by Wyatt Kane
It was a question Ty could answer. “He was wearing another device. They called him Massive. As best as I could tell, he’s infinitely denser than he has any right to be. As if every part of his body is made of tungsten or lead. I let him have it with my shield cannons, and he just shrugged it off.”
“Another one,” Tempest said, her words heavy with meaning.
“It was his presence that warned us,” Dinah said. “That, and Ty not answering my call. We figured you were in trouble, and that’s when Lilith came to get you.”
“Lilith?” Tempest asked. “I figured it was Ty, somehow….”
But Ty shook his head. “I did my best, but there wasn’t anything I could do. I can’t seem to hurt Steam at all. And this new guy….” Ty just shrugged. “If Lilith hadn’t turned up when she did, I don’t know what would have happened.”
“Not exactly a successful mission,” Tempest muttered. Then she focused her attention on Lilith. “Lilith, thank you. For saving Ty and me.”
It was a simple expression of gratitude, yet to Ty, it felt like something more as well. As if Tempest was acknowledging that Lilith was needed. That she could really be part of the team.
Again, Lilith didn’t seem to know what to do with the thanks. She looked away. “You’re welcome,” she murmured.
“So now we have Bain, Steam, and this guy,” Tempest said. “It’s like we were saying before. These devices—in the wrong hands, they’re dangerous.”
She was right, but that wasn’t what concerned Ty the most.
“But what I don’t understand is what actually happened?” he said. “How did we get it so wrong? How did Rubio spring his trap? It shouldn’t have even been possible.”
The question hung in the air, unanswerable, for several seconds.
Then, in a moment of serendipity, Ty’s device sounded an alert, as did Tempest’s and Dinah’s.
It was Rubio Vecoli himself.
26: Gloating and Threats
The four of them looked at each other, as if asking whether or not they should answer. Dinah nodded, and Tempest sat up even higher. She pressed the button on her device, and Rubio’s holographic head sprung into being in front of her.
“Tempest!” he enthused. “I’m so pleased to see you well! I had worried that my men had hurt you too badly!” The crime lord, usually expansive and jovial, seemed to be in fine form. It was as if he was enormously pleased with himself. “And who else do you have with you? That young man, what was his name? Is Dinah with you? And what of the new one, the teleporter? Is she there as well?”
Tempest’s expression was flat and hard. “We are here,” she said. “Alive, healthy, and well.”
Rubio let out a bark of a laugh. “Ha! So good to hear!” Perhaps he would have said more, filling the air with urbane pleasantries that meant nothing. But Tempest wasn’t having any of it.
“Rubio, what do you want?” she demanded.
“Tempest, Tempest, just because we are at present adversaries doesn’t mean we can’t be civil to each other, does it?”
“Rubio,” Tempest said, her tone just as flat as before. “What. Do. You. Want?”
The crime lord grinned widely. “It seems that the trappings of civility are to be ignored. All right then,” he said. “Fair enough. I guess, when it comes down to it, I want to thank you.”
His answer was surprising. “Thank me?”
“Yes. You see, if it wasn’t for you and your little visit to my bistro the other day, these amazing devices wouldn’t have been on my radar at all. You would have had your war with this mysterious Master, and you would have either won or lost without me. But because of that visit, because you asked for information I didn’t yet have, you forced me to look for it. If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t have found that lab. The devices within it would have doubtless gone to the original owner, and my little enterprise would not have received the boon that it has.”
Ty didn’t like the way this conversation was heading at all. He would have liked to hurt Rubio, to pick him up and hurl him into a wall, just for the harm he had already caused. But all he could do was grit his teeth in silence and wait for the man to continue.
Tempest spoke first. “I’m so happy you’ve benefited,” she said, making no effort to keep the distaste out of her voice. “Out of curiosity, how did you find your people, Steam and Massive, so quickly? I thought only one in a hundred or so have the potential such powers.”
“One in a hundred, you say? My dear Tempest, your ratio is a little high. When I called for volunteers, there were many who were eager to try their luck. Steam was an early success. He was one of the original twenty to wear a device. As for the others….” Rubio trailed off and his features darkened. “They were surprised when they learned the devices couldn’t be removed without amputation.” He gave a shrug. “Volunteers after that have been slower to emerge, but still, we have had our successes. Instead of one in a hundred, the number is more like one in sixty.”
Ty and Dinah exchanged a look of horror, and Lilith brought a hand up to cover her mouth. Even Tempest looked a little uncertain.
“Are you saying that you’ve tried the device on nearly 200 of your people?” she said. “And taken the arms from nearly that many?”
Rubio favored her with an evil grin. “Thereabouts.”
“That’s insane,” Tempest blurted.
Immediately, Rubio’s ebullience turned into a cold sort of anger. “Don’t be so quick to judge, my dear Tempest,” he said. “Each of my men volunteered, just for the chance to serve me better. Nor were they the only ones. For I wear a device as well.”
Ty was stunned. Did that mean Rubio also had a skill?
“And?” Tempest said.
Rubio’s grin became vicious. “And how do you think I managed to lure you into my little trap?” he asked. “Tactical Intuition, it’s called. I didn’t know what it meant at first, but within a very short time I started to see patterns that I couldn’t before. I knew you were a threat, and sought to negate it as swiftly as I could. And I figured that Steam and Massive would be up to the task. Had I known about your teleporter, we would not be having this conversation now. I would have added her into my calculations, and you would be done.”
Tactical Intuition, Ty thought. The way Rubio described it, it could give him a serious advantage.
As if the man hadn’t already been dangerous enough before.
Into the silence that followed the villain’s pronouncement, Tempest repeated her question. “Rubio, what do you want?”
And just like that, Rubio was laughing. “I want nothing you can give me,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know you are beaten. That all by themselves, Steam and Massive are your match. But with me guiding them? You have no hope in this conflict.”
The villain paused, as if giving his words time to sink in. But Tempest curled her lip into a slight sneer and said, “Is that it?”
Rubio rewarded her with another sharp laugh. “Yes, my dear Tempest. That is it, for the moment. When next we speak, it is likely it will be in person. Until then.” It appeared he was about to hang up.
But Dinah had something to say. “Before you go,” the deerkin said, “there’s something else you might want to factor into your calculations.”
“Ah, Dinah. So good to hear your lovely voice. Do tell, if you would be so kind,” Rubio said.
“Of course,” the deerkin replied. “You see, the Master had a purpose for those devices. He is not happy they’ve been taken. He wants them back. And he will do what it takes to get them.”
For the first time during the conversation, Rubio’s expression became uncertain. But he quickly smothered it with another broad smile. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” Tempest said, lending her certainty to Dinah’s words.
“Well, maybe you can give this Master a message from me,” Rubio said.
“What message?”
“Bring it on.”
With that, the crime lord was gone.
Ty looked at Dinah, Tempest, and Lilith. “We have to let the Master know about Rubio,” he said. “Tell him somehow that it wasn’t us who stole the devices.”
Dinah and Tempest both grinned, and Lilith looked both shocked and intrigued by the idea.
“That’s what I was thinking,” the deerkin said. “And I think I know just how to do it.”
27: Visitor
Ty was downstairs in the Architect’s workshop. Once Rubio’s call ended and Tempest pronounced it unlikely the crime lord was in a position to threaten them immediately, Dinah swiftly took charge. She commanded Tempest to take it easy for at least the afternoon. A head knock like the one she had sustained could be serious, and the deerkin didn’t want the blonde superhero going anywhere unaccompanied for at least a day.
Tempest hadn’t liked the idea, but accepted the deerkin’s authority with reasonable grace.
As for Ty, Dinah slathered a dose of soothing, antiseptic cream on his exposed skin and told him he was good to go. He’d left Lilith and Dinah together while he accompanied Tempest back to her room, and then headed downstairs to the workshop.
Ty was determined to find a solution to his problems.
With Tempest injured, the nanite idea had become a priority. Additionally, he needed to find something that would give him an advantage over Steam and Massive. But what that something might be, Ty didn’t know.
All in all, the nanite healing project seemed the easiest, because at least he had a starting point.
Unfortunately, that proved to be an illusion. The more he looked at it, the more complex the problem turned out to be. Sure, he could get easily program the nanites to do whatever he wished. His skill was strong enough to give him that sort of control.
But he didn’t understand what he needed them to do.
The human body was his problem. Ty didn’t truly understand how it worked. He quickly realized that he would need the full knowledge of several specialist medical practices to even begin. And even then, it would likely be a painstaking process of defining each minute action that his nanites could take.
It was not going to be a quick fix.
As he came to that realization, Ty slammed the palms of his hands down flat on the top of the workbench in frustration. If he had all the time in the world and access to all the information he needed, he could do this. But with Steam and Massive out there, not to mention Rubio, Bain, and the Master as well, he just didn’t have the time.
He needed a solution that would help them now!
Ty uttered an angry noise and hit the workbench again, this time with the side of his fist. It made a satisfying noise, but without his shield activated, it also hurt his hand. And that made everything worse. He cursed under his breath in irritation and only belatedly realized he was working himself into an unnecessary rage.
Deliberately, he stepped back from the workbench. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath to calm himself. He understood that perhaps it wasn’t his failure to come up with something brilliant on the spot that was the true source of his frustration.
Instead, it might have been a delayed reaction to seeing Tempest lying prone on the bunker floor.
In the short time since he had joined Tempest’s and Dinah’s superhero team, Ty had seen his power improve in leaps and bounds. He had gone from a nobody with half a knack for electronics to a powerful force with a significant skill. And the perks, if he could risk Dinah and Tempest’s wrath for even thinking of them like that, were astonishing. Even if he didn’t include the house that they shared.
But the game was changing. Tempest was no longer the most overpowered player in the game. Even if Ty succeeded in replicating her strengths, they still wouldn’t be enough.
New Lincoln was changing. The world was changing. And the future Ty and the others could see seemed disconcertingly bleak.
Tempest could only be as strong as her skill allowed. Dinah had an invaluable skill, but would never be a fighter. The jury was still out on Lilith, although Ty suspected she would indeed lend her aid.
That meant it was up to him. With his skill, his strength wasn’t limited in any meaningful way. He ought to be able to replicate anything, including Steam’s power, and that of Massive. If only he could work out how to do it.
More than that, he knew he could create a countermeasure that would give the advantage back to him and Tempest. The only thing stopping him was a lack of imagination.
Ty realized his fists were clenched again. He understood he was going around in circles, and he couldn’t do anything about it. He seemed he had found an unsolvable problem.
Except, maybe there was a solution.
Unbidden, Brad’s drug trial possibility came to his mind. What would Ty be able to do, he wondered, if his skill level increased to 5? Or even higher?
Maybe he should give Brad a call and follow up, he thought.
Before he could truly make up his mind either way, his line of thought was interrupted.
“Um, hi,” came a voice from behind him.
It was Lilith.
Almost at once, Ty felt his frustration fade. There was something about Lilith’s presence that soothed him on a spiritual level. More than her beauty, he sensed a purity about her, and innocence that had somehow survived despite her history. He knew that she’d been a stripper and had a conviction for fraud in her past. And she had worked for the Master, albeit against her will. Yet despite all that, she still shone with an essential goodness.
He offered her a smile. “Hey.” He wondered why she had come to find him, but didn’t ask. He figured she would tell him in her own time.
The demon woman stared at him for a long moment, then looked away, her cheeks slightly flushed. “Um, sorry to disturb you,” she said. “It’s just, Dinah has gone up to talk with Tempest, and I didn’t want to intrude.”
Ty understood. Even though Lilith had rescued Tempest from Rubio’s trap, it might take a while before things stopped being awkward between them.
“I just thought I’d come down and see what you were doing,” the demon woman finished.
Ty had to laugh at himself. He gestured at the clean, empty workbench. “Well, as you can see, I’m not doing much. I still have to figure out what I can do, before I actually do it.
Despite the empty workbench, the workshop itself wasn’t empty, and he thought Lilith might be interested. “This used to be the Architect’s workshop,” he said, gesturing around. “You can see some of the things he used to do in the display cabinets. Prosthetics, mostly. Maybe even the ones Rubio’s men will end up wearing. But he—the Architect—also created the devices we wear.”
Ty sighed. “It seems he was full of ideas. He wrote them all down and stored them in that filing cabinet. Maybe one day I’ll get the chance to go through them and see how many I can turn into reality.”
Lilith listened with polite interest rather than wonder. “That’s what you do, isn’t it?” the demon woman asked. “You work with technology, right?”
At this, Ty understood that while Lilith had witnessed each of them use their skills, nobody had yet explained what they were.
“That’s right. Technological Enhancement. I can take things that already exist and improve them. I don’t know if there’s anything I couldn’t pull apart, fix, or improve.” He shrugged. “You already know Dinah’s skills. Food and information, effectively. And Tempest—the thing that makes her so super is an unconscious ability to manipulate energy fields around her. Her power is what I’ve based my shield on. I haven’t yet managed to duplicate everything she’s able to do, but I’m getting there.”
Ty hesitated. He knew that Lilith wasn’t completely certain about the whole superhero gig. She wasn’t a fighter, and all she really cared about was making sure her father was safe. An easy option to ensure that was to make Lilith herself less of a target.
“I can also remove the device from you, if you want,” Ty suggested. He didn’t want her to do so. He wanted her to be part of the team. But he
wouldn’t deny her that choice if she so wished it.
But the demon woman shook her head. “No,” she said. “This device—it gives me possibilities I wouldn’t otherwise have. I want to see where things go, at least for a while.” Then she offered Ty a quiet grin. “And besides,” she said, “I think I could teleport myself away from it if I wanted to.”
Ty looked at her, surprised. He hadn’t even considered that possibility, but knew she was right. While the device gave them their powers, it was the nanites in their bloodstream that helped to maintain them. It would take some time before Lilith lost her teleportation ability even if she lost her device.
Ty looked at her thoughtfully. “Lilith, why are you here?” he asked.
The demon woman looked at him in confusion.
“You want to help us fight the Master,” he said. “I get that. That’s why you turned up here today. But you also have your father to look after. And, as much as it was a good idea, the plan you and Dinah came up with kinda backfired. Rubio used it to lure me and Tempest into a trap. So, and I don’t mean anything negative by this, I’m just wondering why you’re still here?”
Ty knew his words were clumsy, but Lilith accepted them the way they were meant. She took no offense.
“Dinah,” she said. “She asked me to stay. I think—I think she was more worried about Tempest and you than she wanted to admit. When I sensed the second device wearer nearby, she understood something was wrong. She tried to contact you, but when that didn’t work, she became desperate.” Lilith looked away. “That’s why I came to rescue you. Because of Dinah.”
Ty hesitated. That part made sense, but it was only part of the answer he sought. There was something she hadn’t yet said.
“I get that,” he said. “But why are you here? Why did you come looking for me, now?”
Lilith’s cheeks turned pink. She turned away. But she answered him nonetheless.