Alexa let go of Martin after much fussing over her new nickname and walked over to Cottie, lowering herself down to her level.

“Stand up, paladin-sama, I ain’t no god. What kind of a god would allow themselves to be named Casserole? See, I would totally smite Martin for his insolence right now if I was a real god.”

Cotte shook her head. “You have done the impossible. You have broken the power of the Superstate. You have stopped Resonance. You have ended Tartarus. You have aided humanity. For this, I am eternally in your debt, goddess.”

Ember choked from her corner, clearly irate that somebody was being called goddess with no good reason for it.

“The heroes were in my way. I told them not to bug me. They bugged me anyway and got what they deserved.” Alexa tried to explain herself. “Come on, Kathy. I’m really not a goddess. I’m just a girl who died far too many times for her own good. I was constantly flung through space as information and scraped up a lot of this void stuff along the way. There’s a lot of malevolent void inside my brain. Much more than in your gun, that’s all. Probably not healthy to eat that much void, honestly. It’s not ice cream, okay?”

[What was the thing that Ember saw when she took the sticky note?] Martin asked. [The pyramid made of pyramids in the sky?]

[I don’t know.] Alexa replied. [I can only guess that it's a thing that belongs to the data gods. Maybe it is them. I honestly don’t know what they are. What I do know is that they’re far more powerful than your average super and they sure ain’t human although they try to masquerade as us for some reason. I think they’re why our minds get the whole uncanny valley feeling. Humanity must have had an evolutionary reason for fearing things that look human but aren’t.]

[Daddums, show me the Sumerian art set from the Smithsonian and British Museums pls!]

Alexa waved a hand and cineform tablets and Babylonian statues and art appeared all over the cathedral as holograms.

[There is a lot of questionable weirdness in history starting with Sumerian math and astronomy. Babylonian astronomers seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with stars and constellations known as Ziqpu. Maybe these beings came from Ziqpu? Sargon of Akkad, the first ruler of the Akkadian Empire was the first super that I know of. He was the overseer of Inanna, also known as Goddess Ishtar. Ishtar’s symbol was an eight pointed star. Suspiciously similar to the fractal Hexagram of a super, don’t you find? Her logo is also in the eight pointed star inside of a ring pin that the SCA Admirals wear. Dimmy would know this one by heart.]

Ember twitched, reminded of the pin that would never be hers now.

[Yes. I know you’ve seen her face upon the walls of Titanomachy, Dimmy. Ishtar - the enforcer of divine justice, depicted as a winged girl holding up the orbital ring crossed by lines of space elevators. You thought it was just some pretty art, didn’t you? She stands right in the central hall of the station, judging all. She existed all throughout human history, changing names as empires and civilizations rose and fell. Astoreth, Minerva, Venus, Athena, Aphrodite. They must have been interacting with humans long before supers existed... as gods. I think they’ve made supers by changing humans somehow.]

“This is some Ancient Aliens conspiracy bullshit.” Ember muttered.

[You’ve just met Revolution and yet you still doubt that beings made of information exist? It’s a big multiverse out there. I don’t see why there can’t be someone out there smarter, better, more evolved than us. Cosmic managers of the universe. Machinery of the stars! I’ve proven that it's possible to make one of their weapons using Sumerian math in the Tartarus sim - a living fractal hexagram made of data. I’ve used the full processing power of Tartarus to dismantle the bit of Three that came to attack me. I’ve shown them power, tricked them into thinking that I’m one of them. That’s why Revolution came for me and gave me an owl.]

Alexa twirled her little usb data stick that contained 100 petabytes of her sim data.

[It hasn’t been a game just against the Superstate. It’s been a game against the masters of supers!]

[How did you know about Three to begin with?] Martin asked.

[Smart supervillains who tried to change the future vanished in a very strange manner. Villains and heroes who saw the same thing that I had and tried to exploit the system, change the future. They don't exist anymore. Nobody remembers them. Division Three erased them all. In trying to understand the inner workings of the SCA database I saw holes in information. Weird, questionable, people-shaped holes. Questions that the heroes could not answer when I called them up. Someone was messing around with the SCA waaaay before I came into the picture. Perhaps, I only saw them because I’m not a super. Either way, these data-beings are dangerous. They’re a threat to humanity, to life, to our very existence and future. I don’t know what their limits or weaknesses are yet. I don't know what they want, and they're obviously not all the same like Three, but they've definitely been kittening with humanity for thousands of years!]

Ember scoffed from her corner. Alexa slid over to her on swiffer shoes. “Don’t be making no noises of disapproval at me, Dimmy. You’ve got sweeping biz to do. You think you’re gonna live here rent free or something? You think you’re going to the Hero Academy just because I like your cute face or something?”

Ember blinked. “I’m not even awake. How are they going to let me in? Why did you tell Dean Otter that I’m awake when I’m clearly not. I have no powers! I don’t know if or when I’ll ever get powers now!”

“Pfff. I gave Martin hive-mind powers, I’m sure I’ll figure something amazing out for you too! Don’t be a worrisome bug, be a cleaning bug!”

Ember glanced at Martin and got a memory of his awakening as a response. “I don’t want to be almost killed!” She blanched in horror.

“Less complaining, more cleaning!” Alexa threw a large microfiber cloth at Ember’s face.

Ember folded up the weird sticky note and took the rag off her face with a sigh.

. . .

A few hours later, aided by the power of dumb cleaning drones, 8 hands and a pair of swiffer shoes the cathedral interiors became much more berable.

Some foodstuffs and furniture were relocated from the treehouse into the stone church, giving it a more homely feeling. Alexa released a bunch of levitating chinese lanterns, which snapped themselves to the ceiling, producing a very wholesome, warm atmosphere.

The dead scientist on the floor was relocated onto a swivel chair and given a thorough dusting as well. Alexa labelled him as Steve the intern who worked himself to death which made the skeleton marginally less creepy in Martin's eyes. She also grabbed the folded sticky note off the floor and stuck it onto Steve's forehead.

While Ember retrieved her Resonance armor from the bushes with Cottie, Alexa and Martin dragged an ancient, large, gothic pew out of a corner of the cathedral and draped it with blankets harvested from the tree fort.

Alexa somehow managed to convince Cottie to take off her armour. Pretending to be a god probably had something to do with it. Making comments like: "My blessed face full of voidness requires the sacrifice of your lap without the power armour in the way," were what had done the Equalizer in. Cottie's shell of being a lonesome weapon of death for the Equalizer Order had been quite thoroughly cracked.

Beneath the carbon-fiber steel plated Cottie wore a tight fitting gray long sleeve unitard that accentuated her curves. Martin's eyebrows shot up when he read her surface thoughts and realised that this was a design similar to the Iva suits used by Titanomachy space engineers that recycled absolutely everything for its users from sweat to dead skin cells. This was the epitome of SCA tech and the Equalizers had managed to match it with financial backing of many human nations.

They all sat together and watched Demolition man, projected by the holographic arrays, while Alexa used Cottie as a pillow as per usual.

Katherine Lizbeth was at peace. She had found a god that walked among humans, the one she could trust with everything, the only person in the universe who could tell her what to do, wield her for what was right. No argument made by anyone would dissuade her of this. She had seen Alexa sacrifice herself, step into the heart of Tartarus and emerge from within unchanged. She had seen Alexa destroy Tartarus and even shatter Nonpareil, the one hero that the entire Equalizer Order had no way to stop. These were absolute miracles, deeds of someone who truly cared for humanity.

Ember felt slightly awkward at first, but soon enough she lost herself in the mental link that they all shared, listening along at Alexa's ridiculous comments about the old movie, inexplicably becoming part of the group.

For the first time in her life Ember saw her brother not as a gullible child, but as an equal. She felt like he was someone she could now respect. She suddenly saw Alexa not as a supervillain but as a girl who had ambitions that had rivaled her own. She saw Cottie not as a cultist but as a human who had lost everything and found a new family.

Ember smiled and for the first time in her life she suddenly realised that she could be herself, didn't have to pretend or to lie to these three people just to outdo, trick or use them. Without her avatars constantly learning, doing things for her, dying for her, without her mad ambition constantly driving her forward she finally had a chance to be human.

With dawning comprehension Ember realized that Alexa was someone that she had always needed, wanted to find but never met until recently - a true rival! Alexa was just like her, a truly determined genius that had matched, outwitted, outplayed, defeated Ember in her own game against the Superstate.

[Bingo, Dr. Moriarty!] Alexa winked and Ember started to giggle and for the first time in years her laughter was genuine, honest and true to herself.

. . .

Vladislav Magnetron woke up from a blare of his job notice alarm, letting him know that there was a new, big contract on the market. He blearily opened his eyes, looking at the rusty, metal wall of his base located inside an abandoned Soviet fishing factory ship. Gray light shone from dirty porthole windows, tanker and container ships making noises of arrival and departure from the port of Vladivostok. He rolled out of his dingy, dusty mattress and walked over to his computer station.

Magnetron poked his mouse and hundreds of screens came to life, showing him the changes in the global market. They had all been quite catastrophic. His mouth dropped open and he started to swear in Russian. S-credits were practically worthless all of a sudden as was gold. It was a good thing he kept his currencies spread all over various other crypto investments or he would become destitute. A new cryptocurrency called A-credits was seemingly on the rise, skyrocketing ahead of the others. Magnetron gritted his teeth and invested a few of his plummeting currencies that were tied into gold into A-credits. If only he had woken up a bit earlier. Damn it!

He turned his head towards the screens showing jobs. There was a lot of of darknet chatter and a whole slew of offers, all demanding the same thing - the murder of a supervillain named Cassiopea Terror Nova. Magnetron looked over news pages and laughed. Cassiopeia had exposed corruption within Tartarus sim and somehow hacked the emergency broadcast, plummeting the price of S-credits. Just when tons of supers invested all of their money into gold skyrocketing the price, some dastardly supervillain using a bunch of human corporations sold off, dumped 200 million ounces of gold into the market. It was utter madness and pandemonium after, but a few people understood that Cassiopeia was to blame. They chose to take their hatred out on her, placing massive contracts on her head.

Vladislav reviewed what was known about Cassiopeia. It wasn’t good. According to darknet vids she could teleport around and had a terrifying power of some sort that straight up harvested hexagrams out of villains. Notices were made against her by minion unions as she made five talented mercenaries vanish. Still, he needed money now and these contracts were truly tasty. There was a lot of stuff being offered for her execution from both villains and heroes, not S-credits obviously, but other stuff that was still stable. He accepted all of the head-hunter contracts and dialed up the rest of his team. He told them that they were going to a little Acadian town called Saint Mary to end the life of one very dangerous little girl.