Chapter 255: There’s Your Problem (Patreon)

So, chances are Lightshow is a mimic, Perry thought as he continued to work side by side with her.

His Reasoning: Whoever stole the lens most likely did it because they were aware of them and their potential to be used as weapons against Solaris. That limited the suspect pool to those who knew about the project: Namely Lightshow and the Anchors assigned to work on this project: Freddy, Chemestro, and Guile

Now, whoever had done it had looked like Perry, which would cast suspicion on him, while simultaneously casting Lightshow as the victim. She would never need to steal from herself. Why would she?

Mimics, traditionally, couldn’t mimic things they hadn’t consumed.

This was a mislead, since Lightshow could easily make a disguise out of Hardlight. That was kind of her thing, and if a mimic of her retained, at the very least, the ability to program Hardlight belts she’d already made, it would be easy enough to make a convincing disguise of Perry for short stunts in front of the camera

And the cold truth of it was: Lightshow was a non-combatant. She was an egghead that made weapons for other supers to use, and was about as dangerous as a soccer-mom. She might have good defensive gear, but she wasn’t a fighter. An easy win for a mimic.

Of the people Perry had mentioned, she was the easiest to get the drop on.

Now, Perry wasn’t 100% sure. Most of these were guesses. He didn’t know for a fact mimics couldn’t mimic things they’d never consumed. They typically weren’t as intelligent as Abun’zaul, and instead instinctively mimicked simple things, like small animals and…simple objects.

Perry’s hair stood on end as he glanced over at Lightshow, humming as she pieced together the MRI machine, her upper body disappeared in its guts, doing…who knew what.

Hmm.

If this Abun’zaul clone is an android, does that give it a greater affinity for machines? Possibly able to form complex parts inside itself that hold their shape indefinitely?

Perry’s ‘marrow’ test was banking on 2 things:

#1 He was fairly confident that a small piece of the mimic wouldn’t have enough brainpower to continue faking and come apart under close scrutiny: The Thing Rules. Very small mimics were very stupid. Not enough room for brain.

#2 Even if that didn’t actually work, if the mimic honestly believed he could find out who was who with a specific test, it might out itself rather than wait for the results.

Yep, the test was half bluff.

Can’t go wrong with a good bluff.

As far as Perry was concerned, anyone who was not him was suspect.

Of course, it could’ve been a rando super with copycat powers, so let’s not pull out the flamethrowers right away, but I’m not holding my breath either.

He needed to lure the mimic out of hiding and squish it.

Perry glanced back up at the nearly-finished MRI machine.

If I wanted to checkmate Earth by consuming the powers of the strongest super in the world, how would I go about it?

That was assuming this Abun’zaul clone could replicate powers. Perry was operating on the assumption that it could.

Because if it couldn’t, Earth was in no danger. People were definitely in danger, but no more than your standard Tide-spawned monster. Earth was not in danger.

If it could copy powers…

Earth might have a problem.

Abun’zaul made the greatest mage in the world at the time of his death. Allegedly. I’m fairly sure he can copy powers.

Even if it couldn’t copy powers, there was a strong incentive to take Solaris off the board, so Perry had to be cautious one way or another.

How can I handle this? Perry thought, the seed of an idea taking root. If he wanted to pull this thing out of hiding, he needed to lay out some bait and provide an opportunity for it to out itself.

Preferably not in a situation where it can actually disable Solaris.

The question was, who could Perry trust?

Perry idly went through his contacts for someone who fit the bill, while another part of his mind continued to bring up and dismiss ideas, flowing from one thought to the next.

Perry debated interrogating the mimic in his soul to get a better idea of how this one might be operating, but quickly realized that would get him nowhere. It would only copy him until it felt like it had the advantage, at which point it would try to kill him.

Sadly, even if he tricked it, the mimic didn’t perform long-winded monologues about its tactics and plans. It just tried to eat you.

If the android version of Abun’zaul could copy high-complexity objects by transforming parts of its android anatomy into solid-states…

If it had dad’s System…

Maybe Perry wasn’t as unassailable as he thought.

Most of Perry’s confidence was based on the fact that he had skin like hardened steel, a mind that unraveled any problem he turned it towards, super-speed, and spells for days.

What parts got transferred?

While working side-by side with the suspected mimic, Perry ran the problem through its paces.

An outer layer of my soul, the System, and Abun’zaul were sheared away and stored at a separate location. The mimic corroded its container, since it wasn’t meant to hold it, attempting to assimilate it.

In order to retain some of its functionality, Replica’s system spat the amalgam out in the form of a doomed android with missing critical pieces.

The ‘Perry’ part died when the lungs wouldn’t draw breath. What would happen to my system if I died? Would it reset? Was it stuck in place?

Perry had been level nine when Replica’s digitizer got a good piece of him. He’d only had three modifications to his soul at the time, none of them were integrated into The System at the time, and none of them were taken by the digitizer.

That meant that the System the clone had was vanilla…probably.

Now, Perry could see three possibilities:

#1, the death of ‘Perry’ caused the System to reset, and treat the android as if it were the original owner. This would mean the mimic would get the option to choose any Tinker specialization at level one.

#2, The death of ‘Perry’ locked the system in place, giving the Mimic all the stat boosts that Perry had at level 9.

#3, The mimic had inherited Perry’s Garage Tinker class, and could level it. That could be problematic, as it potentially opened the door to exponential growth.

There was also the possibility it hadn’t received dad’s System at all, but, again, that would lower the expected danger level so far that it was…kind of pointless to hedge against.

I guess we’re gonna find out in two days, Perry thought, turning back to his work on the MRI Machine.

Two tense days later, they were ready to test out the machine and get what they needed.

“Everything good?” Perry asked Lightshow, who gave him a thumb’s up from her control panel in the observation area. The observation area was heavily shielded in case Solaris got a little out of control, and he could barely see her through the thick, darkened glass.

Now, Perry didn’t think his materials could survive a supernova, but…it was better than nothing.

A minute later, Solaris wheeled into the isolate medical room on a wheelchair, his powerful form hidden underneath a hospital gown.

“Is this where I turn my head and cough?” Solaris asked, bracing his shaking fingers on the arms of the chair and boosting himself to a standing position.

He wobbled a bit on his feet, then shook Perry’s hand.

“Paradox. Lightshow,” He said, nodding as he turned his gaze to the woman in the control tower.

He was having a good day. Excellent.

“What have you got for me?” Solaris asked.

“The machine will use Lightshow’s tech to stabilize your entire body long enough for this advanced MRI to read it.” Perry said, motioning to the hulking black carbon tube with a tray for light-based supers to be loaded inside.

The entire tube was lined with hundreds of lenses designed to keep Solaris mortal for the fraction of a second it would take for the MRI to do it’s business.

“Unlike a regular MRI, this one was designed by me, so it’ll finish in the blink of an eye,” Perry said. “And the resolution should be high enough to be able to get a real good look at that swiss cheese that is your brain.”

“Welp, the sixties were fun, but I’m paying for it now,” Solaris said, shaking his head as he walked over to the machine.

“Alright, let’s just get you situated there,” Perry said, motioning to the tray SOalris was meant to lay on. “Lightshow and I will start the scan in just a moment,” Perry said, moving to stand beside the hulking black tube as Solaris sat on the extended tray.

“I’ll run a final diagnostics check on the machine and we can get started.”

Perry eyeballed the MRI machine, then glanced up at Lightshow, who smiled, nodding.

Multi-tool

Perry manifested a large knife and stabbed the MRI machine in the side.

The machine bucked like a wild animal, seams opening up on the carbon-black façade that unleashed whiplike tentacles that filled the entire room.

The MRI machine had been eight feet tall and twelve feet long, and now that it had unfolded itself, it practically choked out the room.

“Well there’s your problem!” Perry said, ducking a wild swing from a blade-studded tentacle as the machine continued to thrash, writhing around the knife stuck in its side.

Role squealed in Solaris’s voice and dove away from the machine as the tray turned into a tongue, attempting to reel him in.

His hospital gown stuck to the tray and ripped off as he barely pried his hand away from the sticky substance using Solaris’s brute strength.

Static Shock.EXE

A torso-thick bolt of living lightning leapt out of Perry’s hand and drove the massive flailing monster up and into the upper corner of the heavily shielded room where half of its barbed tentacles reflexively seized the wall and ceiling, the other half snaking out at them.

Role dove forward, the whipping blades barely missing him as the creature flew up. When he turned around, his fingers glowed with white hot light, sending finger-thick beams of light out to prune the monster’s barbed tentacles.

It was an impressive display of power, and while it looked the same to the naked eye, Perry would bet money that if you measured the lasers coming out of his fingers, it wouldn’t register anywhere near what Solaris could do.

“All that from a pair of underwear?” Perry asked, motioning to the boxers with Solaris stamped on them.

“Hey, I’m flexible,” Role said with a shrug, pruning the rest of the arms.

“Make sure you don’t kill it.” Perry said. “We may need to ask it questions. I also need to use it to make a test.”

Perry glanced down at the severed tentacles, which were gradually squirming across the floor, taking the shape of what appeared to be naked civilians, crying and begging for mercy as they crawled towards Role.

Although, it does seem like The Thing rules are on the table…not to mention.

“On second thought, clear it out. Kill them all.” Perry said, taking into account the likelihood that Role would falter and get himself killed.

Role might look like Solaris at the moment, but he didn’t have the same ruthlessness.

“What, but…” As if to emphasize Perry’s thought, Role motioned to the begging people, as though they hadn’t been giant razor-tipped tentacles a moment ago.

This will be a good learning experience. Perry thought, waiting for the nearest sobbing young woman to stagger a few steps closer. She was girl-next-door pretty, with a somewhat unfortunate nose. She had a paunch, and her trembling arms jiggled with little extra fat.

In short, she looked real.

“Please, I don’t know what’s going on,” She said as she staggered closer. “My name’s Amy. I don’t know where my mom and dad went. The last thing I remember-“

Perry watched Role’s expression go from horror, to sympathy, to confusion, back to horror in a fraction of a second as the sobbing girl got close enough before unfolding around a giant harpoon seemingly made of Perry’s black processing units, sharpened to a barbed spear tip.

The harpoon launched out of the girl’s chest, angling straight for Role. Her eyes fluttered back, jaw hanging open as though she were in the throes of passion, while her head folded backwards, subsumed into the creatures mass and used as extra propulsion, adding a sickening ripple of solid muscle where once had been a young woman’s face as it thrust the spike forward.

“A-“

Perry caught it in midair, inches away from Role’s stunned expression.

“Clear them out.” Perry said. Now was not the time to think of how many civilians had gone into accumulating that much biomass: now was the time for damage control.

“O-Okay.”

Role clenched his teeth and held out his palms as he began vaporizing the offshoot pieces of the mimic as they begged for mercy and told him their names, about their spouses, begging him to take care of their children…all while stumbling inexorably towards him.

Once Perry was sure Role wasn’t going to get killed, he turned his attention to the observation deck.

Lightshow was nowhere to be seen.