Taylor ran through the diagnostics once more, making absolutely sure that everything was in working order. All the readouts once again flashed green and she sighed. There were no excuses or reasons to hesitate, her shell was ready and it was time.
“Nervous?” Melissa asked with a smirk. “This is a big step for you, after all.”
Taylor chuckled, backing out of the program. “What gave me away?”
A firm hand landed on her back, knocking a bit of the wind out of her. She groaned as Melissa laughed and stepped aside. “I'll check with Riley, she wanted to be here for this after all.”
“Thanks Mel,” Taylor said fondly. “I think Lisa is still asleep, but she’ll kill me if she misses it.”
“Harry’s already on it,” Melissa said with a smugness worthy of Lisa. “Focus on getting yourself ready, we’ve got the rest.”
Taylor felt fondness well up within her, she really didn’t deserve all the love and support that Toybox was giving her, but she appreciated it all the same. Taylor stood, stretching as she did and relished in the feeling. That was something her shell wouldn’t have after all, a small sacrifice for the upgrades it would bring.
She stepped around the table and looked down at it, the midnight purple hair was the only unnatural touch, because otherwise the face looked like any other person she might see on the streets. There were no visible seams at any point, even along the hair where the skull would open, and her cyber brain would be installed.
She ran a hand along the shell’s arm, warmth coming from the contact. Taylor couldn’t help but smile, because she had done that, she had created something amazing. Glancing aside, she looked at the display that showed the readout from her remote control unit, everything green on that end too.
It would be weird, having her original body become the remote controlled one, but her shell was far safer, just for the ballistic materials around the skull, never mind not having critical organs to lose in a gunfight.
Moreover, it meant two bodies to get stuff done with, and she didn’t lose a moment of her civilian life in the process. Things with her father had been strained ever since he had been introduced to her girlfriend, and that was a conversation they still needed to have, but she wanted to believe that he was coming around.
Taylor wasn’t surprised when warm arms wrapped around her, nor by the kiss feathered against her cheek. Lisa was always welcome no matter where Taylor might be, and while she didn’t have a key to Toybox, nobody objected when Taylor brought her over.
Well, Melissa had told her to not do anything she would, which told her far more about the woman than she had been curious to know. Shaking that particular thought aside, Taylor leaned into the embrace and managed to turn enough to return the kiss.
“You made it,” Taylor said, leaning into the pleasant contact.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Lisa answered before booping Taylor on the nose. “She’s pretty cute, though I think I prefer your current face and hair if I’m being honest.”
Taylor hummed, her cheeks growing warm at the compliment. “As much as I wanted to keep my looks, this is going to be my cape identity going forward, I felt it best to hide who I was.”
“Your next shell is going to be a civilian model then?” Lisa asked.
Taylor nodded. “Preliminary work is already starting on it. Your shell is also in production.”
“Mine?” Lisa asked, blinking in surprise. “I wasn’t expecting to get one.”
Taylor sighed, turning what she hoped were heartfelt eyes on her girlfriend. “Lise, you are literally the most important person in my life right now. Why wouldn’t I be building you a shell?”
“Tay, your shell cost almost thirty million,” Lisa said, her voice hitching.
She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Forty five, actually. My second shell will cost about thirty and yours will cost a bit more due to some added features. R&D is a sunk cost now and the assembly process is smoothed out enough that most of it is automated. I’ll finish both of them by mid-May.”
“That soon, huh?”
Taylor turned at the sound of Vivian’s voice. She had been a rare sight in recent weeks, working on some project for the Protectorate that she didn’t want anyone to see until she knew it would work. Naturally, Taylor worried that she might collapse the pocket dimension, but Harry promised he was keeping an eye on her.
“I’m telling you, Taylor’s tech is amazing,” Riley added. “Cranial made all kinds of advancements after they got a good look at Tay’s cyber brain interface.”
Taylor blushed at the outpouring of praise from the young wet tinker even as Vivian rolled her eyes and stepped aside, revealing a bemused Amy. Melissa followed behind the exuberant girl, bringing Harry, Jacob, Kurt, and even Jim with her. The only person missing was Cranial and that was because they were in the next room watching the readouts to make sure everything was working optimally.
The entire team and extended family was there, and it filled her heart with warmth. The only person who hadn’t shown was her father. Tensions had been high ever since he met Lisa, but she thought progress was being made there. She had planned to invite him, introduce him to everyone, but he had a date and she wasn’t about to interrupt that.
Maybe she would get to meet this mysterious Hannah soon.
“Alright Tay, moment of truth,” Melissa said.
Stolen story; please report.
“Yup, hop on up,” Riley added, patting the second table. “We’ve got a lot of tests to run once you’re all hooked up so stop dallying.”
Chuckling, Taylor swallowed her nerves and moved to the empty table and did as she had been instructed. The table was cool, but not uncomfortable as she laid down on it. Lisa was right beside her, holding her hand tightly. No scrubs or gown were needed for this part since the messy work was already done. Riley would handle the transfer itself.
Amy stepped up and placed a hand on Taylor’s arm. “Huh, I can’t actually knock you out like I would others.”
Riley laughed. “Nope, her cyber brain has redundancies that even if her body is disabled, her brain keeps going for at least six hours. All independent systems recharged with the heat her own body generated. Even in the new shell, waste heat is converted much the same way.”
“Yeah yeah, the brat’s stuff is cool,” Vivian said. “Can we get on with this before I get the itch to blow something up?”
“You always have that itch,” Amy said tersely. “I’d be more worried if it went away.”
It was easy to forget that Amy was spending almost as much time with Toybox as Taylor, but their labs were separate and neither tended to venture far from them. How those two had bonded over shared prickliness she would never understand.
“Alright, disconnecting,” Riley said. The seams along her skull split, opening to reveal the braincase within. It was funny, in a way, Something like having one’s skull open up should have been disconcerting, but to her, it just felt natural. “See you in a few, cutting sensory data now.”
The world fell dark, digital readouts began to show her battery percentage and alerted her to the lost connection. She still had the net, but she was running with it all disabled just to be safe. She knew her old body would be fine, Melissa would be slotting the control unit in even as Riley brought her to the shell.
Something slotted in, data began to race across her vision as systems fed in and synced with her control software. Diagnostics raced to completion, her processors now being assisted by the new server cluster in her torso.
Vision returned, sharp beyond human limits, hearing finer than anything she had ever heard followed.
“Alright, everything looks good,” Cranial said. “Taylor, could you run a control test?”
Taylor touched the tips of each finger to her thumbs, then wiggled each toe in a way that would be impossible with normal human muscles.
“Everything seems functional,” she said only to blink. Right, she had the Major’s voice set to default. She toggled the setting and spoke again. “Am I safe to stand?”
“Well, that answers the vocal test,” Lisa said, patting her on the shoulder. Taylor grinned and sat up, pulling her girlfriend into a gentle hug. “Miss me?”
“Hey, at least pretend to follow your own damn protocols,” Cranial said sharply. “Left biceps is showing an irregularity, confirm.”
Taylor ran a focused test and found the problem in half a second. “Control software glitch, already patching it.”
Vivian whistled. “Damn, and I thought your programming abilities were scary before.”
“Back off, she’s mine,” Lisa said, sticking out her tongue.
“Wouldn’t Pan Pan here be more your type?” Vivian shot back with a grin.
Amy however snarled. “Next person to call me Pan Pan is getting cancer.”
Taylor smirked and was about to say just that to tease her, but Vivian leaned in close, making Amy back away slightly. That continued until Vivian had Amy backed against the wall and slammed a single hand against it.
“Well, Pan Pan, I’m waiting,” she said in a husky tone.
Lisa leaned in, her lips by Taylor’s ear. “Okay, I wasn’t expecting that, but I ship it.”
Taylor snorted. “Lise, I’ve seen your shipping charts for The Capes of our Lives, you ship anything that has a pulse.”
“Not my fault I know that Brightlash and Cryomancer are sleeping together off set and pushing to make it an on set thing.”
“You bitch,” Melissa said though there wasn’t much heat to it. “Spoiler warnings.”
“Not really a spoiler yet,” Lisa replied. “All good, love?”
Twisting her wrist, Taylor nodded. “Looks like it, though I do need to take her out on a shakedown run.
“Forgetting something?” Cranial chimed in. Taylor turned towards the speaker as they continued. “Your remote systems need to be calibrated to work with your fleshy bits. That isn’t entirely plug and play, you know.”
Right, Taylor had almost forgotten in the excitement. Her shell was proving to be everything she had hoped, and all she wanted was to get out on the streets and go for a run. That would have to wait until she got her old body functional enough to keep up appearances in her old life, however.
“Alright,” she said, activating the connection and flipped the secondary channel open. Normally, control software would handle most of the autonomous actions, and indeed, breathing and such was on a control system that would mimic the brain’s own setup, but all motor control was being left to her at the moment, she had a suspicion her power’s love of multitasking abilities was about to shine.
Taylor’s old eyes opened, and she could see out of them just as if she had still been in her old head. The perspective split in her mind, and Taylor sat up, looking around. It wasn’t easy to explain, having two separate instances of herself running, but both felt like they were her in every sense. She knew that her shell housed her actual brain and yet, it didn’t feel any different than it had an hour past.
“This is so weird,” her old body said. She turned and looked herself in the eye. “Really weird.”
“Great, now there are two of her,” Amy said with a huff. She pushed past Vivian and came over to poke at her flesh and blood body. “Physically, nothing feels different to my power, which is bullshit because there should be some degradation in control.”
“Power bullshit,” Taylor said. “Multitasking seems to be a secondary aspect to my powers and is letting me split my consciousness almost perfectly.”
“Now that is interesting,” Jacob said. “I’ve seen something similar in Masters before, but never in Tinkers. If you’re willing, I’d love to interview you after a few weeks of this for eventual use in an academic paper.”
“Aren’t you a PRT approved therapist?” Lisa asked. “Seems like a conflict of interest there.”
Jacob eyed her with amusement. “You will no doubt find the divide between heroes and villains to be thinner than most imagine.”
Lisa huffed but did not continue engaging him. That alone was enough to make Taylor eye Jacob with renewed caution, because he had just out talked Lisa, one of the most powerful Thinkers on the East Coast. Even with Taylor’s already shaken faith in the system, especially after everything her mom’s journals were bringing to light, that had been too on the nose. Jacob hadn’t admitted to having powers, and his PRT records claimed he had none, but there had to be a reason he was in the position he was within Toybox, even with having Riley and Kurt in his family.
It wasn’t an important question, but she would get an answer from him someday, but for the moment she had more tests to do, then, she would take her shell out for a proper shakedown. Maybe she would even get lucky and run into someone she wouldn’t feel bad about punching.