End of Summer Festival (Pt. 2)

--- Maya ---

As her family scattered to the four winds of the festival, she decided the first thing she should do is check in with Tommy. (After all he’s the one competing in this year’s festival, and with the way his equipment goes he might need us to fix something.)

With this destination in mind she started making her way through the festival ground, towards the area they usually held the music competitions when they threw these festivals every few months to keep morale and tourism up.

Unfortunately for this goal however, her mentally ambiguous disorder began to act up halfway there as she came across a large banner declaring the portion of the festival next to her as the M.A.D. science fair.

Such events were relatively common in a city as large as hers, because while only the more powerful Deviants tended to become Masks, that didn’t change the fact that there was still a large number of non-mask Deviants in the world. And while she wasn’t sure how the different power levels really measured between the other Deviancies, she’d at least learned that when it came to other M.A.D.s there power level could be determined by the amount of assistance an M.A.D.s whispers provided them.

Which in her case was admittedly more than the average given how many fields she’d already dabbled in, as well as her more esoteric specialty in reality hacking.

The previous few years whenever her family attended one of these things, she’d only ever give this section of the festival a cursory glance as she spent more time focused on all of the carnival rides they brought in. This year however, she was an M.A.D. and as such held something of curiosity towards what her fellows were capable of, as well as what the city deemed publicly acceptable.

“Well, I mean we’ve got a couple hours, so a little detour won’t hurt us too much.” She told herself, in justification of said curiosity.

(Why? I mean we’re smarter than any of them, so what’s the point?) Her inner insanity objected.

(Well, you never know. It’s fully possible they may’ve come up with a decent idea.) Her inner logic argued.

(We can already build like half of this junk.) Her inner passion scoffed as she looked around at a number of small stands displaying all sorts of things, the whispers confirming her other self’s words as they hinted at how to build all of it. Or at least everything that was actually an M.A.D.’s work, given how there were a couple of people handing out things the whispers refused to comment on.

(Which is a shame because that Jason guy looks like he has some interesting wind up-)

So, consumed with the world around her, she ended up walking right into someone.

“Ah, sorry, wasn’t looking where I was going.” She apologized before jumping back as she caught sight of a young redhead around her age wearing a painted welder’s mask.

(Mask get the hand cannons!) Her inner madness screamed.

“Whoa, didn’t mean to scare you!” The other girl told her hands raised, as Maya began reaching for the zipper to her bag.

(Let’s not overreact here.) Her inner reason spoke, as her heartrate began to settle.

Seeing as the other girl wasn’t attacking her, she let herself relax. “Sorry, just… the mask.” She gestured to her own face.

“Yeah, no, no I, I get it. I’m the one who should be apologizing, for scaring you.” The girl assured her, before sliding the mask off and revealing freckles beneath her green eyes. “The mask thing is tradition, but it still occasionally freaks people out if they get too close without noticing it.”

“So, you’re not a mask?” She made sure.

“No.” The girl shook her head with a laugh. “Like I said, the whole mask thing is an old tradition, from way back when Deviants were persecuted left and right. It’s actually why the original Masks had masks in the first place, so that no one could tell who they were when they gathered like this.” The masked girl explained.

“That… makes sense.” She guessed.

“It’s nowhere near as bad for us these days, but a few of the younger kids still like to wear them and use nicknames during these public get togethers for fun and the older guys because, well… there’s always that one guy, you know?” The girl chuckled a little awkwardly herself.

“Yeah.” Maya nodded in understanding. “Well, if uh, you’ve all got nicknames, what’s yours?”

“Kim.” The girl answered easily enough, and she must’ve made a face of some kind because the other girl laughed. “Yeah, I’m not really into the whole thing, but the masks are part of the whole Deviant gimmick so…”

“Huh… well, uh… I’m Maya.” She offered, knowing she came off a little awkwardly, but unable to think of anything else to say.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Maya.” Kim nodded, slipping her mask back on. “Since you were a little spaced out for a minute there, is there something in particular you’re looking for? I am part of the club that runs this part of the fair, so I should be able to help you out.”

“Oh, uh, nothing in particular. I was just sort of wandering around a bit.” She admitted, feeling a bit of heat to her face given how distracted she’d gotten over nothing at all.

“Hm, well, in that case why don’t I give you the tour.” Kim offered.

“A tour?” She repeated.

“Yeah, after all I did give you a scare there, so I should try make up for that.” Kim explained cheerfully.

“Um, sure?” She agreed, more confused than not.

“Great, so let’s see…” Kim looked around a bit before grabbing Maya’s wrist and dragging her to a nearby area with a small crowd of cheering people gathered around a fenced in area where the scream of power tools could be heard beyond the crowd’s cheers. “This one is always a hit!”

(Shit, is this what we’re like during a manic episode?) She couldn’t help but wonder. (If so we owe everyone an apology.)

(And hugs because they clearly love us.) Her inner child added.

Moving towards a gap in the crowd, they were able catch sight of a number of small machines seemingly trying to kill each other in a small metal arena.

“This is our regularly scheduled battle bot tournament.” Kim explained making a theatrical gesture. “We typically run two tournament through the day, the first one isn’t a tournament so much as it is a bunch of random fights between our club’s more mechanically minded M.A.D.s with them keeping tally of their wins. Since they expect them to get torn up through the day, most of the bots are designed for easy repair and maintenance.”

“That’s smart.” She commented, wondering how well DM-1 would hold up against the various machines, a few of which were looking as advanced as her drone.

(He’d send them all to hell.) Her inner madness cackled.

(Probably not that well, given he’s against armored opponents. After all we built him without any weapons, and we’ve yet to give him any tools he could fight with in place of them.) Her inner reason argued.

“M.A.D. stands for mentally augmented deviant.” Kim reminded her with a snort of amusement.

“Right.” She nodded, again wondering if her jokes were this bad when she was in her manic state.

(No because we’re actually funny.) Her inner passion scoffed.

(This is likely correct.) Her inner logic agreed.

“Any way, our other tournament is an actual tournament, where we invite a couple of non-Deviant mechanics to duke it out with us.” Kim told her as the current match was brought to a close. “And while they aren’t quite as easily fixed as ours, they still put up a pretty solid fight when they give it their all, a few of them have even pulled off a couple of victories here and there.”

“Huh, well uh, where to next?” She asked as the crowd began to disperse.

“Well, we’ve got a couple more attractions that always get a few viewers.” Kim answered, seemingly thinking it over. “Like we’ve got this portable garden over there, with a few cool plants. Though that one is probably best at night… What about Candace’s candies, those are usually pretty good…”

Kim continued to list a few more attractions, before Maya felt herself asking, “Are there really that many M.A.D.s in your club?” Because while she knew a city had a fair number of low level Deviants, she didn’t think they’d have this many in one place without being a known organization.

“Oh, um, there’s about a dozen or so of us right now, though none of us are quite up to what people consider ‘Mask’ level.” Kim admitted before gaining a wry grin. “Which honestly is probably a good thing all things considered.”

“Why?”

Kim gave her a look almost as if she was considering something, before eventually shaking her head. “Most people don’t realize it, but mask level Deviants tend to bring problems to those below that level.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?” (Because we resent that fact damn it!)

“Well, you’ve heard those rumors about gangs forcibly recruiting Deviants, right?” The other M.A.D. asked, before continuing when Maya nodded. “Okay, well, they’re only really interested in higher level Deviants. The ones at D-Rank and above, the rest of us they tend to leave to our own devices so long as we stay out of their way. However, if we get between them and say a C-Rank Deviant…”

She was able to fill in the rest. “They won’t hesitate to knock you down.”

“Worse, they might see ‘potential’ in the rest of us.” Kim sighed, clearly not liking the situation. “It doesn’t happen often, but a couple of the older timers say it was a real problem back in their generation. What’s even worse than that is the fact that given our lower level, even with the entire club we’re not a match for a single C-Rank with a grudge.”

“Sorry…” She apologized, not knowing what else to say, especially since she was pretty sure with a couple of months she could easily become a C-Rank threat.

“Eh, it’s not like it’s your fault.” Kim shrugged. “Either way, enough with the darker topics, we’re at a festival so let’s act like it.”

With that statement in mind, Kim reached into her jacket before pulling out a large round ball of fur with a reddish pattern on it. “These guys never fail to cheer someone up.”

“What’s that?”

“Just wait.” Kim told her before scratching at the ball. “Come on little guy, it’s time to wake up.”

The little ball began to shake under the M.A.D.’s ministrations before unraveling into a hamster like creature with a yellow mark on its chest that proceeded to yawn widely, before pawing at its eyes.

“Aw, it’s so cute!” She cried getting the little creature to look up at her before giving her a shy wave.

“Thanks,” Kim laughed setting her critter on her shoulder, where it sat down and held onto her red hair with a single paw to keep balance. “You have no idea how much work it was getting the hamsters to evolve into this little guy.”

“Evolve?” Maya asked, hearing the faintest of whispers in the back of her mind.

“Yeah, I can’t do that whole one and done thing a lot of the bigger M.A.D.s do, so instead I do small but controlled mutations each generation that allows me to slowly evolve them.” Kim explained, before pausing. “Or rapidly given how slow evolution usually works.”

“Huh, going off of that…” The whispers gave her a few numbers, and a surprising amount of information on hamsters in general. “You could do about four generations a year.”

“Huh, you must know your hamsters…” Kim admitted, a hint of something in her voice. “But uh, it’s closer to eight. One of the first things I did was accelerate their life cycle after setting up their conditional sterility.”

That made her frown as she considered that possibility. “But wouldn’t that mean they only live for like a year?”

“I have a counter mutation that lets them live for a decade in exchange for complete sterility.” Kim told her. “It usually means I need to know a couple weeks in advance if someone wants one, but since hamsters breed years round and I saw no reason to get rid of that little trait, it’s not a big problem.”

“Wait, you sell these little guys? Isn’t that illegal?” She wasn’t a hundred percent on the law, but she was fairly certain this counted as selling an M.A.D. weapon (of adorableness!)

(Not the time!)

“I’ve got a license. As long as I renew it every few months I’m allowed to sell them, myself or to an authorized vendor. Though that’s only because of the sterility thing,” Kim admitted. “Without that it would be frowned upon a lot harder.”

“There’s a license for that kind of thing?” She asked, because that would make her own bio-experiments -as rare as they are- a lot less morally ambiguous. (Though god still won’t be happy with us.)

“Yeah, most people don’t realize it but you can get a license through the government for most lower rankings, the higher level stuff you need either the Hero’s Guild or Sanctuary to sign off on for safety reasons.” Kim explained.

(It makes sense for the government to want to offer certification, it encourages other M.A.D.s to follow the law that accepts them, and lets the government keep a record of who has what abilities.) Her inner logic broke down thoughtfully. (Both of which are better than outright outlawing them or having random M.A.D.s running around without anything to keep them in check.)

“Huh…”

“Anyway, before we got into the technical stuff, I was introducing you to Hammy here.” Kim reminded her, changing the topic back to the little critter on her shoulder as it once more waved at her.

“Oh, right… So as cute as he is, is he just a mutant hamster or…?” She asked, knowing that if she had the opportunity to show her inventions off to her family she’d do so without hesitation.

“Well, admittedly the real trick was making him smarter than most dogs, but luckily most rodents are already decently smart so giving him a little bump wasn’t too much trouble.” Kim explained, scratching the top of Hammy’s head.

She frowned at that. “Isn’t giving an animal an IQ boost a bad idea?”

“Only if you’re a bad parent, or in a horror movie, otherwise it’s only a problem if you push them past about that of an eight-year old.” Kim explained giving her a serious look. “According to an agreed moral standard, that’s a fair bit below a chimpanzee, and if you push beyond that you start to reach a moral event horizon giving an animal sapience. Honestly, the only reason I’m okay boosting them as much as I do is because I make sure they’re never without me or another one of my Critters for more than a few hours.”

“That’s… okay.” She nodded, understanding exactly why Kim was passionate about this, especially after her own dabbling with DM-1’s intelligence as well as the terror she’d developed after just one or two organic experiments on her end.

“Sorry, it’s just… I sort of get passionate about this you know?” Kim shook her head before scratching at Hammy’s head. “I mean, they’re living creatures and I made them, and I don’t know, that just means something to me.”

“Yeah, no. I get it.” She assured her fellow M.A.D. “You’re their creator and you care about them, that makes perfect sense.” It was also half of the reason she hadn’t been able to bring herself to decommission DM-1 after his clearly murderous tendencies. She made him, and it was wrong of her to just kill him.

“Heh, you’d be surprised how few M.A.D.s feel that way.” Kim told her softly.

She wasn’t sure what to say to that, and she knew if she didn’t say anything, then there’d be a silence blanketing them in but a moment, so instead she asked, “Have you done anything to them besides messing with their lifespans and IQs?”

Kim seemed to blink, before nodding in acceptance of her blatant change of topic. “There was one other trick I taught Hammy and his siblings. I even got permission to enter them in another one of the festival’s tournaments.”

“Oh, which one?” She asked as Kim pulled out and woke two more of her critters, one with blueish pattern on its fur and another with a greenish one.

“Just them give them a second.” Kim told her as the critters lined up on her arm. “Okay, a one, a two, a three, four.”

“Hit it, boys.~” A smooth voice called out from an unexpected source.

“Bup bup bup bup-pa-pow~” A series of jazzy instruments rang through the air, the source clear to all who could see.

(Well, Tommy ‘s got his work cut out for him.)