Subduction 2.3 - Colin

Armsmaster spun slowly in the town square. The soil extended twenty feet before terminating at the boundary, a force field, past that the geometry of the space became noticeably non-euclidean, infinite and bounded, only within the force field did the space approximate euclidean geometry closely enough to allow human life. Holographic projectors gave the appearance of a sky. The simulated sun directly supplied 60% of the heat, the remaining 40% was reflected from the force field in the sky with a trivial amount from waste heat. Heat sinks under the ground allowed believable day and night cycles. The town itself contained further nuances: laboriously recreated TV and movie sets, basic AI and multiple body types for the townsfolk. A frivolous use of abilities.

The bastards had something he wanted and he would have to jump through their hoops, postponing the appointment at the last minute. At least they were providing dinner. He pushed his way into the diner. Quaint. Nostalgic. Not a bad design job. Almost certainly ripped off from a movie, but Big Rig did solid construction work.

A silver bell chimed when he opened the door. The—no heartbeat, no circulation, slightly above room temperature—robot at the counter greeted him and called him 'dearie.' Annoying.

A girl in fatigues stiffened, hastily put her burger back on the counter and flipped down a welding mask. She matched the new Tinker—Gizmo—Leet had mentioned in that goddamn podcast that Armsmaster listened to every bloody week. Tall and gangly. Worked for Faultline. Height matched. Weight matched.

He sat on the stool next to her and held up a finger for the menu. "That's an interesting costume. Do you have a tailor?" She flinched. Bingo.

She leaned over the counter and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. Clicking the pen for a few seconds she scribbled, 'I can neither nor confirm anything that could reveal personal details. Sorry.'

"That's fine. I'm just going to sit here and talk to myself while I wait for my order. Steak, medium rare and hold the fries. Recently we, the Protectorate, ran into a newly triggered teenager and handled things poorly. I think we, no, I frightened her off."

Gizmo waited for a few seconds before her shoulders drooped and she responded with a poorly written. 'How?'

"We only found out about her when one of our Wards underwent a severe personality change. We were afraid of an unknown Master and then... I screwed things up. Instead of meeting with her I treated her like a suspect. I'm not really a detective, I make up for that with my technology. She hadn't known that a Ward was attacked and said that she had never attacked anyone. All true. She never had attacked anyone, she only defended herself from a threat. If I was slightly more patient I could have offered her a place in the Wards."

'And then what? Masters aren't treated well by the PRT.'

"That's not true. We have a Ward here in Brockton Bay who's a Master, Gallant. We let people think he's a Blaster, but really he's a Master with a few visual effects. His basic power set is almost identical to Heartbreaker's. So no, we don't discriminate against Masters."

'So this mysterious Master,' Armsmaster stifled a snort, 'would have to work for you. Or what? The Birdcage like so many others?'

"That's a little unfair. We don't send people to the Birdcage. The courts and the jury send people to the Birdcage."

'All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.' Trite. Cliche.

"Edmund Burke. What about, 'At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst,' Aristotle. I am an officer of the law, I struggle to uphold the law. It is up to the judiciary to determine whether the law is unjust. And what about you? Are you going to sit around doing nothing?"

'I am doing something. More than you.'

"With villains?"

'Ex-villains.'

"They have warrants for their arrest."

'That'll go away soon.' Rather a lot of confidence. Mind control? Bribery? 'And you? Why haven't the Merchants been arrested?'

"We don't have enough manpower. The best we can do if there is a gang war is act to contain the violence. If we had more heroes we could afford to be more proactive."

'What's stopping you now? The Merchants lose a little territory and the PRT calls it quits, game over. Why can't you find and arrest them NOW?'

"It's not that easy-"

She slapped a note down in front of him. 'Squealer and Skidmark live at Worth and Lexington'.

Interesting. How much data does Faultline have? "There are other considerations. We can't just go after one gang without starting a war between the remainders."

'The Merchants attacked a hospital' she scratched into the pad, tearing through the paper. 'They killed how many people last month? And you do nothing.'

"There are other considerations," he repeated. "We can't provoke a gang war. There aren't enough heroes to bring down the gangs."

'Bullshit. Bring in the Triumvirate for a weekend.'

"And then the villains go to ground for a while. Even if we do catch them what about the next Endbringer battle? If we do that how many villains will show up?"

'Bullshit.' She left the note on the counter and stomped off, taking her burger to a booth. Kids.

She finished her meal and walked out. He finished his steak, perfectly seasoned, and was wondering if it he had time to order dessert when Glace came in. He swiveled around on his stool. "You did that on purpose," he accused Glace.

"Yes. I thought you would like another opportunity to talk with her."

"I... appreciate that. You do realize that she is a powerful Master, you need to be careful around her."

"Right," She laughed. "Master."

"She's not a Master?"

"I can neither confirm or deny."

Her lab was a mess of wires and pipes. Armsmaster felt an itch in the back of his head, an urge to clean and organize. He bit down on it and focused on the room's centerpiece. A simple box with an arrow pointing in and an arrow pointing out, the casing designed to be easily removed.

Glace ran her hand across the box. "Do you like it? Proof of concept, throw in a banana and chocolate sauce in at this end and the perfect frozen banana comes out that end." She unlatched the cover and gestured for him to look it over.

Armsmaster bent over to inspect it. The piece was obviously tinker tech. The piece was obviously not tinker tech. The skill that had gone into its creation and the knowledge required to make it were supernatural. Yet Armsmaster was able to understand its construction just as easily as he could a car or an abacus. Normally tinker tech was obtuse, the way that Armsmaster remembered calculus to be once upon a time before he triggered, understanding coming and disappearing in short bursts.

"Gizmo made this?"

"No," she shook her head, "Poor girl doesn't know the difference between a hawk and a handsaw. I made it."

"How?" He flipped it around and pried off the power supply, turning it around in his hands, dimensional variation, uses ambient energy and dumps waste heat in another dimension, "How did you make this?"

Glace attempted to give an enigmatic smile, it came off as a smirk. "That would be telling."

"Please, enough games. This changes everything."

"All will be explained soon." She slid a folder in front of him. "We'd like you to take this to your superiors."

Armsmaster flipped through it. Mostly legalese, members of the first party to members of the second party, the diagrams and specifications though were intriguing. Short range teleportation, flash cloning without the brain, teleportation of the brain into the new body, and recycling of the old. "This is impressive. Explains Leet's recent stunt at least. Far beyond anything that I expected the Toybox to come up with."

"We didn't. Hence the additional conditions on top of the cost."

He continued to read through the paperwork. "Pardons for Faultline's gang and Über and Leet? I do not see the PRT extending pardons, even for these."

"That would be a shame. The pardons are non-negotiable. If the PRT is unwilling to pay for the Vita-Chambers we will simply have to find another buyer. And if there is no incentive to sell to lawful entities, then," she shrugged and waved her hand around in a loose circle well, "we can charge a lot more per unit."

Ah, not bribery or mind control. Simple coercion. Pleasant surprise.

"Über and Leet I could understand, but what the hell does Faultline have to do with any of this?"

"The big reveal will happen after you've place your order."

"If this is one of Leet's inventions then there is no way for you to mass produce. Unless..." He glanced at the banana freezer.

"Yes. Freely reproducible." She lovingly patted her invention.

"And what will stop us from just buying one and reverse engineering?"

She shrugged again. "We're counting on it. That's why the deal is for bulk. Of course we'll expect recurring contracts or we'll have to find other buyers."

He tapped the folder, straightening out the papers within. "I'll talk to my superiors. I assume that I'm here to provide proof of concept."

"Indeed." She led him back up he street to an Arcade that conspicuously didn't match the time period for the rest of the town. Annoying hum from neon lights, video games with their bleeps and bloops, it was a tacky abomination. Leet waited inside to Armsmaster's expectant disappointment.

"Leet." Armsmaster's hand tightened around his halberd. Leet waved merrily before putting a pistol to his head, smiling, and pulling the trigger. "What the hell!"

The body shrank, approached a point, then disappeared.

"So what'd you think?" Leet asked coming in from a side door marked 'Employees Only.'

Armsmaster glared at the villainous Tinker, hand clenching and relaxing on his weapon. "I would have been satisfied with just seeing the machine."

"Live demonstration, man. Picture's worth a thousand words." He leaned against the wall, put two fingers to his temple, "And you can't tell me that you didn't enjoy seeing my brains splattered on the floor."

"No, I didn't."

Leet casually turned and slouched back through the door. "Vita-Chamber Mark One through here, boss man."

"Mark One?"

Glace replied, "It's not replicable. We'll be providing you with the Mark Two."

x x x

Armsmaster trailed Miss Militia back to her office from the meeting. Little had been decided other than funneling the Toybox's offer up the ladder. The news that the Toybox has reproducible Tinker tech was met with incredulity. Armsmaster was glad that he had insisted Dragon be allowed in the meeting, she promised to investigate and verify his findings.

Miss Militia looked up from her paperwork at the knock. Armsmaster stood in the doorway. He had avoided her for the last few weeks, ever since she took his job. Meetings, patrols, a civil word in the hallway, but nothing more."Armsmaster-"

"It was necessary." He cut to the chase in his usual brusque manner, avoiding tact or pleasantries, "We both know that it was only a matter of time."

"Still, I don't like that you were thrown under the bus."

"It's for the best. We need to talk about Aegis."

"What about him?"

"I don't know. That's the problem. When we were leaving Faultline to her picnic I picked up this conversation." He set his helmet on the desk, pointing towards Miss Militia. He tapped the top and the helmet began to playback:

"What was that about?" A muffled voice asked. Female.

"According to Gizmo he's a Case 53." Female.

"Armsmaster should still be able to hear us, you know," deep male voice.

"Let him, the secret is eroding pretty quickly anyway." Second female.

"Why would Aegis lie about being a Case 53?" a second male voice said.

"It doesn't add up. He still has a normal human appearance and that clumsy lie had more fear behind it than awkwardness. You've heard the rumors?" Second female.

"A mysterious organization sells powers?" First female.

"It seems more and more likely." Second female.

Miss Militia sat for a moment, organizing the information she had just heard. "Who's Gizmo?"

"Taylor Hebert. Pretending to be a Tinker, or maybe actually a Tinker, at this point I have no clue what she can do, I'm willing to bet on anything from the second coming of Scion to a non-powered red herring. Leet mentioned her in his podcast. Saw her at the Toybox."

"You contacted Ms. Hebert?" Her gun transformed to a larger caliber. "Why didn't you report that?"

"I'm telling you now. And I'd prefer to keep this unofficial for now."

"Why?"

"If it's nothing but a distraction then the PRT needs to focus on the Vita-Chambers, if there is something... a conspiracy of some sort, we need to approach it carefully. Besides, something doesn't add up. The Toybox has a Tinker who can produce replicable tinker tech, Leet made something I'm envious of, and Faultline is trying to go legit."

"Can't believe how wrong you were about that..."

"It was a reasonable conclusion based on the available data. If given the same evidence again I would still say Empire."

"Of course, Colin, of course. So Gizmo can identify powers-"

He nodded and tapped his helmet, "Truth. Seventy-two percent probability assuming Faultline is within one deviation of the norm, no visuals and the distance doesn't improve matters."

"-and claims Aegis is a Case 53. But can we trust her? I mean, do you really think Aegis bought his powers?"

"I don't know. He was lying about recognizing the Case 53 tattoo."

"Of course he was. He's friends with Weld, he's read the reports, he knows what the tattoo looks like."

"Then why did he lie about it?"

"Perhaps he wasn't clear on what's confidential and what he can freely discuss. Perhaps he didn't want to give any information to a villain. Armsmaster, we are not going to start a witch hunt."

"Perhaps not a witch hunt, but a few quick questions."

Her weapon transformed into a knife, she absently caught in midair and started trimming her fingernails. "Fine. But I'm the one who is going to do the questioning."

"Understood."

In truth while the oil rig was the official base of the Protectorate, unofficially the Protectorate members kept offices in the PRT building, the physical separation being too awkward for regular business. What would have taken over an hour due to waiting on the ferry was instead a minute walk to the Ward's common room.

The Wards were sprawled around their common room. Tour hours had ended and the Wards had, proverbially and literally, kicked their feet up. Homework was lying on a table, the TV was playing in the background, Vista was searching for something under the couch—she had expanded the space to where she could fit her entire upper body in the crack.

"Armsmaster, Miss Militia," Aegis looked up from his homework and nodded his head respectfully, "what can I do for you?"

"Walk with us."

They strolled out of the common room, when they passed various offices and the cafeteria in favor of the exit. At his quizzical quirk of the mouth Miss Militia explained, "We have some questions. We'd prefer that they be off the record for now."

Aegis glanced between the two and shuffled back, extending his personal space. "What's this about?"

"What do you know about Gregor's tattoo?"

"I don't know anything about that stupid tattoo."

Armsmaster tapped his helmet. "Lie detector."

"Fine." He crossed his arms over his chest. "I didn't break any laws and refuse to speak any more about it."

Armsmaster nodded to Miss Militia, "Truth."

"Until you do tell me I'm suspending you from active duty. Gallant will be taking charge of the Wards in the meantime."

Aegis grit his teeth. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"It's not about right or wrong. It's about trust, it's that you are hiding something from us, something this important, is breaking that trust."

x x x

Colin and Hannah sat in a seedy pizza joint, sadly unknown for the high quality of its pizza, started by a Vietnamese couple, they had canceled their plans for pho after a long walk by the boardwalk had shown a surplus of pho and a dearth of pizza. A pepperoni pie had been placed between the two of them, of sufficient size and quality for them to spend the last ten minutes silently eating.

Colin wiped his mouth, "Some sort of conspiracy."

"We already knew that. Case 53s appearing all over the world, branded. What the conspiracy was doing though... selling powers? The Case 53s used as guinea pigs?"

"Wouldn't explain where the Case 53s came from. Some sort of cloning or breeding program perhaps, doesn't matter. What should we do?"

"We need to bring in more people," she said toying with her straw.

"But if Aegis is in on this then anybody could be part of it."

"What about the Case 53s?"

"How many of them actually lost their memories? Could any of them be faking? And if there is some sort of shadow organization they could monitor or implant orders inside of the Case 53s."

"Colin," Hannah rubbed her nose, "we can't operate with that level of paranoia."

"Right. First thing we need to do is to be able to identify who purchased powers."

"Gizmo."

"She is the ideal candidate."

Hannah lifted three fingers and dropped them down, one at at a time. "Unknown powers. Unknown abilities. Attacked a Ward." Colin handed her a folded paper. "What is this?"

"She's willing to offer some limited information, the Merchant's hideout. Maybe she got it from Faultline. Maybe it's connected to whatever her ability is. Something is going on with her."

"But you don't know what."

"I think we'll find out demands for pardons, Faultline talking about Aegis where I could hear, they'll tell us soon. After they've removed our leverage." He switched topics, "Aegis... Should we contact the Triumvirate?"

"Not until we get more evidence. We should get the old gang back together."

"I'm meeting Chevalier next week. If you could contact Mouse Protector?"

Hannah put down her drink and stared at Colin, she sighed. "Crap. You haven't heard."

He closed his eyes in anticipation. "Heard what?"

"Last week. The Nine got her."

"Shit." He wrapped his hands around his coffee, letting the heat burn his palms. "She kept asking me out, do you remember that."

"You always turned her down."

"She was annoying. But now, maybe just one date..."

Hannah leaned forward and squeezed his arm. "Don't worry about it, Colin. It was a bet."

"What?"

"We bet her that if she could get you to go on a date with her, we'd buy that Yamasaki she was always ogling."

Colin laughed quietly into his cup. "That sounds exactly like her. Do you remember the time she replace the toothpaste with wasabi?"

"You had just been introduced to coffee and were coming off an all-nighter. We could hear your scream from the other side of the base. How about when she started the rumor that Legend was gay?"

"Heh, and then he called that press conference." Colin chuckled for a while, sobering, "When's the funeral?"

Hannah winced. "Colin, they didn't kill her. They got her."

"Shit." Colin's stomach cramped. Casualties were a fact of life, every Endbringer fight, every cape battle, hell, every time he apprehended a mugger there was a chance he could die, but the Slaughterhouse Nine were connoisseurs of fates worse than death.

Tinny music, some pop song Colin couldn't recognize echoed from the kitchen. The ceiling tiles had yellow splotched from water damage, it curved around and formed a face smiling down at him, he tilted his head until it leered. "Shit."

Hannah threw down enough to cover the dinner. "Come on. There's a bar down the street."