by Wyatt Kane
She looked back at Ty. “I think if she hadn’t been holding back, she could have killed me.”
Of all the things that Tempest could have said, that was the last thing Ty would have predicted. “But she didn’t. She wouldn’t –”
Tempest was already shaking her head. “I know she wouldn’t,” she said. “I understand that, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is?” Ty asked.
“I don’t really know,” she admitted. “All I know is that Lilith is powerful beyond words. She’s beautiful, and you can see how good a person she is. She tries so hard to do the right thing, even at a cost to herself. It’s no wonder Dinah admires her. And you. I just can’t help wonder, if she’s all that, if things develop between them, where will I fit in? Will I still be necessary?”
Ty didn’t respond for a moment. He was astonished that Tempest would even think like that. Did this blonde goddess beside him not know how wonderful she was?
Unbidden, a bubble of laughter started to rise. He tried to hold it in, but it wouldn’t be refused. He cracked a grin, which left Tempest puzzled. And that was enough.
Ty laughed out loud. For a moment, Tempest retained her puzzled expression. Then a flash of anger touched her eyes.
At this, Ty laughed even harder. One of the most powerful women in the world was starting to get angry at him. She could literally break him into pieces if she wished. And all he could do was laugh about it. He couldn’t even protect himself. While he still wore his projector discs, they were disconnected from his power supply. He had no defense against her should she wish to hurt him.
“Ty,” Tempest said, her voice a single step from a threat. “Why are you laughing at me?”
Ty struggled to get himself under control. He shook his head and tried to gesture that he wasn’t laughing at her. But for several dangerous seconds, he kept laughing.
“Ty?” Tempest repeated.
Finally, Ty managed to get himself under control. “I’m not laughing at you,” he gasped. “Not really.” He took a couple more moments to calm himself further, then said, “Tempest, there is no way in the world that Lilith could replace you in any way. All you need to do is say the word and Dinah and I would forget Lilith ever existed.”
He meant every word, but didn’t want to leave that as the superhero’s only option. “But you don’t need to do that. I haven’t really figured out how all this works yet, but I know this much. Dinah will never leave you. I will never leave you. We love you. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have room for Lilith as well, if you’re okay with it.”
Tempest studied him for a moment. After a time, her expression softened. She nodded, and pulled him close once again. “Thank you,” she said.
Ty sensed that perhaps it would take time for Tempest to fully accept Lilith in their mix, but thought their conversation may have helped begin the process.
◆◆◆
At first, Ty slept as if he no worries in the world. But as the night wore on, the analgesic on his shoulder and leg became less effective, and his dreams became troubled. It was getting close to dawn when he found himself once again battling Steam in Rubio’s warehouse.
It was like being there again, only this time, Ty couldn’t move. Steam loomed over him, laughing maniacally, reaching for him in his mind.
Ty rolled over in his sleep, putting pressure on the wound at his shoulder. In his dream, it was as if Steam had burned him again. It was enough to jolt Ty awake. He may have also let out a cry of pain at the same time. Either way, his nightmare was enough to wake Tempest as well.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep.
“Bad dream,” he muttered just as thickly. “Sorry. Go back to sleep,” he said.
In moments, the blonde superhero’s breathing regained the quiet rhythm of a deep and peaceful sleep. But Ty found himself staring up in the dark, acutely conscious of the burning patches on his shoulder and leg. All by themselves, they would have been enough to keep him awake. But as had become a pattern of late, Ty’s real-world problems had reared their grisly heads during the night.
Without his job, he had no money coming in. Martin had yet to make contact, so Ty was uncertain if that opportunity was real or not. And as well as all his regular bills, he and his roommate Brad had to find the money needed to fix a gaping hole in the wall of their apartment.
Even without his injuries, these worries would have swirled around his brain like a dust devil, gaining strength until they became undeniable.
He didn’t want to disturb Tempest any more than he already had, so, with a quiet sigh, he gently untangled herself himself from her naked perfection, climbed into his clothes, and tiptoed out of the room.
It had become his habit when he woke early to head down to the Architect’s workshop. Tinkering might not solve Ty’s financial worries – at least not immediately –but at the very least, it soothed him. And there was was a growing list of things he needed to do.
Like work out a defense against Steam.
But this morning, he paused instead at the kitchen. Dinah’s cupcakes had been intended to be a late afternoon snack. Perhaps Dinah had made herself an evening meal after that, when he and Tempest had been busy. So, unsurprisingly, he had woken up hungry.
Fortunately, Dinah had made more of the cupcakes than the four of them had been able to finish. A bunch of the delicious morsels were still arranged on a plate under a plastic cover that the deerkin must have put into place.
Cupcakes weren’t exactly Ty’s first choice for a hearty breakfast, but he was grateful to see them. He grabbed three of them, placed them on a saucer, and continued down to the workshop.
15: Modding Gear
Ty felt himself smile as the lights flickered on in the cool, antiseptic world of the Architect’s workshop. This was no dirty, greasy, backyard shed filled with the accumulated grime and rust of years of aimless tinkering. Instead, the Architect’s workshop was a surgical place, as clean and precise as the man himself must have been. It was the lair of a perfectionist, or perhaps a conductor of an orchestra, fully in control of every last musician and beat.
To Ty, it was a place of worship. With his talent, he could work wonders with nothing more than a screwdriver and soldering iron, but with the tools at his disposal in Architect’s workshop, he felt unstoppable. In Brad’s vernacular, they gave him a buff.
Still munching on a cupcake, he placed the saucer on the workbench. In his mind, there was little he couldn’t do, given sufficient time. He just needed to figure out what to do first.
There were the little jobs that weren’t important, exactly, but which might make life less cumbersome. Integrating his phone with the device on his wrist was one of those. Automating access through his shield wall for himself, Tempest, and Dinah was another. Then there was the ongoing program of improvements to his personal shield.
He’d made it to gave him Tempest’s strength and durability, and he’d tweaked to prevent fall damage. But one of his goals was to fly, which he couldn’t yet do. And he hadn’t even begun to work out how he might mimic her speed.
Then, of course, there was Steam. In concept, he understood that he needed a way to disburse the heat that the villain produced. A heat sink of some kind. But would that protect him entirely? If Steam was able to direct a blast of his heat toward Ty for long enough, would he still not cook in his shield?
Perhaps, Ty thought, a heat sink wasn’t sufficient. Maybe he needed to work out a different option entirely.
In addition to all this, in the back of Ty’s brain, he couldn’t help wonder if he could use his talent to make real money. So he wouldn’t have to worry about it ever again. He wasn’t sure exactly how, but he knew there were people about making good money on the back of their inventions.
Surely, with his skill, Ty could come up with something that could make him a fortune?
But before he did any of that, there was one thing he had to do first. Steam’s attack had done more than
burn Ty’s skin through his shield. It had also damaged one of the projector discs he wore.
He needed to replace that disc. To reposition it so that his shield’s integrity remained, and he could continue to play his part in their superhero team. Everything else was secondary.
He was already starting to hum happily to himself as he got to work.
◆◆◆
It didn’t take long for Ty to work up a new projector disc for his shield. The original plans were still in the Imager’s memory, and the adjustments he had to make to account for the slight change in position were minor. The hardest part was reaching around to attach the newly fabricated adhesive disc to his shoulder.
The burn on his skin combined with where he needed it to go made it impossible. In the end, he gave up. He would get one of the girls to place it later.
After that, he began to look not at the possibilities for counteracting Steam’s power, but at something entirely different. Something he’d thought about while being treated in the med bay.
Healing. If he could figure out a way to ease the burn in his shoulder for good, that would be fantastic. But he knew it wouldn’t be simple.
He still had Tempest’s information on file. As well as being durable beyond measure, if she ever did get injured, the blonde superhero would heal at a vastly accelerated rate. Where he might normally take a couple of weeks before his burns to fade, for Tempest, it would take no more than a day. Sure, the Dura-Dermis would cut Ty’s healing time down considerably, but he was also thinking about the future.
The work he and the girls were doing was important. None of them could afford to take time out to heal from a serious injury. What if there was something crucial that needed to be done?
He wanted to shorten any recovery time by as much as he could.
But as soon as he started looking at Tempest readouts, he came across a problem. Tempest’s accelerated healing wasn’t a skill. It wasn’t the result of an energy field he could mimic with his shield. Instead, her cells just worked more efficiently than his own.
How could he duplicate that with technology?
After considering the problem for some time, Ty admitted he had no immediate answer. He had to give up. Yet even as he put the problem aside, he knew it was only temporary. He would come back to it, and somehow find a way to do what he needed to do. It was only a question of how, and when.
With a quiet grin, he thought again about how much he had changed. Before that fateful night in the alley, every aspect of his life had been a struggle. Every setback or failure had seemed like a mountain he needed to climb, or like chains that kept him in place.
Now, everything felt different. Easier. Even his and Tempest’s failure against Rubio’s men seemed temporary, a momentary glitch rather than an ongoing pattern. Something they could soon overcome.
Even so, he thought he might try an easier task rather than the more complicated one of combating Steam’s power. Just for the sake of a quick win.
With that thought in mind, he brought out his old-fashioned smart phone and placed it on the workbench.
“Analyze,” he commanded the Stark Imager. “Display in component form, explode and expand,” he said.
Almost at once, a holographic representation of his smart phone sprang into being, each component many times its original size, floating above the workbench.
It might take him a few minutes, but he was determined to integrate its functionality with his device.
It just seemed simpler for him to do it that way.
16: An Incoming Call
Ty was putting the finishing touches on his combined phone and device when Dinah spoke from the doorway. “Good morning,” she said.
He had become so involved with what he was doing that he hadn’t seen her arrive. Yet he wasn’t surprised, either. In the short time since he’d been staying at the mansion, it had become almost a pattern for her to find him working there.
“Good morning to you to,” he said.
The deerkin was as stunning as ever. If she ever looked disheveled from having just woken up, Ty had never seen it. Everything about her was perfect. No hair out of place. Her makeup, what little she wore, was perfectly done, and even though it was early, she looked ready to take on the world.
Despite the hour, she was already working through her first lollipop of the day. The deerkin enjoyed the sugary sweet so much she had a jar full of them on her bedside table.
Just like with Tempest and Lilith, Ty couldn’t help but admire her. As gracefully as the most gifted of dancers, she stepped toward him and gave him a hug and a kiss in greeting.
A few days earlier, Ty might have worried about her reaction to him spending the night with Tempest instead of her. But now, he knew it was okay. More than okay. Both Tempest and Dinah were equal partners in their relationship. He just smiled at her as she moved back and gestured at the saucer he’d brought with him, now empty except for a few crumbs.
“I see you’ve already had breakfast,” Dinah said.
“Yes. Yesterday’s cupcakes. Thank you.”
Dinah acknowledged his thanks with a nod. “And what have you been working on so early this morning?”
The exploded view of both his device and his cell phone still showed above the workbench even though he’d already made the changes he needed. He held out his arm so she could see his device. “This. I integrated my cell phone into it. So now I don’t have to carry them both around with me all the time.”
“Ooh, nice,” she said. “That’s a good idea. It always bugged me that these things weren’t more versatile.”
“I could do the same with yours, if you like,” Ty said. Then he looked at her sideways. “But that’s not really what you want to ask me about, is it?” he added, teasing a little.
The deerkin smiled in return. “No, not really.” She hesitated for just a moment, then came out with it. “How is she?”
“She’s still sleeping, as far as I know. I woke early and came down here. But I think she’ll be okay. You were right. She sees Lilith as being like her, only better,” Ty said.
At this, Dinah looked surprised. “Better than Tempest?” She shook head. “Different, sure. But what does better even mean?”
“Yeah. But she was worried that Lilith might replace her. With you. Us, even.”
Dinah let out a laugh, then hesitated, then laughed again. “That’s ridiculous!” she said.
“That’s what I said.”
Dinah looked uncertain. “And then what? Did she understand?”
“I think so. Or at least, I think she starting to. I told her that you loved her, and I did too. She seems to relax after that.”
All the uncertainty faded from Dinah’s expression. She smiled knowingly at him. “You used the L word, huh?” she said.
Despite himself, Ty felt his cheeks start to redden. Yet he didn’t look away. “Well, it’s the truth,” he said.
Dinah looked very pleased with herself.
“But I think,” Ty continued, “if you want to pursue something with Lilith, it might be best to take it slowly. To get Tempest used to the idea.”
Dinah tilted her head to one side and raised an enquiring eyebrow. “Are you trying to imply I’m the only one with an interest there? It seemed to me that you might have one as well.”
Ty laughed. Dinah was perceptive. But then he shook his head. “Only if it doesn’t upset anyone,” he managed. “And … I don’t know. I don’t think I want anything casual. Lilith – I can’t help but feel she’s a truly good person, you know? And she’s dealing with a lot at the moment. Her father. Bain and the Master. And don’t forget us.” He paused, gathering his thoughts.
“And there’s another thing. When Zach’s device came to me, it was pretty simple. Tempest saved me from Bain, you both figured out I might work out well, and everything else is history. But Lilith? Look what she’s had to go through already. I don’t think I want to make her life any harder than it already is.”
Dinah was nodding as Ty spoke. But all she said when he finished was, “Who said anything about wanting something casual?”
All at once, Ty understood something that both Dinah and Tempest had already grasped. Lilith was one of them. She wore a device, and she wasn’t a villain. If she felt the same sort of attraction for them – and it seemed that she did, at least for Dinah and maybe for Ty as well – then they weren’t talking about a one-time thing.
They were talking about adding her into their relationship. All the way. Equal partners, like each of them.
It was something to think about.
Before Ty could come up with a response, the device on his wrist signaled an alert. He had set it so he could distinguish between a message on his device and a call on his phone, and knew at once that this was his phone.
“Sorry.” He said. “I should take this.” He thought that maybe it was Martin, finally getting back to him about the job.
He hit the answer button on the device. “Hello?”
It wasn’t Martin, but Brad, Ty’s roommate. Ty hadn’t integrated the phone with the device as a hologram matrix, so Brad’s face appeared in miniature on the device’s small screen.
“Hey man,” Brad said. Ty was disappointed. As well as not being who he expected, Brad’s face was a reminder of one of the bigger problems in Ty’s life. He could have done without that reminder so early in the day.
“Hey,” Ty responded.
“Look,” Brad said. Even on the small screen, he seemed excited. “I might have found a solution to our little hole-in-the-wall dilemma,” he said.
Immediately, Ty’s interest was piqued. “You have? What?”
“Get your ass over here and I’ll tell you,” he said.
“Why don’t you just–” Ty began.
“See you soon,” Brad said. He glanced away and Ty got the impression he wasn’t alone. “Gotta go,” he said, and clicked off, leaving Ty staring at his screen.