Para Ex Machina (Worm Quest)

Surprise! Wrote this to keep my head in the game and to give you readers a peek at the world moving beyond Icarus.

This is also to hold you all over while I write the next chapter because it might be a bit.
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Robin, more popularly known as Velocity, didn't mind meetings. He understood the need to ensure that everyone is on the same page and didn't miss an email or something. Especially with how fast the Bay's situation could devolve. That being said, he didn't like being in one room for longer than an hour or two. Most likely a part of his power he guessed, his need to move, like a Tinker's need to build, speedsters need to run. He brushed those thoughts aside though, he is getting distracted.

He turns his gaze to the rest of the assembled heroes sitting around the meeting table, Triumph is sitting across from him, back straight and arms planted on his armrests looking altogether like a particularly stiff mannequin in Velocity's opinion. To the left of Triumph is Miss Militia who, for some unfathomable and eldrich reason, is drinking some coffee despite not needing to sleep. Finally sitting beside him is Dauntless, who is resting his head on an elbow set firmly on the armrest of his chair, making him bend nearly 90 degrees. At the head of the table is Director Piggot and opposite her is the seat that Armsmaster will be taking when he gets here. SItting at her right hand is Deputy Director Renick leaving an empty chair to her left.

With his assessment of the room done and ignoring that hideous painting on the wall that he could have sworn he told Assault to burn in a Lung bonfire, he turned his thoughts to the reason for the meeting.

Icarus, or more precisely his status as a Case 53. He certainly wasn't going to say it aloud, but Velocity knew they were all thinking it. 'What if this is another Ottomono?' The bastard was single-handedly responsible for tighter checks on Case 53s across the country. Forcing them to put more stress on them right after they woke up, something that didn't endear them to the Protectorate. Before he can think too much of that fiasco, there is a Knock-Knock on the door and Colin steps in, or rather Armsmaster right now. As he steps in Dauntless sits upright and Velocity is pretty sure he heard his spine crack at the sudden change. Armsmaster walks around the room, setting a file in front of everyone, before sitting in his seat across from the Director. A red light turns on on the small recorder positioned in the center of the table, and with it, the meeting begins.

"Today is June 5th, 2010," the Piggot begins leaning forward in her chair. "This meeting is held by the East North East Joint Protectorate and Parahuman Response Team, branch discussing the legitimacy of Icarus' Case 53 status. The people present are Armsmaster, Assault, Dauntless, Miss Militia, Deputy Director Renick, Triumph, Velocity, and myself, Director Piggot." She then leans back and crosses her arms. "With that out of the way, what've we got?"

Velocity looks at the rest of the room and sees that everyone else, save Armsmaster, is looking through the file given to them. Armsmaster clicks a remote and a four-sided hologram appears above the table. Displayed on it is the image of Icarus standing in front of an elevator, taken from a PRT trooper helmet going by the watermark in the corner, with his metal arms at his sides and a neutral expression. He has silver eyes that seem to take everything in, a face that looks like it was chiseled from steel, and slightly large lips that fit well with his face. All together Velocity thinks he looks rather good.

Armsmaster clears his throat to regain his colleagues' attention, everyone stops skimming through the files or looking at the screen and turn their attention to him.

"Icarus, the name he has chosen for himself, is a potential Case 53 that appears to be fully mechanical in nature. Some things line up with what we know about Case 53s, though there are a few things that sow doubt on his claim." Armsmaster subtly turns to Velocity and he takes the hint, speaking up and starting the discussion.

"I don't doubt he doesn't have any memories, the emotions I saw in his eyes when I showed off my speed could only be faked by Tinkertech." He says, giving Armsmaster an in.

"Which is the problem. We don't know if Icarus is a plant from a Tinker trying to gather info on us, or genuine. The Think Tank has been having trouble with him, in particular the capes that analyze things over longer periods for deeper reading, have encountered issues. It seems from time to time he 'blips' off the radar before returning, interrupting the overtime analysis. The observations by the Thinkers able to gleam information faster indicate that he believes himself at least."

"But that doesn't mean he is not simply a pawn." Miss Militia says in a slightly bitter voice.

"Yeah." Velocity says a little dejectedly. He dislikes talks like this, it always makes him feel bad if the person in question ends up being innocent, which Icarus is in his opinion.

The room is quiet for a few moments with everyone digesting that information. It is Deputy Director Renick who speaks up next.

"Well, what are the fors and againsts of him being the real deal?" He asks in a gruff voice.

"I have a list." Armsmaster says and Velocity can't help the thought of 'of course you do' that runs across his mind.

"Firstly, the one issue that I noticed is with his story. He says he woke up in the ocean. All other Case 53's have awoken in metropolitan areas in relatively safe locations, the ocean is neither of those things. When we cleaned his coolant line I had the grime looked at and it does come from the bay, meaning he was in there at some point recently."

"I would say his lack of memories has to be a point for him." Velocity says. "Despite what most people think we know that not all their memories are gone, just the ones that pertain to who they might have been. The fact that Icarus isn't completely clueless about everything is a point for him."

"The fact that he is joining the SIDE program first and not looking for a full membership is also a point in his favor," Dauntless says looking at the file. "If he was an infiltration bot, wouldn't he try to get access to the most information?"

"Unless it's a double bluff." Miss Militia says with a scowl viable on even with her bandana, that PR training backfiring a bit.

"Did the Thinkers try to see if Icarus has a creator?" Director Piggot asks.

"Yes, to no conclusion. Since we don't know his creator's specialty, if there is a Tinker behind this, it could be something like 'infiltration' in which case it is not unreasonable to assure they would have the means to hide from Thinkers."

"Or they might not have found anything because no one finds anything on the source of the 53s." Velocity says with a sigh.

"We are just going to be running in circles debating whether or not Icarus is a Case 53 or a product of Tinkertech. The fact of the matter is we don't have enough information to reach a conclusion." Miss Militia says, stopping the conversion from going on with facts.

"Well," Triumph says, speaking up for the first time. "He has displayed emotions, right? What if we have him meet Gallant? If the emotions are real then he should be able to see them and if they are not then he wouldn't right? Them being fake and all."

"That has merit," Armsmaster says. "If he is unable to see them through that could be simply due to his non-standard biology. Should he be able to though, that would be fairly definitive from my point of view. Your thoughts Director?" Velocity turns away from Armsmaster to see that the Director has her head down and eyes closed. Opening her eyes she raises her head.

"Miss Militia is right, we are just going to be running around like headless chickens. Triumph has put forth a fairly solid theory unless anyone else has any ideas better than calling in someone from out of town?" No one speaks up so she nods. "Alright. We'll go through with that then, if Gallant is unwilling to help or is unable to see Icarus' emotions we will reconvene. Moving on, do we have an idea of what he is capable of?"

Velocity doesn't have much he figures that Icarus has a Brute rating of at least 1 due to his metal parts but beyond that? Maybe a Tinker rating? With nothing to contribute though, he decides to stay quiet.

"I did not have time to add it to my report, but there was a small display of what I believe to be electrokinesis. He also deployed two blades that seem to be sheathed in his forearms. I have helmet-cam footage of his display that will be playing on the hologram. For context, he had shut off his sense of touch so that he would not feel pain when I welded his side and I am trying to wake him after I have finished." Armsmaster says, gesturing to the hologram that switches off of Icarus' picture to an image of slivery metal welded with black metal.

"Wait," Velocity speaks up. "He has a sense of touch? You mean to say that he could feel the hole in his side?" He asks, his voice laced with incredulity. Because if he could feel that then how was he doing anything?

"Hole?" Dauntless asks.

"Yes, Icarus awoke with the right side of his chassis… The right side of his body. It was heavily damaged with a large hole granting access to his interior when Velocity found him. You can find an image of the damage on the third page of the report." Armsmaster says and everyone, but Miss Militia, Armsmaster, and himself turn to the page. Renick lets out a low whistle as the others wince, Piggot of course remains stone-faced. "Quite. He seems to have a very high pain tolerance. Now if you would return your attention to the video." And everyone does so, with Triumph last looking a bit green around the gills.

The video starts with Armsmaster following the weld, probably inspecting it if Velocity had to guess, before the video shifts up with Armsmaster standing. He looks at the sleeping Icarus. He calls out to Icarus once, twice, thrice, to no reaction. Armsmaster's armored arm then enters the frame as he reaches forward and lightly shakes Icarus' arm. When there is still no reaction from the metal man Armsmaster administers a slightly stronger shake.

That gets an immediate and abrupt reaction.

Golden arcs of electricity erupt across Icarus' body as he explodes into motion, going from resting to action within a blink. One of the arcs leaps from Icarus onto Armsmaster's arm and Icarus temporarily leaves the frame as Armsmaster jerks back from the shock. Armsmaster recovers quickly and his arms come into view as he takes a combat stance. Across from him, between two tables, stands Icarus with a very different demeanor than the Icarus that Velocity met. Dauntless and Triumph both lean forward, to get a closer look.

Gold lightning encases him with energy bolting and zipping across his body contrasting with the black metal of his arms and occasionally arcing to ground themselves against the floor, his eyes are completely gold with electricity leaping out of them and joining the rest across his body. He is in a combat stance with his right arm low and left arm high, both with blades emerging from the tops of his wrist. After less than a second the lightning seems to converge on his arms covering them enough that the lightning could even be considered sleeves. The blades though become covered in a flat field of power that shapes itself into a triangle shape with the front point aligning with the tip of his metal blades, giving him the appearance of having electric knives.

Then Icarus blinks and the lightning knives disappear and the crackling lightning quickly starts dissipating. He looks at his hands and after the last small arcs disappear he unfolds his forearms and his blades quickly retract then his arms close back up as he remains looking at his hands.

The video ends and the previous image of Icarus in front of an elevator is put next to a screenshot of him crackling with energy and in a fighting position, creating a sharp dichotomy.

Miss Militia is the first to digest the video and raises a question.

"I thought you said his sense of tough was turned off, how was he able to feel you shaking him?"

"Good eye," Armsmaster replies. "My current theory is that he has a gyroscope of some kind that shifted and startled him. It is also possible that he simply shut off the processing of his sense of touch and not the collection of it, meaning an automated alert would still have been able to get through the systems and warn him of a change.

"Hopefully he can fire bolts of electricity and not simply coat his body in it." Director Piggot says. "We already have enough melee fighters, another Blaster would be nice."

"Wait, isn't your armor insulated against shocks like that? He didn't hit you that hard did he?" Dauntless asks.

"No, the shock was only a step and a half or so above a taser. I was more shocked than shocked…" Armsmaster's mouth flattens into a line and Velocity has to struggle to smother the smile that wants to find its way to his lips. "That was unintentional. To answer your question, yes it normally is. The subroutine responsible for that though was one of many systems that were being updated at the time." Dauntless nods at that.

"A bit reckless don't you think?" Deputy Director Renick says. "Updating stuff with an unknown cape in the room and all."

"Perhaps a bit. Though Icarus showed no signs of hostility before that nor has he since. I believe he is simply one of those people you don't wake up by shaking them." Velocity feels his eyes drift to Miss Militia and sees that Triumph is side-eyeing her as well, she doesn't go to sleep often, but they had all learned to knock on something nearby to wake her rather than shaking her. That lesson only needs to be taught once. "In addition, I had no way of knowing he had any form of electrokinesis and had left my Brute countermeasures online."

"Ah, that makes more sense." Armsmaster nods before continuing.

"That also brings me to my next observation and the reason I was updating things besides my Brute programs. If you look at the image of the damage, you can see the twisted metal and jagged edges. I attempted to remove the largest of the out-of-line pieces to make the repair easier and encountered issues. When I tried to saw them off my saw dulled itself on his metal, when I changed to the diamond-tipped one it failed to cut deeper than a few centimeters before shattering."

"What the hell broke his side then?" Velocity asks the question slipping through his lips before he can stop it.

"Speedball probably could if he shot a ball large enough, but I don't see why he would." Miss Militia says. "And depending on how long Icarus was in the bay the timelines might not even match up."

"We will have the preliminary ratings for Icarus by the end of the day. We will have to return to this but I have other matters to attend to today so let's hurry up. Today is just a screening to see where to put him in SIDE right?" The Director asks.

"Yes." Armsmaster responds.

"Good. Unless we have anything else that needs to be addressed right this moment I think we are good to call this meeting here?" Armsmaster says no and the rest of us shake our heads. "In that case, I vote meeting adjourned." Everyone around the table votes in agreement and the hologram is turned off with a button pressed by Armsmaster, the recorder shuts off.

Everyone files out and Dauntless waits at the door for Triumph and the two start talking as they leave. Velocity stays seated, trying to kill time so that he doesn't have to get back to paperwork. He could simply walk at normal speed, or he could stay sitting for a bit longer and use his power to get back, not a hard choice.

After about 10 minutes he can't justify sitting and occupying the room any longer so he makes his way out of the conference room. In the hall he feels his power coating him, taking him to a slightly different place where the world is more lines and paths than shapes and colors.

As he rockets off at a light jog to his office, he can't but hope that this isn't another Ottomono.

He really, really hopes this isn't another Ottomono, he would like another friend.