The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

Daredevil sighed again. This wasn’t a courtroom, and this wasn’t about laws, but about emotions, feelings, and faith. I could bury him in all areas.

“We can meet in my office.” He rattled off the address. “Even though you make me uncomfortable.”

“You’ll get over it once you get your Core active.” I moved away from the edge of the roof.

He had to pause before replying softly, “I probably will...”

I took a running start, got some altitude with a jump over six stories high, and Repulsed the air atop me. Air pressure forced me up as my forward momentum increased, as I Repulsed the air in front of me and began shooting forward with increasing speed.

The great globe of effect of his radar sense began to move away behind me.

Well, now I know a good lawyer. How ‘bout that?

I shot off for the Baxter Building.

---------

While Reed Richards didn’t exactly come from money, his genius had rapidly made him a whole lot of it, especially in aeronautics and rocket design, and he had extensive government contracts. Owning a skyscraper in downtown New York was totally a possibility once you had that kind of money... as well as acquiring the property once the landowner realized that renting to a publicly-known supergroup put a real damper on anybody else leasing from you there.

It had been less than two years since the Four got their powers and started the Age of Heroes, preceding Spider-Man and the Avengers, and already the building had been attacked once and been buried by the Mole-Man’s efforts. Needless to say, the other businesses there had elected to move out, turning the entire building into storage areas for Richards and some automated production facilities making things for high-end clients or his own personal use.

America’s only production machine for Unstable Molecule Fabric, for instance, was in the Baxter Building. Their power generator was assumed to be a custom cold-fusion device that pumped out more than enough power for Richards’ experiments, and supposedly generated enough juice to power all of Manhattan Island. Its sale of power to the electric grid paid for a great deal of his taxes.

Still, there hadn’t been enough time to completely remake the place to a total high-tech standard, although Richards was definitely trying, and using Weird Science in the process to get around the need for construction crews tromping around his home.

Could I get inside? It was an interesting question, at least on the mundane level.

On the magical level, sure. There were no Interdiction defenses around the place, something I’d have to bring up with him, so I could just pop inside if I wished to. The States didn’t have a problem with teleporters yet, but that wouldn’t take that long. Shutting down ‘porters and ghosters was something you had to have to have a secure base.

On the flip side, I had Weird Scientist now, Disable Device at 11 Ranks, Intellect 38, and was curious to know if I could actually get inside.

Vampire’s Veil meant scientific equipment couldn’t detect me, so I had no problem flying right up along 42nd Street to approach the building.

It was located on 1st Avenue, right along the Hudson, in a location that in another world would have been the United Nations, a hosting privilege that had never been granted to the United States in this world. Even the local branch of the United Nations was located in Atlanta in this world, which had really helped the southern city’s aspirations as a port of trade.

Word was that The Great Bear had simply said, “I’m not going to fund an organization that builds a major branch in a place that smells like New York City,” and all the politicking by the New Yorkers had simply come to naught. Atlanta was also SCRUPULOUS about their air quality now, too.

New York City was still the financial and banking capital of the United States, but on the world stage was not what it had been in other worlds. The Russian ruble was more favored as an international currency and more stable nation, and Tribal Coin was treated better on most exchanges.

On the other hand, the continued weakness made it easier to export things. It was just a shame that the Tribes didn’t buy many States processed goods, completely stymieing economists who could not understand such behavior. With superior population and workforces, economic domination over the Tribes should have been inexorable... but States technology was always a generation behind the Tribes, and the balance of trade favored the Tribes, who ended up selling the States massive amounts of food every year, much to the displeasure of States farmers, and the secret relief of many Staters at keeping food prices down, even with the omnipresent import tariffs.

The Tribes didn’t care. They simply didn’t buy much from the States, and it hampered the growth of the States not to have access to most of the continent’s natural resources. The Tribes also didn’t trust the States to hold to any trade or legal agreements, with complete cynicism whenever the subject came up.

Richards’ genius had helped put America back on the map. From the Baxter Building, changes were starting to ripple out across the States as he patented and sold upgraded tech constantly, generating massive revenues. Unlike Stark, whose genius basically made finer goods for his own company to produce and profit from, Richards’ inventions were helping raise the foundational levels of the States across multiple sciences, from agriculture and genetics to high-end physics and alternate power sources.

Of course, there were plenty of people whose power he threatened by coming out with better mousetraps, and they were constantly battling to stop the advance of progress long enough for themselves to keep their places of control and power.

As I’d said, corporate espionage was a profitable and constant field of endeavor in the States, and there was a lot of merc work here and abroad funded by the States.

Not too many would be dumb enough to directly attack the Baxter Building, however, especially after the Four got their powers and started making names for themselves.

I landed on the side of the building, on a particular row and set of windows.

Some of the windows were designed to be egress points from within, which meant they had to have locks and hinges and similar things.

My outfit was mostly painted the same hue as the glass underneath me as I extended thin wires into the seams around this particular window on the third floor. It had been observed as opening up for the team to fly out of in an emergency, and so this was my entry point.

Yeah, I could have tried the ventilation system, but that was just silly unless I used shrinking magic. They didn’t make those things big enough for people. That was just dumb.

Fine steel threads guided by telekinesis wormed their way through to the control circuits, triggering them at the same time as they grounded out the alarm circuit.

The window cycled inward smoothly. I swung inside, staying an inch above the floor, and the window pivoted back into place behind me.

The internal door had more security involved with it, but the trick was mostly to fool the sensors indicating the door was opening. Providing both pressure and continual flow of electricity did the trick as I just bypassed the lock and security scanner completely. The airlock cycled open on its own basis, I stepped inside, and it closed behind me. The sensors never noticed it was open at all as I withdrew my threads.

I was now in their living areas. From an assassination standpoint, this was ideal. From an espionage point, not quite, but since I was here to visit, it was fine.

It was also like 5 AM, and not even an acknowledged workaholic like Richards was up yet.

I could stew around in the living area and take a nap, or I could do something productive.

Let’s see what I could come up with.

--------

It wasn’t hard to hear him coming, given what he weighed. He probably didn’t sleep too much, like Mr. Hill, so he had come wandering out from his room, probably to turn the TV on low and see what the international news had to say.

Seeing someone he didn’t know in a mask working in the kitchen was enough to get a soft “Sweet Christmas!” from him, glancing around quickly to make sure he didn’t wake anyone. He looked like he wanted to get into action, but all the cooking utensils and pots and pans out convinced him that I wasn’t planning anything too nefarious. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” he demanded, blinking oddly blue eyes under a thick stone unibrow.

“I believe I am cooking, Mr. Grimm,” I replied easily enough, dumping some fine metal shavings into a tall glass of what could charitably be described as plumbing cleaner fluid. It curdled and fizzled energetically. “I expected Dr. Richards to be up the earliest, but since you are...” I poured in some fine quartz sand and a rain of crushed charcoal, stirred it all up with a Mixing Rod, and slid the half-gallon container precisely between the sheets and pans to the edge of the island in front of him. “Good morning.”

He looked at the swirling mess in front of him, which looked like nothing more than a chocolate and vanilla milkshake. “Uh, what’s this?”

“A milkshake for a Geoic Avatar.”

He blinked at me again, and picked up the container carefully with his big stony mitts. Tilting it back warily, keeping an eye on me as I watched, he took a drink.

His eyes popped open as he sloshed it around his mouth, and he swallowed in amazement. “Hey, this is pretty good!” he said softly again, and took another drink, with obvious relish. “Wow, I ain’t had anything tasting this good since I became orange!”

“Kinda figured. Dietary requirements of Geoics are pretty off-kilter compared to most humans.” I slid in a pan full of muffins to the waiting oven after a glance at him. “Give ‘em ten minutes, and I’ll give you something to go with that.”

He glanced at it, back at me. “It might not last that long,” he warned me, which I found amusing.

“I can make more. Dynamo. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Grimm.”

He pulled over a very reinforced stool to the edge of the island, watching me as I continued making and mixing. “I have the feeling you ain’t supposed to be here,” he pointed out, “despite you making cupcakes.”

“Figured I’d make myself useful while I waited for you all to wake up.” I shrugged, and pointed with my head at the silver case over on a facing stuffed chair. “Brought that in for Dr. Richards to look at. Didn’t trust civilian authorities to hold onto it in this city.”

He grunted knowingly. “Something you found on Yancy Street?” he asked cynically.

“Sure. A fear-based hallucinogen that spreads in external and internal forms, and is empowered by Powered biological systems. It would even work on you.”

He stared at it suspiciously. “That sounds like a piece of work. You brought it here because-?”

“One, because Dr. Richards can probably invent a suitable antidote for it in aerosol fashion fairly quickly, and even more easily make up a vaccine for Powered individuals to resist it ahead of time. Second, because the research notes are inside it, and while no mention of who designed this is in there, I figured that based on his exposure to the research scientists in the local area, Dr. Richards might be able to deduce who designed it, and curious parties could go have a word with him.”

He was silent at that for a moment, turning his head to look out the window bank I’d come in, across the river at the Bronx beyond. “Who’d you take it from?” he asked after a moment.

“Based on the drug lab I removed it from, Wilson Fisk, called the Kingpin. But the Crux obviously know about it, too, as they tried to hijack it en route.”

“Leeches will be leeches,” he grunted. “You’re not from around here. What brings you to New York City?”

“It needs someone like me,” I replied easily enough. “Europe and the Coast have their own considerations. Big things are going to happen in New York, and I felt like getting in on the ground floor here.”