The Technopath: A Powers, Masks and Capes Universe Novelette Read online

  The Technopath

  A Power, Masks & Capes Novelette

  by

  Tao Wong

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This work is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This work may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Technopath

  Copyright © 2020 Tao Wong. All rights reserved.

  A Tao Wong Book

  Published by Tao Wong

  69 Teslin Rd

  Whitehorse, YT

  Y1A 3M5

  Canada

  www.mylifemytao.com

  Ebook ISBN: 9781989994573

  The Technopath

  I was always the nurture rather than nature kind of person. Had to be, if I had to admit it to myself. You don’t grow up with the background that I did and not hope that it was all about how you were brought up, rather than who you came from.

  Then the Change happened. The Awakening. The Rebirth. You could pick a half-dozen other terms that have been used over the years, ever since humanity realised that those occasional weirdos who turned up in history books or the news had become a regular occurrence.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. Sorry, I’ve never done a confession before. And sure, I know you’re more interested in the proximate reason why I ended up destroying a half a dozen city blocks than the remote reasons, but this is my story. So give me a few seconds, let me get used to being in handcuffs again. And let me get this confession on the road.

  So, where was I?

  ***

  Nurture, not nature. Right.

  Aunt Roberta was the best. Even if they dumped me in her one bedroom apartment when she was thirty four and I was three, she never once complained about me upsetting her life. Just got on with taking care of me, in-between partying it up and breaking through glass ceilings. Lead salesperson at the paper manufacturing plant she was in, beating all the records that her male colleagues ever set until they gave in and made her the Sales Manager. It was she who showed me that you could be a woman, hot and an ass-kicker. I just kind of wish I had her legs…

  As for my mom, well, I never knew her. I mean, I knew of her, but I never knew her, you know? She never took the time to visit and Aunt Roberta never told me who she was till I was old enough to keep the secret. And then, of course, mom was killed in the Battle for Philadelphia in ’07. Never did get why she was there. It wasn’t her usual style.

  Huh. You’re right. Maybe I’ll ask the Swarm.

  Anyway, nurture not nature. I grew up normal, you know? Maybe I got into a few more fights than normal, but having an opinion and being willing to share it didn’t always sit well with others. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t that bad. Kids are kids, you know and shouting at one another, getting into fights, it was all kind of fun.

  And then…

  Then the Change happened.

  I remembered it, remembered how it was just another Saturday. I was getting ready for work – bagging groceries if you have to know. Aunt Roberta always felt it was important I learn how the world worked early on, so a job it was as a teenager. One second, I’m slipping on the store’s uniformed polo shirt and the next, I’m smelling frying circuity. Only realised later that was me. My skin blistered, the nerves in my body feeling like lightning had been shoved down them. My muscles spasmed and locked up, and I remember falling and then twitching on the ground. Thankfully, the entire Change hurt so much that my body blanked itself out well before I became a raving lunatic.

  Way I hear it, that’s not always the case for everyone when they Change. The Change, when it activates, creates a cascade effect all through the body. Which means all your genes, all your cells turn on and mutate at the same time, as they attempt to transform into whatever new configuration it needs. It’s all a nice way of saying you go from normal human to supe in one long, agonising moment.

  By the time I woke up, Aunt Roberta had me in the hospital. The anti-septic, overly sterilised smell was not something I wanted to wake to, nor was the constant buzzing. As I managed to get one eye open, I found myself staring blearily around.

  “Jane! What happened? What did you do?” Aunt Roberta practically shouted the questions at me.

  “I don’t know.” I touched my head, found a bandage on it and frowned. That was also when I saw what had happened to my skin. The way the skin branched out with burns, the Lichtenberg scars mixed with the glint of silver and steel was – is – quite a sight.

  I might have screamed. There might have been a breakdown or two. And yeah, if I had realised it, if I had paid attention, I might have caught the first hints of my Power. The way the lights flickered, the medical equipment went on a fritz. But it wasn’t exactly what I had been paying attention to at that time. Especially when I managed to stagger to my feet and catch sight of myself in the mirror.

  Now, I’m not saying I was anything to look at before the Change. But, you know, I wasn’t well – this. I didn’t make metal detectors go off at fifty paces or score high on the Bride of Frankenstein potential list. And I liked my blonde hair – not this platinum thing. I’ll admit though, the eyes are rad. Silver irises are really the hottest thing, as my fans will tell you.

  But I’m digressing. I should have noticed the Change and my Power then. But, I didn’t. And once I calmed down, well, the entire thing happened, you know? The Metahuman Integration and Training Department took over. All the testing, the psychiatric visits, the school briefing, the Power bracelet. All of it. You’d think for a bureaucratic organisation whose entire raison d'être is handling new supes, they’d be better at it. But nope, they throw you in the deep end and expect you to swim.

  And I did. I really did.

  Sure, school sucked. Who wants to hang out with the weird looking kid with the Powers bracelet that might or might not fry you or read your brain or dribble at any moment? Back then, my ability didn’t really manifest unless I was under a lot of stress, and with the Powers bracelet on, everything was muted. I had no idea what I was doing then. No one did.

  Anyway, high school was hell. Carlos who’d I’d been seeing – on and off – took one look at the freak-me and skedaddled between Rosa’s legs. That bitch. And the few Power-lovers had Lenny to hang on to, to drool over. His power was so much cooler – to sixteen year old kids anyway. Being made of steel was kind of dumb, but what do I know?

  Still, I did good, okay. I toed the line. I graduated, even went to college. It might have been community college, but university was out. Ever since it was ruled constitutional to charge supes extra, only the really rich or those who managed to pass as norms could go. Truth be told, I liked community college. They teach you how to do things, not just theory.

  I kept to the plan, now aided by the burgeoning realisation that I had a thing for computers. We were still trying to figure out my Powers back then, but we were beginning to realise it was more than just random electric shocks.

  That’s the problem when you rely on technology to find technopaths like me. We slip under the radar if we want it to happen. Because, you know, technopath.

  Eve
n as we figured out my Powers, even as I extended them, it was still kind of piddly, you know? Turning on a phone, adjusting the digital thermometer, accessing a computer without a monitor. Nothing that made anyone too excited, even if it did mean I could diagnose and fix a computer faster than any tech at the Nerd Herders. I was scheduled for a good life.

  Until you guys fucked it up.

  ***

  Twenty-four hours ago.

  Mordant Enterprises loomed above me as I walked into the building. It was over forty stories tall, not one of the tallest buildings in the city, but like most, made of glass and steel beams. More impressive to those in the know were the fifty stories underground that truly made up the company headquarters. I knew about it, after all, I’d worked in the basement for nearly a decade. I’d been working for them since I was done with university; ever since I finished my Masters and began the process of selling my soul.

  Academia was great, academia was where I wanted to be. But, at that point, my gift had gotten so strong it didn’t make sense to stay. Not with the amount of money everyone else was throwing at me, to help them build their latest fangled tech. Mordant had also promised that I would be able to get my PhD at the same time I worked for them, doing the kind of research that would be miles ahead of anything I could ever afford to do in academia.

  No one ever mentioned I’d only be able to apply for my doctorate decades later, if ever, when my NDA ran out and the tech that I was making became public. Once they’d squeezed every dollar they could out of my research, then they’d help make sure I get my proper acknowledgements. I never realized, exactly how much they took away from me, how much it would rankle to never be called a ‘Doctor’.

  For all that, I spent the first three quarters of the decade working for Mordant quite blissfully. I was on the cutting edge of research, at first as part of a team, and then later on leading the team itself. Money was never an object, so long as we kept churning out successes. Eventually, after the first half of the decade they started pressuring us for less theoretical advances and more practical ones.

  I fell for it. I really did.

  I bought all their PR. I figured we were doing good things, pushing the edge of science. I picked up the extra RAM, the solid state hard drive, three extra monitors and the drink cozy, all with the extended warranty of naivete. I felt I owed it to them, after all the money they had sunk into me. Into the research that I’d done on their dime.

  We transitioned to more practical work, keeping cutting edge theory a mainstay but beginning to churn out practical successes. Those Everclear contact lenses you’re wearing was our first real victory. Built using nano formed molecular circuitry, providing more functionality than anything our competitors had in their piss poor VR glasses. We made Mordant the bleeding edge of augmented reality, and we kept them there, even when the competitors stole our patents.

  I look back at our successes in those early years with some pride. Even when they took the project away from us and gave it to a new department so that we could work on something new, something better, I didn’t mind. I was bored by then, by the project anyway. Theoretical research was important, as was doing something new. And we’d done so much that those with lesser talents, smaller Powers could take over.

  I wanted more.

  I wanted to go smaller.

  As I said, the first three quarters of my decade I was happy. But the next two and a half years, when the results started flowing in, and the whispers of what they were using my technology for started arriving, things got worse.

  Don’t give me that look.

  At first, it was all theoretical. Building the smallest nano bots, ones that could be harnessed and manufactured, could self replicate themselves and do what was needed. It was exciting. It was important. What we could do for medicine, for construction, for manufacturing was staggering. The options were limitless.

  We even solved the grey goo problem. None of our nanites ever lasted beyond a couple of iterations, even the ones that built new versions of themselves could only do so much before the entire waveform collapsed in on itself. Heck, half our problem was figuring out a way to make the nanites replicate further.

  That’s where my Power came in. I could do it, alter the tech on a molecular level and make thousands of changes in a single test run. My Power let me extend and sense why the nanites were breaking down and then make it stop.

  Only problem was, the reason why they hated me, needed me, was because I was the only one.

  As I said, it was all your fault.

  I walked into Mordant HQ. And if they weren’t happy to see me, it was probably because they fired me just the day before. And I wasn’t going to just let them take my research, my nanite babies away from me. Especially when I knew what they’d been doing with them.

  ***

  When the third All Powers Draft occurred, you swept through the country looking for people like us. Unlike most, I had a record, I had nowhere to hide. I never thought I needed to. You found me, drafted me into your damn education program and even paid for my university. All so that you could exploit my gift, my Powers so that you could see exactly how they worked.

  With a single pen stroke, we went from second class citizens to just tools.

  Once you had your dirty claws on me, you guys stretched my Powers to the limit. And yes, not you you exactly, but you’re all part of the same government chain. So, you.

  The moment there was even a slight push to what I’d been doing, I went from being able to turn on a computer with a touch to doing it at a glance to being able to do it with my eyes closed. And then, it just kept on growing. My tech sense expanded every single day and the range that I was able to achieve anything kept growing.

  Of course, that wasn’t enough for you all.

  I didn’t know it at that time, but you wanted a weapon didn’t you? You wanted another Ultima, a Lady Power, a Solar. Instead, you got me. Just another damn supe, someone with some skill at tech, the ability to affect things a couple of blocks wide. Useful things, convenient things. But it wasn’t a city killer, a game changer. I wasn’t one of your trumps.

  Couldn’t be.

  Still I can’t really complain. The school you sent me to was much better than the community college I was at. The lessons I learned were more specialised for my Power. The more I learned about technology, the more I understood the science behind it all, the better at manipulating it I became. Instead of just turning on computers, instead of just being able to activate tech around me, I began to learn how to code.

  My power at times felt like it took over for me, absorbing more of the information than I did. Things that I had studied became clearer, were easier to understand when I used my Power. And when the breakthroughs started happening and I got down into the nitty-gritty of engineering, electricity, tech… When I stopped fiddling around with the buttons on the top and started adjusting things within the computers, the machines you gave me… That’s when everyone got really excited.

  Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered, none of it would have mattered, without Joey.

  Sweet, trusting, naïve Joey with his crush on me and his ability to alter matter on a molecular level, to make what I dreamed, what my Power saw could be done, come true.

  He didn’t deserve what he got. I think, of all of us, he deserved it least.

  ***

  I walked into Mordant, past their gleaming white windows, past the swinging doors amidst a throng of workers and contractors that flowed in and out of the main doors. Even if it was towards the end of the day, there were still dozens of hard workers and last-minute contractors moving around. That was the thing about working for a big corporation. It might officially be the end of the day at five, but if you left early, you could kiss your promotions goodbye. Maybe even your job.

  The automatic gates of the security station where they checked our identities as we swiped our badges stood before me as I walked forward. I kept my head down, trying to blend in as best as I coul
d. I’d put on a wig, playing at being a dirty blonde woman in bulky office clothing. Padding around the hips and stomach and some shoulder pads added to the disguise, making me almost invisible.

  I hit the gates and held out my gym membership card over the gate itself. At the same time I extended my tech sense into the gate, accessing the identification software. I scrolled through the database, finding the employee I was masquerading as and registering myself as her. It was a simple enough matter, especially since I knew that Carol had left the building. I’d been waiting, watching for her exit.

  Once the gate opened up, I headed straight for the elevators. They always like to make it seem harder in the movies, as though security guards are paying real attention to you and your face rather than what shows up on their screens. Most security personnel are underpaid, overworked and just bored.

  Maybe they would have been more alert if they were expecting trouble. But I’d gone quietly, peacefully and without a fuss when they fired me yesterday. I didn’t utter threats, I didn’t declare vengeance or swear I’d make them pay. I packed up my desk, signed all the papers that they wanted me to sign and let them escort me out.

  I learned to keep my mouth shut and do what was necessary later from you guys too.

  People like to think that the theatre of security makes a difference. That all those cameras, all those security guards and police cars, the public order drones keep them safe. Maybe they do, from your average mugger on the street or the homeless man that assails you for your change.

  But when it comes to us, when it comes to those with Powers, all that technology, of trusting it rather than your own eyes and ears. It’s all lies.