Vaudevillain

"Great! You made it!" Jack said as she looked up. "Didn't think you would get here so quick."

"You caught me as I finished my last crime," Dylan said.

"Lucky me," Jack answered. She placed her blueprints to the side and folded her arms.

"Right, I need your help. I've been banging my head against this for hours, and I can't come up with anything. Even took a break to hunt some aliens since that's still going on. Came back to it, and I still can't get anywhere."

"So. What do you need?" Dylan asked, trying to get to the heart of the matter. "You mentioned helping with the money problem?"

Jack nodded, "Yep, yep. See, I've been trying to think about what we can use instead of money since everyone and their mother can create a character with the power. I even took a look at a few economic books to see if I could get anything. Basically, what I learned was what I figured. We need something to control the amount of 'money'."

Jack made quotation marks with her fingers.

"I thought at first we could make our own currency. Make it so everyone needs Menagerie bucks or something. But then I remembered we already have a natural use of money."

"What's that?" Dylan asked.

Dylan stared, "You want to use the resource for getting extra powers as money?"

"Think about it," Jack said eagerly, "We need something to control the money supply, something that others can't forge. Phlebotinium and its like are already like that. Vert's built a currency already. All we need to do is use it. That's where you come in."

"How's that?" Dr. Zlo asked.

Jack stood and walked over to her friend, throwing an arm over him conspiratorily, "Basically, I want to make a money exchanger. One where you can put in Phlebotinium and get Sciencium, or vise versa. Then all the crafters can set prices using Alienite and all that, getting rid of the whole infinite money issue."

Dylan raised an eyebrow, "What's to stop them from taking all the Phlebotinium and using it for powers?"

Jack waved a hand dismissively, "So we make the exchanger Alienite and Sciencium only and charge prices on those. If that happens. Anything charging for Phlebotinium would be strong enough to replace a power anyways. Probably. And there's only so many additions players can add to their character. Five max, I think."

Dylan thought about it. Jack's plan sounded solid. Making an exchange station for Sciencium, Alienite, Phlebotinium, and any other materials Vert wanted to use would open up trading. Crafters wouldn't have to work on a barter system, which gave them more time to spend on creating, in turn upping the quality of their work. Of course, it all depended on if Dylan's power would let him do it.

"Alright, you've convinced me," Dylan said. "Let me see if Mad Science can make us an exchange."

He opened his power, spending a few seconds getting the description right.

A machine built by the great Dr. Zlo for Menagerie to combine or split the various super materials in the world into other super materials (i.e., Phlebotinium, Alienite, Sciencium, etc.). By feeding the machine the required materials, a player can receive an equal amount of one other Supermaterial.

Coin Sorter (1)

ATM (1)

Safety Deposit Box (1)

Cash Register (1)

Phlebotinium (1g) or Alienite (13g) or Sciencium (100g)

"Looks like it's doable, and I think it would make a one-to-one exchange," Dylan told Jack.

"Yes!" Jack cheered. "I knew it would work!"

She shook him on the shoulders, "I mean, I knew Mad Science, Alchemy, and a few others could reuse Phlebotinium and stuff but making one turn into the other was still up in the air. But it works at a one-to-one ratio!"

The comment made Dylan think, and a smirk appeared on his face.

"Hold on," he said. "Do we have to make it an equal exchange? We don't take taxes or anything for joining Menagerie, right?"

Jack looked at him, "Now that's a devious look, the villain starting to come out?"

"Well, I'm just thinking, offering this to everyone for free seems like a lost opportunity. We could make the money exchange charge a fee or something and use the extra for projects to improve the city. We're going to need it at some point, right?"

Jack shrugged, "I figured Dex would deal with that soon. I'm sure he'd work it out."

"I'll bring it up to him then," Dylan said.

Jack let go of Dylan and made her way back to her work desk, "I think he's free now. Wanna me to call him over?"

Dylan shrugged, "Sure, I got time."

Jack opened her messaging app, sending a quick text to Thomas to call him over.

"Alright, he'll be over in a few minutes," Jack said. "In the meantime…"

Dylan looked over. Jack was pulling out a series of papers, blueprints that covered the entire desk.

"I've got some ideas for our drones. Come have a look."

Dylan sauntered over, pulling up one of the chairs sitting around the desk, "Whatcha got for me?"

Jack spread one of the blueprints out, keeping the edges from rolling back inward with a paperweight, "So our old drones are fine, and we've got a decent amount of them going, but I don't think simple electricity is going to cut it anymore. Not with the types of powers I've seen. See, most people are starting to take extra resilience for their powers to tank more hits from enemies. Not to mention all the support powers starting to appear."

"So, what did you come up with?" Dylan asked, scooting the chair a bit closer to see the blueprints.

"Well, in comics, there are all kinds of things that work, like freeze rays or death rays. But we've already got damage, so I was thinking we have debuffer drones. You know, to get rid of their tankiness."

"What about crowd control?" Dylan asked. "We could have drones with my spray adhesive or something."

Jack shook her head, "Too many ways to break it. Some sort of general slow field or power weakener would be better. The idea is to affect all the powers, not just a few."

"Okay, I see you," Dylan said. "I like the idea of a power weakener. It sounds exactly up our alley."

"I like it too, but once again, my power fails me," Jack complained. "I honestly thought I would have better options with this."

"Why not get some Phlebotinium and add mad science?" Dylan asked.

Jack looked at him with a smirk, "I could. But why do that when I can ask you."

"Gasp, are you using me?" Dylan said with mock affrontation.

"Did you really audibly gasp?" Jack replied.

"Touche," Dylan answered. "But seriously. Wouldn't Mad Science be a great addition?"

"It would," Jack admitted, "If I wanted to go that route. But I've got another idea in mind. I want to be the character that combines magic and science. All the magitech stuff, you know? I've always liked the idea. And World of Supers finally lets me play it out. Well, play it out in a less structured setting. I've already picked up Alchemy and formation spellcasting. My next little addition will be a power that lets me combine it all together."

"That still leaves you with one more," Dylan pointed out.

"I'm going to use it to enhance my blueprints," Jack said. "Make it so I can use wackier materials and such."

"But you won't be able to get there until you get more Phlebotinium," Dylan rightly surmised.

"Yep. Gonna go on a raid sometime in the future and nab me the last two grams."

"I thought you were a hero?" Dylan questioned.

"I was, for a bit," Jack admitted. "But I decided to take a few shady quests and found a message one day that switched me over to villain. It's a shame there isn't a grey area. I'd love to be the anti-hero."

"Eh, I never had a thing for anti-heroes," Dylan said. "Too often, they were just heroes with bad flaws. Mostly so the artist could overdo on the gore. At least that's what I think."

Jack shook her head, "No, man. A good anti-hero has heroic traits but has flaws that keep him from being that morally upright citizen. I'll admit, there are often too many anti-heroes with bad flaws, but the good ones are," Jack kissed the tips of her fingers, "mwah."

The two continued their talk for a minute longer until Thomas walked in with Rampart beside him.

"Caught Rampart on the way over," Thomas said. "Figured having the hero representative here would be good since you mentioned this affected Menagerie."

"Great!" Jack exclaimed. The two players sat down, forming a makeshift circle with Jack and Dylan.

Jack went over the idea, going over how they would have Menagerie use the super materials as currency. Dylan piped in every so often, explaining the use of the exchanger and the thought to tax when people used it.

Rampart was the first to speak, "How much tax? I'm all for using the materials to improve Skyline, but if the rate is too high, no one will exchange currency."

"Maybe one Sciencium for every one Phlebotinium?" Dylan mused.

"A one percent tax then. If we use Phlebotinium as our base," Thomas said.

"That's probably the best idea," Jack said. "I'm betting everything will link with Phlebotinium in some way. But I don't know if the game will process fractions and percents."

Dylan nodded, "All my powers do use grams, never any decimals."

"What if we issued out debit cards then?" Rampart said. "Use the exchangers as banks."

"No way," Thomas said. "That would tempt too many people to steal them, which opens up another can of worms."

"An ID card could work, though," Jack said. "They need it for every transaction, and after they exchange up to one Phlebotinium, it charges a Sciencium."

"But would people do it?" Rampart asked.

"They'd have to, if they want their money," Jack said.

Thomas clapped his hands, "I'm sure there will be issues with the idea, things that we won't see until they happen, but I like tying our tax into the exchange. It's small enough that people won't have to worry when they join, and we'll get a steady supply from people looking to trade. We can even start making cards for other players outside Menagerie to use. I could even spread them around with the postal service."

"Oh yeah, how's that going?" Jack asked.

"Well enough," Thomas answered. "I'm starting to deal with competition, but I've got enough of a head start, I think. People trust me."

Dylan snorted a laugh, "I guess there is honor among thieves."

The others chuckled.

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