There was, in fact, an acceptable cubbyhole for my weird sort of Alchemy on board the ship.

When I asked her about it, Camille had directed me to the forecastle, or the front, section of the ship. It was considerably better armored and offered some serious ventilation options, and was where Cadmium had performed some of his more… dangerous experiments.

“Can you customize the laboratory a little?” I asked.

Camille turned her head, “Yes, sir, I am directing the drones to assemble the experimental laboratory now. There are several unusual materials in storage that might be useful, but the majority of the laboratory’s materials will need to be fabricated. In addition, do you wish the artifact storage to be made available?”

I nodded, very surprised. Cadmium had been doing this for a long time, and the fact that he at least attempted to dabble in magical experiments should not have been much of a surprise.

To be fair, magic was as obvious a source of metahuman abilities as any sort of science. Most powers couldn’t be easily explained by physics or any other sort of science, although metahuman dampeners existed, they were based on energy suppression, not the ability to cancel out metahuman powers.

I sighed. Sufficiently advanced magic was indistinguishable from science.

“Explain to me what sort of magic Cadmium was experimenting with?”

Camille shrugged, “Most of it was sealed, but he gained access to several artifacts from his commercial contacts. He successfully managed to replicate one artifact, but after doing so he chose to seal his records with the understanding that he was not a magical practitioner and had no interest in further pursuing that line of work. However, initial scans of your armor’s characteristics strongly imply that it is modified via nonstandard science, ie magic. My nonstandard logic framework, therefore, implies that metatech weaponry and armor are unlikely to be produced via your efforts, but that magical ones might potentially become available for market distribution.”

“Are you certain you are not sentient?” I asked her.

She shrugged, “I have multiple learning algorithms that could be loosely termed sapient, sir, as well as something resembling self-awareness, however, I can assure you that I do not possess anything resembling emotional awareness. I do, however, possess an evaluation system that loosely resembles weighted empathy. My marketing system, in particular, is strongly weighted towards value-based judgments, primarily due to Cadmium’s lack of interest and desire to leave sales to others. His evident reasons for engaging in marketing were primarily to finance his research, not out of any particular desire for wealth, thus he designed an exhaustive research AI for determining value and timing in regards to sales.”

Once the lab was set up, I was pleased to note that it had a lot more traditional items than a modern chemistry lab. I would need to cut a deal with Akiko’s family to obtain magical reagents, but there were some very interesting materials that I had not experimented with before.

I spent a bit of time examining the odd potions that Sif had provided from Galactica, and was left with the understanding that these were pure metatech. There was nothing I could do with them, they would not combine with anything, but it made me realize that there was something extremely iffy going on. Why would they need to replicate anyone’s power, especially Commander Freedom? Did it have something to do with the weird simulation I had seen in Siberia?

I made sure I was topped off for potions and started working on a new version of my freedom pill. Hyde had been useful, but his lack of control was very troubling. Also, now that I was learning ways to alter the temperature and increase the potency, I honestly had to wonder how far I could take him. Almost as if the act of working on the improved version were a summoning, Camilla appeared, “Excuse me, sir.”

I nodded, “Yeah, what’s up?” I was a little distracted by a set of items that had the information aspects and was working hard to refine them. One of the tags claimed it was alien blood, which made me wonder if it were from space aliens, or a sample from the chaos portals, and wondered if she was just going to let me know that Aquantis was waking up. Sif had departed late last night, but Aquantis was sleeping in an aptly named owner’s cabin that was considerably more sumptuous than the captain’s cabin next to the bridge where Cadmium had made his home.

I had intended to try and work out something as close as possible to a more controllable version of Hyde, but the alien blood, disintegrated memory card, and a number of other objects including Kiwi juice and one of the purification tablets had allowed me to create a new tablet, one that I hadn’t even been remotely expecting, that would allow people to utilize an ability for themselves that somewhat resembled my own innate scanning.

My gift had been stronger than usual when assembling it, and I had been in almost an uncontrollable mental cloud while I carefully simmered the pill, finally being presented with a strange triangular red tablet with shimmering silvery highlights.

Advancement Tablet

Value- Priceless

Aspects- All

This tablet will allow a single individual to tap into the multiversal concept space known as The Game Of War.

This will allow individuals to fight more effectively against the encroachment of Chaos entities and will provide an alternate interface based upon the race of the recipient, including baseline humans.

Please note that this action is irreversible and that after an individual has taken this pill, other alternatives will become available.

This world is considered a NEXUS world, with balanced magical, technological, Psionic, and Chi manipulation potential.

This Tablet is unrestricted by subspecies.

I had no idea what to think about this. Did the tablet start some kind of a war or wargame? I liked to think I was relatively smart, but this thing was baffling, and I tucked the thing away. I didn’t know who to talk to about it, and this thing was potentially even more dangerous than the purification pill.

“Sir, Sif has returned, via an unconventional methodology, and she has brought a guest.”

I stood up, knocking the stainless steel stool I had been sitting on away. The laboratory was about 30 feet around, with tables and several different implements that looked like they belonged in a horror movie mad scientist’s lair rather than a true laboratory, and I loved it.

“What do you mean unconventional methodology?” I asked.

“She apported in with her guest via an electromagnetic portal. It appears to be the work of a metahuman gift, but her guest does not register as a metahuman. She is currently on the main deck.”

I nodded and headed out of the lab. It was a quick hop up the ladder to get to the main deck, and as I climbed up the ladder and through the hatch, I spied both her and her guest.

Motherfucker. She was standing in her full regalia, and next to her was my shit-eating brother.

I murmured to myself, growling as I stalked towards them, and I noticed that he looked nervous as I approached. Sif had an odd expression on her face and seemed to be holding Paul with a hand wrapped around his upper arm like you might a disobedient child.

As I stalked towards them, Sif spoke. “Don’t kill him. He has something to say that I think you want to hear.”

I shook my head, “I am not going to kill him. I am angry, sure, but I am not a complete moron. I remember what you said.” I sighed a little, cracking my knuckles. “Paul. I cannot say I forgive you, but I understand that you were just as fucked as I was.”

Paul shook his head, “I don’t want to try this again. I tried to talk to you before but…”

I nodded, “I know, Groundhog Day me was unreasonable. I get it. Sif also beat my ass and helped me burn off my rage. I am not threatening you now. She made it clear that I wouldn’t believe anything you said if you tried to tell me about the future, so I am going to try and keep an open mind. I strongly recommend you don’t try to tell me the future, though, since whatever it is your ability does is powerful as hell and I cannot promise it won’t affect me.”

He nodded, and looked at me closely, “Shit dude. You have gotten huge. What the hell happened?”

I shrugged and turned towards one of the hatches. “As far as I know, the same thing can happen to you. You want a beer? I know it won’t do anything, but I think both of us could use one.”

He nodded, “Yeah. A beer would be great, and seriously overdue.”

***

We were sitting in the mess deck, as were Aquantis and Sif. Paul told me a few things that I hadn’t known, and I was a little closer to forgiving him.

“So I got the house thing. I never even really thought about it, but was up with the five grand?”

Paul shrugged, “I was able to hide the awakening pills, but I also had to piss you off. If I hadn’t taken the money, you’d have called the cops after I broke into your place and cleaned out your safe. Copperhead would have had to work with a crooked cop and paid a lot in bribes, and he would have sold you immediately to the Lupo Cartel instead of Sanjira to recoup his losses immediately.”

I nodded, “Okay, so one cartel instead of another. What’s the difference?”

He shrugged, “If he had sold you to Lupo, you’d still be there. You would have bought out your contract about a year ago, and ummmm…”

“Umm, what?” I asked, taking a sip of the beer. It was a decent German important, and because it was dark, apparently its time in the coolers hadn’t skunked it entirely. I’d had to ditch the Dos Equis and Miller, but some of Cadmium’s stores were still useable.

“You would be an amazing dickhead right now. I don’t know if the curse will hit you, telling you an alternate future, but try to keep your bullshit meter under control, alright?”

I nodded and took another drink. “Fine.” Yeah, I’d probably forgive him, but that didn’t mean I had to like him.

“Okay, You know that pill you just invented? The advancement tablet?”

“You know about that?” I asked, startled, “How do you know about it?”

He shook his head, “If I tell you, you are not going to believe me.”

I grumbled. “You are right. Right now I don’t detect a hint of falsehood coming off you, but I am prepared to treat anything you say as complete bullshit. Mostly I am rationalizing it because you are the same as I am, apparently, and I was just explaining to myself that you could lie to me.”

Sif tapped the table, “He’s not lying.”

I nodded, she had some method of detecting falsehood, so I would pay attention to her reactions instead of my own. I hated feeling like my own impulses were unreliable, but it appeared that Paul brought out the worst in me.

“It’s like this, if you had gone to the Lupo, you would have paid off your debt and pretty soon controlled the whole thing. You would have declared war on the DEA, and taken over the Res Loco cartel, and then eventually tracked down and killed most of the Sanjira and Kjootoo, and you would have hired Sandman to kill Caelo. Pretty soon you’d be in a direct war with the DMA, and in three years when Warlock reopened the Chaos portals the world would have gone to complete shit.”

“The Warlock is dead,” I said.

He nodded, “No, he isn’t. Doesn’t matter. The fake portals Wasteland keeps opening up are still flooding the place with mana. I don’t know how, but it brings Warlock back, and he opens the Chaos portal using Wasteland’s powers. That’s going to happen no matter what, but current you distributes the purifying pills and the advancement tablet, and when Warlock reopens the real chaos portals, all around the world, people are ready for them.”

My bullshit meter was going like 200 miles an hour, but I was watching Sif, who was shaking her head but not interrupting. Finally, she asked him, “If the world is going to end, why aren’t the gods getting involved?”

Paul sighed, “Because the world doesn’t end. About ninety percent of the human race dies, and we go through an apocalypse, but the human race and a few of the near-humans survive. Earth becomes a hell zone for a while, but the Gods come out of it stronger than ever, you know… desperate survivors are more than willing to believe in anyone and anything if it helps them survive. Hell, I think even a lot of the deities that are supposed to be good guys are helping Warlock’s plan, because it sort of resets things back to the age of high adventure, more or less.”

“That makes no…” Sif said, and then went quiet. “There are a lot of humans now. I want to say it makes no sense, but in a twisted sort of way it actually makes a lot of sense. Roll back human progress by about a thousand years, flood the world with magic, and a lot of the gods that are barely a footnote now suddenly becomes all-powerful again.”

Paul nodded, “Yeah, it’s kind of like that Constantine movie. Make this place hell on earth and all of a sudden it’s all about the heroes and the gods and everyone else that’s less powerful lives in shit and squalor.” He shrugged, “But you know what? With all the mana flying around, the gods are suddenly back to their old power, and the age of high adventure crap starts all over again. Heck, there are hints that we might even wind up forgetting how hygiene and electricity work. A fantasy world is great for adventuring, but for your average person? It’s hell. A short, miserable life of endless unrewarded labor while all the heroes and world changers stomp all over you forever.”

I sighed. It sounded impossible. “What do you mean Fake portals?”

Paul smiled a little, “This is where I get to play evil. This isn’t foresight, so there’s no reason you should disbelieve me. The portals in Siberia? They are fake.”

“What the fuck do you mean they are fake?” I asked, slamming my beer bottle down hard enough that the bottom broke, although since I’d emptied it, it didn’t splash all over the place. “My… Vectress DIED helping stop those portals!”

Paul shook his head, “She’s not dead. And they are as fake as hell.”

“Lauren isn’t dead?” I whispered.

He shook his head, “No, actually she’s standing right behind you.”

I spun around and saw nothing.

“What the fuck. If you are screwing around with me…”

He shook his head, “No, I am not. You cannot see her, but she’s not dead. She’s not alive either, but her body is still breathing, and her brain is shut down, but not decomposing.”

This was too many things on top of each other. “What the hell,” I said. “Okay, tell me what is going on.”

Paul nodded, and Sif said, “I cannot see her, but there is definitely someone here. I don’t have the gifts to detect spirits, but it’s like… spirit walking, or astral projection. If it’s not her, it’s definitely someone.” Her eyes were sliding around as if she could almost but not quite detect something.

I glared at Paul, “So tell me why you are here?”

Paul sighed, “Well when she sort of died, I thought the reason I was there was to help her move on. Except she won’t go away. She keeps electrocuting me when I am trying to sleep, and I wake up too late. She’s not...powerful like she was when she was conscious, but about once a day she can still make a portal, and she can still shock me hard enough to almost make me piss myself.” He shook his head, “The only way to get rid of her is to find her body and try to either let her move on or rejoin her body. My life already sucks enough without getting followed around…”

He retreated slightly and I smelled a very familiar electrocution-ozone smell. “Dammit, You aren’t my girlfriend, and you aren’t dead. You have been pestering the hell out of me, I am explaining the situation in my own damned way!” He said.

“So what?” He asked, “He won’t believe me if I come off all soft-hearted and sweet. He knows I am an asshole, so I am going to keep acting like one. Besides, even if it works, he might not be willing to pay the price.”

“Are you talking to her?” I asked him.

He shook his head, “No, I am talking to you, and she objects to the way I am doing it. She has at least enough of a connection to her body that she can still sort of use some of her powers, but those fuckers up at stronghold have her locked down.”

I growled, and Sif looked startled, “She’s in Stronghold? I mean, her body is?”

Paul nodded, “Yeah, her and a couple of hundred other Meta and Parahumans. It’s not a prison, it’s a fucking vault. A cold-storage facility. They aren’t dead, but they are not really alive either.”

I looked at Sif, and she nodded at me.

I sighed and looked at Paul again, “So what do you need?”

He tilted his head, “I cannot rescue her. I have tried a bunch of times and died for it too. I need your help to save your girlfriend’s life, but if you do, you are going to be at the top of Proteus’ shit list for the rest of your life. And decompression sucks.”

Sif nodded, “He’s telling the truth as he understands it.”

I nodded, “Right. Big deal. Sif, I know this hits close to home, if you want to bow out…”

She laughed, “Are you joking? They are holding hundreds of people prisoner, even if they are criminals, in eternal sleep. They are allied with a guy that makes fake invasions that kill dozens of metahumans and scions every few months, and we are looking at a potential situation that could kill off ninety percent of the world’s population. Proteus is playing the evil mastermind here.”

She grinned, “I am as Scion, the daughter of a God. This is the kind of hero stuff I signed up for. If Proteus is playing games, it’s time to drag them down, starting with Stronghold. I know someone who wants to be a real hero, and you know several people that will sign on without hesitation. If Paul needs a team to save Lauren, ask them if they will help.”

I nodded to Paul, “Give us about two hours and then meet here. Paul, is there anything I should be doing with those pills?”

Paul nodded, “Yes. You need to keep them locked down here. There are a ton of ways this could play out, but if I tell you about them you will fuck them up, guaranteed. I can tell you a few things like you need to get this scow up as high as possible before Vectress tries to port us, but other than that, any advice I give you will get us all killed.”

I sighed, “I take it you have seen that in the future?” I asked.

He shook his head, “Nope, we’ve already tried 12 times and died every single time I gave you any advice. This is lucky 13.”

Great.

Three hours later and we were back in the mess. This time Akiko, Deflector, Windfall, Aquantis, and, of all people, Calliope had joined us.

Akiko was utterly shocked that Paul could somehow communicate with Vectress, but apparently the spirits were not exactly foreign territory to Kitsune. She was more than willing to help.

I decided not to bring Caelo. She was important, but her abilities were not combat-related.

Paul smiled at Sif, “How do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what, immortal?” She asked. Her heroic personality making itself felt again.

“Every time we try this, you do things that you haven’t done before. I mean, I am used to it on a small scale, but each time you do something seriously different.”

She shrugged, “I have worked with the choosers of the slain before. I am the daughter of a God, not a Metahuman. My grandfather guides me, as does my own experience. It would be surprising if the Allfather did not alter my behavior after failure.”

“But Odin’s one of those guys that will get more powerful if this all goes to shit, right?” Paul said.

She shook her head, “No, the Allfather is alone in that his power and wisdom are tied to his own actions, and not that of mortals. He is not all-knowing, but he is all-seeing. It cannot be easily explained, but his wisdom does not require mortal validation, and I do not believe he would approve of a mortal apocalypse.”

Calliope was a true surprise. When I asked her why she was here, she scoffed, “I am a superhero, or at least I try to be. If that means I get to become public enemy number one, so be it.”

Antonia chuckled, “I am already on Proteus’ shitlist. The DMA sucks, but at least it tries to look like the good guys. If Proteus comes after me, they are going to be in a world of hurt when it comes to the USA. You are probably already well aware that the US and Russia have the lion’s share of unaffiliated class D metahumans. While I am here I plan to collect as much evidence as possible. If we get enough evidence of their misdeeds, I can turn it over to the DMA, and the Senator could make a strong case for taking away their privileged position on the UN security council. To be honest, if I knew any Russian Heroes, I’d probably ask them to join us for a two-pronged approach.

Sif nodded, “I already asked Galactica for help. She’s playing it quiet, but she’s extra-atmospheric and plans on being nearby. If you can get the evidence to her, she can get it to the Russian Leadership. “

Paul nodded, “Okay, Vectress made a suggestion. Every time I try to help organize these things, things go to shit. So I am just going to repeat what she says, instead.”

I nodded, “Go for it.”

Alison nudged my hip for a moment, and then said, “May I have permission to activate my odds analysis?”, quietly before Paul started speaking.

I nodded, “Yeah, but try to keep it to the small picture. We already know our chances of winning here are really tiny. We don’t need bad morale on top of that, k?”

She nodded, and then looked at Paul curiously as he started to talk.

“First thing, she cannot get to the station unless we fly to 40,000 feet. That’s why we have life support defense and flight active. Yes, that means we are visible, but with defense active, despite the Protector's attack, the ship remains safe. Oh, and she wants to apologize in advance for what… No, I am not telling him that.”

Paul scowled, “Because that’s telling him the future and it will screw things up as badly as if I say it, and you know what happened.”

Alison nodded, “Yes, when the East Coast Protectors attack, I see an 80% probability that...right. Small picture.”

I nodded, “Yes, keep it close to your chest. If we get to the point where the Protectors attack us, that means we have already come back from the mission. Whatever happens is a good thing, even if it sucks.”

Alison nodded and continued staring at Paul, I assume running odds assessment on him.

“The first thing is, we need to split into at least two groups. One of the groups has to go after the bridge, and the other one needs to head directly to Cryomed. There’s a scuttle box in both places that will blow out the locks in the storage bays and medical, and the guards will use them if they think there’s a chance that Stronghold will be taken.

“I am repeating after Vectress here. Not my words. There are three members of the Prometheans on board at all times. Those three people know damned good and well what’s going on. If you face them, you have to put them down permanently. They are not good guys. They will kill you if they have the chance. That’s one of the things that change, though, so we suspect they have a Cassandra on the Moonbase coordinating who gets sent up.”

He looked at Alison, “That means that there is someone in direct competition with you. Do what you have to do to get an edge.” He looked around. “The third thing is, the guards are not just nine to fivers. They know exactly what’s going on on the station, Don’t believe that they are innocents just drawing a paycheck. Most of them don’t know about the breeding station, so it will be useless to question them, and every time you go for the capture instead of the kill, one of them trips the failsafe and kills EVERYONE. They have space suits. We don’t.”

“What breeding station?” Andrea asked.

Paul put his hand over his face. “It’s not important right now. We will deal with it later. For right now, just know that the guards are not prison guards, they are killers, every single one of them.”

He had drawn and taped a map to the side of the wall near the drink bar, “This is the basic floorplan. This is the engineering level, this is the command level, and these are the cryostorage levels. Vectress can only get us all in in one portal, and we have to move fast because there are more people here than we expected. Right here, this storage room is the only place we can arrive without immediately setting off alarms, and in eight minutes or less the environmental systems are going to note increased draw and send an alert.”

“Six minutes?” Alison said.

“What?” Paul asked.

“The environmental system will notice increased activity in six minutes, not eight. It will most likely play a silent alarm for one minute, which will alert the guards in engineering that there’s an alert, and they will trip a general alarm in less than a minute. You have done this before, most likely your failure was due to being unaware that environmental had already triggered an alarm before you were aware of the general alarm. I also calculate more than 90% chance that there is a third purge in engineering.”

Paul grinned, “Right. You weren’t here last time. So what do you recommend?”

Alison looked around nervously, “I am trying to keep my odds short range, so I might be slightly inaccurate, but I think we should go in three teams. Sif handles Cryo with you and Vectress because it’s highly likely that one of the stations is being manned by a Promethean. The odds keep getting weird because I think the other Cassandra is making changes based on my changes.”

“Deflector, you are a complete unknown, You and Louis should head to the Bridge. There are almost certainly two Prometheans there, but you are both a surprise factor. They may anticipate Louis becoming Hyde, but they should not be prepared for Deflector’s assistance.”

“Aquantis, I cannot tell you why, but it’s vital you be in Life support and engineering for as long as possible. If your team, Calliope and Kyokudai, successfully clears out life support, they should immediately head to the bridge, because there is almost certainly going to be a fourth Promethean, a technician of some sort, either in engineering or on the bridge.”

She sighed, “Kyokudai, this hurts me to say it, but if there is a Promethean stationed in engineering, It’s most likely to be Quantum. Can you handle him?”

Akiko nodded, “Yes. Calliope, are you going to interfere?”

Calliope shakes her head, “Not if he’s going to murder a couple of hundred prisoners if I do.”

Paul was grinning his fool head off, and I asked him, “What?”

He shook his head, “This is the first time you let Windfall and Aquantis Play. I didn’t even know there was a third kill switch in engineering, I am pretty sure we got nailed a couple of times because we didn’t know about it.” He kept grinning, “Her gift is amazing, I know she wasn’t in any of the earlier tries, but I have two sets of memories. The first one, and now I keep remembering her poking her head in every prior scenario, even though I know she wasn’t there.”

I nodded, “Does that increase our chances of success?”

Paul shrugged, “No fucking clue, but it cannot hurt. I just hope she doesn’t die.”

“There’s a good chance of that?” I asked.

He chuckled a little and then whispered, “I cannot tell you because you won’t believe me. But I can say one thing. You are NOT going to like what you have to give up to get Lauren back, but it will be worth it. Oh, and Vectress said you have to give all of your umm… purify pills to Alison to sacrifice or she will absolutely die. They are a huge sacrifice, but you can make more. Meanwhile, if you get a clue that you need to make a sacrifice, just agree. It will suck, but it’s the only way.”

I nodded, “Windfall?”

Alison sighed. “Yes sir. I will accept them.”

I handed her the three purify pills I had left, and started to pull out the Advancement Tablet, to which Alison shook her head, “Not that one. That sacrifice is too big.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her curiously.

“Throwing that one away sacrifices the world.” She answered.