Chapter Text
I dreamt of a distant, unnamed ocean planet where secrets lay hidden beneath the waves. Water-based alien life flourished there: from the smallest Peeper the size of my hand to the massive Reaper, easily five times the length of Earth Bet’s own aquatic Endbringer (but with nowhere near the same destructive capabilities). It was terrifying. It was beautiful.
I spent weeks there, months even, exploring the different biomes as I dived deeper and deeper into the planetary crater. I built bases, water filters, and fabricators to help me survive the depths and the hostile life awaiting me thousands of meters below the surface. The bottom of the crater, I somehow knew, contained the reason why my ship crashed, the cure for a mysterious plague, and the source of the strange, alien voice imploring me to come and find them.
When the incessant beeping of the morning alarm cruelly yanked me from the warm grasp of sleep, my hand flew to my face to check if my mask and oxygen tank were still secure. Instead of the white sterile walls and roof of the Cyclops submarine, I was greeted with the faded ceiling of my minivan and the predawn sky slowly getting brighter through the gaps in the shabby window curtains.
When I saw the signs that I would soon be unable to afford even some of the cheapest apartments while paying for my master’s degree class to class, I’d spent money I’d set aside for rent to instead remove the back seats and structures of my minivan. It was cramped, but since I wasn’t the type of gal too attached to material possessions I could fit a small mattress and most of my treasured belongings in the back of the vehicle. As long as I was working on my degree, I could use BBU’s gym facilities for hygienic needs and short-term parking. I had it better than most homeless in Brockton Bay.
“Good Morning, Everett.” The female voice that had grown familiar to me intoned from the futuristic PDA tucked in the back pocket of the front passenger seat. “The time is 5:30 AM. The temperature is 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Vital signs are largely stable. Please seek caloric intake and fluids for optimal condition.”
“Thanks, Hal,” I groaned as I slumped back into my nest of pillows and blankets. Right. It wasn’t just a dream. I’d really had the worst day of my life a few days ago and learned that I’d become inextricably connected to an alien passenger that turned me into an ungodly combination of Eidolon and Dauntless in Tinker form. It felt daunting, pun not intended, to have the possibility of outstripping even the Triumvirate if I was allowed to grow.
Though I didn’t quite feel so inventive, given that the first thing my powers gave me was technology to create prefabricated bases and devices. The habitat constructor device would be extremely handy once I got my hands on materials, given I was technically homeless, but the device didn’t come with a background understanding of the technology.
Thank the gods for Halia, the AI that had come with the fancy little PDA tablet. She was infuriatingly helpful in her flat, robotic, but I wouldn’t change her for the world. It was nice to have someone else to talk to besides my coworkers.
She’d been the one to explain that the habitat builder came with a linked subspace inventory shared with the scanner and her tablet, and that I could break down any constructed materials into their base components and store them in the tablet for later use.
I’d used the scanner to create blueprints for my van, my bed, the sleeping bag, the heated blanket, and anything else that would be a pain to replace. As long as I could source materials- not even in their raw form, even– I could construct a fabricator to replicate anything I’d scanned.
Of course, the fabricator needed glass, titanium, and copper to make as well as an attached power source. The same materials could construct a basic solar panel to power the fabricator, but I needed some kind of permanent structure to attach it to. The basic habitat builder room that would fit the requirements also required more glass and metal.
I mentally despaired as I gently extricated myself from the pool of warmth created by my sleeping bag. I needed to get my act together before my poor impulse control compelled me to do something noticeable. It was routine by now to unplug the heated blanket from the car port and swipe my hand across the PDA to silence the alarm before Halia could start it up again.
“You have approximately 45 minutes until the start of your shift,” Halia stated as soon as my hand touched the device. “It is critical that you raise your energy levels soon, or you will collapse after your shift again.”
“No worries, Hal,” I reassured as I clambered into the front seat of the minivan and cautiously pulled down the corner of the front windshield’s UV protector to get a glimpse of what the morning would look like. “I have no plans of skipping breakfast today.”
Since I worked at the Boardwalk, there was a chained-off parking lot sectioned off for the security guards and employees. As long as you didn’t do drugs or cause problems, the Enforcers were quite happy to ignore cars parked there longterm in a way they didn’t ignore overnight cars in the public parking lot.
My designated parking space afforded me a decent view of the beachfront maintained by the Boardwalk and beyond the sand, the waves lapping at the shore. At this ungodly hour, the ocean looked like a mass of ink against the lighter sands. Soon, I thought.
I wanted to help the Bay, but the tools I currently had didn’t lend itself to fighting any sort of crime. I’d get shot within a week, or taken by one of the gangs to pump out more destructive gadgets. I also didn’t feel drawn to the PRT.
Call it a residual grudge for getting turned down from an unpaid intern position, but I also hated public speaking and the dog and pony show that capes underwent with marketing. My potential PRT career would’ve been about creating public-facing media and materials for capes, not as a cape. Hell, I’d gotten stage fright just from class presentations, and my public-facing job at the Boardwalk drained me to the point that I hadn’t truly spoken to anyone besides Halia in days.
No, I’d build my reputation and work through intermediaries. There had to be something I would gain in the future that would let me avoid talking to people directly.
Besides, it felt like my power called me beneath the waves. If my dream self could survive and even thrive on an ocean planet, I could build myself up into a proper Tinker under the surface Brockton Bay. The tools I’d received from my powers were all calibrated for establishing an oceanic base of operations- if that wasn’t my passenger pointing out a literal safe harbor to avoid the worst of the starting Tinker pitfalls, then it was simply providence.
“Everett!”
Hal’s voice startled me out of my reverie. I leaned back and pulled out her tablet.
“What is it?” I asked, my attention flitting back towards the shoreline. Wait, when had the sun actually started cresting the distant horizon? It was much brighter than a few moments ago.
“Everett, I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past 20 minutes,” Hal informed me, her robotic tone infused with the tiniest ounce of worry. “You have 20 minutes remaining before your shift.”
“Oh, shit!” I said, and I checked my phone. Hal was right; I’d spaced out for longer than I meant to over my Tinkering plans. The van’s seat creaked warningly as I scrambled out of it and dived for my toiletry bag in the back. Next Triumvirate-level Tinker or not, I would still never be a morning person.
What would you do if you gained powers? Variations of the question, as well as the subsequent debate assignments, were the staple of parahuman studies classes. Brockton Bay University was no exception in light of the high percentage of capes running amok in the larger city.
Academically, I found parahumans fascinating. It was why the PRT had been my hope for getting an actual career and the funds to move out of this hellhole city, before those dreams had been quashed by the harsh truth of PRT ENE’s budget cuts and limited staffing.
Parahuman psychology was also a narrower field of study despite the popularity and increase in cape numbers. Surprise surprise, getting capes to talk about the terrible events that led to them gaining powers was a bit hard to do. What studies there were on the mental aspect of parahuman powers all agreed on one fact: Trigger events fundamentally changed someone.
“Hello, welcome to the Brockton Bay Boardwalk!” I said for the thousandth time, my customer service voice long-practiced by this point. “How can I help you at this time?”
I’d never seen myself in a public-facing role, and about a year ago I would have done almost anything else to avoid that stress. But preferences didn’t pay for classes, provide meals, and keep the minivan maintained and gassed up.
My job at the Boardwalk was a typical example of employment in the Bay: not enough hours to qualify for full-time benefits, but a schedule varied enough that I couldn’t work a second part-time job. But it was a job, which was more than other unfortunate homeless people could claim. I faked social niceties and politeness enough to pass against all but the worst of the populace, and I hovered on the side of above-average in terms of conventional looks, so my job was manning the information center.
I had pamphlets and posters about all of the various restaurant attractions, as well as schedules of all the various kinds of official tours offered. I maintained the Lost and Found. Despite the presence of a massive schedule outlining public-facing patrol times and future Ward appearances, a main part of my duties was helping with questions that could have been answered by applying basic literary competence.
It was nearing the end of my shift that I felt the connection to my passenger stir. It was all I could do to excuse myself on my last 15 minute break and slip into one of the bathroom stalls before the Celestial Forge could complete a connection. It was the most privacy I could find on such short notice, and I hoped that whatever changes came to be, it wouldn’t be immediately noticeable.
If I had to create a comparison, it felt like dipping a small net into an astral sea while the powers of the Celestial Forge passed below the surface like the strangest species of fish. Some of these fish were too big to currently catch but I instinctively knew that over time my reach would eventually grow to accommodate these massive boons. That was the Dauntless aspect of my power, and how I would eventually become a force for change in this shithole of a city.
The astral sea shifted, and I froze as a power finally slipped into my net.
My ship is damaged. Of course my graduation day from the Terrene Protectorate coincides with Earth getting destroyed by an alien the size of a small planet. The humor helps numb the tragedy; the loss of life is incalculable. Never again will I peer down at the blue-green pearl and map out the familiar continents from orbit. All those distant and exotic planets, all those dreams of adventures lending aid to the wider galaxy, and still… I already miss home.
The ship’s cat meows up at me mournfully as I make my way over to the teleporter pad and the SAIL console. An unfamiliar garden planet looms below the viewfinder, and as I slowly boot up the ship’s AI I note the preliminary scans show no environmental hazards. Good; I don’t have a protection pack yet.
When the vision faded, I looked down at my hands and wondered if my passenger could hear my thoughts and influence what powers the Celestial Forge sent my way. This… this was what I thought of when I imagined Tinkertech. This was future technology I understood.
If I could make the first tier of these Environmental Protection Packs (EPPs), I wouldn’t even need the diving suit and mask. I could simply walk on the bay floor if I wanted to. I suppressed a hysterical snort as I imagined walking out of the waves on the beach and heading up the promenade as if I were on a casual stroll. The bathroom stall was part of a shared employee building, and I didn’t want my co-workers to hear me losing it. I didn’t need to talk to my supervisor; I don’t think I could hold back my desire to quit then and there if I was pulled in for a “talk.”
The basic tier of EPP allowed the wearer to traverse airless environments while only wearing the armored device. I’d need to add tungsten to my list of materials and substitute something for the original plant matter used in the EPP’s construction, but if it succeeded I could potentially upgrade the armor pack further. I saw blueprints for EPPs that rendered the wearer immune to background radiation, or sub-zero temperatures.
There were also programmable augments that could be slotted into the EPP and boost the wearer’s durability, speed, and combat ability. It might even be something that could stand up to Endbringer scenarios, or at least assist in search-and-rescue.
If my resource-gathering efforts paid off, I could disappear in the bay sooner than I’d hoped. I pressed my head against my knees and grinned. I could quit this fucking job. That was almost as exciting as gaining superpowers.