章節 117: 153
Amelia, Ch 152
I almost got sick when I entered the basement. We trusted dealing with Grue's accomplices to the others. Theo alone should be more than capable, the rest were just for assurances. But Taylor didn't want to let the others into the basement. She didn't even want me entering the basement. It wasn't hard to see why.
To call it a 'basement' was bullshit in and of itself. They carved a hole in the ground, pretty much literally. Rough, uneven walls shorn into the earth and then coated with some kind of shell. Possibly melted into an obsidian... I didn't know, tinker bullshit of some description, I was sure. A single extension cord brought power into the room. We had to follow the stairs down before we could really see anything. There were two separate cells that looked to be cobbled together from rebar and chicken wire.
"Who are you?" A woman asked- one of the prisoners. Her clothes looked relatively clean, and she looked in decent health at first glance. The man in the cell on the other side from her was... anything but. Staring blankly, unrecognizingly, at us.
"We're heroes," Skitter spoke, mechanically. "We beat your captors. I'm sorry we didn't know about you sooner."
"I suppose it's too much to hope for that you killed those rapist bastards?" the woman spat. I looked over at Taylor. The real her, not the changelings we were working through. She tensed at the accusation, probably deciding whether or not she believed it.
"You don't have to lie," Minerva countered. "Trust me, we know how bad this is. Rape would be the least serious crime on the list."
"What they did to Victor is rape," the woman insisted. "And Fenja..."
"Riley, back room," Taylor stated from our safe place in our alt earth. "You'll find the third captive. She appears to be comatose, I'm fairly certain it's medically induced. You'll know better than I would."
Aceso jogged toward the back.
"We'll get you out," I told the woman, stepping toward her cage. "What's your name? Are there any traps down here?" I wasn't concerned about us, but I didn't want the prisoners to be killed.
"Othala," she answered. It took me a moment to remember who that was. Had it really only been a couple months since the removal of E88? "I don't think there's any traps, but one of them was a tinker, so I can't be sure."
"No," Minerva answered. "They were confident the prisoners wouldn't escape, and had no reason to set up traps. There were defenses upstairs to protect Uber and Leet, sure, but I'm pretty sure they were disabled by Eki. Any that withstood that attack? Khepri didn't give them a chance to use."
I gripped the bars and tugged. They broke easily enough. Out of the changelings, mine was definitely the strongest. In all honesty, I doubted it could rip the bars off of an actual jail cell, but this makeshift prison was nowhere near so durable.
Minerva simply opened a rather simplistic latch on Victor's door. He was unresponsive enough that they didn't even bother putting a real lock on it. How long has he been like this?
Othala rushed into the cell and gripped her... husband? I honestly didn't know enough about them to be sure. Still, she wept for the man, in full view of us and with no reservation or shame. "Can you help him?" she begged. "You're Panacea, right? A healer?"
It's been a while since I've been a healer, I thought.
"She can't," Minerva responded. "Grue used his own power on him, right? Repeated long exposures. Your husband has left behind plenty of case studies, and the damage cannot be repaired. No known healer has been able to fix the lives he's broken in the past, and he's been put through far more exposure than most of them. There's absolutely nothing for us to do beyond putting him in a care facility somewhere. Make his life as comfortable as possible."
"The fuck are you doing?" I asked Lisa from our staging area. "Our neural regeneration tech should be able to fix him."
"At best, it would allow someone else to have his body," she responded. "That mind won't be Victor's mind. Whatever remains of him in that shell is barely above brain dead. There's nothing left to save." I closed my eyes. She has a point.
"On top of that?" Lisa continued. "Fuck them both, they're still Nazis. What Grue did to them is fucked up beyond words, but that doesn't change the fact that Victor did this exact sort of thing to others on a semi regular basis, and Othala helped murder people in front of their own families for the supposed 'crime' of not being white. I want her to be fully aware that this is an ironic hell of the highest order. They might be victims, but they're nowhere near innocent."
I frowned. I might be able to undo it. I had never tried fixing Victor's victims, due to my fear of working with brains. But she wasn't wrong: whatever I built out of what was left of his mind wouldn't be the same person. Minor repairs, especially in someone I already knew, that was one thing. This... fuck, most of our zerg have higher mental facilities than what was left of Victor.
"I'm sorry," my Dryad spoke. "We can't restore him. We... we can make sure his trial is fair. Considering his... medical condition... I can't imagine he'll be subjected to prison." Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what would even be the point?
"You're going to arrest us?!" she shouted, startling Victor. "Shhh," she cooed at the upset man who couldn't understand what was happening, beyond knowing he was confused and frightened. "After everything that psycho put us through, surely you could just let us walk away?"
Taylor spoke to us in our safe spot. "So, the question is, do we recruit her? I vote against. We can't trust her, and she's mostly a redundancy."
I flinched. Fuck, the woman might be a Nazi, but she's still fucking human, and for us to go straight to the hard sell after she's been through this? I was beginning to remember why I hated Skitter and Tattletale so much.
"Nudge her over to the Protectorate," Lisa answered. "They need her far more than we do right now. Let them deal with the headaches that come with a Nazi nurse on the payroll. Right now, her only realistic value to us is making Calvert look good."
"It won't be that bad," Skitter responded to Othala. "Things have changed drastically since you've been down here. The Protectorate will make an offer. You'll get off scott free, long as you're willing to work for them. And they'll take care of your husband for you. Maybe they'll even be able to find someone who can fix him."
"What about E88?" Othala asked.
"Dismantled entirely," Skitter answered. "In prison, dead, or so deep in hiding that I'm not sure if even they know who they are."
"Purity and Crusader have joined the Protectorate in Houston," Minerva informed us. When did that happen? "Different names, of course. Purity's pretty generic, and it turns out Crusader's power can manifest almost any kind of outfit and melee weapon for his projections. He's got this whole cowboy theme going on with lassos, now. All the others have either left the country or settled down to an under the radar lifestyle so effective that I haven't been able to track them. Either that or they got themselves dead. Can't rule that out."
"You're a healer, Othala," Skitter continued. "One of the best ones on the planet, actually. Even if we ignore everything else you can do, that makes you invaluable."
She looked back down at the unresponsive Victor. "Fuck. You can promise they'll look after him?"
"I can promise a very fair and reasonable PRT Director who would meet you halfway," I answered. "Your power's too versatile and too useful. I'd be lying if I claimed to know exactly what you'll get offered. Directors will probably argue for weeks over where to assign you." Mostly who gets the credit or the blame, depending on who you ask. "Still, one way or another, Victor's going to be at the mercy of the state. At least this way you can ensure he gets the best possible medical care."
"She'll recover," Aceso announced, exiting the back room while carrying a very tall blond covered in nothing but a blanket. "Atrophy and substandard health care will be an issue, but ultimately a minor one. She should remain sedated for now, and allowed to recover slowly in a proper facility. Nothing more than a week or two. We can speed it up to about three days."
I constructed some outfits out of Yggdrasil and had them shunted over to my Dryad. "Let's get all of you into better clothes," I offered, handing Othala the set for her and Victor. She's his wife, so we were content to let her dress him while we worked to get Fenja clothed.
Meanwhile, our real selves were still debating on how to handle our captives. Victor, of course, was useless. He'd be the carrot that kept Othala in line. We'd already agreed on testing how Fenja's enlargement power legitimately worked. She might have useful powers that may or may not prove valuable. The really interesting question was if she could use her power on, say, one of our ultralisks. We could build a literally hundred foot tall monster for Taylor to command. Bring that into the next Endbringer fight.
And now, we were on to the criminals.
"Leet's got some promise for us," Lisa was discussing with Taylor, who was dead set on not taking any of the people who had done this. It feels good to know I'm still on her side most of the time. "But, honestly, if we could, I would really like to swing a way to get him straight into Dragon's personal control. That would be the absolutely ideal outcome. Leaving the kind of goodwill this kind of favor would generate with her, I've been comparing a few things, and I'm pretty sure I know what her tinker specialty is."
"Really?" I asked. I was actually interested in this.
"I think her power lets her understand other tinkers' technology," Lisa continued. "She isn't quite perfect at reverse engineering, but with each new piece of tech she picks up, she multiplies her options. It's likely she'll eventually reach a point where she can explain tinker tech in such a way that ordinary people can understand and build or improve upon it. But that's only a 'maybe', and not what I'm concerned with. What matters is that if Emma's a grab-bag-tinker, then Dragon is a trump-tinker."
"That is broken as fuck," Taylor muttered.
Riley simply nodded in agreement.
"No wonder she's so eager to buy almost everything we offer," Chariot responded. "I thought she was being nice to us for political reasons. But if you're right, then even the junky tech can be invaluable to her, as long as it's something she's never seen before. Or even if it is something she's seen before, just done in a different way."
"Holy shit!" Emma exclaimed. "You're talking about putting her in the same room as the guy who can build practically anything that can actually exist. Christ, give them a year and she might even be able to solve the Entity problem for us."
"That is exactly what I'm hoping for."
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A/N- Munchkining!Last edited: Mar 31, 2015 Reactions:TheBigMole, Surtur, Darth Bayes and 97 othersTanaNariJan 10, 2015Reader mode Threadmarks Threadmarks Amelia, Ch 153- Taylor Threadmarks TanaNariVerified DickJan 10, 2015#175Amelia, Ch 153- Taylor
Dammit, Brian. I ignored the need to cry, looking at the state of his victims. Othala was reasonably healthy, though certainly not in good shape. After a bit of time, we'd decided that the only thing that had kept Fenja and Victor alive was liberal applications of Othala's powers. Part of what made her such a powerful healer is that it was 'no cost'. Or, at least, the Passenger was footing the bill instead of the laws of nature or physics. It worked like Lung, generating the mass and energy from seemingly nowhere. Instead of like Amelia, who needed to draw resources from somewhere and put concentration into it.
With Brian and his new 'friends' disabled, we could finally arrive in person, shunting our Changelings back over. Amelia had a sort of auto system that would take them back home. Most of the group was focused on finding equipment to confiscate. Whatever they used to blind me and my bugs was... I really wanted to know how that worked, and how to overcome it. I also, honestly, didn't want Dragon to rebuild a copy to use against me. Just because I happened to like her, that didn't mean I was willing to let her have that kind of power over me.
Speaking of... I glanced over at Amelia. She's beautiful. I looked away. God damn it, the world couldn't let have just that one thing, could it?
I walked over to Emma, currently in yellow mode, who was busy examining one of the larger devices. "So, what's this one?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Seems to be their teleportation device. Kinda insane, it's going to take us weeks to figure it out."
"Sell it to Dragon?" I suggested.
"Eventually," she responded. "This thing's giving me ideas, a way to transfer power from one area to another without it having to actually travel through the space between, and I'm sure Trevor will have some of his own. He's too busy on the stable point wormhole right now."
Fucking tinkers. "Okay, keep up the good work," I responded. Emma smiled far too happily at the minor praise. My own significantly less cute and horrifying version of Bonesaw, I thought. Of course, if she starts calling me 'big sister', I'm going to stab her in the kidneys. I walked away.
Ordinarily, right now Amelia and I would be holding hands and just... discussing. It was our post combat cooldown, taking the time to let the adrenaline wear off. Right now, after seeing what happened to Victor, I would have loved such a comfort. There was nothing of him left but a shell. I once again affirmed to myself that I would rather die than for that to ever happened to me. I had to hope that, if it did, someone would be kind enough to kill me.
Meanwhile, I spied with my bugs, listening in on the other conversations. Atropos and Clotho were off in a corner, doing exactly what I would have done with Amelia. I tried hard not to be resentful that they were so happy together. I chose not to listen in on them, except to ensure they weren't too upset with us over Coil.
Theo was with Lachesis, and they had approached the mostly passive Othala. She wasn't doing anything right now but trying to comfort her husband. My heart went out to her. I couldn't even imagine what she was going through. "Hello, ma'am," Theo said to his father's former employee. "I'm... I'm sorry about what happened to Victor."
Othala paused for a second. "Theo?" she asked. "Is that you?"
"Yes, ma'am," he answered. "Please don't spread it around to anyone else. I'm Horus, in costume. A hero."
"Kaiser was beginning to suspect you would never get your powers," Othala responded. "Instead you seem to have gotten the best ones out of your family."
"My father was wrong about a lot of things," Theo answered, letting a bit of distaste into his voice. Enough to show he has an edge, without making him sound needlessly angry or unstable. I was impressed. He'll be a brilliant leader, some day.
Miss Militia arrived with the PRT, someone else that I felt sorry for. I had a hard time imagining what her life was like these days. The last remaining Protectorate member in Brockton Bay. Yes, most of the others were nearby, but she was the only one here. After Piggot and Armsmaster... well, guilt by association. She may or may not deserve it, but her career was functionally dead. They couldn't demote or fire her, but they would never place her in charge of anything important.
"Don't bother sending your guys in yet," Lisa said, intercepting Miss Militia. "We're still itemizing the tech. Leet left behind some traps. We're combing the interior to make sure everything's been disabled."
"You mean to make certain you've stripped everything of value," Miss Militia countered.
"Spoils of war," Lisa dismissed. "Private organization, we don't get a fat government budget. Don't worry, we'll be selling it to your bosses eventually, I'm certain. Wouldn't want anyone to accuse us of some kind of cover up."
She frowned. The 'spoils' system was... messy, from a legal standpoint. What was valid, what was not. Especially when it came to tinker technology, which by all rights always went to the PRT and then the claimant would simply be paid for the equipment. Much the way firearms and drugs were treated. Dead to all rights, we could not legally do what we were doing. It was also a shady area of borderline legal, so if no one told us to stop... we didn't have to stop.
"Are we going to have another custody argument about the prisoners?" Miss Militia asked, choosing a different battle. She sounded tired. Resigned, even. She would have won the spoils battle, at least in the short term. And, in the process, given the PRT access to technology that might just be able to shut down my power entirely. Instead she chose not to, knowing that she didn't have the political clout to keep what remained of her career should she piss us off. Did she feel this way when she let Piggot firebomb my friends? I wondered. I certainly hope so.
"Depends on who you want in custody," Lisa responded. "Othala, Victor and Fenja are victims, here. We didn't capture them, we rescued them after they'd been kept in captivity for weeks and used as a power supply. We won't be turning them over to your custody. However, Othala's willing to discuss the terms of her own surrender. And the possibility of joining the Protectorate. Be nice to her, and she goes home with you tonight."
God damn it, Lisa, you did that on purpose.
Miss Militia didn't respond to the comment. Considering she wasn't native to this country, she may not have gotten the joke. Then again, she dealt with Assault and Clockblocker on a regular basis, so it was just as likely that she developed a skill for ignoring that kind of thing. "The other two?"
"Victor's... well, you'll see for yourself," Lisa continued. "He's not in a condition to be making decisions for himself, and likely never will be again. Fenja's injured. We will be taking care of her until she's rehabilitated. It'll take a week at most. After that... it's really up to her to decide what comes next."
"The others, the actual criminals here. Responsible for the attack on former Director Piggot, the attempted assassination of Director Calvert, at least three other murders, kidnapping, crimes against humanity, conspiracy to commit a bunch of other crimes, and possibly treason. You should be thanking us... you were on his list, too. So was Legend, although I personally doubt he could have succeeded at that." So was Costa-Brown, aka Alexandria... that would have gone poorly for him as well. "I'm sure the prosecution will come up with a few other things to add to the list... they're all yours."
"Really?" Miss Militia sounded shocked. "No argument, no surprises?"
"Well... we do have to insist that Dragon take personal custody of Grue," she added. "His powers are... weird, now. We're not sure you have the facilities to hold him. We're not completely certain we have facilities to hold him. We had to use our Endslayers to put him down the first time."
"And he survived?"
"Well, we weren't trying to kill him," Minerva countered. "Look. He has had access to a lot of powers, and he's somehow even managed to keep the ones he got from Crawler. We don't know for certain what he can do now, and it's everything Gaea can do to keep his adaptive regeneration suppressed."
"A couple more hours of this and I won't be able to keep him unconscious anymore," Amelia confirmed. "After that, Theo might be able to hold him, if he doesn't have a power that can let him escape. If we don't have a better solution by then..." She'll have to kill him, I added mentally. I wanted to laugh and cry. One of my exes might kill the other. And then I had to chide myself. Brian and I were never an 'item' to make him an ex, and Amelia wouldn't be killing anyone. More likely, Atropos would have to kill him. Hers was the only power we could rely upon to no-sell his regenerative abilities.
Meanwhile, I was drawing my new breed of shunt capable units into the area. I was the only one here, other than Riley, who legitimately had blood on their hands. I can add more, if it means no one else has to. It's not like it really matters to me.
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A/N- being part of my story is suffering.
Also: I use "of course" *waaaay* too much in my writing. I've been deleting a lot of those because it's fucking annoying.
Why did no one ever point that habit out to me? It's a bad one and needs to die. In a fire. Made of bees.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票