The Arachne System (SPIDERLIV 3)

[open_sketch]

YOU DASHED FOR THE WINDOW AND THROUGH IT, YOUR MOVEMENTS CLUMSY, MORE RAW STRENGTH THAN ANYTHING. EACH STEP A BOUND UNTIL YOUR SHOULD HIT THE GLASS AND YOUR LEGS WERE THROWN OUT FROM UNDER YOU AND YOU TUMBLED OUT ABOVE THE STREET.

IT WAS A BIGGER FALL THAN YOU'D REALIZED, BUT NOT LONG ENOUGH THAT YOU HAD MUCH TIME TO THINK. YOU RELAXED YOUR CONTROL JUST A LITTLE, JUST TO SEE WHAT YOUR HOST WOULD DO SO YOU COULD TAKE THE ACTION AND REPEAT IT. YOUR HAND TWITCHED TOWARD THE METAL THING HANGING FROM A CORD AROUND YOUR NECK, A THOUGHT IMPULSE, AND YOU FINISHED THE ACTION AND-

"What the fuck are you doing get out of our body you jerk who are you swing away from the building idiot i swear to god what is wrong with you??!?" AN OVERLAPPING BABBLE OF IDENTICAL VOICES SCREAMED INTO YOUR EAR FROM INSIDE THE HOOD WHICH HAD MANIFESTED AROUND YOUR HEAD. YOU DID YOUR BEST TO IGNORE THEM AS YOU REACHED OUT, TRYING TO IMITATE THE MOTION OF FIRING A LINE OF SPIDER SILK THE WAY THE MEMORIES SHOWED. NOTHING HAPPENED.

"No tech sense you fucking moron Liv that's ableist wait shit-" AND THEN YOU CRASHED INTO THE TOP OF A CAR AND BOUNCED. PAIN EXPLODED THROUGH YOU LIKE YOU'D NEVER FELT, OVERWHELMING, MIND-BLANKING, AND YOU LOST CONTROL.

---

You tumbled hard against the concrete sidewalk and against the brick of the building opposite, screams of alarm all around you from the pedestrians you'd almost run over, and you staggered to your feet with a groan.

"What the fuck was that?" you muttered weakly.

"There's something else in our brain." Athena replied smoothly, "Don't panic. I've been preparing for this possibility."

"... you've what?"

"Well, not this possibility, but an introject... hmm. Let's have this conversation back upstairs. I've looped in Nat and Clint." she said. You glanced back up the building, to the open window a dozen stories up, and reached out to-

"NO!" Your hand wavered, a pressure like a bad headache washing through you, "DON'T WANT TO GO."

"Jesus fucking Christ." you groaned. You tried again, but the closer you got to doing it the more resistance you felt, like trying to press two magnets into each other. "Fuck, ow."

"Oh, you're still here. Just who do you think you are?" Athena asked, her voice still that unnatural calm.

"NO!"

"Hm. Not blessed with a particularly robust vocabulary." Athena noted.

"Look, we're going, whoever the fuck you are." you said sternly. You set your legs to crawling up the nearest instead, which didn't seem to spark the same level of resistance, and would at least get you off the street. In the window opposite, you saw a face and long red hair suddenly appear as Nat decloaked, giving an exaggerated 'what the hell' gesture from across the street. You responded with an equally exaggerated shrug. "Heads full up, my dude."

"LET ME CONTROL YOU!" the voice screamed again, still fighting to the front, and you felt yourself trying to hold on to consciousness for dear life. "LET ME WIN!"

"Hm. Compelling." you replied tensely, "But nah."

"FUCK YOU." The pressure returned harder, harder than ever before, but soon burnt out.

"Dude, keep it down." Athena chided.

"FUCK YOU TOO."

"Charming."

Whoever the fuck this voice was, and you didn't have much patience for it, it didn't seem to quite be able to force you out of the front again, but the pressure in your skull every time it tried was disorienting. Not quite pain, but distracting. It felt the way it felt when Athena was trying to take the front, just more intense and longer and louder.

"THAT IS WHY YOU SHOULD LET ME UP FRONT. IT WILL STOP IF YOU DO." the voice said, almost cackling to itself. "YOU CAN'T LAST FOREVER."

"Stop being dramatic. It's not that bad, it's just kind of a dick move." you muttered, resting against your mechanical harness on the side of the building. "You shouting in my fucking brain is way worse."

There was a short pause.

"I WILL KEEP SHOUTING UNTIL YOU LET ME UP FRONT! SHOUTING! SHOUTING! SHOUTING LOUDLY! SCREAMING! NOISES!"

"Shut up."

"YELLING!!!!"

"Wait, Liv, I have an idea." Athena said, and either through your shared brain or similar thought processes you realized what it was.

"Ahahaha, do it." you said, bracing yourself against the wall and taking a deep breath.

"WHAT ARE YOU ARRGAHNOSTOP-"

Just like she did a month ago, Athena streamed a file directly into the neural implant in your arm, causing an awful, discordant painful spasm that rippled through your body. It was bad, but like, maybe a seven, and only for a few minutes, you'd dealt with worse. Your new headmate, though, didn't seem to appreciate it very much.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

"You... you gonna stop yelling now?" you asked.

"FUCK YOU."

"Alright, hit it again Athena."

"NO. STOP!" it screamed, but you just gritted your teeth and Athena sent another pulse. Oh, you were sure it was already listening, but honestly at this point making it squirm was delightful in and of itself. "NO!"

Ahahahahahaha. Fuck you.

"... you know, actually, it's a little disturbing how much you're enjoying this, Liv."

"YES. SHE'S SICK!" the voice gasped.

"Shut up, I'll do it again." Athena said dispassionately, "However, I think I'll draw the line at torture for its own sake, even of entities who have forcefully hijacked our body."

"Spoilsport." you complained, "Though... maybe not just for its own sake. Hey voice, whatever the fuck you are, you have ten seconds to get out of my head, or we're going to run the pulse until you do."

"YOU WOULDN'T."

"I would."

"IT HURTS YOU TOO."

"Mhmm."

"YOU'RE INSANE."

"We don't use that word. Nine, eight, seven-"

"N-NO. I CAN'T LEAVE. I'M NOT ABLE TO."

"... six, five, four, three-"

"WE'RE STUCK. WE'RE STUCK TOGETHER NOW. PLEASE DON'T, PLEASE, I'LL DO ANYTHING-"

"Two... oh. Anything, you say?"

"YES. ANYTHING. I JUST CAN'T LEAVE. I'LL DIE."

"Huh." you said. "Well, that's a shame. Athena?"

"... no. Liv, we can't kill it." Athena said, "That wouldn't be right."

"THANK YOU ATHENA."

"Though I'm not above aversion therapy to dissuade you from shouting into my friend's brain." she said sternly.

"SORR.... sorry."

"Better."

"Athena, it's probably just lying to save its own ass." you pointed out, "And I'm not feeling charitable today. Besides, it still might be killing us, it's clearly some kind of parasite-"

"I AM NOT A PARASOWFUCK!" it screamed, accompanied by a jolt in your arm, "I-I'm not a parasite. I'm a symbiote."

"Sure. That's you probably tell all your hosts before laying your eggs in their chest cavity." you said, "Same story every time. What makes you think you have a right to just barge into people's bodies like that and take them over?"

"Because we can." it intoned, "It is how we conquer other species. Use their bodies to our own ends."

"Hmm. No, I think Liv might be right, that sounds like a parasite to me."

"NO! It is a glorious process, becoming part of something greater. It will be what we do to humanity, because you can't stop us."

"Uh, consider yourself stopped, dude." you pointed out, "Like, if this is all it takes to stop you guys everyone should be fine. Life sucks and is painful and you can't even deal with that you don't stand a chance with us."

"If there's anything I've learned about humans its that they have a remarkable capacity for self-harm."

"No. The others I possessed were not so.... this."

"As strong?" Athena asked.

"HA! You are nothing special in that regard. Not as weak as other humans, but not strong, no." it said, "No. Not as... much. Not as many. Not as used to other voices."

"And what happened to them?" you asked.

"They died."

"Right. Athena, hit it."

"NO! I DIDN'T KILL THEM!" the voice screamed, "THE PEOPLE WHO TOOK ME DID. FORCED US BACK OUT, TO EXPERIMENT."

"Shouting." Athena warned tensely.

"Wait, us? There's more than one of you?"

"... Us. I. We. It is a continuum. Humans would not understand."

"You'd be surprised. So the Life Foundation has more than just you, and they're doing fucked up experiments on people?"

"Yes. They took the others, the rest of me, they took them away. I hid. Hibernated for a short time, in the cold. When we have no hosts, it is our only way to survive. In the cold, or vacuum of space, or-"

"Got it. We'll find a nice walk-in freezer, drop you off, and go fuck them up for you. How does that sound?" you asked.

"... or you could keep me and I could help you." it offered.

"Why? So you can gain my trust, reunite with the rest of you, and overwhelm me once we've done your dirty work and we've let our guard down?"

"... yes."

"Right, Athena, find a Dippin' Dots, we're gonna freeze this sucker."

"Wait!" the voice cried, "I can help, I CAN! Not just with information. Power. Strength. Healing."

"... healing?" you asked.

"You are broken. We cannot fix you, but we can... improve things. Stop this fucking pain, at least a little. Make you stronger. Change your body..."

"... I'm listening."

"We have many powers. What do you want?" it asked.

---

​

Note: This is a change that will stick even if you manage to get rid of the symbiote later, just so long as you give it enough time to enact it. Which deep-freezing it won't do.​

[ ] Healing. It says it can't 'fix' you (fucking ableist tbh) but you won't say no to less pain.​

[ ] Strength. Sure, you can lift two tons, but couldn't hurt to upgrade. Especially considering the calibre of foes recently.​

[ ] Changes. HRT has done most of its work, and while you aren't unsatisfied with the results, things could be... pushed. A little.​

[ ] Write In: Subject to veto, but hey who knows what this alien goo is capable of?​

[ ] Nope, into the freezer with you, jerk.​

 

[open_sketch]

"How the hell can you heal us when you barely even know what a human is?" you asked.

"Ha! It would not do to have hosts die on us prematurely. We can read your genetic information, your body deviates signifigantly from what it should be. Damage and poisoning." he replied, "The arm, obviously, but also your hormone levels and repro-"

"That's not damage," you snapped.

"Ah, you did it on purpose. Interesting. Not optimal from an evolutionary standpoint, but that damage is relatively minor," Well, you weren't sure yet, but you were strongly considering make that damage somewhat more permanent. None of his fucking business anyway. "Oh, now I understand. Well, in that case, there's the issues with your nerves. Ah, neuroma, you have a word for it," he said, sounding strangely pleased at that. "We can reduce the pain, repair what nerves we can and sever that which we can't. Relatively painlessly."

"... Liv, I don't trust the alien blob any more than you do, but I think I speak for both of us when I say that would be an immense improvement in our quality of life."

"No shit. How much a difference are we talking?"

"I'm not sure, but I can simulate and accelerate the processes of healing your body is already capable of. It will be as though the damage is older. Ten, fifteen years."

You considered that carefully. Post-amputation chronic pain wasn't very well understood, but it did tend to decrease with time. It hadn't quite been a year yet, but already the pain had gone from dehibiltating nearly every day to a background irritant with regular flareups. Further improvement probably wouldn't be quite so drastic, but it would be good."

"... so that's a yes?"

"Not yet, I still don't trust you to fuck around in my body, I've just got it the way I want it," you snapped. "But I'm thinking about it."

"Mmhm. I will say that other changes from your genetic template are much more practical. Clearly upgrades which have more than counteracted the loss of muscle mass. Whatever you have done to yourself is impressive, if short-sightened given your increasing sterility."

"Dude, why are you so obsessed with a teenaged girl's capacity to have children. It's super creepy," Athena pointed out.

"The purpose of life is to make copies of itself, to propagate those copies to dominate the local environment. Whatever modifications you have done has made you strong, far stronger than any human I've encountered, but then you will die, and your dominance of this world will end. That is all that matters."

"Oh no, my empire," you lamented sarcastically. "Whatever dude, I just want less pain."

"Fine. I can arrange that. Just keep their needles away from us."

"... deal."

"Hey, Liv, do I get a vote too?"

"Oh, yeah. Your body too," you said.

"Then deal, but if you fuck us over I will send so much pain it will break your pathetic little alien brain," Athena warned.

"... Okay."

You climbed back up through the window.

---

It took only a moment to transfer to the room that Nat and Clint had actually commendeered, while the sirens of arriving police swarmed and took a look at the blank security footage you'd erased. From there you went into the bathroom "to change out of your costume", then had to explain just what the hell was going on. You made it pretty simply: there was an alien parasite in your body, but you'd managed to get it under control. The problem is, the kept talking and asking questions, and you kept getting more and more hungry.

"That's me. My processes need a great deal of energy." the creature explained. "Eat the male. Less metal. Easier to digest."

"Or we can go get pizza." Athena pointed out.

"... mmhm. That would work, but it's farther away. He's right there."

"Guys, um, I know its concerning, but also we've, uh, I've not had anything to eat for a long while. Can I got get food?" you asked. The two of them looked at you suspiciously, then Nat nodded slowly.

"Sure. Yeah, let's get you some food. Clint, hold down the fort and ward off the cops," she said, walking for the door. "Got a preference?"

"I am intridged by this pizza now."

"This is going to sound wild given that it's..." you checked your watch. 2:30pm. "Oh, not that wild. Pizza?"

"Pizza. Alright." You stood awkwardly in the elevator together as it carried you down to the parking garage, then Nat lead you to the coolest car you'd ever seen, a brand new electric compact SUV, but under the hood your tech sense detected nearly as many fancy gadgets as was in Nat. Like, this thing was armoured, had active camoflage, and the battery was one of those aluminium-ion types you thought were still limited to labs. It had a set of incredible sensors and you thought it was either amphibious or could drive underwater.

"It's a real-ass James Bond car," Athena said, utterly awed.

"Holy shit. What happened to Clint's van?" you asked as you sat down.

"Agency got a bit of a budget bump," Nat explained flippantly, "Also, it's an experimental testbed, not a practical car. I borrowed it because nobody can stop me and I think it's going to become my daily driver."

"Fuck she's so cool. For a government assassin."

"Who is James Bond? Is he a threat?"

"Well, it's pretty impressive." you said, and she glanced at you.

"So, how'd you get an AI?" she asked as the car pulled out into the street, accelerating silently down the road.

"I... don't know what you're talking about." you said, playing it off.

"Right. You're just a good hacker." she said, shaking her head. "Bullshit. You've got an AI, it runs your arms, hacks computers for you, sometimes I'm half-convinced it controls the rest of you too. Spent a long time thinking you were from where I was from, but you don't fit their typical profile."

"Shit."

"Kill her now. It'll be easy."

"I can neither confirm nor deny," you said. "Why would you think that?"

"... we haven't had a chance to talk, but whoever your friend is puppeted my body back in the vault." she pointed out. "Normally I like to kill people who do that, but it saved Clint and I, so I'll give you and your computer friend a pass."

You were suddenly very, very aware of the coiled springs in the two pistols concealed in the compartments in her thighs.

"Well, I appreciate it," you said, as the car pulled to a stop near some chain or another.

"You know, a lot of my superheroing ends in pizza. A surprising amount, even for a New Yorker." you said, trying to let some of the tension out.

"Mmhm. We're eating the car, not an unsecured location. Place an order," she instructed, and you gathered she didn't mean by phone. It took you exactly a second to reach into their automated system, insert the order and instructions, and pay through one of your dummy accounts. "Done?"

"Yeah," you said.

"Tell you what. Question for a question. I don't tell people things often, but I need answers on this one. Tell me where you got the AI, and I'll answer a question. Truthfully."

---

​

Your answer​

[ ] I made it. (The Truth)​

[ ] I stole it.​

[ ] I was contacted by it.​

[ ] Write In​

​

Your question​

[ ] Write In​

​

I have veto rights on the question.​

 

[open_sketch]

This is a bit of a complex update. CW: transphobia, allusions to sexual assault, its icky.​

"Liv, don't tell her the whole truth, but don't lie entirely. She'll see through it," Athena whispered into your ear.

"I made her. The AI I mean. By accident," you explained. She looked you over critically, and you wondered if she had some kind of lie detection going on. You used to pretty reliably be able to tell when people were lying through your danger sense, but it was one of those things that had slipped after you lost your arm. Talking to doctors muddled it up, given how often they spoke in half-truths, and you'd stopped trying to use it. Too many false positives.

"AI isn't something that happens by accident. This isn't the movies, kid, takes more than getting struck by lightning."

In your ear, Athena giggled.

"... is that a reference?" you asked.

"Johnny 5. Movie from the 80s. Urgh, okay, let me make this easier. Liv, patch me into the car sound system."

You did, and dashboard screen suddenly lit up, showing a dark room with Athena in her black version of the Arachne suit, poised regally.

"There are two of you?!?"

"Hello, Natasha Romanov," she said, and despite the mask, and the fact it was all an illusory render, you could tell she was grinning. "She's telling the truth. The details of my creation are not something we would like shared, but she did, in fact, create me."

"Huh," she said, looking back and forth between the two of you. "Alright. Not the answer I was expecting. Sort of figured there was a brains-and-brawn situation going on here. So did you design your cybernetics too, or did the AI help?"

"She thinks you're cybernetically enhanced and that's why you're as strong as you are. Roll with it," Athena said. You know, with her feeding you answers like this, maybe Nat's assessment really wasn't that far off.

"Joint effort. Bit hard to do surgery on yourself," you said quietly. God, you were hungry. How long did pizza take to happen?

"It is. I'm guessing you stepped things up since you fought the Red Skull. Still, it's impressive. Can't help but wonder how you're paying for it," she mused. "But I won't pry. Best not to piss off the unshackled AI. Wouldn't want to you eternally torture my mental duplicate or whatever you get up to."

"Is that also a reference? Why do you have so many references?" the symbiote asked. There was a short pause and vague mental discomfort. "... my people rely heavily on duplication. This basilisk could be a real threat."

"So, I get a question now?" you asked, and she shrugged.

"If you want," she said casually.

"Why did you think I was from where you were from?" you asked. She took a deep breath, and you could feel through your tech-sense all the very-much-not biological parts involved. The mechanical diaphragm, the churning of her artificial heart, the steel framework holding her lung tissue together.

"Wasn't always an SSR agent, and the SSR wasn't always the only agency on Earth managing the supernatural. Soviets had one too," she said, talking about it as though it were common knowledge. "They captured the lion's share of Hydra's technology after the war, including the alien artifacts much of the technology was sourced from. They set about trying to come up with peaceful uses for it all, but then the Cold War happened and there were more pressing concerns."

You wondered, for a moment, how her body handled that much replacement. There had been enormous strides in anti-rejection technology in the past decade, fueled by the never-ending wars and the increasing age of the monied classes. Transplants were given CRISPR treatments to make them closer match the host, implants coated in self-perpetuating protein mats your body recognized as part of itself. But on a scale like this...

"There was a lot of interesting things the Red Army got their hands on, but one of the biggest was captured late in the war. They overran a camp where Hydra was doing medical experimentation, and one of the samples they took was promising. They called it a virus at the time, though now we'd recognize it as nanotechnology. They'd tested it before the end of the war: it allowed easy interfacing with simple electrically powered limbs and organs, filling in the gaps of the technology at the time. They were going to reveal it to the world, but..."

"But Stalin," you summarized, and she frowned.

"But Truman. The Cold War meant it was now a secret weapon. First in the event of nuclear war, then for espionage. It fell under the MVD as the highest of state secrets, then the KGB. Come the 1960s, they were using it to make assassins."

"Okay, I see why you thought I might be one of them," you said, and she grimaced.

"Well, few problems with that. First is that most of them are dead, second is that as best we know, no new ones have been created since the the late 70s. Their sample of the T-O Virus degraded over time. Third-"

"Wait, how old are you?" Athena asked.

"I don't know," she confessed. "They did things to my memories, I have a lot of missing time. The people who created us envisioned... disruption on a worldwide scale, the destruction of capitalist nations, assassinating fascist leaders with ease. They picked women to do it, one of their early test subjects was a Red Army nurse who got blown up. They said it was because women made better assassins, though I'm starting to favour the belief that the men in charge of the program liked having women who couldn't say no."

"... I'm sorry," you muttered. She shrugged.

"As I said. Don't remember much. Pizza."

You glanced out the window just in time to see the pizza guy knock on it, and you rolled the window down, grabbed the box, and tore into it. Fuck, you were hungry.

"Sorry, um, you were saying?" Athena asked, gesturing with a slice. She smiled and reached for one.

"So yeah, instead of any of that high-minded shit we just got used for internal affairs. Arranging the occasional accident. Party politics," she said, taking a bite. She interacted with it like she'd never eaten pizza before. "Mmhm. Alright. So, yeah, next thing I know, no more Soviet Union. I'm killing mobsters for other mobsters. Thing was, they were sloppy, idiots. Didn't believe in anything. Careless. The exact kind of corrupt assholes who got in after Stalin and ruined it. It says something that the SSR was a step up from them."

You were starting to suspect that maybe Nat wouldn't take kindly to you trying to argue that Stalin and his cronies weren't exactly not corrupt and ruining it.

"How'd that happen?" you asked, and she waved a hand.

"One question. Story for another time, kid. But to answer your question from before, I thought you were one of ours because they're the only people who had access to that kind of cybernetics. And I figured you weren't, because they don't typically work with boys."

"... I'm not a boy," you said sternly. She seemed utterly indifferent.

"Of course not. This is America. You're whatever you say you are," she said dismissively. "Just remember. Everywhere else in the world, being a woman is something you only earn with pain."

"Liv, I'm taking the front." Athena insisted, and you let her, because otherwise, somebody was going to die.

---

"I'll take that under advisement," you said, looking away. Focusing on the pizza. Pizza good, almost good enough to make you forget how Cool Cyborg Lady was apparently a fucking terf. "I'm sorry you went through all that."

"That's what they told me, anyway," she said, tapping the wheel. "So, what's the deal with the Life Foundation? What's going on in there?"

"Yeah. It's-" you paused, suddenly feeling rather disoriented. You could feel the symbiote seizing on it, on the fact you weren't nearly so accustomed to taking and keeping the front, and Liv's voice echoed a warning to him in your ear, that she still had control of the Pain Device. "Something hacked my implants. Fucked up. Never had that happen before. My AI is helping work out the bugs..."

"Look, goo dude, I am really in the mood to hurt somebody and you are rapidly finding your way to the top of my fucking list," Liv snarled, and the symbiote laughed.

"You'll let your guard down eventually..."

"Try me, bitch."

".... Sorry about hitting you," you said. Nat shrugged, like it was below consideration.

"Barely even felt it. Let's get out of the city. Clint's got a date to make," Nat said, punching a new destination into the GPS. The car began rolling, and you numbly stuffed another bite of pizza into your mouth.

"Is Clint dating, um, my mom as weird for you as it is for me?" you asked.

"Honestly, a little. He's a terrible spy," she said absently. "But he's just about the only good man I think I've ever met."

"He's killed like six hundred people," you pointed out. You heard the symbiote perk up at that, clearly impressed.

"Yeah, he's good at his job. But he's the only person I've ever felt safe around," she said. "Though in your defense, I wouldn't trust any man dating my mother anyway."

"How many people have we killed?"

"Depends on your definition of 'we', 'people' and 'killed'," Liv responded.

"... if such distinctions are important, you have not killed enough."

----

Liv's got investigations to do when she gets home into this symbiote business. But she also needs to show the flag at some life stuff. What has she got?​

[ ] Liv also has a date she has to make. May's going to have to be debriefed.​

[ ] Justine asked for help with some unrelated superhero stuff. Time to suit up!​

[ ] Nothing. She's just going to hang out at home and watch Star Trek with her mom.​

​

this is basically choosing what hilarious scene of shenanigans you wanna see the symbiote mess up for her.​

 

[Havocfett]

*bursts in, wild-eyed, brandishing a sheaf of Horoscopes*
To Whom It May Concern
You are touch-starved, risk-averse, and exchanging beautiful but faintly insane romance novels. Ask your childhood sweetheart to marry you!

Click to shrink...

rule 4
Constantly jumping into threads like this is unacceptable. The fact that you were threadbanned for this behavior before should have been enough warning to stop. You have been infracted under rule 4.

 

[open_sketch]

You didn't quite return home, not properly. The implant hacking story seemed to satisfy Nat and Clint, who just promised they'd be keeping a closer eye on you, and when you got home you had a very easy cover story that would keep your mom distant enough to make sure your alien guest wouldn't try anything; May had given you covid.

You... weren't proud of that excuse, but it was the most plausible. It was just a miserable flu now, mostly, but it was the reason you didn't have grandparents, so, uh, she took it seriously. You felt a little bad manipulating her like that, but honestly it had begun to get weird you hadn't gotten it at any point since you got bit, so this would probably deflect some suspicion. You just hid in your room for a few days and wore a mask, and it meant there was never any danger of getting close enough to her to hurt her. Now all you had to do is figure out your approach into the Life Foundation headquarters to sort this out, a surprisingly daunting task.

May was unsurprisingly upset (she was terrified, even with Athena prepping her for the news) but you kept talking to her every day online to keep her fears in check and she soon began to relax. The next week was a strange one, but it fell surprisingly quickly into a routine. As much as he complained about every little indignity and imperfection of your human body, he was keeping to his word well enough. On Friday, you woke up and thought something was wrong before realizing it was the unfamiliar absence of phantom pain, at least until you moved.

"A lot of damage. Not going to be able to fix it all," he muttered. "Your mother has left you food. We need it."

"What time is it?" you asked, rolling over to stare at your phone. Past noon... you'd been sleeping it a lot this summer. No real reason not to, really. "Okay, Athena, I was thinking about maybe working on an app? Finally doing that Trackmerge slash Remixatron mashup-" You stopped, feeling something through your digital link. "Athena?"

"Sorry, I'm on a call with Justine-"

"WHAT IS JUSTINE. IS IT EDIBLE."

"No, we are not-"

"She is cute."

"Shut up!"

"That is not what I meant," the symbiote said seriously. "But I understand, a human."

"Okay, what's going on though?"

"Well, whatever it is, she wants Arachne there and doesn't want to talk about it over the phone," Athena summarized. "Which-"

"If it's got her taking information security that seriously, it's gotta be bad," you agreed, grabbing your spider symbol off your table. "Best behaviour, right."

"Eat first, or I can make no promises."

---

You landed softly against the wall outside the listed address, a very nice twelfth-story apartment in Manhattan whose monthly rent probably exceeded your mother's annual income, and sent a ping to Justine's phone. A few seconds later, a door cracked open and Justine, in civilian clothes, emerged out onto the balcony. She was dressed really, really nice, like... you felt guilty about it but this was a good... good dress, very...

"If you do not find her edible, why are you staring that way."

"Best behaviour," Athena warned. "Earth to Liv, she's straight, you're taken, think now gay later."

"Hey Justine. Kind of a downgrade costume-wise?" you said, desperately deflecting.

"Hey, I think it looks good," she said, shaking her head. "Thanks for coming, though, I haven't got a lot of time thought."

"What's going on, you okay?"

"Oh, I'm okay," she assured you, with some kind of meaning you were missing. "Thing is, uh, remember how I told you about a friend from California who's really into Wakanda shit?"

"Oh, yeah, uh... Erik?" you recalled, definately not scanning through compressed memories for the name.

"Yeah, so he's visiting for NY AnimeFest..." she started, looking a little embarrassed. "And, look, my parents are out of town and he's uh..."

"High-five her," Athena suggested. You stuck your hand out without thinking and she broke into laughter.

"Okay, yeah! No, serious though, this is serious," she said. "Alright, no other way to say it. I think he has a Wakandian artifact."

"Wait, what?" you exclaimed.

"Yeah, that was my reaction, followed by oh fuck," she replied. "He showed me it on the way back, he got it through airport security and I don't want to know how."

"Where the hell did he get it?" you asked.

"This is gonna sound insane, but he said he found it going through his dad's stuff, locked in some kind of crazy heavy chain-link suitcase," she explained. "His dead-for-ten-years dad who got him hooked on the whole thing in the first place, which... okay so I thought he was crazy until you told me that Wakanda was real, but turns out he's actually really-"

"Hold on, back to the artifact. What is it?"

"It's like, a little silver ring, but, uh... it does stuff. He changed the lights at the intersection by waving his hand. It's... it's really cool, and it's going to get us killed by, uh, how'd you put it?"

"Laser poisoning," you said.

"About that, we're getting a call from the SSR," Athena chimed in. Justine's phone chimed, presumably with the same message.

"Yeah, I don't want to get lasered," she said. "I told him I didn't want that freaky shit in my parent's place, so he left it in the car. Is this... gonna be okay?"

"I dunno yet," you admitted. You'd have to take the call. "Look, just keep him distracted, we'll deal with this."

"... I can do that," she said with a smile, and stepped back inside. You switched your line to the SSR call.

"Wakandan artifact, right?" you asked.

"What the hell did you do?" Clint replied, sounding deeply panicked.

"I'm already on it. What's the situation on your end?"

"The situation is that a ninja in an animal mask just appeared in SSR's HQ demanding to know the exact whereabouts of... they called it the 'Royal Ring of the Pretender' so-"

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, apparently it was taken out of the country during some kind of royal drama, I don't know the details. You know where this ring is?" he asked.

"I've got a lead," you hedged.

"Good. I'll send meetup coordinates, there's an Osprey on the way," he said. "You need backup?"

"... I think I can handle it, we'll keep you posted," you said. "Wait, they don't know where it is?"

"I guess not. It's been a bit of a different, uh, tone. No threats, just... a demand."

Interesting. The other artifacts, it seemed like they could see from orbit, but not this one... not only could they not find it exactly, it sounded like it could be shielded from view outright pretty simply.

"Hey, Athena, how fast could we make a faraday cage?"

---

​

[ ] Let's not fuck around. Snatch it and hand it over. You don't want to get involved in laser regicide.​

[ ] Build a faraday cage and hide the ring. Whatever technology is inside, it must be incredible. Once you've taken a quick look, you can work out what to do with it.​

[ ] You getting involved could make this your problem in a way you really, really didn't want it to. Just tell Justine to warn Erik that he's in trouble and to put the ring back in the box!​

 

[open_sketch]

"I have confidence you can make one unsettlingly fast. It doesn't have to be big," Athena replied smoothly. "... oh, you want me to guess so you can beat my estimation as an ego boost."

"Am I that transparent?" you asked, then you paused. "Actually, something that small might be kind of pain. I wish I had one of those wallets with the faraday shields in them, provided it actually worked and didn't just slap 'RFID Secure!' on some cheap Amazon knock-off."

"Why would somebody do that?" the symbiote asked. "Just go on the internet and tell lies?"

"Liv, we're in Manhattan, there's tech workers with thousand-dollar wallets everywhere. Find somebody wearing smart glasses and ask," Athena suggested. Oh yeah, right.

You slid off the balcony and descended to street level, scanning the crowd. Took you about thirty seconds to find your mark; guy in his mid-thirties at a stop on his e-bike, talking on a headset, looking at his smart watch, ponytail, beard, messenger bag. The automatic searches confirmed he was definitely your guy; Associated Director of Technology at Raymond James Financial Services, online orders in excess of most people's yearly salary, interesting open-source Github projects, host of two podcasts.

Target spotted.

You landed neatly beside him, the robotic arms folding away, and leaned against the lightpost. Instantly a crowd's worth of smartphones pointed your way, the clicks and clacks of fake shutter sounds audible even over the midday traffic.

"Sup man," you said casually. "Nice bike."

"... thanks? Uh, big fan," he replied. "How do your, uh… legs work?"

"Really well, thanks! Weird question; can I borrow your wallet? Uuh, not for the cards, take everything out, I need the faraday shielding for a few hours. It is, and this is not a joke, a matter of national security."

"... Uuuh… sure?" he asked. There were advantages to being a beloved superhero. "How did you know I had a shielded wallet?"

"Lucky guess," you replied. His podcast had three episodes about them, apparently. He retrieved the beautiful black wallet from his pocket (it unfolded like elegant origami), retrieved his cards, and handed it over.

"Hey, do you wanna be a guest on-"

"Maybe! Send me an email so I'll can get this back to you!" you replied, already flying across the road and heading for the parking garage. "That went well. Now how do we find the car?"

It did not take you long; it was the one with the California plates. You popped the door open, and there, sitting in the cupholder, was the ring. It was a thick silver band with a simple pattern across it, no gems or anything fancy, but it hummed to your tech-sense in a familiar way. Vibranium, but with something else. Something bigger.

"This feels like actual robbery," you muttered, snatching the ring with a robotic arm. "I don't feel good about this."

"Nope, this is fucked up," Athena agreed. "I've texted Justine. What do we do with it now?"

"I want to talk it back home and take a closer look, work out what it is and what it does, and then we'll go from there," you explained, lining the arm up to drop the ring into your hand. "We'll figure out-"

The moment the silver touched your hand, you understood. The knowledge came to you full-force, unbidden, there like you always knew it.

"This is a connection to the tech-sense," you said instantly. "This is how Wakanda built all that supertech. My brain is one of these. Fuck, fuck."

"... Liv?" Athena asked.

"I'm not the only one, of course I'm not the only one," you muttered, holding the ring above the wallet, your mind racing a mile a minute. "Do you think Wakanda has another one of these? Has their tech been getting better since it went missing? If somebody stole this that would mean they'd be limited to building and researching things the old fashioned way, oh God, maybe their tech works with tech-sense connectors like this and… no, they'd be lesser, everything it builds is lesser than it is, so obviously they want it back… the Pretender, it's… shit, of course whoever held this would be royalty, their entire technological society would be completely reliant on it, so presumably somebody either stole it or they didn't like who inherited it… presumably whoever that was was connected to Eric somehow, and they went into exile with the most powerful artefact in the world in his pocket, probably not knowing how to use it because I bet they have manuals they've built up, but it's powerful enough that Eric can change traffic lights-"

"Liv…"

"- without even thinking about it, took me a long while to adjust to the tech-sense and it's been getting better over time, I wonder if it does the lie detection thing… you probably need to attune to it. Maybe the other powers also I have are connected to it as well, wear this long enough you get those too-"

"Liv!"

"- but then again I think there's something more going on. Is there vibranium in my bloodstream, or in my brain? Can I build a detector for that? Probably not, because they can't build a detector for this either, of course they can't see it clearly, their tech is effectively subordinated to it and unlike what I work with was presumably developed without an existing base of quote unquote real technology developed through the scientific method so I bet a lot of it is indistinguishable from magic for anyone not using the ring-"

"-OLIVIA OCTAVIUS ATHENA WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!"

"- huh?"

"RING. WALLET. NOW."

With a bit of effort, you dropped the ring into the wallet, and it felt a little like somebody just slammed the brakes on your brain.

---

Yeah. Shit. What to do you?​

​

[ ] Drop the ring and the wallet back in the car and run. Buy the guy another wallet. Tell Justine everything. Tell Barton nothing.​

[ ] Drop the ring and the wallet back in the car and run. Buy the guy another wallet. Tell Justine to tell Eric never, ever to take the thing out of the cage. Tell Barton it's gone.​

[ ] Take the ring and run. Hide it somewhere. Tell Barton it's gone.​

[ ] Write In​

 

[open_sketch]

You threw the wallet into the footwell, slammed the door, and ran. You were out of the parking garage and in the air within thirty seconds, heading for Brooklyn as fast as you could.

"Call Justine!" you ordered, but the phone was already ringing. The three rings before she picked up were the longest seconds of your life.

"... hold on, I need to take this. Athena, what's-?" Justine sounded distinctly disoriented. You needed her alert for this.

"Arachne. Emergency summary: Your boyfriend's ring is a potential apocalypse. I've put it in a wallet which will shield it from their satellites, and it has to stay there until we understand what the fuck's going on. I'm getting clear so nobody tries to track it through me to you. Understand?"

"... n-no? Erik, sorry, it's for work."

"Athena is somebody from work?"

"He's right that it's technology from Wakanda, but it's not just that. It's the thing, or one of the things, that created and controls Wakanda's technology. It's a link to the same source of technopathic power that I have, wearing it grants you access to the tech-sense," you explained.

"This is that universe-sized computer in your brain you were telling me about? That's what you call it? The tech-sense. Not like… The Infinitron Matrix or something?"

"Again, this is for work? With 'Athena'? White people names, man…"

"I… have never had to say it out loud to anyone else," you confessed.

"Yeah I know, It's… I told you, I'm doing animatronics for TV, remember? Sorry, so what do we do?"

"How many ys did they put into Athena, I need to know."

"Call on the other line. It's Barton."

"Lie to him. Fuck's sakes, too many voices. I don't know, that's up to him, but you need to impress on him that this shit is incredibly powerful and incredibly dangerous. He is not to take the ring out of the wallet except inside a larger faraday cage unless he is willing to fight the most powerful country on Earth to the death, because it's an unmitigated security disaster for them, and also involves some stupid monarchy shit. Understand?"

"... that's a lot to drop on me. And him." Justine muttered.

"Great power, great responsibility, great pain in the ass," you summarised. "You got this?"

"I got this." She hung up, and you dove for one of your favourite niches in the half-finished skeleton of Brooklyn Tower, just out of sight of the renewed construction crews. "Athena, what'd you tell him?"

"That your lead was a bust. I told him you've been keeping an eye out for artefacts from the CIA collapse, you had tabs on a potential object of interest, and you rushed to check when he called. Turned out it was just a piece of Metal Flappy Bird."

"Got it. What's he saying?"

"It sounds like he has his own leads to follow up on, I don't have details. He also wants the fictional bit of MFB for containment."

"Well, he can fuck off about that and he knows it. What do we do now?"

"Get something to eat." The worst part was, you actually were hungry. "I have explained this before. These processes take a lot of calories."

You sighed and drew out a Cliff bar from your kit, pulling up your mask to chew on it and focusing on the drones buzzing around the city, ready to turn any cameras away.

"I have a question," the symbiote continued.

"Sure," you muttered.

"The ring revealed a great deal of information to you, and represents another instance of your otherwise unique power, the one that lets you protect your identity and contest the out of control technology of your world."

"Yes?"

"Why did you let somebody else have it? Denying others power is equivalent to holding greater power, as these things are relative." The fact it was getting more articulate didn't seem to change its priorities much.

"I don't… care about being more powerful," you lied, and it could tell. "No, that's not it. That thing is a target, and I'm a target. Me having it makes it much, much more likely to be discovered than if Erik from California has it, like, he's just A Guy among millions, and means the response will be larger and possibly get more people hurt."

"He has 24 Twitter followers," Athena added helpfully, pulling up @killmonger_2009 on your smart glass. You snickered, scrolling through a few tweets.

"Welp, I'm glad I can trust Justine, because I suddenly worry he might not be the most reliable steward of this thing based entirely on his use of Moaist Standard English." Your amusement dried up slightly as you remembered that Norman had done it too... for about five minutes, before you mocking him for being unable to spell had put a stop to it.

"Hey, it's okay. And... yeah, this raises the possibility that Erik might actually be willing to fight the most powerful country on Earth to the death, as its not exactly a new element of his worldview."

"Or try to return the ring, possibly getting himself killed over stupid monarchist politics."

You paused for a few minutes to contemplate that, chewing thoughtfully on the energy bar. It wasn't going to be enough. You felt the symboite's hunger pressing on the back of your brain, leaving a burger-shaped void in your soul.

"Well, Justine has looped me into their conversation, and I don't think we have to worry too much. His reaction is more along the lines of What-Do-You-Mean-They-Are-Real-And-Have-Supertech-And-Let-All-This-Happen Variety."

"I feel I am missing a lot of context," the symbiote muttered in the back of your brain, temporarily displacing burgerthoughts.

"We're not the people to explain it and it's so outside your entire conception of the world you wouldn't understand it either," Athena said. "In any case, what we need to do now is lay low and wait for this to blow over or get worse in an actionable way. As you said, you are a target and a suspect; it would pay to be less visible for a while."

"But we have a mission. The Life Institute," the symbiote reminded you. "The rest of me is somewhere being experimented on as alien nanotechnology, which also means they are experimenting on other human people in a lethal way. Which is a thing you care about."

Okay, maybe he was learning.

"I know, it sucks, but that mission won't mean much if we end up dead by laser poisoning," you summarised. "I have a feeling this is going to come back and haunt us, but you're right. Engage laying low protocols. Urgh… well, we do supposedly have covid, which is a decent reason to stay locked in our room and work on something. Ideas?"

"... I suggest we work on something to make money," Athena said. "Something legitimate. Suit upgrades have been expensive, and you'll need date money to make things up with May after you 'recover'."

"Smart," you said, utterly resentful.

---

[ ] You could make a quick bit of cash chasing bug bounties. It's a risk because companies are more lawsuit-happy than ever these days with hackers who find the wrong kinds of bugs, but Stark Industries knows who you are and already wants you to work for them; you could probably make a decent chunk of change pulling apart their crappy life organiser apps. Not the lowest profile, though.
[ ] Your music apps have been a slow but steady source of passive income for a while. They're simple, easy, and involve actually doing something novel with machine learning. Making another and staying atop the algorithm might not be a bad idea; you have a cute idea for one which'll provide a dynamic soundtrack for any game you're playing.
[ ] Just set up a few dozen accounts on a gig work website to do freelance programming. It's hit or miss what you'll get, but you can take on more jobs than anyone else and deliver quickly making whatever apps people need. Besides, it doesn't get more low-profile.​