He looked at me curiously. “I am a bio-controller. I have a very good idea of how your brain works, and how it interacts with your body. I am well aware you were trying to lowball your potential, probably out of justified concern because as a tinker, you could face a lot of pressure. Your original assessor was simply trying to assign you a class based on your demonstrated abilities, not your ability potential.”

I had been expecting class four, and maybe secretly class five, but class six? I knew what I could do, and the kind of city-shaking effects a class six could accomplish were way outside of that zone. “That still doesn’t make any sense. Class six? What exactly is a tinker?”

He nodded, “Do you know how alpha abilities work?”

I nodded, “Magic.”

He laughed, “That’s not actually far off the mark. A few super-intelligences figured out a part of it before they went off the deep end, but that’s a close approximation. Powers have always existed among humans, and all humans have powers.”

“Huh? I thought that the q-bombs started them off.”

He shook his head, “Not at all. In the end, all powers are created by the human mind. It’s a sort of telekinesis that all humans possess. Before the Q-bombs, it was barely noticeable, but have you heard of the Mandela effect?”

I nodded, “False memories caused by the telephone effect.”

He shook his head, “Not always. When you have a huge number of people believing something, all of those kinetic effects added together seem to have the ability to modestly alter reality. Just like ancient miracles, or various confabulations. Heck, in the bible, Moses made a snake, but most people forget that the two court magicians also made snakes that his snake ate! That’s why I said it’s a lot like magic.”

“Okay…” I said doubtfully.

He nodded, “Right. Still, as far as we can tell, the Q-bomb created a link that added power to the system. So under the right circumstances, that link can become powered and developed. The fact that Heroes have always been a feature of human mythology, especially after the advent of comic books, reinforced this… a fact that many of the more powerful heroes take advantage of. In a very real way, the more powerful people believe a hero is, the more powerful they can actually become.”

At my skeptical expression, he held up his hands, “This is just what a couple of mega-brains came up with and it fits the facts as we know them. That’s why we can’t isolate the factors or genes that make a human awaken. The reality is every human, under the right circumstances, has the potential to connect with the quantum reality unlocked by the Q-bomb. Every single one. But humans are, for the most part, unique… and the exact circumstances under which each will awaken is a complete mystery.”

“So those cults that promised to unlock powers?”

“They weren’t wrong, but it almost always requires an incident that, if you don’t unlock your abilities and they are not the CORRECT abilities to survive that unlock, will kill whoever tries it. And because there is such a broad variety of unlock factors, you can rarely get it right intentionally.”

“But you are a weird case.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your powers don’t come from your X chromosome. They come from your Y chromosome. That’s why you can’t link to the quantum reality.”

“What?” I was beginning to feel really stupid, repeating ‘what’ again and again.

“Your power is linked to your Y chromosome’s potential unlocking instead of your X. The reason most males die when their Y chromosome is the unlock, is that there is usually almost no limiter on an alpha ability. It can express in really disgusting ways, like teleporting into a wall the first time you experiment, because there’s no innate quantum-realm safety valve for you to access. In most cases, the male will have some powerful expression that draws off so much energy that they expire instantly because they don’t have a quantum realm energy back-channel.”

I looked around nervously.

He laughed, “No. You aren’t going to wind up in some windowless black site while we try to figure out how it happened. The BSA is not as bad as people make it seem, because most of the crimes they are blamed for are flat-out suicidally stupid. If we went around locking people up who have the potential to turn every BSA employee into a pancake, giving them a reason to hate us would be a very bad move.”

He shrugged, “But there have been other surviving Y-unlocks before, and sometimes when a Y-unlock mysteriously disappears, well, we get the blame, and sometimes a Y-unlock is so unstable that we HAVE to limit the damage somehow… but I promise we don’t torture anyone or turn them into lab rats. It would be pointless since we aren’t going to find anything by dissecting alphas.”

“However.” he looked thoughtful, “As a Y-unlock that HAS discovered a method of working around the lack of a link to the quantum reality, even if it’s slow and unreliable, you are definitely a person of interest. Be aware, though, that we might… request information if you find more ways of accessing energy, or have a dramatic expansion, or something like that. That’s why I said that your degree might not be as important to putting food on the table. As a class six alpha, I can promise that the BSA will be very happy to compensate you simply for sharing your knowledge of how a Y-unlock can expand their abilities.”

“Why is a Y-unlock so important?”

He grinned, “Because Y-unlocks can do insane crap. You know how powers are basically expressions of functions locked into a concept?”

I shook my head, “No. This stuff isn’t on the wiki anywhere.”

He nodded, “Right. A lot of it is firmly hidden on conspiracy theories and metaphysical websites that nobody pays attention to cause they think they are religious or mystical gobbledygook. Well, powers have two parts, function and concept. That’s WHY so many male double unlocks kill themselves. They gain the function, but without a concept to control and limit it, there’s no safety valve to tell it what it’s SUPPOSED to do. That’s what the quantum reality does, it links it to your mental concept of HOW the power is supposed to work, and then provides the extra energy needed to turn the staff into a snake.”

“The fact that you have an ability with a function that doesn’t adhere to a concept, and yet you both made it work and survived the attempt, makes you very valuable, but more in a ‘let’s see what he can figure out’ way rather than a ‘let’s lock him a box and force him to do what he already knows how to do’ way.”

He sighed, “That’s why super-brains are so sad. Half of the males that awaken their Y ability gain a concept without a function. A function without a concept is like handing a toddler a chainsaw, while a concept without a function is like being born paralyzed. Most super-brains aren’t actually geniuses, they just have a concept that drives them so firmly and no way to express that concept that they explore the concept exhaustively until it drives them insane. That’s why almost all mega-brains are male, and those guys, well, we do lock them up in black sites, because it’s usually only a matter of time.”

“So Tinkers and wizards are like super-brains, except that they have an actual function to go with their concepts?”

He nodded, “Actually most powers are like that, widgeteers tend to have a stronger concept, but without the scientific foundation of their concept to back it up, they don't have any longevity. Tinkers make worse heroes than widgeteers but are much more valuable as teammates. When you are in the academy, they will teach you about the most common concepts, and more about power scaling functions. In this case, because you can simulate a concept even if you don't have it magically applied to your function.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Wait, so that means I will be approved for Kellar Academy?”

He nodded, “Yeah, even if you weren’t referred, the academy would be desperate to offer you a scholarship. Even if your function doesn’t lend itself to a front-line alpha, it is very flexible. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if, once you figure out more about how it works and how to grow your energy levels, you were able to do things that would solidly cement you into a combat role if you wanted it, maybe even changing your power classifications since classifications are an expression of concept, and you could potentially press far beyond that limitation.”

I kept my mouth shut since I already knew he was right.

***

“I have something I think you should see.” Princess Pixel announced, resting her fingers on the tiny black mainframe she preferred to use to perform her magic. At her level of technomancy, things like screens and keyboards just slowed her down, and even though Kali hated her silly super-name, she wasn’t going to criticize her incredible work.

“I assume it’s important?”

Pixel nodded, bringing up a holographic representation of what she was seeing. There was a damned good reason she was considered class five, and the combination of technomancy with lesser light control was high up there. She might not be a combat alpha, but she was probably worth her weight in big, fat sapphires.

“What is this exactly?” Kali asked. She wasn’t even going to pretend to understand the scrolling mass of 3-dimensional hexadecimal that appeared.

“Oh right, sorry,” Princess Pixel replied, altering it to show words and letters. “A new support just lit up the telltales from one of the assessment centers near umm… Empire State College, and get this, Linker gave them a reassessment at class six, as a Y-awakened male. It’s getting shot up the chain for a full audit.”

Kali smiled, “Really? Do we know anything about his background?”

Princess Pixel started to work quickly, a number of screens flashing through her holographic projection. Surprisingly, she started giggling. “Yes, we do. Oh man, this is perfect!” she started humming as more screens, this time containing a variety of different languages, started flashing. “You are gonna LOVE this!”

Kali was starting to get a little irritated, “Okay, what am I going to love?”

“He is Strategic Special Simulations.”

The name was familiar. “Oh, he works for them?”

Pixel shook her head, “No, he IS Strategic Special Simulations. The only employee. The owner, and sole shareholder.” she started flipping her gaze through the hologram, “It’s all him.”

“Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. I mean, there are a dozen different cowls that work for them, a few of them on the Vilnet top 100. Does he have like, a stable of contractors?”

Pixel shook her head, “Nope, they are all him. Our new Academy student has been a very bad boy. Six spots on the list and two of them are supposedly dead… they aren’t near the bottom of the list, either. Oh wait, sorry, eight spots on the list, under different identities… and three spots on the BSA watch list, too.”

Kali was a little shocked, “What the hell is he doing going to the academy then? Won’t the BSA notice?”

Princess Pixel beamed, “He’s still in the holding system, and I am pretty sure none of their amateur data sleuths have noticed it yet. Do you WANT them to notice? It says here that he’s only being ranked as a class six because of alpha strength issues, with a recommendation for close surveillance and reassessment after graduation.”

Kali shook her head and flopped down into the office chair next to Pixel. “Hell no. not if there’s a chance for recruitment. What’s his power? Why’s he flying solo?”

Pixel brought up a secondary screen that showed various clips of footage, and a guy in several different costumes, mostly armored. “No one’s done a deep scan of his abilities, but so far he’s shown class three in several different elements, class five energy absorption, and what looks like better than class five regeneration, as well as some serious widgeteer or maybe even tinker gear. They have him down as a support, and it looks like his offense is pretty low, but defensively? If they saw this, which I am going to make sure they don’t, he’d be on the international team before you could blink.” She shrugged, “If he’s a tinker, he’s a hell of one.”

“What he showed at his assessment was class four creation. I mean, the real thing, not widgeteer summons. He also had a weird healing ability tied to it. As far as why no one has locked him down… well, it looks like he’s been careful to not attract much attention, playing the PR game as a series of disposable mooks. Heck, I never even noticed him, and you know full well I am always on the lookout for that kind of thing. It looks like he likes to take a lot of downtime between gigs.”

“ID security?”

Pixel nodded, her pink hair shaking. “Pretty much. A bunch of minor corporate cutouts for a Vilnet account. Clever for a normie, but he’s clearly not a hacker, only commercial security. He… oh.”

“Oh?”

Pixel nodded, “He’s straight, but I think he has trust issues.”

Kali looked at Pixel curiously, “What do you mean?”

Princess Pixel sighed, “He’s only nineteen, but the usual methods of dragging him along by his hormones probably won’t work out well. This newly awakened Tier four put him through the Heathers ringer last year… It looks like she somehow convinced him to sign over controlling shares in his dearly departed Dad’s company, probably with the promise of marriage or something, and then drained him dry, selling the shares off to a vulture capitalist. Funded her debut with a big-name heel.”

“Who is she?”

“Crystal, the newest member of The Flare. Class four shifter and elemental. Turns herself into bulletproof glass and focuses light, reinforcing gifts.”

Kali nodded slowly, “So basically she makes him fall in love with her, strips his assets, and trots off to become an A-list superhero leaving him high and dry. Probably didn’t even know or care that he was an alpha too. That could cause… complications.”

Pixel nodded, “Yep, about a month later he started up SSS and started playing the heel game with a flexible identity. When the heat got too much, he killed off an identity. Not too successfully, since he didn’t tend to build up much fame with his heels, so he couldn’t charge the big bucks.”

“So he’s heading to the academy because he’s desperate?”

Princess Pixel shrugged, “Beats me, maybe. He’s got a sponsor, maybe someone he did a favor for? But considering his finances, he might be desperate. He doesn’t seem particularly greedy, it just looks like he likes playing the villain game. He gets his ass kicked more than Mega-mind. Maybe he’s a masochist?”

“Either way, we can work with it. Do we have anyone at the Academy?”

Princess Pixel shook her head, “Not as a first year, but we have a few people I could clean up and insert. How do you want to do it? This guy’s not particularly smart, but he’s really paranoid.”

Kali smiled, “Get Matchmaker on it. She can find someone, you can clean her up and insert her, and by the time he graduates, those BSA shits won’t be able to touch him with a ten-foot pole. This might be the chance we need to get our own Graviton.”

Princess Pixel sighed and dropped the illusory screen. “Nuclear option it is.”

***

Codex grumbled and wiped the sweat off her forehead, glancing around the cheap apartment she was using for surveillance. She HATED trying to keep an eye on technopaths since their brains were wired so oddly, but she was one of the few who could do it. She picked up the handset of a rotary-style telephone and quickly dialed a number only three people in the world knew.

“Yeah, this is Pollyanna twelve. The Jury is at it again, but I think this time they might have dialed into something. Please put me in touch with Director Gleeson.”