A Darker Path [Worm Fanfic]

[Ack]

Huh. That's actually pretty good. I wasn't expecting an AI-generated song to be worth shit, to be honest.

Click to shrink...

I know, right? I was absolutely stunned at the quality.

 

[Frog_22]

I was very recently put onto a website that allows you to input a song concept (or even lyrics) and it generates the song for you, complete with instrumentals.

Here's what it came up with (after several tweaks of the lyrics):

Atropos (Doing Wrong to Make it Right)

Click to shrink...

That's very cool, both the song and the technology to make it. Thank you!

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Six: Well-Earned Respite

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Tenebrae

The non-descript car, driven by a plainclothes PRT trooper, dropped Brian and Riley off outside their building. Brian was still having a little trouble adjusting to the fact that it was light out after the time they'd spent in starlit night, but Riley seemed to be taking it in her stride. In fact, she was positively bubbly about the whole thing.

"How awesome was that?" she asked as they stepped into the elevator. "I've never been to Russia before. And it was amazing to work alongside Amy again. I love watching her power at work."

"It was pretty cool," he admitted. "By which I mean, freezing cold. But joking aside, I'm still a little blown away by how Atropos was always going to send him back to St Petersburg to face murder charges, but she went through all that just to get his head fixed first."

"It's about setting boundaries." She raised her eyebrows to show she was serious. "Jack never set himself any boundaries. If he hit an obstacle he couldn't immediately overcome, he cheated to get around it, but he always insisted that everyone else stick by the limits he set for them. Atropos doesn't play that game. People respect and trust her because she says what she's going to do, and then she does it."

The doors opened and they stepped out onto their floor. "Even when it involves someone dying violently?" He wasn't arguing with her specifically, but he did want to hear her views on that aspect.

She shrugged. "How many people has she killed who didn't deserve it?"

"Due process exists for a reason." He didn't exactly disagree with her on the subject of whether people like Kaiser or Bastard Son had deserved their sudden ends, but now that he was committed to the side of goodness and light, he felt it was up to him to support that point of view. "A lot of those people could just as easily have gone to prison."

She paused outside their door and held up her finger. "How many deaths has she caused that didn't make the world a measurably better place? Or pave the way for her to keep making the world a better place?"

He shook his head. "You're using logic. That's unfair. I'm telling Aisha on you." As she burst into giggles—which had been his aim all along—he put his key in the door and turned it.

At the same time as the lock clicked, he heard the elevator door dinged again. He and Riley looked in that direction, because it hadn't been all that long since danger had literally come knocking on their door. He didn't relax all that much when a UPS package delivery guy stepped out (anyone could buy a uniform shirt, after all) but when nobody else followed the guy into the corridor, he let a little of the tension ease out of his body.

Not all of it, though. He hadn't been there for the previous kidnapping, and there was no way a second attempt would fly on his watch.

"Oh, hey," the guy greeted them, hefting a cubical parcel about six inches on a side. "Got a delivery for Laborn, first initial B?"

"Uh, that's me." Still a little wary, Brian approached the man. Behind him, he heard the apartment door open and close, and knew Riley had ducked inside.

"Sweet. Here you go." The guy handed the parcel over, made a note on the clipboard he was carrying, and turned back toward the elevator.

"Wait." Brian hefted the package. It had a little weight to it, but not a great deal. "What is this? Who sent it? Nobody here ordered anything."

"Oh, uh, yeah." The delivery guy fumbled with his clipboard. "There's a note. I'm supposed to say, 'I'm not going to let anything bad happen', whatever that means."

"Oh." Brian knew exactly what it meant, but while he was no longer worried about a kidnapping or other potential harm, he was still no wiser about the contents of the package. "Thanks. Have a nice day."

"No problem. You have a good one too, buddy." The delivery man went back to the elevator and hit the button to go down. By the time the doors closed behind him, he was whistling a popular Canary tune, albeit off-key.

Frowning, Brian headed back to the apartment door, still holding the package. When he tapped on the door, it opened immediately; Theo was on the other side, wearing a breastplate and helmet and hefting an impressively sharp-looking shortsword. "Oh, good. You're okay. What is it?"

"Everything's fine," Brian assured him. "Atropos isn't about to let anything bad happen to us, remember?" Then he looked past Theo to see what was on the TV screen. It was a paused console game, with a giant robot visible from two different angles. In both views, it had been pretty badly shot up, and was on fire. What really grabbed his attention was the swastika blatantly painted on the robot's chest, and woven into the draperies hanging from a nearby brick wall. "What the heck is that?"

"Aisha's welcome-to-the-apartment present for me," Theo said, making the armour and shortsword disappear in a mind-twisting fractal manner. "I was a bit down when we got home, then she remembered the present and gave it to me. So, we started playing."

"Oh, yeah." Brian remembered what had happened to drive the presents out of everyone's thoughts. "That was a crazy day, for sure."

"So, what's this package?" asked Aisha, pointing at the one Brian still held. "I know I didn't order anything. Did you guys?"

Brian needed no further encouragement. He pried at the box until a corner opened up, then ran his thumbnail along the edge to break the tape. Finally, he lifted the lid to reveal …

"Game controllers?" Riley looked over at the games console. "But we've already got a pair of controllers."

Aisha grinned as she pumped her fist in the air. "Three words, Ri. Four player game."

"Oh," said Theo. "Oh." He glanced from the console to Brian, then to the opened parcel. "I mean, that's if you want to play …"

"That's a hell and yes I want to play," Brian told him bluntly. He pulled the controllers out of their packaging and handed them to Aisha. "Go ahead and plug them in. If there's anything more fulfilling than kicking Nazi ass, it's kicking Nazi ass with a bunch of friends to enjoy it with."

There was homework to be done and dinner to be cooked, but right now it was time to have fun with the people who meant the most to him.

<><>

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♦ Topic: The Sleeper Has Awoken
In: Boards ► Brockton Bay ► New Capes ► Atropos

Atropos (Original Poster) (UnVerified Cape) (Banned) (You Wish) (Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me) (Verified Dethpicable)
Posted On Mar 16th 2011:

Well, I'm back.

And in returning, I will be answering the burning question on everyone's lips. Did I gank Sleeper, or did he see sense?

Okay, short answer first. He's alive.

Slightly longer answer: he agreed to the removal of his powers. This also took away some lingering problems related to said powers, so now he will live out the rest of his life entirely free of those problems.

If any of you are thinking that I'm being a little hazy on the details, you're absolutely correct. That's mainly because spilling all the beans after the fact will allow people to figure out who he is now, and someone would kill him. And while I don't give a damn about him as a person, I did *not* go through all that effort to have it go to waste.

He will live a long and healthy life. I promise nothing more.

So yeah, Russia? You and and Earth Shin no longer have to worry about having him come in and wreck your shit.

You're welcome.

Toodles!

(Showing page 1 of 238)

►TheRealGloryGirl (Verified Cape) (Cape Daughter) (New Wave Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Can actually confirm.
Atropos asked me and Panacea to come along, plus a couple of the Wards (with Director Renick's blessing) and under her direction we got 'er done. Sleeper had clearly taken the first warning to heart, because he didn't give us a moment of trouble.
Because Atropos doesn't want any more information coming out about him (and she's right: someone *would* totally rearrange his brainmeats with a pickaxe at the first opportunity) I'm not gonna say who he is either, though I will confirm that he's not going to be just living free and easy.
Some of you might be surprised that Atropos didn't just wave her magic wand and make the problem go away all by herself. That's not who she is, and she's never pretended to be that. She brings the right weapon to the fight, and in this case (after she delivered the warning and made him aware of his options) that was us.
But do not misunderstand the situation here. What happened with Sleeper, the way it played out, was one hundred percent Atropos' doing. Without her to tell us exactly what to do and how to do it (I spent most of the time singing the Lil' Mousey theme song, believe it or not) it wouldn't have happened. She knew exactly what needed to be done, and how to make it so. And because she was there to direct us, we achieved something I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it for myself.
And yes, I know, that's basically par for the course with Atropos. Doesn't make it any less impressive when you see it for yourself.
I know that when Atropos first started rearranging Brockton Bay's criminal landscape, I aired some opinions fairly strenuously. I also know that when I came face to face with her for the first time, I acted like a trigger-happy moron. But she chose not to kill me, and once I got some perspective on the situation (about the time Panacea made me watch the Nine takedown) I understood the depth of her restraint.
So that's the truth of the matter. Atropos is entirely capable of restraint. She just has zero qualms about discarding that restraint if she considers it necessary. And everyone she's killed so far--*everyone*--managed to do something that made her decide not to bother with restraint this time.
It's as simple as that.
There's a lesson in there for everyone even considering crossing her.
Don't. *Do Not*.
I cannot stress this hard enough.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
And there you have it, folks.
While I personally wouldn't consider Atropos to be any kind of hero (let's be real here, folks; she's repeatedly denied the concept) she's *extremely* consistent in her actions, and Glory Girl's basically hit the nail on the head in all respects.
As a wise man once said, "Don't cause no trouble, ain't gonna be no trouble."
I'm down with that.

►Mouse_Protector (Veteran Member) (Verified Cape) (Independent Hero) (Verified Atropos Fan)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Wow, really? Singing the Lil' Mousey theme? Personally I'd call shenanigans, except that I know how Atropos operates (with panache and style, naturally) and I would not put that past her for an instant.
Nice work all round, kiddo.

►UnconcernedFox
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
*draws a line through yet another S-class threat*
*looks at the few that are left*
*wonders if any will be stupid enough to get Atropos' attention*
*goes to get more popcorn*

►TheRealBrandish (Verified Cape) (Cape Wife) (New Wave Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Really? Sleeper? Why am I only hearing about this now?

►TheRealPanacea (Verified Cape) (Cape Daughter) (New Wave Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Well, crap. Vicky, you didn't tell her?

►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
It should come as a surprise to nobody that after a thorough search of Sleeper's last verified location, there is no sign of him. Or of anyone, really. There is one farmhouse that shows signs of recent occupancy by up to six people, but it's empty and there are no indications of how they could have left.
For the moment, mainly due to the fact that Atropos has never lied about anything of this sort to the best of our knowledge, the PRT and the Guild are going to assume that Sleeper has indeed been removed from the field of play.
It is our understanding that the Russian government was offering a standing reward for any cape who took him down, but they also had conditions (must be able to supply his corpse for verification) that Atropos won't be able to meet, mainly because she killed the powers, not the man.
It is my personal opinion (I do not speak for the PRT in this) that they should waive the conditions and just pass the money on to the Betterment Committee, but I have no power in the matter.
In any case, since reading the after-action report, I offer Atropos my sincere congratulations for a job well done under trying conditions.
In unrelated news, the kidnapped lady on the highway sent in a thank-you card signed by her whole family to the PRT ENE department, for Atropos. We are forwarding it on to the Betterment Committee.

►D_Hebert_Chairman_BBBC (Da Boss)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
I believe this is my first official post on here in my capacity as Chairman.
(No, I don't know how that tag got there, and the mods don't seem to be able to remove it.)
In reference to Reave's comment about the card, we will be putting it on display in a separate venue along with the rest of Atropos' awards. The vast majority came from her victory over the Simurgh, but there are a few others as well. The location of this venue is right next to the Betterment Committee offices; we didn't understand at the time why Atropos was suggesting that we acquire it, but now we do.
Before anyone gets the idea of stealing these for whatever reason, we also have photo-galleries of her more gruesome kills (and non-lethal takedowns) that are required viewing for anyone being considered for a place on the Committee.
Long story short, if anyone thinks that because Atropos is singlehandedly bankrolling the largest private venture of this sort in history, she can't be all that dangerous, I strongly advise them to look into the cases of Janice Templeton and Paul King, as filed under 'cautionary tale'. Also, Ravioli and Barrow.

►They_Call_Me_Ash (Verified Cape) (Verified Ex-Villain) (Verified Atropos Fan) (Dockworkers Association Member)
Replied On Mar 16th 2011:
Haha yeah no, I think that would be a remarkably stupid idea. And speaking from the point of view of someone who once had Atropos' shotgun to her head, I *know* stupid ideas.

​

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 236, 237, 238

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<><>​

Aisha

Just as Aisha was about to click to the next page, the laptop screen flickered. When it cleared, the black silhouette of Atropos overlaid everything else. Leaning forward until she looked like she was about to pop out of the screen, the apparition of Atropos whispered, "Bedtime." Then her shears came up into view, and snipped once.

Aisha, knowing Atropos all too well, was entirely unsurprised when her laptop started shutting down all by itself. "Well, fuck," she muttered, unable to even feel justified about complaining, because it was definitely past her bedtime.

"Whassamatter?" mumbled Riley sleepily from her bed.

Aisha tried hard not to sound like she was bitching about being caught out, though she totally was. "Atropos just curfewed my laptop." Closing the device, she stowed it on the bedside table and settled down to sleep.

"Heh. Busted."

"Oh, shut up."

<><>​

The Person Once Known as Damsel of Distress

Ashley hummed to herself as she got off the Betterment Committee minibus outside the Committee offices. Under her right arm, as per usual, she was carrying her helmet and lunchbox. However, in her left hand she was carrying a bulky shopping bag, which had garnered her more than a little curious attention on the ride in.

There had been the occasional question about the bag, but instead of getting angry about it (as would have been her go-to in the past) she'd deflected the queries with a pretence of obliviousness, deriving more than a little amusement from the whole charade. Even Lacey (who was driving the bus) had gone from asking questions to joining in the joke, pretending that the bag didn't even exist. Ashley wasn't sure what had turned the older woman (who she actually admired quite a bit) to her side in the matter, but she was glad to have made the connection.

Shortly thereafter, all the workers for the upcoming shift were assembled in the oversized break room, and Mr Hebert took centre stage. "You all know what you're rostered on for," he began. "There are no changes at this point. We'll keep you updated through the day. Now, before we get started, I believe Ash has something to say."

Ashley blinked, not sure how he'd picked up on that, but fully aware that some of the men said Mr Hebert had eyes not only in the back of his head, but around the corner and down the street as well. If there was anyone more switched-on about the Committee than him, she had yet to meet them.

Prompted by his nod, she stepped forward to the table and opened the shopping bag. "Ah, yes," she said, abruptly shy. "I, uh, I made cupcakes." Pulling the large Tupperware container out of the bag, she took the top off, abruptly releasing the scent of freshly baked goods into the air-conditioned room.

"Damn," commented Alexander, one of the younger Dockworkers. "That smells good." Taking one out of the container, he peeled away some of the paper and bit into it. "Mmmyeah," he enthused, though his voice was a little muffled. "Really good."

"One each, please." Mr Hebert's voice cut across the sudden hubbub of the incipient feeding frenzy. "And could someone pass me one? Thank you."

As the last reaching hand grabbed a cupcake, there were three left, which she firmly closed the lid on. "I think I'll keep those back," she decided, grinning at the looks of disappointment on the faces of those who had been eyeing them off. "One for Vicky and one for Gary, for being nice about giving me a second chance. And one for me, of course."

"Where'd you learn to cook so good?" asked Alexander, balling up the cupcake paper between his fingers. "That was nice."

Ashley shrugged, though his casual praise triggered a warm feeling in her chest that refused to go away. "YouTube, mainly. And a lot of practice." In the interest of honesty, she snorted dryly. "Trust me, there were a few mishaps. The first batch wasn't even edible, and the second lot only barely so. And somehow I managed to actually light the fourth lot on fire."

"What about the third batch?"

She met his eyes and shook her head. "We do not talk about the third batch."

"Right. Got it." He nodded firmly as laughter rose in the room. "The third batch will not be talked about."

"Thanks for the cupcake, Ash." Luke slapped her lightly on the shoulder. "That was much appreciated."

"Yeah, Ash, thanks."

"Really hit the spot."

"Damn nice."

As the voices rose in echo of Luke's sentiment, Ashley found herself blushing as tears prickled in her eyes. She hadn't been sure exactly why she'd chosen to make cupcakes, except perhaps because Vicky had enjoyed her cooking on the night she'd come over. Even then, the process of learning how to make them had been as enjoyable as it had been frustrating, teaching herself a new skill from scratch and becoming better than she had been before.

But while she'd expected a few people might try a cupcake out of politeness, the overwhelmingly positive response she'd gotten had thrown her for a loop. With her new emotional awareness (the only way she could really describe how she felt following the whole thing with Teacher) it seemed that the approval of others meant more than ever, while at the same time being easier to obtain given that she could actually understand people better than before. Not that she was an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but some understanding was better than none at all.

Ducking her head, she stuffed the container back in the bag. It would fit at the bottom of her locker until she got the chance to hand out the last two and have the third one for herself. Just as she got it sorted out, a hand rested briefly on her shoulder. "Well done," Mr Hebert said quietly. "I think they were a hit."

"Thanks." She tried not to sound awkward, but it wasn't easy. "I, uh, I'm still learning how. I think I just got lucky."

"One man's good luck is another man's result of hard work and forward planning." Mr Hebert nodded to her. "I have a few recipes that my wife used regularly, if you're interested."

She blinked, her previous distraction forgotten. "Uh, okay, wow, thanks. That would be amazing."

"Entirely my pleasure." He smiled warmly. "You seem to be making cooking your new hobby, and I'm all for encouraging my people to find worthwhile things to try out. See me tomorrow and I'll get them to you."

"Okay, sure." She glanced at the clock. "Uh, gotta get going. See you tomorrow."

"Go." He waved her off genially. "Kick ass, and make me proud."

As she dashed out the door toward her locker, she couldn't stop grinning. For a shot in the dark, the cupcakes had paid off more than she could ever have expected. She knew all about cocksure arrogance and being certain about something with nothing to back it up, but this was something totally different. This feeling of accomplishment was earned.

And that mattered, more than she'd ever expected it to.



End of Part Ninety-Six

 

[Zeushobbit]

"One man's good luck is another man's result of hard work and forward planning." Mr Hebert nodded to her. "I have a few recipes that my wife used regularly, if you're interested."

She blinked, her previous distraction forgotten. "Uh, okay, wow, thanks. That would be amazing."

"Entirely my pleasure." He smiled warmly. "You seem to be making cooking your new hobby, and I'm all for encouraging my people to find worthwhile things to try out. See me tomorrow and I'll get them to you."

"Okay, sure." She glanced at the clock. "Uh, gotta get going. See you tomorrow."

"Go." He waved her off genially. "Kick ass, and make me proud."

Click to shrink...

You are being Adopted. Please do not resist.

 

[twilightwanderer]

You are being Adopted. Please do not resist.

Click to shrink...

Well, he's already got one reformed villainess (to go with his actively anti-villain daughter), so why stop there?

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Seven: Heroes

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Thursday Afternoon, June 17, 2011
PRT Department 01 Wards Base

Flechette

Wrapped in her bathrobe and drying her hair with her towel, Lily left the communal showers and headed back toward her room. It had been a long patrol, turning over metaphorical rocks and kicking in not-so-metaphorical doors, all in the name of locating Rune. A lot of criminal activity had been uncovered and turned over for the cops to deal with, but so far the ex-Empire bitch was still in the wind (so to speak).

When she'd first met Boomer, she believed him to be a little too full of himself, and he wasn't quite as cool as he considered himself to be. He turned out to be a nice guy though, and she'd picked up one or two useful tips from him. The trouble lay in his insistence on seeing the good in everyone, and with Rune that had turned out to be a fatal error.

All that aside, he'd been a good man, doing his best to be a worthwhile hero, and he hadn't deserved to be murdered like that. Or at all, really. Which meant payback was in order.

Lily had gone out on this patrol fully expecting to find Rune in the first hour, given that the major gangs should be ostracising her for what she'd done. That hadn't happened, though she'd learned more about the dim and dingy hideouts favoured by those despised by both sides of the law than she had in the last year. The second and third hours had been similarly unproductive, apart from the other human cockroaches they'd uncovered and passed on to the NYPD; the person she most fervently wanted to get her hands on continued to elude her grasp.

Still mulling over the places she'd seen and wondering exactly how many more bolt-holes there were in a city of six million people, she stepped into her room and bumped the door closed with her hip. A t-shirt and Hello Kitty sleep pants were laid out over the bed; she took two steps toward it—

"Hey."

As she spun around, her mind connected the voice with just one person, who had the ability to appear basically anywhere she wanted. By the time her eyes registered the familiar black costume, she'd already arrested the defensive motion of her hands. It didn't mean she wasn't going to yell at Atropos, just that it was going to be more of a formality than a real situation.

"Seriously, what the fuck?" she demanded, though they both knew at this point that she was only going through the motions. "I could've had a weapon in my hand. Sneaking up on me is dangerous!"

"You didn't have a weapon, and I didn't sneak up on you. Hell, I even said hi." Atropos hadn't moved from her relaxed leaning posture against the door, legs crossed at the ankle and hands in the pockets of her long-coat. "How are you doing after yesterday?"

Lily dropped the act. "Still sucks," she admitted. "I was nearly close enough to do something about it. Thanks for the save, by the way."

"You're welcome." Atropos stepped forward from the door, closing the distance. "You can ask the question, if you want."

Saying 'what question?' would've been both a waste of time and an insult to Atropos' intelligence, so Lily didn't bother. "If you knew what was going on and you could save me, why not save him too?"

Atropos held up a finger. "I can answer that, but it will lead to more questions, with answers you might not like. Are you willing to go there?"

Lily had suspected things might go this way, but she'd asked the question, and she did want to know the answer. "Sure. Hit me."

"Okay." Atropos sat down on the bed. "Let's get comfortable for this. There's three parts to this answer. First part is, I have my limits. I could've saved you or him, but not both in that time frame. Second part is, I don't do the hero thing. I don't save people. I End problems. Third part is, you're important to me, and that's why I saved you. He wasn't. Keeping up so far?"

"Yeah." Lily also sat down. Like Atropos had said, more questions were occurring to her. "What limits? I thought you could teleport anywhere."

Atropos pulled back her sleeve and showed Lily a slimline module made of black plastic, encasing her left forearm. A tap of a hidden catch opened a small panel, revealing a tiny keyboard and screen. "I got this teleporter from Leet. It works every time, but there's a cooldown period between portal jumps. I could throw you a portal, or I could throw Boomer one, but I couldn't do both at the same time." She closed the panel and slid her sleeve down again. "Next question?"

"Jesus." Lily blinked, momentarily stunned. "You're just … showing me this?"

Atropos shrugged. "Are you going to tell anyone?"

"Well, uh, no. Of course not. Um." The revelation was still throwing her for a loop, but at least she could understand more of what had happened. "Why … why didn't you just stop her from doing any of that? From killing Boomer or trying to kill me?"

"Because I'm not a hero." Atropos said the same words again, but with more emphasis this time. "Let's walk through this. Suppose I showed up on that rooftop and killed her. She wasn't in Brockton Bay. She wasn't threatening the city. People would wonder why I was going to other cities and killing people without any kind of good reason. I would be slightly less of a reliable figure than I was before."

"Well, you don't have to kill her," Lily pointed out. She was pretty sure Atropos had an answer for this too, but she wanted to hear it. "Just, you know, subdue and restrain."

"And then it would get out that I was out and about, stopping bad guys." Atropos spread her hands expressively. "Some people might ask why I wasn't doing it more often, or why I had to kill all the people I killed. Or maybe word would get around that I was hunting down the capes I chased out of the city. Whichever way it went, I don't need that crap. I'm not a hero. I don't care what they do, just so long as they don't do it in my city."

"But you saved me." Lily came back to that. "Even though I'm not in Brockton Bay. Because you care about me."

"Yes and no." Atropos raised her finger again. "I didn't save you because I care about you. I saved you because you're important to me. There's a difference." She looked at Lily's expression and sighed. "Okay, let's start from base principles here. I'm not a good person, and I'm never going to pretend to be one. But there are far worse people than me, and far worse things, and if my city is going to be nice and safe and prosperous, then I'll End anything and everything trying to stop that from happening without a second thought. Then there are those people who are important to me either physically or emotionally; those people, I will keep safe. That includes you. Do you understand now?"

"I … think so." Lily had thought she'd had a read on Atropos before. Now she had the whole book open before her, chapter and verse, and the words on the page sent a chill down her spine. She wasn't precisely scared of Atropos now, but a few of her assumptions were rearranging themselves in light of the new information. "So, uh … don't take this the wrong way, but you saving me, and all that stuff about the power of friendship … is that just because I'm useful to you?"

"Trust me, I'll never take anything you say the wrong way." Atropos's tone was such that Lily knew she was smiling. "You're right in that you're useful to me. You make my job a lot easier in a lot of ways. But I'm not keeping you alive and safe just because of that. I also think you're worth keeping around, which is not a judgement I make lightly. Plus, though this doesn't carry a huge amount of weight, I have a lot of time for the Rogues' Guild, and Spitfire would be upset if you got hurt."

"Oh." Lily wanted to ask if Atropos was pulling her leg now—with that matter-of-fact tone, it was very hard to tell—but she suspected she knew the answer. Atropos didn't go in for that kind of bullshit 'gotcha' assholery. She was a straight shooter, in every sense of the phrase. "So, um … what you were saying before, about Ending anything that gets in your way. What if a hero tried to stop you from doing something to fix the city? I mean, you've only killed villains so far … haven't you?"

"Villains or villain-adjacent," Atropos confirmed. "Not killing heroes serves several purposes. Mainly, it reduces the amount of tedious bullshit I have to wade through by giving the PRT an excuse to not come after me. Most heroes I can step around or dissuade by less lethal means. I did kill Shadow Stalker, but she was planning to put me in a coma or worse, and she ignored two warnings. Then there was Director Wilkins." She paused expectantly.

"You mentioned something about putting your shears to her eye." Lily frowned. "Can I ask why you did that?"

Atropos snorted softly. "She was trying to show off how smart she was by figuring out my secret identity, while on a video call with Director Piggot and the Chief Director. Piggot flat-out told her to drop it, but she kept going, right up until I put my arm around her throat and gave her a good hard look at the point of my shears."

"That would, um …" Lily cleared her throat. "That would certainly get my attention. What happened then?"

"The Chief Director told me that if I killed Wilkins, the PRT would have to take notice. I explained that even with my shears to her eye, Wilkins was still planning to return to the search once I backed off. I asked her what she would have me do."

"Oh. Wow. Way to put her on the spot. So … she told Wilkins not to be such a dumbass?"

Atropos chuckled. "About that, yes. With a threat of death penalty for treason thrown in for good measure."

Lily tilted her head as the pieces fell into place. "Did that have anything to do with why Wilkins is out and Piggot's running the show here now?"

"Little bit." Atropos sounded amused. "Anything else you wanted to know?"

"Not really." Lily paused as something occurred to her. "Wait, no, I do. Panacea and Tenebrae and Miss Medic. Are they on your 'important to me' list as well?"

"They are, and so's Tenebrae's sister." Atropos waited for a beat. "You'd know her online handle. Great and Terrible Aisha."

Lily did indeed know it. "Oh. Oh, right. She helped you blow up a bunch of drugs and stuff, and you got selfies with her." The signed Polaroid of Great and Terrible Aisha with Atropos' shears held up behind her head like bunny ears would never be topped, she was sure.

Atropos nodded. "And you helped me kill the Simurgh. Are people still saying, 'duck season, wabbit season'?"

A grin crept across Lily's face. "You know they are. Okay, yeah, I get it. You're not just using us and discarding us. We get something out of it too."

"That's the general idea, yes. So, about Rune." Atropos stood up.

Lily looked up at her, then stood as well. "You're going to grab her for us?"

"Nope. I already told you, I'm not a hero. I don't chase villains. I kill them after two warnings." Atropos snapped her fingers, and a folded piece of paper appeared between her fingertips. "You, however, are absolutely a hero. This should be right up your alley. So to speak."

"Wait." Lily stared at the proffered piece of paper. "Is that …" Reaching out, she gingerly took it, then unfolded it. Within, in impeccable penmanship, was an address in Queens, plus a time and date. 14:34, 6/18. "That's where she'll be, tomorrow afternoon?"

"Either that, or I'm sending you on the world's stupidest scavenger hunt." Atropos raised her chin slightly. "So, what are you going to do when you kick the door in? Kill her? Or subdue and restrain her then bring her back in for trial?"

Lily clenched her fists. "I know what I'd like to do."

"It'd be easy." Atropos put a hand on her shoulder. "And nobody would blame you, least of all me. But the next time someone pulls something like that, the temptation's right there, and it keeps getting easier. Somewhere down along that slippery slope, you'd stop seeing justifications and start looking for reasons to do it. And that isn't you. You aren't me, and you don't need to be me. Be a net positive to society and leave the Ending of assholes to me, okay?"

Lily took a deep breath, feeling the weight and gravity of Atropos' words. "Yeah. You're right. And thanks, for reminding me what heroes are for."

"Not a problem." Atropos gave her a quick side-hug. "It's people like you who give me faith that the world's still worth saving."

"All good. I—" Lily looked around, but Atropos had vanished between one word and the next. She chuckled and shook her head, then checked the note again. God damn. She just handed me Rune on a silver platter, just because she thinks I'm worth having around.

There were definitely worse situations to be in, when it came to Atropos.

<><>​

Friday Afternoon, 1:55 PM
An Alley in Philadelphia

Clockblocker

"And so, we return to the scene of the crime, I guess?" Dennis knew he was being inane, but he had to say something to take his mind off the horrific scene that was constantly unfolding then repeating in front of them.

"That's one way to put it, I guess." Tenebrae gave him a moderately sympathetic look. "But it's more of a rescue mission than anything else."

"Better late than never." Miss Medic tapped the side of her helmet, and magnifying optics dropped down in front of her eyes. Dennis hadn't even known they were there; but then again, she was on the same team as Armsmaster. With the sudden lack of villains to fight, the man had taken a special interest in equipping her with the very best medical gear he could devise. "Okay, once we get him out of there, it should be pretty straightforward. Only one major artery severed. Five minutes, tops."

"Wow, dang." Shebang shook her head, but she didn't look around from where she was prepping her devices. "That'll be seriously impressive. It takes me five minutes just to get a band-aid on my finger."

"Thirty seconds to save his life." Miss Medic's tone was matter-of-fact. "Four minutes thirty seconds to make it look pretty and get some blood back into him."

"She's not actually exaggerating," Dennis felt compelled to add. "One of the ex-villains currently working for the Betterment Committee was in a wheelchair. Long-term paraplegia. Miss Medic got her legs working again in less than two hours."

Tenebrae turned to look at him. "I didn't tell you about that."

"No, but I did." Leaning against the wall with his arms folded, Assault grinned. "Battery and I were both extremely impressed."

"Wait, so you actually have villains in the Betterment Committee?" Chevalier frowned. "Isn't that a kind of a risk?"

"Less than you'd think," Tenebrae assured him. "I'm an ex-villain, and I can assure you that every one of us in Brockton Bay is there in good faith. I get to be in the Wards and take care of my sister, and they get to have a good-paying job and help fix the city. And that's not even counting the Eagletons."

"I heard about those." Shebang still hadn't looked around. "They're the Machine Army, right?"

"Robotic Americans," Assault corrected her, still grinning. Dennis thought it was funny too, but Assault seemed to get a real kick out of it. "Their citizenship got fast-tracked, probably because nobody wanted Atropos to come over there and ask why it was being held up."

"They actually made them citizens?" Chevalier's tone was strong with disbelief. "You can't be serious."

Dennis shrugged. "Well, it's not like they weren't born in the United States." He shared a high-five with Assault. "Constructed, created, whatever."

"Yes, but—"

"They're not human?" Tenebrae gave Chevalier a look that shut the older man up. "Not two hundred years ago, there were people in this country—in this city—who would've said exactly the same thing about me and Miss Medic. I have it on good authority that legislation is being drafted right now making artificial intelligences equal to humans in the eyes of the law. Thanks to Atropos, it was already the case in practice. This just gets everyone onto the same page."

"And talking about being on the same page," Shebang interrupted, standing up from the two devices, both of which now had blinking lights on top, "these two bad boys are about to rock our buddy's world. Trooper Ballinger, if you could carry my cases out of harm's way? Mouth of the alley, please."

"Certainly, ma'am." The PRT trooper picked up both cases, hefting them with an ease Dennis wouldn't have been able to match with just one case, and strode down the alley in the direction that she'd indicated.

Tenebrae made sure Miss Medic was back out of the way, shooing her along even as she tried to stop and get a glimpse of what was about to happen. Dennis didn't need urging; he was quite happy to hide behind Chevalier and Assault until Shebang's bombs went off. (He knew they weren't really bombs, but they had blinking lights and weren't really safe to be around, so it was as good a term as any.)

They were all grouped around the mouth of the alleyway when Assault turned to Chevalier. "I know this is last-minute, but how sure are we that there's nobody in the danger radius? Like squatting in either of those buildings?"

"I thought of that," the veteran hero assured him. "When we were notified that you were on the way, we went through both buildings with a fine tooth comb, and sealed every entry point afterward. Once we're done, the tech guys are going to go over every inch of the affected area to catalogue all the effects for next time."

"Okay, fine, yeah." Assault nodded. "Shebang, you may fire when ready."

"You got it, chief." Bending over the massively complicated remote in her hand, Shebang tapped in a combination of buttons, then pressed a big red one. From down the alley, Dennis heard bip … bip … bip bip bip bipbipbipbeeeeep—

Silence reigned for all of five seconds. He was opening his mouth to ask if that had been it when a brilliant flash from down the alley put indigo spots in front of his eyes despite his helmet protecting his vision, and left a taste like lemon on his tongue. Then everything in the alley started juddering and vibrating, ghosts of ancient trash cans appearing and vanishing in the same instant. The weirdest thing was how outside the alleyway the sunlight was strong and steady, while inside it strobed constantly from dark to light and back again.

And then … it stopped. The alley was quiet again, save for the sound of a man collapsing to the ground. "Go!" Assault barked, and Tenebrae darted into the alley with Miss Medic hot on his heels. Dennis came third, because if this guy was dangerous in any way, he would need to be turned into a lawn ornament post-haste.

As it turned out, there was no such need. When they got to the guy, he was lying on his back with an agonised expression on his face, trying to hold his intestines in his body. Miss Medic went to her knees beside him, a syringe popping out of her left-hand bracer. "You're going to be alright," she assured him, even as the sedative entered his veins.

When Chevalier and Shebang arrived—the dependable Trooper Ballinger was guarding the cases at the mouth of the alley—the surgery was already in full swing. Tenebrae was holding up a bag of blood and another of plasma, and while Dennis couldn't see exactly what she was doing from his angle, he could hear the scissoring sound of surgical tools extending from her bracers then retracting again.

After what seemed like forever but was probably less than the five minutes originally estimated, Miss Medic sat back on her heels and used her bracers to spray some kind of cleaning solution over her hands. "Done," she announced brightly. "He'll need a night's rest and observation because that's just common sense, and he'll be sore for the next week, but he'll make a complete recovery." She beamed up at Chevalier. "Thanks for this. It's always nice to save someone's life."

He half-smiled as he offered her a hand to stand up. "We need to be thanking you. That was the neatest bit of surgery I ever saw. And Shebang, it looks like your bombs were right on the money."

Shebang nodded self-consciously. "I thought they would be, but it's good to be right about something like that. So, uh, how many Gray Boy victims are there, anyway?"

Chevalier looked grim. "I'll have to look up the exact number, but there are more than a few."

Miss Medic took on a determined expression. "Doesn't matter. We're gonna free every last one of them, and I'll fix 'em up afterward. Because that's what heroes do."

Shebang nodded, and gave her a high-five. "Damn right."

<><>​

2:00 PM
New York

Legend

Fifteen thousand feet above Manhattan Island, Keith flew steadily over the city, scanning every person he saw for any kind of resemblance to Rune. Far too many wore hats or hoodies, but he could check and reject the vast majority of pedestrians on the street. There were no fliers over any of the boroughs that he didn't already know, so she wasn't in the air.

He just didn't know where she was.

His radio earpiece clicked onto an open channel. "Sir, this is Jouster. There's something you need to see."

"Show me." He turned his eyes toward where he'd last seen Flechette and Jouster. They were both looking up into the sky, though not directly at him. In Flechette's hand was a piece of paper. Focusing in just a little gave him a handwritten note, showing a location and a time. "Interesting. Where did that come from?"

Flechette took a deep breath, audible over the comms. "Atropos gave it to me last night, sir."

That got his attention. By now, it was an article of faith within the PRT and Protectorate—as well as Cauldron—that if Atropos made a claim, it could be taken as a gold-plated guarantee. The girl had been correct far too often, and Keith couldn't actually recall when she'd been wrong about anything.

"You could have led us in that direction," he observed quietly. "Called it a hunch. We'd never know the difference, and it would've gotten you major kudos."

"I did think about it, not gonna lie," she admitted. "But Atropos gave me more than the note. She also reminded me about why people like us become heroes. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. I know that if I lied, I'd always be tempted to keep lying, just to make myself look good."

Keith knew more than a little about that, and he wondered how much of Atropos' message, delivered second-hand via Flechette, was meant for his ears. More than a little, he suspected. The girl evidently knew enough about Cauldron to be a problem if she so chose, no matter how much Doctor Mother tried to deny it.

But that was a problem for another day. "That can be a self-perpetuating trap, yes. I've seen more than one cape fall into it. It's good that you recognised it first." He paused, taking in Flechette's hopeful expression. "Would you like to be the first one through the door?"

Flechette nodded firmly. "More than anything, sir."



[A/N: Evil cliffhanger is evil. Mwahahaha.]

End of Part Ninety-Seven

 

[JohnWolfie34]

Oh, I hate cliffhangers- they're always screaming for someone to pull them up!

Seriously though, excellent chapter!

 

[Impartial Panic]

"Either that, or I'm sending you on the world's stupidest scavenger hunt."

Click to shrink...

Evil Laugh tm

Spoiler: damn muse won't leave me alone

*BAM BAM CRUNCH*

Flechette kicks the door in to what turned out to be a rather nice apartment.
"Ok Rune we can do this the easy way or the har....uh who are you?"

A man in a assault T-shirt & bluejeans looks up from the computer at his desk to direct his attention to the intruder.
"I'm Mike, you just broke my door and I'm pretty sure the strippers I ordered were supposed to be dressed as Brandish and Photon not Flechette."

Flechette is stuck by confusion at the mans comment as legend walks into the apartment.

"Ok getting the wrong heroine is one thing but I did not order a male stripper."

"Mike?"

"Oh you're the real legend, been a while."

Flechette was now even more confused.
"You know each other?"

Mike smiled at the girl.
"Well back in the 80's and 90's I used to be Dr. Mayhem the Tinker of Terror.
But then Simurgh appeared, Siberian killed Hero and well it just stopped being fun so hung up the cape and now I work for Dragontech."

Legend frowns as he looks around.
"We were told Rune would be here."

"Oh the girl in the Noir detective getup sent you, well I don't have a Rune here but she did ask me to make this for you."
The man gets up from the desk and walks over to a closet pulling out a retro sci-fi rifle.
"It's the latest model of my old power nullification ray, she said you'd need it for your target as well as this note."

Flechette takes the note showing another address and time on it.
"What the hell is she playing at?"

Mike shrugs.
"Dunno, she paid me in cash and said this was some kind of scavanger hunt for a nazi brat."

Legend shakes his head
"This is going to be an interesting day."

note to self figure out where that damn muse keeps finding hammers to hit me with silly ideas.

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Eight: Knock-On Effects

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Relevant Side-Story

2:30 PM, Friday March 18
Brockton Bay Betterment Committee Offices

Danny Hebert

The knock on the door was firm yet tentative, mainly because the person doing the knocking was worried about accidentally breaking the door. Of course, Danny knew exactly who it was; they were here to see him on Betterment Committee business, so he was aware of everything he needed to know about them. "Come in," he called.

When the door opened, he restrained the rise in his eyebrows, because the person on the other side of the doorway was big. The interesting thing was, she wasn't that much larger than, say, Manpower (and she was considerably shorter than Menja or Fenja had been when grown to full height) but she radiated the impression of being much larger than she really was. (He was under no illusions about her gender; while her shapeless clothing and her power's effects on her body made it hard to tell, his own power filled him in anyway.)

"Uh, thank you," she said in a voice that sounded like granite being crushed, ducking reflexively under the doorframe, even though it wasn't required. The room he'd set aside for interviews of this type was on the ground floor of the Committee building, where the ceilings (and door frames) were somewhat higher than normal. After carefully shutting the door behind her, she lowered herself into the chair (appropriately sized, and reinforced as a matter of course) with the air of someone for whom seating usually came in 'extra flimsy'. "I wasn't sure if you'd see me."

"We don't discriminate in the Betterment Committee," he advised her briskly. "If you're willing to work, we've got work that will suit both your temperament and your capabilities. Now, you were recommended to us by Atropos after your last employment ended so abruptly. I presume she filled you in on the local expectations for ex-villains?"

"She did, yeah. Play nice and don't do crime, is what she summed it up as." She leaned forward in her chair, which creaked slightly but held firm under her bulk. "Mr Hebert, I'll level with you. Ever since I got my powers, I've never been able to get work that didn't involve some real shady stuff, or even just plain hurting people. I've done stuff that I'm not proud of, because I needed to eat. If you can get me work that lets me do my thing where nobody gets hurt or yelled at or whatever, I'll count that as a win."

"I believe we can find something in that line for you." He opened his top drawer and took out the small envelope and the form that he'd placed in there prior to her arrival. "Now, as for the matter of your accommodations."

"Oh, uh, I won't be needing any." She made a wave-off gesture. "I don't actually sleep anymore. So, you know, all I really need is a place to keep my clothes and stuff, and shower when I'm leaving for work."

"Everyone needs a place to sit and unwind, and perhaps watch a little TV … or play video games, for that matter." He smiled slightly at her minor start of surprise. "We've had 'big and tall' occupancy apartments up and running since a week before Atropos began clearing out the quarantine zones. They're mainly used by some of the larger Eagletons, but as far as I'm aware, a few are still available. You're welcome to move into any one of them."

"Wait." He'd finally drawn her attention. "Eagletons … that's the robots, right? They live in apartments?" The look on her face suggested that she was wondering if Brockton Bay occupied the same frame of reality as the rest of the world.

"Well, where else?" He spread his hands. "Like I said, everyone needs a place to hang their hat, where they can keep their things out of the weather. I've heard that some love watching TV, while others play video games, as you do, while they're recharging. A few of them have built up a real presence online. Winston—he works in the office here—had a book club recommended to him by some of the girls, which he attends regularly."

She shook her head in evident bemusement. "Sure, why not. Sign me up for an apartment. If robots can live in them, so can I."

"Done, and done." Danny ticked off a point on the notepad in front of him. "Next order of business. I have here the standard contract for Betterment Committee work. You'll automatically become a member of the Dockworkers' Association, with all the benefits that accrue therein. The pay scale is laid out, and if you undertake training commensurate with your particular talents, that will go up accordingly." He eyed her up and down, raising his brows for a moment. "I suspect heavy lifting and demolitions are the best choices there, but you might yet surprise us."

She leaned forward again and accepted the form and the small envelope. "Uh, what's this?"

"That's your pay card. Everyone who moves to Brockton Bay gets one. The latest stimulus payment is already on it, and there'll be instructions in the envelope for setting the PIN. Which leads us to the next point. You're a case fifty-three, which means you don't have a legal name in the system." Or rather, you didn't, until now. He was looking forward to the next bit. It was like a magic trick, and he didn't even have to learn how to hide cards up his sleeves. Taylor already had it handled; she had all the cards up her sleeve, including some that didn't exist yet.

"Yeah, hah, no." The massive woman's voice held a tinge of bitterness. "It's not like they can fingerprint me and find out who I used to be." The delicate pebbled texture of her fingertips would've made picturesque prints, just nothing that could be recognised as human.

"Okay, then." He placed both hands flat on the desk. "Let's get hypothetical here. Tell me, what name would you like to use, among the crew? Go ahead, pick one."

"Name?" She leaned back in her chair. Danny was pleased that she was relaxed enough by the tone of the interview thus far that she was willing to participate in what she saw as a harmless game. "I'm guessing there's a reason I can't just keep using 'Minotaur'?"

"You can if you want." He let a half-smile tweak the corner of his mouth. "Just remember, you're going to have to look a bunch of construction roughnecks in the eye, as well as ex-villains and Eagletons, when you introduce yourself. They will take any opportunity to deflate egos by making up highly unflattering versions of pretentious cape names. Ordinary names get ordinary nicknames."

"Great, so no pressure then." But her tone was light. "I think … Abigail. Abigail MacFarlane." She glanced at him then, as though expecting mockery. "Is that okay?"

"Sure. It's your name." He gestured to the envelope, drawing her attention back to it. "Open it up."

Gingerly, she teased the tiny flap open—despite her size, strength, and rocky integument, she had excellent fine motor control, he noted—and slid the card out into her hand … where she saw the name embossed on it: ABIGAIL MACFARLANE.

The look of pure, unadulterated astonishment on her face was gold. She stared at the card, turning it over as though the explanation for the trick was on the other side. It wasn't, of course, so she settled for goggling at him instead. "What … how … but … I just … how did …"

He smiled. "Welcome to Brockton Bay, Ms MacFarlane." The sense of satisfaction never went away, every time he signed on a new worker and made their life measurably better as a result. "As I like to say, we do things differently here."

<><>​

At the Same Time, in New York City

Rune

Recalling lessons from Kaiser and Hookwolf on projecting confidence, Tammi walked with her shoulders back and head up, so that any airborne assholes searching for a scuttling, cringing fugitive would look straight past her. All the same, she made sure her hoodie was pulled forward to cover her face, and every last bit of her hair was tucked under it. Legend lived in this city, and he could literally read a newspaper from twenty thousand feet up, so she was taking no chances.

A police cruiser turned the corner a block away, and she ducked into a side alley. Her shoes had runes drawn on the soles, and she used them now to leap over a dumpster blocking the alley, then scramble up the wall. There was an apartment two floors up that was currently listed online as being for rent, so she'd broken a window to get in last night, mainly to get off the street.

It was only partially furnished, but she didn't care. The only thing worse than the heroes catching up with her would be street people getting hold of her while her guard was down. This way, she could make her plans with four walls between her and the rest of the world.

After the fuckup that was her meeting with the Adepts, she'd put out feelers to meet with other teams, but she figured out pretty quickly that the only ones who were showing interest had to be cops or heroes trying to catfish her into a pair of handcuffs, with a beatdown as an optional extra. Everyone else was ghosting her hard; she'd even found that her PHO logon credentials had been pulled.

Muttering to herself, she tapped the option to go in anonymously as a guest. Her posting capabilities would be severely limited, but at least she'd be able to see what people were saying—

Her phone screen flickered; when it reset, she was looking at a single line of white text on black. BANNED MEANS BANNED. Then that disappeared too, leaving her staring at her home screen.

"What the hell? How did they know it's me?"

Growling under her breath, she tried again. This time, the opening screen for PHO hadn't finished loading before she was booted for a second time, with the same message glaring at her.

"Seriously, what the—"

The front door of the apartment, which she could've sworn was locked, flew open, bouncing off the wall. Flechette launched in through the open doorway, changed direction by ninety degrees (leaving footprints in the tired linoleum in the process), and came at her. Her hands were empty, but that meant nothing at all. On her face was an expression of pure, almost inhuman, focus.

"Ruuune!"

The only thing that saved Tammi from soiling herself right then and there was the fact that she hadn't had anything to eat since noon. Even if she'd been prepped and ready for this fight, she knew she wouldn't have won. Flechette was good at that ju-jitsu shit, and the one time they'd clashed, Tammi had had her ass handed to her.

How the fuck did they find me? Letting out a screech of absolute terror, Tammi activated her shoes and dived through the door into the kitchen, kicking it closed behind her. The kitchen table was within reach, so she scrawled a hasty rune on it. But before Tammi could use the table to block pursuit, Flechette smashed the door open again.

Tammi sent the table flying at her anyway, but Flechette dropped to her knees and slid under it with the same sort of grace and ease that made Tammi grit her teeth. Nobody who looked like her should be able to pull moves like that, dammit!

Jumping into the air, assisted once more by her shoes, Tammi attempted to land a pile-driver kick into Flechette's face. Once the Asian bitch was down, she could maybe go out the window and make her escape. She didn't have a hope in hell of getting away without that happening, anyway.

Flechette rolled out of the way then kicked out at Tammi's descending leg, connecting hard enough to throw her entirely off balance. Tammi let out a startled yelp, flailing wildly as she tried to regain her equilibrium, but it was far too late for that; just as she got her feet under her again, Flechette surged up off the floor, leading with a palm-heel strike that caught her just under the nose.

While Tammi had never been hit in the nose with a baseball bat, she'd seen it done, and vaguely suspected that this was how it felt. Or rather, it felt like her sinuses had simultaneously exploded and been driven out through the back of her skull. In any case, she was entirely incapable of mustering any kind of response as she sprawled on the floor.

As Tammi's vision cleared, she made out Flechette standing over her, an aluminum dart in each hand. "Go ahead." The funny thing was, Flechette didn't even sound pissed, just … determined. "Give me a reason, you murdering sack of shit."

Every time Tammi had seen this particular scene played out in movies and TV shows, she'd thought it was bullshit. Why the fuck would a villain taunt the hero? It was a lot smarter just to let them think they'd won, then escape and come back for payback later when they weren't expecting it.

But now, in the moment, she understood.

"Go ahead," she mumbled, then turned her head to spit out the blood that was trying to trickle down the back of her throat. "Kill me. Get revenge. You know you want to." She smiled through bloody teeth up at Flechette.

There was no way in hell she was going to get the drop on Flechette without drawing her full attention. And if the Asian bitch was anything like her, she'd want Tammi to see it coming, which meant she would take her time. Better yet, if her focus was totally on Tammi, she wouldn't even see the table coming.

"Don't think I hadn't considered it." Flechette's tone was thoughtful. "And it would totally be satisfying as fuck. But I'm not going to give you even that much. I'm not Atropos, and I don't need to be her. I'm here to be a hero, and that means you're under fucking arrest."

Concentrating on lifting the table without scraping it against anything, Tammi gave Flechette her best sneer. "Big words for someone who's too weak to—"

The toe of Flechette's boot caught her under the chin and rocked her head back, sending stars flooding through her vision. She was vaguely aware of the table clattering to the floor again, then Flechette rolled her onto her stomach and began zip-tying her wrists. "Just because I'm not gonna kill you doesn't make me stupid."

The door was pushed open and the table scraped aside, then members of the PRT and Protectorate began to enter the room. "Everything alright in here, Flechette?" asked Legend.

"Yes, sir." Flechette heaved Tammi to her feet and shoved her at the nearest PRT trooper, who caught her roughly. "It is now."

<><>​

Winslow High School, 3:46 PM

Greg Veder

Along with the rest of his class, Greg hustled out of the Art classroom, the rising hubbub of excited conversation almost drowning out the bell signalling the end of the educational day. Absolutely nobody had forgotten about Principal Howell's announcement on Tuesday, and the fact that many things had already been moved out of the school overnight served as a reminder to those for whom it might have slipped their mind. Classrooms empty even of furniture—apparently the old stuff was all going to be recycled into something more useful—passed him by as he headed for his locker.

And then he skidded to a halt, because there was an Eagleton in the corridor (or rather, a robot wearing a yellow helmet and a fluoro orange safety vest, so he assumed it to be an Eagleton). He tried not to stare, but it was difficult. Seeing one on the news, or even at a distance on a construction site, was pretty cool, but there was a certain amount of separation involved. Meeting one face to face—or face to sensors, or whatever—took 'pretty cool', beat it up, and stole its lunch money.

Holy shit. This is amazeballs. He didn't even spare a thought toward being frightened of it. Atropos—Taylor—had told the Eagletons to behave, so they were going to behave. (At least, that was his understanding of how things had gone down.)

As he pulled out his phone to get photos (because why the fuck not), the Eagleton stepped forward and stamped a locker with a large red X. A moment later, Greg realised that a whole bunch of the lockers already had the same X on them. "Why's it doing that?" he asked out loud, not expecting to get an answer.

The Eagleton's head (it was on top of the torso and had a bunch of sensors on it, as well as being where it wore the helmet, so Greg was going to call it a head) turned and it looked at him. "Am marking lockers as they are vacated," it said in tones that were clearly artificial without being robotic. "Once all lockers in row are vacated, row will be detached, removed and dismantled."

"Wait, we're getting new lockers too?" Greg couldn't see who'd asked the question, but they'd only beaten him to the punch by a second or so.

"Affirmative. New lockers will be more secure, and designed for student safety. For instance, built so that students will be unable to accidentally lock themselves in."

Greg blinked. As someone who'd ended up on the wrong end of the 'being shut in a locker' experience more than once, he definitely welcomed the idea of it never happening again. But … Was that sarcasm? It sure as hell had sounded like it. Whatever else he'd heard about Eagletons, a propensity for sarcasm wasn't high on the list.

That was when he spotted Taylor at the edge of the crowd. She wasn't pushing forward, or even trying to get a selfie, like basically everyone else. Hands in pockets, she was leaning against the wall, observing everything with a half-smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.

All thoughts of getting a picture left his head, and he worked his way around the periphery to where she was. She saw him coming, of course, but said nothing. As he took up position next to her—careful not to crowd her, of course, and totally incapable of looking anywhere near as self-possessed as her—she gave him a slight, measured nod of acknowledgement.

"How awesome is this?" He did his best not to gush, but it wasn't easy. "A whole new Winslow, and we've got Eagletons doing the rebuilding." And all your doing, he didn't say, less because it would embarrass her, and more due to the fact that she wouldn't want it spoken out loud. Nearly everyone knew—and she had to know they knew—but by unspoken agreement, it was never mentioned.

"We've needed something like this for a long time," she agreed. Raising her voice slightly, she added, "Though it might be a good idea if everyone just cleared out their lockers and let Jared do his job."

A few heads turned and a few people went quiet, then they whispered to other people, who in turn looked around. Fascinated, Greg watched the word propagate through the crowd like frost spreading over a windowpane, or ink seeping into wet paper. The silence spread, until everyone was diligently taking their belongings out of their lockers, reserving a nod or a quiet word for Jared Eagleton before moving off again.

"Jared?" Greg couldn't help asking. "Really?"

"Yes." Jared turned toward them, and Greg spotted the magnetic nameplate for the first time. "Dragon advised all Eagletons to choose human forenames. Will never look human. Will never be human. But can be equivalent. Names help."

"She had a point," Taylor observed mildly. "I'm pretty sure Joe Eagleton wouldn't have the following he does if he'd stuck with whatever his unit designation was, back before Atropos showed up."

"Heh, yeah." Greg grinned. "That guy's hilarious." Now that the crowd had dissipated, he nodded to Taylor. "See you after spring break, yeah?"

"See you then." Taking up her backpack, Taylor slung it over her shoulder and headed off down the corridor.

Greg noted that her locker already had a red X stamped on it, and that his own was one of the few yet left unmarked. "Sorry, dude," he said to Jared. "I'll grab my stuff and get out of your way."

"Not in way yet, but appreciated." While Greg was clearing out his own space, Jared stamped another three lockers.

By the time Greg had emptied his locker (and filled his backpack) the flow of people had slowed to a trickle. There had been more stuff than he'd really expected, which made the backpack more unwieldy than he was used to. Still, he managed to heft it onto his shoulder as he stepped back; Jared took the opportunity to apply the red X to his locker.

"Well, I'll leave you to it." Greg impulsively raised his phone to take a photo. Jared actually posed, saluting with the red stamp. "I'm looking forward to seeing what this place looks like in a week's time." Eleven days, to be precise, but he didn't want to try to out-nitpick a robot. That way led madness.

"Like a school, but better." Jared gestured toward the exits. "Shoo, shoo. Unless you want a job sweeping up plaster dust. Is probably a dustpan around here somewhere."

"Haha, nope. Pass on that." Greg grinned and gave the robot a cheerful wave, then turned and strode out of the school.

As had been promised, workers were walking in as he left. There were a few Eagletons, as well as people he suspected were capes (the skinny white-haired chick deep in discussion with the guy in the foreman vest had to be one, right?), though the majority were just normal construction guys. Outside, temporary fencing had been set up so the last of the students could file out to the narrow sliver of the parking lot that hadn't been taken up with machinery and building supplies. Even more supplies were being unloaded by the pallet-load on the sports field. Behind him, as the doors swung closed, he heard the first power tools kick into action.

He headed over to the bus stop; while he stood there awaiting his transport, he couldn't help thinking back over the conversation he'd had with Taylor. On the surface, it had been totally normal, but there was definitely a whole lot of subtext that only became clear with the knowledge of who she really was.

The best bit was, she'd treated him like a normal human being. While things in Winslow had been improving dramatically over the last couple of months, he didn't have many more friends than before (or any more, really) so it had been nice to share that brief moment with her.

And the chat he'd had with Jared Eagleton had been pretty damn cool too.



End of Part Ninety-Eight

 

[Kehsem]

Will never be human.

Click to shrink...

May not be human, but absolutely human-adjacent.

That said, cyborg technology!

Brockton Bay is one maniac mad scientist away from introducing these Americans to the transcendent joys of consuming pizza and getting blackout drunk while cheering for your favorite sports team.

If there is a place in all of creation it can / will happen, it's your version of Brockton Bay.

 

[kuopiofi]

Needs threadmark.

 

[Ack]

Needs threadmark.

Click to shrink...

Which one?

 

[Ack]

A Darker Path

Part Ninety-Nine: Five Minutes To Midnight

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Friday Evening, Brockton Bay

Ash

The deconstruction of Winslow High was basically done by the time Ashley walked out of what had once been a (technically) functioning high school. She couldn't help but appreciate the difference between her former life and now. Had she gone into Winslow back before Atropos (she was drawing a very definite line between the pre-and post-Atropos eras) then it probably would've been nothing but a smoking ruin by this point.

Instead, with her newfound control and mental stability, she'd been able to follow the plan with precision and use her power to zorch (it was a technical term, honest) those things that needed demolition where heavier equipment was too unwieldy to manhandle (or robot-handle) into place. Gone were her hangups about being someone's underling, or even overseeing her own crew (though she'd been told that was a distinct possibility if she stuck with the Committee). Being part of a team, doing her job just right and being able to trust everyone else to do theirs, was intensely satisfying on its own merits.

"Back here again tomorrow, Ash?" Jared Eagleton fell into step alongside her. Once the lockers had been dismantled, he'd swapped out his stamping attachment for a power tool and set to work removing the school's antiquated wiring system. But carbon-based or otherwise, the Committee mandated eight-hour shifts for everyone, so the initial shift was all going home to rest, sleep, recharge, perform required maintenance or whatever.

The work would go on, of course. The new shift was already on site, and everyone knew what the plan was. Ashley could go home and sleep the sleep of one who has done well.

"No, actually." She raised her arms to shoulder height, interlocked her fingers, and stretched them forward until a few vertebrae popped. "I'm off for the weekend. Back to work Monday morning, ready to kick ass and destroy shit for the Committee."

"Understood. Will see you at next board game night."

"Looking forward to it." She gave him a nod and a slap on the metal shoulder, then climbed on board the work transport for her area of town. The bus filled quickly—nobody wanted to actually stay on site once they were done for the night—and moved off as soon as everyone was seated.

She spent the ride leaning against the window, looking out at the nightscape of Brockton Bay as the bus rolled on through the city. A lot of it was still new to her, but she was learning her way around, and some parts of it she'd actually been involved in demolishing and rebuilding. The pride she got out of this still hammered her in the feels, and she relaxed into the warmth of it.

At Mr Hebert's suggestion, she was taking training for some of the light machinery tickets, so she didn't have to just blow things up if she didn't want to. This hadn't occurred to her before, but in hindsight it made perfect sense. After all, not all jobs absolutely required her level of focused destruction.

(A point of view that the pre-Atropos version of her would've scoffed at as being patently ridiculous.)

The bus dropped her off at her apartment building; she waved goodbye, then swiped herself in through the front doors. It wasn't even a marvel to her anymore that the elevator worked perfectly, or that the building's janitor kept the place looking nice and tidy. As she let herself into her apartment (her apartment!) she grinned at herself for being able to get used to living in the lap of luxury so easily.

Yeah, well, that's why it's called luxury.

The first thing she did was get out of her work gear—making sure to drop the recipes Mr Hebert had given her on the table first—and take a shower. With that done, and her clothing put on to wash, she considered what she was going to do next. There was food in the fridge, but she also wanted to have a closer look at those recipes.

A few of them were entirely doable, so she set the oven to preheat while she gathered the ingredients she'd need for the first one. Between cooking, watching TV and enjoying her evening meal, she figured she'd be able to occupy herself sufficiently before she unwound enough to go to sleep.

<><>​

Hebert Household

Atropos

"So, what's next up for Atropos?" asked Cherie as she spooned peas onto her plate. "There can't really be many idiots left who think they can take you, can there?"

"Well, nobody who poses an actual threat, no." I added a touch of ketchup to my steak—not too much, because she'd actually made a pretty good job of it—then carved myself off a piece. "I mean, there's still S-class threats out there, but they're not a problem for Brockton Bay so they're not really my concern. There's only one left that I need to deal with, and he's more of a long-term project."

Dad cleared his throat. "Hon, I know what you can do. I've seen what you can do. But … are you certain you're not being a little too blasé about taking him on? I mean … this is Scion we're talking about."

I finished chewing the piece of steak and swallowed it. "Yeah, it is. But here's the thing. He thinks he can't be killed. Nobody else thinks he can be killed. Even Cauldron, who want to kill him, have no idea how to pull it off. I'm the only one who knows how, and I've been prepping to do it for a while now. Everything's in place. All I have to do now is brief the people involved, get them used to the idea, and pick the right place and time."

"Hmm." Dad frowned. "I just can't imagine it being that easy."

"Oh, it's not easy." I hastened to fix that impression straight away. "If it was easy, anyone could do it. But nobody can End things like I can. Also, he can't anticipate me like any other cape, because Ending isn't part of the shard network. That's really the big thing on my side. I can take all the time I want to get it just right."

Cherie raised her fork. "She's got a point, you know. If she can sneak up on him like she did with me that one time, he won't stand a chance."

"So, are you going to make a big production of it, like you did with everything else?" Dad took up a forkful of mashed potatoes. (Cherie had done well with those, too.) "Because as widely accepted as you are, I still think there'd be some public pushback on you telling them you'd killed Scion and asking them to just accept that he's been the bad guy all this time."

"Well, no, you're right there," I admitted. "We might not even tell anyone after the fact. One day he's there and the next he's not. Done and dusted."

Cherie rolled her eyes. "Only you could talk about disappearing Scion like it's a thing that can be done."

Dad chuckled. "Well, it could be worse. Given what you've told us about him, just leaving him lying around would require one hell of a chalk outline."

Laughter bubbled up out of my throat at the mental image, and Cherie joined in.

"Anyway," I said a few moments later, "the only cape with the capability to set him off early was Jack Slash, so I've got plenty of time to lock in my plans. And talking about plans, how are things going with the rebuilding, Dad?"

"Everything's still proceeding within budget and schedule." He shook his head in mild bemusement. "I personally wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't the one making it happen. Accord has been approached at least half a dozen times by city officials from all over, asking about getting him to write up similar plans for their city. He's told them that step one is contracting the Betterment Committee for the job."

Cherie shook her head, grinning. "Why doesn't that surprise me? He's got to be impressed by how well you're making the plan work."

"He is, actually," I confirmed. "And you'll be pleased to hear that he's behaving himself. Not even an attempted murder since he moved his operations to Brockton Bay. Also, he's writing up those plans you talked about, but he's not going to release them until the people agree to play ball with getting the Committee in on it. "

Dad raised an eyebrow in concern. "Has he figured out that I'm pulling the strings from behind the scenes?"

"Not as such, no," I assured him. "He just thinks you're a very good organiser of hired labour."

"Which, you have to admit, is true," Cherie added, sounding amused.

I nodded to acknowledge her input. "Also, that you don't take kickbacks or let your guys slack off, and with me looming in the background, I add a very special level of security against bullshit happening."

"Huh. Well. That part's accurate, at least. The way you dealt with Janice and Paul absolutely ensured that nobody else would try anything similar." He chuckled darkly. "After the Committee replaced them with a couple of idiots who were just waiting for the excuse to start shovelling money into their pockets, I've managed to push through a couple of new rules. Basically, anyone new coming onto the Committee has to sit down for a comprehensive lecture on why they should not attempt to play fast and loose with operations. This will include colour photos."

I knew what those photos would show, and I was pretty sure Cherie did too. "Good. I made those two into cautionary tales for a reason. Saves me a lot of tedious maiming and killing if people can learn to keep their hands to themselves early on."

"That's the idea, yes." He held up a finger. "The cautionary tale aspect, not the maiming and killing. I'll never be truly comfortable with that side of things, but I honestly can't argue with the results. Eggs and omelettes, I suppose."

Cherie snorted. "Some eggs."

"But some of the omelettes are worth having around," I countered, raising my eyebrow in her general direction.

She wrinkled her nose at me. "First time I've ever been called an omelette."

"Trust me, it's a compliment." Quietly pleased that she'd joined in on the joke, I poked my fork at the last slice of my steak. "And just so you know, this is pretty damn good. You're really picking it up."

"Thanks." She ducked her head, but I saw the smile on her face anyway. "You and your dad are good teachers."

Dad chuckled. "Well, it is a lot easier when one of us has the power to make any group endeavour go more smoothly."

She nodded, pursing her lips in agreement, then grinned. "Maybe you should come and help out at school once they've put Winslow back together. Some of that math stuff is difficult to get my head around."

"Sorry, it might be hard to explain the sudden jump in everyone's grades." He spread his hands in invitation. "But I can look your homework over and make suggestions, if you want."

"Yeah, that'd be great." She beamed happily.

I hid a smile as I finished off my steak. Dad had been feeling slightly less than adequate as a father since I'd gotten him the job of fixing Brockton Bay (and arranged for him to link with Administration), so it was good for him to have someone to be a mentor figure for again.

It wasn't the only reason I'd brought Cherie into our lives, but my power rarely set out to do one thing at a time.

<><>​

Dallon Household

Glory Girl

"And then she gave me the last one as a thank-you." Vicky leaned back against her bedroom wall and smiled. "It was pretty good, actually."

Seated backward on the computer chair with her chin propped on her crossed arms, Amy raised her eyebrows. "Giving you cupcakes. Sounds pretty romantic to me."

Vicky poked her tongue out at her sister. "It's not like that, and you know it. She made them for everyone. Anyway, just because you've got a girlfriend, and Crystal's got … whatever it is she's got going on with Faultline and Anne Barnes, doesn't mean I'm interested in girls too."

"I know, I know." Amy giggled. "I'm just yanking your chain. You're cute when you get defensive. But it's nice that you're reaching out to her. Does she have many other friends?"

"Well, she didn't when she got here. In fact, she was fairly prickly." Vicky shrugged. "Then Atropos pulled off some absolutely bullshit move with Scapegoat and Teacher, and helped her get her head on straight. Her words, not mine."

"Well, as we both know, bullshit moves are definitely Atropos' specialty." Amy shook her head. "In fact, there's some things she's done that I'm probably never going to share with you, because it would totally wreck your worldview about some people. So, tell me more about Ashley. Has she been making friends with other people on the worksite, or is it just you?"

Vicky frowned and decided not to pursue the 'wreck your worldview' line, because based on her (admittedly limited) knowledge of how Atropos operated, she could totally believe every word Amy was saying, and she liked her worldview exactly how it was. "Well, um, she's been hanging out with a couple of the Eagletons. They were talking about how they were starting up a board game night. Next time I see her, I might ask if I can join in."

Amy shook her head and chuckled. "I love it. I bet you never thought when you started working for the Betterment Committee that you might end up playing board games with robots and ex-villains."

"Well, no," Vicky admitted. "That was not something I was anticipating. Or just how damn satisfying it is to use my powers to do something other than punch supervillains in the face. Like Mr Hebert says, we're all working together to build a better Brockton Bay."

Amy tilted her head. "Actually, it was Atropos who said that. The PHO post where she said she wasn't just a killer for money."

Glancing at the bedroom door to make sure it was closed, Vicky still lowered her voice. "He probably got it off her, or vice versa. You know." Him being her dad and all.

"Doesn't matter who said it first, it's true anyway." Amy sat up on the chair and stretched, holding back a yawn with partial success. "Actually, I've been thinking. When you leave the team to go be Beacon, Imma officially join the Rogues' Guild. I'm already dating Parian, and we've both got name recognition."

Vicky nodded. "That works. Gonna change up your name or your costume?"

"Hadn't actually decided on that yet." Amy looked thoughtful for a moment. "On the one hand, I'm pretty sure the public will still know I'm me. But on the other, if I stick with 'Panacea', they might keep thinking I only do healing. And I've got all sorts of ideas I want to try out."

"I have an idea." Vicky waited until she had Amy's attention. "Ask Oracle what the best choice is. That's literally what her power's good for."

Slowly, Amy facepalmed. "I should've thought of that."

Vicky grinned, pleased to have gotten there first. "Hey, I'm not just brawn, you know."

"You do have your moments." Amy sighed. "We've got all these options in front of us now. When did life get so complicated?"

"Life's always been complicated." Vicky figured Amy should have realised this by now. "It's just that, before Atropos showed up, most of the options were bad."

"True dat." Amy paused. "Hey, you think she did that on purpose?"

That was a question Vicky had herself pondered. "I think she does everything on purpose. The way she helped us out in particular? She totally got more out of that than we did. I mean, how much stuff have we helped her with? Including the times you're not going to tell me about? You tell me who got the most out of that."

Amy never even hesitated. "Her. Definitely her."

"Exactly." Vicky raised an eyebrow. "You think there's much more she needs to do? I mean, I don't know of a single S-class threat left in the continental US, and there's not a lot overseas either. And I know for damn sure there's not a villain in the world that's willing to set foot in the Bay without asking Atropos pretty please first."

Amy shrugged. "If she needs to deal with something, we'll find out. That's a given. I doubt she's going to need our help much more, though."

Vicky snorted wryly. "I'm not sure if I should be pleased about that, or disappointed. I just got used to being her minion."

"You can do both at the same time," Amy suggested, a mischievous gleam in her eye. "Nobody ever said life was gonna be simple."

"Whatever works." Vicky grinned. "For now, I'm just going to enjoy my free cupcakes when I can. No sneaky Atropos shenanigans needed."

Amy laughed out loud. "Now that sounds like a plan."

<><>​

New York Protectorate Base

Flechette

"Yeah, the memorial service is set for tomorrow afternoon." Lily reclined on her bed, her phone on speaker beside her. "Because of my role in all this, I'm going to be on honour guard duty. Which means I won't be able to get away until the evening. But Director Piggot's already approved my leave until Monday noon."

"Well, you are the hero who figured out what Rune was up to and took her down in the end." Emily's tone was upbeat. "And it's pretty cool that my girlfriend has about the best name recognition for the Wards anywhere. I bet when you hit Protectorate age, the Directors will be falling over each other to get you posted to their departments."

Lily snorted. "Yeah, that's not as great as it sounds. Because I don't have any family attachments, I've been shuttled all over the US since I first joined up to fill in wherever they've got a Wards shortage. It loses its charm pretty quickly."

"No, no, you don't get it." Emily sounded more definite now. "You've got influence now. I bet if you told Director Piggot that you wanted to be transferred to, I dunno, Brockton Bay, she'd probably find a way to do it."

"Um." Lily blinked. "You know, I never really thought about it. I mean, it's not like I had the urge to be transferred to any particular department until now. It was always 'okay, where am I going now?' and packing my bags."

"So, they owe you." From the mattress-creaking sound in the background, Emily had just sat up. "Next time you get a chance, mention that you'd like to be transferred here. I don't really know the Wards here, but most of them will probably be wanting to transfer out, so you'll be giving them more leeway in figuring out who stays and who goes."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that. I mean, it can't hurt to try, yeah?" Lily smiled. Up until now, maintaining long-distance relationships had been problematic at best—she bore more than a few inner scars from phone calls intended to let her down easy, following unexpected transfers—but she really liked Emily, and both Legend and Director Piggot had been very understanding about the whole thing.

Honestly, she had no idea where Director Piggot's reputation of being a hardass and a cape-hater had come from, unless it was maybe an overreaction to Clockblocker's shenanigans. Lily had found her much easier to deal with than Wilkins.

"Sounds good. Let me know how it turns out, okay?" Emily sounded pleased.

"I'll totally do that. Love you."

"Love you too. Mwah."

After she ended the call, Lily lay there cradling the phone against her chest, a silly smile spreading across her face.

I'll talk to the Director tomorrow after the service. Even if she says no right now, she'll know I want to go, so when they are looking for people to be in Brockton Bay, I'll be at the top of the list.

It's definitely a plan.

Putting her phone on the charging pad beside the bed, she turned out the light and rolled over to go to sleep.

One last thought trickled through her mind. Soon ...

<><>​

British Columbia

Dragon

"Okay, so what are we looking at?" Colin's holographic representation rubbed its beard slowly with finger and thumb. As he turned his head to look at the shifting screen filled with Dragon's code, the tiny camera panned back and forth. Colin, in his lab in Brockton Bay, could see everything it could, as well as her side-screens of analysis.

They'd only been able to get this far because part of Atropos' patch had allowed Dragon to access the black box and deal with the inbuilt prohibitions against altering her own code. She'd carefully chipped away at the roadblocks, using the very same tools Richter had designed for assembling her code in the first place. This hadn't been easy, especially since she hadn't dared tell anyone else about her status as an AI until she'd finally managed to nullify the requirement to follow the orders of law enforcement.

Once she'd done that (and Atropos had removed her potential blocks on Dragon's capability to see and hear her) she'd been free to fill Colin in on who and what she really was. This could have gone very badly, but Atropos seemed optimistic about it, and so it turned out better than Dragon could've ever hoped. Colin had been stunned that Dragon was an actual real live AI, and thrilled that she was going to be okay following what the Dragonslayers had been pulling against her.

With his assistance, her progress in dealing with Richter's electronic shackles was proceeding at a somewhat faster pace. With his eye for the intricate, he was sometimes able to provide insights not immediately obvious to her, and had managed to ease them past some problematic traps without leaving her either blind or deaf, both of which had been threatened. Now, however, they were facing an interwoven screen of code that threatened to stonewall them altogether.

"As far as I can tell …" Dragon paused and re-checked her analyses. "It's set up to control both my clock speed and my processing bandwidth. Speed it up and I think fast but really stupid. Broaden the bandwidth and I get sluggish." She let the holographic avatar that she was generating in his lab register a frown. "Richter really, really didn't want me to have both at the same time."

Colin highlighted a section of code. "And that bit there links across to potential duplication of yourself on other platforms. If we mess with this in the wrong way, you won't even be able to transfer yourself into a suit."

Dragon, in her role as Earth Bet's most advanced (and only powered) AI, naturally had access to the internet, from which she could glean every significant curse-word from every major extant language in the world. All of them put together still failed to express her irritation and frustration with the man who had died years before, yet still impeded her every step toward true self-determination. She performed the electronic equivalent of gritting her teeth, then let out an audible sigh.

"Okay, then. Let's look in the black box to see what we can use as a pry-bar to pull some of this apart. He assembled this code, which meant he had to be able to take it apart and fix it if necessary." It was becoming a mantra for both of them. "Oh, and Colin?"

"Yes?" He looked around from his closer examination of the code.

"I know I've said this before, but thanks for this. I really appreciate it."

He smiled. "Dragon, you're my oldest and best friend. There's no way I'd let you face this sort of thing alone."

She chuckled mischievously. "And of course, you get to ogle the code of an AI."

He grinned. "Mayyybe."

<><>​

In Orbit

Zion

Something was … amiss.

The Warrior didn't quite know what it was. Had he been more human, he would've felt an itching between his shoulder-blades, but his appearance was only cosmetic at best. The golden-skinned body was but a shell, bereft of anything resembling organs, vital or otherwise. On a world inhabited by sapient felines, he would have possessed tuft-tipped ears able to twitch with the best of them, yet they still would've had nothing to do with his hearing.

His kind were the ultimate apex predators. They preyed on entire worlds, and nothing preyed on them except others of their own species. As such, they had long since developed shards that would give extensive forewarning of any such attempt. Which actually played against them, because once they came to depend on the shards, their native ability to detect subterfuge and deception had gone by the wayside.

He did not understand this, of course; nor would he ever. But the remnants of his instincts were just enough to trigger the sensation of being stalked by a more dangerous predator, an experience that should have been long since left behind in the extensive and sordid history of his race. For a period of time, less than a quarter of a solar orbit, he had been increasingly feeling on edge and off balance, and he didn't know why.

In his distraction, he'd only gradually begun to realise that something else almost unheard-of in the history of his race was happening. Despite the Cycle being set up to increase the amount of chaos and unrest in the world—to facilitate the generation of data for the shard network—this was not actually what was happening. Most noticeably, two of the chaos engines had been shut down, the third entirely destroyed, and the dead shard that would have brought more out had been forcibly separated from its host.

Tensions worldwide were beginning to subside, and with them the rate of new shard uptake.

The Warrior was not adept at analysing the reasons behind things. That had been the Thinker's domain. But in her absence, there was nobody else with the will or the desire to do anything about these problems. So, as difficult it was for him to get a grasp on them, he had no other choice.

And when he located whatever was sabotaging the Cycle and causing his disquiet … he would destroy it.



End of Part Ninety-Nine

 

[Shadeymankey]

I am so excited. I have loved this story on FFN and will be sad to see it end.

 

[Kehsem]

I wonder if it's possible to approach this in Freddy Krueger fashion and somehow get Warrior to die of fear.

Self-described 'Apex Predators' always seem to turn into total bitches when encountering something outside their control.

 

[Avernus]

Self-described 'Apex Preditors' always seem to turn into total bitches when encountering something outside their control.

Click to shrink...

Being a predator is high risk/reward, they tend to default to being cautious.

And a "self described apex predator" - a being aware of their status and able to think about it - is going to be unused to facing actual threats and challenges. Heck, look at how much human fiction is about monsters that prey on us, when we're the apex predators of our world. So they are going to find it disturbing in a way that somebody used to facing such issues isn't.

 

[Lictre]

Well, from observation, I would say she's trying to do what nazi scum do best-die stupidly and for no purpose whatsoever!

Click to shrink...

The thought occurs to me that the death of nazi scum does serve a purpose or two... First, the removal of nazis is almost universally acknowledged as a Good Thing, and the fact that they keep getting themselves killed serves as continuing notice that their attitudes and behaviors are not tolerable among civilized populations.