I was back in space. The urge to breathe was clawing at my throat, and about 15 feet away there was a conical return vehicle. It was kind of beat up and looked damned similar to the one that the Apollo astronauts used to return from their flights before we gave up on getting to the moon with sheer mechanics. Meta humans had already been there and were unimpressed with the duty, lifeless ball, which caused the lunar program to die due to lack of interest. At least the Russians hadn’t beaten us there.

My aura couldn’t shuttle me around without something to grab, so I grabbed the capsule and dragged myself toward it. I managed to slide through the open hatch, close and dog the thing down, and then pressed a big green button next to a screen that said: “Activate”.

Numbers started scrolling up the old CRT screen, green on black, and things started feeling even more uncomfortable… after a few minutes I finally could make out a faint hissing noise as the capsule pressurized, and my stomach, lungs, and eyes stopped trying to crawl out of my body. I knew that I probably had nitrogen bubbles in my blood, and every part of me ached, but I went ahead and quaffed one of my regeneration potions to give myself a boost, and hoped that it would prevent a heart attack from the bends.

It took almost 15 minutes for the little green numbers to stop, and I saw the word ‘calculating’, but you know what? I was breathing, I was alive, and my body was dealing with the incoming damage. I was more than happy to wait, although the ‘oxygen’ gauge was showing only 40%. There were a number of other gauges as well, although ‘fuel’ and ‘stage’ were flatlined. I felt the pod moving around me, tiny jerks, and the oxygen meter quickly dropped down to 22% before the motion stopped. I really hoped that I wouldn’t run out before I landed, because I can tell you from experience that not breathing sucks.

There were two seats in the tiny pod, and I was able to strap myself into one of them. I guess my bulk in armor was not bulkier than the spacesuits that these chairs were designed to hold. I missed my old height, and all of my gear was flopping around because it was too large except for my boots and hat, and I realized that I was goopy with my own blood, some more of which slowly leaked out of pretty much every orifice as I healed.

This seemed like it was going to take a while, so I decided to take a short nap. I wasn’t sure what would happen but frankly, until I began to bit atmosphere, there wasn’t much I could do. I was pretty sure that biting atmosphere would have no problems waking me up, so I closed my eyes and did my best to doze off.

You have entered The Game of War control system.

Currently updating. Update 21% complete. Please do not attempt to use your analysis during this time, as your new character sheet is being modified.

Lucid dreaming again, I guess, I relaxed and watched the percentage counter tick slowly up to 100% before a new screen appeared in my dream.

Congratulations! You have now upgraded your obsolete version of the Game of War! Your existing account has been updated, and linked with the control server. Due to your world’s status, you have restricted access to data files.

Would you like to view your character sheet?

I nodded in my dream, and said ‘Yes’.

Name: Louis Albert McCarthy

Profession: Healer

Class: Entropic Warrior

Race: Legacy Human Hybrid

Age: 27

Faction: Earth (E5)

Rank: 1

Advancement: 0%

Use Name: Alchemyst

Nationality: USA (E5)

Local Power Rating: C

Hybridization: 67%

Strength: Superb

Empathy: Fair

Durability: Superb

Intellect: Great

Endurance: Absurd

Energy: Extreme

Fitness: Absurd

Cleverness: Average

Fatigue: 500 (112)

Power: 300 + 67 (367)

Health: 550 (271)

Invention: 300 (300)

Ranged: 5

Sorcery: 4

Physical: 6

Technology: 3

Throwing

Flexible Mind*

Unstable Regeneration

Analyze

Deflection

Aural Strengthening

Improved Strength

Medicine

Enhanced Smell

Liquefy

Improved Durability

Irrepressible Will

Bio-Shaping

Improved Endurance

Aspect Concoction

Rift Modification

Chaos Resistance

Dimensional Topography

Well. Well, well well. That was a hell of an update. I had no clue what the tags were for the attributes, or even what the baselines were. My cleverness was marked as ‘average’ while my empathy was ‘fair’. What did the ranks actually mean? My power had increased to 367, which was nice, but it had always been a bit nebulous anyway, except as a way to make sure that a potion was not too powerful to use.

As if I had actually asked the question, a new screen appeared:

Help file: Ratings

The Ratings for attributes are distributed in a plain-language method. They are as follows:

Nonexistent: If you species does not possess this attribute, it will not appear on your sheet. For instance, the Napik-Thur are crystalline intelligences that are physically immobile, but possess telekinetic abilities, thus they do not possess a strength rating. If you have a nonexistent rating, that means your species generally possesses this attribute, but you do not, or it is low enough to be negligible. A quadruplegic, for example, might not possess a strength rating, but it is still standard for your species.

Poor: You have a far-below average rating for this attribute.

Mediocre: You have a reasonable level of the attribute, but it does not compare well to your species average.

Fair: You can compete meaningfully with an average example of your species, but are considered less capable in this attribute.

Average: This is the average for your species. Please note that this is a relative measurement, and can be different based on your subspecies, including your sexual type. If your species is sexually multi-morphous or has specialized subspecies, average may not necessarily be competitive with the average of a more specialized subspecies or sex. Over half your species has attributes that fall into this range.

Good: you have an above-average attribute compared to your species average. Less than 15% of your species reaches this level in any attribute

Great: You are not a prime specimen of your species capabilities, but you are very close to that level. You will generally be described by that trait by others if your species is social. Less than 5% of your species reaches this level without modifying factors, such as genetic upgrades.

Superb: You are at the height of an average member of your species abilities for that attribute. It is possible to exceed this level if you have special gifts or engineering, but this is considered the penultimate. Less than 1% of your species have reached this level in any attribute without modifying factors.

Extreme: This level is impossible for unmodified members of your species. Special abilities such as sorcery, Chi, genetic, or cybernetic enhancements can allow some members to meet this level.

Additional ratings are absurd, advanced, epic, and then legendary containing a number code. On average, each rating implies four times the capability of the prior rating, with ratings below average indicating half of each higher rating. This is not a hard rule, however, as other attributes can often influence your final results in any attribute tests. Having a superb strength, for example, with poor durability might lead to only being able to exert average strength despite your rating to avoid damaging yourself.

Some abilities will allow you to lower your attributes voluntarily in order to increase their final level more effectively. You have have superb intellect on a world with class 3 technology and sorcery, the immersive meditation ability could allow you to lower your intellect for training purposes and potentially exceed superb despite the lack of superb-intellect challenging local phenomena.

Neat. Help files. A lot of the stuff on my sheet was self-explanatory, but a few things were very very confusing.

What is Rift modification? I thought. It looked like I really need to think these things clearly, rather than casually for their information to appear.

Help File: Rift modification

This help file has been automatically generated for your class.

Rift modification allows you to slightly modify many attributes of rift spaces, including destination links and to some extent it’s challenge level. Details on how to use this skill are restricted due to your planet’s lack of access.

This skill is a modification of the Dungeon Master class skill.

New classes are being created constantly to take advantage of new abilities or new races, and this help file is incomplete. If you have more information on this skill, please submit it through your local node or Beacon for approval for inclusion in the help files.

Dimensional topography offered the same less-than-helpful advice, it was sort of a control skill for the rift modification ability.

I found it very interesting that normal skills, such as my fighting or medical training, were not even listed. I supposed that TGOW’s character sheet only worked with stuff that could be influenced by power or physical changes, rather than knowledge. That meant that even if I could read someone’s sheet, that wouldn’t necessarily tell me if they were a martial arts master or could pilot a spacecraft, which meant that analyze alone couldn’t predict the outcome of a fight.

That was probably intentional. I mean, you could assume that someone that had the Dragon flying punch ability enhanced by Chi was a good fighter, but if you couldn’t read a help file on what it actually did, and you couldn’t see their actual fighting abilities, the winner of a fight was not just assumed. That was good, it left individual analysis up to the individual fighter. I would hate to think that just some kind of artificial system pre-determined the outcome of any encounter.

Unless you were Paul, that is. His artificial system sorta sucked. I’d hate to be living his life.

The rest of my sleep faded out. If I thought this update would wreck my world, I would open the hatch and get out of the car, but our world was already pretty wrecked. The update implied a much greater level of individual influence for those who were not born lucky with godlike power.

***

I woke up to hear a voice crackling in my ear. “Unidentified object! Please state your name, nationality, and intentions.” The statement was repeated in several different languages as I groggily looked around for the source of the noise.

I looked around and noticed an old-fashioned radio, with a handspeaker like a CB and a grilled box which must contain the crappy speaker. It didn’t have a band selector, so it must be pre-set, although it did have a volume knob, so I turned it down a bit, picked up the mic, and pressed the button.

“Umm… I am Louis. I was born in the US, and my intentions are to hit the water and not die. Who are you?”

“This is Commander Asimov. Your current trajectory will cause you to burn up when you hit low atmosphere. I recommend you alter your trajectory into a better orbit until we can send someone up to assist you.”

I replied, “I am a meta-tech. This vehicle has heat shields and drogues. I was experimenting with leaving atmosphere, but right now I am trying to get back and hit a soft spot.”

“You may be aware, but Stronghold had a breach last month. We are analyzing all meta presences in high atmosphere. Your trajectory has you landing in the Indian Ocean. If you can safely land, please stand by, we will have a protector team meet you to offer assistance and determine your security status. What is your handle?”

I grumbled a little. If the protectors met me, It wouldn’t take them very long to figure out I had been part of the attack on Stronghold. I was beaten, still exhausted, and not at all confident of my ability to take on a team of protectors, since they would likely all be class C at least. Last month? How long had I been up there in space? And more importantly, how long had I been talking to Max?

Or it was possible that my time spent updating was a lot longer than I had expected. Had I been in some kind of suspended animation? The oxygen levels were reading 12% right now, but if I had been in a deep trance, my consumption would have been very low. Could I have spent an entire month waiting for a safe atmospheric insertion from the tiny little thrusters on the pod? It had a joke of a computer, perhaps that was the best it could do. I felt crappy, but not injured, and the blood was dry and brown on my outfit.

I was not exactly the world’s best liar, so I went with as generic a story as I could make up. Maybe it would be a distraction. “I took off from Nome a few days ago. My name’s Supergunguy, I am a class E and I haven’t been up there a week, let alone a month. Uhh… my radio’s going dead. I need to…”

I sighed and turned the volume down until it clicked off. I was getting tired of that conversation anyway. I was going to have company unless I could find a way to shortcut it. Making up more lies was very unlikely to have any positive effect, and I figured that leaving them guessing was a better way to ensure I didn’t get shot out of the air or caught by a meta on the way down than giving them more information and making them even more suspicious.

There was noise coming from the walls of the little pod, and it was shaking as it was buffetted. Apparently, I was through LEO and hitting a heavier atmosphere. I actually felt a sharp thumping jerk as the heat shields were jettisoned, and then another jerk as the drogues deployed. The drogues deployed, and then the buffeting eased a bit before I was back in free-fall for a moment before I heard a booming over me and I was back in mostly-earth gravity.

I should be about 10 thousand feet over the ocean, and while this was similar to an Apollo command module, it clearly was not identical. If I was dropping at 22 miles an hour, it should be about four minutes before I would likely be able to survive hitting the ocean.

I undogged the hatch, turned the wheel, and then caught my breath and kicked the door outwards. Technically, it wasn’t supposed to open right now, but I kicked very hard. The Ocean… the world was absolutely beautiful, fading off into a smoothly-curved horizon in the morning sunlight. There was air, and there was water, and it beat the hell out of hanging out in space in every possible way.

I saw and heard a very large, nonstandard vehicle of some sort, it was hovering in midair, about a mile away, and looked like a hugely oversized F-14 with jets on it’s wings. The wings were twisted oddly, and the engines were pointed down as it hovered in exactly the same way F-14’s don’t. Clearly, this was a special metatech vehicle, and that impression was confirmed as I saw someone flying, leaving a trail of fire behind them heading towards the pod.

The ocean was a VERY long way down. This was probably going to hurt, but if I hit the water correctly I should survive it if I was lucky. Looking regretfully at the ancient, but still very cool, space vehicle’s interior, I leaped out of the door and into the open sky.

God, I miss my wings. Could I get them back, please? I half-prayed as I plummetted towards the ocean below. I had barely enough time to make sure that down was down, lifted my arms over my head to prevent their shattering on impact, and plunged towards the ocean. I could see the firey trail streaking towards me, but it was not going to get to me in time. I closed my eyes.

I was pretty sure that both of my legs were broken. I opened my eyes and I was deep beneath the surface and had lost consciousness for a few seconds when I hit. My armor was in tatters, I had lost my beloved top hat and jacket, my boots were split and half-disintegrated, and I was not breathing.

Right. First things first. I inhaled a gulp of water, but my freedom didn’t trigger. I almost panicked for a moment before I realized that I could consciously activate it.

Usually, when I triggered a freedom, I felt a lot of pain that was instantly over, and boom, I was in another form. This time, though, even though it was incredibly fast, I could actually feel the deformations as they occurred, my leg bones strengthening and merging, my feet and toes stretching as my skin altered, my lungs growing through my skin to become gills and propulsion jets in my shoulders, and the tingly sensation of my skin changing. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as before, even though it lasted longer, and I sort of made decisions as I went.

It was probably my ability, bio-shaping, rather than a freedom anymore. The ongoing potion alterations had become part of me, part of my knowledge and ability, rather than a secondary effect, the same way regeneration had gone. I hated to do it, but my potion case was utterly destroyed, along with all of my bottles, so I kicked out of my wrecked gear, as naked as the last time I had been in merman form, and started kicking off.

My enhanced sonar detected a huge splash in the water far behind me, and I had to assume that someone, either a shapeshifter or a metatech in some kind of armor, had hit the water behind me. Hopefully, they would discover my bloody rags and gear and assume I had been pulverized when I hit the water, but I was pleased as punch to have water to use with my aura and jetted out of there at a speed that was punishing even to my enhanced form.

Yeah, I know, if I were enough of a badass I would have stayed and kicked their asses when they tried to take me. But first off, I really didn’t want official ‘heroes’ to know the Alchemyst was still alive, and secondly, they had at least one fire user. My aquatic form was great, but it was not pure combat like Hyde, and while I bet I could have called up Hyde the same way I had Abe, he works best when he has a solid surface to stand on and use for dribbling jerkholes.

I stayed as deep as possible as I traveled East. If I headed North for India or West towards Madagascar or Somalia, I would stick out like a sore, and very pale, thumb… but Australia was supposed to be fairly nice this time of year, and while they were definitely first-world, I had hopes I could lose myself in Perth for a little while. I had to assume I was south of the Arabian sea, but dead reckoning was not one of my skills.

I was probably doing a good 250 knots, deep under the water, and even decided to sample a little super fresh sushi as I went through a school of tuna. The eating was good, although I would have preferred it cooked with a nice garnish of lemon juice and garlic and maybe a light white, food was food, and I managed to surface occasionally to look around before diving deeply again for almost 20 hours before finally catching sight of the coastline.

By this point, it was pretty dark, but the glow coming from the east and a change to the...flavor of the water was a better indicator at range than even a midday coastline would have been.

Australia was a little unusual on the Metahuman scene. They tended to keep to themselves, and rarely welcomed or cooperated with Proteus. They had their own teams, the outback protectors, who were laughingly referred to as ‘Dundees’ by non-Australians, but they also seldom had anything to do with supervillains.

There was a rumor going around that despite their first-world status, Australians didn’t play nice with the kayfabe game. Threatening the Sydney Opera house or the Fremantle penitentiary was a lot more likely to get you a shallow grave someplace in the interior than the catch-and-release program at a local prison. It was rumored that due to this habit, more than a few metas that wished to retire to obscurity without leaving the civilized world behind, both heroes and villains, decided that the land where everything is poisonous was a good place to play shuffleboard and get your bedding changed by cute nurses towards the end.

Well, with any luck, upgrading TGOW and having a real enemy to fight might see an end to the Kayfabe game and the endless civilians sacrificed to its fallout.

Freo’s Inner Harbour was kind of gross, another clue that Proteus avoided this part of the world. Meta cleanup crews had purified many of the other nation’s great ports, but Perth was still Perth. It was probably considerably cleaner than it had been 50 years ago, but the water was still three kinds of disgusting as it ran through my jets. If this was what Aquantis had to deal with in the gulf, I didn’t blame her in the slightest for finding a cleaner place to do the crime-fighting gig. On one side of the Harbor there were moored expensive cruise liners, and on the other side, in clear sight, the giant industrial loading and unloading yards for commercial shipping.

Yeah, my supervillain career was off to a great start. My first crime was a jailbreak, technically, but I actually broke the jail. I hoped that they had brought the thing down safe, but I had no way to tell. My second crime? I climbed up the side of one of the ships and raided the crew’s quarters for something to cover my naked ass, settling on a pair of greasy engineer’s denim bib overalls, beat-up boondockers, and a ballcap that was stained almost black from engine exhaust that said ‘over the hill’.

Add to that a tee-shirt that barely stretched over my chest that said ‘official bikini inspector’ and I was ready for dining at a 5-star restaurant and a night painting the town red, or at least greasy black.

Sneaking off the cargo carrier was surprisingly easy. I imagine that as long as the pilothouse was left alone, most of the ships couldn’t give much of a damn about their crew's liberty or curious visitors. It was a little surprising, but all the movies I had seen were about cruise ships welcoming people aboard with music and leis or navy ships with their quarterdeck and security. The ship I had raided might as well have been labeled the ‘HMS I don’t give a shit.”

I was broke, but fortunately not very hungry at this point. I needed a phone. I honestly was not ready to swim across the Pacific, and even at my high underwater speeds, it would take days to cross into familiar territory.

I headed out into Fremantle proper. By my definition, it wasn’t really much of a big city, no really tall buildings, more like an office industrial park surrounded by suburbia, but I guess Cruise ships sailing around Australia need to stop someplace for gas and fresh meat for the galleys. Weirdly, it wasn’t much congested with traffic, I saw a huge number of people, even in the evening, riding bicycles. Even the cops seemed to prefer bikes to patrol cars, but they were definitely western-style police on bikes, rather than English-style bobbies.

I had managed to scrape up about 12 bucks, in AUD. A couple of two-dollar coins, which weirded me out, and Australian dollars were made out of plastic, not paper. A helpful vendor in the market district, once I figured out how to follow the signs, was willing to exchange my dollars for coins, and pointed me toward one of the few remaining pay phones in existence.

It was in a ‘petrol’ station right off of market street, and unfortunately, I had no clue how to contact Camilla. We hadn’t really gotten to that part yet, the ‘how to contact your ship if you are trapped penniless in Western Australia’ So I called the house.

A Gruff voice answered “Hello?” and I hung up instantly. Time to find another pay phone.

Weirdly enough, I walked to another phone which was surprisingly close by. The moment I lifted my hand to the receiver, the damned thing started ringing! I had no idea that pay phones had ever been capable of receiving calls, but there was a number printed under the receiver, so I suppose so.

I hesitated through three rings, but I didn’t see a team of metas jumping me, so I went ahead and picked up the receiver. “Paco’s Pizza?” I said hesitantly.

“Hey Kiddo. Had to fluff up the balls to answer? How was your flight?”

“Paul?” I asked, a bit gobsmacked.

“Yupyup. Before you ask, we got the folks woke up and off, and their former home is somewhere in the trench. They are mostly sitting pretty on Camilla right now, although Sif had to make an example out of a couple of hard cases. Most of the folks are just folks though. El Kapitan is still unconscious and we have no idea when he will wake up, if ever, and the rest are sitting pretty. If you can hold out for a while, Camilla considered you dead, and the Valkyrie took over.”

“She thought I was dead?” I asked. We were both trying to avoid using words that might trigger a spooky ear.

Paul chuckled, “Everyone thought you were dead. Except me, of course, but you know… no one believed me when I said you were coming back. Even Alison calculated you had less than a .02% chance of being alive, although she kept her options open cause I said you were almost impossible to kill. The only person who was convinced was Lauren because she kept saying she’d know if you were dead.”

I cradled the phone against my ear with my shoulder and looked around. “Well, the flight was rough, but I got here in one piece, in Australia, of all places. I lost all of my stuff, including my travel arrangements, and I am sorta stranded. Is there someplace I could meet up with my people, and maybe get some clothes?”

Paul snorted, “Your people would probably prefer you without clothes, but I have to warn you before you get mad. Alison and I sorta hit it off. You might have to settle for the long line of other women who want your bod for a while till she makes her decision.”

Okay. I could handle that. Hell, Alison was a handful, and it’s not like we were dating or anything. “Okay. So where can I go?”

Paul chuckled, “The minute I tell her, Lauren will pop a portal, but her range isn’t that great. We are kind of in the middle of nowhere right now, but fortunately nowhere isn’t too far north of you. If you can hold out till the morning I am betting convincing her to open a portal for you won’t be too difficult, but right now she’s asleep. Cody is on board, and is driving her batty, especially since there’s a lot of people here we don’t know if we can trust, so she has to keep a close eye on him.”

I nodded into the phone and replied, “Yeah, I held out in a vacuum, I am pretty sure I can hang out in Perth. Broke, though, and I don’t have anything on me, not even my potions.”

“Right, about your potions. Uhh, we kind of used up all of your reserve stock getting the popsicles moving again. There are some folks that still could use them. We wound up with about twelve troublemakers and ditched them except for the two the lady had to discipline fatally, which is why we moved southeast a lot. I am not going to tell you what I saw, but I knew to call you now, obviously, at this number. Mind if I keep it under my hat until we are close enough?”

“Why?” I asked, leaning against the metal partition on the side of the phone.

“Because most of them still think you are dead. And most of them will think I am bullshitting if I tell them you will show up tomorrow. Right now I have a credibility problem, and I’d rather just rub their noses in it when you show up. That and your new pill? The one that Alison refused to take? I haven’t had a foresight, but I have been pushing to collect the stuff you need to make more. Alison is convinced that it will save the world and was kinda devastated when she decided you were dead, and your pill is gone.”

“Go ahead and keep it under your hat. If you can avoid making the entire portal thing a production, that would be best also. I’d rather just walk onto the bridge and see if anyone shits a brick.”

Paul laughed. “Yeah, little Bro, when she wakes up, I will have Lauren get a sitter and take her someplace private. I am going to crash, Lauren actually helps me sleep without nightmares. See you in the morning?”

I sighed. Crap. Still, if it made Lauren happy, well, I am betting a TGOW pill would make her even happier. I went ahead and hung up the phone, and searched for a convenient rooftop or something to spend the night on. I really didn’t want to try sleeping in an alley or I could wind up sleeping in a cage, and that would mess up a number of plans, I wasn’t going to go beating up cops for trying to keep people off the streets.

Having Family again was… weird.