220 Stolen Data?
220 Stolen Data?
After concluding my meetings with the leaders of the four factions, I returned to Urbanite.
The city greeted me with its usual controlled chaos with neon veins pulsing through concrete arteries, and systems humming beneath the streets like a living organism. Gameboy was already waiting, walking beside me as we headed toward the research center I’d instructed him to help construct.
“How long do you think we’ve got,” he asked casually, “before the Box starts moving against us?”
“They’d be fools not to notice what just happened,” I replied. “Sudden alignment, power shifts, new treaties. According to my informant, we have a week. Minimum.”
He glanced at me. “Guesswork?”
“Yes.”
Of course, he knew… I told him after all. I couldn’t be too careful.
Guesswork had chosen the SRC, but he hadn’t severed his cooperative ties with me. Intel still flowed cleanly, timely, and suspiciously honest. If it was a trap, then he’d better execute it flawlessly. Because if there was even the slightest chance I survived, I would kill him.
That thought wasn’t anger. It was discipline. A posture I had to maintain so Guesswork would never mistake me for safe, predictable, or forgiving.
We passed through layered security with biometric gates, psychic dampeners, localized reality anchors, and entered the familiar hallways of the research wing. Scientists and engineers pretended not to stare. They always did, even when trained not to.
Gameboy broke the silence. “So. What do you think about the Kingdom?”
“If you’re planning to wage war on them,” I said flatly, “don’t expect my help.”
He snorted. “Pffft. I’m not a warmongering idiot.”
I didn’t respond.
“Conflict will happen,” he continued, more serious now. “Even if we reconcile, even if we cooperate. That’s human nature. Contradiction creates friction. Friction creates conflict. You can change how people fight, markets instead of armies, politics instead of blades, but you’ll never erase it. That’s what I thought, man, powers must be evil…”
“I’m not siding with the Kingdom,” I said. “I’ll let you compete fairly.”
“No, no, no,” he waved a hand. “That’s not what I meant.”
He slowed his pace. “I know you’re going to the Kingdom next. I just want you to bring my daughter along. So she’s protected. She’s gonna pull off an awesome diplomatic win-win for me. Oh, why fight, when you can just love, right?”
I looked at him.
“…Fine,” I said. “I’m here to check on research progress anyway.”
His grin widened. “See? You’re reasonable. People misunderstand you.”
We entered the core lab with holograms rotating, prototype frames suspended in grav-fields, and data streams threading the air. Portal stabilization models. Dimensional anchoring arrays. The beginnings of something dangerous and irreversible.
“I was thinking,” Gameboy said, hands behind his head, “maybe I should give you a gift.”
“You should quit while you’re ahead.”
He chuckled.
I could read his mind clearly. He wasn’t even bothering to hide it. He wanted to stick a cape to me. Preferably a woman.
Among the four faction leaders, Gameboy was easily the worst. Not in cruelty alone, but in indulgence. Hedonistic. Unrestrained. Insane. What kind of sane person built a pseudo-afterlife? Not to mention, populated a bizarre city with brainless meat puppets dressed up as NPCs? He reminded me too much of the worst aspects of the Witch and Royal combined.
If I’d had my way, I would’ve killed him where he stood and ended his games permanently.
Gameboy sighed dramatically. “Shame. I had the perfect broad lined up. You’d definitely like her.”
I stopped and looked at him.
“Don’t even think about double-crossing me.”
He raised both hands. “Relax. I’ll behave.”
He turned away, waving over his shoulder. “I’ll leave you alone. Got more important business, like finding a broad to screw.”
George appeared beside me in a flicker of refracted light, his form resolving into a hard-light construct that hummed faintly at the edges. He wore a lab coat over his usual attire, the look almost convincing if not for the fact that he kept tugging at the sleeves like they were strangling him.
“I hate being around that guy,” he said immediately. “Everything about him feels wrong.”
“Gameboy is an ally,” I replied. “At least for now. So play along.”
George grimaced but nodded. “Fine. Still don’t like him.”
We stood overlooking the main research floor.
“I managed to hack every observatory sphere drone the Box has watching Lockworld,” George said. “At least, I think I did. But I’m not sure I can keep fooling them much longer.”
“You won’t need to,” I said. “They already know.”
He looked at me sharply. “They do?”
“They’ll move in about a week,” I said calmly. “And when they do, we move at the same time. Let them see us crush their opening strike. Once their first move fails, morale will fracture. Systems like theirs rely on protocols. Take that away, and they rot.”
George exhaled slowly. “You really are planning to burn the Box down.”
“Yes.”
He hesitated, then changed topics. “About the research on this world… your suspicion was right.”
I turned to him.
“There’s something here,” George continued. “A highly rated entity. Strong enough that it’s suppressing everyone else’s ratings. Not just dampening, capping. Across the board.”
I felt a quiet confirmation settle in my chest. “You figured it out.”
He frowned. “How did you know?”
“Do you remember Dr. Time?” I asked. “The first time I met him. Amelia was there.”
George stiffened. “That world…”
“Exactly. Dr. Time’s rating was so high it distorted the entire system. Everyone else was capped at four. No matter their potential. No matter their training.”
I paused. “I don’t know how it works. But patterns like that don’t happen by coincidence.”
George shook his head slowly. “I don’t think they’re connected. I’ve been keeping watch on that medieval world for a while now. Dr. Time is gone… Has been for some time. But the cap is still there. The world never recovered.”
“So the cause outlived the entity,” I murmured.
“Yes. Which tells me something important.” He looked grim. “What’s happening in Lockworld? It’s artificial.”
I nodded. “Then what do you think is causing it?”
George didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he raised a hand and pointed upward.
The ceiling shimmered as a hologram bloomed into existence, a projection of Lockworld itself. And above it, dominating the sky even in miniature, was that thing.
LOCKWORLD.
The impossible celestial phenomenon, written in a boring font. The name carved into the heavens like a scar. Neither planet nor structure, neither spell nor machine—yet undeniably all of them at once.
George’s voice dropped. “That thing,” he said. “Whatever it is… it’s almost certainly the source of the suppression.”
“What do you think?”
I asked him what he thought it was.
George stared at the hologram for a long moment, jaw tight. “I think… something lives there,” he said finally. “Or at least something used to. Or it’s hiding something. Systems like this don’t exist without intent.”
“Or a warden,” I said.
He nodded. “Maybe. And if that’s the case, you’re probably the only one who could go up there and come back unharmed. Intangibility, resistance stacking, the whole mess of powers you carry… it’s practically tailored for you.”
“Not now,” I said immediately.
George glanced at me. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” I let the word settle. “If I go poking the sky before we stabilize Lockworld, everything collapses. The Box, the SRC, the factions… they’ll all panic. We postpone it.”
Reluctantly, he accepted that. “Alright. So what’s the plan now?”
I briefed him on the summit. On the deals struck, the threats made, the lines drawn in blood and parchment. As I spoke, George’s expression shifted from curiosity to grim focus.
“Candyland comes first,” I said. “They want out, even if they won’t admit it out loud. I need you to handle the evacuation quietly. Prepare the portal infrastructure and stagger the transfer so it doesn’t look like a mass disappearance.”
George nodded, already thinking ahead. “Destination?”
“Our world,” I said. “Temporary, but safe. I’ll deal with the politics later.”
“And Huston?” he asked.
“He agreed,” I replied. “Soul for exile. We’ll need to facilitate his move as well. Separate transfer. No overlap with Candyland.”
George exhaled. “That’s… risky.”
“Everything is,” I said. “Increase security across the board. Urbanite, the research center, the portal sites. If anything feels off, anything at all, you call me immediately.”
“I will,” he said. Then, after a pause, “You really trust Huston to keep his word?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But I trust that he knows I’ll kill him if he doesn’t.”
Of course, my ‘threats’ didn’t really hold any substance to Huston, but this was the best I got.
Still, my words earned a thin smile from George.
He knew too little about this world’s capes to fully grasp how precarious Huston’s existence was, but I’d briefed him enough. Enough to understand that Huston wasn’t a man anymore. Instead, he was a contingency waiting to fail.
We hammered down the details together. Timetables. Fail-safes. Redundancies layered over redundancies. No single point of failure. No room for miracles.
At the end of it all, I bid George farewell.
He dissolved into light, already halfway back to his endless list of problems, and I stepped out of the research building alone. The air outside felt heavier, as if Lockworld itself was listening. That was when I noticed him.
Perry stood a short distance away, hands in his pockets, posture relaxed to the point of arrogance. No guards were reacting. No alarms were screaming. That alone told me more than words ever could.
I stopped. “You’re either very brave,” I said, “or very stupid.”
He smiled faintly. “I prefer competent.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you want?”
“To thank you,” Perry said simply.
That caught me off guard. I let a moment pass before replying. “Out of curiosity,” I said, “how are you still alive right now? And why did you betray Huston?”
He exhaled, slow and tired. “Huston’s ignorance borders on arrogance. He never noticed my backstabbing, and even if he did, I don’t think he’d care anymore. The letter I left you that day in Urbanite… that was the ‘only’ betrayal I’ve comitted, and nothing more. I’m loyal to my home.”
I said nothing, waiting.
“Foresthome,” Perry continued, “looks like an ideal home from the outside. Harmony. Nature. Community. But it’s a dystopia, Eclipse. A very carefully curated one.”
I felt something tighten in my chest.
“They had sacrifices,” he said. “Once every month. People. Purposefully tortured until they pulled. If the power was useful enough, they lived. Brainwashed. Reintegrated. If not…” He swallowed. “They were consumed. Biomass recycled. Powers repurposed.”
I felt a shiver crawl up my spine.
I had underestimated Huston. Badly. I’d stood across from him, negotiated with him, spoken as if he were merely another tyrant with delusions of grandeur. I hadn’t known I was so close to something that monstrous.
“You don’t look brainwashed,” I said quietly.
“I was,” Perry replied. “Once. An old friend undid it. Same person who did it for Dr. Hera.”
I stiffened. “Who did it?”
“He’s dead,” Perry said. There was no hesitation in his voice, only regret.
I studied him for a moment before asking, “Can I meet your precog friend? The one you mentioned in the letter.”
He hesitated, conflict flickering across his face, then sighed. “You’re probably going to meet her anyway. So yes.”
“A her?” I said.
He nodded.
“I’ll send someone,” I said. “A cape who can undo the brainwashing. Once Huston’s gone, I’ll make sure the rest of Foresthome’s capes get their minds back.”
Perry looked genuinely relieved. “Thank you.”
I inclined my head. “Is that all?”
He shifted, discomfort finally cracking his composure. “No. There’s… one more thing.”
I waited.
“Someone stole a sample of your DNA,” he said.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
He cleared his throat, clearly regretting his life choices. “Someone stole your semen.”
I closed my eyes and sighed.
For a brief, surreal moment, I wasn’t worried. I was embarrassed. Deeply, profoundly embarrassed.
“…Who,” I asked slowly, “the fuck took my semen?”
A memory surfaced uninvited, sharp and accusatory.
“I knew it. I shouldn’t have donated my DNA back then.”
I forced myself to breathe and let the tension drain away. It was just DNA. That was all. A biological sample. No consciousness, no will. No way it could be that bad… right?
Perry watched me carefully, then continued. “The theft didn’t come from within Foresthome,” he said. “It explains why Huston was so furious about. Whatever he planned to do with it, someone else got there first.”
That didn’t help. Not even a little.
“Let me know if anything new comes up,” I said.
He nodded once. “I will.”
I dismissed him with a flick of my hand. Space folded, and Perry vanished in a blink of teleportation, leaving the area unnervingly quiet.
“Yeah,” a voice said behind me, dry and amused. “You’re probably screwed.”
I turned.
A woman stood a few steps away, dressed head to toe in black with layered fabrics, chains, and heavy boots. Her makeup was dark enough to swallow light, and her expression carried the bored confidence of someone who’d seen too much and stopped being impressed.
Mal. Gameboy’s daughter.
I sighed. “This is none of your business.”
She shrugged. “As someone who’s watched enough horror movies, I can imagine about a dozen ways this goes horribly wrong for you. Clones. Flesh puppets. Ritual babies. Evil copies with daddy issues.”
“Stop,” I said flatly.
She grinned. “See? Screwed.”
I turned away. “We’re leaving. I have an appointment.”
Mal fell into step beside me without being invited, boots crunching softly against the ground. “Wow,” she said, mock-sympathetic. “Stolen DNA, dying body, multiversal apocalypse, and now potential biological identity theft. Rough week, Eclipse.”
I didn’t respond.
Some things were better left unacknowledged.