-trajectory. agreement.-

[from_scratch]

"Hasn't everyone heard of Kithabel? I live in Africa, not under a rock," Cam tells Tattletale. "You, on the other hand, are new to me."

Comments

[from_scratch]

"What if those aren't working anymore?"

[whole_new_can]

"Then we have a problem. Theoretically you could copy the extra brain bits someone had post-trigger, not just the connection, and just see what it does when it's attached to your head instead of theirs. But past a certain point it'd be less risky to use two six five on Labyrinth."

[from_scratch]

"Right then."

Cam looks for the vials on offer; he needs safety, not power. Power will come separately.

[wormcan]

Then the thing to look at is the catalog Cauldron showed their customers. Those ones have already been tested, and are conveniently ranked by interestingness and power of the result as well as by reliability of the vial.

[from_scratch]

And what is the least interesting most reliable vial?

[wormcan]

A sample they called Balance. The name might be familiar from elsewhere in Cauldron's more secret notes, as they took to diluting other formulas with this to make mutations less likely. When taken by itself, the Balance formula gave remarkably unremarkable powers: marginal improvement at picking up skills, or an appearance that gradually shifts to fit the subject's current idea of really good looking. The theme seems to be that it makes the recipient a better example of what they would want to be along some axis. It's a drinker-friendly vial, if low power by cape standards.

[from_scratch]

It'll do. Quaff.






"Is having a trippy vision normal."

[whole_new_can]

"You remembered it! Normally people forget that right away. I'd grill you on it, but it's not a priority right now."

[from_scratch]

"Well, that's promising, in a way. Right. I will make a jailbroken Contessa and see if the shard does anything horrifying and if it doesn't, Butcher next."

[wormcan]

"Better make sure she's restrained and gagged at first. If the thing you make gets piloted by a violence-prone passenger, I'd rather not have to fight it."

[from_scratch]

"Good plan."

Very tied up very gagged Contessa basement dweller with a new passenger with none of that pesky DRM.

[whole_new_can]

It acts the way basement dwellers usually do.

"Before you try anything with the Butcher, can you make a copy of two six five and a doomsday device? Just in case a mindless Butcher isn't safe, and your indestructibility doesn't protect you, and this counts as you being the one doing the killing.
If you don't know any doomsday devices I can suggest some tinker tech, but no guarantees we'd know how to use that."

[from_scratch]

"I do not know any doomsday devices, because I have never anticipated the need to wreck a planet I couldn't be within a reasonable astronomical distance of. You want the two six five jailbroken?"

[whole_new_can]

"Yeah, regular powers can't get us there.

No idea if we have to wreck the whole planet or not, but two copies of String Theory's Firmament Driver ought to do it. Some supervillain threatened to use one of these to knock the moon out of orbit; it's the best thing for firepower on an unknown scale."

[from_scratch]

Cam makes a jailbroken (bound, gagged) two six five. "I'm not sure I wish to make such a thing on this Earth. Maybe we can't get where we ultimately need to be but can we at least get somewhere nobody is living on?"

[wormcan]

"Other side of this. It's still an Earth, though, and is at the obvious point corresponding to here." The large rectangular hole still leads to a rain forest with different weather.

[from_scratch]

"You're sure it's uninhabited?"

[wormcan]

"Yes. Lots of trees and animals, no people."

[from_scratch]

Cam steps through with the yet-necessary basement dwellers on float pallets behind him. He attempts to make shrunken replicas of all extant human artifacts from this planet. Nothing?

[whole_new_can]

Nothing.

[from_scratch]

Excellent. Doomsday devices coming right up.

"Anything else before I go for it?"

[whole_new_can]

"Nope. Just make sure whatever you do in the first round is more like the Contessa killing the Butcher than it is like you doing the killing with an unorthodox weapon. It should work."

[from_scratch]

"I was thinking I'd make the Butcher under the Contessa for suffocation purposes rather than actually move the Contessa; does that sound right?"

[whole_new_can]

"This isn't exactly well tested, but that sounds as good as any."

[from_scratch]

So Cam makes a jailbroken no-accumulated-powers Butcher with his face under the Contessa, pushing her just out of the way.