"Ugh, why won't this work?" Akane complained.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

While my specialties in mad science dealt quite heavily in human psychology- I didn't make my implants as autohypnotic routines just because I thought it was funny- I still was not a formally-trained teacher, and wasn't really sure how I was supposed to be teaching something so cerebral and creative as mad science.

As such, on Sunday, I'd started Akane off with a brief overview of the design goal, an outline of the mad scientific method, and told her to ask for help whenever she needed it.

"You told me mad science runs on pseudoscience," Akane said. "So I'm trying to use string theory to make the armor work, but..." She sighed.

"Okay, so, a few things here," I said. "One, I never said that mad science ran on pseudoscience. I said that mad science ran on bullshit. Pseudoscience is a specific term in the philosophy of science with a specific definition- how familiar are you with Karl Popper?"

"Uhhh... Refresh my memory," she said.

"Right. Well, Karl Popper defined science and pseudoscience in opposition to each other, with a key delineating feature: falsifiability, typically through prediction," I said. "Real scientific theories make predictions that can be tested, and possibly proved wrong. Therefore, pseudoscientific theories are those that explain everything but predict nothing and cannot be proven wrong."

"Huh, interesting," Akane said.

"Now, I'm not going to weigh in on whatever hard science pissing match is going on with you and string theorists, not because I'm not qualified but because I don't care, but I am going to say that if you think string theory is stupid because it's not a predictive model, then you shouldn't be using it in your mad science," I said. "Mad science is about taking a predictive model that's wrong, and making it contextually right. It's about hypothesizing One Weird Trick with charcoal and peanut butter that lets you manipulate gravity, and then making that bullshit actually work so that you can have a hoverboard powered by charcoal and peanut butter."

"Oooooh," Akane said.

"So fuck string theory, fuck the inside jokes that only you and your advisor will get. What do you have to work with, what are you trying to do, and what absolutely bullshit predictive model lets you use the former to achieve the latter?" I asked.

"Well... Veronica offered to run some errands for me, after I told her I was going to try making armor for myself," Akane said. "Buying materials and all."

"So you're less constrained on the materials front," I said, nodding. "Right. Let me know if you need anything else."

"I should be fine," Akane said, nodding. "Although... Do you have something that'll take a 3D scan of me so I can get the armor to fit on the first try?"'

"I've got a computer in my brain," I said. "I can take a 3D scan with my own two eyes, provided you're willing to T-pose for a few minutes."

"Sure!" She shot to her feet, flinging her arms out to the sides, and once she stopped jiggling, I captured the first image.

I'd been living with Akane for less than a week at this point, and I clearly wasn't done adjusting fully to her, uh... her. She was deceptively curvaceous, appearing normal and reasonable with her tall frame, but when she hugged you- something she was quite fond of doing with me, multiple times a day, whenever she felt like it or thought I felt like it- she reminded you that, no, she was in fact distressingly well-padded.

And now, here I was, taking a slow walk around her, carefully examining her figure from every angle, while she wore a thin, stretchy tank top and tight shorts. It was enough to make me grateful for my various body modifications, because I really did not want to pop a boner right now.

"Alright, all done," I said, turning my attention away once I was done with the capture. "Make sure you leave room for breathing. And maybe consider what the hell you're supposed to do when it's been three hours and you're busting for a piss." Hopefully, distracting myself from 'hng, tiddy big' with 'okay but you have to pee eventually' would continue to work to divert my own libido, and would not backfire in the absolute worst way. All the same... perhaps I shouldn't make a habit of it.

"Thanks, Roxy!"

By default, when a demiurge built something that was observable by humans, it looked like a mad scientist had built it. There was a lot of aesthetic wiggle room, accommodating all sorts of mad science aesthetics, but unless you were a deft hand with the transformational sciences, making something that looked normal, and not some flavor of deranged was impossible.

Thankfully, when it came to wearable mad science, the internet and the convention scene had normalized the idea of cosplay, which meant that you could go out in public covered in metal plates and blinking LEDs and people would think you were in town for a convention or something.

"Oh, nice," I said, stepping out of my room after Akane called me to check out her finished suit. There were lights on it, sure, but rather than cosplay, it looked like legitimate prototype exercise gear.

"How do I look?" Akane asked, turning this way and that, examining herself. I noted that Veronica, who'd made shop runs for Akane, was also here to witness this first fitting.

She was wearing a skintight jumpsuit made of a deep, dark red material that wasn't quite shiny, but wasn't completely flat matte, either. Various symmetrical and geometric lines were drawn over the suit, each of them lined with an even, red glow. It was a pretty cool effect, even if it was pretty clearly cosmetic. However, contrary to what I'd feared, Akane was not a complete idiot, and so this jumpsuit she intended to wear while piloting experimental vehicles was not constructed like fetish wear. Her figure was still noticeable, there was just no getting rid of curves that big, but it had been compressed, like she was wearing the mother of all sports bras and compression tights. And then, on top of that, a thickly-padded suit of armor meant to protect her in a car crash.

"Looks good to me," I said. There were three pieces she was not wearing, those being the gloves and the hood slash helmet, but it wasn't hard to see how those were meant to go on. "I'm guessing that, with the gloves and the helmet off, it's low-profile enough you can just wear it under a sweater and a skirt without anyone noticing?"

"Yep!" Akane said, proudly planting her hands on her hips. "Best part is, it's actually really comfortable! It's juuuuust tight enough to feel like a constant hug, but it also does temperature regulation! I'm not sweating even a little!"

"Well, hell, that's pretty good work," I said. "You, uh... should probably put the armor on a crash test dummy and run some tests before you trust it with your life, though."

"Austin's a major superscience hub," Veronica added. "There are already-existing testing facilities, that I could get you access to."

"Maybe," Akane said. "R- uh, I don't think mad science is going to work the same way." Ah, hrm. Is Akane not a good actor slash liar? "Letting other people handle it tends to break it really badly."

"Ask me how we found out," I said, reaching up to rub my eyebrow.

"Mmn, I see," Veronica said. "That... is uncommon, but not unheard of. There exist procedures to handle this."

"Like what?" Akane asked.

"The details elude me; until very recently, I didn't think them personally relevant. But, now they are relevant," Veronica said. "It is my hope that, as you grow into your power, the two of us will be able to collaborate on my mission. You did say you had an affinity for scanners, did you not?"

"Oh absolutely not," I said. "No, no, fuck that. Fuck everything you have just said- I will tolerate, with clenched teeth, Akane building and testing her own mad science motorcycles. But I will not tolerate the charismatic warrior princess luring her into a profession that gets shot at for a living."

"You are not her mother," Veronica said flatly.

"That's correct," I said, nodding. "Should I call her, then? Should I call Akane's mother and tell her that Akane plans to drop out of grad school to be a superhero? Or would you rather deal with just me?"

"Perhaps I should call her, and inform her of the strange, aggressive, manipulative woman who has rapidly insinuated herself into Akane's life under the pretext of taking care of her," Veronica said.

"I'm prepared to account for myself. Are you?"

"Would you two stop?" Akane said, drawing us both up short. "You two are my best friends, and... and this was a big moment for me! This suit is..." She shook her head.

"...You're right, I was unreasonably aggressive," I said. "I'm sorry I snapped at you like that, Veronica. I regret having done that."

In lieu of an actual apology, Veronica's face turned a bit red and she turned away, folding her arms. Which, I suppose, is the closest she got to admitting fault.

Thankfully, she left not long afterwards... leaving me alone with Akane, who seemed to have some questions.

"...Why, Roxy?" Akane asked.

"I'm assuming you mean, 'why did I react like that to Veronica's suggestion you become a superhero,'" I said. "I could lie and say that it's because Veronica's current mission is to find, arrest, and deport me. But... well, I trust your ability to just lie to her and tell her you can't find anything."

"So... Why? Why did you freak out at the idea of me becoming a superhero?" Akane asked. "It's... I mean, every kid dreams of getting powers and becoming a hero. I definitely did. I still do! It's important to Nicky, and it's something I'd love to be able to share with her."

"Right, well... Where I'm from, we're a lot less enamored of people who do violence as part of their job," I said. "We don't have superheroes as such, but we do have our own sort of supernatural law enforcement. The druids are the only ones who do it with any dignity, and in their case it's because the spirits make them do it. For everyone else, it's a dirty, unglamorous job you only end up in because you weren't good enough to hack it in a real job."

I realized I'd clenched my fists, and forced myself to relax them. I'd been a bounty hunter for years, ever since my own Breakthrough. I'd been beaten, burned, shot, frozen, poisoned, stabbed, shocked, irradiated, exsanguinated, and more. I'd witnessed crazed, broken men, losing their minds, driven by their innate desire to change the world unchecked by any ethical or practical considerations, and I'd been forced to shatter their hopes and put them down.

"...Were you one of them?" Akane asked.

I blinked, looking away. "...No," I lied. "I just... I lost a friend to that work. And I don't want to lose another."

I'd managed to escape it, when the Institute for Applied Transhumanism took me in. I'd been using implanted mad science as a play on the concept of self-improvement for a while; gadgets implanted inside my body couldn't be taken away from me or touched by those who would break them, after all. Apparently I'd gotten good enough at it to impress them.

Of course, I didn't get to have nice things for long, and my old, deranged mentor stole an old portal gun in a high-profile way that got a great many people looking very pointedly at me and asking what I planned to do about it.

"Okay..." Akane said, clearly not entirely believing me.

"Doesn't matter," I said, shaking my head. "Just try not to get yourself killed, yeah?"