Leo spent his last night as a civilian making the final adjustments to his first practical creation since moving to New Troy. He made incredible strides thanks to the contents of his father's workshop. But it's not enough to decipher the Gnome's brilliance. Leo felt more proud of this little pistol than any of the super-science sitting in the vaults behind him.
The pistol itself wasn't really a weapon, though it could be. It didn't fire bullets. It was like a grappling gun, only the head was made of programmable matter. It could turn itself into a grappling hook, a cutting edge, a flat panel, a vacuum-sealed adhesive grip, or anything else the young man programmed into it. A simple voice-control interface controlled the shape it took, and miniature verniers mounted at the attachment ring allowed it to automatically correct its trajectory while in flight. The head connected back to the gun proper by means of bundled carbon nanotubes, stronger than steel and more flexible than rope.
Leo inspected his other supplies - a black ski mask, a vest of Microtech personal body armor composed of biomimetic arachnofiber weave, a flashlight, and a notebook. The notebook was the most important thing. The Gnome's notes were extensive, written in a nigh-indecipherable hand or encoded into the computers of the lab. They implicated any number of people, some of them movers and shakers within New Troy's power structure. People who had bought weapons from the Gnome, or sold him parts on the side. Executives and workers at big companies like Touchstone Solutions - Judson Snow's old employer - or simply independent criminals operating in the vast power vacuum left behind by the Enforcers' disappearance. And Leo had taken note of all of it.
Tonight, he was going to really do something. Tonight, he was after a man who used the Gnome's revolutionary explosives to get away with untraceable arson, and profit from the suffering of those whose lives he disrupted or ended. Tonight, he was going to start making his father pay.
----
"Otto," he called out, holding his wrist to his mouth. The radio watch he wore connected his voice to the car, and tires squealed as Otto pulled up in front of the junkyard entrance. None were there to see Leo throw his duffel bag in the back seat and hop in.
The drive felt longer than it really was. After this, there was no turning back. Leo wouldn't be able to pretend he was just a kid, or just a regular citizen. He was doing the things that vigilantes did. People like the Shroud, or Fractal. People in masks who weren't accountable to anyone or anything but their own conscience. Is this how they started? he remembers thinking. Is this what they did, just throw some gear together, get self-righteous, and kick someone's ass?
The comforting rumble of Otto was a distraction. Maybe they did it alone. I won't be.
----
"Arvin Sontag. Hold it right there." The voice seemed to come out of nowhere. The man in the cheap suit froze where he was, hands still gripping the explosive putty he'd been setting.
"Arvin Sontag! Stand up. Let go of the explosive."
Sontag looked around in the darkness, trying to spot the source of the voice. The Old Town tenement didn't have many people living in it, but none of them should have known his name. This was someone else. But he did as he was instructed, stalling for time.
"Who are you?" he demanded of the darkness.
The voice ignored his question. "You were planning to bomb this building. Innocent people were going to die. Now step away."
"Like hell!" Sontag's hand reached into his jacket for the pistol he kept hidden, and he dashed for the door. No good. Out of the darkness, a black shadow leaped. Sontag screamed as something cold and metal cut a gash in his hand on the way to knocking the pistol loose from his grip. The weapon spiraled and spun across the concrete floor, into a far corner. He clearly saw the cable and hook that had done the deed.
Sontag was prepared. He had a second weapon, a small AMT Backup, in a pocket. His hand was pulsating with pain, but he snatched the little pistol and opened fire in the direction the skyhook cable had come from. Several rounds ricocheted off concrete, but he heard a satisfying thump and grunt of pain. He'd tagged somebody. Good.
"Burn in hell, y'bastard!" Sontag shouted, taking advantage of the hit to go for the door.
----
Leo felt at his torso with both hands for a few scant seconds, finding that the vest had absorbed the hit. This was the first time he'd ever been shot, and he felt a tremendous thrill that it had done little except slow him down. But slow him it had - his quarry was getting away.
He ran for the door through which Sontag had left, only to find the man beating feet down the street. And behind him, a beeping noise started - the explosive was armed! Sontag must have carried a remote detonator.
"Otto! Get him, buddy," he shouted into his radio watch. "Will do!" came the electronic voice, and the unobtrusive parked car roared to life and launched itself into the street.
Leo turned around. He'd prepared for the process of disarming, but his practice runs took about a minute to complete. There was no time - but, he knew, the device was very stable. It could stand some jarring, and was light besides. It was across the room. It was seconds away from going off. Out of time...
"Skyhook, grab," he shouted at his pistol, and fired. The device configured itself mid-flight into a grabbing claw, snatching up the explosive. Thumbing the reel control, Leo ran from of the apartment and out onto the street. The cable snapped back into place, fully retracted - and with Leo staring a volatile bomb in the face, one capable of annihilating an entire apartment building.
With no time to spare he pointed the gun straight up at the night sky, and squeezed the trigger as hard as he could. The gun's mass driver, scaling its power to the trigger pressure, delivered the maximum possible power output. The entire bomb went with it, launched high into the sky of New Troy. And Leo thumbed the cable release switch, detaching the skyhook cable, and covered his head with both arms.
A blossom of red-orange fire erupted in the sky over Old Town, a pyrotechnic display that shattered windows and triggered car alarms. Leo raised his head and scanned the street. In the brilliant light of the bomb, he was able to see Otto catch up with the fleeing Sontag, who had emptied a few rounds from his backup pistol into the car's windshield - a useless gesture when there was no driver to injure. The car door popped open just in time to check the criminal and send him sprawling.
Leo walked purposefully up the street, adrenaline giving him a poise and a confidence he wouldn't lose for hours. In a single smooth motion, he punched Sontag squarely in the jaw as the man rose to his feet, a punch from which there was no second recovery. Only when the unconscious bomber was bound and blindfolded and in the trunk of Otto did Leo return to the tenement building to recover the pistol. One more piece of evidence.
----
Police found Sontag trussed in front of Old Town's NTPD precinct building the next morning, along with a thick sheaf of paperwork. There was enough detail to firmly connect Sontag to the bomb, receipts showing his purchase of explosives from the Gnome, and chemical details of the explosive that would match the residue found at previous bomb sites.
Back at the workshop, Leo peeled off his mask and body armor, and spent a few minutes refitting the skyhook gun with a new head and new cable. The expense was minor compared to the value of the lives he'd saved - never mind the property as well.
There were so many other people to stop - and so many others to save. He would need to be more careful about getting shot. He'd need more planning. This time, he'd been lucky. But there would be time for that. For now, he was really beginning to like this place called New Troy.
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