Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 29 (Patreon)

Richard frowned as he studied the strange box like machine with several different colored hoppers on the top that Kevin had spent half the morning working on. “Now that you’re finished are you going to tell me what you’ve been working on?”

Kevin finished closing the safety panel on the side of his latest creation then took a step back as he glanced at the power switch on the side of the machine. “Sure.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“No idea,” Kevin admitted with a touch of amusement as Richard took a couple steps away from the machine and the workbench.

“How do you not know what it does?” Richard asked in disbelief.

“Because my power hates me? I know what it’s supposed to do, I just don’t know that it will do it or how it’s going to try to kill me this time.” He’d be less worried about the machine if he hadn’t used several components that he’d reversed engineered with his engineering skill from previous inventions.

“Is that why you’re wearing your mask and armor?” Richard asked warily as he took another step back from the potentially unstable machine.

“Pretty much,” Kevin replied as he reached over and flipped the switch on the side of the machine then jumped back. He gave the machine a suspicious look when the light turned on and the box merely hummed softly for a second then stopped, exactly like it was supposed to. “So far so good, so this is usually the point where it tries to kill me.”

Richard shook his head. “Now you’re just being melodramatic.”

“Not really,” Kevin muttered as he gave the machine another suspicious look. “Do you want to plug in the USB cable to the side while I grab my geiger counter?”

“It’s radioactive?” Richard asked nervously as he bumped into a bench as he tried to take another step back. 

“It shouldn’t be, but I like to make sure,” Kevin replied, hiding his amusement as he walked over and grabbed the geiger counter he kept to test his devices. None of the components ‘should’ be able to produce radiation but he’d found it was better to triple check things than to assume anything worked like it was supposed to when it came to his powers.

“Nah, I’m good, you’re the expert,” Richard pointed out with a touch of amusement.

Kevin sighed in relief as he turned the geiger counter on and it didn’t start beeping like crazy. “That’s a good sign.”

“Do you do this with every invention?” Richard asked as he watched Kevin check the new invention over.

“Pretty much,” Kevin replied as he turned the counter off then put it back on the shelf so it didn’t get buried.

“Now that you’re reasonably sure it won’t kill us, what does it do?”

“Assuming it works? We should be able to pour the right ingredients in the top and print superconductive flexible wires in a 3D environment.” Kevin shrugged. “That and circuit boards and business cards.”

Richard stared at the machine that Kevin was claiming could make superconductive wire. “You realize your power is bullshit, right?”

“When it works,” Kevin agreed as he grabbed the USB cable connected to his laptop then walked over and plugged it into his latest invention.

“Pretty sure Armsmaster would gleefully murder you for it if he knew you had this,” Richard stated, only half joking.

“I should probably give him a copy,” Kevin agreed as he walked back over to his laptop.

“Seriously?” Richard asked in surprise.

“I don’t see a reason not to,” Kevin replied as he pulled up the diagnostic program he’d designed and ran it.

Richard grinned slightly as he shook his head. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with Leet?”

“Nothing, I’m just picturing the look on Armsmaster’s face when he realizes I made something this groundbreaking,” Kevin replied smugly.

“I doubt they’d use it if they knew it was yours,” Richard pointed out.

Kevin frowned slightly as he realized he had a good point. “So much for that idea.”

Richard grinned as he realized he knew who to talk to, assuming they existed in this version of the Bay. “Maybe not, I know the guys in the testing department or at least I know the guys in my version of the city. It shouldn’t be hard to call them up and get them to test a potentially dangerous piece of tinkertech.”

“How does that help us?” Kevin asked, curious where their version of Kid Win was going with his idea.

“It helps because they’ll call in Armsmaster after they run a couple basic tests. Gothic mentioned her prank on Miss Militia, it wouldn’t be that hard to pretend to be Gothic.”

“You’re going to dress up like a girl?” Kevin asked absently as he checked the results of the diagnostic. 

Richard snorted. “No, I don’t have to, she looks like Amy when she has Amy’s powers, why would I look like Amy when I accidentally copied Leet’s powers?”

“What happens if they ask you to unmask?” Kevin asked, curious about Richard’s rather crazy plan.

Richard shrugged, he wasn’t all that worried about Armsmaster putting the pieces together and jumping to the conclusion that he’d copied his alternate rather than Leet. “I’ll either claim that I don’t want to unmask anyone because of the unwritten rules or I’ll unmask, just depends on how things are going. Even with Gothic’s tweaks, I look enough like my alternate that Armsmaster might put the pieces together but at that point they’ll just think I copied Kid Win, so not the end of the world. Either way, I doubt they’ll screw with us too much if we license the machine to Dragon.”

“That would be pretty cool,” Kevin admitted, having a lot of respect for Dragon and her work against the Endbringers. “Either way, we should probably call Gothic and give her a heads up, I’m reasonably sure she won’t care but better safe than sorry.”

Richard glanced at the clock on the wall. “We should probably run some tests first in case she’s sleeping in.”

“Good point,” Kevin admitted as he walked over to grab the bag of metal scrap and the seemingly random collection of chemicals his device needed to create the superconductive wire.

“How cold do we have to keep the wire?” Richard asked curious what type of cooling system they’d have to design to use the wire.

“You could stick it in a fridge and it would work, well freezer at any rate, 37 degrees fahrenheit might be a bit cold for a fridge.”

Richard blinked as what Leet had just said sank in. “No liquid nitrogen?”

“You could, but it wouldn’t improve the performance.” Kevin poured the scraps into the scrap hopper then the various chemicals into the other hoppers.

Richard frowned as he didn’t hear any grinding or anything as the machine ate the metal. “No grinding?”

“Nope, sorry.” Kevin studied the device. “I guess I could put in a speaker to make the grinding noises, maybe some weird sound effects...” he trailed off with a grin as he mentally ran through the large collection of video games he’d ran into to see if anything fit.

“I probably shouldn’t have said that,” Richard muttered as he noticed the look on Kevin’s face.

0o0o0

The usher glared at Gothic as she headed toward the exit to the auditorium. “No cell phones!”

“Sorry, I’m a doctor, I have to take this,” Gothic replied absently as she left the room so that she could hear Danny. She wasn’t sure exactly what the usher’s problem was, her phone had been set to vibrate and she was leaving so she wouldn’t bother any of the various people in the audience. “What’s up?”

“This isn’t a bad time is it?” Danny asked, hoping he hadn’t caught her at the hospital or anything.

Gothic leaned against the wall next to the door. “Nope, what’s up?”

Danny dropped his voice to a whisper as he watched the old lady that owned the bookstore next door flirt with Charlie, “I know Amy doesn’t take requests, but I was sort of hoping you could swing by the diner and heal a broken arm.”

“Sure, what happened?” Gothic asked as she headed for the exit to the dungeon.

“A couple Empire 88 thugs got a bit rough with the old lady that owns the bookstore next door. She’s looking at selling the place though I think half of that might be because Charlie is leaving.”

“I’ll be there in five,” Gothic promised, picking up the pace.

“Thanks, see you when you get here,” Danny ended the call as Charlie and Fiona walked over. “Gothic should be here in a couple minutes.”

“Thanks,” Fiona replied, a touch uncomfortable about being such a bother but at the same time, she wasn’t going to turn down free healing, not at her age. “If I sell, what are you planning on doing with the bookstore?” She honestly wasn’t all that concerned with the rest of the building, it was just office space and apartments, but the bookstore was special and she wanted to make sure he’d take care of it.

“Hire someone to run it that loves books,” Danny admitted, knowing that he’d never have time to properly take care of it.

“They’ll take good care of it,” Charlie assured her, knowing that staying would bring nothing but trouble for his Jewish friend if the Empire took over the area.

“In that case, I’ll sell…” Fiona trailed off, not sure where to go from there but knowing that she couldn’t stay in Brockton Bay now that the Empire was moving on the docks. If she’d been twenty years younger she might have stayed to make a stand but the assholes had made it very clear, pay the protection money or they’d toss a molotov cocktail through the window into her store. She wasn’t sure Danny’s friends could stop that from happening if they owned it but she knew she couldn’t, nor could she afford to pay the amount they’d demanded for ‘protection’, at least back in the day Marquis had offered legitimate protection for a reasonable price.

“Do you want cash, gold bullion, or a combination?” Danny asked, happy that Taylor had melted some of the Diablo coins down and turned them into gold bars as they were a bit less suspicious than having to explain a bunch of strangely marked coins.

Fiona grinned. “I’m fine with gold, the value hasn’t went down significantly in years and the appreciation is better than my bank’s interest rate.”

“How much of the second floor is rented?” Danny asked, curious how many tenants they’d have to deal with.

“Most of it, though the college girls will be out by the end of the month. I have a photographer in one of the apartments that also rents one of the offices. One of the offices is set up as a physical therapy center and the other a call center though I don’t expect them to stick around.”

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t seen anyone in a week and there were some cops asking about them a couple of days ago,” she admitted. “On the upside, the rent was due on the 10th so if they don’t pay by the end of the month, you’ll probably get a decent number of computers out of the deal.”

“I’m sure things will work out.” He wasn’t all that worried about the offices, they’d either make money or they’d put them to use for the hoverboard business. “Tell me about the bookstore.”

Charlie smiled as Fiona started talking about the bookstore, he was just glad that she was coming with him, he’d gotten used to her company over the years and would have missed her.

0o0o0

Kevin wasn’t sure if he was supposed to scowl or laugh his ass off as he read Void Cowboy’s latest post about Gothic being an alien, shape changing, Jedi. He snickered as he pushed the reply button and typed, ‘She’s not a Jedi, she’s a Sith. Did you miss the part about her using force lightning? But seriously, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel Void, alien shape changer? What’s next? Magic using Doom Marine?’

He glanced over his message then hit send. “Idiot.” He switched tabs to the 3D printing program he’d cobbled together to run his new toy then started designing the template he’d use for replacing his power armor’s current electrical system. He frowned as he noticed a alert pop up on his laptop that someone had replied to his post. He alt-tabbed back to the PHO page then refreshed it and noticed another post by Void Cowboy. ‘She can’t be a Sith because she’s a hero and the Doom Marine didn’t use magic. Everyone knows there is no such thing as magic, moron!’

Kevin chuckled as he typed in his response, ‘Say that to Myrddin’s face. Besides, the invincibility sphere is demonic magic which means he’s a magic using Doom Marine, get it straight.’ He smirked as he sent his response then went back to working on the design for the electrical system. He ignored the next alert as he finished designing the system he needed for his new suit.

He refreshed the thread and smirked when saw Void Cowboy’s half deleted post and Tin Mother’s warning, ‘Please do not insult respected Protectorate heroes or random users that may or may not be villains, enjoy your temporary ban. P.S. Armsmaster has better things to do than to scrape you off the sidewalk and Panacea has better things to do than put you back together.’

Kevin chuckled as he minimized the page. “Mission accomplished, thread ban for Void in three posts. Not my best work, but respectable.” He checked over the design he’d just finished making then ran the sequence. He glared at the device, still half expecting the thing to explode or do something else weird even though they’d run several tests before Richard had taken the reverse engineered copy to the PRT to get it tested. “Okay, assuming this works, I should be able to add a feather for speed to the power armor.”

He pulled up the schematic for the armored boots on his engineering tab. “I should be able to swap the internal foot braces to the elemental leather which might give it some electrical protection.” He made a copy of the schematic then selected the modification button and swapped the plastic for the leather in the new design. “That should work in theory and I’m still going to need a refrigeration system.” 

He spend a couple minutes mentally going over the various schematics he had for cooling systems as well as the systems he remembered building for his various inventions. It didn’t take him long to realize that all of the cooling systems he had easy access to required exotic chemicals that would be a pain in the ass to deal with, dangerous super cold liquids that required external tanks or more space than he was willing to sacrifice unless he wanted to increase the required maintenance to an unreasonable degree. “Fuck it, I’m not Armsmaster, it just has to work not be super efficient.”

He bounced out of his seat and walked over to where he kept his enchanting supplies and grabbed the cracked frost crystal he’d failed to enchant correctly when he was first starting. “If I crush the fragments, I should be able to enchant the casing for the wire to stay frosty. No maintenance, no fuss.” He grabbed a plastic bag and a hammer than went to work turning the broken crystal into fragments.

0o0o0

Amy had to work to hide her smirk as she watched Dean out of the corner of her eye, it was pretty obvious from his expression that he wanted to ask a couple of questions but wasn’t sure how. She glanced around the cafeteria, no one seemed to be paying them too much attention but at the same time, there were probably a couple of people trying to listen in on their conversation for various reasons. “Spit it out, Dean.”

Dean blinked. “What?”

Amy snorted. “You obviously have something on your mind, what is it?”

Dennis snickered. “She’s got you there. You’ve been weird all day.”

“Yep, totally of the weird,” Vicky agreed with a grin.

Dean sighed as he glanced between Vicky and Amy. “I was reading the boards in keyboarding and saw a post about Gothic being an alien, shape changing, Jedi and realized I don’t know all that much about her or Neverland.”

“I heard she’s a Sith,” Dennis piped up.

“Do you take anything seriously?” Taylor asked, trying not to laugh.

“Sure, just not the boards.”

“Fair enough,” Taylor admitted.

Dean gave Dennis a dirty look then focused on Amy. “You must know something about them, their powers or how long they’ve been capes.”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “I’ve ran into Gothic a couple of times, she’s an excellent healer. As for Neverland, if she hasn’t made a press statement about her powers, I doubt she’d take kindly to me spreading tales.”

“So nothing?” Taylor asked, trying not to laugh at the frustration on Dean’s face.

“Nope, can’t help you.” Amy went back to eating her lunch as Chris sat down with his tray. “Hey.”

“What’s up?” Chris asked as he worked on opening his chocolate milk.

“Dean is trying to get information about Gothic and Neverland, Amy isn’t being helpful,” Vicky replied with amusement.

“Outside of healing, is The Amy ever helpful when she doesn’t feel like it?” Dennis asked.

“The Amy would like to object,” Amy replied in amusement.

“Overruled,” Vicky stated as she stole one of Amy’s fries.

Dean sighed. “Right, fine, we’ll just go with wild speculation.”

Dennis shook his head. “Nah, leave that to the professionals on PHO.” 

“In that case, does anyone know how to deal with the damned telefragers in Cape Barbie?” Vicky asked, hoping to change the subject before Taylor got annoyed at her boyfriend’s fishing attempts for the Director.

“Sure, you grab a teleportation jammer,” Dennis pointed out absently.

“You play?” Dean asked in amusement as everyone at the table turned to look at Dennis.

“I have a cousin, I get her the toys, I get the codes. Don’t judge, it’s an amusing game and but man the mouths on those girls.”

“On what, the preteens?” Amy asked amused.

Taylor listened to the friendly banter as she worked on eating her lunch, it still felt a bit weird having friends but she was enjoying it.

0o0o0

Gothic had barely finished tweaking Fiona’s general health after fixing her arm when she noticed an auburn haired girl walking toward them with two dogs following her, one of which had lost her eye at some point. “Poor girl, what happened?”

Rachel scowled at Gothic. “What do you mean?”

“Sorry, I just noticed your dog’s eye.”

“Her previous owner was a bastard,” Rachel snapped.

Charlie resisted the urge to smile as he looked at Rachel, knowing that smiling made her uncomfortable for some reason. “You’re in for a treat, we have a bunch of leftovers.”

Rachel glanced at the broken window then looked back at Charlie. “What happened?”

“A couple of guys thought it was a good idea to try to rough me up, sadly for them, there was a dockworker around.”

“Is it alright if I heal her?” Gothic asked, holding her hand out for the dogs to sniff.

Rachel blinked as she realized who she was talking to. “Panacea?” she asked cautiously.

“Nope, but I have the same power,” she offered as ons of the dogs licked her hand.

“They’re good people, I’ll get the leftovers.” Charlie turned and headed inside.

Rachel nodded. “Go ahead,” she half offered, half ordered.

Gothic carefully reached down and scratched the terrier behind her ears after she licked her hand. It was a simple matter to ‘slowly’ regrow her eye while adjusting the little dog’s reflexes and muscle density to insure that if anyone tried to hurt her again they would be in for a rude awakening. As the other dog pushed itself forward she stroked it and gave it the same benefit. “There we go, you may need to eat like a pig for a meal or two, but all the ouchies are gone,” she promised the adorable little ‘puppies’.

Rachel blinked and tilted her head, much like a dog as she watched her dogs enjoy the attention. Not one for excessive speeches, she leaned in and hugged Gothic awkwardly, unused to hugging people but extremely thankful that her dogs had been healed.

Gothic was surprised, but pleased at the girl’s response as knowledge of her new friend flooded her and she felt the alterations made to her by her power and understood her behavior a bit better. “Want me to fix your shoulder?” she offered. “It’s just a bit out of alignment, probably from playing a bit too rough.”

Rachel nodded, still leaning on the healer, seeming content to rest against her for the moment and take in her scent as Gothic started making little tweaks to her system. It was easy to tell Rachel had, had a hard life so Gothic just couldn’t resist trying to ease her path through it a little.