Part 9 - All Things Must Die
Chapter 153 - Secrets Worth Stealing
The coalition was on the clock. With the TVA alerted, it was likely only a matter of time before they launched an attack. Edward drummed his fingers on his desk aboard the flagship of Sol Galactic Command: SGC Nighthawk. His top scientists, Stanley and Lisa, were working around the clock to try and enlarge the narrative-jumping technology. They'd had a recent breakthrough and the first prototype was almost ready for fitting aboard the Nighthawk. The admiral's thoughts were broken as his office door opened. Miles walked in with his shoelaces untied and wearing a pair of shorts and hoodie.
"Hey man." He said.
Edward looked the spider up and down then motioned for him to sit.
"I'd tell you off for not wearing something a bit smarter, but you're not on the Sol payroll."
"If I was paid for being Spiderman, I wouldn't have needed a literal God to buy me and Gwen a house."
"The hazard pay would be pretty good. Maybe you should ask the government for something?"
"Nah. Helping people is good enough. And if I was on someone's payroll they'd start putting rules on me and that might get in the way of saving lives."
"I do wonder how you haven't received a life-changing injury yet."
"I guess I have good contacts with good medical care. And I heal faster than normal people."
"Imagine having to have health insurance."
"I don't have to imagine."
"No, but I do. So do the rest of us here in 9559."
"Lucky."
"I never understood how people could put up with having to pay to have your life saved. You can't control if you have a heart attack or not."
"Nope. Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?"
"Right. I have a mission for you. You might not like it, but this is war. We can't pick and choose."
"Am I going back to the TVA?"
"Yes."
"Oh crap."
"You're going alone this time, and you won't be leaving any C4 lying around either. You can go invisible and stay that way."
"Great. Gwen will be so happy." Miles replied sarcastically.
Edward reached into a drawer and pulled out some sort of USB stick which he placed on the desk between the,
"This thing has one-hundred and twenty-eight brontobytes of storage. That's enough to download the internet in your world at least twenty times."
"That's a lot of cat videos."
"Indeed, but that's not what you're using it for. You're going to go to the TVA, find somewhere to download as much information as you can, and do just that. Plug this in and it'll get to work."
"You make it sound easy."
"If you stay invisible, it should be. This mission is off the books since we're starting to think about possible TVA spies, so don't even tell Gwen. Put your suit on and make an excuse."
"Charlotte will suspect something."
"I'll let you work that out."
"Gee, thanks."
Miles picked up the USB stick and looked it over.
"Good luck." Said Edward.
"I'll need it. Tell Odahviing, or whatever that dragon's called, to be ready to get me out again."
"I leave that to your holy son. Oh, I almost forgot the most important part."
"That's not good."
Edward picked up one of the heavy-duty briefcases and placed it on the desk, opened it and handed Miles a narrative watch.
"No excuses for not getting this done, now."
"I do my homework."
"That's not what your school report says."
Miles raised his eyebrows.
"You read my school reports?"
"I read reports on everybody who walks through those doors. I like to know who I'm dealing with, and a movie isn't a reliable representation. Too caught up on telling a story, not enough realism."
"I'm gonna forget I heard any of that."
"As a 'superhero', do that and keep doing a good job. Good luck."
Miles threw on his spider suit and stuck the USB stick in a slot on the wrist. He replaced his usual interdimensional goober with the narrative-leaping gizmo. He leaned on the barrier of the raised walkway that led to the stairs between the bottom and top floors of the penthouse.
"Hey Gwen."
She looked up from her phone.
"Yeah?"
"I'm gonna head out and do some Spiderman stuff."
"OK. I guess our world needs some attention. Be careful."
"You know me. Careful is my middle name."
"Miles, you're pretty much the definition of reckless. Sometimes it makes me wonder why I stress myself out by loving you."
He shrugged.
"You're probably right. I love you. See you later."
"I love you too, Miles 'Careful' Morales."
"If I'm not back by the end of the day, I'm probably pulling a long shift at the camp."
"OK. Good luck."
Miles walked out onto the balcony, put his mask on and leapt off. From this height he could see the camp he'd said he was going to. It had been set up to house the people who's homes were destroyed in the fight with the Scarlet King. He did truly wish he had a bit more time to help out there, but the place seemed to be holding up OK without him. Plus, if he didn't help with the war with the TVA, it might not exist much longer. He swung away towards it in case Gwen was watching him out the window, but as soon as he was out of view of the penthouse he dropped to the ground and set the narrative watch up. With a long tap, he was catapulted to the TVA.
Things were still a little messy after Odahviing's rampage, but it seemed it was mostly business as usual. Miles turned invisible as soon as he arrived, paranoid about being spotted. He looked around, trying to work out where to go to find a computer. They must be everywhere, right? He started walking and came to a door on the other side of which was a balcony overlooked an enormous drop. On every single floor were rows upon rows of shelves. He sighed, hoping there were electronic copies of all these files. Suddenly, as he was turning round, he spotted the woman who had questioned him and Charlotte. She seemed pretty high up; surely she'd have a computer with access to all the information. He followed her as she browsed the files. Finally, she stopped and pulled one out. She checked the label on it then turned towards Miles. He leapt on top of the shelf to avoid a collision, causing it to wobble. The woman stopped and looked at it, frowning. After a few seconds, she continued on her way to a table. Miles climbed down carefully, but leapt onto the roof so he could read the file she was looking at. It was information on a 'variant' of someone called 'Loki', but went by the name 'Sylvie'. He knew a little about Loki, and the name Sylvie had come up in the discussions about the TV show Liam and Michael had given him. He hadn't watched it himself, instead choosing to spend the time with Gwen. Miles' chain of thought was interrupted as the woman stood up, returned the file and set off along the length of the balcony towards a corridor, passing some slightly smaller versions of the three statues Charlotte had suggested blowing up on the previous visit.
The woman eventually entered an office and Miles just managed to slip in the door before it closed. The room had shelves on either side, a couch and coffee table in the middle and a grand desk at the far end. Behind that were more of the three statues. Miles was beginning to wonder who they were of, but his attention was more on what was on the woman's desk: a computer. It looked quite old, but he spotted a USB port nonetheless. Now all that was left was to wait for the woman to leave. That looked like it was going to take a while. He wanted to sit down, but the couch was soft so he'd make a noticeable imprint. He leaned against one of he shelves, admiring some of the things on it including some trophies, a couple of swords and…a framed newspaper article about a Peter Parker being killed? It made sense; the TVA was supposed to stop alternate realities. If Peter Parker was supposed to survive in them and be somewhat normal, any worlds where he wasn't would be perceived as an alternate reality and destroyed. It hurt Miles a little, though. Why was Peter Parker supposed to be the ultimate Spiderman? Why not him? Why couldn't it be Gwen? Who had the right to decree what was correct and what wasn't? He shrugged it off; who cared?
It took nearly an hour, but finally the woman got up and left again. Miles took his chance and went straight for the computer. He stuck the USB drive in and a box appeared on the screen showing progress. Suddenly, the door opened and a man with grey hair and a moustache appeared. Miles froze suddenly aware he'd turned visible. The man spotted him and frowned.
"Who are you?"
"I'm the…err…IT guy."
"What is up with your clothes? That's not very good fashion for a desk job."
"It's one of the guy's birthdays and he wanted us to have a costume party."
The man nodded.
"Have you seen Renslayer?"
"Err…no, I haven't. Should I tell her you were looking for her?"
"It's OK. I'll find her. Say happy birthday from me."
"Will do."
The man left again. Miles took a deep breath, certain he'd got away with it, but he returned a second later.
"What did you say your name was again?"
"Mil…o Mor…ris. Milo Morris."
"Have a good day, Milo."
Miles decided not to get too relaxed this time. 'Milo Morris'? He could have come up with a better name than that.
Miles spun around in the desk chair as he waited for the USB stick for finish its job. It was just about a quarter of the way there when the door opened again. In walked a security squad with the woman.
"Oh crap." He muttered.
"Mr Morris, you are not authorised to be in here."
"Oh. I was asked to fix this computer. Apparently it was running really slowly."
It wasn't a complete lie; the machine could certainly do with speeding up.
"We know who you are, Miles Morales."
Miles groaned in his head. Of course the woman recognised him. It had probably only been a few hours for her since he'd escaped.
"Maybe we can talk this out?" He suggested.
He just needed to buy the computer time to get more information. The woman, who he now realised must be Renslayer, was having none of it.
"Surrender yourself. You will be pruned."
"No thanks. I'm good."
The security squad closed in, batons ready.
"Guys, come on. Chill out. I didn't call the dragon."
"You are charged with violating the Sacred Timeline." Said Renslayer.
Miles shook his head.
"You guys started it when you tried to 'prune' my reality. Any chance you could tell me who it was that tipped you off and we can stop the fighting before it turns into a full-on war?"
"Your reality violated the Sacred Timeline. It had to be pruned. You had no authority to fight back."
"That's like saying I can't fight back when someone tries to burn my house down."
"Would you fight back if the police tried to arrest you?"
Miles wondered how to answer that to argue his case, and settled on:
"No. But I'm not white so they'd probably shoot me the second I twitched a muscle, and you can't fight back if you're dead."
"You will be pruned, and your reality will be next."
He gave up diplomacy at this point.
"OK, let's do this the hard way."
He ducked down low and tackled one of the security guards to the ground, wrenching their baton away from them and jabbing the glowing end at them. They suddenly turned to nothingness. Miles hadn't thought about that. He threw the weapon away and jumped onto the roof, webbing another of the guards up with him. One of the guards looked at the computer and spotted the USB stick. They pulled it out.
"Maam, look at this!" They said.
Miles webbed it and pulled it up to him.
"Nope, I need that."
One of the others tried to throw the sharp end of their baton at him, but it buried itself in the roof quite a way away. Miles dropped down, ducked under a swipe and started running. As he burst out the room and skidded round a corner, he started looking for somewhere to stop and sort his watch out. He had to go to at least Michael and Liam's narrative, otherwise he'd likely be lost. It was impossible to travel between parallel dimensions: you had to go up to the parent dimension and back down into the parallel one you wanted to go to. At this point the entire TVA headquarters was on alert. An orange rectangle appeared in front of him and a squad of soldiers appeared from it. He stopped just short and leapt over the edge of the balcony in an attempt to avoid the bullets that came for him. As he fell, he started to sort his watch, but had to avert his attention back to running as he neared the bottom. He fired a web and swung onto the ground floor smoothly, crashing through a set of doors. He glanced up and yelled:
"Now would be a great time to send a dragon, Max!"
Sadly, it seemed the dragons were otherwise engaged as none appeared. Miles' spidey sense alerted him to imminent danger and he jumped to the side in time to avoid a hefty punch from some sort of mech suit. It took a few seconds to recover, and in that time he managed to set up another digit on his watch. The soldiers and security guards had him cornered now, though, so he decided to use the old venom strike. He charged it up, hoping it wouldn't fry his watch. The soldiers backed away, but most were still blasted by the electricity. It gave him time to put one more digit in; only one more to go. He jumped behind a plant and started to set it, but bullets shredded the shrub in moments. As he leapt out to try and escape, he yelled:
"That's terrible gardening!"
The mech thundered after him, but it didn't seem to have any weapons except a pruning device and a metal fist. Miles looked down at his wrist as he ran, frantically turning the knob to set the last number. Finally it was done: the numbers turned green as he pressed the knob to confirm it. He held his finger to the screen and was catapulted away from the TVA.
Michael and Liam had just finished cleaning their flat when there was a tremendous bang. Miles groaned as he pulled his mask off and lay on the ground, sweat running down his face and gasping for breath.
"You alright there?" Asked Liam.
Miles nodded and gave a thumbs up, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.
"Need an ice pack? The school nurses say they can fix anything." Asked Michael.
"No. I'm…good. Just need to…catch my breath."
"Well feel free to quite literally crash here anytime you like." Liam joked.
After a few minutes, Miles apologised for the intrusion and returned to his own narrative, straight aboard the SGC Nighthawk. An alarm blared and he was surrounded by a security team.
"Halt! Identify yourself!"
"I'm a friendly. Sorry if that's the intruder alarm, but I've got something for Admiral Melbourne."
Edward appeared a moment later with his hand on a pistol. He relaxed and stood the security team down when he saw who it was. The spider and admiral made their way to the latter's office where the former handed over the USB drive.
"I couldn't get everything. I got a bit more by stalling with some line about being shot by police for not being white, though."
Edward raise his eyebrows, then shrugged.
"Unfortunately you're probably right. If you were wanted by the police, someone would likely shoot you for not being white. Whether being Spiderman would make that more or less likely is a subject for debate, but it's not the point. It's the disgusting way some people work, I'm afraid."
"Yeah. Is racism still a problem in your world?"
"Sadly, yes. And I doubt it will ever stop being a problem. There'll always be someone who can't get their head around us all being the same race: human. Always someone going on about 'bloody foreigners' stealing jobs. They're only foreign because someone drew a line on a bit of paper and they happen to be from the other side of it."
"Alright, I don't need a lecture."
"Sorry. I like going on about things too much."
"I can tell."
"But hey, at least you've worked up a sweat. No need to hit the gym today."
"Oh yay. By the way, they've got mechs."
"Those weren't in the TV show."
Miles took off the narrative watch and handed it over.
"It might be a bit singed; I used a venom strike with it on."
"No worries. Go and have a rest; you deserve it."
Crossovers in this Chapter
- Loki