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

  Just like the lies you guys told.

  ***

  You first introduced Joey and me as just lab partners, making it seem like we were just coincidentally meeting one another. I later learned, you’d heavily suggested that he take up the coding class. And on top of that, you had me in materials methodology 101 if we didn’t get together. Just to make sure we didn’t miss one another.

  Once we met and became lab partners though, you just had to make sure we kept meeting. Not that we needed much encouragement to work together more closely. Even then, there just weren’t that many of us with Powers.

  Of course, once you “learned” about us, it made perfect sense for us to work together on your other tests. The government’s personal projects to push our Powers to the maximum, to see if we could do something useful with them all.

  We were young and dumb. We thought you really were the good guys. And so we pitched our ideas, our projects, the new software and you ate it all up.

  Those earpieces you’re using, the ones embedded deep into your ear canal that you think I don’t know are whispering instructions to you, telling you to make sure I stay calm. Those were our first project.

  Well, at least the first iteration for them. You’ve improved them quite a bit since Joey and I worked on it. We took apart what you had before, boosted the range, made it so much more comfortable, made it so much easier to integrate and use. It was our first major success.

  Even if we never did figure out the non-verbal communication option. But mind reading, understanding the impulses in the human brain and translating it properly, that was out of our expertise. I can manipulate technology with a thought, but no matter what anyone tells you, the human brain isn’t hardware or software. Not really.

  I did hear you guys are getting close to cracking the code to non-verbal communication though. Close enough that you’ve even started talking about it publicly. Maybe you are or maybe you’re just trying to flush out additional research to steal. It’s not my area of expertise, but I wouldn’t hold your breath at figuring it out.

  So where was I? Oh right, Joey.

  We worked great together, all through undergraduate school, and then we kept doing it even when I started my Master’s. Joey wasn’t interested, he wanted to be doing practical things, but he stuck around, at least in the first years while we were still in university. He thought he was helping you all, he thought we were helping you all, keep the country safe.

  What was that catchy little slogan?

  Oh, right. Making a better future for all – Powers and Humanity Alike. All through the leveling ability of technology.

  And, I admit, we got you guys closer. Made engines more efficient and reduced our reliance on gasoline. Faster and simpler communication technologies that could be spread for a low cost to third world countries. We even worked out the foundation for your Capes & Masks sensor net, the one you all rely on so heavily to help contain the Powers. We never really thought about what layering the entire world with sensors bent on tracking every exertion of our Powers was going to be like. What you guys were going to do with it.

  We should have known, if we’d stopped and thought about it.

  But we were young and naïve. Not an excuse, not one I’d accept, but it is the truth. And when you introduced the New Powers Defense Act, added even more restrictions? When you built your ability to enforce it on our sensors?

  That’s when he went rogue. When he chose to walk away.

  Joey was always a bit more idealistic. He believed in the dreams you sold him on, with all his heart and soul.

  Maybe if you hadn’t be so damn good at selling those lies, he’d still be alive.

  And I wouldn’t be here.

  ***

  Overriding the elevators to head down was simple enough. Of course, once I got through the fourth floor beneath the massive parking garage, I had to switch conveyances. As an added security measure, Mordant didn’t allow you to go direct from one elevator to the next, instead forcing you to go through another security checkpoint. This way, even if you managed to make your way through the normal offices, you still needed to bypass their security again.

  On top of that, you needed to know where to go. The second security checkpoint and elevators behind it were all hidden behind a nondescript door, looking just like any other office. If I hadn’t been counting doorways as I walked, I could easily have walked right past the entrance. Of course, after all these years, the counting was second nature. Mordant might be a tech company but it had never ignored the magical as well and had hung a bunch of nondescript elemental talismans to make those who had no business within ignore the doorway.

  That included me, these days. But good old science worked, especially when you knew where you were going and why. After all, the enchantments weren’t geared to force people who knew what they were doing to look away, just to make the casual bystanders disregard the door and those entering it.

  I bypassed the doorway security the same way I got through the foyer gates, but once inside things got trickier.

  “Ms. Lindholm. You’re not supposed to be here.” The pair security guards who were inside spoke up the moment I walked in. These guys weren’t your typical doughnut eaters, lazy ass police dropouts or ex-military washouts. These were professionals. Ajax, the dark-haired, swarthy skinned speaker was even a Power, just like me. Not a Mask or a Cape because he was smart enough to not buy into the entire hero complex garbage.

  “Ajax, check your computer. They called me in to help fix an issue. They hustled me out so fast they didn’t get all my passwords. And now they’re locked out of some of my research.” I dropped my voice and added. “They even threatened to sue me if I didn’t come back right away.”

  I lied. I lied right through my teeth. The thing was, there were multiple ways of bypassing security like this. You just had to know the right buttons to push. People were like tech in the sense that you just needed to twist them around a little bit, jiggle their sensibilities and then find the right slot to input the right commands. Do that and they’d work just like how you wanted them to.

  Ajax for example, was the lead in the security room. He wasn’t the smartest, but his job didn’t need him to be smart. It needed him to follow the rules. While exceptions were uncommon, they weren’t impossible. And there were protocols in place when an exception occurred. So he accessed the software, looking for data on my permissions to see if I was telling the truth.

  And of course, they were there. Not because I was accessing anything. Keno, seated next to him, would have noticed me tapping into my Power. His ability was simpler - he was a Damper. All he did, all he was paid to do, was sit around and make everyone else who had a projection type power not function. So someone like Ajax who was all muscle and genetic anomalies had no issue being next to Keno. But me? Me, I was just a normal human around him. And they knew that.

  Which is why, the bluff worked.

  I dropped the virus into the main security software the day before, using a modification of an old virus I had on hand as they escorted me away. Lucky for me, the system is an integrated piece, so I only needed access to a security scanner and the virus went in and stayed dormant till now.

  Once they accessed my name, the virus went to work. It triggered the creation of my security credentials, backing it up on both ends so that it was earmarked as valid. The credentials were active only for a few hours, just like they expected it to be.

  I bet you’re wondering, why I didn’t do that upstairs. They’re separate systems, layered away from each other for added security against hacking. I could have cracked the other system as well, but the external security system gets swept more often then the internal one. After all, as a forward facing system, not air gapped from everything else, it gets hammered all the time by your bored teenage hackers, your budding tech security teams and the various virus farms out there. Better to slip in, slip out, and do a short, quick burst of security access in one of the least guarded sections
– the guard gates themselves - rather than leave code that could be found later.

  “I see that you’re supposed to have an escort,” Ajax said. He stared, seeing if I had any reaction to that.

  I gave him what he wanted, sniffing and raising my head, staring down at him over my nose. Acting all kinds of affronted, which made him relax even more. Ajax ordered a couple of security personnel to take me on my way. None with Powers of course, we didn’t have that many Powers to play security escorts for random scientists. But they were geared with the right equipment. Old-school tech, nothing that I could latch onto if I decided to kick up a fuss. No powered armor or sophisticated tasers. Even the guns were old school gunpowder.

  Old-school is the best school, isn’t it? When dealing with little Technomancers like me. Just like these iron manacles you have on my hands. Nothing technical, nothing that would let me bypass.

  Smart.

  But you learned your lessons well, after the third Powers Defense Act rebellion.

  ***

  You know, none of us really expected you to pass the Act. I mean, why was it needed? You’d drafted us, imprinted us with the chips, catalogued our Powers and trained us so that none of us were dangers to society anymore. Anyone who was, was either in jail, fled to another country or a criminal. There was no reason for the Powers Defense Act.

  At least, no logical reason, other than President Holbrook needing to win an election. With his popularity at an all time low after the Salus incident, he was ready to trade our freedom for votes.

  What was it the Defense Act was supposed to do? Ah, right. Secure, verify, chip all of us to mute our powers even further. License the use of our Powers, the things that made us what we were in very specific ways. Only the ways that you people felt were appropriate. More than that, you wanted to make us live in communes, in specific cities and towns, restrict where we could travel, when.

  You made us third class citizens, no better than slaves, forced to live, to breathe at your convenience. Everything that we had, taken away. Any freedoms would be considered a privilege, a benediction from those better than us.

  That didn’t go too well for you guys, did it?

  Even Joey, sweet old Joey, thought it went too far. He joined the protesters. Maybe, if you hadn’t gotten violent, had actually listen to them, safeguarded them and did your jobs when they protested non-violently, when they tried for a peaceful resolution, it wouldn’t have gone the way it did.

  But no, you didn’t do that, did you.

  You stepped aside, let the norms beat them, spit on them, and then when they refused to stop, to leave, you shot them. And when the Powers chose to defend themselves, you decided to escalate things further with your SWAT teams and special Power groups.

  Fools. When you started losing, you called it an insurrection, terrorist action by the Powers. You clamped down even harder, going after our families. Our families!

  Fine. I’ll calm down.

  But you saw what they led to. When the Powers that were still working for you stopped, when they stepped aside. And let you deal with the insurrectionists alone. You thought that all your technology, all your vaunted safeguards that people like me and Joey built for you would be enough. But you forgot that if we made it, we could break it even easier.

  Not that I took part. I told Joey he was a fool right before he joined the protest. I told him we could change your perceptions of us from the inside, that we could show you that we weren’t all dangerous. That no matter what they thought, we could be trusted. That once we finished up school, once we got into the real world, we’d make them see the truth.

  I thought it didn’t matter, that someone else could do the heavy lifting, if there was lifting needed. I wasn’t willing to give up everything I had, for people I’d never met. Not when I was doing interesting research, when my life was sorted.

  That’s why your system never marked me off as a higher category threat. I didn’t get involved. I just kept doing my research, while the world burned.

  I wasn’t involved.

  Maybe I should have been.

  Maybe if I had, none of this would’ve happened.

  ***

  Being escorted down the pale white hallway lit with too bright fluorescent bulbs by a pair of guards who would not even have dared to glare at me a day before was a surreal experience. I’d had more attention paid to me as I was frog marched by my co-workers the day before. The rumor mill had already begun moving, but this time around, the attention was more puzzled.

  Puzzled but not that curious. They must have thought something must have been left behind, or something needed to be sorted out before my contract was fully terminated. If they had known exactly what I was working on, they would have realized there was no way Mordant would have ever allowed me back.

  A decade of research on miniaturisation and replication had culminated just months ago. The Mark 1 Mordant Special Nannite was our crowning glory of hard work and late nights. We’d cracked the problem, figured out how to make the nanites infinitely replicable. Or at least, close enough for Mordant’s purposes. The master nanites were infinitely replicable, if you were me. And even if you weren’t, they barely wore down. What they made, from everyday materials, was less replicable, but they could repeat themselves twelve times.

  All the materials they used for the child nanites was easily accessible. Carbon, silicone, some trace iron and other heavy elements. Nothing that couldn’t be found in the environment with a little digging.

  On the other hand, the master nanites, those were irreplaceable because they were made out of the core material. Byzantine.

  Stupid old Joey, he always named things with the silliest of names. A material, only someone like he could have created. Strange how I didn’t even know about it, until long after his death, when Mordant brought it to me, saying they’d found it in their vaults. They didn’t even tell me it was from him, not at first. Not until I pushed for more of it.

  Then again, Mordant was never if not paranoid. So I should have known that getting in was never going to be that easy.

  When we reached the doors of my laboratory, when I tried to access my labs, things went to hell. I’d pushed my hands at the security console, using my stolen guest pass. But they’d upgraded the keypad, set it up so that it wouldn’t let me access its database with a flash of power. I tried getting in, but the alarms triggered the moment my Power interacted with it.

  The guards were right on the ball. Maybe Ajax hadn’t been as dumb or as trusting as I thought. They had their guns pointed at me the moment the alarms went off, ready to blow my brains out.

  Disappointing that my attempts at stealth, trickery and lies had stopped working. Because when your options at justice are a lie, when you can’t cheat or steal your way to what you want, then, well, that’s when you reach for that last tool.

  Violence.

  Most people think, Technomancer. That means I don’t know how to use my hands, my feet. They forget, we all have histories, we all have a past. Being the weird kid, the daughter of an ex-supervillain, well, you get your ass handed to you regularly in school. If you don’t learn to fight back, even a little, simple bullying becomes assault and eventually, it becomes long stays in the hospital and maybe even homicide. Which, if you think about it is kind of dumb.

  Let’s put the mass murdering supervillain’s kid into the hospital. No way that is going to end up coming back to bite us.

  Kids are stupid.

  Adults too. It’s not as if you all don’t know about the kind of bullying, the kind of things that happen in schools across the country. You track it all, you have the stats. All those Acts, all that data, it’d be easy. You could have stopped it, find all those innocents like me, help us make our way through life a little easier. Help with the nurture part of our upbringing.

  Maybe you’re a nature kind of people though, figuring it doesn’t matter what happens, we’ll all turn bad. Turn evil. That no matter how many helping hands, how much kin
dness, people like me will just turn on you. And maybe you’re right. I’m here aren’t I?

  But at the least, you could’ve tried.

  I made the lights go out first in the hallway to take away their sight. I didn’t need it, I could sense the electric impulses in their bodies well enough to do what I needed. Then I made their earbuds squeal. Much louder, much shriller and higher than they expected. I ran the frequencies so high, it took away their balance and made them woozy.

  Maybe they didn’t expect me to be able to access the simple tech in the earpieces. Maybe they just forgot I was the one who made them initially. Maybe they just didn’t realise I could do it. I’ve never shown them I could, because Mordant never cared to ask. They wanted me for my skills and knowledge, for what I could build, not what I could break.

  Once the guards were staggering, it was the simplest thing in the world to take away their guns. And then their handheld tasers and shock them. Low-techstuff, too low for me to trigger in a useful manner. But perfect if you want to keep someone down.

  After that, with subtlety no longer required, with the security drones that had been automatically scrambled to deal with me arriving, opening up the door to my old lab was the simplest thing in the world. A little messy and a lot noisy, but simple.

  ***

  When the disturbances turned violent, I was still in school, finishing up my Master’s. I heard about it first from the news, when the Anti-Defence Brigade took out the Houston police department. ADEF went a little far, but at the least, they left everyone alive. Crippled, injured and in need of months of physical therapy, but alive. And the rest of the march went pretty well, now that your instigators weren’t taking part.

  Can you imagine it? A bunch of housewives, mechanics, children and soldiers; all marching peacefully. Letting their Power, their Gift flow through them, in a public display of who they were and doing it peacefully? They made it all the way to City Hall and then, for a whole night, they stayed and chanted and beat their drums and showed the world we weren’t monsters.