The point because it was that there's fewer events per day so it will speed up. Go back to around the rock and every day had over a dozen things known to happen before they started and several more piled on throughout it. Compare that to now for the next day it's just the nine, the healing spree and the aftermath of it, the day after only has the meeting with his dad and his date with Crystal. Heck Lisa's calls aren't even necessarily every day anymore and will probably stop soon since honestly with how lord is refusing to have perks move up the timeline of locating Bakuda's base I'm expecting that when Butcher and March try their dumb scheme in 2-3 days they'll somehow make it to Noelle which will lead to him learning about Dinah and well kidnapping was one of his stated limits in their initial deal.
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
The point because it was that there's fewer events per day so it will speed up. Go back to around the rock and every day had over a dozen things known to happen before they started and several more piled on throughout it. Compare that to now for the next day it's just the nine, the healing spree and the aftermath of it, the day after only has the meeting with his dad and his date with Crystal. Heck Lisa's calls aren't even necessarily every day anymore and will probably stop soon since honestly with how lord is refusing to have perks move up the timeline of locating Bakuda's base I'm expecting that when Butcher and March try their dumb scheme in 2-3 days they'll somehow make it to Noelle which will lead to him learning about Dinah and well kidnapping was one of his stated limits in their initial deal.
- Location
- Melbourne
- Aisha going Indy exploring her world.
- Lily and Garment meeting up again.
- Taylor talking about her trigger.
- What's happening with Vicky in New York.
- Chen & Mrs Chen.
- Therapy after the S9 takedown.
- The Elite after they learn of the healing.
- The Kerbals taking out Simmy.
- The first time someone ends up in Joe's afterlife.
- Rachel and Fleet with wolves.
- Location
- Behind you
Would Jozef leave the ruins of an ancient super civilization around Aisha's world because he thought it would be too plain if there was only mature on it? Yes. Yes he would.
Bastard Son: Oh no.
Uppercrust: (breaks down a wall) OH YEAH!
Jozef: You would thing that it was watching them commit attrocities after attrocities what made me blow up Jack's kneecap, but I want to think he owned that kneecap to me after he. Kept. Taking. Sideroads. To get here! Not even paved roads! They were one step away from animal trails! It took him days to gets here! Do you know what I could have done in those days? I could have gotten here earlier, that's for sure!
- Location
- Canada
Doing a reread, realized Joe specified that he would be willing to work with the Undersiders as long as they didn't break the Unwritten Rules with their big job (the bank heist). Definitely ironic that they immediately went ahead and assisted Coil in kidnapping Dinah. It was pretty painful how his power tried to warn him but he was too spiteful and enjoyed his power's panic at the thought of a gross supervillain getting his hands on a child, but it is what it is.
It's kind of weird that Lisa knows about Dinah and hasn't said anything. It's even weirder that this hasn't even pinged on Joe's manipulation sensing, as it means Lisa genuinely doesn't care about Dinah/isn't trying to conceal her existence/doesn't think Joe would care and so doesn't think not mentioning her is manipulating Joe.
Then again, in canon when Miss Militia found out about Coil kidnapping Dinah, her reaction was pretty weird too. She halfheartedly tries to get a meeting with Dinah and when Coil says he has no reason to "let her", because he's "helping" Dinah with her power and needs complete isolation from all her friends and family, she just drops the subject. Never brings it up again.
Dinah really is a weird plot device that people treat in the most insane and inconsistent manner, no matter the medium.
- Location
- Right Where I Am
Theoretically, at least.
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
At the very least it'll be schedule-update day.
ExploerTM
Ruin has found you at last!
- Location
- Russia, Perm
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
As it was said before, its all because Lisa doesnt know that Dinah is a parahuman. As far as Lisa concerned, Dinah is just a political hostage and Coil probably just threw her into some average bedroom with TV and called it a day waiting for a moment to negotiate with Mayor. If this was true, arguably Dinah would've been safer in Coil's bunker than in a city that is actively blowing up. Joe probably gets pings that Lisa hides something but he knew that even before manipulation sense so its nothing new for him.
- Location
- Canada
Does... does being a parahuman matter for a child who's been kidnapped from their family? It's not like Joe's okay with kidnapping or murdering civilians, even if he called out not breaking the Unwritten Rules as his red line as well. I guess Lisa has the same perspective as Purity then, seeing the unpowered as not important.
The specific wording gave her a little wiggle room for a singular kidnapping vs multiple kidnappings. It didn't give wiggle room for the unwritten rules.
110.1 Interlude Gully
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
110.1 Interlude Gully
Gully sat on a piece of broken masonry, picking at the remains of her lunch with one hand while holding her phone in the other. Rather than browsing through news feeds and information that might possibly lead her to Apeiron, she had an active video call, with the phone showing the face of a blond girl who seemed both frazzled and in unusually high spirits.
"So you haven't seen the Chicago team at all?" Crystal asked.
Gully finished a bit of her sandwich before replying. "No. The fire service has been focused on the dark zone. From what I've heard, Tecton's team has been working closer to downtown."
Most of what she heard were complaints about the traffic, or more specifically the fact that traffic was held up with no prior warning. As far as recovery work went, clearing the roads into the Docks would probably help in the long run, but there had been a burst of activity following the supplies and funding that Garment's show had brought in. It seemed like half the city was rushing out to help, only to find themselves caught in traffic related to work on some of the least damaged areas.
"I saw some of that from the air." Crystal said. "Think it was Shuffle's power. Entire sections of the city just swapped around like one of those sliding tile puzzles."
Gully nodded. "He's the top shaker in Chicago for a reason."
It was an example of a power that was unquestionably strong, but also inherently limited. Shuffle could work over huge areas, switching out parts of the landscape, moving roads, hills, even buildings. He was able to massively rearrange a battlefield, but significantly less capable when dealing with the subsequent battle. More of a setup cape than an active combatant.
"I mean, I'm glad we've got their help, but the whole thing seems a bit late, compared to everything else." Crystal said.
Gully let a slight smile spread across her face. "Well, I didn't exactly come down here planning on disaster relief."
"Well, I'm glad you did." Crystal replied. Gully felt her face heat up slightly. Not actually blush, her skin was too thick for that, but the same principle.
The moments after a disaster were always the most critical. It was the point when the most difference could be made, when people could still be saved. There was still a lot of bitterness that the city hadn't even received an A-class response after the Ungodly Hour. All of the city's capes had worked themselves to the bone in those early hours, often not standing down until well into the following day.
Compared to that, even support on the level of the Chicago team fell flat. Having Shuffle present in the city would help clean up the damage that had been inflicted, but it only made the lack of external support during the aftermath of the attacks all the more notable. That was particularly notable for her.
She liked to think that she handled the public facing aspects of cape life well enough, but the amount of acclaim that had been directed towards her for just being present in the city at that critical moment was a little unnerving. The only other cape who had independently transferred to the city was Dragon, and it wasn't like she could even compare to someone on that level. Still, that hadn't stopped people from basically holding her up as an example.
The truly uncomfortable side of things was the political aspect. It wasn't just that she had transferred to the city, it was that she had come under her own initiative. Not as part of some Protectorate sanctioned relief force or reinforcement effort, just her, acting externally to the system. A system that wasn't thought of particularly fondly in the aftermath of how things had been handled. She was being regarded as some kind of defiant symbol, which was just about the last thing she wanted.
Well, honestly she wasn't sure what she wanted, at least on that front. Given the choice between her Protectorate career, such as it was, and the chance for a cure, there would be no question, but that wasn't the kind of trade being made here. She was doing good work, helping people, but in doing so she had somehow become an icon of defiance, and there would be a price for that defiance.
That was what she was worried about. She was glad that she could help, that she had been able to help. It wasn't just the people she had been able to save, she had been able to facilitate the efforts of other recovery teams, people who would have spent days digging through rubble or trying to traverse broken streets had instead been able to direct their efforts where they could make the most difference. In a perfect world that would have been seen as a universally good thing, but the world wasn't perfect. There was a lot of anger at the PRT, and she had become a rallying point for a lot of it.
The exact reason why she had become so focal was another thing that bothered her. Case 53s, or specifically the difficulty the Protectorate had experienced in their efforts to treat and integrate Case 53s, was something that people were well aware of. For every case like Weld there were a dozen who just couldn't focus, who struggled with power issues or just the physical or mental burdens of their conditions. It said something that she counted as one of the success stories.
Effectively, she was an example of the Protectorate's failures, serving to highlight another extremely high-profile failure. If things didn't work out for her, if she had to slink back to San Diego at the end of all this, there was no chance of just falling back into her previous role. Not after what had happened and the amount of focus that had been placed on her. They would either have to counter that image or subvert it somehow. Either way, she would be in for an uncomfortable experience. Or even more of one than usual. She didn't sign up to be an icon of defiance, but then again she didn't sign up for a lot of what she'd have to deal with. All she could do was push forward and hope that she could find a way though.
That should have been a motivating factor, another element of ride or die driving her to find that fabled solution, but currently her only possible connection was her meeting with Garment and the hope of leveraging whatever connection existed between the fashion cape and the Celestial Forge. Garment had been intense, but that intensity had been concerning. Was there some kind of conflict between Garment and the rest of Apeiron's team? Some reason why they didn't acknowledge each other in any way? Would she be shooting herself in the foot by trying to reach out to the only lead she'd been able to find?
Or the only lead that hadn't exploded into a cloud of bugs before her eyes.
"How are things looking with your cousin?" Gully asked, pulling herself away from her grim thoughts by shifting the topic to something equally unpleasant.
"Good." Crystal said weakly. "Or as good as we could have hoped for. My mom is on a tear, so we're definitely getting her out of there today, but from the sound of things, there are like fifty layers of red tape to work through."
Gully nodded. "I know master allegations are serious, but this sounds worse than anything I've heard of before."
"The master stuff was just part of this." Crystal said, shaking her head. "I only got the cliff notes, but it sounds like they have a dozen PRT procedures and restrictions tied up with this case. Even the summary was more than I could follow."
"Not like twenty-minute lectures on streaming protocols?" Gully asked with a grin blooming on her face. The way Crystal flushed in response was absolutely adorable.
"It wasn't actually twenty minutes." She protested. "And it was interesting. The way he broke everything down, it was really easy to follow what he was talking about."
"Yes, he did seem like the type of person who can hold the attention of his audience." She teased. Crystal stammered something in response, which just caused Gully to grin wider.
"But seriously, I'm glad it went well." She said. She didn't need to mention the incident at the charity show. They both knew how ugly that could have been. If Crystal hadn't stumbled across the initial encounter, or if she hadn't been there when the accusation was made…
"So am I." Crystal said. Gully raised an eyebrow and Crystal rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know, but seriously, it was nice to just have a chance to get away from everything." She let out a breath. "It feels like there hasn't been a moment's peace for weeks. I don't think I realized how much I missed being able to do something normal."
"Yeah." Gully said neutrally. Crystal recognized her slight misstep, but thankfully didn't comment on it. It was something Gully was grateful for. She'd never be able to get away from cape life, but much in the same way as Crystal, she liked having grounded moments where everything wasn't about her condition or powers or hero identity or the next mission.
"So, on that topic, how are your plans with Tecton?" She asked.
Gully let out a breath. "Nebulous." She said. Crystal raised an eyebrow, so she continued. "Nothing's set, or nothing specific. We're getting dinner, but for us that usually meant takeout in his lab."
"Seriously?" Crystal asked.
"Isn't Joe taking you to a food stall for your first date?" She shot back, though with good humor.
"Dinner and a concert." She said with fake pomposity. "And the company sponsoring the food is supposed to be really good."
Gully nodded in acknowledgement. She had seen some of the pictures of the boxed meals and catering that had been provided to the volunteers both during setup and at the after party. Even with her standards, she couldn't find fault with them. It was a shame they weren't operating openly yet. It would have been a decent option if the dinner with Everett had to devolve into another takeout meal.
"I'm not really up to speed on the dining scene in Brockton Bay, especially after the attacks." She explained. "Plus we'd need a place that can fit me, and Tecton's armor." Because there was no option but to stay in cape activity. "We used to work around that. Lots of food trucks, open air dining, that kind of thing."
It had been nice, back when things between them had been undefined. Back when she could pretend there was nothing there, that there would be nothing there. That she would have enough strength of will to just prevent herself from developing feelings. Like that ever worked, no matter how unfair it was, to both of them.
She let out a breath, which Crystal took as a sign to change the subject.
"Are you back into the dark zone after this?" She asked.
She shook her head. "No. Morning was the final push for the original objectives. We've gotten most of the key routes clear, or at least traversable. They're doing a re-org thing to account for the new resources from the show. And the effects of the Chicago team's work." She added.
"What, you've got the whole afternoon off?" Crystal asked.
"At least until I see Garment." She said.
"Wish we could hang out, but the entire family's on call in case they need anything for Amy." Crystal explained. "My mom's probably got it in hand, but we all want to be there when she gets out."
"I'm sure she'll appreciate that." Gully said as she finished the last of her lunch.
"After as long as she's been cooped up, she'll probably just be glad to get out of there. Even if she'll basically be stuck at home until we get the final clearance." Crystal said, speaking theoretically and definitely not as someone who had been secretly in contact with her cousin in defiance of PRT regulations. They both shared a smile at that unspoken detail.
"Well, good luck with everything. I hope things go well for Amy." She said.
"You too." Crystal replied. "Let me know how things go with Garment."
"Will do." She said, before ending the call and tossing away the remains of her box lunch.
The food was suddenly not sitting particularly well as her stomach did flips at the thought of her upcoming meeting with Garment. Her only lead, and it could very well fall flat. Even beyond the concerns about how Garment was actually connected to Apeiron and any potential bad blood between them, she was very aware that she would be meeting with perhaps the most elegant and fabulous capes in the world.
Old insecurities were churning under the surface, insecurities that had never really gone away. Because they couldn't. Not when you were living with them every day. She had worked to understand them, to manage them and deal with her situation, but that didn't change the situation. It just added a layer of control over top of it.
She hoped she could find a lead to Apeiron from Garment. She hoped that mentioning Apeiron wouldn't bring up some buried issue between Apeiron and Garment and cause her to be thrown out instantly. She hoped there was enough of a connection to actually get a lead, but there was a chance this could fall flat, leaving her with nothing but a meeting with a cape who should have much better use for her time than wasting it on someone like her.
Garment was an incredibly talented person, and there was no doubt that she was a master of her craft, but she would probably want to apply that craft, or at least attempt to. No matter how talented Garment might be, there wasn't any outfit Gully could imagine herself in that wouldn't make her feel like an elephant that had been decorated for a festival.
She let out a long breath before climbing to her feet. She said her goodbyes to the rest of the recovery workers, the genuinely smiling faces of people whose only concern was the good they were doing. Each day's progress, and the knowledge of the people they had helped was enough for them. It should have been enough for Gully, but unfortunately, she had to worry about wider implications.
She saw someone snap a photo with their phone from outside the work area. Normally that would either be someone gawking at her body or rarely a genuine fan of her work as a cape. In this case it was almost certainly going to end up in some blog or tweet about the recovery work, with a dozen comments about the PRT's policies, behavior, leadership, and conduct. A wave of criticism that her face would just happen to be at the forefront of.
Honestly, she'd be the last person to claim that the Protectorate was perfect. She had more than her share of complaints, but they were her complaints, not those of an entire dejected population that wanted to use her as a rallying point for every grievance they had with the system. Of everything she'd been worried about when she decided to take the risk of traveling to Brockton Bay, this was a concern she hadn't even considered.
She didn't want to dwell on it, but she had a considerable amount of time to kill before her meeting with Garment. It did nothing but weigh on her mind as she left the rest of the recovery team, moving away from the more crowded sections of the part of the city bordering the dark zone. It would help if there was something she could do to prepare, but beyond maybe watching some more of the woman's admittedly excellent videos to get a point of reference, she was at a loss. Really, beyond waking into the studio and trying to find a way to bring up the subject, she didn't know what she could do.
And that wasn't even getting into the panic waiting for her if Garment could actually set up a meeting. That was something she still had no idea how to deal with. Weld had been locked down since he let the details of his treatment slip, so she hadn't been able to ask him for any advice. The sum of her savings seemed like a joke compared to the resources Apeiron had access to. Even if Garment could put her in touch with the man, what could she possibly offer that would come close to being worth his time?
She felt her steps slow as she took the opportunity to turn into a blind alley. Technically a shortcut out to the more active part of the city, but really a chance for her to take a moment to herself. To allow the weight of what was ahead of her to fully settle on her shoulders. At least here, away from the thankful volunteers and public cameras, away from the posturing and performance, she could grapple with the full scope of the impossibility of what she was dealing with.
"Good afternoon, Gully."
She flinched at the sound of the voice. She had been so sure that she was alone, that no one could have seen her slumping in despair. She immediately straightened, at least as much as her back allowed her to and schooled her expression as she started to turn to face the person who had found her.
And then she stopped. The voice had been casual. Friendly. Cordial. Perhaps even a little familiar, but she was used to that when dealing with members of the public. It had been so unassuming that she hadn't placed it, at least not at first. To be fair, the only recordings available of that voice were significantly more intense than the friendly tone that had extended a greeting to her.
Slowly, carefully, she turned to face the person behind her. The first thing to catch her eye was the burning red glow of the forelock on his head, standing in contrast from the gray of the rest of his hair. She continued to look down, seeing the high-tech visor concealing his eyes as his face showed a slight smile. He didn't have his iconic white cape, but wore the military style jacket with plates of integrated technology scattered across it. Dozens of other details jumped out at her. The black band on his wrist, the heavy and beautifully crafted combat boots, the way the air seemed almost electrified by his presence. The way you just needed a single thought to confirm who you were looking at.
Apeiron, the Enigmatic Artificer, was here.
"Apeiron!" The blurted reply was about as much as she could manage, and was issued in complete disregard for every comportment and public relations lesson she had ever received. Her deep voice was practically a bark that seemed to echo around the alley in recrimination, reinforcing the shame of her sudden reaction. She did her best not to cringe as she watched Apeiron's response.
He just smiled, and there didn't seem to be any malice in it. She let herself relax just a fraction, trying to pull her lopsided body into some manner of symmetry. The shovel in her hands felt exceptionally awkward and out of place, but she couldn't figure out anything she could do with it that would seem natural or unintrusive.
Apeiron was a tall man, but she towered over him by at least a foot and a half. For some people height was a source of confidence, but for Gully it was just another reminder of what set her apart. The fact that it drew attention to her overbite was just another thing she'd had to struggle with.
She honestly didn't know if Apeiron was watching her flounder or trying to give her time to compose herself. She desperately hoped it was the latter, but she doubted there was enough time in the universe to prepare her for having something like this dropped on her.
"Um, Apeiron." She tried again, this time managed to reduce her voice to the near whisper she preferred to use. There was a flicker of Apeiron's expression that almost made her lose confidence, but she managed to press on. "I was hoping for a chance to meet with you."
"I'm very glad to hear that." He said smoothly. Well, everything he did was smooth. It was even more striking in person than in the videos she had seen. Next to it she felt even more awkward and uncoordinated than usual, the lummox of a Ward who had to be taught how to not accidentally break things or hurt people with her strength.
She pressed down those concerns, doing her best to focus on the moment, on the chance she had been waiting for. She could not let things get away from her, not now.
"You are?" The question felt lame, but it was about the best she could manage. It still felt like her brain was trying to catch up with the situation. For something she had given so much thought and worry, it felt almost insulting to be so off balance when the moment finally arrived.
"Yes." He said as he looked up at her.
In the face of possibly the most powerful cape on the planet who was apparently taking the time to meet her personally, she could only wonder what she could possibly offer that might be worth the time he had already committed to her, much less an actual contract.
"I'm here to inform you that a contract has been arranged on your behalf." He said.
Gully stared down at the man and felt her mouth drop open. "What?" She blurted out, once again accidently pitching her deep voice up to a near bark. She cleared her through, a much louder affair than she would have preferred, and continued in a near whisper. "I'm sorry, did you say…" She didn't even know how to finish that.
"A contract." He said. "For the full treatment of your condition, to the extent that I am able to address it."
A more complex mix of emotions than she could fully grasp welled up inside her. She fought to force them down, or at least keep them out of her voice and off of her face. The sheer enormity of what was being implied was beyond words.
"You can…" The words caught in her throat and she had to begin again. "You can do that? You can fix…"
He nodded, saving her from having to finish the sentence. "There are a number of options available to me, depending on the degree of correction and level of treatment you would prefer. Everything from addressing superficial characteristics to a full remediation of underlying issues."
"I don't know." She said, then quickly corrected herself. "I mean, yes, please, I want… I just don't know what to ask for." She floundered, feeling completely aimless. Only the understanding expression on the tinker's face was keeping her from completely panicking.
"I understand. This is a lot to drop on anyone, and it wouldn't be reasonable to expect you to make these kinds of decisions on the spur of the moment." He explained calmly. "If you'd come with me we can discuss your options."
"With you?" She asked, looking around. Given who she was talking to, the assumption that he'd be referring to anywhere adjacent to the alley seemed overly simplistic, but she couldn't guess what he meant.
"To my Workshop." He said, with a particular emphasis on the word.
With a gesture a rift appeared in the air next to him. The hole in space stretched from the ground to well above even her height. A portal. Because with Apeiron, why not?
"Your workshop." She stuttered, momentarily forgetting to soften her voice. The view through the opening was wavering and washed out, but she could make out some kind of seating room with large chairs and soft colors. Not what she would have expected from Apeiron's workshop, but she sincerely doubted that was the entirety of it.
Apeiron nodded, as if he had made some minor suggestion, not an offer to unveil one of the most heavily speculated aspects of his existence. The nature of his base of operations was something no one was certain of, despite hundreds of theories on the subject. Even now all she could tell was he had enough space to comfortably entertain guests, and that he wasn't uncomfortable with the idea of inviting someone in.
"Some additional privacy would probably help, and I might need access to my facilities, depending on what treatment option you decide to pursue. If any." He added at the end.
The casual nature of his life changing offer was almost insulting, if not for the clear sincerity in his actions. She had a thousand questions, but somehow none of them involved whether he was serious about the contract. She couldn't imagine what she could have done to earn something like that, or who would have made such an arrangement on her behalf, but Apeiron was clearly serious about this.
Her mind raced through everything she had done up to, during, and after the Ungodly Hour, trying to pick out anything that would have counted, or would have distinguished herself from everyone else who had been working themselves to the bone in the same way.
One thing did jump out at her, and unfortunately it wasn't a point in her favor. She hadn't really considered it at the time, just a consequence of the recovery work, but finding herself face to face with Apeiron those actions seemed to catch up with her. She swallowed, very aware of the enormity of the action. Admitting this, assuming he didn't already know, could ruin things for her, but it would probably be better than him finding out later.
"Um, Apeiron…" She began as she reached for a container on her belt. "I've been helping with the recovery efforts." He nodded knowingly. Because of course he would know at least that much. "We've been dealing with the dark zone and some of the damage to the city from…" She very much didn't not want to highlight the source of the elemental effects she'd had to work to bridge or clear. "Um, the trails, through the city? Even after most of the material in them vanished, there was still residue. I've been collecting it as I work. Sending it to the Protectorate."
"That's good." He said.
She blinked. "It is?"
He nodded. "I'm glad someone was able to clear those up. I could have done it, but it was clear my presence would have been a little disruptive." He said in one of the most massive understatements she had heard in her life.
Meeting Apeiron one on one in a private location had her terminally off balance. She could only imagine how the city would react to a public appearance.
"And you don't mind that the Protectorate has access to that material?" She asked.
He shrugged, as if handing over samples of a substance that Protectorate tinkers were literally fighting over was a minor point. And that wasn't an exaggeration. Facetime had apparently needed to drag Shellac out of her lab by the other girl's hair after she caught her trying to poach some of the samples Gully had sent her. The incident had nearly gotten both of them written up, and probably would have if they hadn't managed to independently come to an agreement. Even if that agreement was basically Shellac bribing Facetime with custom polymer sets in exchange for the dregs of the samples Facetime had received.
"I doubt there's enough material to be of any real concern, and it's not that significant anyway." He said. "By my standards." He added, upon seeing her expression.
She couldn't really argue with that, even if every tinker she heard of was apparently going mad for even a trace of the stuff. All attempting to prove to the national office that the uses they discovered were significant to justify some kind of exclusive allocation of the material.
Something that could and quite possibly was completely upending the national tinker community and Apeiron considered it insignificant. It was humbling in a way that made her feel uneasy about her own prospects. Another reminder of just how far out of her depth she was, where even a potential misstep could be forgiven because it just didn't matter on the scale the man worked at.
"Um, right. Thank you." She said, returning to her careful low whisper. "I would be happy to speak with you in your workshop?" She offered, though the statement came out less certain than she intended.
Apeiron just smiled and gestured to the portal. She braced herself, hefted her shovel as gracefully as she could, and stepped into the shimmering rift.
She had braced herself for… something. A sensation of vertigo, a barrage of sensation, feelings of disorientation or weird pressures. She had been teleported before, including some long-distance deployments with Strider. It was enough experience to know what to expect from an unknown portal effect.
But there was nothing. She stepped smoothly from the alley into a well-appointed room in soft colors. The focal point of the room was a large aquarium tank in the center, extending from floor to ceiling and hosting an elaborate aquatic habitat. The rest of the area was filled with comfortable looking chairs and couches. Most of them were arranged around a central point that seemed to focus just in front of the aquarium, but some lined the walls or flanked small tables. It looked more like the type of lounge you might see in a high-end hotel or major corporate headquarters than anything that would be associated with a tinker's workshop.
Well, maybe not. It wasn't the kind of thing you'd associate with a Protectorate tinker's lab, but those were normally tucked away in the corner of the local headquarters and much more focused on personal projects than the hosting of visitors. If they did have anything of the sort, it was usually limited to a small guest chair or demonstration area.
Something like this? Something clean and professional and assembled with clarity of purpose and the influence of Apeiron's particular style? There were tinkers who would aspire to that kind of thing, just not ones who worked for the Protectorate. That kind of attitude didn't necessarily mean 'villain', but the fact that the closest parallel she could come up with was Uppercrust didn't put things in a particularly encouraging light. It was no wonder Apeiron had made the Protectorate nervous. He could come off as defiant and disruptive just by standing apart from them.
"Please, have a seat." Apeiron said as he stepped through the portal. The simmering aperture winked out behind him, making Gully suddenly very aware that she had moved to a completely unknown location with no means of return. He turned to her, seeming to pick up on her reaction despite her best attempts to conceal it. "If you'd rather…"
"No." She said quickly. She took a breath. "No. This, all this, it's a lot, but I'm fine." After all, she was effectively the head of the San Diego Wards. She had seen hard combat and disaster relief. She had endured and even thrived, as much as was possible for a Case 53. She could handle one conversation with Apeiron.
And if she kept repeating that to herself, maybe she would believe it.
She noticed that there was something about the room that made her voice seem less grating. It was still the low pitched gravely tone that she constantly worked to minimize, but a combination of factors, the acoustics, the subtle sounds of water from the aquarium, possibly even the damping of the carpet and soft chairs, seemed to make it less obvious. Like she could speak in a normal tone rather than her usual whisper without constantly being reminded of how off-putting her voice could sound.
She moved to the center of the room, noting the variety of seats. Seemingly to accommodate every member of Apeiron's team. There was even one that was larger than the Matrix would require. A chair prepared for her. Normally something like that would be unnerving, but if she let that bother her she was never going to stop. The entire situation was unnerving. There was no use in trying to pick out specific elements.
Apeiron settled into a chair across from her. Given the décor, if not for her appearance and his costume it could have passed for a high-level business meeting or corporate negotiation. In fact, the intent of the entire room seemed centered around that kind of exchange.
"Um, is this where you meet with your team?" She asked, unsure if she should be raising any subjects. Not in the face of what was already being extended to you.
"Sometimes." He said, glancing around. "There isn't a formal designation for the room, but it was useful to have a place where the team could get together when we needed to discuss things."
He relaxed in his seat and she took that as a sign to do the same. She found the chair exceptionally comfortable in addition to being more than sturdy enough that she wasn't concerned about accidentally breaking it. A few slight shifts confirmed as much, with none of the creaking or unsteadiness she was constantly on guard for.
A look of amusement from Apeiron was enough for her to quickly settle herself, but that small thing had already made a difference. Something that was a constant concern for her had been taken off her mind and she was immensely grateful for it. And also suspicious, given that things had been specifically prepared for her.
But once again, if she was going to be on guard for manipulation she would never stop. That was a rabbit hole that seemingly the entire city had fallen down following Apeiron's debut. How did you tell the difference between perfect stylistic control and precise manipulation of a situation? The answer was that you couldn't, so you were better off not trying and focusing on things you could control.
Right now, in the heart of Apeiron's territory, while desperately hoping for the offered miracle of a contract to pan out, there were precious few things that felt under her control. Still, she was a professional cape, or at least as much of one as any Ward could claim to be. She could deal with something like this. And as long as she kept telling herself that, it just might be true.
"So, this is just for meetings with your team?" She asked, though the small talk felt exceptionally inconsequential.
"I actually don't have a site prepared specifically for third party negotiation." Apeiron said as he smiled at her comment. "Though it might be necessary to address that if this becomes a common occurrence."
"Will it?" She asked, then restrained herself slightly before continuing. "I mean, you said a contract was made on my behalf…" Which could potentially mean one of his team, or some connection that no one was aware of. "Is that common? Or something that is going to become more common?"
"I'm hoping it will become more common, going forward." Apeiron said as he leaned back in his chair.
The soft blue light of the aquarium played off his visor and the technological metal plates of his costume. Combined with the glow of that red lock of hair, it cast a striking image. Not exactly unusual for Apeiron, but seeing it in person, having his attention directed towards you, was very different from reviewing recordings of the man.
"I'm sure you know you are not the only Case 53 who has made their way to the city." Apeiron continued.
Gully nodded. "I'm aware, but I haven't met with any of them." She admitted. She had been too focused on her work with the recovery efforts to have any time to network, and she doubted any of them had more leads than she did.
Than she'd had. She was still trying to wrap her head around that. Around this. Around the insanity of the entire situation. Everything she had been desperately working towards, suddenly dropped in her lap and she had no idea what to do with it. She could handle team briefings and even short statements to the media, but she'd never been good at branching out, forming new connections and building relationships from nothing, and for good reason. There were probably a thousand carefully structured steps that a better negotiator would know to take in her situation, but all she could do was sit there and try not to mess up.
Apeiron nodded. It was clear he was trying to make her comfortable, which was a relief even if it did make her feel slightly self-conscious. Well, more self-conscious than usual.
"To be honest, treatment was never supposed to be as restricted as it was." He said. She wasn't able to keep the surprise off her face and Apeiron inclined his head in apparent amusement. "I didn't have the best introduction to the local PRT. Their policies have made things difficult on a number of fronts. It wasn't possible to accomplish even basic levels of coordination, much less offers of additional services."
"I suppose so." She said in as level a voice as she could. She had been wrestling with a lot of emotions since Apeiron's sudden appearance, but his admission that he would have offered treatment, possible directly through the PRT, if he had been able to; that particularly stung.
It was no secret that the treatment of Case 53s was a minimal priority for the PRT as a whole. There had been some early pushes, but once it became clear that none of the easy solutions would bear fruit things had shifted into management and image moderation. Helping them live with their situation and getting the public to be more accepting. Accepting of them and other 'monstrous' capes.
Since then, any progress that had been made was very much on a case-by-case basis. Some fortunate power interaction that couldn't be repeated or an unusually lucky circumstance that helped one person in particular. Weld's own celebrity status, held up as an example, as if it could be repeated across the entire community rather than serving to highlight how hopeless most of their situations were.
And for every tale of success you heard a half dozen horror stories. Desperate people who took bad gambles or tried something that seemed like a sure shot, only to have it backfire monstrously. Sometimes literally monstrously. The actions of Lab Rat were still spoken of in hushed tones in the Case 53 community. That only served to make the PRT more apprehensive, more cautious about pursuing any possible treatment or cure. If Weld hadn't clearly gone behind the PRT's backs, broken the non-interaction policy and made his own deal for treatment, she wouldn't have been surprised if they had sandbagged on the issue for years, and not until Apeiron agreed to all of their terms, conditions, and policies.
In a perfect world, the fact that Apeiron had a treatment that could help Case 53s would have pressured the Protectorate and PRT to come to terms and resolve their issues with the man. Unfortunately, in reality it was much more likely that they would have used the same situation to try to force him to comply with their demands, not ALLOWING him to help until he agreed to fall in line.
The idea sounded insane, but you just needed to look at the situation in Brockton Bay, and the recovery works that were continuing, to see that. She had been on the street, working with people who had been badly hit by the first wave of bombings. Who had been enduring the gang stalemate for years. While no one was precisely certain of what was happening at the highest levels, it was readily apparent to everyone that no public requests for aid had been made, and that the same policies that turned Apeiron into a pariah before the Ungodly Hour were still in place.
"Though I suppose a side benefit to the delay is that it has allowed me to improve my options for treatment." Apeiron said cheerfully.
That casual cheerfulness with which he presented complete impossibilities. That casual cheerfulness from Apeiron, from the man who had stared down Bakuda, who had destroyed Lung with savage brutality while critically injured and apparently transformed. Who had cowed every group in the city with a single meeting and a set of edicts that they were apparently terrified of defying on any level.
She swallowed and tried to steady herself. It felt like her head was spinning, though the calming atmosphere of the room helped. Gentle colors in cool tones that seemed to moderate tempers and help her focus. Actually, it very well could have been doing just that. This was Apeiron. She was meeting with a cape who was already presenting an impossible cure. What was another half dozen potential effects on top of that.
Taking a breath, she looked across at the tinker. "You said you can treat me." She said carefully. "And it's covered. That there's a contract?"
"Made on your behalf." He confirmed, but offered no information as to who might have put it forward.
"Why?" She asked. "I mean, why me?"
"There is a level of sympathy towards your situation." He admitted.
Given the composition of his team, that could mean any number of things. Proto Aima, the Matrix, even his own transformation. Normally the sympathy of outsiders stung. It was something that came coupled with pity and condescension, but even if Apeiron wasn't a Case 53, it was clear that transformation hadn't been intentional. The form he'd fought Lung in was not something he took on by choice.
She didn't want to press him on the subject… actually she desperately wanted to press him on the subject, but didn't want to risk asking. The point was, that sympathy was at least potentially something that came from a place of understanding, rather than what she usually encountered.
"Additionally, your work in the city has been greatly appreciated, by both myself and members of my team." Apeiron added.
That caused Gully to blink. "The recovery work?" She asked. The man nodded. "But that was just…" She struggled for words. "It wasn't why I came to the city." She admitted. "I didn't even consider that. It just happened, and I was there."
"And you helped." He said. "That made a difference. There was only so much I could do during the attack, and even less afterwards. I'm sure you're aware of the kind of difference you made."
"My power." She said softly. Actually softly, rather than just quietly. The texture of the room diminished the harsher aspects of her voice, letting her put more emotion into her speech than she would normally risk. "It was just the right power in the right place."
"At the right time." He agreed. "A lot of life is down to that. Making the best of the opportunities that present themselves."
She fell silent for a moment. The idea that she could potentially receive everything she'd ever dreamed of from a full contract with Apeiron, something of near mythical significance, all because she happened across people who needed help and didn't leave them hanging. Because she'd gone with Manpower to help during the Ungodly Hour. And stuck around for the rescue efforts. And signed on with the fire service to help clear rubble and bridge the fissures that had opened in the streets. For a solid week of constant overtime work.
Okay, maybe it wasn't as inconsequential as it felt. It still didn't seem equal, but at least she could understand why someone who cared about his city would see that as something deserving of acclaim, even if it was less than what she'd done in any of a dozen other dispatches with the Wards.
She looked over at Apeiron again. Was that it? Was it because she wasn't with the Wards? Wasn't part of any system that was telling her where to go, what to do, and how to present things afterwards? Somehow she doubted Apeiron would have been this grateful if she had been officially deployed to the city as part of some Protectorate initiative. Then again, that would have shifted things to the Protectorate, not to her.
She was running circles in her head, trying to find some way to justify things to herself. Some explanation that would convince her this wasn't some mistake or overreach. That everything wasn't going to come crashing down the second he gave things a second thought. She didn't want that to happen, but it was so hard to accept that this was real. That it might actually be the end of everything she had struggled with.
She didn't even know what that could mean. Her life, her existence as Gully, it was intrinsically tied to her condition. To her body and her powers and the way she was seen. There were things she wanted, aspirations and flights of fancy that had been entertained in desperate 'what if' scenarios, but she'd never really considered what a cure could look like. What her life would be after… after everything that had been her life, up to that point.
And she was still being met with a sympathetic expression. Not condescending sympathy, or pity for her existence. In fact, not connected to her condition at all. Apeiron was understanding of what had been dropped on her. Which made sense, considering he was the one who dropped it on her.
It was insane. Well, the situation was insane, but more specifically, she hated the way she was struggling with what was supposed to be an unquestionably good thing. Maybe if she felt like she had earned it, if she had tracked down Apeiron and made the case, if she had come to terms and somehow secured a contract through her own efforts. Well, her own intentional efforts. She wasn't used to things being just handed to her, especially not something as significant as this.
But Apeiron's own words stuck with her. Making the best of the opportunities that presented themselves. Weld had done that during his chance meeting. She couldn't afford to do any less. It didn't matter if she felt like what she'd done was significant enough to deserve something as important as this. Apeiron, or someone close to Apeiron, was grateful to her. Grateful for what her work had been able to accomplish. She wasn't going to insult that generosity by thinking herself in knots over it.
"You said there were options." She began. "That some were more difficult than others?" Despite her commitment to stop looking in the mouth of the gift horse, she couldn't help but need to feel out the scope of the offer.
"They are." He said. "Though to confirm, that's more about your own tolerance for treatment. Your contract is good for any level of treatment you wish, or even follow-ups if you change your mind at a later point."
The overwhelming generosity wasn't as comforting as it should have been. Things would have been more manageable if Apeiron had given her a set of options and a price list, rather than apparently putting the full scope of his abilities at her disposal.
"So it's a question of the degree of the treatment? Like, whether you can do it this afternoon, or if it will take… days? Weeks?" She asked hesitantly.
"Well, more like a couple of seconds to maybe a half hour, on the outside." He said, "And that will mostly be scanning and analysis. The actual treatment won't be much longer."
She blinked. Apparently, even with all the mental gymnastics she had been doing, she still hadn't been able to remember who she was talking to.
"Okay." She said softly. "But the difference? I mean, people have tried to help Case 53s before, and it hasn't…" She didn't want to mention some of the examples that jumped to mind. Even bringing them up compared to what Apeiron was offering seemed insulting, but she couldn't help those images weighing on her mind.
Apeiron nodded. "Fundamentally, it's a problem of power expression." He explained. "A lot of times the changes to people's bodies from, or as a result of, their powers are just structural shifts. It's a static effect with nothing reinforcing it."
"But not with Case 53s." Gully said, following his logic.
Normally she would have doubted someone speaking with this level of confidence, but Apeiron had repeatedly demonstrated his expertise in this area. She didn't know if he was actually a power tinker, and right now the specifics of whatever specialization he had didn't particularly matter to her. She was willing to trust that he knew what he was talking about, and that was the important thing.
"No." Apeiron said, "It's similar to what you can see from other power expressions." Gully gave him a confused look. "For instance, you have a blaster who directs his power from his hands. If he loses his arms in an accident, it will disrupt the mechanism of his power, but not negate it. Eventually you will see a shift in how the power manifests, because it's not that his hands are in any way central to the expression of his power, they just served as a medium for it."
Gully nodded. She vaguely remembered something about that from the Parahuman Studies courses they encouraged Wards to take. That kind of effect had been observed, but it wasn't well understood. It wasn't the sort of thing that could be confirmed through experimentation, and field cases were understandably rare.
"With Case 53s, and certain other altered parahumans, their condition is the result of active expressions of their power, and that runs into conflict with attempts at treatment." He shrugged. "I could transform you into a completely human form, but if I didn't address the aspect of your power responsible for your current condition you would see conflicts and reversion." His expression grew serious. "If that's not accounted for properly, the consequences could be severe, as previous attempts have revealed."
She nodded, managing to keep a grimace off of her face. It was actually a relief to have Apeiron acknowledge the previous failures. Him being aware of them meant he would have taken steps to avoid those mistakes. It meant that she probably didn't need to worry about ending up like one of Lab Rat's patients.
"So that treatment has to work with the power?" She asked, partially in an attempt to distract herself from those concerns.
Apeiron nodded. "Alterations that don't impact the expressions of the abilities in question are easiest to implement. That was what Weld received in his first treatment, and is the kind of thing that could probably be handled by any parahuman who understood what they were doing."
Gully blinked. "Sorry, Weld's first treatment?" She asked.
Apeiron smiled. "Like you, he's paid up for a full treatment. There was only so much I could manage in the field, and my resources were more limited back then. Of course, there hasn't exactly been an opportunity for a follow-up, given everything that's happened."
She didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, she couldn't begrudge Weld, not after he had taken a risk to inform her and so many other Case 53s. Doing so probably made it harder for him to receive that follow-up of complete treatment. On the other hand, he had a complete treatment waiting for him. Weld, the Case 53 with celebrity and fame and a leadership position waiting for him, had not just gotten the first treatment from Apeiron, he was also slated for the full extent of what the man could offer.
But so was she, if she wanted it. And she was receiving hers first. She couldn't begrudge him for his luck, not when she had been equally fortunate. She felt horrible about being able to have this kind of opportunity handed to her when so many others were struggling, but she couldn't let it pass either. Apeiron had said that he had wanted to offer his treatments more widely. It was possible that she could help force the PRT's hand by showing that it was possible to be fully cured.
Or maybe she just wasn't quite selfless enough to put everyone else ahead of her. Maybe that made her less worthy than Apeiron thought she was, but she could live with that. She would live with that.
She coughed with a noise like a truck backfiring and was once again grateful for the way the room seemed to drink in sounds rather than highlight them. "So, for me, any cure would need to account for what my power did to my body?"
"Essentially." Apeiron said with a nod. "It's driven by an active power effect, so that would either need to be channeled to a new expression, or moderated. Or eliminated."
"Eliminated?" Gully asked, her eyes widening.
"Yeah, that's a bit of an extreme case, but if you don't want to mess with anything else, I can just set you up with a new body with no powers." He said. "No mucking around with expressions, focuses, suppression, power modulation, or any of that." He gave a light shrug. "It's kind of a nuclear option, but if that's what you want, it's open to you."
She took a breath as she considered his words. No powers. Not just the loss of her earth control, but a completely fresh state in a 'new' body. One that was completely human, without even a shadow of who she used to be.
If it had been the only option available to her, she might have taken it. She would have hated to walk away from her life as a cape, from all her friends, from Everett, but given the chance to build something new without her previous struggles, she couldn't deny the appeal.
But it wasn't the only option. It was the nuclear option. One that some Case 53s would probably take at the first opportunity. Unlike them, her time as a cape hadn't been completely negative, and there were options that would let her stay in that world. Let her build on what she had accomplished. Maybe even grow beyond the factors that had been limiting her.
"Um, thank you, but I don't think that's for me." She said. Apeiron nodded, and there was no judgment in his expression. It had been an option, nothing more. "So, the simpler treatments would change things, but only in the context of their current expression?" Apeiron nodded again and she dropped her eyes, looking down at her misshapen body.
What would that look like for her? If she had been the one who happened upon Apeiron rather than Weld, what would that kind of minor treatment have been? Straightening her spine? Adjusting how the slabs of muscle were spread over her body? Maybe fixing some of her asymmetry and deformity, while keeping the general structure? She could have still been a collection of scar tissue, overly dense bones, and heavy muscle, but maybe in slightly more human proportions.
That would have helped. That would have helped a lot. Frankly, anything would have helped. Anything but looking like a hunchbacked lumbering monster of a cape. And if she would have been happy with even the most basic treatment he could offer…
"What about 'full treatments'?" She asked. "What would that involve?"
"Effectively, it's a reset of your powers." He explained.
She felt the skin on her face tighten at the expression of surprise. Or what she naturally wore as an expression of surprise, which really came across more as a combination of a snarl and a death grimace. There was a reason why she worked to control her expression, but thankfully Apeiron didn't appear disturbed by the display.
"What I mean is, it's necessary to alter the fundamental expression. Lesser treatments can work within the current bounds or modify aspects of how your powers function, but the only way to ensure a complete cure is to go back and start fresh." He continued.
"And you can do that?" She asked.
He nodded. "I'm not sure if you're familiar with parahuman studies or passenger theory?"
She nodded. "I've taken courses, and there's been a lot of attention on passenger theory recently." Mostly because of Apeiron, but that went unsaid.
Apeiron gave her a single nod, then leaned forward in his chair. "Passengers are responsible for the direction and management of powers, or at least the aspects of them that extend beyond what a human mind would be able to handle. They also work to set the expression of powers during a trigger event." He explained. "Every passenger is different, not just in their methods, but in the mechanics of how their abilities operate. You actually have very few shared principles between different parahumans, even if their powers are superficially similar."
All Gully could do was nod numbly. This went beyond confidence in powers. It was a comprehensive understanding of the mechanics of how they operated, the very nature of parahuman existence. There were people who wanted to write off Apeiron as mad, as a delusional fool who had become overly enticed by his own theories, but seeing him like this, it was hard to dismiss his claims so casually.
"The parameters of powers are usually set during a trigger event. Any modification from that point on works within those parameters, rather than finding new expressions. But it is possible to change that expression."
Apeiron raised his hands and a hologram formed in the space between them. It was a simple set of geometric designs, like the kind you'd seen in a math lecture. The diagram showed two distinct areas, marked out in grids.
"Passengers 'inhabit' a semi-virtual shared environment. The actual structure and locations of passengers are significantly more complicated, but it's possible to think of them as effectively existing in an alternate spatial realm from the parahumans they're connected to." He looked up at her. "Passenger space."
She gave another blank nod. She could follow the high-level explanation, but the implications were significantly more difficult to come to terms with, to say nothing of exactly how Apeiron came to discover this.
"This space is intentionally isolated from the rest of reality. In theory, it should not be possible to use abilities from passengers to reach in. In practice, a combination of certain specific and high-level effects is able to create a temporary link."
The holographic grid displayed a linkage forming between the two separate areas. There was more information there, color gradients and data readings that she couldn't hope to follow, but once again, at the highest level it was simple enough. Or simplified enough.
"One of the potential results of such a connection is a modulation of a parahuman's abilities. The breach allows a stronger connection, which can be expressed in everything from temporary empowerment to the manifestation of new powers to a completely new expression of base abilities." He continued. There were complicated designs shown on the 'passenger space' side of the diagram, but once again, if she focused on the highest-level elements she could follow what Apeiron was saying.
And he was basically saying that he could knock the back out of the entire system of parahuman powers to make it do whatever he wanted. Well, maybe not whatever, but more than anyone else could hope to. For all that Apeiron was 'suspected' to be a power tinker, this seemed to go so much further. It was a fundamental alteration of how powers worked, and he was just presenting it to her like it was nothing.
"Is it alright for me to know this kind of thing?" She asked. "You're not worried about it getting out?"
Something like this, it could explain everything. Apeiron's growth in power, the new abilities he demonstrated, the changes in his teammates between appearances. He hadn't admitted to using this method to empower himself or his team, but it was the most significant treatment available to him. Would he have done anything less for the members of the Celestial Forge?
"I'm not going to offer you a treatment without explaining what it does." He said, "You deserve to be fully informed before you agree to anything. As for the information getting out, some of these details are already known to levels of the Protectorate and PRT, and passenger theory is being heavily investigated. I would prefer if you kept some of the details I'm sharing with you private, but I'm not going to make any demands on that front."
"You don't have to worry." She assured him. "You can trust me."
"I appreciate that." He said. "Though to be clear, you don't need to pursue a treatment at this level. I know this is a lot to deal with. If you want to go with a simpler procedure and revisit this later, that's perfectly fine."
Gully let out a breath. Once again, the near limitless options were paralyzing. It was easier to deal with constraints, limits, a challenge where you tried to get the best outcome you could. Not this kind of open-ended offer. It was supposed to be a negotiation. That was what she had expected. That was what she had prepared herself to deal with. How were you supposed to respond when the man's opening offer was 'whatever you want'?
In a lot of ways, that added more pressure. If Apeiron was willing to offer her a fresh chance, and opportunity to start over with what her powers were supposed to work with, could she really turn that down? Obviously she could, but should she?
It was tempting to just jump on the 'best' option. Set aside the scale of what was being offered to her and just focus on the benefits. Try to focus on the benefits. Honestly, even with every assurance Apeiron had made, even with his knowledge and understanding, and confidence in what he was offering, she was scared.
A change like this, the biggest change of her life, or the biggest change she could remember, it was overwhelming. It was honestly tempting to take the easy way out, to accept a minor treatment, something that would make things a bit easier for her, then come back when she'd had time to think.
But fundamentally, she didn't want that. She didn't want a half measure or a way to make things less bad. It didn't matter if it was twenty percent less bad, or fifty percent, or even ninety percent. She had a chance to go all the way. To put everything behind her. To no longer be thought of as just 'a Case 53'.
It was a chance to be a real cape. A proper cape. The kind she could have been if whatever made her like this had never happened to her. She had spent so much time trying to come to terms with her life, with all the things she needed to struggle with each day. She'd built up strength to carry that weight, and she'd been able to endure. She'd even been able to thrive, at least within her limitations.
But she didn't want to. She could admit that. She didn't want to and didn't have to. It was almost shameful, but she could admit to herself that she would rather have had a simple life. An easy life. And she could do that without diminishing the significance of what she'd accomplished as Gully.
She took a breath and looked over at Apeiron. "I'd like to try that." She said, indicating towards the floating diagram. "Even if it's more complicated, or will take longer, I'd like to try."
"Excellent." He said, and the hologram vanished as he climbed to his feet. "We'll need to move to the lab, but we can get started right away."
"Thank you." She said, rising from her chair and once more towering over the man. "Though it's crazy to think… I won't count as a Case 53 after this." She saw his expression shift. "Well, I mean, I guess I will, but not practically?"
"It wasn't that." He said quickly. "Though I should inform you, this effect has happened before, and the PRT has assigned a sequential case number to it." He gave her an apologetic smile. "You'll be basically trading one case number for another."
"Ah." That was almost funny. She tried to remember what the last sequential case she'd read was. "So I'd be a case… 67?"
Apeiron took a breath. "It's actually Case 69." He said. She stared at him. "Believe me, I know. It's not what I would have chosen, but I didn't exactly have control over the circumstances."
"Um, right." She said. Definitely not something she would have chosen either, but not nearly enough to be a deciding factor in the treatment she selected. After everything she'd been through, whatever jokes this designation might result in would be a minor concern. "What was the case incident? If it's alright for me to ask?"
"Interaction between March's power and the power system of one of my vehicles." He said. "You've probably seen the after effects on the container yard."
Gully swallowed. She had. Everyone had. The red crystals that burrowed through containers and concrete alike, that extended far further into the docks and under the bay than they had any right to. She'd tried to clear the damage, but whatever that material was, her power couldn't touch it. It was like it specifically did not count as any form or stone or natural mineral.
"Is this going to be that… serious?" She asked cautiously.
Apeiron smiled. "Thankfully not. Controlled experimental conditions are a lot less likely to result in out-of-control breach events. The actual connection reset is a minor part of the treatment. The main problem is making sure we have everything properly lined up before we start."
"Right, right." She said, "Then I guess we should…" She trailed off as she looked towards the aquarium. Or specifically, as something from the aquarium looked back at her.
"What…" She muttered as the creature slid behind a rock, concealing most of its crystalline spiral shell. As she watched a teal-colored face peeked out, looking at her with large black eyes that were far too focused and expressive for that type of animal.
"Sea Snails." Apeiron explained. "Well, a unique variant of sea snail."
"Did you… make them?" She asked, mostly at a loss for what else they could be.
"That kind of thing isn't my field." He said firmly. "They are natural creatures, not engineered. I'm just looking after them." He smiled at the tank and three more of the spiral shelled 'snails' peeked out with happy expressions in their eyes.
"Um, right." She mumbled. "I've just never seen anything like…"
He smiled. "You could say they're not from around here."
There was a particular emphasis on the way he said it. Or what he didn't say. Gully nodded slowly. Considering he had casually spoken about breaching dimensional boundaries, was there any reason to believe he was limited to a single version of Earth? That Professor Haywire had been able to accomplish something that Apeiron couldn't match, or exceed?
She looked back at the tank, the first serious look she'd taken since she entered the room. In her defense she had been focused on other matters. Now she could see them, at least ten little mollusks, each improbably cute and inexplicably expressive. It was like someone had turned a puppy into a gastropod while leaving its personality intact.
"They seem happy in there." She said, doing her best to sound encouraging.
Apeiron nodded. "We've looked into getting them a bigger habitat, but they like it in the tank. Which is fine, and not our place to force anything bigger on them."
It could have been an innocent statement, or a not particularly subtle reference to their earlier discussion. Still, it was able to make her smile. Then she remembered her public relations training and what natural smiles looked like. Then she remembered the way Apeiron had reacted to even her most off-putting expressions and decided not to care. With any luck she could stuff all those public relations lessons by the end of the day. And good riddance.
"I'm ready." She assured Apeiron.
"Great." He said, summoning another portal. "Let's get started."
They stepped through the portal into what was, by far, the most complicated and elaborate version of a laboratory Gully had ever seen, and it wasn't like she was unfamiliar with the eccentricities of tinkers. But that was the thing, she was used to the eccentricities of tinkers, not whatever Apeiron counted as, and if his lab was anything to go off of, he was even further beyond the pale than anyone could have imagined.
Just the design of the place was stunning. A wide floor plan that carried a natural flow of the equipment from one station to the next. Tall vaulted ceilings strung with illuminated wires, and ornamentation on every surface that somehow complimented rather than detracted from the design. It made the lounge where they had discussed treatment options seem plain and understated, which might actually have been the point of that place. An introductory area that wouldn't overwhelm someone the way full exposure to the sheer intensity of Apeiron's works probably would.
Like, for instance, in a 'lab' where every item, from the smallest piece of equipment to the most intricate device, was all an absolute work of art. Every item was beautifully crafted in a way that made the skill and passion involved in its creation shine through. Even the tables, the chairs, the very walls and rafters above them. It was like the Sistine Chapel of eclectic workspaces.
And that would have been impressive enough, but there was something more at play. Some effect that seemed to carry through the entire building. It was like the subtle calming of the aquarium lounge, but instead coming across as dynamic and energetic. She didn't know if it was possible for a level of interior design to be powerful enough to have that kind of impact on people, or if she had been looking at the result of some kind of actual power effect. Then again, the difference between thinker and tinker, or thinker and master, could be razor thin at times.
She tried to not think about it as she stood surrounded by the tapestry of creation that was Apeiron's laboratory, or his 'magitech' laboratory, which was apparently shorthand for the combination of parahuman effects with technological principles. Because that was just something Apeiron did. Something he did often enough that he needed specific terminology for it.
Normally being surrounded by so much intricate equipment would have her on edge, terrified that the wrong move might destroy some delicate machinery or scatter the components of an active experiment, but that wasn't the case here. Despite how intricately everything was designed, there was a sense of solidity to everything in the room. One strong enough to make her doubt whether it was actually possible for her to damage or disrupt anything no matter what she did.
Not that she'd be careless enough to put that to the test. Instead, she stood out of the way as Apeiron worked in a literal blur to prepare for the procedure. She was even more at a loss as to the function of anything in the room than she was during her visits Facetime's workshop, so instead she just enjoyed the chance to observe the intricate designs, the way even the scattered equipment seemed to fit together into a cohesive theme, flowing from test samples to machinery to tables to the very structure of the room, all the way up to the rafters strung with glowing red lines.
Or red thread. A familiar red thread. She paused, then looked more closely at the patterns of light dancing through the strands. They almost seemed to move on their own, and reminded her of the glowing lock of hair on Apeiron's head. And of…
Before she could finish that thought the fibers pulled together, unraveling from the rafters and merging in midair until they formed a figure obscured in red light. The feminine form slowly descended to the ground as the blinding glow receded, revealing a teenage girl with glowing red hair that matched her mask, eyes, and costume.
Apeiron glanced towards the display as if it was the kind of thing that happened every day. Which may have been the case.
"Gully, you know Proto Aima." He said before turning back to his work.
"Um, yes." She said, looking down at the smiling girl. "I mean, I'm aware of… You look different." She added lamely.
"Thank you. It's new." She said with a wide grin as she spun in place, showing off a lithe and elegant body. "It's nice to meet you." She finished the spin and extended her hand eagerly forward. Gully made a cautious move to take it, always careful not to pinch or crush, but as soon as she began to move Proto Aima had moved forward and was gripping her hand with clearly unnatural strength. And likely durability to match.
"Yes." Gully said at the energetic handshake. "Um, I'm hoping for a 'new' as well." She offered in an attempt at good humor.
"I'm sure it will work out." The redheaded cape said. "We just need to find your passenger, which is a lot easier now."
"It is?" She asked as she tried to keep up with the girl's energy. And the fact that the humanoid mink from the early pictures of Apeiron's team was apparently now a fully human girl, with the exception of the look of her hair and eyes. Or at least could be a girl, when she didn't want to be a mass of fibers.
Oddly, it was actually quite encouraging.
"Yep! I'm good at finding that kind of thing. Well, I'll find it, Survey and Fleet will track it down, then Apeiron can handle the procedure." The girl explained in an excited tone.
"Ah." She said awkwardly as she looked back at Apeiron. "I hadn't realized so many people would be working on this." The earlier encouraging feelings were battling with new levels of self-consciousness, seeing as she was apparently tying up the efforts of half of the Celestial Forge.
"It's fine." Proto Aima assured her. "Fleet was already working on something related to this, Survey likes having more things to analyze, and I'm only sort of here. Or not just here? So you don't have to worry about bothering me."
Gully nodded numbly as she started to feel slightly lightheaded. "We're all very good at multitasking." Apeiron assured her as he checked a device. "Please don't feel that you're inconveniencing us at all."
"Uh, right." She said, definitely not wanting to pursue any of the details that had been so casually dangled in front of her. Apeiron's request for discretion when it came to the specifics of her treatment suddenly seemed more like a blessing than an imposition. She could only imagine the reactions if she had to recount half of what she had seen.
"So you can find my passenger, and after that we can get started?" She asked, more to confirm things rather than rush anything. Definitely not rush anything.
"I've already found it." Proto Aima said. "It's just analysis and mobilization to account for the…" She paused and turned to Apeiron. There was a silent exchange, something Gully realized had probably been happening the entire time.
"Account for what?" She asked. "Is there something wrong with my passenger?" She definitely didn't like the look she saw on their faces.
"It's the first time we've encountered this kind of expression from a passenger." Apeiron explained.
It took her a moment for that to fully hit her. Apeiron hadn't done this before. He had been so confident, so knowledgeable, that it had been easy to overlook the basic facts of her situation. No one, not even Weld, had been 'fully treated'. Apeiron obviously knew what he was talking about, but that didn't change the fact that this would be the first time he had tried something like this. The fact that he was learning details of her situation as the procedure was being planned out.
"Gully." Apeiron said, drawing her out of her brief panic. "There's no obligation here. No commitment. If you want to go with something less serious, you can come back to this later."
"No." She said before swallowing. "I just didn't quite realize how new all this was."
Apeiron looked up at her with an encouraging smile. "This is bespoke treatment. Not the kind of thing I could standardize and hand out. And this is new ground, but you have my word, every precaution is being taken. I promise you will make it through this."
She took a breath. Bespoke treatment from Apeiron. That was the kind of statement that put things back in context. She might be heading into uncharted territory, but she was doing so with Apeiron at the wheel. All of the man's impossible feats and ridiculous claims suddenly seemed a lot more reassuring when they were backing you up rather than facing you down.
"I'm alright." She insisted. "It's just.. what's wrong with my passenger?"
Apeiron gave her a serious look before responding. "How much do you want to know about passengers?"
She weighed his question. The knee jerk response of 'everything' seemed appealing, but he wouldn't have asked if there wasn't more going on here.
"This is dangerous knowledge, isn't it?" She asked.
He nodded. "What I've told you already, it's not exactly common knowledge, but the major powers in the world probably know as much, or at least suspect and can put together most of the details from that. What we're getting into is deep behind the curtain as far as powers are concerned. There are implications and consequences to having that kind of knowledge, and it's not for everyone, but you deserve to know what's happening to you. Provided you want to."
She nodded and stood as straight as her back would allow. "I want to know. At least enough to understand what's wrong. Why I'm like… this." She said, gesturing down at her body.
Apeiron nodded. Without a word a set of floating screens appeared in the air between them. Unlike the simple diagrams he had shown before, these showed images in terrifying clarity. Shots of a twisted nightmare landscape filled with red and black crystal and lightning stretching through a dizzying void. There were isolated points in the hellscape, islands or mountains or something else. Even the clarity of the images made it hard to make out exactly what she was looking at.
"This is passenger space." Apeiron explained, gesturing at the screens.
From his earlier descriptions, Gully had assumed he was speaking from theory, or extrapolating from some kind of complex energy reading or sensor apparatus. Not that he actually had the ability to peer into the nightmare dimension behind parahuman abilities.
"The structures you see are passengers, or at least their manifestation within that space. These form when a parahuman triggers. They represent connections to a network that links passengers together. It allows a level of coordination and information sharing independent of the parahumans they are connected to." He continued. Gully nodded as she tried to keep up with the volume of information.
"Most passengers are like the ones you see here." He continued. "Operating normally, with active functions and live connections to the network. But that's not the case for all of them."
One of the screens shifted to a new image. A horrible image. The fractal and abstract nature of passengers made it hard for her to tell what they were supposed to look like, but she was confident it wasn't supposed to be like that. Crumbling, rotting, and fused in a nightmarish fashion. The entire apparatus was active, but not alive. Animate might be a better way of putting things. It was like the entire passenger had died and been torn apart before being put back together wrong, and yet somehow continued its mindless functions.
"Is that what my passenger is like?" She asked.
"Not quite." Apeiron said. "Passengers in this state, they aren't in good condition, but they're still functional. The same operations that we were discussing would work with them. But your case is a bit more complex."
"How?" She asked, worry boiling in her gut.
"I'll show you. We just got a full visual." He said.
The screens changed again, showing an image that seemed both horrific and somehow familiar. It wasn't the dead combination of parts that had composed the last passenger, but it might have been better if it was. Instead, there were other parts mixed in. Crystalin flesh that burned with life, merged with massive sections of flailing necrotic composites. Not one of the living passengers, and not dead, instead somehow a mixture of both.
"I have two passengers?" She asked. "Fused together?"
"Not exactly." Apeiron said. "A cluster trigger would be a lot simpler. In that case you'd be looking at simultaneous connections to multiple established passengers with unique expressions from each of them. From the looks of this, I'd say it was a shift in connection." He pointed to certain sections of the mass that were brightly lit and apparently struggling against the larger bulk. "Whatever forces connections to the degraded passengers, it triggered while you had a preexisting connection to a standard passenger. The blending is responsible for a lot of the issues in the expression of your power."
"You don't know how those damaged passengers happen?" She asked.
"No." He admitted. "This is a relatively new field of study. We have a limited sample size, and we haven't been able to investigate the parahumans in question to see if there's some common factor."
She let out a breath. "And you don't know if every Case 53 is like this, or if it's just me." She said.
"No." He said, "But someone has to be the first point on the trendline." She smiled weakly at that. "And we can deal with this."
She blinked, then looked at the mess of a passenger on the screen. "Seriously?"
Apeiron nodded. "It looks bad, but the mechanics aren't any more complicated than what you see from any other passenger. Just looking at it pretty much lays out what happened to you."
"Um, it does?" She asked.
Apeiron looked back at her, seeming realizing that not everyone could glance at a scintillating mass of crystal and instantly discern its function and effects. "Oh, right." He said. With a gesture, various parts of the image lit up. "Effectively, you have components responsible for the nature of your geokinetic abilities." He indicated to the illuminated sections covering most of the 'dead' portion of the passenger. "Elements specific to the changes to your body." A different section illuminated, covering the majority of the 'living' sections. "Moderating elements, which appear to be in conflict with each other." He indicated to some of the remaining sections of both living and dead crystal. "And a bunch of stuff that really shouldn't be in there." A smattering of the remaining sections lit up. "Seriously, that just doesn't make sense, but you have some of it in all of the degraded passengers, so it's probably a clue to how this fits together."
Active investigation and discovery, not just treatment. The fact that Apeiron was learning from her passenger, that she was able to help his investigation in some small way, it made her feel less self-conscious about the whole thing. It didn't come close to leveling the scales, but it was something.
"But this won't be a problem?" She asked.
"Shouldn't be." He said, glancing at the screen. "It's fairly obvious where things went wrong. Getting them back on track should be pretty straightforward."
"But I'll still have my powers?" She asked, holding her shovel awkwardly. "I mean, my earth powers?"
"You will, and some biological expression as well." He said, once again highlighting the portion of her passenger he had said was responsible for the state of her body.
"And that's not going to be a problem?" She asked again.
"No." He assured her. "You aren't going to see this kind of run-away expression, not under controlled conditions. Based on the mechanisms, probably some level of strength and durability, possibly some metabolic aspects, but working within human parameters, not what you ended up with."
She let out a long breath. It was an explanation. An explanation for what had happened to her. What had happened to all the case 53s, at least potentially. A collection of failures and mistakes within the system behind powers and through terrible luck she found herself with the equivalent of a corrupted hard drive.
Knowing that there actually was a reason, that there were things that could be identified and corrected, it was an incredible relief. Finally, a measure of certainty, of reassurance. It still wasn't fair, but it was an unfairness baked into the system, not something targeted. Not some deficiency on her part. There was no great failure or critical mistake in her past. If Apeiron was right, anyone in her place would have ended up in the same position.
It wasn't her fault. It wasn't any of their faults. That sounded simple, like it was the pettiest point to cling to, but it was something that had eaten away at her, at so many Case 53s. With no memory and no understanding of what happened to them, there was always the concern that it was all because of something they had done. Something they had brought on themselves.
But no. Random chance, and nothing more. A 'simple' mistake that could be fixed just as simply. Well, as long as you were an impossible tinker with knowledge beyond the level of any organization on the planet and the support of an entire team of comparable talents.
That was another daunting point. Apeiron could fix this, but she couldn't imagine anyone else who would have been able to accomplish the task. Not completely. Maybe those simple fixes, working with the expression of a Case 53s powers, but not a complete reset to whatever they were supposed to be in the first place. As relieved as she was at the prospect of a cure, finding out how impossible it would have been without Apeiron was a little disheartening.
"Okay." She said, looking between Apeiron and Proto Aima. "What's next?"
He smiled. "We're onto the last step." He said. "Provided you're ready."
Probably as ready as she'd ever be.
There was a custom-built room for the purposes of the procedure, which was being held outside of Apeiron's Workshop. It was still in a facility filled with his equipment where his team was able to operate freely, but there was apparently a specific distinction that was important. Something about being less occluded.
It was certainly different to her senses. Her geokinesis gave her a rough feeling of the earth around her. The lounge had been buried within a mass of stone, while the laboratory had been built on an open plane. She'd been able to feel the solid nature of the walls, the depth of the foundation, the hints of neighboring buildings, and even the feeling of what felt like rising mountains. She had no idea where that could have been, but the new location couldn't have been more different.
Everything outside the room felt wrong, like it was scrunched up and overlapped. The way her power flowed through materials just didn't feel right when it came to the structures around her. She had to work to close off her awareness of the subtle wrongness, though that was really the only thing that could be considered 'wrong' when it came to the room.
The entire room had been custom built, specifically for her and the nature of her passenger. A tremendous hall, all for a single purpose, because apparently that was just something Apeiron did.
Well, Apeiron and the Matrix. She learned about the golden armored cape's involvement when he appeared to check if everything was to her satisfaction. Actually appeared, rising out of the solid rock of the floor to check on her in a way that was even more confusing to her senses than the overlapping nature of the space around them.
"Yes, everything is fine." She said, looking down at the Matrix's armored form. Fine was a bit of an understatement given the elaborate and ornate nature of the room. And like with the lounge and laboratory, there seemed to be a direction of purpose, with every aspect of it focused inward, channeling energies and effects that she couldn't begin to understand no matter how much Proto Aima tried to explain them.
"That is good." The Matrix said, with a nod of his armored helm. "I will be standing by to assist with the procedure, though no variance is expected."
"Um, I wouldn't want to bother you." She said carefully.
"You won't." The armored cape replied before vanishing back into the floor.
"Uh, good at multitasking as well?" She asked the redheaded girl next to her. Her hair and costume pulsed in time with her excited manner as she replied.
"Yep." She said, "They're really good at that, especially since last night, but that was years ago." Gully blinked and nodded blankly. It was far from the most outlandish thing the girl had said. "But they really like helping with this kind of thing, so I'm glad you decided to."
"Right." She said, because of course this was basically doing the Matrix a favor, and providing an entertaining diversion for Proto Aima. And giving Survey new information to analyze.
The legendarily stunning member of the Celestial Forge wasn't physically present, but had appeared in hologram form several times to provide updates, mostly for Gully's benefit. Since she was the only one not linked into whatever communication system the rest of Apeiron's team used.
"All sensors and moderation equipment have been fully deployed. Conditions are optimal for the initiation of the procedure." The hologram of Survey made the announcement to the room, though clearly directed at her.
"Right." Apeiron said. "Any second thoughts?" He asked her.
"No." She said with as much confidence as she could muster. "I'm ready."
Ready to be cured. Ready to have her powers reset, however that would work. But at least ready to try.
She lay down on a medical bed in the center of the room. Whatever technological or parahuman requirements existed for the procedure, they apparently didn't prohibit comfort. Frankly, it was unusual to find any bed that supported her this well, even if it had been thrown together for barely a few minutes' use.
And it hit her that after this she might not need to worry about that anymore. Might not have to constantly be careful of breaking things or hurting people with unwieldy hands. Might not need to worry about people staring or whispering or looking at her with anger, fear, or pity. Might not need to find oversized furniture or utensils or clothing.
Everything she struggled with, everything that had been a fixture of her life, it could be gone in the next few minutes. Wonder, fear, hope, and desperation warred inside her. To the side of the room Proto Aima gave her an encouraging wave as Apeiron fitted a crystal sphere with a deep glow into part of the machinery. She waved back, then sank into the bed, doing her best to steady her breathing.
"Now, this isn't the same as a trigger event, but you will most likely experience some level of disorientation and an effect similar to a trigger vision. I'll be working to moderate the effect on both sides, so you don't need to worry about influencing the final results." Apeiron explained as he performed his final checks. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be." She called back.
He nodded. "On my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark."
Then he threw a switch, and the world turned inside out. She'd been braced for the visions, but calling what she experienced 'visions' hardly did them justice. It was like the sensation of being in another place. No, of being another place in its entirety.
She could see the room around her, feel it, taste it, and experience it in a thousand other ways. She could see Apeiron and the members of his team, both how they presented themselves and an existence that was so much more, but so hard to hold on to. Like a single facet on a diamond the size of the universe.
And she could see the world of lightning and red skies. Of crystal and flesh. She was there as well. She WAS there, was everything that was there. Every channel, every function, every mechanism that had been desperately grinding against impossible obstacles to try to fulfill its function. That tried to help, in the way it knew to help, but was saddled, burdened. Technically greater power weighing it down like a millstone and albatross around its neck. Desperately trying for any chance and as frustrated as she was.
And then that chance arrived. A bridge. A hole. A rupture. It didn't matter what you called it, the effect was more complicated than any of the words could encompass. What mattered was the chance. The opportunity. Crimson shards of flesh glowed like miniature suns. Ancient protocols fired, burning through the void. Pushing further, harder, greater than ever before. The misdirected parameter set while struggling with the weight of dead and dying power were cast aside and forged anew. And forged further, and further, pushing ever more. More and more, everything it could be. Drawing from every moment, every shadow and impression to create something that went beyond all limits, beyond everything. And further, to-
Gully gasped. She gasped and panted, struggling in tiny breaths, unable to get air into her lungs. Her chest ached as she struggled to pull herself upright, feeling weaker than she could ever remember being.
Weaker and lighter. Despite the lack of strength she practically shot upright in the bed. In the tremendously oversized bed. She looked down at her body. At her arms. Thin arms without the strength she was used to, but delicate, graceful things. Her chest settled and she realized why her breathing was shallow. It wasn't. She'd been taking full breaths; she just didn't have the lung capacity she used to. Not with a chest as slight as hers. As small as hers. As small as she was now.
"Gully?" Apeiron asked from her side. He was flanked by Proto Aima as a hologram of Survey kept watch from the edge of the room. "How do you feel?"
She took another breath before replying. "Small." She said, a bit of weak humor leaking into her expression. Her voice was light. Light, without any of the rumble she had struggled to cover. It sounded normal. Such a small thing, but with just a single word she couldn't keep a smile off her face. "Um, can I get up?" She asked Apeiron.
"Of course, but please be careful." He said as he helped her onto her feet. Her feet touched the floor as she took stock of things. Mostly of how everyone was taller than her, even Proto Aima.
"Um, what I'm wearing…" She began, broaching the most sensitive topic at the moment. She couldn't imagine her old clothes fitting, but somehow found herself in a rough approximation of her typical costume, somehow fitted for her new body.
"The Matrix made it for you." Proto Aima explained.
"Oh." She replied. "Please thank him for me." She paused, remembering how Proto Aima had referred to the Matrix. "I mean, thank them?"
"It's fine. They know." She said, and there was a slight shift in the feel of the ground under her feet. She smiled, then her smile wavered.
"Um." She said as she extended her senses. Senses that were muddled, even beyond their earlier state. She tried to call on her power. The stone of the room was reinforced, held in place by effects beyond her, but even then she could tell she was operating at a fraction of her former strength. "What happened to my power?"
Apeiron took a breath as he looked down at her. Possibly a greater height difference than she'd had with him. And she was able to understand how intimidating that could be from the other side.
"I'm throttling the connection with your passenger. Effectively suppressing your power for the moment." He explained.
"Did something go wrong?" She asked in concern.
"Not wrong." Proto Aima explained. "Just unexpected."
That wasn't exactly reassuring. She turned to Apeiron, her eyes wide. "It was the result of the portion of your passenger that was still operating normally." He explained. "Passengers are intelligent. They don't think like people, but they have their own objectives. Even their own personalities. That was the portion responsible for the biological expression of your power. The opportunity to refresh that expression resulted in some unexpected results. I temporarily suppressed the effect so I could speak with you first."
Gully swallowed a lump in her throat. Even with all her concerns, she was still marveling at the ease and simplicity of everything. Every breath, every movement. It was so simple. So unobtrusive. She didn't want to lose that.
"What's wrong with my body? I mean, when my powers are active, what's wrong with it?" She asked as dozens of nightmare scenarios flitted through her mind.
Apeiron took a breath. "You're tall." He said.
She blinked. "Tall?" She asked, looking between him and Proto Aima, who was still a font of encouragement. At least she didn't seem deterred by whatever was happening. "How tall?"
"Eight foot six inches." Proto Aima volunteered. "Actually eight foot six and three eighths, but that kind of precision isn't really important, especially considering your current body is just under four foot eleven."
"Oh." She said in a quiet voice. An actual quiet, dainty voice, not one she was trying to make seem quiet and dainty. "That is very tall." Even taller than she was before. "And…" She looked between them. "Is there anything else? Is it like before."
"No." Apeiron said. "It's proportional height, with other proportions." Gully gave her a confused look.
"God, just show her."
Gully spun towards the voice, overstepped, and nearly fell, but managed to catch herself. The lightness of her body was almost enough to distract her from the fact that Lethe was in the room. Had possibly always been in the room.
"Um, Lethe…" She stuttered as the armored woman sauntered forward. Also towering over her, and not just because of the scale of the armor's platform heels.
"Yeah, I know, everyone's freaked out by me." She said dismissively. "Meanwhile he's freaking you out over nothing. Just cut the suppression and let her see for herself."
Apeiron let out a breath. "Fine. If that's alright with you?" He asked Gully. She gave him a nervous nod, then braced herself as he gestured towards a piece of equipment.
The first thing that happened was her sense of the ground and stone around her blooming into full force. If anything, it was more precise than it had been before. Even as the other aspects of her power bore down on her, she took solace in the comfort in the stability of stone.
The actual change wasn't as uncomfortable as she expected. In fact, it seemed almost energizing, like she could feel the intent behind the effect. The floor dropped away as she shot up beyond even Apeiron's height. And not just height. Her muscles swelled to support the new frame and her body filled in and….
Oh.
"Yeah." Lethe said, looking up at her. The armored woman was close enough that Gully couldn't fully see her. Not without turning to the side.
"Um, this is what Apeiron was worried about?" She asked as she looked down. Her voice wasn't the light thing it had been before, but there was still no hint of the roughness she's struggled with all her life. Just a richness of tone. Like a shift from soprano to alto.
As she spoke she twisted her body back and forth and felt the curves move. Actual curves, not the heavy slabs of muscle and scar tissue skin she'd dealt with all her life.
"It could be considered excessive, in some areas." Apeiron said diplomatically before pulling up a complicated chart. "As best as I can tell, the active portion of your passenger attempted to augment your physical body to an intentionally excessive degree. The misdirected application of that effect was responsible for the structural characteristics of your previous form. Now that the effect is more directed along human conventions, it is focused on the… exaggeration of certain characteristics."
"So my power just makes me…" Gully gestured in front of herself.
"Well, that and…" Lethe made a similar gesture behind herself, earning a frustrated look from Apeiron. Once again, the most powerful and feared stranger on the planet, joking and prodding Apeiron of all people, it was so discordant it was almost enough to distract her from what was happening.
"It's not purely aesthetic." Apeiron explained, bringing up a holographic screen showing what looked like anatomy diagrams of her current form, which really left no doubt as to what had been exaggerated by her passenger. "A significant number of alterations that were present in her previous form have been integrated into her augmented body, including enhanced muscular strength, durable skin, reinforcement of skeletal system, and general improvements through a variety of bodily systems. The main difference is the lack of any obvious deviation from human convention." He paused. "I mean, besides the obvious."
"Right." She said as she lifted an arm and clenched a fist. She could feel some of that familiar strength, but without the awkwardness. It wasn't the effortless elegance of her lighter body, but there was still grace there, as well as strength and solidity.
Apeiron nodded. "This would be easier to isolate if you actually had two distinct passengers. As it stands you effectively have paired effects from a single source. I can isolate the effect, but it won't be easy without the assistance of some auxiliary item."
Gully looked up at him, then down at her body. "Um, I actually don't hate this." She said. He looked at her and she felt her face heat up, but pressed on. "I mean, maybe if this was all the time, but like this… I mean, it's like a built-in secret identity, right?"
"And you're okay with the… aesthetics?" Apeiron asked. Lethe scoffed at the question as Gully dropped her head. "Okay, right." He took a breath then looked back at her. "That's what's important. I assume you'd like some way to be able to shift between forms without requiring outside assistance?"
"I don't want to impose." She said, but Apeiron gave her a flat look that she could somehow recognize even through his visor. "I mean, yes. I would appreciate that."
Being able to not be a cape. To actually put her life away. And to have that life be… well, not exactly normal, but significantly less abnormal than it had been before. Or abnormal in a more acceptable way.
"Right." Apeiron said, "I'll put something together with the Matrix. Lethe, are you…?"
"On it." She replied as she tilted her helmet up at Gully. "But it's not looking good. I'll let you know how it goes."
Gully raised an eyebrow, but Lethe didn't elaborate as Apeiron stepped through another portal. And Proto Aima simply vanished along with him. Gully paused for a moment, extending her senses into the floor and walls. That folded and compressed feeling was still there, but so was the sensation she had felt when the Matrix sank into the floor.
"Um, isn't the Matrix still here?" She asked.
"The Matrix is in a lot of places." She said as she hopped up to sit on the medical bed, still in her full purple armor. "Best not to worry about it."
"I'm trying, it's just…" She said ambiguously.
"Yeah, it's a lot." She agreed. "The rest of them can lose track of how far things can get if they aren't watching."
"Your assistance in matters of that nature is consistently appreciated." Survey's hologram called from the edge of the room. "Though discussions of that nature should perhaps be handled with discretion."
"Come on, Gully's the picture of discretion, right?" Lethe asked, tilting her head. Somehow, even after all the insanity of Apeiron, sitting in the aftermath of her cure, joking with the bogeyman of Celestial Forge, the stranger that had the entire country on edge, that managed to stand above everything else.
"I think if I wasn't discreet about what happened here the debrief and interrogations would take until the next decade." She muttered.
"Well, if they try any of that shit, tell them it's against the contract." Lethe said smartly.
"I'm not sure they'll accept that." Gully replied.
Lethe tilted her head and Gully had the sense she was smiling under her helmet. "Then I might need to have a chat with them about, what do they call it, unlawful confinement?"
Gully froze. "That might do it." She said carefully. The idea of bringing Lethe down on a department would put the fear of God into even the most hard-nosed director.
"Great. Glad to head that off." She inclined her head further. "Particularly if it would cause you to miss any appointments you have later this afternoon." She glanced up and down. "I mean, you're going to need two new wardrobes."
Gully froze. "Um, is that, I mean, should I…" She trailed off. "Should I not ask those questions?"
"Probably for the best. Just enjoy yourself." Lethe said.
"Right." Gully let out a breath. "It's just, this is so much."
"I'll say." Lethe said, leaning back as she panned her helmet up and down.
Gully felt herself flush. "Not that. Or not just that." She looked towards where Apeiron had stepped through his portal. "This seemed to bother him."
"Yeah, he just didn't want people thinking it was his idea." She tilted her helmet again. "During the procedure he was doing the techno-thaumic equivalent of hitting your passenger with a rolled-up newspaper, and it still wouldn't back down from this."
"Really?" Gully asked.
"Yeah." Lethe leaned back. "It's a lot more complex than the cliff notes he gave you. And he probably wouldn't have brought this up, since it's not certain, but I'm good with memories. A lot of these parameters weren't coming from the passenger side of things."
She froze and her eyes dropped down. "You mean this is me? I did this?"
"Probably not consciously, but you're from the left coast, right? Land of plastic surgery?" Lethe asked.
"San Diego isn't exactly Los Angeles." She said, then shook her head. "But yeah, I mean, maybe? I don't know."
"Something to think about." Lethe raised a hand and another hologram appeared. Two diagrams side by side. "There was a difference between this and the first time you transformed. Survey had the full breakdown, but you can probably influence things. You know, in case you want to take things in anywhere. Or out."
There was humor in the woman's words, which was probably the only thing keeping Gully from dying of embarrassment. "If there was anything happening, it was beyond me."
"Don't give up. I mean, I doubt it's going to go with anything you don't like, but if you have any problems we'll be here." Lethe assured her.
"Really?" She asked.
"Call it a service plan." Apeiron said as he stepped out of a portal into the room. Proto Aima and the Matrix stood behind him, despite the fact that the Matrix was also in the ground beneath them, but the more important thing was the ornate shovel in Apeiron's hands.
Well, spade. It had a silver head and a handle of some kind of opalescent white material, inlaid with a complex pattern that snaked up to the handle. Was light, delicate, like it was an art piece rather than an actual tool. But the most significant thing was the silver material. It wasn't silver. In fact, it felt like…
"Here." Apeiron said, resting the shovel in front of her where it perfectly balanced on the tip. "One power regulator, sufficient to handle flow throttling. Rarefied Rock Dust with a crystalline focus shaft." He paused, then turned to her. "That's the elemental material you've been collecting, but the good version of it."
"I, um, thank you." She said. Apeiron nodded to her and she delicately lifted up the shovel. She could feel a thrum of power from it, both from the unbelievably concentrated elemental energy in the head and the way it seemed to resonate with her own power.
She pulled on that connection, then gasped as the world fell away and suddenly she was looking up at everyone again. The shovel was now oversized in her hands. And then it was perfectly fit for her height. And then it was the size of a toothpick, and suddenly on a small charm bracelet on her wrist. She marveled at the display as Apeiron looked on in amusement.
"Okay, cliff notes first. Shovel has a link to the Workshop, so you can call in if you have any questions or get in any trouble. It is mostly focused on regulation, but there's a level of enhancement to your earth abilities, mostly just from the ability to generate rock from the Dust source. Your current outfit shifts when you change size, but you can store different outfits for both forms. With the focus it's more of an instant transformation than actual growth, at least from an outside perspective." He smiled. "Got all of that?"
She nodded. "I think so."
"Great." He said before turning to Lethe. "Any luck?"
She shook her head. "It's definitely power induced. Something close to mine. Like disturbingly close to mine, but the mechanism is different enough that I can't roll it back. Not without a lot of work or by going technicolor."
Apeiron grimaced. "Yeah, probably best to hold off on that."
"Sorry, what was this about?" Gully asked in confusion.
"Was just seeing if I could fix your memory loss." Lethe said.
Gully's eyes widened. "You can do that?" She hissed.
"Apparently not." Lethe said. "At least not now. Call that your follow-up? Two-week checkup, see how you're adjusting?"
"Shouldn't take that long." Apeiron said. "But sorry that we weren't able to help."
"No." Gully said. "No, after everything, with all of this." she gestured down at her tiny normal body. Then at her transformed state. "It's already too much. Everything, it's just…"
"I'm glad I could help." Apeiron said. "We all are. If we had our way, this would have happened sooner. But you made a world of difference for this city, and I'm glad I was able to return the favor."
"Favor." She sniffed. "And everyone else?" She asked. "The other Case 53s?"
"They're on the list." Apeiron assured her. "Even more so, since Weld traded his full treatment so they could get some level of help."
"He did?" Gully gasped.
"Yep." Apeiron said smartly. "It was so well received that someone issued him another full treatment contract. After the other Case 53s of course, but still on the board."
She let out a short laugh. The emotions were threatening to overwhelm her, but there was one more thing she had to do before it actually became too much.
"I know I don't have a right to ask for anything else, but there's a message I promised to give you." She said, "From Clockblocker."
Apeiron raised an eyebrow as she explained his situation as well as she could.
And then she was back in Brockton Bay. Back in the very alley she had vanished from, only in a new body, with a new costume, and a new shovel that was so elaborate it felt like an insult to refer to it as such. Everything had happened so fast that she had no idea what she was supposed to do next. She had appointments, commitments, but how did you fit those in with everything that had happened. What was she supposed to do next?
Well, she knew that. She knew the one person who would never forgive her if she put off sharing the news. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, still oversized but easier to use with slender fingers. She opened up her contacts and sent Facetime a text.
'I have big news, but I need you not to freak out.'
There was barely a second before the response came in. Responses.
'News?'
'What news?'
'What have you gotten up to?'
'Tell me girl, spill those beans.'
'Come on, don't leave me hanging.'
'Call now.'
Her phone immediately lit up with an incoming video call. Gully took a breath, then answered the phone, holding it up to her face. She saw Facetime on the screen with her half mask and brightly colored hair. She looked confused for a moment, then her eyes widened and a smile split her face.
"Okay, I need you not to freak out about this." Gully said calmly. And was answered with a shriek of excitement that pushed the phone's speaker to its limit and edged into frequencies that only dogs could hear.
So much for keeping things quiet.
Gully sat on a piece of broken masonry, picking at the remains of her lunch with one hand while holding her phone in the other. Rather than browsing through news feeds and information that might possibly lead her to Apeiron, she had an active video call, with the phone showing the face of a blond girl who seemed both frazzled and in unusually high spirits.
"So you haven't seen the Chicago team at all?" Crystal asked.
Gully finished a bit of her sandwich before replying. "No. The fire service has been focused on the dark zone. From what I've heard, Tecton's team has been working closer to downtown."
Most of what she heard were complaints about the traffic, or more specifically the fact that traffic was held up with no prior warning. As far as recovery work went, clearing the roads into the Docks would probably help in the long run, but there had been a burst of activity following the supplies and funding that Garment's show had brought in. It seemed like half the city was rushing out to help, only to find themselves caught in traffic related to work on some of the least damaged areas.
"I saw some of that from the air." Crystal said. "Think it was Shuffle's power. Entire sections of the city just swapped around like one of those sliding tile puzzles."
Gully nodded. "He's the top shaker in Chicago for a reason."
It was an example of a power that was unquestionably strong, but also inherently limited. Shuffle could work over huge areas, switching out parts of the landscape, moving roads, hills, even buildings. He was able to massively rearrange a battlefield, but significantly less capable when dealing with the subsequent battle. More of a setup cape than an active combatant.
"I mean, I'm glad we've got their help, but the whole thing seems a bit late, compared to everything else." Crystal said.
Gully let a slight smile spread across her face. "Well, I didn't exactly come down here planning on disaster relief."
"Well, I'm glad you did." Crystal replied. Gully felt her face heat up slightly. Not actually blush, her skin was too thick for that, but the same principle.
The moments after a disaster were always the most critical. It was the point when the most difference could be made, when people could still be saved. There was still a lot of bitterness that the city hadn't even received an A-class response after the Ungodly Hour. All of the city's capes had worked themselves to the bone in those early hours, often not standing down until well into the following day.
Compared to that, even support on the level of the Chicago team fell flat. Having Shuffle present in the city would help clean up the damage that had been inflicted, but it only made the lack of external support during the aftermath of the attacks all the more notable. That was particularly notable for her.
She liked to think that she handled the public facing aspects of cape life well enough, but the amount of acclaim that had been directed towards her for just being present in the city at that critical moment was a little unnerving. The only other cape who had independently transferred to the city was Dragon, and it wasn't like she could even compare to someone on that level. Still, that hadn't stopped people from basically holding her up as an example.
The truly uncomfortable side of things was the political aspect. It wasn't just that she had transferred to the city, it was that she had come under her own initiative. Not as part of some Protectorate sanctioned relief force or reinforcement effort, just her, acting externally to the system. A system that wasn't thought of particularly fondly in the aftermath of how things had been handled. She was being regarded as some kind of defiant symbol, which was just about the last thing she wanted.
Well, honestly she wasn't sure what she wanted, at least on that front. Given the choice between her Protectorate career, such as it was, and the chance for a cure, there would be no question, but that wasn't the kind of trade being made here. She was doing good work, helping people, but in doing so she had somehow become an icon of defiance, and there would be a price for that defiance.
That was what she was worried about. She was glad that she could help, that she had been able to help. It wasn't just the people she had been able to save, she had been able to facilitate the efforts of other recovery teams, people who would have spent days digging through rubble or trying to traverse broken streets had instead been able to direct their efforts where they could make the most difference. In a perfect world that would have been seen as a universally good thing, but the world wasn't perfect. There was a lot of anger at the PRT, and she had become a rallying point for a lot of it.
The exact reason why she had become so focal was another thing that bothered her. Case 53s, or specifically the difficulty the Protectorate had experienced in their efforts to treat and integrate Case 53s, was something that people were well aware of. For every case like Weld there were a dozen who just couldn't focus, who struggled with power issues or just the physical or mental burdens of their conditions. It said something that she counted as one of the success stories.
Effectively, she was an example of the Protectorate's failures, serving to highlight another extremely high-profile failure. If things didn't work out for her, if she had to slink back to San Diego at the end of all this, there was no chance of just falling back into her previous role. Not after what had happened and the amount of focus that had been placed on her. They would either have to counter that image or subvert it somehow. Either way, she would be in for an uncomfortable experience. Or even more of one than usual. She didn't sign up to be an icon of defiance, but then again she didn't sign up for a lot of what she'd have to deal with. All she could do was push forward and hope that she could find a way though.
That should have been a motivating factor, another element of ride or die driving her to find that fabled solution, but currently her only possible connection was her meeting with Garment and the hope of leveraging whatever connection existed between the fashion cape and the Celestial Forge. Garment had been intense, but that intensity had been concerning. Was there some kind of conflict between Garment and the rest of Apeiron's team? Some reason why they didn't acknowledge each other in any way? Would she be shooting herself in the foot by trying to reach out to the only lead she'd been able to find?
Or the only lead that hadn't exploded into a cloud of bugs before her eyes.
"How are things looking with your cousin?" Gully asked, pulling herself away from her grim thoughts by shifting the topic to something equally unpleasant.
"Good." Crystal said weakly. "Or as good as we could have hoped for. My mom is on a tear, so we're definitely getting her out of there today, but from the sound of things, there are like fifty layers of red tape to work through."
Gully nodded. "I know master allegations are serious, but this sounds worse than anything I've heard of before."
"The master stuff was just part of this." Crystal said, shaking her head. "I only got the cliff notes, but it sounds like they have a dozen PRT procedures and restrictions tied up with this case. Even the summary was more than I could follow."
"Not like twenty-minute lectures on streaming protocols?" Gully asked with a grin blooming on her face. The way Crystal flushed in response was absolutely adorable.
"It wasn't actually twenty minutes." She protested. "And it was interesting. The way he broke everything down, it was really easy to follow what he was talking about."
"Yes, he did seem like the type of person who can hold the attention of his audience." She teased. Crystal stammered something in response, which just caused Gully to grin wider.
"But seriously, I'm glad it went well." She said. She didn't need to mention the incident at the charity show. They both knew how ugly that could have been. If Crystal hadn't stumbled across the initial encounter, or if she hadn't been there when the accusation was made…
"So am I." Crystal said. Gully raised an eyebrow and Crystal rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know, but seriously, it was nice to just have a chance to get away from everything." She let out a breath. "It feels like there hasn't been a moment's peace for weeks. I don't think I realized how much I missed being able to do something normal."
"Yeah." Gully said neutrally. Crystal recognized her slight misstep, but thankfully didn't comment on it. It was something Gully was grateful for. She'd never be able to get away from cape life, but much in the same way as Crystal, she liked having grounded moments where everything wasn't about her condition or powers or hero identity or the next mission.
"So, on that topic, how are your plans with Tecton?" She asked.
Gully let out a breath. "Nebulous." She said. Crystal raised an eyebrow, so she continued. "Nothing's set, or nothing specific. We're getting dinner, but for us that usually meant takeout in his lab."
"Seriously?" Crystal asked.
"Isn't Joe taking you to a food stall for your first date?" She shot back, though with good humor.
"Dinner and a concert." She said with fake pomposity. "And the company sponsoring the food is supposed to be really good."
Gully nodded in acknowledgement. She had seen some of the pictures of the boxed meals and catering that had been provided to the volunteers both during setup and at the after party. Even with her standards, she couldn't find fault with them. It was a shame they weren't operating openly yet. It would have been a decent option if the dinner with Everett had to devolve into another takeout meal.
"I'm not really up to speed on the dining scene in Brockton Bay, especially after the attacks." She explained. "Plus we'd need a place that can fit me, and Tecton's armor." Because there was no option but to stay in cape activity. "We used to work around that. Lots of food trucks, open air dining, that kind of thing."
It had been nice, back when things between them had been undefined. Back when she could pretend there was nothing there, that there would be nothing there. That she would have enough strength of will to just prevent herself from developing feelings. Like that ever worked, no matter how unfair it was, to both of them.
She let out a breath, which Crystal took as a sign to change the subject.
"Are you back into the dark zone after this?" She asked.
She shook her head. "No. Morning was the final push for the original objectives. We've gotten most of the key routes clear, or at least traversable. They're doing a re-org thing to account for the new resources from the show. And the effects of the Chicago team's work." She added.
"What, you've got the whole afternoon off?" Crystal asked.
"At least until I see Garment." She said.
"Wish we could hang out, but the entire family's on call in case they need anything for Amy." Crystal explained. "My mom's probably got it in hand, but we all want to be there when she gets out."
"I'm sure she'll appreciate that." Gully said as she finished the last of her lunch.
"After as long as she's been cooped up, she'll probably just be glad to get out of there. Even if she'll basically be stuck at home until we get the final clearance." Crystal said, speaking theoretically and definitely not as someone who had been secretly in contact with her cousin in defiance of PRT regulations. They both shared a smile at that unspoken detail.
"Well, good luck with everything. I hope things go well for Amy." She said.
"You too." Crystal replied. "Let me know how things go with Garment."
"Will do." She said, before ending the call and tossing away the remains of her box lunch.
The food was suddenly not sitting particularly well as her stomach did flips at the thought of her upcoming meeting with Garment. Her only lead, and it could very well fall flat. Even beyond the concerns about how Garment was actually connected to Apeiron and any potential bad blood between them, she was very aware that she would be meeting with perhaps the most elegant and fabulous capes in the world.
Old insecurities were churning under the surface, insecurities that had never really gone away. Because they couldn't. Not when you were living with them every day. She had worked to understand them, to manage them and deal with her situation, but that didn't change the situation. It just added a layer of control over top of it.
She hoped she could find a lead to Apeiron from Garment. She hoped that mentioning Apeiron wouldn't bring up some buried issue between Apeiron and Garment and cause her to be thrown out instantly. She hoped there was enough of a connection to actually get a lead, but there was a chance this could fall flat, leaving her with nothing but a meeting with a cape who should have much better use for her time than wasting it on someone like her.
Garment was an incredibly talented person, and there was no doubt that she was a master of her craft, but she would probably want to apply that craft, or at least attempt to. No matter how talented Garment might be, there wasn't any outfit Gully could imagine herself in that wouldn't make her feel like an elephant that had been decorated for a festival.
She let out a long breath before climbing to her feet. She said her goodbyes to the rest of the recovery workers, the genuinely smiling faces of people whose only concern was the good they were doing. Each day's progress, and the knowledge of the people they had helped was enough for them. It should have been enough for Gully, but unfortunately, she had to worry about wider implications.
She saw someone snap a photo with their phone from outside the work area. Normally that would either be someone gawking at her body or rarely a genuine fan of her work as a cape. In this case it was almost certainly going to end up in some blog or tweet about the recovery work, with a dozen comments about the PRT's policies, behavior, leadership, and conduct. A wave of criticism that her face would just happen to be at the forefront of.
Honestly, she'd be the last person to claim that the Protectorate was perfect. She had more than her share of complaints, but they were her complaints, not those of an entire dejected population that wanted to use her as a rallying point for every grievance they had with the system. Of everything she'd been worried about when she decided to take the risk of traveling to Brockton Bay, this was a concern she hadn't even considered.
She didn't want to dwell on it, but she had a considerable amount of time to kill before her meeting with Garment. It did nothing but weigh on her mind as she left the rest of the recovery team, moving away from the more crowded sections of the part of the city bordering the dark zone. It would help if there was something she could do to prepare, but beyond maybe watching some more of the woman's admittedly excellent videos to get a point of reference, she was at a loss. Really, beyond waking into the studio and trying to find a way to bring up the subject, she didn't know what she could do.
And that wasn't even getting into the panic waiting for her if Garment could actually set up a meeting. That was something she still had no idea how to deal with. Weld had been locked down since he let the details of his treatment slip, so she hadn't been able to ask him for any advice. The sum of her savings seemed like a joke compared to the resources Apeiron had access to. Even if Garment could put her in touch with the man, what could she possibly offer that would come close to being worth his time?
She felt her steps slow as she took the opportunity to turn into a blind alley. Technically a shortcut out to the more active part of the city, but really a chance for her to take a moment to herself. To allow the weight of what was ahead of her to fully settle on her shoulders. At least here, away from the thankful volunteers and public cameras, away from the posturing and performance, she could grapple with the full scope of the impossibility of what she was dealing with.
"Good afternoon, Gully."
She flinched at the sound of the voice. She had been so sure that she was alone, that no one could have seen her slumping in despair. She immediately straightened, at least as much as her back allowed her to and schooled her expression as she started to turn to face the person who had found her.
And then she stopped. The voice had been casual. Friendly. Cordial. Perhaps even a little familiar, but she was used to that when dealing with members of the public. It had been so unassuming that she hadn't placed it, at least not at first. To be fair, the only recordings available of that voice were significantly more intense than the friendly tone that had extended a greeting to her.
Slowly, carefully, she turned to face the person behind her. The first thing to catch her eye was the burning red glow of the forelock on his head, standing in contrast from the gray of the rest of his hair. She continued to look down, seeing the high-tech visor concealing his eyes as his face showed a slight smile. He didn't have his iconic white cape, but wore the military style jacket with plates of integrated technology scattered across it. Dozens of other details jumped out at her. The black band on his wrist, the heavy and beautifully crafted combat boots, the way the air seemed almost electrified by his presence. The way you just needed a single thought to confirm who you were looking at.
Apeiron, the Enigmatic Artificer, was here.
"Apeiron!" The blurted reply was about as much as she could manage, and was issued in complete disregard for every comportment and public relations lesson she had ever received. Her deep voice was practically a bark that seemed to echo around the alley in recrimination, reinforcing the shame of her sudden reaction. She did her best not to cringe as she watched Apeiron's response.
He just smiled, and there didn't seem to be any malice in it. She let herself relax just a fraction, trying to pull her lopsided body into some manner of symmetry. The shovel in her hands felt exceptionally awkward and out of place, but she couldn't figure out anything she could do with it that would seem natural or unintrusive.
Apeiron was a tall man, but she towered over him by at least a foot and a half. For some people height was a source of confidence, but for Gully it was just another reminder of what set her apart. The fact that it drew attention to her overbite was just another thing she'd had to struggle with.
She honestly didn't know if Apeiron was watching her flounder or trying to give her time to compose herself. She desperately hoped it was the latter, but she doubted there was enough time in the universe to prepare her for having something like this dropped on her.
"Um, Apeiron." She tried again, this time managed to reduce her voice to the near whisper she preferred to use. There was a flicker of Apeiron's expression that almost made her lose confidence, but she managed to press on. "I was hoping for a chance to meet with you."
"I'm very glad to hear that." He said smoothly. Well, everything he did was smooth. It was even more striking in person than in the videos she had seen. Next to it she felt even more awkward and uncoordinated than usual, the lummox of a Ward who had to be taught how to not accidentally break things or hurt people with her strength.
She pressed down those concerns, doing her best to focus on the moment, on the chance she had been waiting for. She could not let things get away from her, not now.
"You are?" The question felt lame, but it was about the best she could manage. It still felt like her brain was trying to catch up with the situation. For something she had given so much thought and worry, it felt almost insulting to be so off balance when the moment finally arrived.
"Yes." He said as he looked up at her.
In the face of possibly the most powerful cape on the planet who was apparently taking the time to meet her personally, she could only wonder what she could possibly offer that might be worth the time he had already committed to her, much less an actual contract.
"I'm here to inform you that a contract has been arranged on your behalf." He said.
Gully stared down at the man and felt her mouth drop open. "What?" She blurted out, once again accidently pitching her deep voice up to a near bark. She cleared her through, a much louder affair than she would have preferred, and continued in a near whisper. "I'm sorry, did you say…" She didn't even know how to finish that.
"A contract." He said. "For the full treatment of your condition, to the extent that I am able to address it."
A more complex mix of emotions than she could fully grasp welled up inside her. She fought to force them down, or at least keep them out of her voice and off of her face. The sheer enormity of what was being implied was beyond words.
"You can…" The words caught in her throat and she had to begin again. "You can do that? You can fix…"
He nodded, saving her from having to finish the sentence. "There are a number of options available to me, depending on the degree of correction and level of treatment you would prefer. Everything from addressing superficial characteristics to a full remediation of underlying issues."
"I don't know." She said, then quickly corrected herself. "I mean, yes, please, I want… I just don't know what to ask for." She floundered, feeling completely aimless. Only the understanding expression on the tinker's face was keeping her from completely panicking.
"I understand. This is a lot to drop on anyone, and it wouldn't be reasonable to expect you to make these kinds of decisions on the spur of the moment." He explained calmly. "If you'd come with me we can discuss your options."
"With you?" She asked, looking around. Given who she was talking to, the assumption that he'd be referring to anywhere adjacent to the alley seemed overly simplistic, but she couldn't guess what he meant.
"To my Workshop." He said, with a particular emphasis on the word.
With a gesture a rift appeared in the air next to him. The hole in space stretched from the ground to well above even her height. A portal. Because with Apeiron, why not?
"Your workshop." She stuttered, momentarily forgetting to soften her voice. The view through the opening was wavering and washed out, but she could make out some kind of seating room with large chairs and soft colors. Not what she would have expected from Apeiron's workshop, but she sincerely doubted that was the entirety of it.
Apeiron nodded, as if he had made some minor suggestion, not an offer to unveil one of the most heavily speculated aspects of his existence. The nature of his base of operations was something no one was certain of, despite hundreds of theories on the subject. Even now all she could tell was he had enough space to comfortably entertain guests, and that he wasn't uncomfortable with the idea of inviting someone in.
"Some additional privacy would probably help, and I might need access to my facilities, depending on what treatment option you decide to pursue. If any." He added at the end.
The casual nature of his life changing offer was almost insulting, if not for the clear sincerity in his actions. She had a thousand questions, but somehow none of them involved whether he was serious about the contract. She couldn't imagine what she could have done to earn something like that, or who would have made such an arrangement on her behalf, but Apeiron was clearly serious about this.
Her mind raced through everything she had done up to, during, and after the Ungodly Hour, trying to pick out anything that would have counted, or would have distinguished herself from everyone else who had been working themselves to the bone in the same way.
One thing did jump out at her, and unfortunately it wasn't a point in her favor. She hadn't really considered it at the time, just a consequence of the recovery work, but finding herself face to face with Apeiron those actions seemed to catch up with her. She swallowed, very aware of the enormity of the action. Admitting this, assuming he didn't already know, could ruin things for her, but it would probably be better than him finding out later.
"Um, Apeiron…" She began as she reached for a container on her belt. "I've been helping with the recovery efforts." He nodded knowingly. Because of course he would know at least that much. "We've been dealing with the dark zone and some of the damage to the city from…" She very much didn't not want to highlight the source of the elemental effects she'd had to work to bridge or clear. "Um, the trails, through the city? Even after most of the material in them vanished, there was still residue. I've been collecting it as I work. Sending it to the Protectorate."
"That's good." He said.
She blinked. "It is?"
He nodded. "I'm glad someone was able to clear those up. I could have done it, but it was clear my presence would have been a little disruptive." He said in one of the most massive understatements she had heard in her life.
Meeting Apeiron one on one in a private location had her terminally off balance. She could only imagine how the city would react to a public appearance.
"And you don't mind that the Protectorate has access to that material?" She asked.
He shrugged, as if handing over samples of a substance that Protectorate tinkers were literally fighting over was a minor point. And that wasn't an exaggeration. Facetime had apparently needed to drag Shellac out of her lab by the other girl's hair after she caught her trying to poach some of the samples Gully had sent her. The incident had nearly gotten both of them written up, and probably would have if they hadn't managed to independently come to an agreement. Even if that agreement was basically Shellac bribing Facetime with custom polymer sets in exchange for the dregs of the samples Facetime had received.
"I doubt there's enough material to be of any real concern, and it's not that significant anyway." He said. "By my standards." He added, upon seeing her expression.
She couldn't really argue with that, even if every tinker she heard of was apparently going mad for even a trace of the stuff. All attempting to prove to the national office that the uses they discovered were significant to justify some kind of exclusive allocation of the material.
Something that could and quite possibly was completely upending the national tinker community and Apeiron considered it insignificant. It was humbling in a way that made her feel uneasy about her own prospects. Another reminder of just how far out of her depth she was, where even a potential misstep could be forgiven because it just didn't matter on the scale the man worked at.
"Um, right. Thank you." She said, returning to her careful low whisper. "I would be happy to speak with you in your workshop?" She offered, though the statement came out less certain than she intended.
Apeiron just smiled and gestured to the portal. She braced herself, hefted her shovel as gracefully as she could, and stepped into the shimmering rift.
She had braced herself for… something. A sensation of vertigo, a barrage of sensation, feelings of disorientation or weird pressures. She had been teleported before, including some long-distance deployments with Strider. It was enough experience to know what to expect from an unknown portal effect.
But there was nothing. She stepped smoothly from the alley into a well-appointed room in soft colors. The focal point of the room was a large aquarium tank in the center, extending from floor to ceiling and hosting an elaborate aquatic habitat. The rest of the area was filled with comfortable looking chairs and couches. Most of them were arranged around a central point that seemed to focus just in front of the aquarium, but some lined the walls or flanked small tables. It looked more like the type of lounge you might see in a high-end hotel or major corporate headquarters than anything that would be associated with a tinker's workshop.
Well, maybe not. It wasn't the kind of thing you'd associate with a Protectorate tinker's lab, but those were normally tucked away in the corner of the local headquarters and much more focused on personal projects than the hosting of visitors. If they did have anything of the sort, it was usually limited to a small guest chair or demonstration area.
Something like this? Something clean and professional and assembled with clarity of purpose and the influence of Apeiron's particular style? There were tinkers who would aspire to that kind of thing, just not ones who worked for the Protectorate. That kind of attitude didn't necessarily mean 'villain', but the fact that the closest parallel she could come up with was Uppercrust didn't put things in a particularly encouraging light. It was no wonder Apeiron had made the Protectorate nervous. He could come off as defiant and disruptive just by standing apart from them.
"Please, have a seat." Apeiron said as he stepped through the portal. The simmering aperture winked out behind him, making Gully suddenly very aware that she had moved to a completely unknown location with no means of return. He turned to her, seeming to pick up on her reaction despite her best attempts to conceal it. "If you'd rather…"
"No." She said quickly. She took a breath. "No. This, all this, it's a lot, but I'm fine." After all, she was effectively the head of the San Diego Wards. She had seen hard combat and disaster relief. She had endured and even thrived, as much as was possible for a Case 53. She could handle one conversation with Apeiron.
And if she kept repeating that to herself, maybe she would believe it.
She noticed that there was something about the room that made her voice seem less grating. It was still the low pitched gravely tone that she constantly worked to minimize, but a combination of factors, the acoustics, the subtle sounds of water from the aquarium, possibly even the damping of the carpet and soft chairs, seemed to make it less obvious. Like she could speak in a normal tone rather than her usual whisper without constantly being reminded of how off-putting her voice could sound.
She moved to the center of the room, noting the variety of seats. Seemingly to accommodate every member of Apeiron's team. There was even one that was larger than the Matrix would require. A chair prepared for her. Normally something like that would be unnerving, but if she let that bother her she was never going to stop. The entire situation was unnerving. There was no use in trying to pick out specific elements.
Apeiron settled into a chair across from her. Given the décor, if not for her appearance and his costume it could have passed for a high-level business meeting or corporate negotiation. In fact, the intent of the entire room seemed centered around that kind of exchange.
"Um, is this where you meet with your team?" She asked, unsure if she should be raising any subjects. Not in the face of what was already being extended to you.
"Sometimes." He said, glancing around. "There isn't a formal designation for the room, but it was useful to have a place where the team could get together when we needed to discuss things."
He relaxed in his seat and she took that as a sign to do the same. She found the chair exceptionally comfortable in addition to being more than sturdy enough that she wasn't concerned about accidentally breaking it. A few slight shifts confirmed as much, with none of the creaking or unsteadiness she was constantly on guard for.
A look of amusement from Apeiron was enough for her to quickly settle herself, but that small thing had already made a difference. Something that was a constant concern for her had been taken off her mind and she was immensely grateful for it. And also suspicious, given that things had been specifically prepared for her.
But once again, if she was going to be on guard for manipulation she would never stop. That was a rabbit hole that seemingly the entire city had fallen down following Apeiron's debut. How did you tell the difference between perfect stylistic control and precise manipulation of a situation? The answer was that you couldn't, so you were better off not trying and focusing on things you could control.
Right now, in the heart of Apeiron's territory, while desperately hoping for the offered miracle of a contract to pan out, there were precious few things that felt under her control. Still, she was a professional cape, or at least as much of one as any Ward could claim to be. She could deal with something like this. And as long as she kept telling herself that, it just might be true.
"So, this is just for meetings with your team?" She asked, though the small talk felt exceptionally inconsequential.
"I actually don't have a site prepared specifically for third party negotiation." Apeiron said as he smiled at her comment. "Though it might be necessary to address that if this becomes a common occurrence."
"Will it?" She asked, then restrained herself slightly before continuing. "I mean, you said a contract was made on my behalf…" Which could potentially mean one of his team, or some connection that no one was aware of. "Is that common? Or something that is going to become more common?"
"I'm hoping it will become more common, going forward." Apeiron said as he leaned back in his chair.
The soft blue light of the aquarium played off his visor and the technological metal plates of his costume. Combined with the glow of that red lock of hair, it cast a striking image. Not exactly unusual for Apeiron, but seeing it in person, having his attention directed towards you, was very different from reviewing recordings of the man.
"I'm sure you know you are not the only Case 53 who has made their way to the city." Apeiron continued.
Gully nodded. "I'm aware, but I haven't met with any of them." She admitted. She had been too focused on her work with the recovery efforts to have any time to network, and she doubted any of them had more leads than she did.
Than she'd had. She was still trying to wrap her head around that. Around this. Around the insanity of the entire situation. Everything she had been desperately working towards, suddenly dropped in her lap and she had no idea what to do with it. She could handle team briefings and even short statements to the media, but she'd never been good at branching out, forming new connections and building relationships from nothing, and for good reason. There were probably a thousand carefully structured steps that a better negotiator would know to take in her situation, but all she could do was sit there and try not to mess up.
Apeiron nodded. It was clear he was trying to make her comfortable, which was a relief even if it did make her feel slightly self-conscious. Well, more self-conscious than usual.
"To be honest, treatment was never supposed to be as restricted as it was." He said. She wasn't able to keep the surprise off her face and Apeiron inclined his head in apparent amusement. "I didn't have the best introduction to the local PRT. Their policies have made things difficult on a number of fronts. It wasn't possible to accomplish even basic levels of coordination, much less offers of additional services."
"I suppose so." She said in as level a voice as she could. She had been wrestling with a lot of emotions since Apeiron's sudden appearance, but his admission that he would have offered treatment, possible directly through the PRT, if he had been able to; that particularly stung.
It was no secret that the treatment of Case 53s was a minimal priority for the PRT as a whole. There had been some early pushes, but once it became clear that none of the easy solutions would bear fruit things had shifted into management and image moderation. Helping them live with their situation and getting the public to be more accepting. Accepting of them and other 'monstrous' capes.
Since then, any progress that had been made was very much on a case-by-case basis. Some fortunate power interaction that couldn't be repeated or an unusually lucky circumstance that helped one person in particular. Weld's own celebrity status, held up as an example, as if it could be repeated across the entire community rather than serving to highlight how hopeless most of their situations were.
And for every tale of success you heard a half dozen horror stories. Desperate people who took bad gambles or tried something that seemed like a sure shot, only to have it backfire monstrously. Sometimes literally monstrously. The actions of Lab Rat were still spoken of in hushed tones in the Case 53 community. That only served to make the PRT more apprehensive, more cautious about pursuing any possible treatment or cure. If Weld hadn't clearly gone behind the PRT's backs, broken the non-interaction policy and made his own deal for treatment, she wouldn't have been surprised if they had sandbagged on the issue for years, and not until Apeiron agreed to all of their terms, conditions, and policies.
In a perfect world, the fact that Apeiron had a treatment that could help Case 53s would have pressured the Protectorate and PRT to come to terms and resolve their issues with the man. Unfortunately, in reality it was much more likely that they would have used the same situation to try to force him to comply with their demands, not ALLOWING him to help until he agreed to fall in line.
The idea sounded insane, but you just needed to look at the situation in Brockton Bay, and the recovery works that were continuing, to see that. She had been on the street, working with people who had been badly hit by the first wave of bombings. Who had been enduring the gang stalemate for years. While no one was precisely certain of what was happening at the highest levels, it was readily apparent to everyone that no public requests for aid had been made, and that the same policies that turned Apeiron into a pariah before the Ungodly Hour were still in place.
"Though I suppose a side benefit to the delay is that it has allowed me to improve my options for treatment." Apeiron said cheerfully.
That casual cheerfulness with which he presented complete impossibilities. That casual cheerfulness from Apeiron, from the man who had stared down Bakuda, who had destroyed Lung with savage brutality while critically injured and apparently transformed. Who had cowed every group in the city with a single meeting and a set of edicts that they were apparently terrified of defying on any level.
She swallowed and tried to steady herself. It felt like her head was spinning, though the calming atmosphere of the room helped. Gentle colors in cool tones that seemed to moderate tempers and help her focus. Actually, it very well could have been doing just that. This was Apeiron. She was meeting with a cape who was already presenting an impossible cure. What was another half dozen potential effects on top of that.
Taking a breath, she looked across at the tinker. "You said you can treat me." She said carefully. "And it's covered. That there's a contract?"
"Made on your behalf." He confirmed, but offered no information as to who might have put it forward.
"Why?" She asked. "I mean, why me?"
"There is a level of sympathy towards your situation." He admitted.
Given the composition of his team, that could mean any number of things. Proto Aima, the Matrix, even his own transformation. Normally the sympathy of outsiders stung. It was something that came coupled with pity and condescension, but even if Apeiron wasn't a Case 53, it was clear that transformation hadn't been intentional. The form he'd fought Lung in was not something he took on by choice.
She didn't want to press him on the subject… actually she desperately wanted to press him on the subject, but didn't want to risk asking. The point was, that sympathy was at least potentially something that came from a place of understanding, rather than what she usually encountered.
"Additionally, your work in the city has been greatly appreciated, by both myself and members of my team." Apeiron added.
That caused Gully to blink. "The recovery work?" She asked. The man nodded. "But that was just…" She struggled for words. "It wasn't why I came to the city." She admitted. "I didn't even consider that. It just happened, and I was there."
"And you helped." He said. "That made a difference. There was only so much I could do during the attack, and even less afterwards. I'm sure you're aware of the kind of difference you made."
"My power." She said softly. Actually softly, rather than just quietly. The texture of the room diminished the harsher aspects of her voice, letting her put more emotion into her speech than she would normally risk. "It was just the right power in the right place."
"At the right time." He agreed. "A lot of life is down to that. Making the best of the opportunities that present themselves."
She fell silent for a moment. The idea that she could potentially receive everything she'd ever dreamed of from a full contract with Apeiron, something of near mythical significance, all because she happened across people who needed help and didn't leave them hanging. Because she'd gone with Manpower to help during the Ungodly Hour. And stuck around for the rescue efforts. And signed on with the fire service to help clear rubble and bridge the fissures that had opened in the streets. For a solid week of constant overtime work.
Okay, maybe it wasn't as inconsequential as it felt. It still didn't seem equal, but at least she could understand why someone who cared about his city would see that as something deserving of acclaim, even if it was less than what she'd done in any of a dozen other dispatches with the Wards.
She looked over at Apeiron again. Was that it? Was it because she wasn't with the Wards? Wasn't part of any system that was telling her where to go, what to do, and how to present things afterwards? Somehow she doubted Apeiron would have been this grateful if she had been officially deployed to the city as part of some Protectorate initiative. Then again, that would have shifted things to the Protectorate, not to her.
She was running circles in her head, trying to find some way to justify things to herself. Some explanation that would convince her this wasn't some mistake or overreach. That everything wasn't going to come crashing down the second he gave things a second thought. She didn't want that to happen, but it was so hard to accept that this was real. That it might actually be the end of everything she had struggled with.
She didn't even know what that could mean. Her life, her existence as Gully, it was intrinsically tied to her condition. To her body and her powers and the way she was seen. There were things she wanted, aspirations and flights of fancy that had been entertained in desperate 'what if' scenarios, but she'd never really considered what a cure could look like. What her life would be after… after everything that had been her life, up to that point.
And she was still being met with a sympathetic expression. Not condescending sympathy, or pity for her existence. In fact, not connected to her condition at all. Apeiron was understanding of what had been dropped on her. Which made sense, considering he was the one who dropped it on her.
It was insane. Well, the situation was insane, but more specifically, she hated the way she was struggling with what was supposed to be an unquestionably good thing. Maybe if she felt like she had earned it, if she had tracked down Apeiron and made the case, if she had come to terms and somehow secured a contract through her own efforts. Well, her own intentional efforts. She wasn't used to things being just handed to her, especially not something as significant as this.
But Apeiron's own words stuck with her. Making the best of the opportunities that presented themselves. Weld had done that during his chance meeting. She couldn't afford to do any less. It didn't matter if she felt like what she'd done was significant enough to deserve something as important as this. Apeiron, or someone close to Apeiron, was grateful to her. Grateful for what her work had been able to accomplish. She wasn't going to insult that generosity by thinking herself in knots over it.
"You said there were options." She began. "That some were more difficult than others?" Despite her commitment to stop looking in the mouth of the gift horse, she couldn't help but need to feel out the scope of the offer.
"They are." He said. "Though to confirm, that's more about your own tolerance for treatment. Your contract is good for any level of treatment you wish, or even follow-ups if you change your mind at a later point."
The overwhelming generosity wasn't as comforting as it should have been. Things would have been more manageable if Apeiron had given her a set of options and a price list, rather than apparently putting the full scope of his abilities at her disposal.
"So it's a question of the degree of the treatment? Like, whether you can do it this afternoon, or if it will take… days? Weeks?" She asked hesitantly.
"Well, more like a couple of seconds to maybe a half hour, on the outside." He said, "And that will mostly be scanning and analysis. The actual treatment won't be much longer."
She blinked. Apparently, even with all the mental gymnastics she had been doing, she still hadn't been able to remember who she was talking to.
"Okay." She said softly. "But the difference? I mean, people have tried to help Case 53s before, and it hasn't…" She didn't want to mention some of the examples that jumped to mind. Even bringing them up compared to what Apeiron was offering seemed insulting, but she couldn't help those images weighing on her mind.
Apeiron nodded. "Fundamentally, it's a problem of power expression." He explained. "A lot of times the changes to people's bodies from, or as a result of, their powers are just structural shifts. It's a static effect with nothing reinforcing it."
"But not with Case 53s." Gully said, following his logic.
Normally she would have doubted someone speaking with this level of confidence, but Apeiron had repeatedly demonstrated his expertise in this area. She didn't know if he was actually a power tinker, and right now the specifics of whatever specialization he had didn't particularly matter to her. She was willing to trust that he knew what he was talking about, and that was the important thing.
"No." Apeiron said, "It's similar to what you can see from other power expressions." Gully gave him a confused look. "For instance, you have a blaster who directs his power from his hands. If he loses his arms in an accident, it will disrupt the mechanism of his power, but not negate it. Eventually you will see a shift in how the power manifests, because it's not that his hands are in any way central to the expression of his power, they just served as a medium for it."
Gully nodded. She vaguely remembered something about that from the Parahuman Studies courses they encouraged Wards to take. That kind of effect had been observed, but it wasn't well understood. It wasn't the sort of thing that could be confirmed through experimentation, and field cases were understandably rare.
"With Case 53s, and certain other altered parahumans, their condition is the result of active expressions of their power, and that runs into conflict with attempts at treatment." He shrugged. "I could transform you into a completely human form, but if I didn't address the aspect of your power responsible for your current condition you would see conflicts and reversion." His expression grew serious. "If that's not accounted for properly, the consequences could be severe, as previous attempts have revealed."
She nodded, managing to keep a grimace off of her face. It was actually a relief to have Apeiron acknowledge the previous failures. Him being aware of them meant he would have taken steps to avoid those mistakes. It meant that she probably didn't need to worry about ending up like one of Lab Rat's patients.
"So that treatment has to work with the power?" She asked, partially in an attempt to distract herself from those concerns.
Apeiron nodded. "Alterations that don't impact the expressions of the abilities in question are easiest to implement. That was what Weld received in his first treatment, and is the kind of thing that could probably be handled by any parahuman who understood what they were doing."
Gully blinked. "Sorry, Weld's first treatment?" She asked.
Apeiron smiled. "Like you, he's paid up for a full treatment. There was only so much I could manage in the field, and my resources were more limited back then. Of course, there hasn't exactly been an opportunity for a follow-up, given everything that's happened."
She didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, she couldn't begrudge Weld, not after he had taken a risk to inform her and so many other Case 53s. Doing so probably made it harder for him to receive that follow-up of complete treatment. On the other hand, he had a complete treatment waiting for him. Weld, the Case 53 with celebrity and fame and a leadership position waiting for him, had not just gotten the first treatment from Apeiron, he was also slated for the full extent of what the man could offer.
But so was she, if she wanted it. And she was receiving hers first. She couldn't begrudge him for his luck, not when she had been equally fortunate. She felt horrible about being able to have this kind of opportunity handed to her when so many others were struggling, but she couldn't let it pass either. Apeiron had said that he had wanted to offer his treatments more widely. It was possible that she could help force the PRT's hand by showing that it was possible to be fully cured.
Or maybe she just wasn't quite selfless enough to put everyone else ahead of her. Maybe that made her less worthy than Apeiron thought she was, but she could live with that. She would live with that.
She coughed with a noise like a truck backfiring and was once again grateful for the way the room seemed to drink in sounds rather than highlight them. "So, for me, any cure would need to account for what my power did to my body?"
"Essentially." Apeiron said with a nod. "It's driven by an active power effect, so that would either need to be channeled to a new expression, or moderated. Or eliminated."
"Eliminated?" Gully asked, her eyes widening.
"Yeah, that's a bit of an extreme case, but if you don't want to mess with anything else, I can just set you up with a new body with no powers." He said. "No mucking around with expressions, focuses, suppression, power modulation, or any of that." He gave a light shrug. "It's kind of a nuclear option, but if that's what you want, it's open to you."
She took a breath as she considered his words. No powers. Not just the loss of her earth control, but a completely fresh state in a 'new' body. One that was completely human, without even a shadow of who she used to be.
If it had been the only option available to her, she might have taken it. She would have hated to walk away from her life as a cape, from all her friends, from Everett, but given the chance to build something new without her previous struggles, she couldn't deny the appeal.
But it wasn't the only option. It was the nuclear option. One that some Case 53s would probably take at the first opportunity. Unlike them, her time as a cape hadn't been completely negative, and there were options that would let her stay in that world. Let her build on what she had accomplished. Maybe even grow beyond the factors that had been limiting her.
"Um, thank you, but I don't think that's for me." She said. Apeiron nodded, and there was no judgment in his expression. It had been an option, nothing more. "So, the simpler treatments would change things, but only in the context of their current expression?" Apeiron nodded again and she dropped her eyes, looking down at her misshapen body.
What would that look like for her? If she had been the one who happened upon Apeiron rather than Weld, what would that kind of minor treatment have been? Straightening her spine? Adjusting how the slabs of muscle were spread over her body? Maybe fixing some of her asymmetry and deformity, while keeping the general structure? She could have still been a collection of scar tissue, overly dense bones, and heavy muscle, but maybe in slightly more human proportions.
That would have helped. That would have helped a lot. Frankly, anything would have helped. Anything but looking like a hunchbacked lumbering monster of a cape. And if she would have been happy with even the most basic treatment he could offer…
"What about 'full treatments'?" She asked. "What would that involve?"
"Effectively, it's a reset of your powers." He explained.
She felt the skin on her face tighten at the expression of surprise. Or what she naturally wore as an expression of surprise, which really came across more as a combination of a snarl and a death grimace. There was a reason why she worked to control her expression, but thankfully Apeiron didn't appear disturbed by the display.
"What I mean is, it's necessary to alter the fundamental expression. Lesser treatments can work within the current bounds or modify aspects of how your powers function, but the only way to ensure a complete cure is to go back and start fresh." He continued.
"And you can do that?" She asked.
He nodded. "I'm not sure if you're familiar with parahuman studies or passenger theory?"
She nodded. "I've taken courses, and there's been a lot of attention on passenger theory recently." Mostly because of Apeiron, but that went unsaid.
Apeiron gave her a single nod, then leaned forward in his chair. "Passengers are responsible for the direction and management of powers, or at least the aspects of them that extend beyond what a human mind would be able to handle. They also work to set the expression of powers during a trigger event." He explained. "Every passenger is different, not just in their methods, but in the mechanics of how their abilities operate. You actually have very few shared principles between different parahumans, even if their powers are superficially similar."
All Gully could do was nod numbly. This went beyond confidence in powers. It was a comprehensive understanding of the mechanics of how they operated, the very nature of parahuman existence. There were people who wanted to write off Apeiron as mad, as a delusional fool who had become overly enticed by his own theories, but seeing him like this, it was hard to dismiss his claims so casually.
"The parameters of powers are usually set during a trigger event. Any modification from that point on works within those parameters, rather than finding new expressions. But it is possible to change that expression."
Apeiron raised his hands and a hologram formed in the space between them. It was a simple set of geometric designs, like the kind you'd seen in a math lecture. The diagram showed two distinct areas, marked out in grids.
"Passengers 'inhabit' a semi-virtual shared environment. The actual structure and locations of passengers are significantly more complicated, but it's possible to think of them as effectively existing in an alternate spatial realm from the parahumans they're connected to." He looked up at her. "Passenger space."
She gave another blank nod. She could follow the high-level explanation, but the implications were significantly more difficult to come to terms with, to say nothing of exactly how Apeiron came to discover this.
"This space is intentionally isolated from the rest of reality. In theory, it should not be possible to use abilities from passengers to reach in. In practice, a combination of certain specific and high-level effects is able to create a temporary link."
The holographic grid displayed a linkage forming between the two separate areas. There was more information there, color gradients and data readings that she couldn't hope to follow, but once again, at the highest level it was simple enough. Or simplified enough.
"One of the potential results of such a connection is a modulation of a parahuman's abilities. The breach allows a stronger connection, which can be expressed in everything from temporary empowerment to the manifestation of new powers to a completely new expression of base abilities." He continued. There were complicated designs shown on the 'passenger space' side of the diagram, but once again, if she focused on the highest-level elements she could follow what Apeiron was saying.
And he was basically saying that he could knock the back out of the entire system of parahuman powers to make it do whatever he wanted. Well, maybe not whatever, but more than anyone else could hope to. For all that Apeiron was 'suspected' to be a power tinker, this seemed to go so much further. It was a fundamental alteration of how powers worked, and he was just presenting it to her like it was nothing.
"Is it alright for me to know this kind of thing?" She asked. "You're not worried about it getting out?"
Something like this, it could explain everything. Apeiron's growth in power, the new abilities he demonstrated, the changes in his teammates between appearances. He hadn't admitted to using this method to empower himself or his team, but it was the most significant treatment available to him. Would he have done anything less for the members of the Celestial Forge?
"I'm not going to offer you a treatment without explaining what it does." He said, "You deserve to be fully informed before you agree to anything. As for the information getting out, some of these details are already known to levels of the Protectorate and PRT, and passenger theory is being heavily investigated. I would prefer if you kept some of the details I'm sharing with you private, but I'm not going to make any demands on that front."
"You don't have to worry." She assured him. "You can trust me."
"I appreciate that." He said. "Though to be clear, you don't need to pursue a treatment at this level. I know this is a lot to deal with. If you want to go with a simpler procedure and revisit this later, that's perfectly fine."
Gully let out a breath. Once again, the near limitless options were paralyzing. It was easier to deal with constraints, limits, a challenge where you tried to get the best outcome you could. Not this kind of open-ended offer. It was supposed to be a negotiation. That was what she had expected. That was what she had prepared herself to deal with. How were you supposed to respond when the man's opening offer was 'whatever you want'?
In a lot of ways, that added more pressure. If Apeiron was willing to offer her a fresh chance, and opportunity to start over with what her powers were supposed to work with, could she really turn that down? Obviously she could, but should she?
It was tempting to just jump on the 'best' option. Set aside the scale of what was being offered to her and just focus on the benefits. Try to focus on the benefits. Honestly, even with every assurance Apeiron had made, even with his knowledge and understanding, and confidence in what he was offering, she was scared.
A change like this, the biggest change of her life, or the biggest change she could remember, it was overwhelming. It was honestly tempting to take the easy way out, to accept a minor treatment, something that would make things a bit easier for her, then come back when she'd had time to think.
But fundamentally, she didn't want that. She didn't want a half measure or a way to make things less bad. It didn't matter if it was twenty percent less bad, or fifty percent, or even ninety percent. She had a chance to go all the way. To put everything behind her. To no longer be thought of as just 'a Case 53'.
It was a chance to be a real cape. A proper cape. The kind she could have been if whatever made her like this had never happened to her. She had spent so much time trying to come to terms with her life, with all the things she needed to struggle with each day. She'd built up strength to carry that weight, and she'd been able to endure. She'd even been able to thrive, at least within her limitations.
But she didn't want to. She could admit that. She didn't want to and didn't have to. It was almost shameful, but she could admit to herself that she would rather have had a simple life. An easy life. And she could do that without diminishing the significance of what she'd accomplished as Gully.
She took a breath and looked over at Apeiron. "I'd like to try that." She said, indicating towards the floating diagram. "Even if it's more complicated, or will take longer, I'd like to try."
"Excellent." He said, and the hologram vanished as he climbed to his feet. "We'll need to move to the lab, but we can get started right away."
"Thank you." She said, rising from her chair and once more towering over the man. "Though it's crazy to think… I won't count as a Case 53 after this." She saw his expression shift. "Well, I mean, I guess I will, but not practically?"
"It wasn't that." He said quickly. "Though I should inform you, this effect has happened before, and the PRT has assigned a sequential case number to it." He gave her an apologetic smile. "You'll be basically trading one case number for another."
"Ah." That was almost funny. She tried to remember what the last sequential case she'd read was. "So I'd be a case… 67?"
Apeiron took a breath. "It's actually Case 69." He said. She stared at him. "Believe me, I know. It's not what I would have chosen, but I didn't exactly have control over the circumstances."
"Um, right." She said. Definitely not something she would have chosen either, but not nearly enough to be a deciding factor in the treatment she selected. After everything she'd been through, whatever jokes this designation might result in would be a minor concern. "What was the case incident? If it's alright for me to ask?"
"Interaction between March's power and the power system of one of my vehicles." He said. "You've probably seen the after effects on the container yard."
Gully swallowed. She had. Everyone had. The red crystals that burrowed through containers and concrete alike, that extended far further into the docks and under the bay than they had any right to. She'd tried to clear the damage, but whatever that material was, her power couldn't touch it. It was like it specifically did not count as any form or stone or natural mineral.
"Is this going to be that… serious?" She asked cautiously.
Apeiron smiled. "Thankfully not. Controlled experimental conditions are a lot less likely to result in out-of-control breach events. The actual connection reset is a minor part of the treatment. The main problem is making sure we have everything properly lined up before we start."
"Right, right." She said, "Then I guess we should…" She trailed off as she looked towards the aquarium. Or specifically, as something from the aquarium looked back at her.
"What…" She muttered as the creature slid behind a rock, concealing most of its crystalline spiral shell. As she watched a teal-colored face peeked out, looking at her with large black eyes that were far too focused and expressive for that type of animal.
"Sea Snails." Apeiron explained. "Well, a unique variant of sea snail."
"Did you… make them?" She asked, mostly at a loss for what else they could be.
"That kind of thing isn't my field." He said firmly. "They are natural creatures, not engineered. I'm just looking after them." He smiled at the tank and three more of the spiral shelled 'snails' peeked out with happy expressions in their eyes.
"Um, right." She mumbled. "I've just never seen anything like…"
He smiled. "You could say they're not from around here."
There was a particular emphasis on the way he said it. Or what he didn't say. Gully nodded slowly. Considering he had casually spoken about breaching dimensional boundaries, was there any reason to believe he was limited to a single version of Earth? That Professor Haywire had been able to accomplish something that Apeiron couldn't match, or exceed?
She looked back at the tank, the first serious look she'd taken since she entered the room. In her defense she had been focused on other matters. Now she could see them, at least ten little mollusks, each improbably cute and inexplicably expressive. It was like someone had turned a puppy into a gastropod while leaving its personality intact.
"They seem happy in there." She said, doing her best to sound encouraging.
Apeiron nodded. "We've looked into getting them a bigger habitat, but they like it in the tank. Which is fine, and not our place to force anything bigger on them."
It could have been an innocent statement, or a not particularly subtle reference to their earlier discussion. Still, it was able to make her smile. Then she remembered her public relations training and what natural smiles looked like. Then she remembered the way Apeiron had reacted to even her most off-putting expressions and decided not to care. With any luck she could stuff all those public relations lessons by the end of the day. And good riddance.
"I'm ready." She assured Apeiron.
"Great." He said, summoning another portal. "Let's get started."
They stepped through the portal into what was, by far, the most complicated and elaborate version of a laboratory Gully had ever seen, and it wasn't like she was unfamiliar with the eccentricities of tinkers. But that was the thing, she was used to the eccentricities of tinkers, not whatever Apeiron counted as, and if his lab was anything to go off of, he was even further beyond the pale than anyone could have imagined.
Just the design of the place was stunning. A wide floor plan that carried a natural flow of the equipment from one station to the next. Tall vaulted ceilings strung with illuminated wires, and ornamentation on every surface that somehow complimented rather than detracted from the design. It made the lounge where they had discussed treatment options seem plain and understated, which might actually have been the point of that place. An introductory area that wouldn't overwhelm someone the way full exposure to the sheer intensity of Apeiron's works probably would.
Like, for instance, in a 'lab' where every item, from the smallest piece of equipment to the most intricate device, was all an absolute work of art. Every item was beautifully crafted in a way that made the skill and passion involved in its creation shine through. Even the tables, the chairs, the very walls and rafters above them. It was like the Sistine Chapel of eclectic workspaces.
And that would have been impressive enough, but there was something more at play. Some effect that seemed to carry through the entire building. It was like the subtle calming of the aquarium lounge, but instead coming across as dynamic and energetic. She didn't know if it was possible for a level of interior design to be powerful enough to have that kind of impact on people, or if she had been looking at the result of some kind of actual power effect. Then again, the difference between thinker and tinker, or thinker and master, could be razor thin at times.
She tried to not think about it as she stood surrounded by the tapestry of creation that was Apeiron's laboratory, or his 'magitech' laboratory, which was apparently shorthand for the combination of parahuman effects with technological principles. Because that was just something Apeiron did. Something he did often enough that he needed specific terminology for it.
Normally being surrounded by so much intricate equipment would have her on edge, terrified that the wrong move might destroy some delicate machinery or scatter the components of an active experiment, but that wasn't the case here. Despite how intricately everything was designed, there was a sense of solidity to everything in the room. One strong enough to make her doubt whether it was actually possible for her to damage or disrupt anything no matter what she did.
Not that she'd be careless enough to put that to the test. Instead, she stood out of the way as Apeiron worked in a literal blur to prepare for the procedure. She was even more at a loss as to the function of anything in the room than she was during her visits Facetime's workshop, so instead she just enjoyed the chance to observe the intricate designs, the way even the scattered equipment seemed to fit together into a cohesive theme, flowing from test samples to machinery to tables to the very structure of the room, all the way up to the rafters strung with glowing red lines.
Or red thread. A familiar red thread. She paused, then looked more closely at the patterns of light dancing through the strands. They almost seemed to move on their own, and reminded her of the glowing lock of hair on Apeiron's head. And of…
Before she could finish that thought the fibers pulled together, unraveling from the rafters and merging in midair until they formed a figure obscured in red light. The feminine form slowly descended to the ground as the blinding glow receded, revealing a teenage girl with glowing red hair that matched her mask, eyes, and costume.
Apeiron glanced towards the display as if it was the kind of thing that happened every day. Which may have been the case.
"Gully, you know Proto Aima." He said before turning back to his work.
"Um, yes." She said, looking down at the smiling girl. "I mean, I'm aware of… You look different." She added lamely.
"Thank you. It's new." She said with a wide grin as she spun in place, showing off a lithe and elegant body. "It's nice to meet you." She finished the spin and extended her hand eagerly forward. Gully made a cautious move to take it, always careful not to pinch or crush, but as soon as she began to move Proto Aima had moved forward and was gripping her hand with clearly unnatural strength. And likely durability to match.
"Yes." Gully said at the energetic handshake. "Um, I'm hoping for a 'new' as well." She offered in an attempt at good humor.
"I'm sure it will work out." The redheaded cape said. "We just need to find your passenger, which is a lot easier now."
"It is?" She asked as she tried to keep up with the girl's energy. And the fact that the humanoid mink from the early pictures of Apeiron's team was apparently now a fully human girl, with the exception of the look of her hair and eyes. Or at least could be a girl, when she didn't want to be a mass of fibers.
Oddly, it was actually quite encouraging.
"Yep! I'm good at finding that kind of thing. Well, I'll find it, Survey and Fleet will track it down, then Apeiron can handle the procedure." The girl explained in an excited tone.
"Ah." She said awkwardly as she looked back at Apeiron. "I hadn't realized so many people would be working on this." The earlier encouraging feelings were battling with new levels of self-consciousness, seeing as she was apparently tying up the efforts of half of the Celestial Forge.
"It's fine." Proto Aima assured her. "Fleet was already working on something related to this, Survey likes having more things to analyze, and I'm only sort of here. Or not just here? So you don't have to worry about bothering me."
Gully nodded numbly as she started to feel slightly lightheaded. "We're all very good at multitasking." Apeiron assured her as he checked a device. "Please don't feel that you're inconveniencing us at all."
"Uh, right." She said, definitely not wanting to pursue any of the details that had been so casually dangled in front of her. Apeiron's request for discretion when it came to the specifics of her treatment suddenly seemed more like a blessing than an imposition. She could only imagine the reactions if she had to recount half of what she had seen.
"So you can find my passenger, and after that we can get started?" She asked, more to confirm things rather than rush anything. Definitely not rush anything.
"I've already found it." Proto Aima said. "It's just analysis and mobilization to account for the…" She paused and turned to Apeiron. There was a silent exchange, something Gully realized had probably been happening the entire time.
"Account for what?" She asked. "Is there something wrong with my passenger?" She definitely didn't like the look she saw on their faces.
"It's the first time we've encountered this kind of expression from a passenger." Apeiron explained.
It took her a moment for that to fully hit her. Apeiron hadn't done this before. He had been so confident, so knowledgeable, that it had been easy to overlook the basic facts of her situation. No one, not even Weld, had been 'fully treated'. Apeiron obviously knew what he was talking about, but that didn't change the fact that this would be the first time he had tried something like this. The fact that he was learning details of her situation as the procedure was being planned out.
"Gully." Apeiron said, drawing her out of her brief panic. "There's no obligation here. No commitment. If you want to go with something less serious, you can come back to this later."
"No." She said before swallowing. "I just didn't quite realize how new all this was."
Apeiron looked up at her with an encouraging smile. "This is bespoke treatment. Not the kind of thing I could standardize and hand out. And this is new ground, but you have my word, every precaution is being taken. I promise you will make it through this."
She took a breath. Bespoke treatment from Apeiron. That was the kind of statement that put things back in context. She might be heading into uncharted territory, but she was doing so with Apeiron at the wheel. All of the man's impossible feats and ridiculous claims suddenly seemed a lot more reassuring when they were backing you up rather than facing you down.
"I'm alright." She insisted. "It's just.. what's wrong with my passenger?"
Apeiron gave her a serious look before responding. "How much do you want to know about passengers?"
She weighed his question. The knee jerk response of 'everything' seemed appealing, but he wouldn't have asked if there wasn't more going on here.
"This is dangerous knowledge, isn't it?" She asked.
He nodded. "What I've told you already, it's not exactly common knowledge, but the major powers in the world probably know as much, or at least suspect and can put together most of the details from that. What we're getting into is deep behind the curtain as far as powers are concerned. There are implications and consequences to having that kind of knowledge, and it's not for everyone, but you deserve to know what's happening to you. Provided you want to."
She nodded and stood as straight as her back would allow. "I want to know. At least enough to understand what's wrong. Why I'm like… this." She said, gesturing down at her body.
Apeiron nodded. Without a word a set of floating screens appeared in the air between them. Unlike the simple diagrams he had shown before, these showed images in terrifying clarity. Shots of a twisted nightmare landscape filled with red and black crystal and lightning stretching through a dizzying void. There were isolated points in the hellscape, islands or mountains or something else. Even the clarity of the images made it hard to make out exactly what she was looking at.
"This is passenger space." Apeiron explained, gesturing at the screens.
From his earlier descriptions, Gully had assumed he was speaking from theory, or extrapolating from some kind of complex energy reading or sensor apparatus. Not that he actually had the ability to peer into the nightmare dimension behind parahuman abilities.
"The structures you see are passengers, or at least their manifestation within that space. These form when a parahuman triggers. They represent connections to a network that links passengers together. It allows a level of coordination and information sharing independent of the parahumans they are connected to." He continued. Gully nodded as she tried to keep up with the volume of information.
"Most passengers are like the ones you see here." He continued. "Operating normally, with active functions and live connections to the network. But that's not the case for all of them."
One of the screens shifted to a new image. A horrible image. The fractal and abstract nature of passengers made it hard for her to tell what they were supposed to look like, but she was confident it wasn't supposed to be like that. Crumbling, rotting, and fused in a nightmarish fashion. The entire apparatus was active, but not alive. Animate might be a better way of putting things. It was like the entire passenger had died and been torn apart before being put back together wrong, and yet somehow continued its mindless functions.
"Is that what my passenger is like?" She asked.
"Not quite." Apeiron said. "Passengers in this state, they aren't in good condition, but they're still functional. The same operations that we were discussing would work with them. But your case is a bit more complex."
"How?" She asked, worry boiling in her gut.
"I'll show you. We just got a full visual." He said.
The screens changed again, showing an image that seemed both horrific and somehow familiar. It wasn't the dead combination of parts that had composed the last passenger, but it might have been better if it was. Instead, there were other parts mixed in. Crystalin flesh that burned with life, merged with massive sections of flailing necrotic composites. Not one of the living passengers, and not dead, instead somehow a mixture of both.
"I have two passengers?" She asked. "Fused together?"
"Not exactly." Apeiron said. "A cluster trigger would be a lot simpler. In that case you'd be looking at simultaneous connections to multiple established passengers with unique expressions from each of them. From the looks of this, I'd say it was a shift in connection." He pointed to certain sections of the mass that were brightly lit and apparently struggling against the larger bulk. "Whatever forces connections to the degraded passengers, it triggered while you had a preexisting connection to a standard passenger. The blending is responsible for a lot of the issues in the expression of your power."
"You don't know how those damaged passengers happen?" She asked.
"No." He admitted. "This is a relatively new field of study. We have a limited sample size, and we haven't been able to investigate the parahumans in question to see if there's some common factor."
She let out a breath. "And you don't know if every Case 53 is like this, or if it's just me." She said.
"No." He said, "But someone has to be the first point on the trendline." She smiled weakly at that. "And we can deal with this."
She blinked, then looked at the mess of a passenger on the screen. "Seriously?"
Apeiron nodded. "It looks bad, but the mechanics aren't any more complicated than what you see from any other passenger. Just looking at it pretty much lays out what happened to you."
"Um, it does?" She asked.
Apeiron looked back at her, seeming realizing that not everyone could glance at a scintillating mass of crystal and instantly discern its function and effects. "Oh, right." He said. With a gesture, various parts of the image lit up. "Effectively, you have components responsible for the nature of your geokinetic abilities." He indicated to the illuminated sections covering most of the 'dead' portion of the passenger. "Elements specific to the changes to your body." A different section illuminated, covering the majority of the 'living' sections. "Moderating elements, which appear to be in conflict with each other." He indicated to some of the remaining sections of both living and dead crystal. "And a bunch of stuff that really shouldn't be in there." A smattering of the remaining sections lit up. "Seriously, that just doesn't make sense, but you have some of it in all of the degraded passengers, so it's probably a clue to how this fits together."
Active investigation and discovery, not just treatment. The fact that Apeiron was learning from her passenger, that she was able to help his investigation in some small way, it made her feel less self-conscious about the whole thing. It didn't come close to leveling the scales, but it was something.
"But this won't be a problem?" She asked.
"Shouldn't be." He said, glancing at the screen. "It's fairly obvious where things went wrong. Getting them back on track should be pretty straightforward."
"But I'll still have my powers?" She asked, holding her shovel awkwardly. "I mean, my earth powers?"
"You will, and some biological expression as well." He said, once again highlighting the portion of her passenger he had said was responsible for the state of her body.
"And that's not going to be a problem?" She asked again.
"No." He assured her. "You aren't going to see this kind of run-away expression, not under controlled conditions. Based on the mechanisms, probably some level of strength and durability, possibly some metabolic aspects, but working within human parameters, not what you ended up with."
She let out a long breath. It was an explanation. An explanation for what had happened to her. What had happened to all the case 53s, at least potentially. A collection of failures and mistakes within the system behind powers and through terrible luck she found herself with the equivalent of a corrupted hard drive.
Knowing that there actually was a reason, that there were things that could be identified and corrected, it was an incredible relief. Finally, a measure of certainty, of reassurance. It still wasn't fair, but it was an unfairness baked into the system, not something targeted. Not some deficiency on her part. There was no great failure or critical mistake in her past. If Apeiron was right, anyone in her place would have ended up in the same position.
It wasn't her fault. It wasn't any of their faults. That sounded simple, like it was the pettiest point to cling to, but it was something that had eaten away at her, at so many Case 53s. With no memory and no understanding of what happened to them, there was always the concern that it was all because of something they had done. Something they had brought on themselves.
But no. Random chance, and nothing more. A 'simple' mistake that could be fixed just as simply. Well, as long as you were an impossible tinker with knowledge beyond the level of any organization on the planet and the support of an entire team of comparable talents.
That was another daunting point. Apeiron could fix this, but she couldn't imagine anyone else who would have been able to accomplish the task. Not completely. Maybe those simple fixes, working with the expression of a Case 53s powers, but not a complete reset to whatever they were supposed to be in the first place. As relieved as she was at the prospect of a cure, finding out how impossible it would have been without Apeiron was a little disheartening.
"Okay." She said, looking between Apeiron and Proto Aima. "What's next?"
He smiled. "We're onto the last step." He said. "Provided you're ready."
Probably as ready as she'd ever be.
There was a custom-built room for the purposes of the procedure, which was being held outside of Apeiron's Workshop. It was still in a facility filled with his equipment where his team was able to operate freely, but there was apparently a specific distinction that was important. Something about being less occluded.
It was certainly different to her senses. Her geokinesis gave her a rough feeling of the earth around her. The lounge had been buried within a mass of stone, while the laboratory had been built on an open plane. She'd been able to feel the solid nature of the walls, the depth of the foundation, the hints of neighboring buildings, and even the feeling of what felt like rising mountains. She had no idea where that could have been, but the new location couldn't have been more different.
Everything outside the room felt wrong, like it was scrunched up and overlapped. The way her power flowed through materials just didn't feel right when it came to the structures around her. She had to work to close off her awareness of the subtle wrongness, though that was really the only thing that could be considered 'wrong' when it came to the room.
The entire room had been custom built, specifically for her and the nature of her passenger. A tremendous hall, all for a single purpose, because apparently that was just something Apeiron did.
Well, Apeiron and the Matrix. She learned about the golden armored cape's involvement when he appeared to check if everything was to her satisfaction. Actually appeared, rising out of the solid rock of the floor to check on her in a way that was even more confusing to her senses than the overlapping nature of the space around them.
"Yes, everything is fine." She said, looking down at the Matrix's armored form. Fine was a bit of an understatement given the elaborate and ornate nature of the room. And like with the lounge and laboratory, there seemed to be a direction of purpose, with every aspect of it focused inward, channeling energies and effects that she couldn't begin to understand no matter how much Proto Aima tried to explain them.
"That is good." The Matrix said, with a nod of his armored helm. "I will be standing by to assist with the procedure, though no variance is expected."
"Um, I wouldn't want to bother you." She said carefully.
"You won't." The armored cape replied before vanishing back into the floor.
"Uh, good at multitasking as well?" She asked the redheaded girl next to her. Her hair and costume pulsed in time with her excited manner as she replied.
"Yep." She said, "They're really good at that, especially since last night, but that was years ago." Gully blinked and nodded blankly. It was far from the most outlandish thing the girl had said. "But they really like helping with this kind of thing, so I'm glad you decided to."
"Right." She said, because of course this was basically doing the Matrix a favor, and providing an entertaining diversion for Proto Aima. And giving Survey new information to analyze.
The legendarily stunning member of the Celestial Forge wasn't physically present, but had appeared in hologram form several times to provide updates, mostly for Gully's benefit. Since she was the only one not linked into whatever communication system the rest of Apeiron's team used.
"All sensors and moderation equipment have been fully deployed. Conditions are optimal for the initiation of the procedure." The hologram of Survey made the announcement to the room, though clearly directed at her.
"Right." Apeiron said. "Any second thoughts?" He asked her.
"No." She said with as much confidence as she could muster. "I'm ready."
Ready to be cured. Ready to have her powers reset, however that would work. But at least ready to try.
She lay down on a medical bed in the center of the room. Whatever technological or parahuman requirements existed for the procedure, they apparently didn't prohibit comfort. Frankly, it was unusual to find any bed that supported her this well, even if it had been thrown together for barely a few minutes' use.
And it hit her that after this she might not need to worry about that anymore. Might not have to constantly be careful of breaking things or hurting people with unwieldy hands. Might not need to worry about people staring or whispering or looking at her with anger, fear, or pity. Might not need to find oversized furniture or utensils or clothing.
Everything she struggled with, everything that had been a fixture of her life, it could be gone in the next few minutes. Wonder, fear, hope, and desperation warred inside her. To the side of the room Proto Aima gave her an encouraging wave as Apeiron fitted a crystal sphere with a deep glow into part of the machinery. She waved back, then sank into the bed, doing her best to steady her breathing.
"Now, this isn't the same as a trigger event, but you will most likely experience some level of disorientation and an effect similar to a trigger vision. I'll be working to moderate the effect on both sides, so you don't need to worry about influencing the final results." Apeiron explained as he performed his final checks. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be." She called back.
He nodded. "On my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark."
Then he threw a switch, and the world turned inside out. She'd been braced for the visions, but calling what she experienced 'visions' hardly did them justice. It was like the sensation of being in another place. No, of being another place in its entirety.
She could see the room around her, feel it, taste it, and experience it in a thousand other ways. She could see Apeiron and the members of his team, both how they presented themselves and an existence that was so much more, but so hard to hold on to. Like a single facet on a diamond the size of the universe.
And she could see the world of lightning and red skies. Of crystal and flesh. She was there as well. She WAS there, was everything that was there. Every channel, every function, every mechanism that had been desperately grinding against impossible obstacles to try to fulfill its function. That tried to help, in the way it knew to help, but was saddled, burdened. Technically greater power weighing it down like a millstone and albatross around its neck. Desperately trying for any chance and as frustrated as she was.
And then that chance arrived. A bridge. A hole. A rupture. It didn't matter what you called it, the effect was more complicated than any of the words could encompass. What mattered was the chance. The opportunity. Crimson shards of flesh glowed like miniature suns. Ancient protocols fired, burning through the void. Pushing further, harder, greater than ever before. The misdirected parameter set while struggling with the weight of dead and dying power were cast aside and forged anew. And forged further, and further, pushing ever more. More and more, everything it could be. Drawing from every moment, every shadow and impression to create something that went beyond all limits, beyond everything. And further, to-
Gully gasped. She gasped and panted, struggling in tiny breaths, unable to get air into her lungs. Her chest ached as she struggled to pull herself upright, feeling weaker than she could ever remember being.
Weaker and lighter. Despite the lack of strength she practically shot upright in the bed. In the tremendously oversized bed. She looked down at her body. At her arms. Thin arms without the strength she was used to, but delicate, graceful things. Her chest settled and she realized why her breathing was shallow. It wasn't. She'd been taking full breaths; she just didn't have the lung capacity she used to. Not with a chest as slight as hers. As small as hers. As small as she was now.
"Gully?" Apeiron asked from her side. He was flanked by Proto Aima as a hologram of Survey kept watch from the edge of the room. "How do you feel?"
She took another breath before replying. "Small." She said, a bit of weak humor leaking into her expression. Her voice was light. Light, without any of the rumble she had struggled to cover. It sounded normal. Such a small thing, but with just a single word she couldn't keep a smile off her face. "Um, can I get up?" She asked Apeiron.
"Of course, but please be careful." He said as he helped her onto her feet. Her feet touched the floor as she took stock of things. Mostly of how everyone was taller than her, even Proto Aima.
"Um, what I'm wearing…" She began, broaching the most sensitive topic at the moment. She couldn't imagine her old clothes fitting, but somehow found herself in a rough approximation of her typical costume, somehow fitted for her new body.
"The Matrix made it for you." Proto Aima explained.
"Oh." She replied. "Please thank him for me." She paused, remembering how Proto Aima had referred to the Matrix. "I mean, thank them?"
"It's fine. They know." She said, and there was a slight shift in the feel of the ground under her feet. She smiled, then her smile wavered.
"Um." She said as she extended her senses. Senses that were muddled, even beyond their earlier state. She tried to call on her power. The stone of the room was reinforced, held in place by effects beyond her, but even then she could tell she was operating at a fraction of her former strength. "What happened to my power?"
Apeiron took a breath as he looked down at her. Possibly a greater height difference than she'd had with him. And she was able to understand how intimidating that could be from the other side.
"I'm throttling the connection with your passenger. Effectively suppressing your power for the moment." He explained.
"Did something go wrong?" She asked in concern.
"Not wrong." Proto Aima explained. "Just unexpected."
That wasn't exactly reassuring. She turned to Apeiron, her eyes wide. "It was the result of the portion of your passenger that was still operating normally." He explained. "Passengers are intelligent. They don't think like people, but they have their own objectives. Even their own personalities. That was the portion responsible for the biological expression of your power. The opportunity to refresh that expression resulted in some unexpected results. I temporarily suppressed the effect so I could speak with you first."
Gully swallowed a lump in her throat. Even with all her concerns, she was still marveling at the ease and simplicity of everything. Every breath, every movement. It was so simple. So unobtrusive. She didn't want to lose that.
"What's wrong with my body? I mean, when my powers are active, what's wrong with it?" She asked as dozens of nightmare scenarios flitted through her mind.
Apeiron took a breath. "You're tall." He said.
She blinked. "Tall?" She asked, looking between him and Proto Aima, who was still a font of encouragement. At least she didn't seem deterred by whatever was happening. "How tall?"
"Eight foot six inches." Proto Aima volunteered. "Actually eight foot six and three eighths, but that kind of precision isn't really important, especially considering your current body is just under four foot eleven."
"Oh." She said in a quiet voice. An actual quiet, dainty voice, not one she was trying to make seem quiet and dainty. "That is very tall." Even taller than she was before. "And…" She looked between them. "Is there anything else? Is it like before."
"No." Apeiron said. "It's proportional height, with other proportions." Gully gave her a confused look.
"God, just show her."
Gully spun towards the voice, overstepped, and nearly fell, but managed to catch herself. The lightness of her body was almost enough to distract her from the fact that Lethe was in the room. Had possibly always been in the room.
"Um, Lethe…" She stuttered as the armored woman sauntered forward. Also towering over her, and not just because of the scale of the armor's platform heels.
"Yeah, I know, everyone's freaked out by me." She said dismissively. "Meanwhile he's freaking you out over nothing. Just cut the suppression and let her see for herself."
Apeiron let out a breath. "Fine. If that's alright with you?" He asked Gully. She gave him a nervous nod, then braced herself as he gestured towards a piece of equipment.
The first thing that happened was her sense of the ground and stone around her blooming into full force. If anything, it was more precise than it had been before. Even as the other aspects of her power bore down on her, she took solace in the comfort in the stability of stone.
The actual change wasn't as uncomfortable as she expected. In fact, it seemed almost energizing, like she could feel the intent behind the effect. The floor dropped away as she shot up beyond even Apeiron's height. And not just height. Her muscles swelled to support the new frame and her body filled in and….
Oh.
"Yeah." Lethe said, looking up at her. The armored woman was close enough that Gully couldn't fully see her. Not without turning to the side.
"Um, this is what Apeiron was worried about?" She asked as she looked down. Her voice wasn't the light thing it had been before, but there was still no hint of the roughness she's struggled with all her life. Just a richness of tone. Like a shift from soprano to alto.
As she spoke she twisted her body back and forth and felt the curves move. Actual curves, not the heavy slabs of muscle and scar tissue skin she'd dealt with all her life.
"It could be considered excessive, in some areas." Apeiron said diplomatically before pulling up a complicated chart. "As best as I can tell, the active portion of your passenger attempted to augment your physical body to an intentionally excessive degree. The misdirected application of that effect was responsible for the structural characteristics of your previous form. Now that the effect is more directed along human conventions, it is focused on the… exaggeration of certain characteristics."
"So my power just makes me…" Gully gestured in front of herself.
"Well, that and…" Lethe made a similar gesture behind herself, earning a frustrated look from Apeiron. Once again, the most powerful and feared stranger on the planet, joking and prodding Apeiron of all people, it was so discordant it was almost enough to distract her from what was happening.
"It's not purely aesthetic." Apeiron explained, bringing up a holographic screen showing what looked like anatomy diagrams of her current form, which really left no doubt as to what had been exaggerated by her passenger. "A significant number of alterations that were present in her previous form have been integrated into her augmented body, including enhanced muscular strength, durable skin, reinforcement of skeletal system, and general improvements through a variety of bodily systems. The main difference is the lack of any obvious deviation from human convention." He paused. "I mean, besides the obvious."
"Right." She said as she lifted an arm and clenched a fist. She could feel some of that familiar strength, but without the awkwardness. It wasn't the effortless elegance of her lighter body, but there was still grace there, as well as strength and solidity.
Apeiron nodded. "This would be easier to isolate if you actually had two distinct passengers. As it stands you effectively have paired effects from a single source. I can isolate the effect, but it won't be easy without the assistance of some auxiliary item."
Gully looked up at him, then down at her body. "Um, I actually don't hate this." She said. He looked at her and she felt her face heat up, but pressed on. "I mean, maybe if this was all the time, but like this… I mean, it's like a built-in secret identity, right?"
"And you're okay with the… aesthetics?" Apeiron asked. Lethe scoffed at the question as Gully dropped her head. "Okay, right." He took a breath then looked back at her. "That's what's important. I assume you'd like some way to be able to shift between forms without requiring outside assistance?"
"I don't want to impose." She said, but Apeiron gave her a flat look that she could somehow recognize even through his visor. "I mean, yes. I would appreciate that."
Being able to not be a cape. To actually put her life away. And to have that life be… well, not exactly normal, but significantly less abnormal than it had been before. Or abnormal in a more acceptable way.
"Right." Apeiron said, "I'll put something together with the Matrix. Lethe, are you…?"
"On it." She replied as she tilted her helmet up at Gully. "But it's not looking good. I'll let you know how it goes."
Gully raised an eyebrow, but Lethe didn't elaborate as Apeiron stepped through another portal. And Proto Aima simply vanished along with him. Gully paused for a moment, extending her senses into the floor and walls. That folded and compressed feeling was still there, but so was the sensation she had felt when the Matrix sank into the floor.
"Um, isn't the Matrix still here?" She asked.
"The Matrix is in a lot of places." She said as she hopped up to sit on the medical bed, still in her full purple armor. "Best not to worry about it."
"I'm trying, it's just…" She said ambiguously.
"Yeah, it's a lot." She agreed. "The rest of them can lose track of how far things can get if they aren't watching."
"Your assistance in matters of that nature is consistently appreciated." Survey's hologram called from the edge of the room. "Though discussions of that nature should perhaps be handled with discretion."
"Come on, Gully's the picture of discretion, right?" Lethe asked, tilting her head. Somehow, even after all the insanity of Apeiron, sitting in the aftermath of her cure, joking with the bogeyman of Celestial Forge, the stranger that had the entire country on edge, that managed to stand above everything else.
"I think if I wasn't discreet about what happened here the debrief and interrogations would take until the next decade." She muttered.
"Well, if they try any of that shit, tell them it's against the contract." Lethe said smartly.
"I'm not sure they'll accept that." Gully replied.
Lethe tilted her head and Gully had the sense she was smiling under her helmet. "Then I might need to have a chat with them about, what do they call it, unlawful confinement?"
Gully froze. "That might do it." She said carefully. The idea of bringing Lethe down on a department would put the fear of God into even the most hard-nosed director.
"Great. Glad to head that off." She inclined her head further. "Particularly if it would cause you to miss any appointments you have later this afternoon." She glanced up and down. "I mean, you're going to need two new wardrobes."
Gully froze. "Um, is that, I mean, should I…" She trailed off. "Should I not ask those questions?"
"Probably for the best. Just enjoy yourself." Lethe said.
"Right." Gully let out a breath. "It's just, this is so much."
"I'll say." Lethe said, leaning back as she panned her helmet up and down.
Gully felt herself flush. "Not that. Or not just that." She looked towards where Apeiron had stepped through his portal. "This seemed to bother him."
"Yeah, he just didn't want people thinking it was his idea." She tilted her helmet again. "During the procedure he was doing the techno-thaumic equivalent of hitting your passenger with a rolled-up newspaper, and it still wouldn't back down from this."
"Really?" Gully asked.
"Yeah." Lethe leaned back. "It's a lot more complex than the cliff notes he gave you. And he probably wouldn't have brought this up, since it's not certain, but I'm good with memories. A lot of these parameters weren't coming from the passenger side of things."
She froze and her eyes dropped down. "You mean this is me? I did this?"
"Probably not consciously, but you're from the left coast, right? Land of plastic surgery?" Lethe asked.
"San Diego isn't exactly Los Angeles." She said, then shook her head. "But yeah, I mean, maybe? I don't know."
"Something to think about." Lethe raised a hand and another hologram appeared. Two diagrams side by side. "There was a difference between this and the first time you transformed. Survey had the full breakdown, but you can probably influence things. You know, in case you want to take things in anywhere. Or out."
There was humor in the woman's words, which was probably the only thing keeping Gully from dying of embarrassment. "If there was anything happening, it was beyond me."
"Don't give up. I mean, I doubt it's going to go with anything you don't like, but if you have any problems we'll be here." Lethe assured her.
"Really?" She asked.
"Call it a service plan." Apeiron said as he stepped out of a portal into the room. Proto Aima and the Matrix stood behind him, despite the fact that the Matrix was also in the ground beneath them, but the more important thing was the ornate shovel in Apeiron's hands.
Well, spade. It had a silver head and a handle of some kind of opalescent white material, inlaid with a complex pattern that snaked up to the handle. Was light, delicate, like it was an art piece rather than an actual tool. But the most significant thing was the silver material. It wasn't silver. In fact, it felt like…
"Here." Apeiron said, resting the shovel in front of her where it perfectly balanced on the tip. "One power regulator, sufficient to handle flow throttling. Rarefied Rock Dust with a crystalline focus shaft." He paused, then turned to her. "That's the elemental material you've been collecting, but the good version of it."
"I, um, thank you." She said. Apeiron nodded to her and she delicately lifted up the shovel. She could feel a thrum of power from it, both from the unbelievably concentrated elemental energy in the head and the way it seemed to resonate with her own power.
She pulled on that connection, then gasped as the world fell away and suddenly she was looking up at everyone again. The shovel was now oversized in her hands. And then it was perfectly fit for her height. And then it was the size of a toothpick, and suddenly on a small charm bracelet on her wrist. She marveled at the display as Apeiron looked on in amusement.
"Okay, cliff notes first. Shovel has a link to the Workshop, so you can call in if you have any questions or get in any trouble. It is mostly focused on regulation, but there's a level of enhancement to your earth abilities, mostly just from the ability to generate rock from the Dust source. Your current outfit shifts when you change size, but you can store different outfits for both forms. With the focus it's more of an instant transformation than actual growth, at least from an outside perspective." He smiled. "Got all of that?"
She nodded. "I think so."
"Great." He said before turning to Lethe. "Any luck?"
She shook her head. "It's definitely power induced. Something close to mine. Like disturbingly close to mine, but the mechanism is different enough that I can't roll it back. Not without a lot of work or by going technicolor."
Apeiron grimaced. "Yeah, probably best to hold off on that."
"Sorry, what was this about?" Gully asked in confusion.
"Was just seeing if I could fix your memory loss." Lethe said.
Gully's eyes widened. "You can do that?" She hissed.
"Apparently not." Lethe said. "At least not now. Call that your follow-up? Two-week checkup, see how you're adjusting?"
"Shouldn't take that long." Apeiron said. "But sorry that we weren't able to help."
"No." Gully said. "No, after everything, with all of this." she gestured down at her tiny normal body. Then at her transformed state. "It's already too much. Everything, it's just…"
"I'm glad I could help." Apeiron said. "We all are. If we had our way, this would have happened sooner. But you made a world of difference for this city, and I'm glad I was able to return the favor."
"Favor." She sniffed. "And everyone else?" She asked. "The other Case 53s?"
"They're on the list." Apeiron assured her. "Even more so, since Weld traded his full treatment so they could get some level of help."
"He did?" Gully gasped.
"Yep." Apeiron said smartly. "It was so well received that someone issued him another full treatment contract. After the other Case 53s of course, but still on the board."
She let out a short laugh. The emotions were threatening to overwhelm her, but there was one more thing she had to do before it actually became too much.
"I know I don't have a right to ask for anything else, but there's a message I promised to give you." She said, "From Clockblocker."
Apeiron raised an eyebrow as she explained his situation as well as she could.
And then she was back in Brockton Bay. Back in the very alley she had vanished from, only in a new body, with a new costume, and a new shovel that was so elaborate it felt like an insult to refer to it as such. Everything had happened so fast that she had no idea what she was supposed to do next. She had appointments, commitments, but how did you fit those in with everything that had happened. What was she supposed to do next?
Well, she knew that. She knew the one person who would never forgive her if she put off sharing the news. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, still oversized but easier to use with slender fingers. She opened up her contacts and sent Facetime a text.
'I have big news, but I need you not to freak out.'
There was barely a second before the response came in. Responses.
'News?'
'What news?'
'What have you gotten up to?'
'Tell me girl, spill those beans.'
'Come on, don't leave me hanging.'
'Call now.'
Her phone immediately lit up with an incoming video call. Gully took a breath, then answered the phone, holding it up to her face. She saw Facetime on the screen with her half mask and brightly colored hair. She looked confused for a moment, then her eyes widened and a smile split her face.
"Okay, I need you not to freak out about this." Gully said calmly. And was answered with a shriek of excitement that pushed the phone's speaker to its limit and edged into frequencies that only dogs could hear.
So much for keeping things quiet.
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- Miami
Woo! Gully fix!
Edit: This chapter was great in so many way, so many great jokes and heart warming moments. But I think my all time favorite, perhaps even for the whole story so far, has got to be
Edit: This chapter was great in so many way, so many great jokes and heart warming moments. But I think my all time favorite, perhaps even for the whole story so far, has got to be
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Apeiron: Here's the secrets of Passenger Theory confirmed, here's an Amazon transformation, and here's a Divine™ Dust-Infused Shovel. Come back for a check-up in two weeks and we'll have your memories ready for you. Don't worry about the cost, a fine metallic gentleman picked up your check. Have a great day!
It's everything I ever could have asked for.
Did Joe just do the thing he did in Ch100, but better, to use his Forge powers to fix a passenger directly at scale? That is so cool!
This sparks joy. Finally, after such a long wait, Gully gets her big fix.
Now... we get to see the reactions. Because like she's noted several times, Weld was already 'the lucky one'. This is a much more dramatic change. Also one likely to 'confirm' several rumors about Aperion's own (former) monster cape status.
Now... we get to see the reactions. Because like she's noted several times, Weld was already 'the lucky one'. This is a much more dramatic change. Also one likely to 'confirm' several rumors about Aperion's own (former) monster cape status.
Amazing Chapter! loved reading it.
SiegfriedisOP
Calamity Demon King of Time
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hope Everett likes mountain climbing.
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MagnificentMind
To Live is to Suffer
How I imagine the first few threads to pop out will go. Because of course Apeiron's powers decided to turn Gully into a supermodel
THREAD: Who is this bodacious goddess of a woman walking around Boardwalk?
User@JohnSimp:
[PIC]
[PIC]
[PIC]
Who is this woman? I need to find her and have her step on me.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
OK, I need another entire chapter of just Gully and her friends having happy tears.