PWP: 6.11 Build

Build 6.11

Colin Wallis
2011, January 22: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I ground my teeth in frustration as I looked over my motorbike one more time. It was a sleek, aerodynamic thing, white and cobalt blue to complement my colors. PR said it was reminiscent of a futuristic knight on the tilt. Back when I first got this bike, I liked to imagine myself as Tron. I’d been a fan of the series as a youth, though I’d admittedly grown out of it.

Despite what PHO liked to think, the “ArmsCycle” wasn’t usually a marvel of tinkertech engineering. I was what the PRT called a “focal tinker,” a tinker who emphasized a single item. In my case, it was my halberd. I could include a great number of distinct functions into my weapon thanks to my miniaturization specialization, thirty-two to date, but I found tinkering less productive when working on other objects.

That didn’t stop me, of course. I had tinkertech armor. I spent the bare minimum amount of time required to upkeep Gallant’s. Things that supported my close quarters combat style were still worthwhile investments. Given the urban speed limit, a tinkertech transport was not.

Until now. I’d made an exception thanks to Creed’s ridiculous challenge. My motorcycle now sported several tinkertech additions that I’d developed through sleepless nights. These added functionalities would help me prove why I was considered the premier tinker in the city, and the Protectorate at large.

The most obvious of these was a sidecar reinforced with highly durable metamaterials sourced from a colleague in Seattle. I was aware of my relative lack of ranged options, especially on a vehicle. So, I’d opted to build a nest from which Miss Militia could cover my weakness. This was more efficient than building a ranged weapon platform from scratch.

This race was a farce. It was part of The GOAT’s plan, though no one could tell what the end goal was.

Our current best guess was that The GOAT fully intended for someone outside their organization to win. Creed and Maven would throw the race at the last second, or perhaps interfere with other participants to get their desired outcome. The GOAT would then use it as the pretext to give the victor whatever furthered their plans.

Except, this didn’t make sense. The GOAT didn’t need a pretext in the first place. The thinker was so secretive that they could have simply continued to act from behind the scenes. Nothing was keeping Creed from simply reaching out, either.

Which led to the second possibility: This loud, eye-catching race was a distraction for something else. There was something The GOAT wanted and they were using Creed and Maven to cause a distraction while a third agent acted from the shadows. It could be that they didn’t even care about Brockton Bay and were looking elsewhere entirely.

I was more partial to this hypothesis, but I couldn’t prove it. Watchdog had confirmed a mostly peaceful night, no more eventful than any other. They also suggested that Creed was dealing in good faith. We’d worked hard to ensure that factions from outside the city wouldn’t make their presence known tonight. The rest of the Protectorate were awake and alert, and New Wave agreed to provide support in an emergency, but it likely wouldn’t be needed.

The director had wanted to shut this down altogether. More than one person considered ambushing villains as they came to the starting point, or even arresting Creed and Maven. It was the simple option, perhaps the answer to the Gordian Knot, but it also reeked of reckless impulsivity.

It was a close thing, but we agreed to let this race happen in the end. After all, better that we know the happenings of this city rather than invite further unknowns. And if Miss Militia and I were present as active participants, we could hopefully react to any surprises. 

Another factor had been our standing orders to treat Creed and The GOAT as heroes. Creed’s actions in Damascus bought them a lot of goodwill from Legend and the Protectorate head office in New York. He was burning much of it now, but orders stood. We were not to open hostilities against their organization unless attacked or in the defense of civilian lives.

Then there was the prize: a single request. The victor would have the right to demand something from The GOAT’s organization, whether it be tinkertech or the answer to a question. It was a tempting prize for anyone in the city.

I had nothing to ask The GOAT, but I fully intended to use this chance to confiscate at least a portion of Creed’s arsenal. Whatever else could be said about him, he was a competent tinker. I’d been interested in his helmet, especially the software he used to scan his surroundings or people and coordinate all his many gadgets.

Personally, privately, I could also admit to some anticipation. There was a small but insistent part of my mind that demanded I participate. If this race was to crown the best tinker in the city, then there could be only one result.

X

Bryce Kiley

It was time. I’d told mom I’d sleep over at a friend’s, even made up a voice-modified call with his “dad.” I was practically vibrating. Everything else aside, I really was looking forward to this.

I stood waiting at the south gate of the university. I’d packed most of my kit, with one glaring exception: SAINT. He had plenty of work to do coordinating the distribution of the Mimic Network. Even if they were hard to notice, I felt much safer knowing he was there to handle any unforeseen circumstances.

Next to me, Sabah leaned against APEP in all its undisguised glory. She had her signature panama hat tilted to shade her mask a little. I had it on good authority that she did it to look cool and mysterious, something that drew no end of teasing from Amy and me. She was trying to look a lot more confident than she really was. She turned out to be a bit of a speed demon, but that’d only kick in once the race began.

All around us were a mix of civilians, mostly college students who were used to staying up at two in the morning, and the PRT, who were also used to staying up late but really didn’t want to. Those troopers had been the first to arrive, probably determined to ensure that things didn’t get out of hand.

The former had gone all out for this. When I arrived, it was to a full balloon arch, with a banner that proudly proclaimed, “Brockton Bay Grand Prix - 2011.” The administration hadn’t given permission of course, but no one seemed to care. I even saw a fraternity selling t-shirts, beer, and snacks, proving that Brocktonites were the most adaptable bunch in the country. It all lent a bit of a festive mood.

The latter were naturally far more reserved. They weren’t here to play, but to supervise. I hoped they were making overtime for this. Still, they gathered around Armsmaster and Miss MIlitia with professional stoicism. The two had situated themselves around the ArmsCycle.

It seemed the PRT had decided that if they were going to let me have this, they were going to win. The Armscycle had a new sidecar, and several attachments that most certainly made no sense on a normal motorcycle. It hadn’t been my intention, but if this inspired Armsmaster to expand his repertoire, I was happy for it.

The next to arrive were Uber and Leet. They showed up in a six-wheeled monstrosity of a go-kart. Its body was painted green, with eye-shaped headlamps that glowed a menacing orange. It also had horns and a front bumper that looked a lot like the jagged teeth of a dragon. The rear sported two exhaust pipes that were as large as the width of the car, though I wasn’t sure if that was purely a design choice or not.

Design aside, it came with several obvious weapons. For starters, the axles were capped with long, metal spikes meant to ram into opposing vehicles. The rear had a reinforced box, no doubt filled with grenades or guns or whatever else Leet managed to scrounge up.

The game they chose was obvious, Mario Kart: Double Dash. Leet, seated at the back and taking the position of the gunner, was the eponymous plumber in red. Uber, seated up front and no doubt a first-class driver at the moment, was the King of Koopas himself.

“Huh, you really went with Mario Kart,” I said in lieu of a greeting. “It’s the one with special items and pairs, right?”

“Double Dash. You play?” Uber asked, surprised. “It’s an Aleph import.”

“Eh, not really. I don’t have enough time for games these days but I heard good things about it. The theme’s pretty iconic..”

“Well, this baby’s the fastest in the game,” Leet bragged, slapping the kart’s side. “We’re going to make you regret calling us out.”

“Sure, but I hope you’re ready. This race isn’t going to be like anything you’ve seen before.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean? You still haven’t told us what the course is.”

I shrugged. Sabah elbowed me in the side. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t know, either. He won’t tell me, said it wouldn’t be fair.”

Uber held out a hand that Sabah shook with some hesitance. “Maven, right? You’re driving the racecar?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, guess you’re our biggest competition, then. No offense, but I doubt you’re going to skate all the way, Creed. Not unless the race course is just a straight sprint for a hundred meters.”

“Don’t underestimate him. Crown Chimera is no joke,” Sabah cautioned.

“Whatever. You said we can stream this, right?”

“I did,” I nodded. “Keep the snitch close for now, though. Once the race starts, you can do whatever you want.”

It was nearing two in the morning so I got ready to start the race. Just then, the last participant arrived. Squealer’s dumpdozer charged around the corner, engines sounding like a whole Mad Max film. As far as I knew, this was the third iteration of the same concept in just the past year.

When Faultline first claimed the Palanquin early last year, the Merchants tried to pick a fight. Labyrinth turned them into jokes before Faultline cut their first dumpdozer in half like she was Dracule Mihawk. She never bothered turning them into the authorities because that would have sent a message she didn’t support, namely that she could be contacted by the heroes.

The second dumpdozer was the one I crushed when I debuted by intervening in a fight between the Empire and the Merchants. Well, strictly speaking, I broke Skidmark’s jaw and Trainwreck’s suit a few days before that, and emptied out the Hillside Mall, but most people didn’t know that.

Squealer’s third dumpdozer was a heavy-armored tank with a bulldozer attachment. It looked almost like a truck-shaped pangolin, with a set of scaled armor that had been looted from garbage trucks and similar, but had been layered with Skidmark’s fields. It’d likely deflect a lot of kinetic force, making the slapdash armor far more durable than it should be.

At the center of the truck was a nest for Skidmark himself, with some kind of mechanism to feed ammunition from the truck’s hold to him. The back had a crane arm, but instead of the claw, it had been replaced by a seat for Mush, who was already a tightly wound ball of debris. It looked like he’d been selective with the debris he’d pulled because he was mostly made of steel and wood, not random trash like usual. 

Skidmark took one look at me and fired a half-empty soda bottle at my head. His face had healed. I didn’t know where he got treatment for a broken jaw, but there had to be at least one back alley doctor in Brockton.

I caught the bottle and tossed it neatly into a nearby trashcan. If I used a bit of Psychic to guide the swish, no one had to know. “Rude.”

“I’ll show you rude, you bitch-ass fuckstain,” Skidmark shouted. “Don’t think I don’t remember you. I’m going to kill you!”

“You call yourself ‘Skidmark.’ I’m not sure if ‘fuckstain’ is a compliment coming from you.”

“Shut your fucking mouth. You think that fancy gimp suit’s gonna save you this time?”

“I do, but whatever.” I checked the time on my HUD. I pulled a blue sash from my expanded bag and looped it into a loose circle. “Two in the morning, as promised. If you don’t mind, please send the driver of your team to join me.”

“Are we not starting right now? Uber asked. Still, he dutifully got out of his kart to stand with me and Sabah.

“What’s your game, Creed?” Armsmaster asked.

I shrugged. I held the sash out to Sabah first. “This is a ritual of sorts. After all, I promised that this would be a race like you’ve never known before, a true, all-terrain experience. So, I must challenge you to a xiaolin showdown.”

“A shaolin… showdown…? You are not a monk, nor do they have any particular traditions regarding street races.”

“That’s what I’m calling this here grand prix anyway. Just touch the sash, Halbeard.”

“Whatever tinkertech you’ve hidden inside–”

“Ugh, fine. If you’d like you can run whatever scans you currently got access to over this sash. I guarantee you that it is nothing but cloth.”

“That makes you sound more suspicious, not less,” Sabah said dryly. Despite saying so, she reached out and grabbed it. After all, she’d seen me use the wu already. “Still, I doubt you’re going to kill us all, so fine.”

Uber shrugged but followed suit. “New girl’s got a point. She’s on his team. Well, not here, but in general, I mean. I doubt The GOAT would let him fuck her over.”

After some thought, Armsmaster silently took a corner of the sash as well. That left Squealer.

She bitched and whined but eventually climbed out of her truck. “What the fuck is this koombayah shit?”

“It’s very important to set the stage, Squealer. Please comply,” I told her patiently. “I have a few opening remarks before we can begin.”

Grumbling, she joined the circle. “Make your stupid speech so I can shoot you a new asshole in your own fucking race.”

“I want to take this chance to make the rules clear,” I told them, looking directly at the golden snitch that hovered by Uber’s head. “This race will be roughly a hundred miles. Interference with other vehicles is permissible; lethal force is not. Outside assistance will be heavily penalized. The victor will receive the right to request any singular thing of myself or The GOAT, as well as this sash.”

“Why the fuck would we want your pussy-ass crochet project?”

“It’s part of the prize, Squealer. Do you understand and accept these rules?”

“Get on with it, bro,” Uber complained. At my silence, he grudgingly nodded. “Alright, fine, I accept if it means I get to prove that Leet’s the coolest fucking tinker in the city.”

“I as well,” Armsmaster grunted.

“They don’t sound suspicious. I accept,” Sabah said tentatively. Then, because she knew me, added, “Remember, I get to shoot you once this race begins.”

“Heh, girl’s got guts,” Squealer cackled. “I accept! Let’s fucking go already!”

I laughed. “Hah! In that case, let the first Brockton Bay Grand Prix, no, Earth-Bet’s first xiaolin showdown, begin!”

X

Sabah Azimi

I should have known.

I should have fucking known.

I just knew there was something I was missing.

The magic artifacts he could make, the “Eye of Dashi” and the “Third Arm Sash,” they were blanks to me. My Shard couldn’t analyze them. Bryce’s explanation of “Listen to the breath of the world and channel the dragon veins into artificial meridians created by formations of qi-inscribed oracle bones,” was as helpful as playing Mozart for a deaf man.

Bryce said that even without my Shard, if I kept meditating, I should eventually be able to unlock my own qi now that I had some access to his specialization. That was looking more and more appealing, especially if it’d let me understand what the hell was happening on the mystical side.

He’d told me what the artifacts did and how they were used. But clearly, he’d skipped over the most important part, namely how disputes over their ownership were settled in magic kung fu land.

A “xiaolin showdown.” I asked him what it was before, the words came up often enough, but he'd smirked and dodged the question. Now I knew.

“I’m going to shoot you,” I growled.

There was nothing for it. We stood and watched in awe as Bryce’s declaration made reality glitch. For once, even Skidmark had nothing to say. 

It started with the very heavens. The sky shifted into an eternal twilight, caught between a rose horizon and a violet-blue expanse studded with stars. If those same stars shone brighter than usual, in a configuration I was sure hadn’t existed until just now, such concerns were put aside for the more urgent shift: the moon.

The moon drew closer and turned around. For the first time in history, humanity saw the dark side of the moon, and it was smiling.

Its eyes opened wide, each pupil the size of mountains. Its maw was a canyon that spread across the equator. Teeth like piano keys filled its beaming smile. The expression was almost cartoonish, but its sheer size was horrifying to consider.

More terrifying still, it drew near. Soon, it shone a dozen times larger in the night sky. It was as if it was leaning forward with excitement to watch the “xiaolin showdown.”

“Welcome to the Monlit Rondo!” it roared. I realized belatedly that the moon had turned into our announcer… somehow. “Here, the greatest racers of the earth will compete for the Third Arm Sash!”

“What the fuck is happening?” Uber whispered, as if he was afraid of being overheard by the celestial body above.

“A xiaolin showdown,” Bryce replied simply. “Once it is declared, and the terms agreed upon, reality will shift. A new dimension will form to make the wager… interesting.”

“This is what you call interesting!?!?”

“Why not? I promised a fair race. Trust me, even I didn’t know what the course would look like, only that it will be within the agreed-upon parameters, about a hundred miles.”

“I should arrest you–” Armsmaster began.

“You can, but for what? This dimension will disperse once the race concludes. And, because we specified that lethal force is not permissible, we’ll be much safer here than anywhere else.”

Whatever else they were going to say, they didn’t get the chance. The world rumbled as the ground lifted into the air. It formed a floating island and a set of bleachers out of the university’s gate, allowing the gathered students and troopers to sit. The banner that the students had made flashed red and became a clear starting line upon which all of our vehicles were positioned.

The road became an eye-watering combination of loop-de-loops and pitfalls that fell into the yawning void. Sometimes, it was wide enough to fit ten vehicles. At other times, it split into a multitude of narrow paths and ramps. Apparently, we were meant to hop across little, floating islands.

Off in the distance, three, large mountains emerged from the void.

One was filled with streams of lava, its glowing rivers accenting its many ridges. The lava poured down into the abyss in an unceasing waterfall.

The second was shaped like a soft-serve ice cream cone, with giant snowmen that patrolled the edges. I thought I could see fortifications made of ice cubes, even snowball trebuchets. The road there was predictably a slushy mess.

The last was desert-themed. It was shaped like a block of swiss cheese. From the holes emerged huge worms made of stone. They tunneled in and out and the road seemed to change in real-time to adapt to the shifting terrain.

All around us, the stars grew brighter. An aurora formed in the sky, even below our feet, lighting the way. Motes of green and violet light floated along on currents of wind far beyond our reach.

“What the fuck kind of shrooms am I on?” I heard Squealer mutter.

“Well, shit,” Leet swore.

Uber elbowed his friend. “Hey, look on the bright side.”

“What the fuck’s the bright side here?”

“We’re dressed for the part. This shit’s straight out of Mario Kart.”

“Heh, you’ve got a point there. Oi, Creed!”

Bryce, unperturbed by it all, began to stretch in front of the starting line. “Yo.”

“What happens if we fall off the edge?”

“Yeah, that’s a good question. I very much would like the answer to that question,” I nodded vehemently. Sure, APEP could fly, but there was a big difference between flying over the ocean and whatever the fuck this was.

Bryce pointed at the moon. “Oi, Announcer-Moon, what happens when someone without a flight pack falls off?”

“You respawn at the nearest track,” the moon replied to everyone’s surprise. It had a deep, baritone voice that reminded me of football announcers or pro wrestling hype men. It even looked puzzled by the question. “What else would happen?”

“Oh, good. So Mario Kart rules, then.”

“That’s what we’re playing.”

“We are, but these guys don’t believe me, like ever,” he whined. His voice rose several octaves. “It’s always ‘Why are you so shady, Creed?’ or ‘Stop fucking with people’s heads, Creed!’ I don’t lie if I can help it, to anyone, goes against my creed.”

Armsmaster moved next to me as Bryce began ranting at the moon. For its part, the moon seemed to be sympathetic…

“Is… Is the moon alive?” the local Protectorate leader whispered. He sounded genuinely shaken by the experience. To be fair, so was I and I was supposed to have the same specialization as the nutjob who initiated this “xiaolin showdown.”

“You know, I don’t know the answer to that,” I muttered. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, either. “Just enjoy the race, Armsmaster. If Creed hasn’t panicked yet, it means no one’s going to die… probably.”

“Your words are not reassuring.”

“What do you want me to say? Only Creed knows what’s really happening here,” I huffed. My taser popped out of my watch and fired at Creed. “Oi! Quick explanation, please? What the hell are we dealing with here?”

The dart bounced off his helmet and rewound itself into my watch, as I knew it would. “Look, a xiaolin showdown forms a pocket dimension with the challenger’s vision as a loose guideline. To ensure fairness, not even the challenger is aware of every detail, merely the general intent.”

“Yes, but how? How is any of this happening? The sash is cloth! It doesn’t have dimension-warping powers!”

“It has something to do with a wish and a wager reflected upon Samsara using the qi of the challenger as the catalyst. The point is, I wanted a nonlethal race with wacky obstacles and so we got one.”

“I guess we don’t really have a choice. We need to race, don’t we? No more backing out?”

“You could, but you’d be a pussy,” Announcer-Moon interjected. “Are you done whining now? Can we start?”

I glared at Bryce, then at the moon. Of course Bryce’s subconscious personification of the moon would be a sarcastic jerk. “Whatever. Let’s do this. I need an excuse to shoot Creed.”

We got into our vehicles, some more anxiously than others. Everything we prepared felt a little inadequate when faced with the three, colossal mountains ahead of us. 

This was a contest to determine the best tinker in the city. Yet, I had a feeling we all knew who that was already. He was the little brat who decided that turning reality into taffy so he could play real-life Mario Kart with Uber and Leet was a good idea.

At this point, I wasn’t even sure Bryce was a tinker, at least by PRT classifications. Theoretically, everything he made could be replicated by everyone in its world of origin, assuming they had qi. But that didn’t make it any more fantastical on Earth-Bet. Yes, he had more conventional tinker powers, namely from Jack Spicer, but those blueprints were almost an afterthought.

His real power seemed to be more along the lines of peering into a separate reality. In essence, this was the foundation for all his tech, fantastical or otherwise. So did that make him a breaker-trump? Someone who warped the laws of physics as it applied to himself? Or a thinker-trump with a hilariously unbelievable focus?

I didn’t know; I wasn’t an analyst. At this point, it didn’t matter. Bryce was Bryce. Creed, the most nonsensical cape in the world. All I knew was that I was here for the ride, so I may as well enjoy it.

Announcer-Moon saw that we were ready and cleared its throat. “Ahem, good. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to the Moonlit Rondo, the track that will host the first Brockton Bay Grand Prix! Without further ado, I have but three words to kick us off.”

The banner that some of my classmates made glowed red. Its letters flashed and I realized it was to act as our countdown lights. I gripped APEP’s steering wheel. I could feel my heart pumping with excitement.

I could admit it in the quiet of my own mind. I was too passive. I was conflict-avoidant. But the road? That was different. I’d built APEP right alongside Bryce. I knew exactly what went into its construction, and just how durable it was, just how safe I was.

Bryce was right. I was a bit of a speed demon, at least where APEP was involved. How could I not be? This was no different than a rollercoaster that I could steer, one that could race through the center of a nuclear detonation and come out with scuffed paint at most.

“Gong!” Our celestial announcer roared.

The letters switched from an angry red to an orange-yellow. Belatedly, I realized that the moon was speaking Chinese. Gong. Ready.

“Yi!”

Next to me, Bryce knelt, taking a sprinter’s stance. He didn’t have the mass to push anyone around and he was the type to save the best for last, so I doubted he’d pull out some of his scarier tech right away. That meant he’d shoot for an early lead and let us fight it out behind him.

Orange-yellow winked out, replaced by brilliant, verdant green. Yi. Set. I revved the engine and checked one last time to reassure myself. I had plenty of cola, enough to race straight to Seattle and back without stopping.

“Tanpai!”

Then, all hell broke loose.

Author’s Note

I’m having a ton of fun with this. The race idea mostly began because I wanted to write a Mario Kart-style competition but it’s a good time to test how a xiaolin showdown would work.

No hard rules seem to exist for the establishment of a xiaolin showdown so I made my own for this story: First, there must be the declaration. Second, at least one wu must be involved as the prize (Yes, I know a XSs was done in-series without a wu). Lastly, all parties must accept the terms.

There are also no rules about what happens to the bystanders. For example, there was a XS that was a rooftop basketball game in NY. How they were never seen, or what happened to the nearby apartments, was never explained.

Animal Fact: Penguin eggs are translucent.

Well, not normally, but when you boil them, the egg whites become translucent and you can see into the yolk. That’s because the egg whites are made of a different kind of protein than found in chicken eggs.

Apparently, penguin eggs are richer, more buttery than a chicken egg. However, people have reported a slight fishiness thanks to their diet. Trying one is on my bucket list now.