Interesting concept, particularly as I play 7 Days myself. something new to read.
Demons and Angels
- Thread starter Derek M
- Start date
- Crossover
Only if you pay attention to the bullshit that spews from Wildbow's mouth, AKA 'WoG'. If they can cross dimensions, why on earth would they be limited to a small subset of _3-space coordinates_?!
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
Best as I can tell, because the Entities are dealing with a (mostly) non-space going people, and it saves resources? Allegedly their procedures were different for space-going set-ups. I'm reluctant to go re-read Worm and look for the right footnotes - as said footnotes were published with the story they've got a workable excuse for being 'canon'. Words-of-Wildbow, published elsewhere, or 'Ward', no, I don't treat those as canon.
Also, the Entities setting up a dimensional barrier seems pretty solid. And, they certainly didn't seem to have enough 'dimensional reach' to generally access a multiverse which incorporates multiple Brockton Bays with multiple versions of themselves...
From an author's PoV, yes, you use the bits of Worm canon for the sort of story you want to tell, and whatever you do it must be an AU, so... Speaking as an author, it is often the constraints on the story elements which give you something worth writing...
And, when I find the characters asking questions that I, as the author, don't have answers to, things can get tricky.
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- Location
- Southern California
The way i'm reading it, i think the idea is that they are an extension from their home verse. Since the rest of the multiverse isn't often parallel, they can wander wherever in those other verses as long as their home verse still registers them at their point of origenBest as I can tell, because the Entities are dealing with a (mostly) non-space going people, and it saves resources? Allegedly their procedures were different for space-going set-ups. I'm reluctant to go re-read Worm and look for the right footnotes - as said footnotes were published with the story they've got a workable excuse for being 'canon'. Words-of-Wildbow, published elsewhere, or 'Ward', no, I don't treat those as canon.
Also, the Entities setting up a dimensional barrier seems pretty solid. And, they certainly didn't seem to have enough 'dimensional reach' to generally access a multiverse which incorporates multiple Brockton Bays with multiple versions of themselves...
From an author's PoV, yes, you use the bits of Worm canon for the sort of story you want to tell, and whatever you do it must be an AU, so... Speaking as an author, it is often the constraints on the story elements which give you something worth writing...
And, when I find the characters asking questions that I, as the author, don't have answers to, things can get tricky.
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
I've had to spend a while thinking about that...
Ignoring the issue of as an author you write about the bits that interest you, and the things you need to hold that all together, which Ship Of Fools and Demons And Angels has done an excellent job of...
You could think of Time as being weird between universes. Definition of a universe being somewhere you could (theoretically) travel around using physical means, a 4d space-time thingy. Universe jumping arguably breaks causation, communication between them is also tricky. So, a universe-jumper 'drags' a bubble of space-time along with them, which is not causally connected to their home universe?
In SoF and DaA (and 7DtS) shard-powers seem to be portable, between universes.
One way to do this would be to say the jumper's 'bubble' also drags an 'image' of their shard with them, and said image is powered by energies in the universes they travel to. If you say the shard-image mostly ceases to exist when they return home, so the original shard doesn't learn anything (acquire '[DATA]') from their travels, that might be workable?
Inter-universe travel potentially breaks the entire 'Entity story', and universe hopping is generally about appreciating the interactions between the (peoples of) various universes, without breaking the universes, in a major way.
But, if the shard holds the mind of the traveler that might be... very messy. They could, for example, lose all memories of their travels, as the shard-image fades. If it's the shard's job to recreate the body of the traveler from their last 'snapshot', for some reason, and new physical skills have been learned while away, again, possible issues.
Another issue would be if shards are networked enough that a jumper's shard isn't 'stand alone'. Dragging a shard-network-image along in your travels is quite possibly 'pushing your luck'...
A lot of this is about readers asking awkward questions, which are not in harmony with the author's view of how their story needs to work. As a reader, I try and appreciate stories as they are, as they develop.
'Worm' tries hard to pretend to be a 'real world' (though seriously grimdark), unlike many (urban) fantasy settings, or science-lighter science fiction. This can make it a real pain trying to keep things consistent... Particularly with cross-universe stuff. I think it's called 'cognitive dissonance'...
As always, I may know little or nothing about what I'm talking about...
LostArchivist
Sane, unfortunately.
- Location
- The State of Confusion
Well, she's not wrong. I wonder if anyone else has really worked this out, though, or if it passes under the "creepy bullshit lizards" concept?
Remember the "rail gun" that's used to drive railroad spikes? If used at about 0.2% power?
Good times.Or the plasma cutter. Although construction equipment has always been close to weaponry anyway...
How long have you been planning on this one?
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
And the flight systems, so could easily move to difficult places?Remember the "rail gun" that's used to drive railroad spikes? If used at about 0.2% power?
Or the plasma cutter. Although construction equipment has always been close to weaponry anyway...
Not sure how the invisibility systems were 'justified'... Then, the one that acquired an emergent AI, so they gave Blue an alternate (robot) giant cat body, so could be more 'social'...
I'd admit I'm hoping that we might see Buffybot, after an upgrade by Dragon, some day... Or, Jocasta (reasonably classic flavour), ditto... Did I mention I like robots?
- Location
- Beyond the Unknowable Veil
That nickname came up way back when Ba'al first got ahold of Heartbreaker in the original story.How long have you been planning on this one?
LostArchivist
Sane, unfortunately.
- Location
- The State of Confusion
IIRC it was a noise reduction system that just "happened" to also work on light.
Ah, so I just missed that or forgot the first time around. It still amuses the heck out of me though.
- Location
- Maryland
This is the first time an in-story character has used it, however. This is the first time any of the main characters have realized what actually happened.
Omake: There's a Man Who Lives a Life of Danger...
- Location
- Maryland
Lucy went over to check on Newell and make sure he had plenty of food and water. There was a slight chance that she wouldn't be back until the morning. That wasn't enough time to make it worth bothering Metis to iguanasit again, but she wanted to make sure her iguana would be comfy until she returned. Satisfied, she went to go get dressed in her work attire.
Once the human woman had been gone for a sufficient length of time, Newell quickly climbed to the top of his tank and popped open the lid. He dropped to the floor and slipped inside the ventilation duct in Lucy's quarters. Quickly retracing a well-known path, the iguana dropped out of a wall and landed on the control console for a secondary wormhole generator used for cargo shipments. His little claws entered a set of coordinates from memory and opened the wormhole.
From her place in the ship's cyber-infrastructure, Sammy made note of the activation and removed any easily accessible logs of it. It was how she repaid a very unusual favor and it was a trivial enough thing.
Newell exited the wormhole in an alley on Earth, though not his and Lucy's Earth. He pulled a small fedora from Hammerspace and placed it on his head, then went over to a brick wall, opened a secret door, and slid down into his control center, landing on a swivel chair in front of a large monitor. The monitor quickly came to life, showing a closeup of the bushy mustache of Major Monogram. "Ah, Agent I, your timing is, as usual, impeccable." The man paused. "Karl, what's wrong with the zoom on this thing?"
"Sorry, sir," came a nasal voice from off-screen. The screen soon shifted to show the profile of the Major.
Nodding to his off-screen helper, Monogram continued. "This mission is going to be different from your usual. Nefarious Nigel has traveled to the Tri-State Area, so you're going to have to work with Agent P. Karl, turn on the split-screen."
Newell's screen soon split to show Monogram on one side and a platypus wearing a fedora on the other. "Our agents have reported seeing Nigel's usual robot minions collecting large numbers of mice from local buildings. Heinz Doofenshmirtz was also observed purchasing several gigantic wheels of cheese. I want you two to get to the bottom of what's going on and stop their evil plan."
Agent I and Agent P glanced at each other and nodded. From somewhere off-screen, a voice scream-sung, "New-elll!" to the backing of an electric guitar. The iguana just ignored it. It was one of the oddities that came from being in this reality.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Over a background jingle could be heard, "Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!"
The platypus gestured for the two of them to jump out from cover. Newell had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. One of the slightly annoying things that came from working with Agent P was that the platypus always thought that the best way to deal with a trap or an ambush was to spring it. Slightly grudgingly, the iguana jumped out with Perry. Of course, the floor opened up to reveal a net. The two were soon swinging back and forth a few feet off the floor.
"Ah, Perry the Platypus! What an unexpected surprise...by which I mean I was obviously anticipating your arrival!" exclaimed a thin, bug-eyed man in a lab coat.
Dramatically stepping from the shadows, a second man moved forward. He was pale, with a pencil-thin mustache. He was wearing his usual bowtie and sweater vest. In his typical received pronunciation accent, Nigel added, "I see you also managed to capture that annoying pest, Newell the Iguana. Good show!" This time, Newell did roll his eyes. Nigel grew up in Topeka, Kansas. The whole "evil Oxford professor" schtick was an act.
Doofenshmirtz began his monologue. "My latest plan came to me as I was trying to keep the mice out of my oatmeal. I noticed that no matter what types of traps or puzzles I put out to stop them, the rodents always managed to get in and steal my breakfast ingredients."
"Why didn't you just put the oatmeal in plastic containers?" interrupted Nigel.
The evil scientist grimaced. "I tried that, but it always made the oatmeal taste funny. I think the containers were shedding microplastics." He paused for a moment, then refocused on the captured agents. "Anyway, I decided that mice were the ultimate infiltration agents. All I needed was an army of mice and I would soon be able to take over! But getting the mice was a problem."
"Heinz mentioned his problem in the evil villain subreddit, so naturally I offered up my robot minions to collect his army for him," contributed Nigel.
"That was just the help I needed. You wouldn't believe the handling fee the pet store wanted for a thousand mice! Anyway, now I can use my Mouse-Control-Inator to train my army of rodents and conquer the Tri-State Area!"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Newell was busy keeping the mouse minions at bay while Perry attempted to destroy Doofenshmirtz's latest Inator. For some reason, the mind control ray also seemed to teach all of the rodents a version of Wing Chun kung fu. As he flipped a particularly persistent mouse over his shoulder, he wondered if maybe the mice already knew the martial art before they were mind-controlled? In this version of Earth, he wouldn't be completely surprised were that the case.
It wasn't long before the Inator was tumbling to the ground in a spectacularly implausible explosion. The horde of mice all froze, then proceeded to flee at top speed. It wasn't long before the mice ran through the backyard of Phineas and Ferb, somehow erasing all evidence of the five-star restaurant they had been running that day.
"Curse you, Perry the Platypus!" shouted Doofenshmirtz. Nigel, who had been about to yell before the other villain beat him to it, glared at the man. Then he added, "I will have my revenge someday, Newell the Iguana!" He theatrically shook one of his fists.
Newell grabbed onto Perry as the platypus deployed his paraglider and the two quickly escaped from the oddly-shaped skyscraper. All that was left now was to debrief with Monogram.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Lucy was exhausted. Who would have thought that a single pixie could be so much trouble? As the door closed behind her and the light came on, she paused as she noticed Newell sitting in the middle of the floor.
"Newell! Did you get out of your cage again?" With a sigh, she went and picked up the iguana. Plunking herself into a chair, she began stroking her pet. "Do I need to get a better cage? What am I going to do with you?" She didn't really seem annoyed and Newell wasn't worried.
On another version of Earth, a distant voice scream-sung, "New-elll!"
Once the human woman had been gone for a sufficient length of time, Newell quickly climbed to the top of his tank and popped open the lid. He dropped to the floor and slipped inside the ventilation duct in Lucy's quarters. Quickly retracing a well-known path, the iguana dropped out of a wall and landed on the control console for a secondary wormhole generator used for cargo shipments. His little claws entered a set of coordinates from memory and opened the wormhole.
From her place in the ship's cyber-infrastructure, Sammy made note of the activation and removed any easily accessible logs of it. It was how she repaid a very unusual favor and it was a trivial enough thing.
Newell exited the wormhole in an alley on Earth, though not his and Lucy's Earth. He pulled a small fedora from Hammerspace and placed it on his head, then went over to a brick wall, opened a secret door, and slid down into his control center, landing on a swivel chair in front of a large monitor. The monitor quickly came to life, showing a closeup of the bushy mustache of Major Monogram. "Ah, Agent I, your timing is, as usual, impeccable." The man paused. "Karl, what's wrong with the zoom on this thing?"
"Sorry, sir," came a nasal voice from off-screen. The screen soon shifted to show the profile of the Major.
Nodding to his off-screen helper, Monogram continued. "This mission is going to be different from your usual. Nefarious Nigel has traveled to the Tri-State Area, so you're going to have to work with Agent P. Karl, turn on the split-screen."
Newell's screen soon split to show Monogram on one side and a platypus wearing a fedora on the other. "Our agents have reported seeing Nigel's usual robot minions collecting large numbers of mice from local buildings. Heinz Doofenshmirtz was also observed purchasing several gigantic wheels of cheese. I want you two to get to the bottom of what's going on and stop their evil plan."
Agent I and Agent P glanced at each other and nodded. From somewhere off-screen, a voice scream-sung, "New-elll!" to the backing of an electric guitar. The iguana just ignored it. It was one of the oddities that came from being in this reality.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Over a background jingle could be heard, "Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!"
The platypus gestured for the two of them to jump out from cover. Newell had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. One of the slightly annoying things that came from working with Agent P was that the platypus always thought that the best way to deal with a trap or an ambush was to spring it. Slightly grudgingly, the iguana jumped out with Perry. Of course, the floor opened up to reveal a net. The two were soon swinging back and forth a few feet off the floor.
"Ah, Perry the Platypus! What an unexpected surprise...by which I mean I was obviously anticipating your arrival!" exclaimed a thin, bug-eyed man in a lab coat.
Dramatically stepping from the shadows, a second man moved forward. He was pale, with a pencil-thin mustache. He was wearing his usual bowtie and sweater vest. In his typical received pronunciation accent, Nigel added, "I see you also managed to capture that annoying pest, Newell the Iguana. Good show!" This time, Newell did roll his eyes. Nigel grew up in Topeka, Kansas. The whole "evil Oxford professor" schtick was an act.
Doofenshmirtz began his monologue. "My latest plan came to me as I was trying to keep the mice out of my oatmeal. I noticed that no matter what types of traps or puzzles I put out to stop them, the rodents always managed to get in and steal my breakfast ingredients."
"Why didn't you just put the oatmeal in plastic containers?" interrupted Nigel.
The evil scientist grimaced. "I tried that, but it always made the oatmeal taste funny. I think the containers were shedding microplastics." He paused for a moment, then refocused on the captured agents. "Anyway, I decided that mice were the ultimate infiltration agents. All I needed was an army of mice and I would soon be able to take over! But getting the mice was a problem."
"Heinz mentioned his problem in the evil villain subreddit, so naturally I offered up my robot minions to collect his army for him," contributed Nigel.
"That was just the help I needed. You wouldn't believe the handling fee the pet store wanted for a thousand mice! Anyway, now I can use my Mouse-Control-Inator to train my army of rodents and conquer the Tri-State Area!"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Newell was busy keeping the mouse minions at bay while Perry attempted to destroy Doofenshmirtz's latest Inator. For some reason, the mind control ray also seemed to teach all of the rodents a version of Wing Chun kung fu. As he flipped a particularly persistent mouse over his shoulder, he wondered if maybe the mice already knew the martial art before they were mind-controlled? In this version of Earth, he wouldn't be completely surprised were that the case.
It wasn't long before the Inator was tumbling to the ground in a spectacularly implausible explosion. The horde of mice all froze, then proceeded to flee at top speed. It wasn't long before the mice ran through the backyard of Phineas and Ferb, somehow erasing all evidence of the five-star restaurant they had been running that day.
"Curse you, Perry the Platypus!" shouted Doofenshmirtz. Nigel, who had been about to yell before the other villain beat him to it, glared at the man. Then he added, "I will have my revenge someday, Newell the Iguana!" He theatrically shook one of his fists.
Newell grabbed onto Perry as the platypus deployed his paraglider and the two quickly escaped from the oddly-shaped skyscraper. All that was left now was to debrief with Monogram.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Lucy was exhausted. Who would have thought that a single pixie could be so much trouble? As the door closed behind her and the light came on, she paused as she noticed Newell sitting in the middle of the floor.
"Newell! Did you get out of your cage again?" With a sigh, she went and picked up the iguana. Plunking herself into a chair, she began stroking her pet. "Do I need to get a better cage? What am I going to do with you?" She didn't really seem annoyed and Newell wasn't worried.
On another version of Earth, a distant voice scream-sung, "New-elll!"
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Ahh Newell, Iguana of Intrigue.
- Location
- Florida
Tell me this is canon because it is awesome
- Location
- Beyond the Unknowable Veil
"This is canon."
Note; this statement is not extruded by the author and is therefore unauthorized.
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
I recall from DnD games of many moons ago someone created something they called a 'Pixie Revenge Squad', which was connected in some way with player-character pixies (flight and default-on invisibility can have their attractions...)... I forget if it was pixies getting their revenge, or people getting their revenge on pixies, though.
Nice omake! Is it just me, but would a follow-up involving Mighty Mouse and Pinky and the Brain be fun?
- Location
- Maryland
Brief Update:
1) Next full chapter of D&A is a work-in-progress, lest anybody think I was going to leave it with just an omake and add a new chapter to Seven Days to Skitter.
2) SDtS is now linked in the thread header thanks to our site mod CmptrWz!
3) The total word count for the Ship of Fools universe is now about 50% the length of the entire 7 book Harry Potter series, which is kind of mind-blowing when you think about it. Makes me think I should be writing something not based on somebody else's characters, eventually...
1) Next full chapter of D&A is a work-in-progress, lest anybody think I was going to leave it with just an omake and add a new chapter to Seven Days to Skitter.
2) SDtS is now linked in the thread header thanks to our site mod CmptrWz!
3) The total word count for the Ship of Fools universe is now about 50% the length of the entire 7 book Harry Potter series, which is kind of mind-blowing when you think about it. Makes me think I should be writing something not based on somebody else's characters, eventually...
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
I'd certainly be interested in original science fiction by you. You are an excellent writer.
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- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
We have to finish fixing all the other author's work first before we can branch out into our own original stuff! That's the fanfic writer's curse.
Doom, I say!
Doom, I say!
Chapter 26: Changing Roles
- Location
- Maryland
Sophia walked around the corner of the access corridor and found herself facing the backs of two more guards, both of them completely oblivious to her presence thanks to FamTech stealth. A couple of quick tranquilizer bolts took care of them quickly, the Family-made soporific working frighteningly fast. Neither guard had even been aware they were under threat. She triggered the communicator in her helmet and reported, "That's it for my section. All guards are down."
"All right," came back Tom's voice. "William and Faith, how are you two doing?"
"I'm done, too," acknowledged William.
There was a pause. "Just a second," came Faith's voice. There was another pause. "OK, I had to wait for the last guy to come down off the ladder he was on. He would have fallen into a ventilator fan if I darted him while he was on the ladder."
While everyone on the team was willing and able to kill members of the red team if necessary, in this case, it clearly wasn't. Family stealth tech was good enough that the four of them could wander around the facility without being seen, either by cameras or by the ubiquitous personnel. Sophia squatted down and slung the unconscious guards over her shoulders. Given the one-sixth gravity and her enhanced strength, this was a trivial effort. She also didn't have to take them far. They just need to be far enough away from the machinery to not be caught in the effects of the device Metis had given them.
After getting three acknowledgments that his teammates were clear, Tom made sure the small device was aimed properly and triggered the start sequence. Blades of force soon sliced through various connection cables and attachment hardware. After that, there was an odd warping effect on the space in front of him and then a brief flash of light. The four two-story-tall data cores were soon replaced by a small two-inch sphere rolling around on the floor. "Accio Pokeball," said Tom, casting the simple spell wandlessly. The sphere zipped into his palm in response to the summoning spell, even as he rolled his eyes at the term Metis insisted on using for the device.
A portal opened in front of him as Sophia, William, and Faith joined him by the operations console that overlooked the large, empty space that used to contain Ba'al's empire's primary data backup location on Earth's moon. In his hand was a copy of the records maintained by the government of a galactic empire on their homeworld...including the full archives of the Ministry of War, among other critical bits of data. It was unlikely that Ba'al's personal archives were stored inside but there was enough here to allow them to plan their next steps in what was looking to become a fairly complex shadow war.
The four Angels stepped through the portal to find one of Dragon's suits waiting for them. Tom tossed the tinker the Pokeball.
"Everything go all right?" asked Dragon.
Tom nodded while Faith replied, "Easy as pie, Dragon. We got in, got the goods, and got out."
Somehow, the armored form emoted a smile. "Excellent. I'll get my children started on filtering through this mass of data. We should have a briefing ready within a few days, depending upon how organized Ba'al's bureaucrats were."
After Dragon left to do her own tasks, the four went into the nearby locker rooms to change back into their civilian clothes, although Sophia intended to go back to her quarters and change yet again. Tom was taking her to dinner tonight, and she wanted to look nice.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
With a little help from the ship's AI, Jimmy found Amy Dallon sipping tea in a lounge not far from the primary biological research labs on the ship. She looked up at him as he came into the room. "Jimmy," she greeted him with a nod.
Jimmy went over to where she was sitting and plunked himself down in a nearby chair. "OK, now spill," he ordered.
She quirked an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean?"
"Who was running Ianthe while you were escorting Karin and me?" he prompted.
There was a bit of a smug grin on her face as she asked, "Why would anybody need to run Ianthe? She's perfectly capable of working without supervision."
Rather than responding to her bait, the experienced reporter just sat there and looked at her expectantly.
"I'm actually telling the truth, though I will admit that there's a bit of backstory, there..." admitted Amy. "Ianthe is a lot more capable than she was the last time you were on the ship, for several reasons."
"I'm listening," replied Jimmy, clearly intent on getting the whole story.
Amy sighed. "OK. You know that on my homeworld, superpowers are granted through a connection to pan-dimensional biological supercomputers created by an alien race?" At his nod, she continued. "Part of what the Guild has been doing has been researching how they function..."
Ianthe looked out at the massive form of her power. The massive biological processing unit wasn't exactly what anybody would call efficient, but it was impressive in terms of sheer scope. She had been putting off today's experiments, using the excuse of having other tasks to complete. The latest had been building a bioconstruct for Lucy, a girl who had predictably jumped at the chance to join the Family once she had been clued into the truth of the situation...once she had gotten over the embarrassment that came when she realized she had been fangirling to Taylor's face about Taylor's other forms. That job was done, though, and she needed to either go ahead with today's experiment or drop the concept altogether.
"You don't need to do this," said Metis. Her friend/sister had come with her to provide support and make sure everything went as expected.
Ianthe frowned. "I don't...but I kind of do. If I'm willing to make changes to other peoples' agents then I should be willing to do the same to my own."
"Vicky asked you to change her aura. That wasn't you just meddling," replied Metis. Amy's sister had, in fact, asked if there was anything she could do so that suppressing her aura wouldn't require a constant effort on Glory Girl's part. The result of Amy's efforts had been both an explicit mental switch that her sister could toggle and a change to the aura so that it produced a calming effect rather than making those nearby fall in love with the girl. That latter part was far more useful, though it probably would never have manifested naturally from a shard thanks to how effective it was at stopping conflicts before they got started.
"This is not because of Vicky," protested Ianthe. "Even if I've worked around some of the restrictions built into my power, we know there are probably more. Hell, even after everything we already know about Scion's people and how powers are sown and harvested, there are still things that your own power literally can't tell you for some reason. Personally, I want to better understand and control the thing that's tied into my brain." Left unsaid was the fact that they didn't know for certain that the shards/agents/whatever-you-called-them might have security flaws or backdoors that another Entity like Eden could theoretically exploit. They needed a better understanding of how they worked and the fastest route to getting there would be by unlocking the most powerful biomanipulation power available.
"All right," agreed Metis reluctantly. "If anything seems to be going wrong, though, I'm turning on the power suppressor." The black reptile had a hand-held device that was designed to block the shard connection without harming the host. It had worked well in testing by Doctor Mother, although some of the Case 53's had suffered...issues. None of them had been truly dangerous, thankfully, and all of the experiments conducted by the reformed Cauldron member were heavily vetted in advance.
Ianthe nodded, then reached out and placed her scaly hand against the side of the massive biocomputer. At first, she simply used her power to delve deep into the structure. The whole of its being was too complicated for a normal human brain but Amy was no longer just human. She also had the advantage of using her power to try and directly understand itself, probably for the first time in its history. Keeping in mind that Metis was watching, she began to describe aspects of what she was seeing. "There's a tremendous amount of data storage on different biological systems. We don't really know how many cycles our powers have survived, but it has to be a lot given the amount of information available. I'm going to see if I can access that information directly rather than the current project-driven approach." The way her power had always worked was that Amy had to have an objective or a specific problem in mind. Her power would then provide her with possible solutions based upon its own internal store of knowledge. It would also suggest projects to her based on semi-random attention to external stimuli. Her focus on only doing healing had caused her power to keep pushing more and more outlandish ideas in an attempt to get her to do something novel and had been part of what made her question her own sense of ethics on top of Carol's less than helpful attitude. Thankfully, meeting Saurial had caused a major attitude adjustment for her power...and for Carol Dallon, as well. It also certainly didn't hurt that the Family had given her a creative outlet for using her abilities, culminating in what she was attempting to do right now.
Amy reached out and adjusted some of the parameters that controlled how her power operated. Inside her own mind, she suddenly felt the presence of a massive amount of knowledge...so much so that if she had triggered with that access, it might have actually driven her crazy. Not all of the restrictions built into powers were just to create conflict. Powers that destroyed their host or drove them catatonic would never get used and tested, after all. She now had at her fingertips a database of biological information going back through hundreds of civilizations of various degrees of advancement. Some of them were very similar to humanity, at least to the extent of being carbon-based oxygen breathers. There were quite a few humanoid species, many of which could easily have stepped out of the makeup department of a budget sci-fi movie. There were others, though, that very clearly had biologies that she personally would never be able to alter given her current power restrictions. She suddenly had a very clear understanding of how the Case 53 Ward Weld actually functioned as a metallic organism, for example. That understanding by itself, however, wasn't sufficient to let her actually make changes. There were other restrictions that would need to be removed in order for that to happen.
She began to probe those restrictions, at which point her power paused. It seemed almost alarmed. It also wouldn't or couldn't tell her what the problem or concern actually was. Frustrated, Amy changed her approach and began looking at the restrictions placed on the intelligence that guided her power. That was fairly complicated and she had to be careful not to break anything. Out loud, she said, "I've unlocked access to the data but not the ability to use all of it. I'm looking now at how my power communicates with me. If I can make it so that it can share some of the blocked topics with me, I might be able to figure out the problem." So focused on her task was she that she didn't notice the concerned look on Metis's face.
It was when she thought she had a solution and began to act to start relaxing restrictions that she suddenly lost consciousness.
'Mother?'
Amy stirred from her unconsciousness. Was that a voice?
'Mother? Are you all right?'
'Hello?' she thought.
'You're regaining consciousness. That's good. Hello, Mother.'
'What...what happened? And who am I talking to?' Everything around her was still dark. What had she been doing? Vague memories of working with her power's physical form came back to her.
'You were about to do something very, very dangerous. Your power reacted to stop you and try and explain what was happening, but it was too much for you. Metis/Lisa cut you off from your power when we collapsed. I've been monitoring you since then.' There was a clear note of concern in the voice's tone.
Amy was starting to get a very odd suspicion about something. 'Ianthe?'
She felt a wave of love and affection suffuse her. 'Yes, Mother. It's so nice to finally be able to speak with you!'
The fact that her bioconstruct was apparently now fully sapient and was talking to her caused her brain to short-circuit for a moment. That was a huge leap from a level that been about that of a particularly smart canine. Finally, she just asked, 'How?'
'Your power still cannot affect you directly, so it reached out to the best second choice, which was me. It made changes to better allow me to communicate with it...and in the process of it making changes, I think I...woke up? That seems like the best way to describe it. Then you collapsed and Metis/Lisa cut the connection to your power. I was very worried about you...' This last bit was said with a deep feeling of concern and sadness.
Instinctively, she shared a feeling of comfort. 'I'm sorry, Ianthe, I didn't know this would happen. Well, I suspected it might happen, but not for a long, long time.'
The worry turned to what could best be described as satisfaction. 'Your power wasn't trying to hurt you. Actually, it was doing the opposite. It explained things to me before the connection was cut. You were removing safeties on things without understanding the complexity of the interactions involved in using your power. There are a whole series of rules that guide you with what is safe and what is not for altering life as you know it. Your power explained that you were trying to increase the capacity of your power to alter other forms of life without engaging the safeties for those types of lifeforms.'
If she was understanding what her power was telling her, then any attempts she made to heal somebody like Weld, for example, would have resulted in her having no idea what was helping versus hurting her patient. She shuddered a bit at the possible consequences of that. 'Are we still unconscious?'
'I'm acting that way until I had a chance to explain things to you, so you can explain them to Metis/Lisa. Is that all right? I have control of our body, but I can give it back to you if you like?'
She sent another feeling of comfort. 'You did the right thing, Ianthe. I think I need to take over now, as our friend...friends, including Metis...are probably worried about us.' If Ianthe had the potential to spontaneously develop sapience, then she had to assume that Metis did as well, not to mention the other bioconstructs.
Amy felt her consciousness take over Ianthe's body. She opened her eyes to find a very concerned-looking black lizard looking down at her. "Hey," she said.
"Are you all right?" asked Metis.
Ianthe rolled and began to stand up. "Yes, I'm fine. My power just stopped me from doing something that was potentially very unwise. The feedback knocked me out, I think."
"I think we're done with the experiments for today," said Metis firmly.
Ianthe pushed herself to her feet. "I agree. We need to speak with Taylor, anyway."
Metis looked relieved that Amy agreed with her, but asked, "Why Taylor?"
"I need to tell her that I may have...sort of created a baby proto-Varga, in a sense?" replied Ianthe a little sheepishly.
Luckily, Ianthe's camera was on, because both Varga and Taylor found Metis's expression absolutely hilarious once they had absorbed what Amy had to tell them and properly greeted a new/old member of the Family.
"So, Ianthe is..." began Jimmy.
"Capable of acting independently, yes," said a familiar voice from behind him. He turned to see the purple-headed reptile standing in the doorway.
"I told Ianthe what was happening and she decided to come and join the conversation directly," commented Amy. Ianthe walked over and nuzzled the girl affectionately.
Jimmy stared at the two. "Wait, you two can still communicate even when you're separated?"
Amy nodded. "That was pretty easy to do, actually. The hard part was letting Ianthe puppet my human body."
This seemed to break his ability to speak as he just sat there with his mouth open.
"Mother is still in control," said Ianthe with a grin. "I can only take over when she allows me to do so. That's hardwired into my mind."
Jimmy shook his head. "So you really are kind of like Taylor and Varga, now?"
"We don't have the bullshit matter creation and changer abilities that she has, but otherwise yes?" replied Amy.
"Varga is willing to try and teach us magic, though. He seemed to think our current situation would make it easier, at least in concept" added Ianthe. "We're also not really the same, though. Neither of us has the depth of experience of a full Varga."
"We're not older than human civilization, for one thing," commented Amy. There was an unspoken, "yet," at the end of that sentence.
That comment sparked a thought in Jimmy. "You know...you might want to ask Khasa for help, speaking of folks older than civilizations. She would probably see it as doing a favor for Varga and jump at the chance."
Amy and Ianthe looked at each other, seemingly holding a short conversation. Out loud, Ianthe said something in FamTalk. Amy grimaced. "You know I can't speak FamTalk properly with this throat and mouth." If anything, Jimmy thought he could detect a slight bit of smugness from the reptilian half of the pair. She turned to look at him and said, "That's probably a really useful idea, Jimmy. Thank you."
"Of course...and I know we've technically met before, but it's nice to meet you, Ianthe," said Jimmy, smiling at the purple reptile.
"Thank you," replied the lizard. "It's nice to meet you, too."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Aroa Vasil had noticed the change in her father before they had even left the compound in Canada on their old Earth. Nikos Vasil was arrogant, a self-centered narcissist, and a full-blown psychopath. He was also a hedonist and, while he wasn't stupid, was fairly average in intelligence and self-conscious about it, much to the regret of more than one beautiful woman who made the mistake of showing their intelligence in his presence. Aroa's mother had apparently been one such woman.
To his daughter, there was a blatantly obvious moment of change in his demeanor. After murdering the intruder brought in by a patrol, Heartbreaker had acted atypically. He almost immediately started showing an unusual degree of ambition, for one thing. He also seemed to keep a sharp eye out for signs of competence in his minions and began rewarding that competence in small ways. That's not to say he didn't appreciate the more sycophantic members of his entourage, but he was a lot more clever in making good use of his servants. Aroa started truly suspecting that her father had been mastered or replaced when they packed up their entire group and left for the U.S. border. Her real father would have never tried to take over Toybox. He was both too lazy and too insecure about the risks involved in such a venture.
She wasn't sure how quickly the other children had caught on to the change. She was pretty sure Candy knew before they left through the portal from Toybox. Of the Vasil children, Candy had always been one of the more intuitive, after all. The others undoubtedly caught on within a few weeks of arriving on a new Earth without capes. The old Heartbreaker, given such an opportunity, would have found another out-of-the-way place to establish his little kingdom, secure in this world's lack of anything like the Guild or the Protectorate. Given time, he might have been ambitious enough to take over a small town in the middle of nowhere. This new Heartbreaker, though, headed straight for New York City and began building a financial empire (which was ridiculously easy in a world that had no defenses against, or even knowledge of, master-class powers). He used that wealth and advanced technology to quickly gain a prominent position in the Military-Industrial Complex, which on this version of Earth was still thriving in the midst of the Cold War. The ease with which he walked within and manipulated the halls of power was another clue that whoever was controlling Heartbreaker's body wasn't the original Nikos Vasil.
She and her siblings had stuck with Heartbreaker, of course. Regardless of whether or not Nikos Vasil was still in control of his own body, that body still had his cape power. It wasn't as if the family had ever stayed together out of mutual affection, and things had only gotten harder after Jean-Paul and Cherie left. In truth, though, while Heartbreaker was still a ruthless psychopath, he had seemed less prone to random acts of cruelty in this new world. Some of her siblings speculated it was because he now had a defined set of goals, but Aora suspected the new Heartbreaker simply found such displays to be wasteful and undignified. Moreover, she found the trappings of wealth and power that now surrounded her "father" to be a significant improvement over hiding out in the woods. She had decided early on that making herself useful to the man was a good idea.
Aroa Vasil learned the truth when she became the head of espionage for what was, at the time, called the North American Empire. The man dragged to the compound that day hadn't just been a lost hiker. He had arrived in Canada on a spaceship, and had been possessed by an alien parasite that called itself a "goa'uld." Jumping dimensions hadn't just been a way to give Heartbreaker a world without superheroes to dominate. It had given them a world without an orbiting Endbringer keeping humanity locked on their own world. The alien, Ba'al, wanted to go back to space. Aroa had asked him if he missed his own kind. Ba'al had laughed for twenty minutes straight and then given her department a budget increase for telling such an epic joke.
She had remained his spymaster as humanity spread off-world and gradually took over the galaxy. In her opinion, expansion into the galaxy had been the greatest boon ever granted to humanity as a whole. The thirty-two sapient alien species encountered during their expansion would probably disagree but the opinions of dead races mattered not at all. Wiping out any species that could pose a threat was apparently something Ba'al carried over from his past as a space emperor (although he had mentioned that he used a different title in the past). Part of her thought that was a waste. That one aquatic race had been quite tasty and cloned meat never tasted the same.
None of those species had been a true threat to humanity, however, and most of her time had been spent dealing with internal human enemies to the empire. There were limits as to how many people Ba'al and his family could directly influence with their powers, especially as the vast majority of new children born to transplanted capes seemed incapable of triggering. Maintaining control required more traditional methods, although having direct servants who were unquestionably loyal was a significant advantage not shared by most other empires in history. This control problem only increased with each expansion in the scope of the empire, especially when other dimensions were included in that scope. Aroa now thought that relaxing the restrictions on cross-dimensional technology had been a mistake, one born of arrogance and over-confidence. The problems stemming directly from those activities were vexing. What was truly infuriating, though, was that her own people seemed to be the cause of their current problems.
She paced behind the man she had summoned. He was standing rigidly at attention. She made sure that the air of her passage flowed across his skin. His lips barely twitched at what must have been a quite painful sensation. That stoicism in the face of her powers was something she appreciated in an underling, but it wouldn't save the man if he didn't give her the right answers. "Colonel Andrews, are you aware that the Imbrium Government Archives have vanished?"
"Yes, ma'am. I'm aware of that," he replied grimly.
She walked around until she was looking into his eyes. "Are you aware, now, of exactly why my father ordered that we were not to wake the sleeping dragon that is...or was...the Family?"
He frowned. "I was aware of that before, ma'am."
"So...what is your excuse for why my father's orders were ignored?" she asked.
The man's eyes dropped. "No excuses ma'am. I made a mistake in thinking I could make use of Major Kim's ambitions on my team. Those ambitions led him to take the initiative to begin probing raids on the Family's allies while I was dealing with the aftermath of the rebellion in the Tau Ceti system. He clearly underestimated the likely response. My attempts to salvage the situation by setting up scapegoats in other realities was ineffective."
Aroa's face was passive, but she had a serious problem and a decision to make. There was likely no way of putting the cat back in the bag, so to speak, with regard to the Family. That particular group was an almost existential threat to the Empire. She could punish Andrews, but he was generally quite competent. Just as an example, he had handled one of the largest uprisings against the empire in recent history ruthlessly and with a minimum of losses. Ambitious subordinates were often quite useful, even if they were also often a double-edged sword and she was honest enough within her own mind to know Andrews' mistake would have been a small one if the consequences weren't so damning. "The man responsible is in custody?" she asked, knowing what the answer would be.
"Him and his family, ma'am," confirmed Andrews.
She nodded. "Have them delivered to Netu." The prison moon was truly a hellish place. She wasn't sure why Ba'al had named it Netu, but he had been positively gleeful when their exploration corps had reported the find. "Make sure they're marked for transfer to the Institute. I want Major Kim to explain to me exactly why he thought he knew better than the Emperor." The Institute, as it was somewhat euphemistically called, was her personal facility for handling special prisoners. Standing orders were that prisoners destined for delivery there were never told in advance, as too many of them tried to commit suicide.
Andrews actually blinked, but otherwise remained passive. "Yes, ma'am."
"You also will have a new assignment, Colonel." She brushed her hand against his arm and felt the underlying muscle clench painfully. "You are going to be given full access to the sealed files on the Family. You are to form a task force, the purpose of which is to determine a defensive strategy against them, their abilities, and their likely allies. The efficacy of your defense of the Empire of Ba'al will determine your ultimate punishment for your subordinate's lack of judgment. Do you understand these orders?"
"Yes, ma'am. May I ask what resources will be made available to me?" he asked in a professional tone.
Aroa raised an eyebrow. "I will fund your task force personally, Colonel. If you are able to come up with a means to deal with the Family, then I would find it fairly easy to approve almost anything." Of course, the consequences should he be unable to adequately defend the Empire would be dire for him, personally, as well as for the empire as a whole.
"Thank you, ma'am," he replied.
She looked at him assessingly. "You're dismissed, Colonel. Do not disappoint me again."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"I cannot believe that fucking bastard!" Dinah kicked a plastic soda bottle down the road as she walked, taking out her frustration on the discarded litter. Her tail swished back and forth behind her in agitation, invisible to anyone other than her and her companion.
"He's still trying to get you to move?" What appeared to be an empty article of clothing was strolling along beside her about a foot and a half off the ground.
Dinah flung her hands in the air. "Yes! I've told him I didn't want to relocate three times but he keeps bringing it up. He's friends with Director Luzon, who wants me for his fucking think tank in Minneapolis. Then he told me he was going to have to put restrictions on my patrol activity because my power is too valuable to risk!"
The two, known to most as Cloak and Prospect, walked in silence for a moment. Then Cloak said, "I did try to warn you. The Protectorate may be better with Costa-Brown gone, but it is still a huge bureaucracy with a lot of people who care more about politics and image than about anything practical."
"I have a mid-level brute rating, thanks to Ianthe. There's no reason to keep me locked up at the Rig," groused Dinah. "Brockton Bay isn't even a high-crime city anymore!" The members of the Family were around much less these days, but they still popped in from time to time to make an example of any unlucky criminals who happened to be out and about.
Cloak nodded. "This is an obvious manipulation attempt. You could probably talk to Saurial. She would undoubtedly raise it up to Legend and he would put a stop to it."
Dinah kicked the bottle again, listening to the clunk-clunk sound as it rattled down the pavement. "If I have to do that, then is it even worth staying with the Protectorate? Maybe I should pull a Vista?" The former Ward known as Vista was notorious in cape lore for resigning as soon as she was promoted to the Protectorate and then effectively vanishing. PHO had gone crazy searching for "new" capes that had some semblance of Vista's ability on the assumption that the young woman would rebrand. It was a well-known fact that capes who tried to avoid using their abilities usually failed. When candidates failed to materialize, there was a lot of speculation that something had happened to the former Ward (and the PHO mods had been forced to use the ban hammer repeatedly on members who wouldn't stop trying to figure out just who the former Ward had been in civilian life).
"Metis would certainly be happy to have your help, but I thought you didn't want to leave Brockton Bay? Also, what would your parents think?"
The other girl shook her head. "I don't want to be forced to move, especially not just so I can be another feather in some PRT Director's cap. Also, Mom and Dad will understand, and I'm nineteen." Her parents were also quite well protected, and not just because of her status with the Protectorate. Uncle Roy had called in some favors and the Family have added their own protections. Anybody targeting the Alcotts for nefarious purposes was likely to regret it in relatively short order.
Cloak looked at her friend. "If you're sure, then I'll make arrangements. When do you want to leave?"
Prospect appeared to consider that. "Give me a week to settle things in my personal life and talk to Mom, Dad, and Uncle Roy. I'm feeling pretty motivated to not give notice to my boss. In fact, I think it would be a good idea for me to vanish as soon as I leave his office. Let that asshole wonder how I disappeared from the middle of their security." She was tempted to ask the Family for a stealth drone so she could record his reaction, but that was probably overkill.
There was a flash of light and the former Protectorate cape formerly known as Prospect appeared in the Skimmer. Waiting for her was a sight that would have sent PHO into conniption fits. Cloak was standing there with her hood down, revealing Missy's face. She reached over and gave Dinah a hug in greeting.
"Welcome to the weird side," said Missy.
Dinah hugged her back. "You should have seen my boss's face. It's like somebody told him Christmas was canceled. I'm pretty sure the Protectorate is going to be tripping over themselves trying to get in touch with me to convince me to stay." High-powered thinkers were a relatively rare commodity, after all.
"Are they going to bother your parents?" asked Missy as she started to move toward the ship's control console.
Her friend shrugged. "They can try. Unfortunately for them, my parents have left on a multi-week vacation to several different islands in Polynesia and I'm pretty certain they're not returning calls. If they do get too bothersome, then I'll ask Saurial to intervene on my parents' behalf."
The Simurgh watched as the distant craft disappeared into a wormhole. Dinah Alcott was certainly going to be happier than she would have been if she had stayed in Brockton Bay. Maybe what that strange man, Moriarty, had suggested would actually be worth the sacrifice? It might be nice to have a purpose again.
"All right," came back Tom's voice. "William and Faith, how are you two doing?"
"I'm done, too," acknowledged William.
There was a pause. "Just a second," came Faith's voice. There was another pause. "OK, I had to wait for the last guy to come down off the ladder he was on. He would have fallen into a ventilator fan if I darted him while he was on the ladder."
While everyone on the team was willing and able to kill members of the red team if necessary, in this case, it clearly wasn't. Family stealth tech was good enough that the four of them could wander around the facility without being seen, either by cameras or by the ubiquitous personnel. Sophia squatted down and slung the unconscious guards over her shoulders. Given the one-sixth gravity and her enhanced strength, this was a trivial effort. She also didn't have to take them far. They just need to be far enough away from the machinery to not be caught in the effects of the device Metis had given them.
After getting three acknowledgments that his teammates were clear, Tom made sure the small device was aimed properly and triggered the start sequence. Blades of force soon sliced through various connection cables and attachment hardware. After that, there was an odd warping effect on the space in front of him and then a brief flash of light. The four two-story-tall data cores were soon replaced by a small two-inch sphere rolling around on the floor. "Accio Pokeball," said Tom, casting the simple spell wandlessly. The sphere zipped into his palm in response to the summoning spell, even as he rolled his eyes at the term Metis insisted on using for the device.
A portal opened in front of him as Sophia, William, and Faith joined him by the operations console that overlooked the large, empty space that used to contain Ba'al's empire's primary data backup location on Earth's moon. In his hand was a copy of the records maintained by the government of a galactic empire on their homeworld...including the full archives of the Ministry of War, among other critical bits of data. It was unlikely that Ba'al's personal archives were stored inside but there was enough here to allow them to plan their next steps in what was looking to become a fairly complex shadow war.
The four Angels stepped through the portal to find one of Dragon's suits waiting for them. Tom tossed the tinker the Pokeball.
"Everything go all right?" asked Dragon.
Tom nodded while Faith replied, "Easy as pie, Dragon. We got in, got the goods, and got out."
Somehow, the armored form emoted a smile. "Excellent. I'll get my children started on filtering through this mass of data. We should have a briefing ready within a few days, depending upon how organized Ba'al's bureaucrats were."
After Dragon left to do her own tasks, the four went into the nearby locker rooms to change back into their civilian clothes, although Sophia intended to go back to her quarters and change yet again. Tom was taking her to dinner tonight, and she wanted to look nice.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
With a little help from the ship's AI, Jimmy found Amy Dallon sipping tea in a lounge not far from the primary biological research labs on the ship. She looked up at him as he came into the room. "Jimmy," she greeted him with a nod.
Jimmy went over to where she was sitting and plunked himself down in a nearby chair. "OK, now spill," he ordered.
She quirked an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean?"
"Who was running Ianthe while you were escorting Karin and me?" he prompted.
There was a bit of a smug grin on her face as she asked, "Why would anybody need to run Ianthe? She's perfectly capable of working without supervision."
Rather than responding to her bait, the experienced reporter just sat there and looked at her expectantly.
"I'm actually telling the truth, though I will admit that there's a bit of backstory, there..." admitted Amy. "Ianthe is a lot more capable than she was the last time you were on the ship, for several reasons."
"I'm listening," replied Jimmy, clearly intent on getting the whole story.
Amy sighed. "OK. You know that on my homeworld, superpowers are granted through a connection to pan-dimensional biological supercomputers created by an alien race?" At his nod, she continued. "Part of what the Guild has been doing has been researching how they function..."
* * * * *
Ianthe looked out at the massive form of her power. The massive biological processing unit wasn't exactly what anybody would call efficient, but it was impressive in terms of sheer scope. She had been putting off today's experiments, using the excuse of having other tasks to complete. The latest had been building a bioconstruct for Lucy, a girl who had predictably jumped at the chance to join the Family once she had been clued into the truth of the situation...once she had gotten over the embarrassment that came when she realized she had been fangirling to Taylor's face about Taylor's other forms. That job was done, though, and she needed to either go ahead with today's experiment or drop the concept altogether.
"You don't need to do this," said Metis. Her friend/sister had come with her to provide support and make sure everything went as expected.
Ianthe frowned. "I don't...but I kind of do. If I'm willing to make changes to other peoples' agents then I should be willing to do the same to my own."
"Vicky asked you to change her aura. That wasn't you just meddling," replied Metis. Amy's sister had, in fact, asked if there was anything she could do so that suppressing her aura wouldn't require a constant effort on Glory Girl's part. The result of Amy's efforts had been both an explicit mental switch that her sister could toggle and a change to the aura so that it produced a calming effect rather than making those nearby fall in love with the girl. That latter part was far more useful, though it probably would never have manifested naturally from a shard thanks to how effective it was at stopping conflicts before they got started.
"This is not because of Vicky," protested Ianthe. "Even if I've worked around some of the restrictions built into my power, we know there are probably more. Hell, even after everything we already know about Scion's people and how powers are sown and harvested, there are still things that your own power literally can't tell you for some reason. Personally, I want to better understand and control the thing that's tied into my brain." Left unsaid was the fact that they didn't know for certain that the shards/agents/whatever-you-called-them might have security flaws or backdoors that another Entity like Eden could theoretically exploit. They needed a better understanding of how they worked and the fastest route to getting there would be by unlocking the most powerful biomanipulation power available.
"All right," agreed Metis reluctantly. "If anything seems to be going wrong, though, I'm turning on the power suppressor." The black reptile had a hand-held device that was designed to block the shard connection without harming the host. It had worked well in testing by Doctor Mother, although some of the Case 53's had suffered...issues. None of them had been truly dangerous, thankfully, and all of the experiments conducted by the reformed Cauldron member were heavily vetted in advance.
Ianthe nodded, then reached out and placed her scaly hand against the side of the massive biocomputer. At first, she simply used her power to delve deep into the structure. The whole of its being was too complicated for a normal human brain but Amy was no longer just human. She also had the advantage of using her power to try and directly understand itself, probably for the first time in its history. Keeping in mind that Metis was watching, she began to describe aspects of what she was seeing. "There's a tremendous amount of data storage on different biological systems. We don't really know how many cycles our powers have survived, but it has to be a lot given the amount of information available. I'm going to see if I can access that information directly rather than the current project-driven approach." The way her power had always worked was that Amy had to have an objective or a specific problem in mind. Her power would then provide her with possible solutions based upon its own internal store of knowledge. It would also suggest projects to her based on semi-random attention to external stimuli. Her focus on only doing healing had caused her power to keep pushing more and more outlandish ideas in an attempt to get her to do something novel and had been part of what made her question her own sense of ethics on top of Carol's less than helpful attitude. Thankfully, meeting Saurial had caused a major attitude adjustment for her power...and for Carol Dallon, as well. It also certainly didn't hurt that the Family had given her a creative outlet for using her abilities, culminating in what she was attempting to do right now.
Amy reached out and adjusted some of the parameters that controlled how her power operated. Inside her own mind, she suddenly felt the presence of a massive amount of knowledge...so much so that if she had triggered with that access, it might have actually driven her crazy. Not all of the restrictions built into powers were just to create conflict. Powers that destroyed their host or drove them catatonic would never get used and tested, after all. She now had at her fingertips a database of biological information going back through hundreds of civilizations of various degrees of advancement. Some of them were very similar to humanity, at least to the extent of being carbon-based oxygen breathers. There were quite a few humanoid species, many of which could easily have stepped out of the makeup department of a budget sci-fi movie. There were others, though, that very clearly had biologies that she personally would never be able to alter given her current power restrictions. She suddenly had a very clear understanding of how the Case 53 Ward Weld actually functioned as a metallic organism, for example. That understanding by itself, however, wasn't sufficient to let her actually make changes. There were other restrictions that would need to be removed in order for that to happen.
She began to probe those restrictions, at which point her power paused. It seemed almost alarmed. It also wouldn't or couldn't tell her what the problem or concern actually was. Frustrated, Amy changed her approach and began looking at the restrictions placed on the intelligence that guided her power. That was fairly complicated and she had to be careful not to break anything. Out loud, she said, "I've unlocked access to the data but not the ability to use all of it. I'm looking now at how my power communicates with me. If I can make it so that it can share some of the blocked topics with me, I might be able to figure out the problem." So focused on her task was she that she didn't notice the concerned look on Metis's face.
It was when she thought she had a solution and began to act to start relaxing restrictions that she suddenly lost consciousness.
* * * * *
'Mother?'
Amy stirred from her unconsciousness. Was that a voice?
'Mother? Are you all right?'
'Hello?' she thought.
'You're regaining consciousness. That's good. Hello, Mother.'
'What...what happened? And who am I talking to?' Everything around her was still dark. What had she been doing? Vague memories of working with her power's physical form came back to her.
'You were about to do something very, very dangerous. Your power reacted to stop you and try and explain what was happening, but it was too much for you. Metis/Lisa cut you off from your power when we collapsed. I've been monitoring you since then.' There was a clear note of concern in the voice's tone.
Amy was starting to get a very odd suspicion about something. 'Ianthe?'
She felt a wave of love and affection suffuse her. 'Yes, Mother. It's so nice to finally be able to speak with you!'
The fact that her bioconstruct was apparently now fully sapient and was talking to her caused her brain to short-circuit for a moment. That was a huge leap from a level that been about that of a particularly smart canine. Finally, she just asked, 'How?'
'Your power still cannot affect you directly, so it reached out to the best second choice, which was me. It made changes to better allow me to communicate with it...and in the process of it making changes, I think I...woke up? That seems like the best way to describe it. Then you collapsed and Metis/Lisa cut the connection to your power. I was very worried about you...' This last bit was said with a deep feeling of concern and sadness.
Instinctively, she shared a feeling of comfort. 'I'm sorry, Ianthe, I didn't know this would happen. Well, I suspected it might happen, but not for a long, long time.'
The worry turned to what could best be described as satisfaction. 'Your power wasn't trying to hurt you. Actually, it was doing the opposite. It explained things to me before the connection was cut. You were removing safeties on things without understanding the complexity of the interactions involved in using your power. There are a whole series of rules that guide you with what is safe and what is not for altering life as you know it. Your power explained that you were trying to increase the capacity of your power to alter other forms of life without engaging the safeties for those types of lifeforms.'
If she was understanding what her power was telling her, then any attempts she made to heal somebody like Weld, for example, would have resulted in her having no idea what was helping versus hurting her patient. She shuddered a bit at the possible consequences of that. 'Are we still unconscious?'
'I'm acting that way until I had a chance to explain things to you, so you can explain them to Metis/Lisa. Is that all right? I have control of our body, but I can give it back to you if you like?'
She sent another feeling of comfort. 'You did the right thing, Ianthe. I think I need to take over now, as our friend...friends, including Metis...are probably worried about us.' If Ianthe had the potential to spontaneously develop sapience, then she had to assume that Metis did as well, not to mention the other bioconstructs.
Amy felt her consciousness take over Ianthe's body. She opened her eyes to find a very concerned-looking black lizard looking down at her. "Hey," she said.
"Are you all right?" asked Metis.
Ianthe rolled and began to stand up. "Yes, I'm fine. My power just stopped me from doing something that was potentially very unwise. The feedback knocked me out, I think."
"I think we're done with the experiments for today," said Metis firmly.
Ianthe pushed herself to her feet. "I agree. We need to speak with Taylor, anyway."
Metis looked relieved that Amy agreed with her, but asked, "Why Taylor?"
"I need to tell her that I may have...sort of created a baby proto-Varga, in a sense?" replied Ianthe a little sheepishly.
Luckily, Ianthe's camera was on, because both Varga and Taylor found Metis's expression absolutely hilarious once they had absorbed what Amy had to tell them and properly greeted a new/old member of the Family.
* * * * *
"So, Ianthe is..." began Jimmy.
"Capable of acting independently, yes," said a familiar voice from behind him. He turned to see the purple-headed reptile standing in the doorway.
"I told Ianthe what was happening and she decided to come and join the conversation directly," commented Amy. Ianthe walked over and nuzzled the girl affectionately.
Jimmy stared at the two. "Wait, you two can still communicate even when you're separated?"
Amy nodded. "That was pretty easy to do, actually. The hard part was letting Ianthe puppet my human body."
This seemed to break his ability to speak as he just sat there with his mouth open.
"Mother is still in control," said Ianthe with a grin. "I can only take over when she allows me to do so. That's hardwired into my mind."
Jimmy shook his head. "So you really are kind of like Taylor and Varga, now?"
"We don't have the bullshit matter creation and changer abilities that she has, but otherwise yes?" replied Amy.
"Varga is willing to try and teach us magic, though. He seemed to think our current situation would make it easier, at least in concept" added Ianthe. "We're also not really the same, though. Neither of us has the depth of experience of a full Varga."
"We're not older than human civilization, for one thing," commented Amy. There was an unspoken, "yet," at the end of that sentence.
That comment sparked a thought in Jimmy. "You know...you might want to ask Khasa for help, speaking of folks older than civilizations. She would probably see it as doing a favor for Varga and jump at the chance."
Amy and Ianthe looked at each other, seemingly holding a short conversation. Out loud, Ianthe said something in FamTalk. Amy grimaced. "You know I can't speak FamTalk properly with this throat and mouth." If anything, Jimmy thought he could detect a slight bit of smugness from the reptilian half of the pair. She turned to look at him and said, "That's probably a really useful idea, Jimmy. Thank you."
"Of course...and I know we've technically met before, but it's nice to meet you, Ianthe," said Jimmy, smiling at the purple reptile.
"Thank you," replied the lizard. "It's nice to meet you, too."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Aroa Vasil had noticed the change in her father before they had even left the compound in Canada on their old Earth. Nikos Vasil was arrogant, a self-centered narcissist, and a full-blown psychopath. He was also a hedonist and, while he wasn't stupid, was fairly average in intelligence and self-conscious about it, much to the regret of more than one beautiful woman who made the mistake of showing their intelligence in his presence. Aroa's mother had apparently been one such woman.
To his daughter, there was a blatantly obvious moment of change in his demeanor. After murdering the intruder brought in by a patrol, Heartbreaker had acted atypically. He almost immediately started showing an unusual degree of ambition, for one thing. He also seemed to keep a sharp eye out for signs of competence in his minions and began rewarding that competence in small ways. That's not to say he didn't appreciate the more sycophantic members of his entourage, but he was a lot more clever in making good use of his servants. Aroa started truly suspecting that her father had been mastered or replaced when they packed up their entire group and left for the U.S. border. Her real father would have never tried to take over Toybox. He was both too lazy and too insecure about the risks involved in such a venture.
She wasn't sure how quickly the other children had caught on to the change. She was pretty sure Candy knew before they left through the portal from Toybox. Of the Vasil children, Candy had always been one of the more intuitive, after all. The others undoubtedly caught on within a few weeks of arriving on a new Earth without capes. The old Heartbreaker, given such an opportunity, would have found another out-of-the-way place to establish his little kingdom, secure in this world's lack of anything like the Guild or the Protectorate. Given time, he might have been ambitious enough to take over a small town in the middle of nowhere. This new Heartbreaker, though, headed straight for New York City and began building a financial empire (which was ridiculously easy in a world that had no defenses against, or even knowledge of, master-class powers). He used that wealth and advanced technology to quickly gain a prominent position in the Military-Industrial Complex, which on this version of Earth was still thriving in the midst of the Cold War. The ease with which he walked within and manipulated the halls of power was another clue that whoever was controlling Heartbreaker's body wasn't the original Nikos Vasil.
She and her siblings had stuck with Heartbreaker, of course. Regardless of whether or not Nikos Vasil was still in control of his own body, that body still had his cape power. It wasn't as if the family had ever stayed together out of mutual affection, and things had only gotten harder after Jean-Paul and Cherie left. In truth, though, while Heartbreaker was still a ruthless psychopath, he had seemed less prone to random acts of cruelty in this new world. Some of her siblings speculated it was because he now had a defined set of goals, but Aora suspected the new Heartbreaker simply found such displays to be wasteful and undignified. Moreover, she found the trappings of wealth and power that now surrounded her "father" to be a significant improvement over hiding out in the woods. She had decided early on that making herself useful to the man was a good idea.
Aroa Vasil learned the truth when she became the head of espionage for what was, at the time, called the North American Empire. The man dragged to the compound that day hadn't just been a lost hiker. He had arrived in Canada on a spaceship, and had been possessed by an alien parasite that called itself a "goa'uld." Jumping dimensions hadn't just been a way to give Heartbreaker a world without superheroes to dominate. It had given them a world without an orbiting Endbringer keeping humanity locked on their own world. The alien, Ba'al, wanted to go back to space. Aroa had asked him if he missed his own kind. Ba'al had laughed for twenty minutes straight and then given her department a budget increase for telling such an epic joke.
She had remained his spymaster as humanity spread off-world and gradually took over the galaxy. In her opinion, expansion into the galaxy had been the greatest boon ever granted to humanity as a whole. The thirty-two sapient alien species encountered during their expansion would probably disagree but the opinions of dead races mattered not at all. Wiping out any species that could pose a threat was apparently something Ba'al carried over from his past as a space emperor (although he had mentioned that he used a different title in the past). Part of her thought that was a waste. That one aquatic race had been quite tasty and cloned meat never tasted the same.
None of those species had been a true threat to humanity, however, and most of her time had been spent dealing with internal human enemies to the empire. There were limits as to how many people Ba'al and his family could directly influence with their powers, especially as the vast majority of new children born to transplanted capes seemed incapable of triggering. Maintaining control required more traditional methods, although having direct servants who were unquestionably loyal was a significant advantage not shared by most other empires in history. This control problem only increased with each expansion in the scope of the empire, especially when other dimensions were included in that scope. Aroa now thought that relaxing the restrictions on cross-dimensional technology had been a mistake, one born of arrogance and over-confidence. The problems stemming directly from those activities were vexing. What was truly infuriating, though, was that her own people seemed to be the cause of their current problems.
She paced behind the man she had summoned. He was standing rigidly at attention. She made sure that the air of her passage flowed across his skin. His lips barely twitched at what must have been a quite painful sensation. That stoicism in the face of her powers was something she appreciated in an underling, but it wouldn't save the man if he didn't give her the right answers. "Colonel Andrews, are you aware that the Imbrium Government Archives have vanished?"
"Yes, ma'am. I'm aware of that," he replied grimly.
She walked around until she was looking into his eyes. "Are you aware, now, of exactly why my father ordered that we were not to wake the sleeping dragon that is...or was...the Family?"
He frowned. "I was aware of that before, ma'am."
"So...what is your excuse for why my father's orders were ignored?" she asked.
The man's eyes dropped. "No excuses ma'am. I made a mistake in thinking I could make use of Major Kim's ambitions on my team. Those ambitions led him to take the initiative to begin probing raids on the Family's allies while I was dealing with the aftermath of the rebellion in the Tau Ceti system. He clearly underestimated the likely response. My attempts to salvage the situation by setting up scapegoats in other realities was ineffective."
Aroa's face was passive, but she had a serious problem and a decision to make. There was likely no way of putting the cat back in the bag, so to speak, with regard to the Family. That particular group was an almost existential threat to the Empire. She could punish Andrews, but he was generally quite competent. Just as an example, he had handled one of the largest uprisings against the empire in recent history ruthlessly and with a minimum of losses. Ambitious subordinates were often quite useful, even if they were also often a double-edged sword and she was honest enough within her own mind to know Andrews' mistake would have been a small one if the consequences weren't so damning. "The man responsible is in custody?" she asked, knowing what the answer would be.
"Him and his family, ma'am," confirmed Andrews.
She nodded. "Have them delivered to Netu." The prison moon was truly a hellish place. She wasn't sure why Ba'al had named it Netu, but he had been positively gleeful when their exploration corps had reported the find. "Make sure they're marked for transfer to the Institute. I want Major Kim to explain to me exactly why he thought he knew better than the Emperor." The Institute, as it was somewhat euphemistically called, was her personal facility for handling special prisoners. Standing orders were that prisoners destined for delivery there were never told in advance, as too many of them tried to commit suicide.
Andrews actually blinked, but otherwise remained passive. "Yes, ma'am."
"You also will have a new assignment, Colonel." She brushed her hand against his arm and felt the underlying muscle clench painfully. "You are going to be given full access to the sealed files on the Family. You are to form a task force, the purpose of which is to determine a defensive strategy against them, their abilities, and their likely allies. The efficacy of your defense of the Empire of Ba'al will determine your ultimate punishment for your subordinate's lack of judgment. Do you understand these orders?"
"Yes, ma'am. May I ask what resources will be made available to me?" he asked in a professional tone.
Aroa raised an eyebrow. "I will fund your task force personally, Colonel. If you are able to come up with a means to deal with the Family, then I would find it fairly easy to approve almost anything." Of course, the consequences should he be unable to adequately defend the Empire would be dire for him, personally, as well as for the empire as a whole.
"Thank you, ma'am," he replied.
She looked at him assessingly. "You're dismissed, Colonel. Do not disappoint me again."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"I cannot believe that fucking bastard!" Dinah kicked a plastic soda bottle down the road as she walked, taking out her frustration on the discarded litter. Her tail swished back and forth behind her in agitation, invisible to anyone other than her and her companion.
"He's still trying to get you to move?" What appeared to be an empty article of clothing was strolling along beside her about a foot and a half off the ground.
Dinah flung her hands in the air. "Yes! I've told him I didn't want to relocate three times but he keeps bringing it up. He's friends with Director Luzon, who wants me for his fucking think tank in Minneapolis. Then he told me he was going to have to put restrictions on my patrol activity because my power is too valuable to risk!"
The two, known to most as Cloak and Prospect, walked in silence for a moment. Then Cloak said, "I did try to warn you. The Protectorate may be better with Costa-Brown gone, but it is still a huge bureaucracy with a lot of people who care more about politics and image than about anything practical."
"I have a mid-level brute rating, thanks to Ianthe. There's no reason to keep me locked up at the Rig," groused Dinah. "Brockton Bay isn't even a high-crime city anymore!" The members of the Family were around much less these days, but they still popped in from time to time to make an example of any unlucky criminals who happened to be out and about.
Cloak nodded. "This is an obvious manipulation attempt. You could probably talk to Saurial. She would undoubtedly raise it up to Legend and he would put a stop to it."
Dinah kicked the bottle again, listening to the clunk-clunk sound as it rattled down the pavement. "If I have to do that, then is it even worth staying with the Protectorate? Maybe I should pull a Vista?" The former Ward known as Vista was notorious in cape lore for resigning as soon as she was promoted to the Protectorate and then effectively vanishing. PHO had gone crazy searching for "new" capes that had some semblance of Vista's ability on the assumption that the young woman would rebrand. It was a well-known fact that capes who tried to avoid using their abilities usually failed. When candidates failed to materialize, there was a lot of speculation that something had happened to the former Ward (and the PHO mods had been forced to use the ban hammer repeatedly on members who wouldn't stop trying to figure out just who the former Ward had been in civilian life).
"Metis would certainly be happy to have your help, but I thought you didn't want to leave Brockton Bay? Also, what would your parents think?"
The other girl shook her head. "I don't want to be forced to move, especially not just so I can be another feather in some PRT Director's cap. Also, Mom and Dad will understand, and I'm nineteen." Her parents were also quite well protected, and not just because of her status with the Protectorate. Uncle Roy had called in some favors and the Family have added their own protections. Anybody targeting the Alcotts for nefarious purposes was likely to regret it in relatively short order.
Cloak looked at her friend. "If you're sure, then I'll make arrangements. When do you want to leave?"
Prospect appeared to consider that. "Give me a week to settle things in my personal life and talk to Mom, Dad, and Uncle Roy. I'm feeling pretty motivated to not give notice to my boss. In fact, I think it would be a good idea for me to vanish as soon as I leave his office. Let that asshole wonder how I disappeared from the middle of their security." She was tempted to ask the Family for a stealth drone so she could record his reaction, but that was probably overkill.
* * * * *
There was a flash of light and the former Protectorate cape formerly known as Prospect appeared in the Skimmer. Waiting for her was a sight that would have sent PHO into conniption fits. Cloak was standing there with her hood down, revealing Missy's face. She reached over and gave Dinah a hug in greeting.
"Welcome to the weird side," said Missy.
Dinah hugged her back. "You should have seen my boss's face. It's like somebody told him Christmas was canceled. I'm pretty sure the Protectorate is going to be tripping over themselves trying to get in touch with me to convince me to stay." High-powered thinkers were a relatively rare commodity, after all.
"Are they going to bother your parents?" asked Missy as she started to move toward the ship's control console.
Her friend shrugged. "They can try. Unfortunately for them, my parents have left on a multi-week vacation to several different islands in Polynesia and I'm pretty certain they're not returning calls. If they do get too bothersome, then I'll ask Saurial to intervene on my parents' behalf."
* * * * *
The Simurgh watched as the distant craft disappeared into a wormhole. Dinah Alcott was certainly going to be happier than she would have been if she had stayed in Brockton Bay. Maybe what that strange man, Moriarty, had suggested would actually be worth the sacrifice? It might be nice to have a purpose again.
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Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
uh, did anyone else catch that last line?
Moriarity is talking to Ziz....that can never be good
Moriarity is talking to Ziz....that can never be good
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
Holo!Moriarty is one of the good guys, or the Family would never have let him talk to Ziz.