Nova Academy: A Superhero & Supervillain Novel Read online

  Chapter 17

  When I walk into the student labs, the place is buzzing with people talking in little groups. Some are huddled up like they wish they had a Cone of Silence covering them so no one can hear what they're saying, while others are as loud as the apes over at Atlas Quad having an argument over some power amplifier technology I tinkered with, and passed on, a few years ago. By the time I'm half way across the Lab Lounge heading for the hall that leads back to the lockers and private labs most of them have turned and are staring at me. A few of the ones staring are in my Advanced Engineering class, so I'm not sure what the big surprise is about. For the rest, I'm guessing they're wondering who the hell I am and what am I doing in their labs. Most have never seen me before as I'm not living in the Oppenheimer Quad where all the rest of the science students live. I'm pretty happy with that decision, by the way. Even with all the stares. Because there have already been two evacuations of the dorm at Oppenheimer Quad due to out-of-control experiments, and we're only in the first week. Mad scientists are freaking dangerous when they get around each other. It’s like they each have to top the others on a daily basis.

  I ignore the stares and continue down the hall to my locker. When I get there I pull out my tablet and interface it with my lock. Three people have tried to tamper with the lock, without success, and their fingerprints are being downloaded to my tablet. This particular lock looks like a common hardened key lock used by the military to secure arms lockers, which is what it started out as when I purchased it in a lot auction of army surplus a few years ago. After some minor modifications it is now a hybrid electronic/key lock that looks like a key lock. I type my password into my tablet that reactivates the key lock’s mechanism and proceed to unlock my locker.

  My first project is to build a number of very strong, but very flexible, power distribution systems with amplifiers and cabling that I will need for the armor suit. I already have the computer language instructions to download into the school's robotic prototyping 3D lathes to make all of the parts and I'll just need to cut the various small blocks of the superconducting composite I developed. After that it is a matter of wrapping the coils and adding the electronic components, which I had made over the summer. The last step will be calibrations, but that won't happen until they are installed into the suit and connected.

  Access to a private lab is strictly scheduled and they are so in demand you can only get a few hours per week in one. For the rest of the time you have to use the machines in the common lab, which are just as good as the private lab equipment, they’re just first-come first-serve and you have to stay with the machine or someone will junk your stuff because they want to use the machine. It seems to be a pretty common thing for super genius types to be completely oblivious to the fact someone else may be using the equipment they want to use and not even notice they're trashing someone else's production run. It's amazing they (we) can be so oblivious while being so brilliant.

  My time in the private lab is scheduled for 4:00 AM on Sunday. I scheduled it then because you can get an extra hour of lab time if you're willing to work the least demand times. I'm not sure if Carly and I will be going out Saturday night. I'm hoping we are, but we've both been assuming the other was available all week and not planning anything until the day of for anything we do. Maybe if we do dinner and a movie I can get back early enough to get a decent amount of sleep before going to the lab.

  I grab my memory stick and tool box from my locker, lock it back up, and head over to the first-come, first-serve machine shop. All of the advanced robotic lathes are in use, but I can see one guy running a batch of casings for something who looks most of the way done as he has a big stack of completed casings and only a couple metal blocks left he is cutting them from. The guy, actually the girl, doing the production run is sitting beside it reading the same textbook I'm using for Advanced Engineering.

  "Excuse me. Hi. Are you the one using this machine?" I ask.

  She looks up from her textbook and pushes her protective goggles up her nose, "What? Oh, yeah, that's mine."

  "Are those two the last ones you have to do? If they are, I'd like to use the machine when you're done if no one else has claimed it."

  "Uh, yeah, Sure. I'm almost done." She looks around like she is seeing if anyone else wants her machine before me, then says, "Are you supposed to be here? I've never seen you before and the labs are only for use by the science students."

  I don't bother correcting her that the common science labs and machine shops here, and every other department's public spaces, have unrestricted access for all students. The only restrictions are on the private labs that are restricted by major. It doesn't matter anyway, I'm a science student. I point at her textbook, "I'm taking the same class you are. Are you in Dr. Manning's afternoon class? I have him in the morning."

  "Really? I haven't seen you around. What dorm are you in?"

  "I'm not staying in Oppenheimer. I can't do all science all the time. When I'm not working I need to be able to turn it off and do other things."

  She looks at me like I'd just spoken a blasphemy to her religion. "Are you being rude to me?"

  "No!" I smile and start to laugh at such an odd question, but catch myself. This is what it's like talking to super science types; it's hard to carry on a regular conversation without it going sideways. "Anyway, I hope to see you around the science buildings some time. I'm going to wait over here until you're finished.” I point to the lathe, “By the way, it looks like your piece just finished."

  As soon as I mention her part being completed, she forgets I exist and turns away to open up the plexiglass cabinet of the 3D lathe to swap out the casing for the next metal block.

  Her last two parts take another ten minutes to complete and I use the time to look at the plans on my tablet for the flexible joint pieces of my suit. I have another formula for the synthetic material of the actual suit worked out, but I'm still deciding on the how-to to produce it into a material I can use to construct the best combination of flexibility and protection. It either has to be made into sheets or into a woven armor cloth.

  With armor suits, it's all about finding the right combination of protection strength, weight, flexibility, and durability that you can. That also fits in your budget. Which is one of the coolest things about Nova Academy. The facilities I have access to here will allow me to make my suit for about one percent of the cost it would take me to build it if I had to contract out all the manufacturing, which I would have to do if I wasn't going to the Academy. Even with the huge cost of tuition here, I'll come out a hundred grand ahead in savings in the suit cost. It would be millions if I was buying the technology and designs instead of making them myself. The only things I have to outsource are the prototype microprocessors I designed, and the optics and display systems that will be in my heads-up display. If there's a drawback, it's that building it here might take all year.

  I get the machine after the girl finishes her last part and dissuade some clown that just walked in of the notion he's next. The guy is an ass and actually threatens me when he leaves. Anyway, I'm on the machine and have about three hours of lathe time before I'm finished. I can't leave, not just because I need to protect my job. I also have to change out the pieces each time one finishes. This machine isn't quite as advanced as some of the others in the room that have a feeder that automatically loads new raw materials and custom programming when the last job finishes.

  I'm going to be spending a lot of time sitting next to these machines this year as I make most of the parts I need, so I come prepared with the plans for the suit to study on my tablet. I stick with working on my suit designs while the robotic lathes do their thing, but don't have an answer to my joint pieces issue yet. What I do have is a bunch of research to do to get my answer. After that, I move to the project I'll be working on when I get to use the private lab.

  I reserved the lab set up for working with armor plates where you can do metallurgical and ceramics. This lab is awesome with
high temperature furnaces for forging extremely high melting point materials, ovens for controlled cooling, and centrifuges for working with ceramics, and a dozen different types of fabrication machines that will let you pour and shape armor plates or even weave armor cloth. I can even make my own ballistic cloth here if I want, that is if I didn't already have a vastly improved material to use for flexible ballistic armor. The armor plates I designed are on par with the depleted uranium used in main battle tanks, without the need for creating it from a toxic radioactive element. It has just as much strength as DU, but can be tempered to different rigidities. I can't wait for Sunday.

  I look up to see two guys standing next to my machine. Both are skinny and wearing Arena Robot T-shirts, but one is about a foot taller than the other and has a white band around his forearm that extends from his wrist almost to his elbow. I can't tell what it is for as there is nothing on the surface showing. It either has a lid covering the controls or it's operated in some other manner. There is an optical pickup on the end of the device, near his wrist. It could be anything from a camera to a laser, there's no telling from what I can see.

  The shorter one has his nose pressed against the glass looking at my lathe cut out the power couplings I’m making I had just put in a few minutes ago. I know it still looks more like a block of metal than a casing, so he's not getting much from the view.

  "Can I help you?" I ask, not in the friendliest manner.

  The taller one's looking at my completed couplings sitting on the cart beside the lathe. He turns to me and says, "What are you making."

  "Matchbox cars."

  "Really," looking back to the stack of casings, "Not sure they look like cars."

  "That's odd." I respond and go back to working on my tablet while keeping one eye on the two nosey bastards.

  Peeling his nose off the glass cover of the lathe, the shorter one steps over to the cart and reaches for one of the finished couplings.

  "Don't. Don't touch the casings,” I tell him, adding a “Please," at the end. He's got my full attention now and I set my tablet down on the cart with the blocks waiting to be run through the lathe. My body language and tone are in conflict. The tone I use is flat, almost disinterested. However, my body language says I'm about to jump him if he touches my stuff.

  He keeps reaching for a casing, but stops his hand a few inches from the casing when his buddy elbows him. At least one of them can read body language. The short one goes, "What? I'm just looking at it."

  "Leave his stuff alone," he says, then to me, "You about done with the machine?"

  He can see I have several blocks left to run through the machine, so I'm thinking this is a poor attempt at intimidation.. "I'll be done in a little bit."

  "Sure, we'll see you around."

  I reply with raised eyebrows. That was a little odd for a couple science supers. Most would just come up and pick up a casing and start looking at it without even noticing me. I watch them leave the lab and catch a look at them speaking to the guy who threatened me through the door of the machine shop. They're standing in the hall outside the shop and the guy who threatened me is getting in their face. That could be trouble. I'll have to keep an eye out for that guy, or maybe I'll just pound the crap out of him until he decides he doesn't want to threaten me anymore.

  It takes me until near midnight to finish making the various parts I need. When I'm done I gather them up and head back to my locker to collect what I'll need to assemble them in the dorm tomorrow, and I head back to my dorm.

  Chapter 18

  We're three weeks into the semester and both Carly and I have just finished our first round of tests in our specialties. Carly aced her telepathy tests, which makes complete sense with what she was tested on, "Passive Redirection of a non-Telepathic Subject", which is basically what she does on a mass scale every time we have lunch in the Commons of Atlas Quad. My test wasn't difficult, either. I had to create a housing for a jack hammer. The only trick to it is you have to reinforce the stress points and make it robust enough to handle the constant hammering of the piston.

  By the way, there is not a mad scientist alive who ever made a housing for a “jack hammer.” But, there are countless mad scientists who have made housings for heavy machine guns and light auto-cannons that have been mounted on a wide variety of vehicles, robots, battle suits, and hidden base guard towers.

  It is simply amazing how similar a housing for a jack hammer and one for a mounted weapon are in construction, even while being complete opposites in public perception of their suitability for teaching how to build to advanced engineering students in an advanced engineering class at a nationally recognized university, even if it is a private school.

  After our exams I meet Carly at the Valderen Quad. Armando Valderen is the most famous shape shifter in history who lived about a hundred years ago. Carly and I get a table after getting our food, the selection of which is almost exclusively protein based.

  We’re enjoying watching Nova Academy’s version of the Westminster Dog Show when Carly says to me, "You know, there is more than one reason I want to get to know you. And, I am very glad I'm getting to know you, by the way. The first is that I like you and want to get to know you is because you’re cute and I like you, but there is a second reason that is just as important to me."

  That sounds like a prepared speech. I guess my assuming she just wants me for my body is wrong. "Really? You mean there's something more important than girl-likes-boy, boy-likes-girl?"

  "I don't know about MORE important, but maybe just as important. Don't get me wrong, I'm digging the G-L-B, B-L-G, thing we have going."

  I'm not sure where this is going, but I do agree with the boy-likes-girl part and wait for her to continue.

  Carly gets that same unsure look she had the night she explained why she was poking around in my head. "But, seriously. I don't want to…. Okay, look. I want you to be my partner. We could make a great team and you're someone I think I can trust and rely on.” I’m staring at her with that stupid look people give me when I try to explain to them how one of my inventions works.

  “Like for doing super things with,” she tries to explain to me. Nothing. “Like for doing superhero things with.”

  Ding! The freight elevator has arrived.

  Carly is biting on her bottom lip, or more like scratching her bottom lip with her teeth. I'm learning she does that when she's uncertain of something or afraid of an answer. "What do you think of teaming up?"

  I look at her and am surprised at what I'm hearing. Not so surprised that it doesn't make sense. It actually does. I already know Carly digs the idea of being a super and even did some of it in high school similar to what I used to do with Bubble-E. But, we haven't spoken about anything even closely related to superhero work. "Wow. Uh, that could be really cool, but…." I pause.

  "But what?"

  "But we haven't even gotten to the point where we trust each other enough to share what all of our powers are. Or, what our goals are. I know you're a telepath. And a pretty powerful one at that. But you haven't told me what all you can to with your mental powers or what other powers you have. You haven't told me you're at least a Class 2 body type. Even though I can feel that for myself just by holding your hand, you've never actually told it to me. Actually, you're not a baseline in any way that I can tell." I raise my eyebrows when I look up at her, "Are you willing to share your secrets?"

  "Are you? I know you're fast. I know you're strong. And, I know you're about the most intelligent person I've ever met anywhere. What I don't know is how fast, how strong, or how your smarts stack up against, say, a mad scientist. God only knows what else you have going on. You seem to avoid the muscle in your quad, but I'm not sure if you avoid them because they’re idiots and can hurt you, or if it's because you're too smart to want to be around a bunch of walking construction equipment." Carly crosses her arms and I realize this is one of those times that my social skills can sometimes be a little too clinical – and clueless.
And, I might have hurt her feelings when I immediately started poking holes in the idea. Not much I can do about it at this point, though.

  I take a deep breath and give a little twinge around my eyes like I'm feeling pain. "Sure. Mostly. I mean – maybe not right away for everything. But, eventually. At least for what we're likely to be doing, yes. Honestly, there are a few things I have not even shared with my best friend back home. My plan is to use the time I'm here at Nova Academy to become someone that can take on anything that comes at me and, as much as I'm able,” I hedge, “to do it without anyone knowing what I’m doing."

  Carly isn't sure what I just said, so she cuts to the chase, "Are you saying you want to partner? Because it sounds to me like you're going to need a lot of practice if you're going to be a super."

  “I’m not sure I want to be hero though” I tell her, anxious to see her reaction.

  Carly looks startled for a minute before asking, “You want to be a villain?”

  “Not necessarily. I want to be me. Free to do what is right for me,” I tell her.

  “You want to be a super villain.” This time she says it as a statement and I can’t tell if the new look on her face is disapproval or not.

  “Like I said, not necessarily.” I am not that black and white, but I’m not going to get into it with her if she disapproves.

  Carly might be starting to get a little testy with me. I can't be certain. I am certain I'm not doing a good job of expressing myself at the moment, and I’m okay with that. I want to see her reaction first, which she gives, "When you come out as a super, and declare your name, it's a big deal. From that moment on you’re fair game – you're a target for whichever side you don’t choose. You’re not choosing either side is going to have everyone after you.”