Recursion

by Marion G. Harmon

  “Okay, a lot of somethings. But just one big one right now? I’m kinda married.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “General Warrant: an arrest warrant issued by a state or federal court, directing the arrest of the warrant’s subject. General Warrants may be served by anyone in good legal standing, not only law enforcement officers. General Warrants are only issued in cases where the warrant’s subject possesses superhuman powers which make it extremely dangerous if not suicidal for unpowered individuals to attempt the arrest. In cases where warrant subjects have died in the course of arrest, courts have generally but not always decided in favor of the arrestor’s use of deadly force.

  “CYA, everyone!”

  Tommy (Legal Eagle) Brannigan, Esq. legal brief.

  * * *

  The Day Briefing was excruciating. Shell made it easier, with a bullet-point list on my epad that let me skim my way through the routine stuff. Lei Zi went over the new duty roster. We’d officially added Iron Jack, Ambrosius, Agent G, Black Powder, Grendel, Ozma, and Eric—Gantry. Sifu was here “unofficially” (my old self-defense teacher gave me a nod from his side of the table), Jack Frost was a loaner, and Artemis was back. Jacky had arrived last night and was now asleep.

  I updated everyone on Rush’s condition—patched up and stable, with Chakra working to speed his healing. Last night, after taking a call from the White House (yes, this was now my new normal), I’d gone to the infirmary to find Rush lucid and dropping into Hypertime to heal when Chakra wasn’t pushing it along with her power. Chakra was focused entirely on Rush, a displacement strategy I understood perfectly.

  Lei Zi handed out a training schedule so she could work with each of us and drill the newbies on Dispatch and field protocols. Finished, she nodded to me and I cleared my throat. “That’s it for the day business, everyone. Now we need to go over exactly what we believe we’re facing. In my original timeline, the villains we’ve seen came from two groups; Villains Inc. and the Ascendancy. This is what we’ve been able to confirm.”

  I could have heard a pin drop.

  “Starting with Villains Inc., we have Hecate.” I looked to make sure Shell put her pinch-faced image up on the main screen, “She’s a B Class Merlin-Type and the one responsible for the demon thing that attacked us in Dispatch two days ago. Her summoning powers have been temporarily blocked, but when we fought her the first time around she displayed other talents like creating clay golems. The magic tradition she uses appears to be wildly syncretic—it’s a mix of a bunch of different schools and systems. The main thing we know is she’s not a wand-waving fireball throwing type, her threats and defenses take ritual preparation. This makes her both more dangerous and more vulnerable. We know her secret identity, and Fisher’s people got a warrant and searched her home but she’s in the wind.”

  Quin raised her hand. “Did they find anything?”

  “Yes. A bomb meant to destroy evidence of her rituals. I’ve called a friend who doesn’t know me yet. He’s going to be known as Dr. Cornelius and the CPD is willing to bring him up from L.A. and pay him a very nice fee for his opinion of her ritual paraphernalia. He’ll tell them what he thinks she can do.” (And I was going to have a conversation of my own with him as soon as I could do it quietly.) “Using just what we already know, the police are seeking a General Warrant for her arrest.

  “Villain-X.” Shell changed the image to show his scarred and scowling face. “Villain-X is the name I gave him before; he never claimed one and he died before the media could hang one on him. He’s ex-military, a mercenary A Class Atlas-Type, and currently boosted but we’ll get to that in a minute.

  “Tin Man.” The image changed to a pale nerdy type with a really big nose. “Tin Man is a technokinetic. He can remotely animate metal techno-puppets so long as he can see what they’re doing. Essentially he’s a super-powered drone operator. He used to specialize in burglary, using smaller puppets, until Villains Inc. recruited him. They gave him the space and resources he needed to make bigger, armed puppets. So far we’ve seen a Chinese dragon and giant spider—I’ve also seen him use a giant Japanese anime-style robot. Personally, I think he might have a fetish for giant robots.

  “Then there’s Swarm.” Shell showed us a still of Swarm’s particle-cloud filling the Base Level’s main hallway. “We have no solid information on Swarm. We think it’s a Metamorph-Type, but it might be a Verne-tech creation. Its transformed body is a cloud of tiny ‘micro-wasps’ that carry payloads of biological nerve toxin or acid. Swarm’s toxin killed Blackstone. We believe that individuals like myself, Iron Jack, and The Harlequin are more or less immune to Swarm’s attacks, and Ambrosius’ fields can likely block it. Last night, Lei Zi and Riptide drove it off with water and static-field attacks, and we believe that it would also be extremely vulnerable to temperature-based attacks like Jack Frost’s. Think of it as engine-freeze.”

  Veritas tapped the table, waiting until all of us looked at him. “A federal court has issued a General Warrant for Swarm, related to other events. If you encounter it again and have a reliable way to contain it, do it. If you must use deadly force to stop it from harming anyone or simply escaping, the General Warrant will cover you.” He nodded to me.

  “Thank you. Vulcan is also working on a ‘tactical vacuum’ that might work for containment, but you heard Veritas—if we can’t hold it, we stop it. It died the first time around by pure misadventure.

  “Flash Mob.”

  Just looking at the image of his leering face made me feel sick. “Flash Mob is a mercenary, a sociopath, and a strong Redux-Type. He’s military-trained, and his value lies in his ability to make multiple copies of himself in an instant, all of them armed as he is. His copies aren’t long lasting—minutes at most—and they usually just vanish away when seriously injured. Analysis of their attack patterns shows that Flash Mob copies can copy themselves. Flash Mob will send a first copy forward, who will then multiply further as desired. Previously his maximum number of sustained copies was less than three dozen, but he appears to have been boosted as well. They operate as a hive-mind much like the Platoons.”

  I stopped to look around the table. Blackstone’s notes had been emphatic about what Hecate, Tin Man, and Flash Mob had meant.

  “These are the Villains Inc. players we’ve seen so far. Tactically they have one thing in common—they’re force projectors. I’m not referring to Projector-Types, but to their ability to either attack remotely, as with Hecate, Tin Man, and even Flash Mob, or to move forward and then withdraw quickly, as with Villain-X and Swarm. Strategically, this ability to repeatedly ‘project force’ and break away under most conditions makes them more likely to be fielded aggressively.

  “There are others who acted with Villains Inc., before. For example, Warp. He can twist your sense of direction with vertigo to a degree that’s incapacitatingly nauseating. But we don’t know if they’re present and active now. They may not have been recruited yet, and the CPD’s organized crime division is trying to find out. But I do know what we’re seeing now has nothing to do with the mob; like last time, Villains Inc’s bosses aren’t in control of their little villain-team. At all.”

  “So, why are they doing it?” Seven asked for everyone.

  “For money,” Veritas answered for me. “In Hecate’s case, we’ve been able to follow several very large bank deposits.”

  I nodded. “There may be other factors—Flash Mob’s a thrill-villain who thinks payment and protection are just bonuses—but they follow Hecate now. She’s being paid, and is paying them.” And some of them could also be following her because otherwise she’d send a demon to tear them into little bitty pieces. I remembered clearly learning that that had been Tin Man’s primary motivation. “But that brings me to the actual zealots in the picture. Meet the Wreckers, the action-arm of the Ascendancy.”

  This time Shell put three faces up on the screen together.

  “Phreak, Drop, and Balz. Phreak is a specialized Verne-type, a super-hacker; his f
avorite attack is shutting down all signals in a target zone. Blacking out a zone gives them time to act. Drop is a teleporter, capable of porting whole groups with him over a distance of several miles. His power requires recovery time after each use, which means once they arrive they’re committed until he recovers. Balz is a telekinetic capable of large-scale manipulation of multiple objects. He ‘juggles’ swarms of metal balls equipped with different systems and weapons. He’s how they got Rush. Both times.”

  Rush had actually been lucky; if Swarm had gotten to him first he’d have been as dead as Blackstone. I cleared my throat and looked at Eric. “Like Villain-X and Flash Mob, all of the Wreckers appear to be boosted. There were two more Wreckers, before. One, Twist, has been located by the DSA, but it doesn’t look like they’ve tried to recruit him yet.

  “The other one would have been Gantry, which brings us to their cause. I suggest you ask Gantry any questions you may have later, and we’ve provided text files for review on your pads, but I want Shell to give you the five-minute briefer here. Shell?”

  “Hey everyone!” Her face took half the screen and she put the Foundation’s phoenix-logo on the other half. “This is the Foundation of Awakened Theosophy. These are baaaaad people. Grrrrr.” The look of dawning horror on my face was too much for Seven to handle, the traitor, and his snickering set off the rest of the table—even Lei Zi. Even Gantry.

  I covered my eyes. “Oh my gosh, Shell!” Which of course only made it worse. Dropping my hands, I stuck with a look of affronted dignity until the laughter subsided and then cleared my throat. “The Foundation? Bad?”

  “Right! F.A.T.—gotta love their acronym—is one of those breakthrough-obsessed cults that popped up after the Event. Its foundational text is The Sleeper Must Awaken, mostly a bunch of profound sounding pop-psychology about power-thinking, biofeedback looping, that kind of stuff. The idea is to get yourself into a mental state more likely to trigger a ‘soft breakthrough.’ It also pitches Awakening Retreats that are a total ripoff on Native American spirit-quests, physical stress and exhaustion plus meditation exercises guided by ‘awakeners.’ The core of it all is the belief that breakthroughs are the spiritually awakened. Everyone else is a sleeper, unenlightened.”

  Shell frowned, looking about as serious as she could get. “And that’s where it all really goes wrong. FAT’s ultimate goal is ascension. They believe that when enough breakthroughs emerge, the whole world will ascend to a higher level. The rest of the sleepers will awake and the already awakened will achieve apotheosis and rule the world as a race of superior god-kings. Paradise, with them on top.”

  Ambrosius looked downright grim—probably memories of his own cult upbringing. “Old snake-oil, new salesman ma’am. But what’s the attraction for someone like Mr. Ludlow, who’s already a breakthrough?”

  “Getting stronger, better,” Eric spoke up before Shell could go on. “Most of you know, yeah, I’m an alcoholic. I came back from the China War with . . . stuff. The Foundation teaches some good stuff—the discipline, mental control. They also tell us we’re special because we’re Awake, and we can get more awake. Stronger.” He looked around at all of us. “When you’re told you’re special, that you’re chosen for a mission to help everybody, the whole world, well that’s pretty potent shit. I bought it all.”

  “Eric met Drop in L.A. after the quake,” I explained. “He went to a few seminars and then got invited to one of the Awakening Retreats. That’s when he met Dr. Simon Pellegrini, the founder.” Shell put his image up.

  “That’s right.” Eric nodded. “And the exercise he led me in worked. I could feel it, I was stronger. He told me that I was one of the ‘open’ ones, that the future rested on me and others like me. He offered to mentor me, said there was an inner circle of Open Awakened he was preparing. The Ascendancy.” He gave us a look of deep shame and apology, and before it could get awkward I picked up for him.

  “And then I came along and told him we were after Pellegrini. You all know the story from there. So, here’s the thing.” I chose my words carefully. “This was all need-to-know stuff, even three years from now, but even now the DSA was already trying to confirm the existence of a superhuman booster. A breakthrough who could enhance other breakthroughs’ powers.”

  I took a deep breath. “Here’s what I know, maybe what I ‘came back’ to tell everybody where it could do the most good. Dr. Simon Pellegrini is the Ascendant, the mystery-villain who a few years ago claimed credit for mass-slayings like the L.O. Stadium Attack.”

  Looking at his image, his distinguished features, intense gaze, light hair whitened with age, I shivered.

  “Look, we still don’t know everything about him. We do know that, before the California Quake and Whittier Base Attack, the Ascendant remained an unknown terrorist supervillain. He never claimed anything after the stadium massacre. There’s still no evidence definitively connecting Pellegrini to the L.O. Stadium; we know he’s the Ascendant because of . . . well, magic. The Ascendancy wasn’t publicly known, either—it’s his inner circle. We outed them.”

  Or I had. At least my exposing Dozer as Gantry, Eric, had started the chain of discovery.

  “Pellagrini’s goal has always been to trigger more breakthroughs and bring them into his flock. The Foundation is one way, his public way. His other methods are more large-scale.

  “Tremblor, the terrakinetic who kicked off the California Quake, he’s still in a coma but the experts were sure he’d been enhanced. Pellegrini told Future Me he was responsible for boosting Tremblor to Ultra-Class level so he could trigger the quake. More than fifty thousand dead, close to fifty breakthroughs, and from Pellegrini’s perspective it was a double win—more breakthroughs, and heightened public distrust of breakthroughs. We, as a group, are stronger and more threatened. More likely to be influenced by talk of us vs. them.”

  I cleared my throat. “That’s what he’s done here too, so far.”

  “So far.” Lei Zi fed me the line with no inflection.

  “So far. When I come from, he’s responsible for a lot more.”

  “And more breakthroughs and more distrust?”

  “Yes. It was . . . pretty bad. Veritas? Over to you.”

  “Thank you.” Veritas took off his shades, setting his hands on the table. “When Blackstone brought me the information Astra had provided, the DSA initiated surveillance and covert investigation. The results have been disturbing. Dr. Pellegrini maintains two networks, the Foundation and a second, shadow network we are barely penetrating now. The Ascendancy. With yesterday’s involvement of the individuals Astra has designated as ‘Wreckers,’ warrants were issued to sweep up Dr. Pellegrini and his so-far known criminal associates.

  “Unfortunately, Pellegrini has disappeared. Our last known contact was hours before the attack. Teams have moved on his home, offices, and Awakening Centers across the country, and are going through all electronic records and transactions. We’re interviewing Foundation staff, associates, and members, and at this moment he’s the most wanted individual in the country. The FBI, the Secret Service, and state law enforcement agencies are being brought into the project.

  “Meanwhile, the Dome is being fortified. Additional DSA superhuman response teams have been brought in. Much of the public’s confidence in America’s CAI-system is centered on the Sentinels. Yesterday was bad for that confidence. A second such attack, even partially successful, would be worse.”

  “Thank you.” I took back everyone’s attention. “Unfortunately, Pellegrini isn’t stupid. Based on my experiences and the input of dedicated analysts—” The Ouroboros Group, who I could say absolutely zip about. “—we believe that he’s going to move to his next big event. Another mass-casualty attack, ideally blamable on some unassociated breakthrough. Again more potential breakthroughs, but mostly for the heightened fear and distrust. I think it’s going to happen here. Proof again for groups like Humanity First that even the Sentinels can’t protect the public—that something must be done. It’s
with this in mind that Lei Zi has organized her training and roster assignments, and until this threat is resolved we’re at alert and on station.

  “So that’s it, everyone. Quin? If you could remain?” I stood and waited until everyone else had departed before melting back into my seat. My hands were shaking.

  She laughed. “That went well.”

  “Really? Because it was all a bad Blackstone imitation. So, what did you need to talk to me about?”

  “I sent the first press statements out last night, and now news crews are camped outside with the demonstrators and supporters. Site hits are off the chart, and I’ve prepared our information package for the media and put it online. I know you said that I didn’t need to run it past you—but it’s about you. We’re going to need to lie.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  “The city is in shock. The Sentinels have confirmed that one of the fatalities in yesterday’s attack on the Dome was Blackstone, the Sentinels’ team-leader and the last serving founding member. Of the founding Sentinels, only President Touches Clouds remains. Citizens have already begun to gather to honor Blackstone and the others slain in the attack, and the White House has announced that the President will speak to America from the Oval Office at six this evening.”

  Chicago Daily News

  * * *

  “About what? Why?”

  That got me the impatient look Quin reserved for when I asked dumb questions. “About your extra experience. Because to the rest of the world, it’s going to look like we just handed team leadership of America’s premier superhero team over to an eighteen-year-old.”

  “Oh.” I covered my eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I was still thinking three years ahead. Then it would have made sense; Atlas wasn’t much older than Future Me was when Touches Clouds left to go into politics and he became team leader. Now? Everyone’s reaction was going to be WTF?! Really, WTF? How could I possibly have missed that?