The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 28

“What are you trying now?”

“I’m thinking H32 plus this latest module I made, this is an awesome mobile lab, by the way,” Bakuda said, looking around the interior of the large van disguised as a UPS delivery vehicle.

“Thank you,” I said dryly, folding my arms impatiently. We were both in one of the vehicles Henry had repurposed for mobile work in the field with regard to SCPs. It was mostly designed for analysis and containment, with a fair number of instruments, tools and fairly powerful computers, including a large containment drum that could hold a tactical nuke going off inside with no issue. It was the first demonstration of actual ontokinesis that Henry had performed on Earth Bet and by extension the van itself also had anomalous properties.

The biggest of which was the fact that it had an internal volume of nearly 1300 square feet, bright white steel walls, lighting and two long lab benches with chairs, upon which all the analysis instruments were spaced.

Bakuda held up her latest module in front of the 3D printer with an air of satisfaction and pride. She looked around the transcendental space for a moment, zoning out somewhat before shaking her head, “Anyway, this new creation of mine, gives the middle finger to time itself.”

“Explain,” I ordered pointedly.

“We’ve tried temperature, kinetics, transmutation, laser and radiation. You nixed the idea of the black hole bomb…”

“I like living on an intact planet, thank you.”

“And I told you, so do I. My calibration would be perfect, taking into account the motion of the planet, the required duration and area of effect… it’ll last-”

“No. How does this bomb affect time?”

“Stops it in a defined diameter.”

I couldn’t help the scowl that twisted my face. “A Gray Boy bomb?”

If there was ever a title of the most feared member of the Slaughterhouse 9, then it would not go to Jack Slash, Siberian or even Crawler. All of them would eventually just kill you horribly. Gray Boy, on the other hand, did not even allow his victims the escape of death.

A prepubescent boy in only looks thanks to a side-effect of his own power over time - Gray Boy could form stationary time loops in a set area that he defined. Which was seemingly limited to no larger than five feet across. He could trap his victims in them, walk into the loops and torture them, all the while fiddling with the duration of the loop.

The loops themselves were effectively infinite in duration and didn’t decay, unlike Clockblocker’s time freeze on distinct objects.     

The result was that the path of the Nine in the past was effectively immortalized by Grey Boy Monuments.

Victims trapped in time loops, endlessly suffering from wounds and tortures. These loops were usually covered in containment domes where possible. Allowing research to continue on possibly breaking them and so rescuing the tortured souls within.

The entire North American continent celebrated when Gray Boy was killed thanks to the actions of an even greater potential nightmare villain - Glaistig Uaine - who harvested his power and later confined herself to the Birdcage.

“No, he made loops,” Bakuda said with a shrug. “This is a firm stop in a defined area.”

“And this firm time stop, won’t cause the cartridge to be sent flying out into space or rip through the Earth?”

Bakuda scoffed and shook her head, “Please, I calibrated this properly. That’s kiddy stuff.”

“Escort.”

I turned to the mobile lab’s rear exit, which still looked like the rear doors of the van, bizarrely mounted in a wall a dozen feet to my right. Henry’s stony visage looked back at us.

Bakuda’s reaction to the sentient statue made me wish I’d had an x-ray camera. I hadn’t been able to see her face, but her aura spoke volumes to me. It was technically the first time she’d seen a ‘Case 53’ and her visceral fear at something that should be dead and stationary being alive was considerable. Her bluster and ego came roaring back quickly though.

“Yes, Henry?”

“He made it through Level 23.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Through a combination of my mastering him and Henry puzzling the mechanics of the SCP game, we had seen Alex through three levels without him failing or getting killed.

Level 21 had been a deadly version of the classic kids game Red Light Green Light, where he had to race against what Henry believed to be previous players of the SCP game - given that a number of the players were clearly wearing the orange jumpsuits of D-class personnel from the Foundation.

22 was a game where Alex had to ride on a classic Merry-go-round straight from a classic circus. The difference was, once again, there were manifestations of previous deceased players also riding. Everyone had to jump from plastic horse to another, trying to unsaddle the other players. Falling off a horse was naturally game over, as the only thing beneath the amusement park ride, was a seemingly infinite starry abyss. The last person seated won the game.

Alex had won thanks to my mastery effectively ‘inspiring’ him to perform at practically superhuman levels, another manifestation of my own evolving SCP power that Henry and I were going to study thoroughly after this. He hadn’t suddenly turned into a Brute, but he was performing at unnaturally high, consistent athletic levels - Olympian was a good way to describe it.

23 was a hunting game, where ghostly creatures tried to hunt Alex and he had to escape to a wooden shack 13 kilometers away. The shack contained the weapon that would destroy the creatures.

We had cheesed the game by Henry picking up Alex and running to the location.

Henry didn’t often stretch his ‘legs’ but he could run at a blistering pace, easily sprinting at 40 mph if he had a care to. The only reason he didn’t do it often was because he tore up the surfaces he ran on badly. 

This allowed me and Bakuda to work on the potential solution, whilst the FTF squad secured the area around the mobile lab, generally remaining on hand in case they could assist.

“What’s level 24?”

“He has to win a tug of war against three people.”

I frowned in suspicion, “At once, or separately?”

“Separately, but each of his opponents carry a pistol and if he loses, they shoot.”

“I see, how long?”

“The game gave him fifteen minutes of recuperation time. Corporal James is with him now, getting some water and food in him. Keeping Alex’s spirits up with guy talk, not that he really needs it when he’s got you.”

I nodded in understanding, “Tell me Henry. Has an SCP ever been trapped in a localized time stop field?”

“Not to my knowledge, Escort,” Henry said carefully. I knew he was holding back something, because of Bakuda’s presence, but I trusted he would mention it, if it was relevant.

“So what do you think would happen if we contained the SCP game cartridge in such a field?”

“If it works, with no unforeseen side effects, the best you could hope for… that the game is paused.”

Henry’s emphasis on the word sent my mind awhirl with the potential implications. He clearly didn’t think this would be a good thing, but there was very little that was inherently ‘good’ when it came to SCPs.

I turned to Bakuda, “Set the bomb and attach it to the cartridge. Ten second fuse, please.”

She nodded, plugged the two bomb modules together, before adding a digital timer fuse from her own supplies. All this was ziplocked right onto the game cartridge, before she put that in a 30cm diameter cardboard box that had previously contained some of the lab equipment.

“Once this goes off, anything in the box will be time locked. The box itself will become functionally indestructible until the time stop field dissipates.”

“How long will the field last?”

“I can set it to last from one day to a thousand years. With better parts, materials and energy sources I could go higher or be more precise, but that’s the best I can do.”

“Set it for one year, please.”

Bakuda nodded and stuck her hands into the box, fiddling with the bomb controls. “Done.”

I grabbed the box, tucked it under my arm, grabbed ‘15 and walked out of the mobile lab.

It was parked in the clearing which we had appropriated for the duration of the crisis, so I had just a few dozen feet to walk to where a thoroughly disheveled Alex was seated on the ground.

He was drinking from a water bottle and Corporal James was now standing guard over him, with his partial tinkertech assault weapon clipped to the front of his tactical vest.

“Corporal,” I greeted James with a warm smile.

“Mistress,” he nodded to me with a grin.

“How’s our player doing?” I asked, smiling down at Alex.

“Quite well, considering everything he’s gone through, mistress.”

Alex for his part, looked down into the ground between his knees, hiding his blush from me, equal parts embarrassment and arousal radiating from his aura.

A quick glance at the floating black board that only Henry, Alex and I could see, indicated we barely had nine minutes to have this conversation. Not a lot of time to decide the course of your own life.

“Alex, I need you to look at me and listen carefully.”

I could see his jaw flexing as he gritted his teeth, his aura spiking with self-directed anger. With determination he looked up, immediately meeting my eyes, consciously willing himself to not let his gaze wander. In any other circumstance, it would’ve been amusing, but I’d long since grown a thick skin to the staring and adoration of those who had been thralls.

“In the box, under my left arm we have the game cartridge that is responsible for everything you’ve been experiencing until now. Also inside it is a device, built by Bakuda here, that will in effect, hopefully, pause the game itself.”

He glanced at Bakuda for a moment, “Don’t know her… a Tinker?”

“Yes, she’s relatively new, but very capable. The dilemma we face is this. We can continue to play the game and try to aid you as best we can. The problem is there might be a game that completely nullifies anything we can do. You will be on your own and there’s no guarantee you’ll succeed. You’ve seen how difficult it is up to now and if this goes to Level 99…” I trailed off.

He nodded in understanding. “I’ll inevitably fail. The difficulty ramping up with only one life is inherently unfair.”

“The maker of the game, no doubt, intended it that way. If you die, you’ll become a part of the game itself, an NPC who’ll be used by the game to play against future players.”

He lowered his head into his own hands, denial and despair coloring his aura. “So you think ‘pausing’ will at least buy enough time to find a solution?”

“Maybe,” I said flatly. He abruptly looked up at me with a frown.      

“Maybe?”

“I’ll not sugarcoat this. The device may work or it may not. If it works… then as you are currently playing the game, you may be ‘paused’ as well.”

He shook his head, “That makes no sense, a player shouldn’t be paused-”

“This anomaly has no reason to make sense to us,” I interrupted him. “You are in effect, in a ‘game world’, that the anomaly has created around you. If we pause that world, then you will be paused with it. Currently, Bakuda’s device is set to pause the game for a year.”

He jumped to his feet and began breathing heavily, flexing his fists and then pacing back and forth. “So I’m going to lose a year of my life, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, it’ll buy us time to study and research the anomaly. Hopefully find a way to unravel it safely or pull you out of it.”

He stopped and locked eyes with me, “But there’s no guarantee you’ll succeed, is there?”

“No,” I shook my head. “A year might not be enough time. It may be ten years… or it could be utterly impossible.”

“So I could be ‘paused’ forever,” he laughed slightly hysterically. “I might as well be dead then. I’ll never see my family again…”

“At least you’ll be alive with a chance and not an enslaved NPC construct in a game that will never be played again.”

“What do you mean, won’t be played?”

“The cartridge is indestructible thus far to everything we’ve thrown at it. Therefore, it’ll be stored in a very secure and secret location while it’s studied.” I glanced at the game timer. “Do you understand the choice you have?”

He laughed and pulled at his hair, “Oh, what a choice… play the game, inevitably die and become an NPC or let you ‘pause’ me-”

“Which at least leaves the chance of you being rescued open.”

“Oh, and how hard are you going to work on that?!” he snapped.

“You are not the only person in this world in a shitty situation, Alex!” I snapped in turn. “There are other anomalies and more on the way. Every single one either has a victim or needs managing so that they don’t snap up more victims and create disaster. I can promise you this, Henry here will begin the work and in time it will become someone’s dedicated job to unravel the anomaly.”

Alex glared at the game timer, which showed he had less than five minutes to make the decision.

“Fuck,” his tone went from anger to despondence in a heartbeat. “Fine… uh, use the device, pause me, whatever. Sorry I-”

“Your anger is understandable,” I interrupted him. “Is there any message you want to give to your family?” I put down the box and reached for my phone.

“Yeah, uh…”

A quick swipe and I was recording, holding up the phone to bring him properly into view.

He stared breathlessly into the small lenses on the rear of the phone, suddenly at a loss for words. “Uh… sorry. I’m trying to think…” He swallowed thickly and tried to find some composure. “Mom, dad, don’t have much time… I’m going to be indisposed for some time. Escort will probably explain the details so I don’t have to bother with that… So, just know that I love you both and I hope I’ll see you again. Rachel, you’re the most annoying sister in the world and I know I sucked at showing it, but… you are the best and I love you…” He wiped his eyes. “What a mess I’m making of this. Probably my last message I’ll ever get to send you and I go weeping. Jim… you’re my best friend and I hope you’ll still be around when I get out of this mess. I still owe you that pizza. Who else? Oh, grandpa, grandma, sorry for getting to you last, my head isn’t exactly straight. I doubt I’ll ever see you again… thanks for everything, your wisdom, the fun times when you looked after me, when mom and dad couldn’t… I know eventually we’ll all be together again, so yeah… that’s all I can think of…”

I tapped the phone, ending the recording. “I’ll make sure it gets to them.”

Alex looked around nervously, stared at me for a bit then coughed, “So, anything I should do?”

I glanced inquiringly at Henry.

“Simply stand still as comfortably as possible, young man.”

Alex nodded and complied as best he could.

I kneeled down next to the box and tapped the very obvious red button on the bomb’s timer, which started the countdown with a beep.

“See you on the other side, Alex,” I said, giving him a hopeful smile.

3… 2… 1…

There was no sound of the bomb going off. Not surprising when any sound the bomb would’ve released would be trapped in a time stop field.

Bakuda and I leaned toward the box and looked down into it.

It was now late in the afternoon. The sun was low on the horizon to the west. Only the orange ambient reflected light, lit the box interior, and the small timer which was now frozen at 00:00.

Out of curiosity, I switched my phone to a flashlight app and shined it down, only to see that the light was not penetrating the time stop field. It simply reflected straight off it, as if there was now an invisible mirror effect.

“That worked at least,” Bakuda commented. “Be glad I put in that reflection, otherwise the field would just absorb light continuously for an entire year.”

“And then when the field goes down…”

“You’d effectively have a light photon explosion, releasing all that built up light energy at once in every direction.”

“Escort,” Henry was now kneeling down in front of Alex and examining him. “It’s as we feared. He’s frozen, as if he was in the time stop field as well.”

I walked over and carefully poked Alex in the chest. My finger didn’t feel soft clothing or the soft flesh beneath, but instead a solid unyielding surface. 

The bomb had also gone off at an unfortunate moment, catching him in the middle of a blink - his eyes half-closed.

I pushed forward with my mind web and found nothing - the feelers of my power simply sliding around the space Alex was occupying. There was no reading on his aura, except for the non-real colors encasing his body that I now knew meant something to do with temporal effects.

“Can he be moved?”

Henry shrugged, “I doubt it, but we can try.”

He shuffled forward on his knees and grabbed Alex carefully by the arms before lifting…

“Urgh,” Henry grunted with effort, his granite hands flexing before he quickly let go. “No, he’s stuck here.”

I groaned with annoyance. “Henry, call Armsmaster, please. At least this quarantine dome should be quick to put up. I have to get Bakuda out of here.”

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Bakuda and I materialized outside a small warehouse in the northern ABB areas of the city. Officially on maps, it was known as the Docks North-West. It was just a few blocks away from Winslow High and as such was within easy reach of my own house.

“A shipping company?” Bakuda asked after looking over the three floor building.

A faded sign of ‘River Shipping LLC’ was hung on the side of the red brick and mortar walls. “Out of business, but the building and the land is held by a shell company waiting for better times to hit the city. That’s not going to happen, but to make a long story short, this is an ABB location where you will be operating out of. Upper floor has a generously large apartment, whilst the rest of the building you can make use of in your Tinkering. Try not to blow it up, please.”

I reached into ‘15’s pouch and produced a wad of cash and handed it over.

“Starting money meant for you daily living expenses. You’ll receive your first ‘salary’ at the end of the week as an advance, and from then on monthly. You’re the only ABB cape in this northern territory, so you’ll be expected to respond to any incursion from the E88 in a timely manner. Naturally, we understand you’re a Tinker, so you need time to build yourself up to a satisfactory level. So until you’re ready, Oni Lee will still be responsible for counter-cape work up here. Tomorrow, you’ll receive a smartphone that’ll tie you into the street level intelligence network and a number of the local ABB lieutenants will be visiting. I suggest you both impress them and make them fear you thoroughly, but no killing or harming them.”

I gestured down the road. “That way is the local supermarket to fill your freezer and here are the keys to the place.” 

Bakuda regarded the small ring of keys I had handed over. “You realize I can’t exactly appear in public.”

I frowned in annoyance and reached into ‘15’s pouch, handing over an emergency half-face mask. “This is Brockton Bay, a rando cape going into a supermarket is generally not looked at twice. Also this is ABB territory and they’ll know to leave you alone.”

“Fine,” Bakuda grumped. “I’ll make do… and thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, you sure about not wanting to go visit the Red Light? It’s just the thing to blow off some steam.”

“Maybe another time,” Bakuda said, her aura coloring with apprehension and low level arousal just thinking about it.

“Well, it’ll definitely be interesting to work with you, Bakuda.”

I nodded at her and misted.

Shooting myself into the air, I turned west in the direction of Lord’s Park. 

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The next morning I found myself with a glass of water in hand and staring out at the misty expanses of the golf estate that surrounded Uber and Leet’s house and secret lair.

The smooth expanses of green grass and ranks of trees were a welcome break from the harsh lines of downtown and city in general. The house was also well insulated for sound and so I couldn’t even hear the distant drone of early morning traffic starting up.

Miss Militia had told me to find something that would soothe my mind and take the edge off constantly being awake.

Having sex was naturally the thing that did that for me, but it seemed surrounding myself with some kind of natural expanse - even one as tailored as a golf course - also seemed to do the trick. I had also tried some of the random meditation stuff I had found online, but the few things that actually did work only seemed to pull me straight into the sense of my own biology, which was not relaxing at all.

This combined with time allowed me to process my own sense of failure.

Intellectually, I understood that with many SCPs there was no winning. No good outcome where everyone rode off into the sunset having conquered the evil SCP.

The most charitable interpretation of yesterday I allowed myself was to call it a draw, but my own nature twisted it firmly into the loss category.

Alex had been mine, and now some twisted, mindless, programmed SCP had taken him away.

Unacceptable.

That was what I had been wrestling with through most of the evening, even as I rode both Uber and Leet into senseless puddles of pleasure, whilst making sure not to kill them.

That wasn’t the only reason I was here.

Leet was basically ready with the next version of the Snitch or Snitch 2.0 as he called it and I had to have what was going to be an unpleasant conversation with him.

Sure, my need for a Snitch was basically gone now, at least in how I had initially conceived it. I wouldn’t be needing it to help me make money, since I had taken over Fortress. Technically, I could even tap the ABB for funds through Kenta, but that felt wrong on so many levels.

Now the Snitch could be my overwatch whenever I was in the field and if I wanted to use it for a video to help build my online brand, that was still an option.

I heard the padding of feet trying to be sneaky behind me on the kitchen floor.

I took a sip from my glass of water, even as strong muscular arms enveloped me from behind.

The feel of pecs and abs on my back, a manhood engorged in a morning erection pushing lightly between my butt cheeks.

Uber caressed my own abs whilst his other hand grabbed a handful of my left breast, kneading it and lightly playing with a nipple.

I was standing mere inches away from the kitchen glass door. The nearest footpath leading past the house was about thirty feet further, anyone walking there and looking this way would get an eyeful.

“Good morning, Uber,” I tried to keep my voice as level as possible, but failed slightly as the delicious sensations washed through me.

“Morning,” he kissed me on the neck.

“Leet not up yet?”

“You know he considers getting up at nine to be early.”

A glance to my right at the microwave told me that it was nearly an hour and a half away.

I drained the rest of my glass and handed it back to Uber.

He smoothly incorporated getting it out of way as part of the lovemaking, trailing his kisses downward between my shoulder blades, his left hand releasing my breast only to trail downward as he knelt.

With the glass now safely on the tile floor a few feet away from us, his kisses were now alternating on each cheek of my butt for an entirely novel sensation, whilst his right hand snuck up between my legs.

His fingers expertly caressed my rapidly lubricating folds and his left arm arched around my hip. 

That hand found my clit and began attacking it.

“Fuuck,” I breathed as the pleasure shot through me, forcing my hands forward against the glass door to keep me balanced.

It wasn’t long after, that my juices were running down the inside of my legs and Uber, now a thorough expert on my own body’s tells, pushed three fingers inside me and began both pumping and curling his fingers. 

I growled upward at the ceiling and my toes curled as I tried my utmost to stave off the orgasm that was inevitable.

He eventually defeated my brinkmanship by a few simple caresses of my inner thighs.

I felt under no obligation to hold back any sound that came out of my mouth - I let go and a scream echoed through the kitchen as I came.

My chest was heaving, pulling in oxygen hard with excitement and I could only moan in annoyance as his expert fingers retreated from my core.

Uber stood up behind me again and pulled my arms away from the glass door. He gently but insistently pushed me forward until my face and breasts were squished against the glass.

He lightly secured my wrists with one hand in the small of my back, pulling on my hips so I presented a favorable angle for him.

In the next moment, he pushed himself in me with one slick movement.

“Ahhh, ah, ah yes, go… fuck me, go!” I snapped impatiently, turning my head so my left cheek rested against the cool glass that was rapidly heating up.

Uber needed no further encouragement and his hips began slapping into my butt as he pistoned in and out.

He growled and grunted with effort in the fight against his own pleasure.

My mind was swimming with the building feelings as I forgot about the fucked up world beyond the glass.

I didn’t care if someone happened to walk by.

Let them see. Let them gape. Let them react.

This was me just wanting to be lost in the infinite realm of my pleasure and power.

I flexed my inner muscles and Uber, with a final roar of effort, was defeated as he climaxed and came in me.

He lost the strength to keep my hands and I pulled them forward to support me against the glass.

My own climax came a few moments later.

I basked in the dual feeling of post coital bliss and the cool glass against me.

“Seriously? Couldn’t you have been a bit quieter?” Leet grumbled as he practically zombie-walked down the stairs, wearing only a pajama bottom and slops.

“Sorry bro, got a bit enthusiastic,” Uber shrugged, making no move to pull himself out of me. “But it got you out of bed and Escort has something important to tell us today.”

That was probably my queue and unfortunately Uber couldn’t safely pull off a Kenta and carry me around, so I relaxed my vaginal muscles and straightened.

Uber smoothly slid out of me and hurried over to a towel he brought, to wipe off my juices from himself. 

I turned around and swiftly found a seat at one of the barstools at the kitchen counter as Leet prepared a simple breakfast of corn flakes, milk and coffee.

Uber to my inner delight, stayed nude and took a seat next to me.

We waited patiently for Leet as he started eating and drinking from his mug. He seemed alert and booted up enough for this conversation when he was halfway through his coffee.

“Okay, what ya got?” Leet shoved another spoon full of flakes into his mouth.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. The view of my slightly dangling breasts caught his eyes immediately, but he quickly looked up into my serious eyes.

“You are in a bit of a pickle with your power, Leet. And unfortunately, you’re not going to like my results. This fix is possibly quite easy in theory, but it’s going be hard for you.”

“But there is a fix?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes. However, to begin explaining this I’m going to have to pull a bit of the wool from both your eyes,” I gave a significant look at Uber to impress the gravity of what was going to happen.

“What do you mean?” he asked wearily.

“Have neither of you asked yourselves just what your powers actually are in this physical universe? Or powers in general? Do you think that the ability for Legend to shoot lasers that can wipe out city blocks comes from him or even a tiny little structure in his brain?”

Both men blinked as I began clawing away at the memetic programming.

“No?” Leet frowned into his coffee.

“Precisely. So if the source of parahuman power is not in the human body, where is it?”

Leet put down the mug, “You’re saying it’s actually… outside us.”

“Yes, outside and a few dimensions over in the nth direction. The corona pollentia is simply just the conduit and manager for the expression of the power in Earth Bet. The actual ‘power’ sits on another nearby Earth, where it has a physical structure and the components that make it work.”

Uber scoffed, “This is just Passenger Theory, that’s been debunked so hard-”

“By whom?” I retorted.

“By… uh, by- by- what’s his name? C’mon bro, help me out.”

Leet stayed silent and just frowned into his flakes before meeting my eyes again. “There’s various academics around the world and research institutions that have disproved it.”

I chuckled and smiled at him, “Do you know how easy it is to make any university or research institute dance to your tune? I can call up quite a few and ask them to research something for me and I’d like an in-person meeting. Now, imagine I’m a very persuasive Thinker or a Master. Their rep meets me and I impress on them the need for the research to show the conclusion I want. Money also helps grease the wheels and within a few weeks, a paper is published with exactly what I want the world to see and conclude. Now you’ll say that peer review should stop that, but I’ve already spent that time going to other think tanks and institutions, Mastering them and persuading them to support that view.

I slammed my hand down on the counter, “Bam, with less than a month of effort and a few million dollars, I’ve changed the way parahuman powers are perceived by academia. With further effort, among certain government circles, let’s say a compromised PRT, they pick up and run with it. Now I’ve made a snowball of bullshit that runs down the hill and Joe Public that researches things on the Internet will also internalize it.

“In this case, it’s the fact that Passenger Theory is bullshit, which was a theory based on reasonable empirical observations, common sense and especially when Professor Haywire made his portals. Only now our oh so convenient research says it’s impossible. Then if there’s scientific resistance, it takes but a few rounds of buying contrary research for those naysayers to become derided, isolated and even laughed out of the scientific community. Everyone else sees that and it becomes easier to play along, even though deep in their minds they know otherwise - this is their livelihoods on the line after all.”

Both men looked slightly dazed at the moment, which I couldn’t blame them for. I probably looked exactly the same when Henry had ripped away the memetic programming from me.

“This… this can’t be right, can it be that easy?” Leet shook his head.

Uber had his eyes closed and judging from how his aura was shifting and the pulses going through the interdimensional portal linked to his brain, I was probably watching him shift skill sets in real time.

“Normally it wouldn’t be,” said Uber. “You’d need hundreds of key players in the right places, eventually it would leak out. But as Escort said, the right Thinker or Master combination would make it much easier.”

“But what about Watchdog?” Leet pointed out.

“Who watches the watchers, bro. If WEDGDG is also in on crushing the idea of Passenger Theory then they become part of the problem. Also think about how some capes might react to the idea that there’s this interdimensional thing attached to our brains - yes, it lets us do cool shit or bad shit, but what else is it doing that we don’t know about? That uncertainty by itself will incentivize the Protectorate to suppress it, because they need parahuman recruits for the Endbringers and policing in general. Anything that would threaten that has to go.”

“So you see, the entire system built since the emergence of parahumans is to herd and channel us into the roles of hero, villain, rogue, keeps us distracted and busy. We’re so busy carving our little underworld fiefdoms in cities that we can’t stop and think about the true problems,” I said, leaning back into my chair. “I will warn you now, that besides the PRT, Protectorate and other interest groups, there is the group that started it all. The only reason we can talk at all about this without getting a surprise lead injection, is because of Brockton’s interdimensional anomaly problem. The Thinker working for them is that powerful and she works on a global scale, think of her as the Legend or Eidolon of Thinkers.”

“She? You’ve seen her?” Uber asked as he tried to digest the idea of a Thinker cape on that level.

“No, but I’ve talked to others who have.” Both Coil and Kenta had encountered the Bogeyman of the cape world, the Woman with the Fedora. In Kenta’s case, she had played a pivotal role at a key moment in his life, which was what had caused him to Trigger in the first place. Coil had met her when she came to deliver the news that Cauldron would not interfere with any of his operations in Brockton. “Suffice it to say, if you ever see a pale skinned woman, black hair, shoulder length, dressed in a tailored black suit, tie and a fedora. You do not do a thing, you don’t attack her or even run away from her. Let her do her thing and pray she’s not there for you, because otherwise, you’re fucked.”

“Now, I’m telling you this to give context, but there is a greater reason, Leet. We circle back to the problem of your power. Now imagine your Tinker power, sitting there on another Earth in dimension nth, what do you suppose it actually looks like?”

Leet looked at his now empty cup of coffee and dearly wished it wasn’t. “I- I can’t… is it a computer? A database? I mean I can build all this stuff…”

“If it’s a computer, then it has an operating system, rules, and programming,” I continued. “Do you think any human hand built it?”

“Maybe, if there was a sufficiently advanced human civilization among the dimensions.”

“Fair point, but then explain the other powers. What do you think Lung’s power looks like in that other dimension?”

Leet and Uber spent a while trying that one before both looked at each other and shook their heads.

“No, got nothing.”

“Yeah, same.”

“So do you think your powers are still just a computer system? How big or small do you imagine it to be? What power requirements would it have?”

“Thinking about what Eidolon or Legend can do, we’re talking at least the entire power generation of our Earth, perhaps more,” Uber theorized.

“For some of that exotic stuff Eidolon dishes out; baryon beams, singularity generation… more like a few days of the entire solar output that the sun releases,” Leet argued in turn.

“And imagine the strength of computer or intelligence, needed to regulate that down to a human scale,” I said idly.

The two men looked at each other then to me like I had grown an extra head. “Escort… you’re suggesting our powers are aware? Intelligent?”

“To a certain degree, yes. At what point, if you continue to advance a computer’s strength and sophistication, does it reach the point where you can’t tell the difference between the machine and what we conventionally consider an intelligent thinking being.”

“Technological singularity,” Leet nodded in understanding.

At that moment, the sheer starkness between what I had been before my own ‘empowerment’ and now hit me like a truck. All I had read and studied in the evenings to pass the time, everything I had talked about to Henry.

The Taylor I had been before and the one I was now - never mind my SCP-ness, powers, side-effects, nudity, the sex and the circles I walked in now - in mind and knowledge I was so much more.

Was I perhaps heading toward my own kind of singularity?

“So now imagine, what directives and even preferences would your power have Leet? Think of every parahuman in the world and what do you see? Do you ever see us sitting on our laurels and not use our power?”

“No,” he shook his head, looking disturbed.

“Precisely, there’s institutional knowledge in the PRT that’s downplayed and never publicly admitted to, that when parahumans try to suppress power usage because it would be inconvenient or too disruptive to their current lives, that very bad things happen. The power will spur the parahuman with either greater incentives or begin to induce negative consequences.”

“Negative consequences, such as locking off tech trees and making my stuff fail, that’s what you’re getting at,” Leet said hotly. “I’m not suppressing my power!”

“No, you’re not, but I think your power is not really impressed or patient enough to deal with the human scientific method.” That was the final conclusion that both Henry and I had reached. “Something which became apparent as a common thread through all of your notes. I’ve also recently had the opportunity to watch a new Tinker at work, and it only affirmed my conclusion.”

“What utter bullshit!” Leet swiped his bowl aside in his anger, where it clattered to the floor and burst into pieces. “After all this time and all of your effort, you come to me with this?!”

I let the anger wash over me. “I invite you to try Tinkering, but instead of pushing yourself through careful, methodical scientific method… just do it. Let go, Leet. In fact, build something in the tech tree that you think is locked off to you, free wheel it. Don’t think, do.”

“Bullshit, bull, bull, bull!”

He burst out of his chair and stomped off out of the kitchen, trailing figurative smoke out of his ears.

I glanced at Uber and noted he was rather subdued and thoughtful.

“And what do you think?” I prodded him.

“It’s a… possibility, I’ll admit. You don’t know this but, in the early days some of the ideas he had began to outright scare him. His first biotinker project… a virus that would’ve altered the human genome to end aging. He managed to stop himself when he began running projections on just how it would’ve completely destabilized the world. Can you imagine it?” he asked me.

“End the mortuary industry, end retirement, no more inheritance. We’d need to start building in time limits into how long you could occupy every job. The rich and powerful would stay that way until they are actually killed or die from terminal illness, since the great equalizer of death wouldn’t happen otherwise. I could go on, but I get the picture.”

“Now can you understand his anger?”

“I told him that the very methods and rules he adopted for himself is what’s caused his power to essentially rebel against him.”

“He’s a Free Tinker, Escort. He can build things you wouldn’t believe or imagine, things he never put to paper in the notes he gave you, because they were that dangerous. If it ever came out that he’s capable of that kind of tinker tech, the best he could hope for is some nameless deep dungeon that the PRT will stick him in to produce tech for them. A rather unintentional side-effect of the problems with his Tinker power, is that it’s turned into a shield that protects from those who would exploit him.”

An interesting perspective that I hadn’t considered.

“Well, I think I’ll make tracks,” I stood and stretched out the kinks in my back from sitting. “I trust this hasn’t made him reconsider our deal. I’m in no hurry to take delivery of the new Snitch-”

Uber’s eyes couldn’t help their downward path before he looked up, “Yeah, our deal is solid unless you end up betraying us. Nothing in the agreement said that we’d have to like what we were gonna hear. When you’re back here in two days, it’ll be waiting for you. Leet has to explain its specs and he’s in no mood for it at the moment.”

“Good, see you two later then,” I grabbed ‘15 and misted.

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My feet materialized on the brown dead grass of my backyard.

I had barely taken a single step towards the kitchen door when I was hit with the tempting, promising smell of sex… the sweet tanginess of pre-cum to be specific.

Without even thinking about it, my mind web went to full extension and took in my entire house, the neighbors on either side and behind me.

When I spotted and pinpointed the increasing pleasure and sexual energy as coming from my former bedroom, I misted immediately and reappeared there.

Just in time to witness a completely naked Theo reach the crescendo of pleasuring himself.

Horror washed over me as four entire ropes of cum were squirted out of Theo’s above average manhood and were wasted on the towel he had draped on the bed.

His eyes were closed and his sigh of post-release pleasure reached my ears next, then the smell of that nectar blasted my nostrils.

It took every ounce of willpower I had, not to just swoop down, master him and clamp down with my mouth on that manhood to save the last two less vigorous squirts of semen.

I forced myself to stand there and focused on the slight pain I had, squeezing the hard iron of ‘15 in my right hand, then pushed my hair out of my face so my glowering face could make a suitable impression.

“Ah yes,” Theo mumbled, releasing his shrinking manhood and leaning back with eyes still closed, face to the ceiling.

My eyes next caught the baby monitor on the bed stand and that he had the decency not to masturbate with Aster in the room. She was currently in her cot in the baby room, being amused with a variety of baby safe toys.

“Ahhh! What the fuck!”

His satisfying scream of fright blasted the room and he backed up against the headboard frantically and staring at me with gaping mouth and wide eyes. His breathing quickened and he didn’t even think to try to use his power in preemptive defense - he could’ve shoved his hands into the wooden headboard and manifested large hands out of the floor to try to grab me… I made a mental note to work on that in the next training session.

The long deathly silence and my glaring at him stretched out into a very long moment.

“The next time…!” I paused my speech, gritting my teeth and closing my eyes to get myself back into some coherent control. I opened them when I felt successful. “The next time you want to jerk yourself off in this house, Theo… tell me.”

He blinked in surprise, his mouth twitching, “Wh- wh- what?”

“When… you… want… to jerk off… tell me,” I said with a slow enunciation of each word.

“Wh- what?”

I took a deep calming breath. He was in a post-coital state, frightened out of his wits and nothing would be sinking in at the moment. My eyes met his and I softened my gaze, stance and leaned casually against ‘15 so I wouldn’t present such a frightful picture.

“An addendum to the house rules Theo. If you want to jerk off, don’t. Come find me and I’ll give you a blowjob anytime that’s practical. I also apologize for scaring you and bursting in on you like that. Given that you’re now a member of this household and haven’t been behaving like an asshole, I should also explain something when you’re feeling more coherent. Clean up and I’ll speak to you in the kitchen.”

I turned around and left the room.

It took nearly a full quarter of an hour before I heard tentative steps on the staircase.

I was seated at the kitchen table nursing a glass of water like it was alcohol and rather wishing it was something strong. That was another interesting thought, could I ingest any alcoholic drink? Legally, I’d have to wait until I was 21, but that was easy to get around in Brockton. It’d definitely be an experiment that had to be done with supervision though.

A now dressed Theo, in a jeans and black shirt combo, sat down delicately in the seat across from me and he looked ready to bolt judging by his aura, even if he tried his best to hide the frightened body language.

My eyes met his seriously, “Yes, I said that, Theo. You have the need, find me.”

He gaped a bit, “But, I thought you’re a working girl… that I’d have to pay-”

“Theo, have you seen me eat anything in this house?” I interrupted him.

He frowned, thinking a bit, “No, you just… drink water… I thought you always ate before coming home.”

I giggled in amusement, “Technically, you’re correct. A consequence of my power… I can only eat semen and…” I pointed to the glass, “drink water.”

He blinked with astonishment, mouth gaping again. “Ser- seriously?”

“Yes,” I said flatly. “So when you jerked off and your ejaculate landed on the towel… Let’s imagine someone taking your favorite food and drink in the whole world and throwing it on the dirty ground in front of you. How would you react?”

He thought about it and eventually nodded, “Yeah, I’d… be quite unhappy.”

Silence fell on us as he processed that and eventually he looked at me, eyes flicking downward briefly, “So if I said I-” he coughed nervously, shudders running down his back. “If I said I wanted a blowjob now-”

“I’d climb underneath this table and give you one as you sit there,” I shrugged.

He opened his mouth to probably outright ask, when my phone rang.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. Typical, and got up to take the phone out of ‘15s pouch.

A brief look at the screen and I swiped to answer. “Yes, dad?”

Theo cringed and winced reflexively.

“Hey, Little Owl, at work currently.” Meaning he was at the DWU. Dad had finally given his one month notice as there were only so many hours in a day, between Fortress as CEO and his future parahuman activities, he had to start prioritizing. “Just calling to let you know that later this afternoon, the PRT are coming for a visit, escorting a recovered Mrs. Anders for a little meet-and-greet.”

My brain hiccupped for a moment. “I trust they’ve taken precautions?”

“Yes, but she will be on her best behavior, they’ve ensured that.”

Oh, so probably Armsmaster had figured out a gadget that would stop Purity from potentially grabbing her baby daughter, flying away and blasting the house to scrap in her wake.

“Okay, thanks for the warning, dad. We’ll get the house in order.”

“Good. I’m sorry things didn’t go well yesterday. You can’t win them all, dear.”

“Yeah, just wish it was otherwise.”

“Okay, well, I have to get back to it. See you then. Love you.”

“Love you too, bye dad.”

I returned the phone to its pouch and sat back down.

Theo was brimming with curiosity, frustration, surrounded by a core of determination. “The PRT is coming?”

Great, now I was left with the dilemma. Tell him now that his step-mother was coming for a visit and probably shatter that determination to ask me for a blowjob or put off that conversation just a bit.

I definitely could use a morning pick-me-up.  

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 No new SCPs.

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A/N: So close Theo, :-) Hope you enjoyed and have a great weekend, folks. As always, stay awesome.