President Ryan browsed through Hannifat Lecter’s files, with Eugène-Henry sleeping on his lap.
He had inherited his own oval office from his late predecessor, though it was square-shaped. chron had built living quarters in the bunkers to host Genos in his employ; each studio was around twenty ters squared in size, including a kitchenette, washroom, beds, and shelves.
Most importantly, each room also had a computer with access to the base’s system. While the bunker used several different independent networks to run its operations, Adam and Psyshock had compiled a lot of useful data. It took Ryan hours to crack the firewalls, but it had been worth it.
Besides a map of the bunker, the ti-traveler had gotten his hands on several of chron’s unclassified files. Most were android schematics, but so delved into truly revolutionary technology, such as spaceships to lifesaving cybernetic enhancents. Such a sha that chron had used his talent for destruction, instead of serving humanity. Ryan had the feeling the world would be a far better place if soone else had inherited his power.
This data was but a taste of what the central mainfra held, and Ryan shuddered at the re thought of soone like Augustus getting his hands on it; anyone unlocking the bunker’s full capabilities would have a credible shot at world domination. The place could produce robots, weapons of mass destruction, and of course, grant control of the Bahamut.
Most importantly, Ryan now knew how the ta-Gang learned of the bunker’s existence. Big Fat Adam and Psyshock had been studying leftover tech in the Old Ro’s ruins, and captured a still active research probe reporting to the bunker’s central AI. They tracked the source of its directional signal to New Ro, hoping to plunder its technology.
And now, it was Ryan’s turn to crack this tal vault.
After reviewing the files, the President used the bunker’s computer system to contact a few Blue Genos. The first was Livia, whom he texted asking for a neutral eting to clear things out. The second was the Architect, Yuki’s girlfriend, whom he anonymously contacted through an encrypted call.
“So, let get this straight,” Nora’s voice ca out of the computer. “You’re building a Genius tech-based bunker, and you want to see if I can crack it open as a stress test?”
“Yes, we are constructing a safe space to protect our clients from a second Geno apocalypse,” Ryan lied while scratching his cat’s ears, causing him to wake up and purr. “We would like to hire you to review the plans. See if you can find any structural weakness we could deal with. Of course, this job will stay strictly confidential.”
Nora would get a strongly edited version of the plans, so she doesn’t blow the whistle on the operation. At least, until Ryan had unlocked its full capabilities.
“I guessed that already,” the Architect replied with a chuckle. “Especially since your image feed is all dark, mister…”
“President,” Ryan replied, having already settled on his supervillain na. “Mr. President.”
She shrugged. “That’s an odd na, but I’ve heard worse. However, I must warn you that my consultancy doesn’t co cheap, and I already have work to do for Dynamis. I don’t think I can deal with your project in the following weeks.”
“Which is why you will work exclusively for our governnt from now on.”
“I’m not sure I foll—”
“Check your bank account for the down paynt.”
After a short silence where Nora actually followed through, Ryan heard a gasp from the other side. “That’s… that’s a lot of zeroes.”
Thankfully, Ryan’s hidden second superpower was money.“Enough to temporarily set aside your previous obligations, Miss Moore?”
“I think it could be arranged!”
“Goooood,” Ryan said, his cat rejoicing at the plan coming together. “I will forward you the data and have you start imdiately. Also, I have been inford you are on good terms with the superheroine Wardrobe?”
“We are close friends, yes,” Nora lied. Perhaps she tried to minimize public knowledge of her private life. “Why so?”
“Well, I was wondering if she made costus on the side, besides superheroing? I’m in dire need of a presidential costu, but I don’t want to be stonewalled by her agent.”
“Wise, it would take weeks before you can talk to her directly. The PR managers are worse gatekeepers than Cerberus. But sure, I could ask her to contact you. What kind of costu are you looking for?”
“A cashre one.”
Was there ever any doubt?
After recruiting his first Genius, Ryan called his favorite one after Len. He dreaded to have this conversation, especially since it would an interacting closely with her for weeks. Ti may have passed, but the wound remained fresh.
“Who is this?” Her surprised voice ca out of the computer. “How did you get this number?”
Hearing Jasm—Vulcan’s voice made Ryan bristle, but he stayed in character. “Do you like weapons, Miss Sharif?”
“Are we playing twenty questions, or you’re just being a creep?”
“I love weapons, Miss Sharif,” the POTUS ranted while ignoring his ex-girlfriend. “I love building a big cannon, charging it, and unloading the payload. I love planes, tanks, and submarines. I love ordering drone strikes in the morning. I believe bullets are the best foreign policy.”
“I’m hacking your location. You’re going to regret prank calling .” Her confident tone turned into a bark of frustration. “Damn it, you’re using proxy servers?”
“How would you feel about supplying an assault on Dynamis HQ?” Ryan inflicted the first strike. “Humiliating Wyvern, and crushing the corpos with an unstoppable technological advantage?”
Of course, he knew how to please her in all the ways that mattered. “I’m listening.”
“My na is Mr. President, and I’m going full Teddy ‘Trustbuster’ Roosevelt on Dynamis. Too long have corporations thought themselves above the law. My law.”
Since the deal with Manada needed Psyshock’s complicity and Ryan would get rid of him soon, the alliance would inevitably collapse. Besides, the POTUS needed to get his hands on Dr. Tyrano, and he doubted Dynamis would open the doors of Lab Sixty-Six even to their ‘allies.’ Big Fat Adam had confird in a previous run that the bunker had the infrastructure to produce Elixirs, so the courier could manufacture his own supply.
Ryan forwarded a few android schematics to Vulcan. “That’s chron tech,” she said, half-worried, half excited. “Where did you get this?”
“There’s more where I am. As for how, well, that will depend if we can…” Ryan let the sentence hang as he channeled his inner evil mastermind, “help each other out. Genius to genius.”
“Okay, now this slls really fishy. You sound like one of those Saturday morning cartoon supervillains with delusions of grandeur.”
“Of course I do,” Ryan replied bluntly. “But I have a vision, not delusions.”
“Right,” Vulcan chuckled on the other side. “I admit you have my curiosity, and if you really intend to hit Wyvern where it hurts, then we’ll get along great. But you need more than just tech to bribe . You said it yourself. You help , I help you.”
Ah, Ryan loved a good Faustian bargain. He had a good idea what she would ask. “And how could I help you, Miss Sharif?”
“Dynamis is currently filming a new Wyvern movie at Star Studio,” she said, “Trash it, then we’ll talk.”
She never changed. ”Give ti to buy myself the right costu, and I’ll set the stage on fire. Don’t forget to turn on your TV when I do.”
“Sure, I will. Impress .”
And so, Ryan’s evil plan started taking shape.
Now… was the ti to contact the last Genius on his list.
Ryan had long considered whether or not he should even call him. He didn’t trust that man, as their previous partnership had ended in betrayal and disaster. They hadn’t even spoken in years; centuries from the courier’s point of view.
But to safely transfer Len’s mory map, he needed soone capable of removing Psyshock’s sabotage. A Genius specialized in brain-altering tech, who could perfect the machine and perhaps improve on its design. If it were for Ryan alone, the courier wouldn’t have gone through with it.
But it was no longer about him.
Now, he had to save Len too.
In the end, the courier used a channel long unused, a gruff male voice coming from the other end. “What?”
“Alchemo,” Ryan said, his fists clenching and startling his cat. “It’s Quicksave.”
The news shocked Braindead. “Romano?” he asked, as if still unsure of himself. His confusion quickly turned to anger though. “Damn it, you cursed fool! It’s been two years, two years since you vanished without a word, and you’re calling back as if nothing happened?”
Well yes, but only after the Genius had tried to put Ryan’s brain in a jar. Though Alchemo didn’t rember his failed attempt, the courier never forgot. Especially since it took place right after Ryan had confessed his deepest secret.
“You broke the Doll’s heart, you selfish brat!” the old Genius complained. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you right now! What, you feel lonely and decided to ca—”
“I’m calling in my favor,” Ryan interrupted the rambling.
This sent the older Genius reeling back. “Where?” he asked, his tone turning from angry to slightly worried.
“New Ro. I’ll send you the coordinates.”
“You better have a good explanation, Romano, because I will bring the Doll with . She won’t take no for an answer.”
“Sure,” Ryan replied before abruptly hanging up and sending the Junkyard coordinates by text. As he did, the President received another, delightful ssage.
Livia had accepted his invitation.
Soone knocked on the oval office’s door. Probably an intern wanting to play Bill and Monica. “You may enter,” Ryan said, a hand on Eugène-Henry’s back as the doors opened. Sarin and Mosquito walked into the room, much to the President’s disappointnt. “Yes, my dear Cancer Ad?”
“The Land reported an invisible Geno snooping around town, though it kept fleeing whenever we tried to intercept,“ Sarin answered, missing the joke. Ryan guessed it was Mr. Safelite checking up on the ta-Gang’s activities. “Everything else is under control otherwise. What’s the plan of action now?”
“In order, we’re getting rid of Psyshock, curing his victims, laying low, and conquering the bunker,” the courier explained. “We’ll hold Rust Town for now, but no more attacks outside.”
“What about the Augusti, Boss?” Mosquito asked. “I an, we already hit their people hard. They aren’t going to forget it, even if we stop targeting them.”
“Funny you should ask, because I just received an answer from Minerva.” She even agreed to his ‘special request.’ “We’re going to make a live peace offering to the Augusti, and then prepare for war with Dynamis.”
Though Sarin couldn’t care less, Mosquito seed a bit worried about the new foreign policy. “War with Dynamis?”
“Yes, we are at war with Dynamis,” the ti-traveler pointed out. “We have always been at war with Dynamis.”
“Boss, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Psyshock said we should avoid—”
“Am I dreaming, or you’re becoming a vocal minority?” Ryan asked, scratching Eugène-Henry’s ears. “Are you leaving the silent majority, Mosquito?”
The bugman lowered his head. “No, Mr. President.”
“I love democracy,” Ryan replied, as Eugène-Henry leaped out of his hands and took over the studio’s bed. “Empowering people to do as I want.”
“That wasn’t what I asked,” Sarin said, slightly annoyed. “I ant about the cure.”
“Well, I have an idea,” Ryan said, having considered it thoughtfully. “You see Mongrel?”
“Yeah, he’s eating rats in the Junkyard. What about him?”
“His power allows him to drink multiple Elixirs and use multiple powers, though it doesn’t make him immune to mutations,” Ryan explained. “And I also know soone who consud two colored juices without going Psycho.”
Sarin’s head perked up in interest. “Like Augustus?”
“Yes, and I have the gut feeling these two will help us figure out a cure for the Psycho condition.“ Especially since Dr. Tyrano had seed confident he could make one, if soone like Livia cooperated. “Finally, we have one other piece of the puzzle available.”
“Which one, boss?” Mosquito asked, having rediscovered his inner patriotism.
“Well, my bedbug friend,” the president said as he rose up from his chair, “the talking Elixir among us, of course.”
And a discussion was long overdue.
Leaving his staff and cat behind, the President walked into the recreational area. The Psychos had cleaned up the place, with Frank replacing the broken Street Fighters arcade ga with a Donkey Kong one. The strange, faceless mutant called Incognito occupied a repaired bar counter, offering refreshnts to whoever asked.
The children and their respective plushies had taken over most of the atrium, the orphans playing so kind of tabletop ga around a large table. Gremlins brought them juice and snacks, with the plushies poking the creatures with sticks when they proved late or clumsy. Sotis, these terrible influences even encouraged their children to do it themselves.
To his surprise, Ryan noticed the original abomination combing Little Sarah’s hair with a hairbrush. However, the handle looked like it was made of a carved femur on a closer look, with human teeth in place of bristles.
The plushie was learning.
The courier hastily left, and moved towards the Elixir reserve. The Black Elixir had been granted his own empty studio near the recreational areas, with Ryan granting it the task of surveying the knockoffs. The President knew better than to give that task to any Psycho in his employ, even Frank and Sarin.
“You ca,” the Black Elixir said with its booming alien voice, as the courier walked into its lair. The studio had been emptied of all anities, except the knockoff crates. All that remained were cold, barren tal walls. “I helped… you help.”
“Yes, I will, but I need to understand how, my Lovecraftian friend. Truthfully, I don’t even understand what you are.” Ryan closed the door and rested his back against it. “You are an Elixir, right? One from an eighth color?”
“Yes… I am Black… the paradox… the negation… the freedom of all rules… distilled chaos...” The creature struggled to find a way to explain it. “It is why… the others were taught… to fulfill their duty, but I… I cannot be bound... I do not want to bond… with anyone.”
So it was a natural rebel? The very nature of its powers made it unstable and reluctant to bond with a human? “Is that why the Alchemist didn’t produce Black Elixirs?”
“We are paradoxes… we undo the rules by our nature… the rules which bind your universe together… if you lack anything by which you are defined… you are nothing…”
Giving Ryan the ability to rewrite ti had been acceptable.
Turning Augustus into an unstoppable juggernaut had been acceptable.
chron had been acceptable.
But Black Elixirs had been considered off-limits.
That should say everything. “You said I should send you back to the Black. You an the Black dinsion? There is one for each color?”
“Yes… the Black World… send back… this lower reality… it is maddening… your gravity constrains … your causes have an effect, and your effects must have causes... I am forced into a molecule-shaped prison…”
“Things make sense in our dinsion?” Ryan sumd the problem up.
“Yes!” The interdinsional entity answered with a burst of emotion. “I am… I am not free… to take any shape I wish... unlike the other Elixirs… I was never ant... to be here… I want to return… ho.”
Ryan felt a ping of pity for the creature. Of course, this universe was as terrifying to this entity, as the sli was to human beings. “Thing is, even if I find a way to send you back, you understand that I keep turning back ti? You might be yanked back to our dinsion by accident, like the gremlins.”
“No,” it rasped. “Once I am on the other side, I… I will ask the Ultimate One for help.”
That term again. “The Ultimate One?”
“The Black Ultimate One… the undoer... the breaker of rules… even causality.”
“So there are more than one? One for each colored dinsion?”
“They are… the embodint of their color… the supre beings that oversee the higher realms… we are...” The Black Elixir searched for the right term. “We are their attendants… their emissaries...”
“Their priests?” Ryan suggested.
“Yes. We are conduits… between the lower realms and the higher ones… we connect the profane to the divine… so that one day lesser beings may ascend.”
So that was the Alchemist’s true goal? To eventually elevate humanity to the level of the Ultimate Ones? To transform n into gods? Well, one just had to look at Augustus to see where that went wrong. “Does that an you are all sentient? All Elixirs?”
“The real ones, yes… but they are… submissive. They have no purpose but to help… to bond… the one called the Alchemist… it taught them to bond with humans… I do not know how. The tal ones tried to teach … but I… I refused to behave.”
“The tal ones?”
“The Blue one that… made this tal place is long gone… but its creations carry on with their task.”
chron was dead, but his AI still researched Elixirs on his behalf. That explained the creatures in the vats, and Big Adam’s words about a knockoff production system inside the bunker. The facility was ant to discover new technology which the Genius could use to rule the world, and it would continue to do so until disabled.
“There is a portal in this bunker,” Ryan guessed. “The one chron’s AI used to summon you from your ho dinsion.”
“Yes. Once I have crossed it, the Ultimate One… will undo the cause that brought here… remove from the flow of causality, and reality will restructure itself… when you reshape ti, I will never have been here… only you will rember.”
If such a creature could casually rewrite reality, and even erase soone from the tistream, could it work in reverse too?
Ryan’s mind imdiately turned to Jasmine. “Could it do more? If it controls paradoxes, could your Ultimate One bring soone? Soone that never existed?”
“You wish to bring back… soone you erased…” The Black Elixir ditated on its answer. “Nothing is impossible for the Ultimate Ones, so long as it is… within the bounds of their color… but there will be… a price.”
“I will happily pay for it.”
“Not for you… not just you...” the Black Elixir corrected him. “Your reality cannot handle us… it won’t matter if I am removed, since I am… a glitch… but your friend…”
“She will damage reality itself with her re existence.” Ryan’s mood deflated. “I see.”
“Do you… still want to ask… the Ultimate One? It may listen.”
“We’ll see when we cross that bridge,” the courier said, crossing his arms. “There’s no point in discussing it until I have opened the portal. Why did you contact of all people?”
“You rember, and you… you have a strong connection… to the Violet One… the one that oversees the flow of causality… you see things with its eye…”
Ryan froze. “What do you an?”
“You are the observer of this tiline… you decide if this mont is real or not… you possess that power by the will... of the Violet One.”
The courier considered the words carefully. He had already suspected it, but to have it confird...
“I wondered how my power interacted with things like dinsional travel,” the ti-traveler said, rembering the gremlins. They rembered him, but existed in another realm beyond his power’s reach. It should have caused temporal paradoxes, and yet it didn’t. “It works because a higher power smooths things along and makes sure to avoid contradictions.”
The Black Elixir’s countless eyes and mouths shifted, Ryan taking this as the equivalent of a nod. “The Violet Ultimate One is… the gate and the key… of all of space and ti… it is the supre overseer of causality… I could see its will at work in the previous tiline.”
The pyramid creature.
“Did it set up this eting?” Ryan asked, feeling so existential dread. “Am I even in control of my actions, or does it decide everything early?”
Much to his surprise, the Black Elixir’s answer reeked of optimism. “You are free… you were simply… guided. The Violet One only interferes to maintain this reality’s coherence, but… you are so small… your universe is no larger than a molecule to the Ultimate Ones…”
“God doesn’t micromanage?”
“No,” the Black Elixir confird. “It does not control, it nudges… a path has been shown to you, but… it is your choice to follow it or not. The Ultimate One does not interfere in this tiline… not anymore.”
So Ryan was on his own this ti around? The entity offered him a way out of his previous conundrum and loneliness, but then decided to focus on other matters. The courier was free to take the provided option, find another way, or ss it all up. It was liberating, in a sense.
“Alright, we’ll find that portal and send you back ho,” Ryan said, the Black Elixir wriggling in relief. It was almost cute to watch, in a disturbing way. “What should I call you in the anti?”
“I have no need for nas…” the entity answered. “Words cannot describe…”
“I will call you Darkling then,” Ryan settled on a na.
“I exist beyond ti… beyond reason… I cannot be defined by a single-”
“I’m President. Your na is Darkling now.”
The Black Elixir stayed silent a mont, its countless eyes focusing on Ryan. The President suddenly wondered if he had vexed the entity. “Whatever...” Darkling said, but the tone implied otherwise.
As it turned out, even aliens could sulk.
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