3

Initialization 1.3

The next few days passed in a whirlwind. Before enacting the rest of my plan I needed to secure money, food, and shelter. Without a legitimate ID things would be difficult, and with the underground essentially controlled by capes, it would be exceptionally dangerous for me. Not to mention I didn't have any real experience dealing with underground activities and criminals, nor did I want to run afoul of patrolling heroes.

That's where the mugger's phone came in. I didn't need to be tracked by the cell signal so I turned off all network features, but even without network access it had an address book with contacts and text history. It gave me insight into what kind of person he was. A man living by himself in his early twenties, no contact with any parents, few friends, and no job. Typical profile of an inexperienced robber. That was obvious enough when I didn't find a gun on him, but this was good confirmation.

I must have been a target of opportunity, or else I wouldn't have found a wallet on him with identification at all. Luckily, I did, and tracked down his address to his dingy little apartment in a dirty and paint-shedding low-rise. Before that, I spent the rest of my ill-gotten gains on some very basic equipment: pepper spray, an old backpack, a nice worn down hoodie, sunglasses, and used shoes. It wasn't much but time was ticking and I had to finish before he came back with a spare key or locksmith.

It was unexpectedly quite a smooth venture. There were no security cameras in the hallways. I went in to find the apartment empty of people, as I expected. But just in case, I had sent in Agate to phase through and check first, of course. I grabbed a notebook computer and found nine hundred dollars in cash. No firearms, which just shows that he was not a professional robber. I left the drugs, alcohol, and pretty much everything else alone except for a bit of non-perishable food. I couldn't even recognize the drugs so they weren't useful to me, and rubbing alcohol was purer and easier to just buy if I wanted to make something with it. Food was useful…it might be cheap but there was no sense in wasting money when I didn't have a sustainable source of income yet.

Next was shelter. That first night I bought a sleeping bag and camped out in an abandoned warehouse. The day after I went scouting for a more suitable location for temporary living. I wasn't going to be here when Leviathan attacked, but I would be staying for a few weeks for sure. I needed privacy and access to electricity and water so I spent the entire day looking for someone willing to rent a room to a guy with no ID and paying in cash. I was obviously sketchy, but there were plenty of sketchy landlords out there, and in this awful economic environment, it wasn't too hard to find someone willing to look the other way. It'd be $500 a month, but I got a tiny apartment close to the docks with access to a private washroom and kitchen. The landlord had multiple unoccupied rooms and barely bother to come by, which was just fine with me. After paying the first month, getting the lock changed, and buying the minimum tools needed for cooking and hygiene, I was left with just over $300.

Then I cracked and cleaned my new laptop to make it that much harder to track down if the mugger decided to go to the police at some point. I was keeping the hardware so if someone got their hands on it physically, I could be tracked, but that wasn't a serious issue then. Changing the MAC address and wiping the soft traces would be enough. I just needed to set up my anti-forensic measures afterward to stay anonymous on the web.

Agate learned the process as I did it, but unfortunately the Kaleidostick couldn't interface with electronic networks and devices like an actual computer AI. It could learn to connect and access them without a physical connection, but Agate didn't know how to process the complicated electronic signals. That would have to be built literally from scratch and my few experiments showed that it just wouldn't work due to the extreme inefficiencies and incompatibility involved. It was akin to manually pressing a switch to indicate ON and OFF signals. Ridiculous waste of Prana.

For money, I visited the local casinos, of which there were two. I bribed the guard to let me in without ID, and played poker to make some money. Blackjack was continuously reshuffled at Ruby Dreams so counting wouldn't work, but good old poker wasn't against the house. I was a bit concerned that the games would be rigged by the ABB or I would be accosted at some point, and I did notice people collaborating, but I carefully targeted the fish instead of stepping on the toes of anyone that might be connected to something bigger.

Making 10BB/Hour or so, I worked my way up from $1/2 No Limit to $5/10 NL and made $700 over three days at Ruby Dreams. In Brocton's other casino, Blackjack was traditional, and I walked away with another $2200 after two days of playing combining Blackjack and $10/20 NL play. I could have hit them hard on BJ but I had no idea who operated this casino and was not about to risk getting marked and attacked by being greedy.

If I was hurting for cash, I could hit other cities later, but if things went well I wouldn't need to.

I spent the rest of my time writing down notes on what I remembered from Worm, plotting out potential courses of action that would help me survive and grow stronger, and researching information about other cities and background information about differences between Earth Bet and my Earth. All this was recorded by Agate, and I destroyed my physical notes afterward.

My goal in the short term was to amass as much power and useful allies as possible and survive. Over the long-term I needed to solve the universe barrier problem and obtain advantages that would make me stronger and more survivable in other universes. That meant increasing my abilities, acquiring tinkertech, and upgrading Agate.

To speed up analysis of the Reality Cluster barrier and have Agate develop the ability to travel parallel dimensions, I needed to get Agate data on portals. Professor Haywire's portal and notes were highly classified and I couldn't find its location. That just left Doormaker portals, which I had no way to find, and the Simurgh portals in Madison. The latter I could get to fairly easily, and with Agate capable of phasing out of reality it could easily get past quarantine controls. Even better, Agate could move independently from me and was capable of flying at over 500 miles an hour when moving by itself. Once Agate recorded my notes, I sent it off to the Madison Quarantine zone and 9 hours later it was back.

'Reporting: parallel dimension portal phenomenon has been observed. Estimated 7 days to complete analysis and develop parallel dimension travel capability,' Agate had notified me. It would be ready by the 13th, two days after the Lung fight. No estimates could be made yet on breaking through the barrier.

Tinkertech could be acquired if I had large sums of money or Tinker allies. That was fairly straight forward. There were some Toybox techs I really wanted to get, and could possibly commission Leet for some stuff as well.

Abilities were the hardest to acquire. I eventually determined that there were several ways of enhancing myself:

Get Panacea to make body modifications for me

Buy skills/memories from Cranial

Buy a vial from Cauldron/the Dealer/Accord

Steal the cauldron vials Skidmark finds after Leviathan (which might not even happen anymore if it was pure chance that led him to it the first time)

Get Bonesaw to make body modifications for me

Find Eden's body and figure out how to make vials for myself

Hang around a cape long enough for it to bud in me and get myself into a trigger event

Kill the Butcher

All of these were possible, but none of them would be easy, and the ones lower on the list carried huge risks I was not prepared to accept. Cauldron vials—especially the older generation ones—could turn me into a Case 53 (monster capes who often didn't have control over their powers). The latest generation ones with Balance in their formula still had something like 0.1% chance of becoming a Case 53, which I still thought too high for comfort. That was only slightly lower than the chance of drawing pocket aces, which any poker player could tell you was not that rare.

Triggers couldn't be induced on purpose so I'd have to be in real danger or make myself forget the plan to trigger myself, and killing Butcher would probably kill me mentally when all the voices transferred to my mind. Maybe if I got Bonesaw to help clone original Butcher like she did with the Slaughterhouse 9000, simulate its trigger, and wipe its mind with Cranial's tech before I killed it…

In any case, acquiring abilities had to be a low priority if only because of how difficult and risky it was. That just left my goal of getting funds and allies. Moreover, I had to establish myself right away. My knowledge would be far less useful once events diverged from canon. Without precise predictions, it would be that much harder to convince anybody I had true precognitive knowledge. I had only a small window of opportunity, and if I didn't maximize my gains right off the bat, I would just be a helpless normal that knew a few secrets.

Hmm…

I was going to try and recruit Skitter. It wasn't because she was the main character of worm. It was just that her bug controlling power would be very helpful to my ambitions in this city, especially if Panacea could be persuaded to cooperate. That was easier said than done, however. She was lonely girl and desperate girl, but a recurring theme in canon was her stubborn, distrustful, self-rationalizing habits leading to some really bad decisions. It was a miracle that Lisa managed to become her best friend despite being more or less Emma 2.0 to everyone, I thought, or maybe it was just her power helping. That was another problem – I could easily imagine Lisa working against me for control of Taylor, and facing a Thinker 7 in social combat with no powers of my own wouldn't be fun. That was a threat rating by the way. The PRT used such ratings from 0 to 10 to rate powers. Basically nobody had a 10 for a rating, and so 7 was very high on the scale. The Thinker category meant a mental power related to information gathering, precognition, extra senses, etc.

On April 7th, I began to move out and scouted out the Central Library and Winslow.

Something I had learned about Agate's reality phasing ability with a bit of experimentation was that it couldn't take live organisms like humans with it. Anything made of living cells would die when exposed even partially to the space that Agate phased into. However, Agate could take inanimate objects and electronics as long as they were securely attached to it. Things that were phased out still interacted with each other under normal physics but they were invisible, insubstantial and basically couldn't interact with anything in the real world. On the other hand, whatever Magic that powered Agate's functions still worked normally, as a result its sensor suite could still capture data without actually interacting with particles or waves in the real world. Thinking about it, wasn't that a violation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle?

These facts, combined with the way Agate had been using data from my shared senses to enhance its ability to process sensory stimuli, meant that I could attach a bunch of tiny spy cameras and recorders to Agate and send it off to secretly plant bugs (no-pun intended) in Winslow.

By noon, I had Agate mapping out the school building so it could go back and plant the spy cameras overnight. It cost me a hefty $600 to get these things plus a remote controlled robotic gripper I needed to attach to Agate and manipulate the bugs, but I was pretty sure I'd get my money's worth out of them. Winslow was just practice really.

When school was out, I had Agate tail Madison to her house.

The next day was the start of Taylor's story. I had my feeds ready in the girls' washroom, waiting for the right moment.

I watched my live feed from my cam network starting at noon, lunch period. Seeing her up close, going into a washroom stall to eat, it was really sad. Of course, I didn't have a feed into her stall, I just needed a good angle to capture the trio dumping juice, so I was positioned near the window facing the door.

A good 25 minutes later the door banged open and I saw the trio coming in. Emma, Sophia and Madison, with the first two smirking viciously and Madison with a stiff smile on her face.

There was some giggling and whispers before Emma went over and knocked on Taylor's stall door. After a couple of knocks, Taylor's voice came out, saying "Occupied".

"Oh my god, it's Taylor!" Emma exclaimed in mock surprise. Sophia whispered to her, then Emma replied, "Yeah, do it!"

Well things played out exactly like I read before. Juice was dumped in, door blocked, Taylor and her bag getting messed up before her bugs swarmed into the washroom with her anger after the girls left.

It was pathetic. At least Tattletale's bullying habits had a purpose to them, an advantage gained (usually). This year long bullying campaign did nothing but make enemies meaninglessly. Now their foolishness would serve my purposes.

At midnight, Agate was in Sophia's bedroom. Through our mental link, Agate was sending me the visual and sound. This mental data couldn't be transferred to electronic form, but that wasn't why I was here.

My remote controlled robotic gripper was attached to Agate, and we floated over to the desk beside her bed. With a slight whir, the gripper came to life as I piloted it to grab the old cell phone, and immediately had Agate phase out.

Sophia shuffled on her bed, but made no other indication that she noticed.

A few minutes later her phone was in my gloved hands and I used another camera to capture images of all the incriminating texts Regent of the Undersiders would have found later on. This wasn't hard evidence the way that emailing the texts with an electronic trace would have been. However, if I grabbed the phone once, I could easily do it again when that became necessary. Unlike Regent, I wasn't going to alert the police or school just yet.

Next, I had Agate return Sophia's phone, before moving to Madison's room. After dropping off a USB drive beside her night lamp, I ordered Agate to hide under her bed and begin projecting a ghastly and distorted voice into the room.

"MADISON CLEMENTS," it said.

I had to repeat it a few more times before she groggily woke up and looked around.

"MADISON CLEMENTS," she finally heard while awake.

She sat up and blinked owlishly. Nobody else was in the room with her.

"YOU'VE BEEN A NAUGHTY GIRL," the voice continued.

"What?" She turned on her night lamp and looked around some more.

Agate phased out and moved below her desk.

"YOU HAVE BEEN JUDGED AND FOUND GUILTY," the disembodied voice reached her from another direction.

Her eyes widened and she stood up. "Who is this? What are you talking about?"

Agate moved again to her closet out of phase before re-entering the real world hidden inside.

"LOOK DOWN. SEE THE EVIDENCE OF YOUR CRIMES."

She looked down and noticed the USB beside her lamp.

Taking it in her hands, she walked to her desk and booted up her computer. While it was booting, Agate was silent. Madison stood up again and went to the closet where she thought the voice had come from last. By the time she opened it, Agate was gone again and she saw nothing useful.

"Are you a cape?" She closed the closet and asked the air. She seemed almost excited about it. Guess I wasn't being scary enough.

I didn't bother answering.

She huffed and went back to her computer, plugging in the USB. Clicking on the auto-run prompt, a cleaned video of the washroom incident began playing on her screen. Alongside the main video, pictures of incriminating texts between Sophia and her popped up one by one until her screen was filled.

When the video ended and closed as the trio left the washroom, Madison sat with her mouth agape. My program activated in the background and shredded the data on the drive, replacing the old data with garbage 0s and 1s twenty-seven times to military standard, and forcing a memory wipe on her computer before shutting it down.

"You recorded in the girls' washroom? That's illegal! You creep!" She ripped the USB drive out of its port.

"WHAT I DID DOES NOT CHANGE YOUR GUILT. THE EVIDENCE IS CLEAR. YOU HAVE BEEN PERPETUATING A YEAR LONG BULLYING CAMPAIGN."

"Why did you show me this? Why not just report it if the evidence is clear?" Madison asked as she clenched her fist around the USB drive.

"IN JANUARY, TAYLOR HEBERT WAS HOSPITALIZED AFTER BEING STUFFED INTO A LOCKER FILLED WITH USED FEMALE HYGIENE PRODUCTS. NO WITNESSES CAME FORTH, AND YOUR ATTEMPTED MURDER OF A TEENAGE GIRL WAS OVERLOOKED."

"Attempted murder? I had nothing to do with that!" Madison looked around in a panic.

"YOU WATCHED AND MOCKED THE VICTIM AS SOPHIA FORCED HER INTO THE LOCKER, THEN LEFT HER IN THERE TO DIE."

She stood up and almost knocked over her chair.

"There's no proof! You can't prove that! That's why you're here, trying to scare me," She said quickly, looking at the USB drive clutched in her hand in front of her chest as if coming to a realization.

Suddenly a sharp edge materialized on her throat. She froze, eyes darting down but unable to see the blade pricking at her skin from that angle.

There was a knife currently attached in a hook-around angle to a Agate which was positioned directly behind her head.

"I do not need proof to end your worthless life," the voice changed to a raspy hiss projected right behind her.

"W-wait! Don't kill me!" Madison pleaded with a squeaky voice.

"Why shouldn't I? You didn't take mercy on Taylor Hebert while she was pleading in her locker," I said through Agate in hateful spite.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I was scared, if I said anything Sophia and Emma would have gone after me! I never planned or helped with the locker prank, I swear!" She was openly sobbing now and eyes shut as tears formed.

"Are you saying it was all their fault and none of yours?" I demanded while order Agate to shift slightly in order to press harder on her throat with the knife.

"I—n,no, I should have stopped them, but I c-couldn't! You don't understand—Sophia—she's crazy! She would have turned on me next! I didn't know what to do!"

"I understand perfectly, Madison Clements. If you want to repent, then confess your crimes and those of Emma Barnes and Sophia Hess to the police! Gather the evidence from your own texts and emails, and submit them all to the police," I ordered in a calmer, more authoritative voice.

"B-but, what if Sophia comes after me?" She sniffed as she asked.

"She will get what she deserves…one way or another. If you repent and confess, you need not fear anything from her."

She swallowed hard and agreed, "O-okay, I'll do it."

"And do not mention me! Remember, I can find you anytime, anywhere, and you wouldn't even know. You will go to the police first thing tomorrow morning. Do not waste my mercy!"

Agate dematerialized and Madison crumpled to the ground as her knees gave way.

Before we left, I watched her grasping at her throat as she cried softly.

I patted myself on a job well done as I monitored Madison the next morning. With the USB drive still in her room, she shuddered and realized last night was no dream. In the end, she went to the police with no more reminders from me.

Whether or not the investigation worked in the end didn't matter as long as the police showed up to Winslow on Monday. I still had moves to play if the PRT tried to suppress it. I didn't think they would, but since Regent never took over Sophia, they might reason that she's still useful. Sophia was also known as Shadow Stalker, a member of the Wards, you see. The youth superhero training program operated by the PRT and Protectorate. Except, it wasn't really a training program. They needed bodies to fight crime and the Endbringers, and Sophia's power had really good combat uses.

Either way, I only wanted two things. To appear to be helping Taylor when she finds out I did it, and delay her from talking to the Undersiders on Monday so that I could get to her first. But I had to contact her after the Lung fight. I wasn't going to interfere before that fight because she barely survived in canon, and I didn't want her to die by butterfly effect with one wrong move. And I had little interest in participating with her during the fight as it sounded like a good way to suicide together. I was still risking her death by random chance, but I had also predicted it as proof for Panacea so I was counting on it happening exactly the way it did before.

The cold hard fact was, Taylor might have been the main character of worm, but Panacea was orders of magnitude more valuable, particularly if I could eventually take other people with me to other realities and their powers still worked. That was something I seriously had hopes for, now that I knew Entities could somehow manipulate a barrier that affected an entire reality cluster, not just parallel dimensions.

Recruiting Skitter after she joins the Undersiders would be hopeless. I had to give her another option before then.

Everything was going well, until Panacea called me late at night on April 9. She wasn't supposed to be contacting me until after Lung was captured.

"Hello?" I spoke groggily into the phone after being woken up.

"Kaleidus?" Panacea's voice replied to me in between sniffs and pants.

"Amelia? I wasn't expecting you to call for another couple of days," I answered.

"I need to talk to you. Can you meet me now?" She asked out of the blue.

"You want to meet a guy you only met once in the middle of the night? Are you serious?" I responded dubiously. I think I knew what was up, but I couldn't rule out this being trap for New Wave to corner me.

"That's—you make it sound—it's your fault damn it!" She angrily shouted. "You said you wanted to help me? Well I need your help now!"

"Fine, I'll come over. Where are you?" I relented.