Chapter 5: 4 Recovery

I woke up on the floor of what used to be my bedroom before I had shifted to sleeping in a pocket dimension. Well, less bedroom and more the bed area of my weirdly shaped studio apartment. It was easy to remember why I had moved as I took in the smells, textures, and general dinginess of my surroundings. I had spent the night with a meager amount of bedding between me and the questionable carpeting of the apartment. It was the best I could do without trying to fit my mattress through the closet door again. That had taken too long the first time and turned into a game of furniture Tetris in my attempts to get the damn thing to fit. Still, with how my back felt right now sleeping one room away from a tinker tech bomb didn't sound as bad as it had the previous night.

My alarm had sounded, but with my limited sleep I was seriously considering skipping the morning run. I figured frantic melee combat has to count for cardio right? I was probably due for a rest day.

That was when I felt a constellation approach within the Celestial Forge. I still had extra reach from my last connection and it had grown further since then. A link solidified to a small mote in the 'Knowledge' constellation.

The ability I latched onto was called 'Not a Stupid Grunt'. The odd name was kind of appropriate because I definitely was not stupid now. My Scientist ability had boosted me to genius. That was a bit abstract since genius is a pretty broad range and quantifying intelligence is a difficult process. I was more focused on the doctorate level knowledge I had picked up from that ability. This ability didn't come with any new information. It was just a straight cognitive booster and it was considerably more pronounced than anything I had picked up before.

This ability would let me out strip any non-parahuman scientist in the world with only moderate effort. Combined with the boost I had already received and my mechanical knowledge from Scientist and Black Thumb and I was probably as good at mechanical systems as most tinkers. Certainly better than any who didn't specialize in the subject.

One thing I had been concerned about was the prospect that this power would alter my mind. My passenger had been open about that. I didn't have the conflict levers most parahumans did, but there was a certain amount of mental alteration that was necessary if I was going to be able to operate at the level of a tinker. It seemed that this was the first significant step in that direction.

Somehow the idea of going to stock shelves for eight hours seemed laughable. This wasn't a 'too good for menial labor' way of thinking. Over the last day I'd gone from moderate understanding of mechanical engineering to career mechanic to the kind of person who would lead an industrial design team to the kind of person whose research would be distributed to industrial design teams. There was no reason for me to keep my day job at this point. My finances would take a hit, but I was pretty sure I could fish a car out of a river and have it running perfectly within a day. I would be able to find a way to capitalize on my powers if just from highly efficient repairs.

It would result in a short term hit to my savings, but I could endure it for a couple of weeks. Quitting two hours before the start of shift was a dick move, but if they weren't going to pay for full time employee's benefits then they shouldn't expect loyalty.

That phone call was less than polite on my manager's part, but the deed was done and I had the full day ahead of me. I started it with the absolute best possible use of my time and went back to sleep.

Three hours later I was rested, fed, caffeinated, and ready to try running at a time other than stupid o'clock. Given it was a Monday there was a different tone to the mid-morning foot traffic, but enough people apparently had flexible enough schedules that they were able to exercise at this time. I wonder if there's ever a time of day when the nice part of the city isn't beset by joggers. Maybe it's just the natural background for a place like this. Clean open area means you get joggers. Cramped dirty areas means drug dealers and homeless people. Though it was probably the boardwalk enforcers who maintained that particular balance.

After my run I effectively took it easy for the rest of the day. After lunch I made my way to the library and spent the afternoon reading. I wanted to gauge the effect of whatever my new intelligence was doing. Information was definitely easier to retain and my reading speed had increased substantially. I wasn't exactly speed reading my way through the entire library but I could see how it would be possible to quickly master a field of study with these abilities. I wouldn't get there overnight, and an afternoon of browsing various subjects hadn't resulted in that much improvement, but a few months of dedicated effort would have me outstripping people who devoted years of their life towards a specific field.

When it came to machinery I was already well ahead of what any non-tinker would be able to manage.

The current issue was there was a limit to what I could pull off with the resources I had available. I could work more efficiently, but the time required to fabricate anything from base components, not even considering the comparatively limited tools available, effectively barred me from anything more advanced. I would need to start hunting down better materials and tools. So far I had been able to hold off tinker scavenging, but unless I got another source of materials and equipment soon that would be my only option.

If I could find work as an auto mechanic, even under the table, that would address my financial and supply problems. I did have some concerns about being able to keep my abilities secret. It would have been hard enough with just Black Thumb on display. Combine that with my Scientist ability and my intelligence booster and I would be setting off every tinker alarm they had. Particularly bad seeing as the only place that would hire someone without experience or credentials would be barely above a chop shop. Get outed as a tinker in one of those places and you're headed straight for gang recruitment.

Those were problems for later. Right now I had to get to training. Proper training, seeing as I had a boxing lesson with Mr. Laborn.

Mr. Laborn didn't precisely run the boxing gym, but he was the most respected coach there. He was also a stickler for respect, punctuality, and proper dedication. Thus I showed up half an hour early for stretches and warmup. I didn't think I was actually going to become a great boxer, but last night proved that without combat buffs I was fresh meat for any decently trained fighter. Oni Lee didn't have any power that boosted him physically and he would have taken me apart about a dozen times if not for my durability power. Just because I could do some pseudo tinkering now was no reason to neglect my training.

Five minutes before our lesson Mr. Laborn arrived. He was an older black man built like a linebacker with an attitude that demanded respect. Doug is the kind of person who's on a first name basis with everyone he's known for more than five minutes. I'm pretty sure Mr. Laborn is still Mr. Laborn to people he's known since his childhood. I moved to greet him, but he waved me off.

"Finish that warmup. I'll be with you soon." It was at that point I noticed the teenage girl trailing behind her with a bored expression on her face. She was wearing work out attire heavily at odds with the rest of the gym. She had on a neon green racerback top that left her stomach exposed and a set of leggings. There was a purple streak in her hair and she had multiple piercings on display. Her attention was mainly focused on the smartphone in her hand with only enough attention paid to the rest of the gym to avoid bumping into anyone. Even when Mr. Laborn went to speak with her she barely raised her head.

The family resemblance was there, if muted. That meant she was his daughter. His teenage daughter. His barely teenage daughter who had apparently started developing very early.

That wasn't what concerned me. The main thing that had me on edge was that my passenger apparently knew her. He had emotional resonance to that girl that was as strong as anything from the Undersiders. I mean, I could quickly rule out the possibility that she was secretly one of them, not unless there were significant shapeshifting powers at play.

Was she secretly a cape? If my passenger could pick out capes in their civilian identities that was a problem. If it got out the violation of the unwritten rules would effectively make it open season on me. Still, I couldn't imagine who she could be. There were some independent heroes and villains in the city that I hadn't read up on, so that was a possibility, but then why was the reaction so close to the Undersiders?

I finished my warmup and cautiously approached them. She looked less than thrilled to be here and Mr. Laborn seemed none too pleased with the arrangement either.

"Joe, I don't believe you know my daughter Aisha." He somehow made the statement in a way that implied 'you will not know my daughter Aisha' so hard I could almost hear it beneath his words.

"No, I don't." I didn't leave any room for misinterpretation. I stayed focused on Mr. Laborn and ignored the highly amused feelings from my passenger.

He gave a curt nod. "Her brother was going to watch her tonight, but he had a work obligation. She'll be working out here during your class."

From the tone of his voice I honestly felt bad for her brother. From everything I'd learned, Mr. Laborn liked order. Mr. Laborn meshed with this gym like they had been made for each other while Aisha could not be doing more to stop from fitting in. I mean, her outfit would maybe have worked in one of those upscale mall fitness centers. Compared to this relic of a building she practically looked like a time traveler, and I'm guessing it was deliberate on her part.

Mr. Laborn seemed perfectly aware of what she was doing and looked about as happy to have her here as she was being stuck in the gym. With the surprise of having this dropped on him I doubted his son was in for a happy reunion the next time Mr. Laborn saw him.

"Hey." Aisha glanced up at me, then back to her phone, then back up with her eyes lingering. The mess of emotions from my passenger wasn't helped by the approach of the Knowledge constellation within the Celestial Forge. My power failed to latch onto the nearest mote, but the combined distraction of all of those things happening at once threw me off balance in a way that seemed to entertain Aisha to no end.

Mr. Laborn's expression was anything but amused. I'm not sure what he saw, or thought he saw, in that exchange but he clearly wasn't happy about it. "I heard you've been training. Let's see how that's working out for you. Vince! Joe's going to need a sparring partner."

I held off a gulp as Mr. Laborn called over the gym's top junior heavyweight fighter. Technically we were in the same weight class, but let's just say Vince wore it better. Vince looked momentarily confused, then spotted Aisha and the penny dropped. He gave me a sympathetic look but proceeded to the ring anyway.

Meanwhile it occurred to me that this was the furthest my power's reach had ever grown. The next time a constellation came by I might have a chance of landing one of the stronger powers, providing this training session didn't kill me first.

"So I see you met Aisha." He started lacing up his gloves. I grabbed one of the well-used sets the gym stocked for newbies and joined him.

"Yeah. So, is she as much trouble as she seems?"

"Worse. She's smelled the blood in the water now. She'll be messing with you until you either run off or she finds a more entertaining target."

I glanced over to see Aisha staring at me. She quirked her lips and her father's frown deepened.

"Or Mr. Laborn kills me."

"Oh, he won't kill you. He has an entire gym full of people ready to do that for him." He saw my expression. "Look, just tough it out and try not to engage her. If you're no fun she'll eventually stop coming around."

"Speaking from experience?"

He shook his head. "Thankfully I've been able to dodge that bullet. Everyone here kind of knows how to manage around her. You'll be ok."

"That mean you're not going to rearrange my face today?"

He looked over at Mr. Laborn, then back to me. "Yeah, that's not happening. Strap in, this is going to be rough."

It wasn't an actual beatdown, but it was probably as close to it as Mr. Laborn could get while still technically being an actual training session. It didn't help that Aisha kept shirking the workouts her father tried to assign her in order to hang around the ring and try to get my attention. My passenger was just amused by this to no end, which only made things harder to deal with.

It was easy to see why Vince was the star of the gym. The guy hit like a freight train and probably would have put me on the mat after two punches. My slight height advantage was meaningless against someone who moved like lightning and punched like he was trying to blow out the back of your skull. I was saved by my abilities, and fortunately in a way that wasn't blatantly obvious. I got the defensive properties of the best piece of gear I was wearing. In this case that happened to be my gloves. Now boxing gloves aren't exactly heavy armor, but they do cushion blunt impacts. Not enough to negate them, just enough that I wasn't being dropped with every hit.

I'm pretty good at toughing out bad situations. Actually for me that's probably more of a character flaw than a virtue. It did mean I was able to make it through a full training session of sparing against a rising contender while remaining on my feet. Not unhurt, just still upright. I think I actually impressed Mr. Laborn, though he's not the kind of person who would typically express that openly. About half way through Aisha transitioned from teasing to cheering on the amount of damage I was taking. By the end of it I was sore as hell, exhausted, but considering the guy who had been using me as a punching bag didn't look much more energetic I counted it as a win.

"Not bad." High praise from Mr. Laborn. "I'm glad you're taking this seriously. Your footwork needs practice. Make sure to work on that before next week." He paused and looked at my face. "Get some ice on that when you get home. You did good."

He intercepted his daughter who was heading my way in earnest and half dragged her out of the gym. I let out a long breath and looked over as Vince approached me.

"Here." He handed me a water bottle which I took gratefully. "Nice work tonight. You've got some potential if you stick with this."

"What, my talent for taking punches?"

"That's most of what boxing is about. No matter how good you are you need to be able to take a hit. I think we can say you have that down."

I nodded slowly. "Well, not that this wasn't great, but I think I'm spent."

"See you next week."

I froze. "What, seriously?"

He just shrugged. "Me or another guy. Mr. Laborn isn't exactly subtle about his daughter."

"Great. Any idea how long until she loses interest?"

"No idea. That girl is kind of all over the place. Could be a couple of days, could be months."

"Hey," This was awkward to ask but I kind of needed to know. "She's like, really young to be playing at that kind of thing. Is everything alright there?"

He clammed up and the good humor he'd shown earlier faded. He quickly glanced around and his voice dropped as he responded. "Ok, you did not hear this from me. Apparently her mom got custody after the divorce. She's a complete piece of work, anyone here will tell you that. Nobody knows exactly what went down, but three years ago she lost custody of Aisha to Mr. Laborn. I wouldn't ask about it, but you should know why Mr. Laborn acts the way he does concerning her."

"Got it." I swallowed. "I hope I don't actually have to say I've got no interest in anything regarding her, right?"

"Trust me, if anyone here got that sense you would be in much worse shape and wouldn't be coming back for another lesson"

That was small comfort. I gave him a nod and he stared off for a bit. "Everyone has stuff they're dealing with. This is just one of those things."

"Right." I climbed to my feet. "Well, I need to get cleaned up and try to sleep this off."

"Ice is going to be your friend there."

I nodded and headed off to think. Three years ago Aisha would have been ten, possibly nine depending on how the dates lined up. For a mother to lose custody things would have to have gone seriously bad. There were only a few things that could justify something like that and from Aisha's behavior it was easy to guess which one was most likely.

I hoped I was wrong. I really hoped I was wrong, but I couldn't see how. The way she acted, the reactions of everyone in the gym, the hushed tones when Vince talked about it. This put a new and depressing spin on how everyone in the gym was treating this. No wonder Vince had been willing to work me over to squash even the hint of something inappropriate. This wasn't some comedy situation with a girl teasing someone to make him uncomfortable. This was a god damn tragedy.

And for some reason my passenger found the situation funny. He had been entertained by it from the moment Aisha had walked in. Beyond the surface level what the fuck was supposed to be funny about this?

That's why I was staring into the locker room mirror trying to dig through every emotional resonance my passenger had associated with her. On the surface it looked really bad. I was standing in a bathroom using what amounted to a thinker power to dig up information on a thirteen year old girl. But fuck it, I had to know. I had to know there was something else there than the irreverent amusement I'd been getting all night.

My body ached and my face was starting to swell, but I wasn't leaving until I got to the bottom of this. Carefully I considered aspects of Aisha's life one at a time and felt the reaction from my passenger. The lack of severity from his emotions was shocking. I was horrified by the entire situation. He seemed to feel she was fine. She wasn't in danger, and he believed she would be safer in the future. Digging back there was serious distaste for Aisha's mother, but not the level of revulsion I felt at the situation. But at least there was something.

I shook things off and started getting cleaned up. I wasn't sure how I felt about this. Maybe my passenger knew more about the situation than I did, but I couldn't see any way this could be anything less than appalling. When I had thought about the exact circumstances that led to her father getting custody there had been concern for her, but not on the level that it seemed there should be. It felt like she had some level of protection, or safety, but even if that was true the situation was still a nightmare. I don't know how you could look at the aftermath of something like that and be amused by the girl's antics.

Maybe I was biased. It could be it wasn't as bad as I was assuming, or it could be she really got the help she needed and there wasn't any trauma tied up in her current actions. It still felt like for the first time since I triggered there was an emotional disconnect between me and my passenger.

There were doubts here that I didn't like to dwell on. I'd had a sense of the breath of my passenger's knowledge since my trigger event. Until now I had honestly been fine following his lead. It made sense that he wouldn't feel as strongly about some things as I did, but I didn't expect the first divergence to be over something like this.

I had to remember who I was dealing with. What I was dealing with. Thanks to my passenger's intervention I had managed to avoid being plugged into one of those continent sized extradimensional meat computers with a conflict obsession. As comforting as avoiding that fate was I had to remember the reason it had happened. The point of all of this was building the Celestial Forge. My passenger was concerned about me, sure, and that was comforting, but primarily that was because I was necessary for that project. My passenger's guidance was great for keeping myself alive, avoiding threats, securing resources, and even predicting disasters. All of those things would impact his primary goal. Moral judgements on the other hand were a bit more suspect.

I was not in a great mood after I showered and trudged back to my apartment. My passenger had been such a source of reassurance that having it called into question risked me falling back into pre-trigger mindsets. The ache of my body didn't help and frankly all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep until noon the next day.

I felt the gentle prodding concern from my passenger. It was comforting. That was what made it so easy to follow his lead. Reassurance, compassion, and resolve even when I wasn't able to muster those feelings myself. I was basically a walking bruise right now. I may have felt low enough to leave things like that, but my passenger cared about my health. A part of my mind said that was only because of my work on the Celestial Forge, but that didn't change the end result. Self-care was important. Leaving these injuries would do no one any good.

I headed for the kitchenette, immensely grateful I had stored extra reagents there. I dug out a feather and chunk of ginger and made sure my windows were covered. As I mixed the formula together the gleaming healing energy suffused me and all my aches and pains vanished. The exhaustion stayed, both physical and mental. For that I needed rest.

I looked over at my pile of blankets disdainfully. I still wasn't secure enough to open the portal to my workshop in my own apartment. I didn't know how well the potential signal was blocked and didn't want any chance of being exposed in my own home. The risk I took last night to grab my bedding still had me on edge. On top of that I also didn't know if there had been a timed detonation yet, and given some of the more aggressive agents she had used in the attack on Cornell I wasn't opening that door without the benefit of several layers of concrete and as many protective formulas as I could manage.

So, isolated from my easy storage I instead committed myself to a quiet night of food, recovery and mindless web surfing. Dinner was the same discount muscle building meal I'd been eating for the last week. It was boring but I'd been focused enough on prepping my cape work for it not to matter. It was a rather sad meal while standing at the kitchen counter, but as soon as the food hit my stomach my mood improved and I felt a sense of relief in my body. Afterwards I got as comfortable as I was able given my lack of furniture and settled in with my laptop.

I considered a night of youtube videos and browsing memes, but decided to try to put the evening towards some productive purpose. I had been putting off my examination of the Undersiders. My passenger clearly knew something significant about them and I had to do my best to figure out what.

It was always tricky to translate the mess of emotions into something actionable. Panacea, for example, was a damn mess that I had intentionally put off sorting through after a full evening analyzing New Wave had only made the situation more complicated. After tonight it was also clear that at least the intensity of feelings didn't always match up to how I would see them. I didn't get the sense that the information was wrong, just a from a different perspective.

I think the problem was trying for a deep dive. That required trying to parse the information I was getting without context or a real understanding of the perspective they were coming from. Surface level reactions were good for now and I could try to break down the emotions triggered by associating them with certain people or actions at a later time.

I went with Tattletale first. Her wiki page was nearly empty. She clearly had some analysis power, though I wasn't sure what precise shade of thinker she was. There was a sense of impressiveness connected to her, so she was probably either wielding a very strong power or had a standard one that she utilized to some incredible extent. There was affection in kind of a familial sense, as well as both caution towards her and concern for her. It felt like she was threatened by something. Strangely I didn't feel that when I thought of any of the other Undersiders.

I moved on to Grue. He had more info, as appropriate for three years in the villain business. His history escalated from petty crime to corporate theft and major robberies. No detail on his power beyond darkness generation. I was really lucky that my Revealer formula let me see through that. Well, sort of see. I would need to refine my use of it before it could be considered able to fully counter that effect.

The emotions connected to Grue was interesting. There was some admiration there, but it felt personal rather than directed at his abilities. There was the same level of sympathy, protectiveness, and affection that seemed to be shared by all the Undersiders. The concern for Grue wasn't exactly directed at him. Something he was doing was important? Well, at least something my passenger felt was important.

I moved on to Bitch. Or Hellhound. Rachel Lindt. Public identity known after she triggered at age fourteen. She could turn dogs into those monster things, though there weren't any precise details on how it worked.

Bitch's reaction had been surprising. Looking at her I'd expect the same level of stuff as Grue, respect for strength and maybe some kind of professional courtesy. What I got was pure affection and sympathy. Given what I knew about trigger events and the fact that she triggered in foster care with a master power there was definitely some level of tragedy there. There was caution, but not any sense of malice with it. She was dangerous but not bad.

I didn't want to keep dwelling on my passenger's reaction to Aisha, but it was interesting that there was more sympathy for Bitch than for her. The sense was whatever happened to Bitch was still in play, that she was still struggling with it, while Aisha had the worst of her situation behind her. No trigger came from a good place, but masters needed a special kind of isolation and trauma to come about. I seriously doubted she had gotten the help she needed after her trigger and there was even the possibility that mental effects from her power or passenger had made things worse.

Still, that was my passenger's judgement. And even with all the sympathy he was feeling there wasn't any reduction in the sense of danger. She might have come from a bad place, she might not want to hurt people, but she still had a body count attached to her name.

When I moved on to Regent's page the reaction brought up all my previous questions regarding my passenger's perspective. There was some admiration, but it was framed in a way that connected it with some serious levels of disgust, but those in turn were linked to sympathy and anger directed at someone else. Whoever he was he had come from a very bad place, much worse than Bitch. The details of that were a bit too much for a lazy night of websurfing and I was approaching a limit to how much of this I could process. I closed the tab and was ready to switch back to the forums when I felt my power activate.

The Celestial Forge moved and focused on one of the arrays of powers. The Toolkits constellation was swinging towards me and my power latched onto a small mote, securing the connection. It was called Laboratorium. I had a new addition next to my workshop.

Specifically I had a full lab that specialized in the analysis of any technological device. It was practically tailor made for cracking the mystery of tinker tech and in a stroke of serendipity I got it right after I acquired my first tinker tech device.

So to hell with the peaceful night in. I had work to do. Nothing like a clear objective to get rid of those niggling doubts. Of course, I still wasn't going to open the link in my own apartment. Fortunately Brockton Bay had loads of abandoned buildings. Since I wasn't looking for comfort I just needed to find the least habitable one I could and open the door in the deepest part of the structure.

The areas of Brockton Bay with those kinds of buildings aren't exactly safe to travel in the late evening. I headed out while wearing a shin guard under my jeans, but that only provided minimal protection. As I walked the ABB tags had given way to Merchant ones and the concentration of homeless seriously increased. Sticking to dark alleys helped me avoid notice but also put me at risk for anyone who might be lurking in those areas.

Thirty harrowing minutes of walking led me to a boarded up and condemned factory. The place had a severe enough chemical smell to it that I doubted anyone would seriously try to live here. I found an unsecured window and slipped inside. The durability boost from the shin guard was enough to not worry about broken glass or loose nails that jabbed at me as I crawled into the building. Inside was pitch black, but navigating by the light of my cellphone led me to the moldering door of a supply closet. Quickly I slipped my key into the door and opened the link to my workshop. And now my lab.

A new door had been added to the entry room across from the access to the workshop. I quickly secured the main door and walked towards the new addition. Clearing a path to it required shifting my mattress and desk slightly, but once that was done I opened the door and examined my new lab.

It was not what I was expecting. I knew everything that would be inside, the computers, the scanner arrays, the documentation. That information was included when I got the power, and to be fair it was all there. What I didn't expect was the particular aesthetic of the lab. Cyber-gothic would be one way of putting it. Techno-Catholic would also work. The computers were closer to shrines than workstations. There were engraved icons on the walls, incense burning in small dishes, and a feeling of reverence to the entire place. Anything that wasn't designed to look like a religious icon was crammed to the gills with technology. Cables, diodes, mechanical arms, tendrils, sensors, optic lenses, and every other piece of exposed machinery imaginable.

Also the place was big. Really big. The church analogy was apt because this was like being inside a cathedral. There had to be two dozen different analysis bays that seemed to be designed to accommodate items ranging from the size of a fingernail to things that would be too big to fit through the door. The largest of them looked like it could hold a small aircraft.

Then there were the skulls. At first I thought they were just part of the décor, an odd and tasteless addition. Then one popped out of a wall as I approached and started chirping at me with a vaguely digital sound. It shifted from one direction to the other, suspended on the trail of cables that linked it to one of the computer stations. At the sound of its keening dozens of other skulls emerged from their resting place. The thing is was they weren't device designed to look like skulls. There were actual human skulls with attached cybernetics.

Where the hell had they come from? This place had just appeared, like the workshop had when I made my key. None of the machinery in my workshop was connected to any real manufacturing company, so it wasn't like this effect was grabbing things from the world to populate it. That probably and hopefully meant that I hadn't just killed several dozen random people for the sake of whatever the purpose of these cyber skulls was.

Actually, taking in the full scale of the place and the number of skulls it was probably a lot more than 'several dozen'.

So where did they come from? On closer examination this place looked old. There was a sense of the ages to it. The skulls had clearly been skulls for years and years. I would guess decades if not centuries, but that made no sense. There were no parahuman abilities dating back before the early eighties. There had been claims but they had all proven to be either bogus or a hoax. How did you get something this advanced and this old?

The answer was obviously the same as questions like 'how does my key work' or 'what was the mechanism behind my Fashion power'. It just worked. There was a fiat declaration that these abilities would work and these things would exist. I'm not sure why a technology analysis lab required a host of integrated human skulls in order to function, but it did and thus they were here. I would have to deal with it.

Once the initial shock faded they lost most of their creep factor. The skulls didn't act like some menacing swarm of reanimated human parts, they acted like a bunch of over-eager puppies. I still had my cell phone out with its flashlight active. Three skulls spun around it, the lenses in their eye sockets flashing. A projection of the phone appeared as a hologram above one of the computer altars and the team of human remains gestured towards one of the scanning beds with as much enthusiasm as a skinless severed human head attached to a coil of mechanical cables was capable of displaying.

At their prompting I placed the phone on the scanning bed and it hummed to life. Dozens of tiny arms and tendrils extended around it, glowing, pulsing, or shining strange lights on the phone. A skull directed me to the holographic display as it began to fill in and provide a cut out of the phone's internal systems. Individual components and their purposes were identified as well as how they fit together.

The language of the system wasn't English, but it used the same alphabet and for some reason I was able to read it. I don't know if it was because of my connection to this place, or if my intelligence boosts had helped things along, but in the process of virtually dissecting my cellphone I was able to familiarize myself with the complete workings of this Laboratorium.

Now came the moment of truth. I would need to transport Bakuda's bomb here. I didn't have the advantage of any signal blocking Grue's darkness might have provided and I would have to remove most of the security measures to transport it. Still, I couldn't have a better opportunity than what was provided by this place. I needed to press forward.

That didn't mean being stupid. I drenched myself in every defensive formula I knew before I even attempted it, even the redundant ones. Fortunately my workshop was not a smoldering wreck when I opened it, nor was it reduced to one as soon as the containment block was unsealed. I left as much of the blocking material in place as I could while I moved it. That left me lugging about seventy five pounds of metal over to my lab.

If the skulls had been excited over my cellphone then arriving with the tinkertech grenade caused them to reach levels of enthusiasm I didn't think a mass of bone and cybernetics could convey. The heavy cluster of metal plates and mesh was taken from me immediately and moved to a large and complicated scanning bed. I was led to what can only be described as a throne. It was on a raised dais that overlooked most of the lab and was surrounded by a half ring of computer altars. There were some disturbing looking cable connections on the chair and the skulls seemed slightly disappointed when they found nothing to attach to on my head or back.

Let me assure you that was not a pleasant sensation.

Mechanical limbs carefully stripped away my haphazard shielding, exposing the tiny bomb. A quick analysis revealed its tracking signal and automatically blocked it while the rest of the sensors went to work. Within minutes I had a complete schematic of the device. Then the computers began extrapolating the function and purpose of various components.

It was incredibly complex. Even with my doctorate level mechanical knowledge, enhanced intelligence, and the advantage of this eclectic but ridiculously advanced lab there were levels to this device that I just couldn't grasp. I wouldn't be able to get enough information to fully understand it without more intense examination.

That would mean losing access to the one piece of tinker tech in my possession, but it was also the only way to really understand what I was working with. From what I could tell from initial readings this was some kind of plasma emitter, only with complicated functions attached, probably to stop it from just baking everything within a hundred meter radius. If the data I had was accurate I doubt Oni Lee would have been able to reach a safe distance if this didn't have some means of containing its energy to a finite area.

I made my decision and activated destructive testing. The tiny sphere was carefully transferred to another sensor bed and dozens of tools rose up to meet it. The bomb floated above the bed in some kind of stasis field as small sections of it were removed and held in suspension. In a strange sense the bomb was exploding in slow motion as parts were removed and left floating around it. More and more data came in as the process continued until all the tiny and impossibly complex components were hanging in gravity suspension over the scanning bed.

My guess was right. This bomb wasn't designed to wipe out a city block, though it had more than enough power for that. Instead there was a mechanism that kept the energy contained to a radius of roughly five meters. Inside that space the conditions would be comparable to the heart of an atomic blast or the inside of a star. Nothing could realistically withstand it without blanket immunity to heat and pressure or some other kind of complex parahuman ability to negate damage.

And I almost had this thing shoved up my ass. Holy crap did I luck out there. I guess Oni Lee must have been getting desperate if he was willing to expend something this valuable to take me down.

Wait.

Oni Lee clones the grenades he holds when he teleports. Is there any reason to think that effect wouldn't extend to tinker tech? The one limiting factor on Bakuda was the fact that her bombs are expended when used. Oni Lee effectively removes that limitation. She could build a device like this, hand it to him, and have him use it hundreds of times without expending the original.

That was a fucking nightmare. There was a serious shift in power in the works coming as soon as they had enough stock to take the fight to the merchants or empire. The only thing that might hold back the chaos is Lung. It's well known that he hasn't pushed as hard as he could have in the past. Part of that is everyone knowing to fall back when he builds up steam to let his power drop, but generally he seems happy with the status quo. He'll probably use this to aggressively secure territory and most likely come down harshly on anyone who challenges him, but not for a full gang war.

Why was my passenger feeling so nervous?

That did not bode well. As much as I was starting to doubt his perspective on more abstract topics when it came to actual threats I was still more than willing to follow his lead. There was something very bad that was going to happen with Bakuda, and probably fairly soon.

Anyway, since I wasn't at risk of dying or being exposed I decided to move my workshop link back to my apartment. That was exactly as arduous a process as the first time, only mitigated by the pocket full of reagents I was now holding to stave off any idiot who tried to jump me. If Speed was enough to take down Oni Lee then it would make short work of any junkies or muggers who wanted to try their luck.

It was once again into the morning hours by the time I returned, but without the hassle of a job I was reassured in the fact that I would actually be able to sleep. Nothing today had led to a resolution to my impending financial difficulties, but I was confident I'd be able to sort something out. Worst case I would be able to grab parts from wrecked cars, refurbish them, and sell them. Maybe even get a stall at the Market if I was really desperate.

That throne seat in my Laboratorium was more luxurious than anything in my workshop or apartment and more comfortable too. If not for the smell of incense, the chirping skulls and the ominous atmosphere it would have been a great place to sleep. As it stood I made due with my mattress in the entryway and kept the door to the lab tightly closed.

The next morning I woke up to the feeling of the Knowledge constellation in the Celestial Forge swinging by me. My power's reach was the strongest it had ever been and was just enough to latch on to a mid-sized mote. The ability was called 'Grease Monkey'. That was a name that badly underrepresented what the power was capable of. So far I'd been stumbling along with basic technical skills or slight upgrades. The knowledge I did get was barely a refinement of modern technology. Even my crafting skills were limited.

That was not the case anymore. Grease Monkey gave me access to an incredible amount of technical skill and knowledge. Advanced robotics, computers, weaponry, spacecraft, and most importantly power armor. Finally I had the ability to make power armor. And it was good power armor as well, not one of those cliché clunky suits that characterize new tinkers.

It was complicated, resource intensive and would take a good chunk of time but I could build or fix just about anything now. I would need some serious resources and machinery to get this off the ground, but once I did I'd be able to handle things like the best capes out there.

I guess this was where the real tinker limitations kick in. Considering what I had available in my metal shop I could theoretically, with enough time, build what I needed to build what I needed to build what I needed to build my serious technology. Even then there would be components, electronics, power sources, plastics, ceramic components, material treatments, and a dozen other aspects of this technology that I would not be able to fabricate with the restocking materials of my workshop.

What was worse, I was dealing with concepts, not finished blueprints. I understood the principles of the machinery, how to make it, and how it could be used to make all those wonderful advanced devices, but I would still have to work out how to fit things together. There was going to be a long period of research and design in order to get a finished product. That meant even more materials and resources. As much as I hated to admit it, barring some kind of miracle ability from my power I would need outside support.

That was a problem. The Protectorate was out, there were too many bad emotions connected to it. Not just discomfort but glaring alarm bells, particularly with Brockton's division. New Wave was a mess I couldn't begin to pick apart. Besides, once the movement for public cape identities fell through they basically became a family team and I didn't think I was ready to marry in just yet. The Guild had a good reaction from my passenger, but you needed to be an established hero and have recommendations from current members. Other teams were either too small to be of note or didn't operate in the city.

I guess there was always the Toybox. With that group you were brushing against villainy, but it would be enough to get established as a tinker. It would also mean solely building for other people. I might be feeling sentimental, but I didn't want my technology to debut in the hands of another organization.

It wasn't totally hopeless. There had to be something I was able to put together with machine shop metal and salvaged components. Plus with my alchemy and resistance boosts I could operate as a cape even if I couldn't get any truly advanced technology together.

Before my morning run but after coffee and toast I decided to sit down with my laptop and try to figure out my next step. I hadn't hit the PHO forums in a while and, while it was mostly speculation, there were some good pieces of advice and information buried there.

Before I checked the tinker boards I decided to skim the Brockton Bay section. Call it pure narcissism if you want, but I kind of wanted to see if there was any comment on my fight with Oni Lee. Honestly even some mention of him running around with a cast would have made my day.

What I found definitely did not make my day.

Lung had been captured. Armsmaster had brought him in after he'd already had a run in with a local gang. The Undersiders? If they were coming from a fight with Lung when I saw them they were in really good shape. Did they run off to face him after I met them? Oni Lee could have fallen back for reinforcements and brought Lung into the fight.

There was also a rumor thread about him apparently being hospitalized. Potential excessive force from Armsmaster. Well, if he'd been weakened already and Armsmaster went in expecting his full strength then it would be easy to overdo it. Still, some of the reports were pretty horrific to the point where I really hoped they were either exaggerations or complete fabrications. Nobody liked the idea of a tinker using bio-weapons.

So Lung was captured and was probably headed for the Birdcage. Did that leave command of the ABB to Oni Lee or to Bakuda? Clearly they would make a play to spring Lung. I wouldn't have given them much of a chance of pulling that off, but that was before their power synergy gave them a limitless supply of tinker tech bombs. Oni Lee could reduce the Rig to slag in under a minute with nothing more than a version of the grenade I had taken from him. This whole situation had the potential to go very bad.

I had more explosives knowledge now than I had the previous night. Most of it was still conventional, for a strained definition of conventional. I mean massively improved versions of normal munitions. Thinking on it I could probably build some kind of micro-neutron bomb if I had the materials, but that was the upper limit of my technological knowledge. I could handle electronic counter measures better as well. I wouldn't want to pit that against a tinker who was specialized in bombs since I'm sure she would be able to counter most of my efforts eventually, but as a single shot in the field it could knock out her remote connections and buy some time.

The problem was I had no resources to build any of that. My workshop was basic in the extreme and I didn't have the finances or supplies to improve anything. Given that I was at least partially responsible for what could happen… wait, my passenger was going a bit crazy. There was a lot of fear and certainty around this. Ok, partially responsible for what was definitely going to happen I needed to take any means available to be able to mitigate it. I didn't want to see this city turn into a nightmare version of Cornell.

As one last thing I searched for any mention of Oni Lee. This wasn't just vanity anymore. I needed to find out what the current strength of the ABB's capes were. A search turned up results that went back years so I limited it to the last few days. Most were mentions in the Brockton discussion boards, comments under the story of Lung's arrests, and speculation on the potential of a gang war. There was one outlier among the results. The 'Connections' section of the board had mentioned him, not in the original message but from the comments on it.

Subject: Stick

Thanks for driving off that black clad ABB guy. Saw you got pretty beat up. Owe you one. Meet?

Message me,

Eye.

The comments had sparked a small debate on whether they were talking about Oni Lee or not and whether it was a fabricated message. That wasn't helped by people from the roleplaying boards showing up. The whole thing had turned into a flame war until the mods showed up to lock the comments.

It was Tattletale. I could feel my passenger's reaction to the message. He was absolutely sure it was her and the prospect of taking her up on the meeting was regarded with near boundless enthusiasm.

I considered my options. There was clearly more to the Undersiders than just petty criminals. They hadn't done anything horrible by the standards of Brockton Bay and from what I'd heard robbed gangs as often as civilians. That said I wasn't about to buy into the notion of victimless crimes. Even just robbing stores had a ripple effect on the health of the city. Insurance wasn't a bottomless pot of money to cover instances like that. Premiums would be continually jacked up until the stores couldn't afford to operate. That was probably why there were so many closed businesses in the bad part of town.

Still, if they wanted to meet I felt I should take them up on it. My passenger was completely in favor of it, but before I knew about Bakuda I probably would have turned them down. The way I saw it there was limited liability with just a meeting, and frankly I needed any help I could get right now, even if it came from questionable sources.

The message was more than a day old. It had been sent on Monday morning from a newly created account. Given the flurry around it that account was probably flooded with messages. Would Tattletale still even be monitoring it? Probably. She was a thinker, and a strong one if my passenger was to be believed. That led to the other concern. I needed to cover myself if I was going to reach out to her. It might not help against a thinker of her level, but I didn't want to expose myself to anyone else. My options were to use a public computer at a library or somewhere similar or try to obfuscate my location and reply from my home connection.

Previously I wouldn't even have dreamed of the second option, but with my new technical knowledge and resources I could probably pull it off. The computers in my lab, despite the quirks of their design, were insanely powerful. Still, they were designed for analysis of technology. I could adapt them to another purpose, but not in the window of time I had. That left the library.

At this time of day it was faster to walk than try to finagle the bus schedules and deal with downtown traffic. At least in mid-morning there weren't too many people crowding the computers. I was able to get access in relatively short order and loaded PHO. I signed in as a guest and drafted a private message. Given the time since the message was posted and the probable number of anonymous replies this could be a dry well. In that case I'd have to create a dummy account and wait to see if she could pick the message out of the mess her inbox had to be. I hoped it wouldn't come to that. Waiting for a reply would slow this down to a crawl and I needed resources if I was going to have any hope of countering Bakuda.

Subject: Re:Stick

This is the guy with the metal stick. Pretty sure you're the girl in purple, but would like confirmation before we go further.

The message was sent and I began wondering how long I should wait for a reply. Thinker was one of the broadest categories of powers and they ranged all over the place. She seemed to have good intuition, but could she predict when someone would reply? If she was serious about this she would have some kind of alert set up on the account. After the thread got locked most of the messages should have dropped off so providing she hadn't given up on the whole thing the one I sent should have come through fairly clearly.

I considered browsing the other forums while I waited, but decided against it. I wanted as little evidence of this as possible. I could purge my history a lot better than I would have been capable of a couple of days ago, but that only covered this machine. There were mundane ways to data mine someone's activity, to say nothing of what other tinkers could pull off. That left me waiting and hitting refresh on the same page over and over.

While I was waiting my power completely failed to grab a mote from one of the constellations I had yet to identify. I watched it spin off inside the celestial forge while I kept hitting the F5 key. My reach was weak after landing my last ability, but it was still growing fast. I'd have a better chance the next time a constellation came into reach.

Finally my screen updated with a response.

Subject: Re:Stick

Confirmation? Sunday night you took a beating that would have been for us and sent the guy packing. Ran off when things were getting too personal, but want to make that up to you.

Me and the boys will meet you in the alley where it happened. 2pm should give you time to get prepared, and you won't need to skip your run. You can dress up if you want but we'll be informal.

Eye

Well, there was her power at work. It seemed kind of intrusive, but my passenger wasn't concerned. I swallowed, hoped for the best, and decided to follow his lead.

Subject: Re:Stick

You're as good as I thought. I'll see you then.

Jumpchain abilities this chapter:

Not A Stupid Grunt (Mass Effect) 100:

That you are not. You are smart enough to be the foremost scientist in your field. This doesn't make you so, but you could get there on your own with not a terrible amount of effort. Still not as smart as a drell, but hey, who is?

Laboratorium (Light of Terra DLC 3 A Grand Day Out - Warhammer 40,000) 100:

Ancient cogitators, arrays of auspex systems, and volume upon volume of documentation supply an Adept with the tools and information necessary to capably analyse a recovered technological artefact.

Grease Monkey (Bubblegum Crisis 2032) 300:

What can you fix or build? What CAN'T you fix or build? Nothing, that's what. From hyper-cars to Buma, computers to Hardsuits, with the right tools and enough time and experiments, you can build it all, weaponry included