23

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, Earth Bet

Hebert Residence​

I sat in front of my computer watching a live feed of Piggot following Armsmaster into his backup laboratory in the PRT building.

The lab had its own separate computer and security systems. They were connected to the outside, but only Armsmaster and Dragon had complete access. The two tinkers had exhaustively swept the systems for surveillance yesterday, which explained why Armsmaster had brought Piggot here.

Of course Prometheus had neatly removed any trace of his previous presence when it became clear what they were about to do, then subverted their improved security and reinserted himself shortly after they finished.

Even Dragon wasn't used to the idea of going up against programs that knew she was looking for them and could react intelligently. Not yet, anyway. If the idea ever occurred to her then things might get considerably more difficult.

"What the hell happened in there?!" Piggot demanded.

Armsmaster took a seat on a reinforced chair. "Scientia helped," he said heavily.

"Scientia showed up?" Piggot asked, incredulous.

"Not exactly," he replied, visibly gathering his thoughts. "She spoke on our comms, opened the door for us, and made tactical suggestions while turning the base's security systems against Coil and his men."

"She? Tactical suggestions?" Piggot repeated, her tone like ice.

Armsmaster gave the Director a slight nod. "It was a woman's voice. She issued orders like someone with extensive command experience," he admitted. "It was also clear that she had comprehensive knowledge of what was going on inside, as well as of the details of our powers and tactical capabilities. She divided up the assault into several teams tailored for what they would encounter and directed them in real time."

"And you just let her?!" Piggot growled, her hands curling into bloodless fists.

"Scientia waited until the perfect moment, and offered highly efficient plans made with a complete tactical picture of what was going on. If I had given other orders it would have risked confusion, and I suspect any orders I had given would have been less effective and resulted in unnecessary risk to our personnel due to a lack of inside information," Armsmaster explained stiffly, clearly impressed despite himself.

"Discussing alternative strategies with Scientia would have given the defenders time to organize. Withdrawing would likely have resulted in Coil escaping, or holding the building above hostage, or a bloody breakout attempt where we would be on the defensive. Disaster scenarios. I had to make a judgment call in the moment."

"...And how many people did these plans of hers cost us?" Piggot asked, gritting her teeth.

"No friendly fatalities. Only a few serious injuries, who should have reached the hospital by now. We were expecting much worse," Armsmaster answered.

Piggot's expression changed from anger to something difficult to read. "Assaulting a fortified position like that? Yes, I was expecting to be writing letters to families tonight. How did she do it?"

Armsmaster rubbed his beard. "I will need to do a proper analysis, but on first appearance it was a mixture of information, allocating our forces expediently, and interfering with the enemy's ability to resist. Between a lack of weaponry, shock, and their own systems turning against them, most of Coil's mercenaries were unable to fight back effectively. Only the ones that reached the armory before we arrived were a significant threat," he recalled. "If they'd all been able to arm themselves we would have taken significant fatalities in an assault. It may have turned into a stalemate."

"How many did the enemy lose?" Piggot asked.

"Four fatalities. One that Coil appears to have shot himself before his capture," he said, disgust lacing his tone. "Two mercenaries took fatal gunshot wounds from troopers, and one was shot by Scientia."

Piggot tilted her head. "How did our ghost cape shoot one of them if she wasn't there?"

"Coil had automated weapons systems in the entryway," Armsmaster clarified. "Scientia evidently took control of them. According to Battery, they shot to suppress and injure before one of them was about to shoot her with tinkertech weaponry, despite her best attempts at evasion. One of the guns reacted by shooting the attacker in the neck, possibly saving her life."

"That's some fast reaction time," Piggot noted.

Armsmaster hummed in agreement. "Yes. Perhaps a precognitive reaction. Either that or software," he said. "If software it would have to be quite sophisticated to predict what was about to happen and escalate force when the situation required it. Doing so reliably would be a nontrivial problem. The work of a specialist."

"Well, we already knew she was skilled enough to treat my secure phone like a pager," Piggot said. "Whether it's precognition, computer skills, or both."

Armsmaster's eyes flicked back and forth behind his visor, reading quickly. "I've just received confirmation, the bomb squad has found demolition charges planted on structural supports. They're removing the blasting caps now."

"So the bastard did have the building rigged to blow," Piggot said, grimly.

Armsmaster nodded once. "Yes." He visibly paused for a moment, and looked caught in internal debate until Piggot leveled a look and he spoke.

"Director, either she has a precognitive power telling her what to do and say, or she has extensive military style command experience. Experience that takes into account how to best deploy parahumans," he said slowly.

Piggot clasped her hands behind her back.

"You think she could be former or active PRT?" she asked, voice clipped.

"If today's performance was not power enabled, yes," he agreed. "To have the kind of expertise she displayed she would have to be highly accustomed to a field command role."

"Or it's both powers and experience," Piggot proposed. "How old did she sound?"

"I would estimate somewhere in her thirties. However, I ran a vocal analysis on the recordings on my way here. It could not find any of the usual microshifts in vocal stress patterns. I do not believe it was a natural voice," Armsmaster noted.

"So she could be anyone, if she even is a she," Piggot contended, and grimaced. "We could have someone on active duty who's moonlighting. Shit."

Armsmaster made a gesture with one hand. "It is just conjecture at this point, Director. She could be former military, or a foreign agent, or it was purely power driven."

Piggot heaved an unhappy sigh. "I've never heard of a precognitive whose power offers comprehensive instructions to that degree. Usually it's vague warnings. Have you seen anyone in the files like that?" she asked.

Armsmaster shook his head. "There are some documented combat precognition powers that help someone act to avoid harm or accomplish a simple objective in the immediate term, but nothing so expansive as this would have to be were it precognitive in origin. There is nothing that works so well at such a distance, either. Or to people besides the precognitive. An analytical thinker power might be closer, something that offered strategic insight, but that would not explain other things."

Piggot drummed her fingers on a workbench. "Those papers she published, you mean. Has there been word on whether the contents are real, yet?"

Armsmaster shifted his weight, and the chair creaked. "There has been little time, but preliminary investigations are promising. Laurence Livermore confirmed that they have a proof of concept of one of Scientia's gamma ray laser designs working without tinker involvement, although that is not yet public," he said. "Despite that, the Scientia papers are starting to accumulate considerable discussion online. Some people are attempting to follow technical instructions independently."

Piggot frowned in thought. "If it's not a sham it's going to change things. But if it is real, how is it being done? The name could be a front for multiple capes working together, maybe," she suggested. "Something like Toybox, but broader than just tinkers. With a natural sounding generated voice it wouldn't be hard. And I can see some ways it could be an advantage to create the false impression."

Armsmaster nodded. "It is possibly a group, and would explain the wide range of demonstrated aptitudes. We don't have enough information to confirm or deny, at this juncture. Although the number of things Scientia had to be doing simultaneously during the assault suggests multiple individuals, or extensive automation like Dragon uses, or precognitive instructions. She issued orders to each individual group constantly, kept abreast of the tactical situation, managed the technical systems she subverted including our own, and sent false instructions posing as Coil to the mercenaries over the enemy radio system at key times. One person doing all that simultaneously and effectively without assistance of some kind would be almost impossible. Given the demonstrated reaction times, on balance I believe automation or precognition are more likely."

Piggot looked at the ceiling for long enough that Armsmaster began to look uncomfortable.

"I want a full report as soon as possible," she said, turning her gaze back down to fix on Armsmaster. "I'll have to send the Chief Director everything we know at this point. Anything in those papers panning out will make her a topic of concern at the home office. Especially if it doesn't require tinkers to use. At least I'll be able to report that our traitor is dealt with without collateral damage. That will help. And if we take the rest of what she passed along as true, the Chief Director will be interested in this woman being able to predict trigger events, the Endbringers, and knowing villain IDs. Hell, maybe I can get her to order Watchdog to look into Medhall."

"With the intelligence about Calvert, the Undersiders, and Kid Win's specialty having panned out so far, I am inclined to give the rest of Scientia's information the benefit of the doubt, despite our lack of knowledge of her or the group she represents," Armsmaster admitted.

Piggot moved her shoulders in something that might have been a hint of a shrug. "Maybe we've gotten lucky. Or unlucky. Or both. No matter how informed or competent she is we can't have her taking over again," Piggot said. "Once you're done with that report, I want countermeasures for whatever she did."

"I...will see what I can do, Director," Armsmaster said. "Dragon and I will have to determine how she managed it. We thought our systems were clean."

Piggot muttered something unhappily, then frowned in thought. "She said she would be helping the operation, but she didn't just come to us with the information ahead of time. Does she need to feel in control?" she mused.

"It is possible. Or she did it because she does not wholly trust us," Armsmaster answered.

"Trust us to what?" Piggot asked.

Armsmaster made a thoughtful noise. "There are a number of possibilities. Trust us to believe the information, to plan and command the operation as flawlessly as she did, to keep the information secure. Perhaps all of those, or something else entirely we cannot speculate at."

"Well, we'll just have to find out. And if she ever deigns to speak with us we'll have to express that this can never happen again. Get to that report, and find those countermeasures."

"Yes, Director," Armsmaster said with a firm nod, and stood to leave.

I killed the feed and stood. "Prometheus, delay Costa-Brown from seeing that report as long as you can without it looking suspicious."

"Command acknowledged, Miss Hebert. Was their analysis of your actions correct?"

"About not trusting them to direct things as well as I did? Mostly," I said, thinking through points in the battle where I'd given 'suggestions', and what would have happened without them. Or what a commander like Armsmaster might have done.

"Armsmaster was one of the three assets in that fight with the ability to get aggressive and push without excessive risk to his life. If I'd just handed over my information to him, he'd have had to stand back and command, or fight distracted.

"If he stood back, gauged the situation in real time, and gave orders? Three to six more seriously injured or dead troopers in the attack on the armory, I think. If he tried to fight while distracted he could have gotten himself badly injured or killed. Depending on when it happened that could have been catastrophic. Likely a mercenary counterattack and bloody partial breakout, stopped with a lot of lives. Lose-lose, either way. I had to dip my hand in, even if they're upset about it. I can smooth things over, if possible. Or do what I need to do without them, if I have to."

I closed my eyes and sighed. "I've been treating them as tools more than people all this time, and that's on me. I'm not sure I'd change any one decision, but they'd have every right to be upset about it." I rubbed my head. "Well, even in the worst case it all doesn't really matter as long as they don't know who I am. They did make an understandable but bad guess about that, so..."

I thought over what Piggot and Armsmaster had said, especially their conjecture about who I was. My knowledge of how to lie included the piece of information that people tended to be less critical of information that confirms things they already suspect are true. Their supposition that I was a member of the PRT already was clever, albeit completely wrong, but if I did something small to reinforce it I might keep them diverted away from figuring out who I really was for longer.

"Show me the form for an after action report, the kind their commanders file after engagements," I ordered.

"Yes, Miss," Prometheus responded, and several windows opened on the screen less than a second later.

I settled down to read, and couldn't suppress a bit of a self-satisfied smile. I was going to write an after action report in the PRT's characteristic in-house style to send to Piggot, including a detailed tactical breakdown of why I made each decision and how doing anything else would have increased the chances of things going wrong.

I made up a convincing story for the report about suspected safeties that destroyed the computer systems, of course. It was a good thing I'd made images of the drives ahead of time to forward along with the report. How thoughtful of me.

I seamlessly removed Cauldron references and the financial information I wanted to hide from the forensic images. With the original drives burned there would be no indication of the edits.

That would perhaps mollify them about my taking over slightly, although I didn't expect much, while simultaneously leading them down the path to thinking I was someone in their organization already.

If I ever told Mouse Protector about that she'd laugh for days.

An hour later the report was done, tweaked by Prometheus, and sent. I found my way down to the kitchen where Danny was starting to get things together for a quick pasta dinner. "Dad, I think I need some help," I started.

We worked together in the basement until late. Danny didn't have the technical expertise to model the necessary parts for the printer, but he could assemble completed parts with only a few pointers when things weren't obvious.

That was how we got a working fusion reactor and particle accelerator completed. While the pair of them started manufacturing antiprotons and the types of exotic matter I needed, we got started on a framework the size of a car that dominated the remaining space in the basement.

I went to sleep with an idea I should have tried much earlier to speed things up even more, but it was a productive night.

And I couldn't help but notice Danny kept smiling when he thought I wasn't looking.

July 8th, 710,021

Seeker Orbital, Milky Way, Earth ???

Seeker Project Command​

I was dreaming I was someone not-me again.

"How large do we estimate the area is?" Not-me asked. When he looked down I could see he was wearing some sort of a uniform that marked him as in command, and around him in a virtual space were other uniformed people seated at a big table that looked like it was on an invisible floor in deep space.

"It's an estimate because we only know where the no-go space is when we lose a probe, but it's looking like a sphere about one point two billion light years across."

There was muttering around the table.

The Commander cut it off by speaking forcefully, turning to someone else at the table. He looked human, but he was an artificial intelligence who served the panel as their scientific expert. "Any progress on finding another explanation?"

The AI shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Probes that go into the area do not return regardless of how we outfit them, but nothing looks wrong from just outside. The consensus view is that the only physical explanation is a vacuum collapse that's expanding at the speed of light."

No one said anything. It was the answer they'd all feared.

"How long until it hits the Milky Way?" The Commander asked.

"Seven point two million years. If we can't figure out a solution by then we'll have to rely on FTL to keep ahead of the shockfront. Taken as a whole the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, so we should always have somewhere to run to, unless..."

"Unless?" The Commander prompted.

The AI's expression turned grim. "Unless this isn't the only one."

The others at the table exchanged looks.

"What are the odds of that?" the Commander asked.

"Without knowing what caused the collapse, it's impossible to say for sure. There are two schools of thought right now. If we're lucky, then it was an almost impossibly unlikely quantum fluctuation that pushed space out of its metastable state and started the collapse," the AI explained.

"And if we're unlucky?" prompted someone else at the table.

"If we're unlucky, we've finally found intelligent life outside our civilization, and whether by accident or intention it triggered the collapse."

"Why is that worse?" the Commander asked.

The AI looked me directly in the eyes. "Because if one civilization did it, the odds of it being a statistically significant end to other civilizations are much higher."

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, Earth Bet

Hebert Residence​

It took me a moment to push away the sense of horror that had been present in the Commander's memory.

The humanity in that universe had put together an entire project and fully explored a number of galaxies hoping to find sapient life, with no success. If the fears of the AI research head in that meeting were correct, then the Seeker Project had finally succeeded in its mission, only to find that the life they sought had blown itself up in a way that would destroy everything humanity and its children had built.

Was it an accident, a research experiment gone wrong? An intentional act? A doomsday weapon?

An act of collective suicide?

The inside of a vacuum collapse bubble is so energetic that even atomic nuclei can't hold together. There would have been no way to ever find out.

I had some time before I had to go downstairs for breakfast, and I needed to think about something else.

"Prometheus, how much did you manage to take from Coil?" I asked.

"Approximately $43.2 million dollars U.S., Miss Hebert. A mixture of cash, stocks, and securities," he replied.

Not bad.

"Okay. Prometheus, call Tattletale. No need to bother with a vocal filter," I ordered.

"Command acknowledged, Miss," he said, and my phone rang on speaker.

"...Who is this?" came Lisa's voice, cagey.

"Your secret admirer," I said with a smile, knowing she would hear it.

"Oh. You," she said, suddenly sounding much more awake.

"Coil's captured, his organization is rolled up, and I think I've taken care of all of his contingencies," I summarized. "So congratulations. You're free."

I could hear her take in a breath at that, so I gave her a moment to process. But only a moment. "Now, how would you like to come to the light side and work for me exclusively? I have cookies. And I'll pay you, say, ten thousand a month. And protect you. No fighting, probably no costumes. Absolutely no Coil bullshit; I don't enslave or control people. I just want your help, and to give you an incentive to go more or less legit. I'm willing to break the rules occasionally in ways that don't get anybody hurt, but I don't want you doing anything villainous while you work for me," I noted, placing emphasis on the last part.

There was a long pause. "Why?" she asked, suspicious.

I let my voice fall into a level tone that conveyed straightforward honesty. "Because you're wasted as a villain, because you can help answer some questions I have, because you can do a lot of good for the world, and because I think you deserve a real chance at a decent life. Also because you're mostly motivated by money and outsmarting people, and of the two I can most easily offer money," I explained. "I think you can do a lot more good with me than with the PRT. I know a lot more about what's really going on than they do. You'll probably also enjoy working with me a lot more than the PRT. They'd be pretty restrictive."

When talking to a thinker that can probably tell if you're telling the truth, the simplest solution was to be clear and honest.

"I would object to the outsmarting people thing, but my power is telling me you might have a point," she said slowly.

"Stabbed in the back by your own power, ouch," I quipped. Was I enjoying this too much? Maybe.

She sighed. "Okay, it's not like I have a better offer, and I am curious to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Sign me up, but I'd like to be able to get out if I want. And I want twenty thousand a month, not ten."

"Deal," I said immediately. "Prometheus, make a secure account with twenty thousand and send Lisa the details, would you?" I added, deliberately not muting the phone.

"Command acknowledged, Miss Hebert," he replied.

"What the fuck was that?!" Lisa yelped.

I chuckled. "Non-sapient AI assistant."

"...Holy fuck," she swore, and I heard an electronic ding from somewhere on her end. There was some typing and a pause. "Holy fuck," she repeated, more quietly.

"Yep," I answered, popping the p. "So, ready for a question?" I asked.

"...Yeah, I guess you've paid for it. What do you want to know?"

"What has your power told you about me so far?" I asked. "Everything you've got, please. Don't worry about upsetting me or anything. I won't get mad."

There was a pause on Lisa's end. "Um. Right. A lot of stuff that still doesn't make much sense. At first it said you weren't afraid, that you were a trained martial artist, then a markswoman. Told me you could control your emotions, somehow. It started estimating that you were more and more dangerous, and angry. That you knew me and the rest of the Undersiders intimately, somehow. Then there was something about how you weren't a parahuman, and that you're acausal. It repeated that last thing over and over again, like it was stuck in a loop. I had to shut it off. It's still kind of stuck on the idea," she explained.

"Acausal..." I mused.

Acausality is when something happens without anything making it happen. An unmoved mover.

There wasn't much that was really acausal. Some quantum effects were by some definitions, but even they were subject to probabilistic rules that predicted how they would act broadly.

For something that would appear truly acausal, the possibilities were travel between universes, travel through time, or both.

Or an act of one or more gods, I supposed, but I wouldn't entertain that thought seriously.

I remembered when I'd tried to ask my power for information on how to travel between universes and it told me that it was possible, but the energy requirements were absolutely absurd, even for a tiny amount of mass.

Had they actually done it, put the seed of a neural lace in the brain of Taylor Hebert to attach her to a huge knowledge database somehow?

They must have been desperate. Beyond desperate.

And why Taylor Hebert, and why in that moment? And where did I enter into it?

Why was I here?!

"Yeah," Lisa said, interrupting my thoughts. "It also told me you know me, somehow. Or know a lot about me. Aside from that, it was pretty sure you weren't a teenager. If you don't mind my asking, Boss, who or what are you?"

I thought about my answer for a good minute. Telling her was a risk; I'd be giving information both to her, and to her shard. I was pretty sure giving information to her shard didn't convey it to Scion, otherwise he'd likely have showed up by now, but there was still some level of risk there.

On the other hand, not telling her meant I would miss out on using her shard to figure out my issues. It could likely see things I couldn't.

"Boss?" she asked, nervous.

"It's complicated," I said at last. "And I'm not sure how much to tell you."

"Well...it's your call, but I can probably help more the more I know," she answered.

She did have a point.

"You understand that I'll take my secrets very seriously, right?" I asked, a clear warning entering my tone.

Lisa cleared her throat. "...Yeah. Yeah, I get it, boss. Believe me, I get it."

"Good," I said, and searched for the right words. "I'm...

"I'm not from here. I'm from another universe. I think I'm carrying the gift of an unspeakably advanced humanity who refused to die for nothing." I took a shuddering breath, finding myself overcome. "I think I'm the last thing they ever did, and I think they burned whole universes to do it. I know the timeline of what's going to happen if nothing changes. Humanity here...humanity everywhere, they're all going to die in the next few years if nothing is done. There was once another timeline where humanity survives at great cost, but that's impossible now. A key piece is missing because of me. I'm pretty sure I'm the last and only hope."

"You think?" Lisa asked, quietly, after a long silence.

"I'm not from the same universe as them, or from a very early part of their timeline. Don't know how I got here. I'm not Taylor Hebert," I said. "She's the one who would have saved everyone, using her original power. I just woke up here with access to too much advanced knowledge to properly put into words."

Lisa exhaled slowly.

"Well," she said. "You're either nuts, or...I don't even know how to finish that sentence. Christ."

"Unless I'm the world's most powerful cape and my power is bending over backwards to create the illusion of something else, I am not nuts," I said. "Also, there is the point that I don't have any coronas."

"...Not nuts, then. Fuck. How...how does it happen?" she asked in horror.

She was asking me how the world ended.

I told her.

When I finished there were several moments of silence and then a clatter on the other end of the line.

"Lisa?" I asked.

"Sorry," she answered, her voice uneven. "Dropped the phone."

"Yeah, that's...understandable," I said.

"Well, alright." She rallied. "So. If we want to live, we need to focus on priorities. What could set him off first?" she asked.

"Jack Slash," I answered. "The lunatic's real power lets him communicate with shards. Usually it pulls information from them to keep him out of harm's way, but it can transmit too. With his shard's help he talks Scion into going nuts early. I'll kill Jack soon to close that off. Not sure what the next thing might be, but I believe it's years down the road. At least in the timeline I saw before I got involved in everything, and I've been making a lot of changes."

"I...see. You can just kill Jack Slash?" she asked, incredulous.

"I know how the S9's powers all work, and their weaknesses. I'll just use horrifying weapons they have no defense against. Except maybe Crawler. Not sure about how much he can take. I might need to get creative, or let the Triumvirate clean him up after I take out the others. Without the Siberian around they can afford to engage."

"How do you kill her?" Lisa asked. "She killed Hero and hurt Alexandria."

"Projection," I explained.

"Oh. Ooooh. That makes sense. How did they miss that?" she asked quietly, more to herself than me.

"It's a long story," I said. "And there are things I can't safely tell you at the moment because there are immediately lethal infohazards involved."

"Ah," she said, wary.

"Do not look into the origin of Case 53s, the upper echelons of the Protectorate and PRT, or the Fallen," I said. "Consider that a standing order, for your own safety. There are extreme risks in just knowing."

"...Yeah, okay," she answered. "I don't want to die or...whatever will happen."

"Let me worry about all that," I said. "I'll read you in later with precautions if I have to ask you to work on something related to any of it."

"I'm not usually one for not digging into something juicy, but...yeah, I'm not an idiot either," she said. "And I'd have to be pretty dumb to ignore a warning like that."

"Good," I said, relieved. "So, for your first project I want you to find the Dragonslayers. I need to know their current base of operations. Prometheus has been doing his best, but with Dragon as an enemy they would be careful to leave very few traces in the digital realm. I'm hoping the two of you working together can track them down."

"...Didn't you just say it's non-sapient?" Lisa asked.

"I like to pretend. I'm from another universe, I don't have many friends."

"Ah," she said, drawing the syllable out.

"Try to use that to manipulate me and I'll know," I added firmly.

She didn't reply for a long moment. "It's terrifying, how you do that."

"Yes," I agreed, mimicking one of her own habits. "So, bring me the address of three asshole mercenaries. Prometheus will watch your back and help within reason on anything task related. He can also get in touch with me at a moment's notice. He's under orders to stay under the radar and avoid engaging Dragon, orders which he will not break except for certain extreme circumstances, and I want you to keep a low profile and avoid engaging Dragon too. She is not to know you're looking for the Dragonslayers, under any circumstances. Be careful how you gather information so that she doesn't see it. Understood?"

"Yeah, got it, Boss. What can your helper do, anyway?"

"Compared to the tech and security on Earth Bet, he's basically a digital god. Dragon is probably the only one with a hope if I told him to take off the gloves," I explained.

"Christ," she said, tone somewhere between awed and horrified. "Do you know how dangerous that is, Boss?"

"He closed some of Coil's undesirable timelines by destroying Brockton Bay on fifteen minutes' notice. Repeatedly. I'm at war for the future of the human race, Lisa, and the margin for victory is slim. If the situation requires it I bring my best weapons and I don't mess around. I am not the PRT, I don't hold myself to the same limits."

I heard her swallow over the line, likely remembering what I'd done to her team the night we'd met. "No. No you certainly don't. Prometheus. Bringer of fire. Reference to playing with fire? Or nuclear fire?"

"No," I said, thoughtful. "More 'stealing fire from the gods', I created him to code advanced software so I didn't have to do it all by hand, then I added security features. But I suppose it's unintentionally apt."

"I see," she said. "You...you nuked Coil, didn't you?"

"Technically it wasn't me, and it was in timelines that never happened, so nobody got hurt."

"Fuck," she swore. "Holy fuck."

"You alright there?" I asked.

"I just...you can...fuck," she finished.

"Yeah, I understand. Believe me, I understand. All of this is...overwhelming. But there's work that needs doing, and I just have to push through until it's done."

Lisa didn't say anything.

"So, Prometheus," I continued. "Ask him when you need a hand with something he can help with without blowing his cover, or if you get into trouble and need help, but don't misuse him. I will be watching. I trust you can use your new wealth to take care of yourself. Oh, and if it helps with finding the three amigos, I remember two of their names were Geoff and Mags, and Geoff - that's Saint - has a back line into the Birdcage that he's using to get powers from Teacher that help him hack Dragon's tech. He doesn't have any powers of his own. It's made him Teacher's thrall, or at least he's well on the way."

"He actually- wow, what an absolute idiot," she said, vehement. "He must have been desperate, and just delusional enough to think he wouldn't get hooked like all of Teacher's other pets. Teacher having slaves outside the Birdcage isn't good. Are the others thralled too, or lying to themselves, or do they not know?"

"Lying to themselves," I said. "They're believers in the cause. They think they're protecting the world. And no, it's not good. Most of the things I intend to interfere in are bad situations that need fixing. Inflection points where lots of things go wrong if something bad is allowed to happen. We need to prevent the Dragonslayers from impairing Dragon and keep Teacher buttoned up. He's an even worse threat than most people think. I'll kill him later, but it can wait."

Lisa paused briefly. "You're a really strange mix of terrifying and goodie two shoes, Boss," she observed.

I scoffed. "Sure. Off to work with you. Let me or Prometheus know if you find anything. Oh, and all this is tied up in an important secret of Dragon's. If you figure it out, keep it to yourself. Saint's obsessed because he thinks she's a threat. I know for a fact he's wrong. I'll be in touch."

"Sure thing, Boss."

I sighed. "You don't have to call me 'Boss', you know."

"I know, Boss," she said, sounding entirely too chipper.

Great, the sass had started already.

Well, it could be worse. At least I hadn't broken her brain with cosmic horror.

Children really were more resilient than adults.

"Then get to work, minion of mine," I said sarcastically, and cut the call.

"Miss, I have something else for you from the Director's office," Prometheus said.

"Oh?" I asked.

Video played.

Director Piggot's email dinged, and from her chair the Director's eyebrows climbed as she opened and read the message.

The speaker phone on her desk chirped. "Director," Armsmaster's voice came through, "check your-"

"I'm seeing it," she interrupted. "I can't decide if she's mocking us or she's trying to be helpful."

"Past experience suggests helpful, Director. But more concerning…" Armsmaster trailed off.

"This reads like someone with experience writing our AARs," Piggot grumbled, and repeatedly clenched her jaw. "The theory about her being an insider may have just gotten more likely. If it's not a trap, of course. Look into it. And get someone to analyze her decision making process. This is dry, but she explains why she made each choice, and I'm sure someone with more time than either of us can pull a lot out of that. Maybe put together a psychological and tactical profile."

"I'll find a few suitable experts," Armsmaster agreed.

"Good. When you've done that, figure out how to find her. We can't have a parahuman acting as a PRT commander gods know where. Congress will have fits."

The video ended.

"Mouse Protector really is going to laugh for days," I said, shaking my head.

"I have observed that she often does that anyway, Miss."

Thanks to @Corvus Black for proofreading and contributions.

This turned into a long chapter, as conversations sort of expanded on their own. I considered cutting it in half, but it's better as one whole.

Writing in my buffer has been slow because of work eating my mental energy, my job being very writing heavy even though it's a very different kind of writing. The next chapter is about half done, the chapter after that is done, and the chapter after that is about one quarter done.

On the plus side, work is going well. And I got my second vaccine shot, and had my birthday. Planning a nice barbeque tomorrow with friends to celebrate.

Next time on Scientia Weaponizes the Future, Scientia finds a new tool and clues left behind.