This chapter was honestly difficult. Not in the sense of writing it, but the balancing what is canon Pre-Levi Douchebag Armsy and what I'm trying to convey. A lot of my premise for this Armsy is based upon the fact that he is more comfortable around Tinkers who are, like him, sure of themselves and know what they are doing. It's why he has issues connected with Kid Win, because KW simply doesn't know what his specialty is, and like a teenager he lets it become personal/emotional, which for someone as mission-focused as Armsy, is not something he can jive with.
So yeah, it will be a bit jarring. But I think I did a decent job in presenting it. I decided to cut this chapter after 4K words because I made a promise to myself to avoid doing massive drops, as that would only slow down production and drive, but lead to the issues I am having with A New Dawn and my rewrite of Ice and Fire. So, next chapter after this will deal with a lot of POVs, Armsy's report and his own personal thoughts after the briefing, a certain voyeur who will raise an eyebrow at what he's seen, a certain goose-stepping faker, a failure of an officer, and a pair of surprises. At least, that's the plan so far, it may expand further (god help me if I start breaking 5K words, that's when Ill start splitting into parts)
Seed 1.A
"This, I will admit, is impressive for what you've been able to do with the resources you've had access to."
And that wasn't hyperbole either, Colin Wallis thought to himself as he looked over what Miss Hebert referred to as a 'Focus'. It certainly was rough around the edges, but as a proof-of-concept, the design was sound.
When Battery had talked to him two days ago about Miss Hebert's presence in the PRT building and the revelation that she was a Tinker, he was incredulous at the situation. He had been briefed on Miss Hebert thanks to Shadow Stalker's involvement in a bullying campaign against her. And as a result of the briefing he was fully aware that by every single recognizable and known metric, Miss Hebert was blind.
Yet Battery, and then Director Piggot, had both confirmed to him that it wasn't a joke, and as a result, the incredulity had morphed into pity. A Tinker without the ability to see was probably one of the worst handicaps imaginable.
But he had his marching orders from Piggot: Discover if what Hebert was producing was Tinkertech or not. And if she was, make a push for her to join the Wards if the tech was useful, at least. If that wasn't possible, then ensure an amicable relationship remains.
He could understand the cold, rational pragmatism of Piggot's orders, it was something he would support because it was the best option available in a minefield rife with a lot of bad choices. But there was still something underneath his superior's intentions that rubbed him the wrong way.
So he did the one thing that he knew may illuminate more on the issue and prepare him for his inevitable meeting with Miss Hebert, and that was to do a deep dive on everything he could obtain about her, both private and personal.
Frankly, at the beginning, he hadn't found much of note about the girl, after factoring out the bullying. She was a relatively normal girl: her deceased mother was a Professor of English at Brockton Bay University, father was the de facto head of the local dockworker's union, even if organizationally he wasn't. She was in the top four of her class, before she made an utterly baffling decision to go to Winslow, a school that he had once heard Clockblocker mocking call Penitentiary High (the Ward had been chastised for the insensitive remark, but when he had done his own research on a whim, he found he couldn't disagree with Clockblocker). After that, the drop off wasn't just noticeable, it was the sort of red flag activity that would have any school that valued its reputation investigating with a fervor-like zeal.
But if he was anything, he was thorough, so he had asked for help from Dragon, a close friend and sometimes coworker, to see if she could find anything he may have missed.
Well, if there was one thing that he always admired about his friend, it was that she was unerringly fast when she put her mind in it. It had only taken the Canadian Tinker an hour until she had found something that had immediately attracted both of their attentions.
It may have escaped their notice, to be perfectly honest, if Dragon hadn't been thorough and had decided to look through patents applied between the date of Miss Hebert's attack and her meeting with the Protectorate on the assumption that she triggered around that time, then cross-referenced it with the addresses of the patenter. They found a patent application under review for a 'visual aid and enhancement device' submitted by an LLC called Zero Dawn Technologies. Further perusal of the company had quickly found paydirt as the only two listed employees were Taylor and Daniel Hebert.
He wasn't lying when he told Miss Hebert that the device was certainly impressive. One of the things he had done after he had triggered was spend an inordinate amount of time studying engineering, only ending his pursuit of a Doctorate due to the ever-increasing demands of the Protectorate on his life and the minimal returns such a pursuit would provide. But even without the degree, he may as well have one with his breadth of knowledge and skills.
So when he had looked through the patent, it had quickly changed from being the disinterested, but suitably professional eyes of Armsmaster, Hero of the Protectorate, to Colin Wallis, engineer. And what he had read through had caused him to throw propriety to the side. He knew that he would likely have to deal with a seriously brassed off Director Piggot for his breach of decorum, but he couldn't resist just skipping the formalities and compartmentalization, and head straight to the source.
Still, he could understand Heberts' irritation with his presence, despite his apologies. Showing up unannounced at the Dockworker's Union was certainly against the spirit of the Unwritten Rules. It had taken Miss Hebert's insistence that he was even allowed to remain and be left alone with her.
But the honest truth of it all was that the rules were window dressing, honored only when it was convenient for all parties. The moment the Hebert's had entered the front door of the Brockton Bay PRT, they had placed themselves on the radar of the Empire Eighty-Eight and Azn Bad Boys as persons of interest.
It wouldn't have mattered where they had met.
The only thing that was holding the gangs back from making any moves was a decision based solely on the pragmatic calculation on whether the risk was worth the reward of violating the rules and upsetting the delicate balance in the power struggle for Brockton Bay.
Discarding the dark thoughts that threatened to go further down the rabbit hole that was Brockton Bay's situation, he instead focused his attention on better things. Happier things.
Gently placing the device back down on the table in front of Miss Hebert, he noted the pair of closed laptops currently sitting behind her. Logging that way, he refocused his attention upon her as she reached out and placed her hands upon the headset, her fingers gingerly running over the device, feeling it out before she plugged a power cord into the device and then gently placing it on her head, a soft glow beginning on both panels on her head.
While the patent had been rather descriptive in how it generated vision for the wearer, it was something he would be unable to experience due to protocols. It would not be wise to place untested Tinkertech upon his head, even if he was coming to the conclusion that the device was certainly not Tinkertech.
He had to wonder exactly what she was seeing now, looking at him through the vision of the Focus, and what she was thinking. The entire time he had been here, she had been quiet, simply answering his questions and not offering much else. It was honestly…different compared to other instances in which he was shown Tinkertech, usually by Kid Win. The teen could not help but talk through his examination, trying to reach out to him, when in actuality he did not know exactly how to help him. Their focuses were too different, and Kid Win had yet to even find his speciality.
"I do have a few questions, Miss Hebert."
"Of course, Armsmaster."
"How are you seeing? I understand the basic mechanics as outlined by the patent application. But the theory behind it escapes me."
She pursed her lips, obviously considering what she was going to say. After all, his ruling was still underway.
"The human brain is, when you distill it to its most basic definition, a biologically-based central processor unit," she began, "it runs similarly to any computer you and I take for granted, except its housing is, instead of a box, the human body."
"Like any computer, it can be reprogrammed to do things it previously may not have been meant to do from its base settings set by genetics and standard influences. Usually this was achieved through drugs, hypnosis, or other more metaphysical means, but at its core the biological hardware shares, in the statistical majority, a baseline design merely optimized differently from person to person."
She then reached for her drink, and he noted the surety that she grabbed the drink before sipping from it without missing a beat. It was a major departure from the effort that she had put into working simply to don the machine.
"But, again, these are all biological methods used to achieve their objectives," she continued after she finished, placing the drink back down, "and even then they do not do anything that isn't a change in behavior or perception."
He knew where she was going with her statement, after all he wasn't blind to not notice at least some concerning similarities with another Tinker in the device: Cranial. While it certainly wasn't the type of technology that revolved around memory creation and erasure that the wet Tinker promoted through Toybox, it still shared some of the core concepts, just in a different vector.
"I take it you are familiar with brain-machine interfaces, Armsmaster."
"I am," and he would not be lying, as he had indeed in the past explored the technology, looking to possibly utilize it in the future. The only issue that he had was that the technology, while promising, was still relatively primitive and certainly worth risking such invasive procedures in order to attain higher efficiency in his work, at least not without Tinker workaround. So he had discarded his pursuit, instead looking at other means in order to further his capabilities.
"Then you would recognize that my Focus is merely a logical evolution of the concept," she opined, keeping her gaze upon him, and even though he knew she was blind, he couldn't help but feel like her gaze was piercing right through him, "all that it does is that it has skipped over several generations of iteration and research in order to achieve a non-invasive method, avoiding the requirement for human augmentation."
"But that's not what you are asking," she sighed, spinning her chair around and sliding it to the left laptop, running her fingers over the keyboard, and the machine came to life. He slowly behind her, recognizing the unspoken invitation to come closer.
"How are you doing that," he asked, watching as her fingers danced over the keyboard with the skill and aplomb of a professional with years of experience, not even pausing as several windows expanded, then closed, and it was like watching an intricate dance.
Her fingers paused, "I hate braille," she admitted, after drawing a breath and releasing it, her hands curling into fists, "my mother was an English professor who raised me with a love of reading and writing. If there wasn't a book in my hands growing up, then she was reading one to me."
"Those," her face screwed into a rictus of hate and sorrow, "animals," she spat, "robbed me of the one fucking thing that still connected me from her. This," she motioned to the computer, "is my fuck you to them. I designed this Focus to be able wirelessly link to computers, and I memorized all of my keyboards. I may not be able to read a book," yet he could hear left unsaid, "but I won't let them fucking rob me of my ability to read and write."
She then released a sigh, and he found himself being reminded that this wasn't a fellow peer, either in engineering or tinkering, this was a fifteen year old girl who had a monstrous thing done to her. And instead of rolling over and giving up, even with the benefit of having triggered, she was fighting back against the world and its expectations with everything at her disposal.
Their circumstances may be different, but in many ways, it was like looking in the mirror. How both of them were fighting against a world that sought to simply dismiss them as not being good enough.
He shook away his thoughts, reminding himself as to why he was here and that was to fulfill his job. Regardless of whatever his personal feelings were in regards to Hebert and the device. However, before he could say anything she cut him off.
"I'm sorry," she admitted, her shoulders having slumped slightly in recognition of her loss of control, "I shouldn't have said any of that."
He had to resist the urge of placing his hand on her shoulder in consolation, but she was not his peer or subordinate so he refrained, instead looking for the right words to say.
"It is…understandable," he finally offered, but didn't go any further.
Sighing, the teenager instead retrieved a thumb drive from the side of the laptop, before turning around and getting to her feet, holding it out to him.
"Here," she offered.
"What is this?"
"Every single theory and concept I have either used or created behind the production of the Focus. The patent application process did not need it, but in order to fully understand it, you need to have a firm grounding in so many different fields. The only thing I am not including in this is the operating system. It is a proprietary product that is integral for all of my future products and designs."
Future products and designs, those ominous words only served to confirm his own gut feeling that he saw in the patent application for the Focus. Those were the words of someone who was just starting, and who had something more than simple visual devices up their sleeve. Filing that away, he chose to focus upon the other part of her statement. It went without saying that the device would have to have an operating system. Something that advanced, Tinkertech or otherwise, would of course need to have it to function to its fullest extent. But the fact that she was withholding that for a possible case of Tinkertech would only serve to draw scrutiny as to what she was hiding.
"Is there any way that it could be examined," he asked, avoiding trying to be demanding, but remaining firm in his request, "I understand your need for secrecy, Miss Hebert, but I am required by law to be thorough, and I regret to say this, but many could construe this operating system you are referring to as possibly being Tinkertech itself."
He knew he was pushing her into a corner, but he had no choice in the matter. With all of the information that had been provided, along with the research he had done, and Hebert providing him with even more materials that were otherwise not for public consumption for him to understand exactly what he was dealing with, he was going to classify her 'Focus' as not Tinkertech.
Still, he had worked long enough with Emily Piggot to know when she had an agenda, she hadn't made it too blatant, but all of the evidence was there by the things that she had said and the orders that she had given that she had a vested interest in this. He had to be thorough, because he knew otherwise that it would only invite outside scrutiny that may just decide that he hadn't done a good enough job.
And if that happened, he stared at Miss Hebert as she bit the inside of her cheek in pensive contemplation, he worried about the possible consequences to her. By the book, if his suspicions were right, Miss Hebert was the holy grail of Tinkers, one who could not only produce tech, but, if her statements were anything to go by, she could innovate and evolve.
If he were going to be honest, he wasn't even sure he could classify her as a Tinker, as much as she could easily pass by as a Thinker. Tinker's didn't know how their technology worked outside of the fact that it worked, and Hebert was talking about iteration, evolution, and future designs. No, she was something new, something different. It was evident in the patent application and design of this 'Focus', which had all of the hallmarks of a proof-of-concept design. And he frankly knew what would happen if the Protectorate went by the book with handling her, even if there was a part of himself, that he guiltily acknowledged, that wanted to utilize Miss Hebert for his own selfish gains.
He couldn't do that to her. He knew that the rules, regulations, and internal politics would not only stifle Miss Hebert, it would completely destroy her before she could truly show what he suspected she was capable of.
How he wished Hero were still alive, Clarke had not only been loud and vocal against the burgeoning bureaucracy and their attempts to limit Protectorate and Ward Tinkers to 'manageable' (ie. easily controlled) Tinkertech, but he would not have hesitated in an instant to take Miss Hebert under his wing and provide her with the opportunity to flourish.
But Hero was long dead, a victim of the Siberian over a decade ago, and even he, as the head of the Brockton Bay Protectorate, did not have the political sway to protect Miss Hebert from what he knew the larger Protectorate would do.
Shaking the depressing thought away, he knew he had to focus upon there and now. He not only had to do his job, but he had to do it in a way that didn't unduly antagonize the teenager against him and the Protectorate.
"I would not be the one to analyze the code, Miss Hebert," he part-admitted, part-offered,, "coding has never been one of my strengths. It would actually be a colleague of mine, you are familiar with Dragon, correct?"
"I am," was her apprehensively offered response. It was probably wise, considering what Dragon was known for in the world. While there had been several attempts to downplay it over the years, Dragon's place as one of the foremost Tinkers in the world, and arguably heir to Hero's legacy, could simply not be ignored. If there was an expert on identifying and utilizing Tinkertech, it would be Dragon.
And maybe, Dragon was the solution to his concerns about the Protectorate taking advantage of Miss Hebert. She had a lot of clout within the Protectorate and Guild thanks to the soft power she wielded due to the services she provided in fielding reverse-engineered Tinkertech and her administration of the Birdcage. If there was anyone who could wield even a portion of the power and clout that Hero once had, it would be her.
But he had to create the connection, and this was probably the only opportunity he could provide that would invite scrutiny from his superiors.
"I understand why you are hesitating, Miss Hebert. You're worried that if you reveal your operating system to Dragon or myself, without having already put legal protections in place, it'll be copied and stolen for usage."
For a moment, there was hesitation, as she was chewing on what she was going to say, before she offered a slight nod, "That's part of it, Armsmaster, yes. The other part is Sobek is, for lack of better description, not even twenty percent of what I truly envision it being. I'm prevented from truly making it from what it could be because the hardware simply doesn't exist yet."
Now it was his turn to pause, processing exactly what she was saying. He knew enough about operating systems to know that once an operating system was created, it largely was a complete design when fielded, it could of course add features and additional processes over time, but in regards to changes, it had the same baseline functionality.
Just what sort of operating system was Hebert designing, he had to wonder, that it wasn't even close to completion in her mind. Just how could it function, if it was so incomplete, because if it wasn't for what he was seeing in front of him, he would have thought that it was all a con.
And what type of hardware was necessary for it to be considered complete.
"Twenty percent," he asked, just wanting to confirm.
"Eighteen-point-eight, actually," was her solemn reply, not even a flicker of emotion, passing across her face, "There's only so much I can achieve with what I have on hand, and for it to function with the Focus without creating issues, I've had to effectively dumb it down to strict function-only. The fact that I've got my sight back? That's more than I could have ever hoped for."
"Sobek is," she paused, looking for the right words, "it isn't just an operating system, Armsmaster. It's the keystone to everything. Everything I want to build. Everything I want to achieve. It all starts at Sobek. So you can understand why…"
"I do."
She was worried just how it could or would be used if it was disseminated. She may be projecting a bit too heavily on just how important and powerful that Sobek was, she was still a teenager after all, but what if she wasn't.
"Miss Hebert, Dragon is a close friend of mine, not just a colleague, so I can tell you with absolute certainty, that anything she is witness to or discovers in her investigation, will be left undisturbed unless it presents a clear and present danger. She will only be analyzing to see if it's Tinkertech, or not."
For a long minute, he worried that she would reject his overture, ending any chance of offering a method for them to meet, but then, and he would admit he almost gave in and let out a sigh of relief, she relented with the nod of her head.
"Okay," she said, "how is this going to go down? I doubt Dragon is here to do any of this, so we'll have to schedule another meeting, right?"
"Actually, we don't need to schedule another meeting, Miss Hebert. All that you will need to do is allow me to connect a device to your laptop, and Dragon will be able to remotely access and analyze it, if that is acceptable."
Her lips curled into a pensive frown, before she finally nodded.
"That's acceptable."
She then turned around in the chair, and moved towards the right-most computer, the screen powering up, as she accessed it. As she did that, he made a phone call.
"Good afternoon, Colin," came the smooth, dulcet tones of Dragon in his ears, "it's not often that you call me out of the blue. What's going on?"
"You've been apprised of the Hebert situation?"
"I have…Oh Colin, please tell me you didn't do what I think you have."
"I'm with her right now," he confirmed, making a point not to acknowledge the disappointment lacing her tone, "I was wondering if you would be willing to remotely link and analyze a computer for me."
"I can do that. But what are you looking for?"
"Just look over an operating system for me, let me know if there is anything to be concerned about."
"Sounds easy enough. But Colin, don't you think that you should at least let Miss Hebert in on our conversation. It is rather rude."
"I have already discussed with her what we are going to do."
"Colin, just activate your phone and let me talk through it."
Knowing better than to argue with her, he reached into the hip panel of his armor and retrieved a phone, placing it down on the desk behind Miss Hebert. It immediately lit up, signifying a connection and signal, as he knew Dragon had accessed it.
"Hello, Miss Hebert," her voice came through the speaker, causing the short-haired ravenette to pause in her work, "I hope Armsmaster hasn't been too much in his investigation."
"He's actually been fine, Dragon. A lot better than my first meeting with the Protectorate."
"I heard about that, I'm sorry that it went so poorly. Hopefully we can continue to have a good meeting. So, I've been told that you have granted permission for me to access your computer to analyze the operating system for your technology?"
"I have. The only thing on this computer is the operating system itself, and several subordinate programs and functions meant to assist in me building and refining it."
While they had talked, he had retrieved from his gauntlet a small dongle, an antenna folded flush against it that he extended. He then came up beside the teenager who had exchanged a few more words with the Canadian Tinker, before placing the device down beside the teen.
"Thank you."
He then stepped back and watched her as took it in hand, looking it over for a moment, before slotting it into the USB port.
"Okay Dragon, I have placed the device into the port and have disabled the firewall, you should be able to access the computer."
"Thank you, Miss Hebert, now let's see here, accessing the device, and" she trailed off, the phone falling completely silent.
It went like that for a minute, and Colin could feel his lips tug downward in confusion. Usually Dragon was quite talkative when it came to technology and her love of it, describing what she was seeing or doing with the things she did. She was certainly never disconcertingly silent.
It was only as they reached the fourth minute of silence that he finally let his concern be vocalized, worried that something was wrong.
"Dragon?
There was only silence, and now his worry became apprehension. He was about to sound an alarm, but then, the phone speaker crackled slightly, and Dragon's voice came through.
"I'm sorry. Is this some sort of prank?"