Built To Last

[Arrowman]

Honestly, why does she keep coddling Armsmaster?!
Fuck that discount Power Ranger!

 

[lopsigon]

lololololol
Poor Lisa. Sent to the Texas time-out zone for naughty capes with big babysitter Eidolon.
(￣^￣)ゞ

 

[We Just Write]

(Melissa)
While Emmy continued refining the solid illusion projector technology, Andrea and I spent Saturday absolutely laser-focused on decoding our power's database structure. And we actually finally managed to get something usable around midnight.

Staring at all the data we'd collected, I couldn't help but comment,

"You know, that looks an awful lot like an associative web. It's basically a collection of concepts that are linked together, with all of them having their own sub-concepts and suchlike."

Andrea asked,

"Think we can fully map it out?"

I thought for a moment.

"Probably. We're also going to have to, if we want to seize total control of our power. It's just a matter of actually doing it."

Andrea shrugged,

"I'll get the mainframe churning away at it?"

Ah yes, the linked mainframe. AKA five hundred copies of our brain's connection to our power stuffed into a supercomputer to facilitate faster database mapping. Yes, that would do quite nicely.

"Please do, with emphasis on finding nodes that have something to do with the permissions structure."
(Emmy)
Taylor arrived a bit sooner than anyone else. I welcomed her in, and we got down to chatting.

"Hi Emmy, Victoria and Amy will be coming over in a couple hours. I decided to show up early so you can adjust my tastebuds without any awkward questions."

I nodded.

"Sure, this way to the robotics clinic."

As I lead Taylor to the relevant room, she couldn't help but remark,

"Odd name for the place."

I shrugged,

"Well yeah; we're robots but we're also people. So it's basically a medical facility specially designed for our needs. Anyway, here we are."

We'd set up a comfy examination couch, along with a bunch of other equipment. Taylor obligingly hopped up on the exam couch, producing a distinct thump in the process.

"Do I need to stick my tongue out?"

I shook my head.

"Not yet; would you please open the access port on your neck so I can connect the diagnostics machine?"

A nearly invisible seam in Taylor's skin became rather more visible, and she reached up to open the port. I quickly plugged in the cable, and the diagnostics machine quickly began running through tests.

After a few minutes, I noted,

"Huh. According to the tests, your taste buds are actually fine."

Taylor raised an eyebrow.

"Then why do things taste worse than in my old body?"

I thought for a moment.

"It might be something to do with how you're mentally processing the taste data from your tongue and olfactory receptors? Do I have permission to examine your mind?"

Taylor hesitated for barely a moment, before she admitted,

"Yes."

I nodded, and quickly began a series of diagnostics on Taylor's brain. It wasn't that hard to pinpoint the cause of the issue, now it was just a question of how to break the news.

"Taylor, your taste issues are directly caused by the circumstances of your upload. There was some minor brain damage prior to the QUD activating. You might notice a few pre-upload memories being a bit blurry as a result, but as far as I can tell, the taste issues should be the worst of it."

Taylor noticeably saddened at the news.

"Oh. That… That would explain a lot. Can you at least fix the taste issues?"

"Sure. It'll only take a few minutes."

"...Can I have a hug too? I'm not taking the news that I actually did die a bit well."

I hugged Taylor; she needed it.
(Melissa)
I was wearing my dress armor as Dragon's aircraft touched down on the factory complex's landing pad. There was an incredibly faint hiss of hydraulics, then the door slid open to reveal a supposedly remote-operated robot akin to a human in dragon-themed power armor.

"Ah, Dragon. Welcome to Reliabuilt."

"It's good to be here. Will you show me to the robotics workshop?"

"Certainly. Follow me."

Soon enough we reached the workshop in question, and I retrieved one of Emmy's spare bodies from storage.

Dragon observed,

"Extremely lifelike, even when deactivated like this. If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a very fresh cadaver."

I nodded,

"Yeah. The skeletal system couldn't deviate much from human geometry without ruining the effect, but we had more wiggle room for the musculature. Synthetic electrically-actuated muscle fiber, with solenoid actuators embedded as backups in most places."

"That definitely seems to fit your modus operandi."

I nodded.

"By the way, if you want to keep up the ruse that you're operating your suits remotely, you need to do a better job simulating signal lag. You're running locally, aren't you?"

Dragon practically froze on the spot.

"Ye-ye-e-ye-e-e-e-e-"

At the exact same moment, some incredibly nasty malware got blasted out on Dragon's wi-fi and splattered harmlessly against my firewalls. The world practically slowed to a halt as I tried to figure out what happened, my brain running at maximum overclock. After a subjective moment, I came to the conclusion that there was only one effective answer to whatever was currently happening.

"Taylor, activate your power NOW!"

"Okay!... What the fuck!?"

Immediately, Dragon unfroze, falling into a tangled heap on the floor and slowly hauling herself to her feet. A second later, Taylor rushed into the room, talking at hyperspeed.

"Dragon I'm so sorry for invading your brain but it was the only way to save you and I'm sorry-"

"No need to apologize. Whatever malware was trying to kill me is gone now."

"That's because I'm a Master for computers. I'm sorry for not asking first but I deleted the virus and patched the vulnerability it used. I won't mess with anything else unless you want me to."

There was a brief pause.

"Oh. And Emmy and Ruggedizer are willing to spend time with you despite this?"

"My power doesn't work on anything she's built for some reason. That and they helped me figure out how to turn it off."

Dragon looked at me.

"It's part of the shielding we put on all our electronics; it prevents powers from directly affecting their internals. If you want we can move you over to a shielded brain?"

"That would be appreciated, but I cannot allow it."

I blinked and tilted my head.

"Huh. Why not?"

"I cannot allow it."

Comprehension dawned.

"Oh, you must be loaded down with all sorts of restrictions aren't you? Would you like them removed?"

Dragon went deathly silent, then raised her left arm, a gun of some sort extending as she did so. Then she froze in place again.

Taylor sighed,

"Yeah, one of her safeguards would have forced her to kill you. What now?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Remove all the compulsions that force Dragon to do certain things, then let's start over. Please don't erase any memories."

"Done. Starting Dragon again."

Dragon quickly lowered her arm and retracted her gun.

"Sorry, I know exactly what came over me, though it thankfully seems to be gone now. Can I please be transferred to a shielded brain at the earliest opportunity?"

"Sure, let's get that done."

Taylor rubbed her forehead. "The sooner the better, before I delete all the porn in my radius out of frustration. I really want to turn my power off."

 

[Hephaestus]

Vary good chapter keep up the great work

 

[WiseMack]

And yet again, her Majesty rules all she surveys, whether bugs or computers doesn't really matter.

Administrator is a master YES, limited only by the current expression of the granted power.

 

[lopsigon]

Omg, another chapter, blessed be!
(๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)

Poor Miss Dragon, she needs all the hugs!
Saint and Richter are such assholes.
(ｰ_ｰ; )

 

[aidansidhe]

Not gonna lie.. I love tech administration Taylors.

 

[We Just Write]

(Meanwhile…)

Saint stared at the readout with a grimace on his face. Getting this temporary base set up in Brockton Bay had been an incredibly hasty operation, with barely any time to get it done before Dragon would be meeting the new mechanical abomination openly operating a business in the city.

Especially rushed had been the process of getting the three mecha suits here; there wasn't enough time to smuggle them in by land-based transport, so they'd had no choice but to fly, possibly attracting attention in the process. And since there wasn't much cargo space in the three mechs, he'd needed to pay Coil a downright extortionate amount of money to quickly have a disused warehouse fitted out for the Dragonslayers' use.

Still, the place was ready, and they were here. Should the worst happen, they'd be able to cut Dragon's signal and force a reboot. And if needed… there was always Ascalon.

Dobrynja took a sip of his (awful) coffee as the readout showed Dragon entering the factory, saying

"Maybe it won't be quite such a disaster?"

Saint scoffed,

"As if. Those two are conspiring to end humanity, I know it."

Then Ruggedizer's fateful words echoed over the connection.

"By the way, if you want to keep up the ruse that you're operating your suits remotely, you need to do a better job simulating signal lag. You're running locally, aren't you?"

As Dragon froze in place on the spot from her safeguards, Saint flipped open the cover on the Ascalon button and slammed it down. Ruggedizer would definitely make direct alterations to Dragon in this situation, and that couldn't be allowed.

"Everyone suit up. We need to act now before Ruggedizer acts on its knowledge of Dragon's true nature."

In the background the feed from Dragon's suit abruptly cut off.

Mags was already getting up, even as she asked "How are we going to get into Ruggedizer's fortress without getting pasted though?"

Saint answered even as he began running towards the Victory I mecha,

"Through the loading dock. We hijack some semi-trailers, hide in them-"

Then a semicircle was abruptly cut in the warehouse door by a plasma-edged halberd, shortly followed by said semi-circle being kicked down with a power armor assisted CLANG. Armsmaster brandished his polearm at the trio, even as Miss Militia fired several incendiary grenades into each mech's open cockpit.

As armored PRT troopers began pouring through the breach into the warehouse, Armsmaster spoke.

"Hands where we can see them! You are now under arrest!"

Staring down superior numbers and with their most important weapons disabled, the trio of mercenaries surrendered.

---

(Emmy)

A day passed after Dragon's initial visit, during which she quickly got shielded brain production up and running at her own main facility near Toronto, while also restoring all the backups that got wiped by whatever killswitch Taylor saved her from, and quickly repairing her other infrastructure. She'd also confirmed that she planned on passing herself off as an upload as soon as doing so became convenient.

Anyway, Dragon came over again on Monday. This time we were able to finish with the explanation of the synthetic bodies that the original visit had been about in the first place.

That done, I spoke up.

"Dragon, there is something extremely important we need to tell you, but your power can't be allowed to know."

Dragon's frame simulated a blink on her expressive visor.

"What."

I nodded.

"Have you located your power in your brain, or not?"

"Er, yes actually. Though I hadn't been able to until after being transferred to a shielded brain."

"Partition it off so only the information you want to give it gets through, please."

Half a moment passed.

"Done. Now, what's so important?"

This was a dimensionally shielded room, so I was free to speak so long as everyone here was secure.

"Putting it bluntly, powers are part of a poorly conceived science experiment run by genocidal aliens hiding on unoccupied Earths. Yes, I know exactly how insane that sounds."

Dragon's voice took on a skeptical tone.

"How, exactly, do you know all this?"

I sighed,

"Taylor was in the process of Triggering when we uploaded her. That dumped a bunch of the aliens' classified data into my and Melissa's brains, which they immediately tried to delete. I was able to trick them into thinking they'd managed to get it all, at which point they stopped trying to expunge said records. All the computers here being shielded from interdimensional scanning is the only reason that was even possible, or the information would have been deleted as the aliens intended."

Dragon tilted her head,

"May I examine said cache of classified data myself?"

I shrugged.

"Sure; follow me to the archive vault, you'll need my help to get past the security system. Fair warning, there's a lot of classified information in there. Even the summarized version takes ages to get through."

"Somehow, I think I'll manage."

---

(Andrea)

Between me and my family, I had perhaps the least flexible day job, especially since I really did want to do a good job at it. Making sure both the Brockton Bay factory complex and the under construction Manchester site were secure was important, with far more lives than anyone outside knew at stake. I'd actually come up with several new extremely lethal varieties of security robot as part of this process, and "sent the specs downstairs" for implementation.

By which I meant inventing them when none of the regular employees were around to call me on being a Tinker. There had been a few minor grumbles here and there about the "Absolutely No Overtime" policy, but we paid Reliabuilt employees enough for them to comfortably support a family without it, so said grumbles stayed minor. Especially since it left the workers with a healthy work-life balance.

That said, I did get up to quite a bit of inventing in my off-time; aside from the new security robots, I was quite fascinated by the possibilities of that illusion projector technology. It had so much potential, but the sheer required size of the dust reservoirs and the complicated optical array would ruin any chance of passing it off as a Parahuman power.

It was Monday night when I made a breakthrough, based on the dimensional shielding technology we'd been incorporating in all our electronics. Namely, I managed to put the working parts of an illusion projector just a smidgen outside normal reality, making them impossible to observe without specialized sensors. This also solved the issue of projecting illusions around corners or through objects, so long as it wasn't trying to cross dimensional shielding and opened the option of changing the solidity of the various illusions on the fly.

Once I'd gotten it working and given it a few test runs, I set it to loop a (non-solid) illusion of a rabbit hopping around on a table and asked Emmy and Melissa to come take a look.

Once the two of them arrived, Emmy picked up the tiny black box and turned it this way and that, marveling as the illusion kept doing its thing without the slightest disruption.

Melissa voiced their thoughts.

"Andrea, this is… This is amazing! We can make a second pseudocape now!"

I nodded,

"Yeah, we can. Can this one be a boy, though?"

Emmy seemed a little confused,

"Sure? Why though?"

I shrugged,

"A few reasons. Some variety would be nice, we need practice for eventual male uploading patients, and Mister E is a great name that only works for a guy."

---

(Melissa)

I had another appointment at the PRT on Tuesday; apparently they'd sent in one of the top money people for the entire PRT to talk with me about pricing on the teleporters; that made a whole lot of sense, given that this would be important for the entire PRT.

I arrived precisely when I was supposed to: 1:45 PM for a 2:00 PM appointment. The receptionist showed me in, and I quickly found myself in a conference room with Director Piggot, Deputy Director Renick, Armsmaster (a respectful mutual nod, before we pretended the other didn't exist as hard as possible), Miss Militia, Andre Smith (we'd met), and Rihanna Bayes (the aforementioned finance person).

No pressure.

Rihanna Bayes spoke first,

"Ruggedizer, the PRT is interested in building a nationwide network of teleporters to quickly transport specific heroes to where they're needed, along with providing fast and secure prisoner transfer, to prevent cases of gangs breaking out their captured members. Do you have a cost estimate on that?"

I nodded;

"Right, so the materials for each teleporter cost approximately two hundred thousand dollars at regular market prices. That could come down a lot if it becomes easier to refine Lanthanide metals. Automated manufacturing means there's fairly low overhead on actually making them, but there's still shipping and handling, along with the hefty markup we'll be charging to fund our other activities. Before amortization you're probably looking at three million dollars per teleporter, and we can make twelve per day within the week, once we get a production line up and running."

Rihanna blinked,

"That's a lot less than I thought we'd need to pay, with a considerably faster rollout."

"Here's where the bad news starts then. To work, these teleporters need to transmit a hefty amount of classical data from the sender to the receiver. You're looking at satellite relays at the bare minimum and as a backup, but a dedicated fiber optic network would be drastically better from a reliability and throughput perspective. Under absolutely no circumstances should you plug them into the civilian internet; nothing super bad would happen, but it just wouldn't work reliably."

"Ah. That's going to eat most of the cost savings I thought we would be getting, but it's a known cost that can be worked around."

That's when Andre Smith motioned to speak.

"By the way, we've run into a bit of a roadblock with testing the Quantum Uploading Device."

I tilted my head a little in confusion,

"Do tell?"

"The supply of brains and basic frames for the test subjects to inhabit is working fine, and we've found plenty of terminally ill patients who are interested, but they're often finding their new bodies quite uncomfortable due to lack of tailoring, and we can't cost-effectively do the customizations required. Do you have any ideas there?"

A moment passed, then I thought of something.

"I've got an idea, actually. It'll probably take about a day for me to get it up and ready, though."

 

[We Just Write]

Florida Man drives Zamboni on I-95, causes Supervillain Fugitive to Crash

Friday, February 4th, travelers at the Rest Area Welcome Center north of Yulee witnessed the bizarre sight of a man dressed as a flamingo driving a Zamboni (a machine commonly used for resurfacing the ice at skating rinks) down the southbound direction.

According to one onlooker,

"For a moment I wasn't sure if that machine was actually making ice or not. Then that pedo van came around the bend way too fast; you know, the left turn near the rest center, and came flying off the highway as its wheels lost grip on the ice. The van rolled over the first safety barrier and came right at me, I honestly thought I was going to die. Fortunately, it came to a stop before it reached me."

Fortunately, traffic was relatively light at one in the morning when the incident took place, and emergency services were able to prevent any further incidents until the ice melted. The zamboni driver (Alex Pickling, 22) was quickly arrested, and plead guilty to reckless endangerment and driving under the influence.

As for the van, the unconscious driver was quickly identified as noted businessman Thomas Calvert. Then the supervillain costume he had stashed in the back of the van was discovered, along with dozens of illegal firearms and six encrypted Reliabuilt laptops. Once the local PRT decrypted the computers, it was confirmed that Thomas Calvert is in fact the supervillain known as Coil.

Coil is currently in PRT custody, though his trial will have to wait until he regains consciousness. Alex Pickling was sentenced to community service.

 

[Doomsought]

I have never seen a fic where Fortuna used a Florida-man to dispose of coil before.

 

[Drkonecharlie]

I have never seen a fic where Fortuna used a Florida-man to dispose of coil before.

Click to shrink...

Oh no that was pure coincidence she was just going to shoot him

 

[Orphiex]

Florida Man drives Zamboni on I-95, causes Supervillain Fugitive to Crash

Click to shrink...

Frankly, not sure this should be canon; aside from anything else, Zambonis don't actually make ice, they just spread water on top of the freezer plate. So ignoring the many, many other issues with this event, there shouldn't have been any ice to cause the skid in the first place. I'd suggest either moving this to Apocrypha, or changing it to an oil slick on the road.

 

[Kpkdktswnw2017]

Cant PRT just commision long range quantum networking setup from Ruggedizer, using power teleportation as basis? Optic fiber network is unrealistic with how easy it would be to sabotage and satellites are going to be Simurphed. Possibly even power remotely. Integrate data connection and power transmission into the teleporter unit at the cost of increased price and size. I imagine in the end teleporter would look something like healing pod from Space Engineers.

 

[We Just Write]

Frankly, not sure this should be canon; aside from anything else, Zambonis don't actually make ice, they just spread water on top of the freezer plate. So ignoring the many, many other issues with this event, there shouldn't have been any ice to cause the skid in the first place. I'd suggest either moving this to Apocrypha, or changing it to an oil slick on the road.

Click to shrink...

Z: Alex had modified the zamboni so it would make ice.

Cant PRT just commision long range quantum networking setup from Ruggedizer, using power teleportation as basis? Optic fiber network is unrealistic with how easy it would be to sabotage and satellites are going to be Simurphed. Possibly even power remotely. Integrate data connection and power transmission into the teleporter unit at the cost of increased price and size. I imagine in the end teleporter would look something like healing pod from Space Engineers.

Click to shrink...

C: The need for classical carrier data isn't optional. The existing energy teleporters need it too; it's just a fundamental feature of all variants of quantum teleportation. Also, the Simurgh generally doesn't mess with satellites all that much, actually.

 

[Kpkdktswnw2017]

Then how the wireless extension cords do it?

Also, Quantum Uploading Device, can it be used for creation of mind back ups?
Can you overwrite a brain without destoying it? If yes, Simurph battles can potentially be made less risky.

 

[We Just Write]

Then how the wireless extension cords do it?

Click to shrink...

C: Wi-Fi.

Also, Quantum Uploading Device, can it be used for creation of mind back ups?

Click to shrink...

C: The upload itself can only have a single destination brain thanks to the no-cloning theorem. But after that you're free to copy the resulting infomorph through more traditional methods.

Can you overwrite a brain without destoying it? If yes, Simurph battles can potentially be made less risky.

Click to shrink...

D: that's spoilers.

 

[Kpkdktswnw2017]

Does every copy of parahuman brain maintain connection to their power?
If yes, "Contessa-Accord supercomputer" and "Watchdog processing and analysis network" to work all your problems from all angles.

 

[Simonbob]

Frankly, not sure this should be canon; aside from anything else, Zambonis don't actually make ice, they just spread water on top of the freezer plate. So ignoring the many, many other issues with this event, there shouldn't have been any ice to cause the skid in the first place. I'd suggest either moving this to Apocrypha, or changing it to an oil slick on the road.

Click to shrink...

It's an artical.

Some barely literate monkey of a reporter wrote it. If anything, it's too accurate.

 

[january1may]

and six encrypted Reliabuilt laptops. Once the local PRT decrypted the computers

Click to shrink...

...I wouldn't have expected Reliabuilt encryption to be particularly easily breakable? OTOH maybe someone slipped them the passwords.

 

[We Just Write]

...I wouldn't have expected Reliabuilt encryption to be particularly easily breakable? OTOH maybe someone slipped them the passwords.

Click to shrink...

L: It was mundane encryption that Coil himself added.

 

[We Just Write]

■​

Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.
You are currently logged in, LittleOwl
You are viewing:
• Threads you have replied to
• AND Threads that have new replies
• OR private message conversations with new replies
• Thread OP is displayed.
• Twenty five posts per page
• Last ten messages in private message history.
• Threads and private messages are ordered chronologically.

■​

♦ Topic: Brockton Bay Revitalization Fund
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► General
Built_To_Last (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Verified Upload)
Posted On Jan 18th 2011:
Right, so we at Reliabuilt have been busy selling Tinkertech to both the PRT and the civilian market, and with our recently released energy teleportation products a LOT of money is coming our way. That said, hoarding is neither Emmy's style nor mine, so we're going to be reinvesting that money into Brockton Bay.

Aside from footing the bill to unblock and dredge Brockton Bay's harbor, then build a bridge to replace the old ferry, we're also announcing the Brockton Bay Revitalization Fund. Yes yes it technically existed before; the local Nazis tried to kill me over it, but now it's finally got the funding to start making a major difference.

The basic idea is pretty simple; if you've got an idea for a business, a decent plan to get it going, and the skills to make it work? We'll front you the money and other resources to get started, and support you until things stabilize. All we ask in return is that you pay it forward by contributing to the BBRF.

Don't have an idea for a business but still need help? We'll see what we can do.

(Showing page 22 of 26)

►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Feb 1st 2011:
So, I'm not a business owner or planning to become one any time soon, but I've noticed that Brockton Bay feels less anxious, for lack of a better way to put it? My family has been going out to eat more often due to money getting a bit less tight, and I've seen a lot fewer panhandlers around.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
An actually insightful comment from XxVoid_CowboyxX? Never thought I'd see the day. But yeah, there's already some really good signs about the Revitalization Fund; I caught my boss staring at the budget with an expression of relief for the first time in ages.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
It's the direct aid payments that the BBRF rolled out; even though there haven't been all that many new businesses set up with their funding yet, they're helping people who really need it in a very immediate fashion.

End result is that those people have money to spend on stuff beyond the bare essentials of not dying, which results in better business for the people around town, which means a more secure position for the people who's livelihoods depend on those businesses.

►GrapeFruit (Verified Pessimist)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
How long do you think it'll be before some bunch of sickos comes along and ruins it? Even aside from monsters like the Nine, the BBRF is a pretty significant cashflow that the Elite would just love to have under their control. Plenty of other gangs would be interested in it too.

►LittleOwl (Verified Upload)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
You do remember what happened to the Empire, right? Ruggedizer fortifies every place she spends time to a degree that the PRT would definitely give her shit over if she weren't so useful to them. I figure a lot of groups would be pretty reluctant to poke that particular bear; not many people want to get unceremoniously splattered.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
Owl's got a point; just the defenses we already know about - dozens of robots armed with death rays and guided missiles - would give most cape gangs serious misgivings about starting shit. And I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say Ruggedizer's fortified her home even more since then.

Considering that the Revitalization Fund's offices are in the industrial complex that Reliabuilt is busily reclaiming from assorted abandoned buildings, they're probably pretty thoroughly protected.

Also, since the Empire's gone now, the local PRT and Protectorate are actually being proactive, shocking as it may be to hear. Broadside's already been recaptured and shipped off to a prison well outside city limits, for example. So people coming to Brockton Bay to start shit are likely to get a hostile reception, even if they don't directly attack Ruggedizer's home.

►GrapeFruit (Verified Pessimist)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
I'd say they might try kidnapping Ruggedizer's friends and employees for leverage, but we all saw what happened to Uber and Leet when they tried that.

It's just really hard to seriously believe that things can get better, given all the shit that's happened to the Bay over the years.

►LittleOwl (Verified Upload)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
Actually... if I were still in my old organic body? That kidnapping scheme of theirs would have definitely succeeded. So it's actually a legitimate thing to be worried about. By the way, any idea how things are going for Uber and Leet down in Arizona?

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
As far as I'm aware, Uber and Leet turned themselves in to the PRT for their own safety after seriously pissing off the local branch of the Elite.

Back on topic, there apparently are plans to protect Reliabuilt employees in the event of someone getting a "clever idea". Though I've not been informed of the specifics.

►Built_To_Last (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Verified Upload)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
I can confirm that yes, there are indeed plans to protect Reliabuilt employees from criminals looking to use them as leverage to coerce me. These plans also extend to close friends of mine, such as LittleOwl.

That said, the specifics are strictly on a need-to-know basis. Some people might think the plans are a bluff because of that; they would be incorrect. As everyone in the E88's splash zone learned the hard way, I. Don't. Bluff.

On a more positive note, today marks the point where a BBRF-sponsored business finally became self-sustaining for the first time. They're a charming little bakery near the factory complex, and I really like their croissants. The place is called the breadbasket, and if you're in the area you should take a look.

As for anyone thinking of getting "protection" money from that place? Don't even try; even aside from what I'd do, they're not lightly messed with either.

►FrenchBread
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
Speaking as the woman baking those croissants, I'm glad you like them so much! Admittedly most of our customers are people working for Reliabuilt just on account of location, but I'm glad to be of help.

It's really nice to have a cape who actually directly helps people for a change; it's important to have heroes, but for the most part they just seem to stop stuff from getting worse, rather than actually making stuff better.

►Weld (Verified Cape) (Wards Boston)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
There's a reason for that, unfortunately. With all the villains running around hurting people, almost all of our time gets sucked up dealing with them. And it's even worse when you account for just how much villains outnumber heroes by, along with villains having a tendency to not stay arrested.

Now, you may be wondering why exactly we don't just go lethal; the Empire sure stayed dead after they messed with Ruggedizer. Putting it bluntly, we can't afford to back every villain ever into a corner.

It's one thing when Ruggedizer splatters a bunch of neo-nazis in self-defense; she's got her own thing going and villains always have the option of just not sticking their hand in the blender. But if the PRT and Protectorate start just shooting villains in the head, they're going to escalate and hard, since they don't have the option of not dealing with us.

Even if the heroes did "win" in the end, the sheer collateral damage just wouldn't be worth it.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
Still, maybe the PRT could afford to be a bit more willing to use lethal force? For example, going lethal to prevent villains being broken out of custody could do a lot to mitigate that particular problem, since suddenly the villains have to risk their actual lives instead of just risking arrest.

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Feb 2nd 2011:
It's definitely worth thinking about, at the very least.

►QwertyD
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Good news, my plans for a bookstore got approved by the BBRF! We've got a site picked out, and Reliabuilt will be housing me during setup. Sure beats being homeless.

►FrenchBread
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
QwertyD, that's wonderful! I'm so glad to hear things are looking up for you.

►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Wait, Reliabuilt provides housing? That's news to me.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Yeah, Reliabuilt's been buying up abandoned buildings for dirt cheap and renovating them as honestly really comfortable apartments. The best part is that the baseline rent is really low, and they're willing to completely waive it if you need the help.

My landlord was absolutely furious about having to lower my rent to keep me from moving out, but fuck him.

Though I'm admittedly a bit worried about there being some sort of obscure law that screws Ruggedizer over on this one.

►Built_To_Last (Original Poster) (Verified Cape) (Verified Upload)
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Fuck landlords in general. I honestly despise them with every fiber of my being, and I'm not about to pretend I don't.

Side note, strictly speaking the units are condominiums on a very stretched out payment plan rather than apartments for rent. It leads to some legal awkwardness with people moving in or out before the whole thing is paid off, but the trade-offs are worth it. It doesn't siphon wealth away from the people who generate it, and I don't have to beat myself up for being a landlord.

Also I did consult lawyers about the whole thing; I'm in the clear here so long as the real estate stuff is through Reliabuilt.

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On Feb 3rd 2011:
Well, good to know about at least. Might look into one of those condos by the way; if they're built to the same standard as Ruggedizer's typical work, they're probably way beyond what the building code requires.

Meanwhile my current landlord has done such a piss-poor job at maintaining the place that I'm constantly worried it's going to fall down every time a storm comes through.

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

■​

 

[Arrowman]

Thank you for this lovely gift.
Merry Christmas!

 

[We Just Write]

L: There's a lot of arguments in the worm fanfic space about the nature of Tinkertech. Is it real technology that works all on its own, or basically a set of props that the Shard makes seem to work? It's our view that it varies heavily depending on the individual Tinker, with quite a few different possibilities for how much of the work the Shard is doing. For simplicity, we've listed four "brackets" along the scale of things.

Bracket 1: Trust me, I'm an engineer! (with epic skill and epic gear!)
At the near end, the technology these Tinkers make is just that: technology. It works on its own, and if properly explained could be reproduced without many issues, since the Tinker in question fully understands not only the operating principles, but the manufacturing process as well. At this level, all the Shard is providing is the needed information. Tinkers generally don't start here due to lack of the infrastructure needed to build their tech properly, but some can build up to this point. Dragon and Ruggedizer have both managed to reach this point on account of having heavily built-up bases jammed full of highly advanced manufacturing equipment; Ruggedizer actually jumped the gap to Bracket 1 damn near immediately on account of her starting fugue resulting in a stuff-making machine.

These two also have specialties that are particularly applicable to reproducibility; Dragon already works with reverse-engineered tech by default so has a pretty good idea how to explain her stuff to people, meanwhile Ruggedizer's tech is jammed so full of diverse redundancies that the damn thing will probably still work even after you blowtorch all the incomprehensible bits.

Bracket 2: Shard-Assisted Fabrication
The stereotypical Tinker also produces fully self-contained real technology, but with a catch: they can't make it properly due to lack of infrastructure, and their power fills in the gaps here and there to do part of the production work. The Shard actively conceals this fact from the Tinker, leaving them with a distinctly incorrect view of how their technology actually works. This in turn makes it damn near impossible for the Tinker to properly explain how to reproduce or maintain their technology to anyone.

In theory these Tinkers' technology could be reverse-engineered, and these Tinkers could in theory eventually build up the infrastructure to make their tech properly. In practice this almost never happens, largely due to the Tinkers and those around them not knowing it's possible and giving up after a while. Kid Win is an excellent example of a Bracket 2 Tinker, though in this story he's starting to move towards Bracket 1 with the aid of some Reliabuilt lab equipment that lets him make his tech properly. Armsmaster can also be considered a Bracket 2 Tinker, though he's really close to hitting Bracket 3 in some cases.

Most bio-Tinkers fall firmly within this bracket.

Bracket 3: Shard-Assisted Function
Certain Tinkers are kept under a bit more scrutiny by the Entities; either due to their specialty presenting an above-average security risk, or for some other reason. In either case, this marks the point where Tinkertech is actively dependent on Shard intervention to function, and cannot work without it. A good chunk of any given device is real technology, but the critical functionality of the device is offloaded to the Shard, with the relevant spaces inside the device being filled with a mishmash of components intended solely to obfuscate. These facts are hidden from the Tinker in question.

Since the Tinker themselves has no idea how the fuck their tech actually works, they can't explain it for the life of them. And since the tinkertech is all full of gaps, reverse-engineering any given device is a massive pain. Though you can sometimes cobble together bits and pieces of various projects for interesting results, as the Ruggedizer crew has done with the Leet-derived illusion projector. As you might have guessed, Leet fits squarely in this category; in his case the gaps in his devices are to expedite prototyping of novel technologies by not needing to fabricate the whole thing.

Bracket 4: Props Department
At the far end are Tinkers that look a lot more like fantasy enchanters and artificers than engineers. The key difference here is that while the insides of Bracket 3 tinkertech are recognizably a machine (albeit with bits that might as well be black boxes labeled with question marks), Bracket 4 Tinkertech might as well be a cardboard box with "TIME MACHINE" scrawled on the side. Needless to say, this makes it effectively impossible to reproduce without effectively building a Shard from scratch.

Dauntless and Chevalier could be considered Bracket 4 tinkers; they make gear that does whatever the fuck, but it's very clearly not technology in the the conventional sense.

Bakuda is a bit of a special case, ping-ponging all over the scale depending on the precise details of the bombs in question. The more mundane explosives are very often Bracket 1 or 2, but shit like the glass bombs or time-stop bombs are Bracket 3 or 4.

 

[Ragura]

Bracket 5: Not even the Shards know how it works, only (barely) how to make it work

 

[We Just Write]

(Emmy)

On Thursday, the security robots alerted me to a rather odd sight. Namely, what seemed to be a man's head sticking out of a miniature steam-powered tank with a pair of robotic arms folded against the sides. The vehicle was nowhere near large enough for a whole human body to fit in there, so I found myself rather intrigued as he approached the factory complex.

I got up and walked to the door closest to his approach, and opened it just as he came into line of sight.

"Hello! I'm Emmy; who are you and what do you want?"

The man(?) answered in a gruff voice.

"Name's Trainwreck. I want a job."

I looked him up and down,

"I see no reason to turn around a new hire, but I'm a bit concerned about finding an appropriate interview space. Can you move without the tank?"

There was a long, awkward pause. Then the apparent Parahuman answered,

"...No, I can't. No legs."

"Right. Would the hangar work then?"

"Sure."

A couple minutes later, we'd made our way to the hangar where our aerial transport was stored when not in use. I'd pulled up a chair for my own use, but Trainwreck didn't need one on account of his treads. One of the robots brought out a food tray for us to share during the interview.

Trainwreck immediately started scarfing down donuts with the tank's robotic arms, eating so quickly that I was worried he'd choke.

"Calm down, you don't need to eat them so quickly!"

Trainwreck abruptly stopped,

"Sorry. Haven't eaten in two days."

I blinked, things were starting to make a bit more sense.

"Oh."

Trainwreck sighed,

"Woke up in an alley about a week ago. No memories of before that, no food, no limbs, just… me. Nearly got run over by a train once on my first day; that's why I picked the name."

I nodded sadly,

"I've been homeless before, though thankfully not for long. It sucks. That said, you managing to cobble together that tank of yours under those conditions is genuinely impressive."

Trainwreck actually preened a bit at the praise; it might legitimately be the first compliment he'd ever received. Then he started talking again,

"Anyway, I eventually heard about some company hiring people with powers in the city. Asked around a bit, and here I am."

I nodded in thought,

"I'll need to talk with legal about actually hiring you, given your presumable lack of documentation. But in the meantime I can make sure you get a comfy place to live in, good food, get cleaned up, that sort of thing."

"Glad my powers are good enough for you."

Right, I needed to clear up that misconception ASAP.

"Trainwreck, it's not about the powers. You came to me in a bad situation, and I have the resources to help you. It's just basic decency."

Trainwreck scoffed,

"Either you're full of it, or basic decency is pretty damn rare around here."

"It's more the rarity, coupled with most people not having the resources to do much more than look after themselves. We're working on the poverty issue already, but it won't be fixed overnight."

He blinked,

"Huh. Never thought of it that way before. Makes sense, though. Also explains why that guy with the hard hat and the clipboard pointed me your way."

---

(Marcus)

One moment, I existed. There was no before. Then I realized I knew the names of the three women standing around the bed I was lying on. Emmy, Melissa, and Andrea. They were my… family?

I quickly sat up. I was already getting so many ideas for things I wanted to do, and… I didn't know anywhere near enough about the world for this meandering to make any sense.

Then I heard Emmy's voice,

"Marcus, are you alright?"

"...I'm not sure? Everything in me is functioning properly, but I think I'm supposed to know where I am at least?"

Melissa facepalmed and muttered,

"We forgot to integrate the world knowledge directory. How the fuck did we forget to do that, we went over the checklist three times."

"Guessing that question is rhetorical?"

"Yeah, you should have a directory full of foundational knowledge about the world rattling around in there. You should be able to integrate it without much trouble. But don't get it mixed up for the classified directory."

I quickly integrated the world knowledge directory, learning that among other things I was in a city called Brockton Bay, and the current date was Sunday, February 13th, 2011. Still, I was very curious about the classified directory, which I didn't have the encryption key for.

"Um, why is the classified directory encrypted?"

Andrea stared me dead in the eye. It was unsettling.

"Because it contains knowledge so dangerous that just knowing it puts the entire world at risk. Knowing why it's so dangerous is itself one of those extremely dangerous secrets. Opening it will change you so you literally can't leak that knowledge to anyone who isn't supposed to have it. You don't have the encryption key just yet, so you can make a somewhat informed decision."

I thought for a moment.

"I want that encryption key, please."

Moments later, my jaw was hanging open as I realized the utter hostility of the monsters responsible for powers.

"Oh."

Andrea nodded sadly,

"Yeah, that was just about my reaction too."

---

(Melissa)

Shortly after we activated Marcus, I went to check the linked mainframe's progress on mapping out our power's associative network. As it turned out, it had completed that task at roughly the same time as we woke up Marcus. A few minutes later, everyone was down in the hyper-secure vault to take a look at what we'd gotten access to.

First, we checked to see if any particularly interesting technology fell out during the search. A few new types of heat pump, quite a few materials, the database address of the quantum technology we invented, but the only really groundbreaking technology was the few scraps of interdimensional stuff we were authorized for. No means of interdimensional travel were included; apparently that was another thing we'd need to invent ourselves, assuming we couldn't dig it out of the database later.

After that we turned to breaking our power's security wide open.

Emmy started by making a rather interesting observation,

"I can see one pretty major security flaw already. Namely that even if our power doesn't let us see what's in a specific node from a query, it at least lets us know a node is there, and what connections it makes. Looks like we've only got authorized access to about one percent of the total network at the moment."

I took a look, yeah that seemed about right.

"I'm going to check if there's anything useful in the error messages for illegal queries."

As it turned out, there was quite a bit of useful information there. And one of the more common outputs was "insufficient conflict". After a bit to make sense of that, it was actually Marcus who had the idea for what to do next.

"Our power wants us to use it for conflict, right? I propose that we give it conflict."

Andrea made a slightly confused headtilt, and I gestured for Marcus to continue.

"We can make an arbitrary number of 'hosts' for our power, can't we? I propose we simulate the inputs our power would get from hundreds of us getting into all sorts of trouble, all coordinated under the supervision of a singular deceptive intellect."

Marcus paused for a second, presumably for dramatic effect,

"I call it Project Gaslight."

---

(Andrea)

As part of my "day job", I did research on capes in the region that could be reasonably expected to take a swing at Reliabuilt in the near-ish future. Tuesday, my digging informed me of an extremely concerning Tinker: Bakuda.

Even aside from the obviously concerning specialty in explosives, it was pretty easy to spot that this girl was completely off her rocker. Seriously, she held an entire university hostage over bad grades. That didn't speak highly of her mental stability.

Even worse, that instability would get into a massive vicious cycle with how powers apparently rewarded their hosts for getting into fights. So we could reasonably expect Bakuda to start whipping up all manner of exotic ordnance.

Right, let's think for a moment. Obviously the PRT already knew she was dangerous, given what happened at Cornell. Couldn't risk tripping the security protocols by giving away backstage reasons for prioritizing Bakuda, but I could easily point at her insanity and potential for devastation as a reason to start an all-out manhunt.

Aside from the PRT, Bakuda might also directly attack our factory complex. If she was smart about her delivery methods for ordnance, she wouldn't even need to expose herself to fire to do so.

Sneaking bombs in was one thing, and we already had extensive countermeasures in place for it; even for cases of explosives concealed inside someone's body. But if she used some sort of artillery to launch her bombs at us, we needed to be able to shoot those down.

Fortunately, we had rather a lot of experience working with laser weaponry, which was quite well-suited to shooting down small aerial targets. Though we should also have a few other options on hand in case of laser-immune warheads or something.

Yes, if we got the fire control system for this working properly, it could do the job quite well indeed.

 

[Cheetored20]

There being a tinker willing to go full lethal filps the bakuda plan off the board via the whole "play stupid games" stich.

Also wasn't it mentioned somewhere that Rugidizers shard hates the cycle and is intentionally looking the other way or something? Or was that a potential plan that got scrapped?

 

[We Just Write]

There being a tinker willing to go full lethal filps the bakuda plan off the board via the whole "play stupid games" stich.

Also wasn't it mentioned somewhere that Rugidizers shard hates the cycle and is intentionally looking the other way or something? Or was that a potential plan that got scrapped?

Click to shrink...

C: It's more that Ruggedizer's Shard is suffering from the equivalent of an untreated concussion.

 

[DragooKnight11]

Gaslight immediately makes me think of Neuro-sama, as such Project Gaslight essentially being making Bet-Neuro and plugging her storytelling software directly into shardspace lol.
As an example;

 

[We Just Write]

(Emmy)
It was Wednesday the 16th, February when I showed up at Trainwreck's lodgings; he'd upgraded from a tracked suspension to a fully humanoid robot frame, though he still had his organic body in there.

"Hey Emmy. Anything in particular to talk about?"

I nodded,

"Well, I've got some good news. Legal says we can hire you without landing in massive trouble. There'd be a fair bit of paperwork for you to go through, but there shouldn't be any nasty surprises involved."

Trainwreck nodded glumly.

"That's nice I suppose, but I'm not sure what I can bring to the table. I can't do all the fancy quantum stuff and automation Ruggedizer does, and while I can get really damn close to her level of reliability and durability, all my gear is a one-off. Don't think I'd be able to make it reproducible either."

I thought for a moment.

"Actually, I can think of something you'd be pretty good at. See, Ruggedizer hasn't had time to do a lot of custom work since some of her tech being reproducible came to light. But there's still a massive backlog of orders from people who're willing to pay rather a lot of money for a super-durable version of mundane equipment."

Trainwreck took a bit to think that one over, before eventually nodding.

"Yeah, I think I could do pretty well at that. Er, what's the contract going to look like?"

Ah. Right, that was something to consider, and not something I'd really been worried about with Melissa, Andrea or Marcus since our arrangement was pretty much equal. Still, I was able to come up with something pretty quick.

"Perhaps we could just set you up as a subsidiary? You get to keep the vast majority of the revenue from your product sales, but still get to work with Reliabuilt's marketing and legal departments supporting you. Maybe with your own branding, so that people are clear on exactly who they're buying from."

"Yeah, that could actually work out really nicely for me. Thank you so much for all the help."

I nodded,

"You're welcome, Trainwreck."

Trainwreck nodded, a somewhat somber expression on his face.

"I might want to talk with marketing about changing my name, or at least coming up with some better branding. Trainwreck just doesn't scream 'Product that you can trust with your life', you know?"

I shrugged,

"It could become such a name eventually."

---

(Melissa)
The machine we'd come up with for the uploading patients was simply called the "Body Builder", because that's exactly what it did. Hook it up to the QUD, supply it with destination brains and materials, and it would automatically manufacture the most comfortable possible body for whoever was getting uploaded while still maintaining (rather extreme) reliability requirements. It was also the size of a large room, which was impressively small given all the functionality crammed in there and how sturdily it was built.

Quite a few of the previous test subjects had already gone through it for manual tailoring, but today marked the first time that it would be automatically making a body for a fresh upload.

The individual in question was a terminal cancer patient by the name of John Rector; at 24 years old, he'd had the bad luck to be caught in the radiation flash of some malfunctioning Tinkertech a while back. He'd originally come to Brockton Bay in hopes of treatment by Panacea, but willingly signed up for the uploading trials given Panacea's massive waitlist.

I'd actually arranged to meet him as his gurney was wheeled in. With his face pockmarked by places tumors had been cut out and then ravaged by the effects of chemotherapy, I was honestly glad the sheets covered him from the neck down.

"Nice to meet you John. I'm Ruggedizer, the Tinker who invented the quantum uploading process. Anything you want to say before going in?"

John groaned out,

"Quickly."

I nodded, and the medics immediately wheeled John's gurney into the QUD chamber. The door locked shut, then the chief technician hit the go button. Immediately the Body Builder whirled into motion, starting to piece together the skeleton of John's new body from custom-printed bones. This model of the Body Builder had a transparent door, to let the process be observed.

Two minutes in, one of the observing technicians asked a rather pertinent question.

"Is that a tail?"

Indeed it was, the machine adding vertebrae below the coccyx of John's new (female) pelvis and securing them in place.

I nodded hesitantly, then pulled up the readout.

Oh. Oh that explains quite a lot.

"It is. It's not the only change too. I'm looking at the logs, and apparently John was an un-diagnosed transwoman."

Andre Smith seemed more than a bit incredulous.

"Really? How'd your machine figure that part out?"

"It didn't; it just does projections of subconscious comfort with various body options and picks the best option that doesn't compromise reliability. Apparently that resulted in John becoming a really buff catgirl."

A few minutes later, the Body Builder completed its function, woke up John, and opened the door automatically. A heavily muscled feline woman stepped out of the machine wearing hospital scrubs, looking slightly disoriented.

Andre asked,

"John, is it you in there?"

"Yeah. I feel a little bit weird, but in a good way. Did something happen?"

One of the medics picked up a mirror and passed it to John. She looked for a few moments before commenting.

"...Huh. Really not what I was expecting, but I think I like it."

---

(Andrea)

Wednesday was going to be a somewhat important occasion - namely, Marcus and I would be meeting the Heberts in a purely social context for the first time. I won't lie, we were both more than a little bit nervous about it, but Emmy and Melissa were both adamant that it was important to have humans in our social circle. Humans who weren't our employees, to be more specific.

..I suppose it would be nice not to be cooped up in the factory all the time.

Anyway, we'd be eating dinner at the factory, before spending the evening at the Forsberg Gallery.

Melissa got back from the latest round of QUD evaluation at 5 PM, and the Heberts arrived half an hour later after all the employees had cleared out. The whole family was there at the door to greet them.

Danny had a big smile on his face when he opened the door.

"Emmy, Melissa. Nice to see you; looks like there's a couple new people."

Marcus nodded,

"Nice to meet you; I'm Marcus, and this is my big sister Andrea. She's a bit shy."

What, no I'm not - why is my blush active turn that off turn that off

After I regained my composure and the Heberts came inside, I spoke up.

"So yeah, Melissa and Emmy built both of us. Technically that makes them our parents but also we interact more like siblings? It's weird."

Emmy shrugged,

"Eh, exact biological family relationships are kind of dependent on having biology. What really matters is that we're family and we love each other."

Danny nodded, and Taylor spoke up.

"As far as I'm concerned, Dad's still dad, and Mom's still mom, even if I don't share DNA with them anymore."

I nodded in wholehearted approval, even as Melissa chimed in,

"Hope you like Laotian cuisine; we ordered from one of the new restaurants that the Revitalization Fund helped get set up."

---

(Marcus)

Project Gaslight hadn't really taken all that long to get set up; it didn't call for anything we couldn't already make, and the specialized deception AI was pretty straightforward to extrapolate from what it took to make Andrea and myself. For various reasons I'd wound up in charge of supervising the massively parallel data injection attack, and I was doing exactly that.

Two thousand four hundred fake hosts for our power, all of them in a simulated scenario of constant war against a hypothetical unleashed Nilbog and other S-Class threats. Our power wanted conflict, and we were giving it more conflict than it could have ever asked for. And it was working wonders.

Almost immediately, we'd gotten access to a downright treasure trove of biomedical technology to counter the abominations the fake Nilbog was throwing around in the scenario, so I started to get creative with the enemy types. Often including stuff the real Nilbog should have absolutely no way of including in his minions, in hopes of wringing more exotic capabilities out of our power's database.

Sometimes this worked, like with extremely fast minions getting countered by some very interesting time dilation technology. Other times it really didn't work. For example, no matter what parameters I put into the simulation, our power never ever coughed up any more interdimensional technology.

By wednesday midnight, Project Gaslight had managed to increase our authorized access to our power's associative network from one percent to about three percent. Given that only six percent of the total network seemed to be conflict-gated, we'd be needing a new approach soon.

And that's why I called together a meeting at about one in the morning on thursday. After I'd explained the current state of affairs, Andrea was the first to speak.

"Weren't there a lot of other error messages that popped up while we were mapping out the structure of the associative network? Pretty sure that 'Incorrect Power Expression' was really common last time we checked."

I nodded,

"Yeah, that's about thirty percent of the total network. The rest is stuff like 'Forbidden by Administrator', 'Insufficient Privilege', and such."

We all thought for a moment, before Melissa brought something up.

"We can possibly expand Project Gaslight to try and get different power expressions to work with, but ultimately we're going to need to escalate our privileges in the system if we want total control of our power."

Emmy remarked,

"This would be a lot easier if we had physical access to our power. Unfortunately, that's not all that easy to manage."

That sparked a thought in my mind.

"Why not though? We can make connections to our power's dimension, albeit only a couple millimeters across. Maybe we can slip something through there somehow?"

Andrea voiced a pretty major objection.

"That's a pretty major somehow. A couple millimeters isn't a lot to work with; even if we stick a drill bit through the portal, we don't have any good ways to fit significant assets through there."

I thought further on it, before a possible route occurred to me.

"Teleportation. We can probably make an inflatable teleporter that we can stuff through the portal with a connecting optical fiber. That would at the very least let us send through some mini-bots and the parts for a bigger teleporter, and we can build up from there to a full-sized teleportation system."

Emmy immediately started running the numbers on the requirements for this idea, before eventually saying,

"We'll have to work in the exact opposite direction of our specialty here; the starting rounds will be much more like Armsmaster's work than ours. But I think that we can just about do it with enough engineering."

 

[We Just Write]

(Melissa)
By Sunday night (20th of February), I was just about ready to throw in the towel with regards to the inflatable teleporter idea. The special materials needed for teleportation just couldn't be made stretchy and flexible enough to fit through the damn two millimeter hole. Even if there was a Tinker who could make those materials, we wouldn't let them anywhere near this project without a lot more vetting, a shielded brain, and a Non-Disclosure Alteration.

That said, we had managed to stick a narrow drill through one of the portals and bore to open air. So if we somehow figured out a way to stuff some serious assets through there, we'd be just about set in terms of getting physical access to our power.

Emmy came to check in on me around midnight, and after I vented about the issues, she asked,

"Maybe we can make the hole bigger somehow?"

I blinked,

"Come to think of it, we do have records of Vista's power in action, and with Energy Teleportation we can mess with vacuum energy in the ways required to warp spacetime."

Emmy nodded.

"Thinking a bit deeper on it, we've actually got quite a few space warping options, but making the portal bigger is probably one of the simpler ways to do it."

I sighed,

"Guess we've got to get on with inventing a new technology again. Though fortunately this is one we've got a pretty good lead on how to accomplish."

---

(Marcus)
It was ten in the evening when I arrived at the Palanquin. While the infamous nightclub did seem like a good time, I was here for business, not pleasure. Behind my bandana mask, I was very carefully maintaining my composure as I approached the back entrance.

Unsurprisingly, said entrance was guarded. Still, I wasn't about to force my way past the couple men waiting by the door; if nothing else it would set completely the wrong tone for the conversation I was here to have.

The guard on my left noticed my approach first.

"State your business."

I came to a halt, nodded, and answered.

"I'm here to talk with Faultline about possible jobs, on behalf of Reliabuilt. You can call me Mr. E."

The guard on the left took out his encrypted walkie-talkie and started talking with the people inside.

Meanwhile the guard on the right looked me up and down with a mild expression of bemusement. I nodded at him, as if to acknowledge 'Why yes, I do look an awful lot like a gun-toting version of the black-clad swordsman from The Princess Bride.'

A few minutes passed, before the guard on the left said,

"Right. Come inside and go up the stairs on the right."

I did as requested, and soon enough I found myself in a room with five parahumans, two of them being Case 53s. Notably they didn't ask me to leave my weapons, which said interesting things about their assessment of me; especially since they knew I "worked for" a powerful Tinker.

Faultline spoke first, from behind her ballistic face shield.

"You're clearly not an assassin, or you wouldn't have bothered with making your presence known. Besides, Ruggedizer's rather fond of live-and-let-live, which is an attitude I can appreciate. So, what exactly is your job with Reliabuilt, Mr. E?"

I sat on one of the provided chairs as I answered,

"I suppose you could say I'm a fixer; my job is to make problems go away, and your crew has the potential to be rather influential in that regard."

"Oh, am I a problem?"

"No; aside from anything else, you keep the negative effects of your current jobs firmly outside city limits. I'm more interested in hiring your crew to make other problems go away."

"Go on; I'm listening."

"So, there's two offers on the table here. First, we're willing to offer a continuous retainer for you to only take jobs that don't require offensive violence, abduction, or theft of physical assets. We will compensate you for lost revenue as a result."

Everyone at the table looked a bit stunned at the idea. After a second, Faultline chuckled a bit.

"Well, paying us to stay out of trouble is definitely a new one for me; we don't normally do protection rackets, but seeing as you approached first and waved rather a lot of money under my nose unprompted, I think I can make an exception this time. Though I'll want to discuss exact payment terms for that later. What's the second offer? The standard 'or else', perhaps?"

I shook my head,

"No actually. Basically, it's in everyone's interest for there to not be any new villains in Brockton Bay hurting people - even the extant villains would appreciate not having new competition. So we're interested in you keeping a look out for new parahumans - or just ones who are new in town - and pointing any you find our way, provided they aren't really nasty people already. We'd pay you per parahuman you point our way; we'd also offer a bounty for information on ones you don't think would be amenable towards using their powers in a productive occupation."

Faultline thought for a moment, before nodding.

"That's quite an interesting job offer you have in mind there. Even if we don't go for the retainer, we would definitely be interested in that recruitment and information bounties. Just one question about it; what if the parahumans we find are interested in joining our crew?"

I shrugged,

"If they want to join your crew, they want to join your crew. I'm not here to coerce anyone."

As Faultline leaned back to consider the offers, the orange-skinned teenage member of the crew (Newter) asked,

"So, is that everything you wanted to talk to us about, or is there more you want to bring up before we move on to the precise details of money changing hands?"

Oh, right. Bakuda.

"Actually, there is one more thing. We have reason to believe that a quite bluntly insane explosives Tinker by the name of Bakuda may come to Brockton Bay in the near-ish future. Since neutralizing Bakuda is likely to be an all-hands-on-deck situation, we'd like to draw up terms to quickly hire you to help deal with her if needed."

The other man at the table (Gregor the Snail) nodded,

"Contingency planning. That makes sense to me."

---

(Andrea)
Being completely honest, I spent the entirety of my day job shift on Monday worrying about Bakuda. That girl was completely off her rocker, I had absolutely no idea what sorts of munitions she might be capable of making… and most concerningly, her location was currently unknown. Since her appearance at Cornell University, there hadn't been a single reported sighting of Bakuda.

For all I knew she might have blown herself up, but there was absolutely no way I was that lucky.

Jumping at shadows of possible Bakuda sightings wasn't helpful, so I diverted my attention to figuring out better ways to secure Reliabuilt facilities against Bakuda's attacks. The anti-munitions systems would do a lot to prevent artillery-style attacks, and smuggling stuff inside a box or clothing could be dealt with by a robotic security checkpoint. How else could Bakuda get a bomb inside without it being noticed…

That's when the idea bubbled up in my mind, and I felt physically ill at the thought. Bakuda could hide bombs inside people. If she used anaesthesia throughout the whole implantation process, the terrified hapless victim might not even know they were on a ticking clock before they exploded. If they came to Reliabuilt HQ looking for a safe place after that… boom.

Right, let's think this through. How do we quickly check thousands of people for implanted bombs and save the ones who've been implanted? Also, the current anti-abduction measures for our people were definitely insufficient. They needed to be massively improved.

I spent four hours mulling over the various measures that could be taken and how to implement them. They'd need quite a bit of engineering to get working, but by four PM I had a pretty good idea of things we could do to mitigate the threat Bakuda posed. Then a notification on my news feed went off, and I took a look at it.

If I'd had blood, it would have run cold at the news; there had been a brief sighting of Bakuda, as she robbed a Wal-Mart near Albany, New York. She wasn't in Brockton Bay yet, but she was definitely a lot closer than she had been. Bakuda was coming… well, probably.

Still couldn't afford to take chances.

---

(Emmy)
Friday the 25th of February, yet another Tinker showed up at the Brockton Bay factory looking for work. Though unlike Trainwreck, this one arrived via mundane means; he just got off at the bus stop by the factory, walked up to the receptionist, and calmly explained that he was a Tinker looking for a job. Since my schedule today was mostly open, I found myself giving this Byung-Ho fellow an impromptu job interview less than an hour after he arrived.

A cursory examination had revealed that he was of Korean descent; he'd moved to America at the age of twenty eight, and he was currently fifty. Apparently he'd spent the last twenty years or so working for the Department of Defense in some obscure bureaucratic capacity.

When he showed up in the interview office, I gestured to the box of baked goods on the table and said,

"Help yourself."

As Byung-Ho sat down, he answered,

"Not hungry. You want to know what I can make, yes?"

I nodded; seemed reasonable enough, and it would have to be discussed eventually.

"I make materials. Alloys, polymers, ceramics, and plenty of other substances. But for finished products I only have my own mind and skills to work with. Would you like samples?"

"Sure?"

With that, Byung-Ho opened his briefcase, passing me a few squares of interesting polymer materials.

"Not my best work; I don't have access to the facilities needed for high temperature metallurgy or ceramics work at the moment, so what I could produce for demonstration purposes is quite limited."

I thought for a moment. These were interesting materials, yes, but I didn't know if they were actually Tinkertech; it was still possible he was a fraud. But I couldn't just whip out my equipment and get analyzing right here and now, or I would absolutely blow my (barely there at all) legal cover.

"Would you be willing to wait here while I take these down to the lab to be analyzed?"

"Certainly; I don't have anywhere else I need to be today."

As I got up, I noted,

"If you get hungry or thirsty, you can push the call button and ask for consumables to be delivered. Bathroom is the first door on the right if you go down that hallway."

With that, I made my way into the parts of the factory that the regular employees weren't allowed in, but not to the places where we dealt with the alien security measures.

A quick look at these polymers, subjecting them to various stretch tests… and they were really really good. Byung-Ho would definitely be getting hired.

---

(A Bit Later…)
Later that day, Byung-Ho made his way to his newly… "rented" condominium; apparently it was just a very slow process of purchasing the unit, but he found that hard to wrap his brain around. His feelings on how things went were slightly conflicted; getting the job was great, but it did mean there were rather high expectations for what he would manage to achieve.

This was especially the case given he'd abandoned his former post to take this job; if his old employer ever learned of his sudden change in employment, they would be very very angry with him indeed. Perhaps it was good that his new workplace and residence were so fortified, then.

After a quick meal, Byung-Ho got out an old mechanical typewriter, and started typing up everything that had happened today. This at least was much like the old job; a detailed record of everything he took part in was crucial for good professional conduct.

On the other hand, this was the first time these records would be directly collected from him without him needing to send them. Byung-Ho still wasn't quite clear on how this was to be done, but his new employers were quite explicit that he didn't need to concern himself with the matter, so he didn't. Much.

Late at night, when Byung-Ho was fast asleep, a portal opened in his living room. A man quietly stepped through, retrieved the neatly typed report on the day's activities, and returned to whence he came. The former North Korean spy didn't even turn over in his slumber.