Tinker Chaos

There's been a bit of chaos this week, to say nothing of three seperate drafts of the first part of the endbringer fight, all of which didn't work. I' have a promising one now, but since you've been so patient, I give a short little fun bit unrelated to anything.

****

I had become a Tinker. In the locker, I had seen so much. And not only was I a tinker, most of my inventions were replicable.

And everyone knew that that meant. The gangs would be after me. I—

I heard a knock on the door. Dad answered it. And then…

“Taylor, could you come here?”

I swallowed. I should have set up the home defense system first. But now…

My helmet sensors detected several individuals. Hookwolf. Oni Lee… Armsmaster, and a man in a snake suit that showed way too much.

Coil.

I walked to the door, ready to defend myself.

“Taylor!” Hookwolf said. “Have you ever thought about a full paid scholarship to Harvard?”

Wait, what?

“Really?” Coil said. “I think MIT and an off-campus lab, paid for of course, is much more suitable for someone interested in the hard sciences… right, Brad?  How’s that fine arts degree working out for you?

I blinked. “Wait, you have—“

“Harvard has an excellent science and engineering program,” Hookwolf said. “And yes, I ah, chose poorly. Why do you think I got into cage fighting? Student loans don’t pay themselves…”

Oni Lee silently handed me a paper. I read it.

“See your academic rivals crushed beneath you, as you unleash your creativity with a self-study program…”

I blinked. “This is…”

“Wait!” Armsmaster said. “While it is true that government jobs do not pay as much as the private sector, we provide excellent subsidiary benefits and a wide range of development opportunities…”

I took a deep breath. “This… this wasn’t what I thought when I read the statistics about Tinkers being… recruited.”

“Taylor,” Coil said. “We’re villains, well, except for Armsmaster, but tell me, do we look stupid?  If you’re going to hire someone to build incomprehensible technology that could do anything from teleport you to the sun to open a black hole in your hideout… wouldn’t you be concerned with employee satisfaction?”

“Goddamn,” My Dad said, shocked into profanity. “The gangs know more than your average big business.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it as down the road there was a commotion. Faultline’s group was having an argument with…

“Accord must be losing his touch, he’s late,” Coil said. Then there was another group that I didn’t recognize and…

“Ah, I’ll take these and think about it. Anyone else can just, um, leave a note,” I said as I stepped back and closed the door.

“Remember! Harvard just redid their student center!” Hookwolf shouted, right before Accord hustled up and said something about making my home completely symmetrical.

I had worried about being kidnapped. But as the chaos got louder outside, including shouted bids for my service, I had to admit…

This was somehow worse…