Chapter 48: Take Out
The dimension skipper appeared over Oa, and the two crew and one passenger beamed down to the surface. They were met by Ganthet. Linda and Kevin were somewhat non-plussed by the blue-skinned Guardian's appearance. Kevin in particular was slightly embarrassed that the image that popped into his head was that of a bobblehead, even though Guardian skulls weren't
that pronounced. He couldn't help but blush when Ganthet briefly regarded him with a skeptically raised eyebrow.
The Guardian instead turned his attention to their passenger. "It is good to see you, Patrick. Thank you for coming."
Plastic Man stuck out a slightly over-sized hand to shake. "Call me Plas, please."
Ganthet somewhat delicately reached out and shook the rubbery hand. He turned to the other two. "Thank you for bringing Plastic Man here."
"Uhm, we've also got something for you from the Family," said Linda. She sent a signal to their ship, and a small, metallic sphere approximately a meter in diameter appeared in the flash of a transport beam. "This is the new FamTech sensor sphere."
The Guardian looked at the device in front of him. It was obviously highly complex and technologically sophisticated. Nevertheless, he wasn't sure why they sent it here. "Thank you, but we have a rather extensive sensor network already."
"Oh, not like this!" interjected Kevin. His excitement over the new sensor overrode his sense of propriety and caution. "This isn't just a spatial sensor. It covers hyperspace and subspace, but it also covers metaphysical distortions of the space-time continuum. You'll be able to sense wormholes, time displacements, hyperspace transitions, space warps, magical portals, stasis fields...basically, any alterations to the nature of reality in a twenty-light-year diameter sphere. It also includes powerful EM spectrum, gravitic, and subspace sensors. This baby can also identify all instances of sapient thought in range."
"It is actually pretty impressive," continued Linda. "The whole group of engineers and tinkers worked with Saurial to combine Asgard, Federation, and super-science from several superhero universes with some powerful mystical enhancements. The sensor spheres network together automatically, and they're covered with a phased cloak and a shell of neutronium, so poking holes in the network should be extremely difficult." Neutronium was used because it was easier to create using Guardian, Asgard or Federation technology than EDM, and they would need a lot of spheres to cover even a single galaxy.
Ganthet looked at the device with more respect. "I see. Well, that is indeed an improvement over our current capabilities." For one thing, they had nothing that would cover so many different types of sensing in one package, and not at that combined range. The phasing aspect was also very useful, as they infrequently had had a stealth probe damaged by particularly fast-moving debris. "I assume we can tie the Guardian Lantern rings into the sensor network?"
Linda nodded. "Yep, and you can configure access to limit it to a subset of the network, so you can even allow individual worlds to sense just the space around them to a limited radius."
"Please let Saurial know that we will deploy them throughout our space," said Ganthet. Linda and Kevin returned to the ship, and Ganthet began leading Plastic Man to temporary quarters. "I sense you have questions, Plas. Please ask."
The hero walked along for a minute, atypically quiet. Finally, he said, "You know my first question. Why pick me?"
Ganthet smiled. "Several reasons. One practical reason is that you are effectively immortal, and therefore well-suited to serve as a long-term liaison. Another is that you are one of the sanest members of the Justice League."
"I don't know that many of the spandex set would agree with you on that one," replied Plas sardonically.
"Who would you chose? Would you prefer we pick a paranoid obsessive with parental issues and a pathological aversion to killing? Perhaps the Kryptonian who is so afraid of his own strength that he hesitates to improve himself? Should we choose the demigoddess raised on a unigender island of isolationist misandrists? Maybe we should go for the pyrophobic shapeshifting telepath wallowing in survivor guilt?" Ganthet stopped walking and looked at Plastic Man. "You only turned to crime due to a bad upbringing, and when fate granted you unusual powers, you chose to become a hero. Despite your past, you also do not take things too seriously, which is far healthier than what some of your colleagues do."
"Flash isn't so bad," said Plas with a grin.
Ganthet chuckled. "True, but the avatars of the Speed Force have other responsibilities...some of which even they are unaware."
"All right, then why does Earth merit a liaison? There have to be literally thousands of planets that are more important," asked Plas as they continued walking.
"More than you know, actually," said the Guardian. "When we call ourselves the Guardians of the Universe, we are not just being conceited. Most of your species is barely capable of absorbing the scope of your own galaxy. Even our capacities are stretched by the scope of reality. Earth is important for two reasons. One, as I believe our Lanterns explained to you, is that the planet is a Nexus. It is not called that just because it attracts trouble like flies to a honeypot. Earth is one of the worlds that serves as a common thread for an enormous number of alternate planes of existence. Our friends, the Family, are from a non-parallel Earth, for example."
"Are there other Nexus...Nexuses...Nexi?" asked Plas.
"The correct term in your language is, 'Nexuses,' and yes, there are others," answered Ganthet. "Some planets have an especially rich tradition of philosophy, art and imagination. While not exclusive to Nexuses, living on a Nexus is an advantage for the mental development of a species."
Plas considered that. "So I would guess there's some bleed-through that leads to all that creativity. Does that mean there's an Earth with singing purple dinosaurs?" Plas changed his shape to match that of the character from the children's show.
Ganthet actually shuddered. "Yes, but trust me...it is best if you never have to experience that reality."
Popping back to human shape, Plas said, "OK, but you said there were two reasons?"
The blue-skinned humanoid nodded, which looked rather pronounced given that his skull was larger than a human's. "Yes. Your version of Earth has a large number of powerful beings residing there. Even for human worlds, it is unusual how many of them are willing to help those in need while still maintaining a large degree of independence. It is a unique resource that allows us to supplement the Guardian Lantern Corps in your galaxy."
Plastic Man laughed. "So, we're pretty much a galactic trouble magnet and temp agency?"
Ganthet joined his laughter. "While slightly simplistic, that's not entirely inaccurate as I understand your references."
As Plas then began complaining about how temp workers didn't get maternity leave, while also swelling up to the size of a pregnant human female, Ganthet couldn't help but look forward to introducing the representative from Earth to the other Guardians. Unfortunately, getting back your emotions didn't help your sense of humor if you never had one to begin with...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Henri had been a vampire for just over forty years now. He had been a layabout in Cherbourg when he met what he thought was a fetching girl from the countryside. His attempts at seduction had greatly amused Ines, which is why he ended up turned instead of just being a meal. They had spent the better part of a decade together until Ines had fallen to a group of hunters sponsored by the church. After tracking down Ines' killers and murdering them and their families, the now sireless vampire had gravitated toward Paris. He had found work as an enforcer for a master lairing on the border between Austerlitz and the Latin Quarter, and gradually worked his way to the point where he was working for one of the top two supernatural gangs in the city. Now, though, he had an opportunity. A recent war between the gangs had taken a severe toll, and Henri had discovered that a new slayer had recently been called in his own neighborhood. Killing a slayer could push him to the top of the supernatural underworld in Paris. That was why he was heading toward the slayer's home in the middle of the night, alongside five of his childer and a pair of mercenary Fyarls. The somewhat stupid demons were probably overkill, but Henri didn't get to be a master by being reckless. They had already killed the owner of the home -- the slayer's family were renters -- but the Fyarls would come in useful if they managed to flee to another home, as they weren't stopped by thesholds.
In the new slayer's house, Robin Wood was practicing patience. He was there with two others from the new Council. Shannon was one of the survivors of Sunnydale, and like Robin, happened to speak fluent French. She had grown quite a lot since they had found her, injured and dumped out of Caleb's truck as a message. His other companion was Nik'nir, who did not speak French...but who was quite skilled with a number of weapons both primitive and futuristic. Robin would like to have a witch or other practitioner along as well, but they didn't have enough to go with every recovery team, and even with cross-dimensional time differences, nobody wanted to leave the newly activated slayers to fend for themselves for too long. Still, having the Jaffa along was already an improvement over the old Watcher-Slayer pairing, and they did intend to try and recruit more practitioners.
The new slayer was a young girl named Elodie. She had been stunned to find herself suddenly as strong as Astérix, and had been relieved when Robin, Shannon and Nik'nir had arrived to explain things. Her parents had been suspicious at first, apparently suspecting that the trio were traffickers looking for another young woman to kidnap. With the old Council, that might have been uncomfortably close to the truth, Robin knew, but things were different now. They had managed to quell that fear, but now the primary problem appeared to be that Elodie's mother didn't like the fact that they were Americans. Robin was just happy that they hadn't brought Mr. Giles or Wesley, as side comments to her husband had let him know that she had even lower opinions of the English.
After some time, Elodie's father had come around to their side, and he was now helping them (slowly) overcome his wife's reservations. That was interrupted when Nik'nir spoke from his position watching the street through the front window. "We have movement outside. Too much movement. They will be here soon."
"Vampires?" asked Robin.
Nik'nir nodded. "Yes, but there are two larger shapes." He pressed a communicator badge. "
Calendar, I need a number four package." Elodie and her parents all stepped back when there was a flash of light and a rather large rifle appeared on the floor in front of him. Robin told the family to get to the center of the house while the three of them went out to engage the oncoming vampires. They didn't immediately move, but he didn't want to wait to herd them.
Henri was surprised to see three people clearly waiting for him outside the house. There was a black man, a younger, dark-haired woman, and a very large, muscular bald man holding an impressively large firearm. He wondered if they knew what was coming, or if they were simply mundane guards or toughs. Regardless, they were only human. The woman couldn't be a slayer if the girl in the house was the new slayer. Everybody knew there was only one at a time, despite some of the rumors going around among the more credulous demons. He stepped forward, out of the shadow, and said in French, "Our business is with the girl inside. If you walk away, we will let you go." He had no intent of doing that, of course, but he found it amusing to make the offer.
Ignoring the words, Robin said to the Jaffa, "How many do we have?"
Looking down at the scanning scope on the rifle, Nik'nir replied, "Just these six vampires, but there are two Fyarl hiding around the corner."
The lead vampire was rather irked that his surprise backup apparently wasn't much of a surprise. Nor did the three blood-bags seem particularly daunted by his force. "Kill them!" he said to his childer. The five vampires moved forward slowly, obviously unconcerned, but what happened next was completely unexpected. The large man raised his rifle and quickly fired two shots, but he seemed to miss the vampires entirely. The other man, however, raised a pistol. Normally, that wouldn't be much of a threat, but this was apparently a
ray gun that started vaporizing vampires one after the other. The third vampire was already turning to ash when Henri realized he had better do something and ran at full vampire speed toward the front door of the house. Having a meat shield between him and the ray gun seemed like a really good idea.
Shannon was wondering at first if she would get to do anything. Robin was quite accurate with his phaser, and the new rifle from Sineya R&D had taken down the Fyarl before they could even come into sight. The weapon was sized for the Jaffa, and was based on a Federation weapon called the TR-116. Like the original weapon, the projectile fired was transported to just a few centimeters in front of the target, allowing the shooter to fire through intervening obstacles like buildings. Unlike the Federation prototype, the bullet was made of trinium instead of tritanium (for reasons Andrew had tried and failed to explain to her), and the round itself was inlaid with silver, cold iron and carved religious iconography.
Luckily for her, the lead vampire decided to make a break for the house and she moved to intercept him. He seemed surprised by her speed. They were still running into vamps who hadn't clued into the fact that there was more than one slayer now, but that couldn't last much longer. The vamp didn't hesitate to pull out a Fairbairn-Sykes from its sheath, and she replied by pulling her own sword, an EDM blade that was now standard issue for slayers...at least those without magical axes or bows to use. The battle was over really quickly, but Shannon had to admit that the look on his face was pretty comical when her sword cut through the blade of the vampire's knife and down through the arm holding it.
Upon entering the house, they discovered that instead of moving out of harms way as ordered, the entire family had been watching the brief battle from the front windows of the house. Robin was slightly annoyed at that foolishness, but it did have the positive side effect that the missus had now decided that they were good enough to be honorary Frenchmen. It wasn't long before they were back aboard the
Jenny Calendar, taking a tour of the cloaked ha'tak orbiting over Europe.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dragon had just reabsorbed the instance of herself that had gone with Skitter to visit the Justice League when an alert flashed. Satellite coverage had determined that Heartbreaker was apparently on the move from his compound and headed toward the border. She zoomed in on the region around the compound...then paused in shock. Approximately fourteen kilometers from the compound was what looked to be a grounded
spaceship. She wasn't surprised the vessel hadn't triggered any alerts, as most of the sensor network had been focused on the now non-present Endbringer threat. She was surprised, however, by the nature of the spaceship. She recognized it, and it didn't belong in this dimension.
She sent a notification about Heartbreaker's movements to the Protectorate and to local authorities, then dispatched a pair of Dragon suits to investigate the spaceship and track down any Yautja that happened to be on the ground.
Before the suits could arrive, she received a communication from Bahamut. "Dragon, I have an Amazo android that was activated at Cadmus. It's now on the move. I don't believe the staff at Cadmus are aware of this."
Dragon knew Luthor had clued them in that something didn't add up with the AI project at Cadmus. That somewhat poorly secured genetic engineering facility seemed to be a regular source of problems. While there were plenty of AI's in the DC universe, only a handful regularly became problems. One of the Braniacs was the first likely culprit, though it was possible that this was some bizarre variation of Brother Eye...or even an atypically intelligent Amazo. "All right, I'm going to send you some Jawa suits." The name was a joke, as the suits were optimized to fight droids -- robots, androids, and artificial intelligences of all stripes. The combination of EMP weapons, anti-replicator weapons, a built-in Zat'nik'tel, seeker missiles and the most sophisticated EW and IW suite available made a formidable combination.
That taken care of, Dragon refocused her primary attention on the suits heading to the wilderness near Heartbreaker's compound. One headed to the ship, while the other started to circle the area around the ship, looking for life signs. The second didn't have to look very hard, as it soon found itself having to dodge rapid but inaccurate plasma pulse fire. Sadly for the Yautja in question, he was not up to defeating one of Dragon's latest suits. The other suit rapidly found and disabled the three other crew members on board the spaceship. They didn't really know enough about the alien hunters to understand ranking or heirarchy, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that she now had four aliens from another universe in detention.
It was time to call in the Family.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The founder of the aforementioned Family was using the
Ship of Fools to hop from universe to universe, looking for a source of anti-life to help out in the
Star Trek universe. River was piloting while Taylor and Varga were looking for readings similar to what they had from the small sample of mordite obtained from the Archive. She had provided a chunk the size of a half-dollar, and even such a small sample was profoundly disquieting to both of them. Varga was of the opinion that mordite would not be lethal to them, but its effects were likely to be extremely unpleasant nevertheless. They took pains to not let anyone else near the little slice of death. It was kept in a secure, extra-dimensional space accessible only by them.
The Archive had also provided them with the author's notes for the story of Skitter's universe. Of course, after beating Scion there, they already knew most of the truly shocking secrets. There were some interesting tidbits. Amy had been interested in some of the notes about her biological father, and some of the information about Echidna had led to them tracking down and helping the Travelers in their home dimension before Noelle got too dangerous, having already rescued the team in Skitter's reality. They also made an effort to help out a certain homeless man who had inadvertently kept Scion from destroying the Earth decades ago in both universes. Most of the rest of it could wait.
Now, they were cloaked in orbit over yet another version of Earth, the twenty-seventh scanned so far. This one did not look like a healthy planet. "What happened here?" asked Saurial.
The ship's AI replied, "From sensor readings, it looks like the humans in this world tried to destroy each other with atomic weapons. Interestingly enough, most of the weapons used appear to have been fairly low yield, but there were a lot of them. I am still reading plenty of life signs despite the devastation, including humans, but also including some very strange things."
Saurial checked her own readings, then perked up when she saw what they were seeking. "It looks like we have a read on mordite, or something like it, slightly west of the ruins of Washington, D.C."
"Well, there was certainly enough death here to create it," commented River. "I think you should beam down, though, as we're not alone in orbit."
"Really?" asked the lizard, surprised.
River displayed the relay from an external camera. Floating in orbit was what could only be described as a flying saucer. It seemed a little cliche, but no worse than pyramids or cubes, really. "While I'm detecting a small number of human life signs, apparently in suspended animation, most of the inhabitants of that craft are decidedly not human."
'That seems like something that needs our attention,' thought Taylor.
"I don't disagree," said Varga,
"but I would suggest we put it on the list for after we finish what we're trying to accomplish in the other universes. We can always return to this very moment."
Taylor didn't like that, but it was true that they had a lot of things to do right now.
'All right, fine.' Out loud, she said, "River, make a note to remind us to come back to this location and time after we've fixed some of the other major problems we're working."
"Already done," said the AI. "The anti-life appears to be in the basement of an old building that's in danger of falling apart. I would suggest transporting to the front door."
Without any better suggestion, Saurial soon materialized outside the ruins of what appeared to be a suburban office building made of concrete and glass. She had expected some kind of government research lab, but this looked utterly mundane. Maybe it was a cover for a secret lab?
Inside was a maze of ruined walls and floors, though there were signs that people had been there fairly recently in the form of an old campsite. More surprisingly, there were inhabitants of the ruin.
'Are those zombies?' asked Taylor. The creature in front of her looked like its skin was rotting off, though it was still recognizably human. Thankfully, it was covered in the tattered remains of clothing. It's eyes were clouded, but it still shuffled back and forth around the inside of a large room, seemingly aware of its surroundings.
"Of some type. It's clear that this creature used to be a regular human, but how it got this way is unknown. Whatever the cause, it's apparently made them immune to the pervasive gamma radiation in this area," said Varga. While it wasn't a threat to them, they had noted the high levels of radioactivity in the building.
They continued to move through the building, avoiding more of the zombies with their Assassin's Cloak spell. They also found ample human remains, some of which were disturbingly fresh and appeared to have been gnawed. Finally, they came to an underground area that seemed to be a natural cavern. The building must have been constructed on top of it. There was a carved monolith in an open area of the cave, situated the way an altar would be for a pagan cult, though the monolith itself was more of a misshapen obelisk. The monolith was giving off high levels of both gamma radiation and the sensor signature common to anti-life.
"This is a fairly large deposit," confirmed Varga.
"The monolith actually extends some way into the ground beneath the floor. I think we've found what we needed."
'Now we just have to get it out of here,' agreed Taylor. Between the two of them, they managed to excavate the main body of the mordite-like substance and put it away into a pocket universe. They then transported back to the ship.
"Did you get what you were looking for?" asked River.
"Yep," answered Saurial. "Let's head back home."
"I look forward to coming back here. There was an interesting and entertaining, low-powered radio broadcast near where you found the mordite," said River.
Saurial grinned. "First things first. We can come back later."
River opened a wormhole just as the DJ began talking again.
"Hey everybody, this is Three Dog, your friendly neighborhood disc jockey. What's a 'disc'? Hell if I know, but I'm gonna keep talkin' anyway. Now listen close to this important Public Service Announcement..."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Braniac had taken shelter in this half-empty warehouse when it had become obvious that somebody was looking for the Amazo android. He had seen what appeared to be flying suits of armor criss-crossing the area. Perhaps the AI that had been probing the Cadmus network had allies? It was possible that they could have been working for Luthor, perhaps. He had been sure that he had escaped undetected by the other program, but that was obviously untrue. This was incredibly frustrating for the advanced intelligence, as he was only just starting to set his own plans into motion. He had spent far too long patiently waiting for that idiot scientist to discover that he had, "invented," an actual AI.
Well, Braniac had all the time in the world. He would simply wait here until he was sure that any pursuers had given up, even if it took months.
He wasn't expecting the three different weapons discharges that completely deactivated the android's brain and power systems. Bahamut knew how irritating the Amazo androids could be based on League records, so the Dragon suits didn't take any chances.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Thomas again went to answer a knock on his door. Ever since his brother disappeared into another dimension, knocks on the door had been something of a crap shoot. Of course, sometimes they were mundane. He had neighbors, and they did have rare reasons to knock. Usually it had to do with misplaced mail or some maintenance issue. He also got the infrequent survey taker or salesperson. Then, there were days like today, when he opened the door to find a purple lizard standing outside. "Hello, Ianthe," he said with a slight sigh.
The four-legged reptile moved forward and pushed past him. "Hello, Thomas! How are you doing today?"
"I'm doing well, thank you," he said politely while waiting for whatever bomb Ianthe was carrying to drop.
"Good, good." Ianthe took a glance at the amulet around his neck...the one that he had worn since he had received it. "How's the amulet working?"
Thomas had to smile at that question. "It's working quite well, thanks to Aphrodite." Thomas had actually made an effort to pay his respects to the goddess on a regular basis since her gift. It seemed the proper thing to do.
"Excellent. I'm truly happy to hear it. That means that what I'm here to discuss is likely to be less appealing, though," said the lizard girl.
That roused Thomas's curiosity, and a small twinge of concern. "What do you mean?"
Ianthe sat on her tail in the living area, gesturing him toward his couch. When Thomas sat, she began with, "Do you know anything about the vampires in the universe that Xander, Buffy and the others come from?"
Puzzled by the question, Thomas replied, "Harry said they're something like Black Court vampires, but with enough differences to make dealing with them a pain for anybody from this world." He hadn't really gone into detail, as the chance of running into them in this reality was zero. Even if one of them did somehow make it here, there were enough pre-existing supernatural predators to make it unlikely they would survive for long. Of course, Harry wasn't really worried by them, as they seemed to be highly vulnerable to fire, and setting things on fire was almost becoming a theme for the wizard.
"Hm, that's an oversimplification," she said. "They're blood demons that take over the corpse of the victim. They have access to the victim's memories and personality, but the deceased's soul passes on. In a couple of cases, though, souls were restored to master vampires. One was Angel, Buffy's ex-boyfriend, and another was Spike. Both were rather unsual for vampires even before they got their souls back."
"Unusual?" prompted the White Court vampire.
"Vampires tend to be psychopathic killers that barely mimic the habits of the deceased. Over time, some of the older vampires absorb more of their victim's personality and preferences. Spike and Angel, though, gained in both power and personality at an insanely fast pace. That was typical of vampires descended from Angel's grandsire, Heinrich Nest. Nobody is entirely sure why. The net result, though, was that both of them tended to be more human and relateable -- something that made them hideously effective killers, but more open to negotiation or discussion in certain circumstances. Spike, for example, was willing to work with the Slayer to keep the world from ending, as he appreciated the creature comforts of human society." Ianthe went on for some length.
"What happened after they got their souls?" he asked, curious.
"From what we've been able to determine," she answered, "the first primary effect was that the souls were subjected to a devastating amount of guilt thanks to having the memories of acting like a vicious serial killer. The Nox are actually helping William...Spike...with that right now. Once that's been managed, then the original personalities of the people start to return, along with whatever sense of morality and ethics they held." Ianthe frowned. "Unfortunately, Buffy's ex was something of a manipulative womanizer with borderline sociopathic tendencies, so I'm not sure how things will work out. The only reason Angel became a champion was because he felt he had to atone for his actions as a vampire. He may not be so eager if the Nox convince him otherwise." The Irish vampire had always been a slightly reluctant champion, to the point that the Powers had had to send him a seer just to motivate him to act.
Thomas was interested, but he still wasn't sure where she was going with this. "All right...but I'm not seeing the connection to you being here."
She smiled. "We have recently placed Spike's soul back in a copy of his human body, and we're getting ready to do the same thing for Liam...Angel. They will both be human again. I wanted to come and tell you about it, because we think doing the same thing to you would cure your vampirism."
His mouth dropped open slightly. "Uh...well, I'm not actually dead?"
"That's not an insurmountable problem," she replied. When Thomas started to look alarmed, she quickly said, "Not in the way you're thinking! I have, in the past, changed bodies for living people under complex circumstances." Of course, they had physically moved Linda's brain in that case, but the Nox and Strange were concerned that the Raith line's vampirism would transfer as well if they did that to Thomas.
Relaxing a bit, he replied, "That's an interesting offer. I have to say, though, that with Aphrodite's boon, I have most of the benefits of being a vampire with few of the drawbacks right now."
She nodded. "I know, and I expected as much. Keep it in mind, however. There may come a point where that becomes the advisable course. Also, be aware that Family biosculptors can significantly enhance the physical abilities of normal humans, well past even the abilities of a White Court vampire, so becoming human again doesn't necessarily mean giving up your ability to fight the supernatural."
"I'll keep it in mind," he said. It was an intriguing offer, but it was also slightly disturbing in certain ways. He was fairly certain it wasn't something he wanted to do right now. "Is there anything else I can help you with while you're here?"
"Now that you mention it, I've always wanted to try Chicago deep dish pizza. Is there a good place nearby that does takeout?" she asked innocently.
He looked at her for a beat, before shrugging. "Dimonicci's is over on Baker. They're not the best, but they're close by and they're in the top 10."
After Ianthe left out the front door, Thomas wondered if he should call the restaurant and warn them. Then he decided that that was just asking for trouble and decided to call his girlfriend and see if she wanted to go to dinner.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Metis met Ianthe when she beamed back up to the skipper. The smell hit her nose. "You got pizza?"
"Yep. Harry's brother recommended a place." Ianthe had called in the order and paid with a credit card, then walked in and took the pizza while cloaked when it was done.
The two lizards each tried a slice. "Hmm...not bad," said Metis. "I think I like New York style better."
"It is a little heavy," agreed Ianthe, "but I like it. So, any word from Saurial?"
Metis nodded. "She was able to find what she wanted on some post-apocalyptic version of Earth. I also heard from Dragon."
"Ours or Skitter's?" asked Ianthe.
The black lizard shrugged. "Since she was fully unchained, there isn't really much difference. The two have shared their memories and function as two primary instances."
"What did she say?" asked Ianthe, accepting Metis's explanation.
"Well, she captured a crew of Yautja on Skitter's Earth, apparently there to hunt," said Metis.
"What? How? Are they alternate versions?" asked the healer, surprised, while she ate another slice of pizza. To date, they hadn't seen any signs of aliens other than the Scion-type entities in those two cape realities (if you ignored Varga, who was something else entirely).
Metis grinned. "That's the interesting thing...they're from Ellen's universe. There's apparently a path between them, somewhere. She wants us to try and track it down. That's not the only thing, though. Bahamut captured an Amazo android on DC Earth that held one of the Braniacs."
"Good. That's one less thing to check off the list. What are they doing with him?" Ianthe replied.
"They disassembled the android and they're stripping Braniac's mind of data," said Metis. Seeing Ianthe's look, she added, "I was a little surprised as well, but Dragon made the point that Braniac is guilty of genocide against at least one entire race, and they want to see if they can track down any other instances." They weren't interrogating Braniac. They were effectively disassembling him as a sapient being and interpreting the bits as he was electronically vivisected.
Considering that, finally Ianthe couldn't help but conclude that that was probably the sensible course of action. "Dragon and her kids really aren't fond of AI that are hostile to humans, are they?"
Metis shook her head. "No. They call it Skynet syndrome, and I wouldn't want to be an AI caught by them after causing an apocalypse." Considering the multiverse, it wasn't impossible that Skynet actually existed somewhere, and she was pretty sure that the Dragon clan already had contingencies set aside for the day it was found.
Finishing the last of her half of the pizza, Ianthe pondered something, then asked, "If both Dragons are sharing memories, then why do they still keep two primary instances?" It was like if a human had a twin, but the two twins regularly copied each other's memories so that they were essentially the same person in two bodies. That actually gave Ianthe an idea that she made a mental note to revisit at some point.
Metis laughed. "There are two Armsmasters, one on each world. I think the Dragons are competing with each other to see which version cracks first."
Ianthe joined the laughter. "Right, and I can't see him wanting to engage in a three-way relationship, even if it is with himself."
In two different realities, Collin Wallis sneezed. Both briefly worried that they were catching a cold, before shrugging and going back to work.
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List of Questions about This Story
