System Supervillain, Chapter 195 (Patreon)

Chapter 195 – Portal

(Australian SDI Headquarters, Main Experimental Hall)

I’d brought all of Devastation with me to Australia. Why? Because it was good to do things with the family, and because with everyone here I had the widest array of weapons available. No one knew what could come out of the portal the SDI scientists had been using before their organization fell down around their ears, so having the widest array of options was merely prudent.

I had learned, over the years, that it was always a good idea to be very cautious when mad science was involved. The line between ‘super-science’ and ‘mad science’ was thin, blurry, and wobbly as all hell, but generally came down to ‘you know it when you see it’. Super-science would be what people like Silver Knight or Mechanica did. They usually had enhanced intelligence, and a genuine talent for advancing science in ways that made leaps forward from where the general science of the day was, but they did it in ways that you could follow along with and reproduce, if you had the knowledge and skill. Mad science, on the other hand, was a product of enhanced intelligence and great madness, often drawing from multiple fields simultaneously, not content with just what normal science could do. There was a recklessness to mad science that made it dangerous to understand and even more dangerous to reproduce. Indeed, even the mad scientist themselves could not always reproduce their ‘discoveries’.

If simply trying to read the information written down about the portal turned one of the Guild researchers into a tentacle monster, then it was a safe bet we were dealing with mad science, here.

Soulcaller and Taipan met us when we walked into the main experiment hall for the base, as the ones who had been on the scene, and representatives of the local heroes and villains. Neither of them looked comfortable to be in the same room as the portal, but both of them understood that Bad Things(tm) happened when you left portals to unknown dimensions or realities unattended. And, despite being on different sides of the law, they were still reasonable types, who understood that, even if Earth now had a presence on other worlds, this planet was still where everyone had most of their stuff, so it was a bad idea to just let something happen to it because they were uncomfortable.

Soulcaller nodded as I stepped off the elevator. He was an average-sized man man, dark-skinned, with long legs and a relatively shorter torso, like most of the native peoples in this part of the continent. His outfit was a costume made by the Tailors, in the ‘traditional superhero’ style. Bodysuit that hid armor padding, utility belt, and so on, but no cape or cowl. However, it was augmented by traditional aboriginal trappings made of leather, bone, and other materials, which signaled that Soulcaller was not just a superhero, as far as the modern world thought of such things, but he was also his community’s karadji, or Cleverman, which was a kind of shaman, healer, and wise man.

Taipan, on the other hand, was young for a villainess. According to what Web Mistress could find, the girl was barely 19, but she’d been active in Australia for at least a year before the System switched on, when she would have been just 13. There were some scattered reports about evidence her family had been involved in various shady businesses like human trafficking down in Adelaide, but they’d all died under mysterious circumstances, with them somehow absorbing snake venom through their skin, without being bitten. Taipan, the only survivor, disappeared, which made it fairly clear what happened.

The girl wore a Tailor-made bodysuit that hugged her curves, and was patterned to look like snake skin. Like any Tailor-made costume, I knew there was more to it than looks and protection, obviously. Her entire body was covered, including her face, which she hid behind a mask. That led credence to the rumors that her skin was poisonous, which was supposedly her primary ability. In combat, she used poison darts, poison sprays, poison gas, and poisoned blades, with both lethal and nonlethal poisons available. Her work was primarily as an assassin for hire, obviously, though she’d done some henchman work as well. Thoroughly street-tier, from what I’d heard, but she was still young, so there was always time for her to grow into someone more powerful.

Behind them, on the far end of the hall, there were a bunch of very expensive and complicated machines that were all seemingly engaged in keeping the portal open. The portal was not like the clean, managed portals that the Guild had arranged for the different countries to counter-invade the Gel-Nak Empire. No, this portal was more like a wound in space and time, ripped open by force and held in place by the machinery. The other portals had been a door, and this was more like someone crashing through the wall. Just looking in its direction hurt in the same way that trying to deal with temporal paradoxes and observe 5D eldritch abominations did. Incredibly unsophisticated.

It was also incredibly unstable, and not in the normal way. Normal portals connected two places, even if they were in different dimensions, and they either stayed there, or the portal shut down. If they were unstable, the question was generally how long the portal would remain open, how long until it reopened, and so forth. This portal, on the other hand, stayed open, but would randomly switch between realities on a timeline that spanned from a few minutes to a few days, with no rhyme or reason.

“So, random fuck-off portal to god knows where. I know the Guild’s researchers had a bad time when they tried to understand what was going on, here, but did any of the scientists survive?”

Soulcaller sighed. “Unfortunately, most of the scientists would not listen, and wait for judgement. They had creatures bound to their essence, and killing the creature killed them. We know three, at least, made it through the portal before we could catch them, but the portal has changed destination eight times since then, and none of us here have the ability to return to this dimension if the portal shifted while we were on the other side.”

Web Mistress had that far-off look she got when remotely accessing machinery. “Good call. I’m into the control systems for this monstrosity, and I can already tell that part of the reason the portal is so unstable is that the code looks like someone was making spaghetti, and had a low-grade AI writing scripts based on prompts. No real coder has ever touched these machines, I can tell you that much.”

Stolen Victory groaned. “That’s mad scientists, for you. Their madness sometimes leads them into stumbling into things that only work because the law of large numbers says that, eventually, you’ll flip a coin that will land perfectly on the rim, instead of one side or the other. No matter that the odds of it are smaller than winning the lottery three weeks in a row, with the same numbers.”

“Sadly true,” Taipan nodded. “But can the portal be safely closed? Or are we going to have to station guards here, permanently? Because just being near this portal makes my skin crawl. I don’t think anyone who’s felt it would like to be near the thing for more than a few minutes. Stationing permanent guards isn’t going to be easy, even with Guild money.”

Web Mistress nodded slowly. “I believe it can be. But I will need time to sort through this mess of a code base. Otherwise, trying to turn the thing off may result in complications that will require using administrator powers to fix. And I think everyone would be happier if we didn’t need to rewrite sections of reality to clean this up.”

FX laughed. “I’m on your team, and even I definitely don’t want you playing goddess more than you have to. There’s no way that could possibly end badly, after all.”

A flash of light caught their attention. Soulcaller sighed. “That would be the portal jumping to a new universe. No clue what is on the other side. The instruments that the SDI scientists had set up are recording, but, well, none of us know enough about dimensional physics to understand half of the readings they’re taking, and the visual from the other side is pretty much limited to ‘whatever is in front of the portal’. I don’t think—”

A second flash, brighter this time. All eyes snapped to the portal. The swirling, chaotic energies had shifted, somehow. Stabilized. Even I could tell that much. What had been an unholy tear in the fabric of reality was now a proper doorway.

“Web Mistress?”

“It wasn’t me,” Web Mistress said, instantly, refuting my hope. “The portal is reading as stable, though. Controls… locked. We cannot shut the portal down from this side! Whoever is on the other side of the portal has seized control of the breach!”

“Defensive positions!” I snapped, blade already drawn and ready. As the girls got into positions beside and behind me, I summoned the Frozen Armor ability that I pretty much always had on hand, these days. Even if I didn’t always keep it up, I’d started ensuring that the twenty-four points of my variable pool it took up were always reserved for it. The extra 20rPD/20rED armor was just too effective to pass up, especially when facing unknown threats.

“Sensors reading temporal fluctuations on the other side,” Web Mistress called out, her eyes locked on the digital realm. “There’s a temporal lensing effect in play. Weak one, but moments here are going to be minutes, maybe hours there. Maybe longer. I don’t know—INCOMING CONTACT!”

(Earth-617)

“Uploads complete!” Lolth called out from her position near the portable drive, as she began quickly unplugging it to prepare for transport. “The five of us are the last people on Earth!”

Silver Knight frowned as he looked at the readings on his HUD. “The forced stabilization isn’t perfect. There’s temporal lensing happening. Every minute on the other side will be twenty-four hours here.”

The Technician cursed. “Without the human and human analogue robots fighting on the front line, the undead are going to break through the defensive perimeter in minutes. This facility is well behind the lines, but given the movement rate of the undead, especially the undead speedsters in their midst, that won’t be enough! At least some of them are going to get through, after us.”

“N-no, they will not.”

The voice came from every speaker. It was Lady Abstract, and even the most callous soul could hear the pain and strain in her voice. Understandable, since she’d been wired directly into the building’s systems, using the computers here to amplify her powers at the cost of incredible pain, and ensuring that, even if they disconnected her, the damage would kill her, beyond any resurrection. But it was her idea, and her choice.

The Technician scowled at the speaker. “You’re not strong enough to hold them off, Abstract! Not while you’re holding the portal open!”

“I don’t need to hold them off forever. Just slow them. And creating a series of walls in every corridor will slow them, considerably, as they attempt to make it through this facility.”

Frostknight’s heavy steps echoed on the floor as he strode into the room, sword unsheathed, and armor radiating icy doom. “Lady Abstract has made her choice. Do not argue with it. Ensure that the bomb is set up and ready to go, so she does not suffer longer than she has to. She will be the only one of us who doesn’t get to escape to the new world. Such is the price of survival.”

Lolth shook her head. “Brother, I know you died when you first picked up that sword, but that was cold, even for you.”

“Cold or not, it does not change the truth. Sentiment will not save me. Remember me to those who are reborn in the new world.”

“It will be done,” the Technician said, somberly. “One more sacrifice, on top of all the others. Too many good people have died because of that damn seal.”

“The image of the other side is coming through,” Silver Knight called out, studying the readings. “Technical facility of some kind. Supers on the other side. Tentative identifications of Supreme Victory, Pyratechinque, and Lady Kitsune, or whatever their versions in this world are called, plus multiple others. They look to be taking defensive positions!”

“As expected of people when a portal to an unknown world suddenly is controlled from the other side,” Frostknight nodded. Then, he raised his sword, and called out, “Frostmourne holds this in frozen time, until it is needed.” As he touched the blade to the massive solid state drive, it disappeared, sucked into the blade like water through a straw.

Silver Knight looked at the nearest camera, and said, “You will be remembered, Lady Abstract. I promise you that.” Then, he and Technician touched Lolth’s shoulders, and the three of them disappeared with the scream of dial-up internet, transferred into Frostknight’s communicator, leaving him alone, as he picked up the detonator for the bomb that would release Lady Abstract from her torture.

“Farewell, Lady Abstract. You were always one of the decent ones.”

Lady Abstract laughed, though the pain was clear in her voice. “You’re just saying that because I let you rail me all night before they strapped me to this chair. Get out of here, Frostknight. Let me sleep.”

“As you wish.” And then, he stepped through the portal.