Heroes and Quests E-Book

Tao Wong

• Herausgeber: Starlit Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 715

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Embark on the start of four epic journeys filled with magic, mystery, and dangerous secrets in this action-packed fantasy collection.

A Healer’s Gift (Adventures on Brad #1)

Gifted with the power to heal, Daniel must face the steep price of his abilities as he begins his life as an Adventurer. Caught between duty and the unknown, his journey will depend on the friendships he forms and the skills he gains—if he survives at all.

A Gamer’s Wish (Hidden Wishes #1)

Henry's mundane life changes when he discovers a magical ring and unleashes a jinn who grants him a wish. After gaining the gift of magic, he’s thrust into a hidden world of adventure, where the mundane and the magical collide.

First Steps Into the Night (Eternal Night #1)

Kylie’s only chance to write her article on Eternal Night is to fake it through the VR game. But as the game grows more immersive, she begins to question where reality ends and the game begins.

The Technopath (Powers, Masks & Capes #1)

In an exclusive scoop, the Daily Messenger unveils the shocking transcript of the Technopath’s interview with the Power Defense Authority after her capture. Secrets, accusations, and dark alliances with Mordant Technologies are just the beginning…

For the price of one, dive into Tao Wong’s worlds with two full-length novels, two thrilling novellas, and a sneak peek at Climbing the Ranks in Heroes & Quests: A Fantasy Series Starter Collection.

Leseprobe

Heroes & Quests

A Fantasy Series Starter Collection

by

Tao Wong

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

Heroes & Quests

Copyright © 2024 Tao Wong. All rights reserved.

A Starlit Publishing Book

Published by Starlit Publishing

PO Box 30035

High Park PO

Toronto, ON

M6P 3K0

Canada

www.starlitpublishing.com

Ebook ISBN: 9781778552533

Table of Contents

The Technopath

The Technopath

A Healer’s Gift

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

A Gamer’s Wish

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

First Steps into the Night

First Steps into the Night

Climbing the Ranks

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Author’s Note

About the Author

About the Publisher

The Technopath

A Power, Masks & Capes Novelette

About the Story

Breaking News: Confessions of the Supervillain Mask the Technopath!

In an exclusive scoop, the Daily Messenger has acquired the transcript of the infamous Technopath’s interview with the Power Defense Authority upon her initial capture after the August 19th terrorist incident in downtown Mayson. Among the shocking revelations in the transcript is allusions to the PDA knowing of her villainous sire, on-going abuse of the children of Masks and accusations of terrorism and collusion against Mordant Technologies.

For full details, just subscribe to the Daily Messenger within!

The Technopath

I was always the nurture rather than nature kind of person. Had to be, if I had to admit it to myself. You don’t grow up with the background that I did and not hope that it was all about how you were brought up, rather than who you came from.

Then the Change happened. The Awakening. The Rebirth. You could pick a half-dozen other terms that have been used over the years, ever since humanity realised that those occasional weirdos who turned up in history books or the news had become a regular occurrence.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Sorry, I’ve never done a confession before. And sure, I know you’re more interested in the proximate reason why I ended up destroying a half a dozen city blocks than the remote reasons, but this is my story. So give me a few seconds, let me get used to being in handcuffs again. And let me get this confession on the road.

So, where was I?

***

Nurture, not nature. Right.

Aunt Roberta was the best. Even if they dumped me in her one bedroom apartment when she was thirty four and I was three, she never once complained about me upsetting her life. Just got on with taking care of me, in-between partying it up and breaking through glass ceilings. Lead salesperson at the paper manufacturing plant she was in, beating all the records that her male colleagues ever set until they gave in and made her the Sales Manager. It was she who showed me that you could be a woman, hot and an ass-kicker. I just kind of wish I had her legs…

As for my mom, well, I never knew her. I mean, I knew of her, but I never knew her, you know? She never took the time to visit and Aunt Roberta never told me who she was till I was old enough to keep the secret. And then, of course, mom was killed in the Battle for Philadelphia in ’07. Never did get why she was there. It wasn’t her usual style.

Huh. You’re right. Maybe I’ll ask the Swarm.

Anyway, nurture not nature. I grew up normal, you know? Maybe I got into a few more fights than normal, but having an opinion and being willing to share it didn’t always sit well with others. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t that bad. Kids are kids, you know and shouting at one another, getting into fights, it was all kind of fun.

And then…

Then the Change happened.

I remembered it, remembered how it was just another Saturday. I was getting ready for work – bagging groceries if you have to know. Aunt Roberta always felt it was important I learn how the world worked early on, so a job it was as a teenager. One second, I’m slipping on the store’s uniformed polo shirt and the next, I’m smelling frying circuity. Only realised later that was me. My skin blistered, the nerves in my body feeling like lightning had been shoved down them. My muscles spasmed and locked up, and I remember falling and then twitching on the ground. Thankfully, the entire Change hurt so much that my body blanked itself out well before I became a raving lunatic.

Way I hear it, that’s not always the case for everyone when they Change. The Change, when it activates, creates a cascade effect all through the body. Which means all your genes, all your cells turn on and mutate at the same time, as they attempt to transform into whatever new configuration it needs. It’s all a nice way of saying you go from normal human to supe in one long, agonising moment.

By the time I woke up, Aunt Roberta had me in the hospital. The anti-septic, overly sterilised smell was not something I wanted to wake to, nor was the constant buzzing. As I managed to get one eye open, I found myself staring blearily around.

“Jane! What happened? What did you do?” Aunt Roberta practically shouted the questions at me.

“I don’t know.” I touched my head, found a bandage on it and frowned. That was also when I saw what had happened to my skin. The way the skin branched out with burns, the Lichtenberg scars mixed with the glint of silver and steel was – is – quite a sight.

I might have screamed. There might have been a breakdown or two. And yeah, if I had realised it, if I had paid attention, I might have caught the first hints of my Power. The way the lights flickered, the medical equipment went on a fritz. But it wasn’t exactly what I had been paying attention to at that time. Especially when I managed to stagger to my feet and catch sight of myself in the mirror.

Now, I’m not saying I was anything to look at before the Change. But, you know, I wasn’t well – this. I didn’t make metal detectors go off at fifty paces or score high on the Bride of Frankenstein potential list. And I liked my blonde hair – not this platinum thing. I’ll admit though, the eyes are rad. Silver irises are really the hottest thing, as my fans will tell you.

But I’m digressing. I should have noticed the Change and my Power then. But, I didn’t. And once I calmed down, well, the entire thing happened, you know? The Metahuman Integration and Training Department took over. All the testing, the psychiatric visits, the school briefing, the Power bracelet. All of it. You’d think for a bureaucratic organisation whose entire raison d'être is handling new supes, they’d be better at it. But nope, they throw you in the deep end and expect you to swim.

And I did. I really did.

Sure, school sucked. Who wants to hang out with the weird looking kid with the Powers bracelet that might or might not fry you or read your brain or dribble at any moment? Back then, my ability didn’t really manifest unless I was under a lot of stress, and with the Powers bracelet on, everything was muted. I had no idea what I was doing then. No one did.

Anyway, high school was hell. Carlos who’d I’d been seeing – on and off – took one look at the freak-me and skedaddled between Rosa’s legs. That bitch. And the few Power-lovers had Lenny to hang on to, to drool over. His power was so much cooler – to sixteen year old kids anyway. Being made of steel was kind of dumb, but what do I know?

Still, I did good, okay. I toed the line. I graduated, even went to college. It might have been community college, but university was out. Ever since it was ruled constitutional to charge supes extra, only the really rich or those who managed to pass as norms could go. Truth be told, I liked community college. They teach you how to do things, not just theory.

I kept to the plan, now aided by the burgeoning realisation that I had a thing for computers. We were still trying to figure out my Powers back then, but we were beginning to realise it was more than just random electric shocks.

That’s the problem when you rely on technology to find technopaths like me. We slip under the radar if we want it to happen. Because, you know, technopath.

Even as we figured out my Powers, even as I extended them, it was still kind of piddly, you know? Turning on a phone, adjusting the digital thermometer, accessing a computer without a monitor. Nothing that made anyone too excited, even if it did mean I could diagnose and fix a computer faster than any tech at the Nerd Herders. I was scheduled for a good life.

Until you guys fucked it up.

***

Twenty-four hours ago.

Mordant Enterprises loomed above me as I walked into the building. It was over forty stories tall, not one of the tallest buildings in the city, but like most, made of glass and steel beams. More impressive to those in the know were the fifty stories underground that truly made up the company headquarters. I knew about it, after all, I’d worked in the basement for nearly a decade. I’d been working for them since I was done with university; ever since I finished my Masters and began the process of selling my soul.

Academia was great, academia was where I wanted to be. But, at that point, my gift had gotten so strong it didn’t make sense to stay. Not with the amount of money everyone else was throwing at me, to help them build their latest fangled tech. Mordant had also promised that I would be able to get my PhD at the same time I worked for them, doing the kind of research that would be miles ahead of anything I could ever afford to do in academia.

No one ever mentioned I’d only be able to apply for my doctorate decades later, if ever, when my NDA ran out and the tech that I was making became public. Once they’d squeezed every dollar they could out of my research, then they’d help make sure I get my proper acknowledgements. I never realized, exactly how much they took away from me, how much it would rankle to never be called a ‘Doctor’.

For all that, I spent the first three quarters of the decade working for Mordant quite blissfully. I was on the cutting edge of research, at first as part of a team, and then later on leading the team itself. Money was never an object, so long as we kept churning out successes. Eventually, after the first half of the decade they started pressuring us for less theoretical advances and more practical ones.

I fell for it. I really did.

I bought all their PR. I figured we were doing good things, pushing the edge of science. I picked up the extra RAM, the solid state hard drive, three extra monitors and the drink cozy, all with the extended warranty of naivete. I felt I owed it to them, after all the money they had sunk into me. Into the research that I’d done on their dime.

We transitioned to more practical work, keeping cutting edge theory a mainstay but beginning to churn out practical successes. Those Everclear contact lenses you’re wearing was our first real victory. Built using nano formed molecular circuitry, providing more functionality than anything our competitors had in their piss poor VR glasses. We made Mordant the bleeding edge of augmented reality, and we kept them there, even when the competitors stole our patents.

I look back at our successes in those early years with some pride. Even when they took the project away from us and gave it to a new department so that we could work on something new, something better, I didn’t mind. I was bored by then, by the project anyway. Theoretical research was important, as was doing something new. And we’d done so much that those with lesser talents, smaller Powers could take over.

I wanted more.

I wanted to go smaller.

As I said, the first three quarters of my decade I was happy. But the next two and a half years, when the results started flowing in, and the whispers of what they were using my technology for started arriving, things got worse.

Don’t give me that look.

At first, it was all theoretical. Building the smallest nano bots, ones that could be harnessed and manufactured, could self replicate themselves and do what was needed. It was exciting. It was important. What we could do for medicine, for construction, for manufacturing was staggering. The options were limitless.

We even solved the grey goo problem. None of our nanites ever lasted beyond a couple of iterations, even the ones that built new versions of themselves could only do so much before the entire waveform collapsed in on itself. Heck, half our problem was figuring out a way to make the nanites replicate further.

That’s where my Power came in. I could do it, alter the tech on a molecular level and make thousands of changes in a single test run. My Power let me extend and sense why the nanites were breaking down and then make it stop.

Only problem was, the reason why they hated me, needed me, was because I was the only one.

As I said, it was all your fault.

I walked into Mordant HQ. And if they weren’t happy to see me, it was probably because they fired me just the day before. And I wasn’t going to just let them take my research, my nanite babies away from me. Especially when I knew what they’d been doing with them.

***

When the third All Powers Draft occurred, you swept through the country looking for people like us. Unlike most, I had a record, I had nowhere to hide. I never thought I needed to. You found me, drafted me into your damn education program and even paid for my university. All so that you could exploit my gift, my Powers so that you could see exactly how they worked.

With a single pen stroke, we went from second class citizens to just tools.

Once you had your dirty claws on me, you guys stretched my Powers to the limit. And yes, not you you exactly, but you’re all part of the same government chain. So, you.

The moment there was even a slight push to what I’d been doing, I went from being able to turn on a computer with a touch to doing it at a glance to being able to do it with my eyes closed. And then, it just kept on growing. My tech sense expanded every single day and the range that I was able to achieve anything kept growing.

Of course, that wasn’t enough for you all.

I didn’t know it at that time, but you wanted a weapon didn’t you? You wanted another Ultima, a Lady Power, a Solar. Instead, you got me. Just another damn supe, someone with some skill at tech, the ability to affect things a couple of blocks wide. Useful things, convenient things. But it wasn’t a city killer, a game changer. I wasn’t one of your trumps.

Couldn’t be.

Still I can’t really complain. The school you sent me to was much better than the community college I was at. The lessons I learned were more specialised for my Power. The more I learned about technology, the more I understood the science behind it all, the better at manipulating it I became. Instead of just turning on computers, instead of just being able to activate tech around me, I began to learn how to code.

My power at times felt like it took over for me, absorbing more of the information than I did. Things that I had studied became clearer, were easier to understand when I used my Power. And when the breakthroughs started happening and I got down into the nitty-gritty of engineering, electricity, tech… When I stopped fiddling around with the buttons on the top and started adjusting things within the computers, the machines you gave me… That’s when everyone got really excited.

Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered, none of it would have mattered, without Joey.

Sweet, trusting, naïve Joey with his crush on me and his ability to alter matter on a molecular level, to make what I dreamed, what my Power saw could be done, come true.

He didn’t deserve what he got. I think, of all of us, he deserved it least.

***

I walked into Mordant, past their gleaming white windows, past the swinging doors amidst a throng of workers and contractors that flowed in and out of the main doors. Even if it was towards the end of the day, there were still dozens of hard workers and last-minute contractors moving around. That was the thing about working for a big corporation. It might officially be the end of the day at five, but if you left early, you could kiss your promotions goodbye. Maybe even your job.

The automatic gates of the security station where they checked our identities as we swiped our badges stood before me as I walked forward. I kept my head down, trying to blend in as best as I could. I’d put on a wig, playing at being a dirty blonde woman in bulky office clothing. Padding around the hips and stomach and some shoulder pads added to the disguise, making me almost invisible.

I hit the gates and held out my gym membership card over the gate itself. At the same time I extended my tech sense into the gate, accessing the identification software. I scrolled through the database, finding the employee I was masquerading as and registering myself as her. It was a simple enough matter, especially since I knew that Carol had left the building. I’d been waiting, watching for her exit.

Once the gate opened up, I headed straight for the elevators. They always like to make it seem harder in the movies, as though security guards are paying real attention to you and your face rather than what shows up on their screens. Most security personnel are underpaid, overworked and just bored.

Maybe they would have been more alert if they were expecting trouble. But I’d gone quietly, peacefully and without a fuss when they fired me yesterday. I didn’t utter threats, I didn’t declare vengeance or swear I’d make them pay. I packed up my desk, signed all the papers that they wanted me to sign and let them escort me out.

I learned to keep my mouth shut and do what was necessary later from you guys too.

People like to think that the theatre of security makes a difference. That all those cameras, all those security guards and police cars, the public order drones keep them safe. Maybe they do, from your average mugger on the street or the homeless man that assails you for your change.

But when it comes to us, when it comes to those with Powers, all that technology, of trusting it rather than your own eyes and ears. It’s all lies.

Just like the lies you guys told.

***

You first introduced Joey and me as just lab partners, making it seem like we were just coincidentally meeting one another. I later learned, you’d heavily suggested that he take up the coding class. And on top of that, you had me in materials methodology 101 if we didn’t get together. Just to make sure we didn’t miss one another.

Once we met and became lab partners though, you just had to make sure we kept meeting. Not that we needed much encouragement to work together more closely. Even then, there just weren’t that many of us with Powers.

Of course, once you “learned” about us, it made perfect sense for us to work together on your other tests. The government’s personal projects to push our Powers to the maximum, to see if we could do something useful with them all.

We were young and dumb. We thought you really were the good guys. And so we pitched our ideas, our projects, the new software and you ate it all up.

Those earpieces you’re using, the ones embedded deep into your ear canal that you think I don’t know are whispering instructions to you, telling you to make sure I stay calm. Those were our first project.

Well, at least the first iteration for them. You’ve improved them quite a bit since Joey and I worked on it. We took apart what you had before, boosted the range, made it so much more comfortable, made it so much easier to integrate and use. It was our first major success.

Even if we never did figure out the non-verbal communication option. But mind reading, understanding the impulses in the human brain and translating it properly, that was out of our expertise. I can manipulate technology with a thought, but no matter what anyone tells you, the human brain isn’t hardware or software. Not really.

I did hear you guys are getting close to cracking the code to non-verbal communication though. Close enough that you’ve even started talking about it publicly. Maybe you are or maybe you’re just trying to flush out additional research to steal. It’s not my area of expertise, but I wouldn’t hold your breath at figuring it out.

So where was I? Oh right, Joey.

We worked great together, all through undergraduate school, and then we kept doing it even when I started my Master’s. Joey wasn’t interested, he wanted to be doing practical things, but he stuck around, at least in the first years while we were still in university. He thought he was helping you all, he thought we were helping you all, keep the country safe.

What was that catchy little slogan?

Oh, right. Making a better future for all – Powers and Humanity Alike. All through the leveling ability of technology.

And, I admit, we got you guys closer. Made engines more efficient and reduced our reliance on gasoline. Faster and simpler communication technologies that could be spread for a low cost to third world countries. We even worked out the foundation for your Capes & Masks sensor net, the one you all rely on so heavily to help contain the Powers. We never really thought about what layering the entire world with sensors bent on tracking every exertion of our Powers was going to be like. What you guys were going to do with it.

We should have known, if we’d stopped and thought about it.

But we were young and naïve. Not an excuse, not one I’d accept, but it is the truth. And when you introduced the New Powers Defense Act, added even more restrictions? When you built your ability to enforce it on our sensors?

That’s when he went rogue. When he chose to walk away.

Joey was always a bit more idealistic. He believed in the dreams you sold him on, with all his heart and soul.

Maybe if you hadn’t be so damn good at selling those lies, he’d still be alive.

And I wouldn’t be here.

***

Overriding the elevators to head down was simple enough. Of course, once I got through the fourth floor beneath the massive parking garage, I had to switch conveyances. As an added security measure, Mordant didn’t allow you to go direct from one elevator to the next, instead forcing you to go through another security checkpoint. This way, even if you managed to make your way through the normal offices, you still needed to bypass their security again.

On top of that, you needed to know where to go. The second security checkpoint and elevators behind it were all hidden behind a nondescript door, looking just like any other office. If I hadn’t been counting doorways as I walked, I could easily have walked right past the entrance. Of course, after all these years, the counting was second nature. Mordant might be a tech company but it had never ignored the magical as well and had hung a bunch of nondescript elemental talismans to make those who had no business within ignore the doorway.

That included me, these days. But good old science worked, especially when you knew where you were going and why. After all, the enchantments weren’t geared to force people who knew what they were doing to look away, just to make the casual bystanders disregard the door and those entering it.

I bypassed the doorway security the same way I got through the foyer gates, but once inside things got trickier.

“Ms. Lindholm. You’re not supposed to be here.” The pair security guards who were inside spoke up the moment I walked in. These guys weren’t your typical doughnut eaters, lazy ass police dropouts or ex-military washouts. These were professionals. Ajax, the dark-haired, swarthy skinned speaker was even a Power, just like me. Not a Mask or a Cape because he was smart enough to not buy into the entire hero complex garbage.

“Ajax, check your computer. They called me in to help fix an issue. They hustled me out so fast they didn’t get all my passwords. And now they’re locked out of some of my research.” I dropped my voice and added. “They even threatened to sue me if I didn’t come back right away.”

I lied. I lied right through my teeth. The thing was, there were multiple ways of bypassing security like this. You just had to know the right buttons to push. People were like tech in the sense that you just needed to twist them around a little bit, jiggle their sensibilities and then find the right slot to input the right commands. Do that and they’d work just like how you wanted them to.

Ajax for example, was the lead in the security room. He wasn’t the smartest, but his job didn’t need him to be smart. It needed him to follow the rules. While exceptions were uncommon, they weren’t impossible. And there were protocols in place when an exception occurred. So he accessed the software, looking for data on my permissions to see if I was telling the truth.

And of course, they were there. Not because I was accessing anything. Keno, seated next to him, would have noticed me tapping into my Power. His ability was simpler - he was a Damper. All he did, all he was paid to do, was sit around and make everyone else who had a projection type power not function. So someone like Ajax who was all muscle and genetic anomalies had no issue being next to Keno. But me? Me, I was just a normal human around him. And they knew that.

Which is why, the bluff worked.

I dropped the virus into the main security software the day before, using a modification of an old virus I had on hand as they escorted me away. Lucky for me, the system is an integrated piece, so I only needed access to a security scanner and the virus went in and stayed dormant till now.

Once they accessed my name, the virus went to work. It triggered the creation of my security credentials, backing it up on both ends so that it was earmarked as valid. The credentials were active only for a few hours, just like they expected it to be.

I bet you’re wondering, why I didn’t do that upstairs. They’re separate systems, layered away from each other for added security against hacking. I could have cracked the other system as well, but the external security system gets swept more often then the internal one. After all, as a forward facing system, not air gapped from everything else, it gets hammered all the time by your bored teenage hackers, your budding tech security teams and the various virus farms out there. Better to slip in, slip out, and do a short, quick burst of security access in one of the least guarded sections – the guard gates themselves - rather than leave code that could be found later.

“I see that you’re supposed to have an escort,” Ajax said. He stared, seeing if I had any reaction to that.

I gave him what he wanted, sniffing and raising my head, staring down at him over my nose. Acting all kinds of affronted, which made him relax even more. Ajax ordered a couple of security personnel to take me on my way. None with Powers of course, we didn’t have that many Powers to play security escorts for random scientists. But they were geared with the right equipment. Old-school tech, nothing that I could latch onto if I decided to kick up a fuss. No powered armor or sophisticated tasers. Even the guns were old school gunpowder.

Old-school is the best school, isn’t it? When dealing with little Technomancers like me. Just like these iron manacles you have on my hands. Nothing technical, nothing that would let me bypass.

Smart.

But you learned your lessons well, after the third Powers Defense Act rebellion.

***

You know, none of us really expected you to pass the Act. I mean, why was it needed? You’d drafted us, imprinted us with the chips, catalogued our Powers and trained us so that none of us were dangers to society anymore. Anyone who was, was either in jail, fled to another country or a criminal. There was no reason for the Powers Defense Act.

At least, no logical reason, other than President Holbrook needing to win an election. With his popularity at an all time low after the Salus incident, he was ready to trade our freedom for votes.

What was it the Defense Act was supposed to do? Ah, right. Secure, verify, chip all of us to mute our powers even further. License the use of our Powers, the things that made us what we were in very specific ways. Only the ways that you people felt were appropriate. More than that, you wanted to make us live in communes, in specific cities and towns, restrict where we could travel, when.

You made us third class citizens, no better than slaves, forced to live, to breathe at your convenience. Everything that we had, taken away. Any freedoms would be considered a privilege, a benediction from those better than us.

That didn’t go too well for you guys, did it?

Even Joey, sweet old Joey, thought it went too far. He joined the protesters. Maybe, if you hadn’t gotten violent, had actually listen to them, safeguarded them and did your jobs when they protested non-violently, when they tried for a peaceful resolution, it wouldn’t have gone the way it did.

But no, you didn’t do that, did you.

You stepped aside, let the norms beat them, spit on them, and then when they refused to stop, to leave, you shot them. And when the Powers chose to defend themselves, you decided to escalate things further with your SWAT teams and special Power groups.

Fools. When you started losing, you called it an insurrection, terrorist action by the Powers. You clamped down even harder, going after our families. Our families!

Fine. I’ll calm down.

But you saw what they led to. When the Powers that were still working for you stopped, when they stepped aside. And let you deal with the insurrectionists alone. You thought that all your technology, all your vaunted safeguards that people like me and Joey built for you would be enough. But you forgot that if we made it, we could break it even easier.

Not that I took part. I told Joey he was a fool right before he joined the protest. I told him we could change your perceptions of us from the inside, that we could show you that we weren’t all dangerous. That no matter what they thought, we could be trusted. That once we finished up school, once we got into the real world, we’d make them see the truth.

I thought it didn’t matter, that someone else could do the heavy lifting, if there was lifting needed. I wasn’t willing to give up everything I had, for people I’d never met. Not when I was doing interesting research, when my life was sorted.

That’s why your system never marked me off as a higher category threat. I didn’t get involved. I just kept doing my research, while the world burned.

I wasn’t involved.

Maybe I should have been.

Maybe if I had, none of this would’ve happened.

***

Being escorted down the pale white hallway lit with too bright fluorescent bulbs by a pair of guards who would not even have dared to glare at me a day before was a surreal experience. I’d had more attention paid to me as I was frog marched by my co-workers the day before. The rumor mill had already begun moving, but this time around, the attention was more puzzled.

Puzzled but not that curious. They must have thought something must have been left behind, or something needed to be sorted out before my contract was fully terminated. If they had known exactly what I was working on, they would have realized there was no way Mordant would have ever allowed me back.

A decade of research on miniaturisation and replication had culminated just months ago. The Mark 1 Mordant Special Nannite was our crowning glory of hard work and late nights. We’d cracked the problem, figured out how to make the nanites infinitely replicable. Or at least, close enough for Mordant’s purposes. The master nanites were infinitely replicable, if you were me. And even if you weren’t, they barely wore down. What they made, from everyday materials, was less replicable, but they could repeat themselves twelve times.

All the materials they used for the child nanites was easily accessible. Carbon, silicone, some trace iron and other heavy elements. Nothing that couldn’t be found in the environment with a little digging.

On the other hand, the master nanites, those were irreplaceable because they were made out of the core material. Byzantine.

Stupid old Joey, he always named things with the silliest of names. A material, only someone like he could have created. Strange how I didn’t even know about it, until long after his death, when Mordant brought it to me, saying they’d found it in their vaults. They didn’t even tell me it was from him, not at first. Not until I pushed for more of it.

Then again, Mordant was never if not paranoid. So I should have known that getting in was never going to be that easy.

When we reached the doors of my laboratory, when I tried to access my labs, things went to hell. I’d pushed my hands at the security console, using my stolen guest pass. But they’d upgraded the keypad, set it up so that it wouldn’t let me access its database with a flash of power. I tried getting in, but the alarms triggered the moment my Power interacted with it.

The guards were right on the ball. Maybe Ajax hadn’t been as dumb or as trusting as I thought. They had their guns pointed at me the moment the alarms went off, ready to blow my brains out.

Disappointing that my attempts at stealth, trickery and lies had stopped working. Because when your options at justice are a lie, when you can’t cheat or steal your way to what you want, then, well, that’s when you reach for that last tool.

Violence.

Most people think, Technomancer. That means I don’t know how to use my hands, my feet. They forget, we all have histories, we all have a past. Being the weird kid, the daughter of an ex-supervillain, well, you get your ass handed to you regularly in school. If you don’t learn to fight back, even a little, simple bullying becomes assault and eventually, it becomes long stays in the hospital and maybe even homicide. Which, if you think about it is kind of dumb.

Let’s put the mass murdering supervillain’s kid into the hospital. No way that is going to end up coming back to bite us.

Kids are stupid.

Adults too. It’s not as if you all don’t know about the kind of bullying, the kind of things that happen in schools across the country. You track it all, you have the stats. All those Acts, all that data, it’d be easy. You could have stopped it, find all those innocents like me, help us make our way through life a little easier. Help with the nurture part of our upbringing.

Maybe you’re a nature kind of people though, figuring it doesn’t matter what happens, we’ll all turn bad. Turn evil. That no matter how many helping hands, how much kindness, people like me will just turn on you. And maybe you’re right. I’m here aren’t I?

But at the least, you could’ve tried.

I made the lights go out first in the hallway to take away their sight. I didn’t need it, I could sense the electric impulses in their bodies well enough to do what I needed. Then I made their earbuds squeal. Much louder, much shriller and higher than they expected. I ran the frequencies so high, it took away their balance and made them woozy.

Maybe they didn’t expect me to be able to access the simple tech in the earpieces. Maybe they just forgot I was the one who made them initially. Maybe they just didn’t realise I could do it. I’ve never shown them I could, because Mordant never cared to ask. They wanted me for my skills and knowledge, for what I could build, not what I could break.

Once the guards were staggering, it was the simplest thing in the world to take away their guns. And then their handheld tasers and shock them. Low-techstuff, too low for me to trigger in a useful manner. But perfect if you want to keep someone down.

After that, with subtlety no longer required, with the security drones that had been automatically scrambled to deal with me arriving, opening up the door to my old lab was the simplest thing in the world. A little messy and a lot noisy, but simple.

***

When the disturbances turned violent, I was still in school, finishing up my Master’s. I heard about it first from the news, when the Anti-Defence Brigade took out the Houston police department. ADEF went a little far, but at the least, they left everyone alive. Crippled, injured and in need of months of physical therapy, but alive. And the rest of the march went pretty well, now that your instigators weren’t taking part.

Can you imagine it? A bunch of housewives, mechanics, children and soldiers; all marching peacefully. Letting their Power, their Gift flow through them, in a public display of who they were and doing it peacefully? They made it all the way to City Hall and then, for a whole night, they stayed and chanted and beat their drums and showed the world we weren’t monsters.

One night.

In the morning, you sent the Army in and shot them all up.

The June 4th Houston Massacre stained our history forever. Every free country in the world condemned us. And worst, it marked the start of the insurrection. ADEF did their best to stop you from hurting them, they really did. But when you dropped bombs from planes kilometers away, they just weren’t ready for it.

Portland did better. Captain Portland’s Weed Shield saved the city when you guys started dropping bombs again. Madame B charmed all your soldiers, make them put their guns down in Atlanta. And of course, Mr. K and his gang slaughtered the Eleventh division. Left their heads on a pike.

That didn’t help.

Not when we were trying to explain that we weren’t dangerous, but what can you expect when the crazy psychopath took action. It was your actions whic made him decide to take action and no one, no one wants Mr. K to act. The Eleventh division slaughter was what put him to the top of your wanted list, briefly. It was what drove him to keep going and going, committing worse atrocities just to recover his placement. And then keep it.

Once you figured that out, you all decided not to lower his position anymore, even when he got bored. Took you long enough to understand that psychopath’s thinking. Of course, he was just one of a dozen fires you had to deal with during the insurrection.

And in the end, I’m not sure it would have mattered whatever Mr. K did. I don’t think you were willing to listen to us, willing to repeal the Act. President Holbrook wanted his war, wanted to play the Law & Order card and he got his excuse. The guards rolled in, the jackbooted thugs came for all of us. Kicked down the doors, beat up the innocents, the protestors and insurrectionists without care.

I missed most of it because I was being the good little girl, working away, keeping my head down. Even my short stint in the internment camp was quite comfortable. The university pulled some strings along with the military contractors that I did the research for and helped make sure I was comfortable while I was held captive. It was simple enough with my research to ignore everything going on, the deaths, the screams, the cries of despair.

Six months. It took you guys six months and tens of thousands of people dead before you repealed the Act.

Six months. And at the end, Joey was dead.

I learned about his death through his sister. She slapped me, told me I should have been by his side. He’d put on a Cape in the end, called himself the Matter Master. He used the tech, the drones that we built, his power armor and the control he had over matter to do battle. Because he thought it was the right thing to do.

He was never a good fighter. It wasn’t’ really part of his Power set. Joey could never control matter more than a foot away from his body. His engineering degree let him figure out how to build the power armor, make up for its failings. Make it work better than it should have. He wasn’t a fighter, but he did his best. And it was pretty damn good.

Until you gassed them all at the second peace talks. The one where President Holbrook had promised would be safe. Joey believed you, so did Milford and his people. Even when everyone thought he was lying, they believed.

And died.

But that was Holbrook’s last mistake. Because he finally crossed Ultra’s line. When the ‘hero of heroes’ chose to stop standing on the sidelines. He flew President Holbrook and every single politician and military commander who was in charge of that massacre to the International Criminal Court himself.

That’s when you all finally repealed the Act. Because your shining boy in blue couldn’t stand behind you anymore, saying all would be well, that all we had to do was trust the system. Because he told the politicans, he wouldn’t protect them anymore.

I should’ve seen it back then. When even Ultra stopped thinking that you could be trusted. That any of you could be given an inch of faith. But I was young. And a fool. And while my heart hurt, when I grieved for Joey, Mordant made their offer. We’d worked with them before, Joey and I, in university. And they knew just what to say, how they weren’t a government institution, how all they wanted to do was make life better for the common people.

Like a fool, I believed them.

***

I had to move fast, now that I’d made my presence known. I strolled into the lab where its gleaming white walls reflected the harsh fluorescent lights above, the entire lab at least sixty feet across and another fifty feet long. The simple steel tables and the various top-of-the-line scientific equipment were laid out in patterns I’d become long familiar with. We had everything really, from mass spectrometers and powerful electron microscopes to the special 3D printers for biological and metal material, all of which worked on a molecular scale. It saves us a ton of time, being able to build our nanites directly in the lab. Off to one side, separated from the rest of the lab by a big, tempered glass window was the storage area. Within the reinforced metal and glass storage units were where we contained my research.

The Mordant Mark 11 nanites were already packed for transportation in a few days. They’d take the Master nanites and the research I’d done and show it all to the government, the military. Take my research and make it just another damn weapon.

There were half a dozen personnel within the labs, all of them known to me. None of them were Powers though, since we weren’t that common. Yet. Of course, if you believed in the Travis Theorem of Exponential Power Growth, you’d probably be underlining that yet.

In either case, every single one of the employees shrunk away from me. Ever since the uprising, people have been worried about Powers. Even those who, like me, don’t have a violent Power are something to be feared. As if we were all maniacs that could burn people to the ground with a single glance.

Of course, their reaction might also be because there were a pair of slumped guards in the doorway and I was holding one of the guns.

Either, or.

I waved them away as I strolled over to the storage door and placed my hands on it. I could’ve done without touching it, but physical contact has always provided a little bit more oomph for my Power. Accessing the door controls was a simple matter, and even if they had the best security systems in play, my ability didn’t just transit through tech and electricity. In the last few years, I’d learnt I could physically manipulate the matter within tech pieces to some extent. Nowhere near what Joey could do, but within the normal functioning aspects of a machine, I could alter it.

It took just about a second before the door hissed open and at that point, Leo finally decided he had enough. He’d always had a chip on his shoulder, being the only black scientist on the team. He always had to be better, smarter, harder working than everyone else. And if he had a Power, he probably would have been the lead. He really was that good. But, without one, no matter how hard he worked, no matter how smart he was, he would always be beneath me.

He strode right up, and even ignored the gun I pointed at him. I guess he thought I wouldn’t actually shoot him. Truth be told, I hadn’t really meant to, because I knew how fragile the human body was. At least, in the right circumstances.

Seriously, it was like a human body was an alpha version of something better. It kept crashing, for no good reason, displaying random bugs, and none of it was replicable from person-to-person. Put a bullet in one person, and they’d just keep going. Put a bullet in another and they’d fall down, go into shock, and die. What kind of designer would build something with so many safeguards and then, have them fail for no good reason?

It’s why people who are into the idea of intelligent design aren’t very intelligent themselves. There’s no way any good engineer would ever release something like humanity. No one with any pride in their work would have looked at humans, with their weird dangling bits, their constant error problems and their lack of self-care and gone – ‘Good enough’.

Still, you are right, I did shoot him. I aimed for his torso. It was a lot safer than shooting him in the leg, where he might bleed out from an impacted blood vessel or shattered bone. Shoulders are horrible too – there’s a big blood vessel if you miss and even if you do hit, physio takes forever. So I shot him in the torso. Left side, lower torso, just above the hips but not too close. There’s not a lot that I can damage other than a kidney.

The retort from the gun was still ringing in my ears, drowning out his screams as I made my way into the storage room. I gave Leo one last look as he wasn’t screaming very much after the first shot. He’d taken getting shot well, giving off a good whimper and crawling away. I am glad that he is still alive, but I estimated that he would be, what with the on-site medical staff.

Once I was in the secured lab, it was a simple matter to gain access to the nanites themselves. Piercing the mobile containers security was simple, then I just had to store them with me. I made sure to secure a couple extra for easy use before part two of the plan.

Part two being the part where you’re charging me for industrial espionage. Which really isn’t true since I can’t steal my own research, and I definitely didn’t steal it for anyone else. I deleted it all from the system. That took a while, especially since I had to make sure I got not just the local servers but the backup servers too. It was another reason why I chose that specific time – so that I could access the backup servers when the automatic backups started. Slipping in a series of viruses to corrupt, overwrite and delete all the backup data and I’ll admit, I might have been a little sloppy. I only had a day and I was going for thorough rather than surgical. And with the number of failsafes Mordant used, thorough was important.

Luckily, I’d been working with them so long, I’d learnt a few neat tricks to work around their backups. I’d always been curious, and figuring out the way the backups worked, the way data – especially research data that might have been accidentally overwritten by idiot interns – was stored was just something I’d done. Not because of any real nefarious need but rather the dislike of having to go through proper channels.

Anyway, wiping the data on the latest nanite upgrades took much longer than I’d liked. But eventually, I just walked out of the now empty labs. Even Leo had been dragged out. As I left, I held the metal containers containing the nanites clasped in my hands, chilling my skin with each step, offering a soothing comfort that I had gotten what I wanted.

Of course, that’s when everything else went to hell. Because Mordant’s internal Power security team had finally arrived.

***

As a global technology company, one that had significant interests in some less than stable countries, Mordant had developed their security forces to combat a wide variety of threats. It didn’t help that people like the Dark Vulture and Zap were interested in many of the items they produced. Being on the cutting edge of technology often dragged tech villains to the fore.

The good news was that because the company had significant ties to the military with entire divisions dedicated to supporting the military, they also had access to modern military tactics and arms. Most importantly, they could put their Powers through the same training and give them equipment and suits that were as good, if not better, than what most Capes used.

It was also why the Capes were slow to aid Mordant every time they were attacked. After all, Mordant had their own security personnel to deal with Mask threats. My first run-in with the Power security team was in my third year.

My first few years with Mordant were pretty boring. Looking back at it, I’m pretty sure it was just them feeling me out, making sure that the new hire was both as smart and as loyal as they needed me to be. My internal security clearances were pretty low and back then, most of my research was theoretical.

By the third year though, I’d moved departments again, shifted to a new team and had finally gotten my feet underneath me. I wasn’t the wide-eyed theoretical only researcher, filled with studies and hypotheses, but struggling to churn out practical work. Between my Power and my studies, I was beginning to shine and my security clearances had been upgraded.

That’s when the Tinker decided to attack, in search of a new battery for his multi-limbed, power suit. That thing had more arms, and more different kinds of arms, than an octopus had legs.

Wait. You do know who the Tinker is, right?

Oh, right, he’s a local Mask. Not someone at your level would consider. I don’t think he really had much of a career. The Tinker was one of your multi power Masks, focused on tech. He didn’t have a skill like mine, but more of a series of minor Powers. It enhanced his memory, his kinesthetic sense, his electromagnetic sense and a little bit of his tactile memory. Basically, he could remember and intuit things better than normal, sometimes a lot better. Because of that, he thought he’d become a tech Mask.

Except, he really wasn’t that good. See, I put in the time, the effort, to really study technology in all its forms. You have to, if you have a utility skillset like we do. The Tinker on the other hand? He’d rather buy, borrow, or steal the various tech pieces he used, letting his power intuit how to put it all together. As I understand it, there’s a very robust black market for Power-created tech pieces. Anything that gets blown up, tossed aside, or falls off the truck ends up on the black market for people like the Tinker. Between the constant alien invasions and the visitors, there’s always something new floating around to help people like the Tinker. It was also why his work was shoddy and often needed new, more powerful energy cores since he had incredibly low efficiency in power use.

Thus the attack on Mordant’s facility.

He came in with all the subtlety of a juggernaut in tap dancing shoes, tearing a hole in the wall as he rummaged through our labs. There was a lot of screaming, shouting and running around before we eventually made it to the parking lot.

I got to give it to him though, the Tinker was never that interested in us as people. That’s why, when they finally caught him he only got twenty years in the Pit. He’d have gotten less, if he’d had a better lawyer who managed to clear him of the manslaughter charges. That happened when Mordant’s Power security team came down on him in the facility, blasting away at his suit and throwing him off the building. It was my first close-in view of a Power fight, one that took place over three blocks. The Tinker eventually got away, leaving the security team in the dust, but the charges stayed.

Now your average Mordant security force, consists of four Powers. You’ve got the Juggernaut, the guy in the front who's there to take the damage. Then, you got the Webber, the control person who freezes and otherwise restrains targets. Depending on their Powers, a good Webber can end threats even before the fight starts. You’ve got your everyday Mobility Specialist, the guy who’s going to be tasked with keeping noncombat personnel out of the fights, of moving the target into position for the Webber, or just dealing with unexpected threats. Finally you have the Support Layer who is often the team leader. They could be anything, from a tactical Power to a healer or even magical support.

In the case of the Tinker, the Power team leader was a utility tactical support and on the lower level of the Power scale. After all, we weren’t a highly restricted research facility.

Anyway, that was my first introduction to some of Mordant’s more interesting, internal Power groups. It was my first clue, as I was staring at the destruction caused by their security team in pursuit of the Tinker, of how little they really cared about us or anyone else. I admit, it took me days to get rid of the blood from my shirt, where a blasted piece of debris took off one of my co-workers arms.

But back then, I just thought it was an accident. Back then I accepted their words at face value, and figured the health insurance we all had was more than sufficient compensation for the damage. I was getting paid well, and I was no shrinking violet. I’ve seen blood before. My own, and others.

Maybe I should have been less callous. But that’s kind of what you get, when you have a father for a Mask. Even estranged.

***

The internal security Power team that came for me was a Class III group. Powerful, stronger than the vast majority, and just a level below your average Cape City Response Team. I think, if Mordant had the ability to staff a Class IV group, they would have; but Class III’s were still not common. Like, the first group I ever saw were Class II’s.

In this case, the support personnel for the security group was a Tactician. When I strode into the hallway, the security team had already set up for me. I could try to play it off, act as though I was ready. But, as much as I’d like to buffer my ego, they took me down faster than my cousin Bertha does a key lime pie. And if you know cousin Bertha, you’d know that the pie stood no chance at all.

Shackled in Power suppressing manacles, they had me up and on the way to the holding cells while I was still wondering who had set off the fire alarm in my head, or why there was iron in my mouth.

As I was slung over the Juggernaut’s shoulder, himself leading the way, I got my first proper look at the security team. The Tactician was a white-haired lady in full mil-spec AR goggles. They were all wearing the regular Mordant Power security uniform, which basically worked out to be an armored jumpsuit with a couple of additional pockets for useful items and minor servo upgrades for strength. A tactical belt helped her carry a suite of security tools and nonlethal responses. Lethal responses were all in their Powers which didn’t need to be shown off as much.

The Juggernaut was a giant of a man with a really nice butt. I got a chance to review it in great detail as he carried me to the jail cells. I have to admit, the waving tail was kind of cute too, the way it poked out of a tiny hole in his jump suit and the way the extra flaps of cloth helped to keep his modesty. I wanted to grab at the poofy thing as it waved in front of my nose, but it kept moving just out of reach.

On the other hand, the Juggernaut’s brother lacked both his tail and his ripped body. The speedster relied on his Power to give him speed, eschewing the need for exercise. His Power gave him agility, and some strength that just didn’t transfer over to muscle mass. Still, the slant of the eyes, the tilt of their cheekbones and jawline made it pretty clear the pair were siblings. Along with the stencilled last names on their gear.

The Control member is usually harder to pick out since they don’t really have much need to showcase their abilities. Unless they’re purposely showy with elemental forms running around their body or tech all over them, they often look the most normal of the lot. In this case, I only knew of his gift due to office cooler gossip, rather than actual signs. And because I knew what he could do, I made sure to take him out well before he could ever show me his Power.

And yes, it’s true. I really do hate magicians.