Chapter 61: 5-11 Scattered

Scattered 5.11

2001, July 4: Washington, DC, United States

I hadn't touched the Mask since I began carving it. Every time I reached for the Mask, something stayed my hand as if to whisper, "Not yet."

Independence Day, as expected, was something of a big deal at the capitol. It as a full day celebration despite July Fourth landing on a Wednesday. Every member of the DC Protectorate and Wards were expected to participate in a large-scale PR event that drew in tourists and residents alike like flies.

The festival took place on the National Mall. Most booths got set up at around nine in the morning and were in full operation by ten. I saw classic games like cornhole as well as several capes running booths. Pyro had his own shooting range set up while Hero's Heroes was a particularly popular sandwich shop.

Given my massively increased visual range, it was all a little overwhelming. Thankfully, us Wards didn't have to do anything too complicated.

Gold Rush was signing autographs and challenging people to race her around the Washington Monument. Verdeer got roped into being a living jungle gym for the little ones. Whiteout was off leading a guided tour of some memorial or other. Brickhouse was making clay sculptures of various heroes for sale. As popular as the Founders were, I was surprised by how many people wanted one of Bluesong, though perhaps I shouldn't have been. She was pretty, active in her community, and her backstory was all but confirmed as fact.

As for me, I was busy flash-baking pizza in a clay oven I had Brickhouse set up early in the morning. Biscuit Delivery extended to all forms of baking after all, pizza qualified.

I was unloading a perfectly baked margherita pie off the oven, bubbles of crust and edges of basil just slightly charred, when Whiteout dropped by.

"Yo shorty, let me get the next one," he called. At seventeen, the boy stood a good foot taller than me, not that it was hard with my four-seven height. He wore his white and gold hood back to keep himself a little cooler.

"Of course, Whiteout. What would you like?" I asked. I still sounded exceedingly polite, but my accent was all but gone. It had been a year after all, and children always learned faster than adults.

"I dunno, I just want some pizza. Something loaded."

I nodded. "One sausage and pepperoni with caramelized onions and hot honey coming right up."

"Yesss," he hissed. "How long's the wait?"

I began to spin a ball of dough, tossing it for some extra flair. This probably wasn't how Lee imagined his martial art would be used, but damn if it didn't look impressive. "Four minutes."

"For real? That's fast."

"A clay and wood oven like this one can bake a Neapolitan style pizza in one or two minutes because of the shallow roof and high temperatures."

"Cool, I'll just hang out here, dude."

"You do that."

It was one of the only interactions I'd had with Whiteout in months. Typically, the most elusive member of the DC Wards used his power to white out any surveillance in an area, including tinkertech observation, and used it to guarantee privacy in important meetings. I was pretty sure he was being trained as some kind of internal security. When he wasn't doing that, he was leading tours at the International Spy Museum so the two of us seldom crossed paths.

Honestly, I thought he had it made. He wasn't powerful, but that just meant he wasn't powerful enough to attract unwanted attention. His power was useful to important people and he got to laze around otherwise.

I sometimes wondered what it'd be like to indulge like that, to have relatively few cares.

"Hyunmu? Can I have a chicken and jalapeno pizza?" came the request of some middle-aged man and his son.

"Oh, my apologies, customers. Cooking sometimes makes me introspective."

With that, I spun the large, wooden peel like a polearm and got back to work.

X

Us heroes did eventually get a break sometime around three in the afternoon when most people had a chance to gawk at us. I tried my best to sneak off to tinker for the rest of the day, but Hero caught me and dragged me back, saying something about how important it was for a Ward to connect with his home city.

I maintained that he was too high-profile to sneak off and just didn't want to suffer alone.

Fucking traitor.

We sat around in a booth in front of the Lincoln Monument that had been set aside for us. Soon enough, evening had come and the final act of this dog and pony show was to begin.

"A talent show. I can't fucking believe you host a talent show ever year," I complained for the fifth time.

"Relax, Hyunmu," Pyrotechnical grinned. "It's not that bad. Just get up there and have fun."

"Easy for you to say. All you have to do is show off some fireworks."

This "talent show," though Hero wouldn't call it that, was started by our illustrious leader during the early days of the Protectorate as a way to buoy faith in the fledgling organization. Initially, it was a way to show off how strong heroes were, how reliable we were. Brutes would pull buses and tank bullets, movers would outrace racecars, and Hero himself would put on a destructive lightshow, obliterating some target set floating in the middle of the Potomac.

It took place every year immediately before the fireworks display at nine. The whole thing couldn't have screamed "'Murica! Fuck yeah!" any louder if Bluesong hooked up speakers for the occasion.

It was blatant media-pandering, which was exactly why it had taken on a life of its own. Now, it really was a talent show in all but name. Every member of the DC Protectorate, Wards included, were expected to participate, though no longer did it strictly have to be about powers.

I sat woodenly through several acts, including some kind of corny comedy sketch by Whiteout and a kendo demonstration by Metalmaru. My own contribution was just elaborate target practice done with the help of my relic pistol and Brickhouse, fancy kung fu movie flips and all.

The showstopper though was an "all-out" spar between Hero and Armsmaster, two of the most combat-oriented capes in the DC Protectorate.

Hero and Armsmaster began the match by locking blades, Armsmaster with his trademark halberd lit up in blue plasma and Hero with a golden lightsaber of some variety. It was flashy, with a rain of sparks that erupted with every clash.

I would have been more impressed if I didn't know that this part of the spar was scripted. They even got a professional director to choreograph this fight scene, mostly so Hero wouldn't get skewered on accident; he wasn't much of a martial artist.

In the climax, Hero shot into the air, deploying wing-like protrusions that fired a seemingly endless rain of lasers to try to overwhelm his sparring partner. Armsmaster quickly swapped out his plasma blade for something that looked a lot less impressive: Neo-Petricite, courtesy of Metalmaru and yours truly.

He swept his halberd in a complex circle, guided by a UI that only he and I could see. Every time Hero's lasers got close to hitting him, the blade would bisect the beam, directing them elsewhere. I wondered if this was the start of his combat algorithm. For several minutes, the two were at a standstill until he finally slipped.

It wouldn't do for one of the Founders to lose after all.

Hero's fire rate increased dramatically until Armsmaster's UI and experience could no longer keep pace. A golden beam struck his shoulder, then his wrist, forcing him to relinquish his weapon. I honestly didn't know how much of this part was scripted. For all I knew, Armsmaster genuinely wanted to see how he compared with our leader.

In the end, the two shook hands in an exaggerated show of sportsmanship. As I heard later from Metalmaru's gossip-mongering, the whole thing was meant to keep Armsmaster on the forefront of people's minds by marking him as a hero capable of pushing a Founder in combat. Hence why this little demonstration was scheduled just before the fireworks.

I suspected Collin would be getting his own command sooner rather than later.

X

2001, July 6: Washington, DC, United States

Two days later, I was putting the finishing touches on my White Walkers when I was interrupted by a familiar alarm. I'd only heard it twice before, but it was unmistakable: Leviathan was back.

Which meant India.

I nodded and went back to work. The Indian government and one of my shell companies had signed a multi-million dollar contract for the purchase of my potions three weeks ago. The first batch, coincidentally enough for emergency use, was sent over last week. When the dust settled, there would be plenty of potions to go around. With Rubedo's "endbringer donations" carried by the PRT to the actual attack site, I hoped to receive an even shorter casualty report than the one from Naples.

I'd done all I could on that front. Not knowing precisely where Leviathan was headed, I couldn't add all of India to the Worldstone Network, nor did I have their political permission, so I settled for adding Seattle and San Francisco to the list.

I strapped the White Walkers to my feet. Despite being somewhat large, cobalt-blue boots with only the barest hint of white and gray outline, they were delightfully snug and warm, comfortable in a way I knew would grow with me over time, as would the rest of my armor.

I made sure that these shoes had some of my best enchantments: They were designed to provide perfect grip regardless of the surface. Ghost, because of course. Tenacity, because I couldn't imagine a scenario in which I'd regret it. And of course, Cosmic Insight to make Ghost more efficient. "Summoner haste" it was called in-game.

But the real reason they were called "White Walkers," besides so I could make a shitty ice-zombie joke, was because I took cues from my fellow disciple of Wuju: Wukong. These shoes used a unique runic matrix of my own design to condense the surrounding air into platforms, platforms that looked suspiciously like clouds, or the Hallowed Mist. I couldn't fly, not yet, but running on clouds was a pretty close alternative.

Designing that runic matrix took a lot longer than I expected, but I would have had these months before had I not gotten distracted repeatedly.

Then, half in the zone and about to begin the final round of testing, I heard something that made my heart sink.

"Leviathan has made landfall in Hyderabad. Repeat: Leviathan has hit Hyderabad."

I recognized every major coastal city in India. I'd made sure to learn them all. Hyderabad wasn't one of them.

That wasn't supposed to happen. Until now, Leviathan had never hit anything but coastal towns. I rushed to my desk and pulled out a map. A tense minute later, I found it. Hyderabad was the capitol of the state of Telangana, and a city most decidedly inland. To get there, Leviathan would have had to swim up the Krishna River and follow the Musi River, one of Krishna's many tributaries.

"Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck," I muttered, hands gripping my hair in panic.

This wasn't supposed to happen. I remembered that Leviathan was to hit India, but not precisely where. Logic said Mumbai, Chennai, or Surat, perhaps one of the other large coastal cities. We followed logic. Once again, Cauldron discreetly warned the target nation. I'd received reports that India had taken heed, shoring up its defenses near the ten largest of its coastal cities.

It made sense. Our response was the logical path.

But of course, this was Earth-Bet, where Murphy fucked logic up the ass with a nail-bat.

'Did Leviathan switch targets? Is it because India prepped the coast too much?' I wondered. I tried to wrack my brain for an explanation. 'The Simurgh isn't active yet. They're not supposed to be smart… Was this the canon target? Or is Eidolon somehow getting frustrated after a single good Levi fight?'

"Fuck!" I swore, my voice drowned out in the clamor.

I sat there, at my workstation in the far edge of the lab and buried my head in my hands. I wanted to shut everything out, but the resounding alarm battered at me. I stayed that way until the alarm finally died and the real heroes had gone to fight. My joy at finally completing my shoes seemed oh so petty now.

Never before had I felt Cauldron's burden like this. Hand shaking, I forced myself to read up on Hyderabad. Hyderabad, the "lion city." It was a city of countless centuries of history. Millennia. It was also a city that boasted more than six million people in its greater metropolitan area.

I couldn't remember. One bad call. One moment of insufficient information and the blood of six million was on my hands.

'It's not my fault,' I told myself. 'I gave them all the intel I could.'

So why did the world still feel so heavy?

Author's Note

Andy's eyes can see 300 meters away, up from 100 with just the Oracle's. But that's the radius. Since he can see behind him, his total visual area covers the area of a 600 meters wide circle. For reference, a master longbowman would be able to send an arrow about 360 meters, or 400 yards. An assault rifle like an AK-47 has a theoretical max range of similar. He's seeing that whole area filled with crowds of people.

I didn't want to write an entire festival arc, but also wanted to show that things are moving. In some respects, canon isn't changing even as some major ripples are rocking the boat. Armsmaster is being tapped for his own command, though whether that'll still be Brockton remains to be seen.

As you wiki-nerds know, Hyderabad is the canonical destination for Leviathan. Nothing changed, but Andy thinks the destination changed because he only knew the nation, not the city. Why? Because if I have to look up the location of an endbringer fight, Andy doesn't know it. His memory is good, damn near perfect thanks to the Ymelo, but not of anything before he built it.

Ugh. Necessary scene, but I really don't write grief very well… I want to keep to a minimum level of angst, but Andy really is that kind of a person and I felt that this was a valuable growing moment for him.