CH12 - The Eye

— — —

"Just be warned", you said. "Some day you will ask me to give up something I really love, and then it's going to get ugly." - David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary

— — —

Life was risk. All you could do was calculate it, mitigate it.

It was unfortunate that Sabah walked away. There was a possibility that she would repeat what she had been told, but the potential damage was limited. It was also very, very unlikely.

After all, what could be more stressful than telling the PRT your collaborator— if only in art— attacked their convoy? We'd done business, and that business would be at risk, profits she'd likely already spent, her reputation might be stained. She had already agreed that what had been done to Paige seemed unjust. It naturally followed that she might be treated unjustly. Forced into the Protectorate, perhaps? There was a persistent rumor of that sort of thing. I doubted it could happen, but if she saw things as I did this wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

It was necessary. All truth would out sooner or later, especially if I had elected to extend to her the biomods and cyberware that would prevent someone from being permanently killed. If she couldn't handle who I was, what I might do, it was better to know now. Before I revealed anything truly sensitive.

Plus, frankly? I didn't like lying. It made life far too complicated.

Lisa… she was a simple girl. Obviously, she didn't like the killing, but did she care enough to make some kind of moral stand? I doubted it.

I couldn't deny I was upset by Sabah's reaction, even though I expected it. I did like the girl. Truth be told, I had my own doubts about what I'd done. Not because I cared about the PRT troopers, but because it was obviously a problem.

In retrospect, maybe I should have claimed to receive Canary from a third party? No. It wouldn't have worked. Lies would stack and eventually she would know, and the loss would be greater— for I did not regret attacking the convoy, but I would regret lying to a friend. Nonsense hair-splitting morality, perhaps, to allow silence but forbid lies?

Regardless, it was too late.

I wasn't used to having to justify my actions, to be honest.

In that world of tomorrow, people came to me, not the other way around. They didn't feel obliged to share their opinions on my life choices, and I would have had no reason to care.

What a mess.

I massaged my forehead with one hand.

[Skitter is approaching the entrance.]

Great. More problems.

"Paige, could you step out for a minute?"

— — —

"What do you mean, you're out!"

"Stop shouting," Lisa said. "I mean I quit. I've got a better deal, okay?"

"You don't look like it," Skitter said dubiously. "Coil reached out to Grue. He said you'd been kidnapped by Epsilon. I thought it sounded weird, so I told the others to hold off."

"Got your bugs playing messenger, huh," Lisa said. "Look, I found out some stuff about Coil, and I don't want to work for him anymore. If I say any more, you'll be on his shitlist too."

"That doesn—"

[Security alert: The alleged identities of the entire Empire 88 parahuman membership, along with supporting evidence, have been published online. Numerous accounts promptly suggested that the only individuals capable of collecting the information in Brockton are Tattletale and Epsilon. Lastly, this location has been posted, along with photographic evidence of you and Tattletale entering the premises at various times. Posts occurred approximately eighteen minutes ago.]

With a thought, I had the notification replicated across speakers, silencing Skitter and Lisa's argument.

"...Well we're fucked," Lisa said. "It's hamfisted as fuck, but it doesn't matter. The Empire is fucked and they have to do something to somebody."

"Coil did this," Skitter said suddenly.

"Yep."

I sighed.

"Get out of here, Skitter."

She turned to Lisa. Lisa waved at her. "Go, seriously. You don't want to be associated with whatever stupid shit this guy is gonna do, trust me."

Skitter turned to me, her face hidden behind her mask. After a long moment, she sighed. "You better know what you're doing, Lisa."

She made her way out.

"So, uh, boss," Lisa said. "What now?"

"Oh, that's simple," I said. "Leave."

"But—"

I ignored her, and stepped through to the manufacturing floor, leaving the doors open.

Given the attention it had already earned, I had gutted the APC. The body and wheels were recycled, and I installed the technology into a classical, more jeep-like armored shell. The body still looked 'science fiction', but it at least appeared closer to local vehicles. Where the APC had no windows, this had a deeply tinted, two inch thick synthetic sapphire windshield.

The six use-once nanotube geckogrip wheels were a design that I had chosen in part because I would never use them again— a design concept that, in my time, never took off. Instead, I replaced them with four magnetically levitated, spherical tires. The smartmatter surface of the balls changed dynamically in response to the desired path and the terrain data, from barbed spikes on one extreme all the way to continuous gas spray for nominal hovering on the other. In the event of damage, the tire would calculate a new, undamaged circular path around the sphere and immediately rotate it into alignment with the road.

The tires were recessed, with ejectable, three inch thick conventional wheels to reduce attention. A measure to make the vehicle less blatantly "tinkertech" unless maximum performance was required.

The industrial fabrication systems of my base had been gutted as well. Taking Lisa's warning to heart, my fork moved the most important machines and materials away throughout the night. He had taken the Steel-lite drones as well. The only thing here was the base defenses and the APC.

I couldn't help the errant thought: what if Coil had observed some part of that, and it had contributed to this?

Pointless to wonder about now.

A thought had the APC hatch open. I returned to the common room. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah—"

"Get in the APC."

"So comfort, much concern, very okay I'm going I'm going," she said as I reached out, getting off the couch. "No touching, stick to your bird."

Speaking of which.

"Paige, Skitter is gone now," I said, my voice retransmitted through the speakers in the room she was waiting in. She quickly joined me in the main room. "We're moving, come on."

"We aren't packing?"

"No. Leave everything."

[UFO in— Multiple UFOs inbound. Identification in progress.]

Letting it repeat over speakers, I started moving, Paige only hesitating a moment before following. Running into the manufacturing floor, Lisa was only just starting to climb into the APC. I unceremoniously boosted her up, earning a squawk, before jumping and pulling Paige up after me.

[Identified. Glory Girl, ETA three minutes. Rune, ETA four. Crusader, ETA nine. Two additional UFOs inbound.]

The hatch shut, and the APC soundlessly accelerated sideways toward the truck dock, turning to face it just in time. The dock door slid up as the APC flew out, hitting the ground with a brief jolt.

[Disassembler nanoswarms activating now. Chemical self destruct will follow in thirty seconds.]

As the APC continued accelerating down the road, there was a dull rumble. Behind us, the roof of the meat packing plant collapsed. Shortly after, eye-searing yellow light and smoke erupted from the wreckage.

— — —

The question of where to set up had been a big one. Irrational or not, I was loathe to abandon the city I had become so familiar with. Especially by being 'chased out'.

More practically, I didn't want my infrastructure in pieces any longer than it had to be. With only one fork moving multiple shipments out of the city… it would have taken too long. If I had tried that, I could have suffered a much larger setback today.

Access to the ocean, power, internet, able to be reached without suspicion yet not so busy that I couldn't get away with something peculiar…

Just outside of the Boat Graveyard. A condemned warehouse. It met all of those requirements, along with the easy access to raw metals in a pinch.

It didn't solve one fundamental problem.

The base could have held off a legion of ground forces, but that wasn't enough. I had to abandon it because it lacked anti-air. It could not stand to someone like Purity.

I regretted dismantling the railgun.

I would need to build this new facility properly, now that I could do so. Though my materials budget was tighter than ever, the high-end fabbers I had now would slash the time-costs that held me back from more advanced technology before.

The question, then, was what weapons?

"Are we just going to sit in here…"

I looked to Lisa. "Yes. My new base isn't built yet."

"I don't want to sit in a car for like two days," she complained.

"We haven't had a chance to talk," Paige offered. "I'm—"

"Paige Mcabee, mind-fucker extraor— erm." She shrank at my look. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Paige said, her tone somewhat strained.

"Lisa has impulse control issues," I said, triggering a scowl from the girl in question. "She gets herself into a lot of trouble as a result."

"So… how did you two meet?" Paige asked.

"A local supervillain, Coil, made me an offer that was too good to refuse. She showed up as a part of it. Spying on me on his behalf."

"Only a little bit," Lisa said defensively. "I didn't tell him much. Just enough to shut him up."

"I see," Paige said. "And now…"

"She made some… poor decisions, and is stuck living on my couch," I summarized.

"Speaking of which," Lisa said. "I hope there's a proper bedroom for me in your new place, seeing as I've thrown my lot in with your crazy self."

"Oh, you can just join me and Paige." Her expression was priceless. "Yes, Lisa, I have a bedroom for you in the design. A separate bedroom, even."

"A pity," Paige said, eying her speculatively, and Lisa twitched, before scowling at her.

"Ha ha. Very funny."

Paige just gave her a brief grin. "You deserved it."

"My last facility was a bit of a hack job," I said. "This is going to be much better thought out."

"How so?"

"You'll see."

I glanced at the schematic floating in my mind's eye. The warehouse wasn't much bigger than the meat packing plant, but it was significantly taller. There were windows in the roof, but they were opaque plastic panes. They let in sunlight without allowing anyone to see inside.

The industrial machinery I had moved here were set up in the center of the warehouse, powered by a large momentum battery that was in turn charged by the city power grid. A workaround so large bursts of power consumption wouldn't be noticed.

I had already scanned in the physical parameters of the warehouse. I designated the boundaries for modification and requirements, and in an instant Sia populated the schematic. A garage space, murder hallway with concealed heavy door to fab area, antechamber, hallway, common room, more rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, human-sized door to fab area…

Unlike the plant, the warehouse didn't have a link-up type of truck dock, just massive garage doors that opened to a concrete slab high enough off the ground for trailers to open flush to it. Thankfully, an overhang kept rain off workers and, in my case, aerial observation off my business.

I took a few seconds to annotate the plan with more weapon systems, some furniture and stocks of clothing, then confirmed.

[Schematic confirmed. Required components calculated. Available drones and pre-existing fabrications counted, available feedstock indexed… task tree generated. Queuing blueprints. ETA for completion: 29 hours.]

Now we just needed to wait.

I glanced at Lisa.

If it were just me and Paige, I knew a good way to kill the time. Unfortunately, I doubted Lisa would appreciate it.

I'd just have to think of something else for us to do, while Coil was doing his level best to throw everyone in the city in my general direction.

— — —

[Routing cellular communication from contact: Sabah.]

The line was silent for a minute.

"...Henry?"

"Sabah?"

"Your lair was destroyed?"

"I am fine."

"I read that… don't think— I still… no. I shouldn't have called."

"Sab—"

[Call has disconnected.]

— — —

/AN: XANATOOOOOS

/AN: It's a suck plotpoint/move, I know, but it makes sense for Coil. Sure-kill attempts haven't worked, and Henry is moving, and following the trucks fails, and he's out of time so fuck it he was going to release those files anyway… not that anyone is going to take it as hard evidence of Epsilon doing anything. But he did stomp in and wave a gun around at Somer's, and didn't (visibly) join the alliance, and that Tattletale sure is a bitch, and fuck it we do have to be seen doing something to try and keep the E88 from instantly imploding…

Thought about a running battle but it didn't work. Even if he didn't know, Purity wouldn't move unless her baby was stolen… erm.

without the blond exposition machine being w/ the Undersiders

that event

might not end well?

oops