Tools

Luckily I was right and my room hadn't been disturbed, trough if there were any cameras in here I was probably fucked by now. I hadn't thought about it and in my rush to check on things had moved one of the caches out onto the bed. They were surprisingly light, weighting almost nothing and the amount of resources packed inside was disproportional to the outside dimension. I had removed the magic/lifeforce crystal cache and inside where dozens of fist sized rocks with crystal growing on them. My aura sense told me that those crystals were perfect for most energy based enchantments, but I lacked the tools to actually carve them. They would certainly be worth a lot of money by themselves, every one of those healing stone junkies would kill to get one of those into their hands. These stones actually could improve your concentration and help you meditate if you stayed around them long enough, not that I would ever sell one of these, I couldn't even remove them from the rocks they were growing from. And nothing screams parahuman louder than selling some weird glowing stones. No I would put the cache back and hope there weren't any cameras.

I had already messed up, so I pulled out the second cache and put it on the bed. This cache was filled with what I could only assume to be very expensive resources. They felt specialized in a way the other caches didn't. The metals weren't useful to me, I didn't have a forge and I wasn't even sure the best forge in the world could soften those metals, they felt like they had been mined from burned out stars and there was no way to recreate that kind of temperature. But not everything in there was useless, at least for the moment, there was some kind of hide. Hide from an animal bigger and tougher than anything that had ever been born on this planet. There wasn't much of it but when it comes to enchanting the amount didn't matter as much as the quality of the material and whatever had once worn this hide had a massive life-force, which meant there was more aura in this single hide than the sum total of the rest of the cache. When I finally gained access to good and sturdy tools I would turn this into my masterpiece. I could already imagine a cloak, black like the night, with runes swirling up and down in a complex pattern. A cloak like this could block bullets and turn the wearer into a superhuman by itself. All I lacked was time and tools.

But this was what the other cache was for, at least I hoped so. Opening the last two identical caches I was disappointed to find only more material I couldn't use at the moment. The only thing I was strong enough to use at all was a kind of weave, which I couldn't cut without industrial strength sheers. It was almost like the creators of those caches expected everyone to have high tech laser cutters on hand. There were some blueprints as well to reproduce those material, but there was no need for me to even try to replicate what I couldn't use.

I had to start small, with my Dinosaur excavation kit and the gummy hammer with and chisel contained within. I had the strongest material in the world on hand, but I had to work with badly made gummy tools, curse my life. I had already planed out the designs in my head, first I would reinforce the excavation block with strength and durability runes to get a sturdy underlay, then I would carve strength, durability and sharpness runes into a H pencil. Hopefully that Pencil would then be able to carve into the chisel and hammer to add their own strength, durability, sharpness and precision runes, that way I would gain the necessary tools to care a Notice-Me-Not array into my closet before someone discovered my caches. I didn't really need to write down any of those arrays, because I had every last stoke in my head already, even more complex and powerful version that could only be carved with high precision tools but when I actually tried carving for the first time, it was even harder than I had thought. It took 5 tries and 2 hours to carve into the excavation block. You could even see the part of the fake t-Rex skeleton when I finally managed to get the array right.

Carving into the pencil was even worse, not just because I had an extra Rune, but because every time I failed I had to cut away a piece of the pencil and sharpen the new end. In the end the carving pencil was less than halve the size of the original pencil and I decided to take a break. Getting something to eat would have been nice, but I was afraid someone would discover what I had achieved so far, so I resolved myself to work trough the night if I had to.

In the end I did work trough the night, not because I needed to, but when my chisel and hammer had been strengthened enough the work suddenly became a lot easier and compared to the 3 ours to finish them I only needed two to finish the much bigger and more complex Notice-Me-Not array on the closet. I had found a pair of chopsticks deep in one of the cupboards when I went to look for tee and suddenly I had this awesome idea of creating blow torch imitations with them. And it worked, double layered strengthening, durability, heat resistance and cooling runes where added to the handles while the tip of one was turned into a very short and precise heat flare with a complex runic array that took all my concentration. The now a few centimeter short chopstick was then used to carve an even more precise and even more complex array into the second chopstick. I almost couldn't differentiate between the lines, so small where they but at the end I had a 10 centimeter long miniature hard light cutter that could even carve into metal, only ordinary metal of course, I tried on the stuff from the caches but there was no effect at all. Before I went to sleep I tilted the windows as far as possible to get rid of any remaining smells.

The disadvantage of late night tinkering sessions was that you either went trough your day sleep deprived or you overslept and spent the morning in bed. I did the later and was rudely awoken by Ms. Norbert's energetic knocking. Have I ever mentioned how I hated Mondays, not that I knew or cared if it was Monday, it just felt like a shitty day like this deserved to be a Monday. When I opened the door in my pajamas, with sleep addled mind and a giant yawn there stood Ms. Norbert in her way to happy morning glory and another woman in business attire I hadn't met jet.

"Good Morning Benjamin, we waited for you downstairs, but it is late enough now for you to be up and about, it is after 11 after all. Can we please come in?"

I just stared at her for a moment and then moved my gaze to the second woman.

"Oh I forgot, Benjamin, this is Ms. Marlene Johansen, your sister representative. She is one of the most accomplished Youth Guards in the country."

Ms. Johansen gave me a critical once over and said.

"It is a pleasure to meet you Benjamin."

Neither her tone nor her expression sounded like she enjoyed being her. She looked like one of those lawyers on television which would rip apart the defendant and then went on to destroy the judge for daring to misinterpret the law. I mumbled something that sounded vaguely like 'nice to meet you, come in' and went to find something better to wear.

When I rejoined them in the kitchen, Ms. Norbert had already made tee and was pouring a cup for Ms. Johansen. The power dynamics in their relationship were clear and I knew that I would have a way harder time getting my way with Ms. Johansen in the room. But I wasn't ready to give up like that, so I went to tap and drank a cold glass of water to force my tired brain cells into action. It didn't work that well, but I was at least more awake then before when Ms. Johansen started her interrogation.

"You are Benjamin Eric Nightcastle, brother to Leandra Archie Nightcastle?"

I only nodded.

"You were involved and badly hurt both times your sister used her parahuman powers?"

The look in her eyes was sharp and intimidating. I gulped and nodded again.

"You were the one to ask your sister to come to Brockton Bay, where you not?"

This was getting out of hand.

"Yes, but I.." I tried to justify myself, but she interrupted me.

"And you were healed by Panacea as a result of those actions which endangered not only your sisters life, the life of another parahuman family and their neighbors, but your own life as well?!"

I only nodded this time, it didn't really sound like a question.

"You Mister Nightcastle are one of the luckiest people I have ever meet. Either that or you are a parahuman yourself, probably a Thinker."

I didn't know how to answer that, but there was no need for me to talk, because Ms. Johansen turned to Ms. Norbert to grill her next.

"Miranda you have seen the results of the brain scans done at the hospital. I assume there was nothing there to find, otherwise we would be sitting in the PRT Headquarters right now."

Ms. Norbert had to compose herself for a moment, but when she answered her voice was almost calm.

"Yes Ms. Johansen the scans didn't show any anomalies, all injuries were healed well and recovery proceeded at normal speeds. As requested by the PRT all scans were checked by their professionals as well."

Ms. Johansen nodded and turned back to me.

"You see Benjamin, this is a conundrum. There were 2 events in the last weeks which should have resulted in you triggering, if you had the potential to. You didn't which means you either don't have the potential, which is unlikely but not impossible, not all siblings share their .. gifts."

She made an audible pause before speaking the last word with a finality that didn't fit the terminology. Then she continued.

"As your sister is now a ward of the state and slated for recruitment into the ENE branch of the Wards, she is forced to stay here. You on the other hand shouldn't be here, your hometown is in another region. Another branch of the Youth Guard should have taken care of you, but we have seen how that turned out last time. Be assured the investigation into what happened after your parents demise is ongoing. But the question remains, what are we supposed to do with you?"

I couldn't answer that, so I just stayed quiet and watched her eyes as she scrutinized me again. When she spoke her voice had lost some of the harshness and gained a note of contemplation.

"This would have been so much easier if you had been a parahuman as well, but now we have to find another solution. We can't separate the two of you, your sister is mentally unstable as it is and the PRT can't always sedate her when she is acting out. We also can't …"

If there had ever been a time for a power not to act out it was this one, when I was scrutinized by the most perceptive person I had ever met. Naturally it was this moment my power choose to give me another perk. A giant tomb full of any resource I could ever want and the ability to replicate every resource placed inside. And the entrance was inside my closet, of course. I couldn't afford to be distracted right now, Ms. Johansen had noticed it immediately.

"Do you have anything to add Benjamin? Is there something you don't understand or don't agree with?"

Her hard steel-gray eyes were boring into me, I had to avoid eye contact and feebly reply.

"No, no there isn't. I was merely lost in thought for a second, I apologize."

She gave me another long look and then continued.

"As I said, we need to find a middle ground between protecting you and ensuring the mental health and safety of both yourself and your sister. Because your sister is one of the greatest danger to your well being, at the moment, I am sure that will change but for now you will be kept separate. I have ordered special Youth Guard phones for the both of you, they are a special series developed by dragon, almost indestructible and protected from espionage. Sadly they can only be used to call other phones of the same series and on the same frequency otherwise they would be used more often. As soon as they arrive you will be able to contact your sister privately, I stopped them from adding listening devices to your room and during those calls all monitoring of your sister will be halted. I will be the one to enforce those rules and Director Piggot knows not to cross me."

She gave me a shark-like smile and continued:

"You are actually pretty lucky, Director Piggot is one of the most law-abiding people I have ever meet. She follows the rules to a T and is helping to streamline matters. She is the reason you were allowed to take residence here instead of one of the temporary foster homes. She and I agreed that we had to be extremely careful with your placement, especially because the Empire 88 has already tried to gain custody of you and your sister. Until we have decided on the best course of action you will remain here, in the best protected location in Brockton Bay, besides maybe the Rig. If you have any questions, please ask them now. I am to meet your sister in an hour."

I didn't have any, Ms. Johansen was so competent and such a forceful personality that I could hardly wrap my head around it, so I said:

"Thank you Ms. Johansen. I don't have any questions."

She gave me another long lock, then she rose from her seated position and bid me farewell.

"It was good to meet you Benjamin, I hope that I will have better news next time. Ms. Norbert knows how to contact me at any time, so don't hesitate to ask."

And she left as fast as she had come, a tornado satisfied with the work it had done. Me and Ms. Norbert just sat there for a minute than my stomach made itself known with a loud rumble. I had skipped the last two meals and my body wasn't happy with me. A few words and Ms. Norbert joined my on my way to the cafeteria, but left me to eat in peace. There weren't many people there at this hour and after a few bites I went back to sleep for another few hours.

After the nap I went to investigate my newest power, though having a tomb inside my closet was much stranger than anything I could have ever thought of, a tomb which would provide unlimited resources, even those not included right now could be added at will as long as I have a sample to spare. If I hadn't already learned form enchanting just how wrong todays laws of physics and conservation of energy are, I would probably be a lot more shocked. But, having already gone trough all stages of accepting the impossible as an everyday occurrence I wasn't even phased by the strangeness. What struck me more was the realization that I would never have to work a day in my life if I didn't want to. I could literally grow gold and even more precious compounds like they were crops, with even less effort in fact because there was no need to supervise. I had literally gained a tree growing golf nuggets which wasn't even limited to gold. I remembered from lessons in chemistry that there were some elements that only existed in tiny amounts, like less than a kilo on the entire planet. I could grow those as well, I even had samples of a few of them included in the Tomb.

A snap of a finger and I had become the richest person in the world, I just couldn't sell any of it, but as a Tinker there wasn't a need for me to even try, building my own things would be a lot easier now. Even though I still lacked the tools to do more than carve beginner arrays. When I entered the Tomb, after moving aside the caches I had stashed there I entered a circular room with thousands of doors all around me. I only had to think about a material and one of the doors would fly towards me and open for my perusal. If I asked a more general question, like 'metal to make a sword' there would be multiple doors, sadly there weren't any explanations just what the material was and how to use it, but those were luxury problems. l spent hours just looking at strange metals, colorful gases and bizarre plants, never actually entering the doors. I didn't know if any of them were radioactive of posed a completely different kind of danger to me. I couldn't differentiate the doors as long as they stayed closed, but with very precise questions I could at least exclude some of the more dangerous options. As a joke I asked for a material that would kill me on sight, and there were actually 3 different doors that stated advancing towards me.

This was when I decided to end the experiments for the day and got to emptying the caches into the tomb space. I knew that if I left the material there it would be sorted into the corresponding doors, or create new ones if there were any new materials. At least the magic/life-force crystals would need a new room.

Having wasted the afternoon with simply looking at cool materials, I decided to eat something before going back to tinkering. I still hadn't tried out the kitchen, after it had been so graciously provided to me, so I searched the cupboards for ingredients. There wasn't much, mostly cans of different vegetables, pasta, flour, sugar, a few basic spices, premade batter and other kinds of unperishable. I decided to put in a request for cheese, milk, eggs and maple syrup when I saw Ms. Norbert next time, and stated on a pasta with tomato sauce. Basic but very filling. Eating alone was saddish, normally I would be the one cooking and my sister would help cleaning up afterwards, but I didn't think this would be possible any time soon.