The Irritations of the Employer For VeronicaFoxx By Draconicon
“Weapons check.”
Tinkerer drew himself out of his core. Automated steps ceased, arms stopped swinging, and all tendrils and other extraneous limbs froze. It happened in the space of a second as he activated his eyes again and looked at the world with an organic stare instead of the usual technical read-outs. Black and green turned digital-blue static turned standard, living colors, or at least, as living as the Guild’s basement had; they favored rich gold and black with purple neon at the moment, likely a tribute to one of the rising stars that had done the Guild as a whole a good turn of late.
That didn’t matter. The red squirrel’s eyes turned to the source of the voice with a near-inaudible click. A white wolf in a tuxedo stood just off to the side of the entryway, holding out a hand. Tinkerer flicked his eyes up to the canine’s face, a few subtler clicks following as his lips turned up in a faint smile.
“You are new.”
“Second day, sir.”
“Then you should learn. I do not carry weapons; I am one.”
“Nothing detaches?”
“It doesn’t matter. Guild rules don’t ban powers; my tech is my power.”
“…Very well, sir.”
The wolf stepped to the side, letting him through. Tinkerer supposed he could have handled that with a little more tact. At the same time, the Guild could train their guards better.
He swept into the basement lounge like a Snow White given to mad science; mice, rats, moths, bats, squirrels, and other rodents and relations of steel and aluminum darted from the shadows, rushing up metal legs and hybridized tail. Some took watch on his shoulders, feeding him further information from their eyes, while others clicked and linked together in an imitation cape along his shoulders.
Elegant? No.
Effective? Yes.
His? Very yes.
As he walked across the lounge, he noted several things. The stage was empty; either he’d just missed tonight’s entertainment or it had yet to arrive. Either or both could be true. Other villains were scattered about, most in suits or high-end fashion rather than their ‘work’ attire. He recognized a few by face, but most ignored him. Higher-ranking, didn’t notice the technomancer in their midst when he’d yet to crack the mid-levels.
Not many sidekicks hanging around, though. Which was a small problem.
The red squirrel adjusted the auto-step function of his cybernetic legs, slowing them and adding a few ‘organic’ variables. Not the uncomfortable ones – there were reasons that he’d wanted his organic limbs gone in the first place – but a few little shifts in speed, a little hop-skip, and such things that made his walking less robotic, less off-putting. The bartender, a smartly-dressed squirrel, looked up from wiping down a glass and arched an eyebrow.
“Didn’t expect you to be looking for anything tonight, Tinkerer. What’s the occasion? And why the walk?”
“I was told to practice some mindfulness,” he said, shaking his head. “To pay attention and automate less.”
“How’s that going?”
“Like hell.”
“Heh, well, that’s the way that life goes; you think about it too much, you go crazy.” The squirrel put the glasses down. “So, what do you need?”
“Is Widow around tonight?”
“’Fraid not. She’s dealing with college classes and finals.”
“Pity. Murder?”
“Going by ‘Flock You’ these days, but also hired. Someone snagged her for a hero job for a change; she’s contracted for the next four weeks.”
“…Well, that’s incredibly unhelpful of them. I’d thought that they might be – well, I guess I’ll have to look for someone new and hope they’re up for it.”
“Need an interview room?”
Tinkerer nodded.
“Got an open one around the corner. Room 5. I’ll get the buzzers out and see if anyone’s interested in finding work.”
He nodded again. Once the squirrel handed him the keycard, he walked around the corner and followed the wall. His various ‘bots on his shoulders, cape, and the pair on his hips – a couple of moths that looked like ornaments – gave him a 360 degree view of the room in several spectrums. It felt…better…than relying on his normal eyes, and significantly better than what his body had offered just a few years ago.
Wires.
Hungry.
Electric snack?
“No,” he muttered to one of the squirrels on his shoulder. “Later.”
Or never. Better not to burn bridges with people that he might need later on. The Guild was…irritating, but better to work with them, particularly with the threats that would rip him to pieces for spare parts. At best.
The interview room opened with a tap of a card. The Guild had revamped it, too; an oval couch with a single break pointed at the door wrapped around the middle of the room, and in the middle of that was a holo-projector. Currently, it displayed a dancing vixen, as bland as one could imagine, swaying and showing off like it was a classy strip club.
One of his shoulder-squirrels leaped down his arm and glided across to it. As soon as it touched the projector, it jolted it with a program that set it to a pre-made playlist of schematics. Tinkerer smiled.
“Good.”
It chittered as it flew back to him, climbing back up his arm by the time that he seated himself. Tinkerer got settled, trying to find what others called comfort; it was not so simple with what he’d turned his body into.
Four metal limbs, an artificial heart, two artificial eyes, and replacement upper and lower jaws meant that he had a lot less flesh than most. Almost all of that had been intentional, done to replace things that he no longer wanted growing up. Some of it had been…necessitated by other circumstances, pushing it forward on the priority list (dysmorphia had necessitated both eyes at once rather than one, and his heart had been failing due to severe stress and other problems), but he had wanted all of them replaced.
Organic tissue, particularly his, was problematic and failure-prone. Metal pieces, well-designed ones, felt right. They synced with his technomancy abilities, and more, they always felt in-tune, like they were what was meant to be attached to him instead of the loose flesh and fur and…everything else.
He stroked a thumb over the metal of its opposite forearm. Smooth. Clean. Impossible to stain for long. And more than anything, powerful and safe.
Tinkerer shook his head, looking up at the projector. The cycle should be moving back to his target any moment –
There it was. It flickered in blue and white: designs for new artificial organs that were in the process of deep testing, according to the news reports. Of course, those journalists were about six months behind; the organs had been tested, and they worked, and they were in the process of getting locked down behind some corporate patent or other. Once that window closed, it would be much, much harder to get that tech out in the open for a fair price; one would either have to steal it, or one would have to be a billionaire to afford it.
A more altruistic member of the Guild might have seen it as something to steal and Robin Hood toward the populace. While Tinkerer certainly wanted to make it available, he wanted it for himself just as much.
If it works as well as the test records say, then that’s another organ I can replace. Once I have the material, at least…
But for that, he needed a minion, or at the very least, a few Henches. And that meant interviewing for them.
“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered, leaning back on the couch. “Full spread. All corners. Deep scan on anyone that comes in.”
His mechanical bestiary scattered, soon hidden in the shadows. He sorted their visual and sensory feeds to the back of his mind, filtering out the extraneous data and keeping only what was pertinent.
Even someone like him could be overwhelmed with too much data, after all.
#
“My name’s Tarantaran, and I need a paycheck.”
“…Blunt,” Tinkerer said. “And probably the first time that I’ve seen a Hench in a policeman’s uniform.”
The Doberman saluted him. The red squirrel immediately shook his head and waved it off.
“Don’t. Just…don’t.”
“Fine. But I still need a job.”
“I’m looking for sidekicks or Henchmen or minions. Anything that works out. So, maybe you’ll get it. Any powers?”
“Pied Piper, sir. I can drag anyone into a march with my baton.”
“…Interesting.”
And not entirely unusable, either. Very good for distractions, or potentially in emergencies to draw someone off, he imagined. That said, he highly doubted that Tarantaran was serious when he said ‘anyone’ could be drawn into a march. Many, perhaps, but if it was that powerful, even a limited power like that wouldn’t be relegated to nothing more than a sidekick position.
“And your name?” he asked. “It sounds very similar to –”
“I was inspired by a musical, sir.”
“There are worse things.”
So, theatrical, and quite militant, too. Yet, useful. Worth bearing in mind.
And reasonably fit, he saw from the various angles that the mechanical menagerie were sending him. Suit’s not padded in the slightest. He’s got some promise.
“I’ll keep you on file,” he said, nodding at the door. “Send the next one in.”
#
“My name is Siren.”
Tinkerer had to admit that it was the furthest name that he expected. The dolphin wasn’t unattractive – he supposed – but anyone with that sort of name would normally be showing off quite a bit more skin. This one had everything but her eyes covered, layered with metal plate that made her look like a car had grown two legs and learned how to walk.
“Being a singer would be too on the nose. What do you do?” he asked.
“I get from point A to point B, at speed and very loudly.”
“…Ah. So, emergency siren?”
“Correct.”
“And is that pure muscle, or –”
“Low-level maintained momentum; so long as I’m making noise, I maintain a minimum of 30% of any forward momentum. Plus mild super-strength.”
“Not particularly useful for any quiet endeavors.”
“No. But very good for breaking out.”
If one could ignore the clanking all over the place, he supposed. She wasn’t exactly big, but it was hard to overlook someone clonking around in that much metal. Not to mention that any sort of magnetic devices or supers would cause their own problems.
At the same time, he’d seen what those with maintained momentum could do to architecture, vehicles, and more. There was something to be said for having someone like that on payroll.
“I’ll keep your name for now. Thank you for applying.”
“Is that a dismissal?”
“It’s a…consideration.”
“Hmmph.”
“Send the next one in.”
#
Tinkerer thought he was looking at a mirror, at first. Another red squirrel walked through the door, one that had similar arms and legs to him, as well as a mechanized tail. He lacked the menagerie, though, and that drew the squirrel’s eyes to other differences, such as the reversed fur patterns, the alternate alignments, and –
“You’re a mirror person,” he said.
“You clocked that one fast.”
“I may have advantages.”
From behind, the mirrored image of himself was far more flawed. It was flat, almost like a drawn image rather than a reflected one. It made it impossible to be taken in, and quite the vulnerability.
And yet, at the same time, he saw the flicker of light in his copy’s eyes that said that they were still functional. It might be a half-mirror, at best, but it wasn’t just the image that got copied over.
“Not just people, but powers,” Tinkerer said, slowly crossing one leg over the other. “Does it work if you can’t see them?”
“Heh, ‘fraid not. That’s one of the big limits on my powers, man.”
“And you clearly aren’t imitating their speech patterns.”
“Hey, if I could manage that, I’d be way up there. Like, uh, like that Chameleon dude. What’s his name?”
“…Chameleon.”
“Right, dude, that one. But hey, I still got the face, and I still get part of the powers. You point me at another supe, and I’ll be able to copy their face, their vibe, their duds, anything –”
“From the front.”
“…Whoa, dude, you got eyes behind me or something?”
“In a matter of speaking,” Tinkerer said, a faint smile on his lips. “You automatically know how to use the powers of anyone that you copy?”
“Yup.”
“Do you know anything they know?”
“Kiiiiiinda. Like, man, I can’t tell you what your secrets are, but if I copy some dude or babe that’s got something on their mind, I could probably pick up the gist of it. I think I got a safe code off a guy sometime – fuck if I remember what it was though, man.”
“Hmmm, useful…And your name?”
“Uh…hang on.”
The stoner-sounding version of himself faded away, replaced with a leopard, and a female one at that. She wobbled from side to side, eyes faintly red in the holo-projector light, and wore…very little. Tinkerer arched an eyebrow.
“Sorry, man, I left my duds at home; ain’t much point wearing ‘em under the copy-cat, you know?”
“So, why did you change back?”
“Yeah, so, like, it’s hard to remember everything about yourself when you’re copying someone else. All that extra stuff up here? It gets loud, like a ton of pianos falling on your head all the time.”
“…And now?”
“Oh. Now? Now, it’s nice and quiet. Heh. Oh, right, you asked for my name. It’s Copy-Cat.”
“…A little generic, but it works.”
“I know, right? So, do I get the job?”
“You’re in the pile.”
“Sooooo what’s that mean?”
“It means I’ll call you if I need you.”
#
An hour later…
Tinkerer rubbed his forehead as the last applicant left. Twelve sidekicks, henchmen, and minions in total, and less than half of them had been worth anything. Most were…decent, but they still had the issue of just being too out there, too aggressive, or too useless. They were the dime-a-dozen sort, more useful as mooks than actual assistants.
What I would not give for Widow or Murder – or Flock Off or whatever – to be here…
But at least there were a few viable candidates. Copy-Cat, Siren, and Tarantaran were all…interesting, but they had useful abilities, and while some would need more management than others, they could do the job.
He just needed to pick one…
The End
Summary: A low-level villain goes to the guild to hire some underlings to undertake a heist. Unfortunately, none of the ones that he’d normally pick up are there, so…
Tags: No Sex, Supers, Villain Guild, Squirrel, Red Squirrel, Cat, Leopard, Dolphin, Doberman, Various Powers, Hiring Process, Headache, Technomancer,
A low-level villain goes to the guild to hire some underlings to undertake a heist. Unfortunately, none of the ones that he’d normally pick up are there, so…
