"Ah shit," Taylor hissed as a spark flew off the circuit board she was working on and flashed over her index finger.
She put the fingertip in her mouth and sucked on it lightly. It wasn't the first time she'd been zapped by a piece of electrical hardware while she had been working on it and she was sure it wouldn't be the last time either.
"You doing okay Taylor?" her Dad called up from the bottom of the stairs.
"Yeah, just a papercut, I'm alright!" She yelled back down.
It was a few minutes after she heard her Dad shuffle back into the living room that she felt safe enough to breathe a sigh of relief.
It had taken her a grand total of 24 hours to give into her power's constant prodding and poking and flooding her mind with blueprints before she eventually gave in and did what she knew she was probably always going to do in the first place.
Tinkering was an interesting pastime, Taylor had quickly realised.
While she had considered herself okay with a computer before she had gained her powers she'd never really thought anything of the technology behind the computer itself. Writing simple pieces of code in the computer lab at school was pretty different to understanding what made the actual computer tick on a hardware level.
She didn't really know what any of the hardware was for after her powers manifested either, not in the typical way that someone might describe knowledge anyway.
If she looked at a piece of technology then she instinctively knew what that piece of tech did and what its components could be used for. But if someone asked her to explain how to build a computer with nothing in front of her then she'd probably be out of her depth unless her power provided the blueprints, and even then it would be as if she were talking from a manual.
It could also be, as she had just discovered, a painful pastime.
"How was I supposed to know the capacitors kept their charge even after the damn PC had been disconnected from the mains," She muttered to herself as the pain in her fingertip subsided.
Taylor glanced at the clock on her bedside table. It was already ten in the morning, long after the time she would have usually woken up to go to school. She wouldn't be going to school again any time soon, not if she had anything to do with it anyway.
Already Taylor's power had her fingers twitching to go back into the drawer. To pick up the circuit board she had been working on, which had previously been part of her computer monitor, and to continue the upgrades she had been making.
They weren't anything special. A 33% increase in the visual fidelity for a 25% decrease in overall power draw. If she had the right tools and the right materials her power told her that she would be able to do much more than those simple adjustments, but with the tools and terrible hardware she had access to that was it.
Taylor clenched her fingers and got out of bed.
If she stayed up in her room tinkering for any longer then there was no question in her mind that her dad would come poking around in her room, and she had no idea what he would do if he saw the mess she'd made of the monitor. Its guts were strewn out all over the carpet.
She made her way through the debris and closed her door behind her as she left, resolving to put the monitor back together later.
The smell of freshly cooked bacon and eggs wafted up the stairs and Taylor's stomach grumbled in eager anticipation. She made her way down the stairs carefully and gingerly, her legs still didn't feel quite right.
"Something smells good," Taylor said, she hung back at the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the door.
There was something about seeing her dad working away at the stove that made her a little bit emotional. Not enough to have her breaking down in tears or anything like that, but a little tug at her heartstrings.
It was a sight that she hadn't seen in a while. After her Mom had passed away the elder Hebert had been even more of a recluse than she had, and most nights it had been up to her to fix food from something in the fridge or something on the back of a takeout menu.
To see her Dad putting the effort in like he'd promised her the day before? It felt good.
"I figured you'd want some breakfast," Her Dad replied, "And if there's one thing I can cook it's bacon and eggs."
"No arguments from me there," Taylor said.
With a few quick strides she moved over to the cupboards, grabbed a couple of plates, and some knives and forks for good measure.
"You don't need to do that little owl," Her Dad said, using a nickname she hadn't heard in a while. "You've just come home from the hospital, now go on and sit. Food will be soon."
She rolled her eyes at her Dad's sudden overprotectiveness, but she wasn't going to argue about it. It was nice to be doted on for a change.
Instead, Taylor grabbed the knives and the forks and made her way to the table.
As she sat and waited for her Dad to bring the food in Taylor couldn't help but cast her eyes over all the little pieces of tech in their living room.
The crappy old TV, not even a flat-screen but still one of those big boxes with tubes in them. She could increase the resolution by more than even the best flat screens on the market, and put in a little something to give them access to all of the cable channels for free.
Then there was the phone, it wouldn't take much to disconnect it from the phone line and make it wireless, piggybacking onto the network with even better audio quality.
The TV remote could be upgraded to control basically anything in the house. Hell, why rely on a remote when she could just install voice commands in all the lights, automate the locks on the doors-
Taylor's Dad came in with two plates, heaping with bacon, eggs and slices of freshly buttered toast. It was enough to snap her mind out of the slippery tinker slope that it had started to slide down.
"You doing okay, Taylor?" Her Dad asked as he set a plate down in front of her, "You look a little pale."
She could understand his concern what with her just coming out of the hospital and all.
"I'm fine," Taylor replied with a shake of her head, "Just hungry is all, thanks for the food."
The steaming pile of eggs and bacon was more than enough to distract her from the technology all around her.
She grabbed some hot sauce from the center of the table, splashed it on her eggs, scooped some up and then speared a piece of bacon. The forkful was a little big, but it was exactly how she liked it.
"Just how your Mom used to do it," Taylor's Dad said, he hadn't started eating his own meal yet and there was a little sparkle at the corner of his eyes. "For a second there I thought I was going to lose you just like I lost her."
Taylor struggled to swallow her food around the lump that had suddenly materialized in her throat.
"Well… I'm fine Dad," Taylor replied, "It… It's okay, you know? I'm okay now."
Her dad moved some food around his plate aimlessly, his eyes were narrowed now and it wasn't sadness that was sparkling in them. He was angry, that much she could tell.
"It's not okay, Taylor," Her Dad seethed, "What happened at your school… the things that you went through there. That was not okay. Something needs to be done, I see that now. I should have seen it before it got to this point."
The lump in Taylor's throat only got bigger. This wasn't what she wanted to talk about. Not now, maybe not ever. She wasn't even sure if she would be able to walk the halls of Winslow again without having a nervous breakdown.
"I don't really want to think about it right now…" Taylor mumbled, "I was thinking… Well… I was thinking I could test out, do my GED or something. But I need a few days before I even go down that avenue of thought because right now it just sends my head spinning."
Her Dad's eyes widened a little and for a moment he didn't look up from his plate. It was obvious that he wanted to keep going, but she just wasn't ready for it yet. The moment passed quickly and he started eating his own meal.
After a minute or two of silent eating, Taylor's Dad spoke up once more.
"I was thinking that, since we both pretty much have the day off, we could take a stroll down the Boardwalk or something," He said, "Catch a movie at the theatre, grab dinner at Fugly Bobs. Only if you feel like you can, I know you've been through a lot."
She had been through a lot, that was true, but Taylor didn't feel as though she could stay cooped up in the house all day either. The longer she did, surrounded by archaic technology begging to be upgraded, the easier it would be to go off on a wild tinker session.
She needed to be out and about, at least until she could come up with a plan on what to do next.
"A movie sounds good," Taylor replied, "Anything new on at the moment?"
"There was that new superhero movie from Aleph," Her Dad said around a mouthful of eggs, "You know what they're like over there, less capes so their hero flicks tend to be a little different. The Green Hornet, I think it's called."
The movie didn't ring a bell for Taylor, but then she'd been knocked out for a couple of weeks at least.
"Sure Dad, sounds like a plan to me," She said. "I think we'll have to take the chair, though. My legs still feel pretty shaky."
The sadness crept back onto her Dad's face, an echo of what it had been like in the time before she'd gone to the hospital. A major part of her Dad blamed himself for what had happened to her, Taylor could tell.
They ate their breakfast quickly after that, scarfing down the remaining eggs, bacon and toast until there was none left on either of their plates.
As she got ready to go out for the day Taylor was determined that she wouldn't let her new tinker powers get in the way of things. Her Dad was important to her, and while he seemed to be rallying behind her injuries now she had no real idea if the depression would claw back at him again in the future.
She needed to enjoy this time with him, this rare bit of togetherness that they were experiencing, while she had the chance.
It took Taylor longer than she would have liked to get ready. Her legs constantly felt as though they were going to give out under her. Perhaps, when she had more of an understanding of how she was going to operate with her tinker abilities, she'd be able to do something about that.
A dozen ideas for powered exo suits and armour flashed through her mind, from primitive metal strips anchored together with a strange plasticky material to sleek metal legs that ended in heavy steel boots.
She'd get there eventually, she just needed to take it one step at a time.
Taylor's Dad was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs after she had washed and gotten dressed with her foldable wheelchair held in his hands. She made her way down one shaky step at a time.
"You look good sweetie," Her Dad said, to which she replied with a withering glare.
She'd been in the hospital for weeks and she looked like she'd barely slept. There was no way in hell she looked anything close to good.
They made their way out to the car together, her dad putting the chair in the trunk while she settled in the front passenger seat, and started on their way.
Taylor couldn't remember the last time that she and her Dad had done something together like this. Even before her Mom had passed away he'd always been busy trying to keep the docks going, trying to get the ferry up and running again.
It was new and it was nice.
The drive to the boardwalk was a mercifully short one. She'd so readily agreed to going out because she'd wanted her power to stop scratching at the inside of her skull with answers to improvements to every bit of technology in the house, but that hadn't really happened.
Her Dad's car was an old banger of a machine and from the moment she'd sat down in it her power had been providing hundreds of ways to make changes and alterations to every single element of it.
The radio could be improved, she could even make it pick up stations from Aleph if she really wanted. The clutch was a bit overly worn, there was an exotic material in her head just waiting to make it less of a danger. In fact, why not get rid of the whole drive system and add a hover propulsion unit? Then the car would be a hundred times more efficient and it would be able to fly.
By the time they made it to the car park by the Boardwalk Taylor was about ready to lose her mind, her fingers twitched and her brain ached to work on something new.
"You doing okay?" Her Dad asked as they got out of the car and he prepared the wheelchair for her.
"Uh… Yeah, just felt a bit dizzy is all, but I'm okay now," Taylor replied, it wasn't a complete lie. The onslaught of constant information her power provided could be a bit dizzying at times.
Her Dad didn't seem convinced. "You sure?" He said, "Because we can go back home and order some Chinese food later instead if you want."
Taylor shook her head, "I'm fine Dad, come on," She replied. Going back to the house was the last thing she wanted, at least for a little while.
Her Dad eyed her for a moment, as if waiting for her to spontaneously collapse in the middle of the parking lot, but then relented and finished off setting up the wheelchair.
Taylor sat, she wasn't fond of having to rely on using a wheelchair. It was hopefully only going to be a short-lived thing, a side effect of not having walked for a few weeks after being in a hospital bed.
They chatted idly as they set off from the parking lot down the Boardwalk toward the cinema. Not about anything important, exactly. The weather, the movie they were going to watch, simple things like that.
All the while Taylor's gaze was fixed out toward the sea, where the protectorate headquarters glinted in the midday sun. The energy shield that they were using was incredibly inefficient, Taylor realised. In fact, by her powers reckoning, it wouldn't even take much in the way of firepower to crack through the thing if she so desired.
Not that she would desire such a thing, she thought burying the notion as quickly as it had risen. There was no reason Taylor Hebert would ever fight against the Protectorate, the Wards or the PRT.
Her train of thought was disrupted as they entered the theatre, the heady smell of popcorn and syrupy sodas washed over her in an instant, banishing the smells of the ocean in one sugary wave.
"Popcorn?" Her Dad asked a faint smile across his face.
Taylor nodded eagerly, all of a sudden there was nothing she wanted more than to stuff her face with popcorn, watch a movie and zone out of everything that had happened since she had woken.
In the end the movie that they had chosen to watch hadn't let her do that at all.
The Green Hornet was, by all accounts, just as bad as the reviewers on both sides of the multiversal portal that linked Aleph and Bet had said it was.
Not only that, but the main superhero lead had primarily relied on guns and gadgets to get the job done, all of which Taylor's power wanted to dissect and improve upon.
It seemed that not even in a movie theatre was she going to be safe from the influence of her tinker abilities.
"Well that was… something," Taylor's Dad said as they left the theatre and made their way back down the Boardwalk.
"Yeah… that's one way to put it," Taylor said. "Probably should have listened to the reviewers on that one Dad. I mean, they didn't even have powers, how could they be superheroes?"
She heard her Dad chuckle from behind her, "You know, before all this Cape stuff we did used to have comics just like that. I think one of the most popular was about some guy called Batman. No powers, just like the movie we watched today."
If someone attempted something like that on Bet, or even on Aleph, they'd be killed in an instant. Someone without powers just couldn't stand up to the majority of Parahumans. They were an upgrade on humanity.
Taylor smirked at that.
An Upgrade.
The world felt right in her brain, as though it fit just right amongst all the jumbles of tech in her mind. She'd read about tinkers and specialities on PHO. Each Tinker was supposed to have something they were better at than anything else.
Upgrading. Taylor was sure that was hers.