Part 9 - All Things Must Die
Chapter 154 - Temporary Patch
With a few days free, Miles and Gwen spent some time helping out at the survivors' camp. At the end of those days off, Miles reluctantly returned to Edward's office aboard the Nighthawk at the admiral's request. When he arrived, he was surprised to find the Spider Gang and Miguel all there.
"What's happening?"
"No idea." Peter replied.
Edward walked through the door with a heavy-duty briefcase in one hand and a futuristic iPad in the other. He set them down and and sat at the desk.
"What I'm going to tell you now has been agreed as classified."
"By who?" Asked Miguel.
"By the coalition leaders. If any of you leaks any of this, I'll have your head."
"That serious, huh?" Commented Spiderham.
"Indeed."
The admiral tapped his iPad screen a little and the office window turned into a screen displaying the first slide of a powerpoint.
"This looks very official." Peter murmured.
"Enough of the quips, all of you. Miles, you will remember Liam told you somebody had been hacking his account on some fanfiction website and adding more chapters?"
"Yeah."
"Some Sol and 9578 tech guys took a look and managed to find some traces of who it was. It wasn't much, but it narrowed it down to outside that narrative. Miles, again, you then went and retrieved some information from the TVA which has been analysed. One of the files was an email, which after it was decrypted was discovered to be the email providing the TVA with their anonymous tip-off about our reality."
Edward changed the slide and it showed a neatly laid out text document.
"This email had the same traces left on Liam's account, and it had an email address. That address is only registered in a single narrative and it links a lot of dots. Our anonymous tip-off is no longer anonymous."
"Who was it?"
"I'm sure some of you remember Null, or Miles will at least. The last we heard from them was after the resident High Elder God detonated Yellowstone in a slightly over-dramatic revenge move. It was Null who tipped off the TVA. Why: we can only speculate for now. The reason I'm telling the six of you this is because I need someone to scout out the condition of his world. Depending on the scale of the Yellowstone eruption, it's likely the environment will be extremely hostile, making it too dangerous to send normal people through. I have six narrative watches, four of which are the older generation and require disks. Don't make this mission any messier than it already is: get in, take some notes and pictures, and get out. Is that clear?"
"Yes." The spiders replied.
"Good. Unless there are any questions, I need this done ASAP. Good luck."
Gwen was still out helping at the camp, and Grace and Aaron were likely in their bedrooms waiting for someone to arrive with a solution to their glitching problem. With the main area of the penthouse empty, the spiders gathered there. Miles taught them how to use the narrative watches and they suited up. Confident in their abilities, they warped.
"Phew, talk about eggs and bacon." Spiderham commented as the spiders arrived in the narrative once known as Minus Zero.
The smell of rotten eggs made it almost impossible to breathe. What looked like grey snow was falling from the sky which was almost pitch black except in some spots on the horizon where the clouds glowed red. The red glow was the only light and it made the spiders look like they were in a horror movie.
"Looks like it wasn't just Yellowstone that exploded." Mused Miguel.
Miles pulled his mask off, fighting for enough air. The only one unaffected was Peni who's robot likely featured some sort of climate control.
"You guys sit here. I'll do the work." She said.
"Yeah. Do that. That'd be great." Peter replied, sliding down against a volcanic rock.
There was silence for nearly a minute, then Noir said:
"Looks like your kid was a bit crazier than you thought."
It was aimed at Miles. He hadn't thought of it like that.
"Maybe it wasn't all him? Maybe Yellowstone made the Earth's plates unstable or something?" He suggested, not sure he could believe even a cold version of Max would do this. Then again, the God had proven his thirst for blood with how little mercy he showed the Inheritors.
"That's not how geology works." Replied Miguel.
"I can see why Null wanted revenge. Our narrative destroyed his, so he asked the TVA to return the favour." Said Peter.
Peni returned to the group.
"I have everything Edward wanted. Let's go home before you guys suffocate."
Edward was surprised at how quickly the spiders returned. He scrunched up his nose as he took the hard drive Peni held out to him.
"Jeez. You should probably all hit the showers. I take it you went in near Yellowstone."
"It's all on the drive." Replied Peni.
"Good. Go wash up, then I want Miles back here."
"Uh oh." Miles answered.
"You aren't in trouble, and it's not another mission. You can bring Gwen, if you'd like. Who you definitely need to bring, however, are your uncle Aaron and Grace."
"Will do."
While Miles was waiting for Gwen to get back from the camp, he had a chance to talk to Grace.
"Hey, can we talk about Max?"
"Sure. By the way, if you plan to say we can't get married, I doubt he'll care."
"No, it's nothing like that. Your relationship is your business. It's about what he did to Null's narrative."
"You remember, huh?"
"Err…sure. Yeah."
"What's there to talk about?"
"Why'd he set off Yellowstone? It was a single organisation that made a mistake and wouldn't accept it. He's cold sometimes, I know, but not that cold. At least I thought."
Grace drummed her fingers on the balcony railing as she thought.
"Max always said he had two regrets: not going back in time and ending Kharahk sooner, and that. The former I'm sure he'll get around to at some point. The latter…it was cold. Very cold. But then he'd just spent one-and-a-half billion years on top of Mount Everest in complete isolation. He barely remembered his own name. It took some time to remember how society worked, and how morals work too. He killed a lot of people, but he'd never repeat it nowadays. He'd always find a way to only hurt those accountable."
"What about not hurting people? Why not throw someone in prison instead?"
"He always said the spider people would never adapt to survive in the multiverse. There are people you cannot stop with some webs and a spider sense. Take the Borg, for example. They assimilate billions on a daily basis. You couldn't go and find a gang boss to throw in prison and end it with them. You'd have to cause the mass extinction of them, which in all honesty might not be such a bad thing in their case."
"So he kills because he thinks he has to?"
"He kills because he knows he has to. The multiverse won't kick its feet up and wait for you."
Miles was suddenly aware of a dragon hovering nearby and Grace realised a moment later.
"What can we do for you?" She asked it.
"Zu'u dreh ni mindok. [I do not know.] But Dei Volente will return soon."
"Tell him to hurry up."
"I do not speak to Dei Volente, only he to me. Pruzah wundunne. [Good travels.]"
It turned and flew away.
"I'll take that as a sign to stop talking about Max." Said Miles.
"Maybe, or he's seen I'm alive and wanted someone to check I was OK."
"It's a bit pointless if they can't tell him."
"If you were stuck somewhere and worried about Gwen, wouldn't you send someone to check on her even if they couldn't tell you they'd helped? It's psychological."
"I guess. And speak of the…not the devil. That's a bad phrase for her."
"What's a bad phrase for me?"
Gwen asked, landing on the balcony.
"'Speak of the devil'."
"Oh. Yeah. Right. Where we going?"
"To see Edward. He wanted Uncle Aaron and Grace, but he said you could come along and I figured you'd like a break."
"I think we all would."
As soon as Miles arrived with everyone, Edward took the four to a room where they were teleported to a facility on planet Earth itself.
"Welcome to R&D facility eight, aka Stanley and Lisa's hideout. Remember them, Miles and Gwen?"
"Sorta."
The admiral stopped outside a door and tapped the panel next to it to open it. Inside was a large room, at the centre of which was the bell-shaped chamber from the Nazi bunker. Stanley was working on something at a table at the edge of the room. He turned at the sound of the door opening and stood up to greet his guests.
"Hi! Welcome!"
Gwen was staring at the bell with a puzzled look.
"Are you alright?" Miles asked.
"Yeah. Just…wondering what it's doing here."
"An excellent question." Said Stanley, overhearing it. "After the kerfuffle in the bunker, we had this moved here to study what it was."
"Why not just leave it where it was?" Asked Grace.
"Let's just say I don't think the SS would have sat around letting people rootle around in their wunderwaffe facility."
"Fair enough."
"What is it?" Asked Aaron.
"It's a battery for storing temporal energy. There's one of these in your dimension jumping watches, just a lot smaller. The purpose it served for the Nazi's is unclear, but for the Empress its purpose was clear: to stabilise the glitching to a degree. It was never a permanent patch; it was likely she planned to trick Maximilian when he returned. However, we have managed to adapt the technology for ourselves. Now we can help the good guys."
"You want to put people in that?" Gwen asked, getting worried she was about to be tied up in it again.
"Goodness, no. It's a death trap. The new solution is much safer, albeit still a temporary patch until Maximilian get's back."
"He's taking his time with that." Aaron muttered.
"Cut him some slack. He blew off enough of his power to destroy an entire dimensional stream. It only didn't because it was directed at Khahrahk." Grace replied.
Stanely nodded, then beckoned for them all to follow him. They went behind the bell and came to a door in the wall into which he typed a code and it hissed open. Inside were two suits built to fit Aaron and Grace.
"These are what we call Void Suits. They're only prototypes, so come and see me or Lisa if there are any hiccups. They should stop the glitching while you're wearing them, then Maximilian can fix you when he comes back."
Grace admired the one for her. It was completely black with a few light blue lines on it.
"These are kinda cool. I mean, they're not superhero suit cool, but I like them."
"If you wish to change the pattern on it, come and see me and Lisa."
After trying the suits on, and them proving effective at stopping the glitching, Edward accompanied the group back to the penthouse. Grace and Aaron disappeared to do their own thing leaving the two spiders with the admiral. The trio sat down on the couches.
"I want you to know we're on the verge of entering the next stage of the war with the TVA. If all goes well, they'll be wiped out soon and we can move on to dealing with the tip-off."
"So you cracked the size problem with the narrative watches?" Asked Gwen.
"Yes, we did. Or we think we did. The prototype drive is being fitted to SGC Arachnid as we talk. Of course, with this there'll be new missions and Miles might be away from home for a couple of weeks."
"I can look after myself."
"I'm aware. I'm just putting it out there in case you get a 'sorry for your loss' letter."
"What sort of missions?" Asked Miles.
"Going behind enemy lines and wrecking havoc, mostly. That and you might be needed to help Michael and Liam who are looking into the tip-off some more."
"Right."
"Anyway, I shall leave your family in peace for the moment. What's happened to Charlotte, by the way?"
"She's been helping at the camp. She got sick of sitting around with me all day." Gwen replied.
"OK. She'll be needed too, so find her and make sure she's ready when the time comes."
"Will do."
Crossovers in this Chapter
- Loki
- Skyrim