by wildbow
“The compiling is done?”
“I could refine it further, try to give you some additional features, but the coding and the hardware I’m working with here is so tightly structured that I think I’d do more harm than good. It’s like the techie equivalent of trying to put toothpaste back in the tube after you’ve squeezed it out… you can’t, so maybe you try to make more tube that sticks out of one side, but you keep doing it and you wind up with this kludgy mess that you can’t even use for its original purpose. For getting toothpaste.”
“I think I understand what you mean. Thank you for this. It’s already uploaded?”
“Yeah, and it was my pleasure, really.” Kid Win smiled.
Legend stood and stretched a little.
The goodbyes had already been made and he’d had his meeting with Emily. Business was wrapped up here. He’d called home to let Arthur know he wouldn’t make it to dinner but that he hoped to be back before midnight.
A light smile touched his face. He even felt a little giddy at the thought of getting home, wrapping Arthur in a hug. Growing up, he’d never thought that he’d feel giddy about his husband after six years of marriage.
But he had something to take care of first. The notion put a damper on his pleasant mood.
“I’m going to go, then. You and I,” he promised Kid Win, “Should talk again sometime. You can tell me if you’ve figured out your specialty, and if you’re leading a team.”
“Maybe the next time you’re in Brockton Bay?”
“Maybe.” Legend smiled, but he was thinking, Does he know? This whole region might be condemned.
Maybe Kid Win was being optimistic.
Legend turned and opened a window, then let himself float through. He took a second to get his bearings, to inform himself of which direction was up, down, north, east, south and west, then he took off.
Powers were classified into categories, and the ‘breaker’ classification was used to mark those powers which were limited to one’s own body and their immediate vicinity. Though it had initially been used to cover individuals who could make themselves stronger, denser, larger or change the materials they were made of, it was slowly expanding to include others. There was a theory that was gaining traction, suggesting that the breaker classification was one of the most common powersets, if not always the most pronounced. Innumerable people with powers had also adapted innate defenses that kept their own powers from harming themselves. Pyrokinetics tended to be resistant to flame. There were automatic shutoffs, biological and mental, for various other powers. Even beyond that, there were other adaptations that were so subtle as to be almost undetectable. His weren’t.
Legend’s flight powers let him accelerate to a speed that exceeded sound and continue accelerating, to no hard limit. The soft limit was that he had breaker powers that kept the acceleration from tearing him to shreds, altering his body into something else entirely as he gained speed. The drawback to this was that his brain also shut down on a cognitive level as the transformation occurred. He had never let himself go so fast that he lost the ability to consciously control his movements.
There were other benefits too. He was better at registering and processing light waves, regardless of which state he was in. He could see with perfect clarity up until the point that an obstactle intervened or the atmosphere occluded his vision.
If an opponent attacked and struck him, he instinctively transitioned into his energy form for a split second. In that state, he absorbed energy of a variety of kinds, including the kinetic energy that was transferred with a punch or with a bullet. His opponents were forced to whittle him down, each attack only a fraction as effective as it might otherwise be. Even then, a share of that small amount of damage was healed a second later as he used the absorbed energy to mend his body. Conversely, his enemies could try to hit him with enough speed and force that even a hundredth of a second of contact was sufficient to take him out of the fight. Leviathan and Behemoth had managed to land blows of that magnitude.
Siberian has as well. He set his jaw and increased his speed a notch.
He traveled over the Atlantic Ocean, moving so fast that the water appeared to be one flat plane. His thoughts became a blur, and he was forced to focus on his destination, letting all other thoughts and doubts fall by the wayside.
It was refreshing, in a way, cleansing himself of the responsibilities and the thousands of problems he was forced to handle as the leader of the Protectorate. Still, it always scared him just a little.
It took him only an instant to reach a complete stop. He let himself settle down into his real body once more.
He’d wondered sometimes if his ability to fly was meant for travel on an interstellar level. What if he kept accelerating? His breaker power would let him weather the void of space, his ability to see would be that much more powerful if there was no atmosphere to occlude his vision over miles… even the boredom of traveling for years was nothing if his conscious mind shifted into a rest state.
Not that he’d ever test it.
He’d absorbed light, heat and ambient radiation while he flew, and he felt restored. Even the mildest wear and tear had been tended to, his body restored to peak condition.
His mind was another matter, his emotions. It was like waking up in a warm bed, the man he loved beside him, only to experience a sinking feeling as he came to dread the coming day.
He drifted closer to the oil rig, and settled down on a fence, using a touch of his flight ability to stay balanced. In every direction, as far as the eye could see, there was only water.
“Any time now,” he said.
It began as a pale square in mid-air, then unfolded rapidly, three-dimensional. When it opened up further, the interior of a building loomed in mid-air, the exterior absent.
He floated forward and set foot on the white tile of the hallway. He felt the distortion as the space shifted, felt the rush of wind as air pressure adjusted. It took only a couple of seconds. When he glanced over his shoulder, the oil rig was gone. There was only more hallway behind him.
He walked onward, confident in his ability to navigate the maze of rooms and corridors.
When he pushed open the double doors and stepped into the conference room, there were a few looks of surprise.
“Legend,” the Doctor spoke, “I thought you were occupied in Brockton Bay.”
“Jack escaped.”
“That’s… really unfortunate,” Alexandria said.
“Quite,” the Doctor replied.
Legend glanced around the room. Alexandria leaned back in her chair, her helmet on the table in front of her, a star-shaped scar at the corner of one eye. Beautiful, Legend was sure, but more in the way a lioness was beautiful. In her black and gray costume, she was intimidating, her expression regal.
Eidolon was the opposite. He had lowered his hood and removed his glowing mask, revealing a middle-aged man with thick eyebrows, thinning hair and heavy cheeks. He looked more like an average family man who was getting dressed up as Eidolon for a costume party than he looked like Eidolon himself.
There were others around the table. The Doctor: dark-skinned, hair tied into a prim bun with chopsticks stuck through it, wearing a short white dress beneath a white lab coat. The Number Man, with his laptop set in front of him, looking more like a businessman than one of the most influential and lesser-known parahumans on the planet. There was also the woman in the black suit, who had never introduced herself or been introduced by name. Whenever Legend came here with the others, the woman was there with the Doctor.
Insurance, he thought. The Doctor thinks that woman can face us if we turn on her.
Would she win? Legend harbored doubts. He’d met a lot of powerful individuals over the course of his career, and he’d learned how to measure them. This woman didn’t relax for an instant, where someone who was assured of victory would be more willing to let down her guard. More likely that she’s supposed to stall or stop us if there’s a problem, buying the d
octor time to escape.
“Jack escaped. What about the other Nine?” the Doctor asked.
“We suspect that Bonesaw and Siberian also escaped, with Hookwolf as a new member of their group.”
“I see.”
“It’s unusual for you to show any interest in what’s going on outside the realm of your business and research. Any reason for the curiosity?”
The Doctor smiled. “Hard to keep track of what goes on beyond these walls, sometimes.”
Legend nodded. He took a seat to Alexandria’s right. He considered for a moment, then spoke. “There are some things that concern me.”
“Is this tied to why you came here today?”
“Yes. Let me begin by saying that there’s apparently a precog in Brockton Bay that’s pretty damn certain that the world’s going to end shortly.”
“Precogs are notoriously unreliable. I tell many of my customers that when they express interest in seeing the future. I think I even told you. Or was it Alexandria that I discussed it with?”
“It was,” Alexandria replied.
“You’re right,” Legend said. “Most precogs are vague. They have to be, because the future is vague. But all reports point to this precog being very specific. Jack Slash was mentioned as the catalyst for an event that occurs in two years. More specifically, she said this occurs if Jack escaped Brockton Bay alive, which he did.”
There were nods around the table.
“What do you mean when you say the world ends?” Eidolon asked.
“Thirty-three to ninety-six percent of the population dies in a very short span of time. I assume the aftermath of this scenario leads to more deaths in the long run.”
The Number Man spoke. “Depending on the circumstances of death, the demise of even one in three individuals would lead to further casualties. Lack of staff for essential services and key areas, health, atmospheric and ecological effects of decomposition on a massive scale, destabilized societal infrastructure… The best case scenario is that Earth’s population drops steeply over twenty years, until it settles to forty-eight point six percent of where it currently stands. Three billion, three hundred and ninety-one million, eight hundred and three thousand, five hundred and four. Give or take.”
“That’s the best case scenario?” Alexandria asked.
The man shrugged. “It’s unlikely it will occur. The bare minimum of people would have to die, there couldn’t be any bodies, and there wouldn’t be anything left unattended that could cause uncontrolled fires or nuclear incidents. If I were to ballpark a number, talking about events that could kill one-third to nearly all of the world’s population, I’d say roughly seventy-two percent of the earth’s population are likely to die. That leaves one billion, nine hundred and fifty million alive. More than half of those individuals would die over the following twenty years, and more than half of those who remain would die in the ten years following that. Keeping in mind these are estimates, of course.”
“Of course,” The Doctor said, “Precogs are unreliable. I’m surmising this girl doesn’t know exactly how this occurs?”
“No. Her employer didn’t say anything on the subject.”
“We’ll take measures,” Eidolon said. “Evacuation, we’ll also push for automatic shutdown controls on power grids and nuclear facilities. With the Endbringers out there, it would be sensible to do it anyways. We can reduce the potential damage.”
“Unless,” Alexandria said, “the numbers the precog provided are already accounting for us having this conversation and taking the extra measures. If she does view the future, it’s very possible she saw this very meeting and everything that followed, in a manner of speaking.”
That was sobering.
“We’ll do it anyways, of course,” Eidolon said.
Legend and Alexandria nodded.
“Let’s remember,” the Doctor said, “The numbers already pointed to an endgame situation at the twenty-three year mark. If the Endbringers continue doing the damage they’ve been doing at the current rate, things won’t be sustainable. We’ll be forced to withdraw from damaged and dangerous areas, populations will condense, the Endbringers attack those pockets… and that’s without considering the possibility that they achieve something big in the interim. We’ve talked about the crisis scenarios: Behemoth triggering a nuclear winter, Leviathan obliterating or tainting the world’s renewable water supply.”
“You’re saying we’re already facing an end of the world situation,” Alexandria said. “And this is just accelerating the timetable.”
“Yes. Any measures we take are still vital. They’ll help here, with this scenario, but if it never occurs, it will still help against the Endbringers.”
“Are we assuming the Endbringers are at the core of this end-of-the-world scenario?” Eidolon asked.
“Likely,” Alexandria said. “But let’s not rule anything out.”
“Provided this is really occurring,” the Doctor spoke.
“We can’t afford to say it’s not,” Legend said. “You have precogs among your staff and customers?”
“Some,” The Doctor answered. “I can ask them about this end of the world scenario.”
Legend nodded. “Good. Eidolon, you want to try your hand at it?”
“If my power lets me. It only gives me what it thinks I need, not what I want.”
“We need all the help we can get. Let’s see if we can’t figure out how this happens, so we can stop it or mitigate the damage. There’s a lot of capes out there with the thinker classification. Get the word out, call in favors, offer favors. Anything to get more information on this.”
There were nods and noises of agreement from his fellow Protectorate members and the Doctor.
Legend quietly cleared his throat, glancing around the table. “Speaking of great minds… there was another point I wanted to address, that came up during my stay in Brockton Bay.”
He had their attention.
“Alexandria, I expect you read the reports already. You didn’t seem that surprised when I talked about the precog and her end-of-the-world scenario, you’ve probably read up on my notes here.”
Alexandria had originally named herself after the Library of Alexandria, though she’d ceased mentioning that, choosing to leave enemies in the dark instead. As strong as she was on a physical level, her mind was equally formidable. She never forgot a detail, absorbed information quickly, reading two pages of a book with a glance, and she learned quickly, retaining everything she picked up. She knew most commonly spoken languages, no less than ten styles of martial arts and she could match some of the best non-tinkers in the world when it came to computers. Not only was she rated well in the brute classification, but she held high scores in the mover and thinker categories.
“I read what you provided, though I’m not sure what you’re referring to specifically.”
“Siberian.”
He saw a change in her expression, saw Eidolon flinch as if he’d been slapped.
“I’ll explain for those of you who lack access to the PRT records or the time to peruse them. Siberian is not a brute-class cape. Siberian is a ‘master’, and the striped woman is a projection. I caught a glimpse of the man who is creating the projection before they retreated.”
“And?”
“And he had Cauldron’s mark tattooed on the back of his left hand, a swan on his right.”
With the exception of himself, the Number Man and the woman in the suit, everyone present reacted with surprise.
“You don’t think that was William Manton?” Alexandria asked. “But why the mark on his right hand?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t fit on a lot of levels. A top parahuman researcher becoming one of the Nine?”
“It happened to Alan. To Mannequin,” Eidolon said, his voice quiet.
“There’s nothing in the records,” Alexandria said. “Nothing saying he was present at any of the places the quarantine protocol was put in effect.”
She would k
now. She read every record, could call them to mind with perfect accuracy.
“He could have stolen someone’s identity.”
Alexandria nodded, “True.”
“We have confirmation he’s alive,” Eidolon said, his voice quiet. “We suspected, but—”
“We made assumptions, and we were way off base. That’s what concerns me.” Legend leveled a hard look at the Doctor. “See, we’ve been going by the assumption that William Manton, from the time he left Cauldron to the present day, has been continuing his work. We’ve been assuming he’s traveling across the world, experimenting on human subjects, giving them powers with physical mutations as a side effect, then releasing the victims back into society with Cauldron’s symbol tattooed on their bodies. Or at least, that’s what you told us.”
“You’re implying I lied?” the Doctor asked. She didn’t look bothered in the slightest.
“I’ve looked at the timelines. It’s not likely that William Manton could be conducting experiments to give some poor girl tentacles in Illinois at the same time Siberian’s busy attacking people in Miami. Not to mention he barely looked capable of taking care of himself, let alone conducting research.”
He glanced at the others. Eidolon’s brow was creased in concern, while Alexandria looked pensive.
“The pattern doesn’t fit,” he said, to drive the point home. He looked at the Doctor, “Which leaves me to wonder just who is conducting experiments on human subjects.”
“We have no need for human experimentation. The Number Man can calculate the odds of success for a given formula.”
“Maybe that’s the case. But just who is conducting experiments on human subjects, who knows enough about Cauldron to tattoo or brand them with the mark while simultaneously having access to these kinds of resources?”
“It’s not us,” the Doctor spoke.
Legend stared at her, studying her. “And you don’t know anything about how William Manton is connected to all this?”
“I’m as mystified as you are. If it would assuage your suspicions, you can examine this complex,” the Doctor suggested.