Click.
I flicked the switch with my finger and adjusted my aim. Peering down the scope, I analyzed the digital display, noting all the information available to me. Wind speed; 16 knots. Distance to target; 1.76 km. Recommended kinetic amplifier; 53 percent. I moved my thumb to the side of the metal, carefully dragging it down a touch-sensitive panel, watching as the kinetic amplifier dropped from 76 to 53.
My target moved slightly and I adjusted my aim. I counted in my head, my finger slowly squeezing the trigger. The moment I hit three, I inhaled and pulled the trigger. The branch just below the one I had been aiming for exploded.
The recoil kicked hard as the shell ejected automatically. The gun hissed as a small jet of steam shot out of the kinetic amplifier exhaust. The digital display flashed a warning in bright red for a few seconds before resetting itself.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered under my breath. I had forgotten to account for the bullet drop. I’d need to fix that by adding the function to the digital display.
[Charges: 8/25]
[Type]
* KETZER B64 Anti-Material Rifle MK III
[Durability 99/100 - Repair Available. Cost: 1]
[Attachments]
* Variable Medium-Long Distance Electronic Scope MK III
* * Distance tracker MK II
* * Wind Speed tracker
* * Target Painter MK II
* * Bullet Drop Estimator (Cost: 3)
* Suppressor MK IV
* Recoil Control MK III
* Extendable Tripod
* Kinetic Amplifier MK II
* * Touch Display Configuration
* * Charge Speed MK II
* Shoulder Stock
* Magnetic Holster
I paid the three charges necessary to implement the new feature. The scope of my new weapon melted down and began folding in that familiar pattern before reforming atop the gun. I resumed my activity, peering down the scope and looking for a new target. I found another decently sized branch.
Distance to target; 1.88 km. Recommended kinetic amplifier; 59 percent.
This time, there was a red dotted line showing where I should aim. It was slightly above the branch, displayed as a small red-lined box. Once again, I counted to three before squeezing the trigger. Unfortunately, a bird decided to land right in front of my crosshair as I fired. The kinetic amplifier hissed again as it went through its routine to reset itself.
The bird turned into a fine red mist, feathers hovering all around where it had been sitting.
Whoops.
Collateral damage. It was easy to justify and I wasn’t about to lose sleep over an accidental bird obliteration. It wasn’t like I could set up a target range in Sam’s apartment building. This sniper rifle produced enough force to puncture multiple concrete walls. I could probably kill someone by accident and I didn’t want that on my conscience.
“Alright, lethal works well enough. Time to test non-lethal,” I muttered to myself.
I was starting to develop an unhealthy habit of talking to myself, that much I was aware of. I wasn’t going to worry about it because it felt good to internalize my thoughts aloud sometimes. Just hearing myself say my thoughts out loud helped me ground myself; remind myself that all of this was really happening.
I reached for a separate magazine as I ejected the current one. I carefully placed it to the side and grabbed the one filled with tranquilizers, the primary ammunition I’d be using. I wanted to be long ranged support but I also didn’t want to be murdering people, so I needed to check if these tranquilizer rounders would work properly.
I loaded the rounds and searched for a new target. It took me a couple of minutes to find another bird because I had clearly disturbed the wildlife out in the forest. When I did, I narrowed my focus. Distance to target; 1.54 km. Estimated recommended kinetic amplifier; 84 percent.
I grimaced.
The tranquilizer rounds were made of a lighter material so they wouldn’t travel as far without the additional power from the kinetic amplifier. Hopefully, they wouldn’t break apart mid-flight. I dragged my thumb up the digital display till it met the recommended percentage. The dotted red line was higher as well, so I’d have to adjust my aim accordingly. All this and it was still just a stationary target. I’d need a lot more practice if I was going to use this effectively when I was out with Sam.
I inhaled and squeezed the trigger.
“Watcha doing?”
I jumped out of my seat.
“Jesus—!” I turned to find Sam standing behind me in her school uniform, carrying a paper bag. She giggled while I glared daggers at her. “Someone needs to put a fucking bell on you.”
“Jeez, jumpy much?” She placed the plastic bag on the table where I had my gun set up. “I like what you’ve done with the place. It was a dump this morning,” she observed looking around. Her eye caught the silent roomba I had modified, diligently going about the room and cleaning it up. “It actually looks liveable now.”
I had taken advantage of Sam’s apartment complex and claimed the top floor of the building. I had used my powers to restore the walls and infrastructure of the room I was in. Repairing it had been moderately costly but it was a sacrifice I was more than willing to make. Rotting walls and moldy carpet just would not do, especially since I planned to make this place my home away from home. Other than repairing the necessities, there wasn’t much in the way of furniture. There was the table I was currently using and a couch that I had used my powers to restore. That was about it. There was no TV or anything in the kitchen. It had all been removed and ripped out of the walls. I could do something about that later if I really wanted.
“I figured I’d start making this place liveable. I fixed your apartment too by the way. Paint can only do so much to hide the rotting walls, ceiling, and moldy carpet,” I said, returning my focus to the gun. I grunted when I realized I had lost my initial target. “It’s a start. I’ll do more when I get the time, assuming Grim doesn’t kill us tomorrow.”
“He won’t,” Sam said with a reassuring tone. She reached into the plastic bag and pulled out a brown cardboard box. “Sushi? I thought you might be hungry.”
I found a new target and adjusted my settings accordingly. I squeezed the trigger and fired. The table shook a little but with the recoil control attachment, it wasn’t nearly as violent as my first test run had gone. I had almost dislocated my shoulder and immediately looked into trying to fix that problem. Even with my armored suit, it would be difficult to actually use if the gun kicked like that all the time.
The tranquilizer hit the bird and I considered it a success that it didn’t turn into a red mist. The impact likely killed it, despite it dropping to the forest floor but the point was that it wouldn’t kill a human being.
Probably.
“Thanks,” I reached over, snatching up a piece and plopping it in my mouth. It was then that I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast this morning and it was 4:30 in the afternoon. “Forgot I hadn’t eaten.”
“I thought you might’ve forgotten. Nice toy by the way,” She replied, eyeing the sniper rifle. “A bit excessive but it’ll get the job done.”
I observed the gun I had spent the last three days working on. Like my laser pistol, I had bought the base model from a shop. There were no sniper rifle nerf guns so I had to spend a bit more money to get started on this one. It began as an airsoft gun, totaling around seven hundred dollars. Fairly expensive but I still had a lot of leftover cash from when those suits gave me money to spend on materials to build their commissions. That allowed me to skip a couple of the upgrade steps and save on charges, which ultimately allowed me to get more done in the time that I had. All in all, I was happy with the results.
“I wanted something with a little bit more ‘oomph’. I can mess with my pistol to add an automatic fire function if I want something that shoots a little faster but range is always going to be a problem,” I explained. “Plus, I thought you’d probably want me in a supporting role or recon – wherever I’m most effective. I doubt the frontlines would be a good place for me right now.”
“You’d need stronger gear, yeah,” Sam agreed. “I can survive with Red and Pink, plus with the added protection you’ve given me, I can take care of myself easily. You probably need to work on your costume a bit more. I’m not going to lie and say it’s up to standard. You’ve got a ways to go before it's comparable to the stuff Nanoforge makes. My suggestion? Add some momentum functions. A jet pack would be cool. Definitely invest in some shock absorbers. Don’t want to be breaking bones when you jump off things.”
I nodded. Those were some good suggestions.
“I’m closing the gap between my suit and the ones Nanoforge makes,” I said, biting into another piece of sushi. “I thought it would take longer but it's starting to look achievable.”
She could make them en-masse and update them all the time. It was taking me two weeks to even make one.
“Great! Any progress on Deadlock’s tech?”
“Nothing to write home about. I need to upgrade my laptop to the point where it's able to pick up on the secret frequency that’s built into the device. Once I do that, I can create and develop some software that can break through it. It’s going to take a month or two to do,” I explained, shaking my head. “Even then, I have no idea if that will work. It’s just from what I was able to gauge from examining it.”
“Keep at it. It’s low priority but I’m itching to know what’s inside,” Sam said. “So, whatcha got for me? Did you manage to finish my weapon?”
I reached into my jacket pocket and tossed her a metal cylinder. “Sure. Can I ask why you didn’t want a gun like mine? I thought you’d prefer a gun or something.”
Her eyes sparkled as she caught the device.
“Did you make me a lightsaber!?” She beamed. Her excitable features dulled when she pressed the button on the side of the contraption. Metal poles shot out of both ends and crackled with electricity. “Aww…. you really know how to disappoint a girl, don’tcha?”
I snorted and rolled my eyes. “As if I’m going to give you a lightsaber or anything close to an equivalent. You said you wanted something that would work well with Pink so I thought a bludgeoning weapon combined with a taser would work.”
“Stun sticks,” Sam nodded, finally showing her approval. “They’ll work. I didn’t want a gun or any kind of ranged option because I do most of my fighting with Pink and she likes things up close and personal. If I need the extra power, I’ll switch to Red.”
“You're the world’s best at everything with Orange active,” I tried to argue. I gestured to the sniper rifle propped up on the table. “Want to give it a shot? I doubt you even need all the additions to help me aim.”
“Don’t forget how tunnel-visioned I get when I’m Orange. Hard to think about anything that isn’t directly in front of me,” She said, shuffling over next to me and taking control of the gun. “It’s handy in a pinch but I’ve come to understand that doing anything long-term using that power doesn’t exactly work out as well as you might think.”
She bent over the table and peered down the scope of the gun. I saw her lips curl into a smile as she started aiming, searching for a target.
“Like it?”
“God, I fucking love Mechatech,” she sounded like a kid in a candy store. “Hard to believe you made this thing in just a couple of days. You can make it better as well, can’t you?”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Given enough time I could probably upgrade it to the point where we could shoot a target all the way in China from your bedroom window,” I shrugged half-heartedly. “So far, I don’t think there is a hard limit to how far I can take something. It just becomes more costly with each upgrade. Eventually, a single upgrade would drain all the charges I get in a day and I’d be forced to underpay.”
“Which is when it starts to take longer,” Sam guessed. “I figured that. So… you really could make this thing capable of shooting all the way to China?”
She was playing with me, clearly. I could tell from the cheeky side eye she was giving me. Still, it brought up an interesting question that had been lingering in the back of my mind. Just how far could I take any single object? It didn’t seem like anything really had a limit.
“I… honestly don’t know. Probably. Though, what would be the point in that?”
Sam shrugged. “Fun?”
“Fun,” I stared blankly at her. “That’s your idea of fun?”
“What’s your idea of fun?”
I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. “I don’t know. I told you the first thing I did with my power was upgrade my laptop and phone. I thought having a Mechatech laptop and phone would be fun. I wouldn’t ever have to worry about the battery running out or my games dropping frames.”
“Of coooourse,” Sam smiled and rolled her eyes. “You boys and your toys.”
“Hey, respect the toys,” I said wryly. “They’re gonna help keep us alive.”
“Mhmm. What’s a kinetic amplifier and why do I need to adjust it?”
“It adds more power behind the firing mechanism. Works off a rechargeable battery,” I reached over and gently took her hand, guiding it to the digital display on the side. “Drag your finger up and down to adjust. I use my thumb because it’s more comfortable.”
“Ah…” She thumbed it a bit, dragging it up and down to get used to it. “Very nice, very nice. How much kick is this thing gonna have? Will I have to use Red to avoid dislocating my shoulder?”
“If you had asked me eight hours ago, I’d say yeah but you should be fine.”
“Alright,” Her excitement was almost palpable. “Here goes nothing!”
She squeezed the trigger and fired. The gun lurched slightly and a giggle escaped her lips. Over the next few seconds, the giggle evolved into a full-on laugh as steam shot out of the small exhaust and the empty shell popped out of the top.
“That was crisp! It barely made a sound,” I stood up straight and gave the gun a once over. “Oh, it has a suppressor. Weird. I know they mask the sound but I didn’t think they masked it that well.”
“It’s a ‘mark four variant’. My power makes it better, I guess.”
“You are one in a Max-imillion,” She laughed. “You have zero idea how many Mechakinetics would kill to have your power.”
I shrugged off her compliment. “It’s not that great. I think having a power that lets you make the things Deadlock, Ajax, and Nanoforge create would be way cooler.”
Sam stared at me for a moment, like she couldn’t comprehend that I existed on the same planet as her.
“You… really think that?”
Who wouldn’t want to be able to build a space station and your own personal army of drones? Who wouldn’t want to be able to create power armor strong enough to single-handedly reshape how ground warfare was fought? Who wouldn’t want to be able to create space-time-warping tech in their garage?
Me? I could just make pre-existing things better.
“It's frustrating hitting a wall everyday. I need to make some tools and learn how to use them so I can get around this block. I’d actually make so much more progress on the things I actually want to work on if I wasn’t constantly hampered by having 25 uses of my power per day,” I explained. I chuckled and shook my head, realizing how ridiculous this all sounded. “Listen to me complaining about having super powers. I should be grateful I have anything.”
Sam’s grin lightened into a more sincere smile.
“You seem to undersell yourself quite a bit.”
My brow raised. “Do I?”
“I’ve crossed paths with a few Mechakinetics since I got my powers. All of them complain about their restrictions and specialties. By far, the most crippling issue they have is access to resources,” Sam explained. “Their power does a lot of the heavy lifting but consider the herculean effort to acquire the right metals, materials, and parts needed to build their machines. You? You can just… skip all that.”
It was the biggest upside to my powers that I noticed since getting them. As long as I had a base model to work off of, everything else just sort of fell into place. My power provided almost everything it needed to get the job done. Even on the off chance it couldn’t, finding whatever it needed and merging it wasn’t a big deal, at least, not yet anyway. Everything I had made so far was still in the infancy stages of development.
“It’s still annoying when I run out of charges.”
“A small price to pay for the ability to modify and change almost anything you touch. There are some Mechakinetics out there that are forced to collaborate with other supers or corporate third parties in order to get what they need. Deadlock was only able to get anywhere because her parents worked for a hardware manufacturer,” Sam said. “There are probably other Mechakinetics out there in the world with better specialities who are being hampered by their lack of resources and their ability to access them.”
I could see where she was going with this. So maybe my power was better than I thought it was. I was still suffering from creator envy when it came to seeing the kind of things those other Mechakinetics made. It would be years before I could create the things they made.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said you're one in a million. Even amongst supers, you’re a rarity. If the Cains understood a fraction of the things I did, I can guarantee you they’d lock you in a room and keep you there as their personal weapons manufacturer,” Sam continued. She then pursed her lips and tilted her head. “That, or they’d stop at nothing to make sure you’re dead. In fact, a lot of supers will probably want you dead or under their thumb if they ever figure out how your powers work.”
I shuddered.
“Gee, thanks for the heads up,” I snarked. “I’ll be extra careful who I talk to about my powers.”
My thoughts briefly drifted to Alex. It was only a few days ago I had explained to her how my powers worked. Hopefully, she wouldn’t tell anyone.
“Good, and I’ll always have your back if you have mine,” She winked.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not stupid. We’ll talk about our extended partnership after we’ve dealt with the Cains. I’m still thinking about this whole ‘holding territory’ thing you seem to want to do.”
“Fine, fine…” Sam sighed dramatically. “It’s not that I want to do it. It’s just something that will need to happen after Grim is run out of town. There will be a power vacuum and I really don’t want to go through all this effort just to surrender the ground we covered to Pandora.”
“Hmm.”
“Anyway,” Sam said, eager to change the subject. “We need to touch base with Springsong and I’d like you to be on the call with me. We’re going to be going over our plan of attack.”
She started picking up her stuff and I followed suit, folding up the sniper rifle’s tripod and holding the large weapon under my arm. The thing was kind of heavy but not enough that it was uncomfortable for me to move with. I’d have to start working out if I was going to be running around with this thing every time I went out in costume.
“Let me guess, you want me there but you don’t want me to say anything,” I drawled. Sam narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, stopping before she could head toward the door. We were probably heading down to her apartment. “Okay, I’m being petulant, I’ll admit it. I’m still sour that you got mad at me for wanting to help Anomaly without any guarantees about his loyalty.”
Sam frowned. “We talked about this already. I thought you were fine with me doing the talking.”
I thought I was too but it lingered in the back of my head. It felt like she didn’t really trust me to make any important decisions and that hurt my pride a little.
“You’ve asked me to trust you on multiple occasions before but over the last few days I’ve had this nagging feeling like you don’t exactly trust me,” I hedged my words carefully. Sam’s expression remained neutral, not giving anything away. “I trust you, since you’ve yet to give me a real reason not to but I’m curious how you really feel about me and this thing we have going on.”
Sam considered my words carefully. Her gaze dropped to the floor for a few moments before she lifted her head. She didn’t meet my eyes and she seemed to stare out the window.
“I really like you, Max.”
My breath hitched in my throat and I felt my cheeks heat up.
Where did this come from?
“What?”
Her eyes met mine and she snorted.
“Not like that, dork.”
Oh.
My disappointment was immeasurable.
“Way to get my hopes up.”
“Oh please,” Sam waved me off with an amused smile. “You haven’t ever thought about us being like that. It’s been all business between us. Don’t sound so disappointed. I do really like you. I think if we both put in the effort, we could work really well together as a team but it's clear that we both want different things right now. We can work through all that, at least I hope we can. Gold is very skeptical about you though.”
I was beginning to understand Gold a little more each time Sam talked about her. A good point to consider from now on is to never take anything Gold says or implies to heart. It was the cold, calculating, part of her. The bit with zero empathy. The Sam I was speaking with right now was the real one, the core of who she really was. The part I actually liked and trusted.
“That’s fine. Gold can think whatever she wants,” I brushed it off. “I do want to keep working with you.”
“So do I.”
“So, you do trust me?”
I saw hesitation flash across her face as she opened her mouth to reply. She paused, seemingly realizing she had just given herself away. I felt dejected that she looked ready to lie but I couldn’t find it within myself to be surprised. Sam, by her nature, seemed like a very distrusting person, especially with Gold and Pink whispering and talking inside of her head.
“I trust you to do what you think needs to be done,” Sam said slowly. She stood for a moment in silence before shaking her head. “You have to understand that someone like me with my powers? It’s hard to trust people implicitly. Gold digs into people and finds how they tick. Just by that alone, I learn what people are really like and I know that I won’t be able to place my trust in them.”
I frowned slightly, a thought occurring to me.
“Do you trust anyone?”
For the first time, I saw genuine sorrow from her.
“No.”
I felt pity for her. I couldn’t imagine what living like that must be like.
I considered myself to be a skeptical person by nature. The friend group I surrounded myself with had my trust. Lucy, Abby, and Jackson had my implicit trust. Same with Mom and Alex. I knew that if I had a problem that they could help with, I could go to them about it. Granted, I hadn’t exactly stuck to that after getting my powers. The world felt more dangerous than it ever did but before it had been a different story. Still, I knew I could rely on them for other things.
Sam didn’t have anyone. She was completely alone with the voices in her head. She clearly wanted to, which was why she was trying to form this team in the first place.
“Do you want to trust me?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course I do.”
“Then, what’s stopping you?” I asked. I wanted to know what it was about me that she couldn’t wholeheartedly trust. I’d like to think we were good friends now, close even. “What do you see in me that you can’t trust?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yeah.”
Sam took a deep breath before exhaling. She fiddled with her hands a bit, rocking back and forth on her heels.
“Your heart’s not in this. Gold knows you’re too comfortable flying under the radar. Fully committing to me and our partnership means you’re fully willing to accept being labeled a villain and risk being thrown in jail,” She explained. “You know I’m not interested in being a hero which only leaves me a few other options, all which involve clashing with the law and authorities. You don't want that. You don’t like the risk.”
She was right. I didn’t.
Too much that could go wrong. Too much to risk. I’d hurt my mom if I went out and did the things villains did. If my friends ever found out, my relationships would fracture. Abby would hate my guts. Jackson would feel uncomfortable associating with me and Lucy… she would just be disappointed; feel betrayed. She and I were closer than anyone barring Alex and even then I was keeping this a secret from her. It made me feel queasy but I knew her – it was better off if she wasn’t involved.
“You keep saying that we’ll talk about this after we deal with the Cains. Max… I already know what you're going to say, even if you don’t know it yet,” Sam shook her head sadly. “You’ll leave, because of all this? This lifestyle? You’ve got too much to lose. Not like me. This is all I got. This is my life.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” I said quietly. “Once we get rid of the Cains, you can come to my school, meet my friends. Ditch this life. Nothing’s stopping you.”
Sam smiled but it was full of pity, pity for the innocence that I was desperately clinging onto. “I can’t. I tried running. You don’t understand, I’ve said this before. Sooner or later, someone will find you. There is no running for people like us. We have to play this game until the bitter end, otherwise we’ll end up dead, or something worse will happen that will make us wish we were.”
She wholeheartedly believed that. I could see it in her eyes. Sam really thought there was no peace for supers and maybe to some degree, she was right. But I was a coward. I didn’t want to commit. I wanted to believe there was still hope, despite the evidence I had experienced thus far.
Make up your fucking mind, Max.
“So?” Sam questioned, looking at me expectantly for an answer. “What’s it gonna be; do you think you can commit?”
I inhaled sharply. Too much to lose. Too much risk. “I don’t know.” I liked Sam too much to say no. I liked what we were doing. It gave me direction, a purpose, something that didn’t feel so mundane. I could make a difference. Plus, the excuse to actually use and develop my powers was too good to ignore. “I need to think about it some more.”
Stop procrastinating, dumbass. You know what you really want to do.
“You can’t sit on that fence forever.”
My jaw tightened.
I know.