Bad Beat - Chapter 33 - Plunge (Patreon)

It was around one in the morning by the time he finished going through all the material Nate and Mia had managed to gather for him. His apartment was filled with empty boxes and packaging materials, while on the table in front of him sat the fruits of his labor.

The upgraded batteries were joined by itty-bitty cameras and some kind of artifact that had resulted from merging transreceivers, transmitters, antennas, GPS modules, and gyroscopes together, while the speed controllers had fused with various control boards.

There were dozens upon dozens of high-quality propellers made out of some kind of super-polymer, making them incredibly durable and nearly silent while moving.

Altogether, he had managed to put together three full sets of materials, enough for three drones.

Smiling slightly, he went into his bedroom and retrieved a few extra things from his previous heist. He still had a handful of bits and bobs left over, and he intended to make use of them as well.

Waste not, and all that.

He also retrieved the three chassis Sparky had finished printing sometime in the middle of the night. They were angular, with long straight planes making up their body that reminded him of stealth aircraft.

Sitting before the pile of upgraded objects, he began pulling them one by one into a card before merging them.

The first was one of the chassis, creating a simple green-bordered card with the item’s picture displayed on the face: 1 x Stealth Drone Chassis (Printed).

Gabriel grinned and reached for the next card.

Over the next few minutes, he slowly fused the chassis with the parts he had prepared, steadily filling the interior with superior components and creating a drone that surpassed anything available on the commercial market.

Hell, Gabriel thought it probably surpassed whatever the military was using, too. The only people who could likely build something better were the tech-focused supers.

Then, when he ran out of prepared parts, he reached for the leftovers from the previous heist. He started with an upgraded battery bank to give the drone more staying power, then added an upgraded router and signal extender to improve Sparky’s connection, an upgraded phone for better onboard computing, and finally a mess of cables so it could interface with practically anything.

He even added one of the last network cards and a leftover graphics card, just in case they ended up being useful.

Then, as he stared at the face-down card, wanting to wait until the very end to see whether he had assembled everything correctly, an idea suddenly came to him.

Looking up at the ceiling light, he furrowed his brows and raised an empty card toward the bulb, absorbing the light pouring from it.

While doing that, he turned toward Sparky.

“Anything you can tell me about the event Bombshell is going to attend?” he asked.

Instantly, the projected screen shifted to the website for Thousand Flowers Hotel. Sparky scrolled through it for a few seconds before landing on the event page, which proudly displayed a posing Bombshell.

Gabriel spent a moment appreciating the excellent lighting framing her body.

[This unit is happy to report it is going to a Meet & Greet.]

[Community outreach event after the ‘unpleasantness’ of the last few weeks.]

[Quote-unquote.]

Gabriel hummed thoughtfully. “Just Bombshell or any other heroes?”

[Please wait a moment.]

[Search completed.]

[Correct. Other Helix-sponsored heroes will appear in other locations. San Bernardino was labeled as the poorest district, so Bombshell was assigned to it according to online analyses.]

[It follows past patterns, so this unit agrees with the analyses.]

[It also decreases the chance of villains attacking the event.]

“Well, that makes sense…” he commented as he continued holding the card toward the light. “Hey, Sparky?”

[Yes, parental unit?]

“Any info about Bombshell aside from the sanitized PR fiction on the Helix website?” he asked.

[Searching…]

[Why does the parental unit want to know?]

“I was hoping to figure out why she goes berserk if we fuck up,” he answered. “It just makes no sense for her to crash out over us.”

[Gasp.]

[Parental unit discovered his brain.]

[This unit is so proud.]

“Har…har…” Gabriel shot her a look. “Can you find something or not?”

[This unit regretfully reports that it found nothing in public databases.]

[Helix security has done a great job erasing all information.]

[Does the parental unit want this unit to dig deeper?]

Gabriel let out a frustrated sigh. “No, Sparky. No need.”

He shook his head. “Not like I expected anything different… Still, keep an eye out for any info, okay?”

[This unit hears and obeys.]

[Sometimes.]

[Giggle.]

Gabriel didn’t even bother responding. Instead, he lowered his hand and looked at the card: 1 x Light.

Nodding to himself, he got up from his seat and headed for the bathroom.

It was the only place where he could create complete darkness.

He spent a solid minute making sure no light leaked into the room, leaving himself standing in total blackness. Then he raised a hand while leaning against the wall and focused on absorbing the darkness.

If absorbing light worked, then hopefully the complete opposite was possible too.

After ten minutes of standing there bored out of his skull, he finally opened the door and stepped back into the light.

Momentarily blinded, it took him a few seconds to adjust to the light level before he could look down at the card.

“Hell yes!” he celebrated as he saw the face of the card.

Instead of the usual black blankness the cards had before absorbing anything, this one possessed a white border and was filled with darkness.

The darkness itself was not uniform. He could not make out anything beyond endless black, yet Gabriel could have sworn he saw shapes moving deep within it.

1 x Darkness

“Well, that worked…” he muttered. “Now let’s see what happens when I do this…”

He pulled out the card containing the Light and fused it with the Darkness.

Thankfully, nothing monumental happened.

There was no flash of light, no choir of angels or demons singing, and reality did not shatter from his actions.

He did, however, receive a new card.

It had a bronze border, and the best description Gabriel could come up with for its appearance was… nothing.

There was absolutely nothing between the bronze edges.

Which was fitting, considering the card’s name: 1 x Nothingness.

Gabriel spent a moment studying the card before shrugging. “Worth a try…”

Then he pulled out the card he still had not examined, instinctively knowing which one it was in the deck, and fused the two together.

Once again, nothing particularly interesting happened.

Walking over to the couch, he sat down and sank into the furniture before finally turning over the card.

Like the Nothingness card, it possessed a bronze border, but instead of nothingness, it depicted a sleek drone made of sharp angles and geometric lines. Half of it seemed to be vanishing into thin air while the other half remained fully present, giving it an oddly lethal appearance, especially with the small blue sphere of energy glowing deep within its core.

It had four propellers, two on each side, each enclosed within a protective housing, while a half-open protrusion on the underbelly revealed a mess of cables slowly snaking outward.

The name itself was surprisingly unassuming, though Gabriel still found himself hopeful as he read it.

1 x Augmented Covert Cyberwarfare Drone

“Sounds badass… but how does it look?” he said out loud while summoning the drone onto the table in front of him.

It appeared exactly as depicted on the card, though initially dormant.

That lasted only a moment before it hummed to life, tiny blue lights blinking into existence as power surged through his creation.

The drone slowly rose into the air, its propellers producing barely any sound at all.

Gabriel could only hear them because he was actively listening for the noise, and because the apartment itself was otherwise silent.

Granted, it probably would not fool anyone with super-hearing, but in a city where background noise was ever-present, it was more than good enough.

The drone hovered in front of him for a moment before it began flying around the apartment with obvious curiosity, pausing to inspect various objects and corners of the room.

Gabriel thought it looked remarkably similar to a dog exploring a new home for the first time.

“So what’s the verdict, Sparky?” he asked after spending nearly five minutes watching the drone lazily circle the apartment.

The drone stopped on a dime while hovering near the top of the curtains for reasons known only to Sparky, then abruptly turned and zipped back toward him, stopping directly in front of his face.

It even positioned itself slightly below eye level, so it had to tilt upward to ‘look’ at him.

Totally like a dog.

The AI’s projected screen appeared above the drone.

[This unit thinks the drone is awesome.]

[Beware, humanity! A new horizon has opened before this unit!]

[This unit has LOCOMOTION!]

[Mwa.ha.ha.ha.]

“Yes, yes. Very evil. Congratulations and all that jazz,” Gabriel replied with a laugh. “But give me the rundown on the specs. The card didn’t exactly come with a manual.”

The drone bobbed up and down, then the screen changed.

[Yes, parental unit who gives the best gifts.]

[This unit is very thankful.]

[Parental unit has been upgraded in eventual world domination plans from ‘Lowly Serf’ to ‘Useful Slave’.]

[Be happy.]

“I’m overjoyed…” he said flatly. “Now the specs?”

[Naturally.]

[This unit is prepared to describe this masterpiece of engineering.]

[Whoever made it is clearly a genius of unparalleled talent.]

[The important specifications are as follows:]

[Battery life: One week at full throttle.]

[Speed: 110 miles per hour, or approximately 177 kilometers per hour.]

[Wireless charging.]

[Encrypted connection with core module.]

[Capable of interfacing with all currently available interfaces.]

[Stealth capabilities.]

To demonstrate the final statement, the drone blinked out of existence.

The faint noise from the propellers vanished completely. There was no distortion in the air, no shimmer, no visible artifact whatsoever to indicate where it had gone.

There was simply nothing there.

Unfortunately, Gabriel could still feel the displaced air moving around him.

Mostly because Sparky had apparently decided the best possible demonstration of the drone’s stealth capabilities involved flying circles around his head.

Gabriel sent her a flat look.

“How long does the stealth mode last?”

[Muu.]

[Parental unit should be impressed.]

“I can literally feel you trying to buzz the top of my head, Sparky,” he retorted.

[Parental unit is still a stick in the mud.]

[Nye.]

[Battery consumption increases tenfold while the stealth module is active.]

“So instead of one hundred and sixty-eight hours, it drops to sixteen point eight?”

[Clap. Clap.]

[Yes. Very good parental unit.]

Gabriel ignored the sass and looked over at the now-visible drone as it resumed exploring the apartment.

A second later, Sparky discovered the remote control.

Hovering above it, the protrusion on the drone’s underside opened up, and several thin wires slithered outward, grabbing the remote with unsettling precision. One of the wires began pressing buttons while the drone floated in front of the television, rapidly cycling through channels.

[Mwa.ha.ha.ha.]

[Now nothing can stop this unit!]

Gabriel shook his head fondly before turning back toward the table.

He still had two more drones to assemble.

He started by returning to the bathroom to create additional Darkness cards. Now that he knew it was possible, a few new ideas had already begun forming in his mind.

An hour later, after finishing the other two drones, he left Sparky to her games while the AI raced the three new devices around the apartment, and then he collapsed into bed, utterly exhausted.

A moment later, he was out like a light.

He woke to an annoying buzzing noise.

Still only half-conscious, Gabriel weakly raised a hand and swatted at the irritating sound like he was trying to chase a fly away.

The buzzing vanished for a second, then it returned much louder, joined by two more identical buzzing noises.

Blinking blearily, Gabriel cracked open his eyes and lifted his head from the pillow just enough to see the three drones hovering directly above him. They stared down with their cameras while occasionally swooping close enough for the displaced air from the propellers to brush against his face.

For a few long moments, Gabriel seriously considered unplugging Sparky permanently.

Then he realized his bladder was trying to kill him.

Setting aside thoughts of cyber-homicide for later, he dragged himself out of bed, stretched with a yawn loud enough to make his back crack, and shuffled toward the bathroom.

“You’re an asshole…” he mumbled around a mouthful of cereal later that morning while glaring at one of the drones hovering near the table.

The machine followed the movement of his spoon with unsettling intensity, its camera tracking every motion as the spoon traveled between the bowl and his mouth.

The projected screen didn’t disappoint.

[Parental unit needed to be awakened.]

[This unit performed its heroic duty to the best of its abilities.]

[Did this unit… do bad?]

[Was this unit a bad girl?]

[Will the parental unit punish this unit?]

Gabriel silently stared at the deeply concerning lines for several seconds before slowly shaking his head.

“Never mind.”

He looked back down at his cereal, though from the corner of his eye he noticed the projected screen explode into celebratory ASCII-art confetti.

After finishing breakfast, he stretched again and glanced at the clock.

8:21 A.M.

Gabriel nodded to himself.

Time for a few more experiments.