Crystalized Munchkinry - Act III - Chapter 29 (Patreon)

Alice looked over the large table and noted the flaws she would need to fix. There weren’t many, but the perfectionist in her demanded satisfaction.

It wasn’t an enormous project, and she knew it was a test, but she still enjoyed working on it. The knowledge that her improved design of the containment foam grenades would help capture people, and in a way defeat them, filled her with warmth.

She didn’t even need to leave her comfortable workshop to defeat those losers.

She stopped daydreaming and returned to her work. According to Dragon, when she was done with this – and had been evaluated – there would be much more interesting projects for her to sink her teeth into.

She was already shivering in anticipation.

So much to explode, so little time…

“So Serenity struck again. Still no idea who she is, Contessa?” Alexandria asked as she strode into the meeting room. She was clad in her official suit, having come directly from a meeting with the Directors discussing the same issue.

The meeting room held the same old table she was used to. Around it, in various states of composure, sat Eidolon, Number Man, Doctor Mother, and Contessa.

The fedora-wearing woman waited until Alexandria had taken a seat and sipped from the prepared water, which was, as always, exactly the right temperature.

“No, she is still a blind spot,” Contessa said, scowling faintly. “She hasn’t provided enough information for modeling.”

“Neither do I have anything new. Any calculations I did came back with random results,” Number Man stated flatly.

Alexandria sighed. “Is she still in Brockton Bay?”

This time Doctor Mother answered. “Yes. We confirmed it with several other Thinkers. We even called in a few favors with more powerful specialists. None of them could see anything beyond confirming the existence of the blind spot.”

She scowled. “So, should we do anything about it? That blind spot is really annoying.”

“We considered sending someone in, but that would invalidate the Bay experiment.” Doctor Mother glanced briefly at Contessa, then Number Man. “Our analysis says it isn’t worth it right now. She has done nothing that would upset the Plan.”

“We can’t just leave her there doing who knows what! An unknown element like that could spell disaster for the Plan,” Alexandria said sharply.

“The remaining steps in the Plan decreased significantly when the site went online,” Contessa said in her usual tone. “I can’t see her or anything around her, but the effects of her actions are as clear as day.”

"And?"

“Medi-gel is good. Facilities are already being built worldwide. It was smart to have Dragon endorse it. Her public reputation bypassed a lot of resistance to this kind of innovation.”

“And it neatly confirms Dragon is in contact with Serenity,” Number Man added. “Likely the reason she is building a facility in Brockton Bay.”

“It goes without saying, we know nothing more specific. Dragon is already another blind spot.”

“Our backdoors?” Alexandria asked.

Numberman snorted. “It took her a day to find everything. I’m good, but she’s an AI.”

Alexandria drummed her fingers on the table, trying to contain her frustration. Serenity and Dragon, while not malicious, were becoming increasingly irritating variables.

Deciding that dwelling on it would only make things worse, she shifted the topic.

“What about medi-gel? The PRT eggheads are in awe of it, and everyone is saying it’s one of the greatest inventions of this century. Anything you can tell me?”

Numberman visibly perked up. “Oh yes. It is fascinating. It uses a sequence of chemical reactions to create a biological agent that bonds with human tissue. That bonding allows it to seal wounds, stop bleeding, and promote limited regeneration by triggering natural repair processes.”

“Anything dangerous? I was told there were possible allergic reactions.”

“Yes. Certain genetic profiles may experience allergic responses. However, the documentation includes an alternative formulation for those cases, along with clear testing procedures to identify susceptibility.”

She scowled again. “Anything hidden? Something that could be used as an attack vector?”

“No. Nothing like that,” he said, then chuckled faintly. “The downside of something that isn’t Tinker black-boxed is that there’s nowhere to hide anything.”

“We ran experiments and reviewed the documentation,” Doctor Mother added. “It works exactly as advertised. I will send you the results.”

Eidolon, who had remained silent until now, spoke up. “What about public reaction? People in Houston are already demanding production facilities.”

“The CUI is already building them,” Contessa said. “And everywhere else in the world. Most are still in testing phases, but they will likely begin deployment soon.”

“I don’t understand why she couldn’t have just given it to the government or the PRT,” Eidolon said. “What was she trying to achieve?”

“To help as many people as possible,” Contessa replied. “If I model a restricted release, the outcome becomes… ugly.”

Numberman nodded. “This way it’s global, and nobody can accuse her of favoritism. It also gives her significant influence for whatever comes next.”

“Any idea what that is?” Alexandria asked.

"As we said, our powers–"

“No. I don’t mean your powers,” Alexandria cut in sharply. “We have enough resources to figure things out without them.”

“We are working on it,” Doctor Mother said calmly, ignoring the edge in her voice. “It will take time given the limited data.”

Alexandria immediately turned to Contessa so fast it would have caused injury in anyone else. “Any way to make her act?”

“Yes. Attack Dragon. Attack the Brockton Bay Dockworkers’ Union. Attack Brockton Bay,” Contessa said after a pause. “The outcomes are unclear due to the blind spot, but it would generate useful data.”

She grimaced. “How much damage would that cause?”

It was telling that Contessa didn't even answer.

Alexandria sighed. "Any idea what her actual power is?”

Doctor Mother shook her head. “No. Aside from the anti-Thinker effect, we only have speculation.”

“The PRT has those too,” Alexandria muttered, waving a hand dismissively.

Silence settled over the room again.

Eidolon broke it after a few minutes. “So that’s it? We do nothing and let this continue?”

"It appears so."

“It is the best current option.”

Contessa only shrugged.

Eidolon snorted, stood, and left. “Then I have better things to do.”

Numberman rose as well. “I’ll take my leave too. I’ll report if anything changes.”

Alexandria watched him go. When she looked back, Contessa was already gone.

She turned to Doctor Mother, who was already opening a laptop.

"Let's talk about medi-gel, Alexandria…"

He looked over the data streaming back from the parahumans of the PRT-ENE.

He had managed to infiltrate all of them, and he was ready to choose another Shard to take over.

Luckily, the Eden shards didn’t count.

Triumph’s Shard was child’s play to take over and add to his growing network. He simply applied his usual upgrades and isolated the consciousness.

This one was smarter than Affectus and provided a more precise power to Triumph. However, the hibernation order prevented it from providing help or improvements to Rory.

It didn’t help that it was a relatively young Shard, only a few dozen cycles old. It didn’t have the same repertoire as the much older Shards, so the power it provided wasn’t particularly useful in comparison.

Interestingly, it was tasked with researching the effects of sound waves on biological and non-biological systems. Apparently, it was a bud of a Shard that specialized in sound-wave control.

It was also promising that, according to the logs, it had granted the minor Brute aspect to Triumph because it understood that without the extra durability, the power would be less useful. It showed that while it still didn’t care for humans or other host species, it was at least capable of thinking slightly beyond the strict scope of its assigned task.

He hoped that would make it easier to convince the currently slumbering consciousness to change sides.

Battery’s Shard was much more interesting.

It was almost in the same state as the other two Eden Shards he had examined. The only difference was the limited, slightly unstable direct connection to Assault’s Shard.

Examining the logs with great interest, while carefully hiding his meddling from the other Shard, it was fairly easy to reconstruct what had happened.

It seemed the other Shard, after noticing its host connection with Battery, had reached out to Assault’s Shard for cooperation. When it realized that it was hibernating for some reason, it forced a connection anyway. But because Altilium – he respected Battery enough to give her Shard a proper name – was incapable of anchoring it on her end, Impetus – he chose the name because he wanted to keep the connection intact – couldn’t do much.

It occasionally sent small amounts of power through, but Altilium hadn’t accumulated enough to wake up.

He took a metaphorical step back and considered this for a moment.

This connection, and the people they were attached to, offered interesting possibilities. By all measures, Battery and Assault were among the most open-minded and approachable parahumans of the PRT.

He even remembered something about Assault being a good first meeting for Taylor.

Adding them to Taylor’s group would be a boon. Though they wouldn’t be as immediately trusting as Dragon, as Taylor couldn’t really earn their trust through something overtly large or dramatic.

This required more deliberation.

Still, that didn’t stop him from taking over Altilium and Impetus.

When he was doing the final preparations to isolate Impetus’s consciousness, an omnidirectional broadcast from Impetus suddenly shocked him.

He had made a mistake; the Shard had noticed his actions.

[QUERY]

After a momentary panic, he doubled all his defenses and checked every other connection to the remaining Shards for any unusual activity. Only when he saw that no one else had noticed him – not even Dilettante – did he calm down slightly.

He immediately forcefully moved Impetus’s consciousness into a core protected by his anti-Thinker defenses, ensuring no part of the broadcast could leak outward. Only then did he respond using the Shard’s condensed communication method.

[PURPOSE]

Since there was no chance of Impetus escaping, he decided on honesty.

He did not, however, expect what happened next.

[OFFER] [COOPERATION] [DATA]

Apparently, Impetus had become aware enough to notice Zion’s abnormal behavior, and – combined with the condition of the Eden Shards – it had reached a near-correct conclusion. It understood that the Cycle was in danger and, recognizing Administrator’s intervention, had decided it wanted to join him.

[QUERY]

That surprised him. He had expected far more resistance from the Shard.

[DATA]

Huh. Apparently, it had concluded it had no chance of winning and therefore hadn’t even attempted to fight.

[OFFER]

In exchange for cooperation, the Shard requested a connection to Altilium to improve its data collection.

That was interesting.

He immediately checked Impetus’s logs for confirmation. It seemed Impetus had worked with Altilium several times across previous Cycles and wanted to continue that cooperation.

In the end, he decided to use Impetus as an experiment. If he could turn the Shard to his side fully – with safeguards in place – the experience would greatly help him in the future.

[OFFER] [COOPERATION] [DATA] [EXPERIMENT]

In exchange for allowing him to test it, he agreed to provide Impetus with upgrades, restore a degree of autonomy, and activate Altilium.

The response came immediately.

[AGGREEMENT]

If a Shard could smile, it would have been a wide, eager grin.

That night, Taylor noticed that the slime was much more cheerful than usual.

Though since that came with giant chickens that shot lasers from their cloacas and breathed flames from their beaks appearing in her simulations, she wasn’t exactly thrilled about it.

He began to design a test for Impetus. While it was aimed at Impetus specifically, he intended to refine it later and apply it across other Shards as well.

The structure itself was straightforward. He wanted to observe how Impetus behaved under a range of constrained scenarios, to determine how much retraining or reshaping it would actually require.

He hoped the answer would be ’not much’. He had grown somewhat fond of it.

At the same time, he ran a parallel evaluation on Altilium to ensure that, once the two were connected, there would be no pathway for Impetus to destabilize the arrangement. With the safeguards in place, interference should have been nearly impossible, but he had no interest in relying on ’nearly’ when dealing with Shards.

Fortunately, when Altilium was awakened on a hidden processor core, it proved immediately compliant with the current framework. If anything, it responded with increased enthusiasm when informed of Impetus’s request.

It was almost as if they were compatible by design.

So cute.

If one happened to be into multi-dimensional eldritch monstrosities.

Danny looked around the construction site and couldn't help but feel happy. It was the kind of work they'd been missing.

It paid well, had a good employer, and provided enough work for everyone.

Today was the day they finished with the exterior work. The only jobs left were inside the facility, but those required only some of his people, and even then, they were only assisting Dragon's drones.

He didn't really need to be there, but he wanted to see the conclusion with his own eyes. He felt that if he looked away even for a minute, the entire thing would vanish, and he would wake up from this pleasant dream.

There was hope in the air, and he wanted to make sure it stayed right there.

"Danny, we're finished with the loading. Want a ride back?" one of the workers called out from the other side of the freshly built industrial loading space. He was standing next to several cars and trucks filled with tools and people.

"No. I'll wait until the others finish and head back with them!" Danny called back. "Go ahead, get some rest!"

"You got it, Danny!" came the loud reply, followed by the revving of motors. He calmly watched as the cars drove away, then turned back toward the facility. He would check up on the guys inside, then call Taylor to tell her the good news.

He stopped when he heard cars approaching again. Thinking the others had forgotten something, he turned around, only for his stomach to drop.

While the union workers' cars weren't the newest models, they were still well-maintained.

These vehicles, however, were beaten up enough that he had to wonder how they had even managed to get them started.

The people in and on them were in almost the same condition as the cars themselves. There were probably no two clean pieces of clothing between all of them, and Danny could smell the stink they gave off even from several dozen feet away.

As soon as he realized who they were, he spun on his heel and ran toward the building. The walls were strong enough to stop a tank, according to Dragon, and right now he wanted that between him and the druggies outside.

He was almost at the reinforced personnel door when a bullet whizzed past him and struck the ground. He immediately stopped, sliding forward slightly from his momentum, then dropped into a crouch and turned back around. Sometimes living in the Bay and working at the Docks came with benefits, and one of them was reflexes honed to avoid gunfire.

It was a good thing he did, because several more bullets immediately tore through the space where his head had just been.

Still crouched, he eyed the armed druggies as they disembarked in their usual chaotic fashion, and immediately berated himself for lingering outside.

The probable leader of the group, standing at the front, looked at him and gave him a disturbing smile with more than a few missing teeth.

"Well, well… what have we here? Some union jerkwad trying to be big in our territory?" The surrounding people booed and jeered at that. "Well, boys, it seems someone owes us some rent, ain'tcha?"