PWP: 6.7 Build

Build 6.7

Bryce Kiley
2011, January 12: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

“So, how’s it going?” I asked Amy. She was hunched over a second devil fruit, brow scrunched in concentration. Ever since we proved that the devil fruits could tangibly improve a Case-53’s life, she’d been far more enthusiastic about improving it. “Any luck?”

She let out a frustrated growl. “Kinda. I made a bit of progress. I have a general hypothesis of how the water weakness works, but there are a lot of things that don’t really make sense.”

“There was something about the world rejecting devil fruits but I don’t know why, either. It may as well be magic.”

“Yeah, well, that’s a whole lot of metaphysical bullshit that I’m not equipped to address. Maybe one of your other specializations will help you fix it because plain ol’ biology ain’t going to cut it.”

“Okay, what about the other thing. How is the human lineage factor stabilization project coming along?”

“Yeah, that’s my primary focus for now. Whatever the water stuff is, people can live without visiting the pool. I figure we’ll fix the stabilization issue first. I’m still annoyed that such a bullshit concept as a ‘lineage factor’ exists parallel to conventional DNA, but at least it’s something I can wrap my mind around. Do you have any idea how little that makes sense?”

“Of course I do. I’m not a specialist in biology like you, but I’m pretty good myself, you know. Dr. Vegapunk is a terrifying man. Which is why I gave it to you in the hopes that you can make it make sense.”

“It’s… not hopeless,” she began. She looked up and gestured to the fridge so I got her a coke. “I think it’s possible to make a… human-human fruit… God, I feel stupid saying that… Anyway, I think I can make one that has a true humanoid transformation, not the hybrid thing that Trainwreck ended up with.”

I plopped down next to her. The two of us had come here directly after school. Sabah had a practical today, something about attending an amateur fashion show and doing a writeup, so we had a rare moment to ourselves. “How long do you think it’ll take for you to figure this out?”

She shrugged helplessly. “Your guess is as good as mine. Could be a week. Could be months. All I know is that it should be doable. I’ll let you know when I have a prototype. Then…”

“Then we find another Case-53 who’d be willing to test it out for us,” I finished for her. I could think of a few. Sveta, Gregor, and Newter were at the top of the list, just as soon as we had a true cure. Already, this was more progress than anyone else had managed and she’d had it for less than a month.

I began to fidget with a ball of metal in my hand. It was the same super-metal that went into APEP’s armor plating. The alchemy circle embossed onto the back of my gloves shimmered and I began to mold its shape. It became a length of chain, then a miniature of Kirby, mostly because the pink puffball was the simplest cartoon character I could think of.

Molding the metal was a slow process. Unfortunately, the same extreme durability that made it so valuable as armor made it hard to actively manipulate. The energy to bend and twist it had to come from somewhere and there was a limit to how much geothermal energy I could draw from the earth below at one time. Even after a week of practice, this little lump was about as much as I could manage.

“You’re getting pretty good at that,” Amy observed. ‘Still a little lumpy though. And slow.”

“It’s a work in progress.” I told her with a frown. “I can’t manipulate too much of this at once. It’s definitely not combat-ready.”

“Not everything has to be about fighting, you know,” she said, poking my side insistently. “Actually, make me a mini-Glory Girl.”

I tried my best. Without color, it just looked like a stick figure with a flared ass. “Here.”

“My sister’s butt is not that big.”

“It’s supposed to be her skirt.”

“And why does she have devil horns?”

“It’s her tiara,” I replied sheepishly. “Look, my hobby is music, not sculpting, alright?”

“I thought it was gaslighting the city?”

“That too.”

“Whatever. Maybe you should just enjoy your lumpy sculptures. It doesn’t need to be used for fighting villains.”

She wasn’t wrong. Truthfully, this wasn’t what would help me defeat an endbringer, never mind Scion. A good specialization, with a preexisting industrial base, these were the things that were likely to make the real difference.

But… But I couldn’t help it. I saw the lump of metal in my hand and felt the urge to try, to do something with my hands. I kept pushing myself because I felt that I had to use my time wisely. It wasn’t enough to make tech; I had to master everything, to integrate them into my personal style and pave a cohesive Road out of those cobbled parts of the multiverse.

“I don’t have the luxury of relaxing, Ames,” I said quietly. “There’s too much to do. I’m not good enough as I am.”

“Bryce, you’re literally the most bullshit tinker I’ve ever heard of,” she snorted in disbelief. “I’m including Hero in that. He didn’t get to swap specializations like shopping for a new phone.”

“I don’t get to do that, either.”

“Close enough.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “What’s up, Bryce? You’ve been antsy lately, ever since the Christmas party at mom’s law firm.”

“I guess I was reminded that time waits for no one,” I said with a hollow laugh. Right now, I was waiting for some of the more complicated materials for the enlargement chamber to be fabricated, the stuff I couldn’t readily transmute.

It wasn’t just about Taylor’s trigger. Sure, the Queen was important, but I’d already resolved to let her live her life in peace. Nor was it about Lily, the silver bullet who was already active in New York. She wasn’t going anywhere and under Legend’s purview was about as safe as a Ward could be.

No, this was about the other thing slated to happen in early 2011: Late February, the Simurgh would descend on Canberra, Australia. The city would get quarantined by whatever PRT-equivalent organization they had.

Except, would she?

I told Amy that I had a one-time thinker power, a single look at the script of the play. I also told her that the cast list was more valuable than the actual script because my mere presence changed this script. I couldn’t think of a more applicable case than with the all-knowing endbringer.

The Simurgh was like Mannequin on steroids. She sought out promising tinkers and broke them, turning them into twisted, homicidal caricatures of what they once were.

For a long time, tinkers had represented hope on Earth-Bet, the possibility of a better tomorrow framed through the lens of technological progress. Tinkers could have a wider reach than any other comparable cape. And well, there was a reason she was the Hopekiller.

She didn’t always target a tinker of course. Sometimes, she picked tinkertech caches to enact long-term plots, like she’d done with the stockpile of Haywire’s dimensional tech in Madison. Other times, she just targeted national capitals or other cities of import. Canberra was one such case; it didn’t have any major capes that I could think of.

In fact, many of the most powerful tinkers in the world never directly encountered her. She never hit Vancouver despite Dragon’s presence there. She also ignored Hero, Masamune, Bonesaw, and String Theory.

But I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that seemed to build as February approached. Maybe I was tooting my own horn a bit, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had a date with an angel in the near future. 

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. Amy’s big, brown eyes looked at me with worry. “Tell me. Tell me about what’s got you so worried.”

In a way, Amy began as a project, anything to keep the Red Queen from taking shape. But she’d become more than that. She was as much my confidant as SAINT, more in some ways. Unlike SAINT, she wouldn’t hesitate to tell me I was being a dumbass.

And yet, I hesitated. If I told Amy about the attack on Canberra, could the Simurgh see and react accordingly? Or rather, could Shaper and the Simurgh interact somehow via Shardspace?

I didn’t know. I’d avoided giving her details about the “script” for this reason. Contessa. Simurgh. Some other thinker. It didn’t matter which. Information was only as good as their inability to react to it and I feared that merely voicing my thoughts would change things.

“I can’t. It’s… It’s not something I can talk about,” I said softly. “Not because I don’t want to tell you, but…”

“Because telling me would change things,” Amy finished for me. “I get it. Does it… Does it have anything to do with me?”

“No.”

“That’s… That’s good.”

“I guess it is.” The shitty not-Victoria flattened into a ball again. “I know I said I wouldn’t hide secrets from you.”

“You also said there are things you just can’t talk about. I get it. I’m not mad. I just… I just don’t want you to beat yourself up like this. Is… Is this why you were so insistent about hosting the race?”

“Kind of… I mean, it’s partly because Sabah was so invested in the car that I wanted her to have fun with it. Powers should be enjoyed, right?”

“Hypocrite. Take your own advice, loser,” she accused, not incorrectly. “What’s the other part?”

“Twofold: First, I want to spread the Mimic Network throughout the city. We’re building way more mimics than can fit inside the Gullrest anyway.”

“And the distraction would help, especially since even the heroes will have no choice but to involve themselves.”

“Not the heroes, mostly just Armsmaster. He’s the one most likely to notice a mimic while they’re being set up.”

“Fair enough. What’s the second reason? Will you use this chance to arrest the Merchants or Uber and Leet?”

“Remember what I said before? When you suggested I take the hit on the Undersiders and use it to lure them into one spot before arresting them?”

“That it’s stupid. But isn’t this different? They don’t have a gang behind them, not unless you count the druggies.”

“No, I can’t arrest them directly. I’m still Creed. My word needs to mean something. But if I total their vehicles and Armsmaster catches up to them… Well, I never said I got approval from the heroes anyway.”

“The PRT explicitly told you to stop,” she said with a devious smile.

“Exactly, we’re unrelated. Maybe they escape, maybe they don’t. I don’t plan on interfering unless things get out of hand.”

“Okay, so if you won’t be trying to arrest them yourself, what’s the second reason?”

“Dinah Alcott.”

“That name sounds familiar…”

“Rory’s cousin. She’s the mayor’s niece.”

“Hmm… Oh! Wait, isn’t she like twelve? We met a few times at the mayor’s social events but what’s she have to do with anything?”

“She’s a thinker. I’m about ninety-five percent she triggered recently.” It was either early January or late 2010.

“And we are not telling Rory or the PRT because…”

“Because I want to establish a good relationship with her before the PRT takes her in. She can answer any question in the form of a percentage.”

“So she’s good at math? That doesn’t seem too bad.”

“Sure, if you buy into your math teacher’s, ‘Math is everywhere,’ speech.”

“Oh, I think I get what you mean. Why hasn’t anyone noticed?”

“She’s compelled to answer questions she hears. When she replies with a random percentage, people aren’t going to think, ‘That’s a thinker.’ They’re more likely to think it’s a verbal tick, something a young girl will grow out of. She also has headaches, but children say that often enough.”

“That’s… true… Children get migraines from dietary factors, stress, the cold, or even changes in weather,” Amy muttered. “So she’s a thinker whose symptoms are getting brushed aside and you want her help.”

“Pretty much. I don’t intend to tell her much. I can frame the questions to avoid revealing anything. I just… There are some things that I need to know, both about myself and the world at large.”

“I… Okay. I don’t like it, but I trust you. You’ll use the race as a distraction while you reach out to Dinah then? Or, I guess, SAINT reaches out to her online?”

“Eh, kinda. I’ll give her the opportunity to reach out to me. She’s important, arguably more important than maybe any other parahuman. But it’s not like I’m going to spy on a tween girl. I do have standards, Ames.”

“Manipulative standards,” she prodded. 

I shrugged. “Guilty.”

“You scare me sometimes, Bryce.”

“How so?”

“You’re the most talented tinker I know. You’re… You probably could beat every cape in the city except an amped Lung and it wouldn’t surprise me if you found a way to cheese that fight, too. So when I see you get antsy like this… It’s scary.”

“Sorry, I’ll try not to worry you.”

She punched me on the shoulder. “Not what I’m saying, dumbass. Just… Just know that you can ask for help, too.”

“Thanks, Amy. I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, pulling her into a one-armed hug. “And hey, you keep saying I should relax more.”

“Most people don’t arrange a street race with known villains.”

“Yeah, but I’m really looking forward to it.”

“Ugh, fine… against my better judgment, but fine.”

X

I spent the rest of the week finishing the enlargement chamber and making quality of life changes to my kit. When I had a spare moment, I revisited my pokemon-based moveset. I could use Protect, Psychic, Thunder Wave, Agility, and Recover. SAINT had a much larger movepool by virtue of actually being a pokemon, including Ice Beam, Tri Attack, Magnet Rise, and Zap Cannon.

Unfortunately, I never did manage to create more TMs for myself. Learning from one left me with a hell of a migraine and I feared I’d hurt myself at the time. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t advance a move on my own.

Thunder Wave generated a weak pulse of electricity that temporarily caused nerves to seize. I felt that if I could learn to generate greater amperages, I could use my bioelectric abilities to power inventions in the future. And after several months of consistent practice, I could launch an attack that I didn’t feel embarrassed to call a Thunderbolt. A weak one, but it counted, damnit.

My advancements were pitiful compared to SAINT’s. I’d challenged him to learn to make malleable barriers. I wanted him to be able to expand his Protect to shield others, or even to layer the force field in one direction only to conserve aura.

He not only got better at that, he figured out how to maintain Lock-On as a subroutine. Unless a target teleported away or dodged the projectile after it had been fired, SAINT wasn’t likely to miss. It was what he worked on when he wasn’t keeping my production pipeline flowing.

My lackluster progress with aura training aside, I did manage to adjust my loadout to better suit the tech I now had.

The Walker Pistol got a proper rework for starters. Though I’d had some success making different ammo types, Muggy Balls, incendiaries, fart pellets, and goop rounds mostly, I couldn’t do much to integrate energy or plasma weapons like the shrink ray, freeze ray, or the plasma cannon.

In the end, I had to settle for a second “energy revolver” of sorts that could toggle between energy types. It looked a bit clunky for my taste, and I did eventually want to combine the two, but I didn’t really have the time to dedicate to this at the moment. Still, two guns were much better than trying to juggle six or seven.

Other than training, most of the rest of my time was spent on the boring part of being a tinker: programming. At this point, I was really starting to build up an army of mimics. I’d already run out of innocuous things to replace with my mimics in and around the Gullrest.

With so many active, or ready to be activated, I desperately needed an upgraded UI that was better suited for managing large numbers of drones. My new HUD looked like something out of StarCraft or Age of Empires, but it worked. I could assign mimics into squadrons or instantly pull up camera feeds from any of them no matter where I was.

It wasn’t just about the nostalgia trip. As I obtained more specializations, I would inevitably create more and more different types of drones or autonomous units. Dumping it all on SAINT just because he was an AI didn’t feel right, not when he had his own training to do on top of overseeing my many other projects.

X

2011, January 14: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

Friday evening, I found myself revisiting the Dallon home. It was a purely social obligation, but not one I could ignore. After all, it was my idea to equip Amy properly.

Amy had her upgraded costume already. She’d had it for over a week now. That said, New Wave didn’t know that, so we had to take part in a formal fitting. It was mostly so Carol and Sarah could examine everything and give it the official greenlight.

I found the entirety of New Wave out in the Dallons’ backyard, waiting for me. Amy, in a comfy pair of sweats, stood around talking with her sister and cousins. Their parents were in costume; even Mark looked alert.

It was a little unnerving to see so many capes come out of retirement just for me. Whatever else could be said about their personal lives, they were local legends who’d helped repel the Slaughterhouse when Jack first visited in the 90s.

Of course, some of that wow factor was lost at seeing middle-aged men and women put on spandex. Manpower didn’t exactly wear his costume like he used to. Still a seven foot tall giant, but that slight paunch from one too many beers took something away from the look. Besides, Amy told me exactly what to expect already.

I landed softly and leaned against the back patio before fading back into the visible spectrum. I appeared mere feet from the kids, making them jump in their skins.

“Holy fuck, Creed,” Crystal yelped, hand glowing red.

“Hello to you too, Laserdream,” I quipped. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Wait, you two met before?” her brother asked.

“Yes, a few times. She was there when we broke up the Empire versus Merchants fight at a pharmacy. We also met back in Halloween at the Palanquin. Your sister took Glory Girl and Panacea to the club. We had a lovely chat.”

“You were a villain back then,” she said, giving me a gimlet eye.

“And now I am on the side of angels. Funny how things work out, eh?”

“So you say… I’m watching you, buster,” she said, only partially in jest.

“Yes, you and everyone in New Wave, apparently. Should I feel flattered or paranoid?”

“That depends on you, Creed,” Sarah, Lady Photon now, said. She really did have that stern, maternal vibe. No wonder she was called Photon Mom. “You have a mixed reputation.”

“So I do. I also have a reputation for keeping my word. I promised Maven my wholehearted support, which includes paying for Panacea’s validation.”

“Just consider this an abundance of caution.”

“Understandable. Now, if you don’t mind, I am rather busy so I’d like to get this over with sooner rather than later.” So saying, I pulled a compressed cylinder from my pocket. It was Amy’s costume, stored just like my raid suit in a quick-change canister. I tossed it to Amy. “Here, catch.”

“What is it?” she asked, turning it over in her hand. She thumbed the button on the center curiously. “What? Did you get me a soda?”

“It’s your costume, Panacea. Hold it out in front of you at arm’s length, then press the button. It’ll merge into your belt buckle and you can collapse it back as needed. It can even be charged through any normal outlet.”

“Huh, neat…” Then, because she knew me, “You didn’t put any stupid passphrases on it, did you?”

I clutched my heart with exaggerated pain. “You wound me. Do I look like I enjoy the humiliation of others?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Well, I didn’t. I wanted to program the Protectorate Pals theme song as the passphrase but The GOAT threatened to make my life miserable if I did.”

“Damn straight,” the grumpy healer muttered under her breath, barely loud enough for my advanced sensors to pick up. She held out the canister like she’d done many times before. “Alright, let’s see if I’ve got this right…”

“Fair warning, there will be a bit of a lightshow.”

“Can’t be that bad,” her sister said. “Come on, Ames, do a cool pose!”

Amy did not in fact do a cool pose. She did, however, press the button.

Twin streams of sparks spouted from either end, making the heroes tense with worry. The canister spun in her hand, forming a spiral of flame that cloaked her from view completely. And, when the light faded, Amy stood in her revamped outfit, looking bored out of her mind.

Sabah had a lot of fun designing a costume for her. At Amy’s insistence, she did stick to the overall theme, white with the universal sign of the red cross. My best friend now wore a pair of trousers and turtleneck, over which she had on a long, hooded robe that could be closed at the front. That alone made it a lot easier to move than before.

She also had several pieces of obvious tinkertech.

The belt buckle could be used to collapse the outfit back into its canister form. The red, cross-shaped clasp that closed her hood was, like my own, a shield and cloaking module.

On her left wrist was a watch that housed both tranquilizer and chemical sedative launchers. And, though it was not visible to me now, there was a whisper-quiet jetpack hidden beneath her robes that could fold out with the press of a button. Lastly, strapped to her right thigh, was a gun that fired those goop bullets.

“How do you feel?” I asked, though I knew the answer. “Any pinching? I’m pretty sure I got the measurements right, but I can make adjustments if necessary.”

“Pants too? That’s new,” Crystal said as she hovered around her cousin. “This looks really well-made.”

“I try, Laserdream. Call it professional pride. The fabric is part cotton, part Germa fiber, the same stuff my suit is made from. It’s knifeproof and bulletproof, at least for small arms. It’s meant to be secondary protection, in case the shield fails."

“What’s all the other stuff?” Eric asked as he too crowded his cousin. “I see a few accessories she definitely didn’t have before.”

“The clasp is a shield module. It stops projectiles and energy weapons moving at a certain speed,” I explained. I handed a silver ring to Victoria. “And when the force field triggers, it’s set to send a signal to that ring. I figured you’d be the most likely person to be in a position to help, Glory Girl.”

She took the ring with a solemn nod. “Definitely. What? Will it vibrate? How will I know Amy’s in danger?”

“We can trigger it right now.” I blurred forward in a textbook jab, just fast enough to breach that threshold. A clear, ringing note echoed through the backyard as a blue bubble appeared around her. “There.”

“Ah,” Vicky gasped. Her ring had begun to glow and vibrate, just hot enough to be impossible to ignore. “Okay, that works.”

“Glad you’re satisfied. The watch contains two types of darts for self-defense. Aim with the little, red pointer right there. One is the Mild Moose dart, rated for, well, a bull moose. The other is a taser. One button has a moose, the other has a lightning bolt. Idiotproof.”

“Why’d you include two though? Aren’t they redundant?”

“No. As I understand it, some capes are resistant to chemical but not electrical attacks, and vice versa. For example, Shadow Stalker’s breaker state is very weak to electrical discharges.”

“Huh… Didn’t she get transferred?”

“She did. She’s just an example.”

“You’re really taking my sister’s protection seriously.”

“Of course.” I gestured to Amy’s right thigh. “That gun contains a magazine filled with my goop bullets. Think of it like a gelatinous version of confoam. The normal variety dries and flakes away in a few minutes but seeing how she doesn’t have much in the way of defense, that stuff will stick around until a solvent is applied or it gets frozen and broken off in pieces.”

“I think I’ve seen you use this in one of your patrols,” Crystal said.

“That’s correct. That’s how I learned the goop needed a shorter active life. I ended up having to help the cops break out the criminals. That’s why I do field testing, I suppose.”

“This is too much,” Carol said. She’d been silent for so long that I wondered what was going through her mind. “Amy helped Maven, but her help isn’t worth all this.”

I frowned. Truthfully, this wasn’t all I’d given Amy, not even close. 

For starters, I intentionally didn’t mention the cloaking and texture modules in her hood clasp. We agreed that the added stealth and mobility were too important. She needed to be able to come and go from the Gullrest without notice. While her family knowing about these wouldn’t be the end of the world, they wouldn’t think to try to track her movements if they didn’t know she had a stranger rating at all.

Then there was the expanded bag I’d sown into her robe’s inside pocket. It wasn’t big, just the size of a backpack, but contained a few useful knicknacks, like spare magazines for that gun. If one of those magazines was marked differently from the rest, and loaded with significantly more lethal ammo, then that was also something between us.

I looked at Carol. She was as mistrustful as ever, though not without reason in this case. I’d just gifted her daughter the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars, at least.

“You’re right,” I began. “Frankly, a single evening of Panacea’s time is not enough to buy my assistance, not to this extent.”

“Then what’s your game, Creed? You and that thinker of yours.”

“I will offer you three reasons for me overpaying so grossly like this. All of them are true, but feel free to cherrypick the one that makes you happy.

“First, Maven means a great deal to us. It isn’t about what your daughter did, but for whom. You can call it lingering guilt if you wish; I was not responsible for her trigger, but I do believe I could have prevented it. More than that, she is a friend we care for deeply.

“Second, The GOAT greatly admires Panacea. There is no denying that she is among the greatest heroes in the world if you count strictly the number of lives saved. She has done more in her two years of activity than most so-called heroes do throughout their careers. They believe, and I agree, that her altruism deserves a just reward.

“Lastly, it is futureproofing. Have you considered, Brandish, just how vulnerable your daughter is?”

She crossed her arms. “We are perfectly capable of protecting her.”

“Your presence is an adequate deterrent from most threats, yes. But as I said, Panacea is great, and greatness invites similarly great challenges. We would like to keep Panacea safe and happy, for the good of the world.”

“That sounds ominous,” Sarah frowned. “Are you saying she’s going to be put in danger soon?”

“Not soon. But eventually? Yes.”

“What do you know?”

“Nothing specific.”

“Don’t play word games with me, Creed. What does The GOAT know?”

“Nothing specific,” I repeated. I sure as shit wasn’t going to tell her that Riley wanted a big sister. “I am not dodging the question. It is simply the nature of this world that she will be challenged. We believe it best that she be ready.”

“I… In that case, thank you, you and The GOAT.”

I nodded and hopped into the air. “If that is all, I believe our business is concluded. Good luck, Panacea.”

Author’s Note

Long chappy. Not much to say. I feel like I’m going to regret inviting Mario Kart, but… Eh, fuck it. It’s done. We’ll see how this goes.

Animal Fact: I know we haven’t expanded on the list of animals that belong in nature’s AA meeting so let’s do a quick recount:

Dolphins, of course, consume pufferfish poison. Some parrots, crows, ravens, and pigeons (kereru) either consume overripe fruits or ferment sugars in their own stomachs. Elephants, monkeys, and apes all do the same. Then there are cats and their catnip.

Now, the new one for our list: wallabies. Apparently, those pint-sized 'roos will enter poppy fields, eat the flowers, and get stoned off their asses. Elephants do wine. Wallabies do fucking opiates. Because in Australia, even addictions get kicked up to eleven.