by Wyatt Kane
Tempest didn’t hang around. She launched herself back into the air. “See you around,” she said, and just like that, she was gone.
Ty looked around at the same grim, dismal streets that had become all too familiar. His drab existence was calling him. With a heavy sigh, he looked toward his apartment building and started to trudge.
9: Technological Enhancement
Ty thought that maybe he should have asked Tempest to drop him off right at his apartment. Maybe hover outside the window so he could climb in. He was on the seventh floor, and the elevator hadn’t worked in years.
Normally, by the time he made it to his floor, his legs would be shaking and the sweat would be soaking his shirt. But today was different. The Architect’s device had worked its magic. Though not anywhere near as strong as Tempest or the monstrous man who killed Zach, Ty felt fitter than he’d ever felt before. He was barely puffing when he reached his apartment. He felt he could run several miles without serious strain.
It was a delicious feeling and one that he wanted to savor. Yet everything else about his life remained the same. The apartment building was a squalid place held together by inexpert patchwork and misery. The stairs were in disrepair, and he’d had to skirt around bags of trash that one of his neighbors had decided to leave in the way.
In days past, there had been other obstacles as well. Drug addicts on the landing. The occasional strange child sitting quietly, waiting for either an argument to finish inside an apartment or for some other illicit activity to conclude.
Ty held his palm up to the lock at his door and it gave an electronic click of admittance. His apartment was a testament to his position in life. Tiny and cramped, it was little more than 600 square feet of faded walls and tired floors, and in that space, it boasted two bedrooms, a lounge, kitchen, and bathroom.
There was barely enough room to stand, yet Ty had seen worse. Much worse. And it wasn’t as if he had much choice. This was all he could afford.
Even so, Ty felt a sense of relief when he entered. Or perhaps it was simply familiarity. It had been only a few hours since his last shift at the Concubine Club had ended, and while it had been the most extraordinary few hours of his entire life, it had also been unsettling on a visceral level.
The drab familiarity of his apartment was almost welcome. As was the sight of his roommate, Bradley Fletcher, who was plugged into his gaming console as usual and barely glanced up as Ty entered the lounge.
“Hey,” Brad said. As was his habit, he was wearing a grimy old t-shirt and baggy track pants covered with crumbs, and was surrounded by a growing pile of candy wrappers and empty energy drink cans. He looked like he hadn’t moved in days, and that strangely comforting thought brought a warm smile to Ty’s face.
As professional gamers went, he was far from the top tier who could make millions. His thing was to work as a miner within some of the multiplayer games that had large followings, hoping to unearth valuable items to sell. Sometimes he made enough to pay rent for a month in a single strike. Sometimes he could go several weeks without making a cent.
Those times, life could get interesting for the both of them, but it mostly seemed to work out well enough.
As was his habit, Brad had his holo-visor down so that it hid most of his face, and he was deeply engrossed in one of the games. Yet he still managed to deliver a message.
“About time you got back. What happened, Angie the Hutt make you work a double? Oh, and before I forget, someone was looking for you.”
“Huh? Who?” Ty said. Other than Angie from work, there were few people who even bothered to call, let alone make the effort to come to his apartment. “What did they want?”
Brad just shrugged. He didn’t even look at Ty. There was a screen attached to the wall that showed Ty what Brad was doing. Brad’s visor would give the image a depth and texture as if he were actually in the game. But to Ty, it looked like an old-fashioned two-dimensional film. He could see that Brad was just grinding his way through a maze in a game Ty recognized but didn’t care for.
“Dunno. Big guys. Looked like cops. Said they’d be back later.”
Ty frowned, not liking the sound of that. What could the cops want with him? He hadn’t done anything. And yet, he had been a witness to a murder. Could this have been related to that?
But if they were cops, wouldn’t they have identified themselves to Brad?
It was confusing, and Ty couldn’t help but be suspicious. All at once, he felt vulnerable. What if they weren’t cops at all, but something else entirely?
Something more dangerous?
Ty had taken a few martial arts classes when he was a kid, but other than that and the door, there was nothing in the apartment with which he could really defend himself. He felt surprisingly naked, and without really thinking about it, he went to the kitchen and started looking around.
Neither Ty nor Brad cooked very much, preferring to eat from the street vendors or, in Ty’s case, stealing scraps from the kitchen at the Concubine Club. But there was still the usual assortment of gadgets around, including a toaster, a blender, and a compact microwave oven.
Without paying too much attention to what he was doing, Ty opened the drawer and found an old screwdriver and a rusty pair of pliers. With this limited selection of tools, he quickly stripped the toaster down to its essentials and took the cover off the microwave.
Brad didn’t even turn to see what Ty was up to. “Had a big score earlier today,” he was saying. “Me and a couple of guys were exploring a cave under a cabin. Caught a rumor that someone picked up a rare drop there a few months ago, but it’s set up weird. You need a combination of class abilities to increase your chances to get it, but even if you’ve got them all, you can’t do it alone. You’ve got to work as a team. If you don’t, you get nada. And even then, there’s a good chance you’ll get something much less valuable. So we were doing our thing, you know, with an agreement to split the proceeds if we found it. And we did it! The amulet of Bethnal. Magical item. It gives the wielder a one-hit invulnerability. One second to activate, ten-second recharge. If it’s used right, it can help a fighter ride out any attack. It’s worth heaps, but even my share should keep me going for weeks!”
Ty just listened to Brad’s gamer talk, not understanding all of it but making occasional encouraging comments. As he listened, he continued to work on the appliances. His hands seemed to know what they were doing much more than usual, and he stripped parts from the microwave that he instinctively knew he would need.
“Great,” he said when Brad finished. “You can pay me back for that rent you missed the other week.”
Brad didn’t even blink. “Sure.” He was like that. He paid what he owed when he could. It was just when he was short that times got tough.
As Ty worked, a sleek, black cat leaped effortlessly from the floor up onto the bench to see what he was doing. Without breaking his rhythm, Ty reached out and gave her a scratch behind the ear. She immediately started purring loudly.
“Hello, Furball,” he said affectionately. The cat’s real name was Gremlin, but she answered as readily to Furball, Monkey, Animal, and a host of less flattering things depending on Ty’s mood. In other words, she only occasionally responded at all, regardless of what she was called. Yet she was friendly enough when she wanted to be and treated Ty as her personal servant.
She was obviously interested in what Ty was doing. She purred and rubbed her cheeks against the deconstructed microwave.
“Don’t touch that,” Ty said, gently shoving her out of the way. “There are bits that carry a charge. You don’t want to get zapped.”
Gremlin took him at his word and sat down to watch, curling her tail around her toes.
“So how come you aren’t out celebrating?” Ty asked.
Brad glanced his way, then stared a little harder and frowned through his visor. “Did you get a haircut or something?” he asked. But he didn’t wait for Ty to answer. “Yeah. We’re going out later. Archie had
some errands to do first, and Jeep had a shift at work. But it’s gonna be wild, man. You want to ditch work for the evening and tag along?”
Ty thought about it, but his budget was such that he couldn’t take days off here and there without consequence. And wild nights weren’t really his thing. With his luck, they’d end up in a place just like the Concubine Club and it would feel just like he was at work anyway.
He shook his head. “If I could,” he said.
Brad had already gone back to his game. Whatever he had noticed about Ty’s appearance, he wasn’t interested enough to follow through.
“Suit yourself, man. But you gotta get yourself a better job. This one is eating up your whole life.”
“Yeah.”
Ty continued to work for a few more minutes. When he was done, he stopped and stared for a while. Within no more than fifteen minutes, he had torn apart a toaster and a microwave with nothing but a screwdriver and a pair of old pliers, and a kitchen knife when he needed it.
And he had constructed a self-powered stun gun that should be good for half a dozen serious jolts before it needed to be charged.
10: Unexpected Guests
It was not pretty to look at. The stun gun was clunky, as long as Ty’s forearm, with all the important parts fixed around a central metal rod. He thumbed the on switch and was gratified to see a bright blue spark arc between the two nodes at the end.
He turned it off in order to save power. Then he frowned. Why had he made such a thing? How had he made such a thing?
Sure, he had an interest in electronics, but up until then, all that meant was that he could fix things when they broke. Cannibalizing existing items to make something new had never been his deal.
Yet, it wasn’t really a mystery. It had to be his skill, the one that the Architect’s device had unlocked. Technology enhancer.
Maybe it was a more significant talent than Ty had expected.
“What do you think of this, Furball?” he said. “Pretty cool, huh?”
He was legitimately excited by what he had done. He hadn’t even really been thinking about it. It was as if his hands had known what to do, and he just did it. But Gremlin didn’t seem particularly impressed. She looked at Ty with an uncertain expression and continued to purr.
Ty decided that he wanted a more receptive audience. He held the stun gun up so Brad could see. “Check out what I just made.”
Brad glanced his way for only a moment before returning to his game. Then he pressed a hand to his ear and flipped the visor away from his face.
Brad was a couple of years older than Ty and a good deal heavier as well. His sedentary lifestyle and lack of any need to go outside had led him to be fairly slovenly. He shaved only rarely, and when he did, he didn’t do a good job. He had patches of dark orange stubble over his jaw, to match the ginger, curly hair that stuck up in random tufts all over his head. His only genetic mods were in the form of purple irises and a strip of hair as wide as his palm that followed his spine.
Ty had seen the strip of hair more often than he would have liked, and privately thought it was repulsive.
“What is it?” Brad asked, both puzzled and interested at the same time.
“It’s a stun gun.”
“Cool. Does it work?”
Ty pressed the button again so that the lightning appeared at the tip once more. “Looks like it will. But I haven’t tested it yet. Want to be a guinea pig?”
But Brad snorted and shook his head. “You first, dickhead.” Then he grew serious again. “You made that now? How? Why?”
Ty could only shrug. “I don’t really know why. It seemed important that we have something to defend ourselves with. Thought this might be a good start.” He glanced at the wreckage of the toaster and the microwave on the bench. “As for how, I cannibalized a couple of existing appliances.”
“You what?” Brad said.
“Yeah. Hope you didn’t intend to make toast anytime soon.”
“You made it out of the toaster?” Brad asked, incredulous.
“Yeah. And the microwave. Bits of both, really.”
Brad slowly shook his head. “But I use that microwave,” he said, sounding vaguely forlorn.
Ty laughed. “I can put it back together if you like. Might even be able to make it work better.”
As he thought about it, Ty realized that ‘might’ wasn’t the right word. He knew he could make it better. And he probably didn’t even need to take his stun gun apart to do it.
It was an intriguing thought. He wondered what else he might be able to do. If this was what his skill enabled him to do at a lowly level of two, what would happen if he practiced and became better? What were his limits?
And what if he turned his enhancement skill toward the device itself?
Ty was testing that possibility in his mind when Brad interrupted his train of thought. “You want to play a game?” he asked randomly, indicating the console.
Ty shook his head. “Not right now. I’ve got to get ready for work.”
At this, Brad gave him the type of laugh that he reserved for anyone who didn’t have the freedom to work from home as he did. “Loser,” he said cheerfully, then lowered his visor again and returned to the game.
Ty didn’t mind. He’d been called worse, and the act of creating the stun gun had calmed him. He was no longer as worried as he had been before. Yet the concept of going back to work didn’t exactly thrill him. To face Angie again, to spend so many hours in that sticky, alcoholic smog, and to listen to the ongoing noise wasn’t exactly Ty’s favorite thing to do.
He wondered idly if being a superhero’s sidekick came with any benefits. Like a regular income.
Then he couldn’t help but grin. Being a sidekick did come with benefits. One of those benefits apparently came in the very shapely form of Tempest Flaire.
Ty uttered a deep, heartfelt sigh. “Keep dreaming,” he muttered to himself. He put his stun gun back on the counter and was about to head to his room to change his clothes when there was a knock at the door.
Ty hesitated. He didn’t know what to do and felt unexpectedly fearful. Maybe his experience with the villain in the alley had left him more jumpy and nervous than he realized.
“You gonna answer that?” Brad said.
“But who is it? What do they want?”
Brad looked at him as if he was going mad. “Open the door and find out.”
Ty continued to hesitate, and the knocking repeated. “Hello?” someone called from the other side. “Anyone home?”
Ty understood that he was being ridiculous. He had no reason to fear unless it was somehow the monstrous man from the alley doing the knocking. Even then, he could easily check. The door had a peephole.
“Just a moment!” Ty called. Because he couldn’t shake his suspicions, he grabbed his stun gun from the counter, then used the peephole.
Three uniformed men stood out in the hallway. It wasn’t the police, nor did Ty recognize the uniform. Something about the way they stood, combined with their close-cut hair, suggested to him that they had a military background. They also wore communication equipment and visors.
They were tall, hard-looking men who looked very capable. Intimidating. Yet none of them was the villain from the alley.
Ty made sure that the safety latch was across, then opened the door just a crack, making sure to keep his stun gun out of sight.
“Who are you? What do you want?” he asked.
None of them answered Ty’s questions. Instead, the middle one responded with one of his own. “Are you Ty Wilcox?” he asked.
All at once, the stubborn part of Ty’s nature asserted itself. He had asked them who they were and they hadn’t answered. He wasn’t going to tell them a thing until he knew who they were.
“Who wants to know?” he said, his voice harder than before. More assertive.
The man never even blinked. “We are investigating an incident in an alley not far from here. Last night, someone was murdered
. There was a witness. Are you Ty Wilcox?”
So this was related to what happened last night. Yet Ty noticed that the man still hadn’t identified himself. Even though he sounded official, Ty wanted more.
“Show me your badge. Prove to me that you can ask these questions.”
Again, the man in the middle was up to the task. “We are not the police. We work privately.”
Ty frowned. His stubborn side was taking control. “So I don’t have to say anything to you.”
“Not if you don’t want to. But hear us out. The interests we represent are looking to recover an item lost at the scene. It is a device that is worn on the wrist. We were hoping…” But the man didn’t finish his sentence. Ty hadn’t been able to help himself. As the man spoke, Ty glanced at his wrist. Worse, he moved so that the device was visible through the crack in the door.
The man saw it. His eyes widened. Without looking away from Ty at all, he raised his voice. “Confirmed! He has it!”
With that, he took a single step back. As if that was a signal, the other two men surged forward and threw their combined weight against the door.
Ty wasn’t quick enough to get it closed. The only thing holding the door was the security chain. It was a good design, with multiple layers of steel linked together to give it considerable strength.
But the doorframe was no more than wood. It splintered and the door burst open.
11: Stun Gun
For the second time, Ty was too slow. He couldn’t get out of the way, and the door caught him in the shoulder hard enough to spin him around. He found himself sprawled on the floor with the uniformed men piling in through the door.
Gremlin would not have been a good guard dog. She gave a loud, disapproving meow, but didn’t stay for the fight. She leaped off the kitchen counter and ran at full speed through the tiny lounge, disappearing into Ty’s bedroom. At the same time, Brad jumped to his feet and started yelling.