Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 170: Level 13

And so it came to pass that in the year 1215 of the Manitian calendar, that Paradox Zauberer distributed an image of his grandmother snorting wine through her nose, taken on a prior Thanksgiving, an Earth holiday of excess.

Marigold Zauberer immediately tried to forbid its distribution and soon learned of an Earth phenomenon known as the ‘Streisand Effect’, as she inadvertently caused the image to explode in popularity and distribution, reaching even non-manitians, who enjoyed the juxtaposition of seeing a rich, well dressed old woman at a moment of total loss of control.

Soon, the memes were flowing, and much to Marigold’s dismay, the image of expensive wine blasting forth from her nose like water from a breaching whale will forever reside in it’s own corner of the public consciousness, often used in online discourse to represent poshness crossed with partying much too hard, or simply the façade of class.

His revenge for the picture detailing a faked kidnapping of his mistress and heir accomplished, Paradox Zauberer rested.

• Excerpt from ‘Manitian Dynasties and Petty Rivalries’

“The Mayor of Washington City was found dead in an automobile collision last night, just hours after the devastating reveal of shockingly widespread political corruption which prompted the special election held last night by the city council and the citizens of Washington City in response to the Mayor’s use of military force against his own citizens.

The Mayor’s teeth were found on his desk in the shape of a penis. The police do not suspect foul play at this time, and his death is being treated as a suicide.”

Staring at the news, Perry felt nothing but satisfaction.

“Did you have to?” Chemestro asked, frowning at Perry.

“He went after Wraith in her civvies, while pregnant. Obviously I couldn’t let him live.”

“I know that, but did you have to do the thing with his teeth? That made it supremely difficult to force the police and news to treat it like a suicide.” Chemestro asked.

“You killed him?” Sin-Eater asked, giving Perry a funny look.

“No, he committed suicide via Paradox by not respecting the rules. Who am I to deny the man his much-desired release from this mortal coil?” Perry asked, before glancing up at Sin-Eater. “Oh, right, you were born civilian. Did Chemestro not cover this part of the rules?”

“It’s not official Nexus law, so no, we hadn’t covered it.” Chemestro said.

“…Several dozen marital aids were found in the trunk along with a copy of Mein Kampf and large quantities of illegal contraband. Police are investigating David Manchin’s home for further evidence of his misconduct.”

“Probably should,” Perry said.

“Mmm,” Chemestro nodded, his scowl seemingly plastered onto his face.

“In other news, history was made this morning as the youngest elected official in Washington’s history was sworn into office. Stacy Watt-Powers is the young heroine who led the charge against Washington Military…”

Quest Complete!

Replace the leadership of Washington City with someone more qualified.

5000XP

Congratulations! You have reached level 13!

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 13

HP: 14

Body: 31

Stability: 53

Nerve: 36

Attunement: 54

Free Points: 26

XP to next level: 16413

Spells: Paradox’s Pernicious Prison (6/6) Light (5/5), Dragor’s Kinesis (3/3), Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation (1/1)

Sixteen thousand? That’s gonna take a while.

XP was getting harder and harder to acquire. This level had been on hold for several months, through a combination of nothing important happening, and simple diminishing returns.

“Even Solaris visited the city to meet his newly minted peer. Here are the two of them sharing a friendly handshake, reaffirming the amicable relationship between our two sister-cities.”

The smile on both Solaris and Professor Replica looked forced as hell.

You know, I thought I’d feel more shame from killing someone in cold blood and then assassinating his character, but…Eh.

It fell into the same category as Neuron: The ‘Necessary Death’ category. Anybody who thought mind-control was a convenient tool to use to subjugate an entire city, and that potentially unleashing a super rampage by targeting their family at their home was a reasonable course of action…

Well, they needed to go to keep his family and others safe. Perry couldn’t feel bad about that. He didn’t feel good about it either. It was about the same, emotionally, as a particularly difficult time working a plunger; gross, exhausting, and glad to be done with it.

I do feel a little bad about how vindictive I was, though. Probably didn’t need to do all that extra stuff making him look like a nazi drug mule who was cheating on his wife. Oh well. Screw that guy.

The only thing that truly didn’t make sense to Perry was that David had been able to acquire that level of power without considering all the angles.

The dude was a politician. He should’a known not to do that.

…

Perry frowned.

He would’ve, right? Why didn’t he know not to do that? Was he just hopped up on a power-trip from second-hand controlling the Minders?

Sure Perry was a relative newbie, so he probably wouldn’t’ve expected Perry to be able to penetrate his security and murder him, but Solaris was still an issue.

Why piss off the guy who could theoretically destroy the planet by spitting in the face of the rules he’d helped pioneer in the eighties and nineties?

Ignorance, power trip, or desperation? Perry thought to himself.

David hadn’t really spilled anything that hinted at desperation, but Perry hadn’t really asked him any questions either.

Probably should ask questions next time.

Alright, Stat assignment. Solaris is gonna kill me if I don’t get Stability higher than Attunement, so two points there, leaving twenty-four.

I want to raise Body one more point than Nerve to close the gap, leaving twenty-two.

Then distribute the points evenly: Five to each, with the remaining two going into Nerve and Body to help close the gap.

Giving me…

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 13

HP: 14

Body: 39

Stability: 60

Nerve: 42

Attunement: 59

XP to next level: 16413

Spells: Paradox’s Pernicious Prison (6/6) Light (5/5), Dragor’s Kinesis (3/3), Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation (1/1)

Perry took a deep breath and did a self-eval. No Nerve/Attune headache, no Body/Nerve tiredness, no more Stabil/Attune murder-y thoughts than usual. He wasn’t a cold sociopath, felt super nervous about being a dad, but not overwhelmingly nervous, which was good.

Okay, balance seems to be the right path.

I wonder if Body/Attunement has an imbalance side-effect? Would I start fading out of reality or grow some tentacles, or what? Perry thought a moment before Solaris arrived, blinking into existence before the assembled crew.

Perry, Chemestro, Role, and Sin-Eater straightened.

“What. The. Fuck. Was that?” Solaris demanded, pacing back and forth in front of them, his hands clasped behind his back. “I sent you to make sure the androids didn’t get slaughtered, not stage a coup!”

“Care to explain exactly what happened?” Solaris asked, rounding on them.

As the loose team-lead, the mess was Perry’s responsibility.

“He sent a Minder after Wraith in her civvies, sir.” Perry said.

“Oh.” Solaris relaxed, stopping his pacing. “And what prompted you to go through the effort of staging a coup?”

“Power vacuums kill more people than a clean coup.” Perry said. “…Or so I’ve heard.”

“And…why Stacy Watt-Powers, specifically?” Solaris asked, fully aware of who she was.

“Running a city is a full-time job,” Perry said. “Very public. Not much time to do anything else. Not to mention she had the necessary…android-ness to step in and take control over the infrastructure built to monopolize power in Washington. She also seems to have a natural charisma with the other Androids. Honestly, running Washington is a step down from...what she could be doing.”

“Mmm,” Solaris frowned, resuming his pacing. “Paradox, I don’t like anything that happened here, understood?”

“Yessir,” Perry said.

“However…I doubt I could think of a cleaner solution in the heat of the moment, so you get a pass. BUT! It’s only because Chemestro predicted your outburst and did damage control with the state media. Otherwise your little ‘coup’ would’ve been dead on arrival. You got lucky.”

“Yessir.”

“I expect you’ll stop, take a breath, and do more prep-work next time. Be less sloppy, understood? This is not the level of play that you can fly by the seat of your pants.”

“Yessir.” Perry said.

“Next time he…stages a coup?” Sin-Eater asked, peering at Solaris. “Who’s he gonna coup?”

“You never know in this business,” Solaris said with a shrug before stopping in front of Role, who was sweating and shifting in place nervously. Presumably Role and Sin-Eater had never been in front of the leader of Nexus before.

“Brilliantly executed subterfuge, Role.” Solaris said, patting Role’s shoulder. “I consider you the MVP of this endeavor.”

“T-Thank you, sir,” Role said, his voice cracking.

“It was a dangerous task you took on, and if you intend to continue to work undercover in the future, I want you to take some self-defense courses.”

“Yessir,” Role said, practically glowing.

“Sin-Eater.”

“Yessir.” Sin-eater straightened.

“Not one word from your team of you sexually harassing Chemestro, Well done.”

Sin-Eater’s eyes widened and she glanced at Role, who seemed a bit guilty.

Chemestro didn’t even react.

“Chemestro, you did well as second.”

“Thank you sir,” Chemestro said.

“All told, good job!” Solaris said. “You made lemonade on this trip, and I appreciate your work. Role and Sin-Eater, you’re welcome to take some R&R, I’d like to talk to these two alone for a moment.”

The two supers left the room.

“What the heck, dude-“ Sin-Eater’s voice faded away to nothing as the door closed behind them, giving them one last glance of Sin-Eater winding up a shoulder-punch before it shut completely.

“Come on in!” Solaris said, once Sin-Eater and Role were out of ear-shot.

Stacy Watt-Powers, and J.C. from Chicago walked in.

J.C. was sweating his ass off, but Stacy walked with the confidence of a sixty-year-old man capable of singlehandedly wiping out humankind.

Does this have something to do with Chicago? Perry thought, frowning as Solaris motioned them to take a seat.

The four of them settled around a nearby conference table.

“So…I was impressed by how well you two handled Washington. You make a good team, even if you can’t stand each other.”

Perry glanced over at the exercise freak, who met Perry’s gaze with his own ice-blue gaze. They shrugged. Working separately on the same project was about as tolerable as it got.

“And?” Perry asked.

“And, the cogs of government are sometimes slow to stop.” Solaris said. “Outside of your narrow view of the situation, David Manchin also ordered the destruction of Chicago by Blast Zone, intending to incinerate the refugees from Franklin as well as the citizens of Chicago.”

So it did have something to do with Chicago, Perry thought, brows raising.

The cop from Chicago was white-knuckling his chair.

“So you need us to stop him?” Perry asked.

“No, I went and talked to him a few hours ago. He’s built up a huge amount of gas, and says he can no longer reel it back in, and he has to destroy something awesome. I told him he could blow up Mount Rushmore.”

“Wazzat?” Perry asked.

“Doesn’t matter, it got blown up.” Solaris said, clasping his hands together.

“This issue that I would like to bring up is him,” Solaris said, pointing at the android ex-cop.

“He crossed the distance between here and Chicago…on foot.”

Solaris glanced at Stacy. “With the Replicators inactive since the death of Professor Replica, There lies in front of us, a golden opportunity to expand westward.”

“I agree, mister Solaris,” Stacy said. “If a family can make it through the wilderness unscathed, it might be an opportunity to link up with Chicago, which could provide a toehold towards re-uniting the east and west coasts.”

“Additionally, with Bio-master’s help, Chicago could become a second agricultural hub, easing Washington’s burden.” Solaris said.

“You mean our profit margins.” Stacy said with a half-smile and shrug. “But there is always a way to take advantage of an untapped market. Chicago has many resources unavailable to us, and visa versa. We would all greatly benefit despite Washington’s agricultural profit taking a hit.”

“The free flow of goods and workers leads to a strong economy, which creates opportunities for individuals and businesses, which in turn leads to strong population growth.” Stacy summarized.

“And where did you learn that, fifth grade?” J.C. asked, peering at the tiny girl beside him.

“Harvard.” Stacy said.

“That’s the job,” Solaris picked up the discussion as the cop stared at the little girl with the suspiciously high level of education. “I want Paradox to head to Chicago and stabilize it while Franklin and Washington lay down track for the inter-city train to connect the three cities. Chemestro will serve as a liason in Washington.”

I.E. Professor Replica’s Anchor.

Perry frowned. “But-“

“It’s not a particularly dangerous job, just tricky and time-consuming. You’ll have to keep the local peace, root out any invasive megafauna, protect the locals and their infrastructure. In short, I want there to still be a city there when the track arrives in half a year or so.”

“Wraith is due in two months…” Perry said. “I’m not really eager to miss that.”

“You don’t have to.” Solaris said with a shrug. “like I said, it’s low danger, high workload. You could bring Wraith with you and it’d be about as safe as Franklin.”

Perry considered. A Minder did try to kidnap her just the other day. The city had shrapnel showers as part of the weather report. And if Gramma sent the crew with her…

“I’d have to discuss it with my girlfriend, my family, and Wraith.”

“Wait, what?” Stacy asked, brows furrowed.

“Get back to me on that by tomorrow evening.” Solaris said, moving on. “Once the cities are connected, we’re going to begin a campaign of pushing west with the intention of reconnecting the East and West coasts of America.”