“Agni was here?”
“Yes, Anne,” I sighed.
“In this house. Here. Right where we live.”
“Yes.”
“And everything’s still in one piece.”
“Dad made a deal with her.”
“And you’re calling him Dad.” Anne sat down, a stunned look on her face. “This day just got surreal.”
Paul gave us both a look. “I did warn you that you’d eventually be tracked down. Just be grateful Agni’s the reasonable type.”
“I go to school for one day… I should have tracked her with nanobots.”
“How? We still don’t know how she found us.”
“Admit it, she’s better at tracking than the both of you,” Paul pointed out. “Perhaps due to the fact that she’s been at this for a decade, whereas you two have maybe half a year of experience?”
“Dad, age isn’t everything.”
“Neither is talent, as I’ve told you before. Learn something from us old folks sometimes.”
“You’re not old,” we both chorused.
“Either way, it’s definitely time to shift things to Quartermain Heights.”
“And to get my heavy weapons functional,” I grumbled.
“I’d like our house still standing, thank you. Hence the garage. How soon can you be ready to move your stuff?”
----------------------------------------
On Thursday morning, I piled my ‘stuff’ into the Gladiator.
Since Liverpool, the jeep had gone through quite an overhaul. Stealth paint coated the vehicle, making it scanner proof and near-invisible at night. The wheels had been reinforced with nanofibre weave layers, and fullersteel slabs a half-inch thick shielded the body.
In effect, it wouldn’t get trashed by a stray bullet - or ten. Although I still wouldn’t want to take it into a combat zone.
“Why can’t you use this in a fight?” Anne asked me. “Like, just put more armor on it?”
“The axles,” I explained. “Any vehicle’s built with a specific maximum weight in mind. For the Gladiator, that’s about 2,000 kg, including almost 700 kg of payload.”
“You can’t fit the armor onto that?”
“Adequate armor for a vehicle that size would be nearly 3,000 kg, and it’ll still have less survivability than a normal tank.”
“Oh. You saw the tanks, right? They had some awesome armor point total, though…”
“200,000 armor points, but they’re spread out around the whole body of the tank. The Greyhound has less armor points but a smaller area.” I shrugged. “If the aliens actually deploy their equivalent of a tank, I can’t exactly go head-to-head with it.”
“Maybe you could build something. Hey, what about the Ultimate Fighting Vehicle? Nachtsturm’s design?”
“You think I should duplicate it?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Nobody’s been able to do that for twenty years, Anne.”
“Maybe you’ll get a quest out of it?”
NEW QUEST ALERT: TANKY GOODNESS.
1. BUILD YOUR FIRST ARMORED FIGHTING VEHICLE FROM THE WHEELS UP. REWARD: +5000 XP.
2. TAKE YOUR ARMORED VEHICLE INTO COMBAT AND KILL 3 ALIENS WITH IT. REWARD: +2500 XP + NEW BLUEPRINTS UNLOCKED.
SKILL UNLOCKED: ARMORED VEHICLES LEVEL 1.
YOU CAN BUILD AND OPERATE ARMORED VEHICLES. CURRENTLY THIS JUST MAKES YOU THE BIGGEST TARGET ON THE BATTLEFIELD.
“I wish you hadn’t said that,” I sighed.
“Are you loaded?” came Paul’s voice.
“Just about. I’ve got the main armor set, the spare fusion plants, and the power pack integrator loaded.”
“Good. Let’s see how much of those driving lessons stuck.”
----------------------------------------
Quartermain Heights is a ten-minute drive from Pendleton. Far enough for some safety, close enough that I could get there fast in case of an emergency. Or an alien attack.
The garage itself was huge - close to ten thousand square feet. As the three of us walked through it, I could see it had been cared for.
One corner had tool lockers, a half dozen of them - freshly painted, too.
In the middle was a hoist with large letters that read LOAD RATING 2,000 KG. Hydraulic jacks were off to one side, and a 3D printer stood to the left. A generator, an industrial lathe, power cutters, machining equipment ….
It was a fully stocked repair garage. With an electronic assembly table to the side. All in pristine condition, well maintained - and recently well maintained.
There was even a concrete partition to one side, with exactly enough space to store a microfusion reactor.
I turned to Paul. “Did you fix up this place?”
Paul shrugged. “Anne had her exams, so I didn’t have much else to do.”
“It’s perfect, Dad.” I hugged him.
Paul awkwardly hugged me back. “Let’s not have manly tears, okay?”
“Thank you…. I didn’t know or I would have come sooner.”
“It was meant to be a surprise. So, shall we check out how a fully functional auto repair shop can help you be a better inventor?”
----------------------------------------
Moving into the garage took some time, of course. Microfusion reactors aren’t plug-and-play - you have to calibrate them properly, set up the reaction, set limits to the fusion rate and connect the output power to the right charging points.
With one reactor to power the garage and my equipment, one embedded in the Greyhound suit, and one spare, I had enough power for now.
The Power Pack Integrator found a nice, safe place on the side of the workshop. The lockers were useful for storing the fullersteel ingots, as well as gravitic control arrays, gravitic sensors, and other components that I’d started to need a lot of.
One other useful feature that the garage had was a large wall safe. The previous owner had used it to store money - an application that didn’t make sense in my context.
So I used it to store my bombs.
Rifle grenades, fuel bombs, and the occasional stun grenade lined the walls of the safe. It was rigged with a code that only Anne, Paul and I knew. To prevent accidents - and make any would-be thief’s life more difficult - I reinforced the safe’s interiors and front door with an inch of fullersteel plate.
By the time I was done, it would take a tank round to crack it open.
I got a dozen steel-walled industrial cabinets to store the more exotic - and dangerous reagents.
Of course, since I’d be locking up every night and coming home, there was the risk of thieves - or supervillains - breaking in. So we made sure that there were plenty of safeguards.
Every window, door and wall had Traps built into it. The basic versions that we’d used in the house had been progressively upgraded as my Mechanic skill grew, so I now had some reasonably dangerous ones at my disposal - not that they would trigger if someone (cough! Cough! Paul) invited a supervillain in. Of course, I’d made sure to limit the power of the traps in the house because, after all, we had to live in it.
The Quartermain Heights garage had no such restrictions.
EXPLOSIVE WARD TRAP
ANY ENEMY FORCING THEIR WAY PAST A WINDOW OR DOOR GUARDED BY THIS TRAP TRIGGERS A DIRECTED EXPLOSION THAT DOES UP TO 300 DAMAGE AT CLOSE RANGE.
COST: 0.5 KG AMMONIUM NITRATE + 0.25 KG STEEL + 200 MP.
SHRAPNEL TRAP
HOSTILE FORCES BREAKING THROUGH AN ENTRANCE GUARDED BY THIS TRAP WILL BE MET WITH A HAIL OF HIGH-SPEED NAILS DRIVEN BY THE FORCE OF AN EXPLOSIVE CHARGE. 25 DAMAGE PER NAIL IMPACTING THE ENEMY.
COST: 1,500 2.5 INCH NAILS + 0.1 KG STEEL + 150 MP.
In case they choose to avoid the doors, an intruder would have yet another surprise waiting for them. Behind the seemingly mundane concrete and metal exterior, each wall of the garage was reinforced with two-inch thick fullersteel plate.
That would stop a tank shell.
Only after I had set up all these safeguards did I feel comfortable leaving my Greyhound Armor, most of my Laser Rifles, and the experimental - and not yet fully tested - Mass Driver Rifle in the garage.
The Boar Armor would stay at Pendleton, though. Just in case we had another Ezekiel Crawley and fellows come visiting.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
I set up a new fullersteel ingot in the lathe, and watched it as the spinning machine shaped it into a Fullersteel Javelin.
A familiar voice interrupted. “Nice place you have here.”
Even as the speaker reached the word ‘here’, I was moving.
Nanofibre Weave Armor slammed into place, pulled from Inventory. I ignored the momentary chafing, opting to grab for the Javelin instead. An M22 manifested in my left hand as the Javelin slid into the right.
I spun on my heels, aiming for the speaker.
Agni stood, unmasked, in the middle of my workshop, seemingly unconcerned by the gun pointed at her. “Nice reflexes, kid.”
“What are you doing here?” I spat out.
“Chill out. I have to save your life three times, which is difficult if I don’t know where you are.”
“You didn’t have to come here.”
“Oh, but I did.” The woman strolled through my workshop casually. “I recognize about half the gear here. The rest is definite inventech. What’re you working on?”
“None of your business.”
“Temper, temper. You’ve already seen my face, and I know where you live. So not much we can do to hide from each other, kid.”
“I’ll say it one last time - why are you here?”
“I thought we could talk.”
“.... Talk?”
“Yes, it’s a thing people do.”
“What about?”
“Oh, you know, the usual. Your plans, dreams and ambitions. The stuff that makes the you, the you.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Well, this whole mess started because of misunderstandings. Mine, yours…. I thought we should chat, learn a bit about each other. Like, what made you think I target soldiers?”
Ah.
“I was given to understand that you’ve mostly fought military and paramilitary forces.” I lowered my weapon. “And had a fairly high body count.”
“I see. I don’t suppose there was any explanation given of why I fought them?”
“No.”
“The fights everyone knows about are the major ones, I suppose. Pakistan and Sudan?”
“And Columbia.”
“Right. Well, in each of these cases there was a major trafficking operation going on. Women being imprisoned, held captive and sexually abused.”
“All three? Even the Pakistani military?”
“General Duraid wasn’t exactly the best at controlling his men.” Agni shrugged. “It was a long time ago. Waqtwazir and King Shah were part of that operation. You could ask them about it, if they were still alive.”
“What about Sudan?”
“Zaka had fairly effective mind-control powers, and he wasn’t shy about using them. Sudan is where I learnt the importance of having a mindshield handy. Which reminds me, you going to give me back the one your friend kept?”
“If I say no?”
“They cost two hundred thousand dollars each.”
“You tried to kill me three times.”
“Fine, keep it. Anyway, Zaka had a bunch of women enslaved. And Medellin, well, that was worse.”
“More mind-control?”
“None, actually. It was good old-fashioned drug addiction and dependence. Medellin was at the heart of the global trafficking trade - they were shipping nearly five thousand people across the world every year. I put a stop to it.”
“That never made the news….”
“Journalists don’t talk about these things. Just the fires. Unfortunately, my way doesn’t leave a lot for forensics to follow up on for them.”
“The Army told me that you tended to hunt soldiers. Organized military forces, at least, that collaborated with ultras. There was never a hint of your … real motivations.”
“I may have been too smart for my own good,” muttered Agni. “I always kept my motives secret. Knowing your enemy’s motives helps you find them.”
“Is that a part of your power?”
“It’s part of my degree in psychology.”
“You have a degree in psychology.”
“Indira Gandhi National Open University, four-year correspondence course. My parents always emphasised the importance of a good education.”
“You’ve been on the run and you got yourself a college degree…”
“It’s pretty easy when nobody knows what you look like. Are you planning on college?”
“... not really?”
“What’s your GPA?”
“Three point nine.”
“And you’re skipping college? Don’t be dumb.”
“I’m an ultrahuman,” I pleaded weakly.
“So am I, and I got a degree that helps me in my work. You should do the same thing. What is your power, anyway?”
“Classified.”
“Please. You’re a combination package. You can manipulate gravity, hit and throw extra hard, influence people’s minds and create advanced technology - all of which are fairly complex powers in their own right - and you use those powers to create a unique combat style which throws off conventional ultras.”
“How did you know about my multiple powers?”
“I’ve fought you three times. I know exactly how hard you are to hit - Zaka didn’t give me half as much trouble. I’ve faced off against elementals, inventors, herculeans, and masters, but never anyone who was all four at the same time.”
“Are you telling me I’m the toughest opponent you’ve ever fought? That’s flattering.”
“Don’t get cocky. You use the basic tactics every ultra uses for their fighting style, and there’s a counter for each.” She held up a finger. “Your charges - they’re a standard Herculean combat move, developed for those who can dish out - and take - a lot of damage. Standard counter, dodge or teleport, and wait for the ultra to tire themselves out. Your mental attack - easily beaten by a Mindshield. Your gravity manipulation, making things float and jumping extra far - an attack helicopter can outdo that. A high-tech battlesuit can do and take a lot of damage, but once it runs out of power the inventor inside it is a flimsy, normal human - so the tactic is to smash the suit. Your mind control ability, when you use it….”
“I don’t plan to.”
“... if you ever use it, you’d be deploying minions. Which screams ‘master’ to anyone around. The tactic for that is called ‘kill the master’.”
“Kill the master, huh?”
“No master, minions revert to free will. The same applies for inventors who deploy drones. So you build your battlesuit and slave a bunch of drones to it, the enemy breaks your tech and comes after you.”
“Let them come.”
“Spoken like a Herculean, not a Master. You’re lucky most ultras tend to follow a theme. Counters are tied to the theme.”
“That sounds stupid.”
“It is stupid. Fortunately for me, most elementals can’t teleport, so my opponents generally don’t have a counter. Fighting an elemental, you just need to locate the very human body and put a bullet through it - or mind control it, which also works sometimes.”
“And fighting a Herculean?”
“Mind control if you have it, isolate and contain if you don’t. Herculeans who can punch can’t jump. A hundred-foot pit would be enough to stop Chikaradzuyoi.”
“It wouldn’t stop me.”
“Yeah, because you can jump vertically in that armor of yours - and I’m guessing it’s not tied to the power source.”
“It’s not.”
“Your powers mix well together. That makes you unusually effective - for now. Sooner or later, people will plan for it.”
“And how would they do that?”
“For starters, they’d hit your home with a mini-nuke.”
I flinched. That was one scenario I couldn’t defend against.
Agni noticed. “You’ve never really thought through the possibilities, have you?”
“I mostly focused on the tech,” I mumbled. “I have some… counters to that, but they’ll need time to work out.”
“One counter comes to mind right away.”
“Which is?”
“You move. Into a proper base with armor, shields and concealment. Like what you’ve done with this place, but a lot more.”
“You mean, just move out of my house.”
“Into a properly secured and defended location.”
“How did you get past my defences, by the way?”
“I teleport, dumbass.”
I winced. “Yeah, you do. I thought you only teleport to where there’s flames available?”
“You have a small fire in the waste paper basket.”
“... I do?”
“You didn’t earlier. You do now.”
I glanced at the basket. Sure, there were wisps of smoke coming from it….
“Don’t worry, I have it under control.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s the only explanation you’re getting out of me today. Until you come clean about your powers.”
“I don’t have to.”
“Spoken like a teenager. Look, I have to save your life three times. Which won’t be possible if you go and get yourself killed out of stupidity.”
“I’ve done fine so far.”
“You went into two battles with the aliens. And you fought me. Like I said, stupidity.”
“Didn’t you used to fight aliens?”
“Yeah, I did. When they hit Delhi.”
“So?”
“So, I never said I wasn’t stupid. I was also younger. You’re planning to go up against the Hierarchy again, aren’t you?”
“Fine,” I sighed. “I am. There’s likely to be an attack on London soon.”
“What’s special about that?”
“It’s a big one. Possibly as much as nine million casualties.”
Agni whistled. “Precognitive information?”
“A precog came up with that number, yes.”
“That’s big. Really big - it’s, what, ten per cent of the UK’s population. The Brits know about this?”
“They’re planning a defence.”
“Of course. And you’re going. You went for Liverpool, after all.”
“I am. So’s Nanocloud. Will you come?”
“My alien-fighting days are behind me.”
“I’ll be in danger there for sure. You could probably save my life three times in one day and be done with it.”
Her eyes twinkled. “Now that’s a real temptation. Sadly, I’m on the do-not-hire list for SURGE.”
“And since when has that stopped you?”
“I like you, kid. You’ve got guts. Tell you what - you make things easy for me, and I’ll come to London when the time comes - though I won’t get involved except for saving your pretty backside.”
“... Did you just call my backside pretty?”
“Yeah.”
“... You’re strange.”
Agni smirked unrepentantly.
“Fine,” I said. “I have a variety of skills which improve with use. I’m also fairly strong, reasonably fast, and have a fixed store of different types of energy which I can use to power these skills.”
RELATIONSHIP WITH AGNI INCREASED. AGNI IS NOW COLLEAGUE (3).
“Smart move, pretty boy,” the supervillainess said. “Your skills - can you describe some for me? What do they do?”
“I have a skill called Powerjump which lets me close fairly fast with a target. You’ve seen it in action.”
“Yeah, that thing where you soar through the air and land right in front of your opponent. Any others?”
“There’s Javelin Strike - I can throw a spear or javelin accurately and with extra force. Does four times as much damage as an unassisted spear throw.”
“That doesn’t sound that impressive.”
“A single Javelin Strike can kill a Raptor Guard.”
“Okay, that makes sense. Any others?”
“I can throw lightning at my targets. Not very powerful, but I can keep it up for a while.”
“Lightning - you mean you can shoot electricity at enemies from a distance? You don’t need your equipment for that?”
“No. It’s an innate skill.”
“And you can keep this up indefinitely?”
“No, each of my skills is powered by an energy pool. The lightning and Powerjump are powered by Mental Energy points and the Javelin Strike by Agility Points. I have a limited pool, but it recharges over time.”
“That is unusual. Most powers don’t have that kind of limit.”
“Limited by energy points?”
“Yeah. I can use my fire skills indefinitely. Shifters can maintain their form for as long as they need, Herculeans don’t need something extra to punch… You seem to have a built-in limit on your endurance.”
“My energy pool recharges fairly fast, though.”
“There’s that. But any kind of limit on your power usage is a major weakness…. Your armor makes a lot more sense, now. At least while you need time to recharge your energy pool, you can keep fighting with your suit.”
“And what about you? Do you need fuel to run your flames?”
“That’s a rather personal question, isn’t it?” Agni smirked.
“I told you my limits. Now you tell me yours.”
“Oh, you are a naughty one. All right, I’ll let you have one question about my powers. Just one.”
I thought for a second. “How did you manage to catch me at McCarthy and Butterfield?”
“Our second face-off?”
“Yeah.”
She shrugged. “I can see through flames.”
“You can… I don’t understand?”
“Any naked flame, anywhere, is something I can tap into and use to see what’s going on.”
“Any flame?”
“Sometimes even sparks.”
“.... The food festival. We drove through it.”
“And I saw you drive through it. So I teleported there and sent a flame to follow you. While you were in your meeting with the lawyers, I set up a trap in the mall.”
“You sent a flame to follow me?”
“Perfect control over flame.” A tiny wisp of light flickered into existence above her hand and floated towards me. “I create a flame, make it follow my enemy wherever he’s - or she’s - going. Doesn’t work if they teleport, but I can track down most foes this way. Assuming they don’t spot the flame.”
“It’s pretty noticeable.”
“I generally try to keep it between the target and the sun - that blocks off the chances of it being spotted.”
“What do you do after sunset?”
“I don’t use it after sunset. Too much risk of being spotted.”
“So you can survey the entire city….”
“Not really. I can only focus on one flame at a time. If it starts raining the flame goes out…. so it’s really only useful on sunny days. Also, the flame needs fuel to burn, so it generally fizzles out after a few minutes.”
“Did you just wait for me to pass by the Lebanese Food Festival?”
“I had surveillance spots in twenty different parts of the city, including the food festival. I kept rotating through them every five seconds, just to see if you were there. Do you know how boring surveillance is?”
“I can guess. Nanocloud has to do a lot of it.”
“Nanocloud, huh? Her floating letters are a nice trick, but I’m guessing her power is a lot deeper.”
“That’s for her to discuss.”
“Whatever you say. What are those?” She pointed at my rack.
“They’re Fullersteel Javelins. Basically I can throw them at enemies at an enhanced speed using Javelin Strike.”
Agni picked one up. “They don’t feel like they pack much punch.”
“You’re holding the hollow ones.”
“Hollow ones?”
“I make them in two types - solid and hollow. The hollow ones are lighter but do less damage.”
“Whatever. Is Nanocloud joining you for London? Whenever that happens?”
“She is.”
“I hope her combat training is up to par.”
“She’s in support.”
“Support tents aren’t as safe as they’re made out to be. The aliens have attacked them before. I suggest you make sure she gets some good training.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Do you have anything to eat around here?”
“... Eat?”
“All this talking makes me hungry.”
“There’s some cookies and chips in the locker.”
“Really. I give you critical information, and you offer me potato chips. Do you understand what ‘kanjoos’ means?”
“It means ‘miser’. Fine, there’s a Tandoori Grill a block away.”
“Nice, I like their kebabs. You’re paying.”