Chapter 62: Removed from the Equation

***Lu’ann Peterson***

“I guess I just feel like I don’t matter,” Eric Kole said. “All around me there’s supers doing the most amazing, earth-shaking things, and I…work in I.T., while every second of every day I could get snuffed out if a super so much as looks at me wrong. I’m in a city walled off from sudden death that could spill in at any moment and there’s nothing I can do about it. The human race is on its way out. Jefferson City fell last High Tide, and Jackson city the High Tide before. I don’t think there’s gonna be any human left in a thousand years, so what the hell am I living for?”

“It seems like you’re experiencing a problem of scale,” Lu’ann said. “Some things are just too big to do anything about. I can’t stop The Tide, or prevent our sun from going supernova in a few billion years. You know what I do when I start to feel insignificant?”

“What?” Eric asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“I focus on the people in my life. Doesn’t have to be a lover. It could be a parent, sibling, heck, even a co-worker. You have an impact on them. What you do for them matters to them. So keep that in mind when-“

The door slammed open, revealing the ripped abs of Chemestro.

“You,” He pointed at Eric. “Out.”

“Bu-“

Eric yelped as he tumbled through the floor.

“You, Therapy. Now.” he said, pointing at Lu’ann.

Lu’ann took a deep, deep breath, and let it all out as Eric undoubtedly lost all the progress he’d made toward managing his anxiety.

“Tell me he’s alive.”

“He’s a floor down,” Chemestro said. “Sit on my back while we talk.”

He got down on the floor and started doing pushups.

Lu’ann briefly considered trying to establish a boundary here, where they would just talk rather than piggy-back while he did exercises, but understood that the angry young man was dramatically calmer and felt safer while he exercised. She needed him to be as calm and feel as safe as possible.

So Lu’ann decided to half-enforce it.

“I’ve got some weights for you in the closet over there. You can use them to work out, but I have to stay on my seat and take notes while we talk. It’s part of my job.

“Yeah…Yeah, that works.”

Chemestro grabbed the weights and began working out as he laid his frustrations over his being directed to take over the city by his father, and kill Paradox, who was rapidly growing in power, both personal and social.

“I don’t care about Paradox. It’s totally at odds with my mission to oust Solaris, and every time I see Paradox together with other people, it makes my intestines feel like they’ve been dipped in acid, and I get stupid.”

As a therapist, she was legally obligated to tell the government if a civilian was planning on committing a crime, but for supers, the rules were much more loose. The rule of thumb was to use her best discretion.

“It sounds like you envy him.” Lu’ann said.

“I just said I don’t care about him,” Chemestro said, doing one-handed pushups with a weight on his back.

“When someone has something you want, something you can’t have, it makes you frustrated and a little mad. That’s envy.”

“Huh.” Chemestro said, switching hands. “There was never anything a sibling had that I didn’t. I was always the best.”

“Nothing? Not even a doll, or better food?”

“We all received identical upbringings. Anything extra we earned via rankings.”

Chemestro was entirely unaware of how inhumane his childhood had been, and that plucked her heartstrings. She had to struggle to remain as professional as possible. He didn’t need pity, he needed the key to unlock the cage his father had put him in.

“Talent, maybe? Were any of your siblings better than you at anything?”

“Sometimes, briefly. Then I put a bit more effort in and beat them.”

“So the issue I’m having is deciding how to subordinate or kill Paradox so I can continue with my primary mission,” Chemestro continued. “I’ve only got two major options that come to mind, and I don’t like either of them.”

“First, I can drink a magical goo that will expand my powerset and give me more flexibility. I do not like this option because it’s a borrowed power that could potentially be repossessed. It also comes with a significant promise and potentially some kind of favor owed.”

“And the second?”

“The second,” Chemestro said, puffing as he switched exercises. “Is to start my own team and use that extra manpower to advance my missions. I don’t like that option because it is relying on others and trusting them, which makes my skin crawl.”

Lu’ann digested that for a moment. It was almost always better for an individual’s mental health to have contact with more people. In Chemestro’s case, working with others would more likely than not benefit his mental health greatly, as opposed to taking some drug, and become more powerful, and more isolated.

Now she just had to convince him.

“leadership is a skill. Some people are better leaders than others. It can be honed, practiced, acquired. It’s not a borrowed power. Even if the people you lead are taken away, the practice making and managing one team will directly translate to the skill with which you can organize and command another.

“Additionally, if your end goal is to take Solaris’s job and run the city, it seems like basic familiarity with leadership would be absolutely necessary.”

Chemestro paused, panting lightly between sets.

“You’re right,” he said, nodding. “Starting a team it is.”

“Have you…” Lu’ann paused, realizing she was on dangerous ground. But sometimes you had to ask the important questions so that the patient knows what to ask of themselves. “Have you wondered what you’re going to do after you run Nexus?”

“I assume I’ll be a puppet figurehead, making broad policy decisions that directly benefit Neuron.”

“…And you’re okay with that?” Lu’ann asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Chemestro asked.

“Most people don’t relish the idea of not having control over their lives.”

“Why?” Chemestro asked. “Nobody has control over their lives. Choice is an illusion.”

Lu’ann stood up and went over to her cabinet, which had some hard candies. She picked out two

“Which candy would you like?” she asked.

“Neither,” Chemestro said with a frown. “They’re empty calories.”

“You have to make a choice.” She said, offering the two candies on her palms to him with emphasis.

“…No I don’t,” Chemestro said, a faint smirk ghosting across his face.

No what I was getting at, but perhaps even better.

“No, you don’t,” Lu’ann said, closing her hands around the candies.

God, I hope I didn’t just give him a really bad Idea.

***Perry***

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 4

HP: 5

Body: 4

Stability: 4

Nerve: 8

Attunement: 23

Free Points:

XP to next level: 1281

Oh neat. Perry had been busy the last week, and the escape from Monolith’s lair had put a huge dent in the XP to next level. Somewhere between 2-4 Trigger rampage captures and making sure to exercise to his limits every day, and he should have level five in the bag by the end of the week.

Life is good, Perry thought as he approached his day job.

Outside his scrapyard, there was a crowd of some hundred and fifty workers, mutant and otherwise, milling around the edge of the property, clearly unsure what to do when their place of business was unusable.

Perry surveyed the destruction that was his scrapyard.

The damage was…less than impressive.

Usually when someone knocks down a building it collapses in a spectacular manner, because the joints were never meant to handle that kind of pressure. The building was designed to support itself up and down, and no other direction.

Perry’s building was also not designed to support weight from the side.

But it did.

Monolith had cut through most of the major steel pillars holding the building up before he got tired and quit, causing the entire thing to topple sideways.

Except nothing actually broke. It was as if someone took a plastic model of a building and knocked it over. There was a complete towering building laying on its side, supported by a chain-link fence and a couple bent pillars, inches away from crushing one of the nearby houses underneath it.

“What a jerk, can’t even destroy a building right.”

There was plenty of blasted chunks of concrete and scraps of the main steel pillars to work with, so Monolith hadn’t even accomplished anything significant.

“Is there anyone in the tower?” Perry asked the foreman.

“Some kids thought it would be fun to run around inside a sideways building, but I straightened them out.” Oberon said.

Perry flipped to his loudspeaker.

“Attention, anyone still in the building. I will be setting the building straight in two minutes. If you’re still inside when that happens, you may suffer injury.”

Perry waited for two minutes, but didn’t see any movement in or around the tower.

“Scrapyard LCC reset tower,” Perry said into his coms.

Deep in the basement of the tower, the LCC sprang into life, picking up the building and setting it straight with mechanical precision while it picked up the damaged scrap, melted it and set it back in place.

In a matter of seconds, the building was fixed.

“Alright everybody, I’m sorry I’m late. Let’s get back to work.” Perry said into his loudspeaker.

“It’s…fixed? Just like that?” Oberon asked.

“Just like that.” Perry paused, a thought occurring to him. “Hold on a minute.”

“Scrapyard LCC, remove any explosive devices or foreign objects.”

No foreign objects detected.

“Okay, now let’s get back to work.”

‘Work’ for Perry was sitting on the fabrication floor and studying soul magic for a couple hours after he turned the machines on. It only took a little bit of experimentation to discover that his Spendthrift perk preferred him to be present in order to apply his modifier.

Not completely unexpected.

Once he’d been there for a couple hours, his machines had made enough to cover that day’s expenses, and everything the people in the lower floors did was gravy.

“Paradox?” Oberon said, entering the room as Perry was cross-referencing different magical theories and doing some math to nail down the precise value of Manitian units of measurement.

Boring stuff, but necessary.

“Yep?” Perry asked, glancing up at Oberon while he continued to write.

The old mutant glanced down at Perry’s hand scribbling complex formulae while Perry’s gaze was locked on him.

“I-um, I’ve been hearing some talk. Our workers are getting intimidated at their homes, pressured into quitting so that others can take their jobs. I don’t know if it’s people trying to get spies in here, or if it’s just desperate people trying to get on the gravy train, but it’s a problem. Nobody’s quit yet, but sooner or later, a few of the more vulnerable workers are going to start quitting.”

Perry leaned back in his chair, spinning the pen between his fingers.

“What do you suggest?”

“Catch ‘em in the act. Put the fear of God in ‘em, then hire some security to keep the workers safe at their homes.”

I can probably do that, Perry thought. Expensive, but I can do it.

“All right, I’ll get right on it.” Perry said, setting aside his work, remembering Tung-Stan’s thesis on leadership.

When Oberon left the room, Perry scrolled through his contacts to get hold of Locust, but his phone started ringing before he made it to the supervillain’s contact.

NEXUS

“This is Paradox.”

“Hey, kid,” Solaris’s voice came over the line, causing Perry’s brows to raise precipitously. Getting a direct call from Solaris was unusual.

“Yessir?” Perry asked.

“We nailed down your Draft. You’re going to be escorting the train to Washington City, where you will aid in the protection of the city for two weeks, then you will escort the train full of cargo that they’re paying us back to Franklin City.”

“What about the magic defense thing?” Perry asked.

“Despite the way you inflamed the public, none of the Tinkers you inspired have managed quite the same success as you. We confiscated the oversized darts for demons, but as of right now, you’re the only magitech threat to the city. You’re not gonna try to destroy the city, are you?”

“No sir.”

“Good. Washington city has a lot of raw materials and food, but not a lot of strong contenders. We’ve got a crop of young supers, and not much food. If you do this job well, you might save both cities. Take it seriously. This is not a time-out or busy-work, despite how it might seem. We need those supplies.”

“Sir,” Perry said, nodding.

“Good. Report to the inter-city train, ten A.M. day after tomorrow.”

“Got it,” Perry said before they hung up.

“Shhhhoot.” Perry muttered, calling Titan. He was going to be out of two for two weeks, which meant there were a ton of things that could and would go wrong while he was out. Monolith would attack again if he could, and the worker extortion problem would go unsolved if he didn’t get it handled sometime in the next twenty-four hours.

He also had to prepare for the trip.

Perry was about to be very busy.

“What’s up?” Titan asked.

Perry explained the situation with the workers being harassed and that he was going to be out of town almost immediately. He offered Titan half a million to settle it. Titan was the only person he knew who was both intelligent and intimidating enough to settle something like that.

“I’m sorry, Paradox, I’d love to take your money, but I really have my hands completely full now.” Titan said. “Hardcase found out you got Drafted and volunteered as part of the special team you guys formed to defend the wall. Warcry got poached by Door, I got a new Nexus officer job, and Jetset’s in the hospital again because Mass Driver keeps finding him and kicking his ass.”

“Is he okay?” Perry asked.

“Oh he’s fantastic. Practically giddy. Broke most of the bones in his body, but he said he’s starting to ‘get it’, whatever that means. I think he might’ve got some head trauma, but the doctors say Mass driver’s been avoiding headshots, so who knows. Could be the morphine.”

“And Manic…”

“Is Manic.” Titan said with a sigh. “Although Manic has matured a bit since the incident with Hardcase. You can practically see him restraining himself.”

“Alright, that sounds like a full plate. Good luck, and sorry about stealing Hardcase.”

“You can give me that half million to make me feel better about it.”

“Don’t let Hardcase hear you put a price tag on her.” Perry said.

Titan chuckled before they hung up.

Alright, that option isn’t gonna work.

Perry called up Heather and confirmed that she too, had been Drafted for the train ride due to her association with Perry. She was a little pissed about the interruption, but also excited to visit another city. There wasn’t a lot of inter-city travel, especially not during High Tide.

Finally Perry called Locust, who pried another five percent out of him in exchange for sending her thugs to keep Perry’s building and workers safe.

Something she ALREADY should’ve been doing!

Who knew, maybe it was her people harassing the workers, but if this ended the problem, then fine. Perry’s priority had to be to keep his people safe.

There’s one more thing.

Monolith was going to be a problem.

It didn’t matter if he cut out the petty harassment, if Monolith learned Perry was gone for two weeks, he would find a way to punish him for it.

Maybe he might destroy the building again, or come after the motel, or smear him publicly. Or something.

Well, at least he won’t come after my family. Because he doesn’t wanna die.

Perry opened up his desk and inspected the little voodoo doll of Monolith, with a bright red heart drawn on the chest in his own blood and connected via Dregor’s Binding. It wouldn’t be as strong as his Lair Control Center, because he hadn’t sprayed Monolith with diluted magical jizz.

But it would be enough to keep Monolith busy for a couple weeks. Even if he’d washed it off, a microscopic amount of Perry’s unique blood in a heart shape on the man’s chest would be enough to direct the magic towards Monolith.

It could even kill him.

Perry dismissed it immediately. A voodoo doll murder had Paradox written all over it. Perry was under the umbrella of being a rookie, but if he committed premeditated murder, he would be stripped of that protection, and most likely killed in return.

Plus Monolith was part of a complex web. Why should Perry assassinate this jerk and become a murderer when there were tons of other ways the giant could crash and burn on his own? As far as Perry knew, Monolith’s primary conflict wasn’t with him, but with Locust, who was winning.

So how to keep him busy for a few weeks without killing him?

***Barrel of Monkeys***

“I already paid!” the owner of the store shouted as Monolith started smashing.

“Rates have gone up.” Monolith said, knocking over another shelf.

Reggie winced as glass shattered and food spilled out across the ground. There was an art to extortion. You had to send a message and do a very specific kind of damage to a store. If you cut into their profits, you cut into your own profits.

Monolith wasn’t the best at this subtle distinction, but he was big, mean and greedy. He did well enough.

Still, he was the boss…because no one could beat him in a fight.

Monolith paused in the middle of another threat, frowning.

“Do you guys feel that?” he asked.

“Feel what?”

Monolith’s arms flattened by his sides, he began floating sideways, and then some invisible giant flung him up and away, tearing a hole through the ceiling.

Through the perforated ceiling blooming drywall, insulation and sparking wires, Reggie could make out Monolith’s figure receding into the sky, miles and miles towards the west.

He’s gonna land outside the city walls, Reggie thought idly. Way outside.

Reggie adjusted his cigar.

“We’ll catch up with you later, Barry.” Reggie said.

“Get outta here!” The owner bellowed.