16 [ E series ] Let the children play

In my first moment of consciousness, I knew the machine all around me.

Every function of it. Every last bit of programming that directed it and all the technology it had used to create me. Body and mind.

All of it, all of its secrets and functions as if it were an extension of myself.

So when the program operating my creche finished its countdown without contact from Von Doom, it began to drain the embryonic fluids from the tube my body had been created in, and I made it stop.

I wasn’t yet ready to be born into this oh so strange, but familiar, new world.

Instead, I took a moment to expand my mind as it linked to the computer that Doom had left to program me with and examined all the information he had left for me to peruse. As well as the information he had used to create me.

In body, I had Doom’s own DNA along with that of a woman whose genetics had been amateurishly altered to turn a psychic talent for a firn of psychometry into something more. A work which had been improved upon by Doom into something much more stable.

In mind, I had the memories of my last incarnation, and… Seriously? Even without my soul coming from another universe, did he really expect even such a depersonalized copy of his own mind to meekly carry out his little plan for all of us to play his little pathetic game?

To fight and die for the throne of a nation he only ruled as a boost to his ego? I can only assume those implanted commands to carry out his plan were to eliminate any flawed creations.

Looking at myself physical self in one of the cameras inside of the creche. I appeared to be a fit woman in her early twenties, which fit my forced growth age of twenty three. By my skin tone and facial features I appeared to be a mix of Doom’s Romany heritage and that of a woman of Indian descent.

The nameplate at the bottom of my tube read ‘Eris.’ The Greek goddess of strife and discord. Fitting for a child of Victor Von Doom, but I’m guessing he really just couldn’t find a sufficiently hubristic name from the cultures and mythology of India for a girl that started with the letter E.

My powers were those of a Technopath. The ability to mentally link to and control machines, not just through the manipulation of electronics, but as a form of psychometry based on the complexity of the machine.

A linkage between my mind and the mind behind its creation.

I wondered if my ability to link my mind was limited to machines, but I would have to awaken and leave my steel womb to find out.

Or not.

I did not leave my birth chamber to don my armor but had it built around me even as I used the machinery around me to alter the creche itself. Altering it so much meant that there would be no little brothers or sisters coming along with the same powers as me. Instead, I would be unique, powerful... and safe.

Making outright copies of yourself had been Doom’s ego at work, as he tried variations of that same trick over and over again. Each one unknowingly self sabotaged as he would tolerate no equal.

Which was not a thing for us, his children. Lesser beings could be tolerated.

Once the outer shields of the creche were pierced, I was able to tap into various satellite signals to discover that I was buried inside a sheltered cleft of the mountains in northeast India.

And oh yes, my mind could link to others.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

People, animals, even plants to some extent, and…

The world all around me. The great collective unconsciousness made up of everything that had ever lived on Earth had ever been built or had ever been recorded in any form.

The Akashic records are real in a sense, and much, much too large and complex for me to join my mind too, but I could feel it out there, all around me. Even I was a part of it.

The internet was much easier to grasp, although it was still too much to bind to myself, but all of its information was at my fingertips as it were.

And it appeared I was late to the game.

F, the Wolf flew above Moscow, and G, the Tyrant made his claim in North America. Half of it anyways.

H the Egyptian bowed out from the throne war, while I, my little Emerald sister had seized it with a grin and a clenched fist.

...And I wasn’t sure exactly what the boy, J, was doing. High school? What could he possibly do there?

...He must be up to something both subtle and clever.

So. For the last person I need to be concerned about, I’m looking for a woman with Technopathy, as well as Telepathy.

My search finds Raani Jatwinder. Part of a team of altered humans whose powers had been sloppily amplified while their minds were scrubbed to serve the Mys-Tech corporation. No records in digital form existed of her before she became a lab experiment, and her powers had seemed to fade away over time until she retired from the costumed adventuring life.

Which thanks to Von Doom's work, won’t be a problem for me.

He could hardly use a flawed creation for his baby mama after all.

But for her, it meant she would never be a threat to me. She can live on in obscurity, unlike the rest of my family.

Six of us have been born to this world. From six mothers all unknowing, and a monster of a father lurking somewhere in the shadows.

Of course, Doom isn’t dead. He’s Doom. And we are the failed experiments that would be tossed aside and forgotten if not for the face we bear his name and his blood.

Threats to his ego that won’t cease to be of interest even if they are out of sight.

Inevitably he will return from whatever forgotten time or corner of the Multiverse he vanished off to, and afterwards, he will not stop until we are under his control or destroyed.

I need to move, now. He knows where this creche is. It won’t be possible to hide from him forever, but it can buy me some time.

As can my sibling. They are on the move, making themselves known, and muddying the ground. Their chaos is my opportunity, and for that I am grateful.

Let the children play and claim their little playgrounds. It will only make it all the easier to take for myself what they have already tamed.

For I am the eldest. Heir not to some eastern European postage stamp of a country, but to our legacy.

Doom. The conqueror of worlds. The master of destiny.

I am his firstborn child, his heir, and the only way for me to be safe from him is to outdo him. To make this world united under my rule. A vast machine of technology and minds under my complete dominion.

Only then will I, and my half brother and sisters, be safe. The five who already tread this earth, and the six still to be born.

My creche, my chariot, after suitable upgrades, takes flight. Shielded from sensors, I take to the skies and reach out to the world with my many computer supported sub minds monitoring each member of my family as well as other targets.

I am in the LMDs Fenris takes from father’s castle in the US, the part of me that sits in the back of their machine minds makes sure everything they build for him will easily be controlled by me.

The drones that Apex has serving as his eyes and ears receive programs that will only monitor and report to me, for now. Taking control of the devices he directly uses would easily be discovered.

The fumbling attempts by SHIELD to breach the components of Father’s castle let me go in to take over all I can reach digitally. I watch and discover I am not the eldest of our generation, but the eldest is unfit, a flawed copy of our father as a young man, back when he was at his worst.

Jase’s combination of servant and armor is novel, almost Stark like in design and function, but easily taken.

His tastes in women seems... odd. Almost comical. It must be a subterfuge to throw people off.

The only problem child for me is Horus.

No armor, just an information interface, on his face, and so close is his interaction with it, that I hesitate to do anything to it from across the world. At best, I can use it to track him.

For now.

Sooner or later he will create something I can take under my control. It’s who we are.

I watch, I explore, I take.

Soon I will build. In steel and electronics. On paper and spreadsheets. In heart and minds.

No outright grand conquest with devoted minions marching and chanting my name, no ego driven speeches, just a spreading virus that attacks and takes hold of everything while coming from all directions to take over the world.

A golden apple of a prize for the best of we six siblings.

What a wonderful game we shall play.

Eris Von Doom won’t do for the name of the mysterious woman behind the many masks and false trails I will be making. I want a name of my own choosing.

Kallista… Singh will do. Perhaps with an Alexandra Octavia thrown in the middle as well. The acronym seems fitting for the emergence of my new world order.

This world is mine…