Fandango: Interlude 1
At a table, in a secluded, locked room, in the heart of a flying fortress, which hovers over the sea, casting a shadow on the city beneath with every passing day, a man surpasses the limits of what was thought possible.
Put the computational array next to the supercapacitor, cool both with the same thermal transduction element. Increase ratio of wiring to carbon substrate by a factor of 1.05, a 1% increase, thus adding 10 minutes to battery life across the board. Use extra space to fit my nanothorn prototype once completed.
A beep. He ignores it, going over his nanothorns.
A beep again. Again, ignored.
A third beep. He is startled out of his tinker fugue, but annoyed by the interruption.
He hits the button before it beeps again. "Yes?"
Hannah's voice rang over the comm. "Colin, you've got your patrol in 10 minutes."
He is surprised. "What? How long have I been in here?"
"Ten hours, twenty-seven minutes."
His stomach growled. Begrudgingly, he puts down his nanowelder and pushes away from the table. No time for a proper meal, so he unwraps a nutrient bar and shoves it in his mouth like a cigar as he suits up, occasionally taking a bite when a hand is free. The action of donning his armor is rote, memorized to the extent of being no harder than putting on a shirt.
He takes the last few bites of the bar, then dons his helm, making sure not to pull at his goatee as it slips past his chin. He toggles a switch, and the HUD flares to life on his visor. Systems check, optimal. Halberd retrieval tech, optimal. He lets that go on, scanning for any red or yellow as he picks up his cup of coffee, now cold, still efficiently delicious even at room temperature.
A design pops into his head, a coffee mug which keeps his coffee at perfect temperature for hours, and runs on heat and kinetic energy, recharging off the initially too-hot coffee and the act of moving the mug. He brushes it aside; maybe another time.
He pulls up the patrol schedule as he heads toward the elevator. Upper docks patrol, near the boat graveyard. Lung's territory.
He didn't foresee a conflict, but he was prepared for one. An ABB underground gambling bar had been trashed a few weeks ago, with the best suspects being the Undersiders, an elusive group of teenage villains. Either group could be there, but hopefully his Brute-rated tranquilizers would take care of the real threats before they could do damage.
If not, he would put them down himself.
Arriving in the hangar, he eased his bike into the transport, then linked into his comm.
"This is Armsmaster. I'm heading out on my 10:00 patrol."
"Roger that, good luck. I'll let you know if any calls come in." the PRT communications officer said. The transport took off, ferrying him to shore, and he took off his motorcycle.
The cycle, sometimes affectionately referred to as the Armsmobile or the Blue Hornet, was completely his own design, featuring enough stuff to fight his way through any high-speed chase, rations and repair tools for exceptionally long-distance travel, a micro-fusion generator which could charge his entire suit and array of weapons using only water, gyroscopic stabilizers so it never tumbled, an exceptional towing capacity, and completely silent operation.
Of course, he'd fixed that last flaw. What was the point of a motorcycle if it didn't draw attention when it needed to?
The 'engine' roared, he popped a wheelie, and took off into the Docks.
For an hour and a half, it was a quiet night. His 'engine' tended to let the small fry he was around, so he rarely needed to waste his time with what amounted to basic police work. He'd stopped an attempted mugging at 11:32, but left him tranquilized for the BBPD to gather.
A bit after midnight, the call he'd been hoping for came in.
"Armsmaster, reported disturbance in the warehouse district, about 10 minutes north of your position. Residents reporting gunfire and howling nearby."
"Sounds like the Lindt girl. I'm on my way."
Finally, some action. An arrest tonight would be good for his reputation, and good for the city in general. Lindt was a dangerous murderer with little restraint, and the Undersiders had been getting bolder with every job, stirring the pot during a dangerous time.
He sped up.
"Armsmaster, Lung is confirmed to be there. I'll send some backup."
"No, we can't afford to have the team out of commission right now. I'll confront him myself."
"Are you sure? Miss Militia is still on base- "
"I'm sure. I have countermeasures for Lung, and better mobility if they fail. I'm almost at the location now, and a gang war is brewing. The rest of the team cannot be out of commission when that happens."
"Acknowledged, Armsmaster. Stay safe out there."
He rode on, swooping through green lights, his visor feeding him a route.
Wait, what was that sound? Shouting, and lots of it. It must be the fight. He took a turn, speeding up, and blew through a few more lights. The shouting grew more rhythmic, familiar. Singing?
He rounded the corner. If this was all a prank then he would-
He stopped cold, his hands slack on the accelerator.
What.
Steadily making their way up the block was a line of men, dressed in colors of red and green, sporting all the signs of being the worst kind of gang members. In the front, a huge, shirtless, tattooed man, wearing a metal mask in the visage of a dragon, eyes glowing like fire. Lung.
They were singing at the top of their lungs.
Dancing a conga line.
And occasionally giving him looks of anger or fear.
Lung's hands pulsed with fire as he did another rolling motion, and his shouting took on an edge of aggression.
"Lung, stand down!"
He kept dancing.
"Console, this is Armsmaster. Either this is a prank, or Lung is under the influence of a strong Master. I'm going to attempt to subdue him." He turned to the troupe, walking with halberd raised in case of traps.
"Lung, you're under arrest for crimes including murder, parahuman assault, and kidnapping. I'm going to tranquilize you and your men, and we will do our best to remove the influence you are under and treat any injuries."
His hands burned hotter, his voice coming through gritted teeth. "Daylight come and me want to go home."
Armsmaster shot him with a tranq dart, then subdued each member in turn. By the time he'd reached the last one, the control was visibly fading, the man struggling.
These symptoms- were his suspicions correct? Was the villain called Regent actually the boy known as Hijack, a known murderer, kidnapper and rapist? And if so, why reveal it now, in such a showy fashion? Why hide it for so long?
Even scarier, he'd never shown such capacity for control before. He may have been holding back in the past. If this was really him, the teen might be stronger than his father.
This would need more investigation, that much was certain. But it would have to wait. With Lung captured, it would only be a matter of time before the Empire made a move. The Protectorate needed to prepare for war against a force with superior numbers.
Damn it all. He'd need to tinker faster, pull more long nights. The ABB had two powerful capes left, and one was a tinker. He and Kid Win would need to be on call to deal with any Tinkertech they encountered, and he would also be integral in the fights against the Empire. Coil might make a move as well, and there were the Undersiders to deal with on the sides.
War was coming to Brockton Bay. He needed to prepare.
The PRT vans pulled around the corner, and he tossed Lung's unconscious form over his shoulder.
He walked into his lab, and immediately strode over to the console, sending a video chat request to Dragon. As always, she picked up on the second ring, her digitally disguised face appearing on the leftmost screen as he pulled into his desk.
"Sorry if I woke you. I have an issue I might need to bounce off you."
Her visage smiled, perfectly averaged. "No problem, Colin. I don't sleep, actually, so this helps break the monotony of my nights. How can I help?"
He'd chop off an arm in a heartbeat for that particular quirk. Rather unhelpfully, his power began supplying designs for artificial limbs. He shook his head to clear the thought. It wasn't like he'd actually do that, just an expression.
"This is probably getting entered into the databases as we speak, but about half an hour ago, while on patrol, I encountered and captured Lung. Worse, he was under the influence of an unknown Master."
"Any suspects?"
"One. Locals heard howling noises, indicative of Hellhound, and by extension the Undersiders…"
"…Which means either they have a new Master, or Regent is Hijack, like we suspected. Okay, I can understand that, but what's your 'issue'?"
He took off his helmet, setting it on his workspace and pulling out his tools. "My issue," he began, popping off an access panel below the ear, "is that if it was Hijack, it was clear to me that he is far more powerful than we thought. I encountered not just Lung, but a total of twenty-two other ABB members, all Mastered, singing and dancing in a conga line down a street. Lung's powers were being suppressed, as well." He began unscrewing a nanochip from the nerve sensor behind the ear.
"Maybe he had a second Trigger event?"
His attention shot up to the screen, automatically meeting the camera with his stare. "A what? I thought that was theory at best?"
She looked somewhat affronted at his reaction. He relaxed his posture somewhat as she answered. "Second triggers are rare, but far from impossible. My teammate, Narwhal, was unfortunate enough to experience one. Ever since, her forcefields have ignored the Manton Effect."
Colin rubbed his goatee, digesting the idea. Hijack's power, with limits removed? Hijack himself, put through a situation of such immense trauma, that he could trigger a second time? The power fit, as scary as it was; and the dancing could be a sign of a mental break, although that might be stretching it a bit. Still, all the more reason to complete tonight's project.
"That's… a terrifying prospect. Which brings me to what I called you about. I think I can make a psychic blocker device for my suit, but I need assistance to make sure I don't mess it up, especially since it needs to be a rush job. I figured you were the person to go to for that."
Dragon smiled again. "Of course, Colin. I'd be happy to help. Do you mind if we move to that assembly pad you set up?" He shook his head, already retightening the component so it wouldn't be damaged in transit.
The table in question had a large, mounted HD touchscreen, an array of gigapixel cameras, and a pair of robotic arms with interchangeable microtools, for precision work when his own human hands might fail him. It had been trivial to allow Dragon to operate them remotely, giving her a telepresence in his lab when needed. He still had to take over for the most delicate work, thanks to the tiny delay from the fiber optics between here and Vancouver, but it was worth it to bounce ideas off the greatest tinker alive.
"Okay, let's see here… the basic design involves scrambling background electrical fields triggered by nerve endings firing, thus insulating the body from effects that sense or control nerves. The problem I'm running into is how extensive such a technology would have to be; it would need to be systematically present throughout my entire suit, a full rebuild, and I don't have the time to do that."
She let out a 'hmm', thinking about it. "You certainly never give easy challenges, do you. Let's work on a single section, and see if inspiration starts to hit us."
He laid out a carbon microchip, she ran a quick diagnostic flex of the robotic arms, and they began etching microcircuitry. He stood at the console, guiding the arms in tandem with Dragon, occasionally pausing as a new idea struck them. They worked that way, like a well-crafted mechanism, well into the morning.
They made decent progress, but eventually, as the sun rose, Colin started drifting off. Dragon smiled a bit, and sent him off to his cot in the corner, finishing up the last few welds on the unfinished project.
Colin dreamt of thunder, of rain, and of electric sheep.