‘Soon enough’, as Jupiter had called it, did not come soon enough. Days went by without hearing from the man, no word of a job being sent our way or any confirmation that he had put in word for us with the Society.

  I suppose, on the plus side, it was time in which we could rest, recover, and it gave me a chance to work on my equipment. Always welcome, as far as I was concerned.

  I looked up from the nanolathe as it finished working, pale white light shining from the sides of its inner mechanisms as they worked away. It produced a continuous hum as it worked, fading into a low whine once it finished up.

  I reached inside, pulling out a brick of pale blue plastic, big enough to fit comfortably between my thumb and index finger. Slowly, carefully, I set it beside a small pack of similar bricks. They were all equal in size, with small studs on top and hollows underneath, allowing them to slot together. The only thing that differentiated them was their colour.

  “I know you’re called Toymaker, but... really?”

  I grumbled, turning to see Volatile looming over my shoulder. He had taken his mask off, as he did whenever he came by here, revealing a sharp jaw and hawkish eyes. His expression betrayed no emotion, but his gaze was locked onto the coloured bricks.

  “They’re not just playthings,” I told him bluntly.

  “Okay,” he said, cocking his head a bit. “You’ve got me a little curious. What are they? Outside of cute copyright infringement.”

  “I call ‘em Blox.”

  Volatile, who had still not deigned to give us his real name (and I didn’t care enough to ask) stared at me. “Naming things isn’t your strong suit.”

  “Shut up and listen. They’re like... little Von Neumann probes.” I paused then decided to elaborate, since I doubted Volatile was much of a reader. “That is to say they can absorb inorganic matter and use it to duplicate themselves.”

  I reached into one pocket and fished out a few pebbles I had picked up on the way in, dumping them between the Blox. Then, my brow furrowing, I directed my thoughts toward them in the same way I did to my soldiers.

  They rattled and vibrated, and I felt the shadowy pulsing of a migraine stirring in my head. It took a lot more effort to make them move but they did, eventually, converge around the large stones. One by one the pebbles were sucked up, broken down inside the Blox, reconfigured into hyper-dense plastic. The Blox split apart, like cells during mitosis, creating duplicates of each other.

  I’d had six of them originally, and that little stunt gave me three new ones.

  Volatile made a small grunting sound, but his face still betrayed no feeling. “That’s kinda cool, but... what exactly can you use ‘em for? You can’t make them eat people.”

  “No... that would be gross,” I admitted. “And I did design the Blox to have a limit of how many times each individual unit could reproduce. You know, avoid a ‘grey goo’ situation.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  That actually sent a spasm of uncertainty across his hard features. “A what?”

  “Nerd stuff, don’t worry about it. I just... don’t want to accidentally create a self-sustaining plague of ever-expanding plastic.” And each subsequent generation of Blox could create one less copy than the one that came before, until at a certain point they could no longer reproduce. You had to be cautious with these things. Make tech that went out of control, and they’d send some big name hero after you. “What they can do, at least in theory, is rapidly assemble themselves into new objects. Only...”

  I winced, rubbing at my forehead. “That’s... a lot of load for my brain to handle.” My soldiers I could command with ease, but the Blox seemed a lot harder to move. Maybe it was because they had a lot more going on under the hood. “I need to give them some kind of low-grade AI to take some of the strain off,” I said.

  “I’ll be real with you, I don’t know much of anything about Artisan crap,” he admitted, shrugging. “But my old man hires a lot of them. Could ask on of them to share some gear with you? If I’m gonna be stuck here, I don’t want it to be totally embarrassing.”

  I gave him an annoyed look. For a moment, a brief one, he’d almost seemed like he was being helpful. Of course he had to sneak in some snide shit at the end.

  “It doesn’t really work that way. But I guess some new gear for the team would be nice.”

  The door opened and Beatrix came in, carrying two plastic shopping bags filled to bursting. One was food, some of it for us but most of it for Rover. The other bag was full of odds and ends from the hardware store that I had asked her for. She paused, glancing between the two of us. “Am I interrupting?” she asked.

  “No. Rich boy here just has a poor sense of personal space,” I said.

  Volatile rolled his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. Can’t be helped that I’m bored as hell whenever I come here,” he said.

  “You uh... don’t have to hang around here, you know,” Beatrix said as she made her way inside, setting her bags on a table.

  “Wow, I don’t have to hang around a dust-caked dump that smells of mould? Gosh, that’s so generous of you guys.” Volatile narrowed his eyes. “If you think I’m gonna let you guys sneak off without calling me in whenever you get work, you’re delusional.”

  “Oh shit, my bad bruh. We didn’t invite you to the mansion we usually hang out at,” said Beatrix, shooting him an annoyed look.

  Volatile didn’t seem bothered by the sarcasm. He grunted, his hands on his hips. “Guess it can’t be helped. I’ll get in touch with Dad, see if there’s any nicer property we can use.”

  “But... we’re used to this spot,” Beatrix said.

  “Yeah, well, as far as safe houses go? I’ve seen cardboard boxes with better security. You wanted to be treated seriously as villains? Ditch the clubhouse shit, and get a sturdier base.”

  I didn’t want to admit it, but Volatile did have a point. I’d gotten used to the hideout, but that didn’t mean I liked it. At this point I think we used it more out of familiarity than anything else. No doubt by now we could have found somewhere nicer, particularly after our payout for the Impact job.

  I snapped my fingers at Volatile, causing him to raise an eyebrow. “Hand me that bag,” I said, pointing to the one full of hardware supplies.

  “Excuse me?” he asked bluntly.

  “The bag. I need it.”

  “I’m not in the habit of taking orders from people,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes, inwardly aware I was going to be doing it even more these days. “I’m asking you to give me a bag, not a handjob. Get over yourself.”

  “Mouthy, aren’t you?” All the same, he grabbed the bag and set it on my workbench.

  I set my gloves on the table and went about... tending to them. My mind went into a trance of sorts, my hands on autopilot as I set about tinkering parts and interior circuitry. I wasn’t sure what I was building, not like I did with my usual gear. But my brain had been itching at me for days, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t let up until I started building what it wanted me to build.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked. I slapped a pair of goggles over my eyes and promptly snatched a welding from my pile of tools.

  “Uh...” Beatrix’s eyes roamed between us. “Should I... give you two some privacy?”

  “Probably not a good idea,” Volatile said. “I might kill her otherwise if there’s no witnesses.”

  I clicked my tongue, focused in intently on my work. Flashes of blue light flared up from the welding torch, kicking up sprays of sparks. “Yeah but what would you do without my sterling wit to brighten up your world?”

  “Kill myself from grief.” Volatile fished his phone from his pocket and quickly got to scrolling. “I’m hitting the property market, I’ve already breathed in more dust than can be humanly healthy...”