Wake-up Call – Chapter 36 – Armed and Mastered – Part 1

"Absolutely not," Miss Hebert's voice harshly tells me through the aural communicator in my helmet.

I stop my hands and gently lie down my soldering iron on the workbench, devoting slightly more of my attention to the conversation and not wanting to waste hours of work now that I'm finally getting somewhere with the hardening of the anti-Behemoth Armscycle, and—

Right. Focus.

… On the conversation, not the schematics displayed on my HUD.

"Excuse me?" I ask her as I lean back and let the servos of my armor adjust my posture into what looks like parade rest but is actually far more comfortable than most ergonomic chairs. At least, the ones I don't design myself.

"I'm not letting Lisa get a hold of her phone. She's officially forbidden from working today."

"I… Just wanted to check up on—"

"Can you honestly promise me that if I let her talk to you for more than ten seconds you won't bring up the Cranial thing, or plans to learn about yesterday's surprise guest, or how to handle the Merchants so that they don't get crushed against the Empire before we're ready for that, or—"

"Why wouldn't I talk to her about those—"

"Because she's a Thinker, and thinking is [work]. And I just forbid it," she says with a definitive tone that she lacked when we first met.

God, how did I mishandle that so badly?

"What I don't understand is why are you being so adamant about this whole thing," I inquire as diplomatically as I'm able to as I send the wiring schematics to the left side of my vision with a quick flick of my eyes.

"She's about to collapse under the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she just keeps piling more of it. I'm sure you can sympathize."

I look at the vehicle I'm currently readying to face a being known the world over as 'The Hero Killer.'

"I've got absolutely no idea what you're talking about," I reply with as much aplomb as I can inflect.

"Oh God, it's [retroactively hereditary,"] Miss Hebert bemoans.

"Excuse me?"

"You! You two! When was the last time you took a break?"

I bring up my timetable on my HUD with a few eye movements at the appropriate, blue, glowing icons.

"My last scheduled resting period—"

"No. No, no, no. Nothing described like that counts. When was the last time you watched a movie? Went out with a friend? Heck, dated?"

"… Miss Hebert, your inquiries on my love life—"

"That won't work. I'm a teenage girl with a workaholic parent; I know how you all like to evade uncomfortable subjects by grossing me out."

I lift my visor and steadily, rhythmically, massage the bridge of my nose.

"Miss Hebert," I repeat while trying to hold back my exasperation, "as much as I appreciate your concern from an abstract point of view, I can assure you your worries are misguided."

"Scheduled resting period?"

"… I like to be precise on my planning."

There's a sharp exhalation from the other end of the line. How rude.

"Look, Colin, I care about Lisa enough to care about you in a vague, Lisa-adjacent manner. So, please, from somebody who just realized how much life can suck when we let it to someone who seems intent on not having a life, please, take a break. An [actual], non-scheduled break."

"You went from your debut fighting Lung to infiltrating full-time a group of supervillains who included a Thinker seven among their ranks."

"Which should tell you I know what I'm talking about. Also, Lisa will be happy to know you acknowledged her rating."

"Don't you dare—"

"Bye, Colin. Don't call till tomorrow," she says.

And she hangs up.

On me.

On the second best Tinker hero in the world, leader of the local Protectorate, veteran of far too many Endbringer battles.

…

Goddamn teenagers.

I keep the massage going for a while, my eyes closed until I think I can force myself to deal with… everything.

And when I open them, I see a bulky motorcycle with its guts orderly spilled over its assigned section. Three assistant robotic arms are holding up parts of the chassis at the appropriate distance to let me work between them, and my workbench looks almost austere with the sparse few tools currently on it, my programmed routine letting my workshop know what I will need at every stage of the current project so I don't have to rummage looking around for anything.

It's so different from Kid Win's lab it brings a tear to my eye. Chris' lab, I mean. I find it offensive.

I take a step away from a wall that was embedded with a Faraday cage that can only be breached through my quantum entanglement communications relay. This place is just as isolated as I want it to be at any given time, and I…

…

I lower my visor and pivot on my heels as the gate opens at my selection of the appropriate icon

The Rig is a vast space, but not so much that I can't get anywhere I need to be in a matter of minutes, so it doesn't take too long to have my knuckles gently rapping against a metallic door and for it to open with nary a hissing sound.

I need to check out the schematics. There's room for improvement.

"Colin?" Miss Militia—[Hannah] asks from inside her office, turning her head to face me as I come into the drab room. She's often commented she maybe should move the office to her living quarters, seeing as she doesn't have a need for proper sleep, but she always ends up prioritizing the privacy of having her own space where work cannot intrude.

I can't help but feel she was trying to tell me something each time she brought it up. [Repeatedly] and emphatically.

"Hello, Hannah. Would you like to get lunch together?"

She freezes.

Slowly, she turns her office chair to look at me over the short section of her L-shaped desk, the monitor of her computer now to her right rather than in front of her. I still can't see what's on the screen.

"Are you all right?"

I frown at the question.

"Perfectly fine, given our circumstances," I finally answer.

And now she pales. At least, the parts of her face I can see over her scarf.

"Am I getting fired?"

"What?"

"Are [you] getting fired? Or… or a transfer? Did you already insult the new director, and he understood what you were really saying? Are we about to go to war?"

"I just asked you to have [lunch."]

"You never have lunch! You just eat those godawful nutribars of yours until you clock out—"

"Those 'nutribars' are perfectly balanced in their protein, vitamin, fiber—"

"I don't want to hear about your fiber content!"

Once again, I raise my visor, and then I suppress the urge to massage the bridge of my nose.

And this time around, I can't even blame teenagers.

"Hannah, if you don't want to spend time with—"

"No!" she hurries to say, taking me aback slightly with the interruption. "No, that's not it," she clarifies, waving her hands in front of her, her power momentarily manifesting as a glinting kerambit pointed away from me. "I'm just… well, surprised. You [really] never get lunch outside your workshop."

I frown for a moment. That can't be right.

I mean, I'm sure at least on my birthday…

["Colin? Are you doing all right?"

"Yes, mom, everything's all right here. How're you doing? Are they treating you well?"

"Oh, yes, don't worry at all, dear. These people are all wonderfully kind."

"I'm… glad to hear that, mom. Look, I will come visit tonight, if work doesn't get in the way, but I just wanted to speak to you beforehand. You know, just in case."

"Of course! Of course, sweetie. What about?"]

I suppress the grimace at the intrusive memory and focus once more on the conversation and Hannah's panicked look.

And then I try not to frown at the frankly offensive piece of furniture she's laying her hands on. Really, the black desk looks like the kind of thing that rickets if one is to hammer the keyboard even slightly too hard.

"I'll have a talk with the office manager. This is unacceptable."

Hannah blinks up at me before leaning back on her, also black, chair.

"That would be sweet of you," she says, lowering her scarf to show me her full smile.

It always feels… disquieting. Like something she shouldn't so casually do. Though… well, can I really say it's casual if she only does it with me?

… That I know of. It's not like I'm keeping tabs.

"Anyway," I say, hoping not to have the conversation entirely derailed, "lunch?"

She raises an exquisite eyebrow finely honed through the training she's forced to undergo to emote with her mouth hidden.

Note to self: revise my teasing material. Last week's ninja quip wasn't up to par.

"I would love to, but I'm a bit busy today. Power testing wants me to go over the newest catalogue…"

"Oh. Anything interesting?"

"The most promising thing is a system to charge backup batteries for emergency relief with an overpowered taser. But, really, I don't think they understand how much time it would take to just keep blasting—"

"That's ridiculous. Even the more rudimentary, back of the envelope math should tell them just how many times you'd need to recharge for that to have any actual impact on the situation, and you can't be expected to stay there long enough to—"

With a sigh, Hannah takes a piece of paper and crushes it into a small ball that she then throws into her trashcan with unerring accuracy.

I can't help but stare with a bit of envy. Really, I always find it unfair how unnaturally skilled her power makes her.

I mean, my combat prediction algorithm certainly helps, but—wait, could I model it off her own power-assisted competence with weaponry? A few readings should suffice to get a glimpse at the underlying mechanism of the heuristics she—

"Colin?" she asks, taking me out of the beginnings of a Tinker fugue. "You've got that look again."

"I apologize. I just came up with an idea to optimize a project I've been working on. Well, if you can't do lunch, I guess I shouldn't intrude any—"

"Stay right there, and don't you dare leave without letting me speak first."

"You know me so well," I state as dryly as the situation requires.

"I do, don't I?" she replies, strangely pleased at the exchange.

"That's what I just said?"

And now she sighs, bizarrely frustrated at the exchange.

Really, as many jokes as I get about the thing, I [should] build a social prompter at some point. Thinkers are bullshit, after all.

Blonde ones with exasperating daddy issues, even more so.

"Why do you want to get lunch, Colin?" she asks, her tone as patient as she's definitely not feeling.

Oh, that.

Well…

"It's been brought to my attention that rigidly scheduling rest and recreation may be counterproductive in regards to their stated benefits."

"... Lisa scolded you for overworking?"

"Miss Hebert, actually. She forbade Lisa from working today, which in turn made her forbade me from contacting her, which turned into Miss Hebert telling me I remind her of her workaholic father and making a crack at this being retroactively hereditary, whatever that means—"

Hannah's laughing.

Not her usual snort of amusement, not the rare giggle she sometimes surprises herself with. Laughing.

As in, hands on her belly, body bent forward, tears in her eyes, difficulty breathing, laughing.

…

I feel upstaged.

"Oh God, she's got you pegged..." she manages to mutter, her forehead resting on her desk.

"I would hope not. Lisa wouldn't take kindly to her girlfriend using marital aids on me—"

And now she's laughing harder.

Balance's been restored.

"Oh, that's just so—that's disturbing!"

"Certainly. I don't think there's a man alive who [would] find the experience anything but—"

More laughter. This pleases me.

"Stop! Stop, I need to breathe!"

"That you do. Luckily, we weren't talking about anything that would impede such vital functions. Ballgags, for instance—"

A rubber band strikes me with unerring accuracy right on the tip of my nose.

Her power is just [unfair.] Especially when she doesn't use it.

"You're a monster," she harshly breathes out.

"A monster of logic and dispassionate intellect?"

"You [wish]."

I let out a bit of a smile to match hers, and then I start turning toward the exit—

"And where do you think you're going?" she calls out.

"Well, you're obviously busy, so—"

"For lunch. I'm busy for lunch."

"What—"

"You're taking me out to dinner."

I blink a couple of times before turning back to face Hannah.

"Taylor's right, you know? You need to unwind."

"I acknowledge the need to—"

"Get me at six. Think of a nice place."

I raise my eyebrow. This is starting to sound like something far more involved than a casual lunch at the Rig's cafeteria.

"And dress nice. If you get here in that horrid thing you call a suit, I'll be very cross with you."

With some actual effort, I manage to stop my eyebrow from climbing further up, stopping its attempts to go past my hairline.

"I'm not sure I—"

"You're taking me out to dinner, and that's final, Colin."

"My suit isn't that—"

"It's a beige abomination that would only look at home in a crime serial. It makes you look like Columbo's worse dressed, buff cousin."

"That sounds like a very flattering description—"

She, once again, cocks an exquisite eyebrow.

I sigh in defeat.

"I [guess] I've got the budget to [maybe] get a new jacket."

"I'll call Assault to help you out—"

"You'll do no such thing!"

She laughs.

Gentler, not belly-shaking, not breathless.

It… also pleases me.

"See you later, Colin," she tells me with that warm smile she so readily shares.

And I nod, and go back to my nutribars and half-finished motorbike, all the while my mind whirring with what the Hell I'm supposed to do now that Hannah seems set on having us go on something that sounds suspiciously like a [date].

This was supposed to be [relaxing].

… Maybe my first mistake was to assume that Miss Hebert knew the meaning of the word.

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This work is a repost of my most popular fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/wake-up-call-worm.15638/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 85 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).

Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Power's intrusions into Lisa's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance

Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Xalgeon, and aj0413. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and helping me keep writing snarky, useless lesbians, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!