Chapter 7: Placeholder
Part 1
I wasn't sure if she wanted to distract herself, or was just unable to resist commenting on all the shiny technology on display, but it only took a couple minutes for Riley to start getting chatty.
Probably both. Plus more social manipulation, she was clearly trying to feel out her limits, but at the same time… My clarktech-inspired magitech armor was very flashy, and A2 had visible seams on most of her exposed 'skin'. The curiosity was definitely genuine on some level, and her inquiries reflected it.
How did the flight work? Was it kinetic energy manipulation or some sort of unseen thrust vectoring (since it couldn't be gravity or magnets)? None of A2's paneling looked like it was hinged or actually removable, so why have distinct segments if the material was already flexible? What was up with my left ankle?
I answered her personal questions, but left the matters of A2's anatomy to her own discretion, which she did not exactly feel like sharing. Which led to much pouting on Riley's part.
Kara however, eventually chimed in while I was trying to explain how my armor's strength assist synchronized with my body's movements. Which seemed to make the (formerly) murderous tinker outright giddy.
And critical. Very critical. Apparently a muscle trace system with nearly no delay was far too inefficient compared to a direct nerve trace link. Nevermind the more invasive requirements for such a thing!
And that was one of the less drastic 'suggestions' she had. "No! That's a horrible idea, even disregarding visual impact and maintenance issues, linking external armor attachment points directly to the skeletal system is just asking for knock on effects, no matter how much shock absorption you put in." I snapped. "The leverage issues alone-"
"Are easily mitigated by reinforcing the joints directly!" Riley argued. "Besides, if you're that tough, what kind of leverage issues are going to come up? With my set up, kinetic transfer will send you flying long before it risks breaking anything."
"So will properly fitted armor," I argued. "And floating attachment points will give almost all the same benefits while only risking surface and minor deep tissue damage if I get in a grapple that can peel me out of my armor."
"But it'd be less precise!" the local tinker argued, and if she wasn't being held up by Kara, I suspected she'd be stomping. "Besides, if your armor's tougher than you, they'll probably just rip you apart once they get it open anyway."
Yes, and depending on what they ripped off or out of me I would probably survive, what was more iffy survival wise, was them getting a good enough hold on me to outright pound me into paste or damage my brain enough that I couldn't recast Stabilize.
Not that I was going to say that out loud until I was at least 90% sure Riley wasn't going to try and kill us in our sleep.
"I think we should switch back to the interface idea," Kara suggested, less than enthused at the discussion of deep cybernetics. "I know a pretty simple and compact braintracing framework-"
"That won't work-/That's even less efficient!" I began to reject, only for Riley to override me with her even more enthusiastic cry. "Muscle memory might be procedural, but it's partially processed by both the local nervous system and spinal cord directly to cut on signal delay! Not only would you need to train a brain focused system on what the muscles are going to do on their own, you'd need to factor in all the variables between it and the muscle trigger to keep them synchronized!" she explained in further detail.
Which is why I'd thought it wouldn't work outright, but she'd just implied it was doable, but probably not very efficient.
"That'd be microseconds at worst," Kara argued. "That's a more than acceptable enough error range."
"Not with full bone integration!" Riley argued.
"It would be acceptable with standard coverage or even floating mounts though," I noted. "Seriously Riley, I know the memes, but you don't have to always return to crab."
"It's already an exoskeleton!" she argued.
"Which does not have to integrate into the endoskeleton of the user-" I rebutted.
"Are you guys going to speak nerd the entire time?" A2 asked.
"...Probably," I replied.
"I'm shutting my ears off," The android said simply, presumably doing just that.
"She can shut her ears off?" Riley asked, latching onto that like a dog on a steak. "What's the interface? I didn't see any eye or finger twitch, did you isolate the nerve response or outright-"
"Maybe we should go on ahead?" Kara suggested.
"I'llbegood!" Riley dropped the subject at once.
I started counting mentally as the world raced by beneath us…
…36, 37, 38-
"Is that braintracing thing how you moved like that?" Riley asked. "I noticed your reaction speed's faster than your movements. I know all the tells! I've seen them before with Chuckles, he had partial superspeed. I thought it was just your power, but with everything you've said now I'm reconsidering-"
And there she went again. Now, how much to answer this time?
"It's not the braintracer, but it's not natural," I decided, not mentioning that my baseline was also augmented now. "As for how, I can't exactly tell you that yet-"
"Because you think I'm still going to try and kill you and escape," she agreed without a hint of shame or fake hurt this time. "Of course, but could you use a brainscan tech like that to speed up thinking speed? Combine it with a basic mind machine interface to dump extra processing cycles directly into the thoughtstream?" her eyes flicked over to Kara inquisitively.
The Kryptonian winced, "Ugh… maybe?" she thought about it. "I mean it'd get grizzly. If you're going to digitize a mind that much, I'd rather just go with a full upload."
"You can do a full consciousness upload!?" the preteen mad scientist exclaimed in shock and open glee.
Yeah… You can probably guess how the rest of the trip went from that. Though, fortunately for A2, it wasn't actually all that long of a trip.
While I'd elected not to make use of Haste out where Riley could see it just yet, we didn't actually need to fly all the way back to Brockton Bay. All we needed to do was reach an appropriate door and pop back into the base, whereupon either Penny or one of the Lisas could reopen it from the location they had entered, letting it serve as a sort of makeshift portal hub. And wouldn't you know it, there just happened to be a ghost town a 'mere' seventy-odd miles away from the point of our ambush.
Which, I couldn't help but note, might actually make a decent spot for a secondary 'on site' base. It never hurts to have a few spare bolt-holes scattered around, after all. Particularly when you had a lot of people you wanted to secure, but didn't exactly want to leave unattended in your primary base of operations.
Well, unless they end up raided by someone, or used for an ambush. That could be an annoying waste of resources. Which is why any development plans would have to wait until we were sure Riley had actually turned her coat. That'd likely take a while.
And speaking of precautions. A quick Minor Illusion of a Grue inspired audio/visual masking cloud over Riley as we opened up the portal to the Base, helped obscure its actual location. She'd probably figure it out anyway after a while, but that bought time would hopefully be enough to confirm her loyalties one way or another.
If not? That's why we had contingencies.
"You sure this is a good idea?" A2 asked once we'd gotten the little terror 'settled' in a room. She'd had a long day after all, and for all she's been asking tinkering questions, when I'd offhandedly offered some supervised lab access… she hadn't actually bitten into the bait.
"Not in the slightest," I responded to A2. "I give it fifty-fifty odds she'll try and sneak into the lab on her own."
"Only fifty?" the former YoRHa prototype asked, surprised, but not overly invested.
"I'd originally put it higher," I admitted instantly. "However… Right now? I think she might legitimately just be too exhausted to try anything yet," I explained.
"Really?" my white haired 'Companion' asked.
I gave a nod, then elaborated. "As a tinker, she probably doesn't need us to explain how the tools work, or at least ways she can use them, but a Tinker's lab is considered one of the most dangerous things to mess with in this world. Even for other Tinkers."
"And since you offered to show her around yours, she'd get a chance to check out the security when you did," A2 replied following along.
"She already knows we're suspicious right now, so it wouldn't have cost her much to take me up on my offer," I explained. "So her not doing so…"
"That's assuming she's not going to take a shot at it, and isn't planning rationally because she's emotionally exhausted," A2 pointed out in an experienced tone. "People are dumb like that, or at least Androids are."
"Oh I wager humans are even worse about it," I agreed. "Hence, fifty-fifty odds. There's also good odds she tries to bypass the lab and just weaponize something from the kitchen, or her room. I'll get one of the Lisa's to check when they get back. This whole thing is going to be a massive pain in the ass," I replied with something between a sigh and a groan.
"You're the one who agreed to it," A2 reminded me.
"Yep," I grunted. "My call, my fault. It might even be the right one… But it's still going to be a big pain in the ass."
"Was someone talking about me?" One of the Tattletales, or rather 'Sherlock' said as she sauntered her way in. Elisa going by the Unity Thread.
"Bonesaw secured. Rest of the Nine are dead," I reached to my side and with a command to my Mage Armor popped open a section on the 'decorative' flares of my helmet, causing it to open and eject an oldschool cassette tape. "Got the footage right here for bounty purposes," I said, holding it out to the local incarnation of Lisa Wilbourn.
Lisa's hard 'Sherlock' armor flashed away, leaving her in her old Tattletale costume sans mask. "Okay, I gotta ask, I get wanting to use local stuff for the recording, but why a VHS tape? Couldn't you just stick it on a thumb drive or something?"
I shook my head, "Wouldn't format right. I don't know the local code languages, but I do know the analogue process to encode cassettes, since there's a surprising number of universes that still use them." I explained. "They're also a lot harder to fake at this technology level. So better argument to validity if things come into question."
"What, the prisoner won't be enough?" A2 asked.
At Elisa's questioning look I replied. "We snagged Hatchetface alive. Toasty, but still breathing."
Both of Lisa's eyebrows shot up, "And the rest?"
"They're dead," A2 said bluntly.
"Except for Crawler, maybe. Kara chucked him at the moon, as planned. We'll have to wait and see if his powers cut off and he dies anyway, or The Simurgh snags him for whatever plan… I'd avoid cashing his bounty just in case."
The local Lisa clicked her tongue at that. "That's a lot of money to let go."
"Also a lot of legal issues to avoid if the angel of malcontent does decide to drop him somewhere," I pointed out. "They're only going to be a fragment anyway. Feel free to cash in Bonesaws bounty though. The video shows her popping out of existence the same way The Siberian did. Since neither will be showing up again, that should be safe to grab."
Tattletale rolled her eyes, "I was already going to do that… But I think I can get Crawler's too. International bounties like this are huge legal webs to repeal once they actually pay out. As long as he's not chucked at DC in the next couple months, even if he does show up, they'll never get the money back out of us."
"What money?" Kara asked as she came in from the other direction.
"Crawler's bounty," I said. "He might be 'Neutralized', but it's not like we've got him tied up and ready to hand over like Hatchetface is. From a legal standpoint I'm pretty sure he still counts as 'escaped and on the run'."
Kara grimaced, "Ugh, big budget, legal mumbo jumbo. I normally just left this sort of thing to the League," she admitted shamelessly.
"Unfortunately, while we have the resources of The Base, we don't exactly have Kryptonian architectural crystals, or a Bat credit card for other big budget issues, and those will crop up. Particularly if we end up working with local Tinkers."
"The rep boost will also help," Lisa said. "Okay, compromise. I tell them we launched him to the moon, and let them decide if it counts. You got footage of that right?"
"Yep, though I'm not sure how many frames the launch will be in," I warned her. Even at my highest relative time rates Kara was an outright blur.
"I'll leave you to it," Kara said dismissively. "Tarn, you're on the first babysitting shift?" she asked.
I gave a nod, "I need to finish up all the extra orders anyway."
"Which leaves, me with the paperwork… and you lugging around Mr. Extra crispy," Lisa said to A2.
The former YoRHa soldier rolled her eyes, "Fine."
"If you run into Armsmaster or Kid Win, try not to bite," I requested. "Also make sure you don't run into Elisa's 'sister' with Hatchetface. He might talk."
"Wanna tell me how to swing a sword too?" A2 asked dryly.
"No… but I'd be up for another spar when you're done," I offered.
"Holding you to that!" she replied as she followed Lisa over to the temporary prisoner holding cell. As opposed to me, who would be camping here, near the temporary prisoner personal suite.
Right so… where was I with those Henshin Belts?
Part 2
I set down to work while Riley slept, pulling out a chair and some tools out of my lab so I could keep watch as I did. I had a lot of gear left to cover, after all.
My current work order was; Five new belts for my next big move. The Undersider's new, improved costumes to cover previous debts. A whole batch of additional plug in cards for the existing Rider Belts (Notably, this included one complex little annoyance that was going to take me hours to piece together, but would actually increase my combat options, not just provide redundancy). And finally some non-card based tools both for some other plans, and more general use.
Which reminded me, I also should probably make a few more Blessing Boxes for the Protectorate, both because there were decent odds they'd pulled the first one apart, and, in the process, broke it in a way that they couldn't fix. And because being seen as a supply of useful healing items was likely to make them weigh any thoughts of going hardball on me a lot more carefully.
Also because having healing on tap was just generally handy, and who knew when I was going to be too tied up to provide such things directly. Gods knew I basically didn't have free time as things were.
"Hey!" called out Lisa- Alisa this time, as she came down the hallway, and made a B-line right for me.
I gave a wave, careful not to jostle the improvised work table I'd anchored to the chair, "Hello yourself. Handover go well?"
"It's still going," She said, looking at what I was working on. "New Armor belts?"
"Not for us," I said. "These are simpler models meant for multiple possible users. Two stage construction. Endurance and Mage Armor. Minimal modularity, less tailored, deployed armor follows the users body plan with only minimal preset deviations from a standardized design."
Alisa's eyebrows shot up. "Anyone can use it?"
"No," I replied. "There are still user restrictions. It's just set to only accept people with certain qualifiers instead of being locked to a specific user," I explained as I finished lining the last sliver of gold into place, before closing up the large, but not Rider large belt buckle.
Then I looked up, "You said the handover's still ongoing. There are issues?"
"Just the standard stuff," My fellow Company Clone explained. "The PRT figured out we're all part of a group, and are dragging their ass to try and fish for information. Piggot's being smart. She wants to either push us to join up or move on, but she wants a better read on us first. Speaking of, she's probably going to try and push for a 'full team' meeting. Registration and all that."
I grimaced, "Great, more time booked on my wonderfully open schedule."
She raised an eyebrow at me. "You need to borrow some books on time management?"
"No, it's just… First part of a mission is always hectic. Doesn't help that I need to rebuild my normal arsenal…" Again. "And outfit everyone else…" Also again. At least I had a proper toolkit to work with this time.
"Which, speaking as someone without a native brute rating? I very much appreciate you doing that!" Alisa was quick to note. "However, do you really need to get this all done now? Like what even are these things for?" she asked, picking up the first (and only completed) one of the extra belts.
"...I could probably put those off for a bit," I admitted. "I just mostly want to clear out my work orders. In my experience? Any time you think you have enough slack to just sit back and relax? Life will walk up and yank your belt tight enough to make you puke," I said, picking my finger on the sharp point of one of my tools before smearing the blood onto the now closed up belt, causing a light to glow out from the cracks… before I spot welded them shut with Firebolt, carbonizing away any trace of my DNA as I did.
Alisa suddenly tilted her head, "Bonesaw's awake."
"She'll probably go back to sleep in a minute," I said, having also picked up the new 'someone is aware of you by scent' signal from Mask. "She's done that a few times now. I think she's got her nose hardwired to pick up blood."
"Not just blood, but good guess," Alisa said, not quite standing down, but at least appearing relaxed enough. "Anyway- I get what you mean, but most of this stuff is backups for backups right?" she asked.
"You would be amazed how many times I ended up resorting to backups for backups' backups," I countered.
"Yeah, but you were also working in literal hell, right?" she added pointedly.
"More of a dimensional sinkhole than an actual torment realm," I corrected quickly. Not that much better all things considered, but the details did matter. "Hellsalem's Lot was just a nickname. Its official one was 'New Jerusalem', or something like that."
"Mhmm," she hummed in reply.
I paused my work again after finishing the weld. "Look. I will mellow out… Why are you worried anyway? It's only been a couple of days."
"Yes, it's been a couple of days," she replied. "Look. I get we're super busy. I'm not even complaining about you leaving the two of us without even lingering to cuddle! Though you are absolutely teaching me that cleaning spell later. But…" she made a sort of gesture between herself and I.
I blinked. "Oh. Oooh… uh… Yeah. Prestidigitation's on the list. And for the… other… thing?" I tried experimentally.
She nodded, giving me a look that implied I was dumb for thinking she could mean anything else.
"-We can go for… Fuck." What time was it now? "Is it time for Breakfast yet?" If it was before sunrise, that'd limit options considerably.
She sighed. "It is, but I'll take dinner. Instead, why don't you pack up, leave me and Supergirl on Bonesaw duty, and you go reward someone else with a nice breakfast for dealing with PRT bureaucratic bullshit for the last three hours."
I nodded at once, "Can do."
"I shouldn't have to say it can't always be 'Sandwiches' either right?" she asked.
"Of course not," I replied. "Sorry, just…"
"It's been a while for you, and you're worried," She cut me off. "I get it. We get it. Not exactly an expert on the whole dating thing either," she admitted with surprising humility.
Actually, she looked a lot less confident than she normally did in general.
"Which should be obvious given how we rushed everything but… Ugh" she muttered possibly more to herself than me, before facing me with her full attention. "Look, we're all capes. We're all fucked up in the head. We're all doing this anyway so…?" This time it was her turn to ask the stupidly obvious question.
"We can try to have a meal a day together, at least?" I offered tentatively.
"That'll work," she agreed. "Though…" she added more pointedly, eyes flicking up and down me, both eyebrows raised.
I raised an eyebrow back in turn.
Her cheeks colored, "Are you actually going to make me say it-" she grumbled in a tone that implied things might not go well for me if I did.
"I'll pick up a couple 'Yes No' pillows while I'm out," I added. "And also try to actually spend a full night in my room tonight for once. You're keyed in if you need me for anything, incidentally," I added with the requested level of 'discretion'
She gave a huff of mild approval. Which I suppose was the best I was going to get in this exchange.
Seriously though. When the fuck did my life become akin to Zapp Renfro's?
…Wait, no. Zapp actually managed to keep his ever changing roster mostly content... I was failing at living up to Zapp's standards! A low even Zapp had never managed to sink to!
Alisa frowned, "I don't know who you're thinking of… but I feel like he's an asshole."
"I would trust him with my life… And absolutely nothing else," I said. Which really was all you needed to know about Zapp.
Fucker owed me 53,671 Hellsalem 'Zeros', along with 32 US cents, plus a stick of Gum… and a car… and a house, and a kidney...
"Yeah, I know the type," Alisa said.
"Do you? Do you really?" I asked her blank-faced.
She paused and looked at me for a moment. "...he's not coming here, right?"
"I've already set the defenses to drive him off with fire if he tries," I assured her. I would have done the same in Hellsalem's lot, but I didn't have this place yet... And anything I made based off of Firebolt wouldn't burn hot enough.
"You need to get better friends. And that's me saying that," Alisa said bluntly.
"I'm working on it," I replied. "And hey, if nothing else… We can always sponge off of Penny!"
"Not Supergirl?" the Thinker asked.
"Eh… We'll have to ask how her history is with that first," Supergirls could be pretty hit or miss on how well they'd acclimatized to Earth life. Or how social they were back on their homeworld for that matter.
Though we did know our version of Kara was at least social enough to be invited to 'end of the world' orgies so-
Both of us paused as the new 'being detected by smell' warning finally vanished. Riley had slipped back to sleep.
I quickly set up a secondary sound baffle with Minor Illusion between us. A second one transmitting sound at barely audible range directly into Alisa's ear. "One last thing now that little ears are less likely to hear us. Riley must never, under any circumstances know about the condition of my left leg, and what caused it. As far as she's concerned, it's just an old wound I'm both touchy and sentimental over."
The de-aged woman raised an eyebrow at me. "You are really touchy about the whole blood sucker thing, aren't you?"
I didn't give a full body flinch, twitch or any sort of physical sign… Mostly because Stabilize cleared out that kind of stuff. "Little bit," I said openly in admittance. "And please consider who and what I've just been interacting with lately when gauging what that can mean?"
She gave a wordless shrug at that, then mimed zipping her lips.
I raised an eyebrow in faux disbelief. Tattletale, knowing when to shut her mouth?
She flipped me off in response, smugging in my direction as she did.
"Seriously though," I said pointedly.
"I will," she confirmed, taking me seriously.
I nodded, accepting that as that. For all that the woman once known as Lisa Wilbourn might be chatty, and have tactlessly revealed quite a number of deeply hidden secrets with little thought to their consequences.. She had also kept a firm lid on what secrets mattered. At least to her personally. With how clear I'd made the importance of it… She wouldn't slip up about it.
Though as in the case of 'what happened to Sarah Livsey', that didn't mean she would be able to keep it from being discovered by other means.
"I'll try and keep her distracted when she finally pops out," Alisa offered. "That's not going to work long term though," she warned.
"Long term, we'll have more options," I reminded her. "But I'll keep that in mind." If nothing else worked, I could just cut back my stump to a safer level, and pause my treatment for a while. It would suck, but it wouldn't be the first time I had to do that. Depending on how my next meeting with Company medical went, I might be able to explore some new treatment options anyway.
"Also pick up some ice cream for dinner," she suggested. "I'm feeling rocky road."
Alright, that one I couldn't pass up. "Feeling like a rocky road? You don't say."
She swatted my shoulder again. "Ass."
Rather than make another snarky comment, I shivered. "Really need to stop acting like Zapp…" I grumbled, getting up from my table. "Right, going to stow these away and head out. Rocky Road?"
"The good stuff," she replied. "No need to be formal though. I'm thinking we just… veg out on the couch?" she tried.
"Looking forward to it," I replied and found, to my surprise, I actually was.
Huh, that was fast. Two way bindings really did simplify everything didn't they?