Chapter Text
Nexus
Winslow High School
Brockton Bay
January 4th, 2011
0100 hours
I had the nanites in my brain cut of my sense of smell at the first whiff of the school corridor, from that point onwards I only got the abstract awareness of chemical compounds in the air. Which was still bad enough.
The locker was a standard thing part of a bank of them in the dilapidated hallway, it looked innocuous. A flick of my wrist sheared the padlock of the locker and the door opened, pushed by Taylors body. I made sure to cushion the fall with my telekinesis and let her settle softly on the ground.
She was covered in her own vomit and other unmentionable detritus. Kneeling down I cast a sheath of cleansing pale blue flame that burned away all the filth and the bugs and sent a burst of it at the locker for good measure. Evidence wouldn’t be an Issue later since I could easily render my perceptions into images and video as necessary.
We had hammered out the plan for days, ran dozens of simulations, so I set to work with calm and level head.
Yeah Right… I pushed the bubbling pit of rage in my stomach off to the side, to be dealt with later. I’d gotten depressingly good at that over the years. Laying my hand over Taylors heart I started regenerating the beginning necrosis, it took a few minutes for her heart to start beating again and I felt it when her soul reattached to her body, and she reflexively took a deep breath before falling unconscious.
I picked her up in a fireman’s lift and headed for the door before lifting off and heading towards the Brockton Bay General Hospital. I had memorized the landscape of the city, both as a street map and as a topographical projection, so finding the Hospital proved no problem at all.
The emergency room entrance was surprisingly well marked from an aerial view, and I wondered for a moment why that might be, before realizing belatedly that I probably wasn’t the first Parahuman to act as impromptu aerial medical transport.
The doors opened automatically and with enough speed to make me nod approvingly. “Medic!” I ordered and several nurses with a stretcher appeared as if from thin air. Looking at the one in charge I continued. “She was trapped in a locker that contained biohazardous human waste at Winslow high school, likely for several hours; she was unconscious and unresponsive, her breathing is shallow, and pulse is weak. She might be septic. I rendered basic first aid and cleaned the wounds she sustained from several insects. If possible, you should get Panacea to look at her.”
The head nurse nodded. “Understood Sir. We’ll take it from here.” They rushed off towards the ICU and I followed at a measured pace that made it clear to all who might impede me that doing so would be both futile and ill advised.
Stopping in front of the operating rooms doors I settled against the wall and pulled my phone out of my pocket. Dialling the number Taylor had made me memorize; it was picked up before it could ring a second time. “Hebert, who is it?” There was fear in the voice, a father fearing the worst day in his life might just repeat itself.
I put on my best reassuring tone. “Mr Hebert, my name is Drake, I found your daughter at Winslow Highschool and brought her to Brockton General, she is in Surgery, and they are bringing in Panacea to treat her. You should come here...” I didn’t need to finish the sentence. I heard running feet and a slamming door all before the receiver had time to hit the ground.
I hung up, idly doing a bit of probability calculation, Panacea would beat him here and Taylor would be fine, if hungry, by the time her dad showed up. Good.
A few minutes later my calculations were proven correct when Panacea in full regalia rushed past me and into the operating room. As usual with healers on mission she didn’t spare me more than a glance, which suited me just fine. It was another twenty minutes later that a man came rushing down the corridor. I recognized him from the pictures that his wife kept around her home.
He slowed to a stop when he saw that the lights indicating active surgery were on. “Are you Drake?” He turned to me. And I smoothly stepped away from the wall, shrugging my cloak over my shoulders trusting the spell on my hood to keep my face hidden.
“I am, Mr. Hebert. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, I just wish it was under better circ*mstances. Panacea is in there; your daughter is going to be fine.”
He slumped in relief. “I cannot thank you enough Drake.”
“No thanks are necessary Mr. Hebert, I just did my duty. But you are very welcome.”
He nodded accepting this. “How did you find her? The police have been looking for her for hours.”
“I was patrolling near the school and picked up a heat signature. I investigated and found her trapped in her locker. There was... a lot of detritus in there with her. If it was meant as a Prank, it was certainly the cruellest I have ever heard off. I have a recording of the whole thing.” I tapped my chest plate where a small camera was visible. “I would be happy to act as a witness should you wish to sue the school.”
I wanted to channel his all to understandable rage into a constructive path, namely squeezing Winslow high for every penny they had. The Heberts could use the money. Even if Taylor now had one of the same black unmarked cards in her wallet as I did.
“I appreciate that.” It was at that moment that the red lights turned off and the doors opened. The nurses pushed Taylor on a stretcher, she looked much better, and a cursory scan showed absolutely no lasting effects of her ordeal. I let her father walk at the side of the stretcher and fell into step next to Panacea.
She turned her head slightly in my direction. “The nurses said you performed first aid on the scene?”
“I cleaned out the wounds she received; several nasty insect bites, I figured they were almost certainly infected.”
“A sound judgement, she wouldn’t have lasted long if you had acted differently.” There was a definitive edge in her voice. “Any idea who did that to her?”
Another spike of white-hot rage shot through my heart. “I hope that she can tell us, I’ll make sure to bring justice down on the parties responsible.”
“Physically?” The pointed question contained a wealth of feeling.
“Depends on who it was; in any case, I know a couple very good lawyers. I’m fairly sure that her father will sue the school for damages and compensation.”
“As he should.”
“I already promised him I would. My bodycam recorded the entire rescue, including the state of her locker and her when I freed her. The school won’t be able to wiggle out of this one.”
“Good.” She extended her hand, and I shook it.
There was a single frozen moment. Through the touch my empathy picked up a worrying co*cktail of emotions and I resolved to put the younger generation of New Wave on my watchlist.
I let go of her Hand. “It was nice meeting you Panacea. Mr. Hebert has my phone number, I’m sure he’ll give it to you if you ask.” And with that I made myself scarce, heading back out of the Hospital and taking off shooting up into the sky just shy of Mach one and angling south-west.
Taylor
Brockton Bay General Hospital
Brockton Bay
January 4th, 2011
0230 hours
Taylor woke with a start. She knew that she would lose a few hours, of course, that had been part of the plan that they had painstakingly hammered out over the last few weeks. She felt good, somehow heavier, in a metaphysical sense but Nexus had told her to expect that. Her father was sitting by the side of her bed and looking at her, when she started moving, he half rose out of his chair, and she met him halfway sitting up in bed. “Dad? What happened?” She asked with a quiver in her voice.
She didn’t have to fake it either, just thinking about it made her flash back to the locker. She was fairly sure that it would take quite a bit of time with Emma to get back to where she was mentally. But in the long run it was minor hurdle, and the plan was important enough to bear the strain.
“You’re in the hospital sweetheart, a cape found you and brought you in, you were in bad shape; they called Panacea, and she fixed you right up. Are you hungry? I’m sure we can find a takeout that is open late.”
Taylor felt her face heat up when her stomach rumbled at the mention of food. “That sounds great actually. But are they going to discharge me just like that?”
Danny smiled, “Panacea healed you, why would they keep you here? They told me that they’d have the discharge papers ready by the time you woke up.”
“Thats great. Do you know who found me? I want to thank them.”
Her father answered as he was leaving the room to talk to the nurse on duty. “He said his name was Drake, I haven’t heard of him before so he must be pretty new in town.”
That’s one way to put it. Taylor thought wryly.
Less than an hour later they were headed home, having picked up enough Kebab and fries to feed a small army.
“We’ll deal with the school in a few days. Don’t worry about it, Drake said he has the entire rescue on his bodycam. They’ll be in for a very painful lawsuit.” Her father said from the driver’s seat.
“Good.” Taylor said viciously. “They deserve anything they get.”
Her father eyed her from his seat. “You are dealing with this quite well...”
“I think I’m too angry for it to really sink in what they did. They bullied me for so long… but I never thought they would go this far… I could have died in there! They tried to murder me. But they didn’t, Drake saved me, and I finally have the courage to talk about it with you…”
Emma had warned her that talking to her dad like this would be difficult. Even after years it still stung to talk about the locker.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I was worried for you. After mom… died, I didn’t want to put more on your plate. I’m sorry.” She felt tears forming in her eyes.
“Oh sweetheart, I’m sorry too. I could never be mad at you for going through something like this. But we’re Heberts, we take care of our own, above all else.”
Taylor blew her nose on a handkerchief, a wet smile finding firm purchase on her face. “That we do. I’ll tell you everything as soon as we are home.”
“Take it in your own time sweetheart. I don’t want you to rush into anything.”
“Thanks, dad.”
Nexus
Empire State Building
Manhattan
January 4th, 2011
0545 hours
The flight to Manhattan had taken just over six minutes and had given me a good look at the changed coastline. The sinking of newfoundland had brought massive tidal waves and sunk many coastal communities.
I tilted my head ever so slightly when I heard the voice in my left ear. “There’s a surveillance satellite pointed at your location Nexus. Scanning with active Radar. Seems like that part of the plan worked as well.”
I chuckled. “As it should. Going hypersonic is many things but not subtle.”
“Do you want me to initiate contact?”
“No, let’s keep them wondering for a while. We can’t be too quick with this or there might be backlash.”
“Understood.”
I checked my watch, it was five minutes till six, and decided to find something to eat. Jumping of the parapet I flipped in the air twice before landing lightly on my feet. This Manhattan was far quieter than the one I was used too, and the street was fairly empty. With some amusem*nt I noted that the few people that were out and about didn’t so much as bat an eye at my cloaked figure walking down the street.
Finding a deli that opened early I walked inside; they were in the process of setting up for the breakfast crowd and the counter was manned by a cheerful looking woman in her late twenties. “Good morning! What can I get you?”
I smiled, letting it colour my voice. “One Pastrami sandwich and one Cream cheese and Lox Bagel please. Oh, and a cup of coffee, black, please.”
She smiled back already preparing the coffee maker. “Certainly sir. Would you like to eat in or to go?”
“To go please.”
“Of course, sir. That will be $15.43 please. Feel free to take a seat and I’ll have your order out shortly.”
I handed her a twenty-dollar bill and accepted the change. “No rush. I have all the time in the world.”
I had just settled down on a chair and pulled out my phone to have a good rummage through recent PHO threads when the door of the deli flew open with a bang. A scrawny man stormed inside clutching a semi-automatic; what I could see off his face was splotchy, and he was shaking. His eyes were bloodshot and twitching all over the place. Junky, I categorized immediately, looking to empty the cash register.
I smoothly stood and the junky swivelled to point the gun at me, which suited me just fine. He didn’t have his finger on the trigger, clearly having at least some concept of gun safety. I stepped in front of the counter putting myself between the gunman and the staff.
“No one move!” He yelled.
Hostage-negotiating is a lot like sharpshooting, you practice it as much as you can all in the hope of never having to use it. I raised my hands showing them to be empty. “Okay. No one has to get hurt. Just tell me what you want.”
“Give me all the cash from the register! And don’t you dare call the cops you hear me!”
The girl behind the counter whimpered softly, but opened the register and began to take handfuls of cash out.
I took the time to analyse the situation while it was under control. The weapon the junky was holding was a Colt 1911 that had definitely seen better days, probably military surplus. He was holding it professionally. His pupils were dilated, his pulse was elevated. And he had a noticeable limp on his left side.
“Dawn, I need a face trace and projection. ASAP!”
“I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I? On it.”
True telepathy, the ability to convey pure information in an instant. The usefulness of such a skill is hard to overstate.
“Listen man, no one has to get hurt. I have plenty of cash on me. You can have it if you leave the folks here alone.”
“I’ve got your guy boss. Sergeant James Petersen, retired US Army 82nd Airborne. Honourably discharged after an injury sustained in the line of duty. He slipped into drug abuse after the VA didn’t pay enough for proper treatment. He’s likely on opioids and stimulants. Uh oh… Boss, he Hates Parahumans! Tread lightly.”
I’d have to talk to him like I was military. Luckily, I had been. A thousand times over.
“Which Unit were you with, Soldier?”
He stared at me, uncomprehending for almost a solid minute.
When he finally answered he did so in a slow and steady monotone. “82nd Airborne Division. I was a Sergeant.” He seemed calmer now; evidently, he didn’t hold his old unit in contempt.
“You were wounded?” I made sure to maintain eye contact, even if he couldn’t see it through my hood, he felt it.
He nodded shakily. “Only a month into my second tour, an IED tore our Humvee apart, messed up my leg. They sent me home but told me that I would be lucky if I walked again.”
And from there it had been a slow and steady slide into drug abuse.
“You don’t have to do this Sergeant, there’s a better way.” And that was the point where I messed up. Because all of a sudden, the gun was pointed at my face, and his finger was on the trigger.
“It’s all because of you damn capes! Because of you the f*cks in Washington cut funding to the Army! It’s your fault that Vets like me don’t get enough money to get by!”
He fired, and with all the precision expected from a Para it flew dead straight to hit me between the eyes. It spalled on a shield of emerald-green that covered the front of my hood like a helmet. I threw my hands forward launching a wave of green light that turned his gun into liquorice. But not before two more bullets hit my chest plate.
I lunged and grabbed his wrist wrestling him into a half nelson on the ground and putting my knee on the small of his back.
I looked up at the woman behind the counter and sighed. “Please call the police.”
The NYPD took just under fifteen minutes to get there, which as far as response times went, was neither great nor terrible.
A crown Vic stopped on the curb outside, its sirens cutting out with a strangled whoop and two troopers got out entering the establishment with a warry eye. I stood as they approached my table. “Officers.” I nodded respectfully.
The taller of the two stepped forward and extended a hand; I shook it. “’The name’s Brashear this is my partner, Officer O’Brian.”
I smiled, constants and variables. “A pleasure Officer. I have a package for you.” I gestured at the Junky who had his hands zip-tied and then been allowed to sit in a chair; with a stern warning that if he tried something he’d be back on the ground before he got out of the chair.
“The caller said that he was armed?” O’Brian asked while Brashear put some proper handcuffs on the perp.
“The guns in here.” I pointed at a clear plastic box that had donated by the kitchen. “You’ll have to be careful if you want to get prints. It’s liquorice.
“’scuse me?” Brashear shot me an incredulous look.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly detailed. Quite impressive actually, but it’s fake.”
“It really is realistic; I can even make out the serial number.” Officer Brashear shot me a look. “That’s all right then. We just need your name for the report.”
“I smiled. You can call me Drake.”
Taylor
Hebert Household
Brockton Bay
January 4th,2011
0500 hours
Recounting the story of two years of constant bullying and harassment to her father had been harder than she expected, and she had to focus on that reassuring core of arctic cold in her soul more than once to calm herself down.
She had extracted the promise to hear her out first and not do anything rash before she finished her story from her dad, and while he had drained a pot and a half of coffee to steady his nerves, he’d kept a calm head. Outwardly at least. The empathic sense that came part and parcel of her powers told her that internally he was ready to reenact the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius on the parties responsible.
She could also detect a very faint signature of something that her senses registered as Other, she resolved to tell Nexus about that at the first opportunity. Now she felt that she was at a crossroads. During her initial training they had covered such moments in an abstract fashion. More experienced balancers could see into them and put probabilities to the events that would follow. All she got was a sense that a decision would need to be made. So, she made one.
“Listen, dad, there’s more I want to tell you but I’m really tired. Can we continue this in a few hours? When I have had some time to sleep. Just promise me that you won’t do anything about it until you know all the facts.”
Her dad sighed, “I promise sweetheart. You are right, I need some sleep and time to cool down too.”
Taylor went up to her room and sat on the corner of her bed. It felt so long since she was in this room. The memories weren’t as faint as they perhaps should have been, near perfect recollection of events came with the package deal as far as her new powers were concerned.
She focused on her empty hand and went through the steps just as she had been taught. She visualised what she wanted and grinned like a maniac when a shiny, ice blue and silver coloured, smartphone appeared as if from thin air.
She grinned, unlocking the device with a flick of her wrist and entering her contact list. Nexus number was listed right at the top together with everyone else involved in the operation.
The Phone rang twice before it was picked up. “Hey, what’s up?”
The way he picked up made it clear that he was somewhere in public where he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t be overheard. “Everything going about as expected. You?”
“I’m fine, mostly. I’m going to have That conversation with my dad later this afternoon, you’ll be there?”
“I’ll be on call nearby, I’m in Manhattan right now. Confirming a few things, I’ll be back by twelve hundred hours at the latest.”
“Copy that. See you then.”
“See you then.” He hung up.
That done she collapsed on her bed pulled the sheet over her head and fell asleep.
Nexus
Manhattan Airspace
New York
January 4th,2011
1100 hours
I’d been patrolling around Manhattan for a couple hours now, scaring a couple carjackers into rethinking their life's choices and grabbing a purse-snatcher mid dive. Things had calmed down once the sun was properly up in the sky and now, I was leisurely floating around.
Turning towards liberty island I registered a streak of blue coming in my direction at a quick but not particularly aggressive speed. ‘Took him long enough.’ I thought with a wry grin and slowed my speed until I was hovering in place.
Legend pulled up with a smile on his face; His costume was a light blue with white lightning designs around the chest and arms. “Hi there, you must be the new cape in town. I’m Legend. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand to shake, and I took it.
I smiled. “Nice to meet you, Legend.” The wind up here over the bay whipped my cloak around quite dramatically letting the golden scales catch the sunlight; only the hood never budged no matter how the wind caught it.
“I heard about the robbery you stopped. Nice work.”
“It was no big deal. I was just grabbing breakfast and the guy happened to pick a really bad time to try his look.” I chuckled. “Or a really good time, depending on how you look at it.”
Legend smiled at that. “That’s what I heard. The boys in blue told me that you also handed in his gun. Only that it had inexplicably turned into Liquorice in the meantime?”
“It’s a party trick of mine, I also do birthdays and anniversaries.” I accompanied the line with a mock flourish and bow at the end. Making Legend laugh openly.
“It’s nice to meet a new cape with a sense of humour. Can we expect to see you around these parts more often? In that case have you considered joining the protectorate?”
I smiled, having expected the question. “Not at this time, I’m actually headed back to Brockton Bay in a bit. I need to check in on someone.” I made a business card appear in my hand with a flick of my wrist. “Here, you can reach me under this number. I’ll make time for you. But I gotta go now. See you around Legend.”
I let the energy built up, feeling it burst from my shoulder blades forming into wings of green light. With a laugh I shot upwards accelerating to Mach five near instantly.
Taylor
Hebert Household
Brockton Bay
January 4th,2011
1400 hours
Taylor woke with a start; Looking around the room it took her a few minutes to realise that she was in her ancestral home, not her mother’s house or her suit in the manor. With a sigh she let her head fall back onto her pillow.
Rising with a stretch Taylor checked her phone to see what time it was and whether she had any messages. Nexus had texted her a solitary thumbs up emoji, telling her that he was standing by somewhere in the vicinity. The only other message was from Emma telling her that she was available at any time if she needed to get a hold of her. She grinned, Emma had requested to be attached to this mission full time and Pandora had granted her request with only token grumbling. She’d already resolved to have her dad talk with her, whether he wanted to or not.
The conversation wouldn’t be anything pleasant, but she had a plan that had the approval of a professional counsellor, and she was going to stick to it.
She went to the bathroom and took a shower, she knew that after cleansing flame being used on her followed by attention from Panacea she was probably as clean and in as peak condition as she ever had been but neither gave the feeling of a nice hot shower. Afterwards she took a look at herself in the mirror noting the absence of most of the muscle tone she had worked up during her training. She knew that it would take a few weeks for her body to readjust to what her soul told it, it was supposed to look like now.
After drying herself off and dressing in jeans and one of her favourite hoodies she walked down the stairs. Her father was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in his hands. She sat down next to him and took one of his hands in hers. He squeezed her hand, reassuring himself that she was still there. This next part would hurt, she knew. “Dad, I’m going to tell you the rest of the story now. I just need two things from you. Promise me that you’ll let me finish before asking questions and believe me when I say that I can prove all of this.”
“I promise.” He answered without hesitation and the self-loathing she felt through the empathic connection stabbed at her heart. She knew she had to leave that alone, Emma had plenty of cautionary tales when it came to that particular power. ‘Pain, Panic, those are things that you can take away. They are irrational and damaging. Anything else has to come from inside for the change to be real or you will do more harm than good in the long term.’
“I have powers dad. I got them after the trio stuffed me in that locker. But I’m still me dad.” His grip tightened around her hand.
“I know that Taylor, oh god I…”
She cut him off. “Don’t dad. Please. Don’t. I died in that locker dad, I got to talk to mom. And not in the ‘near death experience’ kind of way I know you are thinking of. I was there, in the Hereafter. It’s a real place and I spent some time there. But I am back, here and now with you.”
“How?” He croaked, trying not to cry she realised with a start.
“They told me that I shouldn’t have died. That it wasn’t the way things were supposed to go, that there was something wrong here that needed fixing. They asked me whether I would be ready to help them fix it.”
“And they send you back to the locker just like that?” Now he was getting angry at ‘them’, and he didn’t even know who ‘they’ were yet. Hebert temper indeed.
“Oh no.” She managed a grin. “Certainly not ‘Just like that’. I have Powers, Training and backup. I joined them dad. I’m a balancer. And there’s two people you need to meet.” She said and less than a second later the doorbell rang. She looked at it through the open kitchen door and waited for her dad to turn his head too. “They are waiting outside, do you mind if I let them in? They are good friends.”
He looked at her, then briefly back at the door before shaking his head. “If they are friends and you trust them then they are welcome in this house.”
She smiled at him and snapped the fingers on her free hand; The lock glowed blue briefly and clicked open.
The doorknob turned and Emma stepped inside, wearing her habitual pinstriped pantsuit, a silver Ankh on her lapel, shining with a pale gleam you had to actively look for to notice, was the only sign of her job. All in all, she looked rather unassuming in a professional way. The way that Nexus blocked out the sun shining through the door when he stepped inside very much wasn’t. He didn’t have to duck his head, but it was a near thing.
Nexus closed the door behind them and another twitch from her fingers had it click closed again. Both of them entered the kitchen and Taylor pulled her dad to his feet alongside her. “This is Emma, she’s a great counsellor.”
“It is good to finally meet you Mister Hebert, I have heard a lot about you.” She extended her hand to shake, and her dad shook it.
Nexus extended his hand next. “A pleasure to meet you properly Mr. Hebert.”
Dad shook his hand too then froze. “Properly? Wait you’re?”
Nexus grinned. “Indeed, you met me under the guise of ‘Drake’ when I dropped Taylor off at the Hospital”
“If you can bring people back from the dead then why the Hospital at all? Couldn’t you have brought her back hale and healthy?” Her dad asked her Boss sharply.
“We needed it to become public record dad. It was part of the plan. We all agreed that it was the best way.” She guided him back to his seat and refilled his cup with coffee making mugs appear in front of Emma and Nexus with a spare thought. He picked it up and sniffed it before taking a drink. She shot him a glare and Emma giggled. “Thanks. It’s good.” He said grinning.
It did what he intended to do, she realised, that little gag had broken much of the tension that had settled on the room.
Her dad watched the byplay, the clear signs of long acquaintance and she could feel it ease his worry. “You said you got training, and you keep talking about a plan. How long did you…? I mean…” He trailed off.
She sighed, she could feel Emma and Nexus radiate silent support. “A little under a year with Mom, then a little over six in training.”
“Seven…” suddenly he seized up, gripping her hand like a vice, his eyes were wide and unseeing. And an instant stretched into eternity.
She was hovering in a void filled with crystal islands hovering over a bottomless abyss. Her dad was hovering in front of her still holding her hand in the vicelike grip. But she wasn’t wearing the same clothes she had been. She was in her work clothes, dark fatigues and boots with her light blue cloak swirling around her shoulders and her blade on her hip.
A humanoid figure carved from crystal had one of her hands on his shoulder, her face a mask of pain as a vile reddish black web pulsed, it looked like the concept of infestation given shape, like a vile slime mould eating it’s host alive. She looked at Taylor, a silent plea for help, perfectly conveyed somehow.
The figure reached out a hand in stilted jerky movements, Taylor met the crystalline hand half way.
The space around her ignited with cold blue light that travelled down her arm and into the crystalline figure.
Where it touched the infestation ignited in bright white flames. But something pushed back against her, something hostile, and alien, beyond comprehension.
She felt warm hands land on her shoulders, felt the quiet reassurance of Emma and Nexus, not interfering, not judging, just a statement. ‘You’re not alone’
With a scream of righteous fury her power exploded from her core flooding down her arm and into the crystalline figure. The malignant growth exploded into flame and the crystalline figure was filled with radiant blue light. The last thing Taylor saw before the weird space faded from her perception was a faint smile on a pale blue crystalline face.
When her normal vision returned, she saw Nexus kneeling between her and her dad, diagnostic magic twisting through the air around them, she opened her mouth to ask what was wrong with her dad who was slumped in his chair, but he stopped her. “He’s fine. Just asleep. Well done, Taylor. Very well done.”
Taylor
The Forge
Promanthia Manor
Third month of Training
1500hours
It hadn’t taken Taylor very long to realise that her new Boss had a tendency to vanish every now and then. When she had brought it up in conversation during a lecture on magic theory with Dawn she had smiled and rolled her eyes affectionately. “He gets like that on occasion. It’s got nothing to do with you or anyone else. He just sometimes wants some time to himself to cook or play the Piano, and when he’s not doing either of those things he’s usually working in the Forge.”
Now a few days later Dawn had asked her to bring some Sandwiches down to the forge because the Nexus apparently hadn’t reappeared since vanishing after breakfast.
The large barn like construction sat on the edge of the plateau that held the Manor and grounds and backed onto the slope of the Mountain. From up here one could easily overlook the bay that held the Village to which she and her mother had moved after she became a balancer.
It was the only settlement on this Planet, fittingly named Utopia, it orbited a K-class star similar to earths Sol; And had originally been a lifeless rock.
Until some undefined time ago when the balancers, then consisting only of Nexus, his wife Kyra and three others, had unilaterally decided that they needed a permanent base of operations. Cue them taking a lifeless System that no one would miss, bottling it in a micro Universe and moving it outside the normal flow of time before picking the planet they liked best and terraforming it into a perfectly balanced ecosystem and settling there.
Even with everything else she had heard about the exploits of the balancers the feat of which they spoke like it, while certainly a fine piece of work, hadn’t been particularly difficult still boggled her mind.
She entered the Workshop through the smaller personnel door in the larger, hangar style, ones and stopped dead in her tracks. The lights inside the barn were off despite the sun already disappearing behind the mountain ridge surrounding the bay. Instead, countless holograms lit the main workshop most of them showed technical drawings and wiring diagrams. Others hovered around the working CNC Machines showing the ongoing processes inside. One of them was cutting a series of ruby lenses, each around the size of a thumbnail. Another was spooling some kind of thin filament onto something that looked like a cartridge of some sort.
Her boss was hunched over a workbench producing flashes of blinding white light and buzzing sounds intermittently. Arc welding, she realised after a beat. So consumed was he in his task that he did not even hear the door close. “Hey Boss! I brought Lunch!” She called out to announce her presence.
He put down the electrode, that he held like a pen in his right hand and straightened from the hunched position with a series of pops from his back. “I need to remember to sit down for this stuff...” He muttered while he took of the welding goggles and hung them on a hook on the workbench.
“What are you working on?” She asked, putting the plate of sandwiches down on one of the less cluttered tables nearby. As usual desk space was at a premium in the workshop. Nexus had once told her that while the workshop was functionally unlimited in size the clutter multiplied quicker than he got around to extending the storage.
He lifted his latest project of the workbench; it was a gun. Made from jet black metal and glowing with an inner blue light in several places where it peaked trough between the intricate mechanical components. “I did some research, and it looks like Capes with guns are generally frowned upon, ‘cause poking holes in people is unsporting or something I guess.”
She frowned, “But Tinkers use guns all the time.”
He grinned, “Special guns, yes. Lasers, remote tasers, some plasma here and there, stuff like that.”
“Ah so you’re making your own tinker tech gun.”
“Kinda, I’m mixing and matching designs from a few places and putting my own spin on it. It’ll stun better than any taser, cut better than any laser and even disintegrate masses up to a few dozen kilos in one shot.” He grinned clearly quite proud of that one. “Right now, I’m adding a line launcher and upgrading the targeting system...” He trailed off when his stomach growled, and he glanced at his watch. “...ah.”
“Lost track of time eh boss?”
“Maybe...” He hedged and walked over to a sink to wash his hands.
“Dawn said that you’d give me the primer on artifice today?” she said pulling up a stool.
“Did she?” He asked while drying his hands on a towel. “Well, if she said so, then it must be true.” He materialised a mug of coffee from thin air as he walked over and sat down on another stool. She looked at the mug, then looked at him. He just smirked and took a sip.
The message was clear. She sighed and held out her hand concentrating and calling on her power. Blue motes of light seeped out of her skin and swirled around, shape came first, a simple cylindrical mug with a rectangular handle, weight came second, as the construct gradually got heavier until it weighed what it should, third and last came texture, the blue glow faded, and the white cup became visible. She carefully sniffed the sparkling dark liquid inside. It smelled like Cola at least.
She took a sip and immediately spit it back into the cup going green. She vanished the cup and glared at Nexus who was snickering. He raised an eyebrow and a bottle of co*ke appeared on the workbench, condensation branding and all. “Food and Drink synthesis is just about the most difficult thing you can do with energy manipulation. You’re making great progress.”
He grabbed a Cucumber sandwich. “So, artifice. Let’s start with something basic.” He grinned, “Magic metallurgy.”
Taylor gulped and took a notebook and pen from her pocket.
“Generally speaking, magic is used to enhance the natural qualities of the metals in question. For example, one might enchant a titanium piece to become even lighter and stronger than the metal would otherwise be. This is generally the simplest application. More advanced uses include synthetic metals that are created by magical means. Can you name any?”
Taylor stopped her writing and looked up. “Uhm... Mithril?”
“Mithril, also known as true or heavenly silver depending on who you ask. Is not a magical creation, it is a naturally occurring isotope with an innate higher dimensional component to its nuclear structure that accounts for its supernatural properties. It is simultaneously an excellent electrical and thermal conductor while also channelling magic with ease. With only slight modification it becomes bio-compatible and can be used for both implants and tattoo ink.”
She looked up from her notes. “Okay... so if not mithril. Adamantite?”
“Full marks. Adamantite is an artificial creation. It requires the right components to be present in the right proportions to be successfully made but is not an alloy. During the creation process the component particles are intrinsically changed. It can be worked like ferrous metal and makes for excellent weapons and tools. It can also be hardened by special means that cause its internal structure to become locked in such a way that it is physically indestructible. In this state it is however completely non-conductive to both electricity and heat. Magic tends to run off the surface without interaction. Blades can be made to have monoatomic edges that never need maintenance, the same goes for cutting inserts and other tooling. It is also impossible to bond to other materials once it is hardened and the hardening process destroys most materials instantly. Mithril is one of the few metals that can bonded to the unhardened Adamantite and survive the hardening process.”
Taylor looked around the workshop everywhere she looked she saw signs of the almost black metal. Sawblades, machining tools, chisels and hammers. Even the main Anvil was made from the stuff and covered in precisely edged spells and bindings. “You use Adamantite a lot around here, don’t you?”
He finished his cucumber sandwich and picked a BLT from the pile. “It’s the good stuff.” He said between bites. “I mean, sure, until you have mastered working with the stuff it’s an absolute bastard. But once you do... you can make almost anything from it. It’s light, almost as light as aluminium while being indestructible. You can’t weld it or anything sure, but threads work just fine. I use it for blades that never dull, gun barrels that never wear out and don’t warp with heat, cutters that never dull and frictionless bearings with no wear.”
“That has the potential to upset the world of mechanical engineering forever.” Taylor breathed.
Nexus shrugged. “It could, if the only way to harden it didn’t involve Blackfire.” The effortless capitalisation on the last word didn’t escape Taylor.
“Blackfire? But doesn’t it render anything it touches into neutronium dust?” She remembered the lecture that Dawn held.
“Almost anything.” Nexus corrected simply. “There are some crystals that can contain it when sufficiently and correctly enchanted, it also can’t touch pure mithril but that’s about it.” He finished the BLT and emptied his mug only to refill it from a thermos he pulled out of thin air.
Taylor glared at the offending item. “Now you’re just showing off.”
He grinned. “Think of it as motivation.”
He stood up and walked over to the Anvil picking up a sphere of Adamantite that apparently lived in a cradle on one of the goldsmithing workstations. He let it drop onto the anvil from about a metre up and it bounced right back into his hand. Both objects rung like bells making for a pleasant harmony. “Rebounding is a big factor in forging, it takes a lot of effort away when you know how to keep a beat.”
He picked a random piece of round stock from one of the racks on the walls and laid it on the embers of the coal base. With his foot he opened a valve on the bottom of the forge and compressed air coaxed the fire into a bright blaze. With a shovel he added fresh co*ke from a large bucket. “Artifice generally means the combination of both mechanical and magical engineering. Objects created this way are usually called artifacts or Magitek, the latter if the process is well understood the former if not.”
He picked the now glowing piece of metal out of the fire with his left hand and a hammer up with his right hand. Then he began expertly squaring the stock with the steady beat of a metronome. With each strike the anvil rung like a great bell. “Of course, Magitek doesn’t necessarily mean complex mechanical design. Most of the Holo projectors we use are entirely solid state created from an artificial carbon matrix implanted with a discrete hyperspace domain that contains hard energy computer circuits.”
He stuck the piece he was working on back into the flames. “A decently advanced supercomputer fits into a gem of a size that wouldn’t look out of place on a ring. Something like a wristwatch can hold exponentially more. Storage and off-site computing become non issues thank to a 2048bit wide null-time data link with the Utopia mainframe that works anywhere in existence.”
He took the iron back out of the fire. “All of that falls under the umbrella of artifice. Now personally I tend to split the difference between traditional artifice and Magitek engineering” He began profiling the throwing knife he was working on. “Forging by hand allows the smith to imbue the metal with purpose and layer spell routines into the essential makeup of the artifact much more deeply than any enchanting of a finished product could.”
He plunged the blade back into the fire and Taylor noticed that the metal began showing signs of edged designs that she was sure the raw material didn’t have. It also glowed a faint blue at the edges so that was a clue. He took it back out of the fire and began profiling the handle section. “Using enchanted tooling also makes the process quicker and more precise.” He let the almost finished blade cool on the anvil before taking it over to a machine that looked like someone crossed a CNC mill with a high end 3d-Printer.
Fine, snake like, arms unfolded from the machine and gripped the almost finished blade. “This baby here,” he patted the machine with fatherly pride. Taylor felt calling a machine that was taller than him by at least half and twice as wide a ‘baby’ was a distinctly ‘tinkery’ personality trait. “Is my Answer to grinding, polishing and inlaying.” The blade was locked in place and thin sweeping beams of green light swept over it. Forge scale and other irregularities were vaporised and extracted by the fume hood. Then the beams focused into pinpoints of green light etching fine circuitous lines into the metal before the beams turned blue and deposited shining silvery metal into the groves. Next came red beams that welded the inlay in place before the green shimmer returned and polished away any marks left by the process.
“What this machine does in five minutes would take an ordinary master craftsman a week and an artificer like me at least half a day.” He picked up the finished blade once the hood of the machine retracted and went over to a workbench which had various handle materials and wrappings arrayed in a cupboard behind it. He picked out a deep red block of fixated cherry wood and an intricate blue and silver ribbon. He lobbed the block of wood into the machine that had already done its work on the blade. To Taylors surprise the machine deftly caught it with its manipulators before beginning to machine a pair of perfectly matching grip scales from it.
She stared at the machine. “Uhm... don’t machines like that usually take like, ages to program for a specific task?”
“I’m a very smart machine.” Giggled the machine.
“What The f*ck.”
Nexus burst out laughing, doubling over the workbench. “Taylor, meet Twilight. My ever helpful if slightly mischievous assistant.” He managed to say between guffaws.
The Machine giggled again before motes of light collected from the ceiling and drifted down forming a holographic avatar of a young woman, she bore a striking similarity to Dawn. She saluted with a quirky pose that had Nexus roll his eyes in the background. “Hi, I’m Twilight your friendly Neighbourhood VI assistant. You can call me Twi if you like, he does all the time.” She hooked a thumb at Nexus over her shoulder, he rolled his eyes again.
“I saw that.” She said without turning around.
Taylor looked between them, Nexus had regained control of himself and was now only snickering a little every now and then while he worked, braiding crystalline beads onto the silk ribbon.
“Wait, VI? Not AI?”
“No, Twi is a Virtual intelligence. In essence, a very smart computer, unlike Dawn, she doesn’t possess a Soul.”
“I’m not a real girl you see.” Twi leaned forward in a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m just really good at faking it.” She winked.
Taylor looked between the avatar and Nexus. “Uhm... nice to meet you.”
The avatar lost all the expressiveness and spoke in a monotone. “Likewise, Miss” Pause. “Taylor.” Pause. “Hebert.” Pause. Then she winked and spoke, inflection returning. “See you around, newbie.” Before vanishing.
Taylor slowly looked around to Nexus who was trying very hard not to break down into a giggling fit. “Boss... Your computers are weird.”
A quiet source less girlish giggle sounded all around the Workshop and Nexus grinned. “And don’t I know it.”
The hood of the fabricator, which had worked quietly through the conversation, opened and lobbed the finished grips to Nexus who deftly caught them and grafted them onto the handle of the knife, fixing them in place with three silver rivets.
He laid the weapon on the table between them on a black velvet pillow. The first rays of moonlight shone through the window, the almost full moon rising over the water of the bay, the Celtic mithril inlays lit up with a beautiful inner light that seemed to waft off the blade like frost. The guard, simply in shape but beautifully detailed was swept towards the blade. From the ring on the back trailed the blue silk ribbon the silver characters woven into it likewise glowing with a soft inner light as the moonlight hit them.
Nexus held his right hand over the blade and intoned his voice slipping into a deeper regal register. “I am Nexus Promanthia, the Lord Balancer, I am he who forges the blades that maintain the balance, I name thee Sleá Gheimhridh, Winters Spear. Serve your Mistress well.”
As he spoke light shone from his palm resolving into characters in an alphabet that Taylor didn’t know they circled the blade and each other in an intricate fractal dance that was mesmerising to look at. As he finished his incantation the letters sunk into the blade one by one until a brilliant soft white light edged the name into the handle, a faint shimmering blue on cherry red.
Taylor released a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. “Wow. Wait. Mistress?”
Nexus grinned. “It’s for you. Everyone around here has some kind of weapon. Consider it a late ‘Welcome aboard’ present.”
She picked it off the velvet pillow, the grip was pleasantly cool and fit her hand perfectly, she started when the ribbon wrapped around her wrist exuding a light reassuring pressure.
She looked at Nexus and he grinned, handing her a sheath on a belt that perfectly matched her new dagger. “You planned this from the start, didn’t you?” She said accusingly.
“Rule three of being a Balancer?” He grinned. “Always act like everything you’re doing is just perfectly timed coincidence. It gives you an air of omniscience.”
She huffed while he packed away the tools he had been using before shooing her out of the forge with mock sternness. “Now scram grasshopper, I have to start Dinner before there’s a mutiny. I’ll see you tomorrow to show you how to use that thing.”
“Sure, thing Boss! See you tomorrow.”
Taylor
The Boardwalk
Brockton Bay
January 6th,2011
1800 hours
Taylor watched the chase going on with a deadpan expression on her face, not that anyone would have seen it under her hood. Right now, she wasn’t Taylor Hebert, fifteen year old high school girl, she was Wyvern, trained for the last six years to be a hero.
And her first solo outing in her home town, the one that would introduce her to the public? Was going to be bloody Uber and Leet, who were up to their usual shenanigans, Uber was leading Armsmaster on a merry chase on a bloody lightcycle. The damn thing pulled ninety degree corners with an ease that implied impressive inertial dampening. Armsmaster was having a hell of a time trying to catch up on his own bike which, while heavily augmented by tinkertech, was decidedly not built for taking corners on a dime.
Zooming in her view through her Magitek glasses she saw Armsmasters mouth twitching in the corners, whether it was a sign of a disapproving frown or some tiny amount of fun? No one could say. She looked over at Nexus, or rather, Drake. He stood on the roof of Fugly Bob’s and radiated wry amusem*nt through his crossed arms and slightly tilted head as the pair of racers shot past, again. Taylor started, that was the third time in five minutes, just how fast were they going?
Her glasses answered the unspoken query with a helpful pop up. Sixty-three miles per hour. Make that very impressive inertial dampening. She lifted up from the roof and accelerated down the street, she knew that leet would be hiding somewhere relatively close by in case the tech inevitably went up in smoke. “Where are you, you balaclavad nuisance…”
She scanned the roofs from above and after about ten minutes she spotted the figure in overalls and a blue balaclava, he was watching the action through a pair of binoculars. Her cloak hid her grin as she silently landed behind him and crossed her arms. “Ahem.”
Leet let out an unmanly shriek and jumped most of three feet into the air before whirling around. Taylor was suddenly very glad that she had set her glasses to record. “Jesus Christ! Who are you?”
She tilted her head, suddenly quite aware of just why Nexus usually acted as he did. For one thing, the reactions it got were f*cking hilarious. “’The name’s Wyvern”
“You a… uhm… hero?” He was fidgeting under her gaze now.
“Yup.” She answered as deadpan as she could trying desperately not to laugh.
“Would you believe me if I told you that we were doing a paid promotion?” He was slowly edging away from her.
“For an Aleph movie that came out last year?”
“Uhm… Yes...?”
“In that case I’m sure you have some kind of Paperwork to prove that?”
“Well… I… uhm…” He deflated. “No…”
“You are aware that what you are doing is a little dangerous?”
“Oh no it’s perfectly safe! If he hits anything bigger than a fly the thing just stops dead. It’s a quirk of the inertial dampening tech I came up with.”
“Is that so? Handy.” A pair of handcuffs appeared in her hand with a flash of blue light. “Now. Are you going to run or what?”
“Well…” He took another step back to the parapet.
With a faint whine the lightcycle came shooting up the side of the building and leet grabbed Ubers extended hand and jumped on behind him before they both shot of.
She turned on the spot and glared at Nexus, who had the perfect angle to have seen that coming. He had the gall to shrug at her. Well… she did tell him that she wanted to do this solo.
She took off in hot pursuit. “Pull over!”
“Like hell!” Uber yelled back.
“You’ll regret this!”
“Try me!”
She reached for the dagger on her thigh and the ribbon on its end wrapped around her arm. With a flick of her wrist, she launched the dagger the design etched into the blade lit up with blue light and it flew straight and true right through the hollow rear wheel of the bike and back to her where she grabbed it in her left hand.
Then she pulled up. With some amount of effort first the back wheel and then the entire bike lifted of the ground and both Uber and Leet yelped when they suddenly found themselves two stories above ground.
“What the Hell!”
“Oh, come on!”
Armsmaster stopped on the street below.
“So, then boys. Do you give up or do I start shaking?”
They both slumped and she lowered the bike to the road. Before they could get any ideas Armsmaster grabbed them each by the shoulder. “Thank you for your help. What should I call you?”
“You can call me Wyvern.”
