I walked up the street towards Mei's house and I wasn't surprised to see Izuku as he stood in her front yard. He saw me and walked towards me, his face looked like he was fighting to not frown.
“Mei said you would come crawling back when you realized you made a mistake.” Izuku said.
I wasn't surprised by his words. I was surprised by the venom in them. “Crawling? Do I look like I'm crawling?”
“You're here, aren't you?” Izuku said. “I knew you couldn't resist Mei's charms.”
I snorted and then barked a laugh. “That's rich, coming from you.”
“What does that mean?” Izuku said with narrowed eyes.
“It means... I really wanted to be nice about this.” I said and took out the fake controller. “Your girlfriend broke her promise. This doesn't give me access to anything except a blank computer with a fake program on it.”
Izuku smiled. “She said you wouldn't be smart enough to figure it out.”
“I figured out that it's a self-inclusive program that doesn't have any connectivity to anything, except itself. No wireless signal recognition, no network protocols, and no sending or receiving emitters.” I said and his smile disappeared. “How exactly am I supposed to connect to a satellite in orbit without any means to contact it?”
Izuku didn't say anything in response.
“Also, there's no information on this thing about the satellite. How does administrator access not have any knowledge of what the satellite actually does?” I asked him and he stayed silent. “I risked my future career and being branded a vigilante by helping her. How can she justify tricking me about my reward?”
“She... she didn't.” Izuku whispered. “She...”
“I never agreed to sleep with her and as my best friend, you know that I would never do that to you.” I said and he looked uncomfortable. “Did she tell you she kissed me and then told me to not tell you?”
Izuku's face went hard. “You kissed her and didn't tell me?”
“When was I supposed to bring it up? You do realize we only met once since it happened? We were catching up and Mei interrupted us. Remember that? It was just yesterday.” I said and put the controller away. I didn't want him breaking it to destroy the evidence of Mei's deceit. “I've never lied to you, Izuku. Not in all these years.”
“You also haven't told me everything.” Izuku said.
“Why would I? Do you want to know how many times I go to the bathroom? How many showers I have? How many times I've jerked off?” I asked him and he winced at the last one. “I don't ask you about things that don't matter and there's no need for stuff like that to come between friends. That's just nonsense and you know that.”
Izuku closed his mouth and didn't say anything else.
“I know Mei put you up to this. She wants you to confront me about things she's told you I should be telling you, right?” I asked and he didn't answer. “Has it ever come up before? No, it hasn't, because it didn't matter before. Friendships aren't built on full disclosure. They are built on trust, mutual interests, and enjoying someone's company. Can anyone else in your life tell you they have done that more for you than I have?”
Izuku closed his eyes. “Connor, please. Don't do this.”
“Do what?” I asked.
“Don't ask me to choose.” Izuku whispered opened his eyes to look into mine.
I paused and sped up my perception of time as I let that sink in. I shook my head mentally and went back to normal speed. “I don't have to, do I?” I asked him and he winced again. “You already made your choice and you just didn't want to tell me.”
“Connor...” Izuku started to say.
“I'll always be your friend, just like I promised when we were babies.” I said and sped up my perception of time again as I used my x-ray vision to scan through Mei's room and then her storm cellar lab. I wasn't surprised to see that she had a lead-lined safe in the wall down there. I changed the tension in my eye muscles and went through the electromagnetic spectrum until I could see through it.
I read her real notes about the satellite, its programming, and the actual controller. I applied a bit of heat vision and the contents of the safe burned up almost instantly. The real controller was actually a bracelet on Mei's wrist, similar to the ones that she had made for Rachel's quirk.
I looked for Mei and wasn't surprised to see that she was looking out an upstairs window right at us. Her bracelet was lined with lead as well. I easily saw through it and memorized the components.
I went back to my normal perception and chuckled. “You need to tell Mei that she needs to be treated for severe lead poisoning in about a week with that much lead touching her skin.”
Izuku caught his breath and started to cover himself in little lightning bolts.
“There's no rush. She had to touch a lot of it over the last week or so as she built the satellite to hide what it did from me.” I said and he looked surprised. “I'm just sorry I didn't try to look at it before I put it into space for her. I might not have, since you intentionally keeping secrets from me would be bad for our friendship.” I gave him a pointed look. “Wouldn't it?”
Izuku winced once more. “Connor, she asked me to...”
“...betray all of my secrets to her? Yes, I figured that out on my own, thanks.”
Izuku dropped his head to look at the ground as the little bolts of lightning around his arms and legs increased. “I can't let you confront her, Connor.” He said in a soft voice. “I can't.”
I held up a single finger and then moved it forward and lightly poked his chest. “That's it, you know. One. You have had one friend for all these years. That was me.” I said and poked him again. “Pussies can come and go. There are millions of them to choose from. How many of them have been your friend since you were a baby?”
Izuku's face hardened. “Don't talk about her like that!”
“I didn't say anything at all about Mei, Izuku. I was talking about my own experiences. Ming, Burnin, Fire, and even the waitress and our great date that didn't go anywhere. She just wanted a big strong muscular hero. It didn't matter who I was.” I said and looked at him. “She would have hit on you, too.”
Izuku's hard face softened. “Connor...”
“I told you all about it, about how I felt, and what I did afterwards to handle things. I would only do that with a friend I've had for years.” I said and let my hand drop. “I'll always be your friend, Izuku.” I turned away from him and started to walk away. “It's just too bad that you broke your promise to always be mine.”
“Connor!” Izuku exclaimed and I felt the air shift behind me.
I reacted and stepped to the side and held my elbow out at the exact height. I also held it steady using telekinesis, with just the exact amount of pressure it would need. Izuku's diaphragm slammed into my stationary elbow and he dropped to the ground on his knees, the breath knocked out of him.
“My friend.” I said and knelt beside him. “How very lucky you are that I do not believe in the old saying that if you are not for me, you are against me.”
Izuku's eyes looked into mine and tears formed in them. He wheezed when he tried to speak.
I did the same thing to him that I did to Red Fury when she had been in a similar position. I used two fingers to jab under the diaphragm to end the paralysis and made it move again. Izuku sucked in a huge breath and tears rolled down his cheeks.
I didn't say a word as I stood and walked away. Nothing else needed to be said.
I rode the train to the market district and went to several electronic stores to buy the parts I would need. I didn't have to worry about size, only function, so it didn't take long to buy the parts I needed and the tools to connect the parts together. I rode the train back home with a large cardboard box full of parts and brought it into the house.
I cleared up the space on my desk in my room for the project and then used super-speed and my perfect memory to assemble the parts in the right spots. I had to reference an electronics book and electrical current measuring devices that I bought to ensure I wasn't going to blow myself up with mixed or crossed wires or something.
Rather than trying to program the new controller the long way by writing it all again, I took out the fake controller and plugged it into one of the slots for external devices. I let it do all the hard work and then took out a burner cell phone and plugged it into the next slot. I used it like a keyboard and monitor mixed together as I altered the commands of Mei's overriding software.
I chuckled at her giving me a fake controller that was the exact means to take control of the real satellite, with its own overwriting programs that were now mine to control, and I used the burner phone's wireless broadcasting capability to connect to a communication satellite and piggybacked a signal to the satellite.
The satellite's own beam was sent down to my improvised and recreated controller, established a permanent connection, and I cut off all other access and overrides after I gave myself administrator privileges. I also installed a password on the thing that Mei would never guess in a million years. There was no way that she could steal her satellite back from me.
The first thing I did was have the satellite open the biological section to space and let the extreme cold of near vacuum to freeze and destroy that component of the satellite. I then deleted the programming that controlled repairing that part and closed it off. I needed to make sure that actually worked, so I went outside and looked up to observe it with my own eyes.
I smiled at the small cloud of ice crystals near it and went back inside the house. I would have to go to Mei's later and check that she didn't have a similar setup for the biological component here on Earth. Letting her play with viruses that she didn't understand was just inviting disaster.
I played with the satellite's search function and as I had predicted, it was set to monitor all quirk powered activity within the confines of the country. I would need much bigger display to use the map function to see where exactly the quirks were being used. I shook my head at the awesome power I now had at my fingertips.
No wonder Mei didn't really want to give me real access. I thought and changed the satellite to low power mode. I would need to find a way to block Mei from detecting the controller's signal, not that she wouldn't know it was me when she checked her safe later. I was the only one near there to cause her to lose her notes, after all.
I went to my bed and laid down to relax. I thought about my confrontation with Izuku and sighed. I could only hope that he would come to his senses soon, even if he already knew that he was in the wrong and was making things worse with his behavior.
That almost made me laugh, especially when I thought about the potential encounter with Mei and him the night before. I still couldn't believe that he was okay with kissing me, just so that Mei could get off on seeing guys kiss for real.
I took a very deep breath and let it out. I had nearly all day to wait for Lois to come home and I was tempted to grab some take-out for us. I didn't bother, in case Lois brought something home for us to have later. I closed my eyes and relaxed as I let my mind drift off into a nap. The last day had been a lot more stressful than it should have been and I needed to rest.
*
Lois came home with Connor's favorite take-out and entered the house. Everything was quiet and dark, which meant one of two things. Either he wasn't at home or he was asleep and forgot to leave a light on. She switched on the kitchen light and put the bags on the table before she checked the living room and then went to his bedroom.
The doorless room made her smile, because she wasn't really punishing him by denying him privacy. She was actually giving herself unblocked access to his room. It was very difficult to sneak into a room with someone that had super-hearing and she had managed it that morning, only because there hadn't been a door in the way.
Lois looked into the room and saw Connor sprawled out on the bed. She smiled at the sight of him still fully clothed and also asleep, as if he had been too tired to even undress. She walked over to the bed and noticed the mess of opened packages on the floor beside his desk and then she noticed the electronic monstrosity.
She held in her laugh at the thing with wires sticking out everywhere. The internals were completely exposed to dust and there was a cell phone plugged into it. She didn't recognize it, so it was probably a use and toss phone. The remote controller was an odd thing to also have plugged in, considering what Connor told her what it almost did to their house computer if he hadn't taken precautions.
Lois reached for it and put her hand around it, only for it to spark and shock her. The snap of electricity had been loud and she turned to look at Connor, only to see that he was still asleep. She laughed under her breath and went to the bed, crawled onto it like she had early that morning, and cuddled into him.
She rested her head on his muscular chest and sighed with contentment. She was suddenly tired and closed her eyes as she drifted off to sleep.
I walked up the street towards Mei's house and I wasn't surprised to see Izuku as he stood in her front yard. He saw me and walked towards me, his face looked like he was fighting to not frown.
“Mei said you would come crawling back when you realized you made a mistake.” Izuku said.
I wasn't surprised by his words. I was surprised by the venom in them. “Crawling? Do I look like I'm crawling?”
“You're here, aren't you?” Izuku said. “I knew you couldn't resist Mei's charms.”
I snorted and then barked a laugh. “That's rich, coming from you.”
“What does that mean?” Izuku said with narrowed eyes.
“It means... I really wanted to be nice about this.” I said and took out the fake controller. “Your girlfriend broke her promise. This doesn't give me access to anything except a blank computer with a fake program on it.”
Izuku smiled. “She said you wouldn't be smart enough to figure it out.”
“I figured out that it's a self-inclusive program that doesn't have any connectivity to anything, except itself. No wireless signal recognition, no network protocols, and no sending or receiving emitters.” I said and his smile disappeared. “How exactly am I supposed to connect to a satellite in orbit without any means to contact it?”
Izuku didn't say anything in response.
“Also, there's no information on this thing about the satellite. How does administrator access not have any knowledge of what the satellite actually does?” I asked him and he stayed silent. “I risked my future career and being branded a vigilante by helping her. How can she justify tricking me about my reward?”
“She... she didn't.” Izuku whispered. “She...”
“I never agreed to sleep with her and as my best friend, you know that I would never do that to you.” I said and he looked uncomfortable. “Did she tell you she kissed me and then told me to not tell you?”
Izuku's face went hard. “You kissed her and didn't tell me?”
“When was I supposed to bring it up? You do realize we only met once since it happened? We were catching up and Mei interrupted us. Remember that? It was just yesterday.” I said and put the controller away. I didn't want him breaking it to destroy the evidence of Mei's deceit. “I've never lied to you, Izuku. Not in all these years.”
“You also haven't told me everything.” Izuku said.
“Why would I? Do you want to know how many times I go to the bathroom? How many showers I have? How many times I've jerked off?” I asked him and he winced at the last one. “I don't ask you about things that don't matter and there's no need for stuff like that to come between friends. That's just nonsense and you know that.”
Izuku closed his mouth and didn't say anything else.
“I know Mei put you up to this. She wants you to confront me about things she's told you I should be telling you, right?” I asked and he didn't answer. “Has it ever come up before? No, it hasn't, because it didn't matter before. Friendships aren't built on full disclosure. They are built on trust, mutual interests, and enjoying someone's company. Can anyone else in your life tell you they have done that more for you than I have?”
Izuku closed his eyes. “Connor, please. Don't do this.”
“Do what?” I asked.
“Don't ask me to choose.” Izuku whispered opened his eyes to look into mine.
I paused and sped up my perception of time as I let that sink in. I shook my head mentally and went back to normal speed. “I don't have to, do I?” I asked him and he winced again. “You already made your choice and you just didn't want to tell me.”
“Connor...” Izuku started to say.
“I'll always be your friend, just like I promised when we were babies.” I said and sped up my perception of time again as I used my x-ray vision to scan through Mei's room and then her storm cellar lab. I wasn't surprised to see that she had a lead-lined safe in the wall down there. I changed the tension in my eye muscles and went through the electromagnetic spectrum until I could see through it.
I read her real notes about the satellite, its programming, and the actual controller. I applied a bit of heat vision and the contents of the safe burned up almost instantly. The real controller was actually a bracelet on Mei's wrist, similar to the ones that she had made for Rachel's quirk.
I looked for Mei and wasn't surprised to see that she was looking out an upstairs window right at us. Her bracelet was lined with lead as well. I easily saw through it and memorized the components.
I went back to my normal perception and chuckled. “You need to tell Mei that she needs to be treated for severe lead poisoning in about a week with that much lead touching her skin.”
Izuku caught his breath and started to cover himself in little lightning bolts.
“There's no rush. She had to touch a lot of it over the last week or so as she built the satellite to hide what it did from me.” I said and he looked surprised. “I'm just sorry I didn't try to look at it before I put it into space for her. I might not have, since you intentionally keeping secrets from me would be bad for our friendship.” I gave him a pointed look. “Wouldn't it?”
Izuku winced once more. “Connor, she asked me to...”
“...betray all of my secrets to her? Yes, I figured that out on my own, thanks.”
Izuku dropped his head to look at the ground as the little bolts of lightning around his arms and legs increased. “I can't let you confront her, Connor.” He said in a soft voice. “I can't.”
I held up a single finger and then moved it forward and lightly poked his chest. “That's it, you know. One. You have had one friend for all these years. That was me.” I said and poked him again. “Pussies can come and go. There are millions of them to choose from. How many of them have been your friend since you were a baby?”
Izuku's face hardened. “Don't talk about her like that!”
“I didn't say anything at all about Mei, Izuku. I was talking about my own experiences. Ming, Burnin, Fire, and even the waitress and our great date that didn't go anywhere. She just wanted a big strong muscular hero. It didn't matter who I was.” I said and looked at him. “She would have hit on you, too.”
Izuku's hard face softened. “Connor...”
“I told you all about it, about how I felt, and what I did afterwards to handle things. I would only do that with a friend I've had for years.” I said and let my hand drop. “I'll always be your friend, Izuku.” I turned away from him and started to walk away. “It's just too bad that you broke your promise to always be mine.”
“Connor!” Izuku exclaimed and I felt the air shift behind me.
I reacted and stepped to the side and held my elbow out at the exact height. I also held it steady using telekinesis, with just the exact amount of pressure it would need. Izuku's diaphragm slammed into my stationary elbow and he dropped to the ground on his knees, the breath knocked out of him.
“My friend.” I said and knelt beside him. “How very lucky you are that I do not believe in the old saying that if you are not for me, you are against me.”
Izuku's eyes looked into mine and tears formed in them. He wheezed when he tried to speak.
I did the same thing to him that I did to Red Fury when she had been in a similar position. I used two fingers to jab under the diaphragm to end the paralysis and made it move again. Izuku sucked in a huge breath and tears rolled down his cheeks.
I didn't say a word as I stood and walked away. Nothing else needed to be said.
I rode the train to the market district and went to several electronic stores to buy the parts I would need. I didn't have to worry about size, only function, so it didn't take long to buy the parts I needed and the tools to connect the parts together. I rode the train back home with a large cardboard box full of parts and brought it into the house.
I cleared up the space on my desk in my room for the project and then used super-speed and my perfect memory to assemble the parts in the right spots. I had to reference an electronics book and electrical current measuring devices that I bought to ensure I wasn't going to blow myself up with mixed or crossed wires or something.
Rather than trying to program the new controller the long way by writing it all again, I took out the fake controller and plugged it into one of the slots for external devices. I let it do all the hard work and then took out a burner cell phone and plugged it into the next slot. I used it like a keyboard and monitor mixed together as I altered the commands of Mei's overriding software.
I chuckled at her giving me a fake controller that was the exact means to take control of the real satellite, with its own overwriting programs that were now mine to control, and I used the burner phone's wireless broadcasting capability to connect to a communication satellite and piggybacked a signal to the satellite.
The satellite's own beam was sent down to my improvised and recreated controller, established a permanent connection, and I cut off all other access and overrides after I gave myself administrator privileges. I also installed a password on the thing that Mei would never guess in a million years. There was no way that she could steal her satellite back from me.
The first thing I did was have the satellite open the biological section to space and let the extreme cold of near vacuum to freeze and destroy that component of the satellite. I then deleted the programming that controlled repairing that part and closed it off. I needed to make sure that actually worked, so I went outside and looked up to observe it with my own eyes.
I smiled at the small cloud of ice crystals near it and went back inside the house. I would have to go to Mei's later and check that she didn't have a similar setup for the biological component here on Earth. Letting her play with viruses that she didn't understand was just inviting disaster.
I played with the satellite's search function and as I had predicted, it was set to monitor all quirk powered activity within the confines of the country. I would need much bigger display to use the map function to see where exactly the quirks were being used. I shook my head at the awesome power I now had at my fingertips.
No wonder Mei didn't really want to give me real access. I thought and changed the satellite to low power mode. I would need to find a way to block Mei from detecting the controller's signal, not that she wouldn't know it was me when she checked her safe later. I was the only one near there to cause her to lose her notes, after all.
I went to my bed and laid down to relax. I thought about my confrontation with Izuku and sighed. I could only hope that he would come to his senses soon, even if he already knew that he was in the wrong and was making things worse with his behavior.
That almost made me laugh, especially when I thought about the potential encounter with Mei and him the night before. I still couldn't believe that he was okay with kissing me, just so that Mei could get off on seeing guys kiss for real.
I took a very deep breath and let it out. I had nearly all day to wait for Lois to come home and I was tempted to grab some take-out for us. I didn't bother, in case Lois brought something home for us to have later. I closed my eyes and relaxed as I let my mind drift off into a nap. The last day had been a lot more stressful than it should have been and I needed to rest.
*
Lois came home with Connor's favorite take-out and entered the house. Everything was quiet and dark, which meant one of two things. Either he wasn't at home or he was asleep and forgot to leave a light on. She switched on the kitchen light and put the bags on the table before she checked the living room and then went to his bedroom.
The doorless room made her smile, because she wasn't really punishing him by denying him privacy. She was actually giving herself unblocked access to his room. It was very difficult to sneak into a room with someone that had super-hearing and she had managed it that morning, only because there hadn't been a door in the way.
Lois looked into the room and saw Connor sprawled out on the bed. She smiled at the sight of him still fully clothed and also asleep, as if he had been too tired to even undress. She walked over to the bed and noticed the mess of opened packages on the floor beside his desk and then she noticed the electronic monstrosity.
She held in her laugh at the thing with wires sticking out everywhere. The internals were completely exposed to dust and there was a cell phone plugged into it. She didn't recognize it, so it was probably a use and toss phone. The remote controller was an odd thing to also have plugged in, considering what Connor told her what it almost did to their house computer if he hadn't taken precautions.
Lois reached for it and put her hand around it, only for it to spark and shock her. The snap of electricity had been loud and she turned to look at Connor, only to see that he was still asleep. She laughed under her breath and went to the bed, crawled onto it like she had early that morning, and cuddled into him.
She rested her head on his muscular chest and sighed with contentment. She was suddenly tired and closed her eyes as she drifted off to sleep.
