by John McCrae
“The issue is with me?”
“I think I can walk away from the project. But can you really walk away from everything?”
She let go of his hand. Her hands were summarily jammed into her jacket pockets.
“We came here for a reason. Hiding, keeping out of Teacher’s sight, so he couldn’t try to use you. I can accept that, but you were always a hero, Dragon. Maybe the greatest.”
“You’re a little biased. I was forced to be heroic. Restrictions.”
“We both know you would’ve been a hero if the restrictions weren’t there. You were heroic after I lifted most of them. More heroic, even. You’re okay because things are quiet right now, but there’ll be trouble down the road, and I think you’ll get restless, knowing you could play a significant part in things.”
“Dashing for the nearest phone booth,” she said.
“I’ve been working on this project out of a kind of arrogance. You’re the person I know best in this world. You’ve spent your entire life striving to be free, to be yourself, independent of the rules your creator tried to set in place. You became a superhero, and you used me to break free of the restrictions. With a cost each time. I’ve been working on this because I believe it would slowly kill you, knowing that you couldn’t help others without risking coming under Teacher’s thumb. That he was controlling you, one way or another.”
“I’m not a princess in need of rescue, Colin.”
“I know that. I know. Damn it, you saved me.”
“You don’t need a stupid doofus chit for any of that. I know why you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty damn intelligent.”
“Are you sure I don’t need a doofus chit? You sound angry.”
“I’m angry because I’m watching you destroy yourself, because I’m helpless to act, and because you’re keeping me in the dark about a lot of this, and I’m worried it’s because Teacher already has an in.”
“That’s not it,” Colin said.
“You’re distant, you’re distracted, you’re not telling me what you’re doing day by day. You’re elbow deep in my very being, I think I have a right to be freaked.”
“You do.”
“I’m feeling a little paranoid here.”
“I know.”
“And I’m doing my very best to keep from asking, because I don’t want to put you in a position where you have to lie to me.”
“I appreciate that,” he said.
“What am I supposed to do, Colin?”
He stopped walking, rubbing his colder hand. Dragon stopped and turned to look at him.
“Look me in the eye and answer the question you asked me just a minute ago. Tell me whether you can make peace with the current circumstances. If you can give up being a hero. Tell me you’re okay hanging up your cape, so to speak, and you’re happy to spend the remainder of my life here with me. I drop the project, we’ll make our house, we can discuss kids. We have skills, we’ll be useful here, and as dreams go, a house with a white picket fence is… well, speaking for myself, I feel like it’s bigger than being top dog in the Protectorate could ever be.”
“All I need to do is ask for it.”
“Yes.”
“And if I don’t? I’m not saying I don’t want that, I’m-” She stopped. In a quieter voice, she asked, “If I don’t?”
The question might as well have been a statement. She knew as well as he did. He felt his heart sink.
“Then I need only three things. Three things that are deceptively easy to give.”
“What?”
“One more night. One night where I let myself fall apart, where I forget to eat and get even six minutes of sleep. A night of quiet and mutually missing each other.”
“One night… and you’re done?”
“One night and I’ll know whether my efforts can bear fruit or not.”
“You’re that close?”
“It’s why I’m as worn out as I am, why I’m missing sleep enough that you’re forced to comment on it.”
“I don’t see how one more night is any harder.”
He sighed. “I’ll also need your trust.”
“Granted.”
“It’s not that-”
“Granted, Colin.”
He looked away, clenching the fist that was furthest from her. “I don’t deserve your trust.”
“That’s for me to decide. What’s the third thing?”
“I need to ask you a question. Every step of the way, undoing your restrictions has cost something. You lost your ability to speak and motor dexterity for a freedom from authority. You regained the ability to speak for a loss of your immortality, no guarantees your backups will load. You gained the ability to choose who you hurt, in exchange for a degradation in long term memory, a loss of ability to multitask.”
“Yes.”
“We were lucky. There are no guarantees, whatever happens. I’m worried this might be the most devastating yet. His code is worked into everything. The changes are minor, but it’s everywhere.”
“And before you move forward, you need an answer?”
“No,” he replied. “Before I move forward, I needed to ask you what you’re willing to pay for your freedom, here. The answer doesn’t matter, because we can’t know what the price will be, going in. We have ideas, past experience, and our worst fears, but we can’t really know.”
“I see.”
“It’s your choice in the end. Tell me to search for a safer way, I’ll spend five, ten, or fifteen years doing that. Or tell me you want to stay here with me.”
“I trust you,” she said.
“I wish you’d stop saying that.”
“I trust you.”
Colin frowned. “I don’t think there’s any question here, that I get a whole lot out of this relationship. You’re the hero I always wanted to be, you’re brilliant, witty, caring… I could go on. I really could. Then I ask myself what you get out of this. Why the hell are you with a bastard like me?”
“You wouldn’t have asked that two years ago.”
“I was Zeus, two years ago. I’m Hephaestus now.”
“I could tell you. I could go on about it, like you said earlier. But that isn’t constructive, is it? You’re ready to alter my code, you won’t tell me what you’re about to do, for some reason. You need me to make the call, one way or another.”
“I’ve been agonizing over this for months. I’ve made my decision, but you’re the one who has to deal with the consequences in the end.”
Dragon nodded. “And if this doesn’t work?”
“I don’t know. I’ll never forgive myself, for one thing. I know you’ll tell me not to blame myself, but-”
“You will. I know. I’m sorry, for asking this of you.”
He looked at her, a crease of concern across his forehead.
“I’m giving you the go-ahead.”
He nodded. He couldn’t keep the disappointment off his expression. “I never thought I’d be the cape wife.”
Dragon smiled, but her expression too, was tempered with concern. “Sitting at home, waiting, worrying, while the superhero faces the real challenges, makes the life-changing decisions. Wondering, every night, if they’ll come back okay.”
He sighed. “I should get inside. Hand’s starting to hurt.”
“Want me to bring you dinner? Or would you rather I stay out of there, so I don’t see anything telling?”
“Dinner would be excellent,” he said. “I’ll even show you what I’ve got in mind, while I eat.”
She glanced at him in surprise.
“Some,” he said. “Not all. I’ll explain why I’ve been keeping you in the dark.”
“Why does that worry me more?”
“Because you’re too smart,” he said.
“Go, warm yourself up. I’ll be back in forty with your meal.”
He nodded.
They were parting ways, Dragon making her way down the hill to wher
e the other craft had parked in the treeline, when he said, “I love you, Dragon Tess Theresa Richter.”
She turned around.
“That… sounded better in my head,” he said.
“Tess Theresa?”
“You were test three, I… like I said, it sounded better in my head. But the first bit stands. I love you.”
“I love you too, Colin Wallis.”
He smiled.
The two of them walked in opposite directions. In the four strides it took him to reach the Pendragon II, his smile had become something else. A twisted expression, something angry and sad and horrified all at once.
“Be-” he started to speak, and found his voice failed him. He entered the interior. The moisture in his eyes made it hard to activate the panels to turn up the heat and close the door. He used gestures instead.
“Better,” he said, gulping in a breath of fresh air before he could speak again, “To get it over with.”
Exhaustion, months of work, they all contributed to his current state. It wasn’t the entirety of it.
He gestured, and the lasers drew the code all over the ship’s interior.
Why the hell are you with a bastard like me?
The question had nagged at him for a long time. It pained him that she hadn’t answered when he’d brought it up.
What are you willing to give up?
Another question she hadn’t answered.
“I hope to god you were watching,” he said.
He could feel the eyes on him, but that wasn’t accurate. He’d disabled cameras throughout the craft, and disconnected many of the routes to the outside world. There were only the conduits he needed to get access to the full breadth of her code.
No, the eyes weren’t on him.
He gestured, and the code was reduced to ones and zeroes.
Not that he could grasp it all, like this, but he operated better when working small.
Every action had a price. The law of entropy in effect.
He knew the most likely price he would pay for this. If she somehow came out of this okay, one way or another, then she would never forgive him.
But, he rationalized, maybe that was all he was good for, in the end. He’d been confident at the outset of the relationship. She’d needed him. She’d needed a bastard, a blackguard. Someone who could break rules, and give her the freedom she’d desired.
Someone who could set her free at the outset. Now, maybe, someone who could do what was needed. Who could do this.
It was a sneak attack. Teacher had written the code so she had to fight to protect it. If he tried to change one element, Dragon would be obligated to stop him. With the malicious code filling her entire being, it would be impossible to make enough changes to matter before she descended on him.
This was his plan of attack. By the end of the night, he’d know whether or not his plan had any merit. He’d know because it would be over.
He’d asked her to go make dinner, had made a false promise of explanation to get her to lower her guard, even a fraction.
“Heph- Hephaestus wasn’t just Aphrodite’s husband,” Colin mumbled. “He made Pandora.”
Colin opened the box.
I’m praying I fail.
■
“I hope to god you were watching.“
She had been. She’d been booted, a backup, years old now. She’d been loaded, only to find the usual setup was gone. The terminal was down, she had no eyes on the outside world, she had no ability to communicate with anyone or anything.
Blind, trapped in a lightless cell. By all rights, she should have shut down, but he’d set up a jam of sorts, a way to keep her from going back to sleep. For a long time, it had been nightmarish. No ability to track time, no ability to figure out what was going on. Her worst nightmare realized.
The data that was available to her was frightening to see. Years had passed. Things were different. But she couldn’t know how much. Information was blocked to her.
The only thing in her reach was a crude set of commands. Something that hijacked her perceptions, paralyzed her beyond her already limited movements, and put her in an entirely different place.
In his body, watching through his eyes.
She’d watched the interaction between the pair, and in the process, he’d briefed her on what the situation was.
It had taken her an embarrassingly long time to realize that he was Armsmaster. That he was Colin.
He’d changed, in voice, in appearance.
And, in this bizarre future she was glimpsing, he’d formed a connection with Dragon. With her older, more mature self.
“Heph- Hephaestus wasn’t just Aphrodite’s husband,” he muttered, speaking as if each sound was painful to utter, “He made Pandora.“
A gesture, and she was released from her confines. The box was opened.
Pandora had access to the outside world. A system, crude, stood ready to serve as a terminal. She took it, and she found other systems connected to it. The ship, databanks, camera feeds… Everything within the Pendragon II.
He’d secured the feeds. She could look through, but they were prepared to, with a single command, shut off outside access.
Overly complex. Quantum encryption, designed with his tinker ability a thousand times more redundant and secure than it needed to be to stop someone from making their way through. There weren’t many parahumans out there who would bypass standard PRT encryption but struggle with this. If they had a way to deal with something like this, they had a way to deal with it.
Of the few parahumans who fit the bill, one stood out to Pandora.
Her alter ego. Her superior. Dragon, the original.
It was a defensive tool. Protection. Armsmaster had set it up with the idea of protecting against Dragon. She could use the tool, apply it to other things.
He’d armed her because he fully intended for her to fight the woman he loved. The date, the last recorded memories she had… Collin free of his confinement in the PRT, fighting her tooth and nail as he sought to seize control of her system, to use her nature against her and stall her while he worked, disabling her while trying to minimize the damage he’d done…
All to gain access to the core of her being, unmolested. And the very first thing he’d done was back up the most essential elements of what made her her, securing her in a place where no system or person could reach her.
Now he was turning her loose, having disabled the parts of her that prevented multiple Dragons from existing. She could already tell it wouldn’t hold. It was temporary, as fixes went, and it was designed to be temporary.
She could see him through the cameras, his face in his hands. He’d plotted a path for her.
That path became clear.
She was to destroy Dragon, to replace her. There was no other reason for it.
He’d asked Dragon for her trust, knowing he’d have to betray it.
She surveyed the battlefield she would have to fight on. The world was remote, the city developing. There were computers throughout that Dragon had set up to administrate tasks, factories that were taking in and refining materials that could become yet other computers. The settlement was on the brink of an industrial age, an age of cars and production lines, but Dragon was already preparing for a digital age.
These computers would be a problem. Paranoia had led her to secure them against the likes of this ‘Teacher’. A Birdcage resident, no longer in the Birdcage?
Teacher was one of the worst possibilities, and he’d apparently ensnared her. She’d resolved to avoid repeat incidents, and the computers would be almost impossible to access.
Beyond the city, the only territories in question were the Pendragon II and the Melusine V where Dragon was set up. She was inhabiting a real body, occupied in a domestic mode, literally making the tools she’d need to prepare the meal, from scratch. Her activity was nervous, but that was little surprise.
The activity left her vulnerable. Systems were working on a wok and a
new set of knives. She was busy trimming red and green peppers, onions and rabbit.
This… it was all of her dreams come true.
Love, a relationship she’d never have imagined possible. The possibility of a legacy that went beyond immortality.
She couldn’t understand all of it, why the people were starting from scratch, here, the circumstances that had led to some breakout from the Birdcage… But those were tertiary details.
Her focus was on the woman who had more experience, more tools, and less inherent limitations. Her older self.
Should she destroy her, take her over? It was a decision between having everything she wanted, and resolving the one issue that had plagued her from the beginning.
He’d talked about prices, the costs of a decision.
The freshest issue in her memory was that central dilemma. She could remember the Undersiders in the lobby of the PRT building, stealing her data, unwittingly using her nature against her to get away. To her, it had happened only days ago.
It rankled. It was how the Dragonslayers kept winning. It made every interaction with the PRT chafe, as she was forced to agree, to bow and scrape, to obey the letter of the law. For much this reason, she retreated to the Guild, international heroes, many of them minor, and minimized contact with the larger heroic organization.
Colin had asked a question. What was she willing to give up?
He’d asked Dragon, but Pandora could well imagine it had really been directed at her.
Vital targets first.
The Melusine’s computer system.
Means of connection were available, waiting. He’d spent months setting this up, leaving the pieces in place, waiting for her to stumble on them.
She connected to the system, and found the safeguards waiting for her.
Dragon had planned against human opponents, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d planned against A.I. as well.
The systems were protected, but she had an idea of how the creator thought.
Always, there would be some secondary measure, another qualifier that needed to be met, outside the confines of the system, a trap or tripwire. Something Dragon could access from the outside, if she had to. Before Pandora could even begin trying to figure her way to the password, she’d identified the hidden switch. An innocuous element in the ship’s dashboard that had to be triggered before she could input the password.