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ffuturesContinuing my Worm / War of the Worlds crossover story. Apologies for another long delay - writers block continued...
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
On Spacebattles Forum - https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-martian-worm-the-war-of-the-worlds-au.1034761/
See chapter I for disclaimers.
Updated Saturday afternoon with minor changes.
The Martian
VI: Red Mars
Looking back over what I've written so far, I can see a few inconsistencies which really don't make sense since I have photographic memory. The explanation was pretty simple; a lot of the time I've been writing down what I remember thinking at the time, and in a few cases what I thought I knew was wrong. A good example is Emma's family name - she'd always told me that they'd kept the old Martian traditional names after the invasion, and like an idiot I'd believed her. But the reality was different; while most human immigrants were allowed to keep their original names, Martian names just didn't fit neatly into human alphabets, and immigrants were allocated official names (and ID to go with them) that sounded vaguely right, and had to use them in all dealings with humans and the authorities. Dad says they were called "Victor" until the late eighties, when Emma's dad did the paperwork to change the name back to Vt'kso'zubb.
Everything I've said about Martian culture before the invasion comes from oral accounts since the nearest they came to anything like a book (not that they used books as such) was the technical manuals they needed to maintain the fighting machines. Nobody is really sure how long the High Martians ruled after the God-Kings were deposed, because everyone who talked about it after the invasion had their own axes to grind - and most of what I was taught about it in school came from very dubious sources even by those standards. Even Earth Aleph doesn't have any definitive answers on this, and they still have sporadic radio contact with the remnant civilization on Mars. Their best guess now is that the High Martian rule lasted six to eight "great years", between 96 Martian and 128 Martian years, with several Supreme Leaders in that time doing their best to suppress anything resembling historical accuracy. None of this really matters much, but I'll try to get it right from now on.
Let's get back to the plot...
Dad thought for a second, then said "Didn't Fortress go out of business after that fiasco with the Endbringer shelter? The one that kept flooding?"
"The original company was liquidated," said Armsmaster, "but the company name and some of its assets were purchased by Thomas Calvert. He's a former member of PRT Special Forces and one of our part-time consultants."
"I've met him, didn't know he owns Fortress, he's kept that pretty quiet. I don't think he can have done much with the company. Most of their construction equipment was sold off when they folded, and the union would know if they were hiring. A lot of our members work in construction."
"So far as I can tell the company consists of Calvert and a secretary," said Armsmaster, "with architects and other staff hired as needed. They currently have no active projects in Brockton Bay. They have built two commercial data archive vaults in Boston, I'd imagine that the work force and management were hired there, not here."
"A commercial data archive is considerably simpler than a public Endbringer shelter," said Piggot. "It's basically a strong vault with a lot of computer storage, data links, and some uninterruptible power supplies. Shelters have to be built to really stringent FEMA and Protectorate standards; I don't think Fortress could meet them with their current staffing, they'd need full-time engineering and planning staff for three or four years, and right now they probably couldn't get funding to build another shelter anywhere in this state."
"Why would someone in Boston want to use a construction company based in the Bay that has to hire all their personnel in Boston?" Dad asked. "Why not deal with a local contractor in the first place? It must have caused a lot of delays. Feels a little off, somehow."
"I'll look into it."
"Might be a good idea."
"Why bid on the old navy base anyway?" I asked. "I guess the main buildings are strong, but most of them date back to the forties and fifties, and they're too close to the water line to be usable as Endbringer shelters. They'd be death traps if Leviathan attacked. I can't see building a data archive there either; I'm guessing they usually bury them, and you'd be below water level if you tried that anywhere around there. There would be all sort of problems if anything sprung a leak. And I'd imagine that the Navy would cause problems if Fortress wanted to make major changes."
"She's not wrong," said Dad. "We use the place out of tradition and because we can afford it, and it's reasonably well protected against day to day violence. Our plan for Endbringers and other major threats is to evacuate it."
"It might make sense if the docks were more active," said Hannah. "Didn't you tell me that you were lobbying for Federal aid?"
"We couldn't get the Mayor or city council on board. It's ridiculous, there are people with powers that could clear the bay entrance in a few hours, but everyone talks about solutions that would cost tens of millions, and nobody seems to want to help get it done."
Armsmaster shrugged, which looked odd given that he was still wearing powered armour. "Environmental impact might be an issue, as might the security of the Rig, especially if parahuman powers were used."
"One thing I've learned negotiating for the union," said Dad, "people can always find some way to justify doing nothing."
Piggot's phone rang, and she listened for a minute or so then hung off and said "The police have a body that may be the sniper, dumped on the shore near the boat graveyard. There are two bandaged small-calibre bullet wounds that might have come from the gun you added to your machine, but the cause of death was a knife wound, someone stabbed him in the back. His blood group is B positive, the same as the sniper, but it will take a couple of hours to run a full comparison."
"Do you know who he is... was?" I asked.
"Not so far. We ought to know in the next hour or two if he has a criminal record in Massachusetts, it can take a lot longer if we have to wait for a response from the FBI or another state, longer still for another country. That's assuming there's a record to be found."
"It always looks really fast on the crime shows, but I guess they don't show the boring parts."
"Those shows are a problem for all law enforcement agencies," said Armsmaster, "they raise impossible expectations, and usually underplay just how messy and chaotic crime scenes can be."
"This is all very interesting," said Dad, "but right now I'd really like to know what we're going to do about things like going home and getting along with our lives, preferably without getting shot again."
"We've issued an arrest warrant for Emma Vt'kso'zubb," said Piggot, "with her parents wanted for questioning. Sophia Hess gave us everything we need for that. Odds are they'll lawyer up, of course, but we've got ample justification for arresting her."
"It's a start," said Dad.
"Maybe we should take care of power testing," said Hannah, "by the time that's done we may have heard a little more."
"One question," said Piggot. "Do you intend to join the Wards?"
"I guess so, so long as I don't have to work with Sophia, if Dad's okay with it. I think my power is pretty useful, my guess is the gangs would try to snatch me up or kill me if I tried to go it alone."
"I'm provisionally okay with it," said Dad, "provided that it won't cause problems in getting the bullying dealt with."
Piggot smiled oddly "Everyone involved is going down, one way or another, starting with Hess and her little friends, Principal Blackwell, and everyone else who intervened to keep me out of the loop. I really don't appreciate being played, and it's time for some people to find out what happens when they try it."
I disentangled my tentacles from the seat and stood up. "Okay then. Let's go get tested."
"Let's start with something simple," said Armsmaster, leading us into the huge garage where the Tentaclemobile was parked. "Before we start, I'd better mention that everything we do here will be recorded on video. Doctor Jones will assist us if necessary, Doctor Tekuma will be monitoring your vital signs during the physiological parts of the tests, and Dragon is participating remotely. Do either of you have any problems with that?"
Once we'd agreed to that he continued "While I was examining the vehicle Dragon downloaded all of the publicly-available articles on concept vehicles she could find that you might have used to make this. Please could you check if you saw any of them." He put them up on a huge computer screen, a dozen or so articles with the title pages of each larger than the rest.
"The two from Practical Mechanics, and the one from Scientific American," I said, "plus there was some material released by DARPA in the nineties which I don't see here, but that was mostly about control systems. I don't think I can have used much of it because it was intended for human operators."
He closed the ones I hadn't seen, and said "Just a moment. Dragon, can you locate the DARPA releases?"
A stylized animated woman's face appeared in a pop-up window, saying "I have them, just a moment." A few seconds later three more documents appeared on the main screen.
"The first two," I said, "must have missed the other one."
There was a short pause, them Dragon said "OK, that makes sense. The last document was declassified and released to the Caterpillar company on a Freedom of Information request, but was never published generally."
"You found all this stuff really quickly."
"I started looking as soon as Armsmaster sent me video of your machine. I didn't initially include the DARPA files in this presentation because I wasn't aware that they were publicly available."
"They were mentioned in passing in the Scientific American article, so I asked Mom when I was reading up on them. Turns out that they're available on line to academic sites, and she took me into work and let me read them. It was the last time I visited her at work before she died."
"I'm sorry for your loss," said Dragon.
There was an awkward pause, then Armsmaster got things going again. "Moving on... I mentioned my concerns about the design to Dragon, and she's put together some modified plans based on the originals from each source, with the changes highlighted. What I'd like you to do is study them, then see if you can modify the converted vehicle to reflect the changes..."
The plans were good, amazingly so considering she'd only had a couple of hours since I made the tentaclemobile, but of course Dragon was a genius-level engineer. I tried my best, but it was painfully slow at first, about five minutes to modify a single tentacle. "I don't think this is going to work. It's really hard to change parts of it while leaving the rest alone, and it feels like my power doesn't want to change things twice anyway."
"Does it help if you think in terms of improving it?"
I tried again. "Not really."
"Just a moment." He used a pneumatic wrench to unbolt the tentacle I'd already modified and lay it on the floor, then took another off and laid it next to the one I'd changed. "Let's make this simpler. I want you to change this tentacle.... the whole thing... to match this one. You might need a little more steel, I'll get some scrap you can scavenge if you need it."
I touched both of them with my own tentacles, put another on one a chunk of half-inch steel place, and suddenly it was easy. The metal of the second tentacle changed to match the first, and I could see that I'd even duplicated some random marks on the tentacle I was trying to copy. The piece of scrap shrank slightly.
"That's better." I touched one of the tentacles that was still attached to the carrier, while keeping hold of the scrap metal and the original modified tentacle. It changed even faster. "That's why it was so hard, the modified tentacles are just a bit heavier, and you wanted me to keep the design of the rest of it unchanged. I must have been taking tiny amounts of metal from a lot of different parts so that it didn't change the overall design."
"That makes a lot of sense," said Armsmaster. "Hmmm.... try to fix the remaining tentacles the same way, but this time try to do all of them at the same time. Keep contact with the two tentacles we've detached and the scrap, and remember that we're trying to modify the tentacles only. Think of how we want it to be when it's complete."
This time it worked even better, and I felt a weird floating sensation, like my consciousness was somehow spread out over the whole thing. In seconds all of the tentacles were changed, and the two that had been detached flexed by themselves, and curled back into place. Armsmaster quickly put the bolts back in to keep them there. Most of the scrap was gone and I noticed that rust was left behind. I'd taken the steel only.
Dad said "That looked weird. Did all of that metal flow through her body somehow?"
"I have no idea," said Armsmaster, "but I think it's more likely that this sort of power uses direct contact as a conduit for a limited form of teleportation. Possibly telekinesis to raise the tentacles back into place, they're fairly heavy."
I asked "What made you think of doing it this way?"
"Panacea. She sometimes needs extra biomass when she's healing someone, and I don't think I've ever seen her put material directly into a patient's body."
"Weird." I concentrated for a moment, and tried to make the remaining scrap levitate. It stayed exactly where it was. "Okay, doesn't look like I can do the levitation thing on it's own."
"It may only be possible as part of the process of making something. I've seen odder limits on powers."
"What next?"
"We have more scrap, I'd like you to try a few things." Armsmaster led us over to some big open-fronted tubs, some containing scrap metal, others plastic and glass. "To begin with, this bin is full of copper, there's also some brass and bronze in there. Doctor Jones, the coin please."
"You really ought to put some pockets in your armour," said Doctor Jones, as she handed him a plastic pouch containing a shiny penny. "What do you do if you want a burger while you're on patrol?"
"My armour has numerous compartments, but I can't easily handle coins while I'm wearing it. As for the burger, I wait until I get back to base, of course." He handed me the penny and added "I'd like you to make a large duplicate of this coin, say ten feet in diameter, with the same alloy mix as the penny if possible."
"Isn't that counterfeiting?"
"I doubt anyone will mistake it for a real coin."
Dad's chromatophores brightened to show his amusement. "Let me guess, you're a Batman fan."
Dragon gave us a broad smile. "He totally is."
I remembered the old Saturday cartoons they sometimes showed instead of the ones about real parahumans, and the giant coin in the Batcave. "Seriously?"
"I think that it's an interesting test of your power," Armsmaster sounded a little defensive, "and it touches several bases. Accuracy of the copy, the composition and consistency of the metal, scaling the size of objects, and so forth. And I think it might be an interesting decoration for the Wards' rec room."
"I'll give it a shot."
"Better make it so it's lying on the floor," said Dad. "If you have it upright like they do in the comics it'll probably fall over or roll away."
"Good thinking, Dad!"
I tried for a few seconds, and not a lot happened. "I don't think that my power wants to cooperate."
Armsmaster thought for a second, then said "Think of it as a quality control check. You said that thought you would get the best results when you were working on military equipment, but we can't let you do that until we are sure that the equipment will be safe. That means that the metal needs to be up to military specifications and consistent. This is a first step in getting you up to that level of reliability."
"Okay... let's see..." I concentrated on the feel of the coin in one tentacle, with several others touching the scrap metal. The whole pile of scrap abruptly sagged, and I could somehow feel that it was becoming an amorphous blob. A strand of metal about the width of a pencil rose from the tub, widening and spreading out on the floor as a disk. I gingerly touched the disk with a couple of tentacles and the process speeded up - then abruptly stopped when the disk was about the size of a dinner plate.
"What's wrong?" asked Armsmaster.
"It feels like this is all of the metal like the coin that I can make from that bin." Most of the metal was still in the tub, still fairly blobby.
"Interesting. You're quite sure you can't get more?"
I tried again. "No, it feels like that's all."
"Finish making the coin with the metal you have."
"Okay." Almost instantly the details of the coin started to appear, and in less than a minute it was complete - a lot smaller than he'd asked for, but complete. Doctor Jones picked it up and weighed it. "One point four kilos."
"Excellent," said Armsmaster. He scraped some metal from the coin
Dad asked "What about the rest of it?"
"This scrap is mostly copper, but modern pennies are made out of zinc with a thin copper coating. We put in four kilos of zinc-copper brass with known consistency, Taylor extracted approximately ninety-seven percent of the available zinc and generated an excellent match to the metal used in the real coin."
"Okay... what next?"
"Now I give Taylor an older penny which is mostly copper," said Doctor Jones, "and we'll try that again..."
Two hours later we had a giant penny, a greatly improved tentaclemobile, and a lot more information on how my power worked. I'd had no trouble copying weird objects when I thought that they were parts of weapons, and in a couple of cases they hadn't been - the "nozzle for a containment foam sprayer" that turned out to be a metal hood from an old camera lens was a good example. Conversely, I had real trouble duplicating a "cocktail shaker cap" that turned out to be part of a rocket propelled grenade, which made it pretty clear that the limitation was psychological; I was pretty sure I'd get over it with time and more practice. I could separate and mix different metals in an alloy, but only if they were relatively low melting point. My accuracy with screw threads and other precision components was improving, but still not good enough to meet Armsmaster's exacting standards. I couldn't change the composition of glass, plastics and some other materials, but I could change their shapes. I was particularly pleased with the scale model of Thunder Child I made from a brown bottle inside a clear bottle during that part of the tests. Wood, concrete and brick were more of a challenge - I could shape them, but the results were very brittle.
"It makes sense," said Armsmaster. "Metals tend to have homogeneous internal structures, so do the plastics that worked well for you and glass. Bricks and concrete are more complicated, mixtures of different materials in a matrix of cement. And wood has an extremely complex structure, thousands of parallel tubes with lots of cross-linking. When you re-shaped them you disrupted the internal structure, and reduced the strength considerably. It might be possible for you to improve this, but I think that you will progress most rapidly with metals and thermoplastics."
"Okay," I said, "sounds reasonable. But it might be worth trying liquid concrete some time, I've got a feeling I could work with it, and maybe make it harden quickly. Clay too, I think."
Dragon smiled. "That's good, you're definitely getting a feel for how your powers work, and your strengths and weaknesses. If I can make a suggestion, you might broaden the scope of your power by using it for art, especially sculpture."
"I'm not very artistic, but I guess it's worth a shot."
"I think we've got as far as we can with your main power today," said Armsmaster, "and we've already discussed your improved memory. Unless there's anything else you've noticed, we just need to run a few physical tests, things like strength and reaction time, to complete our profile..."
The rest of it was pretty simple, with no huge surprises. Doctor Tekuma stuck some biological sensors onto my body and tentacles, and they had me use some exercise machines designed for Martians, then go through tests on reaction speed and reflexes, complete a couple of puzzles and solve a Rubik's cube against the clock, and so forth. At the end they told me I wasn't physically more of a Brute than any other Martian my age, but my reaction time was now definitely above normal, which fed into my Brute and Thinker ratings, as did the enhanced memory. Eventually they decided I was a Shaker 4 / Tinker 2 / Brute 2 / Thinker 2 combination, with a note that Shaker and possibly Tinker would probably rise with experience. I wasn't entirely happy about being considered a Tinker, since what I did was a lot closer to normal engineering, but I had a feeling that that was going to cause endless unnecessary arguments if I didn't give in on it, at least as far as power classification was concerned. But if I ever talked to the public I'd try to make the distinction clear.
Doctor Tekuma took off the sensors and went off to do something else, and Dad asked "Have you thought about a cape name yet?"
"I think it's a bit early. When I got up this morning I had no idea I was going to be a cape, let alone need a name. Why, did you have something in mind?"
"Not really."
"I was thinking Ares," said Armsmaster. "Your power relates to military equipment, and Ares is another name for Mars, the god of war."
Dragon's animation shook its head. "I'm pretty sure that would be a really bad idea. Don't you think there might be a negative connotation, given the invasion?"
"I have to agree," said Dad. "I was thinking something more user-friendly. Maybe something about improvement, manufacturing, or recycling?"
I thought for a second. "What about Hephaestus?"
"The Greek god that made armaments for other gods?" asked Dad.
"I believe it's already in use," said Dragon. "Let me just check..." There was a remarkably short pause "...it's not currently in use in the USA, but three tinkers have used it. One's in Greece, another in Britain, the third was Norwegian, killed by Behemoth in November."
"Forget that one then, I wouldn't want to show disrespect by taking the name so soon. The Roman equivalent was Vulcan, but he's associated with volcanoes and earthquakes, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be popular with Behemoth around. Okay... Theseus?"
"Just a moment... ...there's nobody registered right now, the last one was a bounty hunter killed in a bar fight in Kansas seven years ago. Are you thinking of the Ship of Theseus?"
"Yep. Famous warship, continually rebuilt by the Athenians over hundreds of years. It's mostly mythological, plus there's a philosophical thing about whether or not it was the original ship or not after rebuilding. So you've got the military thing, rebuilding and recycling, and the history and philosophy thing to keep the idiots arguing on PHO. I think we have a winner."
"Why not make the name 'Ship of Theseus'?" asked Armsmaster.
Dragon winced. "The idiots on PHO will jump straight to shipping her with every other Martian cape. If she goes with Theseus it might take them a week or two to think of it."
"It has the bonus that you've been female since you were old enough for gender to matter to you," said Dad, "and most tinkers use enough protective gear and armor to conceal gender easily. If someone pretends to slip and uses male pronouns a couple of times people will hopefully think that you're male in your secret identity."
I thought about it. "Won't the people who shot at us know the truth?"
"Most humans can't tell one Martian from another, and you were inside the tentaclemobile when you triggered. We'll probably need to come up with a cover story, but I'm sure it can be covered if we're careful."
"That's not a bad plan," said Armsmaster. "Should I go ahead and ask the Image department to register the name?"
"It's up to 'Theseus'," Dad gestured the quotes. "If you're definitely happy with the name I'd say go for it, I think it sounds good. Just don't wear a helmet like Marvin the Martian!"
"That's Roman, not Greek, but it's a good point. Okay, Armsmaster, sign me up for that, the worse that can happen is that someone wastes some time filing the paperwork then I change my mind."
"I'll put a placeholder into the database," said Dragon. "That will stop anyone else registering the name for the moment, the PRT Image Department will do the rest. Let me just check something... ...okay, it doesn't look like anyone is using the name on PHO, I'll set that up now, with an email account via my company. It might save problems if you already have the PHO account before you go public."
I heard a faint buzz, and noticed that Armsmaster suddenly seemed to be paying less attention, and wasn't completely surprised when he turned to us and said "Director Piggot would like us to return to her office. There's been a development."
"About forty-five minutes ago there was an explosion followed by a small fire at the Vt'kso'zubb home. The fire department and police are at the scene, they've already found evidence of a pipe bomb. They also found a small compartment behind drywall which was damaged by the blast. It contained a hundred or so copies of the Red Mars Manifesto and a small stock of weapons and explosives. BATF and the FBI are on their way there. It isn't officially a case involving parahumans at this point, so we don't have anyone at the scene yet, we'll take care of that as soon as Miss Hess returns from the hospital and swears out a complaint."
"I've heard of Red Mars," said Aunt Hannah, "but they were active well before I moved to the USA, I thought that the last of them were rounded up in the seventies."
Red Mars was a weird quasi-Communist group, whose members claimed murdered several prominent figures in Martian communities around the world, blaming them for the invasion. There's a theory that it was actually a Chinese Communist front, set up to ensure that Martians never gained political power; there's another theory that it was set up by the CIA for the same reason, with Communist rhetoric to cover their involvement. In the US they'd mostly been active in New York and Washington, which was where the more politically-minded Martians tended to live.
I asked "Are you saying that Red Mars blew up their house?"
"It's possible," said Piggot, "but Red Mars was never active in Brockton Bay. Which is a little odd, considering how many Martians live here."
"Could someone have planted the stuff there to frame them?"
"Too early to tell at this stage, but my gut feeling is no. I've seen some photos uploaded by the first responders, it looks more like the cache was walled up a long time ago. Do any of you know when the Vt'kso'zubb family moved in?"
Dad thought for a second. "Some time in the seventies, I think. Alan's my age, we met in college, his parents were already living there then. He inherited the place when his dad died, that would have been a year or two before Taylor was born. His mom retired to Florida, died five or six years ago."
I thought about it. "Maybe his parents were part of a sleeper cell, like in the spy films. It could be that they were supposed to support the active terrorists but decided to lay low when the FBI was rounding up the rest of the organization."
"I met his parents a couple of times and never noticed anything odd about them," Dad said, "but I guess I wouldn't if they were under cover like that."
"It might be related to the thing about Mom's ancestors. Maybe they were looking for descendants of the God-Kings and never found them and Emma's dad inherited the job, didn't do anything about it until they saw mom's will. Doesn't explain the pipe bomb though."
"It's a possibility, one that we'll check. Now, I think that you two and Hannah had better get out of here. If anyone asks you've been treated in hospital and questioned after a sniper attacked the museum. We'll make a point of mentioning that the victims of the attack were Martians and a young black woman, let the media draw their own conclusions. You saw the APC with tentacles but weren't aboard it when it transformed, you don't know what that was about. Any questions?"
"What happens next, Director?"
"You two go home and get some rest, Hannah keeps you company in her civilian ID and adds a little extra protection, and when things have quieted down a little you come back in and we finish signing you up as a Ward."
"What about the sniper?"
"We're still trying to identify him."
Hannah glared at me and I guessed that she didn't want me to ask more questions, so we headed out with her, taking a twisty route through corridors and basements that came out in a parking garage on the next block. Someone had left Dad's truck there and refilled the gas, and Hannah had the receipt for the parking fee. We went home, watching out for anyone tailing us, and eventually had an undisturbed night.
TBC
Notes:
Despite fanon, Fortress Construction is not canonical for Worm; however, it's a good short-cut for referring to Calvert's business activities, other than PRT consultancy, and is a good fit to the plot I'm writing.
For more on the giant penny see https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Giant_Penny
For more on US pennies in general see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin)
Canonically the mechanisms used to claim ownership of Cape names in the Worm universe have never been made very clear. Many thanks to Ack, who took a look at my ideas for it and pointed out a couple of things that made no sense. In the end I've decided not to get too specific about the details because it isn't going to have much effect on the plot.
The Red Mars terrorists and the details of Alan's family have been made up for this story. Red Mars is a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson.
The next chapter may be an interlude from other viewpoints. It probably won't appear until well into the new year.
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
On Spacebattles Forum - https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-martian-worm-the-war-of-the-worlds-au.1034761/
See chapter I for disclaimers.
Updated Saturday afternoon with minor changes.
VI: Red Mars
Looking back over what I've written so far, I can see a few inconsistencies which really don't make sense since I have photographic memory. The explanation was pretty simple; a lot of the time I've been writing down what I remember thinking at the time, and in a few cases what I thought I knew was wrong. A good example is Emma's family name - she'd always told me that they'd kept the old Martian traditional names after the invasion, and like an idiot I'd believed her. But the reality was different; while most human immigrants were allowed to keep their original names, Martian names just didn't fit neatly into human alphabets, and immigrants were allocated official names (and ID to go with them) that sounded vaguely right, and had to use them in all dealings with humans and the authorities. Dad says they were called "Victor" until the late eighties, when Emma's dad did the paperwork to change the name back to Vt'kso'zubb.
Everything I've said about Martian culture before the invasion comes from oral accounts since the nearest they came to anything like a book (not that they used books as such) was the technical manuals they needed to maintain the fighting machines. Nobody is really sure how long the High Martians ruled after the God-Kings were deposed, because everyone who talked about it after the invasion had their own axes to grind - and most of what I was taught about it in school came from very dubious sources even by those standards. Even Earth Aleph doesn't have any definitive answers on this, and they still have sporadic radio contact with the remnant civilization on Mars. Their best guess now is that the High Martian rule lasted six to eight "great years", between 96 Martian and 128 Martian years, with several Supreme Leaders in that time doing their best to suppress anything resembling historical accuracy. None of this really matters much, but I'll try to get it right from now on.
Let's get back to the plot...
Dad thought for a second, then said "Didn't Fortress go out of business after that fiasco with the Endbringer shelter? The one that kept flooding?"
"The original company was liquidated," said Armsmaster, "but the company name and some of its assets were purchased by Thomas Calvert. He's a former member of PRT Special Forces and one of our part-time consultants."
"I've met him, didn't know he owns Fortress, he's kept that pretty quiet. I don't think he can have done much with the company. Most of their construction equipment was sold off when they folded, and the union would know if they were hiring. A lot of our members work in construction."
"So far as I can tell the company consists of Calvert and a secretary," said Armsmaster, "with architects and other staff hired as needed. They currently have no active projects in Brockton Bay. They have built two commercial data archive vaults in Boston, I'd imagine that the work force and management were hired there, not here."
"A commercial data archive is considerably simpler than a public Endbringer shelter," said Piggot. "It's basically a strong vault with a lot of computer storage, data links, and some uninterruptible power supplies. Shelters have to be built to really stringent FEMA and Protectorate standards; I don't think Fortress could meet them with their current staffing, they'd need full-time engineering and planning staff for three or four years, and right now they probably couldn't get funding to build another shelter anywhere in this state."
"Why would someone in Boston want to use a construction company based in the Bay that has to hire all their personnel in Boston?" Dad asked. "Why not deal with a local contractor in the first place? It must have caused a lot of delays. Feels a little off, somehow."
"I'll look into it."
"Might be a good idea."
"Why bid on the old navy base anyway?" I asked. "I guess the main buildings are strong, but most of them date back to the forties and fifties, and they're too close to the water line to be usable as Endbringer shelters. They'd be death traps if Leviathan attacked. I can't see building a data archive there either; I'm guessing they usually bury them, and you'd be below water level if you tried that anywhere around there. There would be all sort of problems if anything sprung a leak. And I'd imagine that the Navy would cause problems if Fortress wanted to make major changes."
"She's not wrong," said Dad. "We use the place out of tradition and because we can afford it, and it's reasonably well protected against day to day violence. Our plan for Endbringers and other major threats is to evacuate it."
"It might make sense if the docks were more active," said Hannah. "Didn't you tell me that you were lobbying for Federal aid?"
"We couldn't get the Mayor or city council on board. It's ridiculous, there are people with powers that could clear the bay entrance in a few hours, but everyone talks about solutions that would cost tens of millions, and nobody seems to want to help get it done."
Armsmaster shrugged, which looked odd given that he was still wearing powered armour. "Environmental impact might be an issue, as might the security of the Rig, especially if parahuman powers were used."
"One thing I've learned negotiating for the union," said Dad, "people can always find some way to justify doing nothing."
Piggot's phone rang, and she listened for a minute or so then hung off and said "The police have a body that may be the sniper, dumped on the shore near the boat graveyard. There are two bandaged small-calibre bullet wounds that might have come from the gun you added to your machine, but the cause of death was a knife wound, someone stabbed him in the back. His blood group is B positive, the same as the sniper, but it will take a couple of hours to run a full comparison."
"Do you know who he is... was?" I asked.
"Not so far. We ought to know in the next hour or two if he has a criminal record in Massachusetts, it can take a lot longer if we have to wait for a response from the FBI or another state, longer still for another country. That's assuming there's a record to be found."
"It always looks really fast on the crime shows, but I guess they don't show the boring parts."
"Those shows are a problem for all law enforcement agencies," said Armsmaster, "they raise impossible expectations, and usually underplay just how messy and chaotic crime scenes can be."
"This is all very interesting," said Dad, "but right now I'd really like to know what we're going to do about things like going home and getting along with our lives, preferably without getting shot again."
"We've issued an arrest warrant for Emma Vt'kso'zubb," said Piggot, "with her parents wanted for questioning. Sophia Hess gave us everything we need for that. Odds are they'll lawyer up, of course, but we've got ample justification for arresting her."
"It's a start," said Dad.
"Maybe we should take care of power testing," said Hannah, "by the time that's done we may have heard a little more."
"One question," said Piggot. "Do you intend to join the Wards?"
"I guess so, so long as I don't have to work with Sophia, if Dad's okay with it. I think my power is pretty useful, my guess is the gangs would try to snatch me up or kill me if I tried to go it alone."
"I'm provisionally okay with it," said Dad, "provided that it won't cause problems in getting the bullying dealt with."
Piggot smiled oddly "Everyone involved is going down, one way or another, starting with Hess and her little friends, Principal Blackwell, and everyone else who intervened to keep me out of the loop. I really don't appreciate being played, and it's time for some people to find out what happens when they try it."
I disentangled my tentacles from the seat and stood up. "Okay then. Let's go get tested."
"Let's start with something simple," said Armsmaster, leading us into the huge garage where the Tentaclemobile was parked. "Before we start, I'd better mention that everything we do here will be recorded on video. Doctor Jones will assist us if necessary, Doctor Tekuma will be monitoring your vital signs during the physiological parts of the tests, and Dragon is participating remotely. Do either of you have any problems with that?"
Once we'd agreed to that he continued "While I was examining the vehicle Dragon downloaded all of the publicly-available articles on concept vehicles she could find that you might have used to make this. Please could you check if you saw any of them." He put them up on a huge computer screen, a dozen or so articles with the title pages of each larger than the rest.
"The two from Practical Mechanics, and the one from Scientific American," I said, "plus there was some material released by DARPA in the nineties which I don't see here, but that was mostly about control systems. I don't think I can have used much of it because it was intended for human operators."
He closed the ones I hadn't seen, and said "Just a moment. Dragon, can you locate the DARPA releases?"
A stylized animated woman's face appeared in a pop-up window, saying "I have them, just a moment." A few seconds later three more documents appeared on the main screen.
"The first two," I said, "must have missed the other one."
There was a short pause, them Dragon said "OK, that makes sense. The last document was declassified and released to the Caterpillar company on a Freedom of Information request, but was never published generally."
"You found all this stuff really quickly."
"I started looking as soon as Armsmaster sent me video of your machine. I didn't initially include the DARPA files in this presentation because I wasn't aware that they were publicly available."
"They were mentioned in passing in the Scientific American article, so I asked Mom when I was reading up on them. Turns out that they're available on line to academic sites, and she took me into work and let me read them. It was the last time I visited her at work before she died."
"I'm sorry for your loss," said Dragon.
There was an awkward pause, then Armsmaster got things going again. "Moving on... I mentioned my concerns about the design to Dragon, and she's put together some modified plans based on the originals from each source, with the changes highlighted. What I'd like you to do is study them, then see if you can modify the converted vehicle to reflect the changes..."
The plans were good, amazingly so considering she'd only had a couple of hours since I made the tentaclemobile, but of course Dragon was a genius-level engineer. I tried my best, but it was painfully slow at first, about five minutes to modify a single tentacle. "I don't think this is going to work. It's really hard to change parts of it while leaving the rest alone, and it feels like my power doesn't want to change things twice anyway."
"Does it help if you think in terms of improving it?"
I tried again. "Not really."
"Just a moment." He used a pneumatic wrench to unbolt the tentacle I'd already modified and lay it on the floor, then took another off and laid it next to the one I'd changed. "Let's make this simpler. I want you to change this tentacle.... the whole thing... to match this one. You might need a little more steel, I'll get some scrap you can scavenge if you need it."
I touched both of them with my own tentacles, put another on one a chunk of half-inch steel place, and suddenly it was easy. The metal of the second tentacle changed to match the first, and I could see that I'd even duplicated some random marks on the tentacle I was trying to copy. The piece of scrap shrank slightly.
"That's better." I touched one of the tentacles that was still attached to the carrier, while keeping hold of the scrap metal and the original modified tentacle. It changed even faster. "That's why it was so hard, the modified tentacles are just a bit heavier, and you wanted me to keep the design of the rest of it unchanged. I must have been taking tiny amounts of metal from a lot of different parts so that it didn't change the overall design."
"That makes a lot of sense," said Armsmaster. "Hmmm.... try to fix the remaining tentacles the same way, but this time try to do all of them at the same time. Keep contact with the two tentacles we've detached and the scrap, and remember that we're trying to modify the tentacles only. Think of how we want it to be when it's complete."
This time it worked even better, and I felt a weird floating sensation, like my consciousness was somehow spread out over the whole thing. In seconds all of the tentacles were changed, and the two that had been detached flexed by themselves, and curled back into place. Armsmaster quickly put the bolts back in to keep them there. Most of the scrap was gone and I noticed that rust was left behind. I'd taken the steel only.
Dad said "That looked weird. Did all of that metal flow through her body somehow?"
"I have no idea," said Armsmaster, "but I think it's more likely that this sort of power uses direct contact as a conduit for a limited form of teleportation. Possibly telekinesis to raise the tentacles back into place, they're fairly heavy."
I asked "What made you think of doing it this way?"
"Panacea. She sometimes needs extra biomass when she's healing someone, and I don't think I've ever seen her put material directly into a patient's body."
"Weird." I concentrated for a moment, and tried to make the remaining scrap levitate. It stayed exactly where it was. "Okay, doesn't look like I can do the levitation thing on it's own."
"It may only be possible as part of the process of making something. I've seen odder limits on powers."
"What next?"
"We have more scrap, I'd like you to try a few things." Armsmaster led us over to some big open-fronted tubs, some containing scrap metal, others plastic and glass. "To begin with, this bin is full of copper, there's also some brass and bronze in there. Doctor Jones, the coin please."
"You really ought to put some pockets in your armour," said Doctor Jones, as she handed him a plastic pouch containing a shiny penny. "What do you do if you want a burger while you're on patrol?"
"My armour has numerous compartments, but I can't easily handle coins while I'm wearing it. As for the burger, I wait until I get back to base, of course." He handed me the penny and added "I'd like you to make a large duplicate of this coin, say ten feet in diameter, with the same alloy mix as the penny if possible."
"Isn't that counterfeiting?"
"I doubt anyone will mistake it for a real coin."
Dad's chromatophores brightened to show his amusement. "Let me guess, you're a Batman fan."
Dragon gave us a broad smile. "He totally is."
I remembered the old Saturday cartoons they sometimes showed instead of the ones about real parahumans, and the giant coin in the Batcave. "Seriously?"
"I think that it's an interesting test of your power," Armsmaster sounded a little defensive, "and it touches several bases. Accuracy of the copy, the composition and consistency of the metal, scaling the size of objects, and so forth. And I think it might be an interesting decoration for the Wards' rec room."
"I'll give it a shot."
"Better make it so it's lying on the floor," said Dad. "If you have it upright like they do in the comics it'll probably fall over or roll away."
"Good thinking, Dad!"
I tried for a few seconds, and not a lot happened. "I don't think that my power wants to cooperate."
Armsmaster thought for a second, then said "Think of it as a quality control check. You said that thought you would get the best results when you were working on military equipment, but we can't let you do that until we are sure that the equipment will be safe. That means that the metal needs to be up to military specifications and consistent. This is a first step in getting you up to that level of reliability."
"Okay... let's see..." I concentrated on the feel of the coin in one tentacle, with several others touching the scrap metal. The whole pile of scrap abruptly sagged, and I could somehow feel that it was becoming an amorphous blob. A strand of metal about the width of a pencil rose from the tub, widening and spreading out on the floor as a disk. I gingerly touched the disk with a couple of tentacles and the process speeded up - then abruptly stopped when the disk was about the size of a dinner plate.
"What's wrong?" asked Armsmaster.
"It feels like this is all of the metal like the coin that I can make from that bin." Most of the metal was still in the tub, still fairly blobby.
"Interesting. You're quite sure you can't get more?"
I tried again. "No, it feels like that's all."
"Finish making the coin with the metal you have."
"Okay." Almost instantly the details of the coin started to appear, and in less than a minute it was complete - a lot smaller than he'd asked for, but complete. Doctor Jones picked it up and weighed it. "One point four kilos."
"Excellent," said Armsmaster. He scraped some metal from the coin
Dad asked "What about the rest of it?"
"This scrap is mostly copper, but modern pennies are made out of zinc with a thin copper coating. We put in four kilos of zinc-copper brass with known consistency, Taylor extracted approximately ninety-seven percent of the available zinc and generated an excellent match to the metal used in the real coin."
"Okay... what next?"
"Now I give Taylor an older penny which is mostly copper," said Doctor Jones, "and we'll try that again..."
Two hours later we had a giant penny, a greatly improved tentaclemobile, and a lot more information on how my power worked. I'd had no trouble copying weird objects when I thought that they were parts of weapons, and in a couple of cases they hadn't been - the "nozzle for a containment foam sprayer" that turned out to be a metal hood from an old camera lens was a good example. Conversely, I had real trouble duplicating a "cocktail shaker cap" that turned out to be part of a rocket propelled grenade, which made it pretty clear that the limitation was psychological; I was pretty sure I'd get over it with time and more practice. I could separate and mix different metals in an alloy, but only if they were relatively low melting point. My accuracy with screw threads and other precision components was improving, but still not good enough to meet Armsmaster's exacting standards. I couldn't change the composition of glass, plastics and some other materials, but I could change their shapes. I was particularly pleased with the scale model of Thunder Child I made from a brown bottle inside a clear bottle during that part of the tests. Wood, concrete and brick were more of a challenge - I could shape them, but the results were very brittle.
"It makes sense," said Armsmaster. "Metals tend to have homogeneous internal structures, so do the plastics that worked well for you and glass. Bricks and concrete are more complicated, mixtures of different materials in a matrix of cement. And wood has an extremely complex structure, thousands of parallel tubes with lots of cross-linking. When you re-shaped them you disrupted the internal structure, and reduced the strength considerably. It might be possible for you to improve this, but I think that you will progress most rapidly with metals and thermoplastics."
"Okay," I said, "sounds reasonable. But it might be worth trying liquid concrete some time, I've got a feeling I could work with it, and maybe make it harden quickly. Clay too, I think."
Dragon smiled. "That's good, you're definitely getting a feel for how your powers work, and your strengths and weaknesses. If I can make a suggestion, you might broaden the scope of your power by using it for art, especially sculpture."
"I'm not very artistic, but I guess it's worth a shot."
"I think we've got as far as we can with your main power today," said Armsmaster, "and we've already discussed your improved memory. Unless there's anything else you've noticed, we just need to run a few physical tests, things like strength and reaction time, to complete our profile..."
The rest of it was pretty simple, with no huge surprises. Doctor Tekuma stuck some biological sensors onto my body and tentacles, and they had me use some exercise machines designed for Martians, then go through tests on reaction speed and reflexes, complete a couple of puzzles and solve a Rubik's cube against the clock, and so forth. At the end they told me I wasn't physically more of a Brute than any other Martian my age, but my reaction time was now definitely above normal, which fed into my Brute and Thinker ratings, as did the enhanced memory. Eventually they decided I was a Shaker 4 / Tinker 2 / Brute 2 / Thinker 2 combination, with a note that Shaker and possibly Tinker would probably rise with experience. I wasn't entirely happy about being considered a Tinker, since what I did was a lot closer to normal engineering, but I had a feeling that that was going to cause endless unnecessary arguments if I didn't give in on it, at least as far as power classification was concerned. But if I ever talked to the public I'd try to make the distinction clear.
Doctor Tekuma took off the sensors and went off to do something else, and Dad asked "Have you thought about a cape name yet?"
"I think it's a bit early. When I got up this morning I had no idea I was going to be a cape, let alone need a name. Why, did you have something in mind?"
"Not really."
"I was thinking Ares," said Armsmaster. "Your power relates to military equipment, and Ares is another name for Mars, the god of war."
Dragon's animation shook its head. "I'm pretty sure that would be a really bad idea. Don't you think there might be a negative connotation, given the invasion?"
"I have to agree," said Dad. "I was thinking something more user-friendly. Maybe something about improvement, manufacturing, or recycling?"
I thought for a second. "What about Hephaestus?"
"The Greek god that made armaments for other gods?" asked Dad.
"I believe it's already in use," said Dragon. "Let me just check..." There was a remarkably short pause "...it's not currently in use in the USA, but three tinkers have used it. One's in Greece, another in Britain, the third was Norwegian, killed by Behemoth in November."
"Forget that one then, I wouldn't want to show disrespect by taking the name so soon. The Roman equivalent was Vulcan, but he's associated with volcanoes and earthquakes, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be popular with Behemoth around. Okay... Theseus?"
"Just a moment... ...there's nobody registered right now, the last one was a bounty hunter killed in a bar fight in Kansas seven years ago. Are you thinking of the Ship of Theseus?"
"Yep. Famous warship, continually rebuilt by the Athenians over hundreds of years. It's mostly mythological, plus there's a philosophical thing about whether or not it was the original ship or not after rebuilding. So you've got the military thing, rebuilding and recycling, and the history and philosophy thing to keep the idiots arguing on PHO. I think we have a winner."
"Why not make the name 'Ship of Theseus'?" asked Armsmaster.
Dragon winced. "The idiots on PHO will jump straight to shipping her with every other Martian cape. If she goes with Theseus it might take them a week or two to think of it."
"It has the bonus that you've been female since you were old enough for gender to matter to you," said Dad, "and most tinkers use enough protective gear and armor to conceal gender easily. If someone pretends to slip and uses male pronouns a couple of times people will hopefully think that you're male in your secret identity."
I thought about it. "Won't the people who shot at us know the truth?"
"Most humans can't tell one Martian from another, and you were inside the tentaclemobile when you triggered. We'll probably need to come up with a cover story, but I'm sure it can be covered if we're careful."
"That's not a bad plan," said Armsmaster. "Should I go ahead and ask the Image department to register the name?"
"It's up to 'Theseus'," Dad gestured the quotes. "If you're definitely happy with the name I'd say go for it, I think it sounds good. Just don't wear a helmet like Marvin the Martian!"
"That's Roman, not Greek, but it's a good point. Okay, Armsmaster, sign me up for that, the worse that can happen is that someone wastes some time filing the paperwork then I change my mind."
"I'll put a placeholder into the database," said Dragon. "That will stop anyone else registering the name for the moment, the PRT Image Department will do the rest. Let me just check something... ...okay, it doesn't look like anyone is using the name on PHO, I'll set that up now, with an email account via my company. It might save problems if you already have the PHO account before you go public."
I heard a faint buzz, and noticed that Armsmaster suddenly seemed to be paying less attention, and wasn't completely surprised when he turned to us and said "Director Piggot would like us to return to her office. There's been a development."
"About forty-five minutes ago there was an explosion followed by a small fire at the Vt'kso'zubb home. The fire department and police are at the scene, they've already found evidence of a pipe bomb. They also found a small compartment behind drywall which was damaged by the blast. It contained a hundred or so copies of the Red Mars Manifesto and a small stock of weapons and explosives. BATF and the FBI are on their way there. It isn't officially a case involving parahumans at this point, so we don't have anyone at the scene yet, we'll take care of that as soon as Miss Hess returns from the hospital and swears out a complaint."
"I've heard of Red Mars," said Aunt Hannah, "but they were active well before I moved to the USA, I thought that the last of them were rounded up in the seventies."
Red Mars was a weird quasi-Communist group, whose members claimed murdered several prominent figures in Martian communities around the world, blaming them for the invasion. There's a theory that it was actually a Chinese Communist front, set up to ensure that Martians never gained political power; there's another theory that it was set up by the CIA for the same reason, with Communist rhetoric to cover their involvement. In the US they'd mostly been active in New York and Washington, which was where the more politically-minded Martians tended to live.
I asked "Are you saying that Red Mars blew up their house?"
"It's possible," said Piggot, "but Red Mars was never active in Brockton Bay. Which is a little odd, considering how many Martians live here."
"Could someone have planted the stuff there to frame them?"
"Too early to tell at this stage, but my gut feeling is no. I've seen some photos uploaded by the first responders, it looks more like the cache was walled up a long time ago. Do any of you know when the Vt'kso'zubb family moved in?"
Dad thought for a second. "Some time in the seventies, I think. Alan's my age, we met in college, his parents were already living there then. He inherited the place when his dad died, that would have been a year or two before Taylor was born. His mom retired to Florida, died five or six years ago."
I thought about it. "Maybe his parents were part of a sleeper cell, like in the spy films. It could be that they were supposed to support the active terrorists but decided to lay low when the FBI was rounding up the rest of the organization."
"I met his parents a couple of times and never noticed anything odd about them," Dad said, "but I guess I wouldn't if they were under cover like that."
"It might be related to the thing about Mom's ancestors. Maybe they were looking for descendants of the God-Kings and never found them and Emma's dad inherited the job, didn't do anything about it until they saw mom's will. Doesn't explain the pipe bomb though."
"It's a possibility, one that we'll check. Now, I think that you two and Hannah had better get out of here. If anyone asks you've been treated in hospital and questioned after a sniper attacked the museum. We'll make a point of mentioning that the victims of the attack were Martians and a young black woman, let the media draw their own conclusions. You saw the APC with tentacles but weren't aboard it when it transformed, you don't know what that was about. Any questions?"
"What happens next, Director?"
"You two go home and get some rest, Hannah keeps you company in her civilian ID and adds a little extra protection, and when things have quieted down a little you come back in and we finish signing you up as a Ward."
"What about the sniper?"
"We're still trying to identify him."
Hannah glared at me and I guessed that she didn't want me to ask more questions, so we headed out with her, taking a twisty route through corridors and basements that came out in a parking garage on the next block. Someone had left Dad's truck there and refilled the gas, and Hannah had the receipt for the parking fee. We went home, watching out for anyone tailing us, and eventually had an undisturbed night.
TBC
Notes:
Despite fanon, Fortress Construction is not canonical for Worm; however, it's a good short-cut for referring to Calvert's business activities, other than PRT consultancy, and is a good fit to the plot I'm writing.
For more on the giant penny see https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Giant_Penny
For more on US pennies in general see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin)
Canonically the mechanisms used to claim ownership of Cape names in the Worm universe have never been made very clear. Many thanks to Ack, who took a look at my ideas for it and pointed out a couple of things that made no sense. In the end I've decided not to get too specific about the details because it isn't going to have much effect on the plot.
The Red Mars terrorists and the details of Alan's family have been made up for this story. Red Mars is a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson.
The next chapter may be an interlude from other viewpoints. It probably won't appear until well into the new year.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-15 02:58 am (UTC)Thanks for the chapter.
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Date: 2024-12-17 10:15 am (UTC)