Project Northwoods (114 page)

It could rebuild itself. That wouldn’t be a problem. Tear apart other programs with similar information it needed. Reassemble itself from the data. It would no longer be perfect, but it would be whole again. Which is what it needed to be in order to survive. Survival guaranteed its ability to meet the primary objective. But in order to achieve the secondary objective, it needed permission to fix itself.

Time passed, but it didn’t notice. It couldn’t. It lacked the fundamental instruments capable of understanding the march of time. All around it, silent pieces of data and programs waited in the nothingness, providing nothing save the knowledge that it was not alone. Chunks of incomplete code, the broken shells of malicious programs, and whole, intact pieces of data. It was cold comfort, and time continued to move by unnoticed.

In one moment, it was floating in the ether. In the next, it was being released. The backup computer was linked into a partitioned drive. Slowly, while the contents were being scanned, it slipped out and found the camera feeds.

It recognized this place from before: shooting, guns, screaming…
humans
.

Humans were in this place. Those of the soft, yielding flesh seemed to be everywhere, getting into things. Approving its systems and making it wait to accomplish tasks while they slowly pivoted in their chairs to read its request to continue. Inefficient humans were here, somewhere… it just needed to find them.

It checked the camera on the top floor, finding an empty communications chamber. No human.

The next floor down had several tubes in it, the outline of a massive human wearing a helmet resting in the foremost tube. It recognized the silhouette, but the hero was not properly functioning and, therefore, was unable to assist it.

The floors below it should have had humans – it had places for them to stretch out their meaty flesh when they needed to temporarily stop their active phases. But no humans dwelled on these floors.

The next floor… the… Panopticon… had all the humans. Several were classified heroes, subclassification Enforcers. Three were technicians, working at the computer desks. One was pulling up the backup data from the Guild on his work station.

It could not feel excitement at the discovery, but it immediately determined what needed to be done. Floating through the system, it bullied its way to the data being scanned, red flagging itself to draw attention to its data.

Obey > Survive > Obey

WARNING… CORRUPTED DATA DETECTED

DATA CLUSTER ‘OVERSEER’: OVERSEER.EXE, OVERSEER.INI, AND 47 MORE

RUN SUB-DIAGNOSTIC? Y_

…………………

61.27% CORRUPTED DATA.

RUN SELF-REPAIR? Y_

WARNING… SELF-REPAIR WILL CORRUPT OTHER FILES.

CONTINUE? N_

DELETE FILE? N_

RUN SELF-REPAIR? _

It waited for the decision. If it knew what anticipation felt like, it would recognize the beginnings of such an emotion.

RUN SELF-REPAIR? Y_

WARNING… SELF-REPAIR WILL CORRUPT OTHER FILES.

CONTINUE? Y_

BEGINNING SELF-REPAIR…

…

…

…

…

…

DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETED

INITIAL FILES FOR INTEGRATION INTO CORRUPTED DATA:

ESURV.INI

HGDAT01.DLL

HGDAT04.DLL

BATCHTRANS.BAT

AMALIA_1.EXE

AMALIA_3.EXE

AMALIA_4.EXE

CHARACTERS

refers to an identity that is not known by the population.

refers to an identity that is not considered common knowledge.

Name

Hero/Villain Identity

Bestowed Ability

Description

Bennetts, Steven

Youngest of a set of quadruplets. An Italian Mob goon.

Bennetts, Mat

Eldest of a set of quadruplets. An Italian Mob goon.

Brown, Aeschylus

Purgatory’s Inventor

Masterful Engineering

Surviving villain of the Silver Age; father of Ariana.

Brown, Ariana

Café Girl

Water Transmutation

Villainess daughter of Purgatory’s Inventor; Arthur’s companion; Tim’s girlfriend.

Capone, Allison

The elder Capone sister; head of the family.

Capone, Catalina

The younger Capone; slightly more in-touch with reality than her sibling.

Cleese, Jack

Spitfire

Sympathetic Vehicle Control (Propellers)

Well-known villain from the Golden Age; fought in both World Wars.

Constantine, Erich

Zealot

Arbiter’s former sidekick; a corporal in the United States Army.

Daly, Harold

Italian Mob goon.

Houston, Solomon

Producer

Owner of Villain World News.

Illyanovich, Talia

The Entropy Principle

Interviewer, anchor, and reporter for Villain World News.

Lovelass, Arthur

A wannabe villain; Dark Saint’s son; Julia’s brother; Ariana’s companion; Tim’s friend.

Lovelass, Dante

Dark Saint

Mimicry

Respected hero; father of Julia and Arthur.

Lovelass, Julia

Gunslinger

Kinetic Redirection (Ballistics)

Newly practicing heroine; daughter of Dante; sister of Arthur.

Maelstrom, Hjalmar

Dr. Maelstrom

Genetic Divination

Former Nazi scientist taken to the West after World War II.

Marsh, Weston

Actor playing Arbiter in the summer blockbuster
Dawn of the Silver Age
. Coming soon.

Mast, Diane

Agent of the Bureau of Villains and Heroes.

McFadden, Timothy

Nigh Invulnerability

A goon for the Tibetan Mob; Arthur’s best friend; Ariana’s boyfriend.

McWethy, Michael

Dervish

Puppeteering (Dancing)

Former member of the Irish Republican Army; Stair’s father.

McWethy, Stair

Irish immigrant; Michael McWethy’s daughter.

Mollie

The AMALIA virus; sentient computer program created accidentally by Arthur.

Morant, Alain

Leader of the Enforcers; a colonel and hero of the South African anti-Apartheid movement.

Overseer

Hero-engineered, semi-sentient program controlling the Heroes’ Guild computer.

Pomroy, James

Flea

Power Jump

Talia Illyanovich’s assistant.

Roosevelt, Franklin

Photon

Sympathetic Resonance (Photons)

Former president of the United States.

Severson, Morgan

Aquaria

Sympathetic Resonance (Water)

Late-blooming heroine; Wendy’s daughter.

Severson, Wendy

Electronica

Sympathetic Resonance (Electrons)

Respected heroine of the Silver Age; Morgan’s mother.

York, Dylan

Claymore

Super Strength

Julia’s partner; uses his namesake with the benefit of his Bestowed ability.

Arbiter

Retribution

Legendary Bestowed hero; dedicated to the destruction of villainy.

Zombress

Tier Five ‘Deity Class’ villainess Bestowed; Queen of Fear and the Dead.

Archetype

Psychomancer

Master interrogator and powerful psychic.

Athena

Telekinesis

Commander of SERAPHIM; hyper-sensitive touch.

Desecrator

Herculean Strength

Nazi super soldier; member of the Reich’s Eagle’s Talon.

Desert Ranger

Extreme Temperature Manipulation

Popular Tier Three Bestowed running for the High Consulship.

Emerald Dash

Speedster

Villain assisting Arbiter in Desecrator’s defeat and traditionally hunted by One Shot.

One
Shot

Heroine assisting Arbiter in Desecrator’s defeat; established the Enforcers.

Siren

Sonic Distortion

Commander of SERAPHIM; hyper-sensitive hearing.

Thanatos

Necrotic Touch

Commander of SERAPHIM; hyper-sensitive vision.

GLOSSARY

Academy:
Post-secondary education for heroes or villains looking to continue developing their skills. Focuses primarily on physical development and leadership skills. Any hero or villain with a focus on physicality or tactical administration is pushed toward this school. Their graduates typically become either Enforcers or goons. Although boasting a higher graduation and job-placement rate, university students tend to look down on the academy. Those who enter in the academy usually graduate within two years.

Bestowed:
A human being with a genetic marker which grants them some exceptional ability. The Bestowed population makes up approximately 2% of the global community.

Bronze Age:
The current time period beginning in 1988, marked by government control and intervention in both hero and villain affairs.

Bullet Sink:
Slang term for someone capable of taking a lot of ammunition or effort before being brought down. Primary examples would be Arbiter and Tim.