5

Summary:

The spice shows many things, past, present, future, that which never was and that which must be. What will Marie decide? What will be of the shard?

Notes:

Spice 2.1

"I assure you that I am the book of fate."

-God Emperor Leto Atreides II

-March 15, 2011. 12:05 am.-

In terms of sucking I would say getting several millennia's worth of technology shoved into your brain is about as bad as getting gutted by a rusty hook. So much knowledge, so many choices ahead of me, spice, sandworms, gholas, no fields and ships, it was almost tempting to begin cackling like a mad woman. I was positively spoiled for choice in terms of pre-existing tech I could build in an hour or two with all the materials back at the base. However before doing anything I needed to address the elephant in the room. Namely the fact that Taylor had summoned a swarm near me. It was a very significantly sized swarm. Not apocalyptic bad, but I should probably get up before she makes the plagues of Egypt look like a children's tale.

"Anyone know the license plate of the truck that ran me over?" I manage to choke out with a dry throat. Taylor looks at me and hugs me way too tightly.

"Marie!" She whispers as she almost crushes my bones, "What happened? Were you attacked?"

"Power issues. Good news however, I got something new out of it." I reply with excitement overtaking my tone, it genuinely is cool to have something to build. "Gimme your radio, it'll just take a moment or two." 

Before she can answer I take it from her hip, rip it apart in a few seconds and take mine apart as well. The parts are mostly there, but I need more glass, so I convert some plastic into glass and begin making a different circle on the roof. While I know I still have my gate inside open and am capable of still using it, my power is guiding my hands as my mind is distracted. A simple communicator, capable of intercepting any type of transmission from earth, that's my goal for the moment. The circle is done and I activate it. I feel a small drain to my own resources as a pair of communicators, small round things with a clear screen with ear pieces are made.

"I've simplified the system, for now we can intercept any signal from BBPD. You can choose to send a signal from the main piece of the communicator, it's touch based." I say with a smile on my face. Taylor stares at me like I'm a mad woman. Which to be fair I technically am, but who cares about that? I can make sandworms! I can get spice! The water of life! I can talk to mom!

That thought stops me cold. I… I can't remember her face. I can see Catherine clearly, she sometimes appears in my mind. But my mother… I can't remember her. I try to find her in my mind and see only alchemy, only the past, only truth. Lung, the bank, Bakuda, Coil, Travelers, Leviathan, Butcher, 9, Alexandria… All clear in my mind, all clear in my heart, yet I can't remember myself. I feel cold, I can barely hear my own breathing, why?

"Maeve!" Taylor shouts as she shakes me. I'm spiraling, my mask is too tight, there's so much heat nearby, why? Why? Why?

" Fear is the mind killer. " I hear a voice in my mind, it is my voice. My old voice, I remember huddling under the covers with a small flashlight. I remember buying that book, Dune. Why do I remember? My spiral stops, my breathing slows down, I can feel something in the air, like a moment of calm before the storm hits. Taylor tackles me into the roof as the apartment building to my right explodes in flames.

"Come on Maeve, get up. We need to move." She says dispassionately, I can almost feel her emotions being fed into the nearby swarm. My family needs me, screw everything else, I can freak out later.

"Got it, I'll deal with the fire. Once I do, find the injured and the perp if you can." I mutter as I force myself to stand. My legs are unsteady, and I'm pretty sure my eyes aren't much better. Yet I can feel a clear purpose in my heart, I need to save the people in the apartment building. Several plans form in my mind and, in my own greed or perhaps it is my own pride, I choose them all. I clap my hands, I can feel the gate inside me open as I touch the roof. A stone bridge is formed between the buildings. Then another and another. Until there's at least one bridge per floor. Each bridge stabilizes the burning building, in addition to being extra circles for my next trick.

I rush in soon after, Taylor lags behind me as I begin draining the heat from the fire. Smoke fills my lungs as I end up in the middle of a burning hallway. My body burns inside yet all around me the temperature drops, ice forms and I draw my staff, the stones shine as I smash it on the floor, the walls, the floor, everything is cleared. I transmute the smoke into air, for there to be fire there needs to be fuel. So I transmute the fuel out of existence, I leave the canisters for the police. A better Alchemist would've been able to vent the smoke better, a stronger Alchemist could've drowned the flames faster. I need to do better, otherwise I'll end up relying on Taylor to save my ass constantly.

Taylor rushes in behind me as I slump, my costume is emitting steam as I force myself to stand again. "Weaver, look for injured people, have them come down to the first floor, I'll heal as many as I can soon." My voice is hoarse, as if my throat was made of sandpaper. 

"Got it." She agrees without any fuss, which worries me. But first things first, I need to get down from the fifth floor, my healing is slowly beginning to kick in. My skin feels raw for a few seconds as it heals, my costume isn't in tatters, but some light fixes are needed. I force myself to walk downstairs, almost limping at first.

By the time I reach the first floor Taylor has effectively divided the crowd, those closest to the stairs are the most injured, a few old men and women that were too close to the fire bombs, thankfully almost no children. I had enough nightmares about that in my previous life, then again I signed up for it. One cannot simply work in forensic labs without seeing the worst the world has to offer.

"Everyone, I'll heal your wounds, all I ask is for some patience while I work. One at a time and I hate to repeat myself so I'll say this once: By coming to get healed by me you are giving me permission to use my powers on you. So single file and no cutting in line." I basically shout over the crowd.

Minor burns, some smoke damage and a lot of age related injuries consume the next hour or so of my life. Taylor had left to see if she could find anything to track whoever did this. One thing that stood out to me was that most of the people here were minorities. I'm going to kill Kaiser. Fuck Theo, fuck Aster and fuck Purity, I'm dragging his ass out of medhall and crucifying him. Maybe I'll leave his skull alone for them to keep.

"Gracias Mija." The old lady mutters, thanking me for helping her. It pulls me out of my spiraling thoughts of vengeance? Venting? Probably both.

"No hay problema." I mutter back automatically. I don't miss the shock on their faces, my accent isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I stand up and leave as a motorcycle pulls up. The woman had green eyes, her scarf that covered the lower half of her face with the flag proudly flew in the wind, the urban camo shirt and pants blended well with the poorly lit streets. One of the senior members of the protectorate,

"Miss Militia." I said with some measure of respect. Yes, she is a bad soldier, but even so she isn't a bad person. Good soldiers don't follow orders blindly after all. I wonder if I could survive all the guns should we come to blows.

"Maeve." She says with what I hope is a smile underneath her scarf, "I'm surprised Weaver isn't around as well."

The bug swarms behind her coalesces into a humanoid shape and says, "Says who?" I smile beneath my mask, Taylor's bug clone is extremely creepy, even the Miss Militia tenses. Out of the corner of my eye I see the real Taylor nearby hiding on a roof.

"Your range is truly impressive, Weaver." Miss Militia says in praise of her, "All around the city there have been fires, and some bombings as well. The PRT would like to thank both of you for your help." She seems to be genuinely grateful to my ears; yet I await the stick that always comes after the carrot.

"I… we're grateful for your thanks." Taylor manages to say as I nod in agreement. I feel something in the air, something like a wave crashing down on my mind. Awe, adoration, respect, glorious worship. Words fail me as a veritable goddess descends from the heavens and…

" I'm being mastered! " My fear spikes with that single thought. I can feel something inside my brain shake loose, as if I had been bound for a second and then released.

My fist curls up and slams itself into my face. My mask cracks and so does my fucking hand, holy shit that hurts. I can taste blood in my mouth as I stare at Victoria Dallon, Glory Girl, Antares… 

[Wretch] An alien sound comes out of my mouth, I cannot describe it as anything but sound itself, as if volume was an accent and noise, the mother tongue; yet it feels nice to know that my shard is almost as pissed as I am at her.

Miss Militia looks shocked at my reaction to the master effect of the fucking Aura. "Vicky turn off your mind fuck aura right now or so help me I'll take you down from the sky and shove your head so far up your ass even Amy won't fix you!" I shout at full volume, adjusting my gloves all the while. I can almost see how her power protects her as I consider burning her alive for a moment. A simple gout of flame, barely hotter than a ball of lava, would force the field to fizzle out. Another would drive her into the ground. 

I see her opening her mouth, I can't hear her over the sound of my own heartbeat. Like war drums it beats, blocking all sound from my ears as I focus on Glory Girl. Given the situation I would have one shot, a strong enough blast of flame would destroy her shield, another could harm her, maybe even kill her. She would deserve it for trying to control me like she accidentally did with Amy. Amy, Amy, Amy, why does that name bring dread?

" Focus, you can't let Amy go crazy. " A far more rational side of my mind argues against attacking a girl that for all intents and purposes is trying to be a hero. I focused on breathing through my mouth, slowly exhaling painful breaths as my nose snaps back into position, my hand has already fixed itself, the bones snapping together with an audible crack. Fuck my body hurts.

While I did that I failed to notice when Taylor reacted, her swarms flew upwards surrounding Glory Girl. I saw her land soon after as several thousand bugs circled above her like a nightmarish halo. And that is without mentioning the ones below her.

"Maeve, please calm down." Miss Militia says as she approaches me. Bits of mask and blood decorate the floor in front of me even as I glare at Glory Girl. From the very edge of my vision I can see her with one hand stretched outwards, as if waiting to summon a gun. She could shoot me and maybe stun or kill me. I could get back up…

[Battle] My shard whispers conspiratorially into my ears, I can feel more of it flowing through my body.

I can feel the desire from my shard flow into me. It hates losing control, I hate losing myself. We hate being mastered. To lose ourselves, our sense of self, to be a collective. It would be so easy to attack now, to reduce the bitch into a stump. But it wouldn't be heroic, it wouldn't be fair and if my eyes don't fail me, she's shocked that I reacted so badly to it. "-sorry." I hear her say and my emotions simmer down. She keeps talking but I refuse to listen, I tell Miss Militia,

"I'm leaving, keep the walking demolition barbie the fuck away from me until she can control her aura. And tell her that the only person immune to it is the mood ring! No one fucking else, you damned barbie! Not your mom, dad or sister! You stupid fucking bitch!" I give Glory Girl the two finger salute as I leave. I can see some of Taylor's swarm following me, several of them even crawl on me. I make it past the corner and into a nearby roof before falling to the ground. Fuck, I nearly attempted to kill Victoria. 

"I'm okay… I'll be better once we get back home." I whisper to the bugs near me. Taylor soon joins me, I think she talked with Miss Militia; at least I hope so. One of us needs to have a good working relationship with the PRT. By the time we arrive back home it's 3:00 in the morning. Taylor goes to sleep as I stay in the basement workshop. I begin working on making shields for use both. And I also work on making a Gom Jabbar needle. The needle itself? Not that hard to make, just needs to be strong enough to puncture steel. But the poison? That takes some time, even with Alchemy accelerating the process. Meta cyanide is notoriously difficult to make at the moment. 

My body moves automatically as my mind begins trying to think of a way to make spice without the giant sandworms. The chemical composition is very precise, I could possibly synthesize it given a few minutes if I can get the materials. The other option is to make a sandworm, which I'm tempted to do. There's also the Tleilaxu variant which was as good as the original from my memories. To take the Tleilaxu spice or to try my hand and Leto's curse, my options were limited in a sense. 

I shelve that idea aside as I begin to filter through more of the mental catalog. The Ixians or Bene Tleilax or those fucking Tleilaxu are amoral bastards at best. But there's genius in there, their genetics program is something to truly stand in awe of. The fact that I could realistically build their computers and code in Bene Gesserit training and have that injected into my very DNA spoke volumes of how much bullshit they had at their disposal. Any lack of experience my body has would be resolved with just a simple genetic alteration. Languages? No problem, just implant it into my genes! Hypnosis is also a viable option for transplanting knowledge.

It would also be easy to make Axolotl tanks, to make myself somewhat immortal through Ghula. All at the low, low cost of making a goddamned breeding factory out of a woman. And making sure I would trigger my own memories after forcing myself to age artificially. Hell I could feasibly make older versions of myself, blow my head and transfer my soul into a new body.

I feel sickened by the fact that I'm tempted to do so. To make a human, just for the purpose of making clones of myself, which would need to grow in a separate tank for aging. Why do I hesitate? Alexandria would do it in a heartbeat. Bonesaw will do something worse. Why is it so easy to justify it? This world would kill me, would kill Taylor, Emily, Danny with this I could make us immortal or close enough for it to not matter much. The stones shine brightly as I take one in my hand. The world turns white as I use alchemy to create a No-room. Normally I'd build one, building is fun; but there's something satisfying about creating something using the red stone. The stone crumbles soon after the transmutation is done. I still have a couple left, but the room is quiet… I need that quiet.

The now obsidian colored walls shine with golden lines as the shielding activates, lights flicker to life as I stare into the no-room. A perfect blindspot from prescience, a safe place for me to think; my headache lessens and my guts feel like they've been kicked in, I make a box and puke in it. I feel like slamming my face into a wall for an hour. Mostly for thinking about using Axolotl tanks. A part of my mind is amused by my desire for pain; as if that would cleanse my consciousness from the idea. 

"I'm so fucked up in my head." I say to the nearby bugs. They keep working, ignoring me as I laugh and cry; even so I force myself to work.

By five in the morning I'm back in my room with two fully functional shields with suspensors attached so as to allow for limited flight, a needle that has enough poison to kill anyone almost instantly. I haven't slept in a day, my head is in pain and when I look at my mirror my reflection mocks me as I see my face with dried blood. I punch the mirror and it breaks. Bits of glass sink into my skin and my blood falls into the floor. I can't hear anything as I put my curl up in a corner and wallow in self-hatred. Taylor enters my room soon after and finds me curled up.

"Am I a bad person?" I ask her. I can hear teardrops hitting my pajamas, I can see the concern on her face.

"Why would you ask that?" She asks as she comes closer. Her voice is full of concern, my own is laced with self pity.

"Because, I wanted to kill Glory Girl." I admit outloud, "I wanted her broken, bleeding and dying in front of me for using her aura on me. An aura she isn't in full conscious control of. What's wrong with me?"

"You had a bad reaction to a power." Taylor says after a few seconds, she hugs me tightly as she whispers, "You're not a bad person. Stubborn, and hot headed? Yeah. But bad? Marie, you stopped an apartment complex from burning down, saved several people including kids for free. You aren't a bad person." She sounds genuine, like it's the truth. I don't think I can believe that, not yet, not until I can control my emotions better. Control my reactions and more importantly my shard.

"Thanks Tay." I reply somewhat hoarse.

"No problem, now what do you have here?" She asks me in a blatant attempt at changing the subject.

"Personal shields that block anything that goes above a certain speed, pretty much most projectiles with the exception of lasers. If there's a laser, the shield will turn into a thermonuclear bomb. Which is something I disabled by deactivating the shield when it detects laser fire within 5 feet of itself. The sensor array was a pain to build since it wasn't in the original design, and the power source was pushed to its limits, but I managed to make it work. It also has the side benefit of allowing low gravity to be triggered on command so we have some small level of levitation or flight if I divert all the power of the shield into it." I barely registered the fact that she paled when I said thermonuclear device, which means that my lack of sleep really is fucking with my sense of danger or im losing my grip on escalation, 

"And don't touch the needle, it has the equivalent of a million doses of cyanide and can kill anyone in seconds. I also made some adjustments to the workshop under us, it can no longer be found by anyone who can see the future, it's a perfect blindspot. There's also something else, this speciality has some bio tinker things. Specifically worms. Big worms, capable of changing the earth itself. Imagine a planet that's 99.9% desert, and that's the start of what they can do."

"Marie, please don't make giant worms that can terraform the planet." Taylor believably begs of me, I pout and say,

"Fine, can't have fun in Brockton." I laugh somewhat bitterly and say, "I'm really sorry for worrying you Taylor."

"It's okay, you're a kid." She replies too easily. I frown and say,

"So are you."

"Yes, but I'm older and taller than you shortstop." I can feel my temper rising at the taunt, I'm not that small!

"For now at least. Wait until I hit my growth spurt Tay, I'll be taller than you!" I exclaim, tossing a pillow at her. She unsurprisingly catches it and tosses it back to me in an instant before smirking. Damn smug-bug.

Spice 2.1, end