The Calculator (DC Multiverse, SI as canon character, Season 1 complete)
- Location
- USA
Thanks, fixed.
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
WildCardFool
A Reaction Pic for nearly every occasion
- Location
- Earth
Ok guys, we're going to need to sacrifice a bit of imagination for situational reliability. Bring out the 8-10 year olds. Preferably one right at that precipice of "Practicality is good" but not yet "Edge is the best thing ever". I think the sweet spot is 8-10, right? Somebody fact check me please.
- Location
- United Kingdom
Yea calcdude kinda missed the point of being a brains villian. He was acting like a lantern
- Location
- Wall Gazing
A practical non boxing-mitt using lantern. But you are right about how he missed the point, it is a good thing he recognized it though. Means he can improve without getting clubbed on the head by one of the afore mentioned boxing-mitt using lanterns.
Chaos Blade
Procrastinating Writer
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
Not to mention ask to be your sidekick, and his own hardlight system to fight alongside you.
Except in comics books that's just asking for it to become a young hero's backstory. With the 8-10 year old grabbing some tech, magic relic... etc and going out to fight crime.
CALCS, coming soon to the Nintendo Switch.
- Location
- Wall Gazing
Considering both of those, and the obvious difference between robo-Pooja's and Calc's voices, it is likely the heroes will assume Calc to be a proxy, with robo-Pooja being the real Calculator.
Also
This doesn't sound quite right for robo-speak, maybe...
For Cardinal Direction replace with any N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW or more detailed versions ie NNE or ENE or even 'in this direction" a hard-light arrow pointed in the shot's direction. "'
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WildCardFool
A Reaction Pic for nearly every occasion
- Location
- Earth
I see... Maybe post about it in a forum to get other people to check it while masquerading it as "For a story?"
...
Waaaaiiitt a minute here...
- Location
- netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/They
of course this updates when I'm in the middle of work, *cough cough* anyhow, nice chapter, I could almost see it happening in DC (almost because i have no idea what that plant guy looks like and im too lazy too look him up)
keep on giving us updates please and thank you TLPG
keep on giving us updates please and thank you TLPG
- Location
- United Kingdom
My problem is that he's a lantern at all. We have stories about Lanterns. We even have threads about stories about lanterns. It's been done. We don't have many of what you might call cerebral stories about superheroing.
I'm drawing comparisons with what Father Elijah was doing in Dead Money, he was an old man who conquered Nevada and presumably america with a load of hard light soldiers. But he himself wasn't martial at all.
It just felt so out of place to have the rest of the story be about a weeb and calcing and then to have this.
I like how people compare him to a lantern. Instead of a dumb AI with enough power to take over most information age+ civilizations and a repository of information that it would probably take some form of magic to learn anything substantial, short of psuedo-immortality to extract, understand and even then, implement. He has hard light, with a now, easily findable power source, due to himself. At least he has a lower level AI that provides options. This is arguably better than lanternship. Unless you use that to make an AI. Haha. ha. haaaaah.
- Location
- Earth Prime
And then he falls through a time portal, finds himself on ancient Oa, and becomes the first Guardian?
King Arthur
The Once and Future King
Except, see, the problem is, you are a criminal, and any five year old who was legitimately checking over your plans would, correctly, point out that that is your biggest problem.
Even with the type of criminal you are, it's still a super dangerous field that naturally produces a ton of enemies, and it's not like you don't have enough money to retire. Literally everyone of your problems comes from you being a criminal, and anyone who is legitimately going to look through your life and plans for obvious problems would stumble into that early and often.
Not saying I want you to stop being one, it makes an interesting story, but if you were asking me for some sort of super obvious flaw in your plans that would be it.
Escape
- Location
- USA
"How are my covers doing?" I asked Pooja. I was sitting on a bench in a metro station that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.
"Both appear to be holding, Calculator," she said. "This location is still secure—all monitoring compromised and controlled."
I twitched my fingers, scrolling shipping reports on my tacky looking glasses. My power suit was folded up tight in the luggage at my feet. Today's disguise was, unsurprisingly, red shorts and a tee. And my ugly AR glasses.
Pooja was playing background music just for me, directly into my ears. A mixture of classics. Modern stuff was hella weird and I just couldn't get into it. Some electronica, sure, but big band swing and blues were very big right now. Little modern rock existed—it was all indie stuff or country. My playlist had more than a little Hank Williams on it.
I hadn't put it there. I think my AI had some odd preferences of her own. Right now, she was playing Lost Highway. Not...sure what she was trying to say, if anything.
I now had a playlist with Elvis' early stuff, some Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin. I didn't recognize many of the top artists for the last 50 years. Whether the artists I remembered had even been born was iffy. People with the same names sometimes showed up, but they didn't look the same as I remembered, and quite often didn't pursue the same careers. Maybe people made the same naming decisions, but for a different matured zygote than in my universe, conceived at a different time or even to slightly different pairs of parents.
So yeah, there had been an Elvis but no Beatles. As in, they'd apparently never been born. No British invasion. Elvis was actually still alive, aged 82, but his career wasn't. That had died in the 1990s.
Pooja had..acquired original, lossless-encoded copies of everything I had searched for (that existed here) without asking, direct from the digitized studio archives. Her casual criminality and complete lack of regard for the rule of law was cute sometimes.
"Details?" I asked, trying to focus on more important things. I was getting lost in my thoughts again.
"The integrated hard light system at your civilian address of record is still functioning. Heat signatures as well as audio and visual spectrum effects still active."
"Shame we couldn't use that one for the suit. Would have saved a lot of trouble."
"It's still tied to the small shielded pile-reactor hidden in the basement. And it's built into the house's floor."
"Eh." I switched to plans for the secret lair, projected against a frankly absurd Los Angeles subway map across from where I slouched. The metro lines looked like a cubist spider web, sprawling and huge compared to the kids menu connect-the-dots puzzle I remembered from my universe.
The plans for the lair used the new hard light generator, combat specs. Anyone hostile in range would be shredded by constructs. Once I made a second cosmic power supply and hooked everything up.
"Also, it doesn't work very well," Pooja said. "As in, the older design can't make very solid hard light constructs."
Not sure I needed to do the upgrade for the lair. Wouldn't need it if I wasn't staying. "It isn't all worse. Better resolution. Does color easier. Doesn't glow green."
"So, not any good for combat," Pooja said. "The caretaker is still rescheduled to avoid being caught out by anyone looking too closely at the civilian cover. I also avoided problems with the interview the police wanted, changing the paperwork to make it look like it was already done."
"Right. As far as anyone knows, I've been bingeing Netflix since the TriD attack."
"And not answering the door or the phone, except for some calls I faked your voice for," Pooja said. "Mail is piling up, so this ruse won't last much longer."
"TriD isn't opening back up until next month. When they do, I'll either be let go or I'll quit. That will give us a few more weeks."
"Moving on, your 'secret lair' also does not appear to have been compromised. If it is, your non-Calculator, non-civilian identity cover of an overnight trip to purchase a gun from a shady black-market dealer should hold. Nothing to point to your Calculator identity."
"But if he is watching, it might make Slade sure I'm working for the Calculator. And panicking a little, making mistakes. Speaking of which..."
"Chemical and psychological analysis is complete based on monitoring records. Your self-administered drug regimen apparently induces minor attention issues and obsessive behaviors. Maybe a little megalomania. That might be the off-brand Miraclo-derivative talking. Nothing serious."
"My smart drugs are making me a mad scientist stereotype. Great."
"We can adjust dosages," Pooja said.
"Yeah. Let's do that." I leaned on my fist, elbow on my luggage. "Pooja, how much of that fight was me?"
There was a long pause. "About 80%. At the end, I was assisting. UI elements were on automatic. I finished the program for Plant Master and Power Woman, and added the results to targeting assist and minor improvements to the automatic attack and defense programs."
"Good. Looks like the cognitive enhancements work in combat, to some extent. And well done with the defensive field."
"It is unlikely but possible that Slade could have injured Power Woman. That would have made escape easier, but would also have escalated the situation in hard to predict ways. The Justice League would have certainly become directly involved."
"Which would bring in Batman. Dodged a bullet there. How's Oracle taking things?"
"Well," Pooja said. "She caught all the leads I left. After Power Woman lost Slade's trail she seems to have arrived at the conclusions we wanted."
"So, she thinks when you were talking to me out in the field, you were the Calculator pretending to be a computer?" I rubbed my eyes. "That's good. I think."
"Yes. Currently, the assumption is that the man in your suit was a hired goon. You were attempting to foil Slade deal and prove your innocence by retrieving the staff and returning it. It fits with your known MO."
"Who would have expected me to be there in person?" I said. "That would be all kinds of stupid."
"We're working on it," Pooja said, voice terse. More terse.
"And my frame-up?" I asked.
"Coming apart," Pooja said. "They are now after Slade Wilson. Almost no effort to track you. League contacts are working with INTERPOL to track down the buyer as we speak. Still suggest leaving all cosmic energy devices off until we come up with some sort of shielding."
"Got it." I went back to planning how to turn the United States' ban on imported magic items into enough cash to buy my own orbiting battle-station. Only five trillion dollars to go.
The drive back from the metro parking lot through downtown traffic was likely the most dangerous part of my long, winding trip back. Necessary to shore up my alibi and throw off anyone casually following me. I'd barely gotten inside the door at home when things went to shit.
"Calculator," Pooja said, voice hurried, "two TriD employees' houses are currently being burgled. One of them is that of your civilian ID, one is that of your supervisor."
There was a sound of breaking glass. "Make that three."
I bit back a curse as I zipped open the rolling luggage. "Po- computer, activate the suit's hard light generator. Assume full control and secure an escape path."
"Using constructs will blow our cover," she said as the system powered on.
"Just using the suit will do that," I said, spitting out the words, "as will a search of the house or someone listening in right now! Go loud!"
Arms of glowing green light exploded out of the suit, weaving around me and diving down the hallway as I continued to strap on the armor. A wooden crash and tearing sounds, then gunfire. Lots of gunfire.
Up close, that shit is deafening. Even a room away, the sound of explosions propelling lead through the walls of the house left my ears dull and ringing.
I tore off my AR glasses and slammed the helmet onto my head. Readout screens showed three bodies on the floor. Two in the office, one in the garage. Heat signatures from spreading pools of blood. No time to think about that. Or how they got that close without Pooja noticing.
Throwing myself to my feet, I rushed into the hall after the construct arms, still strapping down the armor panels. "How's the perimeter?"
"Secure for now," Pooja said. "I have adjusted to the passive stealth systems used in evading my medium-range sensors. Defense turret back online. The burglars-cum-assassins have no monitoring equipment on them. Only basic communications gear. Minor electronic stealth equipment. They each have a firearm. Assume that there is a driver, possibly with a camera pointed at the building. There is a 30% chance of a sniper or long range spotter."
"Great. Still a chance then."
"Only to conceal your Calculator identity, and only if they don't try to shoot you."
The four gripper construct arms, each holding a gun, surrounded me now, all pointing outward. I grabbed a trench coat off the rack and gestured at my rolling luggage. "I'll put this on to hide the armor. Put the guns in the bag."
Construct arms reached into the ripped apart sports bag in my hall closet. As they started shoveling ammo and guns into my luggage I searched my memory. Nothing else in this house was worth keeping. Some experiments in the garage I'd have to redo. Some spare parts.
I didn't have any personal items. No photos. No keepsakes. I frowned. "How are we cleaning this up?"
"Self destruct systems will obscure the details of defensive emplacements and monitoring stations. An automatically deployed series of bleach and oxygen cleaning compounds will destroy any genetic markers, then a controlled fire will destroy the building."
A deep breath. "Good. Car?"
"Leave it. It is covered in the plan. Go out the back, on foot. Use surrounding buildings as cover. Defensive systems at maximum, but unless they engage there will be no signatures of the hard light components beyond the cosmic power system. Only 17% chance Slade has already acquired a sensor system to detect it."
A route to a safe house I'd set up downtown showed up on my helmet. I pulled on the trench coat and took off the helmet, stowing it in the luggage. Stupid glasses back on, luggage zipped back up.
I glanced in the mirror. Dark circles under my eyes. Hair messed up from the helmet. Glasses still stupid. I grimaced—almost forgot.
Kitchen, drugs, into the bag. Step over the groaning, bleeding assassin in the office, Pooja holding a gun on him in a glowing claw. My old projects box, upend into the bag. Grab the laptop sized interface-slash-monitor system. Into the bag. Take it back out of the bag and...no, back in the bag. I could get another but I liked this one.
"Computer, how serious is the loss of computer systems at this location?"
"Minor. All systems already wiped. Currently warming up several secondary site systems for your use. All secondary sites currently secure. Three minutes until earliest estimate for Slade to arrive on this site."
I opened a window and climbed out into the side yard, dragging my luggage behind me. "Let me guess. Attacks triggered on all three teams at the same time, so he's having to work out where to go. And whether the heroes are watching any of them."
"Correct. Gas explosion at your civilian identity's house. All tech self-destructed safely, including the mini self-contained nuclear power generator. Series of electrical shorts resulting in exploding lights and household appliances at your boss' house—smart power grids and internet-connected devices are wonderful things."
A ground-shaking whump threw me to my knees.
"Obfuscation systems deployed at your now not-so-secret lair," Pooja said. Smoke billowed over tightly packed houses.
I ran, exosuit-assisted legs pumping.
"Both appear to be holding, Calculator," she said. "This location is still secure—all monitoring compromised and controlled."
I twitched my fingers, scrolling shipping reports on my tacky looking glasses. My power suit was folded up tight in the luggage at my feet. Today's disguise was, unsurprisingly, red shorts and a tee. And my ugly AR glasses.
Pooja was playing background music just for me, directly into my ears. A mixture of classics. Modern stuff was hella weird and I just couldn't get into it. Some electronica, sure, but big band swing and blues were very big right now. Little modern rock existed—it was all indie stuff or country. My playlist had more than a little Hank Williams on it.
I hadn't put it there. I think my AI had some odd preferences of her own. Right now, she was playing Lost Highway. Not...sure what she was trying to say, if anything.
I now had a playlist with Elvis' early stuff, some Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin. I didn't recognize many of the top artists for the last 50 years. Whether the artists I remembered had even been born was iffy. People with the same names sometimes showed up, but they didn't look the same as I remembered, and quite often didn't pursue the same careers. Maybe people made the same naming decisions, but for a different matured zygote than in my universe, conceived at a different time or even to slightly different pairs of parents.
So yeah, there had been an Elvis but no Beatles. As in, they'd apparently never been born. No British invasion. Elvis was actually still alive, aged 82, but his career wasn't. That had died in the 1990s.
Pooja had..acquired original, lossless-encoded copies of everything I had searched for (that existed here) without asking, direct from the digitized studio archives. Her casual criminality and complete lack of regard for the rule of law was cute sometimes.
"Details?" I asked, trying to focus on more important things. I was getting lost in my thoughts again.
"The integrated hard light system at your civilian address of record is still functioning. Heat signatures as well as audio and visual spectrum effects still active."
"Shame we couldn't use that one for the suit. Would have saved a lot of trouble."
"It's still tied to the small shielded pile-reactor hidden in the basement. And it's built into the house's floor."
"Eh." I switched to plans for the secret lair, projected against a frankly absurd Los Angeles subway map across from where I slouched. The metro lines looked like a cubist spider web, sprawling and huge compared to the kids menu connect-the-dots puzzle I remembered from my universe.
The plans for the lair used the new hard light generator, combat specs. Anyone hostile in range would be shredded by constructs. Once I made a second cosmic power supply and hooked everything up.
"Also, it doesn't work very well," Pooja said. "As in, the older design can't make very solid hard light constructs."
Not sure I needed to do the upgrade for the lair. Wouldn't need it if I wasn't staying. "It isn't all worse. Better resolution. Does color easier. Doesn't glow green."
"So, not any good for combat," Pooja said. "The caretaker is still rescheduled to avoid being caught out by anyone looking too closely at the civilian cover. I also avoided problems with the interview the police wanted, changing the paperwork to make it look like it was already done."
"Right. As far as anyone knows, I've been bingeing Netflix since the TriD attack."
"And not answering the door or the phone, except for some calls I faked your voice for," Pooja said. "Mail is piling up, so this ruse won't last much longer."
"TriD isn't opening back up until next month. When they do, I'll either be let go or I'll quit. That will give us a few more weeks."
"Moving on, your 'secret lair' also does not appear to have been compromised. If it is, your non-Calculator, non-civilian identity cover of an overnight trip to purchase a gun from a shady black-market dealer should hold. Nothing to point to your Calculator identity."
"But if he is watching, it might make Slade sure I'm working for the Calculator. And panicking a little, making mistakes. Speaking of which..."
"Chemical and psychological analysis is complete based on monitoring records. Your self-administered drug regimen apparently induces minor attention issues and obsessive behaviors. Maybe a little megalomania. That might be the off-brand Miraclo-derivative talking. Nothing serious."
"My smart drugs are making me a mad scientist stereotype. Great."
"We can adjust dosages," Pooja said.
"Yeah. Let's do that." I leaned on my fist, elbow on my luggage. "Pooja, how much of that fight was me?"
There was a long pause. "About 80%. At the end, I was assisting. UI elements were on automatic. I finished the program for Plant Master and Power Woman, and added the results to targeting assist and minor improvements to the automatic attack and defense programs."
"Good. Looks like the cognitive enhancements work in combat, to some extent. And well done with the defensive field."
"It is unlikely but possible that Slade could have injured Power Woman. That would have made escape easier, but would also have escalated the situation in hard to predict ways. The Justice League would have certainly become directly involved."
"Which would bring in Batman. Dodged a bullet there. How's Oracle taking things?"
"Well," Pooja said. "She caught all the leads I left. After Power Woman lost Slade's trail she seems to have arrived at the conclusions we wanted."
"So, she thinks when you were talking to me out in the field, you were the Calculator pretending to be a computer?" I rubbed my eyes. "That's good. I think."
"Yes. Currently, the assumption is that the man in your suit was a hired goon. You were attempting to foil Slade deal and prove your innocence by retrieving the staff and returning it. It fits with your known MO."
"Who would have expected me to be there in person?" I said. "That would be all kinds of stupid."
"We're working on it," Pooja said, voice terse. More terse.
"And my frame-up?" I asked.
"Coming apart," Pooja said. "They are now after Slade Wilson. Almost no effort to track you. League contacts are working with INTERPOL to track down the buyer as we speak. Still suggest leaving all cosmic energy devices off until we come up with some sort of shielding."
"Got it." I went back to planning how to turn the United States' ban on imported magic items into enough cash to buy my own orbiting battle-station. Only five trillion dollars to go.
The drive back from the metro parking lot through downtown traffic was likely the most dangerous part of my long, winding trip back. Necessary to shore up my alibi and throw off anyone casually following me. I'd barely gotten inside the door at home when things went to shit.
"Calculator," Pooja said, voice hurried, "two TriD employees' houses are currently being burgled. One of them is that of your civilian ID, one is that of your supervisor."
There was a sound of breaking glass. "Make that three."
I bit back a curse as I zipped open the rolling luggage. "Po- computer, activate the suit's hard light generator. Assume full control and secure an escape path."
"Using constructs will blow our cover," she said as the system powered on.
"Just using the suit will do that," I said, spitting out the words, "as will a search of the house or someone listening in right now! Go loud!"
Arms of glowing green light exploded out of the suit, weaving around me and diving down the hallway as I continued to strap on the armor. A wooden crash and tearing sounds, then gunfire. Lots of gunfire.
Up close, that shit is deafening. Even a room away, the sound of explosions propelling lead through the walls of the house left my ears dull and ringing.
I tore off my AR glasses and slammed the helmet onto my head. Readout screens showed three bodies on the floor. Two in the office, one in the garage. Heat signatures from spreading pools of blood. No time to think about that. Or how they got that close without Pooja noticing.
Throwing myself to my feet, I rushed into the hall after the construct arms, still strapping down the armor panels. "How's the perimeter?"
"Secure for now," Pooja said. "I have adjusted to the passive stealth systems used in evading my medium-range sensors. Defense turret back online. The burglars-cum-assassins have no monitoring equipment on them. Only basic communications gear. Minor electronic stealth equipment. They each have a firearm. Assume that there is a driver, possibly with a camera pointed at the building. There is a 30% chance of a sniper or long range spotter."
"Great. Still a chance then."
"Only to conceal your Calculator identity, and only if they don't try to shoot you."
The four gripper construct arms, each holding a gun, surrounded me now, all pointing outward. I grabbed a trench coat off the rack and gestured at my rolling luggage. "I'll put this on to hide the armor. Put the guns in the bag."
Construct arms reached into the ripped apart sports bag in my hall closet. As they started shoveling ammo and guns into my luggage I searched my memory. Nothing else in this house was worth keeping. Some experiments in the garage I'd have to redo. Some spare parts.
I didn't have any personal items. No photos. No keepsakes. I frowned. "How are we cleaning this up?"
"Self destruct systems will obscure the details of defensive emplacements and monitoring stations. An automatically deployed series of bleach and oxygen cleaning compounds will destroy any genetic markers, then a controlled fire will destroy the building."
A deep breath. "Good. Car?"
"Leave it. It is covered in the plan. Go out the back, on foot. Use surrounding buildings as cover. Defensive systems at maximum, but unless they engage there will be no signatures of the hard light components beyond the cosmic power system. Only 17% chance Slade has already acquired a sensor system to detect it."
A route to a safe house I'd set up downtown showed up on my helmet. I pulled on the trench coat and took off the helmet, stowing it in the luggage. Stupid glasses back on, luggage zipped back up.
I glanced in the mirror. Dark circles under my eyes. Hair messed up from the helmet. Glasses still stupid. I grimaced—almost forgot.
Kitchen, drugs, into the bag. Step over the groaning, bleeding assassin in the office, Pooja holding a gun on him in a glowing claw. My old projects box, upend into the bag. Grab the laptop sized interface-slash-monitor system. Into the bag. Take it back out of the bag and...no, back in the bag. I could get another but I liked this one.
"Computer, how serious is the loss of computer systems at this location?"
"Minor. All systems already wiped. Currently warming up several secondary site systems for your use. All secondary sites currently secure. Three minutes until earliest estimate for Slade to arrive on this site."
I opened a window and climbed out into the side yard, dragging my luggage behind me. "Let me guess. Attacks triggered on all three teams at the same time, so he's having to work out where to go. And whether the heroes are watching any of them."
"Correct. Gas explosion at your civilian identity's house. All tech self-destructed safely, including the mini self-contained nuclear power generator. Series of electrical shorts resulting in exploding lights and household appliances at your boss' house—smart power grids and internet-connected devices are wonderful things."
A ground-shaking whump threw me to my knees.
"Obfuscation systems deployed at your now not-so-secret lair," Pooja said. Smoke billowed over tightly packed houses.
I ran, exosuit-assisted legs pumping.
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I can just picture the heroes talking about the Deathstroke-Calculator feud.
"Let me get this straight. Deathstroke, a regenerating super-powerful assassin, is having trouble killing what is, as far as we know, somebody who is perfectly normal except for being good with computers?"
"To be fair, The Calculator tends to work through numerous cutouts laced with excessive amounts of explosives. Makes tracking him down difficult when the slightest mistake results in him burning all the cutouts in the line - often quite literally."
- Location
- New Jersey, USA
It says something that I'm not certain whether this line is an actual plan/goal or not.
It is wrong that I want it to be?
Vaalintine
Wild Wondorous Wolfalope
And so the narrative law of the DC Universe strikes again. I wonder how long he's going to be hounding you.
- Location
- Poland
He didn't, though.
Meaning that Pooja "hacked" the systems existing in the house already to make stuff go boom.