2 Startup 1.1

Author's Note:  Keep in mind that all scientific jargon is just that, jargon. While it sounds cool don't expect it to conform to real life, I'm not a scientist.

**IMPORTANT** Are you reading this? Good. Then go read the auxiliary chapters that have the same prefix if you aren't familiar with the Parahuman series, trust me, you'll like it.

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[April 1st 2011 ; 7:36 AM]

"..an,...Young man!" Someone was shaking me.

I groaned as I slowly sat up, what happened? Why do I feel like I drank pure alcohol?

I closed and opened my eyes for a second, and they refocused on the person standing over me, a petite middle-aged woman wearing a bakery's uniform.

Now that I think about it, I smell bread.

"Sir, are you alright?" She said.

"Ugh... Ye-yeah, I'm good."

"Are you sure? That explosion sure knocked you out, Sonny."

An explosion?

"Whuh-What? What explosion?" I asked, finally, slowly standing up.

"You don't remember? You might want to check that out, you've been hurt by one of Leet's gadgets."

I closed my eyes, trying to remember what happened.

"Yeah, all I can remember is walking down the sidewalk, then... nothing."

The woman scratched her chin. "You mustn't have seen the explosion then. Uber & Leet were on a chase with Glory Girl, and something happened, I don't know what it is, but one of Leet's gadgets dropped next to you and exploded." She held out a familiar black umbrella to me. "I noticed the umbrella and I saw that you were albino, so I dragged you into the bakery to hide from the sun, then I tried to wake you up, and now we're here."

I gingerly grabbed the Umbrella from her hand as she escorted him to the entrance of the shop.

"You should go to the hospital, Tinkertech can do some crazy stuff, Leet's stuff even more so." 

I unfurled the umbrella. "Of course, thank you for the save," 

"No worries! Just make sure you're safe."

I left the bakery, ignoring my massive headache, great, now my whole day is ruined.

I should head home and sleep it off, Leet isn't violent and even though his Tech tends to malfunction, it doesn't typically cause damage, when I wake up, I'll head to Central, who knows? Maybe I'll get to meet Panacea.

This day has been hell on me, first, it's the anniversary of my losing every single precious thing, and now this.

Thank god this happened next to my apartment.

I live in Brockton Bay, that's where I was relocated 8 years ago, after Seattle. The city is located in the northeast of the United States north of Boston in the state of New Hampshire. The Atlantic Ocean borders it on the east, while mountains or hills border it on the other side, especially to the west.

It's also known as the USA's cape capital, being home to the highest ratio of Parahuman per capita, having roughly 1 out of every 8000 residents a cape. So that's like 120 parahumans in a city of 350,000, neat.

I sigh as I lay on my bed, I take my phone and dial a number, it's a lawyer family friend of mine, even though I no longer have a family.

"Hey Amel! How've you been, did you think about the offer?"

"Uh, hi Jack, I ah... I think I'm going to pass."

"Um, that's surprising" He awkwardly chuckles. "What changed your mind? You've been very receptive to the idea before, and you know how good the contract is."

"Look, the contract is fine and all, and I'd really like to work on tinker-tech, but... I don't- I don't think I'm ready to go back, to Seattle I mean."

"Right." I hear a sigh from the other side. "I get it. Look, I understand that this day is bad for you, I truly do, but you can't be living in fear forever, other jobs will come and go, but you won't find an opportunity like this again."

"Plus, New Seattle is much more different this time, you'll enjoy it here even despite the memories, trust me. You saw the pictures right? It's more like a futuristic Venice now."

I ignore the knot that forms at his mention of the "New Seattle", I can't antagonize the man, he helped me so much before.

"Look, Jack. I- I can't promise anything, but I'll think about it, okay?"

"Alright, Amel, just don't make me wait too long."

"Goodbye Jack."

"See ya."

I hang up the phone and lightly throw it on the nightstand.

I stretch on the bed, trying to stifle a yawn, but failing.

"I feel so tired for some reason."

Sleep easily overtook me, and I fell deeply into its embrace, unknowing of the drastic change my life was going to see.

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[April 10th 2011 ; 11:37 AM]

I put on the oversized red leather jacket in front of the mirror, admiring myself.

That's my hero costume, I originally thought to go for the whole masked spandex-wearing superhero vibes, but other matters meant that a secret identity wasn't really an option with what I had in mind.

And if I had to wear spandex I'd rather not show my face.

So I went for Urban superhero vibes, a facemask, gloves, sturdy black leather pants, steel-tipped boots of the same color, a nondescript black shirt, and a sleek-looking oversized bright red shirt. I didn't bother with stealth, since my power could bypass through all of that. 

I put some straps over the leg, to hold a black knife and axe, just in case I needed an edge, heh, get? Edge.

But the most important tools are the red pistol and drone, the latter of the two hovering over my shoulder right now.

You see, my power which I like to call Vector Control has a very potent Thinker aspect that lets me sense and analyze any and all Vectors within a certain range, the obvious benefit is being able to sense most things within that range, which means sneak attacks wouldn't do much, but the secondary benefit, and the one I like the most, is an almost instinctive understanding of those vectors, and by extension, physics.

I mean, sure, whatever gave those powers also changed my brain into some sort of quantum-bio computer, I mean the brain is originally a very complex computer made of neural networks, but whatever fucked with my head also introduced Qbits, which are just two unit vectors in a Hilbert space that can be introduced to algorithms to shorten calculation times very significantly, see the relation? Vectooooors.

At first, I was fucking scared, quantum computers are very sensitive to noise, which meant any significant or strange sound could just basically scramble my brain, but then I realized that my body also thought of that and that my subconscious was making good use of the new procession speed and my brand new superpowers to create a field that encompasses my body all the way to a few inches away, to redirect any sound wavelengths that may be able to do so.

And then I was, gee! What a great Idea, not me. So I did some self-hypnosis bullshit to set the settings of the field into "Reflect everything", instead of "Only reflect this particular thing", it meant having to consciously use my power every second of the day to make exceptions to it, stuff like the air, some light, and some sound, you know, anything that I may need to live. But with my new CPU upgrade? That was a piece of cake. 

And now I have a field that makes my mind hit back! Happy me!

Anyway, where was I? Right, instinctive understanding of physics!

Now, I was no slouch in understanding physics, I have 2 doctorates and while one of them is in Electrical Engineering, the other is in Theoretical physics. But this new understanding? Oh man oh man, I could feel how bio-electricity sends signals to my brain in extreme detail, I can feel how light interacts with certain objects, how to minimize friction so that I could literally slide on concrete, the things I could constantly feel, and sense, those things brought me to a new level.

So I used these last 9 days researching and making these two tools, along with testing my powers and gathering information, of course.

The First is a Red pistol, it doesn't have many of the components of normal pistols, mainly a magazine holder and a hammer for one. It has a thicker, longer barrel, and an empty space to hold custom batteries to power its usage.

The weapon isn't lethal, the more correct description would be that It CAN'T be lethal, it uses a repurposed LED chip that efficiently turns the battery's energy into light, and then it sends that light into a custom optic filter that turns the light into certain wavelengths capable of interacting with the nervous system, by interacting I mean it shocks the nervous system into complete immobilization and causes the person to lose consciousness for a variable time.

You could up the ante with it as much as you want, it won't do anything aside from its original purpose than a light sunburn. Some power interactions may be able to defend against this, but as long as you have a brain and a nervous system, it will work.

[Pistol image here]

The second thing is the drone, it looks quite sleek if I say so myself, and is probably the most useful tool in my arsenal. It is fully self-sufficient, courtesy of my improved photovoltaic panels, their efficiency is roughly the same as local technology, at a rough 30%, but the chemical process used in its creation gave life to a peculiar trait that allows it to "trap" sunlight so to say, which means of the remaining 70% of sunlight, 55% percent gets recycled into the conversion process. 

It can do that up to 7 cycles, which makes the panel equivalent to one with 61.37% efficiency, and the heat residue is more slowly ejected, so they don't get that hot. But it would generate even more than that due to its "storing" capability.

The drone is equipped with an air propulsion system that is both silent and low energy intensive, although that lowers its top speed to a rough 90 mph, with its average being 65 mph. It also has a sonar that is capable of detecting several signature sounds that are common in criminal activity, explosions, screams, etc... 

Its front has roughly the same capability, can detect heat signatures, and has basic X-ray vision, and basic pattern recognition capable of detecting allies, enemies, neutrals, and criminal activity.

It uses both of these features to detect me using the peculiar properties of my reflection field, so it makes sure to always stay in sight, it also uses them to locate attacks in its direction and evade them.

[Drone image here]

I wouldn't have been able to manage research, experimenting, and making these tools in ten days without the liberal use of my powers, in fact, the paint used was produced by me through chemical leftovers that I found in some dump, I used my vector power to 'enforce' some reactions to make basic paint, the chassis' for the drone and pistol were both made from random scrap I found elsewhere, the only thing bought was the necessary chips and fine electronic tools needed for their construction.

I made sure to stay as sneaky as possible, Gangs are known to put surveillance on any spots that were visited by newly triggered capes, Tinkers especially. Just because I'm not planning to have a secret identity doesn't mean I don't want to do it on my terms.

I stood before the door in my attire and took a deep breath.

"Alright." I slapped my cheeks, although due to the redirection field, there was no sound. "Let's do this."

I got out for my first patrol.

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[April 11th 2011 ; 00:49 PM]

There are roughly 120 capes in Brockton Bay, but only three prominent Gangs in the city. 

I live in the Docks, close to the trainyard and within PRT territory, so my street is quite safe, even though you could hear some skirmishes at night from time to time. 

The Part of the Docks that the PRT patrols the most is colloquially called the Broadwalk, it is the city's equivalent of Beverly Hills, where dresses cost thousands of dollars and coffees a hundred a pop. Not only that but business owners pay "Enforcers", mundane mercenaries that keep the peace since BBPD and PRT troopers are more often than not occupied with some shitshow on the other side of the city.

The Trainyard north of the Docks, however, is Gang territory, which one exactly is unknown, the Merchants like to claim it as theirs, but everyone knows those druggies don't hold territory. The reality is that ABB's presence is way more evident in the area.

And that, is exactly where I'm patrolling, the ABB has some presence here, but their interests are mostly concentrated in the Docks South and the Downtown Coast. It also has the highest presence of Merchants, but that doesn't mean much as the Merchants are scattered all over the city.

[Map of Brockton Bay]

I have been walking around the area for a while, people would stare at my Drone and I've been flashing the Stun Gun so people can surmise that I'm a cape, although no one really approached me since the ABB is an Asian gang, people must be afraid to approach. So I make sure to wave at bystanders and be friendly from time to time.

The goal here is to send word of my presence and to try and establish a reputation. I've been gunning on one of the Gang's many capes approaching me to offer recruitment so that I can publicly "Refuse" them, I did my research on the cape scene, and I think I'm very powerful considered, but especially so against the ABB and the Merchant's parahumans, they don't have any powers that may bypass my reflection field, let alone hurt me.

The E88 has the most capes out of any organization in the city, and some of them have pretty exotic powers that I may not understand the physics behind them, so I would not be able to affect them with my Vector Control. 

I have been patrolling the Trainyard for a while, and while I saw some drugged-up people and crack prostitutes within the area, there really were not many signs of violent crime, so I decided to break into the core of ABB territory, the south of the Docks.

People call them the Docks but they really are so far inland that you can see Captain's Hill(Which is a hill, who would have thought?) from here, but it was mostly filled with abandoned factories, warehouses, and garages that were thriving in the city before the emergence of Leviathan.

The ABB takes good advantage of this territory by using the abandoned structures as stash houses, brothels, and some legitimate businesses here and there.

As I walked through I came across the first group of gangbangers of the day, they were trying to be sneaky, but I clocked them with my sixth sense way before I saw them from the side of my eye. Some of them wore hoodies, headbands, or armbands, but they all featured a combination of red and green, ABB colors.

And they looked Asian, can't forget that.

I made sure to pretend I didn't see them, I'm sure they were keeping track of me, but they won't attack since doing so to an unknown Parahuman is a death sentence.

So I kept "patrolling", walking deeper and deeper into ABB territory, waiting for someone to take a bite.

I was suddenly alarmed by my drone.

"[SUSPECT ACTIVITY DETECTED: DISTANCE 165 meters, SUSPECT:Lung]"

I carefully grabbed the drone by its core. "Alright buddy, here we go"

I made sure to use my powers on the Drone to keep it intact, before I crouched slightly, and JUMPED.

Usually, I can only jump around 20 inches, but the thing about Vector control is that it doesn't care about numbers. I needed less than a fraction of a second to calculate the changes needed to get me high enough, to redirect some of the reactionary forces to make collateral damage nil, and found myself on top of the highest building in the vicinity.

"Hey!" Shouted one of the ABB gangbangers.

I ignored the dumbasses and jumped again, this time I aimed for the exact location of the disturbance.

My calculations say that I moved at 201.3km/h for 3 seconds, I flew over the bystanders who gawked up at me while observing my Target.

My destination was the roof of a random building, an unfamiliar cape lay down, hiding next to the fire escape, while Lung, the leader of the ABB, stood there in all his flaming glory, looking for the former cape.

I adjusted my landing destination by adjusting air resistance. New destination? Lung's face.

His Changer power was said to improve his senses, which was clearly true as he saw me as soon as I was in his line of sight. His snarling face shifted to a malicious grin as he punched me as soon as I came in hitting range, his fist enveloped by flames.

He was very fast and strong for his size as my power indicated, which was very unfortunate, for him.

Because while the punch landed, hitting my whole upper body, all 755 Newton of his punch got combined with all the momentum generated by my jump, concentrated, and redirected right back at him.

Lung screamed in pain, his arm was clearly dislocated and bleeding from several spots.

"Hello there." I smirked.

Then I shot the fucker in the chest.