Freedom is a Hamster Wheel.
"Mister Free?"
Round and Round with No Escape.
Oh, that's not
concerning at all,
noooo... Looks like something's causing a feedback loop in his Godname.
His costume is slightly battered, though he doesn't appear to be serious injured. His Mother Box is on his utility belt, and.. looks fine? Reaching out with-
You Don't Look and You Don't See.
Oh. Yeah, he's clearly not human.
So, his Godhead just told OL to fuck off with that 'poking around' shit? A little more
active than we've seen before.
-my eldritch senses, I see… Something, trying to attach itself to his metaphysique? It doesn't look like the mist that Dr. Balewa found in me, but there's clearly… Something wrong with him.
Dr. Balewa gestures, and white mist rises from Mr. Free's skin. He collapses to the floor, curling into a foetal position and wrapping his arms around his chest like he's trying to clasp his hands behind his back.
Not sure a good dose of
Life is going to help here, Doctor. This might not be something you can just burn out like a
cancer.
The stuff attacking him is flowing with the strands that make up his metaphysique, aping them, acting like it's a part of the structure. More than that, it looks like the energy that Dr. Balewa just tried to use to cleanse him is… Trying to more fully merge it-.
"Stopdoingthatstopdoingthat!"
Oh, god,
no. Do not let Anti-Life anywhere
near the Life Entity's energies.
He clenches his hands into fists, ending his spell. "I do not-. Mazikeen, do you know this?"
"Which part?"
Ooh, she's never seen the
ludicrously over-engineered metaphysical structure of a New God, has she? It'd be like a caveman looking at a printed circuit: Shiny and pretty, but
incomprehensible...
Okay, okay, the engraftment points. It fits naturally, but I should be able to… Introduce something unnatural.
Given that he grew up on Apokolips, I shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't really want to be a god. But what if he did?
Not the
smartest idea to go poking around in something you don't understand, but this is an
emergency.
What if I just… Add a little…
One Foot in Front of Anoth-.
Desire.
Something to goose him out of this logical short-circuit he's in? Could work, cloud get you
stabbed.
Orange light sparks across his metaphysique, drawing on what's already there and shifting it. I mean, if I was picked by the Source to be the New God of Freedom, I like to think that I'd have done a little more with the office than he has. And… Yes, as I change things the whatever-it-is starts losing its grip, floating free and being drawn to the white orb that Dr. Balewa has set up.
"And now? Do you recognise it now?"
Interesting. The infection is a targetted attack on... His reluctance to embrace his Godhead? And OL making him
want to follow his role has removed it's attachment points?
Okay, but what happens if I turn the areas I've changed back into what they were before-. The mist just… Reappears, already connecting to the parts I just cleared.
"Where did that come from?"
So, if he wants to not have this stuff ripping him up, he's going to have to live up to his Godname.
"From heem."
Oh. Oh dear.
The infection is self-replicating? Or it's rooted to him and bubbling up out of his reluctance...
"You sure?"
"Yes."
Okay, so the New God of Freedom is apparently spontaneously creating something fundamentally contrary to the concept to freedom. I alter him once more, mist flowing off and into Dr. Balewa's orb.
Yeah, that's not good. Definitely going to have to keep him altered, or he'll be infecting everyone he goes near.
"Mazikeen, you don't have to-"
And this time I don't hesitate or undo my own work. No, I twist and warp, reconnecting certain impulses so that he'll think of his aggressive and godly actions in more positive terms. I tie in a desire to be a god and rebuild his desire to be a normal man into a desire to be able to be a normal man. Nothing contrary to his nature, but it's all helping get rid of the miasma.
A clever idea. Not inserting new desires, but reshaping the ones he has to be... More
resistant to the infection.
"-contribute, but you'll be getting coal for all the Christmases we missed if you don't."
Okay, that's… Most of it. He no longer has any desire to not be the freest god that he can be, pushing barriers and helping other do the same. I've radically altered his character, and he's… He's looking a little better. He's awkwardly rising to all fours, and-
Freedom Is Absolute
-my changes are gone and he's glaring at me from the floor.
Ah, looks like OL managed to force him to reboot his Godly self and purge the infection. Like a divine version of
Wholeness Rightly Assumed.
"What did you just do?"
"Got rid of whatever the heck that was."
You're welcome, by the way. So don't get pissed about him poking around in your
souls.
I glance at Dr. Balewa's binding spell.
"You were producing that. And a little while ago I had that inside me too. What is it?"
At least they've got a nice
big sample to examine now.
"It's Anti-Life."
"Oh. Shit." I frown. "But I'm… I've encountered the Anti-Life before. It's never done anything to me. I just.. hear it talking nonsense, and that's it."
Because
Enlightenment reframes what it says
into nonsense.
Mr. Free pulls himself upright, clearly wrung out.
"And you thought that was it?"
...Oh,
crap.
"Yeah? I've put a lot of effort into fortifying myself against that sort of thing, and it looks like it was paying off."
"That's not it. That's-. That's not it at all." He reaches up, pulling his mask off his face. "That's just a simplest way of using it. With someone who understands it properly, they can reach into you and they… They don't need to overpower you. They can work off what's already there; the weaknesses that already exist in your… Soul."
So... My analogy of a sledgehammer and a scalpel is more
apt than I thought. Or in this case, a ballista bolt versus a poisoned
senbon needle.
He stares me in the eyes.
"What did you see?"
I can see him being a little
embarrassed about having someone who's practically a stranger look into his soul that deeply.
"Something about… Freedom not really being a thing if you just kept doing the same thing and ignored everything else?"
"There's more to it than that. It's the idea that… Freedom doesn't matter if you don't use it. You can be free and still… Plodding along in the way you would be if you were a prisoner. Because the prison isn't just in the material world, it's in your mind and soul. Because the prison… Someone imposes on you is much weaker than the one you make for yourself."
Hence the 'hamster wheel' comments his Godspeech was making. And yes, people can be surprisingly
complacent when they find themself in a place that's
comfortable.
"I didn't feel anything."
"Where did you get exposed?"
"Probably the Alliance's teleportation system. But I checked it thoroughly-."
...As thoroughly as you
could check it. Really have to work on the arcane side of things, you know. A simple 'Is this magic? Yes/no?' runestone is looking kind of
sub-par at this level.
"Did you check for New God technology?"
"No, I… Can't actually do that."
Yeah, you're realising you
need to learn how, aren't you?
"I did. I don't know where they got it from-. Barda didn't get away."
"Where?"
So, there's going to be a rescue mission involved, very soon.
"Some place in Hub City. I thought I felt another New God around the place. They… I guess they got the drop on us."
"Do you know anyone who could do this? Other than-."
My money is still on Doctor Impossible. He's actively encountered OL, and had his schemes disrupted. I could see him targetting Earth in revenge because 'Fuck the Orange Man.'
"Darkseid."
"He's on Earth?"
I mean, it's the
obvious option, but that is Scot's
guess. I'm sure some of the big guy's followers have been doing research into Anti-Life on their Master's orders. He can't do it all Himself, after all.
"I doubt it, but maybe? I can't think of anyone else. I need to get back-."
"We need to muster the League. If Darkseid is here, or if someone has corrupted the Alliance, it will take our full strength. I will speak to Betman now."
"And I need to talk to Alan."
Yeah, the sooner you get that shit out of his less-well-protected soul, the better. Especially if it's designed to target the very thing that
powers him.