Mod Superhero

Chapter 5.5 - Masking

Both Emmett and Clara spent the rest of the week and that weekend holed up in the apartment while Athena brought him scrap appliances. Emmett spent almost the entirety of those few days building servers for TINA and working on their disguise protocol. Clara meditated and caught up on TV shows and anime. Now and then, she topped off the batteries running TINA's servers.

The racks of servers and hardware steadily grew. It now encompassed an entire wall of Athena's apartment. Even with the new additions, the fusion batteries were more than enough to power them.

Clara sprawled across the couch, watching an anime on her phone. She muttered, "I never thought I'd get bored of free time."

Emmett chuckled, not looking up from his work-in-progress. "At least we still have internet here. I remember Wave Warrior's autobiography... He talked about literally camping on the rooftops for days, waiting for something to happen. And that was before the internet."

"I would explode," Clara replied matter-of-factly. "What the heck did he do to pass the time?"

"He said he read a lot." Emmett paused. "How he did that and kept a lookout, I'm not sure."

"That's probably why he had to wait so long—he kept missing things happening." A few seconds later, Clara rolled over to look at Emmett. "Ready to take a break yet?"

"Yeah... I guess I should take a break."

"Good, 'cause we can work on our disguises."

"...That's not a break."

"It is for me."

The pair shared a chuckle, and Emmett agreed to take a break so they could work together.

Emmett finished up the wiring that he was working on, then stood up and stretched. He'd been at it for three hours already and it felt good to get up.

It was still odd how his brain and body responded to the work. The organic parts of his shoulders and neck were tense from being hunched over the table, but his prosthetics and artificial parts all felt fine. He blinked away the dryness in his left eye—the one that was still organic—but otherwise, his head felt fine. He'd yet to get a headache from the work, despite having to concentrate for so long.

Then again, building servers had become so easy that it was almost routine. At the beginning, he'd been overwhelmed by how amazing the nanites were—it was surreal learning how they worked and learning how to use them. But as they'd become more and more an extension of himself, Emmett had gotten used to them. Guiding the nanites to melt, reform, and solder metals and other materials had almost become tedious.

Emmett paced the apartment to get his blood flowing again and did windmill-style arm circles to loosen up his shoulders.

After a few times down the hall and back, even his shoulders felt fine.

Emmett glanced over at Clara and found her watching him intently. Thinking she was waiting for him, he walked over to the couch and sat on the floor. Only then did Clara glance away.

"...What?" Emmett asked, oblivious.

Clara's face flushed and she brushed her short hair back. "You've just come a long way. That's all. Anyway, let's get started!"

~

Throughout history, superheroes hid their identities by wearing masks, but the day was coming when that wouldn't be enough.

Cameras were the immediate problem. They were already becoming more numerous as Belport rebuilt, and drones would patrol the rooftops and the sky—nevermind cameras in every cellphone. It wasn't enough to hide from people on the street. Now supers would have to hide their faces and their movements from mechanical eyes that didn't sleep.