Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 13: Brainstorming

Perry walked around the lead-plated armor in the center of his workshop, tapping his pencil on his lips as he walked.

Mk. II weigh in:

50 pounds. Featherweight division.

$1500 dollars in supplies.

Power supply est. 1600 hours of continuous operation. Non-replaceable, or rechargeable. It’s a disposable suit of power armor, part of why it was so cheap to make.

Expanded options for nonlethal takedown:

1: improved variety of Kolath’s Floating Armaments, including chain, blanket, hand, giant sword, and many many pairs of handcuffs.

2: Dregor’s Flacidity: Effect is weaker than it could be because the silver bowl is two inches wide, but will work excellently as a debuff against powerhouses like Titan

3: Tomward’s Floating Dazzler.

4: Stun guns built into gauntlets.

Tomward’s floating Dazzler was something Perry had started when he’d first bought his ingredients, several weeks ago. The spell was as such:

Tomward’s Floating Dazzler (neophyte difficulty)

Ingredients: Phantom jellyfish salts, Glowstone.

Render ingredients into fine powder, mix at a 2 Glowstone to 5 Jellyfish salt ratio.

Create a brine out of the mixture, suspend glowstone fragments in the mixture and allow the crystal to expand until it is three times the weight.

One you have your crystal, you may activate the jellyfish essence with a quick poem (inscribed below). Expose the crystal to light and then shatter it upon a hard surface.

Will burst into light and render weightless any living being who witnesses the light.

In short, it’s an anti-gravity flashbang. Perry translated.

He’d been waiting for the crystals to grow for a couple weeks now, and finally had his first half dozen shots ready.

The spell-frame and spell-disc had been rather simple to make, just recording a poem describing the oceans of Manita, a full-spectrum light similar to his growth spell, and a launching mechanism.

Excellent.

Perry’s new suit was almost ready to go out into the world.

Beep Beep Beep!

Perry rubbed his eyes and glanced at his phone, telling him it was time to get ready for school.

“Shoot,” Perry muttered, getting his backpack ready and jumping on his bike and heading for his house. He could get there with just enough time to spare to catch the bus.

***Later***

The entire school filled up the bleachers as the principal addressed them. The dark-haired woman with the conservative pant-suit kept her tone even but seemed to fidget behind the podium.

“I’m sure you’ve all noticed your Tidewatches fluctuating, I’m here to tell you that It is not a drill nor a random spike in activity. The Tide is coming in.” Mrs. Penderson said, scanning the teens.

There was a swell of excited murmuring from the assembled schoolchildren, all of whom had been too young to remember the last High Tide with any clarity. Some were afraid, many more were thrilled at the prospect of becoming Supers.

“It’s been announced by Nexus that High tide will arrive in approximately ten days. As is school policy, we will be closing down for the remainder of the school year to be safe. You have until the end of the week to make accommodations with your parents.”

“Whoo!” some idiot cheered.

“That means most of you are going to be held back an extra year, unless you can test out of your current classes.” Mrs. Penderson continued.

“Whooo…?” The idiot trailed off, causing Perry to choke back a guffaw.

“If you’d like to make arrangements to test out of your classes, come up to the counseler’s tables over there.” Mrs. Penderson pointed to the long line of bored looking teachers seated behind plastic tables, ready to sort out the logistics of an emergency shutdown of an entire school.

“If you don’t want to test out, we’ve got an extra set of buses that will be sending you home after the announcements are over.”

“You gonna test out?” Brendon asked, nudging Perry in the shoulder.

“Of course I’m gonna test out,” Perry answered. “You think I wanna still be in high school when I’m twenty?”

“…No?” Brendon asked. “What about me, what should I do?”

“Probably better to try, at least. And hey, if you don’t pass, you get another year as a football star.”

Together the two of them walked down to the plastic tables and signed up for the tests they’d need to take.

The teacher taking down Brendon’s information had a sad expression.

Past Brendon, he made out Heather in line, and without her army of mean-girls.

“Gotta go,” he said, patting Brendon on the shoulder and cutting off Heather before she could make it to the bleachers.

“What do you want?” She asked, peering up at him, seemingly mildly annoyed at his intrusion.

“I wanted to ask how bad it was.” Perry said. “My folks knew what we were up to that night. I assume your dad did too?”

“Not great,” Heather said with a sigh. “It was not great, Perry.”

“So is that a reason we can’t hang out?” Perry asked.

“The reason we can’t hang out, Perry Z, is because my dad likes you.” “I’m not sure I follow.”

Heather sighed, crossing her arms. “My dad. Is not a sellout clown like yours.”

“Ouch.”

“He doesn’t like people. He likes tools. When I was fourteen, I had this friend Abby. She would come over to my house every day and we would hang out, play games, talk about life. You know what happened to her?”

“…No?”

“Her mom was an inspector that my dad blackmailed into falsifying her reports, using information he got from me. When it got found out, she lost her job, got a divorce and moved away, and I never saw Abby again.”

“So I’m Abby in this scenario?” Perry asked.

“Pretty much.”

“I don’t really think that’s a fair comparison.” Perry said. “Every person in my family has superpowers. I don’t really think Karnos would risk coming after us in our civies.”

It was an unspoken rule, and those who broke it were dealt with harshly: you don’t come after a super’s family, and you don’t bother a super in their civilian alter ego. It led to messy, dangerous situations more often than not.

And trying to blackmail any one of them was invoking the ire of no less than three supers, two of whom were actually fairly dangerous.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But I know my dad, and he’ll do anything he thinks he can get away with: And he usually does.”

“But I mean…you’re not going to actively tell him anything about me or my family are you?” Perry asked.

“Of course not!”

“So whats the difference between if we hang out and he bugs you, or we don’t hang out, and he bugs Brendon, or my backpack, or something? I don’t see how us being friends would change the priorities of someone like that. If he wants to hurt my family, he’s gonna try whether or not you’re around.”

“Because he’ll use me to hurt you somehow, and I can’t –“ Heather bit her lip.

“You know you’re legally an adult, right?” Perry asked. “He’s got no more control over you than habit.”

“Must be nice to live in your world. I suppose I’ll just rent an apartment with all that money I’m swimming in, and my dad won’t send thugs to harass the property owner into sending me packing back to daddy.”

“You know,” Perry said, thinking hard. “My dad told me he never goes to jail anymore because he made it cost more for the city to put him away than it did to tolerate his antics.”

“So?”

“So if your dad doesn’t care about people…maybe if you made it more expensive for your dad to keep you around than it would be to leave you alone?”

Heather uncrossed her arms, opened her mouth, head cocked to the side.

“Huh. I never thought about it that way.”

She patted Perry on the shoulder, slipping by him. “I’ll think about it.”

New Quest!

Assist Heather in distancing herself from the supervillain Karnos!

Reward: 300XP, team member.

Failure: Reputation down with Nexus, parents, Karnos. Heather Dies.

As this is a Quest with a penalty for failure, if you wish to, you may forfeit this quest anytime in the next 24 hours to give up both the reward and the penalty for failure. After 24 hours there is no quitting. The seed has already been planted.

Ice flowed through Perry’s veins.

“Hey, buddy,” Brendon said, patting him on the shoulder. “I saw Heather gave you the time of day. That’s good right?”

“I’m not sure,” Perry said. “I think I just gave her a really bad idea.”

“Really, how bad?”

“Partying on the wall bad.”

Brendon hissed through his teeth. Teens climbing up to party on the wall was a common trope in horror movies. It usually ended about as badly as splitting up in a haunted house.

Perry would rather die than talk to Heather while she was surrounded by her social armor, but today he felt strangely motivated.

Perry marched up the bleachers to where the red-gold haired girl was chatting with her ‘friends’.

“Heather, can you come over to my house tonight?” Perry asked, his doing his best to ignore the giggling.

“Wow, you’ve got to respect his guts. He’s trying to swing way out of his league.” Amy Adams said, smiling maliciously. The brown-haired girl was reveling in her perceived superiority as the daughter of a Nexus supervisor.

You sure are, Amy. Perry thought sourly. He knew it was hot air, but it still stung.

“And why would I come over to our house?” Heather asked, folding her hands and looking up at him

“Because I’ve got a hunch that whatever idea you just had about your dad is going to end with him killing you.”

Of course the teen girls surrounding Heather didn’t take Perry literally. They didn’t know who Heather’s dad really was. They assumed Perry was exaggerating.

“Oh, look, Perry Triggered, and he’s a mind-reader.” Vanessa Brown said.

“Probably afraid her dad’s gonna hear about how awful the date was and kick his butt.” Another girl said, followed by a round of laughter.

Heather on the other hand, took Perry seriously, her face losing a bit of its hue.

“I dunno, you sound pretty desperate, Paradox,” Heather said, winking. “But I think I’d rather die.”

She called me Paradox.

“Alright, then. Suit yourself.” Perry said, marching off.

“Ahaha, look at how he’s walking!” Amy crowed as he left. “What a loser!”

Once Perry was far enough away, he shuddered from head to toe sloughing off the barbed words and oriented on what needed doing.

“Alright, Brendon, we’re going home.” Perry said, steering the beefy boy towards the doors leading out of the gymnasium, leading to the armored buses waiting for the students who’d chosen not to test out of retaking the year.

“But, what about the tests?” Brendon asked, digging his heels into the linoleum, but failing to find any purchase as Perry pushed him from behind.

“A man’s gotta have priorities, Brendon, and one of those priorities is not letting friends get themselves killed. Especially not cute girl friends.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Brendon asked.

“I didn’t make the rules for who deserves to be rescued, I only live within them.” Perry said. He’d been taught the little-girl unit of measurement, when determining who to rescue first. It was a bit controversial, but as a rule of thumb, it usually worked out alright.

Women received a flat bonus to rescueability, and everyone had a penalty applied based on their age, before social value was applied.

This meant little girls were the most rescuable people, followed by little boys, and so on. Social value was added afterwards. For example the president of Lincoln city, while being an old male, was probably worth at least the same amount as a little girl due to his high social value.

Probably about 1.384627 little girls.

“I guess…Hey, have you been working out?” The jock asked as his feet slid across the floor.

“About ten point two five percent more,” Perry said.

“Yeah, I can tell.”

***Later***

Perry stood pacing in front of a whiteboard with a marker held firmly in his hand, pointing to his troops like an ancient general from the before-times.

“Alright. I’ve brought you here to brainstorm this problem:”

Perry pointed at the bubble in the center of the whiteboard.

(How Heather can ditch her dad without getting murdered)

“Hahah…are you serious?” Brendon asked.

“Question one:” Perry said, drawing a line and another bubble

(Worth the risk?)

“This is a question only Heather can answer because according to her, my parents make me untouchable, so any fallout is all gonna land square on her shoulders.” Perry looked at his friend.

“I’m sick of him controlling my life, so…yeah. Let’s do it.”

“Okay,” Perry said, putting a check mark in the bubble. “Now let’s brainstorm ways to…

(Make Heather a liability to her father)

“And…”

(Discourage eliminating said liability)

“This is two separate parts. What were you planning on doing when you got home?” Perry asked, pointing at Heather.

“I was gonna break into his computer and desk and see if I could dig up anything that I could use to make him lose a lot of money.”

“And would that stop him from killing you?” Perry asked.

“…Probably not.”

“Are you guys serious?” Brendon asked.

“So under make heather a liability…” Perry drew a line and added (compromise business information)

“That’s a start. How can we discourage her dad from retaliating?” Perry asked. “I think this falls under three major categories:”

(Monetary)

(Physical)

(Social)

Perry pointed at the three new bubbles branching off of the ‘discourage’ bubble.

“If we make some kind of insurance that will cost him a significant amount of money in the event of Heather’s death, that will be a good step forward. Think living wills, blackmail, and lawyers to enact them.”

Heather nodded contemplatively, but Brendon was looking kind of green in the gills.

“Physical is simple, just make it too physically dangerous or difficult to attack or intimidate Heather. This could take the form of bodyguards, weapons, viruses, acid…the bigger the stick, the better.”

“Jesus Christ, is Heather’s dad the Terminator?” Brendon asked.

“Eh,” Heather waggled her hand. “Sort of.”

“Are you guys sure I should be here for this?” Brendon asked. “I kinda feel out of my depth here.”

“I’m sure you’ll pick up on something we’ll miss. We need a normal person’s perspective on this.” Perry said.

“My perspective is this is crazy overkill.”

“Excellent.” Perry moved on to the next bubble.

“And finally, Social!” If we can involve Heather with an organization or group that her dad wouldn’t dare mess with, then he’ll be encouraged to back off or risk upsetting the big fish.”

“Like if I joined the Nexus as a junior cape?” Heather asked.

“Exactly.”

“Oh my god, Heather, you’ve got powers?” Brendon asked.

“No,” Heather rolled her eyes. “It was an example.”

(Join Nexus) Perry wrote. “I’m adding it anyway. Anything else? Ooh! Affiliation with an independent group.” Perry wrote that down too. Not as good as the Nexus, but less limiting, and didn’t require her to prove she was a super.

“Could go to Astronomy college.” Heather said with a shrug.

“Let’s pick something with a lower chance of making you into a vegetable,” Perry said, but he wrote it down anyway.

“You could marry Perry.” Brendon said, causing Perry’s marker to screech across the whiteboard, leaving a long black streak.

“What?” Brendon asked as they both stared at him. “If Heather’s dad won’t do anything to Perry because of his parents it stands to reason he wouldn’t want to risk hurting their daughter-in-law either.”

“Huh. That’s a good point,” Perry thumbed his chin. “Do you think your dad wanted you to stop hanging around with me?”

Abusers isolate their victims.It’s pretty textbook when you think about it.

“He said he approved of you!” Heather said.

“And he’s aware you hate anything he approves of, correct?”

“…Yeah,” Heather grudgingly admitted.

“I’m adding it,” Perry said, adding another bubble to the board.

(A Fate Worse Than Death*)