บท 29: 12
6
Friday 25th November 2010
I wake up from a broken sleep in a foul mood.
The nightmares continue apace, last night I was locked up in a Cauldron facility by Skidmark due to "not progressing fast enough for the forge." Not the funniest of dreams.
I shake off the rust and get out of bed. I have an AAR with either Armsmaster or Piggot today, so I need to be at my best.
After performing my now standard bloodletting workout routine, I scarf down a meal from the pot and head into my forge via the warehouse.
I can't help but stare longingly at my new cybernetics creation and maintenance suite as I walk past the workshop. But no torturing myself today. Instead I create today's morning shadow clone. My intent today is to have my clone drafting a new renewable power supply for scaling up.
I won't be able to make anything truly silly yet, I can achieve a low efficiency deuterium fusion reaction using heavy water just from my cybernetics knowledge, I need power to actually start the reaction and at the "power my base" scale, I can't move it once it's switched on.
A dilemma I think I can solve by just creating a ton of power cells and using them sequentially to kick-start the reaction. It'll take some math that I don't have time to perform. That however is what the clone is for.
He immediately moves over to some free space in the forge, grabs some paper from my resources and gets to work drafting.
Maybe I should get some whiteboards in here. A thought for another time.
The second hold up is actually getting heavy water. Deuterium oxide is found in regular water which I have a near infinite supply of, but the deuterium hydrogen appears in such a small ppm. That it doesn't count as a "reasonably common additive" so I cannot produce it myself.
This means I need to actually create it myself. The most reasonable way I can do this is via electrolysis, which I don't have the equipment for, or buying it.
Using the internet via the multi tool tells me it's about $100 for 15 ml.
For a base sized reactor, I will need roughly 1.5 litres for a 5-year lifespan reactor that can power a decent amount of machinery.
That's about $10k worth of heavy water.
It's my only choice, however. I can thankfully buy it legally. I was worried I would need ID or worse that I wouldn't be able to buy it at all, but it doesn't seem to be a restricted item.
I will need to see what the PRT offer me for any destructive testing they did today, Dauntless said Armsmaster would speak to me after my meeting today.
Clone happily embedded into high level nuclear math, I spend some time polishing and recoloring my armour. It's not technically required, I could use the omni and matter manipulator for the clean and polish, but I need something to do with my hands that isn't crafting.
I renew the dull grey panels, deciding to go for a matte silver today I decide to inline it with circuitry designs. Artistic Architect kicks in and it comes out looking far better than I thought. I also darken the cobalt panels. It looks a little edgier than before, but the inlaid design makes it look much more stylised.
Once done I suit up, grab my gear, and drop out of my only door in the western docks. I got interrupted on my last patrol and never grabbed a door up near Winslow so I'm going to grab that now, then patrol south through the Docks South suburbs where Taylor's house is supposed to be. I won't know the house but if I grab a few sub station or utility doors in the area, I will at least be able to deploy nearby. I will then continue south, grab a door near Arcadia before patrolling down to the PRT on foot for noon.
I'll grab some early lunch on the way down, spend some public exposure time and relax a bit.
I'm glad I made this armour so I can eat normally in it!
The patrol from Winslow goes without incident. I see a few younger guys wearing the red and green, but they quickly loiter away as they see me approaching. This is technically neutral territory though only in that all the gangs operate here.
No-one challenges me as I work my way to the south towards the south east of the Docks South picking up doors along the way.
I didn't try to grab the door of Winslow. I feel it would be suspicious for me to be seen poking around there.
I'm being recognised more often, I even catch a few people waving, I return them with a grin and a nod.
I'll never get used to the pseudo celebrity nature of parahumans. It's a strange breed of fame.
Making my way towards downtown I start seeing a lot more red and green on the border to the docks proper. I see gestures and glances towards me, but nobody challenges my path. I catch movement from the corner of my eye on a roof and my scanners pick up a life sign. That quickly disappears.
I look in the direction but I see no-one there.
It looks like Oni Lee just did a pass by to check what I was doing.
Interesting, I will have to remember this area, must be something of importance here somewhere to garner this level of reaction.
I ramp up the active scanning and instruct EFA to warn me if any life signs flicker in and out around me.
The Forge interrupts me with a new roll.
300CP are available.
Attempting Expansion!
Failed!
300CP remain!
Another perk failure, and it looks like I'm building up quite the charge.
I walk the borderline between Empire and ABB territory as I approach the PRT controlled areas of downtown. The deprivation is high in this area, it's relatively nice housing wise, but there is a clear divide of graffiti and gang signs, one side swastikas and eagles and the other various pan-Asian languages and green and red imagery.
The dragons are actually pretty nice, some good artists in the ABB.
Hey! I can appreciate good artwork.
I enter the downtown proper on high alert, I am definitely being watched by both sides, and neither seems to know what to make of me.
A bunch of skinheads approach me from the opposite side on the sidewalk, but they walk past me with nothing but a sneer. Everyone in the area seems so tense!
It's easy enough to grab a door around Arcadia. The outlying parts of it are technically an open campus so grabbing a couple of public toilets is easy enough.
Having shown my face outside of the forge and established my position downtown, and almost being out for 3 hours at this point I pop my head into the forge, dispel my clone and make a new one with the same job.
I receive a heady rush of memories about technical documentation and safety features of the basic cybernetics generator, and my initial back of the napkin math was correct-ish. I should be able to scale it up though there's a theoretical maximum I shouldn't be near to it if me-2's math is right.
Which it is of course, me-2 is almost as good at math as me-1.
Hooray for perks!
I have almost all the materials I need to make the v1 reactor. I need some more lead and glass, and a good chunk of silver, but the rest of the reactor housing can be made from various steel/tin/gold composites. I have a little tungsten that my clone must have bought back from his expedition to the docks that I can use to make the core outer housing. I'll need some NPSteel for the inner housing, but I have more than enough resources for that now.
I'll see what I can pick up later before I return home to the workshop.
I grab what should be my last door, a useful maintenance access in the alley behind a coffee shop. I pop through quickly to summon another shadow clone, this time with strict instructions to work on alchemy and alchemy tools. Specifically non-lethal suppression methods that I can make suit portable.
Time to meet the PRT.
Walking into the lobby is a lot less scary when you have a powerful local scanner on you and can use it to see the countermeasures you will be pissing off if you act off. Some people believe in "peace in ignorance" but I am not one of those.
The agent on reception is expecting me this time, he directs me to a nearby elevator and tells me it will take me where I need to go. I step in and in no time at all I step off the elevator to a much nicer looking corridor than last time.
Miss Militia is waiting for me, American flag bandanna and all. She nods at me professionally.
"Archon."
I return her nod.
"Miss Militia."
She smiles, and gestures for me to follow her. Watching her hand for the telltale sign of her power I notice instead that she has a Beretta at her hip.
She notices me looking and looks at me quizzically. "Are you okay Archon?"
"Yes I was just looking at your gun, Beretta M92FS?"
"M9A1 actually, a personal favourite. Are you an enthusiast?"
"Unfortunately, I have to defer my knowledge to video games rather than personal experience though, it's a favourite of mine."
She chuckles.
"You'd be surprised how many I train who get into the sport for the same reason."
We continue walking through well furnished offices, Cream carpets and brown leather furniture. PRT support staff work on decent quality PC's in various areas.
I get the feeling this isn't a casual meeting with Armsmaster.
We pass through a glass door, and Miss Militia asks me to stop.
"Are you able to leave your equipment here in this room Archon?"
"I'd prefer not to leave the armour; I will leave my weapons however if it makes you comfortable?"
"Are you willing to certify that your Armour container no projectile weapon systems nor weapons of a nature that could be dangerous to people in the room with you with complete certainty?"
The way she says 'complete certainty' make me realise that I'm definitely being checked on a lie detector. Likely Armsmaster.
"I don't carry ranged weaponry at all currently, my baton and sword can extend but I'll be leaving those here and my deployment system for my syringes isn't complete yet. I will have only one weapon with me, a personal carbide blade that I can project from my wrist if threatened, but it's a personal defense weapon."
She waits a second, then nods.
"Approved to enter in Armour."
She leads me to a lockbox to leave my weapons in, I also make the concession on detaching my helmet. It makes interaction a little more personal and is more likely to be looked on favourably.
Not like anyone can copy or reverse engineer my gear if they get hold of it anyway.
Black boxing is such a useful perk.
The first thing I notice when we walk through the second set of double doors is that Director Piggot is smaller than I expected.
She's still portly, but I expected someone as big as I was in the previous life, or bigger.
However, while definitely on the wrong side of obese, she isn't some rippling monster many fics make her out to be. She definitely does not look well, however.
The second is that her dislike of unaligned parahumans is probably not an exaggeration. She is giving me the gimlet eye as I enter. However, her expression softens as I stand next to the chair opposite her at the glass meeting table.
"Please sit Archon, the chair is one reinforced for Armsmaster, I doubt you are much heavier even with the armour."
I could just sit in the armour without a chair, weight isn't an issue when you can lock your limbs in place at whim.
"Thank you Director and thank you for inviting me to this meeting."
She looks directly at me.
"No need to thank me for inviting you to a basic AAR. Hearing your side of events will help us with rating the Merchants in future." She says waspishly.
I nod. And decide to keep my mouth shut.
While we are waiting for the other participants to arrive, the forge gives me another ping. I thought you deferred in active situations!!!
400CP are available.
Attempting Expansion!
Failed!
400CP remain!
Another failure, although given where I am, probably for the best.
I'm worried about the tier of perks this failure steps me in to. There are conceptual perks that can change the very nature of your soul in these rolls, and I am approaching a well of stored power that may be able to reach them.
A worry for the future, however.
Dauntless and Assault enter together, Assault sees me sat at the table and waves, Dauntless notices him waving and then notices I am here as well. He smiles and nods.
Finally, Velocity and Armsmaster enter. Armsmaster takes the seat next to me as Dauntless sits opposite me.
No Triumph or Battery, they must be holding the fort.
The Director begins to speak.
"Now everyone is in, we can begin."
She pushes a button on the desk in front of her.
"Emily Piggot, PRT ENE Director, after action report and strategic meeting regarding the parahuman gang 'The Merchants'. In attendance, Armsmaster, Head of the Protectorate ENE, Miss Militia, Deputy Leader of the Protectorate ENE, Dauntless, Assault, Velocity of the Protectorate ENE and Archon. Guest of the PRT ENE and local registered hero."
She takes a sip of her drink.
Dauntless, Velocity. Please explain the initial attack on the PRT Prison convoy.
Dauntless quickly takes the lead and explains the few minutes prior to me arriving. He describes the front vehicle crumpling as it hits an invisible obstacle, followed by the tank dropping its stealth field and using its heavy machine gun to disable the prison transport.
"After disabling the prison transport, I was rapidly engaged by Squealer, I moved to keep her attention in order to keep the attacks coming at me, rather than the agents.
Velocity jumps in.
"I engaged Mush in a harrying action, I can't actually do much to him but distracting him from the pickup while Dauntless engaged Squealer seemed like the tactical choice while the PRT regrouped and moved to protect the Civilians."
Dauntless then takes over the report.
"Once Velocity engaged Mush I was engaged directly by Whirlygig, and a group of Merchant gang members engaged the PRT Agents in the rearguard. This is when Archon dropped in, literally."
Assault snorts, but a rapid glare from Piggot clears his expression rapidly.
Heh, I could grow to like this woman.
The table looks at me expectantly.
I describe the actions I took and the orders I gave to Glory Girl.
Piggot speaks up.
"Why did you order Glory Girl, a while younger, more experienced field hero than yourself to take the civilian guard duty instead of backing up Dauntless or yourself?"
"My primary priority at the time was making sure the unpowered agents and civilians were out of harms way. Initially my tactical analysis was that her fear aura plus her known strength would work better as crowd control while I engaged Mush. However, in the aftermath of the fight I have come to believe that I made a tactical mistake. After seeing that Mush was more competent that I assumed and definitely more adept with his power than he is made out to be. I believe it would have been the more tactical choice for me to engage the gang members and defend the agents and civilians by raising terrain barriers while Glory Girl pummelled Mush."
Hey what do you know, she can smile.
"I appreciate your candour regarding your own mistakes. It's refreshing to see an independent who can admit they made one."
Even Assault looks shocked.
Looks like I scored some brownie points.
Piggot moves on.
"Ok, tactical analysis of the merchants. Archon as the newcomer you open."
"Ok, I'll intersperse some of my personal observations with some sensor data I analysed."
She nods.
"Firstly, Mush. Mush is more competent than his bearing suggests. While definitely under the influence, he managed a feint that took me completely off guard, replacing his own arm mid combat in order to trick me to overextending. His ability to re-accumulate his golem body is deceptively quick."
I take a sip of water.
"Secondly, Squealer. Her tank was made of a hybrid alloy I don't recognise. Immense tensile strength from the sides and rear, unlike most tanks it's weakest point is actually the front which is how Dauntless managed to blow up an ammo store with lightning. It's strongest in the sides and back. Armour wise, I can't guarantee any of the man portable launchers will do you any good even from the front. Maybe one of the up-down rocket launchers could penetrate the top armour. The gun was a custom job firing .50, no known match to any commercial or military model."
I stop for breath, before finally ending my analysis.
"Whirlygig is limited, if what she showed is the limit of her power, any quick brutal strike will take her out of the fight, she seems to require the centrifugal force to build up before she can attack, and she rapidly uses up that force when she does attack."
Piggot questions me.
"And do you have any insights to Skidmark from the previous fight?"
"Not much, unfortunately whatever he injected me with left me out in the wind. He is dangerously clever, however. He saw through me in minutes on a first impression. And I was actively paranoid about my status. His fields seem to be capable of layering, if he was a psychopath, or pushed too far I could see him being capable of laying floor traps that could take off a leg. I would only ever invite him to engage on you, never allow him to prepare the ground. Treat him like you would a dangerous tinker if he knows you are coming, and you won't go wrong."
She nods.
"Thank you for your insight. Does anyone else have any insights that add on to this analysis?"
The conversation continues, and I sit back and observe how they run their analysis. It could be useful to learn in future.
Finally it comes to threat ratings.
"Any ratings opinions Archon?"
"Unfortunately, I don't know fully what the expectation of the ratings means, I wasn't much of an internet user nor cape enthusiast before I became a tinker, and I've been too busy since to really get into it."
"Noted, I will arrange for you to have an insert from the joiners pack that explains them. Even if you remain fully independent, if you continue to work with us it will be useful to you and us for you to be knowledgeable in them."
The forge grabs my attention again.
500CP are available.
Attempting Expansion!
Failed!
500CP remain!
Another failure! There are literally hundreds of low-cost perks left in here!
The discussion continues about ratings until finally, the Director closes the meeting.
"Ok, all analysis will be submitted to Watchdog for official ratings to be applied or upgraded. Until further notice The Merchants are upgraded to a Tier 2 gang presence. This means Ward deployments in any area they are known to be active in are suspended until further notice. Armsmaster I'll need new deployment routines on my desk for sign-off no later than Tuesday."
"Acknowledged Director."
She turns to leave.
"It was nice to meet you Director."
She hmm's, turns her head to me and replies.
"Likewise."
Armsmaster turns to me.
"Please stay and I will speak to you about your tinker submissions and your other request."
The Director nods at me as she leaves.
"Thanks for your assistance Archon. We will contact you again as needed with your permission."
"Always, Director."
It's just me and Armsmaster left.
"How have you been Armsmaster, any interesting developments recently?"
"I've been good thank you, I've recently been working on improving some predictive algorithms for melee combat."
"Oh interesting! Software based or are you looking at hardware based solutions? Maybe a hybrid?"
He seems intrigued.
"Currently software combined with a visor, but a hardware hybrid could also function quite well…"
"Yeah, maybe a spread of cameras with a high FPS around your Armour, specifically tuned for movement? Could be developed to spoof a form of combat precognition?"
"Interesting idea! I will research the viability of it!"
He looks like he wants to run off to his lab right now.
Poor guy.
"Ok, I have a check from the PRT bursar for 25000 dollars for destroyed equipment. Your 'stimpak' is approved for deployment as long as side effects are discussed in advance and permission is attained. You will face no personal censure for using it on Velocity, Dauntless has taken responsibility there and rightly so!"
"Oh ok, thank you! And the other gear?"
"The PRT is interested in the applications of the injectors, and it's outside of our purview to tell you if you are permitted to use them or not. I'm planning some analysis on the 'Pax' you left with us myself for combination with a tranquilizer I have been developing and as the relationship between yourself and the PRT develops, they may choose to put in orders. Regarding the melee weapon, currently the PRT is not willing to tie their combat effectiveness to a weapon directly powered via a parahuman power. This is not intended as a slight, even if you worked for the Protectorate this answer would be the same."
I reply. The rest of his statement was pretty much as I expected.
"I've been working on non-lethal anti-personnel measures myself." I reply. The rest of his statement was pretty much as I expected.
"Finally, Assault passed on your request for tinker resource contacts. Here is a list of approved suppliers that fall under the civilian umbrella. You may use these for your personal projects."
This was more than I expected.
"Thanks, Armsmaster. Has there been any development with your enhanced halberd?"
"Yes, I registered a slight increase in overall durability with no corresponding increase in density following combat. I will be monitoring the effect as it progresses and will keep you updated."
"Thank you for letting me know."
I decide to make my excuses and leave, he really seems to want to get back to his lab.
"I'm going to head back to my workshop to work on some power generation ideas Armsmaster, thank you for the supplier list and thanks for the cash!"
"Don't mention it Archon, have a nice day."
I grab my gear and walk out of the PRT $25k richer.
My power generation plans are a go.
I quickly put an order in for the heavy water I need via the omni-tool and make towards the south. I will need to head over to the heavy industrial district to pick up my order, and I have no doors that far south. Which is an oversight I will correct shortly.
I quickly stop off at the bank to deposit my check on the way, and then travel at full sprint via the main roads towards the district.
I could have gotten the bus, but I feel like a guy in power armour would make a bit of a scene.
It doesn't take too long to arrive at my destination.
Buying the heavy water in the warehouse office of a chemical plant is an experience. I get the feeling they don't get many visitors on foot in 6'5 power armour.
Cannister of heavy water in hand, I make my way back to the forge.
So, deuterium oxide power generator.
It's basically cyberpunk magic.
The math is wild, but it will give me a good chunk of power generation that is relatively clean. The air in the workshop is guaranteed and the outputs of the reaction are traces of oxygen, carbon dioxide and helium. The helium I should work on a way to capture for use in future projects.
Once this project is finished I'm looking at about 20'000 MWh per year for 5 years. A conservative output all told, but for one person it should be more than enough. All for the cool cost of around $14k in materials.
The celestial forge is broken.
This particular generator wasn't designed to be scaled up like this but if Tony Stark can scale down a magic palladium generator, I can scale up a magic deuterium generator.
…
Have you ever tried to create a complex circuit board on a blacksmiths workbench?
I can't actually recommend it. Backyard Handywork is one of my earliest perks, but it by far has pulled the most weight up to now.
I expected it to take a while, but the next time I check the omni-tool for the time, It's 4am.
I have three more connectors to finish, then I can finish the transformer and power cell interface.
Once done I will be going to bed. Under no circumstances am I powering up a finicky piece of tech like this while this tired.
I have twelve power cells ready to catalyse the initial reaction, it's overkill but better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
I finish doping the core connectors and turn in for the night.
I add "a proper bed" to tomorrows mental checklist of things to make once I have power.
I always neglect the basics.
Notes:
Perks gained this chapter.
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