Chapter 11: 8-1 Interlude Amy

Amy Dallon was in agony. Once the adrenalin had worn off the true extent of her injuries became brutally clear. She had refused painkillers until after the Wards were treated. She couldn't afford to have her focus compromised. She couldn't afford to make a mistake. As soon as the cast was on she was healing people again. Even an injury this severe wasn't enough to let her stop.

Her wrist was a mess. Both of them were damaged, but the sprain was so overshadowed by the compound fracture that she barely noticed it. She'd seen the x-rays. It was an odd feeling looking at something she would have been able to fix in minutes and knowing how long and painful the recovery process would be. There might have to be surgeries. She could even need an internal fixation plate before this was over.

The pain and worry had taken her normal healing from tedious to insufferable. After treating her sister the first Ward she had to deal with was Carlos. She hated working on Carlos. The way his body shifted function in response to every change made healing him like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. This was worse than all the previous times put together. After what the bug girl had done to him.

She shuddered when she remembered that knife at her own throat. Knife? It was practically a sword. In her mind it kept getting bigger and bigger until the image of a woman in insect armor carrying a sword that dwarfed Chevalier's cannon blade loomed over her.

She shook off the thought. Carlos had been divided into seven pieces with a few swings of that weapon. Nobody else could have lived through that attack, and he even his miraculous survival brought unique challenges. Every piece of his body was trying to turn itself into something that could be self-sufficient without the other parts. That meant they would fight attempts to be combined into one person. Unlike the times he had lost an arm or leg every piece needed to be prepped at the same time or the entire mass would pull itself apart. Worse only the chest-torso piece still had his consciousness in it. Dealing with that dead stare and lolling tongue from his face while trying to wrangle his body together would have been hellish on her best day, much less with a broken wrist.

The visit to the Wards headquarters hadn't gone much better. No-one had escaped without some injury. Blake had at least been able to patch himself up with his biomancy and despite being tased had the closest thing to a victory in this whole mess when he broke Grue's knife. Chris was being chewed out by the director but apparently had taken a bad fall that put him out of the fight. Missy had been knocked unconscious and hearing what happened to Dennis would give her a whole new set of nightmares.

Then there was Dean. His armor might have been able to endure the attack from Hellound's dogs, but the villain had gotten her hands on one of those super knives as well. Once he was pinned she went to town on him. The suit was a complete write off. Every system was shredded and he'd had to be cut out of it while she'd been dealing with Carlos. Insufferably he tried to keep in good spirits about the whole thing, which ruined any satisfaction she might have been able to feel at his defeat. Hellhound had clearly been going for the suit, not him, but he had still picked up a handful of shallow cuts. They were so impossibly finely made that she could seal them with barely any effort. That said actually feeling the layers of cells that had been sliced in half rather than torn apart, like what happened in a normal cut, was harrowing.

Miss Militia had called off the other Wards when they pressed for information about Tattletale. That was the last thing she wanted to re-live right now. Instead she was sulking through the basement of the PRT building's attached hospital. It had been built to stop capes with injuries from being photographed when they were discharged. There were high security areas connected directly to the PRT headquarters, but the rest of it was a conventional downtown hospital.

And like a coward she was sneaking through back routes to the exit so she wouldn't see any patients. Patients she'd feel compelled to heal. She hated herself for it, but she knew even a broken wrist wasn't enough excuse to withhold treatment from someone dying of a terminal illness. Too much, it was all too much.

She had turned into a side hallway when a cape stepped out into her path. It was unusual to see one here, but they weren't actually confined to the high security wing. She didn't recognize his costume, but there were about a dozen minor heroes in the city and she hadn't kept track of all of them.

The man was tall but not particularly muscular. He had broad shoulders that were amplified by his long wool coat. Engraved metal panels decorated the coat, gloves, and parts of the rest of the costume. His left wrist had an elaborate and heavy bracer clasped to it that rested over the sleeve of his coat. He wore belts of pouches around his waist and a bandoleer across his chest. His mask was a well-made and stylish steel visor, but the rest of his head and face were covered by tied bandannas. That combination should have looked sloppy, but the whole design came together with a level of style and elegance she rarely saw even in Protectorate capes.

"Hi?" She asked. "Can I help you?"

"Yes actually. I was looking for you."

Amy's heart sank. She had a policy to not take requests, but could she refuse a hero? Not if it was for himself, but if he was asking for a friend or family member she would have to hold to her policy. She looked around. Why had she taken this deserted route? If he got upset about being turned down there was no one around to step in.

"What do you want?"

"There's something I need to resolve." She gave him a confused look. "I made the weapon that did that." He pointed at her wrist.

Amy froze. Tinker. She should have seen it, the metal, the pouches, the mask design. This was the new weapon tinker that had supplied the Undersiders. She had told the PRT that the bug girl wasn't a tinker. There were hints from how the Undersiders had talked about things, slight references, the way no one deferred to the bug girl regarding those weapons or anything technical. Even with all that it wasn't enough for them to make a definite judgement.

But Amy knew. She knew from how she had jammed the girl's power, the feedback connecting directly to her mind. But she couldn't explain that. It would reveal too much about her capabilities. So she put the city at risk and left an unknown villain tinker running unchecked all because she was too ashamed to come clean about her abilities.

Her eyes darted over the capes equipment. He didn't look like he was carrying weapons, but that meant nothing. She remembered her terror as the bug cape sprouted that damn baton from her hand and swung it at her. The thing was so thin it looked like it wouldn't trouble a fly, but it hit the extinguisher like one of Vicky's punches. The sensations came back to her in a flash. The metal crumpling. The foam exploding over her. The snap of the bones in her wrist.

Bones that still throbbed hours later.

"My sister's in the building. If I scream she'll hear me." It was a bluff, and a terrible one at that. They were in a nearly abandoned corner of the basement. The best she could hope for was some janitor or technician stumbling across them.

"Then I guess I'll have to do this quickly." He reached into one of his pouches and Amy flinched back, her mind running through a thousand horrible possibilities. Like that bug girl his costume completely covered him. The only skin she could see was his eyes. There was no chance she would be able to touch him before he unleashed whatever he was planning.

Instead of a weapon he pulled out a tiny plastic container of liquid and what looked like a piece of some root vegetable. He crushed them in his gloved hand and she could smell vinegar and... ginger? The mass in his hand suddenly started to shine and he casually tossed it into the air.

Light burst out from the mixture and washed over her. She flinched and covered her face with her hands, but the energy didn't hurt. In fact it did just the opposite.

She felt the bones in her wrist move back into place. The horrible pain was gone along with the sense of the injuries themselves. This hadn't just accelerated the healing, it erased the injuries completely, either making them never happen or healing so well there was no sign of damage. Her sprained wrist was feeling perfect as well, and every minor scrape and bruise she'd picked up through the fight in the bank was gone.

Better than that she felt refreshed. The slow buildup of stress and tension from too many long nights washed out of her as the light hit her and she felt calmer and more focused than she had in months, maybe even years.

All the work and suffering she'd been preparing herself for, the weeks of pain, the surgeries, the physio therapy, it was all washed away in an instant. Was this what the people she healed felt? Suddenly Amy understood their gratitude a little better. It was even enough to overwhelm the innate dread at the fact that she had just been hit by an unknown tinker tech medical treatment.

Looking at the tinker she felt that gratitude, but it clashed violently with every emotion she been seething in this afternoon.

"So are you still going to scream?" He asked tilting his head. She hated how she couldn't see any of his expressions. All she had to go on were his eyes, which had the gall to look amused.

"I should." She rolled her left wrist, enjoying the range of movement. With the fingers that were free of the cast on her right hand she picked at the cloth brace wrapped around it until it fell to the floor. "You supplied weapons to villains. I should get the PRT here to arrest you."

He let out a sigh. "I'd really prefer a chance to talk."

She didn't want to engage him. Actually, that wasn't entirely true. She wanted to engage him in a very specific way. She wanted to grab him and scream at him to go upstairs and clear out the damn ICU. She wanted to pin him down and show him pictures of children's cancer wards until he committed himself to emptying them. She wanted him to not be a villain.

But if he wanted to talk then maybe she could get some information out of him. Maybe enough to send the Protectorate after the Undersiders. Her mind spun off an image of Protectorate heroes raiding the Undersiders base, probably in a stinking sewer somewhere. Along with the pleasant thoughts of Miss Militia unloading a machine gun into the bug cape, using what were definitely rubber bullets and not high explosive rounds, and Tattletale being carted off to the Birdcage while gagged and hogtied she imagined this tinker. He was captured and offered a plea deal. Yes, that would work. Make your stupid terrifying weapons for the Protectorate and spend nights and weekends clearing out hospitals. And lunch hours. And if he was a villain he didn't really need coffee breaks, right?

Amy realized she had been lost in thought and quickly tried to cover for herself.

"What, are you a member of the Undersiders?"

"No, I actually didn't make it past the membership vote." She gave him a horrified look. "And I wouldn't have signed up anyway." He qualified.

Wait, they didn't want him on the team? Who would turn down a tinker? If it was a vote he could have been blocked by someone. A conflict with someone on the team? It was an avenue that she might be able to exploit. If she could split them apart then at least they wouldn't be able to get any more of those weapons. "Then how'd you end up working with them."

He considered this. "I saved them from Oni Lee. They wanted to make it up to me."

"What?" She sputtered. "How did that lead to you giving them weapons?"

"They needed some gear and I agreed to sell it to them." He kept his tone level during the confession.

Money. God damn it always came down to money. Stupid greedy capes taking shortsighted cash grabs and ruining everyone else's life.

"Was it worth it?" She spat the words at him. "Was what they paid you worth all of this?"

There was a pause before he answered. "I don't know."

"What, is your conscience catching up with you?"

"No," He looked at her. "It depends on whether it's enough for me to stop Bakuda."

Amy had gotten a good head of steam going and with one comment he completely derailed it.

"What? Sorry, what?"

"Bakuda? Bomb tinker? She just joined the ABB and attacked Cornell before that."

"I know who she is. What does she have to do with this?"

He suddenly turned very serious. "She's going to go off the rails. Lung would have been able to keep her in line, but with him locked up we're looking at a city wide bombing spree."

This was insane. It figures, she finally finds another healer cape and he's completely off his rocker. "You're saying you sold tinker tech weapons to supervillains so that you could get money to stop a hypothetical bombing spree from someone who hasn't even done anything in this city yet?"

She could see his jaw clench under his mask. There was part of this he wasn't telling her. "Have you seen the video of Cornell? The effects of those bombs?"

She hadn't. Amy had enough stress in her life without seeking out cape horror stories from other cities. But she wasn't going to let this person use some other tragedy to excuse his stupidity and greed. "It doesn't matter. She'll run out of whatever stock of explosives she's built before it can get out of hand." Her family had come to that conclusion during one of the rare team meetings she was able to attend.

"I used to think that before I fought Oni Lee."

"What does he have to do with anything?"

"You know how when he copies himself he duplicates all the grenades and equipment he carries?"

She vaguely remembered her family talking about something like that. "So what?"

"That works on Bakuda's bombs. As long as Oni Lee's around she has infinite copies of everything she builds and he goes from an annoyance to being able to put out firepower that would rival The Triumvirate."

Amy's mouth went dry and she felt sweat begin to bead on her forehead. "You can't know that."

"When I fought Oni Lee he tried to get me with a localized plasma grenade. It exposes everything within five meters to heat levels you only see inside of large stars."

She swallowed nervously. "Bullshit. I would have heard about it if something like that went off. The news would be all over the city."

"I broke his arm before he could use it and took it after he ran off."

Her eyes darted across his costume. He had been so distracting, so disarming that she nearly forgot who she was talking to. Oni Lee was a difficult opponent even for her family or experienced Protectorate capes. She wouldn't normally take a claim like that on faith but with what he could make she could see him besting the assassin. Still, that didn't mean she was going to buy the rest of his story. "So what, you can heal, make super knives, and analyze other tinker tech."

"Yes, actually." His answer was quick and flippant.

"Not buying it." In response he let out a chuckle. A fucking chuckle. "What?" Amy spat.

"It's that I just had pretty much this exact conversation with Tattletale."

The mention of that woman made Amy's gust wrench. She cursed herself for warming up to him. This was the kind of horrible slime that got chummy with supervillains.

"What, you two are close?"

"Actually I annoyed the hell out of her. I don't' think she likes me very much."

Or maybe he wasn't that bad. "What did you mean by the same conversation?"

"When I tried to explain my tinkering she was screaming about how it wasn't possible, then she slunk off with a headache."

The news lifted Amy's spirits more than was probably strictly appropriate. One of the worst parts of the whole ordeal was the thought of that bitch laughing at the fact that she almost destroyed Amy's life all while probably perched on top of a pile of money and caviar and fur coats that were probably made out of baby seal skin and endangered species. Her crawling off with a thinker headache felt like pure karma and Amy couldn't keep the smile off her face.

"Assume I believe you about being able to figure out her bombs. Why does that make you sure she's going to attach the city?"

He let out a breath. "I have a thinker power." From his posture and tone it was more like he was confessing to a sin than bragging about an ability.

God damn it. First Tattletale, then Dean, and now this guy. Why was she surrounded by fucking thinkers? That was of course assuming he was telling the truth and not just crazy.

"What, that lets you get inside her head? Tells you what she's planning?"

"No, it doesn't work that way." He paused as if considering what to say. "I get hunches about things, like how to feel about stuff. I can piece that together into hints about what I should do."

"So what are you getting about Bakuda?"

"Dread." His voice was dead serious. "Whatever she's planning it's horrible on the level of the worst capes. And I mean the worst worst capes, the ones no one likes to talk about. Given what I know about her and what she's capable of the potential scale of this is as bad as it can get."

At that moment Amy at least was convinced that he believed his own story. That was a big step up from her initial fears. Crazy and well-meaning was a lot better than strait up villainous.

"So what are you planning to do about it?" She could at least try to nail down his intentions.

He took a slow breath and starting listing things. "Build up my lab. Improve my equipment. See if I can crack her ECCM. Build counters for as many types of bombs as I can. Help the city prepare." The prospect seemed to exhaust him.

"How do you plan to do that?"

"Well, for one make sure their best healer is in top form."

Amy flushed at that. "I'd thank you, but you caused this mess in the first place."

"And now I fixed it. Problem solved." His tone wasn't as flippant as the words suggested. This seemed to be wearing on him and Amy took some satisfaction in that.

She was still frustrated, but at least she didn't feel threatened anymore. If she could talk this guy around they might be able to get him to turn on the Undersiders, or at least expose them.

"Hey," She shifted to a slightly friendlier tone of voice. "What should I call you?"

He gave her a tired shrug. "Haven't got a cape name yet."

Amy gaped. "You seriously put all that together without a cape name? You fought Oni Lee without a cape name?"

"Branding is for public relations. I've had tinker stuff to do."

Something occurred to her. "What about the bug girl?"

"She didn't have one, but I'm guessing you haven't seen the online reaction?"

She shook her head and felt a note of dread. She hated dealing with the internet community. Setting aside the fact that people couldn't understand her 'no requests' policy no matter how many times she explained it the other interactions were just exhausting. She avoided it as much as she could.

"What's happened?"

"It looks like they're going with Khepri." She gave him a questioning look. "Egyptian bug God."

Amy would have preferred the girl getting stuck with something like Warf Roach, but she knew how those things got out of hand. She'd have to check PHO later to see how this came about.

She put that aside and steeled herself for a question she'd been dreading. "That thing you used to heal me? What was it? Is it safe?" She was terrified of the answer. There weren't that many types of technology that she could imagine being able to heal a person the way he just had. All of them were incredibly dangerous. More than a few of them were grounds for a kill order. Worst case he'd admit to the kind of technology that gets you on the S-class lists.

"It's fine. There's no risk." She gave him a questioning look hoping he'd go on. "The mechanics are complicated, but it's perfectly safe."

She grit her teeth at the non-answer. "If it's so safe you should be out healing people."

"I'm pretty sure that's what I was just doing."

She glared at him. "I mean really healing. There's a city full of people who need your help as much as I did. If you care about the city what's stopping you?" Hopefully she could get some details on how his healing worked. She desperately hoped it wasn't based on one of the technologies the PRT banned outright.

"Well, first my healing doesn't work for free. If I go all out I'm going to run out of resources eventually, which will just leave everyone screwed when a serious disaster happens."

Amy's heart dropped at that, but she couldn't argue with it. Too many people with healing abilities were limited either in scope or endurance. She hated the algebra of it, but he had probably done more good by saving his resources for her than if he had healed freely. Of course it was his fault she was injured in the first place, so that was all crap.

"The Protectorate could get you all the resources you'd need. If you joined they'd be able to set you up with facilities, materials, support, everything." Unless time was the limiting factor. Or he was working with some technology that was under a blanket ban.

"I'm not joining the Protectorate." There was no uncertainty in his tone.

"Why not?" Amy was dreading the answer to this. If his tech was an S-class threat waiting to happen them forget him helping her heal, the PRT would be hunting him down for a trip to the Birdcage or a kill order.

He sighed. "My power warned me against it."

"What?" Once again he managed to jump the rails of this conversation.

"My thinker power? It told me joining the Protectorate was a bad idea."

Amy was really starting to hate thinkers. "So you got a bad feeling and decided working with villains would be better?"

"It's a little more complicated than that."

"Then explain it to me." Amy was frustrated, but if she could leverage that into getting more information out of him then so much the better.

He considered for a moment. "Ok, my power? It doesn't give me clear answers, just kind of feelings about things, but feelings about enough things in enough detail can let me figure stuff out. There are some bad things about the Protectorate as a whole, not unforgivable, just the level of corruption you'd probably find in any group that size. If it were Boston or New York I might be ok signing up, but not in here."

"Why? What's different about Brockton Bay?"

He was reluctant to get into this, but at her unflinching stare he relented. "Well, everything my power tells me says I wouldn't get along with Armsmaster. Not to the point of violence, just that it would be a bad relationship."

Amy could admit the man was somewhat intense. This tinker was frustrating enough for her. She could easily see him being at odds with the Protectorate leader. "Is that it?" If he was basing his decisions on something as minor as that she had probably given him too much credit.

"No." He was looking distinctly uncomfortable and Amy was taking no small pleasure in putting him on the spot. There was a pause before he continued. "Have you met the local PRT director?"

She nodded. The woman could be a terror but was unquestioningly devoted to her job. "Yea. What about her?"

He looked dower as he replied. "I'm pretty sure Director Piggot is insane."

Amy bit down at her natural reaction to this cape calling anyone else's sanity into question. Instead she switched to a placating tone of voice.

"Really? What makes you say that?"

The tinker started making abstract gestures. "There's a general feeling that it would be dangerous to work under her. Also some sense of instability around her, kind of tied to something in her past. I don't' think she likes capes, at least that's the impression my power gives me. I haven't dug into it enough to piece anything else together, but there are major red flags connected to the Protectorate ENE. More than I'm willing to risk."

"So you decided joining a gang would be better?"

"I haven't joined any gang. I have a single business relationship with the smallest group in the city."

"But you still expect me to believe you care about the city? You couldn't find anyone else to work with."

He muttered something. "What was that?" With a pained look he repeated himself.

"I did think about approaching New Wave."

Amy tensed but was angry enough to not get sidetracked. "Oh, really? Did you get some bad feelings about my Aunt Sarah as well?"

"No, she was fine." He answered so naturally that Amy couldn't see any duplicity there.

"So what was it?"

"Look, I don't know if you want to get into this."

Amy looked at the man. There was very little chance anything good was going to come from this, but she wasn't backing down now. "No, I want you to tell me what was so bad it made working with villains the better option."

"It's actually..." He stopped and considered things, then took a breath and pressed forward. "Well, sorry to say this about your mother, but it was pretty much Brandish that kept me from trying."

Carol? He had a problem with Carol? This seemed like a cheap psychological trick, trying to drive a wedge between Amy and her family. But as far as the public was concerned their relationship was fine. Did he actually have a thinker power? More likely Tattletale had sent him here to needle her some more. She didn't want to deal with this. The last thing in the world she wanted was some outsider's thoughts on her relationship with Carol.

But Amy had to admit there was some part of her that wanted to hear someone try to tear down the woman. Just to see what they had to say. "What about Brandish?"

The tinker let out a slow breath. "Look, there's a lot to unpack here. I have to sort this stuff out from emotional reactions, so it's not precise. It's a lot of work to figure out where the bad is coming from."

"So my mom is giving you bad feelings?" He made an exasperated gesture. She just waited for him to elaborate.

"Ok, none of this is totally solid, it's just warnings from my power." Amy nodded and made a 'get on with it' gesture. "The sense I get is she's been messed up for a long time. Like, long enough that I can't get a reading where that isn't the case. It could go back to her trigger event. Considering the nature of her powers that probably means there was some pretty bad physical trauma with an impact that was never dealt with."

She furrowed her brow. "What do you mean by that?"

"Breaker means there was probably a threat, or something she wanted to escape. The striker power means it was probably direct and physical, likely with a threat of injury."

Amy blinked. "You're using trigger theory to analyze my family?"

"Yeah?" He answered like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"That stuff isn't proven! There are all kinds of contradictions."

"Right, but there aren't any in New Wave."

How could he tell? "So you think Carol is messed up because of her trigger event?"

"I think she's messed up and has been for a long time. I think it could be her trigger event. From what I'm getting I think she has a mountain of trust and control issues and what feels like an unhealthy obsession with your sister."

The mention of Vicky brought up a surge of emotions that Amy hadn't realized she'd been keeping buried. "What, do you have a problem with her too?" He did that damn awkward contemplation thing again. "Why do you keep doing that?"

He sighed. "There's a lot to sort through here. I get different levels of details on different topics. The more there is the harder it is to figure out." He shook his head. "There's nothing that bad for Glory Girl." Amy didn't like the way he said 'that bad'. "There's some feeling of concern around her. Not malicious, just like there's not enough control. Maybe a lack of restraint?"

Amy remembered less than a week ago, the call from Vicky, the sixth time she had to save her sister from what would probably be at minimum aggravated assault if not a manslaughter charge. Still, it didn't prove anything. Anyone could make that kind of guess by watching her behavior in cape fights.

"Is that the limit of your prognosticating?"

Rather than take the insult at face value he stood there and looked contemplative. "There's also some level of concern connected to... proximity? Like being around her for long periods is a bad thing. That might be her aura. That messes with emotions right?"

"What of it?" Amy didn't like the way this was headed.

"I guess if it's on long enough it could change the way your brain responds to things. Emotions affect neurochemistry and neurons that fire together wire together, that kind of thing."

"You can't know that." Amy's tone was more defensive than she intended.

"No, it's just a theory." He concentrated again. "My power's telling me that staying close to Glory Girl for long periods would be bad, so I'm going with that. For all I know it could be a specific power interaction that would be a problem for me and everyone else could be fine. The idea that it could cause emotional disorders is just a theory."

Amy clenched her jaw. She hated anyone talking about Vicky that way, but details from his ramblings were jumping out at her. Had Mark's depression been as bad before Vicky triggered? Did Carol get more distant? And her own feelings...

No, it was too convenient an explanation. She was being handed a way to shift the blame for all of her failings onto someone who did nothing but try to be a hero. Who was a proper hero, unlike her. She hated him for giving her hope. You couldn't trust thinkers. Even if he wasn't getting inside her head Tattletale could have sent him here with a list of things to say to break her down even more.

"Anything else?"

"Uh, maybe?"

"What?" She asked, more harshly than she meant too.

"I was just thinking about your sister's powers. They don't really make sense."

Amy rallied at this. "So you admit your trigger theory is crap?"

"No, I mean they don't make sense as coming from Brandish and Flashbang. There's no basis for the emotional component. Unless... was your sister dating Gallant before she triggered?"

Amy froze. She didn't like Dean, but she wasn't going to give away his secret identity to some mentally unstable thinker/tinker. "What makes you think that?"

"There aren't a lot of other emotion based powers in the city, and he was active before she triggered. It seemed like a probable source for her aura. Maybe. I don't have a good handle on Gallant's power."

The dread she'd been feeling dropped to a manageable level. Unlike that other bitch at least he could admit he wasn't perfect. As frustrating as he was to deal with it was a million times better than the feeling that all your secrets were being dragged out of your brain.

"You know that stupid knife you gave Hellhound wrecked his armor." She sneered. "If you were worried about the safety of the city maybe you should be more concerned about that."

Annoyingly he just waved her off. "Tinker's shouldn't take anything into the field they're not prepared to lose. He'll have to use an older suit, or spend some time getting the next one ready."

Right, the public fiction that Dean was a tinker rather than a blaster/thinker. Of course he would think the armor could just be rebuilt or replaced. In reality Chris would have to put days, maybe weeks of work into getting the suit back together. And no wonder he didn't understand Dean's power if he was working from the wrong starting point.

She must have shown some of that concern on her face, because he picked up something was wrong.

"Wait, I thought he was a Focal tinker. Is there something else going on?"

And once again Amy was lost. This conversation was becoming infuriating. She honestly didn't know if she was dealing with mad ramblings or some kind of high level thinker insight.

"Sorry, what?"

"Focal tinkers concentrate on only one item, they just rebuild and refine it. They're even more restrictive than hyperspecialists. They don't have any specialization beyond the one thing they can make. I figured Gallant was like that, just rebuilding that power armor with emotion blasts over and over. But there are some tinkers that have some serious drawbacks to what they make, like a physical or mental cost. Is that what we're talking about here?"

Amy blanched. This was deeper stuff than had been covered in her parahuman studies courses. She wanted to dismiss it as nonsense, but enough of it sounded familiar that there had to be some grounding.

"How do you know about that stuff? Is it your thinker power?"

"Not exactly. Or sort of? I have a pretty good understanding of how powers work, especially tinkers. Look, if Gallant is going to go off the deep end if he has to keep rebuilding his armor then the Protectorate should probably hold him back from frontline work. You don't want to take risks with that kind of thing."

"Don't worry about it." Amy hated absolving him for his responsibility in wrecking the armor, but if he kept picking at this there was a real chance that Dean's identity could get exposed. She needed to change the subject. "You were saying something about my sister's power."

"Oh, yeah." Amy wasn't thrilled talking about this, but if he was able to identify a Ward thanks to information she gave there would be hell to pay. "About her powers, how close is Brandish to Manpower?"

And once again she was thrown for a loop. "What? Why?"

"Your sister's powers suggest a link to him rather than to Flashbang. Usually that means there's something of an emotional connection."

"Are you saying my mom and Uncle Neil had an affair?"

He looked almost as uncomfortable with the subject as she was. "It could be she built up a trusting relationship with Manpower that facilitated the kind of connection that allowed second generation powers. Just, what I'm getting about her from my power says that's not too likely. I guess an affair between them could explain it."

"That's ridiculous." She drew herself up. "I can sense genetics when I heal someone. Vicky is not Uncle Neil's daughter."

"It doesn't have to be genetic. You just need an emotional link. Even uncertainty over her parentage would have done the trick."

"I'm not listening to this. You're just spouting crazy image board conspiracy theories."

"Maybe I'm wrong. My power's not precise and I've had to reevaluate a lot of stuff from it." That was what was so annoying. He was loose enough in his predictions that there was room for all kinds of errors without disproving his overall outlook. If he had absolute confidence in his guesses then she would be able to bring them down by refuting one aspect of them. Instead the best she could do was get him to admit some aspect of his theories was less likely than he previously thought.

"You wanted to know why I stayed away from New Wave. Well, I kept getting stuff like this from my power. I didn't want to get caught up in someone else's family drama." She still wasn't sure she believed him, but it was a harrowing idea that her family dysfunction was enough that someone would rather deal with villains than get involved with it.

And that brought up some dark thoughts. "Well what about me then? What does your power tell you about me? How do my powers make sense in your whole trigger theory model?"

From the way he looked at her Amy immediately regretted the question. She actually took a half step back, as if his answer was going to be a physical blow.

"My power is telling me that answering that question is not a good idea."

Amy felt a surge of relief and hated herself for it. She knew there was something terrible waiting for her, but she didn't want to face it. Just a little more time where she could pretend. Where she could pretend Carol wasn't right about her. Pretend that she could make up for her past, for what a horrible person she was if she tried hard enough.

And she hated that all her feelings were on display for a half mad tinker who worked with villains and might just be following one of Tattletale's scripts to set her up for another fall.

"I'm sorry."

Amy snapped up to face him. Well, face him as well as she could through his stupid bandannas and visor mask. "You're sorry? What are you sorry for? Supplying deadly weapons to villains? Breaking my wrist? Injuring and traumatizing the Wards? For digging into my life? Huh? What exactly are you sorry for?"

He stood stock still as she hurled abuse at him. She was red faced and near tears, but the bastard was just standing there and taking it.

Finally, after she caught her breath, he spoke. "Just so you know, I'm not happy with how this turned out. It was a mess."

"A mess that you caused." Her voice was bitter.

He gave her a look that made her feel uncomfortable. "I'm taking responsibility for my part in this."

"What exactly? The attack on the bank? The injured wards? The Undersiders getting away?"

"I don't think you would have been able to beat the Undersiders even if I hadn't made anything for them."

"What?" Amy felt indignant at the suggestion. "They..."

"They were holding back. Massively. If they didn't have my weapons they may have done something desperate. They were in a building full of civilians. They didn't want to hurt them, but the Wards were putting that to the test."

"You're making excuses for villains."

"Yes I am." His lack of denial cut the legs out from under her. "I accepted what I was getting into when I made my deal. But there are conventions that are designed to limit damage, to keep normal people safe when capes start to throw down. Those were broken today, and not by the Undersiders."

"What are you talking about?"

He looked frustrated. "The heroes were the ones who decided to escalate. They assumed the Undersiders would rather be captured than end up being seen as a more serious threat. Every villain holds themselves back and each time they go further than their limit the limit moves. Before this the Undersiders were restricting themselves to smash and grab jobs. If the Wards had let them run for it they might have gotten away or they might have been captured, but they would have had incentive to stay at that level of restraint. Instead they created a situation where they had to fight. Now people know they're willing to take thing that far. Going back to their previous level of restraint is just not possible."

The way he talked about limits, restrictions villains placed on themselves, how if you went past them there was no turning back. Did he know? Did he know why she was restraining herself? She looked at him, but there was no hint he was talking about her. It could be a coincidence, but could she trust that? He was a thinker, or very good at pretending to be one. Was he seeing inside her head, or was she just being paranoid?

"So they should have done nothing? Just let them get away?"

"There's such a thing as a measured response and it's a very important concept for capes."

This was insane. The Wards were heroes and this was a villain, or at best an arms dealer who thought he could pass judgement. "Where do you get off criticizing them?"

He took a slow breath before continuing. "Tell me, you know these people. Did any of them look at this situation and think it was serious, or did they come figuring they would get an easy villain capture and a picture in the newspaper? There were thirty nine people in the bank with you. Did the Wards even confirm their safety before they lined up like they were on a photoshoot?"

"They're not the bad guys." Amy was beginning to feel like that was a desperate defense. "The Undersiders were the ones who robbed the bank. They were the ones who took hostages. They planted deadly insects on everyone there!"

He looked at her seriously. "Let me ask you something. When you messed with bug girl's control, did you know what would happen to all the spiders she was commanding, or did you assume they would just stand down?"

Amy shifted awkwardly. "What do you mean?"

"I mean disrupting the control of a master like that could have put everyone at risk. So either you had complete understanding of the feedback between her and the spiders neural systems that allowed you to block direct commands without defaulting the creatures back to their base instincts, or you warped them to throw out a jamming field and hoped you didn't end up with dozens of lethal bites from the feedback."

Amy put up a front of indignity, but inside she was sweating. She had felt out the brains of those black widows. She'd felt the way they were being controlled and, though it had taken some time she'd been able to create feedback that blocked new orders and information without letting the other spiders run free. Vicky didn't pick up on what that meant, but he did. So the only two explanations were that she had no regard for the lives of the public or that she's been lying about not being able to affect brains. Damn it, she hated dealing with thinkers. Except this wasn't some secret that had been dug out from the depths of her soul, it was basic logic that anyone with insider knowledge of the attack could put together.

"Once that giant cannon came out, or people started making threats about cancer..." she felt a pit open in her stomach. "There was no longer any reason to hold back. At that point the Wards were basically betting on the Undersiders being more concerned about casualties than they were."

A cloud of dread settled on Amy and she tried to avoid showing how much this was bothering her. "So what should they have done?"

"I don't know." He cut her off before she could reply. "I mean I really don't know. The situation makes no sense. I don't know why teenagers were sent to deal with a hostage situation. I don't know why the Wards are even allowed to operate independently in this city. I don't know why a public super powered brawl in a crowded part of the city could be seen as a preferable option to anything else, including letting non kill order villains escape. How many civilian lives would it be worth to bring in a villain? There were stupid decisions on both sides here, but only one of those sides is supposed to be acting in the public good."

Amy watched the frustration bleed off the man. Clearly the whole situation bothered him, but to her frustration she couldn't find a way to frame it to turn him against the Undersiders.

"This whole system?" He spoke quietly. "It's not stable. Those conventions, the unwritten rules, there the only things keeping it from turning to chaos. I'm not endorsing how things work, I'm just acknowledging it. That's what I meant about Bakuda. That's what happens when the breaks come off."

"So that's it? You're perfectly fine with the way things went down? No guilt at all?"

"If there was no guilt I wouldn't be here."

"And you think I'm the only one you have to make it up to?"

"Well you didn't decide to turn a hostage crisis into a publicity stunt."

"That's why you came here? Because I fit your moral standards and to make sure the city still had its healer for this imagined bombing spree?" He actually looked uncomfortable at that. Good.

"That's not completely it."

"Oh? What is it then?"

"My power, that is my thinker power? It's kind of concerned about you."

And Amy shifted once more from anger to dread. The emotional rollercoaster of this conversation was exhausting. Where Tattletale had kept pushing her further and further into despair he seemed content to throw her in a random direction every third sentence. One moment she was furious, then concerned, then defiant, then ashamed. Was that his game? Keep her off balance so she wouldn't be able to counter him.

In a way it was worse than dealing with Tattletale. This wasn't pulling her deepest fears straight out of her mind. He admitted he was working with limited information, which meant there was a semi-logical chain to his deductions. Sometimes it was blatantly wrong, like about Dean being a tinker, but generally she could follow his thought process. He knew she could alter living things. He knew she could mess with brains. He knew what she had threatened the bug girl with. Between his tinker and thinker powers he probably had a better idea of what she was capable of than anyone else. Of course he'd be concerned about what she'd do if she went bad. When she went bad.

Was all that stuff about capes holding back and consequences building to this? She hated the idea that it was a villain, well borderline villain, who finally saw her for who she was. That he was the only one really concerned about the threat she represented.

Amy steeled herself. "Concerned how?" Despite her best effort she felt her voice waver.

He seemed nervous. Of course he would be. He knew what she would become.

"Uh, are you doing ok?"

And once again he proved he was capable of pulling the rug out from under her. "What?"

"Like, personally, emotionally, are you doing ok?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know you do really long shifts, and you don't seem to have much going on outside your work. You usually look pretty tired as well. And I'm not sure how healthy your home life is. My power's concerned you're going to hit a wall."

Amy was bouncing between emotions. Not knowing how to feel she decided to settle on offence. He spends half the conversation insulting her, criticizing her family, and trying to moralize against heroes and now he wants to pretend he cares about her? "Is your thinker power telling you about my family? You're ok with it digging into my personal life?"

"It's not really digging into anything, it's just worried about you. I mean, from what it's told me about Brandish I doubt she's that easy to live with. Plus there's your power."

"What about my power?" Amy snapped, faster than she intended.

"There's no connection to anyone else in New Wave. That means that there was a stronger emotional link from your biological parent than from anyone in your family."

It was a brutally clinical diagnosis of her family dynamic. The idea that her villain father loved her more than anyone in her family.

"What do you know about my father?" She half growled. Years of frustration was coming to the surface. "What did your power tell you about him?"

"Um, I didn't even know it was your father. I was just getting the sense of someone connected to you. It could have been anyone, but with your adoption it made sense that it would be a biological parent. That was an assumption."

He didn't know. It wasn't like Tattletale where he could shout the secret to the world. He was looking at her life through frosted glass and making guesses. Really good, well informed guesses, but there was a sense of distance there.

"So what do you know?" He paused and looked off to the side. "Well?"

"You're serious about this?"

She nodded, expressing confidence she didn't really feel.

"Ok, I know that they, well I guess that's he, really cares about you. Like, a lot. It's endearing, really."

Of course a villain would be the only one who could love her. "What else?"

"Uh, I'm pretty sure he's a strong cape. Like top tier. There's this feeling of respect and caution."

"Because he's dangerous."

"Yeah, but not in the random violence way. The closest comparison I could make would be... I guess Miss Militia?"

Amy's mind screeched to a halt. "What?"

"There's this respect, and a kind of, like, honor? I'm dealing with this second hand so it's hard to process. What I mean is, Miss Militia can create tactical weapons, but she's not going to. She's dangerous, but generally not a threat to people around her. That's the sense I'm getting from your father."

"Seriously?" What was she supposed to make of this?

He held up his hands. "My power isn't great at moral judgements. I can't really guarantee any of that." His eyes went wide. "Oh."

"What?"

He looked uncomfortable. "I'm not sure I should say."

"No, you started this, you don't get to back out now. Tell me what you found out."

He looked pained, but he continued. "Look, I'm not sure about this. My power is hard to figure out."

"Just tell me."

"Ok," He swallowed. "There's something between your father and your current family."

Amy felt the blood drain from her face. "What did he do?"

The tinker just shook his head. "It wasn't him."

"What does that mean?"

"What I'm getting is New Wave did something bad. Not like an atrocity or anything, but they did something immoral. Like they broke a convention that everyone's agreed upon."

"So what, New Wave is horrible and my father was great?"

He seemed to be struggling through whatever his power was giving him. "I told you, it's not good at moral judgments, and it's hard to sort out. I think they had a reason for it, but they went further than anyone else would have. Like to a dangerous level." He let out a breath. "Frankly, this is a mess. I think more than Brandish the real reason I stayed away from seriously considering New Wave was there was just too much of this stuff to sort through."

"What, you're just leaving it like that? You accuse my family then decide to stop?"

"Look, I'm not going to be able to get you a perfect picture of what happened. You're going to have to talk to your family about that." He flinched. "But not Brandish."

Carol? "Why not?"

"I don't know why, but there is some serious bad stuff between her and your father. Whatever New Wave did, it was a lot worse on her part."

That didn't make sense. Carol and her father? What happened? Should she even believe him? This whole situation was a mess. He worked with Tattletale. He could have been playing her from the start, but that didn't match up. Too many details. He was too casual. There was no sense of a plan. He was either a master level thinker or he was just blundering his way through this. She didn't know which one she'd prefer.

She slumped like a deflating balloon. All her hopes of getting dirt on the Undersiders were long forgotten. This conversation had taken too much out of her and it felt like she barely got anything to show for it.

"You know, they still think the bug girl is the tinker. They're not going to believe me when I tell them about this." Some might, but the PRT could get legendarily obstinate. She had no proof so they would keep insisting for tentative classifications until something forced their hand.

"Actually, here. I meant to give you this earlier."

He dug something out of a coat pocket and tossed it to her. She caught it on reflex and felt the heft of it. It was a piece of card with something pinned to it.

"What's this?"

"I figured it would be harder to convince you I was who I said I was, so I made that as proof."

She turned the card over and saw the object attached. It was a hairpin, but leaving the descriptor at that seemed like a criminal underservice. It had two prongs of the glassy metal she remembered from those monster knives, only this was tiny and delicate. Where the prongs met a bouquet of flowers had been sculpted from the same metal, only each petal was individually shaped. Somehow something had been done to the surface of the metal giving it a rainbow gleam. Somehow it reminded her of gasoline spilled in a puddle. The prongs shifted through hues along their length but each flower was a different color. She ran a finger over the flowers and the individual petals moved. They felt like foil, but sprang back into shape immediately and the colors they displayed shifted slightly with their motion.

It was beautiful. It was also terrifying. She could tell the entire thing was one solid piece of metal. The colors on the surface weren't due to any paint or coating, somehow he had worked the metal to a rainbow sheen and also controlled how the colors presented. The tiny bouquet had nine individually sculpted flowers of different types. The precision and craftsmanship of someone who had made this just to prove his claim was at the disposal of the Undersiders.

She knew she should throw it back at him, but she didn't want to. He had made it for her, not in any personal sense, but it was made for her and it had nothing to do with healing. There was no red cross, no doctor theme, no Caduceus. It was just a pretty object, a tinker level pretty object, but it gave the sense it had been made for Amy Dallon, not Panacea.

"It's beautiful." Damn it, she didn't mean to compliment him, but it was true. And she was back to resenting him for working with villains.

"Thanks." He sounded half embarrassed by the compliment.

Where did she go from here? All that and had she even gotten anything she could use against the Undersiders? All that effort and she'd only been talking in circles.

The door at the end of the hall slammed open as a blond figure in a white dress burst through.

"Amy? Amy, thank God. I've been looking everywhere for you." In a faction of a second Vicky was next to her, the wind of her movement throwing Amy's hair into chaos and making the tinker's coat billow back. She glared at him. "Who's this?"

He answered before she could. "I'm the tinker who made the Undersider's weapons."

Vicky's eyes narrowed and Amy felt her aura flair. "Amy stand back."

"Vicky, wait..." but her sister was already winding up. She saw the attack fly. And she saw it stop dead against the tinker's chest. There was a faint ripple across his clothes but otherwise it was like nothing happened.

He looked over at her. "So, 'lack of restraint' was about right? Sorry to cut this short." He threw another glowing mix into the air. Vicky interposed herself between Amy and the tinker, but instead of spreading like the last time the light settled over him, then flared as he vanished from the hallway.

She smelled vinegar.

Amy stared blankly at the spot that once held the tinker trying to figure out what had happened. She realized her sister was shaking her and quickly came back to her senses.

"Amy! Amy, are you alright? What happened?"

"Vicky," What was the priority? Right, unknown tinker tech healing. "Vicky, I need to get upstairs right now. Get me to diagnostic medicine."

"What? What did he do?"

"He used some kind of healing technology on me." She held up her unsprained wrist and rotated it, as well as wiggling her fingers of her formerly broken arm. At the very least she needed to get that removed. "I need an exam. We have to make sure it was safe." And maybe figure out how to replicate it, as much of a long shot as that was.

"He healed you?" Props to Vicky, she didn't let her shock slow her down. Amy was scooped up and carried through the halls at a nearly unsafe speed.

"Afterwards I'll need to speak with Director Piggot or Armsmaster." And she had to figure out what she was going to say. The thought of repeating all his ramblings mortified her, but if there was any chance of bringing the Undersiders to justice she'd have to take it.

She just had to inform them the tinker who made those blades could also heal, teleport, and had defenses that could negate Vicky's punches. Oh, and claimed that he was both able to analyze tinker tech and that he was a strong thinker with the ability to predict personal details and bombing sprees. And that he had an ongoing 'business relationship' with the Undersiders. They were just going to love this news.

She would have plenty of time. The number of tests she had coming would see to that. It would also give her a chance to calm down. That tinker was infuriating. She could see how he set Tattletale off. Actually that image greatly improved her mood. If nothing else at least she could imagine Tattletale curled up in the dark with a thinker headache.

For that she could deal with the fallout from this meeting.