Drop 1.7
+++Helen Pierce+++
'If I get out of this mess, I am never taking shortcuts again!' was all Helen could think as she was menaced by the two thugs from the Empire 88. She was the 'Aryan ideal' in appearance that the Nazi gang professed to prefer. Her husband was also blond-haired and blue-eyed, although that was pure coincidence on her part. She had heard horror stories from her grandfather, who had in turn heard them from her great-grandfather, about what the Third Reich had done in the Concentration Camps. He had helped liberate one back when he was a soldier.
The memories of what he'd seen in those terrible places had given him nightmares almost nightly for over thirty years until he had passed away. Growing up with those stories, she had never liked the Nazis and had treated the Empire's propaganda for the vainglorious sack of lies and pap that they were.
Unfortunately, that had set some of her colleagues at the law firm she worked for on edge against her, as they actually believed the rubbish about Aryan Supremacy. Small-minded idiots, in her opinion. She wasn't all that high-up on the food chain, only being an administrative assistant, which basically amounted to being a gopher. This meant that those who were actually lawyers who believed the Empire's tripe could bully her almost without consequence.
Even today, she had been sent to do grunt work, even although she was up for a promotion soon. She had lost her temper with one man, a sleazy excuse of a worm who was a barrister when he had groped her rear and slapped him across the face. He was responsible for this situation.
"Mr. Bunch didn't like what ya did to him, girlie!" was what one of them said a scant two minutes ago. She had fled at that point and had, unfortunately, used her old shortcut down this alley to try and flee. Sadly, her panicked action had just led her right into the fangs of danger, as the second had been waiting for her there.
And now she was going to be beaten up. Or raped. Or even beaten up and raped.
She had screamed a moment ago when they pushed her against the wall, but she knew it was pointless. Brockton Bay wasn't a place where Good Samaritans turned up at the drop of a hat, especially since this was the edge of Empire territory. None of the Protectorate ever came out this way except for Velocity and even then that was only once in a blue moon. New Wave had only Glory Girl active these days and she spent a lot of her time patrolling the area around her family home.
No, she was doomed.
"Shame she's a race traitor." One of the thugs leered at her lewdly, "She's a sweet piece of ass."
"Yeah. Shame." His friend agreed, "Now then…let's have some fun, eh? Hehehehehe…"
Helen's eyes narrowed and she instinctively shielded her bust from the lecherous gaze of the two skinheads.
Abruptly, one of the thugs flinched and looked down at his feet. "Urgh! What the fuck?"
"What?" the other asked irritably.
"Just felt somethin' cold on my ankle."
"Gettin' cold feet at this stage?"
"No, I mean literally, ya smartass." The first thug insisted. The other man looked disbelieving until he shivered and looked down at his own feet.
"What the fuck? Now I'm feeling it!"
Both of the men stiffened at once when the cold feeling suddenly shot up their legs. Panicking, they started whacking at their legs fruitlessly as the cold sensation sped up off their legs and onto their backs.
Unable to believe her luck, Helen used the one surefire technique to take down a man; she rammed her knee right in between the legs of the skinhead on her right, who let out a high-pitched squeal like a stuck pig before collapsing to the ground, cupping his abused manhood.
"-ing! Bitch!" the other one shouted and made to grab her, but stopped partway and started clawing at his throat. Helen could see a shimmering band tightening around it that hadn't been there just a moment ago.
Unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth, the woman turned tail and fled up the alley, heading for her home. She didn't know what was going on, but to her mind, all things pointed to the very subtle intervention of a Cape. Most, in her experience, were fond of showboating and dramatic entrances, but this one…wasn't.
'Whatever.' She thought as she thanked her foresight in not wearing heels today as she ran, 'Whoever this Cape is, they just saved my bacon. That earns them a lot of points in my book, whoever they are.'
+++Taylor Hebert+++
I breathed a sigh of relief as the woman fled the scene. This Cape business could be nerve-wracking when you didn't want to actually be seen doing it.
Gathering the small amounts of standing water that had pooled throughout the alley to distract the skinheads had worked a lot better than I hoped. I was lucky that it had rained yesterday, so there was plenty to work with. Sending the streams crawling up the thugs' pants legs had worked like a charm, she couldn't think of anyone who wouldn't react to something cold and wet climbing up their leg.
Even she'd been forced to wince when the cornered woman had struck back, though she quickly got over it since the target was a Nazi.
Enough said.
When the other one had tried to attack her again, discarding or momentarily forgetting my distraction, I'll be honest and admit that I panicked. It had been pure instinct that sent the stream of water that had been snaking around his legs and abdomen rocketing up his torso before constricting around his neck like a noose.
I was just glad I was able to reign my powers in enough to keep the noose from breaking his neck. I kept it just tight enough that he wouldn't be in any danger of suffocating but he also wouldn't be in any shape to pursue his target.
'Wish I could see these guys arrested, but I can't exactly call in the cops at this point so I'll just have to let this one go.' I thought in annoyance as I walked away quickly from the alley. 'Unhooking in three, two, one…now.'
I drew the water away from his neck at that, followed by a small thump as the Nazi fell on his ass, probably gulping for air. How convenient. I concentrated the water I used there before releasing my control of it. If the skinhead noticed that his pants were wet, he'd dismiss it because he had fallen on his ass.
Go me!
A part of me wanted to release it on the opposite end, give the Nazi-wannabe a bit of humiliation by making it look like he wet himself, but I again forced myself to abstain. Subtlety was my friend for the time being, and humiliating Nazis, while something every red-blooded American should enjoy, was not worth risking it.
Picking up the pace a bit, I headed straight for the Boat Graveyard. I did not want to risk coming across something else like that again, at least not until I had built a costume and auxiliary weapons set for when I was going to and fro between the Nevermore and my house. The Aqua Blaster (still need a better name for it than that) was a good start…except I hadn't made the hyper-compressed water canisters that would serve as its ammo yet.
Ah well, something to work on tonight.
Arriving at the Nevermore, I saw that the interior was being changed very rapidly by my little formula, although the spread looked to be well within parameters. I would still hurry up with the hard-light hologram projectors though. No sense in being careless.
"Greetings, Mistress Riptide." Amphitrite greeted me as I entered the main hold. She was projecting her hologram over her unit and looking impassive.
"Evening, Amphitrite." I said, "How long until Dodge shows up?"
"If he is keeping to the same time as when he delivered me, he should be here in two and a half hours." The VI replied.
"Good. Plenty of time for tinkering then." I grinned, rubbing my hands together eagerly, "Now then…first off, the canisters for this arm blaster…"
In short order, I had the sixteen small canisters built, but I had a problem…they were all about the size of a small candy bar, but each could hold enough water to fill up a small tanker truck.
As long as they were loaded with a machine I hadn't built yet.
"This is going to be a pain in the ass." I grumbled as I grabbed my tools. Cutting metal and tightening screws was one of the least enjoyable parts of being a Tinker, but I had plans for an auto-assembler that would make it a bit easier. That would cut and shape the metal and put the non-vital parts of the Tinkertech that I built together, but all the vital parts would have to be hand-built by me and I would have to put the finishing touches on them myself too.
I knew that Tinkertech couldn't be mass produced, aside from tech designed by Masamune. Hell, most Tinkers had a hard time deciphering the work of other Tinkers, aside from Dragon, who many believed was a Tinker with a specialty for other forms of Tinkertech. Those two were the crème-de-la-crème of the Tinker world, with Armsmaster along with a few others competing for the third spot in the Holy Trifecta of Tinkerdom.
At least according to PHO.
I was screwing the last bolt on the machine when Amphitrite informed me I had five minutes before Dodge should turn up. I hurriedly cleaned up and decided that I was so going to invest in a fabricator for my costume, as I was absolute pants at sewing, one of the few domestic skills I had always sucked at.
Mom had tried to teach me, but I always tended to end up with bleeding hands afterwards. After a few months and several dozen rolls of bandages, we both decided that sewing just wasn't in my wheelhouse.
Pulling down my balaclava, I quickly headed up to the bridge, arriving seconds before Dodge teleported in with a muted blue flash.
"Not late am I?" he asked cheerfully.
"No, just on time in fact." I answered with a friendly nod, "Follow me."
"Gotten over your Tinker Explosion yet?" the Rogue Tinker asked as he followed me.
"Mostly. It lasted over six hours." I shook my head in disbelief, "Is that the normal timeframe?"
"It's rather short actually." Dodge said in surprise, "Usually it lasts about a day."
"I drew sketches and blueprints of various machines I wanted to make while I couldn't Tinker." I mused, "Could that that have helped mitigate it?"
"Can't see how." The Toybox Tinker answered, really perplexed by this, apparently, "I've had times when I've wasn't able to tinker for one reason or another and I've drawn blueprints as well. Didn't do a thing when I Exploded the next time I entered the workshop. Might have something to do with the fact that you've got other powers to work with, but I've never dealt with Tinkers with secondary powers before so I can't be sure."
Huh. Well, shorter duration Explosions were an upturn in my book.
When we entered the main hold, Dodge's jaw dropped slightly. "Holy…what the heck did you do to the place?"
"It's a kind of self-replicating paste that eats rusted steel and replaces it with a new hyper-purified alloy that's stronger than titanium." I answered, "Don't worry, it's not made using nanomachines so no grey goo scenario to worry about there. I made it so it would only go after one particular type of metal, determined by dropping a small sliver of the metal you need to affect inside the mixture just before the end of the final refining process."
"Cool. A regular person would be asking 'how does it deal with door and bolts?' and the like, but I'm just going to acknowledge satisfying Tinker bullshit." Dodge nodded wisely, "How long before it covers the whole ship?"
"Replaces." I corrected him as I noticed that Amphitrite had powered down her hologram, "Coating is just the first stage, once a section is covered it goes to work and replaces the existing metal with the new alloy. Haven't come up with a name yet and 'Replacium' sounds stupid. Anyway, did you manage to get the Kevlar?"
"Yup. Well, most of it." The green and yellow costumed Cape admitted apologetically, "I have nine-tenths of it ready, with the rest due to arrive next week. As an apology for this repeated delay, I am authorised to tell you that the next time you deal with us, you get ten percent off when you buy something from us."
I blinked. That was astonishingly generous, and I said so.
"We pride ourselves on getting our customers what they want, when they want it." Dodge shrugged, "Fact is, none of us are combat Tinkers, so we really don't have much in the way of weaponry or armour around. Oh, Pyrotechnical makes the odd batch of laser rifles and Big Rig works on the occasional suit of power armour, but most of us have strictly non-combat specializations, so most of the materials needed for basic body armour or weapons need some time to be acquired. Still, it's something we should have in stock for when other people want to buy from us. The discount is an apology for the delay happening twice."
Fair enough. I thought it was fair, anyway. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
After teleporting in another large container that was almost full of Kevlar, Dodge turned to face me.
"Now that you've somehow gotten over your Tinker Explosion, there are two more things about being a Tinker that you should know about." He said gravely, "One's bad and one's beneficial. Which do you wanna hear first?"
I sighed. Great, more stuff that might be a pain in the ass about being a Tinker. "Let's go ahead and rip the band aid off. Tell me the bad first."
"It's a condition called 'Tinker Fugue' that is bad, or at least potentially disastrous to your projects." He explained, "It happens when you focus on one project or device to the exclusion of all else. You wander about in a trance-like state as your mind tries to piece together how to make it. Eventually it gets to the point that when you start working on it, you sometimes pull apart your other pieces of Tinkertech in order to grab the pieces to make the one bugging you. It can be…traumatic…to wake up from your Fugue to find half of your stuff in pieces."
Yikes! That did sound really bad.
"Is there any way to mitigate or avoid it?" I asked worriedly.
"Nope. It happens to every Tinker at least once. Happened to me twice." Dodge groaned, "My first teleporter…damn."
Wow…he pulled apart his first teleporter in a state of Tinker Fugue…man, that condition sounds like it could be a major pain! And possibly something that might have revealed my powers to someone if I was still going to school. I really owed my Dad a good meal for pulling me out…
"The other thing I need to explain is actually a useful little trick we Tinkers can pull off when we get together." The Toybox Tinker continued, "As you may or may not know, no two Tinkers' work is the same, even if they have a similar specialty. It's to the point that only Dragon or Masamune can successfully decipher and mass-produce some of the work of other Tinkers. There is one exception, however; the phenomenon known as Tinker Synergy, or, as it is more commonly referred to, Tinker Team-Up or Collaboration."
This sounds interesting.
"As I said, a finished piece of Tinkertech, or even a half-finished piece, is hard to break down." Dodge stated, "The exception is if two Tinkers work together on the same device from the ground up, combining their specialties into the same device. This is the sole manner in which Tinkers can gain an insight into another's work without stripping down and examining one over an extended period of time, unless you're a Tinker of the same level as Dragon or Masamune, of course."
"Never heard of it on PHO." I said with a frown.
"Tinkers don't like to advertise it outside of the Parahuman community because, once they start working on a joint project, the level of cooperation Tinkers starts showing is near-instinctive." He explained, "To the uninitiated, it almost looked like we're reading each other's minds, which has been all but taboo since Ziz showed up."
I shuddered. Yes, the Simurgh was a good enough reason to be suspicious of telepaths and mind readers.
"That right there's the reaction that makes most Tinkers wary of letting that little bit of information get out too far." Dodge noted with a nod at me, "It isn't, really. If anything it's closer to hyper-intuition based on the interaction of our Tinker powers."
I nodded in acknowledgement, but it wasn't as if I was going to work with another Tinker in the near future. I was going to stay clear of Armsmaster and Kid Win, thanks to my knowledge of Shadow Stalker's real identity, and there was no way that I was going near Squealer or L33t. Unless another Tinker Triggered in Brockton and I could help them get on their feet before the Empire or ABB could get their hands on them. Even if that happened, there was no guarantee that my specialty and theirs would match up well.
As I ruminated on his words, Dodge was looking about and spotted the water condenser I'd built to fill my hyper-space water canisters. It looked like a large water cooler mounted atop four sets of trays, each with spaces on them for four of my canisters.
"What's this?" he asked curiously.
I debated with myself about whether or not to show him it, and then shrugged. 'Why not? He's a Tinker, I'm a Tinker and it would be nice to have some feedback on my devices.'
"Watch." I told him and fetched the canisters, slotting them into the trays before turning the machine on. With a loud chugging noise, it activated and started drawing water from the hold that I had carried a long pipe to, slowly filling up the water holder on top. The water was brackish and brown from all of the rust and impurities in it. I punched in some commands on the side of the console and a mist-like wave was released inside of the tank. When it faded, the water was perfectly clear.
Another chugging sound started up as sixteen transparent thin pipes descended into the open heads of the canisters and water was sent down and inside them.
"So a fancy way of loading water?" Dodge raised an eyebrow at the seemingly mundane use of my powers.
"How much water should those canisters hold?" I asked him, nodding towards the machine.
"Looks to be less than a can of Coke." The man judged after a moment, "About 300ml?"
"Each of them holds 6900 US Gallons." I answered simply, "About the same as an ISO Tank Container."
I may have made them, but I had only the barest idea of how that was possible. I think the word 'quantum' came into it somewhere.
The only reaction to my words was a twitch of his eyebrow. "That's definitely more along the 'Tinker Bullshit' line. Why that particular number?"
I shrugged. "I heard it a lot from a friend who works in the shipping business."
This wasn't a lie. Although the docks were all but out of order, barring the small docks on the other side of the Bay, the rail industry is still flourishing (to a degree). Deliveries are rarely made between cities via vans and lorries these days unless it can't be helped, thanks to Parahuman menaces like the Slaughterhouse Nine wandering all over the place. On rare occasions, Dad sometimes manages to get the Union hired to unload deliveries from railcars and the like, although the pay sucked.
"Fair enough." Dodge looked as the machine continued its work, "What's that mist stuff?"
"An energy wave that eliminates 99.99% of foreign materials from water, including the salt." I answered, "A forensics lab could tell where the water came from with a few tests, and I'm betting a Tinker like Armsmaster could do even more. This way, the water I'm using will be nearly untraceable. It also severely cuts down on the water's conductivity, making it less of an electrical hazard."
I'd done some research after I'd figured out my powers. Turns out water itself wasn't conductive to electricity but rather the trace impurities that existed in nearly any form of water.
"Smart." He complimented me with a sage nod.
After ten minutes of work, the machine shut down and withdrew the pipes from the canisters. I then grabbed the lids, which had a small length of pipe a couple of centimeters long poking out of them, and screwed them tightly into place.
"This is what they're for." I said and led him over to the table where the Aqua Blaster was lying. After pulling it on and pressing three hidden switches in a specific order, the hidden compartments for them popped open. I took each canister and pressed them into place, much as you would for putting batteries into a portable CD-Player. Once they were all loaded, I closed the compartments up and removed the Aqua Blaster from my wrist.
"OK, I am willing to say that you are using your specialty very well." Dodge said with a nod, "So this arm gun of yours is pretty powerful?"
"If I want it to, it can shoot a ball of water as fast as a rubber bullet." I said with a shrug, "I can also alter the aperture of the muzzle as I want, from as thin as a needle to full bore. The firing mode is selectable too, from single shot to three-round burst, to full-auto, to a condensed stream of water. I'll be making another one for my other arm as well, and then get to making the costume."
"Wait, you control this thing by manual?" Dodge spotted the switches on the side of the Aqua Blaster.
"It's voice activated, actually." I shot back; miffed at the very thought he'd think I would leave something so pedestrian in my designs. That was just asking for someone to steal my tech and misuse it. I pointed at the switches. "This is a backup system that is electronically disabled until either the voice recognition system goes offline and a security code is entered or a command code is given."
"So you'll speak thing aloud to change your weapons settings?" he pressed.
"Nope. Well, kinda." I admitted, "Part of my costume's gonna have a rebreather so I don't have to worry about gas attacks, so putting in a com-link connected directly to receivers in my so I can control them sub-vocally isn't a bad idea."
"It'll also let you breath underwater." Dodge agreed, "Looks like you have things well under control here. Someone'll be in contact via that phone I gave you at the usual time when the rest of your order comes in."
Nodding, I escorted Dodge up to the bridge again so he could teleport out. Once he did, I returned to the main hold…no, to my workshop, and cracked my knuckles before getting stuck in. The costume and everything weren't just going to make themselves, after all.
+++Waterworks+++
The next two nights were full of work, while the days were full of me cooking, cleaning, doing my schoolwork and exercising. I did make a detour one night to grab some of the stuff from the warehouse that Dad had talked about a while back. There were some good circuit boards there that might be useful at some point.
The replacement chemicals arrived at my house (finally) and I was able to continue my chemistry work. More formulae for various water-related applications were noted down as they occurred to me.
It was odd, schoolwork sometimes offered the odd bits of inspiration. Chemistry invoked chemical formulas, biology supplied ideas for devices that affected the water within living organisms (most of those ideas quickly went into the NOPE bin, but the idea for a harmonic weapon that aggravated the water in the brain to cause dizziness, nausea, and unconsciousness had some potential), and math offered more space-bending fuckery.
Art and history provided a number of different ideas based on the subject of the day.
I wonder if it did the same to all Tinkers, and, if it did, how Kid Win and other teenage Tinkers dealt with it.
The Aqua Blaster had a brother soon enough, although this one was built as primarily as an aid for close-combat, with ranged attacks acting as a secondary function. The inverse of its brother.
It had a deployable rod above the knuckles that would release water from several dozen pin-sized holes along its length that I could then use my powers to shape into a blade around it. This would be used only as a last resort, however; as a blade made of water could be something close to a monomolecular blade. The sheet of steel I used as a test target was cut in half like a hot knife through butter.
A secondary set of rods could be extended from the back of the forearm, each extending about a foot, which I could use as a base to form a shield, though using my powers I could extend it far beyond the reach of the rods.
The main release portions would be a set of adjustable nozzles locked, one located above each knuckle and another set of six going around the out edge of the wrist, each capable of deploying water at various amount that I could then manipulate into multiple forms ranging from a hammer, to a whip, to claws.
Now I stood in front of the mannequin that had the final prototype design for my costume resting on it.
I couldn't help but marvel at it.
Coloured dark blue with the symbol of a wave, the fabric (Kevlar) part of the suit matched my measurements perfectly and covered every inch of my body, with some elasticity built in to allow for potential growth (I still had hopes that I would actually have breasts in the future). I'd run the Kevlar through a new refinement process and infused with several specially designed dyes that gave it its colour, as well as making it fireproof and shock-resistant, as well as even more effective against resisting bullets and knives than before and improving its elasticity.
The armoured parts were like the Aqua Blaster and its twin, although when I coated them in the same dye I'd used on the Kevlar, they had turned white. Bizarre, but only a footnote. There were three additional pieces of armour other than the Aqua Blasters; one for my chest and back and a pair for my legs up to the knees.
The armoured boots (because that's what they were) and greaves were not only to protect my lower legs and feet, but to be used as a conduit for my powers. Just like the Aqua Blaster, each of the boots had eight canisters of water stored in them (two along the sides of the foot and the remaining six going up my lower legs) that I could control via my mask's sub-vocal com systems. I could blast off like a rocket with them, release it around me to create a 'field' of water I could use my more wide-scale hydrokinetic tricks with, or even 'kick' water shots at people.
The chest body armour protected my upper body and included shoulder armour. I had made a test set earlier to see exactly how well it would protect me from blunt-force trauma, sword cuts and all manner of other things and I was pleased to see that it was highly resistant to all of the above. The main utility of the armour, aside from the defensive aspect, was that it could be closed up like a suitcase and so hold my costume when I wasn't wearing it. It also had six canister slots along the back, which I could use to create additional hydrokinetic armor or force fields and use in combination with my boots to create a coating to allow me use hydrokinetic flight
The pièce de résistance was my mask. It was mix of fabric and armour, with the entirety of my face being covered by it. The top portion consisted of an armored helmet covering the top of and back of my head, while the upper portion of my face was protected by a fabric cover that ended up looking almost like a domino mask, the eyeholes were covered in plastic that was coated in a transparent orange film that was water-repellant.
Not the regular type of repellant as in 'it will run off the lenses' but as in 'water will not even touch the lenses'. I was a bit unsure about how it worked, but I was satisfied enough that it did.
The lower portion was armoured in the same fashion as the rest of my costume, but it was what lay beneath the armour that was important. Within the mask was a rebreather system, something that allowed me to breath without exposing myself to the air and risking toxins being introduced via gas attacks. Well, it also had six vents, three on each side, which could be opened and closed at my command. The air was kept in a small capsule about the length of a child's thumb that held enough air in it to last me about a day and the air I exhaled was expelled into another similarly sized capsule.
Those capsules had taken me most of the previous day to put together, despite the fact that they were greatly similar to my compressed water canisters. Such was the difference between a liquid storage system and a gas storage system, I suppose.
Anyway, the com system was tightly encrypted and linked only to the pieces of my armour that I needed to control and to Amphitrite. With the voice command system, I could manipulate the various functions of my armour with a series of commands, such as 'R34AD.' That meant 'Right arm, aperture width 3, pressure level 4, bullet form, deploy'.
There were over twenty different commands for each piece of armour, so it would take me a while to memorize them, but it was a very simple system. The aperture sizes varied between 1 (Pinprick) and 5 (Fully Open), while the pressure level varied between1 (weak) and 5 (real bullet strength). There were only two different types of forms the water could take as a weapon, either bullet form or stream form, coded as 'a' and 'b' respectively.
With this, I could adjust my firepower on the fly to suit the type of enemy I was facing. With this, I could go on patrol. With this, I could finally start my career as a hero.
I smirked. "Look out, Brockton Bay. Riptide is here to change you for the better!"