Immortals [Worm]

Welcome to another riveting chapter of Immortals! I wrote this chapter to get back into the swing of things with this story; it mostly deals with Taylor's life after the events of Nine, and is mainly exposition. It swings back and forth between two days after the events of the last chapter and six months later. Don't worry, though, there will be some scenes and explanations in later chapters detailing what happens during this time period. Happy reading, please let me know what you think!
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Immortals
A Worm Fanfic
Chapter 10: Dawn of a New Era
...or The Calm Before the Storm​

2:37 PM EST
January 11th, 2010

Brockton Bay, RI
United States of America
Earth Bet

Loud music echoed through my basement turned laboratory as I worked. My mind continually studied and reviewed the design for the control interface that I was building as dexterous hands soldered reprogrammed computer chips onto a miniature circuit board. I was putting the board together using a tool of my own invention, something that I’d come up with using a combination of mundane know-how and a few of the advanced engineering principles that I’d intuited from studying examples of half a dozen Tinker built tools and devices.

The postage stamp sized circuit board was completed with only a few more strokes of the nanometer wide tip of my soldering tool, the last chip skillfully becoming fixed in the proper place. With that, the control board for my latest invention was complete. The flux I’d been using to solder didn’t actually need to be heated to be applied; rather, the ‘soldering iron’ I was using caused metal to destabilize molecularly, which made most materials act as if they were in a liquid state at room temperature. Keeping the metal cool allowed me to apply it with greater precision and less risk. It also caused the metal to transition back into a solid instantly when I removed the tip of the iron, without wasting time waiting for the flux to cool. There was also no pesky expansion and contraction as the metal changed temperature to throw off the precision of my work. It was a handy little invention that I’d cooked up during my first week of ‘Tinkering’, and I’d gotten a fair bit of use out of it since then.

Like all of my inventions, the Cold Iron was also mass producible. It could be built from off the shelf components, using mundane engineering principles. I’d made a killing leasing the patent for this invention, as well as many others. Thanks to my power, I was more than just another Tinker… I actually understood how and why my inventions operated, allowing me to share this knowledge with humanity at large. I’d made tens of millions of dollars by leasing and selling patents for ready to build inventions… but I’d made billions by selling the knowledge of the underlying engineering and scientific principles that I’d gleaned by studying Tinkertech.

Already, after only six months of having powers, my contributions to human knowledge had led to an ongoing, worldwide scientific revolution. I was being hailed as the world’s greatest Thinker by some, for bringing the secrets behind Tinkertech to mankind as a whole. Soon, with the building blocks that I was steadily supplying, humanity would use replicable super science to transform the entire planet. I was a long time away from figuring out a way to kill the Endbringers, but derivatives and new technologies based on my inventions and papers had already led to several notable advances in the state-of-the-art, a few of them translating directly to real world improvements in the lives of regular people. PRT troopers were all armed with superior body armor, and ‘wireless tasers’ now, giving them all an effective ‘Brute 3’ and ‘Blaster 2’ rating. Capture and incarceration rates for wanted villains had never been higher.

To be honest, all of the praise was a bit of an ego boost. I was trying not to let it change who I was... and on most days I succeeded. Still, I couldn’t help admitting, at least to myself, that it was nice to be acknowledged.

I smiled; with the control board for my latest tool complete, about 90% of my current tools would soon be rendered completely obsolete… not to mention approximately 60-70% of human industry, once I began marketing it to the general population. I walked over to the tool in question, studying it intensely. I’d been working toward this goal all along, laboring to reach the point where I would be able to take off the kid gloves and really get building. Nearly all of the practical work I’d done for the last few months had been in service of this single invention. I slid the control board into place; the board’s universal connector, something that I’d cribbed from Kid Win of all people, allowing it to be installed with a nothing more than a gentle push. A faint ‘click’ reach my ears, indicating that the board had been installed successfully. The modular nature of the machine I had designed allowed for quick and easy installation or replacement of all the machine’s components at a moment’s notice, without even having to power it off.

My perfect memory precluded any final checks of the device; I already knew that it had been put together perfectly. There would be no unexpected problems with the device unless I’d misunderstood some principle of the science or engineering behind it in the design phase. Oh, I suppose some of the materials I had used to construct it might have been flawed at the atomic level in some extraordinarily undetectable way… But that was extremely unlikely. Thanks to my power, there could be no errors during the building and assembly process… at least no errors by me. I switched the large machine on, my eyes alight as it silently came to life. I stared at the integrated display, watching as the OS I’d modified for this invention booted up.

It had taken an incredible amount of work to get to this point. I’d both purchased and been given dozens of Tinkertech devices to study over the last few months, machines both working and nonfunctional. I always made sure to pay triple for any piece of tech that came with a manual, as I could often glean more detailed information from such reference materials. I had also obtained hundreds of full schematics for Tinker-tech devices for this project alone, as well as a guide written by Dragon herself for newly triggered Tinkers. Her book had given me a few critical insights which had helped me solve a few of the more critical problems that I’d had in the design phase.

I had studied technology created by Armsmaster, Dragon, and Kid Winn, and compared notes with Cranial, Dodge, and Glace of Toybox. I had sought out half a score of other Tinkers, only to have my advances rebuffed; some because I wasn’t a real Tinker, and others because they were jealous or wary due to my incredible achievements. Once the validity of my claim that I could decrypt Tinkertech had been verified, the Protectorate, as well as dozens of other parahuman organizations, had practically thrown Tinkertech at me, with only the stipulation that I promised to share my results with them.

That was fine; I was sharing the things I discovered with everyone. One of the promises I’d made to myself was that no one group would benefit overly from my research; it was the only way to make sure that humanity as a whole benefited from my power. When I sold a set of commissioned research notes to the PRT, or to Toybox, or the Russian Federation, etc, it was with the understanding that the knowledge they received would only remain exclusive for a period of two months. After that, I would release it to the world on my website, Hero of Humanity.

I always included a clause in my contracts that my customers could commission research on a specific article of Tinkertech, or in a specific area of study for half price… if the knowledge was immediately placed in the public domain. Seeing as how my Tinkertech research commissions started at ten millions for a half-day project and went up steeply from there, I’d had a lot of people taking me up on the half-price deal. Anything I researched on my own was immediately placed in the public domain, freely accessible by anyone on earth.

Just last week, I’d read that a normal, unpowered teenage boy had created a man portable cold fusion power cell that could supply enough electricity to power a family home indefinitely. He’d created it using the principles from a few of my research papers and a college-level understanding of science and engineering. The prototype had cost under three hundred dollars, and he’d claimed that mass production would lower the price to under fifty bucks a unit. The inventor had followed my lead and placed the patent in the public domain, allowing anyone to build it for free. It wasn’t the first such story that I’d heard about, and I was sure that it wouldn’t be the last. Already, there were new factories springing up worldwide, while existing manufacturing infrastructure was being retooled to take advantage of the tech revolution I’d bitch-slapped humanity with.

I love my power!

I had been so, so busy. I’d done all of this research, reverse engineering, and inventing on top of my daily reading. Before I could start building things, I had needed a foundation in the age-old art of engineering. I tore through tens of thousands of textbooks and manuals, guides and documents, both in print and on the Internet… anything at all that pertained to science and engineering. I’d also consumed everything I could find that taught learnable skills, until I’d become a fresh expert in hundreds of areas. By the time a month had gone by from the day I triggered, I had possessed knowledge and skills that were equivalent to having received dozens of doctorates and certifications. I somehow found time for physical training as well, though that quickly took a backseat to everything else once I discovered that my muscles and reflexes didn’t need to be maintained with exercise to remain in top condition. Only when I was finished learning the basics had I finally been ready to start building.

If my first month of having powers had been a time of learning, my second month had been a time of discovery, filled with trial and error. I started destroying incredibly valuable articles of Tinkertech like mad, carefully breaking down each piece of idiot savant created ‘technology’ in laboratory conditions, so that my 3D modeling power squeeze every bit of information out of these unreplicable marvels. I used the bounties I’d received from killing Hatchetface and the Siberian to feed my new addiction, blowing through ten million dollars in the first week alone.

Mom had not been pleased with my spending, thinking that I was wasting our limited liquid assets for little to no gain. She had changed her tune very quickly once the money started rolling in from the patents and research I produced from studying Tinkertech. She’d apologized to me after that, and since then she’d let me have nearly full control over my wealth. I still had to go over the books with her and my head accountant every other week, but it wasn’t a burden.

It had been six weeks after triggering when I’d leased my first patent. I’d designed a handheld medical scanner that could map the human body down to the cellular level in less than thirty seconds. My Medi-Scanner could find each and every anomaly in the person being scanned, either identifying the individual’s medical problems outright from its integral database, or using heuristics to come up with a probable answer. It cost about $175 in parts and labor to build one, and I’d heard that Texas Instruments, the company who’d ‘taken a chance’ on the patent, was going to be selling them for around $3500 each. The companies that made MRIs, X-ray machines, and ultrasounds had been pissed, and only a wise decision from an extremely level-headed judge had prevented T.I. from being tied up in ‘cease and desist’ orders for the next decade. As it was, they had rushed into production, something they were able to do as they already had 95% of the industrial capacity to mass produce Medi-Scanners. The first mass produced units had been ready for sale in less than three months, which was amazingly fast for modern tech companies.

I’d calculated that worldwide, my first marketable invention had already saved between thirty thousand and three million lives. The actual number of people who’d survived thanks to the advent of perfect, nearly instantaneous medical imaging was tough to compute, hence the imprecise numbers. In the sixty three days that they had been widely available, Medi-Scanners had allowed doctors to avoid misdiagnosis and to discover medical issues that they wouldn’t have originally been able to diagnose with older tools and methods. I felt pretty good about that; with this single invention, I was already responsible for saving more lives than any hero I could think of, save for possibly the Triumvirate and Dragon. Oh, and Scion, of course… I don’t think I’d ever be able to become a greater hero than him. Not unless I do something really impressive, like figuring out how to achieve functional immortality for our species.

Yes, I am planning to come up with a practical form of immortality. Why wouldn’t I? Mortality is the leading cause of death.

I turned my attention back to my newest project. My molecular assembler had finished booting up, and it’s diagnostic screen showed all green lights, just as I knew it would. I most definitely did not let out a high pitched, shriek of girly delight when I saw that my invention actually worked. No sir, not me. What I did do, however, was to immediately begin testing my new favorite invention.

After confirming that the molecular assembler worked perfectly by fabbing a few simple items, I connected it to the secure network I’d set up in my home and downloaded several schematics for inventions that I hadn’t been able to build yet for one reason or another. Lack of time and specialized resources, mainly. I queued up one of my more promising designs, something that I’d wanted to build since I first got powers. I watched the integrated widescreen OLED as it displayed a full suit of power armor that I’d created using technology and engineering principles from over a dozen Tinkers. Notable contributors included Dragon, Kid Win, Tecton, and the first Hero himself. My eyes moved superhumanly fast as I rapidly double-checked the design. After reviewing it I was satisfied; I’d already built most of the systems in miniature to test the feasibility of the technology, so I knew that every part of the suit would function.

I’d been meaning to build a set of powered armor like this for months, but I simply didn’t have the hundreds of man-hours necessary to machine the dense layers of dimensionally overlapped ablative armor that protected the comparatively fragile interior systems... as well as the comparatively fragile pilot. I also lacked the dozens of pounds of radiologicals (tough to come by, even for me), and the industrial capacity to work on the armor’s systems simultaneously, so that I could finish it in months instead of years.

My lab was more theoretical proving ground than machine shop, and I’d yet to expand into any of the buildings I’d purchased just for that purpose. I was extremely worried about security, as I was currently one of the most valuable parahumans on the planet. There had been over half a dozen kidnapping attempts already, and an international incident in which the CUI had claimed that I was a defector, and demanded that I be returned to China where I belonged. The US government had responded that any attempt by the CUI to abduct me would be considered an act of war;

Alexandria herself had needed to get involved when two of the weird grab-bag capes that China seemed to abound with had illegally entered Brockton bay. The less said about that incident the better; their deaths had not been quick or clean. If I hadn’t read up on game theory and realpolitik then I might have thought Alexandria a monster. Despite not liking it, I did understand the need for a show of force in situations like that. China had not come out of the confrontation unscathed; on top of losing two of their capes they had also faced sanctions from both the UN and America directly, resulting in the probable loss of billions of dollars of revenue each year. Ouch.

I guess I’m kind of a big deal.

Anyhow, the power armor. Someone like Armsmaster had enough time and resources to build and maintain a suit of power armor, but up until now I hadn’t. Now, thanks to the fabulous machine I’d just built, I totally did. The molecular assembler did exactly what its name implied; it assembled things at the molecular level. I’d seen several powers and Tinkertech machines which operated on a molecular level to achieve whatever function they were designed for, but not a single one that took advantage of the broader implications of the underlying technology. I’d decided to fix this oversight by building a device that could create anything, given sufficient mass and power. The molecular assembler was the fruit of that labor, the thing that I’d been working toward the entire time that I’d been studying Tinkertech.

With a working molecular assembler, I could build nearly anything... and quickly, too. The only real limit was the size of the construction chamber, and that wouldn’t be an issue for too much longer. The second model, which I was still designing, used a shaped force field for the a containment chamber, which would allow me to make and assembler that, while much smaller than the first revision, would be able to create much larger items. I had a bit of work to go before the second revision would be ready to build… I still needed to crack several of the underpinning principles of Dodge’s specialty, pocket dimensions, so that I could compress the internal components into a small enough space to carry a man-portable version around with me.

I switched the assembler on, watching the control screen carefully as several internal components in the large machine came to life. The dimensionally expanded hopper, which I’d filled with tons of scrap and garbage, began steadily feeding matter into the construction beam. A quiet humming sound emerged as the matter was re-shaped, turing refuse and scrap metal into state of the art technology. I chewed my lip thoughtfully as I watched the progress of the build on the monitor. I had made the containment chamber, the part of the machine where the assembly take place, opaque for several reasons. Chiefly among these reasons was the fact that the construction beam was so bright that it would burn out a man’s retinas and give them third-degree sunburns from five meters away. Another problem to solve before a portable version could be devised. I smiled when I calculated that the construction times were exactly what I expected them to be. Mass and power in, rearranged mass out. In less than an hour the assembler was finished with its first real build.

The top and sides of the enormous cylindrical construction bay of the molecular assembler opened up, revealing a suit of gleaming purple and red colored power armor in the center. I stared at the highly advanced armor, which by all rights should have taken a team of elite engineers months to machine and put together. Using my molecular assembler, it had only taken 53 minutes to build. I let out a slightly hysterical laugh as I began putting on the suit of armor, eager to put it through its paces. The flight system in particular was calling to me; despite the fact that my own power allowed me to help humanity on a global scale, I was still jealous of Mom’s ability to fly. With the undersuit and torso piece firmly in place, I pulled the strength and speed enhancing limbs onto my extremities, before lowering the full helmet over my head.

The suit booted up in a fraction of a second; it had more computing power than the massive quantum computing server that I used as the cornerstone of my network. The power armor could hold literally tons of hardware thanks to the many dimensionally expanded spaces inside of it. Looking at the rack cabinets on the other end of my basement laboratory, I knew what my second build would be. I had desperately needed to upgrade my computing capacity for a while now, but I hadn’t had the time or resources to do so before the assembler came online.

Smiling, I used a virtual keyboard and the helmet’s visual interface for access the assembler. Working quickly, I designed a new supercomputer that included everything relevant that I’d learned about Tinkertech since I’d designed my current supercomputer. I over engineered the hell out of it, giving it ten times the amount of processing and memory resource that I currently needed. I then octupled the amount of computing power, before starting the build queue. With this much power it would likely be a while before I would need to trouble myself to build a new one. The new supercomputer, like most of my current generation of technology, had most of its mass stored in overlapping pocket dimensions. This allowed it to be much smaller and more resilient than was normally possible. The benefits of using this approach were self apparent, and it didn’t take much more power than building things the old way. The construction chamber closed, and the assembler began humming away as it started putting together the server I’d just designed.

It was time to do a bit of testing with my new power armor. I would need to be careful; I could only test a fraction of its systems indoors, lest I level my house. Walking across the room, I stopped in front of a large mirror hanging on the wall near my primary workstation. I stared at armored figure in front of me, incredibly impressed at how I looked while wearing the shiny creation. Deciding to see how the strength enhancement systems worked, I grabbed a 36” x 2” stainless steel rod that had been sitting nearby. Holding the length of metal in my armored fists, I gently flexed my wrists and forearms. I watched in glee as the artificial myomeres in the suit’s reinforced skeleton flexed with the movements of my own body. The metal rod folded in half effortlessly when I exerted all of the effort it usually took me to fold laundry. My helmet’s heads up display told me that this first test had put a 0.02% load on the artificial muscles in my suit’s elbow joints and forearms. Holy crap... I was strong now. I would need to be careful.

Brimming with poorly restrained glee, I carefully walked up the stairs into the house proper. I couldn’t wait to show Mom and Dad my new toy! And I guess I would show Riley, too… She might get a kick out it, since I’d used a few of things she’d taught me when I’d designed the armor’s artificial muscles.

. . .

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The last six months had, bar none, been some of the best days of my life. I’d accompanied Mom and Dad on their trip to Rome a day and a half after the conclusion of our harrowing rescue of the Camp Wanantakka victims. My parents had originally booked a room at a modest Inn, but thanks to the bounty money we’d shortly be receiving we decided to go all out. The massive amount of stress I’d been under slowly melted away over the course of the two weeks that we spent in Italy. Each historical sight I saw, each gourmet meal I ate, and every cut foreign boy that smiled at me contributed to the cessation of the pain and uncertainty that had been lodged deep, down in the core of my being. The daily teleconferenced counseling sessions with Dr. Jessica Yamada, the therapist that Quinn Calle had recommended, didn’t hurt either.

With Doctor Yamada’s help, I was slowly becoming more comfortable with the things that had happened to me. I was also able to fully admit to myself that it wasn’t my fault. Truly, I had known that from the start, but it wasn't easy not to feel it, if that makes any sense. I learned about survivor’s guilt as I traipsed about the beautiful city of Rome, experiencing a decadent vacation abroad for the first time. It was refreshing. Eventually, though, I started to miss home… to miss my friends, really. I’d been using video chat to talk to Emma and Carlos every day, but it wasn’t the same as actually seeing them in person. When the two weeks was up I was glad to board the plane that would take us back across the ocean... back home to Brockton Bay.

The Barnes met us at the airport in Emma’s Dad’s enormous SUV. I squealed in delight when I spotted Carlos and Emma standing in the crowd of people waiting for their friends and families to leave the boarding area of the airport. I ran to them, wrapping both of my friends up in an enormous hug. Of course I’d told Emma everything… Carlos had surprised me by being willing to ‘come out’ to my friend as well, after I’d introduced him to Emma. The fact that they were here today, together, told me all I needed to know about how well they have been getting along in my absence.

The two teenagers had interacted so well during their first meeting that I’d worried Carlos was into her, if you know what I mean. After observing their interactions, however, I’d seen no evidence at all that Carlos liked Emma in a romantic way. From the odd way he was acting around me before I’d left, and the way that he’d seldom left my side during those two days, I had a strong suspicion that Carlos had as much of a crush on me as I had on him. I hadn’t actually talked to him about it, yet... God, that was going to be such an embarrassing conversation. Sometimes being a teenager was a sack of assholes.

The Barnes took us to dinner the night we got back to celebrate our return. Carlos tagged along as well, riding with my parents and I on the trip over to the restaurant. Alan and Zoe Barnes, Emma’s Mom and Dad, didn’t yet know that Mom and I were capes; I assumed that they didn’t know about Carlos, either. I hadn’t asked my mother yet if she intended to tell them, but I seriously doubt that she planned to. If it had been Dad who triggered, then it might have been a different story; he and Alan went way back, having been best friends all throughout their childhood, just like Emma and me. Mom had never been as close to either of the Barnes as Dad was to Alan; she had much closer friends in her home city of Boston and at the College where she worked.

I’d talked to Mom previously to discussing my secret with Emma, to get her advice. She had looked at me for a moment with an odd expression on her face, before asking me a single question.

“Do you trust her, Taylor?” she asked solemnly. I thought hard for a moment. I’d spent my entire life beside Emma, shared so many things with her that she was more like a sister to me than a friend. We had so many secrets between us that I couldn’t count them, helped each other so many times that the memories blurred together. Sure, Emma might act like a spoiled brat at times… but she had never done anything that given me the slightest cause to suspect that she would betray my trust. She was my best friend.

“Yes,” I replied, with a bit of steel in my voice. “I would trust her with anything.” Mom smiled at me.

“Well, there’s your answer,” she said matter of factly.

I called Carlos later that day, and explained that I was going to tell my best friend that I was a cape. We spent a little longer than I had counted on talking… for some reason, the two of us kept finding a reason to avoid ending the call. Weird, huh? I asked Carlos if he would like to meet up with the two of us afterward, so that I could introduce him to Emma. He readily agreed, stating that he wanted to meet all of the important people in my life… for some reason, that made my blush, though I don’t rightly know why. I left him to decide whether or not he wanted to come in costume (such as it was), or in his civvies. He agreed to meet us at a park near the mall later, so that we could get to know one-another, and maybe have a late lunch.

I was running late from being on the phone for so long, so I had to put my new physique to us in order to get to my best friend’s house on time. I caught a few odd looks while running there, but I wasn’t too worried, since I kept my real abilities on the down-low. As I ran, I made sure to keep my running speed under that of baseline human maximum, only moving at 18 miles per hour. The human maximum was 28 miles per hour, so I felt that my current pace was a good compromise. I would find out later that a sustained running speed of 18 miles per house was ridiculously fast; thankfully, though, my little stunt hadn’t compromised my identity.

I knocked on Emma’s door, running in place to cool down while I waited for her to answer. When my red-headed bestie opened the door to greet me, the wide smile she was wearing transformed into a look of disbelief when she got a good look at me, her eyes bulging like crazy. The short, curvy girl grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside, slamming the door behind her. I looked her in oddly; what in the world was going on here?

“Jesus Christ, Taylor!” shouted Emma, staring at me in shock. “What in the hell happened to you!?” She was eyeing me wearily, staring at my stomach for some reason. I looked down, my own eyes following the path hers had taken. I looked at my stomach warily, wondering why my best friend was staring at it so intently.

“What?” I asked her.

“Shit, you don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you Taylor?” She pinched the bridge of her nose, looking like she had a headache forming. What I want to know,” she said slowly, “is how in the fuck did you got an eight-pack in less than a week?” Oh, yeah. That. I guess my body had developed a little bit of muscle, both during and after my Trigger.

“Hi Emma,” I said, “It’s nice to see you, too,” I said snarkily. Emma rolled her eyes. “Are your parents home?” I asked her.

“Do you really fucking think that I would be cursing like a goddamn sailor if they were here?” she replied. We giggled together. “Dad’s at work today, and Mom and Anne went to Lord’s Market. Now, tell me how you got that sexy belly! Oooh!” Emma squealed, a look of awe in her eyes. “Did you find a cape to work on you? Do they take requests!?”

“Jeeze! Calm down, Emma!” I cried as she grabbed my arm and hopped up and down like a terrier with an overfull bladder.

“Teeeell meeee~!” she pleaded, her eyes beginning to water artfully. Emma was ridiculously good at faking real tears. She had her father wrapped around her little finger, and could make him do pretty much anything for her when she fake-cried.

“Alright, OK already!” I said, halfheartedly trying to push her off of me. “Calm the shit down and I’ll tell you, you grabby little brat,” I said fondly, a smile on my face. Emma settled down immediately, shooting me a satisfied smirk.

Emma got us a each a coke from the fridge; regular for me, and diet for her. I shot the silver can my friend was sipping from a distrustful look; diet soda was just the worst. Coming from someone who's fought the slaughterhouse nine, that’s saying something. I cracked the can and took a long, slow sip, watching the redheaded girl opposite me begin to squirm in impatience. Holding in a grin that threatened to burst forth, I tilted my head back and slowly drew on the can of cola, taking the world’s longest drink. Emma’s eyes narrowed when she realized what I was doing, and she brandished a throw pillow in my direction threateningly. I made the tactical decision to not get hit in the face while I was drinking soda, and place the mostly empty drink container on the coffee table. I made sure to use a coaster; Mrs. Barnes was a real stickler for that.

I looked my best friend directly in the eyes, my face hardening. Emma’s grin fled like a startled cat, leaving behind a blank expression. She gulped when I stood up and began pacing back and forth. God, damn; why was this so hard?

“I’m a parahuman,” I said. Emma stared at me in shock, her mouth opening and closing like that of a fish. “I have powers. I got them at camp, when the Slaughterhouse Nine attacked. I killed a few of them, and saved a bunch of people. It was terrible.” I looked down at the ground, wondering how Emma would react. Would she--

I rocked back on my heels as a soft, warm body slammed into my own, arms wrapping around me comfortingly. Emma held me tightly, and I lowered my chin down to rest on her shoulder. She pulled me into her, making soothing sounds as she patted my back, just as my mom had done the other day when I first got home from camp. I wasn’t quite as much of a mess as I had been that day, though, so I didn’t break down crying. The hug felt nice, though; I could always count on Emma to be there for me when something was the matter, just like I had always been there for her. I doubt there was anything in the world that could tear us apart.

I was extremely glad that I had come out to Emma. We spent almost two hours talking. I recounted a bare-bones version of my adventure, omitting some of the more unpleasant details. I’d already gotten Mom’s OK to tell Emma that she had triggered. When I told her, Emma was extremely excited, wondering if my whole family would soon be capes. She told me that if Danny Triggered, we should become a crime fighting family like New Wave, our town’s resident vigilante group. They didn’t wear masks for some reason, though I wasn’t entirely clear on why; I would need to read up on that.

Of course, Emma was hella jealous. She seemed more concerned for me than resentful, though, and she couldn’t stop gushing about my upgraded body. She kept running her smooth, manicured hands over the rock hard muscles in my arms and legs, and staring at the well-defined eight-pack on my tummy. It felt kind of weird when she did that; a little uncomfortable, and a little… tingly, I guess. I didn’t think that my best friend was into me, or anything like that… it seemed like equal parts envy and excitement for me. Having Emma point out all of my changes had made me realize that I had either missed some things in my initial assessment, or that my body had somehow changed over the last three days.

I excused myself and went to the restroom. Stripping off my clothing, I stared at myself critically in the full length mirror, startelement evident on my face. I was far more ripped than I initially thought four days ago, when I had obtained my powers. Digging through my perfect memory, I pulled up the memory of when I’d found the stream in the woods. I had stripped them, and stared into the clear water there, studying my body. It definitely didn’t look like this at that point. I’d had visible muscle, sure, but I’d looked more like a healthy, extremely active girl, and less like Miss Teen Universe, like I did right now. I definitely wasn’t grotesque, or anything like that, the way bodybuilders sometimes were. I still had female padding on my arms and legs, and my bust was, uh, healthier than ever. I might even be able to fill out a B-cup now.

No, I really wasn’t disgusting… quite the opposite, in fact. I was simply an extremely well muscled young girl. If I had worn a full shirt instead of the two year old, ill fitting thing that I had thrown on this morning, then I would almost look normal. My abs were almost impossible. I had just the tiniest bit of padding on them; otherwise, they were rock hard, and cut finer than the hope diamond. Having my stomach exposed made my other changes come to attention in a way that having it covered simply didn’t. I was thankful that I didn’t look like a ‘roided out freak. I was still feminine, with mostly the same face that I’d always had, and smooth lines that I would have killed for this time last week. My face had been changed, but it was subtle. Simply put, I was prettier than before.

My lips were fuller, my eyes a bit larger. My hair was softer and more lustrous, my cheek and chin bones arranged just a tiny bit more artfully than they had been previously. It was so subtle that my own mother hadn’t commented on it yet, but it was startlingly effective at increasing my beauty. No wonder Carlos liked me; I was easily as pretty as Emma now, though in a completely different way. She was a little short and extremely curvy for her age, while I was tall and cut. She was gorgeous, while I was striking. No wonder Emma had freaked out the moment I had walked through the door, even before she had seen my partially exposed stomach. Subconsciously, she must have realized that my appearance had changed, that I was different. I spent more time with Emma than anyone else; she would be the first one to notice any radical alterations to my appearance.

When had this happened? And why? I’d thought that I had an handle on my powers, but now... Now, I would need to go back to the drawing board. My first thought was that I might be a Trump. I could be manifesting new powers at will, or my current abilities might be growing with time or some other mechanism that I didn’t yet understand. Another possibility, and one that I could easily check for, was that my power allowed my body to get into shape fast, and with so little effort that two extremely strenuous days had given a skinny fourteen year old girl the body of a world class athlete. Maybe I could get Carlos to help me test my abilities; he was undoubtedly stronger than me, being a serious Brute-class cape. His powers would come in handy for testing.

A thought suddenly occurred to me; Carlos had the ability to grow stronger over time, a trait that Crawler also had. And now, I had something similar. Was all of this somehow related? Did nearby parahumans somehow influence the powers of people who triggered in their general vicinity? It was an extremely intriguing thought, especially when I considered ‘cape clans’ like New Wave, who shared very similar powers. The currently accepted hypothesis was that powers like theirs were genetic... but what if the second generation New Wavers had powers similar to their parents’ simply because the adult capes were nearby when their kids triggered? A maniacal grin came over my face; I was going to science the fuck out of this shit. Later, though. I had other things to do right now.

I dressed quickly, and nodded to myself in the mirror. Yes. There would be time for science later. Right now, I had to get back out there and talk to Emma. I still hadn’t given her a full rundown of my powers. Afterward we needed to meet up with Carlos, he would be expecting us shortly. Thinking of the tall, dusky skinned boy caused a smile to light up my face. Suddenly, seeing Carlos sounded a lot more fun than science, even if powers were fascinating. I pulled a pair of aviator shades out of a cargo pocket on my pants and popped them onto my face. I laced up my boots and adjusted my half shirt as I strode purposefully from the bathroom. Time to go see my ‘beau.

. . .​

Carlos and Emma hit it off right away. I didn’t see any flirting, but they were exchanging jokes and wisecracks within five minutes of being introduced. We strolled down the sidewalk, three beautiful, top notch specimens of teenaged humanity, sauntering slowly in the sunlight on a warm summer day. I stood between the other two, my fingers entwined with Carlos’s. Emma stood on my other side, her sharp eyes taking everything in. She had been shooting me knowing looks and smirking since the moment she laid eyes on Carlos. It was obvious that she knew I liked him… and that didn’t bother me one little bit.

I was home, alive, and spending time with two of my favorite people in the whole world. I had gone through the crucible, coming out the other side with all of my weaknesses burnt away; I had been purified, baptised by swimming through the waters of death and ruination. And now… Now, I had a whole afternoon and evening to share with my best friend and my major love interest. After that, I would be whisked away to Rome, to spend two weeks in one of the most beautiful and luxurious places in all the world.

I wondered what awaited me when I returned home. Would I actually be able to build things, like a real Tinker could? Will I ever be able to fully understand how my power works? I didn’t know the answers to these questions... but at the moment I didn’t really care all that much. Right now, at this particular juncture in the space-time continuum, life was good.