by Skyler Grant
That was interesting too. The piratical look was perhaps not just some preferred fashion statement. I'd noticed that humans clung to the dress of their youth, although that was more an indication of decade than century.
"How will I contact you?" I asked.
Voltara gave me a stern look. "We'll set up a secure channel. And a teleportation link, although I hate to do it. You'll need to get research materials to me. This cooperative agreement of ours only lasts for so long as I think might be useful for me, and you work hard to maintain my strict privacy. I've got a temper, don't raise it."
16
By the time I got away from Voltara's vessel, the others had completed their robberies—or failed miserably, in one case.
The standout loser in things wasn't the one I expected. Jules was one of our strongest and the best. To be fair, although Mastermind was gone she attacked a tower still filled with high powered weaponry and some of the smartest people on the planet.
The results were one trashed hovercraft, twenty dead henchmen, a seriously wounded Jules who was at least capable of regenerating the injuries after a day of rest, and a big loss for the finance books.
The other jobs had gone better. Gloom managed to successfully bluff her way through STRONG defenses, even saying that she had turned Niles, and the security systems bought it long enough for them to get away with quite a bit of loot from the living quarters.
Some of it was just personal memorabilia, but that sort of thing fetched a high price on Villainet. Every hero somewhere out there had an arch nemesis just waiting for something with which to torment them.
And some more genuinely useful items.
Shard of the Infinite Sun
Legendary
Estimated value 10,500,00
The Infinite Sun was the greatest hero of a failed alternate Earth. When the planet was destroyed his essence split into three parts. This is one of them. Should all be reassembled the bearer would gain his full abilities.
Deception Glasses
Rare
Estimated value 4,500,000
This is a pair of what appears to be ordinary spectacles, although the lenses are simple glass. They contain a surprising power. The wearer can never be recognized as themselves. This allows one to create an entirely unique identity for whatever purpose they desire.
Gem of Mazakar
Unique
Estimated value 340,000,000
The demon Mazakar once ruled an entire hellplane under his iron fist, and planned to conquer them all. A plucky band of heroes defeated him and bound him to this gem. Those of his bloodline can use it to gain a fraction of his power, and for centuries they have been trying to twist the gem's powers for good.
Blanket of Infinite Combinations
Unique
Estimated value 170,000,000
This blanket is a unique creation of the master weaver of super-cloth Daxia Rell. Instead of her usual costumes, this blanket was made specifically when the Green Hope and the Red Dawn hoped to have a child. As members of two wildly different species that don't even share a common gender this would normally be impossible. This blanket makes all things possible.
Well, this was an interesting assortment of the powerful and marginally functional. The shard would be useful only if you had the other three, which we most certainly did not. I'd sell it and let someone else hope that the lottery might one day come.
The gem was a strange item. The powers it granted were to a very specific demonic heritage, and while I certainly knew demons, I wasn't sure if any of them would benefit from it. Still, Kleo was royalty and if anyone knew what to do with it, it would be her. Even if someone couldn't benefit directly, perhaps they'd be able to free the demon lord.
The blanket was worth holding onto. I had neither the ability nor inclination to use it myself, but humans did appreciate reproducing with the strangest desires to do it with pretty much anything having a hint of intelligence.
The last of the haul was from Uma, and much to my surprise she'd actually done well.
Even with Disaster seeming to be gone too, people had been wary about stealing from Disaster, and when they had, nobody went for the research wing.
There was a lot of lab equipment, and despite a market for that sort of thing I thought that we'd hold onto it. Voltara was helping us out for now, and at the same time it was becoming increasingly clear that we needed our own research department. I had no great love for science. Most scientists were poor, which gave you a good idea just how little they contributed to society. Still, engineers could be wealthy because they took what scientists did and made it practical.
Operating labs was to our advantage, so long as we kept an eye on application and didn't let the impulse for research take over. It was important to always remember what was most important—profit.
Equipment wasn't all that Uma had gotten.
There were a few prototype devices, and each was interesting in its own way.
Sonic Turret
Prototype
The sonic turret is an effort by Disaster to capture some part of her power in a portable form that can be deployed for self defense. It is meant to create an intense sonic blast that disintegrates targets at a subatomic level, essentially erasing them from existence. Currently it is barely functional and will only seriously maim most targets, and firing the weapon destroys the turret itself after a few shots.
Dimensional Tunneler
Prototype
The dimensional tunneler is an effort to blast a hole through reality so that one can create a corridor to another dimension. While this has been partially successful, so far the only tunnels that have been created are microscopic in scale and persist for less than a second.
Cacophony Funnel
Prototype
The cacophony funnel is an attempt at a spy drone. With a recording of an individual's vocal patterns it is meant to hover over a city and track the echoes of those patterns to not just determine a current location, but create a record of their travels. So far this technology has met with moderate success and allowed the location and tracking of targets over an eight hour window.
They were all interesting projects, and for different reasons. The sonic turret was a base defense—and base defense was what we did. It might not have been very successful so far, but that could change. Disaster was hailed as the most destructive villain on the planet, and if we could master some version of her power we'd have the best defended lairs on the planet.
The dimensional tunneler fit right into our recent problems. We'd been attacked by invaders who had punched a hole into our dimension, so of course I was interested in replicating that feat. Mastermind might still be in this dimension, but he might not. If he was elsewhere, we had to figure out a way to reach him and this tunneler could be the answer to that.
The cacophony funnel wasn't of any specific use in our current problems, but it was undeniably useful. Not only was it the most functional of the technologies, it was practical. Intelligence was power, always, and knowing who was where was just that.
The sonic turret we'd study in-house once we got our R&D division running. I didn't want to give Voltara any more power, and her troopers had been formidable. With luck, if we could get this technology working, we might have something we could use against Voltara as well, if things ever came to that.
The dimensional tunneler had to go to Voltara. Not only did it seem likely to be well outside of our skill-set to make work, it was critical to get it working as fast as possible. Voltara was a genius and she was our best option.
The cacophony funnel was already somewhat usable and we'd put that into production at once. We'd collected a large database of the heroes and villains, with lots of vocal patterns that could be taken from audio and video recordings. We'd feed them into the cacophony funnel and see if we started getting any hits. The facilities the aliens had built might be housing our missing. Potentially, we'd find the one that held Mastermind and prepare a strike.
Not only did we have to keep a focus on our home lair because Patriot was somewhere beneath us, now that we were playing host to Gloom, people would be coming to try to take her out. Gloom was a new S-Class, and was vulnerable until she learned her abilities to the full. The few times the heroes had ever brought down an S-Class, it was after teaming up and when the S-Class was still developing and vulnerable.
I felt confident we could stand against anyone. Still, I was going to have to invest more in our base defenses than ever before.
I took a moment to review our plans. From the outside our headquarters appeared to be a single story building. Everybody knew better, and just how many levels existed beneath it. Someone trying to bomb us out of existence didn't seem much of a concern. Destroying the ground-level building was pointless. Anybody who wanted to get to Gloom would know they'd have to come in and move down deep after her.
The first destination of any attackers would be our teleportation nexus. Capturing that would allow advancing to the next floors. I could try to hide that nexus, but it was perhaps in our best interest to make sure it was obvious and lay traps accordingly.
The ground floor defenses beyond our reception were mostly to stop minor threats. It didn't make any sense for anyone too weak to go after Gloom, and you'd think it unlikely, but humans liked impossible odds. It was why they played the lottery.
Really our first defenses were the best kind—they came for free.
Gloom wasn't just attracting heroes who wanted her head. There were also villains who wanted to sign up.
I'd always found it a bit strange that Mastermind had most of the administrative functions of his government on the ground floor of his tower, but now I wondered if he'd done it for good reason. Any crowd of villains camped out in reception, waiting for the bureaucracy to grind along, would be forced into fighting on your behalf should an invader come along. Some might flee, but most couldn't resist battling heroes.
This could work especially well for us now that Mastermind Tower was no longer accessible for many, hovering in the skies of the city.
We'd take over the bureaucracy of the city and process all the permits, licenses, and whatever else people had become accustomed to. We'd register people for Gloom and perform other city administration functions from our ground floor, claiming we were acting on behalf of Mastermind. With our backdoor access to Mastermind's systems that was possible,
To that end our ground floor would become a true administrative center—although we'd keep our actual mainframes and hardware better hidden. For now we'd use henchmen for office workers, and perhaps upgrade to lower grade villains as we continued to get applicants in. A reception filled with impatient, short-tempered villains waiting for applications to be processed was the perfect first line of defense.
Any invaders that fought or snuck through the swarm to the teleportation room would then face the next tier of defenses.
I just had to figure out what those should be.
17
I had the ability to choose from a few pre-made options for any floor, but the main floor had some unique needs and I didn't think that going from any templates was the best bet.
If someone fought or managed to sneak their way through the lobby, they'd be headed for the teleportation chamber. I'd leave a well-marked path and simply fill it with defenses.
STRONG was my inspiration here. I'd been really impressed by their power suppression turrets and elevator setup. They were all about capturing people who were invading, and in this city capturing was a lot more effective than killing.
A captured villain could be turned to our side, they could provide intelligence, or they could be ransomed.
Unfortunately those turrets were very expensive. Top of the line was out of our budget and even low-end would take about half our funds. Still, I thought it worth doing.
The affordable models neutralized any D-Class or below powers for about an hour, in addition to knocking them out. C-Class would be stunned and neutralized for several seconds. B-Class and above would be largely unaffected.
Given that few people had yet fully gained their legacies from any abducted heroes, on average the strongest we'd encounter were likely B-Class, and really most of the population was C-Class and below. So some would definitely be able to get past these defenses.
I turned a vacant floor in a nearby building into a prison. Power-dampening cuffs and containment cells would hold anyone up to D-Class reliably, and anybody above unreliably.
The real violence would have to happen on the next floors. If you knew exactly who was coming you could tailor your defenses to suit, but we had no idea. Still, I thought I could prepare well.
Guns were a popular choice for defensive weaponry, and you'd be foolish to completely remove them from your arsenal. Still, given the sheer number out there who wore powered armor, deployed energy shields, or were bullet-resistant or possessed super-regeneration, guns weren't so impressive really.
The CCC was a society of low-grade heroes, and yet it had a great track record because they were all archers and fielded a variety of trick arrows that adapted to any circumstances. Jules had adopted that style, and I'd seen how well it had worked for her. Rustbucket was a recent example. Bullets would have simply corroded away on contact. The acid vial had ruined his whole day.
I needed versatility, and smart versatility.
There were six major powersets that I needed solutions for, and if I could devise them, I'd be able to mix and match against most enemies.
The first four were elementals. Some of the most common powersets were varieties of elemental manipulation, and they were great offensively and defensively. I needed counters for them.
I'd start with fire. You might think that water was the natural counter, and to a degree you'd be right. Part of why water worked was that it suffocated the flame. However, water didn't work on grease fires because instead of smothering them the burning oil always floated to the top.
Any true defense against fire should ideally involve the removal of oxygen. Fortunately, in an underground base, this was relatively easy to accomplish, at least with a few upgrades.
I'd have to clear it with Partygurl. I thought her level would be perfect for this. The air of her lair was already filled with psychotropic spores and it should be possible to maximize the effects of that while also providing a powerful counter to fire-users. It was a matter of atmospheric containment.
We could put several seals on doorways in her lair along with air pumps. Then with a command we'd be able to quickly leave an invader in a vacuum. To a pyrokinetic it should totally neutralize them, and it gave us some other options. It would allow me to rapidly increase the concentration of psychotropics in the air. No matter what powerset they had, if they breathed in processed drugs it should do a lot to weaken them. It was a powerful, specific defense, and a decent generalized one too.
Once someone was neutralized I would send in henchmen, but here was where I needed to think about two of the other powersets that posed major problems. Regeneration and invulnerability.
They were both common, to some degree, and we even had a lot on our own team. Those that could regenerate kept coming back, if you didn't hurt them enough. It required massive physical trauma in a short time to really shut them down. Invulnerability made them resistant to damage, and things like bullets would leave a dent rather than a hole. The solution was to treat it like you would most armor—hit harder.
If anyone made it this far I didn't see the point in having my henchmen armed with traditional firearms, or at the very least, not with conventional ammunition.
Specialized weaponry was incredibly expensive and we weren't that well off. I needed to compromise with conventional arms and unconventional ammunition. Armor-piercing rounds were the first choice. While not idea
l, they'd have added kick against invulnerable enemies and start making some holes.
There was a good option in shotgun rounds, albeit an expensive one. Chemical rounds had the force to penetrate then quickly ignite with fire intense enough to soften steel. Ideally, after they were embedded in the flesh too. Terribly costly, but a shot to the face from one of those shells should be enough to take out anyone with even moderately powerful regeneration.
That left the other elementals. Water, Earth, and Air.
Air in particular would be able to get past my vacuum defenses, since any hero could just generate their own atmosphere. Some of the hardest to fight, air powers were fast, even form-shifting to avoid incoming rounds and thus rendering them immune to bullets.
Electricity would seem a natural solution, but they often had control of that as well, discharging it at will in bursts of lightning.
Fire, I thought. It would have to be fire. Yes, control of air would give them some protection from radiant heat. However, it had limits and ultimately even in air form they were vulnerable.
I'd fill a floor with spiked traps, dart guns—all things normally lethal to a mundane human, but which those with air control could hover over or shift into air to bypass. Then I'd throw in some heat cannons carefully positioned. I'd leave them nowhere to go and no choice but to burn. Superheat them and they'd be in bad shape, lose control of their powers and hopefully impale themselves on spikes. No ... poisoned spikes—why not? Minimal extra cost with a little bit more kill potential.
Next was water, and I was already coming up with a solution, one rather brilliant. We had an aquaculture development center anyways. We'd dedicate a whole floor to the purpose, flooding it to become a large pool that attackers had to pass through. We'd fill it with sharks, but not just any sharks, sharks with laser beam projectors.
