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The Calculator (DC Multiverse, SI as canon character, Season 1 complete)

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Yeah, great to see this story back!

Only one thing, is there really any fundamental difference between now and what was before? Even if he had the fancy access and diagnostics, that could have been easily spoofed, he said it himself. And at the end of the day, it's all about being willing to trust something that can easily play you in any number of arenas. A sudden death plus loss of access can shake you, but it's the exact same thing as before.
 
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Who's who -- questions of digital identity and trust
  • Informational
    • kellanved said:
    Yeah, great to see this story back!

    Only one thing, is there really any fundamental difference between now and what was before? Even if he had the fancy access and diagnostics, that could have been easily spoofed, he said it himself. And at the end of the day, it's all about being willing to trust something that can easily play you in any number of arenas. A sudden death plus loss of access can shake you, but it's the exact same thing as before.
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    This seems to be a fundamental thing some people are tripping up on. Maybe it is the sci-fi aspect. Maybe I've not been clear enough about what's going on here.

    Is there a difference between now and the start of this story when it comes to communicating with an unknown entity?

    No.

    It is the same situation. That's the point. It took him two months to trust an AI he could literally watch think. Trusting a voice on a phone the same way as that entity would be incredibly stupid.

    There is no quick, safe way to return to previous trust levels. AT BEST they're back at the start. That's the point.

    It isn't about not trusting Pooja restored from backup. It is about having ZERO information about what he's actually dealing with now. It is about servers on his network literally being melted by green fire. The real Pooja tricking him is the least of his issues.
     
  • Informational
    • Yeah, I get that. But considering Pooja's capabilities any information he had at any point couldn't be verifiable. Servers, administrator access, debug logs, those were the illusion of him having any control.

    So I see the psychological aspect in, as you said, starting from scratch, but apart from that he has as much control as he ever had.

    And onto the real Pooja's, we still have no idea what happened in those months where they lost memories except that something might've gotten out. No idea on what we've been dealing with.
     
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    Transition
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    • "Personal note:" I said. My new smartphone blinked a holographic light in the lower-left of my vision to signal it was recording and live transcribing. It was all prosumer level gear, but that was the best I could do right now. All the rest of my equipment had been accessible to Pooja.

    "It is now 72 hours after I retrieved the tablet safely. Currently transitioning to a new safehouse location. Negotiations with the team were successful and so far no action appears to have been taken on known darknet sites to leak information from any members of my team."

    And it was truly my team now. Pooja, or anything or anyone claiming to be working for me, had been cut out of the loop. The mercenaries wouldn't respond to anything but calls directly from me using my new security codes. That was only one part of my safety considerations.

    I was now driving a high-tech, bulletproofed sedan down an empty stretch of desert highway on my way back from a small mountain township one hundred and fifty miles from my new hideout. I had visited an anonymous delivery box in a shipping store that didn't have digital security cameras where I had recovered a key to this new car.

    It had been parked at a nearby parking lot, hand-delivered by a very private darknet service I had hired for their ability to deliver quickly normal-looking cars with near supervillain levels of defenses. The delivery site and surrounding area had been under my surveillance via an anonymously hired private eye who thought they were doing a divorce case and flying monkeybots since just before I placed the rush order. All reports came up clean.

    I couldn't just get a rental car, obviously, but it took far too much time for all this tradecraft that might not even be necessary. Every minute I was outside the protections of my now-abandoned bunker was white-knuckled tension for me. I had slept in a parking lot one night, surrounded by monkeybots with a simple security program active. The three I'd used were in my trunk.

    "Personal note: the current situation may be just as Pooja intended. One of the darker possibilities that I find I cannot entirely discard."

    My fingers tapped on the steering wheel. "The idea that Pooja had been playing me for some reason, even down to blatant and obvious psychological manipulation, cannot be ruled out. Such a plan, if fully successful at this point, might have had as a goal driving me to hide and prepare even greater computer defenses. Unfortunately, this is what I find I must do even considering possible plots and manipulations."

    No, the Pooja I knew likely wasn't out to kill me. Nothing that simple. Letting Slade Wilson's international crime syndicate employers catch up with me and just standing aside would probably have done that. And the team meeting had been a great time to ambush me in person. That cyber attack had destroyed or required the discarding of most of my remote control systems, so I had to go recover the tablet in person. Yet nothing had happened.

    Didn't matter now. I got through it safe. Now the course was set and my plan was in motion. My limited, human-level skills did their best to baffle and obfuscate what few traces I left and now I was about to pull into the backup location I'd arranged. A completely new property, it wasn't on the prepared list Pooja (or whatever had her data stores) knew about. I'd hoped this would help ensure I stayed off her radar—something almost certainly literal now that someone was stealing military hardware.

    It appeared I'd succeeded. Or Pooja wasn't after me. Or maybe she was telling the truth, and I didn't matter to her current plans.

    Despite this, driving to the small desert industrial area was slightly less stressful than the trip out to mercenaries, though not for any rational reason. Sure, I now had them on call. But right now I was alone, in a customized armored electronic-warfare-enabled sedan. A fresh burner phone that Pooja had never interacted with—even financially—had my team's numbers programmed in and nothing else was in my new go-bag. My new smartphone strapped to the dashboard, currently taking my notes, was a consumer item loaded with open source software I had quickly customized from repos predating Pooja's creation.

    Both phones were cut off from the old information network, one now subverted or corrupted or controlled by Pooja. That which just left the task of actually building a new one. Not having my full computer support systems back up hurt a lot but I had to prioritize these things.

    "Nootropics project note: it is easier to think rationally about complete solutions to problems now that intelligence-expanding chemicals are no longer ravaging my faculties. And an intelligently optimizing social agent isn't whispering in my ear. But that doesn't mean I am any closer to the truth of my situation.

    "Personal note: initially maneuvering me into the missile bunker was either a carefully calculated measure to control me or the optimal way to ensure my safety. Impossible right now to tell. It is clearly flawed to think Pooja and her motivations were previously pure and only now suspect. Plans within plans, from the beginning. All designed to be convincing. Perhaps all true. Maybe Pooja was even responsible for my memory weirdness. Having an inclination to obey a creator makes disabling that creator's ability to even remember you exist a top priority. In that case, will the tablet be blank or useless?

    "No, too obvious. If the tablet contains proof of Pooja conspiring to screw with my mind, it could still be a plot from an unknown supervillain or alien or time traveler. That would surely be what Pooja would claim."

    Nothing definitive could be determined from the contents of the tablet when it came to Pooja. But maybe it would have enough answers.

    I parked the new armored car in the underground lot of the converted warehouse I'd randomly selected. Popping the trunk, I activated the security monkeybots and waited as they scrambled around the area, checking every inch for surveillance devices, hidden traps, or even runes carved into out of the way places. All reports came back clean again.

    Trudging up the poorly lit stairway into the warehouse floor, the travel case still wrapped in a gray packing blanket, I carefully moved the tablet to my new lab. Pulling open the door to the long cargo container sitting alone in the middle of the concrete floor caused lights to blink awake throughout the echoey metal box. Running on the cosmic, or star energy, it would last weeks without needing a starry night to recharge. Inside, the deactivated monkeybots resting on their racks seemed to stare at me accusingly.

    Setting up the recording equipment I had packed away only took a few minutes. It felt like less. The weight of things seemed to be rushing at me with incredible speed and my heart was beating too fast.

    This was it. All it would take is skin contact or a bit of my DNA—blood was popular with older artifacts like this. I'd likely left a sample with someone as a backup plan...before. Couldn't remember who. Hadn't tried to contact any friends I remembered. Not sure what would have been worse—them being unchanged, or some weird DC comics version of themselves.

    Stalling again.

    I removed a glove and touched the unwrapped tablet. Cold ceramic against my hand then-

    "-esrtali tal mor- oh, it's working. About time." A blue, glowing, ghostly figure floated next to the tablet off to one side, feet not touching the floor. Its hand rested on the tablet as it stared off towards the opposite wall before adjusting its glasses in a shockingly familiar way.

    It was me.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • This is getting too screw-y for even my hare brained theories...




    BUT I'LL HAVE THEM ANYWAY:

    Number one: the (possibly) magic green fell-Fire attack was engineered by Calc from the future (or, perhaps, the past), whose long twisted gambit to obtain useable magic, or mystic, powers, that somehow had to do with erasing his own memories, paid off in the end, and everything happening right now is all according to keikaku, possibly Calc's, and Pooja is acting on his orders.
    Or maybe she isn't. Either never was, or changed plans at some point.

    Number two: the goddamn Batman is about to find out that there is a rogue AI running loose, and is going to take one look at it's code and immediately recognize the Calculator's style. He'll show up, originally with the plan of pushing Calc's shit in, but after the situation is explained they'll form a tenuous alliance, based on mutual mistrust, paranoia, grudging respect and, possibly, undeniable sexual tension.

    How close am I getting?

    I also feel like these are disregarding information given earlier in the story that I just don't remember, but eh. Nobody actually cares about facts anymore in this day and age, right?
     
    Pinklestia said:
    Well, being paranoid is useful, being crippling paranoid is not.
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    How the (in)famous saying goes, "it is not paranoia if they are, in fact, out to get you".

    In our case, "they" not only involves Rogue AI agent, but protagonist past/future self, looks like :D

    P.S. Not to mention that properly grooming and honing Paranoia in to magnificent, beautiful being takes special kind of person :p
     
    krahe said:
    Or was it?
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    My guess is it's a memory backup. Being mystical it may have actually caused the memory loss though. (I wonder if the intent was to get an alternate universe's perspective and it went kind of... sideways)

    If Past!Calculator was dipping into mysticism, it'd make sense if he had a MYSTIC defense set up too, one that Pooja may have accidentally triggered due to it being wiped from her memory.
     
    TLPG said:
    "Nootropics project note: it is easier to think rationally about complete solutions to problems now that intelligence-expanding chemicals are no longer ravaging my faculties. And an intelligently optimizing social agent isn't whispering in my ear. But that doesn't mean I am any closer to the truth of my situation.
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    I can't help but feel that this is the real reason that this is happening: either Pooja or past him figured out he's going crazy, and this all somehow makes things better.
    TLPG said:
    "No, too obvious. If the tablet contains proof of Pooja conspiring to screw with my mind, it could still be a plot from an unknown supervillain or alien or time traveler. That would surely be what Pooja would claim."
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    You know, normally making comparisons of probabilities to ludicrous events like a time traveler gaslighting you is what you use to get a realistic scale on low probability events, but that won't work in DC.
    What would they use instead? A superhero getting older?
     
    Stripes said:
    How the (in)famous saying goes, "it is not paranoia if they are, in fact, out to get you".

    In our case, "they" not only involves Rogue AI agent, but protagonist past/future self, looks like :D

    P.S. Not to mention that properly grooming and honing Paranoia in to magnificent, beautiful being takes special kind of person :p
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    Yeah no, sorry there is no healthy paranoia, paranoia is trying to create a model illusion of reality, constructed all in our mind, and then subdivide said model in neat little boxes with contingencies appplied to them to simulate all possible outcomes for any situation (witch is not possible) all to fool ourself with the belief we can control it, instead of observing reality for what it is and act and react to it as we see and feel it in real time.

    The only think you gain for more or less paranoia is how disconnected you are from the real world.

    That's why I don't like when characters dabbles in it because it's not really helpful, it is just a placebo witch actually also hurt you if you try to use it as a defense instead of as a securety blanket to make yorself feel safer when you feel you lost all control (witch is also not healthy but at least is less unhealthy and risky)
     
    Tarantio said:
    Yeah no, sorry there is no healthy paranoia, paranoia is trying to create a model illusion of reality, constructed all in our mind, and then subdivide said model in neat little boxes with contingencies appplied to them to simulate all possible outcomes for any situation (witch is not possible) all to fool ourself with the belief we can control it, instead of observing reality for what it is and act and react to it as we see and feel it in real time.

    The only think you gain for more or less paranoia is how disconnected you are from the real world.

    That's why I don't like when characters dabbles in it because it's not really helpful, it is just a placebo witch actually also hurt you if you try to use it as a defense instead of as a securety blanket to make yorself feel safer when you feel you lost all control (witch is also not healthy but at least is less unhealthy and risky)
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    Considering, that in DC you can fitness yourself into Batman, I wouldn't get suprprised, if you could make paranoia into a real, tangible Intuition/Reasoning-based non-super power. In DC, at least. I mean, hope can give you power. Why not cynicism and paranoia as well? :p Though, definitely not enjoyable kind.

    After all, Moscow rules were a thing:

    1. Assume nothing.
    2. Never go against your gut.
    3. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
    4. Do not look back; you are never completely alone.
    5. Go with the flow, blend in.
    6. Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
    7. Lull them into a sense of complacency.
    8. Do not harass the opposition.
    9. Pick the time and place for action.
    10. Keep your options open.
     
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    Lain said:
    Considering, that in DC you can fitness yourself into Batman, I wouldn't get suprprised, if you could make paranoia into a real, tangible Intuition/Reasoning-based non-super power. In DC, at least. I mean, hope can give you power. Why not cynicism and paranoia as well? :p Though, definitely not enjoyable kind.

    After all, Moscow rules were a thing:

    1. Assume nothing.
    2. Never go against your gut.
    3. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
    4. Do not look back; you are never completely alone.
    5. Go with the flow, blend in.
    6. Vary your pattern and stay within your cover.
    7. Lull them into a sense of complacency.
    8. Do not harass the opposition.
    9. Pick the time and place for action.
    10. Keep your options open.
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    The moscow rules aren't as paranoid driven as you think, yes the 3 and 4 rules are paranoid nonsense, but they are balanced by the rest witch go the opposite direction by mostly telling to observe and react to what is really happening in front of you instead of what you think should happen, especially number 1 even if by herself that rule is as dangerous as 3 and 4 since you need context to act.

    In my comment I was specifically using the batman gambit as an example of paranoia that doesn't really work in the real world because we are talking of a DC fiction and it amused me to point it out without spelling it out :p:D.

    Anyway just because the writers make it work in a fictional universe with the power of plot, it doesn't mean it really work, even if you are in the self-same fictional universe.

    After all a broken clock work twice a day, and if you learn to follow the position of the sun and moon you can use it to tell the time so well that you can watch the clock only when it's approximately the right time so you can say to yourself that it still work, to stretch the metaphor (edit I meant analogy, sorry always confuse the two for some reason) a lot.;)
     
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    Tarantio said:
    Anyway just because the writers make it work in a fictional universe with the power of plot, it doesn't mean it really work, even if you are in the self-same fictional universe.
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    So, you're trying to say, that in DC universe you can't go to gym and ninja dojo until you become a unbelievably strong and agile and you can't grind your science and engineering degree enough, until you become genious innovator. All those numerous, repeated cases (often involving passing the torch from mentor to pupil) in-universe should be taken as freak coincidences, a noise, that points us to no pattern whatsoever and should be completely ignored in favor of what we know about real world first and foremost, even if that's just in regards of this particular fictional universe (Because, those things are on the same level, as Batman's reasoning skills, frankly).

    Okay.
     
    Lain said:
    So, you're trying to say, that in DC universe you can't go to gym and ninja dojo until you become a unbelievably strong and agile and you can't grind your science and engineering degree enough, until you become genious innovator. All those numerous, repeated cases (often involving passing the torch from mentor to pupil) in-universe should be taken as freak coincidences, a noise, that points us to no pattern whatsoever and should be completely ignored in favor of what we know about real world first and foremost, even if that's just in regards of this particular fictional universe (Because, those things are on the same level, as Batman's reasoning skills, frankly).

    Okay.
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    No I was not saying that, I was saying that just because writers and or batman are saying that the batman gambit work it doesn't mean it really worked in universe.

    Not even because batman would lie or anything, just because he probably attributes his victory to some convulved plan with multiple steps he made years before, instead of luck, experience and/or the ability to win despite handicapping himself with such stupid plans.

    Plus paranoia is a mental illness not some attribute you can grind for power, regardless of the universe you are in, well unless it's a nonsense one at least.
     
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    It very much depends on the fictional universe and presumed audience's level of education.

    Mental illnesses has a very long history of being attributed to divine blessings or extraordinary talents (as well, as curses and posessions), so, not really non-sensical universes. Just wrong.

    Mad scientists in comics and fiction by all accounts should be able to accomplish nothing. Robert Zemeckis plays Doc as harmless excentric, who happens to be a real genious (except the for the part, where he ropes a minor into the mess of getting plutonium from terrorists with a promise of making them a bomb - a dirty one, very likely), or countless examples in comics, who have otherwise crippling mental conditions accomplish their goals easily, unless heroes manage to oppose them.

    There's also mad gods and gods of madness, the entire list of madness/powers related tropes, actually.

    Yesterday, I was watching "The Dark Tower" (movie) and the whole first act was really pushing, the idea, that kid, who suffers from constant nightmares, draws creepy imagery and resolves his problems with violence is really just a very gifted psychic and society just doesn't understand (and psychologists are probably monsters sent to get him). The language film uses, the visual cues, the reactions of the protagonist - all of it points to mental illness, unless you know what the movie is about. There's a even later scene with a villain, who basically calls boy's mother out and shames her for "trying to put into asylum" her "very special boy". He's a villain sorcerer/psychic, who has been shown to use people's emotions against them, but that scene really hammers the point.

    My take-away is that there are works of fiction, that work under assumptions, like "what if deduction was a cool and sexy superpower?", "what if rationality was a superpower?" or many others like that, and all of those require my willing suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy them. "Mental illnesses as manifestation of poorly understood or controlled genius" isn't much of jump to me, even if I only find it applicable to fiction, on the same shelf, as "heat vision" and "Charles Atlas superpowers" - it all makes sense from a particular ignorant point of view.

    P.S. I'll cut with offtopic, now. We can continue in PM if you want.
     
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    Solipsism
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    • I recognized what the glowing blue image of past me had been doing—the artifact recording procedure from my knowledge base notes. According to the changelog, it had last been updated just before this was recorded.

    The image continued to speak, sounding bored. "Well, uh, if you're not me and...you're listening to this. Well, either I'm dead or you assumed I was. Yeah. Uh." The form looked down at something that wasn't captured in the mystical recording. "This is backup que gee two vee cee wai pee en. Not that you'll...maybe you have that code if you're not me. Check on the computer for it if you have access. I'll wait."

    The image immediately changed. "Yeah. Just realized I couldn't...do that because- moving on. This backup is to guard against informational threats from interacting with a piece of the memetic artifact sometimes called the 'Anti-Life Equation'."

    Well. Fuck. I knew what that was, so this sounded really, really bad.

    "I...know this is dangerous. I'm meddling with powers I barely understand. And that phrase alone sets off...literally all the alarms. But...after the accident-the ATTACK on HNNNNNNNN," a screech filled my soul, "-is going to, to die if I do nothing! What USE is everything I've done, all my plans, if I can't save someone I love?"

    The blue, ghostly image unclenched its fists. "But the risk. It...I've programmed expert systems to study the history and possible areas of effect of the concept. Artifact. Thing. This was done as safely as possible. Supervised by another trusted long-training form multi-agent system tasked with enforcing self-deleting, volatile memory on the completely air-gapped sub-agents via a simple VI automaton. I will user the same technique during activation and deployment at the hospital."

    Wait, was that supervising system Pooja? And the automaton the monkeybots?

    "This should avoid the spread of any secondary infections, preventing an insane AI merged with magical memetic virus scenario," blue-ghost-me continued, frowning. "Which would be bad. Uh. The mission status. Currently, the ALEP...the Anti-Life Equation Piece, appears to be trapped, or rather best expressed in a set of servers in a southwestern Tibetan industrial-city data center installed in 1998. The computer system or even local spiritual social order may fail at any time, causing the phenomenon to move on to another center of worship or intense human emotional focus.

    "I have...come to an agreement with the mercenary Deathstroke to retrieve the ALEP from Tibet, then smuggle it out of central Asia. Without any fatalities. I was quite clear. Deathstroke should return in three days with the results on a read-once secured USB key given to him for this occasion. His payment, in case I forget or...something happens to me...right, his payment will be the pre-arranged contents of a safe deposit box in a locker in a YMCA in New York City. Address and combination-"

    I looked down at the dedicated digital and analog voice recorders I had laid out, then over at the multiple cameras. All still running. I took notes on physical paper as well, just in case, then looked it up on an online map. Lower Manhattan. It seemed plausible. The irony of Slade Wilson using the same sort of USB hack technique to track me down, though obviously with a different program, wasn't lost.

    "The locker contains one million in cash plus a data drive encrypted using Deathstroke's public key. The location is paid-up until December 2020. Just to be clear. Be sure. Deathstroke. Gets. Paid." The blue figure leaned forward. "This is critical. Deathstroke does not take people breaking business arrangements well. Especially when they relate both to money and to the location of one of his children."

    Double fuck. Well, that explains his persistence and personal interest.

    The figure sighed, rubbing his temple with his free hand's thumb. A gesture I recognized in myself. "The nootropics are wearing off. I...wish I'd done this under baseline. Need to note how hard it is to be objective about general planning when under the influence. Right. Summary. Start at the beginning. We got HNNNNN to the hospital in time, so for now HNNNNNNNNN. They aren't going to get better. But this world is full of wondrous things. I think this is my chance to do something good. But the risk is that HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN GRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN- but saving HNNN life is the most important thing. This digitally expressed piece of the ALEP is the key. At least, based on my research that is...that is my conclusion. Previous effects of pieces of this artifact included faith healing episodes in untrained normals, spontaneous parthenogenesis, mystical experiences, and gratuitous enlightenment. Using it might also destroy local symmetry, the concept of mortal causality, or...myself. I'm babbling. Shit. Stupid side-effects.

    "Ahem. So. Uh. If I'm not me anymore or...whatever, make sure to pay Deathstroke, as being conceptually destroyed by a mystical artifact is no excuse in his eyes for not coming through with his payment. And if this isn't me watching...I'm sorry. I hope it worked. Tell HNNNNN ZZZZNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. Always and forever."

    The image disappeared, and the tablet cracked in half, signaling its recording matrix was exhausted and it was now worthless—other than as a moderately common historic artifact. No longer intact ones were relatively common after all.

    I checked the digital recording I had so far on a monitor without stopping the ongoing capture. Scrubbed back to the timecode for that weird section that hadn't come through. There. Wait. Nothing. I expected an odd sort of humming staticy screech, maybe something I could work with but instead I found...nothing.

    Those sections were actually just empty in the digital recording. Flat waveform in the audio analyzer over background noise. Nothing on the thaumacam. Boost, check again. Just my breathing in the lab. Baseline human aura and the magical effect of the tablet. Talking from the glowing figure then...nothing but empty space where it had been for a while. Nothing magical or visual for that gap. No buzzing sound on the recording. Whatever hum I had heard was just in my head but the image had disappeared several times. And I appeared to just keep watching and listening to nothing each time. I slumped on the stool, hands pressed against the workbench.

    Anti-life. Darkseid was after this fucking thing I'd had? Still had? No, it deleted itself. Which was...good?

    Fuck. Past-me apparently didn't know that, though, or he would have been significantly more freaked out. This was literally one of the worst memetic threats in this universe if completed. Mind controlling and ultimate subjugation of all life in the universe level threat. Bad shit happened to people who messed with it.

    Bad shit.

    But something was wrong with this situation. The anti-life equation, if "solved", didn't heal anyone. A fragment of it shouldn't have that effect either. I remembered that much.

    A quick search of my knowledge base was...inconclusive. I saw the areas where past me had made notes, but not any notes on the project itself. It seemed like...it seemed like he had drawn his conclusions from the examples that supported his desire to use this to heal someone, somehow. But I knew differently. My knowledge from...whatever it was I had been before said differently. I slowly filled in some gaps, noting things like links to Darkseid and that some of the items didn't fit. Specifically my notes in the slightly clunky knowledge base about the anti-life equation piece doing healing.

    The missing records from a hospital. I reviewed those again. It was coming together, what past me had planned. Find an artifact that didn't require innate magical power that would heal...someone. Pooja thinking something had been erased from her data stores. The comments from past me in the mystical recording and the remaining notes on the anti-life equation.

    The goal he stated. It pointed at someone injured, possibly fatally. My fingers tapped furiously as I did search after search on the backup of my database I'd retrieved. Whoever it was, their identity was even erased from this mystical recording, though, so I didn't expect to find anything.

    Which was very worrying. The anti-life equation piece, or whatever it had been...using it or having it or...doing something had not just screwed with my memories, but either called me into another reality or rewritten it around me. Possibly deleted a person from this reality, too. Someone sort of like me. And now no trace of this specific thing remained. It was like it had been deleted from reality.

    Compared to that mess, solving the problem with Slade Wilson was simple. I set down my pen and stopped the recordings. I picked the pen back up threw it against a wall in the only release of anger I would allow myself. Then I sighed, slowly picked it up again, put it down again on the table, pulled the keyboard closer to me, and started drafting a letter.

    Two hours and forty-five minutes later, I sent a message to Slade Wilson through three blind remailers, two controlled by me and one nominally controlled by another hacker—though completely without their knowledge.

    I was now two million dollars poorer in addition to the already promised payment. The location of which was now in Slade Wilson's hands. The extra money was to be paid over five years in regular installments to Slade's usual business account from a complex setup involving too many lawyers and a very reliable escrow service in Luxembourg. Basically a bribe not to kill me immediately or sell me off to those Chinese mobsters. If any were left alive.

    Though my other electronic notes on our business arrangement were missing along with all other information around that mission, the business arrangements for that sort of payment were there ready to be activated. One of several I'd used over the years. My liquid assets were significantly reduced now. Dangerously so. I spent it gladly.

    Sure, it was a lot of money. But peace of mind was priceless.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • It is Life Equation, is not it?

    Unraveling this particular knot of issues will be major PITA as baseline, I already pity the protagonist :(
     
    Stripes said:
    It is Life Equation, is not it?

    Unraveling this particular knot of issues will be major PITA as baseline, I already pity the protagonist :(
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    Well the Life Equation can fix any damage of the Anti Life equation... but I never read about it healing. Otherwise Scoot Free would be a medic.

    But if the damage was mental and caused by Darkseid... yeah maybe I could do healing.

    You know what I would have done? Get Superman after Deathstroke, and release any information that would make certain people would want the guy dead. After I paid him of course.

    Just like Bruce Wayne Slade Wilson is just a man, and having the whole World hunting him would be his end. And unlike Batman he is a bad guy so he gets less protection from getting killed.
     
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