I felt the locks rotate, the bars pulled into the door handle, and the magnetic seal switched off. I wish I had a mouth to grin, but hey, my body was dead and rotting in a morgue somewhere. Even worse, they were probably chopping me up to 'figure out what happened' even though a damn bar was sticking through my chest.
Then I thought about them cutting up Aimee and my anger motivated me to move. I yanked the door open and walked into the office building.
The entry was standard; a desk was in front for a receptionist. I walked past the offices - the first few rooms were normal offices for some business purpose. Past that, there were two larger workrooms with a variety of parts lying about, and hands in different states of assembly hanging from very basic arm attachments, with cables running back over the super-simple mannequin device.
A man looked up from a table with a variety of parts on it. I actually didn't want to harm him, but I needed the hands. I marched up to the door of the room, opened it and walked in toward him.
He stared at me with a look of bewilderment. I suppose, a mannequin dressed in yuppie attire did have an unusual appearance. Just to confuse him more I pointed at my chest, then at him, and then beyond him at something on the far worktable.
He turned to look where I pointed and I stepped forward, activated the taser and touched him with it. He screeched and fell over. I bent over and hit him with it a second time.
Sorry Mr. Unlucky. Good luck explaining this one....
I quickly walked over to the few completed hands, held down the right hand of my current mannequin and popped the ball joint out of the mannequin, and held my wrist up against the end of the forearm piece of the bionic hand. As I'd found in my garage with the larger robots, it simply attached itself to the forearm stump on my current body. I flexed and moved the fingers on the hand a few times - it worked like a charm.
I looked around for a left hand, walked over and repeated the action with that hand. In a minute, I had two functional hands that came unbelievably close to the movement and size of my former human hands. I put the taser in my shirt pocket.
Gathering more parts and hands went much faster with a pair of good hands. I filled the duffle bag with parts and hands, taking the most complete hands first. It was slightly odd using arms much longer than normal - at some point soon I would have to chop off part of the mannequin's arm to approximate my normal arm length.
I left the office, put the full duffle bag in the car and took it over by touch again. During the drive toward home, I stopped at another shopping center at the farthest end of the parking lot to steal a different car along the way.
I dropped off the car at the abandoned warehouse I'd taken over as a temporary workshop and home, emptied the largest items out of my truck and brought that to my apartment to clear out everything related to robotics, some clothing just to camouflage the mannequin, and my computer.
I'd been mildly apprehensive that the mannequin's ball joints on the arms would pull out while lifting heavy objects, but it appeared to handle all the weight I tried without an issue - there had to be something with my taking over of a mechanical object that helped keep it together. Of course, it still made no sense that I saw out of the head of the mannequin when it had no eyes.
One of the neighbors stepped out to smoke and saw me carrying a box to the truck.
He moved closer with a confused look on his face, laughed and called out, "Nice robot, man. I'm gonna call you up the next time I have to move."
I waved to him, making the wave somewhat more robot-like than I needed to.
Once I'd returned to the warehouse, I began making better hands on the exoskeleton. It was useful to be able to activate the laser cutter with my own ability rather than need to plug it in. I'd be able to keep the power usage in the old warehouse at a minimum and help prevent a red flag at the power utility.
The hands I built were simple - heavy metal with strong joints, but no mechanical devices to automate moving them. Testing the fingers was easy - I simply touched the hand and started moving it. Within a few hours, I had a pair of very strong hands I could use on a mutant if needed. I wished I could use the huge mecha I had planned for the night’s hunt for information, but I needed something that would fit inside a door.
I reinforced the limbs with additional steel beams, and made arm attachments for human-like hands that folded back into the protected area when not needed, but could be swung out and used for fine handling if needed.
I made a few safe holding spots for some small robots - two humanoid and a toy car that could drive whether it was flipped over or not along with a toy just in case. Last, I attached a speaker near the top of the chest cavity. When I tested it, I realized it had a lot more power than I thought it would.
A deep, booming voice spoke out when I tested, "Luke, I am your father...."
I laughed, and it echoed through the large empty space. Well, if I needed to capture everyone's attention in a place I certainly could now. Out of sheer humor, I connected the other speaker. If I had to yell at someone up close, it would sound unreal.
I said to myself, "Maybe this won't be so bad after all."
Then I remembered the pole erupting from my chest, and the red guy's hands snapping my friend's neck and I growled.
I continued building up the exoskeleton body to ensure it would be tough enough to fight with before I left late in the evening....
Chapter 25 - Auction
Black Tiger's Viewpoint
After hearing Steph’s study buddy Kell’s voice on the other end of Diva’s phone connection I really wanted to head down to the University. What held me back was being there with both Diva and Psystar at the same time.
It surprised me somewhat that Diva was all over helping Stephanie, and said that my girl was her friend. I didn’t think they knew each other that well. If anything, I thought that Steph felt a little intimidated by Diva, because the woman had such a phenomenal figure.
Granted, Steph had always worked out more to simply be in great shape than to look anything like a bodybuilder, but years of being around Lance’s mom had gotten her thinking that her “mom’s” build was her goal to attain. It probably didn’t help that her biological mother had never been part of her life.
That was a hell of a goal, considering that Lance’s mom was a brick just like Diva and had a very similar build. She was perhaps slightly less buxom than Diva, however.
Either way, Diva had a habit of doing things that got me to stare at her, and I think that bothered my girl. I didn’t know what to do about it, though – Diva seemed to want to be friends badly. I was beginning to wonder if she wanted to be more than friends after the kiss up in the sky.
However, Steph was flirty too, just not quite as blatant with her clothing as Diva, so it wasn’t as if she could gripe about people looking at Diva when she liked them to look at her too. I’d caught her smile happily right when someone was watching her from various angles, and I’d been able to see where the person was looking. Therefore, she couldn’t claim to be innocent – she just had one narcissistic advantage that Diva didn’t have – Steph could see when people were checking her out. Poor Diva wanted attention so badly she was willing to do almost anything to get it. I didn’t even have to be a mind reader to figure that out.
Maybe that’s all that Diva wanted when she kissed me, she just wanted to make sure I give her lots of attention. I was cool with that. I would rather avoid kissing her though, she was too tempting to do that with very much and not let it go further.
On the other hand, maybe if they like each other that much we could get together as a group. That would be awesome. Considering Steph’s reactions to being intimately touched by just me, I’d bet that she’d really go nuts over two of us. Hmm. How can I make that one happen?
I wandered around the store and picked up some stuff for myself. After checking my balance on the H.E.R.O. phone, I certainly had money I could blow, even after buying the Ninja Supersport motorcycle and the five thousand dollar costume.
I looked again at what we’d picked out for Diva to wear. I was damn jealous of the photographer she was meeting with this afternoon. Had I known she wanted to wear a whole bunch of tight clothing – or no clothing with just some paint – I’d have been all over doing another photo shoot with her. I got the sense that the agent was pretty pissed about the other photo shoot we did – not so much that the pictures weren’t good, but they weren’t in the style that the agent wanted.
I’m going to have to get on her case to do a body paint photo shoot with me too. That would rock.
She did look pretty kick ass in the spandex workout half-top and shorts she ran out of the store in. Not like I was going to argue with her mini-dress costume, though. It was different than the other heroines wore, and was flashy – or at least allowed her to almost flash people.
I took my phone out a few times and debated calling Steph’s phone to see how she was doing. Of course, then I’d have to mention that I heard about her injury because I was hanging out with Diva and that might upset her. Each time I put the phone away and hoped she’d be okay.
After thirty minutes, I couldn’t wait any more and I called Steph’s phone.
She answered, “Hey Tiger.”
Oh, man – I just realized they are both calling me that now.
“Hi beautiful. Are you okay? I heard you crashed part of the school?”
“Yeah, not sure what happened, but I can’t chat now, I’m heading to the jail with Rayna to help Captain McCain.”
“Oh. Well, I just wanted to see if you were doing okay.”
“Yup, thanks to Rayna’s little eye guy and whatever amped me up I’m back to normal. Well, not normal – I’m better than normal, but I’ll talk to you later about it, all right?”
“Cool. Be careful, okay? I’ll take the hits for you, I’d rather you be safe.”
“Will do.”
“Okay then. Love you.”
“You too, Tiger.”
After she hung up, I put my phone back in my belt and sighed. At least she was safe. If she were on the way to the Jail with Rayna I wondered where Diva was – unless she were with them and Steph just didn’t mention it.
The bluish-purple haired beauty was a bit ditsy; I wondered if she would remember that I was sitting here waiting for her. After a while, the salesman wandered over by me.
He said, “So, you’re hanging out with a heroine, huh? That’s pretty cool.”
“Why would you say that?”
“She flashed her ID to me on the way out.”
“Ah, yeah. Yeah, she’s interesting.”
“Interesting? Dude, you see her build?”
I laughed, “Yeah, I did. Heroes do tend to be in pretty good shape, huh?”
“I’ll say. If I owned my own sporting goods store, I’d try to get pictures of the heroes in the gear I sold and hang them as posters on the walls. That’d be cool.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
“So … is she your girlfriend?”
I smiled, “No, though I get the sense she’d like to be.”
“Dude! Seriously, you turned
her
down?”
“I have a girlfriend already.”
“I dunno, I think you should upgrade.”
“That’s not cool. You don’t just drop someone because someone hotter comes along – and besides that, I think my girlfriend is actually just as, or more beautiful. She has a slightly different type of beauty though. She's cuter, shorter, less muscle and a little curvier – although Diva’s got quite the curves. I love her hair and eyes, too. Part of it’s the personality, too.”
“Well, I’d like to have Diva as a girlfriend.”
“Are you sure? She can lift something like thirty tons. She’d probably feel like metal to you, barring the warmth. Meanwhile, you’d probably feel like something soft and fluffy to her. I don’t know, maybe like that memory foam stuff?”
“Really? Maybe she’d let me see how hard her muscles are.”
I laughed, “Feel free to ask, she actually might let you. Just be nice to her.”
“Got it.”
Another customer came in, so he left to check if they needed assistance. After another ten minutes, Diva walked in the front door. In the bright backlight of the front door, her muscles … and curves … stood out with the workout outfit she was wearing.
The guy stopped her near the front desk; I almost laughed, but wanted to hear what he said to her.
He said, “Welcome back, Diva. Everything okay?”
She replied, “Hi. Oh, yeah, it is now.”
“Hey, umm, I’ve got a question for you.”
“Sure.”
“So, ah, you’re a brick type super, right?”
She made a sour face, “Yeah, why?”
“Well, you’re in awesome shape – can I touch your upper arm?”
She laughed, “Yeah, I’m good with that – I’m a little disturbed that of everything to ask to touch you ask for the biceps.”
She stepped up to him and held out her left arm. I smiled, if Lance had been asked that he’d have flexed his arm to give his biceps a peak. I suppose I would as well, but it was easy to visualize Lance.
He put his fingers around her biceps and attempted to squeeze. His expression changed to disbelief as he tried harder to indent his fingers into her arm.
“Oh my god. I’d heard that you guys are super hard, but this is unbelievable.”
His eyes flicked over her body and he continued, “Are you … are you that, err, firm everywhere?”
She grinned even more, grabbed her own biceps and squeezed – they deformed for her. They appeared more as if she were a normal person flexing just a little and then pressing down rather than pressing on a very relaxed muscle.
I knew what he wanted to ask, but was afraid to. I’d ask her myself, but I had a strong feeling she’d let me, and then later on Steph would see what I did and all hell would break loose. I already knew she had buns of steel from the kiss earlier when she moved my hand.
He thanked her and she walked over to me – I noticed that she put some extra movement in her hips. I grinned as she approached.