-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]

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.

[wormcan]

It'll work eventually. When it does, nothing appears to happen.

[from_scratch]

That's the expected result. Cam takes the pulse of the Butcher. When there is none, he says, "Here goes, unless there's a last minute objection."

[wormcan]

"Go for it."

[from_scratch]

So Cam poisons the Contessa-Butcher.

[wormcan]

It definitely worked. He can feel himself inheriting Butcher One's superhuman strength, and presumably durability as well. That's redundant. As for whether he got the power he was going for, that's less immediately obvious.

[from_scratch]

So how does he work this thing and can it be yoked to the ethical standards in his head -





"Well," he says, "the good news is I have Contessa's power, and the bad news is it thinks I can't use it ethically without downgrading from 'I win' to 'I'm pretty cool a lot of the time' for some reason."