System Supervillain, Chapter 197 (Patreon)

Legally distinct supervisor. Because I can.

Chapter 197 – Supervisor

While the others went to go talk and compare more about their different worlds, Web Mistress and I opened our System Administrator access panels. “Right. So, patching the hole between realities so it can’t open and let superpowered zombies out into the world. Any ideas where to start, Web Mistress? Because I’m not ashamed to admit I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, here.”

Web Mistress chuckled, and said, “Well, I can honestly say that this is a first for me, too. Oh, and just so you know, my counterpart, Lolth, mentioned that your counterpart, Frostknight, has an SSD the size of a sedan stored in the pocket dimension of his sword. Those four didn’t come through the portal alone. They brought the mental engrams of every living human on their Earth, even the ones who had already been uploaded into robot bodies, to keep the fight going.”

I chuckled at that. “Sounds like something we would do. Even if you’re beaten, try and find a way to turn defeat into a win. Especially when you’re getting beaten. Of course, neither of us are big on the hardware side of things, and uploading people is a hardware thing, especially mass uploads, on a global scale. I’m guessing the tech was their Silver Knight’s? Or their Technician’s?”

“The original chip was made by the Technician, and Silver Knight handled mass production, while Lady Abstract used her reality-warping abilities to teleport and deliver the chips to survivor communities around the world. That was in Year Five, it seems. People were already desperate by then, and willing to do anything that might help hold the line. Lolth used her technomantic powers to activate all the chips, world-wide, burning out the minds of everyone left, and transferring them to the drive, so they could be taken through the portal.”

I nodded once. “That makes sense. And it helps avoid the nastier ‘which me is the real me’ scenarios. Probably still have some people who start obsessing over whether a copy is the same as the original, if the original is gone, and stuff like that. Without a zombie apocalypse to keep them from thinking that, I’m going to bet that there is going to be a significant percentage of people who go insane, following their getting downloaded into new robot bodies. Even before you talk about the body dysmorphia issues.”

I wasn’t a psychologist, but I did have a baseline understanding of superpowers and the superhuman world, and those kinds of issues were well-documented when you had people with body-swap powers, forced transformation powers, or duplication powers. And more than one tech-minded individual had played games with uploading consciousness to computers, or doing the ‘brain in a jar’ thing. All those experiments went wrong, more often than not. Which put the situation on Frostknight’s world into the proper perspective. For everyone to willingly get those chips, and submit to getting uploaded after death and put back in robot bodies to continue the fight? That just shows how desperate things had become in their world.

Web Mistress had not stopped working as we talked, of course. Her mind ran at computer speeds, after all, so holding a conversation with me barely slowed her processing at all. That had its own issues, since it meant she perceived time differently than most people. It was similar to how some speedsters looked like they were constantly hyperactive, but it was really that their internal clock ran faster than a normal person’s. It was also one of the reasons why true AIs counted Web Mistress as an honorary AI.

Staring at the interface, she said, “All right, so normal administrator privileges don’t extend to dimensional boundaries. Your patch job on disallowing powers that went to pre-Initialization Earth was fine, because it was a ‘client-side’ restriction, pushed out to all individuals with those powers on Earth. Dealing with the actual barrier between dimensions is a ‘server-side’ issue.”

I frowned beneath my mask. “Normal privileges don’t cover it, but what about emergency privileges? I have to believe that part of the reason for having administrators is to respond to problems, yes?”

“And you’d be right. Local Administrators can do it on their own authority, in an emergency, but it flags for immediate supervisor review, potentially opening all the account’s actions up for audit. There’s also an option to summon a Supervisor in the settings, here. If it works, we would be able to summon someone who actually knows what they are doing, instead of guessing, and the Supervisor wouldn’t be primed to audit everything we’ve done as Administrators since getting access.”

I considered that for a moment. There were pros and cons to getting a Supervisor in here. More pros than cons, if I was honest, with the only real con being that I didn’t like the reminder that there were people above me in the galactic food chain. That said, getting the Supervisor in, so that they could deal with the job correctly, without requiring an audit or anything like that? Probably the best move, especially since neither of us were willing to just waitc around and hope that no one in the zombie dimension would be able to force their way through to our world.

When one put it like that, the choice was obvious. The only reason not to summon the Supervisor was pride. And while I would be the first to admit that I had quite a healthy helping of pride, both in myself, and my actions, one did not survive as a villain for long if you allowed pride to dictate all your actions, not unless you had some kind of protection that went beyond the normal limits of powers, like being a head of state with diplomatic immunity. The Emperor had Taskea, his own country in central Africa, which is why his narcissism hadn’t landed him in prison at some point. The fact that he was actually a decent ruler, despite his overwhelming power and pride, only made his position more secure. But most supers with that level of pride did not have the power, or position, to back it up, and usually ended up in a prison cell, or a morgue.

Requesting Supervisor intervention.

Request received.

Processing.

No direct Supervisor on record for world ‘Earth-404’.

Expanding request to include galactic Supervisors.

Processing.

No Supervisor of (Race: Human) found.

Established procedure requires Supervisor of same species as either the dominant lifeform on the summoning planet or the species of the summoner for nonemergency incidents.

Expanding request to include universal Supervisors.

Processing.

No Supervisor of (Race: Human) found.

Expanding request to include multiversal Supervisors.

Processing.

Response received. Supervisor ‘Edward’ will arrive at your location in 30 seconds.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Web Mistress said. “The summon request tried to find a Supervisor on Earth, and couldn’t find one. Probably because the System was off for most of human history. That much is within expectations. However, instead of just plucking a non-human Supervisor from elsewhere in the galaxy, the default response was to escalate the search until it ended up calling one from another universe. That seems like it would require more effort than it was worth, simply to get a human Supervisor.”

I nodded once. “The System doesn’t do anything without a reason. Most likely, someone was causing problems in one universe or another, and the simple solution was the race requirement on supervisors. Probably something like the rules on how Local Administrators cannot use their abilities directly during war. Someone did something they thought was clever, and everyone rewrote the underpinnings of the multiverse to make sure it didn’t happen again.”

Thirty seconds after the System message, the world went staticky. Well, not really. Just the area in front of us. Static flared up, covered an area in a mix of white light and noise that seemed to cancel out all senses, before abruptly disappearing. In the static’s place was the supervisor, Edward.

He was human, roughly 149 centimeters tall, or about 4’11”. Quite a bit shorter than the average height for men, at least in this world. Who knew if the world he came from had different stats. Looked like a teenager, but one who had life kick him in the face a couple times, and learned to hit back. He was dressed in black, for the most part. Shirt, pants, combat boots, all black. Brown belt, and a red hooded jacket about the length of a trench coat. Blond hair, ponytail, brown eyes. Most notable thing about him was that one hand looked to be made of metal, or at least having a metal gauntlet, while the other had a white glove.

I cleared my throat to get his attention. “Hello, are you the Supervisor, Edward?”

The young man frowned as he looked up at me, and I could see a hint of something dark moving behind his eyes. Old trauma, maybe? “Of course, I am. What, were you thinking you’d get some divine being or something?”

I shook my head. “No, I just make a habit of confirming identities when random strangers are summoned by the System that makes reality dance to its tune. Enough things can go wrong that you really don’t want to just make assumptions. And since the System told us we were getting a Supervisor from another universe…”

That seemed to settle him, somewhat. Not completely. I got the feeling that he never got completely relaxed. “Fine. So, why don’t you have a Supervisor, and what is going wrong that you needed one to fix things?”

Web Mistress leaned forward, and said, “Well, for the lack of a Supervisor? Long story short, a reality warper did something, thousands of years ago, that knocked the System offline, and it wasn’t until a couple time travelers fought a few years ago that it got ‘rebooted’. The System named a Local Administrator as part of the emergency procedures, but not a Supervisor.”

“Makes sense,” Edward said. “Making someone a Local Administrator without any kind of training is bad enough, with the kind of damage they could do if left unchecked. A Supervisor with that kind of power? It would be like giving a philosopher’s stone to a baby. Nothing good comes from that.”

I nodded. “So far, we’ve managed to keep things from breaking in ways that couldn’t be easily fixed. Unfortunately, some idiot scientists with more knowledge than sense decided to go opening up portals to other worlds. Portals they couldn’t fully control. We just had a few refugees from another world come over, and the world they left was… well, fucked doesn’t really do it justice.”

Edward nodded slowly. “And messing with the boundaries between dimensions is part of what Supervisors are here for,” he nods. “You didn’t try and do any emergency repairs?”

Web Mistress shook her head. “The portal is off, due to damage to machinery on the other side, which caused some damage to the machinery on this side, so there was no immediate danger. We would have worked an emergency patch, if it looked like it was opening again, but otherwise? We would rather see it done right, than done quick.”

Edward looked Web Mistress over, and grinned. “My mechanic would like you. She always says that if you have the time to do things right, you should take the time. Especially if you’re expecting someone to use the machines to their fullest.”

I nodded. “Most mechanics I know fall into two categories: the ones who focus on making things work right, and those who focus on making them work right now. That second one tends to make the first really cranky, even if it was necessary to make sure everyone who needed to be was still breathing by the time they made it back to the shop where it could be done right.”

“Don’t remind me,” Edward grumbled. “So, you’re looking to close up the portal permanently, and fix any damage between your universe and the target, so this other universe can’t cross over?”

“That pretty much sums it up. Need any help from us?”

“Technical readings while I work out the math. I can do simple on the fly, but for this, I want to get it right the first try, so we’re going to plan it out.”

Web Mistress nodded. “I can handle the technical data and calculations, if you tell us what needs to be done.”

“Perfect.”