"How long have these things been running around without Tinker maintenance?"

"Eight...years...ish?"

"We didn't find out about the turning on their creators part until a while after it had happened so it's hard to be precise."

"That is a really long time! They should have been unable to keep up with their own repairs by now."

"...Why?"

"They do have some ability to repair each other," Edie clarifies.

"Sure, some, but eight years is a long time to run without input from the original Tinker. Maybe a different Tinker picked them up."

"...Okay, so when you say 'Tinker,' what do you actually mean?"

"On my Earth, the main superhero organization and its associated unpowered supervillain response team use a system of labels to distinguish loose groupings of powers. Tinker is one of those. People who build, assemble, cook, etcetera, those are Tinkers. I'm a Tinker."

"Weeeee don't have that. I mean, I guess maybe--maybe Hank. But I can't think of anyone else who even maybe qualifies, and the government wouldn't use a mutant to create mutant-hunting robots."

"You call capes 'mutants' here?"

"I mean, not every mutant actually has fun powers, but I can't think of anyone who has fun powers who didn't get it from being a mutant."

"Okay. And nobody involved in making those robots had a power? Are you sure you haven't just... systematically failed to identify Tinkers as being the same kind of thing?"

"I mean, unless literally all of them except Hank were somehow kept a secret from us..."

"Data point: Hank used to work for the CIA."

"...So unless there's something about Tinkers that would let the government pre-emptively get their hands on pretty much all of them, basically no."

"Can't rule out a weird Trump in play. Where are we going, by the by?"

"South. Away from all the Sentinels I can feel, I change course a bit when we hit a new one."

"Okay. I can be useful but I need parts, this thing has maybe two more shots in it," she indicates her heat gun, "before it melts on me, and I left all my robots at home."

"Next time I feel a dead Sentinel I'll steer over there."

"Yeah, that'd be great, I bet I can co-opt one pretty good."

"Just be reeeeaaaaaally careful."

"If they really were designed by a non-cape, should be easy, regular tech is like Legos, but yeah, I'll be careful."

"Like legos?"

"It's just put together so simply! I mean, within my specialty, but that more than covers robots, so we're probably good."