[Archive] With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

Day 3
14th March 2013
11:20 GMT

The reality of the man matches the statues, though as I'm led towards the surprisingly simple seat where Colin 'Satanus' Thornton sits I can't help but think there's something a little off about them. And wasn't that a surprise, learning that a Lord of Hell has an amazing double life as a media mogul. Lex had been keeping an eye on him for some time and while he deduced that he was a magic user he apparently found out that he was literally a demon by chance when someone spilled some salt on the ground and he couldn't cross the spill. Satanus has artistically bulging but not binding muscles, polished black metal and leather apparel with gold-. No, orichalcum decoration, and…

No. Compared to the statues-.

He's made himself larger. He enlarged the seat too, but not the dais. I can see the marks on the floor where it usually sits. Did he do that so that I don't loom over him quite so much? I suppose that an emissary being sent who looks more powerful than your current overlord is a strategy that the First could use to undermine him, but unlike most people down here he's certain to know who I am. How I work. So he grew himself for the benefit of his people?

"Lord Satanus, I present Grayven, God of Conquest and emissary of the First of the Fallen."

"Be welcome, Grayven. Would you care for refreshment?"

"Thank you, Lord Satanus. It would be the civil thing to do. Alas, I am bound for a month and since I do not need to eat, civility is barred to me. I do appreciate the offer, however."

"Bound? You are no demon."

"No, but my word is my bond regardless. The First has tasked me with discovering ways to improve his realm and its people."

Satanus leans forwards slightly, the glowing ovals of his eyes widening.

"Yes, that was my first thought, too. And I imagine that my second was much the same as yours."

"That it's obviously a scheme."

I shrug. "Everything always is. But he has something I need, and I'm pretty sure that my soul goes to the Source when I die whatever I do, so I can stand using my talents for him for a little while."

He nods, relaxing back into his seat. "And what is my part in this?"

"I'd like to hear -in your own words- how you run things here and why. I will then most likely have a few questions, perhaps a few observations…" I shrug. "I can't offhand think of a way to say this isn't supposed to be a threat without making the assurance sound like a threat, but my pact with the First doesn't include fighting for him either personally or with my wider resource base."

"You're here as a conquest consultant."

"More or less."

"I'm surprised that the First's pride allowed it. That it allowed the suggestion that anyone else could have useful input."

"I'm half expecting him to read through my report and then tear it up in front of me." I shrug. "But whatever. I'll have fulfilled my part of our bargain."

"Would you like to tour my realm?"

"Depending on what I learn… Perhaps later. Since you clearly take pride in what you've achieved here, I'm happy to take your word for it."

"My study, then." I nod, and he rises to his feet. "Sergeant Wu, thank you, you and your detail are dismissed."

Wu bows and then she and her fellow soldiers about-face and march out of the audience chamber. Satanus then rises from his seat and steps down from the dais.

"This way."

The doors open at our approach as he leads me through his palace. It's well-lit, though I can't see where the light is actually coming from. The same was true outside: light filtering down from above but without an observable source. Of course this is a less physical place than the material world, but I suppose that it might be significant. But this palace…

"Do you like it?"

Devil May Cry! That's what this place reminds me of! You go through various parts of Hell -or whatever that game called it- and then your final fight with Mundus starts in a Greek temple against a three-eyes Greek statue.

"Is this real stone?"

"That would depend on what you mean by 'real'. It's not quarried from Earth and then brought here."

"I suppose that would be a bit expensive. Was it quarried locally?"

"In a manner of speaking. Purgatory was more or less formless; you're familiar with Dante's description?" I nod. "It wasn't too hard to impose form on it, taking examples from the Earth and altering the nature of this place to reflect them. I take it that you recognised the Parthenon?"

"And I thought you were simply being vainglorious."

He smirks. "Well… I could have picked something more modest, but it set the tone I was going for."

"And you made the fields in the same way."

"It was a considerable investment, but one which has paid off nicely. Purgatory's undefined neutral state means that it takes such impressions well, and the population appreciates having actual work to do."

"Sergeant Wu was a relatively recent addition to the population. I take it that you have older residents?"

"Unlike in the other circles of Hell, there was nothing here for them to interact with. As such, they stayed remarkably preserved. There's still a limit: I haven't met any soul here older than five thousand years old."

"Where does the power from their breakdown go?"

"The mists. It happens slowly, so there's no build-up in specific places."

I raise my eyebrows. "And none to you?"

"A little." He glances my way and smiles, nodding. "Most of the power I gain is from having this realm as an anchor. Ah, here we are."

He leads me inside a… Hm. A planning room. Maps of fields and mines are pinned to the walls, while reference books on farming and mining sit on a bookshelf next to books containing records of his holdings' yields.

It nice to see someone taking this seriously-.

The door closes and Satanus speaks a word that echoes oddly in my ears. A shimmering, burning rune appears on the inside of the door, sealing it shut.

Satanus shimmers, the demon lord being rapidly replaced by… A short man in a grey business suit.

"Not a surprise, then." I tilt my head to the side. "Luthor isn't as subtle as he thinks he is. I was prepared to ignore it because it makes his eventual descent here more enjoyable."

"It makes no difference to me what form you take. I haven't been retained to assess your fashion sense."

"You were serious about that then? I assumed that this was part of some scheme to kill the First, if not everyone."

"It might come to that. But that sounds like an awful lot of work, even if I was entirely successful, which is far from guaranteed. And it would just cause chaos, and the First has recovered from such injuries before."

"You're a little harder to hurt than a human magician."

"Don't underestimate Mister Constantine. But I fear we're getting off-topic. What's going on with the cybernetics?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 5
16th March 2013
07:31 GMT

Neron sneers at me as his giant henchmen carry me into his presence, one holding my right arm and the other holding my left.

And then I fall towards the floor as the pair of them double over in pain. Activating my aero-discs I stabilise before I actually land, and reorientate myself so that I'm feet-downwards.

"I didn't say carry him by his arms! I said rip his arms off and then drag him before me!"

Neron stomps towards his fallen flunkies as green-black runes burn from their foreheads, hearts and… Well, there's a faint glow from their loincloths that I'm trying to ignore.

"Off! OFF! How hard is it for you stupid creatures to understand!"

I raise an interrogative finger. "Lord Neron-."

His head jerks around so that he can better glower at me. "Oh, I'll get to you."

I shrug. "It's the First's time you're wasting."

"ARMS!" He leans forwards slightly and then kicks upwards with his right leg, the demon's left shoulder exploding as he smashes its arm from its torso. "THESE THINGS!"

I knew this would happen when I started with the best, but I'm not even halfway down the list yet.

"ARMS!"

Soon enough, the spasming giants are denuded of both arms while Neron-

"Well!?"

-is still glaring at them. They can't actually respond due to him not having turned off the torture spell he's got running on them, and they're both bleeding freely from their wounds… I'm pretty sure that sort of damage would kill a human.

"Neron, they can't respond while you've-"

"I don't need your help in disciplining my slaves!"

"-got that spell running. They literally can't respond."

"I'm not shouting at them for their benefit! I'm shouting at them for the benefit of everyone in range of my voice!"

If he has nothing else to recommend him -and I'm beginning to suspect that he doesn't- Neron has a powerful set of lungs.

I smile. "This does actually remind me of the way the First acted out after being told how to kill his 'brothers'. Just wrecked his whole palace. But please, carry on. I'd like to see how strong the resemblance is."

He gurns, and I fairly obviously fail to keep my amusement from showing. That act of profound disrespect results in him getting himself under control and making a slashing motion with his right arm. The runes flare and then die, and-

"Uuuuuuuuunrrrrr…"

-they regain control of their bodies, though they might be in too much pain to really do anything with that ability. Neron strides back towards me, waving negligently at his groaning guards.

"Drag them out. And staple their arms back on."

Flunky demons who had been lurking around the corners of his throne room scurry/scuttle/slime to obey, though they're all much smaller than the objects of their attention and it looks like they're a bit confused about how they're supposed to actually carry out the order.

But Neron has already shifted his attention back to me.

"I want your arms."

"Good for you. 'May all your dreams come true but one', as the Ventrians say. And to be clear, while I am not authorised to kill any of Hell's inhabitants at will I can kill in self-defence."

"Kill me?" His demeanour changes at once. He appears to find the idea genuinely amusing. "Ha! Me… Kill-."

He thrusts his arm out to the right, and-. Green fire is everywhere! The wall explodes, and the wave of fire erupts out across his castle ground. It eats through the walls and converts them into shrapnel, through demons and converts them into carbonised skeletons or simply ash, and then out through the curtain wall into the Province of Gull.

It burns through streets, houses and markets, arcane shields flickering and failing around some of the better properties but failing moments later. It burns and spreads until a wedge of destruction has been wrought upon the unsuspecting metropolis.

"Me."

He keeps looking at me, still smiling.

Yes, killing a great swath of people far weaker than you to show off to someone who isn't interested in competing with you. What am I supposed to take away from that, exactly? That you're childish and insecure? That you have no interest in promoting your province's strength? In building at all?

"I see. Then there isn't much else to say. I suspect that I've learned… Everything useful that I can here." I land, and walk towards the coagulating stone at the edge of the blast zone. "Thank you for your time, my lord."

"Yes, go, you wretched waste of my time."

I look around for a moment and then jump, landing on a parapet that was just out of the arc of the fire.

It appears that my earlier idea about focusing work on the more powerful demons was misguided to say the least. I failed to take their arrogance into account. Top end demons aren't going to be interested in service jobs because there isn't anything that can 'pay' them a meaningful amount. Satanus's human heritage lets him bypass the normal limits on demons getting to Earth and staying there, but for the others…

They don't have the same needs that mortals do, even if their drives are fairly similar. I think it was in… Hellblazer, where the First remarked that angels and demons have just enough free will to occasionally wonder what the point of that sort of existence is. With nothing to work towards, they become childish and self-destructive.

But weaker demons… They need to cooperate. They need to overcome their instincts and cooperate because they can't get through the day without each other.

I glance upwards as I hear the work crew manage to slide one of the giants a short distance across the stone floor.

I activate my aero-discs again as the still-burning fire eats one of the supports beneath the parapet I'm standing on and causes it to crumble into rubble.

The First must know what sort of being Neron is, surely? So why leave him in position? I'll have to speak to some of the other-.

"Begging your pardon, milord."

A demon dressed like a butler stands a little way along the parapet. From the slight disordering of his clothes I'd guess that he was in the line of fire but was able to throw himself out of the way before it would have hit him.

"It's not my place to pardon anyone here, but you have my attention."

"My mistress suspected that you might find Neron's presence tiresome, and bid me offer you the hospitality of her house."

"I doubt that was particularly hard to guess. Who is your mistress?"

"The Lady Rosacarnis, milord."

"Hospitality, I don't need. Information and intelligence I would appreciate. I am after all here to perform a task."

"As your say, milord. I am sure her ladyship knows best."

"Then lead on. Goodness knows I'm not going to learn anything else of value here."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th March 2013
09:37 GMT +2

Filippos Sachinidis, the current Greek Finance Minister, stares at the machine that so much of Greece's economy will be based on.

"And you say this can make anything?"

"In theory, yes. In practice, it's only really good at making simple things. Pure ingots of metal, perfectly regular wooden beams, regular stones or bricks, things like that. You can put anything in, but it's more efficient if what you put in is mostly contains what you want to take out." I shrug. "Put an old mostly steel tractor in and you'll get out steel ingots faster than if you put in random waste."

"But we… Can put in random waste?"

"Yes, certainly. As I said, it won't be as efficient, and it would be better if you could compact it down first, but it would work perfectly well."

"And it is safe? I have heard horror stories about nanotechnology."

"Science fiction nonsense, for the most part. A little over two years ago the League of Shadows used a nanotech weapon that was about ninety five percent airborne coolant, and they still lost most of their cloud in a two minute attack. If they'd been trying to kill people then using the nanobots to transmute explosives would have been more efficient. These nanobots are designed to be more vulnerable to changes in temperature, so that they need the fabricator's cold field to remain functional. If they leave that area-. You see the yellow line?"

I point inside the fabricator, and he nods cautiously.

"Then they melt the moment they try to do any work, get exposed to sunlight-." I point upwards. "You see the ultraviolet lights up there?"

He peers upwards, then nods.

"Those will destroy them. Or if they get exposed to electricity or radio waves or the human body."

"The.. human body can destroy them? Surely they are too small for the immune system to attack."

"Oh, far too small. But human bodies are hot and filled with reactive chemicals. Without something cooling them, they can't cope."

"Can the cooling system from this machine be removed?"

"Yes, but not easily. It's built into the whole thing to keep the field strength even and prevent people detaching it and weaponising it. Leonard really doesn't like people doing that."

"Leonard Snart."

I raise my right forefinger. "Doctor Leonard Snart."

"Who is the American supervillain 'Captain Cold'."

"He was. Between what we're paying him and the respect he got for fixing the icecaps… And the reports of the prison's counsellor, we're confident that he's happier doing legitimate work than he would be robbing places."

A decision that's aided by the collapse of quite a few currencies. Mildly pleased to be ahead of the curve there. I mean, they were based on faith anyway and governments were constantly inflating their supply with their overworked printing presses… But faith is gone after the second global crisis in two years. Barter has become even more widespread, particularly given that Mannheim focused on America which made it through the Sheeda Incursion mostly intact.

"But the Justice League's funding comes from the United Nations. Doesn't it?"

"Ah… No. I mean, it did, but we spotted pretty quickly that with the… Collapse, that wasn't going to work."

It's interesting. In the American context, the ability of Congress to control military funding is supposed to restrain the President's ability to make war. It adds a new dimension to something like Command and Conquer when you realise that the Global Defence Initiative has the ability to be completely financially self-sufficient through tiberium refining. A military that isn't funded by taxes but by expanding into new territory, that is technically incentivised to let the tiberium infestation of Earth get worse, would have been profoundly disturbing to the Founding Fathers.

He looks at me in an interrogative manner.

"The Justice League is… Issuing its own precious metal-based currency."

"Can the Justice League do that?"

"Legally or practically?"

"Practically."

"We have several members and associates capable of casual space travel. There's basically no competition for space mining, and… I already had a big pile of gold I was using for my own expenses." Plus the stuff I took off Larfleeze. It was still a big pile after I returned everything I could identify as coming from a specific place and giving all of the pieces of technology which Dox wanted to him. "Honestly, choosing a design and a weight was more difficult. I wanted a full metal coin, but Mister Atom pointed out that was excessive, and that with so many currencies in freefall any precious metal would be a stabilising influence…"

"And legally? Does the treaty between the Justice League and the United Nations allow the League to issue currency?"

"The subject wasn't really covered. Technically, the League can get income from other sources of appropriate moral probity, and while 'commemorative tokens' it issues aren't legal tender anywhere we've got to the point where the dollar isn't accepted in most of the United States."

I mean, it is, but only at Weimar Republic inflation levels, and you better have actual coins or notes. Coins actually trade slightly better than paper money. There was a period in British history where the old pure copper 1p and 2p coins were worth more as metal than their face value, but the metal value of modern coins is nearly nothing. But without anyone leaning on them, people seem to value them more highly than paper.

It's like they've overcome one level of nonsense only to get tripped up by another layer of nonsense that's an exact copy of it.

"Is that a good idea?"

"Having a stable currency? Yes, it's an excellent idea. I've checked the records of millions of civilisations and Mister Atom ran a lot of simulations." And used more than the egg cup full of common sense that most economists in government seem to share between them. "Apropos of nothing, if Demetrios Prokopios could be found and returned to-."

"Do you know where he is?"

He's staring at me with an expression of pure desperation.

"Um. Only approximately. I'm trying to track him down, but stabilising the world is more urgent. So… If he came back, you'd-."

"I was always clear that I was taking this job as a caretaker. Is he a demigod? Is that how he did it?"

"I'm afraid that I'm not inclined to betray confidences in that way."

"We're losing physical currency, did you know that? People know that the Justice League are working on something here and the drachma is suddenly in demand in other countries. That is not something that Greece has had to worry about since the City State period. I don't know how to handle it. We need him."

"Then… I will make that my highest priority." I look over to where a forklift truck has carried in a pallet of scrap metal. Excellent, they're ready for the demonstration. "Do you want to see it in action?"

"Yes. Yes please."

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd September 2010
19:17 GMT -5

She didn't turn up. I held up my end of the agreement, and then-!

Warning! Deviation from baseline thought processes detected!

Ah. Yes. Narcissism. The belief that the universe revolves around you. Artemis is a woman-

Girl.

-with her own responsibilities.

I don't think you should lose sight of that age difference.

Her not being where she agreed to be isn't a deliberate insult. It's far more likely that she lost track of time hunting down Gotham hoodlums, or… I don't know. Popular culture tells me that women-

Girls.

-take a long time to get ready, clothes and makeup and whatnot. Not something I know anything about, and Mia didn't want to talk about it for some reason.

Okay, sport? I think that maybe you should me let me handle this.

What? Why? I realised what the problem was, and even if I hadn't I wouldn't have done anything about my thoughts because that would be counterproductive.

No. Not that. The Evil Formula.

I stop in mid-air.

What makes you think I'd agree to that now?

You reconstructed the formula for Vitamin X from Dennis Wilson's body. That means that you don't need it any more.

That wasn't the point. The point is that I'm not the person I was before I got-. Wait.

I scan the area around Artemis, making sure-. Ah.

Carry this on later.

Sigh.

I transition forwards, construct shield easily blocking the high calibre rounds from the two marksmen. They freeze for a moment upon seeing me, and open fire on full automatic at my face and chest. Two orange ribbons remove their guns from their hands, and two pithing needles remove their capacity for movement.

What worthless people.

That-.

No, I'm not killing them.

And I'm glad to hear it.

Because I know that Artemis heard those shots, and because I want to remain within my established moral bounds-

Good.

-without undoing the Formula.

Less good, but okay, I'll take it.

I pick up the paralysed shooters and fly down to where Artemis is pulling some rough-looking types out of a boathouse. She looks up warily at me for a moment.

"Ah. Hey."

"Good evening." I scan the-. "Gosh, that's a lot of guns. And some pretty nasty chemicals."

"Yeah, so I kinda had to drop everything…"

Now what I think you should say-.

"No, no, I quite understand." I land just in front of her, dropping the marksmen on her pile with a pained 'uuh'. "And you clearly did something good here, but I'm not-. If you'd phoned me-"

"What, you're pissed 'cause I didn't tell you I'd be-"

"-I could have watched your back."

"-late..?"

She looks at me for a moment, then looks away. "Oh. Yeah. I guess that-. Ah… Yeah."

"Or -if you really find me that distasteful- you could phone someone else. I want you to not die more than I want to date you."

"Okay!" She gestures upwards with her right hand, left still holding her bow. "Okay. I'll… Get some backup next time."

"Thank you." I look at her pile of goons, then stick a soundproof bubble around them. "So do you want me to fly them back to Star City..?"

She looks decidedly shifty. "A-actually… I.. was working out of Gotham."

"Gosh that sounded convincing."

That earns me a glare. Which gradually morphs into a look of genuine concern, which she then shifts back into neutral.

"What? We all got zeta tube access. I can work wherever."

I look around… What I think used to be some sort of lifeboat station..? Or a fishing boat launch site? It's a good distance outside of Gotham, and they probably used it because it's a little harder to smuggle things in through the Gotham harbour than it used to be.

"No Green Arrow?"

"Just because he's my uncle doesn't mean we do everything together. Green Lantern doesn't follow you around everywhere."

I smirk. "Ah, yeah. I should probably warn you now. When Green Arrow said that, everyone else thought he meant 'illegitimate daughter'."

She frowns. "What-? No, no-. Green Arrow doesn't even have any kids."

"No, he… Does. His name's Connor Hawke, and he lives-."

"What?" She blinks. "How do you even know that?"

I shrug. "I know everything about everyone."

Her eyes widen. Ah. Maybe I shouldn't have said that?

You think, sport?

"You've been spying on me?"

"No, of course not. I've been spying on everyone. Singling you out would be creepy."

"I can't BELIEVE-." She closes her mouth, looking horrified. "Oh no. Ohhhh no. You know..?" I smile and gives my head a small shake. "You know about my Dad?"

"Can you narrow it down? I know he's a nasty piece of work-."

"He's a SUPERVILLAIN!"

I shrug. "So's Kaldur's father."

She blinks. "What?"

"Yeah, Black Manta. And his step-father -the man who actually raised him- used to work for Black Manta as a pirate. Mia got her powers from a world-conquering alien AI with a seven digit body count who tried to destroy Earth twice, the only other Orange Lantern in the universe has killed thousands of people just to steal their stuff, Superman's grandfather led the isolationist movement that was why almost his whole species died when Krypton exploded and Batman's father once broke into a pharmacy to steal drugs. Your parents' criminal history doesn't say anything about you."

"Um." That appears to be giving her some trouble. "Oh. Ah… Pharmacy? So he-."

"He was a medical doctor, he needed medicine to save a patient and it was closed due to it being the middle of the night. He left a note and payment next to the till. Batman's father was actually a really great guy."

"Okay. Clearly, I… I've been letting this mess me up for no reason at all." She takes a steadying breath. "Guess we… Missed your reservation, huh?"

"Reservation?" I frown. "No, I cook. I-."

No. Don't complain about how much it put you out. Especially as it didn't actually cause a problem. Be magnanimous.

"Oh. Ah, damn, I-. Sorry."

"No, no, I plated it up and stuck it in subspace. No time has passed, so it's all fine. Actually…" I look around. Now that the fighting's over I can hear the lapping waves, quite sounds of the wildlife coming out from hiding… "This isn't actually a bad venue. I could hook up some lights, drop off the gang members, we could do it here." She doesn't look keen. "The site of your victory?"

"Look, I'm… Kinda beat? Can we-? Put it off..?"

I did everything right, and-. And-. And I just gave her an emotional shock, and she's been in a fight. She didn't say no, and she's probably just not in the mood.

It's fine.

"Sure. When's good for you?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 5
16th March 2013
07:56 GMT

I look out of the carriage window, down from the thin and narrow road heading towards Lady Rosacarnis's manor house. It's like one of those cartoon cliff side paths that crumble underneath Wile Ethelbert Coyote just after Road Runner dashes across, but it stretches out far further, has even less support and from the look of the surface has been in use for far longer.

And down below, what looks like a pit of burning spectres, desperately and fruitlessly reaching for relief or escape.

"Druoth, what's the point of that?"

Druoth doesn't look around from the coachman's seat. "The point of what, m'lord?"

"This road, the pit, the journey… Just about anything I've seen since leaving Neron's penis-substitute of a fortress."

"I couldn't comment on Neron's manhood, m'lord, but as you observed his temper is somewhat uneven."

"Seemed pretty even to me."

"As you say, m'lord."

"Not in a good way, I just didn't see anything to convince me that there was anything there beyond ego. And.. power. But what about the rest?"

"The location suited my former master, m'lord. It grants access to the city without quite being inside the city. Away from the riffraff, you understand."

Hm.

"No. No, honestly, I'd have thought that being closer to the city would be almost pure benefit. Neron's clearly not intellectually capable of doing anything complicated, and this way anyone who visits your mistress is completely obvious. All Neron would have to do is place one of his least brain damaged minions in an observation position and he'd see all the comings and goings and there's a rear entrance that he hasn't spotted."

"I cannot give away any confidences of my mistress's house."

"Can he hit it from here?"

"The topology of the infernal realms is no simple matter, and Neron is capable of more complex spell-casting than his… Demonstration, might have suggested."

"So, yes. Alright, but…" Ah. "Oh… Really? You don't site it in the city so that he doesn't see it tank one of his tantrums and then try focusing on it?"

"I couldn't say, m'lord."

Okay, that's stupid, but it makes sense. "What about the road?"

"What of it, m'lord?"

'Why does it look so thin?', is what I want to ask. But… Dream Of Infrastructure.

'It looks thin because Hell is stupid' isn't an answer I'm happy with, but the road clearly is solid. So… Something to do with the lake? Power source? I sit back in the carriage, which looks like a standard aristocrat's coach but actually has the internal dimensions to contain a man of my size. I'll ask the lady of the manor.

And here we are. Demonic gothic castle with.. an actual… Eighteenth century manor sticking out of it? Suggests a degree of civility at least. Rosacarnis herself isn't waiting for me. I suppose I just don't rank..? Or perhaps she wants me to see her hard at work to give the best first impression.

Druoth pulls open the door, and I step outside.

"How does it work in Hell? Does the house employ many servants, or is it just you?"

He leads the way towards the heavy wooden doors which guard the front entrance, and they open at his approach.

"Many demons work in the background. Few are allowed to present themselves before the mistress."

Decoration is… Medieval with a demonic twist. Friezes of demons decapitating angels and laughing at burning sinners. Images of saints where each shows some hidden vice. Paintings of hunting scenes where the prey are intelligent creatures, or where the huntsman falls to temptation and is slain, damned and his soul is taken by the demon who distracted him.

And there are some natty banners with interesting runic designs. And-.

I stop, looking down at my feet and the… Muscle tissue?

I snort, shaking my head as I start walking again. A demonic red carpet. Touching.

Druoth reaches a large and impressive-looking double door and then turns, bowing.

"The lady is within."

"Thank you."

He pulls open one side of the door and steps aside, gesturing to the opening with his free hand. I walk-.

"Am I supposed to tip you?"

"That won't be necessary, m'lord."

Right, well, I offered. Arms folded behind my back, I strike through… Huh. Not actually that big.

Rosacarnis herself is a relatively plain woman, black hair, Caucasian skin… Doesn't look like she's been getting much sun. Human-looking in general, without any of the bestial traits or exaggeration I'm used to seeing in demons. She's sitting in a plush chair, a glass of something that's probably magic-enriched wine on a nearby side table. The other chairs around the table are noticeably less nice, but still good quality. Seats for subordinate allies, then. And she's waiting for me to say something.

I bow a slight degree. "Lady Rosacarnis, I am Grayven, here at the behest of the First. Your butler intimated that you wanted to speak to me?"

"You are here to test our efficiency? Our effectiveness?"

"Yes."

"At what, precisely?"

"Whatever is it that you do."

"I was trying to take revenge against the wizard who killed my father."

"Okay, one, you hated your father. Two, I'm pretty sure that you killed him after he came back here."

There's a very slight twitch. Surprised I knew about that? You did order him tortured to death in front of quite a few lackeys.

"And three, your personal fixations are your own problem. How are you at damning mortal souls?"

She waves her right hand dismissively. "I don't answer general summonings myself. I have people for that."

"Ah! Good, good. I'll want to go over your training scheme, pricing, that sort of thing. Neron had an episode before I could get that far with him."

"You do realise that this is a scheme of some sort, don't you?"

"Yeah, and I don't care-." Hm. "Though while we're on the subject, you've got a load of information about Neron's doings, right?" She shrugs. "Share it all, and I'll kill your uncle for you."

"My uncle is immortal."

I smirk. "No such thing. Your uncle is merely very tough, as you yourself demonstrated. Come on. I'm giving you security in exchange for information on your enemy. What's the problem, here?"

She considers me for a moment, then nods. "Very well. I will show you to his resting place myself. I believe that I will find this educational."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 5
16th March 2013
08:03 GMT

Oh.

I mean, I know he's invulnerable, but…

I'm looking at a demon who is halfway between a chaos warrior in full armour, a yautja and a velociraptor-. The proper reptile version, not the crap feathered version. And even though I know that him being submerged in a bath of high-quality demonic poison would diminish Stercorax somewhat, the lack of animation and the proof of his defeat…

But he's smaller than me.

"The brother of my father. Stercorax. Do you know how I defeated-?"

"Tricked him into eating poisoned prisoners, then dumped him here. Pretty clever, given how young you were." I glance at her, working through the timelines. "Still are, actually."

I take my daiklave out of subspace and-.

"That won't be sufficient."

I nod. "You're probably right. I guess it's a man-thing, you know? 'He can't be more invulnerable than I am powerful'." I smile with mock-sheepishness, and shrug. "Serious attempt comes next. Oh, could you please formally authorise me to kill him? As.. head of the house and whatnot."

She raises her right hand, making the horns. "For your attempt to overthrow me the very moment you heard of my father's death, I condemn you to death."

"Thank you." I step up to the poison bath, take the daiklave in a two-handed grip with the tip touching the middle of his chest.

Deep breath. Enact the Magistrate's Sentence.

And shove down! Kill!

And duck as the tip of the daiklave snaps and flies across the room.

I hold up the rest of the blade for a moment, and sigh. I mean, at least I know that I'm stronger than the materials I used to make this. And I-.

Huh.

"Hey, look! I actually made a tiny groove."

Rosacarnis frowns and comes closer for a better look. Then she leans in so she can actually see it.

"Oh."

"How does his invulnerability work, anyway? Usually the word gets used to describe people who are merely very tough, but this looks a bit more conceptual."

"I never found out."

"Did you consider hiring someone to investigate? Or however that works here."

"No. That would allow others to discover that he was still alive. It would risk him escaping when they studied him. And if they discovered it, what would stop them using that secret against me?"

"Binding magic? Whatever you've got going on that keeps Druoth in line?"

"Druoth is loyal to my family."

I frown as I amble across the room to where the tip of my sword flew, picking it up when I arrive. "Why?"

I turn around to see her smiling. "A god is asking a demon why they're loyal?"

"Your father bothered raising you, and had some sort of working relationship with his brother. You have an actual house here. But you tortured your father to physical destruction-"

"I-."

"-when he regrew after the angels burned most of him to ash. Perhaps in revenge for him making you torture and murder your nursemaid, perhaps because you like being in charge. I haven't got a complete handle on how demon aristocracy works yet. I could see various demons clustering around you for protection, offering their service in exchange… Or maybe there's some sort of instinct in play. But a negotiated position is very different from actual loyalty."

She's looking at me with a mixture of concern and respect. Good, yes, I do know about you. And now to cement that idea.

I repair my daiklave and stow it as I amble back towards the recumbent form of Stercorax, keeping my eyes on her as she tries to work out how to respond. And then without moving my head I draw the Sword of the Fallen and shove the points directly into Stercorax's forehead.

It cuts through easily, and I slice it out through the left side of his head before flicking the brain and blood residue off it and returning it to its scabbard.

And now there's fear.

"There, dead. Perhaps you can find some other use for the body, though I suspect that the cut will remain even if it gets occupied by someone else."

"How did you do that?"

"Preparation. I like being able to kill anything. It's a remarkably calming way to exist. I don't have to worry about certain classes of potential enemy." I clap my hands together, and she flinches. Just a little. But I notice, and she knows I noticed. "So, back to work! How do you see your role in Gull?"

"I facilitate certain trades, and my guarantees keep the parties involved from doing anything unwise."

"And your father did the same?"

"Yes. Amongst other things."

"And his spat with Constantine?"

"The First likes to bestow certain tasks on us. He likes to remind us who is in charge. Despite my youth I was called upon to play a small role in removing Remiel and Duma from Pandemonia."

"Ah yes, whatever happened to them?"

She reaches into her dress and pulls out… A very small knife.. ring. Designed to scratch and poison, if I'm any judge. She carefully holds it out to me. I take it and give it a scan-.

Unable to comply. / Ping

Oh? Now that is interesting. I hold it up to take a closer look. Black, matte… Presumably at least somewhat hard if she had it made into a knife.

"What is it made of?"

"Kaahuite. It… Accretes, in the lower levels of Masak Mavdil. It can be used to negate certain angelic powers. Collecting it is a highly regarded profession of the demons who brave the depths."

"Fascinating. And this substance allowed you to nullify their abilities?"

"Not at first. Shield against them, wound them, yes. But angels are not generally known for their cunning."

"You tempted them into going to a place where they'd be surrounded by it. What lure did you use?"

"Masak Mavdil is where we keep captured angels. Naturally, they were concerned for the rehabilitation of their fallen brethren."

"P-heh. Walked into it. Was Neron involved in that in any way?"

"He struck the final blows after they were weakened. He is a temperamental fool, but he has power."

I nod. True enough.

"Alright then. As a stake-holder, how and why would you change Hell?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 12
20th March 2013
16:44 GMT

The nightmarish amalgamation of fleshes and spirits before me tries to smile, but it looks like the… Nerves? Animation spells? Of its flesh-mask aren't quite connected up right. Or perhaps it's deliberate. In either case, the face doesn't move correctly for the expression.

"I admit that I'm surprised. So few people take any interest in the workings of the Odium."

In general shape it has definite stiltman vibes, two elbows and two knees allowing disproportionally long limbs to extend towards handholds in different parts of the room, hands and prehensile feet occasionally reaching out to twiddle with the controls on one machine or another.

"I can hardly perform the task which the First has set before me if I ignore Hell's industrial base. I understand that most of your components are alive?"

"I've found that distributing my intelligence reduces response times and allows severed parts to act independently."

"Ah, no. I mean the components you use in your work, not your personal components."

"Oh, it's been some time since I had to explains things to a rank outsider!" The demon before me sounds rather happy about having the opportunity. "In essence, Hell is a more arcane realm than Earth, but still has a strong element of physicality. Outside of Masak Mavdil, we are actually a somewhat material plane."

"Oh?"

"Oh, yes. If we were purely arcane, things would be very different. You should visit the Dream if you want to see what that is like. And while Masak Mavdil follows different rules, it also serves as our anchor point, tethering us and allowing us to accrete a concrete nature."

"And… Why has no one mentioned this to me before now?"

"We're demons."

I make an amused hiss. "Fair point."

"But it's so hard to make progress when people don't share information."

"Oh, I agree. But to return to the topic of raw materials?"

"As I said, we're a realm of both physicality and magic. As such, our materials must be composed of both."

"Do you have trouble sourcing what you need?"

"No, nooo. It's a fun day out for all the apprentices!"

"And what does it involve?"

"They get to take the rending engines for a test drive."

"Where?"

"Anywhere! We need things that are magical and physical, and the best source of things like that is anywhere those things are already one!"

"The souls of the damned."

"No! Those are purely arcane. They can be used, certainly, but they need to be broken down and bound to tangible materials first."

"Then..?"

"Demons! The slow and the unlucky. Our rendering engines chase them down and split their tissues up! Demon essence and demon flesh, just what we need!"

S-? Seriously?

"I don't imagine that makes you particularly popular."

The demon shrugs with two shoulders and a hip, bending in ways that make my own joints ache.

"We're demons. And we make useful things!"

So… Random murder… Or mutilation, if they retain any sort of consciousness in their new form. I should ask.

"Do the resulting artefacts remain aware?"

"That depends on what exactly is used. The spiritual power of a demon is essentially malleable. Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. If I took your brain and cut it in half, and attached the half to the half-brain of someone else, would it be you? Would it be them? Would it be a new and fascinating person?"

"Probably that last one."

"But you're a god. You function as a being of spirit even more than we demons do. And your spirit is as much in your arm as your brain."

"That sounds like a fascinating area of study. But can you make… Mundane things as well?"

The demon's limbs still. "Like what?"

"To pick an example at random… A car."

"A car."

"Yes. They're a-."

A.. part of the demon's body which I had taken as being a hump… Opens up, revealing a series of inhuman brains linked together with.. organic tubes. One elongated arm reaches around and twists the assemblage, and-. Oh, I see. It can only read from one brain module at a time.

"Human machine for travelling. I could build one, but the wheel is not an organic shape." The demon flicks its hump closed. "It would be easier to build a novel beast. That's the sort of order I get most frequently."

"Is most of your work in the form of bespoke commissions?"

"As opposed to what?"

There was a definite edge to that 'what'. So this is a master craftsman who finds the idea of mass production insulting and degrading.

"'You' in the sense of the renderers as a whole. The sort of repetitive task you assign as a training exercise to apprentices while you personally focus on things requiring a greater level of skill."

"Ahhh…" The humps pops open again and is twisted two places around. "Medical and augmentative work forms the bulk of what we do. We use parts of demons to add to demons with currency to trade. Next comes the weaving of human spiritual energy with mundane matter; very time consuming and usually produces sub-par results. Then we're on to equipment."

"Do you produce cybernetics?"

"Not in the technical sense, though we do make mechanical golem limbs."

"Can human souls use your services?"

"I don't see how they could before becoming demons themselves. Living humans have been known to make contact, but the requirements are different."

"Do you trade for raw materials with them?"

"It depends on the difficulty of the job, but yes, it has been known."

"Okay. Would you mind showing me your ledgers?"

"That can be arranged."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 15
23rd March 2013
07:13 GMT

Alright, halfway point. The first time I've visited the office in Praetori which the First assigned to me. The demons here aren't exactly physically imposing, but they all look like they've modified themselves… Or been modified, to be better at searching through paperwork, carrying ledgers or writing with their own fingers using built-in reserves of your choice of ink or blood. None of them are a physical threat and the impression my god-senses are giving is that they're either devoted to their jobs or can't remember not to not be.

So what have I learned?

Demons have ork-levels of empathy. Neron's tantrums and the renderers' drive-by harvesting missions are… They're treated like course-hazards, not as decisions made by individuals who could be overcome by numbers and slain. Technically, law enforcement in Hell is headed jointly by Agony and Ecstasy, but the only thing they appear to have an interest in is the rule about them owning you if you lose to the same enemy three times in a row. They very obviously don't care about actual order, or the laws that would normally be established to maintain it.

Their staff are similar. They do occasionally receive direct instructions from their bosses, but for the most part are effectively left to enforce various pacts to the best of their ability/as far as their strength allows/when they can be bothered. Agony and Ecstasy do occasionally enforce discipline, but it's fairly haphazard and…

Again, it's a course hazard. Except the ones who actually derive satisfaction from being tormented by their bosses.

And then there's Satanus. The Chief Renderer made it pretty clear that he was lying to me about his raw materials. Combined with the comment that really old souls are unusual in Purgatory it seems likely that he's got a soul smelter set up somewhere. Probably on Earth. My best guess is that he focuses on the older ones because they're most likely to know nothing about modernity, and to have learned to accept the empty mists that the realm had before he took over. They can't help him as much and wouldn't want to anyway. Which means that the bricks, the soil… The souls of the mildly damned are mixed up in all of it.

Lovely.

Neron is creating improved warriors. He does actually treat his best soldiers with a degree of consideration. Based on Rosacarnis's reports, it looks like he was probably more annoyed that the new strength-focused giants couldn't casually rip me apart rather than their failure as individuals. The shining light I saw may well have been him attempting to tune up the spells, or him giving up and removing them. I might be able to get some of them to talk about it by claiming to have permission to talk to them and speaking with approval of the modification scheme, but it's the first sign I've seen that Neron is doing something useful with his position.

So, I suppose one of my first recommendations would be for the First to review all modifications and identify the most useful. Some sort of reward for whoever came up with it, and maybe a subsidy for demons considering getting it. But… Neron seems to prize destructive ability above everything else, and that's only really good for fighting other demons. Which probably isn't something that the First would want to encourage.

On a related note, I've also learned that the First has a marionette harem. Which… Isn't something that I particularly wanted to know, but it does suggest that he is perfectly happy to eliminate free will amongst the demonic population, at least at strategically useful points.

I think… Huh. Demons-. New demons come from three places. Firstly, existing demons use a part of their own innate energies to create them. This can look like normal sexual reproduction, or take the form of a parasitic implant inserted into the weaker party, or… One of a hundred different things. Secondly, a human soul can ascend to demonhood by absorbing Hell's magic until all of the virtuous traits have been boiled away. Most souls fall apart well before that happens, but even Nergal was a mortal man once upon a time. Thirdly, a naturally occurring locus of Hell's magics can give rise to a new demon. That's where Slime Demons come from, in their case not taking much power to come into being. Others… Well, it's not entirely clear that the abominations who exist within Masak Mavdil are demons, but that's how they arise and they're a good deal more…

Powerful.

Huh.

The thought occurs that while the Second and Third of the Fallen were demons, the First… He's more like an angel. Meaning that there's a good chance that he's vulnerable to kaahuite. Must remember to tell Constantine about that.

"Think of the devil..."

I look up as… That's not.. John-. Ah. No. It is, his other half.

"Do you prefer 'The Demon', 'John', or will 'Constantine' do?"

He drags a chair over from one of the other desks and takes up station across from me.

"Please, be seated."

"Got a fag?"

"You can't get one of the most popular narcotics in the world in Hell? I hadn't realised that the place had a 'no smoking' policy."

"They always put weird shit in it."

I shrug. I can imagine. I hold out my right hand-.

"Shouldn't you be more careful, asking people for things in Hell?"

"You're not a demon."

Silk cuts it is, then.

I pass the packet over, and he raises it to his nose and sniffs it. Then he smiles the smile of a forty-a-day man forced to go cold turkey before sliding a thumb nail through the plastic wrapping and popping open the packet.

"But you are a gent. You know who I am?"

"Roughly. A golem made using parts of John Constantine's memories and character, supposed to take his place in a ritual sacrifice."

"Did take his bleeding place in a ritual sacrifice. Saved the soul of every child in Hell an' still ended up down here."

"There's no justice."

"Gets better. Originally, I had a damned soul bound to me who was supposed to absorb all of the suffering, so I could just wander around. Wouldn't have been so bad, except some bastard up on Earth summoned it a few years later."

His eyes shimmer with dull red light as he pulls out a cigarette.

"So I went from looking just like him to this."

"You still look…" Alright, his jaw line's a little stronger, his hair's sticking out a bit and then there's the eye thing, but otherwise… "Pretty much like him."

"A demon, is what I mean."

"On the plus side, you can't get lung cancer again."

"Yeah, you better bloody believe he let me keep that memory."

"And since you managed to become a demon, just being here doesn't make you suffer any more, so why are you talking to me?"

"You've got a problem. You need to fix this place up a little, but making Hell work better is going to be worse for Earth, and everyone's running their own little games and generally taking the piss."

"So I should let you run your own little game and generally take the piss."

"Alright: do you think you're more cunning than John Constantine?"

"No."

"So why not tell me what you've put together so far and then we can put our heads together?"

"Because you're John Constantine with added demon. Neither thing exactly recommends you, and the two together don't cancel each other out."

"No?"

"I think I'll give myself a chance at solving it first."

"Alright." The end of his cigarette catches fire and he waves it, the smoke tracing out a runic shape. "Give me a bell when you admit defeat."

 

[Mr Zoat]

24th September 2010
12:12 GMT -5

"So, ah…" Artemis looks around my laboratory. "This… Is where you hang out.. when you're not… Whatever."

Scan the rat and add it to the chart. Now that I know what I'm looking for, I can see the inrodentia behaviour that I included in the bubble of 'increasingly dominant' behaviours when it really wasn't. Continuing to attack a rat that has surrendered and tried to flee, for example. Chimps will do that, but I don't have a licence for chimp experiments.

"One of the places."

And?

And no one wants a chimp supervillain.

True, but not the point. What would you be testing for?

To see how their behaviour changes.

Artemis stares into one of the rat warrens, watching the little monsters run hither and thither for a few moments before turning around to look at me. "So what exactly are you..? Experimenting on them for?"

"There are dozens of ways to augment people, but most of them are hard to replicate. They require rare materials, only work on certain people, the person who invented it died without leaving any records…" I circle my right hand. "It's… Frustrating."

I step back and draw my pistol.

"Can be a bit fun, though." I raise it and point it at Streaky the Cat. "Watch."

Her eyes wide. "Don't-!"

BANG!

Streaky collapses, half its head blown off by the bullet. I start the clock.

"What did you do that for?!"

"Wait for it."

"Wait for what you psycho?!"

Streaky's remains twitch, and I start watching it even more closely.

"This usually takes about thirty seconds."

"Oh God. What-?"

The brain, bone and flesh regrow, then the hair all over its body sticks straight out as if it had a huge static charge. It awkwardly clambers to its feet, but a misjudged pull causes it to float upwards into the air. Streaky itself doesn't seem unduly bothered by that and lets it legs just droop as it looks down on us.

"What happened?"

"I got a blood sample from a man called Mitchell Shelley. He's got a form of nanobots in his blood that resurrect him whenever he dies. And every time he dies, he gets a new superpower."

"What… Part of that means you need to shoot a cat in the head?"

"Contrary to popular belief, lethal injection is actually a pretty painful way to die, whereas a bullet to the brain is almost instant."

It reaches the ceiling, and tries to scrabble around so that it can get its claws into the ceiling panels. Turning over works perfectly well, but its attempt at grabbing on with claws just pushes it off the ceiling and back towards the floor.

"But why a cat?"

"Mia said something about feeling lonely, so using nanotech to increase her cat's survivability and longevity just seemed natural."

"You shot Mia's cat?"

"I made Mia's cat immortal." Ah… Shouldn't over-sell it. "Probably. I probably made her cat immortal."

"P-probably? You mean you-. You weren't.. sure..?"

"Oh, no, just that I knew it would get better from being shot. I don't know that it's immortal. The thing about immortality is that it's easy to prove things aren't immortal. Proving things are immortal is harder."

"Okay, this is-. Does this..? Okay. Does Mia know what you're doing with her cat?"

"Ah… Probably? I mean, she's got super hearing, so she almost certainly hears the shots."

"Did you-? You didn't tell her."

"I told her I gave her cat super powers. She seemed pretty happy about it."

"Can you make anything immortal?"

I sigh. "No. After I took the initial sample and used it, the nanobots adapted to the technique I used to flash their memory. Everything that hadn't already adapted to the rats and the cat just shut down, and the same things happens to fresh samples."

I shake my head. That was… So disappointing. The superpowers are more or less irrelevant since they're almost always worse than a power ring. Flawless regeneration, even from fatal injuries, with a guarantee of no memory loss, slipped through my grasp and I don't even understand why. I'd have taken that over the Evil Formula any day.

Yeah. That was a big loss all around.

Well, what did you expect me to do? Just dose myself and hope for the best?

No, that would have been a bad idea. I'm just lamenting what could have been.

"Can it fix other stuff?"

"Yes, but it's slower than dying and resurrecting. I'm not sure why." Honestly, I'm mostly hoping that the resurrection effect turns out to be something I can load into the ring.

Me too. I'd be delighted to fix everything wrong with you.

Hah. "Shelley told me that he shoots himself if he stubs his toe, because it's easier than waiting for the pain to die down."

"Okay, but-. What about other injuries?"

I turn away from the aerocat and look at her. "Are you thinking of getting augmented? I've got a few which don't have-"

She shakes her head. "No, no."

"-side-. Effects?" I pull my right hand back from my Vitamin X bottle. "Okay, what-?"

"Like if someone had a severed spine or something."

Ah… "No, nothing here would fix-. Reliably fix that."

"Oh."

"That could be fixed with a biodegradable lattice and a stem cell solution, and that's a mundane treatment. Already proven to work on rats. You'd need to find a university that was ready for human trials, but because of how stem cells work it's basically guaranteed to work properly. I watched a program which showed researchers using that technique to grow a human heart, it's fascinating stuff."

"Right." She nods. "I was just hoping there was some way to just… Click your fingers and make it go away. Y'know? I get there's actually a lot of work in-."

"I could just fix it using the power ring. That would be easier." I shrug. "Take a few seconds, no side effects as far as I can tell. Why, do you have a spinal injury?"

She looks at me as if she's trying to spot a trick. I'm not sure-.

"My Mom? Ring any bells?"

"Oh. Yes. Ah. Hm."

"So, can you-? Can you fix her?"

"Will I.. get a second date out of it?"

Her face hardens. "Are you seriously holding my Mom's spine to ransom?"

"I have an orange power ring. It's literally powered by selfishness."

"I guess that explains why you're so powerful."

I consider frowning, but-. No. "Yes. I want to date you. If doing a thing gets me a date, I can do it. If I tried healing your mother out of pure altruism, it wouldn't work. I wouldn't be able to do it. I mean, I'm sure your mother is as.. fine a woman as an ex-supervillain can be, but I don't have any investment in her."

Her face relaxes a little. "So.. you couldn't do it, if-. Okay. And I just-. A date."

I nod. "Yes."

"And.. you're not-." She shakes her head. "Okay. A date. Somewhere public this time."

I nod. "Can do. Shall we go and see her now?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th October 2017
16:21 GMT

It's still a little surprising, just how normal supervillains can be. Even when they're dressed up, if you know how to approach them, you can start a conversation about American football or baseball or the weather and get a pretty normal answer back. I suspect it's something to do with how secure they feel in their position, and the position of the organisation in general. But outside of that…

Skud smiles as her son George haphazardly shares his blocks with his half-sister Atalanta, the lights from her cortical implant visibly shimmering under her skin. I'm not sure if parental responsibility is what caused their parents to cut down their intake of intoxicants or their ardent desire not to forget to use protection ever again, but it's made them all more effective operatives so I'm not going to complain.

And it's not just my former wards who've taken advantage of the relative security of the Syndicate's oligarchic rule of most of Africa to… If not settle down, to at least pair off and have children. Supervillainesses… Less so than the menfolk, as it's much easier for them to find someone they're willing to have bear their children than it is for a villainess to find someone she wants to sire her children and then take a year out to actually gestate and wean them. I've been taking notes that I'm going to use to write a sociology essay on the subject, though it will probably have to be published decades from now. The extra children added to our population, most of whom have superpowers, mean that I actually got to build the first ever supervillain nursery school, complete with robotic security staff able to intervene if their powers flare up during tantrums.

My own eldest daughter is… Trying to interest Pavor Scott in letter blocks, but it doesn't seem to be holding his attention. She actually sighs as he toddles off to grab a soft ball to throw around. She's approached just about every other child in our social circle, but… The children her age don't have the attention span, and the older children aren't interested in someone that much younger than them.

As she's aged, it's… Become increasingly obvious that she's retained at least some of her past life memories. I'm not sure if she has any specifics, but she's so much more mature than her peers that it's obviously causing difficulties in her socialisation.

"Hey." Zorina comes up behind me and leans into my left side, our son Zane sleeping against her chest. "Is she still having problems?"

"Mm." I nod. "I don't think we can put if off any more. If we don't know what she remembers, we can't help her."

She considers that for a moment, then nods in response. "You're right. Should I call Dad to take the others while we-"

"No, no."

"-talk it over with her?"

"No, I don't want to put her under even more pressure if all she's got is a few schematic patterns. I'll offer to play draughts with her, and just try bringing it up gradually. If she starts getting worried, I'll back off and let her know that she can talk to either of us whenever she wants."

"It's funny how she's so obedient. I'd have thought that the one who remembered being in command of her life would be more trouble than…"

I nod, tilting my head to the left so that my cheek presses against the top of her head. Oh, all of our children have given us sleepless nights, but Zita's younger sister Zoë has a habit of screaming at every little thing that she's showing no sign of growing out of. Zita on the other hand acts more like a miniature adult half the time and the only thing that distresses her are her own lapses into childishness.

Even a mature mind can't completely rise above the requirements of the body.

I turn my head and kiss Zorina's brow before walking-. Stopping as a small swarm of children race across the floor on painted wooden foot-driven lorries. Zita briefly watches them… It doesn't look like she want to join them exactly, and she swiftly turns away and goes back to-. She got a newspaper from somewhere, and she's reading it.

Yes, I've put this off for entirely too long. I walk across the floor, skirting the detritus that has spread out from the toy chests, and approach her. She comes to her feet when she spots me, paper poorly hidden behind her legs as she comes to parade rest.

"Father."

"Zita." I crouch down in front of her, smiling warmly. "What have I told you about calling me 'father'?"

Her eyes move away for a moment, and I see Pavor glance over with a bemused frown on his chubby face. "You told me to only use it if you had done something foolish."

I raise my eyebrows as she goes back to looking at my face.

"Dad."

"You see? That wasn't so hard." I keep smiling. "Are you busy?"

She glances down at the edge of her paper, then tries kicking it further backwards.

"No."

"How about a game of draughts with your Dad?"

For a moment she doesn't move, then she jerks her head towards the closest group of children. They pay her absolutely no attention.

"I-. Yes. Alright."

"Would you rather play something else?"

"No, ch-. Draughts is fine."

I look around-. Then I pick her up with both hands and head over to the nearest free table. I put her down feet first onto the bare metal chair on one side and sit on the opposite side myself, leaving our faces close to level with one another. Then I take a board out of subspace and lay it out before us.

"You shouldn't waste power like that. It's dangerous."

"I think it's more dangerous not to use it." I'm more than a little embarrassed about how long it took me to realise that her linguistic skills were far more advanced than anyone else her age. It wasn't until I compared her development to Zoë's that I started kicking myself. Actual five year olds don't sound like that. "Using it demonstrates that I could use it for other things. If people don't see me using it then they might do something stupid like decide that I don't have it any more."

She reaches across the table, picking up a black piece and a white piece. She tries to shuffle them behind her back, but it looks like she's having a little trouble holding them. And when she puts them out in front of her, her hands aren't quite big enough to cover them.

"You choose." She returns the black piece to its place in her front rank, and holds the white piece out to me. "Thank you."

I put my piece back in its place, and consider the best way to start.

"Zita, I've been meaning to ask for a little while. Now, this isn't anything to worry about, but-" She looks up at me with a sceptical expression on her face. "-do you ever..? Do you ever dream of places you don't remember visiting?"

"I think that most people dream of places they couldn't have visited." She slides a piece forwards. "I don't think my dreams are different to the dreams of other people."

"Alright, not a dream." I move one of my edge-most pieces towards the side. "Remembering something that you don't remember seeing."

She stops moving, hands floating above the board while her eyes are pointed at the pieces. "What do you mean, F-? Dad?"

"When you were very young, your mum took you to see some of her relatives, and they seemed to think that you might be able to… Remember certain things. Sometimes… People are born with someone else's memories already in their heads. Usually, they only have a few memories, and they don't really think much about them unless they see something in those memories in real life. But, sometimes, they remember more."

She hasn't moved.

"Now, I'm sure that you've noticed that you're a lot more mature than a lot of children your age-."

Is she..? Shaking?

I stand, reaching across the table and picking her up under her arms before holding her against my chest.

"Zita, you've done nothing wrong, you aren't in trouble."

"S-. Stupid child-body, can't control its emotions-."

Ah.

"That answers my next question. You remember a good deal, don't you?"

I feel her nod as the damp from her tears seeps through my t-shirt.

"Your mother and I are just worried that we're raising you wrong, given how developed you are. This isn't a situation that comes up in parenting classes. Are you alright to talk about it?"

"I don't like losing control, especially in front of people. Can we please go somewhere private?"

"Of course we can." I turn around, make eye contact with Zorina and nod towards the door to the meeting rooms. She nods. "Then you can tell me all about it."

 

[Mr Zoat]

20th October 2017
16:29 GMT

I set Zita down next to one of the settees and then walk over to the window while she gets herself under control. I've noticed her do this before, after emotional 'releases', and I know that she prefers to be left on her own to regain her equilibrium. Since that's not practical here the most I can really do is avoid looking in the reflection in the glass while she does breathing exercises and wipes her face dry with a handkerchief. Leaving her to do that feels wrong, but everything I've read and all the parenting advice I've gotten -admittedly from supervillains- is that letting them get it out of their system without rewarding it with attention is the right thing to do.

Unless they do it in a public location, then you're supposed to strangle them.

I hear the 'puff' of air as she gets up onto the settee, which is probably the sign that she's ready to start. I turn around and… Hm. Walk over to the floor in front of her and sit there, so that our heads are roughly level.

She makes eye contact and gives me a small nod.

I'm not exactly sure where to start.

"How much do you remember?"

She thinks for a moment.

"About as much as if I was remembering something I lived through that many years ago."

"Oh, um. In that.. case, what do you want me to call you?"

She blinks in confusion.

"My name is Zita Zatara."

"Ah, yes, that's what we called you, but if you've… Lived a normal life being called something else, then-."

"My name is Zita Zatara. I remember being someone called Suzuki Kenta and I remember being someone called Tanya von Degurechaff-"

She remembers two lives?

"-but neither of them are who I am now. In my second life I thought that I was Suzuki Kenta pretending to be Tanya von Degurechaff, as if I was controlling her with the.. control pad of a games console. As if Tanya von Degurechaff was someone else. I believe that it is called 'disassociation'. It took me many years to accept that who I had become was not the same as who I was, and I do not wish to repeat my early mistakes in this life. Zita Zatara grew up in a loving home with regular meals, and that is quite different to how Tanya von Degurechaff grew up."

I nod. I'm not sure that nodding is helpful, but what else could I do?

"My genetics are different now, and because my upbringing is different the structures of my brain would be different even if my genes were identical. Isn't that right, Dad?"

I nod again. "Yes, I think that's right. The.. only issue would be how neural pruning will work given that you're exercising different portions of your brain to normal five year olds."

"Will that be a problem?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say that it will result in you being mentally more similar to your past selves. But I don't really know." I reach out with both hands and take hold of both of hers. "But that doesn't matter to me or your mum. You're our daughter this time and we love you."

"Yes, I realise that." She turns her hands and grips my index fingers. "I think that in my first life there was something wrong with my brain. I couldn't understand certain types of human relationships. In my second life, I could understand them but I was so used to behaving as if I couldn't that I didn't stop to reconsider my own behaviour. I just kept going with an approach that I knew wouldn't work while I criticised the people around me for doing the same thing. This time I want to be different."

I nod. "From the sounds of things I hope so too."

"Still… I am concerned that I appear to be part of an international crime family, and associated with American super criminals."

"Yes, I would be too."

She regards me for a moment.

"I take it that you are not an undercover police officer."

"No. None of us are." If only that had been an option.

She nods. "I suspected, but I thought that I should ask."

"I've moved the Syndicate out of America and into an area of the world which was lawless anyway. The sort of people who make up the Syndicate actually do less harm here than the people who used to run it. I hope to get them invested in the wellbeing of the local people -or at least to feel proprietary about them- and transition to a lawful oligarchy with the next generation."

"I have wanted many things, Father, and that sounds like something that a person can want that is unlikely to happen."

"Yes." I sigh. "I know. I've thought about all of the decisions I made, and as far as I can tell the only realistic alternative was moving the Syndicate off-world and turning it into an interstellar mercenary company, but the attitude shift required would have been too great."

"And it has nothing to do with the fact that you had normalised their outlook because you spent all of your time with them?"

"Sort of. I defined myself as being the man who made them all less harmful. It's quite possible-. No, I did have opportunities to jump ship, but that would just have gotten me out. It wouldn't have helped anyone in the Syndicate or anyone who has to go on living in a world with the Syndicate in it. To say nothing of the police state President Wilson was turning America into."

President Luthor is in his second term now. Not sure who will succeed him, but while we've had the occasional clash both his people and the Syndicate are mostly avoiding direct confrontation. None of the likely candidates are making a big deal about us, so I doubt that we'll have any new problems from that direction. I am planning on sending him a bottle of wine after he leaves office, though.

"Yes." She nods. "Despite the example set by Washington, few American presidents have been willing to give up new powers they have accrued. Luthor surprised me in that regard."

"Almost all of Wilson's new powers technically had sunset clauses. I imagine that he intended to extend them indefinitely once everyone was used to them, but Luthor just stopped using them and let them expire." I smile as she appears to remember that she's holding onto my hands and immediately lets them go. "Can I interest you in a bring-your-daughter-to-work day?"

"Once, I dreamed of a peaceful retirement. I tried to retire peacefully twice, and both times I died long before I could achieve it. I do not think that becoming manager of a firm of supervillains would give me a better chance." She frowns, looking down at her hands. "Particularly given that I do not appear to have any magical ability in this life."

I shake my head. "Anyone can use magic. According to Zatara family tradition, your magic education would start in about three years."

"It may be true in this world that anyone can use magic, but family tradition aside I doubt it would be a profitable avenue to pursue unless I had some natural talent. I have tried using the basic formulae of my last life-."

I move my hands, enveloping hers. "Zita, it's very important to me that you stop doing that unless you've got someone around to spot you. Zataras have died before by doing something they didn't mean to."

She looks at me for a moment, then nods. "If magic here works differently to how it did in my previous life, that is a reasonable request. How does it work?"

"Ah, well, broadly, magic works through the manipulation of conceptual links. I don't use it myself, but if you want to hear about magic theory I can get John Constantine to lecture you. I can't think of anyone more knowledgeable on our side." She gives me a small nod. "But for the Zataras in particular, quite a few can just make things happen by talking backwards."

She blinks, then closes her eyes for several seconds before opening them. The animation fades from her face and she just looks sad.

"That's really all there is to it?"

"There are limitations. Some Zataras can only change certain classes of thing, and they have a finite amount of power to draw on."

"What language?"

"I've heard Zataras use English, Italian and Latin."

"By syllable or by letter?"

"By letter."

"Hn." Faintly, she starts to smile. "Heh ha hah. Ah hahah hah!"

Unable to contain herself, she collapses onto the settee, arms wrapped around her chest.

"That's so-! Irrational!"

I shake my head. "No one ever claimed that the universe was obliged to be rational. Do you want to talk to your mother about it?"

"Once I've calmed-. HAH! Calmed down. Heh-hah!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 17
23rd March 2013
23:44 GMT -5

Sunset grunts faintly as she finishes laying out the cable which forms the runic circle she's using for this operation, and I… Find myself growing a little maudlin. With her work in the school and with Circe I don't see her anything like as much as I used to. She doesn't even live in the mountain most of the time, though of course I've left her room and workshop in place-.

"What?"

"Sunset, you know that I'm proud of what you've achieved since you arrived on Earth-"

Her eyes narrow suspiciously. "What?"

"-both in terms of your magic and the way you've forged a new life for yourself." I smile, and open my arms in an invitation for a hug.

"S-. Seriously? Now?" I broaden my smile and crouch down a little. Not that much. She's not much shorter than me, though she's far less massive.

She keeps staring at me, then accepts that I'm serious and walks up to me, rolling her eyes. I hug her, my greater mass basically enveloping her. She sort of hugs back.

"What's this about?"

"I just realised how little I see you, and how much I miss seeing you."

"You know where the school is."

"Yes, I know I can visit, but it's not really the same." I release her, much to her relief. "And I really appreciate you helping me with this."

"Doing this, you mean. And you haven't even told me what we're doing."

"I'm afraid that I am under a magically binding contract which prevents me from explaining exactly what I'm doing-."

"Because you were looking for a way to help the souls of your children's brothers and sisters. And then you disappeared for two weeks."

"I suppose that a rational person might reach the conclusion that those two facts were related. I couldn't possibly comment."

"And we're spying on Newstime because you don't like their editorials?"

"I hold Newstime in contempt because they fail to offer a useful service. Their analysis is surface level, their evidence-finding is lazy, they accept citizen journalism uncritically for anything other than moment-by-moment coverage and I've yet to see a single issue without a glaring grammatical error that took me right out."

"And we're in a tunnel under their parking garage because you want me to magic them better editors."

"No, we're here because I want to find out if anything magic is happening in that building using purely passive monitoring and without being detected by any protective magics at work on the building and you're one hundred percent of the people I believe can do the job."

She frowns thoughtfully. "How good are the defences?"

"No idea."

"Okay, how good are the people who made the defences?"

Hm. Now, I knew who and what Colin Thornton was before I accepted the First's offer, but I can't share anything that I learned since. I'm able to call in Sunset because this is covered by my law enforcement responsibilities and is necessary to complete my infernal assignment, so…

"You may assume that the defender is highly skilled and patient, and is most at home with demon magic." Though since he's Jebediah's son… "And possibly order magic."

"Demons aren't supposed to be big on order." She looks thoughtfully at the magic cable. "Though I guess there could be exceptions."

"Remember Teth Adom's sponsor?"

"The Lord of Order who murdered him and bound his soul to an amulet that got stolen by a serial killer to get super powers? What about him?"

"Your opponent will be his son."

"His son… Who uses demon magic?" The corners of her mouth turn down. "Wait. You were looking for a succubus, who was the mother of demon-vampire hybrids, and we're looking for a demon whose father was a Lord of Order?"

Huh. "Yes?"

"Is this a… Thing?"

"How do you mean?"

"Look, I'm from Equestria. We have mules, and I know where they come from. But most ponies don't summon up umbrum and try breeding with them."

"What about kirin?"

"I.. don't think they do either?"

"No, I mean, kirin are dragon-pony hybrids, right? And adult dragons are quite a bit bigger than ponies." Hm. "Except Princess Celestia, but I doubt that the entire species-."

"No-." Sunset gags, cringing and holding her stomach as if she's worried that she's going to be sick. "Uh."

"Actually, that's a point. I know that regular mares have finite eggs in their ovaries, but do alicorns have the same limitation or do they magically replenish?"

"Why? Why?"

"Luna's in her forties. If she were a human woman the chances of her conceiving naturally would be pretty low, even allowing that she was otherwise in excellent health. And then there's you. Career women in western society have developed a habit of leaving child-bearing until their late thirties or early forties and unsurprisingly struggle to conceive. I want to make sure that you've thought about things and haven't just assumed that since you're ageless you can just leave it as late as you like."

"Hah!" She grins triumphantly, and points at my face with her right forefinger. "That isn't a problem. I gave myself the same fertility control that Lynne and Barda Free have. I can save all my eggs for as long as I want."

"Agree to teach Luna that and I'll stop talking about it."

"Done! So, this guy."

"Colin Thornton, aka Satanus."

"Isn't Satanus a big deal in human religion?"

"No, he's just named after him. But I want to make sure that his terrible magazine isn't using magic to get people to buy it, and if it turns out that he's up to anything else in there, well, if we find it while doing something legitimate then it's still admissible."

"Can you narrow it down?"

"Ah… No. Sorry."

"Fine. At least you're honest about it." She walks over to the centre of her rune array and wiggles her fingers. "Do you want to know how this works, or will that make a problem for whatever rules you're complying with?"

"Oh, go ahead and tell me. I know you want to."

"I'm the Alicorn of Magic. As long as I don't interfere with the spells directly, I can push and pull the energy flows so that they move around my detections spells. It's harder to tell what they're doing like that, but it's still possible and it's basically impossible to detect someone doing it. And since the structure of his spells are effectively coming outside of their own effect area, I should be able to follow around the whole structure without the spells reacting at all." She smiles smugly. "It's a little like how the planet Earth moves around the sun without anyone falling off the planet."

I nod. "Good show. Let me know what you find."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 18
24th March 2013
00:13 GMT -5

"H-uh…"

Sunset's description of the way this magic works was pretty accurate. If I.. squint, I can sort of see the bending streams of magic energy twisting around her but never quite touching her. There are a… Disconcerting number of screaming faces in the magic energy.

"H-uh?"

She frowns curiously. "It's… Weird."

"It's made by a demon who minored in order magic. I'd be surprised if there was anyone else in the world other than his sister who could use it if they wanted to."

"No, I mean… Some parts are more sophisticated than the others. A lot more. I'd guess they were made by different people if the trace wasn't exactly the same."

"Is the spell sophisticated enough to make more of itself? If it's made automatically..?"

"I'm not seeing anything like that. I suppose it might have had that and then turned it off."

"Or the caster might have gained an education and built upon what they had already made?"

"No, it's too… Bound together for that to have happened." She grunts frustratedly. "The only thing I can think of it that he deliberately didn't bother making the other parts as complicated."

"Do they need to be?"

"Against most people? No. They'd be bare bones in Equestria or Atlantis, but I guess they don't really need to be better in America."

I nod. "And making them too good might draw attention by itself. A magician looking over a city and seeing a weak and simple defensive spell will assume that they're looking at the work of a competent amateur."

"And they wouldn't care about that. But… Oh. So the really good stuff has to avoid being detected, but he probably isn't good enough to disguise the fact that there's something happening, so he makes sure that something is showing-."

She frowns thoughtfully.

"Plausible?"

"Maybe? There's nothing here that tells me what he was thinking when he put these together."

"Okay, so what do the two parts do?"

"The simple part has a sort of… Diffuse presence… Charm? It's basically just creating a weak magic mist throughout the building. In Equestria, some places use that like a burglar alarm, and an actual wizard can use it to do remote casting."

I nod. "Because their magic is already there, and the structure of the building supports it."

"Right. And there's a bunch of other stuff you can do with it, like making it so your books spontaneously combust if they leave that area. This is all bare minimum, I-am-actually-a-wizard-and-not-just-copying-things-out-of-a-book stuff."

"Demonic? Orderly?"

"It's too simple to really have a domain. But the other stuff is… Really fascinating. So, normally, when you create a spell you tie it to a place or an object. But-."

"But this is tied to the general space defined by the simple spell. I'm not a complete neophyte, Sunset."

"No, smartass. It's not. It's just that that area is the only thing it can affect. As far as… All of the sophisticated spells go, that's their entire universe. There is nothing else. It's so much a part of them that I don't think I could make them do something else without taking them completely apart."

"And that part has a domain?"

"Oh yeah." She shudders, and nods at the stream of the damned. "Screaming souls in torment, all the way. I'm… Not completely sure, but I think that part extends into Hell as well."

"The damned souls do rather suggest that."

Though… Are souls in purgatory really damned in the technical sense? From the way Sergeant Wu described going into the next circle in as a one-way journey-. Ah, but she didn't say whether that was because she'd have never been allowed out by the far stronger demons or because it wasn't possible to get out once she'd made that choice.

Okay, so let's… Assume that Satanus is getting souls from another circle of Hell and using those. He doesn't have any personal presence in other parts of Hell -everyone I asked seemed insulted at the idea- so he isn't gathering them himself. That leaves trade and pacts with the living. Satanus doesn't have the infrastructure in Hell to support cults -that requires a whole host of minor demons to dole out minor boons, otherwise you cheapen the appeal of the major demon- so while he might have a cult leader somewhere under a major pact who has a high cultist neophyte turnover…

Insert joke about American healthcare here.

It's far more likely that he's trading something to someone who does. Or has access to one of the other circles. But the nobility hate him, and while I doubt someone like Mammon would flat out refuse to trade with him, they would charge him well over the odds. And Mammon has more than enough worshippers to properly price up the goods and services for the mortal plane, so he couldn't take advantage of being the sole supplier.

"Grayven?"

"Hm? Oh, sorry, trying to work out what he's doing with his spells. Carry on?"

"I don't think it goes to Hell. I've done some work on detecting demon summoning rituals for the D.E.A., and it doesn't feel like they do."

"Purgatory?"

Sunset shrugs. "I don't know how different that feels."

"Mother Box, hush tube."

"Ping."

A small portal opens next to me. "Try that."

Sunset wiggles her right fore and middle fingers at it, then waves her forefinger to close it.

"Yes, that's it exactly."

So… They are coming from Purgatory? Or that system isn't the bit that draws the damned soul into it. Or is he channelling damned souls out of other parts of Hell and into his own more homely domain. Oh, I don't know.

"What is the spell actually doing?"

"Lots of things. And it's not one spell, it's a whole system. There are spells for monitoring people, spells for taking small amounts of power from everyone-."

"What would the effect be on people inside the building?"

"Ah… They'd be a bit less magically powerful, so… They'd feel a bit more tired, recover a bit more slowly from injuries and be worse at magic. Legally, it's like committing hundreds of cases of assault every day."

I smile. Good. And this is expert testimony. Simple Assault in New York has a maximum sentence of one year in prison, so if the prosecution could prove a remorseless pattern of behaviour then Satanus could be imprisoned indefinitely. But with regard to my work in Hell, that's just leverage.

Until the month is up.

"Can you tell where it's going?"

"I can tell where in the building, but I don't know what it's being used for."

"So if we want to know, then we need someone in the building."

"There's no way anything could get in that building without being detected."

"Sure, but being detected isn't necessarily going to provoke a response. And I know some creatures who are good at being overlooked."

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st October 2010
19:45 GMT -5

Artemis is looking around…

Suspiciously. She doesn't trust you.

Well, yes, if she was an idiot I wouldn't be interested in her to this degree.

"Planet Krypton? A superhero-themed restaurant?"

No, she doesn't need me to confirm the evidence of her eyes. She's asking me to explain my reasoning.

"You eat at fast food restaurants enough that it wouldn't be special, but a high-class restaurant would just make you feel out of place. This is good enough to be memorable without being overwhelming."

She looks critically at a woman wearing a Black Canary costume which Black Canary hasn't worn in years. It's not even a good copy.

"You know it's… Kinda creepy when you say stuff like that, right?"

I sigh. "I… Would you prefer it if I lied?"

"A normal person would say 'I like the food'."

"I've never eaten here before."

She flaps her right arm. "Then why aren't we somewhere you have been before?"

"Because..? I like the food?"

Good try, sport.

"Are you sure you're not a robot?"

"Yes. I check daily."

She splutters with laughter. "You know, with you I can actually believe that."

"The reviews are reasonable and… That wasn't the main consideration, like I said. How's your mother doing?"

"It… I mean, she can't walk yet. Doctor says she should be able to stand unaided in a few days, and once she starts exercising she should start walking in a week or two."

A waiter in a Flash costume with fake abdominal muscles walks over. "Do you have a reservation?"

I nod. "I put it under 'Earthworm Jim."

He checks his phone. "Ah… Yeah, you're on table seven in Wonder Woman's zone." He wiggles his eyebrows at me.

I don't react, but Artemis raises her eyebrows. "Pretty brave, wearing that costume."

"Metropolis doesn't have a 'Hooters'. Please follow me."

He leads the way across the restaurant, and I take the time to review the food and the hygiene status of the kitchen. I mean, the inspection results were good but the day I trust anyone's cleaning except my own-.

Is the day I can retire, because you'll be cured.

That nearly makes me stop and stare at the ring.

I am not a disease.

Not what I meant, sport.

The kitchen is pretty good, but the food… More effort spent on presentation than on ingredients, and their suppliers have done that American thing of shoving toxic crap into everything. About what I expected honestly, but I'm going to see if I can take her to somewhere in a civilised country next time.

Ah, optimism.

What, having high food safety standards? If both Britain and France agree on something then it's probably a good idea.

Just try your best.

Flash-waiter leaves us after nodding to Wonder Woman-waitress, who's about a foot shorter and appreciably flabbier than actual Wonder Woman, even wearing those heels. She hands us our menus.

"Anything to drink?"

Can Americans mess up milk? Yes, of course they can. Just-. Just order something and then change it.

Artemis is frowning at me. "Ah… Cola."

I fix my face in a polite smile. "Banana milkshake, please."

She nods and turns away. "I'll be back in a few."

Artemis waits until she gets half-way to the kitchens and then leans towards me. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"You nearly went crazy over the drinks menu."

"The perils of actually knowing what goes into the food you eat and drink. I mean, cola should just be sugar, water and kola nut, but there's a whole list of things that get added and most of them aren't really designed for the human body."

"Ah… You didn't say anything when I drank cola in the base?"

"Red label or blue label?"

"What's the difference?"

"The blue label is the stuff I bought in a country with better food standards, the red label is what I made myself."

"Oh. Ah, red. Tasted pretty good. Didn't realise you were such a food-. Guy."

I shake my head. "If you'd seen the things I'd seen, you'd understand."

"It's not bad, I just-. You usually hang out in your lab, and then when we went to India to fight those snake men you told Mia to stop breaking arms because breaking their necks was more efficient."

"Yes?"

"I mean it's-. A different side of you. And…" She takes a deep breath. "How..? Serious are you?"

"Completely, about everything."

"I mean, dating me. You come across… Really… Inhuman. And creepy."

"I.. know. I'm working on it."

"'cause… When you said 'date'-."

"You thought that I was holding your mother to ransom for sexual favours." She blanches, then gives a small nod. "I wasn't. I do want to have sex with you; you are an extremely attractive young woman. But blackmailing you into it would be such a short term.. thing, I just… Don't see the point. It doesn't get me what I want."

"Which is..?"

"A long term relationship, shared interests and time together, marriage, two point four children-. Probably rounded up to three. Gradually rising to the apex of our open and secret professional lives before transcending mortality entirely and-."

Something about her facial expression makes me stop.

"'Inhuman'?"

"Started good. Not a lot of guys our age bring up marriage on the second date. Guess you… Are serious, huh?"

"Yes."

"Okay, so-. Explain the ring-thing to me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

1st October 2010
19:51 GMT -5

I trace my right forefinger up my glass, transmuting all of the anti-human ingredients within into something more ingestible.

Artemis hasn't touched her cola yet. "Do I need to worry?"

"Are you asking me to scan you in detail?"

"No, I-. Meant with the drink."

"Assuming that you've been drinking things like that for years, no, but I suggest giving me access to your body so that I can remove any build-up of dangerous materials."

"Giving-? Do you have a thing where you need to phrase stuff in the creepiest way possible?"

"I.. could have done it without asking. I mean, I was tempted. Do you know much lead and.. mercury there was in my body when I started this? And I never lived in a place like Sprang Boulevard. If anything ever happens to the roof? Get out immediately."

"They got lead paint up there?"

"No. Asbestos sheeting. One of my uncles had asbestosis, died years earlier than he should have and struggled with physical activity for years before that because of the damage to his lungs." Hm. "Though there is lead paint throughout the building, there's just not more of it up there."

"And let me guess: you'll clear it up for another date?"

"Yes. Your determination -and its manifestation in your physique- is the thing I find most attractive about you, but you can't determine through lead poisoning. Though…"

"Yeah?"

"I was sort of hoping that after two dates you'd be prepared to at least give me a short term commitment without the need for making it a transaction."

"You wanted-! Ohkay. Your ring needs avarice to work. You.. want me, but you can't just make asbestos or lead paint disappear until there's something in it for you."

I nod. "That certainly appears to be how it works. There isn't really anyone I can consult."

"What about-?" She checks around as no one listens to us. "Mister Sur?"

"Mister Sur doesn't know anything about orange rings. Green rings don't have that problem. He can't enter Vega without putting his ring aside and the Guardians would want to know why he did that when it's not in his Sector."

"And if I agreed to… Keep dating you, would that make a difference?"

"If you agree to become mine? Yes."

"You really do have a thing. Are you gunna ask me to put on a collar next?"

I frown. "Corinthians seven, verse four. 'The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.' Saint Saul could be surprisingly romantic." … "And I have no strong feelings about collars."

She takes a moment to consider that. "What..? Else, do you do that's… Different?"

"You know how I keep bringing up things that I… Find disconcerting?"

"One way of putting it."

"And you've seen my research into augmentative techniques. It goes a little further than that. I've stopped myself decaying."

"You made yourself invulnerable?"

I shake my head. "I don't think anything is truly invulnerable. Even Superman can be hurt by sufficient force. No, I mean that for as long as I wear the ring I don't age and -if I do get injured- I heal immediately."

"So one day I'll be an old woman and you'll look like this." I look at her, puzzled as to why-. "Oh. So.. I'd-. Not get old."

I look at her in puzzlement. "Do you want to?"

"No, I just… It's a bit-. Much, you know?"

"No, you're worth it."

"So-. Okay, this is-. Why..? Why me, not… Mia? Or M'gann?"

"Mia doesn't want to be involved in superheroing. We still don't really know why Brainiac augmented her and she told me directly that she'd rather give it up and forget about it. You are the child of two supervillains and you chose this. You didn't have to. You could just have had a-. Okay, not a normal life, but something close to normal. Instead, you went out and started fighting crime with a bow. Mia's not a bad person, but you're better. And M'gann's still pretending she looks like a green human."

"She doesn't?"

I frown. "Of course not. She actually copied her original 'human' appearance from a pornographic film loosely inspired by Martian Manhunter's older cases."

"Really? 'cause…" She glances at our waitress as she deals with another table's pudding order. The waitress undulates slightly as she turns away, something that Diana's armour doesn't actually allow.

"'Innocent barely legal schoolgirl' requires a different body type."

"Ew." She frowns. "Based on Martian Manhunter's cases?"

"Very, very loosely. She kept the shape but expanded her costume to actually cover her body. But she's not determined, she's just optimistic. It's not that she knows what can go wrong but decides to do it anyway, she just decides that nothing can go wrong. Watch out for that, actually. She means well, but her judgement isn't the best. Anyway, that's why. How about you?"

"I'm here for my Mom."

"If that was it then you wouldn't bother asking questions."

"I agreed to a date, so… Date. It's a date conversation."

"You're still considering it." I raise my eyebrows. "Am I wrong?"

"How many guys do you think ask me out?"

Hm. Well, the rejection rate is usually pretty high at that age, she's probably even more prickly with random people than with actual superheroes and she doesn't behave in a feminine manner most of the time…

"Five this year? At least two of which were crude half-efforts?"

"Three. And all of them were crude. One guy got handsy last year and I dislocated his shoulder and now I'm 'the psycho'."

"Fortunately, I have more self confidence than a bunch of Gotham protothugs."

"Yeah, insecure, that's-." She grunts and shakes her head. "So… I guess I just wanted to go on a date with someone. And you're kind of a psycho too but you're not… Not a bad guy."

"I'm willing to work on the psycho thing. I… See things differently to other people, but-. Hey, I haven't shot Streaky since you told me not to."

"Yeah, that-. Puts you ahead. But if you're immortal and you've got a power ring, why do you want to be more powerful?"

"So I can do more. People like the Flash can do more because they're more powerful than other people. He can check his whole city for crime in a couple of minutes and him stopping an armed robbery is easy. It's not because he's more skilled than, say, you. Take away his superspeed and you'd have a good chance of beating him in a fight. Same with Superman, but more so. They'd both still be good men without their powers, but most of their achievements come from having them."

"Huh. And what about Batman?"

"He could do more with powers. Being Batman costs a colossal amount of money in equipment and a lot of time in training and preparation. It's not that he's ineffectual, it's that by reconsidering some parts of his methodology he could be more effective."

"You use any of that on yourself?"

"Yes. That's why I'm as strong as I am. I don't-. It had side-effects that I'm working through, so I wouldn't recommend that you-."

"No."

"Right. But I do have weaker side-effect-free augmentics, if you're interested."

"I'll… Think about it." … "All of it."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 20
26th March 2013
15:17 GMT

It's interesting, now that I reflect upon it.

My Apokoliptian education was fairly good, though I suspect that's because Father played almost no role in it besides issuing an order that I be 'educated appropriately'. Grayven-. The other fellow, could actually speak several languages, ride natural animals and machine animals, pilot a variety of craft and fight with a variety of weapons. He also knew the courtly manners of Apokolips, New Genesis, and a dozen other worlds besides, because if you're going to insult someone then it should be intentional.

I know how to use New God technology because for an elite New God it's pretty instinctual. But he-. I, was never taught the underlying basis by which it operates. Most of what I know I learned on Earth by trying to use it and the rest the other fellow learned while rebuilding the Absolute Dominion.

Was that deliberate? I'd be surprised to learn that Father cared either way… But maybe he does? Or did? Maybe there's some obvious trick that no one notices because that knowledge is subtly restricted.

"Hey, you taking business?!"

Fortunately, Sunset's affinity for all things arcane applies to New God technology. So while 'I'm' in the stacks of Praetori thanks to a clever soul projection link… Thing she set up and handed to Jean, I'm entirely shrouded here in Odium under the bound soul of my children's mother, wearing her face and form.

I smile at the owlbearshrew demon who's leering at me.

"I am. Do you prefer the whip? The cat o'nine tails?" I gasp excitedly. "Am I finally going to get to use my flensing knife? It will test my skill, but I know I can get off all the skin without breaching a major vein or artery."

There's a small risk there. Some demons like pain so much that that's their idea of a good time. But the bestial-looking ones are usually… Well, they have the interests of beasts. Inflicting violence, dominating, vigorously fucking and pissing up walls, both literally and metaphorically. Which means that this guy is trying to work out exactly how strong I'm likely to be, and if it's worth trying to subjugate me.

Ayelle's spirit is strong, and reeks of violence and shed blood. The demon and his posse are a degree or two weaker. All of them together would be an even fight, but that would require more group loyalty than demons are inclined to show. Certainly over the issue of one of their number acquiring an agony-focused succubus as a toy.

"Oh. One of those. I-."

"Turning me down after arousing my interests?" I draw her long daggers from my belt. "Perhaps the choice is no longer-"

He turns and runs, dropping to all fours after the first dozen strides as his base nature asserts itself.

"-yours." I look around at the surrounding allies and alleys. "How about the rest of you?"

The rest don't run, but they advance to the rear with alacrity. Good job too, as while I can draw on her knowledge to use these things without stabbing myself I'm finding moving in this form a little awkward. Not pony-awkward, but that was so different that I never found myself assuming that I knew what I was doing.

Long daggers back in their sheaths, I look around. The Odium has large areas of barrack-like housing and workshops, though the vagaries of local low-level warfare and 'asset realisation' mean that this part isn't densely inhabited at the moment.

So why have some of my slime spies ended up here?

And as a secondary concern, is 'Ayelle' being here going to create problems for me?

Satanus making deals with someone in the Odium makes perfect sense. The Head Renderer might not even know about it as it's more a first amongst equals sort of thing and not every trade goes up for separate approval. What doesn't make sense is for it to come out here.

In fact… Inevitable Conflict

The little charmed compass Sunset made for me spins and points. I queried why she didn't make it look like the compass from Pirates of the Caribbean, and she said that she wanted it to be able to move in three dimensions which Jack Sparrow's compass couldn't. I think it's because she has no romance in her soul.

Hm. Warehouse wall, warehouse wall. Ayelle wouldn't be strong enough to just punch through, so… So I follow along the outer wall-. Until I reach the outlet pipes still leaking industrial runoff from inside, flowing across the ground and merging into a stream which flows down to the river of… Stuff that leaves the city. Jump over that, and… That's the warehouse door, but it's clearly locked and barred and I can see the glowing runes indicating 'extreme punishment' and 'dangerous technology'. Being demons it's not clear whether there's dangerous technology in the sense of highly effective weapons or nuclear waste, or whether the punishment is inflicted by magic or by the Renderers coming after you for breaking into their storage sheds.

Honestly, I'm a little surprised that something like that doesn't have more overt security as well. Demons aren't known for deferred gratification. Keep walking around…

No other entrance.

Hm.

Of course, it's simple enough to set up a portal, or have someone who can teleport move things. Still, that's usually too energy intensive to be worth bothering with for demons. The sorts of demons who can do things like that aren't inclined to take regular day jobs, and the rituals require resources that you don't need to spend if you use a road like a normal person. And of course someone owns the roads and they'll make trouble if they're not getting their cut…

Compass says the slimes are under the warehouse.

I don Ayelle's clawed gauntlets and make my way back to the outflows. Alright, the demon who built this place wasn't stupid. Those are far too small for me to climb through, even reduced to her size. And I don't really want to risk a power ring transition in Hell, because that sounds very stupid.

So I stand on the sludgy ground and generate a fake teleportation circle while sending a rope of orange light through the sludge and into the pipe. Given the low grade magic aura of filth the stuff is putting out, whatever security magic they've got on the entrance is going to have to be more specialised than 'is there some magic here', so I doubt that anything will react to a construct.

The construct bumps into some sort of small crab demon, pinned to the pipe by its own claws and feeding on the effluence. The brief look I get seems to suggest that it doesn't have sensory organs and is entirely specialised to living where it is. Move around that. The pipe goes down into the warehouse, in such a direction that I wonder how much actual space there is inside-.

No, unless I very much miss my guess a good portion of the centre of the warehouse is vats and pumping engines, with none of the organic touches the Renderers like to incorporate. Okay, out of the vat and... Yes, it is filled with machinery, but there's enough space for someone Ayelle's size to move between them and that's all that I need.

Mother Box?

Ping.

The hush tube appears beneath me and I fall into it, the 'teleportation circle' vanishing after I pass through. Take a moment to reorientate myself after down switches by 90o​, then start looking around.

Not sure what the effluent actually is. I'm scanning all sorts of residues, but ring scans aren't reliable with magic substances and I don't want to do a wide area scan in case something detects it. I take a chemical analyser out of subspace and poke it into-.

Well, I can always fabricate a new chemical analyser.

I check the ground, but in this sealed environment there isn't really any dust. A thin chemical crud from spillages, but it doesn't have any prints in it that I can decipher. But there does appear to be a path, and you don't make a path unless it's for someone to walk along.

The compass says that way, so that way I go.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 20
26th March 2013
15:24 GMT

The first door has security spells on the door itself and upon the frame… But none on the wall a little way away. So I just poke a hole through and then hush tube myself to the other side.

Ping.

Have Mother Box hush tube us to the other side. Happy?

Ping.

And take the stairs down. Again, it's hard to tell, but this doesn't look well travelled. But someone must have come here at least once, or else why would it be here? I might be able to kludge some sort of a priori spell-like ability together by combining my own god name and the First's authorisation letter, but… That would warn people, and I'd rather keep poking around at least until something pokes back.

A second security door, but this one is rent and bent and barely set into its frame. Stains of something that could be very old demon blood or ichor are spread around the area. People died, and their bodies were removed, but no one actually bothered to clean up thoroughly. Which implies that no one is using it. The Head Renderer's workshop was disturbing, but it was clean. None of the tools or components were out of place. If it's a mess, that implies that they aren't here.

But the slime is.

Now, it's not impossible that it's just some outgrowth of one of my spy slimes from before I dispatched them, in which case this is a waste of time. And it's not impossible that Satanus opened a portal here for a laugh when he spotted my effort, or opened one here for some other reason. Or there was some brief magic connection that resulted in a slime being transferred without any particular intent, as Blarg said could happen.

Still, it's productive work, and it's the First's time they're wasting.

Hush tube past the door after sighting through one of the rips, and… Ah, yes. An engineering workshop that got hit by… Lots of things with claws. And acid, it looks like. Some of it puts me in mind of machinery from Sunset's workshop, but the rest looks unfamiliar. Too damaged, or too different. Not like Sunset used demon magic.

Orderly, though. Allowing for the damage, the walkways are wide and clearly marked off by railings-. This wasn't owned by a Renderer. Too inorganic. Darn it, I like mechanisation. How late was I?

I walk along the more debris-free paths, taking everything in. Occasionally I feel the presence of an object with a little power still in it and send it to secure storage for later analysis by Sunset or Constantine, but there isn't… Much. From the way that some of the wreckage is organised it looks a little like someone went though it before I arrived, but there hasn't been a major salvage effort. Probably just taking trophies.

I'll keep an eye out in future visits. See if I can work out who did this. I'm not authorised to punish them for smacking down someone who was bucking the system, but I could draw the attention of the First to it and point out that something viable had been destroyed by people who were protecting their slice of the pie with no thought to what their actions did to future pie-availability.

Huh. The compass is pointing straight down here.

So… Ugh. Unless I get an actual magician to look at them, I won't know whether the spells on the external gate and the spells on the inner door were made by the same person. And whether they were in the same style as the residual magics on the mechanisms I'm storing. Was this place locked down from the outside, or was it a defensive measure that wasn't good enough?

Big drill, little drill, or look for a doorway?

No way I could keep a big drill secret. And I'd like the option of preserving the fact that there's still something here a secret if at all possible. I haven't noticed the sort of spells that could detect a small and subtle intrusion, and if there are any then they've already detected me. Looking for a doorway doesn't cost me anything but time -which I actively want to spend, but… It's starting to feel like an indulgence. I could justify a quick look around, but that would basically mean picking up everything with a construct and at that point I might as well use a big drill.

Opening a hush tube to an unfamiliar and unobserved environment is considered and dismissed.

Construct small drill it is, and get to work. While that's working I take a quick tour of the walls. Hm. From the damage pattern I think that's where they got in, probably using some sort of tunnelling creature. The hole has been filled in with rubble and machine detritus, and-.

Power ring scan says that it's not there.

Curious.

I put my hand down, and there's a brief sensation of pressure before my fingers are very visibly through the ruined machinery.

Very curious.

I leave the small drill running as I try reaching further down, encountering only a smooth tunnel. Mildly concerned I double check the rim of the tunnel entrance, but no, no spells that I can see.

So what happened? Someone tunnels in, attacks and wrecks the place, killing the workers. Since there's no giant tunnelling monster around and no second tunnel I assume that it left the way it came. I don't know where the other end of the tunnel is, but it's not in the general area of the warehouse.

I take a moment to try and see if the illusion-debris matches any of the debris on the floor around the hole, but… I don't see anything obvious. The machinery is in the same style, but I don't.. think it's literally the same stuff.

Construct camera, down you go.

Looks like the illusion is about half a metre thick, then it's clear sloped tunnel. Not completely: there's some rubble on the bottom, suggesting that it was filled and then cleared out later manually.

Why? Don't know. It's easier to go down and look than try to puzzle it out.

I abandon the drill and jump down the hole, landing on my feet on the sloping floor and sliding a little way, starting a small cascade of dust and pebbles before I slide to a stop. We should be well under street level here, though Hell's topography isn't necessarily as simple as that of Earth. I proceed onwards, noting that the tunneller appears to have only gone directly upwards at the end and that the rest is far shallower. It's already level where I am, and since it's fairly straight I can estimate the direction of the start of the attack. Be a bit obvious if I actually went looking, but I can check the territories map later.

Follow the tunnel, follow the tunnel… Ah. I can see the glowing runes in the distance, and they surround a wall of rubble. I don't want to risk touching it, but it looks real to me. Send out construct feelers… There. One of the walls is an illusion again. Camera again, and… A short drop which ends in a very heavy metal door covered in runes.

Compass is pointing in that direction.

I step through the illusion and float down, hovering just above the impressively fortified door. It clearly can open, but it.. doesn't really go anywhere for whoever is on that side. There's no way to get out. So was it intended as a safe room? Probably not if my assumption about the tunnel was correct. Built afterwards? Why? I mean, I doubt that anyone would bother looking here but that's because you can't really do anything from here.

I'm not an expert of demonic runes, but all this stuff looks like passive defences. Designed to slow down breachers rather than-.

Is that a hatch?

That… Suggests deliveries, but-.

Alright then.

I reach down and knock on the hatch before floating back a little.

A vibrant pink head appears a little way above the door, looking around. It smiles when it spots me.

"About fucking time! You any idea how long I've been waiting?"

I shrug. "I only got the commission a little while ago."

"Bloody typical, yeah. Surprised he remembered at all. But you're here now, that's the main thing. Did you bring the cheese grater?"

I smile cruelly. "I've got whatever you want, worm."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 20
26th March 2013
15:30 GMT

""Oh-hoh-hoh yeah!"

The pink face vanishes, and then a hatch opens with a slight hiss as the pressure equalises.

"Give me a second while I-." Several runes flicker or die completely. "Okay, security's off. Come on in!"

Hm. I walk closer to the hatch and see that it's a narrow tube with rungs set into the side. There's no way that I'd fit down there at full size-. And neither could Neron or the First, assuming that they can't reduce their size. Ayelle can fit fairly easily, as height isn't really an issue, though… Given her character…

Plot route…

I step over the tube and drop, rungs flashing past a centimetre from my face as my ring corrects my angle without reducing my speed.

Alert! Brace!

I fall to a crouch as the tunnel suddenly ends, mild pain flaring in my legs for a moment before fading. Ayelle's regeneration is nothing like as good as mine, but we are surrounded by magic and human misery. The.. entrance is… Triangular, with the tunnel exit at one point and the door out on the opposite flat surface. Designed to force someone breaching it to confront several defenders at once if they managed to get out of the obvious choke point the tunnel itself represents. Three crude demonpunk robots stand at the ready between me and the door, two with glowing blades and the other with…

With a gun like a larger version of what the people in Purgatory were using.

Okay, we're learning something.

The robots study me for a moment, then step aside to allow me entry.

"Pretty good, aren't they?"

"Do they feel pain?"

"Hah, one track mind. Nice landing, by the way."

I strut past and shove open the inter door. Not sure if he's watching, but I add as much of a hip-roll as this armour allows to my walk, swing the tail to add emphasis-.

Have you done this before, Lantern?

My soul is plugged into a demon made of this. It would be more weird if I didn't know how to do this.

Wait. He said that he didn't marry Arin, not that he wasn't interested.

Didn't-?

Arin Sur did not display herself in such a fashion. She had class.

Fair enough. I meant no offence.

The interior of the bunker is metal, a brass-colour that I assume isn't actually brass because that's a terrible material for armour. Fewer runes here than on the exterior, but I can see the similarity in structure and intent. There are a couple of doors leading off to my right, and they put me in mind of submarine doors: handwheel in place of a handle and the door designed to form a seal when closed. Probably not for water, so… Thaumic isolation? It would also form another choke point.

"Just up ahead!"

That door is open, and I step into…

Huh.

A demonpunk mechanical workshop. Things which look like modern factory robots move around conveyor belts, only the power cables are replaced by plates covered in demonic runes and the coloured plastic or metal cowling is replaced by more bare brass. There's a certain… Organic structure to the thing, as if it was made by breaking up robot animals, or… Trying to make an animal statue using scrap metal. All very effective-looking. And there's more than one conveyor belt. I can see one smaller setup making cybernetics while another appears to be working on robots, another on guns-. And that one is actively applying enchantments, that's brilliant!

And up there in the control pulpit…

"Hey!"

A… Sort of spiky outline of a man made of purple and pink light waves from his seat. I can see white lines like… Lightning or circuitry under his 'skin', and there's a jagged corona around his head-. Is that a beard?

"What do you think?!"

"It's very… Mechanical."

"Yeah!" His body bends and contorts and… Sort of transmits itself down to floor level before reforming. Some of the machines slow for a moment, then he waves a hand at it. Tiny flecks of pink fire leap onto them, merging with their runic power units and causing them to swing into action again. "You don't see that in other places, do you?"

"No."

"This could have been everywhere by now. Fucking Renderers. Can't take competition!"

I make a point of looking upwards. "Is that what happened to the workshop?"

"My workshop." He reaches up with his right hand and scratches his head. "But… I can rebuild. I am rebuilding. Then I'll get that stick insect bastard."

"Good luck with that."

He scratches his head again. "Good luck? Surprisingly… Upbeat?"

"I do physical pain. If you want emotional torment, get a girlfriend."

"Heh, right." He goes to scratch his head again, then yanks his hand down. "Sorry, don't have… Nits or anything. But ever since Agony and Ecstasy did my.. induction, if I go too long without one or the other..."

I nod sympathetically. "Imaginable suffering is part of any sensible work/life balance."

"Honestly, I thought he'd forgotten, you know? Or was it her?"

Whoever it is he thinks hired me, presumably.

"I didn't ask. Professional ethics."

"Be nice to know. Not much I can do about it either way right now, but-. It's like needles, y'know? I've fine if I can see it going in."

I nod. "So, blindfolds with the needles?"

"Maybe. See how it goes." He glances around and then takes a few steps away from the machinery. "Here alright?"

I smile cruelly, sauntering closer as I pull a nutcracker off my belt with my right hand and shove him back against the wall with my left.

"Sure." I take my left off his shoulder, take hold of my soul cage amulet with it and pull it off, my real form bubbling outwards. "Anywhere's fine."

He looks up at my real face.

"Is this extra?"

"Technically? No."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 20
26th March 2013
15:36 GMT

"…like me being around because I wasn't a proper demon. I just hijacked Nergal's manifested structure and used it as a filter." As much as I can tell, he looks disgruntled. "For all of five seconds, until the Incest Twins told me that wasn't how it worked. Not like I really wanted to come to Hell in the first place. I mean, who does?"

He tries to make a gesture of helplessness with both arms, but the left doesn't really move as it's strapped to a board.

"You might-."

"Fucking Constantine. I mean, I know it wasn't like he actually meant any of it to happen, and he came to me in the first place because he didn't know how to hack computers with magic and I could have turned him down… But it's just that this shit happens too much around him."

"I under-"

I bring my thumb and forefinger together around the metacarpal of his left little finger. Despite his lack of a normal anatomy, I hear a crunch.

"-stand."

"AA-HHAOW, that's the stuff."

"So the lady Rosacarnis offered to sponsor you?"

"Uh…" That was more of an awkward pause than a thinking pause. "I was using her father's body. She was worried that he'd come back, so she sent some demons after me. They dragged me back because they didn't know what she wanted them to do with me. Sponsoring me came later."

I take a firmer grip on his little finger and bend it back, the broken ends of the bone grinding against the flesh. He gasps.

"Heh-eh. You know, I always wondered if people who were into bondage just didn't feel pain or something. If they had lower serotonin sensitivity or something. But it hurts, I don't, and I need you to keep going."

"And that got you started in Odium."

"No, no, I was operating out of her palace for a while. She wanted me to prove I could make something. You know, do something practical and not just waffle on about theory."

"And she was fine with you using her father's body?"

"Oh, yeah. She used that as an intimidation tactic at the start, about how much of an insult it was, but, I mean… I was already in Hell. I was already as intimidated as I could get."

"I didn't think you actually died."

"My body got burned to a crisp. I saw it in John's memories."

"Yes, but you weren't in it at the time. If you'd transferred yourself into a robotic body we wouldn't-."

"That's not how it works. A body, a normal human body, is a much better anchor for the soul than a robot body. That's what being alive is: anchoring. That's why my workshop has heavy duty runes physically attached to all of the moving parts rather than just running off a spell. Nergal's body had a load of links to ritual sites… Could have stayed on Earth for decades without… Y'know, redoing them."

"Ritually murdering a bunch of people and using them as magic fuel?"

"Yeah. I mean, Nergal mostly drove people mad and had them do the killing. It was just more practical. But if Agony and Ecstasy hadn't turned up… Well, they did."

I slowly close my right fist around his left hand, fracturing bones and mashing the flesh together. He'll regenerate quickly enough.

"Nummmmmmgh."

"But you were dead, and those external anchors weren't much use."

"Not now-. Not to me." I release his hand and he stares at it fixedly as the fingers gradually pull themselves-.

He's slowing it down. He's deliberately reducing the rate at which he regenerates to prolong the sensation.

I… Think that I might see about cloning him a human body. See if that… Helps, at all.

"Rosacarnis took control of them as part of her inheritance?"

"Yeah." He flexes the still-broken fingers, shuddering in pain that just makes him smile more. "I don't think she uses them herself, but I don't know what she actually uses them for."

"Alright, so you proved that you were the real thing, and she sponsored you for the workshop upstairs?"

"I wish. She got me a shed, and I had to pay her back. I had to work up to that warehouse. I was proud of it."

"You expected fair and honest competition in Hell?"

"I thought I had backers! Mutually assured destruction, balance of terror. You know? I thought that if I made myself useful to enough people that would be protection, even if I had to pay them back afterwards."

I nod sympathetically. "Did you die before the Dyson vacuum cleaner was invented?"

"I haven't heard of it, so I think so."

"Dyson had a similar problem with Hoover. They didn't want the market to change, either. Only because Earth has laws, they were limited to offering to buy his intellectual property and sitting on it, whereas down here it's a bit more nineteenth century."

"You're right there. Which is why I took Satanus's offer."

"You designed his cybernetics?"

"He had some stuff before. But I made real improvements, and I can make them much faster than he could. He could hook me up with raw materials and the teleportation system to bring them here."

"I assume this was your panic room? You came down here when the attack happened?"

"No. Built this later." He sighs. "Satanus could get me past the spells the Renderers put up. Lent me some of his people to dig this place out."

I nod. "I'm surprised. I thought that his cyborgs couldn't leave Purgatory."

"No, no. He's got demons, too. I mean, he's a Demon Lord. He's had plenty of time to get minions. I thought they'd be trouble, but they were hard workers."

"But why return to your folly?"

"Magic residue. This place is already covered in my magic, so they won't think anything of it if they keep feeling my magic. The only other place I could go would be Rosacarnis's palace, because I feel a bit like Nergal."

I nod. "Any further contact with Rosacarnis?"

"Yes. And not a word of apology. And now I have to cut in Satanus for a shipping fee, and I have to suck it up because there's no way I'd survive another attack like that." He sighs again. "They could have bought me out, or demanded a cut or something. I'd rather have gone along with it rather than have all my work ruined."

"I hate to put it this way, Mister Simpson, but they're demons. It's not even about self-interest, really. A lot of the time they're practically Kantian in their evil."

He nods. "So what happens now? Satanus isn't-."

"Oh." I shake my head. "I don't mind. Honestly, when I mention this to the First I'll be speaking in your favour. Innovation has to be enabled, or else how can Hell progress. But first, I'm going to finish working you over as I agreed."

He nods happily, stretching his newly healed fingers. "I wasn't sure I'd like having another man do it, but-."

"Don't… Make this weirder than it is already."

 

[Mr Zoat]

11th October 2010
08:12 GMT -5

"I-I-I-I-I re-. Re-. Reeeeea-."

The turquoise-skinned gynoid twitches, its vocal systems-. No, those are degraded but functional. The problem must be in its mental networks. It literally can't turn thought to speech due to parts of its brain being missing.

I dip my head slightly, visually assessing the damage.

Alright, most of the right side of its brain missing.

Mia lays it down on my work bench, trying to cushion its head as she does so. That's a pointless endeavour. What's left of its skin is far tougher than human skin, its endoskeleton is far better at absorbing shocks and the general damage after the fusion bomb went off has thoroughly fried what was left of its peripheral nervous system.

"Can you fix her?"

"Oh."

Okay, don't say 'Is that what you wanted?'.

She didn't say that was what she wanted. I thought she was just giving it to me for study. This might not be B13, but it's the closest we're going to get.

And how do you think a superhero should respond to this situation?

Ah… Research the nanotechnology so…

Yes..?

I mentally sigh.

She thinks this gynoid has human-equivalent mental sophistication. She wants me to repair it because she thinks it's a person.

The Brainiac drone had her for several hours. It's possible that she's learned something that you haven't.

"Oh, probably. Or if I can't, I can substitute parts to get her up and about."

I risk a smile. Artemis has been… Giving me pointers, but apparently the best I can do is 'school yearbook'. According to her, that's better than 'serial killer', which is good because serial killers are usually pretty unhappy people.

That's not why it's better.

Fortunately, Mia's not looking at me. She's looking at the trembling gynoid's face.

"Have you got-!? Cyborg painkillers?"

"I doubt very much that it's in pain. It's trembling because of damage to its motive systems. I can make it stop if you want."

She nods, and I sever the connection between the gynoid's brain module and the rest of its body. For an instant its body goes slack, then some parts-. Ah, I see, they're trying to move to a default position. They're mostly failing due to the damage, but it's sort of like a robot jerk reflex. The brain isn't required.

"Okay." Mia looks her over. "How long is this going to take?"

"I have no idea."

You know, you could-.

Scan.

Sure thing, sport!

Huh.

"The-."

"Well?"

"The.. drone was much more simple. Not much more sophisticated than one of Earth's most advanced robots… Apart from the brain, presumably."

She frowns. "But… Coluan technology is far more advanced than that."

"One of Earth's most advanced robots. The mad genius sort. Tomorrow Woman's muscles, Ace Android's bones, Carapax's armour and Kilgore's communications array… The brain wasn't recoverable after the electromagnetic pulse, so I can't tell you anything about it."

"Oh. So it-. I just assumed that it came from Colu."

"It might have done. But I didn't see anything either when we fought or since that would let me conclude that with any certainty."

She nods. "And what about her?"

"Much more advanced. Which is part of the problem." I expand an image of part of her interior. "Nanotech residue. It looks like it was designed to have a circulatory system that used it for self-repair, whereas the Brainiac drone had to manually replace parts of itself."

"And…" She nods slowly in understanding. "They all got fried by the E.M.P."

"Completely destroyed. The residue is enough that I can tell that they existed, but I can tell almost nothing else about them. I'm assessing its advancement based on the remaining parts of the brain unit more than anything else."

"Could you replace them with my nanobots?"

I frown, and then when that's not enough I squeeze my eyes shut.

"Your nanobots..? Which are designed to merge kryptonian and human genetics in a single organic body and grant it superpowers?"

"Yeah?"

…

"And not-?"

Be nice.

"Sure." I point to the blood extraction array I built to draw her blood. "You remember how it works."

She nods and walks over to it, inserting her arm into the hole. A tiny piece of ultra-sharp something that I recovered in a scavenging mission will cut through her skin and then a suction tube will remove a little of her blood before the nanobots close the hole. And then do it again and again until it's managed to extract enough of a sample to work with. Her nanobots tend to self-destruct when exposed to… Just about anything that's not her body. It's not impossible that they'll recognise a fellow Brainiacite and be helpful instead…

Hardly a problem for me if something goes wrong.

She's watching-.

Repair.

Orange light flashes out in a way that will probably make her happy. Rebuilding the gynoid's body is fairly simple. Which is to say either easy or impossible. I don't have good 'before' scans so there are large parts that I can't reliably repair. The brain in particular is going to absorb my experimental time for the next… Week or two? And that will just be to make it functional. I literally can't replicate a partially disassembled computer brain from the future. But if I assume bilateral symmetry and that the tissues retain a similar structure in different parts of the body…

The partial rebuild finishes. Mia looks a little impressed. Why-?

"It's not finished. The skin's just relatively simple."

But without nanotech, quite a lot of this won't work as intended. And if Mia wants it up and around, some ability to function in human society would probably be helpful. How should I go about that?

Hm. If the probe used something like Tomorrow Woman's tissue, I suppose that's a reasonable place to start. Her remains I could scan perfectly well, once Professor Ivo's scan-resistant coating was removed. Doesn't help with the brain -Tomorrow Woman's brain was synthetic-organic and couldn't interface with the remaining Coluan parts- but it will do for the rest.

"Hey."

Mia offers me the filled vial. The gynoid doesn't have an immune system that could react badly to the blood, and Tomorrow Woman's circulatory system can take them to every part of the gynoid's body. I take the vial, open a hole to one of the remaining nanotech reserves and pour the blood inside before sealing it.

"There. I still need to finish her brain. I'll let you know when I'm ready to wake her up."

 

[Mr Zoat]

11th October 2010
11:52 GMT -5

I turn the lights on, and Artemis is already recoiling-. Then she stops.

"What?"

"You told me that you wanted me to get a hobby that didn't involve cutting up small animals. I.. worked out that you didn't mean that you wanted me to do testing on larger animals, so-"

"Yeah, good."

She walks over to one of the displays and picks up a miniature.

"-I-."

"Oh, they're like… Army men."

…

Perhaps I should have just built a girlfriend? I have all of Tomorrow Woman's specifications and it wouldn't be that hard to generate an agreeable personality matrix-.

No, no. There's no reason for her to have encountered Warhammer 40,000 before. Be reasonable.

"It's a British science fiction wargame."

"Oh." She puts the gargoyle down and picks up a pulsa rocket. "So… They fight each other?"

I take a calming breath. "When I was… Thirteen? My mother made it clear to me that other people won't necessarily find things as interesting as I do. This is something that I'm really into, and I've finally got the ability to get into it as much as I want to. So while I can happily quote chapter and verse about everything here, you… Might find it better to specify what you want to know."

She looks concerned, but I think it's more 'oh God a nerd' concerned rather than 'I'm getting serial killer vibes' concerned. "What are these.. green ones?"

Thank you.

"Orks."

"And those are… Rockets?

"Pulsa rockets. Basically, a rocket motor on a force field projector. They fire them at enemy armies and the force field knocks any soldier anywhere near it over."

"You've… Got a lot of them."

I nod, smiling. 16 of them, enough to pin most armies for an entire game. Not quite enough against Tyranids some of the time, but I couldn't quite fit 24 in under the points limit.

"The army represents an artillery battery. You see the-" Almost fair. "-fellow with the big gun and the tiny green things?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"That's a teleportation gun. It opens a portal in space, they chase the little ones through it and send them into a berserk frenzy, and they appear inside vehicles and slaughter the crew."

"And the guys with wheels for legs?"

A Warboss in mega armour with a kustom shoota, gyro-stabilised monowheel and a small group of Bigbosses with the same. 8" basic movement, 16" charge, an average of 4 S6 shots per turn at BS6/5 but which could be 6 S10 shots each, WS7 for the Warboss due to his spike attack arm and WS5 for the Bigbosses which isn't so impressive, but they were mostly fighting people who escaped the pulsa field or vehicles anyway and their power fists were enough for that. I considered giving the Warboss combat drugs for a 32" charge range but I decided that it would leave him too isolated.

"Effectively, heavy cavalry for counter-attacking. Everything else is shooting."

She points to the gretchin. "What about-?"

"Meat shields. Most units have to shoot whatever's closest, so those stand between the important stuff and the enemy and take bullets for them."

"Huh." She turns to the Tyranids. "What about these Alien.. big monster things? You've got a lot of the same thing."

"Tyranids. And those are gargoyles. Flying monsters with flamethrowers. Under most circumstances that's enough to wipe out all enemy infantry on turn two. The big ones are Hive Tyrants, and it's their job to shoot heavier things and kill enemy wizards with their magic."

I just about manage not to wince at putting it like that. Naturally, the zoanthropes are the vehicle killers and the main user of force cards as other than Psychic Scream Tyranid psychic powers are pretty bad, and the gargoyle broods are minimum size to limit the effects of leadership failures.

Artemis looks them over, obviously fails to comprehend and moves along the row. "And these guys are humans?"

Scout squads with teleport homers, techmarines with warp jumps and vortex grenades and a swarm of customised vehicles with as many assault cannons as they have weapon mounts. Turn one mass teleport followed by everything important in the enemy army vanishing into the warp, unless they've got a vortex detonator or a teleport jammer in which case you lose. I think that the original version of this build used jump packs instead of warp jumps, but that seemed to be aiming for a turn two crippling and risked the techmarines being shot or zoned out.

"Yes."

She moves along the line. "And these are ogres?"

Ogryn with ripper guns mounted in chimera IFVs with supercharged engines, ablative armour and bulldozer blades, a force designed to cross the table in a single turn and drop off the ogryn within 'literally can't miss' range and blow away anything that can be killed by S4 fire. I read about that tactic in White Dwarf, and that version added a commissar to increase the BS of the multilaser turret. But as far as I can tell from the main rulebook only crew and engineers can fire a tank's weapons, and while I could get BS5 by jumping a techpriest with a bionic eye in on turn 1 it didn't seem worth it. The rest of the army is intended to minmax the preparatory bombardment rule, because no other army in the game can wipe out an enemy before turn 1.

"Big, mutant humans. From high gravity worlds."

"Huh. So… Do you play with them?"

"No. These armies were designed for the game's second edition. The game is on its fifth edition now. Most of these units don't even exist anymore."

"Okay. Did you paint them?"

"No, I never had the patience for that. I designed the paint scheme and had the ring do it."

She shrugs, shaking her head. "Then..?"

"I like designing the army lists as a composition exercise. And I like having them."

Though the next one was going to be an entirely tournament-legal Necron writhing worldscape/tremorstaves list, because 'the floor is lava, and so is everything else' seems like an amusing thing to inflict on someone.

"Okay." She puts down Nork Deddog. "That's…" She nods. "No animals hurt. You did what I asked."

Ah…

"The original versions of most of those models were made of lead, so…"

Sport, you've got a situation.

I didn't think I was doing that badly. Okay, girl and wargaming, but as far as that goes-.

"Could you teach me how to play?"

I blink.

I… Keep blinking.

She looks at me. "What?"

"Ah, sorry. Ring… Message. Yes?"

"The gynoid is waking up."

"What? She's down to two fifths of a brain, how can she be waking up?"

"I don't know what to tell you, sport. Her eyes are focusing and her fingers are twitching in a controlled sort of way."

The nanotech-.

"Right, we're heading that way now, please inform Mia. Artemis." I lean in and briefly kiss her on the lips, an action that appears to take her by surprise. "I would be delighted to."

 

[Mr Zoat]

11th October 2010
11:57 GMT -5

Mia meets up with us at an-

"I didn't think-. Wait, what were you doing?"

-intersection. She looks a little agitated.

"We were-." / "Nothing!"

I stop, frowning, and look at Artemis. And then Mia, who's… Smiling?

Doesn't matter. I fly down the corridor, opening the security door to my workshop. The gynoid is securely attached to the workbench by kinetic absorption devices that should resist the level of strength that it demonstrated when we fought the Brainiac probe. The ring is right, its fingers are moving in a more coordinated way than they were before I disconnected its brain module. A connection which.. has been restored. Mia's nanotech hasn't just gone to work, it's actually multiplied and spread across the gynoid's systems. It appears to have accepted the physical changes I made… Somewhat, but has changed other parts for reasons I'm not-

I hear Artemis gasp behind me.

-totally sure of.

"Why is she naked?"

I frown. "Because I-."

"DON't.. say 'because I didn't put any clothes on her'."

"Okay." Scan in detail. I want to know what's going on in her brain module.

You got it, sport. Sorry I didn't catch the 'naked' thing a second ago.

Why? It is naked.

"Mia?"

The nanobots appear to have focused on restoring the self-repair system and then migrated to her brain. It… They've actually modified the bits that were still there a lot. I suppose that if the far more primitive human-built robots can handle full human mind uploads then the super-advanced Coluan computer should be able to do the same.

"I thought he was still working on her. So he needed access to everything."

"Everything?"

I only fixed the parts where I could tell from the surrounding components what was supposed to be there; micro-fractures and things like that. I haven't even installed the rest of the brain yet.

"Ah, Paul?"

"Mia?"

Okay, so if we assume that the Brainiac probe was controlling it in the same way that it was controlling Mia, then having it active isn't a problem. Mia appears to believe that to be the case. I don't. Literally every version of Brainiac I know of is evil, with the exception of the one from the Legion of Super-Heroes, and if this thing was theirs then they would have already picked it up. More to the point, we can't prove it either way without activating it.

"Could you put something on her?"

"Yes?"

So what do I do about it? How do I make sure-?

Artemis puts her right hand on my shoulder and pulls me around.

"Put. Clothes. On her."

Oh. Why can't more people be like Artemis? That's a perfectly clear request.

She glances at my work. "I was thinking more, but okay. That's… Something."

"Artemis, I desire you far more than I could any gynoid. Emotional bonds with someone with actual free will are far more meaningful than building a sex robot. This gynoid is no rival for my feelings for you."

"That-. Wasn't-." She looks away for a moment. "Okay. Ah, thanks?"

"I could have built a sex robot at almost any point since I got-."

"Now you're ruining it."

"But I didn't, that's-."

She sticks out her right arm, pointing at the gynoid.

You see? Perfectly clear again. And Mia's just standing there looking gormless.

I point the ring at the gynoid's head and fabricate a new right hemisphere. Immediately the gynoid seizes up and then settles into its physical default position.

I investigated robotics, of course. The human body has innumerable flaws and weaknesses, and switching to a robotic one might have been a sensible choice. But the fact is that modern Earth robotics just aren't good enough. Certainly they have advantages in some areas, but between the numbness, the dysphoria, and the lack of the soup of chemicals that work together to moderate and motivate the human brain… The disadvantages are just too severe even if a consciousness transfer or brain transplant works. The Brain from the Brotherhood of Evil managed to make the brain-machine link work perfectly, and he was able to work through-.

Ah?

Yes, yes. I used Dr. Shanner's work on the gynoid. A near exact copy of the brain of the gynoid 'Sis'. Obviously that's not a solution I would have gone with if I had more time, but for a radioactive death machine Sis was pretty harmless.

Ah..?

Personality-wise. And that should give the nanobots something to work on. Progress?

The nanobots are extending their nanotubes into the new circuitry, connecting it to the more advanced but incomplete parts that were already present. Quick work on their part, and… Yes, they're flooding that part of its brain and trying to work out what it's for. They might just use the whole thing for raw materials, but… No. They are modifying it, but it looks like they just want to turn it into something that can integrate, rather than changing it completely. Well, that's basically what they do with Mia's body, so that makes sense.

Mia frowns. "I thought you said it would take longer."

"It would if I was acting with care. Rushing it because the gynoid is trying to reactivate before being fully repaired I can just shove something in and hope for the best."

"What?!"

"I never claimed to understand time-travelling Coluan technology. This is the best I can do. Scans show that it's working, but if you want a second opinion then you've got about… Twenty seconds to get it."

"I.. can't get anyone in twenty seconds."

Artemis sighs and nods. "He knows. That's why he said it like that."

She gets me.

The integration is finished, and I can see parts of the right hemisphere start to activate. Data is being exchanged, and parts of the body are being linked to the new neuroware.

And then its eyes blink and it starts trying to focus-.

"Hey." Mia interposes herself between it and the rest of the room. "Are you feeling… Better?"

A new pattern of activation as it searches for the right words. The section that I noticed as being damaged earlier is active, as are several other parts that Dr. Shanner designed for the same purpose. And altogether?

"Yes." The gynoid jerks in surprise as it hears its own voice. "Yes. I am… Fully functional."

Mia smiles. "And do you remember who you are?"

"I am…" Another patch activates, then she frowns. Facial emulators. "Eight… Eighth… Indigo. Yes. I am Indigo."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 21
27th March 2013
21:44 GMT

"You're right."

Bruce nods, a display of the discrepancies visible on the main screen of his computer. Which is not called 'the bat computer', or any variation thereof. He was quite clear about that, and appeared to genuinely not know what I was talking about the first time I used that name. It's a bit like how the batmobile was named as such by Richard, and before that was 'officially' just called 'the car'.

It just goes to show that if that bat hadn't flown through the window on his first night out, he genuinely would have bled to death. Naming things is not Bruce's forte.

"Colin Thornton has been importing raw materials far in excess of his company's use of them. I wasn't able to determine what he is using them for."

I nod solemnly as he turns away from the screen and towards me.

"Do you intend to tell me what you know?"

"Regrettably, I am bound not to for the next nine days. Of course, should you choose to investigate on your own recognisance, that would be your affair."

"And after nine days?"

I wave my right hand dismissively. "On the off-chance that it's still an issue, I can tell you then."

So long as I don't personally profit from it, at least. But we made sure to draft the contract in such a way that the First couldn't just show me everything in order to prevent me doing anything about any of it forever.

Thing is, in terms of efficiency…

Simpson got stamped on for disrupting the market contrary to the interests of the market leader. Or 'dominant market player' at least. But, he got picked up by another senior demon and is working for him, which isn't as efficient as a pure free market where demons can choose between flesh modifications and mechanical ones, but it does indicate that his talents aren't just being wasted. And things might change in his favour in the longer term, as Satanus meets with more success and others are forced to reconsider their own methods.

But…

Satanus is sitting pretty on Earth and in Purgatory. Which means that the rest of Hell won't even see what he's using. So there's that. The Renderers didn't even make Simpson an offer, which suggests that demon hiring practices are sub-mafiosi. It's unlikely to just be Simpson who suffered that sort of treatment, he's just the one I know about. If-.

"Do I need to investigate within the next nine days?"

"If you're asking me if a person like me would advise a person like you that a person like Mister Thornton should be investigated rapidly, I suspect that person would say 'no'. However, since such advice would come before an in-depth investigation, it would be impossible to say for certain that it wasn't necessary."

"I see. Is there anything else?"

"No, thank you." Hm. Bruce and I don't meet up too often. Is there anything I need to check..? "Director Armstrong not making too much of a nuisance of herself so far?"

"She threatened to instruct child services to investigate my treatment of Robin."

I bite my lip, then look up at the ceiling.

"Since she can't touch the Justice League directly, she intends to target our associates. Our families."

"Batman, I'm sure that you had your reasons. But I wouldn't dream of getting my children involved in-."

"Darfur."

"Sunset and Misa were both older, and Lynne didn't have to go anywhere near the actual fighting. And she's a lot more resilient than Richard is. I wouldn't have given that task to my younger children, and you'll note that I haven't done anything like that again." I shake my head. "Look, Richard is sixteen. They can't take him away from you now because he can just manumit himself-."

"Emancipate himself."

"And come back on his own. And… Frankly, yeah. I'm not keen on people Richard's age doing fieldwork. Yes, I've heard your explanations, all our missions ballooned out of control and half the time it was because of something we did, and Richard needed something to focus on other than hunting Anthony Zucco down and brutally murdering him… But I still don't think that it was the right decision."

"Robin and I do."

"Child services won't." I shrug. "The best way to avoid blackmail is to either not have anything that can be used to blackmail you, or to not care. Armstrong's probably going to do something stupid before too long, get herself in over her head." I smile broadly. "Personally, I find the idea of Bruce Wayne being appointed to the Directorship hilarious. That is the sort of thing politicians give to their donors, isn't it?"

He considers it. Briefly.

"I wouldn't have the time."

"Then you could try finding someone else. As I said, she's too aggressive to avoid making a mess of things eventually. And she hates it when her attempts at hardball don't work. I'd just ask you not to set her off for a couple of years. Having her fight the other alphabet agencies for territory is ensuring that the D.M.A. will last, and we do sort of need it."

"Mm."

"Well, thank you again. I'll leave you to it. Mother Box, hush tube."

"Ping."

I step through the tube, back into Gull. Well away from the debris of Neron's tantrum and into the realm of the upper class merchants. A thin and pointy-looking demon who puts me a little in mind of a Muppet in general appearance sniffs at me.

"Does sir have an appointment?"

"Sir has a letter of authority from the First."

He draws himself up-. And that's when I see that his modern and well-tailored suit is made from human skin. Human facial skin, to be precise. The eyelids, mouths and noses are sewn shut and I… Haven't studied human leatherwork to know how exactly they got it to tessellate like that, but-.

As the demon reaches out to take the letter with its right hand it strokes one of the faces with its left, the eyes momentarily opening and looking at me with an expression of absolute terror and suffering, closing when he move his left hand away.

The demon smiles at me smugly, then flips open the letter. He looks it over briefly, then nods. I doubt that he read it all, but he doesn't really need to. The First's mark at the bottom is enough to let him know that the matter is well above his level.

"Please wait here, sir." He passes the letter back to me. "I will inform Lord Mammon that you desire his company."

I nod and smile. "Thank you. That's a fetching coat you have."

"Thank you, sir. Gamblers who don't know when to stop are my particular speciality. Surprisingly good at judging risk, when it's not their money on the line. I'll leave you now, sir. Please feel free to order refreshments."

He turns and walks towards the cavernous hall containing Central Exchange. Here is where Hell conducts most of its financial business with the Earth. Leading people to damnation with financial transactions rather than simply trading favours for souls. Honestly, the way this place operates is far closer to how I imagined that Hell should work than anywhere else I've visited. It also acts as a central bank for Hell's own currency, though the relatively small size of Hell's middle class means that it's mostly used by demons who work here rather than anyone else.

I didn't prioritise it because as far as I can tell it works properly. The financial market doesn't require that everyone make good choices all the time, it just needs to reward good choices and punish bad ones. Rewards result in more power being given to people who make good decisions. The whole system is therefore self-correcting so long as basic social order is maintained. And in these halls, Mammon is good at making sure that happens.

A small skivvy-imp flies down from a small doorway high in the wall and floats in front of me.

"Lord Mammon will see you now. Please, follow me."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 21
27th March 2013
21:52 GMT

To my mild surprise, Mammon isn't alone in his office. Though due to the Demon Lord's sheer bulk, it takes me a moment to spot the other demon. Mammon is big, red, dressed in a suit which barely contains either his bulging muscles or corpulent gut. There's a decorative gold necklace around his neck, rings on his fingers, a ring through his chin and… If I'm seeing right, his nipples are pierced by large… What do you call them?

I had not conceived that such things would need to be named.

Nipple.. fishing weights? His fat means that his head merges with his neck, the location of which I can only deduce by the location of his collar which -to be fair- is as well-tailored as it could be. There's gold thread in the jacket and trousers, and if I had to summarise the whole thing I'd say 'unusually blunt communist depiction of the capitalist class'.

He's also huge. I'm slightly smaller than his head, and I'm not exactly a small man. The area of the room around his desk is scaled to him, giving me a distinctly Lilliputian feeling. Honestly, the size is throwing me a little. In financial terms he's the richest man down here, but it's in much the same way that merchant princes in the Middle Ages could well be richer than their kings. Pleasant, until one of the paupers with an army decided to pay them with your savings. He isn't that powerful, magically speaking. Not compared to the First or even Neron. And yet, for some reason, he's choosing to present himself like this to me.

"Yes, yes, you may go, Flragrah."

And that's when the other demon draws my attention to him, walking across the carpet. I… Think I remember him from John's notes. Unless I miss my guess that's Blathoxi, Lord of… Flatulence, of all things, and the head of the commodities exchange. He looks like his boss in miniature: less muscle, a suit that's fifty years out of style and -thank Heaven for small mercies- no immediately obvious piercings. He has membranous wings which his boss lacks, while Mammon has small horns that Blathoxi doesn't have. On the face of it Blathoxi looks like no threat at all, but he's still a second-tier demon.

My escort bows and backs away four paces before turning and leaving the office. I see Mammon smirk, extend his right hand slightly and flick, a huge gold coin flying from his desk and impacting the wall just in front of Flragrah, causing him to start and back up, looking back to see exactly what his master intends.

"A gratuity for your good work, Flragrah. Take it."

"Thank you, eminence."

He bows, then reaches up and tries to pull it out of the… Wood? But it looks like it's firmly stuck.

Flragrah flaps his wings, planting his feet on the wall and tugging with all his might. And not just his physical strength. Flragrah isn't exactly top tier, but a demon working the door somewhere like this isn't going to be weak.

It isn't coming.

"Flragrah, we are trying to have a meeting here."

The tone is understanding, but the grin says it all. He's tormenting his underling, not with physical pain but with stress and shame. Given the opportunity to profit, and then putting him in a position where not only can he not take advantage of it but also doesn't know how he's supposed to handle it.

I could step in and-.

Blathoxi makes eye contact with me, gives his head a small shake and then motions towards… A tiny desk in front of the huge desk of the demon lord. I nod, following him with only a quick glance back-.

Flragrah has torn off his own left hand, demon blood spurting out and… Lubricating the giant coin. He winces as he pushes his hand back onto the stump and mutters something, putrid smoke wafting from the wound. He shudders in pain.

Mammon leans forwards, forearms steepled. "Well?"

Wrist still smoking, Flragrah applies himself to the coin once more and this time it comes free. But he's not ready for it and it falls on him, his wounded arm failing to support it.

Mammon's grin widens.

Flragrah manages to prop the coin against his left shoulder to arrest its movement, then gradually pushes it into an upright position where he can roll it to the door. Very carefully, he moves around to the front and starts slowly rolling it towards himself. By the time I've reached the desk he's just about managed to get it out of the door.

"Hah!" Mammon claps as the door closes. "Good initiative under pressure. That one is going places, Blathoxi, you mark my words."

"Consider them marked, Lord."

"Now…" Mammon leans forward, so that he can see me over his desk. "Grayven."

"Lord Mammon. Thank you for agreeing to see me."

"Not often the First gets interested in what we do down here. No interest in collecting souls, no interest in mortal economics, barely any interest in the administration of Hell most of the time. At least Lucifer was up for the occasional wager, canny bastard that he was."

He tilts his head a little to the left, then moves his right hand out of sight-.

The desk I'm standing next to and a circle of the carpet around it shoots upwards, Blathoxi standing entirely unruffled at my side. It comes to a halt level with Mammon's desk, letting him look at us from a slouched-back position, hands clasped over his corpulent belly.

"What can I do for you?"

I take out my letter of authority, but Mammon raises his right hand.

"No, no. That won't be necessary. I trust that you are who you claim to be."

I unfold the letter and hold it out towards him, his eyes unable to avoid being drawn to it. Only once they move away do I fold it back up and put it away.

Clearly, it was necessary.

"The First has contracted me to examine Hell's economy."

Blathoxi scowls. "Then why did it take you so long to come here?"

"Because as far as I can tell, this is the one part of Hell that's working properly. You tempt people to give into their vices, and if they fail, collect your due. You trade with one another, each with the aim of grasping every possible advantage, and there are winners and losers. The winners gain more authority, but you limit certain types of competition in order to keep the market functioning. Honestly, if it was up to me, I'd just put you in charge of the whole place."

Blathoxi… Is actually smiling. It's pretty disturbing to look at, a sneer with just enough genuine joy to add an element of confusion.

His master, however, is unmoved. "Governance is of little interest to me. The system I and my like-minded students have built is not something that would survive the likes of Neron setting it on fire when he throws a tantrum. It is sadly true that what has been built can always be destroyed."

"But that doesn't mean that it's always wrong to build. Demons are thinking creatures, you all want more than you have. You don't want the same old same old for eternity."

"You're speaking my language, godling. Top tier toadying. But you still haven't answered my question."

"In order to make recommendations to the First, I need to understand Hell's economic systems. I had thought that I could just make a few pertinent observations and call it a day, but your natures are so different to mortal creatures and the world you live in so dissimilar in its operating principles to what I'm used to that I don't think it will work. I need an understanding that I suspect that you possess so that I can begin to change this mess into something more rational. So in the First's name, oh Lord of Greed, share your wisdom with me."

"If you just wanted a chat, you should have come here at the start. The First's favour is rare coin. Blathoxi, get the economic modelling files. We're going to be at this a while."

 

[Mr Zoat]

27th March 2013
07:10 GMT +2

Dr. Roquette looks up as I pull out the chair opposite her.

"You're looking better."

I sit down as she looks down, nodding self-consciously.

"Y-eah. Between those tablets you gave me and… Actually seeing my nanobots actually help people, I…" She breathes in deeply and then breathes out again. "I haven't even wanted to drink again." She picks up her glass of orange juice. "Juice only."

"I'm glad to hear it. But are you feeling better? Or are you just changing your behaviour?"

She takes a sip. "No, no, I do actually feel better." She frowns mildly. "What was in those tablets, anyway? Some sort of space addiction-suppressant? Because I think I had some sort of reaction-."

"Psilocybin."

She looks up from her yoghurt, eyes widening slightly as she watches me for a sign that I'm joking. "Oh. That explains the hallucinations and why you told me not to operate machinery for four hours."

"The League developed several psychoactive chemicals to try and fight off the Anti-Life, but… Unless you're being continuously exposed, psilocybin works just as well and has less risk of causing brain or liver damage."

"Do you want to have the tablets I've got left over back-?" She blinks. "Are these illegal in Greece?"

"If they are, then I doubt that they're enforcing it."

She breathes in slowly and then snorts the air out through her nostrils before taking another spoonful of honey-drizzled yoghurt.

"No problems with your co-workers or with the government?"

She thinks for a moment, then swallows. "No, everyone's… Doing their best. If.. anything, the Finance Ministry is being too accommodating."

"How do you mean?"

"Usually, applying for funding is a lot more adversarial. Here, they say they'll give anything for a miracle…" She frowns a little. "And I actually can. I guess I just sort of assumed it would be in testing forever."

"Under normal circumstances it might well. But whatever-."

Wait. Wait just a-.

Did-? Anti-Lifeing the Earth do something to Boss Smiley? We found that people with strong morals and a strong sense of purpose managed to cope better than people who didn't. People most in tune with him would have been hit the hardest, and… Been Justified? Would he feel that? There's a certain logic to the thought, but… Ugh, I don't even know if he actually exists, much less have any way to work out what could hurt him.

She's looking at me.

"Is something-?"

"Whatever unfortunate events conspire to prevent that sort of thing don't appear to apply when people are this desperate. It's something that I never managed to understand, how this Earth could have so much highly advanced technology and yet use it so little."

She nods. "I remember that talk you gave. So, what, Mannheim beat the special interests?"

"Could be. Or they actually want this to succeed because there won't be a civilisation for them to run from the shadows unless things change."

He did say that he didn't mind a little change. But once this becomes part of the new normal anywhere, then it won't be possible to dislodge it. Even if they embargo Greece completely… Greece won't need to import anything.

It's not true post-scarcity, due to the throughput limits and the fact that most manufacturing is still better done with dedicated machines and operators. But it's starting to look a little more like that than what we had before.

"How's the rest of the world?"

"China's pretty interesting. Who knew that a civilisation of a billion people could coast on pure inertia like that?"

"Shouldn't their currency have collapsed?"

"It did, but they didn't notice. Currency collapses hurt the middle class. China… Does have a middle class, but it's relatively small. They've… Basically put as many people as they can on public works programs-. Did you know that the Chinese construction industry is massively corrupt?"

"It doesn't surprise me."

"And I don't mean a few back-handers to get a contract corrupt. I mean full-on Victorian 'this tunnel was supposed to have five layers of brick, it's got half of one and now it's collapsed and killed hundreds of people' corrupt. There's plenty of work to do fixing it and just about enough transportation and food production to prevent mass starvation. Good old communist community spirit."

"How can they afford that?"

"Who needs currency when you have commissars?"

She frowns. "And people are just.. accepting that?"

I shrug. "There's no locus for opposition. With the Communist Party being the only political party and having representatives on the board of every company of any size, there's no avenue for counterargument. Everyone's pretty much trying to keep things as normal as possible, doing their best to follow whatever orders there are… The fact that all the deaths have left holes in the political structure doesn't matter. If someone tried that in America, they'd be shot. In China, it-." Hm. "What do you know about the Battle of Kursk?"

"It was a battle in World War Two.. between the Nazis and the Soviet Union. But that's about all."

"The Russians built huge earthworks to defend the city, with almost the entire population of the city joining in with the digging. The Chinese are doing that for the entire country until someone has a better idea, or until they've got a functioning country. Probably… Reorganise the national government while regional governments keep everyone too tired to complain, then… Issue a new currency?"

"I haven't really kept up… What's America doing?"

"Barter, digital currency or Justice League tokens. The government tried printing more dollars while they were already in a period of hyperinflation, then tried to pass a law to force businesses to accept the dollar." I shake my head. "We were this close-" I hold up my right hand with thumb and forefinger close together. "-to seeing the return of state nullification, and it looks like a couple might reinstate precious metal currency. Honestly, they're probably going to have to knock a couple of zeroes off the dollar too when things settle down."

"No public works programs?"

"Americans won't tolerate being treated in the way that the Chinese expect to be treated. The Federal Government can't pay for a public works program with anything that anyone who could supply one would take. If they had any sense they'd butt out and let the American people fix things from the ground up."

"And how's… Ah, England doing?"

"The British government is too incompetent to do as much damage as the US government is. And as a result, small scale solutions are sort of emerging. They've turned a lot of areas of grassland into allotments, put farms back into production now that all of the fallowing and tree subsidies have vanished. Thanks to that and my portals the country can just about feed itself, though there are a lot fewer cars on the roads."

LexCorp managed to pull an ultra-density battery out of its collective bottom, which combined with the improved power generation systems most advanced countries have been setting up means that cost-effective long-range electric vehicles are now a reality. The Justice League is paying for a lot of them for goods transportation with League-currency, which… Means that LexCorp is the most stable financial concern on the planet. But… That's definitely a problem for another day.

"What about the rest of Europe?"

"Where do I start?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 22
28th March 2013
06:53 GMT

Aaah-hhhaaa-haaa-aaaaah…

"…soul futures, which naturally requires an extensive network of information brokers for the participants to predict market fluctuations."

First came the First, cast beyond God's sight.

Huuh. Ah-aaaaah…

Then came the Second and Third, to counterbalance the First.

No-no… Come on. Focus.

Then came the Lightbringer, seeking escape and knowledge. He was a part of Creation, and brought Creation with him.

I try… Pushing what Mammon told me from my mind, but it's… It's not working. It's worming into my soul. It's not the Anti-Life, it's…

It's personal.

From the bridge emerged Demonkind, forever apart from and yet a part of Creation.

I try focusing on my surroundings. This part of the… Exchange, is more modern than most of Hell. A bit… Eighties stock exchange, simple computer screens and chunky mobile telephones. Demons in shirts cluster in various places, and the screens are showing… Images and bar charts that don't… Don't mean much to me.

The demons are… Cooperating. I don't see any sign that they actually like each other, but files and minor coins are being exchanged… Peacefully. Neither party is reluctant. And I can see demons who are clearly female and not succubae, which is interesting. Male and female alike look like thinner versions of Blathoxi, but… Hungrier.

The Nature of Demonkind is not the Nature of Mankind, for Mankind is part of Creation and Demonkind is apart from Creation.

It's like a… Like something's pushing my soul away from the world. And if I had to guess why… My goal is to unify all peoples in a perfect society, even though I know that is impossible. But here the Source itself is telling me to take a hike! Why?

Nggh.

Blathoxi regards me curiously. Yes, regardless of my spiritual defences he's almost certainly picking up on the fact that something is wrong with me.

"What… Ah, what's the payout? How are their investments realised?"

"If the investor owns an asset when the debtor exits the market, then their assets pass to the investor."

"They take their soul."

Blathoxi rolls his eyes. "By default, a standard position involves all assets, material and immaterial. Naturally, taking possession of worldly goods has the benefit of reducing energy wastage in satisfying future infernal public offerings, but we also have a sales department."

H-rg-uh.

It nearly fits. Nearly. There shouldn't be anything eldritch about providing a service, but it… Still…

"I'm… I'm sorry, I thought that you answered requests using magic. Are you saying that you buy solutions to requests using previously acquired assets?"

"Lord Mammon encourages us to multi-vector product delivery. So long as the requested service is rendered, it hardly matters how."

"Can external parties make investments?"

"Certainly. This is a free market, after all."

"And can the initial party buy their…" Ah, I can't come up with the investor-speak word. "Their soul back?"

"Again, certainly. It's actually quite common with our senior clients."

"Cult-leaders offer sacrifices?"

"Among other techniques. While the seller sets the price, souls which acquire… Certain resonances, accumulate value. It may well be in an investor's long-term interest to liquidate their position and re-enter the market at a later stage."

"And… If a cult-leader buys himself out of all outstanding contracts and then dies..?"

"We do have a sin-eating department. It's a specialist market, since it doesn't help with people who want to reach the Silver City."

"So cult-leaders wound end up here anyway."

"Not here. Having purchased their own stock the Exchange has no hold on them. Usually they would end up in Err, and thus are no longer our proper concern."

"So… If a Hindu magician wanted to ensure a more advantageous reincarnation…"

"I believe that you understand the service."

"And what do the Hindu gods think of that?"

"We haven't had any complaints so far. It only allows them to escape the consequences of their vices. It does not help them achieve nirvana." He stops, smiling faintly. "In fact, I rather suspect that it works against it."

"Do such mortals ever come here?"

"Only very occasionally. Quite a collectors item."

It's… So… Logical. But the rest…

"I don't suppose that we can offer you a deal of some sort, can we?"

"My soul goes to the Source when I die. I wouldn't want to cheat you."

"We do broker other sorts of deal, Mister Grayven. We can acquire almost anything."

I raise my eyebrows. "The bones of my grandfather?"

"For a fee, we could investigate."

"My grandfather is on the Source Wall. And he was alive when he went on there."

"For a large fee, we could investigate."

"I appreciate the offer, but I have nearly everything I want, and what's left I'll get from the First."

"That would be out of character for him."

"We have an agreement, and everything that you and Mammon… And my general demonology reading says is that the letter of the agreement is binding. If the First wants to pay the penalty on a contract solemnised with his own magic… Sure, he could, but I just don't see how it's worth it. I don't think I've angered him enough."

"Then the gain will be in some other area of his operations."

I shrug. "Sure, I assumed that. But that's the point of capitalism, isn't it? A series of voluntary exchanges where each gains something they value more than what they give up?"

He nods. "We use that phrase extensively in our advertising literature and sales spiels."

"Come on now. Everyone knows that you shouldn't trust advertisements." Or demons. "That's barely even lying. I-."

I look around as a door slams open and a demon in a state of some distress rushes in, a bundle of paper clutched in one hand. He heads over to a cluster of investors and… Starts talking. We're too far away for me to easily hear-.

Numbers on the screens start to move a lot.

"Excuse me, Mister Grayven. We've finished our tour, and I believe this needs my personal attention. One of my aides can show you out."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 22
28th March 2013
09:23 GMT

I'm sure this mountain wasn't here before.

Pandemonia is the place of residence for those demonic rulers who don't have a pressing reason to be somewhere else. And it's usually a secondary place of residence for those who do. Neron has a palace here, but prefers to spend time in Gull because…

I don't know. Probably because no one cares about him incinerating plebs but if he tried that around here then someone in his weight class might get antagonised. It's supposed to all be palaces tailored to the demonic potentate in question. The mountain is new.

Puts me in mind of the time I went down Cadair Idris with Dad. It's clearly not had paths cut in it for most of the slope, and I'm scrambling up scree with a rather long drop if I miss my footing. I mean, I'm not a squishy human any longer and I'd probably walk away with more damage to my pride than anything else, but it's still… Quite a drop.

And over the… Huh. Yes, like Cadair Idris there is an actual path carved into it once you get high enough. Not a direct path, possibly to give the walker time to appreciate the view.

In this case, the view of everyone else's palaces, far below.

They escorted me out of the exchange pretty quickly, and I wasn't able to spot what they were worried about. Or.. excited about. I'm still in contact with Challenger Mountain so if there'd been a major incident then Jean would have notified me. I can only assume that it's some sort of trading bubble thing.

I mean, it's not going to be that, but with my only avenue of investigation being to grab and assimilate and my deal with the First only okaying me for self defence or 'disrespecting the First', I don't really have another avenue to follow up.

It is a pretty nice mountain. You can't hear the screams from up here, or really see the racks of soulbound skin they like to use as awnings as anything other than a blob of colour.

This place has really got to go.

I spot the First's porcelain-white concubine doll things before I see the man himself. The two closest to the edge of his leisure… Gazebo perched on the mountaintop are fanning him with fans made of some sort of large feather. A little closer and I see two more massaging him while another feeds him peeled grapes. He's in his pink-skinned bodybuilder shape, and gives the impression of being completely at ease.

"Grayven." He doesn't look up. I'm not even sure that he opens his eyes. "Finished already?"

"No, oh First." A sex mannequin walks over with a drinks tray and silently offers one to me. I give her a small smile and a shake of my head. "I've hit a bit of a roadblock, and I think I need to learn more about Masak Mavdil in order to progress."

He grunts quietly as they work the muscles of his right shoulder.

"What for?"

"While I can complete a report for you without visiting it, I… I'm increasingly coming to believe that some of Hell's fundamental issues stem from it not connecting to the universe. And I think I need to get a feel for the place in order to… Well, probably to plot around it."

"It's got angels in it."

"Yes?"

"Pointless, annoying things. Every time I see one it puts me in a bad mood."

"But… Surely they're removed from God's sight there, and that fills them with horrible agony?"

"Only thing that makes it tolerable."

The massequins back up a step, and he levers himself into a sitting position, looking at me for the first time.

"So apart from that, what insights have you gotten from this place?"

He looks away as one of his toys begins oiling his right arm.

"It appears that demons have a high time-preference."

"They're short-sighted lackwits. I had spotted that."

"It's not just that. Management is lacking. There's no avenue for advancement, and they focus more effort on attacking rivals real or imagined than actually improving Hell. I assume that you don't want me to just suggest that you do a lot more work?"

He raises his left eyebrow and gives me a decidedly unimpressed look.

"I was going to suggest some sort of status thing. If you set in place some sort of system for determining which region had the best results in a given year and then assign status to their ruler based on that. You'd need to hold a feast or two a year and seat them in that order. The winner eats with you, the loser gets a plate of slime."

That gets a small smile.

"So they vie for your favour and win by achievement, rather than fighting for status both against each other and their more ambitious subordinates. I find superiors stamping on capable minions quite frustrating. There are dozens of human countries where insecure rulers treated their ministers and generals like that, and every single one does worse than its neighbours with actual rules and laws."

His serfs continue to oil the First as he considers my words.

"And how would you have me judge between them? I don't want to spend all of my time actually watching those morons."

"I suggest automating a process for detecting shifts in Hell's magic field. Or you could literally count soul income. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, as long as you're upfront about it. And if you don't want to-" Do your job. "-take on extra work, it needs to be something that either can be automated, or where you can leave it to someone who can be trusted not to-."

"Heh." He smiles at me. "'Trusted'."

"Not to do a bad job or lie. Not 'trusted' in the sense of generally being honest, 'trusted' in the sense of enjoying having powerful demons unable to hurt them and being afraid of his reports. Or of being so obsessed with precision that it wouldn't occur to them to lie. Or some sort of machine."

"I couldn't trust the Renderers to make one."

"The Renderers did try to kill a man who was making demonic machinery. He could probably build something, and he'd be too terrified of you to not do exactly what you asked."

The First frowns. "And of course this is the first I'm hearing about it. Is there anything about this man I might find amusing?"

"John Constantine got him killed. Twice."

"Hah!" He smiles as they finish up oiling his legs. "He thought they were friends, didn't he?"

"That he died is how you tell. Of course… If we're going to Masak Mavdil, it occurs to me that angels are generally known for honesty and precision."

"No."

"Compelling them to aid in improving Hell would be an ironic punishment, oh First."

The gynoids back away as the loincloth-clad First checks their work. With a nod, he approves.

"Even if they were the best option, it wouldn't be worth dealing with them. I'd rather destroy the whole system."

I nod. "As you will. Will you be accompanying me?"

"Yes. I've never seen how gods react to it. I don't often get to see genuinely new things."

"And how-?"

He looks upwards and the mountain bends, the land below us wheeling and twisting until-. A desolate plain and a grim fortress appears… Next to us.

I'm just about able to prevent myself vomiting from travel sickness.

"There." He casually steps off the mountain and onto the plain. "Let me show you Hell's birthplace."

 

[Mr Zoat]

16th October 2010
10:02 GMT -5

Artemis frowns at her phone, currently showing a compendium of 2nd Edition rules and errata. I've been making an effort to get copies of old White Dwarf and Citadel Journal as well as the actual 2nd Edition rulebook, but given that they predate modern computer-controlled printing it's surprisingly difficult to find a lot of them. I suppose I could just offer to pay Games Workshop to run them off for me, but it's…

"I don't think that's legal."

I'm sort of enjoying hunting them down.

"What isn't?"

"This says that Vortex Grenades are 'Rare-Two'." She looks up, turning the phone around so that I can see the entry. "You can only take two in your army. So, the warp jump thing doesn't work."

"I know." I nod. "The wargear rarity restriction was added…" When was it? "Hm, I don't actually remember. White Dwarf two hundred and something. The same one where they clarified what the restriction on multiple force fields meant." I shrug. "Less than half of the life of the edition. I built the army assuming that it didn't apply, because otherwise you only get-" I nod. "-two techmarines."

"And warp jumps don't scatter if you roll 'hit' anyway, so the teleport homer doesn't do anything."

I nod. "I went through to find mistakes in the Battle Bible, and there's a lot. Just in the wargear section they miss the fact that bionic arms increase strength for throwing grenades and not just hand to hand combat, that the Talon of Horus has a stormbolter attached to it and it gets the to-hit penalty rule for jump packs backwards."

She turns the phone back towards her, scrolling though the pages until she gets to the jump pack entry.

"Ah, 'models using Jump Packs do not receive the minus one to hit penalty for firing at a fast-moving target'."

I pick up a copy of the Wargear book and turn to page 71 before passing it to her. "It should be 'Troops using jump packs leap in nice slow, predictable curves so models firing at them do not count the minus one to hit penalty for firing at a target moving ten inches or faster.'. Which makes more sense: why would making a jump movement make you better at shooting fast moving targets? And it's not clear what happens when they move twenty inches or more, which should give a minus two penalty, and all of the 'common' wargear items should just be regular equipment, and they made some pieces of wargear limited to a particular character when originally anyone of the right species could use them."

"Huh. So why haven't you just fixed it?"

"Because I'd be the only person who knew my version of the rules. If I was actually having a game with someone we'd have to discuss which version we were using, and 'the original rulebook' or 'the battle bible' is a lot quicker than me having to explain my personal fixes. The whole point for me was just to have this army."

"But you could."

I hold out my right hand and lift up my copy of Codex: Eldar. "The eldar have plenty of tanks in the larger scale game, and a third party company called Armorcast did larger versions for Warhammer Forty Thousand, but I never saw the rules for them. Games Workshop didn't add eldar tanks into the game until the end of Second Edition, and they didn't make a model for their troop transport until Third Edition. The model in the company army had a turret made from a plastic spoon."

Her shoulders slump a little. "I don't mind learning the game, but I'm not that into it. If it's got that many problems how come you like it so much?"

I smile, looking directly at her. "Love is not a rational thing. It is quite possible to love a thing despite its faults while.. still being aware of those faults. Still finding those faults.. irritating, sometimes, but not prioritising that irritation over the love."

Ah…

"In the interests of clarity, you want me to assemble the rules as I prefer them in one place and give that to you?"

"Ah." She seems distracted for a moment. Not sure why. "Or I… Guess you could just learn chess."

"European Chess or Chinese Chess-? No, it doesn't matter."

Ring?

Hm? What is it, sport?

With all this information, you can handle the formatting, right?

Sure? Want me to pick up contemporaneous artwork to fill in the gaps too?

Yes. I'm not actually all that keen on John Blanche, a lot of his work just looks messy to me.

You do know I can hear your thoughts, right sport?

Okay. Hit it.

Orange lines flick out, enveloping Codex: Eldar and all of the material relating to eldar. The Citadel Journal with the expanded Harlequins list and psychic powers, the vehicle cards and vehicle upgrades…

And a new and slightly thicker copy of Codex: Eldar lands on the table.

And done.

I pick it up and flick through. Weapons? Yes, the ring added the pulse laser, and the support section of the army list now includes grav-tanks. And Mimes and Master Mimes are listed with the Harlequins. Oh, and the art section now has a copy of that rather nice diorama of the knight and the chaplain, a nice cover for the fact that eldar knights literally never got a model. Good work, ring.

You're welcome. It's nice to be appreciated.

"Hey."

I hold it out to her. "It's turned out well. I'll do the main rulebook next-."

"No, about-. Faults."

"Yes? As far as I remember Codex: Eldar was fairly well written-."

"No, I mean-. I think.. this is something I should just say to you. It's about Indigo."

"What about it?" She's looking directly at me. "Were you not interested in the eldar?"

"No. That. You call her 'it'."

I nod. "Yes."

"How come? I mean, it's.. pretty rude."

"Because that's what it is. You wouldn't call a statue of a woman 'she', would you?"

She leans back slightly. "Whaw, huh. So, what, you don't think Red Tornado is a person either?"

I blink. "No, Red Tornado is a person. And his-." Ah. "I think I see the problem."

"I'm…" She shakes her head. "Not sure you do."

Me neither.

"Indigo is a gynoid, a machine built in the likeness of a woman. It isn't a woman. It doesn't have all of the biological impulses that come with being human, adult, or female. Having three fifths of its brain coming from a gynoid programmed to mimic them means that it can fake it reasonably well, like a chatbot. It's… Sentient, not sapient. It has no real internal life. Red Tornado does."

Artemis frowns. "Are you..? Sure? She seemed like a person to me."

"The ring lets me scan to detect certain emotions. Red Tornado has them. They're pretty weak, but they're there, because he was programmed to observe, mimic and internalise, just like you and I were. Indigo wasn't. It was programmed to obey a list. I'm not trying to insult it. It's making itself useful. But it's not a person."

She thinks about that for a moment, eventually giving me a small nod. "Could she..? Become..? A person?"

"I hope not. I wasn't joking about not understanding her Coluan components. If it turns out that they're that flexible, then… I've got no idea what she might be capable of, or why she might decide to do it. As I said, you can't actually predict her actions based on the fact she looks like a human woman when she isn't one."

Artemis looks concerned. Why is-? Ah!

"It's okay if you're not interested in eldar. I was going to update all of the codices anyway. Where would you like to start?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 22
28th March 2013
09:41 GMT

"At once, master!"

The First rolls his eyes in response to the obsequiousness of the crab-like demon serving as the guard in this part of Masak Mavdil. She scuttles over to a cage-style elevator and pulls a lever, which causes the door to open. She then bows further, gesturing for us to enter.

"Two to go down!"

I follow the First into the elevator, his gaze completely level, not looking around at all at the shaft clearly visible through the bars around us. Once inside he turns around to face the entrance, gaze still level and arms folded across his chest.

"Closing the door!"

He remains exactly like that as the door closes and our descent begins, waiting until the crab-demon is out of sight before allowing his expression to morph into a grimace.

"Pathetic."

"The obsequiousness? The demon just wanted to please you."

"How hard is it to open an elevator door without making a song-and-dance about it?"

"You could just have said 'thank you'. If the demon knew that you were satisfied with the service, they would probably have shut up. You're kind of a big deal around here."

"Conquest-god, what do you think my aim around here is?"

"Ah..? Convince God that free will in general and humans in particular were dreadful mistakes?"

"And then what?"

"Go back to enjoying a flawless universe as an end in itself."

"But I can't, can I? I've seen the imperfection, the corruptibility of existence and of God. I can't be who I was before that ever again. Even if that all happened, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it."

"But surely if you knew that the alternative was worse and you'd made it better, been proven right, that's not a bad thing?"

"What do I look like?"

"A Greek god."

"And what are the Greeks?"

"Humans?"

"I didn't look like this. Back then. And then I was beyond God's sight by His command."

Ah.

"And now it's part of you and you're stuck as an ungodly thing. It's changed your nature. You can't be who you were."

"Can't be, can't want to be. The thing I want the most would be the worst thing to happen because it would even spoil the memories."

I nod sympathetically. "If you were anyone else, I'd offer you a hug."

"If I was anyone else it wouldn't come up."

But then…

"So what's the point of this for you? It's not-. 'If I can't be happy, I'll make everyone else miserable', is it? Because…"

"There are things I like. There are things I like doing. It's all beneath me, you're all beneath me, but pulling the wings off flies can be surprisingly cathartic."

"My father once defined evil as power backed by force-."

"Unusually concise for Darkseid."

I shake my head. "It was a while ago, I may have forgotten something. You know him?"

"He came here once, too. Had that streak of piss Desaad with him."

"And you allowed him?"

"I'm allowing you."

"I have a pact which requires me to help you. I doubt that he did."

"No, but I do find that Anti-Life Equation of his amusing."

"You heard it, then?"

He turns his head slightly towards me, sneering. "I was there when the universe was created. Did you really think some muttered words would do anything to me?"

"No, but it's nice to have it confirmed."

Mother Box?

Ping.

Well I doubt that he'd have written it down. Oh, and about the other thing?

Ping.

Alright. Let me know if that changes.

"Have you studied this place much yourself?"

"No. I took Lucifer down here once, in the hope that he'd either die or become less smug. A failure on both counts."

"What did he want?"

"He was trying to work out how to give humans free will."

Huh? "I.. thought that was what-."

"It was. But apparently that wasn't good enough for him. He seemed to think that God had gone back on the original concept or something, and wanted to do something so that God wouldn't be able to impose order on Creation."

"Learn anything useful?"

"I learned that I hate Lucifer slightly more than everything else. Smug bastard was laughing when he left."

"Why?"

"Because it proved that God wasn't omnipotent, and so could be escaped. As if that's anything to be happy about."

The lift comes to a rest at the bottom of its shaft, but the First makes no move to open the door.

"One of his skills is manipulating power. It's more or less what he was made for. And he still couldn't handle the stuff we collect here."

"Kaahuite, yes, I've heard of it."

The doors in front of us open and he walks out, arms still folded across his chest. I give him a moment and then follow him, the doors closing and the lift rising the moment I'm out.

"I admit that I'm a little curious about what your reaction will be."

"Oh?"

I look around. Looks like a castle storeroom, if a storeroom had supports made of dark grey rock rather than wood. And didn't store anything… Other than tiny black stalagmites.

I stumble a step.

Wu..?

"I was trying to work out how to kill you and get rid of that fucking sword that fucking succubus made out of my 'brothers'. But then I heard you say that your soul went to the 'Source' however you died, and I actually got curious."

I-. He bends down and snaps a stalagmite off the ground.

"What happens if you get killed with one of these? Let's find out."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Day 22
28th March 2013
09:45 GMT

I… I draw my daiklave and the Sword of the Fallen. I'm not… Firing on all cylinders at the moment.

"You didn't think this place made me weaker, did you?"

"It was a-." My vision wavers like a heat haze. "A consideration. But I remember that… You can't handle pain. Powerful, but a coward."

He rolls the little fragment of kaahuite between his fingers.

"And that should bother me why?"

"The Sword of the Fallen-."

He snorts. "Is that what you called it? Really?"

I don't-. It's like there's this feel that I… Can't.

"I wonder what she could make out of you. She-." Focus "Did have access to your body after she ran you through, didn't she?"

I think it's time to call in a marker. Mother Box, contact Kanto.

Ping.

Oh. Okay, just work on it.

Pooooong.

Oh.

The First walks over to one of the support pillars and picks up a… Crowbar? Then he swings it-.

The support pillar is pulverised.

"Some very disturbing things live down here. The demons call them abominations. At one time, I thought they might be like me. But, no. Another disappointment."

"Is this all this is about?"

"I can't find the whore, thanks to Constantine. He'll get his eventually, now the other two aren't around to fight me for him. You took it off Ishmael Gregor, didn't you."

"Yes."

"When I found out, I had a word with his sponsors. According to them, Satanus was the one who supplied it to him."

"And yet… He's fine. Losing your touch, oh First?"

"Do I look like someone who belongs in Purgatory?"

He walks over to another pillar, crowbar at the ready.

"So… You can't get in. You need him to come out if you want to take a swing at him."

"'Colin Thornton'. You told someone what he's been up to, and he knows it. Which means that he's... Heh." He shakes his head, chuckling. "He thinks he needs to kill me immediately. Me! As if I haven't seen off more demon lords than his mother's sucked cocks."

This time he doesn't bother with the crowbar and just punches through the pillar. A fragment of rock comes at-.

A fragment of rock bounces off my armour because I'm too slow to parry it.

Need to fix that.

"Of course, if he doesn't, then I can just take a walk into his place of business on Earth and rip him in half. He is only half-demon. Like your kids."

The First smiles cruelly.

"It would be tidiest if I kill them too. And copy whatever their mother did to make them proper demons. Don't worry though, I'm not killing the horse. I wouldn't want her down here even if I could get her."

Paternal Responsibility

I walk towards him, swords at the ready.

"Oh?" He adopts a stance. "Yes, fight me. I'm only a thousand times stronger than you, standing in the place where I was remade. This should be good for a laugh."

"Yes, but you're still an abject coward, aren't you? I just need to ding you once with anything that actually hurts you."

His smile widens.

"I do hope you're not relying on that. I don't feel pain in this form."

Well, bother. On the other hand…

Sinestro? Agony matrix. I've finally found someone who deserves it.

No trouble at all, Lantern Grayven. But wouldn't it be better to wait until he is closer?

I'm far too unsteady on my feet to take the chance. If it even works on him. Right. Another step forward-.

The lift smashes into the ground behind me.

Ah.. great. I half-turn-.

"What is-" One of Simpson's robots has leapt onto him and grabbed onto his shoulders with its leg-claws while its forearm blades frantically try stabbing the First's face. "-this?"

I try spotting any others, but my vision actually goes black for a moment and my legs feel like they could give out at any moment. Settles the question of whether this stuff is good for New Gods, and also makes me a good deal more sympathetic to kryptonite-exposed kryptonians.

Or… Wait. I didn't feel at all odd when Rosacarnis showed me her little knife. The amount? Or my uncertainty? Or both?

Ugh. I-.

Sword up!

The robot strikes my daiklave and is sliced in two from the force of the First's throw, the halves banging off my shoulders hard enough to hurt. Yeah, he's… I don't know about a thousand times, but he's stronger than me when I'm feeling well.

The First looks mildly puzzled. "John's friend's work. Alright, who else is-?"

Bang!

There's a very brief flare of golden fire against the First's chest.

Bang!

And another, and the First is looking up towards the ceiling. Another robot, carrying an ornate bolt-action rifle.

Bang!

This time the First blocks the shot with his crowbar. It's got his attention, at least. I activate my aero-discs and float towards him as silently as possible as he pulls his right arm back and throws, the crowbar hitting the robot in the neck with enough force to make it explode.

I swing my daiklave at his left shoulder and he catches my right wrist one-handed without looking around, and tears my hand off.