Chapter 36: 4-5 Ripples

Ripples 4.5

2000, August 24: Washington, DC, USA

Two days. The Ymelo tokens took two days to complete even despite my expanded mana generation rate. The dinosaur egg and sunstone had to be alchemically merged into a Sunstone, not to be confused with the Earth-Bet variety, after which the painstaking process of engraving runes could begin.

Each rune needed to be infused with a steady stream of mana during the carving process, meaning I couldn't just pass off the task to an automated machine like I could with Petricite alloys or dehydrated potions. The runes needed to be precise too, a talent I was slowly developing ever since I started work with the Control Wards. The engraving process did go by a bit faster thanks to my new multi-tool, but it was still a laborious task.

But finally, I was done.

Before me sat two hemispheres, twin flames that shone a molten gold. The surface seemed to flicker with an inner flame, dancing as it caught the light. Each token was smaller than Ahri's, only about the size of half a tennis ball. I slowly put the two pieces together, the "tongues" of flame interlocking. Protrusions that seemingly had no purpose filled hidden cavities, two perfect reflections that formed a greater whole.

Then, a single blue spark danced at one end of the golden orb. That stray spark of mana traced the barely visible seams where the two tokens joined, leaving behind a line of blue flame. It circumnavigated the sphere and ignited every tiny rune carved onto the face until it returned where it started, a corona of fire encircling the orb.

The fire spread and covered the surface, molten gold replaced by radiant azure. It was beautiful to watch, utterly breathtaking. I gingerly picked up the blue orb and felt the warmth of mana flowing through me. This, this was a treasure of the Vesani, Ahri's inheritance. I had no ability to draw power from memories, nor could I charm or steal the memories of others. Only the most basic of its functions were available to me. In my lackluster hands, it was just a storage device, but that was enough.

Piece by piece, I sank my essence into the globe of light, every memory, my very identity. First went the memories of my past, thoughts of a distant world and a distant life. Then went the memories of this life. Dad. Mom. Leviathan. Phoenix. The Crips. Everything. Third went my knowledge of Worm, of Ward, of Wildbow who may as well be a prophet in my situation. Secrets that many would kill for were sealed away in my new Ymelo, locked away so I couldn't forget until the day there should be the need.

The last thoughts to be copied were not really memories; they were feelings. It was the feeling of helplessness I felt as I worked out how to escape from both a thinker and a master. It was the dismay I felt when Alexandria hugged me and I realized I'd been played more than a Bon Jovi song at an eighties high school reunion. It was the regret I felt as I apologized to my mother for being too weak, for making her cry… for leaving her alone. It was the sorrow that made me get on my knees before Agent Morrison's grave.

Most of all, it was determination, the same as I bid my friends goodbye and boarded that plane knowing I'd be at the heart of Cauldron's influence.

The globe pulsed in my hand when I finished and I knew that I would be the only one capable of drawing these memories out. This Ymelo was mine and mine alone; it would answer to no other. It was, in a very real way, a part of my identity now. There was a connection between it and me, a link that bound it to my soul and therefore to the World Rune. Inspiration would keep it inviolable, immutable save in its intended function. Not even I could change that now.

It would take in every memory of mine and, should I so choose, I could draw it outward again to trigger something similar to a system reboot. That function was also linked to an automatic trigger, the single most difficult runic matrix I'd carved thus far. If the Ymelo sensed a significant deviation between my present emotions and the historical standard, it would flood my brain with the same, forcing me to recall the reason I was the way I was. My resolve. My pain. My triumphs. My failures. My very identity was now my shield.

This was my answer to emotional masters: A love-me aura wouldn't work if I remembered exactly why I hated them with a passion. Suicidal depression wouldn't take hold if I forced myself to remember the people and things that drove me.

And seeing how it was linked to the Inspiration, my new floating buddy wouldn't be running out of juice anytime soon.

It wasn't perfect. For one, I had to have the Ymelo on my person. It could be made to hover and follow me around, but I'd have to carry it in my pocket while in my civilian guise. While I could call it, it could still be separated from me.

Second, it worked for any significant deviation in my mental state. It didn't necessarily have to come from a power. That meant that I was cutting off the bell curve on both ends. I could feel joy, but never the delirious kind, grief, but never the soul-crushing kind. Something like this would have required a month of review at least, which was why I didn't really ask for permission or clarify exactly what I was doing.

As it was, I was probably going to get chewed out by Hero. If nothing else, I was about to let a therapist retire early.

Lastly, it did nothing for masters with a focus on nervous control. Alec, currently Jean-Paul, could fuck me over just as easily as before.

Even so, this would have been enough to keep me from getting Pavlov'd by Tequila and that alone was a weight off my mind.

I gently set the glowing blue orb down onto my desk to the sound of applause. I didn't notice I'd drawn a crowd.

"That was quite the light show," Pyro said with a low whistle. "Does everything you make glow like that?

I looked back to see the entire lab facing me. "Are you all really this bored?" I asked, a tad miffed.

"Yes," the man I'd learned was Zero Day spoke flatly but I could spy a slight smirk of the lips. He wore a gray bodysuit like my own, but with a lab coat over it. The lab coat was decked out in green lines tracing a pattern reminiscent of computer chips. On his left breast was his logo, a big fat "Z" with a lock overlaid onto it.

"Aww, don't be like that, Hyunmu," our chief said, his smile annoyingly bright. "The first time a tinker completes a project in this lab is always a bit of an occasion. Besides, yours is pretty important. You called it the Ymelo, right?"

"Right. This lets me reboot my memories, but it's tied to me and I'm not giving it away."

"Why would you want to make something like that?" Pyro asked.

"Anti-master protocols," I said. I breathed deep. He didn't have the full story. "It's been a personal mission of mine to make myself immune to them." And thinkers, I didn't say.

"Right…"

"How?" Armsmaster asked, or really, demanded. He wasn't nearly as abrasive as he was in canon, jaded determination hadn't quite set in, but he was nonetheless a very direct person. I tried not to take it personally. "How were you able to link it to you?"

I shrugged. I had no idea how to explain the existence of the soul to someone like Armsmaster so I didn't even bother trying. Instead, I ignited my hand in a soft, blue glow. "My energy is very versatile. It's also why I can't really give a Ymelo away."

"So even if you made a few extra, no one else would be able to use them?"

"No… Maybe? Give me a sec to think."

They didn't know how to draw mana from their souls. They couldn't activate anything complicated, but… the core function of the Ymelo tokens weren't complex. All the fancy bells and whistles Ahri could do weren't relevant. Hell, most of the things I could do weren't relevant either.

The tokens just needed to work once, provide a dose of clarity and emotional void for the wearer. I considered it. I could scrap the linkage matrix. No reason to forge a permanent connection if they had no idea how to channel mana along that connection in the first place. It didn't need to hover either. No storing memories because no link existed, but… that would mean it'd need to be voluntarily activated rather than have an automatic trigger because no history exists to identify deviance in emotional patterns...

Theoretically, the runes carved onto the Control Wards that allowed a person to activate them without mana could be repurposed here. So long as I infused it with some of my own…

"Maybe," I began, "but it wouldn't' be easy. The carvings get more complicated because I'm effectively going to have to design a battery containing my internal energy so anyone else can activate it. It'd also only have enough juice for one shot, a few minutes of clarity to hopefully give someone a fighting chance against a master."

"I'm going to kick this up the chain to the chief director," Hero said. He called her by title so we knew it was serious. "This is big news if you can cleanse a master effect. She'll want to test that in detail."

"How? Will we have him mastered in a controlled environment?" Armsmaster asked. I stiffened at that. I'd kill him before I'd let them try, canon be damned.

"They'll probably get a low-level master to try their power on someone then have that volunteer use a Ymelo to cleanse himself. I'll have the chief director hold off on testing until Hyunmu makes another."

"Thank you," I said earnestly. "I appreciate it, boss."

"No problem, kid."

X

The rest of the day was spent in cooperation with my fellow tinkers. I expected the next few weeks to look similar. Glace took a look at my capacitors for both the multi-tool and Blitzshield. They were hextech and so preferred to channel mana over standard electricity, but I learned a lot just by listening to her lectures on the way temperature could affect metals and their conductive properties. I considered asking her for more blueprints so I could learn more about my own Glacial Augment, but held off. No time. Just one more thing to make a note of for later.

After a few hours of that, I had dinner with Metalmaru at the PRT canteen. The food was surprisingly nice, perhaps because the operations director contracted out catering services to local restaurants rather than hire in-house cooks. It did mean we needed to keep our masks on, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for a solid meal.

Metalmaru wanted to talk about the incorporation of Petricite into a new super-metal, as promised. We sat in an out of the way table in the corner. Some sort of tech he set down on the table kept away eavesdroppers.

"Alright Hyunmu, tell me everything you know about the properties of Petricite."

"Excuse me?"

"You know. Malleability. Conductivity. Melting point. Boiling point. Density. All that good stuff."

I looked at him blankly. He'd grabbed himself a chicken sandwich but I'd settled for an instant cup of Shin ramen. Sue me, I was feeling nostalgic. "Umm… I don't know any of that."

"You… How?"

"It's technically a tree," I said. "Malleability is closer to marble than any metal. It's a poor conductor, as are all trees. It… burns into charcoal if the fire is hot enough, but probably has a higher combustion point than something like… the melting point of copper?"

"Are you telling me or asking me?"

"Telling you? Telling you. Yeah. Boiling point is irrelevant. It's denser than water, despite being plant matter, so will sink under normal circumstances. It's lighter than most metals though."

"Don't you have any specifics?"

I shook my head. "No? I mean… It's a material that absorbs the energy I call mana, an energy that is released in small quantities by parahumans as they use their powers. This disrupts a parahuman's power. I thought this was more important."

He put his head in his hands. "Oh, we have so much work to do."

"Fine," I huffed. "What did you have in mind?"

"Okay, so there is this thing called graphene and it's got the highest tensile strength in the known universe."

"I know what graphene is. Single sheet of carbon molecules. What's that got to do with metals?"

"Everything," he said brightly, eager to talk about his favorite subject. "So normally, metals bond to create something called an 'electron sea.' But, when I tinker, I can blend the two electron seas of two separate metals in a way that forms magnetic links between protons and electrons."

"So you build alloys like Legos?"

"Not quite, but yeah, that's a good description. It means I can position atoms and molecules to form the best structure chemically possible, which in most cases looks remarkably like graphene."

"I see… And Petricite, being an unknown material…"

"Needs testing!" he exclaimed. "We're going to be working together to discover every last property of the material. And then, we're going to figure out what its atomic structure is so I can incorporate it into a new alloy."

"Sounds good," I said. Metalmaru was a surprisingly methodical man. I wouldn't have expected that from the motor-mouth. "But doesn't the 'perfect' alloy depend on what you're trying to use it for? It's not like every super-metal is equally conductive or durable, right?"

"Right, and that gets to the next question: What do you want? I mean, how do you think Petricite can be best used?"

"Containment for prisoners," I ticked off on my fingers, "maybe body armor for troopers if we can get enough of it, something to relieve thinker headaches in a consumable form, but that's something I'll have to figure out on my own. Really, what I was hoping for from you was a lightweight, protective material I could use to make my armor out of. Oh, and coating for my shield. If I could do that, I should be able to negate most powers, or at least dampen them enough to shrug them off without too much consequence."

"Is there any reason heroes can't use the same armor?"

"Tinkers can," I agreed, "but a blaster like Legend would find that Petricite armor interferes with their own power."

"Yeah, fair enough." He polished off the last of his fries and stood. "Alright, let's get to work. We won't be able to do too much today, but we can get started on the basic physical properties. Man, I can't believe you never recorded this."

"I had other things on my mind, sue me."