Interlude: Thomas
In one universe Thomas Calvert sat in his office. The door was sealed twice over and the only people in this area of the base were Mr. Pitter and his pet. Here he didn't need to maintain the vestige of a supervillain. He could relax somewhat, but was far too paranoid to ever let his guard down. After all, paranoia was a virtue.
Unfortunately it was a virtue that had been enthusiastically adopted by his Tattletale. He had left her to resolve things with the new tinker after she had failed to predict his actions the previous night. She had of course chosen a meeting place that was unobservable from vantage points, blocked directional listening devices, and made laser microphones useless. It was one of her petty acts of defiance even in the face of his displeasure. She would have her little chat unobserved, and then he would debrief her on the table. You could never really trust information until it had been verified by a visit to the table.
In another universe Coil worked in his command center coordinating his men. The acquisition was going poorly, as his pet had predicted, but he had the luxury of examining exactly how poorly it would turn out. He had the advantage of learning his opponent's capacity without risk.
"Conventional weapons are clearly having no meaningful effect. Does the squad have any explosives left?"
The comms technician, a weasel faced little man, turned to him with deference. "Four fragmentation grenades and two claymores."
"Set up the mines and try to drive it into the kill zone." He doubted they would get anything close to a kill, but this was about learning and establishing the limits. The shambling mass recoiled as troopers started flinging grenades to try to drive it towards a nearby alley.
In the first universe Thomas reviewed PRT correspondences. His Tattletale was marvelous at ferreting out passcodes and backdoor accesses. What portions of her investigations she wasn't openly willing to share could easily be extracted during one of their little debriefing sessions. As entertaining as it was to watch the girl's shock at realizing her carefully concealed sources were open to him he did have to be cautious. It was clear she was beginning to suspect the true nature of his power. Even a full understanding would do her little good, but there was no reason to make things easy for her.
She'd been running herself ragged ever since word of the new tinker's encounter with Panacea had reached her, desperately searching for answers and trying to find a path through the chaos. Thomas himself may have been in the same mindset were it not for the reassurance of his pet. Dinah's predictions had confirmed his safety and the integrity of his long term plans, leaving him free to watch the aftermath and poke things in directions favorable to himself.
So many things that would have left him livid were no longer pressing concerns now that he had his pet. The tinker, for instance, would never have been allowed to remain in play. Such a late addition to the situation at such a critical time had caused no end of apprehension. Tattletale's assurances had mitigated things somewhat, but regrettably he had yet to get the boy on the table. You just couldn't trust someone without seeing how they behave after a few hours of ministrations from a skilled professional.
Thomas remembered his first attempt at interrogating the boy. A throwaway timeline had been used to check the tinker's touted durability. Whatever it was capable of in combat it failed to help him against a high velocity sniper round fired through the windshield of the van as he pulled out of the Undersiders base. Well, not completely failed. His head remained largely intact, which was something of note. Unfortunately the tinker had the sense to not carry anything identifiable with him on that particular endeavor. His men had found nothing but a pittance of loose cash and a key ring.
It was frustrating, but his identity was hardly secure. Between the information Tattletale had provided and searches of local records every aspect of his life would be uncovered within a few days, if not sooner. Once that happened things would fall into place. Everyone had their levers of control, whether they were vices, fears, loved ones, or just pride. And with this tinker there were unlikely to be many obstacles to bringing him in line.
The follow up attempt to capture the boy had confirmed Tattletale's predictions about his character. If he proved to be bold, adventurous, or daring that could have led to any number of wrenches being thrown into the machinery of Coils operation. Fortunately he was none of those things. The boy was a pure coward.
His highly active and possibly precognitive thinker power was an incredible risk, but only if it was directed properly. The boy did not captain his power, he was driven by it, and primarily driven through fear. It was a lofty claim, and one that would have been hard to accept if Thomas hadn't seen the results himself. At the first sign of his men the boy had fled. With no hesitation he abandoned thousands of dollars' worth of precious equipment in a desperate attempt to escape.
He'd had to use multiple timelines to confirm it, but the mere hint of the presence of one of his men sent the tinker scampering for safety without the slightest delay. It was fascinating to watch. Nothing could draw the boy from his flight. Even arranging situations where civilians were being slaughtered before him bought nothing more than a second's conflict before the boy bowed to his power and fled once again.
Thomas knew how strong his power was. It had cost him everything and put him into such debt that years of perfectly manipulating the markets had barely been enough to pay it off. Even after that considerable fortune in payments he still owed a week of service at a time to be chosen at the discretion of the power brokers. He had hopes of gaining enough influence to resist their demands, but that was still a lofty and distant goal. Despite the significance of his power its nature demanded he work in secret, deriving silent enjoyment as his opponents were outmaneuvered without even knowing how they had been beaten. He'd never had the pleasure of watching someone cower before the full might of his strength as a parahuman. That is, not until now.
This boy's power feared him. It drove him to flee the slightest hint of Coil's presence. The tinker clearly had no idea what he was running from, but he moved like the gates of hell had opened before him. An opposing thinker power saw the might of Coil in his full majesty and decided immediately that the only paths open to them was terror and submission. It gave Thomas a sense of satisfaction he had rarely been able to experience.
It still wouldn't have been enough to let the boy operate with impunity. Fear can drive people to strike out as often as it causes them to cower. Only his pet's insight had saved the boy from being resolved with the other loose ends. The percentage chances of opposition on any front were pitifully low regardless of what revelations the boy became privy to. Thomas remembered his pet's face as she cycled through the chances of the tinker attempting to rescue her in increasingly obscure situations and watching the numbers change by less than a percentage point.
He hadn't maintained that timeline of crushed hopes and tears. Thomas wasn't a NEEDLESSLY cruel man.
In the other universe squads Delta and Epsilon had arrived with improved munitions. The detonation of the claymores had barely phased the creature and what little damage they'd been able to cause to its shambling mass quickly repaired itself. One member of Beta squad had gotten himself entrapped, leading to a squad mate acting against orders to try to cut him free. Of course this failed and resulted in both men being lost. Coil would have to separate them for future missions. Comradery in defiance of the mission was unacceptable.
"Launch incendiaries and distribute extra battery packs to all active men. I want them prepared for mass laser fire."
The attack proved to be nothing more than a waste of good phosphorus. As Coil directed his men to maximize the damage of the opening salvo Thomas attempted to pick through the chaos still unfolding amongst the city's heroes.
It was a wonderful symphony of panic on every front. The tinker's works had already elevated what was intended to be a disastrous encounter for the Wards to a tragedy that would live on in the memory of the public for years. Had he done nothing else it would have still caused massive upheaval, investigations, and probably put Emily's career on life support. Instead, while they struggled with damage control for the previous incident, he had blundered in with such a perfect mix of power display, accusations, and speculation that Thomas could barely believe it. Still, he was never one to let a serendipitous situation pass him by.
He skimmed over a PRT assessment of the tinker's abilities. The display at the hospital had answered more questions about the boy's abilities than even Tattletale had been able to guess. The previous working theory was that he had a material science specialty. Hardened materials, reactive metals, and advanced metallurgy neatly addressed most of the feats attributed to him. His display in the hospital has disproven those assumptions. It also answered the question of how the van he had been issued was found emptied in the bottom of a parking garage when his men had been watching every exit.
They weren't dealing with a materials tinker, they were dealing with a matter tinker. A tinker with the ability to alter the substance of the physical world. A colossally powerful specialization, potentially only equaled by the legendary Hero, yet too meek to do anything of note with his abilities. In his short time he had been able to demonstrate teleportation, reinforcement, medical alteration, and material enhancement. With the slightest initiative any one of those could have yielded ten times the amount he had charged the Undersiders for his services. He would have been offended by the waste of potential if it were not so useful to him.
Of course the PRT was behind in their assessments. Thomas smiled to himself as he re-read their theories on the matter. Armsmaster's insecurity was a blessing on that front as the man would rather pull out his own teeth than admit a novice tinker was responsible for every feat that had been displayed. He had seized on aspects of the boys work to prove his case. Apparently the alloys used could not exist without corroding to uselessness in a matter of hours. Since there was no detectable effect at play the most likely explanation had to be a shaker power. And of course the idea had been snapped up by the entire organization as increasingly unlikely theories were proposed.
Some of that had been due to Thomas's interference. After her handling of the bank robbery and the Dallon girls interrogation there was a real risk that Emily would face suspension. That posed the unacceptable prospect of someone competent being assigned in the interim. No, the more attention placed on the tinker the less she would need to contend with, at least until the truth came out and the speculation would be another black mark against her. Thomas was confident he could hold off that particular event until it would be most beneficial to him.
Once the theories started flying it took barely any effort to keep them going. A cast pebble of supposition resulting in an avalanche of conjecture. He had nothing to do with the second generation Empire theory, though it had a certain logic. The Empire had more than its share of metal manipulators, durability powers, and the only healer cape in the city outside of New Wave. The idea was helped by the boy's decision to decorate his costume with metal plates and claim his first cape battle against the ABB's enforcer in defense of three Caucasian capes and one whose ethnicity remained unconfirmed.
He hadn't created or encouraged the theory, but he did make sure a complete copy of it found its way into the hands of one of the Empire's PRT moles. Whether anything would come of it, who could say? Perhaps Kaiser had an adventurous youth and didn't keep track of his paramours. It was a free opportunity to send rivals on a wild goose chase and Thomas wasn't one to let opportunities slip past unexploited.
"Concentrate fire on the humanoid portion. Ignore the lower mass." The purple beams were amassing some damage, but the penetration was shallow, the holes they burned into the creature quickly resealed themselves. Coil's men shifted to closely grouping their shots, but that only resulted in a shift in the creature as it brought more mass in the way of the laser fire. It lashed out at some of the troopers who we're too close or behind insufficient cover. One man was snared but managed to empty his power pack onto the unnaturally tough tether before he could be entrapped and scramble back before a second lash could reach him.
"I want a full analysis of damage, response, and a proposal of countermeasures. Immediately." Around him technicians and support staff scrambled while in the field more explosives were spent uselessly against the creature.
In the first universe Thomas perused a triply classified assessment from the Think Tank. Protectorate thinkers were tripping over each other in their work on this case. It would get sorted out eventually, but lasting damage and nonsense assessments would stay in circulation long beyond that. His Tattletale's increased threat rating was just one such example. He took even more pleasure in her frustration at the countermeasures she'd be facing than he did at the gift the PRT had handed him by rating his team as a priority threat. Between the spectacle at the bank and the presence of a thinker 8 their mere presence would demand the level of response usually reserved for the city's major gangs. That level of action couldn't sustain itself, but until someone saw to correct it he would be able to steer half of the city's protectorate with nothing but the appearance of his team.
Armsmaster truly deserved the credit for setting the thinker pileup into motion. It was turning a moderately confusing situation into a cyclone of chaos. The power dynamic between the director of Brockton's PRT and the leader of its Protectorate branch was anything but healthy. The man did a poor job of concealing his enjoyment when Panacea relayed the boy's prediction that Armsmaster might be difficult to work with, but Emily was insane, incompetent, a danger to her employees, and actively hostile to parahumans. The hint about their shared history in Ellisburg was just icing on the cake.
The Protectorate leader had decided to try to score some cheap points against Emily by sending the records of the debriefing to virtually every verification channel available to him. Half the thinkers in the Protectorate must have access to it by now. The absolute idiocy of that man is breathtaking at times. It's debatable if he even understood how his technology assisted interrogation came across, though the Youth League will no doubt be happy to inform him. The point is he deliberately took a video record of a teenage girl being grilled for information she either didn't have or could barely process and sent it to a group of people who largely triggered due to not having or being unable to process information. The fool had galvanized those capes to a level rarely seen outside a national crisis. This event did not warrant priority attention from the Think Tank, but after seeing the nature of the interrogation capes were volunteering their time.
Of course, that meant it was being conducted without the level of direction necessary to keep the team's lofty minds on track. There was no telling when or if they would yield anything useful regarding the situation. More likely they would drop off one by one as their outrage settled and other projects drew their attention. For the moment they were spinning theories that made the most ludicrous predictions of the local PRT look rational and sensible.
In the second universe Coil coordinated a sustained bombardment of anti-armor weapons that had finally arrived with Zeta squad. Much longer and the battle was certain to draw the presence of capes. While that would be informative it could be troublesome to sustain information flow in that situation. Regrettably the anti-armor weapons seemed no more effective at causing sustained damage than any other munitions tried against the creature. He started looking through the more exotic options brought with Zeta for testing.
Back in his office Thomas opened a newly arrived email. It was both simple and concise in the extreme. A picture and a number. It seemed Accord had become privy to the events of Brockton's Protectorate and was making a polite request, most likely with the implication that an impolite request was also a possibility.
It had been trivial to encourage lines of thinking that would become troublesome for the boy. Any fool could see the master concerns were a false positive, but they provided an excuse to prevent any outreach to the tinker. The Dallon girl was a wreck from her experience in the bank. Her encounter in the hospital may have mended her broken bones but it did little for her frayed nerves. Armsmaster had limited testing and only tenuous approval for the use of his lie detector. In any other situation its results would be immediately discredited. However Emily was desperate for any excuse to keep the girl contained, Armsmaster was overly proud of his technology, and poor Brandish was desperate to attempt any measure of damage control.
The woman's face was a sight when they informed her that they had chosen to independently verify details of the accusations with other members of New Wave. The poise of a lifetime practicing law couldn't prepare a person for the moment their world decided to fall apart. Manpower had apparently elected to confess everything to Lady Photon the moment they questioned him. While their marriage had spent years as a façade for the sake of public appearances the leader of New Wave apparently still had enough affection for the early days of their relationship to be devastated by the revelation. It ended with Manpower departing the household and Brandish being left to take the brunt of her sister's rage. That combined with the accusations of Brandish's mental health, parental skills, and some dark secret involving Marquis meant she would probably have signed her adopted daughter up for a witch trial if it would have let her get out of that building five minutes sooner.
Once one accusation of master effects had been leveled it opened the door for less well founded allegations. That brought things to Sebastian Slight, a notoriously unprofessional PRT lab technician who decided to cover for the fact that he was wasting time staring at a trinket by claiming to be fascinated. At least half the fault was on the lab manager who instead of reprimanding the tech decided to file an official report. With the recent charges and the rumors already flying suddenly a hairpin was being treated as a memetic object. Images of said hairpin seemingly were included in standard briefing packs, at least one of which was intercepted by Boston's most powerful villain thinker.
Thomas didn't see the appeal of the object, but he could admit his own limitations when it came to evaluating artwork. Thankfully his power hadn't caused the obsessive mannerisms that Accord was forced to deal with. He could appreciate the workmanship necessary for the level of detail displayed on the hairpin, as seemed to be included in every item the tinker produced. As signature styles went it was certainly more striking than the typical tinker drive to recreate the look of a Flash Gordon serial or Star Trek episode.
It seemed that whatever his own thoughts on the matter were, Accord had decided that the item was sufficiently elegant to be worth acquiring. It was incredibly rare for the Boston thinker to acknowledge the adequacy of another person's workmanship, much less express an interest in obtaining it. The price quoted was no doubt carefully calculated to ensure it was sufficient to be worth the trouble he would have to go through to acquire the item. Additionally, there was the unspoken implication in the message. This was an acknowledgement of Coil's rights in Brockton Bay. Should he reject the offer it would be a tacit approval for Accord to launch his own operation in the city to retrieve it. Given the complexity of the man's plans it was doubtful that would be his only objective. If he wanted to keep the Ambassadors out of his city he would need to complete this job.
The price wasn't ungenerous, and upon completion would recoup the investment he had made in the new tinker several times over. It even presented opportunity for some small alteration to the PRT staff composition. The accusation of master abilities was a crippling drawback for the boy, but it would never be sustained. However, should a PRT tech who personally examined his work happen to vanish along with the item in question it would cast a shadow over every item the tinker produced for the foreseeable future. The removal of Mr. Slight would take some work to arrange, but would leave a position open in the heart of the PRT. One that could be filled by someone more malleable to outside influence. There was another technician who had been considered for promotion on the grounds of the excellent quality of his work and due to the fact that he had kept his financial problems well concealed from his superiors. Thomas had profited heavily from high risk investments, but had seen the markets destroy men with callous indifference. For many it was just a more dignified version of an addiction to the track, and just as exploitable.
He replied to the message with a confirmation and estimated timeline. He would also have to take steps to frame this event in a way that served to validate some of Emily's public concerns. While her inevitable fall was part of his grand plan for the city this incident had the potential to accelerate matters to an unacceptable degree. Should she be removed before he was able to secure his power base there was a remote chance someone competent would be assigned to the Director's office.
There were a number of areas where he would have to act, and in most of them he wouldn't even need to be subtle about his support. Emily was callous enough to assume ulterior motives for any action that favored her, but he could just present her with a few advantageous contracts when she confronted him on the matter. Additionally, she would assume that he would be even more eager to conceal the events of Ellisburg than she was. A consequence of his former comrade's insistence on seeing the worst in everyone was a failure to look deeper once she had found the first defect. It was an odd mix of being both excessively and insufficiently paranoid.
On the subject of paranoia the battle in the second universe was proving to be completely futile. The full brunt of Coil's arsenal, both conventional and tinker tech, had accomplished nothing against the creature. His men had been worse than useless as the number of captured rose higher. The thing moved through jerky shifts of its lower mass as if trying to drag itself across the ground. It contrasted harshly with the speed at which it was able to strike out at his men or act to defend itself.
One trooper moved forward with a last ditch effort, a chemical sprayer loaded with a combination of corrosive and highly toxic compounds. Under the cover of the last of the heavy weapons and final charges of tinker tech lasers the man rushed forward and hosed down the humanoid portion of the mass with caustic and poisonous fluid.
Finally the creature reacted as if it was actually threatened. With what might have been genuine panic it flailed, bringing up parts of its lower mass to shield its upper form. It was too late, the chemicals completely coating the creature's humanoid portion before it could react. Then it all went wrong.
The chemicals exploded off the surface of the creature as outer layers of its mass were flung free. Once separated they lost their exceptional toughness and were quickly consumed by the caustic substances coating them, but that didn't affect the trajectories which seemed directed towards every location his men had elected to use for cover. Coil heard screams through the com links as his troops were splattered with the most virulent mix of acids and toxins he had been able to mobilize. That was nothing compared to the fate of the attacking trooper.
The creature lashed out, not with the tethers it had used throughout the rest of the battle but with razor thin sinews that ensnared the chemical trooper. They were as thin as threads but had the same unnatural toughness as the rest of the creature's body. Unlike the previous entrapments these were fine enough to cut into the trooper's flesh and equipment. The man screamed as he was pulled into the shambling lower mass, caustic liquid pouring from ruptured feedlines into the open wounds the wire like material had dug into his skin.
He shifted to one of the wider video feeds and reviewed the situation. His men were scattered and struggling to regroup. All munitions had proven useless, with their one marginal success quickly turning against them. In the center of the scorched and broken street their opponent remained, unfazed by the attacks and repairing the damage of the chemical strike. The multilayered hooded robe was quickly restored to its unmarred state, creating the impression of a shrouded figure suspended upon a billowing mass of fabric. Half a dozen of his men were entrapped within the flowing folds of that material, restrained with thick ribbon like bands. Most had stopped struggling when it became clear they had no hope of escape, with the exception of the flailing screams of the chemical trooper. The substance of the creature was stronger than steel and composed of multiple layers that acted as ablative armor against any attack. It was a marvelous and impressive defense and quite the unexpected trick for the new tinker to have been keeping in reserve. Interestingly his over designed style was still apparent in the monstrosity, with the material wrapped and folded in elaborate drapings and bearing striking coloration and markings that hinted at embroidery.
Coil pulled up records of the start of the attack. His pet had been invaluable in enlightening him to the nature of the boy's defenses, but it was still useful to see them in person. Sniper rounds were not predicted to be as effective as in the previous encounter. Coil remembered the first timeline where his men had charged the courtyard. The first round stopped dead against the boy's head without the slightest reaction and follow-up shots merely knocked him down until he was able to activate his teleportation and flee from the encounter, taking Tattletale along with him. Use of explosives had a better success rate, but it was essentially a race against the tinker's ability to deploy countermeasures, and none of the attack scenarios resulted in a live capture.
Interestingly his pet had predicted that dispersed tranquilizer gas had a high chance of subduing the tinker, but a negligible chance of capture. She had been unable to illuminate the reasoning behind that contradiction, so it was left to Coil to see the results for himself. There is no simple or guaranteed way to safely deploy knock out gas. It is not chosen as a method of crowd control for a very good reason. The concentration that would incapacitate one man would be lethal to a smaller person or only marginally effective against a larger one. The quantity deployed to subdue the tinker had most likely been lethal to his Tattletale, but taking risks like that were a privilege of his power.
Coil watched the events play out on the video records from the start of the encounter. As predicted the boy quickly collapsed under the effects of the gas. On the surface everything appeared to be going perfectly. It would have been a simple matter to transport the boy to the base, administer a counter agent, and spend a few hours of spirited discussion regarding his motives and capabilities. Instead the extent of the tinker's paranoia had revealed itself in a defense of last resort.
As Coil's men approached the boy's clothing began to twitch, as if it was trying to drag him to safety. Before any of them could react a shroud of material spun itself around the tinker in a protective cocoon. With seemingly infinite resources of matter to call upon it extended the length of the robe, holding the boy's protected form above a billowing mass of layered sheets. The substance appeared thin as cloth but was infuriatingly tough and resilient. Damage done to it was quickly repaired and attempts at close engagement only resulted in the unfortunate trooper being entangled in ribbons of the same material before disappearing under the folds of the cloak.
The technology on display was fascinating. Whatever was directing the mass had the ability to demonstrate basic decision making and threat assessments. It was mobile, but just barely. The construct seemed to move through momentum of its summoned material rather than being able to exert force directly on its passengers. Folds of the fabric like mass would be pulled to speed and either drag or collide with the passenger to cause movement. It was fascinating, and potentially evidence of a Manton limit at work. The result was a lurching motion of the cloaked humanoid shape containing the tinker and stumbling dragging motions of the lumps representing his captured men.
Whatever sluggishness affected the motion of its passenger was not applied to its control of its own material. Billowing masses a dozen layers thick were able to move with the speed of a flag caught in a gale. The ribbon-like tethers that extended from the lower portion of the creature cracked like whips as they lashed out at anyone who ventured too close. There was little strength to the tethers, but the speed and toughness was enough to batter his men at long range and entrap any who dared to approach.
It was a fantastic defense and a true demonstration of the boy's exceptional cowardice. The technology that created this spectacle could have allowed him to become the most feared tinker in the city in short order. Instead it was used for a desperate last defense. How many resources had he committed to this? What was it that caused such power to be committed to desperate cowering?
There was a potential explanation for that behavior. Buried in the assessment of the Dallon girl's report was an offhand mention of a specific tinker principle, one everyone involved was pointedly avoiding mentioning out of fear of what it could mean. In his babbling regarding Gallant's supposed tinker status and the reconstruction of the boy's armor he had mused on tinker classifications. Focal tinkers and hyperspecialists, terms that most people don't ever bother with. Following that the boy alluded to another kind of tinker. Specifically those with a 'physical or mental cost' to their work, casually referencing something people either are ignorant of or avoid mentioning. The worst class of tinker; the mad scientists.
Before Ellisburg Thomas had put in his time as a PRT agent. You saw things in that line of work that did not bear repeating. A list of the worst momments would have to include any encounter with a mad scientist tinker. Tinkers whose work drastically exceeds that of their contemporaries, but at a vicious cost. He remembered a raid on the lab of one particular tinker who paid a literal pound of flesh for all of his creations. Another who descended into madness each time she began a project and never made it all the way back, the cost of multiple sessions compounding until she completely split from reality. Mad scientists were the reason for the existence of the Three Blasphemies and vigilance against them was the only reason there weren't eight or ten of the creatures.
No one talks about mad scientists. It would foster unrest in the public and drive capes towards dangerous actions. The best possibility was that the boy's thinker power allowed him insight into the nature of tinker abilities. A less appealing prospect was that he had personal experience with that kind of tinker, a situation that could easily lead to a trigger event. That posed the concerning question of what had happened and how far the damage went. The worst possibility was the boy knew the classification from personal experience, that everything he built was a step towards madness.
His pet didn't indicate that scenario was likely, but it was difficult to frame queries about the tinker's abilities in a manner that she could quantify. She needed to picture exact situations to give her numbers, and some things were difficult to present in that manner. In the first universe he skimmed through various thinker reports on the subject, most as garbled as the nonsense circulating the local PRT. Nobody was directly commenting on the possibility because it wasn't the kind of accusation to be leveled lightly. Fortunately Coil had the ability to put those fears to rest.
Put to rest for himself, that is. It was fully in his interest to keep the local authorities distrustful and fearful of the new cape. All he needed was a way to get the boy on the table and things would be sorted one way or another. No defense was perfect and everyone had their points of vulnerability.
In the other universe the Protectorate was beginning to mobilize against the boy's defensive construct. Velocity and Dauntless were the first to arrive on the scene. A shame. They were the most likely to be reasonable and the construct's programing had shown capacity to evaluate threats. It would have been enlightening to see Armsmaster try his luck against the boy's work. The construct wasn't standing down, but it was not attacking either. His men had been forced to retreat, cutting off his surveillance. It was unlikely he would be able to learn any more from this timeline.
In the first universe a report reached him. His spotter confirmed his Tattletale was concluding her meeting with the tinker. He dismissed the second timeline and began changing into his costume. It looked like it was time for them to have another chat. She could be so enlightening when provided with the correct motivation.