Chapter 34: 4-3 Ripples

Ripples 4.3

2000, August 21: Washington, DC, USA

Metalmaru, Hero's assistant and longtime colleague, had come to pick me up in his civilian guise. A subtly but fully armed tinker in an equally heavily armored car was far less likely to end up a little square in the papers after all. He picked me up and though mom showed the traditional hospitality, there was a coldness to her that hadn't been there before.

"How are you, Andy," he asked as I got into the passenger seat. Metalmaru, or Steven Kajiya out of costume, was a tall, lanky man with corded muscle in his early thirties. He had tan skin and sharp eyes. In costume, he had a trademark ponytail. Out of it, the tail was kept in a tight bun beneath a bowler hat.

"Pretty good. Ready to finally start doing something. They're giving me the rest of my stuff back, right?"

"Yeah, don't worry about that. A month's hiatus has to be good for something, right? We got them through the approval process. They've already been field tested anyway," he chuckled, then realized what he said. "Shit, I mean, darn, sorry, kid."

I waved him off. "Don't worry about it. And you can swear. It's not like I haven't heard it enough."

"Nah, gotta get in the habit. Big boss was talking about putting me in charge of a Wards team and I don't want to set a bad example, you know?"

"I guess. Early congrats then. You looking forward to it?"

"Ehh, sure. I mean, people say I'm a kid at heart, and I am, but maybe that's why I shouldn't be put in charge of kids."

"Maybe. Or maybe, you'll have an easier time relating to us young'uns than the other old timers."

"Hey, I'm thirty-one! I'm not old yet!"

"And I'm eight. That makes you almost four times my age."

"Che. What happened to respecting your elders," he grumbled.

"I'm American now. I'm embracing American values. Respect is earned, geezer," I teased.

We drove in amiable silence for several minutes before the older tinker broke it.

"Say, what're you looking forward to building?"

"You mean besides my costume?" I asked dryly. Hero may have gifted me a bodysuit, but it was just the foundation. I was expected to build up a kit of my own. I was honestly looking forward to it. "Maybe something to work against masters."

"Ah…"

"Yeah." As the second-most senior member of the District Protectorate and the head whenever Hero was off on one international crisis or other, he was one of the few fully briefed on my situation. I let the awkward silence drag on for a bit before asking a question of my own. "How about you? You've been a tinker for what? A decade? What's the coolest thing you've built?"

He embraced the subject change like a drowning man hanging onto a rope. "Not quite a decade. I was twenty-four when I triggered," he said with the ease of many years of separation. Most capes didn't refer to their triggers at all if they could help it. "You know what my specialization is, right?"

"Mmhm."

And it was a good one. Not phenomenal, but excellent for support. Metalmaru was a tinker who specialized in metal alloys, creating new ones to perfectly suit any function, often with seemingly supernatural properties. His power also came with an innate understanding of metallurgy and mineralogy. Because he wasn't the best at making weapons or armor to protect himself, he worked as Hero's assistant and had seen several tinkers graduate from the Wards already.

"Well if I had to pick one, it'd be my multiform shape-memory alloy. An SMA is a metal that bends itself back into shape when it's warped, effectively repairing itself. I tinkered up one that can 'remember' multiple shapes depending on the specific frequency of the electric current run through it."

"That's pretty cool."

"I know, right?"

"But doesn't something like that mean it's more fragile than regular reinforced steel? I think I read about SMAs somewhere. If they were as sturdy as regular steel, they'd be used for everything."

"Right," he grinned. "That's true, but I'm a tinker. My SMA is stronger than steel and can turn into my armor whenever I need it using my own bioelectricity."

I thought about what he said. "You stuck armor into your own body so it can react to your nervous system, maybe hormones. Threat response?"

"Yes and no. I didn't graft metal into my bones or something crazy. I'm a metals-tinker, not some super-surgeon. There's a signal amplifier in my skull though that'll activate like you said if I feel threatened. I had to trade a few favors with Zero Day and Armsmaster for that one."

"That's… That's brilliant."

"Thanks. It's not exactly power armor and I'm not much stronger with it, but it helps to have for sure. It had its problems, but we mostly worked out the kinks. Anyway, you'll be working on your own collaborations soon. Excited?"

"Don't senior tinkers decide the project? I figured Hero would just tell me who I'm working with and what I'm building for a while." It was what I expected of Cauldron if not Hero himself.

"Nah, boss-man isn't like that. You tell him what you want to work on and he'll try to have your back with Costa-Brown so long as you can show that you're working safe. You'll have to negotiate with the other tinkers on your own though."

"Dino eggs," I blurted out. "And sunstone."

"What?"

"Those are what I need. The PRT said they'd get me what I needed, so here it is."

"But… why?"

I reminded myself that Metalmaru didn't know much about my tinkering. "My tinkering focuses on making technology or enchanted objects that work with an internal energy source I call mana. I sometimes need unique or rare materials that have conceptual significance."

"Enchantments?"

"Yes, like magic. Seeing how no one seems to be able to explain how powers work, it's as good a name as any. Seriously, you've been briefed on Petricite, right?"

"Right, alright. I understand… I think. But dinosaur eggs?"

"Not specifically dinosaur eggs," I corrected myself. "I need fossilized lizard eggs from any species, but it does need to be a lizard… alongside sunstone, which is-"

"Plagioclase feldspar," he said. "I'm familiar. Mineralogy is my thing, remember? What do you think you can make with those? The sunstone will be easy to get, but the fossils might be harder. If a museum loans one out to you, I take it you're not going to be giving it back?"

"No, they won't be seeing it again. I want to make something that protects my mind from master effects."

"You can do that?"

"I wasn't lying in my debut," I said with a shrug. We were over the bridge now. I did my best to quell the butterflies in my stomach; open water still didn't agree with me. "I have an incredibly versatile repertoire now. It just might be the only honest thing I said in my debut."

"Huh… How does it work?"

"Ymelo," I said, "I think I'll call them Ymelos. A Ymelo is a set of two piece lockets that interlock to form perfect spheres. They can lock away and return memories."

"So if someone erases memories, you can just… reboot like a computer?"

"Yeah, that's a fair way of thinking about it. It'd also work for rapid shifts in emotion too. Like, if your past until now represents your baseline, the Ymelo would trigger automatically if you suddenly find yourself suicidal, reminding your brain that you don't normally think this way and therefore breaking the master effect."

"That's… You just might be the strangest tinker I've ever met."

"Didn't you make a superconductor metal that functions in absolute zero to work with Glace's freeze-ray? I'm not the only weird one."

"Yeah, but that at least has some grounding in scientific principles. You're saying a locket and some squiggly lines can make you immune to masters."

"Not immune, just highly resistant," I corrected. "Anyway, is it possible? Can you get me a fossilized egg?"

"For an anti-master effect? Definitely. It's going to need testing before it gets approved, but if it does clear… You'd be doing the world a big favor."

I thought of the space pigeon who had yet to descend. "I know, Steven. I know."

X

2000, August 21: Washington, DC, USA

I sat at my desk, my tools and creations before me. The Petricite dagger I'd named Sobriety (because fuck Camille) was set off to the side. I wanted to engrave runes into it, but that could come at a later date. The relic pistol was next to it; I wouldn't name it until I had its twin. The Dream Blossom Censer was placed against one wall, a staff of willow holding it up.

It was the "tech" that the PRT was most conflicted about. On one hand, it could end fights instantly. Unless the opponent wasn't human in the first place, like an endbringer, or kept their body in another dimension, like La Torcha, the smoke wasn't a resistible or avoidable attack.

On the other hand, it affected everyone, allies included. Knocking out emergency response personnel and civilians alongside gang members would not end well. At minimum, it was begging for a car crash and multiple fatalities. For a tool with no offensive application, the potential for collateral damage was immense. Nonetheless, it was in the end cleared for use by multiple thinkers and psychologists who examined the after effects on animals then volunteers.

On a not unrelated note, I had a bit of a following among the many insomniacs that made up the PRT administration and dream blossom petals were in high demand. The tea brewed from one granted luxuriously good sleep and rumors of "super-coffee" were making their rounds already.

The censer was the first of my new emergency loadout. Kid Win had his Alternator Cannon. I had a massive AOE sleep that could force an end to almost any conflict.

Call me motherfucking Mystogan.

The Blitzpack was cracked open in front of me, its innards scattered as I tried to improve on the design I'd made in captivity. With the Crips, I very carefully kept from building my best because I wasn't sure I would ever get them back, better that the Crips had half-assed tech in case I need to deal with them later. But here, I had no such reservations.

To start, I wanted to make it so the Blitzpack's prototype Hex Core could function without steam. Homage to my favorite yoink-bot or not, it was an unnecessary inconvenience. I instead made it so I could slot Mana Crystals directly into the back. From there, the raw mana would be directed to the transformers which would convert it into electricity, letting me activate its EMP function almost at will. I also planned to make an exterior that wasn't spherical; a skull shape made handling difficult. Once I replaced some of the internals with the high-quality materials provided by Metalmaru and Glace, I expected to decrease both its size and weight.

I leisurely sketched out a design for it. If I made the design hemispherical and reinforced the exterior a great deal, I could strap it to my arm like a buckler. It'd go well with the Black Tortoise image, too. I was short enough that I'd have to strap it to my biceps along with my forearm, but I'd grow into it.

I imagined myself with my full loadout. Some nebulous, vaguely Asian armor hiding enough tech to wage a war with the shield in my left hand and the pistol in my right. The dagger that was more like a shortsword to me was strapped to my left hip while the censer hung from my back like an oversized blue lamp. I looked ridiculous. Even in my own head I couldn't make that look good.

"I really need a way to quick-swap between items," I muttered.

"Yo, newbie, how's it going?" came Pyrotechnical's voice behind me.

That was my one minor gripe. We didn't have a separate lab, not normally. The national PRT HQ wasn't a building as much as it was an entire complex. It sat near the Justice and State Department buildings in Foggy Bottom. The lab was a separate building altogether and although there were smaller rooms dedicated to highly hazardous testing, such as those involving radioactive materials, the main lab was a wide open floorplan with different stations for different tinkers.

I didn't expect Hero's overt extroversion to grate on me in this way, but it proved to be a minor irritation.

Not that the floorplan was bad or anything. A series of incredibly advanced force fields and blast shutters could close down a station with ease and a set of teleporters courtesy of Warptek, a former DC tinker who'd been transferred out to Milwaukee of all places, made transporting materials and tools to the right tinker from the loading dock simple.

It honestly did promote cooperation and allowed for more senior tinkers to check up on and advise newcomers with ease. Best of all, all the "tools to make better tools" were already present in several communal stations. Any tinker could schedule some time on them and maintenance duties went to whoever could do the job, with some like Warptek being called in once or twice a year for upkeep.

Still, the introvert in me really wanted his own lab. I supposed that was what my basement would be.

Turning, I gave Pyro a wan smile. "Doing alright. I had a bunch of stuff I wanted from the PRT so I spent most of the morning filling out procurement forms. You?"

"Pretty good. I wanted to let you know that a hundred pounds of fossilized tree came into the loading dock. Should be he-"

He didn't even get to finish before the teleporter nearest to my station flashed, rolling out a palette of red, brown, and blue quartz-like crystals.

"Yup, there it is."

"Oh, lovely," I said, dry as the Sahara. "I can now spend the next few days turning it into Petricite."

"That's the power-null stuff, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Mind if I get a brick for myself?"

I rolled my eyes. "Ah, and now we're finally at the reason you're here. What, can't visit a junior just 'cause?"

"Hey, I'm just calling dibs before everyone else. Seriously, there are seven tinkers here excluding you. Do you know how rare that is? We don't typically work together, too many differences in specializations and egos, but when there's a new wonder-material to be had? All bets are off."

"Thanks for the warning. Metalmaru said something similar. I'll keep the blast doors shut."

"You might want to. Or at the very least, start thinking about what you want from other tinkers. You know, start bargaining."

"You said there are too many differences in specializations. How does that work then?"

"I mean, yeah. You probably won't be able to incorporate my thermal lance inside of that shield thing you got there, but you might be able to learn a few things from studying the blueprints, you know? Or in the case of Glace and Metalmaru, they might hold their superconductors hostage now that you have something worth trading for. And all else fails, you can take over the IT shift or something. Services are just as good as products; time is money after all."

"Wait, tinkers get put on IT? I don't actually know any programming languages."

He waved his hand a bit. "Ehh… Sometimes…? It really depends on the tinker, but that was just an example. Coding is really more Zero Day's gig. But even if you don't write code as a part of your power, you'd be amazed at how many people will just trust your word for it because 'you're a tinker so you must know tech.' You can repair microwaves, fridges, toasters… You know, that sort of thing. You'd be amazed at how often the other departments call us to fix their crap. Or want a super-microwave or something dumb.

"Lovely, looking forward to it. Fine, what can you offer me in exchange?"

"I have an old thermal lance? It's a bit obsolete for me, but it's close to the limit of what other tinkers can understand about my specialization. That's the only reason I haven't scrapped it yet actually; I even finished a writeup on it meant to guide newbies through my thought process."

"Maybe," I said noncommittally. It'd be nice to have, but that's all. I wasn't exactly lacking offensive options myself. Besides, my priority right now was the Ymelo. "I'm really focused on something else right now. Let's say you owe me, deal?"

"Deal."

X

As Pyro predicted, a small horde of tinkers descended upon my station the moment they heard I had the materials for Petricite. Eventually, the PRT wanted me to machine out shackles, but for now, they wanted to see what other tinkers would make of the wonder-material first. I had to explain repeatedly that Petricite normally was about as rigid and uncooperative as marble and that I needed to transmute it into a metal alloy for it to be much use.

By the end of the impromptu negotiations, I had a standing invitation from Metalmaru to work on a stronger Petricite alloy with him. Seeing how I needed to make my costume and shield, I'd be taking him up on that sooner rather than later.

Glace agreed to take a look at my capacitors for the Blitzpack and multi-tool in exchange for five pounds of raw Petricite. She wanted to see if it was possible to extend its power nullifying properties through a beam the same way she made a laser endothermic. I wasn't holding my breath but I wished her luck anyway.

Pyro, Armsmaster, and Bluesong owed me favors for the same.

I was mildly surprised at seeing Armsmaster, though I shouldn't have been. He was Hero's apprentice after all. He apparently graduated from the Wards two years ago and was the youngest person here save me. He acted far more grown up than Pyrotechnical though.

Hero claimed "dictator privileges" and preordered several pounds for his own use, something about using it to disrupt higher dimensional wave patterns. To be fair, he already made me a bodysuit; he'd earned his share.

The only one who wasn't interested was the aforementioned Zero Day, who was busy designing a nationwide cybersecurity network on account of the shitshow revolving around yours truly. How effective it'd be, I had no idea. I was no expert, but I knew that human error had a way of bringing down even the greatest firewalls and there was no real way to eliminate human error from the equation for a project like this.

Truly, stupidity was the mightiest force in the universe.

Even while I waited for a goddamn dinosaur egg, I was still up to my nonexistent eyeballs with work.