The two weeks after the meeting with the Shadowbroker were a time of research for me. I had paid him for access to a variety of research-material, mostly pending peer-review or already peer-reviewed, something relatively easy as it was part and parcel of scientific research, it just required some contacts that I was lacking. Of course, by being aware which access-information was mine, he could monitor just what I was looking at, but there was a simple trick to make that irrelevant. Intelligence work often consisted of looking for a needle in a haystack and it was no different in this case, so I was simply making the biggest pile of loose hay that I could manage, downloading everything I could get my hands on, from hard math used to describe esoteric multi-dimensional concepts that were only proven to exist in the twisted imagination of mathematicians to gender-studies-papers, explaining why something was unacceptable behaviour in the mind of the author. Both extremes had little practical application, but between the extremes, lived the practical, and there was more than enough practical things there.

I had tried to corroborate the information given to me by him, especially about the Battlemaster/Clark connection, but there was an obvious reason that I had been unable to do so, just like there was an obvious reason that I had not seen Sophia in those two weeks. It was finals-time. So, when not even Sophia could find the time to come visit me, could I expect Clark to visit the Heroes’ League, if he was Battlemaster? Not really. I had given Galatea the appropriate orders and overrides to track Battlemaster and gather any data she could on him and to gather similar data on Clark. The current results, taken from my recordings of previous meetings was quite telling, my personal estimation was at a ninety percent certainty, but I would not call it conclusive until I had more.

One of the things I read about was the already done work on gene-manipulation, a subject that had risen to prominence around the turn of the century, but was sadly buried for multiple reasons. One of the things was that it had been proven with scientific certainty that genetics had no influence on the development of powered and their specific powers, taking away the military’s idea of creating powered super-soldiers and with it a lot of funding. In addition, the religious factions had always rebelled against any work done to change the fundamentals of life, decrying it as sacrilege and called it the devil’s work. There were other factors as well and it had reduced the amount of research done on the topic to a pittance. There were quite a few interesting concepts that had been tested on lab-animals but nothing got even close to a human trial.

Galatea and I went through the already done experiments and isolated a few ideas that sounded promising, there was a trial to increase muscle-mass in dogs, a trial to increase endurance in monkeys, a trial to strengthen the vascular system of mice and a few more that sounded promising. Some, I might even use on myself, it would do something else for me, it would allow me to take away one shackle and risk. If I had an obviously different gene-code, I would be able to use it to ‘proof’ that I was not Alexandria King, if I ever had to. And by only modifying the DNA in my somatic cells, mostly in my muscles and cardiovascular system, I could even do the opposite, I could use an egg, something that would not be modified, to prove that I was Alexandria King, or rather, that I was a direct relative of Martin King and his son Samuel King.

The result of that research was an experimental treatment for me, based on my current DNA. It should increase the overall strength of my muscles without any serious loss of endurance, to the point that my muscles would be roughly twice as strong as a comparably built female, allowing me to get to a level of bodily strength normally reserved for males. It was not quite fair that I needed to alter my DNA to get there, but complaining about it was akin to the peahen complaining about her lack of colourful tailfeathers. In addition, the treatment should greatly increase the strength of my blood vessel walls, lessening any chance of bleeding. There was a small risk in the treatment, it could give me a heart attack but it was a risk I was willing to take. While it would not get me into the realm of powered with a strength-increasing power, it would let me go toe to toe with anyone else.

But that was only one of the topics I could now read in-depth research on. Another topic of great interest was the research into powered humans and powers in general. There had been a ton of research, obviously, trying to link specific powers to outside circumstances, searching for any correlation that could imply causation, but the only real correlation they were able to statistically prove was that every powered human was, in fact, human. With such great results, how could one not continue to fund their research. Sadly, even with those results, the study of Powered Genesis was among the best funded subjects in existence.

Unsurprisingly, the related subject of Power Studies had more substantiated information, to have less, they would have to hold regular book-burnings, actively reducing the amount of knowledge available. But I was unfair, in general, both subjects boiled down to a simple statement. ‘We do not know’.

Experiments had been made, trying to figure out if powered used their own body to generate the effects needed, basically if using powers was a form of exercise, just taken up to eleven for some reason. But no, a powered with the Atlas-set was not using measurably more body-energy when pressing multi-ton weights compared to normal weights.

There was an interesting study, related to Atlas-type powered and normal exercise, hinting that there was a threshold below their power would not kick in, allowing them to train their body like a normal human would, in turn increasing the threshold for their powers to kick in, but that new threshold had no impact on their maximum strength.

In addition, there had been experiments in which a cryokinetic had produced ice, which was locked in a hermetically sealed box. The result was that the ice had vanished, as it was normal for matter generated by powered, and the overall mass of the container had reduced in turn. Physics should not work that way, at least not to our current understanding of them.

The only useful thing that I got from all that research was the rather interesting information that the limits of a powered were related to the brain. Overuse of a power resulted in headaches followed by cerebral haemorrhaging, which could lead to brain damage or death. That limit was dependant on the person, without any rhyme or reason to it. With a little creative data-manipulation, one could find a correlation, but once more, it was nothing useful. In general, what required more energy could be used to a lesser degree. Sadly, a lot was ignored and, while it was a general trend, there were enough exceptions to make it basically useless for me.

In general, there were theories abound, some more insane than others, but the essence of it all was that something unexplained and unobserved was happening. Some related it to higher dimensions, others to a connected human consciousness and again others to their deity of choice.

I felt the last had the least credible, as it required to ignore the most evidence, mostly as there was no statistical significant influence of either geography or professed religion to development of powers. I rated the other two similarly believable, when comparing the two. Neither had any hard evidence, but the consciousness had a strong supporting circumstance, the fact that every powered had dreams of predecessors of their power, allowing them to gain a modicum of understanding of it. On the other hand, the idea of a higher dimension with its own, unique forms of energy influencing our dimension was relatively consistent with what we knew about physics, it would simply add another set of variables that we had yet to understand.

Sadly, while it was incredibly interesting there was little practical application to it.

What I had managed in those two weeks of research and planning was the acquisition of a warehouse, close to the river Brune, in the name of TitanTech. I had no doubt that someone would get curious with the name, but I was not planning of having anything truly interesting there. No, it would mostly be a way to get legitimate deliveries and a back-entrance into my bunker. A back-entrance would allow me to greatly expand my laboratory and workshop-facilities without compromising the current entrances. Driving a small transporter into a warehouse was a lot less interesting compared to driving it off the road, into the woods.

The fact that it was close to the river was deliberate, it would allow me to create an underwater access to the river and let me covertly dump earth into the river, allowing for the expansion of my bunker. With those preparations in place, I could start thinking about truly interesting things.

Like the plans for a personal jet-pack, based on a combination of work done for the harrier-jet and my armour. I was not sure how practical it would be, but the dream of a personal flight-system of some sort was still a cherished one. Building something more conventional would be far easier, but where would be the fun in that? No, I wanted to either go truly big and make something along the lines of the Gunship-idea, an overbuilt monstrosity with enough firepower to level mountains, or I wanted something I could integrate into my current armour.

But I had not just done research into scientific theory, I had also researched something much closer to home. Galatea had dedicated quite a bit of processing power to the street-gang Sophia was after, both when it came to searching for them in digital networks and when it came to playing female Big Brother. The direct search was less useful, there was not enough data for any useful predictive work, it was possible to roughly map out their terrain, but that was simply not enough to get any useful work done. Knowing that their main activities centered around the old docks and the less affluent areas in town was not surprising, it was almost inevitable.

On the other hand, snooping around the digital networks had proven quite redeeming. Finally, I had a name for the gang, they called themselves Omega, according to the file the police had on them. That file was an interesting read overall, the gang had come to town only a few years ago, swiftly pushing out and assimilating another gang, mostly working the drug-trade but the level of organisation they had was incredibly high for a new street gang. The file suggested that they had to have links to other criminal enterprises, an idea that had recently gained a lot extra credibility when a warehouse, later linked to them, had caught fire, with enough munitions in it to start a small war. That incident had pushed the Omega’s status as an annoyance to a serious topic of concern for the complete police-force and the league, as it was known that they employed multiple powered, with files for three of them.

Two of those files showed old acquaintances, one was the muscled butcher-psychopath with the ability to phase out himself and his weapon, the other was the robed guy with what I believed to be telekinesis.

Their files were sparse on details, mostly telling me their names, Butcher for the musclehead and Omecron for the telekinetic. I had to stop myself from groaning when I read the first name, it was just so stupid. But what I found interesting was that the file had no mention of his phasing-power, only speaking of the fact that he was stronger and faster than normal and used a meat-cleaver.

There was more on Omecron, but not really much. He was seen as the gang-leader, possibly only in the field, possibly overall leadership and the brain of the outfit. He kept Butcher in line, one might say, on the leash, using his power to allow them to escape quite often.

The third file was of someone called Fleetfoot, someone I had yet to meet. According to the file, he was some sort of speedster-type, most likely non-physical. His power allowed him to move at high speed but what truly stood out was his ability to change that velocity, letting him reach his top-speed of roughly hundred km/h within less than a second and decelerate at at the same rate. What made them classify him as non-physical was that, despite his speed, his physical attacks carried no extra punch, only the amount one would expect from someone of his built, hinting at an mechanism other than pure, physical force when it came to his speed. Or it might be that he was lacking the durability to use more than normal force, for fear of hurting himself.

They did little in the way of active crime, mostly acting as enforcers for the gang if necessary, thus the League had looked for them but not to the point of seriously hunting them. The League had considered them small fish and been content to assist the police if they found them. The weapons-cache had changed that a bit, but not to the point that the League was going after them with serious intent.

Maybe, that would be to our advantage, when Sophia and I went after them they might be complacent. But the larger organisation behind them worried me, I did not like unknowns.