Chapter 3 — Industrial Strength Magic

Predictably there was no ‘Magic Tinker’…

Perry cruised through the classes, the System reacting intuitively to his desire to navigate it.

Perry then focused his attention on his Status and each individual Stat.

Perry’s brows rose.

He went back to the Class list and began narrowing down what he wanted and why.

He spent an entire day at school copying down the different classes and doing long-winded cost-benefit analysis in his notebook while the lessons flew by. Eventually he narrowed it down to three, and finally, with a great deal of regret, Perry dismissed AI Tinker and Industrial Tinker.

Leaving one of the more lackluster choices, but perfect for Perry.

The reason Perry begrudgingly chose Garage Tinker over AI tinker which promised loyal AI servants, or Industrial Tinker, which guaranteed wealth and power, was the Spendthrift perk, specifically:

and,

Both of those phrases seemed to suggest that they

It didn’t say ‘chemical reactions.’ It just said ‘reactions’.

It didn’t specify what kind of materials or components would be improved, Just a blanket statement. If magical ingredients fell under that blanket, – which Perry suspected they would – then the perk literally increased the potency of magic cast by any tech he created.

It was a bit of a gamble, but Perry wasn’t too terribly concerned with it. Any Tinker would inevitably become rather wealthy if they lived long enough, and the Garage Tinker promised that he could get by on cheap parts for a long time, meaning his start-up costs would be negligible compared to another Tinker.

And he could still make AI, (and using cheaper parts) just not as good as a specialist.

So even if this was a mistake, Perry wouldn’t suffer too badly.

Probably.

Perry wobbled in place as a strange tingle spread through his body and mind, not quite pins and needles. Like his entire brain had fallen asleep.

A minute later, the tingles faded, and he was left alone with his thoughts. And the System.

Now Perry needed to figure out some kind of numerical representation for the Spendthrift perk’s effect on a spell, if any, as well as the effect it had on other designs.

Someone suitably stupid, who wouldn’t think too hard about why they were doing what they were doing. But also agreeable and eager to do science under the right circumstances.

***The next day***

“Yo Brendon,” Perry said, sliding into his seat beside the jock.

“Sup, Z?” Brendon asked, his meathooks wrapped around one of the massive tuna sandwiches his mom made for him.

“You wanna do some science at my place?”

“What kind of science?” Brendon asked with a hint of suspicion.

“The fun kind,” Perry said with what he hoped was a conspiratorial smile. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “Did you know my dad has an indoor gun range? How would you like to try a prawn gun? The kind they use on the wall.”

“AWESOME! Say no more, I’m in!” Brendon said, his voice disappearing into the general chaos of the cafeteria.

Or at least, Perry

“You’re in what?” Heather said, sitting down beside Brendon and eyeballing Perry.

But at the same time, Perry had

While Perry was agonizing over his choices, Brendon made it for him.

“We’re gonna go shoot some stuff at his dad’s indoor range, you wanna come?” Brendon asked around a huge bite of tuna and mayo.

Perry bit his lip as Heather’s emerald gaze pinned him to the chair. “Yeah, you wanna come?”

She deliberated for a moment, then gave a languid shrug.

“Sure. I gotta trade off custody of our superbaby anyway.”

“How’d that happen?” Brendon asked. “I didn’t think either of you had powers.”

“It’s Mr. Rogers’.” Perry said.

“You and Mr. Rogers?” He asked, staring at Heather. “I mean, I could see that, I guess he’s pretty cool for a teacher, but isn’t that Illega-“

“Do you enjoy playing dumb, or what?” Heather asked, resting her chin on her palm and glaring at someone else for once.

Brendon took another slow bite of his sandwich, his brow furrowed in intense concentration.

“So…Mr. Rogers has a superpower?” he asked.

“You know what? I would be glad to join you guys at the range,” Heather said, changing the subject with a bright smile that spelled doom for all who opposed her.

Brendon still looked confused, which was ideal.

***

“Hey dad!” Perry yelled down the bright-white hall that led to his dad’s primary lab

“What!?” Dad yelled, ducking his head out of the room, welding goggles perched on top of his oversized forehead.

“Can I borrow some guns!?” Perry yelled.

“Tinker or conventional!?” Dad yelled back, his voice echoing down the hall.

“Conventional!”

“Knock yourself out!” Dad shouted, slipping the welding goggles back down onto his face. “Just make sure you clean them before you put ‘em back!”

“Gotcha!”

Brendon stood there, his eyes wide.

Heather looked significantly less impressed, which made sense, given

“Your dad is so freaking cool.” Brendon whispered reverentially.

“Give it time,” Perry said, waving Brendon and Heather toward the armory.

Perry entered the code and the door slid open to reveal arms bliss.

There were a

And that wasn’t even including the lasers, plasma rifles, sonic lances, etc.

The

“Is this legal?”

“Some of them may be Illegal but it’s not enforced,” Perry said, grabbing a nearby cart and placing a couple different pistols and rifles of varying caliber, from the .22, to the 7.62, and because he’d promised, he added the Prawn rifle to the bottom of the cart.

Heather watched what Perry grabbed and picked out boxes of the appropriate ammo on the fly.

Brendon didn’t think to wonder why Heather knew what ammo went to what gun, which was exactly why he was here.

“Whaddya mean not enforced?” Brendon asked. “This has gotta be-“

“Listen, Brendon,” Perry said, putting his arm over the ox’s shoulders “When supers started running around, what do you think happened to the demand for guns?”

“It…went up?”

“It went down, Brendon. Because the guns weren’t working, nobody wanted a weapon some rando in tights could ignore, and their value tanked. Some people, like my dad, wound up buying a bunch of them as collector’s items, to use for target practice as a hobby. The law overlooks this too, because the law

Heather snorted, trying to hold in her laughter.

“I guess not,” Brendon said, nodding.

Of course more than half the weapons in the armory were illegal. Most of the conventional weapons weren’t, though. Perry hustled Brendon out before he could ask about all the shiny weird guns on the

Perry escorted them to the shooting range, where he’d set up dozen upon dozens of ballistics gelatin dummies.

Science was all about controlling as many variables as possible, then only changing one at a time, so you

If that meant Perry and his friends got to stand there and unload AK-47’s on dummies to establish a control, then all the better.

After each volley, Perry went downrange and noted exactly how deep each bullet from each person went through the gelatin.

Perry was a bit disappointed to see that the gun he held did not shoot with more penetrative power than the others. It seemed that

Once the control was established, it was time to science!

“This, lady and gentleman, is several brand-new types of material my dad just invented!” Perry said, revealing last night’s creations with a flourish.

It was a variety of simple breastplates he’d made out of plywood, plastic, aluminum cans, compacted dirt, and plexiglass, fitting snugly on top of their respective ballistics gel.

“Your dad made a new kind of

“Yeah. He did. Shut up.”

Heather’s expression clearly indicated she didn’t believe him.

“He made a new kind of dirt too? Is this like, Terra cotta or something?” Brendon asked, poking the dirt breastplate.

“It’s…dirt.” Perry said. “just gotta have variety so you can get more data, you know?”

“Oh, okay.” Brendon nodded.

Heather looked suspicious.

“Anyway over here we have the controls!” Perry said, moving on to unveiled the sheets of unprocessed material.

On the cart were sheets of plywood, plastic, empty aluminum cans, plexiglass, and…a sack of dirt. Perry had avoided directly touching them, nor made them into armor, so hopefully they still had their natural resilience.

“Who’s ready to do some more science!?” Perry asked.

“What’s really going on here, Perry?” Heather asked, her arms crossed.

“You wanna shoot some guns or not?” Perry asked, tone flat.

“Ooh, ooh, I do, I do!” Brendon said, waving his hand in the air.