The Jumper's Journals

by blackshadow111

What happens when you give an ordinary person, someone completely, utterly mundane, with little special and even less important in his life, bored and tired, a shot at... well, Everything? What would you do, with all of eternity, all that was, is and will be at your fingertips? These are The Jumper's Journals, the story of a man's ascension. There's Wish-Fulfillment, be warned.

21. Chapter 21

" Alright then, test 34, cyber-attack resistance. Hit it!"

I prepare myself, even as I feel DADA start, indeed, 'hitting' it. What I'm testing right now is a piece of technology I completed not 24 hours ago, and I've been testing and retesting it since to ensure it's reliable before I start using it.

About a week ago now, I delivered Usama Bin Laden to the NSA and obtained in exchange a host of benefits. One of those, a pretty important one, was the Delta-6 Accelerator Suit. Developed two years ago for GI Joe, it is, put simply, the most advanced power armor in use on the planet.

Not that I want the 'power armor' aspects, truth be told. Most of the good stuff it has, I can recreate myself, and better. As a matter of fact I am recreating most of its stuff. I can design better guns, come up with a new allow that provides better armoring, improve the hydraulics… the lot.

But there's one technology in the suit that I was way behind in. I could have done that too, honestly, but it would've taken a while and frankly, reinventing the wheel is for stupid people.

No, I needed direct thought-interfacing technology, and it's always faster to adapt existing tech than do it from scratch. Especially in this case.

See, it's not a big challenge to develop sensors that can pick up brainwaves. The electrical activity in our brains is a furious, raging maelstrom, and catching the images of those signals is… very doable, if not 'easy' as such.

No, it's what comes after that's the problem. Because see, the electrical activity in our brains is a raging maelstrom. And maelstroms do not, as a general thumb rule, prove very conducive to communication. Devices have to be fine-tuned, calibrated to pick up certain kinds of signals and ignore others, but not ignore the signals related to the ones they pick up and the ones related to those…

It's slow work, even for me. So when I can steal weeks' worth of progress by using a developed device… yeah.

Of course, I had to revamp the whole thing. The device as it is uses electrical impulses, tapping into the network that connect a brain's disparate parts together. I'm looking to go altogether deeper.

It's very theoretical science for most of the world, but it's actually possible to figure out the human 'mind', and its differences with the brain. The brain is an organ, a computer made of biological matter. Like all computers, it runs on electrical signals. These signals, however, have more effects. Over time, as they move along the same channels, those channels develop… resonations is the simplest word for it.

Parts of your mind become quantum entangled, thought processes get established, and the neurological network sitting in one's cranium develops a quantum field around it, become definitively established anywhere between six to ten years of age, and growing and developing from there. Like most things that get the word 'quantum' tacked onto them, this field defies easy understanding, being a vast and bewildering world where looking at things changes how they work, phenomena follow consistent rules until they don't… so on and so forth.

… yeah. You know what else shows this behavior? The human mind. Seriously. The mind, not the brain. There's a world of difference. But the point is, it's a provable fact that the human 'mind', exists in a quantum field in and around out physical brain and body.

It's this quantum field that I intend to tap. And fortunately, here also I don't need to start from scratch. From pretty far back, yes, but not scratch. Dad's facility had the needed devices, he used to use it for his shit with dreams and embedded psychological blocks. He never developed thought interfaces, unfortunately.

What I did wasn't to directly try and tap into devices with my mind. I'll get there one day, maybe. For now I designed a receptor capable of interfacing with my mind, allowing for uninterrupted data flows both ways, and put it in my spectacles. They have a perfectly ordinary wireless antenna to connect to other devices through Bluetooth, infrared, wifi or whatever, and a single processor designed to connect to my mind.

Of course, the thing about tying something that deeply to myself is that I need to ensure that it's utterly, unquestionably secure. Getting one's bank account hacked would be nothing compared to getting my mind hacked.

Now it should be impossible, since I cannibalized a Smartphone I found in my warehouse to design my glasses. That's important, in case you didn't realize. Not a smartphone I bought on the market, or one I made myself. It was a phone that appeared out of nowhere in my Warehouse. That means it's something I bought with CP, and that makes it inviolable.

Theoretically. This is me, testing it. All else aside, DADA is currently one of, if not the most advanced computer system in the world. If he can throw everything he has at me and not get through, I can consider myself secure.

I wait quietly, awaiting the telltale feeling of an interface between me and the glasses, or the accessing of data.

Nothing happens.

"Are you doing it?"

"Yes. And it seems you were right. No matter what I try, there's no way to find any purchase on the interface. It's not that the OS is fighting me off. I just can't send any hostile data in, period."

I smile. "That's fiat backing for you. Alright, finalize designs and start fabricating."

"Done."

What, you didn't think I'd use just the glasses? They're going to be my primary interface, but I designed secondary options too. One is in my watch, one in my family ring, one in my actual phone… and I have the last one planned. Once I put that one in place I'll stop needing the glasses, even.

For the best, really. I like how I look wearing glasses, but relying on purely external means is, in one word, dumb. I have plans to put a small nanite swarm in my bloodstream, and they'll comprise the primary interface once they're in place. But I'm a long way away from that right now, hence these devices.

"How long will it take you to get everything ready and tested?"

"An hour, give or take. Should be done by the time you get back from your meeting."

Ah. Right, the meeting. I have a check-in with my grandfather and his people in a little while. No one's said anything about why, but it was Paul Devereaux who called it, so it's probably a safe bet that it's pretty important.

"You have the jet ready?"

"Fueled and prepped. It'll have you in Clarence within minutes."

"What am I taking this time?" I probably should decide which of the special-forces jets I use to fly to places myself, but eh. It's just so much more convenient to have DADA to it.

"In the last few months they've been updating the radar systems and monitoring webs around New York. So I thought you could use one of the submersibles. Get into sea underwater, then take off from there."

Right, that happened. It's not much to write home about, just a contractor that took advantage of the whole Grand Central mess to sell a newly gullible DoD some additional gear.

"DADA, I designed the upgrades we'd need to beat those two days ago. They're not installed yet?"

"Well, maybe if you didn't have me dedicating processor cycles to sci-fi projects…"

"Brother, you're a sci-fi project. Anyway, how long will it take you to update everything?"

"Not very long. The new radars can't see us directly anyway. But they're good enough to catch a fair amount of residue evidence. I should be done in 24 hours or so."

"Gotcha. Okay then, let's be off."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I lay back on the final approach, as the city of Clarence expands under my wings. Clarence is the capital of Zangaro, with five million people packed into an area about a thousand kilometers across. I want to see how DADA handles landing this anyway, so I just keep an eye on the control panel and let my mind wander. The city was founded back in the early way back when the French were first colonizing this land, but it's size really comes from the second wave of colonizing these lands have undergone, the one where no one will admit it's happening.

They know better.

Back in 1970 or so, the region was pretty much exactly as I remember from my previous lives. A metric fuckton of micro-republics, most of them failed states or dictatorships. Then a mining team working for Manson Consolidated found evidence of a humongous deposit of Platinum in one of the mountains, and everything changed.

More teams found everything from nickel, to oil and gold, to Tantalum. It wasn't all conveniently in one place, but it was in the region and between the political situation and the company's position… a decision was made.

Because see, Manson Consolidated was owned by Mortimer Mining Ltd, which is itself a wholly owned subsidiary of… Manchester Incorporated.

You probably know the rest. Zangaro was a tiny state then, sandwiched between Cameroon and Gabon. So small that the world barely noticed when it fell in a coup d'etat to a recently exiled colonel.

That's the problem with Africa back then. People just weren't paying attention, all with their own problems. So many of them that, when eight years later it declared war on Cameroon and Gabon both… somehow even that didn't make more than brief news.

Of course, the war was over and won before the west managed to even notice it properly, and presented with a fait accompli, there really wasn't much to be done. When standards of living rose across the board in the next few years, people patted each others' backs, congratulated each other on 'not acting hastily', and moved on. Zangaro had grown, Zangaro was on the way to industrializing and becoming respectable… Zangaro was good.

So good that when, ten years or so after that, the whole of the CAR and both Congos seemed to spontaneously catch fucking fire, they all but begged the Zangarans to intervene. Apparently someone had armed a bunch of insurgencies and rebel groups all at once, and the usual policies of the 'legitimate' governments had given them plenty of reason to use those weapons… and all of a sudden west Africa was burning.

Fast forward three years, and Zangaran troops had swept across the borders and put all three nations to rights… and in the process accidentally ending their nation-hoods.

Then everyone took notice. Cue the plebiscites and the remonstrations in the U.N. But money talks just as well internationally as it does within a nation, and there was a great deal of conversation to be had with Zangaro and the man controlling its destiny.

Which brings us to here and now. Now Zangaro is one of the premier powers in Africa, competing mostly just with the other mega-states that have formed in the last few decades primarily as a response to its existence. But that's a topic for another time.

The mansion is built right on the coast, with an underwater tunnel into an underwater hangar that opens for me even as the jet, a submarine right now, draws near. I wait till the water trains from the cavernous hall before stepping out, heading to the door once DADA starts the proper shut-down procedures. Right outside the door is a wizened old man, dressed impeccably in a tuxedo so identifiable with the members of his profession.

"A nice flight, your lordship?" he asks, bowing just a tilt.

I roll my eyes. "How many times must I tell you, Giles? Don't call me that."

He just smiles. I'd get pissed, but he's my grandfather's butler, and between the times when he physically carried my out of bathtubs where I… well, the 'me' before jumper-me arrived, was lying insensate after a borderline overdose of… well, everything, and the times when he bought me ice-cream as a kid, it's kinda hard to muster anger towards him.

"At least one more time, it would seem."

"Yeah, yeah. Where are they?"

"Not here, as a matter of fact."

I halt. "What? If this is some kind of power game from him…"

The wizened old man just raises an eyebrow. "You have gotten more suspicious. I thought His Grace was just saying it."

I remain quiet, just staring at him.

"The actual meeting is at the island. I'm to lead you to the helicopter that will take you there."

Ah. Well, that's okay then. Clarence in this world is pretty much where Bata, Equatorial Guinea was in my previous lives. At varying distances from the coast, but all well within the range of a good chopper ride are several islands. Most are owned by the government in some form or the other, a few by wealthy Zangarans, but three belong to Manchester. One is a regional shipyard-cum-headquarter for the shipping company we have running in these parts, and another is a secondary base for White Knight Security, the Manchester-owned PMC that 'advises' the Zangaran Armed Forces.

But it's the third one I'm going to right now. Getting into the helicopter, I nod at Giles to return to his duties, before turning around even as the chopper takes off. It's a brief enough trip, the helicopter staying in the air maybe a total of twenty minutes. It lets me get my thoughts in order, so I'm ready when the descent starts and I take a proper look at the mansion.

It's… okay, frankly it's a gigantic monstrosity. Not ugly, mind you, my grandfather doesn't do ugly. But it's… it's everything you're told is wasteful and excessive, a monument built to the worst Gatsby-esque things of the Gilded Age of America and the aristocratic excesses of the Continent, put together.

I love it.

Seriously, it's garish, but it hits one the exact way I suspect it's meant to.

I take in every detail of the building, filing it all away as the helicopter lands. Within moments I'm out, with a footman, Rathbone if I remember correctly, and I do, gently guiding me down a corridor.

Halfway through, I hear the sounds of the conversation going on at my destination, a low murmur that nonetheless sounds perfectly flawlessly clear to me. "… I'm just saying, before we do something inadvisable, just asking may yield the answers we need. He wouldn't take it well if we…"

"Announcing the honorable Earl of Salisbury, gentlemen." Rathbone enunciates just loudly enough to be heard but not be annoying, holding open the door for me. I raise a questioning eyebrow at my grandfather about this. Okay, so the family is old and titled and all, but the staff are usually much better about not being annoyingly formal.

"There's a royal visit to Cassington next week. I told them they could brush up on stuff if they wanted."

Ah. I guess that would explain it. The British Royal Family in this world is not… the same as the one I was familiar with in my past lives, but they're close enough. No meaningful changes, that is. Some names and genders switched around. That the staff would get all abuzz about a visit is obvious, considering everything.

"Well, let's get to it, then." Paul Devereaux speaks up from the side.

Wilfred turns to look at him for a second, before turning back to me. He gestures at me to get in and take a seat. "Yeah, let's."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"And so, with that settled, we must turn to matters relating to my grandson, before his boredom becomes a tangible weapon that he then uses to strike us down." Wilfred's voice is a refreshing break to the ongoing deliberations, which, admittedly, I had begun to tune out.

It's… I understand that the things they were talking about are important. I have been studying up almost literally every subject under the sun, it's hard not to know what they were talking about. But repetition can make even discussions about assassinations of black-market plutonium dealers sound dull, and when the speaker starts into a ten minutes long Economics dissertation to explain why it's important and totally the right thing to do… yeah.

So, this is how the meeting went. Wilfred, Paul and Nigel are here, of course, representing what I'm beginning to understand are the interests of the intelligence and business communities of America and Britain, despite the group's avoidance of explicit ties. They were joined by several holograms of people from all around the world, some of whom I even recognized. There was the CEO and Chairman of Proclus Global and one of the richest people in the world after Wilfred and me, Saito Takehiko. That I recognized him from The Last Samurai probably means he's going to be important? At least if I'm even a bit right about how this world works.

Another was… sigh, the leader of this world's version of Scientology. But any chagrin that came up I quickly suppressed, as more and more holograms started popping up. And honestly, simply looking at the faces drove home the kind of power and influence this organization really commands, in a way that seeing the richest man in the world in the same room as two of the most dangerous minds ever produced by the American and British intelligence communities somehow hadn't quite managed.

There aren't a lot of people here. By the looks of it this isn't a plenipotentiary meeting, just a little one for Wilfred's direct subordinates and colleagues who are needed for the agenda. I recall him telling me, their group isn't one of those that meet in elaborate masks conducting pseudo-erotic rituals of admittance. They meet when they need to, connected via the latest technology or simply being physically present.

All in all, about it was twenty people, nine of whom left at various points. That leaves the eleven that I'm faced with, now that the discussion has turned to me.

"Oh? I wouldn't do that! It would be such a loss." I say a moment after he's done talking, adopting a sickening falsetto for few words.

They take it in the spirit it's intended, if the chuckles that go around the room are any indication. But it all ends quickly.

"Well, Mr Montague. You asked to speak before we got to the business you're here for. What is it?" That's Saito trying to bring things back to business, face as inscrutable as ever.

"Ah, yes. Now judging by the kind of business y'all are accustomed to, this might be a small one. But I just want answers. As many of you might know, roughly three months ago there was a terrorist… incident in Syria. Mr Devereaux sent me in to intervene, and I did. It was all resolved well enough, even considering the cost."

I pause, looking around a bit. People are nodding along, at least looking like they're paying attention. I really have no way of knowing if someone's spoofing their hologram and playing video games instead. That's what I'd do.

"My question is this. GI Joe HQ is located in Egypt, which people might realize as being a lot fucking closer to Aleppo-4 than New York. Why were they not deployed to deal with it? Why was I asked to literally go halfway around the world?"

My tone got a bit too angry for me towards the end there, but it's still better than what I was feeling like when I first found out. It wasn't that I had a problem with gassing a bunch of terrorists (not Mujahedin. Calling Muslim terrorists mujahedin is exactly, precisely like calling Klan members crusaders). It wasn't even that it was utterly touch-and-go, between me needing to go in almost completely blind, and having had to traverse half the planet to do it.

It was that there had been a perfectly fine option right there, and the powers that be hadn't used it. Now that I'm faced with the powers that control the powers that be, it seems like the right time to ask the question.

The silence stretches just long enough to be uncomfortable before a man I've been studiously avoiding looking at speaks up. "A very, very good question. One I would also like answered, come to think of it."

Fucking hell even his voice is the same. Okay, so a lot of people in this world look like famous stars from my previous lives. And I do mean a lot. But here's the thing. I spent my last life in a more-or-less continuous haze of alcohol and sex and adrenaline, the kind you can only get when you are a megastar magician with a bank balance of 'yes' and a body that just can't fail. So there wasn't much media consumption involved, me being too busy levitating battleships and disappearing the Pyramids.

Before that, though, I was a perfectly normal guy, with a very abnormal taste for media of all kinds. And so it's one thing to look at, for example, Sterling Archer and know that he looks identical to Jeff Bridges, and take that in stride. It's quite another thing to look at someone you've been all but raised to worship and be as ambivalent.

Amitabh Bachchan is just about the biggest thing to ever happen in the Indian film industry, and looking at him, standing in a black kurta with his arms folded in a trademark pose? Major 'squee' moment.

"I think I'll be the one to answer that, if you don't mind?" Paul Devereaux speaks up, voice as urbane as ever. He looks just a tad admonishingly at me, as if trying to scold me without saying anything. I just wait.

"The fact is, you're right. Subhash and Eddie, you both had the right idea. We did too, when the issue came up first. As you know, Nigel, Wilfred and I all control members on the committee. We felt that an intervention by the Joes was warranted and indeed, needed, and we rallied people to enact it, exactly as you suggest."

"And then… what happened?" I ask, taking a glance at… Subhash to see if he wanted to say anything first. It's not a very fitting name for him, considering how I'm used to seeing him. I expected it to be Vijay. But then it wouldn't be, would it? He wouldn't have any name that I can remember from any media. That's how the terms of this jump work.

"Peter. Peter Kotsiopolis blocked the proposal. Some of you might remember him as Noah Vosen instead? He was Paul's protégé, and we invited him in a few years ago. Since then he's risen very fast and very high, and right now he has a lot of pull at the Pentagon and NATO. He decided that the risk of exposure was too high."

"Too high to protect fifty innocent young women?" the outraged voice of Amitabh Bachchan echoes through the room before I can say anything.

"Evidently, yes. Now, I'll admit. It would have been entirely possible for us to get his votes overruled and initiate a mission. But we need him for the future, and there was an alternative available, so…

Hm. The votes and the committee they're talking about is the Urgent Actions Committee at NATO, the body that gives GI Joe its orders. But that's not important, compared to the matter in question.

"Exposure? That was the reason? GI Joe didn't intervene because some jackass decided there was a risk of exposure, and you all needed him for other operations so you didn't question it?"

"Yes, that is correct. Also, the sky is blue, and two and two are four. Now is there anything else you'd like to repeat, or can we move on?" That's… my grandfather. Why am I not surprised? Because he's a fuckin' psychopath, that's why.

And also, this means he probably wants to discuss this in private, probably because no one here is likely to have anything to add, but more likely because Vosen is that valuable. In which case, well, we'll have to see about that.

But not here, and not now.

I turn to my only supporter on this, Subhash-looks-like-Amitabh. He just gives me a miniscule nod, before gesturing just as imperceptibly towards Wilfred. I get the message.

"…fine. We'll need to revisit this one day, then."

"Certainly, Edward. Now on to the reason why we wanted to see you." Nigel is all too eager to move on from this, hurrying along.

"Yes?" I just ask.

"I'll be brief, since most of us have pressing engagements. This man is starting to become a problem."

A new hologram appears in the middle of the room, depicting a man. Young, maybe a bit older than me. He's dressed in a suit, posing for a photo probably.

"You know who he is, of course." Saito now, taking center stage.

I answer. It's hard not to know, considering the parallels. Young heirs of ancient European families, owners of giant corporations and living in New York… and even if I ignored how we're similar, it's hard not to know him. He doesn't exactly keep a low profile. Although I suppose it would be a challenge for me too, if I'd been the one to announce that I was ready to launch the most advanced space station in the world. Especially if most of the work in the design was patents owned personally by me, like it is for the guy whose image is in front of me.

"Yeah, I know. What about him?"

"He is, as I said, starting to become a problem. Already we have lost close to a hundred billion dollars in the next five years due to him, and it's still going on. He's a genius as good as, if not better than Nigel Montague ever was, and his resources are starting to come close too." Saito finishes with a small flourish, sitting back down into his chair a second later.

The assessment is probably right, all things considered. But I'm confused, because these people have ways of dealing with these things.

"Why hasn't he been co-opted already?" I ask directly of Saito. Seems pointless to waste my time asking other people if this is his thing going on here.

"You think we haven't tried? The man has the ego of a god. He laughed at the messengers we sent and declared a direct challenge. We're lucky we'd not told him the details about us!"

Ah. One of those, then.

"Well, what do you want me to do with him?"

The Japanese man pauses for a few seconds, before continuing "Study him. Try to see if there is any possibility of getting him to work with us at all. If so, recruit him. Otherwise just take him out of the picture as best as you can."

I consider the job. VDI was launched as a software company about five years ago. Since then it's clawed its way into oil, real estate, mining, and of course, Aerospace. It's also quintupled its market cap every year, having reached a billion dollars valuation two years ago and having crossed 25 Billion just a week ago with the space station announcement. The man behind the growth is, once again, the man in front of me.

It wouldn't be easy, is what I'm saying. He's the right combination of blindingly brilliant and terrifyingly ruthless, and his resources are already extensive. Given time to grow… yeah, I can see how he's a threat. But he hasn't gotten time to grow yet. Can I shut him down? Yes, if I dedicate my efforts to it. But I already have Bracken, and I need to keep up investigating Cobra, build up my own side of things… oh, who am I kidding here?

"Alright. I'll take care of it." I call out as calmly as I can.

"Excellent, Mr Montague. I was certain you would find it within your capabilities."

Yeah, yeah. I just nod at the man, already trying to formulate a plan. But my attention is grabbed immediately by what Wilfred says next.

"Okay, so that's what. And speaking of capabilities, Eddie, let's come to you one last time here."

I turn. "Yes?"

Hm. Is it just me or is he really looking apprehensive here?

"Okay, Edward. So this is where it gets troublesome. Before we start, let me assure you everything we're going to talk about is totally up to you. By its very nature, the program never tries to do anything you wouldn't be comfortable with."

"Okay… but what program?" I ask, tone as flat as I can make it. Just what is he talking about here?

"The DnD list. It's a United Nations program that oversees implementation of DnD policies across all member nations. For the last several weeks, there have been teams assigned to go over every single action you have taken so far, and to see if you need to be added to it."

… that's not really that much clearer. I guess I'll have to play the idiot again. "… and again, what list? The UN is running a giant Dungeons and Dragons game?"

He just stares at me for several seconds, before opening his mouth again. "No, grandson. Not that DnD. It stands for Do Not Disturb. It started as a long-distance monitoring scheme run by the CIA. Then both the scale and the scope of its operations was expanded dozens of times over, until we get the program."

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I know this world has rules it runs by, but would it kill Wilfred to just go ahead and tell me? To start from the beginning, hit the middle and then the end? I'd just like to know what the hell the program is and what it was started for.

"The program, as you all might be aware, targets people it has been decided by the nation-states of the world as not worth the expense to subject to laws."

Okay, what?

I ruthlessly suppress the wellspring of curiosity that threatens to blow up up in my mind. He's still talking. Almost as if sensing my incredulity, Wilfred turns directly towards me. "Believe me, you'll understand once you see the list.". He fiddles with a remote for a second, before pointing at a brand-new hologram in the middle of the room. There are several pictures displayed, apparently captured secretly.

The first is a man with oriental features but with a shocking mane of blood-red hair, with a cruel, almost animalistic face complete with dagger-like eyebrows. He's standing casually, black tee-shirt stretched out over a chest rippling with muscles.

And all of a sudden, I do understand. I know who this guy is, you see. I'd be a failure both as an Ozunu ninja and a Kingsman if I didn't, I mean. This is the man whom they refer to in fighting circles as the Strongest man on the Planet. The Ogre, his codename, is linked to stories even I find it difficult to believe, but evidently are all true.

The second man on the list is a black man, tall and thin, with… okay, he's Will Smith. He's followed immediately by… huh. That's Uma Thurman, I guess? Never really became much of fan. They're listed as having very similar abilities, which require them to be watched but not approached.

The next one is…

I look at the entry again. I consider calling in DADA and have him check this. I haven't connected to any of his systems ever since arriving here because I don't want to risk Wilfred finding out about him before I'm ready, and there's no telling what kind of sensors and whatnot are buried in these walls.

The next entry on the list is stated to be a real, honest-to-god alien robot, a gigantic war machine that nonetheless prefers to while away the time looking at birds in the rural midwest. Official designation: NBE Two. Codename: Agent… Superman.

That gives me pause.

Superman.

I'm looking at a file about a fifty-meter tall alien robot that calls himself Superman, and I'm doing so with complete seriousness. I… I genuinely can't tell if my life is awesome or pathetic anymore. That's setting aside the whole thing about how aliens totally exist and how and why the US has a giant robot on call, but needs must. I can freak out about… ahem, ponder the details later.

I look through a few more names on the list, recognizing a couple here and there. Then I turn to Wilfred. "Okay, so these are people who are… what? Above the law?"

He shakes his head "No, but close. First of all, a certain degree of 'understanding to make the list'. Anyone who can't be gotten to agree to behave at least a little bit simply ends up having to be prosecuted. That said, even when they do cause problems… national governments could bring them to task if they were to commit any crimes, yes." He pauses here, looking me in the eye directly. I get the feeling he's trying to emphasize something without spelling it out.

I nod just a little, which is apparently enough for him as he continues "They could arrest or imprison these people, but it's… complicated. To put it simply, the best minds they have access to were asked o come together, and taking into account the technology they had available, the prevailing political moods and the moods predicted to prevail in the near future, they all arrived on the conclusion that the cost in terms of time, treasure and lives needed to prosecute these people would be overwhelmingly larger than the cost of leaving them as they are."

Ah. That's… I mean… that's surprisingly reasonable. Much more than I'd expect from this world. "And you're asking me about any powers I might have because you want to see if I… what? If I belong there too?"

He nods. "Pretty much. You covered it pretty well, and there was a lot of disbelief to begin with, but once you open your mind to the possibilities, there are points in your story where you just had to use… weirdness."

I consider defending myself… but just for a moment. It's not like Wilfred's all that likely to actively want to hurt me now or… well, ever, really. We're tied too close together.

"Well, to begin with I can teleport…"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's about an hour since I told them a scaled-down summary of the supernatural abilities I picked up in Razzle Dazzle, and barely minutes since the last of the holograms switched off, leaving me alone with my grandfather. I'm still sitting where I was when I told my story, but Wilfred's walking around the room briskly, throwing about his arms to work out the kinks in them.

"You don't mind, do you? I'm sure they'll reevaluate if your abilities grow at some point." He barks out halfway through another lap of the room, tone a curious balance between sincere and mocking that I'm very curious to learn how to mimic.

I roll my eyes. Do I mind that I wasn't placed on the super attention-grabby 'do not disturb' list of the UN? Bloody hell no. It's better for everyone involved if me and everything about me remain hidden for as long as possible. That was why I hid what is undoubtedly my most dangerous power, the complete immunity to all slashing and piercing damage. That's the kind of thing you tell people if you want to rate you as more of a threat.

But it does… peeve me when I compare with the people who are on the list. Like… why would you classify a martial artist as a danger like that but not a teleporter? But nevermind. Wilfred is saying something again.

"Well, you handled yourself very well. We can actually move forward with integrating you further with the group."

"I'm glad" I mutter in a drawl. I don't really care much for the matter one way or the other, to be honest.

"Speaking of which…" he trails off, looking expectantly at me.

"Yes?"

"Just when are you planning on taking control of your father's businesses? If you ever want to grow beyond being a glorified triggerman, you need people of your own you can call upon. You're the only one I know who would leave a trillion dollar company lying around without even meeting the senior management for months."

"Hey, I emailed that Hightower guy!" I know that it's not much of a rejoinder, but what is there to say? I did leave a 1.8 Trillion Dollar company lying around without bothering to take control.

"And that's before we get to his other businesses."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. The thing about illegal businesses is, there is no way of ensuring lasting ownership. With Kane it won't really matter if you don't bother to take over for another three months. The shares are yours, they aren't going anywhere. The extraordinarily lucrative illegal business empire your father built up, however? It's long since been eaten up by his Lieutenants. Fisk took the lion's share, and it all went down with him. The rest… you should see what can be salvaged, at least."

I nod. "Yeah, I guess. It's just not something that comes up in my mind that much, y'know?"

"Well, it bloody well should!" He all but explodes, angry all of a sudden.

"You need alternate identities, Eddy. At least if you want to get out from under this Syria mess anytime soon. Famous alternative identities, at that."

"… you're going to have to explain that one to me."

He looks surprised that I'm questioning this. "What's to explain? You need that face of yours to be associated with more people than just Edward Montague, Billionaire and Lance Kruger, Spy. Try and see if you can't feature in a few movies or whatnot, or maybe a criminal mastermind."

I… I mean I think I sort of understand what he's getting at?

"… the first one so that if more pictures or videos show up people will be able to dismiss it as a clip from some entertainment video?"

"Partly. Mostly I want there to be a name out there that people can just say "Oh, it's just that guy. Actually being a movie or TV star would help tie that up even neater, but the point is that we should be able to conflate your appearance with a name that doesn't impact your real one. It's the same for the other thing. If there's a criminal out there that just happens to look identical to Lance Kruger, anything unpleasant you're seen doing were obviously done by that criminal, and not, y'know, you."

"… ah." Is all I can say.

"Honestly, your mother would already have had a dozen movies to her name at this point. Actually, I think she did."

And here we get back into more familiar territory.

"Y'know, I think you're supposed to be denigrating her and praising dad…?"

He scowls. "Your father designed and released a subliminal signal that made people invent a new identity whenever they saw him."

"And you think this is less impressive than what mom did, because…"

"It doesn't matter. We're talking about you, not your parents."

I smile. "How long after releasing it did he give you the immunity signal?"

I can't believe he's actually pouting. "Eighteen months."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Oh, fuck this piece of shit!" I scream, picking up a lump of flesh from the table and throwing it straight at the wall. A drone floats in the way rapidly, catching it before it can splatter and make a mess. Why the fuck won't this work?

Having agreed touch base regularly, I return to the US, and my waiting labs. There's going to be no corporate takeovers or criminal revivals, nor any alternate identities being developed… until I crack this fucking serum.

Two and a half months ago, I used a hacking attack to steal every single detail of the serum that was used to enhance O'Connor. Then, having all the data on hand, I'd figured I'd already won, the rest was just a technicality. I even threw in a bunch of upgrades for the serum, boosting and enhancing how much it improves the human body, improving the regeneration, and removing the annoying hallucinogenic and schizophrenia-inducing effects.

Yes, it had them. Of course it had those effects. Those weren't the point. The point was, I was done. There was nothing left to improve, and giving it all to myself was pretty much sewn up perfectly. Just a matter of time, instead of being in any real question.

Yeah, right.

With a thought-computer interface finally having been tested, okayed and prepared, I've been working in a simulated environment for close to twenty hours now. Me and DADA are have successfully recreated the original chemical used to enhance O'Connor, find the points at which the synthetic sample of my DNA binds it to the human body, and enhance those bindings by using my real DNA.

Then I used the new serum on isolated samples of my blood to sort through the 'trash' of my DNA, the 97% of our genetic code that contains nothing of any use. Digging through it, testing the interactions of every orphan string, every evolutionary dead-end with the serum and a hypothetical bonding of all three, I've been looking at something I know is there.

And I found it eight hours ago. A beautiful, magnificent string that defies easy understanding. Testing it on animals and humans both provided ridiculous results, so much so it was almost difficult to understand them.

The trouble arose with trying to put humpty-dumpty back together. No matter how much I try, how many processing cycles DADA dedicates, the two components will not play nice. I can bind the serum to my body, no problem. Activating the rogue DNA is trickier, but I can do it.

Both? So far, no way in hell. And naturally, that's exactly what I want to do.

"Patience, Eddy. Let's try the next configuration." DADA's voice comes from the speakers.

"Oh shut up, you tin pile of… patience."

"Heh. Lack of sleep fucks up your ability to insult people too. But seriously, you've been at this for almost a whole day now. Get some rest, sleep over it and we'll come back. Maybe something will click then."

I shake my head. "It's not something that'll click while I'm sleeping over it, man. We know what the problem is, so why doesn't anything we do to counter it work?"

DADA remains silent, probably to let me think.

"The problem is with the variables here. We have too many things competing at the same time. Unless everything happens in the right order, at the exact right moment, it triggers a cascade failure. What we need is… heh. Nevermind."

"What?" DADA asks.

"Nothing. Start up the sequence, let's try the next configuration."

"No, what were you saying?"

"It doesn't matter! It can't be done."

All of a sudden, a hologram takes shape right in front of me. It's…

"Really? The 'disapproving face?"

"Yes. And I'll keep it there till you tell."

I… I try to muster the will to call this out for being as ridiculous as it is, but I just don't have the energy.

"Probability. We need to be able to actually manipulate the probabilities involved in the integration, so every electron falls in the right place to comprise the final structure. Now do you really think that's an option for us?"

"…"

I look up sharply. The AI I call my brother can say and do many dumb, many stupid things every now and then, but he doesn't ever just fall silent.

"DADA?"

"Well, you could use The Bell?"

I feel my voice go very low all of a sudden. "What d'you mean, DADA?"

"What, the Bell?"

"No, Big Ben. Yes the Bell! What the fuck is it?"

"It's a Quantum Radiation manipulator. Used to enhance genetic splicing operations by manipulating the probabilities using interlinked Quantum Observation Effects."

I count to ten in my head, regulating my breathing. What the fuck is going on?"

"Why…" I bring my voice under control. It's more difficult than you'd imagine, when every nerve in my body is telling me to set the AI's central servers on fire.

"Why didn't you tell me before now. And so help me, if you say I didn't ask…"

"I mean, I… That is, of course I…"

The computer trails off, falling completely silent again.

"I don't know." He says, voice small and afraid all of a sudden.

"Well, why did you say it now? What changed?" I ask. A sneaking suspicion is starting to take shape in the back of my head, but I'd like to hold off rushing to judgement.

"I… as best as I can tell, when you said the problem out loud, a data packet suddenly decrypted in my servers, dumping several gigs worth of info into my system all of a sudden."

I roll my eyes. Yeah, I don't know why I bothered.

"Goddam it, dad." I say out loud, just to inform DADA.

He goes silent for a second, and I know he's evaluating the idea.

"But how? You said you checked my code!"

I nod "I did. I checked it back and forth, every line of it. I was in a hurry, but not that much of one. And I checked the hardware you're running on, pretty much for this exact reason."

"But…"

"But I didn't check the hardware of all those other systems I've been having you willy-nilly connect you to. And I didn't change your protocols, just figure them out for myself. It was only with the last hardware upgrade that I updated your base access subroutines."

"Which, of course, was too late. I'd already linked to dozens of the old servers by then."

"Yeah, yeah. It all adds up now. Anyway, what's this about the Bell?"

"Well, it's what I told you it is. Apparently several decades back, some meteorites landed that had some very weird radioactive properties. Study of those properties advanced Quantum Science to levels we haven't even reached ourselves yet, and one of the products achieved was the Bell."

I blink. "One would think that there would be more evidence around that we'd apparently perfected Gene Splicing decades ago."

DADA's voice is surprisingly grim as he answers. "One probably would. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. This is a map of the meteorite crash sites" he finishes, before flashing up a map of Europe. Apparently most of the meteorites burned up in the atmosphere, leaving tiny lumps to reach Earth that barely even had any radiation. It was only with the bigger ones, the ones as big as basketballs, for example, that it was noticeable. And pretty much all of those landed in… Germany and further East.

Oh, no. I close my eyes for a moment, think back to history. A briefly read article on past atrocities is as clear as anything I might have devoted my life to, thanks to my eidetic memories. And these sites correspond perfectly, accounting for minimal safe distances and logistics issues, with…

I already know what the answer will be, before I ask "When was this, exactly? You said it was several decades ago. Does that mean like the 60s or the 70s or…" I trail off, desperately, fervently hoping against hope that I'm wrong.

"Nope. Earlier. 40s."

I close my eyes. "So when the landing spots just happen to correspond with Concentration Camps, it's not a bizarre coincidence?"

His voice is as serious as I feel. "No, brother mine. It is not."

Of course it isn't.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's the sound of the shower that wakes me up.

Checking the clock, I suddenly feel the remnants of sleepiness in my head disappear.

"DADA?" I call out to my AI brother, of sorts.

"Yes?"

"How can it be nine already? You told me you'd wake me up as soon as you were done with the preparations!"

It's impossible to tell because he doesn't have, y'know, a face, but I get the feeling my brother is rolling his eyes at me. "And I would have. As it happens, I'm not done yet."

I raise an eyebrow. Now that is surprising. Yesterday me and DADA found out that our father… well, my father and his creator if you want to get anal retentive about it, had left behind even more surprises for me than I'd been able to surmise. One of those was the existence of a full-fledged, state-of-the-art laboratory of gigantic proportions, devoted entirely to biological research. There he apparently worked on everything from microorganism based bioweapons to animal-human hybridization.

But all that's not important. What's important is that now I need to work on some of those same things, which means I need that lab. And while that's not a problem… seeing as it is, in fact, mine now, you can't just stroll willy-nilly into a bioweapon lab.

DADA's been running diagnostics for hours now, checking to make sure, say, super-smallpox hasn't escaped containment and is covering all surfaces by now. And where he finds any such breaches, he needs to fix them. Only once all that's done can people step in there.

"How long till you're done?" I ask. It shouldn't take very long at all, but again, a lab with stuff this sensitive has untold numbers of protocols that takes even AI a good long while to get through.

"A couple hours. Four tops." He answers immediately. "Processing the protocols is not a problem, with the hardware I'm on I could have done this a thousand times over in two seconds. I have to send in drones to verify what the stationary sensors are telling me, because it's been so bloody long. And there are a few breaches, though nothing serious. I need to fix those before you can go in.

I just nod "Well, take your time. I'm sure I'll find something to do."

Well, I say something, but… I walk towards the shower.

Now here's the thing. When I said that I woke up due to the sound from the shower, I didn't mean the one attached to my room. I meant the one a floor down and three rooms down a corridor. There aren't may downsides to having senses like mine, but this is one of them.

Or is it? I tried to knock on the door, but it was open, which is… okay?

I wonder which of the two it is, even as I tiptoe in. Alex had been living by herself for a while when the whole Grand Central thing happened, and as it turns out, there really is no convincing landlords to let you stick around after the first time the FBI shows up to turn half the building upside down. Even if you're in the FBI yourself. Especially then. And since Alex was here, Natalie's been sticking around because… I dunno, competitive harem nonsense? I'm fully aware of the tropes I'm living in, I just don't happen to care. Why would I, when the results speak for themselves?

Xxx QQ xxx

Such as the vision in front of me. I stare unabashedly at the sight in front of me. It's Alex, a part of my mind notes, even as the rest of my attention is focused on tracing one, specific stream of water as it flows it's way down from her hair, tracing clean across a massive, magnificent pair of tits capped by rose-red nipples, down her side.

Xxx QQ xxx

I walk closer, reaching right up to the shower before I knock. She turns in a flash, eyes widening oh-so-prettily as she looks me from up to down.

"Oh come on. I came all the way down here just to avoid waking you up with the noise. Don't tell me…"

I shrug. "What can I say? Everything about me is unbelievable. And a good thing too! Imagine missing out on something like this!" I finish with a flourish, making a point out of keeping my eyes focused on… not her eyes.

I don't need to see her to know she's rolling her eyes "Oh fuck you, you pervert." The words don't have any vitriol in them, though. But that's irrelevant compared to what I do detect in them.

I look up to meet her eyes. Sure enough, she's got that look on her face. It's hard to describe, but it's the kind that lets me leer at her and say things like "That is the general idea, yes" without it sounding like a line from a B-movie.

Xxx QQ xxx

And then I step into the shower. I smile at her expression, especially enjoying hos she yelps once I close in on her a second later. It turns into a small scream as I take hold of her hair and pull it back sharply, kissing her hard once her lips turn to face me.

At the same time as my other hand settles on her beautiful tits, mauling and kneading them this way and that, I feel her hands wrapping around me, one grabbing tight on the back of my head while the other explores down my chest towards my cock, reaching it through my shorts a moment later.

For over a minute we're just like that, soaking in each other and the water as we explore the deepest depts of ourselves. Our tongues wrestle and struggle, a back and forth that leaves her gasping for breath when we do break.

I move my hand down her back while she gulps in several breaths, settling on her bubble butt of an ass, caressing and kneading it alternatively while my other continues to just touch and pinch the fuck out of her tits. She's starting to say something when I pinch a nipple roughly, making her moan instead. It probably helped that having settle on her ass firmly, I'd pushed in a thumb into her ass at the same time.

I take the opportunity to lean in for another kiss, pushing her all the way to the wall in the process. Compared to the previous one this is an all-out assault, our tongues dancing even as I push, pinch and maul her all the way to her first orgasm.

Only to stop just before she can climax. I move my hands up, ignoring the way hers do their best to keep them there they are. Leaning forward to pin her against the wall better, I capture both her hands in mine, making her bite my tongue angrily as I move them to above her head, holding them there with one hand and moving the other back down her body, making her moan out loud on the way.

It takes her a moment because I keep pressing down, but she breaks the kiss, the expression on her face devastatingly cute in how angry it is.

"What d'you-" her words are interrupted by a loud moan, as my free hand reaches her pussy and slips a a finger inside in a smooth motion.

"Careful now, Alex. Nat's asleep in the next room, just in case you forgot."

Evidently she had, by the look on her face. I don't blame her. My den is next door, and it was there that Natalie had surprised me last night.

My mind is pulled rapidly to the present, as I feel Alex's counterattack. In an impossibly limber move I feel her pull herself up, her toes hooking into my shorts and pulling them down. Stepping out of them I lean low, capturing a nipple between my teeth while inserting a second finger into her gushing cunt.

I look up a few seconds later, enjoying the way she's biting her lips to keep from making a sound. I go to town on her now, licking and biting her tits, fingers working her cunt at the same time. I feel her pleasure building steadily, the remains of her first aborted orgasm relighting until it's all she can do to keep quiet.

Several minutes in, I push my thumb back into her ass, while pinching her clit between my fingers at the same time, hard. I feel her reach her peak, her precum pouring across my hand as her breath hitches… and then I pull away completely, leaving her hanging again.

If she was angry the first time, this time she's raging, judging by the look on her face. I release her hands, leaning in and capturing one breast in both of mine, and just let her do her best to pummel me as best she can.

It's only when her mouth is opening to accompany that with some words that I act, shoving three fingers drenched with her juices into it. It's infinitely amusing to feel her try to say something through them, and even more so to watch her as she calms herself down, lips sucking on my fingers while she licks me clean with her tongue.

Meanwhile I feel one of her newly freed hands settle on my cock, trying to pull my own trick on me as she strokes its length with a feverish need, her other hand holds my hand in her mouth, while her eyes do their best to kill me with a look.

"It's not going to be that easy, I'm afraid." I lean in and mutter close to her ears. I see her expression grow angrier, and feel it when both her hand job and the way she's working my fingers change.

I let her try it, enjoying the way her hand moves across every vein and every side of my cock, and even the way she starts kissing and licking her way down my hands as I pull my thoroughly cleaned hand out of her mouth.

At the same time, I return my attention to her body. While my lips return to her tits, working the other nipple this time, I let my hands explore her. It's a mapping expedition across her body, tracing every muscle and fold of skin, pinching, plucking and pushing at every nerve cluster she has.

Before long she's back on the verge, and this time I feel her preparing for the inevitable let down.

Carefully maintaining her pleasure, I meet her eyes again "Do you want to cum, Alex? D'you want me to fuck you, to bring you to heights you can't even imagine?"

To her credit, she resists for several moments, furiously keeping her expression set. It only makes the moment the fight dies in her eyes all the more exquisite, before she just nods, looking more innocent than she ever did before.

"Then you know what to do. Beg."

Immediately I feel her get angry again, getting ready to say something harsh. I interrupt her again, kissing her hard. This time is the most intense still, a war of biting and pushing that goes on for several minutes. Eventually she pulls back, doing her best to rip my lower lip off with her teeth along the way.

"Just fuck me, you bastard!" she half-moans, because I put in a finger into her cunt while she was saying it.

"Not if you talk like that. Say the magic word, darling." I deliberately inject as much smugness into my tone as possible.

She struggles for a good long while, to give credit where it's due. But then she breaks, just like they all do.

"F-fine. Please, fuck me. Fuck me hard against this wall!"

I make a show out of considering her words, even as my hands keep working, one mauling and kneading her tits while I finger-fuck her with three fingers of the other.

"Nah. I don't think I will. You're not sincere enough."

Her eyes go wide in outrage, a sight that gets me harder instantly.

Then she says it again "N-no. Please, please fuck me. Fuck every one of my holes! MAKE ME YOUR BITCH!" she screams the last but out, desperation pouring from every word.

But that'll do.

In an instant I have her hands back in mine, before turning her around in a flash and pinning them over her head. Something in my mind notes that Natalie has woken up and risen from her bed in the next room, even as I place myself on Alex's entrance, taking a breath. I wait till she's about to say something again before thrusting hard, sheathing myself into her completely.

And then I just stay there, feeling the depths of her pussy for the first time in a long, long while. I know what Kingsman training is like, and Statesman training can't be that different. She came back yesterday, and if I've been able to play with her so easily she can't have managed to get much in way of satisfaction while there.

I pull back out of her, moving as slowly as I can, enjoying the way her cunt muscles do their best to hold onto every inch after excruciating inch. Once only the tip remains I ram it back in, starting a session of proper dicking that has her screaming my name in seconds.

I fuck her hard against the wall, powering through one orgasm after the other, ramming her in the wall hard enough to make the fixtures rattle. Over and over, I feel my rip hammering into her cervix, all the while reshaping, remolding her canal to fit me and me alone.

Before very long I can feel a stirring in my balls, a wave rising from within me.

I hold it back, pulling back to turn Alex around so she's facing me again. She looks as charged up as I feel, kissing me hard yet again. It's a wild, animalistic coupling, resembling more two warring predators than anything like romance.

She only seems to get more charged, impossibly, as we power through her fourth orgasm. She bits my lips hard enough to leave a mark, even as her hips gyrate and push down to match every upward thrust from me.

I'm close now, I can feel it. I abandon all other senses, focusing solely on the sensation. The world falls away, and there's only the primal, wild coupling between me and Alex striving to reach its purpose.

Which makes it all the more surprising when I feel myself interrupted mid-thirst, cock halfway into Alex. Feeling myself get pulled out I meet Alex's eyes, noting her incredible pleasure at having surprised me.

Before I can get any weird thoughts, though, I feel my cock enveloped once more by an infinitely deep well of warmth and wetness, if of a different kind. I look down to see Natalie there, grinning around my cock. Before I can say anything I see her expression grow surprised as her head is pushed forward until tip hits the back of her throat, and then further still until I'm deep in her throat.

I lose myself in the sensation, as he unbelievably talented tongue goes to work on the base of my cock, while she swallows furiously on the shaft in her gullet. About all I notice is the hand on the back of her head, and Alex's smug expression as she pulls it back and plunges it into her own pussy.

From there it's purely a matter of fucking, be it cunts, asses or faces. Once I'm done painting Natalie's insides white switch to Alex's ass, while pushing her head into Natalie's cunt by way of apology. I fuck her ass hard until she's given Natalie a proper orgasm, and that's followed by me crawling Alex over Nat's body, cock still pistoning in and out of her ass, until they end up kissing and I'm switching between asses one after the other, before starting on Alex's pussy.

We fuck on literally every surface in the bathroom, before moving out into the Den attached to it. It all ends almost two hours later with me sitting in my chair, the girls kneeling on either side of it. Alex is currently impaled on my cock, held there by Natalie's hand who's herself sucking first one, then the other one of my balls even as I empty them into Alex.

I grunt as spurt after spurt of cum joins what's already there in her belly, a result of both women having licked each other's cunts and asses clean every time I was done.

Xxx QQ xxx

All in all, it's three hours since I woke up that I'm done being dressed, coincidentally enough, just about the time DADA needed to sort everything out with the base.

"So where is it anyway?" I ask the computer. What? It wasn't relevant till I needed to leave!

"Surprisingly, the location's rather predictable. It's exactly where you want to be if you're doing potentially dangerous biological experimentation."

"Which is…" I ask again. Sometimes the AI can get caught up in his own cleverness.

"Brazil. We're going to the Amazon, Eddie." The words are timed with an alert, telling me the plane is ready. It's a Night Shade this time, since apparently the least noticeable way to the facility is through an underwater tunnel.

"You have the support setup moving in, right?" I ask DADA. Because the lab in the Amazon wasn't the only facility whose information opened up to DADA recently. I apparently have a bunch of ultra high-end yachts turned floating labs, and one of them will be moving down the river Just In Case.

Because it's a research vessel, yes. Thing is, being one of my father's creations, it also carries enough firepower to beat a small navy.

And y'know, with the way things are shaping up for me, you never know when you might need to do just that.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Deep in the Amazon, north-west of the city of Manaus in Brazil lay a hotel, a boutique beacon of civilization for the hardcore jungle expeditioner. It was owned by a Brazilian corporation that had itself been purchased twelve years ago by a larger hotel chain based in Ras-Al Khaimah, UAE, which in turn was a subsidiary of Coronet Hospitality, a company based in the US but registered in the miniscule nation of the Dominion of Barclays in the Bahamas, owned by a gigantic global conglomerate called simply the Kane Corporation.

But the hotel wasn't important. Nor were the companies in the chain of ownership, except one. But even that one was irrelevant for now. What was important was the tunnel that existed underneath the hotel. It started in a fake furnace in the basement of the hotel, going down in a steep decline until it gradually flattened several hundred meters below the surface, well below any possibility of being noticed.

Immediately after it became parallel to the surface, the tunnel opened into a giant cavern, a natural occurrence that had since been modified by man, being fit with doors, computers, and of course, stupid amounts of weaponry and explosives. It led into several further tunnels, each branching off behind sealed doors.

No less than three of those didn't go anywhere at all, at least at first look. If one knew what they were doing, they would find the receiver fitted in the dead-end walls of each of them, and the mechanisms embedded decidedly deeper in the last several meters of the tunnel.

Upon receiving the right command, a constant circuit of electricity maintained through a section of the floor ceases, and the half-a-foot thick roll of fabric, stretched taut and hardened to match metal through the current, abruptly becomes just cloth. Moments later a seam appears in the middle, before the cloth falls into the opening underneath, hanging not unlike a curtain.

Underneath is a smaller chamber, about the size of a standard garage. And just like a garage, there are a few vehicles parked in. Three, to be exact. Each is flight capable, and through pulling in the wings and deploying treads, perfectly land worthy too. But it's their last area of mobility that matters here, as each of the three is also fully submersible, capable of carrying a single person for hundreds of kilometers, thousands if breathing is regulated properly.

Once the rider has walked down the staircase from the tunnel's end above and the cloth ceiling been restored to metal like hardness through current being passed through it again, it can be closed with perfectly ordinary hydraulics built into the walls.

Then the second wall opens, flooding the chamber with water from Rio Negro that rages outside. Into this river the mini-submarine can move out perfectly naturally, detaching the magnetic clamps that hold it in place when not in use.

Once the sub is out and the door closed behind it, it follows the course of the river deeper in the forest, passing well beyond anything man has explored with any frequency, into a world where beasts yet rule and man's reach is limited to some uncontacted tribes.

It needs to be said here that some are less uncontacted than others, though.

One of those is the Shirishama tribe, a collection of several thousand people living in a number of tiny jungle villages located roughly between two tributaries of the mighty river.

The smaller of these tributaries branches out into smaller tributaries of its own. Along one of them, deep below the surface, lies a perfectly ordinary stretch of riverbank. But upon receiving a signal, this riverbank stretches back, panels moving smoothly to reveal a dark, gaping underground mini-river, one dug out by man to be several meters across in radius. Enough for the submarine, but little else. There is no movement of water, because the tunnel is full already from tiny feeding canals up and down the riverbank around the main tunnel.

As soon as the submarine has entered the tunnel's entrance closes immediately, along with the feeder canals. At the same time, immensely powerful pumps get to work, pouring the water from the tunnel back into the river it came from. Moving a fair bit down the steadily draining tunnel, there are several points that have immensely powerful electro-magnets buried barely a few feet away from the water. The submarine can dock with perfect ease at any one of them.

Once it has, there remains only a final identity challenge, before a door opens, and one can step into a hallway laid with mines on every step. On the ceiling and walls, along with the floor several meters ahead of the walker are a multitude of small, skittering spider-legged-drones all pointing vicious looking guns at the walker, with more drones floating in the air doing much of the same.

Every step down the hall, they scan whoever it is walking in. Biometrics, DNA, face, gait… all conceivable tests, and many inconceivable ones, are run not once, not twice, but over and over for as long as it takes someone to walk down the hallway.

Only once that's complete does the door on the inner end open, and the person steps into the inner sanctum of the single most advanced laboratory dedicated to biology possessed by humanity.

"Yes, but where's this fucking Bell thing?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I look up sharply at the alarm, the third so far.

"Yes?"

"You told me to tell you when it was morning."

I blink. Then I look at the screen again, then at my watch.

"It's morning? Already?"

DADA's voice shouldn't be able to display exasperation. I didn't have time for frivolities when I was designing it. But then I guess this is a day for impossibilities, isn't it? "Yes, it's morning. It's the morning of your second day here."

… I think back. I got here, sat down to look through the records, got lost in the security setup… found the Bell, and then the attached terabytes of data in the lab's archives…

"Holy shit, it's morning already."

"Yeah. What are you studying this crazily?"

"I can't help it! This is… all this is unimaginably more advanced than anything I… well…"

"Yeah. You trapped yourself there. Anyway, mind linking me? Air-gapped computer make feel queasy. Imagine seeing a hand just lying there unattended."

… I don't say anything, just plugging in the adapter placed so conveniently close to the computer.

DADA already has control of the lab's facilities, but apparently there are hardcoded protocols that prevent him from just having a drone plug into this computer. I suppose dad had his doubts about the internet. Me, on the other hand… well, let's just say that if DADA ever gets compromised I'm already fucked in so many ways that adding one more wouldn't change anything.

"Oh. Ohh. This is… I mean…"

"Yeah." I just say quietly.

Okay, so let me explain. So far I've been operating in old patterns. I know what science can do, I've watched the movies and read the stories. I just never connected things science can do to things I can do. I mean yes, the brand-spanking new brain this life gave me is the proverbial Formula 1 engine compared to Stephen Hawking's bicycle, but for someone who never managed to do anything beyond halfway decent at any examination in my life, it's not something that can be made use of easily. I try to act, but it's hard to get out of the 'you know you can never be anything more than mediocre' box I've been living in for… well, my whole life.

Meanwhile my father had been riding in a neon-green minivan with swear-word decals, flipping everyone the bird out the window and screaming 'fuck the police'. Not literally, but looking at this stuff, he might as well have.

Forget incremental increase to human capacities. Apparently I can just reactivate the actual fucking dinosaur genes in my DNA, and get my Reptilian game going, just like that. Or I can be a real-life Hugo Danner with the FLAG formula dad reverse-engineered from some guy in the late 60s. Or hey, why not go for the full-fledged 'Newmanity' package, collected from some freaks in Japan he wiped out at around the same time?

I take a deep breath.

This is not something to freak out about. This is something to study. I need to understand all this. I need to master all this. And most of all, I need to, without a shred of hesitation, abuse all of this till it cries Uncle. I'm not the guy who came close to failing a Data Analytics class. I'm the guy who casually recalculated Quantum interlacing vectors while looking for a bag of Cheetos the other day.

"Okay, then." I say out loud, by way of getting DADA's attention.

"Ooh, done having your drama moment?" DADA asks, snarkier than ever before.

I pause. "How could you possibly know what I was thinking?"

"Oh come on. I know what to look for in your face."

… I guess he does.

"Well, you should know what to do, but anyway, rearrange everything for the next month, please?"

"I do. Halfway through already."

"Awesome."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX