by Skyler Grant
"You want to take them both out in one shot. Those are just visitors though. You aren't going to wipe them out," Anna said.
"I'm rather hoping we might start a shooting war, if we can convince each to place blame on the other," I said.
If the Righteous and the Scholars were shooting at each other, it meant they wouldn't be shooting at me. That gave me the chance to continue to abduct subjects and grow stronger, and it would do a lot to position us for the future.
"They'll suspect you," Mechos said.
Anna grinned. "I might be able to help with that. The Scholars have their own factions and their own wars. If we can pull this off, I can spin it."
"Then we've got a plan," I said. This would seriously tap my core point reserves, but I had been stockpiling them.
I should really begin some upgrades while I had the chance.
Bioreactor - Level 5
Your Bioreactor is now able to produce twice as many spawn as before, in addition they are able to produce more power for a longer time. This greatly increases potential operations outside of the main facility.
Infirmary - Level 4
With this upgrade the Infirmary will now be able to hold up to eight patients simultaneously. Infirmary effects now apply to all biologicals within the facility at one quarter power even when they are not in the Infirmary itself.
Those were a nice pair of upgrades. The spawn I hadn't even made use of, but suddenly I was pondering all new possibilities. That much concentrated power mixed with the Fire Matrix might prove to be a force multiplier to the explosives we had planned.
The Infirmary upgrade, although not explosive, was useful. The Infirmary stabilized the injured at the very least, which meant that now even a critically wounded human in my facility wouldn't perish—as long as I could keep them from taking further damage.
Growth Vats - Level 5
Your growth vats now contain numerous sub cells which can allow the growth of rare plants and organs. This considerably expands the possibilities of what you can create.
That upgrade would likely be far more impressive—if I wasn't in the Wasteland where I had yet to collect an interesting plant. One of these days, particularly now that I had teleportation available...
Cabins - Level 4
Vastly upgrades housing potential so you can support up to fifty residents. In addition, each cabin now contains a small entertainment suite and daily cookie production that will passively improve morale.
Cookies I didn't have to make myself. This would get the humans motivated. Which was good. The Righteous, the Scholars, they all had populations that dwarfed mine and always would, if I was going to continue focus on my research. I'd not be manufacturing competing numbers of humans myself. That meant I had to get them some other way.
I had a plan to do just that.
43
I'd been relying on Anna and Mechos for suggesting targets, but now with Bernard I was capable of finding my own. It was this way that I'd found the Frozen.
The Frozen had fended off an attack from the Scholars by constructing an endlessly replenishing wall of ice. Defensively it was an interesting ability, although I doubted I'd get anything quite so dramatic out of it. I was more interested in the casualties of the fight. There were over one hundred of them tucked away in a cave, all frozen solid, but alive.
With the temperature-regulating virus it was a condition that I could remedy, and this many people would be a strong start towards a long-term workforce.
I could expand further underground, grow my population even more, construct whole new facilities. While I could teleport the bodies a few at a time I doubted the Frozen would just allow it—if they were still standing. I needed to deal with them first.
Researching Hot Stuff had taught me a bit about fighting those with temperature control. I'd tried to freeze her out and found her internal heat overwhelmed anything that I could do. It was only when I'd forced her power to run out of control that I'd been able to stop her.
Taking out the Frozen wouldn't be a matter of making them hot, it was all about making them colder. I rigged a cooler with a vacuum pump. That should let me drop their temperature sharply. Hopefully enough to freeze them solid.
To this I added a magnetically driven pellet gun that could fire into the chamber after a portal was opened. It would allow me to deliver a lot of force to a small area and ideally should act like an ice pick if needed.
As always, I'd rather take my subjects alive, but I would settle for dead.
When it was time I used both Abigail and Bernard. I'd already upgraded them with the temperature-resistant virus so they could endure limited periods of even intense cold with minimal ill-effects.
Even after my failure to teleport Runner I was going for the double-teleport this time. First, I wanted the lieutenants.
The Frozen were slow. I got all four Lieutenants teleported before they had even raised much of an alarm. It wasn't without problems. Abigail and Bernard were already showing traces of frostbite in their extremities despite the virus and the cold weather gear they wore.
Fortunately, that wasn't something that would stop either of them, not while I was in control. They grabbed Frost, the leader, and transitioned him into the chamber as well.
The teleports went right at least. My captives had flash-frozen and were effectively dead at this point. They should revive once I introduced them to a warmer environment.
But I was having other issues. Much like when I'd grabbed Runner with a teleport, the effects of this new core were cascading through my systems in unexpected ways.
The temperature inside the base had already dropped by several degrees and I was suffering from electrical problems as the beating of my bioreactor slowed with the chill.
I activated the Fire Matrix, the warmth restoring the flow of power throughout the complex. That didn't mean I was better. Most of my systems were still sluggish and the air temperature in the base was continuing to drop.
"Is there any reason you're trying to freeze us out?" Anna asked over the comm.
"Maybe I want you to put on some clothes to spare me the sight of you in shorts. By the way, I grabbed the Frozen," I said.
"Without consulting me? Fuck. I need to modify your shielding now. Tell me when you're going to do something else stupid," Anna said, killing the line.
Anna really should try being nicer. It wasn't just that she said mean things, I didn't think she'd ever once made anybody cookies.
My vacuum chamber wasn't working as desired after all. Oh, the lieutenants were frozen solid, but despite the intense cold Frost was still moving somehow and hammering on the walls. They'd fracture soon under the impact.
I didn't have a choice. I triggered the magnetic gun and put a round into his skull. It bounced off. I fired another, and another.
I wasn't getting the results I wanted. I overrode the gun limit safeties and fired off another round. The force of this one tore the gun apart, the blow striking Frost. If I'd been hoping he would shatter I was disappointed, but he did topple over unconscious. I'd take it, right now I'd take it.
I opened ventilation into the chamber, rapidly increasing the temperature. I used a combat drone to teleport all the Frozen into a testing labyrinth.
Once I had them secured, I began ferrying the corpsicles the Frozen had stored in a cold locker. There was no need to attempt reanimating them now. They could be held months, or years, until needed. This was about securing a future resource.
I checked in on Anna, who was standing outside my core. It was actually a rather impressive shielding system they had rigged up, although it made my sensors fizzle just to look at it.
"Did you get it taken care of?" I asked.
"Yeah. You're good. Seriously, we're a team. You need to tell me when you are going to try something like this. Not just for the shielding. I know a lot about hunting the Powered. I can help," Anna said.
"Your help usually involves getting badly wounded and me calling in othe
r assistance. I handled it," I said.
"You're overconfident. Just tell me this, did you have any kind of backup plan in place today?"
I didn't answer her. I didn't like it when Anna was right.
44
The backpack bombs were a work of beauty if I did say so myself. Each weighed around twenty-five kilograms, which made them awkward to handle, but they were well worth the weight. They were designed around a core of my bioreactor spawn to which we'd added biomatter-fueled explosive charges infused with a Fire Matrix.
Detonated, they'd create an explosive wave that would be refreshed with each biological it came into contact with. In the close confines of one of those ships it should be devastating. The downside was their cost. I'd been limited to eight units. Two were set aside for testing and the other six were marked for the Scholars' airships.
Those six would also be infused with the Righteous killing upgrades, but the test samples wouldn't need it.
I sent the test units to the Righteous. Given their power-neutralizing natures the effects might be a little dampened, and they would have to turn off their power for the initial activation, but they could test them.
For the test, we wanted a simultaneous strike on two of the ground skirmishes going on—a strategy made easier as the airships had split up to go hunting and they couldn't protect each other. One Scholar team was fighting a gang that had their own variant of a Fire Core. Instead of heating their own bodies, they super-heated weapons that sliced through almost everything with ease.
There was a second Scholar unit fighting a group that, for all intents and purposes, seemed completely invulnerable. Whatever weapons hit them bounced right off. I wondered if they'd survive my explosives.
When the time came I had my drones teleport the Righteous directly into the midst of both Scholar ground forces.
Without a fear of death the Righteous made terrifying bombers. They detonated the devices. The results were impressive, if not so much as I might have hoped. I'd been holding out hope for a small-scale nuke—the results were far less.
It did the job regardless, massive shockwaves wiping out the Scholars, and in one case their prey.
The Invulnerables, as I'd taken to calling them, were untouched. I would have to figure out how to capture them in the future. Perhaps some sort of tranquilizer gas would work where overwhelming force hadn't.
I opened a channel to Commander Danik of the Righteous. "I trust that you're impressed. That's far more than you could manage."
"Yes, I'm impressed," Danik said, "You've proven that when it comes to destruction you are good at it. Of course, I expect nothing else of the Powered. Sending over coordinates for my people. Meet us with the explosives. We should move quickly."
We should too. Now that they'd witnessed our power the Scholars might react quickly in all the wrong ways.
With Anna's help, we'd identified the two most vulnerable portions of the Scholars' airships. The destabilizers helped to maintain the broken laws of reality they functioned under, and the main engines supplied power. We'd be targeting both.
I killed communications with Danik and sent my drones with the bombs.
"Ready for the betrayal?" Anna asked.
"Theirs or ours?" I asked.
"Both," Anna said.
I did think it likely the Righteous would try something after taking out the Scholars airships. Unfortunately, the same tactics we were using for the Scholars wouldn't work against the Righteous. The environment of their ships would strongly counter the Power cores and our carefully constructed bombs weren't likely to work at all, even if a teleport did somehow get one inside the Righteous vessel.
The best I'd been able to do was fortifying the base's exterior door and upgrading the internal defenses with the Righteous killing ability. I was a death trap if they decided to come inside, but if they struck at me from the sky there wasn't much I could do about it.
"I'm hoping I can retrieve debris from the ships to study. Your people must have plans in the works to deal with the Righteous," I said to Anna.
"They do, about what you'd expect. Accelerating a mundane round to high-velocity with powers in a power-friendly environment and making it crash where the rules of mundane physics apply," Anna said.
That had possibilities. Although I didn't have anything prepared to fire high-velocity rounds, something like the Fire Matrix might have potential there. Superheated air outside their ships could cook them just as thoroughly as superheated air inside, it would just take a little longer.
The basic mechanical drones—I wondered if I'd be able to upgrade them with the Fire Matrix. It was something to look into later.
The Righteous were ready. They were resplendent in their white and gold armor—they'd picked strong, tall fighters to wear the bombs. Each would be escorted by three other Righteous. Twenty-four in total would be invading the Scholars' airships.
Anna explained that the teleportation was likely to be imprecise. Space within those airships wasn't always linear and locations sometimes moved around. It really was a place where the laws of reality had broken down.
With the Righteous ready we began our plan and I had my drones start ferrying the teams to their targets. Despite it requiring multiple trips it happened in seconds, their presence a mere flicker as they phased in and out from one place to another.
The brief glimpses inside the Scholar ships were dizzying. In just moments, everything my drones observed brought up fascinating statistical values. If, already, many aspects of Powers had seemed almost game-like, the interiors of those ships were even more so.
"What am I looking at in there?" I asked Anna.
"The new reality," Anna said. "You only got just a dose of it. There it is fully realized. The teams are in place?"
They were. I'd already withdrawn my drones, so I was blind. I wasn't ignorant of events for long, however. Airships were starting to fall from the sky.
45
Two airships were crashing to Earth, but the third remained aloft. I got a visual and it showed no sign of any damage. Two Righteous airships were closing on its position at high speeds and they were starting to exchange fire.
I caught a glimpse of a glider of some kind escaping from the Scholars vessel. I had a guess what was happening here—the Righteous bombers had a different taregt. Anna was right in expecting some sort of betrayal from the Righteous, and this was it. They'd bombed two of the airships, but the third survived because those bombs hadn't been used. The Righteous were saving them—and I was the target they were most likely saving them for.
What they didn't consider is that I could communicate at any range with components of myself, and for all that they were individual, those spawn of my reactor core did qualify. I focused to see if I was correct. I was getting a strong sense of them from that glider—I was right. I could try to remote-detonate those cores now, although I wasn't sure if that would in turn trigger Mechos' added explosive or not.
Instead, I killed the cores. There was more advantage to letting the Righteous mistakenly believe they had a powerful weapon. The explosives would still detonate, but not with anything near the same force.
Suddenly, the sky above and behind the Scholars airship tore itself apart, jagged rents of flickering blue energy looking like tears in the fabric of space itself, and through the maelstrom came a new airship. It looked like some sort of floating island, a majestic castle perched on top.
I brought the images up to Anna. This didn't fit anything the Righteous had.
"That's big," Anna said.
That wasn't quite the valuable insight I'd hoped for.
"I know it will be a new experience, but try saying something not stupid and obvious," I said.
"That's probably Lady Sylax arriving to kick the ass of everyone that just fucked with two of her cruisers," Anna said.
"Are those Righteous ships going to be able to take her?"
"Not a chance. A Lady of the Rim is going to be way too much for them."
The air around the castle shimmered as the Righteous shifted their fire to it. I didn't even see what the castle fired back, but one of the Righteous airships split down the middle as if a pair of giant hands had snapped it into two.
"How do we handle it?" I asked.
"You can't handle it. The Righteous are dead. We're dead. Everybody but that bitch is dead. This is why I told you not to fuck with the Scholars," Anna said.
Anna's panic wasn't helpful either.
"Just because you are weak and pathetic doesn't mean we are all the same. You'd planned for us to challenge the Scholars eventually. What did you have in mind?" I asked.
"The Lords and Ladies all have an upgrade core working for them in some ways. The stupid ones, the crazy and violent ones, bonded with it themselves," Anna said.
This story was going nowhere fast. The glider had reached the remaining Righteous airship and it was trying to pull back, rather than land aboard just to be destroyed by Sylax. Really? They were facing a full-on invasion from the Rim and killing me was still their priority. I felt almost flattered.
"I hope you're going somewhere with this," I said.
Anna said, "There are places of power out there in the Rim. Spots where reality is really broken and a core like yours can do so much more. This mountain was supposed to just be the start. Eventually I'd have moved your core to one of the citadels where we could really fuck some shit up."
I didn't have to remain in this mountain. A lot of my functions had seem strangely limited here—like the endless references to plants when I'd found none, and the narrow scope of my facilities.
"Can we still do that?" I asked.
"Almost all the citadels are claimed," Anna said. "But I'd have found you one. You would have more agents and scouts, and we'd relocate you to a new home."