Once the Martians had emptied from their ships, a transformation took place. The black drop-pods which we had all ridden down began to fold like origami into new shapes. This was the great advantage of biomechanical ships. Once they had served their purpose in one phase, they had only to metamorphosize into the next, breaking down to the cellular level if need be. Then, they could serve a completely different function.
Soon, there would be all manner of attack drones, ready to be piloted. We had a long way to travel, but many of us would be able to ride or fly. Some would be tottering behind in enormous, six-legged machines, carrying special weaponry. Further still were the number of single-pilot suits, which the starfish-shaped Martians crawled into with no plans of leaving. These transformed them into beasts of differing shapes, with claws and guns mounted at every angle.
I watched them put on their exoskeletons, noticing that one fighter was much larger than the others. It came out to be a crab-like form, standing well above my head. And, as it walked up to me, I wasn’t expecting to bow over in respect.
Lights flashed across the face of this crab, and somehow my brain made sense of it as sounds. Yet another trick Creep had hidden inside me. “Lord,” it said, voice imposing and deep.
I nodded in return, still a little perplexed. At my side, Hickory just chuckled. As he continued to bow, I pieced together who I was talking to and addressed them in kind. “Oh yes. Good to see you, General.” That was what I presumed was proper. Creep aimed not to influence their culture, but the fact that he’d made an army of the Martians meant that in the end, there was little we couldn’t understand about each other. Hierarchy and rank were a universal language.
The General, Sol, finally pulled up from his bow and took a more critical look down on me. “The Creator told me about the two of you. He speaks to me in my dreams.”
“Oh?” I asked. “And what did he say?” This would be interesting.
“He said that you, Walter, and he, the Greatest Creature, were once the same Being, but that he grew out of you. He also said that he had this man, Jedediah Steel, to thank for the conflict which birthed him,” Sol said, being oddly particular about titles.
I immediately turned to Hickory, though, grateful for the formality. “Your name is Jedediah?” I smiled. Yet, it wasn’t mocking. I was genuinely pleased to finally know, as he’d kept it secret all this time.
Hickory smirked. “Humble origins,” he admitted. “I might even have been Amish, once. A long, long time ago. But only for a moment. The whole town was burned down by a rogue Hero. He was just blowing off steam cause he couldn’t catch a villain, of course. And the event was covered up by Seraph. Which is why I’m really just fightin’ for justice in an unjust world, getting my revenge as a poor orphaned boy.”
“Really?” I asked, incredulous.
“No. And just cause you know my name now don’t mean you know a damn thing about me, so wipe that stupid look off your face, before I do.” He was deadpan, but clearly, I’d struck a nerve.
All the while, Sol was watching us. I didn’t know if he was waiting to be excused or something, so I simply gave him an awkward thumbs up. “Are we… ready to move, I guess?”
“Yes!” he bellowed with a shine. “I have come to tell you to take your positions on the transport vehicle. You two are to meet with Dawn and her allies in the West and report back. Seraph too will be there, attending what is presented as a discussion for peace. But there will be no peace, you understand.”
I stared up at the alien crab, turning briefly away to the insane army of horrors gathering around us in the snow. At last, I shrugged. This was always how it was going to go. “Sounds good,” I said.
“Sir, yes sir,” Hickory cheered, putting his hands on his hips. “Sounds like a good old time. I’d like to be there to rub it in when things go south, anyway.”
There was a brief exchange of logistical information and then a set of goodbyes. The General marched on his way.
Once we’d mounted up into the strange jet, then, I and Hickory took our seat among three different Martians and some more familiar faces. I was happy to extend my hand to greet them, somehow feeling like they were old friends.
Daniel was a little startled at this, as he had no idea who I was. But he shook my hand, nonetheless. “Are you two the negotiators? I’m still a little groggy from the flight.”
I responded in perfect Spanish. “Yes, we are. I expect there to be a few people there who might recognize me,” I said, referring to Ironbolt. “It’ll give the whole thing a more human touch to smooth it over.”
“And, uh, who are you?” Cyber asked from Daniel’s side. The rest of the group was right behind her.
Hickory answered on my behalf. “He’s the original bastard that started all this. He lived into his fucking twenties without even knowing he had his Godlike Power. Ain’t that pathetic?”
“You mean…?”
“He’s the Creep.”
I nodded solemnly. “Though you might be able to guess by the fact that I’m here and my… Power is on Mars; it’s sort of outgrown me.”
“But it is your Power, isn’t it?” Daniel asked, suddenly disturbed by the concept. “I mean, a Power can’t have a mind of its own, right?”
There was a roar as the ship picked up into the air with a vertical takeoff.
I felt the inertia wash over me as we sped off. “It evolved a second mind in order to fulfill its directive, which was survival,” I said. “We all change, if you think about it, so it’s more like we protect survival than the other way around. And although, yeah, the Behaviorists hit a dead end with tabula rasa and it’s likely that aspects of personality are somewhat innate, err…” I was digressing. “Either way, Power follows the continuity of personality more than the original form. So really, I’m not even Walter. Creep is Walter. I’m just… a memory.” Even as I said it, I didn’t believe it. How could that be true?
I’d been changing inside the Invisible Channel. Thinking and growing. I wasn’t just some old save file from the game of life, so to speak. I was the continuity.
Perhaps, I thought, I really was still me, and Creep was more of a protective abstraction. Something which was created simply to help me when I was unwilling to make the hard choice. A tool to push me along in my development, rather than a break in it.
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After all, everything new was built on the old. And Creep was too much of a blank slate without me. He hardly had a personality at all, besides raw growth. To that extent, there was little difference between him and any random plant. A Power couldn’t adhere to that…
Powers were attached to the specific aspects of a being, and I had learned from my experiments that if you warped a person too far, their Power would no longer recognize them. It would cease to function. A soul could only change so far and remain authentic, then.
Daniel had taken some time to chew on what I said, but most of it had gone over his head. So, he punched me in the shoulder. “You’re kind of crazy to let yourself become a giant monster, you know that!?”
“Yep,” I admitted. “But in my defense, it’s what everybody expected.”
“Ain’t that the damn truth,” Hickory agreed, suddenly sage-like. “Any free man is a monster to them.”
I had to admire the confidence with which he invoked the idea of us and them. He was a master of mocking taboos. Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop thinking about this issue with Creep. It was my subconscious that had decided to download Hickory in the first place, and it was for a reason.
Cyber just stared at me from her seat. Deep down, I knew that all of them would not have chosen this path if they had another option. They would never have sought out such alienation from their humanity. But they were survivors, and this was the price. It didn’t soften that little edge of resentment, though.
It was the same for me, I decided. Ultimately, I’d been resentful for having to give up my humanity. So much so that I’d created a ruthless mask to bear it, borrowed from my own damn killer. But now I was separated from that mask, and I had a moment to appreciate what it had done for me. But also to doubt.
I didn’t want to become a tyrant. I wanted to free myself and the world from the miserable grey box that modern society had built for it. The stranglehold of Seraph’s security state. But given the chance, would Creep betray his lip service and enslave everything that posed him a threat?
The possibility concerned me.
Still, we were arriving at the frontline of our war of aggression. Our landing site hadn’t been far from where Dawn was holed up in the Southwest. Out of the window, I could see her enormous size.
She was a giant mushroom on the horizon, blooming above some nameless, rotting city of Russia, built long before the Lich King.
“He’s really dead, then,” I sighed. Two dead Kings had never happened before.
Hickory simply shrugged. “They said they took Russia. They didn’t say anything about killing the bastard who held it before. Maybe Seraph got him out?”
“It was kind of implied,” I argued. But the more I thought about it, I began to wonder.
Our ship touched down on one of the nearby rooftops, putting us beneath the shadow of the mushroom. From there, we could see two more ships that had set down in a similar fashion about a half a mile off. One was black and battle-scarred. Not the newest, shiniest equipment. The other was its exact opposite. Gleaming Seraph tech.
As our jet’s door opened, I invited Hickory to go first, and I spoke to the four remaining Supers. “Foci, be sure to let us know if a disaster is imminent. I’d prefer not to die again. And Paradise, if you can be subtle about lending the meeting a relaxed attitude, that would be appreciated.”
“I can do that,” she said, while the old man just nodded tightly.
Daniel and Cyber would have to be our backup plan. I saw that Creep had integrated more biotech into her suit than the rest of us. Things that resembled antenna. With those, she might still prove useful. But it was more likely that if things came down to a punching match, we’d lose.
Oh well.
My consciousness was getting a live backup in the form of microbiological computers. I’d get over it.
Stepping out into the cold winds once again, I tried to turn my face away. The air was biting, and there was a foul stench everywhere I breathed. Unfortunately, Dawn had been feeding herself primarily on rotting corpses, and this did not make for a pleasant aroma.
We hopped down from the roof to street level and started walking in the general direction of the other planes. It wasn’t too long after that when we ran into their meeting place, and the sight of many tough, wind-burned faces.
An old table had been set up in the middle of the street with chairs gathered around it at random. One side roughly corresponded to those against Seraph, and I immediately recognized Ironbolt at its head. His body was surrounded by a strange glowing aura, which I’d never seen before. A faint blue glow, while his face looked strained.
Then, on the other side, it was the representatives from Seraph. Mostly generic black suits, but one face was like a bucket of cold water; an absolute gut-punch. No one I’d expected to ever see again.
It was Maximal, clad as always in bright whites. A symbol of order.
He stood up as soon as our eyes met. The grimace he’d already borne grew deeper, and I could practically hear it screamed in his gaze, as he averted back to Ironbolt.
I told you so.
There was no need to be shy about it, as I took my seat at the table with Hickory. The rest stood behind us, and I crossed my arms. “It’s just as you predicted,” I admitted to him. “Probably worse than your worst nightmare, even.”
“It is,” Maximal gritted his teeth. Seeing Hickory beside me, who he’d hunted to the death, was like salt on the wound. “But that’s no longer relevant. The past is the past.”
“Let the dead bury themselves,” Hickory added, smug.
“And you, Ironbolt? You must be disappointed.”
He shook his head. No one here was wearing a mask. It was pointless, now. There were no Heroes or Villains at this table, nor reason for secret identities. There were only forces in conflict. “I accepted this as a possibility, even though you’re far more powerful than I originally thought. Even still, I wouldn’t change anything. At the time, you were an innocent man who’d just come into his Power. You could have gone either way. And we don’t make those kinds of sacrifices on the principle of threat.”
Suddenly, there was a noise from above. Dawn’s central mass extruded a long, winding stalk. It lowered itself until it came to hover above the table, covered in eyes and mouths join us in the discussion. Warmly, I acknowledged her. “Glad to see you’ve come into your own.”
She chose a strikingly feminine voice to speak with, I noted. “Father,” was all she said. “Hello.” It was jarring to see it come from such an ugly construct.
A little nervous chuckle escaped, despite my best efforts. This was my… daughter. Now that was a funny feeling.
“So,” I clapped my hands. “It looks like we’re all present. What shall we discuss?” I coyly started. “Perhaps the cessation of any further unnecessary nukings? Peace between our planets?”
There was silence as the whole table exchanged glances. Something was unspoken on the air, and I turned up my hands, inviting them to speak. Certainly, I thought, we all knew what was coming?
I should probably cut the act. I would only be accepting unconditional surrender.
Dawn lowered herself over the table. Her eyes became level with me then, and out of her many mouths, she spoke. “You did not make me equal to yourself.”
“Hmm?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I can feed and grow, but my forms are finite,” she said. “Many of your deadlier attacks, like parasitism, rely solely on the speed with which you can supernaturally restructure biology. They are not practical for me.”
“So?” I didn’t see her point.
“So, she’s less of a threat,” Avenger explained. “She’s orders of magnitude less powerful.”
My eyes narrowed. Beside me, Hickory slammed a fist down on the table without a word. He was quicker than me, but I was putting two and two together, and neither of us were happy.
Maximal was the last one to spell it out for me. “Against this existential threat, we, both humans and Kizmet of Earth, have decided to come together. You, Walter Watson, for your acts of hostility; for bringing an army to Earth and for unleashing weapons of mass destruction on a whim, must be stopped.”
Ironbolt slid me an official document, just to drive the point home. In his own words, he sealed the deal. “You’re no longer an innocent man, Walter. Millions more will die because of the bioweapons you released in South America.”
I hadn’t even realized. I didn’t get around to watching the news, these days.
“I can make people immune,” I offered.
“It’s too late for that. You came here for war, and war is what you’ll get.”
Dawn was on their side too, I saw. I’d given her sentience, and this was how she’d used it. To rebel against me.
At last, I drew in a deep breath.
We were going to do this the hard way, apparently, and I had just one thing to say about that.
“Fuck.”