The screech of wheels and the abrupt deceleration of the car was Sam’s first indication that he was in trouble. Fighting back from the air-bag set off by his sudden stop, Sam managed to look in the rear-view mirror. There, towering over the car like a giant metallic redwood tree, was one of his worst nightmares. An Assembler Prince had a hold of the rear fender, and glancing sideways he could see Cogs, Sprockets and even Gears running in from all sides. The car tilted forwards and the air was filled with the tortured screaming of metal being torn from metal as the car was swiftly dismantled about him.
Sam was in BIG trouble!
Sam recalled the first time he’d seen a Clockwork stalking the streets of Paragon City. They were the constructs of the self-proclaimed Clockwork King, a deranged and utterly malevolent inventor bent of world domination. At least, one assumed it was a human, or had once been human, as no-one had ever seen it. Despite the efforts of Paragon City’s multitudinous Hero Corps, the Clockwork King continued to send his minions into the streets, harassing citizens and dismantling anything metal. Most commonly cars, light poles, mailboxes and buried power cables would be ripped up by metal minions of all sizes, the metal carted off to converted warehouses for unknown purposes. The Clockwork came in various sizes, from the dwarfish Gears and Cogs, tiny humanoids made of tin and scrap, to the mammoth Assembler Princes, towering edifices of steel and iron, powering over the landscape, reassembling scarp into minions as they went.
Typically, they moved slowly and only the unwary were caught, but recently they had seemed to move with enhanced speed. Repeated successful attacks by Clockwork had the Heroes of Paragon City working overtime as more and more citizens found themselves threatened. It always seemed to be an arms-race, Sam had once mused. Paragon City seemed to be a magnet for Heroes from all over the world, those brave vigilantes with extraordinary powers flocked to the City, but in equal number it seemed that the denizens of the Criminal Underground flocked to the city to do battle in the streets.
The car jerked and shuddered, drawing Sam back from his brief reverie into the urgency of the present.
Scrambling to get free, Sam came face to face with a Cog. It’s steely and utterly inhuman face inches from his own, green glowing eyes expressionlessly observing even as it continued to tear his car apart. Something about that dispassionate visage flicked a trigger in Sam’s brain, a rage built up and Sam’s fear turned to rage. Sam grabbed the monstrosity by the head, and heaved left and right. It can only have been that the Cog was a last-generation edition, or perhaps it had already gone head-to-head with one of Paragon City’s so-called Heroes, but the Cog’s head came off in his hands. With surprise, Sam watched the metallic body clatter lifelessly to the ground, while the head fizzed, sparked and screamed before he threw it away is disgust, hydraulic fluid dripping from his hands.
Clattering footsteps behind him echoed off the buildings of Kings Row, and Sam turned to see the Assembler Prince towering above him.
“Disassembly of Clockwork Minions is discouraged,” it said reaching for him.
Sam threw himself backwards, avoiding the grasping metal claws, and flung himself clear as it attempted to step on him.
“Interference in the Great Work will not be permitted. Termination authorised,” grated the metal abomination as it followed him across the pavement. Behind the Prince, Sam could see the last remnants of his car being carried away by a small horde of Clockwork minions.
“Screw you, you heap of rust! Get back or so help me ...”, and that was all Sam managed before the Prince backhanded him across the sidewalk and into an office-block.
As Sam picked himself up of the ground, and brushed concrete dust from his shoulders, wincing at the pain of what felt like a broken rib, he heard a kind of hydraulic thumping sound. Flying over the office-block and just in time, a Hero approached, leaping from rooftop to rooftop and crying his battle-cry.
“The sweet taste of VICTORY!”
The Hero landed in front of the Assembler Prince and quickly glanced back over his shoulder at Sam, “You’ll live, toughen up princess!”, and with that the Hero engaged the Clockwork Beast.
The Hero was not overly tall, perhaps an inch or two below six foot, and was bare-chested. Skinny, the Hero looked no older than perhaps 24, of an age with Sam himself, perhaps a Uni student as well. Sam had heard of this Hero, he was called Barbed Cable, and he had been a victim of a brutal bashing by the Hellions some years previously. Now his hips and legs, and both arms, had been replaced with Cybernetic limbs, allowing him to leap about and shred Villains with metallic claws that protruded from his fists. Barbed Cable had gathered some prestige as a destroyer of evil, but had garnered some infamy with his habit of causing considerable collateral damage.
Claws flying, lithe body back-flipping and steel-shod boots flying, Barbed Cable fought the Assembler Prince back and forth across the road. Metal shards flew in all directions and it was impossible to tell from whom they flew. With a shout, Barbed Cable leapt over the Clockwork, and executed a perfect half-twist somersault as he did so, landing, he simultaneously hacked at the Clockwork with his claws and kicked it in the chest. Sparks flew, and so did the Clockwork Prince. The metallic monstrosity’s body was launched through the air, and metallic fragments crumbling off it like dust, landed right on Sam. The jagged metal segments cut into his flesh, and the great weight of the things carcass crushed Sam against the ground. Sam felt more bones break, but couldn’t feel his arm at all. In a red haze, Sam’s vision faded to black and he lost consciousness.
Sam never found out what happened after that. It could be that Barbed Cable didn’t know Sam was trapped there, under the things metal corpse, or it could be that Barbed Cable just didn’t care. Regardless, Sam found out from the Hospital he convalesced in that he’d lain there for five hours, hydraulic fluid bleeding onto him at almost the same rate that he bled out onto the ground. His right arm had been crushed, and many of his internal organs ruptured or damaged by the crushing weight of the load above him. The jagged metal skin has lacerated him in multiple places, shredding his skin as surely as if he’d been attacked by a cheese-grater, leaving him scoured and torn. It was only by chance that the Clockwork had come back, to recycle their Lieutenant, and had subsequently exposed Sam’s crumpled form that had saved his life.
He’d been unconscious for six days and had one arm amputated, numerous metal plates inserted to patch his bones together while they healed, and had undergone major experimental surgery to replace his broken organs with synthetic ones. It was not the most comfortable experience, and the days that turned into weeks and subsequently into months of convalescing gave Sam plenty of time to reflect on his situation. Plenty of time also to reflect on the cause... Cable, Barbed Cable was the cause! Stupid Heroes! Running around messing up the City with their absent-minded vigilantism!
Sam recovered from his injuries, slowly and painfully clawing his way back to health, with a prosthetic arm and a severely injured and scarred body. It took him months, and all throughout those months, the rage festered and boiled beneath the surface. He may have seemed calm to others, but deep inside he churned with anger and hatred. Carefully calculated moves and studies introduced him to a whole new crowd, a crowd of people with skills in cybernetics and machine engineering. Sam built himself quite a reputation as being handy with his hand, his hand and his prosthetic, which he refitted to attach a wide range of tools and appliances to. He became known as the Tinkerer amongst his peers, and not being adverse to the name, it stuck.
Petty thefts from electrical and medical engineering companies netted a wide range of equipment which, coupled with Tinkerer’s skills in mechanical engineering, led to the slow assembly of his first functional robot. With the nameless robot, the rate and success of petty thefts increased, and the haul from each successful heist was greater and achieve with greater ease. Tinkerer’s new associates introduced him to others, and they introduced him to yet others, and over the course of time, his pathetic prosthetic limb was replaced with a fully functional cybernetic arm. Into the arm was built a force-field generator and a series of encoded and encrypted radio controllers, with which he controlled his minion.
Finally Tinkerer was ready to pursue his true goal, the downfall of Barbed Cable!
Shirking the name Sam forever more, discarding his past and dedicating himself solely to revenge, Tinkerer strode into Paragon City Hall accompanied by his battle bot. Enshrouded in golden energy armour and strapped about with chains, Tinkerer backhanded the Heroes Clerk away from the registration terminal and swiftly hacked into it to gain the latest known whereabouts of Barbed Cable. Now, at last, the hated Cable would be his! Jubilant, Tinkerer set about making a point, destroying the City Hall, encasing clerks and officers in force-fields to watch them suffocate, eventually, from lack of air.
It was an unnecessary and foolish move, Tinkerer fell foul of his own pride and lunacy. With such a prolonged stay at City Hall, he was sure to eventually catch the attention of some mi-led street vigilante. The building’s security system sent out a silent alarm to the local vigilantes and Tinkerer was suddenly faced with not one, but three do-good street thugs. Prismatron, once an entertainment android now endowed with powers of darkness and shadow, first blinded the robot, rendering it all but useless, while the Pyrotic Fool, a horned freak changed by use of the Arcane Arts, blasted it apart with magical balls of fire.
While they were distracted, Tinkerer removed the last Hero, Phyloxis - a minor nuisance really, poorly protected by malfunctioning gadgets and trickery - from the area with a well placed Photonic Grenade and a few choice pulse-rifle blasts and force bolts. It wasn’t enough. With the battle droid gone, Tinkerer faced the two Heroes alone. He encased the Pyrotic Fool in an impervious Detention Field, and slammed Prismatron against the wall with a bolt of force from his cybernetic gloves. However, the tide quickly turned. As Pyrotic Fool combusted in an attempt to escape his capture, and Prismatron took to the air to avoid further blasts, Tinkerer’s endurance failed him and his foes were freed. In desperation activated his Personal Force Field, and while the Heroes could not defeat him, neither could he defend himself while they hustled him, force-field and all, into the Zigursky Prison cell, a prison specifically designed to contain super-powered villains.
Whenever the guards attempted to divest him of his armour Tinkerer blasted them against the cell walls, or encased them in air-tight fields. The constant cold and drain on his suit’s power cells meant that he was never able to keep it up for long enough to suffocate them, but it gave the guards reason to fear him. Tinkerer retained full control of his abilities, but was kept in a shielded cell that prevented him from calling on his robot henchmen, and prevented his force fields from affecting anything outside his cell.
For months Tinkerer amused himself by encasing rodents and cockroaches in miniature fields or shunting them against the walls with tiny blasts of force, but it was never enough of a diversion... Bored, he sank deeper into his obsession, now not targeting Barbed Cable solely, but ALL Heroes of the now hated Paragon City.
It was months, many months, months enough for Tinkerer to become quite unbalanced, days flowing endlessly into each other to create a continuum of tedium, endless boredom only relieved by a thrice weekly food tray that prevented Tinkerer from ever fully recovering full control of his powers. So long that Tinkerer had given up hope of escape, despite the thought never being far from his mind, when a remarkable torn of events changed his destiny.
Explosions and crumbling concrete were the first indication that something new had arrived. Screams and flashes of ruby red energy bolts, flames and the pounding of feet heralded the appearance of legions of dark-suited soldiers. Each one wearing a brilliant white spider on their chitinous and armoured chest.
“Who are you?” Tinkerer bellowed through the dust and smoke.
“We are Arachnos, and Tinkerer, you’re just one of the one’s we’ve come to free. We’re going to make you an offer you can’t refuse... Make your way to the yard and meet with Archon Barallus. Oh, and you might want this... “ The black-suited figure threw a miniscule power cell at him, before he could catch it 8 spindly legs erupted from its sides and it ran from where it struck him in the chest up to the nape of his neck. With seeking feet it compromised the power conduits in Tinkerer’s suit and discharged a startling amount of energy. Tinkerer grimaced in anticipated pain, but nothing happened. A faint whine signalled that the suits power was being replenished, the spider cell fell limply from its perch on his back, clattering on the floor, spent.
Tinkerer rejoiced, swiftly leaving his cell he carved a way with bolts of invisible force through the few remaining prison guards, working his way through the labyrinthine corridors until he entered the prison yard. Behind the single black-suited figure there, long black cape emblazoned with a giant red spider swaying in the breeze, floated the strangest helicopter Tinkerer had ever seen, looking more like a giant jet-powered wasp than anything else.
The figure spoke in a low growl, “Tinkerer, I offer you a choice, The Rogue Isles if you’ll swear allegiance to our Lord Recluse, or death here and now.”
Tinkerer didn’t hesitate, it wasn’t a hard choice to make...