5.5

Snake 5.5

January 21, 2011, Brockton Bay, 2:25 PM

Taylor finally finished coding the rootkit last evening. It was a nifty little piece of code, it uploaded the phone's voice call log and screencaps of whenever it was being used to our server. Actually that was the only way to see his messages, the messenger apps he used were pretty secure otherwise. The rootkit ran as an invisible service and it wouldn't be found out unless someone did a deep statistical analysis of the phone's data traffic. It could also operate the phone remotely when necessary.

I had practiced installing it in our phones using Mana Computer Interface, Taylor had to tweak the code a bit to work for individual phones but it worked. I finally installed it last night on the target phone while Calvert was sleeping, also installed another simpler version in the few spare burner phones he kept.

Taylor checked the next morning when he made some calls and confirmed that it was working. That was good, I didn't want to follow him to Boston, Accord's Ambassadors had capes with very exotic powers whose interaction with mine I was entirely unsure of.

We were all sitting in our living room, Lisa and Taylor had just arrived. Dada was going to leave, we were waiting for the Dallons. Maker/I had stopped tailing Calvert because he was in the PRT HQ and with his phone bugged finding out his location was a cinch.

Taylor asked Lisa, "So how come you're so open to meeting heroes? I'd think someone of your, um, alignment..."

Lisa interrupted her, as usual. "No. Not at all, what happens behind masks stays behind masks. Besides, we haven't ever tangled with the heroes. Just because we're labeled villains doesn't mean we have anything against the whitehats."

Taylor smirked, "I see someone's ideologies have been rubbing off on you."

I facepalmed, Lisa had walked right into that one, she groaned, "Urghh! Just you wait, Little Owl! Just you wait till someone catches your fancy. I'll pay you back for all of these I swear!"

Taylor blushed, "Hmph, we'll see. So really, you just want to meet Glory Girl and Panacea?"

Lisa snickered, "Not as much as I want to see their faces when they get to see Swarm for the first time! Also, Aveek here will not show me his Maker body otherwise."

Dada, who was quietly enjoying the byplay, chose to pipe in, "It's just performance anxiety. All guys have it the first time."

Lisa gave him a stern look, then started radiating extreme smugness, "Tell you what Dev, you quit teasing us and I promise to introduce you to the Number Man."

Dada's face lit up. "Deal!" He fistpumped, "Bestest sister-in-law-to-be ever!"

"Grrblgff!" It was Lisa's turn to blush. I decided to intervene before Lisa could verbally tear dada to pieces, "Ahem, so, Lisa, I had some information about the target that I need to run by you..."

Dada promptly got up, face twisted in mock hurt. "Fine! Fine! I'm leaving, you're a terrible brother y'know?"

"Yeah, well look who's talking." I retorted. "Shoo now! Don't you have work to do?"

Dada left, grumbling about his fun being ruined. Lisa smiled and gave me a quick peck on the cheek, "Good save! Now spill!"

I told her all about Coil's ambush and the mail that increased his threat level. She asked for more details of his activities going back in time. I replied with as much detail as I could, which was a lot of detail. Lisa stopped me when I was talking about the reports on capes Coil was reading, "Wait, wait, you can reproduce these reports can't you?"

I shrugged, replayed the memory, switched primaries and then reproduced the contents of the reports in a sheaf of construct paper which I turned real pushing a chunk of mana into. Lisa's eyes were bugging out, oh, that was the first time she saw me using Mana.

"Scion's shiny balls!" She whispered as she received the papers, still gaping at them. Then looked at me, "Reality manipulation?"

I grinned sheepishly, "Eventually, I hope, it's still growing in scope and scale."

She shook her head and started leafing through the papers. "Aha!" She stopped midway. "The Travelers! Accord is sending... no, Accord is foisting off the Travelers to Coil. They're a liability for him because they can't maintain his standards of perfection. The Travelers are the assets! But the threat level increased a whole order of magnitude you said?" I nodded.

She continued, "Then there's more to it. Something that they're hiding. Of course! There's a hidden member of the Travelers, more dangerous than the rest. Something about that, something about all of them. Argh!"

I put a hand on her shoulder as I noticed her SP drop, "Easy girl. You don't want a headache now."

She nodded and sighed, "There's something that they want, something specific. Whoever can provide it has their loyalty. Coil is promising them that. But I don't think he'll deliver. If we can get to them as soon as they're here, we can nip the threat in its bud. We'll need to find his hideout, no, this is Coil we're talking about, we need to find his bond-villain lair!"

I shook my head, "Been a week tailing him. He hasn't gone there yet."

Taylor turned to Lisa, "Tell me something, the guys that tail you. Where are they based from?"

Lisa slapped her forehead, "Of course! I should have thought of that earlier! Can you tail them safely?" Ah, I felt foolish too, why didn't we consider that earlier?

Taylor shrugged, "I can run circles around them from a mile away. You'll have the lair's location by tomorrow, they'll change shifts at least once by then. Calvert is leaving tonight, right?"

I nodded, "He'll be there for five days, his itinerary extended yesterday. Should be enough time to suborn his lair?"

Lisa nodded, "He'll have the first round of talks with the Travelers in Boston itself. Also keep in mind, his base would be heavily defended by both human and electronic security. But I doubt it'd be a problem for you. But don't try to break the digital security there before you've gotten access to his server."

Taylor smiled, "I've been reading up on server security, I just need the dongle." She cracked her fingers and turned to Lisa, "Help me hide my tracks once I'm in? By the way, Dallons arriving in a minute or so." Lisa gave her a thumbs up.

I checked my skill list, construct resolution was down to 15 nm, "I'll have the dongle ready by day after tomorrow latest. Anyway, we have the beginnings of a plan. I'll keep you guys posted if there's any new development. Taylor, let us know if the phone tap reveals anything juicy? Lisa, eight more days you've to keep our cover. Once you finish the casino heist and we confirm that Coil is going to leave you alone for a week or so, we upgrade you."

Both Lisa and Taylor made affirmative noises, the doorbell soon rang. Victoria wasn't in costume this time, but Panacea was. I figured because we were to visit the hospital after this.

"Panacea, Victoria, welcome again to my humble abode." I gestured as they came in. Amy smiled, Victoria snorted.

"Aveek my man! Are we going to have pakoras?" Victoria had taken quite a liking to them it seemed.

I nodded, "The pakoras begged to be made for you, your epicureness."

Amy snickered as she hugged Taylor, "Is that even a word?" Her status was looking even better than last time, the physicals had gained a few notches, INT had a major boost and her depression debuff had reduced to a mere WIS -5. That was still not negligible though.

I shrugged, "Is a word now. Guys, meet Lisa, she's... umm..." I clearly didn't think this one through.

Lisa picked up smoothly, "I'm his girlfriend, hi!" she held out a hand for Amy to shake.

Whoa, did she think this through? Or was she simply saying it to maintain cover or something? Why was she letting Amy touch her? What was that I didn't even...

Lisa's eyes met mine for a moment, she gave me an almost imperceptible smile and nod.

Heh... Heheh... Heheheheh...

I was roused from my giddy joy by a solid slap on my back as Gamer's Mind kicked in. I had to pretend to stumble a few steps before turning to look at Victoria, my backslapper. She was beaming at me, "Good taste, man. Good taste."

I shook my head as I recovered just in time to watch another interplay, as Amy shook Lisa's hand, her eye widened for a moment before she schooled herself and gave Lisa an inquisitive, measuring stare. Lisa gave her a reassuring nod and simply said, "Aveek trusts you."

I watched Amy's mood turn beatific as her depression debuff dropped by another two points right there. She nodded at Lisa and whispered "Thank you." Ah, I guess since she had been exercising her powers more proactively her fears about them must have taken a new dimension. It was nice to see the effect that show of trust had on her. And I was very sure Lisa did that deliberately.

Amy then gave me a hug and we settled down into the couches. I could tell she was brimming with both curiosity and excitement, "So, where is my protege?"

"Right here, sensei." Maker/I emerged from a blue crack in reality right in the middle of the room, carrying a tray of steaming pakoras, tea and coffee. I was in the half-mask costume, and Lisa was ogling me shamelessly, good thing only Taylor was watching her instead of looking at Maker/me.

Victoria had jumped and was hovering in mid-air in a combat stance, "Stop scaring me like that will you? Why can't you just fly in like a normal person?!"

Maker/I shrugged, I'd never get tired of the effect this had on people. Amy recovered first, "Right, before we start the tea service, I have gifts." She unclipped a tiffin-box sized container from under her robe, opened it and took out a number of white pill-size globules, then spoke with a bit of uncertainty. "This is the drug I've patented, it cures and immunizes for about three hundred major genetic, systemic, and viral diseases. Uh, if you would like to have them, that is."

Taylor was the first to pick one up and promptly put it in her mouth, "Huh, it melted before I could swallow it. Tastes nice too!"

"The taste was my idea!" Victoria piped up as the rest of us took one each and followed suit except for Maker/me. Amy nodded at me, "Yeah, Maker, scan it before you take it. I'm sure you can replicate it for whoever needs it? Also take the whitepaper from Dev if you want to learn which sequence is for what, he's been very helpful in finalizing the contract.

"It looked like Medhall was giving us the best terms, but then he pointed out how they were going to reserve rights of refusal to sell as per their discretion in the fine print. That was a deal breaker, we finally went for a joint contract with Merck and Pfizer, they'll pay much less royalty but their contract ensures fast-track testing and global distribution with low pricing within two months."

Aveek/I nodded, "Congratulations, Amy. This is big!"

We chatted a bit more about the drug and how Medhall was being an asshole while we had tea. As soon as we finished, Maker/I addressed the others, "Folks, I'm going to monopolize Panacea's time for a while now for our next lesson. I was thinking we could call Swarm and introduce her to you before we got busy." I got a round of assent.

Taylor gave the Dallons a stern look, "Girls, please don't freak out." And got mock indignation in return. Then she pretended to send a text.

Within a minute, the windows darkened as Swarm entered and took her avatar shape. Fireflies and symbol and all, we'd run with the case 53 angle and went for a proper omega, instead of Cauldron's tilted one that were posted on the conspiracy forums. It also maintained the logo theme with my spiral.

Both the sisters didn't betray any emotions other than widened eyes and raised brows. Victoria's aura bracelet pulsed only mildly once but she controlled that too. Cool, so I won in the surprise section. Swarm then 'spoke' in her super creepy bug voice, "Hello, I'm Swarm."

After a good 12 seconds, Victoria spoke, "You... You're made of bugs." Okay, so I didn't win.

Amy elbowed her, "Vicky! Behave!" Then she turned to Swarm, "Hello, Swarm. Nice to meet you. Would you, uh, like to sit with us?" Yep, she didn't think that through either.

Nevertheless, Swarm managed to sit, or at least it looked like she was sitting. Vicky started peppering her with ridiculous questions, like "Can you see from the back of your head?" All of which Swarm gamely tried to answer.

Lisa and Aveek/I excused ourselves to my room upstairs for none of your business. Actually it turned out that she just wanted to give me a big infodump on how Amy was the daughter of Marquis and the rest of the story of the two sisters, quite a bit of which I already knew from their observe descriptions. And she also wanted to tell me how awesome the Maker body looked. The rest of our, ahem, discussion was very much none of your business.

Maker/I called Amy over, took a fresh scan of her, and started on to the next lesson. She made me produce clones of different people, created different diseases and injuries on them which I fixed while she watched and critiqued. Finally we started with the clone of her, where she, again, went wild.

Soon after I'd called Amy over, Vicky excitedly told us that Swarm had spotted some minor crimes in progress nearby, and they were going out patrolling. Swarm dispersed as Victoria quickly went into the washroom with her sidebag and came out as Glory Girl who promptly flew out the window, where Taylor messaged me that there was an arrow above the roof for her to follow. Taylor then left too, telling us that she had some errands to run.

Amy's next set of changes were really awesome. Pouches in her arms to store concentrated bio-sludge, with small tubes leading to the palm with muscles through which she could shoot them as a fine tentacle/thread with a spike at the end. Basically extended her range by tens of metres easily and could pierce through clothing and sink into skin so the whole ensemble appeared to her as a single organism affected by her power.

She turned her muscles even more dense with exotic crystalline looking structures. She added completely new receptors in her eyes, reinforced the bones and skin with more exotic hydrocarbon meshes. And added a few more minor cosmetic tweaks to her appearance. Tiny alterations which made her mousy appearance look more elfin, much like charisma does to a gamer.

I realized that as long as it was inside a living body, her power allowed a very wide range of things to be considered organic. At my insistence she also showed me how to switch a corona off. I noted the finer details of what she was doing, if you changed the part of the corona which served as the anchor for the dimensional breach - it would destabilize and close; restore that part and it would open again. I had no idea one could do that. That would come in handy, I was sure.

She added more redundancy to her vital organs. Improved her digestive system to be able to draw out much more energy from all kinds of stuff. She added some new organs, glands and a lot more neural linkages which would provide a basic regeneration factor and further enhanced senses and controls and diagnostics for said enhancements.

She even added a pseudo brain near her womb that would come into play if her main brain was sufficiently damaged, to contain said damage and sustain life functions till some other healer could reach her or given enough time her own regen could fix. Wow, no wonder she's afraid of her power. She created something like the gamer's beginner physical package for herself and somewhat mitigated her own manton limit! What I personally enjoyed was the fact that with high levels in Biology, I could actually somewhat understand all that she was doing!

When it was time to apply the changes, I first made her unconscious to avoid the memory backslide. Then took a fresh scan, merged the brain parts (still took me a good half an hour with 4 parallels running) and applied them to her. Then I woke her up.

She didn't move for a good few minutes, running the diagnostics I presumed. Then she opened her eyes, they were almost pitch black! "So beautiful!" Of course, multi-spectral eyes. The eyes soon turned normal. She got up very carefully, then asked me to nick her skin, I had to apply some force with a diamond razor to do it. There was almost no bleeding and it healed in about two minutes.

I checked her stats again, compared to her baseline the difference was unbelievable, WIS +2, CHA +6, INT +7, DEX +29, STR +24, VIT +43! That was easily a brute 3, mover 2, thinker 1, blaster 1 upgrade. Well, as soon as I had a good understanding on what she did, I was going to apply this whole package to all of us, except for the hand tentacles bit, those were specialized for her power.

It took her about an hour more for her to experiment and get comfortable with the body, Lisa and Aveek/I had come down from my room and were ooh-ing and aah-ing at her practise movements and changing pupils. She actually could move faster than an unboosted me right now. It was time to go to the hospital now.

Amy asked Maker/me, "Did you fill up the forms I sent you?" I nodded and pulled out the sheaf of filled forms as if from a slot behind my armour, actually I just created them from memory. She nodded and continued, "Perfect, I've already filed the rest of the paperwork for you at the hospital. We go and submit these and you're good to start healing today. Also, Maker, take my advice, don't go overboard with healing people, you can't save everybody. I know I sound like a hypocrite but it's a hard learned lesson."

Maker/I nodded solemnly while Aveek/I snorted and got a playful swat from Amy which sent me tumbling over the couch. Amy just deadpanned "Oops" before asking Maker/me to heal Aveek/me. Maker/I made a show of complying as Aveek/I still couldn't stop laughing while pretending to groan simultaneously. My life is complicated.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews till date. I don't know how relevant or repetitive this chapter was, I don't even know if this advanced the plot much or not. It just wanted to be written :/