Lull Interlude 1
He remembered Ellisberg. The shadows. The fear. The heroes abandoning them to die. His murder of his CO in the interest of self-preservation. Most of all he remembered the monsters. Some almost human but not quite. Others obvious beasts. Some as animals and others with the intellect of a person, albeit a fanatical person worshiping a False-God.
That's what made Empress so problematic. He hadn't been scared, not the way that Emily had, but he was wary about having someone so similar to Nilbog around. It was different when he thought she just had a minor tinker aspect concerning slime cultures and insects, but these 'Zerg' creatures…
Even that could have been workable if Empress hadn't been so… Unpredictable. Somewhere within her was some drive to assert herself and her dominance over her own life, if her name was anything to go on, but it was buried under a pile of deep-seated issues related to the events leading up to and following her Trigger Event. He had spent several timelines interrogating the other Undersiders on their more… tumultuous teammate and more on testing the things that triggered the girl's issues and how they might manifest.
A dozen deaths by dismemberment, four New Ellisbergs, three zombie apocalypses, and a single instance of Empress becoming the Butcher, among other eventualities, later, Thomas Calvert decided that everyone but especially he himself would be happier and safer if Taylor Hebert was either dead or secure in the Birdcage lest something set her off and prompt her to kill them all. The less said about the timeline where she stumbled upon Noelle, the better. Even he had to shudder at the Hell that was unleashed.
Though in three timelines she responded to the stressors he induced by making attempts on her own life, and that did leave him with valuable information on how to go about eliminating her.
Initially, he'd considered sending the Travelers to assassinate her. However, test timelines showed that, while Sundancer was more than capable of inflicting fatal injuries, she was reluctant to do so outside of very specific circumstance and the Travelers tended to suffer heavy casualties. As eliminating Empress tended to alienate the Undersiders or else end with them as collateral damage, such losses were unacceptable.
Besides, he still had aims for the Alcott girl. A carefully crafted package of falsified documents to outrage Hebert just right mixed in with just enough legitimate documents to make it seem real and a powerful narcotic that he knew for sure that she'd never been exposed to, to compromise her judgement for just one second, and the toxic asset had run off to the PRT where between Armsmaster's measures against Empress and Miss Militia's willingness to do what must be done... and apparent dislike for Empress, something to do with the perception that she was trying to milk her Trigger Event to avoid responsibility, it was almost guaranteed that Taylor Hebert would be slain. Even if she were to be captured alive, chances were good that her 'unprovoked' attack on the PRT would burn any sympathy she'd earned from the public and coupled with the extreme circumstances it would be easy for him, as the Interim Director, to have her shipped to the Birdcage without trial. If she didn't take her own life in captivity before then, that is.
It was trivially easy to pull Shadow Stalker aside under the pretenses of talking with her about her obviously falsified report(Thomas found it somewhat comical that Emily for all her paranoia took the words of a convict at face value simply because she happened to be able to passably play the part of a reformed felon,) and steer the conversation in such a way that, four timelines later, Miss Hess was terrified for the safety of her friend, Empress's former friend, and threatening murder if 'that freak' laid a finger on her. That gave him a convenient excuse to bring the girl and her family into PRT Custody 'for the night' and by extension a reason to have the entire Protectorate under one roof 'just in case' and in position to deal with Empress when she arrived to rampage through the building as well as a reason for said attack if anyone asked questions about why she attacked. And thus all of the regularly active heroes in the city would be too occupied to foil his attempt on the Alcott girl.
The best part was that nobody suspected a thing. Idly, Thomas wondered if he should take up the fiddle as he was quite good at playing people like it.
And that was how he found himself sitting in the securest room in his lair, watching a feed of the PRT's security cameras on a multi-monitor set up, while giving instructions via radio to a team of Tinker-Tech armed mercenaries who were pursuing the Alcott girl. In one timeline, he watched as Empress stared at her own blood covered hands as she kneeled over Miss Militia's mutilated corpse. Armsmaster stood behind her, his nanothorn weapon at the ready. The camera wasn't close enough to see the expression on his half-face, but the swing of his halberd did more than enough to show his anger at the death of his comrade.
Thomas smiled at the irony of Empress dying at Armsmaster's hands. Mister Wallace had taken great offense at the implication that the measures he was creating to neutralize her were meant to be lethal. Once it had been determined that the situation had escalated due to misunderstandings, he had been the one who suggested that the girl be offered probationary Wardship at Quarantine Zone 3 where her creations could roam free and she could do good by helping to contain and destroy the Machine Army. And yet...
It was then that the squad-leader of his deployed Mercenaries called in. "Boss, we've got the girl. She gave us a surprisingly good chase, but we've got her sedated in the back of the van."
"Bring her in."
"Copy that."
In the other timeline, a feed showed Empress, Armsmaster, and Triumph talking before the door that led to the office the Barnes were in, Empress oddly calm… It seems that some fluke had defused the situation.
The radio clicked on. "Boss, we lost track of the kid. Fork in the road, as instructed I am calling in for directions."
Rather than reply, Coil simply decided to drop that timeline-a total victory in the other gave him no reason not to.
And then he felt the barrel of a pistol at the back of his head and hard the clicking of revolver's hammer being pulled back. But only in the timeline where Dinah was his and Empress was dead. His self-control allowed him to avoid showing surprise as he stood and turned to face the his hands in a false surrender.
"If you collapse the other timeline," a woman's voice declared, "I will kill you. If you collapse this timeline before I conclude my business with you, my counterpart in the other will find you and she will kill you. Do you understand?"
Thomas nodded, and the gun was pulled back. Slowly and calmly he stood and turned to face the intruder while in his failed timeline he carefully left the room and made for a room where he kept an emergency backpack filled with supplies he'd need if he ever had to flee town in a hurry.
In the timeline where he was threatened, he saw his attacker to be a Mediterranean woman, dressed in an expensive suit and with a stylish fedora settled neatly upon her dark hair. She was standing in the corner of his locked room as though she were not at all out of place.
In that timeline, he spoke to her. "To what do I owe this visit?" Cauldron's Enforcer was in his presence but only in a single timeline. Whatever the reason, the why of that was information he would need.
"You are aware that the most powerful precognitive powers in the world belong to us," she said. Clearly referring to the organization to which she belonged.
"Yes," he answered.
"Then I'm going to explain to you why, exactly, you are going to collapse this timeline so that the other, where you fail in tonight's endeavor, becomes real."
Thomas, imperceptible to the woman due to his mask, blinked. "And why would I do that?"
Then, in the timeline where he was victorious, his radio clicked back on. "Boss, we've got a situation! Empress's creatures-"
And then the feed cut off.
"She isn't dead," the woman said, "it takes more than a simple decapitation, even by a molecular weapon, to slay her and Armsmaster isn't aware that he needs to finish the job." That was rather unsettling news. It almost chilled his blood. "Unfortunately her subconscious drive to live outweighed her conscious desire to die, triggering her creations to come and retrieve her body so that it could be repaired. However, without her to guide them and no previous orders to fall back on, the creatures defaulted their primal instincts: To consume and evolve," she said evenly, with no show of emotion. "Every living thing that is not them will be killed for biomass and inorganic structures will be torn apart for chemicals and minerals. They will expand and this city will be a second Ellisburg by the morning light-Do not drop this timeline until I finish my explanation."
Thomas was cowed from doing so, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know what other reasons there might be, as New Ellisburg was one of the reasons he'd arranged her death in the first place. If the news that Empress still lived in this timeline had nearly chilled his blood, that the understanding of what he was potentially responsible for made it run cold in full.
"At this moment, the girl is dreaming semi-lucidly," the woman continued. "Brooding over Miss Militia's death. The creatures will, within 24 hours, have retrieved and completely recreated her body. She will awaken, more powerful than ever for having adapted to this night's events, to find her friends and family dead and they along with countless innocents to allow her rebirth. She will be convinced that everyone was right and that she was a monster-she'd establish a self-imposed quarantine, creatures far more varied and powerful than those you have seen, to keep others away from her, safe from the monster. But she would fail to keep the Slaughterhouse Nine out-I am not finished yet, Mister Calvert."
It took every bit of self-control he had in his body to avoid shaking. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know what Cauldron's precognitives said would happen after that. He also wanted to know how she knew he was prepared to drop the timeline. Was Cauldron's enforcer a precognitive?
"In her mental state," the woman continued, unknowing or uncaring of his preference for ignorance, "Empress would easily fall victim to Jack Slash's manipulations and be led to embrace her nature as a monster… Which she would start by infecting the Nine and transforming them into creatures like her own." The woman paused, and Thomas couldn't help but ponder on that scenario. "With Bonesaw's expertise, Empress and her creatures would grow in power before marching on Ellisberg and consuming Nilbog and his creations and with the nature of Nilbog's goblins added to her own monstrosities Empress would expand out and the world would drown in Zerg. Our precognitives estimate a year at most. Then she would begin to push further, into Earth Aleph and beyond on a conquest of the Multiverse."
"Then I have no choice," Thomas replied coldly. "If it's between accepting failure or dooming the human race to extinction."
"If it consoles you," the woman continued, "you will be able to truthfully say that you have at least once in your life done the right thing at your own expense."
"What will become of me?"
The woman blinked, before continuing, in the same even tone as before. "You will live." A rectangular portal appeared behind her. "A word of advice. Tattletale will email you soon in the other timeline. Your life will be far more pleasant in the long term if you heed her words and follow her instructions to the letter… You will need the evacuation bag you're heading for, but not for at least a few more hours." She then stepped, backward, into the portal, which closed as she vanished through it.
With a sigh, Thomas collapsed the timeline and radioed in. "Apologies, there was an issue on my end. What is your status?"
"The mutant freak you've got working for you teleported in and kicked our assess," someone who was not the squad leader said. "She took the girl down into the sewers… We'd better be getting paid extra for this shit."
Of course. After relaying platitudes and instructions, he altered his course from his current destination to an office and checked for this message that Tattletale was due to send him, finding that he'd received it just as Cauldron's enforcer left.
Dear Thomas Calvert AKA Coil AKA several other aliases listed in an attached document.
I will be frank: I am aware that you sold us out to Empire Eighty-Eight, leading to our capture shortly before the final confrontation, and arranged for the attack on the home of one Brian Laborn that resulted in the death of his father. I suspect the Empire Goons you paid off were meant to kidnap Aisha Laborn, to give you another chip to better control us.
I am also aware that on this night you delivered a composition of forged PRT Documents that took advantage of one Taylor Hebert's fears and insecurities to launch an attack on the PRT. It is only by the fact that the situation resolved itself peacefully and that the zerglings are surprisingly good at charades that your remaining lifespan is not measured in hours...
It was humorous, in a dark way, that his pet Thinker was more right than she knew.
...If you'll check your various bank accounts, you will find most of them empty and closed. Simply put, all of your assets, liquid, as well as your various real and shell business, now belong to me and if there's any justice in the world then I will be sitting naked in a bathtub of what was until recently your money at the moment you read this missive.
I have left you with enough money to establish yourself elsewhere. If you have not vacated the city within 72 hours of receiving this message, we will find you and we will feed you to the zerglings. Feet first.
Love, Tattletale.
Ps. It's not fun when the gun is pointed at your head, is it?
As instructed, Thomas checked his bank accounts… Tattletale had missed a few, namely the ones with which he paid the Travelers… He'd do it. He'd leave town, as instructed, but he'd taken great care to keep Tattletale from learning that the Travelers were under his employ and thus he should be able to continue to keep Noelle contained and the Travelers on his payroll if only to keep an eye on things for him here.
He'd leave…. But first, he had a parting gift for the Undersiders. Even if it was in his best interests to leave, his pet Thinker needed to be punished for her insolence.