Eventually, the question was asked.
“So, Player One…” And it’s Decay, the traitor. “Who is that mysterious supervillain we’re bringing back next?”
Yes, he had that talk with just Humility earlier. This seems to have come back to bite him where the light doesn’t shine. As his dragon now wants answers.
They are all gathered around a table, eating the food. They didn’t find a lot thus far, and while the ability to reproduce people endlessly thanks to the resurrection does offer them an option for emergency rations, he would prefer to avoid that.
Everyone is present around a square table, even Humility. Although the AI, understandably, doesn’t eat. It’s still nice of it to show up in person.
They all ignore the quietly beeping corpse of the Vermillion Gamma’ command bot lying not far from it, Humility multitasking between keeping track of their talk and hacking its internal memory bank.
It was technically mindraping an alien in the process. Yes, it was a murderous alien machine intelligence, but it was technically doing just that while the others were calmly eating their meal. No one seemed to care about the moral implications of that, though, as they were all villains.
Humanity at its finest, people.
“Clockmaker.” Revenant replies shortly. They are about to finish eating and go pick her up after all.
“Are you insane?” Decay asks immediately, the man staring at Revenant over the table. Yeah, he expected that reaction. It was perfectly natural.
Humility glanced at Revenant. Onslaught stopped eating, probably getting ready to say something.
“It’s a calculated risk.” Revenant replies, his eyes still on his food. He can still feel the stares, so he sighs painfully and raises his head. “I meant it. We need her.”
“Who is it?” Onslaught ends up asking eventually. “I never heard that villain name.” Right, she was dead before the Clockmaker as a villain was born.
“You know her as Ezra Halworth, Onslaught.” Revenant replies. Technically a faux pas, but… it’s not like Clockmaker’s secret identity was actually in any way secret. And it’s not like he actually liked her.
“The CEO of Halworth Industries?” Onslaught asks once more, her voice that of disbelief. Decay is still staring at Revenant over the table in the background. “She’s a supervillain? What the hell?! How did that happen?”
See, this is the reason why Revenant has no issues calling her by her real name. Her entire villainous organization literally carried her name. Sure, it used to be a normal industrial conglomerate before she changed it into a villain organization, but… still.
She could rename it. She just didn’t want to.
“Oh, boy.” Decay chuckles nervously. “This is going to be a wild ride, Onslaught. You’ve missed out on some pretty messed up shit.” The fact that even he is clearly uncomfortable with Ezra, honestly, says volumes about the situation.
Also, is Revenant being too protective of Onslaught when Decay using the word ‘shit’ in front of her actually made him vaguely irritated? Despite Onslaught occasionally swearing too?
Eh. He just doesn’t know how to act around her.
“She wasn’t particularly stable, to begin with.” Revenant decides to reply to Onslaught. “Sometime after your death, she… lost it. Big time.”
“I’d like to know more, seeing Decay’s reaction to her name being thrown around I can’t help but be worried.” Humility comments.
Oh, if only it knew how much it should be worried. Then again, it will find out soon. And the result of that discovery will be morbidly and somewhat disgustingly hilarious. And a part of one of those little manipulative games that Revenant used to play with the VAA’s leadership.
“Ezra Halworth was born as the sole child of the CEO of Halworth Industries, a family-led industrial corporation that became a major player on the domestic market thanks to its participation in the Central United States reclamation project.” Revenant replies. Then he realizes something. “I don’t really know anything about the true history of the world.. Did the Days of Fire happen?”
“You mean the Yellowstone Caldera eruption in 2025 and the subsequent decades of political and economic chaos caused by the United States temporarily vanishing from the map?” Humility replies with a question. The rhetorical type. “Yes. I think we’re free to assume that everything that happened in your world before Wishgranter's arrival is identical to what happened in Reality.”
Great. Looks like a lot of Revenant’s education in the subject of history is actually valid. At least until 2130, so the Wishgranter’s arrival. That’s good enough.
“Continuing the tale…” Revenant says after clearing his throat. “She quickly made it clear that she was an engineering genius, pretty much a modern Leonardo da Vinci material. But a bit too unhinged. After she almost blew herself up with her lab, and no it wasn’t the first time, her parents sent her off to a Hero Academy in the city of Smallville, in the Reclaimed Zone, where she was supposed to attend its engineering department.”
The name was totally a Superman reference, now that he thinks about it. Ugh. That fucking Author. His hatred for him keeps growing endlessly.
“In short, produce stuff for superheroes and their sidekicks, while being under the supervision of people who were used to things exploding.” Humility comments, Revenant nodding in agreement. Onslaught knew that part of her history, but she was still listening attentively.
Decay returned to eating his food, clearly focused on that activity completely.
“It mostly worked, actually.” Revenant then adds. “She met me when I started attending school. She was in her Third Year, being treated as pretty much a prodigy and a miracle maker by everyone, including the faculty. We were rather friendly for a while, except then I… left the school.”
Big understatement, but saying the full story of it would take them a while and would include having to explain who Archvile was. And to be honest, he doesn’t want Humility to know too much about him.
Hopefully, it doesn’t know about him and his individuality already. Otherwise, Humility might be playing a long con that ends with the AI recreating him in secret before dashing out of the planet, leaving everyone else behind.
Archvile was just this valuable of an asset.
“A few months later her parents died in a car accident.” Revenant continues. “She left the school right after that to take the CEO seat, despite her young age. The academy gave her the diploma despite her never attempting the final exams, she was just this good. Not just in engineering, since she wanted to be the CEO, not just an inventor. So she took a lot of management classes on the side.”
“Overachiever.” Humility comments. “But a successful one. She must have been really good if the school let her omit the exams, that feels like something to cause a lot of complaints. And suspicions of being bribed by her parents' company.”
“There was something like that, but she ended up silencing the critics through achievements,” Revenant admits. Then again, perhaps it did contribute to what happened to her in the end? How much actual experience she - the child prodigy - had in receiving criticism? “But actually was the CEO, despite her young age. The board members did help ease her load by far, but in the end, she was making the decisions. The correct ones.”
A commendable achievement for a person that was 22 years old at the time. Except… yeah, he never found out when exactly the process started. Was it the stress of being put in her father’s boots so early and after his unexpected death, no less? Tensions with the board members who probably had issues with the arrangement?
“She was a bit too unhinged, in the end,” Revenant adds, repeating his earlier words. “But no one realized how much until the day when she pumped the nerve gas that she designed herself into the ventilation system of the Halworth Industries’ headquarters, killing thousands of people.”
Thankfully, Onslaught isn't eating anymore. Because if she did, and he timed the announcement badly, she would probably choke on her food.
She surely did sound as if she almost choked on air.
“Wow, that escalated quickly.” Humility deadpans. “What did her underlings do to her? Stole her favourite wrench?” She would be way more brutal if they did, but that’s beside the point.
“In the end, I think that her individuality was at fault there.” Revenant replies. Naturally, this provokes a reaction out of Onslaught.
“Wasn’t her individuality an improved eyesight?” Onslaught asks, clearly confused about it.
“That was a fake one.” Revenant replies, Onslaught suddenly even more confused. “Her eyes were very convincing cybernetic implants, not something she was born with. Her actual individuality was called Akashic Records, although I discovered that much later since she kept it secret.”
“Sounds like a very big name.” Humility comments. “Care to elaborate?” Someone is clearly taking the bait.
“It’s like having a drip connected to your brain, filling it with knowledge.” Revenant replies. “It’s hard to properly describe, really. Passively, it’s making her much more creative and lets her amass knowledge faster, the latter half being a bit like Mastery but without intelligence amplification. Decay actually nailed it when he said that Mastery improves all character attributes aside from Wisdom, while Akashic Records improves just Wisdom. Although things get a bit messy with how that influences our character skills.” Decay nods in the background. “Now, the more important part is the active half of Akashic Records.”
Humility is watching him attentively. He intended it to be that way. He is 99% sure that Clockmaker is going to end up as Humility’s first villain lieutenant. Which is perfectly fine, he doesn’t want the AI to feel too insecure over the other side growing too much while it’s still alone.
“Occasionally, a bigger wave of knowledge and creativity comes.” Revenant continues. “When that happens, she… loses it, somewhat. Gets hyperfixated on creating something, something random but typically way beyond the current tech level of Mankind. She created things that shouldn’t be possible that way, something that even she doesn’t understand the inner workings of once the creative mood is gone. I think that…”
“Exotechs.” Humility cuts in, surprising Revenant. “She can create them. Fascinating.” There goes his plan for this talk.
“Exotechs?” Revenant asks. This sounds like something important.
“I’m sure you aren’t interested in lengthy discourse about the modern state of the scientific world, so let me just summarize it briefly for now.” Humility replies. “More or less incomprehensible pieces of still functional technology of non-human origin. Has several subtypes, but the most common of them are the archeotechs found on derelict alien ships floating in Hyperspace for who knows how long. Today, most of the scientific progress comes from reverse engineering those.”
And how much easier reverse engineering those was going to be when you could help yourself to a recording of their creation? Looks like Clockmaker was more valuable than Revenant thought. Perhaps comparably to Archvile.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Oh, well. He needs to alter his plans a little, but it’s nothing critical.
He leaves figuring out what the hell happened to Mankind that only reverse engineering worked as a boost to its technology level for later too. They are on a limited timeframe here.
“Continuing on.” Revenant decides to ignore the new exposition, at least vocally. “Once she does create one of her ‘masterworked’ goods, she tends to… want to see it being used, possibly a part of Akashic Records' inner mechanisms. I say ‘wants to’, but it’s more of an overwhelmingly obsessive compulsion. And I think that what her individuality tells her to create is somewhat influenced by her mental state.” He glances at Humility. “Do you understand where I’m going with it?”
“I think I do, yes.” Humility replies. “She had a bad mood, due to her parents dying and so on, and created something… deadly and forbidden by law. She couldn’t find a way to have it used without selling it to the criminals, and when she secretly did, the resulting guilt began to worsen her mood, making her create more illegal and dangerous things. A loop that continued until she went ‘fuck it, I can as well enjoy doing it’ and embraced villainy with utmost gusto.”
Humility was really good at understanding humans, it seems. Hats off to whoever created it (ignoring the fact that they were supposedly among its first victims).
“That’s my theory, yes.” Revenant nods. “Even the nerve gas she used in Halworth Industries headquarters was one of her masterworked creations. Of course, even before that, she was filling the company with people of much less… upright disposition, people that were missing from the headquarters when the gas was pumped into the ventilation system.”
And it was a fucking nasty gas. The government never managed to fully decontaminate the building, leaving it abandoned and sealing the windows and doors with concrete. Even years after the day when it happened, all you had to do was to touch the floor and put the finger in your mouth to die, the dust covering everything in the building being utterly lethal.
The ideas to collapse the building or incinerate it with a powerful fire individuality (the names of Firestorm and Hellflame were dropped a few times) were eventually rejected. No one had a clue how the dustified gas would respond to such a treatment (including Clockmaker herself).
What if it would go airborne again and choked out the entire city around it?
“It was a premeditated moment of embracing villainy openly, Clockmaker disappearing with her supporters and recreating Halworth Industries as an underground organization supplying the villains of Northern America with their tools of the trade.” Revenant continues. “They produced everything from weapons of mass destruction to ergonomically packed field interrogation kits. She also held one of the six seats of the Villain Alliance of America’s Board of Executives, doubling as the joint head of its Logistical and Cybernetic Warfare Divisions.”
And she was pretty damn good at all of that, despite being forced to multitask between several jobs at the same time. Mindscape locating her hideout and the Halworth Industries main factory and base of operations was a potent blow to the Villain Alliance of America, one of the few moments when his plan was actually threatened.
On the other hand, it was also one of the fiercest battles of the whole war. And the one and only that didn’t even happen on Earth, was because Clockmaker erected her personal citadel on planetoid Ceres in the Asteroid Belt, using her masterworked artificial gravity generator to fool everyone in the facility that they were on Earth, all while using Cartographer’s teleportation individuality to transport her products back to Earth.
“I think I know why you’re bringing her back.” Humility comments. Leading to a major ‘Oh, crap’ moment on Revenant’s side. Did it really…”We’re fighting robots. Having someone to analyze their technology and preferably turn their scrap into something usable sounds like an asset, especially if we expect a lengthier battle.”
Nevermind. It only figured out the surface reason.
“Yes, that’s the idea.” Revenant lies. Well, it’s more of a white lie, since they also need Clockmaker for this. “Having some explosives and, let’s not forget about it, guns could be crucial, especially if we plan to spawn some elite mooks. Unlike a lot of villain lieutenants and supervillains, they are really dependent on their equipment.”
“Makes sense.” Humility nods. “Anything more that I need to know about Clockmaker?”
“She’s going to try to fuck you, or get fucked by you.” Decay deadpans. Revenant has torn between slight irritation over the language and relief that his dragon mentioned that. It was better that way. “Get ready for a hard fight in defence of your V-card, oh dreadful Slaughterer of Billions.”
Silence. Onslaught seems to have problems with deciding whether Decay was joking or not. Humility, in the meantime, sits perfectly still. Eventually, though, it speaks a single word.
“What?”
Revenant manages to not laugh. But Decay clearly doesn’t give a shit about self-control and starts cackling in the background.
“Clockmaker has a … strange relationship with technology.” Revenant decides to speak as diplomatically as possible. “It mostly began to be visible nearer to the end, when her madness began to swallow her completely, but… well, let’s just say that Akashic Records' reaction to her being particularly horny at the moment was to make her construct a sexbot. One way beyond the human tech level. And while it wasn’t sapient nor sentient in any way, it was good enough at its primary function to end up permanently altering her tastes.”
Humility is still clearly trying to process the revelation. It’s almost hilarious to watch, despite the AI - technically - staying perfectly still and doing exactly nothing visible.
“I’m a rogue AI with a death toll measurable in billions.” Humility eventually says. “Billions of, mostly, humans. Humans like her.”
“Yes.” Revenant nods. He is really enjoying it, by the way. “And I guarantee you that Clockmaker will find it hot.”
Even Onslaught ends up chuckling when Humility clearly does the futuristic equivalent of bluescreen once more after those words.
“You guys are all fucked up in the head.” Humility eventually states. And it’s the rogue, mass-murdering AI saying it! Truly, an achievement!
“We’re villains, Humility.” Revenant shrugs. He doesn’t feel insulted by it, he most certainly is fucked up in the head. He does feel like saying that about Onslaught is factually incorrect, though. “We’re the sort of folks with traumatic backstories or just an overbearing desire to see the world burn that came out of nowhere or from something completely minor. We’re the side of the war that was full of people that weren’t in any way adjusted to society. It was the other side that was mostly composed of people with terrifyingly normal backstories, who simply wanted to serve the public while getting nicely paid for it.”
Humility says nothing at this, merely continues to stare at him. So, he decides to make something clear.
“You should better get ready because there are villains that were much more maladjusted than Clockmaker.” He then adds. “Not to mention much more maniacally evil. And we’re talking about a person that was starring in commercials advertising poison gasses and torture implements.”
Not to mention her world-famous body disposal nanomachine kits. Just inject them into a corpse, and voila, they would disassemble the body in a pile of vaguely organic goo, easy to dispose of. Even Revenant thought that the tune of that particular commercial was quite catchy.
She actually hacked some official TV Stations to air them to the world. Although that was rare. Most of those commercials were only known to the villains and rare hero spies due to being only aired on VillainNET.
Say what you want, but Clockmaker had style as a villain. She was completely insane about it, but she was… unique in her insanity.
“So, by the way…” Decay decides to speak, taking full advantage of Humility still completely stunned. “... are you even capable of doing that? Don’t want to leave the poor Clockmaker disappointed.”
“By design, yes.” Humility replies, actually surprising them all. “I have all the necessary body parts and the system is set to simulate all the feelings of the act so that I can get the electronic equivalent of serotonin out of the deal. It was, after all, originally designed to be a sleeve-bot for the branch of transhumanity that practices cybernetic mind uploads. According to its designers, it was supposed to house an uploaded human mind that should provide it with a full range of experiences. I just kept that part of it offline, and the parts hidden, due to not needing them at all.”
Humility is already thinking about how to use it to fuck Clockmaker into being loyal to it, doesn’t it? Oh, well, for as long as they aren’t loud enough about it to stop him from sleeping at night, he doesn’t care.
He’s entirely supportive towards it, actually!
He’s leaving the investigations about the ‘transhumanity’ part for later. What do humans actually look like nowadays? He only met Humility thus far, and while an inhabitant of this universe, it’s no human.
“So, wait.” Decay then surprises Revenant by speaking up. “You experience everything the same way as humans do? So, you see, you hear, you smell and you touch?”
“Yes.” Humility replies. “Although most of my senses are amplified way beyond human level, to let the owner of this body feel more.”
“And you’re walking around naked with a body that ‘feels more’?” Decay asks, Onslaught letting out a cackle so strong that it quickly devolved into a coughing fit. “Woah, way to come out as an exhibitionist.”
Revenant grins, the AI once again freezing completely. Is it left more vulnerable due to most of its processing power and cognition being used to hack through the Vermillion Gamma’s command bot? That would be a useful thing to know.
“I’m not an exhibitionist.” Humility then says. “My body isn’t organic, so I don't need to cover it for the sake of temperature control. While in this temporary body, I see clothes through lenses of pure utility, I assure you that if you get a fitting body armour I will wear it and…”
“Sure you will.” Decay rolls his eyes while interrupting the AI. “During a fight. Otherwise, you’ll still be walking around naked, like an ex…”
“Decay, stop bullying the person that has ‘Slaughterer of Billions’ among its titles, please.” Revenant decides to intervene. Because, yeah, Decay’s clearly forgetting whom he was talking with. “Everyone finished eating, so let’s not waste any more time.”
They destroyed the entire investigation unit of the Vermillion Gamma. They have time until the main hive realizes that it was destroyed. Which might take a while, even if the enemy was logical enough to order the command bot to send messengers back periodically.
Then it was at least a few more hours until another investigation unit would be sent. However, the enemy had to assume a strong enemy force in that direction, meaning a much more cautious approach. This bought them precious time.
They pick up Clockmaker’s clothes on the way to the resurrection chamber. A black business suit, with a pair of sunglasses. The amount of tech put into those was staggering and made Revenant’s own villain uniform - made by Clockmaker too - look cheap.
***
In all honesty, there was one more reason why Revenant wanted Clockmaker up and running so early. While cybernetic implants were still at a rather rudimentary stage in his times, they did exist.
He wanted to know whether the resurrection chamber only covered biology. Would it - in its present disturbed and increasingly parascientific state - also bring back someone who was partially made of inorganic materials?
Would it restore them to their previous, organic state? Would it simply omit them? If it was the latter, Clockmaker would die the second she was released from the tube. The amount of flesh left in her body was rather scarce thanks to Akashic Records regularly flooding her with ideas for self-augmentation.
The woman that stumbles out of the tube is most certainly one perfectly complete. No missing parts whatsoever. So, that one option is out. Is the rest made entirely of flesh, or of flesh and metal?
She was so good with her augmentations that it was impossible to tell at the glance. Even touch couldn’t tell him a lot - if he was ready to randomly touch a naked woman that could be an advanced cyborg capable of tearing his head off in retaliation.
“Heya there, Clockmaker,” Revenant says, the pile of her clothes in his hands. “Things got complicated.” Decay chuckles in the background, drawing Clockmaker’s eyes to him for a moment.
She is… beautiful, he has to give that to her. Voluptuous figure with nice round breasts and ass and an hourglass waist, one that coincides with well-sculpted muscles visible here and there. Respectable abs, to mention one part of that.
Short, brown hair. Quite messy, a bit like Revenant’s. Longer hair, according to her, would only get in the way. Plus, of course, a risk of them catching fire or something. Or getting caught by some machinery.
The skin is perfectly unblemished, her face included, which makes her look a bit younger than her actual age (she’s 30, just don’t expect anyone to judge it correctly at first glance)
Unsurprising, since none of it is real.
She replaced her skeleton with one made entirely of nanocomposite highly resistant to impacts and she replaced her entire skin with something that mimicked it almost perfectly while protecting against temperature, acids, alkalis, and cuts.
She carried way too many scars caused by lab accidents in her childhood. She ended up getting rid of them and simultaneously made herself resistant to that issue in the future. Classic Clockmaker.
Revenant is almost certain that she gave herself a slight boob job while at it, but he never saw her naked beforehand so he can’t be sure about it. A rare case of Clockmaker being conscious about her looks or the supervillain getting herself more space to fit some combat cybernetics.
You never knew with Ezra Halworth.
“That I can most certainly see,” Clockmaker admits while taking the clothes from Revenant. “Care to elabor…” Aaaand… then her voice dies down as her eyes notice Humility standing in the background.
Uh-oh, is that love at the first sight that Revenant’s seeing or is it a mania of a mad scientist who just saw a fascinating piece of technology? Or, maybe, both? One way or another, this is going to be interesting.
***
And, to stick with the theme
AI-generated picture of Clockmaker
[https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1029465796570783838/1061743415097835664/00042.png?width=437&height=656]