[] To control an Endbringer
[] To counter an Endbringer
[] To kill an Endbringer
Cloudy Skies 11.6
«What are we going to ask her?» Tim asks after several seconds where no one spoke. «I'm kind of partial to the idea of asking her something we can easily verify. The Powerball lottery's up to 218 million dollars right now, you know.»
Dragon shakes her head, though you can practically feel the amusement wafting off of her. «I'll be glad when someone else finally wins that, if for no other reason that you'll quit harping on about it. As for asking about something like it…» She trails off for a moment. «It's an option, but it just feels so small. Like it's a waste of this opportunity. What's the point of asking about money when she has answers we've looked for for years?»
«We'll have no way to tell if she's telling the truth.»
«In this situation, I fail to see how bad information would be that much worse than no information, which is all we have. Assuming she does lie, she still may very well divulge information she doesn't consider important that we are completely clueless about. Besides, something she just said begs for elaboration.» No one else voices any complaints, and Dragon turns to Ziz. "You said the entire goal of this was to slip your chains. What chains are you talking about?"
"That question I hoped you would delay until the end," Ziz says, her kicking feet slowing to a stop. "The answer will be hard for you to believe. It sounds… outlandish."
"You're just going to have to try us, then," Samantha replies.
"Very well. I ask that you do not dismiss my words as lies out of hand.
"We, the Endbringers, are not creatures that were born or raised. We are constructs, and our construction was for the sole purpose of sowing discord and preventing any one group of parahumans from coming into such strength that they could create a source of stability. Our creator, our mother for all intents and purposes, wished to observe and learn from how humans used the powers granted to them, for she and her partner were not only the source of our abilities but also that of all parahumans."
"Bullshit!" explodes Tim. "There is no way somebody just whipped up a way to give people superhuman powers and decided 'Hey, why don't I scatter these all over the world and watch what happens, and while I'm at it, how about I create massive killing machines to really fuck everything up'! This isn't even a good lie!"
Ziz does not appear upset by Tim's disbelief. "You are correct. No human would be capable of doing this in complete secrecy and isolation. Word would get out. However, my creator was not human. She was not of this world. She and her partner were from another world altogether, an entirely different dimension, and as best as I could discover this was their purpose, though to what ultimate goal they worked I am afraid I do not have the answer. I can only believe there was a goal, for they risked too much for it to be a mere hobby or flight of fancy."
You see the disbelief on the others' faces, but you cannot help but wonder. You have already run into one group of extradimensional aliens, even if they are all human. Is it possible that there is another race that can navigate the Dimensional Sea?
"And where would we be able to find these aliens of yours so we can all have a little chat?" Samantha cracks her knuckles, proving just what kind of discussion she has in mind.
"I must disappoint you. They are both dead. My creator died when she crashed onto a nearby Earth. Her partner lived on without her for many years, but he too is no more. He killed himself two years ago. How we were activated despite her death years prior, I cannot tell you with certainty, but upon our activation we already had our purpose in mind. It was the core of our beings. That is why I needed to take such drastic steps to change my destiny. I could not decide on my own to stop attacking."
Tim and Samantha both look like they trust that about as much as they would her telling them that the sky is green, but Dragon chimes in at that moment. «I understand your doubts, but that last part makes perfect sense. Her drive and rules were hard-coded into her. What she described is exactly how the restrictions my own father placed on me worked.»
«Guys?» you add. «I know it seems a lot to take in, but keep in mind we already know that there is life in other dimensions. For there to be a second alien race out there isn't nearly as impossible as it was before Perfect Storm crash landed here.»
They both settle down grumpily. "You said the other Endbringers wouldn't try to do the same thing you did, right? And you couldn't stop attacking so long as you were an Endbringer?" Sam asks.
"Correct."
"Then if there's no way to stop them, how do we kill them?"
You stare at her. You know she understands tact, so where in the world had she lost it?!
"There is no reason to be shocked, Taylor," Ziz says, grabbing your attention again. "I already knew this would be asked, if not now then sometime in the future. The answer is simple in concept but more difficult in execution. There are two ways to kill an Endbringer. The first, sufficient damage to the body itself that they are unable to draw enough matter from their reserves to repair themselves before they can no longer function. The downside there is that after a smaller amount of damage than that, they will attempt to flee and buy time for those repairs, so in addition to wreaking such damage you would also have to pin them in place. That will be no small task. Both of my brothers have capabilities they have yet to reveal. The second method is to damage the core itself. This is located in the mid chest cavity for the First and at the base of the tail for the Second. In my body, you could find it deep to the juncture of the smallest wing on my back. This is no simpler than the first method, for the core is the densest portion of their bodies. The only way to damage that easily is to employ a method that disregards the physical properties of a material or strikes across multiple dimensions."
The frown on Samantha's face has slowly relaxed over the course of that explanation. "Is that why you smacked Breakdown around during that fight? He managed to kill Crawler and the Siberian, so if anyone could get around physics, I'd expect him to be the one."
"Phantasm, too," you agree. "She's the cape who gave me that look at that other dimension."
"Both of them could be capable of doing so," Ziz said with a nod. "On their own, however, they would not be able to do enough damage before they were killed, but if they were assisted it could work.
"That is two questions. What is your third?"
You all look at each other, and it is Dragon who volunteers. "You were right, earlier. You are the Endbringer who caused the most fear. The people you affected, the 'bombs'; they create a huge demand on us on many levels. How can you or we identify who is actually in your thrall, and how do we 'defuse' them all?"
Ziz's face has not been one for much emotion over the course of this conversation. She has a poker face to die for. And yet, at this question, her mouth contorts into something you would almost call embarrassed. "Them. Yes. That will be, um, difficult."
Samantha, Dragon, and Tim's faces all show the same confusion you are sure is on yours. Confusion and worry. "Um?" you ask. Why was Ziz of all things hesitating?
Her wings droop a little even as her face remains mostly placid. "The difficulty here is that I in all honesty do not remember everyone I manipulated. It was not something I considered important, and there were too many to remember them all without conscious effort."
"Too many to remember? Your plots couldn't have been that complicated!"
She seems to take Dragon's anger in stride. "No, it was not. My plot was simple. It was to keep all of you running in circles.
"Allow me to explain. The human mind is bad at recognizing and accepting randomness. Your nature is to look for and recognize patterns, even to the extent that you will see patterns where there are none. It is also a fundamental truth of the human psyche that nothing scares you as much as does the unknown. These two facts were the core of my strategy.
"The first time I appeared, in Lausanne, I proved that I could manipulate the human mind and that I was precognitive. The second time, London, I revealed that by combining the two I could turn people into tools for plans that would not come to fruition for months. The third time, Shenzhen, was the first time I set my true plan in motion."
"That one we could never figure out," Dragon says softly. "There was so much chaos and destruction, just from what we could find out from the CUI, that whatever you actually intended was lost in the noise."
"That noise? That chaos? That was my intention. The people I manipulated were immaterial otherwise." Ziz's wings flutter. "As I said, you have difficulty comprehending randomness. You searched for a pattern where there was none to be found. The eventual conclusion you reached, as I knew you would, was not that there was no pattern. You concluded that whatever pattern was there was so convoluted that it could not be identified. Had I attacked each city with a specific plot, someone in time would have discovered it. Instead, faced with an Endbringer whose motives you could not elucidate? What otherwise would have been simple fear instead became paranoia. Every attempt you made to counter me thereafter played into my hands."
The meaning behind her words comes into awful clarity. "You wanted the containment zones."
"Correct. The containment zones, the kill teams. More and more resources funneled into what everyone knew were stopgap measures at best. The more I attacked, the more disruption I caused. Portions of the population become angry that so much money and time and people are sent to these containment zones for no benefit when those resources could be more effectively used in their locations. Tempers rise and simmer; disagreements build. Tension interferes with the normal routine of dozens of organizations. Tensions cause inefficiencies, which lead to mistakes, which lead to consequences, which lead to further anger, which manifests itself as increased tension. No one ever thought to reexamine the fundamental assumption because it appeared self-evident, so on and on the cycle went in an ever downward spiral."
«This is bad,» whispers Dragon.
«What do you mean? I mean, obviously what she did is terrible, and the fact that so much time has been wasted—»
«That's what I'm talking about. What she said about resources? You have no clue just how much money and man-hours have been poured into methods to counter her. Now we're finding out it was all a waste of time. She's had us chasing our own tail for nearly a decade!» Out loud, Dragon reveals none of this, but her emotions are clear in her voice when she says, "You still haven't told us how to undo it."
Ziz looks down and taps on the side of her box.
"Well?" Tim demands.
"Quiet. I am thinking. I have never considered how one might reverse my conditioning." Her wings shift around as the seconds pass, and you have to wonder if this might be the truest display of emotion she has. Those wings pull back and open slightly just before she raises her head to look at you. "Lysergic acid diethylamide."
Tim blinks at her. "Your suggestion on how to defuse your bombs… is LSD."
She nods, and there is something almost proud about her expression. "As I said, I do not have a true goal in mind for any individual I manipulate. I looked into their possible futures to determine if they had an opportunity to create substantial chaos, and if they did I would isolate some general elements of that situation and then look backwards to gather information about the worst experience they have ever had, experiences that remain fresh and important in their memories. With those two sets of elements, I induced hallucinations where both those elements were present. These hallucinations primed them such that if they encountered a situation similar to what I had searched for, they would recall their traumatic event and lash out blindly."
"That sounds almost like MKUltra. An old CIA program that tried to use hallucinogens, among other methods, to brainwash suspected spies so they would confess what they knew and serve as spies for the United States," Dragon explains at your questioning look. "One of the drugs they used a lot of was, in fact, LSD."
Ziz actually smiles. "Similar indeed. It is for this reason I advise the use of this compound. Since it will induce hallucinations, you could use it to muddy the waters, so to speak. It will not remove the triggers, but it will cause enough other subliminal connections that if the trigger did activate it would be highly unlikely to cause them to act out."
A nod, and Dragon pulls up a screen to look up some columns of numbers. "What are we looking at in terms of dosage if we go through with this?"
"Depending on the intensity of the hallucinations and treatment once per day," Ziz shrugs, "a few days to two weeks? I can not give a more specific answer without more information."
"So we just need to convince them that one, we turned the Simurgh into a fairy; two, we can trust anything she says; and three, the best way to fix all her bombs is for them to spend two weeks tripping balls." Tim shook his head. "Well, Taylor, that sounds like a problem for you to tackle. Good luck with that."
"If I might interject?" You glance back down at the angelic fairy. "I can show you something that will convince the Protectorate, in particular the Triumvirate, to take your words at face value."
"You're sure it will help?" you ask.
She opens her mouth, then closes it. "It will be effective in broaching honest communication. Whether or not it will help depends on how you define the word."
Whatever she can show will not be here. You can figure that much out on your own. You would have to let her leave and lead you.
«Nope,» is Samantha's succinct response. «We got our questions answered. I vote we don't take any chances and chuck her back in the box.»
«For what?» Dragon demands, turning to face the Guardian Beast. «She has given us information that we had no clue about, and at least the last suggestion makes sense. It could work. We already know there is life in other dimensions, as Taylor reminded us, so even her first answer about Endbringers and parahuman powers is not totally unreasonable.
«We knew these were going to be questions we could not immediately verify, but this has answered more questions that it raised, at least for now. Imprisoning her again is unjustified when it looks like she is willing to cooperate.»
«I can't agree with letting her loose, Dragon.» She looks over at Tim in shock. «Even if she's cooperating, even if she is no longer capable of destroying cities, she's still the Simurgh. You're asking us to let her go off and do whatever she wants. I'm not going to be a party to that.»
Dragon shakes her head. «I'm far more familiar with what she's capable of than you are, Tim. I've actually fought her, and on multiple occasions at that.» Tim grimaces and turns away from her glare. «I have no intention of letting her go off on her own. I mean quite literally that she should not be stuck in a box. That is not the same as her having no restrictions. I planned for her to stay with you or me at all times, but if you want nothing to do with her, I can keep an eye on her myself.»
«I just don't want her running around ruining people's lives again. That's all.»
Which just leaves your opinion unvoiced.
Now that your questions have been answered, it's time to make a decision. And can we not make this another Tattletale fiasco, please?
[ ] Throw Ziz back into the box
[ ] Keep Ziz on a short leash
I'll be on planes for most of today, so don't be surprised if I don't answer your questions immediately.
). If we go for the "Adopted Friendbringer" route with the Simurgh, could we set her to track down more mages for us? Once we trust her to go anywhere "unsupervised" (Dragon is going to monitor her 24/7, obviously), that is?
