Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(Author’s Note: The following is an alternate version of events that diverts from chapter 3 of Brockton’s Celestial Forge. After three years of working on that story I wanted to take advantage of some of the extra time I have from my new reduced schedule and try my hand at something of an omake. This is a rough idea that I’ve been entertaining for a while, intending to write something similar as a Christmas special or for some other special occasion. Well, the three-year anniversary of my first posted fic seems like the right occasion.

It was a fun diversion taking a step back to a point in the story where the powers were more moderate, as well as looking at what might happen if a completely different sequence of powers were rolled. I have had quite a few questions about Joe in other settings, so this seemed like a natural way to explore the concept. It’s a simple idea that could be extended to use any of Joe’s powers as a jumping off point. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to continue this work, but it was a pleasant diversion. If there’s interest in continuing this work, or in some other crossover, I might explore them when I have the time. At the very least, it will serve to balance out the more intense work on the main story.

I would like to extend my thanks to all my readers for supporting me and my work over the past three years. The story has grown beyond anything I would have imagined, and I am constantly amazed by the reception the story has received. I consider myself lucky to have been able to be part of this community and can’t express how much all the support and encouragement I have received has meant to me. Thank you for three incredible years.)

Brockton’s Celestial Forge AU – Europa’s Celestial Forge

1 Arrival

Standing in the midst of Grue’s cloud of darkness in the aftermath of my fight with Oni Lee, I felt my power connect to a new constellation. This one was the Time constellation and the power caused knowledge to bloom into my mind. Scientist: Machinery. It didn’t actually have much to do with time, either in the abstract sense or in terms of the speed of construction, but did cover a staggering amount of other information.

It represented a doctorate level education in the subject of machinery. Mechanical engineering and all related fields needed to support such a specialization. The information was immense, covering everything from basic principles to graduate level studies and personal research projects. From a practical standpoint it was of only moderate use to me. It was comprehensive knowledge, but still conventional knowledge. Not one of the super science powers I’d been waiting for. Combined with the Black Thumb power I’d received earlier in the day I was an unquestionable expert in engine and automotive principles, but that wasn’t the kind of thing you built a tinker career on. Not unless you could operate to the same level as someone like Squealer. I was good, but I wasn’t anywhere close to what she regularly churned out.

But there was something different about this. There was more texture to the information that the power granted. It wasn’t just sterile principles and raw knowledge. Instead, it was like there was a connection to something else. Hints and sensations of how the information had been gained, the methods behind the education, and the cultural lens through which it had been presented.

Because this was an entire doctorate, representing an entire life. A connection to something else. Somewhere else. The knowledge, it was still ‘conventional’ science, but it had an exotic twist. The areas of focus, the context for how it would have been learned, the methodology and examples used, they were all drastically different from anything I was familiar with. Anything from this world.

At that realization it was like something broke. I felt a sensation I had never experienced before. To be fair, I had limited experience with my power, but this was something else. The mote that I had connected to, the mote that detected from the Time constellation, started to move. And it was dragging me along with it.

The movement was less of a displacement and more of a rotation, but a rotation that was occurring along an axis I had no experience with. Even with my new doctoral level education and enhanced mental faculties, I was only able to deduce that I was looking at more than three spatial dimensions. Probably a lot more than three.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience. I doubt the human eye is intended to observe things five degrees beyond the z-axis. The fact that I still had my Revealer alchemy formula active from when I needed to see through Grue’s darkness was probably not helping things. This was definitely not the time when you’d want to experience heightened levels of visual acuity.

And then it was over. The sense of movement and unpleasant rotation vanished. The new power was holding stable, but it seemed like the rest of the constellations had reoriented around it. There was the seriously pressing concern about what had just happened with my power, but that was secondary to figuring out what had happened to me.

Once again, I fell back on my passenger for support, just like I’d been doing in the week since my trigger. There was a flash of panic as the connection seemed weaker, but with careful focus I could still feel it. It wasn’t at risk of vanishing, at least for the time being. Feeling it out, it was stable, but different, like the movement of the constellations had changed the reception the same way moving an antenna would.

The important thing was that my passenger wasn’t worried. That made a big difference. At worst there was mild surprise. Mostly there was a sense of amusement and anticipation at the current situation, but not any serious level of concern. In fact, there was a good deal less concern than there had been before. Threats that had been looming since my trigger suddenly weren’t.

Based on my passenger’s unexpected reaction to the Undersiders, coupled with Tattletale’s panicked realization at the fact that I was getting a secondary source of information it felt like I should regard my passenger’s reactions with more care. Still, given the unprecedented nature of events and the disorientation that came with them, I was grateful for the comforting presence.

I focused on the details of my new location. I was in an alley filled with old wooden barrels and empty boxes. The walls on either side of me were plaster with exposed wooden beams, the kind you see in some European architecture. And it wasn’t night anymore.

The sky was overcast, making it hard to tell the exact time of day, but it definitely wasn’t the early hours of the morning anymore. That suggested I had either lost time due to whatever that event was, or I was in a different time zone. The European-styled architecture might actually be Europe. If my power was going to be randomly flinging me halfway across the globe that was something that seemed like it deserved a greater degree of concern than my passenger was giving it.

I could hear the noise of a busy street from the end of the alleyway. People, animals, and even machinery. I needed to get my bearings, but I had to consider if going out in the remains of my costume would be a good idea. My coat had taken a beating from Oni Lee’s barrage of grenades and it was only thanks to my healing formulas that I wasn’t in the same condition. I had to weigh possible consequences of stepping onto a busy street in a tattered superhero costume. They didn’t seem overly promising, given my complete lack of information about the area.

If the alley had a locked door, then I could have just slipped into my Workshop and changed back to civilian gear. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky. The only entrance was boarded up tight, meaning I had to work with what I had on me.

Losing the bandanas and visor seemed like a good idea. Without them I wasn’t that noticeable. Well, I did have the metal adornments on the rest of my costume, but hopefully that could be overlooked. Or I could take off the coat and carry it over an arm. Or just bundle up everything that was related to my cape persona and make a dash for it.

Without my mask I wasn’t likely to attract immediate attention, so I felt confident to creep towards the mouth of the alley and try to get a sense for where I was and what I was dealing with. I scrambled over broken crates and old wooden barrels while noting the lack of any of the typical trash you’d expect to see cluttering an alley. Not to say it was clean, but it was more a collection of scrap and organic waste than typical urban litter.

Reaching the mouth of the alley, I discovered the reason for the discrepancy. It also was immediately clear that, unless my knowledge of European cities was badly out of date, I had been launched a good deal further than a few time zones.

One glance at the street reminded me of my last trip to the market. It was the kind of energetic foot traffic that you only saw in a few parts of Brockton Bay. The tone was familiar, even if the scene itself was completely alien.

Everyone I could see was wearing what would probably count as ‘period clothing’.  I didn’t have the historical knowledge to actually place the period in question. My gut instinct was to label it Victorian, but I’m sure that was just a rough guess on the century rather than any precise assessment of the items on display.

What I could recognize was a complete lack of modern colors or fabrics. No sneakers, no obvious synthetic fabrics, and no hint of anything from after 1900. Which wasn’t to say that people were dressed conservatively. There was a huge variety of styles and designs on display. Jewelry, detailed accents, elaborate hats, and accessories were common.

What’s more, there was a functional aspect to the clothing. Some people were wearing military uniforms, suits, or overly elaborate dresses, but there were plenty of people in practical work clothes, just still in the same range of materials and colors. It was ‘dress-up’ clothing that wasn’t being worn for dress-up. It was a part of their normal lives.

For whatever counted as normal.

Because it was immediately evident that I hadn’t just found some historic throwback. The streets were cobblestone and bustling with people and horse drawn carts, but mixed in amongst them were examples of technology that stood at odds with the rest of the aesthetic. A soldier’s tall fur hat was capped with a mechanical eye that swiveled back and forth as he walked. On the street every third or fourth cart seemed to be supplemented with some kind of technological assistance, whether an integrated motor that belched smoke or steam or a fully robotic draft horse that hauled the load. A man in a long coat and wide hat shuffled past the mouth of the alley, doing a poor job of concealing a clearly mechanical left arm.

At a glance I could see evidence of more advanced works in the city’s design. Intricate lampposts spaced along the streets. A type of complicated hydrant with a mechanical interior barely visible through a loose access panel. There was a whirl of gears as a large robot in what looked like academic robes marched behind a pair of what I guessed were police officers, except their badges were in the shape of scarab beetles, rather than the typical shields.

The most disorienting thing about all the incredible features on display was the fact that, on a certain level, it wasn’t disorienting. Instead, it was familiar. I had context for everything I was seeing even though I had never encountered it before.

Because that context didn’t come from my own personal experiences, it came from my latest power. The same power that had reacted unexpectedly and flung me across spatial axes that I didn’t even know existed. The same power that had completely changed the structure and layout of the constellations of the Celestial Forge. That power, and the knowledge it granted, was perfectly at home here.

Obviously, it would be, because this was where it was from.

Alternate universes. It was something I had never considered. To be fair, I had been dealing with a lot in the wake of my trigger. I think I could be forgiven for taking my power at face value, rather than launching into mad theories about extra dimensional origins. The implications of what this could mean were staggering. Was it like this for every power I received? Was there a universe out there for Fashion, Bling of War, Evermore Alchemist, and Black Thumb? Could I have ended up in one of them, instead of finding myself here? How had this happened, and did I need to worry about this happening again?

And most of all, how did I get back? Could I even get back to my own world?

I had no way of knowing. It was the kind of question that could drive a person mad. The sudden loss of… well, I didn’t exactly have that much to go back to, particularly after the falling out with my family, but Brockton Bay was my home. I might have grown up in the suburbs, but it was still my city. I knew how hard it had been hit by the recession and the gangs. I wanted to make a difference. With my power it had felt like I finally could, and then suddenly everything was snatched away.

But not forever. I had no way of knowing that, but I wasn’t the only one in the equation. Once again, my passenger stepped up when despair threatened to overwhelm me. There was an absolute assurance that I could find my way back. That there was a way and I could find it. Until then, I just needed to survive here.

Which was something that my passenger seemed much more optimistic. It wasn’t that this world was safe. Just a sampling of the general populace with their range of cybernetics, mutations, or openly carried weapons was a testament to that. No, there was plenty of danger here, it was just nowhere near the level of what I had to contend with back on Earth Bet.

When I figured out what my passenger was alluding to it hit me like a truck. In this world, the Simurgh didn’t exist. As of this instant, I was completely beyond her reach. That massive invisible threat that had hung over the heads of every person on the planet was suddenly gone. Hopekiller couldn’t touch me. I was free.

The sensation was enough to overwhelm me. Pure joy bubbled up in a way I couldn’t remember ever feeling. Not on this level. I began to laugh. All my plans, all my contingencies, all my concerns and terrified imaginings were suddenly moot. The Simurgh could not reach me.

As I was laughing the Clothing constellation passed by, but the mote that my power tried to reach was too large to be secured. But that was fine. I could still get more powers. I could build up my strength without worrying about bringing an Endbringer down on my head. I could amass power and find my way back and return in a state where I was ready for the challenges that lay before me.

I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. My legs felt shaky and I found myself leaning against the wall by the mouth of the alley. I slid down to sit on the ground, the pure joy of my situation drawing forth more laughter as I made feeble attempts to steady myself.

I was still in a serious situation, but it was hard to treat it as such. I mean, everything that had just happened, the impossibility of it all, was totally overshadowed by the simple fact that I did not have to dance around the precognitive pigeon anymore. And it wasn’t just avoidance. I could actively plan against her. Plan and build and prepare everything I could so that the moment I returned I could unleash hell upon her.

A ringing sound from the ground in front of me drew my awareness back to my surroundings. A passing woman had tossed a couple of coins at me, then muttered something about temperance as she hurried on her way. And I realized I was attracting similar looks from the other pedestrians. Right. A man in a tattered coat laughing to himself while collapsed in an alley during the middle of the day. It painted an obvious picture.

Another coin joined the two on the ground, this time from a man with more of a concerned look compared to the previous woman’s admonishing one. It was probably a good idea to move on before I attracted the wrong kind of attention. I still remembered the hulking robot that had been accompanying the two assumed police officers.

I called out a thank you to the man and earned a polite nod as he continued on his way. I felt a bit bad about accepting the charity, but I was effectively without any local currency, so I couldn’t really afford to pass up any resources. As I scooped up the strange coins something occurred to me. The woman who muttered about temperance hadn’t been speaking English. And neither had I when I thanked the man.

The words had come out almost automatically, but the distinction was clear when I focused on it. Somehow, buried in the knowledge that came with my last power, was complete fluency in the local language. Some Germanic language that I could now speak as easily as English. It hadn’t overwritten anything, but it was so natural that I didn’t even need to worry about translation. As someone who had struggled his way through high school French and promptly forgotten ninety percent of the course content immediately after the last exam, sudden proficiency in an entire language was somehow even more jarring than the doctorate level education that had come with it.

I pocketed the coins after a quick examination. They were brass discs that reminded me of pictures of old British pennies. They were all valued at one of whatever the local denomination was, which was about what I expected for thrown pocket change. Not exactly seed capital, or even enough to put a roof over your head, but then again, in theory I only needed a door with a lock to be able to access my Workshop.

That was something I needed to test as soon as possible. My Workshop was extradimensional, which would normally put it beyond concern, but given the unprecedented nature of what had just happened I wasn’t exactly feeling secure.

I straightened my coat as much as I could, smoothing out the wrinkles but not being able to do anything about the damage. Still, a slightly frayed coat was less of an issue if I wasn’t collapsed and giggling to myself in an alleyway.

I could still feel that wonderful lightness of being free of the Simurgh. It kept a smile on my face as I stepped out into the street and began following the flow of the crowd. I had the feeling that things were going to catch up to me at some point. A change of this magnitude was going to be difficult to really process, and when things did hit me, I was anticipating them hitting hard. For the moment the exhilaration of being actually free of the worst threat to human progress combined with the wonder of seeing a new world with my own eyes was enough to carry me aloft, at least for the moment.

Having a bit more time to process things in relation to the information I had gained from Scientist: Machinery I was struck with a revelation. This world wasn’t the one that power had come from. More specifically, it wasn’t exactly that world. That was a world where I, or a version of me, or possibly some person who was somehow entangled in the Celestial Forge, had completed a doctorate.

I was not that person. In fact, I was sure that person wasn’t here. There was a sense of distance that remained from the power. It was close, but this wasn’t the exact same world. It was like if someone had a power tied to Earth Bet but ended up on Earth Aleph instead. Well, maybe not quite that different, but there was a divergence of details nonetheless. My power had taken me into the multiverse cluster of the source of my power, but not directly into the shoes of whoever I or he or whatever the source of that knowledge had been.

There were concerning implications to that and I filed them away with the rest of my concerns. I could defer my existential crisis and mental breakdown until such time as I was secure enough to be able to properly collapse without undue risk. Right now, I needed to learn as much as I could about this city and this world without arousing suspicion.

Arousing suspicion didn’t seem like it would be an issue. In truth, I probably fit in better in the maskless version of my cape costume than I would have in my civilian clothing. Even the metal plates decorating my coat were barely noteworthy compared to the adornments seen on some of the outfits. I wasn’t earning a second glance from anyone, which was understandable in a city that included cyborgs, robots, and people with drastically warped anatomies.

That was a point that was harder for me to deal with than I expected. Seeing people with lobster claws or multiple heads or mismatched body parts that had been stitched together struck closer to my original trigger than I was comfortable with. I tried to restrain my reactions, but it wasn’t easy when the potential of what I could have become was on such clear display.

At least I was moderating my reactions. There were some people who clearly looked down on anyone with a significant deviation from a human form. As I walked past a couple of taverns that had “No Constructs” signs posted. Given the fact that their clientele all had conventionally human forms, I was guessing that was this world's shorthand for the people with altered anatomy.

Honestly, that just presented an entirely new set of concerns. Namely that such a wide category was bundled under a single term. I thankfully didn’t have any expertise in the biological sciences, but even I could tell that there was probably a different procedure between the creation of someone with sparking bolts in their neck and stitched together pieces of what looked like three different bodies and someone with a fishbowl for a head. It wasn’t clear if they were people who had been turned into a new form or if they had been created from scratch.

Like I said, it was hitting a lot of buttons for me. Fortunately, it wasn’t like being uncomfortable around ‘constructs’ was at all unusual, even if I was probably approaching it from a different direction from most people. I did my best to keep my mind off things as I worked my way through the city, keeping an eye out for an isolated door where I could test my key.

Isolated was hard to come by in the city. In Beetleburg. The name was posted often enough and incorporated into the names of various businesses. It definitely explained the scarab iconography that could be found just about everywhere, along with the various posters and placards praising the city’s ‘Tyrant’, one Doctor Tarsus Beetle. I did remember something about how the term tyrant just meant an absolute leader, not necessarily a cruel one. The fact that the term was being used affectionately suggested it was more of a legal descriptor than a moral judgment. That, along with the fact that his title of ‘Doctor’ was emphasized as much as his leadership role suggested things might not be as extreme as they seemed.

And then I found the jars.

If you ever wanted clear evidence that you were dealing with a different time with vastly different moral standards, just look at their methods of punishment. The giant bell jars were the kind of thing that might have been used in place of gibbets if they had sufficient glass working skill at the time horrible methods of execution were in vogue. Seeing the decaying bodies of criminals sealed behind glass and placed on public display was the kind of thing that definitely put a damper on my excitement for this new world. Sure, there was no Simurgh, but apparently slow horrible torture was an accepted practice.

I swallowed and quickly moved back into the flow of pedestrians, most of which weren’t giving the jars a second look. They weren’t avoiding them out of distaste, they just seemed to find the scene completely mundane. I hurried past a couple of men in navy uniforms with beetle badges on their side caps who seemed to be amused by my shocked reaction. Amused, but not suspicious, at least as far as I could tell. I’m guessing that in their eyes the jars had caused the exact effect they were intended to.

My power just barely missed a connection to a constellation I hadn’t identified yet as I hurried down the street away from the city center. It made sense that following the flow of foot traffic would bring me here, but at the moment I needed to be more prudent in how I used my time. I needed information on the city, the world, and the state of my workshop. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like they were just handing out basic information to anyone who asked.

Actually…

“Of course, there are many places where you can learn more about the life and history of the glorious and illustrious leader of our city.” The woman said cheerfully.

It had been something of a shot in the dark, finding someone in a civic uniform and asking them about avenues of information. I had been betting that anyone who posed for posters like the ones I had seen around the town was going to have more advanced layers of borderline-propaganda in place. I fully expected any information I got through this method to be heavily biased, but considering my starting point was what I had seen while wandering through the city, the vague context of my last power, and the various scraps of gossip I had overheard in the city, though that was mostly about recent crop yields, the recent spike in honey prices, or frustration with various types of tradesmen. Just the typical background noise of any major city.

“Of course, you must find the time to visit Transylvania Polygnostic University. The next public exhibition is in three weeks, and I believe they’ve fully addressed that unpleasantness with the undergraduate students from last time.” The uniformed woman said with a smile. “There are also tours available for prospective students, but those must be arranged with the university directly. I would warn against approaching the campus without authorization.”

“Right, the ‘clanks’?” I asked. I’d both seen and heard the term and hoped my pronunciation was natural enough.

She smiled widely. “Indeed. The finest self-contained fighting machines on the planet and a point of personal pride of Doctor Beetle himself.” She beamed. I remembered the gun handed automaton with its academic robes. It was easy to imagine the source of the inspiration for that design.

“The Beetleburg Central Library does contain an extensive collection of Dr. Beetle’s writings and personal works, and of course his more accessible volumes can be found in any reputable bookseller.” She looked over me, specifically the still quite damaged coat. “Though perhaps your best option might be the Beetleburg Museum. They allow complimentary admission to the minor exhibits on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.” A series of chimes began ringing out over the city, slowly counting to twelve. “They also have a quite lovely gift shop.” She added, though not with any serious degree of enthusiasm.

Well, at least my run-down appearance had the benefit of directing people towards the absolutely cheapest option.

“Thank you. I would enjoy a chance to visit the museum. Um…” Tapered off.

“Directions?” She offered.

“Please.” I replied.

“No problem at all. Now, you take Slate Avenue for three and a quarter blocks, then climb the alternate stairs to the footbridge. After that…”

She rattled on for some time, leaving me mostly nodding and doing my best to commit the information to memory. I was probably lucky that Scientist: Machinery also served to boost my ‘intelligence’. That was something of a complex concept in terms of what was affected and to what degree, but it at least helped with my recall and spatial reasoning skills. I was able to keep the entire sequence in my head without needing to ask for clarification on more than a few points.

Which just left me to actually navigate the city properly, rather than just following the flow of foot traffic and hoping for the best. Looking at things again, what had seemed mostly random in terms of the street layout and arrangement of alleys and bypasses was actually complexity on top of complexity. There was a staggering amount of civic planning that had gone into this place. I suppose when you had an absolute ruler that kind of thing was easy to push forward.

Of course, that was mainly contingent on the ruler being both competent and at least not actively malicious. Judging by the general attitude towards Doctor Beetle, he seemed to at least be regarded as such. Still, those jars lingered in my mind. It was possible they said more about the state of the world than the man running this city, but I was kind of hoping that he was an outlier.

From what I saw at the museum, that was definitely not the case. The museum was an impressive building, though the ‘minor exhibits’ seemed to refer more to their target audience than the nature of what was on display. It was basically a collection of simple exhibits in the outer portion of the building intended for children and the barely literate. Personally, I was a bit concerned if I had given that poor of an impression to a member of the city’s civic staff.

The sad thing was, this was basically exactly what I needed. I had zero context for this world, so what was effectively a pop-up level explanation of the major elements was pretty much perfect. At least it would have been if it wasn’t so concerning.

I was extrapolating a lot from what limited information was on offer, but simply put, this world was fucked. It might not have had Endbringers, but by all accounts, it didn’t really need them. Even the simplified accounts of the city’s history were heavily focused on wars with other powers and the defense of the city.

From what I could tell, most of Europe was wasteland between various centers of power and other strongholds. I’m pretty sure the references to monsters in the wastes weren’t exaggerations. The power balance reminded me of the warlord factions that had developed in Africa and were beginning to emerge in other areas of Earth Bet. Mostly because those centers of power seemed to be focused on ‘Sparks’.

It wasn’t exactly clear what sparks were since it was either assumed that everyone knew, or was presented in such a childish manner that it was hard to draw any precise conclusions. From what I could tell, sparks were geniuses who build improbably advanced technology. There was a reference to a spark ‘breaking through’ in one of the accounts, which seemed to be the point where they unlocked their abilities. At this point things were sounding frighteningly familiar.

They were tinkers. I was in a world where everything was run by tinkers. Tinkers that had apparently existed for dozens, maybe hundreds of times longer than parahumans had on Earth Bet. What’s more, it seemed like it was only tinkers. There were plenty of other fantastic elements to this world, but they all circled back to tinkers. The result of some experiment or technology, not something emerging independently from something similar to a ‘breakthrough’.

At least, I didn’t see any. To be fair, I was observing grade-school level history displays that were flanked engravings of cartoon beetles explaining interesting facts. Not exactly a comprehensive guide to the history of the world.

Still, even if the information was incomplete and definitely overly slanted towards the aggrandizement of Beetleburg, it was probably broadly accurate. Which meant I had a good idea of exactly how bad this world was.

It’s funny. People always complained and wondered why tinkers didn’t just get together and solve all the world’s problems. As if taking unstable people with technology that can’t be understood or replicated and putting them in the same room was going to lead to anything but disaster. The problem was they probably thought of ‘tinker’ in terms of Dragon, Hero, or even Armsmaster, not String Theory, Lab Rat, Blasto, or Bonesaw. That was definitely the trend I was seeing here. If anything, the giant jars of horror were on the merciful side of what could happen if someone got on the wrong side of a spark.

Yeah, this was all cutting way too close to the bone for me. My original trigger would have basically had me fitting in perfectly with the most brutal sparks of Europa, and that was before I got to the accounts of The Other War.

About two decades ago a mysterious opponent had basically brought the continent to its knees. Most of the accounts were focused on Dr. Beetle’s valiant defense of the city during the conflict, but there was still enough information to be thoroughly frightening.

Funny, the motto of Transylvania Polygnostic University was “Know Enough to Be Afraid”. It seemed that principle was applied liberally in all areas of the city.

What hit me particularly hard was the way the Other had fought. Rather than the mechanical works that seemed to be typical of most sparks, their work had been entirely biological. Engineered, self-replicating organisms, functioning both as warriors and infiltrators. The infiltrators were the most frightening aspect. Tiny wasps capable of infecting a person and turning them into a shambling revenant in service to the other. Biological engineering and mind control. It lined up a little too well with my original trigger for comfort.

I hadn’t realized the strength of my reactions to what I was seeing until I had started attracting attention from the museum staff. I felt like an idiot for basically freaking out in front of a juvenile account of a historic event, but to my surprise I was met with nothing but sympathy.

“Sir? Are you doing alright?” A member of the museum’s staff asked cautiously. The man was in an elaborate uniform and probably in his late forties. He sported an enormous handlebar mustache that might have been comical if not for the serious expression on his face.

“Um, yeah. I’m fine.” It was clear he didn’t believe me. I was getting the kind of look that you give someone when you’re wondering if they’re about to bolt or do something stupid. Or dangerous. I took a deep breath and tried to remember the mindfulness principles that I had gone over so many times in therapy. I wasn’t sure they really helped, but the fact that I was making an effort to control myself seemed to go a long way with the man.

“This isn’t an easy subject for anyone.” He assured me before glancing at the display. “People want to think it’s all in the past, particularly in a safe place like Beetleburg. I’m guessing you’ve been through the wastes?” He asked.

I hadn’t and the assumption that I was somehow personally impacted by the Other or the remains of their work was totally off base. Still, I didn’t have a better explanation for why I had started freaking out in public. I gave the man a nod, which he returned.

“Come on, let’s get you a cup of tea from the museum café.” He said, gently guiding me away.

That’s how I found myself sitting at a sunlit table with a complimentary cup of tea and even a small plate with a few biscuits. I didn’t know what it was about me that made me come off as a charity case, or about the city that made them inclined towards indulging me, but I wasn’t complaining.

Sitting in the sun, I was able to feel out the connection to my passenger. The reassurance was there, but the link wasn’t as strong as it had been before. If I didn’t look for it, it was easy to miss. The constant flow of support and reassurance that would normally have kept me from becoming caught up in the details of my trigger had been drowned out by the shock at the nature of what I was dealing with in this world and the entire mess it represented.

Well, it might be a mess, but still, there was no Simurgh. It really said something about what an all-imposing presence she had been that even when faced with a world full of insane tinkers, each with the resources of a nation and the ethics of a seagull, it still seemed like a step up. It was a horrible world in a horrible state, but there was one crucial difference. One thing that set it apart from Earth Bet.

The people here had hope.

They carried themselves through difficulty and pressed on. It wasn’t to say there wasn’t darkness or despair, it’s just that they didn’t have an overarching force working to snuff out those lights. The various references to the ‘Heterodyne Boys’ were more uplifting than what you saw from even the most optimistic Protectorate propaganda. It stood in rather sharp contrast to some of the earlier accounts of the city’s history with respect to the ‘Heterodynes’, but that just made the impact they had all the more impressive.

Clearly, this wasn’t just some vacation where I could relax and build up my power until I was ready to go home. There were serious problems in this world that would need to be addressed on at least some level if I was even going to survive here, much less make a difference.

It had been downplayed in the exhibits, but it was clear the political situation as incredibly volatile. Currently there was some overarching rule that had been put in place following the Other War, but that had the sense of begrudging acceptance at best. At worst it probably ranged from open rebellion to covert subversion of the Baron’s authority. Personally, I had no idea what to make of the governing body itself. Too little information and basically no context.

Then there were the various threats that would need to be contended with. Both the sparks themselves and the impact they’d had on the world over possibly hundreds of years. Maybe even thousands. It was insane to think of a society of parahumans surviving for that length of time, but looking at the state of the world it became clear that there were various levels of what could be considered survival.

You just needed to look at the actual state of the world. I’d only seen a simplified map, but the impact was clear. The British Isles were basically gone, there were significant discrepancies to the coastlines of most of Europe, America was basically completely unknown, and anything too far into Africa or Asia wasn’t much better. Technology had not only failed to save the world, it seemed to have been wracking up a significant deficit in the process.

I downed the last of my tea as I felt another connection form, this time to a new constellation. The constellation was called Resources and Durability and the new power dwarfed all the ones I had acquired thus far. It was twice the size of Fashion or Evermore Alchemist and four times the size of my other powers. That massive power, the first ability that truly felt like a proper ability was simply called Efficiency. And that’s what it did.

The second I acquired the power I could feel its effects. Perfect efficiency in every action. It extended to every possible level, every aspect of my life. I would never use more energy, material, or flourish than I needed to. It didn’t matter if I was building an engine or fighting for my life. The effect worked just as well on my crafting as it did on my own movements.

It was incredible. Just taking a breath felt different. No waste at all. No loss or unnecessary aspects to any part of my motions. No lost energy or irrelevant aspects to the act. This was going to massively speed up and improve all of my work, but that might be the least significant part of the power. Perfect efficiency of movement, perfect use of stamina, avoidance of any unnecessary flourish beyond what was needed for my goal.

Just thinking about it in terms of my incredibly basic boxing abilities, they were suddenly amplified tremendously. How much of training was devoted to refinement of movements? Removing unnecessary practices or bad form? Sure, I wasn’t an expert boxer, but what I knew was instantly trained to a level of perfect efficiency, and would always be.

I stood up with an unnaturally smooth movement. Every shift of my body seemed perfectly aligned. I was a bit concerned about how unnatural it might come across, but instead of concern or suspicion I just got a kind look from the woman running the café.

“Tea seems to have done you some good.” She said with a smile.

“Yes, thank you.” I replied. “I’m feeling much better.”

That was an understatement. I was practically floating as I walked down the street. I still had a considerable challenge ahead of me, but I had already gotten an incredible tool to help me deal with it. If this was the standard of what my higher-level powers were going to be like then I was feeling a lot more optimistic about my chances, even when weighed against a continent full of mad super-tinkers.

But I still needed to secure some basic resources. Food, money, and a place to stay. Or at least access to a door that would hopefully lead to my workshop. Really, how was I going to survive in a city that relied heavily on mechanical constructs with only a supernatural understanding or design, engines, mechanics, and the ability to carry them all out with perfect efficiency?

Yeah, I would probably be fine. At least for long enough for me to build up a decent base of power. I had done pretty well in the last couple of days, but it wasn’t like I was going to amass enough power to conquer the continent in the space of a week or two.

The sound of an engine backfiring drew my attention and I looked over my shoulder to find a rather overbuilt motorized cart belching smoke while an old woman with her gray hair in a bun beat the engine casing with a walking stick. The back of the cart was loaded with produce crates that were starting to blacken with soot from the engine. Through the combination of my abilities, I could tell this wasn’t good. Not the ‘need to replace the engine’ kind of not-good, the ‘the entire thing was going to go up in flames’ kind of not-good.

“Madam?” I called out, vaulting smoothly over a vegetable stand to reach the smoking vehicle. “Do you need some help?”

Effectively, it was a way to pay back the good will that had been extended to me in this city, and also stop an impending oil fire in the middle of the street.

The woman huffed. “If you’re offering, I won’t say no. Not after that mechanic brushed off a perfectly normal maintenance service.” She tutted. “I’m Frau Gruber and I would appreciate your assistance.”

“Józef Ďuriš, pleasure to meet you.” I said as I approached the vehicle. In the new Germanic language my name had a pronunciation I’d only remember hearing from older relatives. Still, it seemed familiar enough for the woman’s satisfaction.

I doubted it had been a perfectly normal maintenance service that the woman had been referring to. Possibly a decommissioning or salvage operation. The automated cart was an incredible combination of elegant design and immeasurable decay. I’d say there had to be decades of wear and rust, and that was just at the surface level. I could only imagine what I was going to find when I looked at the engine.

I found the access panned and pulled it open, causing an immense plume of smoke to billow into my face. The casing was so hot that without the reinforcement of my Fashion power I would probably have burned my hand on contact.

As it stood, exposing the engine to oxygen was probably the last thing it needed. I could see parts start to glow and flicker and quickly launched into an effort to beat out any budding flames. Once again, without both durability and perfect efficiency it would have been an invitation to lose fingers to either severe burns or crushing them inside the active motor. Luckily for me, one of those fingers was a Black Thumb.

That specific power seemed to have been built for situations like this. Repairing a massively decayed engine while it was still running and belching smoke just felt right. Sure, the engine was just barely salvageable, but I was working with both perfect efficiency and a graduate knowledge of mechanics.

In the midst of smoke, flame, rust, oil, and wear I found a kind of Zen state. Fingers with the durability of steel handled with perfect efficiency could manipulate machine parts as well as a wrench, and that same efficiency allowed the shifting of parts that would normally be at the very limit of what a human could budge.

Honestly, I was half done before I realized it might be a bit easier if I actually shut off the engine. I mean, it wasn’t an obstacle thanks to my Black thumb power, but to allow the repairs to hold I needed to get a bit creative. Efficient use of the parts and materials, a few acts of creative repurposing of ‘spare’ components, and a few more cheats to make up for the places where those spares had been removed from.

By the time I was done I had attracted a bit of a crowd. It seemed a man frantically working on a burning engine counted as street entertainment. I imagine once it became clear that I wasn’t going to injure myself there was a bit of amusement to be had seeing how far I could get with nothing by Frau Gruber’s equivalent of a roadside service kit.

When the engine finally turned over there was actually some earnest applause from the half dozen or so spectators that had gathered. I also became acutely aware of the amount of grease and soot I had acquired during the repair process. A man seemed to consider offering me his handkerchief, but then decided against it.

“Fantastic.” Frau Gruber exclaimed. “I told them there was nothing that a bit of work wouldn’t take care of. Can you believe they told me I should have this scrapped? After it’s been in my family for four generations?”

I could very much believe that, but decided it was probably best not to say as much. “Really?” I asked.

“Indeed. No initiative in the younger generations. Always folding at the first little trouble.” Like a nearly exploding engine, I thought. “Yourself excluded, of course.”

I nodded. “Well, I’m glad I could help.” I noticed flakes of soot falling from my hair every time I moved. I could only imagine how bad things were in general.

She tutted again. “Dear me. We can’t have you walking around in that state.” She shifted a leaver and the engine spun up smoothly, earning a lovely smile from the old woman. “Come along, at least all me to get you cleaned up and a hot meal for your trouble.”

I had to wonder what the actual value of that kind of maintenance work would be, but then again, I had been leaning into Black Thumb modifications to manage the repairs. I doubted what I did was exactly up to code or convention or environmental regulations or really any measure of good sense.

“Thank you.” I said, climbing up next to the woman.

Frau Gruber tested the controls one more time, then fully engaged the throttle. The overloaded cart launched itself with all the speed its rebuilt engine could manage. The crates slammed backwards, as did I. Without Efficiency I doubted I’d have been able to stay in my seat. Without effective invincibility I would have been seriously concerned about my ability to survive the woman’s driving.

“Would you look at that.” She cried in affection as she took a corner at a speed that put us on two wheels. “I haven’t been able to get it to move like that since I was a girl. I told them it just needed a quick overhaul to be right as rain.”

“Uh-hu.” I said as I gripped my seat while the engine roared and reinforced wheels sparked against cobblestones.

“You know, we should go see that mechanic and tell him what for.” She said, taking a sudden corner. “The nerve, really. Why, this is practically a national treasure, and he said it should be scrapped.”

“He did?” I asked.

“Well, his wife did. He just gave me one of those looks, but you can always tell what they mean.” She continued.

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

“The man doesn’t speak. Of course, his wife never stops, so it balances out. But once he sees what you were able to accomplish here I bet even he’ll be ready to sing of your praises. Metaphorically, of course.” She chattered as she worked the levers that launched us at speeds that would have been unacceptably dangerous even in a car with modern safety features.

So, my reward for helping this woman was a death race through the city followed by having to present and explain the abomination against mechanics I had performed on this engine, along with the implications of having apparently armed an unstable woman with the equivalent of a deadly weapon.

Oh, and I would get a hot meal, and a chance to wash up. Yeah, that totally balanced things out.

The cart skidded to a stop in a manner that made me very grateful that I had personally rebuilt the braking system to the point of complete confidence.

“This is it.” She said proudly as I felt the Forge miss a connection to another unknown constellation.

Looking up I saw a well appointed garage and machine shop, built in the same plaster and wood design as the rest of the city. There were a set of wide doors for larger equipment and vehicles as well as a customer entrance to the left. Above the doors was a painted sign proclaiming the name of the shop.

“Clay Mechanical”

And through the diminished connection to my passenger, I could feel just a hint of excitement.

Previous Jumpchain Abilities:

Workshop (Personal Reality) 100:

Each purchase of this adds to your Personal Reality Workshop needed to perform specific type of craft, which is to be specified when purchase is made. It comes with a basic set of tools and supplies. Good for fixing or creating all sorts of things, although any complex parts or nonstandard supplies will have to be brought in from outside. Additional purchases can add different types of Workshops to your Personal Reality or expand existing ones. Anything built in one of those workshops is fiat backed to be restored to its original condition within 48 hours if damaged or destroyed.

Access Key (Personal Reality) Free:

This is a special key which lets you access your Personal Reality and its contents.

When inserted into any lock on any door, the door opens to reveal a gateway into your Reality at a predetermined location within it. You are the only person who can take the key from the lock, the gateway remains open as long as the key is in the lock, and if key is ever lost or stolen you will find it in your pocket a few minutes later. You cannot close the door as long as you are inside the Personal Reality.

Entrance Hall (Personal Reality) Free:

This is the room your Access Key opens a door to. It starts off as a 5 meter cube with blank white walls, floor, and ceiling, as some doors, one leading to the current Host Reality, the other into your Cosmic Warehouse, with additional doors leading to other extensions as these get added to your Personal Reality. Feel free to customize this Entrance Hall as you see fit. Additional Halls can, at your discretion, be linked only to certain keys or only to certain extensions. This allows you to have an entry hall just for skiing if you want.

Fashion (Highschool of the Dead) 200:

Your clothing and entire body acquire defensive properties equal to the most superior protective items you have currently equipped. Emphasis on protective item- an iron or steel ring won’t give you metal-tough skin- the minimum is things like knee pads from extreme sports, helmets- even an apron would count, though all that’d do is protect you from the dangers of a kitchen...

Bling of War (Macross) 100:

It's one thing to have a weapon or vehicle of mass destruction, capable of rending an entire ground force or a squadron to shame. It's another to make it look so damn good your enemies would not dare get near it if they had a lick of sense. By purchasing this perk, you can design your equipment to look much more stylish and carry a 'theme' you prefer. This can range from the clothes you wear, to the weapons you wield, to even the vehicles you pilot into battle. It's all about style.

Alchemist (Secret of Evermore) 200:

Considered a lost art, the science of Alchemy has reawakened in Evermore, and you've been trained in its use. By combining ordinary ingredients together using an alchemical formula, you can transform them into effects that can only be described as magic. You know both Light Alchemy, the art of healing or protection, and Dark Alchemy, the art of attacking. While it's theoretically possible to learn Alchemy at a later point in Evermore, this will let you skip the training and get straight to the mixing and casting, and will make you significantly better at it to boot.

Black Thumb (Mad Max Gauntlet) 100:

You have the skills of an expert mechanic, able to keep vehicles running even in the most inhospitable conditions. Repairing and tuning up engines is your bread and butter, even while they’re still operating. You also have a feel for how to upgrade cars in more esoteric ways; hey, it takes skill to add that many spikes and not hurt the handling!

Scientist: Machinery (Girl Genius) 100:

You have a DOCTORATE! And skill in ACTUAL SCIENCE! That doesn’t need you to go crazy to work! Admittedly, it won’t break the fabric of space and time, but meh. Tradeoffs everywhere you go. You’re highly trained in one field, and can easily apply its principles to your work. After all, building a crazed abomination upon the natural order usually requires at least a smidgen of understanding of which bones are supposed to go where (Even if you end up changing them around a little). At the very least, you’re also in the genius range of standard intelligence.

Jumpchain abilities this chapter:

Efficiency (Lego: Ninjango) 400:

Waste not, want not! Not with this, anyway – whether building machines or making quick moves in combat, you'll never unintentionally use more energy, materials, or flourish than you need to.

Chapter Text

Europa’s Celestial Forge 2 Introductions

Frau Gruber drove the cart directly into the open doors of the machine shop without a hint of reluctance or propriety.

“Adam!” She yelled over the sound of the engine. “Adam Clay! You get out here young man! I have words for you about what counts as an ‘unrecoverable wreck of an engine’ in this city.”

 With the pull of a lever the engine cut out, leaving the two of us sitting in silence in the middle of a rather well-appointed machine shop. Like so many things in this world, it boasted a combination of archaic and overly advanced technology. Most of the equipment looked straight out of the age of steam. Large works of cast iron and brass, generally bolted and riveted together. But there were pieces of outlier technology sprinkled across the workshop. Electric generators, pressurized cylinders, chemicals, and calibration devices. Things that would have required industrial manufacturing techniques at least a half century ahead of the aesthetic of the rest of the workshop.

But it was all mixed together. Not quite seamlessly, but there was no impression that the more advanced elements were disconnected from the rest of the workshop. This was a place with a core of rustic technology that was either supported or supplemented by advanced developments, rather than being supplanted by them.

The way older and ‘newer’ principles worked together was actually fascinating. Likely it was the result of the work of Sparks and the state of Europe as a whole. The more general technology was robust and easier to maintain without precise components. If you couldn’t rely on trade or supply routes staying open and if the production of certain devices was dependent on a specific Spark, then it was easy to see why society hadn’t universally advanced, despite the higher level of technical understanding that seemed to be on display.

I was dragged out of my musing by Frau Gruber banging her cane on the side of the cart’s engine casing. The sound was thunderous in the enclosed space. In terms of methods of announcing your arrival it seemed overly aggressive, but also completely in line with the total lack of concern that the woman had demonstrated towards most matters.

As the clanging faded away it was replaced by the sound of creaking wood and quickly approaching stomping feet. One of the machine shop's side doors was pushed open revealing a giant of a man whose frame nearly filled the entire doorway. He had a chinstrap beard and wore a toolbelt over a simple blue shirt and brown trousers. As he entered the machine shop he adjusted the heavy work gloves on his hands, which were just as oversized as the rest of his body.

“Adam! There you are. Took you long enough.” Frau Gruber said as she climbed down from the driver’s seat. “I need to have words with you and that wife of yours.”

He raised an eyebrow at Frau Gruber, then looked at the cart with a degree of skepticism. I gave an awkward wave from my place in the passenger seat, suddenly very aware of the amount of grease and soot I had accumulated during my roadside service work.

“I’d like to know why this young man was able to accomplish what you said would be impossible with just a quick bit of engine work.” She said with a huff. “Which I told you was all it needed.”

I was definitely not enjoying being placed in the middle of this discussion, but I had the sense that the mechanic at least picked up on that. He gave me what might have been a sympathetic look before turning back to Frau Gruber and crossing his arms.

“Don’t you take that tone with me young man.” She said as she bustled towards the mechanic’s towering figure, completely undaunted by someone three times her height and probably ten times heavier than her.

“Adam?” A woman’s voice called from outside the workshop. “Was that Frau Gruber’s cart?”

“Indeed it was, young lady.” Frau Gruber called back, raising her cane towards the door. “And I’ve got words for you as well.”

I heard a heavy sigh from the side hall before a smaller figure reluctantly emerged into the machine shop. Smaller, but still solidly built. The woman had red hair tied in a braid and was wearing a long skirt with an embroidered hem with a similarly designed top over her white shirt. She had a locket with a trilobite design, something I’d seen associated with the Heterodyne Boys back at the museum, and was squinting through her glasses at the scene that greeted her.

To be fair, I probably would have reacted the same to seeing someone Frau Gruber’s size admonishing the towering and apparently silent mechanic.

“What’s going on here?” She asked, falling in at her husband’s side.

“What’s going on is that things were clearly not nearly as dire as you tried to make them seem.” The old woman said confidently. “Honestly, Lilith, to think you didn’t even want me driving it out of here.”

“You shouldn’t have.” She insisted, quickly glancing over to the cart and specifically my own rather disheveled state. “It wasn’t safe. Adam made that clear. I don’t know who you roped into this mess or what he told you…”

“This young man was an absolute gentleman. Perfectly willing to help a woman in need, and with the good sense to see things weren’t nearly as unsalvageable as you tried to make them seem.” She said confidently. Attention shifted towards me and I awkwardly cleared my throat.

“Good afternoon.” I said as I climbed down from the cart. My new Efficiency power made the motion exceptionally smooth and easy, and also let me notice a quick look shared between the mechanic and his wife. “Mr. Clay? Mrs. Clay? My name is Józef Ďuriš. Frau Gruber was having some engine trouble so I offered my assistance.”

“Some engine trouble.” Mrs. Clay said, giving me a critical look. My attempt to downplay the situation probably would have held more weight if I hadn’t been throwing off flecks of ash with every movement.

“And you said it would never run again.” Frau Gruber said.

“I said it should never be run again.” She corrected. “Adam was ready to alert the fire service when you decided to barrel out of here.”

“You think I can abandon my deliveries just because of a little mechanical hiccup? I swear, the new generations have no sense of diligence whatsoever.” Frau Gruber said with a huff.

From the look on both of their faces, I was willing to bet this was a somewhat well-worn topic for the three of them.

“And I’ll have you know it was nothing a little work couldn’t address. Why, it was running better than I’ve seen it in years.” She said proudly. Mrs. Clay shared a concerned look with her husband before turning back to the older woman.

“Maybe Adam should take a look.” She said.

“Be my guest.” Frau Gruber said, gesturing with her cane. “Anything to asway your doomsaying and ill portents.”

I fell back as the towering man approached the cart. He made a circuit of the vehicle, his eyes darting across the wheels, axels, and every visible component that I had either modified or worked around. Finally he made his way to the far side and opened the panel for the engine casing. He lifted the panel high enough to hide even his full frame. The smell of grease and smoke bloomed into the workshop, which was muted as he immediately closed the engine casing. In that fraction of a second his face had shifted from idle curiosity to a type of distant horror as he looked across the room with unfocused eyes.

“Adam?” His wife asked. He shook his head and refocused on her, making a series of complex gestures. “It can’t possibly be that bad.” She insisted, making her way to his side. He stepped back and gestured to the engine. Tentatively she reached down and lifted the panel. “What could possibly be- Red fire and Rot!” She exclaimed, slamming the panel back down and backing away.

I was suddenly feeling very uncomfortable with the amount of attention focused on me. I cleared my throat and made a conciliatory gesture. “Um, I had to use some… unconventional methods in my maintenance.” I was just met with flat expressions from both of them. “But I assure you, it’s perfectly safe.”

Well, for a given value of safe, and particularly if you were comparing it to the earlier state of the vehicle. Mr. Clay raised an eyebrow, then lifted the engine panel without breaking eye contact with me. Without looking, he pointed sharply towards the engine in a gesture that seemed to demand an explanation.

Slowly I made my way around the vehicle to see what he was pointing at. “Ah.” I said. “I know that looks bad.” I added. From Mr. Clay’s expression, it was clear it more than looked bad. “But it was necessary to balance forces between the secondary and primary assemblies.” I insisted.

Once again, without breaking eye contact, he reached down and plucked the modified leaf spring with a massive finger. The band of steel began to hum, with the tension through the engine causing the sound to grow and shift tones rather than diminish. The entire engine began to rattle, with components shifting erratically.

I could see what was going to happen long before it reached a critical point and leaned back as the spring ripped itself free and launched out of the engine. The band of metal shot past me, recoiling off the ceiling before landing with a clatter in a pile of disused parts. The mechanic looked at me with an admonishing expression as the portions of the engine the spring had been holding in alignment collapsed into each other.

“Are you over there ruining this lad’s good work?” Frau Gruber demanded.

“I don’t know what you would call this kind of work, but there’s nothing good about this.”

“Oh, posh. You’re just sour because he was able to fix the cart after your husband was ready to write it off.” She shot back.

“It’s not fixed. It’s something else.” She said with a sigh before turning to Mr. Clay. “I’ll go talk to Frau Gruber. See if you can figure things out with Mr. Ďuriš.”

She hurried off towards the irate customer as I felt my power miss a connection to a large mote from the time constellation, one that had been bundled with the mote that brought me here, but one much larger than what my reach could currently secure.

Mrs. Clay spoke quietly with the elderly but excessively vital woman. There was the sense that she was placating a familiar but difficult customer. Eventually she was able to lead the woman out of the shop into the rest of the building, giving Mr. Clay one final encouraging look before she departed. The man nodded before turning back to me.

I cleared my throat under the weight of his gaze. Ever since my last growth spurt, it was unusual for me to run into people significantly taller than I was, but Mr. Clay absolutely towered over me. As I considered what to say there was the sound of creaking metal as another section of the engine shifted out of place.

“Um, I’m sorry about any trouble.” I said. “I was just trying to help.”

He raised an eyebrow and gestured towards the soot that had caked my hair, face, and clothing.

“Um, yeah. I was pretty sure it was about to catch on fire if someone didn’t do something. Or possibly explode” From his expression he could at least believe that statement. “Mainly, I just wanted to make sure it was safe, but Frau Gruber was a bit…”

I let that trail off, but from the looks of things he completely understood. Based on how undaunted she had been in the face of both Mr. Clay and his wife, I was guessing it was a fairly common experience.

“And I know it looks bad.” I said. There was definitely a sense of agreement with that statement. “But I did manage to fix it.”

The man raised an eyebrow, then gestured to the notch on the ceiling where the spring had impacted it.

“Well, it wouldn’t have resonated like that if the engine was running, or the casing was closed.” I said in my defense.

That earned me another raised eyebrow and some gestures that it took me a little while to parse out that he was asking about my knowledge base.

“Oh, I have a bit of a background in engines, and I studied mechanics when I was in university.” I explained.

Which was sort of true, at least if I was trying to explain away my powers as part of some personal history. Black Thumb definitely counted as a background in engines and I had actually studied mechanics in university. Of course, my actual university career didn’t hold a candle to the doctorate level knowledge I had received from the power that brought me here.

And considering that power was actually native to this world, it was seriously helpful in managing to look like I knew what I was doing. I could sort of recognize some of the equipment in the shop and Black Thumb did make me an expert mechanic, but the knowledge of Scientist: Machinery was completely specific to this world. Even if that hadn’t exactly happened, or hadn’t happened here, I could still recall everything involved in the years necessary to secure that doctorate. Context was absent for anything not related to the technical aspects of that education, but it was definitely enough for me to know my way around a locally built engine or the types of machine shops you found in this world.

The mechanic gave me an interested look and began gesturing. Once again, it took me a while to figure out what he was asking.

“Oh, no. Not Transylvania Polygnostic. And not even a full degree.” I admitted. “I’ve only just arrived in the city.” I explained. I could feel the man reevaluating me, specifically some of the damage to my coat and clothing that couldn’t be explained by high intensity roadside maintenance.

Mr. Clay shifted his attention back to the engine. At his insistence, I began explaining the logic behind my work and the reasoning for some of the more extreme modifications that I had put in place. The explanation occasionally drew looks of horror and admonishment, but I was at least able to explain my reasoning well enough to convince him that I hadn’t been completely reckless in my work.

It was actually kind of interesting, getting into a debate about engine maintenance with someone who couldn’t talk. Then again, the man could say a great deal with a slight change in expression and a single gesture. My Efficiency power might have helped me follow along, but it was clear that Mr. Clay had become very adept at conveying complex ideas through minimal gestures.

“…and that was how I tied in the brakes.” I finished, showing off the partially rebuilt interlinks. “And, based on how Frau Gruber drives, I was very grateful I did.”

Mr. Clay signaled complete agreement, apparently also being familiar with the woman’s driving habits. Of course, if you knew what to look for, you could see that in the vehicle itself. For a large cargo transport, it had clearly been pushed to its absolute limit with frightening regularity.

“It seemed like this cart was very important to her. To Frau Gruber.” I said, looking over at Mr. Clay. He nodded a bit sadly. He shifted one of the engine parts and I could see the layers of maintenance and refurbishments the vehicle had received over decades of work. I nodded. “I’m sorry all I could do was a patch job.”

He looked at me critically, then stepped back, gesturing towards the shop. Once again, it took me a moment to put things together.

“Um, yes? I mean, I could probably do a better job with proper tools and… parts?” He didn’t show any objection to the suggestion. “But are you sure?” I asked, looking down at the now partially collapsed engine. “I mean…”

He hadn’t exactly been thrilled about my earlier work, but it seemed he had at least accepted the principles behind my actions. Accepted them enough to be willing to let me make a proper go at fixing the cart.

And I’m sure that had nothing to do with the fact that we both knew Frau Gruber would never accept the idea that her precious heirloom vehicle needed to be scrapped. If this wasn’t dealt with now it was going to be a problem for him and potentially for me.

Of course, all I was really risking was the hot meal she had offered me. It seemed like it would have been a good idea to secure some kind of contract rate before embarking on major engine service, but I didn’t exactly have a lot of leverage in this situation, or really anything better to do with my time.

In fact, I could probably consider this something of an audition. I was trying to get a job in some mechanical field, at least for long enough to keep me on my feet while my powers built up. The Clays had what appeared to be a successful and established shop. Even if they weren’t hiring themselves, they likely knew enough people in the city that they could point me in the right direction.

I would also be doing Frau Gruber a favor, and I had a feeling she knew a lot of people in the city, and probably in a fairly aggressive manner. However this turned out, I’d expect a significant portion of the city would know the story by the time she finished her next round of deliveries.

“Alright.” I said, looking over the work to be done. “Could you help me with that winch?”

Actually, with his build, I would have given him decent odds of being able to lift the engine freehand, but yes, he was happy to help me with the winch. The rest of the work he largely left to me, which did create the impression that I was being evaluated in my work.

I wasn’t sure if he was seriously judging my skills as some kind of practical job interview or recommendation scheme or if it was just the fact that I was a stranger working in his place of business. He wasn’t being overt about it, but I could tell that my every move was being followed.

With nothing better to do, I filled the silence by explaining my methodology for getting the cart functional without resorting to desperate patchwork. Black Thumb was perfectly capable of ensuring that a burning engine kept operating functionally, but for proper maintenance it was better to draw upon my knowledge from Scientist: Machinery. My earlier powers didn’t really come into it, though the design aspects of Bling of War probably helped with some of the modifications that were needed.

Still, it was Efficiency that was definitely carrying the day. I was doing my best to downplay the effect, but it wasn’t easy when literally everything you did was conducted with zero wasted energy. It definitely turned the work into a more manageable project and was probably what allowed me to handle the rebuild on my own.

Even though I was taking the lead on the project, I still took the time to clear everything with Mr. Clay, particularly if I needed to use any of his equipment or some of the parts that were in stock. He seemed almost surprised when I stopped work to check with him or ask if he could spare a particular part. I’m guessing he was used to clients who were even more demanding than Frau Gruber if simply checking with him was enough to throw off the rhythm of the work.

Rather than just launch into the rebuild, I took the time to complete a partial disassembly and diagnostic, which did allow me to identify a few issues I had either missed or worked around with my previous maintenance. From that I was able to put together a plan for the repair, including a breakdown of parts and materials. Mr. Clay had a blackboard I was able to use, which was how I found out that Efficiency had significantly improved my penmanship and drafting skills. Apparently, no wasted motion also applied to things like drawing straight lines.

It was a more restrained approach than I had engaged in earlier, but I wasn’t working on my own anymore. This was the Clays’ place of business and it wouldn’t have been right to just launch into using their resources without a second thought. Once again, that seemed like a foreign concept, which didn’t bode particularly well for the kind of clients I’d be likely to find in this city.

“Well, that seems simple enough.” Frau Gruber said smugly as she looked at the plan I had outlined. I looked from her to the blackboard that was absolutely covered in diagrams and outlines, but it seemed the only part she was really paying attention to was the final estimates for time and materials. “Perfectly sensible. Really Adam, to think you made such a fuss over something so straightforward.”

I could see a flicker of irritation run through Mr. Clay, but he kept a perfectly neutral expression. As someone very familiar with ‘customer service face’ I completely understood his situation.

“And you’re sure you’ll be able to finish today?” Mrs. Clay asked. “Herr Ketter will be bringing in his tractor first thing tomorrow morning. We’ll need the space cleared before then.”

Mr. Clay nodded and indicated his approval of my estimates. His wife looked at the board, glanced between me and her husband.

“If you’re sure. And you’re sure there’s nothing else to worry about?” She asked pointedly. I wasn’t sure what she was implying, but I had the feeling it had more to do with my presence than the ongoing headache that was this particular vehicle.

I did my best to seem earnest and harmless while Mr. Clay signaled his assurance. That seemed to be enough for his wife and she retreated with Frau Gruber to let us work.

Well, let me work. Mr. Clay was still mostly letting me take the lead as he sat back and watched me work. I was very glad that I had cleared the materials and equipment with him first, otherwise the situation would have been interminably awkward.

It was still a little uncomfortable. This had started as an act of goodwill and had turned into what seemed like a cross between an employment evaluation and a trial. It didn’t help that I knew my Efficiency power was running away from me as I worked. I had been doing my best not to move in an excessively smooth and efficient manner, but knew I had been failing more often than not. When it came to more complicated tasks, there were just too many affected elements for me to hope to conceal the effect. I could only hope it didn’t raise too much concern as I worked without a hint of waste in either materials, effort, or pace.

I also had to cover for the arrival of another power, all while under the watchful eye of Mr. Clay. It was probably only noteworthy because I paused work to deal with the information that had been dumped into my head.

It was a new constellation called Crafting. The power was called Bandit Gunsmith. Not specifically a weapon creation power, but one with strong affiliations. To start with, it granted me incredible technical insight, even beyond what I was capable of from Black Thumb and Scientist: Machinery. Or maybe it was better to say it worked to supplement those abilities, giving me insight into technology that was supported by the practical and theoretical skills from my other powers.

But that was the surface level effect. The meat of the ability came from how it allowed me to rebuild or upgrade equipment, particularly personal equipment. The end products would look fairly crude, but I could use fifteen pistols to make a working automatic shotgun, or take pieces of five broken items to build a functional version of the same.

It wasn’t particularly helpful unless you happened to have an ample supply of scrapped materials to work with. If I had been trying to rebuild this cart on my own, I might have been able to address some of the issues with the help of that power, but thankfully the presence of a proper machine shop with a stock of parts and materials meant I didn’t need to resort to my desperate rebuild power to make it work.

For a minor power, it was about what I had come to expect. Not anything on the level of Efficiency, but something that provided a useful ability, even if it wasn’t universally applicable. Repair and rebuild skills sounded similar to what you heard about from Tinkers who were just starting out, so I imagined there would be some crossover with what was known about Sparks.

And with that the concern being directed at me suddenly made a lot more sense. I was working at a speed that probably bordered on unnaturally fast after having repaired a vehicle that was about ready to catch fire and explode. Back on Earth Bet I had been obsessively paranoid about concealing my tinker abilities, middling as they were, but the culture shock of arriving in this world had caused me to lose perspective.

Probably because what I’d been doing hadn’t seemed that unusual. The tinker tech equivalent of this world was everywhere, at least compared to Earth Bet. Back home being identified as a tinker, especially a tinker who was just starting out, was like putting a target on your back. Tinkers were both highly prized and extremely vulnerable, particularly when they were building up. Given that the Sparks of this world seemed to be firmly in the ruling class, I didn’t really consider what it would be like for Sparks outside that system.

My guess was they would be disruptive and dangerous, the same as any rogue tinker, and that people would keep a watchful eye for anyone displaying those kinds of tendencies before they ended up needing to deal with the local equivalents of Lab Rat or String Theory.

I was kind of embarrassed about how long it had taken me to realize what Mr. Clay had been watching for and what his now obvious concerns had been based on. I knew some tinkers could be unstable and dangerous. Boy did I know that. I imagined it was the same for Sparks. I didn’t know how they acted in a general sense, but seeing the accounts of the wider political situation, the kinds of things deployed by and against the Other, and even those jars in the middle of the city, it was safe to say some level of concern was warranted.

And should that concern be warranted, then Frau Gruber would be safely in another part of the building while the potential Spark was isolated in the machine shop with a man who looked like he could crush someone’s skull with a single hand.

Considering the state I had been in when I arrived, I really couldn’t blame them for their concern. I had at least managed to get most of the soot off of my face, though generally speaking I was still a mess. Less of a mess, and certainly a more stable mess than I had appeared, but still a mess.

I turned back to the work after my short break and realized I had lost track of Mr. Clay. For someone his size, he could actually move extremely quietly, which seemed like the setup for a bad joke about his condition, but really the man moved with a lot more grace than you would expect from someone his size. Probably another point of evidence towards him being able to handle things if the good Samaritan mechanic turned out to be dangerous.

I looked towards the door to the rest of the building, but it didn’t seem to have been disturbed and I wasn’t going to intrude any further than the machine shop. My presence here already felt overly forward. I shrugged, then turned back to the partially disassembled automotive cart and nearly walked into the looming form of Mr. Clay who had been standing just out of my line of sight.

My reaction probably wasn’t the most dignified way to respond to a shock like that. No matter what anyone says, any noise I made was definitely a manly bark of surprise and I definitely didn’t fall due to jumping back without looking. Actually, with Efficiency in full effect any sudden movements would have been conducted smoothly and gracefully, even if they might have involved the near dropping of a wrench that turned into an improvised juggling act. 

Fortunately, there was nothing but amusement on Mr. Clay’s face. He just smiled and offered me a cup of water. Because I’m sure that was why he had snuck up like that. Just concern that I might be thirsty from all the work and definitely not trying to see how I responded to a sudden shock. It was safe to say that less than a week of boxing training and a single cape fight of combat experience was not enough to hone my reactions to a razor edge. Probably for the best, given point of that stunt had probably been to see if I was a threat. As embarrassing as it sounded, I’m pretty sure I left no doubt as to the state of my martial abilities.

“Thank you.” I said, accepting the water. It seemed like my heart should be racing, but apparently efficiency applied to sudden shocks as well. Elevated heart rate meant energy being used in excess of what was necessary, so I was still physically calm despite the unquestionable mental shock.

That was the side of things I really wasn’t going to be able to get around. It was pretty clear I wasn’t a tinker, or a Spark, assuming there was a meaningful difference, but I was something else. I might not be the most concerning thing that they were looking out for, but there was no way I had come across as ‘normal’.

Fortunately, ‘normal’ seemed to be a bit of a flexible category in this world. I passed a dozen shades of abnormal on every street corner. By my estimation, there were more shades of subtle weirdness than anyone would be able to count. Someone who had a comprehensive knowledge of machines and who could work with unusual efficiency was unusual, but as long as it stayed at that level it was probably an acceptable level of unusual.

I mean, Frau Gruber drove her delivery cart like a professional street racer, Mr. Clay had a build that would give an NFL linebacker pause, and I’m pretty sure one of Mrs. Clay’s eyes was bigger than the other. For this world, that was all shades of background weirdness that people probably dealt with every day. As long as I didn’t cause problems, they would probably be willing to overlook whatever elements of my powers I couldn’t fully conceal.

Probably. Potentially. Hopefully.

I downed the last of the water in the cup and turned back to the cart. The engine looked like it had suffered an orderly explosion, with parts spread out over tarps and workbenches. The largest components were suspended above the casing, causing the heavy beams anchoring the winches to creak slightly.

“I think we’ve gotten everything taken care of.” I said. Well, that ‘we’ was fairly generous. I’d been taking point on everything, but this was Mr. Clay’s shop, which made this a collective effort by default. “I’ll have to make a few modifications to some of the replacement parts to ensure compatibility, but after that it’s just cleaning and reassembly.”

Mr. Clay nodded in agreement. Honestly, most of the hard work had been handled in planning out the repair. The engine followed an eccentric design pattern and had been heavily modified over the years. At some point those modifications had included the addition of a supercharger for air intake. That part appeared to have failed decades ago and unspoken agreement between me and Mr. Clay had led to its removal rather than refurbishment. I had seen the way Frau Gruber had driven with just a conventionally functional engine. I didn't want to see what she could get up to with boosted intake pressure.

There were smatterings of other modifications and partial fixes that had been added over the years. Identifying them and stripping out the unnecessary modifications significantly simplified the entire project. Once again, the move towards simplicity seemed to surprise Mr. Clay, but if you were on the lookout for a tinker equivalent, I suppose someone diverting away from exotic mechanical principles would be unexpected.

“Adam?” A voice called from outside the workshop. Mr. Clay suddenly looked up, then over to the clock on the wall. “Is that Frau Gruber’s… oh, hello.”

A girl who looked to be in her late teens stepped into the machine shop. She was wearing a kind of green tweed skirt and sweater under an oversized academic coat. She had long blond hair and wore large round glasses that had caught the afternoon sun before she stepped into the shop.

She was clearly familiar with Mr. Clay and the man hurried over to silently greet her. I was left in the middle of an explosion of parts covered in grease and soot, still wearing the badly damaged coat from my attempt at a cape costume. With Mr. Clay unable to explain the situation beyond conveying that there was no cause for concern, it fell to me to do what I could. I noted a failed connection to the Quality constellation from my power, then did my best to address the current situation.

“Um, hello.” I offered a little lamely. “I’m Józef Ďuriš. I happened across Faru Gruber when she was having some engine trouble.” There was an instant look of recognition from the girl and she shared an understanding look with Mr. Clay. “I was able to help her get the cart running again and she, um…”

I looked around, once again wondering at how an act of goodwill had led to an entire day of unpaid mechanical volunteer work. Fortunately, the involvement of Frau Gruber seemed enough for the blond girl to fill in the blanks.

“I’m Agatha Clay. My parents run this shop.” She explained. She had called Mr. Clay ‘Adam’ and there wasn’t much physical resemblance between them, but whatever the story was there, it was her business.

“It’s nice to meet you.” I said under the watchful eyes of her father. Moved to offer her a handshake, then remembered the current state of my hands. Maybe if I fished out my gloves from my coat, but that seemed a little much for a greeting.

Apparently unbothered, she stepped forward and accepted the handshake. “It’s nice to meet you as well. I’m sure any help in dealing with Frau Gruber’s cart was greatly appreciated.” She had a smug smile on her face that turned even more amused at her father’s exhausted expression. She turned back towards him and started peeling off her overly heavy coat. “I thought you said the cart was a lost cause?”

“That’s just the shiftlessness of the younger generation.” Frau Gruber’s voice echoed from the side hall, followed by the sound of the woman’s cane clacking its way towards the workshop. “Yourself excluded, or course. Agatha, it’s lovely to see you as always.” The old woman said as she pushed her way into the shop with Mrs. Clay trailing behind her.

“Good afternoon, Frau Gruber.” She said, smiling at the shorter woman. “I’m glad you found someone to see to your cart.”

“Humph. Well, perhaps I was too hard on your dear father. Not everyone can handle vehicles of such a high caliber.” There was tired huff from Mr. Clay and Frau Gruber rounded on him. “But don’t think I’ve forgiven you for what you said earlier.” He gave her a confused look and raised an eyebrow. “Yes, exactly that. The cheek. I have no idea how your wife puts up with you. She must have the patience of a saint.”

Agatha was clearly much more amused by the interaction than either of her parents, but they both bore Frau Gruber’s antics with good humor.

“Is everything on schedule here?” Mrs. Clay asked. Her husband signaled the affirmative, as I nodded along.

“I have to make a few adjustments to some of the spares in order to incorporate them, but after that it should be a simple matter of assembly.” I explained.

Simple might have been a relative term given the number of parts and the intricacy of the systems used. It was a very good thing that Scientist: Machinery gave me a proper context for this world because otherwise I would have spent more time trying to figure out what I was looking at than I would have on the actual repairs.

There were parts standardized to five different units of measure that had been cobbled together or added during the engine’s life. I’m pretty sure understanding of the principles of internal combustion had advanced significantly over the course of the cart’s assembly, with later theories building on top of older systems without actually replacing anything. And I wasn’t even going to touch on the absolute mess that was the control systems. Faru Gruber appeared to be able to operate it just fine in its current configuration. I’m pretty sure any attempt to simplify the interface would be a very bad idea.

Agatha’s green eyes gleamed as she looked over the assembled components, darting from the workbenches where I had been modifying parts to the cluttered blackboard filled with diagrams. She looked like she wanted to ask a question, but Mrs. Clay cleared her throat.

“Agatha, why don’t you settle in and then you can join me and Frau Gruber for some tea?” She asked.

“Yes, it will be lovely to chat.” The older woman said happily. “I’d love to hear what Tarsus is getting up to these days. Still as handsome as ever, I trust?”

Agatha nearly choked at the question, much to Frau Gruber’s amusement. Even Mrs. Clay seemed entertained by her reaction as they hurried out of the workshop.

I turned and saw Mr. Clay watching me with the kind of expression one would expect from the father of a teenage daughter. I did my level best to appear as innocent as possible and hurried back to work.

Assembling an entire engine is not a small task. However, when you're working with an incredibly comprehensive understanding of mechanics that extended to the theoretical, practical, and intuitive level, operated with mandatory perfect efficiency, and had the assistance of someone I was beginning to suspect was unnaturally strong, it was possible to blaze through the process at record pace.

Probably not the pace of actual tinkers or Sparks. Everything I was doing was firmly in the realm of what was physically possible, if just at a rather optimized level. It was clear Mr. Clay had caught on to the efficiency of my work so there was really no point in more than a token effort to downplay it. He knew, but as long as I didn’t acknowledge that he knew then there was a polite fiction that he hadn’t noticed.

We were able to get through most of the heavy work in good time, leaving things down to the finer points of assembly and modifications. As I shifted onto the more precise aspects of the repair, Mr. Clay started giving me more space to work. He split off to deal with other items in the workshop and even ducked out to the rest of the building a few times.

I’m guessing that having an unexpected major service dropped in his lap had thrown off his schedule a bit. It was probably lucky this hadn’t happened tomorrow when the cart would have needed to share space with a tractor. Mr. Clay had other work to deal with, and apparently, I had made a good enough impression to not need constant supervision.

Of course, it probably helped that I was so immersed in the repair that there wasn’t much chance of me even noticing the rest of the workshop, much less causing trouble in it. The work was still very much mundane engineering, but it was high level and precise mundane engineering carried out with an experienced hand and near supernatural grace.

This was what I had been waiting for. This was the kind of expression of power and skill that made me feel like a real tinker, even if I didn’t technically qualify as one. This wasn’t my amateurish attempts at metal work, or the crude fashioning or a bracer to take advantage of my reinforcement power, or the crafting of some decorative accents in order to dress up a costume for what was probably a premature attempt at a cape debut.

This was real high level technical work. In parahuman terms it was the kind of ability that straddled the line between tinkers and thinkers. The point where extraordinary skill and ability started to approach a level that couldn’t be recreated through mundane means, but weren’t quite able to create the kind of disruptive technology that warranted a tinker power.

It was a mishmash of a categorization for a mishmash of a power, but it was my mishmash of a power. This was my work, my skill and ability put into action. I was finally able to do something meaningful, even if it was only the rebuild of an overly complex and antiquated engine for a vegetable delivery cart. That might have sounded silly, but it was a legitimate challenge and the most significant technical work I had done to date.

Certainly better than the collection of basic metalwork I had been producing in my Workshop. That was another thing, and something that was past due. The key to my workshop was still in my pocket, but I hadn’t had the chance to try it yet. I desperately hoped that it would still work, but even if it did, would it be the same? This was a different world. Would the place my key accessed be different as well, or would it open up to that same entryway where I had stored my mattress, desk, and the bulk of the contents of my tiny apartment?

I hoped it did. In addition to having a place to sleep, there was something comforting about the idea of having my small collection of possessions follow me to this world. The idea that those books and clothes and various holdover items that I had hung on to through shifts to and from and in the aftermath of my time in college would still be with me.

At least, it was nice on a sentimental level. I wouldn’t be pulling out any disruptive tech from those items, not with the kinds of devices that were floating around this world. I mean, it was amusing to imagine my outdated laptop somehow triggering a tech revolution, but from what I could tell you had clockwork in this universe that was able to support more complex cognitive functions than the best computer on the market.

Of course, I’d need to get a better look at the technology out there, particularly anything that didn’t explicitly require a Spark in order to function. Something of a long-term project, and one I’d have plenty of time for, or at least I would once I finished up this work.

The sound of the workshop’s interior door opening drew my attention away from the workbench I was seated at. I turned to see Agatha Clay enter with a cup of tea and a simple sandwich on a small tray.

“Miss Clay?” I asked.

She smiled at me. “Though you might be hungry.” She said.

My stomach was happy to inform me that I hadn’t eaten anything since my earlier time-shifted dinner, and my body also decided to remind me that I was the interdimensional equivalent of jetlagged. By my personal clock I had jumped forward somewhere in the order of eight or nine hours. The shift might be easier to deal with thanks to Efficiency, but I was still looking at the wrong side of six am.

Actually, I was looking at barreling past that point into the land of no sleep and bad decisions.

“Thank you, Miss Clay. That would be very nice.” I said, setting down my tools. I happily accepted the tray and noticed that Agatha was paying a lot more attention to the blackboard and the parts I had been working on than anything related to the food.

“Are you also a mechanic?” I asked as I took a sip of the tea and savored the fresh caffeine.

“Not exactly.” She said, quickly looking back from the chalkboard. “I help out in the shop sometimes, but I work at the University.”

“Ah.” I said, nodding.

That explained the oversized coat she had been wearing. From the way she was eyeing my notes and diagrams it was clear she was more interested in my work than any social visit, but I still felt like I needed to go through the motions. The cliché question would be ‘What is your major?’, but that felt a bit forward as well as overly cheesy.

“What is Transylvania Polygnostic like?” I asked. “It seems like an incredible place.”

Incredible on a lot of levels, starting with that motto. ‘Know Enough to be Afraid’ might be completely on brand for this world, but it was still unsettling in a very fundamental way.

“It’s really incredible.” Agatha said brightly. “Dr. Beetle is a brilliant man and the university has absolutely fantastic facilities.” She looked at my notes again, then back to me. “Are you thinking of applying?”

“No.” I said, then realized I might have come off as a bit too abrupt. “My university days are behind me, and they didn’t end particularly well.”

“Oh.” She glanced to the side. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

I downed the last of my tea and then shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.” I said, completely downplaying the biggest deal of my life. “And it’s better to move on and focus on what’s next in your life.” Which was a lot easier to say when you had a constant pipeline of superpowers rather than a lifetime of shame and failure.

“I see.” She said, “But this work…” She turned back to the blackboard. “It’s so advanced.”

“Well…” I began, doing my best to downplay the doctorate level analysis on the board.

“The breakdown of the flow regulators, and the proposed valve rebuilds, accounting for the mix of spark and compression ignition cylinders…” And hadn’t that been a special treat of insanity in the engine design. Right up there with the… “And the rebuild of the centrifugal distribution array. I mean, it was no wonder Adam was never able to fix this. Just breaking it down like this, if someone told me this was Dr. Glassvitch’s work, I wouldn’t doubt them for a second.”

“Really, it was just a standard analysis of the-” But once again I was cut off as Agatha began to pick up steam.

“And the workmanship on the manifolds, precision with such a basic method, I would never have imagined it could be done. I mean, if you…” She was really picking up interest now, to the point where I was becoming a little unnerved.

“Agatha, I-” And suddenly I felt my power shift and a connection form to a small mote from the Vehicle’s constellation. A power that almost seemed designed to mock me. A power called Mechanic.

Unsurprisingly, it was focused on cars. Well, really on any machine, but particularly those that go fast. I could fix or tune up any motor vehicle as well as completely rebuild them after the most devastating crashes. I could keep anything in top condition with only a few basic tools and on top of everything else, the power came with comprehensive knowledge of electronics, both for restorative work and in case I needed to hotwire a car. Or bypass an alarm system, you know, if the need arose.

If I had gotten this power earlier, I could have completely repaired the cart in the street with nothing but Frau Gruber’s toolkit. The work I had been carefully planning out and conducting with immense precision and care could be breezed through. All the effort and planning I had put into figuring out the labyrinthine nature of this engine was suddenly unnecessary because I had a power that would let me trivially coast through this sort of work.

It was both fantastic and infuriating. I could see the value and all the potential use I could get from this, but at the same time it completely undercut what had felt like a real and significant technical accomplishment, and I didn’t know how to feel about that.

“Mr. Ďuriš?” Agatha asked, pulling back to the moment. “Mr. Ďuriš, are you alright?”

I blinked and shook my head, turning back to Agatha. “Um, yes. Sorry about that. I can lose focus at times.” It wasn’t a wonderful explanation, but it was better than getting into an explanation about my powers. I had never had one arrive mid-sentence before, but it was probably something I would need to get used to.

“Oh.” Agatha said a bit gravely. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

I shook my head. “It’s fine. It’s not harmful, just a little distracting. And embarrassing.” As excited as I was by the infinite prospect of my power, it was clear it came with some drawbacks. Minor drawbacks compared to the scope of what I stood to gain, but that didn’t diminish the effect of having half a lifetime of skills dropped into your head mid conversation.

If anything Agatha looked even more uncomfortable in the wake of my attempted dismissal of the issue. “Um, was that… I mean, was it related to why you left your university?” She asked.

I considered brushing her off or playing it down, but the truth was much closer to what she was suggesting than not.

“Indirectly.” I admitted. Honestly it was more of the result of my dismissal, rather than a cause, but based on how she was reacting I was guessing there was more going on here and trying to make light of the situation wouldn’t go over well. “It was related, but not the direct cause.”

She nodded slightly, then looked back at the board. “I get headaches.” She said quietly. “Attacks, when I try to concentrate. I can’t even get close to something like this. It’s like I run into a wall.” She let out a breath. “Everyone at the university tolerates it, but I can tell what they think.” She said morosely.

I nodded. Everyone was dealing with something. “I’m sorry.”

She let out a small huff. “I’ve tried everything, but I just can’t… Even Dr. Beetle couldn’t help, and I feel awful for even asking him. Bothering him with something like that.”

Now that was hitting close to home. I don’t know what I did to end up in a heart to heart like this, but I had the feeling it was something that had been building up for a while with no proper way to vent.

I had no doubt that Agatha was smart. She had instantly grasped very advanced concepts and demonstrated an incredible breadth of knowledge. She was also struggling with something that kept her from fully making use of that gift. It was tragic, but it was the type of tragedy that was regrettably common.

“With those kinds of things, sometimes all you can do is try to work around them as well as you can.” She turned to me and I shrugged. “At least that’s my experience.”

Some problems were too big to deal with, at least all at once. You could bash your head against them, but that wouldn’t get you anywhere. It sucked to have to find ways to cope with things that weren’t even seen as problems by most people, but it was better than getting stuck where you were.

That was therapy thinking. Things I’d discussed and worked through with Dr. Campbell, who I would never see again, as long as I was in this world. That was more concerning than I thought it would be. I didn’t know what the state of mental health care was in this world, but given the overarching aesthetic seemed to be ‘Mad Scientist’ I was willing to bet it ranged somewhere from bad to terrible.

Agatha gave me a tired smile. “Better advice than what I usually hear.” She said quietly.

I shrugged. “Normally I’d recommend people take advice from people who made better life decisions than me. College dropouts aren’t usually sought out for their wisdom.”

“College dropouts can’t usually accomplish something like this.” Agatha said, looking from the board to the remaining parts and the mostly repaired cart engine. “How did Frau Gruber manage to rope you into this?” She asked.

“Like I said. She was having engine trouble. I was able to help her out with a patch job and she insisted on offering me a hot meal and a chance to clean up.” I explained. The second point wasn’t quite as essential now that I’d been able to wipe off most of the soot, but there was still grease and smoke infused into my costume that would be hell to get out.

“You seriously took on all this for a hot meal?” Agatha asked with a kind of endearing amusement.

I smiled. “Really, I took this on to prevent a high-pressure oil fire from breaking out in the middle of a crowded street. The meal was just a bonus.”

“And that’s enough?” Agatha asked.

I was about to answer when my stomach decided to communicate for me with a rather aggressive growl. I flushed and quickly grabbed the nearly forgotten sandwich, taking a large bite. The meat was some variety I didn’t recognize, but the bread was excellent. The wonders of historic baking practices where every loaf was the kind of thing you’d only see from the kind of artisan bakeries that parked themselves within walking distance of the Boardwalk and charged ten times as much for bread that went completely stale within twelve hours.

Or maybe I was just very hungry and everything was tasting good because of that.

“Enough for now.” I said jovially and Agatha nodded back.

“So, if not the university, what are you planning to do in Beetleburg?” She asked.

“Probably more of this kind of thing.” I said, gesturing to the nearly completed engine. “And to be honest, this wasn’t complete charity.”

“Oh?” She asked.

I nodded. “I was hoping that Mr. Clay might be able to put in a good word for me with anyone looking for qualified help.” I explained. “And if not him, maybe Frau Gruber. She seems… well connected.”

“That would be a polite way of putting it.” Agatha said a little stiffly. I smiled in good humor as I finished off the rest of my sandwich.

“Either way, I should be finished up soon.” I replied. Much sooner now that I had basically gotten the perfect power for this kind of thing, right at the end of the process.

“Then I shouldn’t keep you.” She gathered up the cup and plate on the tray, but paused before the blackboard. “Um, would you mind if I made a copy of this? For reference?”

“Help yourself. It’s your shop. I’m just grateful to be able to use it.” I said, gesturing towards the board. Really, it was pretty much the equivalent of random scribbles, notes, and plans, only laid out with perfect efficiency and no waste. It had turned what would have been a jumbled mess of ideas into something that looked like it fell out of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks.

Agatha gave me a final smile before hurrying back into the rest of the building. I was about ninety percent sure her parents didn’t know she had snuck in here and I had the feeling I had probably just dodged a bullet.

Putting aside thought of overprotective parents with potential inhuman levels of strength, I got back to work. As expected, with the help of my Mechanic power it was trivial. It was less than trivial. Mechanic could have gotten this cart back to perfect condition if it had been run over by a train. At my current level, the final assembly and tune-up was about as complicated as filling in the last three pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Of course, just when I was finishing up the work my power decided to present me with another ability. It was from the Time constellation, the same one that had provided me with Scientist: Machinery, but was instead somehow related to my Mechanic power.

It was also vastly more powerful, both in terms of cost and in terms of what it was capable of. The power was called Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench and it cost as much as Efficiency had, completely consuming all the reach I had accumulated. The power was effectively everything from Mechanic turned up to eleven. Well, actually more like eleven hundred.

All my previous technical abilities at least operated within the bounds of conventional design and technology. I could implement them perfectly thanks to Efficiency, but the science was firmly grounded. With my latest power, that was most certainly not the case anymore.

It made me a master mechanic in every sense of the word. I could improve any vehicle to beyond impossible levels. It was trivial to modify a van into something that could outperform a supercar. Finding a way to attach functional NOS injectors to a bicycle was just as simple, despite being impossible on every level. And those were only the entry level examples of what I could accomplish.

I might not be a tinker or a Spark, but when it came to vehicle engineering, I was suddenly able to twist the laws of nature into knots in order to get whatever desired effect I was going for. And on top of that, the work was massively accelerated. I was a one man chop shop in a quite literal sense, able to do the work of an entire fully staffed automotive facility all on my own. Strip downs and rebuilds could be completed blazingly fast while modifications or even sabotage could be handled in moments with only a bit of time and scrap wire.

Unlike with Mechanic, it was probably a good thing that I hadn’t received this power at an earlier point. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t have been able to cover for its effects, particularly back when Mr. Clay was watching me like a hawk. Just looking at the cart with the benefit of my new ability, I could see hundreds of ways to turn it into some unbelievable beast of speed and durability. And then I remembered what Frau Gruber had been able to do with its current capabilities and reassessed the wisdom of handing her anything more powerful.

Despite the lack of aftermarket rocket boosters, Frau Gruber was thrilled with the condition of the cart, heaping praise on everyone involved while simultaneously insisting that she had been right about it all along. Given the fact that it had taken an expert in the field with near supernatural abilities to manage to fix it, I was inclined to agree with Mr. Clay’s assessment.

“…and we’ll settle up everything tomorrow. I’ll send one of the grandchildren over to see to it.” She explained to Mrs. Clay.

The woman let out a snort in amusement. “The full rebuild won’t be cheap, but you’ll probably come out ahead compared to bringing it in every two weeks.” Mrs. Clay explained with a smile on her face.

“I don’t know how you’ll manage without my company.” Frau Gruber said from her position on the driver’s seat. “Maybe we can all go for a drive instead.” All three of the Clays immediately paled at the suggestion. Given my place on the bench next to her, I completely understood their reluctance.

“What about Józef?” Agatha asked. Mrs. Clay raised an eyebrow at that and I was suddenly feeling self-conscious. “He did handle most of the work.” Agatha continued.

“We’ve listed him as an assistant on the invoice.” Mrs. Clay explained. “It’s the best we can do until you register with the Mechanic’s Guild, but Adam will see what he can do.” Mr. Clay nodded his head. His expression had become a little sterner after Agatha had spoken, but it hadn’t edged back into overprotective father quite yet.

“Don’t worry about the young man. I’ll keep him safe for you until you’ve got the paperwork sorted out.” Frau Gruber explained, clearly eager to head out. I nodded and quickly turned back to the Clays.

“Thank you, Mrs. Clay, Mr. Clay. And Miss Clay as well. It was nice meeting you all.” I said as Frau Gruber started up the gently purring motor and put the cart in gear. “I’m very grateful for all of your assistance. Until the next time I see you, thank you for your help.”

For some reason my goodbyes seemed to amuse the three of them more than anything else. Agatha raised a hand to wave me off as Frau Gruber opened the throttle and sent the cart rocketing out of the workshop.

And then immediately clamped down on the break, causing the cart to skid to a stop in front of a building directly across the street. A sign over the door read ‘Turnips R Us!’ and there was a brightly painted placard in the shape of a beet hanging in front of the building.

I looked back at the cargo and noted that the produce crates were mostly filled with root vegetables. The cart’s arrival drew attention from inside the business and I was quickly noticing a resemblance between Frau Gruber and the staff. There was a particularly strong resemblance with the older balding man in a large apron who pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He moved with an air of authority that completely vanished the second he spotted Frau Gruber.

“Mama?” He asked. “No.” He gasped as he looked at the cart. “Please don’t tell me you got that death trap working again.” There was real fear in the man’s voice while Frau Gruber just sat in the driver’s seat looking like the cat that ate the canary.

I turned and looked back across the street to where the Clays were still looking at me with that amused expression. I did feel a little bit foolish about trying to give a sincere goodbye when I was apparently relocating directly across the street.

As promised, Frau Gruber provided me a chance to properly clean up and a warm meal, except rather than a bowl of pity stew it was a seat at the family dinner table where she ruled over her rather expansive clan like a royal court, generally in complete defiance to her son Petru’s concerns.

“Mama, that cart is older than grandpa. There’s no way it’s safe for you to ride. Not after one day of work.” He protested while I did my best to stay out of or at least adjacent to the family conflict.

“Oh please, Adam Clay gave his personal approval to the quality of the work. Until he says otherwise, I won’t entertain any naysaying.”

“Until he says… Mama, you can’t be serious.” Petru pleaded. He looked around to the rest of the family for support, but found his prospects wanting.

“I’m completely serious. The old girl’s running better than any time I can remember. Why, with that level of pep back in the engine we can start offering express pickled beetroot delivery again.” She declared proudly.

Her son’s face just paled and there was the sense that a lot of the other family members were deliberately staying silent rather than just not talking.

“Mama, you can’t.” Her son tried desperately.

“I assure you, I am perfectly capable. I still know this city like the back of my hand and with the cart in top form we can get express deliveries to anywhere in the six districts in twenty minutes or less.” She said smugly.

“No Mama, you literally can’t.” He said, “They’re an ordinance against it.”

“Oh, that. Nothing but an overreaction, and I’m sure completely unrelated.”

“It mentions you by name. Dr. Beetle signed it personally. They send us reminder edicts every six months with the Tyrant’s seal.”

Frau Gruber huffed, but inclined her head. “Fine.” There was a look of hope from her son. “We’ll get everything prepared for the delivery service, and then see if they still want to hold to that silly regulation.” Her smile took on a character that wasn’t entirely appropriate. “Tarsus was always quite fond of my beets. And other plump offerings.”

I didn’t know what that was an allusion to and quite frankly I didn’t want to know. Still, I took it better than Petru Gruber who looked like he had just experienced a system crash. It at least ensured things were quiet for the rest of the meal, after which I received the added benefit of temporary housing.

Thanks to Frau Gruber’s tyrannical control over her family business no one dared question her statement that I was now their contract mechanic, guild status pending under Mechanics Guild bylaw 3.45.G, sections 17. I doubt anyone knew what that bylaw and section was, and that possibly included Frau Gruber herself. Still, no one was questioning it, and it did allow me to stay in a small apartment attached to one of the reserve garages that was no longer in use, with Frau Gruber being very clear that it would remain unused for as long as I needed it, or until I found a place of my own.

So my gesture of goodwill had paid unexpected dividends. I had a simple workspace that was still large enough for heavy mechanical work. The apartment was really just a space with a cot and a small water closet, but it was a lot less confining when I had the run of the garage. And, most importantly, I had privacy. The garage only opened to the back alley behind the business and didn’t have any access to the rest of the building, meaning I didn’t have to worry about being disturbed. Meaning I could actually open my workshop.

My hand felt unsteady as I raised the key to the door of an empty tool cabinet. It wasn’t actually shaking, but that was the result of my Efficiency power rather than a lack of nerves. I took a breath and pushed forward. The key slid in, clicked, and then opened into the half-light of my Workshop entryway.

Everything was there. My mattress, my books, my desk, even my battered old laptop. The hastily made door jamb sat just inside the entryway, ready to provide a low-tech method of securing the Workshop. Inside my metal shop I still had all of the machines and replenishing supplies I’d had before. Everything was there.

More than everything. A weight in my pocket suddenly made itself known and I removed the grenade I had taken from Oni Lee. I had been walking around the entire city with an unknown tinker tech explosive in my pocket. That was a level of danger I had completely blanked to in the face of everything I had been dealing with.

At the very least I could be sure the bomb didn’t have a geolocation trigger and wasn’t dependent on a signal to keep it from detonating. With the legitimately impossible power that was Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench I was in a better place to understand tinker tech, but a bomb like this was well outside of my specialization. I could analyze its electronics and strip it down, but there were likely principles in play that I had no way of properly understanding.

I shifted my focus from analysis to containment, something that was relatively easy to accomplish with a mastery of mechanical principles, a regenerating source of basic materials, and the ability to work at the speed of an entire chop shop by yourself. The bomb quickly received a dedicated vault in the corner of the metal shop that would hopefully contain the effect of any detonation, at least if I didn’t get an ability to help me understand tinker tech explosives before something went wrong.

The massive mote that my power failed to connect to from the Time constellation wouldn’t be any help considering it was one of the largest powers possible and I currently only had a minimal amount of reach built up. Still, more would come. Today had been evidence enough of that.

Honestly, the opening day hadn’t gone as badly as I had feared. Mainly because I had a roof over my head and privacy for my work, rather than being wanted by the authorities or seen as some kind of freak to be captured or killed.

Instead I was relatively secure and more importantly, free to act. That was the big thing. I had slipped slightly in demonstrating my capabilities, but the baseline for the world was so skewed that most of them had blended in or apparently been explained away. None of what I had done would trigger some nightmare scenario because the architect of those nightmares was back on Earth Bet.

Without the Simurgh people could still respond to my actions, but they would respond like people, not like precognitive murder chickens waiting to ruin everything for everyone. It was incredibly freeing to know that I could actually do things without the entire fate of the world being thrown into chaos. Not that there weren’t dangers, but they were dangers I could face on equal footing. Or at least footing that was becoming more equal with every power I secured.

I moved back to my entryway and sat down at my desk. Back on Earth Bet I hadn’t even wanted to risk planning for the future out of fear of what might happen if the Simurgh picked up on a stray intention. Here there were no such concerns. I could fully consider everything I had available and look into how I could develop it and what I could do to make a difference, both on the local scale and eventually in a broader capacity. It might raise some concerns, but those were concerns I could deal with. When you didn’t have doomed fate hanging over your every thought, it was a lot easier to take decisive action.

So, cut off from home and trapped in a world of insane tinkers running on brutal medieval methods of governance and punishment. Isolated with minimal resources and only the support of the acquaintances I had made in the space of a single day. Faced with impossible technology, complex politics, and disturbing shadows of my original trigger in the remnants of the Other.

And despite all of that, it still felt like a step up. God help me, I was actually looking forward to this.

Addendum Judy

Judy sighed as she got ready for bed. Punch was checking on Agatha, but from the looks of things they had avoided any of the hundred disasters that seemed to be bearing down on them over the course of the day. Frau Gruber was a good customer and a fixture of the community, though she was always at least moderately trying to deal with. After she had insisted on taking her cart out, Judy had been convinced she would be hearing about some catastrophic failure leading to an emergency of some kind.

Instead the woman had dropped another potential disaster into their laps. Judy sighed and adjusted her nightdress as Punch entered their bedroom.

“No problems with Agatha?” She asked. Her husband smiled at her and signaled his amusement.

“It’s not silly.” She said with a sigh. They both knew Agatha had snuck out to the workshop. Her interest was almost certainly the work being conducted, but there would always be concerns. “I know we can’t isolate her from everyone, but something like this showing up…” She bit her lip. “You are certain that he’s not a Spark?” She asked.

Punch signaled his confidence in the matter. She was fairly certain herself. That engine had been in a nightmare state, but it had been an oddly conventional nightmare state. The boy was also much too calm and reserved to be Spark. Punch had set the boy loose on the rebuild of Frau Gruber’s cart and, while he had been enthusiastic in his work, the end product had been remarkably conventional. Far too conventional to be a Spark’s creation.

He was talented and skilled, but only within conventional limits. He was also very diligent and helpful, which suggested something else. Something which only raised more concerns.

“So, a minion.” She said. Punch nodded and made an excessively smooth gesture with his hand. Though not quite as smooth as what they had seen that afternoon. “Yes, I saw it too. He wasn’t even trying to conceal it.”

Which might have been a good sign. Whoever Józef Ďuriš was, he carried himself with an excessive efficiency of action, something that extended to everything he did. Even breathing, if she was right about what she thought she had seen. The fact that he didn’t even seem to recognize the behavior as unusual indicated that for him, it likely wasn’t.

It meant he wasn’t trying to hide, but it also meant that wherever he had come from, that kind of thing had been expected of him. Or it had been inflicted on him. Either through conditioning or engineering, somehow a perfect efficiency of movement had been imprinted onto the boy. Both she and Punch knew enough about the works of Sparks to understand how significant that was.

“By the Masters.” She said as she sank down to sit on the edge of the bed. “A rogue minion.” She looked up at her husband. “It’s the last thing we need.”

Punch placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and she felt some of the tension leave her body as she drew strength from his presence. At the very least the boy wasn’t overly concerned about being followed. He didn’t seem the type to take foolish risks, so it was likely there was either no one after him, or no one to come after him. The second was far more likely, given that he had clearly traveled through the wastes. The damage to his clothing said enough.

It was a bit depressing that the best scenario they could hope for was that the boy’s home was currently a smoking crater with no other survivors.

He was clearly capable, though at least it appeared he was not dangerous. Punch seemed to have followed her train of thought, as he often did, and gestured his opinion on the matter.

“Yes, no combat training or experience whatsoever.” She said with a small smile. A small mercy, but not an unwelcome one. Considering the way the boy moved, he would have been a nightmare to fight, but at every provocation he had reacted with nothing but defensive shock. No hint of aggression or even familiarity with combat.

A capable minion, but not a particularly dangerous one. That was likely down to whoever had been the boy’s former master. His mention of a university did nothing to narrow things down, though he did seem to have an academic bent. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time to puzzle out the boy’s past. It would be best to ignore it, and that might have been possible if Frau Gruber hadn’t parked that particular problem right next door to them.

She raised a hand to her forehead as a thousand disaster scenarios played out in her mind. Hordes of minions who moved like Smoke Knights chasing after a boy who happened to be staying across the street from the last Heterodyne heir. Interest being drawn from other Sparks or powers, all directed towards someone who didn’t even know to play down their natural abilities. Or even some potential problem brought by the boy himself. He was earnest enough, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t carrying some dangerous secret of his own.

She felt Punch’s hand rubbing her back, working out the building tension as quickly as it was accumulating. She let out a breath and shook her head. “It’s just another challenge. We can handle this. We’ll have to handle this. Clearly, he hasn’t noticed anything yet. As long as we can get him away without being too obvious about it, the situation should blow over without incident.”

She looked up as Punch made a series of complex gestures. She nodded along with his suggestions.

“That should work. Some of the Mechanic’s Guild can be prickly about new members from out of town, but even they should see the value in taking him on.”

Providing Mr. Ďuriš was being honest about his intentions. Every instinct she had suggested as much, but that didn’t change the inherent uncertainty that came from dealing with the product of a Spark’s work. 

Punch gestured towards the hall door, and then made a quizzical movement with his hands.

“Nothing serious.” Judy said with a slight smile. “He was a polite young man, and I don’t think we have anything to worry about on Agatha’s part.”

Even with him staying next door, it was unlikely the two of them would see each other in more than passing. Any steps to discourage interactions at this stage would just create more problems. It would be easier to try to find the boy a posting in a shop across the city, or maybe a place of his own? Either way, things should be dealt with in a few days, providing no other problems arise to compound things.

Józef Ďuriš WAS going to be a problem. They could just hope that when the time came, he would at least be a problem for someone else.

Chapter Text

Preamble Andrei

Andrei stumbled out of the tavern, conscious of the movement of his cast and the unfamiliar crutch. His leg still throbbed, which HAD seemed like a good justification for the fourth pint of ale. The first round had been a good will gesture from his supervisor, the second from his coworkers, while the rest had just seemed like a good idea at the time, though it was going to cause him problems going forward, no mistake. When he’d left home he’d promised his mother he wouldn’t go drinking away his pay every night, and he hadn’t, even if he dearly wanted to right now.

In all honesty, he was probably lucky to still have a leg after that crate came down on it. Seriously, who shipped ferrets by the gross? Maybe his mother was right, maybe city people were crazy. He should have stayed home and… Well, maybe still have broken his leg, though in a less embarrassing way.

Of course, back home they didn’t have fancy hospitals that didn’t even charge him for putting his leg back together. Something like this back in the sticks, and he’d have been looking at rusty bone saws. There were better doctors out here, meaning there were actual doctors, not trumped-up barbers or people trying to apply livestock medicine to humans.

Even so, it was still a serious break. The doctor had said six weeks before the cast could come off, and to take it ‘easy’ for a few weeks after that. He didn’t know how he was supposed to take it easy at the warehouse. There was nothing easy about loading and unloading carts. The pay was good, better than he’d hoped to find when he showed up, but the bosses definitely got their money’s worth.

Of course, that was worrying about things after the damn cast came off. He still had to last that long. They’d promised the job would be waiting for him once he recovered, which was better than he’d been told to expect from city people, but he still needed to last until then. He hadn’t been in Beetleburg long enough to really start saving money. He’d have to count things out, see if he could squeak by somehow. Maybe he could get a deal at the boarding house, a break on rent if he could help out… somehow. He wished he was better at reading or math, something he could do while sitting down, but he doubted that he would be any help.

But those were all problems for later. For now, he had the issue of attending to the matter he had left the tavern to deal with. Normally a simple matter for the alley behind the building, but one he’d never had to attend to when dealing with a full leg cast while managing a crutch. It was something he really wished he’d considered before that last pint, and was likely to be a fairly messy process.

Andrei’s attention was drawn away from the problem that wasn’t quite at hand yet by a sound from the end of the alley. He turned to see a shadowy figure drop down from the roof of the adjacent building with unnatural smoothness. Very unnatural. That was something he’d also been on edge about. The pay was better in the city, but you were living right next to every kind of construct. They said the ones in Beetleburg were tame, but you could never be sure. 

He tensed, gripping the crutch and weighing his options. At worst it could be some kind of mad experiment run amok. At best… well, he might just get mugged for his last few coins while unable to defend himself or run away, and leaving his bad situation so much worse. And that was assuming he wouldn’t be picking up any more injuries.

He wanted to believe he was being paranoid, that he was buying into all the stories he’d grown up with about the cities, but seeing the figure stand up with impossible grace, those stories were seeming more and more likely. The figure was wearing a dark colored long-sleeved tunic of some thick fabric with a hood pulled tight around his head. Andrei caught a gleam from his eyes and nearly took his chances seeing how fast his crutch could get him out of there. Fortunately a second look revealed that what he’d taken for insectoid eyes were instead some kind of dark lenses.

Not a construct. Just an unusually tall man wearing very dark glasses while keeping his head and most of his face covered. Someone who had been able to drop twenty feet from the room to the ground without any effort while barely making a sound. Panic was beginning to cut through the beer as he desperately wrestled with the situation and what he could possibly do against the man who was silently approaching him.

“Good evening.” The man said in a congenial tone. There was a slight smile on his face as he looked down at Andrei. “Would you be interested in participating in a clinical trial of a new medical procedure?”

Andrei froze, looking up at the smiling man. “What?” He managed to stammer.

“Given your apparent injury, I wanted to offer you the chance to participate in a trial for a procedure that had the potential to facilitate immediate and complete recovery.” The man explained. “If you would be interested.”

Andrei felt his pulse begin to quicken again as he realized what the man was saying. No, not the man. He wasn’t dealing with a rogue construct or monster or some human mugger. He was facing down a Madboy. A Madboy looking for people to experiment on, who had spotted him as a likely and helpless target.

“What do you want?” He stammered.

The man continued to smile. “I’d like you to consent to a medical trial, which should immediately heal the damage to your leg. And then complete a brief questionnaire for research purposes.”

Andrei paused. The man was less… manic than he expected, at least from the stories he had heard and the occasional plays that he saw when a troop or circus passed through the town he grew up in. His movements were still impossibly smooth, there was no question that something sparky was happening, but it didn’t seem to be the kind of nightmare he’d been expecting. He swallowed a lump in his throat and decided to test that.

“Consent.” He said. “So if I say no, I can go?” He asked, eyeing the mouth of the alley.

“Of course.” The man said. “It’s not like I could trust the data from unwilling subjects.”

Andrei nodded. That sounded about right for a spark.

“Plus, you know, ethical concerns.” The man added. Andrei nodded a little more stiffly, recognizing the afterthought for what it was.

He glanced towards the mouth of the alley again. If he refused, the man would probably let him go, if only to not compromise his research. That would be the smart thing to do. He could leave, hobble back to the boarding house, sleep off the beer, and then try to figure out how he would keep a roof over his head until he could work again.

That would be the smart thing to do. The safe thing to do. Magical spark remedies didn’t happen, not outside of Heterodyne stories. Even entertaining something like this was more likely to land him in a terrible state, some kind of warped mutant or wreck who could barely function, assuming it didn’t just kill him on the spot.

But there was something different about this, and not just because the spark seemed completely willing to let him walk away. Well, limp away. He remembered the hospital, the doctors who knew more than he’d ever imagined, sparklingly clean and filled with machines he’d only heard about in stories. And they had the university here as well. The people there had to know what they were doing, right? This was research, research from a proper spark, not one of the country Madboys who you heard about making monsters out of pig parts and raiding villages on moonlit nights.

Or maybe he was trying to convince himself. Maybe he didn’t want to be hobbling around, begging for help and living off charity until he could stand on his own again. He’d written his mother, told her about the job he found, what they were paying him just to move crates. He’d been so proud of being able to stand on his own, of being able to prove everyone wrong when they said the city would chew him up and spit him out.

This was a risk. An insane risk, but it was one he wanted to take. He wanted this impossible idea to be real.

“Um, is this dangerous?” He asked nervously. “I mean, are there any risks?” It was s stupid question. He was talking to a spark. Of course there would be risks.

“Well, there’s a chance you’ll end up in the control group, in which case I’ll just throw sugar water at you, but otherwise it should be a fast and painless process.”

Andrei looked at the Madboy who honestly seemed to believe what he was saying, which was probably a bad sign. The bones in his leg throbbed, reminding him of the long healing process he had ahead of him, and everything else that entailed. Maybe Andrei would have made a better decision if he had been fully sober, but with only four pints he couldn’t completely blame the beer. This was his decision. Coming to the city had been a gamble, what was another roll of the dice?

“Alright.” He said to the spark, leaning on his crutch to hold himself a little higher, though nowhere near the man’s eye level. “I agree.”

“Excellent.” The spark said. He reached into a pocket of his tunic and drew out some small items that Andrei couldn’t make out in the darkness of the alley. He did… something to them, and Andrei caught a whiff of vinegar and something else. And then the alley wasn’t dark anymore.

The items in the spark’s hands had begun to glow with a brilliant blue light. Andrei tensed as the Madboy threw the mass of light into the air. It hung there for an instant, then shot forward and washed over him. Andrei gasped as he felt his body surge with energy. The pain in his leg disappeared and he swore he could feel the bones shift back into place. Even the haze of alcohol and the painkillers the doctors had given him vanished, leaving him clear headed.

Clear headed enough to understand exactly how stupid that decision had been.

“Now.” The spark said, taking out a notebook. “How would you rate the nature of your recovery?”

*

“And then he asked about pain levels and how it felt when I was healed, and a few questions about my history, then he just left.” Andrei explained. The doctor nodded, writing his own notes.

“He left through the alley?” The stern-faced older man asked. Andrei shook his head.

“No, he climbed back onto the roof. Went up the wall as easily as walking.” He explained.

“Of course he did.” The doctor said in a tired voice. “We’ll have to have a word with the Roof Runner’s Club. Their members should know better than to deviate from approved routes.”

“So it was someone from the university?” Andrei asked hopefully. The remnants of his plaster cast sat in the corner of the room, and from what he could tell the doctors hadn’t found anything concerning about his recovery.

“It’s quite likely.” The doctor said, “We’ve had more than a dozen reports of encounters with the man in question, and that’s just from the people who had come forward. Most likely we’re looking at someone working on a project and trying to skimp on research expenses.” He looked down at Andrei’s leg. “Clearly promising work, but no doubt they’ll be in for a stern lecture about the importance of experimental procedure when they finally submit their project.”

“So I’ll be alright?” He asked hopefully.

“That appears to be the case, though we’ll be keeping you for a few days of observation to be sure.” The doctor explained.

“What, to make sure the leg doesn’t start to grow tentacles or something?” He joked. There wasn’t a hint of amusement on the doctor’s face. “Um, doctor?”

“The chance of complications are remote, particularly given what we’ve seen so far, but I'm not prepared to rule anything out just yet.”

Andrei nodded glumly. Then he flexed his leg slightly, feeling the ease of movement and lack of pain. A few days and he could get back to work. No hobbling around or begging for help. And from the sound of things, plenty of other people had made the same decision he had.

The idea of a noble spark running around healing the injured out of nothing but the goodness of his heart and the pursuit of science, well, that was right out of a Heterodyne Boys story. The doctor was probably right about it being someone trying to save money on research subjects, and there was still the possibility that something would go wrong, but at least for the moment, Andrei was grateful.  Maybe it had been entirely selfish, but it had still given him his life back, and for the moment, that was more than enough.

Europa’s Celestial Forge 3 Entanglements

I slipped back into the reserve garage of ‘Turnips R Us’ as the sky was beginning to shift from black to grey. An entire night of roof running and guerrilla healing might not have been the best idea, particularly since I was still severely time lagged from whatever brought me to this universe. Still, just the fact that I could do that, could use my powers to make a difference, to help people without worrying about bringing the entire world down on my head, it was exhilarating enough to make up for the exhaustion.

Well, maybe not, or at least not completely. I had pushed myself hard. Without the benefit of Efficiency I wouldn’t still be on my feet. Of course, without Efficiency I never would have been able to pull off something like that in the first place. Even with a general lack of skill and middling athleticism, the fact that every single action was now perfectly optimized in terms of energy, effort, and superfluous movements was a massive boost. It didn’t suddenly turn me into an acrobat, but anything that I could manage could be performed to perfect efficiency.

Plus the whole ‘rooftop running’ thing was such a classic cape cliché that there was no way I could resist trying it out. And it turned out perfectly efficient running was a lot quieter, meaning I’d been able to ghost across the city. Yeah, it was kind of aimless running around looking for anyone who needed healing, and the amount of difference I’d made on the larger scale probably wasn’t significant, but I bet it had been to the people I’d been able to help.

And my guess about framing things in local terms had definitely helped, though the reaction to a presumed spark was also about what I had expected. Framing things in scientific terms and focusing on the integrity of the experiment had definitely come across as more believable than the idea that one of the local tinker-equivalents would be restrained by morals or ethical standards.

Unfortunately, I’d probably have to hold off from another excursion like this. I doubted that the stories of a mad scientists running around testing a new miracle treatment would be connected back to me. I might have pushed things a bit in terms of mechanical knowledge, but that would be like mixing up Squealer and Bonesaw, both in specialization and in power level. The mysterious rogue healer could vanish for a while, or at least until I’d had a chance to gauge how the city reacted and work around any response.

In the tiny apartment next to my workspace I stripped off my hoodie and put away the cheap sunglasses I’d used to conceal my identity. Well, most of that had been from sticking to the shadows, but the clothes that I’d recovered from my Workshop were different enough from local styles that it should provide another layer of concealment.

I weighed whether I should open my Workshop again and sleep in there, but decided against it. I was pretty sure that Frau Gruber was serious about me having this space, and from what I’d seen it was unlikely any of her family would openly defy her, but it was still a point of vulnerability. I’d already taken a big risk by running out to offer healing to anyone I could find with visible injuries. It felt good to be able to make a difference like that, but even if this world didn’t have the kind of overarching threats and all-consuming presences that Earth Bet did, that didn’t mean it was safe. Just because it was likely that people would accept that the kind of healing I’d been giving out could exist didn’t mean they would ignore it. There would be a response, and even if I could avoid getting caught up in it, I’d still need to be more careful going forward.

The apartment next to the spare garage was cramped and the cot was a bit small for me, but as I settled in to sleep decided I would still rate it above my place back in Brockton Bay. Or maybe that was just the exhaustion talking. I’d been into the morning hours when I was transported here, then I’d seen a full day, complete with engine rebuild, followed by a second night of heroism, though from a different angle. For the amount of time I’d been up I was well past three a.m. thinking, which might have been a factor in my decision to go on a healing blitz rather than laying low until I got a better sense of this world.

Efficiency had been carrying me. It was a powerful ability, one of the two strongest ones I’d received so far, and considering what Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench was capable of, having an equal strength power devoted to nothing but efficiency explained why it was so powerful. I still wasn’t sure how far I could push that ability. If you were operating at perfect efficiency, not wasting any energy or taking any unnecessary actions, how long could you keep going? How long could you last on a single meal, or without sleep? How fast could you move? How hard could you fight?

I’d seen some of that already. The ease at which I could run, climb, or traverse obstacles. It was still within human limits, but refined to an almost impossible degree. Possibly an actually impossible degree, since that kind of efficiency couldn’t really be achieved without some external effect helping things along.

It was the kind of thing that made me wonder what would be the next ability I’d see, but there hadn’t been any connections over the past night. It wasn’t that my power had stopped, more like there was a hill that it was working to climb. Some kind of shift in function that had followed my arrival in this world, but hadn’t settled in until now. It was like making a connection induced a delay that took a while to clear.

That kind of change was frightening, to be honest. I had barely adjusted to how my power functioned, and suddenly there was a fundamental shift in the mechanics. It had pretty clearly been a result of my arrival in this world, and I wasn’t getting any sense of further concern from my somewhat muted connection to my passenger, so it seemed things had stabilized into whatever this new form was.

The presence of a delay following larger powers meant I wouldn’t be likely to see the kind of rapid-fire connections that had happened on the previous day, which was good and bad. Well, mostly bad. This was a dangerous world and I definitely needed all the power I could get to survive it. At the same time, this meant there was time to understand and utilize my powers before the next one showed up. I actually had a chance to understand what was possible with Efficiency or Bandit Gunsmith or Mechanic or Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench.

Honestly, without powers on the level of Efficiency or Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench I probably would have been frustrated by this shift. In the first days after my trigger I had been so desperate for any power, anything I could work with or plan around. I’d been sitting in the face of infinite potential with no idea where the winds would take me. The first few powers had provided a hint to where things were going, but I’d had to string them together into something approaching a functional whole.

Major powers weren’t like that. There was no question about how Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench was going to be useful, only what I was going to use it for. And in my case, that would probably be severely dumbed down mechanicals work, with more serious impossibilities kept for myself. At least until I had enough resources, connections, and understanding for this world to be comfortable acting openly.

But that was a problem for later. For now I badly needed sleep, and was happy to know that perfect efficiency also covered that task. I mean, as tired as I was I probably could have drifted off while collapsed on the floor, but it was still nice to enjoy the sense of falling asleep with no stress or anxiety, just perfectly efficient rest.

At least until the noise started. Because I was in a city, and city’s started work early. What’s more, I was attached to a produce company, which meant that deliveries and other business began as soon as there was enough light. Deliveries that were both coming in and going out, carried by loud and stompy animals and motor vehicles with rather poorly muffled engines. The fact that I could remotely diagnose every mechanical issue in the company’s delivery vehicle didn’t help when it came to trying to sleep through that kind of noise.

I considered the matter for about two seconds before deciding that potential abstract security threats weren’t a more pressing concern than the idea of following nearly forty hours of wakefulness with two hours of sleep, no matter how efficient that sleep happened to be.

I immediately opened my Workshop, dropped the door jam in place, then collapsed onto my mattress. Enjoying the muted sounds of the early morning work. And also understanding precisely why no one happened to be using that particular apartment.

It occurred to me that I was also sleeping one room away from the sealed vault I had built for the Bakuda grenade I’d recovered from Oni Lee. That was… less than ideal, but I weighed my options and remembered the way the wooden walls of the garage had shook with every passing cart. Yeah, probably not the best state to be performing a risk/reward evaluation, but at the moment I was willing to take that chance.

Fortunately, nothing happened while I was sleeping. Either my containment was up to snuff, or Bakuda was less aggressive with her security measures than I’d feared. I mean, I still kept my bracer on through the night, just in case, but it hadn’t been necessary.

I’d also been undisturbed from the other side of things. If anyone had knocked at the door to the spare garage, they’d at least taken my silence as a desire to be left alone, at least for the moment. Considering the agreement for my stay was somewhat informal and probably very short term, I didn’t want to press them on their hospitality, for however long it would last.

I ended up sleeping a lot less than I normally would after the kind of day I’d previously had. Well, day, then night, then day, then night again. So yeah, I was prepared to be out for most of the day, but I guess super-efficient sleep was different, as I was awake and functional by mid-morning.

I got myself cleaned up before I headed out, including dressing in parts of my costume. It was oddly more appropriate for the local aesthetic than anything else I had, but was also in rough shape. The work I’d done putting it together, or at least adding the ornamental pieces, had happened in my workshop, so it was set for a full repair in forty-eight hours.

Timing that to when I had fought Oni Lee, adjusted to the current timescale, it should be fine by tomorrow morning. Until then I did what I could to patch up the worst of the tears. Since I was approaching things from the perspective of a mechanic rather than a tailor, I was mostly working with staples and small rivets. Overall the design was kind of Frankensteinian, but that was oddly appropriate for this world. Plus, Bling of War helped me ensure that it had at least some cohesion to the overall look.

I emerged from the company’s spare garage to find Petru Gruber overseeing things in the main yard. The balding man had an aura of command that had been completely absent in the presence of his mother. A quick inquiry with one of the other workers confirmed that Frau Gruber was already out on deliveries.

“Ah, Mr. Ďuriš.” Petru said, turning towards me. The man I’d been talking with quickly scurried off, making a show of looking busy. “I have a pay packet for you from Clay Mechanical.” He made a gesture and a younger man with a slight family resemblance ran up with a small pouch and an envelope. Petru accepted them without comment, then handed them to me.

“Thank you.” I said, checking over the contents. The time I’d spent working the Clay’s workshop was accounted for, and rather generously considering it was only an assistant role. It was apparently the best I could get without guild approval, and was drastically more money than I’d had to my name previously.

That ‘previously’ had been the three coins of minimal denomination I received when I was mistaken for a vagrant, so it wasn’t really a good benchmark in this case. The point was I had enough to actually function, at least to a limited degree, rather than just hunting for whatever resources I could get for free or on charity.

And speaking of which, I turned back to Petru Gruber.

“Thank you for this.” I said. “And thank you for letting me stay here. It was much more than I was expecting, and I know it must have been a surprise for you as well.”

The man’s expression softened at my words. As uninvited houseguests went, I was endeavoring to be as unobtrusive as possible, and I think he had picked up on that.

“My mother has always been a surprising woman.” He said with a nod. “But generally a good judge of character. I… appreciate what you did for her.” He continued in a strained voice.

“It started as a bit of a patch job.” I said. “I didn’t expect it to expand into a full rebuild.”

“Yes.” He continued. “On that point, are you certain that cart is as roadworthy as you initially thought?” He asked in a leading tone. There was a quick glance around to confirm that there was no one close enough to overhear. “After that amount of work, there must be the possibility that some faults could have developed.” He gave me a conspiratorial look. “I’d happily pay a substantial premium for a follow up inspection that would find something that would take that thing out of service for good.”

I might not be the most socially savvy person in the world, but I could pick up on this level of subtest, and given how the woman drove I could understand him wanting her off the roads, for her safety and everyone else’s.

“I'm sorry, but even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to get that past Mr. Clay.” I said, turning down a bribe that would probably have gone a long way to getting me started in this world.

The man’s face fell. “Please. With the way she was talking about things, even if everything is working perfectly… Actually, that’s probably worse.” He swallowed and looked at me. “Is there anything you could do?”

As if on cue, the roar of a familiar engine echoed from the city outside, along with the sound of wheels sparking on cobblestones and the faint echo of a woman’s laughter. And the screech of several brakes that definitely belonged to other vehicles.

“Um, I might be able to install a few safety features.” There was another sound that I really hoped wasn’t a crash, followed by the sound of the cart’s distinct motor speeding away. “As a preventative measure.”

“Get me a quote.” He said seriously.

I nodded. Normally trying to install modern safety features into an open topped mechanical cart that didn’t even have seatbelts would be borderline impossible, but with the Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench I could go fully into the impossible. It would be a bit of a stretch, but I was fairly certain I could install systems that would ensure that any accidents were survivable for both Frau Gruber and anyone with the misfortune of coming across her. The fact that it would take a literally impossible feat of engineering to make that possible said a lot about the state of the vehicle and Frau Gruber’s driving.

Despite my late start, breakfast had been set aside for me, though I suspected that would have been at Frau Gruber’s insistence. I appreciated the support, given my situation, but felt a little awkward about the level of disruption that my presence was causing. Then again, based on the way the rest of the family reacted I suspected this wasn’t the first flight of fancy that they’d needed to work around, so my presence was mostly born with good humor.

After a breakfast of bread, cheese, and cold sausages, that were substantially better than any breakfast sausage I’d had back on Earth Bet, I once again headed out into the city. Unlike the previous day I had a rough sense of what I was dealing with and was comparatively flush with cash. Even with the generous accounting that Mr. Clay had used, a day’s pay for a mechanic’s assistant wasn’t going to have me living the high life, but at least I had enough coin on hand that I could actually consider making some purchases, rather than sticking exclusively to public services and open exhibits.

I also had a rough idea of the city’s layout and some experience finding my way around the city. My previous night’s excursion had taken me over a fairly wide range, and efficiency apparently applied to things like mapping out routes and studying building layouts. I had identified a few locations and businesses that I wanted to investigate further, and now that I had a sense of how things worked I could actually risk a bit more in terms of interactions.

Speaking of risk, there wasn’t any kind of manhunt for a rogue medical spark, or at least no evidence of one on the streets or in the newspaper. It seemed my guess about people fitting things into the local perspective was right. There might be a few pointed questions at whatever passes for the university's medical school, but there were no wanted posters or people scouring the streets to find the person who had run around the previous night providing free medical services.

As odd as it was to think, that probably wasn’t the strangest thing this city had seen. That was something I was still adjusting to. This was a new world, a world that was simultaneously more and less fantastic than Earth Bet. You had the kinds of things that would only be seen in the highest levels of cape society integrated into people’s daily lives, cybernetics, robots, engineered creatures, and all kinds of isolated pieces of fantastic technology, and yet somehow the society itself felt more grounded, at least on the local level.

Yes, you had a city run by a tyrant tinker who operated out of a university. You had the aftermath of an incredibly destructive war and the rise of an authoritarian empire in the aftermath, but looking around at the people who were just living their lives, arguing over the prices of produce, or sharing gossip about current events, it somehow seemed less extreme than the world I had left behind. Maybe that was a lack of the Endbringers, with no Simurgh looming over any hope for the future.

Or maybe that was because I was comparing things to Brockton Bay rather than one of the less active cape cities of Earth Bet, or even non-cape cities. It was important to remember that there were places that weren’t locked into a decade long stalemate between rival gangs, where you didn’t have regular cape battles in the streets and a concentration of parahumans that rivaled some HOSV locations.

Yeah, as a native Brocktonite, my perception of things might be a bit skewed, even if I was from far enough outside the city proper that I’d probably not be considered such by anyone who lived south of the Market. Then again, when you grew up in a city where they had to regularly clear the damage from cape fights and there was a floating superhero headquarters in the middle of the bay, it probably made it easier to adjust to this kind of steampunk insanity.

I paused in my walk through the city as I felt another connection form to the Vehicles constellation. That seemed to be something of a theme so far. This was the fourth connection to that constellation, twice as many as any of the other constellations. It was kind of funny that random chance had effectively given me a specialization, and one that happened to line up with the place and role I’d found myself in.

The power was called Aerospace Engineering Makes Things Go Fast. It granted me an intuitive grasp on the mechanics of wind-flow, material sciences, atmospheric drag, tensile strengths, rocketry, and other fields associated with aerospace engineering. It also extended that intuitive understanding to how those fields applied to designing air vehicles and spacecraft. What was interesting was how the power granted me an intuitive grasp of the concepts, rather than direct knowledge. It was fundamentally different from the other engineering and mechanical powers I’d received, but because of that it built upon them to a tremendous degree.

Between Black Thumb, Scientist: Machinery, Mechanic, and Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench I had a tremendous amount of both practical and theoretical knowledge when it came to mechanics, but my latest power let me understand those concepts on an intuitive level. Well, the concepts that applied to aerospace. It was less the skills of an expert mechanic and more the experience and understanding of a seasoned NASA engineer. The power was definitely specialized, but still readily applicable to my other projects.

Particularly since the Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench made the incorporation of rocket engines into civilian vehicles an utterly trivial matter. I was pretty sure I could launch a car into space with nothing but that power. Actually having the engineering knowledge and understanding needed for that kind of project helped me meet things half way. It was definitely easier when you weren’t entirely relying on the impossibility of a power to facilitate a project.

After all, the further I could go with conventional technology, the further I could push things with the more fantastic elements of my abilities. Which, on reflection, was probably the kind of thinking that got this world into its current state. Well, at least I was fitting in. I just had to make sure I didn’t fit in too well. I might not be a ‘real’ tinker or spark, but I could make literally impossible vehicles. That meant I was operating in the same space, and needed to be aware of that.

Fortunately, it would be easy enough to stick to conventional technology, or at least what counted as conventional for this world. As long as I didn’t openly reveal the fact that I could work like a one-man chop shop, it would probably be okay.

Though that was just for outward facing projects. The kind of thing I’d need to fit in and build a foundation for myself. For my own projects, I now had rocketry, aeronautics, and spaceflight on tap, in addition to all the mechanical insanity I was already capable of. With the right parts and materials that one-man chop shop power could let me speed up a space program from a national project to something I could complete in my Workshop.

Space really wasn’t something I had considered, probably because of the feel of this world. Things here were more in line with what you’d see in "From the Earth to the Moon” than any part of the space race, but I hadn’t seen any reference to space travel, or even anything like it. I mean, the technology clearly existed, and there was a surplus of airships, but heavier than air flight seemed incredibly rare.

I mean, I could handle a space program. My latest power had the as yet unique effect of coming with a bonus ability attached to it. The additional mote was called ‘This Is, Actually, Rocket Science’, and it gave me an instinctive understanding of Delta V and orbital mechanics. Enough that I could probably eyeball a moon flight if I really had to, but that just brought back the question of why there didn’t seem to be anything happening in that field.

Granted, my knowledge wasn’t exactly comprehensive, but given the focus on science in this world, you’d figure that if anyone had even attempted that kind of thing it would be big news. I had to wonder if there was some effect stopping that kind of progress. Given the kind of things that Sparks had unleashed on the world, there could very well be ship-eating void squids dwelling in low Earth orbit.

Or it could be something as simple as the Kessler syndrome. If sparks had been around for hundreds or thousands of years and it was well within their capabilities to reach orbit, then they might have done it before, but that doesn’t mean they would have done it well, or safely. Scratch that, they definitely wouldn’t have done it safely. A few hundred years of sparks launching everything they could into orbit and you could end up with a density of space junk where the debris would collide with other debris, creating even more debris until you had a field of space pollution that would render orbital regions uninhabitable. After a certain point everything you launched into space would be torn to shreds, or at least critically damaged. And that would only add more debris to the orbital killing field.

It was only a theory, but a depressingly plausible one. It meant that any attempt I made at space flight would probably need to be in an excessively robust vessel, and only after an extensive study and unmanned exploratory flights. The ‘robust vessel’ would also help if the danger turned out to be giant space squids, or something like that.

Still, that was all theory and conjecture. I’d need access to a proper research library to even begin to answer those kinds of questions, and I wasn’t at the point where I could just wander into any of the city libraries, much less intrude on the university. I had more immediate concerns to attend to at the moment.

If I was back home I’d be worried about how to leverage my new powers and knowledge towards my career as a hero, but that was the problem. Capes weren’t a thing here. Well, they kind of were, but they were just part of society. An important and potentially dangerous part of society, but still part of society. Being a tinker or having some extra capabilities didn’t mean you put on a costume and ran around fighting villains.

Well, not exactly. There were definitely stories of high adventure from what I’d seen in the museum, but they were more along the lines of old movie serials than superhero conflicts. If I wanted to be a hero in this world, that meant a very different thing from what it did back home, and I was still figuring out exactly what that meant here.

I mean, I had already tried my hand at heroics. I'm certain that those healing formulas I’d used had improved some people’s lives. Even if they reported the event, they weren’t likely to be quarantined or locked away, and the fact that most people had taken me up on the offer… well, that was probably due to the assumed association with the university, rather than any faith in heroism, but it was a kind of good sign, right?

Honestly, I didn’t know. I was in a much better position than I’d been when I arrived, but a better position compared to being collapsed in an alley with no idea what was happening wasn’t that big a step up.

Maybe, just maybe, I didn’t need to immediately throw myself into frantic cape preparation work. It was kind of a crazy thought, but despite how insane this world was, it seemed to be at least somewhat stable, particularly in major cities like Beetleburg. It wasn’t like the city was going to face an invasion, or a coup, or an outbreak from something like the Other. I could actually take some time and build a life here, let my power build up, and get a solid sense of what I was dealing with before I jumped into things, rather than scrounging every resource I could in order to build some kind of rocket powered flying cape motorcycle.

Actually, that did sound kind of awesome. And really wasn’t that hard, when you got down to it. I mean, it didn’t have to be a priority, but maybe as a longer-term project, mostly supported by what I could source from my Workshop? I did have the small problem of not actually knowing how to ride a motorcycle, and my knowledge of flight was a bit theoretical, at least on the sub-orbital side of things. Well, more long-term projects. Which I could actually afford now.

Because I wasn’t under a ticking clock. There was still the risk that I might reveal too much and make someone suspicious, but it would be regular suspicion, put together from clues and evidence, not some crazy thinker clairvoyance telling them all my secrets the second I raised my head.

Because there wasn’t a Simurgh in this world. That was still hard to come to terms with, but it changed so much. It meant I had a chance. I might be on the back foot, trying to find my way in a new world with terrifying powers of its own, massive threats lurking in the wilds, and more unknowns and mysteries than I could even guess, but those were challenges I could actually fight. It wasn’t the hopeless case that was represented by an Endbringer who could strangle the future and warp good people into monsters at the drop of a hat.  There were bad things in this world, but nothing on that kind of absolute level.

That, that was a lot to deal with. It had really hit me the previous day, and it was still sinking in. How did you go from that kind of overarching presence to… nothing? Well, not nothing, but nothing even close to as bad. If I ended up in a conflict with the Baron’s empire that would be terrible, but it was something I could fight, or run from, or negotiate with. None of those options had existed before. None of those possibilities. I didn’t even know how to process something that huge.

So maybe I wouldn’t. Not that I’d be ignoring it, I don’t think I could, but I had other things to deal with than wrestling with the massive shift in the fundamental nature of my relationship with the world. Maybe for the moment I could focus on something a bit more manageable, like shopping.

As I worked my way through the districts, I felt my power miss a connection to a constellation I didn’t recognize. The last ability had been too small to introduce any delay or cooldown from the new mechanics of my power, so the Forge happily kept on spinning, with reach continuing to build as I explored the city’s retail offerings.

I didn’t have much cash on hand to work with, despite Mr. Clay taking a quite generous approach in terms of overtime and rush charges. I'm pretty sure that was the most an assistant could be paid without being a member of the Guild, but it wasn’t quite enough for a shopping spree, or at least not a conventional one.

The side effect of everything in this world having significantly more robust construction than back on Earth Bet was that second hand items stayed in circulation for much longer, meaning the second hand market was quite robust. Actually, at the shops I was looking at, hoping for something that was merely ‘second hand’ was overly optimistic. I was looking at goods that probably predated most of the components of Frau Gruber’s wagon, items in varying levels of functionality, but available at prices I could actually afford.

It helped that, at least for anything mechanical, I was confident I could handle a full restoration of whatever near junk item I came across. There were actually a staggering number of junk and curio shops, and they were probably a trove of all kinds of esoteric technology from this world.

But technology wasn’t what I was looking for. I needed to pick up personal items that would blend in with the local aesthetic, ones that I couldn’t just manufacture myself. And I needed information.

For that, used book stores proved to be a treasure. Well, probably too much like a treasure, in the sense that any actual treasure was well and truly buried in the mess of obscure volumes and degraded novels that spilled out from the shelves to create secondary walls and in at least one case what looked like a load bearing support structure for the roof. I had the feeling that some of the stores I found might not have actually been stores. It was more like a book hoarder ended up buried in an avalanche of reading material at some point and whoever inherited the property just decided to put a cash register by the entrance and call it a day. 

At least that would explain the pair of boots sticking out from the bottom of a sizable pile of romance novels in the back of one shop. The other patrons were deliberately averting their eyes from the scene. A concerned look towards one of the shop workers just earned me a quick shake of their head before they hurried back to work.

Potential crime scenes aside, I did have a fairly successful afternoon. Early on I found a battered but functional leather satchel that would definitely attract less attention than the nylon and zipper backpack that I’d left back in my workshop. It provided a handy shopping bag for the other items I’d picked up, including a small selection of well-worn history and reference books. Not comprehensive by any means, but a good deal better than trying to discern world history from children’s museum exhibits.

There were probably better sources of information out there, but none of them were currently accessible or within my budget. I wasn’t sure how much I would be able to actually learn from a twenty-year-old copy of ‘Great Houses of Europa’, but the more context I could get for this world, the better.

Outside of pure research, I’d also picked up a few trinkets and gadgets, all completely non-functional but interesting nonetheless. Plenty of the stores had the equivalent of a discount bin, effectively a crate of nick knacks that were unlikely to sell as anything but paperweights or spare parts. I'm pretty sure most of them were one step away from a dumpster, but there was definitely some potential there. The collection of trinkets were the best of what I’d been able to find, and demonstrated rather advanced engineering principles, or at least they probably had when they were working. Probably not spark level technology, but I’d bet some of them were at least adjacent, and I was interested to learn what kind of technology could be salvaged from them.

I mean, in most cases it was probably going to be advanced clockwork and maybe a few interesting magnetic principles, but from what I could tell, clockwork in this world could handle tasks that would normally require fairly advanced computing. I probably wasn’t going to see anything on that level from the collection of broken devices I’d picked up, but even something operating on the same principles would be interesting.

I could also fix them, either through conventional work or by leaning into the more outlandish aspects of my power. And unlike back on Earth Bet, I probably didn’t need to worry about being outed as a tinker from collecting broken devices and fixing them for resale. Hell, I had passed at least a half dozen businesses specializing in that kind of work. Plus, that kind of low-level repair work could probably squeak by whatever guild restriction existed in the city.

Probably. One of the books I’d picked up was a not too outdated copy of the city’s guild charters. It was a thick tome full of legalese that precisely divided the allocation of certain trades, based on charter’s personally granted by Dr. Beetle. I’d only thumbed through it, but there was an entire section on the division between cheesemakers and dairy producers on the subject of which grades of yogurt fell into which section.

It also highlighted a problem that I hadn’t seen coming. The main language of the land was a kind of Romanian, which I was now fluent in for some reason, probably connected to whatever brought me to this world. While that was in common use, English was widely spoken as a trade language, apparently due to England, or what was left of England, being a major economic power. General conversation was often conducted in the local language, but people shifted to English when dealing with commercial matters.

That was fine for me, but the linguistic variation didn’t stop there. It seemed a certain level of polylingualism was expected for this society. For instance, sections of the guild charter shifted into French and even Latin at some points. There were math and science books written in Greek or Arabic mixed in with copies in the languages I could actually speak, with no effort made to actually sort of label them as such.

Well, that was mostly down to the nature of the bookstores in question, which seemed to focus more on maximizing the number of books they could fit into the space provided rather than imposing any sense or order or organization on them. That was probably all well and good if you were set to enjoy a literary treasure hunt, but was fairly frustrating when it looked like you’d found a fairly promising technical volume, only to find half of it written in hieroglyphics and half in Cyrillic characters.

It looked like I was going to have to study several languages if I wanted to be able to function in this society at more than a basic level, which was something I wasn’t particularly looking forward to. I’d happily forgotten most of my high school French immediately after my last exam and, based on my experience with that class, had never really considered language studies. I guess I could hold out hope that something from my power might help with this problem, but it wasn’t like there was some tinker power that was going to also grant me the ability to speak fluent Greek.

Another problem for later.  Lots of problems for later, but fortunately there was a good chance that there was actually going to be a later. It was still weird to think that I might actually be able to build a life in this city, in this world. It was kind of a crazy world, but also endearing. Dangerous without being completely oppressive. Frantic, but not overwhelming. Maybe it was too early to be thinking about that kind of thing, but it was nice to have thoughts about the future that were more than just plans for desperate buildup and training in an attempt to stay ahead of any of the nightmare powers of Earth Bet that would come after me at the first opportunity.

As such I had a smile on my face as I made my way back to Turnips R Us. I’d had a successful shopping trip while still holding plenty of pay in reserve in case there were any issues with finding proper work in the city. I shifted the weight of the overstuffed satchel as I spotted Frau Gruber parked outside of the front entrance of the store, issuing orders while holding her cane like a marshal’s baton. Most of the group of scurrying employees she was terrorizing held at least some family resemblance to the woman in question.

“Hurry up! The Mason Lodge wants two more orders of albino rutabaga for tonight. No, albino, not white. Honestly child, look at the stems! Now switch these out, and make sure you get them back into the cellar. You know what happens if they get too much sunlight before they’re properly cooked.” She ordered, and two of the workers quickly reversed course and wrestled the oversized crate they were carrying back into the store.

“Good afternoon, Frau Gruber.” I called up to her position on the cart. The woman’s demeanor instantly softened as she turned towards me, and the workers she’d been commanding quickly moved to take advantage of her diverted attention.

“Ah, Józef.” She said, looking down at my satchel. “It looks like you’ve had a productive day.”

I shifted my satchel, pushing one of the larger books back under the flap. “Just a bit of shopping.” I said. “Thank you for taking care of that pay packet. I’m sorry I wasn’t up in time to see you off this morning.”

“Oh, tosh. After everything yesterday there’s no harm in sleeping in.” She said. One of the workers nearly dropped a crate of onions and the rest looked at her as if she had started speaking in tongues. A slight glance from the corner of her eyes set them all into action again, with the sense that they were deliberately ignoring the rest of the conversation.

“Is everything working out with the cart?” I asked. I was fairly confident it was just from a cursory examination and the sound of the idling engine, but I didn’t need to advertise supernatural mechanical expertise. At least not more than I already had.

“It’s wonderful!” The woman said, her face lighting up. “Why, I never thought I’d be able to get the old girl to move like this again. Honestly, after everything Adam said, it was clear he just needed a fresh perspective.”

“Um, yes, well, I'm glad I could help.” I said, hoping I hadn’t ended up casting Mr. Clay in a bad light. “Oh, your son talked to me about adding some safety features.” I added. “Since the cart is going to be seeing heavier use.”

“Humph. Petru never stops worrying. Just like his father.” Her expression turned soft. “That man… he was as stalwart as they come, but get a bit of air time after a bad bump and he’d cling to you like his life depended on it.”

That… probably explained more about Frau Gruber’s courtships than I’d ever care to ask. I cleared my throat and she quickly refocused on me.

“I suppose there’s no harm, if it will put that boy’s mind at ease. You’re not going to do anything silly that will end up bogging down the acceleration, are you?” She asked sternly.

“Nothing like that.” I assured her. Normally there would be tradeoffs, but, well, when it came to vehicles I had a certain degree of leeway. Which was a nice way of saying that literally impossible modifications were possible. “But some better brakes and handling?” And maybe a roll cage, air bags, and something at least resembling a seatbelt, but it was probably better to open with the more showy features.

“That sounds lovely. We can talk about that- No, no, no! Albino, not silver! Don’t you dare bring those into direct sunlight.” The worker at the entrance froze in place as Frau Gruber climbed down. “We’ll have to pick this up later. I swear, this place would fall apart without someone looking after it. Why back in my father’s day…”

The woman’s admonishments faded as she tottered into the shop, the employees parting before her like the Red Sea. I had to shake my head at the display and turned to circle back around to the garage when I spotted Agatha making her way down the street in what I now recognized as her university hat and coat.

“Oh, hello, Miss Clay.” I said. She glanced up at me, then over the idling cart.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Duris.” Agatha said with a slight smile. I think she was amused by the excessive formality, though I was definitely erring on the side of caution there. Particularly with her father working in the open workshop across the street and very pointedly keeping an eye on me. “Is there a problem with Frau Gruber’s cart?”

I began to respond, then paused as the Forge missed a connection to yet another unknown constellation. My reach was building to a level that matched what I had when I secured Efficiency and Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench. Whatever the next power was going to be, there was a decent chance it would be a significant one.

I quickly turned back to Agatha. “No, everything seems to be running fine.” I said. “Though we were talking about improving the brakes and handling, since it will be seeing more… aggressive use.”

Agatha nodded, though there was a hint of concern, probably meaning I hadn’t concealed my earlier reaction as well as I would have hoped. “Yes, I can see how that would be a good idea.” She said, “Are there any problems with you taking that kind of work on yourself? I mean, with the guild?”

“Frau Gruber said there was a bylaw for contract mechanics that should exempt me, but…” From Agatha’s expression I could tell that wouldn’t have been the first time Frau Gruber might have taken a creative reading of a particular regulation. “I picked up a copy of the guild charters to be sure, but it’s a little out of date.” I explained, digging out the hefty volume. “And honestly a bit beyond me.”

Agatha took the aged book from my hands and began thumbing through it. “Ah, this is probably more technical than what you were looking for. It’s most about the founding agreements and division of industries.” She snapped the book shut. “Adam should have a spare copy of the guild bylaws that we could lend you.”

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that.” I said. Meanwhile Agatha was shamelessly peering into my satchel, scanning across the spines of the other books I had picked up.

“Were you book shopping?” She asked with interest. It was too late to hide my purchase, so I did my best to play things off casually.

“Not exclusively.” I said, accepting the guild book back from Agatha and pulling out a few of the others. Local histories and guides to the city would make more sense for someone who just arrived, and hopefully she wouldn’t give too much weight to the more general titles I had left in the bag. “But I found some used book stores and these seemed like they might be helpful.”

Agatha nodded. “I know these. This one is fairly out of date, but if you stick with the first two sections it’s still a good reference. This has been waiting on a new edition, but it’s been held up in committee forever. Oh, this was actually pulled from the University Library after Professor Breck…” Agatha paused and cleared her throat. “Well, that wasn’t publicized, but he’s been on indefinite academic leave ever since.”

I blinked. “Right…” I said, looking down at what appeared to be a fairly tame guide to the various districts of Beetleburg. I had to wonder what kind of major controversy could come from how the parts of a city were divided.

Then I remembered the various opinions on exactly where Captain’s Hill ended and where Brockton Bay ‘proper’ began. Or whether the South Docks should really be considered a separate area from the main Docks. Or how the Beaches were subdivided, or even if they should be subdivided. Those debates got messy enough in a world without super science impossibilities around every corner. I could only imagine how bad entrenched opinions could get in this world, particularly if someone published a book that claimed to be the final word on the matter.

“I really just wanted some starting reference, particularly while I'm getting set up.” I explained as I accepted the books and packed them away.

“How are things going on that front?” She asked cheerfully.

“Well, Frau Gruber’s given me the spare garage for the moment, but I’d rather not impose on her too long. I guess anything permanent will depend on how things go with the Mechanics Guild.” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

“I'm sure you won’t have any problems there.” She said looking over to the cart again. There was a flicker of an expression on her face, maybe envious, maybe sad, I wasn’t sure. Her cheerful demeanor was back in a flash, but I had to wonder if it was as sincere as it seemed.

“Hopefully.” I replied, then shifted as someone in brightly colored clothing pushed past me on the street. He didn’t give me a second glance as he plastered a playbill on a nearby lamppost, then continued on.

The playbill announced that ‘The Galvanic Players’ would be performing ‘The Heterodyne Boys and the Clockwork Sundial’ in Commodore Square. The center of the playbill was a stylized print of what I imagined were the characters from the performance, with the rest of the notice filled with showtimes, actor credits, business sponsors, and a civic seal announcing sanction from the Tyrant.

“Oh.” Agatha said, leaning around me to read the notice. “I didn’t realize the season had started already.”

“Are they a well-known group?” I asked.

“Definitely.” She said with a nod. “I mean, it's not the kind of troop you’d see in the playhouse, but they do public performances through the summer, and Dr. Beetle gave them an official commission ages ago. That’s more than enough to keep any group going.”

I nodded, looking at the playbill again. I could recognize some of the business names from my wandering around the city. It was a decent bet that the ‘sponsorship’ included business rights as vendors for whatever kind of public performance they put on. Based on the number of businesses, it could be closer to a fair or carnival than just a play. That would certainly fit with the aesthetic of the man who had been canvassing for the show.

“And they’re doing the Clockwork Sundial again.” Agatha said. “I wonder how they’ll handle the giant goldfinch this time.” She turned to me. “Though I suppose they could skip to the castle of light. That’s always the best part.”

I could only give her a blank expression. “Um, sorry, I don’t know the story.”

“Really?” Agatha asked. “It's always been one of the most popular Heterodyne Shows.”

I just shrugged. “I’ve actually never been to a Heterodyne Show.”

From Agatha’s expression I could tell I had made something of a misstep there. “Really?” She asked, looking at the playbill again. “I mean, for the big show, sure, but not even one of the traveling troops, festival plays?”

“Um, sorry?” I said a bit awkwardly.

Agatha just looked at me in surprise. I glanced away, wondering how I could downplay this when I heard a scoff from the doorway behind us.

“Good Lord, that has to be the worst pickup line I’ve heard in my life.” Frau Gruber said as she pushed her way out of the shopfront.

“Frau Gruber?” I asked.

“Oh no, I’ve NEVER been to a Heterodyne Show before. If only there was some lovely young lady who would be willing to accompany me on what is definitely a new experience.” She said in a mocking tone then shook her head and turned to look up at me. “If you want to ask the girl to the show, just ask her.”

“That’s not… I mean, I wasn’t… I assure you…” I stammered, then turned back to Agatha, unsure if I should deny or apologize. Then I saw the conspiratorial smile on her face as she glanced down at Frau Gruber, then looked up at me over the rims of her glasses.

“Did you want to ask me to the Heterodyne Show?” She asked in an overly sweet voice, clearly playing up the situation for Frau Gruber who was enjoying this far too much. Meanwhile, Efficiency was helping me panic and stammer in the most efficient way possible. I felt like the most graceful flopping fish to ever find himself out of water.

“Um, yes? I mean, no. I mean, I wouldn’t want to presume…” I tried desperately as I was effectively trapped between Agatha and Frau Gruber. In that moment I desperately prayed for any way out of the situation.

“What’s this about a Heterodyne Show?” I turned to see Mrs. Clay walking towards us with a folder under her arm with a few pages of sheet music sticking out of it, and a very stern expression on her face. I amended my earlier prayer to ‘any way but this’.

“It looks like the Galvanic Players are starting the season early.” Frau Gruber said with a sly smile. “Sounds like the perfect afternoon outing.” The woman was able to communicate a frightening amount through nothing but a few eyebrow motions, with the implications doing nothing to help with my near panic that was quickly becoming more than just NEAR panic.

“Mrs. Clay, I assure you, I didn’t mean to… This is…” I stammered.

Stammered with an efficiency of movement that probably came across as quite striking, but all I could focus on was the fact that I had somehow managed to come up with the optimal level of panic. Perfect efficiency meant nothing if you had no idea what you were supposed to do. It was probably the most elegant near breakdown in history. I was a finely tuned sports car of indecision, stuck in neutral with a brick on the accelerator.

Fortunately, my reaction seemed to be enough to clue Mrs. Clay into the source of the current predicament. Between my current state and Frau Gruber’s shameless grin, there was actually a hint of sympathy from Mrs. Clay before she schooled her expression.

“And this was your suggestion.” She said, looking at Frau Gruber. The tiny woman just smiled with palpable smugness. Mrs. Clay let out a sigh. “I understand you are excited to have your cart working again, but high spirits are no excuse for trying to drag Agatha off to some half-baked performance.”

“Oh come now, there’s no harm. After all, it’s the Clockwork Sundial, not the Socket Wrench of Prague or the Trial of the Mechanical Dessert.” Frau Gruber said confidently.

Agatha’s face scrunched in confusion. “Do you mean the Mechanical Desert?” Agatha asked.

Frau Gruber opened her mouth to reply, but Mrs. Clay quickly cut her off. “No, she doesn’t.” She said firmly.

I looked at Agatha in confusion, but she just shrugged. “I’ve never heard of those stories.” She admitted.

“And you shouldn’t have.” Mrs. Clay said sternly, shooting Frau Gruber an irritated look. “They are not to be discussed casually.”

“Quite right.” Frau Gruber said. “Unlike, say, the Clockwork Sundial?”

Mrs. Clay let out a breath. She looked from my still desperate expression to Agatha’s possibly hopeful face. Or maybe she was just amused by the back and forth.

“Come now, what reason could you have for passing on an innocent performance?” Frau Gruber said, turning to Agatha. “I know spending time with Tarsus must be enchanting, but you really need to get out more.”

Now it was Agatha’s turn to be thrown off balance. “That’s not… I mean, I would never, Dr. Beetle is a great man.” She said defensively.

“You’ll hear no argument from me, but there are also plenty of perfectly adequate men, some of whom even have good character, as rare as that seems to be in the current age.”

“Frau Gruber, please stop teasing the children.” Mrs. Clay said with a sigh. Behind her Mr. Clay had crossed the street and made a series of gestures that just elicited more sighs from his wife.

“Very well, but you have to admit, it’s not healthy to be cooped up all the time.” She said, “A bit of light entertainment and a constitutional never hurt anyone.”

Mrs. Clay looked from me to Frau Gruber to Agatha and then to her husband. She let out another breath before nodding once. “I suppose we could spare the time.”

We. Right, because chaperoning was a thing in this time period, or culture, or world, however it should be referred to. Mr. Clay’s expression made it clear what he thought of the idea, but somehow the fact that Agath’s parents were going to be hovering around and staring murder at me actually made the situation seem more manageable. This wasn’t a date, no matter what Frau Gruber was insinuating. I was accompanying Agatha on a family outing. The additional structure and reframing was enough for me to wrestle my panic back under control, at least to a degree.

Mr. Clay’s frown deepened and he made some gestures towards his wife. She just shook her head.

“There’s three days of work on Herr Ketter’s tractor. We can spare the rest of the afternoon. Frau Gruber’s right.” She said, giving the woman a sideways glare. “There’s no good reason not to.”

I could pick up on the code perfectly well. They would very much have liked to say no, but parents who were probably already overprotective, which was understandable given Agatha’s condition, didn’t want to seem excessively or unreasonably so. And given how comparably harmless this kind of show seemed to be, it was probably an acceptable outing, even with someone like me involved.

It probably helped that her parents would be barely beyond arm’s reach the entire time and her father looked like he could squash most people with a single hand.

Attention had shifted towards me, and while I wasn’t quite as panicked as I had been before, I was still thoroughly off balance. I swallowed and turned to Agatha.

“Miss Clay, would you like to go to the Heterodyne Show?” I asked.

I had meant it as ‘do you actually want to go to this show beyond whatever prodding and teasing Frau Gruber had indulged in, but I realized too late that it came across as a sincere invitation. I'm going to blame Efficiency for that and not focus on the surprised look on Agatha’s face before she responded.

“Yes, Mr. Ďuriš, I would like that.” She said sincerely. In the corner of my eye I saw a hint of a frown from Mrs. Clay. And a much less subtle tightening of fists from Mr. Clay.

“You can call on us at four o’clock.” Mrs. Clay said, glancing at the poster. “Come along Agatha, we have some things to put in order before the show.”

“Yes, Lilith.” Agatha said, hurrying after her mother. She did give me a final glance, which caused her father’s frown to deepen. The look he gave me was significantly more serious, and I made a point to nod in understanding. That seemed to be enough to placate him, at least for the moment, but I doubted things would be much better during the show.

“Oh, don’t let Adam try to intimidate you.” Frau Gruber said as she scoffed at the exchange. “The man’s as soft as pudding once you get to know him.”

 “Of course.” I said dryly. “I just hope I last long enough to ‘get to know him’.”

“You’ll be fine.” Frau Gruber said with the confidence that I had come to expect from her. “And it will be good for both of you. That girl needs to get out more, and for you…”

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes, you. I know the type. You’d have held yourself up in that workshop for the next three days, only coming out for materials and maybe food, if we were lucky.” She said knowingly.

“Um…” I murmured. I probably wouldn’t have been that bad, but that was mostly because I still needed to get my bearings and was hoping for some progress finding more work. If I had access to the supplies and material I needed, would I have held up in my Workshop? Probably, and it sounded a lot worse to hear someone else say it.

“Now go on. Make sure you have a good time while you're still young enough to enjoy it.” She said, seeing me off.

I ended up walking back to the reserve garage in something of a daze. Out of all the ways I had imagined this world blindsiding me or throwing some impossible scenario in my face, this hadn’t even been on the map. What did it say when I had given more thought to having to face down continental superpowers than I had to the possibility of having to escort a girl to a play? That wouldn’t have happened back on Earth Bet, but as was becoming more and more clear, this was not Earth Bet.

As I locked the doors to the garage and opened my workshop I felt another shift from the Forge as its connection to a small mote from the Toolkits constellation. And just like how my metal shop had come from that source, this mote provided another facility for my workshop. The only difference was that this time I was inside to see it happen.

The power was called Laboratorium. It was a kind of technology research lab containing analysis computers and scanning systems that could break down the function and mechanics of nearly any piece of technology. I knew what the power did, but I didn’t expect it to manifest as an arched gothic doorway opposite the entrance to my metal shop. The door looked like it would be more at home on some ancient cathedral, not a technology lab. As the shaking settled I carefully approached the heavy door and slowly pushed it open.

I was met with a cloud of incense and smoke from the darkened space within. It took me a moment to adjust to the lower light levels, but when I did I was stunned by just how expansive the space actually was. Tall arched ceilings and a cavernous hall that led into the distance, with every surface excessively decorated with sculptures, icons, statues, and skulls. So many carved skulls. Which, I quickly realized, were not all ‘carved skulls’. In fact, I would go so far as to say most of them were not carved skulls. No, they were very, very real. And… friendly?

That might be a generous way of describing the behavior of the human skulls that had been integrated into the systems of the Laboratorium. They were suspended on cables that snaked out of walls, with cybernetic optics embedded in their eye sockets and machinery penetrating into where their brain would be. It was disturbingly thorough and deliberate, and I had a feeling the use of skulls wasn’t just an aesthetic choice.

Not JUST an aesthetic choice, though as far as aesthetics were concerned the Laboratorium went beyond over the top. It was a technologically integrated church, with every computer and scanning bed having more in common with an altar than any kind of device I had seen before. What’s more, there was a reverence to the place. It might have been the way the acoustics held on to each sound and made you excessively aware of your own movements, but it made me want to move carefully, to speak softly and to try not to disturbed… whatever this was.

What it was, ultimately, was a very advanced scanning and analysis laboratory with an excessive commitment to theme. As far as I could tell, nothing about the excessive stylization actually impeded the facility in its function. If anything, there seemed to be layers of streamlining built into the grandeur, and literally hundreds of assistants of dubious sapience who seemed beyond eager to get to work.

In terms of work, I was at something of a disadvantage. Most of the workstations and command chairs were equipped with dedicated ports, and I was guessing they weren’t for USB peripherals. The manual controls for the systems were clunky and deliberately limited and really only my understanding of the power carried me through. I could make use of this place, but only at the most basic level.

Still, that should be enough. Particularly since the Laboratorium had containment and security systems that were beyond what I needed at the moment. With excessive care, I moved the containment vault I had built for Bakuda’s grenade over from my metal shop to the Laboratorium.

Every skull in the room perked up the instant the box was moved inside, practically swarming around it and eagerly directing me to one of the larger scanning bays. There some kind of levitation field activated while probes began mapping out both my rough construction of the containment measures, and the device inside. At the lab’s prompting I approved destructive extraction and was able to watch as the previous night’s work was sliced open and the tiny tinkertech explosive removed.

The Laboratorium’s systems wanted to launch into an immediate examination, but this had already taken more time than I could really spare. Fortunately, the containment systems included a stasis field that could keep the bomb in suspended animation, ensuring that there would be no mishaps while I was out.

I watched as the tiny silver sphere froze in place and felt a massive weight lift from my shoulders. One of my biggest mistakes and oversights was now contained. More than contained, it was secure and would potentially allow me to figure out exactly what had nearly been deployed against me. There was a distant possibility that I could learn enough to replicate it or reverse engineer some principles, but I could acknowledge that was beyond my current abilities.

The impossible feats of engineering I could accomplish with Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench were actually impossible feats of engineering. The ability to build a bicycle that could use NOS injectors didn’t give me an understanding of how to use nitrous oxide for the purposes of human biological enhancement, it just allowed the bicycle to get the same kind of boosts in performance and speed that a car would be able to. It was fantastic, but it was a type of fantastic that stayed in its own lane, no pun intended.

Really, all I could do was hope that some future power would give me enough understanding or technical skills to be able to figure out Bakuda’s technology. And if not, well, at least it was well contained. Not having to worry about it was a relief, particularly when I had an entire not-date to worry about.

I got cleaned up as well as I could with the toiletries that made the trip from Brockton Bay on account of being stored in my Workshop entryway, as well as some of the pseudo-Victorian equivalents I had picked up during my shopping trip. I also gave my coat another once over and changed into fresh clothes for what pieces I could switch out. My costume passed for the local style better than anything else I owned, but I had a few items that would pass, providing they weren’t examined too closely. My coat obscuring most of the details helped with that, and it was better than working with clothing that had seen the wrong side of a fight with Oni Lee.

I really needed to figure out laundry, or just see what I could manage with the sink in the spare garage.

Ultimately, I managed to get to a point that was reasonably well put together, once again with Efficiency mostly carrying the day, both in terms of managing everything in the time allotted and not looking like a complete wreck. For about the hundredth time I wondered how I had gotten myself into this. Ultimately the answer came down to Frau Gruber’s apparent desire to wring as much entertainment out of her remaining years, and me being too off balance and intimidated to take a stand.

That was something I’d need to be careful about. Getting maneuvered into seeing a play with a girl like Agatha, well, that wasn’t exactly bad, but there were going to be a lot more conflicts in this world. As much as I might want to just avoid them, I could recognize that wasn’t going to be an option. If I didn’t learn how to take a stand then next time it could be a lot worse than a little bit of embarrassment.

More problems for later, and unlike technical problems I couldn’t rely on my power to just magic up some ability that would let me work through my issues. The best I could do was try to stay aware of them and mitigate them as much as I could.

On that happy thought I pushed my way out of the garage door and made my way across to the Clays workshop. There was definitely a change in tone from the other employees, so it was a safe bet that news of what happened had already spread. Weirdly, I was getting a sense of sympathy and relief. I'm guessing that if Frau Gruber was focused on meddling in my life, then the rest of her family had at least a temporary reprieve.

The main doors to the Clay workshop had been closed off. I met the family outside the front doors of their house. My guess about the tone of the performance had been right, with the Clays dressed maybe one step above their work clothes. Given my own limited options, if this was some kind of dress up occasion I would have had to bow out from the start.

“Good afternoon.” I offered, still palpably nervous, but at least my power was turning that into a kind of directed energy.

“Mr. Ďuriš.” Mrs. Clay said politely. Her husband just glowered at me, giving the sense that even if he could talk he wouldn’t have anything to say. Agatha just smiled at the display and stepped forward.

“Are you ready for your ‘first’ Heterodyne Show?” She said in amusement. I cringed slightly, but nodded.

“Definitely.” I said. I stepped back to fall in beside the group as they led the way to Commodore Square, then paused as I felt another shift from the Forge.

It wasn’t anything unusual. The Laboratorium had been a minor power, without any delay that needed to be cleared. The Forge had moved again, and missed a connection to another new constellation.

What was unusual was the size of the mote that had just been overlooked. It was beyond massive, absolutely dwarfing tiny powers like Aerospace Engineering and the Laboratorium. It was bigger than any other power I had seen before, twice the size of Efficiency and Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench, and I knew how strong those powers were.

I didn’t even realize the scale went that high. I couldn’t even imagine what a power like that might represent. All I could do was watch that miniature sun spin away and try to cover my reaction to the event.

I mostly managed that, in that I don’t think either of Agatha’s parents noticed, or if they did they didn’t seem to recognize it as anything of concern. Agatha, on the other hand, was giving me a worried look. I gave her a quick smile, then focused back on the road ahead of us. Those shifts in focus from when my power activated, they weren’t bad. They weren’t even that debilitating, but Agatha had seen one before and knew to look for them. It made me feel kind of exposed, even if she was treating them with concern and discretion.

On reflection, that was probably how she felt about her own attacks. I hadn’t seen one, but from what she described and how she reacted I could imagine what it must be like. Even having the people around you being sensitive to the situation, it was hard to deal with.

That line of thinking was a bit glum for the current occasion. Fortunately, things picked up as we began to approach Commodore Square. There was a large stage already set up at the end of the square. It looked like it would be standing room for the show and based on the roped off areas near the stage, charged for priority ‘standing’, though apparently anyone could watch if they were willing to do so from the equivalent of the nosebleed seats.

That would also put them closer to the booths that had lined the edge of the square. Some were selling snacks, carnival food, trinkets, or souvenirs, others were hosting simple carnival games or offering things like fortune telling or psychic readings, though I did notice everything seemed to have an overtly scientific bent. There were diagrams of the physics interactions set up on the carnival games, the fortune telling was either numeracy based or claiming to examine probabilistic fields, and a good portion of the items for sale looked like the kind of stuff you’d find in the gift shop of a science museum.

I didn’t know if that was the influence of the university or if it was just a characteristic of this world. Or maybe it was specific to the Heterodyne shows. If you were telling the story of a pair of science heroes, then it made sense that kind of thing would be aggrandized, at least to some extent.

We still had a fair bit of time before the show started, and fortunately Agatha’s parents didn’t maintain a close orbit the entire time. They ran into acquaintances, exchanged greetings, or became briefly distracted by some of the various items that were for sale. They were never that far from us, but at least it felt like they were just keeping an eye on the situation rather than conducting a prisoner escort.

It also gave me a chance to take a look at what was on offer. The food was the kind of sugary or fried stuff you’d expect from these kinds of events, though I wasn’t quite brave enough to try the ‘Mimmoth on a Stick’. The fact that it had a profile quite similar to the chocolate mimmoths did not make me feel much better about either ‘food’.

The other stalls were more interesting, though it was the collection of curios that would normally be picked up as impulse purchases. Still, there were some interesting items, and it was a couple of steps about the fifth-hand stores I had been scrounging through. Of course, it only took a few exchanges with the people running the stalls for me to encounter another problem.

“I'm sorry.” Agatha said, trying to cover her giggles. “I shouldn’t laugh, it’s just…”

“No, it’s fine.” I said, trying to bear her amusement with good humor.

“I mean, how do you even end up with an accent like that?” She continued. She cleared her throat to cover another giggle. “Sorry again. I really shouldn’t be laughing.”

There would probably have been less comedic effect if I hadn’t been so confident in my English, only to run into someone who apparently was completely incapable of parsing an American accent. The actual moment of comedy came from that confident delivery completely crashing out, while also putting me in the position of having to explain my American accent, which apparently did not exist in this world.

“Brockton was founded by sailors. They probably picked up a lot of influences from that.” I explained.

I had also defaulted to telling lies that were as close to the truth as possible, both because I did not trust my ability to deceive anyone over an extended period of time, and because from what I’d read, lost or forgotten cities were a dime a dozen in this world.

That was barely an exaggeration. Any atlas I had come across had included notes that the settlement names, details, and even landforms were likely outdated or incorrect by the time the maps were published. Aside from the major cities, settlements sprang up and disappeared all the time, either wiped out by invading forces, rampaging monsters, scientific disasters, or the work of their own Sparks. This was doubly true for coastal cities, which had a tendency to be founded whenever a ship washed ashore and wiped out whenever there was a particularly large storm, powerful wave, or angry sea monster.

It was enough to remind me of Leviathan, only these attacks seemed mostly random, and there was actually a hope of fighting off the sea monster in question. So once again, a tremendously dangerous world, but somehow still a step up from Earth Bet.

“If it was sailors you’d expect it to be closer to modern English, but it’s like something hundreds of years out of date that was mixed from various subdialects, then blended with German, Dutch, and… I'm not sure. Maybe Swedish?” Agatha mused.

I didn’t actually know how the modern American accent had developed, but that sounded reasonably plausible. “Did you study linguistics at the university?” I asked.

“Well, not officially, but I’ve done secretarial work for Dr. Beetle, so I’ve had to stay on top of my languages.” She explained. “What about you?”

“Romanian, English, and some very bad French.” I quipped.

“Worse than your English?” She shot back.

“My English isn’t bad, it’s just… distinct.” I said with fake pomposity. That, plus the expression I gave her, was enough to send Agatha back into a fit of giggles.

And enough to cause Mr. Clay to look up from the tradesman who was talking to him, just enough to make sure I knew he was watching. And in case that wasn’t enough, his wife quickly swept in from the wings.

“You two seem to be having a good time.” She said in a level voice.

“We were just discussing linguistics.” Agatha said.

“Linguistics?” Mrs. Clay asked. “What aspect of linguistics was so entertaining?”

“The part where my English apparently wasn’t as strong as I was led to believe.” I said quietly. Mrs. Clay raised an eyebrow, but seemed to accept the explanation. “We were actually just checking over the stalls to see if there was anything before the show that…” I trailed off as our circuit of the square took us to a small stall that was being run out of the back of a very familiar cart.

“Well, hello Frau Gruber.” Mrs. Clay said. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Lilith.” The old woman replied. “And of course, have to teach the next generation how to handle these kinds of things.” She gestured to a tiny girl next to with a shock of bright orange hair. She was wearing a freshly pressed blue dress and didn’t look to be much older than eight years old. “Have you had a chance to meet Gretta? Nicoli’s oldest.”

“I haven’t had the oppertunity.” Mrs. Clay said, leaning down to the small girl. “Are you having a good time with your great grandma?” She asked.

“Yep!” She said excitedly. “Would you like some sliced sugar beets? We have both candied and fried!”

I raised an eyebrow, but both the girl and Frau Gruber seemed quite proud of the little bags of what I'm guessing counted as confections in this world, and they seemed to be doing a brisk business as well.

“Maybe later.” Mrs. Clay said, apparently not willing to admonish Frau Gruber’s obvious snooping in front of the girl. Which was probably the main reason she had been brought along. “You be sure to help Frau Gruber, and learn everything she teaches you.”

“I will!” Gretta said, practically vibrating with excitement. “Nana said she’s going to teach me how to drive the cart!”

The three of us froze, then in unison turned to Frau Gruber.

“Well of course.” The woman said. “After all your husband’s warnings I was actually starting to think the old girl wouldn’t last, but now that everything’s been set right I need to make sure someone is ready to handle it after I'm gone.”

“Isn’t she a little young for that?” Agatha asked.

“Of course not.” Frau Gruber insisted. “I was driving on my own when I was younger than her. I would even sneak out at night to make jumps over the south canal.” She said with a smile on her face.

“Are you going to teach me how to do that, Nana?” Gretta asked, her eyes full of wonder.

“Maybe.” Frau Gruber said, patting the girl on the head. “Providing the Rusu family have properly reinforced that roof of theirs.” She shook her head. “It used to be you could get a decent launch from any roof in the city. Why, half my shortcuts relied on it, but these days the building standards are so lax you can’t even brush against a house without a dozen lost shingles and a small claims court case.”

She tutted, continuing to shake her head while her great-granddaughter looked at her with wide eyes. I could only watch the interaction in concern while mentally expanding the list of safety features I would have to add to the cart, including possible contingencies for a water landing.

We left the stall after being guilted into buying three bags of candied sugar beet slices, which were actually not that bad. I mean, the primary flavor was molasses, but the texture wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected, and I had actually been able to cover the cost on my own, which was enough for me to feel like I had fulfilled whatever obligation this outing involved. Well, maybe not, but I was still kind of at a loss for what something like this actually counted as, so covering the snacks for the play was better than nothing.

Mrs. Clay craned her head over the crowd and pursed her lips. “It looks like your father has been pinned down by Mikel Graysmith.” She let out a sigh. “I’ll go get him and meet you two at the show.”

I nodded as she hurried off. I imagine this was probably a show of trust, or at least a belief that it was unlikely anything untoward would happen in the next five minutes. I smiled and turned to Agatha.

“How do these things work, anyway?” I asked. “Do people just press in, or is it more organized?”

“It’s not really that formal.” She explained. “They ticket the area next to the stage, but beyond that it's more of a group event.”

“That sounds nice.” I said. I had limited experiences with public performances, mostly the occasional concert at college, and those tended to swing between being completely regimented or total anarchy.

Agatha gave me a serious look. “You really haven’t been to a Heterodyne Show before?”

“Sorry.” I said with a shrug. “Something of a sheltered childhood, I guess.”

“But not even when you were at your university?” She asked.

“That was… shows weren’t really the kind of thing I was focusing on there, and it didn’t…” I trailed off, not sure how to continue and definitely not wanting to. Agatha winced at my reaction.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up.” She said.

“No, it’s fine. It’s just…” Before I could finish that thought I felt a shift from the Forge. A major shift, to a mote as powerful as Efficiency, and from a new constellation. The Size constellation.

The power was called Hybridization Theory. It let me combine two machines into one. Not as a rough mash up of parts, but as a perfect union of form and function with every feature and advantage preserved in the resulting hybridization, with unified machines having literally twice the power they individually had.

It was an incredible power, but it wasn’t infinite. Unlike Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench there were actual scientific principles at work in the resulting hybrid, but they were incredibly advanced. Technically it was possible to hybridize something multiple times, but my power would only provide the training wheels for the first expression. The only way to apply it again would be to deconstruct exactly how the hybridized technology functioned and recreate it without the help of the power.

Technically any two technological items could be combined, but if they worked on vastly different scales there would be issues with power distribution. Issues that could be addressed, but still concerns that would stop me from attempting some of the more extreme combinations, even if they were technically possible.

Beyond that, it was a perfect combination. There were no concerns about size, weight, processing speed, or mobility for the combined technologies. I didn’t have to leverage the Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench if I wanted a rocket powered motorcycle, I could just hybridize a rocket and a motorcycle and call it a day. Or I could take the insanity that the Most Holy Order of the Socket Wrench was capable of and double it up with Hybridization Theory, either adding twice as many impossible features, or doubling the power of whatever was chosen. Hell, if I didn’t want to hybridize additional features I could just merge something with a copy of itself and enjoy twice the power in the same package.

And, incredibly, this wasn’t even the most significant part of the power. Because like with Aerospace Engineering, this had come with additional abilities, and they were anything but minor. Another limitation of the power was the fact that combining two devices with independent A.I.s was likely to result in conflict. And that was relevant because A.I. was something I now needed to account for.

Well, at least as much as Zoids counted as having A.I.

It seemed like just as Scientist: Machinery had connected me to this world, Hybridization Theory was connected to a world of its own. A world where robot animals and robot dinosaurs and even stranger robot creatures were a thing. Somewhere between vehicles and independent robots, Zoids were both powered and driven by a kind of technorganic core that provided their energy and central processing. These were massive machines of incredible power posing unfathomably advanced technology.

And I had one. I had a ‘medium’ sized Zoid, and plans for a massive array of ‘small’ sized Zoids. And in this case, ‘small’ meant somewhere in the order of fifteen to twenty-five tons. The Zoid that I had received was called a Wild Liger. It was an open cockpit Zoid vaguely in the shape of a lion and was considered small for a medium sized Zoid at ‘only’ forty-eight tons. Only fifteen feet tall and twenty-seven feet long.

And it had a completely functional A.I.. Something had appeared in my Workshop, completely sentient and completely isolated. Yes, it was a robot but it was also sort of alive and very much self-aware. The creation of an independent creature by my power. This was one thing I had been entirely focused on avoiding, or at least treating with the seriousness it deserved.

And I didn’t just have one sentient robot animal. I had plans for dozens more. Dozens of independent, self-aware, conscious creatures. Creatures that would never advance beyond an animal mindset, but that didn’t diminish what they were or what they represented.

This was something I’d probably been overly aware of since I arrived in this world. You couldn’t walk down a street without seeing constructs, or discrimination against constructs. Usually both. I promised myself I would never disregard something I created, or something created by my power. The easiest way to accomplish that was to avoid any careless acts of creation, but it seemed that was out of my hands. Even if I didn’t build any more Zoids, the Wild Liger was still waiting in my Workshop.

Waiting. That was true. It was waiting, in standby. I didn’t have an active and confused A.I. who would be thrashing against its confinement. I had a Zoid that was effectively in sleep mode, and would presumably be content to remain there indefinitely.

If I really wanted to avoid this problem, I could just leave things like that. Ignore the design plans and leave the Zoid in standby, but I couldn’t do that. Ignoring something that was capable of thought, even if that thought was only on an animal level, was cruel. I didn’t know if I was ready to deal with a fifty ton robot lion, but I wasn’t going to let it rot in a hangar because of my own issues.

At the same time, I didn’t need to abandon things and sprint home to deal with the situation immediately. I was still intending to be a responsible… pet owner, I guess? I just didn’t need to drop everything to jump into it now.

I shook my head, feeling the slow movement of the forge. A power of this level was introducing another delay, but I could deal with that. After something like this, I could use a bit of time to come to terms with the situation before the next big event.

I turned and saw Agatha staring at me. She had also shifted her position to block me from most of the crowd. It seemed like she was trying to cover for my momentary distraction without making it obvious. It was endearing, but also more than a little embarrassing.

“Sorry.” I said with a shrug.

“It’s fine.” She said as we continued towards the stage. “That looked like a bad one.” She said in a level voice.

I let out a breath. “It’s not that bad.” I assured her. “Just embarrassing. The whole situation, it looks worse than it is, and probably gets blown out of proportion. You don’t need to look out for me like that.”

Agatha smiled back. “I’ve felt the same way. About my headaches.” She said, “I guess I never considered what it's like from the outside.”

“I'm sure I'm not dealing with anything like… like your condition.” I said carefully.

“Maybe.” She said, “I really wasn’t expecting that kind of topic to come up at a place like this.”

I shrugged. “A lot of this stuff is outside of anyone’s control. The best you can do is work around it and make the most of the situation.”

Agatha smiled at me. “Like your first Heterodyne Show?” She asked.

“I suppose that counts.” I said, looking at the stage. I covered the admission for the better ‘seats’ for both me and Agatha, with her parents joining us shortly after.

The crowd around the stage was an unusual mix. You had hordes of children, some with families, some effectively unaccompanied and pressing as close to the stage as they could get. But there were also adults, both couples and individuals, or small groups, and apparently from every walk of life. There were people who looked like they had just rolled out of a factory shift and people in pressed suits and embroidered dresses. There were even a few constructs in the crowd, but only a few and they carefully stuck to the edges of the square. 

Suddenly, a fanfare began playing from somewhere under the stage. The crowd began to shift eagerly with anticipation and murmurs of excitement spread through the group. A drumroll began, leading down to a sharp crack as small cannons on either side of the stage shot confetti over the crowd. The curtains parted and two of the actors stepped out to the cheers of the crowd.

“Well, look at this group.” The taller of the two men projected. “And good thing there here, since it’s a glorious day-”

“FOR SCIENCE!” The crowd bellowed back, with everyone from the children by the stage to the best dressed patrons to Agatha and her parents joining in. I smiled at that as the two men, proudly declared as Bill and Barry Heterodyne, began bantering with each other about the adventure they had found themselves in, with a regular back and forth with the crowd.

So more of a holiday pantomime than the Royal Shakespeare Company, but honestly that worked. I couldn’t help but smile along as the rest of the actors were introduced to rounds of cheers, laughs, boos, or applause.

This might be a crazy world, but so was Earth Bet, and honestly, given the choice, I’d take this type of crazy any day of the week.

(Author’s Note: I had intended to continue this story more frequently than once a year, but between my schedule and the demands of the main story I haven’t been able to spare the time. I'm hoping that I’ll be able to get another chapter out before the next anniversary, but as usual I can’t make any promises. As was noted in this story, I'm using a modified point system based on some later changes to Brockton’s Celestial Forge, only a little more aggressive. Any power that costs more than 100 points inflicts a ‘point shadow’ equal to half the cost of the power that must be cleared before points are gained again. This is different from the main story where only the most expensive perks induce a delay. I feel the slower point gain will be good for this work, as it prevents the cascade of powers where one power is earned after another. I am also using an updated perk list with some changes to the nature of abilities and the use of free perks. This can be seen in Size M Zoid and Zoid Data [S] being paired with Hybridization Theory, unlike in the original story. These changes will be fairly minor in most cases, with the change to the Zoids perk being one of the more significant alterations.

More specifically, I want to thank everyone for all of their support over the last five years. When I started writing Brockton’s Celestial Forge I never imagined that it would last this long or grow into a work of this size and complexity. That wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible community that grew around the story, and I am extremely grateful to everyone who had offered their support and encouragement over the last five years.)