Chapter 10: 8 Aftermath

It wasn't the fact that they were committing a robbery that shocked me. Through all the buildup I had steeled myself for a much more serious job than this. Honestly I assumed it was going to be a heist, probably against a harder target than they usually hit. Maybe some tinker tech, maybe corporate secrets, possibly even some kind of art theft. If I had accepted all of those possibilities then a bank robbery should be fine.

But it wasn't. This made no sense at all. This was hitting a bank during the middle of its operating hours. That was just asking for the job to go wrong, and seemingly the hero community of Brockton Bay had answered that request. I didn't know exactly how much criminals walked away with from a job like this but I had heard it was much less than people thought. Honestly the take couldn't be that much better than their other jobs. Given they were doing a five way split now and had dropped over twenty thousand on my services this was the kind of thing that was going to cost them money even if they were able to get away scot-free.

This had to be the boss, and my passenger agreed between his insufferable feelings of amusement at watching the felony in progress. What the hell was this about? It's possible the bank was a front for some other organization, but this was Brockton Bay Central. I really doubted it was a secret Empire mob bank. It could be there was something more valuable on site, some critical item being stored there of key information being kept on the bank's systems. If that was the case then attacking at any time other than lunch hour, you know when banks are at their most crowded, would be a better plan. There was an outside chance that this was just a vanity project. Bank robberies were a terrible idea but they were iconic. If you wanted to build reputation as a villain group then a flashy daylight robbery at an iconic location would do it. It would attract a lot more attention than you would get in reward, so I would still say that was unlikely.

The Undersiders were being funded by someone else. Someone who had been willing to throw huge amounts of money at a very public spectacle of a crime. A crime that by the looks of things had attracted a superhero turnout that exceeded most of Lung's rampages. There was only one explanation that made sense. This was a distraction.

My passenger's feelings confirmed it. That meant I had actually facilitated two major crimes instead of just one. And the first of them had devolved into a parahuman street brawl that was tearing up the center of the city.

That was probably what was really bothering me about this. I had accepted the possibility that they were going to end up against other capes on this job. I had kind of hoped it would be villains, maybe one of the gangs. If they were going to face heroes I assumed it would be someone from the Protectorate or one of the independent teams. I didn't expect that my work would lead to a super powered brawl between a bunch of children in the middle of the city.

The area around the bank looked like a war zone. None of the Undersiders had the ability to cause that kind of damage, and I wouldn't have thought the Wards did either, but the floating artillery cannon in what was clearly Kid Win's design style begged to differ. Said tinker was collapsed in a moaning heap on the street beneath it while Regent rode his flying skateboard unsteadily towards the howitzer sized ray gun.

I was coming in half way through this mess, and figuring out what was going on was an exercise in frustration. For some reason Clockblocker was flying around in a bloody costume harrying Bitch's dogs with help from Glory Girl. Grue was sending up waves of darkness into the air with his clouds already covering half of the street. Regent would occasionally pause his progress towards the cannon to wave at one of the flying capes and send them off course.

The feed shifted to shots of the other wards. Vista was unconscious and Gallant was struggling to move in a collapsed wreck of his armor. It looked like the dogs had used him as a chew toy, but I could recognize some of the damage as being due to one of my monomolecular blades. Probably the Bowie knife I had made for Rachel going by the size of the cuts. That could have gone very badly. A single overeager cut and he'd be lucky to still have his limbs. I was genuinely impressed Rachel would have enough restraint to go for disabling strikes.

It looked like Aegis was frozen under a pile of bugs, but the reporter clarified he had changed costumes with Clockblocker, which also solved the mystery of why Clockblocker appeared to be suddenly able to fly. So it was Clockblocker frozen under a pile of bugs. The high detail of that close-up showed his panicked eyes with time frozen bugs wedged in his nostrils and eyelids.

You know, I'm still not seeing how that power was 'save the world' level but after that image I doubt anyone is going to seriously underestimate Taylor. 'Bug Control' only sounds like a joke power until you see something like that.

Despite being outnumbered things seemed to be shifting in the hero's favor. It was the advantage of having multiple high level flying brutes on your side. Grue was on the ground providing cover with waves of darkness, but it was only doing so much good. The dogs were clearly a threat and Bitch was coordinating them expertly but they were still land bound and their opponents could just swoop out of their reach. Regent had to regularly pause his ascent to throw off attacks headed his way or save his teammates. There was no sign of Taylor or Lisa anywhere.

Glory Girl suddenly broke off from the fight and smashed through the front doors of the bank. Without her interference Regent was able to reach the cannon and start pinning down Aegis with explosive blasts. The output of that cannon was clearly excessive, and not just for a Ward. A core tenant of the unwritten rules is 'try to keep things nonlethal'. A weapon like that might be an appropriate response to Lung, Hook wolf, Fenja or Menja, and maybe Mush when he got a large construct together. Against the Undersiders it was brutal and borderline illegal escalation.

Unless they had opened the fight using my knives. In that case the gloves were off and everything was on the table. I was worried about that, but those weapons weren't exactly subtle in their operation. There would be a lot more body parts lying around if they had decided to use them on the Wards. Even now none of them were holding their weapons, not even Bitch who'd had to roll away from repeated lunges as Aegis tried to pick her off of her seat on one of the dog's back.

Props needed to be given to Aegis. Even with the odds at three to one, six to one counting the dogs, he was holding his own. I didn't know much about his powers other than he had the Alexandria package flying brick thing, but he seemed to be racking up physical damage without letting it bother him. One of the bites on his chest was exposing lung, but he seemed perfectly fine. Functionally fine. He looked like a flying accident victim. If that's the way his 'durability' worked then it cast a dark explanation for why his normal costume was red. Somehow I don't think Clockblocker's going to want that suit back at the end of this. The white plating really made the bloods splatters stand out clearly.

The back and forth continued for a while, but the balance had shifted in the Undersider's favor. The rain was still coming down, but nowhere near as heavy as it had been this morning. Mainly it served to dramatically highlight the cannon's shots or the impact of Bitch's dogs when they launched themselves to crazy heights then slammed into the wet ground. It was an elaborate game of keep away that even the reporter was having trouble dressing up.

The shot suddenly shifted to the bank entrance where Grue was supporting Tattletale and a person who had to be Taylor was striding out in full costume. She struck an imposing figure in her black and gray bodysuit with her yellow lenses gleaming and my blade at her hip. The hair that she'd tried to hide behind was flaring like a mane and she walked with a confidence that I never would have thought her capable of. She seemed like a completely different person from the girl I'd met two days ago.

Regent drove Aegis back with a chain of blasts from the cannon and Grue buried him and most of the street in darkness. Regent lowered himself to the street and the Team clustered for some conference. He then drew my parrying dagger and sliced apart the flying skateboard.

Ok, this was a mess of a situation and I couldn't help but hate myself for the feeling, but my gut wrenched at seeing that. All the technology I had was still based on somewhat conventional physics. I had flight systems I could build but they used thrust. Lift, and aerodynamics. That was a proper antigravity system and I would have loved to have gotten my hands on it. I really hoped that was my tinker powers talking because while watching a major crime and the destruction of a teenager's personal property my thoughts really shouldn't have been 'No! Don't break that! Steal it! Steal it for me!'.

Multiple cameras were focused on the Undersiders as one by one they climbed up and secured themselves to the dogs. Suddenly Taylor froze and lurched to the side. The darkness behind her exploded as Aegis surged out past her. Taylor had sidestepped what must have been his blind charge but he pulled himself into a tight circle and shot at her before any of the mounted Undersiders could react.

I hadn't noticed her hand drop to the hilt of the blade in the excitement of Aegis's mad charge. The aftermath was another matter. Apparently he didn't notice it either as he made his flying grab at Taylor. Her action was barely visible on the news cameras. The aftermath was another story. Aegis continued forward on pure momentum as his body flew apart, pieces detaching and dropping off as he moved through the air. It looked like he'd been sliced into at least half a dozen pieces. His head was severed, but not cleanly. Most of his neck and one shoulder was still attached. Likewise both arms flew off, cut at different points. Additional slashes had split his lower torso and taken off both his legs. In the end the only thing left was a somehow confused looking half-torso with one shoulder and a bit of arm hanging in the air. It bobbed back and forth seemingly at a loss at what to do.

Taylor stood in the aftermath of her act, hair billowing around her and raindrops bouncing off the humming blade of my knife. She looked down at the mess with cold resolve, then sheathed the weapon and swung up onto the dog. That was the last image before the entire street was covered in inky black darkness.

The news broadcast cut back to the studio where the anchor frantically apologized for what they had just shown. He also assured the viewers that Aegis would be fine once he received medical attention, though that seemed to be read from a teleprompter with a less than convincing tone of voice.

I can't fully express the storm of emotions I was struggling with at that moment. Anger. Yes, anger was a prominent one. Anger at this whole situation. Anger at Tattletale for dragging me into this. Anger at the Undersiders' boss for setting this up. Anger at the stupidity of agreeing to rob a bank in the middle of the day. Anger at Tattletale for pushing everyone towards it. Anger at the Wards for their stupid tactics and escalation. Anger at Aegis for not taking the loss and instead deciding to make that one last stupid charge. Anger at Taylor for using the knife when she had a perfectly serviceable baton that would have ended things without a pile of body parts on the local news. Anger at the world for just being this stupid.

And if I focused on how angry I was with everyone else maybe it would let me ignore how much I hated myself for getting into this mess. Yes, all that stupidity on other people's part had led to this but I was a completely willing participant in it. I had agreed to this. I didn't know it would end like this, but I knew what the world was like. I had been so stupid. I had trusted that things would work out. I should have known better.

Now the very first appearance of my technology had it shredding a Ward. Aegis was the kind of popular kid hero who gave safety speeches to kindergarteners and had his face on posters for the Wards program. He had an image the PRT put front and center. It didn't matter if he would be fine 'eventually' because now, thanks to me, that image was a charnel mound. If I hadn't destroyed his future as a cape then I had at least completely rewritten the public perception of it.

God damn it. This was entirely my fault. When I was in college, when I had friends, we would game on Saturday nights. Sometimes Dungeons and Dragons, sometimes various cape RPGs. It was easy to get caught up in the games and a lot of times they went into the early morning. One thing that became clear is no good ideas happened after 3 am. Seriously, some of the stupidest actions you'd ever seen came out around that time. People would forget their abilities, try ridiculous plans, or just make the worst decisions possible. In gaming it was a joke. When outfitting villains with weapons it was a disaster.

That blade was fully enchanted. I had worked wind runes into the entire design, from the cross guard to the tip. Decadence had made engraving the runes easy and apparently a lot more effective than I anticipated. I wanted to blame Taylor for this, but I was the one that handed her a magic sword and hoped for the best. Oh, and I'd basically done the same thing with her baton as well.

"Fuck."

My word echoed around the empty factory loft as the full weight of all of my decisions settled onto my shoulders.

"Fuck!"

All of this wasn't helped by my passenger's continued irreverence at the entire situation. I had facilitated a major cape fight and he didn't care. I had built the weapon that reduced the leader of the Wards to a pile of bloody chunks and he didn't care. I had made Taylor, that shy quiet girl, appear as a ruthless and terrifyingly dangerous villain and for some reason he felt that was appropriate.

"Fuck you!"

In frustration I hurled my half eaten slice of villain pizza across the room where it hit the kitchen wall with a wet smack. I had trusted my passenger. I had followed his lead and this is what it got me? You're supposed to know what's going to happen, to be able to look out for danger. Is this what you wanted? After all of that you don't feel any regrets?

Nothing, just the same irrelevant confidence as before, like this was supposed to happen. I grit my teeth and focused on keeping my breathing calm. The newscaster was going on about the attack. No more clips were being shown, probably because of how the encounter finished. I focused on my passenger's feelings, trying to find something, anything that expressed any level of concern over this situation.

The newscast cut away from the bank story and suddenly I felt it. A spike of concern, worry, even terror.

"Now? Seriously, fucking now is when you think something is wrong?"

I was shouting myself horse to the empty hideout, but it was making me feel just the slightest bit better. Finally, after all of that my passenger finally felt something approaching concern for the situation. I ignored the TV droning on about an amber alert and focused on my passenger. There was actually a sense of urgency and borderline regret. Good. Fucking good that you finally are willing to acknowledge that there might be something less than ideal happening here.

I couldn't figure out what part of this he was so concerned about. I had been given no hint of this coming and suddenly he realized something was wrong. I was too angry to be able to figure out what the associations were. To be perfectly honest I was taking some dark satisfaction from how agitated he was becoming. Suddenly there was something about the situation he had a problem with. I couldn't tell what it was so I sat fuming on the couch and watched my passenger cycle through various shades of panic and anxiety as the news played in the background.

Eventually the news changed over from the story of the missing girl to a report on how traffic was being held up through all of downtown thanks to Grue's darkness choking the streets. My passenger's frantic panic slowly melted down to despair and then reservation. My own enjoyment at his distress was also giving way to the gaping question of what to do next.

I could cut ties with the Undersiders. I mean, technically they hadn't broken the conventions I'd given them. Thanks to the bullshit that was Aegis's powers what Taylor had done was technically nonlethal force. I kind of hated the Wards and PRT for that. They put out a cape that could only be stopped by recreating a seventies slasher movie and bet that no villain would be willing to go that far.

But none of the problems I'd signed up to deal with had been addressed in any way. In fact after that performance Taylor was probably in even more danger. She had just upped her threat profile massively, and thus made keeping her safe that much harder.

Walking away might make me feel better for a moment, but in the end I'd just be piling one failure on top of another.

My power activated again as I felt the Forge move. The Time constellation was approaching again and my power connected to a mote called 'Machinist'.

Damn it, I wish I had this power a day ago. No, I wish I had this power a week ago. The first power I'd gotten from the Time constellation was not actually helpful in reducing crafting time. It was connected to a serious power, but ultimately was just an intelligence booster with decent mechanical knowledge. This power actually sped up my work.

When I say sped up what I mean is to a degree that is truly ludicrous. Twelve hours would be more than enough time to rebuild and upgrade and entire aircraft. This would be powerful on its own, but combined with my other abilities it approached the absurd. What's more it came with even more technical knowledge. New methods of robotics, flight systems, vehicle designs, weapons, power armor, and more. Even high level experimental technology was now on the table.

Remember when I said I couldn't build gray goo? That's not the case anymore. My nanomachine projects just got accelerated from needing years and millions in resources with team support to something I can do on my own in a few months. That can cover everything from instant fabrication of machinery to personal enhancements that outstrip most superpowers to a full on apocalypse if I wanted it.

I took a breath. This is what I had to remember. This is what I was working towards. Every step forward, no matter how ignoble, would bring me closer to the Celestial Forge. I just had to hold out until then. I had to manage until I had enough power. Machinist wasn't even a particularly powerful mote and it had brought me closer to my goals than I could have imagined.

So rather than storm out I stayed in the villains' hideout. They were coming to celebrate and as much as that didn't sit well with me I needed details on what had happened. I needed to start taking more agency in my life and this would be the first step towards that.

I did my best to get some more rest, but I was too wound up for proper sleep. Eventually my passenger pulled himself out of his funk, but seemed a bit more reserved than before. Whatever blind enthusiasm he had felt for the Undersiders was either diminished or he was keeping a lid on it for my sake. Either way I appreciated the gesture. It would take a lot before I would be ready to trust his opinion on any villain again, but it was a step in the right direction.

It was much later in the afternoon when the Undersiders returned. They were out of costume and uniformly looked worn out, but mostly in good spirits. That is, except for Taylor. With the cold indifference she had displayed to her act on the news broadcast I was worried about her, about the kind of person I had given those weapons too. Instead of the conquering hero she looked shell shocked. She was pale and Tattletale was clearly supporting the girl. The thinker was also sporting a clearly injured shoulder, but was mobile enough that it was either a sprain or a dislocation that had been reset. The groups eyes fell on me as they crested the stairs.

I drew my gaze across them, making eye contact with each one in turn. "So, I caught an interesting news story while you were out."

Brian nodded slowly. Tattletale's eyes jumped over to the kitchen where my hurled pizza had left a stain of sauce on the wall. "Anything you have a problem with?"

Yes, several. But that doesn't matter now. "I'd be lying if I said everything sat right, but it's nothing I didn't sign up for."

Brian nodded and a note of concern left the group. "Glad to hear that."

"So, care to fill me in on the details the news left out?" I hoped I didn't come across to obvious.

That broke the tension enough for everyone to settle back into their usual roles. Alec grabbed a laptop and lounged on the corner of the sofa. Brian gathered a pile of leftover takeout and drinks for everyone. Taylor held back and seemed to make herself invisible, but this time with a whole new tone to her apprehension, and Tattletale ran around managing things while also getting me the second half of my blood money.

Their recap of the robbery took the place of our celebration. Everyone was too sore and worn out to want to go anywhere in this weather. Instead it turned into a group story session with details being offered, corrected, commented on, and joked about. That's how I learned about Taylor's idea to keep the customers from doing anything dangerous.

"Black widow spiders?"

The girl nodded. She had slowly opened up over the course of the conversation. Without asking Tattletale had brought her a cup of tea that she was sipping while barely seeming to register its presence.

"I thought it would keep them calm, stop anyone from doing something that would get themselves hurt."

I suppose from an external perspective 'calm' and 'scared shitless' look largely the same. "Then what happened?"

"Everything went fine until the Wards showed up."

"You weren't expecting a response? Isn't Arcadia like right around the corner?" Arcadia is known as the Wards school even outside the city. They are frankly ridiculously well-funded on every level to the point where I'm pretty sure every other school in the city and surrounding area hates them on principle. I know that was the attitude in Captain's Hill and we only saw them when the school teams would play each other.

Tattletale shook her head. "I was expecting a few of them, but we got pretty much the whole team. Everyone but Shadow Stalker."

My passenger was a lot less overwhelming now, but still had his distaste for that cape. I was so focused on keeping my other feelings in line that the reaction must have shown.

"You have a history with her?" Brian looked interested.

"No, it's my power, kind of gives me a bad feeling about her."

Alec snorted. "Makes sense. She's a psycho. Shot Brian in the stomach with a real crossbow bolt. After she was a ward and was supposed to be avoiding that shit. And then he blead all over..."

"Your new couch. We know, you never stop talking about it. Next time I get impaled I'll make sure to avoid your favorite furniture."

I kept my reaction muted, but that was actually another point for my passenger. That was a sign there was something seriously dangerous about that cape, and it was comforting to know at least some of his instincts could be relied upon.

"So did they negotiate for the hostages?"

"No, they just lined up ready to jump us if we made a break for it."

"Seriously? That was lunch hour. There would have to have been dozens of people in there." I didn't mention how stupid it was to pick that time for a robbery.

"Forty counting tellers and staff."

"So did the police contact you?" I needed to figure out how this went so wrong.

"Parahuman crime gets handed over to the PRT. The cops were there but they stayed back."

"So it was a PRT negotiator?"

"Nope." Tattletale popped the word. "Just the Wards. And Glory Girl."

I knew she was needling me, but that was insane. The city left the safety of everyone in the bank in the hands of a bunch of teenagers. Teenagers were idiots. Teenagers were idiots well beyond the point when they were teenagers, I was living proof of that. I'm pretty sure the stupid doesn't drain out until age twenty five, at least if auto insurance rates are anything to go by.

Hell, I'm pretty sure Vista isn't even a teenager yet. Why the hell were they making calls around something like this? Did the PRT seriously think the ability to punch good gave you proficiency in defusing hostage situations? I may be frustrated with the Undersiders and this city in general, but this was demonstrating a level of stupid that made my passenger's aversion to the PRT seemed to have something of a reasonable foundation.

So they were boxed in and between Vista and Glory girl had no hope of escape even with Brian's cover. Clockblocker would have been able to lock down any of them with one hit, and the tinkers had them covered with ranged firepower. With the lack of negotiation they probably expected the Undersiders to either give up or make a desperate run where they could be picked off. That is if they didn't charge in. That would have been a stupid decision for the Wards, but I wasn't thinking very highly of their tactical acumen at the moment.

"Then what happened?"

Alec looked up from his laptop. "That's when Taylor suggested we take the fight to them."

I turned towards the girl and she shrugged slightly. "We had to do something they wouldn't expect the Undersiders to do, and we didn't really have any other options."

I felt a bit of guilt at that. I was a tinker. I was all about options. But short of outfitting everyone with jetpacks there was nothing I could make that wouldn't have defaulted the situation to another flavor of combat. There was also irritation at the Wards. If you want to trap a villain that's one thing, but they set it up in a way that encouraged fight over flight and just trusted it would work because 'the Undersiders run, they don't fight'.

I wondered if the weapons I made pushed them over the edge on that decision, but realistically speaking they would have tried to fight their way out regardless. As depressing as it was the cost/benefit relationship worked out in favor of at least trying to make a go of it.

After that I got details of the early part of the battle. Tattletale had seen through the costume change which would have let them freeze at least one of the dogs. That would effectively have ended the fight since there was no way I could see Rachel abandoning one of her animals. Tattletale filled me in on Aegis's 'invulnerability' which was of such middling nature he would probably have been better named Zombie Boy. Trust the PRT to obscure things through appearances.

Taylor was light on the details of how she brought down Clockblocker, which I was fine with. That close-up on the news had been enough. Alec took credit for dropping 'Browbeat' who had apparently been giving Brian some trouble.

"New cape." Tattletale explained. "Biomancy to bulk up and tactile telekinesis."

"Didn't help him against this baby." Alec spun his Taser around and rested it on his shoulder and action that drew eye rolls from the other Undersiders.

That triggered an accounting of how the other Wards were taken out one by one like a PG-13 slasher film. Brian had tricked Vista to get close to her by obscuring himself with darkness, then punched a pre-teen girl's lights out. Kid Win had apparently been able to teleport his cannon into the battle, just in case my tech envy wasn't strong enough already, but Alec had caused him to fall off. Twenty feet, onto asphalt. That was potentially very lethal. I would feel worse for him, but he was the one who defaulted to deadly force first. As for the other tinker that was Rachel's story.

The big girl was unusually engaged while telling it, and her dogs were picking up on her excitement. "So after that girl made the street trip Judas Gallant hit me with one of his fucking mind blasts." She grit her teeth, but there was a vindictive edge to it. "Pissed me off so much. Probably thought it would make me stupid. People think that." She gave me an accusatory look, but I just gestured for her to go on.

"Didn't go straight for him, got Angelica to take him by surprise, then I got him once he was down." Her hand dropped to the handle of the knife I gave her.

I tried not to look overly concerned. "Is he alright."

She smirked. "I cut all the moving bits and pistons and stuff for his armor. He's fine, but that suit's trash now."

That was a huge relief. It also demonstrated a lot more control and foresight that anyone would have given her credit for. I could tell Rachel wasn't dumb. I doubted her formal education even finished middle school, but she had been looking after herself for a long time. I would be willing to bet that her power came with some understanding of anatomy and biomechanics. She had been able to hit systems on the armor without killing Gallant and with a weapon she'd only had for a few hours.

Alec suddenly chortled. "You guys have to see this."

He spun the laptop around and showed us the gif displayed on the screen. It was a looped clip from the fight of Bitch taking down Gallant. I could tell she was cutting into his armor, but because of the angle of the shot, a partial obscuring of both capes, and the particular movement it looked like something else entirely. There was no nice way of putting it, it looked like an intimate act with Gallant as a less than willing participant.

"Wow. That's really something."

"Hold on, there's more. He scrolled down the page past more variations of same gif and a few captioned pictures of either cape. He stopped on one that had Rachel's masked face photo shopped over the head of a woman in a rather famous seen, captioned "Welcome gentle Sir Gallant. Welcome to the Castle Anthrax."

"I don't get it." Rachel was looking quizzically at the picture.

"You, uh, you don't see memes like that too often." I tried to put aside the fact that I may have destroyed another hero's reputation.

Tattletale clarified. "That's because people posting anything like that about a Ward on PHO get banned rather quickly."

"Spoilsports." Alec turned the laptop around and kept browsing.

"So when all that was going on what was happening in the bank?"

"Panacea tried to kill Taylor with a fire extinguisher." Alec quipped without looking up from his laptop.

I blinked at that. "Sorry, what? What? When did she get there?"

"From the start. Turns out Lisa was prancing around five feet from the most famous healer on the east coast and didn't notice a thing."

"Fuck off Alec, there was a lot going on."

Great. Panacea. Because this wasn't complicated enough both in terms of the local cape scene and my passenger's insight to specific capes. I could tell he was holding back his reactions because I wasn't getting the confusing mess she normally brought on. That said he still didn't feel good about this. "So what, did you swarm her with bugs?" I tried not to imagine the city and probably country's top healer enduring the Clockblocker special.

Taylor shook her head. "No, she did something to my bugs that interfered with my powers, some kind of feedback thing. It didn't end until Lisa pointed it out and I killed the bugs she modified."

That was bad. And unexpected. Panacea's capacity beyond healing was unknown, but the theories got kind of wild. The problem was that disruption of master control was incredibly dangerous. Taylor had enough confidence in her power that she was able to plant deadly spiders on everyone in a building without the slightest concern that one would get away from her. I knew she was towards the higher end of master power, but that was fine and consistent control. Messing with that without understanding it could have resulted in a corpse pile. It seemed recklessness in the city's heroes wasn't limited to the Wards.

"I didn't know she could do that."

Taylor shuddered. "That and more. She was threatening to give me cancer or a heart attack, or just screw with my weight and taste buds."

I tried not to react to that, but it was bad. There was the fact that it confirmed some of the theories about her power's reach, but mostly it was the blatant escalation. When I had watched this on the news I figured the Undersiders had gone off the rails somewhere during the robbery, but this clusterfuck was clearly a team effort. Those threats easily constituted maiming, which is part of the unwritten rules. Though given how much actual crimefighting that girl did compared to her charity work, did she even know about those conventions?

One thing that was clear was that Amy Dallon was a mess. I had actively been avoiding picking through my passenger's reactions to her because there was a huge amount and so much of it was bad. I did know there was concern, and concern on a timeline. That girl was close to the edge and without much support. From what I was hearing this situation was the last thing she needed.

"What happened next?"

Taylor seemed reluctant to talk about this. "I was really out of it because she was messing with me through my bugs. She was calling someone, so I got my baton out and tried to knock the phone away."

"The phone. With that baton." Oh dear God. "Does she still have a hand?"

"She tried to block it with the fire extinguisher." Taylor had used the word 'tried'. I considered what I had built into that baton and what would likely have happened. "It kind of exploded when I hit it." Yep, that sounds about right. Taylor looked absolutely mortified by her next statement. "I may have broken her wrist as well."

"Compound fracture, four places and a sprain on the other hand. She was pissed."

"I didn't know she could swear like that." There was no humor in Taylor's tone.

"It's always the nice ones."

Taylor swallowed. "That's when Glory Girl smashed in."

I nodded "I saw that happen." They had been the ones to walk out of the bank, not the city's top Alexandria package. Whatever they did I really hoped it wasn't a warmup for what happened with Aegis. "How did you get out of that?"

"She held Panacea at knifepoint."

I looked at Taylor who seemed to be fluctuating between shame and determination. "What, with my knife?"

"I don't think she knew what she was dealing with, and I wasn't about to demonstrate it. We kind of stared each other down until Lisa got back."

"Back from where?"

She just smiled at me. "Secrets of the craft."

So potentially the real reason for this entire endeavor. Or a target of opportunity, or she's just messing with me. God I hate this.

My power moved again and made another connection to the Resources and Durability constellation. The ability was called 'Rationing'. It essentially let me take the 'every part of the buffalo' approach to my work. Nothing was wasted anymore. Every scrap of metal, every cast off screw, I could find a use for all of it. Nothing was ever going to be overlooked or wasted again. Effectively it let me push my resources to the absolute maximum value I could possibly extract from them.

It provided a great way to stretch my limited resources. I would now be buying my own supplies, and this would let me get the most I could from them. It would also reduce the amount I'd have to purchase. I could do my best to keep my purchases innocuous, but there was always the chance something would set off an alert. Minimizing the volume would be really helpful with that.

"She tipped me off about the bugs and managed to needle them long enough for us to get an opening."

I didn't like the way she said needle. I doubted it was as simple as teasing the sisters about their fashion sense, and with how far Tattletale could conceivably dig that could have gotten really bad. I didn't think Taylor was in the mood to go into anymore details and doubted asking Tattletale directly would yield any results. I pushed that aside and moved on. "How'd you manage Glory Girl? The blades aren't good against force fields and I doubt even a full power swing from the baton could punch through her defenses."

Lisa looked particularly smug. "Not exactly. Her force field shorts out after each major hit. Gives a few seconds of vulnerability, so Taylor was able to swarm her." That was interesting. That meant it functioned basically the same way my Force Field formula did, only without the auto restore function she was blessed with. "After that we headed outside and well, I'm sure you saw her performance."

Taylor looked like she wanted to crawl into her clothes and disappear. I felt largely the same way and found myself leaning into my passenger's reactions to avoid showing it. He still didn't have the level of discomfort with what happened to Aegis that I did. Tattletale smiled at me and I had to wonder how much she was reading.

"He saw it, the news saw it. And by the looks of things half the internet will have seen it." Alec kept scrolling through a page on his laptop.

"Yeah, that was a striking scene." I kept my tone neutral.

"You think it was excessive?" Taylor asked the room in general, as if slapchopping a hero was something that happened every day.

"It was probably the only way to have stopped him. If Aegis won't back down when outmatched then he can't complain about people escalating against him."

Tattletale was probably right but I doubt the public will see it like that. I decided I needed to change the subject. "How did you break the field?"

"Lisa shot her."

I blinked. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, it was enough to bring down her defenses."

"You didn't mention you carried a gun."

"It's a hold out." It's also against the spirit of the unwritten rules unless it's tinker tech. You can get away with it against brutes, but knowing a cape carries one puts them on shaky ground. You found behavior like that in the Empire, and considering some of the powers capes threw around it was largely a stylistic choice rather than a force limiter.

Was the problem that I felt left out? I knew so damn much about firearms that I could have managed all kinds of modifications in the time allowed. I mean, giving out more weapons didn't sound like it would have made things better, but I could have added some reduced lethality options to it.

This was a tinker rabbit hole that I couldn't get stuck in. We had covered the entire fight up to Taylor's dramatic finish and no one was that keen to make the girl re-live that. There hadn't been any comments on it, but Taylor was still clearly on edge. An afternoon of conversation, tea, and friends had helped her relax to some extent, but it obviously bothered her.

That was a big relief for me. There was actually someone else here that was treating this event like it was serious. I couldn't expect much from Rachel, Brian, or Tattletale, but it looked like Taylor was grounded enough to recognize the significance of what happened. Maybe there was something to my passenger's regard for her.

"Everyone, you're not going to believe this." Alec looked positively ecstatic. "PHO has threads about the Undersider's new tinker, including pictures of him."

My blood ran cold and my mind spun. How? There was no way I could conceive of this happening, not unless we were totally compromised. How could this possibly happen? I had only been around the Undersiders in costume twice. If there were any cameras the first time I would have heard about it by now and the second time I had unmasked. There was no way this made any sense.

There was a ripple of panic and concern through the Undersiders except for Tattletale who just looked frustrated with Alec. He let the confusion build before turning the laptop around.

"Behold, the Undersider's new tinker, named by his fans. Presenting Lord Khepri."

The screen showed a picture of Taylor standing in the rain in front of the bank holding my knife. Beneath it was a list of details including descriptors of the Undersiders' new equipment, the items 'Lord Khepri' was confirmed to carry, theories about the composition of 'his' costume, notes about 'his' capabilities, and a note that an official statement from the PRT was pending.

"They think I'm a tinker? They think I'm a guy?" I couldn't tell which of those statements bothered her more.

"Yeah, I wonder why." Alec drawled. "I mean, this new cape in a professionally made costume shows up in the group at the same time they all get new tinker tech equipment, and that cape uses equipment that's like what the rest of the team uses only better. Why would they think the new cape is a tinker? I can't imagine."

"But I control bugs. How can they think I'm a tinker?"

"There are like five theories being argued about over how you control insects, what kind of technology you use, how you interface with it. Fascinating stuff if you're boring and have no life."

"Tinkers can do that?"

"Controller tinkers trigger from long term isolation, detachment, and depression. It normally results in some kind of drone or minion based technology, but outlier cases can result in specializations that influence living creatures."

The entire room turned to look at me and I realized I had spoken without thinking. That was not a good topic for me and I immediately regretted opening my mouth. Almost instinctively I connected myself up to my passenger and felt the support and compassion that had kept me going since my trigger. With everything else that link entailed I kind of hated myself for leaning on it, but I couldn't afford to deal with that right now.

"I researched that stuff pretty heavily around after my trigger." Which was a more believable explanation than how I had actually gotten that information. I left it at that and the group seemed to understand and back off. Alec as ever was a helpful diversion.

"Taylor, you have fan art! And fangirls!"

He showed off a new thread that had various drawings of Taylor in her costume, though the proportions were clearly leaning towards more of a male body type than she had. Taylor didn't exactly have a curvaceous figure but it seemed one picture with an unflattering angle from the news footage had been enough for the forum community to run with. And they were running pretty hard considering the handful of entries that were just red boxes with the words 'This image removed for violating community guidelines." in them.

"Any idea what Khepri means?"

Tattletale turned to Brian. "Egyptian scarab god."

I whistled. "That's the big leagues."

"What do you mean?"

Tattletale jumped in before I could reply. "Mythology based cape names go almost exclusively to villains. Anyone named after a God is particularly significant. This is actually a huge deal in the villain community, particularly because you didn't pick it yourself."

Taylor looked incredibly conflicted at that.

"When the truth comes out you're going to break all these poor girl's hearts. Well, eighty five to ninety percent of their hearts."

It wasn't much of a joke, but it shook off some of the dower mood that had settled over us. I could tell Taylor was still concerned and frankly so was I, The 'keep Taylor safe' objective would not be helped in the slightest by people thinking she was also the most valuable and exploitable type of cape in the world.

I had gotten the information I'd been looking for and the day was winding down. Rachel was the first to leave shortly after and Alec dove into a video game to the exclusion of the rest of the world. Taylor said her goodbyes and slipped downstairs. I made to follow shortly after her, but Brian intercepted me on my way out.

"I wanted to ask something. You know how you mentioned repair times?"

"Yeah?" Tattletale was hanging back watching our conversation.

He pulled out his karambit. There was a fracture that snapped off the blade right at the point where it curved. "Faced down against Browbeat. Lisa said his biomancy would stand up to normal blows but the knife would be enough to cause him some trouble without killing him." His face turned grim. "You were right about them not being good against force fields. He was able to catch the knife and break it."

"Tactile telekinesis. Pure luck, really. They were fighting in Grue's darkness." Tattletale chimed in.

I looked at the torn metal. That was cape powers at work, low end hypermaterials weren't enough to hold out against the variety of abilities you'd see in this business. I focused on the knife with my detection power. Part of it was here and part was somewhere towards the bay. Whatever broke off didn't stay at the bank. I could get a better feeling if I got closer, but it was a safe bet to say it was at the PHQ probably in either an evidence locker or a lab. Unfortunate, but it would sort itself out.

"The Taser did the trick though." Alec called from the couch without looking up from his game.

"This thing, it's actually a really good weapon. I hate to bring this up so soon, but do you think it can be repaired?"

I nodded. "No problem. It'll just take a couple of days."

He looked relieved. "Sorry to dump the work on you right after a rush job. I can pay you out of my share. When can you get started?"

"Started on what?"

He looked confused. "The repair. When can you start?"

"There's no reason for me to take it. Just stick it in a drawer or something."

"What?"

That had everyone's attention. Alec was looking at me from the couch.

What was this about? I made these things in my workshop. They had fiat backing. "I told you, they break and it will take two days to repair. Just put it aside and wait it out. There's no reason for me to take it off your hands."

"Hold on." Tattletale had a pained expression on her face. "Are you telling me this stuff is self-repairing?"

"Yes?" I looked around at their faces. "Was I not clear about that?"

"No!" her voice pitched up sharply. "No you weren't because that is not possible."

I reviewed my interactions with them. Ok, I hadn't spelled this out, but between my passenger and the rush order I'd been pretty distracted and damn it if I wasn't still exhausted from this morning and the emotional rollercoaster of this day hadn't made things any better. I didn't need to deal with this now. "All the parahuman powers on the planet and there's not one person who can make something that repairs itself?"

"There might be, but this isn't it." She pointed at the broken weapon. "It's a good knife, and nicely designed knife, but it's not going to fix itself."

"How do you know? I thought I was the tinker here." I had a lot of pent up resentment at this situation I was ready to lay on Tattletale regardless of how much she deserved it. Fortunately my passenger seemed to find a frustrated Tattletale somewhat amusing, so for once we were in alignment.

"Half of it's gone. If anything was happening I'd be able to pick up on it."

How much confidence did she have in her power? "Like you could pick up on Panacea being inside the bank?"

She ground her teeth together. "I wasn't looking specifically for her. I am at this, and that thing is not repairing itself."

The other Undersiders were watching this display. I could lay off, but that wouldn't resolve things and would just cause more problems when it repaired. I needed to explain this away.

"I told you, it takes two days."

"You expect me to believe you sold us self-repairing tinker tech? The only self-repairing tinker tech in the world?"

"It's a chunk of metal, not some finely calibrated power armor. And I know that you know that's crap. There's a bunch of tinker tech that sustains itself."

"Not outside of containment zones!"

"Sure, if you want to take the worst examples." I could demonstrate this with my key, but I want didn't shine any light on that. "Tell you what, that things still broken in two days and I'll make you enough knives to supply a kitchen, no questions asked."

Tattletale gaped at me. Brian and Alec gave her a questioning look. She rubbed her forehead and gave me a dismissive gesture. "He believes it, so maybe? I don't know. Fuck it, I'm going to bed." Before she left she turned and gave them a hard look. "Everyone, seriously, look after that stuff." She stormed off and slammed her door behind her.

"Easy to read, Huh?" Alec called after her.

"You know, you should probably have led your sales pitch with that."

"And you should probably give more than forty one hours lead time when you have a project like this." I sighed. I would probably be facing some repercussions for this. Depending on how Tattletale played it I could be getting some less than welcome attention. I would have to be a lot more careful, but at least now I had the capacity to look after myself. I was done being a passive player in this arrangement.

Sleep deprivation did not lead to the best decision making. Unfortunately I wasn't done with the day yet and would have a busy couple of days ahead of me. When I said my token goodbyes and slipped outside it seemed the day wasn't done with me either.

"Uh, hey." Taylor had been waiting in the shadows near the side door of the factory. The girl was a far cry from the terrifying figure she had struck during the bank heist as she stooped in the alley holding a bundle in front of her.

"Hi Taylor." She was clearly working up to something and I decided to give her the time she needed to find her feet. When I watched the broadcast I had been furious at her, but that was mostly a screen for how angry I was for creating the situation. She was the only one who seemed seriously upset by what happened. Maybe everyone else was much better actors than I gave them credit for, but I think it was more likely that the other Undersiders had something of a stronger commitment to the villain lifestyle than Taylor did.

The girl straightened her back and thrust the bundle forward. "I wanted to return these."

It was an old sweatshirt wrapped around my knife and baton, including the wrist sheath. There was a lot of intensity in the act and I couldn't imagine what was going through her head. Seeing as she was probably the only person on this team who might give me a straight answer I decided to see if I could find out what.

"Can I ask why?"

She took a moment to steel herself. "You, you gave us conditions for working with the team. I broke those today. You deserve to have these back."

Well this wasn't something I expected. My passenger still liked Taylor, but since the heist he was at least clamping down on the angelic choir nonsense. I took a breath and considered how to approach this.

"Actually you didn't." She gave me a confused look. "Technically."

"Technically?"

"Technically is a dicey space with the unwritten rules, but what you did was technically a nonlethal act. What happened today, there's a lot of blame to go around and I share a good chunk of that."

She gave me a questioning look. "I shouldn't have given you that sword, or that baton without making sure you knew what you were doing. All of this has been a lot to deal with, I was rushed and sleep deprived and I've been dealing with..." I cut myself off.

"Your thinker power?"

That was something I wanted to dance around. "Yeah, I've been having some problems with it. I'm not sure everything I get from it is as accurate as I thought."

She looked distinctly uncomfortable. "If it's any consolation I don't think Lisa's works as well as she thinks it does either."

"Maybe." I hope. "Anyway, you need to hold on to those." She looked at me, then at the bundle of items in her hands. "I hate to say this, but there's no going back." For either of us. "Everyone you run into from now on is going to assume you have that equipment. You're going to need it just to manage what's coming."

She looked practically ill at the concept.

"Take it, practice, get a better handle on how to use it."

She nodded. "Are you alright with what happened today?"

That was a hell of a question. No, I wasn't, but I was going forward regardless. "I'll find a way to deal with it."

That seemed to be enough for her. We went our separate ways with her heading deeper into the Docks while I looped towards downtown. I would find a way to deal with it, but I was planning to handle that in a distinctly more direct way.

I had important work to do.

Jumpchain abilities this chapter:

Machinist (Gargoyles) 200:

You are an expert mechanic. You can rebuild and improve a helicopter in 12 hours or create a functional motorcycle from spare parts. If honed, this ability will let you make nearly anything from incredibly advanced robots to nanite swarms in only a few months time.

Rationing (Mad Max Gauntlet) 100:

When you don't have much, it's important to be careful with what you've got. You're very good at saving supplies, ensuring that anything you find of use stays found and that it doesn't get wasted by accident. You'll get every last drop of fuel from a can, and never drop some plastic tubing just because you can't think of a use at the moment.