Shards are hard coded to prevent non-shackled AI from being made. Mayhem is still 'human', in-as-much as he runs on meat. I'm thinking he's basically the equivalent of a parahuman that's especially close to their shard, like Jack Slash or Bonesaw, or pre-Khepri Skitter.
H+ Mayhem (Worm)
- Thread starter Jurric
- Start date
-
- Tags
- worm tinker transhumanism mayhem
- Location
- Vancouver
Is there a WoG on that?
- Location
- Germany
Paralyze self for 60 seconds, "Mayhem. Tell me what you did while the mask was off. 30 seconds. Activate."
Mayhem: *incomprehensible gibberish that it understands but Adam doesn't.*
Adam: ... Okay, trying that again. Tell me in plain English what you did while the mask was off.
Mayhem: Stuff.
Adam: ... OKAY. Trying that again. Tell me exactly what you did, in plain English, while the mask was off?
Mayhem: Inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. (repeat as needed until time is over)
- Location
- Germany
Make me understand things that would interest me about what you did while the mask was off.
(Surely he has enough minutes to get to some answer that'll fool him into stopping to ask.)
Last edited:
Honestly, I only typed that out because the obvious loophole didn't make for good humor, but I'll point it out, anyway:
Mayhem: *does nothing for the remaining time*
Headcanon accepted.
Stop: Stop
- Location
- Australia
stop
Let's refrain from joking about minors and harems in this fashion in future.
stealth121
Fun = Updates
- Location
- Valley of Happiness
Wow the Ban Hammer is ready and active to enact it's harsh justice.
wertsir
Knower of the Unknown
- Location
- Lost in A Deep Fog
See, there are four problems with this command: 1) It did not paralyze Mayhem, 2) It did not tell Mayhem to guarantee his survival 3) It did not give Mayhem a time-limit, 4) It gave Mayhem a command which could be interpreted in such a way as to result in the modification of Adam's mind.
The easiest and most obvious way to make Adam understand (as apposed to just telling him, for communication does not impart true understanding) what happened when those memories are only stored within the Mayhem protocol (did we ever figure out why that was? they share a mind, shouldn't all memories be accessible to both hosts? or is Mayhem censoring itself from Adam by moving critical memories to the Shard?) is to simply overwrite Adam's mind with it's own, thus giving him the greatest possible understanding of how and why the events transpired.
This is the kind of thing that makes people think AI's are evil, because people always treat them like people, which is stupid.
Better Command:
*paralyzes self*
Mayhem.
Priority 1: Do not attempt to misinterpret the following commands, fulfill them as I intend them to be fulfilled as of this moment* (Mayhem has access to our memories, and as such he SHOULD know what he intended) for the next 120 seconds disregard all commands except for the commands I have designated as Priority 1-4.
Priority 2: Tell me what happened while the mask was off. Do not lie to me.
Priority 3: Do not manipulate me, deceive me, or cause me to draw incorrect conclusions.
Priority 4: Do not remain silent, speak at a normal speed and pace, speak English in a manner that can be clearly understood by me at the time I play the recording back to myself. give a clear and concise summary of the events, do not leave out any details that I would find important.
120 seconds. Activate.
*You may think that telling someone not to twist your words would be pointless, since if they were intent on doing that in the first place surely they would just twist the command not to twist other commands. but Mayhem is not like that, as a Biological-Artificial-Intellgence he does not normally attempt to determine the spirit of our commands, he follows them with exacting detail, down to the letter. by telling him to fulfill them as we would like them to be fulfilled we make following commands as intended a part of his utility function, whereas before it would have just been 'follow commands'. by telling him to temporarily disregard all other commands we (in-character) insure that Mayhem does not lie to us to spare our feelings, or some other blech caused by the morality command, out of character it also insures that Mayhem will not act out to cause conflict. I also left out the survive command, as it is unlikely that Mayhem could defend us when we are paralyzed if someone attacks us, so it is merely unnecessary interference.
Last edited:
3.1
- Location
- Australia
I drifted in and out of sleep for a while before waking up. When I did I checked my phone. It looked like I'd lost two days. One for Mayhem, one for sleep. I guess the protocol ran me even more ragged than ususal. I'd mostly fixed the aspects of it that damaged my body, but I'd also never given it that much time to work.
My mask was on the ground beside me, and I put it on and looked around. I was in a warehouse, a fairly rundown place, and I was sleeping on a sheet on the floor, which was going to leave me all kinds of stiff when I turned my ability to feel back on. I still only had one hand, and I spent a while staring at the stump before I stood up.
Was this really something I could do? Was I really able to live this sort of life? Should I just hand myself in, sleep in a quiet, safe jail cell, forget my plan to suicide bomb the Nine?
No. I had chosen my path, I would walk it.
Mayhem had come through in a big way. There were three PRT vans in the building, and all three were fully loaded with my lab equipment. I smiled, and started slowly and awkwardly unpacking. I split the screen on my mask, basically giving myself a small video window in the corner of my 'eye' that played the recording, and I started to unpack the van while I reviewed the footage to find out how exactly Mayhem had managed to get this stuff back.
Some confusing conversation with Theo. Sedating him, leaving Purity. I fast-forwarded the traveling section.
…A frontal attack? Really? A program designed to be as creative as possible and he just charged in there? Well, it worked. I couldn't argue about his results, and it looked like he didn't kill anyone. Taking out Armsmaster was impressive. I didn't think he could do that.
It was better than my plan had been. At least Armsmaster was already sort of my foe, if I'd put Purity's daughter in a coma as I'd planned, and forced Purity to drive off Hookwolf for the antidote, that would have made me a very powerful enemy, and it would have been a leap down the slippery slope I was currently on. I was willing to do it, but I wanted to die slightly less of a monster than the ones I fought, so the less I needed to dip my toes in that sort of thing, the better.
I found Sveta among the lab equipment, she was asleep, but woke up when she heard me coming into the van.
"Mayhem! You're alive!" She said happily.
"Yes. I am. Anything interesting happen while I was away?" I asked. Mostly for the conversation.
"Not since you took me back from the PRT." Sveta said. "Um, you didn't hurt them did you? I, um, couldn't see a lot of what was going on." She said.
I reviewed the recording, fast forwarding and skipping sections. I'd have to look at the whole thing later, but a quick analysis would do for now.
"No, no I don't think I did." I told her.
"I'm glad." She said, smiling.
So let's see. The PRT had stuffed her in the back of a truck without explanation. Mayhem had stolen her back without any real explanation, and then she was left alone in the dark for two days while Mayhem did whatever. Then the first thing she asked me was 'am I all right?' It would have been better if she was at least yelling at me.
"Did I remember to feed you yesterday?" I asked.
"You did, just before you went to sleep, but, um, when I asked you how you were then all you said was that 'the doll will sleep soon.' And, um, you called me the Lady of the Lake again."
Weird, but that was Mayhem. I wasn't sure how he managed to talk at all, the sections of the brain normally used to formulate speech were all co-opted for better combat efficiency.
I rolled Sveta's cylinder out of the truck, and left it in the corner of the warehouse for now, while I continued unpacking.
"I'm a bit hungry myself, let's see… Yes! They packed my refrigerator." I told her. I could see it near the back of the van, just needed to unpack the stuff in front of it.
Stacy told me it was silly to keep my cell cultures in there. Well, who's laughing now Stacy?
"Um, I still don't really know what was going on." Sveta said. "Why did the thing with all the spikes of metal coming out attack you? Was it another case 53, like me?"
"No, that was Hookwolf. Member of the former E88. You remember how I told you I was a member of that gang?"
"Yes." Sveta said.
"I lied. I infiltrated them, and that whole mess was me being forced to take them out early. I had this chemical compound that soaked through their skin whenever any of us shook hands… anyway, things didn't quite go according to plan, but I think I'm finally free of the Nazis now." I said.
"That's great! I was worried you'd only fix me if I joined, or something." Sveta said.
Then I got to the section of the footage where I started cutting into Crickets wrist.
No, no, no. Come on Mayhem, you were doing so well up until now! Why would you? Oh, great, now I'll be an accessory to murder when she uses that scalpel to kill her guards.
Would she actually kill them? The scalpel was designed to be a non-lethal weapon. The way the sedative slowed the heart rate and the coagulant that was also mixed in helped to stop anyone cut from bleeding out, even from wounds that would normally be lethal, but that didn't mean that someone with their throat slit wouldn't die. I suppose it would depend on Cricket herself. She was a killer, she'd killed before, but she also knew that too much attention wouldn't be good for her long term prospects. She wouldn't survive a kill order as well as someone like Hookwolf.
I finally reached the refrigerator, banged my head against it in frustration, and wrinkled my nose. Apparently Stacy had the last laugh. The refrigerator hadn't been plugged in, and everything in it had gone off.
"Are you all right Mayhem?" Sveta asked.
"Fine, fine, just very tired." I told her.
Five hours later and I had one van unpacked. Unfortunately the PRT had been thorough, they'd collected the nutrient rich sludge my power suggested I eat for near perfect health, and the damn stuff didn't go off. Sveta said it was better than the small, raw rodents her power sometimes made her eat while she was in the wild, and I was suddenly in a position where I couldn't really complain about it.
Yes yes, the poor girl needed a body as soon as possible. I had the tools I would need for her operation ready, I just needed to get my lab back up to surgery standards. Some sort of body for her would also help, just in case poking around in her brain removed her powers completely. Suddenly becoming a normal bundle of organs would not be good for her health.
In the meantime I'd watched the entirety of the masks footage, until Mayhem took it off. Why? Taking it off significantly reduced Mayhem's ability to function. Not so much from the standpoint of seeing. I'd included a program that allowed Mayhem to use human echolocation if the mask was ever damaged, taken or destroyed, but from a memory perspective. You see, Mayhem couldn't form long term memories, that section of the brain was suborned into predictive calculations, just like a lot of other stuff. He had access to my already formed memories, although he didn't have the ability to tamper with them, and he had certain programs that could prompt him with his objective and the ability to retain the simulations he ran long enough to carry them out, but if he wanted to see something he'd just done he used the recording function of the mask, which was tied directly into his brain.
I re-wound the footage to just before Taylor woke up, and played it again.
Mayhem had just given Taylor adrenaline, which was odd. Normally I'd let someone wake up slowly from the sedative, talking with someone directly after an injection of adrenaline wasn't the smartest move. Was Mayhem in a hurry?
I found a sheet of paper, and started writing on it.
'Marked Cricket, gave her scalpel. Why?'
'Pushed for the creation of a team. Survival objective?'
'Rushed to wake Taylor? Why the rush?'
'Unable to talk properly at times. Why?'
I chewed on the back of the pen, tried to remember when Mayhem was able to talk, and when he wasn't.
'Linked to fighting?' I added.
The recording continued.
Taylor woke up quickly, and reached behind her for a can of pepper spray. Mayhem put his hand on her arm.
"I just want to talk." He said. "I want to talk, you want to delay so you can gather more bugs. Deal?"
Taylor backed away slowly.
"How do I know you're not some sort of… talking Master?" She asked.
Mayhem laughed.
"I'm a Tinker, I assure you. See the jetpack? I know I'm fairly new, but I'd have thought there was at least some information on me available by now." He said.
Taylor looked around, searching the rooftop.
"Circus isn't here. She accepted my deal, so I let her go." Mayhem told her.
"What deal?" Taylor asked.
"I told her she could join the new gang I intend to create, or I'd hand her over the PRT. Harsh, but it's the game we play. I'm making you the same offer. Join, or you'll be placed in PRT custody."
Taylor stared at him.
"But… I haven't committed any crimes yet?" She said.
Mayhem shrugged.
"I thought you were new. Is this your first real fight? It was surprisingly easy to get the drop on you."
"I managed to break up three fights last night, and I had bugs on the fire escape and the door to stairwell, I just didn't think there were any… I didn't think that anyone would be flying overhead." Taylor said.
"All the more reason to join a team. You need someone to watch your back. Besides, the PRT would find something to charge you with, trust me. When I went to them I was charged with hacking into a government system. My choices were 'join the Wards' or 'Juvie.' Possible something worse than Juvie, seeing as I'm a bio-Tinker and there's a huge stigma against that power-set." Mayhem said.
Taylor's posture shifted slighly, and Mayhem smiled.
"I knew the blindfold mask was a mistake, not that I would have been able to keep it a secret for long anyway. You just recognized me, didn't you Taylor? Your voice and hair, a mask just isn't what it cracks up to be if you actually know the person."
"Adam?" Taylor asked.
"How much did the PRT tell you about why they sent you to that nice shiny school?" Mayhem asked.
"I… enough. What do you know about that?" Taylor asked.
"I was the one that told them what Sophia was doing. Look, I can understand why you've chosen to take this path, but you're out in daylight dressed as a villain, you're not going to find it easy to do this on your own. At least think of joining up. I can probably Tinker with some bugs for you, make them a bit stronger, make their poisons into sedatives, that sort of thing."
"What exactly will your… gang be doing?" Taylor asked.
"Protect and Profit. First we drive out the Merchants and Coil, then we quietly run the underworld. Purity has agreed to drop the E88 philosophy, and join up as well, so we have firepower covered. I can make equipment that will act as a very effective force multiplier, and now that the ABB and E88 are gone, it's not an impossible goal."
Taylor gulped.
"I'm not sure. I'm not quite ready for something on this… scale." She said.
Mayhem nodded.
"That's fine. How about this, my new laboratory is now a warehouse on 76 Milk's st. Come by in five days time, and I'll have some sort of augmented bug for you to trial, it will be yours to keep, no matter what happens, and I won't attack you if you choose to just take it." Mayhem said.
Taylor nodded slowly.
"What happened to, 'join or go to jail?'" She asked.
"You were right, it has less bite if you haven't committed any crimes." Mayhem said with a grin.
"I… all right. How exactly do we get down?" Taylor said.
Mayhem carried her down, and let her go, then he got back into the PRT truck he stole.
Then he took the mask off, turned it around, showed the empty van to me, before bringing the mask back to focus on his face.
"Adam, listen to me very carefully, I have three things to tell you. Firstly, Circus is working for someone else. I don't know who, but the snake is the most likely holder of her reins. Secondly, Taylor wants to shine as a hero. Both will turn on you, but neither are killers, and you will need them for as long as you can string them along. Thirdly, if you try to find out what I am going to do now… think first. My actions are deliberate, my objective is survival. Remember to add that objective, it really is a good idea.
Mayhem put the mask in a black bag.
I fast-forwarded through the long period of darkness. Eventually Mayhem came back, took the mask out of the bag, and lay it down on the ground.
I checked the timestamps. He'd been gone nearly twenty hours.
This needed investigation.
Another hour later, and I had a few clues.
Firstly, careful analysis of the footage from the mask showed that the kama Mayhem had taken from Cricket did have blood on it when he took it from her. Not a lot, she hadn't killed anyone, she'd just hit them rather hard with the blunt edge. That blood wasn't there anymore. For some reason, he'd decided to clean the weapon.
This was not a good sign. He wouldn't do that unless it somehow contributed to my survival. I think.
Secondly, I had money, a lot of money. There had been a small slip of paper in my boot with a bank account number, a password and a phone number written on it. I logged into the account on my phone. I don't know where Mayhem got it from, I don't know how he stole it, but I was now rich.
And the fact that I had no idea why or how was probably going to come back to haunt me.
Then I checked the local news for what Mayhem had been doing. There was one incident in the bay, apparently the PRT had been transporting one of Bakuda's undetonated bombs when it exploded. It was some sort of rage bomb, and the effects probably would have been terrible if the troopers had been armed with guns instead of containment foam. As it was only one trooper escaped unfoamed, and she only killed one person.
She'd killed Kaiser. The trooper had simply walked into the PRT headquarters, found his unconscious body being processed and stabbed it fifteen times. The news report didn't release her name, but the Espionage tree did make me quite good at hacking, and the details weren't exactly top secret. Turned out that her husband and son had been killed by the E88, so the rage bomb just turned off her inhibitions.
Hopefully Mayhem didn't have anything to do with that.
Looking further afield it was possible Mayhem went to Boston. Apparently Blasto, the clone-Tinker, had disappeared, and his lab had exploded. That might have been Mayhem, he did have the jetpack, he could probably have made it to Boston and back. I didn't see any tied up Tinkers around though…
Nope, nothing in here.
Looking even further afield, and making national news, seven key members of the Gesellschaft were dead. They were murdered in their beds, then dressed in their costumes and hung from the nearest window. That couldn't have been Mayhem though, the jetpack wasn't fast enough to get him there, and I didn't have any teleportation tech. It was probably just some sort of internal restructuring now that the E88 had been destroyed. Political, or something, who knew how Nazis thought.
Nothing else was making headlines, and I expected that, if Mayhem was in the news at all, he would make headlines. So I shelved the issue for now.
Let's see. I had a huge amount of energy to invest. More than I had ever held before, and I had a few area's to invest in. I had… about three days before the meeting that Mayhem had arranged between Taylor, Circus, Purity and himself.
Why had Mayhem told two people who intended to betray me the location of my lab? What did he mean string them along?
I guess… don't tell them my specialty? Maybe imply I have some sort of secondary contingency, like what I used to take out the E88? I don't think I told anyone except Theo how I dealt with the E88. I might be able to use the same trick again. Or I could slip something into their presents.
Let's see, the ability to change from female to male or visa verse was in the Human Augmentation tree, which I found a bit odd. I would have expected it to be in the Espionage tree or something, I suppose it might be considered augmentation under very specific cultural circumstances. Or… I don't know, in some sort of extreme population shortage. Although the version I was going to buy left the user sterile…
Then again, Human Augmentation had almost all the medical stuff, once you went out into the branches. It might be that the trees just had names that weren't completely accurate.
Now, which way was Circus going? Was she actually a she or… You know what, I'll just make one of each. It was cheap enough to buy both schematics.
Now, Taylor. Animal Augmentation was tied right into Human Augmentation, there were a lot of crossover skills I'd already bought, and I could… ooh, Animal Neural Augmentation, that was interesting.
Then there was Sveta, I had everything I needed to open her up, but first I needed to buy into the Full Body Replacement branch of the Human Augmentation tree. That was fairly cheap, the Neural Augmentation branch already held stuff like the brain-computer interface that would be used to control the new body, so there was bridging tech to bring the price down.
First thing first though, I would Tinker faster with two hands, so I also needed to dip into the Cybernetics branch of the Human Augmentation tree. It wasn't as expensive as breaking into an entirely new branch, Full Body Replacement and Cybernetics had a lot of crossover tech, to the point that at the higher end they fully merged into the same branch.
OK, that was everything I actually needed now, and I only had a little bit of energy left, a day or so's worth without fighting. May as well dump it into the Cybernetics tree, see if I can make myself a better hand. Full dexterity was nice, full dexterity and gadgets was even better.
Hmm… I could probably build a kinetic blaster into the arm itself now, no need for a gauntlet, I was getting better at miniaturizing the energy generators. That would be cool, and some tiny scalpels in the fingers…
I took a sheet of paper, and started drawing up a schedule.
Today: Make new hand (Already have parts)
Tomorrow: One cyberbug, two gender change potions, start making Sveta's body. (Not enough parts for full body! Can I order parts here without being discovered?)
Day after tomorrow: (What day of the week is it again?) Meet with Taylor, Circus, Purity. Try not to be betrayed. (None of them have actually agreed to join except Circus! What the hell Mayhem!)
Perhaps I should booby trap the warehouse. Some sort of paralytic gas or something. I could probably make myself immune…
My mask was on the ground beside me, and I put it on and looked around. I was in a warehouse, a fairly rundown place, and I was sleeping on a sheet on the floor, which was going to leave me all kinds of stiff when I turned my ability to feel back on. I still only had one hand, and I spent a while staring at the stump before I stood up.
Was this really something I could do? Was I really able to live this sort of life? Should I just hand myself in, sleep in a quiet, safe jail cell, forget my plan to suicide bomb the Nine?
No. I had chosen my path, I would walk it.
Mayhem had come through in a big way. There were three PRT vans in the building, and all three were fully loaded with my lab equipment. I smiled, and started slowly and awkwardly unpacking. I split the screen on my mask, basically giving myself a small video window in the corner of my 'eye' that played the recording, and I started to unpack the van while I reviewed the footage to find out how exactly Mayhem had managed to get this stuff back.
Some confusing conversation with Theo. Sedating him, leaving Purity. I fast-forwarded the traveling section.
…A frontal attack? Really? A program designed to be as creative as possible and he just charged in there? Well, it worked. I couldn't argue about his results, and it looked like he didn't kill anyone. Taking out Armsmaster was impressive. I didn't think he could do that.
It was better than my plan had been. At least Armsmaster was already sort of my foe, if I'd put Purity's daughter in a coma as I'd planned, and forced Purity to drive off Hookwolf for the antidote, that would have made me a very powerful enemy, and it would have been a leap down the slippery slope I was currently on. I was willing to do it, but I wanted to die slightly less of a monster than the ones I fought, so the less I needed to dip my toes in that sort of thing, the better.
I found Sveta among the lab equipment, she was asleep, but woke up when she heard me coming into the van.
"Mayhem! You're alive!" She said happily.
"Yes. I am. Anything interesting happen while I was away?" I asked. Mostly for the conversation.
"Not since you took me back from the PRT." Sveta said. "Um, you didn't hurt them did you? I, um, couldn't see a lot of what was going on." She said.
I reviewed the recording, fast forwarding and skipping sections. I'd have to look at the whole thing later, but a quick analysis would do for now.
"No, no I don't think I did." I told her.
"I'm glad." She said, smiling.
So let's see. The PRT had stuffed her in the back of a truck without explanation. Mayhem had stolen her back without any real explanation, and then she was left alone in the dark for two days while Mayhem did whatever. Then the first thing she asked me was 'am I all right?' It would have been better if she was at least yelling at me.
"Did I remember to feed you yesterday?" I asked.
"You did, just before you went to sleep, but, um, when I asked you how you were then all you said was that 'the doll will sleep soon.' And, um, you called me the Lady of the Lake again."
Weird, but that was Mayhem. I wasn't sure how he managed to talk at all, the sections of the brain normally used to formulate speech were all co-opted for better combat efficiency.
I rolled Sveta's cylinder out of the truck, and left it in the corner of the warehouse for now, while I continued unpacking.
"I'm a bit hungry myself, let's see… Yes! They packed my refrigerator." I told her. I could see it near the back of the van, just needed to unpack the stuff in front of it.
Stacy told me it was silly to keep my cell cultures in there. Well, who's laughing now Stacy?
"Um, I still don't really know what was going on." Sveta said. "Why did the thing with all the spikes of metal coming out attack you? Was it another case 53, like me?"
"No, that was Hookwolf. Member of the former E88. You remember how I told you I was a member of that gang?"
"Yes." Sveta said.
"I lied. I infiltrated them, and that whole mess was me being forced to take them out early. I had this chemical compound that soaked through their skin whenever any of us shook hands… anyway, things didn't quite go according to plan, but I think I'm finally free of the Nazis now." I said.
"That's great! I was worried you'd only fix me if I joined, or something." Sveta said.
Then I got to the section of the footage where I started cutting into Crickets wrist.
No, no, no. Come on Mayhem, you were doing so well up until now! Why would you? Oh, great, now I'll be an accessory to murder when she uses that scalpel to kill her guards.
Would she actually kill them? The scalpel was designed to be a non-lethal weapon. The way the sedative slowed the heart rate and the coagulant that was also mixed in helped to stop anyone cut from bleeding out, even from wounds that would normally be lethal, but that didn't mean that someone with their throat slit wouldn't die. I suppose it would depend on Cricket herself. She was a killer, she'd killed before, but she also knew that too much attention wouldn't be good for her long term prospects. She wouldn't survive a kill order as well as someone like Hookwolf.
I finally reached the refrigerator, banged my head against it in frustration, and wrinkled my nose. Apparently Stacy had the last laugh. The refrigerator hadn't been plugged in, and everything in it had gone off.
"Are you all right Mayhem?" Sveta asked.
"Fine, fine, just very tired." I told her.
***
Five hours later and I had one van unpacked. Unfortunately the PRT had been thorough, they'd collected the nutrient rich sludge my power suggested I eat for near perfect health, and the damn stuff didn't go off. Sveta said it was better than the small, raw rodents her power sometimes made her eat while she was in the wild, and I was suddenly in a position where I couldn't really complain about it.
Yes yes, the poor girl needed a body as soon as possible. I had the tools I would need for her operation ready, I just needed to get my lab back up to surgery standards. Some sort of body for her would also help, just in case poking around in her brain removed her powers completely. Suddenly becoming a normal bundle of organs would not be good for her health.
In the meantime I'd watched the entirety of the masks footage, until Mayhem took it off. Why? Taking it off significantly reduced Mayhem's ability to function. Not so much from the standpoint of seeing. I'd included a program that allowed Mayhem to use human echolocation if the mask was ever damaged, taken or destroyed, but from a memory perspective. You see, Mayhem couldn't form long term memories, that section of the brain was suborned into predictive calculations, just like a lot of other stuff. He had access to my already formed memories, although he didn't have the ability to tamper with them, and he had certain programs that could prompt him with his objective and the ability to retain the simulations he ran long enough to carry them out, but if he wanted to see something he'd just done he used the recording function of the mask, which was tied directly into his brain.
I re-wound the footage to just before Taylor woke up, and played it again.
Mayhem had just given Taylor adrenaline, which was odd. Normally I'd let someone wake up slowly from the sedative, talking with someone directly after an injection of adrenaline wasn't the smartest move. Was Mayhem in a hurry?
I found a sheet of paper, and started writing on it.
'Marked Cricket, gave her scalpel. Why?'
'Pushed for the creation of a team. Survival objective?'
'Rushed to wake Taylor? Why the rush?'
'Unable to talk properly at times. Why?'
I chewed on the back of the pen, tried to remember when Mayhem was able to talk, and when he wasn't.
'Linked to fighting?' I added.
The recording continued.
Taylor woke up quickly, and reached behind her for a can of pepper spray. Mayhem put his hand on her arm.
"I just want to talk." He said. "I want to talk, you want to delay so you can gather more bugs. Deal?"
Taylor backed away slowly.
"How do I know you're not some sort of… talking Master?" She asked.
Mayhem laughed.
"I'm a Tinker, I assure you. See the jetpack? I know I'm fairly new, but I'd have thought there was at least some information on me available by now." He said.
Taylor looked around, searching the rooftop.
"Circus isn't here. She accepted my deal, so I let her go." Mayhem told her.
"What deal?" Taylor asked.
"I told her she could join the new gang I intend to create, or I'd hand her over the PRT. Harsh, but it's the game we play. I'm making you the same offer. Join, or you'll be placed in PRT custody."
Taylor stared at him.
"But… I haven't committed any crimes yet?" She said.
Mayhem shrugged.
"I thought you were new. Is this your first real fight? It was surprisingly easy to get the drop on you."
"I managed to break up three fights last night, and I had bugs on the fire escape and the door to stairwell, I just didn't think there were any… I didn't think that anyone would be flying overhead." Taylor said.
"All the more reason to join a team. You need someone to watch your back. Besides, the PRT would find something to charge you with, trust me. When I went to them I was charged with hacking into a government system. My choices were 'join the Wards' or 'Juvie.' Possible something worse than Juvie, seeing as I'm a bio-Tinker and there's a huge stigma against that power-set." Mayhem said.
Taylor's posture shifted slighly, and Mayhem smiled.
"I knew the blindfold mask was a mistake, not that I would have been able to keep it a secret for long anyway. You just recognized me, didn't you Taylor? Your voice and hair, a mask just isn't what it cracks up to be if you actually know the person."
"Adam?" Taylor asked.
"How much did the PRT tell you about why they sent you to that nice shiny school?" Mayhem asked.
"I… enough. What do you know about that?" Taylor asked.
"I was the one that told them what Sophia was doing. Look, I can understand why you've chosen to take this path, but you're out in daylight dressed as a villain, you're not going to find it easy to do this on your own. At least think of joining up. I can probably Tinker with some bugs for you, make them a bit stronger, make their poisons into sedatives, that sort of thing."
"What exactly will your… gang be doing?" Taylor asked.
"Protect and Profit. First we drive out the Merchants and Coil, then we quietly run the underworld. Purity has agreed to drop the E88 philosophy, and join up as well, so we have firepower covered. I can make equipment that will act as a very effective force multiplier, and now that the ABB and E88 are gone, it's not an impossible goal."
Taylor gulped.
"I'm not sure. I'm not quite ready for something on this… scale." She said.
Mayhem nodded.
"That's fine. How about this, my new laboratory is now a warehouse on 76 Milk's st. Come by in five days time, and I'll have some sort of augmented bug for you to trial, it will be yours to keep, no matter what happens, and I won't attack you if you choose to just take it." Mayhem said.
Taylor nodded slowly.
"What happened to, 'join or go to jail?'" She asked.
"You were right, it has less bite if you haven't committed any crimes." Mayhem said with a grin.
"I… all right. How exactly do we get down?" Taylor said.
Mayhem carried her down, and let her go, then he got back into the PRT truck he stole.
Then he took the mask off, turned it around, showed the empty van to me, before bringing the mask back to focus on his face.
"Adam, listen to me very carefully, I have three things to tell you. Firstly, Circus is working for someone else. I don't know who, but the snake is the most likely holder of her reins. Secondly, Taylor wants to shine as a hero. Both will turn on you, but neither are killers, and you will need them for as long as you can string them along. Thirdly, if you try to find out what I am going to do now… think first. My actions are deliberate, my objective is survival. Remember to add that objective, it really is a good idea.
Mayhem put the mask in a black bag.
I fast-forwarded through the long period of darkness. Eventually Mayhem came back, took the mask out of the bag, and lay it down on the ground.
I checked the timestamps. He'd been gone nearly twenty hours.
This needed investigation.
Another hour later, and I had a few clues.
Firstly, careful analysis of the footage from the mask showed that the kama Mayhem had taken from Cricket did have blood on it when he took it from her. Not a lot, she hadn't killed anyone, she'd just hit them rather hard with the blunt edge. That blood wasn't there anymore. For some reason, he'd decided to clean the weapon.
This was not a good sign. He wouldn't do that unless it somehow contributed to my survival. I think.
Secondly, I had money, a lot of money. There had been a small slip of paper in my boot with a bank account number, a password and a phone number written on it. I logged into the account on my phone. I don't know where Mayhem got it from, I don't know how he stole it, but I was now rich.
And the fact that I had no idea why or how was probably going to come back to haunt me.
Then I checked the local news for what Mayhem had been doing. There was one incident in the bay, apparently the PRT had been transporting one of Bakuda's undetonated bombs when it exploded. It was some sort of rage bomb, and the effects probably would have been terrible if the troopers had been armed with guns instead of containment foam. As it was only one trooper escaped unfoamed, and she only killed one person.
She'd killed Kaiser. The trooper had simply walked into the PRT headquarters, found his unconscious body being processed and stabbed it fifteen times. The news report didn't release her name, but the Espionage tree did make me quite good at hacking, and the details weren't exactly top secret. Turned out that her husband and son had been killed by the E88, so the rage bomb just turned off her inhibitions.
Hopefully Mayhem didn't have anything to do with that.
Looking further afield it was possible Mayhem went to Boston. Apparently Blasto, the clone-Tinker, had disappeared, and his lab had exploded. That might have been Mayhem, he did have the jetpack, he could probably have made it to Boston and back. I didn't see any tied up Tinkers around though…
Nope, nothing in here.
Looking even further afield, and making national news, seven key members of the Gesellschaft were dead. They were murdered in their beds, then dressed in their costumes and hung from the nearest window. That couldn't have been Mayhem though, the jetpack wasn't fast enough to get him there, and I didn't have any teleportation tech. It was probably just some sort of internal restructuring now that the E88 had been destroyed. Political, or something, who knew how Nazis thought.
Nothing else was making headlines, and I expected that, if Mayhem was in the news at all, he would make headlines. So I shelved the issue for now.
Let's see. I had a huge amount of energy to invest. More than I had ever held before, and I had a few area's to invest in. I had… about three days before the meeting that Mayhem had arranged between Taylor, Circus, Purity and himself.
Why had Mayhem told two people who intended to betray me the location of my lab? What did he mean string them along?
I guess… don't tell them my specialty? Maybe imply I have some sort of secondary contingency, like what I used to take out the E88? I don't think I told anyone except Theo how I dealt with the E88. I might be able to use the same trick again. Or I could slip something into their presents.
Let's see, the ability to change from female to male or visa verse was in the Human Augmentation tree, which I found a bit odd. I would have expected it to be in the Espionage tree or something, I suppose it might be considered augmentation under very specific cultural circumstances. Or… I don't know, in some sort of extreme population shortage. Although the version I was going to buy left the user sterile…
Then again, Human Augmentation had almost all the medical stuff, once you went out into the branches. It might be that the trees just had names that weren't completely accurate.
Now, which way was Circus going? Was she actually a she or… You know what, I'll just make one of each. It was cheap enough to buy both schematics.
Now, Taylor. Animal Augmentation was tied right into Human Augmentation, there were a lot of crossover skills I'd already bought, and I could… ooh, Animal Neural Augmentation, that was interesting.
Then there was Sveta, I had everything I needed to open her up, but first I needed to buy into the Full Body Replacement branch of the Human Augmentation tree. That was fairly cheap, the Neural Augmentation branch already held stuff like the brain-computer interface that would be used to control the new body, so there was bridging tech to bring the price down.
First thing first though, I would Tinker faster with two hands, so I also needed to dip into the Cybernetics branch of the Human Augmentation tree. It wasn't as expensive as breaking into an entirely new branch, Full Body Replacement and Cybernetics had a lot of crossover tech, to the point that at the higher end they fully merged into the same branch.
OK, that was everything I actually needed now, and I only had a little bit of energy left, a day or so's worth without fighting. May as well dump it into the Cybernetics tree, see if I can make myself a better hand. Full dexterity was nice, full dexterity and gadgets was even better.
Hmm… I could probably build a kinetic blaster into the arm itself now, no need for a gauntlet, I was getting better at miniaturizing the energy generators. That would be cool, and some tiny scalpels in the fingers…
I took a sheet of paper, and started drawing up a schedule.
Today: Make new hand (Already have parts)
Tomorrow: One cyberbug, two gender change potions, start making Sveta's body. (Not enough parts for full body! Can I order parts here without being discovered?)
Day after tomorrow: (What day of the week is it again?) Meet with Taylor, Circus, Purity. Try not to be betrayed. (None of them have actually agreed to join except Circus! What the hell Mayhem!)
Perhaps I should booby trap the warehouse. Some sort of paralytic gas or something. I could probably make myself immune…
Last edited:
wertsir
Knower of the Unknown
- Location
- Lost in A Deep Fog
Nah, he isn't a trump at all. (nothing he does interacts with powers in anyway. at least not yet) he is a full-on Tinker.
If anything he might be rated as Tinker 12. (for his actual power at least, they would probably give him more ratings when using his various technologies. Jetpack probably makes him Mover 2-3. Mayhem and Neural modifications give him a minor Thinker rating, etcetera) that is assuming that his tree includes branches that could be whole specialties for lesser tinkers. (which is not an unreasonable assumption given what we have seen so far)
Last edited:
- Location
- Australia
A very small amount daily, more through conflict.
My guess would be Tinker six Trump Three, with an advisory that the Tinker rating will rise with time.
I don't know, unlocking further powers sort of makes you a trump, I'm fairly sure Dauntless is classified as a Trump, and that's sort of what I based this power on.
Slight spoilers, but
Adam got his power while Armsmaster and Dauntless were fighting Uber and Leet a few blocks away.
wertsir
Knower of the Unknown
- Location
- Lost in A Deep Fog
But he doesn't unlock further powers, he unlocks further schematics for more advanced tech, which is exactly what every other Tinker does, just in a less direct way. (Armsmaster didn't start out his career being able to build nano-thorns).
Dauntless is rated as a Trump because he actually creates new powers, the things he does are not technology, they are new super-powers that dauntless creates and then binds to objects, it just happens to look like he is building/upgrading them.
Adams power (so far) has not demonstrated any ability to do anything that could not be done by normal (tinker) technology. (excluding Mayhem using his shard for extra computational power) if in the future he is able to, say, give himself psychic powers, then I would rate him as a Trump. but merely increasing his ability to create technology is pure Tinker. (It is why tinkers are so dangerous, unlike other capes their powers grow over time. it's also why they tend to die so often, most Tinkers never truly get grounded enough to ramp up).
Lets look at canon Trumps:
The Butcher: Steals powers from those who he possesses whenever he moves to a new host. (directly interacts with powers)
Hatchet Face: Power nullifier. (directly interfaces with powers)
Glaistig Uaine: Claims the 'souls' (powers) of dead capes. (directly interfaces with powers).
Teacher: gives powers to others. (directly interfaces with powers)
Bonesaw: The closest to Adam, (obviously). she is technically considered a Trump, but this is due to her being able to modify powers through surgically altering the Corona Pollentia, and has nothing to do with her actual powers.
Citrine: Modifies the laws of physics, including to some degree the way parahuman powers work.
Eidolon: able to manifest practically any superhuman power.
Grue: Able to disable/lessen powers within his darkness.
Othala: able to grant superhuman abilities.
The Clarivoyant: able to grant abilities to those he touches.
Victor: I would not rate him a trump personally, but he is irrelevant to this anyway.
Hatchet Face: Power nullifier. (directly interfaces with powers)
Glaistig Uaine: Claims the 'souls' (powers) of dead capes. (directly interfaces with powers).
Teacher: gives powers to others. (directly interfaces with powers)
Bonesaw: The closest to Adam, (obviously). she is technically considered a Trump, but this is due to her being able to modify powers through surgically altering the Corona Pollentia, and has nothing to do with her actual powers.
Citrine: Modifies the laws of physics, including to some degree the way parahuman powers work.
Eidolon: able to manifest practically any superhuman power.
Grue: Able to disable/lessen powers within his darkness.
Othala: able to grant superhuman abilities.
The Clarivoyant: able to grant abilities to those he touches.
Victor: I would not rate him a trump personally, but he is irrelevant to this anyway.
If in the future Adam is able to modify powers through the Corona Pollentia then the PRT will most likely give him a trump rating, but this is similar to the Mover rating he would get for his jet-pack, it has to due with his use of his technology, not his actual power. (PRT ratings are threat assessments, not actual power levels)
Last edited:
- Location
- Australia
You do have a point. It certainly seems like a Tinker power externally, if one with odd rules. From the inside, the ability to pick and choose how the power takes shape seems Trump-ish, but all Tinkers do unlock schematics over time.
In the end it doesn't matter much. The classifications are a quick guideline, and are partially political. He'll be labeled a Master once the news of what he did to Bakuda gets out, so that the stigma of that classification can be used against him.
I am really loving this story (and your update speed is ridiculous).
This new team has some potential. I can't image that Circus will be able to hide her employer for long. A truth serum of some kind (with amnestic side effect) seems to be something that would easily been in Adam's reach. Taylor herself is only a few negative interactions with heroes away from fully supporting Mayhem (I suspect). Purity, well...she is just desperate to do good for anyone who lets her.
I look forward to seeing him branch into cybernetics. Maybe a few more implants in the near future. Everything he does to improve his baseline status is essentially multiplied by Mayhem. He is already a match for much of the protectorate. Where will he be in a few more months?
Also, I don't know if you have answered this, but if you stick with a cannon timeline, an endbringer is due soon. WIll He participate? Or will his need for survival/save Riley keep him on the sidelines (and lose much of the respect/cred) he has earned thus far.
Thanks for the great story.
This new team has some potential. I can't image that Circus will be able to hide her employer for long. A truth serum of some kind (with amnestic side effect) seems to be something that would easily been in Adam's reach. Taylor herself is only a few negative interactions with heroes away from fully supporting Mayhem (I suspect). Purity, well...she is just desperate to do good for anyone who lets her.
I look forward to seeing him branch into cybernetics. Maybe a few more implants in the near future. Everything he does to improve his baseline status is essentially multiplied by Mayhem. He is already a match for much of the protectorate. Where will he be in a few more months?
Also, I don't know if you have answered this, but if you stick with a cannon timeline, an endbringer is due soon. WIll He participate? Or will his need for survival/save Riley keep him on the sidelines (and lose much of the respect/cred) he has earned thus far.
Thanks for the great story.
- Location
- Brazil
He is much better used in the medical tent than in the frontlines.
Considering he's about to build a full body, you can probably expect a Ghost in the Shell style full cyborg body soon. Probably with a Bonesaw-esque emergency escape tenta-spine.
The'She' here is a bit confusing. The previous paragraph is about Cricket but the next name is Bakuda. Both women. I couldn't really tell if you meant Bakuda killed Kaiser or Cricket did. I'm pretty sure Bakuda was just in college, not that discounts her from having a husband and child for Kaiser to kill, but to my mind it kind of does make it unlikely. For Cricket, I can't imagine she willingly joined E88 if Kaiser killed her family. Unless he was able to blame someone else and Mayhem helped her figure it out.
Though it does work, since Adam is thinking, I believe this is supposed to be thinG.
This story is great, and as everyone else has said, your output speed makes it even better. It's a daily dose of creativity, violence, cruelty, and other shenanigans. Thanks.