Ancient Legos
Chapter 9
Evolution
Two minutes and thirty six point five seconds.
That's how long I stared at the Lifesign Type list in my head.
I'm Lantean.
I tested the thought out once more, just to see if it made any more sense than it had for the last two minutes thirty six and a half seconds.
...Aaand nope. It
still smelled like bullshit.
"I'm Lantean," I said out loud, chuckling. "Yeah right."
To counter this insane proposition the ship was attempting to get me to believe, three pieces of evidence stood as my pillars. One; I was born to human parents. Two; I had been human my whole life. No doctors had ever found anything wrong with me in that respect, and it was pretty much guaranteed some of the Tinkertech scanning devices they used at Brockton General would notice if I had an
entirely different set of genetics.
The final, third point was the real kicker, though. I didn't have any Alteran powers. And, heh,
everyone knows that Alterans had powers. From pretty much a single
year after being born. It was one of the most well known pieces of information about the Alteran species.
Healing. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Long Life.
Then the more high level abilities that were Zero Point Energy Manipulation and, eventually,
Ascension.
The only powers the Alterans didn't have were the more body-focused ones. They were very much a product of their brains and their souls. Not their physical forms. An Alteran wouldn't be able to go toe to toe with one of our world's most famous Flying Bricks, Alexandria, but they'd definitely be able to mindfuck her into unconsciousness.
Only in extremely,
extremely rare cases did someone not manifest
some of those eventually. There were a grand total of three,
three! Alterans that never developed abilities in the hundreds of millions of years they'd existed as a civilization.
Three.
I had exactly
none of those abilities.
Even the mental control for my ships was provided
by the ships themselves. Reading my brainwaves and inserting information. I was the receiver, not the sender in that particular set of relationships. Even Humans could conceivably control Alteran craft if they had the synthetic locking gene.
Which meant some
really frakking janky stuff was going on.
I turned my attention away from my mind's eye to yell at the ceiling. "OKAY, VERY FUNNY! I DON'T KNOW WHAT OR
WHO YOU ARE, BUT YOU CAN STOP PRETENDING TO BE MY SHIP NOW!"
I waited. Listening for a response, mental or otherwise.
None came.
"Fine," I growled. I once again tuned into the Hyperion, or
whatever it really was, and forced the Lantean override to get into its systems.
If this thing was going to falsely claim I was Lantean, I was gonna exploit the shit out of that.
I dove into its very being. Searched for anything and everything odd. I noticed the sloppily integrated Asgardian technology, but I'd already used it so I was aware of its presence. There were some other irregularities in the structure of the craft. Namely, it was bigger than what an Aurora
should be. That extra space was filled with redundancies, drone manufacturing systems, and other things Alterans never would've thought to include-
Wait a second, that's not an Alteran hyperdrive!
What the hell was a foreign hyperdrive doing grafted to the systems of an Alteran battlecruiser?
I had literally never seen the design before. Well, of course
I hadn't, but neither had my Atleran memories.
And what the
fuck is that top speed?!
It… actually kinda, sorta, shared
some power distribution properties with the Asgardian Transporter Beam Arrays, but… it was much,
much more advanced.
What the hell had those tall gray butts been up to!?!?
Like, shit guys, the hyperdrives we left you weren't fast enough? Damn speed demons, the lot of them! This abomination of a hyperdrive was magnitudes faster than a cityship's Stardrive, which were renown for their speed in the first place!
To put it in perspective, Alteran hyperdrives of the size needed for an Aurora had a top speed of 300ly/s, which could skyrocket to a grand 900ly/s if fed directly from a Potentia. They could make the trip between Avalon and Pegasi in 11 hours at normal speed, and a third that time if you plugged them into the Potentia. The Atlantis cityships and their Stardrives made those look tame.
But the Asgardians had apparently decided that
still wasn't fast enough.
Anyways, aside from the insanity that was the Asgardian (presumably) hyperdrive, nothing truly felt
off about the Hyperion
. For all intents and purposes, the VI software of the ship was vanilla. So vanilla in fact that it was suspicious due to just how ordinary it appeared. There were no customizations.
Zero. Naming it the Hyperion was literally the only change from baseline, and that was something that I had done.
No amount of checking unearthed any abnormalities in the suspiciously ordinary software, either.
What the hell. It was like someone had taken the
idea of an Aurora and the
software of most Alteran craft and… fixed all or most of the idiosyncrasies inherent in Alteran designs, then shoved in a bunch of Asgardian tech. Hmmm… I wonder whether this was the fault of that Shard I'd located in another reality, hooked up to my own head-
My mind snapped back to what had caused this in the first place. If the Hyperion wasn't lying to me and was in fact just a beefed up, more-or-less vanilla Alteran ship...
OH FUCK I'M A LANTEAN HOLY FUCKING WHAT
SHIT SHIT SHIT
I panicked. I fully admit it. That is why I didn't fully think through my actions.
First I scanned my house and my family.
They were human.
Then how the
fuck was I a gods damned alien?!
I had the
memories of one, sure, but that was weird power shit. Actually having my physiology changed,
especially into Alteran biostructures, WAS A MUCH BIGGER PROBLEM.
I
sprinted for the Genetic Manipulator. Got in. Turned on the containment field. Called up its mental interface. And set that damned thing on the
deepest scans I could.
If you're paying decent levels of attention, you might have spied the point where I totally and completely screwed this series of decisions up.
I'd examined the code of the
Hyperion.
Not the Genetic Manipulator. The one that shouldn't have been there in the first place. The extremely potent device that I'd basically run into and practically
offered myself to.
Yeeeaaaaahhhhhhhh.
I found my control of the machine abruptly taken from me. I could still observe what it was doing, but a program hidden inside some of its deepest code had woken up and seized total control of every aspect of the device.
The device with the active containment field.
That I was trapped
inside.
I am not ashamed to admit I panicked even further. I started slamming my fists into the containment field, screaming at the top of my lungs.
I knew what these things could do to you and I was
not okay with having fifteen tentacles grow out of my face,
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
But it didn't matter. No matter how much I screamed or banged, Missy was unconscious, Dragon was offline while she transferred to her new body, and the Hyperion couldn't do anything without also leaving me a smear on the wall as a side casualty.
So I slumped backwards, leaned against the containment field, and watched with dread as the genetic sequencing hologram extended from the top and bottom of the device to surround me.
I observed the program and noted what it was doing. The rogue system was commanding the Genetic Manipulator to do an extremely deep level scan of my genetic code.
That's… wait, that's exactly what I'd initially asked it to do.
Huh?
Then the program backed that scan data up in hundreds of different locations, even tossing some to the Hyperion for it to store.
Well, at least I could be happy that whatever had put the rogue program into this Genetic Manipulator didn't want me disfigured into a horrible freak of nature without a way back.
The program finished its backup and then opened a copy of my genetic code for modification.
Okay… that's- that's
very good. It wasn't going to totally overwrite me with some foreign DNA. Modification had limits, even in such a device as this one. I'd have bipedal locomotion at the very least.
Also, that was definitely Lantean genetic code. I'd recognize it anywhere. My Alteran memories had been taught it in school, after all.
I
also recognized what was being done to it. Specifically because it was a project in the aforementioned school that my Alteran memories had been made to do.
Unlock all higher Alteran abilities via genetic tampering. A passing grade if you succeeded. Full marks if you managed to do so stably.
Guess what my Alteran memories
didn't manage to do? Yeah, both of those. She failed that project.
Yes,
she. I had the memories of an Alteran
female bouncing around in my head. The only reason that didn't give me a whopping huge torrent of gender dysphoria is because Alterans were kinda… sex-ambivalent. Oh sure, they acknowledged the physical differences, the downsides and advantages of the two sexes, but they proceeded to do
nothing else. Sex, the action, for them was just reproductive in nature with a side effect of being particularly enjoyable. Sex, the chromosomal arrangement of their cells, was a descriptor. Like eye color or hair color.
Plus there'd been female
gendered people in male
sex bodies, and vice versa, ever since the Alterans evolved. Unfortunately the lack of caring came much later on. Genetic Manipulators were partially at fault for the Alteran's viewpoints on the gender of the self, to be fair. Given they allowed sex swapping if you really wanted to, it would be pretty impossible as a civilization to care about gender or the physical sex of your body anymore. They discovered that gender was a mind/soul thing and had about as much link with your body as games of chance had with the concept of fate.
Linked only if you squinted or had blinders worthy of a horse on you.
I momentarily freaked out at the possibility those thoughts had brought up and checked to make sure that the program wasn't flipping my chromosomes
. Hey, my Alteran memories were sex-ambivalent.
I wasn't!
Thankfully the program seemed far more competent than my memories were. It was successfully unlocking pretty much all the abilities an Alteran could conceivably have in my genetic code
and securing stability about 80% of the way to where I could Ascend. While keeping me male, even!
The reason these hyper-advanced Genetic Manipulators never really took off was because beyond that 80%, people tended to accelerate their evolution on their own. The mind overtook the body.
You either Ascended or you died, burning up as your soul seared your atoms from the face of the universe. Or, very rarely, managed to shunt yourself back to your original form in the split second between when you achieved that higher state and you ceased to exist.
All of that navel gazing was to distract myself from what was going to happen. I knew it wasn't just modifying my genetics like this for nothing.
I was going to be transformed into a full-fledged Alteran Mage.
Just like my Alteran memories had always wished she could become. Legendary like Moros, infamous like Janus. A pioneer of the Mind like Atheles or a connoisseur of ZPEM like Ganos.
Yup, there it was. The program had finished. It error checked the modifications, something I was immensely thankful for, and when the multiple passes came back clean, it fed the new code into the Manipulator's emission systems.
I sighed and closed my eyes to prepare myself. A change this big was
not going to be pleasant.
A moment later the pain hit and I could only
scream.
I woke up on the floor. With what felt like Mount Everest splitting my skull in half.
Ugh, what the hell hit me? I wearily thought, trying to get my bearings.
I was sprawled on something hard. Metallic. My head was lower than my legs, and I was staring at an oddly familiar ceiling.
Huh, isn't that the standard hull pattern of an Aurora class? I asked myself absently.
Then my brain kicked back into gear.
"HOLY FUCK!" I screamed out loud, hastily backpedaling to get away from the Genetic Manipulator my legs had been lying in. I patted down my body rapidly. I was trying to find out if the process had gone wrong, if I now had deformities or something else horrifying.
One full body check later and I determined that no, I didn't look any different. And I didn't really feel that different either.
Whew. I let a relaxing breath escape me and closed my eyes with relief. I was okay.
Probably a fully blown Alteran Mage now, but okay. More superpowers I could deal with. Eventually.
Face tentacles, very much
not.
I opened my eyes and found the Genetic Manipulator sitting there, powered down, and with such an innocent look about it I could almost
see the sheepish, angelic face it was trying to give me.
I narrowed my eyes at it and proceeded to trace the path of my glare with two fingers. "I'm watching you," I informed it warningly.
The Genetic Manipulator did nothing. A few seconds later I felt rather silly.
Brain damage or overflow from the traumatic experience of being force-evolved? On further thought, definitely overflow.
Alright, I need to find out how much time has passed, I thought. With that goal set, I attempted to contact the Hyperion mentally so I could see the ship's clock.
What I received wasn't exactly a gentle amount of 'contact'.
The Hyperion reached out with the entirety of its systems for my perusal. I momentarily lost any awareness of my own body as it felt like I
was the ship. It drew me in and held me fast, almost exactly the same as when I'd sat in the Throne Chair to fight Ziz. Unlike that time, though, I was able to pull myself to a lighter level of integration after a minor amount of struggle and freaking out. The awareness of my own body came flooding back and the awareness of the ship fled until they were both about halfway present.
Huh. So this is what Mages described as True Integration. My Alteran memories led me to almost squeal out loud at the fact I'd managed this until I got a handle on them.
Right, so, another point in Alteran Mage being my new existence. Yay.
I decided to get the next test over and done with so I could start handling the rest of my reality without the question in my head. I turned towards one of the tablets I had been browsing Dragon's program on and held out my hand. I then tried to…
beckon it with my mind.
Hey, it's not like my Alteran memories were remotely helpful in this area. The Mages never really made any instruction books on the topic. Which is why instead of leisurely floating over to my hand, the tablet zipped through the air and whacked me right in the face.
"OWW!" I exclaimed, holding my hands to my now bleeding nose. "Gods fucking damn it!"
Okay. Definitely gonna need more practice at this. Mage status confirmed, though!
And my nose was broken now.
Great. I'd have to have one of the Medbay's automatic healing systems deal with it.
Unless… hmm...
"Can I heal myself?" I idly wondered out loud.
That
was supposed to be one of my new abilities.
With the decision to at least attempt it, I tried to push… myself through my hands and center the feeling of
peace and
repair in the area around my nose.
Golden light flared from my hands and my nose cracked back into place. The bones sealed over. I was healed.
Well at least I can do THAT right!
Alright, no more testing until I can do so in a safe environment. Now
how much time passed!
Five minutes.
Five.
I blinked with surprise and just a tiny bit of awe. It had taken the advanced Genetic Manipulator
five minutes to force evolve me so far I gained superpowers.
Those things are fucking broken, holy shit.
Okay. Time to get my head in the game and proceed to the things further down my list than making sure my teammate has her brain cancer cured and one of the world's most renown Tinkers gets her issues solved.
...What the hell was I doing before all of this?
…
Yeahp, I got nothing. Oh well, might as well check PHO.
…
…
…
That is a lotta comments. Shit.
Okay, okay, ass covering time while also fulfilling my duty as a Hero! and inspiring hope. Let's see, reply there, respond to thanks with you're welcome, chat with teammates… hey wait a second, AllSeeingEye is a cape?
I took a moment to consider that. In hindsight, it was so obvious that I felt incredibly stupid.
She's a cape and is asking for my help because of another evil cape. What the
fuck do I do? Yeah I just 'killed' an Endbringer but that doesn't mean I can help her!
Get it together Will, you can do this, I tried to reassure myself.
Step one, refer her to the PRT. They can take care of her until I can oversee her hero conversion.
I think.
Send that off and-
Oh, she replied immediately. She can't make it.
Now what?!
Uhh… Well, I did have this fancy new ship with Beaming Arrays on board. I wonder…
Ohhhh, she has something to help with that. A flare gun. Thank you AllSeeingEye, that is
SO not fucking helpful! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY FIREWORKS ARE IN THE SKY RIGHT NOW!!
Calming down. I was calm. I could make this work.
What…
color is this flare gun?
Red.
I grimaced and stared daggers at the wall of the Medbay.
Red. One of the primary colors of flame.
Like those aforementioned
fireworks.
Fine. I'd just have to have the Hyperion scan for abnormal launch vectors. Tell her it's fine though because
can't spook the potential new Protectorate member, no siree!
She said she'd sent the flare off. Time for the Hyperion to cry as it has to sift through a bunch of scan data for one specific variation of a firework.
How the frak did Brockton even get this many fireworks? The evening sky above the city looks like it's glowing!
And so what if it only took the Hyperion a couple of seconds. Bite me. It was still extra work.
Grumble grumble. I should probably be at the beam in site. Given Asgardian Beams basically designated 'anywhere' as a potential beam in site, I got to choose the location.
It had to be somewhere suitably impressive and
definitely somewhere a decent distance away from the unconscious forms of Missy and Dragon. No way was I putting her beam in site anywhere near Ziz, either. Didn't want any signals piggybacking the array. In either direction.
The Bridge it is!
I sat in the Throne Chair and commanded the Hyperion to beam her up.
Put her somewhere in front of me, facing out the window, I directed further.
Like a gleeful puppy my ship proceeded to do just that. The white streams of light and signature chiming sound of Asgardian Transport rang out from about five feet in front of me. A couple of seconds more and AllSeeingEye flared into existence, stretching slightly from the top down until she was fully materialized.
She was clad in a purple, skin-hugging suit. Her long blonde hair spilled out from her head. The costume, for that's what it was, apparently didn't have any helmet or hood. I could barely see the edges of a purple eye mask on the sides of her head. Her fists were clenched, along with other body parts, and that is the
only reason my attention was drawn to her finely shaped posterior for more than a couple of seconds. I swear!
Five more seconds went by without her unclenching and I finally managed to tear my eyes away. She was cringing, her chin hunched into her neck, and a cursory look with the Hyperion's sensors showed she had completely shut her eyes and was scrunching them as hard as she could.
Also, I recognized her.
"
Tattletale?!" I burst out, jaw dropping. Tattletale was AllSeeingEye?!
...Actually, no, yeah, that kinda makes sense. She's supposed to be some kind of Thinker and wears a costume with the Egyptian Eye of Ra on it, so AllSeeingEye as a username fits her shtick
and her penchant for being a smartass.
Tattletale wasn't currently being a smartass. Polar opposite, more like. In response to my addressing her, she jumped a little, obviously quite scared. I wasn't sure why she was so terrified but
something was doing it. It couldn't have been me,
I wasn't scary, so maybe it was my ship?
Regardless, her clenching slowly subsided and she risked opening a single eye to take a look at her surroundings.
Then both her eyes shot wide open and her own jaw dropped. She ran up to the Bridge's forward window. The purple-clad villainess seemed to have totally forgotten about whatever scared her in favor of staring in awe down at the cloud cover above Brockton Bay that we were steadily approaching.
I sighed, reluctantly got up, and joined her side at the window. "Nice view, isn't it?" I asked nonchalantly, staring along with her.
"Wow," she breathed under her breath, face still pressed to the window.
I spared a glance sideways at her face. She did have a purple mask on, as I'd assumed beforehand, which thankfully helped me still be inside the Unwritten Rules. What I could see of her face was truly attractive in a hot-girl-next-door way. Her body's curves under her figure hugging costume didn't disagree with her face, either, nor the well kept and almost… shiny? long blonde hair she sported.
I suddenly blinked, something occuring to me. Her facial structure, that hair, her curves… they were tickling something in the back of my mind. Had… had I met her before?
...HOLY SHIT. It clicked in my head, the memories coming to the fore, and I couldn't help myself. I knew where I'd seen her before.
My coffee bestie was TATTLETALE?!
"LISA?!" I gasped, eyes widening.
She stilled and I abruptly got a dose of the next of my new Alteran powers.
Oh shit, she thought.
She whipped her piercing green eyes towards me and glared. "How the hell do you know that name?!" she asked, before she registered my face.
...I then realized I wasn't wearing a mask. I didn't really even have a costume. In my rush to stop the Hyperion from destroying all the villains and threats to my safety in Brockton Bay, then the charge on the Winged Endbringer, I'd completely forgotten to fabricate anything. Not even a rudimentary mask.
Which meant she could see my face perfectly fine, no guessing required.
"Weldon?!"
