11 Power Trip
Garment retreated to my workshop and I sealed the entrance before leaving the apartment. If I was going to do this more often I'd need to find a better option than just hunting through back alleys for an unobserved door. Maybe something like what I pulled with the van would work, find a parking structure that I could use to access my workshop so people wouldn't wonder why a motorcycle was constantly entering or leaving.
While I was heading towards the alley I previously used I felt the Celestial Forge move again, bringing the Alchemy constellation close by. This time I was able to connect to a mid-sized mote. The ability was called Deranged Alchemist. This, this was proper alchemy. Not component spellcasting, not the brewing of a quarter dozen potion types. This was the real deal.
In addition to all the medieval chemistry you could possibly want there were sparks of significant power. The most important was the ability to transmute materials. The rituals were a little elaborate, but with work I could transmute just about any material into a substance of the same alchemical base. I couldn't turn lead into gold. I could, however, turn gold into platinum.
Setting aside the prospect of bringing WEDGDG down on me for disruption of the precious metals commodity market this would address a serious number of my supply problems. My workshop only restocked basic materials, but those included iron, lead, tin, and copper, four of the seven base alchemic metals. With some transmutation work that opened up effectively unlimited supplies of most of the metals on the periodic table. Unfortunately I was still limited on the ones I'd need to transmute from mercury, silver, or gold, but this had bypassed a massive hurdle for my supply chain.
There was another aspect to this power that I was a good deal less excited about. Among the alchemical knowledge I had received from this ability was a comprehensive understanding of the alchemical studies of Paracelsus, specifically those concerned with the creation of life. In short, I could make homunculi.
There's a distinction between wet and dry tinkers that's so stark people don't even bother with the 'dry' classification. You're either a normal tinker or a wet tinker. Homunculus creation was the wettest of wet tinkering. It worked by a variation of preformationism where you basically grew a tiny version of a creature from the hypothetical tinier versions of that creature that existed within their living bodies. Considering I was pretty sure I could already manage to build a cloning tank this application was both disgusting and redundant. The power was called 'Deranged Alchemist', and apparently for good reason.
There may have been some advantages if you got deep enough into homunculi research, but I was perfectly happy keeping my hands off on this one. It would be hard enough figuring out the alchemical transmutation alignment for elemental neodymium. I didn't need to dive into a field of tinkering I'd been specifically trying to avoid since I found out what my powers would have been without the Celestial Forge. I really didn't need this after the call I just had. I'd been reminded of that stuff more than enough for one day.
Setting aside the horrible wet tinker aspects of this power there was an interesting element to it. This was actually an entire discipline unto itself. I was coming into it with master level understanding, but there was the potential for development, refinement, and even new discoveries. The holy grail of this particular system was the creation of the panacea. That is, the medicine that cures all illness and extends life, not copies of the new wave cape, though with the homunculus stuff I could conceivably make small copies of the New Wave cape and I'm not thinking about that anymore. Combinations of homunculus distillation with parahuman biology had terrifying implications that I'm just not going to into right now. The non-horrible point is that there's actually room for development and refinement in this particular discipline. It's closer to the science related powers that allow new designs and discoveries than my previous two alchemy abilities which were strictly limited to the knowledge they provided. The formulas from Evermore Alchemist could be refined and improved in effectiveness, but I couldn't develop anything novel. This actually had the potential for new discovery.
That would be a daunting prospect and something I normally would never have considered attempting, but I also had two intelligence boosting powers and the second one was specifically designed to allow me to become the foremost mind in any field. While I doubted there was much competition for the title of 'foremost alchemist' the end result was a massive increase in my ability to develop this craft. I wasn't sure what direction I would actually be taking my research. The panacea was well out of my reach at the moment and I would be having enough trouble figuring out transmutation principles for metals medieval alchemists didn't even have names for. I wasn't likely to manage anything that would exceed the combat potential of my Evermore Alchemy, at least not without more research than was practical to consider with the scope of my current problems.
This was also truly the final nail in the coffin over the whole magic thing. The rituals needed to successfully transmute materials had an overwhelmingly mystical bent. I would never be able to dress them up as anything scientific. We're talking circles, candles, placed reagents, chanting, and possibly robes. I'm really hoping I can avoid the robes, partially because I'll be doing this in my machine shop and loose clothing is a death sentence in that kind of environment, but mostly because I don't want to find out what Garment's reaction would be if she saw me trying to cobble together a set of alchemical vestments.
The world is not ready for a line of designer cowls.
There was also some medical knowledge tied up in this mess, but it was seriously archaic. Barber surgeon skills or diagnosis by humors, that kind of stuff. Just enough to facilitate the squishier aspects of the power without providing any real proficiency in terms of modern medicine.
As much as I would have liked to get back to my workshop and start transmutations I had promised Garment a ride. The bike also needed a test run since there was no way I was having my first experience on something that powerful be a cape fight. The fleet program would also need all the training I could give it if it was going to be more than a glorified cruise control option.
I found a decent access point in the same alley I had stored my bike. Hopefully if anyone in the neighborhood had been watching me put it away this would negate any hint of cape shenanigans at play. In its civilian mode the bike still had the same broad features of what I had purchased, just seriously cleaned up. Providing no one was filming me when I drove in then it would probably pass any level of casual inspection. That was of course assuming a level of engagement that just wasn't present in this part of the Docks, so I was feeling pretty confident about this.
When I opened the door to my workshop Garment was standing in the entryway wearing her full biker outfit, complete with helmet. The illusion really was perfect. If I didn't know for certain it was a telekinetically suspended set of clothes I would have been completely fooled. I guess knowledge of fashion at her level gives you an understanding of how clothing is supposed to sit on a human body. By the way she arranged the outfit she was able to give a flawless impression of a rather pronounced female figure. The only thing that looked slightly out of place were the gloves, which were still that overly pure, almost unnatural shade of white. They had shifted from form fitting evening wear to the look and shape of white leather motorcycle gloves. I had no idea the extent of her shapeshifting abilities, but apparently she could adapt them to the most appropriate option for the situation.
She had cleared a path for the bike to exit the workshop, but with it in a much cleaner and less greasy state she wasn't demonstrating quite the desperate defense of her clothing she had shown before. I wheeled the bike out of the workshop with a slight amount of assistance from the fleet program. Technically it should have been able to manage this itself with automated steering and gyroscopic stabilization, but I wasn't ready to risk it so early in the program's development. When I rolled it into the alley Garment hopped onto the back and excitedly gestured towards the open road. I sealed the workshop before turning to her.
"Ok, this is a quick run around the city and maybe a few errands. My permit doesn't allow me to carry passengers or be out after sunset. Still we should be fine as long as we don't get pulled over."
She made and excited gesture and pointed towards the road.
"I'm serious Garment, I know you're excited but we need to keep this low key. This is a trial run and I don't want to attract too much attention."
She gave me an adamant nod and turned to the street again.
"Ok, one last thing." I reached into my jacket and pulled out a fold of bills. She immediately perked up. "This is emergency money. I don't anticipate anything happening out there where you'll need it, but if something does happen I'd rather you have the option. There's three hundred dollars here, so it'll be enough to cover most expenses, at least to get you someplace safe." She nodded furiously. "Garment, this is emergency money. It is not for you to immediately spend on materials. Do you understand?"
She paused in reaching for the cash, then slowly nodded. Without being able to speak it would be difficult for her to use it, but if we got separated for any reason it would at least give her some options. I handed over the money and she tucked it under the hem of one of her gloves.
"Alright, let's go."
I mounted the bike and engaged the drive. I would be managing things until the fleet program developed enough to start assisting. With that in mind I carefully pulled down the alley and out onto the street.
It didn't take long after we were on the main roads for me to realize things were not going to go the way I hoped. I probably should have seen this coming. Either 'low key' was not part of Garment's vocabulary or, more concerningly, this was her idea of holding back. If that was the case her base level of engagement was probably a city wide rager. In retrospect my idea of avoiding attention had been doomed from the start. A white and blue super bike with a pink clad passenger clinging to the driver wouldn't have been subtle even if said passenger wasn't trying to engage every driver, pedestrian, and feral animal that crossed our path.
That was bad enough when we were on the side streets. When we pulled onto Bayside and started riding parallel to the boardwalk things were definitely getting out of hand. Garment alternated between standing up with her hands on my shoulders to get a better 'view' of the area and leaning back to wave at anyone willing to engage her. A convertible nearly veered off the road after Garment spent a quarter mile leaning back and waving at the driver.
Apparently my power had decided to curse me with an extreme extrovert.
The entire endeavor was about as far from avoiding attention as humanly possible. Eventually I pulled into the parking lot of one of the clusters of boardwalk stores just for a break. That turned out to be of mixed success as we shifted from endangering traffic to being a public spectacle for every tourist, boardwalk patron, and teenager that walked by. I may have badly underestimated the quality of work I'd done on my bike. I had to field a stream of greetings, compliments and the occasional technical question. Garment preened at the attention but I couldn't help but feel like I was under a microscope. The occasional click of camera phones didn't help. Come on people. This is a cape town. Is a motorcycle really that remarkable?
The Celestial Forge moved again and my power failed to connect to a mote from the Quality Constellation. I put it out of my mind as Garment communicated through gestures to a tourist that yes, it was perfectly alright for him to take a picture and she would be more than happy to pose for it. I stayed buried in my jacket and helmet to hide my discomfort at the entire situation.
I may have found a flaw in my plan to use the bike and as innocuous civilian transport. This thing was stark, unique, and memorable. If I really wanted to go with that idea I would have painted it in faded shades with fake rust and rode it in the drabbest outfit I could get away with. As I watched Garment pose for another picture I realized that plan was doomed from the start.
Apparently I had become one of those assholes who swings down to the boardwalk to hang out in designer clothes next to a car with a minimum price tag of a hundred thousand dollars. All I needed was some arm candy and the transformation would be complete. There was probably no better evidence of how much we had accidently embraced boardwalk culture than the fact that we were taking up a prime parking space for an overly expensive café and no one was making a fuss. Even when a hulking team of boardwalk enforcers passed by we got nothing more than a smile and wave with one of them commenting "Nice bike.".
Eventually I managed to pry Garment away from her adoring public and get back on the road. The time spent dealing with Boardwalk patrons seemed to have sated her somewhat as she was marginally more subdued as we looped south along the coast. This was mostly a test ride and a chance for Garment to see the city, but I still had a few things I hoped to accomplish.
What I was going to do was a borderline violation of the unwritten rules, but considering the people I was subjecting it to had tentatively revealed their identities to me I would probably get a pass. The boardwalk ran nearly the full length of the bay, meaning I could get a sense of the entire city as I rode its length. By concentrating on the items I had made I was able to feel out their relative locations.
Some were easy to place while others were a bit more vague. My dagger and half of my karambit, the knives I'd made for Alec and Brian, were still in the direction of their hideout, so I was willing to bet they hadn't been moved. My Bowie knife was further north, so that was probably a second location for Rachel away from the Undersiders' lair. My experimental wind blade and impact baton were deeper in the Docks, probably at Taylor's home. I could feel my stiletto somewhere Downtown, but I'd need a closer sweep to find where Tattletale was storing it. The other half of my karambit was clearly at the Rig. Whether it was being studied or stored I couldn't say, but that would be taken care of when it repaired itself tomorrow. Finally the hairpin was somewhere downtown, so most likely kept at the PRT headquarters. I doubted Panacea was still there so it had probably been handed off as evidence.
I cringed at the idea of that rainbow flower pin being used to prove my identity. It seemed like a good idea at the time, do a bit of craftwork to give evidence of tinkering rather than just a material sample people probably wouldn't even look at, but it turned into a game of 'what's the most I can do with a single material?' and ended up with my style and Smithing perks running wild. I had a feeling that thing would be an ongoing embarrassment on the level of taking a steel club with me on my first night's patrol.
When we reached the south end of the Boardwalk I turned left and started circling through Downtown. This route had me brushing against campus which is something I wasn't too comfortable with. There was minimal chance I would run into anyone I knew, but there were still bad memories connected with the area. Getting that close to the university did result in a significantly different tone for the city. Brockton isn't exactly a college town but the student population is large enough that the immediate area around the campus is clogged with businesses devoted to student college goers. Generally that means cheap take out, coffee shops, and bars that do the bare minimum in terms of checking for fake IDs.
The point is the tone of the city changed around the campus and Garment picked up on it right away. Whatever level of restraint our stop at the Boardwalk had granted her melted away as she did her utmost to grab the attention of any student she could. At least this close to the university this kind of nonsense was less likely to be remarked upon given some of the crap college students could get up to.
I shifted one street over and ended up on a road lined with mid-level stores, probably designed to suck as much money out of the student population as possible. Nothing more exceptional than what you'd find in an average mall, but for Garment it was like I'd spread the treasures of the world before her. At her prodding I reduced my speed to the minimum I could get away with while she took in every window display on the street.
My power failed to connect to a mote from the Vehicles constellation as we eventually ran out of stores for Garment to ogle. With how much she had been moving around on the back of the bike if she had any actual mass to her instead of being completely suspended I probably would have spun out three times by now. Also I really hoped that no one had been watching the rear shocks too closely because that would make it clear my passenger was effectively weightless.
Following the sense of my stiletto led me to a mid-range apartment building. Well, mid-range for Downtown. It would be positively opulent by the standards of the Docks. From the feel of things my knife was in an apartment about two thirds of the way up. It seemed like a likely location for Tattletale. Comfortable without being over the top and common enough to avoid garnering attention. I wasn't sure if she was living alone, but I couldn't really see her maintaining a villain career under parental supervision, and my passenger seemed to back that up. I might be able to nail down the exact apartment if I circled a few times or got inside the building, but I was already at the limit of what I was comfortable with in terms of violations of privacy and the unwritten rules.
Instead I pulled off and started towards the docks. From my sense of the hairpin I was certain it was either in the PRT headquarters or somewhere very close by. The last two points I wanted to check were the knives I'd made for Taylor and Rachel.
My route took me through the residential area of Downtown. Really it was only considered Downtown to set it apart from the economic conditions of the Docks. This was where upper middle class homes slowly merged into the areas of truly ridiculous wealth and borderline mansions that made up the south edge of the city. The stark wealth divide was probably as much of a driver of the unrest in this city as any of the parahuman gangs. The shift from the shipping industry to tech firms may have only resulted in a slight net reduction of the city's economy, particularly if cape tourism was taken into account, but it resulted in that money becoming much more concentrated. The way the city had gone from largely having a common cause and identity to being driven by a few high power individuals and corporations almost felt like an analogy for the impact of capes on society as a whole.
Huh, maybe driving by the college had gotten me in an essay mindset again. That was definitely the kind of thing my parahuman studies professor would have eaten up.
We approached the kind of upscale version of a strip mall you would find in this part of town, the kind filled with big box stores and chain restaurants. It reminded me that I still needed supplies for my potions. Well, for both of my new alchemy powers. There were enough stores that I'd be able to find everything, but there's also no way Garment would be allowed inside with her helmet on. I was ready to give it a pass, but she must have seen me looking because she gestured for us to pull into the parking lot.
I found a decent spot roughly central to the stores I'd need to visit and turned to Garment. "There are some things I'm going to have to pick up for my next projects. Are you alright waiting out here?"
She gave me a dismissive wave and gestured towards the other shoppers. In this area the general public tended to be slightly more fashion forward than the docks. Garment seemed perfectly content to hang out and people watch while I shopped.
"Alright. Will you be ok if someone tries to talk to you? I'll be as fast as I can but..."
Garment shoed me away and I took the hint. I left my helmet on the bike and headed for the stores. I needed supplies and materials for potion making. Let's add that to the list of sentences I never thought I'd say as a tinker. Really all I needed was a heat source and a container, plus a set of ingredients. The components for these potions were already fairly mundane. With the benefit of my Deranged Alchemist power my options expanded in terms of what I'd be able to use in the brewing process. When you considered my transmutation ability I could probably pull this off with a camp stove, handful of condiments and some soft drinks.
That may have sounded irreverent, but I was totally going to try that. I doubted even the most ardent monitoring for tinker purchases looks for suspicious quantities of sugar and mustard. I mean, most of the potions would end up tasting like barbeque sauce, but trust me, that's one of the better possibilities I was looking at here.
I started with the camp stoves. They were easy enough to find along with some tins of Sterno. I grabbed a few other odds and ends that would let me set up a remote lab as well as what I'd need for my transmutation rituals. Well, most of what I'd need. Enough to manage. I'm not going full dark acolyte over this. I accept the necessity of the candles, ritual markings, chanting, and reagents. I'm not dressing like Emperor Palpatine every time I want to prep some titanium stock. I can take the efficiency drop in exchange for not having to do this nonsense in a dress. It wasn't like I was working with a limited supply of base materials.
Really I would have done best with a dedicated ritual space and properly equipped chemistry lab. The problem was both were off the table for the immediate future. Barring a lucky connection with the Celestial Forge I was at the limit of what I could manage with my extradimensional space. Setting up a facility in the real world would require a secure location, acquisition or manufacture of all the necessary equipment, and trusting I would be able to access it without being discovered. While that wasn't impossible with my skillset I was also under a time crunch. I had no idea about when Bakuda would strike, which meant I couldn't afford to sink time into convenience projects that wouldn't yield direct results.
The full shopping trip ended up requiring stops at a hardware store, housewares chain, and briefly ducking into a sporting goods outlet. I was on my way back to the bike with a set of bags when I felt the Celestial Forge move again, this time bringing the Size constellation within reach. The strength of my power had grown to the same level as when I was able to connect to the Life Fiber Spool and had just enough reach to form a connection to one of the larger motes in the constellation.
Unlike with the Life Fiber Spool there was no doubt about the applications of this power. The mote was called Master Builder and may have actually been underselling itself. It represented an absolute mastery of an entire field, no, innumerable fields of science and technology from an entire galactic age society. The information covered everything from new theories of spatial dynamics to mind numbingly advanced designs for robotics and computers. There were theoretically perfect energy storage medium along with more weapon systems than I could count. The technology on display ranged from mundane to world shattering and had all been dumped into my mind at once.
That was actually the problem. With most of these powers the information I received came in a largely human context. It was either raw knowledge, experience, instinct, or something similar. This information didn't take any of those approaches. This was raw data burned directly into my mind in a manner that I could barely process. If I was trying to manage this without my intelligence booster powers I might have been floored on the spot. As it was I was still left reeling as I tried to process the sheer breath of information that my power had granted me.
There was one aspect of this ability that would have left me absolutely livid if I had gotten it at any earlier point. Most of this technology was dependent on a very specific material. Cybertonium was an incredibly advance engineered metal that was crucial to the production of just about every level of technology granted by this power. It was an amazing material by any metric. The fact that it functioned as a room temperature superconductor was one of its less impressive qualities, especially when you considered what was possible in terms of transwarp integration. The absolute nightmare involved in producing it would have relegated most of this information to background theory for my other projects. However, that was before I became a true alchemist.
I would be able to transmute base metals into cybertonium. When I said 'would be' I meant it was technically possible and therefore took this technology from a series of projects which could only tantalize me to something I could actually accomplish. I just had to get very, very good at transmutation.
For this I could live with the Emperor Palpatine cosplay, no matter what Garment ended up doing with it.
If I could seriously get this technology off the ground it opened up more options than I had ever thought possible. Aside from the personal equipment I would be able to make or the massive potential for upgrading of my other technology it would be 'relatively' easy to build a scaled down version of an interstellar teleportation array. That would allow me instant access to any point on the earth's surface. It would be a massive project, but also a complete game changer in terms of mobility and S-class threat response. And sadly something I would not have anywhere near enough time to accomplish before Bakuda decided to go bomb happy.
The stress of managing so much new information had me stumbling along the final stretch to Garment and the bike. Fortunately she saw me coming and was able to rush over to help me along.
"You doing alright there?"
I shifted my attention to a blond man loading what looked like an unassembled boxed up crib into the back of a nearby minivan.
"Yeah," I did my best to pull myself together. The information was still burning in my brain in all its inhuman glory, but I was able to put on a somewhat normal front with a bit of effort. "Just a bit dehydrated."
I fished a sports drink out of one of my shopping bags and cracked it open. I had actually bought it to have a convenient potion container, so this was as good a time to drink it as any. Probably better seeing that it would buy me a few more precious seconds of recovery time.
The man nodded and shut the trunk. "You have to watch out for that." The day wasn't particularly hot, but it was bright enough that the excuse didn't fall completely flat. He gestured towards my bike. "Not a bad machine there. That a custom job?"
"I've had to put some work into it." I agreed. There was a faint buzzing from my passenger but between keeping up with the conversation, putting on a brave front, and dealing with the fact that my mind had just been filled with enough machine coded blueprints to sustain an entire civilization I was having a bit of trouble figuring out what the problem was.
He walked over and took a closer look. "I've got a BMW R1200 myself. You should really stick with German engineering. Better performance and a quarter the upkeep you need with these rice rockets."
I shrugged. My passenger was still trying to get something through, but the information from the Master Builder power had barely settled and it was all I could manage to keep up with what this guy was saying.
"I enjoy the upkeep. To be honest I'm probably better at that side of things than I am on the road."
He seemed to be considering something. "I can respect that. If you can keep this thing running I have a friend I should introduce you to. I know he'd love to meet someone as skilled at you."
There was a spike of alarm from my passenger, but I was still having trouble placing his concerns. Blissfully we were interrupted.
"Justin, can you give me a hand with Aster?" A shortish woman with mousy brown hair had pulled a stroller alongside the van and was lifting a baby girl out of it.
"Be right there, Kayden." I did my best not to show how relieved I was for the chance to recover. This information, the way it was being delivered, it was like it had been designed for a computer, not a human being. Actually, even with the immense array of technology there was a stark lack of biological applications, not even the inclusion of basic life support in most of the designs. I was developing some serious questions regarding the context of this information.
The man, Justin, helped Kayden with the stroller while she secured Aster into a car seat, then took to account to store it in the trunk. There seemed to be some kind of professional relationship between them, but it didn't appear to be affectionate. Were they work friends or something like that?
"Got caught up in bike talk." He gestured to my motorcycle. "You know how it is with gear heads."
Kayden nodded, but there was a slight pause when she saw the model of my bike. Still she pressed on and smiled at Garment. "I guess you must be used to that kind of thing?"
Garment gave her a shrug and a dismissive gesture. At Kayden's confused expression I broke in.
"Sorry, she doesn't speak."
The woman's expression darkened. "No English?" Her eyes were jumping between Garment, the bike and myself with a concerning look to them.
"Uh, no. She doesn't speak at all."
"Mute." The muttered word came from the blond man who immediately looked embarrassed for having said it. Kayden shot him a warning look and he cleared his throat and turned away. As I watched the exchange between them my head cleared enough that I was finally able to piece together what my passenger had been trying to communicate.
Empire.
Somehow I had managed to stumble across two Empire capes in their civilian identities. I wasn't sure who Justin was but the complex arrangement of emotions surrounding the woman perfectly matched up with Purity. I was about eight feet from the most powerful blaster in Brockton Bay. The baby in the minivan explained some of the conflicting feelings from my passenger, but I doubted that made her any less dangerous.
More pieces from the earlier conversation were falling into place. I was fairly certain that 'friend' Justin wanted me to meet would be Victor. There was a lot of concern around Victor. Too many of my powers didn't follow standard tinker rules. I really wasn't sure how much that skill thief would be able to take if he got a free shot at me. I was fairly certain my magical skills and anything directly facilitated by the Forge would be beyond him. I believed that a lot of my seriously advanced technology required support from my power for part of the fabrication process, but I couldn't be sure. Even without those abilities there were enough 'mundane' skills to take someone within spitting distance of a tinker rating, and I wasn't about to give the Empire that advantage.
It also occurred to me that I was standing in front of at least one senior Empire cape, even if her current membership was a bit debated, with a hyper advanced motorcycle and shopping bags full of eclectic supplies. And the motorcycle was registered to me with my home address. I was a single guess on the part of either of these capes from a forced recruitment attempt.
It would be against the unwritten rules, but within that technical area where people are willing to dance if it means serious advantage, and the Empire was desperate for a tinker. After the debut of "Lord Khepri" the only two parahuman teams in the city without a tinker were the Empire and Faultline's crew. I was confident I could personally resist any recruitment attempt, but if my identity was exposed that meant they could try to coheres me through family members. That is, providing they were willing to completely defy the unwritten rules, not just dance on the line. I wasn't willing to take bets on the restraint of a bunch of white supremacists. I might not have the best relationship with my family at the moment but that was a long way from wishing super Nazis upon them.
Could I take these two? I had no idea who Justin was. The best I could say was probably not Victor. Possibly Krieg, Crusader, or Fog. I wouldn't really want to test my passive defenses against any of those capes. Purity was an offensive nightmare. My only hope of countering her was my Reflect formula, but unfortunately I only had reagents for some healing alchemy, and I'd grabbed those mostly as an afterthought. I needed to maintain a better loadout. Depending on who I was facing my power armor might be able to handle them, but the A.I. was so green I wouldn't trust it to walk in bipedal mode, much less fight. This was a bad situation all around.
Miraculously Kayden seemed to interpret my borderline panic as offense rather than rushed combat assessment. "I'm sorry about him." She sent the man another glare. "He has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth on certain topics."
"Don't worry about it. We should get going anyway." I handed Garment the bags and mounted the bike. "It was nice meeting you." I lied.
"Like wise." She gave me a half-hearted wave as I pulled out of the parking lot as fast as I could without attracting suspicion.
There was some irony at my panic over the Empire potentially disregarding the unwritten rules while my power blatantly flaunted the secret identities of every cape I came across. I guess when you get down to it the knowing wasn't the problem, it was what you did with it. Hopefully the fact that Purity had a baby daughter at home would be enough to keep her from trying her luck with the conventions that prevented this city from turning into a warzone.
I kept moving until we were well into the South Docks. Garment had picked up that something was bothering me and was reining in her usual enthusiasm, though that was probably helped by our transition to a part of the city that was significantly less prone to enthusiasm. My power missed a connection to the Clothing constellation as I pulled into a quiet alley and opened a link to my workshop. I stored the purchases and sealed the door before turning to explain things to Garment.
"They were Empire capes. The woman was Purity, I'm not sure who the man was." That got me some confused looks. Right, how much did Garment know about the local situation? "The Empire are the local Neo-Nazi cape team. Purity is one of their stronger capes, flying blaster. She has a body count, enough for the three strikes rule but not as bad as some of the other capes. She's split or on hiatus with the main group or something like that. I'm not sure how much risk we're at from that encounter, but I don't think she suspected anything."
Garment proceeded to make a series of complicated and difficult to decipher gestures that seemed to be indicating a level of disapproval over Kayden's fashion sense and how that implied unfavorable things about her character. At least that's what I was able to take away from her movements. I mentally added sign language lessons alongside the typing course I needed to arrange for Garment.
I gave her a smile and we mounted back up. "There are a couple more places I want to drive past, then I think I know where we can find a storage place for your clothes."
That lifted Garment's spirits and we pulled back out onto the city streets. As we made our way through the docks I started closing in on the enchanted blade and baton I made for Taylor. It was in one of the older neighborhoods of the docks, full of family homes that were mostly going into disrepair or being sold off for whatever they could bring in. Honestly it was about what I expected when I first saw Taylor. I made a point of not actually driving past her house since I was even less subtle here that I had been on the boardwalk, but with a couple of passes I had a relatively good idea of where it was located.
After that I followed the sense of my Bowie knife north into the more industrial areas. As we rode I considered the implications of my latest power. It was clear this was a big one. It was the strongest power I'd gotten so far both in what it cost and the level of technology it provided access to. It made the best technology my Grease Monkey power could put out look like a joke. This was the stuff of literal science fiction. There was actual faster than light technology possible through this power.
The problem was I would be running into the standard tinker dilemma, where I had to build the tools to build the tools to build the tools to build my technology. Even if I managed a stable supply of cybertonium I would estimate I was at least four layers deep on that particular nesting doll before I could start breaking out the serious tech. And that steady supply of cybertonium was not guaranteed. The best I could say at the moment was that it was technically possible to produce with alchemical transmutation.
If I did manage the higher level technologies this power could put out then that would be a game changer. The GroundBridge alone would be revolutionary, but there were unbelievable advances possible in robotics, energy management, weaponry, transportation, and more fields than I could name. This was a fundamentally disruptive power, I just needed to last long enough to pull it off.
Without some resource or assembly power I would be slogging through this tech base for weeks, and I didn't have that amount of time. The whole city was on a ticking clock, so I needed to focus on what I could accomplish with what I had, not the dream technologies I wished I was able to produce. The level of robotics knowledge provided by this power was immense. In fact a lot of it felt almost... medical? Anyway, I would be able to refine the previous work on my bike a great deal. Adapting this to integrate with magitek would be a challenge, but it should be possible, especially for the mechanical portions of the upgrades. There was also the potential for serious refinements in A.I. development and my computer hardware setup, both in my bike and for what I was using generally. More than enough space for improvement there. Human computer science was a joke.
Ok, how concerned should I be that I just felt the need to classify every other computer system on the planet as being a product of 'human computer science' and didn't automatically include myself in that category? That seems like something I should keep an eye on.
My sense of the Bowie knife spiked and I shifted my attention back to the surrounding area. The location became clear when we passed a house with obvious signs of numerous dogs. The kind of signs you get from dogs that are let into a yard as a substitute for taking them on walks.
I sped past before anyone could recognize me, and also ignored the Celestial Forge as it missed a connection to the Size constellation. I didn't know if she was still there or if she would connect me with a random biker seen outside her house, but the bike stood out glaringly in this environment. Fortunately my next destination was a strait shot past Rachel's home/hideout/dog shelter.
There were sets of storage lockers scattered all over the city. During the first economic crash they had acted as temporary housing for people who couldn't afford rent but had just enough not to end up on the street. Given the entrepreneurial spirit of Brockton Bay you had dozens of cheaply made storage facilities spring up all over the place. Given that these were being treated as apartments without plumbing, sanitation, or security the inevitable happened and a series of high profile disasters led to the city cracking down on the pseudo apartments. By that point there were more than enough abandoned buildings to fill the need and the population migrated to even cheaper and less secure accommodations.
The consequence of this is the city having a ridiculous excess of storage facilities. They aren't terribly profitable but probably bring in marginally more revenue than whatever else the land could be used for. When your primary competition is abandoned warehouses pretty much anything is a step up.
Brockton University isn't exactly internationally renowned but we had enough students from out of state that storage over the summer months was a concern. I'm pretty sure the storage facilities charge students as much for a summer as locals paid for an entire year, but that revenue is probably the only thing keeping these places from turning into derelicts. The fact that they actually advertised on campus pretty much proved that.
I was heading to the most remote of the storage places I remembered from my time as a student. It was past the train yard and probably saw less traffic than any other facility in the city. Lord knows what was stored here since I'm pretty sure everyone who came out this far had something to hide. I only remember it from the horror stories of people who considered using it. The place ended up as something between an urban legend and inside joke for my class after that.
I put it out of my mind as we approached the storage facility. I seriously felt it would be the most remote and secure place to store both Garment's wardrobe and various pieces of spillover from my workshop. My passenger begged to differ.
As soon as I saw the place dread started building. It was like something out of one of the stupid stories that would circulate around my class, only this was coming from a cosmic being with access to information beyond my understanding, not the guy who didn't know when to let a joke die. I took one look at the collection of storage units and decided whatever was going to happen here I wanted no part in it. I was within spitting distance of being able to build a subspace pocket. Now was not the time to be taking chances on the storage yard of deadly portents.
So that wasn't going to work. I could try to find a more centrally located storage unit to tide me through, but those had things like attentive staff, security cameras, and foot traffic. One of those I could bypass with no effort, the other two would be more of an issue. Ultimately my best option might be to follow the Undersiders' lead and start an offsite base in an abandoned building. I had the advantage that I would be able to manufacture most of my equipment onsite or sneak it in using my workshop key. The trick would be finding something unlikely to be disturbed, but still accessible.
I actually had no idea how the Undersiders maintained any semblance of security in their base. Yeah, it would be stupid to approach the lair of that many supervillains, but someone must have noticed the foot traffic and been tempted to investigate. At the very least moving in that much high end electronics must have attracted some attention.
The answer was most likely tied to their boss. I wouldn't be surprised if everything in that area was owned by him through shell companies. There were probably ways to decrease the chances someone would wander upon them. If every other building in the area was both abandoned and inhospitable then the odds of someone investigating that particular factory in enough depth to find their hideout was remote. Tattletale probably had something to do with it as well, likely some kind of prediction based on appearance and the local character or something like that.
So where did that leave me? I needed a place where I could set up a, and I still can't believe I'm saying this, potion lab. I also needed somewhere to secure Garment's clothes. Those were not likely to be the same location barring extensive renovations or a very lucky find.
Actually, for potion brewing the factory I'd used for the first access to my laboratorium could do the trick. It had enough chemical smells that I doubt any more would be noticed and was big enough that I could obscure the potion vapors with a minor amount of engineering. I had no idea what its ownership status was, but the place had clearly been abandoned since the first crash of the local economy. Subtle access might be a bit dicey, but the industrial estate was big enough that I'm sure I'd be able to rig something. The obvious chemical contamination was a concern, but I had safety equipment from my workshop and extensive healing abilities beyond that. I also had enough alchemy knowledge to put together a decent idea of what sort of contamination I would be dealing with.
As I was heading back towards the docks the vehicle constellation swung towards me and my power connected to a small mote called Mechanic. It was another mechanical skill booster with some additional electrical understanding, this time particularly geared towards criminal enterprises like hotwiring or bypassing security systems. The big aspects of this power were the ability to rebuild vehicles perfectly even after they had been nearly destroyed and a drastic reduction in the complexity of tools required for the maintenance of anything, not just vehicles. A basic set of handheld tools from a portable kit would be able to manage the most complicated maintenance procedures of the most advanced systems imaginable. It didn't help me with manufacturing, but being able to use the same basic toolset to maintain everything from computer systems to energy weapons to spacecraft would be an incredible advantage.
I decided I was probably overthinking things with my secrecy concerns. Access might be dicey, but for the moment all I was going to be storing was Garment's spill over wardrobe. Someone happening upon that wouldn't find it any more remarkable than the contents of any other storage locker. To that effect I headed towards a storage facility in the same general region as my apartment, not close enough that I'd be running into people I knew, but close enough for convenient access.
They had a locker available. Every storage facility has lockers available. It's the advantage of having such an overbuilt industry to draw upon, even if it started from such a bad place. I picked out one that was as deep in the maze of storage units as possible to minimize the chance anyone would stumble upon us while we were loading the unit. I had to fill out a rather extensive form with a lot of agreements about what could be stored, liability for violations, and notice of seizure in the event the terms were breached. It was incredibly comprehensive, but the manager didn't even look at it when he took my deposit for two months and didn't even spare a glance at my driver's license. He gave the two of us a slight squint as he handed over the key, then shrugged and went back to his paper. I guess there were advantages to the general level of apathy the economic downturn had created.
I figured two months of storage should be more than enough. By that point I'd either have subspace pockets figured out or have secured better accommodations. I led Garment through the rows of storage units to the one matching my issued key. When I unlocked it and pulled up the sliding door Garment was less than enthusiastic at the sight of the stained concrete floor and cracked celling.
"No, I'm not asking for another one. Look, you can tell the stain was from the previous tenant. There's no sign of water ingress at all. You'll be fine."
There were questioning gestures and a vague indication towards the north side of town.
"That was because I was getting a bad feeling. Something's happening there and I didn't want anything to happen to your things."
She seemed to indicate that this was at best a marginal step up from my previous assessment.
"Look, every storage facility is going to be like this. The only ones that might have better units will be the places Downtown that are designed to be climate controlled for antiques and stuff..." She started gesturing excitedly. "...which we won't be able to book tonight, probably don't take cash, and likely need an accounting of everything stored in them."
Garment still seemed to be indicating it was worth the trouble.
"Also I need to start alchemy tonight. So either we use this storage unit or your clothes end up next to the room where I'm mixing transmutation catalysts."
Garment looked more conflicted than I'd ever seen her before, constantly glancing at the storage locker, then away, miming the shifting of her weight from one foot to the other.
I took a breath. "I'm not asking for you to just dump them in there." She perked up. "You can have a budget for tarps, garment bags, those kind of things."
Garment rallied, and immediately jumped into negotiations. She may have had more luck if I didn't know what she'd been able to pull together for a frankly insultingly meager amount of cash. In the end I talked her down to under a hundred dollars and still felt like I was overpaying. I was also a little concerned on how my default solution for dealing with any problem involving Garment had me throwing money at it. It wasn't as bad as it seemed seeing as she was basically a link to a worldwide marketplace of clothing and clothing related raw materials. It just seemed like the kind of thing I should be careful about.
I accessed my workshop through the door of the storage locker opposite ours and kept watch while Garment summoned what was almost certainly an excessive amount of protection for her wardrobe before loading it into the locker. The number of layers and quality of the tarps and protective sheeting meant it would probably outlast the storage facility itself.
As she worked I considered the monumental amount of power I had acquired on this trip. What did it say when the least significant ability I'd been granted allowed me to grow human beings in jars? My Master Builder power was so strong that you'd think it would make everything else I'd received irrelevant, but it seemed my powers didn't work that way.
Every power I had stacked with every other power. You'd think multiple powers that gave mechanical aptitude would become redundant, but every one opened new applications and skills. Even though I could now work on cosmic level machines my early powers were still providing benefits. Even abilities that would otherwise provide me the skills of a mechanic or just give basic repair abilities now let me apply that level of experience and aptitude to the insane levels of technology that were within my reach. There was a myriad of ways that skills and knowledge could express themselves. Each supporting power subtly improved my ability to work with all the other technologies I'd been given access to.
I guess it made sense, really. Earlier skills hadn't become redundant when Grease Monkey gave me the power to build anything the cyberpunk genre could come up with. It looked like even taking things all the way up to space opera didn't create any serious irrelevancies.
There was also the possibility to combine and integrate the technologies of different powers. Grease Monkey might not have any technology that could touch what Master Builder was capable of, but I could integrate that higher level of tech into everything from hard suits to cybernetics. In fact, the technology of Master Builder seemed unusually sterile. It tended to ignore organic life outside the odd containment vessel or analysis system. There was some information on technorganic technology, but it was treated with a level of caution that fell just short of it being considered blasphemy.
Combinations had immense potential but I was a long way from being able to pull off that kind of technological integration.
As Garment was moving the last of her creations and securing them with a care and thoroughness you didn't normally see outside hurricane zones the Forge moved again and missed a connection in the Quality constellation. I checked my watch and saw we had killed the last of the afternoon. Actually, I was due to check the messages on the phone Tattletale had given me. That thing had been scanned for tracking devices, powered down, and secured in my workshop. Before now I'd had to rely on insane levels of caution in place of technical skill. Fortunately that wasn't the case anymore.
Garment agreed to watch the entrance of the workshop while I worked. Well, she agreed to stay in the entrance, though seemed to be gazing forlornly at her packed up clothing rather than standing guard. Fortunately this wouldn't take long.
Even when not working with the most sophisticated technology I was capable of my level of understanding had expanded to the point where I could assemble an advanced device almost instantly. It took some effort to break down and reconfigure the cell phone, but compared to what I was now capable of working with this was child's play. I was altering the integration with the cell network to obscure the location of my call. Also adding a stronger signal, improved call quality, and extended battery life. What I was doing was almost certainly a violation of electronic communication guidelines, but the odds of it being exposed were slim in the extreme. Still, I had a phone that I could carry with me without worrying about being tracked by anything less than a serious thinker power or a tinker specialized in communications or surveillance.
I felt a weight lift from my shoulders as I exited the workshop and resealed the door. My bike may have been my first real technical project but this was proof that I would be able to bypass the fears that had haunted me since I got caught up in this mess. I wasn't ready to take on the Undersiders' boss yet, but this was one point of vulnerability I had been able to completely patch. There were other points of weakness I was still justifiably paranoid about, but this was proof that I could deal with them, eventually, with the help of my power.
Garment sadly helped me lock the storage unit and I powered up the phone. A list of voicemails and text messages jumped out at me. Ok, I'd been expecting this, and I still stood by my actions from the previous night, but it was time to face the music.
Most of the texts were some variation of 'call me' or 'call me immediately'. Not a lot of creativity, and frankly I expected better from a thinker of Tattletale's assumed caliber. There were a few from Brian that basically amounted to 'please call Lisa' with an increasingly pleading tone.
Well, we were in an empty storage facility and I had an effectively untraceable phone. I pulled up her number and placed the call. Might as well get it over with and find out how well she was taking this situation.
Her first words upon answering the call served to resolve that mystery.
"What the fuck did you do?"
Jumpchain abilities this chapter:
Deranged Alchemist (Van Helsing) 300:
You have mastered the medieval forerunner of chemistry, and know the transformation of matter via elaborate rituals and mysticism on top of your scientific approach. The greatest secrets of Alchemy still elude you, such as the fabled Panacea, but that can be found in due time. (Hint: Nobody's found it. At all.) However, you are capable of transmutation of many materials (although it requires that said materials be the same base) and can create Homunculi from following Paracelsus' studies into alchemy.
Master Builder (Transformers) 400:
You've been programmed with mastery of Cybertronian science allowing you jury rig any tech you see, as well allowing you to quickly build even the most complex Cybertronian tech within a reasonable time period. Smaller devices are almost instant, larger devices take some time and more components. However with enough material you can build a temporary space bridge. Despite your mastery of Cybertonian science, creation of a Spark and therefore intelligent life, organic or inorganic is beyond you.
Mechanic (Fast and Furious) 100:
Machines, especially ones that go fast, just speak to you. You have no problem fixing up and tuning any motor vehicle, and can rebuild them after the most devastating crashes. You can keep anything in top condition with just a few simple tools. Of course, you also need to understand the electronics, so hotwiring cars (and sometimes, alarm systems) is not a problem either.