Mod Superhero

Emmett Laraway continued working in Athena’s apartment. He was hunched over the kitchen table, dark hair tied back, and mini screwdriver in hand as he worked on one of TINA’s new servers. Two more were spread out across the table in various states of assembly. Remnants of a washing machine sat beside him on the floor. 

Nanites crawled across the table like ants and swarmed like gnats around the screwdriver. 

Together, he and TINA were rebuilding the rest of her brain. 

To be fair, TINA probably could’ve done most of the manufacturing process by herself, but it would’ve been slower going. Even though she’d succeeded in shrinking her footprint down to something small enough to fit inside Emmett’s head, she’d lost a lot of raw processing power in the process. 

This way, Emmett took some of the strain off of TINA’s systems and, at the same time, he also got to practice controlling the nanites. 

In Emmett’s prosthetic eye, he saw a three-dimensional overlay of the schematics. Using that, he could manually guide nanites as they reconstituted raw materials from the junk washing machine and built them into the server. The screwdriver helped focus both his attention and the nanites. It had taken some getting used to, but now it felt like he was controlling a 3-D printer. 

TINA had once told him that his skill with controlling the nanites would continue to improve, like working a muscle. He hadn’t really believed her until he’d looked back on his progress over the past week. 

When he’d first started, it’d been hard just to make rudimentary shapes with the swarm. Now, he could hold together a table while simultaneously building parts for the servers. The table was the same matte black color, except their structure was stable—well, mostly stable. Occasionally a ripple would pass over the uncovered surfaces. 

Clara’s footsteps echoed across the apartment as she paced back into the living room. She was half-hidden beneath her oversized hoodie, her dark hair just long enough to peak out beneath it. 

It’d been a week since the end of humanity’s war with the Deep Ones, and a week since the Binary Brotherhood attacked the lab and apprehended Dr. Venture.

A week of being cooped up in Athena’s barebones apartment. 

They’d briefly discussed sneaking out of Belport, but TINA had quashed the idea. In the immediate aftermath of losing the lab and the Brotherhood ousting Dr. Venture, the safest place was here in Athena’s apartment—hidden by magic. 

Emmett didn’t mind being cooped up, but Clara was going stir-crazy. She walked over to the window and stared outside.

There wasn’t much to see. Belport had just started allowing people back into the city—mostly engineers and workers assessing damage. Crews worked day and night. Occasionally, a demolition echoed through the city. If it was close enough, Emmett could hear the pops of the explosives. Most times he just heard the building collapse. 

The first few times Emmett heard a demolition, the sound made him jump. Now, he merely paused work for a few moments—just in case. 

So far, there hadn’t been any surviving Deep Ones reported in the city.

In some ways, it was like the war had never stopped. Belport had just traded constant patrols and intermittent battles for rebuilding. It even sounded the same. 

A repurposed Fast-Response drone flew over the block, not bothering to cloak itself. It was blocky and roughly the size of a small closet. The surface was a deep metallic gray that hung in the air like a blemish. Until last week, it had been one of Dr. Venture’s drones. 

Two more drones flew by, accompanied by a Summit cape that Emmett didn’t recognize. 

So much had changed. 

They still hadn’t heard from Dr. Venture. 

TINA didn't want to try reconnecting with the lab—not in her weakened state. All they could tell was the brief bit of surveillance they could conduct through the apartment windows. 

Drones were coming and going from the lab, but so were other ships owned by Ava Savanus. 

Staying cooped up in the apartment had been hard, but it had been the hardest for Clara. It seemed like the longer they went without hearing from her dad, the worse things got. She’d spent the first few days in bed, not talking to anyone and not eating. 

After the first two days, Emmett had started to worry about her. It was hard resisting the urge to fix things. Obviously, he couldn’t take back the lab, but he could talk or listen or be a shoulder to cry on…

Both TINA and Athena urged Emmett to give her time and space. 

He’d rather have fought another monstrosity than let Clara wallow alone. Still, Emmett tried, and it sucked.

He kept himself occupied with work and catching up with Athena. 

Emmett still hadn’t gotten the full story about what Athena had been up to since the battle at the mutagen warehouse over a month ago. All Athena said was that she’d left town on the trail of some mages. She’d tracked them a few towns north to Hoffewick. Then when the Deep One’s attacked, she’d stayed there to help defend the city. 

The only other thing Athena had confided was that she’d been on her way back to Belport when Emmett and Clara had tripped the apartment alarm. 

It didn’t sound like Athena had finished her business with the mages. Maybe they were back in Belport… Maybe Athena could use Emmett and Clara’s help… 

But Emmett could also be going stir-crazy himself and reading into things. 

Clara walked away from the window and flopped down on the couch. She pulled her hoodie down over her face and groaned. “When did Athena say she’d be back again?”

Emmett continued working, not taking his eyes off the circuit board on the table. “I don’t think she mentioned it.” 

“Do you think she’ll tell us what’s going on with the mages? We could help her. 

“I had the same thought.”

Emmett’s phone sat beside him on the table, and TINA’s voice came through it. “We’re running out of raw metals. You should continue your work on presets until Athena comes back.”

“Isn’t it better to practice holding the structure manually? It feels like a tougher exercise.”

“Not entirely. Forming a preset construct will also benefit you. To continue the metaphor—one is a calisthenic exercise, the other is a static hold. Both provide benefits.”

“You’re right.” Emmett sighed, sat up in the chair, and rolled his shoulders. He’d changed out a lot of himself for tech over the past few months, but the muscles and ligaments in his shoulders were still organic, and his posture still sucked. 

He really needed to get in the habit of taking breaks when he was working, if only to get up and walk around. He wasn’t a robot. 

Emmett walked a lap around the apartment. 

The main area was an open space, with the kitchen on one side and what passed for a living room on the other. The place reminded Emmett of when his parents had redone the kitchen—the walls were spackled and unpainted, the wood floors were scuffed, and the stove and fridge were missing. In the living room there were a couple of mismatched flower couches and chairs, a couple lights, but no TV. Something about large appliances couldn’t be hidden by Athena’s magic. 

Racks of computer servers lined the far wall. Emmett had completed eleven so far—managing to build between one and two each day, depending on what scrap Athena was able to salvage. Interspersed on the racks were clusters of power cells. Eventually, they would repurpose the material into a full-fledged battery, but these were easier and cheaper to reproduce. It also gave Clara something to funnel her power into. 

The kitchen table and chair that Emmett had been working at also stood out. The nanites made them look unnatural compared to the sparse lights and faded decor of the apartment. 

Until now, Emmett had been holding their shapes while he worked. 

Emmett flexed his concentration. A final ripple spread out across the surface of the table, solidifying the shape. As it did, Emmett felt the strain on his mind relax. 

He’d quickly realized that using his concentration to hold the nanites in place would only take him so far. It felt like trying to balance a cup of water on his head while doing a squat—it was good practice, but ultimately a handicap. Especially if he ever wanted to use the nanites in combat. Emmett could still feel the table in his mind’s eye, but now it was fixed in place and he didn’t need to worry about holding it together. 

With the next mental command, Emmett released his hold on the chair. It dissolved back into a cloud, looking like dry ice sublimating. The cloud swirled around Emmett as he pulled it back inside his torso. 

Emmett was about to continue practicing when he noticed Clara staring off into the distance. Instead, he walked over to the server rack and plucked three batteries off of the shelves. 

“Hey, are you feeling up to recharge these?”

Clara snapped out of her trance and nodded. Emmett brought the batteries with him and sat beside her on the couch. 

Clara took a battery. She laced her fingers and pressed it tightly between her hands. An orange glow seeped out. The battery wasn’t covered completely, but the movement helped Clara focus her power. 

One-by-one, she recharged them. 

Emmett stayed beside her, watching the batteries, but focusing on Clara. With each battery she finished, Clara relaxed a little more. Instead of straining on the third battery, her breathing grew steadier. 

When she was done, she handed the last battery back to Emmett. He was going to put them back on the rack, but Clara grabbed his sleeve before he could get up. He slumped back into the seat beside her. 

“How can you always tell?”

Emmett shrugged. “You kinda get this faraway look.”

Clara pulled her hoodie back over her face and slumped back into the couch. “I used to be in tune with myself.”

Emmett put a hand on her forearm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. The last few days would mess with anyone.”

“Still…” Clara trailed off like she had a hundred different things she wanted to say. Finally, she said, “I’m just tired of being bottled up here.”

“I know. TINA and I are almost done with the disguise protocol, though. Between that and TINA hiding our tech and comm signals, we should be able to go back out into the city without having to worry.”

“I hope so,” Clara replied, resting her head on his shoulder. 

Emmett held her hand and squeezed it in reply. 

~ ~ ~