Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 19: The Minor Leagues

In 1984, Jonathan Harker was coerced, by the direct control of his body to commit several crimes by the Minder, Mindstrike.

Before this point, the law had been unclear on complicity under duress, but after the facts had been laid out, the court found that Mr. Harker was entirely blameless of the crimes he’d been accused of, and the responsibility lay solely at the feet of the super forcing him to commit them.

Further, it posited that any non-powered human forced to act by a super had no reasonable alternative, and was therefore blameless in their actions, establishing non-powered civilians as a protected class, while supers fell under greater scrutiny of the law…

***Perry***

Minions scattered every which-way, donning their masks as they ran.

Minions were, by and large, hired hands who couldn’t be found guilty based on the Harker defense, which gave amnesty to any non-powered civilian forced to perform labor by a super.

It didn’t matter that these people got a decent paycheck at the end of the day when they hung up their masks and went back to their families: It couldn’t be proven that Locust didn’t have a copy at their home holding their family hostage, so minions found their way into a neat legal loophole, which Locust had been exploiting for the past twenty years to build her empire.

For her employees, the police departments were a bit of a revolving door.

She was legally the only one responsible for their actions, after all.

All that tallied up in Perry’s mind in an instant as the minions scattered in every direction, understandably uninterested in fighting power-armor for a paycheck.

Perry scanned the room and decided there was more than enough evidence that Locust had been trafficking prawns. The key point was at least half a dozen prawns kept unconscious by a tube affixed between their mandibles. There were also a huge amount of blocky guns in various stages of being built and prawn chitin used as backdrops for testing guns before moving on to live specimens.

It was all pretty damning.

A moment later, Titan hopped down, carrying Manic over his shoulder, his feet crushing the debris under him.

Warcry jumped down next, slowing her own fall with her planes of purple energy, then they all cleared a space for Hardcase to jump down, her mechsuit absolutely demolishing the floor.

“Jetset is reporting the operation to Nexus,” Titan said by way of explanation. “He’s not gonna be a lot of good to us underground.”

“Hardcase, can you tell where Locust is?” Titan asked.

“We’re inside the shielding now, so…probably.”

She pointed toward a hangar-sized door off to the left of the massive laboratory. “That way has more Locusts, and seems to have some kind of control room.”

“Traps?” Titan asked.

“Seems that way. They’re shielded, so I don’t’ know what they do, but I can at least tell where they are.”

“Alright, I’ll tank the traps and smash them, just point ‘em out to me.” Titan said, rolling his shoulders.

Perry tapped the slowly cooling laser-holes in his armor.

“I’m comfortable with that.”

“Paradox, you think you can cut the door open with those blades?” Titan asked.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Warcry demanded, stepping in front of Perry.

Perry hadn’t realized it, but he’d somewhat made Warcry’s energy manipulation redundant with the floating armaments, and Manic’s ability to restrain people with his zipties…and Jetset’s ability to fly…and Titan’s tankiness.

I get it now. The others are a bit more mellow than Warcry, but I’m stepping on some toes by being able to take on multiple roles.

“My abilities are expensive to use and less powerful than Warcry’s,” Perry said as diplomatically as he could. “I think Warcry would handle it better.”

Titan blinked, glanced between him and Warcry before Perry saw it dawn on him: He’d been relying on Paradox a bit more than he should have, as the leader of his team.

“Warcry, if you would,” Titan said, motioning smoothly without missing a beat.

Warcry gave them the considering look of a person who was deciding whether they were insulted by the sudden favoritism or pleased with it. Finally the energy-user shrugged and did her job.

A beam of purple energy cut through the doors, faster than Perry would have been able to do, albeit a bit ragged and glowing-hot around the edges.

They stacked up in order of squishiness, with Manic at the back and Titan in the front. Once the smoke cleared, they were greeted by a long hallway lit by glowing walls that wouldn’t be out of place in a science-fiction horror movie. Impractical, but intimidating.

The walls were glowing red, and a woman’s voice was repeating ‘warning, Defenses have been activated, do not enter.’

Traps that announced themselves were a common enough occurrence, depending on the nature of the organization you were raiding.

An organization like this one, that hired local civvies, couldn’t expect all of them to remember where all the traps were and avoid them in an emergency. Therefore, in order to avoid more damage to their own members than attackers, the traps had to be loud and obnoxious, easily avoidable if you didn’t need to assault the control room.

Whereas an organization composed of one Tinker and his creations, could be expected to have wickedly devious traps completely hidden from their victim’s awareness.

The kind Perry wanted.

As they approached single file, a whirling blade ejected itself out of the wall and warped against Titan’s neck before lodging in the wall, unable to fit back into it’s hiding spot.

“Only the penitent man may pass!” Manic shouted from the back of the line, causing the rest of the group to roll their eyes and groan.

Guns, blades and tripwires popped out of walls, and were promptly smashed by their leader, until a number of vents began spewing a noxious gas into the air.

“Warcry!”

The slender girl gritted her teeth and plugged the vents with her powers as she struggled to maintain her concentration. The tiny amount of gas that had made it into the hall seemed designed to force the lungs into an involuntary coughing fit.

Only Hardcase was unaffected, being locked in an airtitght cockpit.

Reallyneed to get this thing airtight, Perry thought as he stumbled along behind the Mechsuit as she took the initiative, sprinting the rest of the way down the hall and smashing into the door.

Perry arrived shortly after her, and between the two of them, they were able to pry it open.

Titan lumbered in behind them, carrying the violently coughing Warcry and Manic, his face red as he held his breath, desperately trying not to cough and draw in more tear gas.

Locust was in the center of a large circular room fitted with hundreds upon hundreds of monitors, showing every angle of her lair and a few places beyond it. Perry made out a viewpoint of Nexus behind her, and spotted a burst of light as Solaris took to the sky.

The villain set aside her ice cream as she stood up.

“Will Blink recover?” She asked.

“About twenty minutes, yeah,” Perry responded, thinking of the teleporter.

“Okay,” She shrugged her shoulders as the doors around her opened up, revealing some half-dozen mutants and supers. Perry mentally catalogued all of them, comparing them to what he knew from the wiki.

Geyser, generates water. Pixie, flies and hits people with a dust that causes debilitating itchy rashes.

Leonid, who, like his namesake has…lion powers. What that means is slightly unclear, but I can see the seam on his mane. Perhaps he got bit by a radioactive lion.

Sancho…He is Sancho. Basically, as long as he acts consistent with his persona, he is indestructible. His power revolves around preventing anyone or anything from making him not like himself.

That could be problematic.

“Oh my god, you guys, I think I’m-!” Perry’s code phrase was canceled by a wracking cough, and the cowls sprung into action, stealing the initiative.

His fingers blazing inside his gloves, Perry gave the manual activation for Weallfloatdownhere.EXE, with one hand, while the other widened the scope on Dregor’s Flaccidity.

His forearm gave off a whine as the silver dish was turned slightly convex.

Perry was most of the way through this process when he was tackled by Leonid moving at superhuman speed, phantom claws manifested above the man’s fists, and raked across Perry’s armor, adding extra damage as he punched against the unyielding reinforced aluminum.

“Off!”

Leonid was in the mount position, raining fists down on Perry’s armor, which would have been a death sentence for most, but Perry had an idea.

He turned his jets downward and revved them at full capacity.

Perry and the cowl on top of him flew straight up, smashing the heavily muscled man into the ceiling.

This was exactly the moment the Dazzler went off, and only Leonid was paying attention to him.

The costume-wearing villain was smashed against the ceiling and left there, flailing for purchase as Perry fell back to the ground.

The impact nearly drove the wind out of him, but Perry sat up anyway to survey the situation.

Warcry was doing her best to contain Locust, who rested her hand on the pistol in it’s leather sheath, splitting off into copy after copy, whose gunfire drew eye-searing points of light in midair where they came into contact with Warcry’s energy shields.

The energy-weilder was popping Locusts one after another, her brows furrowed in concentration as she juggled attack and defence, maintaining an uneasy stalemate.

Titan was having a hard time as he’d been immediately targeted by Pixie, who flung stinging dust in his eyes.

Manic wasstill shaking off the tear gas, and Harcase…

“Please let go!” Hardcase shouted, battering the vaguely hispanic man wearing the partially unbuttoned t-shirt exposing his chest hair.

He had a grip on Harcase’s robotic leg, and the motors were whining in distress, trying to move them out of the man’s grip.

“Sancho does not wish to let go.” Sancho said.

“Dangit!” She battered the vaguely attractive man about the neck and face, with no impact whatsoever. She even tried lifting him, to no avail.

Sancho didn’t have super strength, but he could not be changed, at a reality-warping level, which in many ways made him harder to deal with than typical super-strength.

Perry whipped his forearm up and centered Pixie in his sights, launching the wide-angled Dregor’s flaccidity.

Pixie dodged, but the wide angle ensured some of it hit her wings, rendering them somewhat floppy, causing her to smash into the floor, tumbling violently with a squawk.

“Hardcase,” Perry said over his radio.

“This guy won’t let go of me!” Hardcase shouted back over her channel, seemingly close to hyperventilating.

“Sancho is very particular. Repeat after me –“

A moment later, Hardcase looked down at Sancho.

“Sancho. Did you know I’m a girl?”

Sancho’s eyes widened.

“Sancho did not know that.” Sancho said.

“Would Sancho restrain a girl against her will?”

“…Sancho must find another opponent,” Sancho said, taking his hand off Hardcase’s leg. She took the opportunity to kick the man halfway across the room. Causing him to slide to a halt against the wall, his eyes glassy and unfocused.

I don’t think that could’ve gone better, Perry thought as Hardcase joined the battle, exerting extra pressure on Locust.

“EEP!” Hardcase squeaked as one of Locust’s shots went through her cockpit and out the other side.

“I’m okay!” Hardcase said, standing further back and supporting with ranged attacks, hiding partially behind Titan.

“You good, man?”Titan asked as Manic drew himself to his feet.

The speedster nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Think you can put the finishing touch on this?” Titan asked, gesturing to the violent melee going on behind him.

“You got it.”

“Paradox, can you handle Pixie?” I don’t want Manic getting another face-full of irritants.”

“Sure,” Perry nodded, triggering another of his Floating armaments.

Handcuffs.EXE

A pair of handcuffs appeared in midair, controlled by his mind and linked together by a chain. Each link of the chain and both sides of the cuff had to be created in miniature and individually printed on, which had made creating it a nightmare, but he’d managed it.

“Get back!” Pixie cried, throwing a handful of dust in Perry’s face as he jogged toward her. The helmet deflected almost all of it, but he could feel tiny parts of his skin around the seams start to itch like crazy.

Definitely need an air-tight suit.

He tackled the petie girl to the ground and wrenched her arms behind her back, ignoring the itching sensation as best he could while the manacles floated down and clamped around her wrists.

“Get off me you freakin’ pedo!” The tiny girl shouted, scowling at Perry as she tried to kick him with her dainty little feet, which did about as much damage as a puppy fart.

“Does your dust have a magical essence?” Perry asked as he lifted her up.

Pixie stopped kicking for a moment, frowning at him. “What?”

“I’m just wondering if you need a ritual to activate its Essence. You are from Funkytown? One of your parents was a fairy from Hox swamp, right? They specialize in itching Essence.”

She gawked at him for a moment.

“It-It’s already activated from the moment I make it. You could say creating it is the ritual that activates the Essence.”

“That’s cool. Well, it was nice battling with you. I hope we can see each other again.” So I can buy some of that dust.

“You too,” She said reflexively as Perry turned away.

Titan watched him with a raised eyebrow as Perry rejoined the fight.

“What was that?” The giant demanded.

“You asked me to handle Pixie.” Perry said with a shrug.

“You handled her, alright.” Titan said, shaking his head before coughing a bit more tear gas into his palm.

It took another several minutes, but they eventually wore out Locust’s ability to create duplicates. Perry was interested to note that her original never once actually drew the pistol, even when she was the last remaining cowl.

Likely the pistol had a limited number of shots it could make before becoming useless, which made more sense for Locust to squeeze out extra lifespan by using its duplicates rather than the wasting the original.

Half an hour later, they were waiting outside Locust’s Lair, chatting with the woman and her crew of supers while they waited for Nexus pickup.

Now that she was sitting still, Perry was able to pick out the crow’s feet at the corner of the super’s eyes, and the salt-and-pepper hair.

Perry found the old lady was a delightful conversationalist, if a bit jaded.

It wasn’t long before Nexus arrived to relieve them, and they gave the bean counters their information before Perry headed off to dinner with the folks. It was too big of a bust for them to give him the money right then and there, so they said they would have his lawyer text him the information.

Perry flew back to his garage, not interested in leaving his armor where Karnos could get to it easily.

Perry was halfway through dinner with Mom and Dad when his phone rang, and he glanced at it, nearly spitting out the mashed potatoes in surprise.

Accounts receivable: $3,750,000. Infrastructure damages pending.

“Holy cow, is that right!?” Perry demanded, pointing the phone at Dad.

His dad slid his bifocals down onto his beaklike nose and peered into the screen. “Sounds about right. They dinged Locust a hundred and fifty for trafficking bioweapons. That’s what paid for your reward. Then Nexus bought up all the guns she’d made.”

“…What?” Perry asked.

“They were designed to take out prawns.”

Dad wiped his mouth with a napkin and strolled over to the living room, grabbing the remote and heading back to the dinner table.

“T.V. at the table?” Hexen groused.

“I’m just showing him something,” Mechanaut said, pointing at the T.V. and flipping through channels until he found what he was looking for.

On the T.V. was a picture of Solaris shaking hands with Locust, the older cowl beaming on camera, while a banner ran underneath them:

Southeast Block Business Tycoon supports our troops on the wall.

“…WHAT!? But she was planning on taking over the city!” Perry protested, unable to believe Locust was out and shaking hands with Solaris that same night.

“Yes, and no.” Dad said, turning off the T.V. and settling back into his chair. “She was planning on getting as close to a ‘checkmate’ against Nexus as possible in order to inflate the price of the weapons she was planning on selling to defend the wall. So while she was ‘planning’ on a coup, she would never do it. That would destabilize the city and get a lot of people killed for little benefit. What she was aiming for was a ‘you got me’ payment from Nexus, whereupon she would back down and surrender the weapons to defend the city.”

“You guys saved the Nexus a lot of money today by undermining her bargaining position. Good job.”

“So how much did she make on the weapons sale?” Perry asked.

“Couple billion dollars, probably,” Dad said, shrugging. “Woulda been closer to five if she’d checkmated Nexus.”

“She didn’t care at all about that hundred and fifty million dollar fine, did she?” Perry asked, a little put out by how small he really was in the grand scheme.

“Not really,” Dad said, taking a drink of water between his mashed potatoes. “That’s just cost of doing business in the Big Leagues.”

“So I’m in the minor leagues?” Perry bristled.

“It’s not an insult,” Dad said. “Everyone starts in the minor leagues.”

“But you guys did so good tonight!” Mom said, patting Perry on the shoulder. “I saw you on the news last night. Barely a scratch, and you caught almost half of them yourself!”

“Thanks, mom.” Perry said.

“Wonder what Heather’s gonna spend her share on.” Mom said. “Maybe I can help her out with that. Coming into that kind of money is a little dangerous for the non-powered.”

Perry froze.

Heather?She didn’t come down into the hole with us. Why didn’t I notice that!?

Perry couldn’t remember anything about Heather, or even noticing she wasn’t there for the second half of the raid on Locust.

Perry tallied up the people involved in the bust: Himself, Heather, Titan, Warcry, Jetset, Manic, Hardcase. Seven people.

150mil @15% = 22.5mil. divided by 7 people = 3.2mil. divided by 6 people = 3.75 mil. The amount we got.

Heather wasn’t there when Nexus showed up either. WHY DON’T I REMEMBER THAT!?

“Shit,” Perry said, the table clattering in place as he suddenly leapt to his feet. “I gotta take care of something.”

***Heather***

“Wha-where am I?” Heather groaned, her vision rapidly clearing to reveal sizeable spotlights above her, their glare filtered by the helmet.

“Thanks, Incognito,”

“As long as the money’s good, you are welcome.” A buzzing voice that barely registered in her ears sounded from somewhere to the left.

A moment later, she saw her dads – no – Karnos’s face moved into view, framed by the spotlight glaring down above her.

“Young lady, I think it’s about time you had an attitude adjustment.”