Tinker of Fiction Part 2 (Patreon)

"How did you sleep?" Taylor asked when Mist walked into the living room with his laptop.

"I'm awake and mostly conscious," Mist replied with amusement as he walked over and sat down on the couch, wishing he actually liked coffee as he could use some since he'd been up late trying to get some idea of the rules and regulations that applied to parahumans.

"Did you get a response from Dragon about the solar panels?" Taylor asked excitedly as he set the laptop on the coffee table.

"I haven't checked," Mist admitted as he opened the laptop and turned it on.

"Why not?" Taylor asked, not sure why he wasn't more excited about talking to the most famous tinker alive.

Mist yawned, still trying to wake up. "I just woke up, give me a couple of minutes to get all of the gears working."

"Shouldn't you be more excited?" Taylor asked as she sat down on the couch next to her cousin.

"Probably, I'm just trying to be realistic," Mist replied as he leaned back and closed his eyes as he waited for his laptop to finish booting up. "Dragon probably gets thousands of emails a year asking about her tech or trying to get her to invest in stuff, I doubt I'll get a response."

"Worst case, you just have to make a name for yourself as a hero," Taylor suggested.

Mist turned to look at Taylor. "That sounds like a good way to get into a lot of trouble."

"The world needs more heroes," Taylor argued.

"Tell you what, if I can find the parts, I'll build a force field belt and you can run around in spandex and be a hero," Mist offered.

Taylor shook her head. "No one wants to see me in spandex."

"Are you telling me the net lied?" Mist asked as he opened his email and checked to see if Dragon had sent him a response.

"What?" Taylor asked.

"Lots of people like tall girls in spandex," Mist replied as he opened the response from Dragontech. "Huh, she's already built a prototype…" he trailed off when he saw the test data that she'd sent back. 'That's a bit higher than I was expecting but I probably should have, she's got bleeding edge tech and production facilities.'

"Why is she saying the solar panel isn't tinkertech?" Taylor asked, trying to avoid a conversation about her appearance.

"No clue," Mist lied as he continued reading. "Huh, she's willing to help expedite the patent process and help set up a company in the bay to produce the panels in exchange for permission to use the solar panels for her personal use without any royalties and 10% of the profit of the company."

"Did she send a copy of the actual agreement?" Danny asked from the kitchen.

Mist glanced at the name of the attached file. "Looks like it."

Danny walked to the edge of the kitchen so he didn't have to raise his voice. "Do you want me to take a look while you eat your pancakes?"

"That would be fantastic," Mist replied as he stood up and headed for the kitchen to grab something to eat. 'You've got more experience with contracts, the economy and the bay than I do.'

"Are any of the contracts valid considering he's a kid?" Taylor asked as she skimmed through the rest of the email.

"That's a bit of a gray area considering I admitted to being a cape," Mist replied as he grabbed a fork out of the open silverware drawer, stabbed a pancake and dropped it on a plate. "You're not really supposed to ask capes anything that would help you identify their civilian identities," he explained as he put butter and syrup on his pancake, wishing he had something a bit more substantial to eat as he'd probably be hungry in an hour.

Danny sat down on the couch, opened the file and started looking over the remarkably straightforward contract.

'It's probably just as well that I'm not actually twelve,' he mused as he worked on eating his pancake. 'Okay, let's assume the company works out and that we can rush everything into production, it's still going to take a couple of months to get everything set up which means I'm going to need enough to cover the basics. Empire? Too many capes and they're not going to be trying to kill me to start with, why screw that up until Lung and Bakuda are dead or gone?'

'I'm not poking the dragon or messing with Bakuda which leaves the Merchants or the Undersiders,' Mist mused. 'Lisa would probably float me a couple of thousand for information on Coil's power and identity but that would put me on her radar and I'm not sure which version I'm dealing with. Screw it, if I can make a taser or stun blaster, I should be able to drop a couple of idiots.'

Taylor stopped and stared as she walked into the kitchen and saw Mist eat the last bite of his pancake. "You're like a vacuum."

Mist turned to look at Taylor as he finished chewing. "It's just food, it all ends up in the same place. Do you want me to stick it in the sink or the dishwasher?"

"We normally just scrub the syrup off and stick it in the dishwasher. Are you going to want another one?" Taylor asked.

"I'm fine," Mist replied as he stood up and walked over to the sink, knowing he'd be hungry in a couple of hours but fairly sure another pancake wouldn't actually help. "Can I talk you into going with me to a couple of thrift stores?" he asked as he quickly scrubbed the plate with a brush. "I want to see if I can find enough electronics to make a couple of toys."

"What type of toys?" Taylor asked as Mist put the plate in the dishwasher next to the rest of the plates.

"Force fields belts, stun blasters, Acme rocket powered roller skates," Mist replied with a smile as Taylor grabbed a pancake.

Taylor stared at Mist, trying to figure out if he was joking about the roller skates. "I wouldn't mind a force field belt or a stun gun but I think I'll pass on the rockets."

"Probably for the best, I'd worry about your sanity," Mist replied as he walked into the living room. "What do you think?"

Danny turned and looked at Mist. "If it wasn't from Dragon, I'd say it looks too good to be true."

"In other words, we should take the deal?" Mist asked, already planning on taking the deal since Danny hadn't noticed anything wrong with the contact and having a connection to Dragon was worth a hell of a lot more than ten percent as far as he was concerned.

"I don't think you'd make a profit without her help for at least three years and getting enough capital to get started would be difficult," Danny admitted as he stood up and stepped away from the couch.

"Cool, I'll let her know," Mist replied as he walked over and sat down in front of his laptop. "Speaking of projects, can I talk someone into coming with me to the thrift store? I need some supplies."

"I'll help," Taylor offered from the kitchen, happy to help since it kept her from worrying about her own problems.

"I'll drop you off, I need to talk to some people at work," Danny admitted.

"Thanks," Mist replied as he started working on his response to Dragon.

0o0o0

Taylor frowned as she looked at her cousin's collections of bags filled with broken electronics. "How much of this stuff do you think you'll actually be able to use?"

"No clue but the clerk let me have it for five dollars," Mist replied cheerfully, looking forward to seeing what he could make.

"That's because it's junk," Taylor grumbled as she adjusted her grip on one of the bags that she was carrying and increased her pace so they could avoid the group of people following them that she could see with her bugs.

"One man's junk is another man's treasure," Mist assured her, fairly sure he'd be able to hack the game system that someone had bricked. "I can probably hack the gaming rig and sell it to someone that loves cheating for a hundred dollars. I'm going to turn the metal flashlight into a lightsaber and I can probably fix the busted 3D printer that someone fucked up because they're terminally stupid."

Taylor rolled her eyes, fairly sure he didn't have the material to turn the flashlight into an actual lightsaber. "Did you miss the part about the printer being old? I doubt you can get the plastic strips."

"Did you miss the part about me being a mad scientist?" Mist asked in a whisper, rather happy with their haul since it gave him something to work on. "I should be able to make a machine to turn scrap plastic into plastic wire which means we can basically print as much plastic as we want."

"Assuming the bag doesn't rip," Taylor grumbled as she readjusted how the bags were digging into her hand.

Mist frowned when he glanced back and noticed the group of people following them speed up. "This is going to be a problem isn't it?"

Taylor frowned when the group got close enough to a group of bugs and heard the thugs talking about robbing them and having some fun with her. "We'll be fine," she assured her cousin as she sent a group of wasps from the nest in the abandoned lot the assholes were jogging past, causing the thugs to start screaming as they were swarmed.

Mist glanced back, noticing the people swinging their hands around like mad. "I'm suddenly glad that we weren't jogging, they must have startled them."

"Probably," Taylor agreed, continuing the assault until the thugs fled the opposite direction. "What do you think you'll be able to make with the chemistry set?"

'Knock off super soldier formulas, lab grown gems, and acid for dealing with locks,' Mist mused as they increased their pace. "Batteries, compounds, and or acids I can use to make circuits, take your pick."

"Shouldn't you have a proper lab for that?" Taylor asked in a whisper.

"I have a mask and I'll be using the face mask," Mist assured her as they continued walking, trying to pretend that they hadn't come annoyingly close to getting robbed. 'I need a phaser or a stun blaster and a force field.'

"At least we're halfway home," Taylor offered.

"We'd be back if the bus driver wasn't an asshole, the bus was practically empty and we're not carrying too much. Even if we were carrying too much, he didn't have to smirk when he said it," Mist complained, wondering if the idiot had a death wish. "Eventually he's going to run into a villain that is going to cripple him."

Taylor shook head. "I doubt the local villains ride the bus."

"Probably not," Mist agreed as he adjusted his grip on his bags, making a note to file a complaint about the driver that had made them walk. 'At least I have his name.'

Taylor glanced at the street sign. "You'll be fine, we only have eight more blocks."

"At least it's not raining," Mist replied cheerfully as he picked up the pace, doing his best to stay positive since the electronics would let him finish a couple of projects.

"Don't taunt Murphy," Taylor warned him.

Mist glanced up at the blue sky. "I think we're fine."

0o0o0

"Is there a reason you're wearing goggles?" Taylor asked when she walked back into the shed with a plate of sandwiches.

"They're x-ray goggles," Mist replied as he reached up and took the goggles off without turning and looking at her.

Taylor raised her eyebrows. "Can you see through clothes?"

"Yes but you'd have to be within five feet," Mist replied as he handed her the almost steampunk like goggles. "I tested it on my arm."

"Why did you build x-ray glasses?" Taylor asked as she set the plate on a clear spot on the bench.

"Because they're useful for looking at the inside of things without opening them up," Mist explained.

"Uh huh," Taylor replied dryly. "Why are they limited to five feet?"

"Substandard parts, I traded distance for resolution," Mist replied as he went back to working on fixing the foot massager that he'd picked up.

"Does it use x-rays?" Taylor asked warily.

"No, they're safe," Mist replied as he used a pair of tweezers to grab the piece of broken plastic that was lodged in a gear.

Taylor held the goggles up in front of her glasses and looked at the wall. "How do they work?"

"They're basically reconstructing an image…" Mist trailed off when he realized she was just asking how to turn them on. "Push the button on the right side."

Taylor made sure she was looking away from Mist and pushed the button. She smiled as everything turned sort of translucent and she could see through it. "Is there a reason we can focus on things?"

"The exotic field is influenced by the uncertainty principle," Mist stopped when he realized there wasn't a point in explaining. "Just go with tinkertech bullshit."

"That makes as much sense as anything else," Taylor admitted as she used the goggles to look through various objects. "Do you think you could make something that would let me scan people at range?"

"Eventually. I just need better parts and tools. Planning on checking out some cute girls?" Mist asked as he worked on screwing the foot massager's case back together so that he could test it.

"I was thinking it would be a good way to check people for weapons," Taylor replied, unwilling to admit that her first thought hadn't been particularly kid friendly. "You should probably avoid mentioning the other use to Dad."

"I wasn't planning on it," Mist replied with amusement as he turned the foot massager on, causing the ball on the end to vibrate with a barely audible hum rather than the horrible sound of grinding death it had made before he'd fixed it. "That was easy."

"You have the weirdest toys," Taylor muttered, fairly sure the vibrator wasn't actually a foot massager.

"My feet are tired," Mist replied as he turned the machine off and set it on the table.

"How long do the batteries last?" Taylor asked as she pushed the button, turning the goggles off.

"A couple of hours but you can swap the nine volt so that's not really a big deal, especially since they're rechargeable," Mist replied as he pulled his gloves off, dropped them on the table and grabbed one of the sandwiches.

"It beats buying new ones all the time," Taylor agreed as she grabbed a sandwich, wanting to give him a chance to eat before she went back to asking questions.

0o0o0

"Don't you have homework or something?" Mist asked without looking up from the bright orange stun blaster that he was putting the finishing touches on.

"No point, it's a group project and none of the rest of the group are going to bother," Taylor admitted.

"Have you considered beating the shit out of the teacher with a baseball bat until your morale improves?" Mist asked he lined up the top half of the handle and carefully slid it into place.

Taylor stared at her cousin. "I don't want to go to jail."

"Make sure there aren't any witnesses?" Mist suggested as he grabbed one of the screws that fit the hole and dropped it in place.

Taylor sighed. "You're supposed to be a hero."

"If you're seriously considering tanking your grade to spite someone, something is seriously wrong, what's up?" Mist asked as he worked on screwing the handle together.

Taylor considered lying or waving things off for half a minute before realizing that keeping silent wasn't going to help even if he couldn't actually do anything to help because he was twelve. "A couple of popular girls decided to make my life hell."

"Let me guess, the teachers are worse than useless?" Mist asked as he dropped the last screw in place and started tightening it.

"They ignore it despite the fact that I know one of them watched me get shoved," Taylor complained. "The administrators don't care and keep making excuses or saying I don't have any evidence."

Mist finished screwing the screw in. "Do you want me to deal with it?"

"How?" Taylor asked.

"That depends, what are we dealing with? Children with rich parents, mafia connections, daughters of lawyers or police?" he asked, easily noticing the flinch when he said lawyers. 'I would have noticed that even if I hadn't been looking for it.'

Taylor sighed as she realized he'd probably mention things to her father which would get complicated. "Sophia is a track star and Emma used to be my best friend. Emma's father is also a lawyer and a family friend or at least they used to be, we haven't seen them since Emma turned on me. Dad doesn't know."

Mist rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You need to tell Danny."

Taylor scowled as she thought about how well her father would take things. "There's nothing he can do and they've been friends since college."

"All the more reason to tell him, Danny probably still talks to him and occasionally asks him for legal advice. He could get screwed over if you don't tell him. How long has this been going on?"

"A year and a half," Taylor admitted reluctantly after a minute of him staring at her.

"You have the patience of a saint," Mist complained as he walked out of the shed.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Taylor asked.

"Not particularly, most of them were fanatics or brain damaged," Mist replied as he raised his stun gun, pointed it at a large rock and pulled the trigger, causing a crackling distortion in the air the size of an ice cube to shoot out of the end of the gun and hit the rock.

"Are you saying I'm brain damaged?" Taylor asked, getting annoyed.

"No, I'm saying that sometimes the proper response is to punch the smug shit in his face so that he learns that actions have consequences when he's young enough to get the message," Mist replied as he adjusted his aim and shot a dandelion causing the seeds to go everywhere and spark. "At least we know it has some physical presence."

"Tinkers are bullshit," Taylor complained, trying to change the subject.

"Generally," Myst agreed as he shot another flower. "At least it's practically silent."

"How long do you think it will take you to make a force field belt?" Taylor asked.

"I don't know, how long will it take you to tell Danny about Emma's dad?" Mist asked as he walked back into the shed to start working on the belt.

"You're not going to let this go are you?" Taylor asked, annoyed that she'd said anything.

"Danny needs to know, maybe he can convince Emma's father to get her counseling or maybe he doesn't care, either way, not talking about the problem isn't going to make it go away," Mist pointed out, wishing that he'd just kept his mouth shut and dealt with the problem himself. "If he doesn't know the problem hasn't improved, he can't help."

"What makes you think he's going to help? He didn't before!" Taylor snapped.

"You lost your mother, he lost his wife and everything fell apart. I don't know what the hell happened after that, I just know that he gave me a place to stay and that he's trying, maybe he'll go into a rage at his ex-friend or maybe he'll just come unglued but ignorance isn't bliss."

Taylor opened her mouth then sighed when she realized that he'd just recently lost his parents and that she still had her father even if he was a bit broken at least he was there. "Fine, I'll tell him."

"I'll get started on that forcefield belt… or maybe a watch," Mist replied as he grabbed the old microwave that Taylor had grabbed from the basement and got to work taking it apart. 'So much for being an adult, next time I’ll just handle it without telling her.'