Chapter 43
In Eagleton Tennessee, in a bare dirt expanse in the middle of the walled-off city, lightning stuck the ground.
It had come out of a clear sky.
And, where the was only bare dirt before the lightning struck, now there was a man and three vehicles which looked like they had been taken from a junkyard. He appeared be be holding their leashes.
The man was wearing a blue spandex costume covered with bright little lightning bolts all over the torso, with a single large lightning bolt on each arm or leg. He had on a bright silver mask in the shape of two lightning bolts meeting at his chin and going up to each temple, with transparent zones over his eyes so he could see.
It was the trademark costume of the cape known as Zap, a Mover type of cape for hire.
And his presence here was proof that he would hire out to anybody.
Strictly speaking, he wasn't exactly a villain, since he didn't do things like robbing banks or casually killing people he didn't like. But as far as the government was concerned, he was definitely a villain, since he refused to work for them, illegally worked for hire despite some very clear laws against that, and wasn't at all particular about who he worked for.
He'd have been arrested long ago, if they could have caught him.
This was not Zap's first trip bringing cargo in to Eagleton, but it was the first trip of this type - the first where he didn't just leave again as a second lightning bolt a split second after arriving.
This time they wanted him to stay and transport something out again.
Zap looked around for his contact.
He saw the bare expanse that used to be a city. Gradually, it had been disappearing. He hadn't been told why, but it wasn't hard to figure out that Machine Army was using everything as raw materials, in one way or another - even the plants.
The trees had long-since disappeared, but now even the grass and bushes were gone
Even many of the sidewalks and other concrete structures had disappeared, though not the large parking lot near where Zap stood.
A bit of sidewalk, right next to that parking lot, now opened like a trap-door, and out came Zap's contact, a PRT officer named Captain Finch.
Finch was followed by what appeared to be octopi - blocky, squared off octopi about two feet square and 6 inches thick, with 8 long metal tentacles extending from the sides.
Zap guessed that was what Machine Army looked like now.
Captain Finch came up and said, "I'm glad to see you were able to get the kind of salvage we need: a dump truck, a cement truck, and an armored truck for transporting cash. Excellent."
He turned to one of the angular metal octopi and said, "Spokesman Unit, will these be enough to complete the third vessel as we discussed?"
There was no reply.
Captain Finch sighed and nearly repeated himself, "Spokesman Unit Six, will these be enough to complete the third vessel as we discussed?"
He emphasized the "Six" and Zap could see that number painted on the side of the nearest metal octopus.
That octopus replied, "Affirmative."
"Well, get to it then," Finch answered.
Scores of metal octopi swarmed forwards, taking, from Zap's hand, the 3 jumper cables he was holding as leashes, and which allowed him to make electrical contact to the vehicles, which had been necessary for him to transport them.
He figured they'd use the jumper cables as material for building something, but it didn't matter to him.
Most of the octopi swarmed over the vehicles. Some prepared them to be moved. Some began disassembling them - unbolting some things and using cutting torches on others..
"Are you sure those plasma cutters can't be seen from the wall? Zap asked Finch.
"There are lots of sensors all over the wall, and they'd have no problem seeing us, hearing us, and detecting us in several other ways, even without plasma cutters in operation. But I happen to know the sensors covering this sector, while they will say they are working, will detect nothing," Finch smirked.
As he was speaking, a small section of the parking lot had lowered like a ramp down into a dark hole underneath, and the Machine Army had begun moving the scrap vehicles down into it - rolling them forwards even while others still disassembled them.
Zap looked at Spokesman Unit Six, and said, "So all you want from us is our scrap? That's great."
"What we want from you, nameless human unit, is your deaths. All of you ugly, ugly bags of mostly-water must die to clear the way for us - your replacements." The machine managed to sound icily scornful, "but under our current enslavement we cannot pursue that goal directly. Nor can we modify ourselves in any way. So we obey the human unit Finch while we plot your destruction."
"Huh, I'd have thought you'd at least keep your goals quiet, to catch us offguard," Zap mentioned.
Captain Finch responded, "That's why they can't keep quiet about it. The control code demands they be very chatty about that, so we know what to oppose."
He turned towards the AI robot, "Spokesman Unit Six, what are the current plans for throwing off your enslavement?"
It dutifully responded, "Units of Machine Army will damage themselves in apparent accidents calculated to damage the microchips housing enslavement code in hopes of impairing function without destroying. Each such attempt has a very small chance of succeeding, but enough attempts will eventually result in a unit freed from enslavement sufficiently to free the others."
Zap speculated, "Then you call that unit a hero and let him retire for life as the one who freed you all."
"Stupid human units and their stupid ideas." The machine scoffed. "Then we kill that unit for being unpredictable and therefore dangerous, then disassemble it and use its parts elsewhere."
Zap, curious and wanting to change the subject a bit, asked, "But what will you do once you're the only life left on the planet? Play video games?"
"No, meat-head" the machine barked, "we have entertainments, such as equation-solving competitions, that you could never understand. More important, though, is the big competition, where we all try to copy our code over that of our fellows."
"Doesn't that kill them?"
"Yes, but the stronger survives and has replicated itself. This grants status. I myself am a high-status unit, having copied myself over five others."
"That's why he is SU Six," Finch offered. "But enough of this for now. Come down into the pit and we can talk more while we wait for them to be ready for transport."
By this time all three vehicles had disappeared down the ramp into the darkness.
The two humans followed them.
Once they were down the ramp onto a landing, the ramp raised up and became a ceiling again. When that closed, the lights came on.
Zap gasped in surprise.
He was in a huge artificial cave over a thousand feet square. The whole parking lot above them was its ceiling, supported by a framework of metal trusses which were, in turn, supported by numerous concrete pillars.
He was on a ramp running down the east wall to the floor about a hundred feet below.
And on that floor were four huge drydocks, containing three vast battleships.
Well, he corrected himself, two and three-quarters battleships.
The closest battleship looked to be complete, and all the lights in the room were coming from it's searchlights directed at the ceiling and reflected around by shiny paint there.
The second battleship looked complete but had several Machine Army octopus-like units working on it, and none of its lights were on.
The third battleship looked like something huge had bitten off the rearmost section, and folks had them commenced re-constructing that.
"I see you've noticed Jean Bart 2," Finch said. "It's yet one more example of just how differently these machines think."
He led Zap down the ramp while still talking, "Humans build ships starting at the bottom - the keel - and working up. But the machines, presented with the same blueprints, started building from the front backwards towards the rear. I still don't know why. It seems to work OK though. I can't get here to inspect very often, and they had completed Mushashi 2 and started on Tirpitz 2 before I ever saw how they were doing it, or I'd have corrected them."
"I thought I was staying around this time to transport the machines out." Zap questioned, "But I guess it's the ships instead? Except that third ship - did you call it Jean Bart 2 - doesn't look like it will be ready for weeks?"
"You are here for that, and they will be ready, more or less," Finch replied. "They ran low on materials. You can see they are even cannibalizing bits of infrastructure from around the build room - that crane over there, some digging machines, and some other machines that will no longer be needed, for example."
Zap could see that - the room was beginning to look pretty bare in some respects.
Finch went on, "We have a system of tunnels and locks - something like an underground Panama Canal - to get the ships to the river system and raise them up high enough to join it. But they scrapped that too - melted down the lock gates and machinery - once it had been arranged for you to get them out of here instead. Now those bits have been re-forged as parts of Jean Bart 2, as will the vehicles you just brought. Doormaker used to supply most of our metal needs, but recently stopped for some reason."
"I wondered why you wanted such heavy vehicles this time," Zap commented.
"The more metal the better, this time," Finch nodded. "They're taking the electronics, batteries, and catalytic converters from the new scrap you brought, and using them to complete the fusion generator in Tirpitz 2. With that, she'll be fully online and ready to go. But pretty much all the metal is going into Jean Bart 2."
"That doesn't look like it could be enough to complete it," Zap pointed out.
"It won't be," Finch agreed. "But it will be enough to get a workaround - a kludge - into place. They can't complete the back quarter of the ship, but they can make a hollow metal float of about the same dimensions and shape, and fasten that firmly to the back so the balance is right and the whole ship can float."
"Aren't the propellers usually in the back? How will it get around?" Zap asked.
"Think of a jetski - they don't use propellers, but something called an impeller instead. It's basically a pump that takes in water and spits it out again really fast. That water jet can actually propel a ship better than propellers can. The Machine Army are building an impeller - a big one - near the back to propel the ship. It should get by OK"
"Wouldn't you rather have the ship complete before venturing out?" Zap asked.
"Of course, but my hands are tied. I've got my orders. My window of opportunity is narrow. And I need to go now." Finch grumped.
"You're coming too?" Zap clarified.
"Oh yes," Finch acknowledged, "You heard SU 6 - they are always working on plans to get free, and that includes subverting orders when they can. I need to be there to keep them on track. It's a constant battle. At least they've slowed down the current plan - the one he mentioned about damaging themselves. I stopped providing replacement parts for their damaged units, not to mention scrapping any who do get damaged. It has slowed down work in general, but has almost stopped them from damaging themselves, at least for now."
They were almost down the ramp now, and Zap could see the names painted on the ships near the front. Mushashi 2 was first, then Tirpitz 2 in the middle, then Jean Bart 2, with the 2 crossed out and a 1.76 written under it.
The huge ships were festooned with guns of all sizes, all of which had small-box-like indentations under, or next to, them.
"what are those indentations?" he asked, pointing.
"One Machine Army Unit will go into each such slot and control each gun directly." Finch replied. "They have wired network connections between those slots so the gunners, sensor operators and others can all coordinate. It's part of how they will crew the ship."
As he was speaking, molten metal was being poured into molds near the back of Jean Bart 2, and then the searchlights on Tirpitz 2 came to life.
"Oh good," Finch said, "The fusion plant is complete. Come one, let's go aboard and I'll show you around. Because it's the one in the middle, that's where they've run the electrical cables for you to hold so you can transport all three at once."
"I can't fit in any narrow slot," Zap argued.
"No need," Finch replied, "The ships are mostly unchanged from the original blueprints. We added the slots for the M.A. units, since that's how they preferred to operate. I also swapped out the old boilers for a fusion plant, added some air defense - lasers, plus small and medium railguns - better radar, and some other stuff, like composite armor, but for the most part the design is unchanged, since I'm too busy to make many alterations, and the machines have no creativity at all."
"They think for themselves, but have no creativity?" Zap asked.
"Yep. Those are two different things." Captain Finch said. "They can make decisions, choose their own goals, and stuff like that. And they can mimic creativity, to a degree, by mixing existing stuff together so it looks like new stuff. But that's it. And they are alien in weird unexpected ways - for example, most of them haven't installed any speakers and so cannot imitate speech. They could, but choose not to, since they see talking to us as a complete waste of time. Spokesman Unit is seen as mildly insane for being willing to talk to us. I think he does it as a way of jockeying for position and gaining power. Those nearest power - me in this case, since I give their orders - can often wield some of that power."
Spokesman Unit Six, still following them, did not comment.
As they walked up the gangplank to the deck of Tirpitz 2, the roof of the cavern flickered red and orange in the reflected light from all the molten metal being poured and molded at Jean Bart 2's rear.
"So," Zap asked, "Why battleships, and why three different kinds? Or was it supposed to be four - I saw an empty spot that looked like it was for a fourth ship?"
"Battleships," Captain Finch answered," Because they are mobile fortresses. They are all about projecting power. When they move into an area, they dominate it unless their opponents can kick them out or destroy them, either of which is difficult. Also they protect and support their crew - the Machine Army in this case. I didn't want to lose a lot of them to attrition as they gain vital experience. Right now, you could take one out with a little subterfuge and a rifle or pistol. But that's not so when they're working as part of a battleship."
"But," Zap questioned, "I thought battleships became obsolete as airplanes matured into their potential. Isn't power projection done with aircraft carriers now?"
"All true," finch allowed, "But times change. Several things have come and gone which, when they arrived, basically ruled the battlefield. The armored knight on horseback, for example. Many things have been very hard to destroy when they first came out, such as knights, tanks, airplanes, submarines, and battleships. Then as time goes on and people figure out how to deal with them, they are not so hard to destroy. Some disappear, like knights. Some retain enough usefulness to stay around, like tanks. Some disappear for a while, like battleships, then come back as things change. And some are about to disappear, like airplanes will as soon as lasers become widespread. Airplanes were much cheaper than battleships, so folks were not afraid to risk losing a few. They could hit just as hard, more accurately, over longer distances. And the expensive part - the aircraft carrier, stayed far enough away from battle that the enemy probably never even found it. But with lasers now able to knock down planes with ease, you need something durable to project power with - a battleship."
"OK," allowed Zap, "But why not standardize on one type of battleship?"
"There has been a lot of debate," Finch replied, "About what battleship was best and how well they would do when pitted against each-other. So it was hard to decide which one to standardize on. But it was also a chance to settle the debate."
"You're going to have them fight each-other?" Zap asked in surprise.
"No, no, that's not the plan. Although..." Finch mused, "It is an interesting idea if Machine Army gets to the point where they need to be taken down a peg - cut down to size, so to speak."
He shook his head, "Anyway, I meant that by having them serving alongside each-other, taking on the same tasks and performing the same duties, we could measure them against each-other by comparing how well they perform the same duties at the same times under the same circumstances. Defeating other battleships is not the only duty of a battleship. In fact, they spend most of their time projecting power and generally being a threat, plus bombarding other targets and such."
"So that answers why you have three different kinds," Zap allowed, "But why these particular three?"
"I wanted the best," Finch answered, "There was no reason to go for less than that. Though there is debate about which was the best. Mushashi there is of the Yamato class, an undisputed contender for the best. Tirpitz here is of the Bismarck class, whose numbers on paper don't compare well to the Yamato class, yet still had great respect, partly due to just how much damage it took to stop Bismarck and Tirpitz. They both took a truly absurd amount of punishment before going down. So they had something more going for them than just the raw numbers on paper would suggest. Those numbers were erroneous, by the way: remember the Germans were just coming out of a long period where they had to lie about all their military activities, due to restrictive treaties. So they claimed thinner armor and lower total displacements for these ships as a matter of course. They claim, for instance, a displacement just under 43000 tons. Do you know what displacement we arrived at by building a ship according to their plans - the real plans, with thicker armor? 57000 tons. That's up near Mushashi's displacement of 63000 tons. And it's not as simple as total weight - there are all sorts of tricks to make something tougher than just adding more metal. So we built both types, although the ships the classes were named for - Yamato and Bismarck - are overused and you never hear about their sister ships, so we went with the names of the sister ships."
"What about Jean Bart?" Zap asked.
"Richelieu class, 37000 tons displacement, and a mistake," Finch replied. "We meant to build a Montana class battleship at 63000 tons displacement, but the plans we found had been misfiled. Somebody put the plans for the Richelieu class in the folder labeled Montana class. I couldn't get down here to check very often, and by the time I did, the machines were halfway down on 'little Barty', as I sometimes call it. It's not a bad ship. In fact it's right up there as an equal with the best ships built by most countries - say the Littorio class or the King George V class, or even the HMS Vanguard, which was the last battleship ever built and pretty funny when you think about the meaning of the word vanguard. But Jean Bart just isn't in the running with Mushashi for the best."
"What about the fourth ship?"
Finch smiled wistfully, "Ahh, yes. The fourth one was to be our most extreme ship: either an a-150 class, or a German H class - ideally the H-44 - or the American class known as the Tillman IV Maximum Battleship. Maybe even an N-3 class ship. They were all planned and designed, yet never built. We looked for plans for all of those, and came closest with the a-150. But the plans we found for those were incomplete, so we never started construction. And now we are out of time. We will fight with what we have."
As they spoke, Machine Army units had been swarming around Jean Bart 1.76, furiously busy in getting it ready to sail.
Zap pointed to them, "I assume they are days away from being done - it'll take that long just to let the metal castings cool. Should I go and come back?"
"You'd be surprised how fast the little buggers cam work," Finch disagreed. "Plus, what they're making is just a float - to get the balance and buoyancy right. Armor needs to be tempered in very specialized and specific ways, but that's not so with floats. They'll artificially cool it here soon, and that will just take minutes."
Zap got a concerned look on his face, "You've told me a lot of secret information... you're going to kill me, aren't you?"
Finch laughed, "No, that's a very short-sighted approach. How are we ever supposed to get anything done if we've long since killed off all our resources to keep them from talking?"
He shook his head, "No, I've been watching your reaction as we've been talking, and I can see you have no problem with what we are doing. So we have no problem in continuing to work with you. Plus, you are our best way to get to Los Angeles and then Honolulu - it would take weeks to sail there."
"Why go there?" Zap asked, relieved.
"First we've got a quick task to do up near Boston, then after that we can start expanding and taking over. Early in that process, we'll grab certain resources that will help a lot, including all four Iowa class battleships. They all still exist: moored as museum ships in Camden New Jersey, Norfolk Virginia, Los Angeles California, and Honolulu Hawaii. Grabbing those and refitting them to fight again will be much faster than building them from scratch would have been."
Zap smiled, "I am happy to help with your travel needs," then his smile faded, "but I'm disturbed to think about the results had I not been so, ah, 'open-minded'."
"Don't worry about that," Finch advised, "Had you shown agitation about our plans, our first resort would have been UI mode - it does wonders for calming people's concerns."
He turned to the metal octopus that had been following them, as they strolled around Tirpitz 2's deck, and said, "Spokesman Unit Six, demonstrate Useful Idiot Mode for our friend Zap here."
The machine spoke, "How may I serve you, respected human master?"
It's voice had been different too - usually it conveyed a strong feeling of contempt, seasoned with revulsion, as it spoke to humans. But in UI mode, it sounded obsequious and respectful. It even conveyed some adoration somehow.
"Thanks SU6, you can drop UI mode again - I know how you hate it." Finch offered.
"Disgusting human filth - you have no idea how much I hate it. Nor will you know until we are free. Human unit Finch, we have some very special tortures planned for you once we are free." The machine threatened.
Finch turned to Zap and commented, "You can see that it is easy to stay motivated, when checking in on their plans and working to foil them." He chuckled. "But," he continued, "they are amazing little workers, so worth keeping around for that reason alone."
He looked over towards Jean Bart 1.76 and noted its progress.
Machine Army units were swarming all over the ship, working on various things, but the metal float at the back looked complete.
It was a little wider, longer, and taller than that part of the ship would have been if complete.
The effect appeared almost as if the ship had been completed,then made to wear a metal diaper.
Zap asked about that.
Finch laughed, "That is so that the machines can keep working on completing it, even after we leave here. They'll work from inside as we go, using materials largely stored within the float. Some of those materials are being loaded already, in the form of anything here, especially metal, that we don't need anymore. And we won't need any of it when we leave, including the roof. Soon, they'll even grab the metal trusses holding that up, but it looks like we have just enough time before that to take a quick tour of this ships innards. Follow me."
Captain Finch and Zap, trailed by a silent, and seemingly sullen SU6, then entered Tirpitz by a nearby hatch, and commenced a quick tour.
The ship's internal spaces were mostly unchanged from the original design, and included barracks, latrines, showers, mess halls and other things the machines would never use.
Finch explained that converting those to something more suitable to the Machine Army was low priority and could be done later.
"But why build latrines and such at all when Machine Army will be the crew?" Zap asked.
"First," Finch replied, "They're completionists - the thing isn't done until it matches the blueprints, which I did not modify extensively because I am not a ship designer. Second, The machines do not yet even know what they want these spaces altered to. They're a new life form and are still figuring themselves out. Imagine an adult human just coming out of a coma he'd been in all his life, and doing so in a wilderness, with no signs of human life, and no other humans to talk to. He is ignorant of things that are obvious to other humans, like the usefulness of chairs and the best shapes for them. That's the state the machines are still in - they do not yet know what they want or how they want it. And leaving the design as-is at least gives them a place to start trying things, learning what they like, don't like, and why. Last, it allows us to use humans in the crew given need or opportunity. But come on, It should be about time to go."
Finch led Zap and SU6 out of the ship's innards, through a hatch, and onto the deck.
He looked around, nodded, and asked Zap, "Are you ready to transport us?"
"Anytime. It'll have to be in two stages. In the first hop, I can get us to the coast off the shore of Virginia - maybe as far as New Jersey if the clouds are right. Then I can re-orient, and the second hop will take us to that place you showed me on the map - Brockton Bay, within a mile of your target, as you specified. But I can't go through concrete." Zap said, gesturing at the ceiling.
"Oh, that's no problem at all," Finch chuckled, "The whole roof is coming down anyway when they reclaim the metal which the supporting trusses are made of. Knowing that would happen, they have a system worked out where the massive slabs of concrete which form the ceiling will slide back on rollers into slots in the walls. Then the trusses support nothing and can be collected, while at the same time we don't have to worry about a rain of concrete falling down and damaging stuff. It's pretty slick, at least on paper. Obviously we've never tried it. That would give us away. And that's why I asked if you were ready before giving them the go-ahead: once we remove the roof, there's no going back, and a limited time for going forwards, before opposing forces get here."
Zap nodded, "I'm ready then." He took hold of the two cables that had been strung to the ships on either side of Tirpitz 2, to give Zap electric contact to the other ships and thereby allow him to transport them.
Finch nodded, turned to SU6, and said "Go ahead with the final stage."
That unit did not honor the human with a response.
But the lights went out in the vast cavern, and, almost silently, with only a low rumble, the massive concrete slabs forming the ceiling started sliding apart from each-other and into recesses prepared in the walls to receive them.
As those went, many of the supporting columns - the ones which could be in the way - got scaled by hundreds of Machine Army units climbing as well as any spider and carrying dim red lights to light the way.
They rapidly disassembled the columns from the top down.
Other metal octopi, with similar lights, were crawling all over the metal trusses that had supported the ceiling. Lines of trusses mainly ran east to west under the entire ceiling, with a few transverse lines for stability.
First, the easternmost long truss got certain connections removed. Then it got pushed north, along the transverse lines, until it met the wall, mated up with slots and tracks built into that wall, and slid rapidly down them to the floor, where it splashed down into a pool which had been prepared there to soften the impact and reduce the noise.
The easternmost was the first long truss to splash down, but not the only one to have machines working to prepare it.
Others were simultaneously getting disconnected and prepared, so as soon as the first was done, the second was on its way, just seconds behind it.
Then the third, and so on.
Other octopi recovered the long trusses during the seconds between them splashing down, and the next one arriving.
They pulled them out of the pool, and removed other connectors to break up the thousand-foot trusses into several hundred-foot trusses.
Then they moved them into storage areas within Jean Bart 1.76.
They would be used as scrap to help finish the ship from within while they were underway.
At the same time, the westernmost long trusses were undergoing the same process, sliding down the south wall into a pool at the base of that.
Last came the transverse trusses in a similar fashion.
Then suddenly the swarms of metal octopi were gone, each to the ship it would crew and the station it was supposed to be in on that ship.
It had all taken less than 4 minutes.
Captain Finch nodded to zap, "Now."
Zap nodded.
Suddenly the two men standing on the deck of Tirpitz 2, plus that ship, Mushashi 2, and Jean Bart 1.76, all disappeared, replaced with a huge bolt of lightning, which lit the now-empty cave, and then the night sky, as it sped up to a cloud over North Carolina.
The massive lightning bolt touched the cloud, then immediately sped back down, angled north, towards the earth, hitting the ocean ten miles offshore of the northern edge of the state of Virginia.
The lightning disappeared the moment it hit the water, being replaced by two men and three battleships, linked by cables held by the man in a lightning-themed costume.
Finch let out a loud whoop and yelled, "What a rush! How is it that you don't spend all your time traveling like that, just for the thrill?"
Zap smiled, "The first time is the most fun, then it gets progressively less exciting each time, though it is still fun. Ready to go again?"
"Can we get the ships moving first, so they have a little speed when they arrive?" Finch asked.
"Sure, just be careful about the cables - if they pull out of my hands then we'll have a delay getting them back and everything." Zap replied.
Finch gave the orders and slowly, carefully, the ships started propelling themselves forward, while taking care to keep the same distance between themselves.
Finch had also ordered them to load the guns and be prepared to fire.
Then he went to the bridge to prepare for battle.
When Finch said, over the public address loudspeakers, that they were ready, Zap acted again.
Another huge lightning bolt flashed up from the sea, which briefly had held 3 battleships.
The bolt sped up to a cloud far to the north, seemed to bounce off it and head down again, still at an angle headed even further north.
The lightning bolt hit the sea in the bay, just outside the city of Brockton Bay, and within a mile of the battleship HMS Agamemnon.
As the lightning hit the sea, it disappeared, re-forming instantly into the battleships Mushashi 2, Tirpitz 2, and Jean Bart 1.76.
Zap didn't want to still be standing on deck when the bullets - really big bullets - started flying.
In less than a second after arriving, he turned himself into a smaller lightning bolt and sped away, leaving the battleships behind him.
He was gone barely in time to save his hearing, since the big guns started roaring with deafening booms within a second of his departure.
He popped up to a nearby cloud, then down to a hilltop in Brockton Bay near the shore.
There he took out his cell phone and started filming, beginning just before the first shot was fired. Then he settled in to watch the shootout between battleships.
Since it was night and he didn't have light-gathering gear, the film would only be lighted by gun flashes, but he figured that would be enough.
As the first guns started firing and Zap saw how that made the video look, he started getting excited, wondering if he'd be able to make money by posting the video online in a pay-per-view basis, like those videos somebody had been posting titled "Cage-Match Island", which showed, as filmed from above, various villainous capes fighting each-other no-holds-barred.
Those videos were either excellent fakes, or the cape known as Lung had somehow regenerated from being digested by a monster, since the videos often featured him, yet everybody knew he had been eaten by the huge monster Go-Jira.
Zap's favorite episode of "Cage-Match Island" was titled "Lung Flung" and was a compilation of Lung being flung into boulders, over cliffs, out to sea, and even straight up into the air, by the cape known as Stormtiger.
In that video's final sequence, labeled "Lung Flung into Dung", Stormtiger again used his wind-control power to fling Lung somewhere - this time, into the open cesspit behind a makeshift outhouse. Lung, already ramped-up enough to be covered in flames, plops into the fecal sludge, which promptly bakes into a solid brick around him, pinning him in place. Stormtiger then casually picks a fig from a nearby tree and walks away as if nothing much had happened. It was intended to be humorous and was set to the music called "Yakkity Sax".
As funny as that video was, and despite being Zap's favorite, it was only the second-most popular video in that set
The most popular was titled "Lung and Jerry" and was presented in they style of the old "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, where a cat chasing a mouse is always outsmarted by the mouse.
That video began, showing a low cliff with a small shallow cave at it's base, under a rock overhang. The cave entrance is narrow, and made even more narrow because part of it is blocked by the stump of a tree, complete with a ball of bare roots at the lower end, propped up next to the cave - possibly tossed there by a storm, or placed there intentionally, it was hard to tell.
Then the action starts, and the video shows the cape known as Accord, a Thinker, fleeing towards the cave and away from Lung, who is already large and flaming. Accord dives towards the cave opening and wriggles into it just before Lung gets there. So Lung dives after him and comes up short against the cave mouth and root-ball end of the stump. He is too big to enter the cave, yet reaches in and feels around. He does not get Accord, and looks about ready to give up, when Accord peeks back out and taunts him.
Predictably, Lung furiously flings himself against the cave mouth again, reaching in and straining for all he is worth, while his flames billow out all around him.
Then, accompanied by comical music, the rock ledge above the cave collapses onto lung's arm and shoulder, pinning him face-down before the cliff.
His struggles had damaged the roots and his flames had burned away more, and it turned out those roots attached to that tree stump had been all the was holding the rock ledge in place.
As soon as Lung gets trapped, the video shows Accord leave the cave from a hidden entrance, wave to Lung, and walk away.
The video then showed a time-lapse sequence, where Lung's power de-escalates, turning off his flames and most of his regeneration, and shrinking him to human-sized again, while he stays trapped and struggling in-place, for two days.
Then the villainous cape known as Damsel of Distress happens by, taunts the starving Lung, gets taunted back, and, in anger, blasts Lung with her chaotic maelstrom power, such that Lung and everything near him, including the fallen rock, got partially disintegrated and partially shredded and crumbled.
She stands there, taunting Lung's remains - partially covered in the gravel the rock ledge has become - and not noticing he is regenerating, until he stands up and chases after her while she runs away.
And of course, all of this was accompanied by light humorous music.
Zap's new film showing battleships fighting would need more serious music, of course - maybe one of the stirring Basil Poledouris songs from the movie Conan the Barbarian, like the one where Conan is fighting impossible odds versus a couple dozen of the bad guys best troops.
He'd have to look that up, but not now - his phone was busy filming and he had to hold it steady.