“It is my recommendation, therefore, to move forward with a bolstering of the police. To increase our military presence to keep the citizens of Rome safe. To enable our retaliation, so I can fulfill my promise of holding the perpetrators accountable. Remember this tragedy, and know it will only make us stronger.”
The television flickered then, the broadcast over, replaying the news of the funeral that had been broadcasted earlier that day. Francesca’s funeral.
Contrary to her living wishes, her funeral had requested for no cameras or press to be allowed inside. Instead, the paparazzi waited on the street outside, photographing those who came to and from the church, capturing the crying faces of her fans that formed a small crowd, and the average citizen that still bowed their head in recognition as they passed.
For though many of the Roman people had not followed Francesca in life, her death was symbolic of their own daughters and sons. Of innocence falling beneath the blade, a face of victimhood. Her image broadcast on the televisions, and the construction crews replacing her windows of the penthouse visible from the entire city. A reminder that their children might be next.
On the screen, I saw Dacil exiting, his face unreadable. There was Renalt as well, making my shoulders tense as I wondered if it was wise for two Titans to be in one area. Then wondering how I knew it was only two, and how it was possible for more to be in that church without my knowledge.
Lucio spoke, breaking my stare on the screen as we all turned towards him.
“So how do we fight back? What do we do now?” he asked, more to me than the group.
“We wait,” I said. “We look for unnatural occurrences. Search for earthquakes, magma flows, new tornado alleys, hurricanes, whatever we can find. Then we go there to investigate. But beforehand, we should learn. Lynns stated that the Titans are allowed to live simply because they've been shackled, but we need to learn how else we can control them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they caused many of the disasters we've seen in history. Things like Pompei could have occurred because there's a Titan maybe as young as five years old, their powers transforming completely into the force of nature. But instead, the Instructors, turned them into a stockpile for Armageddon. To know more about today, we need to look to the past for more information.”
“Oi, so what’s that mean for now?” asked Slugger. “We got any leads? All that history happened way before our time.”
“We should start at the academies. I don’t know how exactly they started, but they’re connected to all this. We’ll need to get a list of all in the city, or even the country, and see what we can dig up. Maybe we find some students in the first years of the academies. Somewhere, the information is out there.”
“I’ll pry it out of them with memories,” said Lucio.
“Sounds like the police might have some info too, maybe Roland and Arial’s father. If we can get them to squeal, we should,” added Slugger.
“Hey, if Lynns knows all this, we should just give him some memories to spill the beans,” said Lucio, but I raised my hand, shaking my head violently.
“Lucio, the number one thing you cannot do is mine Lynns for information. As a Titan, he’s somehow shackled himself. The last thing we want to do is break it. Sure, all he has is information, but he’s still a Titan. Probably harmless, but I don’t want to risk it.”
“Harmless?” Ennia laughed. “You do realize that information is the most dangerous of all? Think about a society advanced a hundred years more than another on the battlefield—they would absolutely dominate. Take Blenders—most have no idea their own capabilities because they haven’t learned about them. They don’t know you can convert items to muscle and bone, making machines from your imagination. With that knowledge, imagine an army of Blenders at your disposal, and that’s just one power. The right secret told at the right time could easily change the course of history, and Lynns has countless.”
We received her words with silence, and she took the opportunity to continue.
“Even without powers, imagine how powerful his blackmailing would be. Entire political systems could be wiped out by dirty information on the right person. I would say that Lynns is the one we should fear the most.”
After a moment, I nodded and reaffirmed my point.
“Right. We need to avoid any interference with him, then—he might not be with us, but if he was against us, it would be devastating. Lucio, stay away. With that said, we need to make use of the knowledge he has given us. Practice with the tools he distributed. And speaking of those from the academy, there’s someone else I think we can talk to. Someone I haven’t spoken to in a long time.”
Chapter 72
Ennia
For Ennia, escaping the subway was easy. She'd already constructed a bone tunnel out, taking only two days to complete, and covered with a cement door to camouflage it from prying eyes. The hardest part had been blending the rock to air. Otherwise, she could have completed it in a few hours.
Rock, of course, already had air contained within it. That was just one of the many facts she had learned at the university, which opened up the possibilities of blending. Since she knew that most rock was a simple combination of aluminum or silicone with oxygen, convincing it to become oxygen entirely had become far easier. Some metal residue was left behind, but that was far easier to deal with than if she had simply tried to convince the entire material to turn to air.
The tunnel was behind her bed—even with the concrete door, she’d wanted an extra layer hiding it. SC’s mother and friends had been so accommodating, but also nosy, and she didn’t want to betray their trust with her secret link to the outside. In fact, she’d convinced them that she was afraid of being too close to the exit, which was why they’d set up her room against a wall. A wall for her tunnel.
She was grateful, truly grateful for their help. But they didn’t need to know the real reason she was here, now that they had agreed to let her stay. For a second internship, now that her first was complete, and only required a formal report out to the university.
But what they didn’t realize was that her first internship was something else entirely as well. More of a research project than she had let on. Of course, she hadn’t lied—but neither had she given them the full truth.
No, this internship was for what she had studied at the university. Something that had been attempted before with often disastrous results. But those who had tried—well, they were not engineers like Ennia and considered it more than an art than a science. To her, that was the height of foolishness. Data wouldn’t lie to her as their feelings had.
She smiled, looking down at the book Cane had given her, which tied in so well with her studies.
On Power Amplification and Combination.
It was incredible, really, how her own intuition in the past had brushed up against her theories. The idea you could gather a choir of Silver Tongues and simply have them sing in a concert for amplification made sense. In harmony, of course they would all contribute to a single cause, their voices stacking but also experiencing a multiplication effect instead of mere addition.
But that was just the beginning. The start of the secrets the book held. Secrets that could alter the outcome of wars, that could to cause incredible destruction.
Such as the contraption described on page forty-six, the Inferno Battering Ram.
The date at the top of the page marked five hundred years prior, though the handwriting seemed the same as any other page. And though a few words were outdated, she could still make out the designs and purpose. But if the page was truly that old, it should have disintegrated—and when she experimentally tried to damage it, it resisted her efforts. Water barely seeped into it, fire failed to catch it beyond smoldering, and with all her strength, she could barely rip the corner off. With enough damage, the fibers would succumb, but it would take far more than a spilled candle or glass of water. The chemical knowledge to make something like that would be impressive today—but five hundred years ago,
seemed nearly impossible.
Except, perhaps, for someone whose power granted them limitless amounts of knowledge.
But Lynns seemed only able to access knowledge, not act on it. And as an engineer, acting on it was her passion.
Back in the book, she read the page of the Inferno Battering Ram eagerly, as if it might disappear at any moment. When laid out before her, the mechanics were intuitive, even simple.
Several Flamethrowers were to stand in a line, from the strongest to the weakest, each facing the same direction. No more than seven were to be used, else the risk of a malfunction turned too high, even for the most skilled of Specials.
At the command of a captain, each of the Flamethrowers were to draw in power, holding as much fire as their ability allowed. Then the strongest in the back would release it, directing it forwards, triggering the next in line. The second Flamethrower would release his with perfect timing, adding to the effect, to be repeated by the one in front of him. Continuing down the line until the total energy reached the one in front, who instead of a Flamethrower, would be a Concentrator. A power that allowed for the gathering and shaping of energies, who would take the fire and compress it down into a single point, then unleash it in the appropriate direction like a nozzle.
Already, Ennia could think of several modifications to make the design more effective. But even without her improvements, the Inferno Battering Ram had already proved highly effective in history.
Five hundred years ago was the only time the book noted its usage, and it had blasted down the great wall of Anemi, a defense that successfully defended the city for a millennia. At its command was the hero, a man named Orin, who had been given credit in the history books for destroying the walls singlehandedly as one of the strongest Flamethrowers to ever exist. But as Ennia read, she realized that it was his mind that should have made him go down in history, had he not killed the entire team that had composed his machine to keep the secret. For after taking Anemi, Orin declared himself their ruler, and relied on those very same walls to keep his power. Walls that, he now knew, could be destroyed with the proper Special machination.
Already, Ennia had read half the book in her breaks from carving the tunnel, but what struck her was the passage at the back. The reason why so few of these machines had been developed over the ages despite their power.
An interesting effect is to be noted on the usage of Special machinations over history, largely reliant upon the availability of transportation and sharing of knowledge. Within the 20th century, migrations of individuals became far easier, and the concentrations of Specials in regions particular to their power decreased, thereby decreasing the chances of these machinations forming. The rationale behind this is there no longer were dense pockets of Flamethrowers existing around volcanoes, nor other powers in their respective hot spots. Since Specials tend to be among the wealthiest, they are also the world's most mobile group, most likely to depart from home. Prior to mass transportation, Special machinations were rare due to insufficient knowledge of the sciences to construct them, as well as powerful Specials generally avoiding each other to avoid disputes prior to current law systems.
Furthermore, in the past, when the combination of powers worked together, their true value was not realized beyond common simple machinations. Take gasoline as an example—it is common knowledge gasoline burns, and can be used for tasks such as cooking, but to construct a car to be powered by gasoline requires far more knowledge. Similarly, nearly all machinations never reached the complex level that allows for harnessing their true power, rather staying within the range of two to three Specials working together. Potentially, in the cases these machines have been discovered, they have intentionally been kept secret—regarded as myth, to prevent high amounts of damage from their mass utilization.
Ennia closed the book—once she had returned, she would be able to continue. But now, she started down the tunnel, leaving the subway, traveling to a messenger who would relay back to her professor, Tailor, her findings from her first internship. One spent studying the Litious.
For the university knew that the Litious could meddle with powers, but she’d learned far more than she expected from this internship. While theorized, she had never come in contact with someone like a Titan before. It made for important information for her experiments. Experiments that, for the time being, she’d only tried on animals.
She’d mentioned to others Lilac’s hollow bones, or the double hearts, or expanded lungs. But that was not all she’d given the tiger. Animals had far less of an essence than humans, but she’d still been able to instill minor Momentive abilities in Lilac, directing them at the tiger’s body, making her able to decrease her own weight. And her rodent, Ralphie—initially, she’d tried to make him fly, but there simply wasn’t enough essence to work with. Instead, when dropped, it could stop for just a second, but nothing more.
But with people—with people, she was convinced she could do more. The Litious and Titans had proved that to her.
And she wondered if the Titans, like the Litious, had been made by human interference.
Chapter 73
Lucio
Lucio sat in his legs hanging off his bed, the book that Cane had given him resting on his lap.
At first, he’d been disappointed in the gift after seeing the others in action. It was only a book, a normal book, unlike the one Ennia had been given that Lynns had written. No, this had been in mass print, and Lucio was convinced he’d even seen it before on the library shelf when SC convinced him to go and he played computer games in the back.
He’d wished that Cane had given him something cool, like Slugger’s punching gloves or like Arial’s flight suit. Maybe some awesome glasses that could tell him who would be most receptive to his memories, a sort of gullibility meter. But by the time he reached the tenth page of the book, his attitude had changed.
Over the past year, Lucio had grown far more adept at using his memory abilities. At the beginning, he could flash vivid memories that were incredibly convincing for a few moments. But it was rare that he could convince others that they were true for a long period of time. Usually, there'd be some error that would make them realize the falsity, like when they first met SC. In that scenario, the illusion completely shattered when he’d tried to include a father in the memory, someone SC would never have known. Now, with Francesca, his best efforts lasted a couple of days. But even she had realized that something was amiss, or at least others had, when they heard the details of the memories.
They had been outlandish, ideas he had come up with the fly because he had that time to prepare. That quickly, wild memories were the only ones he knew how to make stick, to make the person accept. When he gave someone a wild memory, they clung to it because it was larger than life, it was easy to believe. Like a storybook filled with wish fulfillment, and he knew how to operate on those desires. It was the reason most visited the movies, in search for something greater, something exciting in their lives without responsibility.
But that also made it liable to failure, which led to trouble. Manipulation of other’s minds, of course, was considered a form of assault under the law. So were the orbs SC launched, or the punches that Slugger threw. But if he was good enough, his could be completely hidden, never discovered, and never at risk of arrest.
The ideas in the book seemed obvious to him, yet at the same time, things that he had never quite grasped. Ideas as simple as personal bias, that if he could pick up upon someone's attitude towards something and insert that into the memory, well, they would be far more likely to believe it. For instance, if someone hated cilantro, a section about them scoffing at a certain dish containing it would solidify the memory. It was like identifying with a character in a movie; he had to mesh with their similarities.
But his favorite new tactic revolved around something the book called Confirmation Bias, the idea that minds searched for reasons to prove what they already believed. If someone was trying to justify in an argument
and he gave them a memory as ammunition, surely they would use it. The tactic was simple, almost too simple—to start an argument with someone, back them into a corner, and give them the memory to fight their way out of it. Then let himself be defeated in the argument, mocking disappointment—but really, the memory would be planted. And they’d embrace it, because that had been their way to win a false battle against him.
A mischievous smile tugged at his mouth as other ideas formed in his mind from the book’s lessons. There was Rosy Retrospection, the idea that minds remembered the past in a more positive light. If placing something many years back, he could tint it a tad too positively. Maybe even remove a few details on purpose, make it so faint that there was little reason to suspect it.
All these techniques he could use to make his memories near indistinguishable from reality, even against those who expected them.
He glanced up at the ribbon on his desk, the one for winning the video contest. For Francesca, the plot of his second movie formed the majority of the memories he had given her, with some tweaks, of course. It was all he had prepared at the time. But now, he could change that.
He could build the storylines beforehand, generic ones for different situations, that he could implant all at once in a hurry, fitting them to a personality like a shoe size.
He started constructing in his mind the character arcs, the settings and plots for a dozen different personalities. Of course, he’d still need to alter them when deployed—but these would make for far better cookie cutter memories than he had used in the past. He’d had time to work out plot holes and kinks, to make them real. To make something that a girl their age would find believable, or the middle-aged man behind the fast food counter, or a librarian with a life as dull as chalk.
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