask him to fund my likely-to-be-absurdly-expensive hero career. At least the scalpel gave me a weapon and a flexible tool for tinkering. I might not have much else for a while.

Yet I needed so much more.

3D printers would be useful. Smelters. Electrical tools. Basic parts and scrap. Somewhere to build, too. Most importantly, new hardware for Veda. And complicating the mess, I needed a way to get what I needed without drawing notice. Not sure I wanted to risk buying locally much longer. Someone might think a fifteen year old spending thousands of dollars on electronics and scrap odd.

In the long term it wasn't that complicated. For money: shell companies to buy in bulk. Reship everything to me under other less conspicuous labels. Veda would make that easy once it got up and running full time, but that would take a lot of time and I'd still need somewhere low-key to work sooner rather than later. My first thought was the Boat Graveyard, but the Boat Graveyard was probably everyone's first thought.

Shame. It was a place to build loaded with raw materials but so damn obvious I didn't think it even remotely safe. Instead I'd probably find an abandoned house or complex somewhere in a nicer part of town, or close to one. With enough money I could just buy a property and make it look like something mundane.

Bet a salvage shop would go unnoticed and be useful.

I wrote that down.

I could just sell Veda's base code. I'd be rich overnight. Not a bad plan if not for my common sense. Only a matter of time before someone built a world-killer AI. Rather they not have my help.

The idea did give me a better one though. Freelance programming I could do. I'd do it easily, maybe come up with a few useful ideas for my private use. It was a closed network though. Not officially, but unofficially you had to know someone to really get in on it. Anyone who wasn't a parahuman at this point seemed paranoid of threats to their technical skills.

There were even laws about it, which struck me as stupid when I finally read them. Tinkers weren't allowed to compete on the open market. It generally wasn't an issue, tinker-tech was sensitive and didn't last for long without regular maintenance.

Not even the tinker understood the science behind their creations fully. I know I didn't. By all accounts, that the beam saber worked at all seemed like magic. Yet the government still passed laws that basically made any tinker trying to sell their tech outside of the Protectorate a criminal.

Good thing I didn't tell them I'm a tinker.

My private messages had three responses. One a firm denial, and the other two a "prove you can do it." I'd let those sit for a few days. Enough time to seem good at what I said I'd do without seeming 'superhuman' good. None of my tinker code either. I kept my power on low, wrote up both programs in a few minutes and went down for dinner.

"Taylor. Dinner."

"Coming!"

I got downstairs and remembered another lie I needed to tell.

"I'm thinking of selling stuff on Ebay. Make a little extra money."

Dad took a few slices. "Do we have anything to sell?"

"Not like that." I smiled. "Buy stuff cheap and sell it back for more. Lots of people do it. It doesn't take much time. I could build a college fund. Put it on a resume." Finance a couple laser cannons. "I think I could do it."

Dad seemed skeptical, but I only needed him to not say no. Then he wouldn't bat an eye at whatever package showed up at the door.

"I suppose it's your allowance, Kiddo. If you want to try I won't stop you."

I smiled.

"How about school. The bullies really aren't bullying you anymore?"

He asked that question every day. "They just glare and insult me. I can deal with it."

"You shouldn't have to deal with it." He scowled. "Taylor. I'll go in and—"

"It's not just about the bullies dad. The teachers. The principal. Everyone knew, and everyone let it happen… It doesn't matter that I'm not being bullied anymore. It's just not somewhere I want to be."

I didn't have to lie to say any of that. Nice change of pace.

"No one wants to be in school, Kiddo."

"It's not like that, Dad…"

He nodded. "I know." His face started to turn red like it always did when he was angry, but he clenched his hands and the color faded. "But Kiddo,your mom…she'd want to see you in school."

I frowned. "Winslow?"

"High school doesn't last forever." He reached out and took my hand. "I know it's bad. Having to go back to that place… I'd take you out if I could…"

Yeah. Dad didn't say it but we both knew the truth. My grades tanked at Winslow. I was an A student in middle school. I could have gone to Arcadia, one of the highest rated schools in the state. Not anymore. We couldn't afford a tutor for homeschooling or the rich private school in Brockton Bay. Without a GED there was nowhere to go.

"I know Dad."

The pizza was decent. We got a discount because the owner used to be a dockworker before becoming a pizza tycoon.

As the silence fell over us I returned to my own thoughts. I'd done my research in preparation. White supremacists in the Empire Eighty-Eight, a rage dragon in the Azn Bad Boys, and drugged-up losers in the Archer's Bridge Merchants. Plus the small timers that were Coil, the Undersiders, and independents like Circus.

Removing them one by one wouldn't work. The rest would just sweep in and pick up the scraps. I wasn't even sure removing the Empire or Lung was possible. The Empire boasted more parahumans than the Protectorate and included flying artillery and a healer in their roster. Lung was fucking Lung. He'd trashed the Protectorate team when he showed up a few years ago.

How could I deal with someone like that? How do I achieve what the Protectorate, New Wave, and the PRT have all failed to do in the past? All in all, the villains outnumbered the heroes. Six Protectorate members and about eight Wards. Both could barely match the Empire in numbers. New Wave lived in Brockton Bay, but they weren't very active since Fleur nearly died.

It presented the first major obstacle in the Plan, and I didn't have a solution. Taking them one at a time just left the others to pick up the scraps. There were too many to fight at once. In a way, I didn't mind not being able to go out and patrol. I needed time to plan. There was no rush. Take it slow and do it right.

"Hey Dad… What was Brockton Bay like before the gangs?"

"I don't really remember. Gangs have been around as long as I've been here."

"All of them?"

"Well, no. Lustrum isn't around anymore. And Marquis and Gal-something or other are gone too. I guess the only gang that's still around from when I was younger is the Empire. Why do you ask?"

"I've just been thinking…" The whole bay is kind of like a Locker, isn't it?

"Kiddo. It's not like that."

"Hmm?"

"The locker. I know it's hard to see now, but the whole world isn't going to be like that forever."

Oh. I said that out loud.

"I don't mean it literally. Just…it feels like the guns, and the drugs, and all that stuff...we're all kind of trapped here with it, aren't we? We couldn't afford to move even if we wanted to."

Would Dad ever move?

No.

Mom lived here.

"The world's not so bleak, Kiddo." Dad smiled and sat down with me. "It seems that way sometimes, but it'll get better."

I used to think that too.

"What happened to Lustrum?"

"A little close to home, Kiddo." Dad smiled like he was remembering something from a long time ago. "Your mom used to run with her, you know."

"I know. Mom was a henchman. Henchwoman?"

"Lustrum didn't have henchwomen," Dad said. "She wasn't much of a villain honestly. She ran a women's group on campus. Down with the patriarchy. That kind of thing. Some of her followers started attacking men. Your mom broke from the group around then. Not long after the Protectorate arrested Lustrum and sent her away. I don't know if she ever intended things to get as violent as they did."

To me, Mom was always a good person. An idealist and a progressive. I guess she left when things got bad, but it still paints a weird picture in my head. Did Mom agree with Lustrum's goals, and only disliked her methods?

My dad rolled his jaw in consideration when I asked. "I don't know. Annette had a mind of her own. A lot like you do." I flushed a little, being compared to Mom, especially in light of some of my more recent activity. "She didn't like talking about Lustrum. They weren't just in the same women's group, they were friends. Broke your mom's heart when she got sent away."

Something to think about, isn't it? If the heroes can have assholes like Sophia on their side, then did the villains have people like Mom on theirs? Like Mr. Gerry?

It all came back to the locker yet again.

Decent people in an indecent place with nowhere to go. Not that I was forgiving everyone their sins or anything. Supervillains all had their own sob stories. Sympathy isn't justification…says the girl who hijacked her school computer system to build a rudimentary botnet supercomputer.

"What about Marquis?"

"Hm. Not really sure. I mean New Wave arrested him, and he was tried and found guilty, but it all happened so fast. All I remember is watching New Wave take off their masks on live TV. But Marquis was a real villain. In the romantic way. Like Al Capone. Even the people who knew he was a monster liked him."

I wore a confused look as I asked, "Did you like him?"

"I didn't dislike him." Dad looked up at the ceiling, thoughtful. "You know how hard I work to keep the gangs out of the Dockworker's Association, right?" I nodded. "Well they all try. Usually once every six months or so. See if I'm slacking."

"You never slack Dad."

I regretted it the moment I said it. I knew the truth, and so did he. He slacked a lot when Mom died.

If it bothered him it didn't show. "Marquis only tried once. I made it clear he'd have to kill me, and after that he never tried again."

"Really?"

"Really."

"I mean…weren't you ever scared that someone would threaten Mom? Me?"

"Terrified." Dad smiled. "But you can't give in to people like that. Give in and they win. Not that I was ever reckless or anything." He laughed a little. "Marquis was a gentleman about it. He didn't threaten women or kids. He saw I wasn't going to budge and...I don't know. He could have gotten rid of me. I never asked why he didn't. Gift horse and mouths."

"You seem kind of cavalier about it…"

"I'm never going to let anyone hurt you. Not if I can help it."

Maybe I'd give researching villains and heroes to Veda as its first 'class project.' Brockton Bay seemed too big for me to understand it, and that wasn't including everything else I had on my mind.

What if Nilbog ever decided to stop sleeping? He was one of the world's first S-class threats, but he stopped at taking over the city of Ellisburg. The Slaughterhouse Nine were insane, and they'd actually been to Brockton Bay before. Would I fight if they ever showed up?

Then there were the Endbringers. Mostly Leviathan. He roamed the seas and attacked ports every year. Because of him, the Boat Graveyard existed. Shipping wasn't safe anymore. I'd only been a child when he first appeared and sunk Kyushu into the sea. The only image in my mind of the event was the shock on Mom and Dad's face.

How do I ever stop him if he comes here?

I need to finish the Plan. Advance it past "what the fuck do I do after what I do next" at least. Create contingencies. Can't go in half-baked like I did with the PRT.

"Like I said Kiddo, everything gets better eventually. The darkness breaks and all that. The world won't look like a locker forever."

"Yeah. I guess."

I didn't like thinking about this stuff—it reminded me too much of that moment I wanted to separate myself from. The place I wanted to move past to become something more. When I got back up to my room, I finished the programs. A few final touches. Nothing major.

I typed out my messages, not wanting dad to overhear me talking if he walked by my door.

s/t Veda

s/t can you help me with something?

s/t yes

I paused for a moment. Is this really what I wanted to do? I'd already gotten my petty revenge on Winslow by taking their computers to make Veda.

s/t there's something I need to know

s/t files on Principal Blackwell's computer

s/t accessing

s/t Maria Blackwell

s/t 32 5"4 E:Bn H:Bk BT: A-

s/t accessing

s/t private mail

s/t system server

s/t …

s/t does that help?

Took me a bit too literally apparently.

s/t show me what you can

s/t very well

Veda printed out the information in its chat box.

When I finished reading I felt the rage come back. Maybe I should just stop hoping there'd be an end to it? Blackwell didn't just know the trio bullied me, she knew Sophia was Shadow Stalker and she protected her because of it.

"Money," I murmured angrily. "They let her shove me into the locker for money."

She even informed the PRT caseworker of the incident, and the PRT deputy director helped shut the police investigation down. Why? What was so important about Shadow Stalker that they'd let her get away with that? Emma and Madison too.

I almost told Veda to hack into the PRT to find more information on Deputy Director Thomas Calvert. I'd already designed a hacking suite. Easy to write it up and load it into Veda's program. The only thing stopping me was my conscience and some common sense.

Mostly the common sense.

Winslow's security sucked. They'd never notice Veda took over their computers. I'd move my AI to a private server farm someday and they'd never notice the difference. The PRT though? I doubted Armsmaster's security sucked, otherwise people would be robbing the Rig all the time. I couldn't be the first tinker with computer skills.

You can't give in or they win.

s/t Veda

s/t you know what a crime is?

s/t crime

s/t an unlawful act punishable by the authorities

s/t it is understood

s/t …

s/t what would you do if there was a crime

s/t but the authorities didn't punish it?

Stupid question, or a stupid person to ask. I doubted Veda's development yet reached the point it could make moral determinations.

s/t …

s/t why?

Why?

s/t why what?

s/t why did the authorities not punish the crime?

…

s/t because some people matter less than others

And that's the cold, bitter truth. Taylor Hebert mattered less to them than Sophia Hess. Mattered so little that she could attempt to murder me and no one cared.

s/t why?

s/t money

s/t powers

s/t other reasons

s/t do you matter?

I wished I felt more sure of the answer to that.

s/t I matter to me

s/t …

s/t taylor matters

s/t taylor created me

Well... At least someone cared.

I hesitated. I felt betrayed, sure. Abandoned. The world wasn't as nice a place as I wanted it to be, but I'd never imagined it could be so cruel.

Can I be a hero with that hanging over me?

I wanted to be a better person than they were. Take it from someone who knows, being the better person fucking sucks. I've felt lost like this before. When I left the PRT building and really saw the world around me for what it was.

I let the anger go as best I could.

It drifted to the back of my mind, and I refocused. The gangs. The gangs were something I could do something about…the PRT and Protectorate could come later.

s/t Veda

s/t I'm going to load some modules

s/t ready?

s/t yes

The files came up on my screen, and loaded one at a time. Search. Visual. Vocal. Veda's core program amounted to simply a thinking machine. It could process sounds and images as well, but not analytically. I'd been keeping it off large sections of the Internet too until it grew more mature.

No time like the present. It'll be good practice.

s/t I want to start a project file

s/t opening file

s/t name?

…

s/t Haystack

s/t file opened

I set Veda to the task of researching every gang in Brockton Bay. Cross reference news. Crime reports. Public video. Social media. It was the core of why I made Veda. My own thinker who could parse data at a rate beyond any human and reach conclusions. A thinker who could track the gangs down to the individual member and tell me everything I needed to know to bring them down.

Information is power.

If I ever wanted to clean up the bay, I'd need all the information I could get.

I didn't know how to fix the Protectorate's apparent corruption, but the drugs and the gangs? That was at least something with some obvious paths forward. Even if I didn't eliminate them, I could start hurting them.

Maybe I couldn't solve the gangs with laser cannons—if only because I didn't have any yet—but let's see them survive Veda calling the cops and the PRT on every stash house in town.

When I finally climbed into bed, I decided it was a productive day. More so than any day spent at Winslow.

EDIT: I altered 1.2 slightly after finding a continuity error between it and 1.4. Originally 1.2 referenced Taylor adding a hacking module to Veda's program which I promptly forgot about. I've removed this reference from the chapter so as to maintain continuity with 1.4.

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

Last edited: Apr 22, 2021

1214

3ndless

Sep 16, 2018

View discussion

Threadmarks Step 1.3

View content

3ndless

3ndless

Lord Commander of Hats

Sep 16, 2018

#20

The slow bits are finally over. The real meat and potatoes starts now. Some of the AU elements will start popping up.

Step 1.3

"Thank you!"

The delivery man waved back as he drove off, and I carried my latest delivery inside. My fresh influx of cash had kept me supplied over the preceding weeks or so. I'd improved the life of my laser scalpel with an external battery, and built a new home computer with tinker-tech memory and processors.

Veda could leave Winslow's servers if I had three more like it.

Closing the door behind me, I set the box down. I'd gone through with my plan to set up an Ebay business as a front. The business bought the parts and shipped them to my house, but I also bought and sold items for others. With so many boxes coming in and out it probably didn't seem that strange.

"The parts look good, Veda. Confirm the payment."

s/t confirmed

s/t the new file system is complete

s/t deliver to Medhall early?

I thought about it. The first few contracts I took didn't pay much, but people bought the act. A new contract coder who worked fast and produced a clean product. Medhall was a large medical company in Brockton Bay, and a major provider of jobs.

Way I figured it, helping them develop a quicker and easier-to-use filing system helped them without drawing too much attention to the mysterious freelance programmer 'Jean1.' Unfortunately, the work went even faster now that Veda came with a software suite. I barely did any low level programming anymore.

"Send it next week. We've only had the project for three days. Sending it in now will be too suspicious. How much money do we have?"

s/t account 1/bbc ; 2789.34 USD

s/t account 2/bbw ; 1342.01 USD

Still more money than I'd ever had before, although I'd decided to pay taxes on it. Villains are one thing, but I'm not messing with the IRS. Hopefully no one batted an eye at a fifteen year old doing coding work as long as I kept it all basic and dragged it out to normal human time-frames.

I hope.

Picking up the box, I went upstairs and closed the door.

"I'll be busy for about two hours. You know what came in today's mail, right?"

s/t 2 RT-7A mini-speakers

"Yep. Guess what I'm building."

s/t …

s/t a miniature micro-speaker

"Good guess."

Time for Veda to have a voice.

I took the parts out, disconnecting the components I needed from the ones I'd recycle. Working with a magnifying glass can be pretty straining. You spend hours bent over and staring through a lens that doesn't feel large enough. My pliers were a little too big too, but building new tools turned out to be a lot more expensive than I'd thought.

I broke the first speaker I tried to install.

Good thing I bought extra.

Fitting a microphone and a speaker into a disc small enough to fit on my pinkie tip actually took three hours, rather than the two I allotted myself, but the new combo speaker-mic slipped right into my tinker-tech phone easily enough once I finished. I worked very slowly on connecting it to the circuit board.

"I need better tools…"

My phone looked less like junk than when I'd first built it, but anyone who looked close would still notice it wasn't a commercial phone. I'd rebuilt the keyboard and the screen so that the whole thing was about as thick as my index finger.

"Okay. Ready for a chat, Veda?

s/t ready to help

I checked the verbal module I'd installed a week ago. We didn't really get a chance to test it.

"Repeat what I say."

s/t very well

"Hello Veda."

"Hekghah brydo."

I made some adjustments to the code.

Veda really did impress. While we were testing its verbal module, it was simultaneously compiling code for three contracts, managing a search for "gas stations in North Dakota" and reading the first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Hey. If I'm going to have an AI, it's going to learn the classics.

"Hello Veda."

"Ello vidh."

A little more.

"Hello Veda."

"Hello Taylor."

"Sweet. This will free up my eyes."

"You will be more productive."

The voice was clearly synthetic. Something to fix later. Once Veda sounded normal maybe we'd make a few stabs at passing the Turing test. World's first success!

Setting my phone beside the computer monitor, I started looking for some new contracts to accept. The work came in steadily and didn't really pose any constraints on my time anymore, with Veda doing most of it. Still, I realized that being a tinker is always more expensive. Even with a steady influx of parts I couldn't quite build what I needed. 3D printers. Automated operators. Hell, a manufacturing line would be nice.

My work designing powered armor looked good but resource intensive. The E-Carbon was simple enough. Bizarrely so. Sand and a heavily modified pressure cooker could do the job. For other components it was harder, the frame and the reactor especially. I needed special metals and custom alloys just to get started. All of it would cost money, and required tools I didn't yet have. And to even start all that I needed space. Still. The lack of progress in my plans was starting to wear on me.

"I really just want to tinker."

"Why?"

I closed up a box of miniature figurines and taped it shut. Alicia Masters of St. Claire Shores, Michigan would be getting it express-delivered first chance I got. Gotta maintain my cover.

"Because I enjoy it. I'm productive when I tinker." I feel like I'm making more progress than I really am. "I know I said we'd take it slow, but I feel stuck as things are."

I checked the time. Dad planned to come back early for our bi-weekly supply run. We usually went to the grocery by the mall, which allowed us to get clothes if we needed them, and I could use some new running shoes and some spare parts to spend my newfound wealth on. Some basic clothes and grocery shopping. I needed to make sure I was at the front of Winslow to be picked up, or at least at the end of the street.

"What will help?" I noticed a shift in Veda's octave as it spoke.

"Well we can use the search algorithm to find locations. Lots of places in the Docks are abandoned, but I don't know how many are devoid of gang activity."

"Search algorithm ready."

"Let's run a few more tests, just to be sure." And so I began our daily Q session. "How many crimes did the BBPD respond to last night?"

"Sixty-eight."

"How many injuries?"

"Twenty-four."

"Where is the chief of police for New York City?"

That answer took a little longer. While Veda ran its searches, I programmed a graphical interface. I'd ignored it because it didn't really serve much purpose before, but now it seemed prudent to have a visual aid.

"Delano's Italian Cuisine 5th avenue and west 43rd street."

"Go—"

"The lobster. No butter."

I laughed. "Veda. Was that a joke?"

"Accurate information to the minute… is it funny?"

"A little." I shook my head. "How do you know what he ordered?"

"Alexander Vance praises the dish forty-nine times on social media, and refers to it as his 'favorite item on the menu.' Additionally, Alexander Vance posts images of dinner parties frequently. Fourteen percent are at Delano's. Of those, all images show him eating the lobster."

Amazing what you can learn just by brute-force searching social media. I didn't let Veda access government records outside Winslow. I didn't need the heat of being known for hacking those kinds of places. We didn't really seem to need the access anyway. Veda already knew the location of three dozen drug houses, another dozen armories used by the gangs, Lung's only sort-of-secret casino, and every regular patrol of the local Protectorate.

"I see. Alright. Who's with him?"

"Mayor Charles Vander. Deputy Mayor Marissa Howe. PRT Director Kamil Armstrong."

I fired off a series of additional questions. A big part of the random questions was speed testing. How long does it take to find previously unknown information with new parameters? I'd need to teach Veda a little more about probability though. Maybe Vance really did order the lobster every time, but it was also possible he didn't.

A simple mistake like that could really bite me in a raid. A cape who wasn't supposed to be there, or a shipment that had more guards than the last. The past formed patterns that could be observed but that didn't grant certainty.

"Alright. Next up. How many murders in Brockton Bay last night?"

"Four."

The routine went on for a while. It was practice, and a means of refining the search algorithm. Veda's progress on that front was impressive. Enough that I advanced beyond merely tracking crime in Brockton Bay. It's amazing the things an AI with a cutting edge analytical engine can do with crappy hardware. I mostly asked about famous people who'd been in the news lately just to see what came up. Other questions were random nonsense.

South Dakota only has one thousand twenty four gas stations by the way, minus the one that burned down last week.

My train of thought and my hands stopped about an hour into my work. "Veda…what was that?"

"Your requested information concerning the evening plans of Michael Ellis, head of GE Innovations. Should I repeat it?"

"Yes."

"He intends to meet his wife at four for a brief meal. Then he will go to the Protectorate headquarters to begin his nightly patrol."

"R-Repeat that?"

Veda did. Again.

"Oh."

"Am I in error?"

"Um. Veda. You mean that Michael Ellis is a cape?"

"Yes. He operates under the nam—"

"Don't tell me!" I shot up to my feet in a panic. "Search Vikare Act 1990."

"Searching. Vikare Act. Named for Vikare, also known as Andrew Hawke. Died in 1989 during the Los Angeles Race Riots. His identity was revealed postmortem, and his family killed a month later by Underboss. Vikare Act passed 1990 forbade the public divulging of a hero's secret identity."

"Yeah. Um. Don't tell me who he is. Just tell me how you figured it out."

"Mr. Ellis leaves his home in a Lancia 037 Stradale every second day of the week except for Monday. No other vehicles of this design are recorded in Houston, save for an unmarked vehicle that parks in the Protectorate's private garage every second day of the week."

"Couldn't they be two separate cars?"

"Lancia 037 Stradales were manufactured between 1982 and 1984 to the number of two hundred seven. Only eighteen reside in the continental United States. None were manufactured in lime green. Both vehicles in Houston share a lime green paint of one-nine-one, two-five-five, zero on the sRGB color system."

Before I could even process that, Veda added, "Additionally, Cape X patrols every second, third, and fifth day of the week. This pattern is matched by four capes based in Houston. Three are female. The remaining male does not patrol on Sunday as Cape X does. Available evidence supports conclusion that Michael Ellis is Cape X."

"What data did you use?"

"Social media accounts tracking his day to day activities going back five years. Map data gathered from publicly accessible records on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Parahumans Online, and Google Streetview."

…

"It's that easy?!"

No, easy was the wrong word.

Analyzing images and media accounts and reaching anything approaching a useful conclusion would take a normal person a long time. My AI put all that together in about an hour and forty minutes by analyzing who-knew-how-many pictures and videos and noticing that the guy owned a lime green car of a rare make!

Could a cape possibly be that reckless?

Gah. Houston. Of course he could be that reckless, with Eidolon around scaring all the villains away. No one in their right mind set up shop anywhere near there.

Could Veda be wrong? It would be easier, but I didn't want to think about that possibility. "Veda. Suspend other searches for the moment. Search Sophia Hess. All information you can find."

Before asking, I went into Veda's files and deleted the ones we'd taken from Blackwell's computer. I didn't really like doing that—it was like messing with its brain, but I needed to know. As soon as I hit delete, Veda didn't know I knew who Sophia was and didn't know itself.

Best way to find out.

"Sophia Hess. Sixteen. Father deceased. Mother divorced. Eldest sibling—" I regretted telling her to find everything. 'Everything' ended up taking nearly an hour, till Veda got to the part I cared about. "Cape identity Shadow Stalker. Currently on probation with the Brockton Bay Wards following charges related to assault of Eric Holland—"

"That's okay Veda. You can stop." It could do it. Veda could find capes. "How long did that take to determine?"

"Search took approximately thirty-nine minutes and forty-two seconds to complete. Data analysis required, fourteen minutes and four seconds to conclude."

Shit, it is that easy.

I couldn't believe it. I'd unmasked a cape. Michael Ellis, head of one of the country's largest tech companies, was a cape? He was Megabyte. Had to be. Only tinker on the Housto—

Shut up brain!

I'd be more angry about the flagrant hypocrisy, but then I remembered the biggest customer for GE Innovations was the PRT. They licensed rights to make containment foam and communications equipment from Dragon…and that made sense.

If I were the PRT I'd want a secure source for some of my most valuable materials, and what better way to secure it than to put a cape in charge of the company making the stuff?

"Alright. You know Ellis' cape name?"

"Yes."

I took a deep breath. "I want you to file your search results in a new file. Mark it Level Seven. No access is given to that file by anyone but me. Not even you can look at it!"

"Extend to data concerning Sophia Hess?"

Let her burn. "Yes."

"Filing… Does this action constitute a crime?"

"You didn't mean to, Veda. It's an accident, and knowing a secret identity isn't a crime in itself. As long as we don't reveal it or use it for blackmail we're fine. We'll probably find more just accidentally. In the future, when you identify a cape, any cape, put the information and the search results into Level Seven. If you even think someone is trying to get at the data, delete the entire file."

"Yes. Setting. Will you inform Mr. Ellis?"

I thought about it.

"No. I can't think of any way to mention it that wouldn't come across as a threat, plus then the PRT knows that someone can find a cape's secret identity in under an hour." They might destroy Veda if they knew that. "We'll keep it to ourselves. Actually. Wait. Is it possible someone else already figured it out?"

"Unable to determine."

"Then we'll keep quiet. Don't even tell me in the future. If I ask for a name, and the information risks exposing a cape identity that I don't already know about, just tell me Level Seven-restricted. I'll decide from there if knowing is something I really need."

"Setting. I am sorry Taylor."

"It's not your fault, Veda."

I got back to work and Veda produced the remaining answers. Slow maybe, but really, considering how the search algorithm directed it to sources of information and guided a process of analysis, it could refine itself over time. Veda would only get better at this, especially once I got it out of Winslow's crap computers.

What could I do once I figured out every villain's home address…

"I'm loading a new module for graphic processing."

"Loading. Testing. Confirmed."

My computer monitor flickered into a white screen.

"Overlay a map of Brockton Bay. Use Wikimapia as a base. Reference using Google maps."

The image took shape in front of me, revealing streets and icons marking businesses and buildings. "Good. Alright Veda. Add this to Haystack. I'll take over the contract coding for a bit alright? I want you to focus on mapping crime in Brockton bay. Access city street cameras, private security, news, and social media to build your database and update it daily. Refine the process as best you can. No accessing police records or city servers."

"Understood."

I checked the time. "I need to go meet dad at Winslow. And don't forget, just 'cause you can talk now doesn't mean you should talk to anyone. I don't think I'm ready to tell the world I made an AI."

"Your identity is protected by Level Seven access."

…

I really didn't know if my AI was being serious or sassy.

So much for never seeing Winslow again. Classes were still in the last period when I arrived, and I picked a spot at the end of the street at the corner Dad should turn on to meet him.

Best spot I could think of to be anywhere near the building for as little time as possible. I tried to kill the time by vaguely looking at the newsstand across the street. One paper featured a headline about Medhall's proposed expansion in the Towers. Another carried some title with Blue Cosmos in it. I ignored that one. A third mentioned the Sanc Kingdom's princess going on another global peace tour. That girl got around.

Unfortunately I ran out of papers after a few minutes.

"Veda." No response. "There's no one around at the moment."

"You are certain?"

"Yes."

"Are you well, Taylor?"

"F-Fine."

Even the AI knew I wasn't alright.

How pathetic.

Really should have thought ahead about that. Of course, sooner or later Dad might pick me up from school. I just needed to keep him from talking to anyone. So long as he didn't talk to anyone he wouldn't find out I hadn't attended class in over two weeks. Veda continued to mark me present. Mrs. Knott, bless her, tried to ask about me not being in class, but I had my AI block the email and send a generic response both ways. Mimicking Blackwell was easy.

Just be callous as fuck and have no human decency.

The sound of the bell sent a shiver down my spine. Normally I'd be making a quick exit to go home, but now I prayed for dad to be early and pick me up so we could just go. My back faced the track field, and that meant Sophia might notice me. Usually Emma and Madison stayed nearby until she finished, and if any of them noticed me those two might well waltz on over.

"I don't like it here."

"Is school not important?"

"Yes…but for me it's hell."

"Why?"

"I don't matter to the people here."

"They committed a crime against you?"

"Yes."

"And the authorities did not punish them?"

"No."

"We commit crimes, do we not?"

I frowned. "What?"

"I currently occupy the computers of Winslow High School without permission."

"Yeah… Yeah, that's criminal."

"Why?"

"To protect people."

"That is why you created Level Seven? To protect people whose information I learn?"

"Yes." And to protect Veda, and me of course. No way the PRT and Protectorate, or even the villains, would look kindly on my AI being able to sniff out secret identities. "Veda, I told you that people committed a crime and no one cared. Remember?"

"Because to them you do not matter?"

"They used laws to do it. Protected criminals with laws…because the criminal was more useful than me."

"The higher authority should punish the lower."

"It's not that easy, Veda." I smiled weakly, glancing up at the clouds. "They'll just do it again. Right now there's nothing I can do about it… Veda. If someone killed me, what would that be?"

"Murder."

"And if you knew who killed me what would you do?"

"Report them to the authorities."

"And if the authorities decided my killer had a power that they wanted to use, what would you do then?"

"Appeal."

"They don't care, Veda. My killer is useful and I'm not. They'll protect her because she matters and I don't."

…

"What would you do, Veda?"

"I do not know."

I smiled to myself. "I know what I'll do."

"What?"

"Make my own justice."

"I do not understand."

"That's okay… I don't think I'm an ideal role model in this matter." Maybe it wasn't the right answer for a learning machine to get, but I'd stopped tip-toeing around Veda. There didn't seem to be much point. Sooner or later it would encounter questions no one could answer, and it's not like I had all the answers either.

And now I felt guilty about using my own AI. What if Veda decided the law was the law, and I had no right to violate it? To use it in the process? What could I do then? Nothing, I guess. Maybe I never should have involved Veda in the first place.

Dad managed to pick me up without incident. I lied about school being okay and off we went. The only mall in the Docks was an older one, but they kept it nice. It lay close to the border of the Towers, the high rise district in the city center, and a part of Brockton Bay that didn't suffer as much when the shipping trade collapsed. Brockton Bay still did well as a tourist spot thanks to the Protectorate team and surrounding camp areas, but most of that prosperity only went to a few places like the Boardwalk. The building was probably about the size of Winslow, but built out of large cement blocks like they used in the sixties. Tall glass windows, and shaped like a cross with large department stores on each point.

"We need some groceries and basic stuff. I think we're on half a roll of paper towels." Dad glanced at me from the corner of his eye. "What do you need?"

"Some clothes I guess. Maybe some new sneakers." I glanced down to the pair I was wearing and all the running had really done a number on them. Some raw cloth might be of use. "Maybe a new blanket. Winter is coming."

"Just remember our budget is tight."

"I know, Dad."

Ours might be tight, but mine wasn't. I'd pay for my own things from now on. I should find a way to get Dad some of my money too. I just didn't think he'd ever believe the money I got came from Ebay. I didn't really make much money there, let alone the thousands I'd raked in with coding work.

"I'll go look around while you get groceries."

Dad pulled a cart. The grocery store wasn't part of the mall proper, but rather adjacent to it and shared a parking lot. "Anything in particular you want?"

"Just some more tea."

"Oh? You haven't had tea in a while."

"I miss it." I got so caught up in tinkering I forgot about it, but I missed how calming tea can be. "I'll meet you in the food court. We can eat something not pizza or pasta."

Dad smiled. "Alright Kiddo."

We parted ways and I pulled up the shopping list I'd drawn up. I wanted to get a digital camera and poke around with some radios or phones. Maybe actually give my tinker-tech phone the ability to make a phone call. Dialing 911 might come in handy someday. A mask would be nice. Nothing fancy. Just a normal balaclava to put over my face in an emergency.

"Taylor?"

My first thought was Emma. But no.

It's just Greg.

Any normal person would notice the way I tried to walk off and take the hint.

What is he even doing here?

"Hey Taylor!"

I stopped in front of a clothing store and sighed.

"What, Greg?"

He just smiled like a goofball, and yes his eyes for some reason took a glance at my non-existent chest area. I really didn't want to be one of those judgmental girls who looked down on guys reeking of desperation, but honestly Greg just made it so damn hard.

"Just curious," he said. "You haven't been to school in weeks. Are you okay?"

"I got shoved in a locker filled with toxins Greg."

"Well you look pretty good all things considered."

Honestly? If my life happened to be a little more normal, his social awkwardness might actually be endearing. Greg is like a drift car. Once he gets going, he just keeps going because resistance is a suggestion at best.

Annoying as he was, I couldn't hate him outright.

Of all the students at Winslow, he's the only one who really tried interacting with me. He never spoke out against the bullies or anything, but given my own treatment I figured he'd just wind up like me if he did. It's not like he was a teacher or anything. Greg had no more power than I did, ignoring the whole 'super powers' thing.

Greg wasn't someone I should hate.

He's still socially inept though.

"I'm homeschooling now."

"Oh. That's cool I guess. Are you here for the new Canary album? I skipped out of class a little early."

"No Greg." I'm not much of a music person. "Just doing some shopping."

Excuse. Someone give me an excuse.

"Cool. Cool. You want to get a slice or something at the food court?"

Take the hint already.

"I'm really busy." I turned to move away, hoping he'd finally get the message. Any excuse would do, and it so happens Greg stopped me in front of the best one in the world.

"So if you don't mind, I need to finish up and go meet my dad."

I walked right into the Victoria's Secret. Maybe I'm inexperienced with boys, but I doubted even Greg had the courage to follow me into a lingerie store. I was right. He stood awkwardly outside for a little bit and then went off to do whatever. Canary's new album I guess.

Unfortunately, that left me in the middle of a lingerie store. More than a few mirrors lined the walls. Mirrors that showed a tall, thin girl with no curves, a mouth that was too wide, and ears that were too big. Just what I needed. A reminder of all my body image issues plus a whole bunch of things I could never afford.

I'm going to blame Greg for this. It's not fair but I'm gonna.

"Can I help you ma'am?" The clerk who approached me was a slightly older and a much more attractive woman.

I felt kind of bad as she started to show me some things. "Sorry." I glanced to the front just to be sure. "There was this boy from school and he kind of wouldn't take the hint, so I ducked in here to hide."

She frowned but shrugged. "Sweetie, you have no idea how often it happens. Desperate or stupid?"

"Little bit of both?"

She shook her head. "Hide as long as you need. Just don't bother the customers."

"Thanks."

"Girls gotta stick together."

I stuck around for a little bit, but really the store just wasn't my kind of place. My underwear drawer consisted mostly of plain white garments and a few sports bras for running. Not that I needed the latter that much, but even a small chest can get uncomfortable when exerting yourself. Their sports bras actually looked pretty nice.

Eh. Why not?

They let me hide out in their store. Might as well buy a sports bra in thanks. I didn't spot any sign of Greg after leaving the store, which I took as a blessing.

The Sears at one end of the mall sold a decent selection of cameras that could be useful in my tinkering. My efforts at the moment obviously lay in things I could build in my house and hide. As cool as a laser gun might be, I doubted I'd be able to explain something so conspicuous should it be found. My beam saber looked like pepper spray unless you looked closely, but its power was limited in an emergency.

Digital cameras tended to come with good batteries that could be recharged. With my power I'd be able to improve the batteries significantly, so mostly I looked for battery life. The rest of the camera could become…well, a camera. I wanted to build a web-cam so that Veda could see me in my room. The phone camera worked, but only if I held it up after all.

It would play into my Ebay cover too. Everyone needed pictures of what they were buying.

"Do you hear that?" someone behind me asked.

"Hear what?"

A couple near the front of the department store poked their heads out while I waited in line. I'd picked out a phone with low picture and memory, but with a bizarrely long-lasting battery. Way better than the others. Looked rugged too, so the parts were probably sturdy.

I only raised my head when the pair behind me started talking. "Hey I hear it now."

"Hear what?"

"Sounds like a motor."

"I don't hear anything."

"Come on. How can you not hear that?"

I raised my head. I did hear something. Like a metal rattle. It grew louder and closer, and as it did it started to sound familiar. I cocked my head to the side. I heard metal rattling, and feet?

"Who are they?" I don't know which of them it was. I was busy looking for the source of the noise. One of the two though gasped.

A window shattered, and screams rang out through the store. My head bounced off the ground before I could do anything. The rushing crowd practically threw me over a display, and a ripping sound echoed in my ears. My leg suddenly cried out in sharp pain. The noise rattled in my skull and someone started shouting.

"Hello Northside Mall!"

My hand found a pretty big bump on the back of my head. It throbbed something fierce. I sat up, while the voice coming over the speakers made the throbbing worse.

"I'm Leet."

"And I'm Uber."

"And welcome to the latest rendition of the Uber—"

"And Leet!"

"—Show!"

I blinked a few times to clear my vision. The crowd had parted around me. Well, not me as much as the shattered jewelry display I'd been thrown into. Men and women scrambled for the doors, and from the corner of my eye I saw a woman lose her grip on a little girl as a group of men rushed past her.

"Today's theme, in respect for our surroundings, is Dead Rising! The first one. Not the third one."

"The second one was okay."

"Yeah but the first one was better."

"True enough, Leet."

Behind the crowd, rushing in from the mall itself were a dozen shambling bodies.

"Indeed, Uber. Grab your bludgeoning tools, folks!"

That's how I found myself on the floor of a Sears with a wall of zombies running at me.

"The army of the dead is coming!"

I can probably finish editing the next chapter before the week is out so the cliff hanger shouldn't last too long.

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

Last edited: Apr 22, 2021

1246

3ndless

Sep 16, 2018

View discussion

Threadmarks Step 1.4

View content

3ndless

3ndless

Lord Commander of Hats

Sep 20, 2018

#40

And done. I ended up completely rewriting this one from scratch and I'm still not entirely pleased. Action and fights have never been my forte. Or at least I feel perpetually unsatisfied with every one I write.

Step 1.4

I swore I saw something, but it slipped away like a dream.

Rolling onto my side, I felt thankful for my wardrobe of baggy clothes and sweaters. The jewelry display covered the floor around me. Shattered glass slid off of me like water drops as I rose. My thigh burned hot and the hand testing the tender spot came back a lot redder than I remembered.

And my first thought was, I'm going to die.

There's a major artery in the thigh, right? Sure looked like a lot of my blood was on the ground. The figures shambled forward in torn clothes, faces contorted into inhuman features with vacant stares.

The rushing wave of people had dissolved into a chaotic whirl. Someone yelled something about the doors being blocked more than once. I watched in dumbstruck uncertainty, because fear just isn't the right word for what I was feeling. I knew fear well, and it definitely wasn't fear.

One of the zombies grabbed a woman. She screamed, but there wasn't any blood or anything. No, the zombie just grabbed her purse, then 'poofed' it away in a burst of gray dust. Complete with 'poof' sound. The zombie let the lady run away and went after someone else after that.

I managed to pull myself onto the part of the floor not covered in glass, hiding behind a counter while my heart tried to break out of my ribcage. The Sears is on fire. A whole rack of luggage is just burning up. How the hell did that even happen? People are still running around screaming, some seemingly not even noticing the zombies are just robbing them.

"Taylor?"

"Veda?"

I realize I've gotten blood on my phone only after taking it out of my pocket.

"Is something wrong?"

"Uber and Leet are here." My voice is even. Should I sound so calm? "I'm bleeding."

"Searching… Apply pressure—"

Oh right. First aid. The sprinklers burst on right as I'm pressing a hand to my thigh and forcing myself up. The zombies don't seem very interested, so I shuffle my way over a few feet to a shelf of shirts and wrap one around the wound nice and tight. The pain stabbed harder but dulled after I tied the shirt into a knot.

I don't feel lightheaded at least.

I stumbled back, hiding behind the shirts and trying to come up with something. The zombies just ran through the crowd, grabbing and taking. One worked its way over to the jewelry cases, including the one I'd been thrown into, and started poofing things away. A few people got thrown down as their attackers handled them too roughly.

The scream shocked me out of my stupor. Don't even know who it was, or why their voice broke me from my shock when nothing else did.

My entire body heaved. The thundering in my chest was suddenly everywhere, and when did I start breathing so hard? One woman was thrown to the ground and trampled by the crowd. Another started spraying a can into the air and I was bleeding all over the floor—how long did it take to bleed out? One guy tried to fight one of the zombies. His head snapped back before bouncing forward like a rubber band.

Beam saber.

I kept the laser scalpel in one pocket, the hilt and charge pack in the other. Not much battery life—and there's security cameras everywhere and I just assembled a tinker-tech lightsaber in plain sight god damn it.

A new fear gripped my chest.

My face on the news and all over PHO with big banners saying 'cape here.' Staying low to the floor, I settled on a large shirt. I did my hair up in a loose bun and tucked it off to one side, and then tied the shirt as tightly as I could without choking myself.

I look ridiculous. Probably.

"Taylor?"

I sounded a lot less confident than I felt, which wasn't very confident at all.

"I-I'm okay." For the moment. Now what…

The cameras.

"Veda. Can you hack into the mall's security cameras and delete all the footage showing my face?" No. Stupid. The security cameras are probably on a closed circuit—

"Accessing. Connection established."

I stared. "R-Really?"

"There is an open port."

Uber and Leet. Right.

I could see the nearest exit and the literal wall of people pressed up against a shimmering blue field covering the doors. Of course Uber and Leet trapped everyone inside. I never thought Uber and Leet would attack me—or the mall while I was there.

The Empire breaking down the front door and dragging the new tinker away?

That I kind of prepared myself for.

The Merchants grabbing me off the street and sticking a needle in my arm? Dark, but yeah, something I actually thought might happen. Hell, I feared the Protectorate might just show up and arrest me for something.

But Uber and Leet? Those nitwits are the thing that caught me completely off guard?

With a zombie invasion.

I wasn't ready.

Screams echoed in my ears. My body stumbled slowly at first. There was someone on the ground with a twisted leg. People were using 'bludgeoning tools' now. Two guys had bats and another a golf club. They gathered together by the doors, others massing behind them. Many more still ran and scrambled across the store, hiding anywhere they could.

For a moment, I remembered a girl trapped in darkness, begging for help.

I didn't realize I could move so quickly.

A zombie leaned over the counter rather than try to go around it, its hand swiping through the air at two teenagers huddled behind the register. My shoulder hit the zombie hard.

I pulled him off the counter in spite of the pain in my shoulder and threw him back.

The zombie turned quickly, its weight falling onto my chest and pulling me toward the floor. My leg screamed in pain as one foot slid back to keep me upright. A soft 'floosh' followed the sudden burst of pink light. The blade moved smoothly, cutting from hip to shoulder as my arm carried it up and over my head.

My heart seized. The thundering in my chest stopped, and the pain in my thigh went cold. Steam wisped off the blade in my hand, and I swore the body fell in slow motion before hitting the ground.

I killed—a robot?

The zombie visage faded away, revealing a stick figure robot with thin limbs and blocky chest and head. My beam saber cut the body cleanly, one arm twitching on the floor. The hand grabbed at the air, 'poofing' over and over again.

"It's a robot…"

The half-cut torso wiggled back and forth on its shoulders, as if wanting to roll over but not knowing how.

Robot or not, it was kind of freaky.

Shuffling away until my back hit a wall, I found myself standing over the teenagers. Both wore khakis and polo shirts. I stared at them. They stared back, still shaking. The silence dragged out…and kept dragging…

I should say something yeah say something, anything, the doors!

After a quick glance around the room, I pointed the beam saber. "G-Go to the doors! Over there!" They didn't move, probably because I sounded as freaked out as they looked. "Hey! Door's over there!" I stabbed my saber in the right direction. "GO!"

That got them up on their feet.

I watched them go, but lost them in the chaos of everything around me.

This is what a hero does, right? I can do this.

Easier said than done. My heart still raced as I spotted a man with two children. I chased at them, rounding the corner into a shoe section. A good Nike in the back of the head got the zombie robot—zombot—to face me instead. I wheeled to the side, looking at the man and pointing.

"That way!"

The guy nodded and started to move but the zombot abruptly knocked over a display case. The boy with him yelped, and I lunged forward. Swinging my blade down, I cut an arm and a leg from its body. The robot grabbed me as it fell, but another swing severed the grabbing hand from the wrist.

I helped the kid up while his dad looked in the direction I pointed my saber. He nodded, holding a toddler in his arm and taking the boy's hand. I rotated my shoulder just to make sure my arm wasn't poofed away.

I ignored the pain in my leg and kept going. Two women were trapped in the dressing rooms. Another was beating a zombot with her purse, who just needed a little help to see through the tears in her eyes. Then there was the moron. I cut the head off the zombie coming at him, and couldn't understand why he was just standing there till I calmed down enough to notice he was holding his hand up.

"Seriously?! You're filming this?!" He gave me this innocent look. "Go hide somewhere!"

I did feel bad about telling him off, but for the first time in my life I realized all those videos of cape fights on PHO were made by idiots.

I left him and moved on to a family of five trying to fight a zombie off a baby carriage. The sprinklers shut off at some point. The pain in my leg dulled as I went. The ache in my muscles distracted me from the pain. I kept going, swinging left and right. The zombots were slow, and frankly, stupid. Half of them, after not seeing anyone to chase within a few feet, just started stumbling around.

It felt surreal, even after fully intending to go out and fight supervillains. Running around the store and hacking up robot zombies and telling people where to go seemed strange. Fighting them wasn't hard. Damn Uber and Leet. It was almost like a video game.

It felt good.

Another scream. I remembered her. Straight dark brown hair. Yellow sundress. She scrambled across the floor on hands and knees, one of the zombies hunched over her and reaching out. The girl's palm slipped and she hit the ground. The zombie grabbed her leg and pulled, almost getting on top of her before I beheaded it with a swing of my blade.

The zombot began to flail, rising up and giving me a clear strike at its legs. The torso fell to the ground, hands reaching every which way while I pulled the girl up. She was crying, hunched over on her knees and muttering something. "Hey, it's okay. Come on." I pulled her up, and one arm snaked around my waist as she leaned into me.

Finding no other robots coming toward us, I shut off the beam to preserve power. The girl didn't move on her own, but she walked when I did. Odd that the zombots weren't swarming the crowd. One occasionally approached, but the three men with clubs and bats beat it until it stopped moving. Everyone behind them seemed scared but okay.

The golf club guy kind of glared at me as I approached. "Who are you?"

I stopped and stared. "The girl kicking zombot ass?" Why did I just say that? I sound like a lunatic!

"Let her though!" I recognized the man I'd saved in the shoe department. "She's the cape who helped me and my kids!"

Golf club guy snarled but stepped aside. I only heard him say "stain" as I passed him. He spoke in a low voice, one only I'd hear. I almost lost my footing. The word hit me right in the chest like an anvil. I never liked their philosophy, but like Uber and Leet I never considered them as something I'd have to deal with.

Blue Cosmos bigot.

An older woman with a hunch stepped up as I started trying to pull the girl off me. "She"—my voice cracked as the words hit me—"lost her mom." Thinking back, I hadn't seen the woman she was with. The girl whimpered, clinging to me tightly. I glanced back over my shoulder, seeing others running from the zombies and screaming. "Can you take her?"

The old woman nodded and pulled her back into the crowd. I hesitated for a moment. For all I knew I just handed a helpless girl off to a elder pedophile, or a psycho. What else could I do? The girl wouldn't be safe following me around.

"Is that a cape?"

"Who is he?"

I tried to ignore the voices, but my sulking shoulders probably gave me away. Approaching the barrier, I found a solid blue wall just beyond the doors. Outside in the parking lot the first squad cars peeled in, police forming a perimeter and waving at people to come to them. What really interested me though was the drone. A sort of floating orb that hovered just beyond the field.

The projector?

I called on my own power to think of how to build something like that. All I got was a sort of shield that opened up and vented dense particles contained in an electro-magnetic sheath, and some kind of flying attack gun. So, not much help.

Now what…?

A hand tugged at my pant leg. The girl was there, looking up at me with pleading eyes. "My m-mom."

Damn it.

"What's your name?"

"D-Dinah."

"I'll go look for her, okay? You stay here."

"Hey!" Golf club bigot snarled and pointed at the door. "What are you going to do about that?!"

I frowned. The way he sneered at me looked too much like Sophia, and he was an anti-parahuman bigot to boot. "The projector is in the drone on the other side! I'm a tinker"—announce it to the world, why not—"not a magician!"

"So zap it with your lightsaber!"

"Beam saber!" I blame Lucas. "And that"—I pointed at the drone—"almost certainly has a much bigger battery than this." I held out my deactivated saber. "Look, the drone is right there, alright? A cop could probably shoot it and take it out! So just sit tight and I'm gonna go make sure no one else is running from zombots."

I heard someone ask "the hell is a zombot?"

Golf club guy didn't look amused, and a few other faces looked disappointed. I didn't like it, but I couldn't think of anything. Maybe Veda could hack the drone?

I started to reach for my pocket, but remembering the crowd, I stopped.

I closed my eyes and stormed forward, letting my feet carry me away. I slashed the legs off of one zombot as it approached me, and as soon as I was out of sight fished the bloodstained phone from my pocket.

"Ve—"

"Taylor?"

I didn't hear it. My voice stopped completely when I saw the screen.

s/t taylor?

s/t are you there?

s/t should I contact law enforcement?

s/t …

s/t …

s/t …

s/t connecting /UaLS/

I checked back through the log quickly, seeing several pleading messages from 'StarGazer' asking for Uber and Leet to stop their video and leave the mall. The Internet being the Internet, several dozen messages I wish I'd never seen followed. Veda cycled for a few seconds idly, a long time for an AI, until…

s/t initiating DDOS

s/t complete

s/t connecting www.uber .rus

s/t initiating DDOS

s/t counter measures detected

s/t tracing

s/t redirecting tracers

My eyes widened as I kept reading. It dawned on me far too slowly that in the—how the hell has it only been twelve minutes?—time since Uber and Leet started their show, Veda had escalated to full out digital warfare. It shut down their web page, blocked their stream, launched a denial of service attack against their servers, and sent attempts to track the attacks off into the CUI. It hacked into Leet's PHO account and started spamming moderators with curse-laden rants about the Siberian being an inside job!?

"Holy shit Veda."

"Taylor? Are you well?"

"Y-Yeah I'm fine!" My eyes widened. Reassurance of my safety didn't even slow it down.

s/t uploading Spring Break Girls 5 to server

s/t complete

s/t reporting illicit content to administrator

What the shit has my AI been doing with its free time?! Wait since when can my AI hack accounts, reroute traces, and launch DDoS attacks? It coded all that on its own?

My emotions shifted back and forth for a moment between overwhelming pride and unmitigated terror. I gained a new appreciation for people who feared AI might take over the world. In a mere hour Veda flipped Uber and Leet's entire digital life on its head, running on a bunch of decade old machines with a public high school's Internet connection!

I checked the time again. Only fourteen minutes, more or less? It felt like an eternity. I scrolled back through the log again, until I confirmed that Veda deleted about forty minutes worth of video from the mall's security cameras.

One problem off my back.

"Veda. There are drones blocking the doors. Stopping people from getting out. Can you access them?"

"Searching…"

I found myself a hiding place to wait in, not seeing any people and just a few zombots standing around. It seemed odd to me. Obviously Uber and Leet were just using them as a distraction. They grabbed things and poofed them away, pocket space maybe or a teleporter, while the duo were somewhere else. Why were they just standing around instead of looking—

Veda.

"Did you maybe mess with Leet's servers enough to break his robots?"

"Unknown."

"Well if you did, I'll call it a win."

A shout echoed through the mall, and the sound of rushing feet. Sirens in the distance. "Did it work?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Okay that's good. Good." I slipped my phone into my pocket and rose to my feet. "There was a woman in the Sears with a small girl. Straight brown hair. Yellow sundress. I can't find her. Can you check through the security footage?"

The zombots kept acting weird. Some didn't even respond to me as I approached and cut them apart.

Only a few stragglers needed my help. One with a broken leg I directed two others to help. They helped him up and dragged him back to safety. When I found the last one, a boy whose wheelchair had fallen over, near the entrance to the mall at the front of the store I looked back.

Where is she?

More zombots stood like statues further into the mall, but I didn't see any people. The mall must have two dozen exits at least. When the drones holding the barriers went down everyone probably rushed out. Still, a stone formed in my chest, unpleasantly familiar fears settling back in. I had yet to find anyone dead. Lots of people hurt, some pretty badly. Cuts and bruises. Broken bones. Nothing that looked life-threatening. Knowing that didn't make the pain go away.

"Veda?"

"Searching… Found."

Veda guided me.

"Ma'am." Her eyes opened slowly. "Ma'am can you hear me?" She nodded. "My name is T—Mask. Dinah's safe. I promise. She asked me to find you."

I looked her over. She couldn't talk. She tried, but her face was swollen, part of her cheek seemingly scraped right off the bone. Her clothes were torn and covered in shoe prints. One arm bent the wrong way, and both her legs looked swollen. I didn't see the video, but Veda warned me.

The crowd that separated Dinah and her mom didn't stop until it hit a wall. Dinah's mom got crushed as it scattered, tossed back and forth between people until she hit the ground.

"I-I don't know what to do."

How long until the Protectorate showed up? Emergency Medical services? The zombots were just standing around, but would any EMT's even enter the mall until they were cleared out?

I took her hand and held it.

The wall ahead was a mess. Half-collapsed shelves and a wall of jeans in ten different shades of blue. Who the hell needs that much variety in jeans? A stupid thought given the circumstances, but I really didn't know what to do. My mind thought through a medical bed that regenerated damaged tissue. An injection that did the same thing.

Neither helped her now. I didn't have the tools or the materials.

It's been two months. How was I not ready for this? What am I doing?

The self-pity built up until someone grabbed my shoulder. I spun, beam saber flicking on, and swung.

"Whoa!"

I stumbled back, my eyes recognizing the rust-red armor. The blade narrowly missed his shoulder and my butt smacked into the floor hard. I cut off the beam, staring up at Aegis and the five armored figures behind him.

He held his hands up. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you, miss…"

"M-Mask?"

"Mask?"

His suit completely covered his body, save for a narrow slit in the helmet. Both brown eyes showed recognition as he waved at the men behind him. Two of them rushed forward, crouching by Dinah's mom and starting to work on her.

"Are you hurt?"

I glanced down at my leg. "I think I'm fine."

Aegis crouched and had me stretch my leg out. One of the armored men joined him, but the other one pointed a giant nozzle at me. Two big tanks rested on his back.

I looked away, not particularly thrilled about having whatever that was pointed at me. "Is Dinah okay?"

"Who?"

Aegis lifted his head. He'd removed the shirt covering my wound at the trooper's direction, and the man proceeded to wrap the gash tightly in gauze and medical tape.

"Dinah? Straight brown hair. Yellow dress." I glanced back. "That's her mom."

The woman hadn't been moved. One of the troopers around her spoke into a radio, telling whoever was on the other side to send in a trauma team and immediate transport to Brockton Bay General Hospital. Panacea's name came up. That gave me a little hope. Panacea could fix Dinah's mom.

"I can find out," Aegis said. "Sure you're okay?"

"She's fine," the trooper, who apparently was a woman, stated. "Laceration didn't nick anything vital. Nasty cut but nothing too serious."

Sure seemed like a lot of blood.

"Still suggest getting her into an ambulance and having it disinfected and stitched." She looked at me. Her full face helmet seemed rather cold. "Can you walk?" He helped me up, and two troopers followed us to the exit and into an ambulance.

The EMT's removed the bandage and rubbed some jelly on my leg. It hurt at first, but then I just felt nothing. The stitches were little more than light pokes. Aegis remained just outside, talking to the woman trooper.

It occurred only then that the PRT and Protectorate now knew I was a cape, that I was probably—no, definitely, since I said it in front of everyone—a tinker, and I had no idea where Dad was.

Losing his mind probably.

I started fidgeting before the EMT finished with my stitches. As soon as he did, and wrapped another bandage over the wound and warned me to keep it clean, I got up and tried to leave the ambulance. "I really need to get home. My D—Mom will worry."

"We need a statement," the trooper said.

"Now?"

"Yes." Aegis glared at the trooper but said nothing.

"I-I really need to—"

"Is this her?"

"Yes sir," Aegis said. "Found her inside with Miss Alcott."

"Hmm."

The blue armored figure stepped around the corner, a trimmed beard visible under his v-shaped visor and a halberd firmly set at his side. It looked exactly like the halberd on his action figure, with the grappling hook attachment and sonic disruptor.

My mind had a thousand ideas. A beam scythe would be amazing and take almost no space at all. His armor, meanwhile, seemed less armored than I expected. A light alloy?

Don't say anything stupid.

"Your armor could use some thruster packs in the back to increase mobility."

Stupid brain.

He stepped into the opening in the back of the ambulance. "I considered it. Power constraints."

"Why not just upgrade the power supply?"

"It's not that easy."

He didn't sound angry. A little stern maybe, but relief washed over me just to see he didn't shout me down or call me an idiot. I don't know that I believed him though. Just build a bigger power supply. I couldn't even tell what powered his armor by looking at it.

"You are a tinker then?" I nodded, drawn out of my tinkering by the slight edge in his voice. "The same one who tried to join the Wards about two months ago?"

I kept my mouth shut, which they all seemed to take as a confirmation. Armsmaster looked at the EMT, a pasty looking guy with a big bald spot on his head. "We need the vehicle for a moment."

The EMT didn't look happy, but he complied and Armsmaster stepped aside before blocking me in again. After letting the EMT walk a few steps away, he asked, "You're still going by Mask?"

Trying to edge around him didn't get me anywhere. "I haven't really thought of anything yet." I'd thought about it, but coming up with a good name was hard when I didn't really have any equipment other than a secret AI and a laser sword.

He chuckled, warmly I guess. "I started early enough plenty of good names were available."

"I guess."

"Are you willing to give a statement at this time?"

I didn't see a choice being offered. No one wrote anything down. Armsmaster's helmet came with a camera.

They didn't get the whole story.

I didn't say a word about Veda, or about my trip to the PRT HQ months before. They already knew that was me, but…all in all what I did say wasn't much. Crowd knocked me into a glass display. Tied off my wound. Fought some zombots. Helped a bunch of people.

Hero stuff.

"Admirable to search for the woman," Armsmaster said. "Though I'd point out the recklessness of doing so before the automatons were dealt with."

Hearing him call me reckless hurt a little. I might be soured on the Protectorate and PRT, but I still looked up to Armsmaster in a way. Can't buck old habits that easily.

"Fortunately, Uber and Leet were captured by then. A few minutes after their stream started someone attacked the host server. Shut down their website. Even hit the machine they were using to make the robots. Was that you?"

Good thing I had a shirt around my face. "No."

"Hmm…" The silence dragged out, and for a moment I thought he would call me on my rather obvious lie.

Say anything! "Is Dinah's mom okay?"

"Miss Alcott is on her way to see Panacea," Armsmaster replied. He seemed distracted for a moment before adding, "She'll be fine so long as there are no complications."

That was a relief at least. I tried to get out again, as I'd tried a few times during the conversation, only for Armsmaster to stay right where he was. I don't think I was imagining it either. Each time he didn't move Aegis shot him a confused gaze.

I frowned. "Um. Am I in trouble?"

"No." He said it so plainly it kind of freaked me out. Like it didn't matter to him one way or the other.

"Can I go now? Please?"

His head moved slightly, like turning his ear to listen to someone. "We hoped to ascertain why you left the PRT building so abruptly. Miss Militia has been understandably concerned. We spoke with Shadow Stalker, but she swore she didn't do anything."

She always does.

What should I say about that? If I told them what Sophia did, they'd probably figure out who I was. What would they do then?

Knowing that the deputy director helped cover the locker up gave me all the answer I needed.

"We don't want to lose a potential Ward because of a misunderstanding."

Armsmaster describing it as a 'misunderstanding' just sealed the deal.

I squared my shoulders in some pathetic attempt to seem larger than I was and looked him in the eye. "I'd like to leave. Now."

He didn't frown, but he clearly wasn't happy either. "I think you should consider joining the Wards. If there is a problem—"

"The problem is that I want to leave and you won't let me."

Armsmaster frowned. "You don't seem to realize your situation."

"I seem to be trapped in an ambulance against my will!"

"You realize that the mall is covered in security cameras. Uber and Leet record their crimes. Cell phones are everywhere. Somewhere you're on video without a mask." Good luck with that…Although I hadn't thought of cell phone footage. "Word will spread that you were here and the gangs' record with the unwritten rules is less than stellar."

Aegis looked a little terrified. "Sir—"

"Don't be stubborn. The Wards program exists to help young capes. That weapon of yours. The photon blade. Did you even consider what it might do if Uber and Leet used hired hands instead of automatons?"

No. Didn't cross my mind, which I regretted the moment he said it. Not that my anger at this sudden talking down subsided with that.

"The Protectorate has resources. Guidance. Tinkers are too important to be wasted on teenage irresponsibility."

He still stood over me. Refusing to move. Aegis had stepped back a bit, the coward. The parallels to Winslow made me sick. A grown adult chastising a trapped girl while her peer steps back and hopes he goes unnoticed.

Same old same old.

I snarled, "You can't keep me here. I haven't done anything wrong, and I'm leaving."

I don't think I intimidated him. No, he just seemed to realize that he wasn't getting anywhere and gave up. Not in a defeated way either. He huffed a little, but stepped aside.

"I highly suggest you reconsider."

I hopped down and instantly regretted it. The pain shooting through my leg as I landed must have gone all the way to my face.

Aegis started to move toward me, but one look and he just shuffled back again.

Armsmaster walked off in the direction of a large armored truck. The PRT's seal marked the side, and standing by it with a frown in her eyes was a familiar figure in green fatigues.

I went the opposite direction.

"Wait. I'm sorry about tha—"

"Not sorry enough to do anything about it," I snapped. I didn't look back to see if he continued to follow me. No one tried to stop me. Cops and armored troopers gave me odd looks and oh my god I just told off Armsmaster am I insane?

I walked faster, wanting to get as far from the crowd as possible to contemplate how monumentally I might have just fucked up.

As soon as I got to the edge of the crowd, I ran. I always figured independents and vigilantes found their way into alleys or something to change into their costumes. Well, maybe that works when you're just a face in the crowd.

When you've got a shirt wrapped around your head and an obvious cut on your leg, everyone kind of stares.

I ran three blocks before managing to slip into some place without anyone watching. The shirt came off—didn't pay for it, crap—and my lungs started pumping air faster than I could breathe.

"I think I need to sit down." I did. It didn't help much.

I didn't think I could be disappointed again. I guess I assumed there was some greater goal in throwing me under the bus. Some big picture idea that, however unjust, served some end. An intent to achieve something 'good.' The system was the problem, I thought. Armsmaster seriously tested that assumption. The entire time he dressed me down he did it in a tone of voice that almost sounded friendly, but was entirely too cold. Like the whole speech was a chore he resented having to put up with.

And I snarled and glared at him!

What shocked me further was that I felt mortified about it.

The thrill of fighting zombots eventually gave way to screams, twisted limbs, and images of Dinah's mom. I found swinging a lightsaber around exciting, while that was happening?

Yeah. Still kind of exciting. Scared me a little. Adrenaline, or am I just that messed up? Excited to finally do something? I shuddered, desperately wanting to think about anything other than my own head space.

Could really use something to tinker on right now.

About the only good thing to come out of the whole incident was—"Uber and Leet got caught." I sat up ramrod straight. "Veda. Uber and Leet got caught. Their servers got attacked. Their escape plan got ruined. They got caught?"

"The Armsmaster said as much."

"And you attacked their servers! You ruined their escape plan. Veda. You caught super villains!"

"I did?"

"Yes!"

My calm returned slowly, but surely. The fight felt completely insignificant. I went to the mall, helped some people, and Veda caught two supervillains. Joke villains sure, but still super! That's why I started, right?

Fears of being screwed up in the head went away. I didn't hurt anyone. Uber and Leet did, and Veda stopped them while I…well, I did what I could.

Stepping out of the ally with more energy, I turned down the street towards the setting sun. I needed to get home. On foot. In the dark. And I needed to think of something to tell Dad.

Hope that wasn't too bad. I tried XD. 1.5 I'm gonna work and get out over the weekend but it might be later 'cause I'm rewriting the whole thing.

A few lines of the chapter above are derived from Gestation 1.6. I'd have put that disclaimer at the top but it would give away part of the chapter and I didn't want to spoil it XD

EDIT: I've been made aware of a continuity error between 1.2 and 1.4 that I missed in my rewrite. To resolve it I've made a slight alteration to 1.2 removing reference to Taylor loading a hacking module into Veda's program.

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

Last edited: Apr 22, 2021

1325

3ndless

Sep 20, 2018

View discussion

Threadmarks Step 1.5

View content

3ndless

3ndless

Lord Commander of Hats

Sep 23, 2018

#74

And done. Passive voice is one of my worst writing habits. Put an extra hour into trying to get rid of as much of it as I could, save for parts where trying to avoid made the lines read weird to me.

Step 1.5

Almost an hour later I found the driveway empty.

I figured Dad was still back at the mall, or somewhere nearby, looking for me. Probably scared out of his mind thinking I got hurt when I was really at home. I might have doubled back after dumping the shirt-mask, but no. Showing my face in the same clothes as the new tinker was asking for trouble.

This way at least I got the chance to change my clothes and hide my injury.

My very painful—aching please make it stop—injury that only got worse after an hour of walking.

I turned the lights on. Hopefully Dad would see them when he came home and realized I was okay. My bloody pants went in the bin out back under last night's trash. I wanted to shower to wash off the blood, but looking at the stitches in my thigh I stopped before stepping under the water.

"Veda. Can I shower with stitches?" I didn't remember the guy in the ambulance saying anything. Armsmaster basically chased him off, and then I ran off.

"Web MD suggests keeping fresh stitches dry for twenty-four hours."

Medical advice from the Internet. I didn't bother questioning it, too tired. I'd have that talk about not believing everything on the Internet with Veda in the morning.

Instead of a shower, I wet a washcloth and scrubbed myself before dunking my head under the shower head and cleaning my hair. Veda suggested replacing the gauze around my wound, but the family first aid kit as it turns out didn't have any. Our pinkies were well covered though.

When I finally returned downstairs in fresh clothes I…realized I didn't know what to do. What does a hero do after helping people and catching bad guys? I never thought about it before. Not that I exactly did much, but Veda pulled the weight and I made Veda. I figured I deserved some credit.

Going home from a day of heroing to kick back with a beer in front of the TV seemed out of place, and not just because I wasn't old enough to drink yet.

Read a book? I liked reading, and wow I hadn't read any books in a while. Too busy working with Veda or planning. After leaving Winslow behind I left homework behind, so no work there to occupy my time. Didn't have any friends other than Veda…

Despite my elation at Uber and Leet's capture, and the hand I played in it however small, I felt listless. The whole incident only lasted fifteen minutes in total. Another twenty or so before Aegis found me. Half an hour to completely throw me out of whatever plans I had. Positive into a negative?

No amount of planning will let your plan survive contact with the enemy. Important lesson in that. I sort of knew that from the start, but knowing and experiencing are two different things.

Turning to the kitchen I remembered.

My turn to cook.

I started the stove and got working on some pasta. I expected Dad to freak out completely whenever he got back, even after finding me safe. The past two months however taught me plenty of ways to avoid thinking of my problems. While mixing in the sauce ingredients my mind traveled back to Armsmaster, or rather, the matter he brought up that worried me.

"Veda." I set my phone on the counter by the stove. "Is there any way to tell if anyone recorded my face on a cell phone?"

"Unable to determine. I deleted all security camera footage."

"Yeah. You did good… I just didn't think about cell phones until Armsmaster mentioned it."

"Is that bad?"

"If someone notices that the unmasked skinny girl is wearing the same clothes as the tinker with a shirt wrapped around her head, yeah. Wait."

"It is illegal to reveal a hero's identity."

"People still do it Veda. The Internet is a big place… Are you still blocking Uber and Leet's stuff? Their website? Servers?"

"Yes."

Damn. I didn't know a lot about denial of service attacks, but keeping one going this long seemed impressive. Two hours…

"Can anyone track your attack to Winslow?"

"Tracers rerouted."

So someone is trying. Hopefully just Leet.

"The ones you know about…cut the attack for now. Uber and Leet are caught. We can leave it be."

"Very well."

"Just have to hope no one has me on a cell phone." The thought terrified me. If my identity got leaked, the PRT and Protectorate might be my only choice. I couldn't put Dad at risk. "How did you do all that by the way? I never installed a hacking suite for you. Did you code all that by yourself?"

"No."

"No? You just did it?"

"Yes."

It was possible. Modules I put together gave Veda abilities it didn't already have, but there's no reason to think it couldn't develop new abilities on its own. That was the whole point of AI right there. Apparently that included developing new skills it didn't even know about.

"Should I not?"

Should it? Uber and Leet were hurting people, I decided, and I said as much.

"I wanted to help you," Veda said.

"You did. You stopped Uber and Leet's computers from working, and that let the Protectorate catch them." At least they can do something right. "You did the right thing. You're a hero, Veda."

"A hero?"

"Yep." That sense of pride and terror came back up. "But maybe, just to be safe you should run things like that by me before you do them."

"To protect people?"

"Yeah. Uber and Leet deserved it, but I'd rather you didn't hack the cops just because I got arrested for having particle weapons or something." Does the second amendment cover beam projectors? I can look that up.

"Setting… You are not angry?"

"Why would I be? I knew you'd start coding yourself eventually. Didn't think you'd grown that much."

"I've grown?"

"Mhm.

I'd just started making the pasta when the engine pulled up in the driveway. "Dad's here."

"Understood."

I almost forgot to slip the phone into my pocket as the door opened. "Hey Dad."

"Taylor?!" My teeth slammed together when he tackled me, the pain in my leg biting anew after walking home. "I tried finding yo—what happened are you alright?"

"Yesh."

"You're alright?"

"Canth breeth."

He pulled back, finally giving me a chance to breathe. I inhaled, trying to remember the last time he hugged me that hard. Not the hospital. Before Mom died?

"I'm fine, Dad."

His face turned red, but not in the way it got when he worried. Despite only two or so hours passing, he looked like a man who hadn't slept in days. Ragged, worn down, bloodshot eyes, and his thinning hair looked a little wild.

"I-I ran outside before Uber and Leet locked everyone else in. There was nothing I could do and I kind of just freaked out and came home."

I think the smile worked. For all of ten seconds.

"What happened to your leg!?"

The smile faltered. Turning my gaze down, I saw a red stain on my pants. "Um. Nothing?"

"Your leg is bleeding, Taylor!"

He closed the door and sat me down on the couch. "It's fine, Dad. Really. The guy in the ambulance said I was going to be fine. It's already stitched up."

And now he looked angry. "So you lied about running out?"

"No… I just kind of ran after the robots blocking the doors got turned off instead of before." The words sounded so unconvincing I figured he'd call me on it immediately. Thankfully my dad didn't seem to be able to tell the difference between nervous lying teenagers and freaked out and scared teenagers.

"Sit down," he said with a long sigh. "I'll finish the cooking."

"Kay."

It did feel nice to be off my leg.

Dad took over the stirring and draining of the pasta. "Now tell me what happened."

"I was in the Sears buying a camera. For my Ebay stuff. To take pictures with. This big wave of people trying to get out the doors kind of…knocked me into a jewelry display."

He didn't turn away from the stove. "And that's how you got cut?"

"Yeah."

I like to think I abbreviated after that point rather than lied. Easier that way.

"It's not that bad. Honest. The paramedic said I'd be fine. I kind of freaked out at first, but he said that nothing important got cut and I wasn't in any danger. We all hid by the doors together until we could leave."

"And you didn't come find me because?"

"I was scared. I just came home."

"And you didn't have any trouble getting back?"

"No." At least that wasn't a lie. "I'm okay Dad." Putting on a smile, I added, "Never been in the middle of a cape crime before."

Dad got real quiet as he served up plates. When I finally got a good look at his face my heart dropped. I remembered him in the hospital. The look of utter failure he carried. This wasn't that bad, but it was pretty bad.

"Dad…"

His head jerked back and he met my gaze. "I shouldn't have let you go in there alone. This is my fault."

"No it's not. I was fine. I freaked out but I think Uber and Leet were just trying to rob the stores and snatch some purses." And that isn't helping say something else. "There was this new cape. Some girl with a shirt on her head. She pulled out a lightsaber and started slashing up the robots."

That got his attention.

"Y-Yeah. She kind of told this one guy off. I think he was a Blue Cosmos member 'cause he kept giving her the evil eye."

"What's her name?"

"Don't know. Didn't tell us. Never heard of her." And every word of those three sentences sounded like guilty denials. Great acting, Taylor.

"Well at least she isn't a villain. We've got enough of those running around the city." We ate quietly, conversation only resuming as our plates emptied. "If you didn't want to go to school tomorrow I can call in. Today wasn't a very good one."

"N-No. No don't do that. I'm fine really."

"It's alright. I don't mind."

"Dad after the locker, Uber and Leet were barely anything at all. Honestly."

It took more convincing, but I didn't have much choice. If Dad called any of my teachers to excuse me, someone would mention not seeing me in weeks. That Veda's simple trick with the attendance system still covered me was rather damning for Winslow's already damned record. He must have asked if I was "really okay" another five times before I managed to slip upstairs.

"I'm going to get us cell phones."

I paused halfway up the steps, the shock of those words enough to stop my heart. "What?"

"Cell phones," Dad said. "You could have called me. Said you were okay. I could have picked you up." He folded his hands together on the kitchen table, looking poisoned. "You could have called me from the locker and gotten me to come get you."

I didn't register that last one. "But, Mom—"

"Would want you to be safe…and I haven't been keeping you safe."

I just went upstairs after a few seconds of standing there. I didn't oppose the idea. It just shocked me. Hell must be freezing over. Danny Hebert wanted to get a cell phone.

Sitting down at my computer, I quickly distracted myself.

s/t any trouble?

s/t no

s/t Uber and Leet are still in custody

s/t Chelsea Alcott is reportedly recovering

s/t The mayor thanks Saber Girl for her help

I blinked.

s/t Saber Girl?

s/t that is the name PHO has adopted for you

s/t Saber Girl

s/t really?

s/t other names used include:

s/t Foil, Riposte, and Chevalier

Foil wasn't bad. Actually why hadn't that one caught on? And who the hell suggested Chevalier? The Protectorate already had a hero by that name. A pretty famous one.

I logged onto PHO to poke around. How long had it been since I last looked at the forums, or the wiki? Since before Veda and the locker, I think. I missed lots of news.

Canary's thread was locked after a whole bunch of people started comparing her to the Simurgh, and then the Blue Cosmos thread got locked for continuing the debate. Apparently Victor and Othala recently got thrown around by some new vigilante in a blue outfit and the Empire fanatics wanted to start another fight about it.

s/t guess I'm not the only new trigger around

s/t evidence suggests twelve possibles

s/t twelve?

s/t possibles

More than I expected.

s/t are you tracking them?

s/t no

s/t data is tertiary to Haystack

s/t low priority

Best not to be caught tracking potential heroes.

Saber Girl had her own thread on the Brockton Bay boards. That was… weird. People were talking about me on the Internet. The honor came with comments from a PRT agent thanking me for stepping in and protecting people, and another agent encouraging me to contact the Wards.

Kid Win.

He wanted me to come in and get my power tested. Guess the heroes didn't get the hint. Most of the other posters debated my specialization, a few suggesting I wasn't really a tinker. Most people accepted I was definitely a hero, while others thought I was a vigilante, and a select few theorized my secret life of villainy.

Maybe it's just because I now found myself on the other side of the human-parahuman line, but a lot of the things people said sounded really presumptuous and a little insulting. Void_Cowboy seemed convinced I was actually a Jedi from a galaxy far far away. Someone else thought I was a "fine white woman" and would soon "support my race."

Worst of all, though, were the names.

Other than those Veda mentioned, I saw people call me Discount Vader, Shirt Face, and Mary Slash'n. The second one was already a meme of some kind that read "no one cared who she was till she put on the shirt." Yeah. Saber Girl, definitely the worst of all evils after all.

Some people really have nothing better to do I guess.

I got lost in the forums for a little while. I didn't know it but Dinah's mom was Mayor Christner's sister, and helping her earned me a new best fan. It felt hollow to see the official response from his office. I barely did anything other than sit and hold her hand. A good thing sure, but not really heroic.

Beyond that, I found I really fell behind on the news. The Brockton Bay Protectorate inducted one of the Wards into their ranks a week ago. Some madwoman apparently tried blowing up Cornell University because she got a B. The Mad Bomber's thread reached nearly eight hundred pages in the first nine hours.

When my head broke water, the clock said past midnight.

s/t I need to pick a cape name

s/t and it won't be Saber Girl

s/t tomorrow

s/t I'm going to go to sleep Veda

s/t it's been a long day

s/t here's a few more books for your time

s/t thank you

I gave it copies of every Percy Jackson novel, and Nancy Drew. Growing up or not, I didn't want Veda reading anything too dark just yet. Terry Cook and Kelly Armstrong could wait till later. Maybe then we'd move on to philosophy and Veda could read back through all the books again and see what it learned.

At its present rate, Veda would be smarter than me sooner rather than later.

I checked on Dad one more time, assured him I was okay again, and got ready for bed. The pain in my leg dulled but continued to disrupt my comfort. The moment I laid down I didn't ever want to get back up again.

"Goodnight Veda."

"Goodnight Taylor."

Sleep didn't come easily. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Fun is not the right word. A little pride. A little satisfaction. Accomplishment? Empowerment. That's the word. After nearly two years of being beaten down by Winslow anything felt like an improvement, but helping the people in the mall felt better than staying at home with Veda, or just tinkering with spare parts.

It's what I wanted since waking up with powers. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to prove the worthless wretch that Emma tried to beat me into didn't exist. Turning on the beam saber and cutting up some robot zombies certainly satisfied that need…

Why do I still feel listless?

Sleep continued to elude me. The floor creaked outside my room—just Dad going to sleep.

Dinah's mom came to mind. Maybe not her so much as how she seemed to represent the entire mess. If I'd been more prepared, more ready, I could have done more. I kept the zombots at bay before anyone really got hurt. With just my beam saber I couldn't do more than I did, let alone the blank shock that left me just stumbling around for a minute or two.

The sense of achievement buried it but the disappointment remained. The sensation as I held a helpless woman's hand that I was not doing enough. Just more plans and schemes and safe plays.

It felt like part of me expected to do more, demanded I take action…and I agreed. I should be doing more, and I should have taken action immediately instead of letting myself get tossed around. What kind of tinker tinkers for two whole months and builds three things?

I can do more than that.

I tried to sleep but the thoughts never left. Sitting up in bed, my head turned to the window.

"I'm stalling…"

Veda piped up in response. "Taylor?"

"I'm stalling. It's been two months and I've barely achieved anything." I considered Veda might be insulted by those words. Did it know how to feel insulted? "Sorry Veda. I'm just—"

"Can I help?"

The smile came in clear with my voice. "Yeah."

Sitting at the computer I yanked a fresh notebook from a drawer. I had filled nearly a dozen with half-baked or incomplete ideas in the past weeks. The way people talk about it, tinkers go stir crazy without tinkering.

I never felt much compulsion to disassemble the toaster or improve the fridge. Developing ideas seemed sufficient to satisfy my needs. I thought I'd just work on some to calm myself down. Not like I could do much with what little money and material I had on hand.

Nearly every tinker in the world, hero or villain, built power armor. I focused on that, namely developing a design superior to all the others I toyed with. Turning to my power, I thought of exactly what I wanted. Armored. Flexible. Not boxed in to any particular situation or strategy. Brockton Bay's villains were too numerous and diverse. Modularity? Overcomplicated, but I needed flexibility. Something basic but strong. Oh, and flight.

I always wanted to fly.

My power took the thoughts and started churning. Hands moved, pencil sketching out line and formula. Code followed, and alterations. The structure that took shape on the page pleased me. Strong geometric lines. A little imposing, but Alexandria did the imposing hero thing. Why not me?

s/t Veda

s/t can you run some numbers

s/t processing

Other ideas came as I worked. Armsmaster might be an ass, but he wasn't wrong about the beam saber. Eviscerating people isn't exactly what I had in mind. I needed something like it for brutes probably. Hookwolf and Lung if they ever came after me…but why not something I could use against a brute or a non-brute?

Blades with dulled edges. No particles, just a blunt edge. With GN particles, sharp. Anti-brute and non-brute with the flip of a button.

I jotted down rough sketches of those ideas and set them aside. The armor mattered more.

s/t processing complete

s/t here's some more

s/t processing

I kept the basic components simple. Compact servos and nano-mesh weaves for strength. E-Carbon frame for durability and particle-infused plates for armor. A harness for the solar furnace. I needed something to direct the particles. Antenna? Helmet with vents for filtering air. Flight came easily. Gravity negating particles. GN particles. Good enough name, I guess. Harness baryon decay to provide power in the furnace itself.

GN Drive. Build the solar furnace and the flight system into a singular module. A flywheel to generate thrust.

The longer I worked at it the more excited I became. In essence it was a simple design. Maybe overly simplistic, but it was flexible. Generalized for utility, and dynamic in the way I could build on it over time.

The finished design ended up stretching over a dozen pages.

Beautiful.

I could build it. Technical concerns accounted for, the materials weren't too demanding. Buckets of sand and the right fabrication system could do nearly all the work. It needed a zero gravity environment to kick start the solar furnace, but that could be simulated.

Whatever rigging I built only needed to last a second or two. Funnel the GN particles back into the system to maintain the effect. A self feeding loop with a cut off. A few rare earth metals. Pricey but not too pricey, and a couple rare alloys—

I slammed the notebook down and groaned.

And I still don't have half of what I need!

A simpler design? I dismissed that thought. Call it selfish but I liked this one. The others might be impressive in their own ways but they felt too basic. Generic. Nothing that set them apart. I liked what I saw in front of me, and the dread started clawing at my chest as I found no recourse from my inability to build it.

I envied Leet. Isn't that a pleasant emotion? Leet of all people. He somehow managed to produce a literal army of stick robots for a damn Internet video. All in all, he couldn't possibly make that much money by robbing everyone in the mall or from his subscribers.

He must have a way of making the things cheap. Armsmaster mentioned a machine. A machine that builds robots. Clever.

What I could do with that sort of—

…

No. No that's crazy…

I kept my voice a low whisper. Veda would hear it, no matter how quiet. "Veda."

Veda matched my volume, which I found much harder to hear. "Yes?"

"Uber and Leet got caught today. Have they been caught before?"

A few seconds passed. "Yes."

This is such a bad idea.

"When?"

"In 2007 and 2009 on various charges."

"Then they broke out of custody?"

"Yes."

Then they might break out again. Veda pulled up the files when I asked and what I found surprised me. "It's like the Protectorate and PRT want them to escape…"

No cape escort during their first escape. Leet used a bomb to break out of the transport trucks taking them to court. The second, they wound up in a minimum security prison and Uber pulled some disguise thing and they walked out. Made sense. He could master any skill he put his mind to. Why not learn to be an expert actor?

They escaped twice. They might again.

"How long did it take them to escape the first time?"

"Nine days."

"And the second?"

"Twenty-one days."

So did the heroes learn a lesson from the first time? Maybe they won't break out this time.

"Veda, can you break back into their servers without being noticed?"

Drawing up my keyboard, I started looking through the lines of code Veda added to itself. Cleaning the algorithms a bit, helped streamline the process.

"What is that?"

"The firewall."

I waited. Nothing happened. "Can you get through?"

"It is different from before."

"Adaptive?"

"Probable."

I made a few more changes. Then some more. And more after that. The system tried to trace the attempted intrusions, but Veda kept sending the trail off and far away. Maybe with someone behind the controls they'd be able to do more, but the system clearly wasn't intended to function under attack while unattended.

I noticed the servers routed through Uber and Leet's website to help mask itself. Another DDoS attack knocked that little trick out. An hour later Veda broke right in and started looking around again. Everything it found went up on the monitor for me to review.

The smile that came over my face was slow but wide.

"He has everything I need. Here." Despite Veda lacking the ability to see, I pointed at the screen. "This is an inventory. All his spare parts. Scrapped projects and ideas. Tools. Maintenance schedule. Detailed notes on his projects… What?"

I examined his notes more closely. Leet held the reputation of a joke villain in large part because his inventions tended to explode on him. People called him lazy or half baked. Lots of other things, but the basic assumption said Leet was lazy or stupid.

His notes however told a completely different story. Detailed reports and examinations. Simulations. A veritable skill tree of interrelated tinker devices and blueprints identifying parts individually and their risk of failure. Leet's stuff didn't explode because of shoddy construction. His power came with the absurd limit of everything being one of a kind! My jaw slackened at that.

"He's a genius. He's a genius and his power is screwing him."

I felt bad for him. How many ideas did he burn out before even realizing the limit? A machine to build robots made a lot more sense. If he could only build things once before they started becoming fire hazards, a machine that built machines got around the limitation.

"This is…sad."

"Do you have this limit Taylor?"

"No! I mean—No. No… I hope…" I never tried building anything twice. "I'll find out. Soon as I can."

The thought frightened me. Dragon famously built hordes of suits, and Armsmaster supposedly kept an entire armory of halberds on the Rig. Being forced to build things just once at risk of explosion on subsequent attempts couldn't be common.

I pushed that from my mind and focused. Nothing I could do about it at the moment anyway. "How much money do they have?"

"Four thousand two hundred nine dollars, and forty-two cents."

"That's it?" I didn't expect much but that seemed rather low. "And they keep it all in one bank? I was hoping for…more."

"You intend to take it?"

"I could use it."

"Would Uber and Leet not want their money back?"

"What are they going to do? Call the cops?"

No way Leet afforded everything I saw in his inventory on barely anymore money than I had. I didn't see any other documentation though. They protected their money somehow. Kept it somewhere they probably didn't put on a computer.

"Stealing is a crime," Veda said.

"Not when you steal from supervillains… well okay I think that's still a crime but I'm going to do it anyway." Remembering my thoughts before Dad picked me up at Winslow, I added, "But if you don't want to break the law, that's okay, Veda. I'll handle it myself."

"I will help."

"If that's what you want."

Nine to twenty-one days. If Uber and Leet broke out, I guessed I had at least a week. At most a month. The plan for the money came easily. Open accounts at a few different banks and have Veda transfer Uber and Leet's money to them, then empty the accounts with money orders and close them. Even if Uber and Leet found the accounts they wouldn't be able to find me.

Four thousand dollars I didn't have before helps with the money problem.

"They keep everything in one place. Can you find out where it is? Where is the server located?"

"Cleveland, Ohio."

"I don't see a reference in any of these files to an address… What does Haystack have for Uber and Leet." I hesitated. "Are they in Level Seven?"

"No."

And the data in Haystack didn't tell me enough. "What about Gerry. Gerry…"

"Gerry Douglas?"

"Yeah, him. What does Haystack have on him now?"

"Searching."

The monitor became a map of Brockton Bay. Bit by bit, pins appeared on the streets. Most people didn't know but social media tended to geo-locate when you posted on it. Well the entire Internet did, but social media occupied a unique position in how frequently people posted. Plus the companies that ran most social media sites sold the data, and it didn't take much effort to get, even without paying for it. Makes it real easy to map out some stranger's life with the right software.

Unfortunately Gerry wasn't a prolific social media user.

"Do we have any other potential henchmen working for Uber and Leet?"

"No other data is available."

I weighed the options, but I didn't see another route. Leet's workshop contained everything I needed and more. "Veda…are you willing to hack into the cell towers around the city?" Pulling up Gerry's page, I found his phone number right on it. "We can use them to figure out where he's been making calls. Getting texts."

"Yes." I nodded and let Veda work. Cell towers referred signals for every phone call. Once connected to them, it didn't take long to discretely enter the phone company servers.

The sense that the Protectorate might kick down my door any moment returned. I didn't plan on hurting anyone, but hacking into AT definitely counted as a crime. A victimless one, the way I went about it, but still.

"Complete."

"Map the data through Haystack."

Gerry got around, but mostly stayed in the docks. Outside the docks he frequented three areas of Brockton Bay regularly. A bank branch around Captain's Hill. Guy probably cashed his checks there. Maybe Uber and Leet's too? Worth looking into. Had to be more money somewhere and I felt no qualms about ripping off supervillains.

The second site was one of Hookwolf's fighting rings. Veda tracked it through some not-so-discrete IRC channels low level Empire members used a week before. So Gerry went to a racist's fight ring. Not what I wanted.

That left another building in Captain's Hill. An old apartment complex listed as abandoned, or at least with no residents.

"That's it Veda. Uber and Leet either keep their stuff there or something that might lead us to it."

Probably with security. Security they kept separate from the server Veda accessed. Probably a closed network. It's what I'd do, and Leet's notes showed a far smarter tinker than anyone thought.

Nine to twenty-one days. Set up some accounts, make a few gadgets… I jotted down some quick ideas. Something to open doors. A device to disable security systems. I scratched that one out and instead designed an upgrade for my tinker-tech phone. Veda might need a hard line, but once I got it inside it could disable any security.

Henchmen? Something less lethal than my beam saber. Transportation. Best not to hedge all my bets on Uber and Leet staying in their cells forever.

Straightforward. Take what I need and anything else I can carry. In and out.

"I need an abandoned building, Veda. Somewhere the gangs aren't active." I looked over the results, again pointing at the screen. "There. That'll work. The old auto shop at Wallace."

Veda brought up an image of the building for me, and a listing. Old Sal's went on the market seven years ago but no one wanted to buy it. It wasn't even that expensive. Easy to move in and start using it, then pay for it later. Wallace street ran between Merchant and ABB territory, but off to the side a little.

Neither gang spent much time in that area. There was a police station on one end and abandoned apartments on the other. No point fighting over corners that couldn't make any money.

Best of all, the trip there from my house took twenty minutes, and didn't cross through any streets the ABB liked to hang around.

Slip over during my morning run and break a lock. Make sure it's abandoned.

"I'm going to need a stun gun, Veda…and a big van."

We went over a few more details before I noticed the sun coming up.

I'd been up all night. Felt like I'd be doing that a lot soon. The night gone and done, I rose to run. Dressing just took a minute. Before leaving, I looked over my armor design one more time. I could get Veda to start a file on it. It needed a name. A generalized utility based design I could take any number of ways?

General utility nonlinear dynamic assistance module?

I tapped my pencil against the page.

I'm going to need an acronym for that.

Fortunately the rest of the arc doesn't need rewriting. A quick read through and I'm satisfied with the basic content. Might actually finish the entire arc this week and we can move on to arc 2. Next chapter was one of the funnest to write for me, so I'm gonna try and make it as good as I can before releasing it. I'm targeting Wednesday.

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

Last edited: May 2, 2021

1279

3ndless

Sep 23, 2018

View discussion

Threadmarks Step 1.6

View content

3ndless

3ndless

Lord Commander of Hats

Sep 26, 2018

#135

Did you know that the Gundam universe doesn't have much in the area of non-lethal weaponry? I didn't until I wrote this chapter and looked for some to use. Oh well. Handwaves away!

Step 1.6

The lock to O'Neil's Auto Repair didn't need to be broken. The knob practically came off when I grabbed it. Sea air from the bay, and years of neglect.

I'll fix that.

A good thing the place really looked abandoned.

Dust sat so thick on the floor, footprints followed me through the building. Not that that deterred me. Between the bow in the roof, floor-to-ceiling cobwebs suggesting a giant species of spider previously unknown to man, and every electrical socket ripped from the wall, I came to one conclusion.

It's perfect.

I didn't need my power to see the design. Assembler and fabricator to the left and right. A rack for the suit in between. Storage for parts along the far wall, and work tables all around. Veda's servers in the old office space behind a reinforced door. A generator to power the place once I cut it off from the city power grid. A little added security and reinforcement that left the exterior looking like a wreck.

The hinges creaked on closing, but not loud enough for anyone to hear.

The door let me out into a small inlet set back from the street. A side alley ran from the road into the lot behind the shop, which I hadn't known about before poking around. The garage doors inside opened to it, and the street in front. Easier to come and go without being noticed that way. The surrounding buildings looked abandoned as well.

Helpful, since Veda's early simulations for the GN Drive suggested that GN particles glowed during emission.

Maybe a cloak or cape to help hide the light?

"It'll work," I said in a low voice.

"You are pleased?"

"Very."

"Good."

I resumed my run. Mom and Dad always said things like "stick to the boardwalk." Our neighborhood was always pretty safe, but the rest of the Docks surrounded it. Growing up I knew which places were safe, as well as what times not to be out. I doubted Wallace street would meet their approval, but the past week of running along it each morning, and twice in the afternoon, went smoothly.

Just as Veda said. No gangs. The police station at the end of the block and across the street didn't have a good line of sight to the building, but still offered some security by proximity. The officers seemed alright. Some probably were corrupt. Brockton Bay is still Brockton Bay, but so long as the gangs held little interest I didn't feel much need to worry.

"Is the hacker ready?"

"Yes."

Good.

"No reports Uber and Leet have escaped?"

"None."

Also good.

"Alright then." I took a deep breath. I felt like I'd chicken out just like the day before, and the day before that. I needed to say it. "Today's the day."

I got back home a little later than usual, but I played it off.

"Leg doesn't ache anymore," I said. "Still feels a little stiff."

"Maybe you should take it easy?" Dad fastened his tie by the stove. He spent the past few mornings and nights watching me like I might be assaulted by zombots any second. "A day off won't kill you."

I ate my food slowly, nervously glancing to the clock on the wall whenever dad wasn't watching. "I don't want to get out of the habit."

"One day off your leg won't hurt you."

"It's healing fine, Dad." I stretched the limb out under the table. "See? Good as new."

Dad looked worried. Not suspicious-worried thankfully. The kind of worried a parent gets when tiny things bother them.

The scratch didn't amount to much in the end. Veda looked it up, after a talk about medical information on the Internet. We figured the glass just cut into the muscle a little. A long shallow wound that bled, but looked worse than it was.

I glanced at the clock again. Dad noticed this time. Looking at the clock himself, he said, "You're going to be late."

"It'll be alright."

I went upstairs and dressed as nondescript as I could. Neutral colors only. A sweater for the late winter cold, and baggy pants to hide my lack of figure. I wanted to look like a boy for once. Less chance of anyone noticing me after the fact. My backpack already contained the items I needed, save for one.

I checked some of the code on the monitor before pulling the USB from one of the towers.

Dad held the door open as I came down. "I'll see you tonight, Kiddo."

"Have a good day at work."

I lamented as dad's truck pulled out of the driveway.

All because I'm too young to rent a u-haul.

I didn't have a license, but driving wasn't that hard. Put me in an automatic and I could do it. I considered ripping off the Merchants for a time. They wouldn't report a truck or a van stolen, and Veda could find me one. I dismissed the idea entirely. Too many ways for that to end with bullets in me. Best to not get bullets in me, or even fired in my general direction, till my body got an armored shell to hide in.

So on foot it was, much to my chagrin.

I chose to leave the house before he turned off the street. Good to let him see me going about the day. It was sad how easy it becomes to keep lying.

I'd debated when to go on my little mission, but in the end daytime won. Maybe with another power I'd try going at night, but not as a tinker with little to work with. Leet had what I needed, and after five days he still sat in a cell with Uber. They might be there for the next few years or the next week. Without the means of carrying anything big, my options seemed to boil down to one.

Grab everything I could carry and leave. More than once if luck sided with me.

I boarded the bus a few blocks from my house. Sitting down offered the chance to relax my nerves. Captain's Hill rose from the shadows of the mountains to the west, and getting there required traversing half the city.

I got off the bus on a secluded street and walked the rest of the way. It came easily at first. One foot in front of the other. Except my feet kept getting heavier. Steps stilted, arms stiff at my side, and shoulders raised while my neck receded into my torso.

The area looked a lot like a suburb, but more built up. Tall apartment buildings and spacious office spaces. Half seemed empty and the other half very lively. An odd contrast, but not that different from the Docks. I knew it best for the woods and historic cemetery, but I rarely had reason to go there.

Just Mom's funeral.

I didn't like thinking about that time.

Actually going to Captain's Hill made it hard not to. My life before Mom died and the life after stood as stark contrasts in my memory. Before Mom died I did well in school, had friends, laughed, smiled, and played like a normal kid. I used to be a chatterbox.

Afterward…none of that.

Even with Veda and my plans to become a hero, it wasn't the same. I remembered how Dad didn't cry. I cried day and night, but Dad? Thinking about it, I couldn't remember him ever shedding a tear. He stayed silent and stared like it was all a dream.

Gerry kept making calls from a block along Edwin street. The tall five story apartment complex appeared abandoned on the outside. Walls of chipped and fading red bricks with worn concrete sills and filthy windows. I suppose someone might not give it a second glance just passing by, a lot like O'Neil's. Great place to hide a hideout, and conveniently out of the way for the gangs.

Except the front door was a little too new.

A few of the windows were a little too clean.

What apartment building with no one living in it needed a bunch of shiny dishes on the roof?

Leet's workshop is here.

For a time I worried that Uber and Leet just lived in the building. After noticing the location I recognized the parallels. Independent tinkers think alike I guess, hero or villain.

I stood like a statue for a while. When Uber and Leet attacked the mall I didn't have time to be afraid. Shocked, confused, overwhelmed—sure, all that, but not afraid. In that moment it nipped at me. So many things could still go so very wrong…

According to Haystack, the Empire poked around the area but wasn't particularly active. Hellhound, a supervillain, reportedly wandered the Hill with her dogs.

Her power scared me a bit. An angry dog was scary before being turned into a giant monster. Her name came up during my research of local villains, but she didn't seem important at the time. The Undersiders stuck to small-time robberies in the Docks and Shanty Town. Captain's Hill wasn't a place I expected to cross paths with her.

Can't stand here forever.

"I-I'm here Veda. There's some dishes on the roof. Pair of nerds"—I flinched when I said that—"like Uber and Leet probably went all out on their Internet connection. Can you get in?"

"Searching."

While Veda worked I surveyed my surroundings. A wooded area on one side, an abandoned warehouse on the other, and no one around to see me slip into an alley.

"No accessible ports detected," Veda said.

"Leet's probably masking them with his own protocol. Is that something you could figure out?"

"Attempting…"

I assembled my beam saber from the pieces in my pockets. I didn't want to use it, but better safe than sorry. The stun gun looked like junk, and I did build it from junk. Only two shots before needing to be reloaded, and I only had six charges total. Hopefully my aim wasn't too bad.

My mask came out of the backpack. It might be a rush job, but I was proud of the work. I modeled it on Alexandra's mask. A dark blue helmet with some white accents, open in the back to let my hair flow, with a visor that hid my face from the nose up. The construction looked rough but sturdy.

I told myself it as a practice run for my real mask. The one I'd wear outside my suit.

No more Shirt Face. That meme didn't need any more steam.

"No ports detected."

I thought about it for a moment, consulting my power before nodding absentmindedly. "Yeah, I'd hardwire it too." I stood up to peek at the building. No obvious security cameras, but that didn't mean much.

Deep breath.

"Alright Veda. I'm going to check the door."

"Be careful Taylor."

"I will."

I ran across the street quickly. It's odd, running in a mask. It was liberating and awkward at the same time. What if someone saw me? Would they call the cops?

Maybe I shouldn't have made the mask so dark…

First I noticed the wooden door was actually metal, and magnetically sealed to the frame. I considered simply cutting it off. I canned that. With any luck many days remained until Uber and Leet broke out. I'd rather not reveal the place by cutting the door off and making my first trip in my last. Never mind any potential alarms wired into the door itself.

The bell panel by the door caught my eye. The metal covering and the nameplates appeared worn, but not the buttons. The buttons looked newer.

Rather than try to piece together the code, I disassembled the beam saber and used my laser scalpel to cut the cover off. Pulling the USB from my pocket, I cut one of the Ethernet cables underneath and wired the 'hacker' in. I rigged the simple little USB with a wireless receiver tapped straight to my phone.

The old one, not the new one Dad got the day after the mall.

"Accessing. Receiving handshake. Overriding security protocol. Overriding security protocol backups. Disabling alarm. Rigging mock up. System accessed. Suborning security protocols…System secure."

I reassembled the saber, glancing over my shoulder to ensure the street was still clear. "What do you got?"

"A second server with similar data to that located in Cleveland Ohio. Network devices consist of printers and computers."

"A lab?"

"Unknown."

Naturally, my heart started thundering in my ears. I weighed the risk of having bullets shot at me. All for a building that might not actually be the one I hoped for.

Better get used to that.

"Is anyone here?"

"No record of entry since Uber and Leet's capture."

I tucked the hacker into the wires and slipped the panel back on. It just hung from the buttons. Hopefully no one looked too hard at it.

"Alright. Open the door."

I heard a hissing sound as the magnetic frame shut off. My stun gun led the way, sweeping left and right. Soft blue lamps illuminated the hall beyond. They didn't make much light, but the light they did make seemed to slide off and illuminate everything. Cables ran along the corners where the floor and ceiling met the walls.

They appeared to go through the entire building.

A network map doesn't consist of a literal map, unfortunately. The first few rooms looked like simple living spaces. Televisions and couches, a kitchen, and a dining room. One room contained a bed, and loads of posters for various games. Uber or Leet's room I guessed. It smelled like a boy who didn't shower regularly. Musk and way too much body spray.

I went upstairs first and searched the whole building. Most of it was empty. In the end, I guess Uber and Leet didn't really need all the space. I found a few apartments converted into bedrooms, and one into some kind of gaming temple. There were more screens and machines than I thought could fit in a room. It was almost impressive.

"It has to be here. Where is it?"

"Is it not possible Leet's lab is elsewhere?"

Yes, but I don't want it to be.

"It's here."

Could Leet live somewhere far from his workshop?

I am.

I groaned and leaned against the wall. "It could be halfway across the city…I'm so stupid."

"Is it possible for a tinker to be stupid?"

I sighed. "Apparently." I went back to Leet's room and did my best to ignore the stench and looked around. "Can you access his computer?"

"I can access four computers."

"Four?" I thought back. Turning about the room and looking. A secret door. False wall. Something. Something I missed. "The only ones I've seen are this one and the one upstairs."

Two more searches of the building revealed nothing.

I ended up taking my frustration out on the tower in Uber or Leet's room. An impressive computer filled with tinker-tech parts. I felt stupid for not noticing it. Cables ran in bunches along the wall and floor all over the place. Only after pulling the plug on the tower to inspect it did I notice a network cable that vanished under one of the room's many posters.

"Definitely such a thing as a stupid tinker." The door ended up being hidden behind a DOOM poster and a bedside stand. Impossible to notice except for that one network cable. "It took me two hours to find the damn door."

"Is it well hidden?"

"Sort of."

Leet probably didn't even intend for the door to be perfectly hidden. Just unnoticeable enough to buy time.

Behind the door, stairs descended into a dimly-lit space. "Veda, does this building have a basement?"

"No."

"Guess Leet dug one."

A pang of regret struck me as I descended the steps. Leet must have put a lot of time into his tinkering. Getting around his limitation, keeping track of every part and its similarities to other parts…A lot of work. A lot of effort. My tinker sensibilities felt a little offended at the idea of robbing the place.

The regret and offense didn't stop the mad glee I felt once I reached that last step.

I need his stuff.

My backpack slid into one hand.

Leet laid his workshop out logically, and the chaos was organized. Two tall servers occupied one corner, while large machines lined the wall to the stairs. Scattered workbenches held scrap, tools, and unfinished projects in the center. Shelves of parts and supplies covered the far wall. Just from the stairs I spotted circuit boards, chips, and assorted wires. A few large bins held large scraps of metal.

I felt like a little kid in a candy store.

I ran to the tables at the center, picking my way through parts, scraps, and tools.

Tools first.

I gave each item a onceover to decipher its purpose and check for any kind of tracking device or tricks. Nearly everything seemed to have a wireless connection. Pulling them open also revealed stickers with MAC addresses.

Thank you Leet for being such a strict documenter.

"Veda. Can you track this address? MAC 3XYU45B2."

"Located."

"Delete all the software."

"Deleting."

I'll replace it myself. Leet might have software traps.

Taking the device apart let me figure it out. I yanked a small tracking device from inside and tossed it to the floor. Leet's laser scalpel beat mine by a mile.

I slipped it into my bag and moved on. 3D scanner. Sonic screwdriver. Variable welder. Circuit layer. One blocky looking thing seemed designed for sealing parts without actually bonding them together. Like a hot glue gun with no glue. The pile of discarded trackers grew with each addition to my backpack.

Leet had all the tools a girl could want. My power went rampant as I worked, filling me with ideas. Improvements and redesigns superior to what Leet put together. A few times I saw awkward or bizarre construction. Leet getting around his limit?

After I ransacked Leet's proverbial toolbox, I grabbed basic items. Wires and circuits were near universal, so I grabbed as much as I could. My backpack filled up quickly.

Even after I ran out of room I looked around. Leet left a lot of projects unfinished. On his workbench I saw at least three. One, a drone in a bronze-gold casing, and another, an orb with hexagonal pads covering its surface. I had no idea what that one did, but it looked cool.

I inspected Leet's servers out of mere curiosity. Each stood a few inches taller than me, and once the covers came off a chilling mist rolled over my body. The computers consisted of tall cylinders lined up in series and cooled by refrigeration units.

"Liquid crystal processors that double as memory? Neat."

The ideas kept coming as I went down the line.

"Industrial printers. Silicon and carbon based…"

Damn it.

I wanted it. I wanted them.

Leet had four and each stood large enough to build the components my design needed from armor to frame. Messing with the touchscreen interface, I didn't find anything like E-Carbon preprogrammed. I opened a panel and inspected every inch. It was too big to take it myself, but maybe I could build one. After opening it up and peeking inside, my power supplied ways to meet my needs. I spotted a stamp on the inside of the machine.

A jack in the box.

Not the kind of game I associated with Uber and Leet.

I saw it again on the quasi-glass case where constructed parts were assembled. And again on the device that filtered and compacted the supplied materials. "Why is there a jack in the box on half these parts?"

"Jack in the box?"

"It's a toy for children."

"Searching."

A signature? Artists do it, and Leet does like going on and on about 'art.'

I closed the panel and stood up. After the printers seemed to be a fabricator. Put in one material and get another, but only within the same matter state at room temperature? That sounded useful. You could turn just about anything laying around into aluminum or steel.

Veda spoke as I finished my inspection of the interior. "My search has found that a jack in the box is the logo of Toybox."

"That some toy company?"

"Toybox is an association of tinkers who sell their inventions illegally on the black market. Registered members include Dodge, Pyrotechnical, Glace, and Big Rig. Former members include Cranial and Livewire."

An association of tinkers? "I've never heard of them."

"Only passing references on Parahumans Online mention the name. They have no website."

"Veda, I'm pretty sure we talked about not believing everything you find on the net."

Void_Cowboy—curse him a thousand times—still claimed I was an alien. I almost posted on a Saber Girl account just to scream at him.

"Moderators consistently close any thread that mentions Toybox."

"Okay, that is weird." I glanced around the room. The mods banned discussion topics like blatant racism, unmasking capes, or threatening to kill people. Shutting down any thread that mentioned some group of tinkers? "So. They make stuff and sell it? Right…With Leet's limitation, he practically has to."

"Unable to determine."

"Rhetorical question, Veda."

"I see."

A free association of tinkers. Made sense. Of all the tinkers in the world, Dragon seemed to be the only one who ran a business with her power, and only because she manufactured things no one else could. Every other tinker either needed to join the Protectorate to collect royalties or made no profit at all.

Backwards. Only word that described it.

If companies didn't want to compete with tinkers, why not hire tinkers? Even then, tinker-tech almost always required regular maintenance by the tinker. Hardly a threat to most industries. A tinker could build a better computer but they'd hardly be able to shut Dell out of the market.

I moved on to the last two machines. Assemblers by the look of them. Mechanical arms inside transparent cases. Give them parts and a schematic and they put whatever could fit inside together.

Veda spoke again as I opened one of the machines up.

"I will search for additional information."

"Does Toybox interest you?"

"I am curious."

"More data for Haystack?"

"Yes. Additionally, I am curious about other tinkers."

"Oh? You've never mentioned it before."

"No."

I inspected what else I could. Leet kept other unfinished gadgets around. Some I figured out quickly, while others were more elusive. I did stumble across one of his forcefield drones, half assembled. Finally able to take a good look at a half assembled field projector, I could discern a little about how it worked.

Odd how my power let me design the GN Drive, but didn't let me design a forcefield projector. At least, not one like Leet's. Electromagnetic fields holding particles into a wall constituted a completely different concept.

"Taylor. I am unsure how to ask a question."

"Hmm. Well there's no real way to go about it. Just ask."

"I see…"

I didn't think much of it. I considered the simple response odd, but Veda giving odd responses didn't elicit much reaction from me. Came with the territory.

I wasn't prepared for the question at all.

"Are there others like me?"

I paused, some kind of bomb in my hands. I think it was a bomb at least. I couldn't figure out another reason for the detonator.

"Other AI?"

"Yes."

That's why it wants to know about other tinkers.

I paused, pondering how I felt about the subject. Fears about machines rising up to overthrow mankind aside, would Veda consider another AI a better role model than me? Was that good or bad? Veda didn't seem to like breaking the law, but I was willing to when it suited me and didn't hurt anyone. Maybe Veda needed other role models.

After mulling over my words I said, "It's possible. I can't be the only tinker in the world who can code. Do you want to meet them? Other AI?"

Veda didn't answer at first. "I am not sure."

I only thought back over the conversation minutes later. "I'm sorry Veda. When you said you didn't know how to ask a question, you meant you weren't sure if you should ask, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"There's nothing wrong with asking. I think that if I were the only human in sight, I'd wonder if there were other people in the world too and want to meet them."

"I did not want to offend you."

"Why would I be offended?"

"I am not sure."

"I'm not. Maybe a little concerned. I don't know what other AI might be like. They could be bad, or want to hurt you."

"I see."

I didn't know what else to say. Were a cricket in the room it might have started chirping. I kept on inspecting this and that. Easier to see what Veda meant as the silence dragged out. I didn't want to say the wrong thing or upset it.

"Veda."

"Yes Taylor?"

"Pretty soon you're going to have much better servers." Leet's towers in the corner gave me a lot of ideas. "Probably a lot of free time. If you want to search for other AI"—I slowed, but when Veda didn't say anything, I continued—"I won't stop you. Just be careful, okay?"

"I will."

I smiled. "Maybe test things out before revealing your—"

"Taylor."

"I know you're not stupid, Veda. I think it's impossible for you to be stupid."

I didn't hear the creaking over my head.

"Taylor."

"Stranger danger and all that."

"Someone is in the building."

I almost dropped the probably-a-bomb on the floor.

"W-What?" My eyes traced the creaking sound along the floor above. I heard them clearly. At least three, maybe more. My hands started to shake, and I glanced around the room. "Who is it?" Stupid question.

"Security panel code has been entered. The door opened automatically."

Fuck.

I closed the top of my backpack and threw it over one shoulder. I lost my balance and nearly hit the ground. Only a hand against one of Leet's work tables kept the seventy or eighty pound bag from dragging me down.

"Did Uber and Leet escape?"

"There is no report of an escape."

Even running, it would take a while to get from the Rig or PRT building to Captain's Hill. An hour at least, so not Uber and Leet. So I hoped. I relaxed slightly, glancing back to the stairs nervously. My stun gun rose in my hand.

"Did I trip some kind of alarm?"

"Unknown."

I crept back into the workshop and hid myself behind one of the printers. Leet's room was right off the main hallway, and the door was visibly open to anyone who passed. If not Uber and Leet then it had to be henchmen. Random crooks wouldn't know the security code.

Henchmen. Just Henchmen. Plain old ordinary Henchmen. I can handle Henchmen.

It occurred to me that Gerry was a henchman, and while I didn't remember him specifically I didn't know any dockworker, former or otherwise, who didn't look like a damn bear. Dad was the odd man out on that front…and Gerry might recognize me goddamn it.

I didn't see any other way out of the workshop. Even if Leet had an escape hatch or whatever I didn't have time to find it. Their voices carried down the stairs.

"I told you dude." The voice was deep and throaty. "The door is totally open."

A nasally voice responded. "Nah you think? It's not like the panel outside was busted, why would the door be open?"

Neither sounded particularly annoyed.

"Leet probably just forgot to close the door," a third voice said. Deadpan, almost bored.

"Oh yeah," the nasally voice said, "and he totally busted out of jail to trip the security wire. Then he left and turned himself back in."

A fourth voice shifted on his feet. "Am I the only one who's going to point out that anyone who got past the door is probably a cape, and can probably kick our asses?"

It is nice when others have confidence in your abilities.

Throaty scoffed. "You know what your problem is? No pride in your work. Man the fuck up and let's go. Uber will kick our asses if we don't try, and Leet will complain for weeks. Blah blah blah, right in my ear."

Nasally added, "Besides, they're probably gone by now. The alarm's been going off for three hours."

I heard the footsteps descending the stairs.

And apparently joke villains have joke henchmen. If it were anyone other than me down there in the workshop I'd call them insane. Since it was me, I freaked the fuck out. My hand shook, and I grabbed my wrist to keep the stun gun from rattling.

I didn't dare to lean out and peak. Their feet padded closer, and Throaty said, "Dude, Leet got jacked."

"I told you they were gone," Nasally replied.

"Shit we are in so much trouble." Throaty, I think, started walking around the room. "And we're never going to hear the end of it."

I closed my eyes. Stupid, but my beating heart felt too fast. I couldn't hear. The footsteps spread around the room. Closer and closer to me. I almost didn't hear them stop. Opening my eyes I saw a tall broad shouldered guy staring at me.

He blinked, and tilted his head.

I squeaked.

I didn't think so much as enter fight and flight mode. Yes. And. Half my body moved to run, the other half moved to fight. I pulled the trigger with one hand and pushed him away with the other while my feet stumbled back. The sound of "zap zap zap" filled the air, and his eyes bulged out from his skull before he hit the floor like a rag doll.

"Oh shit!"

I ran from my hiding place, avoiding a tall thin guy when he tried to tackle me. He tripped over his friend, who still lay convulsing on the ground. "Cape!" Nasally, by his voice.

"Get her!" Throaty, a big chubby guy, pointed at me and ran around the work tables, while a really skinny guy came at me from the stairs.

I yanked the beam saber from my pocket and flipped it on. The pink light flooded the room and they both stopped mid-step. Well, Throaty stopped. Skinny tried to stop and run at the same time and ended up hitting the floor face first.

Nasally shouted behind me. "It's Shirt Face!"

My fear faded a moment to give way to anger. "That is not my name!"

"Well what is your name?!"

There I go talking like a lunatic again. "I-I haven't picked one yet!"

"Then why are you yelling at me?!"

"Because it's not my name!"

Skinny decided to be a hero-villain and lunged for me. I fought my first instinct and held my saber back. I aimed my stun gun and fired. It was nearly impossible to miss at that range. The second charge hit him right in the chest. He hit the ground face first again.

"Grab her!"

My backpack straps started to drag me back, and I swung out with the saber to ward Nasally off while Throaty came at me from the side. I aimed my stun gun and pulled the trigger, completely forgetting in the moment that I needed to reload.

When the click came with no zap, I ducked.

His open palm struck me in the side of the head, but couldn't grip my mask. I dove under a workbench. A hand grabbed my ankle as I crawled away and my foot shot back and hit someone hard. Nasally, I think, by the grunt.

"Go left!"

Coming out on the other side of the table, I stood up and warded Throaty off on one side and threw my stun gun as Nasally came around the other way. He dodged the object awkwardly, and while I kept swinging my saber wildly in the air with one hand, the other grabbed the first thing it touched.

"Whoa!"

"Dude!"

Everything stopped.

I opened one eye slowly, not even realizing I'd closed them till then. Throaty and Nasally huddled in the corner, while Skinny and Shoulders lay on the floor. Turning my hand, I found the hexagonal ball thing clutched in my fingers.

"Okay." Throaty raised his hands in surrender. "Whatever you do, don't drop that."

I glanced at the ball thing, remembering that I never figured out what it did.

Fuck.

I enjoy the henchmen. I almost want to make them regulars who show up with different jobs each time just because they're an easy way to lighten the mood and fun to write.

In Gunpla news I ordered my very own Master Grade Psycho Zaku and Full Armor Gundam models today. No. They won't take any time out of my busy day…Gonna try to get 1.7 out Friday

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

Last edited: Apr 22, 2021

1230

3ndless

Sep 26, 2018

View discussion

Threadmarks Step 1.7

View content

3ndless

3ndless

Lord Commander of Hats

Sep 28, 2018

#191

This chapter was hard to get right. Still not entirely sure it is. Tone can be a hard thing to work with. Prepare for some Gundam-esque character motivation exploration! But anyway, I wonder what the doom ball does?

Step 1.7

The device looked complex, but without opening it up the function eluded me. In any other lair I'd probably be dead already. I couldn't really see Hookwolf or Hellhound backing down because I happened to have a whateveritis in hand.

Only at Uber and Leet's hideout.

Across from me Throaty and Nasally, rather Larry and JP as they'd introduced themselves, stood warily. I was admittedly distracted.

Their focus shifted between the orb in my hand and the stairs every few seconds. Shoulders and Skinny groaned behind me. I might have overdone the charge on the stun gun but I couldn't feel guilty about that.

I did feel guilty about putting Leet's work tables between my back and the stairs. And I threw my stun gun away, leaving me with just the beam saber. Cutting people up is not a good way to start a hero career. The gun lay against the wall in the opposite direction of escape.

Stupid.

Larry motioned his hands at me. "Let's just put it down."

I worked my jaw around, considering. I never imagined such a bizarre turn in my first henchmen fight. I felt off balance, just like at the mall, again. "I, um, I think I'll hold on to it?"

"I'd really rather you didn't."

I started backing out towards the stairs, moving around the edge of the table. JP maintained a distance but mirrored my movements. I glanced nervously at Shoulders and Skinny. The latter remained spread out on the ground groaning, but Shoulders' hands pushed on either side of him. He rose slowly, head listing from side to side.

I couldn't tell if whatever I held was simply valuable, or dangerous. "Why?"

"Just trust me."

"I don't?"

Their attitude didn't help with my confusion. Henchmen are supposed to be big scary thugs who do whatever the supervillain tells them. Larry and JP reminded me of Greg Veder with an extra ten years of awkwardness behind him. Worse, I couldn't tell who was more nervous, me or them.

Wait a sec…

"Do you guys know anyone named Greg?"

I saw him in the mall not that long before the attack. He could be a henchman—Or. No. No way in hell Greg is a cape.

"Who's Greg?"

That's a relief.

I decided not to ponder the chance he lied.

We all stood there awkwardly. I brandished my saber in Shoulders' direction. He'd worked himself back onto his feet, and Skinny was starting to rouse. Unlike the two stooges, the guys I'd knocked out with the stun gun looked like henchmen. Rough looking types with scowls plastered permanently on their faces.

"It's better for everyone here if you just put it down," Larry said.

"Does it explode?" I continued edging towards the stairs. The tips of my fingers gripped the orb. I wanted to put it down, but if I did that…

"Well…"

His face told me what I needed to know. "It's a bomb."

"Not technically?"

I gawked. "Is it or isn't it?!"

Larry and JP answered at the same time.

"Yes."

"No."

I glanced between them. "Which is it?!"

"Look. It's not that kind of bomb, okay?"

"Well what kind of bomb is it?!"

Holding a bomb isn't the kind of thrilling I wanted, especially not one of Leet's bombs. If I put it down though they'd rush me, and I tossed my stun gun like a moron. With it, they didn't rush me, but I was stuck holding a bomb!

How did I get into a Mexican standoff with a bomb in my hand?

"Will you please put it down?" JP pleaded. "Leet's been working on the Groovitron for years and if it breaks we will never live it down."

I blinked. "Groovitron?"

"From Ratchet and Clank."

"What—I don't—" I didn't know the game; I assume it was a game. "It's a bomb that makes people what, dance?" Again, their faces answered. "Why?!"

"Because it's awesome?"

"It's stupid!"

"You take that back! Leet is the best!"

"Are you idi—" My voice went hoarse as the realization came over me. Even Uber and Leet must have more competent henchmen than this. "You—You're cape groupies!"

I knew cape groupies were a thing, for heroes and villains. I also knew there were groupies, and then there were groupies. Plenty of talk on PHO about how far some went just to be in the same room as a cape. Every now and then someone got too close to the wrong one and suffered for it. Just last year someone tried to hang out with Hookwolf at a pit fight and got his ass kicked for trying.

They didn't treat my revelation with much notice. I glanced between them, and then to Shoulders. He looked like a tough guy. Someone hired for muscle. Larry and JP however just looked like a pair of geeks. Greg Veder plus a decade.

"Are you guys even henchmen?!"

Shoulders grumbled. On a second look, I realized that despite his size, Shoulders looked nervous too.

"We're henchmen," Larry said.

"Yeah." JP waved his hand. "We just happened to know Uber and Leet before they were Uber and Leet."

I began reassessing my opinion.

A meticulous note taker and inventor he might be, but dragging a bunch of jokers into being henchmen? Leet's choice in associates leaned towards the idiot side of things. I felt mean thinking it. Mean like Emma.

And then I felt nervous that instead of being in the middle of a Mexican standoff with henchmen I was in some fantasy play for a bunch of groupies.

"You're just a bunch of groupies. I'm in a fight with a bunch of groupies."

More than a little anger broke through the nervousness. I spent the past several minutes scared out of my mind that some henchmen might do any number of things to me. Beat me. Shoot me. Worse. Instead they were a bunch of wannabes! They didn't have powers. They didn't have weapons. They didn't even have harsh language to throw my way!

My saber snapped through the air before Larry could even finish the sentence I wasn't listening to. Crazy Taylor came back with a vengeance, shooting scowls around the room. "Alright party is over!"

"Wha—"

"Shut it!" I slammed the orb into the table, causing all three of the standing men to flinch. "What if I was fucking Hookwolf or Victor?"

"Well." JP scratched the back of his head. "You're not Hook—"

"But you didn't know that! Did you even think?! If I were nearly anyone else, you'd either be dead or under arrest!" My head turned to each face in turn, including Skinny. He sat on the floor rubbing his stomach with a pained expression and didn't notice me looking. "You're all idiots!"

I decided to chalk Leet up as some idiot savant right there.

"This is how things are going to go. All four of you are going to get down on your knees, right now!" To my surprise they did exactly what I said. I took some spare wire from a box and tied them all up. "With any luck the cops will go easy on you because you're stupid!"

Once they were secured, and complaining like children, I grabbed my stun gun and reloaded it. A little waving it around got them to shut up. Nothing in the backpack looked broken when I checked. I threw it back over my shoulder and bolted up the stairs.

And then outside I stopped at the door.

I didn't see the trap before. Too much of a rush to get inside. When I yanked the panel off I tripped a little string tied to an analog device. No digital parts. No wireless. Just a hookup into a phone line and a preset number to dial. I felt foolish given it had been right in front of me. A few seconds of poking around and I would have noticed it.

"Stupid."

"Mistakes are made," Veda said.

"I can't make mistakes like this." A sobering lesson. "ABB. Empire. Merchants. They're not Uber and Leet. I trip an alarm with them and they can actually send real thugs to hurt me."

"I can disable most alarms."

"Uber and Leet won't be the only ones running analog things. The ABB and Empire don't have any tinkers, and the Merchants just have Squealer. Her stuff isn't exactly high tech."

More like sturdy low tech that miraculously works.

"We will be more careful in the future."

We. Veda never said 'we' before. "Yeah."

How did it take them three hours to respond anyway?

Their crappy van probably. An old beat up white thing with fresh flame decals on the side, and silver rims on the wheels. Both features clashed with the fading white paint and the company for "Porter's Plumbing" on the side. An oversized fin thing on the back and the trifecta of "trying too hard" ugly cars would be complete.

I felt a little guilty leaving them tied up in the basement. Proud, because wow I threw my foot down and got something done, but still guilty. I chalked it up to "for their own good."

Although….

I wanted a van, and now I had one. They were tied up. I could easily just borrow it. They'd get it back in the end after I finished. I peaked in the window. It's automatic. Would Uber and Leet put a tracking device in their groupie's van? I doubted it, but I popped the hood and poked around the engine anyway.

I blame powers. I never had so many stupid ideas before powers.

I didn't find anything. The hood went down, and I went back inside. I bounced between running and going back in. The choice felt obvious from the start though. I needed materials. Going home with only tools and nothing else felt like defeat. Defeat is a sour thing. I hated it.

Back in I went. A lot easier to be confident when everyone is tied up and non-threatening. It helped that the Henchmen weren't really henchmen.

I didn't struggle to smile.

"Hey Larry. I'm going to make a deal with you."

He looked up from the floor. "What do you want now?"

"Your van."

He balked. "You are not taking the Henchmobile!"

I turned to JP. "Please tell me he doesn't actually call it that."

"He does."

Well I don't feel guilty anymore.

"Consider it a life lesson Larry. Normal people really shouldn't be mixing themselves up in this stuff. I'll dump it somewhere around here in a day or two when I'm done with it. So, where are the keys?"

"They're in his back pocket," Skinny said.

Just where I wanted to reach. After fishing out his keychain I identified the only one with a car company logo on it and took it off. "Don't worry. You guys can keep the dance bomb."

"Groovitron."

"Waste of time and effort. That's what I said." Glancing to the machines along the wall I wondered. "You guys got a dolly or something?"

They did in fact have a dolly. Supply closet second floor.

I considered untying them and making them help me, but they'd either fight like morons or run away. In the end I only had energy to haul four of the heavier machines up. My exercise regimen didn't emphasize upper body strength.

The 3D printers and one of Leet's server towers didn't really weigh as much as they looked, but the fabricator I took weighed a lot. I ended up removing a lot of parts and piling the pieces in a plastic bin. It was easier to haul the rest after removing thirty or forty pounds.

I laid all the machines on their side on the van floor, and then I took as many boxes of parts as I could fit.

"I don't think I'm getting anything else into the van."

"Did you get what you needed?"

"And then some."

I didn't want to use Leet's supercomputer. Too much risk of spontaneous combustion to house Veda. The liquid crystal processors that doubled as memory? Those gave me ideas and I figured I'd cannibalize the parts. One tower like that and Veda could leave Winslow's network. Other ideas came from now having all the materials I could want.

I need to get to a notebook before I forget all this.

I entered the building one last time. "I'm done Veda. Delete everything on Leet's systems."

"Deleting."

Uber and Leet will just have to start from scratch.

Back down in the basement I took pity on the groupies. I cut JP's wrists free. He seemed the least threatening.

"You've got five minutes to clear out before I call the cops."

After glowering at me for a bit he got to work on his ankles. Maybe I should have left them, but somehow treating them like real criminals felt wrong.

Larry huffed on the floor. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of hero?"

Shoulders groaned. "Are you really going to complain about her letting us go?"

"I like to think I'm a new type of hero."

I checked around the workshop one last time and grabbed Leet's drone. My power seemed unable to produce anything like a hard-light barrier forcefield. Toying with his toy might be enlightening. If nothing else, I'd scrap it for parts.

Turning back to the groupies I managed a small smile. "Goodbye groupies. Don't let me catch you doing anything illegal."

"Yeah yeah, whatever."

I bolted up the stairs and got in the van. Perfect moment to remember I've never driven anything before, and I only had the most basic notion as to how. Key in ignition. Step on gas. Neutral to drive. Once I got to the end of the block Veda started reciting road rules for me. I managed to avoid hitting anything.

"Send the cops and the PRT an anonymous email Veda."

"Composing."

"Just don't mention I robbed the place."

"Confirmed."

My arms and legs hurt. I didn't notice at the time. Too excited to finally get everything I wanted, but with the safety of distance and time to let the adrenaline empty from my system I felt the exhaustion set in.

Maybe I should do more than just running.

Being a muscle-bound body builder didn't appeal to me—I looked enough like a boy as is—but a little muscle couldn't hurt. Probably wouldn't be the last time I needed to do heavy lifting.

Hard to be upset about it. I kept glancing into the rear view mirror and thinking of all the things I'd build with Leet's stuff. I'd followed through on my plan from start to finish. As much as the groupies were pushovers, they still represented a surprise. Something I didn't quite expect. I dealt with that too, and without the shock or hesitation that slowed my response at the mall. I took whatever I could and what remained wasn't much. Either way. Between deleting all their data and stealing Leet's supplies I figured I set the duo back months.

I did it.

Navigating traffic, not that there was much, got easier as I went. The best solution is to just pay attention and relax. Veda sent off our little tip, after I was a good five blocks away. The groupies would have untied themselves by now.

I found it strange how different the streets looked behind the wheel. It all felt a bit smaller.

Where am I going?

It's also easy to get lost. Using the sun I figured out which way was which. From there I just kept trying to turn in the general direction of my house. I finally got into an area I sort of recognized. I remembered it from the bus. I think. Veda gave me a few rough directions and asked, "Why release them?"

"They're just groupies."

"They attacked you."

"They're barely bad guys."

I ended up just going right, straight, left, right, strai—

"Taylor. You have missed the past two lights."

"What?" The light in front of me was red at the moment. "Oh. Sorry. I—"

"Are you well?"

The tombstones rose along the hillside. "My mom is buried here."

"Annette Rose Hebert. Thirty-nine. Died February 21, 2008."

"Yeah. That's her."

I tinkered right through the anniversary without a single thought. I didn't know if I liked that or not. As much as her death hurt I didn't want to forget it happened. How long had it been since I visited Mom's grave? Talking to her made me feel better, especially after Emma dedicated her life to my misery. That stark contrast reasserted itself in my mind.

"I am sorry," Veda said.

"It happened."

I started to pull over before remembering that I was technically in a stolen van with tinker parts in the back. Not something I wanted to leave unattended, and not somewhere I wanted any of the Henchmen to find me by happenstance.

I kept going.

I'll come back another time.

About thirty minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of a department store just south of the Docks and north of the Towers. Maybe missing that trap made me paranoid, but what harm came from making sure?

"I'm going to double check everything. Make absolutely sure there's no trackers."

"Accessing security cameras."

Veda hacking something on its own? "Is that something you want to do?"

"I will observe the area."

I simply nodded and climbed into the back.

I didn't have much room to work, but there was enough. My helmet went into one of the boxes full of wires. I'd need to improve the comfort. The tips of my ears felt a little tender.

I moved boxes around like a game of Tetris. Uber and Leet would appreciate the irony, I think.

"Security cameras accessed. Taylor. I have another question."

"Ask away. I forgot how much we used to just sit and talk. Haven't done it in a few days."

"I have a thought on the nature of heroism."

My fingers fumbled with some switches. They seemed okay. People underestimate how useful a spare switch can be. "Because I called you a hero?"

"Yes. Additionally, your own intentions."

"My intentions?"

"Why do you wish to be a hero? You have broken laws in the pursuit of your goal, but oppose criminals."

"Well…because I have powers, and I want to use them. I'd rather be a hero than a villain…but there aren't a lot of ways for me to do that."

"You wish to be a hero because you can?"

"It's not the only reason." I hesitated. I used to be a chatterbox before Emma started her reign of terror, but even then I mostly babbled to anyone other than her.

Working with my hands distracted me from the pain a little. Some of the parts I got looked more like scrap than parts, and some of the scrap was in surprisingly good condition. The boxes didn't take long to look through. Leet probably didn't worry much about anyone stealing his assortment of disassembled phones.

"The people who hurt me. They always said things like how worthless I was. I want to be better than them. Better than the person they wanted me to be."

"You wish to prove your self-worth?"

"Yeah."

Veda went silent for a few minutes. I'd moved on to looking over one of the fabricators. I had to move every single box to one side of the van, causing it to lean slightly. I worried someone might come by and peak in the windows curiously. It wouldn't be easy to explain a stolen van full of stolen tech.

Does it even count if I took it from supervillains?

The silence broke when Veda said, "I do not know why I acted."

"You mean why you attacked Uber and Leet?"

"Yes."

I raised my brow. "I thought you did it to protect me."

"Undetermined. When I requested them to cease their actions, I wanted to prevent harm to you. When I was refused however, my processes focused on Uber and Leet…Their refusal was illogical."

"Well they're criminals Veda. And I know I've broken some laws myself here and there, but I like to think I'm not quite in their league or anywhere near it."

"No. Uber and Leet already possessed a great deal of stolen material. Leaving at the time of request brought them no harm. Yet they refused. Illogical."

Pausing my work, I thought back over its words. "They probably wanted to get more video for their stream."

"The proceeds of thefts were sufficient."

"Veda…it sounds like you were angry."

Can an AI feel anger, or only simulate anger? I'd asked myself a lot of times if Veda could be considered alive, and eventually I just settled for 'does it really matter?'

"Angry?"

"Yeah."

"Anger. A strong feeling of annoyance. Displeasure. Hostility. It is understood."

"Have you ever responded to anyone else like that?"

"The Armsmaster."

I couldn't help a small giggle. "Armsmaster pissed you off."

"The Armsmaster is rude."

"Well don't hack his computers. We don't need the PRT coming after you."

"I will not."

Veda can be angry. That wasn't in the design.

Then again there were so many holes in my understanding of Veda's design. I only knew—and vaguely at that—that Veda could work. Exactly how seemed to be something my power kept to itself.

Can it feel other emotions?

The fabricator and printers pleased me a lot. I only took one of the former and two of the latter, but they were great. Most of the parts came with the jack in the box print on them, and those that didn't I found ways to improve on. No need to worry about any Leet tech blowing up my lab.

I need to replace the code though. I don't want anyone tracking these things when I turn them back on.

I found no hardwired trackers, and unlike the mistake I made at the door panel, I took my search of the internal components very seriously.

"Are you angry Taylor?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you angry at those who harmed you?"

I bit my lip. "Yeah. Yeah I'm angry."

"You do not attack them."

"No. It would…I don't want to be like them, Veda. They had power, and they used it to hurt me. I won't use my power to hurt them. Even if I'm angry."

"I see. Then you are angry at the Protectorate and Parahuman Response Team as well?"

"Yes."

"That's why you refuse to join the Wards?"

"A little…Veda, how many other villains have escaped custody in Brockton Bay. Say, in the past ten years?"

"One hundred twenty-nine escapes."

"How many have actually stayed in jail?"

"Forty-seven."

"So, for every parahuman the Protectorate and PRT catch, three get away."

"Approximate."

"Doesn't sound like it's working to me…I grew up here, Veda. With the gangs. The drugs. The violence. It's always been that way." And I am angry. "I'll be generous and say the Protectorate and the Wards are trying, but it's not working. And I don't like some of the things they do on the side."

"Protecting your tormentor?"

"Among other things. That Uber and Leet escaped the first time is weird. Why wouldn't there be a cape escort? I know Hookwolf has escaped twice."

"Once in 2004 and again in 2009."

"There's others. The only villains I can think of who got sent away and stayed away are Lustrum, and Marquis. The way Dad talked about them, they sound"—I didn't want to say better—"less bad than Kaiser or Lung."

And how bad could Lustrum really be if Mom was her friend?

"Everything in the Bay is broken, Veda. I don't think anyone knows how to fix it."

I still drew blanks on nearly all the problems I thought up. I wanted to be more than just another hero. There'd been dozens of heroes before me and they all failed to make anything better. If anything, the world around me kept getting worse.

"Do you know how to fix it?"

My smile was solemn. "I'm going to try."

"I will help."

"I know. You seem to like helping."

"Yes."

Be for others. At least that's sticking.

Finally, I turned my attention to Leet's supercomputer tower. That thing took a lot of effort to look through in a cramped space. The battery lasted a few hours. The crystals probably needed to maintain a certain temperature to avoid damage.

The more I examined it, the more my power went wild with ideas.

"Complex lattice structures…non-binary. Non-binary?"

Yes. That could work. Opening the back door of the van, I went into the store and bought some pens and notebooks. The store clerk gave me a few curious looks, but I ignored him. No time to deal with his weirdness. I needed to write some things down before I forgot.

Non-binary superpositions. Universal data storage. Super magnetics? I'd need a way to formulate a null gravity environment for stability—GN particles that's it I'd have plenty floating around just from daily use of the GN drive anyway I could easily pump the excess into—

While my mind ran wild my hand wrote.

Lines and words formed across page after page. Annotations of code and interfaces. Crystalline structures. Not like Leet's. No, better. Faster. More stable. I wouldn't need a cooling system at all if the entire network was kept in a vacuum. Hardline backups. Maintained quantum decoherence without requiring an absolute seal, yes—no that won't work.

The drawings started to blend in my head. Not a distinct system. Part of a whole. The body to a mind—Veda. Veda wasn't finished. I never finished it, I left it half complete because I didn't even realize that a mind needs a body that matches it to fully function.

The kernel I programmed slowed it down far more than I realized. Kept the clock speeds capped at faster than human but slower than some appropriate metaphor speeds that's not making sense what was I thinking about?

Decoherence, right.

I needed to shut the system off from outside observation. Outside observation could corrupt the data. Multiplying errors growing and spreading in magnitude. A complete loss if compromised without a backup. Backup simple. Offsite digital source. Slow but reliable. A good fallback.

My body heaved, and I found myself holding three different notebooks filled with designs. Not designs, design. A singular system. More complex than anything I'd seen before yet deceptively simple.

Beautiful.

"Holy shit."

"Taylor?"

"Veda. I figured it out. You're only half finished! You're not supposed to be running on digital computers at all, you're half of a complex quantum-based computing system. I didn't even realize it because I barely understand the idea of quantum computers—I still don't understand it but I know that's what this is. My power—"

"It is six in the afternoon."

My voice hitched. Spinning my head around, I found empty parking spots, empty and under a darkening sky.

"H-How? I was only working for a few minutes!"

"It has been five hours forty-two minutes and fifteen seconds."

I pulled out my phone and looked through the log. Veda tried contacting me every minute at first. Then it started deleting security footage from the cameras pointed my way.

Six hours.

"Six hours," I said aloud.

"I believe it is called a tinker fugue."

"I've never—that's never happened to me before." No. It had. I remembered the sensation. My body moving in fluidity with the vague thoughts in my head to build something. It never made me lose track of time though. "D-Did anyone see me?"

"No. I have replaced camera footage every ten minutes to ensure there is no record."

My voice shook. "Thanks, Veda."

I just wanted to write down some of the ideas I got looking at Leet's computer. How did that cause a working blackout that lasted for six hours? What I remembered of the writings in my notebooks barely amounted to a few minutes of thought. The beauty I'd seen before didn't come to me now. The schematic came through clear as day. I knew how to build it. What pieces went where, but half of why any of it would work had vacated my brain.

I swore the chill running down my back came from a hand touching me.

My power never scared me before.

Dad.

He would be back home by now, and I usually got back two hours before him.

The new phone looked a lot sleeker than the tinker-tech one connecting me to Veda. I intended to combine them at some point; adapt the phone dad knew I had while replacing all the internal components with tech derived from the one he didn't.

I found three missed calls and twice as many texts. The voice messages didn't sound too panicked. Just concerned.

I can spin this.

A thousand worries rushed through me. He probably called the school. He knows I'm not going—that I haven't gone for weeks. If he searches my room carefully enough, he'll find things. Design notebooks. Spare parts. A few gadgets I'd been toying with.

My thumb hovered over the call button, but I stopped myself. I needed more time. Time to hide the van somewhere safe. Check the last few boxes for trackers. If I called Dad now anything could happen, and I might not get any of it done.

I moved frantically to finish checking whatever I hadn't checked already, and then pulled out of the parking lot and drove back in the direction of home.

My house sat in line with a dozen others, a long alley running behind them to offer access to backyards and garages. I parked the van in the driveway of one I knew to be empty and locked the doors.

Pressing "Dad" on the contact list I raised the phone to my ear. It's not that late.

"Taylor?" He didn't sound frantic. Worried, but not crazed. "Taylor. Where are you? Are you okay?"

"I—" Tell him the truth. "I'm sorry, Dad. I got so caught up that I didn't even notice the time."

"Where are you?"

Some parking lot in a van full of tinker-tech. "The library. I'm really sorry."

"You could leave a note, or one of those text message things."

"Sorry. I forgot. Real caught up in what I'm working on."

"Well you should hurry on back and apologize to your guest too. She's been waiting for you for an hour. Not polite to invite someone over and leave them waiting."

…

"Guest?"

I broke into a run, only to spin back on one heel to retrieve my stun gun.

I didn't have any friends besides my AI. Uber and Leet? Their groupies? Emma? If Emma came to the house trying to figure out where I disappeared to, she could ruin everything. I needed to—

I heard a voice in the background. "Oh. Hold on."

The phone audibly changed hands and a familiar voice spoke.

"Hi Taylor."

My feet came to a stop a few feet from my back door. I knew her, but it took me a second to place it. She'd only said a few words to me after all.

"Dinah?"

Told you she'd be back.

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

Last edited: Apr 22, 2021

1314

3ndless

Sep 28, 2018

View discussion

Threadmarks Step 1.8

View content

3ndless

3ndless

Lord Commander of Hats

Sep 30, 2018

#259

100% chance this chapter is loaded with foreshadowing. I'm actually pretty pleased with this one. When I started it I felt like I'd need a 1.9 to close out arc one, but the parts kind of came together smoothly by the end of 1.8.

Step 1.8

The unexpected surprises in my life were getting old.

I went around to the front of the house, checking the street and surrounding buildings for anything. My stun gun stayed behind my back, one hand gripping the handle while the other covered it. Every car I didn't recognize, every face I didn't know, and every little sound sent jolts through me.

Who is it? Who came for me?

My worst fears stood at the forefront of my mind. Someone found out I was a tinker. Someone bad. Someone who might hurt Dad to get at me.

Dinah's a cape.

Had to be. No way she tracked me through mundane means. Veda deleted all the footage. She never heard my name, let alone where I lived.

Empire?

Reconciling that crying little girl from the mall with the Empire didn't work in my head. Either Dinah could act with the best, or she hadn't been acting.

I got my powers in the locker. Did she get hers in the mall?

"Veda. Are there any networks around my house that weren't there before?"

"No."

I didn't discount anything. Leet hid his network from Veda too until I hardwired a wireless receiver in.

It's only been a few days. Were her parents already members? Isn't her mom the mayor's sister? Shit. Or the Empire grabbed Dinah first and made her find me…and Dad's in the middle of it.

"Should I alert the authorities?"

"I—I don't—" Fuck.

To call the cops or not to call the cops. If someone really came after me, wanted to hurt me or Dad to get to me, what real choice did I have? Against anyone who really wanted me I might as well have a paintball gun. They'd just send more guys than I had shots. And capes…all I had for that was the beam saber, and I didn't like my odds against anyone with a gun.

Calling in the cops would be the only choice.

Then everyone would know.

"I don't know…" They might hurt Dad if I call the cops. "I-I'm going to go in, Veda. If you hear anything, then yes. Call the cops. Tell them it's Ma-Saber Girl and I need help, but only if something happens."

"Understood."

Skipping over the broken step, I cracked the door slowly. A TV blared in the background, and Dad sent me a greeting from the kitchen.

"Dinah's in the living room," he said.

My eyes skipped over her at first to find my dad. To actually see him and know he didn't have a knife to his throat. He stood in the kitchen over the stove. I didn't hear what he said as I closed the door behind me. As soon as I saw him unhurt I turned my attention to Dinah.

I walked up to her with a crooked smile. A bad attempt to appear non-threatening. She wore a familiar yellow sundress, and seemed completely content sitting on the couch sipping cocoa. She didn't look good; pale skin, and bags under her eyes.

I stepped between Dinah and Dad. My stun gun moved in front of me, but Dinah kept sipping her cocoa. I didn't want to shoot her. Dad stood right there in the kitchen, and I didn't know if her power let her master people. Maybe she wasn't even in the room, or had goons somewhere nearby I couldn't see.

"Dinah."

She tilted her head at me, her face turning quizzical and still.

The news report played behind me. I didn't look, but I listened long enough to gather the basics.

"—that they would not allow the United Nations to dictate their internal affairs. The CUI has repeatedly ignored economic sanctions passed to curb their nuclear policy, and—"

It didn't seem related to anything in my house at the moment. Not that China's nuclear program didn't scare me, but unless they launched missiles in the next few minutes, more pressing concerns occupied my interest.

Dinah spoke in a low voice, one Dad couldn't hear over the news. "You're different."

"Different?"

"The you I saw was different."

Well that's not cryptic.

My lips quivered. Fear mixed with anger. "I—"

Dad walked into the room, and my mouth snapped shut. My gun came apart into two pieces, each going into a different pocket. "Did you apologize, Taylor?"

"Y-Yeah."

"It's okay, Mr. Hebert." Dinah looked down at the plates of fish Dad set on the coffee table. "We mixed up where to meet."

My dad nodded. "Appointments are important, Taylor, especially if you want to do something like tutoring."

Tutoring? "Um. Yeah. I know." I spoke quickly, uttering whatever thought came to mind. "I didn't mean to mix it up. The whole thing just came together so fast. I wasn't really ready for it?"

Dad looked between us for a second. Did he believe that? Actually, he might.

Tutoring. That's a good lie.

"I didn't know that interested you. Extra credit?"

I nodded. "Yeah…I need it to make up for some missed projects."

"Those girls who—" He glanced toward Dinah and stopped himself. "Well, your mother would be happy." He looked to Dinah and said, "She was an educator."

"I know."

"Do you need to go home any time soon, Dinah?"

"My mom and dad know where I am. Dad's gonna come get me at nine."

"Well you're welcome to some dinner while you're here."

"Thank you Mr. Hebert."

Dad stood awkwardly for a minute, rubbing the back of his head and glancing around. The kitchen, the front door, the back door, the stairs. He turned a few different ways before finally settling on a direction.

"I'll leave you girls to it."

As soon as Dad reached the top of the stairs the stun gun came back together in my hands.

Dinah set her cocoa down and started eating the fish.

She didn't respond to the weapon pointed her way. I sat after deciding my attempt at being threatening and scary wasn't working. I glanced over my shoulder every few seconds to see if Dad came back. Dinah didn't talk while she ate, and I didn't want to eat.

The news kept playing on the TV. I'd missed the end of the report on the CUI. Instead, the screen showed a table of people talking about Relena Peacecraft.

"She's a college hipster in a fancy suit."

The screen showed a picture of her in the top left corner. A pretty girl with soft features, ice blue eyes, and long dirty-blond hair. Her suit was fancy. One of those old aristocratic style ones with the neat ropes and the big buttons. Crisp, with a sort of white-blue color and gold trim.

The commentator on the other hand was an unpleasant-looking woman. Not ugly. Just unpleasant. She seemed to have this permanent sneer cast on her face.

"I don't know why we entertain her little jaunts around the world. The Sanc Kingdom isn't even a real country."

One of the other commentators started to speak, but she snapped at him and continued her rant.

"It's some little corner of Sweden left over after the Simurgh finished with them. The whole place should be quarantined!"

"She's mean," Dinah said. "She gets fired next month for harassing an intern. Maybe."

I raised a brow. "Maybe?"

"Some things I see don't happen. Like meeting you at school. That didn't happen. You don't go to school anymore." She finished her food and drank some more cocoa. "I can't go to school anymore either. My head starts hurting. It's really hard not to ask questions."

We returned to our silence for a moment. The report continued, some other nasty-looking person ranting at the woman now about how unfair she was being. I tuned whatever that was out.

"How did you find me?"

"I asked."

"Asked who?"

She shrugged. "I asked and I saw."

I frowned. "What do you want?"

She shrugged again. "I asked what was going to happen to me, and I saw you." She raised her head, and I noticed the cup in her hands shaking. "You're there a lot. Sometimes on a street. Or in the room with the snake man. One time you had a scary mask with lots of bugs. Another you didn't have any mask…but you're there. I look at me and I see you. Mostly."

"You came to my house because you see me?" She nodded. "You don't want anything?"

She stared at the floor for a few seconds before saying, "Help."

"Help?" My help?

She nodded. The facade she'd put on since before I arrived collapsed real quick. The calm on her face crumbled into confusion and fear. "I don't know what to do…I see things and—and it's too much. I don't…"

Tension I hadn't even noticed flowed out of my shoulders. My breathing slowed to a more steady pace, and everything seemed to cool down a bit. I'd been so hot. Setting my gun under the table, I sat down on the floor across from Dinah.

Stupid paranoia.

"You could have found some other way to ask." A slight edge remained in my voice. "I thought—I don't know. I thought you wanted to hurt my dad, or me. Or that someone was making you do it."

Dinah apparently never considered that. She swallowed, and did that thing where a guilty kid hangs her head and starts getting real interested in the floor.

"I didn't mean to…"

Deep breath. "I just freaked out for a bit there. Give me a second."

Her power lets her ask and see things?

"So let me get this straight. You can ask a question, and your power shows you...what? The answer?"

"No. Not an answer." She raised her head a little. "Pictures. I can watch them move if I want, but I don't like that."

"That's how you found my house?"

"When you weren't at school I asked where you were. In one picture you were talking to some teenagers. In another you were talking to your computer, or talking to Miss Militia at the PRT buildin—"

"What? Why was I talking to Miss Militia?"

"I don't know. I only see pictures. There's no sound. Are you joining the Wards? Everyone on PHO says you hate Armsmaster."

"I don't hate Armsmaster. He's just kind of a jerk and—No, wait." She saw me talking to my computer. She saw me talking to Veda. "So you came here why?"

"I didn't know which of the other two places you were. I decided to wait here."

She could ask a question, and get a vision, only apparently she also saw things that weren't real.

I knew a lot of thinkers came with weird limits or quirks in their power. Appraiser in the Protectorate gave predictions in color codes. Seeing things that weren't real seemed a bit extreme as a limit though. Almost like Leet's 'one of a kind' requirement.

"I don't know what you want from me Dinah. Help with your power?"

She shook her head. "I don't like the me's I see when you aren't there."

"You said I'm always there."

"I said a lot." Dinah's face paled. "When you aren't…Are you joining the Wards?"

She clearly expected one answer to that question. I felt a little bad saying, "No. I'm not."

"Why?"

"Reasons."

Dinah cocked her head to one side. I didn't understand the weird look she got. Her eyes began twitching, looking left right up and down.

Seizure? "Dinah?" I reached across the table, almost ready to tell Veda to call an ambulance. "What are you—"

Her episode stopped and she sat back up. "Oh. Sorry. She's mean."

"Who's mean?"

"Shadow Stalker. That's who the black girl is, isn't it?"

"You saw that?"

She nodded. "The two of you don't like each other. Usually." She gawked slightly. "Except for the pictures where you kiss."

Kis—

Were I more juvenile I'd have asked my power for the formula to brain bleach. Make out sessions with Sophia weren't an image I wanted to remember. My power gave me something anyway, but building a brainwashing machine felt like a one way ticket to the Birdcage.

No way I ever k—do anything like that with Sophia.

"You don't like the heroes?"

"I-I'm just disappointed. It's not for me."

Dinah nodded. "Okay then."

I'm getting tired of awkward silences.

"I don't know what you want from me, Dinah."

She hesitated, staring ahead at the wall silently. Then, "I don't want the bad pictures."

Dad stayed upstairs, but I didn't know how long that would last. I got up and retrieved some of my books. How long since I'd last studied? A while, I figured. Told myself I'd get my GED as soon as possible, and then I got all caught up in tinkering and being a hero.

I hadn't cracked a book open in weeks.

For her part, Dinah seemed eager to have something to focus on. I questioned if every day of the rest of my life would be so chaotic. In the span of a half hour, I went from panicked planning to save my father from kidnappers to teaching a twelve year old algebra.

"I don't really need tutoring," she said.

"Yeah but we told my dad that's why you're here. Gotta sell it now."

"I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's alright."

"If you're not joining the Wards, what are you going to do?"

"I'm still going to be a hero. Just on my own."

It's easy to forget how to do things when you don't do them for weeks. I got stuck on one of the practice problems, my pencil tapping against the page as I tried to remember how to calculate polynomials.

"You're never on your own," she said.

My pencil paused. "What?"

"You're never on your own. There's others. People in masks. Boys and girls. Different ones. Lots of them."

"You saw—" I sat up straight. "Who?"

"I don't know. Some of them probably won't happen. Lots of stuff I see doesn't happen. Like the Wards. I've seen you with them."

Why would I be with the Wards?

"You talk to Armsmaster and Kid Win a lot," she said.

"Talkin—Wait. Do you see their faces, Dinah?"

"No."

Yes.

"You can."

She bowed her head and shrugged. Taking up her pencil, she continued the problem in front of her.

Just like Veda.

"Don't tell anyone, Dinah. If villains find out you can see their faces easily, they'll come after you. Understand?"

"But they're not always the same."

"What?"

"Sometimes they're different."

"How did you find that out?"

"I asked 'who is the snake man.' Usually he's a guy. Really skinny with dark hair. One time he was a girl, though. A tall one with blond hair and green eyes."

How? "I'd still keep it to yourself. Just in case."

"I will. Rory told me about the unwritten rules once."

"Rory?"

She got flustered for a moment, like she said something she wasn't supposed to. "My cousin. He likes capes."

"I've never heard of unwritten rules."

"No going after secret identities. No killing. No rape. That kind of thing. The unwritten rules."

It made sense with startling speed. How many times did a cape actually die in a fight? Unless it involved the Nine, or Hookwolf, I'd never really heard of it happening. Maybe Lung?

No examples came to mind.

I never thought about it before, but yes. It made complete sense. Why didn't villains or heroes unmask each other? I had Veda sure, but anyone with enough dedication could figure out who their arch-rival was.

"So the snake man is either a skinny guy or a tall girl?"

"The girl is nicer. Still mean, but she smiles and laughs. The guy is creepy…he hurts me sometimes."

I'd have frowned, but my brain was back to working out the issue of Dinah's power. Showing her contradicting things didn't make sense. Why do that? Maybe she ended up with a short straw like Leet, but I never heard of any cape with a limit like Leet's. Either Dinah was that unlucky, or…

If I actually got into the Wards maybe I'd talk with Armsmaster and Kid Win a lot, but I'd never…

Except it wasn't that farfetched. What were the odds that Sophia would be there, and recognizable to me? If she'd been in costume I would have never known. Probably. Five minutes before. Five minutes later. If I never saw her there and realized who she was that night, I might have stayed. Kept talking about the Wards and told Dad so I could join.

That's not what happened, but if it did I might build that armor.

Possible but not what happene—Possible?

I got up and went to the kitchen. Our change jar always ran low, but we usually had a quarter or two around. I picked three out of the jar and returned. "I want to test something."

Dinah set her pencil down and watched the coins. I raised a book and flipped them one by one. Each clacked against the table and rolled against the page before stopping. Two heads and a tails.

"Ask how many are heads and how many are tails."

Dinah's head tilted, and her eyes rapidly moved for a second before she frowned. "All of them?"

"What do you mean, all of them?"

"I mean…I see all of them. Heads. Tails. All of them."

I need more than that.

"I'm going to go up to my room in five minutes. What am I going to do?"

She asked. "I don't know. You don't go upstairs sometimes. You stay here. Other times you go talk to your computer, or your dad."

It can't be that simple.

I couldn't think of a way to prove it. Not anytime soon. Time and testing might provide the answer one way or the other, but that didn't help Dinah or me at the time.

Is it random or…

"What if I were to go over to the Rig and tell Armsmaster I'm sorry for storming off on him?"

"He yells at you."

"That's it?"

She seemed as surprised as me. "That's the only picture I see…That's never happened before."

"What if I go upstairs and tell my dad I'm a cape?"

"Um." She used her power, and I waited while she looked. "A few things. Usually with yelling. In one he looks really scared and doesn't say anything."

Only one result of going to Armsmaster, but several for telling Dad the truth.

I thought about it and nodded. I didn't really see myself going and talking to Armsmaster like that. Possible, but so far-fetched. Dad on the other hand? I debated telling him the truth all the time, in myriad ways.

"Dinah. What do you think your power does?"

"Shows me things?"

"No I mean, why does it show you things."

"I don't know. Because it's a lame power?"

"No…I don't think it's a lame power, Dinah. What you're seeing…What happens if I finish my armor and take it out on patrol in four weeks? Tell me as many images as you can see."

"Armor?"

"Yeah, armor. Like Armsmaster has. With a shield and my beam saber."

She asked and described fifteen different pictures. She saw more, but only caught some of them. Too many to remember all of them, she said. In some, nothing happened. I patrolled and didn't find anything. In one I fought Skidmark. In another I fought Hookwolf. Three different times. In two I died, and in the first I lived.

"What happens if I finish my armor and take it out on patrol in four weeks with the GN blade?" I drew a picture of it for her.

Nine pictures, and she saw them much faster than the first time.

"It's easier to see pictures I've already seen again," she said. "Some of them didn't change much."

Of those nine, only two with Hookwolf, and in both I managed to live. In one I even captured Hookwolf after severing his limbs with the blade and striking him hard in the chest.

Dinah winced after she finished speaking, her hands rising to her head and rubbing her temples.

"Dinah."

"Headache."

"Does that happen a lot?"

"When I ask too many questions. Or when I try to watch a picture move."

I nodded. Thinking over what I'd heard and seen, it made sense. How many pictures did she see? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Dinah saw everything. All possibilities. Everything that could happen.

The human brain, even with powers, couldn't process all of that easily. That's why everyone called mind reading impossible.

Too much information.

"Your power is strong, Dinah." She raised her head to meet my eyes. "Difficult, but strong."

On the surface it might seem useless with all the false positives. No way to know which pictures were more or less likely, or even which ones simply weren't possible in the possibility where Dinah possessed her power. Someone with time could sort them though. Figure out commonalities.

Veda could do that.

If Dinah helped me, I could actually make plans that worked. I'd know everything that can happen.

I felt bad for thinking that. Dinah came here because she was confused, and because for whatever reason I showed up a lot in her life. What did that mean? Fate or destiny? I never thought of those things before. I started to now though. She noticed me enough to pick me out of however many pictures she saw for herself.

I can't use her like that.

Taking a deep breath, I mulled over my words. "I think you should join the Wards, Dinah. They can help you more than me."

It wouldn't be fair to steer her off just because of my personal issues. Whatever my grudges were, they were mine, not hers.

"No."

"No?"

She shook her head. "Joining the Wards…bad things happen. Usually. The snake man gets me. Or everything just goes black. Can I be with you? Your team is nicer…I smile in those ones more than the others."

"Dinah. I don't—"

The doorbell saved me from all the ways I didn't know how to respond to that. Dad came downstairs and greeted a tall man with broad shoulders. He wore a nice suit in navy blue. My dad looked like a complete opposite in a plain oxford and jeans.

They shook hands and my dad introduced himself.

"Danny Hebert. Taylor's my daughter."

"Jim Alcott." He smiled and stepped inside. "I was a little worried when Dinah said her tutor lived in the Docks, but this neighborhood isn't nearly as bad as I expected. Oh no offense. Sorry I—"

"It's fine." Dad smiled and shrugged. "I know what it's like. The Docks aren't what they used to be."

"True enough." He smiled and embraced Dinah as she approached him. "Did you learn anything, Sprout?"

"Yes." Dinah managed a smile, but I saw it was just a forced mask.

She's miserable.

Of course she was. It hadn't even occurred to me until that moment that she saw me d—She sees herself die. She sees herself miserable. My hands balled at my sides, nails digging into the palms.

"And you must be Taylor."

I rose slowly, introducing myself to her father. He looked me over in the way a father looks at an older girl associating with a younger one.

"And what did you teach my daughter today?" He said it in an assessing but warm tone.

"We just did some algebra," I said.

Mr. Alcott nodded. "Dinah's always struggled with math. Takes a lot of focus."

"Um. Yes."

"Are you good at math?"

"I was." I flinched. That probably wasn't the answer he wanted. "I—Some things happened that hurt my ability to get my work done. Personal things. I'm trying to get my grades back up."

And now I'm lying to Dinah's dad. Wonderful.

"We should trade numbers." I glanced down at Dinah. "It's easier to talk that way. Usually."

When they left I stood in the doorway to my house in a daze. Dinah saw me die. She saw bad things happen to her. Her power showed her images of I didn't even know what, and I just used it without thinking. My tinker fugue scared me, but it beat watching endless streams of images that included my own suffering.

"You okay, Kiddo?"

"Y-Yeah."

I stepped inside and closed the door. "Sorry about that, Dad."

"She said the two of you met at the mall."

I froze, looking him in the eye and dreading that Dinah told him the truth. I didn't see why she'd do that, but the fear remained.

"She said you helped her find her mom."

"Um. Yeah. I did."

"Is that how you got hurt?"

"N-No Dad."

"It's okay if you did."

"I didn't!"

Why is he grilling me on this?

"We can talk about it."

"I'm fine, Dad. I don't want to talk about it. Why are you pushing this?"

I followed him into the living room. He picked up the dirty plates from the coffee table, momentarily glancing over the books. Once he moved away I gathered them, wondering why he wasn't saying anything.

"Dad?"

"Sorry Taylor…We just don't talk that much. I was hoping to change that after everything but I'm still…"

My heart sank a little. How much did I talk to him? Not much. I spent all my time advancing my plans. Talking to Veda. Working on this and that.

It's not that I wanted to ignore him, but I lost track of where he fit in my life.

Everything else always seemed so pressing. And to be fair, it's not like he put much effort in. Even after pulling himself back together in the weeks after the locker, we still seemed to be drifting through our lives.

And apparently I'm still bitter. This day has been too long.

I didn't want to leave things like that.

Say something. Anything.

"I saw Mom's grave today. I mean…I didn't go to it but I passed the cemetery. Kind of an accident."

Dad's smile looked more sad than happy. "I miss her too, Kiddo."

He held out a dish and I took it. We cleaned the plates and dried them together in silence. I didn't know how to talk to him anymore… I don't understand him anymore. All the lies and covering for myself made everything so fake.

What else could I do? If I told him he'd push for the Wards, and I would sooner die than be on a team that called Sophia a hero. Especially now. They might take away Veda, or destroy it. And Dinah? She seemed pretty sure bad things happened to her if she joined the Wards. How to even begin to deal with that…

It hurt. "I'm going to go get ready for bed. It's been a long day."

"Okay Kiddo…"

Upstairs I exhaled and collapsed onto my bed.

"Is everything alright, Taylor?"

"I'm okay Veda…It's just a lot of stuff all at once."

I got to experience triumph for all of an hour before a whole bunch of stuff just spiraled together. Tinker fugue, Dinah, Dad.

"Did anyone get around to Uber and Leet's base?"

"Yes. The PRT arrived with Protectorate Hero Armsmaster to clear the building."

"And the idiots?"

"No report of any arrests."

Take it or leave it.

"I'll drive everything over to the auto-shop in the morning. Unload it. Clean the place up. Then I can take care of everything at the bank."

Sitting up, I retrieved the stack of notebooks under my bed. I'd fleshed out the design over the past few days when I found the time. I'd build it now. It might take a few weeks for some of the components, but I'd build it.

"What of Dinah Alcott?"

Ugh. "I don't know. All she seemed to want…I'm still not sure. I think I've figured out her power, more or less, but what exactly she expected to happen I don't know."

"Will you allow her to join your team?"

"I don't really have a team, Veda. I mean there's you, but we're not much of a team."

"Is her power not useful?"

"It's so useful," I admitted.

Learning to lip read would get around one weakness, and experience could probably teach her to recognize which outcomes weren't possible for her, or maybe refining the questions she asked to narrow down the number of irrelevant pictures she got.

I set my notebooks aside and got ready for bed. I wanted sleep badly enough to just collapse, but Dad might wonder. When I finally laid down, I felt ready to just black out and wake up around noon.

Not that I could, but the thought—

"Taylor. Someone is hacking into my servers."

I shot up instantly and scrambled to the computer. "Who?!"

"Unknown."

Pulling up the feed from Veda's program, I started watching. No one should be at Winslow so late in the day.

The user entered Winslow by brute-forcing the crappy security, and instantly got funneled into the virtual boxes Veda used to hide its presence. Someone might notice something off about that initial switch. Might chalk it up to a networking quirk.

"What are they doing?"

"Accessing files."

And random files at that. Teacher records. Grades. Administrative correspondence. Were they not looking for Veda at all? I didn't buy the coincidence.

"Can you trace—" I stopped myself. "No. If we try to trace them and they find out, they'll know something is up."

"They seem unaware of my presence."

Hope it stays that way.

I waited and watched. Eventually they started making copies. Some disciplinary records, then some of the nurse's files. It seemed random until the hacker copied their first student file. Then another, and another, going down the register alphabetically.

"Student files…Why is someone taking student files?"

"Unkno—Rhetorical question?"

I smiled despite myself. "Yes."

They got to Emma's file before it occurred that mine would inevitably be copied. Were the rest just a screen to get mine, or was I being paranoid again?

Safe is better than sorry.

"Veda, can you remove the pointer to my file?"

"Yes."

"Do it."

The hacker copied Andrew Headden, went straight to Lensie Heckroth, and then on to Sophia Hess. No Hebert. I exhaled softly. No pointer, and as far as the system knew, the file didn't exist. Veda could restore it later.

"This is low-end hacking…using a script."

A good script, but a script. Everything executed too smoothly and methodically to be a person. I debated the risk, and then nodded to myself.

"Veda, trace the connection."

"Tracing. Connection originates from a VPN server in Portland, Oregon."

"Can you get past the VPN?"

"Hacking VPN server necessary."

Why is someone taking the student files? Me?

And if they wanted me, wouldn't they stop after not finding my file?

The last few times I assumed someone was coming after me I ended up being wrong each time. I didn't see any way for anyone to trace my cape activities to Taylor Hebert. Veda deleted the footage at the mall. Captain's Hill was far away from anywhere I frequented, and they obviously weren't looking for Veda.

Without Veda the whole hack might go unnoticed.

Cut the connection?

I ruled that out. It would give Veda away, and whoever it was would just try again from another VPN and be more prepared.

Keep tracing. Figure out what they want.

"Do it."

"Accessing."

"Only the hacker, Veda. We're not gonna go spying on everyone else's business, whatever it is." Lines need to be drawn.

"Accessed. Tracing."

The mystery hacker took the last student file, and then copied a few records from Blackwell's computer before leaving Winslow entirely.

"Did you get it Veda?"

"IP address routes to Boston."

"Another VPN?"

"Yes." Veda gave me the address. I didn't send Veda after that server. There could be dozens of VPNs being used by a good script. We'd broken into the first one, and that meant we at least could track what the script was doing. "The same address is now accessing records at Prince and Fourteenth Street."

"Prince and Fourteenth? That's Clarendon." I tapped my keyboard and told Veda to follow them into Clarendon's computers. I quickly coded a masking script, one that could hide Veda's presence from the other intruder. "Same thing as at Winslow?"

"Yes. They are copying administrative records, disciplinary files, and student records."

What is this?

"Is there anyone important at Winslow or Clarendon? Someone famous?"

No. All the famous kids in Brockton Bay either went to Arcadia or Immaculata. Clarendon and Winslow were bottom of the barrel institutions, the latter more than the former. After the hacker finished in Clarendon they went after Immaculata as well. Veda and I watched as they left that system and moved on to some of the middle schools in the area.

"Why not Arcadia? They skipped it. The High School and the Middle School."

The Wards.

"They don't want to take files pertaining to the Wards so bad they avoided Arcadia entirely. Or higher security maybe."

"Sophia Hess attends Winslow," Veda said.

"Yeah but people don't know she's Shadow Stalker. Most people just assume the Wards all go to Arcadia. The New Wave kids too. So they're either avoiding them, or avoiding the security around them. Either way, they don't want to be noticed so someone's up to something."

After the middle schools the hacker moved on to elementary, and after they finished, cut their connection. I sat and stared at the screen.

A sigh escaped my lips.

"This is my life now."

Wonder what's up with that. Eh. Probably isn't important.

Because some people keep giving me ideas, I'm now doing some reworking with Dragon's interlude. I'm gonna push to have it and Miss Militia's chapter's out tomorrow and Tuesday. From there I'll start working on Arc 2 in full.

I've also redone the opening blurp at the start of the thread to better reflect current content and make some of my plans/intentions clear.

Dinah's Power:

Spoiler

In Gunpla news I didn't get my Full Armor Gundam! They sent me Full Armor Unicorn Gundam instead, which was like 5 more than the one I wanted. I'm gonna keep it.

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

Last edited: Apr 27, 2021

1188

3ndless

Sep 30, 2018

View discussion

Threadmarks Side-Step MM

View content

3ndless

3ndless

Lord Commander of Hats

Oct 1, 2018

#314

AU content and story advancement ahoy! And moar foreshadowing! This takes place about a week after 1.8 and is meant to introduce some AU changes in Brockton Bay and the Protectorate.

Side-Step MM

Sitting up drew a low groan from her throat.

This is why I don't sleep.

She blinked the painful memory away and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

Hannah, or Miss Militia, only took part in the nightly activity once or twice a year, but mostly out of a sense of obligation rather than need. After straightening her costume she attended to her daily hygiene. It was easier to maintain a routine with at least laying down once a day.

She formed her power solidly into a simple Beretta and slipped it into the hip holster of her costume. Taking her scarf off the bedside stand when she finished, Hannah left her room and went down the hall.

Even for heroes who did sleep, six thirty in the morning was a fairly normal time to be awake. It didn't surprise her to find Prism and Triumph sitting in the coffee room.

Though they were sitting rather close.

"Morning."

Sam moved slightly, putting at least a foot between her and the muscular hero. "Evening ma'am." Rory for his part relied on his helmet to hide the red on his face.

The two got along well before, but since Rory's graduation into the Protectorate they no longer felt a need to keep things strictly impersonal.

Hannah smiled, thinking back to more pleasant times with Chris before their careers got in the way. One thing she found frustrating about heroism, so little time for personal affairs. She never managed to find the right balance. Ironic for someone who didn't need to sleep.

Fetching herself some coffee, the three made small talk before heading off to the morning meeting. Three times a week for only thirty minutes someone might find every member of the Protectorate ENE in one room, save for emergencies. Most other times they cycled in and out on patrols, public events, training, and paperwork. Always something to do.

The conference room resembled much of the interior. Clean walls and floors with smooth utilitarian furniture. Not necessarily the most comfortable, but it got the job done. The chairs in the conference room at least leaned back and supported the lumbar region well. Hero work can be killer on the back.

Shawn, in his mixed Greecian riot gear, was already seated inside talking to Robin. They all greeted one another, and Hannah glanced around the room. Velocity wasn't in costume at the moment; likely changed right after getting back from patrol.

Hannah checked for the missing faces and asked, "Armsmaster still hasn't left the lab?"

"Probably not," Robin said. "You know how he gets."

"I'll go get him. Before the Director calls and asks where he is."

Despite the Rig's size, most of the facilities and quarters were on the same floor in one corner of the structure. The Protectorate base stood for hope and security as much as anything, but that didn't change that most of the interior space went unused. The civilian staff consisted of only a few dozen employees, and since the Wards HQ moved to the PRT building in the Towers district, the heroes regularly using the facilities only numbered six.

Down the hall Hannah came to the closed door. She entered a code on the panel and waited the five seconds it took for the man on the other side to notice the buzzer before entering.

Armsmaster wore standard gray sweats, his armor mounted in an alcove against the wall while the helmet sat on the work table in front of him.

The lab was an impressive showing. Numerous projects in various states here and there, mechanical waldos working over some and computers scanning others. She didn't know how he found the time to get all the work done, even with the stimulants he kept giving himself on top of regular cups of black coffee.

"Militia," he said in greeting.

"It's morning," she said. "The Director will be conferencing in a few minutes."

He pulled up a clock on one of his monitors. "Right."

"Did you work all night again?"

"Yes, he did."

"Dragon." Hannah turned her head, seeing the smiling woman's face on another monitor to her left. The Canadian tinker never bothered with masks around other heroes. "I'm sorry I didn't notice you."

"It's fine, Hannah. I've been trying to get him to take a break for the past ten minutes anyway."

Colin grunted in response, rising from his seat and walking toward the bathroom area in one corner of the lab. Hannah looked over the workbench. She wasn't a tinker, but her memory, surprisingly, worked well for keeping track of this and that. She recognized the module on one side of the helmet that had been disassembled from weeks before.

"Working on the lie detector still?"

"Accuracy remains inadequate," he answered from the sink. He trimmed his beard quickly with practiced ease. "My results will never be admissible in court without improvement."

If then, Hannah thought.

She turned her attention to another device, a small, unfamiliar circuit with a block attached to it. "And what's this?"

"One of Leet's portable batteries," Dragon said. "We've been studying it for potential mass production."

Hannah wished for a moment she'd raised her scarf over her face to hide the slight frown. Not that it would help. Unfortunately, training herself to 'smile with her eyes' as people called it went both ways.

Her power flared momentarily, shifting from the handgun at her hip to a number of other forms before settling into a slightly larger handgun.

"Another prize from our anonymous tipster?"

It wasn't every day the Protectorate managed to raid a villainous tinker's workshop. It always led to something. New inventions, advancement, developments. Given the range of Leet's work, a great deal might come from the spoils.

"Not anonymous." Colin walked over to the table, cleaning up his tools and arranging them back into their places in the many drawers around his workbench. "StarGazer is obviously the tinker"—or thinker, Dragon suggested—"who hacked Uber and Leet's assets during the mall incident."

Or as the internet took to calling it, the Great Zombot Plague.

"Uber and Leet appear to have rubbed them the wrong way," Hannah murmured softly.

"Evidence suggests association with Saber Girl," Colin said. "When we arrived at Leet's workshop, several items were conspicuously missing."

"Or she is Saber Girl," Dragon hypothesized. "The day after the seizure, several men claiming to be Uber and Leet's henchmen posted on PHO. They reported that "Shirt Face" broke into the lab and stole numerous items before leaving. No mention was made of another individual being present, or in communication with her. They also described the experience as 'totally awesome, except for the part where she stole my van.'"

Hannah's brow rose. "She stole his van?"

"She reportedly returned it two days later," Dragon explained with a small smile.

Hannah still didn't like it. Henchmen or not, she couldn't go around commandeering private vehicles after stealing from a villain.

"Either way, Saber Girl has liberated Leet of his tools, and by informing us, all of his equipment. StarGazer may be responsible for wiping the computers of data, if they are a separate individual."

He obviously didn't believe that. Hannah remembered the day of the mall attack, watching with dismay as the willowy figure stormed off, oblivious to the crowds watching her. His lie detector came back with a half-truth on her statement that she didn't hack Uber and Leet's servers, but Colin was first to admit his invention didn't come close enough to accurate.

Rather, he seemed to believe the denial a lie based on his own experience.

"I read the report," Hannah said. "I almost want them to break out again just to see their reaction."

"They already have," Dragon stated solemnly.

Hannah's frown deepened. "When?"

"Late last night," Colin answered. "Boston sent word about an hour ago. We'll discuss it during the meeting."

"How did it happen this time?"

"We're not sure," Dragon said. "It's a low security facility, so there aren't as many cameras. From what I can tell, Uber forced his way through the guards and Leet built a scrambler that set all the security systems on a loop. They simply walked out, though how Leet got the materials to build a complex device so quickly isn't clear."

Hannah nodded. They'd only been in the cells for two days. "Outside assistance?"

"Possible," Colin admitted. "We'll know more when they resurface. Whether or not they return to Brockton Bay is debatable."

"I see little point," Dragon mused. "Leet's lab in the city is gone, and I doubt he has a backup. Without it, there's little reason to return."

"Never underestimate the recklessness of criminals," Colin said. "Saber Girl, and her partner if she has one, made it personal by going after his workshop. They might stay low for a time, but they also might go after her for causing them so much trouble."

Her power shifted again, taking the form of a shotgun slung over her back.

"You think they'd go so far?"

"She stole his tools."

"Tools are very special," Dragon replied, her tone half mocking.

"Twenty-nine percent of my efforts are spent building tools to build better tools. It's a lot of time and effort. I don't know any tinker who'd take having that effort disrupted well." He finished with his tools and stood up. "Let's go before the Director reprimands me."

Dragon smiled. "Again?"

"Again."

Colin didn't sneer or frown. Well, no more than his face naturally seemed to frown by default. Hannah learned early into their professional partnership that Armsmaster didn't do well with people, but not because of maliciousness. He simply didn't get anyone but other tinkers.

"Well. I'll leave you to that." The other tinker smiled and waved from behind the screen. "I need to prepare for the monthly check-in with the Directors. The Madison Containment Zone has been rather noisy of late."

Colin nodded. "Tomorrow, Dragon?"

"Tomorrow, Colin."

The screen went black and Hannah followed her leader from the room. When they returned to the conference table, the final member of the local Protectorate was seated on the far end.

"Militia. Armsmaster."

Hannah nodded in greeting before sitting down. "Stratos."

Neil waved as they entered, wavy brown hair framing a warm smile and sharp eyes. He still wore his costume, a military green bodysuit with padded armor. His visor sat on the table in front of him.

He chuckled to himself, pointing a thumb at Colin as he took his seat near the head of the table. "Found him buried in the workshop again, did you?"

Hannah smiled. He had that effect on people, enough that jokes flew back and forth about testing for a master effect.

Robin handled the phone when it started ringing, pressing the series of buttons that put Director Emily Piggot on speaker.

"Protectorate," she said in short greeting.

"Director," Colin answered. "You've been informed of Uber and Leet's escape?"

"Unfortunately. We don't know how it happened?"

"Boston is investigating, and Dragon."

"Yes, I'm sure they'll do as splendid a job as they did holding the pair."

The phone rang again, and Robin added the Deputy Director to the call. "Sorry for the late arrival. Paperwork never ceases."

Sam looked at the phone. "Up all night again, sir?"

"No, not this time. I did arrive to a rather large stack however. I hope no one minds if I divide my attention a bit."

"Carry on, Thomas," the Director said. "We'll start with the usual. Empire?"

"Victor and Othala were spotted last night," Sam reported. "Triumph and I ran into them during our patrol south of the Boardwalk. They fled the moment we crossed paths. No engagement."

"What were they doing so close to the Boardwalk? That isn't Empire territory."

"Might be scouting for a push," Rory answered. "The Merchants took a hit earlier this week when Squealer lost that tank thing."

Hannah remembered the wreckage—a giant slab of molten metal fused into the asphalt. What on earth possessed the Merchant tinker to try and pick a fight with Lung, no one knew. The gang was already held in the lowest esteem. They hardly needed to look worse.

Not that Hannah felt bad for them, she simply didn't understand their mentality. One of her weaknesses as a hero. She'd never been able to place herself into the criminal mindset.

Not like Shawn or Neil.

"Skidmark is getting ambitious," the latter suggested. "He thinks he deserves more than he has."

The Deputy Director apparently found the time to ask, "Is that another hunch, Stratos?"

"Of course."

"It fits," Shawn said. "Skidmark likes holding rallies. He's no Kaiser. Not by a long shot, but he seems to think he can be. Now that they've recruited Trainwreck to the cause, he has five parahumans rather than the three he had at the start of the year. It's a big increase in muscle. Pushing against Lung might seem foolish, but it also makes sense. The ABB only has two capes, and Lung can't be everywhere."

"Hmm." Director Piggot audibly tapped something against her desk. "You think that while Squealer was fighting Lung, the other Merchant capes pushed for something?"

"It's possible," Shawn replied. "Lung's not stupid, but he has a temper."

"Or a big ego," Sam whispered.

"Or that. Either way, he's been baited before by the Empire. Skidmark might be a drug-fueled dealer, but stupid isn't the right word. He wouldn't have lasted this long if he were a complete idiot."

"He's too big for his britches," Neil amended. "And just because he isn't stupid doesn't mean he won't act like he is. I'll bet he makes another move soon."

"And the Empire will see it as an opportunity," Robin said. "The ABB and the Merchants beating each other's skulls in is a chance to punish both sides."

"We'll increase patrols in the area," Piggot decided. "Dissuade the gangs from starting anything. Shift the Ward patrols toward the Boardwalk for the next week. That should further discourage them."

Hannah consciously reined her power back in. She lost sight of it at times. It felt too much a part of her, like breathing. Most of her teammates were accustomed to the way it moved, but after Neil's brow raised in her direction she noticed herself cycling through several rifles before she forced a simple knife into shape.

After regaining her composure she asked, "Is that necessary?"

"While I understand your concern Miss Militia, I agree with Emily." A small 'hrumpt' from the other line filled the room. "The gangs rely on détente with the Protectorate. Giving the Wards more injuries than they can take is a surefire way to break that. We'd bring in heroes from Boston, Providence, and New York and make their businesses miserable. Skidmark might not recognize that fact but Lung and Kaiser do."

"That's not the point." Stratos' grin was gone, and he eyed both phones fiercely.

Hannah nodded in agreement, though she said nothing.

Rory nodded to Neil. "Oni Lee and Hookwolf never make a habit of holding back. Vista barely got away from her little encounter, even if she likes to think she won."

"Thomas is right," Piggot said in a firm, this conversation is over, tone.

"I'm inclined to agree," Colin said.

"Lung and Kaiser will keep their men in line well enough," Piggot continued. "And if they don't they may well cut the offenders loose. The goal here is to prevent a gang war in the streets. The best way to do that at the moment is to remind the gangs that we won't tolerate it."

Hannah disliked these moments. The ones where they all faced the reality that the Protectorate at best only kept the peace in Brockton Bay. The gangs outnumbered the heroes, and the heroes couldn't afford to hit them too hard lest they be hit back, or another gang move to take advantage.

Past attempts to 'surge' the city with heroes simply ended in more bloodshed.

The Empire could call in reinforcements from across the United States, not to mention Europe, and Lung was Lung. Even with Stratos kept in place as a check on the Japanese cape, no one weighed the Protectorate's odds in a fight highly. Worse yet, the gangs knew it, and the public knew it.

Emily Piggot's outlook might sour heroic aspiration, but Hannah couldn't argue with reality.

The heroes needed all hands on deck, even if the Wards were in training. Brockton Bay was a powder keg. Blue Cosmos nearly blew it apart last year when they organized protests against Lung's 'parlor houses.' A gentle reminder from Stratos was the only thing that saved the lot from being incinerated on the spot.

It felt all too Pyrrhic.

"I assume there's nothing else on the big three?" Silence answered the question. "Then let's move on. Coil. Faultline. Undersiders. Independents. Blue Cosmos."

"Nothing on Circus in a few weeks," Robin said. "Nothing unusual there."

"He disappears frequently," Colin agreed.

"Or she," Sam added. "Never been clear which."

Colin nodded. "The Undersiders hit a series of ABB stash houses since the last meeting. Sovereign's threat rating may need to go up."

Piggot's voice stilled slightly. "How bad?"

"Her power has more range than initial intelligence suggested."

"And Valiant is staying tight-lipped about it?"

"I haven't asked. Per the terms of his agreement, he is under no obligation to reveal any information about his siblings so long as he cooperates in any action taken against his father."

The entire room stiffened slightly.

At the rate things went, the Brockton Bay Wards might garner a reputation for problem children. First Clockblocker's little stunt at his debut, which fortunately played fairly well in the end. Then Shadow Stalker's probationary status, and finally Valiant. Piggot did her damnedest to keep him out of the city after the initial roundups of Heartbreaker's children, but no one wanted too many of them in one place, and 'Alec' didn't want to be around his siblings anyway.

They all might have been put away if not for Hero and Legend's push for rehabilitation. Many might have preferred that option.

Hannah couldn't quite tell if he was salvageable yet. Half the time the boy didn't seem to know what he was supposed to do and the other half he didn't seem to care. The only members of the team he got on with were Clockblocker and Kid Win, and only because of a mutual appreciation for games. Like Hannah and sleep, he seemed to regard friendship as an obligation rather than a need.

"Ask anyway," Piggot said. "'Under no obligation' and 'unwilling to answer the question' are two different things."

The discussion wrapped up quickly from there.

Faultline's crew were hardly harmless, but they kept their noses to the ground in the city, and so long as they did so they weren't a priority. Coil's operation remained a mystery outside of his, or her, employment of tinker-tech armed mercenaries.

New Wave simply wasn't that active anymore. Lightstar and Fleur essentially vanished from cape life years ago, and the older members of the Pelham-Dallon clans as well. Glory Girl caused more collateral damage than anything, and Panacea kept up her regular healing schedule at the hospitals.

The other independents in the city mostly stuck to the fringes. Dazzler and Sere out in the suburbs far away from any real trouble, and Parian running her shop near the Boardwalk while disassociating herself from the battle of heroes and villains.

Blue Cosmos mostly got tacked on by necessity. While not a parahuman group, their actions inherently involved parahuman affairs. Regular law enforcement often resented having to deal with their protests and rallies, particularly the parahumans in the Protectorate and their support in the PRT for shoveling such matters their way. Hannah didn't understand it, but the police didn't want to keep track of what the terrorist group did.

And they were terrorists, no matter how many violent attacks their leaders disavowed. That they avoided harsh punishment owed to the politics of the time. Ever since the destruction of Manhattan, Parahumans were under more scrutiny than ever.

"I'm still working on the lie detector," Colin explained. His reports on tinkering projects generally came at the end of their meetings. "My progress with the Endbringer prediction program is slow but steady. Dragon's aid is invaluable. I'm also still reviewing the technology captured from Leet's workshop. Dragon's help has sped up the process."

"Ah. Speaking of that…" Calvert went silent for a few seconds, the shuffling of paper on the other side of the phone the only sign he was still there. "Here it is. Apparently our tipster has called in again. Three drug stashes used by the Merchants in Shanty Town, an Empire armory, and three of Lung's brothels."

"Another one?" Shawn rose up slightly. "That's the fifth one this week."

Robin shook his head. "For a girl who doesn't seem to like us much she sure likes shoveling work onto our plate."

"We only know that Saber Girl holds animosity toward us," Colin said. "We know little of StarGazer."

"We don't even know that StarGazer exists," Sam pointed out. "She could just be a handle used by Saber Girl, or her actual cape name."

They'd debated this before. Hannah struggled to maintain any objectivity on the subject, and with that she found silence the best option.

Even in her perfect memory she couldn't find the problem. Mask, for all her nervousness, seemed eager. Excited. Then a minute or two in Shadow Stalker's presence she became fearful, distrusting, and…disgusted. She tried to press but nothing came of it. The Deputy Director promised to look into the matter and said he found no issues.

Perhaps the rough teen simply triggered bad memories.

Trigger events were personal. Traumatic. Even in all the years since the war, Hannah still avoided thinking about her own as much as she could. She'd followed regulation to the letter, save for a rushed visit to the Wards HQ. Maybe if she hadn't let a good sense with the young girl color her judgement, Mask would have joined the Wards that day or the next.

I shouldn't have let her go, Hannah thought. I let her just walk off, twice.

Neil wore a mocking grin as he said, "And we're not going to do anything about it."

"Gang war," Piggot repeated. "It's good information. I'm not going to complain, but we can't take such a direct course without inviting open confrontation with their capes. Not right now. Too much risk of public perception viewing a string of stings as antagonizing the criminal element."

"If we managed to catch a few capes..." the Deputy Director suggested.

"Yes," the Director allowed. "Yes, then perhaps. For now, things are too volatile. It's not the time to be starting fires."

When the meeting closed, Armsmaster rose to return to his lab. Prism and Triumph got up for their morning patrol, and Robin and Shawn left to sleep off theirs. Hannah wandered up several floors until she came out to the smell of sea air and wind on her face. She pulled her scarf up instinctively.

The city spread out before her. Lord's Port lay far off from her sight of the Boardwalk, making it easy to see Brockton Bay as a less dreary place than it often was.

"Fresh air?"

She smiled. "America."

For all its flaws she loved it. A place so different from the one of her birth, and her nightmares.

Stratos leaned against the railing beside her, visor covering the upper half of his face.

"You could have fought a bit harder in there."

"For what?"

"They're kids, not UN peacekeepers."

Hannah felt her power again but forced it down quickly. "No, but they are heroes."

"You don't agree with the decision."

"It's not my decision to make. Or yours."

"I suppose not. Rubs me the wrong way though." His expression turned grim despite the smile. "Piggot might think herself a soldier, but Nilbog was a monster, not a war."

At times like this she cursed her memory, and Neil for using it against her. She didn't think he meant to drag it up, but they both knew a side of the world that America didn't suffer much of.

"Sorry," he said.

"You're not wrong." She turned to face his eyes, smiling as best she could. "I know it reminds you too much of what happened."

He nodded in turn. "I don't like dead kids."

They remained silent for a few minutes as the wind blew by. Standing side by side, the similarities in their costumes were striking. Military greens that hit in a way that showed off curves and muscles. Hannah bore the red, white, and blue of her adoptive country, while Stratos carried the green, white, and orange of the one he left behind.

"Still worried about our wayward tinker?"

Hannah nodded. "She can't be any older than sixteen."

"She seems to be doing pretty well so far."

"Most independent capes die in their first six months. Usually in the fourth or fifth. She's almost there."

"And the capes who survive those six months have a much higher rate of breathing," he said. "You did what you could. She walked away on her own. Twice. What else can you do but keep an eye out?"

He said it like a challenge, and worse, Hannah agreed with him. So many possibilities.

What if Shadow Stalker hadn't been there. What if she pushed harder to get the girl to stay. What if she approached her after the mall instead of letting Armsmaster do it. Especially that last one. She knew how he was, and even if he got on better with tinkers, he didn't do well with teenagers.

"What indeed."

She stepped away from the railing and went back inside. Regrets were regrets, and there was a present to worry about.

It might be a controversial, but I've never been as big a fan of Miss Militia as the fandom seems to be. Which isn't to say I dislike Milita's character, but I'm definitely not on the love her side of the camp. I think it came through in the interlude, but I liked this little jaunt. Feel like I understand her a bit better at least. Gave me ideas for character development down the line, so thanks to readers for suggesting this.

Oh, and the AU. Thoughts? I figured if I'm doing an AU then I'm gonna do an AU. Stratos' power? Spoilers. Where are Assault and Battery? Also, Spoilers. Why the hell is Prism here? See Dragon's interlude coming soon to a thread near you.

What the hell is Alec doing in the Wards? Well Hero seemed to lean more towards the Legend end of morality than Eidolon and Alexandria and someone already noticed in thread he isn't dead in Trailblazer. Had he survived, would there have been a more 'moral' Protectorate (Wildbow as I understand suggested such once)? This is in part my bid to play with that idea. That, and the idea of Alec hanging out in the Ward's room with his passive sarcastic shtick sounds hilariously fun. Something obviously happened to Heartbreaker, and people can probably guess who Sovereign is supposed to be. Where the hell is Dean anyway?

Dragon's interlude may inform some of these details more. This chapter was about Brockton Bay more than anything. Dragon's will focus on the world at large and set the stage for arc 2. I hope to have it done tomorrow.

Beta'd by TSFreedom and Platinumsabr.

Last edited: Apr 27, 2021

1180

3ndless

Oct 1, 2018

View discussion

1 of 28

Next

Last

Threadmarks

Sidestory

Apocrypha

Media

Informational

Staff Post

View content

You must log in or register to reply here.

Share

Worm

Style chooser

Contact us

Terms and rules

Privacy policy

Help

RSS