Chapter 14

WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSE, NERD

The tunnels wound on, twisting through concrete and steel like veins through a buried giant. Their footsteps echoed, the only sound above the low hum of power moving through the conduit below. Annie kept one hand resting on her new katana, as if daring the next fight to come sooner rather than later.

Alexander replayed the encounter with the bounty hunters in his head, turning over what worked and what he needed to work on.

“... and I’m telling you,” Annie was saying, “if that guy was a hero, then heroes are just—”

A chime from their implants cut her off..

Alexander pulled up the notification.

[ Veritus Praxis Neuroadaptive Noetic Implant: Series 1 - Ascensus ]

Thank you for demonstrating your powers and completing a moderate exercise regimen.

Initial evaluation of your Ascension Potential Index is complete.

Would you like to review your status?

He was caught between two impulses. One was the weary resignation of a man dragged from his world into chaos and madness. The other was the quiet, dangerous curiosity of a gamer who had somehow survived those things and, deep down, wanted to see what came next. Wanted to rise to the challenge and steal victory from the grip of his enemies.

I’m not even supposed to have enemies.

Alexander sighed. “Yes,” he subvocalized.

The implant responded with a stream of information across his vision.

[ Veritus Praxis Neuroadaptive Noetic Implant: Series 1 - Ascensus ]

— Administrator Override in Effect —

Subject: Alexander Rooke

Alias: Unknown

Designation: Supervillain

ASCENSION POTENTIAL INDEX (API)

Percentile measurements normalized against projected human limits for subjects matching your somatic profile. Continue development to complete Ascension, breaking beyond mundane limitations.

Physical Attributes

Strength — 52%: Lightly conditioned. Peak force exceeds baseline under duress, showing untapped potential.

Endurance — 63%: Above average stamina, moderate resistance to fatigue.

Constitution — 48%: Resilience within baseline human mean. Continued exposure to blunt force trauma may enable rapid development.

Dexterity — 84%: Upper percentile fine motor control and neuromuscular precision. Exhibits strong spatial awareness and coordination even during high-stress engagements. Advancements known to slow above the 80th percentile.

Agility — 46%: Below average. Hesitation shown during lateral movement and rapid transitions.

Cognitive Attributes

Intelligence — 92%: Exceptional pattern recognition, reasoning, and problem solving. Neural activity shows high-efficiency integration of — * — |Intelligence Ascension is Inevitable. Continue your Dream. |

Processing Speed — 88%: Fast decision-making, effective multitasking, slight degradation under extreme stress.

Perception — 97%: Near-instant threat acquisition and anomaly detection. Continued exposure to — * — likely to sharpen capabilities further. |Perception Ascension is Inevitable. Continue your Dream. |

Focus — 66%: Capable of maintaining attention on novel and complex tasks, with drift under prolonged pressure.

Willpower (Self-actualization) — 95%: Extraordinary resistance to control, submission, and shutdown, even under extreme duress. Internalized directives demonstrably capable of — * — |

Willpower Ascension is Inevitable. Continue your Dream. |

Power Manifestation & ECOA Ratings

Technopathy

Class B, Tier 1

E: 81% | C: 64% | O: 13% | A: 73%

High power Efficiency with minimal energy loss shown in early stages of development, indicating an exceptional understanding of localized reality-bending cognitive effects. Control metrics reflect consistent, deliberate execution of complex applications of power. Output shows an urgent need for development, as power expression does not yet extend to broad-scale control or manipulation. Adaptation is uncharacteristically high, suggesting extreme potential given the early stage of power acclimatization. Power responds well to novel applications.

Initial analysis indicates the subject’s Technopathy is a unique‘Intuitive-Communicative’ variant. A training plan is therefore unavailable at this time. Please report findings to the Ascensus Program for database inclusion.

Automatic reporting disabled. Reason: Administrator override.

Electrokinesis

Class C, Tier 1

E: 31% | C: 8% | O: 22% | A: 6%

Recent emergent power with low active expression and minimal conscious regulation. The subject appeared unaware they possessed it; reason unknown.

Notably, the power exhibits synergistic resonance with the subject’s Technopathy. Structural compatibility and energy harmonization strongly indicate convergence with a unified meta-power framework. Preliminary simulations suggest classification as a potential Triune Synergistic power set. Dual Chaotic/Dual Harmonic typologies are unlikely.

Automatic reporting and priority monitoring disabled. Reason: Administrator override.

Alexander’s head hurt.

“Did your implant just hand you a full-length essay on how much you suck?” he asked.

Annie’s distant look answered before she did. “Yup… you wanna trade?”

He considered it. “Just the scores. We can compare notes later when we’re not walking targets.”

She nodded, and the implants synced at their request, exchanging information.

Annie’s stats scrolled past.

[ Veritus Praxis Neuroadaptive Noetic Implant: Series 1 - Ascensus ]

— Administrator Override in Effect —

Subject: Annette Sheridan

Alias: Scrappy [Unregistered]

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Designation: Supervillain

ASCENSION POTENTIAL INDEX (API)

Percentile measurements normalized against projected human limits for subjects matching your somatic profile. Continue development to complete Ascension, breaking beyond mundane limitations.

Physical Attributes

Strength — 81%

Endurance — 55%

Constitution — 78%

Dexterity — 71%

Agility — 92%

Cognitive Attributes

Intelligence — 74%

Processing Speed — 57%

Perception — 53%

Focus — 96%

Willpower (Self-actualization) — 92%

Power Manifestation & ECOA

MetaMetal Adaptation

Class B, Tier 1

E: 98% | C: 80% | O: 16% | A: 89%

Thermal Flux Control

Class C, Tier 1

E: 72% | C: 3% | O: 5% | A: 29%

Density Flux Control

Class C, Tier 1

E: 58% | C: 15% | O: 2% | A: 21%

They walked while reading, taking random turns through the layered maintenance tunnels. Alexander tried to keep a mental map relative to the city above but kept drifting back to the data.

Maybe the implant’s right about my focus.

“And none of this freaks you out, Annie?” he asked. It still seemed so implausible to him.

She looked up. “Hmm?”

“I mean… powers were already a lot to process, but this thing is tracking our stats and talking about ‘ascension’ and ‘breaking mundane limits’. I may not know exactly what it means, but I can read between the lines.”

She shrugged. “Seems normal to me. I heard rumors even back when I was in school, and some famous supes have said similar things on talk shows.”

Her gaze sharpened with unrestrained curiosity. “I’m more interested in why you don’t seem to know this stuff. It’s pretty common knowledge. You didn’t lose all your memories, right?”

Ah, that look Frank gave me… he knew she’d figure it out if I wasn’t careful. Tried warning me.

Alexander hesitated. He knew that, rationally speaking, it shouldn’t bother her. It’s not like she’d known the now-dead version of himself. And it’s not like it was some enormous secret. Was it possible that some people out there would want to capture him, drug him, and stick him in a cell if they learned about it? Sure.

But they’d done that already, and now he was on the run. With superpowers.

So he told her. The full hour it took was filled with Annie’s interruptions and questions. By the end, she wore the same skepticism she had when he’d told her he wasn’t a mental patient.

“So… you came from a world with no superheroes?” She squinted, baffled. “That’s so weird. What did you even talk about?”

Alexander stared. “That’s your big takeaway? I tell you that I have memories of a whole other reality, that I woke up in my previously dead alternate reality corpse, and you’re worried about what people discussed given the lack of powers?”

“What? It’s important!” she said. “I mean, sorry you died and all that. Must’ve sucked getting splattered by a train. But at least you got superpowers out of it!”

She gave him a thumbs-up with her bandaged hand.

“Welcome to the multiverse, nerd.” She grinned, then frowned. “Wait. Do two universes even count as a multiverse?”

Alexander sighed and kept walking. Nothing he could do but roll with it at this point.

Flashpoint was not happy, judging by the heat rolling off him. Talia was torn between frustration at the idiot’s incompetence and satisfaction at the public nature of his failure.

When she arrived, Flashpoint had been in the middle of questioning a civilian suspect. He’d been at it for a while, judging by the fresh bruising and blood. She stopped it immediately and called the incident in to the local authorities. The man, one Frank Vitale, was a successful cybernetics dealer with a side business repairing what he sold, and almost any other electronic device. He had a small chain of stores running up and down the West Coast.

Even with the abuse he had suffered at Flashpoint’s hands, he was looking at five to ten years for aiding and abetting an escaped superhuman fugitive. He would be remanded to a local jail or court holding facility for a month or two while the evidence was processed, dates set, and the slow, backlogged machinery of bureaucracy creaked along.

She kept the disdain from showing. Her own path to becoming an AEGIS officer had been forced in the face of such injustices.

Talia closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Memories of a hospital burning and crumbling surfaced. The years she had spent as a vigilante, hunting down those responsible after the local courts ruled it an accident and offered a handful of credits for lost loved ones or jobs, still felt fresh.

Even she had not been able to stay ahead of STEPS and AEGIS forever. Everyone had to sleep sometime. When they caught her, she had been given a choice: probationary employment as an Augmented Entity Governance & Investigative Service officer, or a minimum of twenty-five years for a long list of crimes.

She sighed. Frank was an undeserving target of the bureaucracy’s ire, and she suspected this ‘Alexander Rooke’—a name she had uncovered not from the tight-lipped store owner but from his immaculate records—was likely a victim of Santiago Systems from the start.

He was some guy, chasing a dream, and thrown into the deepest, darkest pit the corporation owned, just to… what?

What kind of power would make a galactic mega-corp bury him?

The clues suggested something technology-focused. But technopathic sphere powers were common enough: cyberkinetics, mechabonders, codecasters. The list went on. And they were the sort of powers courted by powerful interests, not erased.

Her thoughts were interrupted by shouting.

“You think I give a shit about your reports or your policies?”

Flashpoint stepped forward aggressively, getting in the face of a GOLD representative, a woman in a sharply cut black suit. Global Oversight and Liaison Directorate. The sigil of GOLD, an abstract flame circling a globe, was stitched above her left breast. She didn’t flinch, which spoke volumes.

Talia watched without expression. Once the liaison was done with Flashpoint, she knew it would be her turn.

“You pencil-pushing fucks show up after the action, waltz in like you’re in charge, and then have the gall to question my handling of a known fugitive and a suspected Class R?”

“Hero Flashpoint,” the liaison began, her tone glacial, “we are in charge. And your continued service in this city hinges on my continued tolerance.”

Flashpoint sputtered. The heat haze surrounding him drew in and flared outward in uneven bursts.

“I should not have had to leave my pristine, luxurious office, to come down here, to the streets and the gutters and the stench, all because of you,” she said, punctuating the moment with a single, manicured nail jamming into his chest.

“Because you turned a simple capture op into an explosive, public failure,” the liaison finished.

Flashpoint stepped back. “That’s hardly fair. I used the resources I had—”

“Enough excuses. You are relieved of this case.” She turned and started toward Talia. “Return to your regular duties and don’t let me hear of your existence again.”

Snarling, Flashpoint launched himself into the air, controlled heat blasting out from his feet.

Talia barely noticed him go. Her eyes were on the approaching woman.

“Your turn, Officer Kim,” said the liaison.

Regional Administrator Priscilla Gant, Talia recalled belatedly as she came to a stop in front of her.

“What am I to do with you, hmm?”

Talia stayed silent. It was rhetorical.

“Director Li relieved you of your duties pertaining to the prison break, did he not?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You continued your investigation regardless.”

“There was an escapee unaccounted for. Someone I suspect was innocent, flagged for containment as a Class R,” Talia said, keeping it short.

“And so you decided to investigate without oversight or approval,” Priscilla said, her tone hardening, “resulting in a dozen complaints being sent directly to my office while I was enjoying a late breakfast and tea with the mayor.”

Priscilla glanced at the ruined storefront. “You have put me in a difficult position, Officer Kim. I must now decide whether to destroy your career, labelling you a rogue agent chasing phantoms, or grant the slightest legitimacy to your hunt.”

“Ma’am, there is something going on. I am not—”

“You misunderstand me, Officer Kim,” Priscilla cut in, warning in her voice. “I do not care about a possible Redacted in my region. Redaction is a government or corporate matter. GOLD does not officially acknowledge any such classification. A quiet, unassuming young man who was not causing trouble, regardless of a few insignificant deaths during the prison break, is not a problem for us. That is a matter for STEPS. Do you understand?”

Talia did. She wore the badge of an AEGIS officer, begrudgingly maybe, but she wore it all the same.

The Augmented Entity Governance & Investigative Service was the face of regulation: oversight, registration, and enforcement. AEGIS handled it all, dealing with licensed heroes, investigating misconduct, and responding to incidents with visible authority. Their jurisdiction extended across Earth and to every colony, station, or vessel flying the United Earth Government flag.

STEPS, the Superpowered Threat Evaluation, Pursuit, and Surveillance Service, was another matter entirely. Officially a branch of GOLD, like AEGIS. Unofficially, it was the knife behind the curtain. It handled threats, not heroes. Dangerous unknowns. Unregistered superhumans. Those that were uncontrollable or inconvenient.

Some parts of STEPS were public: bounty boards, freelance hunter registration, and interagency threat assessments. The rest were only whispered about. Black-site prisons and kill squads. The quiet disappearance of people with powers they shouldn’t have.

They’re all hypocrites.

“I understand, ma’am,” she said aloud.

Priscilla watched her for a long moment, then nodded. “Very well. You have a green light to continue this investigation. Quietly, Officer Kim. You are on a very, very short leash.”

Talia gritted her teeth at the condescension, but nodded. She watched the woman march away toward a waiting hovercar.

Nothing changes. Assholes like Flashpoint get away with murder, and good people suffer under the rule of bureaucrats and cowards who believe they own the world.

Talia sighed. Perhaps they really do.

After all, even she was dancing to their tune.