Sakurako walks up the steps to WCK headquarters, a few of her security experts walking along side her, in grey work-suits. Various tools worn with large belts and pouches slung with leather straps, some like bandoleers. She's leading a technological army. One dedicated to help WCK's security needs.

"Okay, I want you guys to work with Jager and his compatriots. Follow their every instruction. Do not go into any secured areas. Do we have an understanding, ladies and gentlemen?"

They nod, or say "yes, Ma'am" or whatever suits for acknowledgement of her orders, as she walks in, the others following in behind her. She still has her face body covered by her favorite cloak. For all the change she went through, she still feels the cold, and is affected by it. She sees the head receptionist and walks over.

"Ah, hello there."

The receptionist looks up from her physics books she was studying. She had been using her job to pay her way through college.

"Hello, Ma'am. You are..."

Sakurako pulls back her hood, revealing her pale, plastic-like skin. Her pink hair moves now as if it was made out of hair-thin rubber strips.

"Sakurako Hino, from Sakurako Technological Innovations and Applications."

The receptionist looks over her for a moment. She's seen people with sand for skin, Elves, metal-men, and the like. This is almost mundane for her experience.

"Ah, the plastic woman."

"Um, actually, it's a yet unidentified polymer."

"Whatever. Alchemist has been waiting for you. Wait here and I'll page him."

"Very well.... Do you have a coffee machine? My assiciates here have been pulling all-nighters to get things ready."

"Over by the press pamphlets, Miss Hino."

"Thank you."

She sees the donuts and coffee laid out already.

"It looks like you were expecting us."

"Yep... now if you'll excuse me, I have to let Alchemist know you're here."

The receptionist closes her book, and adjusts her glasses, then walks into a special elevator behind her desk.

Well, this isn't the Justice Leagus headquarters up here... Not what I expected either, the offices here aren't advanced in the slightest. Barely any cameras in here either. Just at certain angles for that odd reality show they do here.

She smiles, and waves to one of the cameras with her trademark smile. Not diminished with her recent change by one bit.

Alchemist hears the page, and knows what it means even before he listens to the receptionist's announcement that Endeavor had arrived. After all, he'd been waiting for her. Sandcaster wanted to be in on the actual improvements they made, but it was his job to show Sakurako around and discuss the technical details.

He'd been doing some light 'spring cleaning', re-arranging the contents of his various cabinets and closets in his lab in an attempt to make them more friendly to his team mates when he wasn't around to pull things out for them. And making up a mental list of improvements to his anti-nova arsenal.

In the process, he'd done just what he'd suggested he would on the boards: he'd poked around his prototypes closet and found something he thought Sakurako would find interesting. It was his first and only attempt at building a molecular computer, which had proved wildly successful beyond his highest expectations, and yet still completely useless. He'd built a simple interface around it, and plugged it into a solar powered calculator as the processor, and tossed it into his 'prototypes' closet.

He grabbed that calculator off a table and walked upstairs to greet his guests. "Ohio gozaimasu, Miss Hino. Welcome to Chicago. And happy birthday." He tosses the calculator to Sakurako.

She catches the Calculator, but only barely. "Whoa... careful. It must be fragile, no?"

She grins, looking at the new bauble.

"So, is this more than a calculator? Or does it just have long calculations? Like, perhaps a finally solved pi?"

She smiles.

"Although, I've been interested in something. I hear you have a certain cube capable of an adaptable geometry and mass, forming into any object concievable to a certain size. Truely an Alchemist's creation."

She blushes, the blush itself is quite more noticible on her pale skin.

"Actually, DigiGeist told me about it. He was bragging how he used it to rope up a suspect in that incident."

She downcasts her gaze, feeling guilty she rejected a gift for something else.

"Then again, I am also interested in just how this calculator of your works. That is, after you brief me on the goings on here."

As a quick response to Sakurako's comment of 'it must be fragile', Alchemist shakes his head and just says, "Nothing I make is fragile." But for the rest he just smile enigmatically.

"Oh, the variable-geometry polymer cube. Yes, it's handy, but I still haven't nearly worked all the bugs out of it. For one thing, it doesn't change mass at all, just shape. It changes volume by creating air and vacuum pockets, and thus might appear to change mass as well, but it doesn't really. The real problem with it is that it's so fragile. If the guy Digi had caught with it had really struggled, he probably could have ripped right through it."

Alchemist seems to be just getting started on his explanation when a thought seems to hit him. "Oh, wait, right, we need to talk about those security upgrades first, of course. Trading gadgets can come later. Walk with me, I'll show you around."

While Sakurako may have already gotten a look around the Headquarters, Alchemist shows her all of the security-important details. He walks her through the main entrance, shows her the layout of the bottom floor and all of the easily accessible windows and emergency doors and ladders. He points out the security station on this floor, which doubles as a recording studio for the Knights. It's in the center of the building, with two entrances on opposite sides of the room. He then takes her up a floor, and shows her the medical facility, the workout room, the backup security center (currently unmanned), and the janator's staff-room. The third floor of the building holds the war-room, some storage and a couple of guest rooms for visitors who don't have anywhere else to stay.

"The other levels of the building aren't really used for much beyond storage, but we made sure we had plenty of room to expand into when we chose this building. Security was a concern but not nearly our biggest one. And presently our main security force is, well, us."

Alchemist gestures back to the elevator and leads Sakurako to the first basement level, which contains the computers (which used to be Bandwidth's private lair) and his lab.

"I've never been very good at building autonomous robots. The best I can manage is wind-up toys and quantum puppets. I have recently created a cyborg, but that was under special circumstances, and he requires a lot of hands-on maintenance. We've considdered human guards for the building, but in the event of an actual attack we didn't want to have to deal with getting a large human staff out of danger. So, what suggestions can you make?"

"And not just for the building, but for Chicago at large," comes a voice from the door. An older, somewhat handsome woman enters the lab and extends a hand toward Endeavor. "It's good to finally meet you in person, Ms. Hino; I'm Sandcaster."

Sakurako shakes Sandcaster's hand.

"Pleasure to meet you, I've always wanted to meet you, myself."

She indeed is amazed at Sandcaster, one composed of living sand.

"I think I have the Chicago coverage beat."

With a wave of a hand, a drone comes into view, out of it's visual cloak.

"It's one of my mini-blimp drones. It has a camera, with several visual modes and 10x zoom. The skin of the mini-blimp's hull and gas-bag is a polymer with an installed chromatophore array that allows the blimp to be made invisible up to near-close range. It also has a silent hover and crawl mode, with a faster, but nore noisier pursuit mode."

She points to the multi-vestor engines on each side of the drone.

"Also, if someone you're tailing is too fast, it can increase altitude and use it's zoom feature to keep track, or it can coordinate with several of it's "sister" drones."

She points to a flat pad on the front.

"And this, is an adhesive grip tether, good for 250 pounds force. It doesn't use glue, but a mechanic similar to what a Gekko uses for gripping on to walls. The drone itself though could only lift 35 pounds before being stopped, or losing altitude."

She strokes the top of the blimp.

"The skin of the gas envelope is also self-repairing up to .05 millimeter holes, and carrys enough onboard helium for 5 refills of the gas bag." She poins to a small bottle on the bottom, that looks like the size of a 20 oz. pop bottle.

"That is pretty much that little situation in a nutshell."

She takes off her cloak, and straightens out the light navy-blue sailor collared blazer she was wearing underneath.

"As for the cube, I sort of expected DigiGeist to exaggerate a bit. The only way to truely change an object's mass, Alchemist, is either to change it's atomic weight, which would change it's elemental make up, or add more to it.

But I am still interested in it. I'm not looking for something grand from it. It still sounds like it has some utility."

She clears her throat.

"But that is besides the point. Alchemist, did you notice the 4 security weaknesses in this facility? They are quite glaring."

"One; Your front foyer has no overwatch at all. I doubt your budding Doctor in Physics as a receptionist will be adequate enough. Adding a few cameras of your own wouldn't hurt."

"Two; Your windows won't provide much of a problem, if you have emergency shutters for them. It's those ladders that concern me. I already assessed 12 different assault paths that could lead to your storage room alone, Alchemist. All out of a camera's eye, or for any other sensor."

"Three; Your medical facility has a fairly weak encryption pad on it's locker storing potential narcotics and dangerous to human biology drugs. I hacked it with my mind while you were shoing off your medlab to me. Took about 6 seconds as a Nova. A simple 4 digit algorythym isn't going to cut it. I know you gotta keep that stuff on hand, but your stored material should be better protected."

"Four; Your network." She says with concern, closing her eyes. "Someone made a back door. Who programmed the OS for this facility? Was it a store bought Viasoft OS or a custom, proprietary variant?"

When the drone un-cloaks near Alchemist, he makes no outward reaction. However, as Sakurako talks about its features he nods, and makes a few notes and sketches on a chalkboard nearby. "I can't really judge the cloaking ability, but the polymer you're using for the gas-sack looks very versatile. I suggest layered tight-weaves rather than sheets, though, and add a clear mild adhesive of some form to enhance the regenerative properties. We should be able to recover from much larger holes that way. The rest of the design is sound, although I'd change the external casing of the drone to make it more shock and sonic absorptive, perhaps one of the new organo-ceramics?"

When she talks about the base's weaknesses, Alchemist nods at the first two, shakes his head at the second, and listens to the third rather darkly. "If someone is breaking into our medical facility for the drugs there, they're nuts. It would be easier to break into the evidence locker at the police station. Accessibility is more important than security there, I think, unless you're suggesting we go with biometric security? Neither Jager nor Sandcaster HAVE the proper biometrics, at least measureably by current technology, so that would be difficult at least."

"As for our computer systems, everything was put together by Bandwidth, and customized by him. If there's a backdoor into the system, either he put it there himself, or it's shown up since he left. He took too much pride in his work to allow such a thing while he was here."

"Hmmm... Homebrewed... It's going to take me at least a month to repair the OS. There are currently 12 OpNet torrent streams using your lower security server as a proxy to avoid any copyright monitoring."

She scratches her chin, with her eyes closed, cutting off the unwanted leechers.

"Taken care of, and I got a temporary patch. But I need to work on the new OS for your HQ's server farm here. Shouldn't be too hard, and too bloated. Not to mention I have ways of making it compatible to any other OS's software. You'd be suprised on how I can code. Then again with a small OS footprint things should run faster s well."

She pats her drone.

"Layered tight weaves? Hmm... perhaps I can have more pressure in there, so I can get better lift and better payload capacity. The adhesive is also a good thing."

She thinks again.

"The organo-ceramics I've seen are still too heavy. I have some grades of Hino Polymer that are lighter. But we're speaking in terms of milligrams, and I'm prone to beancounting."

Sakurako laughs, admitting a fault.

"As for your medical facility, all one really needs is a means to teleport in. Having a Nova do the work for some crime syndicate, and you got trouble in the streets. Now, I don't think Biometrics would work, but unique personal codes for every member on the WCK staff, at least 15 digits in length that change monthly, and perhaps a keycard that is unique to a member, so if there is an emergency, the code can be bypassed. Also makes that priveledge easily disabled if needed."

She clears her throat.

"Now, would you mind if we saw where your equipment lockers are? I'd like to see what sorts of gear you do have, and see if there are any additions I can make."

"This is the best part. Or at least my favorite. I've been re-arranging these since the incident with Wakinyan. The day he attacked, I needed to get equipment into the field fast, and when it was deployed, the situation had already spiraled out of control and the equipment used was woefully inadequate. If I had been here to hand out the equipment myself, that never would have happened, but I cannot count on being available. So I've re-arranged everything in as logical a fashion as possible, and made a master console to help find the appropriate piece of materiel."

Alchemist shows both Endeavor and Sandcaster a black table-like stone block that sits right next to the stairs. Tapping it causes the top to light up. Alchemist speaks at the stone, saying, "Team Tomorrow, America."

The display on top lists the current members of T2M:A, with a linked mini-profile for the members and check-boxes next to them. Selecting a few at random, Alchemist hits the 'Go' button at the bottom, which causes glowing brands to appear on various stone cabinets around the room.

"In each of those cabinets, you'll find countermeasures for the novas I've selected. I'm still working on the database itself, there are so many novas that filling it out by hand is nearly impossible. I was hoping you could give me a hand in auto-populating it with profiles and possible countermeasures, Endeavor. That's been my biggest improvement down here. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out a decent security scheme, so it's all locked to a commercial voice recognition package at the moment. And would you believe that the computer can't record Jager's voice for a proper recognition? I like to use him as a benchmark for as many security tests as he'll hold still for, simply because he tends to break them one way or the other."

Alchemist seems to be rambling a bit as he moves towards the various cabinets. The ones with brands on them come open for him, and show a lighted shelf (or two) where the 'useful' equipment sits. Nothing seems to be labeled, and many of the 'useful' items are little more than boxes with buttons on them or oddly shaped crystals, or worse, unmarked grenades or boxes of unlabeled but obviously highly-specialized ammunition. "As you can see, I've finally caved in and started producing a few offensive items. Most of them are non-lethal. After everything that's happened, I've been stocking up on the quick-takedown munitions that we've been needing in past encounters."

He moves on to other cabinets that are not marked. These require symbolic sequences, drawn with his finger on the cabinet faces. As Alchemist draws, the symbols appear in glowing 'fire' on the surface of the 'stone' cabinets, then fade away. Apparently, nearly every surface in the lab is covered in some form of display screen. These cabinets open up to display more odd widgets and bits of gear, sometimes of discernable function, other times not. "I've also still got a full range of emergency equipment for dealing with search-and-rescue scenarios, disasters of all kinds, criminal investigations, on-scene forensics (in case I'm not available), and a myriad other circumstances. Some of these are programmed into that pedastal, some of them aren't. I've got individual pieces of equipment for all kinds of circumstances, multi-purpose equipment, some of which was requested by team members some of which I came up with on my own, and the truly generic such as the polymer cube we were discussing earlier."

"Now, the bad side: nearly everything here I've got in limited quantity, usually a quantity of one, unless it's something expendable like a bullet or a grenade. Virtually none of it is suitable for mass production, and It'd be faster to do a redesign on anything that we need in quantities greater than a dozen. Half of this stuff is the product of my chemical experimentation, the other half is the product of borrowed technology applied in creative ways but still violates patents and copyrights and such. Either way, I've only done limited testing on a lot of these pieces. But, I was hoping that perhaps, with your mass production design experience, Endeavor, and with your help in grounding us in the realistic, Sandcaster, that we'd be able to take a few dozen of these and turn them into a real asset for the entire city, not just the Knights."

Sakurako for a moment lets loose a hrmph, then looks towards the black obelisk. Within moments her profile comes up.

"Tsk, tsk... Never use a molecular formula for a security code, Alchemist. Especially with one that knows how to decode them."

She looks at her entry.

Sakurako Hino - Endeavor
Threat Level: Moderate
Hostility: Pacifist
Not known as an actual threat beyond her own talents. Depends on her technology for defense. Has not fully learned how to make adequate armors and weaponry, or refuses to develop them. Easily dealt with.

For a moment, Sakurako is shocked, then dread fills her mind.

"Alchemist, you have practically every publicly known nova in this database. How did you compile the Data?"

She rummages through the selection of gear they have, examining everything closely.

"I'll help you with this gear situation you have, on the preface that the only reason this would be used on a Nova is in your own defense, or they threaten the lives of innocent Humans and Novas in this City."

Alchemist looks mildly embarassed and says, "I told you I hadn't finished the security on this system yet, it's still in the works. As for how I got all that data by trolling the nova fan sites and N! profiles database, mostly. And some speculation. I'm fairly good at guessing what a given nova's strengths and weaknesses will be from their attitude, name, and the hints they like to drop."

He leaves And, to allay your concerns somewhat, this equipment is almost entirely non-lethal. The only maximum force scenarios the Knights have in our playbook are in response to direct attacks on civilian targets, and self defense. So yes, this equipment is meant for defense of the city. I thought you knew what the Knights were about?"

Sakurako looks at him. Reading him over.

"I know you guys arent in the blue and gold of PU, but still... even an organization like this could be used as a pawn by interested parties. I'm sure right now you're right. But what about the future?"

She looks over one of the spare bodysuits the WCK uses as a uniform.

"Heh... pretty good." She picks it up, and feels over the material. "What did you use? Hoping this isn't eufiber. Might break out, but I'm just curious anyways."

She starts calculating out in her mind what could be added, or what changes could be made.

"I could design and fabricate a few full life-support equipped models incase of a Hazmat situation for your more... squishy members. In fact I'm suprised you don't have adequate protection for your Human employees. They should have at least something incase they have to vamoose."

She jestures to one of her workers.

"Like those bodysuits my workers are currently wearing. In those pouches on their left side is a full hood that seals the suit when put on, and hidden in a pouch on the other side is a full filter system, that can send air into the hood and the suit providing a positive-pressure environment to keep any contaminants out. Good for about 3 hours before the batteries run low. I figure that would be enough time for them to get somewhere safe."

Alchemist darkens a bit, and answers, "The Knights are not someone's pawn, and will not be so long as I'm here." Then he smirks, breaking the mood, and cracks, "We're a rook, at least."

"The suits, by the way, are a wee bit too complex for me to discribe. There's no Eufiber in them, because I don't like the stuff and it doesn't like me. Contact with my skin kills eufiber colonies, and degrades the artificial stuff. We'll just say that, pound for pound, a Knights jumpsuit is probably about as heavily engineered as the latest KuroTech nanochip. Putting life support in them hadn't actually occurred to me. The original team members were all capable of surviving vacuum, so I never bothered in when I first designed them. The original jumpsuits are about as porous as a diver's wetsuit, but I've got a prototype Heavy Armor version we could modify..."

Alchemist opens what might well be a walk-in-closet on one wall, and starts digging around in what appears from the outside to be the coat room for a superhero convention. Finally, he comes out with something that might be a thicker version of the Knight's jumpsuit, but with metallic studs decorating it at various points.

"This is a simpler design, doesn't protect against some of the more esoteric attacks that the original jumpsuit does. No sonic dampening or radiation shielding. But the armor is a lot heavier, and it has hard points for mounting some of the add-ons I've been designing. I'm still playing with the design on this...what do you think?"

"Of course, we'll need another design for our regular employees, standard uniforms, working equipment...Now that I think of it, we've got a lot more baseline staff running around this place than I realized. We never planned on the Headquarters being more than a base of operations. But in the past few months it's come under direct assault on more than one occasion. You're right, we should give our staff safety gear, properly disguised and goof-proofed so that they don't even need to think about it and thus won't ignore it or 'forget it'."

Sakurako's smile could be seen from orbit at this point. A figure of speech, but adequate to the almost giddy demeanor she gets from seeing the suit.

"Wow. Excellent concept. If you improves the armor a bit to be able to do what the original did..." She looks over the hard points. "Interesting, possible mounts for hardened armor?"

She looks over the suit before responding to his other ideas.

"It's sort of hard to design gear that isn't "forgettible" without running into PU S&T bullshit. But, if you design a uniform that is mandatory here, that everyone wears, that alone adds to the chance everyone will be on the same page. Also letting them know how it's for their own safety adds to having them remember. Might have a bit of an atrition due to people jumping out for their own safety. But those that stay should be pretty well protected. It would take some work though to keep your Human employees from looking like armored space marines."

She lets off a chuckle.

"That... is our job. Or at least yours."

She puts the suit away.

"Now, I have a few concept designs, at least for the materials on chip here..." She pulls out a standard data chip. "...the fabrics, polymers, and what-not I chose are perfect for a second generation of suit, with the potential for a fully-sealed suit. Helmet and all. I took a look at your standard profiles for all WCK Nova members, and there are a small minority that don't have, at least publicly known mind you, adaptive powers. So, these materials are a good start."

She pulls out a battery from a pocket. About the size of a dollar coin.

"This can be the power source. I'm about to add these to my worker's suits, and I'm willing to part with some for a fair price. The battery should last for six months of operation before needing to be replaced. The reactive metals are pretty much gone by that time. We could use these to power most of your portables here."

"Tell you what. I've still got a couple of jumpsuit power supplies, and I think you'd get a kick out of those. I'll trade some of my batteries for some of yours."

After a pause, Alchemist opens a drawer (yet another scrawled code unlocks it) and pulls out two discs that look about the right size to be round altoids tins, but with a strange button/connector at the top. "Twelve volts, about as much current as your batteries provide, but mine have a running life of several thousand years. The internal composition is a single giant chemical 'spring' that releases electricity as it 'unwinds'. If your curious, I could give you the formulas involved, but it's pretty much impossible to make through normal means with modern technology. These are the ancestors of my first experiment in battery making."

Alchemist kicks a cabinet, which is apparently unlocked because it simply swings open. A repetetive thumping can now be heard coming from the openning. A moment later, a pink bunny wearing sunglasses and carrying a drum (make that beating on a drum) comes marching out of the cabinet. On its back is a black cylinder labeled 'Chem-cell-one' in gold letters.

"I rescued him when I left Triton."

"For the workers, giving them mandatory uniforms is perfect. Heck, out network managers will love the idea. I'm thinking blue blazers with trousers and t-shirts, possibly all made from hinopolymer, lined with kevlar-3, with removeable armored inserts in the blazer? And hoods built into the blazers, along with a small life support unit and rescue beacon? I'm not sure how we'd manage atmosphereic containment yet...we'll work that out later. I'm not married to the materials, either, but we need something we can make in quantity."

"I've also got another project I want to discuss with you, but preferably in a more private setting."

Sakurako rattles some things around in her head.

"Well, the uniforms sound like a plan indeed. But I figure for the atmospheric containment, have the clothing look like normal clothing, but they all form a contigious membrane. From the shoes to the slacks all the way to the shirts. It'd be unusual to request gloves as pert of the uniform, but I think with what we're going for it'd be necessary."

She strokes her chin.

"As for the other project... find someplace now or later to discuss this?"

"Later is fine. If you agree, it'll take a while even just planning it. The upgrades are a more immediate issue. So, we have initial plans for citywide surveilance, upgrading our personnel's uniforms, upgrading Headquarters security in general. Where else can we make improvements?"

Alchemist ponders the question, looking around at the lab for ideas. Then he remembers what Sakurako's specialty is and he curses himself as an idiot. "Of course! You're an electronics genius! That's why I gave you that calcualator, hoping you'd find a use for it that I never did. I'm no good at making computers. The computer that is in that pedastal," Alchemist points at the console that he'd demonstrated earlier, "is one that I bought from you when you were clearing out your excess stock. The Knight's wrist computers are little more than store-bought chips on stock-design circuit boards. I was hoping that perhaps you'd be able to help me upgrade the Knight's personal-area-networks and perhaps integrate it into a command-control-communications station to help us co-ordinate? Individually, we're very effective. But we need better communications systems, and by that I mean less button pushing in the field and more does-what-I-need. What do you think?"

"Ah. Can do Alchemist. One thing I'll need is a special employee I call in to... doublecheck... my work."

Sakurako pulls out her communicator and sets it to her ear after pressing a few buttons.

"Darnit, voicemail...

Conduit, this is Sakurako, I need your assistance in Chicago. Looks like this is right up your alley. It's going to be a stretch of your skills this time. The WCK needs some network improvements, and I need to check the encrypted wireless system I'm going to install is strong enough for the HQ. Give me a ring when you get this message. I forget the hour difference sometimes."

Sakurako signs-off her communicator, and hides it in a small pocket in her blazer.

She walks to her old computer.

"Heh... what I have in mind, Alchemist, is one tenth the size of this brute. At least, a brute in my eyes. The WCK will have fully portable computer systems that are handheld, as well as a head-set communicator that accesses it.

You know, I can simplify the design further by incorporating it into the Ideas I have for improvements in your uniforms for the team. I've always been a fan of wearible computers. It de-centralizes the hardware, allowing it to be compartmentalized in different areas of the suit."

She smiles. Ideas and concepts swirling in her head.

"You know, I need your design paradigms for the suit concepts. Colors, cuts, theme... The more I know, the better. I need my "box" to think outside of."

"Sandcaster, I'm sorry for sort of keeping you out of the conversation. I always like input. That, and I'd like to meet the rest of the WCK, and find out their personal needs. The more info, the better."

"Oh, I don't think you'll have any problems integrating computer equipment into the current jumpsuits. I wasn't planning on making the heavy stuff standard equipment. Here, I'll grab out a spare jumpsuit and show you what I'm talking about."

Alchemist pulls a folded one-piece grey suit from a drawer, and spreads it on a clear workbench.

"The power supplies in these suits are the ones I showed you earlier. They'll last pretty much forever under virtually any conditions, their power output is fairly low but should be enough to run an entire computer network if they're built with low power consumption in mind. There are pockets all over the suit - mostly because I thought the Knights would need to keep all kinds of specialized equipment on them all the time, but that never happened. But there are more than enough spots on the suit to hide your gear, and there are even power cords and wires running to some of the pockets, since I'd planned on upgrading the Knight's mobile systems eventually myself. The suit design is very simplistic, because its primary function is body armor, but the coloration is fully customizable and controlled by a simple interface cable. The resolution is roughly equivalent to modern high-def video, but with no illumination, just the ability to change its own reflective properties. DigiGeist mentioned using that to implement a stealth mode, and that should still be possible, but I never got it working even before I went blind. It would require adding a visual sensor net and a computer powerful enough to interpret that data and change the coloration on the suit to match one's surroundings, but the color change in the suit is good enough to keep up as long as you weren't moving to fast."

"But the primary purpose of the color-change ability was to allow everyone to develop their own theme. I didn't want to limit the uniform's appearance any more than necessary."

"As for the rest, I think the hands free method is best, but perhaps an alternate input mode, in addition to voice activation? Several of our missions have involved stealth, and needing to talk to make use of the computer would be a disadvantage. Perhaps retinal tracking?"

"Yes, that is good, but if you incorporate a helmet into the design you can properly soundproof for that. No one can ehar what the person is saying in the helmet unless you turn the external speakers on. Besides, if we're developing protective gear, might as well protect the head as well, no?"

She smiles, leaning up against a wall.

"I can see I got equipment to bring over. Noooo probs. I got engouh to go around. Gonna make a bit of green too. The City Government just filed the open contract with me for a complete overhaul. Negotiated it in route to Headquarters today."

She pulls out a stick of pocky from a special pocket she made just for storing her favorite snack. Letting the stick hang from her mouth like a cigarette.

"So, I'll get all the prototypes here by the end of the week, and get to fabricating right away. I'm going to be available off and on, because I'm going to be doing some HARD coding for the new HQ OS. Plus with all the WCK uniform upgrades and the new Employee uniforms, got plenty of work to do... Oh and the security upgrades as well."

She looks towards Alchemist.

"It's great to be working with you."

"Yes, I'm enjoying this as well. I think we're going to get a lot done together."

The two novas discuss the technical details and their respective helpers, Endeavor's employees and Alchemist's clones, work together on the upgrades themselves. As terms too technical even for Sandcaster's heightened intellect to follow start to edge out the more comprehensible flow of information, she leaves them to their discussion.

Oddly, everyone continues to ignore the fact that nothing in Alchemist's lab is labelled, accepting it as one of his eccentricities. And Alchemist continues to be oblivious to the fact that no one else can tell the difference between most of his devices, let alone determine what they do before he explains them. To him, the Emperor's birthday suit is a fine statement of fashion.

Knights systems:
Upgrade: 10% completed...