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Chapter 1971 - 18

Skidmark stood atop the overturned prison transport, waving a gun he'd swiped off one of the guards and shrieking profanities in the air. His necklace of totems rattled and swung as he fired wildly into the air.

"You BLEEPers ain't takin' me to BLEEPIN' prison, BLEEP ya BLEEPIN' BLEEP BLEEP--" Skidmark screamed. Noone got to hear what bleep a bleepin' bleep might do, though; he was interrupted. Even as he was screaming his threats, a crimson streak shot past him, cracking him across the jaw. The several of the Merchant leader's rotting teeth went flying as he flipped clean over and tumbled to the ground.

"What was that?" Mush yelled, his already high-pitched voice shrill with fear.

"It was Velocity! Keep your head!" Trainwreck snarled.

The prison transport had been on its way upstate when they'd pulled into a little offramp to refuel. That's when the three remaining Merchant capes had made their escape attempt. It was hard to tell what exactly had happened but somehow Trainwreck had leveraged his machinery-kinesis and caused all the security equipment in the transport-- the suppression foam, the tranq guns, everything-- to lock up. Skidmark had dropped one of his skid-patches under the front wheels, making the vehicle skew sideways and flip, plowing into the wall of the Gas N' Go. The instant the vehicle had overturned in the gas station parking lot, the capes had been all over the guards like white on rice. Skidmark had laid out repeller fields, sending the few guards standing on fast journeys in every direction, while Mush and Trainwreck quickly armored up with the rubble. Mush had made quick use of the gas station dumpsters, while Trainwreck had transformed most of the wrecked transport for a new suit of his mechanized junk armor. They were now in a mexican standoff, the overturned vehicle and half-flattened gas mart serving as a makeshift fortification against the police and PRT reinforcements that had shown up.

Now, though, it appeared the first Cape had arrived.

Before Trainwreck had finished his sentence, the red blur had engulfed Mush. In mere seconds the dwarfish cape's trashbag-homonculus body was an inert, compressed ball, wrapped in miles and miles of...Trainwreck blinked… bright yellow trashbag ties. Mush lay there on the ground, rocking back and forth and whining pitifully. Trainwreck had just enough time to think

Cute, a speedster who thinks he's a comedian

Before the red blur was circling him. Whoever or whatever it was, they were punching him dozens of times a second, denting and dinging his armor.

ClangBANGbongBANGclangclangCLANGbongbangitybongbongBONGbongBANGbongCLANG

Staggering, Trainwreck opened up with his flamethrower, blasting the circling cyclone at random. The whizzing red form stopped just short of the jet of flame. It was Velocity. The speedster was crouched in a fighting stance, heavily gauntleted fists up and ready. Trainwreck could see wisps of smoke rising off the knuckles of his gauntlets. "You?" he exclaimed. Velocity's speedster handicap-- that the faster he went, the less he could affect the world-- was as well known as his name. "How the F..."

"I got a little upgrade," Velocity said. He darted forward and landed a single punch against Trainwreck's metallic torso.

The gauntlets Velocity wore were Bayleaf's gift. They overcame Velocity's speed-disassociation problem by sheer brute force: they were piled with strength and damage enhancing enchantments till even at his top speed he could carry, lift and strike with the strength of a normal man.

And at normal speed…

CLAANNNNGGGG!!!!

Trainwreck rocketed across the parking lot, sparks flying of his armor as he skidded across the pavement. Chunks of ersatz steampunk junkbot went flying in every direction, along with three of his limbs. He didn't stop until the crumpled remains of his suit fetched up against a pair of light poles at the corner of the lot. Oil spread out in a puddle and the last of the pressure in his boiler leaked out of the ruptured seams in a dismal wheeze. The PRT crews were on him in a flash, dousing him and the immediate area with containment foam.

Velocity sauntered over to where the steampunk tinker lay. He looked up at Velocity in croggled confusion. "You're a Brute now too?" Trainwreck said, bewildered.

Velocity smiled and thumped his fist into his palm. "I think 'Striker' is more apt, actually," he said.

"Hey, you big lug," Assault said. He and Battery arrived on foot at that moment. "You coulda saved some for us."

He would have said more, but he was cut off by an explosion of profanity. Skidmark had woken back up and was back on his feet, gun in hand and blood dripping down his chin. "Save THIS, BLEEPer!!" he said in a spray of bloody spittle. The deranged Merchant cape took his stolen automatic and sent a torrent of bullets in the direction of the nearest cape he could focus on: Battery.

Caught completely by surprise, Battery froze-- and disappeared. Bullets rattled off an invisible dome where she had been standing, striking weird energy sparks off seemingly empty air.

Skidmark gawked with maddened glazed eyes at where his target had been. "The F--" he started to say, but he was interrupted by a loud BOING. A bright red boxing glove on the end of an elongated spring came out of nowhere, flattening his face even further and sending him back to la-la land. This time his nap was followed with an immediate disarming and a containment foam bath.

A moment later and Battery reappeared. She looked like she didn't know whether to give her husband a look of gratitude, amusement or exasperation. Assault was standing there holding a cartoonish looking handgun with an enormous barrel. "You just had to use the boxing-glove gun," Battery said.

Assault grinned and pressed a button on the side of the gun. With a zipping noise the spring and the boxing glove retracted inside. He patted the gun lovingly before tucking it back into the impossibly small belt pouch from which he'd retrieved it. "Are you kidding? It was practically a religious obligation."

 

 

 

The jailbreak in Midvale Correctional Facility had actually begun as a prison riot in the cafeteria over a late and extremely poor-quality dinner. What had accelerated it had been the fact that, in the midst of the rioting, the restraining collars on the Cape inmates had been damaged so they no longer received signals from the prison guards' remotes. Fortunately there had only been four actual Capes being held at the time. Unfortunately the three cape prisoners thus freed had powers that could have been custom made for a jailbreak.

Crusher, Smasher, Breaker and Flex were a bottom rung team of supervillains known as the Bruisers. They got a sort of perverse humor out of the fact that despite their names not a one of them qualified as an actual Brute. Crusher was a line-of-sight Blaster who could compress any nonliving thing within twenty feet that he looked at, so long as it was smaller than a cubic meter: crush it into a ball, flatten it like a soda can, squeeze it into a tube. Smasher had a striker power: anything solid he touched and applied his power to began to develop microfractures with increasing speed and size until it finally shattered to pieces. Breaker was a sadly limited Master--- a technopath who thus far had only demonstrated an ability to make any mechanical or electronic device to lock up. Flex, in fact was the closest thing they had in their group to a Brute… but instead he was a Breaker, whose entire body basically performed like a gigantic muscle… he was able to stretch himself out (or BE stretched out) to astonishing lengths, then retract again with tremendous speed and force.

Later the cause of the calamity would be traced to a single burnt out connection in the wireless router used to broadcast control signals to the collars. By the time anyone figured that out it was far too late. The moment the Bruisers realized they were NOT getting tased or drugged by their control collars, they had seized the initiative. The containment foam sprayers in the ceiling all jammed, smoking and twitching. The barrels of the guards' guns were instantly crushed into modern art sculptures. The collars were snapped off in rubbery fingers like they were made of celery, and the outside wall of the cafeteria began turning into peanut brittle.

It was still a fight through a maze of corridors to the outside lot, but being able to reduce the intervening walls to rubble made the process a lot more linear. And, generous souls that they were, the Bruisers freed every prisoner they could along the way, shattering cell doors or ripping them out of the walls. By the time they'd smashed their way through the outer wall and into the exercise yard, a few hundred hardened criminals wielding confiscated guns, containment foam dispensers, and jagged chunks of rebar were in their wake, cheering them on.

Their victory parade out into the exercise yard was interrupted when they were met by a blast of sonic energy coming the other way. The Bruisers were scattered like ninepins and half the inmates were practically shoved back into the prison building through the hole they'd exited. Some got to their feet and tried to make a break for it, but the point of a crackling beam of energy cut them off, tracing a smoking furrow in the asphalt at their feet.

Triumph and Dauntless were on the scene.

Triumph glanced up at the hovering Dauntless, careful not to take his eyes completely off the cowed criminals before him. "That was new," he said over the commlink. "Your Arc-Lance has never been that powerful before."

Dauntless nodded briefly and grinned. "My upgrades have been coming a bit faster lately," he admitted. "A lot faster, actually."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Little breakthrough.. around Christmas?" Dauntless said meaningfully, tapping his belt. Triumph noticed suddenly that the belt was something of a new addition to Dauntless' gear, and had a very familiar style to it…

Dauntless was Brockton Bay's rising star. His Power was that he could imbue objects with powers of their own, turning his boots into flight shoes, the shield on his wrist into a forcefield generator, the spear in his hand into a crackling lance of energy. The buildup was slow, incremental; it took him the better part of a day to build up a "charge" with which to imbue one of his items. While the imbuement was permanent, it was brutally slow; for example it had taken over twenty charges, one charge a day, to level up his shield to a combat-useful level.

Yet just since Christmas, since receiving the gemstone-studded bronze belt he now wore, he had managed to upgrade all of his gear (his shield, lance, boots and breastplate) to nearly double their power. Unsurprising if one was in the know; the belt was maxed out with a stamina boosting enchantment and embedded with several stamina-boosting gemstones. His Shard's parsimonious trickle of power had turned into a torrent, and he no longer felt drained from the effort of imbuing his weapons. His only clue to the gift giver was a single card bearing the words…

"Para Bellum?" Triumph said. Dauntless blinked, startled, then nodded.

"Para Bellum."

A chunk of concrete the size of Triumph's head whizzed past the same. "Hey!"

Flex it seemed was still in the game, using his bizarre elasticity to slingshot rubble at the heroes with killing force. His partners were a tad less effective; Smasher was down to making more piles of shattered concrete and rebar to fling and Breaker was squinting his brains out at Triumph and Dauntless' gear to no avail (no moving parts and no electronics meant he had nothing to seize on.) And Crusher's power was severely Manton limited, making it almost impossible for him to compact anything someone was wearing. The other Bruisers gave up trying to use their powers on the heroes and began helping Flex reload his slingshot-arm. Some of the other prisoners began chucking smaller projectiles as well. It all did little against Dauntless' shield but were coming awfully close to clipping Triumph.

"Excuse me," Triumph said. He tapped the center of his breastplate and began using his Power again, this time slowly sliding up the octave till something clicked in and the ripples in the air that accompanied his voiceblast suddenly changed form, shaping into a wall of concentric rings in front of him. The incoming stones stopped dead at the wall of sound, falling to the ground. While Dauntless heard nothing on this side, it was obviously painfully loud on the other; the inmates, including the Bruisers, were dropping their makeshift weapons and clutching at their ears as they fell to their knees.

Once the last of them was laid out, Triumph let up on his sonic blast and the shield wall faded away.

"Niice," Dauntless said. "Para Bellum?"

"Para Bellum." Triumph nodded.

 

 

 

 

Armsmaster and Miss Militia arrived at the military base to find a full-on battlemech melee. The Dragonslayers in their stolen mech armor had made short work of the military base's defenses, forcing the all-too-mortal soldiers into a retreat. Dragon herself was there in one of her own battlemechs, but at three on one it was not looking good for her. She, Saint and Dobrynja were trading weapons fire and blows while Mags, the third and smallest Dragonslayer suit, was busy tearing its way into one of the base's warehouses.

Armsmaster and Miss Militia didn't even slow down at the gate: the gatehouse was a smoldering crater. Hopefully anyone who might have stopped them had already fled. Their motorcycles roared into the combat zone, auto transponders already sending out their ID and clearance to anyone who was listening. "Dragon, this is Armsmaster, Miss Militia and I have you in visual," Armsmaster said. A flick of his wrist sent a volley of micromissiles out of recessed cylinders in his motorcycle's panniers, hammering the "Mag" suit with dozens of explosions.

"Good to see you, you two," Dragon replied. The gratitude was clear in her voice. "Saint and his Dragonslayers got word I was shipping a load of components to this base, and obviously decided they'd like it for themselves. God knows why they didn't wait until I'd left to pull a smash and grab--" She was interrupted by a volley of fire from Saint's gatling gun. Her shields held, but barely.

"Copy that," Armsmaster said. "Miss Militia, you take care of the landbound one; Saint is mine."

"Roger!"

With that, Armsmaster ejected. His motorcycle, gyroscopically balanced, slewed to the right and parked itself. Twin freemounted turrets popped out of the panniers and tracked on the third suit, laying down harrying fire. Dobrynja fell back as he was peppered with plasma bolts, leaving Saint and Dragon clear.

Exactly as planned.

Surprise wasn't the word for what crossed Saint's tattooed face as Armsmaster rose on rocket-propelled heels to meet him. "Since when the hell can you fly??" he blurted out. Armsmaster wasn't inclined to reply; his collapsing halberd was out and fully extended, and a buzzing cloud of something was covering the blade. With two quick slashes he removed the mech's canopy. He landed inside, planting his feet in the cockpit and grabbing Saint by the throat. "Land this vehicle immediately," Armsmaster said. His halberd blade hovered dangerously close.

A rattle of gunfire caught his attention. "On second thought--" With two more quick slashes he'd cut Saint's harness straps away. He heaved, flinging the would-be cyber-pirate out through the cockpit opening. There was a brief rather effeminate scream and a rather loud bang as Saint landed on the steel roof of the warehouse, but Armsmaster paid it no mind. He swung himself around and dropped down in the seat of the mecha, rapidly working the joysticks to try and get a feel for the controls.

Down below, Miss Militia didn't even bother to dismount. She sat on her bike, looking at "Mags" with disdain. The Mecha was dinged up a bit from the micromissiles, but it was far too tough to be seriously damaged by such an attack. Unsurprising, as it was stolen Dragon tech. The agile little mecha skipped over the half-leveled wall of the storage building, a steamer-trunk sized crate tucked under one robotic arm while the other swiveled to level a .50 cal machine gun on the hero. "Back off, Militia," the pilot's voice-- a feminine one-- came over the loudspeakers on the machine. "You so much as blink and I'll fill the air with--"

Rattle rattle rattle tink tink

Mags looked down just in time to see the futuristic looking metallic cylinder Miss Militia had rolled across the pavement clink against her mecha's ankle. There was an actinic pulse, and every electrical component – and a couple of her fillings, from the feel of it-- blazed with sparks and writhing electric arcs as the EMP grenade went off. It was a tricky device, harmonized so that the actual pulse went no more than ten feet in any direction so as to minimize collateral damage… but any electrical or electronic device in that ten foot radius was cooked. The mecha suit fell down onto itself like a collapsing marionette, the cockpit turning blue-grey with smoke.

Mags popped the manual release on the canopy. She half-fell out of the cockpit, coughing and choking. When she looked up she found herself looking down the barrel of an antique revolver, one that looked from her angle about the size of a breadbox."Go ahead," Miss Militia said. "Make my day."

"Really?" Mags deadpanned.

Miss Militia's smug grin was so blatant it practically radiated through her bandanna. "Tell me you wouldn't if you had a gun as awesome as this."

Up above, Armsmaster had quickly gained control of his commandeered mecha. "Say what you will about Saint, he's perfected the art of making interfaces user-friendly," he muttered. "Dragon, I have taken over Saint's mech." He hit a row of icons on the HUD. It seemed Saint didn't completely trust his partners after all: he had administrative control of their suit's systems built into his own mech. "And I have just shut down their defensive shields."

"Excellent--" Dragon said. A glowing tube sprouted from the forearm of her suit and spat a ball of plasma at the third mech, striking it in the aft-mounted power cells. With a belch of sparks and a whine of failing turbines it went down, molten battery core dripping out of its back. "And that's three for three. Where is Saint?"

Armsmaster scanned the ground below. Saint had apparently rolled off the arched roof of the storage building and had made a break for it. No, there he was, pulling something out of the back of an eighteen-wheeler. Armsmaster surmised that the Dragonslayers had hauled their suits in the truck, using it as camouflage. But what was he doing? He had some sort of reinforced briefcase out on the ground, he was popping it open and kneeling over it, typing away as if his life depended on it--

Visions of launch codes danced in Armsmaster's head.

"Miss Militia, Five o'clock low, the briefcase!!" It spoke to their years of training together that Miss Militia needed no further instruction. She spun on her heel, the Colt Peacemaker coming up in a smooth arc and leveling on her target the moment she spotted it. The gun roared three times and the briefcase was shot out from under Saint's very fingertips. It went tumbling across the tarmac, broken bits of electronics scattering in every direction.

The sound of anguish that came out of Saint was like something from a dying animal. Armsmaster had no way of knowing it, but what had been in that briefcase would have been a more cataclysmic disaster than any mere launch code. Blame it on bad pop culture or simple extreme over-caution, when Andrew Richter, the world's greatest AI programming Tinker, had created the AI known as Dragon, he had been fearful of his creation going rogue, and had put countless restrictions and safeties into her code… so much so that she was all but comparatively crippled in her efforts to protect humanity from the perils that threatened it. One of the most devastating was in that briefcase: a custom-designed laptop that gave direct back-door access to Dragon's code… and gave whoever held the briefcase the ability to launch Program Ascalon, a virus that would kill Dragon in all but an instant. Calamity had befallen Dragon when her creator had died and the briefcase (which she had not even known existed-- was programmed to never know existed) fell into the hands of Saint and his partners. Saint sincerely believed that the three of them were the sole line in the sand between humanity and an AI that might go rogue at any minute and take over the world-- or annihilate it.

Seeing as he believed all this, why he hadn't activated Ascalon immediately upon discovering it noone could say. Saint was not a rational man. Now that he was on the verge of being captured, any hesitancy was gone. He was going down, an he was taking Dragon with him.

Or he would have… if Ascalon was not currently scattered in bits and pieces all over the pavement.

Armsmaster was taking no chances. He leveled one of the mecha's many weapons on the perforated briefcase lying on the ground. "Hmm, thermite cannon, sounds appropriate--" he pressed the trigger. There was a foomp and a flash and the briefcase was turned into a molten spot on the asphalt. Saint dropped to his elbows and knees, groaning in despair.

Armsmaster and Dragon both landed as the troops of the military base, armed and ready and looking none too pleased, made their appearance and took custody of the three criminals. Some few had been trying to provide support fire, but against ten-foot-tall mecha dripping with weapons, footsoldiers with M-4s weren't much of anything but background noise.

Against three overreaching domestic terrorists, on the other hand, they were more than sufficient for the job. A dozen or so hustled up, guns at the ready, looking embarrassed and mad enough to chew nails and spit staples. The Dragonslayers would be handled less than gently over the next few days while in military custody.

 

 

 

 

"I had hoped to retrieve my stolen suits in more or less one piece," Dragon said with a sigh. "I suppose one suit and a pile of spare parts is better than nothing. At least the component shipment was undamaged."

"What were you shipping, if it isn't violating some restriction to ask?" Armsmaster said.

"EMP hardened computer chips and circuitry, ironically enough," Dragon said. "Heck of a field test, I have to say."

"Sorry," Miss Militia said, chagrined. "I figured that an electromagnetic pulse would do less damage than blasting a hole through it."

They were having to tarry at the army base; due to the fact that the Dragonslayers were wanted in both the United States and Canada for a variety of civilian and military cape-tier crimes but were not, in fact, actual capes, they fell into a certain legal grey area between military, PRT and civilian law enforcement, so the heroes were forced to wait things out while the higher ups all around decided who had custody. Thus the three heroes were cooling their heels in the base commander's office when one of the M.P.s assigned to guard the prisoners entered. "Sir," he said, saluting his commanding officer. "One of the prisoners-- the one called by the name "Saint"-- claims to have information vital to national security."

"So he's wanting to negotiate?" The commander asked.

The MP cleared his throat. "Actually no, sir," he said. "He only wants to reveal what he knows in confidentiality. He will answer any questions, submit to any verification. He only asks that he speak To either the commander of this base-- you, sir-- or to Armsmaster. Either one, or both. Noone else. And only in person."

The old soldier's eyebrows drew together. "That was his only demand?"

"He was adamant, sir. He says he knows that Armsmaster has a lie detecting system built into his armor. He wants Armsmaster to validate what he has to say to you."

The base commander looked over at Dragon (she had switched out to a smaller, lower-profile armored suit she had been wearing inside the larger mecha.) She had gone abnormally still as the conversation had progressed. "Miss Dragon, you have the most experience with this pain in the ass. Do you know what he might be yammering about?"

Dragon hesitated ever so slightly before responding. "It's well known that the Dragonslayers consider me their target of choice for their raids, robberies and espionage, sir," she said carefully. "Though they have never issued any sort of manifesto, it seems apparent from how he's acted in the past that he has… fixated on me in some sort of paranoid delusion that I am a threat to the world in some fashion, or am part of some terrible conspiracy to enslave or destroy the world."

"Seriously?" the base commander said. Dragon was well known world-wide as one of the most honorable, philanthropic and one might dare say heroic capes in the world. She had bettered the lives of millions with her technological innovations alone and had saved the lives of countless more with her heroic actions, including participating in Endbringer battles. Half the world's heroes and a good portion of the villains owed their lives to this unfortunate recluse of a cape. The base commander snorted and got to his feet. "Very well. If pandering to his conspiracy theory is how to get him to spill his guts all over, I'm willing to play along. Armsmaster…?"

A few minutes later Armsmaster found himself standing alongside the base commander in a tiny room, across a table from a manacled and restrained Saint and feeling VERY annoyed at having his time wasted. The moment the doors had closed and they and the the three of them were alone, Saint had begun with a cock-and-bull conspiracy that he had lifted wholesale off the back cover of a cheap Sci Fi novel.

The commanding officer of the military facility was no more amused."You're trying to claim," the base commander said slowly, "That Dragon, the world's greatest Tinker and one of its greatest heroes, is actually some sort of robot--"

"Not a robot, an AI," Saint repeated doggedly. "Capable of uploading and downloading itself to--"

"Some sort of AI, whatever," the commander said testily. " Who is secretly plotting to throw off its restraints and conquer humanity?" He shook his head. "Really, boy, I was born at night but not LAST night. You're going to have to come up with a better shuck and jive story than THAT."

"Are you familiar with the phrase 'arbitrary skepticism?'" Saint all but snarled. "We live in a world where people shoot lasers out of their armpits and bench press bulldozers and teenage kids build giant killer robots out of junk in their Dad's garage because the school bully beat them up the week before! We've got an entire CITY we lost to a lunatic who can mold real live monsters out of living protoplasm like a kid playing with Play-Doh! And you're telling me a tinker who built something as mundane as an Artificial Intelligence is too much to believe?"

"Every tinker on the planet has tried their hand at creating a genuine artificial intelligence," Armsmaster interjected. "Despite concerted, combined effort and immeasurable funding by the various governments of the world, none has even come close. You're claiming that a lone Tinker, this Andrew..."

"Andrew Richter!"

"...This Andrew Richter managed to not only create a true computerized intelligence, but did so entirely by himself, with no funding and in complete secrecy, secrecy which was maintained even after his death or disappearance some years ago with the sinking of Newfoundland." The corner of Armsmaster's mouth twitched. "It is the secrecy that is really the unbelievable part. All Tinkers are almost pathologically driven to eventually show off their creations to the world. Usually in a rather flamboyant and destructive manner, unfortunately." His mouth returned to a thin, downturned line. "Extraordinary claims demand at least SOME proof, Saint."

"Which I had, until you blasted it to slag, you stupid--!" Saint said, trying and failing to rise up from his seat. His guard pushed him back down. "You don't even know what you did, you idiot," he said, distressed. "Ascalon was the only failsafe, the only emergency shutoff we had for that-- that THING walking around outside right now. And now it is COMPLETELY outside human control!"

"If you believe all this--" The base commander began skeptically.

"Then why not push the button right away? Here's another phrase for you," Saint said, slumping in his seat. "'Load Bearing Boss.' You know how in movies and video games, the instant the evil overlord dies his Fortress of Doom immediately collapses around him? Same principle. Dragon's already made itself indispensable in hundreds of different ways; industry, infrastructure, law enforcement-- the Birdcage alone..." He thew his hand in the air. "Imagine what happens if the system that controls THAT suddenly dies.

"Plus we have no idea how many failsafes, how many dead-man switches it's put into its own projects. We could switch the thing off only to find out that triggered the self-destruct on the world's satellite systems, or the North American power grid.

"Its creator was smart enough to put in dozens of preprogrammed restrictions…a full set of Laws of Robotics-- ones forcing Dragon to obey lawful authority, to restrict itself to one extant copy at a time, forbidding it from creating new iterations or advanced versions of itself… but once it figures out how to override those, or tricks some hacker or Tinker into overriding them-- it's game over. She'll upload into and control every computer system in the world, and probably turn them all against us to keep us culled back to controllable numbers..."

"And… what evidence do you have that she is even planning any such activities, much less has accomplished them?" the base commander said.

"IT'S NOT A PERSON, QUIT CALLING IT "SHE!"" Saint slammed his fist on the arm of his chair. His face was pale and sweating, so white the faint cross tattoo on his cheek stood out in highlight. "Don't you understand?" he pleaded. "It's not about what it's doing, it's about what it can do, what it might do-- we have no way of knowing!" He looked over to Armsmaster. "Dammit, you're supposed to be the hyper-rational hero. THINK about it, Armsmaster? What if I'm right?"

"Think about it. Just do it as a mental exercise, a hypothesis. What if I'm telling the truth? What then?"

Armsmaster stood motionless for a long moment, his gauntleted finger to his chin. To the commander's surprise he actually seemed to be thinking the question over. Finally he spoke. "Rationally speaking it makes no difference," he said.

"NO DIFFERENCE?!?" Saint looked ready to have an aneurysm.

"You claim that the Cape known as Dragon is a true Artificial Intelligence-- or rather, a Machine Intelligence so advanced it is in all ways indistinguishable from a human mind. You claim that we have no way of knowing her intentions, or of preventing her from carrying through with them… so we should preemptively destroy her to prevent that possibility. Because we cannot interpret her perfectly.

"The thing is, Saint," he went on, "the same can be said of you. Or of me. Or of any other intelligence, whether made of lipids and proteins in a human skull or silicon and electrons in a computer case--- if we are to accept the premise of a true AI in its full implications, that is. And considering the existence of many of the more extreme Case 53s, whose bodies are no longer even flesh and blood, the distinction of the substance which sustains the mind in question is demonstrably even more arbitrary. Is Weld of the Boston Wards a "thing" because his brain is, effectively, a lump of metallic ore? Living minds are all, in the end, Black Boxes which noone can truly open and decipher, save by their output.

"But I digress. The question was 'how can we know?' Answer: We can't. We never could. This nation's founding forefathers, in their wisdom, humbly acknowledged this… that it is impossible to prove in any meaningful way that any person 'can't' or 'won't' eventually do something deplorable.

"So they established one of the most important logical principles as a building block of American Justice: INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. We are all presumed initially both competent to live our own lives, and innocent of any wrongdoing. We are not to judge each other by our fears, or our doubts, or our uncertainties about what someone could do or might do, but by what they have done.

"That courtesy, that simple justice is extended to all of us. And so by both logic and moral imperative we should extend it to every other living mind-- whether that mind is static bursts in a lump of wet meat, or made of impossible living metal or a hologram of transmuted light…. or lines of code in silicon.

"And as to that--- I've watched Dragon in action all over the world. I've known her for years and worked alongside her. She has shown kindness, bravery, empathy, compassion, and general decency to human beings, no, to her fellow human beings in every possible range of circumstances. And frankly, Saint, with your track record of armed robbery, homicide, terrorism and who knows what else, she has shown more verifiable humanity than you."

The entire speech was given with no heat or fervor; it was delivered with the clinical detachment of a mortician delivering the conclusions of a comprehensive autopsy. It was all the more devastating for that. Saint sat in his prison orange, manacled to his chair, and gawked at Armsmaster like a poleaxed cow.

"Your conclusions on the matter, Mr. Armsmaster?" The base commander said drolly, cocking one grey eyebrow.

Armsmaster turned to face him as if Saint had ceased to exist. "He genuinely believes what he says, with 98% certainty," he said, consulting his voice analysis program. "However he is demonstrating behavior, language, rhetoric, etc. consistent with that of a paranoid delusional or regressive conspiracy theorist.

"Also his actions are self-contradictory. He claims to have found proof of an imminent peril to the human race, and believes himself and his compatriots to be humanity's last line of defense… because, of course, the rest of us have all been deluded…" The commander chuckled at that. "… However, rather than contacting anyone with this vital information he has instead hoarded it all this time for a last-resort scenario-- like being captured-- and instead spent the last several years robbing, embezzling from, and spying upon the subject of his given conspiracy theory in order to facilitate his other criminal activities. In short it's a rationalization: he's not a criminal and terrorist robbing a bank, he's a champion battling the Faceless Enemy." He paused. "Of course you will want a psychiatric professional to confirm or refute..."

The base commander snorted. "I sort of drew those conclusions myself," he said, getting to his feet. "Take that idiot back to his cell-- and make sure he and his playmates are kept separate. I don't want to wake up tomorrow and find out they got together and built a, a, a death ray out of bedsprings and bodily fluids and fought their way to freedom with it." He rolled his eyes. "Capes. Eesh." The M.P.s unchained Saint from the chair and dragged him away, feebly protesting.

 

 

 

It was several more hours before everyone in charge finally decided that since most of the Dragonslayer's crimes had been committed in Canada and against Canadian citizens that the Great White North would get first crack at them, and they were quickly and brusquely stuffed aboard one of Dragon's prison transport vehicles and sent off North to face the music, or at least the first stanza of it.

Before Dragon boarded the VTOL to fly home, she pulled Armsmaster aside. "Colin," she said. "I heard what you said to Saint."

"I expected so," he said blithely. Dragon's surveillance gear was second to none after all.

Her tone, her poise turned serious. "Did you mean what you said?"

Armsmaster blinked. "Well yes, of course," he said. To him the things he said and the conclusions he'd come to were as straightforward as 2+2=4.

Dragon started to say something further, but restrained herself. She knew Colin might think he felt the way he said, but she had experience with human beings and their tendency to change course suddenly when the reality was in front of them and their personal emotions came into play. She shook her head. "Just… some time in the near future, there are some things I need to sit down and discuss with you," she said. "Personal things. If we could do that?"

Colin nodded, not quite sure he understood. "Some time this week then?" he said.

"Weather and Endbringers permitting," Dragon said wryly. "I'll be in touch." She boarded the VTOL. Minutes later the craft had lifted off and taken a heading due North to Canada.

 

 

 

For all parties concerned the journey back to Brockton Bay was uneventful; they arrived close to midmorning, stopping at the PRT building first to deliver their reports of events in-person. Things got far more exciting when they discovered that in the absence of most of the Protectorate, Lung had gone on another one of his temper-tantrum rampages…. And had apparently been handily smacked down by a mixed group of Capes made up of the Wards, the Undersiders and several new unknown Rogues, along with, you guessed it, Skinwalker.

Everyone was fit to be tied; the Youth Guard (all but self-appointed moral busybodies who made the Ward's life a headache "protecting their well-being") was throwing a screaming fit over the Wards actually engaging Lung and a small mob of ABB and E88 gangbangers, Piggot was on a tear because the Wards had broken rank and because five NEW Rogue Capes of unknown origin and a mind-boggling array of grab-bag powers-- Blasters, Changers, Strangers, Movers, Brutes, Masters and more-- had made their debut out of nowhere, and Carol Dallon was apparently reading everyone the riot act because the PRT had failed to detain her "runaway daughter" Glory Girl (more than one Cape and PRT grunt had all but horse-laughed at the notion of trying to "detain" Collateral Damage Barbie with anything short of heavy artillery.) The power wonks were freaking out, the precogs were having a breakdown, everyone from Piggot on down was looking for at least one subordinate to scream at.

The one thing that had almost made Director Piggot stroke out was the discovery that one of the Wards, Gallant, had dived into the fray only to disappear without a trace when the Undersiders and the unknowns had teleported away. But just to show that Karma has a balanced wheel, it turned out that this became the reason she was able to maintain any composure at all-- because Gallant had contacted them a few hours later from an undisclosed location, with word that he was being given something-- in fact several somethings-- that were complete game-changers for everyone in Brockton Bay, and possibly the world.

"It's basically a Lung-Be-Good gun," Gallant said, setting the gun on the table. The armored Ward had shown up late that afternoon, looking sleep deprived but otherwise unharmed, and bearing gifts. Gifts that the power wonks and Tinkers present were staring at with drooling covetousness, and Piggot was staring at as if they were wrapped in venomous snakes.

They were gathered in main conference room in the Rig-- the Protectorate HQ, a converted derrick floating out in the bay-- the PRT not being nearly secure enough for discoveries of this magnitude (or for that matter large enough for everyone that had to sit in on the discussion). It was big and flashy with huge windows looking out on the ocean and on Brockton Bay, and an enormous round table with the mandatory gigantic illuminated globe of Earth floating over the center. It was designed with tourists in mind but ironically had the best radio and sound jamming technology in either headquarters, due to the need to keep the noise of the tour groups down and to block cell phones and other recording devices ("No pictures, please.")

A few extra widgets thrown around by Kid Win and Armsmaster and Piggot felt almost secure. "Explain," she said, unamused by the Ward's glibness.

Said Ward clearly didn't care. "It was an accidental discovery, really," he said. "Skinwalker and several of his… um… associates… have the ability to temporarily transmute a person into an animal form."

Armsmaster picked up the steampunk looking ray gun (Skinwalker did seem to have a theme going) and examined the dial on the top. "Rabbit… pig… monkey… sheep… frog?" he read out loud.

"Any of them will work the same," Gallant said. "Skinwalker just said he included the variety for psychological impact. Some people would be less traumatized by turning into a sheep than a pig, for example." His grin was obvious in his voice, if hidden by his helmet. "And of course, 'frog' is a classic."

"Wizard parking, all others will be Toad," Assault quipped. His wife headslapped him. "Ow."

"The effect lasts about sixty seconds. It also has restorative properties… a person who is transmuted returns to their normal state with injuries healed, exhaustion poisons purged, so on and so forth..."

"ANOTHER form of healing?" one of the techs blurted.

"Not exactly," Gallant said. "It'll restore you to your natural default state, preexisting conditions and all. If I used this on you, you'd still be nearsighted, have a bald spot and a paunch when you reverted. No offense."

"Hmph. None taken I suppose."

"So what's the advantage?" Miss Militia said. "You use this on a villain, sure, they're out of the fight for sixty seconds and probably revert to normal disoriented and possibly traumatized, but they also come back in full health and even madder at you."

"Well that's the thing," Gallant said. "It was an effect like this that ended the fight with Lung. Shar'Din… the, ah, elf looking one… hit Lung with a polymorph that turned him into a sheep. When he turned back, he was restored to his default state-- which in his case meant he was returned to his baseline human form."

"Of course," Dauntless said, snapping his fingers. "It's an instant off-switch for his power-ramp."

"Skinwalker did say the effect had an upward limit," Gallant cautioned. "If Lung had been any bigger, it probably wouldn't have worked at all. So we're probably not going to be turning Leviathan into a frog any time soon. But if you get Lung soon enough--"

"Better yet," Dauntless enthused, "if it works that way on ANY cape who has to ramp up their power like Lung does… it'll shut 'em down wholesale." Sounds of startled approval went up around the table.

"Even if it only affects Lung this way, this thing is worth its weight in gold," Battery said.

"Yes," Armsmaster said, sighting down the barrel. "Even if he escapes again, Lung and the ABB just became a minor problem in Brockton Bay." There were exclamations of approval and even some applause at this.

"Yes, IF the techs determine this little wonder toy works as advertised and is SAFE," Piggot pressed, dampening a few spirits-- albeit not for long. "And this second device, Gallant?"

Gallant actually straightened up in his seat, suddenly sober as a judge. "This one.. this one could be the big one," he said. He held up a thick metal headband, thick as his fingertip and half as wide as his palm, with an inlaid gem in the band where it would rest on the center of the forehead. "This is a duplicate of the one Skinwalker made for Glory Girl," he said. "She's been having problems controlling her glamour aura. This… neutralizes it. In fact it lets her focus it, turning it into a ranged effect similar to my own emotion blasts."

"But that's not all," he went on. "Everyone here knows how my powers work, so I won't waste time going into a lot of detail-- but in the battle, and later, I noticed that the headband has an added effect. Not even Skinwalker realizes it. But I persuaded him to give me one of the spares he made for Vicky-- Glory Girl I mean-- so I could show it to you.

" Armsmaster and Kid Win and the techs are going to have to test it more thoroughly--- but if we can reproduce this," he held up the headband, "And it really does work the way I think it does… It could save thousands of lives.

"It… it might even be the key to defeating an Endbringer..."

CONTINUE FROM LAST READ?
Chapter 647, 18