With a groan, the young man sat up and looked around. And still without his glasses that were no longer necessary. But even human senses could tell that he laid in a stinky, garbage filled alleyway between two buildings. A cat at the end of the alley leaped up to a battered wood fence and then hissed at him.

"Now what have you gotten yourself into this time, Arthur?" he asked himself. With a sigh, he stood up even as he noted the glints of metal on his hands. "Damn it." It took a few minutes to draw back the bits of cyber technology fused to his form and hide it under his skin. Dull, blue eyes noted the sound of a car that drove by the alley's entrance.

He frowned. Something looked odd, so he walked to the street. And frowned again.

It looked like some ghetto. Or at least what he thought a ghetto looked like. He saw cars parked down the one side. Futuristic, rusted and crappy looking cars. He recognized a few of them, but most looked unfamiliar.

"Hey! You! Leave before you get hurt!" an old man shouted.

Arthur looked around and realized that everyone else was Asian. And many of them looked angry or afraid. "Oh, um, sorry." He walked down the street, though not really worried. They probably couldn't hurt him after he woke up a week ago.

That did not deter them as a teen about seventeen stepped out of an alley he walked past and tried to hit a homerun with his skull.

And clanged.

"Shit! Cape! Cape!" he screamed out in a panic.

Arthur just stood there and looked confused. "Cape? And why did you try to kill me?" He focused on the guy that attacked him as he pulled out a gun. "Look, don't be hasty. I don't want to hurt you." Why was his friend shouting into something about the size of a pack of cards?

The gun went off, bullets bouncing off of his skin.

"Shit-shit-shit-shit!" the ganger screamed.

Then the hum filled the air as all the bugs appeared and swarmed the gun wielding gangster.

Arthur blinked, then noticed a girl five hundred feet away and down the alley at the next street over. Skinny and gangly, she stared intently down the way from around the corner through her square glasses. His vision zoomed in, taking in the features and clothing he could see.

Then his attention came back to the area in front of him as a man in Japanese demon mask appeared with a soft pop and tried to cut his throat with a combat knife. He brought up his arm and blocked it.

That was enough . And he threw his first punch in anger since primary school. His fist exploded through demon-mask in a spray of ash.

"What the hell?" he asked of himself as he noted everyone else fleeing.

"Oni! Oni!" a gangster shouted, glee in his voice.

Then the grenades started to land around him as Oni appeared and tried to shove his knife through Arthur's stomach.

Done the alley, Taylor blinked and shivered as most of her bugs died at the grenades went off. Oh, god! Her first attempt to use her powers to help someone and Oni blew them up!

"I liked that jacket!" the kid shouted even as he looked around as the smoke dissipated. His ratty brown leather jacket fared better than his jeans and tennis shoes. And showed bits of cybernetics crisscrossing all over his body.

"Brute?" she said to herself.

Arthur reached into his smoldering jacket with one hand even as he elbowed Oni when he appeared behind him. He fired a weird, high-tech pistol at Oni up on the roof with the stun beam, which puffed him into ash again. The Oni behind him burst into ashes even as he spotted Oni on another roof. Another one appeared in front of him and dropped three grenades and turned to ash when hit with the neuralizer.

"Dammit!" Arthur cried out as he scuttled backward. The grenades knocked him over.

Bugs lined up on the ground to spell out 'Teleporter, leaves clone behind'.

"Oh, that makes better sense," he muttered even as he desperately tried to look everywhere. And his body responded and created cameras at points across his head. He blinked and shook his head. "Whoa, don't do that again." He zapped the Oni that appeared ten feet away before he could throw two grenades. 360 degree vision.

Oni appeared another four times to attack him before he figured out that he had to have line of sight even as he sped up his 'clock' time. Overclocked . Two more grenades went off and then Arthur fired at Oni as he appeared ten feet away where he expected him to appear. And then the demon masked parahuman flopped to the ground bonelessly.

"Gotcha, you jerk," Arthur said as he looked around. He looked over at some bugs as they wrote more words. He started to swat at his pants to try and put out the fire. "Thanks."

"Wow, this is a mess," a man said from behind him.

Arthur spun around and shot the masked man in the face. "Shit! I didn't mean to do that," he said as he looked down at the red and black striped super as he slumped to the ground.

"You shot a hero!" an old Chinese man shouted from the door to his little grocery store. He slammed the door closed.

"Um, I think I'll just go." Arthur turned and ran off. He shouted over his shoulder. "They'll be out for about thirty minutes or so."

Armsmaster's motorcycle cornered smoothly as it thrummed with the fake sound of a heavy engine. "Dispatch, I have spotted Velocity on the ground. No apparent wounds. How long until PRT reinforcements?" He parked the motorcycle and dismounted. He scanned the area as he moved.

"Five minutes," came the response over the radio.

The hero looked around and frowned. All of the explosion lay fifteen feet from Velocity. But he laid on top of it, looking almost pristine clean. His visor caught the view of a kid hiding behind a car across the street. He point his hand. "You, please come out with your hands up. If you comply, you will not be hurt."

"Shit! Don't shoot!" the kid yelled. "Whitey, jack-booted thug." The last bit came out much softer.

"What happened here?" Armsmaster demanded in a stern but not loud voice.

"Some white shit head wandered into the street and some of the boys-"

"Meaning ABB?"

The kid glared, but nodded. "Yeah, ABB. One of them tried to hit the stupid idiot's head off with a homerun. And it broke the baseball bat. Looked like a kid my age. Then he tried to cap his stupid ass and all these bugs showed up and swarmed the guy with the gun. Oni showed up and started to do his slicey murder thing and dropped grenades and would you believe it but this still isn't hurt. That went on for like a minute and then the white kid started to shoot some weird ray gun and finally knocked out Oni." He gestured at Velocity. "Then he showed up and got blasted. Kid was probably trigger happy. Some of the boys grabbed Oni and ran. And then you showed up. Oh, and I think the kid said they'd wake up in an hour or something."

"And where is this kid?" Armsmaster asked as he continued to look around.

"Ran off. No one wanted to stop someone that ignored grenades."

"I'm not seeing any energy blast marks."

"Nah, his weird green shit didn't hurt anyone but people and only knocked them out. I think he hit Mr. Tang's honda in the window and there's not even a mark."

"So some type of stunner. Thanks, kid. But stay away from your 'boys' otherwise you might end up sitting in jail one day," Armsmaster said. Down the block, a big heavy PRT truck appeared.

This did not bode well for the weekend. He had plans for personal Tinkering.

Arthur (back in his 'disguise') looked around the shops as the sun rose over the water. The tang of the ocean explained the cold Atlantic that the Boardwalk faced. He tried to look around casually, but he looked a right mess.

"Hey, kid? You alright?" a bald white guy asked. Even under his jacket you could see his bulk and muscles.

"I'm fine. Just a rough day. I need some new clothes." He gestured to his pretty ripped up pants. With that, he shrugged and started to walk to a clothing store that someone mentioned had reasonable prices.

Half an hour he came out, shocked that his pants cost most of the money he had in his wallet. He stared at the receipt, as if to force it to show a lower amount. And the clerk had told him these were cheap slacks. $40? Really? And...

Time seemed to freeze as he noticed something else on the receipt.

Saturday, Jan. 23rd, 2011?

What the fuck?

That explained why everyone wore coats and looked at him as if he was nuts. Apparently super toughness came with modest immunity to heat and cold.

Fifteen years. No wonder everything cost so much. Wait, check and verify. He headed over to the nearest bookstore that had a coffee shop attached. He verified the date on the newspaper. And the paper cost how much? Brockton Bay, MA? He shrugged at that. Ever since he disappeared and reappeared a week later, his life had been weird.

He ignored the other customers reading books, talking on tiny cell phones or even just eating bagels as he sat at an empty table with his thoughts awhirl. Shit, everyone probably thought he disappeared again. Except this time permanently.

He needed money to make a long distance call. He opened his wallet and grimaced at the two dollars. Could he beg for it? With his new slacks? They'd probably think him a druggie on the lookout for his next fix.

An ATM in the corner drew his attention. He'd pay them back later. He only needed a twenty. He focused on that odd part of his mind that allowed him to control machines. Any machine. The cameras started to loop from a minute ago as he walked over and he pretended to pull out a card and tap some buttons.

One minute later and he had the money. And needed to change it to quarters. Of course. And breakfast?

One bagel sandwich, a cup of water and a newspaper later he sat down with a small jingle. He started to munch as he read the front page started to get really confused. The first main article talked about the local Protectorate superhero team helping to crack down on crime down by the docks and warehouses. The leader, known as Armsmaster and a Tinker (capitalized?), had a little blurb talking about his past and being one of the premiere Tinkers after Hero died in 2000.

The next article talked about a scandal involving the Empire Eighty-Eight (with a note that the Neo-Nazi gang was dangerous and to stay away). The Empire had a fight with Lung (another, Asian villain) over a drug shipment. Two warehouses damaged. Most of the rest of the articles dealt with politicians or sports teams.

He folded the paper and stepped outside to look for a phone booth. He wandered for about ten minutes before he found one.

And then two beefy guys in black suits approached.

"You are coming with us. And don't even think about denying that you did something to that ATM. You were lucky you left when you did, as the Protectorate showed up." Suit number one palmed a gun and gestured to a wide alley that led to a parking lot. "So unless you want to end up in prison, don't say a word and do as we say. And we'll explain what happens to you and what rules you broke."

"Um, sure." Crap.

They slapped handcuffs on him and shoved him into the back seat. They drove off at a sedate pace as he frowned. He thought cops read him his rights? Well, they might not be cops.

They turned down a side road as the suit number two shoved a black hood over his head. Officially freaked out, he tweaked his eyes until he could sort of see through it just in time to see them go through a chain link fenced gate and then down a construction ramp for some huge building.

A large door opened in the parking garage, designed to look like a concrete wall. And then the soldiers in swat gear showed up and pointed laser rifles at him as they dragged him out. Laser rifles? Weird. And not a service patch anywhere.

These guys might be some clandestine government agency, but Arthur started to reach out and control the cameras into the area even as his cybernetic power molded and adapted itself to let him 'see' through the secure system. He quickly started to scan through the base. No US flags anywhere, but lots of soldiers mostly focused on him. He turned on hidden cameras everywhere, even finding one that showed a huge office right out of a James Bond movie set. And a really skinny guy in a black skin tight outfit that covered everything who appeared to be talking on the phone.

Arthur tapped into the phone to listen in as they dragged him to a room.

"...you will give him a soft sell, Tattletale. You are sure he used technology to steal from the ATM?" the mastermind said.

"100% positive. I think it's inside of him. He's some sort of Tinker," a girl's voice said in a tired tone of voice.

"Take a laser pistol with you. I will be talking to you through your earbud. Remember that I will know if you try turn him against me. And it will not be pleasant for you."

"Yes, Coil. He's no prodigy of will, so I'm sure I can get into his head and convince that join. Did you want him in the Undersiders?" Tattletale asked.

"No. A Tinker is more valuable under my direct control. I want to know every way we can use to control him. Good." He hung up the phone even as Arthur let himself be dragged into one of the interrogation rooms. He started to change out of the outfit to put on an expensive suit. Lastly he put a device in his ear. "Tattletale, you may start. Just be aware that I am listening to everything you say."

"Yes, sir." Tattletale finished pushing her mask on her face and let the adhesive hold it firmly. She checked the bulky pistol on her shapely hip. Then she walked down a hall and past several doors before opening the door to the interrogation room. "So you are the stupid Tinker that thought robbing an ATM was a good idea. While they aren't Tinker tech themselves, they are connected to Tinker tech monitoring systems to catch people looping the video and other stupid tricks."

"I just needed enough money to make a phone call. This is really a bit much for $20, don't you think?" Arthur replied. "I was even going to pay it back if I could."

She frowned at that. "Well, now you managed to get the attention of the PRT and the gangs. Your best bet is to agree to work for the boss..." Tattletale narrowed her eyes. He knew who her boss was? How? He's in the cameras? She carefully controlled herself. "The boss will know if you try anything, but he will pay decently. Even if he does recruit the best capes at gunpoint."

Arthur narrowed his eyes at that. "I thought this all was government."

"Kill him right now," Coil told Tattletale in her ear. "He's a brute cyborg."

"Are you under duress?" Arthur asked as he flexed his hands and broke the cuffs.

"You don't understand, he doesn't lose. He says he controls fate," Tattletale said as she aimed the pistol at him and shot him in the shoulder. The leather jacket flared and caught fire, but it did nothing to the metal and flesh below it.

"So that's a yes. I can't believe they didn't even take the neuralizer," Arthur said as he pulled out the tech pistol from under his jacket and shot her. "Guess they didn't think that I would have a weapon."

Tattletale collapsed in a heap as Arthur dashed forward and burst through the door with a shoulder check. Mercs at the end of the hall pointed weapons.

"Die, mother fucker!" the squad leader shouted as they all fired their lasers.

Those the cyborg felt. He continued forward as a glowing field appeared around him and he just plowed through them to the next door as it opened then closed behind him.

Coil slipped out of a door into another parking garage. "Heavy weapon squads forward. Use the rocket launchers." He slipped into the back of a SUV with a driver ready for him. "Drive." He held out his phone as he sent a text message to a specific phone number. He smiled at the generic response that signaled that the self destruct timer activated. "Keep him away from the main control room and my office."

"Sir, he's bum rushing right through us on a direct path to your office-" A crash sounded as another armored door crumpled.

"PRT building," Coil told his driver as he hung up. He started tapping in another text message to another random seeming phone number.

Arthur moved through the open and very heavily armored door to Coil's inner sanctum and walked over to the desk and the computer screen on it.

The phone started ringing as Coil called his office. Arthur hit the speakerphone option to answer.

"You have cost me a lot of resources, young man," Coil said.

"I wasn't the idiot that tried to recruit a super via pistol to the head," Arthur noted as he shut down the different commands coming into the servers and finally just cut the external links. He frowned as he noted several commands that came through the phone lines to a separate computer system. Linking to that one, he noted the twenty seconds until a self destruct finished counting down. He cut all voice lines except the one that Coil used.

"I would have paid well for your services. In fact, I still will if you agree to paying a penalty," Coil continued.

"Like that self destruct? The one I turned off?"

Coil stopped talking with his mouth open in surprise, then hung up.

"It must have been something I said." Through the cameras, he watched all of the soldiers flee through other secret entrances. But he had all the payroll records, so that would not help very much. "Back to Tattletale, I guess."

He stepped over broken and stunned soldiers as he walked back to the interrogation room as he finished his cyber take over. He molded his hand into a neural stabilizer and flared the light over her head. "Wakey wakey!

Tattletale awoke with a start, a headache faded as something glowed from his hand. "You won? How the hell did you win, kid?"

"First, I'm not a kid. At least I didn't use to be before I disappeared. And I can make myself look normal, but it takes effort. I'm Arthur. What's your name?"

"Tattletale. No mask? You are gutsy," Tattletale said as her headache finished washing away. "Wow, you have a a lot of powers. But not very strong?"

"I literally have no idea how strong what I do is, but I can shapeshift my cybernetics to do a lot of things. Secret identities are a thing? Should I send Coil's face to the police?"

"You saw his face? You hacked everything? And even deactivated his self destruct? Let's go to his office, right now!" Tattletale started trotting through the office. "Oh, zap that guy. He's not unconscious. We'll need to get rid of them later."

"Um, sure?" Arthur replied as he zapped the hurt merc in passing. Probably a kindness with his leg twisted that way.

Back in the office, Tattletale skipped over to the computer and started typing. "Yes! We need to drain his accounts to our own before he thinks to stop us."

"Give me account numbers that you want to move the money to," Arthur said as he wandered in and put his odd pistol away.

"Oh, they didn't realize that was a gun because it doesn't really look like one," Tattletale said as she started typing account numbers down into a document."

"Okay, all done," Arthur said. "So tell me about you and this Coil guy." He stood in front of the desk as he noted only the one chair that Coil had for himself.

"He's a psychopath. He literally had a gun held to my head and proved I couldn't escape by telling me what my escape plan was," Tattletale said.

"Telepath? A friend mentioned I'm pretty immune to that," he replied as he sat on the edge of the desk at a twisted and uncomfortable way so he could look at her.

"No such thing... Well, I guess there is. Wherever you are from," the girl said.

"Utah. 1995," he explained.

"Wow, so you remember when Scion appeared? No, you don't recognize him. But you should. You aren't lying but you don't know, either. And damn, I've overused my power again." Did Coil have any painkillers here?

"Let me try the neural stabilizer again," Arthur said as he reached over the desk and activated the green glowing ray from the palm of his hand.

"Oh, my god. That is amazing and I think I'm in love with you," Tattletale said, then laughed as he blushed and sputtered. "Now if only you could fix my power giving me too much info." She shuddered at that.

Arthur frowned as he considered it, changing the ray to a scanner. The cybernetics soon pinpointed her powers to strange structures in her head that connected dimensionally.

"Well, we are millions of dollars richer. Which will help to try and get you back to your world and time. Alternate world? Not Earth Aleph." Tattletale smiled and stood up. "So what does Coil look like?"

The screen in front of her popped up a picture of Coil.

"Oh, wow. He's actually part of the PRT." Tattletale nearly squealed.

"That's where he told his driver to take him," Arthur supplied helpfully.

Her grin turned vicious. "Really? And where is he right now?"

"Waiting to talk to some Director Piggot. I think he's planning on sending some heroes down here to attack us."

"You are in his phone! That's awesome."

Arthur nodded. "It was kind of hard. I had to really focus to get past the encryption and link protection. Usually I can control anything pretty easily."

"So let's make his day even worse. I happen to know her email."

"How much longer will it be for the Protectorate to investigate that hidden base?" Thomas Calvert asked.

"Probably another ten minutes. We'll move to the control room to oversee the mission," Director Emily Piggot said as she set down her phone. She rubbed her eyes, then set her hands flat on the edge of the desk to help lift her aching body. Her email pinged with a simple message.

'Thomas Calvert is Coil.'

"One second," Piggot said as she clicked on it and brought up the email with pictures of of the man across the desk removing a supervillain outfit. "Sorry." She clicked her email closed. "Okay, let's focus on capturing these villains."

She led the way to a control room filled with long tables, computers and screens in an organized chaos of dispatchers.

"Velocity, continue recon to discover any secret entrances," a serious young woman said into her headset as others gave their orders to capes or PRT troopers.

"Calvert, take over support ops. We're going to need need to comb the crime scene thoroughly," the director explained as she frantically thought over how many of her people could be his people. "So yes, you are on active duty instead of consulting."

"No problem, Director," Calvert said with a thin smile as he moved forward to the front row and two steps lower.

Piggot moved to her 'corner' where her deputy director waited for her. "One second. I think I got a text," she lied. She pulled up her contacts on her phone and sent a coded message to Director Armstrong of the Boston PRT and a simple time stamp of three hours from now. "Sorry. So let's kick this into gear."

The next three hours they investigated the rather large base that warehoused quite a few weapons and supplies. The fact that there were thirty tinker-tech rifles in the armory worried Piggot quite a bit.

Calvert clenched his jaw for the fourth time in three hours as he dropped another time line. Where did his Tattletale go?

The door slammed open as PRT troopers moved in.

"Nobody move! This is Director Armstrong and this is code Alpha-Romeo-Gamma-Gamma. Master/Stranger protocols are now in effect. Any action to leave will result in hard takedowns. Roberts, start disarming people and then cuffing them," the older man outside the room shouted through a bullhorn.

Deputy Director Reinhart looked over at Piggot. "Emily?"

"I ordered this, Reinhart. I had actionable intelligence that suggested that a Master had infiltrated the PRT. So stand down," Piggot ordered.

Now to see if there was anything to that email.