Interlude 10
13th of May, 2011
Brockton Bay, Brockton Bay General Hospital
There were multiple reasons why Colin hadn't begrudged being voluntold by his hierarchy that he would be playing chaperone for the Bay's most polemical cape today.
As Bonesaw had so aptly put it earlier in the day, one of those was that he was still feeling the aftermath of his desperate last stand against Leviathan. Hell, the only reason Colin was still able to walk after badly bursting his knee during the encounter was that Panacea had fixed it for him.
Granted, it could have been worse. He could have lost an arm or something like that. Or even his life. But even with parahuman healing, the Tinker had yet to fully shake off the wariness and exhaustion that had seemingly seeped into his bones two days later. Hence why he had quietly accepted getting side-lined in favor of putting Assault and Battery back on the streets.
He had still felt obligated to hide his relief behind a neutral mien at the time though. After all, he had a reputation to maintain.
The second reason was that his lie detector program was easily transferable to his backup power armor and that a day spent alongside the Remnants while letting it run in the background was an opportunity that the PRT ENE couldn't easily pass up. It was one thing for the infamous duo to pretend that they were now retired and allegedly plenty happy to play house by themselves as long as they were left well enough alone, the PRT still had a responsibility toward those it protected to check, double-check and triple-check the intent of the barely stable tween holding the entire eastern seaboard hostage as her bargaining chip.
Most people had forgotten about that particular detail since two days ago, the Director and Colin had not.
So far, he was pleasantly surprised to note that the talkative one of the two was remarkably blunt and truthful in her interactions with him.
If he was a betting man, Colin would have easily taken the wager that the frightfully intelligent child knew what he was doing and was willingly going along with his barely hidden attempt at intelligence gathering. Oh, she had an excellent poker face - probably something she developed early during her time with the Nine - but he had caught the Siberian throwing him little amused looks a couple of times already as her charge happily answered his questions.
Colin had very little reasons to believe that the Wet Tinker hadn't cottoned on his intent if the Brute had.
The third reason was nicely tied to the second, in a way. The Director had a series of inquiries she needed answered, yesterday, about the hows and whys of Bonesaw's unprecedented growth since her arrival in the Bay. And the girl had all but glibly answered those when prompted about her rather distressing amount of biomechanical constructs. It would probably please and worry the director in equal measure when he finally made his report at the end of the day. On one hand, it was an unmitigated good thing that the Wet Tinker didn't need to 'harvest' materials from the Bay; on the other hand, it meant that she probably could upscale her production way, way up with them being none the wiser.
Colin still found it more than a little disturbing that she was using her own cloned brain tissues to build the bioprocessors needed to make her creations work and was seemingly unbothered by it, but he supposed that she wouldn't have done it if it could lead to some issues down the line.
Or so he hoped, anyway.
The Protectorate hero was mildly annoyed that Assault of all people had been right about Bonesaw's inspiration for the current look of her 'Little Helpers' and had resolved to look into this Aleph board game when he got a couple of hours to waste in the future. He had a gut feeling that it wouldn't be the last time it would be relevant in regards to the Remnants.
The fourth reason was… Admittedly a little more personal. Earlier today, he would have even qualified it as 'a long shot'. He had spent most of the previous day thinking about Dragon's suggestions of enlisting Bonesaw's help in his own transhumanist ventures and had to eventually admit to himself that his list of 'cons' came awfully short to the 'pros', especially if his… Nonhuman friend double-checked the tween Tinker's suggestions afterward.
As Dragon had put it, the worst she could do would be to tell him no.
Still, Colin hadn't been convinced that Bonesaw would hear him out. Those doubts had been quietly punted downhill after less than five minutes of interactions with the girl when he suddenly realized with quiet horror that, after all this time spent interacting with Tinkers fully leaning on their power and nothing else, he had finally found someone else on Dragon and his level of competence and enthusiasm for the job.
It probably said volumes about him that the only two Tinkers he could firmly say he would trust not to fuck up a project were an AI and the USA's most infamous preteen.
Watching Bonesaw work and interact with a professional in the medical field - a certain Doctor Foreman who had joined them almost as soon as they had started doing the girl's round - had been enlightening to say the least. Colin could say with perfect confidence that Bonesaw had honed into a surgical tool of frightening efficiency that particular edge of madness every Tinker has, to the point of allowing a qualified neurosurgeon to just barely grasp concepts decades, if not centuries, ahead of the current medical field. When the eerily focused doctor had a question, it generally took less than a minute for the Wet Tinker to get her point across in an easily - to him, Colin had been hopelessly lost despite having downloaded an entire medical thesaurus in his hard drive this morning - understandable way.
Colin had a feeling that those two probably could entirely revolutionize the medical field if left to their own devices for a few months and allowed to publish papers without getting ridiculed and/or yelled at for it. Maybe Dragon and him should give this unlikely cooperation their support? If nothing else, it would keep the Wet Tinker busy for the foreseeable future with something tamer than genderbending villainous capes into scarily competent powered henchwomen with animal features.
Once her round had ended and the good doctor had left, the Protectorate hero had then entirely recorded and documented the process of recreating more of what the girl called Nanobiotics with a particular amount of reverence. For what he had managed to understand, which was admittedly less than he would have wanted but his speciality only tangentially intersected with the medical field, Bonesaw's latest invention was absolutely revolutionary. A living cell that had nothing in common with nanotechnology as he understood it, combining the properties of both a virus' propensity to 'hack' the DNA of the nearest cell and a bacteria's own to quickly reproduce to recreate lost tissues without a potential rejection issue. It would've been amazing of ingenuity on its own, but the beauty of the safety-slash-operating system - low intensity current to prevent rampant growths, who would have thought? - turned it into a work of art.
A work of art that Bonesaw wanted to freely give to the world as an apology, in her own words.
Colin wasn't worried though, he was pretty sure that Dragon would be giving this particular Tinkertech streamlining project her all as soon as the Bay's recovery effort stopped being so reliant on her for the coordination effort. This was right up her alley after all.
Nonetheless, it is with some amount of trepidation that the Protectorate hero finally breaches the subject that has been at the tip of his tongue since he proposed his humble - and distressingly lacking - help into putting together the Nanobiotics incubator in the parking lot a couple hours ago.
"Bonesaw, if I may?" He - politely - interjects as the preteen takes her last bite of her chocolate cake's slice in the middle of the Brockton Bay General cafeteria.
Two pairs of eyes nearly instantly snap in his direction as the Remnants halt their not-so-one-sided idle talk, the blonde sitting in her sister's lap as the latter loosely hugs her midriff.
"Yes, Mister Armsmaster?" The girl answers after very minutely relaxing, something that he probably wouldn't have caught on without his extensive sensory suit.
It honestly doesn't really surprise him that the girl is used to constantly walking on eggshells, but he can't help but find the Siberian's reaction intriguing.
Speaking of which, Colin would really like to know where the Projection's true body is nowadays, but he has a feeling that neither of the two would give him an appropriate answer yet. Dragon had urged him to keep that particular factoid to himself since it wasn't relevant to said Brute's sentience, but he had that feeling that the Director knew somehow.
Maybe he would ask about it in the future if the Remnants' judicial situation changes, who knows?
"I was wondering if you'd like to look into a project of mine." Colin elaborates, betraying nothing of his previous thoughts, "Dragon insisted that this was right up your alley and that I should seek your advice before commiting."
Behind his visor, he watches intently as the blonde's mismatched eyes first narrow, then widden in understanding.
"Oh! I see!" She enthusiastically claps while simultaneously kicking her legs, the Siberian just as quickly losing her own interest in the discussion as soon as it even tangentially alluded to tinkering, "Did you finally decide to make good on your specialization's true potential?"
Colin certainly does not pout at having been read like a book by someone a third of his age.
No, he purses his lips instead.
"Indeed." He acknowledges with a shallow nod, "... The events of two days ago have forced me to acknowledge that my body has reached its biological limits. It also enlightened me on my particular role in that kind of battlefield." He adds with a pointed, yet thankful, look toward the Remnant's Brute, "Yet I have grown… Used to the life of a Protectorate hero and I still think I have more to offer."
Acclaims, reputations, fame, all those things were good, made him feel good. But they weren't the reason Colin had signed with the PRT less than a month after his Trigger Event all those years ago. He was honestly feeling a bit shameful, now looking back on his actions of the last few years.
No, he had played his part in Leviathan's defeat, had been present while the beast was put down for good with the help of his tinkertech and would be remembered for it in the years to come. And he could live with that, it was honestly more than he deserved for his previous hubris.
"And so you're thinking about branching into cybernetics." The Wet Tinker nods to herself, oblivious to his inner turmoil, "Well, that sounds very interesting and I'd be happy to help!"
Just like that, huh, Colin muses, feeling a little flat-footed.
Granted, it wasn't a newfound feeling when interacting with Bonesaw, he had come to learn.
"I have a USB drive with my latest schematics with me." He says, unlocking a panel of his power armor to take said object out of it, "If you could come back to-"
"Oh, we can start brainstorming together a little right now!" The blonde brightly answers with enthusiasm as she snatches the USB drive out of his hands while half-leaning against the table, her dress' immaculate state only getting preserved by the Siberian's quick thinking as she lifts her charge up and away from her empty tray, "Let's see…"
The blonde plops herself back into her guardian's lap with a happy hum before fishing out her tablet from her apron.
It barely takes a few seconds for the Wet Tinker to get fully engrossed in her readings as she 'ooohhh' and 'aaahhh' at what she sees in his schematics.
Colin can't help but feel a smidgen of pride and a little validated at his… pseudo-colleague(?)'s enthusiasm.
He carefully does not acknowledge the little rumbly laugh the Siberian does at that, inwardly cursing the cunning Brute for her perceptiveness.
"Alright, I think I've got the gist of it." Bonesaw ends up saying after a few minutes spent mumbling to herself, her eyes locking back with his visor, "And I definitely have a couple suggestions for you to make."
"I am all ears." Colin answers while clasping his hands together on the table.
"Firstly, I think your overall idea that you have to do away with most of your fleshy bits is a bit flawed." The blonde raises a hand to preempt him from answering, "Bear with me for a minute. I'm certain that you're aware of the work I did on dear Pari, correct?"
"I am." He acknowledges.
"Then you already know that it is possible for me to give someone a stronger, better human - ish - baseline as well as return them to their prime." She pointedly says, to which he slowly nods, "If you're open to accept my help, I'd happily whip you a gene therapy that would easily bring you to peak human first before we start thinking about taking cybernetics enhancement onto that. Plus, a stronger musculoskeletal system is never wasted on someone who's going to add dozens of pounds of weight on-slash-into their body. You'd also save countless hours of maintenance for every organ you keep fleshy since the body already does it by itself. Sickness and diseases would be nearly inconsequential with an enhanced immune system and it'd make providing your brain with what it needs infinitely easier if you just have to eat for it. Trust me on that; I know the hoops Mannequin had to jump through to maintain his own braincase and it didn't look very entertaining or fun. And food is good for your mental health, you know?"
Colin slowly nods in assent as the girl takes a big breath before resuming her speech.
"I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you much about your cybernetics' design since they are honestly more advanced than my own, but I think I can help you on two other things." The blonde carries on while raising a hand, ticking fingers as she speaks, "One, adding a fully sensory haptic suit. In my opinion, losing your skin's sensory inputs is going to play havoc on your state of mind. I'm speaking about things like phantom limb syndromes or even uglier, lesser known psychosis. Now, I don't have the tech to create a synthetic replacement yet, but I have a couple of ideas that I could look into relatively easily since I already have most of the software needed to make it work for… Unrelated reasons. Two, your braincase. Don't get me wrong, your basis is good, really good even, but I see a few mistakes that could be easily corrected and can recommend you a better, stronger alloy to build it. And I really have to strongly advise you to consider replacing the spine at the same time, because the weight is going to ruin your cervical disks at the speed of sound otherwise."
"I hadn't considered that…" The Protectorate admits with a frown.
"Not your specialty, it's not surprising." The girl waves him off easily.
A beat of silence settles on the table as he thinks about her observations.
Yet, instead of asking a relevant question, he finds himself blurting out something else.
"Aren't you worried about making a possible opponent more difficult to beat later down the line?" He asks, his words escaping him.
Bonesaw blinks, then tilts her head slightly to the side as she looks back at him.
"... Not really, no?" She ends up saying after a beat, "I mean, Sibby and I were and still are serious when we said that we were done with the whole villainous murderhobo shtick. At the same time, thinking that we could ever completely leave the cape game behind is a fool's errand. That only leaves us with the 'friendly neighborhood villainous rogue' routine. This-" She alternatively points between herself and Colin, "-is me being a good neighbor to the local law enforcement. Look at it this way: if you - as in the PRT as a whole - are good at your job and we have a polite relationship enforced by mutually beneficial barter, then I don't have to gruesomely kill the next dummy who thinks they can make a mess of the Bay for their own enjoyment."
In the corner of his visor, the truthfulness of the Wet Tinker's statement helpfully blinks in green.
"... I see." At least Colin thinks he does now, even if he finds her genuineness mildly off-putting.
"Plus," the girl adds with a big, slightly manic smile, "This is interesting. And I never say no to interesting projects!"
Ah, that's more in line with what I expected from her. The Protectorate hero inwardly sighs in relief.
And as the duo of Tinkers settles into a fulfilling brainstorming session, a sense of anticipation starts to build between the two.
[AN: How about we see things from the other side for a bit, hmm?
A friendly reminder that your likes and comments feeds and motivates me my pretties, so please give this underserving attention whore what they crave. UwU
Hope you enjoy, xoxo!]
Last edited: Yesterday at 7:13 AM