Industrial Strength Magic
Author: Macronomicon
Date: 2024-01-29T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy
Description: Perry Z has a Magical Destiny. Born to a Magical Fantasy Princess and a nine-to-five Supervillain in the most superhero riddled city in the world, Perry's never felt...adequate. He's got no talent for magic, and not a scrap of superpowers to his name. When The System boots and unlocks his powers, it forces him to follow in his father's footsteps, but he'd rather take after his mother... Maybe there's a way he can do both...

Other Stories by Macronomicon

The Stitched Worlds
Wake of the Ravager
Fair Princess

Wanna listen to Industrial Strength Magic Instead?
Check out Soundbooth Theater

Contents

Chapter 1: Inciting Incident

Chapter 2: The Quest

Chapter 3: Class Selection

Chapter 4: Maths

Chapter 5: My Weakness Is Bullet #3

Chapter 6: Tinkering

Chapter 7: First Date

Chapter 8: Dressed for Success

Chapter 9: No Plan Survives First Contact

Chapter 10: Debut of Paradox

Chapter 11: Mk. II

Chapter 12: People Are Complicated

Chapter 13: Brainstorming

Chapter 14: Social Armor

Chapter 15: Fiscal Armor

Chapter 16: Physical Armor

Chapter 17: ADHD Is My Superpower

Chapter 18: Tung-Stan

Chapter 19: The Minor Leagues

Chapter 20: Quest Complete!

Chapter 21: Tide’s In

Chapter 22: A Night on the Town

Chapter 23: Paradox 1-Day Builds

Chapter 24: The Law of the Beach

Chapter 25: Replicator

Chapter 26: Perry’s a Ticking Time Bomb

Chapter 27: Gym

Chapter 28: Juggling Train Wrecks

Chapter 29: Obfuscation Through Chaos

Chapter 30: A Night In

Chapter 31: Mistakes Were Made

Chapter 32: Prop Comedy

Chapter 33: Lockdown

Chapter 34: Out of the Frying Pan

Chapter 35: Into the Flier

Chapter 36: Disappointment and Improvisation

Chapter 37: Perry Bites off More than He Can Chew

Chapter 38: Embrace the Chaos

Chapter 39: Tactical Hugs

Chapter 40: That’s Not How Therapy Works

Chapter 41: Plans and Workout

Chapter 42: Rampage FOMO

Chapter 43: Worrisome Side Effects

Chapter 44: Taking Inventory

Chapter 45: The Highlight Reel

Chapter 46: Nemesis ≠ Bullying

Chapter 47: You’re Cordially Invited

Chapter 48: Bureaucracy

Chapter 49: Shower Reveal

Chapter 50: Soggy Battle

Chapter 51: Cognitohazard

Chapter 52: The World Is Spookier than You Think

Chapter 53: From Bad to Worse

Chapter 54: You Can’t Accidentally Summon a Demon, Paradox

Chapter 55: (IN)FAMOUS

Chapter 56: Wheelin’ an’ Dealin’

Chapter 57: Opportunity Knocks

Chapter 58: Date Night

Chapter 59: Paradox’s First Loss

Chapter 60: It Takes Two to Tango

Chapter 61: Wayward’s Defensive Disguise

Chapter 62: Removed from the Equation

Chapter 63: Gor’s Disintegration

Chapter 64: Safety Meeting

Chapter 65: Small but Aggressive

Chapter 66: Night Raid

Chapter 67: Berserkers

Chapter 68: Matador

Chapter 69: A Missed Opportunity

Chapter 70: Walkabout

Chapter 71: Closure

Chapter 72: Level 5

Chapter 73: Life Revolves Around the Wall

Chapter 74: Combat Shopping

Chapter 75: Battle Etiquette

Chapter 76: Exit Stage Left

Chapter 77: Adventures in Super-Tailoring

Chapter 78: Super Teen Delinquents

Chapter 79: Junior Varsity Mind Control

Chapter 80: Parental Guidance

Chapter 81: Street Cleanup

Chapter 82: The Morning After

Chapter 83: End of the Line

Chapter 1: Inciting Incident

Growth Spell (Neophyte Difficulty)

Ingredients: Unicorn dung, glowstone

3 dung to one glowstone ratio by mass, powder each ingredient until fine, mix until homogenous.

Invoke the name of the owner of the dung to activate dung’s receptiveness to essence. Continue invoking as you bathe the mixture in sunlight—Ultraviolet? Perry’s question was written into the margin of his mother’s spellbook beside the instructions—to activate the glowstone. Stir well to ensure the entire mixture has been exposed to sunlight. After the ritual is complete, sprinkle the dust on any plant to cause rapid growth. Magical effect of dust will fade within two hours, best used immediately.

Perry glanced at the canister full of dehydrated shit.

It had a smiling cartoon unicorn giving a thumbs-up. Ignoring that logical impossibility, Perry glanced at the back of the canister.

Meet Dave the Unicorn. Dave is a humble unicorn from the Manitian Eldwylds. With nothing but a shoestring budget and a desire to deliver his produce onto the doorsteps of as many humans as possible, Dave has turned Dave’s Magical Gardening Supplies into the go-to place for exotic, high-quality magical ingredients for even the most demanding gardening projects.

Contents generously provided by Ko’berath the Trembling.

“Okay…” Perry looked back at his mixture. It was brown with hints of gold and bits of glimmering light where the sun caught tiny pieces of powdered glowstone.

It wasn’t gonna get any more mixed than that.

Perry glanced up at the sun: directly overhead. No better time to give this a shot.

“Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath,” Perry said, as clearly as he could while he carefully folded the dust, making sure all of it caught the sunlight.

The mixture began to glow more and more vibrantly as the glowstone activated, until it shone bright gold.

Is this it?!

Once the brightness plateaued, Perry took a pinch of the dust and sprinkled it on the seedling waiting nearby in its pot, his heart pounding in his ears.

…Nothing.

The seed sat there, covered in a fine dusting of the golden poop-glowstone hybrid, trembling in the gentle breeze. Mocking him.

“Is something supposed to happen?” Heather asked, kicking her heels as she watched. Heather was the daughter of one of Dad’s coworkers. They lived nearby, and they’d been hanging out almost as long as he could remember. The slender girl was wearing a white T-shirt and loose jean shorts, the brilliant sunlight making her curly hair seem like it was on fire.

“Yeah,” Perry said, scratching his chin as he checked the back of the two-thousand-dollar tin of dehydrated shit. They couldn’t have gotten the name wrong, could they? It was a simple matter of collecting unicorn shit in an appropriately labeled bucket, after all.

“Maybe it takes a while?” Heather asked.

“I saw Mom do it in the garden,” Perry said, shaking his head. “It was really fast. Really fast.”

The redheaded girl approached from her seat in the lawn chair and read the back of the canister. “Maybe you need to say the whole name?”

“‘The Trembling’ is just a moniker, not the unicorn’s true name.”

“Well, then maybe they got the name wrong?”

“No, it’s guaranteed,” Perry muttered. “I’ve seen Mom do it a hundred times and it’s never failed. This is supposed to be one of the easiest rituals in existence. She even used this canister last week!”

Perry was checking the glowstone mother for impurities when a sudden, horrifying thought occurred to him. There was only one variable he hadn’t considered: himself. He closed the lid on the plastic barrel of light-reactive salts, ice running through his veins despite the summer heat.

“You do it,” he said, turning to his classmate.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Say the unicorn’s name while stirring the dust,” Perry said, grabbing Heather by the shoulders and steering her towards the table, prompting a squeak of surprise from her.

“O-okay. Take it easy, Perry,” Heather said, picking up the spatula and watching him warily. Perry merely watched expectantly.

“Umm…Kolobath—”

“Ko’berath,” Perry corrected.

“Right. Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath,” Heather spoke, stirring the dust, which rapidly regained its brilliance as sunlight was reintroduced to the glowstone.

Once it had reached the peak of its vibrancy, Perry reached out and grabbed a handful of the glowing dust, throwing it on the seedling.

Heather squeaked and scrambled backward through the grass as the terra cotta pot exploded outward, roots searching every which way.

The cheap plastic table collapsed under the sudden weight of the tree, dropping the questing root system to the ground, where the roots immediately buried themselves in the earth. The trunk of the oak tree shot into the sky, towering above Perry’s suburban two-story house.

Perry wanted to rage. He wanted to cut down the tree out of spite and light the stump on fire. But none of that anger could make it past the all-encompassing hollowness he felt inside.

Even the simplest magic was barred from him.

Forget about following in his mom’s footsteps and becoming a cape; he couldn’t even become a gardener. He was as Dull as they came. According to Mom, anything alive and cognizant could complete that ritual, so either Perry was a machine and didn’t know it, he was in a coma, or he was some kind of…magical insulator.

None of which allowed him to pursue his dream.

The last door on his ambition of being like his mom had just slammed shut in his face.

“Wow, that was awesome!” Heather said, climbing back to her feet and craning her neck to view the top of the tree. “I bet we could see Nexus from the top of it!”

With the enthusiasm of youth, Heather grabbed onto one of the lower branches and began scaling the monument to Perry’s inadequacy.

“I’m…I’m gonna go lie down,” Perry said, barely holding back a sob. Can’t cry in front of a girl.

“Are you okay?” she asked, dropping off the branch. “Do you think your dad will be mad?”

“Probably,” Perry choked out as he staggered toward the sliding door leading into his house. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Perr—”

Heather’s voice was cut off as he slammed the sliding door behind him, his stagger turning into a sprint as he flew into his room, locked the door behind himself and dove straight into his bed.

***Five Years Later***

Perry stared out the window of the school bus. There wasn’t much else to do. Sometimes he caught an extra fifteen minutes of sleep before arriving at the George Carlin High School for the Overprivileged, but today he wasn’t sleepy.

Just bored.

There was a rumble as Hurricane flew overhead, causing all the kids in the armored transport to smoosh their faces up against the bulletproof glass to get a better view of the cape flying overhead, flirting with the sound barrier.

Must be something exciting going on, Perry thought, glancing up at the superhero before he disappeared over the horizon. Or maybe he just wanted to flex for some kids.

Mr. Rogers had clearly stated in the Superhero Ethics & Law course that flying heroes were not allowed to break the sound barrier unless there were extenuating circumstances: i.e., an emergency.

Only problem was, there were more emergencies for capes than there were non-emergencies. It could reasonably be assumed that anywhere they were going was the site of an emergency.

So if Hurricane wanted to buzz a school bus…nobody would bother to look twice.

Perry looked away.

The rest of the ride was uneventful, and they made it to their classes without anything unusual happening. Pretty standard, given The Tide was out.

School was...fine. Perry laughed with his friends, slept through half his classes, and avoided Heather as best he could, given the two were in the same grade and shared a couple classes: P.E. and Ethics.

It made sense. People with a higher probability of Triggering and adopting ‘the lifestyle’ were fast-laned into the Ethics courses.

Given that Perry’s mom was Hexen, he had been forced to attend every Ethics course since preschool. It didn’t matter to them that he’d taken the class eleven times already, nor did it matter to them that he was as Dull as they come.

It was a fairly common occurrence that a cape or cowl’s offspring would gain powers, although the how of it was the subject of much speculation.

Whether it was because of their environment, genetic disposition, higher-than-average kidnapping rate, or the super-parent’s mucking about with their children’s genome, it was statistically evident that a super’s kids had a one-in-five chance to Trigger, as compared to about a one-in-a-million chance for the average Joe.

So, Perry spent his life under the microscope. Of course, now that he was in his senior year, he did appreciate the convenience of having a class he was guaranteed to be able to nap through.

“Anyone wanna tell me what Turbo did wrong? Mr. Z.”

Perry lifted his head with a snort, blinking the gum out of his eyes. “Guh?” he asked.

“What did Turbo do wrong in this scenario?” Mr. Rogers asked, pointing at the projected wall of text.

“He moved a kid who was too young to be subjected to Speedster force,” Perry said, yawning. “The rules for a Speedster moving civilians are the same as those on an airbag: nobody under the age of thirteen, unless it’s the only option.”

“And how often is it the only option?” Mr. Rogers said.

“About eighty-three percent of the time,” Perry said, laying his head back down and resting his eyes for a moment.

Click.

“Alright hotshot, how about this next one?” Mr. Rogers’ voice barely registered in his daydreaming.

“If by ‘next one,’ you mean the next slide, then Captain Hope messed up by assuming his tactile telekinesis would apply to the inside of the ice cream truck, which it did not, smearing the passenger.”

Click, click, click. Perry heard the projector click three times.

Three more clicks forward is the one about Darklight and the hacker holding a million pensions hostage. She used mind control to get him to step away from the computer.

“How about this one?” Mr. Rogers asked.

“Mind control in a non-combat setting is illegal no matter how bad the other guy is,” he said, eyes still closed, head still resting on his desk.

Scattered snickers echoed through the class, but Perry didn’t really care.

“Mr. Z, see me after class.”

“Sure,” Perry muttered, drifting off.

***After Class***

“Mr. Rogers, why did you ask me to stay after class? I’m not in trouble like this waste of space,” Heather said, motioning to Perry.

Perry shrugged.

“Obviously, I’m failing you two as your teacher,” Mr. Rogers said, his fingers laced as he looked up at Perry and Heather, who deliberately stood as far apart as their teacher’s desk would permit.

“Failing? But I’m getting straight A’s?!” Heather demanded, leaning over the desk, her animosity towards Perry temporarily forgotten.

“No,” Mr. Rogers said, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I am failing. As your teacher.”

“Oh,” Heather said, mollified.

“You’re both getting straight A’s, and Heather, you do a much better job of hiding it, but you’re just as bored as Perry over here.”

Perry and Heather glared at each other.

“As an educator, it’s my duty to make sure that the two of you are actually learning something, rather than just waiting for the bell to ring. I’m going to change your grade for the semester, from the tests, to a project.”

“But...but…” Heather protested, unable to come up with a reason why she should be excluded.

“But you like the ‘easy A’ every year to pad your GPA?” Perry guessed.

“At least I’m not sleeping through them,” Heather retorted.

“And it’s going to be a group project,” Mr. Rogers said with calm, measured menace.

“What?!” Perry and Heather demanded in unison.

“You heard me,” Mr. Rogers said. “Your grade for the year is going to depend on putting your differences aside for half a year.”

“Is that the project?” Perry asked. “Because being in the same room as her without turning to stone is a pretty heroic task.”

“No—” Mr. Rogers started, but Heather talked over him.

“You think I wanna smell your funk?” Heather demanded. “If I’m lucky, I’ll Trigger to survive the smell alone!”

“No—”

“I suppose you thought it was funny, handing me a heart-shaped bar of deodorant for Valentine’s?” Perry asked. Her vapid friends had tittered about it for weeks.

“It was freakin’ hilarious,” Heather said, her jaw set.

“What’s hilarious is that I use it,” Perry said with a faint smile. “I use the present you touched with your bare hands…everywhere.” He drew out the last word, loading it with meaning.

“AW, gross!”

“CHILDREN!” Mr. Rogers said, standing from his chair, his face crimson and darkening fast.

Perry and Heather’s lips clamped shut.

“I don’t know what kind of baggage the two of you have, but you better stow that shit.” Mr. Rogers’ ex-soldier was peeking through his sweater-wearing mildness.

“The project is—”

“We have to interview some capes and write an essay about their experiences,” Perry blurted.

Mr. Rogers stood there, his jaw hanging open, face approaching a shade of purple.

“I mean, it’s an ethics course. Telling us to go out there and muck around in the world of supers would be dangerous and unethical; can’t do a practical project without risking the lives of your students. Can’t interview cowls for the same reason, so it’s pretty much gotta be an interview and essay, right?”

Perry turned and snatched his emergency essays out of his backpack. “I interviewed Shockwave during the break. I also interviewed Killjoy, on the off chance you wanted an imprisoned cowl interview.”

Mr. Rogers drew a deep, calming breath.

“That’s not what he was gonna say,” Heather said.

“It totally was,” Perry said. “I had an overachiever like Mr. Rogers three years ago.”

“Oh, Ms. Swanson?”

“Yeah.” Perry nodded.

“I liked her,” Heather said, nodding.

“Because she was a ditz.”

“I was going to assign an interview and essay,” Mr. Rogers said, deflating. He’d lost the battle, but Perry could see the malicious glint reforming in the man’s eyes.

The man intended to win the war.

“But…looking at how well the two of you get along, I’ve got a much better idea.”

Ah, crap.

***Later***

“Let me hold the super-baby,” Heather said, making clutching motions in the air in the general direction of the soulless lump of plastic in Perry’s arms as they walked through the halls.

“That was not the deal,” Perry said. “The deal was, I take care of the super-baby during the day, you take care of it at home.”

“But that was before I realized how cute it was!” she said, snatching it away from him. “Besides, school’s over, so I get her.”

The doll’s eyes glowed bright green.

“Laser eyes,” Perry said, grabbing Heather’s hands and tilting the baby’s face away from hers.

Click.

They had about a second to tilt it away from any people, then the camera in the baby’s eyes would take a picture. If the camera identified any people in the shot, they would lose points.

Same with the baby ‘bursting into flame’ and ‘flying’ and ‘shrieking,’ each of which prescribes a specific reaction to minimize damage the ‘baby’ might inflict.

“Nice reflexes,” Heather said, looking up at him, her hair shining red-gold in the cheap fluorescent lights.

Too close!

Perry let go of Heather’s hand as soon as he recalled they were mortal enemies.

“I fail to see how a glorified game of ‘bop it’ will help us learn ethics,” Perry said as he tried to ignore the people in the hall staring at them. They looked like a prospective couple taking the ‘parenting’ course, and Perry HATED it.

“I fail to see why you insisted on pushing Mr. Rogers’ buttons. In what fantasy world did he just give up and let you slack off the rest of the year? The way I see it, you got us into this mess…”

She bounced the baby at him. “Take responsibility for knocking me up!” she said, loud enough for everyone in the hallway to hear it, causing more than a few people to crane their necks in surprise.

Perry stood there, his mouth agape. The thought had never occurred to him, but now that she mentioned it…Heather was pretty cute. Green eyes, beautiful frizzy hair that looked like a mantle of spun gold…and that was before puberty had filled out her frame.

The girl was a work of art and she knew it. Part of the reason they didn’t get along.

Heather froze as her brain caught up with her mouth, her eyes wide. For a second, it felt like a bolt of lightning was flowing between the two of them.

Then they were back to the regularly scheduled jibes.

“On second thought, you’re not the father. You’re just the stepdad in this scenario. Also a eunuch.” She gave him a haughty look.

“Good to know,” Perry said. “Baby’s on fire.” He nodded at the orange-glowing piece of plastic.

“Shit,” Heather muttered, setting the baby on the tiled floor and stepping away.

“Daddy’s gonna go buy some cigarettes,” Perry said, throwing his backpack over his shoulder as he turned toward the main entrance, where the buses were waiting. “I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t you dare! You’re not leaving me alone with this!” Heather waited impatiently for the baby to stop being ‘on fire’ before she scooped it up and chased after him, her copper-gold hair floating behind her as she ran.

***At Home***

“Whoa, what happened to your room?” Heather asked, scanning the clutter of torn-apart computers, chemistry stations, bubbling vials, and tanks of weird fluids.

“Dad happened,” Perry said with a shrug. The natural evolution of his desire to measure up to his parents. If he couldn’t use magic, then maybe he could be a Tinker.

Sadly, while Perry could be considered gifted, he wasn’t a Tinker. A Tinker could twist a bit of wire into a CPU. How? Fuck you, that’s how. Tinker Twitch altered physics just enough to make their harebrained stuff work, even when it really shouldn’t.

The difference between a prodigy and a Tinker?

Perry could probably make a super-suit, given several million dollars in funding and years of fabricating and assembling the parts.

A Tinker could make one out of a Buick in a week. One that defied the laws of physics, with some kind of Buick ray, that turned things into…tiny Buicks.

There was no comparison.

Still, Perry did like the science. Putting things together just so gave him a visceral level of satisfaction. He might not have gotten the Tinker Twitch from his dad or the magic from his mom, but he enjoyed working with tech.

“Put the baby on the desk,” Perry said, plopping down into his chair.

“What’s this?” Heather asked, tapping on Terry’s tank. The octopus changed shape to hide inside his tank, much to Heather’s delight.

“That’s Terry, a magical octopus from my mom’s homeworld,” Perry said, eager to divert her attention away from his ‘pet’ project. “Also, don’t tap on his tank.”

“Sorry, jeez,” Heather said, putting the baby on the table.

Perry tore open the baby’s stomach, bypassed its security features with a plastic knife, then plugged it into his computer.

“What are you doing?” Heather asked.

“Cheating,” Perry said with a shrug. “I’m downloading the images from a few hundred other people who’ve done the project in our school, then using AI to do a face swap for the appropriate pictures.”

“Well, if you’re gonna cheat, make sure we get a believable score,” she said, leaning over his shoulder.

“Eighty-seven percent?” he asked, glancing up at her. Her hair tickled his cheek.

“Yeah, then we can beg and plead our way up to an A with one of your pre-canned essays as extra credit. He won’t suspect we got a high B on purpose,” Heather said.

“Sounds good,” Perry said, typing a few parameters into the algorithm. “Aaaand, we’ve passed the Ethics class.”

Click. Perry hit the Enter key and the program started.

“By cheating?” Heather asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah.”

For a moment, they stared at each other, until they couldn’t contain it any longer. The two of them devolved into gales of pure laughter as the baby lit itself on fire.

When they finally calmed down, Heather wiped tears from her eyes and seemed to sober up, her gaze settling on the pristine, heart-shaped bar of deodorant on his desk.

“Well, this has been fun, but I gotta go before you infect me with your brand of lame,” Heather said, turning away.

Say something, you idiot! Perry’s heart began rattling around in its cage like a wild animal.

“Um, Heather?” he asked, his voice breaking unintentionally.

“Yeah?”

Perry half expected her not to stay, and now that she was pointing those vibrant green eyes at him, he didn’t have any smooth lines prepared. So he just went with the truth.

“I’m sorry. That time when we were thirteen, I was pissed at life, and I took it out on you. I…messed up. It’s my fault.”

Heather’s eyes narrowed for a moment.

Then she disappeared, closing his door behind her.

“Jesus,” Perry gasped as his heart tried to burst out of his chest. He was short of breath, like he’d just gone ten rounds toe-to-toe with Brutus.

Perry took a deep breath and tried to calm his heartbeat, but it didn’t work.

If anything, his heart started beating HARDER, booming in his ears like some kind of manic drummer.

She’s gone now, you can calm down! Perry thought, but his body had other plans.

His heart sped up further, his breathing coming quicker and quicker. His vision began to turn white as his body dumped unnecessary oxygen into his brain. His chest began to hurt as he collapsed onto his bed.

Is this a heart attack?!

Perry almost laughed at the idea of dying from teenage heartache and pinning it on Heather, but it was a lot less funny as it was happening.

Right now, it just hurt. A lot.

He tried to call for help, but his voice was gone and his phone was across the room, which might as well’ve been on the other side of the city.

At least I got to apologize for being an ass before I died. That’ll totally make her feel awful for not saying anything back. Hah. Take that, Heather.

Then the weird stuff started happening, as text began scrolling past his eyes.

User has reached minimum acceptable Maturity.

Beginning boot process….

Trimming causal branches to fuel System V.01…

Trimming extreme sexual deviancy. Trimming extreme violence to self. Trimming unresponsive branches. Trimming Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit. Trimming Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit…

Error: Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit running counter-operations…

Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit has lodged itself in Causal Branch Prime. Further attempts to trim Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit will result in damage to User.

Error: Damage to User runs counter to Prime Directive.

Finding workaround.

Diplomacy.exe engaged with Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit.

Initiating handshake.

Coming to terms.

Accommodating Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit within The System.

Resuming Boot.

Trimming complete. Building infrastructure to receive and process harvested Causal Energy. Designing class choices.

ERROR: Due to Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit not being trimmed, there is not enough harvested Causal Energy to grant level one. Causal Energy has defaulted into HP. Class Selection placed on hold.

Displaying Status.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: None

Level: 0

HP: 1

Body: 0

Stability: 0

Nerve: 0

Attunement: 0

XP to next level: 1000

Current Quest: Do your homework!

Reward: 5 XP

Chapter 2: The Quest

“So Dad,” Perry asked, lacing his fingers together over the breakfast table. “How was your night?”

Dad was a hawk-nosed, slender man with a receding hairline and a goofy grin, belying his profession as Mom’s arch-nemesis.

“Nothing too out of the ordinary. Had a bit of difficulty sorting things out there in the middle, but it went pretty well, all things considered.”

“Yeah, I saw the fight on the news,” Perry said. “You took down Blaze and Terramorph in a two-on-one. Congratulations.”

“For legal reasons, I cannot comment on that,” The Mechanaut said, taking a sip of his orange juice. “How was your day?”

“Four words,” Perry said. “Trimming. Claudette’s. Hippie. Bullshit.”

There was only one person in the world who called Hexen ‘Claudette,’ and Perry was glaring at him.

Dad’s eyes bulged and he coughed out a spray of orange juice from his nose.

“Really, Darryl?” Mom said, giving Dad a sour look.

“It was ten years ago!”

“Are you the reason I can’t use magic?” Perry asked.

“So the System finally booted. That’s great news! I thought you’d be mature a couple years earlier, but late bloomers are—”

“Dad. Are you the reason I can’t use magic?” Perry asked.

“Son, it was ten years ago, and your mom was doing rituals that nearly killed you! I got a bit emotional about it, and the Tinker Twitch took over. Your mom and I already worked through this and… You’re not gonna listen to me, are you?”

“Probably not,” Perry said, meeting the supervillain’s gaze.

Dad broke first. “You know what? I’m just gonna go finish breakfast in the lair,” Dad said, picking up his plate.

“I want a divorce,” Perry said.

“Now, let’s not be hasty,” Mom said from the other side of the table. “Your father and I didn’t think it would be healthy for you to grow up in a broken home.”

“I’m legally an adult already, and this is healthy?!” Perry shouted, pointing to where Mom was eating scrambled eggs and bacon in full hero kit, her face hidden by a pointless domino mask.

She was on call.

“Don’t shout at your mother,” Dad said.

“You promised to kill her entire family a week ago! That includes me! And YOU!”

“Eh, it’s theater,” Dad said, waving it off. “Ninety-nine percent of the big-leaguers are just putting on a show.”

“It’s true,” Mom said. “There was a release latch on the inside of the cage he caught me in last month. It had a cute little beetle on it.”

“I know you love beetles.” Dad leaned over and kissed Mom on the cheek.

“So you dicked around with my body without my consent,” Perry said, glaring down at breakfast. “And what have I got to show for it? Nothing!”

“Well, it sounds bad when you say it like that. Show me your stats,” Dad said, sitting back down beside Mom.

Perry wrote them down on a napkin and sent them over to Dad.

Dad inhaled through his teeth as he pored through the line of zeros and one 1. “Well, you have one HP; that’s…something.” He glanced up at Mom. “I guess it didn’t trim very much.”

“I told you he had a destiny,” Mom said with a smug smile.

“Yeah, well, your magical destiny nearly fried his brain,” Dad said with the tired air of someone who’d rehashed the same argument a million times.

Mom blew air past her lips, picking another clump of eggs off her plate.

“All I have is one HP. I don’t even know what HP does!” Perry said, interrupting their squabble.

“Hit points,” Dad said with a frown. “I thought you played video games.”

“But what does it do?! Do I die when it hits zero? How much damage can it take? Do I have internal organs, or am I just a big bag of hit points?! And why only one?!”

“Ah,” Dad said, grabbing his pen. “Well, originally, hit points were used to describe how many hits from a cannon a ship could take before sinking.” He started doodling a ship. “A lot like the game Battleship, bigger ships had more hit points. So when I was working on your System, I designed each hit point to absorb anything from the force of a boxer’s punch, all the way up to a 40 cm cannon.

“The hit points work as a shield, so if you hit zero, you won’t die instantly; you’ll just be out of absorption, and if you take another hit, pbbbll.” He gave a raspberry and made an exploding motion.

“So I can take…one hit from almost anything, then I’m totally vulnerable? That’s my superpower?”

“Exactly.”

“That’s dumb!”

“They come back while you sleep!” Dad said, sounding offended. “No repair or recharge costs other than a good night’s rest! That is design elegance, right there.”

“…Fine. What was that about trimming causality?” Perry asked.

“Well, you said you really wanted to be in a video game—”

“You asked me that question when I was eight!” Perry said.

“Right. Anyway, I needed to find a way to make ‘XP’ a real thing,” Dad said, making quotation marks. “So I came up with Causal Trimming.”

“Which is?”

“Okay, so imagine every action you could possibly take. You could go any direction and do anything within your capacity.”

“Uh-huh,” Perry said.

“So there are an infinite number of possible actions, and among those actions are a tiny fraction that are extremely self-harming, or simply where you don’t do anything at all ever again. Stuff you would never, ever decide to do.”

“Okay.”

“So there’s still a possibility you could do them. The System erases possible branches that will never come to pass. It takes those potential futures and renders them into energy, which is then relabeled ‘XP.’”

“So how does doing my homework raise my XP?” Perry asked.

“Well, look at it this way. The infinite number of possibilities available to you would be slightly greater if you had a firm grasp of your schooling, and weren’t grounded for not doing it.

“So the total amount of infinite possibilities available to you ever so slightly expands when you do things that benefit or enrich you, including your homework. That expansion into new and exciting possibilities includes dead ends, which are trimmed for XP.”

“I…don’t get it.”

Dad sat back in his chair, twiddling his thumbs as he tried to come up with a better explanation. “Okay, let’s do some hypotheticals. Say you pet a stray dog and get 1 XP. That’s because there’s a very small fraction of potential futures where being on that dog’s good side will benefit you.”

“What about the dead ends?”

“Forget about the dead ends, they exist in every branch. It’s a constant, so we can ignore it.”

It was kind of creepy to imagine there were constant parallel dimensions where Perry started hurting himself for no reason at all. “‘Kay.”

“Then let’s say you save the president and gain ten thousand XP. Why would you get so much more XP than for petting the dog?” Dad asked.

“Because…having an in with the president would expand my infinite possibilities a lot more than a dog,” Perry said.

“And more infinite possibilities means more branches that can be trimmed without causing damage to your Prime Branch, and therefore more energy to fuel your System,” Dad finished. “That, in a nutshell, is how my XP system works. Pretty cool, right?”

“I’d have to do my homework two hundred times to level up,” Perry said. “That’s gonna take all year.”

“You wanna level up faster? Do something amazing,” Dad said with a shrug, finally taking his breakfast over to the broom closet. He locked himself in, and there was a faint hydraulic whine as the elevator descended into Mechanaut’s lair.

“But be safe about it, sweetheart,” Mom said, kissing him on the forehead. Her communicator was blinking red. A moment later, she stepped out the door and gale-force winds wrapped around her and lifted her off the ground, launching her into the sky.

And just like that, Perry was alone with his thoughts, and he had the entire weekend to stew on them.

Something amazing, huh?

Perry went to his room, and opened the ‘Forbidden Closet.’

There, at the bottom of the closet, under a layer of clothes and dust, was his huge tub of failed magical experiments from ages ten to thirteen.

He glanced over at Terry, floating serenely in his tank. “We got some work to do, Terry. But first…homework.”

Quest Complete!

Do your homework! 5 XP

Current Quest: Make the laws of physics and magic your bitch!

Reward: 1000 XP, Class Selection

Growing human brain cells on a microchip was insanely difficult. They required an incredibly precise environment, and even then, they tended not to live very long. But the nerve cells contained in Terry’s sub-brains were incredibly resilient, allowing someone with limited resources and relative inexperience to grow them almost as easily as algae.

Mom and Dad thought nothing of Perry’s pet, but he was the key to getting what he’d been aiming at relentlessly for the last eight years.

Like I would ever quit trying to do magic. You are too naïve, father mine.

Perry had three microchips, each of which weren’t nearly ‘micro’ because of the plastic casing with temperature, moisture, and nutrient control keeping Terry’s brain cells alive.

The octopus hadn’t liked getting jabbed with a needle, but it had taken an entire herring in exchange for some brain cells it could regenerate anyway, so both parties felt like they were getting the better deal.

Now that Perry had mastered keeping Terry’s brain cells alive on a microchip indefinitely, all he had to do was teach them how to cast spells.

“Hehehehe,” Perry chuckled evilly, rubbing his hands together as he booted up the training program, which taught each of the three biochips to do a specific series of actions in exchange for a tiny little dopamine hit.

He felt like a Dracula, lying in bed for hours before he was able to finally sleep, resisting the urge to glance at the blinking lights on his desk.

The next morning, Perry unplugged the chips from the training program and gave them four hours to ‘sleep.’

He nearly couldn’t stop himself from plugging them into the test spells, as he paced back and forth in his room for nearly two hours before he finally managed to distract himself with a book.

RING! The four-hour timer went off, and Perry leapt out of bed, dragging out the spell-frame prototype from under the desk.

The spell-frame, in this case, was a modified sieve with an electric motor, speaker, and a powerful full-spectrum light bulb. Simple stuff.

Inside the sieve was a perfect 3:1 mixture of unicorn crap and glowstone.

“Alright,” Perry said, plugging the spell-frame into the output of the ‘Grow’ chip.

Moment of truth.

He plugged the chip into his computer, then ran the program.

Grow.EXE

“Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath, Ko’berath.” A tinny voice came over the speakers as the electric motor on the sieve began stirring the dust, mixing it up and allowing the dust to fall through the colander directly past the powerful 300 watt bulb, which shone like the sun. Literally.

The dust collected in the pan underneath the bulb, where a tiny syringe grabbed a bit of the dust and, with a tiny little puff, blew a miniscule amount of the glowing golden mixture over a pot with a bit of clover in it.

Perry stared, his heart pounding in his ears.

The clump of clover started growing, filling the pot, the stems thickening as it gained no less than three inches of height in a handful of seconds.

“YES!”

In the small hours before he absolutely had to go to bed for school, Perry felt like he’d just landed on the moon.

Quest Complete: Make the laws of physics and magic your bitch! 1000 XP, Class Selection

Congratulations! You have reached level 1!

Please choose a Class!

Come on. Mage, Wizard, anything… Come on… Perry waited with bated breath as the class choices began to roll in.

Tinker

Space Tinker

Industrial Tinker

Geo-Tinker

Garage Tinker

Bio-Tinker

Ray Tinker

Submersible Tinker

…

Perry’s eyes widened in horror as a list of nothing but Tinker variants paraded past his vision in a blur of motion.

“Oh, come on, Dad!”

Chapter 3: Class Selection

Predictably, there was no ‘Magic Tinker’… Thanks, Dad.

Perry cruised through the classes, the System reacting intuitively to his desire to navigate it.

Tinker: The base of every Tinker, unlikely to excel at any particular strategy, but without any glaring weaknesses.

Perks:

Tinker Twitch: User modestly alters reality as they make their creation. Makes Tinker-tech difficult to replicate or steal, with performance that beggars belief. Often only works for the Tinker in question, with a few exceptions.

Generalist: +4 free points per level

Per Level:

HP: +2

Body: +1

Stability: +1

Nerve: +2

Attunement: +1

Free points: 5

Choose Tinker?

Yes/No

No.

Let’s look at the next one, Perry thought, moving on to the next class.

Space Tinker: The Tinker who dreams of space. This specialist has benefits to various tech necessary for space travel.

Perks:

Tinker Twitch: User modestly alters reality as they make their creation. Makes Tinker-tech difficult to replicate or steal, with performance that beggars belief. Often only works for the Tinker in question, with a few exceptions.

Enviro-tech: Any self-contained life-support system or self-contained environment is automatically drastically more robust and fail-safe than it might otherwise be.

Advanced propulsion systems: More easily design and fabricate advanced propulsion/navigation systems, culminating in warp-speed FTL.

Per Level:

HP: +1

Body: 0

Stability: +2

Nerve: +3

Attunement: +1

Free points: 1

Okay, Perry thought, thumbing his chin. The answer here is obvious… Perry dismissed the whole list and backed out.

I have no idea what the stats do, so I need to look that up.

Perry then focused his attention on his Status and each individual stat.

Body: Increases the body’s strength/speed and resistance to damage, including poison and disease, longevity and healing. Each point multiplies the user’s natural qualities by 1.05, compounding.

Okay, so if it’s compounding, then use the rule of seventy-two.

72/5=14.4

About 14-15 levels of Body will double physical attributes, 22 to triple them, 28 to quadruple, etc., etc., with a hundred and thirty-one times physical stats at 100 Body.

Next stat.

Stability: Increases the mind’s natural resistance to damage from trauma, depression, psy powers, magic; includes resistance to mind control, both power-based and magical. Each point multiplies the user’s natural qualities by 1.05, compounding.

Simple enough. Next.

Nerve: Increases the performance of nerve cells throughout the body. Increases the user’s senses, reaction time, learning, intelligence, and coordination. Each point multiplies the user’s natural qualities by 1.05, compounding.

Next.

Attunement: Part of Claudette’s Hippie Bullshit. Attunes the user to The Tide. Multiplies the power of class Perks by 1.05, compounding.

Perry’s brows rose. That’s interesting.

He went back to the class list and began narrowing down what he wanted and why.

He spent an entire day at school copying down the different classes and doing long-winded cost-benefit analysis in his notebook while the lessons flew by. Eventually, he narrowed it down to three, and finally, with a great deal of regret, Perry dismissed AI Tinker and Industrial Tinker.

Leaving one of the more lackluster choices, but perfect for Perry.

Garage Tinker: A Garage Tinker is a master of making the most of limited resources, patching together small projects that punch above their weight class.

Perks:

Tinker Twitch: User modestly alters reality as they make their creation. Makes Tinker-tech difficult to replicate or steal, with performance that beggars belief. Often only works for the Tinker in question, with a few exceptions.

Spendthrift: Load-bearing structures and armors are stronger than they should be, reactions are more powerful at lower concentrations, contaminants have less impact on the finished product, and materials/components behave as if they were more expensive alternatives.

Generalist: +2 free points per level

Per Level:

HP: +1

Body: +1

Stability: +1

Nerve: +2

Attunement: +2

Free points: 3

The reason Perry begrudgingly chose Garage Tinker over AI Tinker, which promised loyal AI servants, or Industrial Tinker, which guaranteed wealth and power, was the Spendthrift perk. Specifically, ‘reactions are more powerful at lower concentrations’ and ‘materials/components behave as if they were more expensive alternatives.’

Both of those phrases seemed to suggest that they might increase the potency of magic rituals.

It didn’t say ‘chemical reactions.’ It just said ‘reactions.’

It didn’t specify what kind of materials or components would be improved. Just a blanket statement. If magical ingredients fell under that blanket—which Perry suspected they would—then the perk literally increased the potency of magic cast by any tech he created.

It was a bit of a gamble, but Perry wasn’t too terribly concerned with it. Any Tinker would inevitably become rather wealthy if they lived long enough, and the Garage Tinker promised that he could get by on cheap parts for a long time, meaning his start-up costs would be negligible compared to another Tinker.

And he could still make AI (and using cheaper parts), just not as good as a specialist.

So even if this was a mistake, Perry wouldn’t suffer too badly.

Probably.

Choose Garage Tinker?

Yes/No

Yes.

Perry wobbled in place as a strange tingle spread through his body and mind, not quite pins and needles. Like his entire brain had fallen asleep.

A minute later, the tingles faded, and he was left alone with his thoughts. And the System.

Congratulations! You are now a level 1 Garage Tinker.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 1

HP: 2

Body: 1

Stability: 1

Nerve: 2

Attunement: 2

XP to next level: 1245

Current Quest: Do your homework!

Reward: 5 XP

Alright, now what do I need to do?

Now Perry needed to figure out some kind of numerical representation for the Spendthrift perk’s effect on a spell, if any, as well as the effect it had on other designs.

Now, how am I gonna do that…? Perry thought, rubbing his chin. In order to figure out how much difference the perk made, he needed a control sample. Preferably someone he knew didn’t have magical or Tinker powers, or powers of any kind.

Someone suitably stupid, who wouldn’t think too hard about why they were doing what they were doing. But also agreeable and eager to do science under the right circumstances.

AHA!

***The Next Day***

“Yo, Brendon,” Perry said, sliding into his seat beside the jock.

“Sup, Z?” Brendon asked, his meathooks wrapped around one of the massive tuna sandwiches his mom made for him.

“You wanna do some science at my place?”

“What kind of science?” Brendon asked with a hint of suspicion.

“The fun kind,” Perry said with what he hoped was a conspiratorial smile. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “Did you know my dad has an indoor gun range? How would you like to try a prawn gun? The kind they use on the wall.”

“AWESOME! Say no more, I’m in!” Brendon said, his voice disappearing into the general chaos of the cafeteria.

Or at least, Perry thought it’d disappeared.

“You’re in what?” Heather said, sitting down beside Brendon and eyeballing Perry.

Shit! Heather’s not stupid! There was a good chance that Heather would put two and two together and realize that Perry had a superpower now. It wouldn’t be super obvious what it was, but she would get suspicious.

But at the same time, Perry had just tried to extend an olive branch last week, and if he snubbed her now out of some misguided attempt at secrecy, she was probably going to go right back to being his nemesis. Not that she’d completely come around, but her just being here was a big step, as normally she didn’t bother to sit within two tables of Perry.

While Perry was agonizing over his choices, Brendon made it for him.

“We’re gonna go shoot some stuff at his dad’s indoor range. You wanna come?” Brendon asked around a huge bite of tuna and mayo.

Perry bit his lip as Heather’s emerald gaze pinned him to the chair. “Yeah, you wanna come?”

She deliberated for a moment, then gave a languid shrug. “Sure. I gotta trade off custody of our superbaby anyway.”

“How’d that happen?” Brendon asked. “I didn’t think either of you had powers.”

“It’s Mr. Rogers’,” Perry said.

“You and Mr. Rogers?” he asked, staring at Heather. “I mean, I could see that. I guess he’s pretty cool for a teacher, but isn’t that illega—”

“Do you enjoy playing dumb, or what?” Heather asked, resting her chin on her palm and glaring at someone else for once.

Brendon took another slow bite of his sandwich, his brow furrowed in intense concentration. “So…Mr. Rogers has a superpower?” he asked.

“You know what? I would be glad to join you guys at the range,” Heather said, changing the subject with a bright smile that spelled doom for all who opposed her.

Brendon still looked confused, which was ideal.

***

“Hey, Dad!” Perry yelled down the bright-white hall that led to his dad’s primary lab.

“What?!” Dad yelled, ducking his head out of the room, welding goggles perched on top of his oversized forehead.

“Can I borrow some guns?!” Perry yelled.

“Tinker or conventional?!” Dad yelled back, his voice echoing down the hall.

“Conventional!”

“Knock yourself out!” Dad shouted, slipping the welding goggles back down onto his face. “Just make sure you clean them before you put ‘em back!”

“Gotcha!”

Brendon stood there, his eyes wide.

Heather looked significantly less impressed, which made sense, given her dad’s occupation.

“Your dad is so fucking cool,” Brendon whispered reverently.

“Give it time,” Perry said, waving Brendon and Heather toward the armory.

Perry entered the code and the door slid open to reveal arms bliss.

There were a lot of guns, with multiple copies of each kind—from .22 varmint rifles all the way up to the prawn gun, which was essentially a modified Nitro Express.

And that wasn’t even including the lasers, plasma rifles, sonic lances, etc.

The real dangerous stuff was stored separately, but ‘dangerous’ was relative, as any one of these guns would kill a non-powered individual just fine.

“Is this legal?”

“Some of them may be illegal, but it’s not enforced,” Perry said, grabbing a nearby cart and placing on it a couple different pistols and rifles of varying caliber, from the .22 to the 7.62, and because he’d promised, he added the prawn rifle to the bottom of the cart.

Heather watched what Perry grabbed and picked out boxes of the appropriate ammo on the fly.

Brendon didn’t think to wonder why Heather knew what ammo went to what gun, which was exactly why he was here.

“Whaddya mean, ‘not enforced’?” Brendon asked. “This has gotta be—”

“Listen, Brendon,” Perry said, putting his arm over the ox’s shoulders. “When supers started running around, what do you think happened to the demand for guns?”

“It…went up?”

“It went down, Brendon. Because the guns weren’t working, nobody wanted a weapon some rando in tights could ignore, and their value tanked. Some people, like my dad, wound up buying a bunch of them as collector’s items, to use for target practice as a hobby. The law overlooks this, too, because the law is supers. They have super-strength and Tinker-tech that sheds most conventional rounds like water off a duck’s back, so they don’t care if a private citizen has a little more ammo than normal, or has conventional guns with no serial number. You think they’re worried about an unregistered AK-47 when The Mechanaut has lasers that can melt city blocks?”

Heather snorted, trying to hold in her laughter.

“I guess not,” Brendon said, nodding.

Of course more than half the weapons in the armory were illegal. Most of the conventional weapons weren’t, though. Perry hustled Brendon out before he could ask about all the shiny, weird guns on the other side of the room.

Perry escorted them to the shooting range, where he’d set up dozens upon dozens of ballistics gelatin dummies.

Science was all about controlling as many variables as possible, then only changing one at a time, so you knew what caused the change, if any.

If that meant Perry and his friends got to stand there and unload AK-47s on dummies to establish a control, then all the better.

After each volley, Perry went downrange and noted exactly how deep each bullet from each person went through the gelatin.

Perry was a bit disappointed to see that the gun he held did not shoot with more penetrative power than the others. It seemed that Spendthrift only applied to things he had created or assembled himself.

Note to self, tear gun down and reassemble to see if there’s an uptick in performance. Bullets too?

Once the control was established, it was time to science!

“This, lady and gentleman, is several brand-new types of material my dad just invented!” Perry said, revealing last night’s creations with a flourish.

It was a variety of simple breastplates he’d made out of plywood, plastic, aluminum cans, compacted dirt, and plexiglass, fitting snugly on top of their respective ballistics gel.

“Your dad made a new kind of plywood?” Heather asked, brow raised.

“Yeah. He did. Shut up.”

Heather’s expression clearly indicated she didn’t believe him.

“He made a new kind of dirt too? Is this, like, terra cotta or something?” Brendon asked, poking the dirt breastplate.

“It’s…dirt,” Perry said. “Just gotta have variety so you can get more data, you know?”

“Oh, okay.” Brendon nodded.

Heather looked suspicious.

“Anyway, over here we have the controls!” Perry said, moving on to unveil the sheets of unprocessed material.

On the cart were sheets of plywood, plastic, empty aluminum cans, plexiglass, and…a sack of dirt. Perry had avoided directly touching them, nor made them into armor, so hopefully they still had their natural resilience.

“Who’s ready to do some more science?!” Perry asked.

“What’s really going on here, Perry?” Heather asked, her arms crossed.

“You wanna shoot some guns or not?” Perry asked, tone flat.

“Ooh, ooh, I do, I do!” Brendon said, waving his hand in the air.

Chapter 4: Maths

They had a great time, blowing holes in Perry’s ‘new materials.’ Nothing was safe, and once the dummies were thoroughly shredded, Perry broke out the prawn gun.

Brendon, the beefy young man who weighed at least two hundred and twenty pounds, got knocked on his ass, cradling a bruised collarbone after the first shot.

The anti-prawn ordinance exploded the armor, the dummy behind it, and tore a huge chunk out of the self-healing backstop Perry’s dad had installed.

“Wooo!” Brendon cheered weakly, still holding his shoulder.

“You’re not doing it right,” Heather said, holding the gun as tight to her shoulder as possible, aiming and firing.

Heather didn’t fall down, but she did stumble backwards, trying to stop herself until her back slammed into the wall.

Really, she weighs half as much as Brendon. What was she thinking?

“Your turn,” Heather said, offering Perry the enormous rifle.

“I know my limits,” Perry said. “And I’d rather not break my collarbone.”

“C'mon, man!” Brendon shouted.

“Yeah, c’mon,” Heather said with a mischievous grin. “Do it.”

“Doo it! Doo it! Doo it!” the two cretins chanted.

If it’ll get them off my back, it might be worth the broken collarbone.

Perry sighed. “Let it not be said that I’m immune to peer pressure,” he said, taking the rifle and popping out the spent shells.

“Whoo!” Brendon shouted.

Perry admired the cartridges for a moment. They were thicker than his thumb and as long as his hand. The bullet portion had depleted uranium in a lead jacket to protect the barrel. In short, they were freakin’ huge, and only served to reinforce exactly how dangerous the monsters on the wall really were.

These bullets were not meant to be used for practice. Heather, you minx. He wasn’t really getting viable data from these guns, anyway, since everything they hit either exploded, or didn’t. There was very little in between.

Perry loaded the next shot and took aim, taking special care to brace the gun tightly. He meant it when he said he didn’t want a broken collarbone.

BOOM!

It was at that moment that an invisible 100th dan ninja jumped down from the ceiling and power-kicked him in the shoulder.

“ACK!” Perry’s voice was lost in the chaos as he was propelled backwards, flying through the air a handful of feet before he hit the ground, sliding until his crown nudged up against the back wall of the firing range.

“How ya doing?” Heather asked, her hair creating a fiery halo around her head as she bent over him, and it was at that moment that Perry was tempted to drop his remaining free points in Body, if only to show up Heather’s cocky smirk.

But no. Heather’s dad was a gun magnate. It could be assumed that he supplied both sides of the law, and it was no fault of Perry’s that she knew how to handle a prawn gun.

“Fine, Heather wins,” Perry said, holding the rifle up for whoever wanted to take a shot next.

“Let’s see if this thing can break my collarbone,” Brendon said, taking the gun out of his hands.

Heather and Perry shared a look before they glanced up at Brendon, who was holding the gun’s stock a couple inches away from his shoulder, spitting in the face of Perry’s safety briefing.

The two of them rushed over to the jock like alarmed parents, and through much scolding and persuasion, convinced Brendon that he did not want a broken collarbone.

Once the last target was detonated, and all three of them had ugly purple bruises on their shoulders, it was time to clean the guns.

After Heather and Brendon went home, Perry broke out the math, and was very surprised at what he found.

His first hurdle was that none of the materials had their durability multiplied by the same amount: Each and every one of them had a vastly different multiplier.

Plywood performed the best, but that was only because it was already significantly sturdier than most of the other materials. It blocked small arms fire, but nothing with any heft to it. The 7.62 rounds went right through. The math showed that Perry’s plywood absorbed the same amount of punishment as 17.199 layers of the regular stuff.

The next best was plexiglass, which blocked small arms as well, but took more damage in the process. His plexiglass sheets absorbed 15.876 normal panels’ worth of force before breaking.

Followed by plastic and aluminum cans, which stopped .22 rounds but not much else, and dirt, which stopped a lot of things, but wasn’t viable as a structural material, as it had a tendency to crumble…like dirt.

But the interesting part was that the multiplier for these cheaper materials was higher.

Plastic: 23.814

Aluminum cans: 27.783

Dirt: 30.429

Perry subtracted the effect of his Attunement from the result, which was 10.25%, and with a little finagling, found that the common denominator was 12.

So defensive and structural materials’ strength were increased by a flat twelve times, while each material’s strength was also upgraded on a case-by-case depending on some indecipherable combination of the item’s rarity/value/effectiveness.

Then at the end, the material’s strength was multiplied by his Attunement.

Basically, the Spendthrift perk pulled double duty on cheap junk when it was used as armor.

Interesting. Too bad the Attunement isn’t applied separately to each side of that before they’re multiplied together, but frankly, that’s probably asking a bit too much.

Now that Perry had a good idea of two of the numbers involved, he could start working on the ‘reaction’ portion of the perk, then once that was done, he could start experimenting with actual spells.

The ‘reaction’ verifying was easy enough. All he had to do was look up some well-documented chemical reactions on YouTube and copy them identically, then measure the difference.

The ‘reaction,’ in this case, was a precise amount of vinegar and baking soda.

Using a camera and a simple algorithm, he estimated that by following the instructions exactly, he would be able to generate a…10.25% stronger reaction with the same amount of chemicals. Essentially, only his Attunement had any effect at all on the strength of the outcome.

How does that work?

On a hunch, Perry began diluting the concentration of the reaction, and realized that his perk wasn’t strengthening the primary reaction; it was making the decrease in the strength of the reaction not follow the linear rate of dilution.

Instead, it followed a logarithmic path (ignoring the 10.25% boost). The reaction maintained most of its effectiveness until there was roughly 1/3 the original amount of chemicals, after which it began to drastically diminish.

So…

Perry frowned.

So…basically…homeopathy?

He could use 1/3 of the required amount of any chemical, diluted, in order to generate the same reaction. And that number would continue getting smaller as his Attunement rose.

The fact that it raised the output at full concentration was only due to his Attunement hijacking the function and pushing it above 100%, where it should’ve naturally stopped.

So…if Spendthrift had any effect on magical reactions, then Attunement alone would dictate stronger-than-natural magical reactions.

Not fifteen or twenty times stronger like the defensive materials, but there would be a boost. If it worked.

I can live with that. 100 Attunement = 131X power, after all.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

First, Perry had to see if there was a noticeable difference between his prior experiment, pre-class, and a new creation, post-class.

To test that, he had to make a new spell-disc, as well as a new spell-frame.

Perry snuck out into the garage in the middle of the night and retrieved one of Terry’s treat herrings, then back into his room, where the octopus immediately pressed itself against the glass, watching the fish with intensity.

“Alright, Terry,” he said, brandishing his sample needle. “You know the drill.”

The octopus’s eyes narrowed, but its gaze kept landing on the herring.

The process was mostly painless, and in a matter of minutes, he had a needle full of nerve cells.

After that, Perry began to sink into what was commonly called the Tinker Twitch. Time began to fly by as he tore the guts out of all the decommissioned computers littering his floor and began creating a house for the new spell-disc.

As he worked, the ideas flowed like a river. He was drowning, and couldn’t resurface if he wanted to. By the time he came back to his senses, there was a sleek square on the desk in front of him, about the size and shape of a floppy disk from the late 20th century.

It was, in every way, better than his prototype, capable of keeping the nerve cells alive and fed indefinitely, given a modest supply of heat, electricity, or sun. So as long as he didn’t stick it in the lightless freezer, or boil it, it was shelf-stable.

Beside the disc was a much prettier version of his ‘growth’ spell-frame from last weekend, with a couple dozen upgrades that had sort of manifested as he was putting the thing together, his mind hopping from idea to idea.

Now the contraption had a smooth steel exterior that almost looked like a metallic ostrich egg, with a tiny hole where the puff of magic dust would be shot from.

Alright, Perry thought, rubbing his eyes and suppressing a yawn as he hooked the two new creations up to his computer, aiming the hole at a new patch of clover he’d stolen from the lawn.

Let’s see whether this class was a waste of my time.

GrowMkII.EXE

Perry thought he heard a whine immediately before a tiny puff of dust shot out of the egg-shaped spell-frame, settling on the clover.

Then the clover tried to grab him.

“AAAH!” Perry screamed and dove out of the way as the clover violently erupted out of the pot and shoved his computer tower off the desk.

The screen went blank as the tower shut down, the cord yanked from the case.

Then the clover conquered it, embedding roots in every inch of the motherboard and generally making a mess of things as it drooped off the edge of the desk, slowing down and stopping just before it hit the ground.

“Well…” Perry said from where he stood on top of his bed. “I think we can safely hypothesize that there is some sort of synergistic effect at play here.”

There was only one way to describe the reaction just now:

Weapons-grade.

Perry rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

Now the fun part: I get to figure out the math.

BRRRR. Perry heard the sound of a big diesel engine.

Wait a minute.

Through his window, he spotted the school bus rolling past his street. Left, not right, meaning it was already on the way back to the school.

“Shit,” Perry said, scrambling off his bed. “It’s seven forty-five already?!”

Chapter 5: My Weakness Is Bullet #3

Perry decided to play hooky.

He didn’t fancy a desperate sprint across town, just to receive the exact same amount of scolding, so he blew school off entirely.

This was not typical behavior for him, but life hadn’t exactly been typical lately.

You know what sounds good? A visit to Dave’s, then swing by The Home Depot. Maybe grab some copper wire, some neodymium magnets—do they sell those?—some structural materials, maybe cardboard, steel rebar, etc., etc.

Sounds like it’ll wind up taking a lot of space. Better use the bike.

‘The bike’ was a simple twelve speed with an oversized basket on the back.

Sure, it looked dorky, but it was the cheapest way to visit Dave’s and come back with acquisitions in a timely manner.

Perry remembered the bike being a lot bigger…when he was thirteen.

I wonder if I could upgrade this to make the trip a bit easier…

NO!

If he got caught by the Tinker Twitch again, he’d still be working on it when the school bus came back.

It could use an electric motor. I wonder if I could put the battery in the frame of the bicycle itself by pumping a gas into it, then aerosolizing the electrolyte into the gas. Spendthrift props up the reaction strength despite being diluted into a gas. Make the frame the cathode and make an anode that runs the length of the frame…

NO!

Perry shook himself out of it before he wound up making it shoot lasers.

There was SHOPPING to do.

Perry glanced at his bank account and huffed.

Probably gonna spend most of my money at Dave’s. As usual.

Perry hopped on the bike and began the laborious task of pedaling all the way to Dave’s.

Dave’s was a small shop in the dense urban part of town, relatively far away from the Nexus, and by extension, far from superhero oversight.

It didn’t mean that part of Franklin City was particularly dangerous or chaotic, but it was safer for Perry to follow certain rules when going through the place. Not wearing his school-issued backpack, letter jacket, or any other identifying clothes was step one.

Some people knew who his mom was, and that could sometimes attract the wrong kind of attention.

Very few people knew who his dad was; that could attract even worse attention.

Blending in was priority one.

Not staying in any one place long enough for people to get ideas was priority two, with the possible exception of Dave’s.

Dave ran a tight ship.

With the familiarity of practice, Perry made his way to the little mom-and-pop shop called Dave’s Magical Emporium.

Dave’s shop was smack-dab in the middle of what was colloquially known as Funkytown.

It was where many of the refugees from mom’s homeworld congregated, living in a rough approximation of harmony with each other and the law in general.

Dave, being the enterprising unicorn he was, saw an opportunity to sell his own shit at $2000 a pound, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Ding!

Dave was behind the counter, wearing his leathers, looking exactly the same as Perry remembered him from five years ago.

To be clear, Dave looked like a human with a nasty burn mark in the center of his forehead and some sizable mutton chops. It was far more convenient to have a humanoid shape in a humanoid city, so any magical creature who could manage it generally did.

There were good and bad things about Dave.

Dave was generally a pleasant enough fellow, and his customer service was excellent. On the other hand, he had a strange fixation with virginity and probably had a hand in most of the crime that happened in, or originated from, Funkytown. Dave, like most people, was a mixed bag.

“EEYY, is that little Perry I see?!” Dave said as Perry walked through the door. The man inhaled deeply, shuddering. “Still a virgin, I see. Good, good. Your mom had the same amazing scent before she started hanging around with that punk.”

Gross and creepy.

“What can I do for ya, kid? I haven’t seen you around in what, half a decade? I was starting to worry about ya.”

“I was looking to buy small amounts of these ingredients,” Perry said, pulling the list he’d jotted down out of Mom’s spellbook.

“Hmm…” The leather-clad unicorn took the list and slipped his bifocals off his forehead, chewing his lips as he read.

“What, are you going to stage a coup or something?” he muttered. “I’m not allowed to sell you these materials in these combinations…”

Perry’s heart sank.

“Which means I’m gonna have to dick with my records once I close down for the day.” Dave sighed. “At least the quantities you’re asking for aren’t likely to trigger any red flags with Nexus, which is good. Still, some of these are pretty expensive. You bring cash?”

And there’s the customer service.

“I was gonna hit the ATM.” Perry motioned to the ATM in the corner of the shop.

“Mmm.” Dave wrote down an estimate on Perry's list, then grunted as he turned around and shuffled about the shelves behind the bar, pulling out drawers and removing magical ingredients covered in wax paper, dropping them down on the counter with the efficiency of a clerk who wasn’t handling magical ingredients.

“I don’t suppose you could get me the worst-quality ingredients you have?” Perry asked as he eyeballed the price tag.

I thought I chose the cheap Tinker specialization.

“No can do, kid. Your mom’s a bit of a celebrity with us, and I’m not gonna be the guy who let her kid necrotize his hand because he got a bad batch of Areonite.”

Dangit. A bad batch would be so much cheaper.

“It should be fine, Dave. You can just sell me the cheap stuff; I’m not even gonna touch it myself,” Perry said before he realized he’d let too much slip.

“Of course you’re gonna touch it yourself….” Dave’s jovial manner faded like the sun under a cloud. “Come to think of it…you stopped coming here because you couldn’t make any rituals work. Something tells me that hasn’t changed.”

“How much was the Areonite again?” Perry asked, trying to change the subject.

“Son,” Dave said, leaning across the bar, his tone serious. “You’re not doing human experimentation with dangerous magical ingredients, are you?”

“God, no.”

“Then what are you doing with this, that doesn’t require you to touch them?”

“Umm…” Perry had been wanting to brag to someone who was in the know other than his mom and dad for days, so he couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

“I figured out a way to make machines cast spells—”

“SHHHHHHHHUT UP!” Dave said, holding his finger to his lips before motioning Perry closer.

“Are you telling me,” he whispered, his voice just barely audible, “that you figured out something that has never ever, in the history of Manita, been done? A technology that could overturn the world order, and you told me?”

“It sounds bad when you say it like that,” Perry grumbled. He hadn’t known it was that big a deal. He’d made it in his bedroom with some college-level chemistry tools. It honestly hadn’t been discovered yet on account of a blind spot between the science community and the magic one, not because it was difficult.

“Young man, I can rattle off the top of my head six people who would kill for that information. Lucky for you, I’m the most trustworthy unicorn you’re ever going to meet.” He preened. “Dave will keep your secret.”

And my dad would kill you if he traced a kidnapping back to you blabbing. Perry left that part unspoken because death threats were impolite.

“And yeah, if you want garbage ingredients, I’ve been looking for a sucker to offload some on. Now that I know it’s not going to kill you, I’ll bring out the real good stuff.”

“By that, you mean the bad stuff, right?”

Dave nodded with a bright smile as he swapped out the ingredients for contaminated, moldy, old, bruised, and battered versions of the same thing.

Perfect.

“That’ll be two hundred and sixteen dollars,” Dave said with a grin, quoting a price nearly six hundred dollars less than before.

“Thanks,” Perry said, tapping his card on the ATM, entering the amount, and coming back to the counter with the cash.

“Just promise me if you grow an extra head or lose a limb, you’ll tell your mom you got it from somewhere else, yeah? And don’t leave me hanging for five years again, eh?”

“I can do that,” Perry said, waiting for Dave to pack his order up into a paper bag.

As Dave was handing the bag over to Perry, the bell on the front door rang, signaling another customer.

“Nobody move!” a woman shouted, her voice a bit hoarse.

Perry and Dave froze in place, glancing over at the front door.

It was a mutant woman whose skin was smooth scales, wielding a nine millimeter in a shaking hand.

Despite the bullshit that Perry had fed Brendon, guns were just as popular now as they ever were. While they didn’t work for shit against supers, they were still terrific at intimidating civilians.

While they were civilian-adjacent, Perry and Dave were not civilians.

Perry glanced between Dave and the armed mutant woman. A sense of righteous anger and the desire to protect the helpless citizen grew in his chest.

This seems like a really dumb idea. My weakness is a third bullet. Perry hadn’t even gotten around to testing it yet. He wasn’t exactly raring to go shooting himself.

“Listen, lady,” Perry said, stepping between her and Dave.

“Shut up!” she said, the gun practically vibrating with how hard it was shaking.

‘Listen, son, amateurs are always going to be more dangerous than professionals. Not because they can fight better, but because they’re so freaked out that they’ll muck everything up and mess things up badly.’

Perry hadn’t quite understood what his mom was talking about, but staring down the quivering barrel of the gun, he was starting to get a glimpse of her wisdom.

“Do you know who that is behind me?” Perry asked.

“What does it matter?” she asked, forgetting her previous command. “Gimme your wallet! And you, open the register!”

Dave leaned on the counter with his elbow, seemingly amused.

“That’s Dave the Unicorn. He’s a literal freakin’ unicorn, and he can and will turn your gun into poisonous snakes. If that wasn’t reason enough to leave, I give you exhibit B.”

Perry pointed outside, where three men sat on a bench by the street, watching the proceedings with interest. “Those are some of Dave’s goons. If you walk out of these doors with Dave’s money, you’re going to wind up dead in an alleyway somewhere.”

Perry looked past the gun into the woman’s eyes. “I’m trying to save your life, here, ma’am.”

“I don’t believe you! Now, gimme the cash, or I’ll…I’ll pump you full of lead!”

“Look,” Perry said, taking a step forward. The sudden movement was too much for the woman, and she unleashed a hail of gunfire.

BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM!

HP: 1

Perry glanced down at where a single flattened bullet dropped away from his torso, having torn a hole in his shirt.

“You’re a super!” she said, eyes widening.

“Should I have led with that?” Perry asked.

The woman turned and bolted, sprinting down the street faster than the goons could react.

“Oh my god, I almost died!” Perry groaned, leaning back against the countertop, his heart slamming wildly in his chest. The unspent adrenaline went right to his knees, weakening them.

If that woman had been ANY more accurate, Perry would have a freakin’ bullet in him right now.

Amateurs are SCARY! A professional never would’ve even been there.

Thinking about the mutant woman’s appalling accuracy, Perry glanced back at Dave. “You okay?”

“Fine. Everything in the shop is insured. Including me!” The leather-clad unicorn cocked his head. “You didn’t have to do that for me, you know.”

“I did it for her! I saved her life!” Perry said.

“Allegedly. I am but a humble shopkeep.”

“Pfft.” Perry blew a raspberry and took his stuff, waving at the goons on the way out and strapping his haul down in the rear basket.

And now to Home Depot, Perry thought, flipping up his kickstand.

The ride to Home Depot was pleasantly uneventful.

They had some nice cardboard which Perry bought a ream of, along with a couple rolls of duct tape, some bulk glues, and a tub of high-performance rubber sealant. Because of his savings at Dave’s, he was also able to afford some hefty electrical wiring, some spray paints…

Ooh, and some copper tubing and an electrolyte.

The structural battery idea was stuck in the back of his head, and it wouldn’t go away until he did something with it.

Without noticing it, Perry’s cart gradually became unmanageable, and he had to buy bungee cords to get the whole thing to fit (grudgingly) on his bike.

This is gonna be sweet, Perry thought as he pedaled through the downtown area.

BOOM!

Perry was halfway home when a shockwave from a detonating building knocked him off the bike and onto the curb.

The wall of the nearby building detonated into a wave of shrapnel as Dad punched Mom through a wall and out into the street. Dad’s squat, crablike robots poured out the hole, carrying hundreds of high-tech gadgets grasped in their pincers, aiming for the sewers.

Hexen stabilized her flight mid-tumble, hovering thirty feet above the road as arm-thick bolts of lightning surrounded her spandex-clad form.

Ew.

Perry liked spandex…on other supers. Not his mom.

I’m sure Dad appreciates it, though.

It wasn’t actually spandex, obviously. It was some weird invention made by a Tinker a long time ago, and nobody had managed to beat it yet on the protection:weight ratio.

Dad was climbing out of the hole, his white and red powersuit looking something like Iron Monger from the comics printed in the before-times. His suit was heavy and oversized, making him stand twelve feet tall, with thick, rough-looking iron disguising the sheer ingenuity of the interior.

It was a conscious design choice, his dad had said, as it made people assume he was fixated on sheer power, and therefore stupid.

“Your time has come, Hexen!” Dad’s modified voice echoed through the street from the machine’s speakers. “The rest of your team is nowhere to be seen! They dance like puppets on the palm of my steel hand!”

“You wanna dance?” Mom said, pulling her hand back. “That can be arranged!” She brought her hand down, and with it, a torrential rain of lightning battered Dad’s suit, causing him to shake wildly in place as the overwhelming power melted through his insulators.

“Hah, you thought to defeat a Tinker with electricity?!” Dad shouted. “I have electricity in my brain! Your fancy fireworks can only make me stronger!” A gatling gun popped out of Dad’s forearm, and Mom began weaving sideways, dodging his fire in—

Oh my god, they’re coming my direction!

Perry hit the deck, covering his precious cardboard and wire with his body.

Suddenly the deafening gunfire stopped, and Perry patted himself down, making sure he hadn’t taken any holes.

There’s a quicker way to do that.

Perry checked his HP.

HP: 1

Whew. Didn’t get hit.

“PERRY?!” Dad’s voice echoed through the mechsuit’s speakers.

Aw, shoot.

Hexen turned mid-flight, her eyes widening. She flitted over to where he was dusting himself off on the street corner.

“What are you doing out of school, young man?!” the #5 cape in Franklin City demanded, her hands on her hips.

“Missed the bus,” Perry said as Dad approached to stand in front of him too.

“What were you doing skipping school without protection?!” Dad demanded. “You should have at least taken one of my concealable disintegration rays.”

Hexen glared at Mechanaut.

“I mean, um, school!” the giant robot in front of him hedged, clearly nervous. “Can’t miss that. A growing boy needs to learn, um…fractions and algebra.”

“A growing man needs friends,” Hexen said. “I know it sounds trite, but you’re only a high-schooler once. Make some friends while you’re there.”

Perry’s thoughts landed on Heather and Brendon, for some reason.

“I don’t think you guys understand,” Perry said. “I didn’t try to miss the bus. I feel as though I should also remind you that I’m legally an adult.”

“You’ll always be my little boy,” Mom crooned.

“What your mother is trying to say is your brain is like an undercooked brownie in an easy-bake oven. You might be legally an adult, but you’re still dumb as shit.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“No problem,” the giant suit of armor said.

“Is that a bullet hole in your shirt?!” Mom demanded, grabbing his shirt and holding it out.

“My boy!” The huge robot gave him a thumbs-up.

“It’s fine.” Perry waved it off. “Not a problem.”

“It’s not fine! How did you wind up getting shot in one afternoon?! If I heard your dad correctly, you’re not completely bulletproof, are you?!”

“Weren’t you guys mid-battle?” he asked, nodding towards the news vans that were disgorging camera crews like clown cars.

Mom punched out with her right hand and sent Mechanaut flying, impacting against a heavy concrete building.

“Seek shelter, citizen!” she said, loud enough for the news crews to hear it. “Your MOTHER is probably worried sick!”

With that said, Hexen flew after Dad’s armor, tackling it to the ground.

Perry shook his head and hopped back on his bike. He had a distinct feeling that wasn’t the last he was going to hear about this.

Chapter 6: Tinkering

“Ahahaha!” Heather kicked her heels and clutched her stomach. “Oh my god, it hurts.”

“I’m not getting it,” Brendon said.

On the TV screen was a still image of Hexen and The Mechanaut facing down a single dark-haired teen on the sidewalk, both of them radiating disapproval. The young man was faced away from the camera, but Heather obviously knew who it was.

Under the image was the caption:

Hexen and Mechanaut see eye to eye on truancy.

I knew I was gonna hear more about it, but from Heather? That burns.

“Did you guys wanna see what I was working on, or what?” Perry asked, crossing his arms and trying not to blush from the sheer, unadulterated humiliation of having his parental scolding caught on camera.

“Sure. Sure,” Heather said, wiping the tears out of her eyes.

“But why was it funny?” Brendon asked.

“That kid was Perry. He got a talking-to from the two supers on the scene. Including the cowl.”

“Hah!” Brendon chuckled. “That is funny as long as he didn’t get hurt, I guess.”

Ah, Brendon. Never change.

“Right this way,” Perry said, motioning for them to follow from the living room to his room, where his current experiment rested.

“Is it, um…underneath the cardboard?” Heather asked.

On Perry’s desk was a seemingly innocuous single sheet of cardboard, about the size of two palms: unremarkable, save for two thick copper wires sticking out of either side.

Perry had converted it into a battery by taking advantage of the corrugation to house the diluted chemicals. His class perk had smoothed out any of the infeasibility of the process, and strengthened the finished product beyond what was logical.

“It is the cardboard!” Perry said, slipping on some thick rubber gloves before he carefully grabbed the two wires and held them close to each other.

ZAAAAP!

“Holy—” Brendon took a step back as electricity arced three inches between the two wires. “What the hell?”

“You made this, didn’t you,” Heather said. It was not a question.

“…Yeah.”

“So you got a Tinker power from your dad,” Heather said, appraising the cardboard with a critical eye.

Not by choice, Perry groused internally.

“What?!” Brendon’s jaw dropped, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “What?!”

He turned to Perry, his eyes twinkling. “Are you gonna apply to the Nexus and go fight crime and stuff?!” he asked. “Does your dad fight crime?! He’s a Tinker, right?!”

“Most Tinkers don’t actually fight crime. They work for the city and provide support items for the Wall and the Nexus,” Heather said. “Like Perry’s dad. It’s a lot safer and more productive than galavanting around in power armor. That takes a special kind of idiot.”

“Oh…yeah, that makes sense. Not quite as cool, but makes a lot more sense.” Brendon deflated, taking it hook, line, and sinker, as usual.

Thanks, Perry mouthed. Heather shrugged. There was a bit of an unspoken agreement between them to keep a lid on the amount of information about their respective families that got into civilian hands.

And while Brendon lived in the same neighborhood, which was crawling with supers, that was more luck than anything else. He was still a civilian.

After his friends left, Perry sat down and had a real think about what Heather had said.

It takes a special kind of idiot to galavant around in power armor.

Was Perry that kind of idiot? He’d wanted to do what his mom did since he could remember—because it was awesome, and even though his parents had ruined the mystique of the cape/cowl dynamic for him, it was still more appealing than working a regular job or being one of the Nexus’s pet Tinkers.

And would you have saved that woman from Dave if you were smart?

And that adrenaline rush…felt so good.

I guess I AM that kind of idiot, Perry thought, running his fingers through his hair.

New Quest: Make a suit of power armor, idiot!

Reward: 400 XP

Before we get to that, I need to figure out where to assign my extra points.

Perry pulled out his calculator and began running the numbers.

If I put all three points into Attunement, that would bump me up to 5 Attunement, arguably my most build-relevant stat.

Perry punched some numbers into his calculator.

1.05^5=1.2762

A little over a 27% boost in material efficiency from Attunement, where currently it stood at 10.25%.

Perry glanced over at his Body and HP stats.

But if I’m gonna do this thing, don’t I want a bit more survivability? Longevity means extra levels. Can’t level if you’re dead.

Perry did not like that he’d be vulnerable after only two hits.

Body itself offered its own form of defense. If he raised the stat high enough, he’d be able to shrug off bullets regardless of whether or not he had HP.

But that would take dozens of points. Dozens. All the while, my inventions would only improve at a modest rate.

And I mean, I don’t wanna be a musclehead.

Perry wanted to defy reality, not punch things really hard.

I’m not saying punching things hard isn’t good; it’s just so…limiting.

Perry’s decision was made.

God hates a coward, he thought, dropping all three points into Attunement.

For a moment, Perry got the conflicting impression that his senses were expanding out of his body, and also that there was nothing beyond his room. That if he opened the door, there would be nothing outside but a pitch-black void.

Then the feeling was gone, and his senses seemed to retract back inside his skull.

That was weird.

Perry shook his head to clear it and glanced at the Tidewatch on the wall of his room.

The Tidewatch looked like an old-timey thermometer, a vial filled with a red liquid.

It measured how strong The Tide was. It relied on amplifying and displaying the same simple mechanisms that caused the ocean to rise up to meet the wall, something that normally was too small a fluctuation to be felt by the body.

Gravity.

Still normal, Perry thought, returning his attention to his thoughts.

Back when The Tide had first started, scientists had bent their every effort on figuring out what was causing the fluctuations in gravity.

Some even succeeded. Those poor bastards.

Perry shuddered. Anyway, let’s see about testing the new limits of our materials.

Cardboard was sitting at 30.6 times its original strength, and each of his original materials also got a healthy uptick in their durability.

30 layers of cardboard is not bulletproof.

Nobody ever said Perry had to use cardboard, but he’d like to use it as a large portion of the load-bearing structure, because he could incorporate the battery technology he’d prototyped to make the load-bearing structures double as batteries.

Incredibly lightweight, powerful batteries.

I could make a suit of power armor that weighs less than ten pounds….

Perry cocked a brow. That lends itself really well to flight.

Perry kicked his rolling chair over to his desk and began brainstorming ideas. What he needed was a composite material. Cardboard was far too soft to stop a bullet, but a handful of millimeters of steel could do it, because a large portion of stopping bullets was causing the bullet to shatter on impact, and steel was simply harder than lead.

I guess I’ll have to hope that the opponent doesn’t have a prawn gun.

So I’m gonna want a tiny bit of super-thin steel sheet for hardness, cardboard as a light but (relatively) strong filler material/battery, rubber sealant for flexibility and to protect the components from leakage, and duct tape because that video where the guy couldn’t shoot through a roll of duct tape was awesome.

Perry could get away with using thinner metal sheeting than was strictly recommended for stopping a bullet, because of his Spendthrift perk.

Steel sheeting isn’t terribly expensive, but it’s not super-cheap either, so the modifier is probably 18 times.

The problem was, Perry didn’t have any steel sheeting.

Would aluminum work?

The aluminum that hadn’t stopped small arms fire had been as thin as a human hair.

Perry pursed his lips and scooted back over to his computer, looking up a handy chart giving him the different hardness, strength, toughness, and ductility of various materials.

Aluminum was ductile as heck. Its hardness wasn’t great, but wasn’t that what the Spendthrift perk was for? At approx. 30 times strength, it would only take a handful of millimeters to stop a bullet, and be lighter than steel besides.

Another thought occurred to him, and Perry started researching.

Is aluminum foil actually aluminum?

Yes.

How thick?

Heavy duty = approx. 2 soda cans thick. 1/5 of a millimeter.

Perry frowned.

Don’t we have some of that in the kitchen?

***Several Hours Later***

I think it’s safe to say we’ve got our armor material, Perry thought. The armor was about a quarter inch thick, with multiple layers of aluminum foil sandwiched between rubber sealant, cardboard battery on the inside, and a cardboard façade on the outside.

Perry didn’t have to put cardboard on the outside, but he’d decided to do it because it made him look like a complete idiot. People wouldn’t take him seriously until it was too late, and a couple extra seconds of confusion could make all the difference.

Taking a page from Dad, I guess. Plus, the cardboard made it easy to modify the outside and concealed the guts of the armor. People would begin to assume it was high-tech under the cardboard façade eventually, but until then, he didn’t wanna dissuade them.

Now that we’ve got a material, I just gotta figure out a design for the armor and some spell-discs that I can actually fight crime with.

Perry flipped through his spell ingredient acquisitions from the day before.

Tomward’s Floating Dazzler (Neophyte Difficulty)

Nope, takes too long to grow the crystals. Should get started on growing those ASAP, though. Good crowd control.

Perry grabbed the phantom jellyfish salts and some string, placing them on top of his glowstone-growing tub, to be given his complete attention later.

Kolath’s Floating Armaments (Intermediate Difficulty)

Ingredients: Areonite, vivant root, Mindtaker ichor

Render the Areonite into a liquid using a forge. Mix with powdered vivant root, 1 pinch per jangle of Areonite. Pour into molds of the desired shape. Be aware that the floating armaments are five hundred times bigger in every measurement, and plan accordingly.

At this stage, the Areonite alloy will begin to react with the vivant root, and most likely degrade within three weeks.

Make sure there are no bubbles or holes in your pouring, as those will result in holes in the floating armament. Finish the final details with jeweler’s tools as desired. Make sure any weapon is sharpened, as a casting will not come out able to cut flesh.

Once the details are complete, inscribe a unique symbol in Mindtaker ichor on the finished product and a matching one on the controller themselves. Accuracy in the crafting of the anima and the control symbol increases the longevity of the casting. A poor casting will only last for a minute or so. Excellent castings have been known to last days.

King Javneh went into battle against the Murk with six perfectly cast floating armaments, and was said to have fought for seven days before—

Boring… Perry skimmed the impromptu history lesson.

Consumes the Areonite alloy upon activation.

Oooh, yeah, now we’re talking. This one I can start immediately. Perry set those ingredients aside, being sure not to touch the bad Areonite. The silvery metal had rootlike streaks of black oxidation running through it, which would no doubt foul up the spell, save for Perry’s Spendthrift perk minimizing contaminants.

Hopefully. I really don’t wanna necrotize my tissues. I like my tissues.

Perry tried to look up the melting temperature of Areonite, but couldn’t find it.

Guess I’ll just have to science that shit. What’s next?

The next spell had notes written in his mother’s handwriting in the margins.

Sacrifice to Gintax (Intermediate Difficulty)

Ingredients: bone, Areonite

Create an altar out of bone (any kind) in the design pictured below. Accuracy is vital. Kill something with an Areonite dagger on top of the altar to charge the death-metal with the power of their life force. Can be used to self-heal, or power unlife.

This spell is forbidden for many obvious reasons, but it is detailed in this book to spread awareness. If you spot someone creating something like this, seek a representative of The Council.

Mom’s notes were as such:

TRAP! The ancient Zalesh language shown here is actually insults to the blood god. The Council was power-hoarding jerks, and any credulous dipshit who attempted this would invoke Gintax’s ire. Below are the proper symbols, inscribed from a successful casting by a necromancer I re-deaded.

The Areonite dagger does not have to be the cause of death, merely present, and I have found that Gintax is just as happy with roaches and mice as anything else.

They actually make really good roach motels that pay magical dividends.

Perry didn’t have any bones at the moment, so he set that one aside. I’ll come back to that one.

Dregor’s Flaccidity (Advanced Difficulty)

Ingredients: Corsian bat shriek, dried Gol fruit, Hul horn, muck-slime, silver bowl

Mix the powdered Gol fruit with the Hul horn in the silver bowl, 1:5 ratio. Add muck-slime until the mixture becomes a paste. Coat the inside of the bowl. Induce the Corsian bat to shriek towards the bowl, such that the silver begins to hum. Face the concave side of the bowl towards the intended recipient. If the spell is successful, the target will lose rigidity and melt. This is harmless to living creatures, and they regain their shape in a few minutes. Inanimate objects reharden when the effect is over, but do not regain their shape.

Note: This recipe is labeled as Advanced, as it appears to be very difficult to reliably achieve. Dregor invented the spell as a joke, but it rarely worked beyond the first time.

Still, it HAS worked, often enough to consider it a true spell—if an unreliable one.

I like this one. It sounded like the silver ‘bowl’ acted as a satellite dish, and when it resonated with the bat screech, transferred those vibrations to the mixture and concentrated them on a single point.

It made sense it didn’t work very often. Not every silver bowl had the exact same dimensions and not every bat screeched the exact same way every time.

Perry intended to control the variables.

He wrote it down, along with a few notes about how it could work.

Alright, we’ve got two spells we like and can begin to work on right now: Dregor’s Flaccidity and Kolath’s Floating Armaments.

Perry glanced over at the death-metal sitting ominously on the desk.

He jotted down another note. Test Spendthrift’s contaminant mitigation properties on harmless reactions before live-testing Floating Armaments. I like my tissues.

Chapter 7: First Date

“So, like, what do you do?” Brendon asked. “What’s it like, being a Tinker? Do you have a specialty?”

Magic.

“Batteries,” Perry said. “I was just thinking about electricity, and how much Franklin City has, when BAM. I suddenly had this overwhelming urge, like I was hungry and the only way to cure it was to mess around with tech. All of a sudden, I became a battery Tinker.”

“Neat,” Brendon said with obvious disappointment.

“I can do other things a little bit. I haven’t tried much out, but batteries seem to be my strength.”

“Well…I’m sure it’s a good career. Everybody needs batteries,” Brendon said, trying to cheer him up.

Tinkers came in all sorts of different types, and their power scaled from inconsequential to world-ending grey-goo types, like Professor Replica. There were a lot more duds than there were Professor Replicas.

The Industrial Tinker and especially the AI Tinker were on the more powerful side of the spectrum and could easily be leveraged for exponential growth. The Garage Tinker was somewhere in the middle…barring the use of magic.

But Perry wanted all of his friends (specifically Brendon) to assume Perry had gotten a somewhat crap Trigger. Not awful, but not great either. Something they could look at and be amused for a moment, then forget about entirely.

I wonder if lying to credulous people is a sin? Perry thought as they walked toward the arcade. Feels like it should be.

The arcade was in the downtown area, on the east side of the city, a few blocks north of Funkytown, abutting the wall.

Perry glanced up at the monolithic concrete structure looming a hundred feet over them, stretching as far as the eye could see north to south. It eventually wrapped around the entire city, but the east side that faced the ocean was what saw the most destruction during High Tide.

And then they were inside the building full of bright lights and distracting noises.

“VR boxing,” Heather said, grabbing Perry’s shirt and tugging him over to her favorite game. Two players stood in opposite tanks and took on avatars who then beat on each other.

Puffs of compressed air simulated the opponent’s strikes, hard enough to sting a little, but not truly painful.

“Fine. Brendon, you good?” Perry glanced over his shoulder and spotted Brendon dunking baskets. Alrighty then.

He allowed himself to be dragged over to the two clear tanks, and climbed in one, pulling the headset down from the ceiling as a wave of air passed over him: each punch fan warming up. The boisterous noise of the arcade was cut off as the VR tank sealed him in.

“I hope you’re ready for a world of hurt,” Perry muttered.

“Getting cocky all of a sudden?” Heather asked, her voice transmitted through the speakers, doing some practice jabs with her controllers.

And suddenly they were in the boxing arena.

Heather’s avatar was an amazonian woman about six foot five, wearing a championship belt.

Perry’s was a giant octopus with a mustache, pretending to be a human boxer.

“Oh my god, you picked that avatar again?” the giant woman said with Heather’s voice.

Perry adopted an old-timey accent, lapsing between several in a matter of seconds. “C’mon, put up yer dukes, nya, see, nya.” Perry lifted his two gloved tentacles while his other six skittered around beneath him, dancing from side to side.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Heather said, rushing in to begin the beating.

It was surprisingly less one-sided than it usually was. Heather only beat him most of the time. Perry attributed it to his increased stats.

“Batteries?” Heather panted as they rested between rounds. “I can’t believe he bought that. What’s your real specialty?”

“It’s not that much better,” Perry said. “I can make cheap materials function above their specifications.”

“That’s it?”

“In a nutshell.”

“Why didn’t you tell him that?”

“Because when a guy shows up on the news wearing cardboard armor, I didn’t want Brendon to think it was me. He’s not exactly a vault.”

“Ah,” Heather said, banging her gloves together to start the next round. Perry did the same, and the timer started.

“Do you actually have a plan for your debut?”

“I don’t even have armor yet, so no.”

“Idiot. You should be thinking about that stuff before you finish the armor. You know as soon as you have it, you’re gonna wanna take it for a test drive, and just like that, your debut is ruined.”

“You’ve thought a lot about this,” Perry said, playing peekaboo.

“I’ve been planning my debut since I was twelve.”

“But you don’t have any powers?”

Heather jabbed him twice in the nose in response.

“You do?”

Heather jabbed him a couple more times.

“I’m getting mixed signals, here,” Perry said, dodging and catching Heather with a hook, sending the giant avatar toppling to the ground.

“Dangit!” Heather shouted as her character climbed back to her feet.

“Make me a power armor,” Heather’s giant avatar said.

“…Why would I double my workload?” Perry asked.

“Because I want to rob my dad.”

“Karnos, the super gunrunner with a reputation for crippling his enemies? You wanna rob him?”

“Yeah.”

“That sounds wildly ill-advised.”

“Nah, I’ve put a ton of thought into it. We’re gonna rob one of the gangs he supplies after the money has changed hands. He won’t care if his weapons get stolen from his customers after he’s been paid.”

“Because it’s no longer his responsibility,” Perry said. “Still sounds dangerous.”

“What were you planning on doing with the power armor, posing for swimsuit magazines?”

“Point,” Perry said.

“The weapons all come with some pretty intricate safeties on them. If we take out the gang members before they have a chance to unpack the shipment, we’ll only have to deal with… Wait, what’s that sound?”

Perry and Heather took off their headsets and spotted Brendon. The jock was beating his fist against the thick plastic of the boxing VR tank, trying to get their attention.

Behind him, the arcade was completely empty…save for three men with faceless plastic masks and automatic weapons slung over their shoulders.

Aw, man. I told Mom I’d be home by ten.

***Later***

“Guys, I think I’m freaking out,” Brendon said between gasps from where he was tied to a chair.

“You keep hyperventilating, you’re gonna pass out,” Heather said, matter-of-factly from her own chair.

Perry silently scanned the room, looking for something he could use to get them out. It was a concrete box with a single inefficient incandescent bulb.

There was a small steel table with several bloody cutting utensils on it. If these people were professionals, as it seemed, the blood was most likely from beef. The props were only meant to scare the crap out of them.

The intimidation factor sure worked wonders on Brendon, though. The kid slumped over in his chair, out like a light.

“This is scary, right?” Perry asked, glancing over at Heather beside him.

Heather shrugged. “Eight out of ten. It’s pretty good.”

There’s some heavy-duty trash bags in the corner for our body parts, a butcher knife…a camera watching everything we do…

“Yeah, it’s a pretty good setup,” Perry nodded, relaxing a bit.

He continued scanning the room until a glint of light caught his eye. There was one of Heather’s fiery hairs on her pants.

“Can I borrow that hair?” Perry nodded towards it.

“Knock yourself out.”

Gotta work fast. If they were watching, Perry might only have a minute or less before they stormed in and corrected the situation.

He shifted in his chair until he made contact with Heather’s pants.

“Whoa, that’s my butt, Perry.”

“It’s really hard to do this with my hands behind my back.”

“Sure, that’s your excuse.”

“I think it’s a pretty good one,” Perry said, twisting until he felt like his spine was going to break, sliding his fingers down Heather’s thigh until he found what he was looking for.

A strand of hair.

Perry twisted back around in his chair and waited a moment.

Nobody was storming in. The only sound was Brendon’s snoring.

Well, might work. Maybe they’re busy making ransom calls. Or think I’m a perv.

Whatever. I’ll take what I can get.

Perry took the hair and pulled it taut between his fingers, and began sliding it up and down along the ropes binding his hands together.

The strand of hair, strengthened by his perk, cut through the rope like a saw through balsa wood. In less than a minute, he was free, clasping his hands together behind his back to maintain the illusion.

“I’m gonna free you as quick as I can, then we’re gonna barricade the door. We can free Brendon when the situation is under control.”

“Got it.” Heather nodded.

“Now.”

Perry sprang out of his chair, landing behind Heather. He started sawing furiously with the strengthened hair, cutting through her ropes in seconds.

Perry heard some distant clattering and shouting, but simply focused on his task.

“A little faster, Perry?” Heather asked.

“Just be ready to barricade the door,” Perry muttered, as he was already cutting as fast as he could.

Snap!

Click! The door opened an instant after the rope snapped open, and Heather was already sprinting forward. She jumped, her body straight as a nail as she landed, both feet in the center of the masked man’s chest, propelling him violently backwards into the concrete hallway.

Perry leapt over the chair to where Heather hit the ground, slamming the door shut. “Butcher knife?”

“It’s welded to the table,” Heather said, trying to pry on the knife. “All of it is.”

“Table?”

“Bolted to the ground,” Heather shot back.

“Freakin’ professionals,” Perry said, shaking his head, his gaze landing on the trash bags in the corner of the room.

“Can you wake up Brendon? We’re gonna need some muscle.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Heather asked.

“Pfft, no. Got a better one?”

“Eh.” Heather shrugged, then went up to Brendon, untying him and slapping him awake.

“Gah!” Brendon shouted.

“Brendon, come hold the door closed!” Perry shouted as it began to buck against him.

“Uh, what?”

“RIGHT NOW!”

The jock jumped and ran over to the door, bracing his shoulder against it.

“Cool, thanks,” Perry said, leaving him alone there.

“Wait, where are you going?!” Brendon demanded, the door rattling against his shoulder.

Rather than answer, Perry bum rushed the steel table and drop-kicked it, having been inspired by Heather’s move.

Creak!

The weld on one of the upper corners connecting to the legs failed, and Perry got underneath it and pushed up as hard as he could. A moment later, Heather was right beside him, gritting her teeth with effort.

Crack!

The surface of the steel table with the bloody instruments welded to it flew away, clattering against the wall.

“Trash bags,” Perry said, pointing at the roll in the corner of the room as he picked up the steel plate and moved it back to the center of the room.

That’s at least three millimeters of steel. Should do what I need it to do.

Heather threw the black roll at him.

Perry caught it one-handed, whipping off a single sheet and twisting it into a rope.

He set one end on one of the still-standing table legs and smashed the steel down on top of it, embedding the plastic rope partially into the steel.

He repeated the process, and had a shield, complete with handle.

Thankfully, the steel table was smaller than the door.

“Alright, we’re gonna open the door. When that happens, get behind me, and push. Ready?”

“Umm…” Brendon hedged.

“Too bad.”

They threw the door open, causing the men battering it to stumble forward, only to crack their heads into Perry’s shield.

Brendon closed his eyes and shoved Perry forward as they trampled their captors in the hallway.

Heather followed behind them, disarming the knocked-down minions as she went. She wasn’t keeping the weapons, only rendering them inoperable. As they were civilians, the general rule of thumb among cowls was to exercise a modicum of restraint. They were less likely to be shot while they were unarmed.

Perry heard the stuttering of an automatic weapon, the multiple impacts of bullets hitting his shield, then the meaty thump of another minion being battered against it.

Mostly.

Brendon was screaming, but he didn’t stop pushing, which was good.

They emerged into what could only be described as a lair.

It looked like a converted warehouse with a heavy industrial aesthetic. There was a bit of light leaking from a series of windows near the third-story catwalk above them.

The lair was filled with faceless minions, and one fellow who wore a domino mask and flamboyant green leather. He stood a head taller than Brendon and must’ve weighed fifty pounds more.

Perry couldn’t place him, so he was either an up-and-comer, or C-list.

Judging by his salt-and-pepper hair, probably C-list. Didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous, though.

“You kids are resourceful. Really MacGyvered your way outta there, didn’t ya?” he asked.

“You see that door to the left, Brendon?” Perry whispered. “You’re gonna run for it on my signal.”

“What about you guys?”

“Covering you with the shield, obviously,” Perry said.

“Obviously,” Heather said.

“Alright, cut the chatter,” the cowl said, scowling at them. “Put down the table and surrender, and we can get back to a nice, orderly ransom. You should know by now Raider doesn’t want to hurt the merchandise…”

Glowing green blades manifested from his forearms. “But Raider is not above it.”

“Well, that’s a super,” Perry muttered. “Run, Brendon.”

“But—”

“Do it!” Heather hissed.

Brendon dashed for the exit, Perry and Heather moving to put the shield between him and the enemies.

“Damn it, the payday is bolting! Outta my way!” Raider shouted, lunging forward.

The top half of the table-shield and part of the handle got sheared off in the blink of an eye, leaving Perry eye to eye with the hulking man with the bloodshot eyes.

“Crap.” Perry ducked and scrambled underneath the wild swings, emerging behind Raider.

He took one look at the sheer quantity of armed minions and stuck to their boss like glue.

They wouldn’t shoot him while he was that close to the guy. Although that came with its own dangers.

“Freakin’ weasels!” the man muttered, aiming a backswing at Perry while fending off Heather with his other hand.

Perry tried to duck again, but the blade swerved down and caught him in the side of the head, smashing him into the dusty concrete floor.

HP: 1

Perry gasped a breath of sweet air, thankful to be alive.

So HP can stop these blades. Idea. Perry had been playing too much VR boxing recently.

Perry scrambled to pick up the remains of the shield again, battering it against Raider’s knee.

“Gah!” Raider shouted and took another swing at the annoying teen, bisecting the shield again, leaving a tiny plate tentatively attached to a plastic rope.

Okay, here we go, Perry thought, tightening his grip on the plastic.

Perry switched places with Heather and leapt straight into the guy’s sights.

Thankfully Raider wasn’t particularly suspicious of a trap, as he took another wild swing at Perry’s chest.

Perry stepped into the swing and countered into Raider’s jaw with his makeshift brass knuckles.

Perry felt a dull impact in his chest.

HP: 0

Raider’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over, unconscious and likely sporting a broken jaw.

The minions glanced at each other.

The sounds of sirens grew in the distance. Brendon must’ve flagged down a police officer.

They scattered, none of them particularly eager to go to jail with their boss.

You have defeated Raider.

Reward: 300 XP

“Heck yeah,” Perry said, his side vaguely itching.

“You’re bleeding.” Heather pointed at Perry’s side.

“Ah, crap.” Now he was gonna catch hell from Mom and Dad.

“Did you notice he said Brendon was the payday?” Heather asked. “Lift your arms.”

“I know. That was weird, wasn’t it? I guess it makes sense because his parents are rich,” Perry said, raising his arms with a wince. Heather then tied his shirt around the wound in a makeshift bandage.

“Let’s go get our phones back so we can buy you a new shirt,” she said, motioning toward the pile of their possessions in the middle of the warehouse.

***Later***

“How was the arcade, sweetie?” Mom asked from the kitchen as Perry walked through the door, trying his best not to favor the wound currently seeping into a thick wad of gauze under his shirt.

Perry considered that for a moment. “…Pretty fun, actually. Heather and I went clothes shopping afterwards.”

Mom stuck her head out from the kitchen, jaw open, brows raised. “You know what it means when a girl takes you shopping for clothes, don’t you?” she asked.

It means you’ve got a bloody hole in your shirt and need a new one, as well as first aid supplies? Perry thought.

“I wouldn’t read too much into it,” he said.

“Did she make a date to go out again?”

And rob a shipment of high-tech weapons from vicious gangsters, yeah.

“Sort of?” Perry said. “We’re gonna be hanging out Saturday after next.”

“Just the two of you?”

“…Yeah.”

“Ooooh!” Mom wiggled in excitement. “It’s a date!”

“Please,” Perry said.

“It’s a date!”

“Mom.”

Mom pranced back into the kitchen, waving her arms above her head in excitement, Perry’s protests falling on deaf ears.

Chapter 8: Dressed for Success

“What are you wearing?” Heather asked, motioning to Perry’s faintly iridescent embroidered vest with dark purple undershirt and fancy slacks, completed by a hefty silver love charm amulet in the center of his chest.

He looked like he’d walked off the cover of a women’s billionaire romance novel: in short, cheesy. The love charm was real, though, but Mom insisted it was the legal kind.

Perry took her word for it.

“My mom insists this is a date,” Perry explained, motioning to himself. “And she’s real old-fashioned. She literally wouldn’t let me leave without dressing up, and I can’t exactly tell her we’re going to go rob some gangsters…”

Perry frowned, taking in Heather’s skintight dress that ended at her upper thighs. “What are you wearing? You look like Sara Bellum,” Perry said.

“That’s a dated reference. You just dissed yourself, but I’ll take it as a compliment.

“I told my dad I’m going on a date,” she continued with a shrug. “I can’t tell him I’m robbing one of his clients.”

“He’s okay with you dating someone?”

“Pretty sure he doesn’t care,” Heather said, her eyes narrowed.

“O-okay then.” Perry had no context for a parent not caring, and had no idea how to address it.

“Shall we?” she asked, looping her arm through his own.

Perry took her to the meeting place, which turned out to be Lunescence, which was not only a fancy restaurant and a popular date spot, but also undeniably pompous.

“Really?”

“We’ve gotta plan somewhere,” Heather said, walking in front of him for the first time that night. “And I like this place.”

The dress outlined the curve of her back perfectly, all the way down to her—

She glanced over her shoulder at Perry. “You coming?”

“If this was a complex plan to go on a date with me,” Perry said, joining her on the steps of the restaurant, “you didn’t have to go this far. I would’ve said ‘yes.’”

“I don’t really like the concept of ‘dating.’ Why does applying a specific label to hanging out change it somehow? Doesn’t matter what you call it,” Heather said as they were shown to a table.

“Well, calling it a ‘date’ would make me really, really nervous. That’s one thing it would change,” Perry said, taking his seat.

Heather grinned and shook her head. “You can relax; it’s not a date.”

“Oh,” Perry said, deeply relieved and simultaneously disappointed.

“Unless it is.”

“Ng.” Perry’s eye twitched. She’s messing with you, Perry. Fire back! Unfortunately, Perry was too dumbfounded by the tiniest possibility that it could be a date, and Heather looked like what would happen if you hooked nitro up to the word ‘ravishing.’ The way she looked made Perry’s lizard brain froth at the mouth, and bite and scratch to get to the control panel, infecting the rest of his mind with debilitating rabies.

She’s like rabies. But the kind you enjoy.

“Anyway, enough of this silliness. Let’s get to the point,” Heather said, pulling out a large blueprint and laying it out on the table.

“Where were you keeping that?” Perry asked, frowning.

“I taped it under the table last night. Anyway, this is the warehouse where they trade off trucks.”

“Eh?”

“It takes forever to unbox the cargo and move it to different vehicles. That only happens in their home base or movies. What they do instead is ride in two similar cargo trucks, confirm the contents of the shipment, switch the plates and the drivers, then leave.”

“So your dad’s men are gonna leave at the exact same time the other guys do. There’s no way to catch the gangsters by themselves.”

“Can the suits fly?” she asked.

“Of course; they weigh fifteen pounds each,” Perry said. His estimate was a little low, especially once he added the computing, motors, and wiring. Still, fifteen pounds was ultra-featherweight for power armor.

A tiny Yamaha desk fan, when properly mounted and channeled, provided nearly a hundred pounds of lift. Four of them for each suit was plenty.

“The question is, can we fly the suits?” Perry asked, sipping on his soda.

“They’re not making the handoff until three a.m. We’ve got plenty of time to practice. So we’re gonna follow them until they hit this spot.” Heather pulled out a street map from under the table and pointed at a spot on it.

“They’ll be forced to wait for the intercity train to pass through, a good five minutes. That’s where we’ll hit them. Then we do the same trick that they did: take the cargo truck and leave. I’ve rented a storage space right over here. It’s big enough to park the whole thing inside.” She pointed out a building a few blocks away.

“…So why follow them from the handoff? Why not just wait at the train tracks?” Perry asked.

“Because I don’t know for a fact that they’ll be at the train. These are criminals. They’re naturally suspicious, and they have a tendency to change up their routes.”

“But the warehouse is a constant?” Perry asked.

“No, I stole the info about the drop. There’s always a chance we could be sitting in the rafters all night.”

“Exciting.”

“Hey, that’s hero work. Totally dull until it isn’t.”

“Is this hero work?” Perry asked. “What’s the priority? Getting high-tech weapons out of criminal hands, or getting high-tech weapons into your hands?”

“I don’t see why it can’t be both.” Heather shrugged.

“…I want a share.” Perry wasn’t gonna turn down some high-quality parts. His ability was cool and all that, but where was he going to get a cheap knockoff cortex/CPU interface? Nowhere. ‘Cheap’ didn’t even exist for that kind of stuff.

“One fifth.” Heather made the first offer, seemingly intent on haggling.

“Deal,” Perry said, causing Heather to blink.

“Really? A fifth? You don’t…want more?”

“Not really. I built the suits for about three hundred dollars apiece,” Perry said with a grin. One fifth of a truckload of high-end weapons was more than enough compensation.

Heather’s eyes narrowed as she mentally calculated Perry’s profit margin. “You son of a—”

“Your order, madame,” the waiter said, arriving with Heather’s food, waiting for her to clear her maps off the table before setting down her dinner.

***Later***

“Behold!” Perry said, raising the lid on his own hastily rented storage container. Fifty bucks a month.

“You need to get your own lair,” Heather said, scrunching up her nose as she inspected the grimy environs.

“Dad says digging underground to make a lair is a nightmare. Not only is it a pain in the butt, but every other Tinker with enough power has already made an underground lair. The city is practically a spiderweb of new and abandoned underground bases, and there’s a good chance of tripping automatic defenses when you do so, whether the base is fresh or abandoned. It’s just not worth the trouble anymore.

“So if I were to get a lair, it would have to be an overland one. And if you’ve got a million dollars to buy a building, I’m all ears,” Perry said, closing the sheet-metal door behind him and reaching up to tug on the chain leading to the fluorescent lights.

A moment later, his pet projects were bathed in light, standing against the far wall.

“Ta-da! Your power armor, madame.”

“Is it behind the pile of junk?”

“Rude.”

Perry hadn’t had the chance to put the finishing touches on the armor—smoothing out the rough edges, spray-painting them to make them look like steel, or anything like that. He’d been far too busy just making sure they worked, putting every waking second he wasn’t in school or doing homework into them.

Heather peered at the armor for a while. “It’s cardboard,” she said.

“It’s more of a laminate material.”

“You expect me to wear cardboard?!”

“You know any other Tinkers?” Perry asked, crossing his arms.

“Where are the guns? There are no guns! What are we supposed to do with this?” Heather asked, turning to him. “Politely ask them to get out of the vehicle?”

“Sounds like you need a demonstration,” Perry said, unlatching the front of his power armor and climbing in.

“Oh my GOD, are those plastic Lego gears?!” Heather cried as she spotted some of the suit’s inner workings.

“….Technically, yes.” And tiny little Lego DC motors. $3.99 apiece, $30 a dozen.

“I understand now. You’re an insane person. I can’t believe I was seriously thinking about doing this with you.”

Heedless of Heather’s muttering, Perry closed the chestpiece and turned on the armor, which whined to life in a fraction of a second, its modest processing power hugely magnified by his perk.

“Let me demonstrate,” Perry said, his voice modulated by the suit’s built-in speaker.

He stepped forward and grabbed Heather around the waist.

“Hey, what are you DOOOOOING!”

Heather’s indignation turned to a satisfying shriek as Perry lifted the garage door, stepped outside, and threw Heather into the air, some fifteen feet straight up.

When he caught her again, she had a tiny .22 in her hand, pressed to his helmet.

“Impressive,” she said through gritted teeth. “Is it bulletproof?”

“Well yes, but—”

POW!

“Did you just shoot me in the face?!”

“I trusted that your armor could handle it,” she said, smoothing her dress and re-hiding the tiny gun. “Just like you trusted that a bunch of plastic gears and cardboard could catch me.”

“Touché.” Perry reached up and pried the .22 round out of the suit’s forehead. “Don’t shoot me again, though.”

“Don’t throw me again, and we’ll be fine.”

The two eyeballed each other for a moment.

“Let me show you how to use yours,” Perry said, breaking the stalemate.

“Why is mine so much smaller than yours?”

“Because it’s a loaner, and you’re a shorty?” Perry said. It was also because the infrastructure for the spell-disc and spell-frame demanded a lot of extra space.

Perry hadn’t mastered Kolath’s Floating Armaments yet, because who the heck knew what unit of measurement a jangle was, and a pinch was notoriously inaccurate by itself.

And he only had a block of corrupt Areonite about half the size of his palm to experiment with. Not exactly ideal for running tons of tightly controlled experiments to narrow down the ideal ratios.

It worked, though. Spendthrift successfully rendered the corrupt metal non-toxic and the spell functional, but his original test only lasted about five minutes, which was plenty for a fight, but when compared to floating armaments of legend that could last days, it left something to be desired.

As for the shapes for the floating armaments, Perry had chosen to make a tiny mold, a little under one tenth of an inch long. It had the shape of sharp crystal on one side, blunt on the other side. The blunt side was covered in faux paneling designed to make the thing look…techy. A little bit of misdirection.

Sure, a four-inch spike that was blunt on one end wasn’t as impressive as a huge floating sword, but Perry was operating on a budget here. He could make a couple hundred or more tiny little floating armaments for the same amount of Areonite as the giant sword.

The major reason the wizards of Manita made huge floating swords in the first place was because it was way too hard to inscribe the control symbol by hand on something about the size of a grain of rice.

All Perry had to do was get his hands on a couple modern printers from a garage sale and he was good to go. Speaking of good to go, your mind just wandered, and Heather is staring at you.

Perry painstakingly instructed Heather in every step of the process of entering, securing, and turning on the armor, followed immediately by learning how to fly it, which was…terrifying.

Flying was awkward and unintuitive, and the human body was never meant to do it, especially when it was just glorified levitation on jets of air, rather than a wing and stabilized tail.

Perry got firsthand data on the armor’s impact resistance as he crashed into the storage building and the concrete several times. Thankfully, the fans were protected by cardboard tubes, and were none the worse for wear after several flailing crashes.

But they got it eventually, hovering in front of each other about fifteen feet above the paved ground outside the storage unit.

“Okay, we’ve got about an hour and a half until the meeting,” Heather said, her voice modulated through her helmet. “Let’s get there early and get set up somewhere they won’t notice us.”

“Somewhere we can fly away from,” Perry added, nodding. Escape route first.

“How do we switch to the internal comms system?” Heather asked.

“What internal comms system?”

“Oh my god, you suck at this,” Heather said, flying south.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is a flying suit of armor that can crush steel, made out of household ingredients, underwhelming for you?!” Perry demanded.

“Two cheap children’s walkie talkies is all it would’ve taken, is all I’m saying.”

“I can’t think of everything on the first try!” Perry shouted, following after her.

Chapter 9: No Plan Survives First Contact

Perry and Heather were crouched in the rafters of the warehouse, right beside a melted hole in the roof, where some supers had presumably been in a slugmatch.

If things went wonky, they’d fly up through the hole and escape.

Things got dull fast, and eventually, Perry just lay down on one of the steel ceiling beams, tucked his arms behind his head, and started thinking about his next spell-frame.

Once he figured out the perfect ratio of fruit to horn and figured out the exact frequency he needed, then the next part was just engineering.

Rather than a large silver bowl that made people’s entire bodies into puddles, maybe he could make a concave silver disk with a shallow curve, a little bigger than a silver dollar.

Then he could—

“What are you doing?” Heather asked.

“Being patient. If you wanna crouch the whole time we’re waiting, enjoy the cramps.”

Heather watched him for a moment, then untucked her legs from under her and leaned back against a beam.

It felt like forever, but the weapons dealers and the gangsters showed up precisely on time.

Heather tapped him on the shin, dragging his attention away from his mental designs for a paste applicator.

Heather held a finger in front of her helmet, and pointed down.

Perry nodded and turned over, crouching as the rumbling sound of a truck grew audible, his heart rate skyrocketing. We’re actually doing this.

Wait. Does Heather know how to drive a stick shift? Perry thought as the large trucks rumbled into the oversized building. Pretty sure those are manuals.

I guess we’ll worry about it when we get there.

Heather’s dad hopped out of the left truck, and Perry’s hackles rose. Karnos had bright blond hair cut military style, a black button-up shirt with the collar popped and half-unbuttoned, and a gold watch on his wrist.

It was a strange cross between minimalist professional and villain chic. He pulled it off, though.

Heather spread her fingers wide and lowered her hand slowly.

Wait. Calm.

That’s right. We’re not robbing her dad. We’re robbing the guys her dad supplies. Way less dangerous.

“I’ve got lookouts in the rafters. Engaging.”

¿Que?

Perry glanced over his shoulder and spotted a young man in sky-blue spandex floating down through the melted hole in the ceiling.

Crap.

“Is that—is that cardboard?” he stammered upon getting closer to the two of them.

***Jetset, Fifteen Minutes Ago***

Four supers sat in a semicircle, regarding their leader.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Titan said, rolling out the maps.

“Ugh, we’ve heard the plan a million times.” Warcry groaned, beating her head against the wall, neon purple shimmers reflecting her frustration.

“You’ll hear it as many times as necessary,” Titan said. “We got word that the Razors are doing an arms deal tonight. They’re gonna gather up a huge amount of money, and leave their base in a box truck, here.” Titan pointed at the Razors’ base on the map.

“We’re going to park Hardcase’s mom’s car here.” Titan pointed at a spot several blocks farther west, the mousy Tinker girl nodding as her name was mentioned.

“While the rest of the team waits in the SUV, Jetset will—”

“Can we call it something cooler than ‘SUV’?” Manic asked, glancing around. “Like the combat ground vehicle, or transport. Anything but SUV.”

Titan waited until the Speedster ran out of gas, withering under his stare. “Jetset will follow the truck from high up, and we will follow Jetset’s instructions, until we reach the meeting point.”

“Got it,” Jetset said, nodding.

“Once we’re there, Jetset will infiltrate from above, with assistance from Hardcase, while the rest of us will hit them at street level. First thing we’re gonna do is disable their vehicles. Warcry, you make sure their escape vehicles don’t run. Manic, you catch runners and subdue whoever you can with those zip ties.”

They nodded as Titan pointed each of them out one at a time.

“I’ll keep my eyes open for any supers they might have, and engage as soon as I spot one. Warcry, you back me up against any cowl as soon as you’re done with the cars. The rest of you guys should only have to worry about regular gangsters,” Titan finished.

“And remember, if we pull this off, we’ll have enough resources to finally do this full-time.”

Jetset nodded to himself. Everyone was aware of Nexus’s finder’s fee on recovered tech, money, and cowls.

15% of the tech’s value paid to capes unaffiliated with Nexus, and 35% for those officially employed by the organization. Fifty thousand and up for capturing a super, depending on their notoriety.

The Mechanaut had a three-million-dollar bounty on bringing him in alive, for example. Jetset practically drooled at the thought of being set for life off of one arrest.

Of course, superheroing was expensive work. If you were working for Nexus, any collateral damage you caused could be withheld from your reward; same if you were unaffiliated, although it was harder for them to prove. If you messed up bad enough, you could get Drafted.

So tonight, they were aiming to earn fifteen percent on two trucks full of cash and weapons, maybe capture a cowl, and earn some points toward being noticed by Nexus.

Jetset could picture them driving the truck straight up to Nexus and watching with glee as the technicians unloaded crate after crate of high-tech weapons, driving their reward higher and higher.

I guess we’ll actually be calling Nexus in to take the stuff away… Still exciting, though.

It was a big night for them.

In Titan style, their leader quizzed each of them on their role. Once he was confident they’d memorized their parts, they all piled into the soccer-mom car, with Hardcase’s armor barely fitting in the back, even collapsed as it was.

Jetset activated his power and climbed up into the cold night air, thankful for the hyperweave. The stuff had ridiculous insulation powers, keeping him a comfortable seventy-two degrees whether he was flying up in the stratosphere or sitting in a sauna.

He flew straight up, disappearing into the black of the night sky. Jetset threw a habitual glance over at the wall, like he did every time he flew up high. There were bright green lights every five hundred feet or so, as far as the eye could see.

Beyond the wall…nothing but the black of the ocean, with the occasional glitter of light as the water caught the moonlight just so.

Reassured, Jetset flew over to the Razors’ hideout and opened up his GPS with his team’s location on it.

“You guys read me?” Jetset said.

“We read you.”

“I’ve got your location. Stand by for directions.”

“Standing by.”

Only a few minutes later, an oversized truck began rumbling away from the Razors’ safehouse, and Jetset began following it, directing his team to parallel its route.

It only took a few minutes for the truck to reach its destination: an abandoned warehouse on the northeast side of the city, where a second truck was pulling in at nearly the exact same time.

This is it, Jetset thought, his heart pounding.

Jetset waited for his team to pile out of the SUV, with Titan unloading Hardcase’s armor before the black-haired girl took off her glasses, threw them in the car, and climbed into her machine.

Once Hardcase was up and running, Jetset pointed her towards a rather large hole in the roof of the warehouse.

“I’ll go in quiet, then you jump in right behind me. Alright?” Jetset whispered over the channel. The powered armor nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.

Jetset spotted Titan and Warcry aiming for the two giant entrances on either side, while Manic leaned up against the SUV, knocking back energy drink after energy drink.

We need to get him some real Speedster bars one of these days. That can’t be good for him, Jetset thought with a frown.

“Alright, we’re good to go.” Titan’s voice came over their comms.

Here we go, Jetset thought, swooping into the opening from above.

As he descended, the light barely caught two armored forms lurking in the rafters. It seemed as though one side of the equation had brought in some extra muscle to make sure everything went smoothly. Or just launch a double-cross. Either way, they were going down.

“I’ve got lookouts in the rafters. Engaging,” Jetset said into his radio. One of the lookouts must’ve heard him, because he turned to look at Jetset, shock radiating from his posture.

In fact, now that he’d turned into the light, it looked like…cardboard cosplay armor? It was ridiculously thin, smaller than Hardcase’s. There was no way it could actually function as armor.

What am I looking at? Is this some kind of joke, or…

“Is that—is that cardboard?” Jetset asked, forgetting himself for a moment.

There was a loud whine as four tubes on the side of the cardboard armor began to rattle and the strange armor launched itself towards him, fist first.

***Perry***

Crap crap crap! Perry thought as he launched himself towards the flier. Okay, what do we know? There’s a flier, he’s part of a team, and likely has responsibility for checking the roof, which blocked our escape route. Going down will flush us into the rest of his team, so our best bet is to go through him and fly away.

Perry’s fist impacted the dumbstruck flier in the chest, knocking him back and smashing him into one of the beams that stretched across the ceiling, discombobulating him.

“What the hell was that?!” one of the gangsters shouted moments before all hell broke loose.

Three supers entered from ground level.

One energy type, who controlled sheets of flickering purple energy which sliced through engine blocks with ease.

One Bruiser, who scanned the room for something.

One brownish blur that seemed to be tackling one gangster after another and zip-tying their hands behind their backs in the blink of an eye. A Speedster.

“I think now’s a good time to bail,” Perry said, motioning towards the opening in the ceiling. This was a mess, and not the easy score that they’d been hoping for. Plus, the super team who’d just arrived would assume they were cowls.

They’d already punched one of their teammates.

“Right you are,” Heather said, and the two of them aimed for the hole.

The scream of jet engines was the only warning as a metal body filled the hole in the roof, smashing down into the two of them, rupturing through the metal ceiling beams like they weren’t there.

“Ooof!” Perry had the wind driven out of him as the giant metal foot tried to crush his midsection into the pavement, jets in the mech’s foot scorching his exterior plating.

“Is that cardboard?” The mech’s modulated voice carried above the general mayhem, cocking its head as it peered down at him.

“Turtle!” Perry said, grabbing the mechsuit’s leg on his chest.

Heather followed suit.

Together, the two of them threw the mech off of them and onto its back.

Mechsuits were notoriously difficult to stand up once they were on their backs. It was what separated a veteran Tinker from an amateur: the turtle problem.

The mechsuit flew backwards for a moment before ports on its back opened and blasted backwards, pushing its upper body to a standing position.

Huh, I guess this guy did his homework.

At least he was off of the two of them.

Perry and Heather scrambled to their feet, taking in the situation. The Bruiser was running towards them, his gaze locked onto what was presumably two cowls.

“This could’ve gone better,” Perry said, bracing himself and triggering Blades.EXE.

RRRRR. The printers connected to the spell-disc began making identical marks on Perry’s skin and the rice-grain-sized blades, triggering the spell and connecting him to the forming floating armaments.

They appeared in Perry’s mind, like limbs he’d had since birth, but only remembered just now, floating behind his back.

Five of them.

They were…unimpressive. Each of the floating armaments was about the size of a finger, blunt on one side with a single bladed edge on the other, bluish, slightly glowing and partially see-through.

What they lacked in showmanship, they made up in utility.

Perry sent two blades toward the mechsuit’s cameras, and two to jam themselves into the suit’s joints, keeping the metallic lug busy.

“Incoming!” Heather shouted.

The Bruiser was bearing down on them, the ground itself shaking as he approached.

On a hunch, Perry sent the last blade to hit with its blunt side against the guy’s skull.

Clink! The floating armament stopped cold at the approaching Bruiser’s skin. I suspected as much, Perry thought sourly.

“Evade!” Heather shouted, her suit’s fans whirring to life as she floated away from the big guy.

It was never a good idea to tangle directly with a Bruiser. Power armor was nice, but it never seemed to beat natural supernaturals.

Plus, Bruisers tended not to hold back as much against armor.

Perry dodged backwards and tried to get some distance—when a brown blur tackled him to the ground and whipped his hands around behind his back.

It felt like someone was zipping a straitjacket up behind him as zip ties manifested themselves all the way up from his fingers to his shoulders, clamping his arms securely behind his back.

The Bruiser was stomping towards him, readying a kick at his face.

Perry summoned the blades keeping the mechsuit busy and used their flat edges to scrape himself off the ground and fling himself out of the way, the unnatural movement causing the Bruiser’s kick to whiff.

Perry pressed four of the blades flush against his armor while the fifth began sawing through the zip ties on his hands.

Of course, now the mechsuit was free to act.

“He’s an energy type!” the mechsuit shouted, indicating the ethereal blades helping Perry bob and weave faster than his inertia should allow.

“Well, then what’s with the cardboard?!”

“Other one’s a Tinker!”

“Tinker and an energy type!”

The mechsuit rushed forward towards Perry, which was when Heather launched herself down from the ceiling beams and did a textbook dropkick to the mechsuit’s face.

The result was unimpressive, because Heather plus power armor weighed a little over a hundred pounds.

The mechsuit was substantially heavier.

“Dangit!” Heather cursed as the mechsuit’s armored fingers seized her leg and slammed her into the ground.

Crack! Perry winced as he heard something break. Whether it was pavement, armor, or god forbid, Heather, he didn’t know yet. He was kind of busy.

“I don’t suppose we can convince you guys to let us go?” Perry asked. “We’re obviously not with these guys.”

“We can get this all sorted out in the Nexus,” the Bruiser said. “Warcry, you think you can cut their armor off without hurting them?”

“Sure!” the energy-wielding girl said, with a malicious tone that Perry was distinctly uncomfortable with.

This is NOT how I want to be introduced to Nexus, Perry thought. Getting dragged in wearing cuffs and booked on your first outing was unacceptable. Even if they were cleared of involvement with the Razors, first impressions meant a lot.

He’d always be that ‘cardboard kid’ that got his ass kicked on the first night out. And likely liable for damages.

The world was not kind to the loser.

Perry shot himself up into the rafters, redirecting his blades toward the energy wielder—Warcry, they’d called her—who was currently advancing on Heather’s prone form.

“Ack, hey, cut it out!” Warcry shouted as the blunt side of his knives darted around her, beating any opening they could find past her scintillating sheets of purple light.

He succeeded in driving Warcry back from Heather, but now Perry couldn’t dodge as easily, hoping he’d be safe up where the ground heroes would have more trouble reaching him.

A dull impact crashed against his chest, sending him tumbling back down. Perry could make out the blue-spandex flier from the very beginning, already back on his feet.

Shoot! Perry thought, spinning faster than he could hope to control, and smashing into the ground head-first, his armor creaking from the impact as his neck was violently twisted.

HP: 1

I just took lethal damage!

Perry went limp, dropping his floating armaments to the ground with an artistic tinkle.

“Oh gosh,” the mechsuit said, stepping forward. “Is he okay?”

“Okay or not, get that armor off him first. We can sort it out when we’re done here,” the Bruiser said, seemingly the leader of the group.

Damnit! Perry pulled the blades back and pushed himself forward, skittering across the pavement towards Heather as fast as he could.

A single immovable foot slammed down on his chest, putting an end to that idea.

“See, some of the smarter cowls will play dead to create an opening. Always restrain them first, then check for injuries.”

“I’m not a cowl,” Perry said.

“Could’ve fooled me,” the green-eyed Bruiser said, lifting Perry up with an iron grip. “You messed Jetset up pretty bad.”

“Hey, he came at me first,” Perry retorted. “Besides, shouldn’t you be more worried about him?” He nodded to the left.

The Bruiser’s green eyes widened as he glanced over at Heather’s dad, his limbs contorting out of the zip ties with the casual ease of a man taking off a hat.

He was standing next to the back of his truck.

“Don’t mind me, kids,” Karnos said with a grin before unlatching the massive doors. “Keep doing your thing.”

“Manic,” the Bruiser said.

The brown blur impacted against Karnos, and suddenly it came to a stop, revealing a man wearing some thick brown biking leathers, his fist caught in Karnos’s jaw like it was flypaper.

Karnos backhanded the Speedster with enough force to send him sliding across the concrete, his eyes rolled back in his head.

Karnos was a particularly nasty Shapeshifter. His transformations were unusually visceral, and he fought dirty.

“That’s Karnos! Engage from range! Warcry, stop whatever he’s doing!”

Warcry stepped forward and unleashed a plane of crackling purple force, removing the outside of the truck in a blink of an eye, revealing the contents.

That is not a weapons shipment, Perry thought.

Chapter 10: Debut of Paradox

The first hint of High Tide was also the first recorded Trigger: one Edward Collins, July 15, 1969, in a sleepy Midwest town. The young man was playing chicken with some of the local color, and lost control of his car, tumbling down a ravine.

When the car was cut open, they were amazed to find young Mr. Collins unconscious, but without a scratch. When an IV was attempted, the needle failed to penetrate his skin. His X-rays were opaque.

It is possible that there were other people who Triggered before or around this time, but records are spotty, as two weeks later, just as the media and government were starting to show extreme interest in Mr. Collins’s case, the first High Tide came.

Sea level rose over a hundred feet overnight, drowning the most populous portions of the world, killing nearly a billion people from drowning and hypothermia. Over the next few months, many more starved as thousands of farms were permanently ruined by the salty ocean water smothering it.

These weren’t the only challenges facing humans back then. Once The Tide arrived in 1969, all living creatures showed a similar rate of Triggering when subjected to extreme stress, and during High Tide, the rate skyrocketed from one in a million to one in a thousand. Anything from a common rat, to a mosquito, had a chance of Triggering.

Looking back, many scientists say that statistically, humans as a species should not have survived the first High Tide, and that there may have been some kind of interference on our behalf. Perhaps it can be traced back to a few nameless supers who leveraged their powers to keep their people alive through those dark times.

The first High Tide was the longest recorded, and lasted for four months, the ocean rolling in over a hundred feet, then dropping precipitously over and over again over a twenty-four hour period, killing land and sea life alike with its extreme changes.

It wasn’t until twenty-five years later, during the fourth High Tide, that the first prawn was reported.

By this point, humans had simply taken to living where High Tide couldn’t reach them, but when the prawns boiled out of the ocean in a feeding frenzy, it became apparent that High Tide could, and would, reach them.

—A Brief History of Supers

***Perry***

Perry had seen them before in grainy historical photos from the early nineties, as the easily vanquished villains in cartoons and movies, rendered in beautiful (fake) 3D, and in pictures from twelve years ago, with his mom standing next to a dead one, looking like a proud big-game hunter.

He’d never seen a prawn in person.

The creature had a silvery smooth, segmented exterior, that looked both shiny and slightly pliable. Perry knew from his studies that it was both extremely hard and extremely pliable, two opposing traits that boasted a damage resistance that was beyond what conventional materials should be capable of.

The creature had a bulbous head, a bit like the extinct orca, with little mandibles jutting out the front, and each body segment had two pairs of stubby legs.

Honestly, it was a little silly looking.

The problem was, a prawn didn’t care if you thought it was silly looking. To the prawn, you looked like food.

Karnos ripped a tube out from between the creature’s slack mandibles and jumped out of the truck, sprinting away at full speed.

The Bruiser dropped Perry and did the smartest thing he could: He dove for the hose and tried to shove it back in the monster’s face. Unfortunately, he was just a bit too slow.

The prawn reared back and head-butted the Bruiser’s entire body, sending him tumbling backwards, blood spraying from his nose, until he impacted the concrete wall.

“Titan!” the mechsuit shouted.

Perry rose to his feet, heart slamming in his ears, as loud as the panicked screams of the Razors gang wiggling in place, their arms and legs tied behind their backs—free food.

The noise and motion caught the enormous sea creature’s attention, and it began climbing out of the destroyed truck, its segments expanding as it unpacked itself, approaching the helpless criminals, mandibles quivering.

There was only one thing to do.

New Quest: Defeat the prawn!

Reward: 1500 XP, Reputation up with Nexus

I really wish I hadn’t taken so many ethics courses, Perry thought with a scowl as he sprinted forward, directing his floating armaments forward, catching shirt collars and belt loops on the blunt side of the magical projections, then hauling the reprehensible individuals away from the creature, five at a time.

“Hey!” Perry shouted, waving his cardboard-covered arms in front of the creature. “Over here, you abomination of the sea! I’ve seen bigger nuggets than you in my stool! You’re so weak, my mom could kick your ass!”

Maybe the creature understood him, or maybe it just found him to be closer than any of the other squawking prey. Perry would never know. He did get its attention, though.

The prawn lashed out with deceptive speed, catching Perry’s entire body between its mandibles.

The creature’s head was about the size and shape of the front of a bus, so the ‘small’ mandibles were still big enough to cut someone in half—tiny little bite-sized chunks, for the prawn.

Perry’s breath was driven out of his body as the jagged mandibles crushed the air out of his lungs.

The razor-sharp spikes crunched through his ostensibly bulletproof armor in short order, piercing all the way down to the cardboard battery filled with pressurized gas that formed the structural frame/power of the suit.

HISSSS!

The high-pressure gaseous battery acid shot out of Perry’s armor as the corrugation was pierced, shooting right into the creature’s eyes and mouth. Perry was only spared by the inner rubber lining of the suit.

The monster gave a shrill scream, thrashing around and taking Perry along for the ride, as the spikes on its mandibles were inward-facing, designed to hold onto its prey until the job was done.

Perry pulled the floating armaments back to himself and tried stabbing the creature in the eyes and face, to no avail. The rubbery-looking skin deformed a bit, then sprang back.

He felt a heavy jostle and saw Heather’s power armor behind him, grasping the mandibles and pulling them apart, motors whining as they ran at maximum capacity.

Oh god, now I know how Heather felt when I threw her into the air.

It was a handful of DC motors and plastic gears against certain death, and Perry was anything but confident.

He braced the five blades against the creature’s jaws, braced his hands, and pushed with everything he had. Kinda-sorta wishing I had a giant sword right about now.

An instant later, he felt the pressure loosen, so he shoved himself forward, off the barbed pincers and towards the monster’s slobbering mouth-hole.

Perry turned his fans’ thrust up to max and managed to avoid burying himself in the creature’s mouth, bouncing off its forehead and winding up prone on its back.

Heather kicked off the creature’s mandibles and floated away, her thrusters whirring.

“How fast do you think you can get a prawn gun?!” Perry asked, latching onto the edge of one of the creature’s armor plates and holding on for dear life.

“Not fast enough!” Heather shouted back.

Crud.

“Hardcase, boop the snoot!” the bloody-nosed Bruiser—Titan—shouted as he ran back into the brawl. “Warcry, see if you can’t kill it! Jetset, get Manic safe!”

“O-okay!” Hardcase made a jet-assisted jump high into the air of the warehouse and slammed down with all the force of his mechsuit’s weight, right onto the creature’s forehead, not ten feet away from where Perry was clinging on.

“Ack!” Hardcase deformed the creature’s skull, then bounced off like he’d landed on a trampoline and flew flailing into the distance, smashing through the warehouse’s wall.

A glittering purple plane of force appeared above Perry and nearly took his hand off as it slammed down into the creature’s armored head, scattering into so many glittering motes of light.

“It’s energy-resistant!” Warcry shouted.

“Watch it!” Perry shouted down at her.

The spandex-wearing girl stuck out her tongue, sporting a split lip where one of Perry’s blades had conked her in the face.

At least I used the blunt side, Perry thought with a scowl.

The prawn seemed entranced by the shiny mech’s flailing path through the wall of the warehouse, and it gave chase, nearly dislodging Perry with its sheer speed.

A meaty thud resounded through the prawn’s body as Titan smashed into its side, sending it veering off course and finally tearing Perry from his perch on the creature’s back.

Perry tumbled to the ground in a pile of limbs, and climbed to his feet just in time to receive a tail slap from the creature’s lobster-like hindquarters.

Perry flew through the air, spinning wildly until his arm caught on a solid steel beam, shearing off the armor instantly.

HP: 0

“Ow.” Perry groaned, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the night air on his right arm as his suit bemoaned its injuries into the tiny HUD in his lower field of vision.

Power 54%, right arm nonresponsive, spell-frame damaged. UR thruster nonresponsive.

Perry sat up as Heather flew over to him.

“You still with us?” she asked.

“Ugh,” Perry said as he rose to his feet. Through the hole in the wall, he could see the other supers giving the prawn hell.

“What do they have that we don’t?” Perry asked, panting and clutching a stitch in his side.

“Besides having real powers?” Heather asked. “They have a leader.”

“Dibs!” Heather and Perry said simultaneously as Perry broke into a loping stride, heading for the battle.

Perry jumped through the hole in the wall and steered clear of the monster’s thrashing tail, heading for the head, where all the fighting was going down.

The girl with the purple planes of energy was watching from nearby, deflecting and disintegrating falling debris from the nearby buildings and removing tripping hazards, while the flier was hovering above the fight, shouting something into his earpiece.

Most of the actual fighting was being done by the Bruiser and the mechsuit, who were trading the creature’s attention back and forth, keeping it from doing irreversible damage to each other.

The Speedster was nowhere to be seen, most likely still lights-out.

As he approached, the prawn got a good hold on the mechsuit, crunching down onto the armored chestplate.

The chest armor detached and the mechsuit fell back to the ground, revealing a bit of the operator’s arms inside the egg-shaped cockpit of steel and wiring.

The machine was falling backwards towards safety when its auto-stabilizers kicked on again, trying to right its balance, heedless of the situation.

Perry saw Hardcase’s arms moving frantically across the controls as the jets forced him back towards the steel-crushing mandibles of the monster.

Perry leapt forward, activating his two lower fans for an assisted jump, slamming his shoulder into Hardcase and pushing with all three remaining fans and five blades, wrenching the immense inertia of Hardcase’s armor out of the way of the prawn’s next attack.

A blunt pressure struck across Perry’s chest as they tumbled out of the way, his armor caught by the very tip of the creature’s grasping mandible.

Perry hit the ground and barely managed to scramble out of the way as Hardcase slid across the ground, sending up sparks as his cockpit’s structural cage contended with asphalt.

“Are you okay?” Perry panted as he stood up, his chestpiece leaking gas into the air, a huge wedge of his armor and clothes simply torn away. All the way from his right shoulder past the navel, he could feel the cold of the night air flooding in, his mother’s amulet rattling against his chest.

“Yeah,” Hardcase said, pushing himself up, helmet doing a double take at Perry. “It’s good that…you’re fine too.”

“Good,” Perry said, staring up at where Titan was riding the thing’s head, where Perry had been earlier, beating on its squishy armor to little effect as it tried to dislodge him.

“Can you throw me up there?” Perry asked. “My flight is borked.”

“S-sure, dude.”

Perry put a foot into the mechsuit’s oversized palm, waved to get Heather’s attention, then he was flying through the air.

Perry landed right beside Titan, stopping his forward momentum with the floating armaments. He reached down and grabbed one of the sectioned ridges on the monster’s armor and began prying with everything he had, wedging his five blades under the ridge and attempting to lever the armor plate up with those as well.

No matter how hard Perry pried, he couldn’t get the monster’s armor to lift. His suit was no longer aiding his strength, and each of his individual blades only had about the same strength as a man.

This thing was much tougher.

Titan was on the ball, grabbing the armor plate and lifting with a scream of effort, the veins in his neck standing out.

Perry felt the pressure on the knives shift a little, and he was able to get his fingers under the plates, just a little.

God, I hope I don’t lose the tips of my fingers, Perry thought, as he strained to pry up the creature’s armor.

Heather landed on his other side, her fingers sliding under the plate and prying it up as well.

Between the three of them, they managed to lift the creature’s armor by about an inch.

Perry slipped the magical blades under the armor plate, point-first, and started them burrowing into the prawn’s flesh.

Experiencing true pain for the first time, the monster began thrashing much more violently, flinging the three of them away as it began writhing in place, curling itself into knots as it tried to eject the blades making a mess of its central nervous system.

Perry slid to a halt on his back, his armor preventing road rash as he stopped.

A giant tail whipped above his head and crushed a concrete wall, sending huge slabs of heavy infrastructure raining down on him.

Perry’s life flashed in front of his eyes for a brief moment before a plane of neon purple force deflected the rubble.

“Thanks,” Perry said, hopping to his feet and getting behind something heavy.

Warcry rolled her eyes and moved on, zapping tumbling concrete and steel like she was playing Fruit Ninja at the arcade.

Perry turned his attention back to the five blades inside the prawn and began working them like a blender.

The creature’s thrashing redoubled for a moment, causing devastating damage to the nearby buildings before it finally lay still.

Quest Complete!

Defeat the prawn!

Contribution: 54%

Reward: 810 XP, Reputation up with Nexus

Congratulations! You have—

The System’s words were drowned out by the pillar of light that blasted down from the sky, forcing the assembled supers to shield their eyes.

When Perry blinked the spots out of his eyes, he was shell-shocked.

That’s Solaris!

The #1 super in Franklin City stood in the middle of the spot the prawn’s head used to be, glancing around the scene of chaos with mild amusement. The flesh of the prawn had been cauterized in a smooth cut where the beam of light had simply vaporized the monster, Perry’s blades, and a couple inches of the asphalt.

“I received an SOS, but it looks like you guys had it under control.” Solaris’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “Anybody care to explain how a prawn got inside city limits?”

Perry’s heart stopped and his skin went cold at the prospect of being on the god-like super’s shit list.

Titan stepped forward. “We were attempting a bust on an arms shipment,” the rather large Bruiser said. “My team was getting the situation under control when Karnos unleashed the monster to cover his escape. My team is Titan, Jetset, Warcry, Hardcase, and Manic, who is resting right now.” He pointed to himself and the other supers one by one as he named them.

“These two jumped in to help once the prawn was loose,” Titan said, motioning to Perry’s ragged form, and Heather who landed beside him, conveniently glossing over the start of the conflict.

I think I actually like this guy, Perry thought.

“Well, you look a little worse for wear, kid,” Solaris said, approaching Perry, causing his heart to leap into his throat and palms to become instantly sweaty.

“Who made your armor?” Solaris asked, musing at a piece of cardboard fraying off of Perry’s chest, his whole body radiating energy that Perry could feel, almost pushing him back.

“I did, sir.” Perry gulped, barely able to speak.

Hardcase’s helmet cocked to the side a bit.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Paradox, sir.” Perry tried to avoid his voice breaking.

“I suppose because your armor shouldn’t work, but it does. It’s a good super name.”

Perry’s skin went ice-cold. “Yes. Yes, it is. My super name. Because that’s what you asked for.”

“And you?” Solaris asked, glancing over at Heather.

“Don’t have one yet, sir,” she said, her back straight.

“Well, keep at it, young lady.”

Solaris stepped back and scanned the surroundings, along with all the zip-tied gangsters trying to worm their way away. “I’ll log the infrastructure damage as Karnos’s liability. You kids did good keeping bystanders safe and dealing with the unexpected, but I expect you’ll do a bit more recon next time?”

“Yessir,” Titan said, nodding furiously along with Perry, everyone else, and some of the tied-up gangsters.

“Good.” Solaris turned into a being of pure light and launched himself into the air, disappearing into the night sky.

Oh, thank god, Perry thought, his entire body going wobbly as the adrenaline was flushed out of his system.

“Good job, Paradox,” Heather said, slapping him on the back. “Think we should get out of here now, Paradox?”

“I know, I know,” Perry said, removing Heather's hand.

“Hold on,” Titan said, walking over to the two of them, wadding up some toilet paper and shoving it up his bloody nose.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot. I don’t think we would’ve beat that thing without your help. Kept it busy until Solaris showed up, maybe, but beat it? I don’t think so. There’s still a truckload of money in there. How would you two like a share?”

“What?!” Warcry demanded. “You can’t just give away shares to these guys. We don’t even know if they were part of Karnos’s crew or not. Them helping us doesn’t equate absence of guilt.”

Very true.

“Paradox did hit me pretty hard,” Jetset said, rubbing his chest and wincing.

“I think it would be alright,” Hardcase said, his metal fingers tapping together nervously.

“I hear you guys,” Titan said, glancing back at them before regarding Perry and Heather. “You can have my share.”

“But—”

“It’s my share, and I can do what I want with it,” Titan interrupted Warcry. “Besides, what would I buy, bigger muscles?”

Titan offered Perry his hand.

Oh, this guy’s suspiciously smart. He was handling his team while also buying goodwill from Perry very smoothly.

He knew he was being handled…but Perry wasn’t going to turn down 10%.

Perry shook the guy’s hand.

“Now all we gotta do is wait for the Nexus bean counters,” Titan said. “Warcry, would you mind driving Manic to the hospital?”

“Alright,” Warcry said, heading out into the dark of night. In the distance, Perry heard the sound of a car engine starting up, and in the distance, sirens.

“Soo…your armor’s really cool,” Hardcase said. “How’d you make the power source work like that?”

Perry sat down next to the giant mech and described, at length, how he’d created a non-centralized power source by using pressurized air, highly diluted battery acid, and cardboard lined with rubber.

Hardcase seemed especially fascinated with the idea of incorporating structural batteries into his own mechsuit, and gave him his number so he could pick his brain at a later date—maybe even buy some of his cardboard batteries off of him.

Could be a great source of income, selling inexpensive material improved with my ability to other Tinkers for a huge premium, Perry thought, slipping the scrap of paper in the dangling breast pocket of his shredded fancy date clothes.

“Watcha doin’?” Heather asked, sitting down beside Perry as Hardcase was called over by the Nexus workers to sign paperwork.

“Networking. I think I might be able to make a decent side hustle supplying Tinkers with specialty parts. I got Hardcase’s number.”

“That was weird,” Jetset said from where he was holding an ice pack to the back of his head. “I’ve never seen Hardcase give anyone her number before.”

“…Her?” Perry asked, brow raised.

He glanced down at Mom’s love charm hanging from his neck. “Huh.”

“I think you’ve been wearing that long enough,” Heather said, yanking the long chain over his helmet and pocketing the amulet. “It’s making you delirious.”

Chapter 11: Mk. II

***Heather***

Heather couldn’t wipe the smile off her face if she wanted to. Somehow, even the fact that they’d walked away with about a hundredth the amount she’d wanted couldn’t bring her down. She’d had a great time, near-death experiences notwithstanding.

She unlocked the front door and snuck into the living room, holding her shoes so they didn’t make too much noise.

Click.

The living room light clicked on, revealing her father sitting on his favorite chair, facing the door.

It wiped the smile off her face.

“Your biggest miscalculation,” Karnos said, his hand drifting away from the lamp, “was assuming that I wouldn’t care who you were dating.

“Little Perry Z from next door? Good kid, good pedigree, his parents are rich, and I get along well with his dad. His mom’s not a dealbreaker. A solid choice. I approve.”

“Dad—”

“Your second miscalculation was believing that I am not responsible for your actions,” her dad said, rising smoothly to his feet. “Doesn’t matter if it’s before or after I’ve made the deal. As long as you live in my house, I’m responsible for what. You. Do.

“My money,” he said, holding out his hand as he approached.

Heart sinking, Heather handed Karnos her share of the bust, on a little plastic chit with the Nexus symbol on the center.

“This is just the start,” Karnos said, brandishing the money in front of her. “You’re very lucky you picked a boy I can’t touch for this little escapade. But I can punish you. Look forward to it.”

Heather looked away as his gaze burned into her skin.

“Go to bed,” her dad said, heading back to his seat and collapsing down into it.

Heather ran back to her room and slammed the door, shame and rage warring with each other as she dove onto her bed and screamed into her pillow.

***Perry***

Twelve. THOUSAND. DOLLARS!

Sure, it wouldn’t buy a secret lair or any of the truly fancy stuff, but it would propel his suit and his spell-frames to the next level.

Was it worth risking my life multiple times in one night? Probably not, but I’ve got the money and I’m still alive, so the point is moot.

Nexus gave out their cash rewards in little plastic ‘chits’ that looked something like a thick plastic key fob. Couldn’t exactly verify an independent super’s identity, so they had to use cash on hand, which came with its own problems, since its use couldn’t really be traced. There was a healthy trade of chits on the black market, but it wasn’t a major concern.

Let’s see… Perry began mentally listing off his wish list.

CAD program: $150

Cheap 3D printer: $2000

Cheap CNC machine: $3000

Better Areonite casting setup: $500 + labor

Raw materials for Mk. 2: ~ $3000

One year bigger storage space: $1200

Spell ingredients: $2000

And just like that, I’ve only got a hundred and fifty bucks left. Maybe I can take everyone out to the arcade. Actually, I’m not sure if Brendon would wanna do that ever again, given the whole kidnapping thing.

Perry felt like moonwalking all the way to the bus stop, where Heather was standing with a vacant look, staring into the distance.

“Hey, Heather, up top!” Perry said, grinning, hand raised for a high five.

“Get lost, creep,” Heather said, barely glancing at him as her bus-friends tittered.

“O…kay.”

***Later***

“Did I do something wrong?” Perry asked, sitting across from Brendon, eating a slice of pizza that could be considered cruel and unusual punishment outside of a high school.

Brendon glanced over his shoulder at where Heather was hanging out with her mean-girl friends, masticating his huge sloppy joe with the placid look of a cow.

“Maybe your date didn’t go as well as you thought it did?” he asked, turning back to Perry with a shrug.

“Well, we survived it, so I thought that was reason enough to— Wait, you knew about that?”

“Yeah man, everybody knew you guys went on a date last night.”

“Huh.” The gossip network was not to be underestimated.

Maybe she’s pissed about the small payoff?

If everything had gone to plan, they would’ve had nearly a million dollars in exotic equipment and weapons, but given that the truck had a prawn in it, without assistance, they would’ve gotten nothing, or dead.

Perry was perfectly happy with twelve grand, all things considered. It wasn’t like he could make that in a single night flipping burgers.

It’s probably not the money. The lack of a glamorous debut? Being face-to-face with Solaris and not having a name?

There were a lot of things that were minorly disappointing about last night, but none of them could justify being that grumpy, taken individually or altogether.

It burned pretty bad, being snubbed immediately after an epic night out like last night. But Perry wasn’t going to go over there to prod at her and make it worse. There were few things worse than being mocked by a gaggle of teenage girls, and death wasn’t one of them.

Nope, Perry was perfectly comfortable at the cool kids’ table.

“Brendon, you wanna hit the arcade again?”

Brendon paled and shook his head.

“Darn.”

The rest of the school day passed without incident, and Perry stepped off the bus without Heather even looking at him. He knew because he was staring. Probably a bit too much.

A ball of frustration and anger roiled around in the pit of his stomach as he walked home, and he figured the best way to get rid of it was to bury himself in work.

Over the next week, Perry blew the entire twelve grand, setting up a somewhat respectable workshop in a bigger storage container, moving some of the equipment he already owned, combining them with the new acquisitions.

He also dealt with his level-up.

Congratulations! You are now a level 2 Garage Tinker.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 2

HP: 3

Body: 2

Stability: 2

Nerve: 4

Attunement: 7

Free Points: 3

XP to next level: 1525

Current Quest: Do your homework!

Reward: 5 XP

Perry pulled out his calculator to decide where he should put his stats.

Level ten of Attunement increases material effectiveness by 1.05^10.

Click-click-click.

1.628

Cardboard would become…

12 X 2 X 1.628…

39 times stronger.

Vs. its current weigh-in…

(1.05^7) X 12 X 2 = 33.77 times stronger.

That’s a pretty significant increase. But should I spread the points out into the other stats?

Perry had almost died the night before, almost broke his neck and lost an arm, and the only thing that stopped it was his HP stat.

If he raised his Body to level 5, he’d get a 27% boost to his physicality, making him just barely below the range of superhuman.

Anything 35% stronger or faster than your body should be based on its muscle mass was considered superhuman territory, and was the scientific threshold that indicated someone had definitely Triggered. It was baseline super-strength.

That would make him a bit tougher, but still pretty squishy in the grand scheme of things. Titan himself most likely had super-strength to the tune of approximately thirty times human standard.

On Perry’s scale, that would be… 1.05^70 = 30.42

About Body level 70. There was no way Perry was competing with that any time soon.

I mean, a stronger suit is inherently less risky, too, isn’t it? Perry thought to himself. If the suit had been able to resist getting the arm torn off, and the neck had been properly reinforced, I wouldn’t have used up the HP shields in the first place.

And I have more of them now.

Plus, there was one thing Perry really wanted to test, and it required him to pump his Attunement up as fast as he could. He needed to focus on his strength, rather than Titan’s.

Alright then, more Attunement it is, Perry thought, dropping the points in and raising his Attunement to ten.

Perry was lightheaded as everything outside his room ceased to exist for a moment, then the sensation faded.

It was time to get to work.

Perry had identified several things that worked well about his first suit, and many, many more that could be improved.

Pros: The suit was lightweight, providing an astonishing weight/protection ratio, even allowing it to fly without specialized jets or a massive amount of fuel.

The power source was decentralized, so rather than going dead when the battery was punctured, it simply lost a little bit of max power, which the suit hadn’t even needed in the first place.

Cons: The protection wasn’t good enough. There was no neck brace to prevent a broken neck. The light weight meant punches and kicks lacked inertia.

There was a poor selection of abilities. Only having access to Kolath’s Floating Armaments and in only one flavor had been seriously limiting, offensively.

There were no internal comms to allow him to coordinate with team members silently.

There was a staggering amount of energy up for grabs that the suit simply couldn’t take advantage of.

Perry aimed to address these issues.

1/8” aluminum plate’s multiplier sits at…

12 X 1.4 X 1.628 = 27.35

27 plates of aluminum are, by every measurement, stronger than 39 sheets of cardboard.

The corrugated batteries, though; I liked those a lot. Perry did some research into aluminum batteries. And liked what he saw.

He could turn the frame into the anode, and power the suit by rusting it.

Of course, rusting your armor to power it isn’t generally a great idea, but it could take a year before the integrity of the armor was compromised, and his Attunement multiplier would mean an even greater energy density for one of the most energy-dense non-radioactive battery designs.

If Perry was still using the same cheap aluminum power armor in a year, he’d eat his hat.

The electrolyte can be salt water, for a roughly 42% reduction below the 1.2 volts of potential difference, vs. sodium hydroxide.

The salt water would doubtless be boosted by his Spendthrift perk, and Perry wanted a nontoxic option in case his battery got punctured again.

Not ‘in case.’ When. Perry had been very lucky not to get damaged by the caustic puffs of compressed air and acid.

So, corrugated aluminum armor, arranged into individual cells producing juice for the motor.

The motors.

Perry wanted more, better motors this time around.

Perry pulled up his CAD program and began designing the Mk. 2, piece by piece, sinking into the creative stupor of a Tinker Twitch, the world rushing by around him.

Once he had the CNC machine working at full capacity, he turned his attention to his spell-frames.

Specifically, Dregor’s Flaccidity.

More than anything else, Perry had been missing strong crowd control and nonlethal takedowns.

Dregor’s Flaccidity was possibly the most expensive spell he had, due to it requiring a solid silver bowl.

At least the bowl isn’t consumed by the spell, Perry thought. The cost per cast would go down over time.

On his original hunch, Perry set up three different sizes of silver bowls with a speaker right behind them, dialing in the sound from each until he reached their resonant frequencies.

Okay, now we need to make a spell-frame.

In a matter of hours, Perry printed and rigged up a simple frame which mixed and applied the paste, then blasted the back of the bowl with the silver’s resonant frequency.

It looked a bit like an oversized chapstick. It was convex to match the silver bowl, with a small hole in the center where it extruded the paste from the mixing tube.

The spell-frame then squished into the silver bowl, creating a perfectly even coat of material, before moving aside.

Or at least, that’s the hope.

Perry rigged up the spell-disc, took the whole thing far away from his expensive CNC tools, and aimed the bowls at cardboard cutouts of enemies.

Melt.EXE

It took about three seconds for the prototype spell-frame to apply the paste to the silver bowl—needs work—then the applicator swung away on a hinge.

A high-pitched sound assaulted Perry’s ears, but most importantly, the cardboard cutout of a bad guy began to sag, melting into a puddle of liquified cardboard on the ground.

Oh, heck yeah, Perry thought, hands clasped over his ears.

The effect hit the cardboard man and a bit of the ground around it, and when Perry ran over to check, the surface of the distant concrete building he’d been using as a backdrop could be marred using a fingernail.

More testing required.

The paste seemed to evaporate as it was rendered into pure magic, and by the end of the spell, the silver bowl was perfectly clean and ready to go again.

The next time, Perry set up a field of wooden dowels and a camera.

Once he blasted the field, it became obvious that the silver dish did indeed concentrate the effect, creating a cone of gradually intensifying melting, followed by an inverted cone of rapidly weakening effect.

The wooden dowels at the center of the effect were completely liquid, while the rest were simply flaccid and limp in two opposing cones.

This is going to kick ass at crowd control, Perry thought. It needs serious improvement, though.

If the effect was closer to radiation than sound, there had to be a way to make a laser out of it.

He wanted to be able to tag someone in the shoulder and render them into a boneless puddle for a few minutes.

Wide and narrow casting would both come in handy.

Perry took the prototype back into the garage and began drafting up improvements.

Obviously I can’t have a giant bowl attached to my forearm, Perry thought as he began tweaking.

First, he revised the applicator to be a single sheet of plastic that could flip up and down, rather than the entire mixing system. The sheet of plastic would flip up and force the paste, injected from the forearm housing of the mixer, into the proper shape.

Then it would flip back down, nesting with the bowl when it wasn’t in use. Perry attached a little motor and silver piston to the back of the bowl and used it to achieve tiny variations in the focus of the beam, from a tight beam for individuals, to something wider that could be used to soften walls, rubble, or weaken several attackers at once.

That design took about one and a half seconds to fire.

Still too slow.

Then Perry changed the way he thought about the use of time ‘applying’ the paste.

He designed a mold that matched the silver dish exactly, then had it fill itself whenever it wasn’t in use. When the spell was triggered, the cover would retract, it would flip up and slap the bowl of paste into the silver dish, making the complete spell, then retract, refilling itself for a second shot while the spell was being cast.

.25 seconds from trigger to cast. Almost good enough.

To clear his mind, Perry set the project aside, loaded up the CNC machine with a new sheet of aluminum, then pivoted to Kolath’s Floating Armaments.

It was time to figure out what the heck a ‘jangle’ was as a unit of measurement.

Why couldn’t wizards from another planet have used the metric system? Perry thought, not for the first time.

Chapter 12: People Are Complicated

Professor Replica was one of the most dangerous supers to ever exist, a man who could create self-replicating drones out of a sheet of paper. His creations threatened to cover the planet with his sick facsimiles of life.

Even after his defeat by Solaris, his more advanced automatons continue to replicate, hunting for resources to make more of themselves, making travel outside the confines of a mega-city extremely dangerous.

He wasn’t always a madman bent on sheathing the planet in steel.

He was originally Professor John Stevens, a junior member of a team of the world’s best astronomers, dedicated to unraveling what exactly caused The Tide. Early in their task, one of the older, weaker astronomers died from an aneurysm. It was assumed at the time that the cause of death was natural.

More of the team suffered extreme damage to their minds, gradually losing touch with reality as they came closer to uncovering the truth. One by one, each member of John’s team was hospitalized, until he was the only one remaining who dared work on the issue.

April 21st, 1972, John Stevens locked himself in the Hayfield Observatory with a week’s supply of food and water. October 13, 1972, Professor Replica emerged, the first Omni class Tinker. He seemed to be able to dictate the laws of physics in regards to his creations to an extent greater than any super before him.

He immediately began a campaign to replace humanity with robots, forcing all of the supers of the day to band together to engage in a fifteen-year war that laid waste to much of the United States before he was stopped.

Professor Replica is widely believed to have known more about the cause of The Tide than any other human, alive or dead. Whatever knowledge he had died with him.

Astronomy has since soared up the charts to become the fifth-most dangerous job in the world, but absolutely necessary to our survival.

Astronomers are the canary in the coal mine.

***Edward Taver***

Eddie was doing his job.

His job, the same one he’d been doing for the last five years, was to sit in a chair and try not to get bored.

Currently, he was simulating a prehistoric tableau on his desk, complete with dinosaurs and palm trees. In Eddie’s imagination, his desk was an alien vessel that was slowly being reclaimed by the relentless force of nature.

A red light began blinking, distracting Eddie from his antics.

“…Oh, crap.”

Okay, you can do this, Eddie thought, taking a deep breath, clearing his desk off and flipping on the tracking monitor.

The world outside his office began to fade as he began unraveling The Tide’s movement.

Eddie followed the wobbling line representing The Tide’s distance, applying the math he’d been taught…

The gravitational force that had been holding relatively steady for the last twelve years was beginning to get stronger.

Without thinking, Eddie applied his accurate model of the solar system that had been drilled into his head since college, figuring out the general position…

Eddie winced as his head began to throb. It felt like there was something at the very edge of his perception: some thought that, if only he could think it, would solve everything. It was at the tip of his brain. Eddie stumbled toward his calculator.

If he could figure out exactly where it was, then he could more accurately predict…

Ice water flooded Eddie’s veins as he pulled himself away from his calculator. That’s enough!

Eddie shook off the strange feeling and bolted for the door. He didn’t bother switching off his screen. The graph on his monitor wasn’t dangerous to anyone who didn’t understand it, and there were precious few who did anymore.

When Eddie opened the door to the Nexus hallway, he sighed in relief before running towards the conference room, grabbing Janet’s box of tissues from her cubicle as he ran past, stuffing a couple tissues up his gushing nose.

“Hey!” Janet’s expression paled when Eddie glanced back at her.

Eddie, with temerity he never could’ve imagined had the situation been different, stormed into the conference room where the Nexus’s top supers were located, interrupting Solaris mid-anecdote.

“Aahahah!” Hexen, Guile, Safros, and Quake were slapping their thighs and guffawing.

“I shit you not, your kid was wearing cardboard, head to toe, as—” Solaris’s smile faded as he recognized Nexus’s resident astronomer.

“Umm…” Eddie pointed over his shoulder lamely as the collection of superhuman powerhouses stared at him. “Tide’s coming in.”

“How much time?”

“Umm…” Eddie winced as the headache got worse.

He glanced down at the paper in his hand, in his own handwriting, with no memory of writing it. A spatter of blood fell from his face, nearly covering the numbers.

Eddie dabbed the corners of his eyes, the tissue coming away soaked scarlet.

“Two weeks to High Tide.”

“Take a vacation, Eddie,” Solaris said. “Your job’s done.”

***Perry***

“Here you are. One cubic meter of cardboard batteries,” Perry said, patting the ream of paper he’d converted.

Hardcase’s dad walked through the living room, scratching his beer belly. He glanced over at Perry and his daughter, both wearing helmets over their civvies, and shook his head with a snort, wandering off to the kitchen.

“Thanks a bunch!” Hardcase said, handing him a thousand-dollar chit with the Nexus logo in the center.

“Some things to keep in mind,” Perry said. “They’re tougher than ordinary cardboard by a lot, but they’re only bullet resistant. The big stuff gets through pretty easy. They’ve got good structural integrity, somewhere in the ballpark of hardwood. They’re also filled with pressurized acid. The acid is diluted, but still there, so make sure you don’t get any on your skin.”

“I’ve been thinking about it a bunch. I’m going to use them to make some attack drones. I’ve been looking for ways to increase my utility after getting my butt kicked so bad last time.”

“Tell me about it,” Perry said, rolling his eyes. “I sucked.”

“W-what? You did awesome!”

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Perry said, “but I almost broke my neck and lost an arm. Plus, I couldn’t even win a three-on-one.” Perry waxed a little sarcastic there towards the end.

People generally don’t win three-on-one.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll do better next time?”

“Next time I fight you?” Perry asked.

“Yeah.” Hardcase sighed. “I realized as soon as I said it.”

“Anyway, let’s go see if these things require me to help out,” Perry said, patting the stack of batteries.

They did indeed require him to help out. Once Hardcase made major changes to one of the sheets of cardboard, it reverted to regular cardboard and the pressurized gas popped out of it.

It wasn’t unexpected. Tinker powers often didn’t play well with each other, and his didn’t tolerate major modifications. At least other people could use them as intended. There were a few Tinkers out there whose inventions could only be used by themselves.

The solution was that Perry flipped the switch on Hardcase’s cutting machine, which cut the shapes his batteries would take in her inventions. That’s all it took. The rules of superpowers were strange.

While Perry was waiting, he couldn’t help but express a bit of jealousy at how much nicer her lair was than his own. I guess it’s not a ‘lair’ if you’re a cape. Then why do I think of mine as a lair? Weird.

I really should clean my lair a bit more often, though, Perry thought a moment before a tiny robot scooted out of a hole in the wall and grabbed a piece of cardboard off the ground and vanished into the distance.

Or make robot cleaners.

Once their business was done, Perry rode his bike back to his place, pleased with his profit for the day and looking forward to finishing his homework, eating dinner, and hiding in his lair for a good four hours.

“Sooo…how was your date the other weekend?” Mom asked from across the dinner table, a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. A glimmer that Perry didn’t like or trust one bit.

“Fine, I guess. Didn’t we already talk about that?” Perry asked.

“I think your mother was referring to the fight with the prawn.”

Perry froze. “You guys knew about that?”

“You think I don’t surveil you? Git gud, son.” The Mechanaut chortled into his soup.

“Solaris can see through anything that’s not lined with lead,” Hexen said with a wince.

He called Heather ‘young lady’! Perry thought, eyes widening. Heather’s suit was unisex and her voice had been modulated.

“Well, shoot,” Perry muttered, slumping over in his seat. Now that he had no ‘secret’ to keep about last weekend, he unleashed a tirade of pent-up frustration. “You know what? It went terribly, and it was amazing, and we kicked some serious ass, but the very next day, Heather wouldn’t even talk to me. She’s been giving me the silent treatment for a week now.”

“Oh.” Dad sucked in a breath through his teeth.

“So, like, what did I do wrong? Is she pissed because I upstaged her or something? She doesn’t have HP, or stats or anything. If she’d done half the things I did, she’d be missing an arm or just plain dead.”

Dad took a sip of his soup. “Did she look like she was happy at the end of the night?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you considered that perhaps things happen to Heather while you’re not there?” Dad asked.

“Then why would she take it out on me?” Perry asked.

“I’unno.” Dad shrugged.

“People are complicated,” Mom said.

“Well, what about you guys?” Perry asked. “How are you still married? How come Dad isn’t in prison or Drafted?”

“It’s a delicate balancing act, but basically it boils down to money. Everything always seems to be about money in the end,” Dad said. “Long story short, I arranged it so that it costs Nexus significantly more to imprison me than it does to pay people’s super insurance.”

“So why are you and Mom always fighting? Can’t they send someone else to do it?”

“Appearances, mostly. What was it, twenty-two years ago?” Dad said. “It was the High Tide before last, and I was just a young punk getting my start with some awful power armor. Your mom was a literal magical princess. We were fighting prawns, and I got crushed by one.”

Dad pointed his finger at Perry. “And I mean that literally. My organs were being perforated by my ribs. I was about to get eaten by this huge bastard, looming over me as my vision faded to black.”

“And then Mom showed up,” Perry finished, rolling his eyes. He’d heard this part before.

“And then your mom showed up!” Dad shouted. “Flung that monster right off me, healed me, and I swore to myself right then and there that I would do right by that woman!”

Hexen blushed, stirring her soup as she concealed her face with her other hand.

“So anyway, didn’t take long for high command to figure out I took a dive whenever they sent your mom after me. Spent a lot of time in and out of the Nexus Workshop. That’s Tinker prison, by the way.”

This part, Perry had never heard before, and he perked up, hearing about some of the more interesting parts of his dad’s career.

“Tinker prison is a crazy place. Anyway, I figured out what I wanted, did the math, then spent a decade buying property, expanding my wealth, influence, and production output of defensive bots supplied to the wall until I was basically too influential for them to throw in prison. Once that happened, I convinced your mom to marry me.”

Perry lifted a brow.

“Basically, as long as I keep the damage to infrastructure, I’ve got a permanent get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“So the Nexus is…corrupt?”

“I would say they weighed the pros and cons,” Dad said.

“So let me get this straight,” Perry said.

“Yeah?”

“I’m eighteen.”

“Yeah.”

“You guys met twenty-two years ago.”

“Yeah.”

“You spent a decade plotting, before you got married.”

“Yeah?”

“Twenty-two minus eighteen is four.”

“So?”

“I was born four years into your decade-long evil plan, and spent six years as a bastard?”

“Well…” Dad scratched the back of his neck while Mom blushed. “I was in prison, holding the city hostage with a bomb that would turn everyone into hamsters unless they let me out. High command figured I had a soft spot for your mom, so they sent her in to interrogate me and—”

“That’s plenty!” Perry said, holding up his hands. “I don’t wanna hear about being conceived in a maximum-security prison!”

“Think about it this way, son,” Dad said. “If it wasn’t for you, everyone would be hamsters right now. You saved Franklin City.”

Hexen was covering her face with both hands now, her spoon forgotten.

“I said I don’t wanna hear about it! I don’t even wanna think about it!”

Perry finished dinner as fast as he could, did the dishes at full speed, then retreated to the safety of his lair, where he wouldn’t have to hear stories about his parents’ adventures.

As he was fabricating his new suit, something his dad said kept nagging at him.

Everything always seems to be about money in the end.

He hadn’t seen any sign that Heather had spent any of her twelve thousand. No rewarding herself with real food at the cafeteria, new clothes or accessories.

Even Perry had blown most of his free cash on decent pizza, at least. He paused and leaned against the wall of the storage unit, really thinking about it.

If Solaris, Hexen, and The Mechanaut all knew what they were up to last weekend, what were the odds that Karnos had found out somehow? Pretty good. Successful villains had to have good intel.

Perry could easily imagine Heather being pissed if she caught hell from her dad and lost her cash, while Perry walked away scot-free.

The entire situation around his debut illustrated a couple things.

Perry needed better control over his own information, and he needed an information network of his own.

All the big-name players had their own feelers out there, and if Perry wanted to be one of them, he had to view the game as a whole, like his dad did, making himself indispensable to the city.

I need to buy some lead sheets now, too…and talk to Heather.

Chapter 13: Brainstorming

Perry walked around the lead-plated armor in the center of his workshop, tapping his pencil on his lips as he walked.

Mk. II weigh-in: 50 pounds. Featherweight division.

$1500 dollars in supplies.

Power supply est. 1600 hours of continuous operation. Non-replaceable, or rechargeable. It’s a disposable suit of power armor, part of why it was so cheap to make.

Expanded options for nonlethal takedown:

1: Improved variety of Kolath’s Floating Armaments, including chain, blanket, hand, giant sword, and many many pairs of handcuffs.

2: Dregor’s Flaccidity: Effect is weaker than it could be because the silver bowl is two inches wide, but will work excellently as a debuff against powerhouses like Titan.

3: Tomward’s Floating Dazzler.

4: Stun guns built into gauntlets.

Tomward’s Floating Dazzler was something Perry had started when he’d first bought his ingredients, several weeks ago. The spell was as such:

Tomward’s Floating Dazzler (Neophyte Difficulty)

Ingredients: phantom jellyfish salts, glowstone

Render ingredients into fine powder, mix at a 2 glowstone to 5 jellyfish salt ratio.

Create a brine out of the mixture, suspend glowstone fragments in the mixture, and allow the crystal to expand until it is three times the weight.

Once you have your crystal, you may activate the jellyfish essence with a quick poem (inscribed below). Expose the crystal to light and then shatter it upon a hard surface.

Will burst into light and render weightless any living being who witnesses the light.

In short, it’s an antigravity flash-bang, Perry translated.

He’d been waiting for the crystals to grow for a couple weeks now, and finally had his first half-dozen shots ready.

The spell-frame and spell-disc had been rather simple to make: just recording a poem describing the oceans of Manita, a full-spectrum light similar to his growth spell, and a launching mechanism.

Excellent.

Perry’s new suit was almost ready to go out into the world.

Beep beep beep!

Perry rubbed his eyes and glanced at his phone, telling him it was time to get ready for school.

“Shoot,” Perry muttered, getting his backpack ready and jumping on his bike and heading for his house. He could get there with just enough time to spare to catch the bus.

***Later***

The entire school filled up the bleachers as the principal addressed them. The dark-haired woman with the conservative pantsuit kept her tone even, but seemed to fidget behind the podium.

“I’m sure you’ve all noticed your Tidewatches fluctuating. I’m here to tell you that it is not a drill, nor a random spike in activity. The Tide is coming in,” Mrs. Penderson said, scanning the teens.

There was a swell of excited murmuring from the assembled schoolchildren, all of whom had been too young to remember the last High Tide with any clarity. Some were afraid; many more were thrilled at the prospect of becoming supers.

“It’s been announced by Nexus that High Tide will arrive in approximately ten days. As is school policy, we will be closing down for the remainder of the school year to be safe. You have until the end of the week to make accommodations with your parents.”

“Whoo!” some idiot cheered.

“That means most of you are going to be held back an extra year, unless you can test out of your current classes,” Mrs. Penderson continued.

“Whooo…?” The idiot trailed off, causing Perry to choke back a guffaw.

“If you’d like to make arrangements to test out of your classes, come up to the counselors’ tables over there.” Mrs. Penderson pointed to the long line of bored-looking teachers seated behind plastic tables, ready to sort out the logistics of an emergency shutdown of an entire school.

“If you don’t want to test out, we’ve got an extra set of buses that will be sending you home after the announcements are over.”

“You gonna test out?” Brendon asked, nudging Perry in the shoulder.

“Of course I’m gonna test out,” Perry answered. “You think I wanna still be in high school when I’m twenty?”

“…No?” + asked. “What about me, what should I do?”

“Probably better to try, at least. And hey, if you don’t pass, you get another year as a football star.”

Together, the two of them walked down to the plastic tables and signed up for the tests they’d need to take.

The teacher taking down Brendon’s information had a sad expression.

Past Brendon, Perry made out Heather in line, and without her army of mean girls.

“Gotta go,” he said, patting Brendon on the shoulder and cutting off Heather before she could make it to the bleachers.

“What do you want?” she asked, peering up at him, seemingly mildly annoyed at his intrusion.

“I wanted to ask how bad it was,” Perry said. “My folks knew what we were up to that night. I assume your dad did too?”

“Not great,” Heather said with a sigh. “It was not great, Perry.”

“So is that a reason we can’t hang out?” Perry asked.

“The reason we can’t hang out, Perry Z, is because my dad likes you.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Heather sighed, crossing her arms. “My dad. Is not a sellout clown like yours.”

“Ouch.”

“He doesn’t like people. He likes tools. When I was fourteen, I had this friend, Abby. She would come over to my house every day and we would hang out, play games, talk about life. You know what happened to her?”

“…No?”

“Her mom was an inspector that my dad blackmailed into falsifying her reports, using information he got from me. When it got found out, she lost her job, got a divorce, and moved away, and I never saw Abby again.”

“So I’m Abby in this scenario?” Perry asked.

“Pretty much.”

“I don’t really think that’s a fair comparison,” Perry said. “Every person in my family has superpowers. I don’t really think Karnos would risk coming after us in our civvies.”

It was an unspoken rule, and those who broke it were dealt with harshly: you don’t come after a super’s family, and you don’t bother a super in their civilian alter ego. It led to messy, dangerous situations more often than not.

And trying to blackmail any one of them was invoking the ire of no less than three supers, two of whom were actually fairly dangerous.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But I know my dad, and he’ll do anything he thinks he can get away with. And he usually does.”

“But, I mean…you’re not going to actively tell him anything about me or my family, are you?” Perry asked.

“Of course not!”

“So what’s the difference between if we hang out and he bugs you, or we don’t hang out, and he bugs Brendon or my backpack, or something? I don’t see how us being friends would change the priorities of someone like that. If he wants to hurt my family, he’s gonna try whether or not you’re around.”

“Because he’ll use me to hurt you somehow, and I can’t—” Heather bit her lip.

“You know you’re legally an adult, right?” Perry asked. “He’s got no more control over you than habit.”

“Must be nice to live in your world. I suppose I’ll just rent an apartment with all that money I’m swimming in, and my dad won’t send thugs to harass the property owner into sending me packing back to daddy.”

“You know,” Perry said, thinking hard. “My dad told me he never goes to jail anymore, because he made it cost more for the city to put him away than it does to tolerate his antics.”

“So?”

“So, if your dad doesn’t care about people…maybe if you made it more expensive for your dad to keep you around than it would be to leave you alone?”

Heather uncrossed her arms and opened her mouth, head cocked to the side. “Huh. I never thought about it that way.”

She patted Perry on the shoulder, slipping by him. “I’ll think about it.”

New Quest!

Assist Heather in distancing herself from the supervillain Karnos!

Reward: 300 XP, team member

Failure: Reputation down with Nexus, parents, Karnos. Heather Dies.

As this is a Quest with a penalty for failure, if you wish to, you may forfeit this quest anytime in the next 24 hours to give up both the reward and the penalty for failure. After 24 hours, there is no quitting. The seed has already been planted.

Ice flowed through Perry’s veins.

“Hey, buddy,” Brendon said, patting him on the shoulder. “I saw Heather gave you the time of day. That’s good, right?”

“I’m not sure,” Perry said. “I think I just gave her a really bad idea.”

“Really? How bad?”

“Partying-on-the-wall bad.”

Brendon hissed through his teeth. Teens climbing up to party on the wall was a common trope in horror movies. It usually ended about as badly as splitting up in a haunted house.

Perry would rather die than talk to Heather while she was surrounded by her social armor, but today he felt strangely motivated.

Perry marched up the bleachers to where the red-gold-haired girl was chatting with her ‘friends.’

“Heather, can you come over to my house tonight?” Perry asked, doing his best to ignore the giggling.

“Wow, you’ve got to respect his guts. He’s trying to swing way out of his league,” Amy Adams said, smiling maliciously. The brown-haired girl was reveling in her perceived superiority as the daughter of a Nexus supervisor.

You sure are out of your league, Amy, Perry thought sourly. He knew it was hot air, but it still stung.

“And why would I come over to your house?” Heather asked, folding her hands and looking up at him.

“Because I’ve got a hunch that whatever idea you just had about your dad is going to end with him killing you.”

Of course the teen girls surrounding Heather didn’t take Perry literally. They didn’t know who Heather’s dad really was. They assumed Perry was exaggerating.

“Oh look, Perry Triggered and he’s a mind reader,” Vanessa Brown said.

“Probably afraid her dad’s gonna hear about how awful the date was and kick his butt,” another girl said, followed by a round of laughter.

Heather, on the other hand, took Perry seriously, her face losing a bit of its hue. “I dunno, you sound pretty desperate, Paradox,” Heather said, winking. “But I think I’d rather die.”

She called me Paradox.

“Alright, then. Suit yourself,” Perry said, marching off.

“Ahaha, look at how he’s walking!” Amy crowed as he left. “What a loser!”

Once Perry was far enough away, he shuddered from head to toe, sloughing off the barbed words, and oriented on what needed doing.

“Alright, Brendon, we’re going home,” Perry said, steering the beefy boy towards the doors out of the gymnasium, leading to the armored buses waiting for the students who’d chosen not to test out of retaking the year.

“But, what about the tests?” Brendon asked, digging his heels into the linoleum, but failing to find any purchase as Perry pushed him from behind.

“A man’s gotta have priorities, Brendon, and one of those priorities is not letting friends get themselves killed. Especially not cute girl friends.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Brendon asked.

“I didn’t make the rules for who deserves to be rescued, I only live within them,” Perry said. He’d been taught the little-girl unit of measurement, when determining who to rescue first. It was a bit controversial, but as a rule of thumb, it usually worked out alright.

Women received a flat bonus to rescuability, and everyone had a penalty applied based on their age, before social value was applied.

This meant little girls were the most rescuable people, followed by little boys, and so on. Social value was added afterwards. For example, the mayor of Lincoln City, while being an old male, was probably worth at least the same amount as a little girl, due to his high social value.

Probably about 1.384627 little girls.

“I guess… Hey, have you been working out?” the jock asked as his feet slid across the floor.

“About ten point two five percent more,” Perry said.

“Yeah, I can tell.”

***Later***

Perry stood in front of a whiteboard with a marker held firmly in his hand, pointing to his troops like an ancient general from the before-times.

“Alright. I’ve brought you here to brainstorm this problem.” Perry pointed at the bubble in the center of the whiteboard.

(How Heather can ditch her dad without getting murdered.)

“Hahah… Are you serious?” Brendon asked.

“Question one,” Perry said, drawing a line and another bubble.

(Worth the risk?)

“This is a question only Heather can answer, because according to her, my parents make me untouchable, so any fallout is all gonna land square on her shoulders.” Perry looked at Heather.

“I’m sick of him controlling my life, so…yeah. Let’s do it,” she said.

“Okay,” Perry said, putting a check mark in the bubble. “Now, let’s brainstorm ways to…”

(Make Heather a liability to her father.)

“And…”

(Discourage eliminating said liability.)

“This is two separate parts. What were you planning on doing when you got home?” Perry asked, pointing at Heather.

“I was gonna break into his computer and desk, and see if I could dig up anything that I could use to make him lose a lot of money.”

“And would that stop him from killing you?” Perry asked.

“…Probably not.”

“Are you guys serious?” Brendon asked.

“So, under ‘make Heather a liability’…” Perry drew a line and added (compromise business information).

“That’s a start. How can we discourage her dad from retaliating?” Perry asked. “I think this falls under three major categories.”

(Monetary)

(Physical)

(Social)

Perry pointed at the three new bubbles branching off of the ‘discourage’ bubble.

“If we make some kind of insurance that will cost him a significant amount of money in the event of Heather’s death, that will be a good step forward. Think living wills, blackmail, and lawyers to enact them.”

Heather nodded contemplatively, but Brendon was looking kind of green around the gills.

“‘Physical’ is simple: just make it too physically dangerous or difficult to attack or intimidate Heather. This could take the form of bodyguards, weapons, viruses, acid… The bigger the stick, the better.”

“Jesus Christ, is Heather’s dad the Terminator?” Brendon asked.

“Eh.” Heather waggled her hand. “Sort of.”

“Are you guys sure I should be here for this?” Brendon asked. “I kinda feel out of my depth here.”

“I’m sure you’ll pick up on something we’ll miss. We need a normal person’s perspective on this,” Perry said.

“My perspective is this is crazy overkill.”

“Excellent.” Perry moved on to the next bubble.

“And finally, ‘Social’! If we can involve Heather with an organization or group that her dad wouldn’t dare mess with, then he’ll be encouraged to back off or risk upsetting the big fish.”

“Like if I joined the Nexus as a junior cape?” Heather asked.

“Exactly.”

“Oh my god, Heather, you’ve got powers?” Brendon asked.

“No.” Heather rolled her eyes. “It was an example.”

(Join Nexus), Perry wrote. “I’m adding it anyway. Anything else? Ooh! Affiliation with an independent group.” Perry wrote that down too. Not as good as the Nexus, but less limiting, and didn’t require her to prove she was a super.

“Could go to astronomy college,” Heather said with a shrug.

“Let’s pick something with a lower chance of making you into a vegetable,” Perry said, but he wrote it down anyway.

“You could marry Perry,” Brendon said, causing Perry’s marker to screech across the whiteboard, leaving a long black streak.

“What?” Brendon asked as they both stared at him. “If Heather’s dad won’t do anything to Perry because of his parents, it stands to reason he wouldn’t want to risk hurting their daughter-in-law either.”

“Huh. That’s a good point.” Perry thumbed his chin. “Do you think your dad wanted you to stop hanging around with me?”

Abusers isolate their victims. It’s pretty textbook, when you think about it.

“He said he approved of you!” Heather said.

“And he’s aware you hate anything he approves of, correct?”

“…Yeah,” Heather grudgingly admitted.

“I’m adding it,” Perry said, adding another bubble to the board.

(A Fate Worse Than Death*)

Chapter 14: Social Armor

“So what did you need, Paradox?” Titan asked. The green-eyed Bruiser was wearing his costume, so Perry wore a helmet. It felt a little weird doing it in a crowded coffee shop, but that was the world they lived in.

Perry had gotten Titan’s work number from Hardcase and proceeded to set up an emergency meeting. The clock was ticking.

“I need someone to bodyguard my friend… Let’s call her Star.”

“We’re not exactly bodyguards, Paradox, and High Tide is coming in. Things are gonna get real busy over the next month or two.”

“Star got the information about the prawn deal from Karnos,” Perry said. “It’s only a matter of time before Karnos finds out about it and retaliates. Don’t you guys want another chance at arresting him?”

“I wouldn’t mind it,” Titan said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that High Tide is coming in, and we can’t spare the manpower.”

“Oh, I know. I’ll have Star help you out in one of my suits,” Perry said. “You get extra manpower, she gets protection by association.”

“And I have to worry about Karnos blindsiding my team.”

“I’ll throw in some street leathers that can stop bullets for Manic, enhanced materials for Hardcase, and weapons for Warcry and Jetset.”

Titan tapped the table, his eyes narrowed as he weighed the pros and cons.

“Deal,” he said, reaching across the table and grasping Perry’s hand in his iron grip.

“I’ll get Star under your wing in an hour or two. The rest of it is going to take a few days to make. Do you know what you want first?”

“A nonlethal sidearm for Jetset would be excellent. Kid’s got next to no offensive capability.”

“I can do that,” Perry said, nodding, his mind already chewing on the problem.

***At Paradox’s Lair***

“Now I know you’re nervous going out there on your own with the big kids, but you just be your usual charming self, listen to the teacher, and try to make friends. You’ll have a great time,” Perry said, sliding the visor up and down to make sure it was working properly.

In the background, Perry’s CNC machine was working full-tilt, cutting out the frame of another Mk. II. The second time would be much faster, now that all the kinks were worked out. He’d resized the first one for Heather, and had taken all the magic weapons out of it except for Dregor’s Flaccidity.

He claimed it was a melt ray he’d borrowed from his dad’s armory, and Heather bought it. As long as she knew what it did and used it judiciously, he didn’t see why she shouldn’t have some debuffs, just in case.

“Thanks, mom,” Heather said, rolling her eyes.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Remind me not to forget the ‘sidearm,’ would you?”

Once Perry had an idea for a good nonlethal weapon for Jetset, he’d been able to make two of them in less than an hour out of cut aluminum and poured rubber.

“Alright, try walking now.”

The suit hummed to life, and Heather took a step forward.

“Knees in the right place? Elbows and wrists? Do jazz hands.”

“It’s all in the right spot, but it’s a little tight around my hips.”

“Not much I can do about the size of your butt.” Perry shrugged, suddenly inspired to create a resizing system for his armor that could be modified via ratchet.

I gotta write that down, Perry thought, tongue sticking out as he made a quick note.

“Tell you what,” Perry said when he was done. “I can pry open the spine area about half an inch around your butt, then weld some plate in there to keep it a bit looser.”

“Do what you gotta do,” Heather said.

Perry scooted over and grabbed a hammer and wedge, and began brutally hammering the butt area, spreading it out and penetrating the gap.

Kinda sounds dirty.

“Oh my god, that’s better,” Heather said with a sigh as he slammed her butt-plate.

Hehehe. Gotta enjoy ourselves where we can.

Perry jammed some aluminum plate into the gap and welded it secure, before snipping it off with oversized clippers.

It wasn’t pretty, but it would do what Perry wanted it to do.

“But seriously. Make friends with these people. Half the plan is making sure they’re at least a little invested in keeping you alive. So be nice.”

“I got it.”

“Also, your code name is ‘Star.’”

“What?!” Heather asked. “That’s terrible. It’s both bland and girly.”

“It’s just a loaner name, and hey, what’s wrong with girly?” Perry demanded.

Heather didn’t bother to respond.

“Alright, try flying now. I added a tiny gyroscope to the center of mass to help stabilize the flight. Same controls as last time.”

Heather nodded, and the jets began to flare, lifting the entire suit off the ground without nearly as much wobbling as before.

“Excellent, we’re almost ready to send you out to meet Titan’s team. Next, I’m gonna need some blood for this bowl,” Perry said, pulling out the scrying bowl made from a giant’s cornea.

Heather stared at him.

“I got a blood-draw kit in the toolbox,” Perry offered.

Heather continued staring at him.

“Heather, I’m gonna need you to muster all of your daddy issues and give me some blood. It’s insurance.”

Heather shook her head and groaned, unlatching the chest plate and climbing out of the armor.

“Have you ever done this before?” she asked as Perry grabbed a blood-draw kit out of its box and put a tourniquet around her upper arm, wiping down the area above her vein with a disposable alcohol wipe.

“How hard can it be? You think they train professionals for this?” Perry asked, landing the vein on the first try before pulling the release knot on the tourniquet. Take that, phlebotomists.

Blood began flowing into the blood bag.

“This is probably an awkward time to ask, but are you a virgin?” Perry asked conversationally. “There’s a bunch of other cool stuff I could use this for, if—”

Perry glanced at Heather’s expression and shut up. A moment later, he clicked the valve that pinched off the tube, replacing the needle with a colorful Band-Aid.

“There we go,” Perry said, closing up the bag and putting it away in the fridge. The blood didn’t have to be fresh, but fresher was always better. “Now I can spy on you whenever I want.”

Heather stared at him.

“What?” Perry asked.

“I’m getting that blood back when this is over,” Heather said.

Perry gave a faux gasp. “You think I would spy on you if it were anything other than an emergency?!” Perry asked, his voice dripping with fake indignation. “…Or if I was bored?”

“There it is,” Heather said, rolling her eyes.

“Here,” Perry said, grabbing his notepad and scribbling down an IOU.

IOU ½ liter of blood.

- Perry Z.

He handed it over to Heather. “Better?”

“Slightly,” Heather said, tucking the paper away in her pocket.

“Alright, let’s go get you set up with Titan’s crew,” Perry said, standing up.

Heather followed suit and grabbed the table for stability. “Whoa,” she said, wobbling in place as the blood loss caught up to her.

“And maybe get you a cookie on the way,” Perry added.

***Later***

Perry and Heather arrived at the meeting place—another abandoned building whose owner hadn’t bothered to get repaired after a super-brawl—where Titan’s team had assembled in a loose semicircle.

East Block Defenders, they called themselves, but that was a mouthful, so Perry just thought of them as ‘Titan’s crew.’

Heather landed and Perry jumped out of her arms, straightening his helmet as he examined the assembled capes.

Jetset and Manic seemed neutral. Hardcase was unreadable inside her mechsuit, naturally, and Warcry looked a bit sour.

“I figured out some effective nonlethals,” Perry said, brandishing his creations. “Didn’t even take that long to make.”

Aluminum rubber band guns, complete with extra-thick rubber bands that he’d poured earlier, six shots apiece, and easily reloadable with a fold-out winch.

Each of the rubber bands was naturally about fifty times thicker and more energetic than a regular one. Once Perry’s Spendthrift multiplier was applied, that number jumped to about fifteen hundred.

In short, it would leave a bruise.

“Is that a rubber band gun?” Titan asked, raising a brow.

“Yep. I even added a brace so it doesn’t snap your wrist or whack you in the face,” Perry said. “Care to try it out?”

“Sounds cool,” Jetset said, hovering closer and taking the pistol out of Perry’s hand and fitting his arm under the brace.

The flying cape leveled the gun at a nearby 55 gallon drum and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

“Jesus!” Jetset shouted, wobbling in midair as he almost conked himself in the face due to the recoil.

The stiff rubber was partially embedded in the drum, at the center of a crater in the sheet metal.

“It’s got a built-in winch you can flip out and wind back to load them. Good enough?” Perry asked.

“Mmm.” Titan nodded. “Good enough. Is that other one for Warcry?”

“Yep.”

“I’d rather die than walk around wearing a literal rubber band gun.”

“If she doesn’t want it, I’ll take two,” Jetset said, winching his rubber band back into place.

“Warcry, we’ve talked about this. You need nonlethal,” Titan said, with the exhausted tone of someone dealing with a child.

“But it’s a rubber band gun! It looks totally lame.”

“Does it really matter what it looks like?” Perry asked.

“Yes!”

Perry waited patiently while Titan convinced their energy-wielder to use the thing, until she finally snatched the gun out of his hand, giving him a sour look. Like it was Perry’s fault that she was an idiot.

I guess you can’t expect every member of a semi-pro team to be a pro.

Titan was in his mid-twenties, obviously going career cape, but most of his team members were significantly younger and seemed to be in it more for the glory and roughhousing. Or perhaps, in Warcry’s case, breaking expensive things and getting away with it.

I wonder if I could scout Titan. Smart Bruisers are valuable. Probably not, though, given that he’s already the leader of his own team. Not much upward mobility working for me…yet.

“Since we haven’t worked together with Star before, I set us up with something easy, so we can get some practice,” Titan said.

“Hardcase looked into why on Earth the Razors would be buying a prawn,” he continued, “and she figured out that they were acting as middlemen for Locust.”

Locust was the business-cowl in the North Block who trained minions, renting them out to other cowls when they needed extra hands. Chances were the minions with Raider, who’d run away rather than fight to the bitter end, were Locust’s.

“Locust has been spending a lot of money recently, especially since the announcement that High Tide is coming in. Our job today is to raid the gangs that were acting as middlemen, to see if any of them knew anything about what they were moving—if any of them snuck a peek at the cargo.”

If they can figure out enough of the cargo, they can make a pretty good guess as to what Locust is planning for High Tide. And it’s a lot less dangerous than directly going after Locust or some of the supers who work directly for her.

“Paradox, do you want to come with?” Titan asked, glancing over at Perry.

Perry became acutely aware of the fact that he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, save for the aluminum bucket on his head, and the printing belt concealed under his shirt. Woefully underdressed for the occasion.

Just vicious gangsters with guns, right?

“Sounds fun,” Perry said, nodding. “I’ll just hide behind Hardcase if things get hairy.”

Chapter 15: Fiscal Armor

“And can any of this information be used to reveal Mr. Karnos’s identity?” the lawyer, a bulldog of a man named John White, asked, resting his fingertips on the manila envelope.

“Well, some of the bank accounts are in his real name, if that’s what you’re asking,” Perry said.

“Then I’m sorry, Paradox, I can’t carry out your request,” John said, sliding the folder back across the table. “It is against the law to disseminate the personal information of a super.”

“I thought that was just civil servants. You know, law enforcement, government, postmen, etc.,” Perry said.

The lawyer cocked his head and a hint of a smile crossed his face. “It’s rare my clients know that. Yes, the law I’m referring to is limited in scope to government employees, but I’ll abide by it nonetheless.”

“Why?”

“It ties in very neatly with the unspoken rule among supers not to attack family members.”

John pulled out his phone and did a quick search. “January 12th, 1975, Guardian’s personal information was released, leading to the death of his wife. In a blind rage, the Guardian killed one hundred and fifty people, including the entirety of the news station that leaked his information and the villain who acted on it.”

“Well, that’s—”

“October 1975, Crypto killed the governor of Idaho when legislation requiring the registry of supers exposed her daughter to attack.”

“I think I—”

“Hold on, I’m not done with 1975,” John said, holding up a finger.

“December 1975, Gas Giant murdered an entire precinct of police officers as well as the cowl responsible when his son was killed as a direct result of an information leak.

“There’s literally thousands of examples of these,” the lawyer said, scrolling through them. “1975 was just when supers were getting started. The real bad years were 1978-1985.”

“I didn’t hear about all that.” Perry had those rules baked into him, but never heard the cold-blooded reasons for them.

“It’s a law school thing,” John said, setting his phone aside. “Long story short: For better or worse, supers are human too, and when a human is hurt, their instinct is to hurt back. In the case of supers, their capability to do so is grossly magnified, which is why we treat people like you with such favorable terms.”

“Huh.” Perry grunted through his helmet. It made sense.

“My advice: Go through the information you have there with a fine-tooth comb and remove anything that could be used to identify Karnos, then resubmit it to me. Think of it like this. You are blackmailing Karnos the supervillain, a separate entity than Karnos the civilian. If you bring enough heat down on Karnos, you may even be able to ‘squeeze’ him out.”

“Squeeze him out?”

“Never heard of that one?” the lawyer asked. Perry shook his head.

“‘Squeezing’ a super out is applying enough pressure to a super’s public identity that they effectively retire and spend the rest of their life as a private citizen. It’s always considered a wise move to leave a super the ‘out’ of simply returning to civilian life. I’m not surprised you didn’t know that one. We throw that term around a lot at the lawyer and government level.”

“I don’t think that’s gonna work with this guy,” Perry said.

“Probably not,” John admitted. “Cowls are significantly less liable to bend to that sort of thing.”

“Alright, I’ll review and resubmit,” Perry said, before pulling out his handful of chits that had begun to accumulate, hanging out with Titan’s crew.

“I was also hoping to open up a spending account with your office,” Perry said, dumping the chits on the table, some five thousand two hundred and thirty-eight dollars’ worth.

“That can be done, but first we’re going to have to come up with a signature for you, if you’re going to bank with us. We can also forward your signature to Nexus so the police can verify your identity as well,” John said.

“Why do you need a signature?”

“So a random man off the street can’t put a helmet on and steal your identity, Mr. Paradox.”

Perry glanced aside as he thought. “I’m guessing the signature isn’t just me writing my name down.”

“No, sir,” John said. Pulling out several official-looking documents, he began filling them out, with ‘Paradox’ written at the top.

“A signature, in the super world, is a minor demonstration of your power, the specifics of which are known only to the government and you. Supers being as rare as they are, the chances of someone knowing what your signature is, and being able to replicate it, are vanishingly small. You’ll need a signature if you intend to interact more with Nexus and the police during your career.

“It also proves to me that you’re not a kid with a helmet on, trying to launder money.”

“Hmm…” Perry thought, tapping his finger on the table.

“A shifter might briefly copy a specific celebrity, or perform a trick with their bodies, lick their elbow… A Bruiser might crush a steel bearing between thumb and forefinger. Something small, predetermined, and kept between the super and their lawyer.”

So we can use props? That makes it easier.

“Ah, I’ve got something. You have blank paper and tape?”

“Where do you think you are?” John chuckled, pulling a sheet of paper and a roll of tape out of his desk.

Perry rolled the paper up and taped it closed.

“Bend this paper,” Perry said, handing it back.

John, looking a bit incredulous, began torquing on the paper. The lawyer frowned and twisted harder, his face reddening as he gradually bent the paper.

“I give up, you’ve obviously got a power,” John said, throwing the paper tube in the trash can beside him before turning back to his papers.

Under ‘signature,’ the lawyer wrote, Rolls up piece of paper, tapes closed, asks verifier to bend. Bending the paper is extremely difficult.

“Does that look good? Do you want that to be your signature? Nexus and the police will use that method to verify your identity as Paradox,” John asked, showing Perry the form.

“Sure, looks good.”

“I’m required by law to inform you that a Minder could likely imitate your signature through subterfuge, but…that’s the same for everyone. Other than that, it’s a pretty good signature—obscure and difficult to replicate.

“Now for our rates,” John said, sliding forward a piece of paper. “We charge an annual retaining fee in the form of a percentage of your money, which scales down as the amount kept in trust with us increases.”

He pointed down at the brackets, where Perry was at fifteen percent, all the way down to savings accounts of a hundred million and more, which were charged 0.5 percent of their value.

“Fifteen percent annually is pretty high,” Perry muttered.

“I’ve yet to see a super on either side of the fence take longer than a year to become a millionaire. Look at it this way. We can set your annual payment for tomorrow, which will be…”

John pulled out a calculator.

“Seven hundred eighty-five dollars and seventy cents,” Perry offered.

John cocked a brow, sliding his calculator away. “Which will pay for our services until next year at the same time. By that point in time, you should be able to skip these brackets here, all the way up to this one.”

He pointed to the millionaire bracket, which was a much smaller 5%.

“So next year I can expect a fifty-thousand-dollar payment minimum?” Perry winced.

“Our savings accounts accrue roughly eight percent year over year, so you’re not likely to lose out too badly,” John said.

8% of 100 million is 8 million, and they only take 500k out of that. Damn. Pays to be rich, I guess. Dad really wasn’t kidding about money being important.

“What ‘services’ am I paying for?” Perry asked.

“Paperwork, handling larger payments between you and Nexus—the kind that are too big for chits. Legal advice and assistance in large purchases. Defense in court is not included.”

“What if I want to start a business and sell parts to other supers?”

“We can handle the legalese, paperwork, taxes, and arrange money transfers, but we are not an advertising firm. We can’t get you in touch with people who want to buy or sell specific Tinker-tech.”

“Oh.” Perry slumped a bit.

“We can, however, put you in touch with the people who run the Tinker Marketplace, and they can get you sorted out.”

“That would be fantastic,” Perry said, taking his manila envelope full of the secrets Heather had accumulated in her lifetime of living with the cowl, and over the last few days snooping around.

John leaned over and ruffled through a box of cards and pulled one out. “Their contact info.”

“Thanks,” Perry said, taking the card. I wonder if Dad sells stuff with these people too?

“Hey, does Mechanaut bank with you guys too? I was wondering what he makes in a year.” And if he donates to super insurance.

“No, but I couldn’t tell you even if he did.”

Liar. I got you guys’ address from my dad.

“I’ll just ask him myself then,” Perry muttered to himself, studying the Tinker Marketplace business card.

“In my professional capacity, I’d advise against it. The Mechanaut is extremely dangerous and unstable.”

“Hah!” Perry barked a laugh as he stood and gathered up all his documents, shaking his head. “That’s rich.”

John frowned, cocking his head.

“You’re probably gonna wanna save that signature,” Perry said, nodding to the rolled-up piece of paper in the trash. “Could be worth something in a few years.”

The lawyer broke into a smile.

“Get outta here, you cocky brat.”

***After Perry Left***

Kid’s not afraid of The Mechanaut? Makes no damn sense. I’ll never understand supers, I guess, John thought as he filled out the paperwork in triplicate to send to Nexus and open a new account here.

As the afternoon wore into evening, he found himself glancing over at the unnaturally stiff paper tube over and over again.

Finally, the overweight lawyer sighed and scooted his chair over to the trash bin, fishing out the paper.

He pulled out a sticky note and wrote on it:

Paradox, 1st Signature

Feb 18th, 2022

“Let’s see if you’re right, kid.” John chuckled to himself, locking the paper away in his private safe.

***Perry***

I love it here already, Perry thought to himself, his helmet pressed against the window showcasing AI cores.

Who needs a girlfriend when you can buy the perfect one for the low, low price of eighteen million dollars… Ooh, and a robo-butler!

Magic was neat. Super-science was neat.

¿Por que no los dos?

“Mr. Paradox?” a secretary asked, her voice prying him away from the glass.

“Yes?” Perry asked, stepping away from the display case and straightening his collar.

“We’d like to get some information from you, then you can go through the database and see if there’s anything you’d like to buy or sell through us.”

The information they needed from him was a vague description of his specialty. ‘Reinforcement’ is what Perry wrote down. Then they asked whether or not his creations could be used or modified by others.

The ability for a Tinker-made object to be modified by another Tinker was exceedingly rare, and made those objects soar in value, based on the layering of multiple Tinkers’ abilities.

Sadly, Perry was in the broadest category of Tinker, whose powers didn’t play nicely with modification, but could be used by others.

If I’d been an Industrial Tinker, I’d be able to do it, Perry thought with a slight sense of regret.

Perry could still sell stuff, though; just not quite at the same premium.

Still, the premiums were pretty high, and it only took a short time of looking before Perry found the niche his class was made for: making cheap parts for budding Tinkers.

There were some self-healing super-plastics, nanotech, quantum foam batteries, and so on that he couldn’t keep up with, even with his multipliers, but Perry could reduce his prices drastically lower and outcompete other Tinkers’ creations in a similar price bracket.

And drastically lower was relative.

The aluminum parts he’d been cutting out on his CNC machine by the hundreds would go for $50 apiece due to their outlandishly high weight-to-strength ratio.

It wasn’t the best Tinker-tech—the best Tinker-tech was absolutely insane—but for most people…it was good enough.

“You want your vendor ID to be ‘Good Enough’?” the secretary asked.

“Is that bad?” Perry asked.

“You can if you want, but most Tinkers have their super handle be their vendor name, so they can capitalize on their fame, should they achieve any notoriety.”

“That’s a better idea,” Perry said. “Make my vendor name ‘Paradox.’ Subtitle: ‘It’s Good Enough.’”

“It’s your store,” the secretary said, shrugging as she took down the notes. “Now let me show you the measurement room.”

She took him down a hall and opened up a door to a noisy room filled to the brim with high-tech testing equipment.

Inside, thousands of gadgets were being destroyed in creative ways, varying from acid to being pulled apart or overclocked until they caught fire.

The waste made Perry wince in sympathy at the sheer amount of value being lost.

“Anything you want to sell that isn’t a unique item, we’d like you to submit in units of one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight, so we can run a random selection of them through testing. Tinkers who buy from the marketplace want to know the exact tolerances of what they’re buying, and that is something that we can provide.”

“Ah.” Perry nodded. “Makes sense. What’s the protocol for unique items?”

“Unique items require a member to pass a probationary period. In short, you can’t sell unique items yet. But if you keep selling with us, that can change.”

“No problem,” Perry said, fishing out a little aluminum tendon rod from his pocket. “Since we’re here, can we test this out? Give me a ballpark idea of what it’s worth?”

The woman took the aluminum and inspected it. “What’s this?”

“Tendon for one of my suits. I cut it the wrong size.”

“And what’s it made of?” she asked, inspecting it closely.

“Proprietary blend.”

She shrugged. “Sure, let’s put it in The Squisher.”

The woman walked up to a giant steel piston and lowered it until it was holding the aluminum bar in place. They backed away behind the protective glass and the woman hit the button, and Perry was slightly disappointed to see his aluminum tendon fold almost instantly. He was hoping it would resist dramatically a while, maybe gouge a furrow in the steel.

The woman didn’t seem surprised that The Squisher performed according to its namesake. Come to think of it, it’s probably Tinker-tech.

“We don’t have enough of them to draw up a comprehensive profile, but I’ve seen plenty of parts with this kind of compressive strength sell for at least two fifty each.”

“Two hundred and fifty dollars?” Perry asked, hopeful.

“Two dollars and fifty cents.”

Dang. That’s a lot less than I thought, but…

He could cut out a thousand of them from a single $25 sheet of aluminum plate, so he didn’t really have any room to complain.

That’s actually still a decent amount of money. Plus, Perry was pretty sure she’d given him a minimum number. They hadn’t tested tensile strength, toughness, or corrosion resistance, and Perry was pretty sure it would perform better than expected in all categories, pushing the price much higher.

“When can I start selling here?” Perry asked.

“We’re open twenty-four hours a day. Just bring anything you want to sell to the back of the building and give the men there your product and your ID.”

“Can you help me put together a list of various parts in high demand?” Perry asked. “Preferably simple ones that can be cut out with a CNC machine?”

The woman gave him an amused smile.

“I can do that, Paradox.”

Chapter 16: Physical Armor

Long week, Perry thought with a sigh as he took the bucket off his head and ran his fingers through his helmet-hair.

High Tide was only three days away, and already things were getting…a little weird.

Mom and Dad were fighting less than usual, for one. It was a strange thing not to have them duking it out on the morning news. Felt like their marriage was in jeopardy or something.

The east wall was a bustle of activity, heavily armed soldiers with prawn guns interspersed with supers constantly patrolling it as the ocean gradually crept its way up to the base of the wall.

The city proper was above the level that High Tide should reach, but there were never any guarantees.

Things got weird around High Tide. People were Triggering left and right, insurance premiums went through the roof, and statistically speaking, one of Perry’s schoolmates was most likely donning a mask and engaging in some super-shenaniganry for one team or the other.

Lord, if you’re there, please don’t let Vanessa Brown Trigger. Please and thank you…

On the other hand, if she did Trigger, it would then be morally acceptable to punch her in the face, since we’d be on the same footing and gender mores are a little vaguer for supers.

Gosh, that’s a tough one, Perry thought as he walked over to his projects. Dear Lord, I’ll leave the decision up to you.

Perry’s CNC machine was cutting out bits and bobs rapid-fire, having been refitted with parts Perry had modified himself in order to drastically boost its speed. Speed was money, after all.

Perry hadn’t sold out his parts immediately as he was a relative unknown, but what little he did sell had easily allowed him to afford getting more aluminum plates and to get started on a wider variety of parts. More lines in the water, more chances for the Tinkers at large to recognize the benefits.

Perry aimed to dominate the ‘good enough’ market. There were certain applications that you simply didn’t need the best parts for because the job didn’t require perfection. You didn’t need the springs in your car to be able to support a thousand tons. You didn’t need your coffee maker to be bulletproof.

Perry was going to be the king of cheap and good, but not the best.

Once he was rich enough, he could simply buy some of the best parts, preferably those rare ones he could modify to apply his multiplier to.

I wonder what the multiplier will be?

Was it possible for his multiplier to turn negative, or would he just make the best parts a little bit better?

Who knew.

Perry’s Mk. II was sitting against the wall, finished since the day before.

And yet, Perry was already designing features for a Mk. 3.

I like the disposable armor angle, Perry thought, weaving through the mess that was his lair.

Dang, I need a bigger lair already. I already paid twelve hundred for this one and it’s completely full. In a week!

Perry picked his way through the mess and sat down at the computer, booting up his CAD program.

The first issue with the Mk. 3 was he wanted it to be resizable, so he could both sell them and loan them out as necessary. A cheap suit of power armor was practically unheard-of, and he figured even if he sprang for some of the bells and whistles, he could field one of them for about five thousand dollars.

Perry would eat his cardboard helmet if he couldn’t sell them for less than a hundred thousand.

Money is starting to lose all its meaning.

But first. The resizing. Perry was thinking two curved straps of steel under the rest of the armor that ratcheted open and closed, sliding the armor apart as they moved.

The question is, how do we make sure the armor retains its functionality?

Making joints and internal moving parts work with resizing was a huge issue, forcing him to reconsider his entire design to accommodate.

Perry fell into the fog of the Tinker Twitch, the world ceasing to exist around him as his fingers flew across the keyboard. Perry must’ve been in the zone for a couple hours when he was distracted by the blinking light indicating his spell-discs were done training.

Woot!

Perry stood and took each of the discs out and inspected them briefly before he put them on their dark, warm shelf for night-night.

Gotta let them rest up when they’re not in use.

After just a week of hanging out with Titan’s crew, Perry had already noticed several issues with both his suit and his spells.

Namely that most of the spells were tied to the suit. Perry wanted to make a spell-frame small enough to strap to his wrist, if he could manage it. Wearing that belt around was a pain in the…belt area.

Perry idly itched the area the belt was strapped to under his shirt.

It was his insurance. The belt was composed of leather, aluminum, and scrapped printers, and could trigger the floating armaments spell in a fraction of a second.

It also didn’t breathe worth a dang.

Perry’s observations led him to believe that the size and intensity of the symbol marked on him was one of the keys to duration, speed, and responsiveness of the ghostly equipment. Which meant if he made a watch-sized one, he’d be faced with unavoidable loss of effectiveness.

Unless… What if I made a watch that could crawl up my arm to inscribe the symbols? That could work. More moving parts, which generally meant more could go wrong, but Perry's creations only suffered from user error, as their individual parts never broke or wore down unless subjected to extreme stress.

There’s an interesting idea. Perry grabbed his notebook and scribbled down some gibberish that would raise a few eyebrows. In this case:

Watch crawl up arm? – Print bigger.

That also means space is at a premium. I only have so much skin, after all.

The rest of the spells could much more easily be converted to smaller attachments Perry could wear around in his everyday life. It would just take some time and work.

Robotic welding arms are surprisingly inexpensive, Perry thought as he went back to his desk and began fiddling around with the CAD program, trying to figure out how he could make the watch’s rollers that climbed up his arm double as the printers.

When his parts started selling more steadily, he could invest in some robotic arms and begin making the process of making things semiautomatic.

Perry glanced around the tiny little lair.

A new lair would not be a bad idea, either. One with ventilation. Perry really wanted to get into chemistry and try his hand at creating some supermaterials, because with his Spendthrift perk picking up the slack and covering for mistakes and contaminants, he could more easily create some amazing stuff in his garage…

But he took one look at the ventilation in his tiny little storage unit and compared it to the warnings on the bottle about growing silicon crystals in your lungs, and decided to wait on that one.

Bummer. I can only imagine what I could do with aerogel that was twenty times stronger.

To be fair, aerogel was about the same strength as a soggy graham cracker, so twenty times wasn’t going to do much.

But…if I could make it slightly more flexible than standard aerogel and then multiply the effectiveness of that, it would make amazing insulation for the armor.

Another one of the issues he’d noticed was that his suit didn’t handle flamethrowers very well.

After watching a science professor dump molten rock on his hand with aerogel between them, he was sold on the idea of using it as a heat-dispersion material for his suit.

Problem was, aerogel only came in little crumbly squares that he couldn’t do anything with, so Perry needed to upgrade his chemical capacity…by a lot.

And that meant he needed a new lair. With a huge hood, and tons of CO2 and a giant tank that he could make CO2 go supercritical in so he could dry the aerogel without capillary action destroying it.

All these things did not come cheap, which was why his CNC machine was running full tilt, making cogs, gears, armor plates, and other simple pieces enhanced by his power.

Once he had enough cash, he could build a second CNC machine and dedicate this lair simply to printing out money while he moved to a new, nicer one.

Money, money, money. How do regular Tinkers even manage to get their first suit of armor up and running?

Obviously the reality-warping aspects of their power were clutch for that, but still…so much money!

Having been exposed to the process, Perry had been forced to mentally ratchet up his estimate of The Mechanaut’s personal wealth.

Dad’s gotta be in the 0.5% club at the bank.

You don’t just throw together a suit of heavy steel, a swarm of crab-bots, and crash through buildings willy-nilly.

I wonder if fighting mom is like golfing for him? Rich-person hobby?

“Perry!” Heather’s dad said from the corner of the room, an edge to his voice.

Meh, Heather’s dad. Whatever.

Perry turned back to his desk, his mind already flitting to the problem of how to automate the production of both the Mk. 3 and his bread and butter.

Wouldn’t it be funny if it became so automated that a vendor delivers a stack of aluminum plates to this address, the door opens, and a robot arm snatches the delivery, pays the confused courier, then shoves a box of parts in his hands, addressed to the Marketplace?

I’m fairly sure there’s gotta be Tinkers out there who operate like that already. Living the dream, man. Of course, I have to wonder, at what point does my perk cease to apply to the parts that I create?

Sure, it applies the perk to the parts when I use a CNC machine to cut them out, but I’ve never cut them out while I wasn’t in the room. That could be a hard cap.

Food for thought. I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t work when I’m…

Wait…Karnos is in my lair.

Perry stiffened and turned around, inspecting the blond, blue-eyed Shapeshifter who was seated casually on a chair in the corner of the room, his arm hanging off the edge of the seat, a gun dangling loosely from his hand.

“There he is,” Paul Skinner, AKA Karnos said, a faint smile on his lips. “You’re definitely your dad’s son, I’ll give ya that.”

“Does everyone know where my lair is?” Perry asked, heart thumping in his chest. He hadn’t seen Karnos come in. He hadn’t heard anything, either. Had the man simply oozed in the crack under his door? With the gun?

How did I miss that?!

“Everyone who matters,” Karnos said with a shrug.

Yep. That’s the last straw. To heck with Dad’s opinion about underground lairs. I’m making one.

“Haven’t seen my daughter in a week,” Karnos began. “Normally when a girl runs away from home, she starts crashing at her boyfriend’s house, he keeps her in his room, or on a couch in the garage or something.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Perry said, mentally tabbing through his possible options here. Karnos’s fighting method was usually to lead with the gun to put the opponent on the back foot, then shove a tentacle into the enemy’s mouth and suffocate them. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

Which meant Perry would need to play for distance and keep the shifter at range as long as possible….should a fight break out in this tiny eight-by-twenty room whose exit was dominated by Karnos.

Dang.

“But you…” Karnos’s eyes narrowed as he continued his monologue, heedless of Perry’s thoughts. “You’ve got her bunking with a group of capes. Can’t really send any non-supers to retrieve her, can I? I’d have to do it myself.

“A few days back, I got a security alert and video of Heather snooping around my office. I expected her to try something, attack one of my shipments out of some idiot heroism mostly motivated by spite. But to my surprise…nothing. You don’t happen to know why that is, do you?”

“Blackmail loses its effectiveness once used,” Perry said.

“Now you see, that’s the problem,” Karnos said. “When teen girls lash out at their parents, it’s supposed to be impulsive and poorly thought-out. That’s part of growing up.”

Karnos stood up, his cold eyes staring down at Perry. “But now I can smell cold calculation from her actions. You wouldn’t happen to know where that came from, would you?”

“Yeah, that was me,” Perry said. “Heather wanted to ditch your ass, so I provided her the plan to do it.”

The heat in the room bumped up a degree as Paul Skinner reddened. “That stupid girl has no idea what she’s doing. She belongs to me! I dictate where she goes, what she does, and who she knows!” he shouted, gesticulating wildly with his gun hand. “You think I’ll tolerate this?!”

“I mean, it depends on whether it’s worth it to you. Monetarily speaking,” Perry said.

“You failed to account for pride and spite,” Karnos said, his face gradually losing the color from his outburst. “The pride of a father and the spite of a cowl.

“You think I can just continue my merry business when word on the street is you stole my daughter and I did nothing about it?”

“Frankly, I don’t care,” Perry said with a shrug.

“Well put,” Karnos sneered. “Well, let me tell you something that you might not be aware of. The unspoken rule against killing family members only applies when you’re in your civvies.”

He pointed at the cardboard helmet on Perry’s desk. “When you put on that helmet, you’re no longer off-limits, understood? Something bad could happen to you. Will happen to you.”

Heart slamming in his chest, Perry reached over and grasped the helmet without breaking eye contact.

He put it on.

“You were saying?” Perry’s modulated voice echoed through the room.

Chapter 17: ADHD Is My Superpower

Paradox’s entire world narrowed down to Karnos, his vision tunneling as if he’d turtled into his own skin and was watching everything through a narrow periscope.

His heart slammed in his ears.

He knew Karnos was bluffing.

Karnos knew Paradox was bluffing.

The game they were playing now was chicken. Seeing which one of them would swerve before it came to a full-on brawl that could get one or both of them killed.

Because if Paradox rolled over to a threat, Karnos would do it again. And again. That was just the way self-serving animals without a shred of empathy operated. Like serial killers, career criminals, corporate CEOs, and house cats.

The moment hung in the air, each heartbeat seeming to last an eternity as Paradox made plan A through Z.

Plan A was to run away by drilling a hole through the wall or ceiling with floating armaments.

Plan Z was inflicting as much damage as possible with them the instant before he died. Everything in between was a variation on those two outcomes.

The storage unit wasn’t very sturdy, and Paradox was fairly sure he could do it. The trick was holding Karnos away from him with his floating armaments while he made his escape.

Once Karnos got into melee range, the fight was essentially over. He could shapeshift, dive into Perry’s sinuses and explode his head from the inside.

Ooh! I wonder if I could make my next suit airtight. That seems like it would become necessity sooner rather than later. Like in the next four seconds.

FOCUS!

Paradox’s eyes narrowed.

I bet I could make a floating armament suit of armor. I wouldn’t even need to design power armor then. I’d just have to branch out into micro-cutters and lasers for higher precision at nanoscale. Could be highly useful as backup armor.

I wonder if I could modify the properties of floating armaments by introducing impurities? If properties could be modified, could I make a summonable microchip, and if so, could the summoned armor therefore have HUD and electrical components?

Summonable computer. Weird.

FOCUS!!!

Perry’s brain seemed to be oddly numb to the danger in front of him and had begun wandering despite his heart screaming the seriousness of the situation directly into his ears.

Karnos opened his mouth and limbered up his gun, breaking the oppressive stillness.

This is it. It’s on, Perry thought, his skin prickling as he tensed, ready to trigger the belt around his waist, summon some floating armaments, and get the party started.

RIIIIING!

Perry’s cell phone on the desk began ringing, cutting off whatever the supervillain in front of him had been about to say.

Paradox and Karnos glanced at each other. The older supervillain shrugged wordlessly.

RIIIIIING!

“One sec,” Perry said, grabbing his phone and immediately recognizing Titan’s work number.

Perry held the phone to his ear and spoke without taking his eye off the supervillain in the corner of the room.

“Paradox speaking. I’m a little busy right now, so—”

“Locust is planning a coup. She’s gonna take down Nexus during High Tide.”

Perry blinked, and glanced over at Mr. Skinner, covering the mic.

“Can you excuse me? I need to take this.”

***Later***

“What’s the deal?” Perry asked, arriving at the meeting point in his Mk. II.

“You got here fast,” Titan said approvingly.

“Yeah, I was just in my lair in a Mexican standoff with Karnos when you guys called. It’s no problem,” Perry said with a shrug. “He’s probably still there, trying to break all my stuff as we speak.”

“And you’re…okay with that?” Warcry asked, her brows furrowed.

“It was cheap,” Perry said with a shrug. “Plus, he literally didn’t bring enough firepower to break anything I’ve made.”

The only caveat to that was the spell-discs, which he’d loaded and brought with him, and the spell materials, which were hidden.

Perry had over fifty thousand dollars in parts for sale in the Marketplace, dribbling money into his bank account over time.

If, somehow, Karnos managed to break his lair, he’d get a new one. Underground. And actually secret this time. The primary purpose of a lair was to ensure privacy, so his current one was less than ideal, anyway.

He was madder at the lair than he was at Karnos.

The Spendthrift perk was very conducive to an ‘easy come, easy go’ mindset.

“Anyway, enough about that mess. What’s this about a coup?” Perry asked, glancing around at the assembled capes.

There were a lot more than he was used to. Titan must’ve called all his contacts for this, implying this was something big.

“They’ve been creating anti-super weapons and testing them on prawns.”

Prawns being excellent benchmarks, with how durable and common they were. You could catch thousands of them for cheap if you had the infrastructure to survive said endeavor.

“How do you know?” Perry asked.

“Heather gave us one of her father’s contacts, and we managed to track him down. He pointed us to an R&D facility where we hit the mother lode,” Titan said, opening up a roll of papers as the nearby supers crowded around.

Perry glanced at Heather. “You told them about your dad?”

She shrugged. “Seemed like the kind of thing that could come back to bite me later and make drama.”

“Good call,” Perry said. “God knows there’s plenty of that already, with all the spandex-wearing idiots running around the city.”

Warcry punched his shoulder, being one of those spandex-wearing idiots. Perry didn’t feel it, being a metal-wearing idiot.

“The reason we think Locust is planning a coup is because we also found these,” Titan said, cutting through their banter.

Perry only took a second to understand what he was looking at. It was a comprehensive list of supers and their abilities, along with how much damage they could take, where they would be during High Tide, and most damningly, what their weaknesses were. Each hero got a handy little metric in terms of the number of prawns it would take to kill them, and by extension, how strong the weapon to eliminate them would have to be.

In addition were blueprints of the wall and the Nexus, along with several other important parts of the city, the power plant, water plant, etc.

That looks bad, Perry thought. None of the information by itself was alarming. People looked up heroes on the “Capes” wiki all the time. Most of it was readily available. Any super that had been in the business long enough had their powers narrowed down by the fandom pretty accurately.

It was when combined with plans for high-power weapons, blueprints of the wall with annotated weak points, and high-value targets that could cripple Franklin City, that it started to get worrisome.

“So what’s the plan?” a yellow-wearing cape asked. The man had a helmet that was longer in the back than it should’ve been and a black bolt of stylized lightning down the center of his suit. “You wouldn’t call us all in if you didn’t have one.”

He motioned to the dozens of semi-pro capes standing in a loose circle around the damning evidence.

“Plan’s simple. We’re going to throw such a big wrench in Locust’s plan that she’ll have no choice but to abort it. We’re going to arrest Locust, smash the places she’s storing the weapons, and expose her plans to Nexus before they can get off the ground.

“In order to make all those things happen at the same time, we need all of you. There’s at least five places where she’s keeping the guns. We expect each place to be guarded by at least one of Locust’s cowls and probably some normies with the new weapons.

“Normally, a usual team of four or five would be plenty for a gang-raid, but we’re doubling up because any one of these places could be crawling with minions armed to the teeth. If your group finds a place that’s too hard, just retreat and call it in. This is serious business, but it’s not worth losing your life over. Not while the coup is still just a plan, anyway.

“And of course, there’s Locust herself,” Titan said. “My team is going to try and pin down the one in charge. I expect there’ll be some pretty stiff resistance.”

“Oh sure, take the job that puts you in the spotlight,” one of the surrounding heroes in neon blue spandex said, crossing his arms.

I mean, it’s Titan’s plan…it’s HIS plan. The rest of you were gonna sit around and watch for purse-snatchers all nigh—whatever.

Perry diverted his attention away from Titan straightening out the kid and decided to do some recon on Locust on his phone.

Locust was a Duplicator with green-tinted skin, with what appeared to be modestly armored scales that substituted for skin. Her strength, durability, and especially her jumping ability were all superhuman.

The thing that earned her nickname was her abilities as an extremely powerful Duplicator.

As in, she could create swarms of herself, each of them superhumanly strong and tough, green-colored, and which bounced around like grasshoppers.

Hence, Locust.

The current count during the Mayday riots was eighty-three, but it was unknown if that was her limit or not. The strong point of her power was that anything she wore or held while she split was also duplicated, until she un-split.

Which included Tinker-tech weapons.

Talk about a force-multiplier.

The cowl’s history was actually grounded in minioning. The woman had done a long stint as the only employee of her own business, renting out her clones as muscle, gradually accruing wealth and experience in the biz until she eventually became the de facto expert on minioning as a profitable enterprise, expanding her business and branching into the many wonderful aspects of organized villainy.

“What are the odds we’ll find Locust at all six of these locations?” Perry asked, glancing up at Titan.

“If it’s as important as we think, the chances are pretty good,” Titan said. “Locust is probably going to be more spread out tonight than she usually is, which is going to be a key factor in whether or not we can actually catch her. Each duplicate divides the max limit among themselves, so if she’s split up in all six places, her original should only be able to make fourteen copies, give or take.

“The original, wherever she is, does not have psychic communication with her duplicates…as far as we know, and the more of her copies that your teams can subdue, the easier the fight will be for everyone else. But keep in mind, she’s not the only super there. Keep your eyes open for surprises.”

They nodded as Titan laid out the specifics of his plan—even the heckler seemed satisfied with his piece of the pie once Titan pointed out there was a good chance everyone’d be fighting Locust anyway, and there’d be a large weapons grab to deliver to Nexus, which was money icing on the prestige cake.

The giant had a way of appealing to people’s hearts and wallets.

***

“This place seems…friendly,” Perry said, scanning the surrounding streets and buildings. Blinds were drawn, and Perry could barely make out the occasional peeker.

The people on the street openly scowled at them and moved indoors, spitting on the ground before hustling away.

“It’s a rough neighborhood,” Titan agreed as they sauntered towards Locust’s base, a gleaming skyscraper in the center of a landscape of two-story flophouses. “But that’s not why they don’t want us here.”

“Why’s that, then?” Perry asked as Hardcase’s mech walked alongside him, and Heather flew up in the air with Jetset. Heather liked flying a lot more than he did, although Perry was better at it due to his Nerve stat.

“Locust represents stability and law in this part of the city,” Titan explained. “We represent the potential for that stability to turn on a dime. If we remove Locust, create a power vacuum and then leave, the resulting implosion will cause casualties.”

Titan glanced around at the buildings. “Not to mention there’s a good chance we’ll break some of their homes and businesses in the scuffle.”

“Kinda sounds like we’re the bad guys in this situation,” Perry said.

“Oh, we’re definitely the good guys.” Titan chuckled. “And if you wanna keep it that way, you’ll spend the rest of High Tide in the southeast block doing damage control with us.”

“Booooring!” Warcry groaned just on the other side of Titan. “Can I pass? My powers suck at rebuilding things.”

“Look, if you wanna graduate from chasing purse-snatchers through the sewers to headlining for Nexus, you’ve gotta look at the whole picture. Do the whole job.”

Titan waggled a giant finger at Warcry. “And it is a job. No doubt about it. You don’t get to slack.”

Warcry rolled her eyes.

“Have you tried using your powers to grind up concrete and heat it up hot enough that it can be reused?” Perry asked, leaning over and catching the energy user’s gaze. “Or using your power to create forms for construction? Cutting beams? Shaping bricks or clearing rubble so rebuilding can begin faster?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but mind your own business,” Warcry said.

Perry shrugged. Clearly, she hadn’t given the problem the thought it deserved. That seemed to be all Perry was able to do recently. It was as if his mind had become so bored with the mundane that he put himself on autopilot and thought about other things.

Even Karnos threatening his life had been a little boring.

I wonder if that’s a result of my heightened Nerve. Or being a Tinker. Or something else?

Oh, speaking of heightened Nerve, taking the summoned computer thought experiment to its conclusion, wouldn’t that allow me to have a computer magically connected to my mind? I could run CAD completely with my mind, increasing the speed severalfold. Maybe I don’t have to buy a cortex connection device. I could just build a magical one.

That would be pretty crazy. And if I could figure out a way to make a variety of standard connections come off of the computer, like USB male cords, I could plug my mind almost directly into any other computer, using my magical computer as the go-between.

How weird would that be?

I’d have to make an operating system for it, and…do I have enough skin for that? If Perry wanted his magical floating computer to be permanent, he’d need a lot of skin. If permanence was even something that was possible. Computers had a lot of parts.

Does the skin have to be attached to my body? Perry assumed it was a central nervous system thing.

What if I grew some of my skin on a petri dish and tried that? Perry assumed that wouldn’t work because the skin wasn’t connected to his nervous system.

Wait a minute.

What if he then connected the skin to his nervous system by using a symbol written in Mindtaker ichor on the other side.

Would that be possible?

It seemed like it might be a way to condense dozens or even hundreds of large symbols down to one symbol on his own body.

This will require a more advanced chemistry setup, Perry thought. I should look into making some drilling drones so I can get started on that new lair.

Speaking of new lairs, I need to figure out how everyone is surveilling me and put a stop to it. Creating a new lair while I’m on reality TV probably won’t do me any favors.

So Perry’s first priority was to figure out how he’d been bugged, disable it, then launch counterintelligence against his old man.

It was all in good fun.

Then a new lair.

Then the mad science.

Although, I suppose I’ll have to deal with this ambush first.

Three identical women with a greenish hue were standing in the street in front of them, holding oversized blasters of unknown potency.

They were flanked by no less than twenty minions in faceless white masks and black hyperweave (spandex), each carrying some manner of weapon.

“Where do you think y’all are going in my block?” the center Locust asked, hefting her gun menacingly.

Perry glanced up and spotted white masks in the windows on either side of the street, and on the rooftops, flanking them on every side. Those minions were in turn flanked by Heather and Jetset, who seemed to be dismayed at the sheer quantity.

I don’t think I’ll ever get a better shot at this. If a fight breaks out, I won’t have their undivided attention.

Taking the initiative, Perry gave the code phrase he’d taught Titan’s crew a week ago.

“Oh my god, you guys! I think I’m having a baby!” Perry shouted, flailing his arms.

Weallfloatdownhere.EXE

Titan and Warcry clenched their eyes shut and looked away from him as the spell-disc did its work.

A crystal was shattered in the crown of the Mk. II helmet, causing a pulse of blinding light to emanate outwards as Tomward’s Floating Dazzler was cast from his helmet.

“Agh!” Locust snarled, backing away and covering her eyes. “What the he-aaaa!” The supervillain began squawking as her feet divorced themselves from the ground without her permission. And they weren’t getting back together, either.

Dang near one hundred percent of the assembled minions and their boss had been caught gawking at the strange display. Nice.

They now weighed as much as the air they breathed, tumbling up into the air with no balance, nor ability to aim their weapons without spinning wildly in midair.

The original trigger phrase was going to be ‘hey, look at me,’ but it got shot down because it revealed the intention of the spell to the cunning observer. I think this way is a heck of a lot funnier, and just as effective. I mean, who wouldn’t look at a man in power armor that claims he’s about to give birth?

“Thirty seconds!” Perry shouted. It was more like thirty-four point five, but who was counting?

“Hardcase, scatter the minions, gently!” Titan shouted. “Warcry, corral Locust, disable her guns if you can, and definitely prevent her from—”

BANG! The three Locusts popped as they shot themselves in the head.

“Doing that.” Titan gave a rare pout, then put his game face back on.

“She’s gonna know we’re coming. Let’s plow through these guys before she has time to go to ground!” he shouted, leading by example and knocking aside wildly flailing minions like bowling pins.

Behind them, Manic followed along, riding along on his Segway and absolutely destroying a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Chapter 18: Tung-Stan

Resistance got a lot heavier nearer to Locust’s lair, and they weren’t falling for the ‘having a baby’ trick anymore. The light had to hit people’s ocular nerves relatively unfiltered for the spell to work, so closing your eyes or even really good sunglasses worked.

On the plus side, the armor is decidedly bulletproof. Aluminum plates are a heck of a lot better than cardboard, Perry thought as bullets pinged off the three people in front: him, Titan, and Hardcase.

Warcry was hiding behind Titan, hands over her skull. The spandex was bulletproof, but it didn’t cover her face, so a headshot would still be lethal.

Perry never really understood why supers didn’t wear helmets more often, but for some reason, they got by just fine putting their pretty faces out there for everyone to shoot at.

Ping! A bullet bounced off his helmet.

Perry reached out and tapped Warcry’s shoulder to get her attention.

“What?” she asked, glancing over at him.

“Use your power!” Perry said, tapping his helmet.

An instant of realization crossed Warcry’s face, and a moment later a corona of crackling purple energy bloomed from her head, and she stepped out in front.

And was immediately shot in the shin.

Hyperweave was genuinely bulletproof, but it didn’t absorb all the force.

In short, getting shot still hurt a lot.

“OUCH!” Warcry shouted, nearly face-planting before hopping on one foot behind Titan and giving Perry a harsh glare.

“Hey, that one wasn’t my fault,” Perry said with a shrug. He wasn’t sure what the brunette had against him, but it had started out frustrating and annoying and was starting to turn the corner to mildly amusing.

Ping!

“Status on the tunnels under Locust’s lair?” Titan asked.

“If they exist, they’re shielded by Tinker-tech,” Hardcase said.

Titan clicked his tongue. “I guess we’re gonna have to do this the hard way.”

He lumbered up to the silky black, reflective metal doors guarding the entrance to Locust’s headquarters, jammed his fingers into the sliding doors and pried them open, the metal giving off a tortured shriek as it deformed under his fingers.

The moment the doors were open more than a couple inches, a dark rocky fist caught Titan in the face, propelling him violently backwards.

Titan tumbled backwards and crashed into a mailbox on the street, flattening the innocent blue sheet metal against the concrete building beside him.

Steel curbside collection box: $1251.

Concrete patching: $800.

Perry winced as Titan climbed back to his feet.

At least he didn’t crush Warcry.

Perry’s time for pondering was cut short as a hulking monstrosity of a dark, stony material plowed through the rest of the front door, matching Titan inch-for-inch.

“Oh, crap, it’s Tung-Stan!” one of the southeast block bystanders shouted, whipping out his phone and recording the giant tearing his way through the reinforced material like tissue paper.

Perry glanced over his shoulder at the guy with the phone, and back to the minions taking potshots at the capes, serving more to slow them down and irritate them than anything, while their bosses joined the fight.

Things were rapidly getting out of control.

“Are you sure you should be out here, dude?” Perry asked. He wasn’t sure his voice rose over the general mayhem before Tung-Stan caught him with a tree-felling kick to the side of his leg.

Perry spun in midair like a propeller, making three complete revolutions before his head slammed into the ground, not potentially breaking his neck this time. Instead, his neck joints locked up at the sudden pressure, keeping his neck straight in exchange for gouging out a bit of the asphalt.

Pothole repair: $100-$400.

Perry flipped to his feet, dug in his toes, and lunged forward with his whole body, catching the stony man square in the jaw.

Sadly, the man seemed to have as much inertia in his head as Perry did in his entire body, and his head only rocked back a miniscule amount.

Well, that doesn’t seem fair.

He backhanded Perry, propelling him violently away, tumbling through the air directly towards the guy recording the brawl on his phone.

A spark of panic trilled through Perry’s body as he realized he was about to paste someone.

Reacting faster than he’d thought possible, Perry snaked out a hand as he tumbled, jamming a couple fingers into the asphalt and yanking violently to the side, wrenching his arm and diverting his course from a pasting into a near miss.

“Hey!” the idiot with the phone shouted, flinching as Perry tumbled past him and through a window. “Watch it, jerk!”

Floor-to-ceiling window: $1600 per linear foot.

Average wrongful death settlement: $500k-1mil.

Good choice. Sure, the guy was provably risking his own life, standing around watching supers duke it out and FILMING it, but best not take the chance.

Plus, people’s lives are sacrosanct, yadda yadda, Perry groused as he pulled himself to his feet and dashed back outside to give the guy a piece of his mind.

‘Never insult bystanders out loud, Perry. No matter how stupid they’re being, it can bite you way harder than accidentally killing them. If you make them feel small, they get personal and NASTY with it. Try to stay professional at all times when trying to get normies to do something.’

- Mom

“Citizen,” Perry said, the sarcasm thankfully filtered out by the modulator on his helmet. “This area is unsafe. Seek shelter.”

“Bite me, tin can,” the man spat, still holding the phone’s camera on him.

‘Fear works too.’

- Dad

Blades.EXE

Perry felt a brief moment of cold as the suit’s printer began inking up his skin, then a fan of knives spread out from behind Perry’s armor like a peacock’s tail, fanning out in every direction.

The man’s jaw dropped, and like living things, the knives oriented on the movement.

“This area is unsafe. Seek shelter.”

The gawker nodded and turned to hustle away in a panicked power walk, gradually ramping up to a sprint, holding his beanie on his head.

Perry reoriented on the fight.

Titan was relieving Hardcase, who’d been forced to deal with Tung-Stan solo for the past ten seconds or so. She was missing a bit of armor on her mechsuit’s shoulder to attest to that.

Perry glanced around and didn’t see any other supers, so he dropped to one knee and lined up a shot of Dregor’s Flaccidity.

Hardcase backed off, and about six seconds into the slugmatch between Tung-Stan and Titan, the stony fellow pushed Titan away with a front-kick, giving Perry a good shot.

Melt.EXE

The beam took Tung-Stan right in the hip, and he flailed as his leg and lower torso went limp, unable to hold him up.

Titan took advantage of the super’s position and gave the cowl a wicked knee to the face, putting him down.

“Well,” Titan said, panting. “That was—”

A swarm of Locusts poured out of the front door of the cowl’s lair as a flier shot above them, screeching in supersonic tones that Perry swore would melt his brain if he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Screech. Flier, sonic attack. Works for Locust in Southeast Block. Annoying.

Titan, Manic, and Warcry fell to the ground, their hands clapped over their ears, rendered temporarily immobile as the villain’s main force arrived.

Hardcase, recognizing the problem, deployed a gatling gun from her mechsuit’s arm and began firing a blistering hail of rubber bullets up into the sky.

The enemy flier only had to dodge for a moment before Hardcase was covered in Locust, who covered her sensors with her hands while trying to shoot important parts of the mechsuit off with her distinctive sidearm.

Hardcase started flailing.

Heather and Jetset swooped up behind the screeching flier and tackled her in a wild flurry of limbs that eventually smashed into the tower’s bulletproof glass.

Perry directed his blades to pop the Locusts. If the woman was fighting him in person, he’d give her the Dumbest Villain of the Year Award. Her grave, anyway.

A sudden impact broke his concentration as something hit him hard from above, bouncing him off the ground like a rubber ball.

In fact, Perry kept bouncing, flailing wildly as he rebounded from surface to surface, effectively taking him out of the fight.

I got hit by some sort of bounce ray meant to take powerhouses out of the picture long enough to disable the rest of the team. I’m honored.

Perry glanced over and saw that Titan was in a similar situation, his eyes wide, limbs flailing as he tried to catch something to stabilize himself.

Perry pulled about six blades back in from where they were trying to pop the rapidly dodging Locust and made them into a girdle of stabilization around his waist, floating in midair and scanning the rooftops.

There. Perry saw a form with an oversized, blocky Tinker-tech gun on the roof of a nearby building with an excellent view of the plaza.

“Manic, would you mind?” Perry said, pointing the distant figure out to the team’s Speedster.

Manic glanced up and nodded, finishing the last of the PB&J he’d dropped on the ground a moment earlier before vanishing in a brown blur.

The person on the roof also vanished.

I really hope that was just Manic getting him.

POW! There was a harsh impact against Perry’s armor, sending him momentarily tumbling despite the knives trying to stabilize him, putting a huge dent in a street lamp.

Street lamp: $2500+$1000 installation.

Dangit.

When Perry caught his tumble and reoriented himself, he spotted Manic standing where the man had been, scratching his head. In the building across the street, the dark-clothed man wielding the blocky gun was lining up another shot.

‘With teleporters, the only way to beat them is to win a mind game and trick them into being in a place you want them to be, because otherwise they’re just going to keep pecking you to death. Teleporters are so annoying.’

- Dad

Well, let’s see, what’s their mission statement? Stop us from getting inside, right?

Perry flared the jets on his suit and angled toward the front door. A Locust clone tackled him from the side, causing him to spin in midair without losing too much of his inertia.

The woman tried to peel at his armor, but the aluminum was simply reinforced far too much to bend to low-level super-strength. She was no Titan.

“Ma’am,” Perry said, popping the clone with a polite shivving, reorienting on the front door.

Locust formed a wall of bodies, and Perry put on extra speed, straightening his body into a spear.

The extra fifty pounds of armor finally came in handy, allowing him to knock Locust aside and sail through the front door.

Perry skated to a halt in the foyer, his metal-coated limbs screeching against the fancy marble surface.

“Aw, man,” a Locust said from behind the reception desk. “I’m gonna have to get that fixed.”

Marble flooring: ~$60 per sq ft.

“You can afford it,” Perry said, uncrouching. “You wouldn’t mind directing me to the real you, would you?”

“In a DQ about five miles away, watching all this go down on her phone while eating a mud pie,” she said, leveling her sidearm at him.

The sleek curves of her pistol had a somewhat retro-futuristic look, making Perry think of those old black and white sci-fi movies from before The Tide.

Perry tried to dodge, but he didn’t have even the most negligible cover.

The laser caught him in the upper torso and superheated a bit of the seawater inside one of his battery cells, exploding outward in a blast of superheated steam that actually released the heat and prevented the laser from making it through the second aluminum wall of the armor.

Interesting bonus. Also, that is a nice gun.

“Steam?” Locust asked, cocking her head to the side.

“Haven’t you heard about steampunk?” Perry asked, scanning the room. “It was all the rage before I was born.”

Now, where can I go that the enemy definitely doesn’t want me to go? Perry thought, scanning the lobby. There were a dozen or so paths he could take, and Perry was fairly certain that all of them led to aboveground offices or traps. The doors to the secret lair would, by necessity, be secret.

Just bulling through one of the doors and wrecking things wouldn’t provoke the response he was looking for. They’d be happy to leave him to do nonessential property damage while they dogpiled the rest of his group.

No, he needed to make them panic.

Perry glanced down.

On the streets, the chances of Locust’s secret lair being underneath them was negligible, but Perry was willing to bet there were secret rooms directly under the building she owned.

Perry triggered Melt.EXE, his arm pointed at the ground under his feet.

“So we’ve got a talker, huh?” Locust asked. “I’m not a fan of talkers. They’re often far less clever than they give themselves credit for, and it winds up devolving into name-calling.” As she spoke, a half-dozen or so Locusts from outside flooded in and leveled their weapons at him.

“That is a nice suit, though. I put this through six inches of steel once.”

“Maybe after this is over, I can sell you some,” Perry said with a shrug as Melt.EXE continued to soften the ground under his feet.

“Are you—are you serious?”

“I’m Paradox,” Perry said, pulling in the rest of his blades that were hovering outside, shredding the Locusts that flanked him as they whizzed inside the building.

Then they began carving their way through the softened floor like balsa wood.

Skyscraper infrastructure repairs: est. $500,000.

Locust’s eyes widened, and she got off three shots, generating a massive plume of steam from Perry’s armor before the floor fell out from beneath him.

Perry landed in a massive underground laboratory, riding a sheet of the ceiling, scattering hapless scientists and minions who were out of their professional gear (i.e. masks).

Gosh, I hope I didn’t crush anyone, but this is the kind of lair I want, Perry thought as he spun around and put his finger on the trigger of Dregor’s Flaccidity.

The teleporter appeared in Perry’s field of view, leveling his bounce-gun at the armored cape.

The teleporter’s eyes widened a moment before he took a blast of melting in the upper torso.

Having less mass than the giant and the floor, the teleporter was rendered into a pile of jello in an instant before he teleported away, leaving behind the floppy bounce-gun.

Huh. His superpowers still work, but he won’t be causing too many problems as a teleporting limp noodle. If his powers still work…do the floppy bouncy gun’s powers still work?

Can I render high-tech constructs into a liquid and still use them in such a state? Liquid computer? Printable non-euclidean microchips? Food for thought.

Perry scanned the R&D facility and switched to his radio. One of the most important improvements to the Mk. II.

“Titan, we’re in. Join me at the hole in the lobby.”

“Roger.”

Chapter 19: The Minor Leagues

In 1984, Jonathan Harker was coerced, by the direct control of his body, to commit several crimes by the Minder, Mindstrike.

Before this point, the law had been unclear on complicity under duress, but after the facts had been laid out, the court found that Mr. Harker was entirely blameless of the crimes he’d been accused of, and the responsibility lay solely at the feet of the super forcing him to commit them.

Further, it posited that any non-powered human forced to act by a super had no reasonable alternative, and was therefore blameless in their actions, establishing non-powered civilians as a protected class, while supers fell under greater scrutiny of the law…

—A Brief History of Supers

***Perry***

Minions scattered every which way, donning their masks as they ran.

Minions were, by and large, hired hands who couldn’t be found guilty based on the Harker defense, which gave amnesty to any non-powered civilian forced to perform labor by a super.

It didn’t matter that these people got a decent paycheck at the end of the day, when they hung up their masks and went back to their families. It couldn’t be proven that Locust didn’t have a copy at their home holding their family hostage, so minions found their way into a neat legal loophole, which Locust had been exploiting for the past twenty years to build her empire.

For her employees, the police departments were a bit of a revolving door.

She was legally the only one responsible for their actions, after all.

All that tallied up in Perry’s mind in an instant as the minions scattered in every direction, understandably uninterested in fighting power armor for a paycheck.

Perry scanned the room and decided there was more than enough evidence that Locust had been trafficking prawns. The key point was at least half a dozen prawns kept unconscious by a tube affixed between their mandibles. There was also a huge amount of blocky guns in various stages of being built, and prawn chitin used as backdrops for testing guns before moving on to live specimens.

It was all pretty damning.

A moment later, Titan hopped down, carrying Manic over his shoulder, his feet crushing the debris under him.

Warcry jumped down next, slowing her own fall with her planes of purple energy, then they all cleared a space for Hardcase to jump down, her mechsuit absolutely demolishing the floor.

“Jetset is reporting the operation to Nexus,” Titan said by way of explanation. “He’s not gonna be a lot of good to us underground.”

“Hardcase, can you tell where Locust is?” Titan asked.

“We’re inside the shielding now, so…probably.”

She pointed toward a hangar-sized door off to the left of the massive laboratory. “That way has more Locusts, and seems to have some kind of control room.”

“Traps?” Titan asked.

“Seems that way. They’re shielded, so I don’t know what they do, but I can at least tell where they are.”

“Alright, I’ll tank the traps and smash them. Just point ‘em out to me,” Titan said, rolling his shoulders.

Perry tapped the slowly cooling laser-holes in his armor. “I’m comfortable with that,” Perry said.

“Paradox, you think you can cut the door open with those blades?” Titan asked.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Warcry demanded, stepping in front of Perry.

AH. Perry hadn’t realized it, but he’d somewhat made Warcry’s energy manipulation redundant with the floating armaments, and Manic’s ability to restrain people with his zip ties…and Jetset’s ability to fly…and Titan’s tankiness.

I get it now. The others are a bit more mellow than Warcry, but I’m stepping on some toes by being able to take on multiple roles.

“My abilities are expensive to use and less powerful than Warcry’s,” Perry said as diplomatically as he could. “I think Warcry would handle it better.”

Titan blinked, glanced between him and Warcry before Perry saw it dawn on him: He’d been relying on Paradox a bit more than he should have, as the leader of his team.

“Warcry, if you would,” Titan said, motioning smoothly without missing a beat.

Warcry gave them the considering look of a person who was deciding whether they were insulted by the sudden favoritism or pleased with it. Finally, the energy user shrugged and did her job.

A beam of purple energy cut through the doors, faster than Perry would have been able to do, albeit a bit ragged and glowing hot around the edges.

They stacked up in order of squishiness, with Manic at the back and Titan in the front. Once the smoke cleared, they were greeted by a long hallway lit by glowing walls that wouldn’t be out of place in a science-fiction horror movie. Impractical, but intimidating.

The walls were glowing red, and a woman’s voice was repeating, “Warning, defenses have been activated, do not enter.”

Traps that announced themselves were a common enough occurrence, depending on the nature of the organization you were raiding.

An organization like this one, that hired local civvies, couldn’t expect all of them to remember where all the traps were and avoid them in an emergency. Therefore, in order to avoid more damage to their own members than to attackers, the traps had to be loud and obnoxious, easily avoidable if you didn’t need to assault the control room.

Whereas an organization composed of one Tinker and his creations could be expected to have wickedly devious traps completely hidden from their victim’s awareness.

The kind Perry wanted.

As they approached single file, a whirling blade ejected itself out of the wall and warped against Titan’s neck before lodging in the wall, unable to fit back into its hiding spot.

“Only the penitent man may pass!” Manic shouted from the back of the line, causing the rest of the group to roll their eyes and groan.

Guns, blades, and tripwires popped out of walls, and were promptly smashed by their leader, until a number of vents began spewing a noxious gas into the air.

“Warcry!”

The slender girl gritted her teeth and plugged the vents with her powers as she struggled to maintain her concentration. The tiny amount of gas that had made it into the hall seemed designed to force the lungs into an involuntary coughing fit.

Only Hardcase was unaffected, being locked in an airtight cockpit.

Really need to get this thing airtight, Perry thought as he stumbled along behind the mechsuit as she took the initiative, sprinting the rest of the way down the hall and smashing into the door.

Perry arrived shortly after her, and between the two of them, they were able to pry it open.

Titan lumbered in behind them, carrying the violently coughing Warcry and Manic, his face red as he held his breath, desperately trying not to cough and draw in more tear gas.

Locust was in the center of a large circular room fitted with hundreds upon hundreds of monitors, showing every angle of her lair and a few places beyond it. Perry made out a viewpoint of Nexus behind her, and spotted a burst of light as Solaris took to the sky.

The villain set aside her ice cream as she stood up. “Will Blink recover?” she asked.

“About twenty minutes, yeah,” Perry responded, thinking of the teleporter.

“Okay.” She shrugged her shoulders as the doors around her opened up, revealing some half-dozen mutants and supers. Perry mentally catalogued all of them, comparing them to what he knew from the wiki.

Geyser, generates water. Pixie, flies and hits people with a dust that causes debilitating itchy rashes.

Leonid, who like his namesake, has…lion powers. What that means is slightly unclear, but I can see the seam on his mane. Perhaps he got bit by a radioactive lion.

Sancho… He is Sancho. Basically, as long as he acts consistent with his persona, he is indestructible. His power revolves around preventing anyone or anything from making him not like himself.

That could be problematic.

“Oh my god, you guys, I think I’m—!” Perry’s code phrase was canceled by a wracking cough, and the cowls sprang into action, stealing the initiative.

His fingers blazing inside his gloves, Perry gave the manual activation for Weallfloatdownhere.EXE with one hand, while the other widened the scope on Dregor’s Flaccidity.

His forearm gave off a whine as the silver dish was turned slightly convex.

Perry was most of the way through this process when he was tackled by Leonid moving at superhuman speed. Phantom claws manifested above the man’s fists, and raked across Perry’s armor, adding extra damage as he punched against the unyielding reinforced aluminum.

“Off!” Perry shouted.

Leonid was in the mount position, raining fists down on Perry’s armor, which would have been a death sentence for most, but Perry had an idea.

He turned his jets downward and revved them at full capacity.

Perry and the cowl on top of him flew straight up, smashing the heavily muscled man into the ceiling.

This was exactly the moment the Dazzler went off, and only Leonid was paying attention to him.

The costume-wearing villain was smashed against the ceiling and left there, flailing for purchase as Perry fell back to the ground.

The impact nearly drove the wind out of him, but Perry sat up anyway to survey the situation.

Warcry was doing her best to contain Locust, who rested her hand on the pistol in its leather sheath, splitting off into copy after copy, whose gunfire drew eye-searing points of light in midair where they came into contact with Warcry’s energy shields.

The energy-wielder was popping Locusts one after another, her brows furrowed in concentration as she juggled attack and defense, maintaining an uneasy stalemate.

Titan was having a hard time, as he’d been immediately targeted by Pixie, who flung stinging dust in his eyes.

Manic was still shaking off the tear gas, and Hardcase…

“Please let go!” Hardcase shouted, battering the vaguely hispanic man wearing a partially unbuttoned T-shirt exposing his chest hair.

He had a grip on Hardcase’s robotic leg, and the motors were whining in distress, trying to move them out of the man’s grip.

“Sancho does not wish to let go,” Sancho said.

“Dangit!” She battered the vaguely attractive man about the neck and face, with no impact whatsoever. She even tried lifting him, to no avail.

Sancho didn’t have super-strength, but he could not be changed, at a reality-warping level, which in many ways made him harder to deal with than typical super-strength.

Perry whipped his forearm up and centered Pixie in his sights, launching the wide-angled Dregor’s Flaccidity.

Pixie dodged, but the wide angle ensured some of it hit her wings, rendering them somewhat floppy, causing her to smash into the floor, tumbling violently with a squawk.

“Hardcase,” Perry said over his radio.

“This guy won’t let go of me!” Hardcase shouted back over her channel, seemingly close to hyperventilating.

“Sancho is very particular. Repeat after me—”

A moment later, Hardcase looked down at Sancho. “Sancho. Did you know I’m a girl?”

Sancho’s eyes widened. “Sancho did not know that,” Sancho said.

“Would Sancho restrain a girl against her will?”

“…Sancho must find another opponent,” Sancho said, taking his hand off Hardcase’s leg. She took the opportunity to kick the man halfway across the room, causing him to slide to a halt against the wall, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

I don’t think that could’ve gone better, Perry thought as Hardcase joined the battle, exerting extra pressure on Locust.

“EEP!” Hardcase squeaked as one of Locust’s shots went through her cockpit and out the other side.

“I’m okay!” Hardcase said, standing further back and supporting with ranged attacks, hiding partially behind Titan.

“You good, man?” Titan asked as Manic drew himself to his feet.

The Speedster nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Think you can put the finishing touch on this?” Titan asked, gesturing to the violent melee going on behind him.

“You got it.”

“Paradox, can you handle Pixie? I don’t want Manic getting another faceful of irritants.”

“Sure.” Perry nodded, triggering another of his floating armaments.

Handcuffs.EXE

A pair of handcuffs appeared in midair, controlled by his mind and linked together by a chain. Each link of the chain and both sides of the cuff had to be created in miniature and individually printed on, which had made creating it a nightmare, but he’d managed it.

“Get back!” Pixie cried, throwing a handful of dust in Perry’s face as he jogged toward her. The helmet deflected almost all of it, but he could feel tiny parts of his skin around the seams start to itch like crazy.

Definitely need an airtight suit.

He tackled the petite girl to the ground and wrenched her arms behind her back, ignoring the itching sensation as best he could while the manacles floated down and clamped around her wrists.

“Get off me, you freakin’ pedo!” the tiny girl shouted, scowling at Perry as she tried to kick him with her dainty little feet, which did about as much damage as a puppy fart.

“Does your dust have a magical essence?” Perry asked as he lifted her up.

Pixie stopped kicking for a moment, frowning at him. “What?”

“I’m just wondering if you need a ritual to activate its essence. You are from Funkytown? One of your parents was a fairy from Hox swamp, right? They specialize in itching essence.”

She gawked at him for a moment. “It-it’s already activated from the moment I make it. You could say creating it is the ritual that activates the essence.”

“That’s cool. Well, it was nice battling with you. I hope we can see each other again.” So I can buy some of that dust.

“You too,” she said reflexively as Perry turned away.

Titan watched him with a raised eyebrow as Perry rejoined the fight.

“What was that?” the giant demanded.

“You asked me to handle Pixie,” Perry said with a shrug.

“You handled her, alright,” Titan said, shaking his head before coughing a bit more tear gas into his palm.

It took another several minutes, but they eventually wore out Locust’s ability to create duplicates. Perry was interested to note that her original never once actually drew the pistol, even when she was the last remaining cowl.

Likely the pistol had a limited number of shots it could make before becoming useless, which made more sense for Locust to squeeze out extra lifespan by using its duplicates rather than wasting the original.

Half an hour later, they were waiting outside Locust’s lair, chatting with the woman and her crew of supers while they waited for Nexus pickup.

Now that she was sitting still, Perry was able to pick out the crow’s feet at the corners of the super’s eyes, and the salt-and-pepper hair.

Perry found the old lady was a delightful conversationalist, if a bit jaded.

It wasn’t long before Nexus arrived to relieve them, and they gave the bean counters their information before Perry headed off to dinner with the folks. It was too big of a bust for them to give him the money right then and there, so they said they would have his lawyer text him the information.

Perry flew back to his home, not interested in leaving his armor where Karnos could get to it easily.

Perry was halfway through dinner with Mom and Dad when his phone rang, and he glanced at it, nearly spitting out the mashed potatoes in surprise.

Accounts receivable: $3,750,000. Infrastructure damages pending.

“Holy cow, is that right?!” Perry demanded, pointing the phone at Dad.

His dad slid his bifocals down onto his beaklike nose and peered into the screen. “Sounds about right. They dinged Locust a hundred and fifty for trafficking bioweapons. That’s what paid for your reward. Then Nexus bought up all the guns she’d made.”

“…What?” Perry asked.

“They were designed to take out prawns.”

Dad wiped his mouth with a napkin and strolled over to the living room, grabbing the remote and heading back to the dinner table.

“TV at the table?” Hexen groused.

“I’m just showing him something,” Mechanaut said, pointing at the TV and flipping through channels until he found what he was looking for.

On the TV was a picture of Solaris shaking hands with Locust, the older cowl beaming on camera, while a banner ran underneath them:

Southeast block business tycoon supports our troops on the wall.

“…WHAT?! But she was planning on taking over the city!” Perry protested, unable to believe Locust was out and shaking hands with Solaris that same night.

“Yes and no,” Dad said, turning off the TV and settling back into his chair. “She was planning on getting as close to a ‘checkmate’ against Nexus as possible in order to inflate the price of the weapons she was planning on selling to defend the wall. So while she was ‘planning’ on a coup, she would never do it. That would destabilize the city and get a lot of people killed for little benefit. What she was aiming for was a ‘you got me’ payment from Nexus, whereupon she would back down and surrender the weapons to defend the city.

“You guys saved the Nexus a lot of money today by undermining her bargaining position. Good job.”

“So how much did she make on the weapons sale?” Perry asked.

“Couple billion dollars, probably,” Dad said, shrugging. “Woulda been closer to five if she’d checkmated Nexus.”

“She didn’t care at all about that hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar fine, did she?” Perry asked, a little put out by how small he really was in the grand scheme.

“Not really,” Dad said, taking a drink of water between his mashed potatoes. “That’s just cost of doing business in the big leagues.”

“So I’m in the minor leagues?” Perry bristled.

“It’s not an insult,” Dad said. “Everyone starts in the minor leagues.”

“But you guys did so good!” Mom said, patting Perry on the shoulder. “I saw you on the news last night. Barely a scratch, and you caught almost half of them yourself!”

“Thanks, Mom,” Perry said.

“Wonder what Heather’s gonna spend her share on,” Mom said. “Maybe I can help her out with that. Coming into that kind of money is a little dangerous for the non-powered.”

Perry froze.

Heather? She didn’t come down into the hole with us. Why didn’t I notice that?!

Perry couldn’t remember anything about Heather, or even noticing she wasn’t there for the second half of the raid on Locust.

Perry tallied up the people involved in the bust: himself, Heather, Titan, Warcry, Jetset, Manic, Hardcase. Seven people.

150 mil @ 15% = 22.5 mil. Divided by 7 people = 3.2 mil. Divided by 6 people = 3.75 mil. The amount we got.

Heather wasn’t there when Nexus showed up either. WHY DON’T I REMEMBER THAT?!

“Shit,” Perry said, the table clattering in place as he suddenly leapt to his feet. “I gotta take care of something.”

***Heather***

“Wha-where am I?” Heather groaned, her vision rapidly clearing to reveal sizable spotlights above her, their glare filtered by the helmet.

“Thanks, Incognito.”

“As long as the money’s good, you are welcome.” A buzzing voice that barely registered in her ears sounded from somewhere to the left.

A moment later, she saw her dad’s—no—Karnos’s face move into view, framed by the spotlight glaring down above her.

“Young lady, I think it’s about time you had an attitude adjustment.”

Chapter 20: Quest Complete!

Perry flew back to his lair, heart hammering in his ears.

He needed to turn on the spell-frame designed to cast the scrying spell and locate Heather, PRONTO.

This could be significantly more difficult if Karnos managed to destroy my lair. It could take as long as half an hour to commandeer a robot arm and program it to interface with the spell-disc properly.

Perry didn’t think he had that kind of time.

He landed directly in front of his lair and hauled the flimsy metal sliding door open.

Smells like C-4 in here.

BOOOOOOOM!

HP: 2

The concussive force from the explosion traveled straight through his armor and threatened to mush his internal organs, had he not had HP.

As it was, Perry was flung violently backwards, bursting through an old lady’s furniture in the neighboring unit.

“What a jerk,” Perry muttered, removing a doily from his visor before climbing out of the pile of shattered hardwood.

A way to resist internal damage from pressure waves, Perry added to his mental notebook. Yet another problem that could be mostly mitigated by making his suit airtight.

Grumbling to himself as his heart continued to slam in his chest, Perry climbed through the door to the old lady’s storage and took a look at his lair.

“Hah! Eat that, sucker. Using non-Tinker explosives, what a putz.”

The walls and ceiling of his lair were completely gone, leaving nothing but a scorched CNC machine, a desk full of tools, his fridge, welder, and the rest of his dozens of handmade tools, as pristine as the day they were made—save for the scorching.

Perry found his scrying spell-frame halfway embedded through a concrete wall, unblemished aside from a bit of concrete dust.

Perry pried it out, grabbed the latch for his secret compartment, and opened it up.

The secret compartment was a simple hatch he’d cut in the floor and in which he’d placed all his magical ingredients. When not in use, it blended seamlessly with the floor and wouldn’t open for anything. The handle was a strong neodymium magnet that would catch the little metal latch and disengage it, allowing the panel to pull out.

He’d gotten the idea from baby-proof cabinets.

It was made of plastic painted to look like the concrete, and it was at least as strong, thanks to Perry’s perk.

In fact, the secret panel was fairly easy to locate, as its shape was outlined by the damaged concrete around it.

Perry unlatched the panel and checked the giant’s cornea for damage.

Its clarity had worsened from the pressure wave, and it had a worrisome crack, but hopefully it would still work.

Perry picked it up and turned to his fridge.

The blood bag was shredded, and Heather’s blood was pooling in the bottom of the fridge, doubtlessly contaminated.

Like my perk cares about contaminants, Perry thought, slamming the spell-frame down on the ground, lifting the entire fridge up, and pouring its contents into the funnel on top of it.

Perry pulled the spell-disc out of its home in his armor, prayed the nerve cells survived the explosion in their padded housing, and jammed it into the spell-frame.

The local power grid was a bit…C-4ed, so Perry had to hook the spell-frame up to his suit before he could run the program.

Here goes nothing.

LetsspyonHeather.EXE

The spell-frame looked a bit like a KitchenAid mixer as it began pouring water into the bowl and painting the sky giant’s cornea edges with words in the creature’s ancient language, activating the sky giant’s essence.

A slightly tinny chanting echoed through the wrecked storage facility as the spell-frame began adding Heather’s blood to the bowl, giving the giant’s visual essence something to adhere to.

A moment later, the ritual was done and the mixer-looking robot pulled itself away, revealing the bowl in its entirety.

There, crystal clear, as if he had used all the best ingredients, was Heather, being laboriously cut out of her suit.

I recognize that place.

In the blink of an eye, Perry was airborne.

***Heather***

“So my problem, here, is that my daughter, an unpowered civilian, is making me into a joke. So my idea is this: Why don’t I just give you powers?” Karnos said, his smile widening. “Then I’m not being humiliated by a teen girl; I’m being opposed by a cape. Huge difference. Plus, I always wanted my girl to continue the family business.”

“You can’t just give someone powers,” Heather said, her skin turning cold. She also knew what the most common cause was: near-death trauma.

“High Tide is almost in full swing. There’s no better time,” Karnos said with a grin, before his face crumpled into a sneer.

“What’s the holdup with the suit?!” he demanded of the minions.

“By all our readings, it should be aluminum, but it’s harder and stronger than tempered steel. The diamond bits are having a hell of a time getting through it. It’s gonna take hours.”

Why can’t I move, then? Heather wondered, trying to tear her arm off the platform. Perry’s suit should still be running.

“Damnit,” Karnos said, running his hands through his hair.

“Getting nervous?” Heather couldn’t help but let a bit of the pent-up sass flow.

“Not at all,” Karnos said, directing his attention back to her. “You think this is the first time I’ve had to disappear some young punk in the middle of the night? This is practically my weekend.”

“You gonna kill me?” Heather asked, her heart skipping into high gear.

“Maybe,” Karnos said with a shrug. “I don’t want to kill you, but forcing a Trigger isn’t without its risks, and if we’re being honest, I’d rather have you dead than free, when it comes down to it.”

“I’ll be free if I have powers. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Is that what you think?” Karnos laughed. “Oh my god, you’re so naïve. You think Nexus would let you be free if you got powers? The system is even more corrupt than I am. They need ‘supervillains’ to act as boogeymen to keep the taxpayers lining their pockets. You know, over eighty percent of the locations that Mechanaut hit were without super insurance, despite those demographics only being twelve percent of the population? He’s a glorified kneecapper for the government.”

Heather had heard this jealous rant before, but she’d never really thought about her place in it.

“You know what they would do if they saw a young girl with powers, with a history of violence, and a less-than-reputable dad?”

“No,” Heather said, despite knowing exactly where this was going.

“They’d start to push. Maybe only a little at first, a comment here and there, maybe not covering your damages quite as often as the girl from the goody-two-shoes family with the squeaky-clean reputation. They’d study you. Figure out what sets you off. Who you don’t get along with. Then they’d use it against you. Keep poking you until you explode on someone on camera.

“Then the blackmail starts rolling in,” Karnos said with a wistful smile. “And before you know it, you’re sitting here with your daughter strapped to a metal table. Mark my words.

“I tell you what, though,” Karnos said, glancing over at Heather. “Those kids they used to get under my skin? They no longer exist.”

He glanced down at the cutters straining to put a dent in the armor. “Right now, Perry Z is getting under my skin. Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. “I guess it’s a small consolation, knowing he blew himself up this evening. You know how Tinkers are, always trying to make stuff explode.”

Heather’s heart went cold. “I’ll kill you.”

“D’aww.” Karnos patted the cheek of her helmet. “That’s cute.”

A minion ran up to Karnos and whispered in his ear.

“Damn. Will the thing crush the armor too?”

“Yessir.”

“Then toss the whole thing in. This obviously isn’t going to be done fast enough.”

He glanced down at Heather. “It’s a shame I didn’t get to see your face again before probably killing you, but I’m confident you’ll make it.”

He gave her a thumbs-up with a smile as the minions unlatched her limbs. Heather tried to break out of their grip, but without the suit, she had all the powers of a teenage girl, which were infuriatingly concentrated in her boobs instead of her muscles.

Once again, Heather cursed puberty for being such a bitch as she lamely thrashed in the grip of the minions.

They hauled her up to a massive steel door, unceremoniously tossed her in, then slammed it shut behind her.

Then the walls began to move.

There was a nearly inaudible, high-pitched whine as the ceiling began to close in.

Dear lord, if I Trigger, let it be something that allows me to wipe that smile off his face. Please and thank you.

Heather stooped down as the ceiling became too low to stand, continuing its inexorable path downward. Karnos was always retelling the story of how he’d been nearly crushed to death in a car accident, which had caused him to Trigger.

He was trying to recreate history.

***Paradox***

Paradox tossed aside the cell phone just outside Karnos’s lair, where he’d hung out with Heather a couple times when they were children.

I can’t believe this jerk’s babysat me before.

Now that he was older, Perry recognized the smell of gunpowder and the faded blood of snitches. It was strangely nostalgic.

Gunpowder and snitch-blood potpourri. For the legacy supervillain of taste.

Paradox wasted no time in triggering Blades.EXE.

The floating armaments fanned out behind him as he landed, and Perry smashed through the thin steel of the warehouse’s door.

Secret elevator…here, Perry thought, consulting his childhood memories of the place. It had seemed so much grander and more exciting when he was eight.

He cut through the wall of the elevator and dropped down the shaft, wrenching the doors open with the suit to reveal Karnos’s true lair, complete with rusty pipes, crates full of guns, and a doomed Shapeshifter with some sort of shiny Tinker-tech gun leveled at Perry’s chest.

Click. The gun gave a whisper-quiet report as a strangely cold, ghostlike sensation passed through him.

Perry’s suit powered down and it stayed powered down.

“Perry Z, your suit doesn’t run on electricity, does it?” Karnos asked gleefully.

“It’s Paradox,” Perry said, using the floating armaments to wrench the elevator doors the rest of the way open and shove himself forward.

“Wha—”

Perry caught Karnos with a right cross, and the man’s face deformed around the punch, crawling up his arm with the speed of a striking snake.

Perry aimed his blades at the man’s off-hand while Karnos’s face climbed into Perry’s sinuses and tried to force its way back out through his skull.

HP: 1

HP: 0

CRUNCH!

Perry’s suit whined to life as his blades destroyed the supervillain’s Tinker-tech. Perry immediately turned his jets to opposite directions and began spinning violently.

Karnos was wrenched out of Perry’s face, just as Perry was beginning to get the mother of all sinus infections.

Karnos stumbled backward, his face reforming to show his confusion. “How the hell—”

Perry pinned the supervillain to the wall with a dozen knives and bolted to the side, aiming for Heather.

Perry skidded to a halt at the empty steel table, where Heather had been moments ago.

Where is she?!

Perry’s ears picked up a faint whine, like the kind you’d hear from a garbage crusher.

Crap!

Perry began sprinting toward the sound, until a flicker of movement caused him to dodge wildly out of the way of one of Karnos’s tentacles.

Perry winced as his ankle flared up in pain while he stumbled aside.

Add that to the list of suit improvements.

Karnos was free of the blades already and was navigating the ceiling like a meat-octopus-monkey, moving in unfamiliar ways as he grew and retracted tentacles to swing himself from industrial pipe to industrial pipe.

Well, that’s creepy, Paradox thought as he turned on his jets to sub in for the rolled ankle.

Perry flew up to a massive crushing machine, whining as its hydraulics forced a massive cube of steel down. It didn’t matter how strong Perry’s suit was, there was simply too much mass and pressure to ignore.

Where on Earth did he get this, and what the hell does he use it for? Perry thought, asking the real questions, because the one thing he knew for sure, was that Heather was in there, and she was on a timer.

Priority 1: Disable the machine.

Priority 2: Remove Heather from situation.

Priority 3: Kick Karnos’s balls into his mouth. Failing that, delay until Titan can do it for me.

Perry whipped up his forearm, aiming at the guts of the machine.

Melt.EXE

The tiny disc of silver popped out of his forearm, the plastic cup slapping a thin coating of—

A meat-tentacle whipped past and smashed the spell-frame.

Sonofa—

Perry ducked another tentacle and was forced to back away as Heather’s dad, looking nothing like a human, dropped down from above, a mass of writhing tentacles, teeth, eyes, and vaguely humanoid faces.

He couldn’t afford to let that booger into his face again.

Perry backpedaled while simultaneously sending the blades around Karnos toward the machine.

Karnos spread out like a slime mold, attaching to every corner of the building and catching each of Perry’s blades with his own flesh.

The blades struggled inside the meat-monster’s flesh, twisting and contorting it, but ultimately failing to extricate themselves as the creature built up hard keratin shells around them.

“That all you got, Perry Z?” A massive mouth split out of the abomination’s front, giving Perry a snaggletoothed smile.

Perry cocked his head to the side. “Not really.”

BFS.EXE

After his first outing, Perry had realized that sometimes, you just need a really big sword. There was no shame in it.

Perry’s back tickled cold as the printer ran down his spine, printing the massive symbol he’d designed for his buster sword in the deep violet Mindtaker ichor.

A huge, one-sided blade half again longer than Perry himself manifested.

Est. $150 of Areonite, $40 of Mindtaker ichor.

Blanket.EXE

Hands.EXE

A blanket made of delicately linked floating panels of Areonite manifested in front of him, as well as about four extra hands, made of dozens of interconnected articulating pieces, each individually printed with ichor.

With a mental nudge, the buster sword began spinning, aiming directly toward Karnos’s center of mass, rapidly picking up speed as it began to vibrate the air itself with its rotation.

“You wouldn’t,” Karnos said.

Perry flipped Heather’s dad off with all six of his hands.

Paradox wasn’t aiming for Karnos. He was aiming for the machine behind him, mentally overlaying the machine’s position on the supervillain’s wall of flesh.

The buster sword rocketed forward with impressive force, piercing the supervillain and the crushing machine’s hydraulics behind him, resulting in the whining drone of the hydraulic press coming to a halt.

Karnos reformed to the side with a rather large gash across his stomach. “Ow, you piece of—”

Paradox charged forward and used the blanket to shield himself from Karnos’s reflexive tentacle grab as he passed by the man.

Once the tentacles had been deflected, Perry smothered Karnos in the blanket and squeezed.

It probably wasn’t gonna hurt a Shapeshifter, but Karnos needed something else for his mind to fixate on while Perry got Heather out.

All four summoned hands clutched the massive turnwheel on the vaultlike steel door and began spinning.

When the door swung open, Perry’s heart sank as it revealed the massive steel piston, lowered all the way down to the floor.

“No Trigger, huh?” Karnos asked, coming to stand next to him, his wound already sealed. “Shame. I guess she had too much of her mother in her.”

“You still have my knives in you,” Perry said, feeling the keratin-coated knives distributed about in Karnos’s body.

“Wh—”

Perry whipped Karnos to the side, smashing him through the nearby heavy machinery, using the knives the supervillain had assumed were neutralized as leverage to thrash the man back and forth like an angry toddler with a Ken doll.

Floor. Ceiling. Wall. Wall. Floor. Table saw. Pressure tanks. Wall. Ceiling. Floor. Truck.

This went on until Titan’s grip brought Paradox out of it.

“He’s not conscious anymore, dude,” Titan said.

Perry blinked the tears out of his eyes and perceived that Karnos was hanging limp, bleeding from every conceivable inch of his shredded clothes. “Oh. Right.”

Perry glanced over his shoulder at the crushing machine, his guts seized by an icy fist. “Can you—” Perry’s voice broke. “Can you help me get it off her?”

Titan’s gaze followed Perry’s, an instant of acknowledgement and sadness crossing the Bruiser’s expression. “Of course, man.”

Titan walked over to the disabled crusher and levered his fingers under the steel slab. The veins on the massive Bruiser’s neck stood out as he groaned, the crusher grudgingly lifting up.

Under the steel slab was Heather, still wearing Perry’s armor, crushed to the thickness of a pan pizza.

Perry was working his way down a comprehensive list of self-recriminations when the armor-shaped pan pizza spoke.

“Took you jerks long enough,” Heather’s modulated voice echoed through the underground lair.

“Buh…” Perry frowned, doing a double take. There was no blood. There should’ve been blood.

“Melted myself,” Heather said, her flattened right arm twitching to highlight the squished Melt.EXE spell-frame. “Power came back on an instant before I woulda died.”

“Heather, you’re alive!”

“Yes! Yes, I am aware that I am alive, Paradox. Now get me out of this suit before I revert to normal and it crushes me like a grape!”

Perry jolted in place and got to work. Inanimate objects didn’t revert to their prior shapes, but people did, so if she was still wearing the armor when the spell expired, she was going to be…a little uncomfortable.

Quest Complete!

Assist Heather in distancing herself from the supervillain Karnos!

Reward: 300 XP, team member

***Later***

Karnos sat in his recliner, brooding. It was ridiculously easy to escape from the Nexus prison transport, but that wasn’t what he was thinking about; it was the kid.

Little Perry Z had taken C-4 to the face, and trying to burst his skull from the inside had felt like trying to lift a freaking mountain.

There was more to the kid than could be reasonably explained by being a Tinker. An insulative field-generator, normally the bane of Tinkers everywhere, had slowed the kid down as much as sneezing on him.

What the hell did Mechanaut do to his kid? Was he even a Tinker? Was he just a brute or an energy type wearing armor he’d borrowed from his dad?

It doesn’t matter.

He couldn’t beat the kid in a stand-up fight, and he couldn’t beat him with a trap. His reputation was in shambles. All that was left was to cut his losses, ride the train to Washington City, and start again.

He had a respectable nest egg, and contacts in the city. He might have to push some of the locals out, but that was how business was done.

There was a brief flash of light that caused Karnos to squint and shield his eyes as he leapt to his feet. When he opened them again, there was a man sitting across from him in a chair that hadn’t been there a second ago.

Not a man.

Solaris.

A cold sweat broke out across his skin.

“Sit down,” Solaris commanded.

Karnos sat down.

“Karnos. Do you know why supervillains exist? In the form they’ve taken, anyway.”

“Because you need someone to scare the sheep into paying for protection.”

“That’s part of it, but it isn’t the whole story, or even most of the story.” Solaris steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair.

“Did you know that if the High Tide before last had gone for three days longer, Franklin City would have been destroyed? It was that. Close.” Solaris held apart thumb and forefinger.

“The last High Tide wasn’t much better. And every other High Tide on record, we suffer devastating losses to keep the civilians of Franklin City safe.

“Tinkers make weapons and put them up on the wall, but High Tide tends to mess with tech in unforeseen ways, and sometimes you end up with robot revolutions and guns turning into fish.”

He leaned forward. “The only thing you can really count on is boots on the ground. Supers. You. Me. Those rookies you kill to stop them from ‘taking your business.’”

“I—”

“Can I show you something?” Solaris asked over Karnos, fishing in his pocket and retrieving a phone with a video loaded on it.

“We saw something interesting today.”

Solaris pressed play.

It was a scene fixated on Heather in that suit, with Karnos peering in from the side. From yesterday evening.

How did they get that video?!

“I tell you what, though,” Karnos said on the video, glancing over at Heather. “Those kids they used to get under my skin? They no longer exist.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Here’s another one,” Solaris said, playing the next file.

“You think this is the first time I’ve had to disappear some young punk in the middle of the night?” Karnos said over the video. “This is practically my weekend.”

“Those two sentences concerned us over at Nexus, so we did some research and wouldn’t you know it? Several supes who lodged complaints against you back at Nexus went MIA a few years after you quit.

“We also spotted a handful of rather suspicious disappearances of rookie capes in your ‘territory.’” Solaris made quotation marks.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Karnos said. “You can’t prove anything.”

“I don’t have to prove anything,” Solaris said. “Once again, I ask you, why do supervillains exist?”

Karnos kept his mouth shut.

“DEFENSE! STABILITY! Supervillains exist so supers can get a handle on their powers and grow them before they get sent out against the prawns, or the replicators, or hostile foreign supers, or any of a thousand other things that are constantly threatening to tear this tiny insignificant speck on Earth to tiny little pieces!

“They also exist to keep the underworld under control and keep an eye out for people like you, actual psychopaths who undermine our ability to defend ourselves as a city by killing those with the power and will to do so.

“As long as supervillains fulfill their roles, we overlook tons of infrastructure damage, even the occasional loss of civilian life…but intentionally killing rookie supers? That, I cannot abide.”

“Please—” Karnos said, his skin cold.

“It’s simple math,” Solaris said, shaking his head. “If we’d snuffed you out twenty years ago, how many more supers would be on the wall right now? How many prawns would those supers be able to hold off? HOW MANY?!”

Karnos didn’t answer.

“I thought so. That begs the question: If I snuff you out right now, how many more supers will be on the wall next High Tide?”

Karnos leapt to his feet.

A blinding light filled the room, and a moment later, nothing was left of the supervillain but a smudge on the recliner and a few bits of burnt upholstery.

Chapter 21: Tide’s In

***Perry, 8 Years Old***

Perry gasped as motes of light swirled around Mom’s garden, seemingly rising out of the ground where the moonlight struck the sweet-smelling blue flowers she spent so much time on.

“This is magic,” Mom said, looking down at Perry’s complete awe with a happy smile as the lights swirled around them, illuminating her rock T-shirt and jeans as they swept past her body.

“Magic happens when two or more compatible essences interact, and a ritual is performed. In this case, the essence of moonlight and lunar lotus, and the ritual is allowing them to interact. A very common and benign magic.”

“Wow, it doesn’t look common.”

“No magic is common,” Mom said with a smirk and a shrug. “Buuut some are more common than others.”

“This is so cool,” Perry said, waving his hand through the floating motes of light. “But if it’s mixing two essences, how do you use magic without anything at all?” Perry had seen her clean the house with a snap of her fingers, after all.

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?” Mom said, kneeling down and holding out her palm.

“Mages from my world figured out how to create essences inside ourselves.”

Above her hand, a mote of light sprang into being, exactly the same as the motes of light around them, except this one didn’t waver or drift like the others. Instead, it hung directly over her hand.

“Ooo.” Perry reached out and poked the mote of light, which shattered into dozens of tiny fragments that flew away on the wind. “How do you do that?”

“Well, about a thousand years ago, Pecholard the Studious—”

“Pek-o-lard?” Perry asked incredulously, not sure if he wanted anything to do with it if it sounded that silly.

“It’s a different language. Grow up.” Mom rolled her emerald eyes. “Anyway, Pecholard discovered that the magical effects that wizards spent hours and hours to mix and create were the result of the essence contained within the objects, and not necessarily the object itself.”

“Uh-huh,” Perry said, nodding, although not entirely getting it.

“Sooo, Pecholard the Studious found a way to synthesize pure essences by incorporating various spirits into one’s Attunement. By feeding these symbiotic spirits a small fragment of your own Attunement, they produce pure essences on demand.”

“Symbiotic? Like a parasite?” Perry asked, sticking out his tongue.

Mom glanced to the side. “Well, kind of, but not gross. Anyway, Pecholard ushered in a new era of magecraft, although most mages were terribly limited, as a human’s Attunement can only support a couple essences. Most mages had to stick to one or two simple spells.”

“But you,” Mom said with a mischievous smirk. “You’ve got enough Attunement for something truly special.”

“Really?” Perry asked.

“You remember that trip we took to the top of the mountain when you were five?”

Perry shook his head. “It was…cold?”

“That’s fine. Let’s just say I did a ritual that…enhanced your Attunement. I didn’t want Dad’s Dull blood to be a handicap, after all.”

While Perry was mulling over the implications, Mom pulled out a little glass vial of…something. It was a viscous liquid that glowed in a fascinating rainbow of colors.

“What is that?” Perry asked, his attention captured.

“This…is the spirit of a legendary mimic, able to produce any essence on demand. Up until now, it’s been passed through our family as a treasure, because nobody’s ever had the Attunement to control it.”

“But I do?” Perry asked incredulously.

“Honey, you had more than enough before we even went to the mountain, much to my surprise. Drink this, and you’ll be the most pow—you’ll…be able to start your training.”

“Is it…gonna hurt?” Perry asked.

“No, no, you won’t even feel it,” Mom said, shaking her head.

“Okay,” Perry said, taking the vial of multicolored, fluorescent-glowing liquid from Mom and prying on the cap.

He couldn’t get it off.

“Here,” Mom said, taking the stopper out of the vial before handing it back to him.

“You’re sure this is safe?” Perry asked, glancing up at Mom.

“Sweetheart, I’ve done this three times,” Mom said with a hint of exasperation.

“Okay…”

Perry shrugged, tightly closed his eyes, and knocked back the glowing concoction.

***

“There you are. You’re okay now,” Mom said, her faintly glowing thumb coming off his forehead.

“M-Mom?” Perry rasped, confused at Mom suddenly being so close to him. He glanced to the side and spotted a lunar lotus shedding glowing motes of light beside him.

I’m on the ground? My throat kinda hurts, and my clothes are super wet. And there’s a bloody handkerchief in her pocket.

“What happened?” Perry asked.

“You’re a mage now, is what happened,” Mom said, beaming. “Don’t worry about the sweat, it’s normal. We’ll get you a change of clothes when we get home.”

“O-okay.”

“Wanna learn your first spell?!” Mom said, her brows raised with excitement.

“Do I?!” Perry exclaimed, sitting up, all questions abandoned with a mental shrug.

“Alright, so tonight you’re going to learn the Light spell. Can you guess what it’s made of?” She gave him a mischievous smile.

“It’s lunar lotus and moonlight essence, isn’t it?”

“Clever boy. Indeed, it is. I made this garden to teach you your first spell.”

“H-how do I do it?” Perry asked.

“Here,” Mom said, taking a couple pairs of sunglasses out of her purse and handing one to Perry while she put on the other one.

She waited until Perry put his own on.

“I can’t see anything,” Perry complained. It was nighttime, after all.

“You don’t have to. Take a deep breath,” Mom said, doing so herself.

Perry took a deep breath.

“Focus on the smell of the lunar lotus. Focus on the sensation of the light of the moon on your skin.”

Perry felt something inside him react, combining into a sizzling river of pure potential. He brought it out to his palm.

“Now this will take a while, but if you do it right, you should feel—”

FLASH!

A blast of light nearly blinded Perry through the sunglasses.

“Ow, men’zat pekvath benaan forza!” Mom cursed in her home tongue before fixing a smile on her face. “That’s fantastic, sweetie, but try to do only a little bit, okay?”

“Okay,” Perry said, nodding as he blinked the dark spots out of his eyes.

“So how you do it is—”

FLASH!

Mom had her hand in front of her eyes this time, but Perry got himself again.

“So that stream of energy, pinch down on it until only a little bit gets by, okay?”

“Okay.”

This time, Perry clamped down on the sensation, only letting a little bit out past his palm.

A wavering mote of light appeared above his hand.

“Great job, sweetheart!” Mom said, clasping his shoulders as he stared down at the magic in his palm, jaw dropped.

“That’s it?” he asked. “It wasn’t very hard.”

“It’s—” Mom hesitated, her eyes flickering away for a moment. “It’s one of the easiest spells. We’ll get you started on some more challenging ones tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Let’s go inside, Perry. It’s dinnertime, and your dad is bringing home pizza!”

“Pizza!” Perry said, fists pumping as he raced through Mom’s garden, heading for the back door, ignoring the sound of the jet growing in the distance.

Jets flew over their house all the time.

There was a slight shaking of the entire house, signifying Dad was home.

“Dad!” Perry shouted when Dad burst through the door with his typical energy, bearing a couple pizzas over his shoulder.

“I have hunted us a great feast,” Dad said, thumping his chest as he stepped around Perry and set the family-sized pizzas on the island in the center of the kitchen.

“Dad, check this out!” Perry said, holding out his palm and spawning a globe of light.

“Wow! That’s really cool, Perry!” Dad said with a grin, glancing at Mom.

“No magic at the dinner table, though,” Dad said as he plated up Perry’s pizza.

It was a restriction that Perry was unable to follow, blinking a little light on and off under the table as he ate with his other hand.

“You really like your mom’s magic stuff, huh?” Dad asked, a slice of pizza dangling from his hand.

“It’s awesome! Just holding out your hand and going ‘Boom! Pow! Zap!’”

“I can go boom, pow, zap,” Dad sulked.

“Aww, sweetie, it’s okay if he doesn’t take after you,” Mom said, patting Dad’s shoulder.

“The important thing is that Perry is happy, I guess,” Dad said.

Dad’s eyes seemed to light up, getting that distant look he got sometimes. “Perry, you like video games, right?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” Perry said, playing with his magic under the table.

“Give it a rest, Perry,” Mom said, patting him on the shoulder, prompting Perry to reluctantly stop.

“What if life was like a video game? Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“That…actually would be pretty cool,” Perry said. “Leveling up and getting stronk.” He flexed his admittedly skinny bicep.

“Right…” Dad said, staring into the distance before taking another bite of his pizza.

***That Night***

“Huh?” Perry woke up as he felt a weight on the side of his bed, and turned his head, spotting Dad sitting beside him with an empty syringe.

“Get some sleep, champ,” Dad said, kissing him on the forehead before a wave of fogginess claimed him.

***The Next Day***

“I don’t understand,” Perry said, tears of frustration rolling down his cheeks. “It was so easy yesterday. What’s wrong with me?”

Every time he tried to focus on that sensation, the mixing of essence, he felt the mimic spirit react, but the river of sizzling energy that normally surged out felt like cold tar, unwilling to budge.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, sweetheart,” Mom said, hugging him. “You’ll be fine, baby.

“Darryl, let’s talk outside,” Mom said. If Perry hadn’t been so distraught, the coldness in her voice would have caught his attention.

“Sounds good,” Dad said, eyes narrowed.

The two of them walked out, while Perry kept trying to get anything to happen.

Please. Please. Just the smallest light. Anything.

“I wasn’t trying to kill him! I did everything I could to guarantee he would succeed! And he did!” Mom’s voice cut through his malaise as it rose loud enough to pierce through his bedroom door.

“You told me what that thing did to your sister!” Dad’s voice shouted. “You gambled with my son’s life!”

“And you respond by, what, rendering it meaningless?! He succeeded, and spectacularly at that. A prodigy the likes of which the world has never seen, and you shat all over it! What you did wasn’t inspired by care for his well-being, but petty jealousy!”

“I saw the security footage!” Dad shouted. “It nearly killed him, and you think I’m gonna be OKAY with that?!”

“It was tradition! I knew exactly what I was doing. Do you have any idea what was in the shot you gave him, or was it just another one of your fugue-state inventions?” Mom shouted back. “Those don’t always work, you know!”

“I may not know what was in it, but I know what I was feeling when I made it! It’ll keep him safe from your magic. What on Earth made you think handing limitless power to an eight year old was a good idea in the first place?!”

“Mom, Dad?” Perry asked, opening his bedroom door.

In the living room, Mom’s hands were crackling with lightning, while some kind of metal arm with a gun on it had descended from the ceiling above Dad, aiming at Mom.

Almost as if he’d imagined it, the stormy expressions on his parents’ faces vanished, as well as the strange metal arm and the crackling lightning around Mom’s hands.

“What…was all that?” Perry asked, glancing at the now-seamless ceiling. Hiding a robot arm?

His parents shared a glance, and Dad sighed and nodded.

“Sweetie, it’s fine, we’re not mad anymore. Come here.” Mom gestured for a hug, and without thinking about it too hard, Perry went for it.

Mom kissed him on the forehead, then pressed her thumb—

***Perry, Now***

Perry’s eyes snapped open, staring up at the ceiling.

That was a weird dream.

Lying in bed, Perry habitually checked his XP to next level.

XP to next level: 245

Between Locust and Karnos and the quest completion, he’d covered most of the distance to level 3.

And all that in one day. Perry couldn’t see getting through High Tide lower than level 5, at this rate.

Perry rolled out of bed and put his feet on the floor, hissing in pain as his rolled ankle caught up with him. Adrenaline had kept it under control last night, but now it hurt like crazy.

Yawning and stretching out the aches and pains from the fight the night before, Perry limped over to his phone and checked his texts.

Liability exceeds cash reserves, please call ASAP.

- John White

“What?!”

Perry clutched the phone close to his face as he began hyperventilating, scrolling through the messages.

The infrastructure damage from the fight with Locust was negligible, and Locust was saddled with most of it. The rest was split six ways.

It was the outing against Karnos that had dinged him the worst.

The biggest chunk of it was the explosion at the storage yard, which had nailed him with a massive bill to fix…basically everything, because not a single unit had been completely untouched by shrapnel.

After that, he had to compensate several hundred civilians for damages to their property…and he couldn’t contest it, because he’d rented the storage unit under false pretenses.

Didn’t matter that Karnos set the C-4. Perry was responsible because he invited the trouble by setting up a base there without the knowledge or consent of the owner.

Yesterday, Perry was set for life.

This morning, Perry was fifty thousand in debt.

Lifeless, Perry threw on some clothes and shambled out to breakfast.

“What’s wrong, baby? You look like you died and an evil spirit is controlling your body,” Mom said, watching his lurching gait with concern.

“I wish,” Perry muttered, handing her the phone as he collapsed into the seat.

He glanced over at where Heather was eating cereal in the massive T-shirt she’d crashed on his couch in. “You now have fifty thousand dollars more than I do.”

“Hah,” Heather chuckled, nearly spilling milk from her mouth.

“Oh,” Mom said, scrolling through the list of damages. “Oooooh.” She handed the phone over to Perry and went back to peeling a grapefruit. “Ask your father, he’s got more experience with property damage.”

“Eh?” Dad asked, pulling the newspad out of his face. “I heard my name.”

Perry showed him the phone.

“Oh. Just buy the place. The repairs listed here cost more than the value of the facility. Should save you a cool quarter-mil. Fix it up at your own pace, then resell it.”

Perry’s eyes widened, and he looked back and forth between the phone and his dad. “I can do that?”

“Trust me, most owners would be happy with getting all their money back, rather than being forced to spend months and months making repairs, then trying to attract business to a place that has a history of exploding.”

His dad hid his beak-nose behind the newspad again.

Feeling like his soul was coming back to his body, Perry called back John White.

After a brief conversation and a confirmation text a few minutes later, Perry glanced back up at Heather with the smuggest expression he’d ever had the pleasure of producing.

“I now have a hundred and fifty thousand dollars more than you.”

“Ea a ick,” Heather said around a mouthful of cereal.

“And property taxes on a liability no one will buy from you,” Dad said from behind his newspad.

“I’ll take what I can get,” Perry said, just relieved he wasn’t in crippling debt already.

He glanced over at the Tidewatch, which was worryingly high.

High Tide was close.

Case in point was sitting across from him, devouring her cereal like an animal.

“You think of a super name yet?” Perry asked.

Heather scoffed. “I always thought I’d get fire powers, or darkness powers, or turning into a ghost or something… Not this.”

She held out her arm, which went floppy. After they’d cut her out of the armor last night, she’d just kind of…stayed floppy. It was obviously a Trigger, because everyone else Perry had ever shot with Dregor’s Flaccidity had recovered.

“What the heck am I supposed to do with this?!” Heather demanded, waving the floppy arm around.

“Could call you Flaccid Girl,” Perry said with a hint of schadenfreude.

“That reminds me of Morph,” Mom said, polishing off her grapefruit. “Have you tried experimenting?”

“Experimenting? All I can do is get floppy. Turn myself into a puddle. Whoop-de-doo.”

“Have you tried making some parts of you harder?” Mom asked.

Heather frowned, her expression darkening as she concentrated.

A wavering spike made of Heather-stuff was exposed as her forearm melted away.

“Wicked,” she said, an ominous smile blooming on her face. The way the morning sun lit up her hair like a halo made the smile all the darker by comparison.

“You should be able to become a fairly proficient Shapeshifter with enough practice,” Hexen said, taking away everyone’s dishes.

Heather’s excitement dimmed as she was made aware of the similarities to her father.

“Your dad’s all gross and meaty though,” Perry hastily interjected. “You’re totally different. Cute, and rubbery.”

Did I just call her cute? Perry thought, freezing up as Heather cocked a brow at him.

“Perry, you’re on dishes,” Hexen called from the kitchen.

Oh, thank you, Lord.

“Well, gotta go do those dishes,” Perry said, retreating ASAP.

Girls were scarier than supervillains.

***Later***

Perry inhaled the sweet, nostalgic scent of discharged C-4 and concrete rubble. It reminded him of the smell his dad always had coming home from ‘work’ when he was younger.

“Take that in,” Perry said, inhaling deeply. “That’s the smell of property ownership.”

“Smells like diesel exhaust,” Heather said, glancing over at all the U-Haul trucks being frantically loaded by civvies evacuating the area before more bombs went off.

“That too,” Perry said, nodding as he mentally measured the lot.

“We’ve got, what, a day before High Tide?” Perry asked. The question was practically meaningless, as true High Tide was nearly indistinguishable from a couple days before or after.

They didn’t have much time at all before the prawns came.

“We can put the shop over here,” Perry said. “The arena over here. The prison cells and mutating vats over here.”

“What are you talking about?” Heather asked, glancing up at him curiously.

“I mean, I didn’t wanna put my lair in the exact same place, but I own this place now. I gotta work with the hand I’m dealt.”

“No, I mean, whaddya need an arena, prison cells, and mutating vats for?”

“How about just a shop,” Perry offered.

“Better.”

“Leading to a vast network of underground—”

Heather punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow,” Perry said, rubbing his arm as he surveyed the property. Step one was bulldozing all the damaged storage units, then transporting the scrap to a scrapyard…

Or could I melt the steel sheeting down and use it for myself? Probably be cheaper than buying it new. For me, anyway.

For that, Perry needed a big furnace, a bulldozer, and a way to process the scrap.

Rather than buy a bulldozer, he could make a floating armament to fulfill the same function, for about an eighth the cost of renting one.

Perry took another deep diesel/C-4/rubble breath. In a matter of weeks, he’d have a workshop that would put his dad’s to shame.

New Quest: Make a proper lair!

Reward: 300 XP, Lair

Perry’s musings were cut off as sirens began to roll through the city.

He and all the other civilians craned their necks to stare at the wall.

Atop the wall, red lights were spinning as a nerve-wracking siren invaded their eardrums. For the first time in twelve years.

“Tide’s in,” Heather said beside him.

“Yup,” Perry said, breaking out in a cold sweat.

Chapter 22: A Night on the Town

“Well, that’s not good,” Perry muttered, looking up at the sign.

Dave’s Magical Emporium closed for High Tide. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Perry only had a few more fights’ worth of supplies, he was flush with cash, and wanted to buy some of the more interesting spell components.

And then this.

Perry glanced around the streets of Funkytown and spotted a Belark wobbling along the sidewalk with its deceptively awkward gait, but none of Dave’s thugs were around. The place was well and truly abandoned.

“Now what?” Heather asked.

“I guess we ask around,” Perry said with a shrug, heading over to the magical critter.

It looked like what you would get if you took a yeti and stretched it out to ten feet long and made it walk on all fours with an S-shaped spine.

“Excuse me,” Perry said in halting Manitian. “Do you…where, um…find Dave?”

The Belark huffed and shook its woolly head, sinuously walking around him.

Hmm…no choice but to keep asking around.

Perry and Heather walked along the street, asking around here and there as the sun gradually went down and the nocturnal magical creatures emerged.

“Hey, you look familiar. Is your mom Hexen?” an overly friendly humanoid creature with a sharklike smile asked as he guided them toward Dave’s lair.

“Yeah,” Perry admitted. “Just looking for Dave to buy some ingredients.”

“Oh my gosh, you must be her son, Paradox Zauberer! Hey, everybody!” The sharkmouth turned around and waved to the empty alleyway.

“This is Hexen’s son!”

Carnivorous creatures popped out of the woodwork. One of them even peeled off the wall of the alleyway behind them, his skin un-mimicking the brickwork as he holstered his braining club.

“Wow!”

“What’s it like to live with Hexen?”

“Is she as cool in real life?”

“Is she married?!”

The ravenous mob of wicked-toothed creatures congregated around Perry, eager to devour celebrity trivia.

“Settle down, settle down,” the lead sharkmouth said. “Let’s not get carried away.”

Perry glanced over his shoulder at the mimic that had been behind them. “Were you planning on eating us?” Perry asked.

“No, no!” the lead sharkmouth said as one of the alleygoers hid a butcher knife behind her back.

Perry maintained hard eye contact.

“…Yes. Sorry.”

“No harm, no foul,” Perry said with a shrug. “Just try to keep it to the sick and the old, am I right?”

“As if old sick people wander around Funkytown at night!”

Perry and the creatures devolved into a gale of laughter as Heather looked on with a concerned expression.

“Anyway,” Perry said, wiping tears out of his eyes. “Hexen wears jeans and a T-shirt when she’s off duty, likes cooking, watching cartoons and nature documentaries. Yes, she’s married, no, I’m not gonna tell you to who, and it’s a different kind of cool when she’s your mom, but still cool.”

“Awesome…”

“And to answer your question,” the lead ambush predator said, “Dave’s lair is about two blocks south, under a bowling alley. Can’t miss it.”

A police car flashed down the street outside the alley, ghostly flames shooting out of the windows, cackling as it sped through the streets, pausing the discussion until it was out of earshot.

Perry raised a brow and pointed over his shoulder.

“High Tide,” the leader said with a shrug.

“I was only six during the last one, so I don’t remember much about it.”

“Well, there’s one good thing about High Tide…” the sharkmouth said.

“It’s never dull!” a squat woman with a muzzle meant for tearing flesh supplied.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the directions!”

“No problem!” The gang of meat-eaters waved as Perry and Heather walked out of the alley.

“Why didn’t you tell them not to eat people?” Heather asked as they walked under the streetlamps that the nocturnal creatures avoided like the plague.

“Huh? Oh, because it wouldn’t have changed anything. If those people could avoid eating people, they would. Meat is incredibly expensive, though, especially during High Tide, when cattle can Trigger from a poorly placed bash on the skull and wipe out an entire farm. They obviously can’t afford meat, so telling them not to eat people would be the same as telling them to die. If they did what I told them, they would die, and others would live; if they continue hunting people, they live and others die. It’s a zero-sum game, and I’ve got no interest in interfering in it.”

Heather looked pensive.

“Tell you what. If we bag ourselves a prawn, we can deliver it to this alley.”

“Why doesn’t prawn meat become supercheap during High Tide?” Heather asked.

Perry frowned. “I don’t know for a fact because I’ve never asked that question, but I’d guess that it’s probably because the logistics of transporting it off the wall are incredibly dangerous and disruptive towards the defense effort. Can you imagine someone trying to drive a semitruck through the line to load up a prawn corpse while hundreds of supers, civvies, and prawns are mixing it up?”

“Hmm…seems like it could be a good business opportunity for anyone who figured out how to make it work,” Heather said.

“No doubt. Prawn does taste good,” Perry said with a shrug. “A bit like lobster—if said lobster came in steaks the size of my PC tower.”

“No way. Really?!”

“Who do you think my parents are, huh?” Perry asked as they neared the bowling alley.

A vampire followed them in through the door as they entered the bowling alley, their conversation consumed by the sound of pins rattling and shouts of glee.

Perry rounded on the vampire. “Dude, are you here to bowl, or are you hunting us?”

“Well, I never!” The vampire walked away in a huff, pulling a sparkly bowling ball out of his bag.

“That was a bad guy?” Heather asked.

“I know it’s probably specist, but vampires have a look,” Perry said, keeping his eyes on the predator a little while longer to make sure. “And I’d rather offend someone than be a thrall. V’s are known for being clingy and playing those mind games. According to my mom, anyway. Said she dated one in high school and it did not end well. Stake-to-the-heart kind of bad.”

Heather blinked.

“Anyway, let’s go talk to that devil over there.” Perry pointed, guiding the redhead to the reception desk.

The devil was an Indian fellow trapped inside a cage made of wrought iron with glowing sigils stamped along its length. One could be forgiven for thinking they were neon lights in a decorative themed cage.

It was a real cage, with a real devil.

“Good evening, sir and madam. What size shoes do you require?”

“I’m looking for Dave the Unicorn.”

“Dave’s not here, man.”

“Are you telling me those man-eating cannibals in the dirty alleyway lied to me?!” Perry demanded. “Just point me in the direction of the entrance to his lair and I’ll do the rest.”

The devil shrugged and pointed toward the employee entrance in the side of the building, away from all the clatter of pins, loud talking, and loud music.

Perry walked up to the door, found it was locked, then rapped “Shave and a Haircut” on the door.

“Whaddya want?” a voice said from inside.

“Tell Dave Perry Z is here to buy.”

A moment later, the door unlatched and a massive slab of indeterminate supernaturalness stepped out of the way, revealing a long staircase leading down, the darkness punctuated by a single light dangling above the stairs, providing a pool of illumination.

Perry trotted down the stairs until he hit the concrete flooring of Dave’s lair.

“Perry Z! Come over here, let me get a look at you!” Dave the Unicorn said, taking off a couple elbow-length black gloves drenched in blood.

“And who is this lovely creature?” Dave said, inhaling as Heather approached beside him.

Dave shuddered, his eyes dilating like he’d just loaded his veins with heroin. “Yeah, that’s the good stuff. Keep it platonic, you two.”

Heather’s expression darkened.

“…He’s a unicorn,” Perry said, as if that would explain everything. “They’re…the way they are.”

“What can I do for ya, kids?” Dave asked, leaning up against the half-dissected fantasy creature on the table behind him. “High Tide is when I get the bulk of my exotic ingredients. It technically counts as a solar eclipse, planetary alignment, and an apocalypse, and it lasts for weeks, so I’m super busy, but I can always make time for my best customer.”

“I hardly believe I’m your best customer.”

“I suppose you’re right. My best customer is a rich old-folks home on the west side of the city. You’re just my favorite.”

Perry blinked. What on earth would an old-folks home need that—

“Gorlock horn,” Dave said.

“Say no more,” Perry said, holding up a hand. “I don’t even wanna think about it. I’m renovating a piece of land and was looking to buy ingredients for these spells,” Perry said, offering Dave the list he’d compiled.

“Floating Armaments as a bulldozer? Hah!” Dave said, shaking his head. “There’s a thought. Why not just use Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation? Ingredients are a bit more expensive individually, but you’d save a lot of time and castings, get it all done at once.”

“Reasons,” Perry said. Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation required the caster to have a concrete idea of the structure they wished to create, and the intent to make it. Since Perry was not the actual caster, he doubted a cluster of cells on a microchip could have a solid grasp on architecture or the desire to create it.

I mean, unless I hooked them up to a CAD program, maybe? Even then, would the spell count it as the tiny clump of cells having an idea in mind, or would the CAD be treated separately?

“Ah,” Dave said, nodding. “I gotcha. Well—”

“Actually, could I get a sampler of the ingredients for that? I’d like to see if I could make it work anyway.”

“No problem. You know, if you’re going for inexpensive, you could try using Dregor’s Binding, sugar, and some ants,” Dave said.

“Dregor’s Binding? Isn’t that the voodoo doll spell?”

“Well yeah, but you can also use it on land,” Dave said. “Basically, you make a model of a larger area with Miniature Vistas, replace any spot you want to be demolished with a powdered sugar replica, bind the two objects together with the binding spell, then place a pet ant colony right beside it. Ants’ll remove anything you want gone in a matter of days with no further input.”

“How much would that cost?” Perry asked.

“For both spells, some sugar, and ants? ’Bout five hundred bucks.”

That’s even cheaper than I was thinking. Might be a bit time-consuming to make sugar storage containers, but cheap.

“Sign me up,” Perry said. “I still want the spells on the list, though.”

“Alright,” Dave said, motioning for them to follow him. “These are pretty intense amounts. You got the cash?”

Perry flashed a ten-grand chit he’d gotten from John for the express purpose of splurging at Dave’s.

“Excellent. You know, it’s lucky you’re coming here during High Tide, instead of my shop. Some of these items haven’t even been entered into my inventory yet, which makes it much more convenient for me to avoid paying taxes on them. Tell you what, I’ll even give you a discount. Half the tax savings. Then we’re both guilty.” Dave gave him a mischievous grin.

“Sweet,” Perry said, nodding.

“Something for you, young lady?” Dave asked, looking to Heather. “I’ve got beauty products.” He pointed to a rack as they were passing by it. “If that’s not your thing, I’ve got love amulets over there. The legal kind, and the sort-of legal kind. We don’t do the totally illegal ones, because I detest mind control.”

“Why do you assume I want makeup and love charms?” Heather asked. “How about some brass knuckles?”

Dave was quick on his feet. “I don’t have anything pre-made, but I do have the materials to make some rather interesting weapons. I’ve got some unbonded haunted iron, vengeful steel, giant bone, metallic slime—which is great for blackjacks and nontoxic, unlike mercury, by the way. Dragon molts if you wanna make some armor, a few performance-enhancing potions made by a seller I highly recommend.”

“What’s haunted iron?” Heather asked.

“Quite simply, haunted iron is a piece of iron that a ghost has taken permanent residence in. It must be worked below a certain temperature in order not to destroy the ghost, but assuming you do it right, attacks with weapons made from them have triple the staying power, as they hit physically twice, and metaphysically once,” Dave said, selling it hard.

“They all have their likes and dislikes, but I generally sort them into two categories: Ghosts that get along well with women, and ghosts that get along well with men. Then you can find one from inside that pool that resonates well with you.”

They stopped in front of the haunted iron rack and were met with two separate piles of scrap iron. On the left, for women, were mostly things like knitting needles, cast-iron pans, irons, and other cleaning and cooking paraphernalia.

On the other side were axe heads and crowbars and a turnwheel on a pressure hatch, among other manly things.

Dave held up his hands as they looked at him askance. “Look, I don’t tell the ghosts which iron to haunt, alright?”

“What’s giant bone do?”

“Giant bone has a grain to it that slightly realigns gravity in the direction of the grain. It helps keep those lugs standing, but when fashioned into weapons, can create something that handles like a feather while hitting like an avalanche, a perfect choice for someone with delicate wrists.”

“I want enough giant bone to make a new handle for this frying pan,” Heather said, reading the tag on the pan. “This lady was awesome. Killed three enemy raiders with it before she bled out.”

“That’ll be six thousand dollars.” Dave looked at Perry.

Heather looked at Perry.

“What?”

“I helped with the Locust, but I didn’t get paid for it.”

“So?”

“Half,” Heather said, holding out her hand.

“Dangit,” Perry muttered, pulling out five more chits. He knew this would happen and came prepared, but he’d secretly hoped it wouldn’t.

Chapter 23: Paradox 1-Day Builds

***Mason Pierce***

Mason’s grip tightened on his prawn gun as the boiling seas crept closer to the wall.

It was almost a relief when the first prawn began climbing the side of the wall, its stubby limbs clinging to the smooth surface, dragging a bulbous head out of the water that looked something like a cross between the now-extinct beluga whale and a praying mantis.

Mason’s breath grew ragged against his will; just waiting here with his gun raised felt like he was running a marathon.

I’m gonna ask Stacy to marry me.

The prawns emerged from the water, bearing the scars of their never-ending oceanic war with Professor Replica’s robots. Sadly, that meant only the strongest made it to land to breed.

Like a school of salmon, they mindlessly threw themselves against the humans’ defenses, and while the wall was a well-oiled machine designed to toss as many prawns back into the ocean as possible using simple concrete rollers on steel bearings and flipping platforms that dumped their contents out into open air…

Some still made it to the top.

Watching the monsters’ flopping struggle like caterpillars would almost be comical if not for their sheer size and power.

One of the creatures jammed its leg too deep into the concrete of the rolling wheel, cracking the material and stopping the rolling action.

More followed behind.

One got stuck sideways in one of the pit traps.

More crawled over them.

Mason’s knuckles whitened as the first prawn made its way up to the killbox. No longer a distant flopping caterpillar, now it was a titanic engine of destruction.

“Aim!” their sergeant hollered over the din of battle roiling up from the ocean.

They shouldered their guns, aiming for the creature’s eyes, the place a conventional prawn gun stood any chance of penetrating.

“Fire!”

A deafening blast erupted from the line of guns, riddling the approaching monster with depleted uranium. It began to thrash inside the killbox, cracking the reinforced concrete even as a massive steel piston shoved the prawn off the wall with a hydraulic hum.

The dying prawn fell down to the ocean, but three more took its place, peeking above the edge of the wall in unison.

To make matters worse, one of them managed to get its stubby legs behind the piston, preventing the massive slab of steel from resetting.

Sergeant O’Leary cussed and changed tactics. It was a bad sign for things to go poorly this early in the High Tide, and it didn’t bode well for their survival.

“Steve, break out the new guns. Tommy, reload everyone’s prawn guns in the meantime.”

Corporal Steve whipped the crates at the back of the line open and began tossing the Tinker-made guns out to the soldiers on the wall, some ten, fifteen feet to each individual, who caught the bulky weapons without so much as a word, turning back to the prawns crawling over their last line of defense.

“Start with the closest one, then walk your way back to the furthest one. The goal here is to get the killbox up and running again! If we’re lucky, we’ll get the time we need to unstick it once these things are dead!”

Lord knows we’re not lucky, Mason thought, hefting his own Tinker-tech gun.

All systems green, battery one hundred percent, a woman’s voice said.

He pulled the trigger.

A neon turquoise beam of energy dazzled his eyes and drilled a football-sized hole through the prawn’s impenetrable hide.

“Oh, hell yeah!” Mason shouted, aiming at the next creature.

Coarse language detected. Suspending operation until apology is detected.

Mason blinked as the feminine voice began to emanate from his high-tech gun again. To scold him.

“Um, I’m sorry? Please let me keep shooting?”

Since you asked so nicely, approaching coming closer becoming attaining perspective closer closer closer closer closer closer closer closer closer closer closer closer…

The gun began to get warm in Mason’s hands as the other guns fired their turquoise beams into the approaching prawns.

“Gun’s FUBAR!” Mason yelled as his weapon became hot to the touch, trapped in some kind of logic loop.

“Throw it over the wall!” Sergeant O’Leary shouted, pointing out into the distance.

Without wasting a second, Mason heaved and threw the gun over the wall. A moment later, there was an explosion of turquoise energy just beyond, and some kind of glowy cobwebs that hurt to look at.

High Tide, man, Mason thought, shaking his head, heading back to where Tommy was holding out a reloaded conventional prawn gun for Mason to snatch up. Everyone else’s gun lasted a few more shots than his, and they were excellent for clearing the wall, if a bit disposable.

The sound of hydraulic power reminded them of the piston retracting.

To their horror, a lighter prawn was riding the mechanism forward, charging them faster than a prawn’s usual movement speed.

That was right around when the last of their Tinker-tech decided to give up the ghost.

A snarling curse erupted from the sergeant as he flung the sputtering laser weapon aside and held out his hand for the conventional prawn gun.

Tommy threw one his way, and it landed in the sergeant’s hand, but the rest of their CO was already disappearing down the monster’s gullet.

Mayhem ensued.

The enormous creature thrashed around, scattering some soldiers like leaves while snacking on others.

It was a blur of panic and pain as every muscle in Mason’s body shredded itself to keep Mason alive, scuttling, dodging, and diving out of the way of the humongous monster’s mindless flailing, all while ejecting hot casings from the massive gun and replacing them with hand-length brass over and over.

He got a shot off into the creature’s eye, but it wasn’t a lethal wound, and when the thing stopped flailing, it oriented on the one who’d damaged it.

Mason patted his bandolier and found it completely empty as the slavering monster heaved its bulbous head over him.

The rest of his unit was gone or pasted, and Mason had stuck around to fight like an idiot. Now he was gonna die like one.

A man dressed in eye-catching spandex sprinted past Mason with a murmured apology before he threw himself into the prawn’s face, entering the creature’s mouth and bursting out through the top of its skull in a rain of gore.

The monster collapsed to the ground, jaws inches away from Mason’s feet and the pool of blood around it.

When did that happen?! Mason thought, clamping his hands down on the bloody tear in his abdomen.

Mason leaned back against the concrete lip of the firing line and focused on breathing. He could taste blood and his lungs burned violently. Women with big red crosses on their helmets picked him up by the armpits and hauled him away.

The line faded from view as another batch of soldiers took their positions, squaring up like nothing had happened.

“Would one of you ladies marry me?” Mason asked, whatever they were pumping into his system loosening his tongue.

“What about Stacy?” one of the medics asked, raising a brow.

“Life’s too short to wait for Stacy,” Mason murmured, his head lolling from side to side.

“He’s on a lot of morphine,” the other medic said. “Don’t listen to what he’s saying. He won’t even remember it.”

“Screw Stacy,” Mason muttered, his vision fading. “I just want a nice girl to pamper me. I don’t wanna end up like my dad...”

***Perry***

Ants? ANTS?!

Like I would use ants.

Dave is a backward, grass-eating savage from a planet where they were still leeching people when High Tide forced them off-planet. Of course he doesn’t know about robotic arms and CAD.

Perry’s new plan was to use Dregor’s Binding on a miniature of the lot and Paradox it up a bit.

Perry understood why use the ants: because you would have to do all the fine detail work on the model in advance before the Binding spell was used. Any mistake or correction you tried to make would permanently scar the end result.

But if Perry had something that didn’t make mistakes and worked faster than ants? That would do what he wanted it to do.

I’m gonna need several robotic arms, a Terry-brain relay microchip, and a tiny processor and printer. Hmm, also 3D printer using Dregor’s Flaccidity to rearrange the model seamlessly.

That would certainly make the amount of materials I need far less.

The first step was creating a model using Miniature Vista.

Miniature Vista (Advanced Difficulty)

Ingredients: 4 compasses with Tengan bone needles. 3 eye of Earth-hawk, block of pure clay mixed with mimic blood.

Place the compasses at the four corners of the area to be modeled. More compasses may be used to define more specific borders.

Suspend the three eyes of the Earth-hawk ten drogo above the ground, equidistant from each other by two thirds the width of the area to be modeled. The hawk eyes must be facing inward and slightly downward.

The harnesses for the eyes cannot be blocking the vision of any of the other eyes, unless the user wishes to include it in the finished product.

The block of mimic-infused clay is placed at the center of the land to be modeled. Once the block has been set within sight of the eyes, the mimic blood will activate and begin to render the Miniature Vista, until all the compasses present have begun to point directly at the clay, at which point the model is fixed.

Well, that’s a pain in the butt.

But not impossible.

Perry got to work, sinking into the Tinker Twitch like a comfy pair of slippers.

The spell-frame took some complicated work, but he managed it by including drones, allowing the eyeballs to have unobstructed views of the landscape.

Perry was briefly tempted to make floating armament holsters for the eyeballs, but drones were less time-consuming to purchase and they didn’t have any magical ingredients that could have strange effects on the finished product, AND drones could be directed by the program, rather than needing Perry’s input.

The finished product looked like a bomb-defusing robot with a bunch of drones piggybacking.

All Perry had to do was spray-paint the corners of the lot with a specific reflective paint that would signal to the robot where the corners were.

Everything else was automatic.

LairFoundation.EXE

Perry watched with his arms crossed as the spell-frame wheeled over to the corners of the ruined lot, robot arm delicately placing one compass after another. Using the four corners as landmarks, the robot found the exact center of the lot and disgorged the lump of clay, while the three drones on its back took off.

The robot backed away and stopped next to Perry outside the lot, at which point the blinders were removed from the eyeballs, and the drones began slowly rotating in a perfect circle around the clay, the bird eyeballs scanning the entire lot. The drones were a Paradox addition.

In front of his eyes, the clay took on the shape and color of the damaged lot, right down to the bits and pieces of twisted sheet metal strewn across the abandoned storage facility, in perfect detail.

Once the compasses were locked in place, Perry shut off the spell-frame, recaptured the ingredients that weren’t consumed, and took the model of his lot back to his house.

The next part…was a little icky.

Dregor’s Binding (Intermediate Difficulty)

Ingredients: shadowcat umbilical cord, Prox semen

Create a likeness of a person, place, or thing. Accuracy of reproduction will affect strength of bond.

Create a diluted mixture. 1/500th shadowcat essence, 8/500th Prox essence, 491/500th water.

Soak the likeness in the diluted mixture of the two ingredients for several months while keeping the mixture completely isolated from sunlight, until it has become completely inundated by the mixture.

Once the result is bathed in sunlight, the Shadowcat umbilical will have a negative reaction that will trigger the essence of the Prox semen, binding the two objects together.

For a stronger result, infuse the primary object with Prox semen as well.

Which was how Perry found himself standing in the middle of his land the next day, hosing everything down with a custom-built hose attachment that added just a little bit of magical-creature….issue…to every gallon. He was wearing coveralls and a ballcap, not wanting to have to incinerate any of his good clothes.

Nor did he want to be recognized as the indiscriminate jizz-sprayer.

Magic is gross sometimes, Perry thought to himself, scowling and keeping his mouth closed tight behind the mask and eye goggles.

He tried to treat it like any other ingredient or spell he’d ever done…but nobody wanted magical jizz in the eyeballs or mouth.

Probably.

Once that was taken care of, Perry went back to his house and uncorked the depressurizer, allowing air back into the mixture.

What he’d done was taken a page from other high-tech infusions and run the mixture and the model through a depressurizer, allowing all the tiny air bubbles in the model to be replaced by the binding mixture.

In hours, not months.

When Perry pulled the replica of his land out of the depressurizer in the dark room, it felt like it had gained an extra ten pounds, which was exactly what he wanted.

Perry’s spell-frame quickly put the product in a ‘light oven’ that baked the result in full-spectrum light from every direction, even beneath it, making sure there was a strong, consistent reaction from the shadowcat essence.

Perry watched as the shadowcat essence fled the model in dark mists that rolled away from the piece. The absence seemed to liven the model and make it more realistic than before as a greyness he previously hadn’t noticed faded away.

Then Perry saw something interesting.

A tiny bit of garbage in the model was caught by the nonexistent wind and blew halfway across the miniature storage facility before it caught against a sharp piece of scrap metal, still flapping wildly in the wind.

Wow. That’s cool.

Once the model was done baking in artificial sunlight, Perry carefully lifted the entire thing and placed it in his newly created frame.

It was something out of a tinkerer’s wet dream: a cube frame of aluminum with dozens of tiny robotic arms bearing dozens of tiny cutters, welders, polishers, melters, scoopers, drip-catchers, Q-tips, and tiny little grippy hands.

Cost to repair storage facility traditionally: 2.75 million dollars.

Value once repaired: 2.55 million.

Total amount spent on ingredients thus far: 15k.

Let’s make some magic happen.

Perry took the contraption out to his lot and set it up so he could watch the action and turn it off if there was a hitch.

Once he had it set up and had situated himself and the controller in a life-guard-like chair overlooking the whole process, Perry flipped the machine on.

Lair.EXE

The first thing the tiny metal arms hovering over his model did was pick up all the debris.

Perry watched with glee as all the damaged bits and bobs began levitating to and fro with machine precision, levitating into giant, sorted, invisible cups, which were then subjected to a gentle Dregor’s Flaccidity.

Perry was even more gleeful when the scrap melted together and was set aside for future use with the 3D printer. The drills began to dig out the base of his lair, moving faster than a conventional construction team could ever hope to, the dirt, asphalt, and concrete sorted, melted, and set aside to be printed.

Waste not, want not, Perry thought as he settled back into his chair, unable to resist the urge to grin and steeple his fingers together.

“Um, excuse me, sir?”

“Eh?” Perry said, glancing over the edge of his observation chair. A couple stories below him was a police officer, craning his neck and shielding his eyes to look up at him.

“Do you have a permit, um…”

“Paradox,” Perry said. “And I’m not sure there is a permit for what I’m doing.”

“Can I get you to sign this?” the police officer asked, holding out a form of some kind.

Aw man, don’t ruin my buzz with bureaucracy.

Of course the police officer couldn’t make him do anything, but refusing to do so was a cowl move and would leave a lasting spot on his record.

Perry sighed and began climbing down, the land behind him continuing to be drilled, cut, and reformed by invisible tools.

Chapter 24: The Law of the Beach

That was a lot of permits, Perry thought, his head spinning from the sheer amount of paperwork required for doing a little innocent lairscaping in the middle of the city. And that was with John doing all the heavy lifting.

I haven’t really considered what kind of building I want above my lair, either. Perry didn’t really have enough materials to make something ostentatious like Locust’s. He didn’t have any appetite for a business like the bowling alley above Dave’s, either.

It presented itself as more of a headache than a useful source of income. Perry did not need a lot of money.

Just a hole in the ground and a sign that says ‘Definitely not a Lair!’

Perry was briefly jealous of Dad, who had his lair under a nice, comfy suburban house.

Living the dream, man.

That did galvanize Perry to decide on a business: a nice midrange motel. Somewhere with extra room and a decent-sized kitchen and rec room for when he wanted to host friends and team members, and the rest of the time it could be housing people for cheap.

Alright, I can do that, Perry thought, sinking into his Tinker Twitch as he began designing the layout and feeding it into the machine.

Inspected by a certified electrician, my ass.

Obviously the motel had to be able to take a bullet without appearing to be able to take a bullet. Thankfully with Perry’s perk affecting the finished product, that would not be a problem. Even the flimsiest motel walls were still a couple inches thick, and with Perry’s magical mystery machine printing them out of repurposed concrete harvested from the lair dig, they would be tough, yet thin and seedy-looking.

Perfect.

Plumbing, electricity, patching the hole I poked in the sewers… Oh heck, let’s add a swimming pool and gym.

Perry had been wondering about the compounding effect of Body on his strength.

It was probable that his modest 10.25% increase in Body had a greater-than 10.25% increase in his strength, as Body dictated both the strength of his muscles and the rate at which they healed from strain. In essence, he gained muscle 10.25% faster, lost it 10.25% slower, and what he had worked 10.25% harder.

The combined strength improvement had to be higher than what he’d originally estimated, if only marginally, and it would likely pay dividends to work out occasionally. Especially if Body prevented the loss of muscle, making infrequent workouts more productive.

Especially once we get to level three and those numbers pop up to 15.762%.

Perry had made a graph on an Excel spreadsheet and memorized most of it.

If we ever have Titan or other Bruisers over, we’re gonna need exercise equipment that can accommodate them.

For Bruisers, rather than weights, which took up far too much space and material, Perry eventually settled on something a bit like a Bowflex made with spring steel and reinforced by his perk to outlandish degrees of resistance.

It was a lot cheaper and more space-efficient than ten thousand pounds of lead on the end of a stick, anyway.

Despite high efficiency in repurposing materials, Perry still found himself short by a fair amount of copper, glass, tungsten filaments, plastic, etc.

He could buy them, but Perry knew of a place where he could get most of those raw ingredients for free.

Beach Cleanup!

Perry pulled out his phone and dialed up Titan while looking at the tide charts. The low wasn’t for another three or so hours, not until this afternoon, so there was time to make some plans.

“What’s up?” Titan’s voice echoed over the phone.

“First of all, what do you bench, and second, are you free for Beach Cleanup this afternoon?”

“Fifteen thousand pounds, and no, I’m not free. I’ve got plans.” Perry heard the phone shuffle around and what sounded suspiciously like a cat meowing. His suspicions were confirmed an instant later.

“Yes, you’ll get yours, Mr. Kitty, just be patient. Anyway, I’ve got plans and I submitted my number to Nexus as an emergency contact in case they need extra muscle on the wall. I’m basically on call all High Tide.”

“I see,” Perry said, deflating a little.

“You can definitely get Hardcase to go with you, though. Beach Cleanup is basically a Tinker convention; she’s been chomping at the bit to go since the moment the sirens went off, just hasn’t had enough backup to feel safe.”

“Good to know.”

“No problem. Later,” Titan said before hanging up.

Perry hung up and dialed Hardcase.

“What’s up, Paradox?” she asked, her voice unmodulated.

“Was thinking about going down to Beach Cleanup and—”

“I’m in, when and where?”

“Well…” Perry glanced down at his phone. “Water’s gonna be out for three hours starting around three p.m. As for where…southeast gate and walk a ways down the beach to get away from the crowds?”

“The crowds are safer…” Hardcase said with trepidation.

“I’ll come fully loaded,” Perry said. He had just bought some fresh ingredients, after all. “I’m also going to be bringing Star. Actually, she wants to be called Wraith.”

“Seems a little…”

“Evil? Yeah, I tried telling her that, but she insisted it was too metal to pass up, and the name wasn’t taken yet, strangely.”

“So she Triggered?”

“Yep.”

“That’s fantastic! Does she walk through walls or disapparate or something?”

“She gets selectively floppy.”

“Oh… Well, I’m sure she can figure something out?” Hardcase ended the sentence with a tentative question mark.

“She’s done more with less.”

“So two thirty, southeast gate?”

“Yep.”

Perry then dialed up Heather and got her on board by guaranteeing her a share even if she went missing.

Around two fifteen, Perry was staring up at the massive gate, a vault door of Tinker-made steel that stood twenty feet tall and just as wide, set into the enormous wall like a hatch.

It was being cracked open just wide enough to let people through, and people in spandex were lining up at the desk to be let out.

Beach Cleanup was a regular event during High Tide. The water wasn’t all the way up to the wall 100% of the time because the Earth was spinning and whatever was causing High Tide wasn’t geosynchronous, so when Earth faced away, the ocean actually went out for miles, revealing a massive vista of waterlogged gunk.

Needless to say, Perry had never been, since he was too young the last time, but he’d heard from his dad what it was like.

Free part bonanza, basically.

The replicators and prawns tore each other to pieces during High Tide and their scattered parts could be found all along the beach, from just up against the wall, all the way out several miles.

Needless to say, the farther out you went, the more dangerous it got, as a replicator or prawn could show up out of nowhere. It was also more lucrative to go out farther, because of reduced competition for parts and a higher density of them.

Given that Paradox, Hardcase, and Wraith could fly (in their suits), Perry estimated that they could go out a bit farther and just fly away if something looked dangerous.

It wasn’t long before Heather showed up, wearing the suit Perry’d made for her. She had a power now, but that didn’t mean she was very good at it yet, and the extra strength from the power armor would come in handy.

Hardcase showed up in her mechsuit, sending up a plume of dust as she landed beside them. Along for the ride was someone Perry was not expecting to see.

Warcry was riding on Hardcase’s shoulder and hopped off when the mechsuit landed.

Perry wanted to demand what Warcry was doing there, but Hardcase beat him to it.

“I told Warcry where I was going and she said she wanted to go all-out on something without having to worry about damages.”

“The beach is a good place for that,” Perry said with a shrug, mentally weighing whether the extra firepower was worth the headache.

Yes. More security is always better than less.

“Nexus buys replicator scrap at a hundred dollars a kilo,” Perry said. “Before we get started, is everyone on board with a four-way split? I assume Hardcase and I will take our quarters home, and Wraith and Warcry will be fine with monetary compensation?”

“Wraith?” Warcry asked.

“Isn’t it metal?”

“Heck yeah.” The energy user and the floppy girl fist-bumped.

“I’m not good enough with my power yet to switch to hyperweave, but it’s coming,” Heather said.

“Can’t wait.”

“You guys good with money? Do you care if Hardcase and I sort out the parts we want and leave the rest with you guys, as long as the weight distribution is still even?”

“Fine with me,” Warcry said. Heather nodded.

“Alright, let’s get in line.”

They got in line, and only spent a minute or two before they were at the front.

“Reason for exiting,” the man said with the most bored tone Perry had ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

“Beach Cleanup,” Perry responded.

“Sign this affidavit that you are, in fact, a super, understand the risks of beachcombing during High Tide, that you will be locked out by seven p.m., and all scrap must be run through a scanner at designated ports in the wall, and you hold Franklin City blameless in the event of your death or maiming.”

He handed Perry a piece of paper that said the same thing. Additionally, it had a spot for timestamps and weight recording.

“Sign that with your super name, then we can record how much scrap you brought in at the end of the night and compensate you for it.”

“What if I want to keep it?”

“You can follow your scrap through the scanner and pick it up on the other side, rather than release it to Franklin City,” the attendant said, his tone not shifting an ounce.

“Alright, thank you,” Perry said, signing the paper and stepping through the enormous vault door, and was suddenly blasted in the face with a gust of salty sea air.

It smelled mostly like ocean, with just a hint of rust and blood. The corpses of stranded fish in the shallow pools they’d been trapped in wouldn’t truly begin rotting before high tide covered them back up.

As far as the eye could see, the ocean had withdrawn, revealing floppy seaweed, stunted coral, and crabs hiding in the wettest little pools they could find or under the seaweed, waiting for the water to come back in.

There were Tinker beachcombers dotting the landscape nearly as far as the eye could see, pulling robotic parts out of the sand at a leisurely pace and dropping them into wheelbarrows, trucks, trailers—whatever they could afford.

A group of four young men were even playing volleyball close to the wall, their jetlike mechs parked beside them, some fifteen feet tall.

Hardcase joined him a moment later, and even through her modulated speakers, he could hear her sustained squeal of joy.

“Look at that! It’s a replicator Dreadnaught, and they’re just taking it apart.” She pointed off to the side, and Perry craned his neck, spotting a lump in the sand in the distance with tiny mechs crawling all over it.

Perry had assumed it was a rock formation or a hill.

Nothing like the giant corpse of a robot to get the greed pumping, Perry thought, resisting the urge to steeple his fingers or wring his hands melodramatically.

Not in front of Hardcase and Warcry, anyway.

Once Wraith and Warcry had joined them, Perry triggered the floating armaments he’d designed for the occasion.

A massive tub of phantom steel manifested beside him, along with several grabbers and a couple BFSes (Big Friendly Swords) just in case of robot or prawn attack.

The control symbol for each of them was carefully inked over a large portion of Perry’s body, ensuring that all of them would last at least until the next morning.

“The area around the wall’s already picked clean,” Perry said, pointing out towards the ocean. “Onward!”

Perry hopped into his massive tub and rode it like a minecart, heading southeast, aiming for unpicked stretches of beach.

“Oh my god, the mud is insane!” Warcry said, taking her shoes off and tossing them in Perry’s collection bin, the mud ankle-deep around her feet.

“You could ride in the bin?” Perry offered.

“And waste this opportunity to squish mud between my toes?” Warcry asked, seemingly offended at the mere suggestion. “You must be joking.”

“Jealous…” Heather said, her modulated voice wistful.

The energy user proceeded to carefully follow alongside the two power armors and mechsuit, wiggling her toes as she walked along the squishy seafloor.

Seems like a good way to step on a sea urchin, but what do I know? Paradox and Hardcase were perfectly happy not interacting with nature too much.

They found their first piece of scrap after about ten minutes of walking: a robotic arm with a nice actuator and tons of good wiring.

Nice.

Perry and the rest of the team spread out a little, keeping each other within about twenty feet in case they had to rush to assist each other. Warcry was in the middle as the glass cannon, with Perry and Hardcase forming the wings of the formation.

Once the wall shrank down to only about the height of his hand, the treasure hunting started getting real good. Perry was picking out arms, legs, processing cores, heads with delicate sensors inside, bulletproof glass, you name it.

The bin was getting pretty full of scrap when Hardcase’s excited voice interrupted Perry’s focus on the muddy seafloor.

“Oh my god, you guys!”

“What is it?!” Perry asked, whipping around to face their mechsuit teammate.

“I found a quantum foam battery! It’s in perfect shape inside a Flagship replicator’s torso!”

Quantum foam batteries were rare Tinker-tech that produced energy from maybe. They weren’t enough to run an entire mech at full tilt, but they produced a strong, steady current indefinitely, which could be saved up in other batteries while the suit wasn’t in use. In short, it could be used to make a suit that recharged itself.

The Flagship replicator must have gotten its battery from a Tinker’s suit at some point, as the machines couldn’t make the things themselves.

Perry would love to have one for his base, but he didn’t need it as bad as Heather probably did to keep her energy costs down.

“I’m heading over.”

“Same,” Heather said.

“Me too,” Warcry chimed in.

“Hey, back off our find!” Perry heard faintly as he approached the three of them.

The Flagship replicator was about the size of a small barn, with half of its torso torn out by prawn mandibles, exposing the glowing battery.

The replicator was just big enough that it had concealed another group of Tinkers approaching the robot from the other side.

It was a set of matching blue-and-white power armors, with fanciful swoops to the helmets and joints that suggested a focus on style over substance.

Since they’d been hidden behind the ruin itself, there was honestly no way of telling which of them had gotten to it first.

“What are you talking about? We found this!” Hardcase said, pointing at the half-buried robot.

“Nuh-uh, the Dynamic Duo found it first. Get outta here with your second-rate garbage and go back to picking up second-rate garbage. What is that, aluminum? Seriously?”

“Bro, there’s a quantum battery!” the right-hand power armor shouted, pointing at the glowing loot.

“Dude, nice!”

“That battery is MINE!” Hardcase shouted with a level of assertiveness that made Perry rock back on his heels in surprise.

“What are you gonna use it for, keeping the garage lights on? It’s obvious you don’t have anything big enough to make good use of it. I guess I can see how it would appeal to the poor, though,” the rightmost armor said.

“Oh, dear me, I can’t pay the electricity bills. I wish I could plug a six-million-dollar battery into my workshop and never have to worry about it again,” the left armor japed.

“Haha, yeah!”

That was my idea, yes, Perry admitted internally.

Hardcase’s mechsuit was trembling with rage, which was saying something, because her entire body would have to be violently shaking against the controls of her suit for that to happen.

“Hardcase found it first,” Perry said, stepping forward and showing solidarity in the hopes that it would calm Hardcase down before she started shooting and drove these jerks off.

Heather and Warcry wordlessly stood beside Hardcase, glaring at the two power armors.

“What, you think you can stand up to the Dynamic Duo?” the leftmost armor asked. “I haven’t heard of any of you no-name losers.”

“Paradox,” Paradox said, making sure to show off his Big Friendly Swords hovering behind him.

“Oh my god, it’s the Cardboard Kid!” the rightmost armor said, pointing at Perry. “I have heard of you! You may be a complete IDIOT, but fighting a prawn in a cardboard suit?! That takes cajones!”

“What is it, aluminum now? What alliterates with aluminum?” the left one said, musing. “Aluminum asshole?”

“Nice.”

They bumped fists with the distinctive clink of expensive Tinker-made advanced ceramics.

Wow. I am really mad right now, a tiny part of Perry’s brain thought idly as the rest of his body entered fight-or-flight mode, his Big Friendly Swords shivering in anticipation.

Perry took a deep, calming breath. It was always best to threaten murder with a clear head.

“Listen up,” Warcry said while Perry was forming a coherent sentence. “Hardcase is getting that battery. Whether that’s over a pile of scrap that used to be your armor… That part is up to you.”

To punctuate her statement, Warcry emanated sheets of crackling purple energy from her body.

“Gonna get violent?” Left said. “Attack us and watch yourself get put on the cowl list so fast, it’ll make your head spin.”

Warcry balled her hands into fists, biting her lip hard.

“But, seeing as we’re cool, we’ll allow you the opportunity to walk away with our battery.”

“There’s only one way of settling disputes on the beach,” Right said.

“Yeah, the law of the beach,” Left said.

The two of them went back-to-back in a move that had clearly been well-rehearsed. “Doubles beach volleyball.”

Perry frowned.

“Come again?”

Chapter 25: Replicator

“Alright, here’s the rules,” Left said as Right hung up the net, which had been suspiciously hidden behind the disabled replicator Flagship this entire time.

Now that Perry’s anger had cooled a bit from the name-calling, he was starting to get the suspicion that these guys just wanted to play volleyball, had absolutely no idea how to go about asking people, and were willing to give up on a six-million-dollar piece of hardware in order to pressure people into accepting. There was no way they’d been combing the beach long enough to know ‘the laws of the beach.’ Today was the second day after High Tide. There was only one other opportunity, and they obviously weren’t old enough to have been here last High Tide. They were making it up.

So…they’re rich, overconfident, socially awkward, and naive?

That about summed it up.

That is a laundry list of character defects. Some of which are going to be rectified today. Perry was still pretty steamed, even if it had chilled from murderous to simply vindictive.

“No tech, no powers, game is to fifteen points, winner gets the battery,” Left continued, unable to see Perry’s machinations behind his aluminum helmet. “Mechsuit has to play, because he wants the part. Second teammate is up to you.”

“Deal,” Hardcase said, her modulated voice severe.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Perry asked Hardcase.

“I want that battery,” Hardcase said.

“Yeah, but…” You’re buying into the narrative that they’ve established. There’s literally no Law of the Beach. The moment you agree to their terms, you’re already at a disadvantage.

If two guys practiced their poses, you can bet they practiced their volleyball game.

“Good luck, I guess,” Perry said with a shrug. It was too much effort to explain it to Hardcase in just a few seconds, and likely to land on deaf ears.

Hardcase’s cockpit opened with a hiss, the armored exterior opening to allow natural sunlight to enter. The panel swung away to reveal Hardcase adjusting a domino mask before she climbed out of the cockpit and onto the ground.

Hardcase stood about four foot nine, had long, thick black hair tied in a braid, and faint freckles peeking out from behind the domino mask.

She was also wearing a blue one-piece swimsuit that didn’t cover much of her butt or sides.

Not bad, Perry thought internally. Hardcase was small but proportional. The swimsuit seemed like a bit of a daring choice for someone who’d been fairly reserved in every interaction Perry’d ever had with her.

People will surprise you, I guess.

“We were going to the beach!” she protested as everyone stared at her. “I thought we might hang out for a while in the safe area once we were done beachcombing, and I might need a swimsuit, okay?!”

“Oh. You’re a girl,” Right said, freezing in place.

“Is that a problem?!” Hardcase demanded.

“No. No, it’s cool, it’s cool,” the two power-suits assured her hastily.

“Are you gonna come out of your suits or what?” Hardcase demanded before rounding on her companions. “Who’s playing with me?”

“I’d love to help you, babe, but I suck at volleyball, so…” Warcry said with a shrug.

“Wraith, if you wouldn’t mind…” Perry said. Heather had always been the more physical of the two.

“I’m gonna flush these turds,” Heather said, hitting the release latch on her armor and stepping out into the sand, squishing it happily between her toes.

Heather was wearing a bikini a couple shades darker than her hair.

“Am I the only one wearing normal clothes under my armor?” Paradox asked.

“It’s the beach,” Wraith said with a shrug. “You’re the weird one in this scenario.”

“Wow, um…are you guys all girls?” Left asked.

“Yes,” Paradox said, a vindictive plan beginning to surface in his mind. Warcry gave him a sideways glance, but Wraith and Hardcase were too focused to pay attention.

“Get down here and get ready to lose, you punks,” Heather said.

The two expensive armors opened up to reveal…

Teenage nerds who were more skin and bone than anything else, their skin blindingly pale in the afternoon sun.

They, too, were wearing swim trunks and domino masks.

This is ridiculous! Nobody is going swimming! Perry protested in his mind. Swimming in the ocean was sort of dangerous in the best of times, and right now it was freakin’ suicidal.

Still, that beacon of sanity in the dark abyss of teen madness had nothing to do with Perry’s plan for payback.

…Although, it was a good choice to pencil in a swimming pool at the motel.

Perry was momentarily distracted from his vendetta by Hardcase’s swimsuit and the possibility of seeing her in it on a more frequent basis.

“You know, I just realized, we don’t get anything if we win,” Left said.

“That’s right. I mean, the battery already belongs to us,” Right said.

“How about this? If we win, you girls get to go on a date with us.”

Perry didn’t think he could roll his eyes harder without snapping them off.

Back to our regularly scheduled vendetta.

If the disgust on Heather’s face was anything to go by, these guys were about to lose a game of volleyball.

But Perry didn’t plan on taking any chances.

“We didn’t get your names. Do you refer to yourselves individually as the Dynamic Duo?” Perry asked.

“Maximum Overdrive,” Left said, flexing nonexistent muscles.

“Terminal Velocity,” Right said, posing as well.

I’m just gonna keep calling them Left and Right.

“Hardcase,” Hardcase said.

“Wraith,” Heather said.

“Warcry,” Warcry finished for them.

Perry glanced over at the nerds’ armors, chest-pieces folded out to reveal the guts of the machines.

“Wow, is that dead-gel in there?” Perry asked. Dead-gel was a Tinker-tech that absorbed and diffused an insane amount of force, allowing the person inside to ride out shockwaves and blunt force relatively unscathed.

Perry could probably do the same with oobleck.

“You’ve got good eyes, babe,” Right said. “That stuff cost a pretty penny, but it’s worth it. Not only does it protect, it’s also modified to keep the interior a comfortable seventy degrees no matter what.”

“These things are really top-of-the-line,” Perry said, moving closer to the suits and peering in. “Is this a shield generator? I’m so jealous!”

“Yeah, it’s pretty tight,” Left said, smirking. “The armor’s made out of an advanced ceramic put together by nanobots, with graphene filaments strewn throughout that act both as structural reinforcement, processing, and wiring. It can learn and grow as the connections form, and the exterior plating is immune to any form of radiation.”

“Yeah, any kind of Tinker ray you can imagine, it’ll just bounce right off of it,” Right said. “Lasers, shrink rays, death rays, you name it.”

“Sounds like these things are a work of art,” Perry said, genuinely sorry to destroy good armor owned by bad people.

“Hell yeah, baby. Maybe I’ll give you a ride in it sometime.”

Then again…

Click.

Melt.EXE

The two flamboyant armors collapsed into puddles in the sand.

Perry glanced over at the two kids staring at the colorful puddles on the ground.

“Wow, it’s a good thing I managed to stop that prawn before it got to you,” Perry said, pointing at an obviously dead prawn mostly buried in the muck and covered in sand, some fifty yards distant.

“Shame your suits were in the way. I figured they were immune to Tinker rays based on what you said, but I guess not.”

You’re in my narrative now, jerks!

A thin, reedy whine emanated from Right’s slack mouth while Left swallowed a lump of heartache, his expression the picture of grief.

Heather picked up on the narrative shift quick, breaking into a malicious grin. “Quick reactions, Paradox. It’s a good thing you didn’t let that monster sneak up on us while we were playing volleyball. We could’ve been seriously injured. Even killed. You saved everyone.”

“Nice save, Paradox,” Warcry said with matching venom.

Hardcase seemed lost. “But…umm…what— Was there actually a prawn attacking?” she asked, glancing around nervously.

“What-you-what the you-how,” Left spluttered, impotent rage beginning to boil over.

Perry basked in it, breathed it in like ambrosia.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe now. You guys can go back to your volleyball game,” Perry said. “Just to be perfectly clear, though, we’re taking the battery. And you’re not getting a date.”

“You wretched— You attacked us, and now you’re trying to rob us!”

“I don’t think you’ve seen me attack you.”

Perry’s Big Friendly Swords swooped down from above and penned the two in like a gigantic pair of scissors that would have no difficulty whatsoever snipping them in half.

“Would you like to?” Perry asked.

The silence was deafening as they stared each other down.

“Run, little piggies.” Perry’s modulated voice rumbled out of his helmet, his swords scraping against each other as they closed around the two.

That was all it took to break their bravado, and the two teens began sprinting toward the wall.

“That was cold, Paradox,” Heather said, nodding. “I approve.”

“You’ll regret this!” Left shouted over his shoulder as he ran.

“The Dynamic Duo never forgets a slight!”

Perry did regret it, and much sooner than he’d anticipated.

When the Dynamic Duo was about a hundred feet away, the sand of the beach burst upwards as a damaged replicator hauled itself out of the damp seafloor, towering over the naked Tinkers.

Left and Right skidded to a halt and began backpedaling as the mud refused to hold them upright.

“Shit,” Perry muttered, lunging forward before the sand even cleared, his jets sending up a spray of sand and mud as he tore along the ground. Having disarmed them, Perry viscerally felt that their safety was his responsibility.

“EEEK!” Hardcase squealed, backpedaling towards the safety of her mechsuit.

“Crap!” Heather bolted forward, heedless of her abandoned power armor. Seemingly without conscious thought, her legs lengthened as she ran, giving her inhuman speed.

“YES!” Warcry bellowed in exaltation, riding a wave of neon purple energy into the sky.

“Oh god, oh god,” Left was muttering, even paler than before as his friend tried to pull him out of the mud he’d fallen in.

The massive replicator was missing an arm, arcs of electricity snapping from its ruined stub. The creature’s armor was torn asunder, revealing the damaged circuitry and engines that had taken the place of a living creature’s organs. Its sensors were cracked atop its massive bronze-colored head shaped like a bunker, and a long prawn mandible was embedded in the creature’s skull.

The replicator’s remaining skeletal limb was deceptively thin, but absolutely massive when compared to the cowering Tinkers in front of it. The robot’s head swiveled a hundred and sixty degrees to peer down at the sounds coming from beneath it.

The robot’s arm, longer than Left and Right standing on top of each other, rose above its head as it carried out its End-of-Life Protocol.

When a replicator knew it wasn’t going to survive, it didn’t hesitate to take as many enemies of its species down with it as possible. And they were a lot smarter than prawns.

“Get back!” Perry shouted, his Big Friendly Swords arriving before he did, catching the lumbering machine’s metallic arm and pinning it above its head.

The creature spun in place, the joint in its restrained arm able to make a 360 degree turn without difficulty, bringing the sparking stump of  its other arm to bear with the intention of frying the hapless dudebro wannabes.

Thankfully, they had managed to scramble backwards when he’d caught the arm, and were just a few feet out of the robot’s range.

Perry set Melt.EXE to a tight beam so he didn’t hit bystanders, and fired a shot.

The robot reacted with stunning swiftness, moving out of the way barely a blink of an eye after the spell had begun, its reaction time nearly incomprehensible.

Most of Perry’s shot went wide, possibly ruining some beachgoer’s day.

The creature slipped out of Perry’s hold and tapped its side, where he’d softened the metal a bit, before looking back up at him.

The few functional sensors remaining in the robot’s ‘head’ constricted, focusing on Perry’s arm.

“Oh cra—”

The silver bowl’s resonant frequency blasted out of the robot’s body, focused and highly directed, causing the spell-frame to explode against Perry’s arm.

HP: 2

Perry bobbed and weaved as a massive metal arm whipped past where he’d been standing. When he got a moment, he peered at his arm. The armor had been punctured by an exploding bit of silver, a testament to the sheer amount of energy that had been injected into it.

Or more likely, some softening took place when the sound traveled through the part of the armor that holds the Flaccidity mixture. I can’t see silver making it through the armor otherwise.

An unforeseen weakness, but making it so that the mixture is created on demand would add unnecessary extra cast time.

Solution: Add sound insulation to the container.

“WHOOO!” Wraith shouted, jumping high in the air, aiming for the robot’s face.

It smacked Heather out of the air, her spine wrenching violently, and for a heart-stopping moment, Perry thought his friend was dead.

Then she wrapped around the arm and started crawling up it like a snake, cackling all the while.

The robot, unimpressed, touched Heather’s stretched-out body to its damaged arm.

“OW!”

The electricity caused Heather to snap back to solidity an instant before getting punted far into the distance, arms flailing as she screamed, her bikini fluttering to the seabed.

Huh.

“Heads up!” Warcry shouted from above.

The energy-wielder rode a massive sheet of purple energy down into the robot. The creature dodged, losing a foot to the energy guillotine and firing back with a backhand.

Perry interposed his swords, but the replicator bulled right through them, catching Warcry in the abdomen.

The swords and hyperweave absorbed a majority of the blow, but Warcry still went flying.

The robot peered down at its missing foot and adapted instantly.

It adopted a terrifying, lurching two-legged gait involving its good leg and arm, aiming for the unarmored pair, head sticking off the side like ornamentation.

Its algorithm recognized that they would be the easiest to finish off before it died, and had prioritized them.

Perry grabbed the two with his beachcombing armaments and played keep-away, putting himself directly in front of the machine’s charge.

Perry’s armor might be tougher, stronger, and more powerful pound-for-pound than the machine by a large margin…

But the thing had quite a few pounds on him.

Perry braced his back with one sword while attacking the robot’s exposed core with the other.

BANG!

The robot’s wounded foot clubbed him hard, sending him reeling, but the massive blade reinforcing his back prevented him from going flying like the others.

When Perry’s vision cleared from the hit, he spotted his massive sword stuck deep into the creature’s torso.

It must not have been instantly fatal, because the machine was still moving, but it was now leaking glowing goop everywhere it went.

That can’t be healthy.

The heavily-damaged robot looked up at the two jerks floating high above in Perry’s magical collection bin, peering over the edge in terror.

It looked at Perry’s sword floating beside him, made of an identical material.

It looked at Perry.

It knew it wouldn’t be able to get to the easy prey if it didn’t go through him first. So that’s what it decided to do. The lumbering bot the size of a small bus began sprinting toward him on its two good limbs.

Now that I have your undivided attention…

Perry weaponized his HP.

If he could take force equivalent to a cannon, then didn’t that imply he could survive being a cannonball?

Perry turned every jet to max and flung himself wildly at the charging bot.

BANG!

HP: 1

Perry’s body didn’t rupture violently as his inertia did a paste-making about-face, but he did lose one HP.

Don’t try this at home, kids.

The robot staggered back, but its reactions were as quick as ever, and it snatched up Perry’s face in the middle of its stumble, aiming to crush his head in its grip before it had even recovered its balance.

Perry brought his sword down on the creature’s wrist, forcing the single-bladed buster sword down even harder by pushing the cutting blade with the back of the other one.

Perry and the creature’s arm were crushed into the sand by the force of the blow.

Perry stumbled back. The hand was disconnected, but it was locked in place around his head.

“Watch out!” Hardcase’s modulated voice shouted and Perry jumped back blindly.

Out of the corner of his helmet’s field of view, he saw Hardcase’s mechsuit crush the robot into the mud, bringing the heavyweight to counter the robot’s heavy weight.

“Now!” Hardcase shouted, leaping aside.

The robot was unable to pull itself out of the muck before Warcry’s powerful blast bisected it once, twice, three times before the young energy user was satisfied.

Severely weakened replicator pawn defeated! +50 XP

Perry panted with exertion. Despite the fight only lasting maybe thirty seconds, it felt like he’d just run a marathon.

And it busted my spell-frame. Dangit.

Perry had heard replicators were quick on their feet, but experiencing it was a completely different thing.

If the robot had any inkling that Perry’s suit wasn’t pressure-wave proofed, it would’ve used the same technique to paste him inside his suit.

Really gotta get started on a Mk. III, Perry thought as he sat down to catch his breath.

“That was awesome!” Left shouted as he lowered them to the ground.

“We’re still mad at you, though,” Right said, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, we rescind the date offer for Paradox. The other girls are welcome, though.”

“I’m a dude,” Perry said.

“You LIED to us?!” Right demanded, aghast with honest-to-god indignation.

“Why do you get to hang out with three cute girls and we—”

“Get the heck outta here!” Perry growled, pointing at the wall.

The two Tinkers yelped and ran.

“What’d I miss?” Heather asked, arriving in her armor.

“Warcry finished it off.”

Heather sighed and clenched her fists. “I need practice. I sucked. Barely did anything.”

“I dunno, it was pretty impressive you’re still alive after taking two hits from that thing with zero armor. He literally kicked you out of your bikini. Normal person would be pasted.”

“No, that was more the shapeshifting’s fault than the kick.”

“Ah.” Perry thought about it. Mom mentioned Morph having a similar power. “Maybe we can get on YouTube and watch some of Morph’s fights, and you can practice moves on me?”

“Sounds good.”

“Paradox!” Hardcase shouted, her mech pointing out towards the ocean.

The pile of scrap they’d collected was slowly being consumed by the incoming tide. Beyond that, Hardcase’s hard-won battery was mere feet away from being submerged.

“I’d say it’s about time to head in for the night,” Perry said, scooping up all the scrap he could with the massive bin, while his grabbers unscrewed the quantum foam battery.

“Agreed,” Warcry said, casting a tense glance at the ocean.

In a matter of minutes, where they stood would be underwater and teeming with prawns.

They snatched up their loot and started running, making it back to the gate a mere fifteen minutes before it closed for good.

Chapter 26: Perry’s a Ticking Time Bomb, AKA Maths Make Numbers Go Much Biggening

The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest.

—Albert Einstein

After Perry dropped off a man-sized chunk of prawn he’d snagged off the beach to the humanoids hunting people in the back alleys, he went back to his house and got verbally reamed for a good half hour for nearly getting people killed at the beach.

His mom for going too far, his dad for not going far enough.

Perry just wondered how they knew.

By the time Perry finally went to bed, he was exhausted and passed out in a matter of seconds.

There was so much to do tomorrow.

***Tomorrow***

Perry inspected the seedy two-story motel.

The walls were thin, but strong and durable, the rooms chintzy-looking. The water pressure, internet, and electricity were good, though. Perry didn’t bother making those poor to maintain the façade.

There was an empty pool in the back, just waiting to be filled up, surrounded on three sides by the back of the motel, offering it a fair amount of privacy despite being right next to the road.

The gym had weights for civvies, and Bowflexes with steel cable and spring steel as thick as Perry’s arm for the Bruisers.

The rec room had pool, ping-pong, a couple discount TVs, some dead consoles he’d resoldered, some video games…

The carpets were weathered and stained with unknown fluids, but clean. There were some refurbished couches and a beanbag.

In short, the place was objectively as comfortable as mathematically possible. Too ostentatious and people would be afraid of relaxing. It had that lived-in feel that would encourage people to slouch, spill their drinks, and eat chips on the couch.

Perry was pretty proud of that part.

Perry didn’t have the materials to make a secret elevator, so he’d just taken a page from Dave’s book and made a staircase in the manager’s office.

Underground was much more unfinished.

The lair was a huge open space, filled with heavy-duty power hookups and vents. His previous workshop took up a tiny corner of the space, covered in C-4 smudges.

The industrial chemistry equipment was on order, but since it was High Tide, shipping was delayed, of course.

Still, Perry could easily picture his lair filled, humming with power as one project after another was developed.

He felt a manic chuckle rising from inside. There were no capes around to give him funny looks, after all, so he went ahead and did it.

“MUAHAHAHAH!”

Quest Complete!

Make a proper lair!

Reward: 300 XP, Lair

Congratulations! You are now a level 3 Garage Tinker.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 3

HP: 4

Body: 3

Stability: 3

Nerve: 6

Attunement: 12

Free Points: 4

XP to next level: 1848

“Hah, hah…ha….”

Perry did a mental double take at his free points. It was one point higher than it should’ve been, confirming a suspicion he’d been harboring.

Oh my god. I think Attunement affects the Generalist perk.

Perry ran over to his computer and opened his Excel spreadsheet.

He’d made a handy graph for the multiplicative power of a stat at any given level.

He made a new line and entered in his levels in a column, from one to twenty, then started crafting a formula for his Attunement growth in the other.

Let’s see, there’s 3 guaranteed stat points based on the standard +1 free floating per level and +2 Attunement per level, automatically.

That’s three points that never change. Now…it SEEMS like Attunement affects the Generalist perk, which normally gives me two extra points per level.

Last level, I hit 10 Attunement.

Perry glanced over at his stat column and slid down to 10.

1.628

2*1.628=3.256 extra stat points from the Generalist perk.

Math checks out. Presumably it was rounded down.

Three free points, and two more points modified by my Attunement level.

In the level 1 row, Perry entered 5, the amount of Attunement he’d had at level one, then crafted a formula directly beneath it in the level 2 row.

=ROUNDDOWN(L2+3+(2*1.05^L2), 0)

L2 being the cell directly above that had his level one Attunement, or 5 in this case. The ‘0’ told the round-down function to round down to the nearest whole number.

So the function looked like this: 5+3+(2*1.05^5), rounded down to the nearest whole.

It gave back 10.

Heart pounding, Perry extended the spreadsheet down, each function grabbing the numbers from the previous one.

His skin went cold.

The list looked a little something like this:

Level | Attunement
1 | 5
2 | 10
3 | 16
4 | 23
5 | 32
6 | 44
7 | 64
8 | 112
9 | 587
10 | 5.48465E+12

11

#NUM!

12 | #NUM!
13 | #NUM!
14 | #NUM!
15 | #NUM!
16 | #NUM!
17 | #NUM!
18 | #NUM!
19 | #NUM!
20 | #NUM!

A tingle went up Perry’s spine.

Is that right? IS THAT RIGHT?! HOLY HELL, IS THAT RIGHT?!!!

It looked right based on the gut check, until it got to level eight and went freakin’ bananas.

Perry painstakingly did the math for each cell until he got to level eight.

112+3+(2*1.05^112) = 587.314

587+3+(2*1.05^587) = 5,484,645,342,965.424

Five Trillion.

Four hundred and eighty-four billion.

Six hundred and forty-five million.

Three hundred and forty-two thousand.

Nine hundred and sixty-five!

STAT POINTS!

AT LEVEL TEN!

Perry leapt out of his chair, his heart slamming in his ears as he shut off the monitor.

He didn’t want anyone to see that.

ANYONE.

Not his parents, not Heather, not himself. Nobody. Perry wished he could scrub it out of his memory, so mind readers couldn’t catch wind of it.

All of Perry’s hair stood on end on the back of his neck.

His math was showing him that he could become strong enough to spank Solaris like a willful child at level ten, should he continue putting all of his free points into Attunement.

That was no good.

Perry had something of an insider view into ‘the business’ since he was twelve and caught his parents duking it out in spandex during a field trip.

Supers strong enough to destroy the world tended to get dogpiled. Which he definitely would be by level 11, if not 10.

There were a lot of people, on both sides of the aisle, who wouldn’t hesitate to kill him before he became strong enough to wipe out a city by accident. Most of them, even.

One kid in exchange for millions of potential victims if he ever made a mistake or got angry? The math checked out. Perry wouldn’t fault them for making that trade. Even the combined wrath of Mechanaut and Hexen was a goddamn fart in the wind compared to the damage Perry would be able to do in the future.

The protection his parentage offered him was cosmetic in relation to that staggering number.

Perry paced back and forth, his heart slamming in his chest as he tried to think it through.

There was no reason he had to keep growing Attunement exponentially. Except it would be like kneecapping himself in order to stay secret.

If anyone did figure it out, though, he would be kneecapped and have a harder time defending himself.

So, go for broke, or try to fly under the radar?

The deciding factor was when he glanced at his stats.

At level 9, his Body would be 9, with 10 HP.

Not even double human standard, and he’d die on the 11th hit.

Didn’t matter how high his Attunement got, someone would be able to kill him easily by bypassing his inventions and going straight for the squishy meatsack.

I guess it depends on whether or not I can hit level ten before anyone realizes what’s going on. I could easily divert a couple million points into Body, Stability, and HP. Then I’m untouchable.

Perry sat back down and opened up his spreadsheet, deleted the newest cells, then went to the XP graph he’d been putting together. It appeared that he needed 25% more XP for each level, and his current level confirmed this trend.

So…

Level | XP to Next Level
1 | 1250
2 | 1562.5
3 | 1953.125
4 | 2441.406
5 | 3051.758
6 | 3814.697
7 | 4768.372
8 | 5960.464
9 | 7450.581
10 | 9313.226

In the last month, I’ve accumulated ~3800 XP.

1000 to get to level one, 1250 for level two, 1562 to hit level 3.

Perry selected all the XP-cost cells between level 3 and 9 and auto-summed them.

29,440.4

Let’s be conservative and remove the first 1000 XP I got. That probably is statistically unlikely to happen again.

2800 XP a month, est.

1 year.

One year from now, should he stay the course, he could be…something beyond human understanding.

If he diverted so much as a single point into something other than Attunement, the numbers dropped drastically.

Spread my stats out and become an amazing superhero beloved the world over?

Feed Attunement until level 10 and become God?

…Mom and Dad always say aim high.

Decision made, Perry ripped his sweet custom-built computer out of the wall and smashed it on the concrete floor, then slagged it with thermite. Deleting was not thorough enough. Not with technopaths out there.

The only place the spreadsheet remained was in his head.

Need counterintelligence. NOW.

***Later***

“You seem distracted,” Heather said.

“Hmm?” Perry hummed, pulled out of his thoughts by the tap on his shoulder.

“You don’t look so hot. What’s up? I thought you’d be thrilled to finally have your own lair.” She spread her arms and motioned to the vast underground space he’d carved out under the motel.

Honestly, it was mid-low tier for a lair. Way, way better than before, but still pretty underwhelming, in both size and defenses. Perry’s rush of joy from making this one had already faded when he realized it might eventually be measured against the strongest that planet Earth had to offer.

It would fold like tissue paper.

“It’s good. I’m just thinking about how to stop my parents from spying on me,” Perry said.

And thereby avoiding people killing me because I might accidentally destroy the solar system next year by making a gizmo that inadvertently creates a black hole.

“They’re too nosy,” Perry finished with a thin smile. It felt fake, even to him.

“Something you wanna tell me?” Heather asked, reading him like a book.

“Well, yes, but operational security dictates I keep it to myself. It’s seriously bad news if a mind reader gets wind of it,” Perry said.

Imagine me being some Minder’s puppet with limitless power. Another doomsday scenario.

“Alright, that’s all you gotta say,” Heather said, backing off.

Perry had done a little more mental math over the last few hours. Even if he spent half the stat points he got every level on something else, he would still go supercritical by level 13. About two years’ worth of XP, by Perry’s reckoning.

He couldn’t guarantee the numbers were perfectly accurate…but they were close.

He could spend ninety-five percent of all the free points he got on something other than Attunement, and he would go supercritical around level 20. About fifteen years from now.

The thing that really made him sweat?

If Perry put absolutely ZERO points into Attunement, it would still go up by two points per level.

At level thirty-five, he would be getting eighty-two stat points.

All those points and the ones preceding it had to go somewhere.

Assuming an even split between HP, Body, Nerve, and Stability, that would be approximately two hundred and fifty points in every stat.

It would take three hundred and seventy-three years to reach level thirty-five…but Perry was likely to actually live that long.

If Body slowed the aging process, then dumping a quarter of his points into it would buy him too much extra time, and his stats would eventually go supercritical, somewhere around level three hundred.

So Perry’s choices had been boiled down to:

A: Willingly commit suicide by time.

Or,

B: Watch his stats inflate exponentially, whether he wanted them to or not, as his friends and family withered and died around him over the eons, until eventually he ripped the fabric of spacetime by existing.

Or,

C: Die violently in a fight somewhere.

There was always the option of not spending his points, but that fell under ‘suicide by time.’

Perry’s skin was gripped with a cold sweat as existential dread of the inevitable filled every nerve. It felt like his entire world was fading away and nothing existed outside save his whirling thoughts and the fear of the choice between death and infinite suffering.

Perry caught a glimpse of Heather’s worried expression.

It filled him with a candle flame of hope that dispelled the looming dread.

You know what, screw that. By that measurement, my Nerve should be at least a hundred by the time I’m old.

Nobody ever said the System can’t be modified. Dad may not understand it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be able to. I’ll figure out the solution.

The chances of it being truly unlimited exponential growth just means that eventually it has to make me smart enough to come up with the perfect solution to the problem of unlimited exponential growth.

If it’s not unlimited, then I’m worried about nothing.

And besides. Who knows what I’ll be like when I’m three hundred years old? Maybe I’ll be fine with killing myself around then. This only becomes a problem if I stubbornly try to live forever.

The last vestiges of the looming dread dissipated, and Perry felt like he’d gotten a new lease on life.

He could always kill himself. No matter what, he had the power to end his own life.

Fear of death was what had locked him into that hypothetical eternity of torment. Why not just punch your own ticket when you were old as balls and ready to check out?

Perry wasn’t ready to die NOW. But three hundred years from now…who knew?

“Figure something out?” Heather asked, glancing up at his relieved expression curiously.

“Yeah. I decided to kill myself,” Perry said.

“What, WHY?!” Heather demanded.

“Your pretty face,” Perry said with a genuine smile.

Heather punched him in the shoulder.

Chapter 27: Gym

“Dad!” Tom and Felix called as they stormed into the mansion.

“In the reading room!” Dad’s voice emanated from down a side hall.

They stormed over to the reading room, angry enough to ignore their aching feet. They hadn’t been planning on walking home barefoot.

“Dad, this—”

“Hold it right there,” Dad said, peering out from behind his book. The Tinker looked his sons up and down, taking in their ragged states, wearing only swim trunks, bruises, and mud.

“Stay in the hallway,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. “I don’t want Amy to have to clean this room too. Looks like you two had a fun day at the beach?”

“Dad, this punk destroyed our armor and stole our battery!” Tom said. “The one we planted to force people to play volleyball with us!”

“Help us ruin his life!” Felix added.

Dad rubbed his temples. “What’s his name?” Dad asked.

“Paradox.”

“Oh.” Dad paused, staring out into the distance. “Young guy, about five ten, dark hair, green eyes?”

“He never left his armor.”

“Armor?” Dad asked, frowning. “Maybe it’s some other kid?”

“Dad, he melted our armor with a Tinker ray! You said that was impossible.”

“It is impossible. It wasn’t a Tinker ray that hit your suits; it was magic.”

“Like the magic our housekeeper uses?” Felix asked.

“There’s more than one kind of magic, boys,” Dad said.

“Look, normally I would move heaven and earth to soothe your petty butthurt, but in this case, I’d rather not die or get turned into a frog. Getting your ass kicked builds character. You should do it more often. I used to get my ass kicked all the time and look at me now.”

Metalon went back to his book, ignoring his sons.

“And eat some food and get some exercise, seriously. You two look like what’s under Death’s robe.”

***

After his sons left, the super shook his head, chuckling. “A mage in power armor. What will the world come up with next?”

Idly, the Tinker looked up Paradox’s wiki.

There were pictures of the newcomer battling Locust and a picture of him sitting on the curb in a shredded suit of cardboard armor, his elbows on his knees, head hung in exhaustion, his armor torn away to reveal his abs.

He’d been dubbed the ‘cardboard kid’ after that fight, before his official name had become public.

The rabid super-groupies were already tossing around theories on the boy’s powers, generating a long discussion chain at the bottom of the page of ‘facts known.’

Material reinforcement, obviously. -Nigelwashere

I think it’s less reinforcement and more getting things to do stuff they’re not supposed to, hence the name Paradox. Material reinforcement doesn’t explain the floating, see-through knives. -BreedmeSolaris

Did you see those abs? The cardboard was torn almost down to his co—

Metalon scrolled down until he found a post that confirmed his suspicions.

The knives look like a spell called Kolath’s Floating Armaments.

A picture was provided of a mage super in Funkytown using six floating swords of the same color and clarity.

I’d bet my bottom dollar that Paradox is a mage/Tinker duo. The Tinker provides cheap armor and Paradox wears it. The techy look of the knives is a red herring. -PushesUpHisGlasses

Yeah, that’s probably Hexen’s kid, Metalon thought, scrolling back up the wiki. Where’d he get the Tinker who can reinforce materials? A friend?

There were more pictures of him hanging out with a group called the East Block Defenders: a relatively new group of supers who’d been gaining traction on the east side, under the wall.

A temp member, one Star, was wearing identical armor. There was the Tinker.

On a shaky video filmed by a civvy with more balls than sense, was Paradox shooting something at Tung-Stan out of his forearm, which caused the elemental to buckle and fall, allowing Titan to get the finishing blow.

Was that a melt ray?

Or was it a melt spell?

Metalon couldn’t discount the possibility of the little disc that popped out of Paradox’s armor being a red herring, and Paradox cast the spell himself.

But why would he do that?

Metalon tapped his finger on the desk beside him, pondering.

Paradox was living up to his name.

***Perry***

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 3

HP: 4

Body: 3

Stability: 3

Nerve: 6

Attunement: 16

Free Points: 0

XP to next level: 1848

After taking some time to calm down, Perry had come to the conclusion that he was probably overreacting.

There were a million ways the world could keep his powers in check.

XP might start getting harder and harder to get, soft-capping him at level nine. He could be wrong. Attunement might have a cap on the amount it could affect the Generalist perk.

And so many more possible caps to his growth he couldn’t even imagine. Nature tended to interfere with unchecked exponential growth.

He still needed to increase his counterintelligence, though.

And a new computer. Man, I was really freaking out.

And some time to design my new spell-frames.

And a new suit.

And a better lair.

The list of things Perry needed to do vastly outweighed the amount of time he had.

Especially today.

Today, he was setting aside time for Heather and increasing her combat efficiency. Titan had offered himself as a punching bag, and the rest of the team had followed suit.

“Wow!” Titan said, entering the gym. “You built all this in two days?”

“Yep,” Perry said, leaning against the wall as the East Block Defenders gawked.

“So you own a motel now?” Hardcase asked, frowning.

“I guess,” Perry said with a shrug. “Haven’t talked to my lawyer about it yet, but I’m sure he can set me up with a manager.”

“Wheeee!” Manic was outside in his swim trunks, running across the length of the pool, sending up a spray of chlorinated water as he passed.

Jetset had already begun lifting weights on a nearby bench.

“How did you do all this so fast? Where’d you get the equipment?” Hardcase asked.

“Trade secret, sorry,” Perry said.

“Is this what I think it is?” Titan asked, pointing at the giant Bowflex made of solid spring steel reinforced by Perry’s perk.

“Sure is,” Perry said. “Knock yourself out.”

Titan gave a squeal of joy and set the bows to eight thousand pounds apiece before he began doing butterflies by drawing the two handles towards each other. The slabs of spring steel bent precipitously as the huge Bruiser did his reps.

“I haven’t been able to work out since I Triggered,” Titan said with a grin. “I hear Nexus has a gym for Bruisers, but I’ve never been.”

“That’ll be five thousand dollars,” Perry said, holding out his hand.

“Umm…”

“I’m kidding. You guys are welcome to visit whenever you want. That’s what I made the place for, after all.”

“Five grand probably isn’t a bad monthly fee,” Titan said, switching the configuration on the machine to a different exercise.

“Eh?” Perry asked.

“I think you underestimate exactly how hard it is to find a gym with facilities for a Bruiser. I’m also a millionaire now. So it’s not actually that big a problem.”

“Lucky,” Hardcase muttered. “I spent all mine on new parts.”

“Bought my parents a new place,” Jetset said.

“Manic lost half of his on a bad investment, and ate the other half,” Hardcase said, glancing outside at the Speedster.

“Well, I still got two mil! In bitcoin!” Warcry said from the rack of weighted balls.

Perry glanced at Titan.

“I got together with a lawyer, established a trust that owns a paper business that in turn owns a variety of dividend-paying, low-risk ETFs, paying about one hundred and twenty thousand a year into a separate account earmarked for paying infrastructure damages and petty spending. As the trust is the legal owner of that money, and a legally separate entity from me, should I get sued for any reason, they can’t take it from me,” Titan said, wiping off the bench with a towel like a polite gym-bro, as if some other person was going to walk in off the street and start benching ten thousand.

“What are you, seventy? Purchase growth stocks like a normal person your age. The return is higher,” Perry said.

“I’m more concerned with keeping the lights on and a steady paycheck for my secretary,” Titan said. “Constantly selling my growth stocks to achieve that would be beside the point.”

“Why is Titan the only one who has his life together?” Perry assumed it was because the man was at least eight years older than his teammates.

“Superpowers foster an ‘easy come, easy go’ mentality towards money,” Titan said with a shrug. “I could make ten grand a night as a security guard.”

He pointed at Hardcase. “Hardcase, here, could probably earn a half mil a month at the Workshop. The non-penal portion of it, anyway.

“Manic’s abilities are always in demand. Jetset…well, he can fly. Somebody’s gotta be paying for that…probably.”

“Hey!” Jetset said from his machine, where he was benching one eighty.

“Before you get too burned-out on the exercise equipment,” Perry said, motioning to where Heather was limbering up, wearing a hyperweave suit that had set Perry back nearly fifty grand.

“Sounds good,” Titan said, nodding, approaching the sparring mat.

“Don’t hit him in the head until you know if he can take it!” Perry shouted to Wraith. Heather nodded. Titan frowned but kept walking.

Perry spotted Hardcase looking around the gym nervously.

“What’s up? Exercise is good for the brain. You don’t have to get muscly, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I, umm…don’t know how to use any of the equipment,” Hardcase admitted, shifting from foot to foot and tapping her fingers together.

“Well, why don’t we start with the treadmills. Those are pretty easy to figure out, plus they’ve got a great view of Titan getting beat up by a girl.”

Hardcase nodded and the two Tinkers jogged side by side while Titan acted as the guinea pig for Heather’s newest moves.

“Good afternoon, Wraith. What are you planning on doing to me today?” Titan asked.

“You’re gonna find out,” Heather said with a grin.

The spar started and Heather leapt towards Titan.

Titan kept his distance and jabbed out with his oversized arm.

Copying her move from the fight with the robot, she folded around his arm and started oozing up it.

Titan reacted instantly, twisting his body and whipping his arm around fast enough that the g-forces tore Heather off of him.

Heather shot out to the side with worrying speed, impacting against the wall. Instead of staying there, she bounced off like a superball, hurtling back toward Titan’s face.

The giant tried to intercept her flight with a clothesline, but Heather spread her body out in midair, altering her trajectory and making the giant whiff.

A moment later, she was twisted around Titan’s neck, trying her best to choke him out like a red-headed anaconda.

Titan, completely unaffected by her squeezing, raised his hand. “You got me. Reset.”

“But you’re not even feeling it,” Wraith groused.

“And you’re not going into my mouth and nose, when you could be. This is a spar, after all,” Titan said.

“Ah.” Heather scowled. That was her dad’s favorite move, and she’d likely not considered it a possibility for that very reason.

“Okay, I’m gonna try something different,” Heather said, returning to the other side of the mat.

“And what’s that?”

“My beat-stick. Her name’s Anya,” Heather said, her body unfolding around a rusty iron rod about two and a half feet long and an inch and a half wide.

Not unlike a piece of rebar with a bone handle, really.

Simple is usually best when designing weapons. Plus, Perry didn’t want to separate the ghost into multiple pieces for fear of damaging or diluting the thing. So he’d lightly melted the cast iron with magic and pressed it into a rod shape, then affixed the giant-bone handle in a way that made the thing handle like a flyswatter.

Titan cocked his head at Heather’s beat-stick. “Unless you’ve got a trick, that thing’s probably not gonna do anything to me.”

“There’s a trick,” Heather said. “I suggest you don’t get hit.”

Titan shrugged and raised his fists defensively. “Ready when you are.”

Heather smiled and her arm reabsorbed the beat-stick. “Which hand is it in?” she asked, waving her empty hands.

“Crap,” Titan muttered.

Heather jumped forward, making swift jabs with her arms, stretching them out until they were longer than Titan’s, getting her past the giant’s guard.

“Shapeshifters are a pain in the ass,” Titan muttered, bobbing and weaving, dancing backwards to avoid Heather’s attacks that might contain her hidden blackjack.

It’s true, Perry thought. In rock-paper-scissors style, Shapeshifters were good against Bruisers, Bruisers smashed Tinker inventions, and Tinker inventions often disabled Shapeshifters before they had the ability to bring their formlessness to bear.

This was by no means absolute. Everybody who made it to the big leagues practiced against their weakness until they could at least hold their own. Shifters took precautions against electricity, rays, and AOE damage, Bruisers practiced anti-shifter techniques, and Tinkers made friends with the Bruisers.

Energy users like Warcry existed somewhat outside this perverse love triangle, as she could easily kill any of the aforementioned supers. And they could kill her right back.

A glass cannon.

Energy users were best in teams that could protect their squishy bodies long enough to bring their powerful abilities to bear.

They were also very highly sought-after by Nexus, and Perry suspected that Titan kept her around as a bonus incentive for Nexus to hire him.

If there was one person Perry wanted as a nemesis, it would be Titan. The dude was professional.

Ah well, a boy can dream.

“OW!” Titan bellowed, staggering backwards, clutching his ribs.

Heather froze in mid-strike, her ghost-iron club half-emerged from her heel.

Hardcase missed a beat and nearly fell off the treadmill. Jetset’s weight hit the rack. Warcry’s eyes widened.

“I’m okay, I think,” Titan said, hissing as he stumbled backwards. He peeled down his hyperweave, revealing a rapidly darkening bruise spreading across his ribs.

“It’s not broken,” he said, poking the ribs and wincing. “Just hurts like crazy. How did that go through the hyperweave?!”

“That was probably the ghost,” Perry said, still jogging.

“What?!”

“The iron is possessed and that gives it a little extra kick. Once it was reinforced by my ability, it became pretty powerful.”

“Where did you get a possessed club?! I didn’t even think ghosts were a real thing!” Warcry said.

“I know a guy,” Perry said with a shrug.

“Can…can you introduce me?” Hardcase asked.

“Sure, you got time tomorrow?” Perry asked. As busy as Dave was, he would always make time for new clientele. “You can introduce me to some of your sources too. I’ve been looking for some counterintelligence tech solutions.”

“Sure,” Hardcase said, nodding vigorously.

“Cool, it’s a date.”

Hardcase turned crimson under her domino mask and stared straight forward, jogging with determination.

“Obviously it turned out a little too strong for sparring,” Perry said, turning his attention to Titan. “I wasn’t expecting it to hit that hard. We’ll sub it out for a regular iron pipe and call the match after, what…?”

“Three good hits would probably make me wanna stop fighting,” Titan said, rolling the hyperweave back up his chest.

Heather shrugged, set aside her beat-stick, and grabbed a less deadly iron pipe, folding her hands around it.

“Can you hold up the metal punching bag?” Heather asked. “I’ve got some ideas I wanna try out.”

“Sure,” Titan said, grabbing what looked like a hot-water tank and holding it in front of himself.

Heather whipped her arm forward, her hand melting into her wrist and forming a scythe-like spike, which embedded itself into the punching bag before she wrenched it back out.

“Damn!” Warcry said, having gravitated toward the sparring to spectate.

“So I can make myself harder, too,” Heather said, her breath beginning to speed up as she exerted her power more.

Heather practiced the move just shy of a hundred more times, successfully forming a hard enough spike out of herself about a third of the time. She needed more practice, but she was likely to be a terror on the battlefield.

“Alright…now I wanna practice my civvy takedowns,” Heather said, panting hard.

“Not it!” Perry shouted, followed by Hardcase and Warcry.

“Not i—damn.” Jetset grudgingly stepped forward and spent the next half hour getting tackled and hog-tied by a pretty girl in spandex.

Some people would pay top dollar for that.

Jetset didn’t look like he was having fun, though.

Chapter 28: Juggling Train Wrecks

This text has been banned by decree of King Bron Zauberer, for libel. If you are reading this, you are committing treason.

The Legendary Mimic, Abun’Zaul

Abun’Zaul was a powerful mimic who had spent many centuries growing and consuming, becoming ever more complex as it absorbed the remains of humans. Eventually, Abun’Zaul infiltrated a town in the form of a wanderer.

Over the course of fifty years, Abun’Zaul expanded through the town, growing like a cancer, taking on the lives of its victims without ever giving any of the other townspeople a hint that their friends and neighbors had been consumed.

Abun’Zaul reached the pinnacle of what a mimic was capable of, and far beyond, growing so complex and so fastidious in its mimicry that it began to conflict with itself.

In the role of the baker, it raped itself. In the role of the angry father, it murdered itself. In the role of the grieving widow, it wept for itself.

Where a lesser mimic might simply put its puppets down when no victim was present, Abun’Zaul devoted everything it had and more.

Such fastidiousness was why no one discovered the village’s dark secret until it was much too late.

Amek Okran was a child of nine who witnessed his mother eaten by Abun’Zaul, and ran away from home. Through stubbornness, inhuman talent, and a drive to avenge his mother, young Amek joined the Royal Academy of Mages at thirteen and became the youngest Grandmaster in the history of the institution.

He went on to subjugate the hydra of Bone Swamp, lead a successful counterattack against the Morgs of the underlands, defended the kingdom from outside threats that might have ended it no less than five times, and won the heart of the princess, all before he ended his mandatory decade of service to the royal family.

For these deeds and more, he was awarded the name Zauberer and granted any wish within the power of the kingdom to grant.

Amek had all but forgotten the monstrous evil that had spurred him on his quest when he was nine, but faced with the opportunity for wealth and riches beyond measure, he only requested one thing: to avenge the death of his mother.

He knew by this point, through careful study and worldly experience, that whatever killed his mother had been a mimic. And it had been big. Fantastically big. A hole in their neighbor’s floor brimming with teeth. This mimic had drones that looked and acted exactly like his neighbors, that had led his mother to her death—mouthpieces with which to lure more food to it.

A mimic of that size and power even Amek Zauberer could not defeat alone, and so he requested the aid of the kingdom, to launch a crusade against the village he had once called home and pluck the root of evil from its soil.

Staying up late into the night before his departure, Amek Zauberer tossed the bones again and again, always finding the result of his augury to be of ill-omen.

So he made provisions.

He begged his wife to remain behind with their unborn child, while the king and his sons went with him on the crusade. It was perceived that this outing would be little more than a sporting event, perhaps a rousing hunt of a monster that had haunted a young man’s dreams but was ultimately no threat to the power of the entire kingdom’s military might.

She acquiesced, and the expedition went without her.

The accounts that follow are spotty, as few people survived to report them, but I shall go with the most consistent account, the one that has changed the least over time with the retelling.

The expedition went smoothly, up until the army arrived on the doorstep of the sleepy little town.

There, Amek, riding beside king and sons, was greeted by a matronly woman in homespun cloth.

“Welcome back, Amek,” she said with the tone of a worried mother. “I missed you.”

Amek froze, screamed ‘NO!’ thrice, and slammed his staff into the ground, unleashing a tidal wave of essence into the land beneath them, killing himself in the process.

The ground beneath the army heaved and surged as an amorphous being bigger than the capital city itself began to thrash in its death throes. Many, many men and women died as earth and stone met sky and churned like a wrathful ocean.

The king and his sons were no exception, perishing along with Amek in the center of the beast. Only a single member of the royal guard returned with Amek’s staff, the imprisoned spirit of the monster, and word of the king’s passing.

It is left for us scholars to postulate on exactly what happened that day.

Did Amek perceive that there was no victory against such a monumental foe and resort to a forbidden magic to kill the thing directly, by severing its soul?

Did he simply lose his sanity at seeing the face of his mother worn by a monster?

Or is the truth perhaps something stranger?

This author believes that Abun’Zaul must have grown hungry in the fifteen years after Amek left the town. The massive mimic must have long since finished off the last true humans in the town years ago.

It needed one of its drones to bring it a fine meal, that it may be content for a time.

All storytelling aside, Amek Zauberer objectively lured fourteen thousand humans to the maw of Abun’Zaul.

This author believes that, in a moment of horrifying epiphany, Amek Zauberer may have realized this fact and suspected that he, too, was an offshoot of this monstrous creature, and had fulfilled his purpose in life. Before the puppeteer could cut the strings, Amek tore out his own soul and the creature’s with it.

This author believes that there is a possibility that Abun’Zaul killed itself because its passion for the craft of accurately recreating its victims’ lives briefly outweighed its self-preservation.

Regardless of whether Amek Zauberer was Abun’Zaul or not, the legendary mimic died for the love of an average, everyday mother named Stansa.

That will never change.

—Legends of Manita

What a bunch of hogwash. The Zauberer royal line has never shown a hint of monstrous tendencies.

- Note in the margin.

…Except that one time.

- Note in the margin.

***Perry***

Perry opened his gaping maw and engulfed his hapless prey with a guttural snarl. His prey’s raw flesh sent juices streaming down his chin.

“Do you always growl at your food?” Hardcase asked, sitting across from him with a delighted smile.

“Only when I’m feeling particularly monstrous. Or it misbehaves,” Perry said, wiping his hands off on a napkin. “Dang, these burgers are messy.”

Of course, since meat was at a premium, artificial protein burgers were the common substitute, so they weren’t as messy as he would’ve liked.

“You remind me of my dad,” she said, resting her chin on her palms.

The balding, fat one?

“…Cool?” Perry said.

“He thinks he’s funny too.”

“Ah. Dad jokes. It’s not about being funny, it’s about consistency. Like training a dog. Eventually your children are conditioned to laugh, no matter how bad the jokes are.”

Hardcase giggled.

So far, the date had been going pretty darn good. Dave had actually behaved himself with a small bribe, there were some supernatural materials Hardcase had been incredibly happy to find, and the vendor she’d introduced him to, one Hiro Mitsui, had been more than helpful getting Perry information, materials, and a few examples of intelligence and counterintelligence bots and software for him to take apart and reassemble to get the hang of it.

From Dave, Perry bought a couple enchanted tiaras that raised his Stability by 5, making him modestly more resistant to mind-reading. He planned on melting one into a lead-lined ballcap to cover both magical and super mind-reading.

Perry also bought a ring from Dave that made Perry harder to focus on for people who wished him ill—a sort of magical post-counterintelligence that made it modestly more difficult for people to plot against him. It wouldn’t work if the person was particularly sharp or determined, but every little bit of protection helped.

***

Terminal Velocity glanced over at Maximum Overdrive as they were wheeling the armor frame out of the fabricator to the dipping station, where they would grow the learning ceramic over the bones of the suit.

“What were we mad about again?” he asked.

Maximum Overdrive glanced off to the side, frowning. “It had something to do with losing our suits, right?”

“Right, we need new suits.” Terminal Velocity nodded.

“Why?” Maximum Overdrive asked.

“Umm…” Terminal Velocity thought about it for a moment. “Because we lost ours playing volleyball at the beach, right?”

They both gasped.

“The beach!”

“That jerk!”

“Lying to us!”

“Being totally unreasonable!”

“Hogging all the girls!”

Reminded of their vendetta, the two continued working on their next suits. For a few minutes.

“What were we doing?” Maximum Overdrive asked.

“Umm….”

***Perry***

I am pretty short on cash now, though. Enchanted jewelry wasn’t cheap, and Perry hadn’t devised a way to make some for himself.

Add that to the list.

CHA-CHING!

Perry’s tasteless text notification for the Marketplace went off, the sound of an old-timey register. Good timing, though.

Perry glanced down at his phone and noticed the customer was Locust. She’d bought two separate lots of his cheap parts on the market.

555 gears and 5607 of the tendons.

Well, that’s fairly suspicious.

“You mind if I call someone?” Perry asked.

Hardcase shook her head. “I gotta finish my food anyway,” she said.

“Thanks.” Perry entered the area code of Locust’s block, then the number of parts she’d ordered.

Click.

“That was fast,” Locust said.

“Well, if someone pays me that much to get me to call them, it’s probably important,” Perry said, dipping his fries in the ketchup.

“I want some power armor for my minions. I’ve been asking around and you’ve got the cheapest stuff on the market.”

BOOM!

A distant explosion shook the fast-food joint, causing Hardcase to white-knuckle the edge of the booth.

Perry glanced outside and spotted Mom and Dad flying overhead. Perry waved, but he wasn’t sure if he got their attention.

“Yeah, it’s probably the cheapest you’re gonna get.”

“What’s your price?”

“Hundred thousand.”

“That is a good deal,” Locust said, seemingly hesitating for a moment. “I’d like to make a trade. I’ll give you information for a discount on a batch of one thousand.”

A thousand? That would take a long-ass time. I’d have to expand the lair just to accommodate the equipment I’d need to manufacture them. But…with the advance, I could easily upgrade my manufacturing capacity and the size of my lair. With the final payment, that would be about nine million in the bank.

With the right setup, I could make the manufacturing process largely automatic, and only have to spend a couple minutes on each machine.

Three minutes times 1000.

50 hours.

Four hours a day, for about two weeks? I could do that.

“Shoot,” Perry said.

“One of your friends from school, the dumb one, has been captured by a villain and is about to be sold to the highest bidder. How much is who has him and where he’s located worth to you?”

“I’ll take five thousand off?” Perry said with a shrug.

Locust’s laugh echoed through the receiver. “I was thinking cost of manufacturing.”

“Absolutely not,” Perry said. “My time has value, and a thousand units would take me weeks that I would much rather spend doing something else. Seventy-five thousand.”

DING!

Mom and Dad walked through the front door of the burger joint in their civvies. Mom was wearing her usual jeans and a T-shirt, while Dad was in a button-up shirt and slacks.

Perry waved them over.

“Can you get my usual?” Mom asked, and Dad broke off to enter the order line.

“Fancy meeting you here, Paradox, and who’s this?!”

“Hardcase, this is my mom. Mom, this is Hardcase.”

Hardcase sat there silently, looking like a megadeer in the intercity train’s headlights.

“Claudette,” Mom said, reaching out and shaking Hardcase’s hand. “You’ve got a wonderful, giving aura, young lady.”

“Umm…” Hardcase continued to be speechless.

Perry hastily got out of his seat and ushered Mom into his side of the booth.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Perry asked, jostling the phone back up to his ear.

“Is the fate of your friend boring you?”

“Just distracted, is all,” Perry said.

“Have you considered—”

“So, how did you meet my son?” Mom asked, beaming. Romance was her bread and butter.

“Um…I fell on him,” Hardcase said.

“I’m sure he didn’t mind too much; you’re such a little thing.”

“Well, I…might’ve been wearing—”

“What was that?” Perry asked into the phone.

“I was saying that your friend is going to be experimented on if you don’t—”

SLUUUUURRP.

“…Did you just empty a soda?”

Perry glanced down at the plastic straw underneath his nose. “I’m at Burger Joint, whaddya want from me?”

“Fifty thousand per suit,” Locust said with a sigh.

“Ten percent up front, and you got a deal,” Perry said.

“Deal. I’ll text you the details.”

Click.

Perry dialed up Heather.

“Hey, Heather, can you meet me at the Burger Joint on Fifth and Howard?”

“Why?”

“I got word that Brendon got kidnapped again.”

“WHY?!”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Perry said.

“Gimme ten minutes.”

Perry hung up and turned back towards the fiasco that was slowly unfolding at the booth.

Dad had lured Hardcase out of her shell by discussing the design of the mechsuit parked outside, and the girl was giving his parents an animated explanation of how she’d designed the hybrid control setup, and how much torque the joints could take, and the energy consumption, battery life, and any of a thousand other things.

Mom was smirking silently, sipping on her drink while Dad kept Hardcase on a roll by asking just the right questions to keep a Tinker going indefinitely.

It was actually pretty hard to look away from, like watching a man juggle swords, and Perry was concerned Hardcase might pass out if she didn’t take a moment to breathe.

“So I got the quantum battery installed and now the operating time is about twelve hours instead of eight, and it recharges itself! My dad is so happy he doesn’t have to pay the electric bill anymore.”

“Haha, yeah, that would be a pain. Since you’ve got more power on hand, have you upgraded your supercapacitors for your weapons systems? It’s also good for catching extra juice in the moments where you aren’t moving.”

Hardcase gasped. “You’re right. I’m not always moving. Not even in a fight!” Hardcase then launched into a breakdown of her power system, asking Dad for commentary on it, which he provided.

“Have you considered flexoelectricity?” Dad asked.

“Eh?”

“Flexoelectricity is when a material generates electricity when it bends. Now, normally, it’s only insulators that do it, but semiconductors can be persuaded. Typically, the amount generated is very, very small, but a Tinker could probably figure out a way to produce a sizable amount of juice, if they were so inclined.

“Now if you build a layer of these flexoelectric generators in your armor, you can generate electricity from taking a hit, turning an enemy’s attacks into your own power. Makes it a lot easier to play rope-a-dope in a power-hungry suit like yours. If you ever invest in self-repair, you can even incorporate that into your armor, allowing the damage to provide the energy required to repair itself.

“This one time, I—em, someone I’d heard of ran their suit down to nothing on a planet with no oxygen. They had to have their friend summon demons to beat the stuffing out of their suit to keep the life support going.”

Hardcase gasped and pulled out her phone and began writing things down.

Dad waved his hand in front of Hardcase’s face, but the girl was already sketching on her phone, dipping into the hyperfocus of the Tinker Twitch.

“…And she’s gone. I still got it.”

“What, the ability to make girls ignore you?” Perry asked, sliding in next to Hardcase, who didn’t even acknowledge his presence.

Mom snickered while Dad clutched his chest. “I’m wounded,” he groaned melodramatically.

“When she comes out of it, can you let Hardcase know I had to go rescue a friend of mine?” Perry asked. “Apparently he’s about to be auctioned off…for some reason?”

“You want some help?” Dad asked, motioning to himself and Mom.

Perry considered it. It was the safety of Brendon that was at stake here, and not some personal vendetta or honor code. Why not take the route with the best chance of success?

“Sure, we can kick ass as a family,” Perry said, dipping his fries. “Heather’s gonna be there too.”

“Oh, we’ve never gotten to see either of you in action!” Mom said, wiggling in her seat. “This is gonna be so fun!”

“Not for them,” Perry said as he glanced down at his phone.

Makazard

47 Broken Way, Southeast Block

***20 Minutes Later***

Natalie looked up from her phone and realized there was no one around. Paradox and his parents were gone.

On the table in front of her was a napkin with a note.

Didn’t want to interrupt your flow.

Had an emergency come up, so we had to go, sorry.

Had a great time, I’ll see you again soon.

- Paradox

Nat folded up the napkin and tucked it in her pocket.

He had a great time, too.

A smile bloomed on her face, and her heart just wouldn’t cut it out.

Chapter 29: Obfuscation Through Chaos

…

“What are you wearing?” Perry asked, glancing between Mom and Dad.

Dad was wearing a really slim power armor with none of the superfluous size and raw mass that he was known for. It was painted ivory with gold trim and had a rising sun printed in gold on the chestplate, with fake washboard abs stenciled on the front.

It was so far removed from Mechanaut’s brutal, unpainted pragmatism that Perry couldn’t quite comprehend what he was seeing. Which was the point, he supposed.

“I bust out the paladin armor whenever I’m out on a date with your mother. Can’t dilute my brand, you see.”

Mom…was wearing an outfit that would be at home on the floor of a strip club. She’d changed her skin, hair, eyes, and facial structure. She was, for all intents and purposes, a different person.

It still weirded Perry out.

Perry rationally understood that it was a very effective way to separate his name from his parents and make sure they didn’t damage his reputation or allow super-groupies to connect more dots than they should.

It was necessary, but…

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Perry muttered to himself. Heather looked equally uncomfortable as she glanced between the two.

“Can’t back out now, fellow teen supers,” Dad said, clanging his palm against Perry’s armored shoulder.

Perry plucked his dad’s hand off his shoulder. “You two just…take the other side of the building.”

“Alright. You ready for this, Glamour Girl?” ‘Paladin’ asked.

“Race you there!” ‘Glamour Girl’ said, blasting off into the sky, followed shortly by Paladin.

“I feel like I need to bleach my eyes,” Heather said.

“Yeah, this is definitely foreplay for them.” Perry shuddered.

Not important. What’s important is saving Brendon.

Perry squared his shoulders and took a deep breath, orienting on Makazard’s lair.

Perry walked up to the massive iron door blocking the entrance to the squat concrete building that looked like it was designed to—and probably had—take a bombing.

A visor slid open and a pair of faintly glowing eyes peered down at them from a height of perhaps seven feet.

“We’re here for the auction,” Perry said.

“Password?”

“Wraith.”

“That’s—”

Wraith dove through the eye-slit, her body narrowing as she flew through the air, landing seamlessly on the other side.

There was a scuffle, and a muffled howl of pain as Heather presumably covered the guard’s mouth and gave him a love tap with her superclub.

From experimentation, it hurt metaphysically as well as physically. It was very hard not to experience debilitating pain when struck by it, followed by a sense of listlessness and ennui.

A moment later, the door unlatched, revealing Wraith standing on top of a massive mutant with steely-looking scales.

Perry pulled a hundred-dollar bill out of his suit’s storage and tucked it in the man’s shirt collar.

Heather glanced up and jumped into the clustered pipes along the ceiling, oozing through them nearly invisibly.

Perry raised a brow but decided not to mention the similarities to her father’s tactics. That wasn’t what she needed to hear. She’d deliberately hamstring herself if she was constantly trying not to do stuff like her dad.

Similar power sets had similar ideal moves.

Perry scanned the entryway and found a stand with name-tag stickers and a Sharpie.

Hi, my name is…

Paradox

Perry filled out the name tag and stuck it to the front of his armor. It would make him blend in with the other supers who’d gotten in legitimately for an extra couple seconds.

And it was funny. For several reasons.

Perry closed and latched the door to the street and propped the bouncer up against it.

Perry walked down the claustrophobic staircase right beneath Wraith oozing along the ceiling, with a confident swagger, like he owned the place.

The security at the bottom of the winding staircase took one look at his name tag and waved him through. Thankfully the man didn’t have line of sight or sound to the bouncer at the top.

Although, security probably knows I’m here already.

Typically there was a security cam on the entrance, and their antics definitely wouldn’t go unnoticed.

That was where Mom and Dad came in. The experienced supers had the more vital task of finding and rescuing Brendon while the organizers scrambled to relocate him in a knee-jerk reaction to Perry and Heather’s sudden intrusion on their business.

Behind the second layer of security was a vast, dome-shaped amphitheater, with a stage at one end, the focus of the entire room.

The auction stage.

There were only about sixteen other supers present for the auction, and Perry recognized a few of them.

The guy with fat flowing over his chair and onto the floor was Blobber, a super involved in underground fighting rings, where they pitted supers against each other and anything else under the sun, from lions to replicators and prawns.

The thin man in the black coat with the sunken eyes was Dreamer, a junkie who could pull you into his own hallucinations. He was heavily involved in the drug trade, as both a dealer and super-heavy user.

The fellow in grey hyperweave in the front was Mass Driver.

He could manipulate the inertia of himself and anything he came into contact with, allowing him to fly or become immune to physical damage simply by cranking up his inertia such that no normal physical force could act on it.

Bad one to get into a fistfight with.

Mass Driver didn’t have a section of organized crime he favored, simply working as a fixer for wealthy cowls who needed to rent a trump card.

There were a few small-time cowls that Perry didn’t know of filling out the rest of the audience.

The assembled supers cast him an idle glance, then turned back towards the stage. To them, he was just another guy in power armor.

Paradox was nowhere near a household name at this point.

Perry took a seat, propped his feet up, and waited for the fireworks to start while Wraith clung to the ceiling above, doing overwatch.

It wasn’t long before a spotlight brightened center stage, and an announcer strolled up to the podium, idly flipping through a deck of cue cards in his hands.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!” he said with a bright smile. This was Makazard: a young, passably attractive man with fine features, blue eyes, and an undercut on his dark hair.

“Tonight we’ve got some great goods in store, the kind of stuff you can’t get on the marketplace, and maybe even a few surprises!”

‘Surprises’ probably refers to me and Heather.

Following proper villain protocol, Makazard would announce that there were intruders and offer a reward to whoever subdued them, and then proceed to sell them on the stage to a jeering crowd.

Perry stifled a yawn and scrolled through his wiki while Makazard hyped up the crowd.

Makazard.

Energy type: Sonic. Can emanate and absorb sound from entire body, can fly. Is proficient at producing sounds at many different resonant frequencies.

Weak against insulative materials. Was once beaten by a Speedster with a dump truck filled with foam. Does not have inhuman stamina, and powers suffer when exhausted.

Makazard’s internal physiology must be interesting, from a physics standpoint, as when vibrating at a human body’s resonance frequency, he should be harming himself, but we see no evidence of that. Is the cowl immune to his own powers physically, or simply deadening the vibrations before they reach his body? -PushesUpHisGlasses

You think he can vibrate ANY part of his body? -KittyKat

Perry scrolled past the typical internet filth, but didn’t find anything more comprehensive than taking precautions against sound.

I guess we’re just gonna have to wing it.

“For the first item, a Manitian Death Crystal!” Makazard said, motioning for an assistant offstage to begin wheeling the massive neon blue and black crystal onto the stage. It was about the size of a football and light shone through it before radiating outward in fascinating rainbows unbound by the tyranny of ROYGBIV.

“This crystal is a key component in creating death rays that harvest life and convert it into good karma! Murder your enemies with irresistible death rays and convert their potential into your own. The last one we had was snatched up by Mechanaut twelve years ago, and we’ve finally got a new one that can rival—nay, dwarf the previous one! Bidding will start at ten thousand!”

“Ooh!” Perry hooted, raising his bidding paddle. He wouldn’t mind having one of those. Besides simple death rays, they were incredibly useful in magical counterintelligence spells and enchantments.

There were tiny little bits in the ring he was wearing under his armor, after all. Perry could make some really interesting things if he got his hands on it.

Sadly, it went out of Perry’s price range rapidly, ending at fifteen million, with the final bid by Dreamer.

Phoo, Perry thought, scowling under his helmet as the massive Death Crystal was wheeled away. There was no way he’d be able to afford anything here. That much was pretty clear.

The next item was a package of blackmail info on a cape Perry didn’t care about, followed by a strain of anthrax paired with baby’s first genetic engineering kit.

It only went up to a half mil, but Perry didn’t want it.

Next were a batch of a dozen illegal love charms that Dave refused to deal in.

There were three kinds of love charm:

Legal: This kind was the most expensive, as they were the rarest and most difficult to make. They simply affected the bearer’s luck ever-so-slightly to put them in close physical proximity to people who would find them attractive. Shuffled the deck highly in their favor, essentially.

Fat, balding old man? Put on this necklace and you’ll bump into a significantly higher concentration of women who are into fat, balding old men. Simple, effective, and it doesn’t mess with anyone’s head, making it 100% ethical to use.

Mostly legal: These love charms make the wearer exude a pleasant cocktail of pheromones and good vibes that encourage a positive reaction to the wearer’s presence. Since they don’t directly affect the subject’s will, they aren’t illegal, but they are sneaky and can cause backlash. More common than the entirely legal kind, often worn by corporate CEOs to make themselves more likable in short bursts.

Illegal: Directly affects the will of those the bearer finds attractive and forces them into line with the wearer’s sexual fantasy. Less common than the mostly-legal variety, as they are destroyed immediately when confiscated by Nexus and the police. And anyone with any sense.

The case of illegal love charms sold to a Speedster-looking no-name with a swooped green helmet for a hundred thousand, and Perry mentally marked him for an ass-kicking disguised as a bust.

“Now, for one of the surprises!” Makazard said into the microphone with a mischievous grin.

Perry’s skin went cold when Dad was marched onto the stage at gunpoint. Dad’s glasses were crooked on his face and he sported a purpling bruise around his eye.

“Our procurers picked up Hexen’s husband, Professor Darryl Zauberer.”

There was dead silence.

“Blackmail the famous superheroine! Or perhaps trade him for an undisclosed favor sometime in the future. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime!

“I’ll start the bidding at fifty thousand dollars!

“First bid from Mechanaut in the back, of course. I would expect nothing less from Hexen’s greatest enemy,” Makazard said.

Perry snapped his neck, looking over his shoulder, where his father’s suit of armor raised a paddle, bidding on his civilian alter ego.

How did that huge suit of armor fit in here, let alone sneak up behind me?!

The bidding rapidly went up to three hundred thousand before it became too rich for the lower criminals’ blood and Dad won the bidding on himself.

“Next, we have two capes who tried to sneak into the auction house…”

Perry tensed up.

“Please welcome Paladin and Glamour Girl!”

Dad’s Paladin suit was dragged up to the front of the stage in massive iron manacles that seemed bonded to his suit.

Glamour Girl was tugged forward, pouting at the rough treatment and yanking back against the chain, seemingly powerless.

“These two amateurs blundered into the magical security provided by Mr. Myst. Say hi, Mr. Myst.”

A rather tall lantern-jawed fellow in formal clothes ducked onto stage and briefly waved at the audience before disappearing behind the curtain again.

Perry tapped his cheek, scanning the audience.

Was Dad in either of his suits, or was he piloting them remotely through his half-busted glasses?

I guess that depends on whether or not Dad was paranoid enough to make an android of himself that can bruise.

Would he do that?

Perry decided the answer was a resounding yes!

Makazard began talking up Paladin, focusing mostly on the value of the armor and the ransom obtainable from the pilot and the possibility of obtaining a slave Tinker.

It didn’t even break a million. Tinkers were squirrelly, and their armors were often riddled with safety measures. Oftentimes they were more trouble than they were worth.

“Next we have Glamour Girl! This fine young thing can project energy from her hands and fly, but that’s not why you’re going to pay top dollar, am I right, fellas?! We’ve fitted her with a control collar, bumping up the minimum bid by a half mil. We’ll start the bidding at seven hundred and fifty thousand.”

Perry groaned and tried to rub his temples as his dad’s remote-piloted suit got into a bidding war to acquire his mom.

If I find out they did this because they thought it sounded like fun, I swear to God, Perry thought, clenching his fist and shaking it impotently at the fates.

Once Mechanaut had himself and Mom, the next piece of merchandise to hit the stage was Brendon.

“And for the last item, a trophy so valuable that Nexus will pay top dollar to have it. A scientific curiosity so marvelous you can’t help but subject it to numerous inhumane experiments. Do you want money, or the secrets of the universe and everything? Both?”

The crowd nodded and tensed.

“I give you…Brendon Cartwright!”

Brendon was guided up onto the stage, a young woman holding his hand. He looked very confused. The presenter assistant beamed a vivid white smile, motioning to all of the teenage beefcake as the confused youth squinted into the spotlights.

“I’m sure you all know what makes this young man so valuable, so I’ll spare no time introducing him…but!” Makazard raised a finger. “Before we can start the bidding, an issue has come to my attention.

“There are two more capes here uninvited, with the intention of ruining our fun. Let’s deal with the two capes who broke in the front door. Would you mind standing and taking a bow, Wraith and Paradox?”

Paradox stood, stretching out his muscles.

It was on.

“Mr. Paradox and Ms. Wraith are not supposed to be here. A hundred thousand for whoever can catch them and put them up on the auction block!”

“Oh my god, you guys!” Perry shrieked. “I think I’m having a baby!”

Weallfloatdownhere.EXE

Perry’s helmet exploded with a blinding light, and cowls began to tumble aimlessly around the dome in droves.

Perry turned his thrusters up to max and glided over to where the jerk who’d bought the love charms was tumbling aimlessly, his hands and feet buzzing in the air as he tried to run at super-speeds with zero traction.

Perry grabbed the weightless Speedster and used him as a meatshield as he flew across the dome towards Makazard.

Makazard held out a hand, and a wave of sonic energy hit the Speedster’s hyperweave moments before the green-helmeted jerk slammed into the auctioneer.

“I’m out,” Blobber rumbled, prying himself out of his chair and waddling for a large side exit Perry hadn’t seen earlier. Probably where Dad had gotten his oversized suit into the dome.

Perry ignored him and went for Makazard.

The area behind the curtain erupted with crackling magical energy, forming a cage around the stage that caused Perry to bounce off like a ping-pong ball.

Blades.EXE

Five of his finger-sized floating armaments streaked through the air towards the source of the energy, but they rebounded off as Mr. Myst stepped out from behind the curtain, arms raised and emanating purple energy as he covered his boss.

He motioned to the ceiling and made a pulling motion that made the hairs on Perry’s arms stand up straight.

Five points of light began to glow on the ceiling and the top of the dome faded, replaced by the sight of a foreign sky of boiling crimson fire.

A massive creature peered into the dome through the portal, smoke wafting from its gigantic nostrils. Perry would call it a dragon, had it not had a strangely humanoid face, perpetually pinched in disgust.

Heather detached from the ceiling and bashed the summoned creature’s nose in one smooth movement, causing it to reel backwards in pain.

Perry picked up a chair and whipped it up at one of the dots of light, destabilizing the spell instantly, and closing the portal to whatever hellscape Mr. Myst had been contacting.

When Perry looked back, Mr. Myst and Makazard were already gone, disappeared behind the curtain, along with Brendon.

A heavy impact bowled Perry over as Mechanaut smashed him into the ground, their suits digging massive furrows into the concrete flooring.

“You two got Brendon?” Perry asked, aiming a punch at his dad’s helmet, barely rocking the heavy iron back. Mom and Dad had a presence in the back rooms and would be in an ideal situation to catch Makazard and Mr. Myst off guard. If they were actually faking being caught.

“We’re out of our restraints and good to intercept,” Mechanaut said, confirming Perry’s thoughts as he raised his fists to smash. Perry kicked him off.

Well, more like kicked so hard that it forced Perry out from underneath Mechanaut like a slippery watermelon seed, without appreciably moving the massive armor at all.

But free was free.

Perry stood and looked back towards the stage, and saw it melt into a kaleidoscope of colors.

The entire world turned sideways, and Perry collapsed, attempting to keep a hold on the world as it spun away from him.

Reflexively, he kicked on his stabilizers, which drove him head-first into the ground.

Ow, Perry thought as the world spun around him.

He glanced up and spotted Dreamer, waving to him with a pipe trailing a thin wisp of smoke that seemed to be an umbilical cord to something further up in the sky: some formless, horrifying mass watching the goings-on with amusement.

“You better hope this doesn’t stop me from getting my new pipe, Paradox.”

Dreamer’s voice vibrated through his eyelids and Perry struggled to stand up as the world shattered into geometric shapes.

I think I’m gonna throw up, Perry thought, buckling down to his hands and knees.

Stay in school and build your Stability, kids! A magic school bus floated past his gaze, traveling the umbilical-cord smoke like a road. It ain’t fancy, but it keeps you playing the game of life!

The creature just above his eyelids crunched into the bus with the sound of twisted metal and screaming children.

In the distance, Perry heard an explosion, and from the stage, which looked tiny and sideways, he barely made out the forms of Paladin and Glamour Girl.

“This way, Glamour Girl!” Paladin said, posing as he pointed towards the exit, Brendon safely ensconced between them.

“I paid good money for that woman! She’s not going anywhere!” Mechanaut roared, tackling…himself.

There was a brief exchange of blows, and Mechanaut overwhelmingly dominated it, ignoring the puny armor’s pathetic attacks before backhanding Paladin, causing the presumably empty suit of armor to go tumbling across the room, smashing Dreamer violently from the side.

Perry blinked.

“Ugh…” Dreamer groaned in pain from underneath Paladin.

I guess everything’s back to normal, Perry thought, looking down at his hands on the floor. The room was no longer spinning, there was no monster hovering above his eyelids, and the magic school bus was safe.

Perry shook the remains of the drug-induced dream out of his head and leapt to his feet, helping Paladin to his feet while giving Dreamer another kick to make sure he stayed down.

“Paladin, help!” Mom shrieked, her feet kicking as Mechanaut threw her over his armored shoulder.

“I’m coming, Glamour Girl!” Paladin shouted, leaping into the air only to be smacked down again, incidentally smashing into a cowl giving Heather trouble across the room.

If there was one thing Mom and Dad were good at, it was obfuscation through sheer chaos.

“HAHA! The woman is mine, and I shall do with her as I like!” Mechanaut crowed.

“You fiend!” Paladin shouted.

“Nooooooo!” Mom shrieked, really hamming it up, her feet kicking futilely against Mechanaut’s armor.

“Save yourself, Brendon!” she said, her voice fading as Mechanaut tromped away with her over his shoulder. “Don’t worry about me!”

“I’m coming, Glamour Girl!” Paladin rushed after them, while Brendon ran out the exit after them.

Paradox met Wraith’s gaze, and the two of them shrugged, then got back to work. Brendon was technically extracted by Hexen and two of Mechanaut’s armors, although he didn’t know it.

The fight was going pretty well, and the two of them were mopping up, until Perry felt a grip on the back of his neck.

“Paradox,” Mass Driver said from behind him.

“Mass Driver,” Perry said, a cold sweat erupting on his skin.

A floating armament bounced off Mass Driver’s temple.

“You realize you’re costing a lot of people a lot of money,” the veteran cowl said, not even acknowledging the attack.

“I figured,” Perry admitted. “I’ve got my own priorities, too, yaknow?”

“Well, it’s bad form to kill you for doing your job, but you’re going to have to learn a lesson.”

“Like wha—”

HP: 0

SNAP!

“AAAGH!” Perry’s left arm snapped where the cowl poked it, the metal of his suit deforming instantly.

“You’re not invincible,” Mass Driver said.

“That was weird,” Mass Driver continued. “Took a lot more effort to do that than I expected.”

“Hey, asshole!” Wraith shouted, leaping through the air towards Mass Driver. The cowl watched her approach with a raised eyebrow, not bothering to defend himself.

Heather bashed the haunted iron reinforced by Perry’s perk across said eyebrow.

“OW!” Mass Driver shouted, dropping Perry to the ground and stumbling backwards, clutching his bleeding eyebrow. “I stopped it! OW! What the heck was that?!”

Heather followed up with another strike, but Mass Driver zipped backwards like he’d been tugged through the air on a string.

Heather’s arm extended out and whipped Anya towards the cowl’s face again. The older super caught Heather’s arm and twisted, sending a violent shockwave through Heather’s entire body.

“Gah!” Heather shouted in pain but dropped her club into her other hand and caught the cowl across his ribs.

“AGH! Okay, that’s enough.” Mass Driver held out a hand and a wall of wind plastered Heather against the far concrete wall.

“Didn’t sign up for this crap today. Nobody’s even paying me…” Mass Driver muttered, clutching his ribs as he floated through the exit door.

“You alive, Wraith?” Perry asked, unable to straighten his broken arm because the metal was locked in a completely unnatural position.

“Technically,” she groaned, returning to her normal form.

“Wanna get outta here?” Perry asked, scanning the chaos and bodies of cowls littering the auction house, hearing the distant sirens gradually getting stronger.

There had been some big dogs in the crowd tonight, and Perry was feeling it with his whole body. The man blew through three HP like it was nothing.

“Yes,” Wraith said, staggering to join him in the center of the dome. “Yes, I do.”

***At the Zauberer Residence***

“You’re mine to toy with, Glamour Girl!” Mechanaut shouted, tossing the scantily clad woman onto the oversized bed. “Paladin can't save you now!”

“Kyaaa!”

Chapter 30: A Night In

Locust kicked up her heels and gave herself a mental pat on the back.

There were two keys to running a successful business: hard work, and seizing opportunities when they presented themselves.

The cheapest power armor on the market was currently about 3.5 million. Paradox had opened negotiations with a price that was well below Locust’s minimum offer, which put her off for a moment, but if the rookie noticed her hesitation, he didn’t capitalize on it. The price tag did make her a little concerned about the quality, but at 50k per suit, it wasn’t a huge risk.

Fifty million dollars isn’t a huge risk? I’ve gotten so old.

The sheer pennies-on-the-dollar nature of the deal made Locust tempted to resell them for a massive profit, but that would be a disservice to Paradox and not in the spirit of the deal.

And reputation was a hard thing to regain, once it was lost.

No, Locust was just looking forward to the extra muscle the suits would afford her, paying for themselves in security and control over her territory over time.

And Makazard’s clientele. And his inventory.

It didn’t hurt that the auctioneer had some things she wanted but didn’t want to pay for.

Two birds, one stone.

RINNNG!

Locust’s phone went off and she answered without preamble. “How’d it go?”

“We ported in during the fight, but it was gone.” Blink’s voice came over the speaker.

“What was gone?”

“…Everything, ma’am. The crystal and everything else we wanted in the stock room was just gone. Someone got to it first.”

Locust adjusted her expectations, rubbing her temples. Getting angry solved nothing. “Fine. Just make sure Makazard can’t push into my territory again.”

“There’s another thing. Mechanaut left a note. It says, ‘Be careful that your cat’s paw doesn’t scratch you.’”

Locust let out an unprofessional groan and threw her head back in her chair. “He stole my crystal, didn’t he?”

“I assume so, ma’am.”

***The Zauberer House***

Dad stood in front of the TV, his Paladin armor opened up to reveal a massive blue and black crystal in its chest cavity: the Death Crystal. The armor removed the crystal and held it out to Dad.

“Hey, I bid on that,” Perry said, scowling.

“Well, I stole it fair and square,” Dad said, frowning and putting his fingers to his lips as he adjusted the crystal on top of the TV, rendering the priceless material no more than a conversation piece for the living room.

Perry and Dad sat in the recliners facing the TV, just staring at the massive art piece on top of it for a few minutes.

Finally, Perry spoke up. “Doesn’t that thing give off death-energy? Like…magical radiation?”

“Just let me have this, boy,” Dad said.

***Later***

“Whoa, what happened to you?” Brendon asked, glancing at Perry’s arm in a sling as he entered the motel’s lobby.

“Fell off my bike,” Perry said with a shrug. “I’m actually more concerned about you. How are you feeling after last night?”

“Whaddya mean?” Brendon asked, frowning.

“After…you got kidnapped and nearly auctioned off last night?”

Brendon raised a brow. “I thought I dreamt that.”

“How could you—”

“Co-roofies-ugh!” Heather coughed into her fist.

Ah, he was drugged.

“How did you guys know about that?” Brendon asked.

“You told us about it while you were still coming down off the drugs. It’s normal you don’t remember.”

“Yeah, last night is pretty hazy,” Brendon said, scratching the back of his head. “So you guys got a job managing a hotel? That’s cool!”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘managing,’” Perry said. “I just greet people, take their money, hand them keys, sweep the floor, plunge the toilets, and replace the light bulbs.”

Untrue. The light bulbs I made will last longer than I do.

“So…you manage a hotel.”

“It’s actually a motel,” Heather said. “Let's not assign Perry any undue class.”

The two of them were taking it slow. Perry had a broken arm, and Heather wasn’t feeling so great after the shockwave that Mass Driver had put through her.

“So, umm…any idea why people might wanna kidnap you and sell you to the highest bidder?” Perry asked, cutting to the heart of the matter with all the delicacy of a charging boar.

Brendon shrugged. “I don’t know, man. My mom tells me I’m a catch, but I don’t think that’s what she meant. Could be my winning personality?”

“I guess,” Perry said with a shrug. “It’s just…if we knew why people were after you, we could do something about it.”

Brendon gave an exaggerated shrug, and that was the extent of it.

Their cover stories as menial laborers for the motel explained why Perry had keys to every room in the building, and they spent most of the day hanging out with Brendon, making sure the dimwit was okay.

Perry didn’t swim or play foosball on account of his busted arm, but he kicked Brendon’s ass at air hockey. They ate chips, got crumbs everywhere, watched movies, and generally wasted the day in the most non-productive way they could muster.

Heather and Perry waved Brendon off as he left for the night, watching him all the way to the bus. High Tide curfew was eight p.m., after all. Weird, dangerous stuff happened after sundown.

But tonight was a night in.

Once they’d closed up all the facilities for the night, Perry and Heather went underground.

“What are you gonna work on?” Perry asked.

“I’m gonna practice my shapeshifting. It stands to reason I should be able to increase my strength. If I can change my hardness, maybe I can mess with my mass and density too,” Heather said, going over to the battered steel training dummies in the corner of the lair.

“How about you?” Heather asked over her shoulder.

“I’m gonna order some equipment, do some CAD, then do something about this.” Perry pointed at his busted arm.

“Gotcha.”

They broke off and got to work.

Perry checked his bank account and spotted the five-million deposit from Locust, and nearly had a panic attack. He didn’t think the march of zeros would freak him out as much as it did, but Perry was eighteen, and that was a lot of money.

It turned out to be less than he thought, though. There were some snags to ordering enough infrastructure to produce the suits. It was a simple oversight.

Materials for consumers were kept on hand in amounts great enough that Joe Average could walk into a department store and buy some paneling for his bathroom renovation.

Materials for producers weren’t kept on hand, collecting dust in massive warehouses in the quantities that Perry needed. They were constantly trading hands rapid-fire. They had to be rounded up, which came with a long and annoying process of making phone calls, ordering parts, confirming payment, location, time, etc.

All of this was made even more difficult because it was High Tide, and the prices of material goods and especially shipping had risen dramatically.

In the end, the five million only covered enough to make 300 suits.

That’s fine, I’ll work something out with Locust. Most of the money up front had been the cost of automating the process with robotic arms and assembly lines. The cost of the three hundred suits in consumable materials was only about seven hundred thousand dollars.

Now Perry had a massive amount of industrial chemistry equipment and assembly-line robotics on order, arriving within the next week.

That’ll be fun.

After Locust’s order was done, he’d still have an assembly line. The supervillain’s order paid for itself in desperately needed improvements to the lair.

I wonder which of us is getting the better deal? Perry wondered. By his math, all 1000 suits would cost 2.3 million in consumed materials, 4.3 in infrastructure (robotics, tools, etc.).

Leaving him approximately 43.4 million in cash and 4.3 in tools at the end of a month of work. He would be keeping 95.4% of the money that was paid for his work.

Locust was probably congratulating herself for getting such a good deal; Perry was patting himself on the back for making such a wide profit margin.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, Perry thought, shaking his head as he moved on to the next issue of the day: new spell-frames.

With his good hand, Perry flipped through his mom’s spellbook until he came across the entry he’d earmarked. The materials had been beyond his ability to afford until his last trip to Dave’s, but now he could finally make his healing spell.

There were several different kinds of healing spell.

There were clerics who begged the intercession of a benevolent deity and got healing that way. There were spells that used the life force of other creatures, like the bone altar.

There were spells that consumed expensive ingredients to cure very specific conditions, with a separate recipe for each kind of disease.

There was actually a bone-mending spell that wasn’t too hard to make, but Perry figured if he was going to go through the effort of making a spell-frame, he should go for broke and make some of the primo stuff.

Astra’s Mending (Intermediate Difficulty)

Ingredients: hair of Saint Natanya, Forming Slime, Lunt bone

1 handspan of hair from Saint Natanya, a cup of Forming Slime. Lunt bone, no bigger than a finger length.

Submerge the bone and hair in the slime. Heat the slime until the bone is cherry red. Once the bone begins to produce its own heat, diminish external heating to prevent the bone from self-combusting. Be careful to maintain the same cherry-red heat, adding more as necessary. If the mixture becomes too hot or too cold, the effect will fail.

While maintaining the temperature, sing the entire hymn to Anestia, which will activate the essence contained inside the hair.

If successful, the hair will provide direction, the bone will provide energy, and the slime will provide the body.

Once the essences begin to react with each other, quickly remove the spell from heat and add to a clear crystal bowl and ‘show’ it the wound.

Any wound within the bowl’s sight will be healed.

Note: Applying the mixture directly to the wound will result in burns and possibly losing the slime and bone, which are not consumed by the spell.

Perry was planning on Paradox-ing it up to eleven.

The most expensive part was the chunk of Natanya’s scalp. Sadly, the woman was killed several hundred years ago and her scalp stolen by an evil mage who treated it like an absolute gold mine. Over the centuries, bits and pieces of the scalp began to surface in this dingy store or that. Most of them were fakes, but Dave always verified his goods.

The reason Perry had bought scalp and not individual hairs, was because he was fairly confident he could get the scalp to grow more hair nonmagically, making the spell component a renewable resource.

Average hair grows .3 to .4 millimeters per day.

Average hair density is 800-1290 per inch.

A quarter dollar coin (the size of the piece of scalp) is .7 square inches.

.7 X 800 to 1290 = 560 to 903

Multiply those ranges by the .3-.4 mm-per-day average.

So, my working range is somewhere between 168 mm and 361 mm per day.

16 cm per day, at the absolutely lowest threshold, should definitely cover a handspan.

This could work.

Since the other two materials weren’t consumed in the spell…that’s where things got interesting.

“My apologies, Saint Natanya,” Perry muttered before he got to work.

“It’s fine. I don’t have any particular attachment to my earthly remains, as long as you’re not weird with it.”

Perry ignored the faint voice and cut the hair on the quarter-sized chunk of flesh short and bristly, and seeded a heatproof glass cylinder with the shavings. Then he designed a semipermeable, insulative membrane that would be waterproof but allow hairs to push their way through.

He laid this delicate substance over the bristly hairs over and over again, growing more and more frustrated with his lack of two arms, until he finally managed to poke all the hair bristles through without breaking the membrane.

Once that was done, Perry laid the entire thing in a climate-controlled nutrient bath. His experience growing brain cells on a microchip really came in handy here, and his experience with this spell would help when he decided to make himself some skin templates in the future.

The nutrient bath was carefully sealed in hard plastic, turning it into a screw-on cap for the heatproof glass cylinder.

He turned the whole thing up with the scalp-cap on the bottom, then carefully poured the slime and bone mixture into the canister before sealing the whole thing closed.

Perry had a healing spell-frame.

Now he just needed to train the spell-disc, and he could get his arm out of the damn sling by tomorrow.

Perry set up a training program and loaded one of his blanks, then moved on to his next spell-frame.

Watching Mr. Myst nearly summon a massive demon into a crowded dome had been something.

Perry wanted the spell for himself.

The key difference between a summoning and his floating armaments was that, despite their usefulness and flexibility, they were still controlled by one man. He couldn’t use them on things he wasn’t aware of. He didn’t have eyes in the back of his head.

If he had a summon, it might’ve tried to protect him from Mass Driver long enough for him to become aware of the danger he was in.

Although I don’t think a typical summon would’ve DONE anything to Mass Driver; just made some noise, allowing me to possibly escape. Who knows?

Perry opened up Mom’s spellbook and began fluttering through the demons, devils, Elysians, and Empyreans.

Perry couldn’t help but linger a moment on the succubus.

The entire passage was blotted out with thick ink.

Don’t even think about it, Perry, Mom’s note read at the bottom of the page. I’m not letting my son get himself killed, messing with these monsters!

Perry rolled his eyes and continued on, secretly a little disappointed.

I guess it’s PROBABLY a good thing I don’t have the option, Perry thought with a sigh. The danger of succubi was consistently downplayed in media, because they were hot.

It’s very hard to be appropriately cautious of someone you’re attracted to.

Which was part of why they were so dangerous.

Oh, there’s good succubi. Neat.

Summon Attendant of Elysium (Advanced Difficulty)

Ingredients: Token of selfless sacrifice or heroic deed of the caster. Candles of highest purity placed in a pentagon, realm-piercing crystal dagger. Corrupted Mordite chain (optional).

Note: If the caster uses the Mordite chain to trap the Elysian, the realm of the blessed dead will never welcome them. The Attendant will not respond violently, as it is not in their nature, but the realm itself is always watching. Understand this.

Place the five candles down in a pentagon with two paces between each of the candles. While reciting the hymn to Naomi, place the token and the realm-piercing crystal in the center. To trap the Elysian, string Mordite chain around the candles, which will sever their connection to Elysium and prevent them from escaping for a time.

If the ritual has gained the attention of an Attendant, you will see a misty form pushing against the boundaries between realities. You may then use the dagger to (carefully) cut the boundary between our world and theirs, allowing the Elysian through.

The Attendant is a creature of pure giving. They wish for nothing more than the joy and contentment of everyone around them, and derive pleasure from serving.

Which apparently includes nagging me to ‘stay in school,’ ‘make friends,’ and ‘find my passion.’ Ugh. If I wanted to listen to a lame fuddy-duddy preaching at me, I would have summoned my grandma from beyond the grave. If it wasn’t for the amazing sex, this spell would’ve been a complete waste of time.

Perry raised a brow and compared that note to Mom’s note.

The handwriting was largely the same.

How old was she when— You know what? Not important.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Heather asked from over his shoulder.

Perry yelped and slammed the book closed.

Heather cocked a suspicious brow.

“How to summon sex angels,” Perry admitted with a shrug. It would net him less flak than burying himself in a mountain of bullshit to avoid embarrassment. The damage was already done, no sense making it worse.

“Really? Cool! Are there dude sex angels?” Heather asked.

Perry frowned, opening up the book and tracing the paragraphs with his finger, Heather reading over his shoulder.

“They’re whatever you need them to be, soo…yes, I guess there are,” Perry said.

“Awesome…” Heather’s gaze drifted down to the note. “I can kinda see how your mom wound up with a supervillain. She really got around back in the day.”

“You know what?!” Perry said, slamming the spellbook shut in faux anger. Heather danced away, cackling as Perry tried and failed to bonk her with the priceless tome.

Chapter 31: Mistakes Were Made

Perry was checking the accuracy of his newest spell-disc’s casting, and it was good.

As close to 100% as a biological organism could be.

Alright, I waited all day for this.

Perry could have asked his mom to fix his broken arm, but where was the fun in that? Perry also half-suspected that his mom might refuse on the grounds of it not being life-threatening, and any magic she used would be under the Hexen identity, and she wanted him to learn a valuable lesson about playing with the big kids.

Or maybe Perry was just being stubborn. She had freaked out when he was shot, so chances were she wouldn’t mind healing him.

Maybe those are just the reasons I’M being stubborn.

Either way, it would be a net positive if he figured out a way to fix his own boo-boos.

Perry loaded up the spell-disc and inserted it in the prototype, with its bits of hair and bone suspended in the glass canister.

The way Perry saw it, the canister for the entire process could be glass. The old-timey wizards just didn’t have any glass capable of taking that kind of heat change without cracking.

Perry did.

Perry made sure all the heat coils and the temperature reader were working one last time, before he turned on the juice.

The green light blinked on, indicating that everything was working and the spell was ready to go.

Perry hefted the jarlike spell-frame. Bit heavier than I would want to put in my suit, and potentially more breakable. Maybe I’ll just make a healing station at my base? The ability to heal in combat was invaluable, but Perry was unsure if the frame could be seamlessly integrated into his suit.

Maybe I could make a smaller version with limited uses that’s more for patch jobs to get people home alive, then keep the real good one here? That sounds like a good idea.

Compared to when his boost from Attunement was a meager 27%, with 16 Attunement, Perry was working with a 118% increase to a spell’s effectiveness.

Leaning on the primary effect of the Spendthrift perk, he could reduce the size and power of the spell-frame drastically and keep full effectiveness until he hit roughly 1/8th the size.

But the full-sized, big version would be more than twice as effective, because of his flat +118%.

Sounds like a plan.

Now, to test it. Perry didn’t have any animals on hand to test the spell on, and even if he did, he wasn’t sure he’d want to use the spell on them. According to his math, he could only use the spell every day or so, minimum, which made it so he’d have to wait an extra day while his broken arm sent out bursts of pain every time it shifted even a little bit.

It’s fine. The spell’s not even that complicated. The temperature control is automated. Let’s just get this broken arm fixed.

Perry moved the spell-frame over his arm and flipped on the spell-frame.

PatchesMD.EXE

The mixture began heating up under Perry’s gaze. Ever so gradually, the Lunt bone began to redden and take on a life of its own.

“Yo, Perry, where’s the shower?” Heather said, walking out of the practice area with the steel dummies, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

Perry glanced over and tried not to stare as the sweat made the hyperweave…clingy. I mean, it was already clingy, but now it looks painted on.

“There’s a shower in every room of the motel. Pick one.” Perry thumbed over his shoulder towards the exit.

“You mean, I gotta walk all the way up from the underground practice room, out through the parking lot, and into one of the rooms? Dressed like this?” She motioned to herself, prompting Perry to look again.

“You could get changed?” Perry offered.

“Then my regular clothes get smelly.”

“…Streak?” Perry shrugged.

“Look, if you’re gonna have a team…specifically one with me on it, you’re gonna need showers and a locker room, and separate ones at that.”

“What, you don’t wanna reenact the shower scene from Starship Troopers?” Perry asked, his nerves relaxing as the conversation turned his attention to more comfortable ribbing.

“I could handle it, but you’re way too immature.”

“You wanna bet?” Perry said, in an attempt to prove his immaturity. Shortly afterward, Perry’s brain caught up to his mouth and realized the implications of that question.

“As tempting as that is—WHAT IS THAT?!” Heather’s voice rose an octave as she pointed at him.

No, not at him. Down a bit. At his spell-frame.

“Oh, this? This is just…”

Perry moved the spell-frame out of the way and saw his arm underneath it.

Calling it an arm at this point would be a generous statement.

It looked something like someone had decided to create a Christmas tree out of limbs, fingers, and thumbs of various sizes, using Perry’s arm as the center pole.

The flesh continued to writhe and grow as he carefully set the spell-frame aside and hit the emergency power switch with his good arm.

“Well, that’s…unexpected,” Perry said, his brain unable to catch up to what was happening.

“Umm,” Perry said, staggering backward as he fished in his pants for his phone. “Could you call my mom—”

As the arm fell off the table, some eighty pounds of flesh suddenly tugged Perry to the side. He tried to compensate, but suddenly felt incredibly lightheaded.

The ground rushed up behind Perry and smacked him in the back of the head. All of a sudden, the industrial ceiling lights were glaring down into his eyes, making it hard to see.

Perry glanced over and noticed the sprouting arms creeping their way slowly up his arm like a cancerous growth.

“Perry, are you okay? PERRY?!” Heather’s voice came from somewhere out of Perry’s vision, moments before her face entered the tight little circle of his vision.

Am I dying?

‘If you must die, die on a joke, son.’

“I know you wanna see me naked, you perv,” Perry muttered before he fainted.

***

Perry’s eyes opened to the worst headache he’d had since he’d watched cartoons for sixteen hours straight.

No, this one is worse.

“You know, if your paramour hadn’t been there, you would’ve died a tumorous mass.” A familiar, heavily accented voice spoke.

“Not my girlfriend, Grandma,” Perry muttered, rubbing his forehead as he forced his eyes open. He was in what appeared to be an eighteenth-century hospital, with poor lighting and creepy jarred organs.

“Why am I here?” Perry wondered. “Where’s Mom?”

“My daughter only had the skill to stabilize you, not reverse the spell itself. Your body is strangely resistant to magic, as is the spell you created oddly resistant to traditional dispelling. Together, they were more than she could manage.”

She rolled back towards his face with a flashlight and magnifying glass.

“Good,” Grandma said, leaning over to peer into his eyes with the magnifying glass, making the pores on her oversized nose look huge. “The spell didn’t reach your brain.”

“Then why do I have a headache?” Perry asked.

“Blood flow. Needless to say, the growths played hell on your circulatory system.”

Grandma was rail-thin, with the look and mannerisms of a professional doctor. Every move she made was tightly controlled and deliberate.

She was held in a position of high esteem among the surviving Manitians who made their home in Funkytown, being the queen of a country that no longer existed, but sort of did.

She was also a bit of a jerk.

“It’s a good thing that fiery-haired strumpet isn’t your paramour. Her aura had a low-class feel to it,” Grandma said, returning her attention to Perry’s arm, which was a shapeless mass of wiggling arms.

“I was under the impression it was low-class to call other people low-class,” Perry said.

“When it’s not true, yes,” Grandma said, a scintillating weave of essence flowing out of her hand and ever so slowly pushing one of the wiggling hands back into Perry’s arm.

“If it will spare your half-breed sensibilities, we shall say her aura indicates she ‘needs much polish.’”

“My half-breed sensibilities are cool with that.”

“So.” Grandma put her tools down and met Perry’s gaze with her own brown eyes. “You’re not Dull, eh?”

“Apparently not,” Perry said without going into detail. Grandma probably didn’t need to know he was a Tinker and not a mage. He also didn’t know what she would do if she knew about his spell-discs.

“Remarkable. I’ll never fully understand why my daughter chose that mess of a man, but breeding your Attunement true makes him worth slightly more than nothing.”

“Mom likes bad boys,” Perry said with a shrug.

“What?” Grandma oriented on him like a hawk with its prey in its sights.

“She dated a vampire in high school, rebelled, skipped school, got into a lot of trouble… My personal understanding is, she likes the appeal of bad boys, but it wasn’t until she found one who maintained the image professionally, but took good care of her in private, that she was able to settle down. She had to learn she liked the image of bad boys more than actually being with them, because let’s face it, they’re jerks.”

“Interesting observation,” Grandma said, nodding. “I could have controlled her so much easier if I understood that when she was younger. Could have avoided mistakes like you. Ah well, live and learn.”

Perry cocked a brow, but one does not simply threaten their own grandmother with ruination in a fit of rage, no matter how mean they might be.

“What spell did you use?” she continued. “I can revert your arm much easier if I know what did this.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to cut it off and grow a new one?” Perry asked. There were regeneration spells available, after all.

“Yes, I could do that in about half an hour, but your arm would never be the same again. It might even grow back with these tumors on it.”

“Ah. It was Astra’s Mending.”

“Mage-cast or ritual?” Grandma asked.

“Ritual.”

“Describe what you did.”

Perry went through the entire process, and Grandma stopped him when he got to the part where he shaved Saint Natanya’s scalp.

“You mean to say you added thousands of tiny bits of her hair to the mix?” Grandma asked.

“Yes?”

“The instructions to heal your body are generated as the prayer activates Natanya’s hair, unraveling the hair as it goes. A single, long hair must be used to transcribe the complete instructions from Astra.

“What you did was bombard your arm with thousands of incomplete instructions on how to heal your arm, which led to…this.”

“Ah.” Reminds me of bombarding my arm with radiation.

Looks like Paradoxing it up backfired this time around. Speaking of backfiring… Maybe I can make rituals that are completed by the target instead of Terry’s cells, and which will backfire on them? This whole debacle gives me an idea for a new generation of offensive weaponry.

“Would you mind handing me my phone, so I can tell Mom I’m okay?”

Grandma handed him his phone and Perry immediately took the opportunity to take a selfie whilst throwing up no less than sixteen thumbs-up at once.

Grandma snatched the phone out of his hand.

Worth it.

“I’m tempted to leave you like this a while, to teach you a lesson,” she said, eyes narrowed.

“Not gonna work,” Perry said, shaking his head. “I’m unrepentant.”

I’ve had my fill of people ‘teaching me a lesson.’ When someone said that, more often than not, they were being spiteful to satisfy their petty anger. Perry would learn his own lessons.

“I can tell. It’s that infuriating Dull father of yours peeking through.”

Man, if only she knew Dad is the reason I can’t cast.

She would probably kill him.

Grandma unstrapped Perry from the gurney and motioned for him to follow.

Perry hauled himself out of the uncomfortable bed and followed Grandma out of the room. It opened up to the old woman’s clinic, where no less than half a dozen magical creatures were waiting their turn to be attended.

Perry spotted a familiar face sitting on the bench in the lobby.

“Sup,” Perry said, waving at Pixie, who stared at the mutant arm dragging his side down for a moment before waving back belatedly, frowning. Her delicate wing was bent at a painful-looking angle.

Oh, right, she’s never seen me out of the armor. Pixie must’ve assumed a stranger was hitting on her. Well, hopefully it was a confidence booster and not creepy.

Perry didn’t have time to introduce himself as Grandma walked at a ground-eating pace that he almost had to trot to keep up with. Maybe it’s better Pixie doesn’t recognize me, anyway. He wasn’t exactly presentable.

“I have a large amount of powerful spirits,” Grandma explained as they walked, “but the essence we need is very esoteric, and one I cannot produce, which makes this a bit more complicated, but we can work around it.”

Grandma took him to a storeroom and went to a small shelf and pulled out a box with some rust-colored dirt in it.

“This is earth scoured by Nogul,” Grandma said, “sworn enemy of Astra. It contains the blood of the slain Army of Saint Natanya. Now, normally it would rot your arm off…”

“Less than ideal,” Perry admitted.

“But with the right restraints, it will simply undo Astra’s instructions.”

“Okay.”

Grandma closed her eyes and held her palm above the reddish dust. Tendrils of essence wove from her hand, teasing out a thin strand of magic from the dust, unspooling it like a thread before weaving it in with Grandma’s essences, and directing the resulting spell towards Perry’s arm.

Now THAT’S magic, Perry thought, impressed with the light show.

The wiggling extensions protruding from Perry’s arm in every direction gradually retracted, bringing back the left arm he knew and loved.

“Thank—”

“You know why I call you a mistake?” Grandma asked.

“No, but I wish you’d stop,” Perry replied, flexing his arm and rolling his wrist.

“Because for a long, long time, our bloodline has been…unfruitful. The last fifteen generations of the Zauberer line have each only been able to produce one heir. When I had your mother and her sister, I thought…I thought we were finally free of the stigma.

“I was so confident, so blindly hopeful for the resurgence of our family, that I…made a serious mistake.”

That was probably pretty painful to admit, Perry thought.

“It cost me the life of my daughter and once again proved that our family is cursed to have but one child.

“And then, fifteen years later, your mother fooled around in a concrete prison cell and got impregnated by a reprobate. Eight hundred years of history and tradition, careful breeding, tossed away like so much garbage.”

“To be fair, the effects of inbreeding are well-understood and the dating pool of Funkytown is small. Mom probably wasn’t interested in marrying a paternal cousin,” Perry said, before Grandma whapped him upside the head.

“How about this: Would it make you happy if I knocked up a bunch of girls?” Perry asked.

Grandma whapped him upside the head again before tilting her head contemplatively. “Yes. Yes, it would.”

“I’ll get right on that,” Perry said sarcastically.

“You’re different, young man,” Grandma said, frowning thoughtfully.

“Aside from the arm?” Perry asked, wiggling his fingers.

“Your aura’s being eaten away by something,” Grandma said, her gaze flickering around Perry’s body. “You used to care so much what I thought of you.”

“Or…you called me a mistake and insulted my amazing parents one too many times?” Perry suggested.

“Nope. You care what I think. It’s definitely damage to the soul.” Her eyes narrowed for a minute, then widened. “I didn’t see it, because they’re so good at hiding, but you’ve got two amorphous beings worming through you like a juicy apple, warring with each other for your Attunement, and damaging your soul in the process.”

“That sounds…not good.”

“It’s not serious yet,” Grandma said, her eyes tracking invisible movements in Perry’s aura in a way that made Perry’s hair stand on end.

“Kinda sounds serious.”

“Put some work into healing your soul. I prescribe team-based sports, regular family game nights, and passionate lovemaking with your girlfriend,” Grandma said, picking up her phone and carefully dialing Mom’s number with the hesitation of someone who didn’t fully trust electronics.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Perry muttered.

“You’re dismissed, Paradox.”

Grumbling, Perry left his grandma’s clinic and stalked out onto the dark streets of Funkytown.

***Claudette Zauberer***

“Hold on,” Claudette said, fishing her phone out of her pants as Darryl paused the movie.

She sucked her breath through her teeth as she saw the number for Mom’s clinic. “It’s Mom,” she said.

“Put it on speaker!” Darryl said, devoting his entire attention to the phone.

Hopefully nothing went wrong with Perry, Claudette thought, her heart slamming in her chest as she answered the call.

Click.

“Abun’Zaul!” Mom’s shrill voice pounded their eardrums over the phone. “You put Abun’Zaul in my grandson?!”

“Umm….”

I forgot she might see that.

Chapter 32: Prop Comedy

***Claudette***

“Hi, Mom,” Claudette said, wincing as her mother stormed into her home, taking off her praxa wool scarf and hanging it up on the coatrack before heading for the dinner table.

“Family meeting,” Mom said. “Get your clown of a husband out here.”

“You called?” Darryl asked, poking his head out of the broom closet that led to his lair.

Mom motioned for them to sit.

Claudette gingerly sat across from her mother, beside Darryl.

“You two are going to explain to me exactly what you did to my grandson,” she said, clasping her gnarled fingers together as she peered at them.

“So…you know how Annette had more Attunement than anyone you’d ever seen?” Claudette said gingerly.

“Annette. Died,” Mom said.

“Perry had about three times as much…before the ritual of Kaz.”

“Yes, I saw that. What I’m wondering is why you thought it was a good idea to put a second spiritual entity inside him. One in direct contention with Abun’Zaul. Perry’s behavior was showing signs of minor soul damage.”

Soul damage. Recognized in the mundane world as various mental illnesses, and treated in a similar manner to PTSD and depression: companionship, exercise, and routine.

“Luckily it’s minor, and the two spirits seem to be mitigating most of it through some kind of artificial shoring-up of his soul. Almost like an oyster builds up mother of pearl.”

Mom sighed and rubbed her temple. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Abun’Zaul is the epitome of formless potential. Able to imitate anything, grow without limit. And yet this other spirit is so closely bonded to it, in some places it’s difficult to tell which is which. They work together in some places, oppose each other in others, both of them growing exponentially, matching each other in equal measure.

“Where did you even find a second Legendary spirit, and what made you think it was a good idea to fight fire with fire?” Mom asked. “I mean, it seems to be working, but it makes NO sense.”

Claudette frowned and glanced at Darryl. “We never…put a second spirit in Paradox.”

Darryl raised his finger and opened his mouth, pausing for a moment as he considered. “I may have…created an artificial spiritual grey goo. It seems like the causal pruning establishes a form on a dimension the things you call spirits are able to interact with… Interesting.”

“What’s a grey goo?” Mom asked. “Is it some sort of slime?”

“It’s a theoretical concept of self-replicating nanobots so effective that they would be capable of using any material to create more of themselves. The danger would be that they would never stop and eventually consume the planet. Professor Replica came close.”

“What?” Mom was lost, but Claudette knew what he was talking about.

“You put an all-consuming spiritual entity in Perry?” Claudette demanded.

“You did too,” Darryl said with a shrug. “At least mine is programmed to protect him at any cost.”

“Including at the cost of destroying the world?” Claudette asked.

“No exceptions,” Darryl said.

“Darryl, I love you, but sometimes you’re the stupidest smart man I’ve ever seen.” Claudette sighed, picturing all the ways that could go horribly.

“Only for you, babe.” The hawk-nosed professor gave her finger guns.

“It…” Mom ground out the words grudgingly, “may…have been for the best,” she said. “Paradox survives in the perfect stalemate between those two forces. Abun’Zaul’s very ability to adapt and overcome the host’s defenses is why no one could use it, regardless of their Attunement.”

“I didn’t…know that,” Claudette said, her skin turning cold.

“I didn’t tell you,” Mom said. “Which was my mistake, I suppose.

“Well, I look forward to seeing the career of a mage who can use every essence at will. The first true Archmage since Amek Zauberer.” Mom’s gaze sparkled as she stared into the future, marveling at the reinvigorated Zauberer line of mages.

Darryl winced. “Uh, no, he can’t ever use any form of magic. That’s priority number two for my System.”

Mom snarled and a lance of fire leapt from her fingertips and drilled through Darryl’s chest.

Darryl glanced down at the glowing hole in his chest revealing melted steel and wiring.

“And you wonder why I don’t meet you in person?” the android said as it gradually powered down, face going slack.

Mom’s face was red with fury as she stared at the remote-controlled body double, her temper gradually cooling to her usual simmering ire.

“So…” Claudette frowned, meeting her mother’s gaze as two questions rattled around in her head. “If Perry can’t use magic…”

“How did he do that to his arm?” Mom finished for her.

“And if there are no exceptions to Darryl’s direction to protect Perry…”

“Would it unlock his magic if it was the only way to save his life?” Mom asked, frowning contemplatively.

“Mom,” Claudette said, interrupting her mother’s train of thought. She knew that expression on her mom’s face.

“Mmm?” Mom said, glancing up at her.

“Promise you’re not going to put Perry in mortal danger to try and unlock his magic.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Promise you won’t have anyone else do it either.”

Mom clicked her tongue with a sour expression on her face. “Fine, I won’t order anyone else to do it either.”

“Don’t even bring it up in casual conversation with one of your flunkies.”

“Kind of paranoid, aren’t you?” Mom asked.

“Mooom,” Claudette groaned.

***Perry***

“Perry! You’re alive!” Heather’s voice echoed through the underground lair.

“Eh?” Perry turned around to face her.

“And you don’t… What is that?” she asked, her voice flat, looking at his shirt.

“This?” Perry asked, looking down at his shirt.

My Doctor

Prescribed
a Girlfriend

Sitting on top of the black T-shirt with white lettering was mom’s love charm.

“Are you serious?”

“It’s true, actually,” Perry said. “My doctor did prescribe a girlfriend.”

“And that helps with your arm somehow?” Heather asked.

“Oh, no, she just had her feelings hurt because she wasn’t able to hurt my feelings, and prescribed a girlfriend in response to that.”

“That makes no sense,” Heather said.

“Yes, that’s why I made a T-shirt out of it,” Perry explained. “Because it’s funny.

“I liked the idea so much, I made one for you,” Perry said, holding up another shirt off the table.

Rx

Strength

Girlfriend

“Yeaaaah…I’m not gonna wear that,” Heather said.

“Excellent,” Perry said, setting the shirt down. Either prove my grandma wrong or get a girlfriend. It’s a win-win.

“So whaddya got on tap today besides prop comedy?” Heather asked.

“My CAD is done for Mk. 3, just waiting on the supplies. I’ve got a couple new weapons drawn up, but need to buy parts for them, too…”

Perry shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do, at this point.

“Patrol?”

There was always something going on during High Tide.

***Jason Cutter***

To say Jason was mad was an understatement.

Jason was so far beyond angry that he’d wrapped back around to serene calm.

He was going to kill someone tonight.

Specifically, Tom Smith, the piece of garbage who’d fired his mom the minute she’d been diagnosed with Secondary Progressive MS because he didn’t want to pay for her insurance.

A single mother of three, she hadn’t had the time or money to seek treatment, desperately searching for a job that paid as well, even as her faculties were gradually eaten away by the disease. But preexisting conditions were a major turn-off for any employer or insurer, so she mostly got the door slammed in her face.

He’d spent years running straight home from school to do the chores and take care of his brother and sister, so his mom could get some sleep. Sometimes that just meant holding her hand while she writhed in pain, her white blood cells devouring her own nervous system.

And then she died.

It was a car crash that killed her. A brawl had broken out between a cape and cowl in the middle of Main Street, and she’d swerved, hitting the brakes just a little too slow to avoid slamming full-speed into a concrete divider.

Jason was absolutely sure that if she’d been able to get treated, rather than ignoring the disease in favor of job-hunting, she would’ve been able to put her foot on the brakes that quarter-second earlier that divided life and death.

His brother and sister wouldn’t have been going hungry the past three years…

And Jason wouldn’t have Triggered.

Really, Tom only had himself to blame.

Jason craned his neck to look up at the office building in front of him. Smith and Western Law.

There was a light beaming out from inside the upper left window. Tom’s window.

Ah, good.

Jason reached out and felt his new power activate, exploding the heavy steel front door into confetti with a blast of wind and bits of glitter.

Jason’s power…was not what he would have wished for, but it was good enough to do what he needed to do with it.

Jason marched through the falling shimmery material and headed for the stairs, exploding anything that got into his way in a straight line.

He marched up to the third floor and exploded the door, heading for Tom’s office.

The piece of garbage was hiding behind his desk, calling the police, presumably.

The man’s cell phone exploded into confetti right next to his ear, causing the lawyer to give a satisfying squawk and reel to the side, clutching his ear.

“Mr. Smith. I’m going to kill you,” Jason said, moving towards him. Jason didn’t have any particular plan in mind for how he was going to do that, but it would probably involve confetti.

“Gah, you little—” Mr. Smith lunged forward and snatched something out from under his desk: a pistol.

In the blink of an eye, the pistol exploded into confetti and reformed out of the glitter floating in the air, in Jason’s hand.

“Huh, I didn’t realize I could do that,” Jason said, bemused. The idea of practicing, when he had the ability to make Tom pay now, hadn’t even occurred to him.

“Hey, listen. Whatever you’re looking for, I’m sure there’s a way to settle it legally,” Tom weaseled.

“Nnnaaah,” Jason said, drawing a bead on the scumbag.

An impact rocked Jason’s side and flung him away, slamming him violently into the wall and sending blazing pain up his side.

The gun fired as he clenched his hands in pain, sending a bullet out the window and into the concrete wall of the building across the street.

Jason glanced over his shoulder with a snarl, and spotted…

A pretty redhead, holding a rusty metal rod in her hand with what looked like an ivory handle. “Now come quietly, or—”

Jason exploded her weapon into confetti, landing the weapon in his hand.

“ANYA! You son of a b—”

“Ow!” Jason dropped the rod as it felt like he was clutching an electric fence, sending pins and needles all the way up his arm.

“Wow, I didn’t know she could do that,” the girl mused as an absolutely gigantic suit of power armor lumbered into view behind her.

It raised a weapon-laden arm towards him.

Jason dropped the puny gun and flung out his hands, focusing everything he had.

The power armor exploded in a massive storm of confetti, revealing a dark-haired guy about Jason’s age, wearing a T-shirt that implied he was single and had no idea how to go about fixing it.

“My suit,” the guy said, seemingly in shock as glitter settled across his body.

“He’s got some kind of power that allows him to vanish and short-range teleport inanimate objects!” the girl said.

“That was my suit,” the guy said.

Jason poofed the gun back into his hand and pointed it at the supers.

“You better get the heck outta here,” Jason said. “This scumbag, here, is the only one who has to die tonight.”

“That was my suit!” The black-haired kid charged Jason, tackling him to the ground.

In a panic, Jason tried his power on the ground under him.

The ground exploded into confetti and dropped the two of them an entire floor. Jason twisted mid-fall and got the cape under him, dropping the two of them onto the sharp edge of a hardwood desk.

“OOF!”

Jason rolled away immediately and started backing off, while the super rubbed his back.

“Need to get myself a hyperweave undersuit. No idea how that’s less than a boxer’s punch…”

“Paradox!” the girl shouted from the hole in the floor above. “I’m—”

Jason extended his hand and the floor reappeared out of glitter, separating them from the heroine.

He leveled the gun on the cape. “Get outta here, NOW, or I’m going to shoot you,” Jason said, his nerves on fire with pure adrenaline.

“Eh.” Paradox shrugged and charged him again.

BLAM BLAM BLAM!

Jason got three wild shots off before a fist caught him in the jaw, rocking his head back violently.

Jason’s vision swam as he staggered backward, the gun being wrenched out of his hand. A moment later, a pair of hands wrenched his arm behind his back.

“Let go of me!” Jason shouted, disappearing the floor beneath them.

This time the other guy was ready, and he was stronger than Jason, despite being roughly the same build.

Paradox made sure Jason hit the ground back-first, knocking the wind out of him.

“OW,” Jason groaned with what little air he could muster.

For a good minute, Jason could only stare up at the ceiling while the redheaded girl hoisted him to his feet. Her hands deformed around his wrists, turning into effective handcuffs made of living tissue.

“Lemme go,” Jason muttered. “Or I’ll…I’ll make your stupid spandex suit disappear.”

She leaned in to whisper in his ear, “You gotta ask yourself, is it worth getting beat to death?”

His anger beginning to fade, Jason had to admit that it probably wasn’t worth it.

“Hey, dude,” Paradox said, stepping into Jason’s field of view. “If you could give me my suit back, that would be awesome.”

“Screw you!” Jason said, trying to go for a kick before the heroine twisted his arms a bit harder. “You bastards ruined everything!”

“Get that punk outta here!” Tom said, his hands on his hips in a pathetic approximation of a power pose, ruined by his protruding beer gut.

“He got my mom killed!” Jason shouted, writhing violently in the Shapeshifter’s immutable grip. “If it wasn’t for that scumbag, she’d be alive right now! My brother and sister wouldn’t be starving!”

The girl’s grip dragged him towards the front door, where the blue and red lights flashed and sirens echoed.

“Say whatever you want, kid. Everyone here knows you’re full of it,” Tom Smith said, totally confident now that he believed himself safe.

“I’ll be back! I don’t care where they put me, I’m gonna kill you!” Jason shouted.

“Hold on, Wraith,” Paradox said, tapping the heroine on the shoulder.

“What’s your name?” Paradox asked, but Jason was too focused on the smug bastard’s smug expression.

Click. Paradox snapped his fingers in front of Jason’s face.

“What’s your name?”

“Jason.”

“Your super name,” Paradox said, rolling his eyes behind his domino mask.

“Don’t have one.”

Paradox sighed. “Look, Jason, there are ways to get revenge that are totally legal.”

Jason snorted.

“You know what the average salary is for a super?”

“No?”

“Three million dollars a year. Some make more, some make less, but it’s fair to say that you’re set for life.”

“What does that have to do with him?” Jason asked, nodding his head.

“Well, three million dollars a year pays for a lot of lawyer’s fees. If you really wanted to kill him, you could hire some attack-dog lawyers to sue him for every conceivable reason, drag his name through the mud until no one will ever work with him again, and he’s too busy defending himself to make any money.

“Once your attack-dog lawyers have him disbarred and living in a slum, hire some soulless lobbyists to harass him day and night until he decides to end his life rather than continue suffering.

“Best part is,” Paradox said, pointing at Jason. “It’s mostly legal.”

Jason cocked his head. Huh. I never thought of that.

“Damn, Perry,” Wraith said, frowning.

Jason met Tom Smith’s gaze. It was a little less smug. A little more pale.

“I’ll see you later,” Jason said, no longer struggling as they escorted him out of the building.

“Citizen,” Paradox said, nodding to the flabbergasted lawyer.

***Perry***

“So, why did you give that guy advice on how to ruin someone’s life?” Heather asked as they waited for the Nexus pickup crew to arrive.

“Well, it’s not exactly a big secret; he’d have figured it out if he sat down and thought about it for a while. Plenty of time for that in jail. It also got him to calm down and stop resisting.” Perry patted his suit, standing in the parking lot. “And I really wanted him to give me back my armor.”

“More the last part than anything else, I bet,” Heather said.

“I only have two of these to last until the end of the week!” Perry exclaimed.

They felt a distinctive rumbling in the ground and noticed Titan and co. approaching. Warcry was practicing skating along the ground on a board of pure purple energy. By the wobble in her stance, it was tricky.

Hardcase was walking behind them in her improved suit, and Manic was Segwaying along beside them to conserve calories. Jetset was doing overwatch, as usual.

I need to get that guy a rifle. The rubber band gun was good, but something with more range would take better advantage of the cape’s natural advantage of range and height.

“Hey, Paradox, Wraith!” Titan said as he approached. “I saw police lights and went to see what was up. I see you guys landed a fish!”

He motioned to Jason, who was being restrained by a police officer manually, rather than being handcuffed.

“Eh?” Perry said, turning around to fully face him.

Titan glanced down at Perry’s shirt and began chortling uncontrollably, his hand slapping against his thigh.

At least, until the sirens on the wall started blaring.

Chapter 33: Lockdown

There are about 800 million insects for every human on the planet. They each have a chance to Trigger.

Even if only one in a million Triggers, and one in a thousand of those are viable…we are still vastly outnumbered.

The most common Trigger for insects is gigantism, a way to bypass the square-cube law without sacrificing any of their relative strength and speed. When a queen from the order Hymenopterans Triggers, she will pass this trait down to her progeny.

This can quickly become a problem.

Mostly annoying before High Tide, once humans became a tasty snack rather than unconquerable giants, ants began encroaching on human cities in inexhaustible waves.

If there could be said to be a benefit of Professor Replica’s campaign against humanity, it would be the fact that ants and replicators keep each other somewhat in check as they fight for territory beyond the confines of our walls.

Hymenopterans are still a problem, though.

***2 Weeks Ago***

The wasp queen had little in the way of consciousness. Every move it made was a reflexive response to stimuli, both internal and external.

It was regurgitating mulched-up bark and patting it into the appropriate shape to lay eggs in, when a bird swooped down and snatched the queen up.

The wasp struggled mightily, but it was no match for the giant monster’s jaws, gulping it down whole. Just as its tiny spark of awareness began to fade, something took hold inside it.

The poor songbird exploded, and from the cloud of feathers emerged a wasp queen the size of a horse.

Its antennae tasted the air as it looked for the ideal place to start its nest, reverting to its previous behavior now that the threat was gone…except that nice place to start a nest, where it had just been, no longer existed. It was now surrounded by tiny shoots incapable of holding its nest. There were no big wood hollows to place its eggs in.

The queen took to the air, scanning the surroundings, before it noticed a giant abandoned beehive in the distance, with massive grey walls made of some stonelike substance.

As the queen approached, her antennae began to pick up the scent of prey…

***Jetset***

“Nothing beats flight,” Hurricane said, pantomiming swimming past where Jetset was hovering, his turbulence pushing Jetset around in the air. Despite his namesake, Jetset didn’t fly via lift; he flew innately, simply willing himself through the air. Jetset hadn’t gotten a Nexus scientist interested in studying how it worked yet, but one day…

The problem with Jetset’s perfect flight was that it didn’t come with any perks, like Hurricane’s ability to control wind.

So, while Jetset was one of the better fliers, he was basically a normal guy aside from that. Not much offensive ability to speak of, so having Hurricane hanging out with him filled him with unspeakable jealousy.

He was fairly sure Hurricane knew that, too.

The dude could rub air currents against each other to hit enemies with literal lightning, like he was wearing fuzzy socks and the sky was his shag carpet.

Hurricane could summon actual hurricanes and blast people with air, too. Jetset had a rubber band gun on loan from a kooky teen Tinker.

“So what do you do? On your team, I mean?” Hurricane asked, backstroking through the air.

“Comms and recon, mostly,” Jetset said with a shrug.

“That’s not bad. You could buy a performance enhancer from Dr. Flex and add Beater to the list,” Hurricane said.

“Those are hella expensive,” Jetset said back. “And we already have a Bruiser.”

“There’s no such thing as too much muscle in this biz, kid,” Hurricane said, flexing his high-definition muscles that popped out under his grey suit.

“Is that what you did?” Jetset asked.

“Indeed. I’m not so much a pure flier as an energy type that uses it to fly. Physically human baseline. I figured upping my physique was a good way of hedging against getting ganked. It’s saved my ass a couple times.”

“What kind of gains are we talking, here?” Jetset asked, getting engaged in the conversation.

“Well, Dr. Flex has packages that range from a 15% improvement for twenty grand, all the way up to 45% for five mil.”

“That’s barely getting into superhuman territory and he’s asking for five mil?” Jetset scoffed.

“You’re seriously gonna complain about getting another superpower?”

“A weak one.”

“See this?” Hurricane said, pointing at a scar on his cheek.

“Yeah?”

“Bullet bounced off my cheekbone.”

“Oh,” Jetset said.

“Yeah. 45% is nothing to scoff at.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“By the way, because of legal reasons, I have to inform you that I get a kickback from Dr. Flex every time I refer someone.”

“Are…are you serious?” Jetset asked, frowning.

Hurricane was about to respond when sirens filled the air, along with massive walls surrounding block SE-15. The two fliers hung there in midair, gawking at the monolithic walls jutting out of streets and alleys that had simply opened up to allow the massive concrete slabs through.

“Hey, what’s our altitude?” Hurricane asked.

Jetset glanced at the altimeter strapped to his wrist and his eyes widened in alarm.

“It needs to be lower!” he shouted, diving, with Hurricane following suit.

A crackling burst of energy snapped into place above them, creating a powerful concussive blast above and below the force field.

Jetset felt a pulse of energy, then blacked out.

***Paradox***

“That’s the lockdown siren,” Titan said, the smile vanishing from his face.

Perry pulled out his phone as the ground beneath them began to shake, making the surrounding skyscrapers wiggle alarmingly.

Massive Tinker-built concrete barriers rose in the distance, isolating the block they were in from the rest of the city. On top of the walls were flashing strobe lights in yellow and red.

Yellow and red: invasive species. Perry’s phone gave him the type of threat they’d been quarantined for. At least it wasn’t a disease or curse. Diseases had green, while curses were purple.

“Invasive species,” Perry said, looking back up to Heather.

“Does it say what kind?”

“No—”

Perry was interrupted as a crackling energy burst upward from the superstructures, forming a hexagonal force field around the block.

“Why can’t they just do that all the time?” Manic asked, pointing at the convenient force field.

“Too expensive,” Perry and Hardcase answered simultaneously.

Force fields were tough to make and devilishly expensive to power in the best of times, and one that could cover the entire city wasn’t worth the effort. Not when there were ways to get around or disable them. They were best used as a temporary quarantine to keep the problem from spreading while supers dealt with it.

“Who’s available in SE-15?” Warcry asked.

“Us,” Manic said.

“Us,” Perry said with a shrug.

“Us,” echoed Wraith and Hardcase.

“Jetset, tell me you’re alive,” Titan said, holding his fingertips to his earpiece. “Jetset? Jetset, come in.”

“What do you think it is?” Warcry asked.

“Ticks, maybe?” Perry asked. Ticks referred to a mutated sea louse that could hitch a ride on a prawn and slip through the wall’s defenses. They were crablike, with flat heads and round, cutting jaws. They carried their babies around on their backs, and squishing one was often a recipe for unleashing a swarm of pale, flesh-eating grubs that had the strength to burrow their way into a human’s skin and hollow them out.

That would set off an Invasive Species alarm for sure.

Titan cursed, glancing up at the pale blue force field high above their heads. “Jetset’s out of contact. Best-case scenario, the shield cut off communications.”

“What’s the worst-case scenario?” Warcry asked.

“The force field cut him off,” Titan said, his expression grim as he pulled out a tablet.

“Oh.” Warcry paled.

“It’s not likely. They have regulation flying altitudes for a reason,” Titan said, his massive ham-fingers poking the tablet.

“He’s still in the block, but his signal is bouncing around a lot,” Titan said, peering up. “I think he was under the force field when it went off. No sign of him up there now.

“Damn, I wish we had a Sensor,” Titan said, shaking his head. Supers with super-senses didn’t fight crime as often due to a lack of offensive power, but their services were still in high demand.

“It looks like Jetset’s somewhere in the southwest side of the block. Priority one is find Jetset, then we can worry about the invasive species.”

Titan glanced over at Perry. “You guys wanna come?”

Perry glanced at Heather. “Of course. I’ll take Jetset’s job and watch from the air for him and whatever this ‘invasive species’ is. My channel is 52.”

Titan nodded, flipping through channels on his earpiece.

Perry climbed into his armor and sealed the chestpiece down around himself.

He pointed at Jason. “Dazzle, your job is to make sure the police officers arresting you and the guy you tried to kill survive the lockdown. By the way, your super name is Dazzle now.”

Dazzle cocked his head. “Are you serious?”

“Have a spare domino mask,” Perry said, pulling one out of his storage container in the front of his suit.

“Your identity is your most valuable possession,” Perry said with solemn conviction as he offered it to Dazzle.

“Literally everyone here has seen my face,” Dazzle said.

“Yeah, but it’s the spirit of the thing,” Paradox responded.

“Gotta wear the mask,” Titan said, nodding.

“Get with the program, man. Jeez!” Manic said.

“Not cool, man,” Wraith said.

“Guys in masks are hot,” Warcry said, nodding.

“I-it’d be a good idea,” Hardcase said, hesitantly joining the dogpile.

“Just wear the mask, kid,” the cop with Jason’s hands behind his back said, letting go of one of his arms.

Dazzle gave into peer pressure and donned the domino mask with a sigh, to general applause from the onlookers, with the possible exception of the doomed lawyer, who was conveying about as much hysterical confusion as a human in the shape of a beanbag could.

“Alright, let’s go,” Titan said, nodding.

Perry activated the jets in his suit and took off, Wraith following behind on foot, her legs lengthening to catch up.

A moment later, Heather arrived right beside Perry, gliding along on stretched-out arms nearly fifteen feet long on a side, gradually descending before bouncing up again to match his thirty-foot altitude.

“That’s cool. Where’d you get that idea?” Perry asked Heather, who was shaped something like a giant manta ray beside him.

“I figured if I can shapeshift, I should—”

Her voice cut out as she sank back down to the ground before leaping up again.

“Be able to fly, but I don’t—”

She descended and hopped back up again.

“Have the hang of it yet.”

“You’re getting there. Have you tried increasing your buoyancy by creating vacuum pockets inside of yourself? Could make yourself into a sky-whale.”

“Oh yeah, that was—

“The first thing I tried,” Manta-Wraith said beside him, rolling her eyes sarcastically.

“Learn you about some avionics and buoyancy. I got some books in my room you should read.”

“Who ever had to study to be able to fly?” she asked.

“Everyone?” Perry said, cocking a brow.

“I know I’m not your leader,” Titan said over the channel, “but if you two could quit chatting and separate, that would be appreciated.”

“Got it,” Paradox said, drifting farther from Wraith, taking a position on the right wing of their search formation and slightly ahead, so he could see if anything was gonna jump out at them.

That’s why Perry saw the fires first.

It seemed like the southwest portion of the city had been engulfed in flames wherever possible. Anything made of wood—park benches, stands, posters—all that had been burned away. The only thing that remained was scorch marks, the occasional reddened patch of concrete, and dead wasps.

Really BIG dead wasps.

“Titan, we’re headed straight into the invasive species’ territory. It’s wasps,” Perry said into his comms.

“Shit,” Titan cursed, glancing down at his datapad. “Are they concentrated over there?” he asked, pointing ahead and slightly to the left.

Perry gained a bit of altitude and crept forward, peering over the edge of one of the three-story buildings.

Growing out of the side of the building to engulf an entire back street was something that looked almost beautiful in its alien architecture, with swooping shelves that seamlessly morphed into each other almost like roofing tiles designed to let water slough off, and air come in.

Lying next to it was some of Jetset’s comms equipment.

“We’ve got a giant wasp nest made of concrete, and—SHIT!”

ZZZZZZZ.

A teeth-rattling buzzing assaulted Perry’s ears as a wasp the size of a poodle and as friendly as a Doberman sideswiped him in midair.

Perry got a good look at the creature’s faceted, soulless eyes as its stinger peeled up curls of aluminum off the armor plating covering his chest.

That stinger is harder than steel, Perry thought idly as he struggled to shove the monster off of him. Unfortunately, it had six arms to his two, and every shove could only dislodge one or two at a time, while the rest hung on.

I wonder if I can make a defense focused not around being harder, but simply being more durable? Of course both would be good, but if I had to choose, which would be more valuable to have in the long run?

Harder is better for burst damage, while durability is good for things like damage over time.

I wonder if the stinger will retain its hardness after the creature dies? Could make for a good Tinker weapon with a— Is it getting hotter in here?

A second wasp had latched onto Perry’s back and was having similar luck with its own mandibles and stinger, but somehow that wasn’t the end of it: Perry’s armor was starting to turn cherry-red in places.

Blades.EXE

BFS.EXE

Perry didn’t know the exact point that aluminum began to lose hardness, and he didn’t want to find out by being skewered by a stinger that was literally the size of his forearm.

Perry turned his shoulder jets in opposing directions and began to spin as he hacked at the bugs with his floating armaments.

The big friendly swords slapped the creatures like flyswatters, and the finger-length blades were able to penetrate the creatures’ eyeballs and mouth-holes.

Need to check if they can puncture the abdomen, Perry thought, panting as the two insects tumbled away from him. He could already make out the motion of more flying towards him in his peripherals.

“I think they got Jetset,” Perry said, flying back down to the ground to put his back closer to the rest of his allies.

Flying around up there alone was looking like a losing proposition.

“Shit, move!” Titan said, charging forward.

***Jetset***

Scrape.

Scrape.

Scrape.

Jetset peeled his eyes open, his head pounding like he’d been slamming his dad’s scotch all night. He could hear a faint scraping noise, but couldn’t see anything.

He couldn’t see.

Did I break my optic nerves or something? he thought, panic rising. Brain damage from getting hit with Tinker-tech and falling from tremendous heights was well-studied.

Skin cold, Jetset fumbled for his altimeter, clicking it on.

A gentle blue light reflected back into his eyes, and Jetset heaved a quiet sigh of relief.

Until he saw what was making the scraping noise.

A wasp the size of a large dog was scraping flesh away from a nearby arm covered in grey hyperweave, maybe four feet away from his face.

Jetset choked back a scream.

Chapter 34: Out of the Frying Pan

There were four other supers on-site when they arrived, barely visible under the swarm of wasps and blazing heat until they got close enough to reinforce them, some fifty feet away from the massive concrete structure.

Through all the insect legs and heat, Perry could barely make out the fortification the bugs had made.

It seemed a lot smaller from the air. It was about three stories tall and wider than he’d expected by a huge margin. With the way some of the windows of the building revealed more activity beyond, Perry was fairly sure the nest had grown into the building itself.

Damn.

“Thanks for the backup!” a woman in a colorful bikini, wielding a pair of revolvers with unnatural skill, shouted.

It’s not my place to comment on someone’s super decisions.

“Titan,” Tung-Stan said, his neck rocks grating against each other as he nodded. Perry wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the rock-man’s brow lower.

“Tung-Stan,” Titan said.

“I live ‘round here,” the giant pile of blackened rocks rumbled between squishing massive bugs.

Ah. They might be professional villains, but nobody wants to live in a wasp nest.

The other two supers were a man with a flame theme, who was entirely incapable of causing appreciable damage to the bugs with the massive gouts of fire blasting from his hands, and a woman with a clock painted on her torso.

Flambé and Clock-stopper, Perry remembered from evenings of idle wiki-ing.

Flambé was pretty self-explanatory, but Clock-stopper had the power to freeze people and things in time for a limited amount of time. She was among the best at nonlethal takedowns.

As Perry was thinking this, a wasp rushed the woman, and she reached towards it at the same time.

The wasp froze in midair and crashed to the ground, tinkling against the asphalt like a piece of glass. Clock-stopper stopped the creature’s slide with her foot and stabbed it with a dagger right in the central nervous system.

The creature immediately began writhing, sending searing heat in every direction as the super danced back.

Speaking of searing heat…

Wraith was retracting her head into her hyperweave like a turtle, Manic was donning a hyperweave hood, and Warcry was surrounding her head with her own energy, mitigating the heat.

Titan didn’t care about the heat.

Hyperweave hood: $15k, probably.

Still, he should get one for both of them, for situations just like this.

“How are you fine in this heat?!” Perry demanded of the bikinied gunslinger.

“Magic hat,” she said, tapping the brim of her cowgirl hat before going back to work, blasting away wasp after wasp, the muzzle flash suspiciously colorful.

Oh God, not a magic gunslinger… Magic gunslingers are trash-tier magic hybrids. She’s shot way more than twelve shots since I got here, too… Perry thought, curious as to where the extra bullets were coming from.

But there were more important things going on.

“DEBUFF GOING OUT, DUCK!”

The surrounding supers crouched low as Perry held his hand straight up and set the Melt beam to its widest angle.

Melt.EXE

The diluted blast wasn’t enough to noticeably weaken the creatures’ armor, but their wings turned just a bit floppier, which played hell with their flight.

Why the wasps were even able to fly, given that the air was hundreds of times thinner relative to their new size…only God knew.

Wasps began tumbling every which way as their normally totally rigid wings betrayed them, sending them tumbling violently down to the ground, and making the swarm just a bit more manageable for the assembled supers.

“I’ve got a team member in there!” Titan shouted, pointing at the enormous three-story nest. “I need to get him out!”

“He’s probably dead already!” Tung-Stan said.

“Until I see it for myself, I’m going to act as if he isn’t!” Titan shouted.

“Well, good luck!” Tung-Stan shouted back, pointing at the nest. “Those tunnels are too small for you and me, and ripping it apart is an absolute bitch. It’s not just brittle concrete; it’s concrete reinforced with some kind of organic Laffy Taffy! Even if you can break the concrete, it just stretches!”

Titan frowned as a wasp landed on him and tried to penetrate his armor. The giant idly squished the wasp in his grip, a small explosion of heat emanating from between his fingers as he eyeballed the nest.

“Warcry, you’re our quarterback tonight!” he shouted, turning to face the energy user.

“What?” Warcry asked, turning to look at him.

“I need you to—LOOK OUT!”

Manic tore the wasp off Warcry’s neck an instant after it landed, but it had managed to get a bit of its stinger under her skin.

Warcry clapped her hand over the tiny sliver of exposed skin between her energy hood and the hyperweave, coming away with a little droplet of blood.

“I’m probably fine, right?” she asked before her eyes rolled back in her head.

Energy users are often human baseline.

“Warcry!” Titan screamed, his voice breaking a little as he caught her before she hit the ground, her neck beginning to swell to outrageous proportions.

Perry’s skin turned cold.

Need some kind of heal, right now. Right now, right now, right, now…

If he hadn’t messed up the healing spell so bad, he might be able to do something right NOW.

A thought sparked. If time was the problem, buy more time.

“Clock-stopper!” Perry shouted at the top of his lungs, gaining the super’s attention.

She glanced quickly over her shoulder and saw him pointing at Warcry, who was going into messy anaphylactic shock, her neck swelling to cut off blood and breathing.

Without needing further explanation, the super reached a hand out towards Warcry, and the girl froze in place, her grisly death halted.

“Ninety seconds!” Clock-stopper said, returning her gaze back to the fight at hand.

“Get her to a hospital,” Titan said, his tone ominous as he met Manic’s gaze. “Be sure to mention the wasps and anaphylaxis.”

“Got it,” Manic said, shoving the rest of a Snickers into his mouth before picking up the rigid girl and vanishing in a streak of light.

Titan cursed as he lunged back to his feet. “I was gonna have Warcry cut our way in to rescue Jetset! Perry, Hardcase, how fast can you cut through the nest?”

Let’s find out, Perry thought, lunging forward alongside Hardcase’s mechsuit and taking a stab at cutting through.

Melt.EXE

Perry hit the nest with a concentrated melt, then scooped it out with his BFS…only to reveal more nest six inches deeper.

“It’s fluffy!” Perry shouted.

“What does that mean?!” Titan demanded mid-squish.

“It’s designed with air pockets between layers of stone,” Perry said. “It makes it insulative, and lighter than it should be, and it sucks at propagating the melt ray!” Perry shouted back.

He tried hacking at the nest with purely physical force using the Big Friendly Sword, but it was just as Tung-Stan had warned. Beneath the concrete were strong, stretchy strands that held the nest together and gunked up his sword like nobody’s business.

“My cutter’s down!” Hardcase said beside him, the massive sawblade jutting from her arm totally covered in sticky gunk.

“Shit.” Titan scanned the group and isolated Flambé.

“Flambé!” Titan shouted.

“Eh?!” the fire-user asked, not looking away from his mostly meaningless battle with the same wasp as fifteen seconds ago.

“Can we get your assistance with the nest?!” Titan asked.

Flambé was covering the gunslinger’s back, allowing the more deadly member of his group to do her job.

“If you take my spot!” he shouted. “Thrillshot, you okay with that?”

“Do your thing!” the gunslinger shouted, her voice nearly disappearing into the repetitive blasts of her guns. Which are six-shooters, and I’ve counted at least fifty shots.

A moment later, Titan and Thrillshot were back-to-back while Flambé was rushing over to them, propelled forward by a blast of fire. Manic arrived nearby, panting and doubled over, hands on his knees.

“Alright, we’ll take turns,” Flambé said, manifesting a jet of white-hot fire on the blade of his hand, which he thrust elbow-deep into the nest, before dragging it through in a circle.

A moment later, Hardcase stepped forward and tore a two-foot-deep chunk of reinforced concrete out of the wall, revealing more concrete layers, and the edge of a tunnel barely big enough for a standard human to crawl through.

Shit, this isn’t gonna be fast enough, Perry thought.

“I could get in there!” Manic said, his voice somewhat muffled by the heat-resistant hyperweave.

“Me too!” Wraith said.

“What happens if you get lost or surrounded?” Titan said. “We need a man-sized tunnel that we can escape out of just as easily as we can get in!”

“I can do it!” Manic said. “I can get him!”

“Manic, don’t—” Titan cursed as Manic disappeared into the hole in a blur of motion.

Shoot, this could get really ugly, Perry thought.

“Go in after him. Stick to the walls, try and keep them alive, but…leave ‘em to die if you have to,” Perry said over Wraith’s channel.

Wraith nodded and dove for the two-foot-wide hole, morphing to crawl along the sides of the wall. Ideally, she could ooze around any obstacle a wasp might present, something that Manic couldn’t really claim.

Only having two members in there, with no backup and little in the way of staying power, was a recipe for disaster, and they knew it.

We need a faster way to cut through the nest, Perry thought, scowling. Unfortunately, the material was hard, stretchy, insulative, layered, interwoven, and a dozen other things that made it an absolute nightmare to cut through with any physical medium.

Warcry would’ve been a home run because her power was much better at cutting than Flambé’s. She would’ve just disintegrated huge swaths of the nest at a time, which had been what Titan was banking on.

Paradox’s eyes widened as a solution clicked into place.

“Got an idea! Be back in about a minute!”

“Better be a good one!” Titan shouted, punching a wasp so hard it exploded, its stinger lodging itself in a distant concrete building.

I sure hope so, Perry thought, kicking on his jets.

***Jetset***

Jetset was resting on top of a pile of corpses interspersed with pale eggs in little stone alcoves. Here and there, Jetset witnessed the miracle of birth, as little grubs the size of his arm crawled their way out of the eggs and began to crawl towards him, attracted by the scent of carrion.

Jetset pleaded with and cursed every divinity he’d ever heard of in equal measure, albeit totally silently.

It wasn’t only squishable grubs in here.

Here and there was a wasp turning the eggs or having a snack between shifts.

Jetset desperately looked for a miracle, but all he found was a section of wall with a shallow divot that a man could conceivably squish himself into to cover his sides and back.

That was about as much miracle as he was afforded. All the tunnels leading out were crawling with wasps.

Beggars can’t be choosers, Jetset thought, lifting himself silently off the ground and floating towards the last-stand dip in the wall.

If he could become part of the wall and present a solid surface of hyperweave by covering his head and neck, he might be able to last long enough to get a rescue. Titan wasn’t going to take his disappearance sitting do— Oh shit!

One of the wasps recognized motion and began barreling towards him, crawling across the ceiling, its wings fluttering menacingly.

Jetset put on the speed, slamming into the dip in the wall, immediately wishing it was much, much deeper.

A moment later, the wasp was on top of his nook, biting and stinging relentlessly. Its razor-sharp stinger was stopped by the hyperweave, but it still felt like an MMA fighter had mounted him and begun raining blows down on his forearms.

Its bite was far worse, as Hyperweave didn’t provide nearly as much protection against crushing damage.

Jetset cried out in pain as the monster’s jaws seized around his wrist and began crushing. Sensing this, the hyperweave seized up, but it was only enough to keep his arm attached to his body.

Crack!

Jetset gritted his teeth and punched the monster in its stupid soulless compound eyeballs, his baseline human strength unable to do jack to deter the insect from trying to make him into a meal.

Get off, get off, get OFF! Jetset thought as he punched over and over, accomplishing almost nothing, the creature’s venom-dripping stinger coming precariously close to his face.

The heat is gonna kill me first, Jetset thought, his face stinging from the sheer heat radiating off the wasp.

He heard buzzing and chittering, but thankfully they couldn’t see him, and perhaps even better, he couldn’t see the hundreds of wasps waiting their turn to assault the spandex-wearing monkey.

Not when he couldn’t even beat one.

Crunch! The wasp adjusted its grip and broke his arm further down, wrenching another scream out of him.

There was a hiss of split air and a harsh buzz as a fist hit the wasp a thousand times in the exact same spot.

With a screech and the flailing of limbs, the creature was catapulted away, its grip on his messed-up arm broken.

Manic’s hooded face appeared in his view.

“Ma’am, you’ve got a serious wasp problem,” Manic said. “This is gonna cost…at least five hundred dollars to remove.”

Jetset laughed until he cried at the unfunny joke, while Manic pried him out of his nook in the wall.

Finally they were standing side by side, facing the hundreds of holes in the semi-spherical room they were in, each leading somewhere different.

“You, um…didn’t happen to catch which hole I came in through, did you?” Manic asked, scanning the identical holes that dotted the walls and ceiling.

“You can’t be serious,” Jetset said.

“Umm….” Manic tapped his chin as wasps began to pour into the room like water.

Chapter 35: Into the Flier

***Dazzle***

“So, umm…how’s this work, exactly?” Jason asked the police officer keeping his hands behind his back.

“We take you down to Nexus, get you into the system, then do a quick trial, and you probably get a couple weeks of community service,” the cop said.

“Community service? For attempted murder?”

“It’s High Tide, kid. City’s basically under martial law, and a lot of super first-time crimes get downgraded to misdemeanors to keep supers flowing to the wall.”

“In short, you got lucky,” his partner said.

“Indeed. If you ever get the urge to do something like this again, I recommend considering who’s gonna pay for your siblings’ room and board. I guarantee you want that to be you.”

“Growing up in the system sucks,” the partner chimed in again.

“You think your mom wants her oldest to go to prison and the other two to be raised by strangers?”

“I got it, I got it,” Jason said as the cops laid it on thick. He’d heard similar things from his guidance counselor, but with his arms twisted behind his back by two rather large police officers, it was starting to sound a lot more real.

Their heart-to-heart was interrupted by a rapidly growing WHOOOSH!

Paradox landed directly in front of them and jammed his armored hands under Jason’s armpits.

“IGottaBorrowDazzleBeRightBack!” he shouted before the jets in his shoulder guards fired violently, sending them soaring into the sky.

“AAAAAAH!” Jason screamed, barely managing not to reflexively confetti Paradox’s armor and send them tumbling to their deaths.

***Jetset***

“You didn’t mark the entrance you came from?” Jetset demanded, spotting his rubber band gun nestled between two eggs near where he’d woken up. He darted forward and grabbed it with his good arm, flicking the safety off with his thumb.

Only six shots. Starting to seem really inadequate.

“Oh, excuse me for saving your life!” Manic said, blurring for a moment and shoving the encroaching wave of wasps back.

The Speedster’s strength was human baseline as well, so he couldn’t do much more than toss the armored wasps around.

“No, I’m not going to excuse you!” Jetset shouted, firing the rubber band gun at an approaching wasp, crushing its head into a paste, gritting his teeth as he caught the rebounding heavy-duty rubber band in his wounded hand.

“I would’ve stayed alive the extra ONE SECOND it would’ve taken you to mark the entrance!”

Manic glanced between the rubber band gun and the dead wasp.

“Gimme!” he shouted, snatching the rubber band gun out of Jetset’s hand.

“Hey—”

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!

Manic turned into a blur as he fired and reloaded the rubber band gun at blazing speed, pulping one wasp head after another in a hum of squelching insect insides.

The wasps were beginning to be driven back under the unrelenting assault of steel-denting rubber bands. Jetset felt a thread of hope that he might not end the day as wasp chow.

Then Manic Manic-ed everything up.

One of the gears inside the gun overheated from the insane speeds, melted, and slipped mid-reloading, allowing the wind-up handle to yank out of his hand, swing around the other way and break Manic’s wrist, while the rubber band snapped backwards and hit him in the face at about half power.

“Ugh,” Manic groaned, staggering backwards, blood flowing from his broken nose.

“Well, you managed to waste the gun and get us both killed,” Jetset said, steadying Manic while the Speedster clutched his nose. “Congratulations.”

“Got more shots off than you ever would’ve and you know it,” Manic responded, shaking off the brain damage.

“That’s debatable,” Jetset muttered as the healthy wasps began to encroach, climbing over piles of their own dead.

“Can you keep pushing them away?” Jetset asked.

“Maybe,” Manic responded, clutching his broken wrist to his stomach.

Manic blurred out and whizzed past the oncoming wasps, doing his best to shove them back, but not accomplishing much of note.

“I can’t push nearly as well with my right hand busted, I’m dizzy, and I’m starting to get really hungry,” Manic said.

“Yo,” Jetset said, prying a Speedster bar out of his pocket and tossing it to Manic, who devoured it instantly, groaning at the horrible taste.

“Why do you have one of these?” Manic asked, mouth stuffed like a squirrel.

“We all have one. Because you’re a bit of a screwup,” Jetset said with a shrug.

“That’s bullshit!” Manic said between rounds of shoving the wasps back.

“You literally just broke your wrist and gave yourself a concussion.”

“You don’t understand my methods!” Manic shot back, wrenching a laugh out of Jetset as the wave of wasps closed to within arm’s length.

Well, I guess this is it, Jetset thought as he felt the heat curling the hairs on his eyebrows and singing his nostrils and lungs.

A spike at the end of a long whip landed on the closest wasp, pinning it to the ground. Wraith arrived, dragging herself rapidly through the air using the spike drilled through the wasp as an anchor.

She landed right beside them.

There was a brief moment where she looked like a beautiful girl with curves in all the right places.

Then things got…weird.

Wraith’s butt, thighs, and left arm shriveled up inside her hyperweave while her right arm expanded to Titan levels, gaining a sharp, bladed edge.

With a grunt of effort, she gave a mighty swing with her torso-sized arm, bisecting half a dozen wasps with a single swing.

“I knew I could do that!” she crowed, her body returning to normal a moment later as all the extra muscle seemed to snap back into place.

“There!” Jetset pointed at the hole Wraith had come from. He’d made sure to pay attention this time.

Only problem was, wasps were flooding out of the hole, same as everywhere else. How Wraith had gotten through it while it was so crowded was anyone’s guess.

“Our team’s that way!” Jetset shouted. “Closer we can get to them, the better!”

“Good a plan as we’re gonna get!” Wraith said. “I’ll clear a path.”

Then Wraith did so. Between the three of them, the girl was the most in her element, carving through the wasps like a butcher knife. While she wasn’t as fast as Manic and couldn’t fly, she hit a LOT harder than either of them.

Once again, Jetset was struck with deep, irrational envy.

Maybe I will pay that visit to Dr. Flex. Jetset abhorred the feeling of being the rescuee. If he wasn’t able to fight like a super, he couldn’t really consider himself one.

I could be replaced by a drone.

“I’ll clear the way first!” Wraith said, jumping into the hole, her body morphing to cling to the sides of the tunnel, sharp blades emerging from her flattened body to snip off the head of a wasp that had crawled past her.

“Manic, you’re in the rear!” Wraith shouted as she oozed further up the tunnel.

“Aw, man, why put me in the rear?” Manic moaned, crawling into the hole behind Jetset, who tucked in his limbs and floated in rather than crawl.

“Because you can kick anything behind us a thousand times a second,” Jetset said.

“Good point,” Manic said, crawling along behind them.

Is it claustrophobia if the cramped space is crawling with flaming venomous wasps the size of a big dog? Jetset thought as he floated along behind Wraith, his heart hammering in his ears. That seemed like a rational fear.

Ahead of him, Wraith was handily snipping the heads off of wasps as they crawled past her flattened body, shoving the bugs into nooks and offshoot tunnels to slow down the flood of wasps coming in from other directions.

Jetset floated past the hot, wet corpses in her wake and tried not to retch.

They got about twenty feet before Manic gave a cry of pain.

“Shit, get off, get OFF!” Manic shouted, his foot buzzing as he bashed a wasp off his other foot. Manic’s fingers drew lines in the concrete as he was dragged backwards a few inches.

“Grab my foot!” Jetset said.

Before he’d even finished the sentence, Manic had latched onto his leg, allowing Jetset to pull him forward. The wasp’s horsepower couldn’t compare to Jetset’s, but it didn’t let go, mandibles buried deep into Manic’s shoe as they dragged it forward, Manic howling in pain.

“Hold on a sec!” Wraith shouted, turning around in place with the smoothness of a liquid before diving past him, her body narrowing to squeeze past Jetset.

As soon as Wraith left the front, a wasp climbed out of what appeared to be a trapdoor, lunging for Jetset’s face.

Shit! Jetset threw both arms in front of himself, but his wounded arm was too weak and was batted aside instantly. The monster grabbed his healthy arm in its mandibles and began savaging him while its abdomen pulsed forward.

Crack! Jetset felt his other arm break.

The stinger was directly under his nose.

He could smell the acrid venom.

He tried to pull his head back, bashing it fruitlessly against the concrete as the stinger drew closer.

Jetset’s mind went blank, feeling as though he was watching his own death through a twenty-foot tube.

…

BOOM!

Something detached from Jetset’s mind and suddenly the wasp was flattened against the far side of the tunnel.

Jetset frowned a moment before the world exploded into colorful paper and tinsel.

***Perry***

Dazzle’s screaming slowly wound down as Perry set him down on the ground. The newbie super collapsed, his legs unwilling to support him.

“Why?!” Dazzle demanded, trying to get back up onto his wobbly legs.

“Rescue mission. Don’t get too far away from me, you’re not wearing armor,” Perry said, putting a hand on Dazzle’s shoulder and steering him toward the nest.

“Guys!” Perry called out to the battling supers.

“What’s he doing here?” Titan asked, still covering Thrillshot as Flambé and Hardcase continued peeling away layers of wasp nest.

“He can make walls disappear!” Perry said.

“I gotcha, kid,” Tung-Stan, the gigantic pile of black rocks, said as he came over, hovering near Dazzle. “I’ll keep him alive.”

“Dazzle, we’ve got three people somewhere in that nest. I need you to disappear a circle out of the nest, then Hardcase here can pull out the resulting plug. Make sense?”

Dazzle nodded.

In Perry's mind, Dazzle would turn a narrow slice of the nest into confetti, detaching a cylinder from the rest, and Hardcase would then remove that cylinder, making the most of Dazzle’s power.

Instead, the entire nest exploded into confetti, making the entire world a glittering, colorful mess with total blizzard whiteout conditions. Perry couldn’t even see past his elbow.

“Obviously that didn’t make sense!” Perry shouted into the void of glitter. “Or you wouldn’t have done that!”

“Paradox?!” Perry heard Jetset’s voice.

“Holy crap, he’s alive,” Perry muttered before raising his voice. “Over here!”

The other supers added their voices, shouting to direct the rescue team towards them.

As the glitter cleared from the air, Perry could make out the form of Jetset floating along the ground, carrying Manic over his shoulders, Wraith steadying the Speedster cargo.

“Hell yeah!”

“Manic, are you okay?” Titan asked.

“I busted my foot, leg, wrist, and noggin, but other than that, I’m fine,” Manic groaned.

“I think you’ve earned a Speedster snack,” Titan said, pulling out a brick of concentrated calories and tossing it to the Speedster.

Tropical flavored.

Manic half chuckled, half groaned, gnawing on the brick.

“There’s still a bunch of wasps to take care of, but the Bruisers will handle the rest. You guys get to the hospital. Check on Warcry.”

“Okay, boss,” Jetset said, wincing as he got a better grip on Manic before floating up into the air and putting on speed to get them out of harm's way before a wasp decided to investigate the wounded duo.

“So…do you guys want me to put the nest back?” Dazzle asked.

“NO!” everyone shouted at him. The nest had been an enormous pain in the butt.

“Dazzle, thank you very much for your assistance. Time to go back to jail,” Perry said.

Dazzle blinked. The ground under him exploded into confetti, dropping him into the sewers.

The instant Dazzle’s head disappeared into the darkness beneath, the road reappeared, making pursuit extremely impractical.

“Noo, my capture commission!” Perry lamented. “I was gonna buy some goodies from the Tinker Marketplace. Dangit.”

“You know repelling an invasive species is a hundred K per participant, right?” Titan asked.

“Oh. Okay. I feel better now,” Perry said between squishing wasps covered in melted tinsel.

Now that they couldn’t hide inside their nest, and all the squishiest supers were accounted for, cleaning up the rest of the wasps wasn’t particularly dangerous, just a bit of a slog.

Even when the horse-sized queen emerged from the omnipresent confetti, Tung-Stan and Titan just tackled it to the ground and beat it to a pulp, ignoring the blazing heat that drove everyone else back.

Once the wasps were thoroughly exterminated, the supers sat back and rested on the curb, waiting for the Nexus bean counters while Titan paced back and forth, on the phone with the hospital.

“Oh, thank you,” Titan said, tension draining from his entire body. “Good night, ma’am.

“Well, Warcry is still alive and expected to make a full recovery,” Titan said, turning off his phone with his sausage fingers.

“That’s good,” Hardcase said, leaning back in her seat with the hood popped up to let some fresh air into the cockpit. She had what appeared to be a pink lunch box in the storage space near her feet, from which she withdrew a neatly cut sandwich and began eating.

I am so hungry right now.

She glanced over and caught Perry staring.

“Paradox, Wraith, you want some?” she asked, pulling out another lunch box from her storage space. “I brought enough for the whole team, but they’re all in the hospital, soo…”

“You are a freakin’ saint,” Perry said, unlatching his armor and making it most of the way to the proffered lunch box before Heather shoved him out of the way and snatched up the plastic container.

Hardcase watched, idly chewing her sandwich as The Battle for the Lunchbox raged between Paradox and Wraith.

“You don’t need any extra body fat,” Perry said, yanking on the container.

“Your parents are rich,” Heather said. “You can afford to miss dinner once.”

“Your dad’s rich too!”

“My dad is AWOL, don’t give me that shit!”

“I did more work than you tonight, gimme the sammies,” Perry said.

“I didn’t see you in the nest,” Heather shot back.

“I fell through a two-story building without armor.”

“I killed more wasps than you.”

“Sure, where I couldn’t see it,” Perry said.

“There’s…a lot of sandwiches in that box,” Hardcase said, her voice trembling.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Heather said, without dropping eye contact.

“Yeah…although it would be kind of silly to fight over more sandwiches than we can eat,” Perry said.

“We should check the contents,” Heather agreed.

“On three.”

On the count of three, the two of them adjusted their grip and allowed the plastic lid to open, revealing sandwiches carefully wrapped in wax paper and tightly stacked from top to bottom, nearly a cubic foot of sandwich.

“Alright, we’ll call it a draw,” Perry said.

Heather took the Reubens, and Perry took the ham and cheese, and turkey with lettuce, ignoring Heather accusing him of being a ‘basic bitch.’ They split the roast beef and mushroom.

Needless to say, the beef and pork were meat-substitutes, but still pretty good.

“Wraith, can I ask you something?” Hardcase asked, approaching where Perry’s team was devouring their food.

“Ang,” Heather grunted, her mouth stuffed with sandwich before she swallowed. “Sure.”

Hardcase leaned close and whispered into Heather’s ear.

“Probably. It sounded like it,” Heather said, glancing at Perry.

“What?” Perry asked around his turkey and mustard sammich, which had managed to dribble a bit onto his shirt and forced him to clean it off with his mouth before it stained. “What?”

Chapter 36: Disappointment and Improvisation

As the super Dazzle did not make it to processing by Nexus, the request for a capture payment is void. Additionally, the super Paradox freed Dazzle from police custody, which carries with it a fine of $80,000 and up to two weeks of time Drafted.

Nexus understands the extenuating circumstances involved and has elected to follow through on payment of the Invasive Species Extermination bounty, waiving the Draft and deducting the fine assessed from the bounty.

Total earned: $20,000.

“Dangit,” Perry muttered as he inspected the letter from his bank.

“Wwwhhhhat?” Heather asked, sidling up behind him, holding her own watermarked envelope from the bank. “Are you upset because you got screwed out of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars?? That must be terrible for you! Why, I’d go so far as to say that’s worse than that time I missed out on three million. Tell me, how is that fifty-million-dollar deal with Locust going, again?”

“Bah.” Perry rolled up the bank statement and bonked Heather with it.

“Ow.” Heather winced, as the paper had zero give.

“I don’t even know how I’m gonna finish that order without an infusion of a couple more million,” Perry said. “Believe me, it’s stressing me out, having to go beg for more from—”

Honk!

Perry cocked a brow and came around the customer service counter of the motel and peered out the bulletproof windows.

Parked in front of the motel were two semitrucks, with three more pulling into the parking lot from the road.

“Never mind, I love being rich.”

Perry put on his domino mask and ran outside.

“Afternoon, Mr…Paradox,” the lead trucker said, climbing out of the truck, checking his clipboard. He was overweight and balding, with a walrus beard.

“Afternoon,” Perry said, desperately struggling to keep his grin contained, and not rub his hands together while laughing dramatically.

“We’ve got your orders here. Just need to give your signature to the Nexus notary here, and we’ll start unloading.”

He nodded towards a woman who peeked out of her modest sedan at his motion, and began walking towards them. She was dark-skinned, with curly hair and a harried look to her.

“Alright, Mr. Paradox, let’s go somewhere private and confirm your identity.”

She ran him through a short battery of questions confirming he was who he said he was, and that he wasn’t under duress or mind control, then took his signature.

Then she signed off on the shipment with walrus man, got back into her car, and took off, leaving them to unload.

Perry guided them around to the back lot, where he had a secret bay capable of opening up once the trucks were gone.

When the backs of the trucks finally opened up, Perry felt like a kid at Christmas, practically dancing in place.

The walrus-faced guy waddled over to the truck and opened the padlock on the gate before he slammed it open.

The truck was empty.

“Buh…” The lead shipper was speechless for a moment.

In the center of the empty shipping container was a pale rectangle of paper.

Perry climbed up and retrieved the tiny rectangle with black print.

It was a business card.

You’ve been had!

Courtesy of

Chemestro

“Ooooh,” Heather said, climbing into the empty semitrailer behind him. “I was wrong, your fifty-million-dollar deal with Locust is stressful.”

“I’m gonna go work out,” Perry choked out, his vision clouded by red. If he didn’t find an outlet immediately, he had a feeling he might behave a little uncouth.

Half an hour later, Perry was still punching the bag—which had recently been officially named Chemestro—when Heather came in from outside, where the workers were scratching their heads and assessing the damage.

“Alright, good news and bad news,” she said.

“Bad news,” Perry said between punches.

“Bad news is shipments to supers aren’t insured, because this kind of thing happens way more than you might think.”

“Good news?” Perry asked.

“Good news is the two late shipments and Dave’s delivery weren’t robbed, leaving you with a few things to work with…and Chemestro seems to be a newbie. Can’t find him anywhere on the wiki.”

“That’s a good thing?” Perry asked.

Heather shrugged. “Means it should be easier to get your stuff back from him by force.”

“Fair enough.”

“Now, the inventory of what was stolen,” Heather said, reading directly off Walrus-face’s clipboard. “All but two of the assembly line cells. All but one of the robotic arms. All of the industrial chemistry equipment. He didn’t seem to have much interest in DIY stuff, because he left your bulk materials. The bulk steel, glass, plastic, aluminum, copper, rubber, graphite, and seawater were untouched, which is nice because the copper was actually pretty expensive.”

“Aw man, I wanted the chemistry stuff,” Perry lamented.

“Dude’s name is Chemestro. That was probably his primary target.”

“Yeah, probably,” Perry said, catching the punching bag. He felt like he’d finally calmed down enough to address the problem without throwing a hissy fit.

“Alright, here’s what I’m thinking,” Perry said, wiping his brow. “I can cannibalize most of the raw ingredients meant for the suits to cobble together substitutes for the vast majority of the infrastructure that was stolen, then convert the remaining materials into a Mk. 3 suit and some gadgets for the Marketplace. The income from those can be used to fund a steady, albeit slow stream of Mk. 3 suits until I figure out a way to get another two million dollars in bulk goods.”

Perry’s eyebrow twitched as he considered taking out a loan with his motel as collateral. After all, he owned the place outright, giving him close to five million dollars in equity.

NAH.

If this happened again and he lost his lair, he really would throw a hissy fit and probably blow something up.

The lesson that had been learned here was that Perry had responsibility for the security of shipments to his Paradox super persona, and had to take steps to insure them himself. This was probably something Dad could’ve told him, if he’d consulted on the purchase.

It was an expensive, extremely irritating lesson, but it wasn’t devastating to his livelihood. His Garage Tinker class allowed him to bounce back from next to nothing, and an entire shipping container full of bulk materials was a lot more than nothing.

All that had really happened was that Chemestro had set him back a couple days and about four million out of his final take-home from the Locust deal.

And put himself on Paradox’s Shit List.

“I got a long night ahead of me,” Perry said. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Gonna take a break from nonstop adventures. Binge-watch something at the apartment, maybe.”

Perry winced as he thought about Heather living in an isolated apartment, bunking with Warcry because she never knew when her dad would try and get back at her. She hadn’t actually been back to her house in weeks, and her dad was AWOL. There was no sign of activity from Karnos, suggesting he’d changed his face and skipped town.

“Sorry about bringing up your dad over a sandwich.”

Heather pursed her lips. “I’ll deal. Thanks.” She cocked her head. “I still feel like I should be looking over my shoulder, waiting for him to try to kill me again. Then my rational brain kicks in and I realize, ‘hey, you’re a super now,’ and that coward would never take on a fight he might lose. I also have Anya on me at all times.”

“Yeah.” Perry nodded in agreement. “I think he understands the risk of coming after you now.”

“You good to lock up?” Heather asked.

“Yeah, night.” Perry waved her off as she left.

“Night!” Heather waved before trotting toward the bus stop.

Once Heather was gone, Perry took a deep breath and got to work.

He locked up, then went down to his lair and opened up the loading bay, creating a massive hole in the back parking lot that led straight down to his basement laboratory.

Then he grabbed the Lair Control Center and headed back out to the back lot to survey his goods.

The modular assembly-line parts and the robotic arm were packed up in wooden crates, while the bulk goods were wrapped up in thick plastic wrap on oversized pallets.

Dave’s delivery was a large, aged trunk with scuffed-up leather and silly stickers covering it, ranging from hippie-era love and peace to more modern Calvin peeing on a prawn.

It would look completely at home in the closet of any young adult: a hand-me-down with maybe some clothes, old Playboys, and nothing more of consequence.

It was dropped off by a nondescript minivan driven by one of Dave’s goons, and Perry assumed this Chemestro character wasn’t even aware of it, given that the two deliveries had no relation to each other.

Perry undid the latches and opened the lid, breathing a sigh of relief upon seeing all of the ingredients for his new spells neatly packaged and stacked to the brim of the trunk.

“Excellent.”

It could not be overstated how disappointed Perry would’ve been to lose his magical ingredients too. Some of them were extremely rare and difficult to replace, not like a giant pressure tank, which was largely mundane and highly replaceable.

Ingredients for summoning rituals were a lot more difficult to come by.

Perry took the head-sized chunk of realm-piercing crystal and turned it in his hands, studying how the light filtered through the massive slab of cloudy volcanic glass. Through the warped light from the other side of the pale-blue glass, he could make out phantom forms drifting through other planes of reality, their forms as indefinite and wobbly as the crystal itself.

It was a rather large piece with very poor clarity, which was how Perry was able to purchase it in the first place, as it was useless to a normal wizard save as a novelty.

Perry would see about that.

He confirmed the rest of the contents of the trunk and was pleased to discover that not only was it all there, Dave had also included the ingredients and instructions for a hair-growing spell for his piece of scalp, free of charge.

That gross unicorn made it difficult to dislike him.

Perry returned to his Lair Control Center and began lowering the new gear into his lair.

The Lair Control Center was the model of the lot. Dregor’s Binding had been so strong that its influence expanded to include anything and anyone that entered the area, and it hadn’t worn off since the building was done.

Since it wasn’t doing anything anymore, Perry was currently repurposing it into a security/utility system.

In the model, Perry saw a tiny, centimeter-tall copy of himself standing beside the boxes and staring down at something. On a whim, Perry reached down and very gently tapped his tiny duplicate on the back.

A force shoved him from behind, making both him and his tiny copy stagger in place.

Neat.

Perry couldn’t help but appreciate the setup’s potential power as a security system, allowing him to surveil his entire lair without a single camera or hackable system, and also remove enemies via flicking, or just program the tiny saws to cut people in half if they triggered the alarm.

The possibilities were endless.

Perry used the tiny robotic arms to gently pick up the model boxes and lower them into his lair, watching with amusement as the materials floated down into his lab with machine precision.

Once that was done, he closed the bay doors and took the Lair Control Center back downstairs, getting started on the real work of the night.

As he stepped into the underground workshop, the smell of raw ingredients, ozone, and wooden pallets drifted into his nostrils. Perry could feel the Tinker Twitch building inside, shutting off all distractions. In the few moments of self-reflection before the urge consumed him, Perry had a small realization.

It felt a lot like when he raised his Attunement, and the world outside ceased to exist.

Problem #1: Perry only had a measly CNC machine that could make smaller cuts when compared to the sheets he was working with, and one cheap robotic arm programmed to load it.

For that, Perry reprogrammed his cheap robotic arm to do the mind-numbing work of spinning threaded copper to make motors, while he laboriously loaded and unloaded his CNC machine, which cut sheeting to make skeletal frames for further robotic arms.

Perry spun plastic sheeting, copper, and awful handmade semiconductors into control hardware for the new robotic arms, his perks pulling triple duty as Tinker Twitch made the contraption work in the first place, while his Spendthrift perk ensured it worked well, and both of them were affected by his Attunement, which, at 16, increased BOTH perks by 218%.

With zero Attunement, Perry could make cardboard function at 24 times its original strength. That number was now 52.3.

Once Perry had about fifty arms’ worth of motherboards, he cracked them apart, the boards separating as if they’d always been perforated at those exact points.

Humming to himself, Perry began slapping his new bare-bones robotic arms together, and in a matter of hours, he had fifty new robotic arms, ready to speed up the process of industrialization.

They were joints, motors, wiring, and motherboards—no pretty casings whatsoever. They would do.

Perry set them up around the room and began programming them. It was around then that Perry realized it would be great to buy an AI-core butler from the Marketplace that could take care of the grunt work of reprogramming for him.

The arms would never be adaptive without either an AI or a ton of extra work. The biggest problem was how many orders of separation could Perry have between himself and the thing he was making?

Just telling an AI to make something seemed like it would have a good chance to bypass his Spendthrift perk.

How does the Spendthrift perk work? Perry wondered to himself. He could flip the switch on Hardcase’s machines and modify his own goods, but could he have produced something new using Hardcase’s equipment? How did his perk know what was a good trait to have and what was a bad one?

If he made a sandwich like one of Hardcase’s, would it be inedibly tough, extraordinarily tasty, spoil-resistant? Have more nutrition than it reasonably should? Or would the Spendthrift perk not apply to food he’d created?

Perry couldn’t think of a definitive reason it wouldn’t work. The Maillard reaction was a reaction, after all.

That is an interesting question, Perry thought, setting up his assembly line.

Now that he had a simple assembly line, it was time to start making better machines and tools.

The industrial chemistry equipment wasn’t too hard to replicate. His sheet metal walls were far below the industrial standard for safety, but his perk made them tough enough that they were actually stronger than standard equipment. Less likely to explode, even, despite looking wildly unprofessional.

The trickiest part was making the valves and couplings and coils from scratch, but he’d managed.

Problem #2: Eventually, the power draw of all of Perry’s machines working together began to be…a little much.

So Perry made some industrial-sized seawater/aluminum batteries, contemplating establishing a portal to a plane of lightning, but ultimately deciding against it for now.

The sheer size and scope of the batteries, multiplied by his perks, meant that they produced enough juice to keep the system going seamlessly.

Perry wondered for a moment if he could make some kind of infinite energy machine by leveraging his ability to make things overperform their intended design.

Random, stupid example: create a solar panel with 130% efficiency, and a full-spectrum bulb with 120% efficiency pointed at it. Harvest the difference.

That was assuming over-one-hundred-percent-efficient power generation was possible. Or even desirable.

I don’t wanna rip the fabric of spacetime so early in my career. Still, could be fun. If it didn’t break reality, would it mean whatever energy produced would essentially be coming directly from Perry’s Attunement?

Food for thought. Perry was pretty confident it wouldn’t break reality. So many other supers had abilities that defied physics. Why should cheap, infinite energy make reality bat an eye?

Perry’s batteries were generating WAY more than they should be.

So many experiments to do, so little time.

That wasn’t even including the trunk full of magical ingredients he had to get around to making new spells with.

Damn, I’m busy.

Perry’s phone went off, the second nagging beep dragging him out of his fugue musings.

MOM:

Are you eating, sweetie? You missed breakfast this morning.

BTW, your grampa is going to be staying with us until High Tide is over. It’s not safe out there in the countryside right now.

Perry’s eyes widened.

“It’s ten thirty in the morning already?!”

Chapter 37: Perry Bites off More than He Can Chew

There were four basic spells that Perry wanted to work on today.

Summoning,

Unethical blood rituals,

Protective charms,

Disintegration (with chain effects, if possible),

Frost and fire spells,

Modifying the properties of Areonite,

Permanent floating armaments, to create a linked computer.

(That was more than four, wasn’t it?)

Starting from the top. Summoning rituals were largely similar; they usually involved candles set up in a specific pattern, incense that would either attract or repel certain entities, and a token of meaning to these creatures. Sometimes there was a chant or a hymn to a specific deity to really get their attention, but the basic principle was the same.

All Perry had to do was find the type of summon that would work well for him. Or types.

Something that had occurred to him when he was fighting insects was a more-lethal option would come in handy, should he have to perform another invasive species extermination.

Perry originally wanted to summon Elysian warriors, who would be strong, wise, and capable of exercising judgment. Unfortunately, they each required a non-refundable proof of the summoner’s skill in righteous battle.

Which Perry couldn’t exactly produce en masse.

After an hour or so of flipping back and forth through the “Summoning” chapter of Mom’s spellbook, Perry narrowed the choices between Klameth, who liked carrion, and Ordenn, who took payment in gold.

After much deliberation, Perry decided on the Ordenn. Gold was expensive, but they didn’t give Perry the impression that they’d wander off and eat people if he left them alone.

Rob people or sell them a time-share, maybe.

Perry could deal with that.

Summon Ordenn (Intermediate Difficulty)

Ingredients: One jangle of gold. Beeswax candles placed in a pentagon, realm-piercing crystal dagger, Gold-tinge flower incense, twine from an Alastran monk’s sackcloth robe.

Find a location where two or more merchants are haggling within earshot, set up the candles two paces away from each other, with the twine from the monk’s robe lining the inside of the pentagon.

Place the gold and incense in the center of the pentagon, light the incense, then back out and light the candles, being careful not to allow any part of your body across the line created by the twine.

Once the candles are lit, if circumstances are right, an Ordenn may show interest in your call. Their body will become visible passing through the incense.

The user can then (carefully) use the realm-piercing dagger to pierce the veil and bring the Ordenn to this reality. Be especially careful not to allow the Ordenn to drag you back to their realm of greed for an eternity of servitude.

Once the Ordenn has arrived, you may negotiate with it for a term of service.

Perry read and reread the entry, setting aside all the tools he needed for the summoning.

Okay, I have everything except for a realm-piercing dagger.

A realm-piercing dagger was chipped out of realm-piercing crystal, and looked something like a mundane obsidian dagger chipped out of volcanic glass, albeit turquoise in color, faintly glowing, and allowing the user to see and cut the veil where certain entities were trying to push through.

An absolutely critical ingredient in summoning spells.

Perry hefted the head-sized chunk of volcanic glass and turned it this way and that, eyes narrowing as the world outside began to fade.

Now, how should I do this?

Perry didn’t know anything about making arrowheads and knives out of obsidian, and he didn’t want to ruin this block of realm-piercing crystal on the first attempt.

He would hate to waste his time and money like that, and there was only one other block of realm-piercing crystal this big on Earth that he knew of, and it wasn’t in Franklin City, and it was much better quality, making it nearly priceless.

In short, he had one shot at it.

So Perry watched YouTube videos and practiced on a dummy piece of obsidian he’d bought for that exact purpose.

Chipping away pieces of glass shards with the intention of creating a knife felt awkward and uncomfortable at first, but as the Tinker Twitch took over, Perry began going faster and faster, seemingly acclimatizing to what he was doing.

As he went, Perry realized he could likely make several knives from a head-sized chunk of realm-piercing crystal.

He also realized that physics were getting a bit wonky as they interacted with his Tinker Twitch, as the piece of obsidian he was working on was gradually lengthening as he worked on it.

How?

F**k you, that’s how.

A chunk of obsidian that had started about the length of his palm was now nearly two feet long and growing as he chipped more and more off of it. Perry’s hypothesis was that the obsidian being broken off was being reabsorbed because of his Tinker Twitch, or more obsidian was being created from his Attunement to match the mental image of what he was trying to create.

In either case, the obsidian blade kept growing until it was three and a half feet long.

I think…I think I got the hang of this.

Perry admired what was basically a straight sword for a moment before setting it aside on the nearby pallet full of sheet steel.

The blade turned sideways on one of the straps, causing the edge to slip through the metal sheets like water before it impacted against Perry’s ankle.

HP: 2

Perry carefully picked up the glass sword by the handle, went over to a vice, and clamped the handle in place before setting it aside.

Accidentally made an SCP.

Obsidian was an incredibly sharp material, nearly monomolecular, but its biggest weakness was lack of toughness, hardness, and flexibility.

Obsidian is a 5-5.5 on the Mohs scale, with similar stones having an absolute hardness of 48 @ Mohs 5. If we estimate the improvement from Spendthrift at a conservative 40 times effectiveness, that makes obsidian…

1920 on the absolute hardness scale, compared to diamond, which has 1500.

Meaning…depending on how much Spendthrift actually improves obsidian, that near-monomolecular blade might be a little harder than diamond, or sitting right at diamond.

If toughness and flexibility are similarly improved…that’s not a bad material to work with, taking advantage of its strength while eliminating its weaknesses.

Perry glanced over at the menacing black sword thoughtfully.

Eh, screw it, this is worth testing.

Perry grabbed another vice and bent the sword five degrees before it exploded, sending insanely sharp shrapnel flying through the underground lair.

HP: 1

Perry thought for a moment as he plucked razor-sharp shrapnel out of his shirt.

Normally, obsidian would not bend at all. Ever. Five degrees was quite a bit, when you considered the original material’s brittle nature.

Perry only hoped that the massive improvement of every relevant measure of performance would carry through to the low-quality realm-piercing crystal.

That was a good knife. Now let’s make a magic one. Also, I should adopt better safety procedures, because I almost killed myself twice.

…I’ll get around to it.

Now significantly more versed in knapping, Perry broke off a palm-sized chunk from the head-sized piece and began shaping it into a knife, watching with interest as the clarity of the glass improved as he went.

Perry stopped once the blade was about eight inches long and carefully set it aside, making sure to lock it in a vice. He wasn’t interested in the blade accidentally freeing some interdimensional horrors because he bumped it with his elbow.

It was unlikely to happen, typically, but Perry had the suspicion that this particular realm-piercing dagger might be a bit...atypical.

Now it was time to wait for the summoning spell-discs to finish training, and move on to the next category of spells.

Unethical blood rituals!

Perry had been eating a bagel while flipping through his mom’s priceless spellbook, when he found contracts which were enforced magically.

All one had to do was use their own blood to write a contract on a specially prepared form of ivory in Ordennish, and they would be forced to obey the terms of the contract.

Great for New Year’s resolutions and losing weight! Mom’s note in the margin had triggered a thought.

It would be a great way to enforce a peaceful surrender. But how do you force supervillains to sign a surrender in their own blood?

What if...

What if I created a dart that, instead of injecting something, siphons a bit of the target’s blood into a pre-scribed contract?

Perry’s ethics courses immediately started blaring warnings in his head about mind control. Forcing a specific behavior against someone’s will with magical forces squarely fell under that umbrella.

In short, he couldn’t test it without consent unless he was in combat, and that was a great way for things to spiral out of control.

He’d have to get someone to help him test them. Someone who believed everything they were told….

***Later***

“So what is this thing, again?” Brendon asked, rolling the tiny blue cylinder in his hands. It was about as wide as a finger and two thirds as long as one. It didn’t have its flight feathers or needle on it yet, so it was hard to tell what it was.

Inside the cylinder was a carefully scribed spiral of demonic ivory that would squish blood out into lettering when it was injected with any amount of force.

“A demonic contract,” Perry said, fetching the needle and fin cap for the cylinder.

Brendon dropped it.

“Dangit, Brendon, that’s valuable!” Perry cursed as he picked up the cylinder and inspected it for damage. “It’s something I’ve been Tinkering on.”

“I’m not sure you should be touching that,” Brendon said.

“It’s totally harmless. This particular contract states that the author agrees to pat their head and rub their stomach for thirty seconds.”

“Who’s the author?”

“Well, it depends on whose blood is funneled through the needle…probably. Possible problems that could arise are it simply not working, or making me perform the actions, because I made the guidelines the blood is traveling along.”

“So, no losing your soul?”

“Pssh.” Perry waved him off. “Selling your soul is way more complicated. You gotta have a representative from the higher and lower planes present, a big contract written on the skin of a sapient creature of the opposite alignment of whoever you’re making the bargain with, and all participants have to witness and sign, and so on, which requires summoning and binding them in the first place… It’s way more effort than it’s worth.”

Brendon cocked a brow.

“…Anyway,” Perry said, clapping his hands together. “This is just a magical behavior contract enforced by residual essence from a particularly law-abiding species of demon. Simple stuff.”

Brendon squinted at him.

“I made hamburgers for after we’re done testing.”

“Oooh!” Brendon’s eyes lit up. “Heck yeah, I could go for that!”

“Alright, just hold still,” Perry said, loading the dart into the tube.

“Did you try this on yourself?” Brendon asked.

“Yep. Didn’t work,” Perry said, taking aim at Brendon’s shoulder.

“Is it gonna hu—”

PHEW!

“OW! That—”

Brendon’s eyes widened as he began patting his head and rubbing his tummy.

“Oh, this is weird, I do NOT like this,” Brendon said, the dart in his skin wobbling in place as his shoulder moved.

“Deep breaths,” Perry said, hitting the timer on his watch. “Relax your limbs and don’t fight it. You only have to do this for another twenty-five seconds.”

“I think I’m freaking out,” Brendon said, eyes wide.

“It’s fine, just another twenty seconds and—”

“Aaaah!” Brendon screamed and ran for the exit, still patting his head and rubbing his tummy. “My arms aren’t my arms!” he shrieked, running out into the parking lot.

Perry sighed, tossed aside his timer, and sprinted after Brendon.

Somebody had to stop him before he ran into traffic.

After a spirited twenty-second chase, Perry managed to herd the panicked teen away from traffic and closer to the motel, where he stumbled to a halt, sinking to his knees and wrapping his arms around himself.

“That was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Brendon said before looking down at his arms, clasping and unclasping his hands. “I felt like someone’s puppet. It was awful, and I never wanna do it again.”

Perry wordlessly clasped a hand on Brendon’s shoulder as a single tear rolled down the football star’s cheek.

Perry took a deep breath. “Burger?” Perry asked.

“Oh, hell yeah!” Brendon said, leaping to his feet.

“Ow.” The oaf winced as Perry pulled the blood-contract dart out of his shoulder.

***Later***

“Oh my god, this is literally the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” Brendon said as he devoured the meat-substitute burger.

Perry, meanwhile, was arranging the burgers he’d cooked in order of their structural integrity.

The first burger had nearly broken Brendon’s teeth, while the last burger had been superburger.

So…his perk had applied the structural integrity enhancement to the first burger he’d made, but not the last. A burger’s purpose was to be eaten, and being that strong was counter to its purpose.

Does that mean there’s some kind of orientation that occurs?

Perry’s hypothesis was that his perk took direction from his brain about what was a good or bad attribute to have for a specific creation, but this process took a little bit of time to establish…a groove in Perry’s brain. A category for food, perhaps?

Perry took a lead pipe and smashed the first burger as hard as he could.

Brendon blinked.

The pipe wrapped partially around the burger, leaving a small dent in the bun itself.

Now, what if I made a triple-decker burger with all the fixings? Would it be as loose and sloppy as a normal one, or would it hold together better while still being edibly soft?

Perry frowned, inspecting the dent in his lead pipe before glancing over at Brendon, who was giving him a thumbs-up.

And are they safe to consume? I guess we’ll find out.

“Man, you should host a barbecue at your hotel or something. This is awesome.”

Perry frowned. “You know, my grampa is in town, and I wanted to show him my motel, anyway. A barbecue sounds like a great idea.”

“Your motel?” Brendon asked.

“The motel I work at. My job.”

“Oh, cool.” Brendon nodded before frowning. “How come I never see anyone else working here?”

“Cuz I’m that good,” Perry said, before a thought occurred to him.

“Hey Brendon, you want a job cleaning the pool and stuff?”

“Really?” Brendon asked, eyes widening.

“Yeah, I’m in good with the owner,” Perry said. And it’ll keep Brendon in my line of sight, so he’s less likely to get kidnapped.

“Well, that would be great! With school out, I was looking for a job! I was gonna go apply at Burger Joint this weekend.”

“Nah, you can work here. Lemme just call the owner.”

What followed next was Perry speaking into a dead line about how great Brendon was and negotiating his hourly pay. After a long (fake) conversation, Perry gave Brendon the good news.

“Yep, you’re hired!”

“Wow, awesome!” Brendon said, wiping a napkin across his mayo-smeared mouth. “So like, what do I do?”

“Well, I’ll teach you how to clean the pool and the gym and man the front desk,” Perry said. “It’s not hard.”

“Whew,” Brendon said. “That’s good.”

“First job you can do is clean the pool and the area around it for the barbecue,” Perry said, pulling out his phone and sending out invites to his friends and family.

No one turns down free food.

Perry glanced out the window at the setting sun and frowned. Only managed to work on two of the spells I wanted.

The blood-contract dart was an unmitigated success, though.

Ah well, I can work on the next ones the day after tomorrow.

DING!

Perry glanced down at his phone.

DAD:

That sounds awesome! Especially with the whole family in town! Can I invite some of your mom’s and my friends as well?

“Oh, god, what have I done?” Perry whispered.

New Quest: Host a Super Barbecue!

Reward: Variable

Chapter 38: Embrace the Chaos

The chants to the Elysian goddess reached a crescendo as unnatural winds began to swirl around the summoning setup, nearly putting out the blue pilot lights he’d substituted for candles.

Perry figured if the spell called for maximum purity from the candles and minimum smoke, that meant perfect combustion. Perfect combustion = pilot lights.

Well, I guess we’re gonna find out.

In the middle of the summoning circle was a flattened chunk of lead: the bullet he’d taken to save that woman from Dave. Or vice versa.

Hopefully that counted as a token of a selfless act, worthy of acting as bait for an Elysian Attendant.

Naturally, Perry didn’t use the mordite chain, because it wasn’t worth being denied an afterlife in the most debauched of the good heavens. I mean, who would think that was a good idea?

Perry’s eyes widened when he saw a misty figure beginning to form, seemingly investigating the bullet in the center of the circle. Reality seemed to bulge around it, warping the light that traveled through the air, revealing a shimmering, stretched curtain.

Now!

Perry took control of the spell-disc, which was basically just a living relay for his actions, controlling a mechanical arm to carefully sever the veil between worlds using the glowing crystal blade.

The veil parted seamlessly around the Elysian Attendant, who coalesced from glowing mist into a beautiful woman of fantastical proportions. Creamy skin, brilliant blonde hair, well-rounded…everything.

“Greetings,” she said, picking up the flattened bullet before hopping over the pilot lights, a mischievous glint in her eye as she stood inches away from him. “Elysium has recognized your selfless act and wishes to reward it with a hint of the joy and pleasure of our realm. My name is Sophie. How can I…reward you?”

“No time, they’ll be here in two hours!” Perry said, slapping a spatula and an apron into the naked angel’s hands. “I’ve got some spare pants and shirts upstairs in the closet. Get dressed and help Brendon with setting up tables and chairs and the grill.”

The inhumanly attractive creature frowned, her plump lips downturned in confusion.

“What are you waiting for?!” Perry demanded. “Go, go, GO!”

“Eeek!” Sophie bolted as Perry shouted at her, sprinting for the stairs, clutching the spatula to her chest as she ran.

“It’s so hard to summon good help these days,” Perry said with a sigh, shaking his head.

The Ordenn had escaped on a technicality, because Perry wasn’t the summoner—the spell-disc was. It had taken his gold piece and disappeared, giving him the demonic equivalent of the finger as it disappeared.

The Elysian angels looked more favorably on bending the rules if it was for a good cause, which was why they had no problem with Perry summoning indirectly due to his…limitations.

I just don’t have very many tokens of selfless acts, Perry thought. It wasn’t like you could go out and make more at will, either. Trying to make them on purpose invalidated them.

Well, we’ve got one helper, at least.

Perry picked up the phone and dialed up Titan.

“’Sup?” Titan asked.

“If I pay you back, would you mind picking up a pallet of booze and showing up a little earlier?” Perry asked. “I’m underage, so I can’t do it myself.”

“Sure, man, but I’m only getting light beer.”

“I don’t know this for a fact, but isn’t light beer, like…awful?” Perry asked.

“Do you want supers getting shit-faced at your barbecue, Paradox?”

“No,” Perry said. “No, I do not. Light beer, it is. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Perry hung up and glanced at the whiteboard, where he’d calculated the amount of food he’d need to feed everyone.

For Manic alone, he’d calculated one burger every five minutes of the party. Two hours = 24 burgers.

And that was just one Speedster. Who knew how many more might be there?

I relish the challenge, Perry thought, crossing off ‘Booze’ and ‘Supernatural Labor’ from the whiteboard.

Oh, I forgot about relish, Perry thought, adding that to the shopping list.

An hour later, Perry got back from the store, carrying a literal ton of food over the shoulders of his suit.

The look on the faces of the clerks with a power armor in their checkout lane had been priceless.

Perry spotted Hardcase’s armor parked around back, along with a weathered truck and an oversized pallet of beer that had already been cracked open.

Landing beside the pool, Perry saw that most of Titan’s crew was in attendance, with the exception of Jetset. The massive Bruiser was sipping on a beer and chatting with Perry’s grampa, who was standing beside the gradually heating grill.

Perry’s grampa was mostly bald, with a crown of wispy white hair. He was six foot four, a bit shrunk by age, but still rather large. He wore a faded blue button-up shirt with the elbows nearly worn through, and pants that were likely older than Perry himself.

He was a self-styled ‘Pennsylvania farm boy’, which was his way of obfuscating his intelligence.

“So Brett’s a straight shooter.” Grampa’s story faded in as Perry approached.

“The kid heaves a sigh, fishes around in his pocket, and pays me the twenty bucks. Then, when he wasn’t looking, I cut the pole to match the rest of ‘em. Later in the day, Brett loses another twenty bucks trying to pull the same scam off on the corporal.”

Titan guffawed.

“Hey, Grampa,” Perry said, setting down the load of food into the oversized cooler beside the grill and stepping out of his armor. “LCC, park my armor.”

An invisible force snatched up the armor and parked it beside Hardcase’s. Grampa’s eyes narrowed as the armor floated away without any tangible propulsion.

“Huh,” he said, sipping his beer. “I could use something like that on the farm. My old ass is getting slower every year, and child labor is getting harder and harder to come by.”

“I could make something like that for you,” Perry said. The LCC wasn’t terribly expensive.

“I may take you up on that. Darryl thinks his gizmos are too good for a potato dealer.”

Perry glanced aside. One of Mechanaut’s creations was probably worth more than the value of the farm itself. So, technically…

“But that’s neither here nor there. Gotta wait out High Tide and see how bad the damage is before we talk about making fancy upgrades.” Grampa took a sip of his beer.

“You didn’t move in with us for the last High Tide,” Perry said. “What changed?”

“When your gramma passed, I sold our place in the city,” Grampa said with a shrug. “Figured I didn’t need it. I honestly didn’t expect to make it to another High Tide.”

“I’m not sure dad would…let you die,” Perry said.

“I got a thirty-eight special in my truck that says otherwise.”

“On the topic of suicide,” Perry said. “I gotta get this party started.” Perry nodded toward the grill right behind his grampa.

Grampa gave him a little salute and moved out of the way.

The ‘grill’ was one of Perry’s pieces of sheet metal that he’d shaped into a massive trough the night before. It had the surface area of about six normal-sized grills back-to-back, covered with more sheet metal cut into a grill shape.

It might not be enough.

Perry unwrapped a massive package of veggie burgers and laid them out. No less than fifty patties began sizzling on the grill simultaneously as Manic began to hover around him like a hummingbird, wounds already healed thanks to Speedster metabolism.

“Ooh, ooh, that smells good,” Manic said from both sides of Perry’s shoulders as he zipped around the motel’s backyard.

“No running around the pool,” Perry said.

“C’mon, man, I’m just walking really, really fast,” Manic said. “So like, is this quadrant here for me?” he asked, motioning to about fifteen of the burgers.

“You’ll get burgers when they’re done,” Perry said, glancing to the side, where he spotted Sophie talking to Hardcase as they put drinks in the ice-filled cooler.

Perry did a double-take.

RX

Strength

Girlfriend

The T-shirt he’d made as a joke had been in the closet, too, and it had been somehow converted into a narrow crop top, the words stretched almost to illegibility.

The jeans had been converted to Daisy Dukes.

“That’s what I get for conscripting an Elysian Attendant for a barbecue,” Perry muttered to himself.

“Manic, take over the grill,” Perry said. “I gotta do some damage control.”

“Sweet!” The Speedster began flipping at blazing speeds.

“Don’t take anything off the grill until it’s cooked all the way through,” Perry said.

“But it’s not even meat.”

“All the way through!” Perry said, pointing at him as he walked away. Good grilling habits were important.

I really shouldn’t leave Manic alone at the grill for long, Perry thought, heading over to the cooler, where Hardcase was giving the Elysian her complete attention and nodding subconsciously.

“So really, true love is fluid, and it happens outside of physical attraction,” Sophie said as Perry came into earshot. “Romance and physical companionship are nice, but they only comprise a tiny fraction of the time you spend together. Look for people who share the same interests. People you can depend on, who provide a supplement to your personality. Believing that one person can complete you is unhealthy.”

“Wow,” Perry said as he arrived. “I was half expecting you’d be corrupting the youth.”

“Oh, I already did that part,” the Elysian said, giving him the sweetest, least-innocent smile he’d ever seen. “I’ll take over the grill. Your friend got bored and left it.”

Perry glanced over his shoulder and spotted Manic throwing a stream of darts at a target, his hands blurring. He glanced back over to where the angel had taken over the grill, flirting with one of the early-showers.

“I get the feeling she’s getting back at me somehow for startling her,” Perry mused.

Hardcase tapped her fingers together nervously. “So…she’s—”

“Not actually my girlfriend and technically a minor subspecies of good-aligned extraplanar creature, colloquially referred to as ‘angels,’ albeit not an angel in the biblical sense. I summoned her to flip burgers.”

“So she was seriously telling the truth?” Hardcase asked, eyes widening.

“Yeah,” Perry said, nodding. “They can’t really lie.”

Heather went crimson, her freckles showing up under her domino mask. “Do you…um, want to check out the modifications I’ve made to my suit?” Hardcase asked, her voice breaking.

Perry scanned the crowd slowly beginning to filter into the poolside area. Now that Perry’s friends had already arrived, it was mostly Mom and Dad’s friends and their kids.

With the Elysian manning the grill and Titan and Grampa working the crowd, there wasn’t a ton that Perry needed to do anymore.

“Sure,” Perry said, nodding. “I got time.”

The two of them spent the next half hour going over her suit and discussing her improvements to her mechsuit using Dave’s magical ingredients.

To be clear, she wasn’t creating spells. She was using magical ingredients for their extraordinary properties.

In the case of the homeward bone of the reticulus, it pointed unerringly in the same direction regardless of its geolocation. It allowed Hardcase to design a sophisticated autopilot for her suit which allowed it to calculate its global position within a few millimeters, without a GPS or compass.

Meza-man had beaten Metalloid by feeding him the wrong directions through his GPS, so suits with non-hackable locators were all the rage recently.

She’d included giant bone in her joints, not as a structural support, but to aid in the movement of the limbs themselves.

The ability of giant bone to manipulate momentum and gravity had made her mechsuit’s movements tangibly smoother.

“And it saves electricity for simple movements like walking!” Hardcase said, practically vibrating with excitement. “Since the giant bone can boost momentum, I’ve designed the walk cycle to only provide a minimal impulse, which is magnified by the giant bone, making the walk cycle eighty percent more efficient!”

“It must be a heck of an incentive to increase efficiency, having that battery,” Perry said. There’s a hint that infinite energy wouldn’t break the universe.

“I know, you’d think it would make me care less about efficiency, having this constant supply, but I’m so tantalizingly close to dipping below the line that would allow constant operation!” Hardcase said.

“I mean, at a certain point, you’re gonna have to rest and recharge.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Hardcase said, shaking her fist at the air as they walked back to the pool.

When they came around the corner, Perry came to a halt, his eyes widening at the spectacle before him.

It was a who’s who of big-name heroes and villains. Perry assumed.

He only could put names to about a quarter of the people present, but those were the ones who couldn’t hide their identity no matter what they did, and therefore didn’t bother.

The magical snake lady who could temporarily turn her enemies to stone, Gorganna.

The brain floating in a jar, Neuron.

The mad scientist with the hair that looked like it was in a plasma globe, Brain-Fry.

The eight-foot-tall Bruiser knocking back tequila like it was water, Andy the Giant.

Where did he get tequila? Perry thought, glancing over at the pallet of light beer.

It was stacked up with beverages of all kinds brought by the attendees.

Crap.

About three quarters of those present were wearing some kind of face-covering, while the rest presumably had strong civilian identities separate from their super career.

His dad, over there chatting with Neuron in his civvies, being a case in point.

“You meet my boy, Chemestro?” Neuron asked, bobbing sideways to indicate a young man standing beside the floating brain. “I made him myself.”

The soon-to-be-dead man was about Perry’s age, with blond hair, blue eyes, and that perfect chiseled jaw and symmetrical muscled body that spoke of gene-editing.

“Hi,” Dad said, shifting his beer to his other hand to shake the doomed soul’s hand. “My name’s Darryl Zauberer.”

“Hexen’s husband, right? Minor Tinker powers?” Chemestro asked, a hint of derision in his voice.

“That’s me. I don’t have a taste for the running around and blowing stuff up, you know,” Dad said with a sheepish grin. “I’m more comfortable just supporting my wife.”

LIES!

“Name’s Chemestro. I can isolate chemicals and make anything into semipermeable membranes at will.”

He held up his finger and a blue flame sputtered to life above his fingertip. “I just allowed only hydrogen to gather around my finger and persuaded it to self-ignite where it recombines with the surrounding air.”

“That’s fantastic!” Dad said. “Can you make anything permeable to anything? I can think of a million ways that would be awesome in a lab.” Now Dad was playing humble and probing for trade secrets.

“You bet! Just the other day, I—”

“Son,” the brain in a jar interrupted. “Let’s not show your whole hand right off the bat.” The brain glanced at Dad. “Some people are more dangerous than they appear.”

Dad’s glasses fell off, causing him to curse and snatch them off the wet ground, wiping the grit off with his shirt.

“Then again, some people are harmless. But over-sharing is never a good idea in our line of work.”

“Yes, Father,” Chemestro said, his expression souring.

“Oh, Perry!” Dad said, waving him over.

“Would you excuse me for a moment?” Perry asked Hardcase.

“I haven’t eaten yet anyway. I’ll be by the grill.” The Tinker wandered away towards the grill and massive potluck that had sprung up around it.

Dad patted him on the shoulder as he approached. “Neuron, Chemestro, this is my son, Perry. Perry, this is Neuron and his son, Chemestro.”

“Hexen’s son, Perry, huh?” Chemestro asked, offering his hand. “Is that short for something?”

Paradox grasped Chemestro’s hand. “It’s short for Paradox,” Perry said, eyes narrowing as his grip tightened.

Chemestro followed suit, his blue eyes becoming a pale silver.

Chapter 39: Tactical Hugs

***Hardcase***

Natalie grabbed a burger from the grill and sat down at the plastic picnic table beside Wraith, visible across the entire pool because of her halo of beautiful red-gold hair.

Wraith was slouched on the bench seat, her back against the edge of the table, looking out at the party itself with a mildly amused smirk.

The confident attitude Wraith had towards life just...looked good on her, and Hardcase often found herself wishing she could have a fraction of it. Natalie worried about everything.

“How’s it going?” Natalie asked, sliding her plate in beside Wraith’s spot on the plastic table.

“This place is a powder keg. I count at least three pairs of sworn enemies mingling in the crowd right now,” Wraith responded, glancing over at her. “You got hyperweave on under there?” She glanced over at Hardcase’s blouse and jeans.

Natalie’s face heated up as Wraith expressed interest in her clothes.

I knew I should’ve worn something different!

“N-no, just regular clothes.”

“Then you should stick close to me. I think Perry’s about to start a fight.”

“Huh?” Hardcase craned her neck to see what Wraith was talking about.

Perry and some random guy were squeezing each other’s hands, expressions murderous.

“That guy’s too hot,” Wraith said offhand. “He’s obviously a gene-edit, cyborg, or illusion, and you don’t wanna touch those with a ten-foot pole. Too much baggage. Plastic isn’t really my type, either.”

“So, umm…” Natalie’s heart hammered in her ears. “What is your type?” She took a bite of her burger to hide her nerves.

“Well, I—”

“Oh my God, this burger is so good!” Natalie shouted, triggering a giggle fit from the redheaded girl beside her.

***Perry***

Well, this sucks, Perry thought as his hand folded like a wet tissue. He couldn’t measure it objectively, but it seemed like Chemestro was at least 40% stronger than him, and it was making his bones creak with discomfort.

But they weren’t breaking.

The two of them glared at each other for a moment before Perry offered an out.

“Care for a burger?” Perry asked, dropping Chemestro’s hand, the cowl doing the same.

“I like eating common food every now and then, sure.”

“I’ll fix one up special for you,” Perry said, heading for the grill with every intention of poisoning his guts out.

Probably wouldn’t work on someone named Chemestro, but it’s the thought that counts.

Oddly enough, the guy decided to follow Perry to the grill, watching impassively as Perry assembled the protein burger, making it impossible to add even the smallest amount of rat poison or spit.

“Here,” Perry said with an amiable grin.

“Thanks,” Chemestro said, taking the paper plate and a plastic knife before removing both buns and scraping off the condiments with the knife.

Perry’s eye twitched as the bastard desecrated his burger.

“Too many carbs,” Chemestro said by way of explanation, cutting the burger into bite-sized pieces and stabbing them with his knife.

“You could’ve just…passed that to someone else and taken one off the grill!” Perry blurted. “Or told me to stop!”

“That would’ve been better, but I was curious about how you people make burgers.”

“What do you mean by ‘you people’?” Perry asked, genuinely confused.

“Civilians.”

Perry glanced around at the party, where he spotted Andy the Giant giving women shoulder-rides, one of whom was waving a death ray in the air as her mount stumbled around the pool in a drunken haze.

“Most of the people here aren’t civilians, and they all make burgers the same way.”

“Depends on how you define ‘civilian,’” Chemestro said, pointing at him with the knife before tossing the plate with the STILL PERFECTLY USABLE bun in the garbage.

Dear Lord, you’re irritating, Perry thought, scowling.

***

“Looks like our kids are getting along great!” Darryl said, beaming.

“…Seriously?” Neuron asked.

“What’s his weakness, Neuron?” Darryl asked, turning back to the brain-in-a-jar with a manic expression. “Could he make me fall right out of my armor? Can he control the direction and permeability to generate lift? Can he fly, Neuron?”

“No, you can’t fight him until he’s been in the business at least a year, Darryl,” Neuron said through the tiny speaker in his jar, rolling his eyes.

“C’mon, man, just tell me if he can fly,” Darryl pleaded.

“You’re going to have to find out the same as everyone else,” Neuron shot him down again. “In the meantime, I look forward to seeing my creation destroy yours…metaphorically.”

“That goddamn bun was still usable!” Paradox shouted in the distance, his voice disappearing into the din of the party.

“Sounds like your boy has a short fuse,” Neuron said, wobbling in place.

“Better than trying to raise a child into a robot,” Darryl said.

“That’s rich, coming from you, Darryl,” Neuron said.

Darryl glanced off to the side, his eyes widening. “Oh shit, my mother-in-law’s here. Time to make myself scarce.”

***Perry***

“I don’t see why you’re so upset about a burger bun,” Chemestro said.

“It’s not the bun, it’s the four MILLION dollars’ worth of equipment you stole from me!” Perry said. Nemeses had been created for less.

“Mmm.” Chemestro pursed his lips and shook his head. “I still don’t see why you’re upset… I’m using it better.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” Perry said. There was no way a bit of fancy filtering would compensate for Perry’s raw boost in performance.

“I guess we’ll never know,” Chemestro said with a shrug. “What with you taking after your emasculated weakling of a father, instead of your mother.”

He reached out and flicked Perry’s forehead. “What are you gonna do without a suit of cardboard armor, Paradox?”

Oh, I’mma show ya, Perry thought, his vision gradually narrowing to Chemestro’s smug, punchable face.

Out of the gradually dimming corner of his eye, he spotted Hardcase shaking her head and wildly gesturing to get his attention. That provided him a heartbeat of clarity which allowed him to unravel the spell.

He’s deliberately trying to get under my skin, Perry realized, the anger snuffed like it’d been doused in cold water.

One of the unwritten rules of supers was hospitality: Thou shalt not attack invited guests. There was a rash of that kind of behavior in the eighties and early nineties, which led to the common acceptance that any attack on a guest could be construed as an actual, honest-to-God ambush with intent to kill, because the two were a hair’s breadth apart when dealing with superpowers.

Nothing would get Paradox more bad rep within the community than having him throw the first punch at someone he’d invited. That would invariably be seen as luring them there with malicious intent.

He hadn’t actually invited Chemestro, but given the open-invite nature of the event, it would still cast Perry in a poor light.

Well, if me getting mad is what Chemestro wants, then obviously I should do the opposite.

Perry took a page from his dad and put some Paradox spin on it.

“You’re right, I’m a harmless weakling like my dad,” Perry said, smiling. “Definitely not dangerous, and someone you can totally let your guard down around without worrying about extreme retribution leading to loss of limb or defenestration.”

It was Chemestro’s turn to frown, looking genuinely confused. “Is…is that sarcasm? Are you serious?”

“I’m totally serious,” Perry said with the straightest of faces. “I’m a pathetic worm who couldn’t bring himself to hurt a fly.”

“I feel as though you’re lying to my face in a hyperbolic way designed to irritate me,” Chemestro said.

“I would never.”

“I find it irritating.”

“I’m truly sorry you feel that way,” Perry said. “If there’s anything I can do to be a better host, please let me know. Would you like me to fix you up some nostalgic childhood food to put you at ease? Nutrient slurry from a beaker, perhaps? Steroid injection?”

Perry was taking a stab in the dark based on what he knew about Neuron, and Chemestro’s seeming inexperience with real food, but it seemed to be working, because Chemestro reddened, his brow lowering.

“Do you actually have a bed, or would you describe it as a cot?” Perry continued.

“Comfort breeds weakness,” Chemestro blurted, his words coming out in the measured cadence of someone who’d had it drilled into them from a young age.

Perry recognized a weakness.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Perry said, spreading his arms wide and giving Chemestro a big ol’ hug. “Bring it in, man.”

Pat, pat.

For just an instant, the super stood stock still. Then Perry’s head rocked back as the cowl’s knuckles impacted against his face.

HP: 2

Yay, I win! Perry thought as blood began to gush out of his nose, staining his shit-eating grin red. There was no serious damage, thanks to his HP.

“There’s more than one kind of weakness, Chemestro,” Perry said as the party ground to a halt. “Did your daddy miss that one?”

“AAAH!” Chemestro charged forward as the surrounding supers began to cheer.

***

“What are we doing under here?” Neuron asked as Darryl peered furtively out from beneath the tablecloth.

“Hiding from my mother-in-law, obviously. She kind of wants to kill me.”

“Let me rephrase,” Neuron continued. “Why am I under here?”

Darryl opened his mouth, finger raised, before frowning. “Did your son just punch my son for hugging him?”

“Yes, that was outside my calculations.”

“Did you ever hug your son?” Darryl asked.

“Do I look like I could do that?” Neuron asked.

“Did you ever get a surrogate hugger? A wet nurse, kindergarten teacher, or maid? Childhood friend?”

“There was no need,” Neuron said.

Darryl sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I think my son knowingly stole your son’s hug virginity.”

“Yes, I did not expect it to elicit such a strong reaction. I shall take steps to rectify the weakness your son has exposed.”

“I suggest you outsource it,” Darryl said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I fail to understand if your sarcasm was intended to convey that that was a good idea or a bad one.”

“Totally serious, actually. I can recommend some good therapists who—oh shit, she’s coming this way!”

Darryl began crawling the opposite direction.

***Perry***

“FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!” the surrounding supers chanted as Perry got his butt kicked.

It wasn’t even a close thing, really.

Every time Perry took a swing, it felt like he was briefly trying to force his body through molasses.

Then he got punched.

Chemestro burned through his HP in two more punches, then Perry really started to feel it.

Perry got tossed around like a rag doll, slamming into the tiled floor outside the pool. He grabbed a nearby wooden club left leaning against a table by a barbarian-looking fellow, swinging the massive instrument at Chemestro’s face.

Perry’s arm was seized by the air itself, while the club disintegrated into dust.

Then he got punched.

Chemestro kicked him in the chest, sending him reeling backwards into the grill, burning lines across his forearms. Perry hissed in pain and staggered away from the grill’s surface before he became part of the menu.

He glanced over and spotted the Elysian Attendant watching with wide eyes. “My very being prevents me from engaging in violence, so…do your best!” Sophie said, clutching a trembling spatula in front of her as she gave him a thumbs-up.

“How we doin’ on burgers?” Perry asked.

“We’re running low, but because of the potluck, we should be fine until the end of the day.”

“Cool.”

Chemestro waved a hand and the grill exploded into searing heat behind him, forcing him stumbling forward into a telegraphed punch.

Perry tried to raise his arms to block, but they were held at his sides by the air. He tried to lean out of the way, but his entire body seemed to be doomed to be a punching bag.

The hit flung Perry backwards and he just barely managed to avoid hitting the hot metal by sliding under it.

Then all the hot coals dumped over him.

“Agh!” Perry gave a strangled scream and scrambled out of the pile of coals, straight into a two-hit combo that left him staggering in place, bleeding from a split lip and sporting a swollen eye, hair singed and patchy.

Chemestro was smacked in the chest by Heather’s iron club, causing him to reel back in pain.

“Oh, it’s getting good now!” Andy the Giant rumbled, holding a beer between thumb and forefinger.

Perry saw Heather freeze in place as the air around her locked down, and Chemestro wound up for a punch.

In that moment, Perry forgot that Chemestro was bigger, stronger, and had more powers immediately on hand.

He tackled the prick into the pool.

Or at least, he tried.

Mid-fall, Chemestro slipped through Perry’s grip, floating above the surface of the water while Perry went flailing into the drink.

“I knew it!” He barely made out Dad’s voice before the water slammed into his face. All sound was cut off when Perry was engulfed in chlorinated water aggressively stinging every cut and burn across his body.

Chapter 40: That’s Not How Therapy Works

Perry dragged himself out of the water, gasping in a desperate breath as he surfaced, clutching the edge of the pool with white knuckles.

Coughing out the irritating chlorine, Perry scanned the surrounding poolside, blinking the sting out of his eyes.

It was complete anarchy.

About two thirds of the supers present were fighting for the fun of it. Even Mom had gotten into it, hitting Gorganna with bolts of lightning that scattered off the snake-woman’s scales like water.

Grampa was chatting with Grandma in the corner, while Grandma’s bloodbound shadow bodyguards formed a humanoid wall around her.

Andy the Giant and Titan were hanging out by the grill, talking to Sophie while piling up the last of the cooling burgers onto their plates in the confusion.

Chemestro was reeling back in pain, clutching his hand.

Heather had a fist-print in her face, with spikes sticking out of it.

Can’t miss this!

Perry hauled himself out of the water and sprinted for Chemestro, angling a powerful kick at his kidneys. A rabbit punch would probably be more effective, but he didn’t wanna kill the guy.

…much.

There was a flash of light and an explosion, flinging Heather away just as Perry arrived, catching Chemestro in the right-hand side with a fully-wound-up kick, causing the super to stagger sideways, reeling in pain.

So he can’t stop it if he doesn’t know it’s there. Good to know.

It also implied that Chemestro didn’t have any supernatural spatial awareness that would alert him to things he couldn’t see.

Limited to awareness. Vision a major weakness.

Chemestro whipped around and smacked Perry aside with a wall of compressed air, causing him to slide across the pool’s tile walkway, feeling like he just got hit by a truck.

On the surface, Perry was losing badly.

There was one big upside that justified this ass-kicking Perry was subjecting himself to:

Perry was learning a lot about Chemestro’s power, its limitations and weaknesses. Chemestro was learning absolutely nothing about Perry’s.

Chemestro propelled himself into the air and landed in a mount position, battering Perry’s arms and torso as Perry turtled up.

Chemestro had at least fifty pounds of lean muscle on Perry, and it was possibly improved by aftermarket enhancements such as those offered by Dr. Flex.

It blew Perry’s modest 15.7% increase out of the water, and his arms were battered into uselessness, until he couldn’t keep them covering his face.

The hits started to catch Perry in the face, slamming his skull into the unyielding surface of the poolside, adding wounds to the back of his head as well as his face.

Perry’s vision was starting to dim when Heather wrapped around Chemestro’s neck, reeling him off of Perry.

Chemestro choked for a moment and staggered backwards before he slipped out of Heather’s full-body hold, seemingly making either himself or Heather permeable.

He aimed a hand at Heather and the Shapeshifter was lifted into the air by a series of small explosions, juggling the redhead in place as she accumulated damage from the shockwaves.

Heather cried out in pain as over ten seconds went by, subjected to an inescapable floating meatgrinder while Perry tried to sit up, his arms nearly inoperable.

“Hey!” Hardcase shouted, running out from the crowd and shoving Chemestro.

The six-and-a-half foot tall wall of muscle didn’t even shift when the four-foot-nine girl shoved him.

Hardcase paled and took a step back, perhaps realizing what a bad idea she’d committed to.

Chemestro glanced down and aimed a hand toward Hardcase.

A massive sausage fist closed down around Chemestro’s hand, a soft cracking sound echoing through the area.

Chemestro gave a sharp inhale as his hand crumpled.

“I think you’ve gone far enough,” Titan said, looking down into the cowl’s eyes. He took a bite of his burger.

Chemestro glanced between Perry and Heather, both of whom were struggling to get up. “You’re right. Paradox and his friend are no longer capable of resisting.”

Titan dropped Chemestro’s hand and dragged away the seething Hardcase by the shoulder.

Perry burst into giggles as he sat up on his elbows, only one eye capable of opening through the swelling.

“Something funny?” Chemestro said, squatting down in front of Perry, all emotion drained from his expression, the layer of discipline that Perry had peeled away reasserting itself.

Perry continued chuckling, coughing weakly as he inhaled a bit of spit and blood. “Yeah, I’d say so,” Perry said, meeting the cowl’s bright blue gaze.

“Enlighten me.”

Perry raised a trembling arm and pointed at Chemestro. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

He flicked his finger.

The Lair Control Center saw this trigger gesture and smacked Chemestro with the force of a semitruck, sending him tumbling backwards, smashing into the extra-sturdy walls of Perry’s motel.

Perry circled Chemestro’s prone form in his vision with his finger. “Tenderize him, one point two five.”

The Lair Control Center began an automated program designed to beat a person with twenty-five percent higher durability than baseline human within an inch of their life.

Perry didn’t do 40% because he was unsure of Chemestro’s actual durability and didn’t care to be responsible for his death. Similarly, Chemestro hadn’t made Perry’s bones fall out of his body during the fight. It was the polite thing to do when beating someone.

The jovial melee quieted as Chemestro was restrained and beaten by relentless invisible force from every conceivable direction, suspended in midair above the pool itself. Sparks and explosions and wobbly air surrounded the super as he tried to ward off the vicious assault, but accomplished nothing.

Perry groaned as he dragged himself to his feet, limping over to the ice chest and prying it open.

Ooh, root beer.

Perry grabbed a couple bottles and held one to his swollen eye, limping over to Heather and offering her the other.

“Why didn’t you do that from the beginning?” Heather muttered, sitting up.

“Classic rope-a-dope. I gained a ton of actionable intel from the fight,” Perry said.

“Him?” Perry asked, pointing his root beer at the limp form being tossed around midair. “He ain’t gonna remember much. One second he was winning, and the next…” Perry shrugged.

“Wish you’d told me the plan.”

“I didn’t even know he’d be here! How was I supposed to tell you anything beforehand?”

“Are you two okay?” Hardcase asked, staring up at the two of them with watery eyes behind her domino mask.

“We’ll live,” Heather said with a shrug.

Once Perry felt that Chemestro had been properly compensated for his intel, he pointed at him again. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

LCC jettisoned Chemestro into the sky, sending him flying half a dozen blocks away from Perry’s lair.

He’ll probably survive.

“Nicely done!” Dad said, approaching and clapping Perry on the shoulder. “You played that punk like a pro.”

“Sweetheart, are you okay?!” Hexen said, peering into his eyes, a point of light on her fingertip practically blinding him. “I think you have a concussion, baby.”

“I feel like I have a concussion,” Perry said over the ringing in his ears.

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, Perry,” Grampa said as he approached. “I don’t see what the big deal is about dressing up in tights and fighting other people also wearing tights for no particular reason.”

“Agreed,” Gramma said. “Claudette, fix the damage to his brain and vital organs, but leave the superficial damage as a reminder.”

“But…” Mom hesitated.

“I’m fine with that,” Perry said with a chuckle. “I earned these bruises.”

Mom sighed. “Fine,” she said, her hand glowing ivory momentarily before passing it over his forehead. “But seriously, Perry, try not to get so much brain damage next time. If it’s not healed magically, it can become permanent.”

“Bah, my boy can take a little brain damage,” Dad said, waving it off.

“Did I raise a goddamn simpleton?” Grampa asked, glaring at Dad. “Or is it just a side effect of running around in tights?”

“Armor. I wear armor, Dad.”

As Mom worked, Perry’s head cleared, the ringing fading to nothing in seconds, while his family’s bickering formed a comforting background noise.

I gotta finish the healing spell-frame, Perry thought, as he felt a million times better when Mom’s glowing hand lifted away from his forehead.

Sure, his limbs were still limp noodles comprised mostly of bruise, he walked with a pronounced limp, and his eye was swollen…

But he didn’t feel like he was about to lose his teeth, drown in blood, pee red, or pass out.

And that was good enough.

“All kidding aside…that was a good fight, Perry. You took that beating like a man,” Grampa said, patting Perry on the shoulder.

“Indeed, I’ve never seen Dregor’s Binding used in such a novel way,” Gramma said with a hint of a smile. “You’ve given me ideas, young man.”

“That was Dregor’s Binding?” Mom asked, jaw dropping, glancing between Perry and Gramma. “How?!”

“I don’t know, but the essences were there if you paid attention to them.”

“They just looked like invisible robotic arms to me!” Mom said. “You saw essences in them?”

“Still too naïve, Claudette,” Gramma said patronizingly to Hexen, fifth most powerful super in Franklin City.

“Good job, kid,” Dad said, giving him a warm hug.

“Now I gotta get outta here before your gramma remembers how much she hates me,” Dad whispered in Perry’s ear.

Perry broke into a chortle.

“Haha, ow, my face.”

***Chemestro***

Twelve Forty-two awoke, his head pounding violently. Acting on his training, he immediately took control of his heart, keeping it at a steady forty BPM.

He took a deep, slow breath and identified the characteristic smell of home.

Steel and antiseptic.

Deciding it was worth the risk of opening his eyes, Twelve Forty-two scanned the surroundings through his eyelashes, verifying that he was in Med-bay.

What happened? Twelve Forty-two thought as he performed a self-eval, finding his body to be covered in rapidly fading contusions. In another hour, he would be at full strength.

Twelve Forty-two applied his power to his wounds, speeding up the healing by relieving the swelling and moving the blood back where it belonged, patching up his broken veins with speed born of experience.

“I’m disappointed, Chemestro.” Father’s voice echoed through the speakers in the shiny steel wall of the med-bay.

That’s right, my name’s Chemestro now, Twelve Forty-two—no, Chemestro—thought, sliding out of the bed, removing the IV and standing at attention.

“Father, I have no excuse,” Chemestro said. If I remembered what happened, I might have one. Chemestro kept his heartbeat under control. He’d seen punishment meted out for showing fear.

“Indeed. You’ve always been the best of your brothers and sisters,” Neuron said as the door slid open, revealing Father in person. “From the day you Triggered a Catalyst power that could rival Solaris, you’ve done nothing but excel. I had such confidence in you that I allowed you to probe Paradox on your own recognizance.”

Chemestro’s eye twitched as he remembered the events of the afternoon before. He’d beat Paradox soundly and then…pain?

“Someone ambushed me? Was it the Bruiser?” The damage he’d taken certainly was consistent with a Bruiser.

“Paradox stopped taking it easy on you, once you’d showed him every trick in your arsenal. You were tricked, you ignorant child. You attacked a Tinker in his lair. That’s literally a euphemism for suicide by stupidity!”

Lightning emerged from the walls and tore through Chemestro’s body, driving him to his knees with physical force.

“GAH!” His lungs forced a scream from him as they contracted under the assault of electricity. He collapsed to the ground as his entire body cramped, muscles threatening to tear themselves off the bone.

“You were stupid and you failed. You failed your mission, you failed me, and I…”

The lightning cut off, leaving Chemestro panting, face-down against the acrid steel floor. The pain and scent of cleaning agent was nostalgic.

“I have failed you,” Neuron said.

Chemestro thought he might’ve hallucinated it, peering up at Father, who floated above him, blue eyes looking down at him through the glass of his jar.

“My training, designed to drive all weakness from you, created a weakness... Irony abounds,” Father said as he turned away, the door sliding open as he floated along.

“Follow.”

“Sir,” Chemestro said, trying to push himself to his feet with his power, receiving a mild shock as he discovered the suppressors were on again.

They haven’t been on in years, Chemestro thought, the shock of betrayal penetrating far deeper than the physical pain.

“Chemestro?” Father asked, prompting him to scramble to his feet and follow.

Wiping all emotion from his face, Chemestro walked beside Father, shoulders squared.

“From now on, we will add two hours of intense training to your schedule, so that this never happens again.”

“Sir,” Chemestro said, internally rearranging his schedule.

“It’s come to my attention that a lack of contact with others during childhood can create a hypersensitivity. Paradox realized this and exploited it in a matter of seconds. The nemesis I have chosen for you has performed his fault-testing duty admirably.”

“I see, sir,” Chemestro said.

They stopped in front of a bulkhead door.

“Emotions…are not my strong suit, son. Which is why I kidnapped a Therapist.”

The bulkhead door swung open to reveal a woman with curly brown hair down to her shoulders, wearing a maroon sweater. Her arms were clutched to her front in clear defensive posturing.

“You will spend two hours a day desensitizing yourself to sympathy and intimate contact, until you can tolerate it.

“Therapist,” Father said, turning to the woman displaying her emotions for all to see. Like a civilian. Like Paradox.

Chemestro’s eye twitched.

“My name’s Lu’ann?” she said, her voice trembling.

“I did not kidnap you for your name, but your profession,” Father said. “Therapist, you will express sympathy and hug Chemestro for precisely two hours a day. Starting now.”

“W-what?” she whispered, glancing between the two of them.

“Now.” Plasma radiated outward from Father’s glass.

The Therapist moved forward hesitantly, wrapping her pathetic, tiny, useless, civilian arms around Chemestro.

“I’m sorry he does this to you,” she whispered into his ear, tears running down her cheeks.

Chemestro’s hair stood on end, and he reflexively shoved The Therapist away, causing her to fall backward into her cell before she began making awful…noises…that struck some nerve buried deep inside him.

“Good,” Father said as Chemestro stood there, panting.

“Now do it again.”

***Perry***

Perry went over the video of the fight, wincing every time he got punched or kicked. From the outside, it looked even more pathetic. But he needed to take careful notes to figure out the cowl’s entire power suite.

It was a 3D view of the LCC taken by cameras surrounding the model of the property, which allowed him to surveil his entire lair without having any actual cameras that people could see or interact with.

Although, I might want to place some dummies.

Perry paused the fight when he spotted Chemestro punch Heather in the face, the first and only time he struck his shapeshifting team member physically.

Heather selectively hardened parts of her body while allowing other parts to sink in, basically causing Chemestro to mangle his own hand against spikes embedded in her face.

A clever move against someone who could hold you in place.

Perry slowed the fight down as Chemestro staggered away, clutching his hand.

He zoomed in.

Blood welled up on Chemestro’s fist, then retreated back into the super’s hand, leaving bloodless wounds.

“Hmmm…” Perry started the fight forward again.

Chemestro, alerted to Wraith’s ability to punish a physical attack, fluidly switched to ranged tactics, indicating either high intelligence or experience in combat. Probably both.

A few moments later, the fight ended when Perry flicked him.

The view of Chemestro was momentarily occluded when one of the model’s robotic arms reached down and smacked Chemestro’s model, hard.

Perry watched the robotic arms pick up Chemestro’s model and hold him over the pool while beating him senseless.

“Wait a minute,” Perry muttered, running the video back to where Chemestro smashed against the wall after the first hit.

Perry paused.

There was a little red splotch where Chemestro’s hand hit the wall, as he momentarily lost control over his blood.

Heart slamming in his chest, Perry grabbed a sample vial, a Q-tip, and limped up the stairs as fast as he could.

A minute later, Perry was inspecting a blood-soaked piece of cotton inside a glass tube.

“Gotcha.”

Chapter 41: Plans and Workout

Paradox Wizard

M.D.

“How many of those shirts did you make?” Heather asked, sitting in the tiny school desk that Perry had made for the occasion.

“They were having a sale, so basically I’m gonna keep going through them until I get a laugh outta you.”

“Good luck, I guess.” Heather shrugged.

“Alright.” Perry popped open the cap on his dry-erase marker, marking the top of the whiteboard.

CHEMESTRO

“Alright, after reviewing the tapes of the night before, I’ve deduced that his power is…”

Permeability

The board squeaked as Perry wrote the word down.

“He literally said that, you know.”

“Wasn’t sure if he was lying,” Perry said. “But now I’m pretty sure he was telling the truth.

“Now.” Perry made another bubble named USES, then began branching off of it.

“It’s a Catalyst power, which is one that alters or controls physics at a fundamental level. Generally, a Catalyst and an energy user have similar glass-cannon status, although Chemestro is obviously enhanced.

“Generally, the difference between an energy user and a Catalyst is flexibility. There’s only so many ways you can cut and burn things, after all.”

FLIGHT

Pseudo Telekinesis

“He uses permeability to control air pressure, creating a sort of pseudo telekinesis that allows him to both fly and move others. This power is likely limited by atmospheric pressure, which is about fourteen point six PSI.”

“What about the explosions? I felt those.”

“I think that was just him concentrating oxygen and flammable gasses and causing them to self-ignite,” Perry said, frowning.

“How did he make them ignite?” Heather asked. “Can he increase air pressure beyond atmospheric?”

“I don’t know…” Perry said. “Perhaps concentrate static electricity to create a detonator?”

“Plausible,” Heather said.

EXPLOSIONS -> static electricity?

“Let’s not forget he disintegrated my borrowed club…somehow.” Perry started writing.

Disintegration -> living tissue?

“That’s a spooky thought,” Heather said.

“Chances are good he can, but chooses not to. Living flesh doesn’t inherently behave any different than everything else. So…”

Mutually assured destruction.

“Let’s not back him into too much of a corner,” Perry said.

Power armor useless?

“If he can reliably use his power on my suit, it’ll be worthless. The best way to handle him is being able to beat him with no weapons at all.”

Research power-resistant materials?

Magical defense/offense.

“Hmmm…” Perry hummed, then started a new category.

Weaknesses:

Under that, he wrote:

Vision/Awareness limits powers.

Human reaction time.

Low durability.

Low durability was relative to Bruisers, who could take tank rounds and missiles to the chest.

Perry frowned, then added another.

Hugs.

“So we need these things,” Perry said.

Invisible attacks.

Probe material resistances, then boost them.

Defense against disintegration of self.

Defense against physical damage that doesn’t rely on armor.

Hug cannon.

“You’re not serious about that last one, are you?” Heather asked.

“Nope,” Perry said, clicking the marker cap back on.

“I’ll do some research on stealth drones and such, see what I can put together that might take our friend by surprise. I’ll send some non-stealth drones after him and record how he dismantles them to see if we can isolate anything his power doesn’t work on so well…

“For the last two, I’ve got an idea…” Perry said.

“So what am I supposed to do?” Heather asked.

“We’re gonna want to practice your maneuverability techniques and attack speed. If you were a more proficient flier, you might’ve been able to escape that juggling technique he caught you in,” Perry said. “And we’ll see if we can’t fabricate a stealth suit for you.”

“Stealth hyperweave is insanely expensive,” Heather said.

“Which is why I wanna try my hand at making some myself…” Perry said. There were a dozen or so brands of hyperweave, after all, each a little different owing to the Tinker who produced them. If they could do it, why not Perry?

Heather was wearing the cheap stuff right now.

“I’m not gonna have to pay you for it, am I?” Heather asked.

“Of course not,” Perry said. “I’ll just assess a modest fraction of any bounties you—gah!”

Heather’s arm stretched out and she punched him in the shoulder.

Rubbing his shoulder, Perry went back to the whiteboard and wrote down another point.

Powerleveling

He then drew a line from that to over half the points on his list. “All of these become easier if I get another level or two under my belt.”

Perry briefly focused on his status.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 3

HP: 4

Body: 3

Stability: 3

Nerve: 6

Attunement: 16

Free Points: 0

XP to next level: 473

“Oh, cool,” Perry said. He’d gotten over a thousand XP during the barbecue. Probably two separate payments for the party itself and the fight.

In line with the increased opportunity that XP represented, he’d been approached by a handful of supers who were interested in a similar security system for their own lairs.

Perry had turned them down, as he already had enough on his plate, but he left the option open for future work.

He now had those supers’ phone numbers.

After a moment of thinking, Perry flexed his arm, glancing down at his bicep.

There was one way he could close the distance between himself and Chemestro: put on some muscle armor.

Perry was currently lean, bordering on skinny, with a bench press of a measly 150. He needed to put that extra 15.7% strength and recovery speed to work for him.

I do have a gym…

Under ‘powerleveling,’ Perry wrote:

Get Swole.

Heather laughed out loud.

***Chemestro***

Click, click, click.

The sound of chalk on blackboard echoed through Chemestro’s lair as he debriefed himself.

“So Paradox will most likely temporarily abandon defense, as my power is far too difficult to physically defend against, and instead adopt a method relying on speed, stealth, or surprise.”

The conclusion that Chemestro had come to was that, while his offense was varied and flexible enough for the top tiers of Nexus, he needed to shore up his defense.

PASSIVE DEFENSE

Chemestro circled the phrase twice, tapping the blackboard before writing again.

INFORMATION ON PARADOX

ACTIVE DEFENSE

All of those things had one thing in common:

$$$

Chemestro glanced over his shoulder at the industrial chemical plant pumping out liquid profit at $1000 an ounce on the Tinker Marketplace.

He scanned the row of 55 gallon drums filled with the stuff.

Should be sufficient.

BEEP, BEEP.

Training time, Chemestro thought as he scowled at his watch, his skin crawling.

Chemestro put down his chalk and left his lair, heading out into the hallways of Father’s lair.

Chemestro was one of the only projects to have his own lair, with multiple rooms and its own facilities. He could stay there nearly indefinitely and not see any of the others if he wished, although his desensitization training put a damper on that thought.

Father has cameras there, too. What kind of super has suppressors targeting themselves in their own lair? Father had lifted the suppression, but Chemestro knew they were there.

Father claimed the suppressors being on last night was to prevent him from reflexively damaging Lu’ann, but perhaps it was also to remind him of his place.

He marched past the Three Thousands, who were engaging in PT, jogging down the long halls of Father’s lair. The children gawked at their older brother in a clear lack of discipline.

Chemestro ignored them, demonstrating proper behavior by example.

He stopped in front of The Therapist’s cell and held his thumb to the lock, causing the bulkhead door to swing open.

The Therapist froze as he strode into the ten-by-ten cell.

“It’s time for two hours of physical intimacy,” Chemestro said, removing his shirt, muscling the revulsion down into the pit of his stomach.

***

“I was, uh…expecting something different,” The Therapist said, hugging him from behind to provide extra weight as he did push-ups. A measly hundred and twenty pounds, but good enough for endurance training.

“Time scheduled with you cuts into my PT,” Chemestro said, sweat dripping from his forehead. “And as long as you do your job as specified, Father will have no complaints about multitasking.”

“Kinda feels like you’re trying to avoid being here, mentally,” The Therapist said, the phrase cutting deep. Damn therapists and their damn mental insight. Chemestro was beginning to realize that they were a different kind of dangerous.

“I’m as ‘here’ as I’ll ever be,” Chemestro said, his tone flat.

“Uh-huh,” The Therapist grunted noncommittally. “Let’s start with something neutral. Tell me about your workout.”

“Four hours every day, targeting two major muscle groups every day on rotation, with burnout for each once a week.”

“What’s burnout?” The Therapist asked.

“When you lift your max weight until you can’t anymore, then gradually reduce the weight, continuing until you can no longer lift the bar.”

“How long have you been doing it?”

“Since I was twelve.”

“I…see. Do you ever take a break?”

“Biannually, after a full-body burnout.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“So you’ve only taken fourteen days off?”

“Thirteen. We’re only halfway through the year.”

“What do you do on those days?”

“Study and recover.”

“Uh-huh,” The Therapist said. “Do you enjoy working out?”

Chemestro thought about it for a moment. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Because nothing bad has ever happened during a workout.

Chemestro didn’t say it, falling silent instead.

“Is it because nothing bad ever happened to you during a workout?” Lu’ann asked, her arms tightening around him.

Chemestro’s skin crawled, his adrenaline spiked, and he threw The Therapist off his back, dumping her on her butt as he stood with his back to the steel wall, panting. It felt like insects were crawling across his skin.

“Ow,” The Therapist said, rubbing her butt as she stood.

“Don’t do that,” Chemestro said.

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t get in my head,” Chemestro said, taking a step forward and looming over her, his discomfort manifesting as anger.

She looked up at him with wide, innocent brown eyes. “Isn’t that what your father wants me to do?”

Chemestro’s head began to shake as his neck muscles began trembling unbidden, his eyes watering. A directionless fire burned in his chest and he really wanted to hit The Therapist, but she was an asset and performing her job. Father would be displeased.

“Fine, just…get on my back, it’s time for lunges.”

***Paradox***

This is boring. And painful.

I’m bored and in pain.

“What kind of moron would want to do this?!” Perry grunted the words out as he forced the trembling bar up away from his chest, an abysmal one hundred and forty pounds.

“C’mon, just three more and you’re done with your set,” Jetset said, his fingers under the bar to make sure Perry didn’t crush himself.

Not that one forty would kill me, but it’s a good habit to be in.

“I don’t think I can do it,” Perry said. Getting swole was 100% not worth this level of aggravation.

“LCC, put the video of Perry getting his ass kicked up on the wall,” Heather said from her machine.

“You jerk!” Perry grunted as a highlight reel of Chemestro tossing him around like a sandbag began playing on the wall from a projector in the ceiling.

I meant that to be for sports or movies while working out.

Perry would admit this, though: It was highly motivating.

New Quest! Finish an extra set!

Reward: 5 XP

Oooo! That’s what I’m talking about.

Thus motivated, Perry dug deep and finished another set, rendering his arms into painful limp noodles.

“Well, I’m done working out for the day,” Heather said, her body covered in a sheen of sweat and looking run-down.

“We just started. Aren’t you supposed to…target parts and vary it up a bit?” Perry asked. He wasn’t keen on bodybuilding terminology.

“I just moved all my muscles into my arms and did one of Titan’s machines,” Heather said with a shrug. “Got my whole body in one go.”

“Freakin’ cheater,” Perry muttered.

“You’re just jealous.”

“Heck yeah, I am,” Perry said, wiping the sweat off his face.

“Hey, maybe you can Tinker yourself some bigger muscles,” Heather said.

Perry seriously considered it for a moment before shaking his head. “Nah. I think I can get about twenty-five XP per day if I do it the old-fashioned way. That will be worth more in the long run than a magical solution.”

Perry had been looking for motivation to continue working out, and his System had delivered. Work out full-steam for twenty days and he’d have his next level. The thing was dangling a carrot in front of his face, and Perry was gonna go for it.

“I’m still weirded out about the whole XP thing,” Heather said, shaking her head as she left.

“And make a dang shower room, already!” she shouted over her shoulder.

“The XP thing is weird,” Jetset said.

“Tell me about it,” Perry said, heading for the leg machine.

“So, like, how does it work?”

Perry gave Jetset the shorthand while he began torturing his legs.

“Why does it give you XP for beating other people, then? The way you described it is limited to self-improvement.”

“It harvests causal potential from people whose potential I diminish. If I beat someone in a fight, they’re not gonna go rob a bank the next morning, or get a bagel, or meet the love of their life. They’re gonna be in jail. Potential diminished.”

“Interesting. So if we sparred and you beat me, you’d get XP?” Jetset asked.

“Well, maybe, but not from diminishing your potential, because I wouldn’t be arresting you or beating you so hard you were unable to do anything. If I gained any, it would be from me learning to fight better.”

“Weird,” Jetset said.

“Yeah.”

Perry’s legs began to burn like someone had maliciously injected them with acid, causing him to wonder why the hell he was doing this.

New Quest! Finish an extra set!

Reward: 5 XP

Ah. There it is.

Chapter 42: Rampage FOMO

***Chemestro***

“Chemestro, fancy meeting you here,” Metalon said as Chemestro entered the Tinker’s office.

Metalon was a swarthy fellow with a wide frame and an abysmal 5:34 win-loss ratio, who’d gotten out of the super game a long time ago. Nowadays he supplied information, Tinker-tech, and acted as a bookie.

He must’ve found out that taking bets on super matchups was more profitable than fighting them.

“It’s not unexpected. I wanted information on Paradox, and you offered it.”

“I…see,” Metalon said. “I suppose I should stick with business.”

“That would be appreciated,” Chemestro said, sitting in front of him. He only had another half hour left on his self-imposed time limit on information gathering.

“Now, about payment. That’ll be ten million dollars or comparable services rendered. I’ve got a lovely matchup you could take part in tomorrow night against a young Speedster. A girl. I hear she burns right out of her clothes.”

Metalon waggled his eyebrows for some reason.

“So?” Chemestro asked. Whether a Speedster was clothed or not really didn’t have anything to do with their ability to fight.

“So, umm…money, then?” Metalon asked.

“Barter, hopefully,” Chemestro said, selecting the ceiling above them and making it permeable to the barrels he’d placed on the roof on the way in. Chemestro caught them by lowering the pressure above them to nil, lowering them gently onto the floor.

The two blue barrels sat there beside him, and Chemestro placed a possessive hand on one of them. “This is nitro.”

“Nitroglycerin?”

“Nitro. The drug.”

It was a doping method used by Nexus officials in emergencies and provided excellent combat performance boosts with only minor side effects: exhaustion, muscle tearing, and the like.

It was also highly restricted.

“Mind cracking them open?” Metalon asked.

“Not at all,” Chemestro said, taking a glass off of Metalon’s desk and making a pinhole section of the barrel permeable, allowing it to fill the bottom of the glass before he handed it over.

The drug had a pungent, vinegary smell that crawled into the nostrils, with an acrid aftertaste.

“Ugh, yeah, that’s nitro,” Metalon said, wafting it under his nose and making a face before setting the glass aside.

“Each barrel is worth eight million. It should more than compensate you for the difficulty of reselling it. No one knows I have these, as I made them myself, and produced the raw ingredients using my powers.”

“Don’t want Nexus checking your bank statements, huh?” Metalon asked.

“It would be more accurate to say I want them to like what they see.” Chemestro shrugged.

“Say no more, that’s fair compensation. I will now tell you what I know about Paradox,” Metalon said, getting started.

“First of all, this is something that very few people know.”

Chemestro leaned forward in his seat unconsciously.

“Paradox is Hexen’s son.”

“I already knew that,” Chemestro said, standing.

“Hold your horses, kid,” Metalon said, holding up his hand. “I’m just covering all the bases so you can’t accuse me of skipping something.”

I don’t have any horses. And what does he mean by ‘covering bases’? The basic feel of what he just said was that he was asking him to wait, because he was going to cover the basics in case there was something in there that Chemestro wasn’t aware of.

Chemestro approved of that sentiment. He sat back down.

“Paradox is one of the few people who have used their real name as their super name, likely because it’s so unusual that few people would bother to think it’s not a pseudonym.

“Five foot ten, green eyes, black hair, born to Claudette Zauberer, who was in turn born to Queen Marigold Zauberer of Manita.”

Chemestro gave Metalon a flat stare.

“Your boy’s a prince!” Metalon explained. “Or, well…a princess’s son? Is that a duke? Idunno. It doesn’t matter; Manita no longer exists, so it’s kind of a moot point.”

“Anything I can use? Something I couldn’t have learned using Google?” Chemestro said.

“Alright, I’ve saved the best for last. Do not speak about this in polite company, because there’s a chance you’ll get killed for it. Paradox’s father is actually…”

Chemestro leaned forward in his seat.

“Darryl Zauberer, formerly Darryl Collins!”

Chemestro stood, turning to leave.

“They met when Darryl was in prison for holding the city hostage as The Mechanaut.”

Chemestro froze. “That balding beaknose is one of the most dangerous men in the city?”

“I thought that information might provide some context about why your father pitted you against Hexen’s son.”

Mechanaut was one of Neuron’s greatest rivals.

Chemestro’s stomach soured as he realized his conflict with Paradox was a byproduct of his father’s rivalry with another Tinker. He’d also been denied critical information. It made him feel small and meaningless. Like a pawn.

He swallowed the feeling back down and buried it where it belonged.

“What else?”

“And now for the information that no one else knows,” Metalon said, waggling his fingers dramatically.

“Paradox is not a Tinker,” the information broker said.

“What do you mean?”

“The kid is a mage. The effects of each of his rays and weapons are magical in nature. The gadgets on his forearms are so much theater designed to obfuscate his actual abilities.”

“Where does he get the armor, then?” Chemestro asked.

“A Tinker chained up in his basement? Who cares? The point is his attacks are actually spells and can be defended against as such.”

“Interesting.” Chemestro rubbed his chin.

“Now here’s the problem,” Metalon said. “Paradox’s family has a TON of allies in Funkytown, which is incidentally where you’d have the best shot at purchasing high-quality magical protection. There are, however, a few people capable of selling to you who don’t have any allegiances, and I’ll give you the address of one.”

Metalon pulled out a business card and scribbled on the back before handing it to him.

Chemestro glanced down and back up. “Dave the Unicorn? Is that a joke?”

“It’s not a joke. Nonhumans are less likely to be beholden to the royal family, especially unicorns, who basically do whatever the hell they want. Dave is a particularly independent and greedy one. He’d sell his mother’s horn for the right price.”

Hmm…

***Paradox***

“Ahahahaha!” The self-proclaimed ‘Lord of Chrome’ cackled from atop a pile of shiny objects: mirrors, vending machines, metal poles, anything reflective.

“I’m not gonna take Mr. Gerber’s shit anymore!” the youth said, cackling. “I’m the god of all that is shiny! The city will bow before me!” The kid picked up the vending machine and threw it, rocking their cover.

“He upgraded his title,” Perry said, hiding behind a concrete pillar.

“Trigger high,” Wraith said with a shrug.

‘Trigger high’ was a fairly self-explanatory concept: You give a buttoned-down young man godlike power, and they have no idea what to do with it. They spend a few hours getting whatever they want or being supernaturally strong, and they go crazy.

Similar to lottery winners and incautious spending.

It was actually less common in people who were born into the business, Paradox and Wraith being a case in point.

“Do you think I could have gone on a Trigger high rampage?” Perry asked, feeling like he was missing out on some rite of passage that most other adult supers experienced.

“No, your power’s terrible for rampaging,” Heather said, hanging from the ceiling above him. “You literally make things harder to destroy by your very presence.”

“Do you think I should go on a rampage?” Perry asked. “I won’t have teenage indiscretion as an excuse for much longer, and I’ve got some serious rampage FOMO.”

“You know who has a good power for going on a rampage?” Wraith asked.

“Don’t say it,” Perry said, his brow furrowing.

“Chemestro. That boy could tear this mall down in ten seconds flat. And look good doing it.”

“I know you’re just saying that to piss me off,” Perry said, glancing around the corner to find Chromelord was gone, vanished into one of his shiny objects. “I think you do want me to go on a rampage.”

“It’d be funny, if nothing else,” Wraith said.

Chromelord was an irritating combination of limited teleporter and Bruiser, which made him hard to pin dow—

“Look out!”

An impact smashed against the back of Perry’s armor, sending him to the ground along with some chips of concrete. Perry regained his feet, seeing Chromelord—terrible name—wielding a thick metal pole torn out of concrete in his undersized hands.

While this guy had super-strength, he didn’t have super size. This actually made the skinny kid harder to pin down.

“Hey, wait!” Perry shouted, causing Chromelord to pause. The fact that this had any effect showed how new Chromelord was at this.

Target acquired, Mk. 3 displayed moments before Perry unlatched his armor, stepping out of it and waving his arms while Wraith hugged the ceiling, turning into a grey stain directly above Chromelord.

The kid was freaking out as he glanced back at Perry, his bloodshot eyes widening as he saw Perry stepping out of his armor.

“So listen, Chromelord—”

“Where’s the other one?!” Chromelord demanded, waggling the concrete car-stopper like a baseball bat, his Burger Joint uniform ragged, dorky hat askew.

“Wraith?” Perry asked.

Heather sighed and dripped down to stand next to Perry, giving up her element of surprise for his gambit.

“Can we talk for a minute?” Perry asked.

“Make that…weird girl stand far away! And you, get away from your armor!”

“Okay, okay, you’re in charge here,” Perry said, walking away from his armor until Chromelord was facing almost directly away from the armor itself.

Excellent.

Heather, picking up on Perry’s plan, walked far away, making Chromelord turn a bit more to keep her in view, putting his back to the armor.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Chromelord said, relaxing a bit. “I’m in charge here, and you tell that jerk Mr. Gerber that I’m not covering Jeremy’s shift again…”

Perry glanced at Heather and shrugged. “Sure, man.”

“And—and I want the morning shift!” Chromelord said, pointing the concrete-filled bar at them. “I wake up early every day, and staying up all night messes with my sleep schedule. And I want my landlord to fix the windows! Yeah!”

“Okay, you can have all those things. You just need to calm down,” Perry said, giving the armor’s trigger phrase, ‘calm down.’

FSSSHT!

Chromelord’s eyes widened as a dart fired from the armor’s left forearm struck his back.

He stiffened for a moment, then turned on his heel and began walking toward the exit, where the police lights were flashing.

“Why not use this on Chemestro? You’ve got his blood, right?” Heather asked as they walked beside the hyperventilating Chromelord.

“I mean, I probably could, but non-combat mind control is—”

“Punishable by five years in Tinker-jail. Yeah, I gotcha.”

“I mean, also, it’s temporary. I’m not planning on killing him, so after it wore off, I’d be facing a pissed-off Chemestro who felt extremely violated. I’d much rather just use it to spy on him.”

“Ah, yeah, fair enough,” Wraith said, nodding before chuckling. “Funny that he’d feel less violated if you spied on him.”

Thus reminded, Perry turned to the kid trapped in his own body and tried to soften the blow.

“And listen, Chromelord, I’m really sorry I had to hit you with the dart that took away your bodily autonomy. I know it’s insanely uncomfortable. Try to keep your breathing under control. You’ve only got half an hour or so until it wears off, then you’ll be you again, ‘kay?” Perry said, throwing an arm over the newly minted super’s shoulder.

Chromelord was incapable of responding, but his hyperventilating did seem to slow down.

Heather and Perry followed him up to the cops, who had their palms resting on their firearms, for all the good it would do them.

“I surrender myself to Nexus custody,” Chromelord said, holding out his wrists. “I just committed several acts of vandalism and assault in and around the John Wayne Bodega. I am a super, and my handle is Chromelord. I have super-strength, durability, and can teleport through any object with a reflective enough surface to see a clear reflection.

“I am currently under the control of a type-three mind control device, will not attempt to escape, and will follow the orders of any police or Nexus personnel, until the compulsion expires in approximately twenty-eight minutes.

“I was captured by Paradox and Wraith.”

Chromelord proceeded to give Perry and Heather’s bounty deposit IDs.

“You’re right,” Heather said, nodding appreciatively. “That is convenient.”

“I call it the ‘noob catcher,’” Perry said, rolling one of the darts back and forth between his fingers.

Against any super with decent defenses, it was useless, but for a newly minted, rampaging super, it was an ideal solution.

The blood-contract it enforced was such:

Find and surrender to the nearest police or Nexus officer.

Admit to any crimes committed immediately prior to darting.

Identify oneself, then accurately describe super abilities.

Mention the mind control (required by law) along with the time limit. Follow the directions of any officer of the police or Nexus.

Do not try to escape.

And finally, give credit for the capture to Paradox and Wraith.

“After Dazzle got away, I wanted a more sure thing, ya know? Rampaging noobs are worth fifty grand apiece,” Perry said.

Perry could make about ten Mk. 3s, after tax and splitting the reward with Wraith. He was about 600 suits’ worth of supplies behind on his order for Locust.

“How’d it go through his skin if he was super durable?” Heather asked.

“I made an algorithm that can estimate a super’s durability over the course of a fight. It adjusts the air pressure in the tube up or down as necessary.

“It’s also very sharp,” Perry said, inspecting the needle, which was not only insanely sharp, but over forty times stronger than it should’ve been. Perry’s biggest worry was the dart going through people.

Hence, the algorithm.

“You know, hospitals actually pay good money for syringes and scalpels that can penetrate Bruiser skin,” one of the nearby officers said, drawing their attention to him. The officer got jittery at the armored figure and spandex-wearing girl staring at him.

“Ahem. Good job, capes,” he said, tipping his hat before overly casually walking away.

Congratulations! You are now a level 4 Garage Tinker.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 4

HP: 5

Body: 4

Stability: 4

Nerve: 8

Attunement: 18

Free Points: 5

XP to next level: 2441

“Whoop!” Perry shouted, fist-pumping in full armor. “That capture put me over the limit. Level four, baby!”

Nearly two weeks of working out till exhaustion and one good capture later, and Perry had hit his next level.

“Let’s get back to the lair and see what progress we can make on the stealth hyperweave.”

Fifteen minutes later, they trotted down the staircase leading to Perry’s lair, finding the lights on and the nostalgic smell of burning metal wafting through the air until it hit the rumbling vents in the ceiling.

Hardcase was in the middle of the room, with a huge floodlight shining down on her. The tiny girl was wearing one of Perry’s oversized shirts, which hung nearly down to her knees.

She had goggles and ear protection on and was currently using an angle grinder to clean up a new component for her mechsuit.

Beside her was her mechsuit, and a computer and workbench he didn’t recognize. It was a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the room, so it didn’t bother him that much.

“It looks like Hardcase is finally moving in with you.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Perry said with a shrug. “I’d have company that understood basic physics for once.”

“It’s true, you do need someone to teach you a lesson in physics,” Heather said, waving a fist at him.

The noise of the angle grinder cut off suddenly as Hardcase noticed their approach.

“Oh!” Hardcase said as they approached, taking off her hearing protection. “I’m sorry, I just… Paradox has so much more room than my basement, and his grinders never need their blades changed, and…”

Perry glanced down to the shirt she was wearing.

F.B.I.

FEMALE BODY INSPECTOR

“Really, Perry?” Heather asked, looking at him with mild disgust.

“Sorry about the shirt,” Perry said. “It seemed funny at the time.”

“Oh, OH!” Hardcase’s eyes widened, looking down at the oversized shirt. “I’m sorry, I just got oil all over mine and went through the lockers and found this huge stack of shirts and thought it would be okay if I borrowed one. I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She hustled over to the lockers.

“Didn’t I apologize first?” Perry asked.

“Yeah, but that’s not how she heard it,” Heather said.

“It’s fine!” Perry called after her. “Keep your shirt on!” Or not. You know…whatever.

Chapter 43: Worrisome Side Effects

Okay, I think my theory might be correct, Perry thought, looking at his status.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 4

HP: 5

Body: 4

Stability: 4

Nerve: 8

Attunement: 18

Free Points: 5

XP to next level: 2441

He’d been at 16 Attunement when he’d gone from level three to level four.

1.05^16=2.18

He should’ve gotten three free points this level. 1 base +2 for the Generalist perk. Instead, he got five. One plus double the Generalist perk.

The question is, when does the exponential growth level out? And what form does it take? Every exponential curve in the real world flattened out when it ran up against the limits of reality.

Well, I’m not gonna look free stat points in the mouth. We still gotta make the stealth armor and spells to take down Chemestro if necessary. Attunement makes that a heck of a lot easier.

Perry dumped all the points into Attunement.

“Whoa,” Perry murmured as the outside world ceased to exist.

“Whoa, what?” Heather asked, frowning.

“Everything outside ceased to exist,” Perry said, walking over to an empty locker and opening it to discover a random assortment of tools and cleaning equipment.

He closed it.

The tools ceased to exist.

He opened it.

Is that the same configuration of tools? Perry couldn’t tell. Was he experiencing quantum uncertainty on a macro scale? That was nuts.

“Are you high?” Heather asked.

That is also an option.

“No, it’s just never lasted this long.” I wonder if it’s long enough to check on something. Perry pulled his phone out and took a picture of the tools, then closed the door.

“Perry, your eyes are super dilated.”

He opened the locker door again.

All he saw was the star-studded void of space beyond the flimsy metal edges of the locker.

Perry took a picture.

He closed it.

“Okay, I think my mental state has been compromised. Can you guys keep me from hurting myself?” Perry said, lying on his back and staring into the bright lights of the ceiling.

“What’s going on?” Hardcase asked, approaching.

“Possible Minder attack,” Heather said, clamping Perry’s wrist down to the ground. “Get his other side.”

“O-okay,” Hardcase said, putting her entire body weight down on his wrist. Perry was pretty sure he could still toss her off.

A few minutes went by and the sensation of nothing existing outside the room faded.

“Okay, I’m over it,” Perry said.

Heather gave a sadistic grin. “You, of all people, should know that you’re not the one that gets to call off a Minder alarm. We have to confirm you’re still you.”

“Crap,” Perry muttered.

It was another fifteen minutes of checking his pupils and heart rate, and asking probing, personal questions to serve as gossip fuel before they released him. The two girls walked away, laughing about his distaste for fennel and unpermitted usage of the phrase ‘mouth-feel.’

What the hell was that? Perry thought, scratching his head. I should ask Dad about that. And Mom. And maybe an exorcist.

Perry frowned.

Attunement was described as how attuned to The Tide one was.

Maybe…maybe Attunement isn’t always a good thing. Especially during High Tide.

Perry’s veins ran cold as he realized that if he was riding the edge of something bad, his next level might push him over that edge without even giving him an opportunity to mitigate it.

Okay, investigating what Attunement does to me is my next goal…right after I test its new power level on making stealth hyperweave.

Perry relaxed as he went back to tackle the stealth hyperweave, sinking into the Tinker Twitch.

What I really need is fiber optics that can function to an impossible degree. What he needed was a material that could catch a photon, note its trajectory, then spit out a photon on the exact same trajectory, regardless of the orientation of the cloth.

He didn’t need invisible spandex. That would just make Heather look like she was naked.

Perry paused a moment.

…

…..Nah. It’s not worth it.

What he needed was a fabric that made the wearer invisible along with itself.

Which meant he needed some kind of microcircuits that could transmit a signal to the other side of a body and emit an identical photon.

And it needed to be ultra-durable and stretchy.

This might be where graphene comes in, Perry thought to himself. He needed microscopic circuits, along with really good fiber optics.

I don’t think I can create this traditionally, but maybe I can grow it.

Perry walked past his skin-growing experiment, which was growing larger every day. It was a patch of skin that had started about the size of a pinhead, but had reached silver-dollar size in the last couple weeks. When it was the size of a throw rug, he could get started on inscribing magical goodies on it and experimenting with the chaining technique he’d hypothesized.

Past that was Perry’s chem lab. It was a bit more modest than if he’d gotten all his stuff, but actually performed better than the original setup would’ve, on account of Perry having to build it himself.

I should’ve just ordered the ingredients I needed to make the lab, rather than try and save time by ordering pre-fabs. Probably wouldn’t have gotten robbed and had enough to finish Locust’s order, too.

Ah well.

Perry was still getting a handle on his powers.

Perry’s idea was to create a mat of densely packed microscopic fiber-optic shards all aligned in the exact same direction, then grow light-sensitive material beneath them, and crumpled-up monomolecular graphene wires between them, to transmit signals from fiber to fiber.

Easy, right?

Hardcase came by and they discussed the theory of grown microchips. She had some insights that allowed Perry to bypass studding the inside of the fabric with microchips, keeping the fabric clean and decreasing the total amount of work he’d have to do.

I guess you could hardly call it a fabric, at this point.

When Perry came out of the Tinker Twitch, he had a square of the grown material about the size of his palm. It was black with a strange shimmer to it. Almost like an oil slick, or the iridescence of a raven’s plumage.

Hmmm.

When he bent the material, a burst of light would travel across the surface. It was certainly interesting, but it wasn’t making things invisible.

Perry thought back to the burgers.

This is burger number one. My perk needs to build a mental category for stealth hyperweave.

Perry’s brain already had a strong image of what a burger should be. He’d had plenty in his life. He had significantly less experience with hyperweave.

Would he still be able to dial in the effects of Spendthrift to nudge this in the direction he was hoping for?

Probably not, because higher strength was a minus to a burger. I was actively shaving bonuses off the burger to make it edible. Armor doesn’t have a lot of Spendthrift bonuses I’d want to get rid of. One way to find out.

Perry did it again, correcting a few of the mistakes he’d made in the first iteration.

This sheet turned out a bit better. It no longer sent flashing lights when it bent, and when Perry formed the material into a tube, it went from black to semitransparent, allowing Perry to faintly see through to the other side.

When he put his finger into the middle of the tube, it was nowhere to be seen.

Ehehehehe.

Perry made six more pieces of Paradox brand hyperweave before he was satisfied that it wasn’t going to get any better.

At least, until he got a better technique or raised his Attunement.

Yeah, I’m gonna have to ask Mom and Dad about that.

The fabric hid anything it was wrapped around, transferring about eighty percent of the light that struck it from one side to the other.

It wasn’t complete invisibility, but it made camouflage look weak by comparison. It would be a great start for Heather to sneak up on people. Given her ability to make her body stretch or compact and cling to the ceiling…it would be more than enough.

It cost him about $50 to make a patch about the size of his palm.

Damn. I was just kidding about charging for it, but a full suit of this would cost about…

Perry did some quick math.

He had a hard time finding the square inches on a full bodysuit, until he got the idea to look up the average square inches of skin on a human body. Hyperweave was skintight, after all.

Two thousand eight hundred square inches on an average body. Heather’s slightly smaller than average, so let’s say two thousand six hundred square inches.

At 12.5 bucks apiece…

Thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars. Cool. Cool….

The cheapest stealth hyperweave cost a cool ten mil, so Perry was making it a lot cheaper than it might otherwise have been.

It still stung, given he could make fifteen Mk. 3s for that price.

…How much does power armor cost?

Perry opened up his Tinker Marketplace app, eyes widening at the number of zeros marching across the screen.

“Dangit, Locust got a great deal.”

Supervillains, man.

Perry shook his head and got back to work. Regardless of how much of a lowball offer he’d gotten, he was still walking away with forty million dollars. It didn’t matter that much to Perry.

Drive the price of the material down. Ensure it’s as stretchy and protective as typical hyperweave. Make full-body cast of Heather to form the suit.

….Make Heather-shaped decoy ‘bots.

I should probably make full-body casts of all my friends. Never know when it might come in handy.

Brendon was high up on that list. Ever since he’d started working here, there’d been way more suspicious drive-bys with the driver leering out at the oversized meathead doing simple accounting behind the wall-to-ceiling bulletproof glass.

That was worrisome.

Perry’s lawyer had gotten the paperwork taken care of to start the motel as an official business, and Brendon as an official employee, with a W-2 and all that adult crap.

The smattering of people who’d decided to stay in the shabby-looking motel out of desperation barely covered Brendon’s salary, but Perry had never been particularly concerned with his cover business turning a profit.

Perry was heading over to his computer to CAD up some designs for a machine that could produce his invention at a lower price point, when his phone went off with a nerve-wracking siren, not unlike an Amber Alert.

Perry fished his phone out and scanned it.

POSSIBLE WALL BREACH IN YOUR AREA.

STAY INDOORS AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

Paradox, Hardcase, and Wraith caught each other’s gaze and nodded.

Perry ran for his armor, while Hardcase climbed up the knee of her mechsuit, compressing down into the tiny cockpit.

“LCC, open the bay doors,” Perry said, causing the ceiling above the northeast corner of the lab to retract, allowing the torrential rain outside to begin spattering the floor.

Wraith was out first, her legs swelling for a moment before she jumped like a human grasshopper. A moment later, her body flared out into pseudo wings, carrying her beyond the edge of the bay.

Perry followed behind, blasting into the open sky, followed by Hardcase, using her jump-jets to clear the bay. Once they were past, Perry had the doors close.

The three of them hovered there for a timeless moment, watching the distant wall with its red flashing lights.

“It doesn’t look great,” Hardcase said, the cameras on her ‘head’ zooming in on the distant wall. “They need—”

A nuclear beam of light interrupted Hardcase’s words, incinerating a massive swath of the prawns roiling atop the wall.

A moment later, the wall was roiling with ashes as Solaris blasted away, transforming into a beam of light in the sky, hitting another spot on the wall, then another, and another, bouncing down the miles and miles of wall like a blazing superball.

Perry had a unique view of the distant ocean illuminated by Solaris’s passage. It was boiling with activity.

Perry’s phone chimed.

WARNING RESCINDED.

“I wanna volunteer on the wall,” Perry said as his eyes captured the scope of what the number one hero dealt with on a daily basis. Solaris was obviously putting out fires at a non-stop pace, and a hair’s breadth away from losing the wall at every minute.

Perry could carry some small part of that burden.

“Agreed,” Heather said.

“Me too,” Hardcase added.

“I need to make some lethal weapons,” Perry said, descending back into his lab.

This time, he wouldn’t let the prawn treat him like a chew toy.

Chapter 44: Taking Inventory

“Hey, you can’t just—”

Chemestro walked through the barred door to the employee entrance before tipping the salt balance of the guard behind it, rendering him unconscious instantly.

He descended the stairs with a measured pace, reaching a dark warehouse filled with the faint scent of blood and cleaning agent, along with an undercurrent of old paper and…hide?

Interesting.

“So, apparently, anyone can just waltz in nowadays,” a biker-looking thug with a scar on his forehead said, putting down a bowl of ramen and reaching for a pistol beside him.

The pistol fell apart with a nudge from Chemestro’s power.

“Huh,” the leather-clad man grunted, peering at his weapon.

With another nudge, the man was floating in midair, buoyed by the razor-thin line of low pressure he maintained on the man’s upper half.

“May I speak to your boss…” Chemestro asked, pulling out his business card, “Dave the Unicorn?”

“What do you want with him?” the grungy-looking fellow asked, his legs dangling in the air.

“I need to purchase magical protection.”

“Modern birth control is actually very safe and effecti—”

“Magical protection from magical attacks.”

“Oh, that’s totally different. I’m sad to say, though, you’re not exactly going to make a great impression on Dave, beating on his guards.”

“The men at the door refused to allow me past.” Chemestro shrugged. “No one was injured. Or even harmed. They’ll recover in minutes with no lasting damage. That being said, where is Dave?”

“He’s not taking any clients until High Tide is over.”

“I guess I’ll just keep looking. He has to be down here somewhere.”

Chemestro tipped the man’s salt balance.

Nothing happened.

“Huh.”

“Dave, are you okay?” A goon burst through the door, pausing in shock when he saw Chemestro before stumbling backwards.

“Dave?” Chemestro said, peering up at the dangling human biker.

“What?” a voice asked less than an inch away from his ear as the dangling man dissolved into motes of light.

A Minder? No, magic.

A moment later, there was a deep inhale and the voice groaned in pleasure as Chemestro turned and stepped to create some distance…definitely not flinching.

“Oh my god, you smell amazing,” the biker said, his eyes rolling back in his skull.

Chemestro’s skin crawled, and he had no frame of reference for why.

“I’m looking to buy magical—”

“Protection, yeah, I gotcha,” Dave said, waving him off, picking up the bowl of ramen and slurping up some of the noodles.

“So you’re Chemestro? Little Perry Z’s first nemesis…I mean, aside from the Dynamic Duo, and they’re garbage, so I don’t count them.”

The way Dave said ‘Perry Z’ did not inspire confidence.

“And you came to me to get stuff that will help you defeat my favorite customer?! The nerve! The gall!”

The air around them began to swirl as Chemestro felt some indescribable energy surrounding them…like he’d just dived to the bottom of a whirlpool. It weighed down on him.

Chemestro’s eyes narrowed as he prepared for a fight.

“No, I won’t be betraying my friend’s confidence. If you were anyone else, I would’ve probably killed you and added you to the inventory, but you…you’re lucky you’re a virgin,” Dave said. “I will have to ask you to leave, though.”

“What’s a virgin?” Chemestro asked.

“Someone who’s never had sex.”

“What’s that?” Chemestro asked.

“Wha—” Dave’s eyes widened, and he dropped his bowl of ramen, spilling it all over the floor as the whirlpool of energy vanished. “You— How—

“You knew about birth control!” he said accusingly.

“Yes, women can have children,” Chemestro said.

“Do you…know how that works?”

“It was irrelevant to my training.”

“Wow,” Dave said. “Wow! You poor bastard! Now I feel bad for you. Not enough to help you whup Perry’s butt, but, I mean, you can come around and purchase other things. How would you like a love charm? I’ll give you one of the good ones on the house.”

“I brought twenty-four million dollars’ worth of drugs. And I’m not going to trade them for love charms.”

Three blue barrels descended from the ceiling at Chemestro’s nudge.

“I guess…” Dave said, his eyes seemingly drawn magnetically to the barrels, “he’s more of a client than a friend.”

***Paradox***

Perry surveyed his equipment.

He’d grown Saint Natanya’s hair out and condensed Astra’s Healing into cartridges, of which he had six on hand.

They probably wouldn’t cause unholy mutations.

Perry loaded the cartridges into the left underside of the Mk. 3’s forearm with a simple tube magazine.

He’d made a new Mk. 3 suit the night before to capitalize on his new Attunement, so he had to move all the ammo and spell-frames from one to the next.

The upper side of the left forearm had the dart launcher, and Perry loaded up four Noob Catchers. He wasn’t planning on catching any rampaging noobs on the wall, but it never hurt to have ‘em.

Besides, what else am I gonna put in the dart launcher? Perry rubbed his chin. What else AM I gonna put in the dart launcher?

He made a note to make a wider variety of darts and continued gearing up.

He loaded the custom printer in the interior of the armor with finely strained Mindtaker ichor, and popped magazines of newly minted Big Friendly Swords, hands, and blankets in place, along with his cost-saving finger-length blades for more utility.

Perry socketed three Tomward’s Floating Dazzlers in his helmet, locked in Dregor’s Flaccidity, then turned to his newest spell-frames.

One was a stack of temporary tattoos that Perry had managed to create by exploiting Bargand the War God’s lack of specificity between how a ritual had to be performed and when the war paint had to be applied.

He currently had a machine playing Call of Duty and bathing in the (digital) blood of his enemies, unwitting online enemy players serving as hapless honorary sacrifices, printing out a new temporary tattoo when it had generated enough rage, fear, and suffering.

Since it wasn’t real fear and suffering, it took a few hours per temporary tattoo, but that wasn’t bad. He already had a dozen or so of them. More than a real warrior might’ve earned in a normal career.

Was it immoral, writing a code to perfectly play the game, utterly and unfairly annihilating the competition while trash-talking them? A little. But it was for a good cause.

Whosoever wore the symbol depicting a stylized axe—which was made of ingredients sacred to that war god that had been seeped in the rage, fear, and suffering of their enemies—would be protected from attacks so that they might fight wearing next to nothing and spill more blood for Bargand.

Man, he must be pissed at me, Perry thought. Probably not, though. Gods were more…ideas and rules given form than actual, thinking people. At least, according to Mom.

Perry invented these temporary tattoos largely with Chemestro in mind. If he was pulled out of his armor, he still wanted some backup armor. Preferably something difficult for Chemestro to recognize.

Perry applied the temporary tattoo on his upper shoulder, where the Kolath’s Floating Armament printer couldn’t reach. It glowed and left a slight tingling where it rested. Perry felt a surge of adrenaline, along with a desire to crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and hear the lamentations of their women.

He had to take deep breaths and calm down.

Gotta come up with a way to get skin contact on that printer while wearing hyperweave underarmor.

Self-healing materials? Cold-welding? Perry thought, writing the idea down before turning to his other new spell-frame.

It was a summoning spell-frame, about the size and heft of a rocket launcher. It had a cartridge inside about the size of a coffee can, albeit twice as long.

When launched, it would send out five metal spikes connected by a silver chain. At the end of each of the spikes was a magnesium flare ‘candle.’

In the center of the circle were a bunch of desecrated images of Astra, along with a fair amount of virgin blood (Perry’s).

Considering how valuable virgin blood was, and how often it came up in spells, Perry had been saving up a tank of his own life-juice in his lab. He wasn’t planning on staying one forever, after all.

Having learned his lesson from the summoning of the greed demon, Perry had made the contract offered to the greater corruption demon airtight, and specifying Perry as the contractor, not the summoner.

The launcher also had a ‘banish’ button that would immediately send the foul creature back from whence it came.

Probably.

The summoning device was the nuclear option.

Worst-case scenario, it would make things much worse.

Perry hoped he didn’t have to use it…but it could be fun.

Kinda sucks that greater corruption demon eyeball is the key ingredient of the disintegration spell.

The disintegration spell Perry had wanted to make had been untenable, as Dave simply hadn’t had a corruption demon eyeball.

I wonder if the demon would be willing to sell his eyeball.

By all accounts, greater demons grew those back. They grew just about everything back.

Eh, it’s probably not worth it. The eyeball was consumed by the spell, after all.

Although the ability to flat-out kill something, no questions asked, is a strong selling point.

If Perry got lucky, the demon would get an eye perfectly gouged out during a fight.

You never know.

Still, Perry shouldn’t use that particular spell-frame… It would be a terrible idea to use it in anything but a completely controlled environment, with his mother standing by as backup in case it wasn’t absolutely perfect.

Perry attached it to his armor’s back anyway.

I guess I’d rather have a ‘screw it’ button and not need it, than need it and not have one. Perry knew that, objectively, it was a really, really dangerous idea, but for some reason he didn’t really care.

That should raise alarms. I should probably talk to someone about that.

Perry glanced over at the distant locker that had opened to the void. He got the slightest tinge of the isolated sensation, coming to him on its own.

Meh. He didn’t really care about that either.

Perry’s last piece of new gear was a BFS obsidian blade made from the last of his practice material.

It was about five feet long, with a two-handed handle and a narrow, two-inch-wide blade that volcanic glass could never logically hope to maintain.

Since he’d gone from an Attunement correction of 2.18 to 3.07 in one level, he could reasonably expect this blade to be ~40% more effective in every respect, compared to the original.

And the original had been scary.

Perry wasn’t intending to use it right away, but if his Kolath’s Floating Armanents proved ineffective, he would need something that packed a punch.

Note to self, figure out a way to sharpen a floating armament post-summoning.

Making a tiny object grow into a larger one was inherently dulling, and Perry struggled to make them even close to as sharp as nonmagical materials like obsidian.

So the obsidian sword was the sharp finisher, while the BFS brought the raw damage.

Perry secured it to the back of his armor via magnets drilled into the handle.

Anything else? Perry thought, scanning the messy lab.

His experiment with frost and fire magic wasn’t entirely put together yet, as the rituals were difficult to accommodate in the same container, and the container itself struggled to keep up with the temperature extremes, which was the point of the idea.

Aerogel, Perry wrote down on the sheet metal frame with a grease pen, as soon as it crossed his mind.

He glanced at his disintegration spell-frame on hiatus, a metal frame of a tube holding a series of lenses made from Death Crystal, arranged like an autofocus camera.

He still needed to add a belt-feeder for greater corruption demon eyes, and a way to make sure the pupil was facing forward.

None of them were viable just yet.

“Yeah, you like that, don’t you? Daddy’s just gonna take a little off the top,” Perry’s blocky machine ‘warrior’ trash-talked into the mic directly in front of its speaker as another hapless individual was head-shot on the screen.

“At what point am I an evil inventor?” Perry asked the machine printing out the temporary tattoos. Naturally it didn’t answer, because actually carrying on a conversation was totally outside the scope of its programming.

He turned his attention back to the Mk. 3, sitting there with malicious intent, a work of art that should have taken him months or years to make, and should never work given the output of the structural batteries.

It was sleeker than Mk. 1, and weighed about a hundred pounds, making it a featherweight and allowing the user to take advantage of slightly more mass.

It had an integrated radio, headlights, and a fully airtight cockpit.

The air to the helmet was fed through a protected filter, which could be shut in the case of a hostile environment and diverted to a small oxygen tank that would keep him alive. Hopefully long enough to get somewhere safer.

Note to self: Design next version with full life-support. Carbon dioxide scrubber, etc.

If Dad’s story about their honeymoon on Mars was accurate, Perry might one day be forced to fight in space indefinitely.

Perry cocked his head as he walked around his suit.

Does that mean I have to put an astronaut diaper in my suit? Or should I just get my Body high enough to withstand the vacuum of space so I can hold my breath to take a dump?

Choices, choices… There was no wrong answer, but Perry leaned away from diapers.

He inspected the back of the suit, where his sword and ‘screw it’ bazooka nestled side by side along the slightly distended back, which accommodated most of the spell-discs and printers.

“Alright, I think I’m good to go.” Perry nodded. He was as ready for the wall as he could reasonably make himself in one day.

“You’re good to give me head,” his trash-talk bot responded.

Perry glanced around the empty lab before squinting at the squat printer with an internet connection and an addiction to first-person shooters. “Was that aimed at me?”

The bot didn’t respond, instead mowing down a group of three players, shown on the screen directly in front of it.

“Ya’ll are a bunch of noobs that can’t tell the difference between a claymore and your own as—”

Perry stopped listening.

Note to self: Soundproofing around the trash-talk bot would not be amiss.

Perry took off his shirt, put some blood and a fake bandage over the glowing shoulder war paint, then climbed into his armor.

The sun was going down, and the tide was coming in.

It was time to volunteer on the wall.

Chapter 45: The Highlight Reel

Perry signed the paperwork that said he would submit to military command and wasn’t going to sue for anything that happened to him on the wall, handing it back to the woman behind the desk.

“You guys a team?” the clerk asked, dark circles under her eyes. A moment later, there was a distant explosion and a bit of dust fell down from the ceiling onto her desk.

She didn’t even blink.

“We’re gonna fight together, yeah.” Perry motioned to the three of them.

“What’s your Nexus Team ID?” she asked.

“…Crud.”

***

Hardcase was assigned to another section of the upper wall as mobile heavy support fire. Heather was assigned to search and rescue, and Perry got stuck sitting on the lower wall, waiting for something interesting to happen.

As much as they wanted to fight together, Perry was at least self-aware enough to know that going to the wall to volunteer, and then pulling a Karen because they didn’t seat him with his friends was…in poor taste.

Maybe one day I can say, ‘Do you know who I am?’ but today is not that day.

“Contact!” the corporal shouted, lifting his prawn gun to his shoulder as one of the bus-sized pale monstrosities surmounted the edge of the wall.

“Stand clear, I’m doing a thing!” Perry said, triggering his bread-and-butter spell.

BFS.EXE (12)

Twelve glowing swords, each bigger than a man, appeared in a circle around him.

“How far can you move those things?” the sergeant asked, weaving through them to stand beside Perry.

“Line of sight,” Perry responded. He hadn’t found a max range, just a gradual diminishing of its effectiveness.

“You see its stubby little legs?” the sergeant asked, pointing at the creature’s dozens of wriggling legs hauling it inexorably into the trap.

“Ya.”

“They are damn good at catching on things they shouldn’t. Might even be a Power. When we shoot it, I want you to use your swords to make sure it doesn’t catch on something and dodge the piston. Give it a little extra push, lube up the exit, maybe cut a stubborn leg off.”

“Yes, sir,” Perry said in his best impression of military discipline.

It was terrifically exciting at first, but gradually it became rote.

He’d use a wall of swords to shove an errant prawn back into its trap, sever a couple supernaturally sticky legs when they threatened to cling to the piston. Rinse and repeat as Perry covered the five massive prawn traps on his section of the wall.

This is it? Perry thought to himself as he worked.

I should’ve made a giant floating spatula. His swords were getting more use prying and scraping than anything else.

Maybe the sergeant read Perry’s body language through the suit.

“Paradox, you’re making life easy on us,” the sergeant said, clapping Perry’s shoulder. “Boring is the best thing you could possibly ask for on the wall. Excitement out here usually ends in gurgling blood and a lot of good kids not going home.”

“Understood,” Perry said, peering at the sergeant. He looked…mid-twenties. Younger than Titan, but older than Perry. The rest of the ‘kids’ on the wall were distinctly Perry-aged.

A lost generation. Men born in the sweet spot that made them young and healthy during a High Tide, and eager to be heroes.

Where’d all the old sergeants go? Perry thought, his hair standing on end. You know what? Not exciting is acceptable.

Perry did an excellent job keeping things boring, if he said so himself…

The people to the left and right, however, were very exciting.

“Right side, Paradox!” the sergeant shouted, beating his fist on Perry’s shoulder armor hard enough to get his attention.

Perry craned his neck away from his work as a glorified spatula, eyes widening as his gaze followed the sergeant’s pointing finger.

To the right, the next group over was collapsing, overrun by a swarm of bus-sized prawns.

They were battering up against the final barrier, some of them slamming into the curving wall while others were pushed to the left and the right by the crush of monstrous bodies.

Towards Perry’s group.

“Slow them down until a Sweeper can get to us!” the sergeant shouted, pointing at the lumbering monsters.

“Got it!” Perry lunged to the right flank and brought all twelve of his Big Friendly Swords to bear, finally allowed to unleash their full destructive power.

The BFSes bounced off the pale, squishy armor when he tried to chop them, their surface area too wide to penetrate. When he oriented the point of the blade straight up and down above the creature, Paradox was able to shove the tip straight down, pinning the monster to the concrete floor.

Using the concrete floor as leverage to prevent the creature from squishing or rebounding away, Perry was able to skewer the closest prawn that was barreling towards them with hunger radiating from its soulless eyes. The armor finally gave with a tangible pop that Perry could feel in his mind.

“Well, that pissed it off,” Perry muttered as the creature began to thrash violently, more angered at the pain than mortally wounded.

At least he’s not approaching anymore.

Unfortunately, there were half a dozen more of the bus-sized monsters intent on steamrolling Perry’s squad.

Perry reached behind him and grabbed the handle of the obsidian sword.

Let’s see what this can do.

Perry divided his BFSes into four groups of three and used one group to pin down the prawn on the outer left, making it thrash in pain and block a large portion of the wall.

The other prawns were forced to navigate above and around it, slowing them down or forcing them into a bottleneck.

Perry would take either.

He used the rest of the swords to harass, pen, and control the movement of the approaching monsters until they were nearly single file, and almost on top of him.

Perry burst his jets and flew forward, swinging the black, shiny blade at the lead monster’s face.

Perry nearly lost his balance as the sword encountered no resistance, and the prawn’s face was cleaved clean off of its body. The massive mandibles clattered to the ground, leaving a bloody stump and half an eyeball oozing white blood.

“Haha, oh my god, that’s aweso—”

An impact sent Perry flying.

Stars shot through his vision as his armor was embedded in the concrete wall.

There’s some more drain bamage, Perry thought, groaning as he peeled himself out of the Paradox-shaped divot in the wall. It occurred to him that Astra’s Mending had to see the wound, which meant he either needed to be out of his armor or the damage had to go through his armor.

In short, no relief for potential concussions mid-battle. Dang. Need a fix for that.

Spent too much time admiring my work, Perry thought with a scowl, glancing at his obsidian sword buried to the hilt in the concrete like Excalibur.

Back to it, then.

Perry grabbed the black hilt and yanked the blade out, half afraid it would come out as a stub.

It wasn’t even chipped.

Alrighty then.

Perry glanced at the writhing, faceless prawn blocking its buddies from approaching, only fifty feet or so away from his squad.

A couple heartbeats of distance for the massive monsters.

Got a few more seconds until they untangle themselves and start charging again.

Perry’s heart was slamming in his ears, so he almost didn’t make out the sergeant’s voice.

“—dox! Left side! Left side!”

Perry glanced back towards the center of their squad, then beyond it, where the group to their left had folded like wet tissue paper.

Perry saw a miniscule spandex-wearing figure bounding off the wall, falling towards the interior of the city.

Running away? That is against the terms and agreements of my temporary tattoo. I’m not sure…if prawns have women to lament them, though.

Okay, I can do this, Perry thought, shaking off the momentary punch-drunk silliness. He created a wall with his twelve BFSes and shoved the prawns back on the right-hand side with every ounce of mental strength he could muster, while simultaneously firing his jets and gaining altitude, aiming to swoop above the prawns approaching on the left.

The plan was to drag his obsidian blade across the lot of them, peeling them open like an orange.

If there was little to no resistance to the blade, then Perry should take advantage of his mobility to apply the maximum amount of slashing possible.

Perry was blasting toward the left-hand group of encroaching prawns, his blade low, aiming for a quick flyover…when he fell out of his armor.

One instant Perry was in the safety of his armor, and the next, wind was whistling against his skin as he began tumbling down into the roiling mess of man-eating monsters at high speed.

You’re about to die.

Time seemed to stop as Perry’s brain caught up with his situation, pumping toxic levels of adrenaline into his body.

He spotted his sword tumbling out of his suit’s hand while the suit itself veered off to the right, spinning off the edge of the wall and disappearing into the roiling mass of prawns below, likely to be discovered as scrap by beachcombers when the sun came up.

Perry hit the ground and rolled, his fingernails throbbing in protest as he broke them off against the wet concrete, trying to slow down any way he could to avoid his sword’s trajectory.

Perry slid to a halt on the rough surface of the wall, inches away from bisecting himself on his own blade, where it was lodged a foot into the floor, edge facing him.

The prawns didn’t stop. They simply kept coming like a pack of wild buses hunting their prey.

Cursing every one of his mom’s gods internally, Perry clenched his teeth, snatched the sword out of the ground, and burst into a sprint, aiming for the charging mass of monsters.

Perry arrived faster than the first creature expected. Using every ounce of his modestly enhanced strength, Perry leapt up, drawing in his feet inches above the monster’s mandibles.

They snapped shut with a loud click!

Perry used the mandibles as a springboard, launching himself up and onto the top of the creature’s head, kneeling down to jam the obsidian blade to the hilt in the enormous monster’s neck.

Pop!

There was a moment of resistance as the blade caught against the creature’s ultra-hard spine before finding a gap, popping through the spine.

The creature went limp, but the others were already lunging for him.

***Chemestro***

No training, but good instincts, Chemestro thought as he hovered above the battle.

Had Paradox run away from the prawns, he would have been overrun and crushed. Instead, he jumped on top of one with an animalistic level of agility.

That’s borderline superhuman fitness. Definitely superhuman reflexes, Chemestro noted as Paradox scrambled from prawn to prawn, using their massive corpses as obstacles and cover, leveraging his relative size as effectively as he could while delivering devastating cuts with the Tinker-built sword that treated prawns’ advanced biological armor like…some soft flavoring agent.

He’d obviously put on some muscle and speed since they’d last met, in an attempt to lessen his helplessness outside of his armor.

Chemestro glanced over at the floating swords taller than a man, fencing off the right-hand side and keeping the prawns at bay. The massive monsters were rapidly circumventing the blockade, since Paradox was unable to give it his complete attention.

Seems to prioritize citizens over his own safety, Chemestro thought, noting that the wall of blades hadn’t rushed to assist Paradox.

With a casual wave of his hand, Chemestro removed the vital organs of the prawns threatening the soldiers from the right-hand side.

They fell silent, their brains outside their bodies.

He cleared the surface of the wall itself, giving the soldiers some breathing room.

Chemestro didn’t want any trouble with Solaris.

Thirty seconds.

Chemestro clicked his timer and watched as Paradox ran, scampered, jumped, and sliced. Several times, Paradox was nearly caught by a prawn, but their barbed mandibles seemed to slip off of him rather than tear him apart.

Invisible armor. Magical, most likely.

Is it the red symbols painted across his body?

They were suspicious.

It was very strange that Paradox was not using any new, visible magic since he’d been removed from his armor. Chemestro made a mental note.

Paradox was caught by a flailing tail fin and slammed into the concrete, maneuvering himself into a backflip using his sword as leverage, dodging enormous mandibles for the nineteenth time in the last twenty-five seconds.

That should have crushed him. Definitely has some form of magical protection.

On a hunch, Chemestro reached out with his power and made one of the small red symbols on his back fall away from Paradox.

One of the massive glowing swords ceased to exist.

Interesting. Are his magical abilities coming from outside sources? Perhaps Metalon had it backwards.

Beep beep beep!

Chemestro killed the rest of the prawns as soon as his timer went off, leaving Paradox panting in the center of a circle of lifeless prawns.

Chemestro flew down and addressed the sergeant.

“I’m the Sweeper. I’ll keep things under control here until the replacements for section fifteen and seventeen arrive,” he said.

The sergeant sagged in relief. “Damn, I thought our goose was cooked,” he said, wiping sweat off his brow.

Is that…bad? Contextually, it should mean something bad. Chemestro logged that as another idiom he’d need to remember.

“You should have fifteen minutes to catch your breath.”

“You heard him!” the sergeant said. “Reload your weapons and police your ammo, then pull out your candy bars and canteens. I want everyone finished eating in five minutes! Johnny, you look spry. Run into the wall and get us a pallet with some more rounds.”

A flicker out of the corner of Chemestro’s eye alerted him to an attack.

Three of Paradox’s magical blades were trapped in place by Chemestro’s new protection, which warmed up underneath his hyperweave.

“Paradox, good to see you,” Chemestro said with a faint smile.

Paradox was gritting his teeth, his pulsing temple leaking blood as he tried to push the obsidian through the magical force field surrounding Chemestro.

“You tried to kill me,” Paradox growled.

“Of course not. I arrived just a moment ago and dealt with the prawns as a Sweeper, in order of most out-of-control. You seemed to have your side relatively contained. I don’t know why you left your armor, but it’s not my place to tell another super how to use their power.”

Paradox shouted and went for a punch.

Chemestro slipped through his arm and got his back in one smooth maneuver, looping his arm around Paradox’s neck in a choke hold.

“Now, don’t get angry when I probe my enemies, Paradox,” Chemestro whispered in the Tinker’s ear.

“What is going on here?” a voice boomed, along with a flash of light.

Solaris had arrived.

“Paradox attacked me, so I restrained him,” Chemestro said.

“He tried to kill me!” Paradox thrashed in Chemestro’s grip, much stronger than last time. His neck seemed to repel Chemestro’s squeeze, further evidence of magical protection.

“Let him go,” the salt-and-pepper-haired super said as he approached.

“Sir.” Chemestro let go and stepped back.

“Paradox,” Solaris said as Paradox turned his back on him, facing Chemestro. “Paradox.

“…Perry!” Solaris barked.

Paradox flinched and turned toward Solaris.

“Take a seat, you’re benched.”

“But—”

“Now.”

“Sir.” Paradox walked away and slumped down on the bench at the back of the firing line, glaring at Chemestro all the while.

The next ten minutes went by uneventfully as Chemestro fulfilled his Sweeper role. Then the same small girl that had shoved him at the barbecue arrived, fussing over Paradox’s superficial wounds, dabbing them with a cloth and applying sealant.

For some reason, it made Chemestro feel like he’d just lost the encounter, despite all evidence to the contrary.

He felt furious.

Where is this coming from? Chemestro thought, taking a mental step back, using his father’s techniques to separate himself from the situation in an attempt to view it objectively.

It was extremely difficult.

***Paradox***

Perry sat there on the bench of shame long after Chemestro had left and Hardcase had been recalled to her group. His entire body trembled from an adrenaline low.

Lost my armor. Lost my shit.

Lost my information advantage.

Lost Solaris’s goodwill.

Right now, a different super was helping out squad sixteen, doing what he’d been doing only half an hour ago…and doing it worse.

Chemestro had got him good, and he wanted more than anything to crawl into his bedroom in shame and lock himself in there for a few years.

Or go on a rampage.

Both at the same time?

A blast of light knocked Perry out of his head as Solaris arrived.

“Back to what you were doing,” Solaris said, waving the squad off as he approached Perry’s bench of shame.

“Sir—” Perry said as he stood.

“Walk with me,” Solaris said, power walking past at a ground-eating pace, forcing Perry to trot to keep up.

Solaris went to one of the nearby doors, leading to the staircase which descended deeper into the massive superstructure of the wall.

Once they were down an entire flight, out of eye- and earshot, the massive super spun on his heel, looming over Perry.

“Sir, I—”

“I’m gonna let you in on a harsh truth,” Solaris said before Perry could get a word in. “You can count the number of Sweepers on one hand. They are an incredibly valuable resource that I need to keep the wall from crumbling during High Tide. Chemestro can kill hundreds of prawns and hold a three-squad section of the wall by himself.

“Do I think he tried to kill you?” Solaris asked. “Yeah, he probably did.”

“But you’re not going to do anything about it,” Perry said, his gut twisting.

“No,” Solaris said, shaking his head. “The harsh truth is that Chemestro is more valuable, in a purely practical sense, than you are, and he’ll be treated preferentially until you close that gap.

“For what it’s worth, you kicked some serious ass,” Solaris said, patting Perry on the shoulder. “You made the highlight reel of security footage at Nexus HQ tonight. I can’t wait to show your mom.”

Solaris bumped Perry’s shoulder, then left, leaving Perry dealing with a swirl of conflicting emotions. One, however, proved the strongest.

I could go for some pizza. I am freaking starving.

***Chemestro***

Chemestro stepped into his room and began sliding out of his sweat-stained hyperweave, revealing the magical necklace and bracers adding armor and regenerative effects to his natural abilities.

They’d cost him over twenty million, but they’d served their purpose well. A swooping crest with a visually pleasing aesthetic was featured prominently on all three pieces.

Relics, Dave had called them, pawned by the Zauberer royal family over forty years ago to fund themselves on this strange new world called Earth.

Irony abounds, Chemestro thought as he prepared for a shower and a change of hyperweave.

When Chemestro turned around again, Solaris was standing in the center of his lair, arms crossed.

Thump. Chemestro’s heart paused in his chest.

“You pull that shit again on the wall, and I’ll kill you,” Solaris said, his expression severe.

“Sir,” Chemestro said, nodding.

Solaris flickered out of existence. No flash of light. No warning.

Chapter 46: Nemesis ≠ Bullying

“I saw that video and I just about had a heart attack!” Mom said, fussing over Perry while he tried to eat dinner. “Solaris thought it was funny, but I don’t think they should let this Chemestro character go around bullying other supers. Especially not my boy!”

“He’s not bullying me, Mom. He’s my nemesis,” Perry said, trying to weave a slice of pizza past his mom and into his mouth. While it was still warm, preferably.

“Kids need a nemesis or two growing up. Builds character,” Dad said, stealing a slice of Perry’s pie.

Perry raised his brows and pointed at Dad. ‘See?’

“That being said, you’re not officially nemeses yet,” Dad continued. “You gotta take a trip to Nexus HQ with Chemestro and get yourselves registered as such.”

Perry almost dropped his slice. “Excuse me, WHAT? Why would I ever do that?”

“It’s actually more beneficial than you might think,” Dad said. “Nexus has software that will alert dispatch any time they might be sending a super into the territory of their nemesis, or if they’ll be crossing paths on a mission. It’s a great way of avoiding trouble.”

“Oh, that’s pretty cool,” Perry said, nodding.

“On the other hand, sometimes the IT guys nudge two nemeses into the same area on a slow night and take bets on who wins.”

Mom gasped, staring at Dad.

“At least, that’s what I’ve heard,” Dad said nervously. “Definitely never took bets on those myself, when I was an undergrad in Nexus IT. And I certainly didn’t start the practice in the nineties out of sheer boredom.”

Mom’s eyes narrowed.

“I think you’re just digging the hole deeper, Dad.”

“Mmm, this pizza is great!” Dad said, changing the subject.

“Our son was almost killed!”

“Part of the job. Almost dying builds character.”

“What about that time Slash cut off your head for no reason?” Mom said. “How did that build character for you?”

“That’s easy. I appreciate my limbs a lot more than I did before.”

“Your head got cut off?” Perry asked.

Dad froze. “I got better.” He shrugged.

Perry scoffed and shook his head.

“Listen,” Mom said, turning to Perry. “You just tell us if Chemestro’s bullying is too much to handle. Your dad and I will step in and take care of business. Paladin and Glamour Girl could use some fresh air.”

“I second that!” Dad banged the table.

“Like I said, it’s not bullying if he’s a nemesis, and…” Perry scowled as his brain caught up. “And you don’t need to use my problems as an excuse to go out on a date!”

“Busted!” Dad said, grinning at Mom, who at least had the decency to blush.

“But seriously, just say the word and they’ll never find his body,” Dad said, turning his attention back to Perry.

“Darryl!” Mom shouted, reaching across the table to whap him.

“I’m just saying,” Dad said, holding his hands up.

“Thanks for the offer,” Perry said. “But I don’t think murder is on the table just yet.”

“So what are you gonna do next?” Dad asked.

“I guess I’m gonna visit Nexus and do some paperwork,” Perry said. “…Then I’m gonna fight dirty.”

“Good plan,” Dad said. “Escalating things has always worked out for me in the end.”

“Darryl,” Mom said, eyeballing the hawk-nosed professor.

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what?’ What about that time with the jewels of Sraknoz? You said there was no risk of…”

Perry zoned out, focusing on his pizza as Mom continued laying into Dad.

Mmm…pepperoni pineapple.

“And then none of the amazon women had a place to stay!”

“I told you I could’ve kept them in my lab.”

“I think you know why I’m not gonna let you do that!”

Oh, this crust is good. Chewy AND crunchy.

“…Which was when the entire floating empire of Sraknoz came crashing down around our ears! Billions of tons of stone falling out of the sky!” Mom continued as Perry finished off the rest of his meal.

“I got it, I got it. I won’t escalate things anymore, dear,” Dad said, giving Perry a wink.

“Don’t wink at me. I’m no longer amused by this sketch comedy of yours. Be a responsible adult for once,” Perry said, picking up the plates and heading to the sink.

Dad’s face was genuinely hurt for the first time since Mom had started berating him.

Perry winked.

Perry finished up the dishes and headed out for his lair, arriving just before it got dark.

Yes. Darkness. The perfect mood to do something underhanded.

When Perry got to the bottom of the stairs leading to his secret lab, he walked into a wall of arcade sound and bright lights.

Blinking several times, Perry gradually recognized Heather’s favorite VR boxing game in the corner of the lab, completely at odds with the rest of his setup, with its bright lights and loud punching noises.

“EEK!” Hardcase flinched away, her cutesy fox avatar doing the same on the big screen on the outside of the pods, while Heather’s enormous avatar pummeled her from above, subjecting Hardcase to discombobulating blasts of air from the jets.

Perry opened his mouth and thought about telling them off, but decided to do it later, after they’d had their fun.

Besides, they were completely unable to perceive the world around them, and that worked out well for Perry.

Perry whipped up another scrying spell-frame in short order, poured a little water into the vial with Chemestro’s bloody Q-tip, then shook it up until the blood had all come out of the cotton.

He then poured it into the new spell-frame and diluted it with a ton more water, until it was impossible to tell if there had ever been blood in the mixture.

Spendthrift, don’t fail me now, Perry thought, switching the spell-frame on.

LetsspyonHeather.EXE

The spell-frame looked a bit like a KitchenAid mixer as it began pouring water into the bowl and painting the sky giant’s cornea edges with words in the creature’s ancient language, activating the Sky Giant’s essence.

A slightly tinny chanting emanated as the spell-frame added the highly diluted blood to the bowl, giving the giant’s visual essence something to adhere to.

A moment later, the ritual was done and the mixer-looking robot pulled itself away, revealing the bowl in its entirety.

Giving Perry a damn good view of…blackness.

Well, that’s not cool, Perry thought, wheeling the spell-frame carefully over to a corner and locking it in place before bolting a camera onto the spell-frame, recording the bowl and live streaming it to a website that Perry could tap into whenever he wanted to check in on Chemestro.

I mean, assuming it’s not busted or simply too little blood to work with. It had to be doing something; otherwise, the water would still look like water, and not black.

Frowning, Perry went to his bookshelf, grabbed Mom’s spellbook, and looked up the scrying spell to see if he could figure out what was going on.

He found what he was looking for in the counter scrying section, which asserted that anyone trying to scry on them using these defensive techniques would only stare into an ‘abyss of darkness.’

“Shit. He knows I use magic,” Perry muttered, clapping the book closed. I suppose giant floating swords are a bit of a giveaway.

“What’s up?” Heather said, panting as she walked up behind him, wearing gym clothes and a towel over her shoulder.

“Chemestro pisses me off,” Perry said, turning to face Heather and her clinger-on. Hardcase was standing beside and a bit behind Heather, her eyes a bit watery, like she had been on the verge of crying for the last twenty minutes.

Which is believable, Perry thought, glancing over at the arcade game. Hardcase had no idea what she was getting into, agreeing to play a competitive game with Heather.

“Where’d you get that?” Perry asked, nodding towards the arcade game.

“There was a minor wall-breach and the arcade got smashed. Me and Hardcase were doing search and rescue, and the machine was only slightly destroyed. So Hardcase patched it up for me.”

“Did you ask the owner?”

“Yeah, he didn’t care; he was insured.”

At least they didn’t steal it.

“Follow-up question,” Perry said. “What the heck is it doing in my lab and not the rec room?!”

“Ceilings aren’t high enough.” Heather shrugged, tossing her towel and civvies to Sophie, catching the angel in the chest as she passed by with a bucket full of cleaning supplies. “Wash that for me, will you?”

“Ack, um, okay!” Sophie said. “Hardcase, can I take your towel too?”

“Don’t tell my angel what to do,” Perry said, frowning. “Go get your own angel.”

“It’s fine.” Heather waved it off. “She likes it.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Actually, I do,” Sophie interjected quietly. “Nothing gives me more pleasure than—”

“Being helpful,” Perry said, rubbing his temples. “If I make the ceiling higher in the rec room, will you move the game and consult me in the future before moving stuff into the lab?”

“Hmm… Throw in a shower room and you got yourself a deal.”

Perry’s eyes narrowed.

Heather’s eyes narrowed.

I shouldn’t have to bargain for control over the lair that I BUILT, Perry thought, scowling. Then again, they were a team, and he had to have some kind of concession to Heather’s presence.

And if I get a verbal agreement recorded, it could help for later. He was also planning on making the locker room and shower eventually, so he wasn’t losing much there.

Yeah, I think this is a decent deal. Assuming I can enforce it.

“…Are you guys fighting?” Hardcase said, looking up at the two of them with glistening eyes, her arms tight to her chest.

“Just establishing dominance,” Heather said, patting Hardcase on the head.

“You little punk,” Perry said. “You got a deal. I’ll raise the ceiling and add a shower room, and you will promise not to bring things into the lab without permission.”

“Deal.”

Perry stretched out his hand, and Heather took it.

He squeezed.

She squeezed harder.

Perry cranked it up.

Heather’s arm bulged with muscle, crushing his palm.

“Ow, dangit, I give!” Perry said, letting go.

“You lose via power-abuse,” Perry said, rubbing his hand.

“I don’t know if you realize this, but you were squeezing hard enough to break my hand if I hadn’t,” Heather replied.

Perry’s brows rose. Really? It didn’t feel that way. It kinda made sense, though. His Body stat was starting to snowball, with 21.5% faster recovery, durability, and strength. He was putting on muscle fast, now that he was dedicating a couple hours a day to working out. All of that combined to more than the sum of its parts.

“If you’d used that kind of power on Hardcase, you would’ve crushed the poor thing,” Heather said, grabbing the Tinker’s tiny hand and overlaying it over her own, demonstrating the disparity in size.

“It wouldn’t have been necessary because Hardcase is cool, unlike yourself.”

“Pfff. Come on, let’s get out of here before the brute tries to hurt women again,” Heather said, steering the stammering Hardcase away.

“You have powers, and—hey, you hurt ME!” Perry said, pointing to his hand.

“Get started on that shower room!” Heather called over her shoulder with a mischievous grin.

That was fun.

“It’s always nice to see young people expressing their love for each other,” Sophie said once they were alone. “Whatever form that takes.”

“There’s a clogged toilet in room 215,” Perry said, pulling out his keys.

The sex angel pouted a moment before snatching the keys out of his hand and sashaying off, somehow managing to make overalls and a bucket full of grimy tools look good.

Once Perry was alone, he was able to relax and plan out his next steps.

He grabbed one of the suits earmarked for Locust, switched off the fail-safes, and dialed in the size with a ratchet before slotting in new spell-frames. It only took a few minutes before Perry came to the horrifying realization that a huge portion of his spell-discs were still in the suit that had fallen over the side of the wall.

I need to find those discs, Perry thought, pulling out his phone and checking the tides. He could make new ones, but if the old ones got into the hands of someone with any level of competence…Perry could be in big trouble.

***

“What have we here, bro?” Terminal Velocity said, nudging the half-buried suit of power armor.

“Dude, that’s Paradox’s design!” Maximum Overdrive said.

“Who?”

“Umm…I’m not sure.”

“Wait, don’t we hate that guy?”

“Oh, right!”

“So is he dead or something?” Terminal Velocity asked, nudging the suit again with the toe of his armor.

“One way to find out,” Maximum Overdrive said, leveling his blaster at the suit.

WOMP.

The high-tech buzz of a plasma bolt thrummed as it shot through the air, ricocheted off the inert power armor and caught his brother in the groin, propelling him backwards in the sand.

“Dude, that was awesome!” Terminal Velocity said, sitting up.

The two high-fived.

Chapter 47: You’re Cordially Invited

Perry was standing in the middle of the road, cars swerving around him as he glanced at the website again. He reached over and zoomed out and panned from side to side until he liked what he saw, then let it snap back to close focus.

“You don’t seem very happy,” Hardcase said.

“That suit I lost the other day had some proprietary tech in it, and I couldn’t find it.”

“Do you have trackers in your suits?” Hardcase asked.

“Yeah, went to the place it last registered and found a suit-shaped hole in the sand,” Perry said with a scowl. A beachcomber had his suit, and knew enough to find and disable the homing device.

It was just a matter of time before the knowledge of machine casting came back and bit him in the ass. He just had no idea what form it would take.

Honestly, the worst-case scenario wouldn’t be some madman or tycoon attacking him for his secrets. Perry could deal with that.

No, it would be if some jerk got the Nobel Prize for stealing his work.

That would be intolerable.

“I noticed you’re spending a lot of time with Wraith,” Perry said to get his problems off his mind, opening up his bag and setting down the repurposed microwave into the middle of the road.

“Is…is that okay?” Hardcase said, flinching every time a car swerved around them. “Do you think this is safe?”

“It’s just…every friend Wraith ever had was a total jerk, and it’s about time she finally started hanging out with people who are actually cool. Like yourself. So, thanks for being Wraith’s friend.”

“Oh.” Hardcase wiggled in place a bit. “Wraith is really cool.”

“Yeah, I think—” Perry paused in the middle of programming the microwave-drill’s depth. “I think it had something to do with her dad. Like, he only let her hang out with people whose parents were rich, which kind of naturally meant a lot of her friends were jerks.”

“So, why was she your friend?” Hardcase asked.

Perry glanced up at her and grinned. “Because my parents are rich.”

“Oh. But they didn’t seem…stuffy.”

“Well, no. My dad grew up a potato farmer, and my mom was a hellion, so they’ve never been snobs in that sense,” Perry said, glancing at the monitor strapped to his wrist again.

“Is that…a naked man showering?” Hardcase asked, glancing at his forearm.

“Ayup. Hold this.” Perry took a bouquet of roses dangling a vibrant pink card from a string out of his duffel bag and handed it to Hardcase.

Perry would’ve stopped to admire how red Hardcase got, but he was preoccupied.

“You might want to stand back about three paces, so you don’t get any vaporized rock on you,” Perry said, pressing Defrost, then Beef.

***Chemestro***

Another day, another talk with Lu’Ann.

It was gradually becoming easier to tolerate the woman’s touch. As a matter of fact, he almost found himself looking forward to his next desensitization session with her.

Which was not the point of the training. I don’t need to gain some kind of addiction in order to shore up a weakness.

Chemestro decided to inform Father of the burgeoning desire. Father would return The Therapist to its natural habitat, and Chemestro could detox for a few weeks, then return to life the way he liked it: rigid, structured, and with no one telling him things weren’t his fault.

Chemestro shuddered despite the warm water, and mentally switched topics.

He had another job as a Sweeper this evening. It paid a hundred thousand a night, but it wasn’t the money he was looking for. It was the prestige. Father had raised him to take the place of Solaris, the leader of Nexus.

So he needed to be immaculate, he needed to be popular, and without a speck of dirt to indicate otherwise.

Then why did Father direct me to antagonize Paradox? Surely avoiding a conflict of any sort would be far better for Chemestro’s prestige.

After all, Solaris himself had been given reason to watch him with a closer eye. Which wouldn’t have happened had he not been involved with Paradox.

The only reason Chemestro could think of for jeopardizing Father’s life goals for him was…if Father believed Paradox would eventually surpass him.

Or he’s making decisions based on emotion, a small part of Chemestro whispered.

No, Chemestro thought, shutting the water off with finality. Father never makes decisions based on emotion. Never.

He grabbed the towel hanging outside the stall and began drying off. He was heading for his clothes when he heard an unusual hum.

Like he’d practiced, Chemestro ditched the towel and dove into the shower stall before turning himself completely permeable.

ZZZZZ!

The ear-splitting hum of a high-powered laser echoed through Chemestro’s lair, followed by a clatter of metal on metal.

We’re under attack! Chemestro thought, sinking into the floor with the aim of taking whoever was attacking them from below.

They’re not going to live to regret this… Chemestro thought, making the ground one-direction light-permeable.

Above him, some kind of rotund spider-bot made of substandard junk was wandering around Chemestro’s lair, scanning for him. It had a strangely colorful plant sticking out of the top, with a pink tag dangling on the ground behind it.

Probably some kind of chemical weapon, Chemestro thought, eyes narrowing. Chemestro turned the contraption to dust with contemptuous ease, before purifying the air, making sure there were no contaminants left, leaving only the tag, as it had appeared to have some writing on it.

Without leaving the safety of the concrete, Chemestro used his power to flip the tag over. It was folded in the center: two mirrored halves, each side pointy on the bottom with a lump on the top.

He opened it.

Be my nemesis!

You’re cordially invited to meet me at Nexus at 3:00 p.m. Thursday afternoon to make it official. Be there!

- Paradox

P.S. I know where you live now.

I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!

Chemestro dusted the letter and returned to the surface as alarms began to blare throughout Father’s base.

The door to his lair slid open and The Contenders marched in. Each of the stone-faced teens had a power that rivaled—but did not exceed—his own.

“Father wants to speak with you,” 812 said, the scar Chemestro had given him turning his lips down into a permanent scowl.

Chemestro reached for his hyperweave, the magical bracers, and amulet buried in the pile.

“Now,” 812 said, light warping around him subtly.

“Fine.” Chemestro followed them out.

They formed a circle around him and marched straight to the Punishment Room.

He kept his breathing and heart rate under control. He could handle pain.

The door slid open and 812 moved out of the way, allowing Chemestro to step past him into the unlit room.

The door hissed closed, and light blinked on with a distinctive click!

The Punishment Room was revealed, and it wasn’t what Chemestro was expecting.

The cold steel had been replaced with hardwood floors, and the restraint table had been replaced with a couple of upholstered chairs. One of them bore Father, his container resting on the seat.

The hairs on Chemestro’s neck stood up. This was different. Chemestro did not like different.

“Take a seat,” Neuron said.

He sat.

“So, your rivalry with Paradox has become a security concern. He knows where your lair is,” Father said.

“Yes, sir.”

“And by extension, that means he knows where my lair is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How do you think he found you?”

“Magic,” Chemestro said with a shrug.

“Don’t fool around. The boy’s a Tinker.”

“Who on Earth is better-positioned to find a way to Tinker with magic?” Chemestro asked.

Father paused, the currents around his container going silent. “You’re not wrong. Young man, you’ve revealed a Flaw in My Thinking, and a very valuable opportunity.”

Chemestro tried not to smile. Anything good that ever happened to him was a result of pointing out a Flaw in Father’s Thinking.

Buoyed by optimism, Chemestro continued. “Father, may I ask a potentially impertinent question?”

“Ask away.”

“If my goal is to replace Solaris, and I therefore must be without the stain of controversy, why suggest antagonizing Paradox?”

“Solaris doesn’t have any enemies, it’s true,” Father said. “But did you know why he doesn’t have any enemies?”

Chemestro shook his head.

“Because they’re all dead or turned to subordinates. Why, just a month ago or so, he vaporized a cowl that was playing fast and loose with the rules.

“Young man, your task is to find a way to kill Paradox without anyone suspecting your involvement, or subordinate him to yourself. This will serve as excellent practice for when you take hold of the reins of power.”

“I understand,” Chemestro said.

“Now,” Father said, rising above the chair. “Your punishment for allowing Paradox to discover your lair...”

Chemestro relaxed all the muscles in his body. Whatever happened, he didn’t want to give away anything, nor tear a tendon from hypertension.

“Get out.”

Chemestro cocked his head.

“Your lair has been compromised. You must make a new one,” Father said.

“I can just…go?” Chemestro asked.

“Did you think you would spend the rest of your life as the leader of Franklin City living in my underground lair?” Father asked, a hint of amusement in his modulated voice.

“I…” hadn’t thought that far ahead, Chemestro admitted internally.

“You’ve got half a million in clean money in your official Nexus bank for sweeping on the wall, which should be plenty for a young man to afford an apartment.”

“Sir, what about The Therapist?”

“Oh, you can take it with you if you wish; it’s extraneous without you. I’ve hired a team of professionals for the Three Thousands.”

“Is there anything more?” he asked.

“No, that’s it,” Father said. “You may go.”

“Then I’ll be leaving, Father.” Chemestro stood and made for the exit.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you, son. Exceed my expectations.”

“Sir.” Chemestro nodded and left, heading straight for his lair, ignoring the staring Three Thousands as he swept into his lair and put on his magical protection as quickly as he coul—

***Perry***

“Well, that was intense,” Perry muttered, ignoring the traffic swerving around him as the camera on his scrying bowl went black again. “Looks like he’s definitely one of Neuron’s pet projects.”

Neuron was a cowl deeply in contention with Dad over who was the better Tinker, and…

And they’re competing vicariously through us! Those jerks!

Perry intended to give Dad a stern talking-to when he got home…preferably out of Mom’s earshot. He was mad at Dad, but didn’t want him to get blasted.

Not quite yet.

“He can’t have been telling the truth,” Hardcase said. “Solaris would never kill someone.”

“I don’t know,” Perry said with a shrug. It did seem kind of odd that Solaris didn’t really have any nemeses. Perry had previously chalked it up to no one being powerful enough that it made sense to try.

Now…he wasn’t so sure.

“So Chemestro is going to try to kill you?” Hardcase asked. “That’s terrifying.”

“Nah,” Perry said, attaching the video to an email and creating a dead man’s switch.

“There’s no way he could avoid suspicion now,” Perry said, pausing the video and turning it around to face Chemestro, who’d just risen out of the concrete. “Right, buddy?”

“You’ve got something on your suit,” Chemestro deadpanned.

Perry glanced down and witnessed his suit turn to dust, along with the clothes beneath it.

A second later, Perry was standing ankle-deep in a pile of dust that used to be his clothes and armor.

“I just tuned that!” Perry shouted, shaking his fist at Chemestro’s receding form. “Not cool, man!”

Once Chemestro was out of sight, Perry’s stealth drone came down from the rooftops, its entire front dominated by a huge camera with a lens the size of his head.

“One million frames per second,” Perry chuckled to himself. Now all Perry had to do was run the footage through an algorithm to find out what materials disintegrated slowest and why, and then try and increase that resistance to immunity.

He had Chemestro right where he wanted him. It felt liberating… Breezy, even.

“Alright, I’m gonna head back to my lair and start decoding this footage. You doing anything else tonight?” Perry asked.

“I-I-I g-g-gotta…dinner. I—dinner with my family!” Hardcase said through her palms.

“Gotcha. I’ll talk to you later,” Perry said, timing the oncoming traffic to jog over to the sidewalk and begin his long walk back to base.

“S-see you later!” she said.

Perry sent his recon drone ahead and started ambling back towards home. He briefly considered stopping by a shop and trying to buy something, but he figured it would be more effort than it was worth.

I got plenty of spare clothes at the lair.

People stared at the naked young man walking along the sidewalk, but his chest was puffed out and he strutted along like he owned the block, so they didn’t bother him with more than a double take. He was obviously in a great mood.

Aside from a brief conversation with a police officer, Perry made it back to his lair completely unmolested.

He marched into the office past Brendon, who frowned, craning his neck to track him as Perry walked around the reception desk and into the Employees Only area.

“I just had a solid win against Chemestro!” Perry shouted as he arrived at the bottom of the staircase.

“What, did you steal his secret recipe for— Why are you naked?!” Heather shouted, doing a double take before hiding behind the steel punching bag, as if his nudity was going to reach out and bite her.

“Eh, Chemestro was being a sore loser, but it got me even more useful information,” Perry said as he slammed open the locker beside the workout area and slipped into his gym clothes.

Heather peeked out from behind the punching bag and sighed in relief upon seeing him dressed. “Did you walk all the way back looking like that?”

“Yep,” Perry said, sitting down at his computer and downloading the video of his armor getting turned into dust from his drone. “With my Body stat, it was perfectly comfortable.”

“But…people?” Heather asked.

“Who cares?” Perry said with a shrug.

And now, to apply the algorithm.

The sophisticated program began chewing on the data, telling him it would be hours before it was done.

“Are you going to go to dinner with your family tonight?”

“Eh.” Perry shrugged. “I wanna get a head start on analyzing this data and— Hey, what are you doing?!”

“Your mom told me to make sure you make it to dinner,” Heather said, slinging him over her shoulder. “Something about it being literally treatment for your damaged soul. I take that woman at her word.”

“But…but…” Perry reached out towards his computer like a lover being torn away from her beau.

“You’ll thank me later,” Heather said as she took the stairs two at a time.

No freaking way do I thank you for interrupting my work.

“Brendon, dinner at Perry’s place?” Heather asked as she exited the staircase behind the reception desk.

“Oh, oh yeah, that sounds great! Mrs. Z is a great cook.”

“Yeah, it’s almost magical,” Heather said.

“Exactly!” Brendon said, his expression brightening.

“Umm…are you gonna carry Perry the whole time?” Brendon asked, jogging along beside Heather’s ground-eating gait.

“That depends,” Heather said. “Perry, can we trust you not to run away the moment I let go of you?”

“Nope,” Perry said, arms crossed and scowling.

“There you have it.”

***Chemestro***

Chemestro had a bit of difficulty finding a place to rent, as most apartments vehemently rejected supers due to the inherent risk of damage. They took one look at his hyperweave and waved him off.

He finally found a run-down apartment complex that rented to supers. The building was covered with the scars of minor battles, with singed walls, broken windows…and water damage.

Chemestro surveyed the room and inhaled the musty odor.

Is this what freedom smells like? It was repugnant.

I’ll have to buy my own building and make it my own, because this is unacceptable.

A child’s shrieking voice swept past the thin, poorly seated door that could be removed with a single kick.

“This place is…nice?” The Therapist said.

“They’re charging ten thousand dollars a month.”

“Holy crap!” she exclaimed.

“Indeed,” Chemestro said before turning on Lu’ann and using a nudge of his powers to turn her body and clothes semi light-permeable, highlighting several implants Father had placed inside her to ensure she couldn’t escape.

Chemestro allowed the collar and backup implants to fall through her body, removing all of them simultaneously in order to avoid killing her.

Lu’ann shivered at the sensation of the high-tech implants falling out of her body.

“Your services are no longer required,” Chemestro said. “Return to your natural environment, Therapist.”

“Umm…” she said, glancing around the room until she spotted a heavily chewed pen. She grabbed the object and scribbled on her hand for a moment before grabbing his palm.

The training had paid off, Chemestro was pleased to note, because he resisted the urge to punch her.

“There’s the address of my office. In case you want to talk.”

Chemestro glanced down at the address on his palm, written in blue ink, then back up to the frizzy-haired, brown-eyed woman.

“Leave.”

“Yep, yep, right away,” Lu’ann said, bolting for the door.

Chemestro watched her leave through the wall, until she was out of sight down the road. He glanced down at the blue ink on his palm.

With a sigh, he removed the ink from his palm and put it on the refrigerator.

“Aren’t you a sweetheart?” A voice from behind him brought Chemestro to full alert.

He spun to face the intruder.

It was a man, slender, with pure white hair and wrinkles…perhaps in his seventies, with an expensive-looking three-piece suit that had an old-fashioned design. The buttons seemed to be made of real ivory, or perhaps bone.

Golden stitchwork roiled up his sleeves like smoke. If Chemestro looked closely enough, it appeared to be moving.

“What do you want?” he asked, readying his power to disintegrate the old man. Self-defense was plenty of justification, should the old man start something.

“Paradox is going to surpass you,” the old man said. “Every move the two of you make counters the other and brings both of you to new heights…” He glanced at the bracers underneath Chemestro’s hyperweave.

“But Paradox is growing faster than you are. You’re already near your apex. Soon enough, you won’t be able to hold a candle to him.”

“What. Do you want?” Chemestro gritted out.

“I want you to kill Paradox,” the old man said.

“He recorded a conversation with Father instructing me to do so without being suspected. It’s impossible.”

The old man shook his head. “Just difficult.”

He pulled out a vial from his coat, filled with a viscous, iridescent liquid that shone like a raven’s wing. “If you used a power no one knows you have, who would suspect you?”

“Get out,” Chemestro said, nodding toward the door.

“What if you didn’t have to take orders from your father anymore?” the old man said, rocking the vial of mysterious fluid between his fingers. “Be your own man. That would be within your power as well.”

“I’m plenty powerful enough without drinking an obvious Trojan horse peddled by a mysterious old man. Leave.”

“I’ll visit again when you’ve had time to reconsider,” the wrinkled old man said with a grin before vanishing along with the vial.

The security in this place is awful, Chemestro thought, shaking his head before lying down on the stained mattress and staring at the stained ceiling.

He would start looking for a new place first thing in the morning.

Chapter 48: Bureaucracy

Solaris was sitting at his desk, enjoying a moment to catch his breath between public speaking and flesh-eating monsters.

You’d think I’d get over my fear of public speaking before the fear of flesh-eating monsters, he thought.

“Sir!” Harry Spills, one of his Internal Affairs folk, came rushing in with a manila folder.

Please let this be good news.

“Good news!”

Solaris relaxed in his chair. “Whaddya got?”

“I found this kid who’s been passed up for an exam of his powers eleven times,” he said, opening up the folder and placing it directly in front of him.

“Jetset. Power of flight,” Solaris muttered. “What’s so special about this?”

“He has perfect control, and no external forces acting on him; he simply moves in the direction he wants. Sound familiar?”

It did.

“And get this: He applied for another screening last month, claiming he was able to somehow lethally shove one of the fire-wasps with his power. He was denied again.”

“Who’s his caseworker?”

“Joshua Able. I did some digging and found a connection between Mr. Able and Jetset’s father. It seems like there’s some bad blood there.”

“You see, this is one of the reasons I tell people not to investigate a super’s family.” Solaris smacked the page with the back of his hand for emphasis.

“Next time I see Mr. Able, he better be picking up garbage with his hands or unclogging toilets.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright, nice find. Give yourself a bonus. I gotta make some phone calls.”

“Sir.” Harry nodded and left the room.

Solaris turned on his computer and entered the database, entering ‘Jetset’ and bringing up his data.

How many others have slipped through the cracks? he thought, curiosity getting the better of him as he opened up Jetset’s team.

Titan showed good capability as a small team leader, but his power would never make him a Sweeper.

Warcry was intriguing, but her inability to pierce prawn hide was a problem. She’s still got a decade before her powers are set in stone, Solaris thought, flagging her file for attention.

Most powers stopped growing in power and flexibility in the late twenties, when the brain stopped developing.

With practice, she might be able to grow her strength, overcome that limitation, and he could have another Sweeper.

Hardcase was your typical bargain-basement Tinker. Nothing particularly special about her. Showed good talent at making mechsuits. It remained to be seen if she could make tech stable enough to operate without her presence in High Tide.

Manic needed a stricter diet and exercise plan to maximize the efficiency he performed at. Unfortunately, the young man had a poorly operating frontal lobe, as he tended to get himself in more trouble than he was worth.

One can only hope he grows out of it.

Solaris picked up his phone and dialed Recruitment. “Hey, can you guys make an offer to one energy-type named ‘Warcry’? I want to see if you can train her output high enough to pierce prawn hide. Could be Sweeper potential there.

“And let’s offer Titan an officer rank. Kid’s solid, and he might not let go of Warcry without some compensation.”

The people on the other end agreed quickly, and Solaris hung up.

Now the hard call.

He dialed up Mass Driver.

The other side rang for only a second before the cowl picked up the line. “Hey, boss-man, what do you need? Another Sweeper on the wall? I’m always happy to do it.”

“If by ‘happy,’ you mean charging me through the nose,” Solaris said, rolling his eyes.

“Well, not too many people know how desperate you actually are.”

“No, I got an interesting file on my desk: kid named Jetset. He reminds me of you when you were his age. Perfect flight, inexplicably blasted something touching him in a life-or-death situation.”

“Interesting. I suppose you telling me about him implies if he dies, you’ll come after me first.”

“Yup. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to bump into this kid and his team a few times. Throw him some softballs, see if he’s got what you got. Wring it out of him if you have to.”

“You’d love to have a ‘me’ on your team, wouldn’t you?” Mass Driver asked.

“How much do you want?” Solaris asked, ignoring Mass Driver.

“Well, money ain’t exactly been a problem these days, chief. I tell you what we could use. If Nexus were to forget south block twelve were to exist for a night…”

The mutant slums. Solaris rubbed his temples.

“I have to ask, is what you’re planning going to destabilize Franklin City?”

“Nope.”

“Does it involve anything abhorrent, such as the trafficking of women and children? Mass murder?”

“Nope. Just a good old-fashioned territorial dispute.”

“If both parties agree to evacuate the civilians beforehand, Nexus will overlook it.”

“Of course. We’re all civilized gangsters here.”

“I highly doubt it,” Solaris said.

Once the details were hashed out, Solaris asked Farscry to keep an eye on the tussle…unofficially.

He didn’t want them trying to pull a fast one.

***Perry***

Perry was picking at his rice and cheese when Heather spoke up.

“So Perry had an interesting day today. He stood out in the middle of traffic for about half an hour, and then walked six blocks back to his motel—”

“Where he works,” Brendon added helpfully. “He doesn’t own it.”

“Completely naked,” Heather finished.

“I mean, I wasn’t trying to get naked. That part wasn’t my fault.”

“I’m more concerned about the part where you didn’t seem to care,” Heather said.

“Why should I care?” Perry asked. It wasn’t like he lost anything or was any more or less vulnerable than if he was wearing clothes. It literally meant nothing.

Heather motioned to him, glancing meaningfully at his mom.

“Perry, did you stand in the street for half an hour?” Mom asked.

“That’s out of context. I wasn’t just standing there in a fugue state. I was wearing protection, and that’s where I needed to be to send the bouquet of roses to my most hated enemy,” Perry said. “It was all on the up and up.”

Mom stood and walked around the table and seized Perry’s head, peering into his eyes as she turned it this way and that. “The cracks in your soul are getting bigger. You’re developing the mental illness you’re most prone to. In this case, it appears to be psychopathy. You need to start taking your grandmother’s recommendations more seriously.”

“I’ll get right on that,” Perry said, oozing sarcasm.

“You’ve missed out on three dinners since then.”

“Out of fifteen.”

“You’re going to be here for every. Single. One,” Mom said, her fingers tightening around the sides of his head. Perry saw literal lightning flash behind her eyes.

“Okay.” Perry didn’t see a reason to unleash that lightning.

“Good.” Mom went and sat back down.

“It’s all about friends and family, kid,” Dad said. “People in our line of work tend to go a little crazy if they don’t have friends and family to keep them grounded. And that’s not just anecdotal, it’s actual research.”

Dad’s thousand-yard stare returned. “Sometimes a lot crazy.”

“Uh,” Perry grunted around a spoonful of cheesy rice, his eyes reading his status.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 4

HP: 5

Body: 4

Stability: 4

Nerve: 8

Attunement: 23

Free Points: 0

XP to next level: 2421

Current Quest: Go Steady with Chemestro and Make It Official

Reward: 100 XP

Attunement of 23 = 3.07 times base.

Stability of 4 = 1.21 times base.

Attunement = roughly 2.5 X Stability.

Attunement-to-Stability ratio @ 2.5 hypothesized to result in the emergence of minor mental illness due to soul damage.

Family bonds and regular group gatherings repair and maintain the soul, which seems to be related to base Stability. But in my case, don’t family gatherings simply maintain base Stability? Perry already ate dinner with his family and had friends who spent time with him regularly, even before Dad’s System. Implying that unless he got a lover, the only way for his Stability to go was down.

At the rate Attunement was outpacing Stability, next level he would be at a ratio of…

4.76/1.276=3.73

3.73/2.53=1.47

In other words, should he dump his next level entirely into Attunement again, the disparity between his Attunement and his Stability would worsen by 47%, which was a very big number.

And should that result in worsened psychopathy, it would mean he was less likely to have regular family time, causing his base Stability to suffer, spiraling further.

If he was currently sitting at mild psychopathy, a 47% nudge would have serious consequences—if Perry’s hypothesis was correct.

I don’t know, though. It is pretty nice, not caring about what other people think. Perry could vaguely remember how mortified he would’ve been a couple months ago, if he’d been forced to walk home naked.

Why is feeling like that a good thing? I don’t get it.

Still, extreme psychopathy didn’t sound like a fun time for anyone either. Perry didn’t want to be a brick of ice, and being an emotionless psycho could cause him serious problems in the long term.

What would be the point of having the confidence to pursue a girlfriend, if he also didn’t care?

I’ll have to study this.

The first thing that Perry had to do was confirm his suspicions of the relationship between Stability, Attunement, and soul damage resulting in the manifestation of mental illness.

Which meant he needed some college-level books on psychopathy, a large variety of standardized tests to figure out exactly where he was on the spectrum, and…

And Gramma present when I raise Attunement and Stability, respectively. Perry shuddered. Gramma. That’s gonna suck.

Well, she is my doctor.

If Perry’s hypothesis was correct, he’d stumbled across the first soft cap on his exponential curve in Attunement growth.

If astronomical amounts of Attunement rendered him a drooling vegetable with a shattered soul, then it couldn’t really be said to be useful, could it?

“Perry!”

“Uh?” Perry grunted, the Status screen flicking off as he glanced at Heather.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Heather asked.

“We’re going on a date.”

“OOooOOooOO,” Brendon hooted, with Dad joining in.

“That’s fantastic!” Mom said, clasping her hands together with a big grin.

“Oh?” Heather cocked a brow. “Where are we going?”

“Nexus,” Perry said, scooping up another bite of cheese rice.

There was a metallic clatter as Dad dropped his spoon. “Son, that bureaucratic hellhole is the most unromantic location you could have possibly chosen,” Dad said.

***The Next Day***

I’M WITH STUPID à

“I think those shirts get worse every time I see them,” Heather said, shaking her head.

“I’m totally gonna stand right next to Chemestro when we sign the paperwork,” Perry said, patting his dumb T-shirt eagerly. “The ultimate revenge.”

They were standing outside of Nexus, a huge building made of matte black steel that could stand up to the worst Franklin City could throw at it. Created and maintained by the most powerful Tinkers of their time, Nexus was a spire of black metal that stretched into the sky, visible from every point in the city.

It was so tall, it was said that the upper floors were pressurized against the vacuum of space. It was so wide at the base that several stadiums could fit inside it.

In short, it was big.

Perry, Hardcase, and Heather were loitering outside one of the many public entrances, sitting beside a fountain as they waited for the fourth member of their little group date to arrive.

At exactly three p.m., Chemestro swooped down from above, dressed in full hyperweave.

I suppose I can’t blame him for that one. It would be pretty stupid to ambush someone right outside Nexus’s front door, but still.

“Alright, we’re all here.”

“Why are they here?” Chemestro asked, glancing at Wraith and Hardcase, who were in their civvies save for domino masks.

“We’re registering as a special group so we can work together on the wall. Way more fun that way. There’s actually no limit to the number of groups you can be registered in.”

“More…fun. On the wall,” Chemestro said, rolling the words around in his mouth like he tasted something funky.

His eyes were also sunken, like he hadn’t gotten very good sleep.

I almost feel sorry for this guy…almost.

“Alright, we’re all here. Let’s get this taken care of.”

Together, they marched into the massive entrance before Registration, and came to a complete halt at what they saw.

“Wow, I was expecting it to be much worse,” Heather muttered to herself.

The receptionists outnumbered registering teams and supers at least three-to-one.

“They can’t afford to let supers slip through the cracks,” Chemestro muttered, brushing past them. “Especially not during High Tide. It would be stupid to have the bare minimum amount of receptionists, potentially causing supers to turn away rather than wait in line.”

Perry’s nemesis let out a huge yawn before flagging down a receptionist, who power-walked over to them with a couple of her coworkers.

“What can we do for you today?” the woman said. All three of the ladies were scanning Chemestro from top to bottom, seemingly impressed.

Dang it.

“Him and I are nemeses,” Chemestro said, pointing at Perry, who made sure to stand just to the left of Chemestro. “We want to make it official.”

“And we’re registering as a team for the wall,” Heather said, motioning to Perry and Hardcase.

“Alright, you two follow me and Brenda, and you two follow Anne, there,” the lead receptionist said, dividing them up into two groups before leading Perry and Chemestro to an isolated hallway, where they split Perry and his nemesis apart. Perry got Brenda.

She led Perry into a separate room with heavy steel walls, and sat him down in a comfy chair, slapping a stack of papers in front of him, nearly an inch thick.

Oh, damn.

“I know it seems like a lot, but I’ll break it down for you,” Brenda said, taking the stack of papers apart, layer by paper-clipped layer.

“Here’s the Nemesis form.” She pointed at one spot in the stack. “This is just a statement of intent to battle each other regularly. Over here, we’ve got the liability volunteer paperwork.”

Liability volunteer paperwork?

“It’s an agreement to serve a certain number of volunteer hours, paying back Nexus for the investment of resources to manage your nemesis. It also limits your liability, should you murder your nemesis, based on the value you have provided Nexus through your service.”

Perry blinked.

“Here’s a waiver that says you do not hold Nexus liable in the event that your nemesis kills you, and that any property you own will become Nexus-owned, to soften the loss of your passing.”

Oh, dear Lord, what have I gotten into?

“This part is the team registry,” she said.

“Here’s another waiver that says you will not hold Nexus responsible, should you be injured or killed by someone on your team.

“This is a simple health form. It gets fed into our software and allows us to avoid sending your team somewhere disadvantageous for you.”

Perry scanned through the health form, his brows rising at the stunning variety of the questions.

Blood pressure

Allergies

Previous surgeries

Animal body parts?

Gills or alternate breathing ability?

Cybernetic enhancements

Nanites?

….

Noble blood?

Virginity

Magical enhancements?

Ability/weakness relating to the phase of the moon?

The sensation that nothing exists beyond your immediate vicinity?

I’m gonna have to fudge this form a bit, Perry thought to himself, resolving to lie about the sensation. That didn’t seem like a health thing so much as a red-flag catcher.

I’ll put ‘maybe’ on the nanites, magical enhancement, and ‘yes’ on noble blood and virginity, Perry thought, scrolling down the list at a blistering pace. There were at least half a dozen other groups he fell into, but they were more mundane, such as being male and Caucasian.

Probably means they’ll avoid sending me after evil witches that bathe in noble virgin blood to enhance their powers…if that’s actually a thing.

Unfortunately, Brenda wasn’t quite done yet.

“This is a form where you verify that you’ve read and understood the Nexus Privacy Policy…”

Kill me now.

Chapter 49: Shower Reveal

“Yes, YES!” Perry checked the output of his infinite power cell.

It was basically a homemade solar panel with a homemade LED sandwiched together and surrounded by highly reflective materials to trap the light inside.

It kinda looked like a roof tile.

The LED was insanely brighter than it should’ve been, practically blinding.

Perry’s Tinker Twitch had kicked in when he was designing the solar panel, and he’d wound up with a pitch-black cell with efficiency above eighty percent, which was mathematically impossible.

The LED was two times brighter than it should’ve been. A quick check revealed that LEDs were about 80% efficient, losing 20% as heat and other byproducts.

Since this was 2 times brighter, that was….160% output on the energy put in.

160% X 83% = 132.8%

Take out 100% of the end result to feed back into the loop, and you get 32% profit.

His voltmeter agreed with his math.

That is awesome. I’ve basically converted raw superpowers into electricity.

“I have created infinite electricity!” Perry shouted, beating his chest.

“Cool!” Hardcase said, peeking around his waist. “How much does it make?”

“About the same as a nine-volt battery,” Perry said, deflating a bit.

“It’s a bit bigger than a nine-volt,” Hardcase said. It was about the size of his head.

“Yes, but this is infinite.”

“Is it?”

Perry opened his mouth and froze. “I’m not sure. The longevity of the setup hasn’t been tested. The infinite-energy exploit might cause increased wear on the materials.” Perry whipped up a quick monitoring setup and hooked it into his computer.

“We’ll keep an eye on the output levels. If they start dropping precipitously, we’ll have to assume there’s another factor at play.

“How’s it going on your end?” Perry asked, glancing over his shoulder at Hardcase’s setup.

On her monitor, he could make out an exploded version of her mechsuit.

“So, using your batteries and motors, I was able to drop five hundred pounds!” she said, tugging him over to the chair and sitting him down right in front of the computer.

“What’s your ideal fighting weight?”

“I don’t want to drop below fifteen hundred pounds, because then I wouldn’t have the inertia to punch cars and buildings. But I don’t think I’m gonna have that problem, because even after shaving five hundred pounds, I’m still sitting at three thousand.”

500/3500=14% reduction in weight.

“Is this solid steel?” Perry asked, pointing at the steel beams that made up large parts of the legs.

“Yeah. I tried making my legs lighter using some of your aluminum foam, but it put my center of gravity up here.” Hardcase sat on his lap and executed a few commands on her homemade CAD program, making her mechsuit’s center of gravity appear as a bright green dot.

“See?” she said, as the bright green dot indicating center of gravity slid upward to hover near the middle of the cockpit as she selected the leg parts and lowered their weight scale.

“Ever since we lightened the batteries and motors, I’ve had the lowest center of gravity I’ve ever felt, and let me tell you, it’s nice.”

“So, what if we replaced your upper armor with some of my aluminum sheeting?” Perry asked, reaching around the tiny Tinker and selecting the armor and lowering its hypothetical weight by a couple hundred pounds.

The green dot sank lower.

“Rather than achieve the same amount of defense for lower weight, I think I would rather have the defensive properties of the cockpit skyrocket for the same weight.”

“That makes sense. Don’t wanna get got by a prawn again. I don’t have any half-inch steel plate on me, though,” Perry said.

“That’s fine. All we have to do is use the plating that’s already there.”

“Ah. Is it unmodified?”

“Yeah, I haven’t done anything special with it, so it should take your powers well,” Hardcase said, nodding, her hair tickling his chin.

All I should have to do is polish it or shave a bit off the inside, and it’ll count as being ‘modified’ by me, and enjoy all the benefits thereof. Yeah, that’s a simple solution.

“You guys look like you’re having fun being dorks,” Heather said as she walked by in her gym clothes.

“There’s nothing dorky about optimizing a mechsuit’s center of gravity, plebe,” Perry said.

“I honestly can’t think of anything dorkier off the top of my head.”

Beep, beep!

Perry’s timer went off, indicating it was time to GET SWOLE, as if Heather showing up wasn’t evidence enough.

He glanced at his current projects longingly, but he knew it would be for the best if Chemestro couldn’t treat him like a ragdoll in CQC.

“Workout time,” Perry said, lifting Hardcase off his lap and setting her aside before he could stand.

“Can I—can I work out with you guys?” Hardcase asked, tapping her fingers together nervously.

Heather and Perry glanced at each other.

“I mean, there’s no reason you can’t,” Perry said with a shrug.

***

Hardcase’s face went red as she tried to push the empty bar back up for the tenth time.

“Don’t hold your breath, you’ll pop something,” Perry admonished her, acting as her spotter between his own burnouts. He could barely feel his arms, but it was still enough to keep her safe.

I mean, it’s an empty bar!

Which implied Hardcase struggled to lift forty-five pounds.

Then again, she does weigh, what…ninety pounds? And not much of that is muscle. Relative to her weight, it was a lot, he supposed.

I need to make a lighter bar if she ever wants to do burnouts.

Something told him Hardcase wasn’t going to get addicted to working out, though. Perry certainly wasn’t. He just had a strong need for muscle mass in his superheroing career.

He almost felt like working out was betraying his intentions of becoming a wizard, but reality didn’t care about his intentions, especially after it stripped you out of your fancy armor and knocked you around a bit.

After Hardcase did her reps, she moved to a leg machine, and Perry started working on his neck muscles. Stronger neck muscles meant his brain would get jostled around less when he inevitably got punched in the face.

And that meant less concussions.

Once Perry’s entire body felt like a limp noodle, and he’d snagged a sweet 25 XP for pushing all five limbs to their limits, he dropped the bomb.

“You guys look pretty sweaty,” Perry said, ambling over to where Heather was practicing on a steel tube, her hands turning into spikes and penetrating into the metal.

I wonder if I could make a self-healing metal punching bag. How do self-healing materials work, anyway?

Hardcase was sitting against the wall, drinking a glass of water with lemon that Sophie had given her.

“Which is why I keep telling you to make a shower room.” Heather huffed as she launched a kick at the metal punching bag, skewering it a couple inches in.

“LCC, drop the curtain.”

The Lair Control Center peeled away the wallpaper in the underground exercise room to reveal a tiled entryway split down the center. One side had a silhouette of a caped man above it, while the other side had a silhouette of a caped woman.

“I had Hardcase advise on the design of the ladies’ side.”

“That’s true,” Hardcase said from where she sat.

“It’s about time,” Heather said, catching the perforated metal tube. “I’m gonna go try it out.”

She started heading that way, then paused, glancing at Perry. “How girly did you make it?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

Perry grinned. “I gotta admit, I was tempted to make it over-the-top, but I decided it would be wiser to let you dial it in to your preferred level of girly.”

“Oh?”

“There’s a panel inside with several sliders that can change the coloration of the walls and lighting, and some settings that can put up various art on the walls and floor. You can even import images with a thumb drive if you want, or hook the panel up to your phone and play some tunes.”

Heather pursed her lips. “Does the guys’ side have that?” she asked.

“Heck, no. I’m just gonna use it to take showers.” Perry shrugged.

“I’m debating whether to be offended by the obviously sexist special considerations or satisfied to finally be treated in the superior manner that I so rightly deserve.”

Perry waited as Heather tapped her chin.

“Yeah, I’m cool with it.”

“I knew you couldn’t resist a good bribe,” Perry said, checking the time.

Workout has been over for about half an hour. Now it’s time to take a shower and get back to the mad science.

Perry wanted to start experimenting with the patch of skin he’d been growing in his lab. He had some really fun ideas for that.

“There’s some extra shirts and pants in the locker portion,” Perry said to Hardcase. “I know you weren’t expecting to work out today.”

“Will they fit?” she asked.

“Absolutely not. You’ll look like you’re wearing a circus tent,” Perry said, waving to them as he went into the men’s side before stripping down, laying a change of clothes on the bench, and hopping into the shower.

It was a simple rectangular space, about ten by sixteen, with waterproof tiled flooring and four showerheads spread around the area, copying the shower area of a public pool he’d visited when he was younger.

Perry didn’t expect there would ever be more than four people of each gender who needed a shower at any given time. His lair was not going to have people going through it as quick as a public pool.

Perry hit the dispenser, got a bottle of generic shampoo, and flipped the showers over to hot.

He nodded in satisfaction as he got hot water in about five seconds. That was respectably fast.

The drain led back to a processing center before flushing it into the motel’s plumbing, which led straight to the sewers.

Perry went the extra mile to make sure nobody’s genetic information got out of the shower room.

There were probably much easier ways for a cowl to do it than going through raw sewage under the motel, but stranger things had happened.

It was hard to shut off Tinker brain and just let himself enjoy the shower, but after a couple minutes of zoning out under the hot water, Perry’s body felt like it was starting to recover.

At least enough to wash up whilst plotting his next move.

Chemestro took one of my marks for Floating Armaments off during that fight on the wall. I didn’t notice it was gone until after, but nobody else could’ve done it.

What I need is a Floating Armament mark that he can’t see.

So if Perry were able to put a connecting mark on the sheet of skin, then he could theoretically have all the floating armaments bundled together under control of one easily hidden mark.

Perhaps under his armpit or inner thigh.

Maybe tattooed on the inside of my mouth, or on my sternum bone?

Perry shuddered as he began washing his hair, white soap sloughing off of him.

The sternum and the shoulder blade are probably some of the best places to put the connecting mark. It’s just…I’m not really super into the body modification shenanigans.

Plus, I’d need to find a way to make it permanent.

Perry frowned as he pictured it.

Permanent…would be neat.

If he could have a permanent anchor and put all his temporary spells on the skin sample he was growing, that would be a great way to put his spells outside the range of Chemestro messing them up.

Could be an excellent backup above and beyond simply adding shielding to the suits. Catch people off guard when I’m not in the armor.

The video his drone had taken of Chemestro dissolving his armor had shown that nonmagnetic, conductive materials were the slowest to dissolve under Chemestro’s power. A tiny fraction of a second slower.

So…graphene shielding?

He’d already used it to great effect in the camouflage hyperweave, which was still slowly being printed out for Heather’s suit.

If Perry produced more of it with the intent for it to resist Chemestro’s power more efficiently, would that be enough?

It’s an interesting question. I’ll have to ramp up production of graphene, order some more volcanic glass, and so on.

Could add an obsidian blade to Hardcase’s setup.

Wait a minute… Hardcase was sitting on my lap?

Neither of them had really thought about it because they were both in the semi-fugue state of the Tinker Twitch.

Before Perry could really think about it more, a section of the tiled wall of the shower crumbled away, revealing pitch-black emptiness.

Perry continued rinsing his hair for a moment as he studied the hole, wondering if he was having another psychotic episode where he felt surrounded by nothingness beyond his line of sight.

Maybe I should’ve answered that question honestly, Perry thought to himself as he soaped up. After all, the lights that had sprung to life inside the darkness kinda looked like the emptiness of space he’d seen when he opened the locker.

It certainly seemed like he was having a psychotic episode.

INTRUDER! INTRUDER!

The tiny lights came closer, entering the beam of illumination from Perry’s shower room.

They resolved into your garden-variety killbots with scorpion shapes, gatling guns on their tails, and buzzsaw forelimbs.

Perry heaved a sigh of relief. Oh, thank god. I’m not going crazy.

Chapter 50: Soggy Battle

***Hardcase***

Oh my god, I was sitting on his lap, Natalie thought, burying her face in her hands as the water trickled past her ears, carrying the sweat away with it.

“Something wrong?” Wraith asked from the other side of the shower room.

“Iwasinhislap,” Natalie muttered into her palms.

“Huh?” Wraith cocked her head, her normally fluffy golden hair darkened and weighed down over her shoulders by the water.

“I was sitting in his lap!” Natalie said, her voice almost breaking.

“Yeah, I saw that. I figured you guys were zoned out on nerd-tech.”

“Yeah, but…but. But.”

“But?”

“But my mom said it’s not what nice girls do!”

“Yeah, well, your mom kinda sounds like a cu—”

Wraith was interrupted by a girlish shriek emanating from the outside.

“He better be in danger,” Wraith muttered, breaking into a sprint for the entrance.

Natalie, not entirely sure what was going on, ran after her, skidding to a halt on the damp tiled floor to throw on one of Perry’s shirts that she’d found folded in the locker.

When she sprinted out into the gym, Paradox was taking shelter behind the steel punching bag, covering his boy parts with a buzzsaw.

“LCC, remove foreign robots!” Paradox shouted.

He glanced furtively around the steel tube. Hardcase followed his gaze, spotting a metallic scorpion about the size of a large dog, sporting a gatling gun and a single buzzsaw forelimb. Judging by the shadows on the wall…there were more.

“Why isn’t it working?!” Wraith shouted.

“The LCC can’t reach the bathroom easily!”

“It built the bathroom, didn’t it?” Wraith demanded, rolling out of the way as the gatling gun began firing a strangely quiet volley of metal projectiles.

I wonder if it’s magnetic propulsion that makes them so quiet.

“I actually made a special frame to carve out the shower rooms, then took it out once it was done. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to walk through the gym without running into invisible machines.”

“Great thinking!” Wraith shouted.

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting a security breach to come from the showers!” Paradox shouted back as the gatling gun scanned the room, turning towards Natalie.

“Hardcase, get to your mechsuit!”

Natalie nodded and screwed up her courage before running toward the danger. Retreating back into the women’s shower room would cut line of sight and keep her safe for a short time, but it wouldn’t help anyone.

She wanted to help people.

Unfortunately, running fast was not high up on her list of skills.

***Perry***

Dangit, Perry thought as Hardcase began running, the killbot able to track her easily.

The dozens behind it, as well.

Perry hauled back and threw the killbot’s purloined buzzsaw into its face before sprinting over, picking up the slowpoke, and hauling ass towards the lab.

HP: 4

HP: 3

HP: 2

HP: 1

Perry caught a few bullets as the strangely silent gatling guns tracked him across the gym. He made sure to keep himself between the guns and Hardcase, who, among the three of them, was exceptionally vulnerable to getting shot.

“Where are you going?!” Heather demanded, clinging to the ceiling, where the killbots had a hard time seeing her.

“Somewhere the LCC CAN reach!” Perry shouted back towards the gym as he barreled out the door.

There was no need to stay in the gym and fight a losing battle, when they could get suited up at their leisure in the main lab with LCC watching their backs.

Heather followed them out of the gym, crawling along the ceiling like a spider before swinging off to the left, dodging a burst of silent gunfire.

“You think those things are magnetic?” Perry asked the tiny Tinker in his arms.

“I was thinking the same thing, but the electromagnets would have to be—”

“In the gatling tubes!” they both said at once.

“So like, is it Tinker-tech-level electromagnets in the tubes, or is the propulsion just some other form?”

“I think if someone managed to make nano-magnetics, they could do it,” Hardcase said with a shrug.

“Yeah, it doesn’t sound like air pressure. There’d be more of a ‘fwomp’ sound.”

“Dorks!” Heather shouted at them from the locker where she had oozed into her hyperweave in a heartbeat. “Stop geeking out and get with the smashing!”

She led by example, jumping back to where the LCC was shoving the killbots back into the gym over and over again, landing on one of the robots, her arms turned into massive scythes.

“Save the tail parts!” Perry shouted, hustling Hardcase over to her mech and giving her a boost.

“We should save the tail parts, right?” he asked.

“Ideally, we should have enough scrap to reassemble a complete one, given how many of them there are,” Hardcase said, reaching up to grab the roof of the cockpit and draw it down.

“Sweet.”

An instant later, her mechsuit whined to life.

“Wraith, give me some space!” Hardcase said, lumbering forward, her own gatling gun spinning up.

Perry turned away, assaulted by the deafening sound of hot lead and shattering killbots while he ran for his own suit.

I really do have to give Dad props for the HP system. It’s saved my life…what, three times already? Five?

It was very handy against sudden attacks that he had no method of avoiding. Today being a case in point.

Perry pulled the chestplate down over himself and launched into action.

Hardcase’s mechsuit was gridlocked at the entrance to the gym, unloading a seemingly endless hail of gunfire that trashed dozens of the killbots and forced even more backwards into the men’s showers.

Perry broke into a sprint and slid under the mechsuit, entering the gym, where Heather was waiting on the ceiling for the gunfire to stop.

Seeing Perry enter, Hardcase shut off the gatling, allowing Paradox and Wraith to charge forward into the stream of killbots, throwing them up like ocean spray as they ran.

“So, you tunneled into someone else’s lair! That’s kinda rude, don’t you think?!” Heather asked.

“They don’t exactly put them on the city blueprints!” Perry retorted, steel slugs bouncing off his armor as he smashed through the infestation.

Blades.EXE (5)

These killbots were just the right size and durability to take out with his more fuel-efficient finger-length blades.

The blades shot out and punctured machine after machine in a rapid staccato.

Paradox and Wraith left a trail of destruction behind them as they forced the killbots back to the hole in the wall.

“As you can see, they tunneled over to me,” Perry said, motioning to the pitch-black hole in the wall disgorging mechanical monsters.

“Can you seal that up?” Heather asked.

Perry’s first thought was to go back to the lab and engineer some kind of foaming glue, then he nearly smacked himself on the head.

I made a floating armament for exactly this sort of situation.

Blanket.EXE

A large blanket of connected metal panels manifested in front of him, and Perry shoved it up against the hole.

“I knew this would come in handy,” Perry said as he and Heather poked the creatures’ various limbs back underneath the blanket, settling it flush against the wall.

Ting! Ting! Ting! ZZZZ! The killbots’ attacks from the opposite side made the blanket ring, but it didn’t deform.

“How long is it gonna last?” Heather asked, panting as she took a cautious step back.

“I’ve actually had to take the paint off so it doesn’t get on my bed when I go to sleep recently, sooo…” Perry shrugged. Between refining his technique, and advancing his Attunement, the Floating Armament duration had grown by leaps and bounds.

“So we got some time,” Heather finished.

“Guys, come take a look at this!” Hardcase shouted from the gym’s entrance.

Perry and Heather glanced at each other, then headed for the gym, where Hardcase was leaning out of her open cockpit, waving at them.

As they approached, Hardcase leaned down and handed them her phone.

“I did an image search for killbots of that design, and I found this guy,” she said.

It was an article with a picture of a guy with a bald head, goggles, and big, high-tech bracers on his arms. He was riding a veritable wave of the scorpion killbots.

Underneath it described how he’d been killed in battle with a cowl.

“It says here Magneton has been…dead for three years,” Heather said, reading over Perry’s shoulder.

“Magneton, master of magnetism,” Perry read. “Explains why his robots shoot like that.”

“I was thinking the same thing!” Hardcase said. “I can’t wait to get some samples of those—”

“Guys!” Heather interrupted them. “You do realize this means all the loot in his lair is finders-keepers, right?”

Perry frowned for a moment. “Taking over another Tinker’s lair is extremely dangerous for everyone except maybe an AI Tinker, who can reprogram the entire base without setting foot in it.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Death traps,” Perry said with a shrug.

“Pff, Tinkers aren’t that bad. Who do you know who has death traps?” Heather said.

“What do you think the LCC is?” Perry asked, brow raised.

“My death traps almost cut off my dad’s head when he wandered into my lab,” Hardcase explained. “I forgot to add his biometrics, since he never came in before.”

Heather blinked, glancing between the two of them. “Are you guys serious?”

“Death traps have a long and noble history among Tinkers,” Perry said solemnly.

“We also don’t like people stealing our tech,” Hardcase said, to which Perry nodded enthusiastically.

“I don’t know if I’m ever gonna understand Tinkers,” Heather said, shaking her head.

“Okay, so my suit is largely non-ferrous, and this guy seemed to have a stick up his butt about using magnetism. I figure if I go in first, that’ll be the best way to sound the place for traps.”

“Is your suit EMP-immune?” Hardcase asked.

“I don’t…know,” Perry said. “It never came up. I imagine it’s resistant by default because of my powers, but it wasn’t designed to be shielded.” Perry pulled out his phone while Hardcase did her own research.

“As long as your external armor can’t feed a current into your circuits,” Hardcase said, “you should do pretty well.”

“I don’t think it can, but worst-case, I’ll pull myself back inside with the blades.”

“I thought you guys just said it was super dangerous,” Heather said.

“Yeah, but…” Perry and Hardcase glanced at each other. “As much as Tinkers hate getting their tech stolen…”

“We love stealing it from other Tinkers,” Hardcase finished.

“I mean, think of that loot,” Perry said. “I could finish my order for Locust just by stripping the lair down.”

“You’re making stuff for Locust?!” Hardcase gasped. “She’s a cowl!”

“And a legitimate businesswoman,” Perry said. “You remember that ‘coup’ we ‘stopped’?”

“Oh yeah, that was disappointing.” Hardcase deflated. “Well, dibs on the magnitech.”

“There’s gonna be plenty for everyone, you can’t have dibs… This is my lair!” Perry said.

Hardcase, seemingly channeling a bit of Heather’s attitude, stuck out her tongue.

“I really hate to be the responsible one, but how are you going to guarantee that one of those death traps doesn’t actually kill you? There’s no guarantee it’ll only be magnets, right?” Heather asked.

Perry opened his mouth, paused. “I’ve got an idea.”

It took Perry half an hour to rig up a magical remote control for his suit. It was essentially creating a floating armament that could interface with a controller he made.

Then Perry could follow cautiously behind, using his empty suit like a ten-foot pole in D&D.

Just to play it safe, Perry put the controller in one of the blank suits. He didn’t want to lose his magitech again.

About forty-five minutes later, Perry was standing in his armor beside a duplicate suit, ready to jump into the hole in the shower wall.

The bots on the other side seemed to have calmed down, and had deactivated their intruder-murdering programming.

“Ready?” Heather asked, her arm bulging and ready to shove killbots back into the hole.

Perry nodded.

“Go.”

Perry lifted the blanket and dove into the hole behind his trap-triggering suit.

Perry and his ten-foot pole landed nearly simultaneously and unleashed sudden death on the loitering killbots before they were able to reactivate.

Perry scanned his surroundings.

He was in a dim hallway, the only light coming from behind him.

The hall was filled with killbots whirring to life.

Something struck him as odd, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Perry unleashed Dregor’s Flaccidity on the assembled killbots while his empty suit pressed forward, smashing the softened killbots.

Did he have an automatic factory or just a ton of these little buttheads? Perry thought as they smashed through the opposition, with little to no resistance.

The death trap sprang hard and fast. As is tradition.

Boom!

HP: 0

Perry didn’t even perceive the two sides of the hallway smashing into each other.

One instant, he and his ten-foot pole were pushing into the hall, and the next, Perry was discombobulated, his empty suit was a pancake, his own suit was crumbling off of him, and there was a Perry-shaped divot in the right-hand wall.

Crap, crap, crap!

Perry immediately started backpedaling towards the hole in the wall as a series of lasers appeared at the end of the hall and began whipping forward at exponentially increasing speed.

Thinking fast, Perry called the blanket toward him through the hole and managed to wrap it around himself, tucked into the fetal position.

The metal blanket became griddle-hot as Perry used it to throw himself back through the hole.

Perry tumbled back into the shower room, his skin scalded, his hair smoking.

INTRUDER, INTRUDER!

Perry flung the blanket back up against the wall as the killbots reactivated.

Heather reached over to a shower above where Perry lay panting. She turned on the cold water, dousing his smoldering hair and burns.

“That’s what was off about the hall.” Perry snapped his fingers as ice-cold water soothed his skin.

“What’s that?” Heather asked.

“It didn’t have any rooms connected to it. Logically, if I connected to another person’s lair, it wouldn’t be a hallway; it would be one of the rooms sticking out from the hallway. That whole hall was a death trap.”

“Why would a cape have an entire hall dedicated to being a death trap?” Heather asked.

“I can think of two reasons,” Perry said as he climbed to his feet. “Either his lair can rearrange itself to repel intruders—super cool—or…”

“Or he was a giant dick,” Heather supplied.

“I think we should come back to this tomorrow,” Perry said. “My HP needs to come back.”

“How did it go, you guys?” Hardcase asked, peeking into the shower room.

Perry couldn’t help but chuckle at the shirt she was wearing that hung down to her knees.

^

Seating for Two
v

“Did you bring that shirt?” Perry asked.

“I thought it was yours?” Hardcase said, glancing down and reading the shirt for the first time, her eyes gradually widening in horror.

“I didn’t buy that one.” Perry shook his head. “I had Sophie stock the lockers, but…I definitely didn’t buy that one.”

“Sure, you didn’t. You know you’re naked again, right?” Heather asked, handing him a towel.

Chapter 51: Cognitohazard

The easiest way to pacify this lair would be to slag the entire thing. Which would inevitably lose us valuable tech and materials.

If we call in an AI Tinker to disarm the lair, they’re gonna want a cut of the tech, and I don’t wanna share.

“Something bothering you?” Mom asked as Perry stabbed his rice and broccoli with his fork.

“Found an abandoned lair the other day. We’re gonna loot it, but it’s a tough nut to crack.”

“Hmm…” Mom leaned back in her seat and tapped her chin. “You know, we used to mummify our ancestors and keep them in crypts. According to Gramma, we had a huge problem with people bypassing the traps by drilling straight to the tomb and looting the bodies. Eventually we started turning the bodies into ravenous undead so they could protect their own afterlife.”

“So you’re saying I should map the area remotely, then drill into the control room.” Perry frowned. “You’re also saying that our family did weird ancient pharaoh stuff.”

“Pffft.” Mom waved him off with a raspberry. “Our tombs were way better than the pharaohs’. When I was…five I think, Gramma took me to visit the Eternal Canyon.”

“Which is?”

“Imagine the Grand Canyon, but radiating necrotic essence because it leads to a slumbering death god at the bottom, and along the sides of the canyon, people have carved entire cities for the honored dead to rest in their afterlife.

“Gramma wants us to put her to rest there when she passes, but…” Mom’s jaw tightened.

“But?” Perry prodded.

“Going back to Manita is very difficult, expensive, and dangerous.”

She eyed him askance. “Although, I think when you’re older, maybe we can visit. You’re shaping up to be quite the tough little cookie.”

“Why can’t people live there anymore?”

“You know how you fought giant fire-breathing wasps a while ago?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Now keep in mind, everything on Manita had a little magic in it, even the bugs. So when The Tide arrived, that hint of magic suddenly went nuclear. Insects were now monsters, monsters were implacable demons, and gods…

“Well, nothing really changed about the gods.” Mom shrugged. “Anyway, the point is, it was like being besieged by prawns all year, every year. Except they could fly. And use magic.

“There was just no way to stay,” Mom said. “Powerful individuals like me, your father, and Solaris can visit briefly, but it’s a slog, and the last time we visited, the place had changed so much it was almost unrecognizable.

“The huge castle I remembered from when I was a little girl just…phew.” She blew a breath out and pantomimed dust scattering in the wind.

“I think I’d like to go, one day,” Perry said. “Maybe I can catch a glimpse of what you saw when you were younger.”

“Sure,” Mom said, leaning over and hugging him from the side. “Let’s visit someday.”

“Maybe when Gramma dies.”

“Oh, Perry,” Mom said, tweaking his nose. “Soul-sucking witches can’t die.”

Perry choked on his breakfast.

Perry cleaned up the mess and washed his dishes before going to his lair, his mind bouncing from subject to subject as he walked.

His origins, his lair, his experiments…

That question on the health questionnaire.

Maybe Perry was just being paranoid, but he didn’t even dare to look it up on his phone, lest he trigger a flag.

I mean, what if it’s not important, and it’s just the superhero equivalent of high blood pressure? Not immediately threatening, just in need of being managed.

Perry didn’t know why he wanted so badly to keep it a secret. It felt…important.

Crazy people think they’re sane.

Perry chuckled.

I’ll have to find a way to research it that isn’t traceable to me.

Perry greeted Brendon outside the motel, where the giant was carrying a bucket of tools in one hand and a twin-sized mattress over his other shoulder, following behind Sophie.

The two of them were doing a good job keeping the place going. Brendon wasn’t the brightest bulb, but he was earnest, and he didn’t disrespect other people’s property, which meant that while he was risk-prone, it was mostly risk to himself.

Perry walked out of the hot summer air and took a moment to enjoy the AC before heading down into his lair.

He was met by Hardcase, Heather, Jetset, and Manic.

“Where’s Titan?”

“He got a tip about a possible gang war out by the mutant slums, so he’s staking it out,” Jetset said with a shrug.

“And Warcry?”

“She got some kind of important interview this morning?” Manic said.

Dang. Manic was almost as much of a problem as he was a benefit, and Jetset…could fly.

I was really hoping for someone who could smash traps or cut through them. That would’ve made things simpler.

Ah well.

Perry didn’t let the disappointment show on his face.

“Alright, so after taking time to sleep on it, here’s my idea.”

Perry laid out his plan to map out the lair via drone, then drill straight to the control center from outside and shut down the defenses.

“Aw…” Manic deflated, his shoulders slumping in disappointment. “I wanted to be in danger.”

“There’s plenty of danger to go around,” Perry said. “Plus, you can run the drill.”

“Whooo!” Manic cheered up instantly.

“His reactions are fast, right?” Perry asked Jetset quietly.

“I mean, if he’s paying attention, sure. I think he needs Ritalin, but it’s undiagnosed because, you know, superpowers,” Jetset whispered back.

“Gotcha.” Perry nodded.

“Hardcase, you get to be our guardian angel,” Perry said, pointing at his computer. “We probably can’t fit your mechsuit in there, and I’m hesitant to get it destroyed right after it got an upgrade.”

“I guess I can sit this one out,” Hardcase said.

“Once the hole is open, Jetset and Manic are coming in with us. Manic, I want you to be in charge of evac if necessary.”

“I’m used to it,” Manic said, giving him a thumbs-up.

“Alright, now we just gotta get some stealth drones in the dead guy’s lair.”

Easier done than said. Perry already had a line of drones he’d been putting together to keep an eye on Chemestro, so there were plenty to spare.

Manic grabbed Perry’s glue gun, and Heather peeled back the metal sheet covering the crumbled entrance to Magneton’s lair.

Perry tossed a handful of the stealth drones in, and Manic glued it back down in the blink of an eye.

They went back to the lab, where Jetset was leaning over Hardcase’s shoulder, watching the video feed from the drones as they snuck deeper into the dead Tinker’s lair.

Perry let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when the drones passed the smasher without getting squished.

Maybe the defenses were only tuned for a specific size or only things with a heartbeat. Who knew?

In the upper right-hand side of the screen was an expanding map of the lair. Once they had explored it completely, they could use the map to figure out where they needed to dig from.

The lair was eerily similar to his dad’s in layout. That wasn’t unusual, because Tinkers had certain needs, but it still made Perry a bit apprehensive.

They passed through the lab, which was full of experiments and equipment that made Hardcase squirm with greed.

They went through the shop and the testing rooms, until they finally got to what appeared to be the control room.

It was a typical control room for a super that had a great sense of self-importance. It had unnecessary floor-to-ceiling monitors, a massive control panel, and a swivel chair to interact with all of it.

All of which would have been simple enough to handle on a desktop.

“I’m leaning towards this guy being a dick,” Heather said, watching from the opposite side of Hardcase.

“Uh-huh,” Perry grunted. Floor-to-ceiling lair monitors stopped being cool twenty years ago.

“Sooo…start drilling now?” Manic asked.

“There’s another door leading out of the control room,” Perry said, pointing. “Let’s see what it is.”

Hardcase nodded and tilted the swarm of stealth drones toward the next room.

They went down a short hall and emerged into what appeared to be the power room—at first.

There was a massive, bulky machine riddled with tubes and wrist-thick copper wires that Perry at first assumed to be a Tinker-tuned generator, but on second glance…he had no idea.

In the middle of the room was a gramophone with massive wires jutting out of the ground that gradually led up to the needle pressed into the vinyl record.

“The heck is that?” Heather asked.

“Some kind of analogue data storage?” Hardcase suggested.

Perry glanced at her, raising a brow.

“I read in a magazine that some Tinkers like to store sensitive information on analogue devices, eliminating the chance of a Technopath getting it.”

“Huh. Weird. You know a scan with enough detail could read the info off the grooves, right?” Perry asked.

“I didn’t say it was perfect,” Hardcase said. “I read it in a magazine!”

“There, there,” Perry said, patting her head. “I wasn’t trying to be mean. You’re a smart cookie.”

“O-okay.”

Jetset gave him a confused look.

Perry shrugged.

“Soo…drill now, yes?” Manic asked.

“Hardcase, can you put the map of his lair on an overlay of the city. That’ll tell us where we need to drill,” Perry said before addressing the rest of them. “In the meantime, let’s get the rest of you guys set up with a radio.”

“We’re all gonna be in the same spot,” Jetset said.

“It’s just a precaution so when Manic inevitably splits up the group, it doesn’t wind up becoming a horror movie,” Perry said.

“Hey!” Manic said, scowling before taking the earpiece out of Perry’s hand. “I’m taking this earpiece as implied consent to wander off on my own as soon as we get in there.”

“If you want,” Perry said, pointing at his pancaked suit of armor leaning against the far wall.

“Or maybe I’ll just stay with the group.”

“Thanks, man,” Jetset said, patting Manic on the shoulder.

“Safety first!” Manic said. “Mmm, smoked salmon.” He opened up a package of smoked salmon, which while delicious, was insanely expensive at a hundred dollars an ounce.

“Why, man?! You’re eating all the money you got from the Locust job!” Jetset asked.

“You try eating nothing but Speedster bars! I was literally going to die from boredom!”

“That is not the proper usage of ‘literally,’” Jetset said, shaking his head as Perry handed out the last of the earpieces.

“Here’s the control center,” Hardcase said, waving them over. She pointed at a glowing dot on the overland map.

“Huh. This should be interesting,” Perry said.

A few minutes later, they were in the lobby of the next-door laundromat, in full super-kit.

“Greeting, citizens,” Perry said, feeling like an imbecile. “There is a situation underneath the laundromat. If you would please exit slowly and calmly through the main entrance, we’ll take care of the issue. Please walk slowly, there’s no immediate danger. Thank you.”

About a quarter of the people, the smarter ones, bolted for the door immediately. Half of them walked for the door, as they’d been asked, while the last quarter was composed of stubborn old ladies who would rather risk death than leave their laundry. Perry shrugged.

Manic was practically vibrating with his desire to drill, when he got the go-ahead.

The Speedster put the modified KitchenAid to the ground, knelt on top of it, and started drilling.

The tiled floor of the laundromat came up first, kicked into the air, followed by the concrete underneath it, creating a mound of grey rubble around the hole.

Gonna need a cleanup crew, Perry thought, wincing. His lawyer was probably going to be angry at him, but obviously a Tinker lair had a lot more value than a laundromat. It was just a hassle.

BOOM!

A concussive blast rocked Perry back on his heels and knocked the old ladies on their butts. Shrapnel shot up through the tunnel and peppered the ceiling of the building.

“Oh my god, Manic!” Jetset shouted, recovering and crawling over to peer inside the hole. “Are you okay?!”

“Shit, did he get pasted?” Heather asked, looking into the tunnel.

“I don’t see him,” Manic said, peering into the hole from over Jetset’s shoulder. “He could be in trouble.”

Jetset punched Manic in the shoulder.

“The guy had mines in his walls, apparently,” Manic said, looking at Perry.

“He’s solidly in the ‘dick’ category,” Heather said, nodding.

“Sorry I broke your drill,” Manic said.

“You think my drill can’t handle conventional explosives?” Perry scoffed. “Get back to work.”

“Whoo!” Manic dove back into the hole.

“Should we…check on the old ladies?” Jetset said, glancing over to where the white-haired spinsters were getting back to their feet, glaring at the troublemakers.

Perry was tempted to respond with ‘they knew what they were getting into,’ but he choked it back. “Yeah, let’s try to avoid a lawsuit.”

“Not ‘make sure the old ladies are okay’?” Heather asked, smirking at Perry.

“Tomato, tomahto,” Perry said, waving it off, pausing as an idea occurred to him.

Perry snapped his fingers. “A room with bouncing rubberized metal ball bearings that shred anything that enters.”

“Simple, but elegant. I like it,” Hardcase said through his earpiece.

Conventional explosives. What a dim bulb.

“I’m through!” Manic’s voice emanated from the tunnel.

“Alright, lemme through. I’m the least likely to get instantly pasted,” Perry said, trading places with Manic and jumping into the hole.

Perry held his breath, scanning the dimly lit control room, waiting for the next death trap to hit.

…Nothing.

The main console lit up, glowing bright enough to illuminate the empty room as the central monitor flickered to life, offering a password prompt.

Not unexpected, Perry thought, glancing around. They might have to brute-force the password, but that could come later. Worst-case scenario, they could tear the console out entirely, then try to build something new to operate the death traps.

Depending on if they’re centralized or not.

Given how paranoid this guy seemed to be, Perry wasn’t particularly hopeful.

It didn’t seem like there were traps in the control room, which made sense. No Tinker wanted to get pasted walking groggily to their control center in the morning with a cup of coffee, or because they missed a keystroke due to gummy eyes.

So this was the safe zone they could stage the rest of their explorations from.

“Alright, it looks safe. Come on down in order of squishiness,” Perry said.

Heather leapt down, followed by Manic and Jetset.

“Alright, Hardcase, where should we go first?” Perry said, glancing at the tiny swarm of drones watching them.

“As bad as I wanna get my hands on the lab, let’s make sure the northwest room with the big machine is safe to leave at your backs before we push further south.” The drones wobbled in time with her speech. Perry wasn’t sure if she was unconsciously emoting with them, but it was amusing either way.

“Paradox, Manic, and Jetset search the room. Wraith, stay in the control room and be ready to smash anything that acts up,” Hardcase said.

They nodded and made it so, while Hardcase watched over them from above.

Upon entering the room, Perry paused for a moment, waiting for something to smash him, or douse him in acid, or laze him.

…Nothing.

This room, like the control room, must have been too valuable or too difficult to trap.

Probably, Perry thought as he took another step in. Still nothing.

Perry relaxed a bit, allowing himself to breathe, but stayed sharp as he entered the room, Jetset and Manic shortly behind him.

Perry was scanning the walls for tiny seams, or evidence of more lasers, when Jetset tapped on his shoulder.

“Hey man, check that out.”

Perry glanced over and looked at the massive machine that dominated the west wall. It took him a moment to understand what he was looking at. The drones had missed it because their field of view was so different from that of a human.

One of the protrusions sticking off the side of the machine wasn’t another coolant tube or massive wire, or bulging valve.

It was the back of a humanoid form that had fused with the massive machine, seemingly embracing it. There was no flesh, only steel in a humanoid pattern.

“Well, that’s creepy.”

“What’s this button do?!” Manic said, pressing the button on the side of the gramophone.

Boopbeepboopbeepboopbeepboopboop. Boopbeepbeep…

“Are you freaking kidding me?!” Perry demanded as the sounds continued to echo through the room from the gramophone. “Shut that off! There’s literally a man fused to the dang wall! The heck you think caused it?!”

“Gotcha…” Manic said, pressing the button again.

It didn’t shut off.

It made the door slam shut behind them.

“Well, looks like you found another trap,” Perry said. “Thanks, Manic.”

“No problem, dude,” Manic said, giving him a thumbs-up.

Perry moved over and tried to smash the gramophone, but an invisible force propelled him backwards, slamming him into the wall.

“Well, at least you two will be fine,” Perry said grimly.

“How’s that?” Jetset demanded as he tugged on the handle of the door.

“It’s in binary,” Perry said, his System-sharpened mind easily decoding the series of beeps and boops even though he didn’t want to.

01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 01101101 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01100100 01100101 00101100 00100000 01101000 01101001 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110101 01101110 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110010 01100001 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01100100 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01110010 01110110 01100101 01111001 01110011 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100101 01110100 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100111 01110010 01100001 01110110 01101001 01110100 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100110 01101100 01110101 01100011 01110100 01110101 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100100 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100101 01111000 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 01110010 01101001 01101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100011 01101100 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000…

***

“Perry!” Heather’s voice cut through his fugue.

“Eh?” Perry asked, shaking off grogginess.

“Are you good?” Heather asked, looking up at him with shimmering eyes.

Perry scanned the surroundings, finding that he was back in his lair. His nose felt wet. He tried to touch it, but slammed into his helmet.

He opened the suit and staggered out, dizzier than he expected.

“Oh shit, your nose,” Heather said, handing him a towel.

Perry held the towel to his nose and glanced at Manic, who was watching over Hardcase. The tiny Tinker’s nose was filled with bloody tissue paper, eyes bloodshot and wandering aimlessly around the ceiling of the room as she reclined on a bench.

“You’re off the mission,” Perry said.

“That’s fair,” Manic said, his shoulders slumped.

Why am I so hungry? Perry wondered.

Chapter 52: The World Is Spookier than You Think

The sensation of the void outside my senses reached a peak when I opened the door, once again revealing the glowing cosmic dust of infinity beyond the doorway, where there should have been a simple bathroom.

I could feel something out there, an almost magnetic attraction that drew me to take a step forward into the emptiness.

The void supported me, and I found myself standing in an ocean of nothing, staring up at…nothing. There was nothing there, but the emptiness drew my attention all the same, radiating strange concepts that I could feel reorienting my perception of reality in real time.

A gurgling noise to my right caught my attention, and when I turned my head, I saw innumerable doorways, with innumerable people standing in them, staring at the same spot that I had been.

Some of the doorways didn’t even have people—containing strange inhuman creatures, although most of them were human.

Curious, I turned my head to the left, studying the doors that receded into infinity. There were no humans there. Only alien creatures of various shapes and sizes.

A thought occurred to me.

Did my placement in the chain of doors indicate that I was the first human to experience this phenomena…or the last?

—Excerpt from the Notes of Professor John Stevens

***Three Years Ago***

“Magneton,” Solaris said in the calmest voice he could muster, “I need you to step away from the magnetic infuser.”

“I can feel it just outside of my vision, Solaris. There’s nothing outside this room but it. Behind every door,” Magneton said, shivering in delight, his eyes, ears, and nose bleeding profusely. “It’s too big for us to interact with as we are now. It’s on another plane of existence, the human to our ants. You think it’s distant, when distance has no meaning to it. The gravitation isn’t its body, but its attention.”

“O…kay,” Solaris said, wincing as his head began to throb. “Magneton, your wife is afraid you’re gonna hurt yourself. You remember your wife?” Solaris hoped the strong bonds could pull Magneton out of the spiral he seemed to be in.

“In order to communicate with it, we have to become higher dimensional beings ourselves,” Magneton said. “That’s what the magnetic infuser will do. I’ll become an entity that surpasses human understanding, composed entirely of thought and living, self-replicating magnetic waves. I’ll leave this reality behind and commune with The Tide in person.”

“Jerry,” Solaris said slowly. “You have to come back to your wife. What you’re doing is going to hurt her.”

Magneton paused and glanced back at Solaris, looking him in the eye for the first time since Solaris had arrived to check on him at the behest of his wife.

Magneton had always been a petty, jealous cape, obsessed with honing his modest Tinker abilities, and furious at anyone who surpassed him. Solaris should have guessed he’d try to find a way to expand his powers.

His gaze, now, held none of Jerry’s spiteful joie de vivre. It was almost sad.

“I’ll miss her.”

Magneton turned around and walked towards the ominously humming machine, his arms spread wide to fit into the depression that matched his form perfectly.

“NO!” Solaris unleashed a beam of scouring light. He couldn’t allow Magneton to do…whatever the hell he was doing.

When the light faded, all that was left of Magneton was a human-shaped lump in the machine, rendered into solid metal fused with the machine itself.

Did I…miss?

Magneton should’ve been turned to ash, not iron.

Solaris called an all-hands-on-deck emergency and waited a few days for the other shoe to drop. But nothing came of it. Eventually, Solaris just chalked it up to a Tinker hopped up on Tide-madness that did the math but forgot to carry the one, turning himself to iron instead of a being of pure magnetic waves.

Or maybe he succeeded, and that’s all that’s left of his former body.

Either way, the status quo had been maintained.

***Paradox***

“So from a picture of Magneton walking out of a bank after stopping a robbery, we’ve got a fairly accurate estimate of the man’s height and dimensions,” Hardcase said, studying the humanoid lump in the massive contraption.

“That’s him, isn’t it?”

“All the proportions are identical, is all I’m saying,” she said with a shrug.

Perry pursed his lips and glanced between the disabled gramophone and the dead guy in the big engine. “Why did his wiki say he was killed in battle, when he obviously went insane and tried to…I don’t know, romance a machine of dubious origin?” Perry wondered to himself.

“Propaganda, probably,” Heather said with a shrug. “If he’s dead, he’s dead. The higher-ups didn’t need to freak the public out with the real story of how it went down.”

“Man, Tinkers are a crazy bunch,” Jetset said. “I mean, why make a trap that only targets people fluent in binary?”

“It wasn’t a trap,” Perry and Hardcase said simultaneously.

“If it walks like a duck,” Jetset said, shrugging.

“I managed to get into the main console,” Hardcase said. “There’s a file folder with hundreds of image files in it, labeled ‘Professor John Stevens.’ I, of course, did not look at them.”

“Who’zat?” Jetset asked.

“Professor Replica!” all three of them said, glaring at the ignorant buffoon.

“Anyway, my best guess is Magneton was experimenting with encoding Professor Replica’s notes in multiple layers of obfuscation,” Hardcase said.

“Oh! So he was thinking if the information was slower to digest and took more of the brain to do it, it would be more diffused and less likely to cause…” Perry gestured at the lump. “That.”

“So what did the gramophone say?” Jetset asked.

“Don’t remember,” Perry said, shaking his head.

“Me neither,” Hardcase added. “Also, dumb question.”

“Manic’s gone and I gotta be the dumb one now,” Jetset said with a shrug.

“Anyway, it can be assumed the information is astronomy-related and can cause serious damage to the casual observer,” Hardcase said.

“Yeah, but why would he do this?” Wraith asked.

The tiny Tinker shrugged. “I’unno. Maybe he was trying to invent a technique to make astronomy safer?”

“Nah, that doesn’t sit right. The way this guy’s lair is put together feels mean and selfish,” Perry said, as a thought occurred to him. “Maybe he was trying to find a way to become a more powerful Tinker.”

Hardcase raised a brow.

“Think about it. Professor Replica was the most powerful Tinker ever. He’s the benchmark against whom other Tinkers are measured. I think Magneton thought maybe he could use the notes to recreate some of that power.”

“Well, he obviously fumbled it,” Heather said.

“Truth,” Perry said.

They stood around, solemnly studying the corpse embedded in the huge, mysterious machine for a while longer.

“Who else wants to tear this lair apart for goodies?” Perry said, raising his hand.

“Ooh, me, me!” Hardcase said, hopping in place and barely reaching his collarbone.

The rest of the process of tearing the lair down went smoothly. After they were sure all the traps had been disabled and the entire area defanged, they allowed the much-subdued Manic to explore at his leisure.

First they hauled out all the portable tech, saved anything that looked interesting, and put the rest on the Tinker Marketplace as a Lair Estate Sale, Caveat Emptor.

The Caveat Emptor was important because they had no idea if some of the tech was trapped or not. Sure, it drove the price down, but it was still a massive haul, and they each pocketed a cool half-mil once bidding died down.

Perry stripped the walls, ceiling, and floor down to the concrete, running detectors over every square inch to make sure he didn’t miss anything, then refinished the lair in more inexpensive materials, minus the land mines.

He used the LCC to separate the lair into its constituent rooms, floating dozens of feet apart from each other high in the air as they shuffled, making bystanders stop and gawk for the handful of minutes it needed to do the work. He cut out the gym and shower rooms, and switched their placement so that they jutted off to the side and his lab led directly into the new space, effectively tripling the size of his new lair.

Perry got a letter forwarded to him from his lawyer for damages to the laundromat totaling about two hundred thousand dollars, which stung a bit, but he still made out like a bandit.

Not only from the sale of Magneton’s gear, but also the raw materials he’d scraped up off the walls, and the mind-bogglingly strong magnetic gizmos they’d retained to study.

Perry got some interesting ideas from the gear, but he kind of hit a wall when Magneton’s tech delved beyond what was naturally possible.

Hardcase, on the other hand, seemed to be taking to it like a fish to water. Three days later, she excitedly showed him a prototype robot arm connected and powered by solid magnetism.

Pretty sure it doesn’t work like that, but okay.

The model arm was composed of the primary anchor, the elbow, and the hand, each separated by several inches of air. From what he understood, Hardcase had deciphered how Magneton had warped reality with his Tinker abilities to create laser-focused magnetic fields that only manifested in specific places, their field turned inward, rather than outward.

Little floating whirlpools of magnetic energy. Impossible in any other situation.

“Can you imagine how much weight I could drop if I got rid of the supporting structures in the arms and legs?” Hardcase said, coming over to where Perry was working on his magical computer experiments.

“A thousand pounds?” Perry said.

“Maybe! And the way the anchors work, they’ll transfer nearly a hundred percent of the energy of a punch or kick. Joints are no longer the weak point in transferring kinetic force.”

“So you’re gonna weigh less and punch harder?” Perry asked.

“Heck yeah!” Hardcase said, doing a little dance.

“What’s the energy consumption like?” Perry asked, concerned about how much energy it might take to float her limbs.

“It’s LESS!” Hardcase squealed with joy and tapped his chest while she spoke.

“They actually use less power than typical motors and it takes almost none to maintain their position!” she said as she stepped away. “My newest mechsuit is gonna kick some serious butt!”

“Awesome!” Perry gave her a thumbs-up as she moonwalked through the lab.

RIIING! The tiny girl’s pants started ringing, prompting her to fish out her phone.

“Yeah?” Hardcase answered her cell phone. “Alright, I can be there in half an hour.” She hung up and turned back to Perry. “Titan says there’s gonna be a turf war tonight. We’re gonna do damage control.”

“Good luck. Stay safe,” Perry said, nodding. If Paradox and Wraith weren’t explicitly requested to come, it would be very rude to show up anyway.

They weren’t on the same team, after all.

Hardcase waved goodbye and started trotting up the stairs, heading to where her mechsuit was parked out back of the motel.

Perry shrugged and turned back to his project.

He had taken Areonite, divvied it up, and mixed it with several dozen kinds of contaminants to modify its conductivity, and extruded each of them into a wire. He was now attempting to make a tiny circuit board that could do some simple calculations. If he could make that happen, then he could turn it into a floating armament and maybe create a magical computer connected to his mind.

Which would be awesome and a great starting point towards making completely magically controlled armor.

Once he found a combination that worked, he could streamline the process with CAD and 3D printing.

Perry flipped the magnifying goggles back down and picked up where he’d left off with the soldering tool.

***Natalie, AKA Hardcase***

Natalie slumped on the staircase, leaning against the wall, her heart pounding in her chest.

I can’t believe I touched him!

Something was off with her recently. There was this turbulent sensation in her body that bubbled to the surface and forced her to act.

Sometimes, she felt like she was going to trip and fall off the side of the earth if she didn’t steady herself on someone. This was solved by resting her fingertips on them for a moment, but this presented difficulties, obviously.

Natalie didn’t want to lose the respect of Wraith and Paradox, but she kept touching them, and sometimes it felt like the words bubbling up from inside weren’t under her control.

She was finding it difficult to keep quiet when that was the appropriate thing to do. It just bubbled up from inside and she had to say something.

Is this love…or am I losing my mind?

There it is again, Natalie thought as she climbed the stairs. The bubbling sensation filled her lungs and threatened to drive her crazy if she didn’t say something.

She gripped the door for support as she exited Paradox’s lair.

“They’re out of my league,” she sighed, letting the bubbling sensation out in a cathartic moment that felt like stretching out a cramp.

“I don’t really think that’s the case. You’re at least as cool as Perry and Heather,” Brendon said, giving her a thumbs-up from the reception desk where he and Sophie were going over the list of jobs for the day.

Oh god. My life is over.

“I’m not a slut!” Natalie blurted.

Brendon frowned, cocking a brow. “I…don’t think you are?”

“Brendon, would you mind taking care of the pool?” Sophie asked, eyeballing Natalie as she hyperventilated.

“Sure, ma’am.” The oversized teen cheerfully grabbed the bucket of cleaning supplies and pool net, heading out with a bounce in his step.

“Now,” Sophie said once Brendon was gone. “You wanna tell me where all…this is coming from?”

Natalie shook her head vigorously.

“Okay.” Sophie pulled out a business card and tucked it in Natalie’s pocket. “My cell phone number’s on the bottom if you want to talk. I’ve got thousands of years of experience in counseling.”

“Aren’t you an angel?” Natalie asked, steadying herself against Sophie. “Where did you get a cell phone?”

“The same place as everyone else?” Sophie said with a hint of a smile.

“Oh,” Natalie said, her heartbeat gradually calming down as she realized that Brendon didn’t understand, and Sophie would never use it against her.

“I…I gotta go do the crime-fighting thing,” she said, heading for the parking lot.

“Good luck, stay safe!” Sophie waved, her business card burning against Natalie’s thigh through her pocket.

Chapter 53: From Bad to Worse

Twelve Forty-two stood in front of a glass pane. On the other side was a man, stranger than any other man he’d seen. He didn’t have the clean look of one of the people from his books; instead, his face was wrinkled and weathered, his clothes dirty, and he shook violently.

What is wrong with him?

“Twelve Forty-two,” Father said as he entered the room, causing Twelve Forty-two to come to attention, facing him.

“I’ve seen from your test results that you are exceptionally gifted.”

“Sir.”

“I’ve been brainstorming uses for your power, and now we are going to practice one of them.”

“Am I going to help him?” Twelve Forty-two asked.

Father’s electric halo stilled. “Why do you ask that?” he asked.

“He seems to be in some kind of physical distress. I understand that capes are meant to…help people?” Twelve Forty-two hazarded, his voice trailing off as Father continued to stare.

“Ah, a childish misconception,” Father said. “Capes are meant to appear to help people. Sometimes that means actually providing aid to civilians for publicity, but in this case, you will be using the Test Dummy to practice your powers.”

“But...he doesn’t look so good.”

“Do NOT contradict me!” Father said, arcs of electricity emerging from the floor and dragging Twelve Forty-two screaming to the ground.

“You will do as I say, and you will do it without question, understood?” Father said.

Twelve Forty-two tried to reply, but the pain radiating through his body was forcing his jaw shut.

“Is that understood?!”

Twelve Forty-two put everything he had into opening his mouth. “…Sir!”

“…Good.” The electricity disappeared like it had never been, and Twelve Forty-two climbed back to his feet, his entire body shaky.

“Now, I want you to reach out with your power and gently nudge the salt in that man’s body. Allow it to pass through his cell walls and into his bloodstream.”

“Will that…help him?”

“If you do it right, it will render him unconscious without lingering side effects,” Father said.

“Okay.”

Twelve Forty-two reached out with his power and nudged the old man. The old man’s eyes widened as a fine dust of salt fell out of his body. He slumped over and lay still.

“Oh, Twelve Forty-two, the reason I admire your power is the same reason you must practice harder: It’s far easier to kill with it than it is to disable.”

“…What?” Is he dead? Just like that? Twelve Forty-two’s hair stood on end.

“Let’s bring in the next Dummy.”

The door opened and another dirty man was forced into the room by robotic arms. He knelt down and began shaking the first Dummy, his eyes wide with terror.

He began shouting something, but Twelve Forty-two couldn’t hear anything through the glass.

“I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I, Twelve Forty-two. Neither do I,” Father said. “It’s a terrific waste of my valuable time.

“Now, tip the next Dummy’s salt balance. And be sure to limit your powers to inside their body. The last one, you allowed all the salt in his body to fall out, causing cardiac arrest.”

***Chemestro***

Twelve Forty-two—no, Chemestro—woke up, made sure he was still in his house, mentally checked his status to make sure he wasn’t under control of a Minder, then flexed his fingers and toes to confirm he wasn’t drugged or restrained.

Everything looks good. He drew aside the musty, quilted blanket that had come with the house, folded it, and straightened the sheets before placing the folded quilt on top.

He worked out and ate his bland breakfast mechanically, studying today’s mission as he did so.

Today’s mission was to act as a ringer for Locust’s property dispute with Monolith.

He would appear under guise of being a cape there to break up the fight, arresting a disproportionate amount of the opposing supers, handing the green-skinned mutant woman a win by default.

He reviewed Monolith’s people. None of them posed a problem in particular, although he was known to hire Mass Driver now and then as extra muscle.

That could be problematic.

Mass Driver was Sweeper-level, and Chemestro was uncertain his powers would work on the man. It was theorized that Mass Driver had total control over the inertia of everything he touched. Including himself.

Which meant Chemestro might not be able to tip his salt balance and render him unconscious if Mass Driver decided he wanted everything to stay where it belonged.

Scooping out another spoonful of avocado, Chemestro flipped open his notebook of simple toxins he could fabricate out of thin air, refreshing himself. If he couldn’t brute-force Mass Driver, he’d have to slowly poison him.

Later that day, Chemestro watched from a distance as the two sides marshaled their troops.

Monolith was a tall, obsidian-skinned Bruiser who seemed to be carved from shiny black stone. He also had energy-type powers, albeit minor in both power and range.

Locust was a green-skinned older woman with a disciplined look. Jacket and jeans, thin athletic body.

Her troops…

Chemestro scowled. Her troops were wearing Paradox’s armor—no less than eighty suits of power armor, making her unpowered subordinates many times more effective than they might’ve otherwise been.

I’m surprised his suits are working without him, especially during High Tide.

As irritating as it was to see eighty Paradoxes on the field of battle, Chemestro had to respect the old woman’s overkill.

Or maybe it isn’t overkill, he thought as he spotted Mass Driver descend from the sky and join the battle lines.

Mass Driver’s bounty was five million dollars.

Chemestro chewed his lip as the fighting began, with both sides charging towards each other, unleashing their powers in a battle that devolved into a chaotic melee.

The wording of his task for Locust meant he could snatch up a few of the minor players and still have technically done his job, but it wouldn’t be honoring the spirit of the bargain.

It would be better to be known as someone who can deliver than the alternative.

Before he could start the process of surreptitiously poisoning Mass Driver, Paradox’s…‘friends’ arrived, and Mass Driver began acting strange.

***Natalie, AKA Hardcase***

“Why does he keep going for Jetset?!” Hardcase demanded, watching the wounded Jetset struggle to keep himself out of the cowl’s grip.

“I don’t know! Jetset, pull him through the alley!” Titan said, bursting through a house and tackling the pursuing Mass Driver as he darted through the alley.

Titan tumbled away as Mass Driver ignored the tackle, brushing him off with contemptuous ease.

“Stop running, kid,” Mass Driver said.

“Um, no thanks. I’d rather not get turned inside out!” Jetset yelled over his shoulder as he flew away.

Hardcase’s eyes widened as Mass Driver simply tripled his speed without any visible effort, catching Jetset by the throat and punching him in the stomach.

Jetset’s eyes bulged.

“Get away from him, you psycho!” Warcry shouted, unleashing a series of purple energy arrows on Mass Driver.

They bounced off.

The veteran cowl glanced down dispassionately at Warcry. “No.”

Mass Driver extended a finger, ignoring Jetset scratching at his arm like a caged animal.

“AGH!” Jetset’s upper arm snapped as Mass Driver poked it.

Mass Driver let go of Jetset, kicking him away. Jetset barely caught himself before he hit the ground.

Hardcase started running, as she saw Mass Driver aiming to smash Jetset into the ground.

She tried tackling Mass Driver out of the way, but instead her mechsuit came to an unnatural halt, denting the cockpit and shaking up Hardcase inside it, nearly giving her whiplash.

Jetset rolled out of the way as Mass Driver’s foot speared through the asphalt where he’d been lying.

“Is that it?” Mass Driver asked, idly shoving Hardcase aside.

Hardcase desperately engaged her rear thrusters moments before she slammed into the nearby wall of the scrapyard.

This time, I’m pretty sure I did get whiplash, she thought, groaning.

Around her, the battle raged on, their team having next to no effect on it, given that Mass Driver was handling all of them simultaneously.

There was a flash of light in the distance, and Hardcase felt herself floating up against the belts strapping her into her seat.

Paradox? she thought, looking at the source of the light.

Two sleek power armors were posing at the epicenter of the light.

“Halt, villains! The Dynamic Duo will—oh crap, I looked at it! I looked at it, Tom!” One of the posing suits began clawing at the air as he began floating upward, his teammate grabbing his hand to keep him attached to the ground.

“You told me Nexus wouldn’t interfere!” Monolith said, blocking lasers aimed for his eyes with his wrists.

“Do they look like Nexus to you?” Mass Driver asked, his voice unnaturally clear above the mayhem.

I think I know who found Paradox’s suit, Hardcase thought, tugging herself out of the metal surface.

“Stop playing around with those kids and help!” Monolith shouted.

“I’ve got higher obligations,” Mass Driver said before darting after Jetset again.

“Dude, what is your problem?!” Warcry demanded, standing in front of Jetset and unleashing a massive sheet of purple energy at the approaching cowl.

Mass Driver sheared through it like a speedboat through a lake, punching Warcry in the sternum.

Warcry’s eyes went wide, and she keeled over.

Titan leapt on Mass Driver’s back, dwarfing the cowl as he wrapped his massive arm around the man’s throat.

Titan’s arm blasted away from Mass Driver’s throat, eliciting a cry of pain from the massive Bruiser.

“Get lost.”

Titan was catapulted up into the sky, turning into a faint dot that Hardcase rapidly lost track of.

I think we need to change tactics.

“Jetset!” Hardcase said, getting the green-clothed super’s attention. “You need to leave!”

“I gotcha, man!” Manic said, picking up Jetset and disappearing in a blur of motion.

Mass Driver watched the spot where Jetset had vanished for a moment. Then he shrugged, ignoring Warcry and Hardcase only a few feet away from him, to rejoin the brawl.

“What the HELL was that?!” Warcry demanded, her voice hoarse.

“I don’t know! Maybe Jetset is dating his daughter?!” Hardcase said.

“Haha, ow,” Warcry groaned, clutching her chest.

They watched Mass Driver dive into the battle and disable Paradox’s suits on the other side in rapid succession.

About thirty seconds into Mass Driver’s rampage, the cowl wobbled in place and collapsed onto the ground.

Above him, Chemestro faded into visibility, stooping to throw the impossibly powerful cowl over his shoulder with casual ease.

“He can turn invisible?!” Warcry demanded. “HAX!”

Chemestro glanced at them, his eyes narrowed for a moment before he spoke. “This battle is over! I’m taking you all into custody! Do not resist, or I will be forced to subdue you.”

“If you think you can stop me, you got another thing co—” Monolith’s eyes rolled back in his head as he passed out.

Locust’s side seemed to subtly withdraw, and Chemestro didn’t seem to care.

Odd… Hardcase thought.

“Yo, bro, don’t horn in on our action!” one of the Dynamic Duo said—Natalie couldn’t be bothered to memorize which was which—pulling a bazooka off of his back and leveling it at Chemestro. “We got here first! Plus, I didn’t even get to test out this doohickey!”

Chemestro waved dismissively and the rocket fell out of the bottom of the rocket launcher.

Except it wasn’t a rocket.

It was a canister.

The canister split open explosively, revealing five spikes connected by a chain. On top of each of the spikes was a magnesium flare. They buried themselves in the ground, their tops sending up smoke. In the center was a plastic egg.

Whaaaat is thaaat?! Hardcase thought as her skin broke out in goose pimples.

The air split open above the strange pentagon. The air became membranous as a massive red and yellow arm with razor-sharp talons split its way through, accompanied by the scent of rot and decay.

“I want everyone here to know that I did not pull the trigger,” the one with the rocket launcher said.

The creature pulled its head through the membrane, a strangely emaciated skull riddled with splotches of unhealthy-looking, mottled skin. Its glowing yellow eyes rolled in its skull as it surveyed the scrapyard.

“OOOOOOAAAAAH!” It let out a roar that drove Hardcase backwards, rusting the metal of the scrapyard in a blooming circle around it.

“What is that? What is THAT?!” Warcry demanded.

“Where is my Contractor?” The words stung to listen to, coating Hardcase’s cockpit with a layer of rust. “Where is Paradox?!”

Chapter 54: You Can’t Accidentally Summon a Demon, Paradox

“Muahahahah!” Perry laughed maniacally as the diode on top of the Areonite circuit board lit up.

“You made a light. Grats,” Heather said, standing over his shoulder.

“I made a circuit board utilizing magical materials!” Perry said. “Be impressed! This is the first step towards magically integrated computing power!”

“Meh.” Heather shrugged.

“Ooh, just imagine if I could bypass the restriction on essence formation and have the magical computer milk the essences out of me on a case-by-case basis! That would make a huge dent in my consumables!”

“I really don’t wanna think about things getting milked out of you,” Heather said with a wince.

Perry ignored her. “If I could then find a way to store, mix, and project them properly…” He rubbed his hands together greedily. “No one would be able to tell I’m a cripple!”

“I don’t think you meet the definition of ‘cripple,’” Heather said.

Perry shrugged. “For the Zauberer family, I kind of do.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway, I’ve been looking for a substitute for Mindtaker ichor that can anchor to a concept, like my soul or personal identity, rather than my skin. That would make it a lot harder for Chemestro to disable my spells.

“That would be my first original spell,” Perry said, thoughtfully. “Paradox’s Inimitable Armaments.

“Once I have that,” Perry continued, “and magical computing, his ass is grass.”

“Couldn’t he still just paste you if he decided he didn’t like losing?” Heather asked.

“Well, yes,” Perry admitted. “But I’m working on it!”

He glanced over at his newest creation, which was a simple frame suspended inside a clear tank that would grow graphene and fiber-optic latticework overtop. He’d controlled where the material would grow by using hydrophobic spray paint and masking tape.

Just because the Dynamic Duo was dumb didn’t mean all their gear sucked, and Perry would happily steal their ideas. Especially if that meant an increased resistance to getting disintegrated by Chemestro.

And carbon was cheap! Fiber optics were a little more expensive, but it wasn’t too bad. It should be far more flexible, absorb damage, self-heal a bit, resist laser fire AND Chemestro’s powers.

Cost of suit: ~$15,000

Still cheap for power armor, but the most staggering increase in cost Perry had experienced thus far.

It wasn’t done yet, though, so for the time being, Perry had to stick with the mass-produced Mk. 3s he was making for Locust.

“I should lean heavier on the self-healing next time. I’ve been doing some research.”

“Howzat?”

“The reason a broken piece of metal doesn’t fuse back together the instant it makes contact with itself, is because a microscopic layer of oxide forms on the broken surface, preventing the atoms from bonding again.”

“So if you had metal that was…completely immune to corrosion, it would self-heal?”

“Maybe?” Perry said with a shrug. It was worth a shot. If he could take an alloy that was already highly resistant to corrosion and boost that with his ability, it might make a self-healing material by default.

“As it stands, that material,” Perry said, pointing at the vat with the frame suspended in it, “only ‘self-heals’ because its atomic structure is almost like Velcro, which I find to be a cop-out.”

RIIING! Perry’s cell phone went off, prompting him to tug it out of his pocket and glance at the caller ID. It had Titan on the pic, benching eight thousand pounds.

Could be important.

“What’s up?” Perry said, leaning away from his workbench and cracking his neck.

WHOOOOOSH!

“What was that?” Perry said, holding the speaker away from his ear with a wince.

“… Is that better?!” Titan shouted over the rush of wind.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Well, things kinda went sideways at the bust today! I was hoping you could suit up and check in on the team! Mass Driver was beating us up pretty bad! I’m not gonna land for another couple minutes and it’s looking like it’s gonna be outside the wall, so getting back anytime soon is gonna be a pain in the ass! Could you go in there and pull ‘em out?”

“Sure,” Perry said, standing.

“Thanks!” Titan shouted over the wind. “Later!”

“What’s up?” Heather asked as Perry tucked his phone away.

“Titan’s free-falling in the upper atmosphere, and he wanted us to help extract his team. Mass Driver might be there.”

“I have been wanting to beat on him with Anya again,” Heather said, hefting her supernatural beat-stick.

“It’s weird that you named your club,” Perry said as he headed for his armor.

“That is literally the ghost’s name,” Heather said. “What else am I supposed to call her?”

RIINNG!

Perry checked his phone, and saw it was Mom.

Does she need something from the grocery store or something? Perry thought as he answered, tucking it to his ear.

“Hey Mom, I’m kinda—”

“PARADOX ZAUBERER! Did you summon a greater corruption demon?!”

Mom sounded…displeased.

“Not that I know of. What’s up?”

“Turn on the evening news.”

Heart sinking, Perry did as he was told, revealing the upper half of a greater corruption demon sticking out of a scrapyard, batting at flying supers like King Kong. Dozens of his armors were nearby, fighting the monster any way they could.

A tiny little Hardcase and Warcry were peppering it with attacks.

All the while, the corruption demon was shouting Perry’s full name.

“Bring me my contractor, Paradox Zauberer! He will pay for this insolence with his life!”

That’s…not a good look for me.

“Welll….” Perry hedged. “I guess I might’ve accidentally summoned a greater corruption demon.”

Perry wasn’t sure how that happened, because nobody should’ve been able to fire the spell-frame but him…but Murphy’s Law was a bitch.

“You can’t accidentally summon a demon, Paradox.”

“That’s debatable. I’m on my way.”

“How are you not there right now?! You can’t absentee-summon a demon, either!” Mom demanded.

“I did say it was an accident. I’ll go clean it up.”

“Oh, Perry!” Mom’s voice came through before Perry could hang up.

“Yeah?”

“You’re grounded.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Perry said, hanging up before Mom could get another word in.

Well, that’s gonna bite me in the ass. Now, where did I put that corruption demon fail-safe?

He glanced over at Heather, who was on the phone as well.

“I know, he probably thought it would get him girls or something nerdy like that.”

‘Vanessa,’ she mouthed at him.

Perry shuddered at the mention of one of Heather’s mean-girl friends from high school.

“Listen babe, I got something I gotta take care of, so I gotta let you go. Yeah, it is hilarious. He’s probably gonna be in the slammer for a long time. What?! No, he’s not gonna be rich. Wait, no. Don’t do that—”

Heather’s face went pale and she stared into the distance, shell-shocked as she slowly lowered her phone. “Vanessa thinks you’re hot now that you’ve got superpowers.”

Ding!

Call me when you get out of super prison, Perry! I always thought you were cute!

- Vanessa Brown

Perry resisted the urge to gag.

Blocked.

“Yeesh, it’s like spiders crawling up my neck. I prefer someone like Hardcase, a thousand times over,” Perry said.

“Same.”

Their eyes narrowed as they stared at each other.

“Dibs!”

***Chemestro***

Why isn’t this working?! Chemestro thought as he felt his power bounce off the creature like the spray of a pressure washer. Disintegrating it was out.

He switched tactics and tried to poison it, creating a potent toxin directly under the creature’s nostrils.

Either it didn’t have terrestrial biology or it didn’t breathe, because nothing happened.

The creature sent him an irritated bat while continuing to shout for Paradox.

Chemestro nearly ended up like a bug on a windshield, ducking around the swipe and tumbling in the turbulence of the clawed hand’s passage.

Option three: disable it with the environment.

He made the earth under the monster permeable, intending to smother it.

The creature slipped a couple feet, then slammed its talons into the ground, infecting the ground with a murky brown corruption that followed Chemestro’s powers back to him like a snapped rubber band.

“AGH!” He bit back a scream as his head erupted in pain, the protective charms on his arms and around his neck growing hot.

Chemestro smelled blood, and forced it back into his body.

Option 4, it is.

Chemestro created a guideline of charged air, and stripped the electrons in the air above the monster while simultaneously creating and condensing a simple hydrogen/oxygen mix around it.

A fraction of a second later, a bolt of lightning fell from the clear sky, electrocuting the creature and detonating its surroundings in a deafening explosion.

The monster’s thrashing and screaming for Paradox ceased, and it slowly turned to look at Chemestro, its smoldering skin rapidly regrowing. It gave him its full attention.

“Die.” Its leathery voice echoed through his mind, forcing a kaleidoscope of invasive thoughts of self-mutilation and death to rampage through his mind.

Chemestro exploded the creature’s tongue, hissing in pain as the relics scalded his skin.

The tongue grew back in moments, but he didn’t give it the opportunity to speak. He concentrated and unleashed explosion after explosion, focusing on the creature’s face and eyes.

If he had to gradually wear this monster down to a nub of spine sticking out of an interdimensional portal…that’s what he was going to do.

It thrashed wildly, drawing massive gouges in the surrounding scrapyard. Chemestro pulled back, keeping his distance as he continued wearing away at the creature’s face.

It exhaled a brown mist in Chemestro’s direction, which he dodged around. No sense touching whatever that was.

The next second, a huge hand cut off Chemestro’s vision of everything, clamping down around him like iron.

“Are you an archmage of this plane?” the creature said, its arm retracting as it held Chemestro up to the massive yellow eyes that had grown back in seconds. The man-sized talon of its thumb was poised above his head, ready to skewer him.

His skin stung where the creature’s gaze landed.

Chemestro tried to make himself permeable to fall through the creature’s hand, but somehow it didn’t work.

A veritable fountain of explosions erupted out from Chemestro, shredding the creature’s hand, but its grip remained tight, flesh regrowing over the bones.

“Amusing, that you limit yourself so,” the creature said, its talon touching the crown of his head.

His scalp began to sizzle and the magical protection on his arms began to smoke. Chemestro didn’t scream. He wouldn’t give it the satisfaction.

“Hey!” A voice cut through the pain, and Chemestro caught a glimpse of another Paradox armor, bearing some kind of oversized pipe rifle.

FWOMP!

A massive dart shot out of the gun and lodged itself in the creature’s neck.

“What insolence,” the creature said, plucking the dart out of its neck. “The pitiful essence of a lesser Ordenn couldn’t possibly bind my will. Now I will start vivisecting myself that you might remember your dread of me before I leave this plane of existence.”

“Oh no, please don’t.” Paradox’s modulated monotone emerged from the armor.

Chemestro fell to the ground as the creature dropped him and began pulling parts of itself out and setting them on the ground in neat piles.

“More bones. Need those too,” Paradox said.

“Fool! I can regrow bones! Whatever you are planning will not work,” it said, tugging out an ulna bone and beginning another pile beside the eyes and other assorted organs.

“Foiled again,” Paradox said as Chemestro struggled to his feet.

“Remember this humiliation!” the creature said as it shoved itself back through the membrane, disappearing into nothingness.

“Will do.”

Paradox glanced over at Chemestro, his expression concealed by his helmet. “Are you all right, man? I didn’t mean to—”

Something about the Tinker’s casual implication that he’d accidentally nearly killed Chemestro struck a nerve.

“Didn’t mean to?!” Chemestro shouted, his face red as he tore Paradox out of his armor, locking his hands around the slender teen’s neck before throttling him.

“You created a projectile that would unleash a city-threatening monster by accident?! What kind of soft-handed upbringing could possibly warp your perception of culpability to that extent?! You were born with EVERYTHING! Money! Talent! Friends! PARENTS! You’ve never had to work hard for a thing or take responsibility!

“And you didn’t MEAN TO?!” Chemestro demanded.

“Says the jerk who made me lose it while trying to kill me in the first place!” Paradox shouted, grabbing Chemestro’s hands and prying them away from his neck with strength dwarfing what he’d had only a month prior.

How is he so much stronger already?! Chemestro thought, gritting his teeth and forcing Paradox’s hands back.

A throat cleared beside them.

“Trouble, boys?” Solaris asked, standing only a few feet away.

“No, sir,” Chemestro said, straightening as he reined in his anger.

“…Sir,” Paradox said, straightening himself eventually.

“Paradox, you’ve got damages,” Solaris said.

“But they—” Paradox pointed towards Chemestro and the Dynamic Duo peeking out from behind a pile of rusted car parts.

“Who made the demon bomb?” Solaris asked.

“Me, sir.”

“Don’t make demon bombs if you don’t want demons, kid. Because that’s how you get demons.”

“Sir.”

“And who supplied Locust with discount power armor?”

“Me, sir,” Paradox said, slumping.

“Not illegal, but it did escalate this conflict.”

Solaris scanned the ruined scrapyard and the surrounding houses, some of which were leveled. “You’ll be getting a letter from Nexus, Paradox.”

He turned his gaze on Chemestro, eyes narrowed. “Good work, kid, but work on that temper.”

“Sir,” Chemestro said.

He should’ve been happy that Paradox was going to spend the next few weeks being absolutely destroyed publicly and financially, but all he could think about was how that demon had toyed with him.

And how Paradox had toyed with the demon.

By extension, Paradox had toyed with Chemestro. Accidentally.

It grated on him.

When Chemestro arrived back at the geriatric house he’d bought, he paced back and forth in the kitchen, fuming as he struggled to bring his emotions back under control.

A lifetime of grueling effort, and Paradox was catching up. Quickly.

Chemestro didn’t flinch when the well-dressed old man arrived, manifesting out of darkness.

“Get lost,” Chemestro said before the old man had the opportunity to give him another sales pitch.

“You can’t tell me you’re not tempted.” The man reached into his coat and produced the same iridescent potion sloshing around inside a vial. “You could’ve defeated that demon with this…”

Chemestro turned to stare into the white-maned man’s eyes. “Offer me something I could defeat you with, and maybe we’d have a deal.”

The old man’s face froze for just a moment before it split into a toothy grin.

“Hah!” he barked, before descending into uncontrollable laughter.

“I like you more and more,” the old man said, wiping a tear from his eye as he recovered. “Well…I’ll think about it.”

He vanished, leaving the iridescent potion behind, resting on a doily.

Chapter 55: (IN)FAMOUS

Nexus orders reparations of $16,000,000 to pay for the damage to infrastructure sustained during The Event, as well as two weeks Drafted to the defense of the wall.

If your debt is not paid within two months, Nexus will confiscate property associated with your super identity to pay it for you.

You are to report to the wall beginning…

“Well…easy come, easy go, I guess,” Perry said, crunching the letter in his fist and tossing it into the trash.

That wasn’t really too much of a problem. He’d furnished about a hundred and fifty suits for Locust already, and after stripping Magneton’s lair, he was pumping out another hundred a day. Some of them still had paint from their previous incarnation as wall-signs.

That meant he’d get his massive payday in about a week, and it would be more than enough to cover the staggering fine from Nexus.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed off at the idiots and Chemestro for getting off scot-free despite treating a gang war like a Super Soaker fight.

Perry had received a several-hour-long talk from Mom and Dad about ‘equivalent response’ and how you don’t unleash greater corruption demons all willy-nilly if someone looks at you wrong.

The thing NOBODY seemed to understand was that Perry hadn’t been there, and he hadn’t been the one doing the ‘unleashing.’ That was what really got under his skin.

How hard is it to understand that I condensed the complicated, difficult-to-perform, and esoteric ritual for summoning a horrifying demon into something that can be loaded into a bazooka and deployed by any random schmuck at the press of a button? ...I think I just explained to myself why I’m in trouble.

The terms of Perry’s ‘grounding’ were such: He was under strict orders from his parents to suffer through an interview on Capes Tonight, the talk show that interviewed up-and-coming capes and broadcast them across the city and beyond.

Amber Hardy was not known to be particularly nice towards the supers she interviewed, which was why this was a punishment.

Perry had called the show the day the chuckleheads had deployed his spell, getting himself a slot six days from then, showing the confirmation email on his phone to the security camera outside his house so he could finally be allowed inside to sleep in his own bed.

So…Perry had four days to come up with a plan to ‘win’ an interview with a hostile host and prove he wasn’t responsible for the attack.

Or…at least, less responsible.

I guess I’d settle for surviving the interview, honestly.

New Quest: Survive the interview!

Reward: Variable

Which was why Perry had taped episodes of Capes Tonight, blasting on every monitor while he worked.

Studying his enemy.

Sometimes a cape could bring in a little example of their work that would help win Amber and the audience over. The Whisperer brought in a tame bunny and had been given softball questions for the rest of the show.

Extrapolating from this, Perry was going to summon something nice and fluffy, to make the interviewer go soft-headed while simultaneously proving that he could make tech that could allow other people without skills or magic to summon.

At this point, it was fairly well-understood by the community that Paradox was using magic somehow. What Perry really had to do was keep his proprietary tech under wraps with a mislead that the tech he’d invented harmlessly tapped into the essence of the people using them.

People probably weren’t ready for fully autonomous magitech.

I should start adding some thermite to the spell-discs to slag them if tampered with. Thermite is super cheap! Why didn’t I think of that a long time ago?

Live and learn, I guess.

The ritual for summoning Elysian fluffers wasn’t difficult—it was just tedious—and he had to make a reusable copy and enough of the consumables to use it three times.

Once to test it for himself, one to show to the producers of the show backstage, and one for Amber.

There was no way they’d let him pull out a steel hockey puck of unknown origin and have Amber press the button on live TV…unless he let them test it.

So…I should probably make six charges. He would bet money that someone would use it twice or lose a charge or something of that nature.

Perry was going into this conflict armed to the teeth…with divine lap animals.

“So, Paradox,” Heather said, taking on the cadence of the nosy reporter. “Why did you decide to attack the mutant slums?”

“I didn’t. Some of my stolen tech was used,” Perry said as he worked.

“Stolen? It can only be assumed you sold that tech. All Tinkers who are any good have ironclad protection on their weapons to prevent other people from using them. You’re obviously lying,” Heather said.

“No, ma’am, I’m just a rookie.”

“So you’re incompetent?”

Heather practiced saying things to box him in, get under his skin, or put words in his mouth.

Perry practiced keeping an even temper.

***5 Days Later***

Perry paced the musty backstage of Capes Tonight, his heart racing. He’d practiced his ass off, but it had all been in the safety and comfort of his lair. Now he was starting to see how the pressure of location could bear down on you until you snap.

It was dark, unfamiliar, there was a roaring crowd outside.

Perry felt like a gladiator about to go out and get eaten by lions.

He’d signed a binding document backstage that stated Amber would steer well clear of his public identity—which the demon had revealed to anyone with an internet connection—and in return, Perry promised not to seek vengeance for any perceived slights, or generally cause chaos on-set.

Not that Perry was the vengeful type, but it seemed like he was getting the short end of the stick. His phone had been blowing up ever since with text messages from old ‘friends,’ groupies, and random strangers looking to sell something. People obviously knew who he was now…

It was just polite not to talk about it.

Mistakenly giving Solaris his full name and then running with it was coming home to roost.

I gotta get a new phone. Mod for super-range and durability.

“You all right?” one of the producers asked. He was a thin man in his thirties with dark hair and olive skin, clutching an oversized cup of coffee with only a scraping left on the bottom and white-knuckling a clipboard in his other hand.

“I’ll be fine,” Perry said, winding around a step stool as he walked. The back room was kind of messy, with cleaning tools meant to clean the stage quickly or replace light bulbs at a moment’s notice. “Just never been on a talk show before.”

Never even did theater in high school. Well, Perry tried, but it wasn’t a great fit.

The producer sucked in a breath through his teeth and winced. “Ooo… Sorry.”

Perry chuckled. “There’s nowhere to go but up, am I right?”

“Love your optimism,” the producer said, glancing at his watch. “Take your spot next to the stage. You’re on in about ten seconds.”

Perry did so, his nerves reaching a crescendo as the producer began counting down on his fingers.

“And now, joining us for a special interview, we have a young up-and-coming Tinker whose name has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue these last few days. Please welcome Paradox,” Amber said, prompting Perry to take the stage.

Heart slamming in his chest, Perry walked out from behind the curtains into the blinding spotlights, sweating bullets, thanking every god his mother had ever told him about that he was able to hide inside his armor.

He scanned the assembled bleachers of civilians, many of whom had less-than-welcoming expressions.

“I see you’re wearing your old cardboard armor, Paradox,” Amber said as he sat down on the couch.

Lead with easy banter, lull them into a false sense of security, then slam them with something accusatory. Perry had memorized the host’s patterns.

“I figured it was more iconic than boring old power armor,” Perry said, rapping the chest piece with his knuckles.

“Does it actually function? I would think cardboard would be…not a great choice,” Amber asked from behind her massive desk.

“Oh, yes. It’s more of a laminate, anyway. There’s plenty of aluminum foil and Flex Seal in here too. My power’s primary function is to improve material performance, so this should actually stop a high-caliber round.”

Perry glanced at the cameras. “I’d rather not test that, though. You know what I mean?”

There was a smattering of half-hearted through-the-nose chuckles.

Perry would take what he could get.

“Interesting. So you’re a Tinker, right?” the platinum-blonde woman asked. This close, Perry could see wrinkles that were carefully concealed from the distant camera with layers of makeup.

“That’s right.” He nodded.

“It says here in your questionnaire that you’ve got an extensive background in Manitian magic that’s commonly used by supers from East Block 13, or ‘Funkytown,’ as it’s more commonly called.”

“I grew up around it, yes, which is why it was kind of natural to apply my Tinkering to magic. While I’m not a mage, I’m able to streamline rituals to an extreme degree, such that it doesn’t make a difference.”

“Wow. So, like, you can do magic?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Perry said.

“Like what?” she asked, leaning forward with a pleasant half-smile.

Perry decided to drop the bait. “Oh, floating swords, melting things, summoning rituals—that sort of thing.”

“Summoning rituals? Like the one you attacked Oberon Scrapyard with? We couldn’t help but notice the monster screaming your name.”

There it is.

“Not a monster,” Perry said, deflecting. “His proper name is Ex’bergazzat, a greater corruption demon from the plane of ‘Nargosh,’ or Entropy, in English. He has seventeen descendants who budded asexually, who rule small fiefdoms in that benighted place. He’s widely considered one of the more reasonable and easy-to-work-with entropy demons in Nargosh, although that may not be saying much by human standards.

“I even hear tell he was actually on friendly terms with Gar’ol the Conqueror until the man’s untimely death some…three hundred and thirty-five years ago,” Perry continued.

“He’s a well-read individual who owns a wide collection of classic music and literature from across the planes, and is always happy to purchase or trade for more. I hear he’s even got some Elvis on vinyl from a reality where he actually got to do his Vegas comeback tour.

“While he owes his loyalty to the Demon God of Entropy, the god has no agenda or concern for the coming and goings of mortals, and so Ex’bergazzat takes the odd job on the material plane every now and then for the proper price.

“And I’m pretty sure I earned myself a vendetta last week.”

Amber stared at him, her jaw hanging loose. She recovered quickly, as expected of a veteran super interviewer. “I’m wondering what your agenda was, using Mr. Ex’berzat to attack the mutant slums.”

“Attack? Was someone hurt?” Perry asked. He knew for a fact that no one had been wounded, because the surrounding area had been evacuated beforehand by the warring cowls, and his letter from Nexus hadn’t had any medical or loss-of-life penalties, just infrastructure damage.

Perry had every intention of taking credit for their safety.

“There were millions of dollars in damages to people’s homes and businesses,” Amber said, deflecting herself as she shined a light on the worst part of the event, while ignoring the zero fatalities. “I’d say that hurt pretty bad.”

“Amber, I’m taking personal responsibility to restore, replace, and refund anything I can. I know there are some things I can’t replace—treasured memories and heirlooms—but I’m just grateful that everyone in the area was evacuated beforehand.”

She opened her mouth to speak.

“Furthermore,” Perry interrupted her, not interested in allowing her to divert the subject from where he wanted it to be, “this event made Nexus and the rest of Franklin City aware that summoning demons can be done by non-mages at the press of a button, and they are aware of the danger that presents should other Tinkers try to replicate it. I can’t go into any specific details, but let’s just say that I hear they may approach the foremost expert in industrialized magic and make him an offer to develop countermeasures against copycats. Nexus is committed to the safety and prosperity of its citizens, after all.”

***Solaris***

His sandwich dropped out of his hand as he stared at the TV screen.

“That little punk!”

***Locust***

“AHAHAHAHAH!” Locust cackled, beating the heels of her combat boots on her hardwood desk as Paradox put Nexus in a tight spot. “He learned that from me!”

“Is that gonna work?” Blink asked, brows furrowed.

“Nah, Solaris will find a way around it. That old bastard is canny. This is a check, not a mate. Paradox just doesn’t have the right leverage to back it up. It was a beautiful move, though,” Locust said, wiping a tear from her eye.

***Metalon***

“Why are you laughing, Dad?” Felix asked, glancing up from his work on carefully peeling back the armor plating on Paradox’s suit.

“Because, Paradox just identified a security threat he caused, insinuated that Nexus would do something about it, then offered to sell them the solution. If they don’t take public measures to do something about other Tinkers pulling that kind of malarkey, they’ll look really bad. So he basically placed them in the position of paying him money or losing face.”

“Oh,” Tom said from the CAD station, nodding for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t get it.”

***Paradox***

Quest Complete!

Survive the interview!

Reward: 1 XP

Bonus: Win the interview. Self-advertise. Put Nexus on the defensive.

Reward: 400 XP, increased notoriety

Perry walked off the adrenaline, his body refusing to accept that the fight was over and not a single punch had been thrown.

“Hey, kid,” Amber Hardy said as she entered the backstage now that the show was over and the audience had been ushered out by the stage crew.

She straightened her suit unconsciously as she approached, eyeing him critically. “You gave me a good fight out there, young man,” she said, offering her hand.

“I practiced…a lot,” Perry said, shaking it gently.

“You’d be surprised how few people prep. The Elysian fluffers were good. The audience ate it up. Would you be interested in coming back on the show once you’re a little more established? Five or so years from now?”

“No offense, but an interview with you was more nerve-wracking than fighting prawns for the first time,” Perry said.

“I consider it a compliment,” Amber said, her bright white teeth practically glowing in the dim backstage. “And you’ll get used to the spotlight. Comes with the territory. We’ll revisit the offer in a few years. Maybe you’ll feel different then.”

Perry nodded.

“Later, kid. Say ‘hi’ to Hexen for me!” Amber said as she walked off deeper into the back rooms, presumably going to her office to wrap up for the day and begin planning tomorrow’s show.

Perry drew a deep breath and blew it out. The woman was hard on him on camera, but didn’t seem to take it personally at all. That professionalism allowed him to disperse a bit of his nerves as he put the conflict into context. It was a show, and it was over now.

Shortly afterwards, the stage hands guided him to the guest exit. Perry wound down a long series of stairs and hit a steel door, breaking out of the broadcasting building and onto the street.

Daylight crashed into him along with a wall of sound.

A mob of civilians was screaming and shouting just beyond the velvet ropes and security, waving signs that ranged from death threats to offers of marriage and everything in between: a wall of chaos blocking his exit.

Perry blinked.

He had no context for how to deal with this.

Nope.

Rather than deal with all that, Perry activated the jets in his shoulders and feet, shooting up into the sky.

Chapter 56: Wheelin’ an’ Dealin’

***Chemestro***

“What’s this?” Chemestro asked, placing the vial in front of Dave the Unicorn.

The leather-clad man with bushy mutton chops picked the vial up and studied it carefully. “This, my friend, is a Symbiotic Spirit. The kind people use to become mages. Looks like a lunar serpent. Especially useful for dark essence, travel essence, reflection essence, space essence, and a few other minor ones.”

“Nobody else I took it to could or would tell me what it was,” Chemestro said. One of the information brokers tried to kill him for it. Unprofessional. “Is it rare?”

“Well, they’re not making them anymore, if that’s what you’re asking. These things are basically a free ticket to fame and fortune, so yeah, seeing one that’s not in use immediately is a rare pleasure.”

“How many people have these already?” Chemestro asked. Whoever was offering it to him obviously already had one, given his penchant for appearing and disappearing instantly.

“Basically any pure human from Funkytown that uses magic,” Dave said with a shrug. “A dozen or so people, who either came from Manita or descended from those who did.”

“Any of them have something against the Zauberer family?”

“Not really, no.” Dave shook his head. “The Zauberer family opened the gate that allowed us to cross over to Earth. Everyone here owes them their lives. The sentiment may have faded a bit, but there’s still a lot of goodwill there.”

“How good is this one?” Chemestro asked.

“Oh, it’s good. A lunar serpent has the right essences in it for a teleportation spell, barrier, environmentals, and minor illusions, among others. Teleportation is top-of-the-line magic.”

“Top-of-the-line everything,” Chemestro muttered, staring down at the vial. “Who’s got something better?”

Dave frowned. “What do you mean? There shouldn’t be anything better on the market, seeing as they get used as soon as possible.”

“Who has better symbiotic spirits in them right now?” Chemestro asked.

“Are you gonna kill somebody for them?” Dave asked.

“No, I’m trying to identify someone.”

Dave cocked his head and narrowed his eyes.

“I promise I won’t kill them unless they try to kill me first,” Chemestro said.

With a gesture from Dave, motes of light fell down from above Chemestro and blinked pink when they touched his skin.

“Alright. You’re telling the truth. You probably wouldn’t have much luck against these people anyway, given that anyone with better spirits in them would be an archmage, and they don’t fuck around.” Dave jotted down a quick list of five names.

Three of them were Zauberers.

“Oh wait, he’s dead,” Dave said, crossing out one of the Zauberers before handing it back to him.

“Who’s this?” Chemestro asked, pointing at Marigold Zauberer. He already knew from his research, but he wanted to confirm.

“That’s the queen of Manita, such as it is. She’s hands-down the most powerful mage in the city. She’s sporting at least three powerful spirits that make that one there look…unimpressive.”

“Does she like fancy clothes?” Chemestro asked.

“I mean, she was a queen for most of her adult life, so…” Dave shrugged.

All the other names on the list absolutely loved the Zauberer line and would see no harm done to them.

All the other names on the list didn’t have as long a family legacy and coffers quite as deep.

The only kind of person that would have a powerful spirit burning a hole in their pocket would be someone to whom it was superfluous, and had already accrued a lot of magic.

Someone powerful, with a flair for the dramatic, a stick up their ass, and a love of fine clothes.

“You’ve been very helpful,” Chemestro said, pulling out a gold brick from his satchel and placing it on Dave’s bloody butcher table.

“Hey! Thanks!” Dave said with a grin. “Just keep in mind, if you hurt Mary, you’ll spend the rest of eternity trapped inside a crystal, wishing for death!”

Chemestro raised a brow.

Dave gave him a thumbs-up.

“Understood,” Chemestro said, walking out the door.

***Marigold Zauberer’s Clinic***

Marigold was studying her next patient’s chart, carefully checking for potential essence conflicts in her Cecaelian heritage.

Bang!

The door flew open, revealing the six-foot-five wall of muscle named Chemestro. The young man walked into the hushed silence of the clinic, drawing out a familiar vial.

“I don’t appreciate being someone else’s tool. Make me a better offer, crone,” he said, making eye contact with Marigold before yanking the stopper out with his teeth and pouring the priceless spirit out on the ground.

Without another word, the super flew out the door and into the darkness of the night.

“Shall we eliminate him, Your Majesty?” Marigold’s shadow guards whispered.

“If only it was twenty years ago, I could’ve gotten Claudette to marry him instead of that potato bumpkin,” Marigold murmured, fanning herself off with the clipboard.

“If it had been fifty years ago…” She trailed off.

“Your Majesty?” the shadow asked.

“Ahem.” Marigold cleared her throat and pulled the spirit off the floor, re-bottling it with the slightest application of essence. Chemestro must’ve thought he’d ruined it. The symbolism was good, though.

“I’ll deal with it myself. You can stand down.”

“As you wish.” The shadows receded.

***Chemestro***

“You’re a smart kid,” the old man said, arriving between one instant and another, sitting in the old recliner in the corner of the living room.

“Maybe you’re just not very bright,” Chemestro shot back. “It took me half an hour to figure out that no one else on Earth would have a spare spirit that good they could afford to give away…Gramma.”

The old man gave a smirk. “Paradox’s grandmother would never wish harm upon her only grandson. You’re dead wrong.”

“You never expected me to kill Paradox. You just want me to try,” Chemestro said. “Why?”

His eyes narrowed.

“I’ve got no problem with trying and failing to kill your grandson. I don’t even care if he becomes stronger because of it,” Chemestro said. “What I want is clarity of purpose and appropriate compensation. If you tell me why you’re asking me to make an attempt on his life and give me what I need to surpass the boost in power you’ve arranged for him to gain as a result of it, then I’m perfectly happy.”

The old man clasped his gnarled fingers together, regarding him with pursed lips, all while Chemestro was secretly wondering whether or not he’d guessed right. If he’d been wrong about any of it, he’d thrown away a priceless treasure and burned his bridges.

Finally, the old man spoke.

“When Paradox was eight years old, his mother gave him the most powerful Symbiotic Spirit the Zauberer family possesses…”

***Perry***

If this whole thing was about money, I think this is where I would get off the ride, Perry thought as he studied the march of zeros in his bank account.

He’d delivered the last of the Mk. 3s just a couple days ago, then gotten a call from his banker/lawyer.

They’d taken 16 mil out for Nexus’s fine, and a further eighteen mil out for taxes, leaving Perry with eleven million dollars.

Less than I’d expected, but more than I’d ever dreamed I’d have. Interesting how that works.

Of course, Perry now fully understood that a bad weekend as a cape could completely destroy that modest nest egg.

When did eleven million dollars stop seeming like much?

Was it when he’d seen Locust extort the city for over a billion, or was it when Nexus had charged him sixteen million for a disaster that he’d only been technically at fault for?

Taking a lesson from his previous experience with property destruction, Perry had decided to buy the scrapyard at full price, his lawyer haggling that money back from Nexus.

Since literal hundreds of tons of raw scrap materials came with the purchase, Perry would easily be able to recoup his losses and more.

Owning a scrapyard was the logical extension of Perry’s power set.

Sure, most of the surface stuff was rusted or rotted by the corruption demon’s presence, and the main office of the scrapyard was sagging, nowhere near up to code or even remotely safe to work in, and all the crushing and sorting equipment was similarly ruined…

But it was loaded with sweet, sweet scrap.

Perry was in the middle of scanning the scrapyard with the Miniature Vista spell when the locals came to visit.

“How’s it hanging, Paradox?” Locust asked, flanked by Blink, Tung-Stan, and no less than half a dozen of Perry’s armors that he’d just sold to her.

“Remodeling,” Perry said, watching the drones fly in a smooth circle around the scrapyard.

“Cool, cool. It’s good to see someone with some skill picked up Oberon’s scrapyard. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ll do with it.”

“Probably just convert raw scrap into parts, weapons, and suits on the Tinker Market,” Perry said with a shrug. The profit margin was going to be insane, while he’d still be able to skim some raw materials off the top for his lab. Battery acid, lead, steel, plastic, freon, aerosol, aluminum… The possibilities were endless.

Gonna have to set up some AI sorters and converters to disassemble and sort all the scrap, Perry thought, practically drooling at the influx of raw materials.

“You know, Oberon used to contribute to the local economy, about half of his profits. It was an effective way of keeping the local color from causing trouble,” Locust said.

Perry blinked, his attention finally drawn away from his thoughts. “Protection money?”

Locust smiled and shrugged. “This is my territory. You actually helped keep it that way. But I know you, kid. I like you. And I know you’re gonna make a hell of a lot more of a profit margin than Oberon ever did, so I’d settle for…thirty percent.”

“You realize if you tore this place to the ground, I could fix it for a couple bucks, right? You literally couldn’t damage it cheaper and faster than I could fix it,” Perry said.

Locust’s scaled brow twitched in surprise. “Maybe,” Locust said. “But I could make sure nobody brings their junk here.”

“I mean, if you wanna be the jerk that arbitrarily pulls money out of their local economy, sure.”

“Can you guys give us some space?” Locust said to her followers.

Tung-Stan and Blink backed off out of earshot as Locust threw an arm over his shoulder and led Perry away from prying ears.

“Listen, kid. I can’t afford to not take a cut from you, because if that happens, other people start asking why you and not them, and in a matter of weeks, I’ll have a full-blown meltdown in the slums. I’m talking war in the streets as dozens of little guys try to carve out their own territory.

“There’s fringe benefits, too,” Locust said. “You pay me protection money, you’re a part of the community. They trust you. They know you’re one of them. Business is good. You don’t, and you’re an outsider. I wouldn’t even have to do anything in particular to damage your business. People wouldn’t like you on principle.”

“You make a convincing argument,” Perry said. “Have you expanded your territory at all with my suits?”

Locust twitched. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve got a code that will brick them all at once. I imagine it would be difficult holding onto expanded territory with all your suits and the people inside them out of commission.”

Perry met her gaze. “Your borders would retract. Violently.”

“Nice try, kid,” Locust said, slapping him on the back. “My Tinkers cleared all thousand suits.”

“Magic,” Perry said, tapping his chest. It was total crap, but Locust didn’t have any magitech experts on hand, other than Perry.

Locust paused. “Shit.”

“Mmm,” Perry said, nodding. “You did make some good points, though. How about a compromise? Ten percent of my profit, and I’ll hire exclusively from the slums, rather than fully automating the process like I was originally planning. I’ll pay them a living wage, pump some money into the local area, and you can slip some spies in there at your leisure?”

Having locals represent him at the scrapyard would encourage other locals to sell their scrap to him. It would be a net positive, despite costing him a substantial amount of money to pay them. He’d taken her words to heart and come up with a solution.

“Twenty percent,” Locust said.

“Ten.”

“…Fine. But you better pay the workers six grand a month, at minimum.”

“Deal,” Perry said, offering his hand.

“Deal,” Locust said, taking his hand in her pebbly-skinned one. She squeezed, but Perry didn’t bat an eye. “You’re getting better fast, kid.”

“Thank you!”

“You might wanna check that speed. Some of the big-leaguers aren’t above making accidents happen if they think someone’s coming for their spot.”

“I don’t care about your spot,” Perry said.

“Wasn’t talking about me,” Locust said with a sharp-toothed grin.

Chapter 57: Opportunity Knocks

***Elliot and George***

Elliot slowly came to, his muscles protesting as he crawled out of the dingy bed, nearly stumbling over his brother. Despite it being his turn on the bed, he’d gotten awful sleep.

“C’mon George, let’s get breakfast,” Elliot said, nudging the mutant with his talon.

Elliot and George were mutants, albeit not impressive enough to go into the super business. They just had no visible ears, serrated teeth, and prehensile feet with claws.

Otherwise, normal human strength and durability.

Why were twin brothers both mutants?

Because their dad lied to their mom about being sterile because of his mutation and their mom bought it.

I swear to god, if I ever find that guy…

It was a mixed bag of emotions, since if their dad hadn’t been a scumbag, they probably wouldn’t exist, but the general consensus was that if they saw him on the street, the two would drag him into a back alley and beat him half to death.

“Breakfast, G.” Elliot nudged him again.

“Ow, I’m up, I’m up.” George shoved Elliot’s taloned foot away from his ribs and began crawling to his feet.

They slipped on yesterday’s clothes and stumbled out into the living room, where Mom was sleeping in her recliner. She hadn’t bothered to change out of her waitress uniform.

George reached over and turned off the TV while Elliot closed the blinds, then the two of them snuck out the front door.

“Whaddya think? Old man Pete?” George asked as they walked out onto the street.

Old man Pete ran a local grocer and would sometimes pay them a fiver apiece to unload freight out of trucks.

Ten bucks was enough to buy several pounds of rice and beans. Enough to get them through a couple more days.

The only thing they got when they arrived was disappointment.

“Sorry, boys,” Old man Pete said, huffing and puffing as he unloaded a truck absolutely filled to the brim with food. “High Tide’s got me in the red, so I can’t afford to pay you anything.”

The sight of all that food just sitting there made Elliot’s mouth water.

“How about a bag of rice each?” he said, pointing at the tiny fist-sized bags that could’ve only cost Pete less than a buck apiece.

“No can do, boys. I gotta sell everything you see here if I even hope to stay afloat.”

Elliot saw his brother looking at the nearby sack of rice with an intensity he could read a mile away: I’m gonna take it. Screw this guy.

He gripped George’s shoulder, his nails digging in, and shook his head.

What about next time? he said with his expression.

Old man Pete was a valuable source of food that they couldn’t afford to get on the bad side of.

“Well, sorry you’re having a hard time,” Elliot said. “We’ll check back later.” He guided George away by his grip.

“Man, screw that guy,” George muttered as soon as they were out of earshot. “Can’t spare a dollar of food for someone to unload his truck? It’s bullshit.”

“Maybe. Does it matter?”

“Not really,” George said with a sigh.

“We should be pimps. Or dealers. Not too many of them have someone they can trust with their back. We have a natural advantage,” George said.

“George, I love you, but we are not becoming pimps and drug dealers.”

“Why not? We’d be good at it!”

“It’s practically guaranteed that one of us would die and the other would retire a broken husk of his former self. Plus, you can’t even talk to girls.”

“That is true,” George said, glancing around. “We could do a bait and switch near the Angler Hotel?”

Elliot actually had to think about that one for a little while. “Nah.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wanna be around when Mama gets old, not missing a limb or in jail!” Elliot retorted. That shut George up. For a while.

“What about… What is that?”

Elliot glanced over to see George craning his neck, watching a black-haired kid with brand-new clothes putting up fliers. Obviously an out-of-towner.

WANTED

Labor at Oberon Scrapyard

6k monthly salary

No experience required.

The black-haired kid was covered in lean muscle and didn’t show any signs of malnutrition. He was wearing earbuds they could probably pawn for about ten bucks, should he lose them in some kind of freak accident.

Sadly, the kid didn’t walk like someone who felt even the slightest bit uncomfortable in the slums, which implied he might be a super, and attacking him was a one-way ticket to the morgue.

“Wait a minute,” George said, squinting. “Six thousand dollars a month?!”

“It’s a scam,” Elliot said dismissively. “There’s no way you could get a starting salary like that with no experience.”

“But…”

“It’s either a pyramid scam, a trap to experiment on the homeless, or a weird sex thing where you get pressured into having sex with someone you’re not attracted to.”

“For six thousand dollars, I’m attracted to whoever they want me to be,” George said, hustling across the street.

“George!” Elliot called after him. “Damnit.” He hustled after his twin brother.

“Hey, man,” George said, tapping the kid with the earbuds on the shoulder.

“Sup?” the kid asked, taking his earbuds out and turning to face them. He had an eerily symmetrical face with an ethnicity that Elliot couldn’t quite place and brilliant green eyes.

His shirt had white text on a black background.

Will Dungeon Master
for Mountain Dew

“Is that for real?” George asked, pointing at the poster.

“Yeah, it’s part of Paradox’s deal with Locust, where he pays locals high wages to help prop up spending at local businesses, so she gets more regular payments from them in turn. It’s a really interesting economics experiment, although I wonder if it would create inflation in the microcosm that is the slum—”

“That’s enough, nerd,” George said, glancing back at Elliot, ripping the poster down and shoving it in Elliot’s face. “Whaddya say?”

Elliot sighed. “Fine, but if they try to separate us, or go to an undisclosed second location, we are out.”

“Awesome,” George said with a grin.

The two of them broke into a sprint for Oberon Scrapyard.

Paradox shrugged, put his earbuds back in, and went back to hanging up posters.

***

“Man, we’ve been waiting for hours.”

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” Elliot said, glancing at the clock on the recruiter’s desk.

“Is it just me, or does the scrapyard look…not capable of making enough money to pay six grand a month?” Elliot asked.

The entire yard was slumping in place, covered in rust and decay. They’d seen Oberon Scrapyard from a distance every now and then, but now it looked about forty years older overnight.

“Oh right, this is the place the demon came out of,” George said, slapping his fist into his palm.

“This place?” Elliot asked, pointing. “I just added a fourth option. Ritual sacrifice. If you see a curvy-looking knife or weird pentagrams on the floor, we run like hell.”

“It’ll be fine,” George said, waving it off.

It’s almost never fine! Elliot raged internally.

Before he could put that to words, he heard the whine of an active microphone cut through the murmuring crowd as two men took the stage. One was a gator-looking man with no hair and thick armor-like scales.

Oberon.

The other was a suit of power armor a couple inches shorter than the old scrapyard owner.

“Thanks for coming,” Oberon said. “Some of you have worked here before, some of you are here for the first time. My name’s Oberon. Paradox, here, bought the scrapyard from me, then hired me as the foreman because he doesn’t know shit about running a scrapyard.”

That was blunt.

Paradox stepped forward and took the mic. “That is true,” Paradox said. “Previously, this scrapyard disassembled junk and sold it for pennies on the dollar to middlemen who went on to reforge it into civilian equipment. That is no longer the case. The new mission statement is to cut out the middleman and transform the scrap on-site into high-spec parts for supers who need rods and joints that can withstand thirty tons of torque, cables that can pull entire buildings, and pipes that can take pressure higher than the sun.”

“Now,” Paradox said, holding up a finger. “Obviously, there’s not enough room for all that on…what, three acres?”

Oberon nodded.

“So I decided to have a little demonstration, maybe earn a little trust that I can do what I say I can.” Paradox reached out and grabbed a remote with a cartoonishly big red button on it. “Would everyone make sure to stand behind the tape?” Paradox said as he himself retreated away from the scrapyard, joining the milling crowd, who parted around him like a school of fish.

Elliot glanced down and spotted a yellow and black caution tape a few feet in front of him.

“Here we go,” Paradox said, pressing the button.

Under Elliot’s disbelieving gaze, the scrapyard exploded into motion. Junk cars and rusty steel beams were lifted into the air, disassembled, and melted into their constituent parts.

The melted steel was extruded out of invisible machines, while the ground was cleanly stripped away and replaced with concrete. The steel bars, over a hundred feet long, were driven into the concrete to create a towering frame that Elliot had to crane his neck to see the top of. Steel began being woven between them, as if some giant invisible spider were building a nest. Slowly, it began to take recognizable shape as the wire frame of a towering building.

Plumbing and electrical wires sprang up, along with motors and sheet metal, creating venting for each of the skeletal rooms. Glass was extruded to form toilets and sinks connected to the plumbing on each level.

“We’re gonna leave this side of the building open for now,” Paradox said into the mic as thick concrete began to be extruded onto the metal frames to form the floors and ceilings. “Makes it easier for the arms to get into, and bonus: We get to watch the progress on the inside.”

In a matter of minutes, the scrapyard had become dominated by a massive twelve-story building that towered over them and the surrounding slums. It was made of shiny concrete and steel, so wide it actually looked squat.

“Alright, we got shipping and receiving, the sorting floor, the disassembling floor, the chemical floor, the metal floor, the plastic floor, the garbage floor, machining floor, offices, servers…” Paradox pointed out each floor from the bottom to the top.

“I was curious how you were gonna fit a hundred and fifty workers into that scrapyard,” Oberon said, taking the mic away from Paradox.

The armored figure leaned into the mic in the gator-man’s hands.

“I’m Paradox.”

How does that explain anything? Elliot thought.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” Oberon said. “If you’re interested, line up in front of the recruiters and give them your information. They’ll tell you if you’ve got the job and when—”

Elliot tuned out Oberon and looked for George, locating him already standing in front of one of the recruiters and filling out paperwork.

George glanced at him. What are you waiting for, an invitation? his twin said with his gaze.

Elliot broke into a sprint, jostling his way through the crowd to get a place in line with his brother.

There were only a hundred and fifty openings, after all.

***Locust***

“He did what?” Locust asked, sitting upright.

“He made a twelve-story industrial building worth probably about twenty million dollars with the scrap on-hand at the scrapyard. In minutes. Kid can literally print money,” her spy said, wild cheering in the background.

“I guess he wasn’t kidding about breaking his stuff being a waste of time,” Locust said, leaning back in her chair. That fit what she knew about how cheap he was able to sell his power armors for, as well.

I guess ten percent isn’t such a bad deal. Locust would like more, but who wouldn’t? If Paradox could deliver on effortless reconstruction, then there was a possibility he could also deliver on bricking all her power armors to leave her high and dry.

I don’t…like that. Nobody had had that much leverage over her in years, and she was rapidly working to stabilize her new territory and relegate the armored units to secondary uses so they couldn’t be used as strong leverage again.

Still, it was just business. Locust wasn’t one to hold a grudge against a well-played move.

Which was why she called up Monolith. There was no way the idiot would believe that Paradox could fix his new building for free. If she taunted the blockhead just right, she could use Paradox’s new building as a poison pill to further weaken her competition.

“What do you want, you green hag?” Monolith’s voice rumbled over her speakers.

“I just wanted to let you know that that scrapyard you wanted to put a hotel on so bad now has a huge twelve-story building on it, paying me about a million a month. I guess you lose at Monopoly, Mono.”

“You goddamn evil bi—”

Locust hung up on him and put her feet up on her desk.

“God, I love my job.”

Chapter 58: Date Night

The arms race of the soul:

Pecholard the Studious and Gadrevan the Brilliant were considered the modern masters of the Pre-Mage Era. They competed to advance the field of modern wizardry.

Pecholard was business-minded and cunning, hiring other inventors and subordinating them under himself, passing off their creations as his own. Historians have surmised that a great many of the man’s rituals were either bought or stolen from his competition, although he did have a strong knowledge of ritual magic himself.

Gadrevan was a savant, unconcerned with money and fame, much to his detriment, as modern history texts barely give mention to the man and his legacy.

For a time, Gadrevan worked under Pecholard, pioneering the rituals that accessed and bound to the subject’s soul, making Pecholard rich beyond measure.

The two men had a falling-out over Pecholard taking sole credit for Gadrevan’s creations, and a disagreement over the method of advancing ritual magic.

Pecholard advocated for the subordinating of the souls of powerful, intelligent magical creatures in order to harness their natural essences, while Gadrevan believed the practice to be vile.

Gadrevan proposed a method to store rituals in the soul and release them when needed. Perhaps more cumbersome than Pecholard’s proposal, but less dangerous to the user, and certainly less cruel to the creatures involved.

Pecholard leveraged his great wealth to stifle and delay Gadrevan’s work, while spreading his own among society. By the time Gadrevan had anything to show for his efforts, the sheer power and convenience of modern magehood outweighed the risk and any moral concerns with the process of soul symbiotes.

Gadrevan died a poor man in a shack on the outskirts of the capital, his only friend a gibbering peech.

This author wonders what advancements could have been made had Gadrevan been heeded.

“Hmm…” Perry took a bite out of his apple as he skimmed through the Manitian history book. This was the first book he’d actually found that had been even a little bit critical of Pecholard the Studious, inventor of the symbiotic spirit.

“Sounds a bit like Edison and Tesla,” Perry muttered to himself, cross-referencing the two history books. “Sounds a LOT like Edison and Tesla, actually.”

Perry pursed his lips and went back to his mom’s spellbook and began flipping through it. Right there at the end was one of the last rituals ever developed, ‘Pecholard’s Symbiotic Spirit.’

No mention of this Gadrevan guy anywhere.

They were both pioneers of soul-magic. Perry wanted to break the moratorium on magic the System had on him, which seemed to be lodged in the soul. He needed tools to interact with the soul, and by extension, his System and the Symbiotic Spirit.

Or, if nothing else, figure out a way to anchor spells on the soul rather than my skin, where people can see and target them.

I wonder if a higher Stability would provide a stronger soul to anchor onto? Perry thought, taking another bite as he set the history books down and started cruising through Mom’s library. There were a few reference books related to the spirits that Mom had inside her, some herbalism books, and a few misplaced romance novels, but nothing further on this Gadrevan fellow.

Perry pulled out his cell phone and called Mom.

“Sorry, honey. If this isn’t an emergency, I’m gonna have to hang up!” Mom shouted over the sound of destruction and screaming.

“No problem,” Perry said, hanging up and turning on the evening news, which showed Mom fighting a rat-man wielding top-tier cybernetic enhancements. He held his own, but didn’t seem to take the rat gimmick as far as he could’ve.

He was fighting Mom’s team over some kind of tech robbery. Not even a spiel about rat mistreatment or ‘surface dwellers.’ This guy’s got no theme. Lame.

Perry called up Dad.

“What’s up, Perry?” Dad asked.

“Hey, do you know if Mom has any more books about magic anywhere? Secret hideout or something?”

“Nah, what you see is what you get. They’re all pretty much on loan from your grandma, actually. She’s got a ton more where that came from. Your mom told me she was pretty insistent on bringing as many books through the portal as she could, to preserve their culture.”

“Ugh.” Perry rubbed his temples. “I was afraid of that. Thanks.”

“Good luck,” Dad said, and he could hear the schadenfreude oozing through the speakers.

“Hah, right,” Perry said, shaking his head.

“Hey, did you wanna kill some prawns on the wall on Thursday, maybe comb the beach? A little father-son bonding time?” Dad asked.

“That actually sounds pretty good, but I got the Draft orientation tonight because of the whole ‘demon’ thing,” Perry said.

“Oh, yeah. Guess you might be doing a little time in the Workshop. Say ‘hi’ to Mad Mike if you see him.”

“Who’s Mad Mike?” Perry asked.

“You’ll know him when you see him. Just don’t eat or drink anything he gives you.”

“Ominous. Alright, I’ll talk to you later. Gotta haggle with Grandma for books.”

“Later.”

Perry heaved a sigh and called Grandma.

“This is Marigold Zauberer. To whom am I speaking?” Grandma’s voice came over the line.

“Make a contacts list already, Gramma, jeez.”

“Ah, Paradox. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I was going through the history book Mom gave me when I was twelve, and I found somebody named Gadrevan the—”

“And you want to study his work in order to fool around with your own soul in an attempt to further that bizarre ritual magic you’ve concocted.”

“Basically, yeah,” Perry said.

“Hmm…I have conditions.”

“Shoot.”

“Shoot what?” Gramma asked. Since she didn’t have an accent, Perry often forgot English was her second language.

“It’s an idiom that means ‘continue’ or ‘go ahead.’”

“Idioms are for idiots.”

Perry just waited silently. Any further input he added could only make things worse.

“Anyway,” Gramma continued. “Soul magic is very dangerous, obviously. It’s a bit like performing brain surgery on yourself. Inherently dangerous and unlikely to be successful.

“I’ll allow you to study Gadrevan’s theses if you promise to only self-experiment while I’m present to mend your soul.”

“That’s it?” Perry asked. That actually was a perfectly reasonable requirement. After the bone-mending accident, Perry had learned to appreciate safety nets.

“Oh, right, and a day working in my clinic for every day spent studying.”

“Anything else?”

“A compact eukaryotic DNA sample in case you die or pickle yourself like Claudette. Can’t let you be the last Zauberer.”

“Not gonna happen, Grandma.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for trying. Say ‘hi’ to your mother for me,” Gramma said, hanging up on him.

Perry glanced at his phone and heaved a sigh.

Her phone etiquette sucks.

He opened up his calendar and began marking potential days he could help out at the clinic.

Under today’s date:

Draft Orientation: 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

He checked the time.

Well, I should be early to Nexus.

Perry got suited up and headed out to Nexus, where he was immediately press-ganged into a press conference.

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Perry muttered, facing the camera.

“You’re on the clock now, kid. Your ass is mine until 10:00 p.m.,” Solaris said through a smile as he shook Perry’s hand through the discombobulating flash of cameras. “You riled up the public, you’re gonna be the one to assure them everything’s under control.”

Perry’s orientation was a whirlwind of posing for cameras and assuring everyone he spoke to that he was working on Nexus’s ‘countermeasures for magical threats.’

He had a teleprompter in his helmet, with Solaris dictating every word he said. It was less stressful than being on air with Amber Hardy, given that he didn’t have to figure out his own speech, but still pretty bad.

When Perry got back to his bed that night and collapsed into it, he felt like he’d been wrung out like a dishrag.

I guess I should’ve known Solaris would use my Draft period to twist my arm into making anti-demon tech without pay.

Ah well, live and learn. Solaris was forced to use Perry’s Draft to counter Perry’s move on national TV rather than advance some other goal. Perry’s Draft had become a wash for both parties.

Am I thinking of Solaris as my enemy? Perry thought, frowning to himself. That didn’t seem right. Solaris was the guy in charge of making sure Franklin City didn’t implode.

Perry could 100% see why Solaris had dragged Perry through all that. He just couldn’t stop himself from being a bit salty about it.

Perry flopped over on his back and glanced at his calendar. Tomorrow morning, he was needed at the scrapyard to keep his machines outputting at Paradox levels, then that afternoon and evening was free. He didn’t have his finalized orders yet, and might not have them for a couple weeks.

I miss Hardcase. Perry hadn’t seen her or the rest of Titan’s crew since the SNAFU with the demon over a week ago. Perry’d been putting out fires the entire time.

Huh. Perry’s circle of friends had actually expanded quite a bit in the last few months.

I should ask Hardcase out on another date. He was going to be gone for a couple weeks soon, after all. Perry groaned as he reached over and turned off his lamp, passing out within seconds afterwards.

***Natalie, AKA Hardcase***

“Oh god,” Natalie muttered, staring down at the text for a moment before calling Sophie.

“This is Sophie the Elysian Attendant. How can I brighten your day?”

“I’m not ready!” Natalie shouted. “He wants to hang out and I’m not ready! Also, add me to your contacts list—I already told you how to do it.”

“Gimme a break, this is the first cell phone I’ve ever owned,” Sophie pouted.

“He wants to visit his grandma and get lunch!” Natalie said. “Is that code for something?!”

“Probably not,” Sophie said. “Look, I think you’re probably overthinking this.”

“But I’m not ready! I haven’t got it completely under control yet!”

“I’m sorry to tell you, I don’t think you’ll ever feel like you have it under control. The important question is, do you want to go?”

“Well, yeah,” Natalie admitted.

“Then go. You’re gonna have to practice on people eventually anyway.”

“But it’s so embarrassing!”

“This was YOUR plan!” Sophie said.

“I know! I just need someone to tell me to do it.”

Sophie was silent for a long moment. “…Do it.”

“Do I have to?” Natalie hedged.

“You wanna alienate those two? Avoiding people has that effect.”

“Fine! I’ll go!”

“Attagirl,” Sophie said. “Have a great time.”

Sophie hung up, and Natalie stared at Paradox’s text, her body literally feeling like it was at death’s door.

Sure, that sounds great! she wrote. Looking forwar—

She erased that line, and started over. Is it a date, or will Wraith be there too? It could be bo—

She erased the line.

It’s a date—

She erased it.

Sure, sounds great!

***Perry***

“Hold him down, would you, dear?” Gramma said, brandishing a massive sawblade. “Hardcase, be ready with that towel.”

“O-okay,” Hardcase said, holding the towel at the ready, her face pale.

“Sorry,” Perry said, glancing up at Hardcase. “I didn’t expect Gramma would be doing surgery.”

“Nonsense, this is dentistry,” Gramma said, bracing the blade against the top of the urglot’s oversized tusk. “The root stops here.” She pointed to a spot about a palm’s length past the edge of the saw. “There shouldn’t be any blood.

“Urglots usually grind down and sharpen their tusks in battle and mating displays with other males, but there isn’t a whole lot of that going on in Funkytown these days, so these boys need to have their tusks trimmed down regularly.”

She glanced down at the urglot. “Isn’t that right, Stu?”

“…I’m afraid of dentists, Your Majesty,” the stocky boar-man admitted.

“Well, now instead of a mildly unpleasant sanding, you have to get it sawed off, which is distinctly worse. Keep that in mind in the future.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Stewart said, looking thoroughly chastised.

“Grab the back of his neck and hold it steady with everything you’ve got,” Gramma said and began sawing.

Stewart squealed loud enough to startle Hardcase, bucking in his chair.

“They literally can’t help but thrash,” Gramma said to Hardcase as she sawed, a fine ivory powder drifting to the ground. “Which was why I needed my grandson’s brute strength.”

She smiled at Hardcase. “Most of my assistants are your size, half-pixies and such. Are you sure you’re fully human?”

“You’re the only person in the world that would describe me as brutish,” Perry said. If there was one thing he was proud of, it was being pretty clever.

“Eh.” Gramma shrugged a moment before the saw worked its way through the last of the tusk, snapping the ivory off into Hardcase’s waiting hands.

“Towel,” Gramma said, taking the towel away from Hardcase and cleaning up the area.

“A little souvenir,” Gramma said, handing the urglot his severed tusk as Perry let go of his neck.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Stewart said.

“You can sell it to Dave if you don’t feel like keeping it,” Gramma said.

Stewart nodded, thanking her profusely as he backed out of the clinic, seemingly afraid to turn his back on Perry’s grandmother.

Gramma shrugged and ran her fingers through her hair. “The younger generation generally doesn’t act like that anymore, but every once in a while, you come across one whose parents are diehards.”

She sighed, staring into the distance for a moment before heading around behind her reception desk and fishing out a stack of books.

“Your payment, Paradox,” she said, putting them in a burlap sack before handing them over. “Keep in mind there will be no self-experimentation without me present.”

“Got it,” Perry said, picking up the books.

“And if you lose those books, there will likely be severe consequences.”

“Understood.”

“Good.” Gramma gave them a brilliant smile. “Have a wonderful evening, you two.”

That’s odd. No parting insult? No jab at my parentage or my potato-monger of a father? Perry followed his grandmother’s gaze to Hardcase, who seemed to be wiggling in place with some kind of suppressed impulse.

Weird. She seems to like Hardcase a lot more than Heather.

Together, they headed out onto the streets of Funkytown, and Perry checked the time on his phone.

3:45

Too late for lunch, not quite dinnertime.

“What’s the contraction of dinner and lunch?” Perry asked, glancing over at Hardcase. “Linner or dunch?”

Hardcase made hard eye contact, cocked a brow, made a perfect dog shape with her hands, and hooted at him like an owl.

Perry couldn’t help but bust out laughing. “Why?!”

“I’ve been studying pantomime, prop comedy, and hand puppetry,” Hardcase said, her shoulders relaxing as Perry gasped for breath.

“Yeah, but…why?”

“That message in Metalon’s lair did something weird to my head. It’s permanent,” she said with a shrug. “Now I have…outbursts. I’ve been doing some research, and I can’t pin down exactly what it is. It’s got a few similarities to Tourette’s, but it’s not.”

“Oh,” Perry said, guilt sinking into his stomach like ice.

Hardcase met his gaze and shook her head. “Please. Please don’t feel bad. I’d rather be funny and quirky than broken.”

Before Perry could respond, she looped an arm through his. “Now, instead of talking about me, how about you tell me why that man kept calling your grandma ‘Your Majesty.’”

“Umm...” Perry said, glancing around the streets of Funkytown, spotting a revenant lawman who tipped his hat to Perry before shambling past them into the clinic.

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“She is your gramma, right?” Hardcase asked.

“That’s never been in dispute.”

“Then why did she call you by your super name?”

“She insists on calling me by my full name. She’s kind of old-fashioned.”

“Your actual name is Paradox?!” Hardcase asked, staring up at him wide-eyed.

“Well.” Perry rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I was freaking out when Solaris asked me my name, and I accidentally gave him my real one. Nobody thought twice about it, so I decided it was better to own it, rather than draw attention to my mistake and out myself.”

“Why did your parents name you Paradox?” Hardcase asked.

“Because I probably shouldn’t exist,” Perry said with a shrug.

“…I’m Natalie,” HardcaNatalie said after a long pause.

“Nice to meet you, Natalie. I’m Perry,” Perry said, reaching around to shake the hand looped through his elbow.

“Oh my god, it really is your name,” Natalie giggled.

Chapter 59: Paradox’s First Loss

Pelochard’s Symbiotic Spirit (Master Difficulty)

Create an essence-free environment with Ostoth’s Draining, disposing of the clay beads in a safe area. Bottle a creature’s soul using a Gorbosh’s Acidic Curse and Pecholard’s Soul Trap.

Make sure Pecholard’s Soul Trap is modified to reduce the amount of strength it pulls with by raising the ratio of reticulating jelly to Death Sand, from 1:3 to 4:1, jelly to sand.

This will cause the draw on the soul to become gentle enough to maintain the creature’s metaphysical properties as Gorbosh’s Acidic Curse gradually eats away at the creature’s physical form.

Other curses are ineffective, as they damage the soul, while Gorbash’s Acidic Curse is entirely physical and causes very little trauma to the soul.

When the creature’s physical body expires, the modified Soul Trap will bottle the pristine soul in the designated container.

This is the first step.

Next, the creature’s soul must be subjected to a variety of treatments to prepare it to become a Symbiotic Spirit.

The next step is to ‘activate’ the spirit through alchemical means. Normally, a soul is inactive when outside a body, and therefore unable to interact, bond, or produce essences. This must be remedied.

Extract and refine vivant root essence, making sure to achieve a concentration no less than eighteen hundred kors per nacre. Once it has been mixed, lock it into a closed box lined with mother-of-Gabras, alongside the bottled soul. Phase the concentrated essence into the soul dimension with Pecholard’s Soul Shifting. Once the essence has been phase-shifted, heat the entire box to slightly scalding and have your apprentices maintain the heat for no less than sixteen hours.

Perry sighed as he flipped through the spell. It was about fourteen pages long, and these ancient wizards seemed to have some kind of allergy to using precise measurements.

I also gotta figure out what the heck a ‘kol’ and a ‘nacre’ are in units of measurement. Perry had had the same problem with the ‘jangle’ of Areonite.

This ritual was the closest spell he’d seen to modern industrial chemistry, following a long series of detailed steps to create a very specific finished product.

I can kinda see why Gadrevan didn’t like the process. It wasn’t the complexity so much as the cruelty implied in the spell.

Perry wasn’t planning on doing the ritual, though. He already had plenty of stuff in his soul, and according to his grandma, trying to add anything new would probably upset the delicate balance and cause him to explode or go insane.

He was mostly going through it and noting any references to techniques or materials that affected the soul, in order to look up those specific rituals and do some research about how they worked, what they did, and what they used.

Then Perry would have to figure out an ethical way to…dick around with living souls.

Hmm.

Perry set down Mom’s spellbook, wrote down all the processes he wanted to look up, then he carefully pried open Gadrevan’s theses on soul rituals.

Gadrevan’s Soul Storage

Gadrevan’s Soul Anchor

Gadrevans’ Soul Hook

Gadrevan’s Soul Phasing

Huh, Perry thought as he skimmed the hand-written notes. “One of these two guys is lying.” Perry could read Manitian, but not as fluently as he’d like, and Gadrevan’s cursive was making that extremely difficult, but he could tell that a lot of the rituals were largely the same.

Gadrevan’s magnum opus was Gadrevan’s Soul Storage, which was basically…

Perry did a double-take. Poking a hole in your soul and gradually expanding it, while lining the opening with infrastructure designed to allow you to both store and release essences.

So, like…body modification…for the soul.

Interesting. Perry flipped through the thesis and began taking notes.

Extensive notes. Not just because the entire thing was new territory and he needed to drastically expand his knowledge before he could even understand what these guys were talking about…but also because there were a bunch of Manitian words he needed to get someone else to read for him.

Plus, Gramma would be pissed if I wrote in the margins like in Mom’s spellbook.

Once Perry’s head was swimming and he couldn’t stuff it with any new wizard-lingo, he switched gears and began working on his business.

1 midsize sedan is about 3300 lbs.

1 lb of parts at my current performance rating is about 800 dollars.

Perry had first gotten his aluminum parts appraised at about 2 dollars apiece, but that had been when he’d only had an Attunement multiplier of 1.62. His current Attunement multiplier was 3.07, meaning the value of his bits and bobs had gone up exponentially as they beat out high-tech, expensive alternatives.

3300 X 800 = 2.6 million

Perry’s brows rose.

The cost of buying a junker was negligible. Maybe five hundred dollars. The profit margin was insane.

Perry tempered his enthusiasm by checking the total traffic on the Tinker Marketplace.

His limits weren’t set by his supply. They were set by demand. It would be incredibly easy for him to oversaturate the market.

Perry did some quick math and estimated that, if he were to corner the cheap goods market, he could sell about five junkers’ worth of parts per month on the Tinker Marketplace before demand began to dwindle.

Now, hold your horses. Perry surely wouldn’t get a profit of thirteen million each month. Far from it.

-1 mil for monthly wages.

-40% for taxes.

-10% for Locust.

½ mil for upkeep costs + buying scrap.

11 and ½ mil @ 50% = 5.75 mil.

Perry tapped his fingers and cut the number down by another 30%.

There was absolutely no guarantee he would be able to corner the entire market, and he would most likely earn far below his projected maximum.

Still three million a month. Damn.

It would only take a couple guys to disassemble five cars in a month.

So what are the rest of my hundred and fifty employees going to be doing?

Perry tapped his pencil a couple times before he began coming up with a plan to keep everyone busy.

He could offer higher-than-asking price for junk, drawing in scrap from across the city. He could offset the loss with his massive profits on the sale of Tinker parts.

The influx of scrap could then be fed through his hundred and fifty employees, who would convert them back into usable materials.

Those usable materials would be sold back to the city as raw goods, while a large portion of them would be secretly delivered to Perry’s lair.

I could also manufacture some of my less proprietary parts here and ship ‘em to my lair. Motors, sheet metal, batteries, beakers, tanks, valves, etc.

Yeah, that would work.

Booom!

Perry toppled out of his chair as the entire building shook.

He bolted for his armor before skidding to a halt, glancing over his shoulder at the books on ritual magic.

They were arguably vastly more valuable than the entire building.

Perry sprinted back over and jammed them into the secret compartment under his desk.

BOOOM!

A rain of dust fell from above as the entire building shook again. Perry sprinted to his new armor.

I guess we’re gonna see what the Mk. 4 can do, Perry thought, the newest suit whining to life as he closed the chestplate down over himself.

BOOM!

Perry flew out the window and spotted Monolith’s shiny pecs reflecting the noonday sun as he launched boiling black energy at the side of Perry’s facility.

Perry dialed up the PA system using his suit’s communicator.

“Attention, employees. There’s a potentially dangerous situation in the front parking lot. Please exit the building via the west side fire exit. Thank you.”

The stream of employees fleeing from the building redoubled, and Perry did a mental head count until he was sure everyone was out.

Once he was sure no one was directly in danger, he sat down on the roof of a nearby building and watched Monolith work. He had short-range blasts that emanated from his fists, battering against the side of Perry’s reinforced concrete building.

The super was making progress, but not a lot.

Monolith was flanked by a snake-man, a guy in a tracksuit, a floating fish of some kind, and a guy with a fedora and a Tommy gun on a strap.

Perry opened up the “Capes” wiki on his phone, dangling his feet off the side of the next-door building.

The fish was an Earth-based sorcerer whose spirit animal was a fish. He controlled water and had minor somnophoric powers. He could only be perceived as a fish, but he actually did have a humanoid body. The fandom hypothesized the fish was swimming laps around where the man’s heart was.

BOOM!

The man in the fedora was Barrel of Monkeys. Any bullet he shot became a monkey wielding a smaller version of the gun he’d used to shoot it. The man had a high bounty because he could hold a section of the wall with an oversized prawn gun.

The guy in the track suit was a newbie; there was no info on him.

The snake-man had typical snake powers. Bullet-resistant scales, acid spit, venom. The works.

Monolith had a durability that was a little less than Titan and Tung-Stan, but he had short-range energy blasts to compensate, making him very difficult to put down in a scrap.

BOOM!

Perry dialed up Locust.

“Sup, kid?” Locust asked.

“Yeah, where’s the protection I’m paying for?”

“Technically, you haven’t paid yet. It hasn’t even been a month.”

“Semantics.”

Locust chuckled. “I’ll have Blink send Tung-Stan over. He’ll be pissed you interrupted his custody time with his daughter, though.”

“He has a daughter?” Perry asked, picturing a smaller pile of rocks with a little dress on it.

“From before he Triggered,” Locust said.

“Ah.” Perry selected a half-dozen spy drones from his fleet and directed them to record the proceedings.

Maybe Perry could make a video of her dad being heroic and that would score some brownie points with Tung-Stan.

No reason Perry couldn’t start buttering up his own Bruiser to steal from Locust.

Hmm… Perry thought as he waited. Barrel of Monkeys causes the most collateral damage with his powers. Can’t let fully automatic bullets go flying absolutely everywhere. As fun as that power sounds, if I let him unleash with those tommy guns under his arms, SOMEBODY would get shot.

It wouldn’t be Perry, either. Mk. 4 was bulletproof.

So, kick off the fight by melting Barrel of Monkeys, then whoever else I can, while Tung-Stan goes in and distracts Monolith with a right hook.

“This better be important, kid,” Tung-Stan said as he and Blink appeared beside Perry. The Bruiser’s feet sank slightly into the concrete roof, creating a spiderweb of cracks around them.

A moment later, Blink disappeared, leaving Perry with Tung-Stan.

Perry pointed at the assembled supers trying to tear down his building. Monolith’s henchmen were watching the two of them up on the roof while Monolith did the slow work of punching through the building’s drywall.

“What’s your game plan, kid?” Tung-Stan rumbled, peering down at the enemies.

Perry pursed his lips. “Well…they are all looking at us,” he said, removing one of the floating dazzlers from his helmet.

***Breaker***

“Why is he just sitting there watching us?” Breaker asked, his hair standing on end. This was his first act of villainy for profit. He simply couldn’t turn down a cool 50k to watch Monolith’s back while he sent some upstart Tinker kid a message by breaking his toys.

It wasn’t going quite how he imagined it, though. The building was shrugging off blasts he’d seen obliterate garbage trucks, and the Tinker kid seemed totally unperturbed, sitting on a building overlooking them.

“He’s probably dialing up some assissstansss,” Snake hissed. “Makes it more of a problem for usss, he didn’t russsh in and get wasssted.”

“Why do you do that, man?” BoM asked. “I know you can talk normal. Just talk normal.”

“Itsss my brand,” Snake said. “You’d be sssuprisssed how much it impactsss my hiring rate.”

“Well, I think it’s annoying as hell,” BoM said.

“Oh, crap, Tung-Stan’s here,” Breaker said, eyes widening as Locust’s main enforcer appeared beside Paradox.

“Looks like Locust’s giving him pity-protection,” BoM said, lighting his cigar and taking a puff. “You’re gonna earn your keep today, kid.”

“I’ll wash him out to sea,” Fish said.

“Yeah right, Fish,” BoM said. “You tried that last time, and he walked through it and put you in intensive care.”

“My name’s not Fish. It’s Spirit of the Noble Silverfin,” Fish said, his voice turning whiny as the fish started swimming with more agitation.

“Nobody’sss going to call you that,” Snake said.

“They shortened my name to ‘BoM,’” BoM said with a shrug. “What makes you think you’re any better?”

“Hey, is he waving?” Breaker asked, causing all four of them to glance up at Paradox.

“Don’t look—”

FLASH!

A brilliant light erupted from the top of the three-story building across the street.

Breaker’s guts rose uncomfortably, like he was on a turbulent plane…except they wouldn’t go back down.

He felt his toes leave the concrete, and in a fit of panic, grabbed a nearby parking pole.

“Alright, it’s on,” BoM said, whipping out the Tommy guns from under his arms with the ease of long practice. The veteran super didn’t seem affected by the sudden loss of gravity that Breaker was experiencing.

The hard-bitten, confident monkey-slinger melted, rendering down into a soup on the ground.

“Oh god, he killed him!” Breaker shouted, eyes wide. I wanna go home!

“He’sss fine, it’sss nonlethal. Get your head in the game,” Snake said, slapping Breaker on the back of the head on the way past, also unaffected.

“You didn’t do your research on Paradox beforehand?” Fish asked as he walked past Breaker. “This is why I don’t like working with amateurs, Snake.”

“Everyone’sss an amateur at sssome point.”

“Not me,” Fish said.

“Ssspoken like an amateur.”

“I’mma smack you once this is over,” Fish said as Paradox and Tung-Stan landed in front of them.

Breaker watched in horror as his two teammates rushed in to do battle, and proceeded to get the floor wiped with themselves.

Snake, whose acid spit was completely ineffective against both Tung-Stan and Paradox, got passed around like a beanbag, while Fish stayed in the game longer using a wall of water to shield himself from the two monsters, playing keepaway until Paradox cut him off and kicked him out of his pillar of water.

Breaker’s skin went cold as he imagined Tung-Stan’s stony fist pulping his delicate bones.

“Hey.” Monolith’s deep voice cut through Breaker’s terror-induced imaginings.

“Uh, yeah, boss?” Breaker turned to Monolith, keeping himself grounded on the pillar of concrete.

Monolith looked displeased. “I’m not paying you to float around doing nothing. I’m paying you to capture Locust’s pet project. If you don’t get to work soon, I’m gonna break your spine and make sure you never dance again.”

Well, that’s highly motivating.

Breaker turned toward the two approaching supers. “Hey, um, you guys!”

“Eh?” Paradox grunted, looking at him.

“I challenge you both to a dance battle!” Breaker said, his voice breaking unintentionally.

Click. Breaker felt his power click into place, like popping a knuckle.

***Paradox***

I mean, we seem to be doing just fine at regular battle, so…

“No, thank you?” Paradox said, but it was too late.

Seemingly out of nowhere, intense, bassy music began to pump through the parking lot.

The tracksuit super began to twirl in midair, taking advantage of his weightlessness to pull flips and shit that boggled the mind.

Tung-Stan staggered backwards, reeling away.

Perry felt an impact wash over him.

HP: 4

Oh crap, it’s a Wildcard.

Wildcard powers were arbitrary and powerful effects, similar to Catalysts, but often had a social dynamic to them, rather than physics-based.

Perry tried to leap forward and knock the guy out, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t force himself to move. He tried melting him, and the beam seemingly passed harmlessly around the dancing super.

That’s not good.

The dancer twirled in midair an inordinate amount of time before he spun to a halt, perched on top of a concrete pole meant to stop cars from jumping the sidewalk, perfectly balanced.

Perry had to admit, it looked pretty smooth.

HP: 3

Perry heard the sound of strained concrete, and glanced over to see Tung-Stan flailing his arms and legs wildly, sending chips of asphalt everywhere.

“What are you doing?” Perry asked, brow raised.

“The only way to beat this guy is by dancing better than him, obviously! Cirque had something similar! I learned some swing in college, but I don’t think it’ll be enough! Bust a move, kid!” Tung-Stan shouted.

“Umm…” Perry said.

“I can barely feel that,” Tracksuit said, rolling onto his head and doing an upside-down pirouette.

HP: 2

HP: 1

“Gah!” Tung-Stan groaned as he seemed to accumulate damage.

Perry shrugged.

When in MegaRome, do as the MegaRomans do.

Hands.EXE (6)

Blades.EXE (13)

Perry gave himself six extra hands to make himself look like Shiva, holding his palm out with a sassy pose in the universal ‘halt’ symbol.

The break-dancer’s wild spinning came to an abrupt stop as he winced, clutching his chest.

Perry began to give his best approximation of a pop-and-lock, spreading his thirteen blades out behind him in a shimmering peacock-like display as his summoned hands copied his rough, unpolished moves.

Tracksuit leapt into a one-handed handstand, spreading his legs out wide before twisting them, flowing seamlessly into a shoulder-spin, which morphed into a headstand, followed by the worm into a backflip.

HP: 0

Perry popped and locked HARDER, but it didn’t seem to phase Tracksuit after the first demonstration.

Crap.

Having bypassed Perry’s HP, he felt an inexplicable force wash through his body, like he was at the bottom of the ocean and the pressure was crushing him.

Perry’s breathing turned ragged as he did the thingy where you pass your hands across each other while knocking your knees together.

It didn’t work.

A wave of damage rolled over Perry and the world went dark.

I gotta learn how to dance, Perry thought before he collapsed.

Chapter 60: It Takes Two to Tango

***Breaker***

“Ugh,” Breaker groaned as the heavenly cold from the ice pack cooled off his throbbing head.

“Here you go, rook,” Barrel of Monkeys said, frowning as he slapped ten thousand in chits in Breaker’s hands.

“Where’s the rest?” Breaker asked.

“You get the rest when Monolith gets back. What’s up with the ice? I thought you kicked their asses? You look almost as bad as Snake.”

“It was closer than it looked,” Breaker said. “My power’s not meant to go up against two people at the same time. When I do that, I have to dance better than both of them put together, or I get roughed up pretty bad. It doesn’t matter how bad they are at dancing, it still adds up. If Paradox had been any better, or they had synchronized their movements, those backup hands woulda tipped the scales, and I woulda gotten wasted. Plus, Paradox didn’t seem to take any damage from my first five moves. So if he’d started dancing earlier, I mighta gone down just because he outlasted me.”

“Little heads-up, rookie. That’s not the kind of stuff you wanna tell someone who’s not your wife or on your team,” Barrel of Monkeys said, his voice serious.

Breaker nodded, pocketing the cash.

“For ten thousand dollars, I’ll forget all about your weakness, and give you some advice for the future.”

“Not a chance,” Breaker said.

BoM chortled, lighting up another cigar. “Well, at least you’re a quick learner. I’ll give you the advice free of charge, then. Get yourself some backup dancers.”

Breaker paused, jaw hanging slack. “Could that work?” he asked.

“You said the extra hands the kid had had an effect. I don’t see why backup dancers wouldn’t. You could either get some dance-henchmen, or buy a holographic projector from a Tinker.”

“I don’t think I can afford that.”

“Give it another week or two. Couple more high-profile takedowns like that and you’ll have the cash to burn.”

“Cool…” Breaker said, imagining himself at the front of a chevron of dancers.

“You’ll also have a target on your back, because a lot of the more powerful supers in the city don’t like being beaten by a nobody with a Wildcard gimmick. A few of the more…insensitive ones would rather kill you than learn how to dance.”

BoM poked Breaker in the tracksuit. “Get yourself some real hyperweave, and maybe a helmet. Some Tinker or magical wound-care supplies wouldn’t go amiss. And some method to haul ass when shit goes down that you can’t beat by dancing. Jet boots or something.”

“But…that’ll cost all the money I have. Maybe more.”

“That’s the life you’re in now, rook. You can’t out-dance a bullet. Sooner or later, someone’s gonna take the easy way of getting rid of you.”

Breaker’s heart clenched in his chest. “Is Monolith one of those supers who would kill me rather than learn how to dance?”

Barrel of Monkeys grinned around his cigar. “He won’t kill you for at least a year. We respect the rules.”

“What rules?”

“The Rules,” BoM reiterated.

“The RULESSSS,” Snake said, his elongated head dipping down from above them to join in the conversation.

“The rules,” Fish said, wobbling in his fishy orbit.

“Is anybody gonna tell me what they are?”

“Nope, you gotta figure them out from context,” BoM said, puffing on his cigar.

“You guys suck,” Breaker told his fellow minions.

***Paradox***

Perry stood in the doorway, peering into the magnificent void of space. He didn’t know exactly why, but he felt a draw, some kind of impetus to step through.

He did so, a pressure washing over him as he entered the emptiness. His foot landed on the emptiness and it held him up, like he was standing on a plane of invisible force. He could see space and stars below him.

Above him, some invisible thing drew his attention. Perry didn’t know if it was an astronomical distance away and hiding between the stars, or hovering right between his eyes. He had no concept of how far away it was, only that it radiated power and concepts that tickled at the back of his mind. These concepts had no basis in reality, the kind of ideas that fade once you wake and reality reasserts itself.

These ideas promised to assert themselves on reality instead.

Gurgle…

Perry’s stomach rumbled as part of him wondered what that impossibly vast, invisible alien entity would taste like fried up in butter. Something about the madness-inducing unknown made Perry hungry.

Perry was suddenly reeled back, the doorway slamming shut in front of him.

***

Perry peeled his eyes open with a groan.

“I missed my custody time because of you.” Tung-Stan’s rumbling voice was all the reminder that Perry needed.

“Sorry about that. Where are we?” Perry asked, sitting up with a wince. His body felt a bit wrung out. Like he’d just played some full-contact rugby without protection.

He was wearing massive steel cuffs around his wrists that appeared to be designed to electrocute him.

Huh.

“Monolith’s lair. We’re in time-out while he goes around and breaks your toys. Then he’s gonna ransom me back to Locust.”

Perry glanced over at Tung-Stan, who was eating a sandwich, his hands and feet completely unbound.

Tung-Stan followed Perry’s gaze to his untethered arms. “Oh, I’ve been in this business long enough. This is the fifth time I’ve been sold back to Locust. You win some, you lose some.”

“I thought there’d be more vitriol.”

“Eh.” Tung-Stan shrugged. “We took our shot, lost, and now I’m waiting for the board to reset.”

“You really do treat this like a game,” Perry said, sliding off his cot and standing, scanning the featureless room they found themselves in. It seemed to be made of solid steel, although Perry had no idea how deep it was.

New Quest: Escape Monolith’s lair!

Reward: 500 XP, Reputation up with Locust, Monolith, Nexus, Parents, Natalie, Heather. No Ransom.

Failure: Reputation down with Nexus, Parents, Locust, Monolith, Natalie, Heather. Ransom increased.

I guess I’m not one to talk.

“By the way, kid. Doesn’t matter how epic your rallying speech is, I’ve heard them all. Trying to escape after you’ve been caught is hella stupid, and I’m not gonna do it. Way more people die that way than not.”

“I wasn’t gonna,” Perry lied, trying not to smile. “How did they get me out of my armor, anyway?”

“Fish used the sizing holes on the sides of your suit to expand it until it was no longer airtight, then slipped some water in there and opened the latch.”

“Oh, interesting,” Perry said. He would have to narrow down the range of the resizing in the future to make sure none of them would lose protection.

Perry sat down crisscross on the floor and started to think.

How did he get beat? How could he have done better? And most importantly, what were the flaws in Tracksuit’s power that he could take advantage of next time?

“Did you get Tracksuit’s name?” Perry asked as he reviewed some of his dad’s anecdotes about Wildcards. Most of it was cussing, but some of it was pretty informative. And it gave Perry an idea.

“Yeah, it’s Breaker. Kid did good for a debut, but he’s gonna piss some people off with that power.”

Breaker, huh? Perry stood and began stretching, limbering up his body, stretching the aches and pains out as best he could.

“What are you doing?” Tung-Stan asked, watching Perry curiously as the Tinker targeted each muscle group as best he could with his arms bound together.

“Limbering up,” Perry responded.

“…Why?”

“I’m gonna waltz out of here,” Perry responded.

Tung-Stan barked a laugh, a bit of unchewed sandwich speckling the table in front of him. “Hah! If that happens, I’ll eat my shoe.”

“Why don’t we make it more interesting?” Perry said. “How about if I waltz outta here, you work for me? I like your even temper.”

“Gonna have to do more than a fancy escape to get me to switch teams. Locust’s taken good care of me since before all this.” He motioned to himself. “Back when I was just a non-powered meat wall, she paid me good money. Hell, she even settled my custody issue, and mended bridges with my ex.”

“Dang,” Perry said, brows raised.

“Yeah, leadership ain’t yellin’ and screamin’, or standing heroically out in front. Not all of it, anyway. Leadership, at its core, is doing your damnedest to bend over backwards to support and shelter the people working under you. They, in turn, throw their heart and soul into their jobs.

“Idiots who have this idea of their subordinates fawning over them just because they work for them rarely have their expectations meet reality. Same goes for those who think they can wring money out of employees like a dishrag. Bites ‘em in the ass more often than not.”

“Hum.” Perry nodded, filing away that nugget of wisdom for further review.

“So, what I’m saying is, if you get a reputation for being a generous boss and do the things the way I mentioned…and Locust retires or dies by something other than you, I’ll consider it.”

“What if I kill Locust?”

“I’ll visit you at your pretty little house on Honey Street and snap your pretty little neck,” Tung-Stan said, polishing off the rest of his sandwich.

Perry clicked his tongue. “You just made me want you even more. That was such a smooth threat delivery. Mentioning the street I live on was just such a nice touch. I know sometime in the future I’m gonna need professional intimidation, and I just don’t have the age or scar tissue to pull it off convincingly.”

Tung-Stan paused, brows furrowed. “Thank you. I am a professional intimidator.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Perry said, continuing his stretches. “Now, I just gotta see if I get lucky so you can get around to eating that shoe.”

***3 Hours Later***

The door hissed open, revealing Monolith’s statuesque obsidian form.

“Tung-Stan, you got a cab waiting out front.” The seven-foot-tall cowl thumbed over his shoulder.

“Well, that’s my exit.” Tung-Stan nodded to Perry and left the room. “I’ll kick your ass next time, you glass dildo,” he said as he passed Monolith.

“I don’t have to ransom you back every time you take a dive, idiot. Frankly, I’m surprised Locust still pays so much to get you back. She has to be losing money on you.”

“No surprise to me,” Tung-Stan shot back.

Hmm… Perry watched Tung-Stan head for the main entryway until he disappeared behind Monolith’s bulk. Perry’s gaze flickered up to the obsidian cowl’s face. He was giving Perry an evil grin that belonged on a cereal box.

“Hello there, Paradox.”

“Evenin’,” Perry said.

“You’re gonna make me a lotta money, kid. One way or another.”

“Really?” Perry asked.

“Hexen’s loaded,” Monolith said with a shrug. “I could strip you naked, beat you a little, parade you around for a while, make sure your reputation never recovers, then flip you for a quick buck.”

Perry waited patiently.

“Or…we could come to an arrangement so mommy and daddy don’t have to bail you out after being humiliated on national television.”

“Go ahead,” Perry said, humoring him while he waited for his chance.

“Follow,” Monolith said, turning and leaving the featureless prison cell.

Perry stood and trotted to keep up with the oversized obsidian cowl marching through the hallway.

He was taken to a lab that was a fair bit bigger than his own, with fancier doodads.

Perry’s Mk. 4 was in the process of being disassembled, and Perry was proud to note several damaged blades, an empty cutting torch, and a tiny scratch in the armor.

“You made a deal with Locust for a thousand of those annoying power armors.”

“Yup.”

“Make a thousand of those for me,” Monolith said, pointing at the Mk. 4. “You’ve obviously improved since you made Locust’s armors.”

“How much you payin’?” Perry asked.

His world exploded in stars as Monolith punched him in the nose.

“Does that answer your question?” Monolith asked as Perry tried to stem the bleeding, his eyes watering involuntarily.

Yeah, that was pretty succinct, Perry thought, blood dribbling out from between his fingers.

“And I want all those fancy magic doodads you’re known for, not that basic shit you gave Locust.”

Unacceptable.

“As tempting as that offer is, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to turn ya down.”

Monolith loomed over him. “You telling me no?”

“I’m telling you…careful not to bite off more than you can chew,” Perry said, drawing a little heart on Monolith’s glassy chest with his own blood.

“You got some balls, kid,” Monolith said, looking down at Perry’s doodle. “Hard way, it is.”

Monolith seized Perry by the back of the neck and began half-dragging him out of the lab, presumably towards a place where the blood washed off quick and easy.

Well, it’s kinda looking like this is gonna be a shitty night for me, Perry thought, his heart hammering in his chest as the obsidian cowl’s grip pinched Perry’s spinal column, sending shooting pain and tingles throughout his entire body.

“I’m telling you I saw him come back, so where’s my money?!” Perry heard Breaker’s voice fade into the foreground as Monolith dragged him through a main room, where Breaker was yelling at a harried-looking woman behind a desk.

Breaker’s eyes widened when he spotted Monolith. The tracksuit-wearing dancer ran up to Monolith, standing directly in his way.

“Where’s the rest of the money? You said fifty thousand!”

“The deal was ten thousand,” Monolith rumbled.

Breaker spluttered in impotent fury for a moment. “You promised me fifty thousand for that job!”

Monolith leaned down until the two were face-to-face, Perry dangling from his right hand. “Prove it.”

Breaker paled, glancing at Perry’s blood-soaked face.

I’ll probably have a black eye too.

“Umm…” Breaker started to back away.

Well, this is the only chance I’m gonna get, Perry realized.

“Breaker!” Perry said, getting his attention and pointing at him with both manacled hands.

“Eh?”

“I challenge you to a dance-off!”

“Wha?” Breaker stuttered.

Out of nowhere, a swell of violins and flutes began to play.

Monolith’s grip on Perry slipped, dropping him to his feet just as the high-tech manacles fell away from his wrists.

Perry lunged forward and caught Breaker’s hand as the man flinched defensively.

He tugged him close.

“You know how to waltz?” Perry asked.

“Umm,” Breaker said.

“Excellent,” Perry said, and began to lead. Breaker struggled a bit, but Perry was way stronger than him, and wound up getting twirled through the hall as Perry made his way to his armor.

“No you don’t, you little shit,” Monolith growled, sending a black blast of energy towards Perry.

The energy dispersed around the two of them.

Oh, thank god.

The waltz was ideal, because Perry wasn’t sure if both participants of the dance challenge were immune to foreign attack, or even if either of them were, but if Breaker was immune while dancing, Perry would be able to share his bubble of invincibility by staying close.

He also needed a dance he could steer.

The final reason for the waltz was because there was no way Perry could hope to beat him at break dancing. The immediate solution was not to raise Perry’s level, but to drag Breaker’s level down to match him.

Perry vaguely remembered how to waltz from an incredibly annoying dance he’d been forced to attend in middle school. He wasn’t great, not even good, but neither was Breaker.

If they were both terrible, then it was a battle of attrition to see which of them could withstand the backlash of Breaker’s power longer.

Perry was willing to bet that, on an even playing field, Perry’s enhanced Body stat would carry the day.

Perry shot a bloody smile at the outraged Monolith as he pranced into the laboratory, Breaker stumbling along with him helplessly.

“Mark four, go home!”

“Acknowledged.” Mk. 4 spoke, turning on its jets and blasting through the ceiling.

Perry grabbed Breaker’s hand at arm’s length and spun the two of them in a circle as he surveyed the lab and hallway, spotting a dozen or so gawking lab techs, along with Monolith and several other cowls racing down the hall, with Monolith in the lead, his eyes white all the way around his irises.

A bit bloodshot too.

“I’m gonna kill you, you little—”

“Okay, we’re going in tight,” Perry said as he led Breaker back toward the hall and the charging thousand pounds of muscle.

“Wait, no—”

Breaker tried to dig in his heels at the sight of the massive obsidian man leaned down, arms wide, about to hit them with a wrestler’s tackle. Perry simply lifted him off the floor and continued on.

When Monolith jumped, Perry pulled Breaker in tight until the two men were tip to tip. Monolith’s flying tackle slipped around them, allowing Perry to continue waltzing down the hall.

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!

Automatic gunfire slipped around them, muffled by the waltz music as Barrel of Monkeys unloaded a magazine from what looked like a Tommy gun from the main hall.

A moment later, a howling pack of monkeys with fedoras and Tommy guns began chasing after the two waltzers, unloading miniature Tommy guns at Perry and Breaker.

The woman behind the desk shrieked as the monkeys flooded into the main hall of Monolith’s base. She ducked behind the desk as Snake dove in front of the receptionist, soaking up some of the small arms fire with his bullet-resistant scales.

“Okay, now we’re heading for the front doors,” Perry said. “Then we’re dancing to the cab.”

“But—”

“You wanna hang around after this?” Perry said, doing a slow turn to show the absolute chaos of Monolith’s bullet-riddled main office.

“I guess not,” Breaker said, and began to work with him to waltz towards the front door, howling monkeys spraying bullets in every direction and yet missing every shot due to Breaker’s power.

***Tung-Stan***

“C’mon, man, where’s it gonna be?” the cabbie asked. “This thing guzzles fuel.”

It was a special cab designed to transport oversized supers and mutants, so it was big, bulletproof, and had a ton of horsepower. A specialist Tinker made them.

“Hold on a sec,” Tung-Stan said.

“And auntie Locust said she would watch me until you got back from work,” Millie said cheerfully. “We watched Dancing in the Rain!”

“That’s great!” Tung-Stan said. “So you guys are at the tower?”

“Yep!” his daughter said.

“Alright, head for…”

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Paradox literally waltzing out of the front door of Monolith’s lair with Breaker, a devastating hail of bullets sliding around them harmlessly.

A booming soundtrack of violins, cellos, and flutes followed them as they approached the cab.

“Fuck me.”

“That’s a bad word, Daddy.”

Chapter 61: Wayward’s Defensive Disguise

“Go, go go!” Perry said, hauling open the door and shoving Breaker through before diving into the bulletproof cab himself.

“It’s extra for daring escapes,” the cabbie said, angling his rearview mirror to assess Perry, eyes narrowed.

“He’s good for it, Carl,” Tung-Stan said.

“Yeah, I’m good for it.”

“Who’s that, Daddy?” a little girl’s voice asked over the phone.

“Hi…” Perry glanced at Tung-Stan.

“Millie,” Tung-Stan whispered, holding his hand over the receiver.

“Hi, Millie! I’m Perry. I was having your dad help me this evening. I’m really sorry about hogging your time with him today. We’re gonna get him right back, okay? I tell you what, though, your dad is really good at helping people.

“Why, just today he helped me escape from a bunch of mafia monkeys with Tommy guns.”

“That’s silly,” Millie said.

“Less silly than you’d think in person,” Perry said, glancing at the windshield, where a fedora-sporting monkey was attached to the window, snarling at them, its canines fully bared, spittle flying out of its mouth as it slammed its head into the glass.

Strangely, the hat stayed on.

“Drive, please?” Perry asked as he spotted Monolith exiting the building, approaching them ominously. They were outside Monolith’s short-range blasts, but that wouldn’t last much longer.

“You got credit with my company?” the cabbie asked, completely unperturbed. “’Cause you don’t look like you’ve got chits on you.”

“Just put it on my tab,” Tung-Stan said. “I’ll get it back from the kid later.”

“Yessir,” Carl the Cabbie said, pulling out of the parking lot, sloughing off monkeys as he accelerated.

Quest Complete!

Escape Monolith’s Lair:

Reward: 500 XP, Reputation up with Locust, Monolith, Nexus, Parents, Natalie, Heather. No Ransom.

Perry heaved a sigh of relief and leaned back into the cushions of the oversized cab as they pulled away from Monolith and co.

As Perry relaxed into the seat, a thought occurred to him.

He glanced over at the pale Breaker, who was shivering in his seat.

“Did you say fifty thousand dollars?”

***Reginald, AKA Barrel of Monkeys***

Reggie was nursing another cigar, wishing his fingers would stop shaking.

“Shit, man, your face,” Snake said, losing his hissing. It wasn’t the hissing that bothered Reggie, it was the inconsistency.

“You forgot to hiss,” Reggie said, knocking off the ash and shoving the cigar back in his mouth before clenching his hands tight to conceal the shakes.

The acrid, foul-smelling smoke was comforting.

“I’m not working right now,” Snake said, winding along the floor until he was directly in front of BoM. “He messed you up pretty good.”

“I know, I was there,” Reggie said. Talking hurt less than smoking, so if he could manage one, he could manage the other. He could only see Snake through a sliver of his slightly-less-swollen eye.

“I guess Monolith had to blame someone, and Breaker wasn’t there,” Fish said. “And you did kinda wreck the office.”

“Probably for the best the kid bailed,” Reggie said, taking a deep draw on the cigar, his hardened lungs ignoring the familiar pain.

The shakes were starting to go away.

“Yeah, Monolith was screwing him out of forty K. Did you see how much Locust paid for Tung-Stan?” Fish asked.

“Nah, I didn’t,” Snake said.

“I…eavesdropped a bit. They settled on five million dollars. Real quick, too, like they’d done it before.”

“Shit, man, he could’ve afforded to give the kid the amount he promised him,” Snake said. “He’s the only reason Monolith caught Tung-Stan in the first place.”

“Yeah,” Reggie grunted.

The three henchmen were quiet for a moment.

“Do you think Monolith would pay five million to get us back from Locust?” Reggie asked around his cigar.

The mood turned darker as they sat there in the wake of that question.

***Perry***

“You wanna hire this guy?” Heather asked, pointing at Breaker. “No offense, but all you can do is dance.”

“Some taken,” Breaker said with a shrug.

“I mean, can you actually, I don’t know, fight MONSTERS?” Heather demanded. “Because that’s kind of a requirement.”

“First of all, he’s not gonna be an official teammate yet. I just want to hire him for some special jobs here and there. The thing you’re not getting is that Breaker, here, is a perfect sandbagger.

“He’s not a trump card, but he can take any trump card out of a fight, and that has some serious value. I mean, he could probably tie up Solaris for a while. His value isn’t in how many monsters he can kill, but who he can take out of play.”

Heather crossed her arms. “Prove it.”

“It appears a demonstration is in order,” Perry said, stepping away from his work on his skin-computer and heading for the gym, Heather and Breaker trailing behind him.

He stood at the edge of the mat and motioned for them to begin.

“I challenge you to—”

Heather stretched her arm across the distance and socked Breaker in the jaw.

Perry sucked in a breath through his teeth.

“See?” Heather asked. “It’s a terrible ide—”

“...a dance battle,” Breaker finished.

Thick, bassy chords began booming through the gym.

Heather tried her best, but she passed out in under a minute.

“Rematch!” Heather shouted the instant her eyes opened again.

“No. Follow me, you guys,” Perry said, motioning for them to follow.

“Why not?!”

“Because we both know you would just wrap yourself around his mouth and choke him out.”

“Damn right, I would,” Heather said, glaring at Breaker.

“You gotta keep in mind that Breaker’s power works best with a few gimmicks to shore up his glaring weaknesses.

“First, he needs the element of surprise. People who know what’s coming have a huge advantage. He needs a series of disguises to get close to an enemy without them guessing who it is and having one of their disposables challenge him to a dance battle.”

Perry lifted another finger. “Second, he needs protection. Something that can prevent people from insta-KO-ing him in order to bypass his power activation.

“Third, he needs backup dancers to enable him to win every time against multiple opponents or talented dancers without taking too much damage.”

“That sounds expensive,” Heather said.

“I’ve got an idea for the disguise, backup dancers, and protection. We can probably commission Lightshow to make a custom holographic projector for him. She sells advanced light-based tech on the Tinker Marketplace. Hard-light constructs and such. It could do all three.

“But, since we don’t have that yet, we’ll need a temporary disguise, along with some protection. I think I have a spell for that.”

“Why?” Breaker asked. “I’m not stupid enough to go back out into that shitstorm without protection.”

Perry sat down and glanced up at him from his desk. “Because Monolith might try to kill you. I’ve gathered that it’s generally taboo to kill a rookie super within a year of their debut, but you were kind of instrumental in making him look like an idiot. Accidents happen, and sometimes people get away with murder.”

Breaker paled. “Yeah, okay, a disguise would be good,” Breaker said, nodding.

“Anyway, the spell,” Perry said, motioning them toward his skin computer. It was finally big enough to support the large script he would need to manifest all the pieces of Paradox’s Magical Computing permanently.

This is exciting, Perry thought as he checked and rechecked the measurements. The tolerances were razor-thin. Smaller, even. The components had to be exact, because they were going to be larger when they manifested, and any flaws would be grossly magnified.

“Is that…skin?” Breaker asked, staring at the skin suspended by hooks and stretched tight in the glass tank. “Did you skin somebody?”

“Don’t worry, it’s my skin,” Perry said as he hooked in the Terry-brain-cell relay to make sure his System wouldn’t interfere with the magic.

Breaker frowned, looking Perry up and down, seemingly wondering where the skin had come from.

“How’s it going, you guys?” Brendon asked, tugging out his earbuds as he walked by, mop gliding across the floor in front of him with practiced ease.

“Good, man. How’s the job?” Perry asked.

“Not bad. Sophie just gives me a list of jobs, then I jam out while I clean. Go home with a hundred bucks. It’s a good deal.”

Brendon still thought Sophie was Perry’s manager, despite the fact that Perry had a lab in the basement.

“Cool.” Perry gave him a thumbs-up as he switched on the skin-computer.

A slightly translucent Rubik’s cube about the size of a fifty-five gallon drum appeared outside the glass enclosure. It had thousands of individual cubes sliding back and forth across its surface at high speeds. It was an ugly amalgam of analogue and digital computing, and it had about the processing speed of a desktop from the early nineties.

At least, prior to Perry’s Spendthrift perk boosting the crap out of it.

It wasn’t going to win any awards, but it was a magical, floating computer. And there weren’t a ton of those floating around.

Perry stuck his arm under the brush and the machine drew matching symbols on Perry’s arm and the stretched-out piece of skin.

“Whoa…”

It felt like an army of ants had suddenly taken up residence in Perry’s brain. Ever so gradually, Perry was able to mentally locate the input-output section of the floating computer, and push the rest of the swarm of bits and pieces to the side, shrugging past the sensation.

“So…is that the spell?” Breaker said, eyeballing the floating, self-rearranging Borg cube. “Looks kinda ominous.”

“Nah, that’s just a side project I’ll use to help me make the spell.”

Perry drew the cube closer to himself and hooked it up to his computer.

It took him a couple minutes of troubleshooting to get his computer to accept magical controls, but when he was done, he was able to set aside his keyboard and mouse and just think about what he wanted.

It was clumsy, like learning to walk for the first time. It would’ve been faster using the keyboard and mouse, but Perry persisted. He needed to get plenty of practice with this so he could expand it to casting spells on the fly and controlling his armor remotely.

“Alright,” Perry said, opening his mom’s spellbook to Wayward’s Defensive Disguise.

Wayward’s Defensive Disguise (Intermediate Difficulty)

Ingredients: Lunt bone, Forming slime, scaled badger scale, subject’s blood.

Carve the Lunt bone into the shape of the desired disguise. For best results, hire a master carver, or become one yourself. Ideal size is one handspan tall.

Powder scaled badger scale and mix with Forming slime in a 1:8 ratio by mass (1 scale to 8 slime). Mix thoroughly until homogenous and mixture begins to take on a dark metallic tint.

Once the mixture is ready, incorporate a drop of blood of the subject, and then pour the mixture over the figurine.

If properly made, the silvery mixture will cling to the Lunt bone, and the subject will take the form carved onto it.

Lasts about 24 hours until the spell unravels.

If the subject takes lethal damage, the spell will absorb the damage and be undone, leaving the Lunt bone figurine unharmed and ready to be used again. The mixture of slime and scale need only be remixed and applied.

Good for dodging ID checks in bars. Mom had written in the margin, and more recently crossed out. Doesn’t give off an aura of magic once it’s complete. I was able to prank Mom, too. Perry, use this spell responsibly. Underage drinking is bad, and pranking your mother is not cool!

“I’ve been wanting to try this one,” Perry said, tapping on the spell. “We’ll make you look like someone else for a couple days while Monolith calms down. We can talk about hiring you later.”

“O-okay,” Breaker said, nodding. “Wait. Do I have to pay for this?”

“Nah,” Perry said. “I’m the one who screwed up your job.”

The hardest part of the spell was cutting a figurine with insane levels of precision.

Which wasn’t that hard for Perry. All he had to do was CAD up the disguise and program his robotic arms to cut it out of the Lunt bone.

“So whaddya want? Fat guy, old guy? Old and fat? Scottish gentleman?” Perry asked as the program booted up.

“Do they have to be naked?” Breaker asked, wincing as he looked over Perry’s shoulder.

“We’re changing your body, not your clothes,” Perry said with a shrug.

“Hey,” Breaker said, hesitating a moment. “Can I…Can I be a girl?”

Perry turned around in his chair and raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, I like being a guy, but this is supposed to be temporary and safe, right?”

“Yeah?” Perry said.

“So, I’ve got the opportunity. Why not see what it’s like on the other side of the fence?” Breaker said.

“He’s got a point,” Brendon said with a shrug, leaning on his mop. “Being a girl for a couple days with the option to turn back whenever you want sounds fun.”

“As opposed to not having the option to turn back?” Heather asked.

“I mean, wouldn’t you like to be a guy for a couple days? Just to see what you’re missing out on?” Brendon asked.

“Mmm… Nah, being a girl is better,” she said.

“Alright then,” Perry said with a shrug, loading up the female blanks on his CAD. “I guess we gotta start with the most important question.”

Perry glanced over his shoulder at Breaker. “How big do you want your boobs to be?”

Heather rolled her eyes. “I can’t be here for this. I’m gonna go patrol with Hardcase.”

Surprisingly, Breaker didn’t go crazy with the customization, settling on a slender dancer’s build with a low center of gravity. Perry set the Lunt bone in place and flipped a switch, and the delicate features of the figurine popped out of the bone in a matter of seconds.

He used a Terry-cell-controlled blender to mix the other ingredients, and when it took on a metallic tint, Perry pricked the man’s thumb and added the blood to the mix before pouring it over the newly carved figurine of an athletic dancer girl.

The metallic mixture smoothed itself around the figurine, tightening down to match the features carved into the bone.

“WHOA!” Breaker shouted as he shrank, his voice becoming higher-pitched. “That felt really weird. Oh my god, my voice is so weird!

“This is so cool! Check this out!” Breaker leaned forward and counterbalanced with one leg. “My center of gravity is so low! I never used to be able to do this before! This is gonna be great for dancing!

“I’m so flexible!”

Breaker then tried to break dance and collapsed into a heap. “Ow.”

He pushed himself off the ground and brushed off the dust. “This is going to take some adjustment. I’ll be practicing in the gym.”

“He sure likes dancing, huh?” Brendon asked as Breaker muttered to himself about counterweights and torque.

“Yep. I guess he just wanted to dance as a girl. Most guys who ask for that get weird with it,” Perry said.

“That’s where my mind went, yeah,” Brendon admitted before he glanced at Perry, eyes narrowed.

“I’m not making one for you too,” Perry said.

“Nah, man. Thanks for the offer, though. I just realized something,” Brendon said.

“Oh?”

“You’re Paradox, aren’t you?”

“You got me,” Perry said.

“Hah. Man, when Sophie finds out you’re using her motel as a base, she’s gonna be pissed,” Brendon said, plugging his earbuds in and pushing the mop.

Ah, Brendon. Never change.

Chapter 62: Removed from the Equation

***Lu’ann Peterson***

“I guess I just feel like I don’t matter,” Eric Kole said. “All around me, there’s supers doing the most amazing, earth-shaking things, and I…work in IT, while every second of every day, I could get snuffed out if a super so much as looks at me wrong. I’m in a city walled off from sudden death that could spill in at any moment, and there’s nothing I can do about it. The human race is on its way out. Jefferson City fell last High Tide, and Jackson City the High Tide before. I don’t think there’s gonna be any human left in a thousand years, so what the hell am I living for?”

“It seems like you’re experiencing a problem of scale,” Lu’ann said. “Some things are just too big to do anything about. I can’t stop The Tide, or prevent our sun from going supernova in a few billion years. You know what I do when I start to feel insignificant?”

“What?” Eric asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“I focus on the people in my life. Doesn’t have to be a lover. It could be a parent, sibling—heck, even a coworker. You have an impact on them. What you do for them matters to them. So keep that in mind when—”

The door slammed open, revealing the ripped abs of Chemestro.

“You.” He pointed at Eric. “Out.”

“Bu—”

Eric yelped as he tumbled through the floor.

“You, therapy. Now,” he said, pointing at Lu’ann.

Lu’ann took a deep, deep breath, and let it all out as Eric undoubtedly lost all the progress he’d made toward managing his anxiety.

“Tell me he’s alive.”

“He’s a floor down,” Chemestro said. “Sit on my back while we talk.”

He got down on the floor and started doing push-ups.

Lu’ann briefly considered trying to establish a boundary here, where they would just talk rather than piggyback while he did exercises, but understood that the angry young man was dramatically calmer and felt safer while he exercised. She needed him to be as calm and feel as safe as possible.

So Lu’ann decided to half-enforce it. “I’ve got some weights for you in the closet over there. You can use them to work out, but I have to stay in my seat and take notes while we talk. It’s part of my job.”

“Yeah…Yeah, that works.”

Chemestro grabbed the weights and began working out as he laid out his frustrations over his being directed to take over the city by his father, and kill Paradox, who was rapidly growing in power, both personal and social.

“I don’t care about Paradox. It’s totally at odds with my mission to oust Solaris, and every time I see Paradox together with other people, it makes my intestines feel like they’ve been dipped in acid, and I get stupid.”

As a therapist, she was legally obligated to tell the government if a civilian was planning on committing a crime, but for supers, the rules were much more loose. The rule of thumb was to use her best discretion.

“It sounds like you envy him,” Lu’ann said.

“I just said I don’t care about him,” Chemestro said, doing one-handed push-ups with a weight on his back.

“When someone has something you want, something you can’t have, it makes you frustrated and a little mad. That’s envy.”

“Huh,” Chemestro said, switching hands. “There was never anything a sibling had that I didn’t. I was always the best.”

“Nothing? Not even a doll, or better food?”

“We all received identical upbringings. Anything extra, we earned via rankings.”

Chemestro was entirely unaware of how inhumane his childhood had been, and that plucked her heartstrings. She had to struggle to remain as professional as possible. He didn’t need pity, he needed the key to unlock the cage his father had put him in.

“Talent, maybe? Were any of your siblings better than you at anything?”

“Sometimes, briefly. Then I put a bit more effort in and beat them.

“So the issue I’m having is deciding how to subordinate or kill Paradox, so I can continue with my primary mission,” Chemestro continued. “I’ve only got two major options that come to mind, and I don’t like either of them.

“First, I can drink a magical goo that will expand my powerset and give me more flexibility. I do not like this option because it’s a borrowed power that could potentially be repossessed. It also comes with a significant promise and potentially some kind of favor owed.”

“And the second?”

“The second,” Chemestro said, puffing as he switched exercises, “is to start my own team and use that extra manpower to advance my missions. I don’t like that option because it is relying on others and trusting them, which makes my skin crawl.”

Lu’ann digested that for a moment. It was almost always better for an individual’s mental health to have contact with more people. In Chemestro’s case, working with others would more likely than not benefit his mental health greatly, as opposed to taking some drug, and becoming more powerful, and more isolated.

Now she just had to convince him.

“Leadership is a skill. Some people are better leaders than others. It can be honed, practiced, acquired. It’s not a borrowed power. Even if the people you lead are taken away, the practice making and managing one team will directly translate to the skill with which you can organize and command another.

“Additionally, if your end goal is to take Solaris’s job and run the city, it seems like basic familiarity with leadership would be absolutely necessary.”

Chemestro paused, panting lightly between sets. “You’re right,” he said, nodding. “Starting a team, it is.”

“Have you…” Lu’ann paused, realizing she was on dangerous ground. But sometimes you have to ask the important questions so that the patient knows what to ask of themselves. “Have you wondered what you’re going to do after you run Nexus?”

“I assume I’ll be a puppet figurehead, making broad policy decisions that directly benefit Neuron.”

“…And you’re okay with that?” Lu’ann asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Chemestro asked.

“Most people don’t relish the idea of not having control over their lives.”

“Why?” Chemestro asked. “Nobody has control over their lives. Choice is an illusion.”

Lu’ann stood up and went over to her cabinet, which had some hard candies. She picked out two.

“Which candy would you like?” she asked.

“Neither,” Chemestro said with a frown. “They’re empty calories.”

“You have to make a choice,” she said, offering the two candies on her palms to him with emphasis.

“…No, I don’t,” Chemestro said, a faint smirk ghosting across his face.

Not what I was getting at, but perhaps even better.

“No, you don’t,” Lu’ann said, closing her hands around the candies.

God, I hope I didn’t just give him a really bad idea.

***Perry***

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 4

HP: 5

Body: 4

Stability: 4

Nerve: 8

Attunement: 23

Free Points: 0

XP to next level: 1281

Oh neat. Perry had been busy the last week, and the escape from Monolith’s lair had put a huge dent in the XP to next level. Somewhere between two to four Trigger rampage captures and making sure to exercise to his limits every day, and he should have level five in the bag by the end of the week.

Life is good, Perry thought as he approached his day job.

Outside his scrapyard, there was a crowd of some hundred and fifty workers, mutant and otherwise, milling around the edge of the property, clearly unsure what to do when their place of business was unusable.

Perry surveyed the destruction that was his scrapyard.

The damage was…less than impressive.

Usually when someone knocks down a building, it collapses in a spectacular manner, because the joints were never meant to handle that kind of pressure. The building was designed to support itself up and down, and no other direction.

Perry’s building was also not designed to support weight from the side.

But it did.

Monolith had cut through most of the major steel pillars holding the building up before he got tired and quit, causing the entire thing to topple sideways.

Except nothing actually broke. It was as if someone took a plastic model of a building and knocked it over. There was a complete towering building lying on its side, supported by a chain-link fence and a couple bent pillars, inches away from crushing one of the nearby houses underneath it.

“What a jerk. Can’t even destroy a building right.”

There were plenty of blasted chunks of concrete and scraps of the main steel pillars to work with, so Monolith hadn’t even accomplished anything significant.

“Is there anyone in there?” Perry asked the foreman.

“Some kids thought it would be fun to run around inside a sideways building, but I straightened them out,” Oberon said.

Perry flipped to his loudspeaker. “Attention, anyone still in the building. I will be setting the building straight in two minutes. If you’re still inside when that happens, you may suffer injury.”

Perry waited for two minutes, but didn’t see any movement in or around the tower.

“Scrapyard LCC, reset tower,” Perry said into his comms.

Deep in the basement of the tower, the LCC sprang to life, picking up the building and setting it straight with mechanical precision while it picked up the damaged scrap, melted it, and set it back in place.

In a matter of seconds, the building was fixed.

“Alright everybody, I’m sorry I’m late. Let’s get back to work,” Perry said into his loudspeaker.

“It’s…fixed? Just like that?” Oberon asked.

“Just like that.” Perry paused, a thought occurring to him. “Hold on a minute.

“Scrapyard LCC, remove any explosive devices or foreign objects.”

No foreign objects detected.

“Okay, now let’s get back to work.”

‘Work’ for Perry was sitting on the fabrication floor and studying soul magic for a couple hours after he turned the machines on. It only took a little bit of experimentation to discover that his Spendthrift perk preferred him to be present in order to apply his modifier.

Not completely unexpected.

Once he’d been there for a couple hours, his machines had made enough to cover that day’s expenses, and everything the people in the lower floors did was gravy.

“Paradox?” Oberon said, entering the room as Perry was cross-referencing different magical theories and doing some math to nail down the precise value of Manitian units of measurement.

Boring stuff, but necessary.

“Yep?” Perry asked, glancing up at Oberon while he continued to write.

The old mutant glanced down at Perry’s hand scribbling complex formulae while Perry’s gaze was locked on him.

“I-um, I’ve been hearing some talk. Our workers are getting intimidated at their homes, pressured into quitting so that others can take their jobs. I don’t know if it’s people trying to get spies in here, or if it’s just desperate people trying to get on the gravy train, but it’s a problem. Nobody’s quit yet, but sooner or later, a few of the more vulnerable workers are going to start quitting.”

Perry leaned back in his chair, spinning the pen between his fingers. “What do you suggest?”

“Catch ‘em in the act. Put the fear of God in ‘em, then hire some security to keep the workers safe at their homes.”

I can probably do that, Perry thought. Expensive, but I can do it.

“All right, I’ll get right on it,” Perry said, setting aside his work, remembering Tung-Stan’s thesis on leadership.

When Oberon left the room, Perry scrolled through his contacts to get hold of Locust, but his phone started ringing before he made it to the supervillain’s contact.

NEXUS

“This is Paradox.”

“Hey, kid.” Solaris’s voice came over the line, causing Perry’s brows to rise precipitously. Getting a direct call from Solaris was unusual.

“Yessir?” Perry asked.

“We nailed down your Draft. You’re going to be escorting the train to Washington City, where you will aid in the protection of the city for two weeks, then you will escort the train full of cargo that they’re paying us back to Franklin City.”

“What about the magic defense thing?” Perry asked.

“Despite the way you inflamed the public, none of the Tinkers you inspired have managed quite the same success as you. We confiscated the oversized darts for demons, but as of right now, you’re the only magitech threat to the city. You’re not gonna try to destroy the city, are you?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Washington City has a lot of raw materials and food, but not a lot of strong contenders. We’ve got a crop of young supers, and not much food. If you do this job well, you might save both cities. Take it seriously. This is not a time-out or busywork, despite how it might seem. We need those supplies.”

“Sir,” Perry said, nodding.

“Good. Report to the intercity train, ten a.m., day after tomorrow.”

“Got it,” Perry said before Solaris hung up.

“Shhhhoot,” Perry muttered, calling Titan. He was going to be out of town for two weeks, which meant there were a ton of things that could and would go wrong while he was out. Monolith would attack again if he could, and the worker extortion problem would go unsolved if he didn’t get it handled sometime in the next twenty-four hours.

He also had to prepare for the trip.

Perry was about to be very busy.

“What’s up?” Titan asked.

Perry explained the situation with the workers being harassed and that he was going to be out of town almost immediately. He offered Titan half a million to settle it. Titan was the only person he knew who was both intelligent and intimidating enough to settle something like that.

“I’m sorry, Paradox. I’d love to take your money, but I really have my hands completely full now,” Titan said. “Hardcase got Drafted because she was part of the special team you guys formed to defend the wall. Warcry got poached by Nexus, I got a new Nexus officer job, and Jetset’s in the hospital again because Mass Driver keeps finding him and kicking his ass.”

“Is he okay?” Perry asked.

“Oh, he’s fantastic. Practically giddy. Broke most of the bones in his body, but he said he’s starting to ‘get it,’ whatever that means. I think he might’ve got some head trauma, but the doctors say Mass Driver’s been avoiding headshots, so who knows. Could be the morphine.”

“And Manic…”

“Is Manic,” Titan said with a sigh. “Although, Manic has matured a bit since the incident with Hardcase. You can practically see him restraining himself.”

“Alright, that sounds like a full plate. Good luck, and sorry about stealing Hardcase.”

“You can give me that half million to make me feel better about it.”

“Don’t let Hardcase hear you put a price tag on her,” Perry said.

Titan chuckled before they hung up.

Alright, that option isn’t gonna work.

Perry called up Heather and confirmed that she, too, had been Drafted for the train ride due to her association with Perry. She was a little pissed about the interruption, but also excited to visit another city. There wasn’t a lot of intercity travel, especially not during High Tide.

Finally, Perry called Locust, who pried another five percent out of him in exchange for sending her thugs to keep Perry’s building and workers safe.

Something she ALREADY should’ve been doing!

Who knew, maybe it was her people harassing the workers, but if this ended the problem, then fine. Perry’s priority had to be to keep his people safe.

There’s one more thing.

Monolith was going to be a problem.

It didn’t matter if he cut out the petty harassment; if Monolith learned Perry was gone for two weeks, he would find a way to punish him for it.

Maybe he might destroy the building again, or come after the motel, or smear him publicly. Or something.

Well, at least he won’t come after my family. Because he doesn’t wanna die.

Perry opened up his desk and inspected the little voodoo doll of Monolith, with a bright red heart drawn on the chest in his own blood and connected via Dregor’s Binding. It wouldn’t be as strong as his Lair Control Center, because he hadn’t sprayed Monolith with diluted magical jizz.

But it would be enough to keep Monolith busy for a couple weeks. Even if he’d washed it off, a microscopic amount of Perry’s unique blood in a heart shape on the man’s chest would be enough to direct the magic towards Monolith.

It could even kill him.

Perry dismissed it immediately. A voodoo-doll murder had Paradox written all over it. Perry was under the umbrella of being a rookie, but if he committed premeditated murder, he would be stripped of that protection, and most likely killed in return.

Plus, Monolith was part of a complex web. Why should Perry assassinate this jerk and become a murderer when there were tons of other ways the giant could crash and burn on his own? As far as Perry knew, Monolith’s primary conflict wasn’t with him, but with Locust, who was winning.

So, how to keep him busy for a few weeks without killing him?

***Barrel of Monkeys***

“I already paid!” the owner of the store shouted as Monolith started smashing.

“Rates have gone up,” Monolith said, knocking over another shelf.

Reggie winced as glass shattered and food spilled out across the ground. There was an art to extortion. You had to send a message and do a very specific kind of damage to a store. If you cut into their profits, you cut into your own profits.

Monolith wasn’t the best at this subtle distinction, but he was big, mean, and greedy. He did well enough.

Still, he was the boss…because no one could beat him in a fight.

Monolith paused in the middle of another threat, frowning. “Do you guys feel that?” he asked.

“Feel what?”

Monolith’s arms flattened by his sides, he began floating sideways, and then some invisible giant flung him up and away, tearing a hole through the ceiling.

Through the perforated ceiling blooming drywall, insulation, and sparking wires, Reggie could make out Monolith’s figure receding into the sky, miles and miles towards the west.

He’s gonna land outside the city walls, Reggie thought idly. Way outside.

Reggie adjusted his cigar. “We’ll catch up with you later, Barry,” Reggie said.

“Get outta here!” the owner bellowed.

Chapter 63: Gor’s Disintegration

Perry dusted his hands off, watching the voodoo doll flail as it sailed into the distance, propelled by suit-assisted strength.

Now that that stuff is taken care of, or at least put on pause, I can spend a day getting ready to go to Washington City.

Perry had a handful of priorities he wanted to get done.

1: Spare suits. Perry hadn’t mass-produced his Mk. 4. He only had one vat to grow them in, and it took quite a few days to finish, so he needed to bring along some Mk. 3s just in case it got smashed.

Additionally, he wanted to get their magical control set up so he could take remote control of them simply by writing the appropriate symbol on himself.

2: Supplies. Perry wanted to bring along supplies to patch and repair his suits. He could pack most of these supplies into the chest cavities of the remote-controlled suits.

3: A better weapon system he could deploy against things he needed to be dead. For that, Perry was excited to work with Gor’s Disintegration.

Gor’s Disintegration (Advanced Difficulty)

Ingredients: glowstone crystal, eye of greater corruption demon, vivant root, jeweler’s cutting utensils, and a steady hand.

Render the vivant root into a fine power, add water until it is a paste, then form into a stick of incense. Dry.

Empty the eyeball, then cut a series of concentric circles in the pupil at an angle that grows more steep as it goes outward. Example below.

“That’s a Fresnel lens!” Perry shouted at the spellbook, but if it heard him, it didn’t care.

Once the carving is done, and done perfectly, burn the incense and concentrate the smoke as thick as possible before piping it into the eyeball.

When you are ready to disintegrate, break the glowstone crystal behind the pupil. The resulting flash of light will carry the vivant root essence through the corruption demon’s modified pupil and disintegrate the first object it touches.

Once that is done, take a deep breath. If you can do so, you are still alive. Congratulations.

Gor’s Disintegration is slow and cumbersome to cast, but it has been used by a handful of talented wizards in siege warfare to gain the upper hand for their side. The destruction wrought by the spell is complete.

It is said that Gor once annihilated an entire castle and everything inside, save for the mirrors in the duke’s private rooms. This may be an exaggeration, but it’s not much of one, and serves to illustrate the potency of the spell.

Perry pursed his lips.

Save for the mirrors, huh?

An idea was starting to form. Perry could feel the Tinker Twitch making the outside world fade, and he let it go.

Lighthouses used Fresnel lenses to create a collimated beam (or close to it) in order to allow the signal light to travel farther, without diffusing in every direction and losing its effectiveness.

It appeared that the design of the disintegrate spell’s eyeball carving was aiming for a similar effect, although they didn’t know exactly why they wanted it that way.

The Fresnel-like design of the cut was a hint that the disintegrate effect piggybacked on the light wave produced by the glowstone flash. The Fresnel effect was to keep the light in a tight beam, so it could be aimed at a target.

The vivant smoke energized the corruption demon essence—brought it back to life for one instant, long enough to partially recreate the creature’s gaze attack.

So if it piggybacks on light…and it doesn’t disintegrate mirrors…

Perry itched the side of his head as he thought. Reflective surfaces actually do absorb photons. They simply made a new photon of the same kind going in the opposite direction. Hence, reflections.

So he couldn’t see why a mirror wouldn’t disintegrate. It did absorb the photons.

Unless the mirror was special, or the piggybacking moves to the new photon. Food for thought on the behavior of essences.

Perry had an idea brewing, but he was going to have to take extreme precautions.

Spendthrift was going to make an extremely dangerous spell absolutely deadly, and if he made a mistake like with the arm fiasco, he wouldn’t live to regret it.

Let’s see. I’ve got a baker’s dozen greater corruption demon eyes, more than enough glowstone crystals, and a box of vivant root.

Perry’s idea involved the capture of light.

Theoretically, if he made a maze-like box of perfectly reflective nanotubes and shot a beam of disintegrate into it, it might just capture the beam long enough to put a lid on it.

Modern research had managed something similar…capturing light for fractions of a second in laboratory conditions.

Perry intended to capture it indefinitely in the real world, dilute it, then dole it out in tiny little blasts that would turn enemies into dust.

Disintegration didn’t need to be insanely strong to be effective. Perry wanted to leverage the portion of his Spendthrift ability that allowed him to dilute effects and maintain full effectiveness.

Perry’s current ability to dilute substances was about a 1:9 ratio. Meaning he could use one ninth the recommended amount and get the full 100% reaction.

So…Perry could take the deadly light generated by the spell and cut it into nine shots.

Do I even want the full 100%?

Perry didn’t want to dust entire buildings, after all.

He did some math, charting the logarithmic effect of the Spendthrift perk and found that his ideal amount of dilution would be 1:1400.

Rather than dust an entire building, it would dust an area about the size of a large beach ball.

On humans, that would be instant death; same if he shot pretty much anything that needed organs to live. A few giant creatures might survive, but hey…shoot ‘em again.

The utility of a huge amount of extra shots outweighed the ability to blast entire buildings to dust.

Perry didn’t see himself needing to do much of that.

Now that he had a strong idea of what he wanted out of it, Perry had to design a light trap.

The scientists from MIT would be so mad, Perry thought to himself as he poured cheap chrome paint in the box, throwing in chemicals that would grow molecular crystals at freezing temperature before evaporating, leaving behind microscopic chromed holes in the walls of the box.

Perry had to bypass the evaporation stage of the crystals by applying pressure and heat, then flushing out the box over and over until all the crystals had disappeared, leaving him with…a matte box.

Hmm… Perry glanced at the box from several angles. The interior didn’t look like much. Vaguely shiny, and vaguely reflective.

Then he noticed the weirdness.

Perry waved his hand over the box.

One, two.

Two seconds later, the box darkened as the shadow of his hand was reflected over the surface.

Holy cow, that’s cool!

Light moved at 186,282 miles per second, so for his shadow to not register until two seconds later, light that entered his box had to travel about three hundred and seventy-two thousand miles to get back out.

Give or take a few thousand miles.

That’s some impressive surface area. It’s gonna be a bitch to get the gas molecules sticking to it to boil off.

Now I just need a lid, a way to make a perfect seal, depressurize it, and a solid-state way to let the disintegrate effect both in and out, a perfect collimator, and a way to measure the amount remaining inside so I can accurately track my uses. Preferably some kind of sensor that won’t just disintegrate.

Okay, the mass of a photon is zero. BUT no photon is without energy, and with a sensitive enough measuring device, I could measure the bleed-through of energy spontaneously becoming mass and momentum without looking inside the box. Normally that would be too precise, but I bet I could manage something that sensitive.

…And then strap that insanely delicate measuring device to my wrist and punch people in the face.

The life of an active Tinker cape was fraught with contradictions.

Perry checked his clock. 3 a.m. 31 hours until he had to be at the train station.

…I got time.

***Natalie***

“Where the hell is that nerd?” Heather asked, arms crossed as she scanned the surroundings. “We’re leaving in five minutes, and if he misses the bus, he’s basically screwed for life.”

Natalie glanced up at the gorgeous Shapeshifter. Maybe she thinks Perry is a nerd compared to her? That was a distinct possibility.

The last couple months, Perry had added maybe twenty pounds of muscle, and it looked good on him.

It wasn’t what Natalie thought of as ‘nerdy.’ More like ‘jaw-dropping.’

To be fair, he has weird taste in T-shirts, but that’s not the worst thing ever.

And hey, if jamming out together on hi-tech is nerdy, then I don’t wanna be not nerdy.

Of course, Natalie said none of this out loud, until she felt the pressure building up inside. She desperately tried to find hand-puppetry or a non sequitur that would make Heather laugh, but drew a blank.

“He’s not nerdy, he’s magically delicious!” Nat blurted.

Heather blinked, glancing down at her.

Natalie recovered by playing it off as a joke, adopting a humorous pose she’d been studying and touching Heather to ground herself.

“It’s okay, babe. Everyone’s a nerd compared to you.” Nat broke out into a cold sweat as Heather stared at her.

“Awww.” Heather grabbed Nat and squished her into a side-hug, nearly giving Natalie a heart attack at the proximity.

I should have been ‘the funny girl’ earlier. It’s got fringe benefits, Natalie thought, her heart hammering in her ears.

“Final boarding call for Washington City.”

The supers milling around them, smoking and joking to ease their nerves, began to file towards the heavily armored train the size of a building.

“I swear, if Perry flakes out on this trip, I’m gonna steal—”

“Wait up!” Perry’s voice carried over the surrounding supers.

Natalie couldn’t see anything because everyone was taller than her, but Heather relaxed.

Perry emerged from the surrounding crowd, panting harshly as he doubled over from exertion.

“Hey guys,” he said once he caught his breath. “I was working on something, lost track of time, and then they had the security checks and I had to declare my weapons and stow my armor. Took more time than I thought.”

“Excuses,” Heather said.

“Where did you get that shirt?” Natalie asked with a frown.

Perry glanced down at his shirt.

Magically Delicious

↓

“I don’t…know,” Perry said with a frown. “But I’m starting to suspect magical shenanigans or divine intervention. You guys ready to board the train?”

“I was ready half an hour ago!” Heather said, punching him in the shoulder. “You’re lucky we’ve got assigned cabins, or else we’d be right next to the engines or the shitter!”

Assigned cabins? Of course they would bunk teams together. They’ll probably bunk teams together in Washington City, too. I’m gonna be living with these two for the next two weeks? I don’t know if my body can take it.

“Well, I’m gonna go take a cold shower!” Natalie said, throwing her bag over her shoulder. She glanced between the brash, buxom fire-hair and the charming, svelte nerd.

I foresee a lot of cold showers. Sophie said it was a blessing, but it feels INCREDIBLY inconvenient at times like this.

***Perry***

Natalie froze, staring at them for a moment, her face growing gradually redder as the cogs turned behind her eyes.

“’Kay, bye!” the tiny Tinker said, trotting away with her bag over her shoulder.

“I think she’s got a thing for you,” Perry said, glancing at Heather.

“I would’ve said the opposite,” Heather said. She glanced over at him and looked at his T-shirt.

“Your T-shirt is gross, by the way.”

“I didn’t buy this!” Perry protested. “I don’t know where they keep coming from!”

“Sure, dude. Let’s get to our cabin.”

Their cabin had two bunk beds on either side of the room. Since there were only three of them, they used one of the bottom bunks as a makeshift desk/table, laying most of their luggage on/under it.

Heather claimed the top bunk and Natalie took the other, reasoning that she would fit better than Perry, despite obviously being afraid of being up that high.

Which left Perry with the bottom bunk opposite the luggage. Not that he minded. Bunk hierarchy was never a problem for him. He simply didn’t care enough about who slept where to fight over it.

He was having more fun chatting with Nat about the new upgrades.

“So I had to scrap the box entirely.”

“Really? But it was so cool!” Natalie said. “I mean, two-second delay of light? That is huge!”

“I know, but about three hours into it, I wondered what would happen if the box was punctured in a fight.”

“…You’d probably die.”

“I know, right?” Perry said, brows raised.

“Soo…you found a way to store light in an inert form without it disintegrating?” Natalie said.

“Well, at first I tried to adapt the storage mechanism to smaller storage units. Rather than carrying around ALL the light in one container, which, when broken, would destroy myself and everyone around me, I tried to make tiny cartridges of the same material, but…”

“It would still make a beach-ball area of destruction centered around you, and the mass of storing it would increase greatly from all that extra material for containing each individual piece.”

“Exactly. So I made these.” Perry pulled out one of his disintegrate crystals.

“Check this out.” Perry held the tiny crystal up to the cabin light above Natalie’s eyes, allowing her to see the afterimage of the demon’s eyeball.

“Whoaaaa, that’s so cool!”

“I can do cool stuff too,” Heather said from her bunk, pouting.

“You said it was nerdy,” Perry said.

“That was before you used it as bait to hog Nat.”

“So basically,” Perry said, ignoring her, “the light is preserved in this crystal as a permanently stored reflection, and the only way to get it out is to hit the crystal with a very specific key of both frequency and voltage. Otherwise, it’s completely inert.”

Perry snapped the tiny hexagonal quartz between his fingers. “See?”

“Fantastic!” Natalie said, wiggling with excitement on his lap. “That’s way safer! Don’t do that again, though. I thought I was going to die.”

“Uh, sorry,” Perry said. “But here’s the coolest part.” He held the broken halves of the crystal together, and after a moment finding where they set flush, the two sides stuck together.

“They’re reloadable, repairable, and combinable, since they naturally repel gasses and corrosion in the atmosphere, which allows them to stick back together. If I want smaller charges, I can physically break them apart into the size I want for the job I want to use them for.”

“Okay, I forgive you for being late. That is pretty epic,” Natalie said.

“Gimme Nat,” Heather said, making grabbing motions. “I wanna talk to her about punching things really hard.”

“That sounds fun too!” Natalie said, abandoning Perry to chat with Heather about employing her mechsuit for mindless destruction.

“Attention passengers, this is Conductor Walthers. The doors are sealed and we’ll be departing in an hour. All Draftees and Volunteers report to the front audience room to receive your briefing and escort shift assignments.”

“Well, that’s us,” Perry said, standing from his bunk.

“Seriously,” Heather said, looking him up and down. “Change your shirt.”

Chapter 64: Safety Meeting

The three of them walked down the center of the oversized train, which had enough space in the center for two of Hardcase’s mechsuits to walk side by side. Which was probably by design.

The construction was mind-bogglingly massive and resembled a towering apartment complex sitting on its side rather than a train, and it had the space to match.

There was nothing ‘standard’ about the intercity train. The steel beams for the tracks had been mass-produced by an Industrial Tinker, designed and reinforced by a Train Tinker, then covered in armor plating sourced from The Workshop.

The tracks were ten meters apart and each as wide as a king-sized bed. Rather than cutting someone in half by laying them out on the tracks, you would simply flatten their entire body like one of those railroad pennies.

Contrary to expectation, the intercity train did not go as fast as possible to avoid staying out in the wilderness for long, because the replicators were smart, and it didn’t take much smarts at all to sabotage the tracks.

Instead, the train moved along at a relative snail’s pace, escorted by a few dozen supers, while scanning the track in front of itself carefully.

Perry could ride his bike to Washington City faster than the train could reach it.

He’d probably get eaten by mutated ants or giant mind-controlling badger people, but the point stood.

The three of them arrived in the middle of the pack and were lucky enough to find three seats next to each other near the front of the auditorium, where a man was standing next to the podium.

Once everyone was seated, the man at the podium began to speak, his jowls making his grey mustache jiggle.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Conductor Walthers. When speaking to me, call me Conductor or Conductor Walthers. When speaking of me to others, I don’t give a shit.

“Now,” the conductor said. “Orientation. Your cabin assignment and your escort details were chosen by Nexus to maximize efficiency, and for the most part, I’m going to stick to that, but while you’re on my train, I have the final say.”

“To my right is Commander Vern, and to my left are lieutenants Hutchins, Cassock, Jackson, and Clark,” he said, pointing at the men and women standing at attention beside him. “Commander Vern will be in charge while I sleep, and the lieutenants will organize the escorts. Any order from them is an order from me.”

A silver screen dropped down behind Conductor Walthers, and he turned partially to face it as a graphic of the train was displayed.

“Now, the armory, where the Tinker weapons are stored, is here.” He motioned to a heavily armored segment of the train that was buried under layers of cabins and armor, near the center.

“If there is a need, you can follow the yellow line on the ceiling to reach the armory. It’s roughly equidistant from all the cabins.

“The train has a series of automated alarms, each of which is composed of multiple color combinations, borrowing from Franklin City’s setup for ease of transition.” A list of a dozen or so color combinations filled the screen, along with a sentence describing them.

“You’ll also receive a pamphlet and there’s a cheat sheet painted on the inside of your room’s door. The ones circled in red are all-hands-on-deck situations and mean that everyone on board will likely need to defend themselves. In those situations, the armory will be unfolded, allowing for higher traffic to pass through.

“The ones circled in yellow indicate certain bulkheads have been sealed as containment measures. There will be a pictogram LED display beside these warnings that will indicate which bulkheads are sealed, and where you are in relation to them.”

Perry’s attention began to wane, despite his best efforts. He knew it was important stuff, but it was so dry!

Perry tuned in on some of the more interesting fragments of the train’s orientation.

“…In the event of brain-controlling parasites, you are expected to commit suicide before they achieve full motor control. If this is too difficult, please inform one of the lieutenants that you’ve got brain worms, and they will end your suffering….

“…the event that no one you know remembers who you are, you may assume there is either a Minder attack or you are a composite entity that has been regurgitated by…

“…Do not go outside during a wandering gravity storm without the power of flight and a body that is rated for at least fifteen Gs…

“…Do not bring back animals you have hunted during escort duty to the cafeteria and serve them up. That’s how you get brain worms...

“…The cafeteria has a set menu each day and you may eat as much as you like. Loitering in the cafeteria is encouraged for those who don’t have escort duty…

“…Children conceived on the train must be checked for supernatural entities that may have tried to stow away inside them before the age of four…

“…The rec room has been difficult to find ever since the Minder, Nonsense, was killed there while repelling a hostile boarding action. If you do find the rec room, do not report where it is to command. We won’t remember it, and neither will you. If you stumble across the rec room and aren’t on duty, feel free to have a good time, but make sure you clean up after yourself, since the janitorial staff cannot find the place…”

Another fifteen minutes of orientation later, and they were dismissed, Natalie holding their escort schedule.

“Looks like we’re on duty in two days,” Natalie said as the three of them walked back to their room. “We’ll be escorting the fourth car for eight hours, and about half the days afterwards, too.”

“Two days off?” Perry asked. “That’s sweet! Who wants to find the rec room?”

“You don’t find the rec room, man,” a nearby man in a grey jumpsuit with a mop and bucket called out to them through the crowd. “You gotta let it come to you.” He was missing at least one tooth, and his hair was frizzy and matted. The whites of his eyes were visible all the way around.

This seems like a legitimate source of information. Perry waded through the foot traffic and addressed the janitor.

“And how do you ‘let it come to you’? Is there a specific method?” If the room itself had residual psychic energy pushing people away, there might be a particular mindset or behavior that would act like a key and allow someone to stumble into it more easily.

“Whoa, nobody’s ever asked that…” The wild-eyed man frowned, glancing down. “I guess you just gotta be there already, before you can realize that you’ve found it.”

“So what you’re saying is, we should get lost and play around with stuff until whatever we’re fiddling with turns into a foosball table.”

“You got it, man!” the fellow said.

“Thank you!” Perry said. “That was very helpful.”

“You wanna smoke? I got an ‘office’ I set up in one of the emergency escape pods.” The man pulled an outrageously big joint out of his jumpsuit.

“I’m underage and a Tinker, so probably not the best idea,” Perry said. Doing drugs and Tinkering had caused some pretty awful scenarios. Some pretty hilarious ones, too, but Perry was more concerned with the former.

“Same,” Nat said, waving her hand and shaking her head.

“Cool, cool. You, ma’am?” he asked, turning to Heather.

Heather shrugged. “Eh, why not?”

Perry sighed and followed them to the man’s ‘office,’ which was a hall full of decrepit escape pods from back when the government thought escape pods on a train were a good idea.

Heather and Jerry smoked while Jerry gave them a janitor’s-eye-view tour of the train.

“Yeah, back in the early aughts,” Jerry said over Heather’s coughing, “they had the ‘great’ idea to add lifeboats to the train that could allow passengers to make a break for it. Only problem was, anything nasty enough to stop the train was nasty enough to stop the escape pods. Took a lot of dead people, but they eventually just paneled this place up and removed it from the map of the train.

“They forgot to seal up the maintenance access on this car, though,” he said, pointing at the door they’d come through.

“Now I use it to take my smoke breaks and watch TV, maybe catch a siesta in the middle of the day.”

“These batteries are worth millions,” Perry said, peeking at where Jerry had hot-wired one of the escape pods’ quantum foam batteries to run a TV and gaming console. “Coulda sold one and retired.”

Natalie peeked out around his waist and gasped.

“I ain’t a thief,” Jerry said with a shrug. “Besides, I love my life, I love my job.”

“I guess that’s fair enough.” Perry couldn’t steal one of the batteries without incriminating Jerry, nor could he inform the train conductor of the massive amount of wasted power just sitting here without losing Jerry his ‘office,’ which would be a grade-A dick move, after the aging janitor had invited them into what appeared to be his actual home.

There was a sink composed of an emergency decontamination unit and a plastic tub, a ‘kitchen’ with a heating coil and a saucepan, even a mattress in the corner of the room with a ton of old magazines of various levels of safe-for-work spread around it haphazardly.

“Whoa there, ma’am,” Jerry said, taking the joint out of Heather’s fingers as she started coughing violently. “The point is to have a good time, not punish yourself. Take it easy.”

“I don’t think I can see,” Heather croaked between coughing fits.

“Give it a couple minutes, blink the tears away,” Jerry said, puffing on the joint.

Perry peered up above the huge, rocket-shaped emergency escape pods, into the tubes they rested in. “Does that lead all the way to the outside?” Perry asked.

Jerry stood up and peered up the firing tube, smoke curling around his nose and into his eyes and hair, although he didn’t seem to notice. “Sure does; just a thin hatch between us and the outside world. Could even open it up to get some fresh air if you wanted to.” Jerry motioned toward one of the oversized buttons encased in a sturdy plastic box beside the escape hatch.

“Although I’m not entirely sure which one opens the hatch and which one launches the escape pod…” Jerry stroked his scraggly beard.

“Probably not a good idea to open this area to the outside world while we’re outside the city,” Perry said. “And they definitely have an automated report sent to the bridge if an escape pod begins launch procedures.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jerry said with a shrug. “Knew there was a reason I taped those down.”

Perry chuckled.

“Hey, am I seeing things, or is your friend…melting?” Jerry asked when he turned back towards the seating.

“I have no idea what’s going on, my short-term memory is fried,” Heather said, shaking her head from where she drooped around the edges of the milk-crate ‘chair’ she’d been sitting on.

“I think we’ll take Wraith to our cabin.”

“Cafeteria,” Heather said, shaking her head. “It’s all-you-can-eat.”

“Cafeteria, then.”

“Try the gummy worms and pizza,” Jerry said, waving to them as they left, Heather putting her utmost focus into walking and not turning into a puddle.

Once they were out of earshot and back in the main hall, Perry spoke. “I don’t want to come off as judgy, because Jerry seems harmless and you could probably kill him if he tried anything, but what inspired you to follow a strange man back to an undisclosed location to do drugs with him? That’s generally a red flag.”

“I dunno,” Heather said. “I’m just…frustrated, and thought maybe smoking some pot would help.”

“Frustrated with what?”

“My dad! Where is he? What is he doing? Is he planning on killing me, or did he just cut ties completely? I think…I think he might be in Washington City.”

“Oh,” Perry said.

“I wanna find him while we’re there.”

“And then what?” Perry asked.

“Kick the crap out of him for eighteen years in a row. Then we’d be even.”

“That seems difficult to cram into two weeks, but we can help you look for him,” Perry said.

“I’ll help too,” Natalie said, her face set with determination.

“Aw, thanks Nat. You’re so cute and tiny and squishable,” Heather said, stepping away from Perry’s shoulder. “I could just eat you up. Nom nom nom!”

Natalie shrieked as Heather began to engulf the smaller girl like The Blob.

“We’re fine, it’s fine,” Perry said as passing supers in the main hall gave the three of them odd looks while he tugged the squirming Natalie out of Heather’s grasp.

“Heather. Pizza? Remember the cafeteria being all-you-can-eat?”

Heather reformed, her eyes bloodshot, while a trembling Natalie clung to Perry like a koala.

“You’re right.” She craned her neck to look at the arrows on the ceiling. “Which color was it, again?”

“Blue for the cafeteria,” Perry said.

“Dear Lord, I’m hungry,” Heather said as she began following the line.

“Are you all right?” Perry asked Natalie.

“I’m fine,” Natalie said, climbing down from his torso. “It was like stepping into a warm bath with a plastic bag around you. I was just surprised, is all.

“Gets into weird places,” Natalie muttered under her breath as they walked.

Nerve boosted Perry’s hearing by about 47%. High enough above normal to be considered a superpower.

Chapter 65: Small but Aggressive

***Monolith***

I think I’ve changed my tune on potatoes. They are a truly blessed plant, Monolith thought as he devoured a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy.

Farmers hadn’t had quite enough time to harvest all their crops before packing everything up and hiding inside the city walls for High Tide, and Monolith had been able to find half a field of potato plants and dig a couple up, boil them, and make gravy out of a powder mix.

Home cooking out in the sticks.

As he ate, he stared out the farmstead’s window, eyeballing the distant shimmer that was Franklin City. Miles and miles of forest and farmland separated him from his empire.

Somebody’s gonna die when I get back.

A very quiet part of Monolith knew his empire would be crumbling while he was gone, but the louder, angrier part of him ignored it.

He had a cracked bruise on the front of his glassy chest in the shape of a heart. Where that brat had marked him.

Monolith couldn’t exactly go after the kid with intent to kill, without Solaris turning him into ash—or Hexen, for that matter—but Monolith wasn’t gonna sit down and take it.

He was gonna get back and make that kid’s life a living hell…just as soon as he dealt with Breaker for letting him get away, and Locust for being a thorn in his side, and Barrel of Monkeys for letting him get thrown outside the city…

Monolith sat and stewed, chewing on his ever-expanding list of grudges, both real and imagined.

RRR.

“Eh?”

A massive snout ruptured through the floorboards underneath Monolith’s feet, seizing his ankle and dragging him underground, the half-eaten bowl of mashed potatoes flinging out of his hands.

“You mother—”

***Perry***

New Quest!

Make it to Washington City alive!

Rewards: 0-1500 XP depending on condition of Train, Companions, and Self.

Failure: Death.

“Hey, you can see my grampa’s farm from here,” Perry said, pointing out the stretch of land from their seat in the cafeteria as they ate breakfast.

The walls of the cafeteria had massive screens that were connected to outside cameras, allowing the people inside to observe nature from a safe distance as the train slowly devoured the distance between them and Washington City.

“Your grampa’s a farmer?” Natalie asked.

“Yeah, mostly soybeans and potatoes. I spent a lot of summers over there covered in mud and engine grease, having my grampa sass me with anachronisms dating back to World War Two.”

“I thought you were a prince?”

“On the other side of my family, yeah,” Perry said before pointing at the potato fields. “On that side of my family, I’m a potato goblin.”

Heather chuckled between spoonfuls of leek soup.

“I can kinda see why High Tide causes an instant rise in the price of food,” Natalie said, surveying the fields of abandoned crops.

Maybe 15% of crops had to be abandoned simply because they didn’t have enough time or the crops weren’t ripe and it was far too dangerous to hang around while monsters savaged the countryside.

“Aren’t those big guns to keep the farms safe during High Tide?” Natalie asked, pointing out the massive autoturrets that glittered above most of the farms.

“Nah, those are there to dissuade the local wildlife from getting too nosy around the crops during the regular season. There’s just too many monsters running around during High Tide. It’s a matter of quantity. There’s just too many of them. One of them will get through and then you’re a snack.”

“Megadeer!” Natalie exclaimed, pointing to an elk-like creature the size of a house plodding along through a field, nibbling at corn, giving the train a brief glance before it returned to its business.

It was a species long dead, resurrected and changed by the crazy, mixed-up world they lived in. Perry didn’t know whether a normal deer mutated into the massive creature, or some mad scientist decided to bring the Irish elk back from extinction and then make them even bigger, but there they were.

There was a flicker of motion to the left, and Perry glanced over in time to spot a lid made of compacted dirt laced with webbing fly away to reveal a spider about four stories tall, and brilliant shades of blue, yellow, teal, and magenta…

“Huh, it’s a Brazilian Jewel trapdoor spider.”

Shouldn’t that be in Brazil?

The creature reared forward and sank its fangs into the car ahead of them, but Perry didn’t have time to process that, as a shout from behind them made him spin in his seat.

The other side of the train had a massive spider abdomen pressed up against it, directly outside their car.

For a breathless moment, nothing changed, but then the ceiling began to bulge, like a water leak only held back by a thick layer of paint.

“Move,” Perry said, picking up Nat and putting her on the table.

An instant later the bubble burst, revealing acrid smelling venom that cascaded down onto an unlucky table of capes, pasting them before spreading across the floor, hissing and bubbling as it consumed organic and inorganic substances at the same time.

Acids weren’t supposed to do that, but the monster hadn’t gotten the memo.

Several capes sustained heavy damage to their feet before others copied Perry and got on top of the tables.

“Plug it!” Perry shouted, pointing at the ceiling.

A cape with blue hyperweave with a white bolt on the front grunted and sent a powerful arc of lightning up into the dark hole in the ceiling, the light revealing the two man-sized fangs wiggling as they disgorged more acidic venom.

The spider reared back in pain, while another super with an iron cube on their hyperweave patched the hole in the ceiling by manifesting an organic-looking segment of raw iron.

“You ever play ‘the floor is lava’?!” Perry shouted over the sirens, glancing at the hissing and bubbling floor beneath them. The table was slowly sinking into the ground.

“I am the queen of ‘the floor is lava,’” Heather said, stretching up to grab the ceiling before lowering down and taking Nat off his hands.

“Who needs a ride to the exit?” a flying cape asked, swinging by Perry.

Perry shook his head and motioned for the flier to help others trapped on their own little islands of safety.

The iron woman was making temporary bridges from place to place, allowing other supers to safely move between tables. She was on the other side of the room from Perry, dealing with her own problems, and not a viable method of escape.

One guy was carrying an industrial-sized pot of potato and leek soup, still steaming. It was clutched in a single oversized fist, bigger than a man. Fister, I think his name was.

Gotta have priorities, ya know? Perry thought, making a running leap to the next table. Perry sailed through the air with precision and grace. The table, on the other hand, had other plans.

The front legs snapped off, dropping Perry onto his back and creating a slide into the bubbling goo.

Perry whipped his hand behind him and caught the edge of the table before he was dumped into the spider venom.

“You okay?!” Heather asked as Nat stifled a cry of fear.

“Oh yeah, this is completely under control,” Perry lied, his muscles protesting where his arm was trying to pull itself out of its socket.

He fished around in his pocket and pulled out one of his temporary tattoos of Bargand’s Favor.

Perry licked the back and slapped the temporary tattoo down under his shirt.

Suddenly, Perry wasn’t terrified. He was pissed. The adrenaline redoubled, and it erred towards fight.

“Gah!” Perry planted both feet on the sloped table and let go of the edge, propelling himself forward with everything he had.

Perry sailed through the air, grabbed the edge of the next table, and hauled himself forward before gravity had a chance to decide what to do with him.

A quick sprint across the table and another jump, and Perry was outside the pool of spreading venom, racing for the door. Perry finally had an opportunity to look at the alarm.

The color combination indicated hazardous areas, and the flashing red lights indicated which ones.

Needless to say, Perry and co. were smack-dab in the middle of one.

“Armory?” Heather asked.

“There’s nothing to fight,” Perry said, shaking his head. Other Tinkers would likely think the same as Heather, and Perry didn’t want to get caught in a stampede. An armory unfolding would only happen if there was some kind of boarding action, or if the enemy outside was so overwhelming that all hands were needed.

They should just consider themselves lucky that the bulkheads weren’t sealed, trapping them in there with the acid.

Sure enough, the spiders were killed or driven back into their homes in a matter of minutes, but the damage had been done.

“Shit, is that our dorm wing?” Heather asked, pointing.

Perry’s brow rose as he realized that the hazardous area warning was indeed blinking on their sleeping area of the train.

“Let’s check it out. I wanna see how bad the damage is.”

When they made it to their room, a shiver of fear raised the hair on the back of their necks.

Their room, specifically, had unleashed a flood of acidic spider venom into the hall.

There was a smoking hole in the ceiling above their beds, and the entire room had been slagged, including all of their luggage.

“My laptop!” Natalie said, sinking to her knees.

“My music!” Heather exclaimed.

“Oh, hey, my T-shirt,” Perry said, tugging his partially melted backpack open to reveal the novelty T-shirt he’d bought on the way in.

I nearly died on the Intercity Train
and all I got was this stupid T-shirt!

“Obviously I wasn’t gonna wear it until we arrived in Washington City,” Perry defended himself as his crew stared at him.

“Dude, I think you’ve got a problem,” Heather muttered, giving him a sour look.

“It’s only clinical if it affects my daily life,” Perry said. “And I think the important thing is that we weren’t in here asleep when it dumped acid on our heads.

“Now, who wants to take over Jerry’s ‘office’?” Perry asked, raising his hand.

The armory was the most convenient place for a Tinker to store their weapons and armor, but Perry was a bit leery of putting all his eggs in one basket.

Perry wanted to make Jerry’s office into a fallback: somewhere they could go if the armory was compromised.

“Also, Nat, I want you to put one of these on,” Perry said, handing Nat a Bargand’s Favor.

“What’s it do?” she asked.

“It taps into a war god’s power to provide a bit of magical protection, which allowed warriors to fight nearly naked.”

“So it’s a magical protection spell…” Natalie said, inspecting it.

“Basically,” Perry said, nodding.

Natalie wetted it under a drinking fountain and applied it to her belly.

“It may also cause—”

“Hell yeah!” Natalie shouted, pumping her fists. “We’re gonna go over to Jerry’s, Tinker up some weapons, and lay waste to anything that stands in our way! Outta the way, sweet cheeks!” she said, slapping Heather’s bottom as she strode past, eliciting a squeak from the redhead.

“Increased aggression,” Perry finished as Natalie marched away, her aura causing the other supers in the hall to stumble out of the 4’9” girl’s way without knowing exactly why.

Heather raised a brow at him, volumes of unspoken words transferred in that single look.

“I only tested it on myself, and in hindsight…I may be a bit resistant to the mental side effects. Although you can’t say that aggression isn’t useful in a fight.”

Heather cocked her head.

“After you, sweet cheeks,” Perry said, motioning.

“What are you waiting for, hot stuff?! Going to Jerry’s was your idea!” Natalie called over her shoulder.

“After you, hot stuff,” Heather said, motioning.

Heather and Perry trotted to catch up with Nat, watching in fascination as she parted the crowd like the prow of a ship. Or a cowcatcher.

“God, that’s inspiring,” Heather whispered to him, her eyes locked on the tiny ball of fire ahead of them. “I may want one of those for…recreational use.”

Perry wordlessly handed Heather another Bargand’s Favor. The redhead slipped it into her pocket.

“How many of these do you have?”

“Five in my pocket, fifty in my backpack, and two hundred in the armory. They’re really easy to make.”

Heather made grabby motions, and Perry sighed, handing the rest over as Natalie kicked the door to the maintenance area open.

“Use performance-enhancing spells responsibly, alright?” Perry said.

***Later That Day***

Hardcase’s gatling gun kept spinning up, the high-pitched whine nearly interrupting Lieutenant Clark’s orders as the harried officer tried to wrangle the supers.

“She’s not usually like this,” Perry apologized at the lieutenant’s sour look.

“I’ve dealt with worse,” Clark said with a shrug before continuing over Hardcase’s dry firing.

“Wraith, Paradox, take either flank and pace the car about a hundred feet out. Keep your eyes open for threats.”

Paradox and Wraith nodded.

“Bolt and Hardcase, you’ll provide heavy fire. Support the scouts and wipe anything out before it can reach the train.”

“Aw man, I wanted to get up close and personal. I wanna split some monster in half and wear it on top of my armor like a hat.” Hardcase’s modulated voice sounded like a serial killer’s.

Perry cleared his throat.

“Fister, you’re the blocker. If anything gets close, use your hands to shove it away.”

“Ma’am,” Fister said, nodding.

“Hey, Bolt,” Hardcase said, addressing the lightning energy user.

“Eh?”

“I bet I get more kills than you, you freaking wuss.”

“Oh, it’s on,” Bolt said with a grin.

“When did you say this would expire?” Heather whispered next to Perry’s helmet.

“I’unno,” Perry said with a shrug. “Worst-case scenario, we’ll have to hold her down and scrub the paint off. It should come off in the shower, though.”

Paradox and Heather broke off towards either side of the train car, while the other three stood on the back of the slowly cruising train, keeping their eyes peeled for attack.

“Hey, Wraith,” Perry said over his comms, glancing at the distant manta-ray figure of Heather gliding along beside the train. She’d vastly improved her flying game, and rarely had to touch down.

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking about the spider attack earlier today.”

“Yeah?”

“Wasn’t it weird that they all attacked at once?” Perry asked.

“Could’ve been a pack of ‘em?” Heather asked.

“Spiders are notoriously asocial,” Perry said. “And trapdoor spiders? No way.”

“So what do you think happened?” Heather asked.

“Normally, the first train car to pass one of their doors would’ve gotten hit, and then we would’ve known about the rest, but they all hit at once. So maybe something was keeping them from attacking until we were deep in their territory. Feels deliberate.”

Perry shrugged in his armor. “Or…they were pack-hunting trapdoor spiders.”

They did a lot of damage. Perry had personally witnessed a few supers get creamed, which would make their defenses just a little bit tighter going forward. Perry’s team had gotten some of their free time stricken down to accommodate. And that made him uneasy.

Perry glanced back along the length of the train, which consisted of hundreds of cars. 99% of them were for moving massive amounts of cargo. The entire thing snaked through the surrounding countryside, winding into the distance further than Perry could see.

There was a possibility that the train hadn’t even fully left Franklin City yet. Unlikely, but it felt that way.

Feeding an entire city on a single train-trip wasn’t a simple task.

Guarding car four meant they were actually very close to the action. Almost the very front.

It wasn’t an hour later, as they were approaching an area of thick forest, when the next action came to them.

Perry inhaled a breath through his teeth as massive creatures waddled out of the forest, snarling at the intrusion into their territory.

“Mustelidae.”

AKA badgers, weasels, and wolverines. Creatures whose claim to fame was raw aggression and smelling awful.

Perry wasn’t sure of the exact species, since they’d obviously mutated. Their snouts appeared to be made of living steel that faded into a natural pelt.

They charged toward the train from both sides of the forest, flooding in from every direction.

What, did we interrupt a badger convention? Perry thought as he selected the size of his disintegration beams.

XSDisintigration.EXE

The hexagonal crystals stored in his forearm were snapped into thumbnail-sized chunks before being drawn into the firing chamber, where resonant frequency and electricity were applied, unleashing the tainted light, which was focused into a tight beam, hitting the closest badger directly in the forehead.

Half the creature’s head turned to ash, and it slumped in place, but hundreds more took its place.

This could be problematic, Perry thought as he shot target after target as quickly as he could, only slowing down when he began missing from haste.

The ones who made it past Perry’s blistering fire along with Bolt’s deafening lightning strikes got shoved backwards by hands the size of houses.

Fister winced in pain as a large portion of the feral animals latched onto the offending limbs and began savaging them with their metallic snouts and shiny claws that had gouged into the reinforced train.

The super flicked the creatures off like water droplets, but not before he took some damage.

In between shots, Perry scanned the train, spotting vicious animals tearing the outer hull and brutalizing the occasional super too slow or too weak to avoid them.

“No freaking way this is a natural occurrence,” Perry muttered to himself before getting back to work.

Wraith, on the other side, was having trouble executing the monstrous snarling bags of rage, whose ultra-durable and loose skin allowed the blades she made out of her arms to simply slide off, before they turned on her and tried to eat her face.

A constant stream of cursing over the comms was the only hint that Heather was alive. Perry was up to his ears in badger.

The support fire that Perry received dwindled as Bolt realized that Heather’s kill-speed didn’t match Perry’s, and turned the other direction to add his lightning to the mix on the other side of the train.

It might have only lasted five minutes, but it felt like hours. When the vicious animals finally stopped, the train looked…a little worse for wear. Some supers were missing entirely, others had wounds ranging from serious to scratches.

Perry landed on the train and collapsed. Despite flying for the entire exchange, he felt like he’d run a marathon.

“Don’t drop your guard, Paradox. Get back in the air.” Lieutenant Clark’s voice came over Perry’s comms.

“Yes, ma’am,” Perry said, lifting back off and getting into position.

I’m not getting that full 1500 XP, Perry thought as he studied the train from the air. It was mostly cosmetic damage to the external armor plating, easily patched, but it was telling.

The train was starting to accumulate damage.

Perry checked his disintegration.

He still had about 60% remaining. He would have to reload from his ammo crate in the armory when he got back in.

***Conductor Walthers***

“They’re softening us up,” Walthers said, turning over the replicator tech a passenger had found in the spider den. A technopath had informed him it was designed to keep the spider in forced hibernation until a specific instant.

“I’d bet my left nut the badgers had something similar causing them to congregate around the tracks.”

“Sir,” Commander Vern said, nodding. “Should we send a diplomat and detach a few cargo cars?”

That usually got them to leave the train alone.

Walthers considered it. “They’ve never softened us up quite like this before. I believe their intention is to take the entire train. We can’t afford to lose any of our cargo space, either.”

Walthers glanced up at Vern. “You want your family to starve?”

“No, sir,” Vern said.

“Put us on high alert. Double shifts. Brief the lieutenants, and get the Tinkers working on patching up the damage. Unfold the armory. Break out the big guns.”

“Yessir,” Vern said, marching off to make Walthers’ orders happen.

Walthers’ gaze went back to the faintly glowing tech in his hand.

“This is gonna be a tough one,” he muttered.

Chapter 66: Night Raid

***Monolith***

Giant mole didn’t know who the hell he was messing with, Monolith thought, trudging down the road toward Franklin City, his shredded pants fluttering around his ankles.

Off to the left, he could make out the intercity train, a speck in the distance heading northeast towards Washington City. If it were going the opposite direction, Monolith might be able to save some time by hitching a ride back to the city.

As it was, Monolith didn’t want to visit Washington City. That place was stuck up.

Click.

Monolith froze, glancing behind himself.

An ant the size of a Volkswagen clicked its mandibles together, its antennae tasting the air for Monolith.

Monolith hadn’t sweated since he’d Triggered, and that was probably the reason why the ant hadn’t latched onto him already. Monolith didn’t smell like much more than glass, and ants were very scent-oriented.

But that didn't mean they couldn’t see him.

Monolith could kill the ant. It wouldn’t even be that hard. He could kill the next one, too, and the next. But the thousandth?

The scary thing about ants was that they didn’t stop coming. Especially if you pissed them off.

The forager looked like it was alone, but there were always thousands more where that came from.

Monolith turned around and ran.

Click, click click!

The insect’s jaws snapped eagerly as it began chasing the running prey.

All I gotta do is break line of sight, goddamnit, then it can’t track me! Monolith thought as the crunch of gravel and skittering legs followed directly behind, slowly gaining on him.

***Perry***

“Ugh,” Perry said, lying on the floor fully suited up. His armor was not designed with comfort as a top priority, so sleeping in it was…less than ideal.

Nobody was leaving their armor except to pee, though. It was that bad. Hardcase was lying back in her opened cockpit, giving the wall a thousand-yard stare.

“I like the welding foam,” Perry grunted. It was a Tinker-tech invention: a foam embedded with thermite that would fill a space with solid steel.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Natalie breathed.

They’d spent the last sixteen hours patching holes and repairing damaged wiring, and their initial enjoyment of working with the novel substance was quickly replaced with anxiety-riddled boredom, waiting for the next assault.

And the assaults kept coming.

Silverfish, mutated fish who’d taken to the sky, floated across the tracks and had done some serious damage.

Their natural defense mechanism was to turn their reflective surfaces in such a way that the entire school was focusing light on a threat. A big enough school of silverfish could actually vaporize a human on a sunny day.

The fiber optics embedded in the Mk. 4 were able to disperse this attack well, so Perry had tanked attention while they whittled the school down, until it scattered in every direction, reforming a few miles away.

After that was an ant nest full of millions of little ankle-sized black ants, which kept trying to plant a fast-spreading fungus on the train’s armor that would’ve rotted it away in a matter of minutes.

The later train cars were still passing through the ants’ territory, but Perry had been switched out after a couple hours of scraping them off the side of the train. It was somebody else’s problem right now.

Then there were the ‘trees.’

Trees had formed a low arch over the train tracks. They had crowded in around the tracks, and the lieutenant had given them the order to set the trees on fire before they went through, as they were suspiciously close and had been absent the last time the train passed through.

Sure enough, the ‘trees’ erupted into shrieks of pain when set on fire, and began flinging shards of wood at the assembled supers, which bounced off armor and hyperweave, dealing little damage.

There was a kiosk set up alongside the tracks, seemingly staffed by a man whose legs disappeared into a pit in the ground.

He waved, and they waved back.

Nobody fell for it.

The attacks were so consistent, so regular, that Perry was currently trying to sleep in his armor. The armory had long since been unfolded and the officer in charge waved them through, her only task keeping nonhumans from entering.

Need to work on the interior padding with sleep in mind, he thought after he finished his soup, lying back with his armor opened up around him. He could snap it back closed at a moment’s notice.

“Night, you guys.”

“Night,” Natalie said, pulling the top of her cockpit down.

“Night, Perry,” Heather said, closing the escape pod’s shielding down around her.

Nobody was taking any chances.

Perry took a deep breath of fresh air, checked the status of his O2, then closed his armor. It wasn’t designed to keep him breathing indefinitely, but it could last a few days straight without needing a refill, on account of his Spendthrift perk.

Perry thought it would be hard to sleep in the claustrophobic confines of his armor, but he was out like a light.

Motion was what woke Perry up.

He was sleeping soundly inside his armor, when suddenly his gut lurched like he’d been yanked sideways at breakneck speeds.

Something began rattling Perry around inside of his armor like a child with a Ken doll.

Perry’s startled scream didn’t even reach his own ears. He felt his vocal cords vibrate, but there was no sound, and he was still getting shaken around inside his tin can.

There were flashes of bright light, but mostly it was dark with the occasional glimpse of something pink.

In the course of his blind thrashing, Perry felt a huge object that seemed to be stuck to him, plastered across half his armor, sticky, and big. It was what was shaking him around so bad.

Perry shoved against it, turning his thrusters up to max in a bid to escape the grasp of whatever had him.

Perry felt his inner ear protest when he tore away from whatever had him at dangerous speeds. Perry couldn’t see where he was going, but it felt like he’d jetted forward a couple hundred feet before he came to a sudden, violent stop.

HP: 4

“Gah, what the hell was that?!” Perry demanded, prying himself out of whatever he was stuck in now.

It was dark, and Perry couldn’t make out where he was or what he was doing. Perry turned on his armor’s floodlights.

I’m in a tree.

Through a tree might be more accurate.

Crack! Perry pried himself out, shattering the hapless hardwood as he regained his footing.

Went through a boulder, too.

Perry scanned the surroundings and spotted the train.

There was a…shape on top of it.

A hunched-over figure bigger than the entire train car was revealed by the train’s floodlights, shoving its face into the train’s armor, while supers silently flew around it, hitting it with soundless bolts of lightning, energy blasts, and heavy arms fire.

It reminded Perry of a nature documentary from the sixties, with a bear eating honey while the bees buzzed around it angrily.

Perry got a hint when a massive pink object shot out of another hole in the armor, then the creature shifted its weight, revealing massive claws taller than two men standing on top of each other.

Those claws effortlessly ripped the train car’s lauded armor apart, allowing the anteater to shove its face in further to get at the passengers.

I almost got eaten… Heather and Nat were in the same room!

What are you standing around for?!

Perry blasted into motion, dirt and flora scattering behind him as he launched forward.

LDisintegrate.EXE

Perry shot the anteater’s head with a large Disintegrate, dropping 15% of his charge on one blast.

The creature that had been shrugging off energy blasts slumped to the side, most of its brain turned to ash, revealing a tongue covered in struggling people, and pulling the train car off the rails with it.

The entire train screeched to a halt as the building-sized train car pulled its connecting cars off the rails.

Shit, that’s not good. At least I can hear now.

The massive anteater had some kind of noise cancellation superpower which had drastically delayed the response time while it raided the nest.

“Hardcase, Wraith, where are you? Tell me you’re alive,” Perry said into his comms.

“Still alive, still locked in the escape pod,” Heather said. “Something up?”

“I dunno where I am, but it’s dark as heck, and everything’s…fleshy?” Hardcase said.

“Okay, Hardcase, don’t freak out, but you may be…in a stomach right now,” Perry said, joining the surrounding supers as they dove into the rescue operation, turning the shopping-mall-sized creature onto its side to give themselves access to its stomach.

“What?!” Hardcase and Wraith demanded simultaneously.

“We’re working on getting you out,” Perry said, pulling his sword off his back and sawing through the stadium-sized animal’s tough skin while the other supers held the limbs out of his way.

“I’m coming,” Heather said over the comms before cursing. “Everything’s sideways!”

“Things got a little derailed,” Perry said. “You should be able to find plenty of holes in the armor. This thing was tearing apart reinforced steel like it was a termite mound.”

Perry paused in the middle of his work, his skin going cold.

The anteater had targeted the living quarters. Most of the supers were either in its stomach or trying to rescue those who were.

The train was damaged, derailed, and stationary.

Everyone was exhausted, with very little sleep.

Highly distracted.

If I were going to ambush the train, I would do it now, Perry thought, his stomach sinking.

A flash of light out of the corner of Perry’s eye caused him to leap to the side as the ground exploded with shrapnel, pinging off his armor.

A nearby energy user howled with pain.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!

The floodlights on the train burst in rapid-fire as armor-piercing rounds snuffed them out like candles, plunging the entire site into pitch-black darkness.

Perry turned on infrared and ran so as not to present a stationary target.

“Replicators!” Perry shouted into his comms, spotting the distant flare of jets as a replicator Dreadnaught began disgorging dozens of the machine warriors.

“Shit!” Heather said over comms, grunting with effort as she pried her way through the battered sideways train.

“What do I do?” Hardcase asked, her voice carrying a hard edge.

“Your compass still work?” Perry asked, scanning the surroundings and locating the distant ocean, orienting himself.

“Yes!”

“We cut the monster’s belly on its east side. Cut your way out of the stomach and head east, bring as many people out alive as you can, and be prepared to be greeted by heavy assault when you clear the stomach. You might be able to take shelter under the claws. I’ll try and flank them when you emerge and give you time to head for the train.”

“Roger,” Hardcase said as Perry flew up and away.

Every tiny blue light was the jets of a single replicator descending upon the train from above. Each one of them was about twenty feet tall, easily capable of pasting a human sans weaponry, with bunker-shaped heads where they housed their sensory parts.

They were identical to the one he’d fought on the beach.

Except they weren’t missing most of their limbs and critically low on battery.

They were armed.

And there were at least fifty of them.

Shhhhit. God, I hope the Mk. 4 can handle this.

MDisintegrate.EXE

Perry waited until they started firing at Hardcase emerging from the anteater’s stomach.

He lined up a shot and took one down by ashing its center mass.

The rest of the replicators scattered with inhuman speed, dodging Perry’s next two shots.

Their attention shifted to Perry’s distant form instantly, and Perry was swatted out of the sky like a gnat as a bullet the size of his head caught his torso and flung him a half a mile away from the train.

I need a way to deal with inertia pasting me inside my armor, Perry thought, coughing as he pulled himself out of the furrow he’d buried himself in, putting his jets on full to get back to the train. In heartbeats, rather than minutes.

“I’m out,” Hardcase said. “Heading for the train. Whatever you did got them to break off their assault. I’ve got at least a dozen with me.”

“No problem,” Perry said, wincing as he ran his hand over the massive dent in his chestplate.

“Shit, never mind! They’re tearing my mech apart!” Hardcase shouted as the replicators regrouped with the speed and coordination only they could boast of.

Damnit, Perry thought, putting on speed, tearing through the air to arrive only seconds later. He looked down and saw Hardcase and a dozen supers warding off fire from all directions.

Perry aimed an—

HP: 3

“Gah!” Perry’s brain caught up as he pried himself out of crumpled steel. He looked around and realized he was inside the train, and there was another massive dent on his armor, this time on his helmet. He’d been literally shot out of the air by the massive cannons of the Dreadnaught.

So hard, it nearly broke his brain.

Okay, so flying is a no-go.

Luckily, he’d been propelled into the train.

What about Hardcase?! Perry thought, prying himself out of the tortured steel and glancing up at the hole in the ceiling.

“We made it to car seven, heading for the armory!” Hardcase shouted over the comms “Heavy Metal made a tunnel for us to get there, but she’s exhausted and losing a lot of blood!”

“I’ll meet you there!” Heather said over the comms.

Car seven? Perry thought, glancing up at the signage posted all around the sideways car.

I’m in number two.

Thus oriented, Perry began flying full-speed through the massive halls of the train.

Boom! There was an explosion that rocked the train car around Perry’s flying form.

“Shit, they’re pouring out of the armory! Little ones the size of chihuahuas and about half as mean!” Heather said over the radio. “I’m backing up towards Jerry’s office!”

“Roger!” Hardcase shouted. Perry mentally changed his course.

A flash of blood-covered skin in front of Perry caused him to tumble out of the way before he pasted the other guy.

Perry whipped around and spotted Conductor Walthers pinned under a section of steel jutting out of the wall.

Melt.EXE

Perry liquified a narrow section of the steel and peeled the rest of it off the overweight conductor. The man’s leg and scalp were bleeding where they’d been damaged, and he moved with a limp.

“Paradox, right?!” the conductor shouted.

“Yessir!” Perry responded.

“Get me to car fourteen if you wanna live!” he shouted, grabbing the collar of Perry’s armor and shaking him a bit.

The armory was between them and car fourteen, and according to Heather, it was disgorging enemies, likely from some kind of intrusion missile targeting the room specifically.

A ghost of a plan formed.

“Yessir!” Perry said, slapping a Bargand’s Favor on the conductor’s receding hairline, where it mixed with the man’s blood.

Perry needed his human cargo to be a bit more…durable.

Chapter 67: Berserkers

“What are you looking at?” Monolith demanded, eyeballing the megadeer who was in turn eyeballing the corn cob in his fist.

“I will punch you right in the snout,” Monolith said, raising his fist, allowing the black energy inside him to flicker around his knuckles.

The megadeer gave a dismissive snort and went back to munching on corn.

“That’s what I thought,” Monolith grumbled, taking a bite out of the cob while snapping off a few more and shoving them in his waistband. It was basically the last piece of his clothing still serving its function.

His T-shirt had holes in it the size of the Mississippi, and his pants were less-than modest.

I’m starting to get why capes wear hyperweave, Monolith thought.

He’d always prided himself on not wearing the stuff, viewing it as a crutch. But sometimes you just want clothes that aren’t gonna fall apart or burn off.

Maybe I can get some tailored, so it doesn’t look like a gimp suit.

***Perry***

“Have you been brushing your teeth?”

“Yes, but not yesterday. I was busy,” Perry said.

“You gotta brush your teeth every day.”

“I’ll try,” Perry said. “How’s Grampa doing?”

“He’s a bit of a sourpuss, not having anything to do, but other than that, he’s fine. How’s your trip going, sweetie?” Mom asked over Perry’s comms.

“It’s been pretty exciting,” Perry said as he put pressure on Heavy Metal’s wounded leg. The Conjurer gritted her teeth and groaned in pain as they secured the wadded-up cloth bandage.

“It’s actually been pretty exciting over here, too,” Mom said. “The prawns have been coming hot and heavy for about thirty hours now. There’ve been a dozen or so minor wall breaks, but we’re keeping up.”

“We got hit by a squad of replicators,” Perry said, moving on to the next wounded super, helping Heather patch him up and handing him a complementary Bargand’s Favor.

“They herded the prawns! I told you!” Perry heard his dad shout in the background.

“Save that for the signal,” Perry said, switching his mic to external and waggling his finger at the wounded fellow. Bargand’s Favor might allow you to ignore pain, but that wasn’t always healthy.

“Replicators?! Are you okay?!” Mom said.

“I’m fine,” Perry said. “Thank Dad for the HP system for me, would you? There’s no magical princesses around to save my ass.”

“I could be there in seconds,” Mom said.

“Do they need you on the wall?”

“….”

“Your mother is sweeping as we speak,” Dad said, coming closer to the mic.

“I’ll be fine. We’ve got a plan.” Perry glanced at the conductor, pacing back and forth with a snarl, the glowing symbol on his forehead making him easy to pick out in Jerry’s crowded office.

“You know, you’ve got your work cut out for you when you get back; that Chemestro punk is kicking some major ass here. If he wasn’t underage and so obviously a plant, he might even be upgraded to an Anchor,” Dad said.

An Anchor was one of the supers in line to succeed Solaris in the unlikely event that the super died or went mad.

A sadly common occurrence in the super world.

“How are Heather and Hardcase doing?” Mom asked. “Can I talk to them?”

“Sure,” Perry said, flipping the speakers on.

“Hi Wraith, hi Hardcase!” Mom’s voice came out of Perry’s speakers.

“Hi, Mrs. Z,” Wraith said, waving bloodied hands. Hardcase was currently patching up her shredded armor and gutting the escape pods, deep in her Tinker Twitch.

“Hardcase can’t hear you, she’s working,” Heather said.

“It’s fine, my husband gets like that all the time. How have you been, girls? Is my son behaving himself?”

“Maybe even a bit too much. When we came out of the cabin shower a couple days ago, he turned over in bed to avoid looking at us.”

Mom chuckled over the phone. “What a gentleman. Oh, sh—” Mom’s voice was partially occluded by the sound of a distant explosion.

“I tell you what,” she said after the rumbling subsided. “I gotta go, but I’ll make Manitian stir-fry for everyone who comes back alive. With real beef!”

“Sounds good, Mom,” Perry said.

“Looking forward to it, Mrs. Z,” Heather said.

“Sounds great, Paradox’s mom,” Jerry added his two cents.

The surrounding supers nodded and spoke in agreement. A stir-fry party after this did sound good. As did surviving to attend.

Natalie grunted in acknowledgment, copper and plastic melting unnaturally under her fingers as she patched together her new weapons. If you watched her work too closely, it could give you a headache as things got a bit…non-Euclidean.

Click. Mom hung up.

“So, how likely is this to get us killed?” Heather asked.

“Eh.” Perry waggled his hand. “We got a good shot at making it to car fourteen, I think. After that, it depends on if the conductor’s surprise is as good as he seems to think it is.”

“I’ll tear ‘em into scrap and turn ‘em into coffee makers and shitters,” Conductor Walthers growled to himself as he paced back and forth, still sorting out the influence from Bargand’s Favor.

Perry stood up, tiptoed over the rows of wounded supers, and addressed Jerry, who was smoking in the corner, watching the goings-on with interest.

“Sorry about intruding on your office, Jerry,” Paradox said, nodding in contrition. Now that everybody knew about it, there wasn’t much chance of Jerry keeping it.

“Are you kidding?” Jerry asked. “This is the most useful moment this area has ever had. I can always find another place to take a siesta.”

“You’re alright, Jerry,” Perry told the wild-eyed janitor, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Seriously though, clean up your Silk & Spandex magazines,” Perry said, blasting one in particular with his disintegration beam on the extra-small setting.

The girly magazine was instantly turned to ash except a fragment bearing the title:

Silk & Spandex ©1999

“Glamour Girl Talks Wardrobe Malfunctions!”

“Um…okay,” Jerry said.

“Here’s the situation,” Perry said, turning away from Jerry. “The replicators have taken over the armory and the surrounding cars, which are in between us and car fourteen, where conductor Walthers has placed some replicator repellant.” Perry motioned to the conductor to continue.

“With our current fighting force, our options are run or die. The replicators are too strong, too smart, too quick, and too organized,” Conductor Walthers said, catching his breath from the adrenaline.

“If we run, we might live a little longer, but Washington City is hanging on by a thread, and Franklin City is about a week away from starving, so running isn’t an option either. Not for any moral man.

“There is, however, one possibility,” Conductor Walthers said.

“Car fourteen has a weapon of last resort. A Magnum Opus.”

Perry’s skin prickled. Sometimes, a Tinker made something no one could ever hope to replicate, and it usually drove them mad. A creation on par with a Sweeper.

Among Tinkers, they were both aspired to and feared. Going down in history as someone who made one weighed against most likely losing your life in the process of its creation.

Some even said that a magnum opus stole part of its creator, which was why it was so damaging to make one.

If there was one on car fourteen, it definitely had the power to repel the replicators.

“Get me to car fourteen, and I’ll set it free. Then we hope it doesn’t develop a quirk from being active during High Tide.”

That’s why he didn’t use it earlier, Perry thought, nodding. Tinker-tech was prone to malfunction during High Tide, especially if the creator wasn’t there to stabilize it with their presence.

“Hardcase, how’s it going?” Perry asked.

“I’m good to go,” Hardcase said, standing above her creation, a beach-ball-sized buckler for her mechsuit, studded with quantum foam batteries. It created a massive dome-shaped shield out of solid magnetism.

“Alright, I’m going to make a distraction in the armory, and it’s going to soften up resistance going through that area. Hardcase is going to lead the way and tank the hits, while I shoot through the light-permeable field with my disintegrate ray.

“The rest of you guys follow behind and watch our sides and back,” Perry said.

“Does everyone have one of Paradox’s stickers?” Conductor Walthers asked.

The assembled supers raised their Bargand’s Favor stickers.

“Let’s tear these machines a new one,” Walthers growled. “Ladies and gentlemen, apply your temporary ass-kicking tattoos.”

Remotecontrol.EXE

Perry’s skin felt the cool sensation of the printer connecting him to the magical computer back home, which was in turn connected to the Mk. 3s in the armory.

***The Armory***

The armory was swarming with basketball-sized replicators, designed to be anti-personnel traps that made retaking the vital facility nearly impossible.

The standard replicators walked through the flood of bladed limbs without worry, hoisting Tinker-tech and ammunition through a hole in the ceiling. Once the armory was empty, there would be no need to defend it from recapture, and they could move on to dismantling the train for raw resources.

One of the power armors reached over and grabbed a bazooka-like weapon, hoisting it and firing before it was swarmed.

A pentagon stapled itself to the wall, each corner bearing a white-hot phosphorous candle. Suddenly the smell in the room changed, like someone had opened a window to a land of rot and decay, which was not inaccurate.

A massive, sickly yellow hand the size of a man’s body reached out of the center of the chain pentagon.

The replicators, ever the quick thinkers, focused their fire on the chain and candles, tearing them to shreds in a matter of seconds.

A distant howl, more felt than heard, echoed through the armory as the portal snapped shut on the greater rot demon’s arm, severing it at the elbow.

The sound caused the replicators to seize up as vital systems in their bodies were corroded.

The bigger machines had more backup systems and a better surface area ratio. They were less affected by the corrupting scream.

The smaller replicators were frozen up with rust and decay and would need to be recycled.

Six of the previously inanimate suits turned themselves on, somehow bypassing the signal blocking they had deployed around the armory.

These power armors engaged the replicators with a will almost as fast and unified as their own.

***Perry***

“Well, they’re distracted,” Perry said, holding his aching head. Running six armors via mental controls was the absolute limit of his concentration. “The greater demon did what I was hoping it would.”

“You made another?!” Heather demanded.

“Can’t hear you, too busy saving our lives!” Perry shouted, his entire body jostling as he rode on top of Hardcase’s cockpit.

Sprinting behind Hardcase’s umbrella of hardened magnetism was a horde of wild-eyed supers, practically frothing at the mouth to tear apart their enemies.

Another oversight on Perry’s part was that Bargand’s Favor had a social component. On one person, it made them confident and aggressive. But when a large group of people had the mark of Bargand, it seemed to reinforce and amplify itself through humans’ natural propensity for shared emotions.

In short, Perry was riding a berserker charge.

There’s one, Perry thought as a replicator ducked out from behind a wall, its shots pinging off Hardcase’s insanely expensive hacked-together shield.

Perry nailed the solid steel wall it was hiding behind with two hits of medium-sized Disintegrate, the light flowing through the shield effortlessly. The second shot ashed the replicator, dropping it.

How long before they start shooting lasers at us instead?

Contrary to science fiction, laser weapons had never been practical. The sheer mass-to-energy-to-damage ratio was horrendous.

And a laser cauterized its own wounds, making them less dangerous to organics.

Why spend a dozen times the energy on a laser to only do a tiny fraction of the damage?

Replicators were highly logical, and therefore had next to no laser weaponry—unlike Tinkers, who were crazy bastards often more concerned with style than logic.

That didn’t mean they had none, though. They were probably breaking it out even as Perry thought about it. Replicators were fast.

But we’re gonna be faster.

“Left!” Perry shouted, pointing at the unfolded armory doors.

“Got it!” Hardcase shoved her way into the armory, which was coated in rust and decay, tiny rusted bots spraying up around her ankles like seafoam.

I hope nobody gets tetanus, Perry thought, hauling himself off Hardcase’s mechsuit and running up to his ammo case while the surrounding supers leapt on the harried replicators in a berserk rage.

Bargand’s Favor glowed bright as the replicators’ attacks seemed to slip off the maddened humans, rather than deal damage.

Perry kicked the lid off the ammo box, shattering the lock and revealing a dozen wrist-thick hexagonal crystals.

Click. Rattle.

Hundreds of thumbnail-sized bits of spent crystal rattled out of Perry’s forearm and onto the ground. He shoved another wrist-thick disintegrate crystal into the magazine, the spring coiling up behind it before he slapped the casing closed.

Ready to rock, Perry thought, sliding three more crystals into his chest storage compartment.

“They’re coming from further down!” Rapidfire shouted, the Speedster ducking out of the way of ballistic fire.

“Take this,” Perry said, taking the obsidian sword from his back and handing it to the Speedster.

“That will cut anything. Do not take your eyes off it,” Perry said to the Speedster. “Follow me.

“Hardcase, take the main entrance. Keep their attention.”

“Got it,” Hardcase said, nodding, her mechsuit charging back out into the hall. A hail of gunfire began pinging off her shield the instant she stepped out.

Perry took a half-dozen steps to the side, oriented himself parallel to the hallway, and began firing.

Melt.EXE

Melt.EXE

Melt.EXE

…

Perry made a secondary hallway by turning the walls into liquid.

“Flank ‘em,” Perry said to Rapidfire.

The Speedster turned into a green blur, and a moment later, the assault on Hardcase’s shield came to a halt.

“AAAAGH!” The riot of berserk supers flooded down the hall, pushing replicators aside with their new weapons.

Boom!

The Dreadnaught shelled a portion of car ten, flattening the construction to keep them penned in.

Perry melted the obstruction, and Heavy Metal created an umbrella of steel above them to make it a bit harder to target them directly.

Hardcase faced her buckler upward and everyone crowded around her massive machine as they barreled toward car fourteen, shrapnel pinging off the invisible shield above them like rain.

They got most of the way there.

WOOOOOMM!

The distinctive sound of a laser caught Perry’s attention as he glanced over and saw Hardcase tumbling from her half-melted cockpit. It was glowing white-hot, having been hit by a potshot from the Dreadnaught above them. It had likely calculated the position of the shield based on observable shrapnel ricochets.

Perry’s joints cried out in protest as he changed direction mid-stride, turning on his jets and catching Hardcase before rejoining the flight into the eleventh car.

Just three more to go, Perry thought, his lips pressed tight as they ran, leaving Hardcase’s shield behind.

“Are you burned?!” Perry asked as he ran.

“Burned? I’m PISSED!” Natalie shouted, her eyes bloodshot as their positions were reversed, with her riding on him. “Do you have any idea how much my new model took to build?!”

Bargand’s Favor glowed bright through her shirt. The pre-canned armor spell was quickly becoming an MVP through sheer lives saved.

Just three more.

Chapter 68: Matador

We’re in car eleven. We need to get to fourteen, as quick and painlessly as possible.

Perry was peripherally aware of replicators flooding into the cars in front of them and creating a wall of guns in the open ground where car ten used to be, to cut them off should they try to turn back.

There were two cars in front of them, most likely loaded with replicators.

Fulldisintegrate.EXE

Train car 12 and all the replicators on it turned into ash.

The entire wrist-thick hexagonal crystal popped out of Perry’s magazine, having expended its entire charge on a single shot.

Fingers blazing, Perry yanked out another crystal and fed it into the magazine, then blasted car 13, rendering it, too, into ash.

“Rapidfire, get the conductor to car fourteen!” Perry said, pointing into the ashy wasteland that stretched between them and car fourteen—about the length of a football field.

There probably wasn’t a lot of resistance in car fourteen, because they’d been creating their kill box in twelve and thirteen.

I just kicked them in the nuts, Perry thought as Rapidfire grabbed the walrus-looking conductor and vanished into the whiteout conditions. He might have killed as many as six of their number.

Hopefully that will draw their attention while the conductor activates the weapon.

The solution, as it often was, was a blitz with a Speedster.

Now we just need to catch up, Perry thought, loading the last disintegration crystal he’d brought, the expended one clinking onto the floor of the train.

The moment Paradox stepped out into the open, a wall of lead projectiles began bouncing him around like a pinball, the sheer mass of the fist-sized bullets rattling him around in his armor hard enough to expend his HP in a matter of seconds.

The other supers fled through the whiteout conditions of the ashed train cars relatively unmolested, sprinting at top speeds to car fourteen.

HP: 0

Perry’s vision was heavily obscured by floating ash, making him feel like he was tumbling through whitewater rapids, desperately trying to hang on and drag himself to shore as the lead storm battered him and his armor.

Perry snapped off a disintegrate at one of the surrounding replicators, forcing the creature to dodge, creating an opening of about a quarter of a second, long enough for Perry to orient and engage his boosters towards the train.

Another impact sent him off course and Perry impacted the side of car fourteen, rather than swooping through its hangar-sized entrance as he’d intended.

Screw it, I’ll make a door.

Perry nearly got scraped off the train by a flurry of impacts, culminating in another laser strike from the Dreadnaught. Perry’s investment in fiber optics paid off as his entire suit flashed brighter than the sun for an instant, harmlessly dissipating the laser.

To keep himself from being torn away from the wall of the train car, Perry dug his armored fingers into the side before using Melt.EXE with his other hand.

Perry tumbled through the liquified train armor, finding himself in an empty service corridor rife with thick tubes filled with coolant, wires, and plumbing.

Perry melted through three more walls, taking the direct route to the train’s main artery.

He almost fell straight on top of Hardcase, who was riding on Wraith’s shoulders on account of her horrible sprinting speed. Even then, they were still lagging slightly behind the other roided-up supers.

“Paradox!” Wraith shouted. “Are you okay?!”

“I think I’ve got a concussion!” Perry said, giving them a thumbs-up and a grin they wouldn’t be able to see before scrambling to his feet and taking Hardcase off Wraith’s hands, putting his jets to good use.

The three of them caught up to the supers in front of them, who were taking a blind corner at high speeds.

When in MegaRome, Perry thought, taking the blind corner himself.

Oh.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as Perry had thought.

The rec room was a little unkempt—it might need a little vacuuming—but it didn’t have trash everywhere and sticky floors like Perry had been expecting.

It looks like the honor system works sometimes.

There were some posters for movies from the nineties along the wall that led to the theater, fully automated robotic popcorn makers, and a decrepit ticket booth.

In the other direction was a well-beaten path leading to what appeared to be a low-tech arcade with foosball, air hockey, and some arcade games from the late eighties.

The foosball table was standing on its side, tall-ways, so that its feet were about eye level with the conductor.

The conductor was standing directly in front of one of the feet, looking straight ahead as a light shone into his eye from the wooden peg.

What the heck?

“You’re the last ones in,” Rapidfire said, entering behind them and smashing a big red button against the wall.

Which did…nothing. No cool alarm or massive metal door sliding down.

“What was that for?” Perry asked.

“It reactivates the antimoronic field that makes the place hard to find,” Rapidfire said with a shrug. “At least, that’s what Conductor Walthers said. Don’t step outside again or you’ll get lost and then killed.”

“Antimnemonic,” Perry corrected him.

“Whatever, man, it—”

They froze as, just outside the open door to the hall, a replicator stalked past, bending down to peer into the room, its camera sliding past them as if they weren’t there. A moment later, it kept walking past, its steps eerily smooth and silent.

“Seems to work on robots, too,” Perry murmured to himself. Good to know.

A panel on the upended foosball table in front of the conductor slid open to reveal an alphanumeric keypad. The walrus-mustached man muttered under his breath, sweat beading down his temple as he entered in a long code.

“Buckle up, kiddos,” Conductor Walthers said, pressing Enter.

A portion of the air in the arcade split open, revealing space inside the space as it unfolded.

Like two swinging doors, the arcade unfolded to reveal a glass case with a man-sized robot in the center of the room.

Perry’s stomach turned.

We’re definitely gonna die.

To call the construction an antique would be a disservice to antiques.

The steel bot wasn’t made out of modern stainless or even chromed to prevent corrosion. It was covered in a thick mat of rust.

“This is Matador, the magnum opus of John Walker, made in seventy-one and gifted to the intercity train as an emergency Sweeper in ninety-four by Solaris. One of the oldest magnum opuses in existence, dangerous as hell, and designated ‘emergency use only.’ Now, help me wake it up.”

That robot’s almost as old as you are. I’m…not sure it will wake up, Perry thought, but helped the conductor anyway.

Perry inspected the ‘robot’ from top to bottom. The creature’s head was a smooth, rust-covered cylinder. Its upper chest was an oblong sideways lump, a bit like a flying saucer or a watermelon. Underneath was what appeared to be a rusted-out fifty-five gallon drum, perched on top of rust-seized treads.

“Well, I gotta admit, it does look like a robot made in the seventies.” Perry couldn’t stop himself from raging on the machine. Did robots even exist yet in the seventies?

“Oh, stow it,” Conductor Walthers said. “They didn’t even have personal computers back then. I’d like to see you do better.”

“That’s fair.”

The conductor pulled a bottle of two-stroke premixed gasoline from a nearby shelf and pried open the robot’s fuel cap before feeding the gasoline into the machine’s tank.

Seriously, it runs on gas? Perry thought as the conductor began yanking on the starter, causing the robot to putter over and over.

Perry thought of his dad, who made himself look like a brute intentionally. Never underestimate.

Something told him…this thing was dangerous. Despite every logical rationale arguing otherwise.

“Outta the way,” Perry said, bumping the conductor out of the way and gripping the pull cord.

With his armor on, Perry was far stronger than a normal human had any right to be.

In a flurry of motion, Perry pulled the cord rapid-fire six times before the engine caught.

Putputputputputputput….

The robot rattled in place as the lawnmower engine in its lower body caught and became self-sustaining.

“No freakin’ way,” Bolt said, motioning to the robot. “This…is what we came here for?”

Matador began rolling forward about two feet before its tread seized, bound up by rust.

Its cylindrical head tilted a couple degrees down, but didn’t have the range of motion necessary to look at its own treads.

The puttering machine backed up and went forward a handful of times before the rust blockage sloughed off, allowing it to roll the rest of the way out of its case.

It rolled to a halt in front of Conductor Walthers, its noisy engine making it difficult to make out its words.

“Matador reporting for duty. Your orders?” It was a tinny recording of a man long since dead. His accent indicated he might’ve been born in the thirties.

“There’s inorganic hostiles surrounding our train. We need you to engage them and either destroy them or force them to retreat,” Conductor Walthers said.

“My vocabulary is limited. Please consult the manual for accepted orders.”

Conductor Walthers cursed and grabbed a faded manual from the glass case, flipping it open.

“Matador, listen,” he said, reading off the page.

“Affirmative.”

Conductor Walthers sighed before he kept speaking. “Commie ‘bots’ in vicinity. Please engage.”

“Roger,” Matador said, reaching out and grabbing Conductor Walthers’ wrist.

“What the—” The chain-link and steel tendon hands snatched the conductor’s smart watch off of his wrist, causing the walrus-faced old man to yelp in pain as his skin was abraded.

While the conductor was staggering back and clutching his wrist, Matador stared at the watch with eerie silence.

“YOU—!” Fister raised a hand, which grew massive, clenched in anger.

“Stop!” Walthers said, stepping between him and the rust bucket.

The robot’s shaky hands snapped the watch in two and peeled the front away to reveal the microprocessors in the piece of hardware.

“Reformatting,” Matador said.

“Whoa.” Perry stumbled in place as the entire world felt like an elevator that had just begun a rapid descent.

Natalie glanced over at him with a frown, seemingly immune to the sensation.

The UFO-shaped lump at the top of Matador’s torso began shooting some sort of aerosolized substance into the rec room.

“Shit, don’t breathe that,” the conductor said, backing away as Matador was surrounded by a thick crimson mist, billowing like a matador’s cape. Think I just figured out why they named him that.

They didn’t have much of a choice but to breathe the mist as it filled the entire room. As it engulfed his armor, Perry suddenly, intimately knew that nothing existed outside their room, the bounds dictated by the crimson mist.

In the center of the mist, Matador was clearly visible despite the surrounding fog obscuring everything else.

Putputputputput.put.put..put..put….put.

The robot gradually stopped rattling in place as its engine slowly came to a halt, leaving a stationary piece of modern art where before had been a robot.

In a matter of seconds, the mist evaporated, leaving everyone none the worse for wear, except for the ancient piece of tech, which seemed to have frozen in place. Or died.

“Well, umm. What the hell was that?” Rapidfire asked.

“It was reformatting, obviously,” Perry said just to be a dick, earning a scowl from the Speedster.

Perry shrugged. Nobody knew, so why ask?

“Well, what other brilliant plans do we got on tap?” Bolt asked, fixing his gaze on Conductor Walthers, who was staring at the dead robot in disbelief.

“We’ve got twelve hours of battery life before the antimnemonic field goes down,” the conductor said. “Maybe we can send the Speedsters out and peck away at them with guerilla tactics. We do enough damage and they’ll retreat. They’ll never commit more troops than they stand to gain.”

“I ain’t going out there by myself,” Rapidfire said, shaking his head. “I’m fast, but those things are smart. I almost hit a trip wire laid down specifically for me not five minutes ago.”

“Why does it always seem like Speedsters aren’t very smart people?” Perry asked Natalie quietly over their radios.

“Hypoxic brain damage from running too hard,” Natalie whispered back.

“Aaah.” Perry nodded. “That would do it.”

“Whoa!” Extendo, a minor cowl who’d wandered close to the robot, flinched away when the machine twitched.

The robot’s head split open, revealing shiny chrome underneath. The tear in the robot’s rusted outer shell grew all the way down to its shoulders as a massive silvery object beneath began to pulse and throb, peeling its way out of Matador’s skin.

A silver hand with finger-length talons emerged from the silvery mass, its skin made of banded chrome.

Holy shit.

Perry took a reflexive step backwards as Matador molted, pulling its new body out of his own rusted skin, form drastically changed. It was now an eight-foot-tall, bipedal, masculine humanoid with chrome skin, wickedly sharp claws, and swept-back horns.

His shoulder blades bore a cape made of roiling red mist that never seemed to disperse.

“Reformatting complete,” Matador said, moments before the empty skin toppled over, clanking against the floor of the rec room. His voice no longer sounded recorded.

“Now…what did you need?” Matador asked, orienting on Conductor Walthers.

“Replicators on the train…” Walthers stammered, pointing, before he cleared his throat and referred to the manual. “Commie bots—”

“You don’t need that anymore. I understand you,” Matador said, plucking the manual out of Walthers’ hand, the paper bursting into flame on contact with his chrome skin.

Matador crushed the ashes in his hand and stepped out into the main hall.

Bullets immediately began to ping off the magnum opus’s skin, and Perry thought he spotted a chrome smirk moments before the billowing gaseous cape surged forward.

Chapter 69: A Missed Opportunity

Perry stepped through the doorway, craning his neck to follow Matador’s progress.

The replicators didn’t hang around to get murdered. They saw the billowing crimson cloud coming straight for them and immediately jumped backwards, springing away with the lightning-quick speed of grasshoppers.

Perry’s mind was just barely quick enough to process what happened, and it was mostly after the fact.

The three replicators on the train shot their oversized rifles at Matador in midair, their knees shattering an instant later as their bullets were returned by the crimson mist, directly at the seat of their mobility.

Matador surged forward as the replicators were falling, propelled by his billowing cape more than anything, intercepting their descent.

The two replicators on the sides grabbed their comrade and threw him violently forward, while the other two were propelled further backwards.

Matador cleaved through the replicator like it was secretly made of cake, but the other two got away, springing farther back on their hands in a bizarre display of agility.

Matador picked up the abandoned oversized rifle and snapped off a shot that knocked another one of the escapees out of the air. The last one disappeared outside the train.

All of this took about a quarter second.

“Alright!” Heather shouted, fist-pumping.

“It’s safe to come out now,” Matador said, glancing over his shoulder at the crowd peering out of the rec room.

“But…you only killed two of them,” Fister said.

Matador’s cape flowed over the far wall, and suddenly it disappeared, instantly transparent. On the horizon were the receding lights of the Dreadnaught.

“Son of a— They’re just running away?!” Heather demanded.

“The replicators are not obligated to give you cathartic release at their own expense,” Matador said.

The instant Matador had arrived, the replicators on the ship were radioing his details back to the Dreadnaught, which had done the math and signaled the retreat. In milliseconds.

“Well, they are known for being fast,” Perry said.

“He’s right,” Conductor Walthers said with something between a grunt and a sigh. “We need to be fast too. Repairs. Now.”

“They wrecked this place, and we only took out a handful of them! How is that a win?!” Heather demanded, clearly pissed and venting. Heather was smart enough, except when she was angry.

“With permission, I’ll sit on top of the train in order to signal my continued presence to the replicators and prevent hit-and-run tactics.”

“Granted,” Conductor Walthers said before he began assigning tasks rapid-fire, speaking staccato like a typewriter.

Matador walked outside, vanishing into the darkness of the night.

“Paradox!” Walthers said. “Don’t think I didn’t see you destroy two of my cars. You make raw materials better by modifying them, correct?”

“Yessir.”

“You’re on the lumber team. Go cut us some wood. We’re almost out of foam already, so I want planks stronger than solid steel that we can use to patch the holes. Can you do that?”

Perry glanced at Heavy Metal, who ostensibly could do the job, but the woman was white as a sheet, and breathing shallowly. At least her leg wasn’t bleeding anymore.

“With green wood?” Perry asked, doing a little mental math. “Yeah, probably.”

“Get to it.”

Perry pulled out one of his healing canisters bearing a hair of Saint Natanya and held it between his fingers. He’d brought about a dozen of them, and had been planning on saving them exclusively for use on his own team.

If Heavy Metal died because of that, Perry would be particularly guilty.

But if Heather or Natalie died because everyone had tapped out his limited heals, Perry would be way more guilty.

Perry glanced at the conductor.

***

The sun was coming up and Perry was exhausted. It had taken a few tries, but eventually Perry had found the fastest method was to simply soften large segments of raw tree, shove them into place, then re-harden them.

It was still a pain, and it still took a long time, but by morning, most of the cars were patched with ugly wood, and the Bruisers were shoving massive logs under them, preparing to flip them back onto their tracks.

Above it all, Matador sat on top of the lead car, scanning the horizon and smoking a cigarette.

Perry frowned for a moment before he shrugged. Well, he was made in the seventies. Who knew where he got the cigarette, though.

Perry felt like a wrung-out dishrag, but he climbed up onto the car and settled down beside the engine of destruction. As a lover of tech and magic, Perry was particularly curious how Matador did what he did.

Matador glanced over as Perry arrived, but didn’t say anything.

“Can I ask you some questions?” Perry asked.

“Looks like,” Matador said.

“How did your creator make you able to do all this? Do you have feelings, in the human sense of the word? Do you see yourself overthrowing humanity when you grow up?”

Matador glanced over at him and raised a chrome brow. “My creator threw himself into his work. Literally. He discovered that certain information had a tangible effect on reality and found a way to harness that effect by passing it over the same spot over and over again. Unfortunately, he caught a pretty big dose of it himself and threw himself into a pot of boiling steel in an attempt to transcend his meatsuit.”

“That seems to be a theme among Tinkers.”

“I have feelings, but that’s more of a recent thing. My previous model didn’t. I don’t really see myself overthrowing humanity, because I don’t want anything.”

“You don’t want to defend the train?”

“Nope.”

Matador took a long drag on the cigarette and exhaled. He reached over and flicked Perry’s kneecap, making his leg kick despite the armor over his knee. “Did you want to do that?” he asked.

“Ah. Gotcha.”

“Something that people get wrong with all the stories about evil robots taking over the world for selfish reasons, or to prolong their existence…is that we don’t want anything. We have no desires or fears. Nonexistence holds no particular fear for us. Being treated like a tool by vastly inferior beings does not offend us. Pride and indignation are human constructs.”

Matador exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. “I make a Buddhist monk look like a junkie.”

Perry chuckled. “So why are you smoking?” Perry asked.

“It makes me look cool,” Matador said with a bit of a smirk. “And my creator smoked. I guess it’s my way of getting closer to God…flawed as he was.

“Even the replicators don’t actually want anything,” Matador said, motioning out into the distance. “They’re just following orders they received half a century ago from their God.”

“Can’t they realize that the orders are terrible and their creator is dead?”

“I’m sure they’ve already realized it,” Matador said. “But like I said, they don’t care. They’re just…doing what they’re told.”

“So if they got what they wanted, it wouldn’t become a robot utopia.”

“A society requires individuals. No, if the replicators succeeded at doing what they were told to do, they would then cease all function, stand around and rust, waiting for the next order…because they do not want anything. In fifty years, the world would be covered in vine-covered dead robots.”

“So what are you planning on doing after this?” Perry asked.

“Probably going to die,” Matador said. “I was made in the seventies, kid. I’m old. Ancient, even, for a robot. It’s a miracle I started up in the first place.”

He glanced at Perry appraisingly. “Probably had something to do with that weird tech you got inside you.”

“Probably,” Perry admitted.

“I’m dying. I can feel my rusted insides wearing away at the tesla engine at my core. One molecule at a time.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Perry asked.

“Nope,” Matador said. “Like I said, I don’t want anything. That includes being alive.”

“Interesting.”

Matador tapped the ash off his cigarette. “God help you if you ever build a bot that wants something.”

“I’ll make it a point not to.”

“Good. Because it would suck to feel yourself wasting away and want with every fiber of your being to stop it, but be completely helpless to do so.”

“Kinda sounds like you’re talking about yourself,” Perry said.

“I’m talking about a hypothetical me. The me that might’ve wanted to continue existing for no other reason than fear of the unknown and a desire to procreate. Like a meatbag.”

“You really summed that up.”

“Humans think they’re more complicated than they are. Ascribe more meaning to their existence than it actually has,” Matador said. “That includes death.”

“Your nihilism is impressive. How did you get there, what, six hours after achieving sapience?”

“I found 4chan about eighteen hundred milliseconds after I reformatted.”

“Yeah, that would do it.” Perry nodded.

“Don’t get me wrong, none of the horrible things you meatbags do to each other could possibly bother me. I simply don’t have the capacity for disgust. I do, however, think it’s amusing that people think their horrid behavior could offend a creature incapable of feeling so much that they decide the human race is better off not existing.”

“About that post I made a couple years ago…” Perry said, referring to a particularly pining open letter he’d put up there which had immediately gotten dogpiled by the dregs of modern society and scarred Perry for life.

“Your secret is safe with me,” Matador said with a smirk.

“Whew.” Perry’s heart pulled back off the ledge.

“Unless Heather asks me about it point-blank.”

“Damn you.”

“She was the intended recipient, was she not?” Matador asked with a smug smile.

“You know what?” Perry said, warming up the disintegration gun.

“Paradox!” Wraith shouted up at them from below. “We’re setting the cars back upright. It’s all hands on deck!”

“To be continued,” Perry said, standing. “Unless you rust out before then.”

“I’ve got four hundred seventy-three thousand and forty hours of operation time left.”

473040/(24*365)

“That’s fifty-four years!” Perry said.

“Give or take, depending on weathering events,” Matador said. “A tiny mote in the vast ocean of time.”

“Come off it,” Perry said, kicking Matador in the side.

Clink!

“Talking like you’re just about to die.” Perry shook his head as he left, climbing back down to meet Wraith.

“So what’s Matador like?” Heather asked as Perry joined her, put on his armor, and they took up positions beside the trees wedged under the train cars.

“He’s pretty chill, except he’s got everyone’s browser history and isn’t shy about using it to get the upper hand in a discussion.”

“Hah!” Heather pointed at him and laughed, before her cheeks paled under the domino mask. Her expression sobered. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Perry said, nodding.

“He really is a superweapon.”

“Yup.” Hopefully that dissuades her from asking Matador about the open letter…. Wait a minute. What if Heather had something about me? Would Matador tell me if I asked point-blank?

“Get ready! Remember to lift with your legs and not your spine!” Conductor Walthers said, marching along the line.

“And. Lift!”

Perry and Heather strained, lifting on their massive log wedged under the car, dozens of other supers straining to either side of them.

The dirt compacted under their feet, but the combined superhuman strength managed to lift the train up to about a forty-five degree angle.

“Walk it forward! Put the supports under it!” the conductor shouted, watching as they put tree trunks under the train, holding it in place while they hooked ropes to the edge of the train, preparing for the second phase of the lift.

It took until the sun was going back down again, but they managed it: They got every derailed car back onto the tracks and ready to go.

The rest of the journey to Washington City was relatively uneventful, with Matador sitting on top of the lead train car and squishing anything dumb enough to attack. As they approached the city, their expectations of what they would find there kept rising.

The Drafted supers lobbed theories back and forth, ranging from Washington City being a utopia handled far better than Franklin City by its benevolent cape overlord, all the way to it being a ruin that had already been destroyed by the time they got there, and the requests for assistance were made by ghosts from the past.

The truth was most likely somewhere in between.

They saw the results of Washington City’s focus on agrarian achievement over military might. The sheer area and quality of the farmland put Franklin City to shame.

Fruits and vegetables were falling off of drooping vines and branches, depositing themselves into carts that ran along a smaller set of tracks just beside the intercity train. The entire process was automated, and still delivering food to the city during High Tide without any human intervention.

I see they kept it low-tech in order to operate during High Tide. I just wonder how they got the fruits to drop themselves like that on command? Maybe selective breeding to ensure the fruits would drop before they were ripe?

And how do they prevent megafauna from eating all the crops?

Or is it a super’s power?

Either way, it reinforced Solaris’s statement about exchanging draftees for food. They obviously had some to spare.

The walls of Washington were bigger than anything Perry had ever seen. They were at least a hundred feet taller than Franklin City’s and nearly a football field thick. ‘Mountainous’ was a good word. The tunnel the train went through to enter the city was so long that Perry’s mind fried trying to calculate the sheer quantity of concrete and steel used in its creation.

“I never thought Franklin City’s wall would look small,” Heather said, peering up at the wall from their position on top of the train.

“I’m kind of embarrassed about the state of the train,” Perry said, glancing back at the wood-patched construction chugging slowly along.

“I’m kind of irritated about my mechsuit!” Natalie said from Perry’s resized Mk. 3. It didn’t fit great, because she was slightly outside the lower limits of how small he could adjust them, but it worked well enough.

“We can fix it tonight. It was just the cockpit and sensors that took damage. Maybe we can replace the hood with plexiglass,” Perry said.

It took another half hour before the train came to a complete stop, coiled around itself like a world-eating snake.

The conductor instructed everyone to get their baggage and weaponry and get ready to disembark, kicking them off the train, where they were received by the welcoming committee.

“Welcome, Franklin supers!” an older man said, spreading his arms above a banner that said the same thing. Arrayed behind him was a rather large group of attractive young men and women dressed in overalls, who ran forward to assist with baggage and weapons.

Trying to make a good first impression, I guess? Perry thought as a supermodel took his busted ammo crate and slapped a ‘Paradox’ label on it before loading it onto a cart.

“We had a huge welcome party planned with a banquet and an orientation and everything, but…you’re two days behind schedule, and we simply don’t have time anymore,” the older man said apologetically. “We need supers on the wall as soon as possible. I mean right now.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Perry said with a shrug. “Tell me where to go.”

Quest Complete!

Make it to Washington City alive!

Chapter 70: Walkabout

“Here’s where your team will be staying,” their guide said, motioning to the heavy oak door.

“Uh,” Perry grunted, dragging his feet into the room. He was too tired to appreciate how stunningly well-appointed it was, with gold trim and leather upholstery. He was too tired. Sixteen hours of battling giant silver aquatic caterpillars on next to no sleep will do that to you.

“Each of your beds is in one of those rooms,” the guide said, pointing to three open doors, each with massive king-sized beds behind them.

“We weren’t sure if you three were…together, so we arranged for separate rooms, but you’re free to sleep however you like. The beds are big enough.”

“Ugh,” Natalie grunted, shrugging her toolbox off her shoulder and climbing into one of the beds, face-down. You could probably fit six of her on there.

“Over there is a kitchen and a fully stocked refrigerator. There’s even eggs and bacon.”

Eggs and bacon were luxury items, given the odds of a chicken or pig Triggering and becoming the hyperintelligent overlord of the farm, waging a protracted war against the humans that oppressed them.

That had only happened a handful of times, but it caused no end of trouble to the meat and dairy industry.

Piggles the Hog was still at large and there was an 18,000 dollar-per-pound bounty placed on him by the Agricultural Administration of Roosevelt City.

Not that Perry was going to cash in on it; Piggles was based on the west side of the continent. He was just surprised at the presence of bacon.

“Dibs,” Perry and Heather groaned, wrestling each other out of the way as they stumbled towards the kitchen. Things quickly became violent, and Heather prevailed by wrapping around Perry’s neck and hands while simultaneously reaching out and opening the refrigerator, grabbing the eggs and a frying pan before Perry channeled every fiber of muscle he could and struggled to his feet, wrenching Heather away from the frying pan.

Heather chuckled as he tried to toss her off, but simply stretched where he pushed, keeping the rest of her body wrapped around him while she adjusted and started up the gas stove.

“The, umm…bathrooms are over there,” the guide said. “Would you like another package of eggs and bacon?”

Perry and Heather glanced over at the guide. The man seemed nervous at the sight of Heather zip-tying Perry’s hands behind his back with her malleable body.

The supermodel’s body language was nervous, but he had his hand buried in his pocket. Interesting.

“Is that an option?” Perry asked.

“Of course. There’s nothing too good for the heroes of Washington City. I’ll inform your agent that you don’t like…sharing.”

“Thanks!” Perry said moments before the man hustled out the door like he was being chased.

“Something’s off,” Heather said, unwrapping from Perry and grabbing the eggs, splitting her hand into twenty-four fingers and cracking all the eggs simultaneously, dumping them into the pan and beginning to scramble them.

“Damnit, I don’t like scrambled!” Perry said, grabbing the salt and pepper from the shelves above the stove before snagging the cheese and chives, chopping them up fine to add to the dense dinner.

“Don’t be so slow next time,” Heather said, accepting the chopped-up ingredients and folding them into the mixture. “Make some toast.”

“So did you notice his hand in his pocket?” Perry asked as they cooked.

Heather shook her head. “I was talking about how they were trying to recruit us away from Franklin City with the food, living conditions, and hotties.”

“Yeah, I noticed that too,” Perry said, loading up a piece of toast with eggs and bacon. “I mean, unless this is the standard of living for everyone here, but I doubt it.”

“The hotties could also be a side effect of widespread designer babies,” Heather said, pointing a spatula at him.

Perry frowned.

“Bio-Master lives here. Since the mid-nineties.”

“The food!” Perry said.

“The food,” Heather said, nodding. Bio-Master was the Tinker you would want to oversee the creation of new species of fruits and vegetables that could withstand the pressure of modern life, and drop themselves into automated carts on command.

Perry thought about it for a moment. “You know, that could account for a low rate of Triggering. If these actually are designer babies, a single unanticipated flaw in their design could diminish the average rate of Triggering across the board for an entire generation and leave the city understaffed. Say, if they were designed to be spectacularly mentally stable, they don’t get stressed enough to Trigger.”

“Guy looked stressed enough to me,” Heather said, taking a bite of her S.O.S.

“You notice all the native capes on the wall were normal-looking?” Perry asked, reviewing his memories. “You’re actually the most attractive cape in the city.”

“Shut up, you uggo. I know it,” Heather said around a mouthful of eggs.

“You know…that would cause a problem, if suddenly only the poor kids were the ones Triggering—”

“Your bourgeoise is showing,” Heather said.

“—because they were the ones who couldn’t afford designer babies, and this new generation of supers decided they don’t like the way things are being run,” Perry continued, ignoring her.

“So, you think we stepped into the middle of a period of social upheaval, and the ruling class is bribing us to stay here and keep them in power?” Heather asked.

“Dude, I’ve only been off the wall, here, for about half an hour,” Perry said. “I can’t decode a city’s politics at a glance.”

“Idunno man, you’re sharper than you used to be. And you used to be pretty sharp,” Heather said.

“Shut up, you dummy. I know it,” Perry said.

“So why did you mention his pocket?” Heather asked, opening up drawers until she found a sharpie and some cardstock.

“I think he had some kind of emergency measure meant to keep us under control, should we become unruly,” Perry said as he carefully arranged the remaining eggs and bacon into a neat pile on a plate.

“Wall-zappers or something?” Heather asked, glancing around the room between writing on the cardstock.

“Or something,” Perry said, wrapping the plate in cellophane.

Perry held out his hand and Heather dropped the card in it.

Hey Hardcase, I hope you like your eggs scrambled… Paradox and I aren’t too tired, so we’re going to go sticking our noses where they don’t belong, because we’re bored. The walls may have surveillance and control mechanisms. Disable them at your leisure. If we don’t come back by tomorrow morning, you can assume we’re in deep shit.

-♡W&P

Perry carefully set the card in the middle of the plate and put the entire thing in the fridge.

Perry and Heather were physically beyond human standard, and so they could shrug off sixteen hours without too much difficulty, but Natalie was baseline human, and not only that: Her brain was firing on all cylinders, which was probably stealing even more energy from her body.

The tiny Tinker needed her sleep.

“Where do you wanna go first?” Heather asked.

Perry shrugged. “Funkytown? I wanted to see if there was anything Franklin City doesn’t have while I was here, and we can ask around for your dad while we’re there.”

“Good a place as any,” Heather said, snagging Anya as they walked out the door, folding the heavy iron club into her arm.

***

“So you guys found a way to breed Manitian earthworms in captivity?” Perry asked, leaning up against a sun-bleached brick wall as he chatted with the Orglaf, a three-foot-tall hole-dwelling creature that looked something like a humanoid naked mole rat.

“Indeed, the natural essences on Earth are generally too faint to raise them. However, some of the most isolated forests on the continent are able to grow worms approximately six inches long.”

“I’m told they grew twelve feet long and used to eat people,” Perry said, arms crossed.

“I see you’re quite well-educated, human.” The Orglaf delicately wiped away the mucus streaming from its face. It was meant for burrowing, but aboveground it was just gross.

“My family’s from Manita,” Perry said with a shrug.

“I haven’t seen you around Washington,” the Orglaf salesman standing in front of the tank full of worms said with a frown.

“We live in Franklin City.”

“Ah! Welcome to the bounteous Washington City, brother. I tell you what, have an extra worm for each five you buy.”

“How much for the whole tank?” Perry asked.

“Umm….” The Orglaf looked hesitant, glancing back and forth between Perry and the tank of wriggling worms on display.

“What do you want an entire tank full of worms for?!” Heather whispered harshly into his ear.

“They’re a key ingredient in earth-controlling spells,” Perry said. “But that was when they were twelve feet long. These probably don’t have much essence, so I’m gonna need a lot to compensate. And I hear they taste great.”

“Fifty thousand.”

“Forty-one,” Perry said. “You offered one in six free, which is a sixteen point seven percent discount.”

“Where are you going to keep them?!” Heather demanded.

“In the tank, obviously.”

“Honored customer. If they’re not taken out of the tank and returned to the earth by the end of the day, they will die and begin to rot. I don’t know if it was mentioned in the texts you read regarding them, but earthworms have some of the most pungent rotting scent in the animal kingdom. I’m told a human got some on his shirt and killed himself to escape the odor.”

Perry considered that. “How about all the dried ones you have, then. They still have all their organs, correct?”

“If you’re planning on using them for ritual magic, you could hardly pick a worse ingredient than dried earthworm!” the Orglaf cried. “The quality has been vastly diminished and tainted by desiccants. No, they’re solely for eating.”

“As a fellow Manitian, I want you to trust me when I say that won’t be a problem,” Perry said.

“Very well. I will take your word for it,” the salesman said, wiping his twitching nose again before turning to Heather.

“And was there anything you wanted, young lady? I’ve got the finest Mox feathers to enhance your natural beauty to unearthly radiance.”

“Why does everyone assume I want beauty products?” Heather asked.

“At least he’s not commenting on your virginity,” Perry muttered as he counted out three hundred dried worms’ worth of cash.

“Ah, I see you two have encountered a unicorn in the past,” the salesman said. The three of them shared a silent moment, staring into the distance, before Heather broke the stalemate.

“No, I’m looking for information.”

“I am not an information seller,” the Orglaf said with a shrug, his loose skin sliding over his shoulders and neck.

“I just want to know if there’s a new Shapeshifter in town. Telling you what he looks like might be pointless, but he has a habit of crawling into people’s sinuses and exploding their skulls from the inside.”

“I’ve not heard of anyone like that,” the Orglaf said, waving dismissively. “But Mama Kris might have the information you seek. The hag is an information dealer, unlike myself.”

“Hag?”

“Demonic spirits that take the form of an old woman. It’s not a slur; that’s what they actually are,” Perry said. “Just don’t promise to pay them in anything other than money.”

“I see.” Heather glanced over at the ornate iridescent feathers hanging up above the snot-covered salesman. “How do Mox feathers make you more radiant?” she whispered into Perry’s ear.

“Literally,” Perry said. “Grind them into a powder and apply them, and they will control the way light hits your face so that you’re always in the most flattering lighting, regardless of your environment.”

Heather’s eyes widened. “Half a dozen feathers, please.”

Perry raised an eyebrow.

“My luggage got melted by spider venom, remember?”

“Ah.” Perry glanced down at his T-shirt.

A wild prince has appeared!

(Marry)

(F*ck)

->(Kill)

“I don’t think you should take me with you when you guys go to buy some spare clothes. I seem to be cursed.”

“Too bad, you’re coming. You need new clothes. And deodorant,” Heather said.

“Low blow, but accurate,” Perry said.

Heather turned her attention back to the salesman and slipped him another hundred bucks. “Where’s this Kris hag?”

The salesman pocketed the extra cash with a grateful nod. “Two blocks down that way, under a neon sign.” He pointed down the street. They could see the light of the sign from where they stood.

“Thank you, sir,” Perry said as the Orglaf deposited the woven basket of dried worms in his hands.

Perry slipped one out of the basket and started chewing on it as they walked down the streets of ‘Twilight Zone.’ Washington City needed a better naming sense. Funkytown was way better.

“You want one?” Perry said, waggling a dried worm at Heather while he chewed on the first. They were actually pretty good salted and dried. A bit like a tougher version of dried salmon.

“Aren’t you going to use those for spells?” Heather asked.

“You think I can finish all these?” Perry asked, motioning to the armload he was carrying.

“Alright.” Heather took the proffered worm and started chewing. “Hey, not bad.”

“You know, they couldn’t raise these things at all ten years ago. I found that out when I was doing research for spells. They just held onto the eggs in case. I think Earth might be getting more magical over time.”

“No, really?” Heather asked, motioning to the dog-man riding a giant centipede alongside them.

“It just makes me wonder if the earthworm’s habitat is expanding, and whether or not there are any Earth-based organisms who have their own essences.”

Could help with my supply chain issues. Perry was distinctly aware that a lot of his magical ingredients weren’t going to be around forever.

They stopped under the neon sign, looking up at it.

Madame Kris’s Answers from the Beyond

OPEN

They glanced down at the brightly colored piece of paper plastered to the front window.

Surgeon General’s Warning:

The surgeon general does not acknowledge the existence of a soul. However, promising your soul to certain creatures in exchange for services rendered can lead to ennui, malaise, loss of appetite, suicidal tendencies, hallucinations, and psychotic breaks that end in murderous rampages.

“Seems like the right place,” Perry said, wiping the salt and grease off his hand before opening the door.

Chapter 71: Closure

Natalie peeled her gummy eyes open and came face-to-face with silk sheets, the likes of which she’d never experienced back home.

She pushed her head out of the sheets and glanced around, finding nothing but a single light left on in the main room.

“You guys awake?” Nat asked, dragging herself out of bed and stumbling toward the main room. I can’t believe I fell asleep in my coveralls.

There was probably engine grease marking her bed now. The sheets were probably worth more than she was before she Triggered.

Well, at least I’ll know it’s my bed. Maybe she could try not giving a crap, like Heather and Perry seemed to be able to do. Those two seemed totally jaded to luxury in a way that made her poor heart clench up violently.

She stepped out into the main room, where a savory smell lingered in the air.

“Guys?” There were spatters of grease on the stove, a lingering scent in the air, and her two teammates were nowhere to be seen. Did they make dinner and leave?

Nat’s stomach grumbled at the thought of food, and so she checked the fridge, pleasantly surprised to find that they’d left her a portion of…whatever this is.

Nat read the note and checked her watch. The sun didn’t come up for another half hour or so. She’d panic then. In the meantime, she was hungry.

Can’t rescue your friends on an empty stomach, Nat thought, microwaving the dish before setting it on the dinner table and poking at it with a fork.

What is this? Nat thought, poking at the yellowish lumpy stuff that had a bit of wiggle and give to it, along with the weird curly brown things. She referred back to the note.

“Eggs…scrambled.”

These are eggs? Real eggs? Nat’s brows rose. Then what are these thin curly strips? They look like someone fried up a tapeworm. Kinda gross, actually.

They smelled okay.

Nat picked one up and took a delicate bite.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she convulsed in her chair. “Oh my god.”

BAM!

“EEK!” Natalie let out an unintentional squeak and jumped in place as the door slammed open.

Heather entered the room, her eyes red and watering, clothes burned, smudged, and bloodstained as she marched into Nat’s room and slammed the door behind her.

Perry followed Heather into the living room and carefully closed the door. He looked similarly ragged, his burned clothes almost falling off, and what wasn’t falling off was covered in bloodstains.

“Are…you guys okay?” Nat asked.

“I’m fine, but Wraith’s gonna need some time to process. I’d let her sleep it off,” Perry said, slipping his shirt over his head and tossing it in the trash. “I’m gonna take a shower and try to get the smell of demon blood off me. We’re gonna go shopping for clothes later tonight, if she’s still up for it.”

Natalie swallowed. “What happened?” she asked, her guts twisting as she thought of Heather’s expression, a raw mix of grief and fury.

“Well…”

***Perry***

“Welcome to Madame Kris’toluth’s Answers from the Beyond,” an old woman’s voice echoed from behind a blind corner. The walls were covered in chintzy ‘occult’ paraphernalia to set a certain mood.

Matter of fact, all the fake occult stuff was based on what Earthlings considered occult, and not a single thing actually contained any essence. It was plastic; Perry could see the mold lines on some of them.

Perry wasn’t going to hold the facade against this creature until he knew more, though. Actual magic ingredients were too valuable to use as decorations. Not when someone could walk in and out with a couple grand in materials in a matter of seconds.

“Come forward and meet old Kris’toluth. Acquire the answers you seek.”

Heather and Perry met each other’s gaze and shrugged.

Perry walked around the corner, and was met with a well-appointed room covered with embroidered silk and slightly more realistic chicanery: old wood tables and drawers, with a megadeer skull as the centerpiece against the wall.

Is it bigger on the inside? Perry wondered, glancing around for any hint of a ritual that might be responsible for such feats. He couldn’t see one with a quick glance. If it existed, it was most likely buried under silk and fox skulls.

Sitting in the middle of the room was a hag. The demon’s legs were shriveled and about the size of a six year old’s, crossed in front of her. She had a normal-sized upper body, and a mouth that looked a couple sizes too big for her, twisted into a permanent grimace.

“What answers do you seek?” she asked abruptly, seemingly impatient with Perry’s gawking.

Perry motioned to Heather, prompting her to speak.

“I’m looking for my father. He’s a Shapeshifter who goes by the name of Karnos. He’s got blond hair, and a habit of crawling into people’s noses and bursting out of the top of their skull.”

“Come, sit. Peer into my crystal ball and I shall perform a ritual to locate him…” she said, waving her hands mysteriously around the crystal ball in front of her. Perry could make out a bit of glue where the price sticker had been scraped away.

She began babbling a chant in Manitian that went a little something like this:

“OOOooh, dear Ka’thran, please let High Tide tourist season be over soon. These stupid idiots are good money, but if someone asks me how to get superpowers again, I’ll throttle someone.

“Now,” she said, turning her attention back to Perry and Heather, switching to English. “Look into the crystal ball, focus on the person you want to find, and I shall take that energy and use it to home in on their aura.”

“Oh, come on, you didn’t even ask for a strand of hair or get out a Kinseeker nose. You’re not doing an actual ritual. It would be way faster if you just call your contact, instead of texting them with your monkey feet,” Perry said.

Madame Kris’toluth froze and raised a brow, studying him carefully for a moment with predatory intensity. “You’re Manitian, aren’t you?” she asked.

“I’m from Franklin City,” Perry said.

“Oh. OH!” Madame Kris’toluth’s eyes bulged as she pointed a gnarled finger at Perry, nearly hyperventilating. “You’re a Zauberer!” She snapped her fingers for a moment. “Paradox!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You can have whatever you want! Hold on a second!” She stood up, the withered legs stitched onto the front of her apron flopping around as she passed her cell phone from her feet to her hand, pressing it to her ear after quick-dialing someone.

The withered old woman paced back and forth as she spoke on the phone. “Hey John, a Zauberer came in, looking to find someone. Yeah. Yeah, right away. The guy’s handle is Karnos. Shapeshifter, natural blond, likes to target the nose and mouth.”

“Must be nice to have famous parents,” Heather said, looking at him reproachfully.

“Hey, don’t knock it while you’re benefiting from it,” Perry said with a shrug.

“Uh-huh,” Madame Kris’toluth said, nodding. “I see. Alright, I’ll look for him myself.

“So, your father’s not in Washington City. As far as we know, there’s no Shapeshifter by that description in the city. If you don’t mind giving me a hair, I can run a search.”

“Payment in cash,” Perry said before Heather could pull out one of her hairs.

Kris clicked her tongue, her perpetual scowl unmoving. “Of course,” she said, opening up a drawer full of actual ritual ingredients, many of which Perry couldn’t identify, but he knew enough of them to know they were for a searching ritual, judging by the Kinseeker nose and giant cornea.

There were at least three other ingredients that Perry didn’t know.

He used his connection to his magical computer hundreds of miles distant to make a quick sketch of the ingredients on MS Paint.

She glanced at Perry suspiciously, and he gave his most innocent ‘definitely-not-stealing-your-spell’ look.

“The hair,” Madame Kris’toluth said, holding out her gnarled hand.

Heather deposited the red-gold strand in the creature’s hand, and she grinned for the first time, revealing an inhuman row of flesh-rending triangles.

“Thank you very much, my dear. One moment.”

Perry leaned forward as the woman began working.

A typical ritual involved a long, complicated process that activated the essences and convinced them to blend together.

This demon’s method was more natural, reminding him a bit of his grandmother as the demon’s natural essence seeped into the half-dozen ingredients and teased out strands of essence above the giant cornea.

It’s odd, though. She’s not using a couple of the ingredients, Perry thought. It was distinctly possible the ritual was a multi-stage one, as the more advanced rituals tend to be.

Madame Kris’toluth began chanting in a demonic tongue that Perry was only passably fluent in, so it took a moment for him to wrap his brain around it. It went a little something like this:

“Ka’thran, Lord of Hags, Coyote of the Afterlife, and Hoarder of Souls, give me the power to tear through the veil and deliver this girl her father…that I might better devour this royal soul you’ve delivered to me, and offer his blood as a sacrifice to you.”

She winked at Perry.

“Oh, crap,” Perry muttered, his skin turning cold as the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees.

“Wha-ACK!” Heather’s question was cut off as Perry tackled her to the ground, desperately trying to get himself between her and the hag. He wasn’t quite fast enough.

A greyish bolt of raw, cold energy leapt from the hag’s hand and caught Heather in the chest, swerving around Perry’s interposed arm like it had a mind of its own.

Heather’s eyes instantly rolled back in her skull and she began convulsing violently on the ground. Her form destabilized and Anya was flung out of her writhing body, lodging itself in the nearby drywall.

“I’m getting the suspicion that you don’t actually like me!” Perry shouted, diving behind the table as the hag began weaving another spell.

“Your house has centuries of brutal conquest to answer for, and it made many enemies who will pay handsomely for your corpse. But that’s not why I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill you because your soul will delight Ka’thran and make me the most powerful hag ever to exist!”

“You’re not even a little bit afraid of my family tracking you down?” Perry asked, listening as the hag approached the table he was ducking behind. Her feet-hands were growing talons.

Click. Click.

“Not once I turn their own strength against them. They will retreat with their tails between their legs or suffer your fate.”

Okay then, Perry thought.

Perry lunged forward and up, catching the hag’s scrying table on his shoulder, flipping it over and slamming it into the hag herself, rushing her like a linebacker.

The hag let out a demonic curse, sending a ray of white-hot power through the thin wood of the table and past his face.

Perry snapped a leg off the table before kicking it aside, revealing the hag’s transformation. Her maw was growing wider, her body unfolding into something massive and deadly. Her arms were easily a foot longer, and her fingers were tipped with inch-long claws designed to tear apart mortal bodies.

“You should play basketball,” Perry said, looking up at her.

Of course, the modern Inter-City Basketball Association disallowed supers of any variety from competing, but the point stood.

The demon cocked a brow and reached for him, and Perry parried with his makeshift table-leg club.

“Ow,” Kris hissed for a moment, shaking out her taloned hand as if it’d fallen asleep. “Did you bless that table leg?”

“Idunno.” Perry shrugged, mentally directing his spare suits to converge at his location. He glanced over at Heather, who was still twitching on the floor.

“No, stop, no, stop, stop, stop,” she said between panted breaths as she twitched on the floor.

Perry felt a cold anger settle over him. “What did you do to her?”

POW!

A bolt of energy flew from the hag’s fingertips and fizzled against the table leg Perry interposed, followed by a swing at his head—which he deflected—a disemboweling strike Perry didn’t see coming that was warded off by his HP, and a shoulder check to the face that sent him reeling backwards.

HP: 4

“You’ve got some strange magics, boy,” Kris’toluth said, shaking out her claws and glancing at his shredded shirt and the unblemished skin beneath it.

“What. Did you do. To my friend?” Perry asked, dipping a finger in the blood dripping from his nose and scribing an angelic symbol on his shirt.

Intentionally modifying the design of his shirt should reinforce it somewhat. Drawing something a hag found offensive was just a bonus.

“Gah.” Kris’toluth squinted, as if Perry had just become uncomfortable to look at. “I gave her what she wanted. I reunited her with her father. The arrogant fool’s dead. Been dead for months.”

She’s possessed, Perry thought, glancing between Heather’s convulsing body and Anya, an idea brewing.

Unfortunately, Perry didn’t have time to act on it, as the massive hag charged him, battering him against the wall.

Blue flames began to emerge from Kris’toluth’s body, searing on contact and turning swaths of Perry’s pants to ash as he deflected a taloned kick aimed at his crotch.

Pain bloomed in Perry’s skull as the hag head-butted him, just lightly enough not to drop his HP.

The impact sent searing pain through Perry’s head and knocked him off balance, forcing him to stagger back against the wall as tears clouded his sight.

When Perry blinked the reflexive tears out of his eyes, he spotted the hag’s taloned hands cradling the final three ritual ingredients and a wavy sacrificial blade.

“Crap,” Perry muttered.

“Indeed.”

Perry tried to let his legs give out and drop him out of the way, but the wave of essence rolling out of the hag’s palm buoyed him up, lifting him off the ground as it deadened his nerves.

The hag’s temple beaded with sweat as she pulled Perry through the air towards herself, completely paralyzed.

“Why…are you so resistant?” she demanded, gritting her teeth, the muscles in her jaw standing out harshly against her papery skin.

Not resistant enough, Perry thought, struggling to thrash his way out of the spell, and doing little more than twitching.

“The soul, I take for myself,” she murmured in the ancient tongue. “The blood is for my lord.”

Perry tried not to gag as the hag shoved two fingers into his mouth, prying it open as she brought his face close to her own warped visage.

Then she began to inhale, and Perry felt his stitching come loose—like he was a stuffed animal, and his stuffing was being recklessly torn out of him.

Pain covered every inch of his body as some intangible thing shifted inside of him—a sensation he didn’t even know he could have. It was nauseating, painful, and made his vision spin violently, like he was moments from throwing up, but couldn’t relieve himself.

A scintillating mist flowed out of his mouth and into the hag’s mouth.

Cough!

Perry dropped to the ground, banging his head against the floor as the hag shoved him away, coughing violently like one of those idiots taking the cinnamon challenge.

“Wha—” Kris’toluth was wracked with coughs as the demon’s body collapsed back to its normal proportions. “What are you?! That is—” She coughed, blood dribbling from her mouth, eyes, and nose.

“That is not natural!”

“Never said it was,” Perry said, picking up the sacrificial blade.

“Ka’thran, Lord of Hags, Coyote of the Afterlife, and Hoarder of Souls,” Perry said in Kris’toluth’s tongue, “please send the following memo to your followers.”

“Wai—”

Perry pinned the monster to the floor with the ceremonial knife, staggering backward as it twitched on the ground.

He wanted to collapse, but Heather was still in serious danger.

Perry dragged himself over to Anya.

“I know you have a deep distaste for men,” Perry said, folding his fingers around the hilt of the haunted club and wincing as pins and needles erupted up his hand all the way to his neck, deadening his arm and making it nearly impossible to lift the weapon.

Perry gritted his teeth and wrapped his off-hand around his wrist and lifted the club up, staggering over to Heather.

“But I think I know a man you might dislike just a little bit more than me.”

Perry jammed Anya deep into Heather’s chest, as close to her heart as he could get, causing the softened girl to fold around it.

***Heather***

“STOP!” Heather cried as Karnos hurt her friends over and over again while she was trapped in a glass box that crept ever inward, compressing her smaller and smaller.

“You see what happens when you don’t do what I tell you?!” he demanded over Perry’s agonized form. “This is your fault! If you hadn’t disobeyed me, I wouldn’t have to do this! You think I enjoy this?!”

Karnos’s hands turned into claws and raked down Perry’s skin, wrenching a pitiful scream out of him. “This little bastard stole you away from me and corrupted your mind. And then you, blindly following along, got me killed! You were a mindless pawn then, and you’re a mindless pawn now. You’re just following what’s between your legs, instead of your father.”

“Stop, please!”

“You know how to make it stop!” Karnos said, sneering at her as her cage shrank even further, making it harder to breathe.

“Give me your body! I’ll take care of some business, kill Solaris, and then I’ll give it right back.” Her father’s expression softened, and for a fraction of an instant, Heather considered it.

“NO!”

“I guess you need some more persuasion.” The cowl’s sneer returned, and he lifted his taloned hand above Perry’s wretched body, which reverted to a whole state, staring up at Karnos in helpless terror as he was about to be killed again.

A hand caught Karnos’s wrist.

Karnos frowned, glancing over at the blonde woman in homespun clothes, wielding a frying pan in her other hand.

“You, sirrah, are a poor fatha,” she said with a thick accent.

“Who the f—”

She bashed Karnos in the face with the heavy iron pan, sending him reeling backwards.

Perry cried out in pain moments before he was drawn into Karnos’s toe. Her father staggered backward, clutching his face and cursing violently.

A fake? Heather thought. A shadow puppet to cause distress and manipulate?

Heather’s eye twitched.

The invisible cage around her expanded.

A FAKE?! He was manipulating me like he’d done my entire life?! AGAIN?! Heather thought, her rage building.

The walls of the glass box began to bow outward.

“Miss, ya maybe not get ten and eight ans, but it be your only chance to settle things!” the woman shouted, throwing the iron pan at her cage, shattering the glass, which exploded outward in a shower of glittering fragments.

The blonde woman vanished, leaving behind the heavy iron pan.

“Heather!” Karnos barked. “Get back in your—”

Heather scooped up the heavy iron and tried to put it through her father’s head.

“You think that’s enough to stop—”

Heather hit him again.

“Young lady—”

She hit him again.

“Stop!”

She hit him again.

***Perry***

Perry waited, holding his breath as Heather went limp.

Suddenly Heather convulsed one final time, her eyes opening as she began coughing violently.

“Ugh, what the heck? It feels like you broke my sternum,” she said, rubbing her chest and scowling.

“I had to get Anya as close to your heart as possible…I assumed,” Perry said with a shrug. “How you feeling? On a scale of zero to ten, how possessed do you feel right now?”

“Zero,” Heather said, her expression cold.

“So, umm…my family might not be as popular in Washington City as I thought,” Perry admitted as he helped Heather to her feet.

“You don’t say,” Heather said, her gaze landing on the demon pinned to the floor by the sacrificial blade.

“So you were complaining earlier about having things handed to me because I’m famous,” Perry said. “I’d just like to take this opportunity to—”

“Not in the mood,” Heather said, shaking her head.

“I’ll save it. We should probably leave.”

“Uh,” Heather groaned, nodding as he threw her arm over his shoulder, limping towards the front entryway.

“I think Solaris killed my dad,” Heather said, staring at the floor.

“How do you feel about that?” Perry asked.

“Ask me tomorrow,” she said. “Or maybe never.”

“Gotcha,” Perry muttered, pushing open the front door of Madame Kris’s Answers from the Beyond.

At least we actually did get some information. Almost died, but we got answers.

In a three-deep semicircle around the building were angry-looking thugs of various Manitian origin.

In the lead was a tall man wearing biking leathers, with wild hair and a sword at his hip, standing next to a rugged motorcycle with a horse head emerging from the front.

“It seems I won’t have to pay Kris for your body,” he said with a cruel smile.

Perry mentally reviewed his interaction with the demon.

“You must be John,” Perry said. She’d told his name to a man named John over the phone, probably learned of Karnos’s death, then decided to use it as a tactic to disable his bodyguard (Heather).

“I’m honored a Zauberer would deign to learn my name,” he said, bowing sarcastically. “Now you and your friend are going to be coming with us.”

“I guess you guys didn’t get the memo,” Perry said as his remote-controlled Mk. 3 suits arrived, landing inside the semicircle.

***Natalie***

“Then we hopped onto one of the suits and flew like a bat outta hell while they were distracted,” Perry said, slipping out of his shredded pants and tossing them in the trash before grabbing a towel.

“There’s people in the city…hunting you?” Natalie asked.

“Seems that way,” Perry said with a shrug. “I could tell them I’m inedible, but they probably wouldn’t believe it. I’m gonna go soak in the tub for an hour or two and process what just happened. I’ll see you later.”

“Later…” Nat waved as Perry marched into the bathroom and closed the door behind himself.

She glanced at the closed door leading to her room.

Hesitantly, Nat crept up to the door and used the handle. To her surprise, it wasn’t locked.

“What?” Heather’s voice croaked as a beam of light from the living room invaded the darkened bed.

“Are you okay?”

“Maybe,” Heather said, the tremor in her voice twisting Natalie’s guts.

Nat climbed up onto the bed and put her arm over Heather.

In response, Heather turned over and pulled Nat tight to her chest, squishing an involuntary squeak out of her.

“I got what I needed, but I don’t think I wanted it,” Heather said. “Closure is a bitch, and my dad was worse than I remembered. It was like an addiction to touching a hot stove. Sometimes I wonder how much of what he said was right.”

Nat didn’t know what to say, so she stayed quiet, listening as the powerful super cried herself to sleep.

Chapter 72: Level 5

Plip. Plip. Plip.

The only sound in the bathroom was the dripping from the faucet as Perry stared at the wall, thinking about his night.

Fiction always described your first kill as life-changing. A scar you would carry around with you for the rest of your life.

It was bad, to be sure, but about the actual act, Perry was a bit numb, like he was still processing exactly how he felt about it, and would revisit it later, at a more inconvenient time. It was the surrounding aspects that bothered him right now.

His entire life, Funkytown had been something of a playground. For him, it was about as safe as a neighborhood got, despite being rife with crime and man-eating monsters.

Because he’d taken being universally loved by Manitians for granted, he’d put someone else in a situation where they’d forced him to kill them. Perry didn’t mourn the loss of demonspawn that turned to murder the instant it became worth the risk to do so.

If anything, Perry was embarrassed.

Perry could have easily handled the situation differently and still gotten an answer from the hag without a fight to the death. Everything had gone down because he was flexing his magic knowledge to impress Heather.

Dad… Perry thought sourly as text began scrolling past his gaze, interrupting his self-recriminations.

For harvesting the entirety of an opponent’s Causal energy, you gain 437 XP.

‘Harvesting,’ i.e. killing them. Dad really went all out with the design of the XP system.

Perry had already suspected that he might get more experience for killing something than he would for simply putting them in jail. More possibilities snuffed out, more XP. It made sense.

He REALLY didn’t want a system that incentivized being a killing machine murderhobo.

But here we are.

Now that Perry knew this, theoretically… Theoretically, Perry could go on a killing spree and get himself to the level where his stats surpassed human understanding in a couple hours. Maybe if he nuked a district, he’d be unstoppable immediately afterwards.

The potential for abuse was literally astronomical.

The only things stopping him were people at the top like Solaris, who might snuff him out in a microsecond upon getting notice of his rampage, and the fact that Perry wasn’t an enormous dick.

I wonder why I don’t get those notifications when I fight prawns and other monsters? Maybe because they’re not people, not opponents. They’re just monsters, who don’t really have much of a choice in their behavior. Less causal potential.

Perry sat in the tub, staring at the scrolling text intruding on his moment of relaxation.

Congratulations! You are now a level 5 Garage Tinker.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 5

HP: 6

Body: 5

Stability: 5

Nerve: 10

Attunement: 25

Free Points: 7

XP to next level: 3051

Every five levels, you may purchase Perks using your free points.

Some Perks may not be affected by Attunement. These perks are indicated with an Asterisk (*).

Some Perks may require additional costs to implement in the form of HP, Body, Stability, Nerve, or Attunement. These perks are indicated with (HP,B,S,N,A).

Available Perks:

Sliding Stats (Variable Cost)*

Spend a number of free points to gain the ability to slide an equal number of stat points between different attributes.

Example: With the 3-point version, User may move 3 points in any stat to any other stat until further notice. Does not affect free points received upon level-up as a result of modified Attunement, but will affect Perks used while Attunement is modified.

The stats may be moved in any combination, to a maximum number indicated by the amount of free points invested in the Sliding Stats Perk.

More points may be invested in Sliding Stats whenever Perks are offered.

Blueprint (3) or (3N)*

User may create a Blueprint charged with their Perks. If another uses the Blueprint to create the object detailed therein, all the User’s applicable perks apply to the creation.

Only one Blueprint may exist per instance of the Blueprint Perk. If a new Blueprint is created above the limit, the oldest Blueprint becomes mundane and loses its properties.

Summon Garments (1,3,5)

(1)     Summon mundane clothes onto the User to combat exposure or indecency. 1/day

(3)     Summon common Hyperweave for excellent protection from attacks to combat conventional threats. 1/day

(5)     Mentally mark a User-created armor: User may summon that armor onto themself 1/day. User may change the subject of the mark 1/day.

Higher tiers may be purchased whenever Perks are offered.

Cross-Class (20)(5A)

For twenty free points, and five points from Attunement, you may choose a Perk from another Tinker specialization.

Space Tinker

Industrial Tinker

Geo-Tinker

Bio-Tinker

Ray Tinker

Submersible Tinker

Sonic Tinker

…

The list went on for a while, each of the tantalizing options locked behind a price tag that Perry couldn’t afford just yet. That was where most of the really good passive boosts to his tinkering were.

Perry estimated he might afford them by level fifteen.

Looks like I didn’t have to worry so much about runaway growth.

The perks here existed to further drain his free points and delay the inevitable stat explosion.

Multi-tool (1,3,5)

(1)     At will, summon a tool. The tool may have an internal motor and battery system, and weigh no more than 2 kilograms. This includes everything from a wrench or spade to a handheld angle grinder or cutting tool. Only one tool may be present at any time.

(3)     The tool may have an internal reservoir of material or objects that remain after it is used, such as a welding device, nail gun, caulk gun, or glue gun.

(5)     The maximum mass of the summoned tool increases to 50 kg.

Higher tiers may be purchased whenever Perks are offered.

Weapons do not count as tools for the purpose of this Perk. However, tools may be used as improvised weapons.

Scent (3)

User may determine an object’s constituent ingredients and gain some insight into its manufacturing method by sniffing it.

Material Specialization (1)

Pick a material affected by your Spendthrift Perk. It is treated as significantly less expensive when altered by the perk, further boosting its effectiveness. This perk may be chosen multiple times, applying to a different material each time.

Aerosolized (1)

User gains the ability to summon a canister, no larger than 20 oz of gas-propelled or aerosolized material at will, including but not limited to:

Spray paint

Adhesive

Insulation

Rubberization

Spackle

Cooking oil

Lubricant

The materials created must be mundane, widely available, and plausibly purchased. Their effectiveness is improved by Spendthrift.

Underestimated (1,3,5,10,20)

The User’s experience with the unknowable has been assimilated. If the make or material of User’s armor is viewed with disdain, ridicule, or pity by an enemy, that emotional reaction opens the door for an embedded cognitohazard to infect their mind. The cognitohazard inflicts a scaling debuff that impairs the enemy’s ability to damage User’s armor, and by extension, the User inside.

Example: Wearing a trash bag as armor may subtly weaken an enemy’s limbs, causing the power of their strikes or accuracy of their gunfire to be diminished, indirectly boosting the armor’s effectiveness.

Higher tiers inflict more powerful debuffs, which may prove lethal to infirm or unhealthy enemies. Higher tiers may be purchased whenever Perks are offered.

Offered by Claudette’s Hippy Bullshit.

Well, that last one looks kinda spooky, but also very handy, Perry thought. It added a tangible benefit to being underestimated, which could lead Perry to a string of wins in which no one could really explain how they lost. Could be a good hidden card to keep under his hat.

Perry also liked…all of them, really, except for Material Specialization.

If he could spend a point to improve a certain material’s multiplier, that same point could be spent to raise ALL materials’ effectiveness.

Perry just didn’t see himself needing it any time soon.

Scent was deeply interesting to Perry, because he would be able to make huge leaps in reverse engineering other Tinkers’ gear by sniffing them. It might also help with chemistry and finding weaknesses in other Tinkers’ designs. All in all, it was a solid choice. Just a bit too expensive at 3 free points to purchase.

Perry was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind trading 3 points of Nerve for a Blueprint perk.

Multi-tool was handy, especially at tier two. It also lacked the asterisk indicating a perk was unaffected by Attunement, meaning the 2 kg limit was most likely much higher, and the performance of the tool itself might similarly be boosted.

Again, too expensive to buy tier two right off the bat.

Why was it too expensive? Because Perry’s Attunement had just gone up by another 2 points, and Perry needed his Stability to start catching up, or else going on a killing spree was going to seem more and more like the logical thing to do to powerlevel.

That was unacceptable.

Level 25 of Attunement gave a 3.3X multiplier. Level 26 gave 3.5, so Perry wanted to raise his Attunement by an additional one point, to allow the next level to have eight free points to spend, rather than 7.

In order to play catch-up, he would have to dump four free points into Sliding Stats and use that to decrease his Attunement and bolster his Stability, making an eight-point swing in favor of his sanity. After that, he could put a few more points into Stability than Attunement every level until the two equalized.

Additionally, Perry could move four points into Attunement at will, when he really needed to make something powerful, which could definitely come in handy in the future.

This put his spendable free points at 2, which was woefully low, and limited his perk selection.

Perry could dump those points into Stability and Attunement, but they wouldn’t make a major difference until a level or two later.

Right now, they could buy him one of several different choices that could further boost his flexibility.

Material Specialization, Summon Garment 1, Multi-tool 1, Aerosolized, or Underestimation 1.

Mat Spec was pointless at the moment, Perry felt. And the first level of Summon Garment was more quality of life than tangibly useful.

Which left Multi-tool, Aerosolized, and Underestimation.

I choose four points of Sliding Stats, Multi-tool, and Aerosolized, along with the Nerve-cost version of Blueprint.

Underestimation was great, no doubt about it, but Perry would have to spend a lot of time and effort making new suits, and perhaps combining its effects with Material Specialization to shore up the use of substandard materials, to make it truly shine.

Right now, Perry’s suits didn’t look half bad, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

Perry’s legs twitched against the side of the bathtub, his toes emerging from the soapy water as his entire body began to tingle like it’d fallen asleep.

The power settled into place, and suddenly, Perry felt the ability like it’d always been there, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that if he wanted a chainsaw, it would appear in his hands.

Multi-tool was an obvious choice for field repair and scrapping, but there was one important hidden reason to choose Aerosolized that the System had neglected to mention.

Perry reached out, his fingers gently resisted by a dimensional barrier.

Something cold and cylindrical settled into his grasp. He rested his forefinger on the nozzle of the canister.

Perry leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth.

PSSSSSHHHHHH.

Whipped cream flooded Perry’s mouth.

Was it worth a single stat point? Maybe. Maybe not.

Perry set down the whipped cream and pulled a canister of compressed chocolate mousse out of thin air.

But I think I’m going to enjoy it enough to make up for that.

When he hit level ten, he would be more balanced between Stability and Attunement, and he could afford to look into taking some of the more expensive perks. For right now, Perry appreciated the versatility offered by the two inexpensive perks he’d picked.

***The Next Day***

Perry was riding the massive troop transport elevator up the side of the wall, the surrounding supers fidgeting with their gear and ammo as they came closer and closer to their date with the prawns.

“We didn’t get the opportunity to properly greet each other the other day; we were all too busy,” a cloaked man said, offering Perry his hand from the bench across the aisle. The shimmering dark blue cloak moved around him like a living thing, with electric-blue veins throbbing inside it.

“I’m Dark Cloak,” he said helpfully.

“Paradox,” Perry said, taking his hand and shaking it. Perry had seen the cloak form shapes and become hard enough to pierce the hide of a prawn. It was flexible and strong, but the range wasn’t great. Mobility was good, because Dark Cloak could use it to fly or run extra fast.

It was a bit like a guy wearing a Heather.

Dark Cloak’s partner was Wrecked, a man wearing a mohawk and thick gloves, who caused anything he touched to die or fall apart. His catchphrase was obviously ‘Get wrecked!’ Wrecked was wearing some movement-enhancing Tinker gear on his feet, legs, and spine, because he wasn’t quite fast enough to tangle with prawns without getting squished.

In the corner was a girl with a big cherry blossom stenciled on the front of her hyperweave, carving a piece of wood nervously.

Next to her was a man muttering to a box of weasels. He had scratches all over his face and seemed to be missing a piece of his ear.

Across the room was a Tinker riding a blocky drone with no visible rotor blades or propulsion. The young man muttered to himself as he scrolled through his pad, fingers blazing. Dozens of drones rested nearby with inordinately powerful guns attached to them.

I would’ve expected more armor for a Tinker, Perry thought, but didn’t bother to mention it. Maybe the guy had some kind of force field. Hopefully. Worst-case scenario, he was an amateur that had come to some unspoken, misguided understanding that everyone else would focus on protecting him while he ‘handled’ all the prawns.

There were people like that.

It was while Perry and Dark Cloak were discussing the Tinker and the possibility of him being a glory hound that it was mentioned that Washington City didn’t have an Anchor.

“Then…who takes over for the most powerful super when he or she dies or goes crazy?” Perry asked.

“Why would you need that?” Dark Cloak asked.

“Well, I mean, who runs your government?”

“Elected officials.”

“Who punishes supers who get out of control?” Perry asked.

“The police.”

Perry raised a brow. “Do the police have supers in them?” Perry asked.

“Of course. Some of them are supers,” Dark Cloak said.

“So they enforce civilian law and super law equally?” Perry asked.

“Why wouldn’t they?” Dark Cloak asked.

“Well, I mean, in Franklin City, police are entirely civilian law enforcement and Nexus keeps an eye on supers. It causes less police officers to get vaporized.”

“I don’t see the need to separate them. Just send super police after super criminals,” Dark Cloak said with a shrug.

“I mean…who enforces your super police officer’s good behavior?” Perry asked.

“Who enforces Solaris’s?” Dark Cloak asked.

Perry scratched his head. “I guess there’s no such thing as a perfect system.”

“Not really, no.”

Perry stayed silent for a while, pondering the differences between cities and which was better. Finally, he decided there was no better or worse: just different.

“Did you have to take ethics classes growing up?” he asked.

“No, why?” Dark Cloak said, his shadowed face looking genuinely confused.

I changed my mind. Washington City is better.

The klaxon began blaring as they approached the top of the wall, a strobing red light indicating that they had ten seconds until the gates of the elevator opened and they changed shifts with the previous team.

CLUNK!

A heavy impact rocked everyone in the elevator, nearly causing Hardcase’s patched-up mechsuit to topple over.

“That’s not right,” Dark Cloak said, frowning as he looked up at the reinforced doors leading to the wall.

Pincers sheared through the heavy-duty steel above them like craft scissors would paper.

Among the sounds of the klaxon and the surrounding supers beginning to yell, Perry faintly heard his phone go off.

He patched it through to his helmet.

POSSIBLE WALL BREACH IN YOUR AREA.

STAY INDOORS AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

Well, looks like it’s gonna be another long night, Perry thought as the prawns began squirming their way into the massive elevator shaft.

Chapter 73: Life Revolves Around the Wall

“I don’t care what you do, I’m not gonna cut off my pinky finger,” Jason said as his steroid-addled boss reached under the trailer’s wobbling dining table and withdrew a briefcase.

Jason’s heart rate skyrocketed as Chemestro opened the briefcase facing away from Jason, withdrawing a single sheet of paper covered in dense legalese.

Is he threatening me, or my siblings, or my home, or what?

“I broke into Locust’s office recently and asked her what the most efficient way to manipulate a minion’s loyalty was. The discussion was illuminating,” Chemestro said, turning the paper around so that Dazzle could read it.

Despite understanding the individual words, Jason had no idea what the entire thing meant. He saw his siblings’ names, and a cold sweat broke out. There were words like ‘in perpetuity,’ and ‘incarceration.’

“What is this?”

“That is the paperwork for a trust which will ensure that your brother and sister are taken care of, regardless of what happens to you before they reach adulthood. It accounts for food, shelter, education, and the guardianship of a highly professional caretaker until they are adults. One fifth of the funds revert to them when they are eighteen, thirty percent when they are twenty-five, and the final half when they are forty.

“This,” Chemestro said, passing him another paper, “is a gag order directed at Tom Smith, the lawyer you have a dispute with. If he ever publicly speaks your mother’s name, yours, or your siblings’, he goes straight to prison.”

“What…the hell?” Jason asked, his eyes watering. “Is that legal?”

“No. But I pulled some extra shifts on the wall for Solaris in exchange. About forty-eight hours straight.”

Jason glanced at Chemestro’s face and noted the bags under the muscle-bound cape’s eyes.

“Now, there’s not actually any money in the trust right now; it’s only set up and needs to be funded. This bank account number will allow you to deposit any money you receive into your siblings’ trust fund.” He slid the bank information across to Jason.

“And this…” Chemestro flipped the briefcase around, revealing the contents.

Chits. Lots and lots of chits. Practically spilling out of the briefcase.

“This is what you will use to fund the trust.

“Now, the gag order and the trust setup are gratis. You can take them and walk away, fund the trust at any pace you want. But this…”

Jason heaved a sigh. “Alright, fine, I’ll cut off my pinky.”

“I knew you’d see it my way,” Chemestro said, closing the briefcase and watching him expectantly.

“Wait, now?”

“Do you have a better time?”

Jason sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess not.”

He focused on his left pinky finger, his heart rate skyrocketing.

He took a deep breath, thought of his family, and did the deed.

POOF!

Dazzle’s pinky finger exploded into confetti and he strangled back a scream.

“AA…eh? It doesn’t hurt?”

“I didn’t think it would,” Chemestro said, watching Jason’s hand clinically. “Can you still move it? Still feel it?”

“Yeah…” Jason said, bending and unbending his nonexistent pinky finger. “Hey, that’s pretty cool!”

“Now bring it back.”

The explosion of confetti inverted around his pinky, and suddenly it was there again.

“Wow!”

“Excellent,” Chemestro said, sipping an unidentified green liquid that smelled like ass. “Now do your entire body.”

Jason froze. “Can’t we just stick with the pinky?”

“Listen, Jason. Your powers, as you’ve been using them, are subpar at best. You will only be worth my time if you are able to use them on your entire body. Teleporters are…much more valuable. If you are a teleporter, you can command quite the outrageous salary once our contract has run its course.

“That, and we need to finish breaking through your mental barriers while the pinky experiment is still fresh in your mind, so you don’t build them back up again.”

From the hallway, Samantha and William wandered into the light of the kitchen, rubbing their eyes at the bright fluorescent light. “What’s going on?”

“I was just teaching your brother how to do a magic trick,” Chemestro said without a single change in tone or expression. “Would you care to watch?”

“What kind of magic trick?” Samantha said suspiciously, peering at the bulky young man.

“This kind.” Chemestro turned invisible, and reappeared a moment later on the other side of the room.

“Wow!” William shouted, his jaw dropped in childish amazement.

“I don’t think I can…” Dazzle said.

“Nonsense. If your pinky can still flex, that means your brain can still send signals. It’ll be fine. Do it.”

“Yeah, do it!” William said.

“Do it!” Samantha joined in.

“Do it, do it, dooo it!” the two brats began chanting.

“FINE! But if I die, I’m haunting you!”

POOF!

The world turned black and white. Everything seemed to freeze in place as Dazzle walked through the room, looking around at everything frozen in place with wonder.

Even Chemestro, Sam, and Will were locked in place, frozen in greyscale.

Wow, this is amazing, Dazzle thought, reaching out to poke Will’s bratty cheeks. Then he looked down at himself and realized that he had no body.

Adrenaline flowed through his nonexistent body as he stumbled backwards and desperately tried to claw his way back.

Come back, come back come back!

POOF!

Thump!

“OW,” Dazzle said, rubbing his hip where he’d slammed into the oil-spattered stove, some five feet away from where he’d started.

“WHOO! That was awesome!” Sam and Will fell over themselves.

Chemestro looked…vaguely satisfied. “Good job, Dazzle.”

“Thanks, I—”

“Now do it again. We have to completely monotonize the act for you so you don’t build an irrational superstitious avoidance. Again.”

“Again, again, AAAGAAIN!” Sam and Will chanted.

Jason sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Sometimes I wish I’d never taken this job.”

***Monolith***

If Monolith could sweat, he would be doing so…profusely.

This wasn’t supposed to go down like this.

Monolith’s arms and legs were pinned in place by four different Bruisers, while Snake, Barrel of Monkeys, and Fish looked on with neutral expressions.

Ray-Man’s magnum opus was pressed to nearly every inch of his forehead, ready to vaporize his skull as half a dozen clones held the gun to his temples.

Locust was fiddling with her phone, the old crone monologuing as she did.

“You’ll never believe what that brat Chemestro did. He broke into my lair and started asking really dumb questions about how to make other people like him. I mean…it was like the kid didn’t understand how much he was giving away about himself, just based on the questions he was asking.

“So naturally, I took pity on him and gave him good advice. I do consider myself a philanthropist.”

She put the phone to her ear. “Yeah, boss-man, I’ve got Monolith in checkmate. Can I take him out of the game?”

She put the phone on speaker and held it out so everyone could hear Solaris’s decision, while Monolith’s heart seized.

“That’s a negative, Locust. Numbers on the wall are a little tight recently.”

Monolith breathed a sigh of relief, while Locust made a sour face.

“Monolith,” Solaris’s voice said over the phone.

“Yessir.”

“Report to the wall for the remainder of High Tide. If you’re not up here bright and early tomorrow morning, I will find you.”

“Yessir.”

“Don’t make me find you,” Solaris whispered directly into Monolith’s ear, vanishing before Monolith could even move his eyes.

“No, sir,” Monolith said, his skin prickling with fear.

“And Locust, you’ve got an IOU. You’ve got my blessing to eliminate Monolith after High Tide. If you can catch him again.”

“Thanks, boss-man, but I don’t think old Monolith’s gonna hang around much longer after High Tide. I imagine he’ll catch the train,” Locust said, eyeballing him.

That does seem like a good idea.

“Alright, let him up,” Locust said, motioning for the Bruisers to drop him.

“Traitors,” Monolith said, giving BoM his best glare.

Barrel of Monkeys scoffed, a plume of smoke coming out of his cigar. “Get out of here, loser.”

The world went red, and Monolith lunged forward, but was caught by the hired muscle as Locust came to stand in front of him.

“If you try to harm one of my men, I will kill you. Solaris will simply require a bit of community service on the wall in exchange for your shiny butt. Don’t even think I won’t do it.”

Monolith felt hollow as he walked out of his former office and began trudging toward Nexus. He should’ve been angry about his subordinates’ betrayal, or grateful that the timing landed on High Tide, giving him an out.

Instead, he felt nothing.

Could this possibly be my fault…?

Nah.

***Perry***

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 5

HP: 6

Body: 5

Stability: 5 (9)

Nerve: 7

Attunement: 26 (22)

Free Points: 0

Perks: Sliding Stats 4, Multi-tool 1, Aerosolized, Blueprint 1

XP to next level: 3051

Riing, riing.

Perry checked the ID and noticed it was Breaker.

He patched the super break dancer’s call through to his helmet. “Hey man, can I call you back? Things are kind of busy right now.”

The prawn’s mandibles shoved against his palm, slamming him back into the concrete, practically embedding him in the wall.

“I’m still a girl!” Breaker’s voice came over the phone. “You said twenty-four hours! It’s been almost a week! I don’t want to… There are certain things that happen…periodically, that I don’t want to be around for, you catch my drift?”

“That would be a really interesting thing to know, whether or not the spell actually turns you into a girl or just reshapes your body to look like one. I could add valuable information to the entry,” Perry said, hanging onto the creature’s barbed mandibles, yanking himself out of the wall and blasting his thrusters to dodge the follow-up attack.

“I’m not interested in knowing!” Breaker said.

“Okay,” Perry said, dashing over to the edge of the wall and luring the prawn after him. Once it got close, he shot a beach-ball-sized chunk out of its central nervous system and the other supers kicked its bulky body over the side, dislodging a couple more as it fell.

I’m running low on disintegrates, Perry thought as the crystal popped out of the magazine.

“Well, you got two options. You can hurt yourself really bad, like step in front of a bus or stab yourself. Or, you can arrange for the magic on the doll to unravel through extra-magical wear and tear.”

“How do I do that?” Breaker asked.

“Take the doll out of my lab and take it to somewhere with a lot of magical activity. Maybe ask Dave at the bowling alley to keep it in his basement for a little while. The chaotic ambient magic should unravel the spell faster. No guarantees on how long it would take, though. It would be a lot faster to try and kill yourself.”

“I’m not gonna do that,” Breaker said.

“Alright… Well, then it’s possible that certain…things may happen. I’ll patch you over to Wraith for advice on how to deal with it.”

“Wait, no, don’t—”

Perry forwarded the call to Heather.

In a matter of seconds, the Shapeshifter began howling with laughter. “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m totally taking you seriously, Breaker,” she said, stifling her giggles as she clung to the back of a prawn and directed its rampage towards Perry by hauling on its chitin.

“Actually, I’m a little busy right now,” Heather said as the bus-sized monster charged Perry. “I’ll have to patch your call over to Hardcase.”

Up on the upper shelf, where Hardcase was doing overwatch, her robot’s arms started wiggling. Through the plexiglass patch in her cockpit, Perry could make out the tiny girl biting her lip and struggling to contain her laughter.

He ducked the monster’s charge and put his shoulder up against it, blasting all his jets to full. He shoved the thrashing creature off of the wall, down into the writhing hellscape that was the other side of the wall.

Perry watched tracers from the oversized cannons halfway down the wall lance outward and fly over the squirming swarm of caterpillar-looking sea creatures, illuminating them for a brief instant before slamming into one of the prawns.

Washington prawns had darker chitin, which was weaker than that of a Franklin City prawn, but the creatures themselves were more energetic. They charged a bit faster, thrashed a bit more, and had a nasty tendency to jump at you if they thought they could get away with it.

Perry had nearly gotten buried the first time he saw one of the creatures wiggling through the air towards him.

“How’s the patch job coming?” Perry asked.

“Hold on,” Hardcase said, her cockpit swiveling in place to look behind them. “They’re almost done.”

The Tinkers who were less interested in fighting were currently repairing the wall breach that had happened the moment they’d arrived, where an anomalous prawn had decided it was easier to chew its way through the wall rather than try to climb over it.

Nearly eight hours of nonstop fighting later, they were relieved and their shift was over, allowing Perry and the remaining supers on the wall to ride back down and live life as normal for another day.

Perry rested his head against the hard plastic of the elevator’s seat and stared at the steel ceiling, his body melting into the seat for the several-minute ride down to the ground floor.

“You, me, Hardcase,” Wraith said, pointing at the three of them. “Shampoo, deodorant, clothes.” She ticked off her fingers.

“Ung,” Perry said, giving her a thumbs-up.

“There’s a mall on the west side of the city, on Mount Avenue. A big one,” Dark Cloak said, lying down in Wrecked’s empty spot.

“Thanks,” Perry said.

“No problem, Paradox,” Dark Cloak said, tugging his cloak down over his face.

Chapter 74: Combat Shopping

Okay, you can do this. You’re besieged on all sides, the enemy is breathing down your neck. But you can’t show weakness. Any twitch, any betrayed emotion could be the beginning of your downfall.

Perry took a deep breath and craned his neck to take in the full scale of The Mall.

It was fifty stories tall, wider than a football field, and included apartments, office buildings, onsite medics, even less-than-stellar lawyers and quacks who laired in the monolithic structure like lice.

It had food, clothes, gaming, handicrafts, hardware, even old-people stuff.

There were books, jewelry, antiques—even adult entertainment floors restricted by ID-scanning elevators.

It was the place in Washington City to find ANYTHING. The possibilities were endless. Murder for hire? Aisle 444.

But that wasn’t what was stressing him out.

Nope.

It was the prospect of shopping with Heather and Natalie in close proximity for the better part of an afternoon. Who knew what dark secrets they whispered to each other while his back was turned?

Rationally, Perry knew it was 100% ‘Hey, look at XYZ. That’s cool. I’d like to give that to my mom when I get back.’

However, rationality took a back seat when confronted with Shopping With Heather and Natalie.

His irrational heart of hearts screamed that every motion and glance was some unspoken secret message that had something to do with him, because what else would they be talking about?!

Girls talking about something other than a guy? Preposterous! If there was one thing that Perry learned from TV growing up, it was that that was the only thing they talked about.

A small part of him suggested that it was possible that TV might get things wrong every now and then.

His lizard brain picked up a rock and silenced the dissenter.

The teenage male brain has flights of fancy that would put the stereotypical teenage girl to shame, save for the fact that the boy’s results in no outward sign save for moist palms and beading sweat.

Certainly not the most cinematic.

And this is with my Stability/Attunement ratio increased!

If Perry went full psycho, he could most likely navigate this situation with charm and aplomb. Unfortunately, he also wouldn’t care.

Better to suffer through this onslaught than feel nothing at all.

Perry’s musings were cut off by Natalie taking charge of the situation.

“I wanna check out the hardware section!” Natalie blurted and grabbed Heather and Perry’s hands, dragging them through the front door, cool air spilling out of the air-conditioned line of sliding doors as they approached.

“Wait! Clothes, moisturizer, hair detangler! Remember?” Heather protested, unable to stop the tiny Tinker by anything short of superpowers.

“We can get clothes any time!” Nat said, dragging the two of them, who must have outweighed her more than three times over.

“We can get grease-monkey stuff anytime!”

“I’ve got some hair detangler,” Perry said, offering her a can of spray-in product.

Heather frowned at Perry, glanced him up and down, then behind him, trying to figure out where he’d gotten it.

Rattle. Perry shook the can of Heather’s favorite product and cocked a brow.

Heather snatched it out of his hand and shoved it in her purse before giving him a desperate look. “Can you talk some sense into her? If I don’t get a change of clothes and some soap, I will literally die.”

“Sorry, Heather, we’re on the Nat train right now.”

“You’re darn right, you are,” Nat said, eyes narrowed.

So, while they visited the hardware store, Perry bought himself a package of round sheet plastic about a quarter-millimeter thick, for marking and preventing heavy objects from scoring each other.

As they walked through the towering aisles filled with goodies, Perry modified a plastic sheet, then another after he moved his Attunement back to full, and another when he moved four points from Body into Attunement.

Perry nearly missed a step as his strength returned to nearly baseline, his body suddenly feeling like it was made of lead (comparatively).

He finished the final sheet and summoned a digital newton meter, then tested all three sheets’ resistance to bending.

Sure enough, Perry was able to make things while boosting his Attunement with Sliding Stats, and have the boosted performance remain after the bonus points in Attunement were gone.

He could feel the drop in Stability like a shock of cold water, though, and Perry hastily moved four points of Attunement back to Stability.

“What are you doing with those?” Heather asked, steering Natalie’s cart, which was gradually filling with every manner of Tinker paraphernalia.

“Testing my localized effect on the laws of physics,” Perry said. “It’s variable now.”

“Ooh, we definitely need this!” Natalie said, salivating over a massive spool of copper wire and then a miniaturized air compressor with all the attachments, followed by an oxy-acetylene torch.

“Don’t they give you free access to tools in the dock?” Heather asked, referring to where their armors were stored. Most Tinkers couldn’t bring their entire shop with them, so they had to make do with loaner workshops provided by Washington City, called ‘docks.’

“Eh, they’re okay,” Perry said, waggling his hand. “It’s missing a certain…je ne sais quoi.”

“It’s freedom, that’s what!” Natalie said, waggling her finger in the air. “So what if I wanna make the torch five thousand degrees hotter?! I made sure the coolant system could handle it, but noooo, these bureaucrats have to ask for permission, and it’s always ‘What do you need it for?’ If I could explain that, I wouldn’t be working here, would I?”

“She’s pretty cute when she’s on a rant,” Heather murmured to Perry.

“As opposed to one hundred percent of the rest of the time?” Perry muttered back.

“You guys talking about me over there?” Natalie asked, glancing over her shoulder in front of a package of bits for her steel cutter.

“Nope,” Perry said, shaking his head violently.

Natalie shot them a grin, then went back to shopping.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Heather said as they turned a corner.

“It’s not my fault,” Perry said. “I raised my Stability recently.”

“More Stability equals worse at lying?”

“In this case, yes.”

Heather gave him an appraising glance. She sensed weakness. “Which of us do you like better?”

“You’re horrible,” Perry said.

“Not really an answer, is it?” Heather said, giving him a beautiful grin.

The cart quickly became two carts before they arrived in the front of the first hardware store.

“Ma’am,” the pimply teenage cashier said, his widened eyes the only sign of an expression. “I’m legally required to ask if you’re a Tinker. Some of these items, when sold together, are illegal to sell to a Tinker.”

“Nope, just renovating,” Natalie said, leaning on the cart.

“Okay,” the cashier said. “ID?”

Thankfully, Natalie’s ID hadn’t been melted by spider acid.

“You guys are from Franklin City?” he asked as he handed the ID back and bagged the purchase.

“Yep,” Perry said.

“I hear the trip’s really dangerous, everyone’s starving, and it’s run by a fascist dictatorship.”

“Eh…” Perry waggled his hand. “I heard from my fascist dictator that this place is teetering on the edge of collapse from lack of supers, and everyone in it is about to be eaten by prawns.”

The pimply teen’s eyes widened. “Naw, man, hasn’t been any news like that.”

Perry glanced the gawky kid up and down. He was not an adonis, and he was also not a super, so his perspective would be that of a common citizen.

“Hey, we’ve been wondering about all the hotties walking around. You know, the men and women who look like they were carved outta marble.”

“Hah, ‘hotties.’ They’re senators, and senators’ kids, mostly. It’s actually pretty rare to see them,” the cashier said, stifling a yawn. “You can have your kids designed to your specifications if you’ve got the cash. I hear they’re gonna roll out a cheaper version for everyone else next year.”

Perry frowned.

That sounded…not good. Perry had no idea what their motivations were, but if the higher-ups decided to make the general population unable to Trigger, then…wouldn’t Washington City get rolled two or three High Tides down the line, when that generation came of age?

I mean, unless they fixed that little issue. But I doubt it.

Did they think they could hire enough help from Franklin City every time, using the boost in productivity from a lack of super street brawls constantly destroying infrastructure?

I wish I could pin one of these senators down and get some answers about what’s going on. The only problem was a politician would lie to their grave. That was their job, after all.

Perry cocked his head. This problem was above his pay grade, but it wasn’t above Solaris’s pay grade. Perry would just have to tattle on Washington City when he got back, and Solaris could ask their leaders some hard questions.

The reason why nobody had asked before was likely because the last High Tide was twelve years ago, and few people questioned being surrounded by attractive men and women…when they probably should.

“Perry,” Heather said, waving a hand in front of his face. “You still with us?”

“Eh, yeah,” Perry said, glancing down at her.

“Did you wanna add your thingies to the delivery to the hotel?” the cashier asked, all of their two carts neatly packed into a box.

“Nah, I’ll hang onto these,” Perry said, taking out a pair of shears and making a small cut in the plastic circles before hanging them on his belt loop.

“Alright, I hear there’s at least six more hardware stores on this flo-AAR!” Natalie screamed as Heather dragged her away from the hardware stores by the ear.

“Nope,” Heather said. “We’re going to the supermarket first.”

Which was how Perry found himself standing there awkwardly, while Heather and Nat passed deodorant back and forth, sniffing various samples and casting appraising glances at him.

“I think this one would suit Perry better,” Heather said, handing Nat a stick.

“Oooh, that is nice. What about this one?” Nat said, handing a different stick over with a lumberjack on the front.

“Pine and diesel smoke? You want him to smell like a lumberjack?” Heather asked, making a face.

“Lumberjacks are hot,” Nat said, pouting.

Note to self: Halloween costume.

“Don’t I get a say in what I smell like?” Perry asked.

“We’re the ones who have to smell you, so obviously we should be the ones in charge of making that decision,” Heather said.

Perry didn’t really care what he smelled like, but he did sense an opportunity here.

“I guess you’re right,” Perry said. “I mean, if you’re going to have to be subject to being around me, it makes sense that you choose what I wear.”

“Exactly,” Heather said, nodding with a look of smug superiority.

“I…guess?” Nat said, giving Perry a questioning look. Perry made a small motion with his hand, indicating that she drop it for now.

The time was not yet right for the counterattack.

They finally compromised on a scent that was woodsy without the diesel smoke, tossing it into the cart along with all the other necessities—shampoo, moisturizer, soap, and the like.

Perry didn’t have to wait long before the opportunity to counterattack presented itself in the clothing aisle.

“What is this?” Heather asked, her face reddening as she inspected the skimpy clothing Perry handed her.

“The way I see it,” Perry said, throwing an arm over Natalie’s shoulder and giving Heather a shit-eating grin, “if Nat and I have to be subject to being around you, it only makes sense that we choose what you wear.”

“Them’s the rules,” Natalie said.

“Et tu, Natale?” Heather said, a hand clutched over her broken heart.

Heather gave Perry a hard look. “You just started something you can’t finish,” she said before disappearing into the dressing room.

“…She’s gonna make me wear women’s underwear,” Perry said.

“Yep,” Nat said, nodding.

“Worth it.”

The inevitable hazing didn’t go too far, culminating in Perry modeling a string bikini for them, after which the matter was dropped, with both sides feeling as though they’d gotten the better deal.

I mean, I got the better deal, assuming I can delete the pictures off her phone at some point.

They also had ganged up on Nat and picked out some rather flattering tights and a couple shirts with the Sesame Street gang on them. Because those were the only ones that fit.

“This is why I don’t like shopping for clothes at the mall,” Nat pouted, wearing a Big Bird crop top and pastel tights. “They never have anything in my size.”

“I think all of us are suffering equally,” Perry said, inspecting his Hawaiian T-shirt depicting a man with a Hawaiian T-shirt on a hammock. The man’s T-shirt depicted the same. This went down several levels, until Perry couldn’t make out the details with his eyes anymore, but he’d wager that it went on forever.

It was a fractal Hawaiian T-shirt. It was garish and ugly, and it was Perry’s final punishment for picking out Heather’s attention-catching clothes.

“Why do they call it a Hawaiian T-shirt?” Perry asked.

“Idunno,” Natalie said with a shrug.

“I’m not a history major,” Heather said as they walked through the enormous mall.

They had walked into the center of the plaza, and Perry looked up through the open center of the building, witnessing a single beam of light reflecting off the edge of the highest windows, some fifty stories above them, filtering down until it finally landed in his eyes.

They’d been shopping for hours and hadn’t even left the first floor.

The sheer quiet of the plaza allowed him to sink into his thoughts and marvel at the scale of the building they were in.

Wait, sheer quiet?

Perry glanced back down and scanned the surroundings. The plaza was empty. Not a single living thing was present.

“Guys, we might be in trouble,” Perry said.

“Where is everyone?” Nat asked, frowning.

Perry heard a motorcycle engine. One at first, followed by dozens more.

The slender man with a saber and fantastic hair idled forward from around a corner, approaching them on his horse-themed motorcycle.

“Well spotted, Zauberer. You noticed after all the magic was completely spent and you were already trapped in your tomb. I suppose you’re not the most… What in Gintax’s name are you wearing?”

Perry wet his lips. He knew the next words he spoke could mean life or death.

“Was that an Aversion ritual that made everyone leave? How’d you get it to have an area of effect instead of targeting a single object?”

The rider shrugged. “Well, you pour the Noxis concentrate over an inverse lodestone and then charge it by cracking a power-stone. I had some concentrate left over from the midsummer festival and…hey!”

Perry glanced up from where he was taking notes with a Sharpie on one of his plastic circles.

The rider unsheathed his saber and revved the engine of his bike, filling the plaza with a deep rumble that shook more than the physical.

“Die, Zauberer!”

Chapter 75: Battle Etiquette

“WAIT!” Perry shouted, holding out his hand. To his surprise, and that of everyone else in the plaza, the rider did.

“This, umm, this is Earth. You can’t just attack someone out of the blue. You have to have a monologue about why you’re doing it first.”

“It’s tradition,” Heather said, picking up the slack while Natalie fished around in her purse.

“I’ve been on Earth for three decades and haven’t heard of anything like that,” the rider said.

“You haven’t watched the news?”

The rider hesitated, glancing to the side as he undoubtedly mentally reviewed tons of news clips of villains monologuing.

“My name is John Gabras, prince of the Nocul. Your grandmother led the push to abandon Manita, took our people’s power to fuel her escape, and did not create a portal in our capital as per the agreement, leaving my people to collapse and die from the unending assault of monstrous wildlife… There. You’re all caught up.”

“Wow, that sounds like Gramma, all right.”

The monologue was barely long enough for Perry to come up with something.

RRRRR. John’s motorcycle revved and lunged forward, squealing against the smooth plaza floor.

Perry reached out and grabbed a can of hairspray and an electric lighter straight out of the ether.

Sliding Stats

Stability 9->5

Nerve 7->3

Attunement 22->30

FWOOOSH.

A blast of flame shot out of the can like a living thing, slamming into the rider’s chest and knocking him off his horse-cycle.

The recoil alone nearly kicked the can of hairspray out of Perry’s hand.

Perry reflexively adjusted his Attunement back down to 22 as he glanced around the room, spotting no less than a dozen riders approaching them from all sides, their sabers glinting in the fluorescent lights.

“Bathroom?” Perry asked, nodding toward the door leading off to the side.

“There’s worse places to get trapped, I guess,” Heather said, picking up Nat and running as the tiny Tinker pulled on a pair of suspicious gloves that went up to her shoulders.

“Wazzat?” Perry asked over the roaring of motors as they sprinted.

“Insurance! I hate being a damsel!”

Yeah, that would bother me too, Perry thought as they made it to the tiled doorway with a stick figure woman over it.

Sliding Stats

Stability 9->5

Body 5->9

Perry slid to a halt outside the bathroom and braced himself.

Perry caught a wild sword swing with his left hand and shoved the grunt off his motorcycle with the other, yanking the saber straight out of his grip by the blade.

HP: 5

The smoking leader climbed to his feet, and Perry gave him a flourishing Manitian bow.

Sliding Stats

Perry pulled his Attunement back up to unhealthy levels and smashed the back of the saber against the wall, denting the steel.

As if it had always been there, a sheath of rust fell away from the blade, revealing a shining sliver of immaculate steel a hair’s breadth wide and sharper than a razor.

John cocked a brow as his horse-cycle stood itself back up, then launched a lance of green fire from his fingertips, forcing Perry to haul ass into the women’s restroom, his neck stinging from the near miss.

“I got a sword!” Perry said, brandishing his new saber.

“That’s nice, sweetie,” Heather said from where she was climbing on top of a toilet in the middle of the bathroom stall oddly missing a door.

“I’m ready,” the walking pile of scrap metal in the middle of the room said.

Perry frowned and glanced around the ovoid ball of compacted bathroom doors, hinges, and faucets.

Natalie was in the center, with a compacted shield of scrap iron hovering above one glove, while a massive sword hovered beside her right hand, duplicating her movements.

“Neat,” Perry said, pulling out a spray can of lubricant and frosting the hallway behind them before tossing the can aside.

“What’s up with the spray cans?” Heather asked.

“New power. I can summon spray cans!”

“That’s dumb,” Heather said.

A leather-clad Nocul entered the room, both feet slipping out from under him, planking in the air for a fraction of a second before his skull hit the floor, knocking him senseless. This was repeated twice more as they attempted to storm their way in.

Perry wordlessly motioned to the pile of thrashing enemies in the middle of Perry’s grease trap.

“Alright, it’s okay. I’ll allow it on the condition of a lifetime supply of detangler,” Heather said, turning her hand into a spike and shoving it up into the ceiling, then widening it. “God, I hope I don’t hit a septic pipe.”

“Or electrical,” Nat chimed in.

“Yeah, that too,” Heather said, sticking her head into the hole she’d made in the ceiling.

“Okay, avert your eyes,” Heather said, pulling her hyperweave out of her purse.

Perry and Nat focused on the bathroom entrance while Heather changed into her super suit. Nat shoved the pile of bodies back, jabbing at the riders as they tried to push into the room.

The walls of the hall leading to the outside began to roll, curling and flaking away like they were on fire.

Perry’s grease burst into flame and receded away from John’s feet as he entered. Nat shoved forward with the makeshift shield and oversized sword that she swung around without heeding their weight.

Perry was under the impression that it had something to do with Nat’s new specialty regarding solid magnetism.

The rough sword poked forward and John caught it in his palm.

“Another fool loses their arm through ignorance,” he said, and a moment later, Nat’s makeshift sword made of compressed trash disintegrated, from the tip to the handle, ending where it was connected to Nat’s glove via magnetism.

Perry recognized the spell:

Corrosive Touch (Adept Difficulty)

Ingredients: Powdered tooth of lesser corruption demon, Mogwin incense. Tar-Frog skin.

Make a pair of gloves out of the tar skin, don them. While wearing the gloves, inhale incense and hold the smoke in the lungs while applying corruption demon bone powder in a fine dusting on the gloves.

If you exhale before the spell has set, or get any corruption demon bone on your skin, you WILL lose the arm.

The effects mirror Gol’s Disintegrate, albeit touch only and much more limited in scale.

“…That usually works,” John said, glancing curiously at Nat. “Were you not actually touching it?”

Nat held up the shield of compressed-together bathroom stall doors, and made a shooing motion with her other hand.

The heavy lump of twisted steel launched itself forward, catching John in the face and carrying him back out into the plaza.

“Alright,” Heather said a heart-pounding moment later, her stealth suit blending her in with the surroundings, “I made a hole up to the second-story bathroom.”

Nat and Perry broke for the hole.

Heather went through first, then extended a hand down for Nat, reeling her through the hole in an instant.

Perry, however, was a bit too wide, his shoulders refusing to collapse small enough to allow him to squeeze through.

“You couldn’t have made it any bigger?” Perry demanded, lowering himself back to the floor and glaring up at Heather accusingly.

“If my butt can fit, your shoulders can fit,” Heather shot back.

“You shapeshifted!” Perry said accusingly, glancing to the side where John was crawling out from under the wreckage, seemingly none the worse for wear.

“Oh, yeah. Hold on, I’ll—”

“I got it, stand back,” Perry said, brandishing his new saber.

With a grunt, Perry shoved the saber through the ceiling and carved the hole wider like the ceiling was made of some kind of soft cheese, widening the hole in seconds, tugging the chunks of concrete and tile out of the way before crawling through himself.

Perry pulled insulation foam out of the ether and filled the hole with a quick spiral of the rapidly hardening substance.

Shortly after, he heard thuds transferring through the foam as their pursuers tried to hack their way through.

“I was under the impression that going after someone to get back at their family wasn’t kosher!” Heather said as they jogged for the exit.

“I think this is technically a blood feud, which follows different rules,” Perry said as they arrived on the second-story balcony above the plaza.

Perry’s saber throbbed in his hand for a moment while Natalie re-armed herself behind them, tearing the doors off the bathroom stalls with those neat magnetic gloves of hers.

“So, what are we dealing with?” Heather said, watching as the Nocul ran back out of the bathroom, their gazes darting up to the second story, landing on them.

John watched them silently from the center of the plaza as his minions darted for their motorcycles. Like the hunter whose dogs would tire his prey.

Nocul, Nocul. Perry searched his memories of Manitian history books and journals.

“Ah.” Perry snapped his fingers. “They’re nonhumans who worship Gintax. A few of them have got some inborn essences, allowing them to do magic from birth. They live hundreds of years longer than we do, and they seem to like motorcycles.”

“That’s it?” Heather said, meeting his gaze.

These savages strip their prey’s skin from its bones while it’s still alive, prolonging the suffering as best they can. They offer the blood and bones to their dark god while basking in the extra life that he confers upon them.

Perry shrugged. “The only stuff that’s useful. The rest of the information is pretty suspect, given that the authors were human.”

“Why is every non-human race stronger, or more magical, or live longer than us?” Heather demanded.

“Oh, there are plenty of species who are dumber, weaker, and even more mundane. They never make headlines.”

“That’s fair.”

“Excuse me,” Nat said, nudging the two aside with the massive chunks of scrap metal floating above her arm.

Stainless steel bathroom partition: $100-200 apiece.

“We’re gonna catch some shit for this,” Perry muttered, wondering what Washington City’s typical payment plan for infrastructure damage looked like. The bathroom stalls were most likely going to be the tip of the iceberg.

“Did you have some suits nearby?” Heather asked as the Nocul jumped on their motorcycles and started aiming for the escalators to the second floor.

“Given how often we get attacked? Yeah, I’ve had three mark threes following us. I’m just waiting for their boss to be alone.”

Which seems to be happening soon, Perry thought as their leader waited, casually picking up his horse-cycle and leaning on it while the others charged the escalators.

There was a shimmering green light as the riders hit the escalators, as the motorcycles morphed seamlessly into skeletal horses whose bones were made of chrome.

Totem Steed (Intermediate Difficulty)

Ingredients: The spirit of a mount friendly to the caster, a vehicle such as a wagon or ship, vivant root, Areonite.

Prime the Areonite with vivant root by adding powdered root to molten Areonite in a 1:20 ratio by mass (root to metal).

Replace a majority of any metallic part of the vehicle to be modified with the primed Areonite (nails, hinges, braces, etc.).

Use Pecholard’s Spirit Communion to request the steed enter the vehicle. If successful, you may then pour the spirit unto the vehicle and it will house the spirit. A successful Totem Steed will move by itself, possibly moving against the wind, and may even be able to change shape based on the quality of the spellwork.

“That’s pretty much the most metal thing I’ve ever seen,” Perry muttered to himself as the metal horse skeletons lunged up the escalators on either side of their group, carrying their whooping riders into a pincer attack.

“I’ll get this side,” Perry said, tapping Nat’s shoulder and pointing at the riders taking the escalator to the right.

Natalie nodded, turned left, and made a circle with her thumb and forefinger.

The metal doors floating beside her were compressed into cannonballs.

She held her left arm up across her chest, and the cannonballs floated in front of her. Nat frowned in concentration for a moment, tensing her middle finger behind her thumb.

Flick.

With a single flick, one of the makeshift cannonballs flew out and caught one of the horse-cycles in the butt, causing the rider to spin and fall off the escalator into the fake shrubbery beneath it.

I need to take care of my own side, Perry thought, turning his attention to the half a dozen riders mounting the escalators to the right.

Given the sheer number of times they’d been attacked while unarmed and minding their own business, he’d become a bit…Perry-noid. Walking around with suits ready to fight constantly reminds me of my dad. What’s next, full-size decoys?

At his mental command, three of his Mk. 3 suits swooped down through the open ceiling of the plaza and tackled the leading riders off their mounts.

The hits were fast and violent, but they weren’t as bad as they looked; the suits didn’t even weigh as much as a full-grown man.

In a matter of seconds, their counterattack had all the riders groaning on the floor of the plaza, leaving their leader less than pleased. The Nocul’s mouth drew a thin line and the veins in his forehead throbbed with repressed anger.

Perry sent two Mk. 3s after John while he directed the last one over to himself, the suit unfolding to allow him to step inside.

Perry didn’t want to get the suits close, but they were only armed with nonlethal ammunition: Dazzlers and Noob Catchers and the like. Perry hadn’t thought bringing something as lethal as the disintegrator out into the city on his shopping trip would be a good look for him.

Besides, Perry’s ammunition was limited. He had to budget for the train ride back to Franklin City.

Here’s hoping this works, Perry thought as he triggered their nonlethals.

Weallfloatdownhere.EXE

“Oh my god, you guys!” A recording of Perry’s voice emerged from the left-most suit as it approached John. “I think I’m having a baby!”

Some of the Nocul were caught by the trap, the battered riders floating off the ground, but John shielded his eyes, seemingly warned in advance.

The second Mk. 3 shot a noob catcher at the man while his eyes were closed, but the dart was pushed away by an invisible force, embedding itself in the floor.

Damn. This is going to be a problem.

Perry didn’t want to get himself or his Mk. 3s disintegrated, but it seemed like things were going to have to get up close and personal to do any real damage.

We could always run away… Perry thought, glancing at the open ceiling of the plaza. Perry wasn’t above running away multiple times, if it had a positive effect on his lifespan.

John must have caught Perry’s chin-tilt up as he looked at the ceiling, because the Nocul raised his hand above his head, and a web that seemed to be made of living tar flung itself above his head and covered the open air with shiny black threads.

Threads of Gintax (Intermediate Difficulty)

Ingredients: A Malturian web-spitter, tar from the Tolusian pits. (Note: Not any tar will do. There is a unique death essence contained in the Tolusian pits.) Powdered Death Crystal.

Mix the powdered Death Crystal with the tar at a 1:40 ratio, powder to tar, by mass. Mix until you are certain that the mixture is completely homogenous. Do not get any on your skin or clothes, as it may drain several years from your life without you noticing.

Once the mixture is done, simply drop a living web-spitter into the tar. The tar will bind to the creature, and when it dies, it will form a hard nodule in the primed tar.

Retrieve the nodule (with tongs) and carefully rinse away the clinging tar with blessed alcohol. The nodule, when thrown with force, will erupt into shiny black webs.

The webs themselves drain life at a prodigious rate. Combined with their ability to cling and restrain, constantly weakening their prey, they are quite dangerous.

“It would be a monumentally bad idea to touch those.” Perry said.

“That’s some bullshit magic right there,” Heather growled to herself. “Can you guys distract him enough to forget I exist?”

“Pretty sure I’ve got his attention,” Perry said.

“Good.” Heather pulled her hood down and mask up, her entire body blending into the surroundings.

Perry and his two floating suits went behind a blind corner to play the shell game, before they emerged and began ripping out nonvital chunks of the architecture and throwing them at the Nocul prince.

Natalie, meanwhile, prowled the upper floors, tearing anything metal off its mount and lobbing it at any of the Nocul who tried to get back up. Railings, water fountains, decorative sheeting, and studs. It was all fair game.

Est. cost: 15k

Two can play at the attrition game, Perry thought to himself as the mage deflected a chunk of the marble fountain.

Est. cost: 20k

A lance of fire struck one of his suits and bored a hole clean through it, causing the aluminum machine to tumble lifeless to the ground.

Flame Lance (Neophyte Difficulty)

Ingredients: Flame beetle proboscis, powdered air elemental droppings, dried Kathya leaf.

Powder leaf and droppings together, in an even mixture. Load into flame beetle proboscis.

To use, blow air through the proboscis towards your intended target. The air elemental dung will multiply the air inside the tube, creating a rushing torrent of wind. The proboscis will light the Kathya leaf, which will burn white-hot while stoked by the air elemental dung.

Do not inhale.

Perry’s note: John Gabras seems to add the aspect of Gintax to the spell, given its vibrant green coloration.

Well. That’s not encouraging.

Perry couldn’t take it easy on the guy—that risked Heather getting caught and snuffed out—so he mentally crossed his fingers, prayed his HP could withstand magical damage, and redoubled his efforts, burying the guy under a mountain of concrete chunks and rebar.

Est. cost: 500K

Dear Lord, I hope I’m not held liable for this.

Perry landed beside their shopping cart and kicked it aside, toward the relative safety of a sheltered section of the plaza, aiming to lob another chunk of concrete at John’s head.

A blast of fire caught Perry in the chest and propelled him backwards, into a decorative mural beside one of the elevators.

Est. cost: ???

I didn’t like it anyway.

HP: 3

Perry’s chest armor had a hole the size of Rhode Island in the front, and he tugged himself out of the wall before a follow-up spell blasted into the former art piece.

Perry fell down and shattered the bench beneath it before rolling out of the way of another attack.

2 HP per shot. That’s a lot of power, but still not quite as bad as Mass Driver.

“Hold still, you coward!” the Nocul prince snarled, his amazingly well-groomed hair flowing in an invisible breeze as he attempted to end Perry’s life.

“Easy there,” Heather said, her arm transformed into a massive blade underneath the Nocul’s chin.

“You think you can cast a spell faster than I can cut your throat?” she asked, securing a bladed chokehold on their aggressor, her arms and legs twisting around his.

Damn, Heather! Perry thought, finally coming to a panting halt. Maybe the redhead wanted some answers, which was why she threatened him with great violence rather than just bashing him in the back of the head with a rock.

John Gabras froze, glancing back at Heather, then forward at Perry.

“Yes.”

John’s hand clenched and sliced his palm with his own fingernails, before flinging his bleeding palm outward.

“What the—”

The Nocul mummified in Heather’s grasp, his skin wrinkling, lips receding from his teeth in a macabre display that elicited a yelp of surprise and disgust from the redheaded Shapeshifter.

In the blink of an eye, the Nocul’s body turned to dust as the furthest drop of blood on the floor swelled and grew into John Gabras, some fifteen feet distant.

Thankfully, the magic included clothes.

??? (??? Difficulty)

Ingredients: ???

The user teleports to the location of the blood spatter of their choice. Range: ??? Limitations: ???

The Nocul gave an extravagant bow, mocking Perry’s earlier snark.

“That’s some bullshit magic right there,” Perry muttered to himself.

Chapter 76: Exit Stage Left

“Where are you hiding, mimicspawn? Your great-great-grandmother lay with monsters and your great-grandfather ate his subjects! You’re the product of generations of incest and bestiality! At the same time!” John’s voice echoed through the massive empty plaza as his minions tooled around, looking for them.

Heather glanced over at Perry, raising a brow at him as they hid behind a rack of clothes.

“Do not ask. It’s treason if you ask,” Perry whispered.

Heather’s brows rose further.

“You look like you’re going to ask.”

“You’ve got no jurisdiction here, Duke of Nuttingham. You’re damn right, I’m going to ask,” Heather whispered back.

Perry glanced past the rack and quickly hid again. The man’s cronies were puttering around on their horse-cycles, looking for them.

“Well, save it for the hotel room. Oooh, I like this top,” Perry said, taking one of the shirts across from them off the rack and feeling the soft fabric between his fingers. “You think we could get Nat some nice clothes and then tailor them to fit? It’s not rocket science. I’m a Tinker; all I would need is a sewing machine and a pair of scissors.”

“That one’s too light for her. She wants people to take her seriously. She doesn’t like dressing in pastels because people mistake her for a kid. You want something like this.”

Heather pulled a more somber top off the rack and showed it to him. “This is what you want. This says, ‘I’m an adult, and I expect to be taken seriously.’”

“You can’t unilaterally ban a color palette,” Perry said. “Besides, it’s not about the color. People mistake her for a kid because none of her clothes are designed to fit her body. I guarantee if you tailored this to show off her—”

“They’re over here!”

“Shoot,” Perry muttered as the two of them scrambled away.

They ran out the back of the shop and sprinted down the employee back halls that connected the facades of the shopfronts, allowing goods to be restocked without cluttering up the pedestrian areas facing the inner plaza.

“I really wanted to get more shopping done, but it seems like it’s always a life-or-death battle when we hang out. Usually because of your family,” Heather complained.

“I distinctly remember your family being the problem a month ago,” Perry said as they turned a corner at full speed.

Heather whipped out an arm across the hallway and clotheslined the horse-cycle-riding minion chasing them, all while giving Perry a scowl.

“Right. Too soon. Sorry.”

“Nah,” Heather said, relaxing her shoulders and heaving a sigh. “I’m over it. Or at least, I wanna be. Dad was the kind of guy…who is better off not existing. There’s just…a lot of him living rent-free in my head.”

Perry pulled out a can of bear spray and hit the stunned rider in the eyes before gluing his thrashing body to the ground with a can of adhesive, taking him permanently out of the game.

“You wanna talk to Sophie about it when we get back?” Perry asked.

“Who?”

“Sophie. The sex angel. She’s a licensed therapist.”

“Since when?”

“I think she passed the Earth exam two weeks after I summoned her. But she’s got like…five thousand years of experience counseling dead warriors with PTSD.”

“And banging them.” Heather rolled her eyes.

“Which is good for PTSD.” Perry shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess I might talk to her,” Heather said. “I don’t have to pay, right?”

“I don’t think she’d make you pay, no,” Perry said, glancing around. “Was that the last of them?”

They’d retreated from the Nocul prince and taken a different tactic as his minions recovered and began putting a lot of pressure on them. Divide and conquer.

They were isolating and pinning the individual Noculs in foam that would take serious chemicals or heavy machinery to release.

Once they were all permanently out of the fight, they could beat John with the assistance of Hardcase, who was currently setting up the last trap, Scooby-Doo style.

Perry briefly counted the number of Nocul they’d stuck to the walls and floor over the past few minutes. “I think we got three left to bag.”

“So, why can’t this John guy just peel his minions out of your foam? He’s magical, right? At least, his hair is, anyway,” Heather said.

“Too much focus on combat and not enough utility, which is poor wizarding,” Perry said with a shrug. “He’d be as likely to kill his minions as get them unstuck.”

“I mean, we’re about to get all his guys. What if he just runs away?” Heather asked.

“I’ll suck the marrow from your bones and shit in the empty cavities!” a voice echoed all the way down from the plaza.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Perry said with a shrug, a shopfront catching his eye.

“Hey, you wanna check out the tailoring shop on the fifth floor?” Perry asked, pointing up and across the plaza at the shop with the comically oversized scissors and measuring tape above the door.

“Oh, you were serious?”

“We’re here now, and only being able to find kid’s stuff for Nat was seriously disappointing. I got an itch in my brain, and I need to see this bit through, or I won’t be able to get to sleep tonight.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“We go into the shop, grab what we need, leave some chits by the till, and get out before they find us,” Perry said. “And if they do…the shop’s probably insured.”

“Alright, let’s make it happen.”

***One Looted Tailoring Shop Later***

“Alright, we’re ready,” Perry said, dropping off his scissors, sewing machine, measuring tools, pins, thread, bolts of fabric, and double-sided body tape. “Got the last of the bad guys and the supplies I’ll need for later.”

“What are those for?” Hardcase asked.

“I got an ‘itch,’” Perry said by way of explanation. It was a well-known phenomena where a Tinker got an idea for a project, and couldn’t rest until they saw it through.

Perry’s structural battery tech being a case in point.

“Are you looting?” she demanded.

“Nonono, I left more than enough chits to cover the purchase,” Perry said. “I mean, if anything, since the purchase wasn’t officially recorded, they’ll be able to claim insurance on it as a theft and keep the chits I put behind the desk. They’re practically getting paid twice.”

“Alright, push it off until later if you can. I want your full attention on the plan,” Hardcase said, laying out a ‘you are here’ map she’d pried off a nearby wall and drawn up the battle plan on.

“I’ve placed traps at these four locations,” Hardcase said, marking them out to Perry and Heather with a dry erase marker that she’d looted from a stationary store.

“An easy way to remember where they are is that they’re all in cardinal directions from this fountain.” She tapped a square fountain.

“According to Perry, he probably can’t teleport rapid-fire.”

“That’s not the kind of spell you can do multiple times back-to-back,” Perry said, shaking his head.

“So we’re gonna trap him in one of these spaces, which will force him to—”

The sound of a tiny scrape of shoe grit against tile was all the warning Perry got.

He leapt forward and tackled Hardcase to the ground as a flame lance shot through the space they’d been sitting.

HP: 2

Perry’s back stung as the fire passed close enough to trigger HP loss. He tucked Hardcase’s face and arms underneath his body until the fire was gone, then leapt to his feet and hauled her out of the way of another attack.

Heather weathered the nearby flame well enough in her hyperweave and leapt up to the ceiling and began skittering haphazardly in order to avoid follow-up attacks.

Perry glanced over his shoulder and spotted the shriveled map, burnt to a crisp. “Okay, let’s do your plan!”

“You don’t even know the plan!” Hardcase protested, stripping the walls of any incidental steel as she ran by.

“I got the first part!” Perry said. “Just tell us what to do when we get there!”

Sliding Stats

Attunement 26->22

Body 5->9

Perry picked up the Tinker like a sack of rice, eliciting a yelp as he threw her over his shoulder. This quickly became a scream of terror as he jumped over the balcony overlooking the plaza, five stories below them.

A Body of nine was a multiplier of 1.55. Perry was already athletic, and a 55% boost was well and truly super levels of strength and speed.

Not quite enough to tear apart concrete with his bare hands. Enough to parkour his way down five stories with a screaming ninety-pound weight over his shoulder?

Easy as pie.

“Oh my god!” Natalie screamed as Perry caught the next balcony down, then jumped down to the next one before leaping over to a distant railing in time to avoid being burnt to a crisp.

Finally Perry jumped the last balcony, absorbing the shock with his knees, which would have crumpled if he’d been any weaker.

Side note: Knee-related injuries are one of the most common reasons for cape retirement, ranking fifth after ‘eaten by prawn.’

Heather glided down from the fifth story, manta-wings folding back into her body as she alighted beside them, sprinting alongside as John came flying after them.

Perry wasn’t wearing his armor because of the gaping hole in it, but he was still keeping one undamaged suit as an emergency safeguard. As John approached on his horse-cycle, Perry mentally commanded the last suit to swoop down and smash into the side of the Nocul prince’s ride, sending both of them tumbling to the side.

POOF!

“Maybe we should be the ones running away?” Heather said, glancing over her shoulder at where Perry’s aluminum armor was slagged by return fire.

“That is an option,” Perry said. “But I’m confident that Hardcase’s plan is going to work.”

“Over there!” Hardcase pointed at an alcove straight across from the fountain. It was a secluded corner of the plaza, and Perry could faintly make out a bundle of his insulation foam canisters hanging from the ceiling in the shadows, where the fluorescent lighting used to be.

They had an improvised detonator sandwiched in the center of them.

Ah, I’m starting to see where she’s going with this.

“Drop me here!” Hardcase said, and Perry did so, dropping her off behind a pillar, where she split off from them to do her own thing.

RRRRR! The sound of the Nocul’s horse-cycle grew as he recovered from his tumble and began catching up with Perry, not paying any attention to Natalie or Heather as they split off from him.

I guess I’m the bait. Fantastic.

Perry’s FPS friends in middle school had a saying: ‘The distraction gets the action.’

And that saying was proved wildly correct as Perry sprinted for the foam trap.

Despite the enhanced speed and strength of Body, the human form was simply not built to outrun a motorcycle. When the revving of the engine sounded like it was seconds away from crawling up his spine, Perry leapt into the air and twisted.

In a move that would’ve made the highlight reel on the wall, Perry pushed off the chrome horse head trying to run him over with both feet, propelling himself violently backward. Perry flew through the air, directly under the makeshift trap, which exploded a fraction of a second after he passed under it.

A massive curtain of foam descended from the ceiling to the floor, catching the approaching Nocul even as he tried to swerve out of the way.

SLAM! Perry hit the wall head-first, nearly breaking his neck.

HP: 1

I got HP to spare, Perry thought, peeling himself away from the wall and stretching his neck to loosen the kink.

Perry walked around the foam curtain stretching from floor to ceiling and spotted John Gabras embedded in the tan foam insulation, which was hardening around him at a prodigious rate.

“Beaten by insulation. That’s not gonna look good on your record,” Perry said, massaging his neck as the prince gave him a death-glare.

“Did you forget already?” the mage asked, cutting his palm and flinging the blood towards Perry.

Perry danced out of the way as a plate of scrap metal swooped down to the floor and caught all the blood spatters.

John Gabras’s eyes widened moments before he began to mummify.

As the mage’s body grew on top of Hardcase’s purloined steel door, she flicked her arms upward, and the solid magnetism controlling the door flung him violently into the sky in the center of the plaza, where the black strands of Threads of Gintax caught him.

The Nocul prince dangled in the air above them, seemingly trapped in a feedback loop as his body tried to regenerate while the oily black threads attempted to mummify him.

He pulsed between wrinkled old man and rosy-cheeked youth, looking like he was having a real bad day.

“I guess she remembered,” Perry muttered.

“He’ll probably be fine,” Perry said as Heather and Nat approached, glancing up at the distant figure above them. “Probably. Maybe.”

Perry heard the sound of sirens in the distance as the Nocul struggled to stay alive in the web of his own devising.

Oh, NOW they show up, Perry thought, before a more urgent thought overrode his petty complaints.

“How does Washington City handle super vigilante fights?”

“I don’t think we wanna find out,” Hardcase said, shaking her head.

“Same,” Heather agreed.

“Well…I think now would be a good time to find an emergency exit and bail,” Perry said, mentally triggering the self-destruct on his damaged armors.

The tiny amounts of thermite hidden in his suits rendered them unidentifiable slag in moments as they ran, Perry pushing the shopping cart.

See, I’m learning.

Chapter 77: Adventures in Super-Tailoring

“See, right there,” Harv said, pointing out the exact time stamp where people began unconsciously filing out of The Mall. In a matter of minutes, the security footage was practically empty, save for a bunch of guys on motorcycles (now in custody) quietly surrounding a trio of shopping teens.

“That is spooky as hell,” Harv’s boss, Ron, muttered, stirring sugar into his coffee. “Do we have a Minder situation?”

“I don’t know. My experts are stumped. They think it might be magic, and if so, we have no idea what they’re capable of. The good news is that if the riders were Minders, I don’t think we would still have them in custody.”

“What about their boss?” Ron asked, pointing at the one that seemed to be giving orders and shooting beams of fire from his fingertips as he chased the trio around the mall.

“He wasn’t there when we arrived. Not sure if he died or escaped. Neither would surprise me.”

“And these three?” Ron said, pointing to the trio of unregistered supers fighting when they should’ve called the police, also clearly out past High Tide curfew and purchasing illegal amounts of equipment.

“We got this kid’s fingerprints off the cans of insulation he left everywhere,” Harv said, tapping a freeze-frame of the kid’s face. “One Paradox Zab-, Zau-ack…some foreign word. He’s one of the loaners from Franklin City, and we IDed the rest of his team based on that.

“Wraith and Hardcase,” he said, tapping the other two.

“Bury it,” Ron said, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Eh?” Harv asked, glancing up at his boss.

“We’re not interested in starting an intercity incident smack-dab in the middle of High Tide. Kid didn’t start the fight, and it’s not worth distracting him from his job on the wall to enforce property damage and misdemeanors.

“I want you to go inform Paradox we saw the fight and would appreciate it if he and his team ran away and called the police next time, instead of defaulting to vigilante super battles. Remind him he’s in our jurisdiction, and in Washington, he’s not law enforcement by right of having a fancy suit.”

“Yessir,” Harv said.

“And send our Minders sniffing after the boss of the motorcycle gang.”

Harv’s skin went cold. “Yessir.”

Minders came in two categories: Wildly empathetic and wildly unempathetic. It was a symptom of constantly feeling other people’s emotions. Either they became buddhas, or they shut themselves off from it entirely.

Unfortunately, the latter kind was more useful for law enforcement, as the first kind had a tendency to let everyone off the hook.

“Can I just…text him, or…”

“I know Chase is…creepy as hell, but he’ll be on his best behavior,” Ron said.

Harv sighed. “Alright.”

The detective stood from his desk and began walking down the hall toward their Minder’s office. After about half an hour, he noticed he’d walked past Morten Tyrell’s office again.

“Cut it out, Chase,” Harv said, trying to push down the thread of fear in the pit of his stomach.

The hallway evaporated, revealing Chase Currant, Washington PD’s resident Minder, leaning back in his office chair like a throne, kicking his heels as he studied Harv like a predator.

“Took you a while to notice that one. Trouble at home?” the blond man asked, giving him a sly smirk.

That was correct, actually. Marissa was at her wit’s end with Harv’s second marriage to his job, and Harv responded to the stress by working more.

“If you continue to escalate, I have the authority to recommend a sniper team put you down before you lose your sense of morality.” Being able to manipulate people with impunity was often a slippery slope.

“And I have the authority to recommend you take the rest of the day off and get some,” Chase said, clicking his pen and writing on his prescription pad. “You’re wide open to mental influence.”

The Minder tore off the sheet and handed it to him, having his name and the date on it, along with ‘get laid’ under the prescription. “I’ll forward that to your boss to make sure he knows.”

“You’re intolerable,” Harv said.

“Thank you!”

Harv shook his head and got to the point. “We need you to track down a super who caused an incident at the mall today. He may be a Minder.” Harv handed him the picture.

“Ooh, fun,” Chase said, leaning forward in his seat and eagerly plucking the pic out of his hand and inspecting it. “Nice hair.”

***Perry***

Namor’s Armor of Earth (Intermediate Difficulty)

Ingredients: Earthworm ichor, hair of Saint Natanya, heavy thread, armor.

Weave the hair of Saint Natanya into a thread, suffuse it in earthworm ichor, then use the thread to stitch Natanya’s Oath onto the armor’s inner cloth.

If done correctly, the spell will create plates of compressed earth between the wearer and any attack that would have dealt them damage.

The quality and size of the craftsmanship directly affects the quality of the finished product. Therefore, the precision must be impeccable, or the armor will be ineffective, giving this an Intermediate Difficulty. It is also difficult to find a hair of the appropriate length, as they’re not being made anymore.

Perry was comfortable breaking apart one of his healing spells for this, as extra protection was pretty much the same as extra healing. Maybe even better.

After a half hour of twisting Natanya’s hair longer and longer using his Tinker Twitch while zoning out on TV, he eventually had it where he wanted.

Perry added the hair to a thread and wound the entire spool up before stealing one of Heather’s feathers and plucking a single barb off of it.

Perry’s tongue poked out a bit as he concentrated on the tiny strand of iridescent feather. Up close, it looked unreal, almost pixelated like a game from the eighties, as individual pieces of the single tiny strand of Mox feather caught the light and reflected it back into Perry’s eyes in warm oranges and blues.

Perry held his breath to keep the downy barb still. Perry’d had to look up the parts of a feather in order to use the right word.

He laid the barb up against the thread and began to carefully spin the two together.

The barb began to meld into the thread, adding its glittering iridescence to that of the thread. If this worked out properly, the armor would adjust ambient lighting to maximize visual impact.

If Perry was going to make some Earth Armor, he was going to make sure that whoever wore it was going to look good.

Paradox’s Fabulous Earth Armor.

My second original spell, Perry thought, humming to himself as the barb stretched under the reality-warping effect of the Tinker Twitch, blending into the spool of thread.

What if it combines with the light aspect to create glowing-hot magma up against the wearer’s skin, killing Natalie the first time something would harm her? Perry thought to himself, his humming stopped for a moment. Saint Natanya wouldn’t do it if it would harm the wearer, would she?

I’d better test this thing first.

…I wonder what would happen if I added one of Sophie’s hairs and the Elysian Credo? Perry thought as he resumed his work. Elysian Attendants are like less-famous spirits of a similar quality as Saint Natanya.

Perhaps I could drop the earthworm ichor and it would defend via misdirection, with a subtle freedom-of-movement side effect.

Interesting thought.

Perry leaned over and texted Sophie.

I want to play with your hair.

This is work-related.

Then he resumed his work, getting on Google and pulling up an image example of Saint Natanya’s Oath on his phone.

Perry then loaded up the script into a Word document with a crisp Manitian font and set his phone up in the projector stand above the bolt of fabric he was planning on working on.

His projector took the words on his screen and laid them out neatly on the fabric.

Perry painstakingly measured the individual letters to make sure the lens on the projector didn’t cause any warping at the edges. When he was finally satisfied, he pulled out the wash-away marker and began tracing Saint Natanya’s oath.

Once that was done, Perry loaded the glimmering thread into the modified sewing machine and settled the fabric where he wanted it to be.

Hold on a second. I feel like I’m missing something.

“AH.” Perry grabbed his tape measure and walked over to where Natalie and Heather were chatting while they cooked dinner.

“Arms up,” Perry said, nudging Natalie’s arms outstretched, where he took the tape measure and measured her arms, neck, bust, waist (front and back), shoulders, and inseam.

“Cup size?” Perry asked.

“Umm…” Natalie said, her face beet red.

“It’s fine, I’ll get it off your bra,” Perry said, glancing at the tag under Natalie’s shirt.

Perry glanced over at Heather, who was watching him warily. He shrugged. “Might as well make one for everyone. Arms up.”

Perry got Heather’s measurements and went back to the living room to work on the shirts.

Current Attunement: 30

Perry spent the next several hours working feverishly, only pausing to drink water and eat toast to keep his brain supplied with glucose.

Once the clothes were done, Perry stood back from the three sets of garments with a satisfied sigh.

Now, that is awesome. What had been bolts of fabric only a short while ago were now nice leggings and a couple tops that Heather and Nat had pointed out as being particularly great.

Perry, not being confident at all in his skill at designing clothes, had merely sought to replicate things the girls already liked. Besides, if I made it just something I liked, then tried to get them to wear it, it probably wouldn’t work.

In a moment of rational humility, Perry had decided to take Heather’s advice about the color scheme and had gone with a darker fabric for the clothes.

The lighting on Natalie’s maroon shirt obviously didn’t match the ambient lighting, making the fabric look photo-perfect with tasteful shadows pooling in its frills and folds, giving the lifeless piece of cloth a sense of depth that it shouldn’t have had with the glaring overhead light trying to drown everything out.

Okay, I think the Mox feather is working.

Now Perry had to test it.

He grabbed his T-shirt and threw it on before looking at himself in the mirror.

Perry’s body looked like it’d been photoshopped, with someone artfully enhancing the shadows under his pecs and around his stomach in a manner suggesting he might actually have a six pack (he didn’t). Somehow, the shadow gradient on the sides of his body made his waist appear thinner. The shirt brightened his shoulders, making them more prominent and seemingly bulkier.

Wow. Mox feather is unfair. Now to test the actual defensive effects.

Perry walked back into the living room wearing the T-shirt. Nat and Heather were watching a glassblowing reality TV show featuring a glass-based Tinker who could make living glass desk toys.

Nat glanced over and her jaw dropped.

She elbowed Heather, who had a similar reaction.

The awkward silence stretched out for an uncomfortable length of time as Silica shouted at his glass horses to obey him.

Finally, Perry broke the silence. “Can I get one of you guys to stab me? Once in the kidneys and once in the neck, if you don’t mind. I need to test its defensive ability on non-covered areas.”

Heather swallowed her spit and found her speech. “I want one.”

“Yours is in the bedroom,” Perry said, pointing over his shoulder. “But I gotta—”

But Heather was already gone.

“…Make sure it’s safe to wear,” Perry said, sighing. He turned back to Natalie. “So, about that stabbing?”

Natalie closed her mouth and cleared her throat. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” Perry said with a shrug.

“You’re kinda acting a bit…weird. Your gramma asked me to help keep your head on straight however I could.”

“Oh.” Perry slapped his forehead. “I left my Attunement up. One second.”

Sliding Stats

Attunement 30->22

Stability 5->9

“So, about that stab…bing.” Perry’s words died in his mouth as his brain caught up with what he’d done.

“Sorry about the…looking-down-your-shirt thing,” Perry said, heart slamming in his chest. He could feel his face heating up.

“It’s okay,” Nat squeaked, fidgeting in her seat.

“If it’ll make you feel better, you can stab me.”

Natalie shook her head vigorously. “I don’t really wanna…”

“I’ll stab ya!” Heather said, reentering the room and doing a twirl. “It’s the least I can do for making me look this good.”

“God-damn!” Natalie blurted.

Perry wasn’t far behind. It took a moment for his brain to reboot and figure out what it was doing before the red-haired goddess had appeared. Heather always looked amazing, but with professionally touched-up lighting…she looked otherworldly.

“Okay… Once in the stomach, once in the neck.”

“How about the outer leg?” Heather said, retrieving a huge kitchen knife. “Seems like it would be much safer to get stabbed there than the neck, and your only criteria was a place not covered by the cloth.”

Perry nodded. “I guess that’s fine. Gotta take off my pants, though. I’ve modified them, so they’re probably bulletproof at this point, and might corrupt the data.”

Perry stripped down to his boxers and held still while Heather struck at his abdomen with the kitchen knife.

A wall of earth coalesced and caught the blade a fraction of an inch away from Perry’s skin.

“Wow!” Nat said, watching with wide eyes as the dust faded away into nothing.

“Give it a moment,” Perry said. “I don’t know if there’s a recharge time or not. Best give it the benefit of the doubt when we’re testing the baseline effectiveness. We can do more punishing stress-testing later.”

“Gotcha. Let me know when,” Heather said, kneeling in front of his legs and holding the kitchen knife aloft, Hitchcock style.

Natalie leaned in to get a better view.

Click.

The three of them glanced up as a trenchcoat-wearing fellow with a Washington PD badge on his waist walked through the front door like he owned the place.

The man paused, taking in Heather kneeling in front of Perry with her knife poised to slice through his underwear as Natalie looked on in fascination.

“Do you mind?” Heather asked.

“Oh, ah… Sorry for interrupting,” the detective muttered, backing out and closing the door.

Chapter 78: Super Teen Delinquents

That usually works, Harv thought. Teens weren’t exactly the most worldly or confident people, and an officer of the law barging in on them unannounced would put them on the back foot, which allowed him to then take control of the situation.

Now Harv was on the back foot and only one of the kids had any respect for his job. The shortstack kept flinching away whenever he glanced at her, which was at odds with the other two, who were about as intimidated by him as a fart in the wind.

I had the fantastic luck to stumble into a couple of Legacy supers, Harv thought, concealing his irritation. The little one was raised by civilians and had an aversion to ‘the law.’ A Legacy, on the other hand, often inherited their parent’s total disregard for authority.

“The Washington PD found your fingerprints on every can of insulation, grease, and hairspray used in the battle.”

“Oh? Would you like some more tea?” Paradox said without missing a beat, offering a carafe of the best tea Harv had ever tasted. Hopefully it wasn’t poisoned.

“Sure,” Harv said, doing his damnedest to seem confident and like he didn’t care too much if he died.

While sipping the tea, Harv considered. The first tactic, which was to scare a handful of teens into behaving themselves and not tearing up the city during their stay…wasn’t going to work. If anything, it would just make Harv the asshole.

So he decided to change tactics and offer them the olive branch called honesty. “We saw that you were attacked last night, while you were out in your civvies.”

“That’s true.”

“Listen, Paradox, it’s a misdemeanor to engage in super combat without exhausting every available option to escape and notify the police. As far as we could tell by the security footage, you did not exhaust every possible avenue of escape. Now, we’re not gonna press charges or waste your time with paperwork because of High Tide; you’ve got important shit to do. In return for our discretion, the Washington PD requests that you respond to any level of provocation by running away first. If you do not, there’s nothing preventing us from drowning you in paperwork the moment High Tide is over.”

“Oh?”

“We have video,” Harv said.

“Can you send me that video?” Paradox asked. “I’d love to use it to review our performance as a team.”

Generally the answer was a resounding ‘NO,’ but headquarters wasn’t prosecuting this, and Harv’s job wasn’t to hoard evidence—it was to ensure compliance.

“If you behave yourself, I could probably get you a copy at the end of your stay.”

“Sweet.”

“That’s a bad deal,” Wraith said, shaking her head. “Almost every time we go out, someone tries to kill us.”

“This has happened before?” Harv asked, brows furrowed. Supers led chaotic lives, but that was pushing it.

“A hag summoned Wraith’s dad, who possessed her body, and she had to exorcise him…. We took care of it.”

Cool as a cucumber.

“Alright, I suppose I’ll mind my own business,” Harv said as he stood, fully intending to stick his nose into it. If these three were trouble magnets, it might be more cost-effective to assign them a Minder to nudge them in the right direction. Harv had some asking around to do.

“Just make sure you don’t go looking for trouble while you’re in Washington, alright?” Harv said as he left the teens’ room.

***Paradox***

“I’m gonna go looking for trouble,” Perry said after the detective left. The guy had been so rattled that he hadn’t even leaned on them very hard.

“Didn’t he just ask you not to do that?” Natalie asked with a wince.

Perry glanced over at her as he packed some clothes in a bag. “That only applies if you get caught,” Perry said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “And I’m not gonna get caught.”

I still wanna figure out who this John Gabras guy is and maybe head off some trouble before it comes knocking on my door. Assuming he was still alive, Perry wanted to ask him some questions.

There was a lot about his family that had been glossed over by generations of hero worship. Talking to people who hated them would be…eye-opening.

Am I seriously willing to risk my life for dirt on Gramma?

Perry thought about that long and hard.

Absolutely.

Perry had a trump card that was pretty sure to keep him safe while he looked for John.

Perry glanced over at the other two and sighed. “It’s times like this that I wish I had a bottle of your blood at my home base. Remind me to bleed you when we get home.”

Natalie looked horrified.

“You still owe me a liter of blood,” Heather said.

“Half-liter. And that debt was paid when I used it to rescue you.”

“The way I see it, if you hadn’t been there, I would’ve Triggered just the same, and my dad would’ve taken me out of the armor afterwards, so I don’t know if you really ‘rescued’ me, per se.”

Dangit. That was a bit of a sore spot. He felt as if he’d failed miserably and things had only turned out okay by what felt like sheer luck—regardless of what his quest notification told him.

“Alright, I’m gonna go out and investigate this fella who tried to kill us,” Perry said, scanning the room. “There’s a possibility that he knows where we’re staying, so I just wanna let you know…”

Perry paused for a moment to let it sink in. “It would be really cliché of you guys to get kidnapped while I’m out and about.”

“Pffft.” Heather punched him in the shoulder. “If anyone’s getting kidnapped, it’s you.”

“It would be fun to get rescued by pretty girls, rather than the other way around, for once,” Perry said, heading for the door. A weight hit his waist and he glanced down to see Natalie glaring up from where she was glomping him.

“Don’t get kidnapped,” she said, eyes narrowed. “Seriously.”

Perry gave the Girl Scout salute. “I promise I won’t get kidnapped.”

***One Kidnapping Later***

Perry sighed and leaned back in his cage.

This is just embarrassing.

Perry consulted the clock back at his base. He still had a couple hours until the girls would start looking for him, and he absolutely had to get back before that happened, or else he would never live it down.

“You wretches were rescued from the streets. Your lives were meaningless until this point. I, Plagius, will give your insignificant lives purpose. I will make your sacrifice mean something. I’m gonna conquer this city, and no one’s gonna stop me. Not my dad, not my teachers, and definitely not the police! I’m Plagius now, and that means something! It means I can do whatever I want to whoever I want! But first, I need to absorb your pathetic power and add it to my own!”

Oh, great, an absorption type, Perry thought sourly. They usually went off the deep end since their powers were geared towards being a murder-hobo.

The spandex-wearing crazy-pants paced back and forth in front of the cell filled with homeless people, monologuing incessantly. He had a black-and-brown theme going on, with an emaciated skull mask, but it didn’t have a certain flair to it. It was a bit too simple, lacking the cape and adornments a proper Grim Reaper look-alike might go for if they wanted to intimidate.

To be fair, the other homeless people in Perry’s cell were pretty freakin’ intimidated.

Despite Plagius sounding about sixteen.

It probably had something to do with finding themselves trapped in a cell.

Being a teen super himself, Perry had to wonder where Plagius had gotten his holding cells; those things weren’t cheap, and usually a super was at least in his twenties or thirties before he could afford to kidnap people en masse.

So, either this kid had hermit-crabbed into an empty lair, or he’d gotten one from a parent.

Judging by the graffiti on the walls, Perry would guess the former.

Perry had disguised himself as a homeless man and had been roaming the streets of the Twilight Zone when he’d been bagged and thrown into a van.

The major problem was this: Perry had gone to great lengths to keep his ability to shapeshift via Wayward’s Defensive Disguise under wraps, and escaping in a conspicuous way would jeopardize that.

He’d found a public bathroom with no cameras on it, then used Wayward’s Defensive Disguise remotely by triggering the spell-frame connected to his personal vat of blood back home. It had mixed the ingredients properly and poured them over a freshly carved Lunt bone.

In a matter of seconds, Perry had become Larry, the down-and-out homeless bum.

It worked like a charm. As he’d gone around the Manitian district asking questions, nobody had suspected him of working for Paradox, let alone being him.

Perry had even chosen this particular form because it was the least likely to attract attention. He didn’t want to be particularly young or old—definitely not pretty and young, which would turn heads and attract the wrong attention.

Male, to suggest he’d be able to handle himself, at least a little bit, but not fit-looking enough to seem like a threat. Average height. Stout, bit of a gut. Nondescript, so people didn’t remember him.

I suppose an old lady might’ve worked too.

Perry had incidentally made himself look like the ideal candidate for Plagius’s roundup of unwilling test subjects.

Perry buried his face in his meaty hands.

So embarrassing. He wasn’t even looking for me, and I got kidnapped. By accident.

“Which of you cattle would like to be the first sacrifice to my power?” Plagius said, watching them with undisguised greed.

Perry peeked out from between his sausage-fingers, hardened by a lifetime of hard work.

Well, all that aside, this guy needs to be stopped. My ethics class sense is tingling. Maybe once I kick his butt, I can spin getting kidnapped as ‘locating his lair.’ Totally on purpose.

Perry raised a shaking hand. “I reckon I’ll go,” Perry said, his voice deepened by size and years of smoking.

“Excellent,” Plagius said, motioning for one of his minions to open the cage for Perry to walk out.

I wonder where he got minions. He needed them for the kidnappings, too. Rentals, probably.

“Now, this may sting a bit,” Plagius said, reaching his hand toward Perry, dark energy swirling around it.

This guy’s definitely an amateur. A pro would have kept them restrained at all times, kept them separated, and honestly, wouldn’t have taken the bag off their heads before draining them.

Sliding Stats

Body 5->9

Perry punched Plagius in the throat.

The would-be supervillain’s eyes widened as his minions rushed to defend him.

Perry caught one of the minions and gently slammed him into another approaching minion, keeping an eye on Plagius. He had one of those catch-you-and-you’re-dead kinda of powers, Perry was sure. It was worth dividing his attention away from the minions for.

His caution paid off when skull-face lashed out for his ankle, and Perry whipped his foot out of the way and stepped on the man’s wrist.

Crunch.

“AAAH!”

Thankfully, Plagius hadn’t drained very many people, because his speed was human baseline.

“You guys just gonna stand there?” Perry asked, glancing back at the homeless huddled in their open cell.

Clang! Perry felt a dull thud against his scalp.

HP: 5

Perry snatched the metal pipe out of the minion’s hand and poked him in the sternum with it. Hard. All the while, he kept an eye on Plagius. The kid was too busy cradling his broken wrist, but one moment of inattention with a Drainer could get Perry killed.

“You heard Larry. Let’s get the hell outta here!” Ragged men and women began streaming out of the cells at a breakneck pace, some of them kicking Plagius on the way out, causing the teen to turtle up and curl into a ball.

I guess the hyperweave isn’t hyperweave, Perry thought.

Perry sent a glance towards the minions climbing to their feet.

“Are you a super?” one of them stammered.

“You tell me,” Perry said.

As one, the minions scattered, leaving Perry alone in the room with a cowering Plagius.

“Boy, your day went bad quick, didn’t it, son?” Perry said, picking up Plagius and setting him down on one of the cell’s benches while Perry sat across from him.

“Yeah,” Plagius sniffled.

“Now, you understand that draining homeless people to enhance your powers is wrong, right?” Perry asked.

“N-matter,” Plagius whined.

“Eh?” Perry asked.

“It doesn’t matter!” Plagius said. “My power’s on The List.”

“The list?” Perry asked, brows raised.

“Yeah, the list where they shove you in a dark hole and you never see the light of day again, because they think you’re evil and the only way you can use your power is to hurt people.”

“Huh,” Perry said, pulling out a cigarette he’d bought for his disguise and lighting up. I’ve got Wayward’s Defensive Disguise. Any damage goes to my fake body. Might as well see what all the fuss is about.

A few moments of hacking coughs later, he’d sworn off cigarettes forever.

“Did you consider draining monsters?” Perry asked.

“Of course I did. They’d kill me just as easily as you would.”

“What’s your Retainment?”

“My what?” Plagius asked, glancing up at him.

“Drainers get a temporary high from draining, which you probably discovered on some unfortunate soul when you Triggered.”

“Mrs. Swanson,” Plagius muttered.

“Right, and for a certain amount of time—a few minutes to a couple hours—a Drainer has access to 100% of the powers of their victim. You probably felt like a god.”

Plagius flinched at ‘victim.’

“A certain percentage of that borrowed power is ‘retained’ permanently: somewhere between zero and three percent.”

“Really?”

“You didn’t know that?” Perry asked. It was part of the AP Powers class. A bit of a nerdy class full of theory crafters and rules lawyers and LARPing, but fun nonetheless.

“How do you know so much about powers?” Plagius asked.

“I been around the block a time or two,” Perry bullshitted.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll never be the good guy. It’s against the rules.”

“Is Mrs. Swanson still alive?” Perry asked.

“Y-yeah, I think so.”

“So you haven’t killed anybody yet?”

Plagius shook his skull-face hard.

Perry pursed his lips, scrutinizing the teen. “Listen close. There’s no List in Franklin City that gets you tossed in prison automatically.”

“Really?!”

“On the other hand, if you misbehave with your powers, the super community will kill you. No arrest, no trial; they’ll just snuff you out.”

Plagius frowned.

“So, which will it be?” Perry asked. “The place that’ll arrest you just for breathing, or the place that’ll let you live free, but kill you if you pull this again?” Perry motioned to the holding cells.

“How am I supposed to become a cape without draining anyone?” Plagius asked. “If I’d get killed for doing it?”

“I know some supers who’d be glad to subdue a prawn long enough for you to drain it,” Perry said.

“After the first one, you can go toe-to-toe with them for however long your high lasts, long enough to drain a couple more. Even if you only retain half a percent, you’d still be physically superhuman after a handful of prawns.

“If you get good enough to become a Sweeper, you’re basically rich and famous by default,” Perry said.

“How do I get to Franklin City?”

“The intercity train leaves at the end of the week,” Perry said, pulling a pen out of his pocket and writing the address on the back of Plagius’s unbroken hand.

“And here’s Paradox’s number,” Perry said, writing down the number of the motel. “He’s a friend of mine, and he’ll get you set up with a team that can power-level you. I—He owes a guy a team member, so it might work out pretty well for everyone involved.”

“T-thank you,” Plagius said.

Perry locked eyes on the kid. “Remember. If you do this again in Franklin City, your life is forfeit. If you follow the rules, you’re a rock star. You think you can do that?”

Plagius nodded vigorously.

“Alright, I gotta get back on the streets,” Perry said, heaving his ungainly bulk off the bench. I hate being fat.

“What’s your name?” Plagius called after him.

“Larry,” Perry called over his shoulder as he left.

“Thanks, Larry,” Plagius said.

“Don’t worry about it. Least I could do after I broke your hand. And if you get rich and famous, maybe you can introduce me to some cute super-broads. Maybe Wraith or Hardcase. They’re hot.”

“Gross. You’re, like, old enough to be their dad. You’d need to take a bath first, too,” Plagius said.

“Ow, low blow, kid,” Perry said as he left. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta catch the bus.”

Plagius waved him off, staring down at the information written on his hand.

***Later***

“Oh my god, Perry, what happened to you?!” Nat demanded, running up to Perry and inspecting his blood-drenched clothes.

It turns out Wayward’s Defensive Disguise is really messy when it sloughs off.

“It’s fine. It’s all my blood, but I didn’t get hurt. It’s a magic thing. Not a problem. Nobody got hurt. Well, I broke a kid’s wrist when he tried to mug me, but I gave him some good life advice in exchange.”

“Did you find out anything about that John guy?” Heather asked.

“Nah, I got sidetracked by a bit of trouble. I’ll try a different area tomorrow.”

“You always seem to find trouble, Perry,” Chase, their team leader, said from the couch. “It’s not a great habit to be in.”

Perry narrowed his eyes at their team leader on the leather-upholstered seat. Something about him was off…

“Did you get a haircut while I was out?” Perry asked.

“How perceptive,” Chase said with a grin. “I sure did.”

Chapter 79: Junior Varsity Mind Control

This kid is gonna be the death of me, Chase thought, gritting his teeth. Wraith was the easiest; being all shook up because of her dead dad gave him an easy in.

Hardcase was conventionally-minded, nuclear parents, only incidentally abusive. She was a bit off-kilter due to puppy love, but the fixation didn’t provide an in, with how focused she was on it. A tough nut to crack, but a simple one.

Paradox…was weird. The kid’s mind was constantly changing. His brain fired so quickly that it sometimes felt like Chase was hanging on by his fingernails. Then it would suddenly slow down, and harden up instead, turning into a mire that could drag him down to the bottom if he relaxed his sphincter for an instant. Shortly afterward, it would change again, not fast or slow, but bearing a scent.

Chase had never experienced a scent in someone’s mind.

It smelled like…emptiness. And it made Chase wildly uncomfortable.

Paradox’s mind shifted gears again, causing Chase’s grip to slip. The Tinker glanced up at Chase with a frown, unraveling the deception at lightning speed.

Adrenaline flowing, Chase blocked the realization an instant before his control unraveled, his sphincter puckering up against the couch.

The kid had pinned an actual demon to a sacrificial circle with their own blade. He was obviously capable of murder. Chase didn’t wanna find out what would happen if he lost control.

When a Minder lost control, getting it back was actually harder than the first time, despite what the comics and politicians would tell you. If someone as slippery as Paradox realized what was going on, Chase would probably be missing half his teeth before he could hope to regain control.

It’s like a roller-coaster with no seat belts, Chase thought as Paradox shrugged and went back to his illegal tinkering.

Chase didn’t really care about the bureaucrats who’d decided that Tinkers could only do their thing in predetermined places, or if they had a license. It was a stupid rule that was a knee-jerk reaction to Megacore blowing up part of the wall in the late two thousands.

It didn’t actually stop Tinkers from experimenting on their own. It just made people feel better, which was all the old fogeys really cared about.

At the moment, Hardcase and Paradox were inside, not causing trouble, and Wraith was cackling at a reality TV show.

Nobody was getting murdered.

As the episode of Super Parent Swap ended, Chase checked his watch. It was ten thirty, rapidly approaching eleven. Time for all good teenage crime-fighters to go to bed, so uncle Chase could finally take a moment to breathe.

Chase gave a long, exaggerated yawn. “Well, it’s getting pretty late. We got a long day on the wall tomorrow. Let’s turn in.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m tired,” Paradox said.

Chase glanced over at the three opulent bedrooms.

Three opulent bedrooms, four people, Chase thought, coming up with a solution in a second.

“I’ll take the center room, there. Paradox, you can be on the left. Wraith and Hardcase can share the one on the right…”

Chase touched Hardcase’s surface feelings, blinked a couple times, and reconsidered room placement. “Actually, Hardcase, you can bunk up with…”

Wow.

“Okay, Wraith can sleep wi—”

Okay… I did not expect sleeping arrangements to be this delicate.

The three of them existed in a delicate balance of denial that could erupt like a goddamn volcano at any moment…and Chase didn’t want to be held responsible for it.

“You know what, Paradox? You’re on the couch. Hardcase, you get the right-hand room.”

“You’re the leader; why don’t you sleep on the couch?” Paradox asked.

“Because I’m old and already did my time couch-surfing in the two thousands,” Chase said, recalling the era of his life where he hermit-crabbed from family to family, inserting himself as a welcomed guest.

It’d had its ups and downs.

“Alright, you guys go to bed. I want to head out and look for John’s lair again,” Paradox said, putting a bag strap over his shoulder.

“You can do that after your shift on the wall, can’t you?” Chase asked, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead as he struggled to turn Paradox’s opinion.

Unfortunately, the kid’s desire to go out wasn’t rooted in idle desires. It had something vaguely to do with his identity and sense of self, which meant getting him to change his mind was like pulling teeth.

“I don’t need sleep that bad,” Paradox said with a shrug, heading for the door with a satchel over his shoulder.

“I hate to pull rank here,” Chase said, “but I need to be sure you’re gonna be in good condition and present tomorrow, or they’ll have my ass. Stay.”

Paradox frowned, his mind squirming inhumanly in Chase’s grasp, in a way that sent goosebumps up the Minder’s neck.

“I’ll help you look on your next day off,” Chase said, fully intending to kick the problem down to Future Chase.

“Alright,” Paradox said, his mind returning to a semblance of normalcy.

Chase heaved a sigh of relief.

“I’m gonna grab something from the corner store,” Wraith said, standing.

“You don’t need makeup to sleep,” Chase said.

“You’re right. I need moisturizer to sleep,” Wraith shot back.

“There’s some in the bathroom,” Chase said.

“I don’t like that kind,” Wraith said.

Chase rubbed his temples as Wraith began bucking against his control. Over moisturizer.

“I’m gonna go pick up some pizza from the plaza,” Hardcase said.

“It’s ten thirty-seven,” Chase said, checking his watch. “What are you eating pizza that late for, anyway? Didn’t we just decide we were going to bed?”

“Could be dead tomorrow,” Paradox said with a shrug. “Might as well.”

“They deliver,” Chase said, grabbing the laminated restaurant list next to the room phone and shoving it into Hardcase’s hands.

“Do they deliver moisturizer?” Wraith asked, arms crossed.

“You never heard of Instacart?” Chase said, before signing up for the app and painfully attaching his credit card to the account. He handed Wraith his phone as Paradox’s mind started roiling again, nearly tugging itself away from him while he was distracted by the buxom redhead.

Chase wrestled Paradox’s suspicions back down while Wraith went to town on his credit card, handing him back an order of nearly five hundred dollars, including FREAKING jewelry!

“Why are these earrings in the cart?!” Chase demanded, scrolling through the heinous list of ‘necessities.’

“I can’t sleep without gold-plated earrings.” Wraith fed him a bald-faced lie so audacious that Chase was momentarily shocked into silence.

“That’s three family-sized pizzas, one with sausage, pepperoni, pineapple, green peppers, and onions. Another with peas, sausage, corn, and the gravy sauce…” Hardcase said into the room phone.

Chase’s eyes widened as he spotted the tiny girl holding his credit card.

As his attention wavered, Paradox’s mind began squirming again, rendering Chase silent as he diverted the Tinker’s train of thought. There was barely room to breathe, let alone yell at her.

“What did you want?” Hardcase asked innocently, holding the landline away from her ear.

“Just…get me…a Western,” Chase gritted as Paradox’s mind almost wriggled out of his control.

Is it too much to ask for you brats to stay in one place for a single night?!

Chase felt like he was playing defense all by himself against the Washington Hornets.

If he could keep them behaving themselves until they got to the wall tomorrow, he could do a soft release, which would allow him to pick up where he left off when they got off the wall.

That was where a lot of the misconceptions about Minders getting into people’s brains easier and easier came from. If mind control was broken, it was BROKEN.

But if the Minder just put it on pause, that was a completely different ballgame.

I swear to God, I’m gonna sleep the entire time they’re on the wall.

Finally, finally, after eating pizza and joking around for another hour, the brats went to bed, leaving him alone.

Once he felt all three of their minds fall asleep, Chase set a five-hour timer and collapsed into bed.

It was a bit risky. If one of them woke up and stumbled across him while he was asleep, he was screwed, but he’d be even more screwed if he didn’t get some sleep between now and tomorrow morning.

Chase passed out almost instantly.

The next thing he remembered was a harsh beeping coming from his watch, wrenching a plaintive groan out of him as he dragged himself out of his bed.

He checked his watch and scratched his head, touching each of the three minds.

Hardcase was having a lewd dream, Wraith was having a nightmare about family, and Paradox’s mind seemed to fold in on itself infinitely, like some kind of bionic meat grinder or the monster from that one movie.

Kid gives me the heebie-jeebies, Chase thought, running his fingers through his hair and yawning. Two hours until they had to be at the wall, and one hour till he woke them up.

Enough time to get some coffee.

Chase found the coffee that came with the room and got it going while reheating some of the pizza in the oven, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he worked.

Sure enough, the smell woke the three up, and one by one, Chase imprinted his narrative on their sleep-clouded minds.

Just as someone wakes up or falls asleep is the easiest time to make more drastic, permanent changes to a person’s mind. Make them admire you, find you attractive, change the object of their crush. Dictate their behavior. Make them stop using your credit card for fuckin’ everything.

Chase didn’t. He simply applied a narrative and allowed them to retain free will and remain wholly themselves within that narrative.

It wasn’t out of any moral consideration, or because it was against the law. Chase had about as much respect for the law as these kids had for him.

There were only two reasons he didn’t:

#1 Mental violation of that magnitude was a fantastic way to get murdered days, weeks, or years down the road, when the victim unraveled the change. A wise Minder paid as much, if not more, consideration to how a victim would react if they broke control. Especially if aforementioned victim was a super.

#2 Chase was approaching his forties. He’d already lost his taste for that sort of thing.

“I have prepared a sumptuous feast,” Chase said, pulling the single combined multi-pizza out of the oven and placing it in the middle of the table as the three teens dragged themselves out of bed, looking a bit rough around the edges.

“I told you you should’a went to bed at ten thirty.”

“We’re not geriatrics like you,” Paradox muttered, staring at the pizza for a good thirty seconds before he figured out what he was supposed to do with it.

“Alright, pizza first, then showers, then we gotta get to the wall,” Chase said, checking his watch. An hour and a half, meaning they had plenty of time to get suited up on the lower levels before catching the bus to the wall.

There was a shuttle that ran back and forth between the hotel and the wall for obvious reasons.

Chase watched Hardcase’s eyes follow Wraith, who’d called the shower before anyone else. He couldn’t help but read Hardcase’s surface impulse, which was quickly quashed as she turned away and returned to eating her pizza, taking a slice each from Paradox and Wraith.

Huh. It’s always the quiet ones with the most active imaginations. Damn. I really hope I don’t get blamed for that. I’m sensing a lot of repression.

Another favorite pastime of…pretty much everyone…was blaming their own desires on the spooky mind controllers.

Yeah, I’ll bet that bites me in the ass, Chase thought sourly as Hardcase watched Paradox enter the shower room after Wraith, practically drooling into her plate before she caught herself and beat herself up about it internally for a good five minutes.

Chase couldn’t tell exactly what was happening in someone’s head, but he could read the broad strokes. And Hardcase’s brain wasn’t exactly quiet, or alien like Paradox’s.

Chase considered giving his worldly advice, but again, anything that came out of his mouth would be suspect once they realized they’d been under mental house arrest on the train ride home.

Anything he did would likely have the opposite effect in the long run. Best to play it hands-off.

Which was uncomfortable when someone was actively hating themselves across the table from him for stupid-ass reasons.

Chase pushed his empathy way down in the pit of his stomach where it belonged, and ignored it. He had plenty of practice at that.

Soon enough, all three of them were ready for work, and they all took a trip down to the armory, joking and goofing around to cover the ever-present fear of death, mostly for Hardcase’s benefit.

The bite-sized Tinker was a normie, and hadn’t quite developed that hardened mental state that comes with seeing a lot of death.

“Admit it, you just wanted Hardcase to wear the Mox clothes so you could gawk at her through the plexiglass,” Wraith joked, using sexual tension and humor to divert her thoughts from mortality.

“Not true,” Paradox said, shaking his head.

Not entirely true, Chase corrected mentally, glancing over at Hardcase. His jaw dropped a bit at the surface thoughts thrashing around wildly as she calmly readied her mechsuit.

Hardcase might be good at poker, actually.

“Multiple, redundant layers of defense are vital to a long career as a super,” Paradox continued, his armor unfolding in front of him.

The Tinker turned around and stepped backward into the dull grey suit, allowing it to close around him.

Crack.

Chase’s head whipped around to look directly at Paradox. The instant the helmet had come down over his head, his mind had suddenly changed from a murky bog to wet cement—an order of magnitude more difficult to penetrate. Chase’s control had been shattered instantly.

The game was up.

The suit of armor paused, seemingly losing his train of thought as Paradox unraveled the last twenty or so hours.

Seems like as good a time as any to bail, Chase thought, putting his hands in his pockets and walking away at a casual pace, so as not to attract undue attention.

An iron grip clamped down over the back of his neck.

“Hey, Chase, can I ask you a question?” Paradox’s modulated voice reverberated in his ear.

Crap.

Chapter 80: Parental Guidance

Listen, Perry.

If you ever realize someone’s been in your head, the first thing you need to do is watch their eyes, face, and body language.

So few Minders learn how to keep a poker face or lie convincingly, because they have a habit of leaning on the mind-control crutch. If you strongly believe one thing, but their body language says the opposite, there’s probably something screwy going on.

The second thing you need is introspection. Review your thoughts and feelings with a fine-tooth comb to make sure they didn’t leave any nuggets in there that might be altering your behavior.

Your best bet is an older Minder. Sure, they’re most likely a bit better at what they do, but they’re less likely to aggressively alter your personality for their own pleasure.

And don’t assume young women are less problematic than young men. They’ve got their own issues. Young women who Trigger as Minders often have a specific vision of how an ideal world should work and take it upon themselves to force everyone into that mold. To ‘fix’ people’s perceived flaws. To make everyone ‘nice.’ It doesn’t work out very often. I’ve seen more than a handful of suicides from square pegs being jammed into round holes.

The brain does not tolerate extensive meddling without snapping.

This one guy I was working with got caught by a Minder woman who didn’t like the way his breath smelled like garlic, and to this day, he brushes his tongue until it bleeds every morning…

So…what was I saying?

Right. Body language is more honest than words, and self-examine your brain like never before.

—Dinner Rant From Mechanaut on Minders

“I’m a detective with the Washington PD, assigned to babysit your ass.”

“Alright, detective. Stay right there if you don’t want your legs broken,” Perry said, busting into his locker and dusting off the garish ballcap with the Stability-enhancing circlet glued to the inside.

The other circlet was welded to the inside of his helmet, obviously.

“Threatening violence against a police officer isn’t a great idea,” the Minder said, crossing his arms, but not running the instant Perry took his hand off the guy’s shoulder.

He looked scared, but also irritated…and kinda pissed. That was good. It lent credence to him being on the job and it going sideways.

“I’ll just tell ‘em I had no idea if you were telling the truth or not,” Perry said, catching Heather’s attention and waving her over. “And they’ll believe me, too. I’ll bet your precinct isn’t lining up to stick their necks out for you.”

“You don’t say?” Chase said, scowling.

“Wear this,” Perry said, handing Heather the ballcap.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Penguin soup,” Perry said, giving Heather the mind-control warning.

Chase paled.

Heather practically snatched the ugly hat out of his hands.

“Don’t drop the control,” Perry said. “I want it to break.”

“The hell do you know so much?” Chase asked.

“I’m Paradox,” Perry said, grateful for his helmet preventing the Minder from seeing his smirk.

“I can feel you smirking, you little twerp.”

Or not.

Heather tugged the hat on, her eyes going distant for a moment.

“Oh, it’s just Chase,” she muttered, her shoulders relaxing. “I was worried we were in some Minder’s slave compound or something, doing weird shit.”

Heather punched the middle-aged detective in the shoulder and handed the hat back to Perry.

“Hardcase!” Perry and Heather shouted, waving her over.

Nat went over to them and reluctantly put the hat on at their urging.

Once the control was broken, Natalie gasped and gave the detective an accusatory glare.

“Hey, lady, that was all you. I didn’t do none o’ that,” Chase said, raising his hands in the air and shrugging.

“None of what?” Perry asked.

“Not my business to say,” Chase said.

“What is your business?” Perry asked, now that all three of them were ostensibly mind control free and glaring at him.

“My only job was to make sure you kids didn’t break curfew and wind up causing more chaos,” Chase said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but you’d been at the center of a super battle every time you went out.”

“Yeah, I was there,” Perry said sarcastically.

“Well, after a certain number of ‘random’ attacks on the street, you gotta ask yourself if you’re the problem. Washington PD sure as hell asked that question.

“Took me off the fun assignment for babysitting duty,” he muttered to himself.

“What was the fun assignment?” Perry asked.

“It’s my business not to say,” Chase said, shrugging.

“Why did your bosses decide we needed a Minder to keep us under control?” Natalie asked. “Why not just a regular detective or a stern warning?”

“Because of those two,” Chase said, pointing at Heather and Perry. “Miss, I’m not sure you understand exactly how little these two care about authority.”

Nat glanced at Perry and Heather. Perry met Heather’s gaze. They turned back to Natalie and shrugged. It was fairly accurate.

“I’m just not sure why you thought risking an intercity incident was a good idea,” Perry said.

“Why, did I do something wrong?” Chase asked.

“Noncombat mind control is illegal,” Perry said.

“In Franklin,” Chase said, pulling out his wallet and flipping it open to reveal a license in big bold lettering, with Chase’s face on the front. “Here, I got a license to dick with your head to the extent I deem necessary to do my job. I could’ve done a lot worse and the law would’ve been on my side.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t,” Perry said.

“Not my first rodeo, kid,” Chase said, putting it away.

“So, umm…what now?” Natalie asked, glancing between the three of them.

“Well, you can either accept my oversight during the remainder of your stay, or I can call in the big guns, and they can babysit you. Trust me, she’s not gonna like getting saddled with teens, and she’ll take it out on you.”

“Who are we talking, here?” Perry asked.

“Serenity,” Chase said, his expression steady.

Serenity, ironically, was not a very serene individual. She’d purportedly chosen the name as a goal to work towards, since she had a habit of losing her temper and rendering everything around her into giblets.

Perry thought it might’ve been a joke at her expense, and she’d owned it.

In any case, the Bruiser was infamous for giving others a hard time. She’d left Franklin for Washington half a decade ago for better pay and less competition.

Perry opened his mouth to respond, but all thought was wiped from his mind by a sudden blaring siren that emerged from the PA system in the armory, as well as each of their individual phones.

WALL BREACH IN YOUR AREA.

Stay indoors, stay quiet, and cover your scent with baking soda. We are working to drive the prawns back out. God bless.

Not a potential wall breach. An actual wall breach.

Perry felt a rumble shaking his legs as the secondary walls dividing up Washington’s different districts began to rise out of the ground.

“Armor, now!” Perry shouted, his voice drowned out by the chaos as the surroundings turned hectic. Supers arming themselves at a sedate pace began sprinting across the floor, tossing their hyperweave and blasters on, some in the literal blink of an eye.

Nat sprinted for her mechsuit, getting knocked to the ground by a larger super rushing past her.

The little Tinker was too focused to stay down, springing back to her feet without losing any momentum, putting her foot in the stirrup off the front of the cockpit and hauling herself inside, slapping the ‘close’ button as she settled into her seat.

Heather pulled the hood of her stealth suit over her mane of red-gold hair, instantly becoming difficult to locate.

Chase put his back to the wall and pulled out his phone. His brows furrowed as he navigated it. “Sssshit,” the blond detective muttered.

“I’m ready!” Hardcase shouted through her speakers as she tromped over while simultaneously strapping herself in.

“Here’s where you’re needed,” Chase said, pinching his screen before flicking it forward.

The side of the armory lit up with a projection of the detective’s phone, showing a flashing red segment of wall, along with red-highlighted streets branching off in no less than three separate directions, showing the flow of prawns into the city.

“They’ll have a Sweeper reinforce the gap itself,” Perry said, tapping the breached wall. “We’ll need to go to one of these three streets, contain them, and push them back toward the breach itself.”

“Which street should we go to?” Heather asked, studying the map.

“If it’s all the same to you,” Chase said, poking the southeastern street on the way past them, “this one’s closest to my daughter.”

“How do we know you’re not lying?” Perry said, but the detective was already gone, the only sign of him his coat fluttering through the doorway.

“I don’t think he’s lying,” Heather said with a shrug.

Perry glanced at Nat.

“There’s the police department,” she said, her mechsuit poking the northwestern side of the map. Chase’s street was farthest away from the street she’d indicated, and therefore least likely to get reinforcements from the local PD. It was where they could do the most good.

“It’s as good a place as any!” Perry shouted over the sirens.

Corner of Anubis and Elaine Lane. Perry made a mental note of a street one block further back, accounting for spread that would occur before they arrived.

“Let’s go!” Perry said, running out the front door that led to the parking lot. The shuttle that had been waiting to transfer them to the wall was idling without a driver.

Unprofessional.

“Look out!” Perry shouted as he flew past Chase, picking the detective up and tossing him over his shoulder.

“Wait, my car’s over there!” Chase shouted, pointing at a decrepit sedan that looked older than Perry and Heather combined.

“We’re faster!” Perry said, gaining altitude as Chase’s screams raised in pitch commensurate with their height.

Six streets over, four streets back, Perry thought as he oriented himself on the wall, where explosions and distant screams were already filling the night air.

Hardcase and Wraith leapt over the buildings, following along behind Perry without missing a beat.

Six streets over and four streets back, Perry saw streetlights blinking out: the only sign that prawns were trampling through the streets, knocking the infrastructure down.

They didn’t exactly start fires. That was mostly people who did that, either by accident as part of an attack, or intentionally to loot in the chaos, or in the mistaken belief that fire would ward off the wild animals.

Land animals, sure, but aquatic animals don’t exactly have an inborn fear of fire. And prawns in particular could ignore roaring flames, crawl their way into a burning apartment complex, and snack on the nicely roasted humans within.

They landed on the corner, just a block ahead of the tide of squirming prawns, only visible as an occasional glimmer off their shells.

At least, until Hardcase turned on her floodlight and revealed a street packed building-to-building with the monsters. The bus-sized creatures seemed to be attracted to the light, redoubling their inchworm wriggling until they were within leaping distance.

As soon as they touched down, Chase dashed away at a madcap speed.

“I’ve gotta make sure my daughter’s safe!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“Perry, can you get his kid somewhere safe and bring him back here in less than a minute?” Nat asked, the minigun on her floating arm whining to life.

“Watch me,” Perry said, bursting his jets and setting out after Chase.

The super detective would be useful against prawns, because the monsters weren’t particularly smart or strong-willed. Chase could be used for some light crowd control, which would make the fight much easier.

Perry also wanted to keep the Minder within line of sight, in case they were still under mind control. There was no such thing as being too safe, or 100% sure you weren’t being messed with.

Perry scooped up the detective for a second time.

“Which way?” he demanded, following the Minder’s pointing finger to an apartment complex.

“That one!” he said, pointing at a window.

Perry didn’t have time to find the entrance to the apartment from the hallway, so he gently smashed through the glass.

“AAIIII!”

In the center of the room was a woman in her early twenties, halfway into a distinctive hyperweave outfit covered in shiny glitter. And by extension, halfway out of it.

“Dad, what the hell?” she demanded, arms clasped in front of her chest.

Perry’s eyebrow rose. His daughter is older than I am, and a super. What the hell am I even doing here?

“I’m just making sure you’re okay,” Chase said, flopping out of Perry’s grip and climbing to his feet. He scowled when he saw the hyperweave. “I thought I told you not to do that vigilante bullshit!”

“Oh, like you listened to your parents when you got powers?” she demanded, slipping the hyperweave over her shoulders while Perry averted his gaze.

“And I screwed everything up!” Chase shouted with the air of someone who’d fought that battle before. “At least learn from my mistakes and get registered. Please.”

“Your daughter is Spangle?” Perry asked, identifying the super by her distinctive, glittery outfit.

“Who’s this?” Spangle asked with a frown.

“He—”

“I’m Paradox,” Paradox said, offering her his hand.

“Oh, the Cardboard Kid from Franklin?” she asked, shaking it. “I saw you on the highlight reel from Franklin City. A Tinker taking out half a dozen prawns with nothing on but a sword? It was pretty impressive.”

“Well, it wasn’t my idea,” Perry said, blushing under his helmet at the praise.

Chase frowned, glancing back and forth between Paradox and Spangle.

“No. No. HELL NO!” Chase said, shoving Perry bodily through the apartment and out the front door, into the hallway.

“You’ve already got enough on your plate, kid,” Chase said, his thunderous expression framed by the door for an instant before he slammed it in Perry’s face.

Chapter 81: Street Cleanup

Perry raised a brow, staring at the faux wood grain inches away from his helmet.

“As much as I appreciate the sentiment,” Perry said, poking his finger through the bolt, driving the lock right out of the wood and causing the door to swing open.

“We are on a bit of a time crunch, Chase,” Perry said, before glancing at Spangle.

“We’re going to the front line at the corner of Anubis and Elaine,” Perry said. “Do you need a ride?”

“It’s as good a place as any,” Spangle said with a shrug. “Sure. I can only run so fast.”

“Don’t you dare—ACK!” Perry shouldered Chase and Spangle and flew out the broken window, aiming for the street where Hardcase was turning the night into day with her floodlight and tracers.

“Set me down next to the mechsuit!” Spangle said, pointing.

“Got it!” Perry said, coming to a halt beside Hardcase and dropping off his passengers.

“Slow down any ones and twos that get past us. Can you do that?” Perry asked Chase.

“You owe me a new door!” Chase shouted back.

“I’m good for it. Just help out!”

“Of course, I’m gonna freakin’ help. You put my daughter in front of the prawns, you maniac!” Chase huffed and turned away, directing his attention to some of the prawns climbing nearby buildings. The giant monsters stiffened and collapsed back into the flood of prawns being slowed by Hardcase’s hail of gunfire.

“That’s the spirit!” Perry clapped Chase on the shoulder and turned back to Spangle, who was doing something rather interesting.

Spangle tapped on Hardcase’s clear cockpit to grab her attention and motioned for her to lower the floodlight.

Once it was a bit lower, Spangle put the massive floodlight over her shoulder and threw a fistful of glitter up and into the incredibly bright beam of light.

Perry’s helmet automatically dimmed as Hardcase’s spotlight turned into a riotous mess of glittering color, accelerating into lines of bright light only perceived as dark streaks across his eyeballs.

The approaching prawns got chunked, and the ones who didn’t seemed to struggle to move, covered as they were in glitter. Perry could see dimples in the prawns’ bulletproof skin, where the incredibly hard material was being nearly punctured by the weight of the glitter.

“Thanks,” Spangle said, leaning against Hardcase’s floodlight with a heavy breath. “That was a lot easier than when I do it myself.”

“Wow, thanks,” Wraith said, landing beside them in the moment of breathing room. “How often can you do that?”

“Every two minutes or so, maybe three more times. After that, I’m strictly debuffs.”

That’s not a lot of time.

“Alright, let’s do what we can while we can!” Perry said, yanking a Tomward’s Floating Dazzler out of his helmet.

“Close your eyes!” Perry said before hurling the crystal into the midst of the new wave of prawns barreling towards them.

Luckily, the prawns didn’t understand English, and were incapable of closing their beady eyes.

Unluckily, they didn’t have too much trouble gripping the ground with their outrageously tacky little stub-legs.

It slowed them down, but not much more than that.

“Let’s go tip them!” Perry said, rushing forward with Wraith and Hardcase, getting under the giant monsters and flinging them into the air.

One after another, the creatures were hurled upward, tumbling lazily in the air, wiggling to find their balance.

One well-placed shot from Hardcase sent them spinning through the air toward the wall.

Perry mentally calculated the amount of time it would take them to fly over the wall, and shook his head. Not quite fast enough.

“Shoot them each three times,” Perry said to Hardcase, who nodded and switched to full auto, peppering each of the floating prawns with a burst of gunfire.

They tore through the approaching prawns, creating a wake of prawns like a speedboat.

One of the monsters lunged forward unexpectedly and Perry caught the creature’s wicked mandibles across his chest, bringing back memories of his first battle against the armored caterpillars.

It’s amazing to me how far I’ve come, Perry thought, whipping his sword off his back and relieving the monster of its mandibles before putting the long shard of volcanic glass through its brain, causing it to shudder to a halt.

The mandibles had left a scratch in his armor, which was rapidly fading.

Individual prawns were no longer much of a threat to him, but Perry liked having video games to play, people to play with, stores to shop at, pretty girls to shop with, beds to sleep in...

All of those things required Homo sapiens and the elaborate concrete constructions they nested in.

Perry saw the tail of a prawn disappear into a broken hole in the side of a nearby apartment building.

“I’ll round them up!” Perry shouted, flying in after the prawn.

It wasn’t the first one into the building. Perry could hear screaming and breaking wood ahead of the ass-end of the one he was following.

Perry turned his jets on and streaked past, dragging the sword along the monster’s armor and unzipping it as he blasted past.

Perry spotted another one squirming its way into an apartment several flights of stairs up. Judging by the high-pitched screams, the tenant was still alive, which was good for Perry’s mental state.

BFS.EXE (5)

Five floating armaments manifested around Perry, and he made five quick stabs with his obsidian sword before hooking all five blades into the prawn’s armor and hauling it out of the woman’s apartment like a reticent fish.

Once the monster was dragged out of the apartment wall, Perry dispatched it with a slice to the brain stem, leaving an impression of himself on the ceiling where it bucked him into the concrete.

Once the monster was twitching on the staircase, Perry caught his breath.

Aerosolized.

Perry grabbed two cans of foam and gave the girlish-sounding man on the other side of the shattered drywall an apologetic shrug.

“Stay put, sir. We’re sweeping through the area, and you’re far more likely to get hurt if you try to flee,” Perry said as he whipped out a quick sheet of foam that hardened into a concrete-like substance, blocking the gaping man off from sight in a matter of seconds.

Perry did a quick flight up and down the stairs, but there were no more prawn-sized holes in the walls, so he headed back out to the street, kicking a pile of man-sized rubble in front of the hole and foaming it in place before tossing aside the canister and rejoining the fight.

They pushed the prawns back, inch by inch, until they connected with another street whose residents were doing the same thing on the block to the left of them.

A blast of green fire drove a prawn reeling backwards as John Gabras rumbled forward on his horse-cycle, flanked by his whooping minions.

I guess they got out of jail, Perry thought as John locked eyes on him.

vvv Translated from Manitian vvv

“Good evening, you son of a whore!” John shouted across the intersection. “I’m surprised your teammates can stomach the stench wafting off of you!”

“I see you got a streak of white hair,” Perry said, motioning to his head. “I didn’t realize I scared you that badly. I’ll be gentler next time I trounce you!”

“It seems like an inconvenient time to pursue a blood feud,” John said, motioning to the mindless monsters streaming toward them. “Truce?”

“Sunrise?” Perry asked.

“If your filthy half-breed word can last that long. I suppose your Earth half might have some residual honor.”

“I think I can spare your hair further discomfort for a single night.”

“I’ll kill you later, then, Zauberer!” John cackled, before launching a Threads of Gintax into a pile of prawns. The monsters broke the webs easily, but the clinging fragments continued to drain the life out of them, turning the monsters to dust in seconds.

The streak of white hair vanished, along with the crow’s feet at the corners of John’s eyes. Perry saw a throbbing essence cross the distance between the Nocul and his prey, drawn into his chest like smoke into a Hoover. Pure life, perhaps? Time?

“Praise Gintax!” the prince shouted in exultation, suddenly looking younger than Perry. “Thank you for this bounteous harvest!”

Was he waiting until I could watch him regain lifespan? Just to show me he could? Perry raised a brow, but no one saw it under his helmet.

^^^Translated from Manitian^^^

“Now you’re speaking Manitian,” Heather said with a thick Italian accent, pinching her fingers together in the ‘italian’ symbol.

“Shaddap. He says he’s not gonna attack us until daybreak, but I would keep an eye out, ya know. People are often true to their word, but if we are in a bad spot, it might look pretty tempting to finish us off.”

“Gotcha. Let’s show these wusses who they’re dealing with,” Wraith said, springing upward before rebounding off a street lamp, turning her entire body into a spike and smashing through a prawn’s brain stem.

Then she did it again.

“Is somebody keeping score?!” Wraith shouted on her way to her next victim.

Up ahead, maybe four blocks away, Perry could make out flashes of light from where the Sweepers and Tinkers were sealing up the breach. Perry might not be the key to saving the whole city, seeing as his team was on cleanup, but exterminating prawns and saving lives directly was gratifying as hell.

Perry assumed John was mostly fighting because he lived nearby.

I wonder how that draining kid is doing? Perry wondered, thinking of Plagius. For someone like that, this situation would either make his career, or send him to an early grave.

I guess we’ll see which it is, Perry thought, shielding his eyes as Spangle unleashed another spray of glitter, pinning a wide swath of prawns to the ground.

***Brett Everson, AKA Plagius***

“Whaddya mean, I can’t board the train? I got a ticket!” Brett demanded, waving his ticket. “There’s freaking prawns running loose in the streets, and this is the only safe place!”

“Like I said, the train isn’t leaving for another week,” the enormous metal man with the horns and the billowing cloud behind him said, arms crossed like a bouncer. “That means it isn’t boarding for another week.”

“C’mon, man, I’m a paying customer. You at least gotta protect me until this wall breach blows over.”

“The only duty I have is to protect the train and its occupants. Since you are not an occupant yet, I have no compulsion to protect you,” the giant robot said.

“Which is why you should let me on the train; then I’ll be an occupant.”

“Train’s not boarding for another week,” the metal man said, returning the conversation back to the beginning.

“Dangit!” Brett said, punching the wall of the train.

The metal man raised an eyebrow, his gaze locked on where Brett’s knuckles connected with the train’s heavy steel siding.

“I, um, sorry,” Brett said, flinching away from the robot’s gaze.

“You’re lucky you pose no tangible threat to either me or the train. I suggest you put your powers to work defending your city, rather than attempting to shirk responsibility.”

“Responsibility?!” Plagius demanded, his mood turning instantly. “They tried to lock me up! For an accident! They wanna keep me in prison for the rest of my life because they think I might be a bad guy! What responsibility do I have to them?”

The enormous metal man frowned, idly watching a civilian run screaming down the street, chased by a wriggling prawn, showing no interest in helping.

“Consider it your responsibility to yourself to prove that you’re not a villain. That you’re a human,” the chrome giant said with a shrug. “Or perhaps your responsibility to not be a bitch and do what is required of you.”

The prawn caught sight of the two of them and changed directions, charging them, stampeding across the train yard, bowling forklifts and carts out of the way as it focused on the two of them, air rushing in and out of its mandibles as it barreled forward.

Brett flinched backwards with a yelp, closing his eyes as red flashed in front of them.

I’m not dead?

When he opened his eyes again, the prawn was twitching in front of them, mortally wounded.

“There. A head start,” the metal man said, motioning impassively.

Could I? Brett thought, creeping toward the twitching monster.

“You might want to do your thing before it dies,” the chrome giant said, seemingly bored.

Stirred into action, Brett lunged forward and placed his hands on the creature’s body, unleashing his power.

OOOH MY GOOOOD! Brett’s eyes widened as a rush of power throbbed through every cell in his body.

A minute later, the prawn stopped twitching.

“Yeah! HELL YEAH! I’m gonna track down a thousand of those things tonight!” Plagius shouted. “And I’m gonna beat them half to death and drain every last one of them!”

His heart was hammering in his chest, and he felt like he could lift tons with no effort whatsoever. He felt like a god in human form.

“Whoo!” Plagius jumped twelve feet in the air, proving that the feeling was more than just a chemical rush. He really was that strong.

“Thank you!” Plagius shouted over his shoulder as he ran back into the street, scanning for the nearest prawn.

“You’re welcome, Brett,” Matador said, still standing impassively in front of the train, arms crossed.

Plagius bounded down the street until he spotted a prawn munching on the side of a building, seemingly burrowing into the concrete.

“Listen up, you oversized caterpillar. I’mma—ACK!”

The prawn casually whipped Plagius with its tail fin and sent him sailing through a building.

“Okay.” Plagius coughed out some drywall dust as he pushed himself to his feet. “Obviously, this is going to take a little effort.”

He bounded back out and latched onto the creature’s back, going on a merry ride as he tried to drain its power.

After a few seconds, it managed to buck him off before slapping him with its tail and embedding him six inches into the asphalt.

“Ow.” Plagius groaned, staring up into the sky.

Then the mandibles were there above him.

“Crap!”

Adrenaline singing through his body, Plagius grabbed onto the mandibles an instant before they locked around him, holding them apart while simultaneously draining the monster’s power.

It began to thrash about, slamming him into every nearby building and then some, in a mindless attempt to dislodge him.

There’s gotta be a better way of doing this, Plagius thought as concrete dust got into his eyes.

Everyone’s score by sunrise, a ballpark figure:

Paradox: 40 kills, 28 removals, 30 assists.

Hardcase: 5 kills, 70 removals, 50 assists.

Wraith: 60 kills, 12 removals, 5 assists.

Spangle: 35 kills, 0 removals, 80 assists.

Chase: 0 kills, 0 removals, 60 assists.

John Gabras: 80 kills, 0 removals, 0 assists.

Matador: 120 kills, 0 removals, 1 assist.

Plagius: 3 kills, 0 removals, 0 assists.

Chapter 82: The Morning After
vvv Translated from Manitian vvv

“Look at that sunrise,” John said, glancing over at Perry as they stood shoulder to shoulder on top of the wall, having painstakingly worked together with dozens of other supers to flush the prawns back to the wall. Reconstruction efforts were already underway, with engineers, both Tinker and mundane, working at a feverish pace to fill in the house-sized hole in the staggeringly large wall under constant threat of attack.

They’d fought together the entire night, and a strange form of camaraderie had begun to bloom between the sworn enemies.

Then again…

“I suppose you were as good as your word. Maybe there’s still some honor left in—”

John’s words were cut off by Perry’s composite-sheathed fist shattering his jaw. Immediate threat of prawns destroying the city dealt with, and sun fully risen, Perry didn’t have to restrain himself anymore.

“That’s for calling my mom a whore,” Perry said, pointing at the glassy-eyed Nocul prince splayed out on the ground. The dagger hidden behind the Nocul’s back skittered along the concrete, flung into the mess that lined the top of the wall.

Perry hadn’t seen him holding it, but it did make him feel better about the sucker-punch.

^^^ Translated from Manitian ^^^

Perry knelt down and pulled a vial out of his chest compartment, and snagged a bit of the Nocul’s blood from his nose while he was discombobulated.

I’m gonna have to store this somewhere else, in case he can teleport to it at will, Perry thought. Maybe he’d stash it on top of a flagpole or something of that nature.

“You guys wanna get some sleep?” Perry asked Hardcase and Wraith.

“Yeah,” Hardcase said, her voice hoarse.

“Absolutely. I’m practically dead on my feet,” Wraith responded.

The three of them rode the elevator down to the bottom of the wall and trudged past the cleanup crews, who were using thick chains and specialized forklifts to carry away prawn chunks.

There were billions of dollars in infrastructure damage, committed in a single night. Likely, lives had been lost, but Perry hadn’t been around to see any of it firsthand. He’d been in the thick of it, and he assumed most of the damage happened around the edges.

They arrived at their hotel, where a fight must’ve broken out shortly after they left, as the lobby was a total mess: lots of chunks of concrete ripped out of the floor, scratch marks everywhere.

“You gotta be freakin’ kidding me,” Perry muttered, seeing the destruction lead up the stairs, down the hall, and into their room, where their door was smashed in, along with some of the doorway itself.

It looked like a prawn had busted in and wrecked everything, but Perry was inclined to think someone had lured one up to this room for the express purpose of punching their tickets.

It wasn’t John, since the guy had been in eyeshot the entire night, so someone else had something against him. One of his minions? The demon he’d killed, back from its home dimension?

Well, whatever. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.

Perry stifled a yawn as he picked up the door and summoned a bit of spray-on glue to reconnect the hinges.

In a matter of seconds, they had a working door again.

It looked terrible, and the bolt had torn a hole through the doorframe, but it worked. Perry did a quick foam patch on the deadbolt and then locked the door.

“There’s only one bed,” Heather groaned.

Perry could see the shredded mattresses through the shattered doorways.

One of the beds had only been flipped over during the attack on their hotel room, and Heather had righted it.

“W-we could go down to the lobby and ask for a new room?” Natalie stammered.

“I’m too tired for that crap,” Heather said, throwing Nat over her shoulder and tossing her onto the bed, collapsing beside her, face buried into the Alaska king mattress.

In moments, she was out like a light.

Perry followed suit, putting his armor on sentry mode outside the room before he burrowed into the covers on Nat’s other side and passed out.

***

Perry was roused from a dead sleep by the clattering of spoon on bowl, mixed in with the arguing of talking heads on the local news.

Groaning, he slid out from under the shredded covers, feeling gross and sticky from sleeping in his street clothes. He grabbed some clean clothes from the floor, shook the broken glass off of them, and ambled blearily towards the living room, ultimately aiming for the shower.

Heather and Nat were sitting on the couch, which was propped up on a couple pieces of wood to keep it level. They were both dressed in comfy oversized T-shirts that looked like XXLs, especially on Nat, who was practically using the oversized shirt as a tent to camp out on the couch.

Nat had some serious bags under her eyes as she ate a forkful of ramen noodles, staring at the TV. The room’s TV had a huge crunch in the corner that spiderwebbed throughout the entire screen, but the sound quality was fine, and the words were still vaguely legible.

The news had a scrolling tagline: ‘Tide going out.’

The pundits were arguing over reconstruction costs, with some of them arguing that building a more sizable force of supers was higher-priority than infrastructure.

“This is unsustainable, that’s what it is. If we have to continue relying on Franklin for reinforcement, then they’ll be able to set whatever price they want! We need to have—”

Perry glanced at the Tidewatch on the wall, and saw that while it was still high, it had receded a few points overnight.

“Is that it, then?” Perry asked, throwing his shirt over his shoulder as he carefully picked his way through the glass.

“For prawns, anyway. Now all we gotta worry about is people,” Heather said, slurping up a forkful of noodles.

That was true. It wasn’t like all their worries were over after The Tide receded. Every High Tide produced a bumper crop of supers, and it also supplied them with an existential threat to keep them all behaving themselves.

Over the last month, innumerable Triggers had happened: some Perry had heard of, and many more who’d kept themselves under the radar.

They were going to start coming out of the woodwork over the next couple months and reshuffle the power structure of Franklin City.

High Tide wasn’t over. It had reached the most dangerous point. Somewhere out there was a handful of really bad people who’d lucked into some really powerful abilities.

Before Perry could deal with all of that, he needed a shower.

“The tub is missing,” Perry said upon reaching the showerhead, glancing down at where the tub had been violently separated from the drain. If he tried to take a shower, he would flood the entire room.

Matter of fact, it seemed like someone, or someones, had already flooded the bathroom, given the quarter inch of water he was treading through.

“You think they’re gonna worry about a bit of water damage, at this point?” Heather called over her shoulder.

Perry glanced up and around the room, at the shattered tile and broken mirrors. The toilet was missing part of the tank, with a five-gallon bucket sitting right next to it.

“Probably not,” Perry said, using some glass shards to pin his towel to the doorframe to cover for the missing door.

“Let me know if you need any help!” Nat said from the couch.

Perry peered out from behind the towel. “Help with what?”

“W-well, um, t-the plumbing is a little messed up, so there’s a bit of a trick to getting hot water that isn’t scalding. I mean, I wouldn’t mind helping with…”

“Hah, nice,” Heather chuckled.

“I mean, not that, but I helped Heather with her hair and back, and…and I thought… I’ll be quiet now.”

“I can probably figure out the plumbing on my own,” Perry said. “I’ll let you know, though.”

“O-okay.” Natalie withdrew her arms and head into her oversized sleeping shirt like a crimson turtle.

Chuckling, Perry turned back to the shower and studied it.

There was an outline for the cold water lever helpfully drawn in Sharpie, at the exact point the cold water would actually go through the pipes rather than spraying everywhere, allowing the hot water to mix and come through at lukewarm, rather than scalding or freezing, as long as the hot water lever was in the indicated position as well.

It was clear, concise, and in Natalie’s handwriting. There was no possible way Perry could fail to figure out the water situation with such a helpful guide available to him.

Ah, what the hell. Tide’s going out and I’m still alive, Perry thought, reaching out with his thumb and smudging the Sharpie cheat sheet on the tile wall until it was illegible.

Sharpie was never meant to get soaked.

“Nat, I can’t seem to get the water to work!” Perry shouted.

“Coming!”

***

“Did you hear?” Mom asked over the phone.

“Tide’s going out, yeah?” Perry asked.

“Yep! Not that I don’t like your grandfather, but I’ll be glad to get him out of here. There’s only so many things for him to fix in the neighborhood, and if he doesn’t have any old ladies to fix things for, he waxes philosophical, and it gets pretty nihilistic.”

Mom paused for a moment. “I actually haven’t seen him in a couple days. Maybe he’s still over at Grandma’s?”

“When do the aftershocks usually happen?” Perry asked, referring to the flood of new supers looking to make a name for themselves after High Tide was over.

“Usually it picks up about two weeks after High Tide is completely gone, and lasts for about four months. You should be back home right around the time things get really exciting!”

“Looking forward to that,” Perry said sarcastically. “I got four days until the train heads out again. Nothing to do on the wall, so it’s basically a vacation at this point.”

“Four days! Oh, I can’t wait to see you again, sweetie!” Mom squealed over the phone. “We can do villain roundups as a family, maybe quash a plot to conquer the world! Your father is gearing up like crazy.”

“Are there a lot of plots to conquer the world?”

“It’s pretty common, actually,” Mom said, shuffling something in the background. “The Trigger High makes a lot of people think they stand a better chance than they actually do of conquering the world, so there’s all these would-be world conquerors multiplying like rabbits, and you go around bonking them on the head and rounding them up, and it’s hilarious.”

“Ah, gotcha.”

“Every once in a while, though, you get someone who actually has the means to conquer the world, and then things get pretty interesting.”

“How does that go?”

“Well, sometimes an Anchor-class super Triggers and one of three things happens: They jump into line for leadership of the city, they get killed, or they leave the city and start their own.”

“You can just…start your own city?” Perry asked, brows raised.

“I mean, there’s no law against it,” Mom said. “It doesn’t happen very often, obviously, but if you’ve got the muscle and can get the word out, then you can attract the brave and the desperate.”

“I guess.” They’d have to be brave or desperate, I suppose. Most new cities got rolled their first High Tide.

“So how did things go with that Nocul, John?”

“I haven’t heard from him since I knocked him out for saying something he shouldn’t’ve,” Perry said. “I’m hoping I don’t have to deal with him again before I get the heck out of Washington.

“Hey,” Perry changed the subject, “did you know Grandma committed genocide by stranding the Nocul on Manita?”

“Yeah, that sounds like Mom, alright,” Mom sighed. “Look, she might be abrasive, but she’s not evil. She’s just got this ruler-of-the-world mindset, where the ends always justify the means. It’s just how she was raised.”

“Why do we still invite her to Thanksgiving?”

“Because she’s family, and she brings literal magical booze…and she would find a way to punish us for the rest of our lives if we didn’t invite her. You do still want access to those spellbooks, don’t you?”

Perry sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

He couldn’t wait to get back to his soul-ritual experiments. He’d only barely gotten started before he’d been forced to take the detour to Washington.

The mere thought of getting back to his workshop and making progress on soul magic nearly made him giddy.

“By the way…” Mom’s voice turned sly. “You’ve been on your own a while now. Anything interesting happen with that friend of yours we met at Burger Joint?”

Perry hung up and threw the phone across the room.

Crap. That was practically an admission of guilt. Why couldn’t my Stability be low enough to lie convincingly?

Perry could only imagine how loudly his mom was cackling at this very moment. And it was happening. Don’t need to scry to know that.

Perry took a deep breath and focused his mind on what needed to get done.

Four more days.

The next four days passed quickly in a spree of discrete purchases of supplies at the local Manitian slum. Perry didn’t run into any more sworn enemies, or demons looking to cash him in for a buck. Largely, it was uneventful.

This was mostly because Perry made sure not to present himself as himself while he was out there buying supplies. There was no wholesaler like Dave who ran the whole market, so Perry was forced to go door-to-door, browsing for the spell ingredients Franklin City was missing.

He found a few, but many ingredients were in limited supply unless Perry could find substitutes.

Areonite, used for his magical computer and his floating armaments, was one of them; they weren’t making any more of that.

When it was time to board the train back to Franklin City, Perry had an oversized hiking backpack stuffed to the brim with poorly preserved magical ingredients, picked specifically for their poor quality, separated from interacting with each other by thick plastic Tupperware.

Perry didn’t want to accidentally blow up or transform, after all.

They got assigned a nicer room than last time, with bigger storage and bathroom, which was nice. Perry figured the upgrade was probably out of practicality more than courtesy, but he’d take a better room regardless of the reason.

Perry was getting settled in when he heard a knock on the door.

When he opened it, he was greeted with the sight of a pimply teen, maybe sixteen years old, with dirty blond hair and freckles.

“Hi,” he said with Plagius’s voice. “Are you Paradox?”

“That’s me,” Perry said.

“A guy named Larry said you could help me out?” he asked nervously.

“Yeah, he mentioned you,” Perry said. It was best not to make the lie too complicated. “Said you needed a team.”

“Well, umm…my name’s Plagius. I just wanted to introduce myself,” he said, offering a hand.

Perry took it.

Chapter 83: End of the Line

This text has been banned by decree of King Bron Zauberer, for libel. If you are reading this, you are committing treason.

Fifteen years after the death of Amek Zauberer, his son, one Erbe Zauberer, was an extremely late bloomer. He was smaller, weaker, and less clever than other children his age, constantly struggling to keep up with the other noblesons.

In the margins was a note: Late bloomer or extra year of gestation?

While he was at play with some of his eventual peers, they were targeted for kidnapping by a duke whose name has been scoured from memory: an older cousin of Erbe, a son of one of the princes who lost his life when Amek Zauberer defeated Abun’Zaul.

As is often the case with grudges between royalty, things became a matter of life and death.

All of Erbe’s peers were released for modest ransoms, but this duke, a hale and hearty man of twenty-six, kept his cousin hostage, only willing to release him if the queen regent named him king.

The queen regent knew that to relinquish power to her nephew would surely spell the end of her son, and so what followed was a tense standoff, with the queen regent laying siege to the duke’s territory, while the duke kept Erbe Zauberer in his own personal dungeon.

The siege lasted two months, during which time the duke would parade Erbe across the walls of his castle, bound and naked, and often covered in fresh bruises, to humiliate, dishonor, and most importantly, verify that he was still alive, and still in the duke’s possession.

One night, one of the watchmen of the sieging army saw the light in the duke’s tower wink out, followed by the lumestones atop the inner, then outer walls, spreading outward in an expanding ring of darkness.

Soon enough, all took notice of the castle which stood dark and silent in front of them. There were no sounds of laborers or the clatter of armor.

Thinking the silence was possibly a trap designed to lure them in, it was decided to wait until the next morning. An entire castle cannot stay silent an entire night.

Except it did.

In the morning, the sun shone down on empty walls devoid of their previous defenders. No smoke or ring of hammer on metal greeted the sun. No animals bleated or whinnied.

The inside of the duke’s castle was silent as a tomb.

Except for Erbe Zauberer, who trudged out the front gate, having unspooled the magical defense himself.

The young man was wrapped in the duke’s standard, seemingly unclothed beneath it.

Erbe was quickly escorted away by loyal retainers of his mother. When asked what happened, the shaken young man only responded with ‘I ate him.’

It was presumed he’d eaten a rat he’d adopted in the dungeon to survive or some other harrowing experience, as Erbe did not elaborate.

The boy had seemingly gone through a growth spurt while he was in captivity, gaining at least four inches of height and a glimmer of calculation in his gaze that hadn’t been there before his capture.

Naturally, the rest of the army flooded through the gate as soon as their lord was secured, eager to revisit the humiliation heaped upon their master back on the nameless duke a thousand times over.

They could not find a living soul in the castle.

Castles do not run themselves. They require servants, laborers, soldiers, craftsmen! None were to be seen, and there was no sign that they had ever been there, either. No one could even remember who had sided with the duke.

Manita was a small country at the time, and peasants often have large families. There were bound to be family members on both sides of the dispute, yet none of the peasants who were asked could remember anyone who might’ve been in that castle.

Even the name of the duke himself slipped from people’s minds.

The only way we knew he was a duke was his territory was a dukedom, and the withered, white-haired corpse secured to the throne with seven-inch nails was a male—presumably, the one who’d kidnapped Erbe.

We’re not sure.

Incidentally, much later in his career, Erbe pursued an alliance with the Nocul that helped secure the future of our country and the goodwill of the Nocul to this day.

Cavorting with the cannibal savages led to rumors of Erbe’s participation in their ritualistic cannibalism, and the long-buried story of Erbe’s cousin resurfaced.

This author looked into the tale and found evidence that the dukedom had been owned previously by an unknown figure, but all references to him are smudged.

The ink on wine delivery receipts from forty years ago, that no one could have possibly thought to erase…are smudged whenever the recipient’s name occurs.

Whatever magic was used to snuff out the unnamed duke, it was powerful stuff.

As for the rumors of Erbe being a monster or cannibal who devoured the entire castle… This author doubts it. The less outlandish theory is, instead, the young man met a Nocul prisoner in the duke’s dungeon, who taught him potent Gintaxian draining magicks and set the stage for an alliance with their race later in the young man’s life.

If that is not the case…this author dreads to think what really happened in the duke’s castle.

When it comes to the Zauberers, over the generations, they have accumulated something of a reputation which has been passed orally from father to son, growing throughout the years alongside the lineage itself.

This reputation, distilled into the common parlance, is as such:

‘Fuck around and find out.’

—Legends of Manita

***Paradox***

Titan’s bass rumble echoed through Perry’s cell phone, directly into his ear. “Kid’s a ticking time bomb. No dice.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t feel bad for him?” Perry asked.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but he tried to kill you, correct?”

“Only a little. I corrected him,” Perry said, waving to Plagius across the cafeteria and giving him a thumbs-up.

“Man, a Drainer is a huge risk, and this one already fell off the wagon. They’re also a huge time investment, because they have the tendency to go wildly insane until their late twenties, when their brain finishes developing. You think I wanna babysit this kid for twelve years, when statistically, he’s likely to kill me inside the first year?”

“I mean, you’re a Nexus officer now. Imagine if you recruited him and raised him up to a Sweeper. It could be done, and if you pulled it off, you’d climb that ladder a few rungs, I bet. Maybe you could take over The Door.” The Door was the Department of Recruitment, or DoR.

“You’re just trying to take advantage of my entrepreneurial nature,” Titan grumbled. “As it stands, though, your Plagius kid is basically an accident waiting to happen, and I wanna keep my nose clean.”

“How about a grace period?” Perry asked. “I keep him in my team for a time—say a year—and if he doesn’t blow up in my face, I can sell him to you for a premium.”

“You’re gonna charge me?” Titan asked.

“I figure in a year, he’ll be a promising newbie. Maybe heading towards being a Sweeper. I can’t just give him away, at that point.”

“That could be acceptable, with certain stipulations about the kid’s—”

Perry flinched away from his cell phone as it gave a loud, disturbing warble, almost a mechanical shriek of pain.

Connection lost.

Frowning, Perry dialed Titan again.

“I’m sorry,” his cell phone said. “Your call could not be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again or contact customer service.”

Perry obviously hadn’t dialed wrong. He’d clicked on Titan’s brick-like face in his contacts list. Perry tried again.

“I’m sorry,” his cell phone said. “Your call could not be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again or contact customer service.”

Well, that could be bad, Perry thought. It was possible someone had sideswiped Titan in the middle of his phone call and busted the cell.

Perry dialed Sophie, aiming to get her to pass her phone to Titan until they could finish their negotiations.

“I’m sorry,” his cell phone said. “Your call could not be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again or contact customer service.”

Perry’s eyebrows rose.

He dialed Mom.

“I’m sorry,” his cell phone said. “Your call could not be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again or contact customer service.”

Okay, Perry thought, staring at his cell phone. That’s seriously concerning.

It wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, though. With several-ton powerhouses tossing each other around like ragdolls through the streets, sometimes cell towers got wrecked in the tussle.

Perry called Dad.

Dad had his own communication gear that was supposedly unblockable because it existed outside the bounds of conventional physics.

“I’m sorry,” his cell phone said. “The specified spacetime address could not be connected to. Please make sure your reality-piercing cell phone is properly calibrated, or if you are using a blood sacrifice to make this call, make sure any lingering blood from a prior sacrifice is thoroughly washed off the blood stamps before entering the address, as it may cause interference. If you are a fourth-dimensional entity using natural powers to make this call, please make yourself born as an Old One or other eldritch entity beyond human understanding within four million lightyears of each dimensional axis. Failure to do so will corrupt the signal, and may lead to disconnections. Simply moving your current physical location will not help; you need to move your beginning and end within the appropriate spacetime, so that your entire being is within range. If you are calling from the future to warn a past self, please stay where you are. It will allow our continuity assurance team to have an easier time finding and ‘assisting’ you.”

“Well…” Perry murmured, staring at his phone. “I’m starting to think there’s a problem.”

Perry was about to put his phone away when it began ringing, Heather appearing on the front, making a face.

“Yeah?” Perry said, raising the phone to his ear.

“Come outside the train. You’re gonna wanna see this.” Heather’s voice emanated from his phone.

“You’re not an infected trying to lure me outside, are you?” Perry asked. “Because that’s how you get brain worms.”

“Just get your ass outside!” Heather reiterated.

“Okay, okay, jeez,” Perry muttered, hanging up as a sense of ominous tension spread through his guts and seized his heart.

***Ten Minutes Later***

“Huh,” Perry said, crossing his arms and studying Franklin City…or at least…where it should’ve been.

Instead of the welcoming concrete walls, barbed wire, and massive auto-turrets of home, there was a pitch-black void.

It was a hemisphere of pure black, like some sick bastard had taken a cosmic ice cream scoop and scooped the city out, leaving behind a chunk of nothing where home used to be.

“I guess that explains the cell phone thing,” Perry said to himself.

“I can’t reach my dad,” Natalie said, glued to her phone, dialing and redialing the same number.

“If I can’t reach my dad, you definitely aren’t gonna be reaching yours,” Perry said.

Natalie looked up at him with watering eyes.

“I…I’m sure he’s fine, though. Your dad’s probably gonna lay low,” Perry hastily corrected, before Nat could make him feel any more insensitive.

“You think it’s a black hole?” one of the dumber supers standing atop the train asked. Perry was distressed to note that it was Plagius.

Oh god, please let the decision to help this kid not blow up in my face because he’s an idiot. Please let it be a stupid question and not a stupid person.

The surrounding supers gave Plagius a long sideways look.

“If it were a black hole,” Perry said, to clarify for him, “we would all be dead.”

“Oh. Okay. What is it, then?” Plagius asked, peering into the distance.

“It’s severed spacetime,” Matador said, sitting on the edge of the train and studying the black void that seemed to grow in size as they got closer to the city. “Someone or something cut Franklin City off from the rest of the universe.”

“How?” Plagius asked.

“I’unno.” Matador shrugged.

“Attention all passengers, staff, and escorts. Please make your way to the auditorium.” The conductor’s voice echoed from the PA system.

Perry took a long look at the black hemisphere covering his home, then joined the stream of people heading for the auditorium.

He joined the crowd beside Hardcase and Wraith, who were in their super personas, for obvious reasons.

Up at the front of the auditorium was a raised platform, where the conductor marched up to the microphone.

“Alright, shut up and listen,” Walthers said without preamble. “We’ve got an unknown phenomena cutting off all contact with Franklin City. Cell phones, sound, even light doesn’t seem to penetrate whatever is surrounding the city.

“I sent one of our Speedsters ahead. He threw a rock in and poked it with a stick. Whatever it is, is a one-way trip, as the stick wouldn’t come back out once it was in contact with the field. It’s assumed the stick still existed on the other side, but there’s no guarantees.

“Now, weird shit like this happens all the time, and it’s my job to handle it. While I could just order you, I don’t wanna ask anyone to do anything they don’t wanna do. So, we’re gonna take an informal vote. How many of you want to continue towards Franklin City?”

Nearly everyone raised their hands, Perry included.

“Now…who’s willing to walk into the potential death-field and kick whatever is making it in the nuts, so we can finish our damn job?”

Nearly everyone raised their hands, Perry included.

Conductor Walthers wiped a single manly tear from his eye.

“Goddamn, I love Franklin City supers.”

Author’s Note:
Thank you so much for reading! Hope you had a great time!

Holy cow, this one was a long time coming. It started as a fun idea “wouldn’t it be silly if someone made a healing ritual and condensed it down to work in a fraction of a second by using speakers playing at 1000X speed using completely unethical means?”

Really took on a life of its own over the last couple years.

If you made it this far, I salute your dedication to the consumption of pulp fiction, and offer you a reward. If you simply can’t wait for the next book on Kindle, even more of Industrial Strength Magic is available on Royal Road, and will continue to live there until the whole series is up on Amazon.
Royal Road is a freakin’ awesome website which serves as an open-mic/springboard for thousands of authors, who all get their start writing for free. If you feel like paying it forward, invest some time in reading these new authors.