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Arc 2, Chapter 5 (Activation: Improvement)
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Thirteen sets of eyes faced me as I return their gazes.
Thirteen. Christ. This is way more than I had planned for. But needs must. Time to drive home the nature of the current situation to all parties.
"Okay, gentlemen. You've taken the first step; you've shown your willingness to trust in the absence of all sound reason to do so, out of nothing more than the mere hope that that which must change, despite all evidence to the contrary, could change. And now it's my turn."
I pause more for dramatic effect than anything else, but already there's confusion in a few of their eyes; I can only wonder at what they might be thinking in specific -- 'are my eyes playing tricks on me? What kind of drug am I on?' ... and so on. The others haven't quite noticed yet. That's alright; I anticipated the CVI hitting each of them at different rates. Only time will tell how many of them will notice that I'm only actually saying every
other word before I spell it out.
"You are only partway there. Truth be told, so am I. With your help, I will make it the rest of the way. I have, with Sammy here's help, chosen you each based on that willingness to not forget, not delude yourselves, but to
act regardless after all hope has been taken away. You've trusted me so far so I can only do the same for you. First, an introduction; I am the Magister. Before the ... implant ... I had another name: James Parish. That name doesn't mean anything to any of you; nor should it any more than your names would mean anything to me. We will each come to know one another over time though. For now, accept this; the day I became, was not the day I triggered as a parahuman. No. I'm still every bit the man I once was; I still face my own limitations and they will never be what you lot face. Nor will I face what you face." I strike my hand through the air, as though dismissing an unimportant thought. I also stop actually speaking
any words. By now it must be obvious; they are hearing not me in their ears, but my "shadow imprint" within their own heads.
"I am the Magister. And in your own way, now, so are each of you. I could have hidden this fact from you. I could have suppressed your ability to even learn it. In a way, you are all prisoners in your own flesh now. I control your bodies; how you move, when you move, whether your heart even beats. All at my discretion. Utterly. Everything you see, everything you hear, everything you
smell -- I know it. Instantly." My 'voice' has been getting more and more gentle as I go. "This is not a threat, gentlemen. It is not a mechanism for persuasion. It is a disclosure. I have no use for simple automotons. I have no interest in ruling. I am not the Master; I am not an evil mastermind. With any luck, this disclosure will be the most disruptive reminder any of you will ever receive as to what our relationship is."
"So here's how it is. I give orders. You implement them. Notice:
I did not say obey. I said 'implement'. Discretion; agency -- that is what I need from you. Lieutenants, not peasants. Not robots. And that's the rub. You lot are not ready."
I nod, even as I sit down in the grass of the park -- and they sit down with me, not of their own volition.
"No, you aren't ready. And to be honest, getting you ready will be ... extremely uncomfortable for you. So here's my promise for you lot; you give me two weeks. Two weeks to get you into shape, to get you up to snuff. To do to your body what has been done to your mind. To give you lot time to really grasp my ambitions and purpose. And at the end of those two weeks? You make a choice. You stay on with me, with all that means... or you go back to your own lives. I take all the toys away... and leave only enough of a minder to ensure that you never reveal my secrets."
"And as my first ... reward ... for your volunteering as you did, a tiny revelation for you all." I make a visual display of pushing a button on a wireless transmitter -- in reality it's nothing more than a small garage door opener I've removed a battery from, but props matter -- and in that same moment transmit the datadump to them that conveys the next steps in their 'onboarding' processes; another series of injections similar to what Sam went through, but this time tailored to the living: rather than plastinating tissues, supplementing bone structure and connective tissues with carbon-nanotube cable filaments to do for human flesh what steel tension cables and rebar do to concrete. A series of triggered immune responses to create flu-like symptoms targeting the most sensescent tissues in their bodies. Colonizing their bodies with CVI-infested dust-mites to accelerate this process and provide 'smart' responses to injuries and scar tissues. Using techniques typically only found amongst buddhist monks or Indian fakhirs after decades of training to accelerate their metabolism to the point of nearly breaking to speed up all of these processes, and allow for the kind of bootcamp-esque workout regimen that would be easily mistaken for a trip to Auschwitz. All to take their bodies to the peak -- and slightly beyond -- of human. The list of therapies that will be implemented and the mechanisms behind them, all made possible through the vehicle of the CVI but almost unilaterally derived from actual, understandable, human science... it's immense.
The absolute worst accumulation of which will occur during the first week of their training... all done while their conscious minds are allowed to sleep through that first week. They will sleep through a week of utter horror, and come out not just
clean on the other side, but better. Even if the CVIs and all the tech should be stripped from their bodies they will be in better health than they'd likely
ever been in. And while
they may not experience any of that ... the neural clone of myself would. And I, in my own true flesh, would receive those memories. From each of them. Ensuring that absolutely nothing went wrong with the process for any of them.
I give them each time to process all of this information. One or two of them look at me questioningly, while the rest seem simply overwhelmed on a perhaps emotional level as they realize the immensity of what they have signed on for. Out of a pique of curiosity I checked the neural activity of the marine in specific. Of all the reactions I could have anticipated,
hunger was not on the list. I have no model to explain that... something to follow up on. Perhaps I'm simply misreading the data?
"Alright, boys. Time to say goodnight. I'll see you in the dawn of a new day."
I click the garage clicker one more time, and their eyes go blank as my shadow-self within each of them triggers the physiological response of sleep, entering them into a somnambulist state with my shadow-self at the wheel.
...
Thirteen sets of eyes turn and face Sam. As one, from thirteen mouths, I speak:
"What the hell were you thinking, Sam? God this was gutsy. Yes it played out well --
for now -- but seriously, man! I'm not
ready to go geopolitical on this process and I sure as hell can't keep them all here."
"Kid. You're fucking well ready. I'm the one that's running out of time here. You? I got that datadump too, kid. You're making a small army of low or mid-grade Brute/Mover/Thinker 'packages' with a light smattering of Tinker to boot. Don't think I haven't noticed how much you've been looking at the studies of the portal Professor Haywire created, or the studies of the fields Grey Boy created. Remember kid -- I know how your mind works. If anything you're letting your fear make you move too
slowly! You need to get out there; establish yourself as a power
before the PRT or the Nine or whoever notices you. Need to make it clear that fucking with you has a price. And you know how you can't do that? By staying behind your damned timid computer-guy facade!" He's nearly shouting now. "I'm with you.
They are with you. Trust me on this. Now lets get this lot to that abandoned warehouse they're going to set up as a barracks, shall we?"
I shake myself as his words sink in. He's right, of course. How did I not see that before?
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"Bro. Bro. Bro!"
"Good god Kev, what is it?"
"Oh man... remember the other day when I was telling you 'bout that new Tinker that has to be somewhere in Brockton?" Kevin -- Leet -- laughs as he speaks.
His 'Bro-in-arms' -- Randall, or Uber -- scratches his head for a few seconds as he thinks this over. "Umm... wait, yeah, kinda. 'sup? You actually heard back from the guy on the PHO forums somehow?" Uber leaves out the fact that Leet's had to bypass no fewer than twelve different banning strategies in order to keep what little presence on PHO he has managed thus far.
"Oh? Nahh, man. No get this -- the dude has reached out to fucking Quinn Calle. Can you believe that shit, yo?"
Randall pulls a face at his best friend. "You what."
"I had the same reaction! This shit man... it's too damned good. Calle actually emailed me just now. Asking for
references. Says ... " Kevin's exuberance dies cold as he goes utterly still, reading the screen.
This reaction does not go unnoticed; Uber drops the controller of his video game and gets off of the ratty couch they game from -- they could easily afford a far better couch than that thing they basically found in a dumpster once upon a time, but damnit it was the first piece of furniture they both found and agreed on after ... what happened ... back when they were kids. They keep it now as a reminder of the lessons they learned back then; that nobody but they would ever keep an eye on each others' backs. That authority figures would always betray them. And how big of a joke the whole thing was. All of this however doesn't change the fact that the damned thing's springs dig into his hip
again as he gets up from the ratty piece of dumpster-art-deco.
He makes his way over to Kevin, who's eyes are plastered on the screen. Randall is almost half-hoping that this is one of Leet's Tinker trances; he hasn't seen his friend so deeply engrossed in his power in a very, very long time. Usually Kevin has to almost
force his power to work, these days... and the product is always ... even with Randall's assistance doing QA checks and the testing framework they'd created to ensure the worst kinds of failures were caught before they used the things, it's not like the old days at all. Still. Randall is half smiling as he nudges Kevin's shoulder, "Uh.. bro? Earth to Kevin."
Leet blinks, but otherwise doesn't take his eyes off of the screen. "Holy fuck. Ho-lee fuck. No way. No
way."
"Bro?"
"Shit dude. The new Tinker? He's a fucking
Trump too. Gave himself and his minion the same Stranger and Brute powers... and Calle
saw it. And... he claims he can grant
Tinker powers the same way."
"Schya, and I've got a bridge in Brooklyn."
"Dude, you're not hearing me. First this guy wants all the collective science information from, like, the entire fucking
planet. Somehow he gets onto fucking
DarkSec without an invite and nobody can trace down where the hell he's actually from. Brockton is just where the trail goes dead. Next he he's handing out Stranger and Brute powers. And he says he can do Tinker powers too.
And he's willing to sell them."
Randall looks at his brother-in-spirit as though Kevin's grown a second head. "Dude, people make claims like that all the time. So what? Even if it's true -- the closest to that there ever really was, was Teacher. And you
saw how that played out."
"You're not hearing me, man! So fucking what if he's a sham?
If I can convince people that I got a tuneup courtesy of his little gift..."
Randall's eyes turn into saucers as what Kevin's been saying finally clicks in.
As one, they both turn back to the screen with Calle's email and whisper, "Ho. Lee. Fuck."
