Tinker of Fiction Part 4 (Patreon)

"What happened?" Emily Piggot asked as Armsmaster walked into her office, knowing that he wouldn't request a meeting less than two hours after they'd already had their weekly meeting unless it was important. "Your message was vague."

"That's because I don't want anything on the official record," Armsmaster admitted after making sure the door was shut.

"Explain," Emily ordered.

"A new tinker or possibly a high level thinker reached out to Glory Girl to do some testing on their force field device, she reached out to Kid Win to run some tests after she verified that it worked. I authorized it because it's always good to know the capabilities of new capes."

"And you want to recruit them?" Emily asked, not seeing a problem so far.

"Yes but that's not why I wanted things off the record. I ran the shield belt through an exhaustive collection of tests, including having Miss Militia shoot it with a fifty caliber round since she was in the area. The results were impressive enough that I ran the device through a series of scans, the scans were disturbing in their implications."

"How so?" Emily asked, forcing herself not to ask if someone was wearing the belt while they were shooting at it, mostly because she didn't want to have to deal with the resulting paperwork the question might generate.

"Everything made a certain amount of sense, so I wrote everything up and had Kid Win and Clockblocker try to duplicate it."

"Was Kid Win able to duplicate it?" Emily asked, wondering how hard it would be to maintain and how much it cost to outfit all of the wards with shields and wondering why he’d asked a non-tinker to do the same.

"His copy suffered an eight percent loss of efficiency but he was able to duplicate it. The problem comes from the fact that Clockblocker was also able to duplicate the shield belt," Armsmaster admitted.

Emily stared at Armsmaster for a couple of seconds. "Last I checked, Clockblocker wasn't a tinker. Do we need to update his file?"

"As far as I'm aware, that's still the case which brings up a problem. I'm not sure why the belt works but as far as I can tell the shield isn't tinkertech, you can build it with less than a hundred dollars of components you can find in a junk store and it will stop a fifty caliber round cold for the small price of about eight percent of the battery's charge."

"How long will the belts last?" Emily asked, trying to get an idea of how hard they'd be to maintain.

"I'd have to run more tests to make sure but the main point of failure seems to be the battery, they weren't designed to handle spikes which means we'll probably have to replace the batteries after heavy use unless we switch the type of battery," Armsmaster replied.

"Best guess?" Emily asked.

"Anywhere from a couple of weeks of heavy use to six months. We should be able to mitigate the problem by adding redundant batteries and testing them on a regular basis," Armsmaster suggested, knowing the added security was worth the price of the extra components.

"How hard would it be for Squealer or Leet to copy the design?" Emily asked, knowing she wasn't going to like the answer.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Squealer could duplicate it given enough time or modify it to make her abominations worse. I'd be shocked if Leet couldn't duplicate it given a couple of minutes of studying it. I didn't check because I didn't want any of the techs seeing the design but there's a decent chance they could reproduce it."

"Which opens up an entire can of worms as every military on the planet would kill for access to cheap and effective force fields," Emily complained.

"Especially if you can put them on vehicles," Armsmaster agreed.

"Would it stop a blast from Purity or let people fight Behemoth?" Emily asked.

Armsmaster considered the question for a couple of seconds then shook his head. "There's a good chance the battery would explode or fail, you'd need some type of capacitor and the ability to generate a larger amount of power than a portable battery can provide."

Emily wasn't sure if she should be annoyed that they wouldn't help with the endbringers or relieved because they wouldn't have to figure out how to hand the belts out to the villains when they might walk off with them. "Short of hitting them with a missile or a high level blaster, is there a way to shut the shields down?"

"Not that I've found," Armsmaster admitted.

"Did Glory Girl have a way to get in touch with the tinker?" Emily asked.

"Yes," Armsmaster replied.

"The amount of chaos this could cause with everyone and their brother walking around immune to gunfire is too detrimental to society at large. Try to convince them to black box their tech and see what else they've come up with," Emily ordered.

"Solar panels and a stun pistol," Armsmaster replied.

"Solar panels?" Emily asked, not seeing the connection and wondering what their tinker speciality might be to encompass all three pieces of tech.

"From what Dragon said they're reasonably cheap to produce and the prototype was about forty percent better than anything on the market even claims to be. The stun pistol basically puts people into a restful slumber," Armsmaster said, knowing she'd ask.

"Any negative effects?" Emily asked.

"No, we had Panacea check the rats then we moved up to volunteers. The pistol isn't particularly effective if you're wearing metal armor and any type of force field stops it but it dropped Aegis in one shot. He basically just slumped and went to sleep without falling over."

"Did you get her assessment in writing?" Emily asked.

"Yes," Armsmaster replied. "She also cleared five people off the injured list while she was here."

"Good," Emily replied as she glanced at the clock. "I have a meeting in a minute, was there anything else you needed?"

"No. I'll make sure the prototypes vanish and I'll check on the prices for the stun pistols," Armsmaster said as he turned and left, looking forward to seeing what else the new tinker came up with.

Emily pulled up the monthly expense account, trying to get an idea where she could skim enough money for a couple belts and a few dozen stun pistols.

0o0o0

"How long have you been out here?" Taylor asked as she walked over to take a look at what Mist was working on.

"No clue. I woke up about five thirty and crawled out of bed after twenty minutes, when I realized I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep," Mist replied as he adjusted one of the amplification antennas on the helmet.

"In other words, about two and a half hours," Taylor said thoughtfully as she examined the weird helmet her cousin was working on. "Is there a reason you're turning a bicycle helmet into a bad fashion statement?"

"I'm trying to create a device that will let me set people on fire with my mind," Mist replied as he adjusted one of the dials on the helmet.

"On fire?" Taylor asked, not sure if he was joking.

"The only good Nazis, is a dead Nazis or at least one that is medium rare," Mist replied, managing to keep a straight face for three seconds before he snickered. "Relax, I'm not planning on setting people on fire."

Taylor shook her head. "You shouldn’t joke about burning people to death."

"You're way too serious, you realize that, right?" Mist asked as he set the Thinking Cap on the bench and shook his fingers, trying to loosen them up.

"So, what does the ugly hat do?" Taylor asked.

"No clue," Mist admitted as he stretched his arms over his head, making a mental note to adjust the height of the bench, "I haven't had a chance to test it."

Taylor glanced at the partially assembled 3D printer then looked at Mist. "What is it supposed to do?"

"In theory? It's supposed to boost the user's intelligence and give them the ability to develop psionic powers, including pyrokinesis," Mist explained. "Unfortunately, there are a bunch of different Thinking Cap designs and I'm not willing to fry my brain on the off chance that it works."

"Which means you're going to need a test subject," Taylor mused.

"I have a couple of ideas where to get volunteers, but I might need a taller minion or stilts and a better voice changer," Mist admitted.

Taylor shook her head. "That sounds like a good way to get in a lot of trouble."

"I'm aware," Mist replied as he picked up the half assembled 3D printer and set it on the bench so he could work on it now that the epoxy was dry.

"How long would they have to wear the cap?" Taylor asked as Mist sorted through the collection of metal that Danny had brought back from the Union.

"No clue," Mist admitted, not actually sure which version he'd ended up with as he'd been half asleep when he'd started and distracted by his failed attempts to come up with a way to blackbox his tech that would actually work without costing him an arm and a leg. "It would depend on the version or if I screwed up. One version basically turned a chimp invisible and insane, he used to hang out outside of the scientist's office and toss invisible shit at people that annoyed him."

Taylor stared at Mist then sighed when she realized he was smirking. "You're making that up."

"Nah, I just find it funny," Mist replied with amusement as he started adding more pieces to the printer. "Joking aside, anywhere from a couple of seconds to a couple of weeks depending on the version of the cap I ended up with."

"Would it work on a lab rat?" Taylor asked thoughtfully.

"I'm not making the rats of Nimh," Mist argued, not interested in unleashing intelligent rats on the world. "Same thing with cats, dogs, owls or hamsters."

"Any reason for the odd list?" Taylor asked.

"Intelligent murder machines with parahuman-like abilities, dogs that can read your mind, owls with laser beam eyes and telekinetic miniature giant space hamsters," Mist replied as he continued building his machine.

Taylor stared at Mist. "Your mind is a scary place, isn't it?"

"Yep," Mist replied with a smile, not seeing a reason to explain.

"Do you need any help?" Taylor asked.

"I could use a couple more clamps," Mist admitted as he grabbed the bottle of epoxy and got to work securing the pieces he'd assembled.

"Sure," Taylor replied as she headed back to the house, happy to have something to distract her from everything that was wrong with her life.

0o0o0

"Mist Haven?" the secretary asked as she studied the kid with brown hair that was trying and failing to look like he was excited about going to a new school.

"Blame my parents," Mist replied as he held his hand out for his schedule, less than amused that he was going to have to deal with school since it was time that he could be spending tinkering, dealing with the various gangs or watching paint dry, all of which would probably be more entertaining than putting up with a bunch of idiots. 'Relax, there's always a chance the teachers aren't completely useless.'

Unfortunately, his optimism was proven to be misplaced because his first teacher of the day spent most of the entire period trying to explain a bunch of equations to people that were only half paying attention and kept complaining because he wasn't paying attention to the lecture, never mind that he wasn't paying attention because he'd already finished the basic math problems. Of course, for some reason this had frustrated the teacher which caused him to make a presentation of grading his homework while everyone was paying attention which got him a reputation for being a know-it-all, at least according to some of the less intelligent primates in the class.

'Fucking idiots,' Mist thought as he grabbed his bag and headed for the door when the bell rang and everyone else started moving, doing his best to ignore the idiots. 'Not worth it, you'll have plenty of time to figure out if they're actually assholes or just running their mouths for something to do because they are also bored beyond the limits of sanity.'

His next class started off fine before going sideways because the teacher was a romantic at heart or maybe she just had really bad taste.

"Have you read the story before?" Ms. Sanders asked Mist.

"It's been a while," Mist replied, not actually sure when the last time he'd read Romeo and Julliet was, though he was familiar with the general story, mostly because it was hard not to be given the sheer number of places that bits and pieces of it showed up.

"What did you think about it?" she asked.

"I'm not a fan," Mist admitted, doing his best to ignore the looks that some of the girls were giving him.

"Why not?" she asked.

Mist sighed as he realized the teacher wasn't going to drop it. "I'm not a fan of stupid main characters, I find it hard to relate to them or care about them."

"Why do you think they were stupid?" she asked.

"You'd have to have brain damage to kill yourself over a boy you'd just met, I mean that's not love, that's obession and or lead poisoning," Mist explained.

"He's got a point," one of the guys agreed.

"But she loved him," one of the girls complained.

"She was thirteen or fourteen depending on the version and he was seventeen. Behavior like that will get you put away these days," Mist argued. “She’d just met him and didn’t really know him so how could she love him? Love at first sight sounds romantic but if you experience it I would suggest checking yourself into the PRT for Master Stranger evaluation.”

"It's supposed to be a tragedy but it's also a tale about putting yourself out there," Ms. Sanders argued, not quite rolling her eyes but clearly wanting to.

Mist briefly considered questioning her sanity or asking about her dating history before deciding that it wasn't worth it, she wasn't going to take anything he said seriously, so there was no point in worrying about it. He managed to avoid screaming or banging his head on the desk for the rest of the period then headed off to his next class.

Fortunately or unfortunately, it was just keyboarding which was basically mindless. Thankfully, he remembered to intentionally slow down on the initial test, which meant he didn't look completely out of place with his keyboarding speed and he wasn't going to have to work to improve.

Lunch was surprisingly mundane, mostly because he found a group of people playing some type of cape trading card game and watched the game while he ate lunch.

"Who is your favorite cape?" one of the guys playing the game asked.

"In general or in the bay?" Mist asked.

"Both," the blonde girl playing the game said.

"Myrddin and Vista, it takes a certain amount of insanity to pull off naming yourself after Merlin and Vista is able to bend reality around her finger," Mist replied with amusement.

"No way, Armsmaster is the best," one of the guys argued.

"Tinkers for the win," the girl agreed with a smile as she played an Armsmaster card.

"Which villain would you never want to run into in a dark alley?" one of the boys playing the card game asked Mist as he played a Marquis card to counter Armsmaster.

"Eidolon," Mist replied absently as he pulled his peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of his lunch bag.

The boy rolled his eyes. "He's a hero, that doesn't count."

Mist gave the kid an amused look as he unwrapped his sandwich. "Everyone is a hero in their own story."

The blonde girl laughed, deciding to go with heroes she wouldn't want to run into if she was causing trouble. "If I was a villain, I wouldn't want to run into Armsmaster, he wouldn’t care that I was a ‘kid." She seemed really amused by the idea.

"Probably not," one of the boys agreed. “He’d probably assume you were a midget til well after the first taser shot nailed you.”

Mist worked on eating his sandwich as he listened to the children argue about heroes and villains as they played the game. It wasn’t all that informative, but it beat being in class.

0o0o0

“Yes!” Mist exclaimed as a golden glow resolved itself into a grilled cheese sandwich inside what looked like a large microwave with an enormously complex keypad.

“A truly instant microwave?” Taylor guessed. “That’d probably bring in more money than even the forcefield belts if you could get it to cook the food evenly without leaving cold spots in it.”

Mist smirked and plugged a microphone into a corner of the keypad. “Earl Grey, Hot,” he requested in his best Picard voice and watched as a cup of tea was replicated.

Taylor just stared, wide eyed for a moment. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“No, though I have to adjust the files a bit, the tea is a tad bitter,” he said smugly.

“Have you ever had Earl Grey before?”

“No, why?”

“Because it is supposed to be a bit bitter,” she replied with a smirk. “How did you get the patterns for everything?”

“Leet had them available for public download as a curiosity, since his replicator shit the bed a year or so ago.”

“Literally or figuratively?” she asked cautiously. “Because with Leet… I’d believe it could go either way.”

“No idea and now I am afraid to check,” he admitted with a frown. “Rest assured, this unit does not have an anus.”

“Strangely enough that does reassure me,” Taylor said. “What are you going to use it for?”

He opened his mouth to reply and she smacked herself in the forehead. “Everything, literally everything,” she said.

“Bingo!”