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ffuturesContinuing my Worm / War of the Worlds crossover story. Apologies for another long delay
The previous chapters are archived on these sites:
On Twisting the Hellmouth - https://www.tthfanfic.org/story.php?no=33872
On AO3 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/39112812
On Fanfiction.net - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14083560/1/The-Martian
See chapter I for disclaimers.
5: Illudium Q-36
As I drove the tentaclemobile I thought back to my conversation with Panacea. We know that most governments have contingency plans for Martians if we ever become a threat again, and tailored diseases are probably a major part of that. It's no big secret that the Russians and C.U.I. recruit healers and biotinkers for that, and it wouldn't astonish me if Panacea was one of the people our government would use if push ever came to shove. That Princeton doctor who killed off the Slaughterhouse Nine with a weird mutant version of lupus showed just how lethal a biotinker can be. Every time someone like Panacea heals one of us she learns more about our biology, and although I'm glad that she cured dad's wounds I'll always be a little queasy about the possible implications.
I didn't discuss it with Dad or Hannah - like all Martians they knew the score. And realistically, it's already way too late - and probably has been since the 1930s. I decided not to worry about things I couldn't fix and concentrate on driving, and managed to get to the PRT building without hitting anything.
The TV on the wall in the waiting room showed Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman tricking a stylized High Martian with tiny (for a Martian) eyes and not nearly enough tentacles. The sound was turned down, but I was pretty sure that there was going to be an Earth-shattering kaboom sooner or later. I wasn't sure which movie it was - there must have been a couple like it for every major cartoon character, regardless of studio. Needless to say the dastardly aliens never won, which didn't say much for the movie industry's opinion of Martian intelligence. Dad and I did our best to ignore it.
Eventually a woman in civilian clothing wearing PRT ID on a pocket clip came in and said "Director Piggot is ready to see you now." I absently noted her name from the badge, but since it isn't really relevant to my story I won't bore you with it, or the other twenty-three IDs I noticed on my way through the building. One of the curses of perfect memory turns out to be an urge to show off with all this stuff, and it gets old fast. I won't name people again unless it's really relevant.
If I'd ever had eyebrows I would have probably raised them. Piggot was the top of the PRT heap for Brockton Bay, and I don't think Dad or I had expected to see her so soon. Once I'd parked the tentaclemobile in the basement garage, Hannah took us to her office and typed up everything we'd discussed about the the bullying mess and the murder attempt, and left us in a waiting room while she added her own report. I'd be interviewed and make a full statement when Carol Dallon could sit in on it. Dad and Hannah both warned me to be careful about that, since there would probably be some ass-covering by the PRT lawyers, and they might try to implicate one or both of us as being partly to blame.
We followed her up a couple of floors to a big office / conference room that looked out over the Bay, with the docks, boardwalk and ship graveyard just visible off to our left and the South ferry station to the right, the Protectorate base, a former oil rig, out in the bay directly ahead. Director Piggot sat behind a big steel desk with a lot of cables running into it from floor sockets. Most people in Brockton Bay know what she looks like, she's on TV fairly often - a big woman, overweight as I understand human body types, with a stern expression. The other furnishings included some chairs, a few of them designed for Martians, a couple of big LCD screens, and a map table about six by ten feet that looked like the sort of thing you see in old war movies, except that the table top was another screen, currently showing the city from the docks to downtown. There was a glowing red line on the map that I was pretty sure was the route we'd taken from the docks to the hospital and then to the PRT building.
I wasn't quite sure what to say, but Dad took the lead. "Director Piggot, it's good to see you again." I wasn't surprised that he knew her, with the docks in decline the union's members have diversified into a lot of trades, and Dad's often involved in negotiating their contracts. "I hope that you have some good news for us."
"Not so far," she said. "You might as well sit down, this is probably going to take a while. We're just waiting on Armsmaster and Miss Militia. There are some drinks and snacks on the side-table if you want anything."
I grabbed a bag of Red Weed Fritos and moved to one of the Martian chairs, which were a lot more solid than the versions Ikea sell. It was really comfortable, with plenty of crossbars between the legs for anchoring tentacles and some firm padding under my head and abdomen. Ikea try for a modern look that's way too soft and flimsy, bearing in mind that most Martians qualify as low-level Brutes even without powers, and as for the crap they have in Winslow... well, the less said about that the better. Dad took a canned blood-flavor soy shake, he was on a high-protein diet to replace some of the nutrients Panacea had used healing him.
Eventually the Director looked up from the papers she was reading and said "Our budget is going to be stretched paying for a replacement APC."
"You lose two or three of those a year," said Dad, "and usually they're a complete write-off. I really doubt that another is really going to cause that many problems. Especially since it's still usable."
"For what? Scaring pedestrians?" There was a knock, and she glanced at a screen then pressed a button on her desk. The door clicked and Armsmaster and Aunt Hannah came in and grabbed seats. Armsmaster took a chair that seemed to be designed to support his armour.
"It's all-terrain and amphibious," I said, "and I'm pretty sure it could climb up the side of a building if you needed it to, though I haven't tried it yet. Might be useful for rescues."
"Just what we need," said Piggot, "more tinkertech." I was pretty sure she was being sarcastic.
"It isn't tinkertech," said Armsmaster. "I've just finished scanning it, so far as I can tell it's all conventional engineering, based on Marine Corps proposals and prototypes from the sixties and seventies. Dragon concurs. There are a few design problems which we'd have to engineer out if we wanted to mass-produce it, but for a first attempt it's good."
"Design problems?" I asked.
"Mostly in the tentacles. The lower tentacles are wide and flat, and each has nine segments, while the upper tentacles are rounded with sixteen segments. The tentacles taper, so no two segments on any given tentacle are quite the same size. That means that anyone maintaining vehicles would need to keep a minimum of twenty-five spare segments, probably at least double that, with a parts control system that guaranteed that the wrong segment was never used. For mass production and especially for maintenance purposes it would be greatly preferable to keep the segment size constant, or at least use fewer different sizes."
"I can see that, I guess. They were like that in the plans I saw, but I should have realised it was a little impractical."
"I've made similar errors occasionally. Early prototypes of my halberd used a hundred and thirty-seven unique components, I'm down to thirty-four now plus some standard electronic components that are easy to source. In your design a perfect taper might give marginally better performance, but it isn't worth the maintainance problems it would cause. The other big problem is the control system, of course, it's usually a lot easier for a Martian to use controls designed for a human than the other way round. Finally, the tolerances on some screw threads are poorer than they should be, to a large part you avoided the problem by repurposing components but I'd recommend practicing until you can produce standard threads, it will save a lot of problems.
"I rushed things this time but I can try to be more careful. I'm not sure about the controls - some sort of computer-driven servo system for human operation might be possible, but I'm not the best person to design it."
"I'll ask Dragon to look into it."
"This is all very interesting," said Piggot, "but does it really justify the loss of an APC?"
"Miss Hebert's design comes closer to the original Marine Corps proposal than most of the vehicles that have since been built, and up to now all of the successes have been tinkertech requiring regular maintenance from their creators. None have entered mass production. It's a real breakthrough, and I would imagine that the DARPA and the Corps will be very interested. Not to mention emergency services."
Piggot looked at me. "We'll need to run proper power tests evenentually, but can you give me a rough idea of your abilities?"
"The main one seems to be an ability to reshape materials," I said. "I don't seem to be able to change their composition so far, and I'm not producing something out of nothing like Hookwolf or Kaiser. The down-side of that is that I have to get the material from somewhere, like the APC or... well, I guess steel from other sources would work... also plastics, rubber, and so forth. There are limits to it, I think. For example, I can rearrange wiring, I did that with some of the equipment in the APC, but I'm pretty sure I can't modify actual electronic components, they're simply too small and I don't know enough about them. I think I have to be using the material to make something, not just to move it or turn it into a pile of metal blocks or something - preferably a machine, but I might be able to build a bridge or something else that doesn't have any moving parts. Although... I think I'll find it much easier to make something intended for littoral warfare, simply because I've spent a lot of time studying it."
"Anything else?"
"I have total recall of everything I've seen or heard since I got the powers, and pretty good memory for everything before that, much better than I used to have."
She turned to Armsmaster "Any thoughts?"
"Miss Militia and I both felt her triggering, and I think she's gained aspects of both our powers. The ability to create objects would mostly be from Miss Militia, the difference is that she's shaping real materials rather than a projection. That's a little slower, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious limit on weight, and they don't cease to exist when she makes something else. That could be incredibly useful. Her engineering abilities may have come from me, some of the changes she's made from the original plans feel like the sort of thing I might have done if I tried to build something like that. She isn't making tinkertech, so anything she builds should be easy to replicate with industrial processes."
"This is all very interesting," said Dad, "but aren't we forgetting about something?"
"I hadn't forgotten about the attacks on you and Miss Hess," said Piggot, "I simply don't have any useful news for you. The rifle that was used to shoot you came from a Miami gun shop that was looted by the Teeth in 2008. Most of the weapons have turned up on the black market, and some have probably changed hands several times. We're still looking for a match for the blood found in the warehouse, the tests aren't nearly as fast as the TV shows make it look. There weren't any usable fingerprints, so the shooter was probably a pro. And Hess is in Master/Stranger lockdown downstairs, we want to make sure that Emma Vt'kso'zubb hasn't been Mastering her. It doesn't seem likely, we've checked a couple of times now, but she shouldn't have been able to catch her off guard and take her out so easily so we want to be sure. The whole Vt'kso'zubb family seems to have dropped out of sight but it's only been a few hours, if they aren't involved they may simply have gone out out somewhere."
"They might be setting up an alibi," said Hannah. "If they think that Hess is dead it would make a little sense."
"You think that all four of them are involved?" asked Dad.
"We know that her father is an active participant, and has been helping her deceive Hess. At a minimum her mother hasn't contradicted anything he's said when they've met Miss Hess at their home, which would suggest that she's participating to some extent. Miss Hess believes that the other daughter probably isn't involved, or at least isn't an active participant, she was never present when anything related to this matter was discussed."
"I hope not," I said, "Anne was named for my mom, all of us used to be pretty close before this started."
"Are we any closer to uncovering a motive?" asked Piggot.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Eventually I said "We've got an idea, but it's pretty weird, and I might be in danger if the wrong people find out about it. Can we keep this off the record unless it turns out to be relevant?"
Piggot seemed to think for a moment, then said "I think so, provided you're not about to confess to a crime." Armsmaster nodded his agreement.
"I'm not happy about this," said Dad.
"If they don't know it could mess up the investigation."
"I know. Director, this really is something that could cause a lot of problems, it's something that a few Martians take very seriously. Please don't spread it about. Go ahead, Taylor."
"Basically, there's a chance that I'm the closest living descendent of the old Martian God-Kings, the guys that were supposedly wiped out when the Supreme Leader took control..."
Several minutes later Piggot said "It's an interesting theory, but I think I can pick some holes in it. To begin with, you've known the Vt'kso'zubb family for a good few years, was there any hint of this before Sophia met Emma?"
"Not really," said Dad, "They did revive the old Vt'kso'zubb family name which is a little pretentious, but it wasn't like they were claiming to be close relatives of the Supreme Leader. I think it was mostly for business reasons. I never saw the point, my family name was Hk'urt which is like being named Smith or Jones for a human, we never bothered to change it back."
"You mentioned that Alan Vt'kso'zubb could have learned your wife's name when she died, but going by the dates you've mentioned that was nearly a year before the bullying started. By the way, why would she have used her Martian name on her will?"
"She was a member of Lustrum's group before things got out of hand, they mostly concentrated on sexual politics but they addressed some race issues too, human and Martian. One of them was suppression of the old Martian culture, names were a part of that."
"Okay, so why would they have waited nearly a year to take action?"
"Damned if I know."
"Was there anything else going on around that time?" asked Armsmaster. "Something Alan Vt'kso'zubb might have known about as a lawyer, perhaps? In your life, or your work?"
"I can't think of anything."
A memory stirred. "Dad, didn't you tell me that you were going to be really busy at work that summer? I think it was one of the reasons I ended up going to summer camp?"
"I'm not... oh yeah, I remember. We were having a lot of problems with our offices."
"What sort of problems?" asked Piggot.
"As I'm sure you know, the site is part of the old Navy base that was closed in the fifties, and we still lease it from the government. Over the years we've gradually become the biggest Martian social centre in Brockton Bay. There's a lot of spare room, especially since shipping tanked, and we use some of it for emergency accommodation, incubation pods and nurseries, a kindergarten, a clinic, and so forth. We made sure that social services knew about it and inspected occasionally to make sure we were complying with good practice, got all the permits and so forth. That was okay until the beginning of 2009, when City Hall started to receive a lot of nuisance complaints about us. A few were maybe valid, but there were things like noise complaints when the nearest home is nearly a mile away. Our lawyers were spending a lot of time dealing with them, and that was draining our funds. It was pretty obvious someone wanted us shut down."
"Wouldn't it make more sense to have a purpose-built building nearer the city centre anyway?"
"We can't afford to move," said Dad, "and I think most of us feel a lot more secure where we are."
"Should I ask why?"
"The main buildings originally handled military supplies and ammunition. With E88 and the Merchants around I think most Martians are happier using buildings designed to resist gunfire and explosions. Our human members prefer it too."
"I can't argue with that," said Piggot. "How was the problem resolved?"
"Part of the lease agreement is that we look after the old buildings, keep them up to code and repair any damage. If they ever need to re-open the base we can clear out of most of the buildings in one to two weeks, four weeks to move out completely. So I told the Navy about the situation, and mentioned that we would have to charge full union rates for the work and for guarding the buildings and site if we weren't based there, instead of paying them rent. A week later an NCIS team came in and started nosing around. Cut a long story short, most of the complaints came from people who didn't exist. They used fake names, fake addresses, burner phones and disposable email addresses. And someone at City Hall was entering all of them into the system without verifying anything. NCIS tracked that guy down, it turned out he was an E88 sympathiser - he didn't admit to being part of the group making the complaints, he just hated Martians."
"Did they ever find out who was behind the complaints?"
"Not as far as I know. It died down when the NCIS guys came to town, and didn't start up again when they left. City Hall set up better screening of complaints which probably helped."
"Is anything like that happening now?" asked Piggot, "Or anything else affecting the long-term occupation of the site?"
"Not really... well, the lease has to be renewed for the next ten years at the end of the month, but that's pretty much routine."
"Maybe... but if it turned out not to be, having you preoccupied trying to save Taylor would be a good way to put you off your game. I think we need to make a few enquiries, just to make sure that there isn't someone else planning to horn in on things."
"I'll check," said Armsmaster. "Just a moment." For the next minute or so I felt the slight ache I get when someone uses a mobile phone near me, then it stopped and he said "There does appear to be another company interested in the site. Are you familiar with Fortress Construction?"
TBC
Notes:
That Princeton doctor who killed off the Slaughterhouse Nine might possibly be named House. He's egotist enough to try it...
In the Bugs Bunny short Hare-Way to the Stars Marvin the Martian intends to use an "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Mod-U-Lator" to blow up Earth with "An earth-shattering kaboom" because Earth blocks his view of Venus. He fails.
Comments please before I post to archives.
The previous chapters are archived on these sites:
On Twisting the Hellmouth - https://www.tthfanfic.org/story.php?no=33872
On AO3 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/39112812
On Fanfiction.net - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14083560/1/The-Martian
See chapter I for disclaimers.
5: Illudium Q-36
As I drove the tentaclemobile I thought back to my conversation with Panacea. We know that most governments have contingency plans for Martians if we ever become a threat again, and tailored diseases are probably a major part of that. It's no big secret that the Russians and C.U.I. recruit healers and biotinkers for that, and it wouldn't astonish me if Panacea was one of the people our government would use if push ever came to shove. That Princeton doctor who killed off the Slaughterhouse Nine with a weird mutant version of lupus showed just how lethal a biotinker can be. Every time someone like Panacea heals one of us she learns more about our biology, and although I'm glad that she cured dad's wounds I'll always be a little queasy about the possible implications.
I didn't discuss it with Dad or Hannah - like all Martians they knew the score. And realistically, it's already way too late - and probably has been since the 1930s. I decided not to worry about things I couldn't fix and concentrate on driving, and managed to get to the PRT building without hitting anything.
The TV on the wall in the waiting room showed Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman tricking a stylized High Martian with tiny (for a Martian) eyes and not nearly enough tentacles. The sound was turned down, but I was pretty sure that there was going to be an Earth-shattering kaboom sooner or later. I wasn't sure which movie it was - there must have been a couple like it for every major cartoon character, regardless of studio. Needless to say the dastardly aliens never won, which didn't say much for the movie industry's opinion of Martian intelligence. Dad and I did our best to ignore it.
Eventually a woman in civilian clothing wearing PRT ID on a pocket clip came in and said "Director Piggot is ready to see you now." I absently noted her name from the badge, but since it isn't really relevant to my story I won't bore you with it, or the other twenty-three IDs I noticed on my way through the building. One of the curses of perfect memory turns out to be an urge to show off with all this stuff, and it gets old fast. I won't name people again unless it's really relevant.
If I'd ever had eyebrows I would have probably raised them. Piggot was the top of the PRT heap for Brockton Bay, and I don't think Dad or I had expected to see her so soon. Once I'd parked the tentaclemobile in the basement garage, Hannah took us to her office and typed up everything we'd discussed about the the bullying mess and the murder attempt, and left us in a waiting room while she added her own report. I'd be interviewed and make a full statement when Carol Dallon could sit in on it. Dad and Hannah both warned me to be careful about that, since there would probably be some ass-covering by the PRT lawyers, and they might try to implicate one or both of us as being partly to blame.
We followed her up a couple of floors to a big office / conference room that looked out over the Bay, with the docks, boardwalk and ship graveyard just visible off to our left and the South ferry station to the right, the Protectorate base, a former oil rig, out in the bay directly ahead. Director Piggot sat behind a big steel desk with a lot of cables running into it from floor sockets. Most people in Brockton Bay know what she looks like, she's on TV fairly often - a big woman, overweight as I understand human body types, with a stern expression. The other furnishings included some chairs, a few of them designed for Martians, a couple of big LCD screens, and a map table about six by ten feet that looked like the sort of thing you see in old war movies, except that the table top was another screen, currently showing the city from the docks to downtown. There was a glowing red line on the map that I was pretty sure was the route we'd taken from the docks to the hospital and then to the PRT building.
I wasn't quite sure what to say, but Dad took the lead. "Director Piggot, it's good to see you again." I wasn't surprised that he knew her, with the docks in decline the union's members have diversified into a lot of trades, and Dad's often involved in negotiating their contracts. "I hope that you have some good news for us."
"Not so far," she said. "You might as well sit down, this is probably going to take a while. We're just waiting on Armsmaster and Miss Militia. There are some drinks and snacks on the side-table if you want anything."
I grabbed a bag of Red Weed Fritos and moved to one of the Martian chairs, which were a lot more solid than the versions Ikea sell. It was really comfortable, with plenty of crossbars between the legs for anchoring tentacles and some firm padding under my head and abdomen. Ikea try for a modern look that's way too soft and flimsy, bearing in mind that most Martians qualify as low-level Brutes even without powers, and as for the crap they have in Winslow... well, the less said about that the better. Dad took a canned blood-flavor soy shake, he was on a high-protein diet to replace some of the nutrients Panacea had used healing him.
Eventually the Director looked up from the papers she was reading and said "Our budget is going to be stretched paying for a replacement APC."
"You lose two or three of those a year," said Dad, "and usually they're a complete write-off. I really doubt that another is really going to cause that many problems. Especially since it's still usable."
"For what? Scaring pedestrians?" There was a knock, and she glanced at a screen then pressed a button on her desk. The door clicked and Armsmaster and Aunt Hannah came in and grabbed seats. Armsmaster took a chair that seemed to be designed to support his armour.
"It's all-terrain and amphibious," I said, "and I'm pretty sure it could climb up the side of a building if you needed it to, though I haven't tried it yet. Might be useful for rescues."
"Just what we need," said Piggot, "more tinkertech." I was pretty sure she was being sarcastic.
"It isn't tinkertech," said Armsmaster. "I've just finished scanning it, so far as I can tell it's all conventional engineering, based on Marine Corps proposals and prototypes from the sixties and seventies. Dragon concurs. There are a few design problems which we'd have to engineer out if we wanted to mass-produce it, but for a first attempt it's good."
"Design problems?" I asked.
"Mostly in the tentacles. The lower tentacles are wide and flat, and each has nine segments, while the upper tentacles are rounded with sixteen segments. The tentacles taper, so no two segments on any given tentacle are quite the same size. That means that anyone maintaining vehicles would need to keep a minimum of twenty-five spare segments, probably at least double that, with a parts control system that guaranteed that the wrong segment was never used. For mass production and especially for maintenance purposes it would be greatly preferable to keep the segment size constant, or at least use fewer different sizes."
"I can see that, I guess. They were like that in the plans I saw, but I should have realised it was a little impractical."
"I've made similar errors occasionally. Early prototypes of my halberd used a hundred and thirty-seven unique components, I'm down to thirty-four now plus some standard electronic components that are easy to source. In your design a perfect taper might give marginally better performance, but it isn't worth the maintainance problems it would cause. The other big problem is the control system, of course, it's usually a lot easier for a Martian to use controls designed for a human than the other way round. Finally, the tolerances on some screw threads are poorer than they should be, to a large part you avoided the problem by repurposing components but I'd recommend practicing until you can produce standard threads, it will save a lot of problems.
"I rushed things this time but I can try to be more careful. I'm not sure about the controls - some sort of computer-driven servo system for human operation might be possible, but I'm not the best person to design it."
"I'll ask Dragon to look into it."
"This is all very interesting," said Piggot, "but does it really justify the loss of an APC?"
"Miss Hebert's design comes closer to the original Marine Corps proposal than most of the vehicles that have since been built, and up to now all of the successes have been tinkertech requiring regular maintenance from their creators. None have entered mass production. It's a real breakthrough, and I would imagine that the DARPA and the Corps will be very interested. Not to mention emergency services."
Piggot looked at me. "We'll need to run proper power tests evenentually, but can you give me a rough idea of your abilities?"
"The main one seems to be an ability to reshape materials," I said. "I don't seem to be able to change their composition so far, and I'm not producing something out of nothing like Hookwolf or Kaiser. The down-side of that is that I have to get the material from somewhere, like the APC or... well, I guess steel from other sources would work... also plastics, rubber, and so forth. There are limits to it, I think. For example, I can rearrange wiring, I did that with some of the equipment in the APC, but I'm pretty sure I can't modify actual electronic components, they're simply too small and I don't know enough about them. I think I have to be using the material to make something, not just to move it or turn it into a pile of metal blocks or something - preferably a machine, but I might be able to build a bridge or something else that doesn't have any moving parts. Although... I think I'll find it much easier to make something intended for littoral warfare, simply because I've spent a lot of time studying it."
"Anything else?"
"I have total recall of everything I've seen or heard since I got the powers, and pretty good memory for everything before that, much better than I used to have."
She turned to Armsmaster "Any thoughts?"
"Miss Militia and I both felt her triggering, and I think she's gained aspects of both our powers. The ability to create objects would mostly be from Miss Militia, the difference is that she's shaping real materials rather than a projection. That's a little slower, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious limit on weight, and they don't cease to exist when she makes something else. That could be incredibly useful. Her engineering abilities may have come from me, some of the changes she's made from the original plans feel like the sort of thing I might have done if I tried to build something like that. She isn't making tinkertech, so anything she builds should be easy to replicate with industrial processes."
"This is all very interesting," said Dad, "but aren't we forgetting about something?"
"I hadn't forgotten about the attacks on you and Miss Hess," said Piggot, "I simply don't have any useful news for you. The rifle that was used to shoot you came from a Miami gun shop that was looted by the Teeth in 2008. Most of the weapons have turned up on the black market, and some have probably changed hands several times. We're still looking for a match for the blood found in the warehouse, the tests aren't nearly as fast as the TV shows make it look. There weren't any usable fingerprints, so the shooter was probably a pro. And Hess is in Master/Stranger lockdown downstairs, we want to make sure that Emma Vt'kso'zubb hasn't been Mastering her. It doesn't seem likely, we've checked a couple of times now, but she shouldn't have been able to catch her off guard and take her out so easily so we want to be sure. The whole Vt'kso'zubb family seems to have dropped out of sight but it's only been a few hours, if they aren't involved they may simply have gone out out somewhere."
"They might be setting up an alibi," said Hannah. "If they think that Hess is dead it would make a little sense."
"You think that all four of them are involved?" asked Dad.
"We know that her father is an active participant, and has been helping her deceive Hess. At a minimum her mother hasn't contradicted anything he's said when they've met Miss Hess at their home, which would suggest that she's participating to some extent. Miss Hess believes that the other daughter probably isn't involved, or at least isn't an active participant, she was never present when anything related to this matter was discussed."
"I hope not," I said, "Anne was named for my mom, all of us used to be pretty close before this started."
"Are we any closer to uncovering a motive?" asked Piggot.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Eventually I said "We've got an idea, but it's pretty weird, and I might be in danger if the wrong people find out about it. Can we keep this off the record unless it turns out to be relevant?"
Piggot seemed to think for a moment, then said "I think so, provided you're not about to confess to a crime." Armsmaster nodded his agreement.
"I'm not happy about this," said Dad.
"If they don't know it could mess up the investigation."
"I know. Director, this really is something that could cause a lot of problems, it's something that a few Martians take very seriously. Please don't spread it about. Go ahead, Taylor."
"Basically, there's a chance that I'm the closest living descendent of the old Martian God-Kings, the guys that were supposedly wiped out when the Supreme Leader took control..."
Several minutes later Piggot said "It's an interesting theory, but I think I can pick some holes in it. To begin with, you've known the Vt'kso'zubb family for a good few years, was there any hint of this before Sophia met Emma?"
"Not really," said Dad, "They did revive the old Vt'kso'zubb family name which is a little pretentious, but it wasn't like they were claiming to be close relatives of the Supreme Leader. I think it was mostly for business reasons. I never saw the point, my family name was Hk'urt which is like being named Smith or Jones for a human, we never bothered to change it back."
"You mentioned that Alan Vt'kso'zubb could have learned your wife's name when she died, but going by the dates you've mentioned that was nearly a year before the bullying started. By the way, why would she have used her Martian name on her will?"
"She was a member of Lustrum's group before things got out of hand, they mostly concentrated on sexual politics but they addressed some race issues too, human and Martian. One of them was suppression of the old Martian culture, names were a part of that."
"Okay, so why would they have waited nearly a year to take action?"
"Damned if I know."
"Was there anything else going on around that time?" asked Armsmaster. "Something Alan Vt'kso'zubb might have known about as a lawyer, perhaps? In your life, or your work?"
"I can't think of anything."
A memory stirred. "Dad, didn't you tell me that you were going to be really busy at work that summer? I think it was one of the reasons I ended up going to summer camp?"
"I'm not... oh yeah, I remember. We were having a lot of problems with our offices."
"What sort of problems?" asked Piggot.
"As I'm sure you know, the site is part of the old Navy base that was closed in the fifties, and we still lease it from the government. Over the years we've gradually become the biggest Martian social centre in Brockton Bay. There's a lot of spare room, especially since shipping tanked, and we use some of it for emergency accommodation, incubation pods and nurseries, a kindergarten, a clinic, and so forth. We made sure that social services knew about it and inspected occasionally to make sure we were complying with good practice, got all the permits and so forth. That was okay until the beginning of 2009, when City Hall started to receive a lot of nuisance complaints about us. A few were maybe valid, but there were things like noise complaints when the nearest home is nearly a mile away. Our lawyers were spending a lot of time dealing with them, and that was draining our funds. It was pretty obvious someone wanted us shut down."
"Wouldn't it make more sense to have a purpose-built building nearer the city centre anyway?"
"We can't afford to move," said Dad, "and I think most of us feel a lot more secure where we are."
"Should I ask why?"
"The main buildings originally handled military supplies and ammunition. With E88 and the Merchants around I think most Martians are happier using buildings designed to resist gunfire and explosions. Our human members prefer it too."
"I can't argue with that," said Piggot. "How was the problem resolved?"
"Part of the lease agreement is that we look after the old buildings, keep them up to code and repair any damage. If they ever need to re-open the base we can clear out of most of the buildings in one to two weeks, four weeks to move out completely. So I told the Navy about the situation, and mentioned that we would have to charge full union rates for the work and for guarding the buildings and site if we weren't based there, instead of paying them rent. A week later an NCIS team came in and started nosing around. Cut a long story short, most of the complaints came from people who didn't exist. They used fake names, fake addresses, burner phones and disposable email addresses. And someone at City Hall was entering all of them into the system without verifying anything. NCIS tracked that guy down, it turned out he was an E88 sympathiser - he didn't admit to being part of the group making the complaints, he just hated Martians."
"Did they ever find out who was behind the complaints?"
"Not as far as I know. It died down when the NCIS guys came to town, and didn't start up again when they left. City Hall set up better screening of complaints which probably helped."
"Is anything like that happening now?" asked Piggot, "Or anything else affecting the long-term occupation of the site?"
"Not really... well, the lease has to be renewed for the next ten years at the end of the month, but that's pretty much routine."
"Maybe... but if it turned out not to be, having you preoccupied trying to save Taylor would be a good way to put you off your game. I think we need to make a few enquiries, just to make sure that there isn't someone else planning to horn in on things."
"I'll check," said Armsmaster. "Just a moment." For the next minute or so I felt the slight ache I get when someone uses a mobile phone near me, then it stopped and he said "There does appear to be another company interested in the site. Are you familiar with Fortress Construction?"
TBC
Notes:
That Princeton doctor who killed off the Slaughterhouse Nine might possibly be named House. He's egotist enough to try it...
In the Bugs Bunny short Hare-Way to the Stars Marvin the Martian intends to use an "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Mod-U-Lator" to blow up Earth with "An earth-shattering kaboom" because Earth blocks his view of Venus. He fails.
Comments please before I post to archives.
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Date: 2024-03-03 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-04 01:23 pm (UTC)