FORESIGHT is the name of the paraquantum computer developed by Tyran Tech. Data flows into it from every part of the city. It processes this data and devises solutions for every problem it can find.
Usually that problem is something minor, something like “an unlicensed superhuman is operating in the city”. The solution is something like “dispatch TOXIN robot units to neutralize and contain the superhuman”. Things like heroism or villainy don’t enter into its calculations except as factors to account for.
AEGIS Department 42 analyzed the nanotechnology of D-SOL-8. This data was imported into FORESIGHT and used against Harry Gale, when his knowledge of the Stellar Six’s secret became a liability. This sort of thing was a mid-level issue for the computer at best.
The current matter is a much more serious problem.
Right now, Tyran Enterprises is itself under a form of social attack. The company’s Stellar Six initiative has lost credibility. The CEO, Rex Tyran, disappeared in a blizzard. A group identified as the Seven Wonders is at the heart of these failures. It has therefore become necessary to expediently dispose of the Seven Wonders, and in a way that empowers Tyran Enterprises.
FORESIGHT digests what it knows, and searches its data space for solutions. As a byproduct, it produces enough waste heat to thaw the blizzard outside, if that heat were allowed to vent out of its containment facility. Of course, doing that would incinerate the human attendants who maintain FORESIGHT. Doing that would be detrimental to its mission at this time.
Finally, it arrives at an answer.
FORESIGHT was introduced in “302 - A New Tomorrow” – Ed.
Mercury sprints through the sewers. He’s checking for traps, bombs, hidden guns, tripwires, and anything else the opposition may have left behind.
Scraaseetotabobah and Kinetica fly behind him. Stingray takes up the rear.
Harry’s quick sweep finds the ninja tag Ninjess threw down. As the others arrive, he wordlessly indicates it. Kinetica, quick on the uptake and with more experience with Ninjess’ methods, simply breaks through the hidden door.
Beyond is the black staircase, and a docking slot where something enormous must have rested.
Several armed goons are in the way. But aren’t there always?
The goons have closed the hatch behind Rex Tyran. But they didn’t close it fast enough to keep Ninjess from invisibly slipping through.
The interior of the sphere is minimalist. There’s very little here other than assorted devices built into the walls, a few computers, and so on.
Gnosis sits at a steel desk, which is bolted to the floor. He smiles, and glances at Ninjess’ position, despite her camouflage. Tyran also turns to look.
“You’re welcome to sit in, my dear,” Gnosis offers casually.
Ninjess returns to visibility.
Tyran snorts. “Another of the children,” he mutters. But he turns back to Gnosis - the person he really cares about here - and smirks. “I too think our meeting is overdue. Unfortunately I didn’t get an agenda with this meeting invite. Maybe you can lead off. Do you have a slide deck?”
“I’m a bit lower tech than all that,” Gnosis says with a smile. “My agenda is simple. One of us will rule this city. One vision will dominate. We are here to decide who that will be.”
He gestures briefly at Ninjess. “We even have a concerned citizen present, who can share her opinion of the city’s current affairs. Surely this shouldn’t take long to settle.”
Rex rolls his eyes. “Finally the meeting that couldn’t be an email.”
The sphere shifts and begins to shake. Rex stays steady on his feet. Ninjess briefly wobbles, but stays upright. Gnosis, of course, is seated. He raises a reassuring hand. “Don’t alarm yourselves. My base is mobile. We’re simply moving along an underground aqueduct, repurposed as an escape system.”
“Then you fear what you’re escaping from? How interesting,” Tyran says, leaning forward curiously.
“Are you hoping to analyze my psychology?” Gnosis retorts. “This is quite the reversal of expectations.”
Tyran tilts his head and flashes his bright white teeth in a wide grin. “You didn’t even say, ‘tell me about your mother’. It seems we can’t trust you to do anything right.”
He grows more serious. “The Stellar Six are discredited, not decommissioned. I have robots, paramilitary forces, and more to bring to bear. As embarrassing as it is to admit, the children have already disposed of half your forces. What you have left are a stage magician, a chilly barbarian, and a cyborg whose technology we already thoroughly understand. Do you propose that I really take this laughable idea of meeting as equals seriously?”
Gnosis is only slightly more serious. His patronizing smile is still plastered on his face. “I have you, sir. I have your thoughts. You’re worried the Stellar Six can’t track you. You’re worried that this capsule will block the tracking signal you wear - and rightly so, it will. You’re considering lunging at me. You’re–”
The telepath tilts his head. “You’re keeping something from me. Interesting. Ah. You realize how my powers work. That I can’t read anything you feel confident about. But - you’re worried I’ll see the secret. A thread I can pull.”
He lets out a long sigh, and leans back. “To answer your question. Aside from that which you keep from me, I have studied your security arrangements. You’ve been very public about some things, and very obvious about others. I have accounted for all of them. Even the possibility that you’ll assault me. And my power will soon see that you no longer worry about doing even that.”
But Tyran doesn’t seem to be growing calmer. In fact, he seems more and more agitated. “I’ve had time to study you as well. We know the limits of your power. You can neutralize the emotions of the person whose mind you read. All well and good. But there are limits, aren’t there. The mind and body aren’t so independent.”
The businessman rolls up his left sleeve. Gnosis and Ninjess glimpse the device at the same time. It’s clamped around his left forearm. Pincers, needles, and other devices are actively in operation. Glimpses of the skin around the device show it already bruised. Ninjess can even see blood. But the specifics don’t matter. It’s a device that uses pain to keep Rex Tyran on edge.
Tyran’s voice grows louder, harsher, and wilder. “The longer you’re in here with me, the more at risk you are, Dr. Wissen. And what good will it be to read my mind when what you read there is your death?”
Gnosis looks disinterested, almost bored. And as Ninjess looks back to him, sees his eyes’ dilation, sees his breathing, she realizes what’s happening. She and Gnosis slip on respirators almost at the same time, to compensate for the soporific gas that’s been filling the sphere.
The sphere is still jostling its inhabitants. It’s still moving - and it seems to be going faster, along some predefined course. Every so often there’s a jerk as it changes direction.
Ninjess steadies herself against a nearby wall. Gnosis is sitting down already. She recognizes that she’s already been impaired, and might lose her balance or become distracted. She bites down on her own tongue with a sharpened fang. The pinching sensation and the sudden warmth of blood in her mouth feels somehow soothing, which is bad - how long has that gas been pouring out?
Tyran alone seems unaffected. He takes a step closer to Gnosis. “I see there’s nothing of further value to be gained from you. You’ve satisfied my curiosity. Now, Doctor, you will serve another purpose.”
The Winter Prince, once known as Kid Kelvin, is doing his best to contain a blizzard that’s engulfed a city. To his credit, he can’t do much else. He’s up against the power of a god. Fortunately for him, he inherited the power of a king.
Andi, on the other hand, is taking this much more casually than usual.
As Khyrrsz races at the Prince to hit him with the Blizzard Blade, she body-checks them, hard. The god is knocked to the side, and lashes out, and Andi ducks under their swinging arm.
She comes up, not angry, not shouting, but almost grinning, and raises her fists in the face of the god.
“Hey,” she calls out. “You like fighting, doncha. Me too. So how about it? Wanna fight?”
She cycles her fists around each other, miming a boxer repeatedly pummeling a punching bag.
She doesn’t think Khyrrsz can speak or understand English. She kind of hopes they get the idea anyway, because she has no better plan. Her voice grows more serious, as she dodges the blade’s repeated swings and weathers the intense aura of cold that comes with it.
“So what am I to you, huh? An obstacle? A rival? An annoyance? How do ya see me?”
Khyrrsz charges at her, and the Blizzard Blade embeds itself into the concrete wall near the sewer entrance.
Rather than capitalize on the opening, Andi flies upward, looking around. She finds what she’s looking for - a sign on a pole - and flies down, yanking it out of the earth. She smashes the actual sign off the top end of the pole and kicks the concrete foundation off the base.
As Khyrrsz flies up and lands to confront her, she lands as well, and holds the metal pole in the same style as the god wields their sword.
“Huh? Huh? Hey, what about it?” she shouts at them. “How about this?”
A wide grin breaks out on the god’s face and they swing their blade down from overhead. Andi is quite sure this piece of steel is not gonna take the impact head on, and so hits the blade from the side as it comes down, knocking it off the center line. Every bit of heat leeches out of the steel, and Andi feels her hands tingle with the sudden sensation of cold.
She pulls the pole back with both hands, and tries a basic thrusting move, the way she’s seen her Irregulators teammate Armiger use his sword. Khyrrsz pulls the Blizzard Blade back, catching and parrying her thrust with the flat of their blade.
They could have just knocked that aside, or ignored it, Andi tells herself. I’m getting through to them.
She watched Armiger plenty, during his constant practice. She tries some of his moves. After a couple of those, the god deftly severs her pole-sword halfway along its length.
But it’s the grin on their face that tells Andi she’s got them. It’s not the curled lip of a sneering villain who has the hero at their mercy - Andi’s seen that plenty. It’s not the smirk of triumph, when someone gets what they want regardless of the human cost to get it.
Khyrrsz is having fun.
The goons are down.
Harry’s not even bothering with tying them up. He could have just done it - gone back and gotten some rope, whirled around them at ultra-speed, tied a knot he’s tied a thousand times.
Fuck it. Just, just fuck it. He’s only got so much mental energy left to care about anything, and it is 100% spoken for.
It’s clear that they’re in some kind of villain escape system. You’d build a secret base, and then you’d build a way to get yourself out when it all went to shit. This place is pretty ancient - it must have been built back in the 1980’s, Harry guesses.
There was an escape pod - the thing that must have once sat in the docking slot. It must have floated down the aqueduct on a steady stream of water, redirected from the sewer system above.
Now there’s a security door that closed behind the pod - oh wait, there’s not, Kinetica and Stingray teamed up to break through it. Good, Harry tells himself. This is how it should be.
Stingray has already cut his teammates into the team comms. Harry hears the alien Scraaseetotabobah ask questions, as he charges into the newly opened aqueduct.
“What is our objective, friends Stingray and Mercury?”
Harry’s already sprinting, splashing his way through the aqueduct. “Tyran and Gnosis are down there, along with Ninjess. This is the last play of the Big Game.”