But no, his current liquid cash was due to some craftiness by Dragon herself. Not only was she selling the schematics (Garden systems being spread was the whole point after all!), but she was setting up agreements and such with local big-shots, to delay deployment of the Garden systems in certain markets.
The payments needed to shut Adam's company down temporarily grew in cost over time though, so one way or another Garden systems would be sold on a global scale.
But this both provided more income in the short term and allowed the still accelerating production line to handle the current and future surge in orders.
So yeah, money. Already he had his financial guru buying up debt, foreclosed buildings, and near-bankrupt businesses. Both here in Brockton Bay and up in Toronto Canada.
Money wouldn't follow him easily when he left this reality, so investment was the plan.
Anyway, the global fund and charity would not only handle relief funding after Endbringer attacks but would pay basic salaries to any Parahuman with healing related abilities, bonuses if they volunteered at shelters, clinics, or hospitals, and more.
Healers who volunteered for dangerous situations would gain automatic life insurance and healthcare, relocation of family if desired, and a budget if their power required certain items to work toward healing. Healing Tinkers both existed AND needed funds and tools.
By the end of the week Dragon was already pushing the right buttons to speed the new charity 'Open Hands' along, and surprisingly Legend himself endorsed the charity during an interview. How she arranged that, no idea, but it hit the internet like an explosion.
During the same week...
After a certain number of people, it just got boring. There were one or two who had genetic disorders that Amy had to disable before his healing could fix stuff, and only a couple of crazy moments. Although one guy was CONVINCED he was dying because his friends shaved his head while everyone was drunk. How he got through security, Adam had no clue.
Amy had given him a bright red, black, white, brown, AND yellow Afro after some angry arguments, but the weirdo loved the thing and refused to allow anyone to remove it.
Just... what the hell.
Once it was confirmed that Adam could heal on contact (Although he didn't bother doing 'Peak' or 'Enhanced' options), they introduced 'Glory Girl', aka 'Victoria Dallon', to hopefully convert his healing to area-of-effect.
It went poorly.
Who even knew what 'Capraphobia' was?
Glory Girl didn't have it in the damn canon story, he new THAT much.
Amy was still pouting at the closet. "Vicky, come out already! You're hurting his feelings."
Adam glanced at the man-goat, rolling silently on the ground with his board covered in 'HA!'.
He's probably fine.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Eventually Adam had to create a flame metal cube framework with flame-mesh curtains.
Scapegoat convinced him to add the 'Do not feed the Goats' sign.
It complicated everything. Now every patient had to go through evaluation, go into the goat cage, come out for consultation, read the message boards poking out of the goat cage, and then go through healing.
If it was Scapegoat's turn, they had to (again) go into the goat cage.
Victoria was on the other side of the room, sitting with Amy... who was basically treating Vicky as a pet right now. 'Everything is alright', 'The bad goat is gone', 'Your new crown is very pretty', etc etc.
Since Amy seemed to be having fun, Adam let it go. He had to take breaks anyway because Dragon would have documentation brought in at regular intervals. Charities took a LOT of paperwork, even with an awesome Dragon + Dragon Lawyers backing you up.
Still, the day was progressing along nicely until a comatose person was wheeled in.
Adam was the first to call a break and gather everyone up.
...Scapegoat had a 'paper' bag over his head. He was still finding this hilarious.
Glancing at the others, assistants and doctors left outside, he looked at his boss. "Dragon, I am mostly sure our next patient is not injured. In fact, I am pretty sure they are a cape with some sort of problem handling their power."
The random fidgeting between the kids stopped, and the metal 'bag' was fully focused. Dragon frowned. "That... was not planned. We wanted to avoid exposing you to other powers until your whole process was better documented."
Adam spent a charge on 'Research', focused on dimensional scanning. This ability would eventually split off when he created 'Time' and 'Space' powers, but 'Recovery' needed it to heal anyone with abilities safely.
He nodded. "I want to have Amy give him a checkup while I am in contact with them both in 'Research' mode. I will need some experience sometime, and this patient has family consent for healing already given." He frowned. "Plus, it may be his power causing the issue in the first place."
The conversation went back and forth a bit, and in the end parents were called. Thanks to Victoria's bickering Amy's mom gave in and gave permission... so on-wards!
There was a minor pause when Adam's paper hair and text eyes formed. Well, except for Scapegoat who had somehow got a marker to put a smiley face on his bag. Amy was impressed that, unlike my flame form, this one DID have biological parts in place to 'grow' more hair and fingernails. So... it may be genetic.
Neat.
And then the bio-tinkering.
Following Amy's power actions was... fascinating. She was not just claiming meat and ordering it to grow or move or whatever, that would be reasonable. No, her power was creating tiny, VERY tiny dimensional portals, so small that with one charge 'Research' could only confirm they existed.
And from these tiny space holes were shards of crystal, too small for any instrument or tool Adam knew of currently available to analyze.
Each crystal was basically a nano-machine, a tiny robot that existed only long enough to make a fraction of a fraction of a change.
No wonder she could reconstruct random biological stuff into needed components, this was new-magic technological wizardry. The power worked on such a tiny frame of time and at such a small scale that only a power dedicated to observation (Thanks 'Research'!) could he even detect ANYTHING.
He waited till Amy decided that this WAS likely a power issue and she had given up before speaking. "Amy, could I talk to you for a second?"
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Pulling her to the side, he gave a small, reassuring smile. "First of all, I want to say how impressive your ability is to me."
Aww, her blush was adorable. "Secondly, my 'Research' skill informed me of something your power does that you, yourself, are unaware of."
Dang, her face was tightening up in fear and suspicion. He waved a hand. "Nothing bad, Amy. Something... interesting though. I want to tell you first so you can decide if you want anyone else to know. It is YOUR power after all."
She took a deep breath. "Ah. Alright." She seemed to settle herself. "Lay it on me."
Adam nodded. "You are not a healer, and you are not a bio-tinker or a biological manipulator."
Amy blinked. "What?"
He changed into 'Flame Manipulation' and held up a flame model. "Yeah, its strange. Your power is to select an area, like a person or animal or whatever, and allow your power to create very tiny machines that make very small changes before vanishing. It explains why most of your ability is research oriented, allowing diagnostics and advanced knowledge of how biology works when it comes to future potential changes."
Adam grinned at her stunned expression as she watched the floating flame robot. "In other words, most of your powers are in the end a very strong computer somewhere in space-time combined with manufacturing tools small enough to do surgery safely. Considering that metals and stuff can occur naturally in the body on small scale, it may be possible through effort to scan or even modify solid objects... though it could take a long time for any change, considering how small your tools are."
He twisted the floating flame machine image, dozens of other flame models he had seen blossoming into flame and floating nearby. "Honestly, you are more a robotics tinker with major biological knowledge and talent. Basically a secret Tinker in disguise."
It took a few seconds before he realized that she was... well, not fainting, that doesn't really happen much in life unless someone is dehydrated or has blood loss, but certainly blanking out while staring at the floating objects.
Adam sympathized, the things were fascinating. Some were rods, some had noodly things, a few were all joints. No idea what each one did of course, but neat.
He poked her shoulder. "So... I know a Tinker who is really good at helping out tinkers. Want to talk to Dragon a bit?"
We had to wheel the patient out and pretty much call a break after Amy allowed Adam to share the new information with Dragon.
And it just so happened that she knew a local Tinker who may have quite some knowledge of small, efficient machines.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Armsmaster was covered in blue armor with silver edges. Adam's silver armor with blue edges rapidly changed to mirror the man's outfit due to how much more awesome his was. Armor buddies!
In the other mans defense, he took it in stride. "Armsmaster. You must be Variance?"
Adam took the handshake and nodded. "Yes sir, but you can feel free to call me Adam when off duty. I'm the one everyone is going out of the way to help stabilize my powers and hopefully make them more team-oriented."
The nod was... well, efficient. Not sure what Adam expected really. "Dragon has given me a high level summary, but I would like details about the original discovery of Miss Dallon's actual power manifestation."
Adam blinked. "One moment while I change power-sets." Go 'Technomancy'! Black nails, cyber eyes, awesome hair... rad. "Do you have an email for a large file transfer? I can convert my memories and impressions into other formats very easily."
Something like approval came from the other man. Not verbal of course. The bearded tinker looked to the side... Oh, the sexy cyber must have been using Adam's 'vision' over the last week or so to practice something similar for use with Armsmaster's headset. "Dragon, give him the account information we use for project transference." A near inaudible beep made him pause, as some software gave him a notice. "I mean, please. And thank you."
Dragon's grin had something like a motherly vibe for a moment before she was back to full bounciness. "Of course, Armsmaster."
Whom had already begun unpacking the various transport packages and setting up some VERY complicated looking equipment for scanning.
Contact, data compression, requested formats? Yeah those would work. And send. "The raw data, with transcriptions and info summary, has been sent. I also included a high level summary, but I can give an overview for those of us with slower processing speed."
The grunt pretty much informed everyone that it was 'understood, but I am currently attaching wires to...' whatever that was.
Victoria (Whom Amy had insisted stay for moral support) raised a hand. "I have been lost for like... an hour now. Actually, I'm not even sure why we stopped healing people."
Adam nodded at the girl. Her aura ability was nearly negated with all the Null Metal he was wearing, it considered her power as a type of energy field, so only his exposed hands and head were getting the impact. No idea how Scapegoat was handling it, but based on the laughter he wasn't getting a 'fear' response.
Adam waved a hand toward Amy. "So with the low quality tools everyone had, it looked like this brilliant young lady..." A nod, and she seemed to squirm under everyone's glances. "She thought she was doing something simple like changing people to be healthier. And to be fair, her power acted like that. But in reality, what she was doing was determining what changes she wanted to make... then a really strong computer or something like one was making tiny robots to follow her orders."
He shrugged. "But the robots are tiny and can barely do anything, so they fall apart. They also use some of the parts she is getting rid of, like broken bones and stuff, to help create those small robots and the healthy bits that are made later."
Seeing her still a bit confused, he glanced a Dragon but continued. "Basically she has a tiny robot army that helps people."
Vicky was wide eyed. "She's a robot princess!?"
Amy jumped. "NO!"
Adam grinned. "She's a robot QUEEN."
Amy shoved him. "NO NO!"
Vicky squealed! "We can get matching crowns!"
Her sister pointed in anger. "Don't you make me get Mr. Goat!"
...It devolved from there.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Healing people with powers was on hold.
Amy was grumbling while Armsmaster set up all kinds of gadgets in a corner.
Victoria was floating as far to the back corner as possible, and was only really staying quiet due to how fast she was texting her family. Apparently, those crowns require some preparation work before being crafted and the over-eager girl was jumping all over that.
That said corner happened to be on the opposite side of the 'Goat Cage', where Scapegoat was still 'Baa'ing in amusement, was irrelevant.
Adam himself was awkwardly sitting at the table in the middle of the room with a few non-Parahuman doctors and nurses. If he went anywhere else, it would be taking a side.
Thankfully the tension was broken by Armsmaster. "They are not robots."
Seeing the girls attention, he pointed at a screen. "Too small, not enough components for any level of instruction. Your power is creating a series of tiny tools. Springs, rotating levers, heat transfer rods, chemical catalysts, and so forth."
A model was rotating on the screen, showing many basic shapes. Adam's flames were cooler, in his opinion. "Your power creates tiny objects that are in the midst of moving. Where and at what orientation those objects are added to the patient handles the 'healing' you do."
Adam glanced at Dragon. "So the real power is whatever is calculating where to place those devices, what orientation they have, and how far along the tiny movements are at?"
Armsmaster barely nods, focused on the devices. "The crystal material itself doesn't exist long enough for capture or anything more than the shortest amount of examination. The models only completed due to the sheer number deployed during a repair."
Dragon was 'leaning' against the wall, looking slightly concerned. "Did this affect how you heal people, Variance? You already developed some pretty intense technological powers already."
Adam shook his head. "No, the feeling is more like it was inspired by Panacea's power, not copying it. In fact, I can not do minor or selective changes, like gene therapy or cosmetic surgery. My power has basic settings that I can't change yet. Give it a few days."
Thankfully this has Amy distracted from her slight 'Queen' freakout. "What kind of settings?"
He counted off. "Triage, or 'Stabilized'. Just enough to keep them alive without me. 'Standard', where you get a full heal. 'Peak', which tries to make you the best you can genetically be without extra DNA or hardware. And... uh."
Adam sighed. "Well, the last level I haven't used yet. It is 'Enhanced', which will use any and all knowledge, abilities, and surroundings to make me as powerful as possible. It will cut down my lifespan, toss out some organs and such not needed for short term combat, and rebuild me as basically a weapon of destruction. Extra organs and limbs with robot parts are pretty likely."
Seeing the shock he waved it away. "Going back to 'Standard' or 'Peak' would heal me right up, lifespan and all. It just would hurt, not last for too long, and... well, I would not trust it on other people until my skills improved by a LOT."
Armsmaster looked intrigued. "Have you used 'Peak' on anyone else so far during testing?"
Adam shook his head. "No, kept it 'standard'. Felt like anything else would required user consent beyond the whole 'heal me, please' that we have been collecting."
Whatever Armsmaster was going to say was cut off by a slight sigh from Dragon. "Orders from on high: No use of 'peak' on anyone until this whole healing session deal is over. They want a far more recorded and secure facility before possibly enhancing someone to almost Parahuman levels."
Adam shrugged. "That's fine, I'm not sure what my power would do to someone else anyway at that point." He blinked. "Or... or what it would do to someone who already had powers. My 'Peak' healing skill just makes you the best you can be... and that may apply to their power as well."
Ooo, good face-palm Dragon! "Correction: When my contact finishes freaking out she will likely delay testing even longer now."
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The several day wait was punctuated by periodic requests from Armsmaster for various custom Flame Metal and Null Metal products, which he was ecstatic over. Not that it was easy to tell, but Dragon let him know.
The healing in general dropped to only two hours a day, which was still dozens of patients due to how fast treatment was.
At this point Adam had gained and used enough charges to allow 'Recovery' to (when desired) suggest changes and wait for approval before running through the still automatic process.
Thus genetic issues could be addressed, and he could now handle cosmetic work with no issue. No idea if he could fix the 'mutant' case 53's, because the testers were working REALLY HARD to prevent any more 'cape' patients.
Legend endorsing Adam's charity had accidentally become a huge boom in all of his businesses dealings as well, as everyone did background checks on this strange new guy.
At this point, his original name for his charity had been ignored and tossed by the public, and everyone was just calling it 'Charity Garden'. To the point where Dragon got it officially updated.
Well, it could be worse.
Anyway, 'Charity Garden' had some unexpected gains. Of course the Heroes applauded the concept, more healing is great, but surprisingly Villains in general were giving positive reviews of the deal. And the number of new self-reporting healing capes had hit double digits, as the few people with healing powers finally found a safer outcome than 'Someone finds out and a gang kidnaps or kills you.'
The ones with little or no attachments had actually signed up with The Guild directly, and Narwhal had backed them up to the hilt. There was now a healing division that was being set up so they could share ideas, gain advanced equipment, and get deployed during disasters.
Still, there were two days until he was scheduled to attempt to heal a person with Parahuman abilities. Two days.
Two charges.
Glancing at the 'Efficiency Tinker' Armsmaster, whom he had been around all this time...
Maybe time to enhance the 'Cybernetic Warfare Suite' by adding a 'Software/Hardware Optimization' option.
Victoria squealed. "Queen P! Aunt Sarah says she already has a princess dress with healing symbols on it!"
Amy growled. "Aunt Sarah is about to have a coffin with her NAME on it."
Vicky grinned. "Can it be pink?"
Her sister was only stationary due to all the sensor wires attached. "It will be black with hatred and filled with vengeance."
...Uh. This will be fine.
Just in case, how is Scapegoat doing?
...Is that a Tin Can!?
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