The Toy-Maker's Dilemma
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:08 pm
Late May's sun shone brightly on Holden Hall, Bagley's awareness of the premises awash in a comfortable summertime glow. The main hallway only partially allowed for sounds coming from deeper within to reach the front, as only the placid tick-tock of two perfectly synchronized grandfather clocks could immediately be heard. The smoking lounge straight ahead was empty, and the entire West wing had been locked shut weeks ago. With their team being so small and air conditioning bills for the Hall having always been significant, Archie had wisely chosen to seal off part of the building. They'd see about sprucing those dormant rooms and corridors up once they'd have funds to spare. The Shield Act was still young and so was 2025, so it stood to reason that neither City Hall or Wyvern Securities saw it as being in their best interests to offer no-holds-barred financing.
They'd build confidence, first. You didn't solve a city's problems by throwing billions at its infrastructure. You test-drove your solution a first few times.
The East wing, however, was the seat of a dispersed amount of activity. Most of the rooms that had been used as exhibition floors had been re-converted into salons, waiting areas and offices. One of the three ways down to the basement at the very tip of the wing led down to Bucky's private dojo (which he preferred to call a workshop, judging by the amount of concrete blocks and two-by-fours he cut in half). Off to the side of that room was was a corridor that connected it and another room - Sir Percy's mandated sparring practice ring.
The gruff could only have been called an anthro goat in the most generous sense of the term. Approaching seven feet tall and layered in successive slabs of muscle that seemed more intimidating than harmonious, his bisected cloven hooves continuously clanked against the concrete floor, his cold iron horseshoes sending little sparks flying as he circled the young man. All the same, his massive horns and face managed to look merely stern and to project an air of innate nobility. As usual, he wore a dark green sleeveless quilted shirt, the edges of a short-sleeved chain-mail suit poking from underneath it. Suit-cut leather pants covered his legs, while the scabbard for his claymore, Vigilance, stood out in thicker, darker leather against his back. At his right shoulder waited a complex silver brooch in the shape of a tree, which held up his eternally present cape of a deep, dark red hue.
"How art thou to alternate between thine firearms and sword if thou showest fear at the thought of wielding it?" opposed Percival of Evergloam to Aidan's expressed doubts. "Nothing comes without pain, soldier. Nothing comes without effort. I hath forged thine blade to withstand weapons of Faerie make, including Vigilance. Thine reluctance shames my craft."
Nervously, the human kept his eyes on the large blade the gruff's three-fingered hand held up without the least bit of effort. "Well, excuse me for thinking this thing is fucking huge! I get that I'm supposed to parry that blow; but you gave me a bastard sword. There's no way I can meet your torque with mine. If anything, I'll break my arms if I try!"
The gruff produced a low, rumbling sound that felt like a bleat's annoyed, actually scary relative. "Wouldst thou use an exosuit, then? The Black dragon will not appreciate being told of thine need for police property. He was promised complete autonomy.
- N-No," nervously replied Drake. "I've seen enough of Aldergard for the next year, I think. You're just - marginally less scary."
Percival laughed. It was a joyless, pitiless sound. Aidan knew he felt like a waste of time for the gruff - nearly everyone else had twice as much potential as he did. They could've drafted Wyldfae and a few Sidhe from Evergloam's guard detail, but the mayor had been specific about there being a mundane in the ranks. Upon seeing Aidan's service record, he'd insisted the discharged soldier be put on weapons detail and made to train the others in the use of firearms. That was one thing. That was something he could manage.
But - fencing? With Medieval weaponry?!
"Then use thine gifts, soldier-whelp. Cast aside thine fears and steady your arms further. I may have patience, I may yet watch your skills grow and your arms thicken - but thine enemies will not. They shall cleave thou in twain as soon as cross thine gaze!
- I showed you, for God's sake! I can't lift more than a quarter!"
Another sigh. "Hast thou persisted in the roane's offered exercises?
- Well, I didn't find much time last week, see, and I was up to my neck in paperwork, and-"
Without preamble, Percival went from being totally relaxed to bringing his weapon down on Three's head with a howl. Drake's neck tingled, and something snapped into place, somewhere inside. He raised his arms at the right angle, as practised, and felt himself seize upon the notion that Vigilance's weight was something he could grasp. Something he could safely catch, even. Eyes on the incoming blade, in that split-second before the impact, he cushioned the air, briefly knowing exactly what to do despite his lack of conscious understanding. The blade was deflected by the smallest of margins, but this, coupled with his own forward motion, made the bigger blade glance across the much smaller one and miss the young man entirely.
Then, as conscious thought rushed back into his mind, Three found himself panting. "Holy - Holy fuck! I just did that, didn't I?
- Aye," agreed the gruff. "Thou couldst do much more if thou learned to accept thine abilities. I care not what witchcraft from the Near East hath blessed thou with Kinesis, thou of formerly mundane stock. I only care that thou knowst how to wield it."
That made Three thoughtful. "Any word on Doctor X?" he asked, this being the placeholder he'd given to the shadowy man he only vaguely remembered and whom he could only assume stood at the source of his telekinetic abilities. Percy grunted in response.
"Thine mortal government's concerns do not meet with yours, unfortunately. Lord Holden hath attempted renewal of communications. He is seen as - old. Antiquated. Quaint. Ineffective by the standards of mortalkind's augmentation technologies. A foolish assertion, that."
Drake sighed and turned away to briefly focus on returning his blade to its still destabilizing and nonexistent "sheath", behind his back. Held up by forces he didn't quite understand, the blade briefly grew warm, shone brightly, and then seemed to recede underneath his wife beater. Three's bastard sword was essentially stored in his own being, channelled into availability by a tattoo of Fae design he could still feel tingling between his shoulder blades. Determined to make everyone's skills complement one another, Archie had commissioned the design from Detective Benson of the HPD and then given it to Aislinn McConmara, for her to execute. Similarly, Three's inner wrists had received tattoos representing minuscule pistols, essentially binding a pair of HK USP Match-5s to his very being in a similar manner. The loading mechanism being of Karthian make, the only sizable advantage Drake had found to them was that reloading them mid-fight would never be a concern. Shaving minuscule shards of ablative matter from a core block for each shot, each pistol could fire about a hundred shots before requiring a core block replacement.
The end result was that Aidan only needed to focus on the ethereal, diffuse sensation of his weaponry's presence and weight in the appropriate spot of his body, and they'd spring into being. The first few weeks with his pistol tattoos had been troublesome, as he'd always felt them pressed against the palm of his hand, his index finger always close to threading on a trigger that wasn't actually there. It made forcing himself to type out sentences at the computer a bit of a chore. That, overall, had been much more familiar to him than the sword, however.
Three sighed and picked up a discarded towel to wipe at his face. "I'm heading upstairs," he said. "Archie said he was prepping a briefing and I need a shower. I think he'll balk if he sees me in sweatpants, anyway."
The gruff grunted in assent and bowed down, hunching his shoulders together to pass through the doorframe.
***
True to himself, Archie hadn't touched his office's computer since its arrival. He did everything on paper and by hand, stubbornly refusing to even consider using his old smoking room the way it had been recently prepared for. Bagley's hardware had been upgraded in the room, in order to include a high-quality wall projector with motion-sensing and recognition capabilities. The plan was to use one of the four walls of the room as a sort of whiteboard - but the Clank wasn't too hot on disturbing the comfortably musty space. The fireplace in that room, the exuded heat - they both allowed him to comfortably doze off. Instead, he'd simply call for an assembly, there, take to his seat and have a few hand-made copies of the police reports' salient facts passed around.
Shamus, seeing him prepare himself in that matter, lowered his head into the doorframe and knocked on it a few times.
"Yes, Shamus?
- Y'know, we just got something really nifty along with the soda machines in the old servants' kitchen. It's called a photocopier, see? You slot one page in, select how many copies you want and just let it happen! Oh, speaking of - there's this thing called mooning where you stick yer butt on that machine and pass around copies o' yer-
- Yes, I'm sure it's all very fascinating," dismissively replied the Clank's clearly accented, yet slightly tinny voice. "Understand, the lads have deserved a bout of celebration - of that I am well aware of - but mister Kuhn is expecting clear results within the week. Today is Thursday, Shamus. There is precious little time to waste!"
Bucky scoffed dismissively. "I tell ya, I'd like to have that old goon right here, in front of me. I'd tell him to stick his scaly ass to work getting us more recruits - not sit there like a fuckin' tycoon, waitin' for some sacrosanct results to come outta' this whole thing! Do you honestly think the kids are just gonna get out there, bust a couple perps and ride back in?!
- Well, something must be done, old bean. They have seen enough simulations in closed-off parking lots, they know the tools of our trade, they know which divisions to call in the case of technical work being required - we cannot wait much longer. Several precincts are already expressing contempt for our initiative - the last thing I wish to see is a bloodbath, during which a few squad cars ran by ungrateful pissants show up several minutes too late! Relationships between Shield and the mundane force must be established. One does not simply acquire notoriety and situational acumen by having paintball matches!"
Wallace grunted dismissively, the exhaust pipes threaded through his helmet's rim letting out a corresponding annoyed peal of steam. "Whatever, boss-man. Just get your papers ready before the kids get cold feet."
They'd build confidence, first. You didn't solve a city's problems by throwing billions at its infrastructure. You test-drove your solution a first few times.
The East wing, however, was the seat of a dispersed amount of activity. Most of the rooms that had been used as exhibition floors had been re-converted into salons, waiting areas and offices. One of the three ways down to the basement at the very tip of the wing led down to Bucky's private dojo (which he preferred to call a workshop, judging by the amount of concrete blocks and two-by-fours he cut in half). Off to the side of that room was was a corridor that connected it and another room - Sir Percy's mandated sparring practice ring.
The gruff could only have been called an anthro goat in the most generous sense of the term. Approaching seven feet tall and layered in successive slabs of muscle that seemed more intimidating than harmonious, his bisected cloven hooves continuously clanked against the concrete floor, his cold iron horseshoes sending little sparks flying as he circled the young man. All the same, his massive horns and face managed to look merely stern and to project an air of innate nobility. As usual, he wore a dark green sleeveless quilted shirt, the edges of a short-sleeved chain-mail suit poking from underneath it. Suit-cut leather pants covered his legs, while the scabbard for his claymore, Vigilance, stood out in thicker, darker leather against his back. At his right shoulder waited a complex silver brooch in the shape of a tree, which held up his eternally present cape of a deep, dark red hue.
"How art thou to alternate between thine firearms and sword if thou showest fear at the thought of wielding it?" opposed Percival of Evergloam to Aidan's expressed doubts. "Nothing comes without pain, soldier. Nothing comes without effort. I hath forged thine blade to withstand weapons of Faerie make, including Vigilance. Thine reluctance shames my craft."
Nervously, the human kept his eyes on the large blade the gruff's three-fingered hand held up without the least bit of effort. "Well, excuse me for thinking this thing is fucking huge! I get that I'm supposed to parry that blow; but you gave me a bastard sword. There's no way I can meet your torque with mine. If anything, I'll break my arms if I try!"
The gruff produced a low, rumbling sound that felt like a bleat's annoyed, actually scary relative. "Wouldst thou use an exosuit, then? The Black dragon will not appreciate being told of thine need for police property. He was promised complete autonomy.
- N-No," nervously replied Drake. "I've seen enough of Aldergard for the next year, I think. You're just - marginally less scary."
Percival laughed. It was a joyless, pitiless sound. Aidan knew he felt like a waste of time for the gruff - nearly everyone else had twice as much potential as he did. They could've drafted Wyldfae and a few Sidhe from Evergloam's guard detail, but the mayor had been specific about there being a mundane in the ranks. Upon seeing Aidan's service record, he'd insisted the discharged soldier be put on weapons detail and made to train the others in the use of firearms. That was one thing. That was something he could manage.
But - fencing? With Medieval weaponry?!
"Then use thine gifts, soldier-whelp. Cast aside thine fears and steady your arms further. I may have patience, I may yet watch your skills grow and your arms thicken - but thine enemies will not. They shall cleave thou in twain as soon as cross thine gaze!
- I showed you, for God's sake! I can't lift more than a quarter!"
Another sigh. "Hast thou persisted in the roane's offered exercises?
- Well, I didn't find much time last week, see, and I was up to my neck in paperwork, and-"
Without preamble, Percival went from being totally relaxed to bringing his weapon down on Three's head with a howl. Drake's neck tingled, and something snapped into place, somewhere inside. He raised his arms at the right angle, as practised, and felt himself seize upon the notion that Vigilance's weight was something he could grasp. Something he could safely catch, even. Eyes on the incoming blade, in that split-second before the impact, he cushioned the air, briefly knowing exactly what to do despite his lack of conscious understanding. The blade was deflected by the smallest of margins, but this, coupled with his own forward motion, made the bigger blade glance across the much smaller one and miss the young man entirely.
Then, as conscious thought rushed back into his mind, Three found himself panting. "Holy - Holy fuck! I just did that, didn't I?
- Aye," agreed the gruff. "Thou couldst do much more if thou learned to accept thine abilities. I care not what witchcraft from the Near East hath blessed thou with Kinesis, thou of formerly mundane stock. I only care that thou knowst how to wield it."
That made Three thoughtful. "Any word on Doctor X?" he asked, this being the placeholder he'd given to the shadowy man he only vaguely remembered and whom he could only assume stood at the source of his telekinetic abilities. Percy grunted in response.
"Thine mortal government's concerns do not meet with yours, unfortunately. Lord Holden hath attempted renewal of communications. He is seen as - old. Antiquated. Quaint. Ineffective by the standards of mortalkind's augmentation technologies. A foolish assertion, that."
Drake sighed and turned away to briefly focus on returning his blade to its still destabilizing and nonexistent "sheath", behind his back. Held up by forces he didn't quite understand, the blade briefly grew warm, shone brightly, and then seemed to recede underneath his wife beater. Three's bastard sword was essentially stored in his own being, channelled into availability by a tattoo of Fae design he could still feel tingling between his shoulder blades. Determined to make everyone's skills complement one another, Archie had commissioned the design from Detective Benson of the HPD and then given it to Aislinn McConmara, for her to execute. Similarly, Three's inner wrists had received tattoos representing minuscule pistols, essentially binding a pair of HK USP Match-5s to his very being in a similar manner. The loading mechanism being of Karthian make, the only sizable advantage Drake had found to them was that reloading them mid-fight would never be a concern. Shaving minuscule shards of ablative matter from a core block for each shot, each pistol could fire about a hundred shots before requiring a core block replacement.
The end result was that Aidan only needed to focus on the ethereal, diffuse sensation of his weaponry's presence and weight in the appropriate spot of his body, and they'd spring into being. The first few weeks with his pistol tattoos had been troublesome, as he'd always felt them pressed against the palm of his hand, his index finger always close to threading on a trigger that wasn't actually there. It made forcing himself to type out sentences at the computer a bit of a chore. That, overall, had been much more familiar to him than the sword, however.
Three sighed and picked up a discarded towel to wipe at his face. "I'm heading upstairs," he said. "Archie said he was prepping a briefing and I need a shower. I think he'll balk if he sees me in sweatpants, anyway."
The gruff grunted in assent and bowed down, hunching his shoulders together to pass through the doorframe.
***
True to himself, Archie hadn't touched his office's computer since its arrival. He did everything on paper and by hand, stubbornly refusing to even consider using his old smoking room the way it had been recently prepared for. Bagley's hardware had been upgraded in the room, in order to include a high-quality wall projector with motion-sensing and recognition capabilities. The plan was to use one of the four walls of the room as a sort of whiteboard - but the Clank wasn't too hot on disturbing the comfortably musty space. The fireplace in that room, the exuded heat - they both allowed him to comfortably doze off. Instead, he'd simply call for an assembly, there, take to his seat and have a few hand-made copies of the police reports' salient facts passed around.
Shamus, seeing him prepare himself in that matter, lowered his head into the doorframe and knocked on it a few times.
"Yes, Shamus?
- Y'know, we just got something really nifty along with the soda machines in the old servants' kitchen. It's called a photocopier, see? You slot one page in, select how many copies you want and just let it happen! Oh, speaking of - there's this thing called mooning where you stick yer butt on that machine and pass around copies o' yer-
- Yes, I'm sure it's all very fascinating," dismissively replied the Clank's clearly accented, yet slightly tinny voice. "Understand, the lads have deserved a bout of celebration - of that I am well aware of - but mister Kuhn is expecting clear results within the week. Today is Thursday, Shamus. There is precious little time to waste!"
Bucky scoffed dismissively. "I tell ya, I'd like to have that old goon right here, in front of me. I'd tell him to stick his scaly ass to work getting us more recruits - not sit there like a fuckin' tycoon, waitin' for some sacrosanct results to come outta' this whole thing! Do you honestly think the kids are just gonna get out there, bust a couple perps and ride back in?!
- Well, something must be done, old bean. They have seen enough simulations in closed-off parking lots, they know the tools of our trade, they know which divisions to call in the case of technical work being required - we cannot wait much longer. Several precincts are already expressing contempt for our initiative - the last thing I wish to see is a bloodbath, during which a few squad cars ran by ungrateful pissants show up several minutes too late! Relationships between Shield and the mundane force must be established. One does not simply acquire notoriety and situational acumen by having paintball matches!"
Wallace grunted dismissively, the exhaust pipes threaded through his helmet's rim letting out a corresponding annoyed peal of steam. "Whatever, boss-man. Just get your papers ready before the kids get cold feet."