by Wyatt Kane
Ty understood where she was heading. “The mega-corporations of today are like the light bulb manufacturers of old,” he said.
“Yes. As far as the mega-corporations are concerned, we’re nothing but customers. Sources of income.”
It was a disheartening thought. Ty sought to lighten the tone. “You are the Architect’s daughter,” he said. “What did he think of you wearing one of his devices?”
Tempest responded with an echo of her usual smile. “He wasn’t happy at first. But he tested me the same as he tested everyone else. He saw my potential, and that was enough. When it came down to it, my father was a practical man. If there had been another candidate with better potential than me, that person would have received the device instead.”
Ty realized that he had put away a mountain of food. Perhaps it was a reflection of the changes his body had gone through. He chewed another mouthful and thought about everything that he had heard. There was one more question he needed to ask.
“You said Bain seemed stronger the second time around,” he said.
Tempest nodded. “Yeah. The first time I fought him, when Zach died, we were about equal. But at your apartment, he was stronger. I couldn’t budge him. Yes, I held back a little for fear that we would damage your apartment, but even so, I was hitting him very hard. He should have felt it.”
“But how is that even possible?” Ty asked.
Tempest shook her head. “I don’t know.” Then she thought about it. “The skills we have grow stronger over time. My stats are improving. The device is always refining things. Like your strength, what was it? Six? If you work at it, you will get stronger, and much more quickly than normal. But not that much, and not that quickly.”
That was interesting. “He’s leveled up,” Ty said.
“Yes. But I don’t understand how.”
Ty hesitated. “What if he has a skill like mine?” he asked. “What if he made improvements to the device? Made it more effective, and enhanced his own capabilities in turn?” He couldn’t help but liken it to finding a cheat code of some kind.
Tempest looked at him with an incredulous expression. “He couldn’t…” she began. Then she changed gears. “You can do that?” she asked.
Ty nodded. “I don’t see why not. I made the stun gun without even thinking, and the ideas that I’ve been having since then are quite exciting. All I need is a few tools.”
All at once, the atmosphere at the table changed yet again. It had started out warm and almost flirty with both of the women exchanging curious but meaningful glances. Then it had grown a bit sad as the conversation turned to the people Tempest and Dinah had lost. Then the talk of Bain had added an unsettled element.
But now, it had taken on a lighter tone. Tempest was back to grinning broadly, and so was Dinah. They glanced at each other again, as if sharing a secret.
“Should you tell him? Or should I?” Dinah said.
“I will,” Tempest said. Ty stared at her in confusion. He had no idea what was going on. Nor did Tempest seem to be in any hurry. She cocked her head to one side and bit her lower lip, but said nothing.
“Tell me what?” Ty asked.
Even then, Tempest took her time. By the time she actually started to speak, Dinah was trying to stop herself from laughing.
“What would you say if I told you,” the gorgeous blonde started slowly, “that this place used to belong to my father?” she asked.
Ty still didn’t get it. He looked from Tempest to Dinah, then back again.
“You are so mean!” Dinah said. “Just tell him already!” Yet she was still laughing.
Even then, Tempest wasn’t going to be rushed. “Among other things, my father was an engineer. Where do you think he worked on the devices?” she asked.
Ty thought he was starting to understand. “Here?” he asked. But he wasn’t confident in his answer. Why should that cause such a reaction?
“Yes. Here. He has a full workshop downstairs.”
The penny dropped. “His full workshop? The Architect’s workshop?
“Yes.”
It was Ty’s turn to be incredulous. He didn’t know what might be in the Architect’s workshop, but his mind was conjuring images of Aladdin’s cave, a place full of secrets and unexpected wonders.
“Did … did he keep records?” He realized he was starting to salivate in a way that had nothing at all to do with either the food that remained in front of him or even the company he was keeping.
Tempest’s smile grew even broader. She was giving him a gift, and she knew it. “He kept copious notes in various books. None of us could make use of them before, and we didn’t trust any outsider to look. But yes, the notes are still there. So, if you want to see what you can do with the device on your wrist, now is your chance.”
This day just got better and better. Ty was ready to check out the treasures of the Architect’s workshop right away, but Dinah stopped him. “Dessert first,” she said.
That got Ty’s attention. “Dessert? What’s for dessert?”
It was Dinah’s turn to grin. “Waffles. With ice cream.”
Ty wasn’t uncertain anymore. He knew it was true. He was dead and had gone straight to heaven.
20: Workshop
Ty felt that if he ate another thing, even something as thin as a wafer, he would risk exploding. For him, it was an unusual feeling. He normally ate out of no more than necessity, to give himself fuel to get through the day. But perhaps that was due to the type of food that was available to him.
If he had grown up with food like this, he could easily have ended up fat.
With his stomach straining against the fabric of his shirt, he pushed his empty plate away. Then he sat, completely content for a moment, and wondered how life could change so much in such a short time.
Not that he truly expected this to be permanent. The stubborn part of his nature insisted that he had his own life. It might not have been a great life, but it was still his. Even if he was part of the team, staying with Tempest and Dinah was temporary. Just until the problem of Bain had been solved.
And maybe the hole in Ty’s apartment wall had been fixed.
The girls had also finished eating. They all stood and cleared the table, and as soon as that was done Ty had to ask. “Where did you say the workshop was?”
Tempest could sense his enthusiasm. “I’ll show you,” she said. She turned to the deerkin. “Do you want to come too?”
Dinah thought about it. “Maybe I’ll leave you two to yourselves for a while. I’m going to see what I can find out about this Bain character.” Then she smiled. “But just in case you start getting any ideas, I will be down at some point,” she added, giving Ty a very obvious wink.
Tempest just laughed, but Ty didn’t quite know what to think. In a state of happy confusion, he followed Tempest out of the dining room and into the depths of the mansion.
As soon as they were out of Dinah’s hearing, Tempest paused to look at him slyly. “So, what did you think?” she asked.
“Everything is just fantastic,” Ty responded.
“No, silly! I mean Dinah. What did you think of Dinah?”
Ty didn’t know what Tempest wanted. “Uh,” he started. “She’s amazing.”
“Of course she is. But what did you think?”
Ty studied the blonde woman closely. Tempest was staring at him with a broad grin on her face. He didn’t know exactly what she wanted from him, so he answered as honestly as he could. “She is without doubt one of the two most stunningly gorgeous women I have ever seen. If I hadn’t already met you, I would think she was perfect.”
Tempest nodded, but she still wasn’t satisfied. “Maybe I asked the wrong question. How does she make you feel?”
It was like she had hit him in the stomach. It wasn’t a question he wanted to answer.
All through the feast, even as Ty enjoyed the best meal of his life, he had feared it was all too obvious how he was responding to Dinah. He’d tried very h
ard not to stare at her as he ate, but the reality was that he hadn’t succeeded. Even when the conversation veered more toward Tempest, Ty found himself studying the deerkin’s wonderful poise or the way the light played on her olive skin. He’d even caught himself watching her breathe.
To him, Dinah really was extraordinary, just like Tempest herself. Tempest had the looks of a movie star. She was without doubt the sexiest person Ty had ever met. But Dinah was elfin, pixie-like. She was a forest goddess brought to life.
He was enamored with both of them, and couldn’t deny it. He uttered a sigh.
“The same as you,” he said.
“Ha! I knew it!” Tempest nearly shouted. Ty wondered briefly what it would be like to be on the wrong end of the woman’s wrath. Would he even survive? But it soon became apparent that Tempest wasn’t angry at all. Her shout had been one of victory more than anything else.
“You don’t mind?” Ty asked.
“Of course not. Why would I mind?” Tempest asked.
“Uh,” was all Ty could say.
Tempest reached up and ran her finger down Ty’s cheek, just caressing him gently. “You’ve still got so much to learn,” she said cryptically. Then, before he could ask what she meant, she turned away. “Come along. Or are you no longer interested in the workshop?”
Ty’s head was buzzing. He didn’t know what to think or even which way to look. In the end, he had no choice other than to follow Tempest through the mansion and wonder what had just happened.
Eventually, they came to a small room that looked more like a storeroom than anything else. It was cluttered with cardboard boxes, stacks of old books, and several kitchen appliances that had seen better days.
Ty hesitated at the entrance. He was still confused by their previous conversation and wasn’t sure why she had led him there. It didn’t look like a workshop to him. “Um,” he began, but Tempest waved him in.
“Come on,” she said.
With that, she reached for the table in the middle and lifted one edge, tipping it over onto its side. Part of the floor, complete with the rug the table was standing on, opened up as she did. The table was hiding a trap door.
“Cool!” Ty said.
“Yes. And practical, too. My father wanted to keep his workshop hidden.”
With that, she led Ty down a narrow staircase that led to a wide open space with a central work desk and neat cabinets lining the walls.
Ty had spent a surprising amount of the day simply standing in place and staring. He found himself doing the same thing all over again. Yet he couldn’t help it. So much of what he’d seen had been, to him, astonishing.
This was no different. For some reason, he had expected a darkened room cluttered with tools and unfinished gadgets, complete with the smell of wood and sawdust on the floor. A mixture between the janitor’s closet at the Concubine Club and the student workshop he’d spent time in while working on his degree, the private refuge of tinkerers the world over.
Instead, it was almost the complete opposite. Clean and bright, it was a wide open space with a central work desk, complete with a couple of stools to sit on and neat cabinets lining the walls.
It was like an art gallery, or maybe a museum. Even from the stairs, Ty could see that those cabinets held wonders. Cybernetics, mostly. Hands made from polycarbonate steel splayed open to show all the different parts. Legs and shoulders, and even internal organs, including hearts and lungs.
Ty couldn’t help himself. He walked around slowly, admiring everything. Tempest walked with him but didn’t speak. It was as if she understood his fascination and was giving him time to absorb it all.
When they reached the last case, Ty paused. It showed something at least as interesting as the rest put together. It was a device like the one on his wrist, but deconstructed and displayed like an anatomy lesson. Ty stood in front of it for quite some time and just studied it as closely as he could.
“Father’s specialty was giving people back the things they had lost. These are all his work,” Tempest said.
“They are stunning,” Ty replied. The workmanship required to create things like this was amazing. Even with his newfound skill, Ty wasn’t sure if he could replicate it.
Yet, even though he had been studying the Architect’s work for only a few seconds, he already had a few ideas he wanted to try. This was going to be fun!
He looked at Tempest with eager excitement. In turn, she seemed to enjoy his keenness.
“You said there were notes?” Ty said.
Tempest nodded. “Yes. There, in that file cabinet.”
Ty didn’t need to be told twice. In an instant, the cabinet was open, and he was thumbing through an alphabetized catalog of information. It was neat and orderly, and Ty quickly began to suspect that the knowledge contained within was greater than that in most libraries.
Nor was it just the items that were on display that were documented. Ty flicked past headings that detailed all manner of bodily enhancements, including the genetic tweaking required to create the sort of deer characteristics that Dinah sported. And other things, not related at all, one of which caught his attention immediately.
It was a design for a battery of some sort, a power supply that a single glance told Ty might well be the answer to some of his questions.
“Wow,” Ty breathed. “There’s a lifetime of stuff in here.”
“Yes,” Tempest said, but sadly. “I suspect he made the device in part to try to boost his own productivity. Maybe he thought it would enhance the technology side of who he was. Kind of like what it has done for you. But it didn’t. Or maybe it did, but not in the way he hoped for. He just wanted to help people.”
Ty nodded. He had always been interested in technology but had never been quite so excited as he was now. To him, this was nothing short of a gift from the gods, a cornucopia of ideas and thoughts, so imaginative and wild that they were transformative in nature. It was like everything Ty might have ever dreamed of was sitting here, locked away in this room.
And he had the key to it all.
Nor were the display items and the file cabinet full of wonders the best of it. Ty quickly pulled the documentation for the device and turned his attention to the central work desk.
At first glance, it was just a large, flat working surface with two pieces of equipment bolted to it, one at each end. One of those pieces of equipment was no more than a display panel, elegantly designed and not out of place in the workshop at all.
The other was a monstrosity full of mechanical arms and latent capability.
To anyone not schooled in cybernetics or tech manufacturing, the identity of these items might have remained a mystery. But Ty knew what they were even though he had seen their like only once before.
He beamed at Tempest. He was like a kid in a candy store, and couldn’t have been happier.
The display panel was the access point to a holographic imager, and the monstrosity was a full fabricator. The university where he’d studied had a rudimentary model of each. He’d seen how they worked and knew that each on their own could cut down the time taken to design or upgrade a product by a considerable margin.
A label on each proclaimed these to be manufactured by Stark Industrial, which meant they were top of the line. Acting together, Ty could create something the world had never seen before within a couple of hours.
He walked up to the fabricator just so he could touch it, to convince himself it was real.
“It’s nearly new,” Tempest said, watching him. “My father got it just before he disappeared and never really had a chance to use it.”
Ty just stared. “This is going to be fun!” he said.
Tempest grinned in amusement at Ty’s enthusiasm. She perched on one of the stools and said, “Mind if I watch?”
21: A Second Enhancement
Ty had never been particularly intuitive as an engineer. Always before, he had needed to think very carefully to figure out how a gadget did what it did. When he sta
rted at the Concubine Club, the constant distractions had made fixing the machines difficult to begin with.
Now, it was easier. His new skill allowed him to instinctively grasp how things worked. And with the Architect’s documentation, it was like a new world had opened up in front of him.
It took only a few minutes for him to absorb enough of the documentation that he was confident in what he was doing. If he wanted to, he could have taken the device off his wrist even though Tempest had said it was impossible. The Architect’s documentation didn’t exactly provide instructions, but with the detail it did provide, it was easy to figure out.
But he no longer wanted to. Not only was he starting to appreciate the benefits the device could bring, but he knew that the first week or so of wearing it was critical. The device was still analyzing his genetic code and how best to enhance it. Over the next few days, the enhancements that had been made would become more settled.
Instead, he wanted to make it better at doing what it already did.
He wondered what he might be able to do if it worked, but his own device was secondary. Tempest’s was of far greater importance. Ty wanted to make sure that if she had to face Bain again, she would be at her best.
Of course, if he was able to help her in some way as well, even better.
Ty looked at Tempest. He was feeling confident and capable, and having her there to watch was just what he wanted. So far, he’d seen what she was able to do with her strength and skills. Now it was time to show her what he could do.
“Shall we get to it?” he said.
She responded with a suggestive smirk. “What if Dinah comes in?” she said.
Ty grinned. Tempest’s close presence, her delicate perfume, and the obvious attraction she had for him were more than enough to send his autonomic nervous responses into high gear. He was very aware of his own skin. It was as if there was a light electric current playing all over him, and part of him wanted to ignore everything else and revisit the games they had started on top of the boulder.
