"Family stuff. Same here. At least as a general category."

"Yeah, it's a pretty broad, pretty easily poopy class of situations."

"Mm... I think I should go back to my workshop now, inspect the damage to my stuff. Try and get four hours' sleep before school. Bye for now, Glam."

"See you." They float off.

...And, yeah, her gear takes a fair amount of maintenance. Not much actual damage from that, but - the powersuit is the most expensive and expansive thing she's built yet, and it's not nearly done, so maybe she just underestimated how much maintenance it would need, or maybe there's ways to improve it. Clean up the mechanisms. That would probably mean throwing out the whole thing and starting over, though...

The next day she makes an account on that forum, Parahumans Online, and her first action is to message the moderator channel. 

I am a parahuman tinker. I heard about this site from a friend. What do I need to do to prove I am a tinker and get a 'verified' tag?

She gets an immediate reply:

After a few normal interactions with the forum you will receive it automatically if you are really said tinker.

That sounds like Big Brother Is Watching. I trust this site a little bit because of said friend but how can you be not tracking me, if you can detect the fact that I am a tinker without me doing anything to prove it?

Speech patterns, details that get verified later about encounters, if you speak about yourself or situations you were involved with your approval will be faster.

That makes a surprising amount of sense. Sorry for lashing out and thanks for the info.

...Well, alright then. She's kind of curious. What does Parahumans Online, Brockton Bay board, think of Vertigo and/or Hopper?

Not much, not yet. There is a post buried under tons of others about her dated when she ran into Kaiser, and there's a (currently active) one about last night's fight.

I'm Vertigo, the tinker who was there.

Of course, this is the internet, nobody is going to believe me until the moderators [Verified Cape] me.

I am fairly sure that nobody ended up dead. Dauntless, Glam, and I applied first aid to everyone injured during the fight and the most badly injured person was a civilian who I transported to the Brockton Bay General Hospital myself. He seemed stable when we got there, they took him in and treated him, but I don't know any further than that.

Glam? Is that the teleporter?

waht the fuck kinda name is vertigo

"civilian" is a funny name for a jap gangster

[This user has received a warning for racism.]

The teleporter is the villain. He's the only one who was aiming to kill. Glam is the one with the white costume and emoticon mask.

I can go places, vertically. Vertigo.

Are you a boy or a girl?

whats ur tinker thing?

guys, this is about the demon guy cape, if you wanna discuss vertigo make another post

emoticon mask? i think you're making shit up

That guy is right it's off topic. Maybe I'll introduce myself in a new thread later.

I'm just glad nobody died. Knives and grenades = not toys.

Someone creates a thread for Vertigo.

grenades??

What was the guy's power anyway?

It could be a girl.

no way a girl would wear that demon mask

would too

She's not just lurking here all day, she's going between doing sketching and planning and inventorying, and the forum.

Teleporting and making copies at the same time seemed to be his power. He used the same grenade at least half a dozen times until I put smoke down and he left.

On the thread about her, Vertigo says,

I don't know if anyone thinks I'm really her, but: Vertigo here! Tinker. Apparently I can't call myself an independent hero, so how about 'rogue who's going to try to help people'? I'm not going to share too much about what I can do, but my greatest creation yet - the mechsuit - is fast and armored, you can see it in this video of yesterday's incident.

Making copies how? Did the copies teleport?

my cousin works at the PRT, he said the guy made a copy somewhere far away and the original died

thats fucked up

Why can't you call yourself an independent?

she was the one who blew up those cars the other day

sounds p villainy to me ngl

Guys, it was probably an accident.

but she ran away after

He teleported and left behind a copy, then the original turned into dust after a bit, yeah. Creepy.

Some guy at the hospital said so. It's an official thing or something.

Ran away after because my gear had just exploded and Hookwolf was there. Yes, it was an accident. I feel shitty about it. I'm sorry. I threw out all the rest of my tech that worked the same as the thing that caused the explosion. Not going to happen again.

ew that's disgusting

he copied stuff with him too?

Well he didn't appear naked, did he?

Independent heroes have to be registered with the government and she's a fugitive so she can't be

not gonna happen again with that tech but we all know tinkers amirite

If it was only me on the line probably I'd have turned myself in.

As for my explodey tech... I guess I'll just have to prove it by not fucking up again.

That's about all the time Walta can afford to lurk on the internet today. Her makeshift lab continues to be reasonably well-disguised. She even uses tunnels to get in and out, despite the stench. She does listen for fires and other emergencies sporadically over the next couple of weeks.

"Hey cricket," Will calls her a couple of days later. "I might be able to get ya your titanium."

"Oh, hey Will. Uh..." The radio is more staticky than usual today. "Good news on the titanium. But, not gonna lie, I'm having nervous thoughts about our prospective exchange. I don't really want more - uh, heat - from the heroes than I absolutely need to get."

He chuckles. "Don't worry, grasshopper, the heroes don't have any reason to bother me."

"Yeah, well, I want the theater and I figure this might be a one-time thing. I could really use the titanium, but I think I'm building a little entente with the heroes and I don't want to fuck that up."