Surge 3.9

2010, November 7: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I was pleasantly surprised; negotiations the night prior didn't end up taking all that long. Neither Big Rig nor I were the sort to pinch pennies and it showed. Face to face, Big Rig was every bit as gruff as his construction foreman costume implied. He had a rough but not unkind demeanor to him that bashed directly to the point like a bulldozer. He was a man who knew what he wanted and didn't tolerate fools and "snake oil salesmen" as he'd called them.

Unfortunate that I couldn't fleece him for extra cash, but great in that he wasn't the sort to cheap out on me either.

In the end, we settled on a simple system: For every construction drone I wanted, he'd get a hybrid soda engine out of me, and vice versa. Should one of us have our fill of the other's product, we'd default to cash, or in his case, a set weight of either seastone or wapometal. The CAD and fabricator, which I'd only need one of for the immediate future, we agreed to purchase for a set weight of seastone, to be delivered as soon as I could get the fabricator working.

He'd begun by trying to demand more for the fabricator, but I pointed out that me being able to mass-produce was just another way for him to secure his own supply chain, especially if he wanted to cover an entire private emergency bunker out of seastone. The fabricator wasn't as much a part of negotiations as it was the bare minimum that I needed to have for any trade to even be feasible in the long run. He grumbled, but in the end gave me a steep discount on the first. If I ever needed a second fabricator, he warned that he fully expected me to pay the full amount.

Lastly, we agreed that any trade between us would remain independent of market considerations. As in, neither he nor I would change the price of our goods just because another tinker hiked up demand elsewhere. It was a promise I made for his sake, I strongly expected demand for my time to skyrocket as I acquired different specializations. Still, he'd been straight with me and I felt obligated to be fair in turn.

I accepted the deal and thanked him for his generosity. I suspected that at least part of it was Toybox's stated mission of propping up independent tinkers. Regardless of the reason, negotiations came to an end far more expediently than I'd initially expected.

I received a notice from Big Rig shortly after informing me that Dodge of Toybox would be delivering my new CAD and fabricator to the Palanquin at 3 AM, Monday.

I scratched my stomach and got up with a lazy grumble. I wanted to spend Sunday morning relaxing, but as much as I appreciated Big Rig's speedy delivery, it meant I'd be busy tinkering again today to prepare for the influx of supplies.

To be fair, it was something I should have done a long time ago, as soon as I realized Strider would be coming in with almost a literal ton of volcanic ash on a regular basis. Now that I expected the deliveries to be even bigger, in volume and likely in mass, simple expanded bags wouldn't cut it anymore. I needed a way to carry things that wouldn't fit in the mouth of a large suitcase.

I needed another DSS port, one that I could carry around.

I groaned pitifully. Trying to get that to work with a laptop was going to be a nightmare.

I stepped into the shower and allowed the cold water to wake me fully. Then I froze before promptly running my forehead into the ceramic tile. Then one more time, because I deserved it. "Holy fuck I'm stupid… Why does it need to be a laptop? I can just carry a desktop in an expanded bag, piggyback off the Palanquin's network, digitize the deliveries, then pack up the desktop again."

I sighed. Now that I was thinking properly, I remembered having similar thoughts when I first built the DSS in th Gullrest. Then I got distracted tinkering and shelved any plans to tinker in the future. I slumped, resting my forehead against the cool ceramic. I thought I took a lot of notes where my power was concerned, but I clearly wasn't nearly meticulous enough if I forgot about such an obvious exploit. What else had I missed while chasing the hot new thing?

Getting out of the shower, I toweled myself off and replaced my contacts. I'd just have to take the loss on this one and learn from it. Just because I built something once didn't mean I couldn't find different applications or workarounds.

Thus resolved, I headed down to join mom and Sisi for a delicious breakfast of sausage, pepper, and onion hash with a side of fruit. I reached into the fridge to grab my hot sauce and settled down next to my sister.

"Morning, mom, Sierra," I greeted as I sprinkled a generous helping of hot sauce onto my breakfast. It was a chipotle-lime blend this time; mom bought it just for me.

"Good morning, dear," mom greeted back. "Either of you want to come to church with me?"

"Nope," we chorused as one, completing our Sunday morning routine. I didn't know why Sierra wasn't religious, but I personally found it hard to believe considering the reincarnation I knew to be fact.

Perhaps I was unique? Was I some kind of abomination or abnormality, overlooked by both Heaven and Hell?

No matter the answer, it was at least clear to me that the God I grew up with no longer had a claim on me, if he existed at all. It was a disquieting feeling, one I did not enjoy being reminded of. Still, church gave mom peace of mind and that was good enough for me.

"Well what are you two going to be doing then?"

Sierra shrugged and ripped open a Pop-Tart. Why she'd come to the conclusion that a strawberry Pop-Tart would go well with a sausage hash was beyond me, but I decided to be a merciful little brother and cut out the snark. "Michelle and Sabah are coming over."

"Another project? Semester finals should be around the corner, no?"

"Mom, relax, finals are after Thanksgiving. We're just going to hang out."

I snorted and shot her a teasing grin. "You three aren't even going to pretend to be working this time?"

"Hey, we did have lab. We just finished and watched TV together afterwards. What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, sis, just saying, I'm surprised you haven't found a better place to hang out than our living room by now."

"Their house is always crowded because their roommates are slobs," Sierra said with a shrug. "Besides, don't act like you don't enjoy having cute older girls around, Bryce. They've basically adopted you at this point."

"True," I hummed, "no point denying it. Michelle and Sabah are really pretty."

"I liked you better when you were easier to embarrass."

I rolled my eyes. "Did such a time exist? When?"

"Selective memory much?"

"Absolutely. I ignore everything I don't like. That's the key to a happy, fulfilling life."

"Mom, Bryce is becoming an idiot," Sierra said in that tattling tone all sisters seemed to master instinctually.

"Mom, Sierra is already an idiot," I chimed back. We glared at each other for a second before we broke into chuckles.

"What about you, Bryce? Are you going to hang around the house all day?" mom asked with a fond smile. She didn't even try to pretend to admonish us.

"Nah, I'm thinking I'll wander around the Boardwalk. Maybe visit one of the music stores."

"You know they're mostly tourist-traps, right?"

"Yeah, mom, I know. But that's not always bad. They're good for killing time."

"Why don't you invite your friends out? You went to the arcade with the boys from school, right?"

I considered it, then snorted. "No thanks, mom. Not everything needs to be a social activity."

"You should enjoy the time you have with friends," she chided gently. "You won't get so much free time when you're an adult."

That took me back. My parents used to tell me the same thing when I was a teenager the first time around. I scoffed and ignored the advice then as just some inane "wisdom" adults liked to dish out on unsuspecting youth, but they weren't wrong.

As I grew older, attended college, and started a job, I found myself busier and busier, and before I knew it, the friends I thought would stay with me forever had all drifted away. I remembered thinking once over a glass of whiskey how it'd be cool to reconnect; then I drowned the thought in liquor and dismissed it as too awkward or needy. After all, they all had their own lives, right? Who was I to barge in after years of radio silence?

I smiled sardonically at the bittersweet memories. Would I feel the same way about Chelsea? Stephanie? The Wards? Vicky? Amy?

No, of course I wouldn't. I wasn't delusional. I was only loosely tied to that friend group by virtue of Chelsea's overenthusiasm and my identity being known to Amy. We all had very few shared interests beyond being a cape, which I obviously had no intention of sharing. The things they enjoyed, I couldn't find it in me to take much interest in, especially now that I was busy building and launching my probably illicit business. It was the magic of high school, where you could consider someone a "friend" simply by eating lunch with them for a bit.

'How ironic,' I mused, 'that I can only really appreciate the worth of that advice when I can no longer take advantage of it.'

"I know, mom, I know," I said finally.

X

Contrary to what I'd told mom, I wasn't at the Boardwalk proper. I was instead several blocks inland, roughly ten minutes from the college. I stood atop a telephone pole, invisible to everyone else. I wore the incomplete hybrid regalia, currently just the Water Regalia and Germa boots, and spent an hour skating through the Boat Graveyard to acclimate myself to the new skates.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I looked down at the shopping center. It was a large, square warehouse that had been converted into a joint Target and Best Buy. Smirking to myself, I hopped down to the ground and waited by the automatic door for someone else to enter before following them inside.

Still invisible, I made small bubbles of air beneath my feet to cushion my footsteps. I wandered around the Best Buy until I found one of their "geek squad." He was a short but bulky man with clearly defined muscles that strained against his blue polo, very much the antithesis of a stereotypical geek. He was also helping a teenage girl and her father who were shopping for a new laptop for her birthday. At their side, a young boy shuffled aimlessly, looking around for anything that might distract him.

I stood off to the side a ways, hands clasped in front of me politely, and signaled for the invisibility to fade away. I waited there patiently, mostly just to see how long it'd take for someone to notice me.

Two minutes later, the boy, who had been halfheartedly browsing through some graphic mousepads, turned and incidentally caught me out of the corner of his vision. For all intents and purposes, I'd teleported directly into the store, right before his eyes. His eyes widened comically but before he could say anything, I leaned forward and placed a finger in front of my face in the universal sign for "Be quiet."

"D-Dad?" he stammered, his hand grasping his father's sleeve.

"Not now, Connor," the man said distractedly, he was asking about the RAM on a Dell laptop versus a Lenovo, "we can look at the games after we pick out a computer for your sister."

"Dad? I think you should see this."

"Conner, stop being a pest," his sister scolded. She turned around to say something but caught me leaning against a stand of headphones. "Why can't you be quie-"

Seeing the gig was up, I raised a hand and waved. "Yo."

That did it. The Best Buy employee and the father turned as one to look at me. Amusingly enough, they had two very different reactions. The employee, Carl, his nametag said, was wholly resigned. He'd clearly heard of my visit to Toys R Us. He was so jaded that he stared at my orange-visored helm for only a handful of seconds before going right back to explaining how RAM and HDD memories differed.

"Okay, I know this is slightly beyond the budget you said you had sir, but if your daughter is really into digital art, you're going to want the extra RAM-"

"Wait, hold on, that's Creed!" the father exclaimed, pointing at me.

"Yes, it is, sir," Carl drawled. He turned back to me with the most "done with this shit" expression I'd ever seen. "Should I open up the register or are you here for something else?"

I held a palm to my chest in mock offense. "Excuse me? I'll have you know I am a villain class and culture." I leaned down conspiratorially to whisper to Conner. "Besides, it's not a good idea to rob people who supply me with tech."

"Right…"

Conner looked like Christmas had come early while his father waffled between pulling him away or not doing anything that might offend me. The kid, being a kid, practically vibrated in place. He took out a notebook and thrust it towards me. It had a graphic design on the cover, Legend, I noticed.

"Sign this," he demanded.

Before I could respond, the father finally decided on a course of action and yanked the child back by the scruff of his neck. "Nope. This isn't happening. Come on, Penny, we'll try Fry's."

"But daaddd~" Conner whined. "He's not even that bad!"

"Conner, I swear to god…" I heard him trial off as he whispered harshly to his kid.

Penny, presumably his daughter, looked at me, at her family, back at me, then sighed before flipping me off. "Thanks, my shopping trip just got longer."

"In my defense, I literally did nothing but stand here."

"Whatever. I hope Armsmaster kicks your ass."

"I hope so too," I replied honestly, "not getting my ass kicked, more fighting him, tinker to tinker. Could be fun. Ooh, I should pick that fight at some point… Now how to do it in a way that doesn't get The GOAT on my ass…"

"Whatever," she grunted before stalking away.

Carl the Geek stared at me. "That was my commission, you know."

I winced internally. That actually did make me feel bad. Retail workers didn't deserve that shit. "Sorry. If it's any consolation, I'll spend more than enough to cover it."

"Fine, whatever. What do you want?"

"Several hard drives. Highest HDD and RAM you've got. Money isn't a concern."

"Can't you just build a supercomputer?"

"Maybe," I hummed. He wasn't wrong, strictly speaking. I had all of anime-earth's tech tree in my head, which included more than just ATs. I understood the ins and outs of everything from automotive construction to vaccine development, even the basics of things like quantum computing, which the Chinese government had begun to play with. "But just because I can doesn't mean it's productive to build everything myself. That's like asking why every architect doesn't build his own dream home instead of taking out a mortgage on something already standing. Sometimes, good enough is good enough."

He grunted unintelligibly before taking me over to the desktops. He started to explain the nuances of different computers, realized he was talking to a tinker, then promptly shut up in a way that reminded me of goldfish.

"You know what you want?" he settled.

"Yup. If you have anything better in the back, bring it nout, but otherwise, yeah. I'll browse on my own, thanks."

He grunted something and moved off to the side but didn't leave. I assumed he wanted to at least jot it down for his manager if I actually did steal something, not that I planned on it.

I browsed through the computers on display and frowned. They were all awful and I couldn't believe that these were the best they had. And then I remembered, 'Oh, right… 2011…'

I couldn't remember off the top of my head, I wasn't paying much attention at the time, but the computer I'd fitted with a DSS back home wasn't too advanced either, certainly not up to my 2022 standards. They also didn't sell individual hard drives, just fully assembled computers.

In the end, I purchased six desktop computers with large memories, advertised as providing a "flawless movie-watching experience." According to Carl, they were most often bought by gamers with rich parents or graduate students in architecture or engineering back at the college.

His eyes widened as he rang me up. "That's $9,923."

I nodded, having expected that. All things considered, a little over $1,600 per computer wasn't bad for a high-performance model. I handed him my card. "I did say I'd pay you back for that commission I cost you, no?"

"R-Right."

"I'm a villain of my word. Besides," I leaned in and spoke in a mock-whisper, "crime does pay."

"And what crimes are those?" I heard behind me.

My heart leapt to my throat and I forcibly stilled my hand to keep from reaching for my walker pistol. If I was going to be attacked, it would have happened already. I turned to find Kid Win and Aegis, both aloft, which explained why I hadn't heard them coming.

The two Wards looked amused, or at least non-combative for the moment. That they were the ones here instead of the Protectorate told me much of how the PRT viewed me at the moment. More, since the Wards patrolled in pairs, I could assume this was a coincidental encounter. Another employee likely reported my presence here and these two happened to be the nearest capes on patrol.

That bit of rationalizing calmed me down and I forced myself to speak nonchalantly, thanking the voice modulator in my helmet for doing much of the heavy lifting. Shrugging ambivalently, I swiped the card back from Carl and said, "Oh, you know, a contract here, a commission there. Really, I haven't even made a dent in my inbox."

"Selling unregulated tinkertech is illegal," Aegis said sternly.

"Unregulated? By you, you mean. I'll have you know that both catalogs were looked over and approved by The GOAT and 'quality' is their middle name."

"Is it really?" Kid Win asked sarcastically. "The Quality GOAT?"

"Well, no. It's 'The Mighty GOAT actually, but you get the point," I shot back as I stuffed the six computers into the expanded bag beneath my cape. "Anyway, it's been real, but I actually have plans for these things so I'm gonna scram. Later, Meatlug, Mini-V."

Despite what I said, they followed me out.

"Care to share what you plan on making? Tinker to tinker," Kid Win probed unsubtly.

"A kitty-laser."

"A kitt-laser? You can't buy a laser pointer to mess with cats like everyone else? They're five bucks at Target."

"Yup. Laser weapon that turns everything it hits into a cat. I need more kittens to drown to keep my villain cred and the local shelters won't sell them to me so I figure I'll just manufacture my own."

"I… What?"

"Exactly."

"Kid, I don't think he's going to tell us," Aegis drawled, though I could hear an undercurrent of amusement. "You realize we're going to have to stop you the moment you try anything illegal?"

I turned to him and made an excited face but realized he couldn't actually see my expression. Instead, I did a little thrilled hop and pumped my fist. Really, half the hammy act I put on was so I could express myself in a fully covering helmet. "Y-You mean it? You'll be my testing dummy and all I have to do is… do something evil? YES!"

So saying, I promptly ran off to the closest person with a car.

"No! Nonononono, that's not what I meant!" Aegis yelped as he flew after me. "Creed, that wasn't an excuse to commit a crime, damn it!"

I didn't listen. The nearest person happened to be a young woman with dusky skin and teased hair just about to get in her car. "Hey, you! Lady! Give me your car!"

She stared at me like I was something scraped from the bottom of her shoe. "Fuck off, asshole. I have shit to do today."

She slammed the door of her car and drove away, probably going past the posted 15 miles per hour sign and breaking a few statutes of her own. A part of me was tempted to race her but I ultimately saw no point in it. It wasn't bad to cultivate an image like this.

I stepped back, bewildered. "Well… That was a thing. Maybe I need a better plan… The GOAT did say no grand larceny and I suppose the car was a bit much… Say, Meatloaf, what's the limit on larceny before it becomes grand larceny in New Hampshire again?"

"No, no crime is acceptable, Creed. As nice as it is to know that this goat-person is keeping a leash on you, I'm not going to tell you how much you can get away with," he said with an audible frown.

I wanted to bust out laughing, almost did, but caught myself. Messing with Carlos was unexpectedly fun. I resolved to seek him out more often, the guy could probably morph away his own migraines anyway. Then, I remembered: the Legos.

I dug in my bag to reveal the Lego set I bought from Toys R Us. I hopped into the air and held it out to Kid Win. "Here, Iron Lad."

He stared at me in confusion, his half-uncovered face far more expressive than my own. "What? You didn't steal this, did you?"

"No, I bought it, remember?"

"Okay, why are you giving me a Lego set?"

"Take it. I really want to fight you, especially you and Beardmaster, but I can't. Right now, the way you are, you're… Umm… Let's say you're not at your best…" I trailed off. Then, with more pep, "So! I decided I'm going to help you out a bit, tinker to tinker. Seriously, take the damn Legos."

He took the box, mostly because I shoved them into his chest. "What am I supposed to do with these?"

"You're a tinker, aren't you? Build."

Aegis cut in. "Is this what you do? Build models of your tech with Legos before you start making something for real?"

"Hah! No way, but he should," I said with a bark of laughter. I hopped further into the air before activating my regalia. The skates came alive with the satisfying whir of impractically powerful motors. A faint shimmer of mist that wasn't strictly from the condensed pyrobloin began to enshroud my feet in a pale haze. "I'm giving you a freebie here. Trust me, little Stark, and work with the Legos for a bit. It's what you're good for anyway."

"Hey, screw you," Kid Win said.

"Wasn't an insult. Use. The. Damn. Legos. Or don't. Lead a horse to water and all that. Anyway, Ciao~"

With that, I kicked the Water Regalia into motion. I didn't bother with invisibility this time; they'd hear the regalia purr anyway and I wanted to maintain the illusion of teleportation for a while longer. No, I'd go back to the Gullrest to work on a DSS and prepare for Big Rig's delivery in an hour or two, but for now, this was all me-time.

I whooped as I raced across the sky on vapor trails of my own making. Was there a cape in the city who could catch me? I wasn't sure; Ōm's regalia wasn't built for raw speed like Key Mother, more internal stability and agility in enclosed spaces such as Trophaeum Tower. Could the better flyers like Laserdream, Purity, or Glory Girl keep pace with me if they went all out?

I didn't know but the idea of an aerial dogfight against them made my stomach flutter pleasantly with butterflies.

Besides, me outflying the Wards was bound to be great advertisement for my ATs, whenever I decided to put them on the catalog.

Author's Note

Honestly? The first part of this chapter is my bad. I tend to zero-in on one aspect of a story and neglect others, which is a bigger problem with tinker fics than most. I'm still learning to juggle. Then again, Bryce is one of those characters whose WIS would definitely be his dump stat so it kinda works for him, I think.

As for the Best Buy scene, it mostly just kinda came out. I'm considering it practice for when I finally have to write Andy waking up in Legendary Tinker because if Bryce is a minor (villainous) celebrity, Andy's going to be whole different can of worms. To be fair, I have pretty good examples of fame culture both IRL and in different series like The Boys.

Also, if any of you are into RWBY fanfiction, try Raise by Coeur. Yeah, it's a Coeur fic and they tend to be tossups, but this one's pretty standard canon worldbuilding except one major difference: Jaune discovers his Semblance early and it can raise the dead. It's about Jaune struggling with fame. I don't think I'm going to get that edgy with Andy, but it's definitely something to consider.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.