Dashing devil 5 bold beg.., p.4
Dashing Devil 5: Bold Beginnings, page 4
“You are?” Daisy’s eyebrows came together over her brightly colored eyes—eyes that sadness shouldn’t darken as much as they had at that moment. “I didn’t think missing persons fell under what Heroes normally handled.”
“They don’t.” Boyd shook his head once. “Even at this scale, it is considered a civil matter. Non-Powered Officers handle missing persons unless it is confirmed a Powered is involved. I’ll be tracking what I believe is a related issue from a different angle, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help Kayla, or that Kayla can’t help me.”
“Okay.” Daisy nodded and her shoulders lifted a little. “I’ll have Mindy help me remember every detail… anything I can recall that might help save Bianca.”
“Thank you,” Boyd replied.
It was all he could say. He couldn’t promise to save her friend and he didn’t want to lie about the odds of finding her—well, of finding her alive. Bianca had likely been taken to be used as ‘entertainment’ at one of the Changed murder parties he had videos of Archangel and far too many other ‘Heroes’ attending.
Boyd really wished he could have killed the Blonde Buffoon when he’d had the chance, his public image be damned. If the pseudo angel was involved in Bianca’s disappearance—and likely murder—the pretty dove Changed woman’s blood might as well be on Boyd’s hands.
For now, he would do what he could, which started with a conversation with Tinker, if for no other reason so he would feel like he had done everything he could for the pretty fairy’s acquaintance. He might not be able to promise to save Bianca, but if the worst came to pass, he would promise there’d be a reckoning.
Chapter 3
Boyd had a reason to visit Tinker in the lab, other than wanting to get another look at her in those little rompers that had become such a mainstay in her wardrobe. Shortly after she wandered away from breakfast blearily clutching her thermos of coffee—that had to be approaching saturation levels of caffeine and sugar—he’d felt a disturbance across their Bond.
It was nothing alarming or he would have abandoned the depressing news and been at her side as soon as possible, which would take him approximately thirty-eight seconds to get from the long kitchen island where the team ate breakfast and her lab, assuming he used his wings at the start and sprinted down the hall. That was much too long for his comfort. The big base was nice, but the distance between his loves and the others he was charged with protecting at any given moment made him a bit nervous with Silvie away.
Fortunately, what he sensed on his Bond with Tinker hadn’t implied any form of immediate risk. A few minutes after he’d sensed her enter that content and focused mode he associated with her working in her lab, it was interrupted by something that tore her right out of her zone. Then he sensed a new interest, and what felt like a revelation, followed by a rather interesting version of conflict.
He'd sensed her have several arguments with herself before—his favorites to resolve typically being something fun that she wanted to try with him but worried might be too embarrassing to bring up. The big demon found that the best way to settle such concerns was to feel out their Bond, try a few things, and see how close he could get. He would either discover what it was and she would never have to ask, or he would get her so worked up that she would just admit to whatever it had been.
He counted both as wins.
This was different. For one thing, it had nothing to do with bedroom fun. There wasn’t that undercurrent of excitement that came along with things like that. For another, she wasn’t arguing with herself. He had only sensed this version of conflict from his little inventor when he’d talked to her about switching to healthier options for her caffeine intake. She was digging her heels in about something that someone wanted her to do.
The question was, who?
Mindy was still sleeping; he could even look in on the version of her that had turned his Gestalt’s wooden slat room into a comfortable little nest. She lay curled up in the round bed at the room’s center. Everyone else who was on the base had been at breakfast with him.
Boyd should probably be careful about such behavior, but curiosity got the better of him. He had gone so far as to check the security logs on a tablet. There’d been no unexpected arrivals or communications, incoming or outgoing.
It had lasted, though, so he’d started paying a bit more attention to Tinker’s inner conflict. He was mostly going on intuition, but Boyd trusted his gut. It felt like she had learned something that she wanted to share with him, but that doing so might have repercussions. His curiosity was piqued as Boyd approached the big blast doors at the end of the long hall off the Great Room.
Boyd’s head tilted in concern when the doors didn’t open like they normally would have upon his approach. Then, after a brief hesitation, they began to slide open as he took his next step. He didn’t have to slow his stride, with the doors sliding into the wall before he passed through them into an empty lab, so he assumed it was a small glitch.
Finding the lab empty, Boyd looked around, confused.
The workbenches still lined the walls with their stools that lifted his petite genius up to the regular sized lab stations. There was still a demon-shaped mannequin at the center of the room with the current rendition of his suit loaded out on it. And the door on the opposite wall—which he knew led to a much larger and more advanced version of the Nano-Weaver back in Glorith City, which Tinker loved almost as much as she loved him—stood firmly closed. He knew that meant no living being was inside the chamber; it had a built-in safety to prevent people from being disassembled at the molecular level and made into something new but nonliving.
Since Boyd could now sense the general direction of his Bonds, he peered at a wall Tinker was apparently inside. It was the one with the big screen she often showed him her designs on before finalizing and producing the weapon or piece of equipment. In front of the screen was Boyd’s favorite stool in the world—mostly because he and Tinker had a lot of lab-based fun, right there.
He took a single step towards that wall when it began to fold in on itself. It was quick and completely silent. The big view screen slid up into the ceiling, and the wall behind it appeared to break into small cubes that folded back before the next section broke down and followed it. As this happened, the bench in front of it and all the miscellaneous items that had been left on the workbench, floated up into the ceiling behind the viewscreen.
Boyd blinked at the secret door to the secret room that didn’t appear on his supposedly complete schematics of their secret base. This reminded him of the secret Silvie passages—which he’d thought had been cool—though they only led from key locations to the hangar.
“… I’ll introduce him to you eventually.” Tinker’s familiar high voice floated out the silently opening door that appeared before Boyd’s eyes. She sounded like she felt—as if she had been having an argument she didn’t want for nearly twenty minutes. “Why are you being so insistent about this?”
“Because you, my dearest granddaughter, are refusing to let me meet your new husband!” a woman Boyd had never heard before replied.
She had what could only be called a grandmotherly voice. It was warm, but with that slightly airy rasp that comes as time takes its toll on the body. It currently contained no small amount of amusement, making it clear to Boyd that Tinker’s grandmother was poking fun at her granddaughter.
Boyd had read about and seen in various media that this tended to be one of a grandmother’s standard roles. The familial connection made the big demon smile, glad to see that Tinker had at least one family member she was close with.
“I’ve been waiting so long to meet my grandson-in-law! It’s bad enough that you went and got hitched without letting me make at least a half-hearted attempt at driving him off,” the grandma complained, “but the honeymoon is officially over, so I’m not waiting any longer.”
“Granny, y-you can’t just s-say that!” Tinker stammered a bit as she responded.
Boyd sensed the low-level embarrassment he was sure had his smallest love’s cheeks flushing a pretty pink, like they so often did.
"Oh, come now, dear. A grandmother should get to meet her grandson-in-law before she commits to him joining the family, don't you think?" Tinker’s grandmother replied, adoring amusement in her voice.
She evidently enjoyed embarrassing her granddaughter.
“We didn’t get married Granny!” Tinker insisted firmly, but he sensed a deeper embarrassment flare up within her.
"Oh? Why not, dear?” Tinker’s grandmother asked, confusion in her tone. “You two are bound together for life through Boyd's incredible Power. Might as well make it official, don't you think?"
Tinker could only stammer wordlessly as her amazing brain shunted down dozens of paths all at once. Based on what Boyd sensed from her at that moment, many of those paths were… hopeful.
He crept a little closer while his little inventor’s mind rebooted, making sure to stay out of sight and keeping his weight on his toes to avoid any thud his heels might make on the lab's floor. As he did, he heard the grandmotherly voice let out an exaggerated sigh.
"Tinker dear, I can't believe I still haven't met my grandson-in-law. It's almost as if you don't want me to be a part of your lives!"
The comically delivered guilt trip had the desired effect, directing Tinker’s scattered thoughts back to the conversation. Boyd frowned as her emotions settled on anxiety as she replied with some hesitation, "Granny, it's not that I don't want you to meet Boyd, it's just that... well, he follows the rules, you know? And, well, you're... against the rules."
Which left Boyd with several questions—whether Tinker’s grandmother was some sort of Powered Criminal being chief among them. He felt like he would have heard of one of the illustrious Bell family turning Powered Criminal. But then again, Archangel was a Hero, a Bell, and a particularly perverse kind of criminal.
That part of the blonde buffoon’s not-for-public-consumption life was currently being covered up.
“Rules, schmules!” Granny chortled. “Dear, I've been watching the two of you for weeks. I've seen what you do with that big hunk of man meat out there in the lab during your little ‘equipment planning and inspection’ sessions. I don’t think you are supposed to be inspecting that particular piece of equipment quite so closely during duty hours, dear… unless the rules have changed significantly since my last update?"
"G-granny, p-please, don't b-bring that up," Tinker stammered, her embarrassment growing with every word Granny uttered.
It seemed Granny wasn’t quite ready to let up.
“Ah, young love,” she said cheekily. “Make sure to enjoy this exploratory phase… though I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the fire dimming or going out with that one. Between his staying power and all the possibilities his Power and Change open up, he won’t have any problem getting your toes to curl for years to come.”
Boyd had to restrain a chuckle as he felt Tinker enter levels of embarrassment he hadn’t known were possible. Part of him wanted to rescue his shyest love. His understanding, however, was that family were permitted to embarrass the hell out of you—not that he’d ever had any family to worry about doing that to him. He didn’t want to interfere with family prerogatives he didn’t fully comprehend.
“G-Granny,” Tinker whined so softly Boyd barely caught it.
He could picture the deep crimson that must stain her cheeks and wondered if those cheeks might be hot enough to reheat her coffee, given the mortification he sensed from her.
“Okay dear,” Granny laughed warmly, “I’ll change the subject. We really should discuss showing your fine young man that footage I discovered.”
Tinker’s embarrassment was suddenly overcome with the torn feeling that had drawn him to her at this change of topic. "Granny, I can't. If I show Boyd that footage, he will ask how I got it… and I don’t have a good explanation. He’s already curious about how I accessed the other stuff I showed him. Sure, my Power makes me a decent programmer… which translates into hacking a little, but not at that level.”
“Which brings us back around to you introducing him to me, my dear granddaughter,” Granny replied sweetly.
“If Boyd finds out about you,” Tinker replied, “he might report you. If he reports you, they would take you, and I can't risk that."
Tinker’s tone took on a note of pleading he didn’t like. It also put Boyd in something of a predicament. Turning her grandmother in would obviously hurt Tinker, which he really didn’t want to do. At the same time, if she was a wanted Powered Criminal he couldn’t just turn a blind eye.
"Oh, my dear, trust me on this one,” Granny’s voice was filled with reassuring warmth as she replied, “Boyd wouldn't turn me in. Not when it would hurt you. He's far too devoted to you to do such a thing."
Her words stabbed a needle of guilt into his heart, although her next words pulled it right back out—Boyd also got the distinct impression they were aimed at him: “It’s not like I’m some sort of Powered Criminal. Besides, unlike you—my sweet granddaughter—he has a mind for politics. He’ll find a loophole that lets him get around reporting me, just you watch.”
If she wasn’t a Powered Criminal, what would cause him to have to report Tinker’s grandmother? Boyd pondered what that could possibly be, and how he could get around it as Tinker hesitantly replied, "Well, I suppose I could consider it, but only if it's absolutely necessary."
Granny’s voice sounded positively thrilled as she cheered, "Wonderful, dear! You won't regret this. Now, let me tell you why it's absolutely necessary for Boyd to have this information."
Tinker let out a sigh that sounded as if she was prepared to be defeated, "Alright, Granny, tell me why Boyd needs this."
Boyd could hear the theatrical flourish in Granny’s reply, "You see, dear, Boyd is a remarkable man—which is why my attempt to drive him off would only have been halfhearted. He’s a real think globally act locally type, which is rarer than is good for humanity. But to truly understand the world and the challenges he faces, he needs as many pieces of the puzzle as he can get. This information is one of those crucial pieces."
“I hardly think this is crucial.” Suddenly, Tinker didn’t sound so sure.
“That’s because unlike your husband, you both think and act locally. Your thoughts, when Boyd isn’t derailing them, are on your next experiment—which is perfect for my sweet little Tinker—but also why he is in charge,” she explained.
Granny let out a warmly good-natured laugh. “He understands that the world is far more complex than it seems on the surface. Boyd’s training ingrained in him the ability to look for hidden patterns and act on them. That’s why all his plans for your disgrace of a cousin worked, despite our models giving them such low odds of success.”
“I still find Boyd’s ability to turn the public on Archangel a little mystifying, but why does that make this information vital?” Tinker pressed.
“Because every piece of information is vital to a man like him,” Granny explained gently. “He needs to know as much as possible to make informed decisions. The more he knows, the more prepared he can be for any given situation.”
Boyd sensed Tinker’s emotions fluctuate through a complex swirl of worry mixed with understanding as she saw the wisdom in her grandmother’s words. And Granny wasn’t wrong. The more information Boyd had, the better plans he could make—or the quicker he could adjust those plans, if need be.
“You’re right.” When Tinker sighed, it contained the acceptance he felt settle into her. “But what do we do if he reports you, Granny? You are an unregistered sentient AI… having you is illegal in at least seven ways.”
Boyd felt a pleased smile spread his lips, which had previously been pressed into a worried line. This revelation made things much simpler. Tinker was only partially correct, anyone in possession of an unregistered AI was, as she had noted, violating seven laws. It being fully sentient added four possible additional charges that carried significantly more severe punishments. His love being in violation of those laws was a complicated mess.
Fortunately, there was a simple solution.
“Then you’ll just have to register her, my silly genius,” Boyd rumbled as he strode into the room. He had to duck, minding his horns, as the door only had a seven-foot clearance.
Tinker stood almost in the center of a small, circular room with a pedestal in the middle.
On that pedestal was the oddly heavy box Boyd had assisted in transporting from Glorith City to their new home. The box was hooked up to industrial cabling that came out of the pedestal, one or two per four out of the gunmetal gray cube’s six sides. The port or docking station he didn’t recognize on top was currently empty.
Opposite from where Tinker stood between the door and the pedestal was a large, curved view screen. For the split second when Boyd had walked in, there was what he imagined a grandmother was supposed to look like standing in a cozy little cottage straight out of a story book. After that fraction of a second, though, the image flickered to a very different scene.
The cozy cottage was replaced by what he could only describe as a boudoir. The elderly woman transformed into a tall, buxom woman with flowing black hair that fell in artful waves to cover one eye. She wore a crimson gown that clung to her curves—a revealing dress that belonged in a swanky jazz club instead of on a screen in Tinker’s lab. The bright green eye that he could see was hooded and darkly shaded.
The sultry image’s hourglass proportions were outlandish, putting even Mindy’s curves to shame.
“B-Boyd?” Tinker stuttered as she spun to face him, as her grandmother whose appearance didn’t match her voice—at all—lifted a black silk-gloved hand and waggled slender fingers at him with a sensual little quirk of her unrealistically plump lips.
