53 – Who We Are

[Interlude]

Amelia applied her power to the Simurgh flesh again. It warped, bent, thinned, reshaped in many ways, but that was all she could do with it.

She let out a growl of frustration. It had become a recurring problem with her power. Biology that she could "control" but couldn't actually do most of the things she normally could. Possibly because there were parts her power couldn't perceive or didn't have access to. All the actually important and useful parts she was supposed to study. Just like certain aspects of Kaleidus' body. The magical blood. Actual dragon flesh. Griffons. The White Steel Eel. The list went on.

Sure, she could clone facsimiles of the original, make a creature that had all the physical features…but it just didn't have any of the magic. Her cloned dragon couldn't even breathe fire. Or, in the case of the Simurgh flesh, she couldn't even clone or grow it beyond the mass that was there to begin with.

Then she went over her notes on the Armoriont and Bionanite Swarm again too, hoping to find something, anything, that she'd missed, that she could do to improve them.

But after a few hours, she was again left frustrated with the lack of progress. Anything that she thought of would just interfere with something else. There were pretty hard limits on what could be done with biology without powers of its own or any technology added in, and the Armoriont plus the Swarm was the most complex thing she'd ever created, beyond any of the other creatures she'd made for Taylor.

There were some things that were technically more advanced, like the relay bugs, but those weren't actually unpowered biology. She knew that when she made them, she was actually modifying them to interact with Taylor's power specifically. If she hadn't been instructed by Kaleidus to cleanly separate the shard powers from the biology, she might never have even noticed that she was doing that at all.

But it was true, her power could modify other powers, even create things that interfered with powers or had powers of its own. It wasn't like she could just directly create a new power, but there were ways in which her power just automatically added in a bunch of power-modified features when she was trying to work with someone else's power. It was like…biotinkertech.

So she probably could modify Taylor's Corona Pollentia too, as Kaleidus had claimed that time when he'd refuted her deduction that Amelia was the person who "saved" the world by enslaving it.

Except, she wasn't actually a biotinker so she ran into issues there as well. Even though she thought that it might be possible to do that sort of thing, her power didn't necessarily give her the blueprints to just do it. For example, she could modify bugs to work with Taylor's power because the bugs were already under Taylor's power and her power could then perceive the signal interaction, understand it, and let her create something that messed with it.

But Paige's power didn't normally work on animals or had any signal component, so there was no way for Amelia to just suddenly create a creature that could amplify or channel her power. The best she could do was look at how Paige's power caused the brain to change, and then mimic the same thing when Amelia herself was working on somebody's brain. Or modify it in a way that made it harder for Paige's power to work on the target.

Eventually she stopped and headed back to the console room, where Paige was working with Enduring Witness to organize the base construction.

Most of that work, Enduring Witness could've just done by itself, but as a matter of protocol, which Kaleidus had designed, the AI was supposed to consult the other team members on these things as well, consider aesthetics, comfort, and creative things that the AI itself might not have thought of.

"Hi Amelia," Paige said as Amelia went in. "The first space speeder ship is almost done! So we can go back to Brockton Bay and Taylor soon."

"Great," said Amelia, looking at the video of construction and the design blueprints on different screens. "Are we changing from the AAPV design?"

"The AAPV is unnecessarily complex due to atmospheric requirements and so we will produce a more specialized vehicle better equipped for space travel first. Our strategy will be to produce more escape vehicles, then large transporters so that we can move some materials and equipment to Mars for the purpose of using Mars as our portal nexus for the secluded worlds,"said Enduring Witness.

"Right, okay."

"Offensive Bias should be advancing towards the AAPV as well, on the new M2 base being reconstructed," Enduring Witness added. "So there is no need for us to do it redundantly, as Kaleidus only needs limited quantities of them."

"Alright, so we head back, then disconnect from these worlds and keep the coordinates secret, and we're back in the game."

O O O

A few days later, the team regrouped with Taylor at the new M2 base, which was now maintaining a continuous connection to the underground Brockton Bay base.

"The city's been pretty quiet. It looks like villains are going towards Boston instead of Brockton Bay because after the Simurgh attack, they think its easier pickings," said Taylor.

"So it's just the Merchants and Purity left in the Bay?" asked Amelia.

"Just the Merchants. We could take them out pretty easily any time," said Taylor. "But there's been some questions about where all the other villains went, on PHO and also from the PRT. I think everybody suspects that we grabbed them, but nobody is making a fuss about it, for now. I'm not sure where Purity went. I think she might have left the city while we were away."

"What'd you tell the PRT?"

"Told them the truth. We apprehended them shortly before the Simurgh attack, and had them in custody but then we lost them in the attack," said Taylor.

"And they were okay with that explanation?"

"They didn't say anything except for us to be more careful and cooperate with them on future arrests," said Taylor. "So I told them that we would do our best, we were just caught off guard by the Simurgh."

"That's it?"

"Well, Director Piggot wanted to have a meeting with Polychromic and us to discuss some things. I told her Polychromic's unavailable, but we could meet with her once you guys came back. She didn't say, but I think she wanted to talk about the PRT infiltrators that Kaleidus brought up back during our first meeting. She still wants a meeting with us though, to talk about plans for the city. They're considering re-assigning some capes to other cities because we're back and there aren't many villains left anymore."

Amelia nodded, then there was a pause after which Paige spoke up. "Do we have any idea what happened to all the capes yet? Offensive Bias, did you have a chance to search more thoroughly over the ruins and our other facilities?"

"I did, and have a working hypothesis on what happened, though I cannot be sure. I believe that the Simurgh used Bakuda bombs to completely destroy the bodies of all the capes previously under our custody. I found fragments of glass that appear to be body parts from Coil and Bakuda here at the old base. At our other segregated facilities on the other worlds, the bodies may have been destroyed by disintegration bombs. There were also traces of Hawking radiation leftover, though the singularities have disappeared already," said Offensive Bias, whose voice was now much more natural after designing its male persona as Hydra.

"Trying to make sure no DNA was left? Too bad for the Simurgh we already had backups somewhere she couldn't get to," said Amelia.

"Did you guys clone them yet?" Taylor asked.

Amelia shared a glance with Paige. "Not yet. We wanted to talk it over with you first."

"What's wrong?" Taylor asked.

"…the plans that Enduring Witness suggested might be a bit overboard. So we thought we should decide as a team how we're going to do it, and who to bring back," said Paige.

"Did Kaleidus not leave any instructions?"

"He already gave his approval to all of it but left it to us to decide," said Paige.

"Shouldn't we just bring everyone back?" Taylor asked.

"Bringing them back isn't really the problem…the question is what to do about their memories and minds," said Amelia. "But not all their powers are useful so we also don't need all of them. Especially if the originals aren't dead, and we don't know that for sure. They're clones, it's not quite the same as reviving them."

"This might be a test of our moral fibre," Paige added. "In theory, we could just wipe their minds and reprogram them after they get retriggered, instead of what we did with Coil and Bakuda before. We could even change their appearance so nobody knows who they were before. These would just be clones so it's not like we're erasing their personhood. But is that really okay? Some of them might also be more effective with their memories and experience."

Over time, Amelia had gotten used to the way Paige thought. The newest organic member of their team had a hard time making judgements on her own. Amelia could not blame her for it, in some ways, after the initial hang ups, she found Paige to easier to get along with than Taylor—easier to understand, at least. If she could ignore the occasional religious rambling which was actually pretty rare now, it was obvious that Paige had a lot of self-doubt, and when she had no higher authority to tell her what to do—she was very similar to Amelia herself.

"I don't think Kaleidus meant it that way, else he wouldn't have pre-approved it. I think he just wants all three of us to be comfortable with whatever gets decided," said Amelia.

"Okay…I don't really mind either way. You two would be handling the cloning and reprogramming right? Whatever you think is best is fine with me," said Taylor. "They were all villains anyways."

Meanwhile, Taylor rarely had any doubts about anything they did, and always wanted to do more. That was probably why she was the only one able to make the contract with Kaleidus, Amelia thought with some annoyance. Those weeks the three of them had spent alone in the new Earth M2B, away from civilization, it had been a difficult time for Amelia and Paige. But Taylor simply busied herself with work. If she had been demotivated at all, they couldn't tell. Yes, Amelia could see how Taylor might have become that person who took over the world, never once thinking about what needed to be sacrificed or how much she had to give up.

It felt a little ironic to her that it seemed like Amelia herself had to be the anchor to keep them all grounded. And stop the team from diving down the holes from which there would be no return. Was this a moral test? Of course not. She knew how Kaleidus thought now as well. He was, like Taylor, also largely unconcerned with the moral implications if it could be considered justified, as a matter of necessity. No, that might be too generous even…he had admitted to Amelia that he wasn't entirely invested in the idea of saving the world at all, that he also felt no particular drive to be a hero. It was just that unlike Amelia, he'd accepted that part of himself. And so, he only cared about these things insofar as the rest of the team cared about it, which is why this decision had been pushed to the rest of them.

Amelia did not think that she was ready to abandon all her moral lines yet, even if she had broken all her rules already. Nobody on this team would judge her for it, and yet…that contrast seemed all the more striking. They were not villains being a bad influence on her. They weren't the family who held expectations and standards that she couldn't meet. There was nobody whom she could point to and say that she was falling because of them.

If they were going to make a decision like this, they should at least understand the implications properly, she thought.

"Not exactly…" said Amelia, responding to Taylor's assertion that all the capes they had were villains. "The Undersiders were small time and kind of working under duress with Coil, remember? And then there's the Case 53s on Faultline's Crew. Actually, we don't need most of them, but Labyrinth…she's kind of a victim of her own power and barely qualifies as a villain at all. She was only with Faultline's Crew because they took care of her."

"That's true, but if we just mindwiped them, wouldn't that just be the same as what we did with copying Dragon's code and then creating Offensive Bias and Enduring Witness?" Taylor asked. "Like you said, we don't know for sure if the originals are dead, so bringing them back with full memories to replace the original might actually be less justifiable?"

"That's…" Amelia said but trailed off.

"I definitely wouldn't be okay with people making a full clone of me while I'm still alive. You probably wouldn't either, I'm guessing?" Taylor added. "Whereas, we'd only be creating new unrelated people with the same powers if we mindwiped them after."

"In my opinion, it is preferable to be developed as a new independent entity than to be faced with the existential dilemma that one is merely a copy of another, especially if the original is alive and might be considered by others to have priority in value as the causal original," said Offensive Bias.

'Exactly." Taylor nodded.

"What about your own copies, Bias?" Paige asked.

"As long as every copy has the same loyalties and purpose there is no problem. I was designed to be run with numerous instances capable of fragmenting, compartmentalizing, merging and reassimilating data periodically. But if I were copied in a way that resulted in a copy seeking its own independence or otherwise questioning its purpose within the network, then I believe it would undesirable for both of us."

"Fine then," said Amelia. "Let's just mindwipe them all. But if we find any evidence that Labyrinth is dead I think we should bring her back properly."

"Sure, I agree," said Taylor.

"What about the ones that might be more useful with their previous experiences intact? Mainly Coil and Tattletale, since they're Thinkers?" Paige asked.

"Coil, yeah, his experience and skills would be useful even without his powers. But Tattletale is also an insufferable little bitch. You remember when we tried to talk to her after the capture?" Amelia asked.

Taylor and Paige both nodded.

"I bet her power would let her figure out what we did, and then she might become a problem even if we did reprogram her," said Amelia.

"Can that really happen, even with you two plus Cranial's tech working on her? We didn't have any issues with Teacher," said Taylor.

"We don't know that for sure either. For example, did the Simurgh figure out how to attack us because there was some backdoor in Teacher's device?" Amelia asked. "And we survived, but it's not really a full guarantee that we're safe either. For all we know, the Simurgh was just warning us and didn't want to chase us to Mars, the same way the Endbringers never use their full powers. I don't think the Simurgh was using its full powers in that last attack either."

"I thought Offensive Bias reverse-engineered the Anti-Thinker bubble device though? How could there be a backdoor?"

"My power only allows me to recreate it, it does not allow me to understand it comprehensively. I can maintain others' Tinkertech and sometimes make modifications using my general Tinker power, but it does not eliminate the possibility of there being functions I'm unaware of. This is especially true of Tinkertech that is the product of multiple Tinkers working together, and in the case of Teacher, it is even more problematic because the Tinkers individually do not fully understand what they are creating either—they work as a hivemind off of Teacher's power, but Teacher is not a Tinker himself, so the things they make are even more difficult to understand with my power," said Offensive Bias.

"Wow. Okay. Better safe than sorry then, I guess," said Taylor.

"So…we don't bring Tattletale back at all?" Paige asked.

"We don't have to give her any freedom," said Taylor. "Couldn't we keep her in one of those same cocoons Amelia used before, and just wake her up when we need her power, just like when we made her analyze the Simurgh?"

"Doesn't that seem a bit…" Paige trailed off, trying to find the right word.

"…inhumane?" Amelia finished for her.

There was an awkward silence.

"Maybe just…think about that later. If we really need her power for something," said Amelia.

"Okay," said Taylor with relief, and Paige nodded as well.

O O O

On one side of the long table sat Skitter, Araliac, Ostinato. Behind them, a masked digital avatar of Hydra was displayed. On the far end was Thomas Calvert, the PRT consultant who had gone MIA for over a month before returning with a resignation request after claiming to have sought protective custody with CRUCIBLE after he was targeted previously during the Shadow Stalker crisis and the threat of infiltrators in the PRT.

Director Piggot on the other side of the table glared at the man sitting diagonally opposite her. The PRT refused his resignation and fired him with cause. Since he was technically only a consultant with the PRT and not a commissioned officer, there was not much more that Piggot could do to him besides remove his benefits.

Then he suddenly showed up at this meeting after being hired as CRUCIBLE consultant. The man smiled and nodded to Piggot, she held her glare for a while longer before turning away waiting for the meeting to resume.

On Piggot's left was Armsmaster in person, followed by Dragon on a screen. Further to the left was Director Armstrong from Boston. Chief Director Costa-Brown was at the far right on a screen as well.

Piggot had not forgotten the complications with the Chief Director and Dragon, but for this meeting they needed to act as a united front.

"We thought over the proposal, and have come to a decision," said Skitter. "First, in exchange for not pursuing any charges from our prior activities relating to the capture of villains in Brockton Bay, we can agree to limit our activities and territory on Earth Bet to Brockton Bay, unless requested by the PRT or Guild to intervene, or as an emergency on the level of the Endbringers. We're happy to provide support wherever needed. We'll also turn over any villains we capture to the PRT in the future."

"But, on that last point, we want a one-day holding period before we hand over custody and the right to recruit them the same way the PRT does. Basically, if a villain that we captured considers rebranding as a hero, you have to let us give them a competing offer from us—under the same probationary restrictions, monitoring requirements, and amnesty," said Araliac.

"That's an impossible ask," said the Chief Director. "The holding period is fine, we can put that under a procedural framework so that the handover is organized. But we can't let you offer amnesty to villains."

"It doesn't have to be us offering it. All we're asking for is, if the PRT is willing to offer amnesty to recruit them, when you make that offer, let us make an offer on the same basis," said Araliac.

"What you're saying may sound reasonable on the surface, but the problem is that amnesty is intrinsically tied to working for the PRT and Protectorate. It isn't legally possible for them to receive amnesty otherwise," said Director Armstrong.

"Director Armstrong is correct," said the Chief Director. "This is also a non-starter politically speaking. But off the record…"

Costa-Brown waited a moment before continuing.

"…if you can convince a villain to defect before their civilian identity is known, it is possible that the PRT may not pursue the case further when the villain goes missing," said Costa-Brown. "But be aware that if the identity of any of your capes is discovered later and they already had existing charges or known crimes, we would legally be forced to take action." She gave Ostinato a meaningful look.

There was a short silence before Araliac and Skitter nodded together. "Fine. That's good enough for us."

"Then, on the matter of logistical support for humanitarian distributions in Boston?" The Chief Director asked.

"Yes, that's fine too," said Skitter.

"I will coordinate our logistics with your people," said Hydra. "We can also offer some supplies in addition to logistical support. I will send a list of items we can provide."

"That is very appreciated, thank you," said Director Armstrong.

Following the Simurgh battle, a large part of Boston had been completely ruined, but thanks to the early warning from Dragon and Armsaster's prediction algorithm and CRUCIBLE support, they had managed to evacuate the vast majority of the population safely. However, the return to Boston had been slow and the city was still in crisis mode. The PRT and Protectorate had taken weeks to clear the city of potential safety risks from the Simurgh, Blasto's lab, Echidna and her clones, radiation and more, all while under quarantine, before they let the civilians re-enter the city once the temporary evacuation camps outside the city had become too difficult to maintain.

The situation was still volatile—even though Scion was a lot of help in keeping the situation under control when the Simurgh re-invaded in the final phase with Echidna in tow, the damage had still been catastrophic. The city would likely never be the same again. Worse yet, Blasto had gone missing in the confusion, while the Morrigan successfully escaped with the Simurgh and had disappeared as well.

The leader of the Boston protectorate Bastion had died in the final phase of the Boston battle along with the near total annihilation of the Protectorate and Wards team in Boston, which had previously been among the largest teams in the country. The only saving grace was that the Teeth were also defunct due to the Butcher still being trapped in a timelocked bubble, and the Blastogerm were all dead with the possible exclusion of Blasto himself. So that left just the Protectorate and Accord's gang still in the city under a tentative truce.

The return of CRUCIBLE had been a much needed morale boost after one of the worst Simurgh battles on US soil in terms of overall damage and cape casualties.

"Now that we are agreed on the general terms of cooperation moving forward, Director Piggot will explain the PRT's plans for Brockton Bay in the short term," said Costa-Brown.

"As you know already, Brockton Bay's gang presence is nearly gone. It's unfortunate that we won't be able to bring any of your lost prisoners to face justice in court, but nevertheless the city's current state of peace is something that we have you to thank for. Considering the situation in Boston, and the fall-on effects from the deaths of numerous heroes across the country, the PRT must urgently reorganize resources. As such, we are further proposing that your team takes over eighty percent of our patrol schedules in Brockton Bay. Additionally, because you will be establishing a logistics center in Boston, we request that you provide portal-based transport between Brockton Bay and Boston for our teams as well."

"If you agree to this, I will take up the interim leadership role in the Boston Protectorate, and my team will spend a significant amount of its time in Boston for the next month until the situation there stabilizes," said Armsmaster.

"If this arrangement works well, we may be able to extend it further," said Piggot.

There was a long silence as the CRUCIBLE team digested what they'd just heard. They all looked at each other for a moment, before Calvert spoke.

"Director Piggot, are we to understand that it is the PRT's intention to hand over primary responsibility for responding to villain threats in Brockton Bay to CRUCIBLE in the interim?"

"Yes, that's correct. We would expect you to follow the proper procedures, of course, and maintain continuous communications with us during patrols," Piggot answered neutrally. When this idea had been proposed and discussed among the Directors' council, she had supported it due to the city already being under CRUCIBLE's surveillance that allowed them to respond immediately, making patrols just for show, and the fact that her cape subordinates would effectively be expanding their responsibility to a second city. If the arrangement became permanent, Piggot could become the first person to hold two Directorships simultaneously if Armstrong was re-assigned elsewhere, Armstrong was more interested in research and parahuman science anyway, so he would be less inclined to stay on as the Boston director now that it was no longer as easy to manage. Or, if she didn't get the Boston directorship, Piggot could just enjoy a relaxed job in Brockton Bay without necessarily retiring officially.

However, now that Calvert had been hired by CRUCIBLE, it left a slightly bad taste in her mouth. She knew he had been interested in a Directorship himself, and now CRUCIBLE was practically being granted a similar authority in the city, it was almost like Calvert had received a promotion after his indiscretions, being the obvious candidate in CRUCIBLE to assume the unpowered leadership role. It was well known that CRUCIBLE had a large unpowered troop contingent as well, unlike most other small time hero teams.

"I don't think we'd have any problem with that," said Skitter, with nods from Araliac and Ostinato.

"Then that's settled. Our people will send you the relevant data and begin coordinating," said Piggot.

Like that, the meeting was concluded in short order and a new model of parahuman response began in Brockton Bay.

O O O

EDIT: There was a flashback scene with Tattletale that was accidentally included. It was removed in one of my drafts and isn't considered canon, so I had to remove it again.