Emma Hunter-Hull is no longer an Enforcer. But she's still doing the job of managing world peace. Sometimes that means listening in on private conversations. Sometimes that means that means accessing restricted files. And on a good day, it means getting to do that all too rare activity: telling the whole truth. It feels like lifting a weight off old shoulders.
Without preamble she shuts off her listening device and approaches where Judson and Leo Snow are talking, noting the presence of Leo's assistant Pneuma and Agent Ted Waters standing off. She subtly gestures for the old ACTION agent to come closer, and he acknowledges with an equally subtle nod.
Leo and Judson look up as she approaches. Good, no need to waste time getting their attention. "I've been reviewing the files. Tanner Bane was the CTO of Touchstone Solutions from 1976 to 1982. During that time he brought in a lot of his own people and put them in key positions. He was well situated to hear about new developments at the company, and to influence things to go his way. It was his policy that influenced the contract terms you and Miss Kotobuki had signed. And it was his policy to suppress information, like the transformation Miss Kotobuki was already undergoing."
Judson looks distinctly surprised. "What? What're you talking about?"
"In short, Moleculon did nothing out of the ordinary. Leo's mother was already slowly dying due to the experiments they were doing on her in secret. Experiments into the transmission of all sorts of things. Technological attempts to replicate the same sort of 'passkey' power I have, for example. Her cyber-telepathy was just the tip of the iceberg if these reports are accurate."
The implications of this wash over Judson's face in an angry wave. He's on his feet before he can say anything else, and his fists are balled, but Emma expertly pushes him back down into his seat. "Bloody hell, calm down. ACTION knows, or will know. We'll see that justice is done."
"No!" Judson yells. "I saw it! Moleculon attacked her!"
"He was using his power to restrain you. From what I've read of his report - and he did file one - he felt an unexplained energy feedback. Probably Miss Kotobuki's powers resisting the attack instinctively. Well.. I'm no science expert, and you are. See for yourself."
She hands over a data pad, and watches Judson's hands carefully as he thumbs through the data. She watches with narrowed eyes as he cross-references the same Touchstone data sources she was reading earlier. And she reads him easily enough that when he drops the pad in shock, she's there to catch the hardware so it's not damaged.
"Your former boss, and his picked men, did this to your lover, Mr. Snow," Emma announces calmly. And while Judson starts rubbing away hot tears with fiercely-curled fists, she watches Leo stretch out a tentative hand and finally place it on his father's shoulder.
"May I see that, Emma?" Pneuma asks. Emma nods, and absent-mindedly hands over the data pad. Why not? She's part of this too.
----
Pneuma browses the data pad. So much of her own history is wrapped up in this incident. Leo's birth, the creation of "the Gnome", a life-long hatred that she inherited from Leo's memories. His ghost lives on in her head, advising the person she has become. But something jumps out at her, and she re-scans the pad a couple times to be sure. "Leo.. look at this." She highlights a section of data and extends it.
Leo accepts, and as he does, Pneuma becomes aware that Judson Snow is crying. Every fiber of her body rebels at his presence. To him, she imagines, she is nothing more than a fancy toy created by her son. She remembers the abductions. She remembers the Shadow Syndicate. And she's still remembering these things when she finds her arms wrapped around the little man and holding onto him.
As Judson mourns the loss of his wife and the attendant betrayal, Pneuma glances over to see Leo's eyes widen. He stands slowly. "These.. Hey.. Hey, Pneuma, you're right. Gnome. Dammit, no. Judson? Dad. Crap. I have no idea what to call you now. Hey, old man, listen!"
Judson looks up with puffy red eyes. Leo waves the data pad in his face. "These readings. These are neuro-hologram values. Synaptic matrix calculations."
"Yeah, I was studying that stuff for the company," Judson replies. "That's how I was able to build your neurochip." Slowly the source of that data dawns on him.
Leo nods. "This is Project Tesla. This is the energy field that Touchstone has upstairs. Yeah? This isn't some random energy field. This is a mind. There's one like this in her, and him, and her--" Leo points at Pneuma, Otto, and Niki.
Judson grasps the implications immediately. "You built a neuro-holographic extraction algorithm? And a parallelizing quantum axon emulator?"
Leo shrugs. What kind of question is this? ".. Yeah?"
Judson presses. "So you have an extraction device?"
Leo nods again. And both men lock gazes as they realize the same thing. "We can bring her back!"
They start to run, together, for the exit. And Ted Waters is there, pressing his hand gently but firmly against two chests. "We'll take my car, gentlemen."
----
The drive to Leo's lab feels interminable to the men in the back seat. To Agent Ted Waters, this is just another day on the job. From what he can glean, Snow pere and Snow fils intend to recover a person, somehow, that both thought was dead. The kid's got the science to turn the result into a living mind, while the dad has the know-how to do something with the original energy field to make that possible. Waters has learned not to ask unnecessary questions. Right now his job in this equation is to keep an eye on the Gnome.
The back seat has quieted down. Emma and Pneuma are riding along as well. Neither woman seems inclined to talk more. Waters is surprised when it's Judson who speaks up.
"You're Agent Ted Waters, ACTION. I remembered you. You were always there, every damn time. How'd you track me down, anyway?"
"That might compromise operational security. Sorry, sir, I have to decline to answer." The words flow smoothly from Waters' lips. And they're true. He goes back to driving.
"And you're the guy who raised my son to be the man he is." That earns a slight waver on the steering wheel. But at least the conversation seems to be on safer grounds.
"No, sir. Leo was placed in a succession of foster families. We made sure the son of a supervillain was being adequately protected, as well as the foster family." No need to mention that every new abduction disrupted the boy's life. If Snow pere hasn't figured that out, it's meaningless to explain.
"But you had a hand in pickin' them."
Waters composes his features. His fingers tighten on the steering wheel. "I had some authority over that selection."
"Yeah? Well then. I guess you're as close as I'm gonna get to say this. Ya did a good job with my kid. He's been a royal pain in the posterior, too. Well, that's gotta be how it is, I figure."
The lab is just ahead. Waters pulls in and gets out. Plenty of time between the time he leaves the car and when he opens the back doors to use the handkerchief on his eyes. He's got to keep up appearances.
----
Zeta is the only one in the lab. The Aleph Team went off to help Link and his friends. Most of the workshop is locked down, and Zeta finds that none of his old codes work. He tries a few attempts to break through the security, with no success. Small surprise, he thinks: he and Leo have plenty in common mentally. Of course he'd anticipate what Zeta would try.
He's surprised to hear the door open. He's more surprised to see Leo and the Gnome enter together. Every hateful emotion comes rushing back in a moment. Before he knows it, he's sprung across the room, only to be expertly grabbed from behind by somebody who shouldn't be there. Who--?
Emma's voice comes over his shoulder as a firm pair of hands pinion his arms and force him down. "Ease down, soldier." Of course, thinks Zeta - the teleporter Mirage.
"Hey, Zeta." Leo's voice. "Yeah, bro, I heard you got betrayed by someone you were working for, who took away your hopes and dreams. Meet my dad. Same thing just happened to him. So I reckon you two have a lot to talk about."
Emma releases him, and Zeta rises to his feet. Something is absolutely amiss, and he tries to orient himself. "But you're enemies."
"We're family," laughs the Gnome bitterly. "Bein' enemies comes with the territory. Yeah, the kid is right. Tanner Bane did me dirty. But that son of a bitch is gettin' his. There's no more Unitron either, Solar Girl saw to that. Probably Rex Mundi's doin', that connivin' chiselin'.. anyway. Tanner Bane wanted to see if Leviathan could brainwash a digital mind. Spread that around the network, turn the whole world's computers into intelligent slaves. Then I helped him get his hands on Unitron. Which, y'know, probably was the end result of that for all I know. Whoops."
"Anyway. You want to help save a life?"
Zeta reels mentally. This is all too much to take in. But the final question shines a much-needed light through the fog. "... Yes. What do you need me to do?"
----
Zeta hauls the heavy halo apparatus out to the car. Leo follows, hauling a spare shell and a handful of other equipment. Agent Waters hits the pedal. The car peels out, hot on the way back to Touchstone.
The two inventors work feverishly. The mind-extraction technology is familiar to Leo, while Judson is a veritable whirlwind with the rest of the gear. Waters and Emma watch the elder man like a hawk, though Leo seems too engrossed in his own half of the problem to worry about the risk.
The last connection is snapped into place. The last power cable is plugged in. Judson throws the switch, sending arcing currents through the Touchstone lab's equipment. And Leo steps forward, facing the AI machine.
"Before the omnipotent witness, I pledge never to use this power for evil," he declares. And the final switch is thrown.
The entire lab lights up. Streamers of energy - the same type that struck Circuit when she was last through here - reach out and around, seeking a home. That home has been prepared: a feminine shell, sculpted originally for Pneuma. Through the AI machine, a torrent of data flows. A human mind, reduced to digital information by a power gone out of control, captured by a soulless super-science, now frees itself and flows back toward the light.
The power fades from the room. The meter dials swing back to zero. And Kaguya Kotobuki opens her eyes.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Adversary epilogue - Kaguya Kotobuki
Tanner Bane's indictment as the Cybernaut - including the laundry list of related crimes such as criminal conspiracy, theft of restricted technology, and so forth - will shake the foundations of New Troy. Leo Snow sits in the calm at the eye of this storm, and listens to Judson Snow talk. Next to Leo is Pneuma, a stern scowl adorning her otherwise-pretty features. Her body language makes it clear that anything she says will not be well received by anyone here. And Agent Ted Waters is near enough to keep a very sharp eye on the supervillain, but not close enough to overhear the conversation.
"You want to take it from the top?" Leo asks. His voice is calm. He's unmindful of the faint trail of blood seeping from a cut on his brow, which Pneuma had to forcibly bandage without his cooperation. His skin is slightly browned in places, a relic of the electrical attacks he suffered. Niki is off looking for paramedics; whether Leo will cooperate any more with them is uncertain.
"I guess this is overdue," admits Judson, shrugging. "You could say that everything I've been doin' here is for two people. First 'n foremost, myself. I'm not a goodie-two-shoes, never will be. I don't apologize. But the second person is Kaguya Kotobuki. Your mother."
Leo's eyes go wide. But he says nothing, refusing to interrupt the flow of information with an errant word. The elder Snow goes on.
"Y'see, Kaguya was what you might call an Enforcers wannabe, or Junior Enforcers type. She wanted to be a hero. Her power was cyber-empathy or cyber-telepathy. She could feel what was going on inside devices 'n computers 'n so on. Not really Enforcers material, know what I'm sayin'? But she was great in the lab, and there she stayed. That's when she and I met. Touchstone Solutions hired people like us. People with talents for machines and inventing. Seems they had this source for rare materials an' just threw big brains at the problem of finding uses for it all."
"I'd never been smooth with the ladies. But she.. well, first she told me my inventions were the most beautiful thing she ever felt. She said they were like 'flowers blooming in silicon'. And I've never heard a compliment I disliked. So we get acquainted."
"Fast forward a few years. I was gettin' real tired of Touchstone. We're gettin' used an' used an' used. None of us got the credit we deserved. So I told Kaguya that I was gonna make it big. I was gonna strike out on my own. I was better with tech than business, but I figured, hey, I'm a smart guy, right? I can work it out. Besides, there were a few customers that Touchstone wouldn't touch, that I'd be happy to work with."
"So one night we take off with a few of my more interesting innovations - hey, don't give me that look, remember I said we were the ones building this stuff." After Leo's steady gaze bores into him a bit more, he waves his hands in token of surrender. "Fine, fine, it was theft. Who cares? I needed a starting point. They owed me, kid."
"So who should get in our way but Moleculon himself! Didn't think I rated that much attention, go figure. Well, some of these toys, they're pretty handy. We obviously tried to run for it - no way was I ready to tackle Moleculon then, nowadays is another story - anyway. We're almost safe, an' he does something, still not sure what. Kaguya takes the hit for me. I remember her face..."
Judson goes silent. Leo remains wordless. Pneuma's hard stare never wavers. The diminutive inventor resumes the thread of narrative at last. His voice quavers now, each word chipping away a bit more at the dam holding back his feelings. "She didn't deserve that. We got away. But... somethin' about what that bastard did had damaged her. Made her powers go wonky. She was dyin', that was clear. An' that was the time when she'd already conceived you, kiddo. So there was two lives at risk."
"She told me she never wanted to steal from Touchstone, but she thought she'd lose me if I went off on my own. She told me she loved me and wanted me to be happy. She asked me to .. well, not in so many words, but basically she wanted me to fess up, cop to the theft, turn myself in to the fuzz. I knew what she wanted. The mother wasn't going to last, so the father had to be there."
The paramedics finally arrive, coming through the police cordon. Leo waves them off without even looking. Pneuma, after agonizing moments of consideration, forcibly ushers them away and returns to listening without a word. Judson goes on.
"Well that was it! Your old man was officially a criminal. So Kaguya went to the hospital and I went on the lam. A few months later, they deliver you without difficulty. A few months after that, she passed. Never did get to see her. Tried getting close, of course - the cops chased me off. Being my height makes it hard to sneak anywhere."
Judson sighs. "Kaguya was the perfect woman. Beautiful, smart, interestin'. She loved me so much. She loved my inventions. She really got who I was. After her, kid, there was never gonna be another woman good enough. But that didn't stop me from tryin'. And tryin', and tryin'. Never was satisfied with whoever I was with. Like a man who's hungry and can never eat enough."
Leo finally breaks his silence. "So my brain damage was caused by that incident?"
"Yeah." Judson taps the side of his head. "Whatever hit your mom screwed up your nervous system but good. You'd have been dead by age six. I hit the books, learned biology, neurology, surgery. I built a chip - well, what am I tellin' you this for? You know the rest o' that. 'Cept that I'd keep breaking out and coming for you to check up on your progress, make sure the damage wasn't recurring. Finally, though, I figured you were okay. I decided you'd had enough of your old man, and I kinda had enough of the cops busting in on us. So I left you alone and went about my business... until Tanner Bane came calling."
"None of us read the fine print on our Touchstone contracts. Turns out that everyone with real powers - her an' me included - donated their bodies to the company upon death. Those heartless bastards didn't even wait until she was cold until they took off with her. Somehow or another, her body and brain were converting themselves into digital information. That's what was killing her in the end. A fatal mutation of her powers, y'know?"
"Well, Tanner Bane knows all this, 'cause he's the Man now. He saw my file in Touchstone's work records, knew who I'd become, decided I was the right man for his job. 'How'd you like to make more money than God, and avenge the death of your wife into the bargain?' he asks. Coming back to Touchstone was a hard sell but that offer was solid gold to me. He says he'll get the truth of what happened to us out there, make people appreciate just what an influence people like Kaguya and me had been on the company. Name recognition. The real thing, what I deserved all along. 'Once my plans come to fruition, you'll never fear being ignored', he promised."
"He needs me for the expertise on the equipment he's building. He brings in another guy, Hannibal Lectric. Scary villain, bad news. But whip-smart, let me tell you. And these two tell me that Kaguya's remains had been incorporated into something called 'Project Tesla', some kind of bio-information transmission system. The scientists who were working on it weren't at my level. All they got it to do was superconduct. Big whoop. But this tech got poured into some punk kid who broke in, apparently, and it gave her super-powers. Hannibal knows he could power himself up with this stuff, so he needs the thief back. Sure, it'll kill her to achieve his goal, but at the time I was mostly okay with that."
Finally Judson stops, and Leo watches him rub his eyes. The elder Snow's fingers come away wet with tears, and Leo looks at him with a start.
"Yeah, your old man's been known to cry. That thief who got the power? That's apparently your friend there, Electric Slide or whatever her name is. She got her powers from big-company scientists carving up your mother. So when I saw you take that electric bolt for me tonight? Somethin' just clicked. I feel different. Bane betrayin' me doesn't surprise me at all. That's not what I was thinking about at all. All I could see was you, divin' into the path of that hit, like she did. And all I could think was, 'not again'. But you didn't go down. You beat him. You won. The gods were giving me a second chance."
"I'll never be a good guy, son. I'll be the same crappy father I've always been. I'm always going to build what I feel like, and expect to get well paid by anyone who wants it. But I guess you could say... for now, I'm willing to try it Kaguya's way."
"You want to take it from the top?" Leo asks. His voice is calm. He's unmindful of the faint trail of blood seeping from a cut on his brow, which Pneuma had to forcibly bandage without his cooperation. His skin is slightly browned in places, a relic of the electrical attacks he suffered. Niki is off looking for paramedics; whether Leo will cooperate any more with them is uncertain.
"I guess this is overdue," admits Judson, shrugging. "You could say that everything I've been doin' here is for two people. First 'n foremost, myself. I'm not a goodie-two-shoes, never will be. I don't apologize. But the second person is Kaguya Kotobuki. Your mother."
Leo's eyes go wide. But he says nothing, refusing to interrupt the flow of information with an errant word. The elder Snow goes on.
"Y'see, Kaguya was what you might call an Enforcers wannabe, or Junior Enforcers type. She wanted to be a hero. Her power was cyber-empathy or cyber-telepathy. She could feel what was going on inside devices 'n computers 'n so on. Not really Enforcers material, know what I'm sayin'? But she was great in the lab, and there she stayed. That's when she and I met. Touchstone Solutions hired people like us. People with talents for machines and inventing. Seems they had this source for rare materials an' just threw big brains at the problem of finding uses for it all."
"I'd never been smooth with the ladies. But she.. well, first she told me my inventions were the most beautiful thing she ever felt. She said they were like 'flowers blooming in silicon'. And I've never heard a compliment I disliked. So we get acquainted."
"Fast forward a few years. I was gettin' real tired of Touchstone. We're gettin' used an' used an' used. None of us got the credit we deserved. So I told Kaguya that I was gonna make it big. I was gonna strike out on my own. I was better with tech than business, but I figured, hey, I'm a smart guy, right? I can work it out. Besides, there were a few customers that Touchstone wouldn't touch, that I'd be happy to work with."
"So one night we take off with a few of my more interesting innovations - hey, don't give me that look, remember I said we were the ones building this stuff." After Leo's steady gaze bores into him a bit more, he waves his hands in token of surrender. "Fine, fine, it was theft. Who cares? I needed a starting point. They owed me, kid."
"So who should get in our way but Moleculon himself! Didn't think I rated that much attention, go figure. Well, some of these toys, they're pretty handy. We obviously tried to run for it - no way was I ready to tackle Moleculon then, nowadays is another story - anyway. We're almost safe, an' he does something, still not sure what. Kaguya takes the hit for me. I remember her face..."
Judson goes silent. Leo remains wordless. Pneuma's hard stare never wavers. The diminutive inventor resumes the thread of narrative at last. His voice quavers now, each word chipping away a bit more at the dam holding back his feelings. "She didn't deserve that. We got away. But... somethin' about what that bastard did had damaged her. Made her powers go wonky. She was dyin', that was clear. An' that was the time when she'd already conceived you, kiddo. So there was two lives at risk."
"She told me she never wanted to steal from Touchstone, but she thought she'd lose me if I went off on my own. She told me she loved me and wanted me to be happy. She asked me to .. well, not in so many words, but basically she wanted me to fess up, cop to the theft, turn myself in to the fuzz. I knew what she wanted. The mother wasn't going to last, so the father had to be there."
The paramedics finally arrive, coming through the police cordon. Leo waves them off without even looking. Pneuma, after agonizing moments of consideration, forcibly ushers them away and returns to listening without a word. Judson goes on.
"Well that was it! Your old man was officially a criminal. So Kaguya went to the hospital and I went on the lam. A few months later, they deliver you without difficulty. A few months after that, she passed. Never did get to see her. Tried getting close, of course - the cops chased me off. Being my height makes it hard to sneak anywhere."
Judson sighs. "Kaguya was the perfect woman. Beautiful, smart, interestin'. She loved me so much. She loved my inventions. She really got who I was. After her, kid, there was never gonna be another woman good enough. But that didn't stop me from tryin'. And tryin', and tryin'. Never was satisfied with whoever I was with. Like a man who's hungry and can never eat enough."
Leo finally breaks his silence. "So my brain damage was caused by that incident?"
"Yeah." Judson taps the side of his head. "Whatever hit your mom screwed up your nervous system but good. You'd have been dead by age six. I hit the books, learned biology, neurology, surgery. I built a chip - well, what am I tellin' you this for? You know the rest o' that. 'Cept that I'd keep breaking out and coming for you to check up on your progress, make sure the damage wasn't recurring. Finally, though, I figured you were okay. I decided you'd had enough of your old man, and I kinda had enough of the cops busting in on us. So I left you alone and went about my business... until Tanner Bane came calling."
"None of us read the fine print on our Touchstone contracts. Turns out that everyone with real powers - her an' me included - donated their bodies to the company upon death. Those heartless bastards didn't even wait until she was cold until they took off with her. Somehow or another, her body and brain were converting themselves into digital information. That's what was killing her in the end. A fatal mutation of her powers, y'know?"
"Well, Tanner Bane knows all this, 'cause he's the Man now. He saw my file in Touchstone's work records, knew who I'd become, decided I was the right man for his job. 'How'd you like to make more money than God, and avenge the death of your wife into the bargain?' he asks. Coming back to Touchstone was a hard sell but that offer was solid gold to me. He says he'll get the truth of what happened to us out there, make people appreciate just what an influence people like Kaguya and me had been on the company. Name recognition. The real thing, what I deserved all along. 'Once my plans come to fruition, you'll never fear being ignored', he promised."
"He needs me for the expertise on the equipment he's building. He brings in another guy, Hannibal Lectric. Scary villain, bad news. But whip-smart, let me tell you. And these two tell me that Kaguya's remains had been incorporated into something called 'Project Tesla', some kind of bio-information transmission system. The scientists who were working on it weren't at my level. All they got it to do was superconduct. Big whoop. But this tech got poured into some punk kid who broke in, apparently, and it gave her super-powers. Hannibal knows he could power himself up with this stuff, so he needs the thief back. Sure, it'll kill her to achieve his goal, but at the time I was mostly okay with that."
Finally Judson stops, and Leo watches him rub his eyes. The elder Snow's fingers come away wet with tears, and Leo looks at him with a start.
"Yeah, your old man's been known to cry. That thief who got the power? That's apparently your friend there, Electric Slide or whatever her name is. She got her powers from big-company scientists carving up your mother. So when I saw you take that electric bolt for me tonight? Somethin' just clicked. I feel different. Bane betrayin' me doesn't surprise me at all. That's not what I was thinking about at all. All I could see was you, divin' into the path of that hit, like she did. And all I could think was, 'not again'. But you didn't go down. You beat him. You won. The gods were giving me a second chance."
"I'll never be a good guy, son. I'll be the same crappy father I've always been. I'm always going to build what I feel like, and expect to get well paid by anyone who wants it. But I guess you could say... for now, I'm willing to try it Kaguya's way."
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