After a few moments, she returned wearing a helmet. It looked a lot like the modular, slender ‘school uniform’ riot helmets because, to be fair, I butchered one in order to make it. Of course, it was a lot tougher now, and better padded, and I’d found a use for my nanocomputer… There were several of them installed into the suit and the helmet, but right now they were running on a modified Game Boy Bios because I was shit at it and only had two systems anyway. The 8-bit boot-up chime was a nice touch, I felt.

  “Okay, right now, this is the team costume. I should have more built soon, but to make them, I need to get supplies that… I don’t want to get on campus.” I’d rather not explain to Subvector why I needed a ton of rare earth metals and industrial-grade carbon fiber.

  Abigail snorted a little, “Are we going to be dancing? Because that sort of looks like a boring version of ‘Can’t touch this’ only with Glacier Girl inside instead of Hammer.”

  I chuckled, “No. Glacier Girl, do an ex pose, please. Like you were getting ready to do jumping jacks.”

  She nodded and stood straight with her arms and legs out. “Now what?”

  “Uhh… crap. I guess I have to do it.” I stood up and slipped over to stand next to her, and then reached inside of her helmet, pressing the chin button that activated the holo-mask I’d adapted into a third-rate heads-up-display while the bulletproof face-shield was down. “Can you see the display?”

  She nodded, “Yeah, did you use a Virtual Boy for this? There are only three blink-links in here, and everything’s red and black.”

  I nodded, “That’s what I used for the bios, yes. The first blink-link is settings. PLEASE don’t mess with those yet unless you want the suit to suddenly become a very tight, very gray oven. The second one is fit, and the third one is download and file manipulation. Go ahead and hit the fit button.”

  She nodded slightly and then smiled, “It says automatic or manual.”

  “Go ahead and blink on 'automatic'. Once it’s done, press the helmet button I hit again so it doesn’t accidentally change. Please remember that this is a prototype, especially the helmet. It might also try to sell you extended warranties.”

  The suit… deflated. That was the best way of describing it, as it automatically scanned and adjusted itself for the best fit. The fibers were easily able to retract and expand and were highly elastic, and the myo-fibers were able to make sure that each of the more solid sub-plates was aligned correctly on her body… moments later, it looked like she was wearing skin-tight gray tech ninja armor, which was sort of the effect I was hoping for. It was thick enough not to show too much, but still showed off her extremely nice body with plenty of support. Function and fashion, assuming your fashion sense was born in a cyberpunk dystopia.

  “Oh god, Blueprint. I mean, the armor is still an ugly color, but I want one, if only for that auto-fitting alone. It’s like… super-sexy without having big ‘shoot me’ skin holes cut into it.” Abigail said, and I couldn't tell if she was genuinely impressed or just doing a deep-cover analysis of my tech.

  I grinned at Abbey, “A little hint. Color is nothing more than light reflections. See that USB port in the helmet? That’s not for charging, that’s for downloading pattern designs. On my computer, I have a dozen patterns I made in Art Shop, and I put in a simple 3d art model for making your own costume designs based on an old video game custom avatar creator.”

  “Unreal Quakebaker?” she laughed, “I used to play with that when I was a little kid.”

  I nodded, “Well, that’s the program, and it has a bunch of files I experimented with. Glacier, would you be so kind as to reactivate your interface, hit the file button. You should see a series of costumes. Pick the one you want, and then hit ‘apply’.”

  After a moment, Mindy’s outfit changed to look like a black unitard with a decent set of three heavy asymmetric blue lines from her left shoulder to her right hip, while her helmet turned black and grew a blue stripe. It was… marginally better. From ‘generic sci-fi mook’ to ‘low-budget sci-fi side character’.

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  Mindy stuck out her tongue at me, “These designs are terrible.”

  I nodded, “I made all six of those patterns in less than ten minutes. Do better or ask someone to do better. Catalog?” I looked at Abbey, using her superhero name since she was technically in a mask. It felt weirdly formal, like giving a code name to a shark.

  She smiled, and it was the most genuine expression I’d seen from her all day. “I want one.”

  I nodded and glanced at Chinook, “Once we settle on a design, I want us to look similar. I am still working on better junk for the armor, but it’s durable as hell, and it’s not widgeteer crap. I also started experimenting with boron nitride nanotubes, and they are like twice as durable as carbon nanotubes. I figure a few more advances, and I might be able to create even tougher stuff than Atlas threading, and Atlas armor has stupidly steep prerequisites.”

  “Prerequisites? Above and beyond the tens of millions?” Chinook asked, looking intrigued.

  I nodded, “Yes, a normal person couldn’t even move in it. It’s durable, but it was not only incredibly heavy, but just moving in it normally required at least a class 3 enhanced physique. That’s another reason Geofiber got so popular. Less protective, but you could also wear hard armor over it and still be able to move.”

  “The thicker plates.” I said, starting to point out certain areas on Mindy’s armor, “Are laminated buckypaper zircon, and tungsten-hyper bronze. They should keep your knees from getting busted if you are crazy enough…” I looked at Chinook, “To make a superhero landing.”

  She laughed, a sharp, genuine sound. “I hadn’t actually thought of that, but it sure looks cool when it works. How long would it take us to get armors?”

  “Give me a second,” I said. I had been thinking about it. I didn’t have anywhere close to the energy to convert that much mass from base elements, not even a tenth of what I’d need, but if I could get access to a lot of pre-existing materials…

  “That depends. Just to make it without any materials would take me ten days per suit.” I said, the number making me wince internally. That was a lot of ramen-fueled all-nighters.

  Chinook sighed. “Is that because of your energy problems?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, but if I could get someplace with a lot of the raw materials already available, like a dump, or a materials lab, and someone that can help me gather what I would need, it could be a lot faster.” I was basically a walking, talking, cynically humorous recycling plant.

  “How much faster?”

  I shrugged, doing the mental math. “If I had some stuff pre-assembled and all the materials, it would cost me about four hundred energy. Umm… eighty percent of my maximum. I recover between three and seven percent of my maximum every hour, depending on if I can practice and meditate, get enough food, and am in a place that’s good for my energy. It might even be faster if I can get to some place really good, but places like that are impossible to get to.”

  “Like what kind of places?” Terracotta asked, her golden eyes curious.

  I chuckled, “I am not sure if you are ready for it…” I said, expecting recoil.

  Abbey smiled, that knowing, all-too-informed smile. “Just tell us. Maybe we can get there.”

  I shrugged, deciding to just go for it. “Any place with high ambient radiation, extreme temperature gradients, or even radioactive materials. My power… it likes chaos. It feeds on it.” I left out the part about it also potentially giving me super-cancer. Some details are best kept to oneself.

  Abbey looked thoughtful, not shocked in the slightest. “If you thought that would freak us out, you are very wrong. A lot of Alphas have… unusual dietary additives.”

  I knew that, but… “Like what?” I asked, genuinely curious what other flavors of weirdness were on the menu.

  “I am on record for certain rare earths. They help reinforce my structures,” Terracotta, who had been fairly quiet until now, offered. “And a set of armor would let me run lighter when I have to play anchor. Right now, when I armor up, in order to get class three defense, I am very slow.”

  “So what kind of radioactives do you need?” Mindy asked, peeling off her helmet, her face serious.

  “I don’t really know, I don’t have to eat them… I mean, Uranium, even if I depleted it, would be poisonous. I’d probably just need to be near it. Let my power soak it up like a metaphysical sponge.” I looked at my hand. “My range is about nine inches. That doesn’t make me immune to radiation, so I’d have to purify myself afterwards too, unless I want stuff falling off.” I wiggled my fingers. “I’m rather attached to these.”

  Chinook snerked, “God forbid. I can think of a couple of options, but I am starting to realize that you are a complicated fellow, Blueprint.” She said it with a mix of exasperation and what might have been respect. I suppose she decided she was going to be on the team, whatever it took, and I sort of appreciated her attitude. She could be right. She also had an amazing body, and I was getting pretty good at pretending I didn’t notice that sort of thing.

  “You have no idea,” I muttered, and for the first time, it felt like maybe that was a good thing.