by Skyler Grant
Their abilities gave them few advantages in any fight and they had often spent their lives being preyed upon by those stronger. What we offered, being a part of our city and what we were building where their abilities might be seen as something useful, really did have some appeal. That didn’t mean they were willing to swear fealty without extracting every concession that they could.
I had Crystal playing diplomat, it is what she was there for.
Every Divine that decided to join up with us would make us that much more attractive to those who remained. If even a few of the more powerful became our allies they might serve as an effective counter against Boreas.
That was the theory. The problem was I wasn’t the only one to realize it.
A few hours into negotiations reality seemed to flicker. In an instant the Divine guests were scattered about the room, slumped against the walls, suffering multiple gunshots. Crystal had taken several in the face and her life-signs were quickly fading. The wounds weren’t typical, with a residue of yellow energy.
It had to be agents of Boreas working to neutralize this alliance before it started. First things first, I shut down all teleportation gates in and out of the city. An infiltrator might have come from an airship, but the gates were another option and the only one I could do something about.
I teleported in drones to grab the Divine and engaged a second teleport to a trauma center. Ophelia had lieutenants on call every hour of the day in case of emergencies. The wounds were resisting healing, the energy signatures retarding it somehow. Vital signs were dropping even faster.
I’d encountered toxins before that slowed healing, but they wouldn’t be returning this sort of result. It had to be some kind of reversal effect. They’d expect me to get them healing quickly and whatever the residue was in the wounds, it was taking that healing effect and using it to cause more damage.
No, that didn’t make sense. If the goal was to just have these people killed they could have done so. Whatever the time-pause or time-reversion they were using, it should have been enough for that. I teleported Ophelia’s lieutenant into a testing cell and engaged quarantine shielding.
It was purely speculative, but if I wanted to capitalize on a city with a large presence of high-powered healers I’d use some sort of bioweapon. One triggered to grow stronger and consume more health, the more a healing aura was applied. It would take far more research to confirm that, but for the time being isolating the victims from a healer and using a Medbay for traditional healing was the best option. The wounded might die, Crystal might die, but it would preserve the city.
It didn’t answer the why though. If the goal was to wipe out the city they could have brought such a bioweapon directly to Ophelia’s district and released it. Why wouldn’t they?
It was an attempt to destroy this city, but it wasn’t only that. They’d learned their lesson about me the hard way—that an entity who could respond in nanoseconds was difficult to deal with even having some degree of temporal manipulation. This was a distraction, and it had succeeded.
I did a broader scan of the city. All of the other District Lords were unharmed, Sylax hadn’t been touched.
There it was. The electronics in one secure research facility were down. The lab that housed the keystone for the pedestal in the cavern.
Once I knew what I was looking for it was a simple matter to review those surveillance logs. The cameras had been wiped, but everything passing through a city system went through me and my biological memory storage units still had them intact.
Kalakas, a minor Scholar lord we’d been doing quite a bit of trading with. They’d been providing some rare earth resources that we needed for the construction of our espionage drones, and aiding in our refinement efforts of compounds. We’d allowed him and his people access to the city.
With the benefit of hindsight I reviewed logs and saw how his agents from the very beginning had been scouting our infrastructure. It wasn’t until today that anything had more been done. I only had flickers of an individual moving through the halls, the result of time-skips—this was a time-shifter. Never enough to have registered as anything more than sensor irregularities. They told a clear story though. I had the visuals of the figure making their way through the gate, shooting the diplomats, then moving into the secure facility to perform the robbery before making their way back through the gate.
Effectively it had only taken them a few seconds and they’d made their escape before I sealed the gates.
I had drones in guard positions at various points throughout the city. Four Valkyries and six Gunslingers. It would do. I teleported them to the jump gate and reestablished the connection to Kalakas’ domain and ordered them through.
I hoped I’d still be able to catch up to the time-shifter, if not Kalakas would do. We’d been betrayed and I couldn’t let that stand.
184
Kalakas and his people weren’t innocent. Innocent people don’t start shooting the instant your forces come from a gateway. They were ready, defensive turrets set up, and when my first drone emerged from the gateway they were pummeled with high-powered rounds.
Even the armor on a Valkyrie couldn’t take that for long, but then it didn’t have to. Phase blades engaged, they surged forward to cut the turret in two as the second Valkyrie stepped through. They moved on a second turret even as guards rushed into the room.
I brought a Gunslinger through next and opened fire with their chain-gun. A few stray shots caught my Valkyries but that was nothing new. The less-armored guards were chewed to pieces and stumbled back.
I didn’t have time to be satisfied with that small victory. Analyzing my drone’s sensory impressions I could cross-reference the sounds of shuttles taking off, pin-pointing where the landing bay might be.
A second Gunslinger made his way through and moved towards the nearest wall to the landing bay, applying a full strengthed body-slam accompanied with kinetic enhancements. Stone shattered and he crashed a way to the other side falling on top of guards who had been rushing to reinforce their comrades.
I moved the Valkyrie units through the gap and sent a second Gunslinger through the gateway. Kinetic enhancers boosting their speed, they rushed past more guards knocking them to the side before smashing another wall.
The landing bay was on the other side. A shuttle was already taking off.
This was where I had to get clever. This is where I had to get very, very clever. From what I’d been able to piece together from the surveillance tapes this agent had the ability to freeze time when they knew there was danger. They weren’t freezing it now or I’d never have seen the shuttle at all—they still thought they were safe and had made it out successfully. The sound of the takeoff perhaps masked the gunfire. Maybe they had exhausted their freeze time ability sneaking through the city?
If they weren’t freezing time, they had to rely on their ability to rewind time to escape. For a lieutenant of Boreas that would be about fifteen seconds.
I had to take down the shuttle in a way they’d be powerless to stop.
The first Gunslinger pulled out their sniper rifle and took aim. A single shot and the fuel regulator was breached. Fuel began to spray over the rear of the shuttle.
In liquid form it wasn’t an issue, it wouldn’t ignite. It would need to evaporate first and that took a little time. Based on the current atmospheric conditions I calculated that to be sixteen seconds.
When the rear of the shuttle burst into flame and the craft spiraled out of control, I wondered how many times I must have repeated this moment. Three? A dozen? A thousand? How often had the pilot of that ship tried to rewind time to get a favorable outcome before finally giving up and resigning themselves to what happened next?
I brought the rest of my heavy units through. Better-equipped guards were arriving now and one of my Gunslingers staggered back under a beam of blaster rifle fire.
Kalakas entered the hall. He was flanked by a pair of guards, and smoke wreathed thick about his
form. A gesture and the smoke billowed down the hall forming into fantastical beasts, a massive smoke alligator grabbing a Valkyrie between its jaws and shaking him violently.
It was a neat trick. One of the newly arrived Valkyrie’s teleported behind Kalakas and shoved a knife through his heart. The Scholar lord wore the surprised look of someone who couldn’t quite comprehend how his own treachery could turn against him. I took possession of the Valkyrie and knelt down beside Kalakas as he slumped to the floor.
“That was pathetic enough that I feel compelled to offer some words of wisdom that, on the off-chance reincarnation exists, you do better in your next life time. Don’t bring smoke monsters to a gun fight,” I said.
Knowing well the power of healing auras I put a few more knives into him just to be sure he stayed down.
I had a Gunslinger open fire on the shuttle, rupturing the cabin to spill fuel inside. While it would be nice to have a subject to interrogate I just didn’t trust any direct encounter with the pilot. If they survived the crash their ability to rewind gave them too much of an advantage unless I had the time to properly plan, and right now I was improvising.
Thirty seconds after the fuel concentration levels should have reached a high level in the cabin the Gunslinger opened fire with incendiary rounds. The gush of flames shook the tiny ship violently.
I left a guard on watch.
I lost another Gunslinger and three Aegis to the rush of guards, but seeing Kalakas dead more new arrivals began tossing their weapons away and holding up their hands.
A part of me wanted to wipe them all out, but I knew that wasn’t the way. I’d let Sylax live for a reason, and it wasn’t just to assure Crystal’s allegiance. When the whole world thinks itself your enemy, you’re never going to put it back together by killing everyone.
I set a Valkyrie to taking prisoners and when the word got around that we were honoring a surrender the rest yielded. The fires died in the shuttle and I was able to confirm the death of the pilot and reclaim the keystone.
185
My sense of triumph was short-lived because back in Aefwal things weren’t going well. My instincts had been right regarding the victims of the shooting. They were infected with a disease that fed off power—healing power in particular. It appeared to transform the infected flesh into more virus particulates which then attempted to spread through the air.
It was a vicious thing and it had already completely consumed the healer I’d moved to a testing cell. At least it had kept the others alive and gave me samples of the virus to study.
For my containment cells I was still using my original design, purely mechanical and electrical in nature, and a good thing because if they were biological my own systems would have been compromised.
I was struck by how recklessly irresponsible something like this plague was. It could easily have spread beyond my own population. A bomb, even a big bomb, was ultimately limited in scope, but something like this could end the Scholarium. It was rare I encountered a deadly weapon I wouldn’t think about acquiring myself, but this one qualified. I wanted the one who deployed it destroyed. Still, SCIENCE was SCIENCE and I looked forward to making a study of it.
The question was what to do with the infected. Crystal and the Divine were dying despite the best my Medbay could throw at them. I saw a few possible ways to resolve the situation.
Tykhe was holding up better than any of the others, she was very nearly stable. I had to assume that was because of her abilities at purification. That was probably my best long-term option for any sort of cure, tweaking such an ability that weakened instead of empowered the disease.
Ophelia and Blank were my other options. Contrarian powers often only seemed to favor one way until they met a stronger member of the opposite. A Fire core holder could do devastating harm to a weaker Water core holder, but the opposite was true as well. This disease might have overpowered and utterly destroyed one of Ophelia’s lieutenants, but Ophelai’s healing ability was an order of magnitude greater.
Then there was Blank, who was operating in somewhat of the opposite direction. Her ability to neutralize powers could considerably weaken the virus, perhaps enough for the immune systems of the infected to fend them off.
The thing was that I couldn’t really test out either without exposing them. If Ophelia wasn’t stronger it would probably kill her almost instantly, and be vastly empowered in the process. Blank wouldn’t die as quickly, but she’d still be infected. Either way, I stood the chance of losing a further two of my District Lords while right now I was only in danger of losing one.
Either might work, but I didn’t want to take the chance yet, not if there were other options and I only saw one other. I doubted this was new technology. This virus had probably been deployed before.
I had a list of many of Boreas’ enemies and even jump gate coordinates for a few of them. I prepared a datapacket describing the symptoms of the virus without giving away any physiology that could be used to replicate it, and began transmitting a message.
It wasn’t long until I got a response, one encrypted enough to show the other party was interested in keeping the conversation secure.
It was a visual communication. The woman on the other end had the sort of flawless health and perfect good looks that suggested some sort of health core or having been heavily upgraded.
“This is Baroness Caya of the city of Diamate. The file you sent is speaking of the Sinta virus. What do you know of it?” Caya asked.
I wasn’t fond of sharing my business, but I didn’t have time for too much in the way of subtlety. Even if they could provide help they’d have to do it quickly. I either needed to be honest or to have an exceptional lie. I lacked a deception good enough.
“I’m Emma, artificial intelligence administrating Aefwal. You look even more plastic than I do, an impressive feat. Boreas recently deployed this virus against us. I’ve stopped the spread, but I am seeking a cure for our infected,” I said.
“Aefwal? We’d thought you destroyed. Still, I’d heard it was ruled by one incapable of speaking politely even when most critical. I’d thought you be rather better at the insults,” Caya said.
“I’m inspired by uniqueness and difference. There is absolutely nothing special about another pretty would-be princess,” I said.
Caya’s smile flickered and her blue eyes turned a touch flinty. “I asked for that, so it gets a pass. I’m flawless—physical perfection in every way—and so are those with whom I share my gift. That virus devastated my people when first introduced. It subverts the order of a system seeking perfection by offering it a different version of perfection.”
I had not expected her to come right out and be helpful. If she was being sincere, I’d wind up having to send this woman a great many cookies.
“A purification core holder is for the most part holding it off, but it is fatal to those with health cores,” I said.
“You have to flip it around. Introduce a poison whose only purpose is to tear a system apart. The virus winds up attempting to emulate it and destroys itself,” Caya said.
I didn’t need to waste time. I knew a number of toxins and I injected a small sample into one of the Divine at once. Their vitals twinged slightly downward, but the effect on reducing the viral mass was extreme.
“You’ve been unexpectedly forthright,” I told Caya.
“I hate that virus and if Boreas hates you enough to use it you may actually be an ally,” Caya said.
We might at that. I extended an invitation for her and her allies to meet in person, and closed the connection.
186
If I’d known that poisoning people was such a boon to their health I might have started long ago. I soon eliminated all traces of the virus in the infected and kept them in quarantine for awhile longer just to be certain.
The virus being so easily neutralized made it a far less formidable weapon than it had first appeared and it might have its uses. Hot Stuff still wanted me to modify her virus
to be less fatal to those she sought to convert and I thought with some work this might do it. The way it drew upon the energy of a Powered individual to replicate itself might actually be useful if paired with the Fire virus. Most of Hot Stuff’s partners died from the Fire virus replicating too quickly inside of them and destroying nearby tissue before it too could become affected. If I could weaken the virus in those initial stages, survival rates should go up significantly.
I’d also spent some time preparing us to host a banquet. Caya had accepted my invitation to visit and had spread the word amongst the other allies of Boreas. Meanwhile our Divine guests had been more impressed than angered at what had befallen them here, they viewed the efforts to save their lives as being heroic.
With Crystal still in quarantine it fell upon Anna to play diplomat. One day I’d figure out why that meant dressing up in a red and gold dress that showed more flesh than any rational person would ever want to see. Of course, all in attendance were dressed up. Zora’s collar was so high it reached levels of impractical, Sylax was dressed in an outfit that seemed to completely consist of white leather belts, even Flicker had somehow added bursts of greenish color to her occasional appearances.
Hot Stuff was on patrol and a few of the less social District Lords joined her, Jade and Crash both working to keep the city safe. Given how quickly Boreas had hit our last attempt to make friends we were on high alert this time. Gunslingers and Aegis were thick on the streets.
Drinks had been flowing and the crowd was surprisingly amenable.
I had an official drone present, of course, one with the “likable” attribute who had far better fashion sense than Anna and wasn’t a complete embarrassment. I was also in every drone serving drinks, listening and observing every conversation. This was too important not to be informed.