by Wyatt Kane
Ty nodded. How to find Lilith was a puzzle he’d been thinking about ever since she’d first appeared outside the Concubine Club. He’d been wondering how Lilith had found him there, and how she’d known where the mansion was before the first attack.
To Ty, Lilith was the key to everything. If they could find her, they could potentially find Bain and his shadowy Master. They could remove the threat of the two villains once and for all before they could enact whatever vile scheme they had planned for the city of New Lincoln.
“There may be another way,” he said. “To find her, I mean.”
Both of women immediately turned their attention his way.
“I think she can sense us. Or our devices. I think she can lock in on them when she teleports. And if she can do that, maybe I can come up with a sensor that will allow me to do the same.”
Tempest and Dinah both nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm. “How quickly can you do it?” Tempest asked.
Ty shrugged. “I haven’t even analyzed the device to see if it’s possible. But if it can be done, it shouldn’t take long.” Then he thought about it some more. “But that’s not all I have to do.” He glanced down at Tempest’s device, still on her ankle. “I need to move that back to your wrist, and while we’re at it, there are some enhancements I need to make to my energy field.”
Tempest still looked tired. Yet she didn’t hesitate. “Well, what are we waiting for?” she asked.
◆◆◆
Before he could adjust Tempest’s device to fit her wrist, Ty first had to remove it from her ankle.
When Ty had first put his device on, Tempest had told him it would only come off when he died. Since then, he’d learned otherwise. Bain’s men had used a miniature version of the Architect’s fabricator to remove both his and Tempest’s devices from their wrists. Ty had seen it in action and knew what needed to be done.
Programming the imager in the Architect’s workshop took only minutes. When he was finished, he turned to Tempest. “Are you ready?” he asked.
The blonde superhero steeled herself and nodded. Both of them knew it would not be a pleasant sensation for her. Removing the device would result in withdrawal, like that from a powerful drug, and the only mitigation was to do it quickly.
Holding onto Ty for balance, Tempest lifted her leg and placed her ankle on the fabricator’s main platform.
“Do it,” she said.
“Initiate program,” Ty said to the fabricator.
Several of the fabricator’s many arms came to life, whirring and spinning, and in no more than a few seconds, Tempest’s device came off.
Ty knew that if it was him, he would have collapsed onto the floor. The withdrawal symptoms were fierce. But Tempest just stood there, gritting her teeth, and placed her foot back down, leaving the device on the fabricator’s platform. Sweat formed on her brow and her eyes were blazing. But she refused to buckle.
“Do it quickly,” she said.
Ty took his cue. The device the blonde hero had worn on her ankle was the Architect’s prototype. Ty had enhanced it to match the specifications of the more recent versions they all wore, and so it would fit on Tempest’s ankle.
The imager still retained records of those modifications. Ty brought them up and quickly reversed them, then ordered the fabricator to implement the changes.
As soon as the changes were made, Tempest snapped the device back on her wrist.
She drew a deep, calming breath. “Thank you,” she said. “What now?”
“Now, we see how much usage data we can call up from your device.
Tempest nodded. Once before, she had called up a screen that displayed the technical detail of her power. It was a screen filled with graphs and detailed information. She brought it up again, and Ty looked at it closely.
He needed to know how Tempest’s energy field changed when she threw a punch, when she flew, or when she used it to augment her strength. He needed to duplicate that with technology.
But looking at it wasn’t enough. “Data extraction,” he said.
The metallic voice of the imager spoke up. “Extracting,” it said, and that simple word was enough to make Ty excited. He could do this, he thought. He really could duplicate what Tempest could do.
He could level up again, and become a true superhero, like Tempest. It would take a bit of thinking and a lot of work, but he was confident he could do it.
◆◆◆
It took several hours. Within that time, Tempest left, and Dinah arrived with a bowl of thick, aromatic soup. For the first time since he’d been privileged enough to enjoy the deerkin’s wonderful food, Ty didn’t give the meal the appreciation it deserved. He was too focused on what he needed to do.
The deerkin said she was going to narrow down where the Master might be keeping Lilith and left him to his work.
To the original holographic schematics of his mesh suit, Ty added a processor and a synaptic controller. He also defined algorithms to let him control his energy field automatically, just by thinking about it.
The imager’s data representation said that Ty would be able to punch with the strength of a charging bull, to crush bowling balls with his grip, and to leap not tall buildings, but at least shorter ones in a single bound. And he would be able to do one more thing.
Ty made it so that he could project energy from his suit as if each disc was a blaster.
As for flying, that was far more complex. Despite it being a personal goal, for just at that moment, Ty had no choice but to put it in the too hard basket. In his mind, Lilith was waiting for him, Dinah, and Tempest to rescue her. She had been waiting for too long already.
He didn’t think the demoness would appreciate him wasting time on learning to fly when there were more important things to do.
He did, however, program enough so that if Lilith or anyone else were to drop him from a great height, he wouldn’t turn into a puddle of pink mush on the inside of his shield.
After all his effort, he sat back and looked at what he had done. The Ty of two weeks ago would not have been able to do it. He didn’t know if anyone else could have come close. But within just a few hours, this Ty, this leveled-up version of himself, had done something truly remarkable.
He had created an elegant, beautiful, original design that would do what he needed it to do.
Just like when he’d fixed Martin’s mixer at the Club, he had to admire his own handiwork for a while. He felt incredibly proud of it all.
As well as the additional capabilities he’d added, Ty had also optimized his suit. The mesh onesie had served its purpose, but much of the mesh was unnecessary. This version did away with it. Instead, it was little more than a sequence of projector discs, connected by cables, that would adhere to Ty’s skin.
Ty envisioned a later version that could be grafted onto his body. In his mind, that would be ideal. From being a nobody who couldn’t afford even the most basic body modifications, he would shoot to the forefront of that technology.
He would literally be a cyborg.
Ty grinned broadly at the thought. Once he had his technology grafted onto him, all things would be possible. But that was for the future. For the time being, this would suffice.
He would be happy to stick the projector discs to his skin.
“Fabricate,” he said.
As the fabricator whirred into action, Ty started work on the final piece of the puzzle: the tracking device.
38: No Time Like The Present
It was late in the evening when Ty finally completed everything on his list. He climbed out of his original mesh suit and placed the adherent projector discs at critical points on his body. He’d also fabricated a narrow pouch he could wear around his middle to carry his energy converters, and he put that on as well, connecting the energy converters as he did.
“Activate,” he said when he was done. His familiar blue shield appeared, just the same as usual. Then he brought up his energy schematics and mimed punching and kicki
ng, watching the different graphs and data change as he did.
Satisfied, he then jumped as high as he could and was stunned by the results.
The Architect’s workshop had a ceiling that was much higher than normal, maybe eighteen feet as near as Ty could guess. On his best day, Ty could never have hoped to get anywhere near close to touching it, even if he leapt from the top of the workbench.
But with the added boost from his energy field, he crashed into it with some power.
Ty let out a very un-masculine yelp of surprise and flailed about as he plummeted to the floor.
Before he hit, his algorithm kicked in. Ty felt his ungraceful descent slow.
He hit the floor gently, with no chance of even a bruise let alone any broken bones.
Ty barked a laugh and grinned like a loon. He was satisfied. More than satisfied–he was elated! It had worked even better than he’d hoped.
There was one more thing he wanted to test but couldn’t do that in the Architect’s workshop. He wanted to test his in-built energy weapons.
Perhaps later, he thought. Then he put the rest of his clothes back on and went in search of Tempest and Dinah.
◆◆◆
He found them both in Dinah’s screen room, still working on narrowing down where the Master might be keeping Lilith and her stepfather. For a moment, Ty just stood in the doorway and admired them both. To him, they were two different visions of perfection. Dinah moved with an almost preternatural grace, a gentle woodland creature, and Tempest was the embodiment of passion and strength.
Either one of them could have graced the cover of magazines or billboards, and passing strangers would have stopped to stare.
They were looking at a map of part of New Lincoln on the screen where two red circles had been drawn. From their expressions, it didn’t look hopeful. Tempest conveyed determination mixed with worry, and Dinah looked disappointed.
“Hey,” Ty said.
The two women both turned to him, and both of them lit up. They were genuinely happy to see him.
“Hey, yourself,” Tempest said, eyeing him up and down while Dinah just grinned.
There was a significant amount of lust in Tempest’s look. Ty felt himself start to smile, but at the same time, he still wasn’t used to being the object of anyone’s affection to that degree, let alone someone like her.
Dinah saw Tempest’s expression and her grin grew broader. For just a moment, she looked to be assessing her options, and Ty wondered if the business at hand was about to be postponed for a while.
But when she spoke, the deerkin’s focus was on more practical matters. “How did it go?” she asked. “Were you able to get everything done that you wanted?”
Ty nodded and stepped further into the screen room. “Mostly. I’ve improved my shield, and then there’s this,” he said, showing them what amounted to a small tablet with a screen. “It’s that tracker I mentioned.” He couldn’t help himself. He had to grin. “It works. It’s how I knew you were both here.”
The two women shared a glance filled with surprise and excitement. “You can track Lilith with that?” Tempest asked.
“Yes. Sort of. The crystals in our devices give off a kind of low level radiation. I don’t know if that’s what Lilith locks onto, but yes, it’s trackable. But only at close range.” He turned his attention to the screen. “These circles–is that where you think Lilith might be?”
“Yes,” said Dinah. “Although we’re really just guessing. There are more than twenty Hobgoods pizza parlors in New Lincoln. The circles show those to the west of here. They’re a low-end brand, and tend to exist only where there isn’t any real competition, which is good for us. But this is mostly just guesswork.”
Despite her words, the deerkin’s voice was full of excitement. “If she’s in these circles, do you think you could track her?”
Ty nodded. “That’s the idea.” He turned to Tempest, assessing her. She no longer looked as exhausted as she had after the episode with the pendulum ride. “What are you up to for the next couple of hours?” he asked.
The blonde superhero gave him a broad grin. “Why? Are you asking me on a date?” she asked.
Ty blinked at her in surprise. He hesitated and felt his cheeks start to burn. Both of the women laughed at his reaction, and he knew they were teasing him. Nevertheless, he gave a reply.
“I just thought we could start this now. It’ll be dark outside, but my tracker will still work, and I’d like to find Lilith before this Master can come up with some other plan.”
Tempest was still chuckling to herself. “Makes sense to me. There’s no time like the present. Let’s do it.”
“And maybe we can all go on that date later,” Ty added.
Despite his precarious financial situation, it was the right thing to say. Both Tempest and Dinah seemed enormously pleased.
◆◆◆
The city of New Lincoln was never completely dark. There were too many pink and blue neon signs blinking on and off, 24-hour storefronts and streetlamps for that. Many times in the past, Ty had walked the streets late at night, mostly just trying to get home. At ground level, the city was a sordid, unclean place filled with mega-corporation buildings, all held together by grime and corruption.
He’d been mugged more often than he cared to remember, and more than once he’d been afraid for his life.
This was much better. Flying with Tempest through the night, watching the New Lincoln denizens go about their lives down below.
Normally, Ty enjoyed flying with Tempest a great deal. To him, there was a sense of freedom that he didn’t get from anything else. As well as that, the blonde superhero seemed to delight in surprising him with new experiences to look back on.
But this time, it was different. Ty felt the same sense of enjoyment as before. If anything, that enjoyment was increased by a feeling of invisibility as they flew above the busy streets. It was like the dark added a voyeuristic overtone, a guilty secret to it as well.
Not even the regular drizzle could dampen Ty’s enthusiasm. And yet, despite his heightened sense of excitement, his sense of doing something illicit, he never forgot that he and Tempest were on a mission.
Both of them had pushed aside the frivolities of flight. There were no hints of clandestine side quests to frolic on a boulder in the middle of a lake or high above the clouds. Tempest took them directly to the first area Dinah had marked on the map, and they were methodically tracing every street they could with Ty keeping his eyes fixed on his tracker.
Within New Lincoln, there were many areas of core economic activity. While the region they were in wasn’t exactly downtown, it was still a major hub. Entire blocks were taken up by massive corporate towers, while down on the street, commerce ruled.
“Hobgood’s,” Tempest murmured in Ty’s ear. Ty looked and saw the pizzeria nestled in between a lending institution and what looked like a secondhand electronics store. The pizzeria itself looked dismal, the type of place Ty’s roommate might choose to frequent. But Ty’s attention was drawn more to the electronics store beside it.
He wondered if it was the one owned by Martin’s cousin and promised himself that he would talk to the DJ at his earliest opportunity.
“No signal,” Ty said in response. He’d been watching the tracker closely, but so far had seen no indication of any device other than those worn by himself and Tempest.
He had designed the tracker screen like the small positioning map on some video games he had played with Brad. It was as simple as possible, displaying two points of light right in the center, surrounded by nothing.
Those points of light indicated Ty’s and Tempest’s devices. If there was another device close enough for his tracker to sense, a third light would appear on the screen, and they could orient toward it.
But so far, there had been nothing. Ty was starting to feel disappointed even though he knew there was a chance they were in the wrong place entirely. They had so few clues to work with. Lilith might
have been wrong in judging the direction. There were twenty other Hobgood’s restaurants throughout the city.
Even then, there was no guarantee that Lilith was being held close to any of them. But it was all they had to go on, and it was better than scouring the whole city one street at a time.
And anyway, even despite the drizzle, Ty could think of worse ways to spend an evening than flying through the city with Tempest.
Going to work at the Concubine Club, for example, was one of those worse ways.
And yet, he had to admit that he’d hoped for more. He’d hoped his sensor would immediately pick up a hint of Lilith, and they would find her quickly. Beyond that, he’d hoped she would lead them to the Master, so they could put an end to all this.
As the evening wore on, it seemed that such was not going to be the case.
Ty sighed loudly enough for Tempest to notice.
“There’s another area we can search,” she spoke in his ear. “There were two Hobgood’s restaurants in this direction. We can check out the other one as well, if you’re up to it.”
Ty considered. It was getting late. Perhaps it would be better to just head back to the mansion and start afresh in the morning. He was about to suggest exactly that when his tracker pinged.
“Wait,” he said. A third light had appeared right on the edge of the screen. All at once, his disappointment was forgotten. In its place was real excitement.
“Look!” he said. Then he pointed further down the street they were on. “That way! We’ve got something!”
It was all the encouragement Tempest needed. She put on a burst of speed, drawing the point of light swiftly closer. Ty’s conscious mind knew that the light could be anything. A false positive. Bain. A lab somewhere that produced the same type of low-level radiation.
But he believed in his heart it was Lilith.
In less than a minute, Tempest brought them to another of the mega-corporation buildings, a vast, dark behemoth that rose into the night sky.