Emerald stood back in the hallway, gripping her shoulders, staring into the throne room; the recently evacuated throne room. The whole clan had been gathered around eating lunch, just about, and she'd been sitting on the dais until a guard warned her Eyeball was coming. She'd been making plans. Deciding what to do, how to handle this. A good step-by-step operation to either disband the Dragon Empire entirely, or leave it in less hostile hands.

A plan on having a wedding in this very room. Maybe inviting Nicky, Rosa, a few of her friends from the states. Probably not Penelope; she might make a scene.

And, of course, it was all falling apart. Her great-grandmother had left so many problems behind. The Empire had ongoing obligations due to its connection with, of all things, human trafficking; and a small army of unfortunate women who'd been lobotomized. Who... well, really they'd been murdered, and their corpses turned into living incubators. Which might just be barely aware enough to feel horror at what had happened to them.

And the reason for that?

As Eyeball and the Engineer slowly circled the room, commenting to each other, it became clear the source of the radiation was the throne itself. She didn't need to hear that, however. She'd realized the truth almost instantly; it was baked right into the names.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Two swords forged in death, which would carry only death with them, wherever they went.

The family's infertility? Her great-grandmother's tumors? Radiation sickness, obviously. Perhaps she'd never realized; or, even worse, had known and been one of those idiots that thought radiation exposure to cause mutations was a good idea; the sort of nutjob that would point to the various superheroes and villains radiation had caused over the years; while glossing over the fact that radiation was far more likely to kill you, and even in the extremely unlikely event it gave you powers, probably leave you sterile.

She'd actually thought about keeping the swords; giving one to Eyeball as a wedding present and using the other herself. They'd already killed a Titan together; with those swords, they would be unstoppable. Maybe reforge them, so they didn't look quite so ugly. But then... something so dirty, so dangerous... maybe it should look ugly.

When the two men... or the man and the cyborg, at least.. emerged from the chamber, the Engineer immediately raised his wrist; and a 3D hologram of the room appeared over his hand.. with a faint red mist filling it... becoming a solid red orb around the throne. "The radiation appears to be centered on the throne itself. Based on the pattern, which, if you examine closely, is actually two overlapping spheres with the greatest intensity at the throne itself between them, it likely emerges from the swords. The overall readings indicate a hazardous but not immediately fatal level. I would highly recommend avoiding greater than a few hours of exposure for a healthy adult, though symptoms would likely require days or weeks to become fatal for them, repeated low-level exposure could easily cause a variety of illnesses. A sufficiently durable metahuman such as yourselves could very well survive for months or years, but I would still recommend against it."

Two of the guards, and Gabriel, were standing in the hallway nearby, listening... and staring at the diagram. Gabriel frowned, and settled his fingertip in the midst of the hologram. "I've sat right there, for probably an hour or so a day, for almost thirty years."

He turned to Emerald. "If you hadn't left, you'd probably be infertile yourself by now. If Drake hadn't saved you from his asshole father... Anyone who remained here..." He glanced back into the room. "Would removing the swords help?"

"The room itself is mildly irradiated now; all of the stone within it will be somewhat hazardous. Removing the swords will help, but it would be best to remove the walls, floors, and furniture afterward, preferably maintaining excellent ventilation throughout to keep air contamination to a minimum."

Gabriel laughed. "Most of this stonework is over a century old. It will be a shame to see it go, but... "

Emerald chuckled. "It will make a fitting tomb. We can bury her, and the swords, with the room she dwelled in. Who was in charge of such construction projects?"

"Ahh.. Dairesh, Empress. He could handle the smaller things himself with a truly ridiculous speed, and for larger projects he would have a crane brought in. His children, Corinth and... Dairesh... are capable, but not as capable. They worked on the last project with their father."

She blinked. "Ahh. Collect them for me. And..." She glanced at Eyeball. "Get whatever radiation sickness treatments you can shipped out here. All of us in the clan have been exposed to far too much."

***

Ripper frowned as he clung to the wall of the fortress, looking out over the fields; two of the local families were farmers, and while the island could more than afford to import everything, the fallen Empress liked to keep enough growing to supply them, should they be forced to isolate themselves from the world; both with fruit, and of course, with fish; they were the only ones allowed to fish near the island, and were not averse to causing... problems for others who drifted too close.

The field was... peaceful. Quiet. He could hear the grinding of stone, the working of mallets; inside the building, a team was already working at breaking the stone into slabs small enough for the telekinetics to move; and the swords were... gone. Buried with the Empress.

He'd dreamed of wielding them, once. There was a certain level of disappointment at their fate when the first stone slab had been laid over the hole they now occupied. But... he was quite possibly the only guy in his immediate family that could still have kids. And intended to remain that way until time to retire; whether it was his current girl or not. He didn't buy into the eugenics nonsense, that they were a carefully selected chosen people; picked out for intelligence, capability, and of course dragon-like traits.

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Speaking of women.... he frowned. Infernal. His aunt, Emerald's mother. She was talking to Uncle Sal next to one of the farming equipment sheds. He hopped down from the wall; remaining unseen as he slid quietly along the fence; stopping just within earshot as he turned up his headphones to amplify.

Infernal's voice; gruff, but still distinctly feminine; "No, it isn't enough. But. My daughter doesn't have it in her. Even if we have to start over from square one, thats what we need to do. But. We shouldn't have to. I've made the best choices from the available children. I can have them on the boat within the hour."

"Then I'll be waiting. The doctors are on board with the plan. We'll be on the boat."

"Are you sure the location is good?"

"Its no island, but I own it, free and clear... under an assumed name over thirty years old. But there are areas up there that haven't had a human visitor since before the Empress was born, and I own a plot surrounded by them. It will be a struggle. But we can make it work. Honestly, I've been making bug-out plans for a long time now. I thought at some point the Chinese would be coming in to kill her. Having her killed by one of our own..."

As the two started to walk away, Ripper grimaced. Well, hell. If they wanted to go, that was fine. More power to them. Even taking the doctors along was fine. But abducting some of the children to go with? That couldn't end well; and he certainly couldn't let them go. Probably best to sabotage the boat, or... well, actually, probably best to call for backup and stop them from ever getting there.

He backed off a few meters, letting the one he was following; Infernal; pull ahead of him, as he activated his mic. "This is Ripper, calling for backup. We have folks planning to leave as expected, but Infernal seems to be planning to take some kids with her to continue the work. How do we want to handle it?"

A momentary pause. He kept moving; gently weaving under a cart-full of vegetables that was currently standing still as its owner talked with a neighbor, keeping an eye on the departing reptilian woman and her vivid red body-armor.

"Ripper, this is Eyeball. For the moment, wait and see. Apparently she has a few kids she adopted, some actually related, some from the surrogates. The boss-lady says that if she sticks with them, we just wish her goodbye. If she grabs anybody else's kids, we follow her. However she leaves, if you could just stick a tracker on her boat and keep us updated, please."

"Uncle Sal is going with her, along with some of the doctors." For just a moment, Infernal looked behind her suspiciously. Ripper remained under the cart for the moment as she turned down the path for the fortress; easy enough to follow her there, and the sounds of demolition work would easily overwhelm his own movements. "This is an at least mildly organized attempt to continue the work."

This time, Emerald's voice came on the line. "Just get a tracker on them, Drake. If they try to abduct somebody else's kids, we'll handle them. If they only take people who want to go... we'll let them go."

Ripper nodded thoughtfully as he watched Infernal heading into the fortress. Unless Infernal had been adopting kids specifically based on who could best contribute to the work, she was probably going to be doing some abductions. God knows what or who they'd be taking with her. Were they stealing one of the fishing boats as well, or did they have their own boat waiting to pick them up? Ugh. He'd probably have to follow her for hours to get a chance to put a tracker on her. Everyone loved imagining being invisible; many had talked about how jealous they were of his power; but never thought about how much of a pain dancing around people, sliding under tables, avoiding touching things, all while remaining perfectly silent, would be.

***

"So. At this point we're talking about tens of thousands of women who have been lobotomized and are being used as brood mothers to make China's next generation of metahumans. Based on what we have here, probably a fine blend of Tibetan, Uyghur, Mexican, and Korean. There have to be multiple facilities, and while I'm sure it doesn't have official approval, senior leadership has to be involved for something this large-scale to keep going on, so some military support will be nearby."

The Engineer, of course, seemed perfectly calm as he relayed the information. Emerald's hands were digging into the arms of her chair, claws turning the hardwood into splinters, Butcher seemed dumbfounded, and Eyeball was pacing back and forth anxiously, glancing at Emerald, then out the door of her room; he'd figured he might see her teenage bedroom at some point, but not using it as a meeting place for, essentially, a council of war. Which is what Emerald made it sound like.

"Thank you. Now. Obviously, they aren't all going to be together, so multiple facilities that will need to be struck fairly swiftly. And there will be kids there, kids we want to get out alive. So... how do we stop it?"

Eyeball glanced at the Engineer. Obviously the machine wouldn't risk exposure; it seemed completely unconcerned about actions at sea, but actions on land... "Well. I happen to have a small army of family, mercenaries, and some fairly advanced tech available. If we can find our targets..."

Butcher slapped his hands together with enough force to send a painful ripple through the air. "This... is monstrous. Couldn't we just let the world know? Surely someone would come in to stop this."

Eyeball let out a long sigh. "No. If we do figure out a way to stop this, we'll be passing by concentration camps with mass graves of those who are actively being worked to death to do it. Countries don't care about monstrous, or good, or evil. Just whatever's good for them."

The Engineer turned to Eyeball and gave a... smile? It looked more like a grimace. "The people of those countries care. The oligarchs in charge don't. A petty distinction, perhaps, but one that seems important. Even the Chinese themselves have to hide what they are doing from their own citizens, and lie about it constantly."

Emerald interjected, rising to her feet and leaving a pile of broken bits of wood on the floor. "..Are you suggesting making it public and just hoping these people will stop after a popular outcry?"

"Of course not. I'm suggesting we destroy the facilities, rescue who we can, and also make it public to minimize any backlash and cause as much damage to them as possible."

She sighed. "I'd love to. But we don't even know where these facilities are. And we'd need to do it fast. If there are, say, four facilities, the first one we strike will have the full force of the Chinese military move to guard the other three."

Eyeball chuckled, shaking his head. "We won't have a problem with that at all. In fact.. I bet we could even get them to give us a guided tour, with the right incentive. Do we still have the contact information for this.. General Zhou character your great-grandmother dealt with?"