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Tales from Silicon City: Arsenel Reconstruction

By Psion

All rights reserved

The apartment air hung heavy with the smell of cheap beer as the alarm blared with all the gracefulness of a jackhammer on Rachel Arsenel's hung over head. The white furred mink groaned and reached to hit the snooze button... only to remember that she had fallen asleep on the couch and the alarm was by her bedside on the other side of the studio apartment. Growling in frustration, she rolled over and promptly fell face first on the carpeted floor.

Slowly starting to sober up thanks to a firm bop on the nose, Rachel rose to her feet and staggered into the apartment's small bathroom. Turning the light on and shutting the door behind her, she stared in the mirror and into the tired blue eyes staring back at her. Last night was a bad night for dreams, so bad the booze didn't help at all. Stripping off yesterday's clothes and letting her black hair fall down past her shoulder blades, she stepped into the shower and let the hot water run down her fat body. Once upon a time, what could have only been three or four months ago, Rachel had been caught up in the Aphrodite City crisis. Two juvenile beings with a mysterious power to bestow super powers upon other beings turned the city into their warped playground. Five hapless women were either forced or suckered into becoming the city's protectors while five males had been introduced to the ultimate power trip of supervillainy. The fact that four of the five males were worthless nobodies, deadbeat narcissistic monsters that cared little for anything other then their own satisfaction and too absorbed into themselves to see their true value, just... Rachel banged her fist against the shower wall in frustration as the hot water dripped down her nude body.

The mink had physically changed a fair bit since she had been Wrench Wench, one of Aphrodite City's reluctant protectors. Depression and post-traumatic stress had taken its toll on all five of them but where the others had found some solace, whether by Deborah and Sonya becoming 'not quite lesbians' with each other or by giving this superhero thing one more go like Samantha or Haru, Rachel hadn't quite find even the pseudo peace the others managed to erect. Instead the mink lost herself in an almost never-ending binge of alcohol and junk food financed by working as a gadget maker and "arms dealer to the vigilantes." The resulting torrent of carbohydrates and little else had a profound impact on her physique, ballooning her out into a fat mustelid with a monstrously enormous butt. The last time she saw a scale, it was with a certain grim satisfaction to see the results. She was over three hundred pounds, a fact that filled her with neither despair nor lipophilic joy. Being fat wasn't a bad thing, if anything it cut down on the number of deadbeat meathead lunks chasing after her. Whether that was a good attitude to have or not was a debate to have with someone who knew her history and yet was still in his or her right mind.

Finishing her shower and stepping back out in the apartment proper, she got dressed in a fresh change of clothes and saw about breakfast. Two doughnut crullers and a honey bun later, she was brushing her teeth and ready to start another day of basically being miserable.

Her workshop was a rented storefront in the lower income districts not from the "projects" of the city. Officially the shop repaired various small items, mostly electronics that were no longer under warranty, but the customers didn't see much beyond the front counter and the waiting area. In back, behind a sheetrock wall, was the actual workspace itself. Here, in the chaos of several workbenches and freestanding shop equipment, Rachel worked on everything from a math professor's calculator to a grappling gun being assembled under the table for a vigilante. Pending projects were in one bin, completed ones in another or locked away in a concealed wall safe in the case of "viggy" jobs, and the rest of the work space was a study in organized pandemonium as she carefully juggled multiple projects at once. The moment one was required to sit because glue or solder needed to dry and harden, she slid her metal stool along to the next item.

Today was unfortunately a fairly light day as far as work went. Most of her projects were finished and waiting for the clients to stop by and pick them up, what was still disassembled would be back together long before lunch. Which meant a dry spell was coming where she didn't have much work. Money wasn't a particularly big problem, rent was paid for this month and the next with something left over if she felt like splurging, but the downtime meant time to think and time for her mind to wander. Oh well, maybe she could spend the afternoon tinkering with Fix-It, her still-unfinished personal "super" project. At the very least it would be something to do to keep her busy...

The last project had been assembled, all that was left was to wait for people to come back to collect their repaired electronics. Which meant sitting behind the cash register and doing her best to avoid looking bored while waiting for someone to come into the shop. Taking the bin of finished projects to the front and hiding them behind the counter, the tech-savvy mink sat her soft marshmallow bottom in a comfortable chair and started reading the latest copy of Popular Mechanics. She had just gotten engrossed in an article debating the merits of open exoskeletons versus enclosed power armor when she heard the door chime ring. "Hello, how can I-" Rachel never finished her sentence, having the barrel of a 9mm semiautomatic held inches from her face tended to have that effect on people.

"Open the register Rochelle." The female wolf demanded. Long black hair and some kind of neon green tribal tattoos on her face stood out

The mink did what she was told and started to quickly stuff the money in a paper bag. "My name's not Rochelle."

"Quit stalling and just give me the money Rebecca!" The woman growled as Rachel finally finished filling the paper bag full of money, pausing long enough to grab it and look inside before running towards the door.

The freelance mechanic watched her assailant run and mentally counted the seconds. Three seconds, three seconds was all it took for the average person to reach the door and... Bazzap! The metallic doorframe came to life with a burst of energy; the would-be mugger dropped her gun as her body completed the circuit. Turning the trap off, Rachel sighed and got up to see if the idiot was still alive. Putting her fingers against the prone female's neck, she groaned. A pulse... guess she better phone it in.

"Hello 911, I'd like to report a failed robbery. Hi Annabel, yes it's Rachel again. Yes it's a repeat this time, one of those punks from the Oz Landers street gang again. Yes she's unconscious, shot her with my Taser as she tried to run; I suppose I'll need an ambulance and a squad car over here. Yes, I am at my shop on Mulberry Street. No I don't know which Oz Lander it was this time, I swear their membership changes hourly some days. And besides why should I remember when not one of them has gotten my name right when it says 'Rachel's Repairs' right above the doorway? Anyway how soon can I expect help to... yeah I see them." The mink waved as she saw the squad car turn onto the street, the wail of an ambulance told her the paramedics were not far behind. "Do you want me to hang up now or should I stay on the line? Okay then, I'll stay on until the car finishes pulling up which is about... now."

Ten minutes later, Rachel had given Officer Larry her statement and Albert's ambulance crew had strapped the ganger to a gurney and taken her to the hospital. It wasn't right lying about the door trap but she was certain a lot of the wrong questions would be raised if people knew she was building her own security devices. And as much as she liked Larry and Albert, she knew that would be the end of her business. As soon as people figured out she was making gadgets for vigilantes... well the task of investigating her clients would fall to the DSA and if there was any particular group of g-men she would have happily told to go to hell, it was the Department of Superhero Affairs. So hence the small lie...

Pushing these thoughts out of her head as she put some of the recovered money back into the register and the rest in a floor safe beneath her feet, Arsenel calmed back down and started to think about what to do next. Looking at the clock and listening to the gentle growl of her stomach, she locked up the shop and hung a sign in the doorway "Lunch break, back in one hour."

An hour lunch break, ah the joys of being her own boss, the heavy-set mink mused with a smile as she got in line at a sandwich shop down the street from her workshop. Louis's Subs was a small hole in the wall establishment barely bigger than her apartment. Restaurant furniture easily two decades old lined one wall as the establishment's titular chef and owner assembled all manner of decadent submarine sandwiches. The most famous of these was a hulking three-pound, foot-and-a-half long beast of a meal called the Fat Italian. Italian loaf crammed with meatballs, poultry tenders, melted Provolone cheese, and the whole thing oozing with tomato sauce. Louis and his sandwiches were at least as much responsible for the current size of the mink's ass as Cassie Witherspoon and her doughnuts.

Squeezing into a booth, Rachel smiled as she began to dig in to her lunch. Slowly savoring each bite, the overstuffed gadget maker smiled as she leisurely devoured the hot sub cooked to perfection. Every mouthful was a few precious seconds in a place of relative bliss where she could pretend the outside world didn't exist and Aphrodite City was nothing more then a harmless nightmare.

Washing down roughly half the sandwich with a large cola, the raven-haired female was brought back down to earth long enough to finally notice a snickering pair of female teenagers playing hooky from school. They spoke to one another in hushed whispers, the kind of hammed-up whispers that were just loud enough to be heard but not so loud that people could make out their conversation. Even though the two mice didn't say anything she could make out, the tone and the way they looked at her told her plenty. And judging from the way the other three diners were looking at them, she was hardly the only one to get annoyed with them.

Putting her sandwich to the side, Rachel cleared her throat and spoke loudly enough for the rest of the dining room to hear her. "Hey Louis, did the SCPD finally force you to take mouse burgers off the menu?" She asked over her shoulder.

Looking like he was mere seconds away from losing his cool and kicking the delinquents out or calling the truancy officer, the sandwich master immediately picked up on the joke. "Sorry Rachel, the cops didn't quite have the same sense of humor you do. Kept saying they tasted like rat. I can whip up two to go if you really want though, think you have the stomach to eat two delinquent specials in one sitting?"

"Eeeyup, and still have room leftover for a couple donuts." She smiled, giving the two mice a look like she was having trouble deciding between finishing her sandwich... and finishing them.

Noticing that the room had gone deathly quiet, suddenly the girls were not particularly inclined to find out. Finishing up their lunch quickly and beating a path for the door, the other diners watched them leave and held their breaths for a few moments until they felt it was safe to laugh. Rachel merely smiled and finished her sandwich before walking back to her shop, sipping the remains of her soda as she headed back in and wrapped up things up early. Some customers showed up to collect their fixed possessions while others needed to receive an email reminding them that their stuff was ready to be picked up.

With everything else done for the day, all that was left was to count the money, make sure it was locked up in the floor safe beneath the counter where it would stay until she made her weekly deposit tomorrow, and surf the news sites and a few message boards for... people like her to see if there was anything new. Because try as she might, she couldn't completely stop helping people even though the last time she sincerely tried to make things right resulted in her getting caught up in the twisted games plaguing Aphrodite City. She didn't like it but she had seen too many horrible things to turn away either. Besides with Haru back in her home country, Sam doing god only knows what overseas, and both Debby and Sonya seemingly achieving some kind of peace, someone had to keep watch and make sure any loose ends from Aphrodite City came up. Particularly the Hedonists... Rachel frowned as she tried to avoid thinking about that cult of sick monsters that sprang up around the godlike Brothers as they terrorized Aphrodite City, what they tried to do to Sonya once... Shaking her head, she forced herself to avoid going down that road. Sonya was fine; there was no need to dwell on what could have happened.

Back in the present, the gadget-wielding mink's Internet search turned up nothing that sounded particularly like Hedonist activity in the city. A result that ultimately disappointed her but nothing that wasn't entirely unexpected. And besides, there were plenty of other leads that needed following up... Rachel stared at the computer screen in confusion as one particular posting caught her eye. G.L.A.M. had just done something that seemed so shameless she couldn't believe it was real at first. Arsenel had heard of G.L.A.M., a bunch of villainous spoiled supermodels with superpowers, but she was conflicted about whether to consider them a real threat. On one hand, Rachel had seen first-hand what happened when one gave seemingly unlimited power to someone that neither earned nor deserved it. On the other, she had also seen true evil, the kind of evil that showed no regard for the life of another, while G.L.A.M. was more focused on the stupid kind of evil... like somehow ganging up on Dr. Alexander Townes, beating him up and kidnapping him before broadcasting a ransom demand over the Internet while the mink was out eating lunch.

Rachel Arsenel stared at the screen in disbelief, reading the item twice and looked up the ransom message before shutting off her computer. The video was short and to the point; they either dump all the money raised for Aphrodite City into an account in the Cayman Islands or never see Dr. Townes again. Rachel knew what had to be done... Her movements were purposeful as she went through the process of locking up, her motions marked with a fire in her blue eyes as she pulled down the safety cage and locked the front door of her repair shop before flipping the sign from "open" to "closed." Marching into the back of her shop, towards where she hid her commissioned gadgets, the indignant woman walked up to a locked closet and punched a code into the electronic keypad. As the door automatically swung open, Rachel took the Fix-It exoskeleton off of its supports and grabbed a handful of other things tucked away with it for safekeeping. A change of non-descriptive, bland street clothes she quickly put on, and the only things remaining from her old Wrench Wench costume, her giant sledgehammer and her construction yellow domino mask. The former was big, heavy, and hurt like a mad mother to anyone it hit. The latter... she wasn't sure why she kept her old mask to be honest. Guess there was a warped kind of sentiment involved.

Putting the exoskeleton on over her clothes, she felt its comforting weight on her back and against her limbs. The backpack unit was a multifunctional device capable of extending a variety of limbs ending with different tools, while the hydraulics on her limbs enhanced her strength and physical speed. Putting her mask over her face and hefting up the giant metal mallet like it was a toy, she took a deep breath and snuck out the backdoor before locking the door behind her. Time to do what was right....

While she didn't have any clues as to where the money was taken, Rachel had an idea where to start looking. In addition to shaking down honest merchants so they didn't have to work to maintain their supply of drugs and hookers, the Australian-American Oz Lander gangers occasionally did jobs for G.L.A.M. that they often bragged about loudly after the fact. The suited heroine may not know where G.L.A.M. was hiding out, but she certainly knew where the Oz Landers liked to roost after a hard day of leeching off of honest working individuals...

The tenement building hardly looked like much, just another brick building in the city's lower income district slated for eventual renovation as part of a massive urban renewal project due to be starting soon... either next month or the month after. At the given moment though, it was infested with gangers currently getting stoned or drunk. One of which was about to have a very bad day.

Rachel's ability set didn't really favor straight-up fights when she was getting superpowers from a pair of perverted psychopaths. It favored direct confrontation a lot less now with the Fix-It exoskeleton. Fortunately, she never was one for fighting through a horde of minions simply to have a word with the gang leader. Scaling the fire escape, mechanically supported muscle pulling her body weight up the steel rungs and over the brick awning onto the flat roof, she began her infiltration.

Cutting down the door hinges with the gentle whine of a mechanical saw, the broad-hipped mink slowly crept down the stairs in the building proper. The old wooden stairs creaked violently in protest of her weight yet judging by the sound of the hip-hop music blaring below her, she could have driven up in a tank and no one inside would have been the wiser. Now came the hard part though, locating the gang leader.

That also proved to be easier then she thought. With rank came privilege and such the boss afforded himself a fairly nice crash pad on the upper levels of the building. While the rest of his crew was partying downstairs, the gang leader was up smoking with a prostitute grinding her rear against his lap. At least, she was dancing on his lap until the rotund mink barged in and yanked her off before dragging him up to his feet. The hooker screamed and darted out of the room. Heading out after with the gang leader being dragged by his shirt collar, the masked mustelid returned to the roof and slammed him against the brick lip of the roof. It wouldn't be long before his friends came upstairs to investigate.

"Where is G.L.A.M. keeping Dr. Townes?" She snarled, pressing her hammer against the brown rabbit's chest.

"Oi, OI! What are you talking-" He began, flinching as she raised her massive hammer over her head. "Calm down!"

"I know you work for G.L.A.M. on occasion, either you tell me where I can find them or I'll let you pick which gets smashed like a watermelon first, your head or your crotch."

The rabbit blinked for a moment, the wheels beginning to turn in his drug addled brain. "Oh bloody hell... the hammer, the mask, the Southern accent, it's you isn't it? Look, they're at Club Angelic over in the yuppie side of the city. Their boss Dominique owns the property under a shell company. They have a hideout in the basement. I've never been there but I've heard them talk about it often enough. That's all I know, honest!" He answered, flinching as she still held her hammer in a threatening manner.

Backup arrived behind them, the rest of the Oz Landers finally thought of checking the roof. Looks like she would have to settle her personal business with the gang another day. Servomotors whined as Rachel made her exit, bounding from one rooftop to another as bullets whizzed past her. She took a certain perverse pride in how badly they were missing their target, unable to hit a fat ass mink as she raced away in the fading light of the late afternoon sun...

Club Angelic was a high-end nightclub in the basement of one of the city's more posh hotels... a hotel probably owned by the same shell company Rachel realized. Access to the basement was limited to a handful of stairwells and a service elevator that connected to the club kitchen. Stepping through the latter, Rachel found herself joined by others that followed different trails to the club; Rump Roast, Jello, all four of the Dough Girls, and the chubby speedster Iron Wok. All seven of the local heroines looked at the masked mink with a nagging sense of déjà vu as she pressed the button for the hotel basement. Each of them could have sworn they saw that mask and hammer somewhere before but none of them was entirely sure where...

The club wasn't ready to open for another hour and the staff was apparently well aware of who they worked for, bartenders and cooks politely got out of the way of the eight visibly armed costume heroines as they made their way through the backrooms of the club and into the hideout proper. There, in a private lounge that clearly doubled as an armory and "war room" for G.L.A.M.'s exploits in the city, Dominique and several of her cronies laughed as they surrounded a chained Dr. Townes. The blond, leather-clad draft mare in charge of G.L.A.M. looking positively pleased with herself as she continued to beat on her hostage with a riding crop and a set of chemically-enhanced muscles. Neither villains nor hostage had seen the heroines arrive yet.

"Come on Dr. Townes, make it easy on yourself and just give us the account numbers so we can start making withdrawals." Dominique smiled as she paused her abuse long enough for him to speak.

Looking up at his captor with his good right eye as his left had nearly swollen shut from the bruising, the muscle-bound tiger briefly chuckled and shook his head. "You really don't know anything about Aphrodite City do you? I watched it burn for the amusement of two... things; the city's only protectors were five reluctant women that were probably as scared as I was. Do you really think I am going to spit in the face of that kind of courage just so you can do whatever it is you plan on doing with the money?" He asked, oblivious to the fact that Wrench Wench was right there.

About to reply, Dominique looked up from her interrogation and spotted the heroines approaching with weapons at the ready, drawing the others attention to them. Taking in the crowd of heavyweight defenders of justice with a sweeping glance, her eyes lit up as she recognized Rachel's masked persona. "Wrench Wench?" She asked, causing the others to look at the mink with sudden recognition.

"I guess you can still call me that, been kind of between alter-egos lately." The mustelid replied, her words implying a bit of a joke but her voice was anything but.

Dominique smiled evilly, blue equine eyes glistening with malice. "I guess the rumors were true then, someone needs to start hitting the gym." The mare cackled before Honey Buns, the equine Dough Girl, quickly blasted the other horse woman with a pressurized torrent of cake batter.

The battle began in earnest. Four G.L.A.M. sycophants, hanger-on fans that formed the villainous organization's army of minions, attacked and were promptly swatted away by a giant spatula, oversized wok, or sledgehammer. An Asian rabbit rose to her feet and tried to command a peculiar metal robot that was standing guard in the corner but Honey Buns wasn't having any of that. The broad-bottomed equine switched targets and blasted the open-mouthed lapine with a fattening deluge of cake batter from a backpack-fed pneumatic rifle, knocking the enemy technosavant over and pinning her beneath a ballooning beer belly.

Jello, a brown weasel with a hourglass as wobbly as her namesake, kept pace with her fellow gunner, blasting the other empowered members of G.L.A.M. with sticky, fruit-flavored gelatin from her Jelly Gun. At least a cup-size bigger then the most endowed villainess in the fight, the green-and-yellow clad mustelid happily teased her foes and earned a few eye rolls from her cohorts.

As the club erupted in utter pandemonium around her and her face was speckled with cake batter, Dominique calmly reached to grab the restrained Townes in her chair... only to get slammed in the face by Iron Wok's frying pan. Snarling and grabbing her whip, the leather bound horsewoman swung the weapon towards the chubby panda only for Wrench Wench to grab it in a gloved hand. With a hard yank, the "fallen" heroine pulled the super-powered model towards her and swung a mechanically augmented blow of her own.

"Now why should I hit the gym when hitting you is so much more fun?" Wrench laughed as her hammer connected with the other female's face with a satisfying smack.

Seeing that she was outmatched and her minions starting to retreat, Dominique resorted to a classic stalling tactic, head games. "So how does it feel to see me and remember you used to be this pretty?" She asked, ignoring the bruise on her face and hoping it would get the mink riled up.

It did, but clearly not in the way the equine villainess expected. "Are you out of your mind? I was an over-sexualized action figure for a pair of psychopathic man-children. If you think I want to remember that then maybe you need to get your head bashed in a few more times." The mink snarled and attacked.

The resulting clash was as relentless as it was brutal; Dominique punched hard while Wrench Wench slammed her hammer into the other female's chest. Bones and armor plating cracked and buckled from the impact as both females felt the weight of the other's blow. But Dominique had the endurance to plow through while the mink gadgeteer had only the light plating on her exoskeleton to keep her safe.

Slamming her foe to the floor and putting a knee-high leather boot on her pudgy stomach, the leader of G.L.A.M. looked at the prone Wrench Wench and snorted. "So much for the smartest of the mighty Aphrodite Five, you always were much stronger when the Brothers were supplying your-ACK!" Dom's monolog was cut short by Rump Roast's electrified spatula slamming into her chest and knocking her flat on her back. The British ex-pat grabbed the mink and hauled her up to her feet while Creampuff unchained Townes. "Come on, we have to go!"

Escaping with the hostage in hand, the heroines disappeared. By the time the police arrived on an anonymous tip, the only participants left were the dazed and prone minions. Shaking their heads, the officers on the scene collected evidence and made arrests when necessary. Meanwhile, Dr. Townes had been conveniently left in front of the SCPD headquarters by his rescuers, released once the police had his statement regarding the events of his capture. The investigation into his kidnapping meant that he had to stay in Silicon City a few more days but perhaps that wasn't as bad as it sounded, it gave him the opportunity to finally track down the other heroes of the Aphrodite City Crisis and see how they were faring...

Rachel Arsenel exhaled as she sat on a couch in one of the subterranean rooms below Foodie Row. Once upon a time, several decades ago, Foodie Row was once the lair for a supervillain hiding in plain sight below the city streets. Arrested and with his hideout cleared out in the sixties, the underground network of rooms was forgotten about until Cassie Witherspoon and the other chefs and bakers that would become the Super Foodies moved in and discovered a perfect base for them to wage war against the likes of G.L.A.M. and other villainous manifestations of the corrupted diet and beauty industry. Cavernous pantries, high-tech kitchens equipped with all manner of culinary gadgetry, plus the usual spaces required by large groups of organized vigilantes like workshops and a strategy room. It was in the latter that the masked mink currently sat, joined by the others as they all lounged around a low coffee table looking at her, no one seemed to know what to say.

"So you're Wrench Wench." Creampuff began at last, the kangaroo baker the first to try and say something. "Well Rachel, I can't say I expected us to be face to face with one of the Aphrodite Five." She added knowingly, guess there wasn't too much reason to hide it.

"Yeah, Mentalrix introduced me to all of you to keep me busy. Figured I would keep from going crazy if I had something to do. Hope I didn't destroy your hopes to see one of the legendary Aphrodite Five." She joked nervously.

"Well it explains a lot." Rump Roast interjected, the pear-shaped vixen regarding her sympathetically. "The apathy, the junk food diet..."

"I just happen to like my doughnuts damn it." Rachel countered.

"And your alcohol?" Honey Buns asked.

The mink was silent for a moment, looking at the others as she tried to figure out what to say. No one was looking at her judgmentally, instead they were varying mixes of sympathetic and confused, as if they wanted to help her but didn't know how. Sighing, the heroine formerly known as Wrench Wench shook her head and settled on the truth. "The beer helps with the nightmares. When I close my eyes, most nights take me back to Aphrodite City and that damn costume. It was just too much, too damn much. Too many close calls, too many bodies, just too much. And for what, for two losers to have a cheap pornography?"

No one said anything at first; there wasn't much that could be said really. Then Iron Wok sat down next to Rachel and wrapped her arms around her in a hug. Seconds later, Rump Roast and Creampuff's apprentice Éclair squeezed in to join her. The black-haired gadget maker flinched at first but as they held her, a weak but genuine smiled began to cross her lips. Maybe there was a hope of peace for the Aphrodite Five after all...