Objects in motion a prog.., p.2
Objects in Motion: A Progression Fantasy Adventure, page 2
“You would be beholden to a certain degree of security, Mister Ruston,” Cyberlocution said to Cayleb, as if in an attempt to repress Cayleb’s usual cheer.
“Oh, sure, sure. Not a problem,” Cayleb said. “When do I start?”
“Immediately,” the bruiser grunted. “We’ve got a van inbound.” Isaac nearly rolled his eyes at the word choice, figuring that the super was ex-military. Or maybe she just read too many books.
“Oh. Oh, I see,” Cayleb said, his cheer disappearing as the potential suddenly became immediate. Isaac pursed his lips for a moment, then patted Cayleb on the shoulder again, habitually reducing his inertia a little bit in respect to Cayleb’s uncertain and potentially fragile frame.
“Hey man, it’s going to be great,” he said. He personally didn’t trust any of the supers, no matter what the public relations department said about them, but a tinker just couldn’t get by in a cramped, low-income apartment. Cayleb was practically a brother, and Isaac wasn’t going to let him ruin his chances with cold feet or just because it was personally inconvenient. “They’ll probably have something better than a neck brace for that giant noggin of yours, too. Just remember your pal Isaac when you’re tinkering up supercars or something, eh?”
“Hah! Yeah, don’t worry about that, man,” Cayleb said, thumping his chest in a salute that he’d picked up from one of the Tech Legion’s commanders. “I’ll make sure I make you some good stuff.”
Cyberlocution politely waved Isaac away and produced a small packet from a pouch at his waist, eyes glowing before he pressed it against Cayleb’s chest. In a moment it expanded outward into a cybernetic suit, but one that wrapped around Cayleb’s oversized cranium. Cayleb blinked and then stood—something he didn’t do often. His grin somehow got even wider.
It didn’t take much more time from there. Some very professional movers bustled in, secured all of Cayleb’s belongings, and bustled out in less than five minutes. Cyberlocution and the bruiser whose name Isaac still didn’t know stood impatiently as Cayleb shook Isaac’s hand, the tinker looking about as numb as Isaac felt. They’d been roommates for over a decade, even back when they were teens in foster care, and it was all over in the span of maybe twenty minutes.
The two supers escorted Cayleb away, leaving the apartment much emptier. Isaac retreated to his room and dropped into his bed, letting out a long breath as he tried to relax. Cyberlocution had probably marked how nervous he was the entire time, but hopefully only the amount of nervousness anyone would have with two members of Star Central invading their personal space.
Without the constant hum of Cayleb’s machinery, the apartment was eerily silent, but Isaac couldn’t sit and stew. Things may have changed instantly for his roommate, but Isaac still had work the next day, bills to pay, and plans to redraw now that Cayleb was going to be a superhero. Not to mention a few hundred thousand credits of stolen softchip to somehow liquidate.
The last thought really made it hit home, for some reason. He’d planned the heist in secret for months, tested his powers where nobody was watching, and planned on ways to present the loot to Cayleb. Yet it had turned out to be entirely useless.
“It doesn’t matter,” he told himself aloud, making a tossing-away gesture with one hand as if he could physically discard his worries. A visualization exercise taught to all the hundreds of traumatized children that had flooded the foster care system after the disaster, and one that had stuck with him through the years. “I’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
His shift was just the same as any other. Saint Anne’s hospital also served supers in addition to normal people, and so it had some exceedingly heavy equipment that it was his job to move around. Isaac was little more than a glorified janitor, allowed to handle the megacredit machines simply because his so-called strength power came with a lot of finesse. He ran no risk of breaking anything when he moved it around, even when he was irritated.
“Come on, Isaac, we don’t have all day!” Mister Graham said from the doorway of the freight elevator, as if he weren’t the one responsible for scheduling and sending people out to shift equipment. Graham was a standard-class psychometry super, something verging on technopathy, perfect for making sure that none of the scanners or bracers or regenerators were damaged or broken. He was also a sovereign-class pain in the ass, taking all the credit and none of the blame for the maintenance and janitorial department, resulting in Isaac’s nearly nonexistent raises.
In a way, Isaac was fine with that. Janitors were invisible, and that gave him more latitude to move around—and access to the hospital gave him more opportunity to find out about supers. But it wasn’t like he would have had much of a choice, either. Just being registered as a meta, even a nominal-class or, more euphemistically, a dreg, closed a lot of doors. People like him required licensing and insurance overhead most normal employers would wish to avoid, and as a low-grade super with, at least on the record, a simple strength ability, he didn’t have any talents in great demand.
The only other place he might have found a use was in construction—there was plenty of that, thanks to the occasional destruction wrought by superfights—but that didn’t appeal to him. Moreover, it might expose his actual talent, which he certainly didn’t want. Not only did he want to avoid being recruited by either heroes or villains, but that kind of scrutiny would make it harder for him to operate. Lacking any kind of stealth ability, he had to remain anonymous.
“Coming, Mister Graham,” Isaac said patiently, in his persona as just another dumb strength meta, maneuvering the recently empty shell of a one-ton energy scanner through the halls so it could be returned to the maintenance area. The ruined device was one of the casualties of the previous day’s supervillain raid, which had scavenged the components of a number of medical devices, most of which he was slowly ferrying down to the workshops in the basement.
The ease with which he could move the shell around was thanks to his power, which wasn’t actually strength. It was inertia, the resistance of something to a change in motion. Speeding up or slowing down. He couldn’t do anything about gravity, since that was a constant acceleration, and the fact that he couldn’t lift anything big was why he was a solid dreg-class power. But dropping the inertia of something huge down to near-nothing meant he could push heavy things very easily, put them around corners without effort, and wouldn’t hurt a wall or a person if he happened to hit them.
Even better, he could treat anything he invested with inertia as possessing either its original inertia or the changed amount. If push came to shove, he could brace himself against the scanner shell as if it really were a full ton, rather than the far lower inertia he’d given it. Or when it came to things like his painted foam armor, he could move it as foam rather than push against the sheer amount of inertial resistance he’d invested into it.
Isaac rode the elevator down and maneuvered the shell into the maintenance bay, where Graham would almost certainly complain about it for some reason, restoring its inertia before going off to shift some tinker-made traction frame into one of the secure rooms. Someone was bringing a supervillain into the hospital, it seemed, as that was all those rooms were meant for.
It wasn’t his business though, so he just kept his head down and went about his work. It wasn’t worth getting noticed, even by his immediate superior, and it wasn’t like there was a lack of scut-work to do. Sweeping, mopping, polishing, and general fetching and carrying. Stuff that kept him essentially invisible, which was how he liked it. He’d seen how often metas got picked up by one group or another, with very little choice on the part of the man or woman being recruited, and Isaac’s goals were too important for that kind of thing.
His job kept him busy, but after a week had passed, he decided to go about the ticklish business of fencing the softchips while he waited for word from Cayleb. One of the advantages of being near gang-controlled territory was that he knew there had to be a black market or a fence close by, though he hadn’t ever engaged with one himself. Fortunately, he did know some people from the foster home that had gone in that direction.
More kids in the Lost Generation, the massive group of kids with lives upended by the superfight, had developed powers more often than usual. Unfortunately, like with every disaster-related power bump, all those extras were dreg-class powers. More hindrance than help, and many of them locking people out of useful jobs. People with unfortunate mutations, or low-tier strength or endurance abilities, or even tinkers like Cayleb whose power sets relegated them to maintenance and repair.
Isaac extracted the outfit he’d made from costume scraps some time back, in anticipation of needing to blend in with the gang. A heavy jacket, even if it was starting to get warmer as spring wound onward; pants with chains. The blue and white armband that the local gangers used, as even if his contact knew Isaac wasn’t part of the gang, it’d help him fit in. He even used some gel to slick back his short, dark hair, which he thought made him look like an idiot but was the style the local gangers used. Finally, he used a bit of his supplies to give himself a rougher face, some scars and markings, snapping a few photos of the face with his instant camera in case he needed to reproduce it in the future.
Only once he was fully equipped did he set out, pushing inertia into his clothes as he walked the streets with the adolescent swagger of the ganger. He was a little older than most, a few years past twenty, but still could pull off the young man’s sneer. A few loitering pedestrians glanced his way, but nobody dared to bother him as he strolled up to the run-down gas station where he was supposed to meet his contact.
Kevin was a former friend and a meta with the very unfortunate feature of having metal arms with supernaturally sharp blades projecting from them. It was the kind of thing that made him practically unemployable and so Isaac didn’t blame him much for falling in with a supervillain gang, even if it was an obviously stupid decision. At least with the gangers he had some kind of worth and something like an income.
The other meta was easy enough to pick out as Isaac approached the gas station, steel-colored arms bare despite the colder weather. Compact, wiry, with a long face framed by dirty blond hair, a weak chin, and the twitchy, glazed look of the drug addict. Isaac was glad that he’d figured out a way to make himself resistant to things like bullets and blades, since he didn’t trust that Kevin wouldn’t jump him. Or that he was sufficiently careful with the razor-sharp edges of his arm-blades.
“Yo, Kevin.” Isaac strolled up, getting all the way into Kevin’s personal space the way a superior ganger might and looking down at the man. Kevin took a step back, eyes clearing from the drug-induced haze and taking in Isaac’s posture. “Long time, no see,” Isaac continued, barging forward and keeping the posture of the arrogant superior. Not that he had anything against Kevin, but there was no trusting anyone in the employ of a supervillain and it was easier to control people who were off-balance. One of those things he’d learned in theater.
“Hey, uh, Isaac…” Kevin trailed off, not sure how to deal with Isaac’s sneer. For his part, Isaac had to ruthlessly quash any empathy. If he wanted to sell off the softchips in any kind of timeframe, he needed to deal with criminals, and criminals were dangerous. Kevin, though, was too dim to be a real threat. He’d never been the sharpest kid, and without a backbone he was unlikely to question anything, even the gang badge Isaac shouldn’t be wearing.
“Y’said y’had a contact.” Isaac loomed over Kevin, even if the blade meta was actually an inch or so taller. It was easy to see Kevin was merely one of the rank-and-file, meta or no, given how quickly and easily he gave way to Isaac’s swagger.
“Oh, uh, yeah!” Kevin nodded convulsively. “Yeah, I can introduce you to Kleppy.”
“By all means, lead the way,” Isaac said, not budging from where he stood. Kevin blinked at him again, then seemed to get the hint and circled around Isaac, glancing back two or three times in the span of a couple seconds. Isaac strolled after him, hands in the pockets of his jacket. He kept his back straight, acting like he owned the street, but his hands were touching the brass knuckles he’d stuffed into the jacket, just in case. With his abilities, he could pack a pretty mean punch.
A few minutes of walking along dirty streets brought them to a pawn shop with bars on the windows and a bright sign proclaiming that they bought anything. Which was a place Isaac could have found himself, but with an introduction, he could use the place as a fence, not merely someplace to liquidate old stuff at one-tenth cost. The proprietor inside looked ordinary enough, but not all metas were obvious, and Isaac kept the inertia invested in his clothing just in case.
“Heeey, Kleppy. Got someone who wants to do business,” Kevin said, trying to match Isaac’s swagger as if he were actually important.
“Oh yeah?” Kleppy squinted at Isaac from a tanned and wrinkled face, the guy looking like he’d been dealing with shady customers for at least sixty years. “Whatcha got?”
“Softchips,” Isaac said, withdrawing a sheet of the stuff. They were packaged like pills, in perforated eight-by-sixteen plastic trays. He’d only brought a quarter of what he pilfered, just in case, and the way that Kleppy’s deeply lined face lit up with avarice confirmed that was the right choice.
“How many you got?” Kleppy asked, holding out a hand. Isaac didn’t hand over the merchandise. A thug might, but Isaac was playing a smart thug and should be more careful.
“How much are you paying?” Isaac countered, returning the sheet to the jacket’s inside pocket and looking down his nose at Kleppy. It wasn’t just an act either, since the entire point of the trip was the money. There was definitely a point at which it would be better to sell them at an online auction, even if it would take a very long time to offload them if he wanted to avoid suspicion.
“Ten per,” Kleppy said, and Isaac just turned around. Kleppy wasn’t taking things seriously, since softchips were usually closer to a hundred and fifty creds secondhand. Moreover, when they were still fresh in the packaging. He’d gotten two steps toward the door when Kleppy’s voice came again. “Hey, I’m just kidding! I can pay ninety for them.”
Isaac paused, turning around to look at Kleppy and raising his brows while Kevin hovered uncertainly. After a moment Isaac extracted two sheets from his pocket and held them up, showing them to Kleppy.
“One-twenty,” Isaac said, no humor in his voice.
“Best I can do is ninety-five,” Kleppy said, eyeing the softchips.
“One-ten, but I’ll provide a minimum of four sheets at once.” That was half a box, enough that selling them individually would be a pain. Kleppy chewed on nothing in particular for a bit, focused on the softchips in Isaac’s hand, then shrugged.
“One hundred, and four sheets at once.”
“Done,” Isaac said, able to do the math easily enough. The two boxes would net him enough for a reasonable nest egg without breaking into the serious money, the kind that would make the real criminals start paying attention. He took out the last two sheets from his pocket and held them out, although he was still expecting some attempt to cheat him. Maybe Kleppy would just grab them and refuse to pay.
Surprisingly, the shifty-looking man actually unlocked a cabinet underneath the counter and extracted the required credsticks, placing them on the counter and stowing the softchips in the same place. Isaac figured that Kleppy was used to dealing with metas, who wouldn’t be particularly forgiving if Kleppy welched on them. Or maybe it was just the promise of future product.
“Hey, you gonna have more?” Kleppy asked, while Kevin hung on every word for some reason.
“Probably,” Isaac said, refusing to make a commitment, and turned to leave. This time nobody stopped him, though Kevin tagged along behind. For all that Isaac had known Kevin once upon a time, he definitely didn’t want a drugged-up meta following him around, so Isaac popped a couple of tabs off the smallest credstick and tossed them over.
“For your help,” Isaac said. “Enjoy.” Kevin pocketed the money, looked at Isaac, and worked his jaw for a moment.
“Hey man, I got—I got a dealer for Fasttab. Makes everything seem so slow, like whoosh.”
“No,” Isaac said, giving Kevin a scornful look that was mostly real. There was just no way he was going to join a junkie on a drug run. “I stay clean,” he said and waved the other meta off. Kevin frowned but scurried away after a moment, heading down the street deeper into gang territory. Isaac went the other way, keeping up the swagger so nobody thought about jumping him after clearly doing some business with the fence. Even if he looked like a ganger, that didn’t make him safe, and it didn’t require meta powers to slip a knife in someone’s ribs or hit them over the head with a pipe.
His brisk, purposeful walk deterred any scavengers from trying to approach him, and marching into a slightly better area of the city shed the pair of gangers following him. He ducked into an alley, taking a plastic bag from his pocket and removing his jacket and the chains from his pants, shoving them both in the bag, and then ruffling his hair. An alcohol wipe got rid of the fake scars, and he relaxed his stance to the slight hunch of his janitor persona. When he emerged a few seconds later, he was obviously not a ganger, so it was a completely different person that headed to his home.
Some might have thought he was being overly cautious, but Isaac had been at the hospital long enough and done enough research to know how dangerous supervillains could be. Or for that matter, superheroes. They were all, without exception, brutal mercenaries who didn’t think twice about destruction and death.
When he got home, he checked his network accounts once again, still finding nothing from Cayleb. Which contributed to the growing unease and a gnawing feeling in the pit of Isaac’s stomach, something that made his sleep restless and his job more irritating than ever. He went to work, returned home, went to work, returned home in an aimless, frustrating grind. Isaac had few friends outside his former roommate, and with Cayleb’s status in flux, it was hard to make any plans, leaving him coasting on the momentum of habit.
