Saturday, March 12th…
It was relatively early in the morning as Vicky lazed about in her family's living room, unsure of what to do with herself today. She still hadn't made up with Dean, and she wasn't particularly interested in hanging out with any of her other friends from Arcadia either. Sighing, she laid further back into her family's sofa couch and turned on the TV. She couldn't say she was actually interested in watching anything either, but at the very least she could use the white noise in the background.
After settling for a rerun of Earth Aleph's Lord of the Rings, she sank down and let her thoughts wander. And as it often did when she had down time, her thoughts went to the idea of going on patrol. She hadn't gone on patrol since her incident with Taylor last month, something which had attracted the notice of her mother and the Wards. She told them that she just wanted to focus on school and herself for now, which given the fact that she had just broken up with Dean, seemed to pacify them. But she knew that the longer she put off going out in costume, the more questions people were going to ask.
Besides Amy, who only worked in the hospital, Vicky was by far the most active member of New Wave. Her parents, Aunt Sarah, and Uncle Neil were too busy to go on as many regular patrols as her, meanwhile Crystal was busy with college, and Eric was more interested in hanging out with his friends than being a hero.
That just left her to carry the torch of New Wave, to show the people of Brockton Bay and the world that they were still true heroes and continued the fight against the villains. Some hero I've turned out to be… she thought bitterly.
Everytime the idea of going out in costume crossed Vicky's mind, her brain would flash back to that alley. To the broken Nazi beneath her, and the fact that she just handed him over to Taylor's minion. Vicky shuddered at the memory. She had heard stories of other heroes, who would experience some kind of test of character, where they would be placed in things like hostage situations or terrorist attacks, and have to put their morals against a hard decision that needed to be made, and in the end they were supposed to do the right thing. Vicky couldn't help but feel like she'd failed her test.
A not so quiet part of her screamed that she didn't deserve to wear her costume anymore. Or that if she put it on, she should fly straight to Taylor's Manufactorum and arrest her right on the spot. That voice in her head wasn't strong enough for her to actually do it though.
And so, Vicky continued to lie there, watching Viggo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom chop up orcs until the sound of someone walking down the stairs caught her attention. Sitting up, she turned to see Amy, dressed up and ready to go out, wearing a stylish beige sweater and a desaturated knitted red scarf. She raised an eyebrow at that. Amy never went out on Saturdays unless Vicky dragged her out, nor did she ever dress up in something that actually looked nice.
"Hey Ames, what's up?" she asked as she watched Amy put on her shoes.
Amy looked up at her and Vicky blinked in surprise. Amy was wearing makeup.
"Oh hey Vicky. I had plans to meet up with Taylor today," Amy said with a faux casualness that did not hide the anxiety that was obviously in her voice.
"Oh that's nice," Vicky said, still stunned by Amy's make up. When she processed what Amy actually said though, she jumped out of her seat and floated above the couch. "What!?"
Amy physically cringed with how loud Vicky was, bringing her hands to her ears. "Vicky, what the Hell is wrong with you!?"
Almost immediately, Vicky pulled herself back, lowering herself to the ground. When she saw that Amy even looked a little scared of her, she realized she must've been blasting her aura out, and she reigned that in as well.
"Sorry," she muttered, head downcast, before she regained her confidence and looked back up at Amy. "My bad Ames. It's just…" Vicky pursed her lips, debating how to approach this. "I don't think you should be hanging out with Taylor."
Amy's jaw dropped at Vicky, before her face contorted into what looked like a mixture of outrage and disbelief. "What? What are you talking about Vicky? Why shouldn't I hang out with Taylor?"
Crossing her arms beneath her breasts, Vicky tried her best to mimic their Mom's assertive, no bullshit demeanor. "Amy, I don't know how you don't see this, but Taylor isn't a good influence on you. She is not a good person."
To Vicky's shock, her mimicry of their Mom seemed to have the opposite effect of what she wanted, as what she could only call a flash of feral fury appeared on Amy's face, before it quickly vanished behind her angered scowl. "What do you mean she's not a good person? She's helping people with her powers! And she's also my only friend and I don't like you insulting her like that."
Stepping back, Vicky tried her best to not let her surprise show on her face. "What do you mean your only friend? You have plenty of friends!"
Amy rolled her eyes with almost cartoonish exaggeration. "No, I really don't Vicky. You have plenty of friends. I have people who tolerate my presence so they can hang out with you."
Vicky opened her mouth to retort that point, but found she really couldn't. She'd never seen Amy hang out with any of their friends from Arcadia without her. Instead, she pivoted topics. "That doesn't change my point! Can't you see she's just using you for your powers?"
This time Amy was the one to cross her arms, her face stormy. "Like how the hospitals use me for my powers? Or the PRT? At the very least I can use my powers for someone I actually like hanging out with. God, Vicky, I don't understand what your problem is with her! Why can't you just be happy that I found someone I like a lot!?" Amy's words hung in the air for a few moments, before her face colored and she hurriedly added on, "As a friend! The first friend I like a lot."
My problem with her is that she's a sociopath who kidnaps people and turned me into an accomplice through blackmail! Vicky screamed internally, pointedly ignoring Amy's gay panic.
"My problem…" Vicky mumbled out, her mind reaching for answers. When one came to her mind, she shouted it out despite knowing how it might hurt Amy. "My problem is that she is fucking insane! I see it. Mom sees it. Hell even the Wards and the PRT see it, and it boggles me how you don't see it, Amy. Taylor is a freak! She's a deranged, self-mutilating, freak!"
Vicky was screaming by the end of her speech, and when she finished, the words hung in the air, an oppressive weight that pressed down on her that she knew she couldn't take back. To her surprise, Amy didn't shout back. If anything, Vicky probably would've preferred that reaction.
Instead, the anger on Amy's face was gone. Instead her face was stone, looked in an expression of equal parts contempt, and disappointment for Vicky. Amy just shook her head and went to the door.
"I never knew you were so shallow," she muttered, done with the conversation and done with Vicky. "I'm taking the bus to Taylor's."
"Amy, wait!" Vicky called out as Amy left the house, completely ignoring her. When Vicky got to the threshold, she shouted, "I didn't mean it!"
But Amy might as well have been deaf as she strode away, uncaring for any of Vicky's pleas. Vicky wanted to fly after her. To grab her and explain everything. But she didn't. She couldn't. She didn't know how to convince Amy, not without exposing herself and what she had done. That she had not only hurt more people thanks to her own carelessness, but that she just let Taylor take them as well.
Instead, Vicky just closed the door to her family's home, and let out a scream of impotent rage.
By the time Amy got off the bus within the docks, she had still yet to fully calm herself from her talk with Vicky. She just fundamentally couldn't understand what Vicky's problem was! For so long, she thought that Vicky couldn't be wrong. Sure, Vicky had issues controlling her powers that sometimes led to sometimes terrifying situations, but besides that, she thought her step-sister was pretty much perfect.
Hearing her say all that awful slander about Taylor, it honestly broke Amy's heart. She imagined what she was feeling was probably like what civilians felt when they realized that their favorite hero was a giant dick. She was just tired and disappointed.
Sighing, Amy pushed any thoughts of her sister out of her mind as she walked towards the Manufactorum. Within a few minutes, Amy made it to the workshop, where she was greeted by the Guardsmen protecting it and let in.
Once she was inside, Amy saw a feminine figure in red robes and called out with a wave, "Taylor!"
Her hand dropped with the figure turned around. The woman Amy was looking at definitely wasn't Taylor, made plainly initially by the fact that she had neither the ruby-cybernetic prosthetic eye, nor the lower-face gas mask Taylor always wore. Instead, she seemed to have a pair of Tinkertech goggles beneath her hood, which also covered her blonde hair.
Amy's eyes dropped down and examined the rest of the woman. Just from a cursory glance, Amy could guess that the woman was older than both her and Taylor, probably in her 20s or early 30s. Amy most definitely didn't ogle the woman's ample chest or generous hips, but she did focus on the prosthetic limbs she had, 4 in total, replacing her arms and legs.
"Greetings," the stranger said with a bow. Amy had to admit she had a really nice voice. "You are Amy Dallon, correct? The Cape known as Panacea?"
Amy stiffened before she replied in a curt and not particularly polite way. "Yes, I'm her. Taylor's expecting me."
With a slight nod of her head, the woman said, "That she is. Tech-Priest is currently finishing a very important task, but I have reported to her that you're here. Please come in and have a seat, Taylor will be up shortly." She then pulled out a small steel chair from a workbench and gestured for Amy to sit.
Pursing her lips, Amy bit back the vitriolic retort that automatically came to her mind and moved to sit down. "So… you haven't given me your name."
The woman paused, and looked at Amy with a curious expression, before she nodded. "You're right, I haven't. You may call me Enginseer, one of the Capes here working under Taylor."
"Oh…" Amy took a deep breath in, hoping to cover up her surprise at that news. She then gave Enginseer what she hoped was a believable smile. "Taylor hadn't told her about any new Capes working for her. How did you two meet?"
Enginseer pulled out her own chair from under the workbench and took a seat across from Amy. "Taylor saved my life. And then granted me the blessings of the Machine God in the form of these holy augmetics. Now, I serve her in return, working with her to make the will of the Machine God manifest."
Amy politely nodded, taking in what this obviously insane Cape was saying. She decided to ignore the more obvious religious delusion, as she had no idea how to even begin to approach that, and instead focused on what she thought was more important.
"You work with Taylor? So you're a Tinker too?" She asked as neutral as she could. She had heard that when people Trigger near other capes, they would sometimes gain powers similar to the Capes around them. Perhaps that's what happened to Enginseer?
A smile appeared on Enginseer's face. A genuine one. "Indeed I am. I help Taylor create technology beyond what her own powers allow her to make. We've collaborated on a great deal of projects thus far. She has helped advance the internal cogitators in my latest Chimera project, while power sources I have created have been scaled down to use in Taylor's own projects."
Amy's lips puckered, and she had to bite the inside of her lip to not frown. "Oh really? Must be fun." She flicked some of her hair back behind her head and harrumphed. "You know I was there when Taylor Triggered." Not really but she was there when she first used her powers. "We even ping-ponged back and forth over her designs for how to keep her augmetics from poisoning her."
"Oohhh," Enginseer said with actual, legitimate wonder in her voice. "So you are the first to have worked with Taylor, and seen her magnificence."
Straightening her back, Amy gave a not very subtle prideful smile as she one-upped Enginseer. "Yep. I've been helping Taylor since the beginning."
Enginseer gave another, appropriately appreciative nod. "That's quite the feat, to have done so much for our Lady, despite the fact that I have never seen you working here before." Amy cringed internally at Enginseer's words, and the latter continued on, not seeing Amy's response. "What kind of wonders have the two of you made together? Anything I may examine?"
This time, Amy cringed visibly, and she didn't have an immediate response. "Ah, uhhh… well," luckily for Amy she was saved from any more stuttering when Taylor's voice rang out.
"Amy, good you have arrived," Taylor said as she appeared, from the stairway that led to her underground workshop.
Behind her were a trio of capes Amy had never seen before. All three were decidedly male, two were smaller and scrawnier, wearing hooded red robes similar to Taylor and Enginseer, while the third was much larger than the rest, suited in a gray suit of armor over red fatigues, and a fully sealed gas mask with crimson eye lenses.
As Amy's eyes roamed over the assembly of Capes in front of her, the first thing that came to her mouth was, "You've been recruiting."
Taylor gave a small nod. "Indeed. A necessity for my continued protection. It seems you have already met Enginseer. This is Artisan and Elysian, fellow Tinkers, as well as Tempestus, who works with the Guardsmen on security."
Following Taylor's hands, Amy identified Artisan as the skinnier of the two male Tinkers, slightly slouched over, and wearing a featureless, smooth, reflective face shield not unlike Clockbocker's costume. Elysian was larger than Artisan, but wasn't well built like Tempestus. He was lanky, but was helped out by the fact that he wore some kind of power armor beneath his robes, and a visored helmet that covered the top half of his head. It looked like it was aerodynamic, kinda like those helmet professional bicyclists would wear.
Thinking back to the Merchant attack a few weeks ago, Amy nodded. The Guardsmen were good, but nothing beat having a team of Capes to back you up. She automatically categorized Tempestus as the muscle and bruiser of the group, and she wondered what his powers were. As for the other two, Artisan and Elysian, Amy had no idea where Taylor had been able to pick up not just one, but three Tinkers since the last time she was here. That was more than what most Protectorate teams would field. Hell, with what Amy knew of Taylor's capabilities, her organization was probably approaching Toybox levels of Tinkering, if they hadn't reached it already.
"Well, that's good," was all Amy could say. While she was interested in learning more about where all these Capes came from, she knew she couldn't just ask. She wasn't a member of their team, and prying into team history wasn't a good way to make a first impression of four Capes she just met. "Anyway, this hang out was your idea. I assume you have everything ready for your surgery?"
"Indeed" Taylor automatically replied, turning back towards the stairwell she came out of. "The additional cranial enhancements and a new arm, if you recall, in addition to a few bionic organ replacements."
Amy snorted as she fell in step behind Taylor. "Yeah, sounds like a simple procedure. Removing half your organs all at the same time surely won't give you any issues," she dryly said.
"Well it's a good thing I have the world's greatest healer here to help me," Taylor flatly said at the head of the group, definitely not noticing the flush of approval her comment had elicited on Amy.
Before they had a chance to move downstairs, Tempestus cut in, "You know what? I don't really need to be here for this boss, so if it's all the same to you, I'm going to go patrol." he turned to Artisan. "You want to come with?"
Artisan paused to think. "Eh, nah I'm good here. I haven't seen Taylor Tinker on herself before, and to be honest, I'm pretty excited to see what happens."
"I wanna see what happens too," Elysian added on. He definitely sounded younger than both Tempestus and Artisan, probably still a teenager. Amy idly wondered what their specialities were, as Elysian and Artisan were suitably vague enough that they didn't betray any hints.
"You have your task then," Taylor said to Tempestus, dismissing the armored Cape while gesturing the rest to follow her downstairs.
As they all entered Taylor's private workshop, Amy saw the operating table set up once more, alongside a series of bionic enhancements laid on a steel table beside it. Some were obvious to Amy, like the bionic hand, others were obtuse and Amy could only guess their functions.
"Well then, no point in waiting," Taylor said as she detached the robotic arm from her back and placed it into a floor mount before disrobing.
Amy was about to shout, telling her to stop undressing in front of these male underlings, but luckily, Taylor seemed to have learned some more of modesty since their last meeting as she wore spats and a sports bra under her robes. She grabbed a hair clipper which was on the table as well, and gestured to Amy. "If you would."
Grimacing, Amy moved to the clippers and started shaving Taylor's head once again. She sighed, knowing that this was going to be the third, and probably not the last time she would have to regrow Taylor's hair. When she finished, it was time for the actual operation to begin.
Sitting down on a nearby chair, Amy heard some gags and other noises of disgust coming from Artisan and Elysian as Taylor opened up her skull to access her own brain. Amy didn't see any signs of rejection of the original cybernetics Taylor had placed previously. No necrosis or any other signs of damage. If anything, Amy noted that Taylor's brain had embraced and grown over cybernetics, perfectly meshing with them in a mixture of man and machine.
With access to the cerebrum open, Taylor's mechadendrite reached for the new cybernetic. Where before, Taylor had placed smaller, oblong, CPU sized bionics into her brain, this time the cranial enhancement Taylor had designed was a spider-shaped thin, metallic piece about the size of her hand. Below the "body" and each of the "legs" of the implant, were hundreds, if not thousands of small needles, which obviously were meant to pierce the brain to interface with it.
"Even I have to admit, this thing looks awful. So what's it going to do?" Amy asked as she watched Taylor's mechanical arm gingerly place the implant over the cerebrum. With a slight whirr, the needles extended into Taylor's gray-matter, sinking a few millimeters deep as the implant nestled itself right atop the brain.
"This implant contains a far more robust Mind Impulse Unit, to allow me to directly interface and control not just with my own technology, but with almost all conventional computer systems and networks, and theoretically other Tinkertech systems as well," Taylor answered as if she didn't just admit she had a way to hack into any computer in the world now. "And that is in addition to further intelligence and multi-tasking enhancements, allowing me to control hundreds of my… drones, instead of dozens, as well as a fully functional emotion vault."
"An emotion vault?" Amy parroted as she sealed Taylor's head back together. Through her powers, Amy could actually see small wires extending out of the new implant, shifting its way through Taylor's brain and connecting both to the older implanted chips, and the cyber mantle in Taylor's spine. Amy knew the brain itself couldn't feel pain, but she couldn't help but shudder at least a little bit as the needles worked their way through.
Taylor hummed. "With my last set of cranial enhancements, I noticed I could manipulate my emotions to a certain degree. Hide away anger, or sadness, or anxiety. But it was an unintended side effect, and not an intentional design. Thus my control over my feelings was flawed, incomplete. This enhancement will give me full control of my emotions, allowing me to reduce them, or even completely seal them away when irrational and illogical thought is not needed, and instead, pure logic desired."
A numb horror washed over Amy as she felt herself shift uncomfortably. "Reduce all of your emotions… God Taylor, doesn't that seem a bit extreme? To not feel happiness, or sadness, or love?" Amy really emphasized that last part. "You'd be literally turning yourself into a computer, getting rid of what makes you really human."
"Dragon said something similar about my physical enhancements," Taylor muttered quietly. "And in this case, I actually agree with both her and you. Worry not Amy, this is not an enhancement I plan to use all of the time. Only when situations call for it. Now let us continue."
Biting her lower lip, Amy pulled back on voicing any further complaints. It was already too late, the implant was in Taylor's head, and Amy wasn't going to use her powers to force it out. From there, they moved onto the implantment of Taylor's newest organs.
Using the mechadendrite to cut her own abdomen open, Taylor began the process of removing her organs. With Amy's help, they started with the kidneys. Going one at a time, Taylor cut out her normal kidneys, which were then gingerly removed by Amy. Amy then grabbed the cybernetic replacement and used her powers to attach Taylor's blood vessels to it.
The process was followed up with an artificial liver. Rather than completely replace the liver, only a chunk was removed and a Tinkertech filter was grafted on. Once that was finished, they moved to open up Taylor's ribcage. Her small clothes removed, the mechadendrite cut open Taylor's sternum, practically prying it apart as her lungs and heart were exposed to the air.
Taylor lost any ability to speak as the opening of the chest as the air pressure of the lungs equalized with the atmosphere. Normally this would spell death in minutes for anyone without specialized equipment, but Amy's powers made a heart-lung bypass machine unnecessary as she kept blood pumping to everywhere but the lung she was replacing.
According to Taylor, while her Autosanguination fluid was more than enough to defend against disease and filter out any natural toxins or those borne out as side effects of her prosthetics, all of these artificial organs were designed to deal with even more extreme toxins and poisons that Taylor may encounter. Inhaled, ingested, or injected, Taylor's body would be able to counter and filter out any natural, artificial, and possibly even Tinkertech toxins. And if Taylor was ever put in a situation where even her gasmask and enhanced lungs couldn't filter out the air, or if there even was no air, her new lungs contained a reservoir of oxygen she could call upon for several minutes of activity before she would pass out.
When the operation was done, Amy sealed up Taylor's torso and smiled. She could make these organs as well. Watching the way Taylor's bionic organs worked and interacted with her natural body, Amy was sure she could now create genetically enhanced lungs and kidneys that could filter out the worst toxins imaginable. Her grin grew wider as she craved someone to test out these new designs on.
She could only imagine if she could somehow convince Vicky to take on these enhancements. Vicky's barrier made her physically almost invulnerable, she was as vulnerable to gas attacks or food based poisons as anyone else. With the design Amy had come up with, these would be perfect to cover up these existing weaknesses. God please she just needed someone to try this on.
The smile on her face must have been an unnerving rictus, as when she turned away from Taylor and looked at the other two Tinkers in the workshop, the two men flinched away from her. Amy briefly wondered why they would act like that, before she looked down and gasped herself. The sweater she wore was covered in Taylor's blood, bile, and other fluids. Amy was so sucked into the operation, she didn't even notice.
Amy didn't wear gloves as part of her powers, and her hands were warm and sticky with Taylor's fluids. Some of it was even splattered on her face. Amy had to suppress a shudder as she thought about Taylor's very being all over her. She licked her lips.
"Amy," Taylor's voice shook Amy out of… whatever it was she was experiencing. Taylor was looking up at her expectantly, mechadendrite holding onto the new prosthetic arm she wanted to install. "Are you alright?"
"Great!" Amy squeaked. "Never been better. Just a little sad about this top. It was one of my nicer ones." She pulled her sweater forward to emphasize the stains.
Taylor rolled her eyes. "I do now know why you would wear such a thing when we are performing an operation. After this I can have it cleaned, you may borrow one of my robes in the meantime." The mechadendrite then moved to put the prosthetic arm next to Taylor's organic one. "But for now, focus on the task at hand. While you are not necessary for me to replace my own arm, having you here does simplify things."
Scoffing, Amy placed her hand back on Taylor, prepping for the amputation. "You really have a way with words, don't you Taylor?" she said dryly.
"No actually I have been informed that I have rather poor people skills," Taylor said back, completely neutral.
Amy snorted as a buzz saw lopped off Taylor's remaining organic arm. Once the offending limb was removed, Amy placed the augmetic at the stump and fused Taylor's flesh to it. While Amy didn't have the eye for identifying Tinkertech, she could at least tell this was a modular, combat-ready prosthesis similar to Taylor's existing cybernetic.
When the process was completed, Taylor raised her new hand and clenched a fist. She seemed to have full function over the digits, and showed no sign of rejection, not that Amy thought there would be any.
"And we are done," Amy said happily as she regrew Taylor's hair. "With this surgery, I think you've finally passed the threshold of being more machine than human."
Taylor lightly chuckled, her voice grating. "Something a long time coming. Thank you for your aid, Amy. I truly mean it. You have been an invaluable help since the beginning, and I could not have gotten this far without you." Taylor turned to look at her, and behind the gas mask and bionic eye, Amy could tell she was smiling.
Amy's sat ramrod straight as she felt a flash of heat spread across her face. Taylor wasn't just thanking her, but pretty much all but said that she needed Amy!
"You're welcome!" she definitely didn't squeak out. And anyone who said differently, she would turn into a puddle. "It was honestly my pleasure!"
"Hmm," was the only response Amy received. Already, Taylor was moving to re-robe herself.
Sensing that Taylor was already no longer paying attention to her, Amy internally panicked. She wanted Taylor to look at her. To praise her more. And she had just the thing to make her do that. "I designed something!" she blurted out, her brain no longer able to keep her mouth from holding back.
Taylor froze in place, unmoving for a long second, before she slowly turned to look at Amy. Amy almost came undone underneath Taylor's scarlet gaze. "Did you now? What do you have?"
Swallowing hard, Amy grabbed a notebook and pen that was on a nearby workbench. There were already some random sketches inside, obviously unintelligible techno-babble of a Tinker coming up with designs, so she flipped to a blank page. She sketched out a rather crude drawing of a cross-sectioned human brain, mostly anatomically correct save for an additional node near the base.
"I call it an Ossmodula. Ever since our first talk at your house, or even at the hospital, I've… been having ideas. I know I'm not a Tinker, and I'm pretty sure this doesn't count, but I pretty much have a perfect understanding of biology thanks to my powers, and your bionic organ implants inspired me to come up with some organs of my own. Purely theoretical of course!" Amy gave a weak chuckle before she continued on. "If anything you could look at my ideas and maybe make something cybernetic with your own powers! Anyway, after our last talk, I was thinking of other ways I could enhance a person, make them a brute like you do. And I came up with ceramic-alloy bones!"
Taylor nodded as she moved next to Amy, eyeing the drawing up and down as she cupped her chin with her new bionic hand. "Hmm, something to coat the entire skeleton of a subject in a ceramic compound I assume, to exponentially increase durability?" Amy enthusiastically nodded. "An ambitious operation, though the surgery to apply such an alloy to a subject would be rather inefficient and risky without powers such as yours. I assume this organ is a way around that?"
Amy's head bobbed up and down so fast she thought she was going to throw out her neck. "Yes! See, by attaching the Ossmodula to the pituitary gland, it will release specially designed hormones that then trigger a rapid artificial growth of the skeletal system."
"Larger bones doesn't necessarily mean denser or stronger," Taylor countered.
"I already planned for that!" Amy proclaimed. "By feeding the subject a diet laced with microscopic ceramic based minerals, the bones will naturally harden as they grow, and by the end of a period of I would say two years, your subject will have nearly unbreakable bones!"
Taylor kept staring down at the design Amy drew out, before saying, "Two years is a rather long period of time."
Amy shrugged. "I mean, with my powers I could probably do it much faster, but with the organ, unless you want the patient's bones to potentially shatter and cripple them, doing slower, gradual changes over time works much better. Give the body time to adapt. After all, as you like saying…"
"The flesh is weak," Taylor finished. "I must say Amy, this is a rather ingenious idea." Amy preened at Taylor's words. "Have you made a prototype of this yet? Or at least begun rudimentary testing?"
A wave of ice cold realization smashed into Amy. Shit, she… she had said too much! Got too excited! "I… I can't actually make a prototype," she sputtered out, trying to keep her voice level. "Like I said, this was a theoretical idea I had from our last talk. That's it."
The intensity with which Taylor stared at Amy almost sent Amy stumbling back. Not from the ecstatic excitement Amy felt while under Taylor's last gaze, but instead out of fear from the disbelief in the cyborg's level stare.
"I do not understand, which is a feat in itself. If you can create a full design, why shouldn't you be able to test it?"
Amy opened her mouth, but found no words coming out. Her throat felt so unbelievably dry. It would be so easy. She wouldn't even need a human to show Taylor she could do it. Any animal would do. A single, literal lab rat. But… no. She couldn't. Not now. Not yet. But perhaps…
The sound of a small cough cut through Amy's thoughts like a Tinkertech blade. So slowly, Amy tilted her head to the side, and from the corner of her eye, she saw both Artisan and Elysian staring at her and Taylor with awkward, yet focused stares. The two had been so quiet that Amy had forgotten about them in the heat of the operation. It seemed the pair of Tinkers were too nervous to interrupt Amy and Taylor and remind them of their presences, while simultaneously very interested in listening in on what they were talking about. And they had heard a lot.
"I can't!" She said with more force that she ever spoken to Taylor before. "My powers are healing. And nothing else!"
The quiet was heavy in the workshop as Taylor kept silent. After several long, tortuous seconds, Taylor finally nodded and said, "If you say so… Well then, if that is it, I have no further need for you, and have a payment for your service once again."
Taylor moved to retrieve some money for Amy as the latter sighed. She had fucked up. She knew Taylor would want more than just a design, and would unintentionally ask Amy to break her rules, but Amy just had to show her. She had to show someone who wouldn't find her ideas repulsive, or dangerous, but instead see the joy in creation and experimentation like she could. But now she shut Taylor out, and Taylor was back to machine-like coldness towards her. She probably hated her. Amy wanted to cry.
Amy's savior however, came from an unexpected source.
"Hey uh, boss?" Artisan asked, his voice unsteady. "Maybe we shouldn't just kick Panacea out. After all, we can't just send her out looking like…" he gestured to Amy with hands.
Amy was about to chew the boy out for referring to her like that, but she looked down at her gore drenched clothes and felt like she couldn't exactly argue with him.
Taylor sighed. "Yes I suppose I did offer to wash your clothes. Follow me, Amy, we shall get you changed. Artisan, go prepare some entertainment for our guest in my office."
Artisan nodded. "Dope. I can pull out my Xbox and we can play some Halo. I'll even call U- I mean Tempestus back to join."
"Do so," Taylor commanded. "Elysian, you may return to your duties, and when you are done, return home."
Almost petulantly, held back only by his obvious fear of Taylor, Elysian said, "How come I can't join?"
With a speed and ferocity that implied that she indeed did not have full control over her own emotions, Taylor rounded on Elysian, her echoing footfalls making the Tinker stumble back. "That is because, Elysian, you have yet to provide me with a design that I deem satisfactory." As Taylor continued to hound the boy, Amy found herself very, very grateful that Taylor's baleful gaze wasn't trained on her. The girl could be terrifying if she wanted. "Your creations are still far too bulky and power-hungry to approach any level of potential mass production. You may be the newest member here, but that does not mean I will hold you to any less of a standard that I do the others. Work with Enginseer if you must, perhaps you could modify one of her reactors for your use."
Elysian opened his mouth as if he meant to protest, but he shut it quickly after. His head was turned as he looked down, as if he were a chastised dog. "Yes boss," he muttered quietly before he left the workshop to return to the Manufactorum upstairs.
Once he was gone, Taylor turned to Artisan, who quickly fled as well, offering small apologies all the while. To Amy's surprise, before he left, Artisan turned to her and gave her a thumbs up. It was a small gesture, and Amy didn't exactly know how to interpret it before he was gone. That just left her and Taylor. And to Amy's credit, she only flinched a little when Taylor finally turned to her.
"Strip," Taylor commanded.
Amy's face went as scarlet as Taylor's robes. "What!?"
Without looking back at her, Taylor moved to the rear of her workshop and opened up the back door. It was pitch black in the back room, and one of Taylor's mechadendrite retrieved a fresh set of crimson robes from there, and what looked like a wet towel, before shutting the door. "What is the issue, I can hardly clean your clothes while you wear them."
Still red, though this time more bashful at missing something so obvious than anything, Amy nodded. "Could you at least turn around?"
Taylor didn't audibly sigh, thankfully. However the exaggerated eye roll she gave as she turned around was still enough for Amy to cringe a bit. Despite the fact that Taylor couldn't see her, her mechanical tentacle moved with perfect dexterity as it presented Amy with the Manufactorum uniform.
Amy pulled the dirty sweater off of her, a task made rather difficult by the fact that the blood made it through the clothing, making it stick to her skin. After several embarrassing seconds, Amy pulled off both her sweater and the t-shirt she was wearing underneath, leaving herself in just the bra above her waist.
With a speed that could have potentially landed her a Mover rating, Amy grabbed the towel and cleaned herself off. "You know, this would be easier if you had a shower or something. No Tinkertech scrubbers behind your secret door over there?" The ridiculousness of having to spongebath herself in Taylor's basement allowed her to regain some of her usual snark and sarcasm.
"No," Taylor's response was cold and curt. "There is nothing you need to be concerned with here. It is where I keep more of my volatile creations, as well as more general storage."
"Right, that's not suspicious at all. " Amy slowly drawled out. "Well everyone is entitled to their secrets I guess, Tinkers more than most." She finished toweling herself off, throwing her stained clothing onto the Mechadendrite before donning the red robe before her.
Taylor's mechanical arm retracted, placing Amy's clothes into Taylor's super secret room as Taylor swiftly opened and closed the door. "My drones shall clean your clothing. In the meantime, let us join the others for these games." Without waiting for a response, Taylor turned about face and made her way to her workshop's door.
She moved with such stride and purpose that Amy had to step out of the way so that she wouldn't get bowled over by the cyborg.
"Okay, jeez, let's go play some video games I guess," Amy said, annoyed at Taylor's clippedness, "Bitch," she muttered under her breath afterwards.
The duo moved back to the Manufactorm's main hall, then up a set of stairs to the second floor loft/office that overlooked the workfloor. The office was extraordinarily plain looking for the homebase of the most skilled Tinkers in the Bay. There was a desk in the middle with a TV and Xbox360 connected to it, some folding chairs spread out around the screen, and a few filing cabinets filling up the perimeter of the room.
Both Tempestus and Artisan were in the room, still setting everything up, and to Amy's surprise, both had removed their helmets. That wasn't to say that the two Capes were completely unmasking to Amy as they both wore domino masks, but it seemed to Amy that the two boys were more interested in being able to partake in the platter of chips and sodas they were laying out on the desk more than their privacy.
Artisan had a thin, almost ratty face, with a pointy chin and long, unkempt hair, while Tempestus was objectively rather handsome with a short buzz cut. Amy instinctively felt her dislike for Tempestus rise. She never trusted anyone who was handsome.
Taylor sighed at the presented tableau. "Must you two bring food in here? I would dislike attracting rats or insects into my base."
With a roll of his eyes and shrug of his shoulders, Artisan said, "Come on boss, you can't have a game night without the classic snacks!"
Tempestus walked up beside Taylor and put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll clean up after. Just relax and enjoy yourself."
Amy's eyes narrowed on the taller man as Taylor sighed and relented. "Fine, just boot up the console."
The teens all sat down, and Taylor and Amy taking the center right and right most seats respectively, while Tempestus and Artisan mirrored them on the left. Artisan handed them all controllers as the Xbox was turned on and Halo 3 was launched.
"You know, I've never actually played this game," Amy said as she turned over the controller in her hands, learning what each button was called.
"That's fine," Artisan waved off her worry. "This is Free For All Slayer, so just run around and kill whoever you see. Easy. Besides, it's not about winning, it's about having fun with a group of friends."
Amy blinked, and slowly turned her head to Artisan. Friends? That seemed a little presumptuous, after all they just met. And while Artisan and Tempestus were friendly, they were Taylor's friends (workers?), and Amy wasn't particularly interested in replicating her situation with Vicky, where Vicky's friends only tolerated Amy's presence as Vicky's hanger-on.
As she pondered this, Tempestus started up the game and said, "Yeah, you only say that because you lose every time."
Within seconds of the game starting, Amy's space soldier was shot in the head as she was still figuring out how to move around.
"Says the asshole who uses his powers to win," Artisan gritted his teeth as he was shot in the head by Tempestus with some kind of sniper rifle.
Amy respawned and took a few seconds to figure out how to jump and fire her gun. She saw a green armored soldier in front of her, Artisan, but before she could shoot, the two of them were put down in milliseconds of each other, followed by Tempestus a second after. The kill feed on the left showed that Taylor had headshot all of them in an uncannily accurate killing spree.
"Holy shit the boss is cracked!" Artisan shouted.
The three of them all respawned and the two boys tried to focus their fire on Taylor. But Taylor seemingly had perfect game sense, avoiding their shots and returning with pinpoint accuracy, killing them both again. Meanwhile Amy picked up something called a plasma grenade, and learned that she could throw it with the left trigger. Unfortunately, it bounced off a wall and stuck itself to her, killing her in the ensuing blast.
"Okay, no that's bullshit!" Tempestus cried out as he looked at Taylor. "There's no way you're that good!"
Taylor made some kind of noise behind her mask that Amy could only guess was a kind of, amused snort. "Of course I am not. But this game is merely about absorbing combat data and reacting accordingly, no? With my enhancements, it is easy for me to understand how to create the optimal plan given this environment and exact it perfectly."
"Ha!" Artisan barked out. "The boss is botting in real life! Fuck you Uber, how do you like when someone uses their powers on you?!"
"I don't use my powers to cheat, damnit!" Tempestus cursed as he leaned forward in his chair. "Until now that is." Suddenly Tempestus' character began moving erratically, now dodging Taylor's own attacks while counter attacking with plasma bolts and grenades that forced Taylor back.
Artisan whooped and hollered, calling this a real game now, but Amy was not paying attention whatsoever, the controller hanging limp in her hands. Uber. Artisan had called Tempestus Uber. Glancing to her left, she took as much of Artisan's form as she could from the corner of her eye.
While she had never been a fan of theirs, Amy had seen glimpses of Uber and Leet's streams, mostly when Vicky showed them to her after her sister had engaged them on that particular night. And to none of her surprise, Artisan's unhelmeted face looked a lot like that of Leet when he wore that stupid Mario outfit.
Tempestus was Uber and Artisan was Leet. Uber and Leet were working for Taylor. A pair of villains were working for Taylor. Amy felt a numbness return to her body, as if she were no longer piloting her own skin. Why would Taylor be okay with working with villains? Though she supposed it made sense now as to why Uber and Leet canceled their stream and announced they were retiring as villains. They retired so they could go work for Taylor.
She supposed that meant they were no longer villains, so it was probably okay for Taylor to be working with them. But… villains were villains! Just because they gave up their villainous ways didn't mean that they were automatically good people! What about due process? Or just punishment for all the people they've hurt? Was Taylor just sweeping all of that under the rug?
All of these thoughts raced through Amy's head as they continued to play their games. No one really noticed that Amy wasn't playing, as her skills while having an existential crisis were about the equivalent to her skills while actually trying to play.
Stuck within this internal loop, Amy herself barely registered the shouts between Tempestus and Artisan over Taylor's domination in the games. Vaguely, she noticed Elysian stuck his head in and announced he was leaving for the day, but she didn't pay him much mind. They continued to play for several more games, and had shifted to Team Slayer, before moving to a gamemode called SWAT. Amy wasn't entirely sure what the difference was, besides the fact that she was now dying far faster, which made her pay even less attention to the game itself.
What did catch her attention however, was when Taylor shot up out of her seat, hands at her side and no longer playing the game. Everyone turned their heads towards the Tinker, confusion now replacing the turmoil on Amy's face.
"Boss, everything alright?" Tempestus asked, his voice now serious as he rose as well.
Taylor was silent, her eye narrowing as if she saw something that disgusted her. "No," her head snapped to Amy. "My apologies Amy, but it seems I must cut our time here short. Something has come up that requires our attention. Speak to Sergeant Merrick downstairs, he will get you your things and will have someone escort you to the bus."
Amy's mouth fell open, shocked she was getting so abruptly kicked out. She had barely spent any actual time bonding with Taylor, being too distracted by the revelations of tonight. But when she looked at all of the other Capes here, she knew that this was something serious. "Did something happen Taylor? Do you need my help?"
The expression Taylor had on her face made Amy flinch. Not because it was a picture of anger or rage, but because of the sheer coldness of it. Taylor was devoid of any and all emotion, her face just an avatar for the quadrillions of 1s and 0s her mind now processed. Amy supposed she shouldn't have been surprised by this, as she was the one who helped install this change into Taylor.
"That is quite alright, Amy. This is an internal matter for our organization. Unless you wish to join us, I must ask that you leave."
Amy sighed, taking the dismissal for what it was. "Well, be careful Taylor. And call if you need anything." She stood and moved for the door. But after only taking two steps she stopped. Before anyone could say anything to her, she spun around and strode towards Taylor.
"What-"
Before Taylor could finish her question, Amy wrapped Taylor in a hug. Amy couldn't remember the last person she hugged besides Vicky. Taylor didn't exactly hug her back, as Amy's arms were wrapped over Taylor's in a grip that was too tight to be considered polite. After a few awkward seconds that passed in complete silence, Amy let go and said, "I'll see you later, Taylor."
With a slight blush on her face, Amy turned about face and practically ran out of the office.
…
The Capes inside remained dumbstruck as they watched Amy throw the door to the office open and flee down the stairs. When they could no longer hear her steps, Taylor said, "What a strange girl." Artisan and Tempestus both looked at their leader with a mixture of shock and disbelief. When Taylor saw them, she arched her brow, slightly puzzled, and asked, "What?"
Artisan's mouth worked open and closed. "I- can you not tell…" Artisan's words became a flow sputtering nonsense until he finally settled on, "You know what, nevermind, I can only help so much. So what the Hell's going on boss?"
With those words, the confusion evaporated from Taylor's face, and the hard sculpture of logic returned. "Elysian has betrayed us."