Enhancer 4

by Wyatt Kane

  Secondary Skill: Cyber Assimilation

  Alignment: Neutral Good

  Baseline

  Strength: 4

  Durability: 3

  Healing: 5

  Stamina: 4

  Agility: 4

  Intelligence: 7

  Wisdom: 5

  Skill: N/A

  Secondary Skill: N/A

  Post enhancement

  Strength: 7 (+2)

  Durability: 6 (+2)

  Healing: 7 (+2)

  Stamina: 6 (+2)

  Agility: 7 (+2)

  Intelligence: 8 (+2)

  Wisdom: 6 (+2)

  Skill: 3 (+2)

  Secondary Skill: 1 (+2)

  Already, every single step he possessed showed a buff that matched what it had been the last time he’d taken the drug. As if he needed the confirmation, Ty’s brain was starting to buzz. It was like he’d drunk a hundred cups of coffee in a day, and the world was starting to work in slow motion.

  He also knew that the limits of this enhancement hadn’t yet been reached. This was a stronger dose of the drug than he’d taken before. How much better it might get in the end was still unknown.

  As he watched the holographic representation of who he was, his stat for his primary skill clicked up another point.

  Dinah and Tempest made sounds of appreciation, understanding exactly what the stats meant. But Lilith was a little less certain.

  “Does this mean you’re better able to do the things you do?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Ty said. He moved to dismiss the image, noting before it disappeared that his secondary skill had had also gained a buff.

  Curious to see if he could, he looked at the hand that still contained the remains of his EMP grenade and willed it to emerge from his flesh.

  In the end, he didn’t even need to think hard. In moments, his hand was back to normal, and he had a spent EMP grenade in his palm.

  All three of the women made noises of surprise mixed with amazement.

  “Thank God for that,” Ty muttered. “I was starting to wonder if that was permanent.”

  Then he thought about the other piece of tech that the med bot had found. Without knowing much more than that it was there, Ty willed the tracking device at his elbow to migrate through his flesh.

  Just like with the EMP grenade, it was easy. In just a few seconds the tracker emerged from his other hand.

  “What is that?” Tempest asked.

  Ty looked at her. “It’s a tracker. Implanted by the Master’s minions when I first got the drug. It would have been sending data back to them until my grenade went off.”

  The blonde superhero’s face hardened and she spat a curse.

  Ty nodded, agreeing completely. Yet he’d had some time to get used to the idea.

  “It’s done,” he said. “And at least they can’t access any more data from it.

  So saying, he crushed the tracking device on his fingers, just to make sure.

  “Wait,” Dinah said, just a little too late. Ty glanced looked at her. “I just thought there might be a clue in it somewhere,” she said.

  Ty understood. “You’re thinking it was sending data somewhere, right?”

  The deerkin nodded, and Ty looked at the crushed device in his fingers.

  “Maybe I can still reconstruct it,” he said. He looked around at the three of them. “But first, I’ve got work to do.” He was feeling really good, better than he’d done for ages. “Although it might take some time. Anybody want to head down to the workshop with me?”

  34: Enhanced

  In the end, Lilith and Tempest weren’t able to stay. There was still a crisis playing out within the streets of New Lincoln, and their help was still needed. Yet the worst of it, according to Dinah, was over. Instead of hurrying victims to the nearest hospital as a matter of course, now the two women simply provided most of the afflicted with Sarah’s serum, reserving hospital trips for those in real danger.

  And with Dinah having already implemented a distribution strategy that meant Sarah’s serum was becoming more and more available as well, even that would soon be unnecessary.

  In the meantime, it was just Ty and Dinah who headed down to the workshop, accompanied by Ty’s cat, Gremlin.

  At the site of the furry black monster, Ty felt disproportionately guilty. He knew Gremlin didn’t care much either way, but Ty felt he’d been ignoring her much more than he should.

  In fact, since his arrival at the mansion with Gremlin in his backpack, the cat had become more Dinah’s than his. So he was more than pleased when the little furball picked her favorite spot in the middle of the workbench, curled into a ball and pretended to go to sleep while watching Ty with calculating eyes and purring loudly.

  Ty placed the broken tracker in a tray, then got to work.

  Having Dinah there was a godsend. He knew the deerkin had accompanied him at least in part to keep an eye on his health, yet her skill was that of information control. Ty knew within minutes that his original plan of enhancing the synaptic controller he used for his shield wouldn’t work. The base platform it had been built on simply wasn’t complex enough to support the type of neural link Ty had in mind.

  The deerkin had been doing something esoteric with her tablet as she sat at the workbench when Ty came to that conclusion had hesitated.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked him.

  When Ty explained the problem, the deerkin grinned. “Do you think you’re the first one in all of history to try to develop a fully functional neural interface?” she asked.

  Ty just stared at her. In moments, the deerkin pulled up the schematics for half a dozen similar devices that Ty could use as a base. All of them had been designed to enable the control of various tech through conscious thought alone. It was a different intention to what Ty had in mind, yet the overlap was clear.

  Each of them needed to effectively decode the brain. The only difference was that the existing neural interfaces were looking for specific patterns, whereas Ty needed to see everything.

  With a laugh and a quick thank you kiss for the deerkin, Ty chose the most complex of the lot, downloaded everything he needed, and got to work.

  It was complicated and challenging even with the skill buff granted him by the AZT-407. At its core, the problem was simple. He needed to be able to translate the thoughts of an unconscious man into something comprehendible. But the details were fiendishly intricate.

  The schematics he’d downloaded gave him a framework, a representation of a brain he could use, as well as a rudimentary pattern recognition algorithm. But there were two problems. First, the design of the sensors was too basic. Ty needed to see what was happening inside of the Architect’s entire brain in real-time. Not just bits of it.

  Next, the pattern recognition algorithm was far too simplistic. Ty knew from his own experience of thinking that a human brain was nuanced and chaotic. He had to be able to capture the nuance, the chaos, as well as the clear, simple thoughts to make it all work.

  There was also the problem of displaying the results of any decoding in a way that was able to be understood, but that was minor. Ty figured he would hook it up to a screen and a speaker system, and that would be it.

  But his first task was to figure out the sensors. He didn’t want to subject the Architect to an ongoing CAT scan, but he had another option that he thought would work.

  “Nanites,” he said to himself under his breath.

  ◆◆◆

  Ty worked as if in a trance of productivity. Such was his focus that time had no meaning. He used the tools in the workshop like a master musician might use an instrument to create music, like Dinah used her communication room to manage information.

  The Stark Imager was central to his efforts, simultaneously displaying lines of code, exploded views of the circuitry he needed to create, and a growing image of an oversized human brain.

  He also used Dinah’s skills as well, asking complex questions of algorithm design and brain
functionality that she always managed to answer within just a few seconds of searching. And, when he was finally ready, he used her to test what he’d created.

  Feeling tired but content at the work he’d done, he fabricated his nanites and offered them to the deerkin.

  “Hold out your hand,” he said.

  The deerkin trusted him completely. She did as he asked without hesitation, and he poured a teaspoon-full of the silvery liquid onto her palm.

  “Feels cold,” she said. Then she stared in surprise as the nanites disappeared into her skin.

  Ty grinned at her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They’re supposed to do that. The nanites will work their way through your system until they reach your brain, where they’ll anchor themselves to your neurons. In just a few moments, we ought to be able to see what you’re thinking.”

  Despite her surprise, Dinah managed to return Ty’s grin. “I can feel them,” she said. “It’s like a feeling of coolness in my veins. Except … now I can’t any more.”

  Ty nodded. “They’ve warmed up to your body temperature,” he said. Then he held up a device any Trekkie might think of as looking like the emblem of their favorite show attached to a simple metallic circlet.

  “This is an amplifier. It’ll catch the signals sent by the nanites and send them to the display processor.” He placed it gently on the deerkin’s head. The circlet was open on one side, so he was able to fit it without any problems.

  “Ooh, I’ve always wanted a tiara!” she said, giggling with the pure delight of a schoolgirl.

  And Ty had to admit, she looked good with the amplifier nestled in against her hair and her antlers. He took a moment to admire her, then returned to his work.

  “Let’s see how it all works,” he said, and with that, he activated the system.

  Almost at once, something nebulous started to form in the space over the workbench. It wasn’t a photorealistic copy, but Ty could see it was a representation of the workshop itself, as seen through Dinah’s eyes.

  But that wasn’t all. Within and around the image of the workshop, flickers of other images appeared. Ty was there, in the workshop and also alongside it, multiple times and in multiple poses, including some that were decidedly sexual. Tempest appeared as well, as did Lilith, Gremlin, and hints of all manner of things from the deerkin’s past, present, and potential futures.

  It wasn’t static, but a constant whirl of motion, with some images gaining prominence while others faded to nothing, only to be replaced by something new. As Ty watched, one of the images of himself standing naked grew to dominate the rest, and then Dinah was there as well, equally naked. The two images left all others behind, and what they were doing raised Ty’s eyebrows.

  Yet it wasn’t cohesive, like a movie might be. Instead, it was like a sequence of clips, out of order, flicking from one to another, all revolving around the same central theme.

  “That’s amazing,” Dinah said as she watched the display. Lilith might have blushed at what Ty’s neural link was showing, but Dinah just watched, fascinated and completely at ease.

  She transferred her gaze to Ty. “You’ve done it,” she said. “It’s just like the inside of my head, only out on display.

  Ty grinned. He knew that what he’d just achieved was spectacular. He’d built it to access the Architect’s thoughts, but with the AZT-407 in his system, his mind was abuzz with other possibilities as well.

  The first of those possibilities was telepathy made real. With this, with just a few tweaks, he could enable true mind to mind communication.

  Speaking of which…

  “Wait. There’s more,” Ty said. “Activate vocal transmitter.”

  Dinah looked at him with a curious expression, and his face loomed large in the display.

  “Say something,” he told her.

  “What…” “What for?” “What do I say?” “Wow,” “Is that what I think…” “What I think it is?”

  Before Dinah had said a single word out loud, the workshop was killed with variations of her voice all saying variations of the same thing.

  “That’s amazing,” “Do I still need to say something?” “Wow.”

  Ty quickly realized that the vocal part of his invention would quickly become overwhelming, and hastily deactivated it, just for the time being.

  “Maybe I need to recalibrate that part a little. It seems to be a bit sensitive.” So much for his telepathy idea, he thought.

  Dinah still hadn’t said anything out loud. She was looking at Ty with so much pride in her eyes they seemed to glow.

  “Is it ready?” she asked. “Is it time to call Tempest?”

  Ty nodded. “It’s ready. Call her.”

  35: The Architect’s Brain

  All three women in Ty’s life were with him in the Architect’s workshop. They had decided it would make more sense to temporarily bring the cryo chambers there instead of trying to rig a visual display option in the conservatory. And besides, the Stark Imager did a much better job of displaying three-dimensional mental images than any flat screen could ever do.

  Nor had they stopped at just relocating Tempest’s father. Earlier in the day, the third cryo chamber had arrived, and Tempest and Dinah had set them up in the unused apartments in the building below the mansion. Perhaps the ethics of cryo freezing random people weren’t clear, but from Ty’s point of view, it made perfect sense to keep Spit Bitch and Sparkles on ice, at least until they could figure out what else do with them.

  Both of the superpowered villains now stared out through the glass windows of their own cryo chambers next to the that of the Architect.

  Ty and the others had agreed. They would use Ty’s neural imager device as planned, to access the Architect’s knowledge. But the old man wasn’t the only source of information they had.

  Both Spit Bitch and Sparkles had proven resistant to more direct methods of questioning. Yet that didn’t mean they didn’t have important information they could share.

  The cryo chambers were all plugged in and Ty had replicated the appropriate sensory nanites. Technically, they were all set to go, and both Ty and Dinah were eager.

  But Tempest, normally a beacon of self-control, had shown cracks in her armor where her father was concerned before. Now, she looked overtly anxious as she stared at the man who’d had such an impact on her life. And while Lilith also seemed curious about what they were going to do, she also sensed Tempest distress.

  The demon woman was the most empathic among them, and several times Ty saw her start to reach for the blonde superhero, only to hesitate at the last moment.

  “Are you ready for this?” Ty asked, directing his question mostly at Tempest.

  The blonde set her jaw and stiffened her spine. She gave a sharp nod, and that was enough.

  “Then let’s begin,” Ty said.

  The cryo chamber had been designed to enable the front to open without negatively impacting the patient inside, as long as it didn’t stay open too long. Ty thumbed the release and opened it for just long enough to introduce his sensory nanites, and to place the tiara amplifier on the Architect’s head. Then he shut everything again and stepped back.

  “Now what?” Tempest said, her anxiety more apparent than ever.

  Ty activated the neural imager device. “Now, we give it a moment for the nanites to do their job.”

  A moment was all that was needed. In a surprisingly short time, the space above the workbench started to fill with color. To Ty, it looked like a cloud build up within a crystal ball before the future coalesced, and he watched with interest to see what form the Architect’s thoughts might take.

  Of the others, only Dinah had seen this before. Tempest looked at the burgeoning shapes with an expression of wonder tinged with worry, whereas Lilith watched with wide-eyed amazement.

  Yet instead of forming coherent, recognizable shapes that gave insight into the Architect’s thoughts, the clouds above the workbench stayed as they were. Shifting. Formless. Conveying a sense
of peace and tranquility, but nothing of impact.

  “Is something wrong?” Tempest asked.

  But Ty had almost expected something like this. “He’s being held in stasis,” he said. “I guess what we’re seeing is the result of that. He isn’t conscious, isn’t even awake enough to dream.”

  Tempest gave him a look that was almost pleading. “What do we do?” she asked.

  “Talk to him,” Ty said. “See if you can get him to register that you’re there.”

  The blonde superhero understood. With a very uncharacteristic trepidation to her movements, she approached the Architect’s cryo chamber and laid her hands on it.

  “Father, it’s me,” she said. “Can you hear me?”

  At this, the cloud display shifted a little, as in response to Tempest’s words. Almost, Ty thought he saw something develop in the midst of it all, but he couldn’t be sure, and it quickly faded again. He knew right away that it wasn’t enough, but didn’t know what to do about it.

  Fortunately, Dinah did. “These cryo chambers have various settings. The Architect is being held at the in the deepest state of cryo sleep there is. It’s to keep him alive. But what if we were to bring him partially out of the cryo sleep? Almost wake him up, but keep him under enough to protect him. Would that work?”

  “Let’s try it,” Ty said. “Tempest?”

  The blonde woman hesitated.

  “He will still be in cryo sleep,” Dinah added. “The toxin in his system won’t be able to do any damage.”

  “Do it,” Tempest said. She stepped back from the chamber to allow Dinah access.

  As the deerkin tweaked the controls, the rest of them waited. To Ty, it seemed like an extraordinary effort to get information on the Master. It seemed that the shadowy villain had done all he could to deprive them of the information they sought while still dangling it in front of them.

  If the Architect had been less damaged by the toxin, they could have just asked him what they needed to know. And if he was more damaged, they wouldn’t be able to get anything from him, because he would be dead.