by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings.
The Quantum ManDies foldende Geschicht geschieht in Deutschland, in einem selbstgegruendeten Unternehmen namens… Gesellschaft. Nein? Ach… Warte sie mal, bitte.
English language selected. Starting over. Microphone test… alright. So. Here we are. Sorry about that.
Our story starts in Germany, in one of the fastest-growing start-ups of the moment, named Society. No, wait, it was genuinely named Gesellschaft. Heh. Why not.
This enterprising society, Gesellschaft, was established by another one of those visionary like Earth Aleph ordinarily boasts – those with ordinary names, even, like Jobs, Gates, Musk… all of them taking insane risks, ready to sacrifice a future set in comfort and money (and sometimes even their health and sanity), in order to gain even more and become planetary idols. Many more tried and lost, at this game, but we easily forget about them. Those who win, win the grand prize. So to speak.
Herbert Widerlich, the man at the origin of the project, was one of the first humans to become a cape, in Germany. However, he "only" gained a Thinker power and still was a squishy little man everywhere else – with a moustache, even. Try to shave yourself when you're a quadriplegic. Because his traumatic trigger happened while driving. He was, of course. And getting high on drugs, sex, and alcohol. At the same time, yes. Did I mention risk-takers? No woman would be crazy enough to do all this, and at the same time. In fact, if a woman was dating such a risk-taker seriously? They'd dump him.
At the beginning, Widerlich's enterprise offered cleaning services for very specific tasks. Crime scenes, most notably – given the use of kept wartime paraphernalia, sometimes, the scenes were flooded with harmful gases, and needed careful handling if one wanted the surrounding town to survive. The Gesellschaft worked with the police, and even contracted some work for them. Recruiting doctors and buying places and equipment, Widerlich opened branches for forensics analyses.
And then they came upon the first dead parahuman, an event which had been planned by Widerlich's foreknowledge, as provided by his power. And things started to change.
Trying to get some form of healing for himself, Widerlich had already tried to take scans of his own brain, and had discovered the presence of two very active nodules, when he was using his power. And those nodules weren't usually found in the cranium of ordinary people.
He named the largest Alpha and the smallest Omega. Some people would discover the same, later, and call them Corona Pollentia and Gemma… but he didn't care about them. And they didn't know about his work, kept secret for many reasons (and those with Thinker powers couldn't even reach him thanks to his own power).
Widerlich started experimenting with the dead parahumans' brains, picking and grafting those nodules on life prisoners wanting a reprieve from the harsh conditions they lived in – this wasn't Earth Aleph, here, and Germany was still split in twain, decades after Scion showed up. As a point of fact, all this happened in Dresde… in East Germany. And several things hadn't changed much, despite the emergence of parahumans.
As more and more capes died, especially when Endbringers showed up (a godsend, for an enterprising man like Herbert Widerlich), the Gesellschaft had more and more raw matter to work with and refine their ways. But it was only when they found one of the two brain structures during a random check, on someone not registered as a parahuman, that they had the proper model for how the second structure should look like before the trigger.
Until then, very few grafts worked – in the manner it was intended for, of course. Which was to grant powers to people in a voluntary way.
When they found how the "virgin" Omega nodule looked like, they butchered a few of those they had in reserve and implanted them, with the corresponding Alphas, in a family of four: the two parents, their teenage son, and their little girl. The father died because he was too old for the brain structures to stick to his rigidified brain matter. The mother died because, even if she was quite young, at thirty, and quite active intellectually… she gained a power relative to pyrokinesis, and half-burned her own kids before she could bring the power back into herself. And burning herself out. In comparison, the power latched well upon the kids, even the little girl. The problem with her was her lack of self-control, which ended up releasing her power in much the same manner, when she was refused some treat. In opposition to her mother, she became an ice statue, any erg of energy inside her having been expended into the heat wave that incinerated her surroundings. Said statue fell, too, and shattered immediately. Since only the boy survived, it was determined that, in relation to age, getting teenage guinea pigs would be the best. And that, perhaps, getting those people with virgin Omega nodules to trigger naturally wouldn't be so destructive.
The preliminary test done, the Gesellschaft triggered young and impressionable teenagers (often boys, since the girls had other uses) by the hundreds, in search of an army of Ubermensch. Given the fact that several in Widerlich's Society happened to have worked with the power in place during the Reich, they even took some form of pleasure in taking as subjects those with blonde hair and blue eyes.
The problem came when the high concentration of parahumans in the same place caught the attention of several entities (and I'm not speaking about Scion's race, here). The three Blasphemies attacked the Gesellschaft military compound, together and without the slightest warning. They wrought such a carnage that only a few dozen capes escaped the onslaught, with less than half returning under the enterprise's purview. From then on, the Gesellschaft created much fewer parahumans, and took care to disseminate those they had (in positions of power, as much as possible) before making more.
And having overexploited their reserve of blondes, they did as they could with the darker-haired youth they now had to contend with.
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Somewhere Over the RainbowSince groups of people triggered at the same time and the same building, while not necessarily in the same room or with the same stimulus, each group often caught the attention of the same Shard, which saw the experiment as useful to make several buds at the same time.
One of these attempts was a family of six: an authoritarian father, and his five children. Four boys, and a daughter, in that order. He gave them names taken from his family, names to be proud of. Erwin, the oldest, named after himself and his own father, and so on as far as memory went (as those things went, it was barely half a dozen generations); Kaspar, the second son, was named after a well-known warlord; Rudiger, the third, was from the man's father-in-law, powerful in his own right; and Justinus, the fourth, was from both sides, leading to a Legatus in ancient Rome. Or so the familial legends went anyways. In comparison, the girl was named Lucia, the "light in the night", and the promise for the next generation – needless to say, his way of saying that had Lucia trembling in fear before even understanding the words.
They triggered together.
The father dissolved into a soup of cells without means to bring him back as a coherent whole, killing him instantly – or perhaps not, but the end result was the same. The cells then dissolved further, into atoms, which themselves evaporated into nothingness – back into the universe's primitive soup of potential energy and matter.
Of the boys, Rudiger was the one whose power came close, only… the particles stayed aloft, taking more and more space. Like a mist hiding the room from the observers – those ever-present and sneering guards and nosy scientists. And, contrarily to his father, the particles could move, follow his wishes, and converge back so as to reform his body.
Kaspar was the second to react, manifesting clones of himself that hurried to get at the observers. Several at the same time, even. And he could continue as much as he wanted, apparently… except for the fact that the clones were very short-lived, and reverted into a soup of atoms too, upon ending their lifespan – only a few minutes. There was always one soldier inside the room and another outside, behind a thick glass wall. The one inside, with the accompanying scientist, was crushed to death by the sudden mob. The one outside wrote about the incident.
Hearing the cries from the numerous instances of his older brother, Justinus' version of the same took longer to manifest, but, in exchange, his clones lasted longer… and they traversed the walls! Since he noticed that they were clothed, like him, he thought that grabbing the nearest soldier so that he could equip himself (and, consequently, his clones) with weapons was the best idea. Guns did nothing, but the sturdy knives, yes. And they conveniently bypassed any and all physical defences.
Together, they got rid of the soldiers in their way, in their bid for freedom… and ended up outside instead of reaching their siblings, whom they had aimed for. They didn't know they had been herded there because sturdy bars of iron had appeared to block specific corridors – Justinus' clones could pass through, but not him. And, once there, the same bars disappeared from inside the building and appeared around the two of them.
From up close, they could see that the bottom part was pointy, and the upper had a grip and a guard. Those were swords, created from nothing and manipulated by someone who was not far from them. Justinus could even use his power to create clones and try to get at the two visibly parahumans standing a hundred meters from them. But as soon as he manifested one, the swords started to press forcefully against his tangible body, and he hastily dismissed his clones.
"Now, now, gentlemen." A cultured voice called. "Let's not be hasty, ja? We all work for the same goal, after all!"
The parahumans stepped slightly closer, the swords leaving some breathing place for the two teenage boys but barely so. They noticed that the one who had talked was a man, but the one who had the look of concentration and held hands typical of telekinetics was a teenage girl. The two shared enough physical markers to note that she was his daughter, though.
"So, you wanted to flee?" The man asked again. "I wonder where. The arm of the Gesellschaft is quite long, after all. Why, I heard recently that we got rid of some trumped-up democratically elected leader in Argentina!"
"And staying to be treated as lab animals is better?" Justinus asked, only to groan as the swords got closer to each other again.
"Such an impudent mouth you have." The man tutted for a couple seconds, before turning introspective. And then decided. "I'm leaving for the Americas, soonish, to further our cause there. Do you want to join us?"
"Our whole family?"
"Ah. Yes, your family. Well… if they agree, of course."
"Then…" Justinus exchanged a quick glance with Kaspar, and a nod. "We agree."
And, with that, the blades fell, leaving the boys gasping… and the girl, too – apparently, using her power was tiring.
"Excellent. Now, for the sake of the pleasantries. I'm Richard Anders, and here's my daughter. But the degenerate Americans' cape culture being what it is, we will all have to use pseudonyms. Mine will be Allfather, and my daughter will be Iron Rain. You'll have to choose yours. Choose wisely, or we'll choose for you."
Allfather brought the boys back into the testing area, his mere presence intimidating the soldiers and scientists there. Enough, at least, that they didn't retaliate against the two boys. The same proposal was given to the three other siblings.
The girl, Lucia, was unresponsive. Nothing had been observed in regards to her power, too. For those two reasons, Allfather rescinded his group offer, and she would have to stay. Rudiger chose to stay as well, then, to protect her if nothing else, and the man nodded to that. Last was Erwin, the older one.
"I'll come with you." he said.
And another Erwin entered the room at that moment, saying "I'll stay."
"The whole family has cloning powers, it seems." Allfather said, looking at the head scientist for confirmation.
Said head made a so-so sign with his hand. "The girl is inconclusive. The father had self-disintegration, like this one, as well as the clones of that one." He announced, pointing at Rudiger and Kaspar in succession. And then he looked at Erwin in askance.
"And I can clone myself… as long as nobody watches."
"Nobody watches… ja. Might be the reason." the scientist muttered, looking at Lucia.
In the end (of that arc), Allfather went to America, landing in Brockton Bay. There, and with the assistance of his daughter, as well as Justinus (renamed Justin, to fit in), he built the Empire Eighty-Eight, a group of proud people looking negatively at those with different life choices… and killing them. Justin took the alias Crusader, and upgraded his weapon to have some reach.
Kaspar became Spree, and revelled in the savagery initially displayed by Allfather and Iron Rain when in the first part of their installation plan (dubbed "shock and awe"… in German). When the movement became firmer, he continued to do massive damage with each of his outings, and was finally gently but surely pushed away from the budding Nazi Empire. He chose to spend his time with another group, which preferred chaos and mass murder over organized fascism.
The Erwin with them, nicknamed "Quantum Man", tried to rein Kaspar in, only to be killed by their gang leader, the Butcher.
The Erwin back in Germany felt that, too. Especially as both of them had cloned again. In fact, their unobserved cloning acted as a quantum wave of probability, and the death of one caused the collapse of the wavefunction, only one of them staying behind.
Still, before that death, several experiments had been conducted, and his powers refined. For instance, since the particles in his brain were entangled with his clone's, they could communicate instantly, without consideration for distance.
Also, like Rudiger's clone, upon dying, and Justinus' ghost-like clones, Erwin's clones that followed improbable paths were much less dense than the "normal" ones… and could pass through walls.
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We're not in Kansas anymoreAfter his "first death", the original Erwin who remained was the one who was overseeing his siblings' training, in Germany. And he thought about getting a poison tooth installed, so that he could choose when to apply his collapsing power.
It was unneeded, though, because by training his abilities, he was able to collapse the wavefunction whenever he wanted. And, even more impressively, he was able to do that locally, allowing him to remove one clone among others. Or several while keeping several others.
Erwin also reflected about the Butcher, wondering if he could control the infamous cape's various powers by shuffling its other personalities in clones that he would then make disappear.
Still, not knowing much about power interactions, he didn't want to commit to such an action given its suicidal aspect – worse than that: if the Butcher even had his power, he could duplicate himself and become truly unstoppable.
Meanwhile, Lucia was training, too. And it was terrifying to watch… or not watch, since you could only consider what happened after the fact – much like a black hole, the fact that you couldn't observe one directly didn't mean that it couldn't eat you alive.
Several "volunteers" (political activists against the power in place, for the most part) died gruesome deaths, and it was initially thought that she simply became fast and agile to kill them all in mere seconds. But it wasn't the case, at all.
Much like her three brothers, she could clone herself. Like Erwin, she needed not to be seen for that to happen. And, like Kaspar, she could spam several clones per second… and they were imperfect.
In fact, they were so imperfect that they interfered with her own body when trying to leave the space she occupied, resulting in a body horror that, thankfully, was best left unseen. Especially as their spamming ability ended up creating a creature able to take all the available space, quickly, while bony protrusions pierced and slashed at anything on her way.
The "guinea pigs" used for her training died. All of them. Sometimes, there were even whole parts missing, as if the massive creature resulting from her unchecked growth was manifesting a mouth engulfing those around whom it had expanded. Or a stomach.
And then, when people watched again, she reverted into herself instantly, at any point that her expanded body had occupied. She got the codename Nachtschreck (Night Terror, quickly shortened into Night).
The synergy with her brother, codenamed Nebel (Fog), was insane: when he activated his power, his body created a fog through which it was hard to see, and her own body could expand to take the same space. Given that he trained hard to refine the use of his power, he found ways to occupy more space and become even more opaque, increasing his schwesterlein's playground.
All this was in Erwin's mind as he considered what to do.
When his American self was killed, his duplicate in Dresden had a choice: return there, or not. He did so, if only to keep the Gesellschaft apprised on the Empire's whereabouts – instant secure communication was quite useful, for a subversive group like theirs.
But he also created another duplicate, once there.
Having started to taste the freedom of the American way, that duplicate went to New York to explore it fully. And he spent a few years fully absorbing the American way of life – at twenty, he wasn't too old to study at the local university (which, at that time, was affordable). He visited museums, read books, went to the cinema, drank alcohol at bars, danced in nightclubs… and met several girls. Many had those misconceptions about his role in their relationship, and he quickly put an end to those (the relationships, of course, not the girls… though he was tempted, with some particularly vocal ones).
And, in the process, he found a nice woman, perfectly willing to spend part of her life with him. He wasn't old-fashioned to the point of asking her to stay home to take care of the kids, no: she was, and she wanted to, in exchange for him being able to work full-time. Who was he to say no to that? She was also cognizant enough about how life went on, these days, to require that task to be recognized, on the marriage contract – should they divorce, each would end up with half of everything the two of them would make from that day onwards.
And her presence in the house was helpful to the kids, when they ended school as early as three in the afternoons. Yes, there were kids, because where love was had between people able to make long-term plans, kids tended to appear. They got three daughters before stopping there and starting acquiring pets instead. A dog was a given, and they chose a nice German shepherd. A cat joined soon afterwards, to the girls' delight… even if it could as much live there as not – because the feline was quite social and ended up adopted by the whole neighbourhood.
Due to his upbringing, Erwin was a bit sad not to have a son to pass his forename to, but he was still considering himself grateful to whatever superior power allowed him to lead this blessed life. So much so that he didn't try building another family with one of his clones, even if he could have done so inconspicuously. Still, he had to provide clones to replace those killed in the line of "duty" – a duty he had less and less interest in fulfilling, though.
His last task for the Gesellschaft, in fact, was to help his siblings Night and Fog cross the Atlantic to reinforce the Empire against the other capes of Brockton Bay. He didn't tell the Gesellschaft about his intention of disappearing soon afterwards, of course.
He was also disillusioned with said Empire. Not as a supporter, far from it, but because they had succumbed to laziness: instead of branching out like Allfather had imagined, they had stopped at Brockton Bay and stayed mired in petty grudges. Of course, they were a great power, there – terrible, but great anyways. But most of its constituents were too lazy to do anything but trouble against minorities. You'd think proponents of a "superior race" would do anything to prove themselves right, instead of denigrating others.
So instead of staying with his siblings, Erwin cut down a few bridges and stayed home. By then, his wife had expressed the will to work – her part-time and unpaid activities involving other women had mostly disappeared over time, since those activities were decried by the women who had to work.
Humans being social animals, things changed, and she began searching paid activities instead. Since she had complemented her intellectual pursuits with a remote university program, she was able to join the workforce, as it were, acting as a moderate voice… in Gender Studies.
Meanwhile, Erwin took charge of the house and kids, allowing his wife to spend the whole day at work and thus reach her full potential in her chosen activity. And, contrarily to most men, he could do several things at the same time – in a literal manner, too, since he could create a clone for each task.
As a point of fact, their house was a bit isolated from onlookers because of that. At the end of an alley, with high palisade, and curtains or shutters for all windows. Behind all this, Erwin was able to get doubles for whatever task was needed done. All this while driving to work and bringing the kids to school and back and joining his wife when she had some free time and wanted his company.
Of course, his wife knew. In fact, she knew about the bare bones before their vows, as he didn't want that secret to poison their married life. She knew about him having worked with some bad apples, too – the whole rotten tree, even. As time went by, he also told her the particulars of his powers, and that helped when she chose to work.
His daughters were informed, too, when they reached the age at which they could keep secrets (or at least evaluate the importance of keeping one). That helped when they needed him to help for their homework, since he could devote a clone for each. That was especially useful, too, when they had separate activities at different parts of the town… at the same time. And for which his presence was needed (because sporting clubs always insisted for the parents to participate, easily forgetting that not every child is a single child).
One of those activities he drove his daughters to was the one he practised himself, since his daughters had followed in his footsteps… somewhat.
In university, his major specialty was physics, and he had thought about studying quantum theory, of course. But knowing about how his own life belied the premises of that kind of work, he chose to follow one of his minor specialties instead. Those being teaching, and sports, he had started his working life as a personal trainer, before progressing up to Olympic-level gymnastics coach.
That's what his three daughters tried to do, with a different measure of success for each. The elder, Sam, got on a podium in her category, and a bronze medal in an international competition was quite an accomplishment. The others got medals too, but stayed on the national level.
Still, they got more of them than Sam because, at some point, the elder child chose to do something completely different with her life. It followed a particularly bad day, during which she triggered into a parahuman herself. And joined the Protectorate Wards.
Erwin chose to join the Protectorate as well, because he wanted to be there for her. Any one of her. Because, guess what? She could form clones too. Three of them, in fact. As for her cape name, it's easy to remember, as she's named like the three-sided block of glass used to split light: a Prism.
Given his previous associations, though, Erwin wanted his recruitment to be as discreet as possible. He even thought of becoming one of the faceless PRT troopers, with the option of duplicating them as needed.
His wife disabused him of the idea, telling him that, instead, he would be better served to do a major shift in character. Becoming a flamboyant hero would be such a difference from his earlier days as a taciturn villain that nobody would be able to see the difference. And, as a proof, she cited the one time he had played a theatre piece, during some parental show for their children school: even she had been fooled and hadn't recognized him, even though she knew he played the main character, during the "To Be or Not To Be" monologue.
Cloning helped there too. In fact, one of the clones let his hair grow, establishing a mane that went to the shoulders and a beard that was styled to give the impression that his face was longer. Instead of the glasses he used in his civilian life, or the goggles he had when he had been doing his villain-related works, he got brown-coloured contact lenses to hide his clear blue eyes.
And, around this new face, he dressed with the proper uniform for a seventeenth-century Musketeer from the Royal House Guards of the Sun King: a wide-brimmed hat with feathers, a blue coat with a fleur-de-lys, a breastplate, and high boots.
As a cape identity, he chose "Agnan Le Bret, mousquetaire de la Garde de la Maison du Roy Soleil", acting with everyone as if that was his real name and using any other would be dishonest. Yes, he took a fake French accent, and learned the language, especially the old variations – that allowed him to swear in a foreign language, which was always useful.
The presentation was quite a mouthful, but he was also learning lessons in cape banter, courtesy of past footage of fights including those friendly-looking heroes like Mouse Protector and Assault.
Thankfully, given his own training and upbringing, he didn't need lessons in swordmanship, even with his off-hand. He still brushed them up because he wasn't used to fight with blunt swords modified to send electricity down the blade – the Protectorate's PR department had jumped with both feet in when he presented his idea of a character, only with a couple nonlethal add-ons, courtesy of friendly Tinkers in the organization.
He also got a musket that was able to shoot as a precision rifle with a choice between soft and hard ammunition, or various containers (containment foam, mainly, but also small batteries giving the target a shock equal to his taser-like blades) – given that a musket wasn't normally a repeating weapon, he had the choice each time he wanted to shoot, the ammo being stored in the two bandoliers set across his torso.
All this, in addition to his ability to duplicate, allowed him to, when necessary, bring the whole Musketeer squad on the operation theatre. At these moments, he cloned himself in a bathroom, and each of his clones did quick work with razors and dyes to change their appearance.
Even if all of them died (which only happened during Endbringer fights), he still had his original self, safe at home with his wife.
Legally, he didn't have his family name anymore, either. It's easy to do, when you convince the public service officer that you're a Jew in fright of being targeted by Nazis. That allowed him to shake any person looking for someone who… may or may not exist, now.
What was his original family name, you may ask?
I'm sure you can find it easily.
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To be continued… in a box, with a fifty-fifty chanceAuthor's Notes: Pop quiz!