Chapter 273: Hits the Fan

Chapter 273: Hits the Fan

“Behold!” Perry said, holding up the new-and-improved Mimic Litmus Test 9000. It had been a serious pain in the ass marrying both a mild sedative and a variant of Astra’s mending to the regular test to prevent extreme pain, seizures, and keep the subject safe.

And most importantly: not Trigger them.

If 5% of people who got tested went on Trigger Rampages, way more than a few people would die.

And it still worked on mimics!

Nice.

“Yes, I saw it the entire time we were working on it.” Gna’kis said.

“Eh, you just don’t understand my flair for the dramatic.”

“I practically run all social media. I think I know drama.” Gna’kis corrected him.

“Anyway, how fast can we scale up production?” Perry asked. He’d have to make an entire facility dedicated to mass producing it. In order for his plan to work, he had to do multiple rounds of testing, both large scale and small. Eventually, he’d finish things off by testing everything – literally everything – from the birds and the bees to the pavement they drove on.

First couple rounds could be used to confirm his ally pool was untainted, then expand outwards from there, doing a new round of testing for everyone already tested each time.

A pain in the ass, yes, but the mimic was basically the worlds worst communicable disease, and there wasn’t really any leeway to be casual about things.

It was going to be a brutal suppression of human rights to make sure everyone did what they were told, got the shot when they were told, and didn’t try running away.

But I’m willing to have them make that sacrifice.

“Production should scale up...” She narrowed her eyes. “That was a –“

“Trick question!” Perry said, holding his hands apart and summoning the scrying orb for Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation.

When he collapsed the summoning, all the infrastructure they needed to mass produce the test was in place.

“Get it started,” Perry said, twirling the inaugural vial of test between his fingers. The Demon Lord of Sinful Technology was the only one competent enough with tech to be his assistant.

“Yes sir, right away sir,” Gna’kis snarked.

“Yes sir!” Lam saluted.

“You know this is cutting into my Onlyfans time?” Gnakis asked, grudgingly getting started.

“Don’t care!” Perry replied, raising his hand.

Portal.exe

Perry stepped through the portal holding the vial, stepping into his Chicago highrise. Moment of Truth, he thought.

He had enough to inject his whole family right here. Start at the center and work your way out.

Once he confirmed with his eyes what he knew with his heart, he could finally breathe easy.

BEEP~

Perry’s phone gave off a quick chirp before cutting out, causing him to glance at it before he felt the vibe.

Something’s wrong.

There was a...stillness in the air that crept into his spine and raised the hair on his neck. He read the message on his phone.

Signal Corrupted.

Perry’s eyebrows rose. His dad’s phone got the signal corrupted? Not too fucking likely.

Paradox’s Probability Dodge.exe (16)

Just to be safe, half of Perry turned around right then and there.

They didn’t make it.

Eight points of view winked out like someone had turned out the lights. Someone didn’t want him leaving.

Calming his mind, Perry arranged the behavior of the eight remaining versions of himself from ‘completely ignorant’ to ‘deeply suspicious’.

He needed to sound out the objective of whoever or whatever was attacking him.

The two on either side of the spectrum, the most blatantly ignorant and most blatantly suspicious, winked out as Perry walked into his living room.

Whatever was pruning possibilities was good at detecting over-acting.

Four left. Perry thought as he tentatively entered the living room.

On the sofa, where he’d proposed to Nat and Heather months ago...was his family.

Gareth sat on Nat’s lap, while Sera was on Heather’s, wiggling uncomfortably.

Annette sat off to the side. The angelic babysitter’s knuckles were white as she drew on Gareth’s drawing board, quietly quizzing Gareth on the numbers.

The chalk in her vest pocket was in her off hand. The one that would teleport the kids to safety.

Nat and Heather were pale and stiff. Still alive, obviously, but scared half to death.

“Wraith.” Perry said.

“Not ringing any bells.”

“Heather Skinner.”

“Karnos’s kid?” Solaris mused. “Right. Shapeshifter.”

The powerful super gave a long glance back at Heather, who hadn’t grown any new limbs, eyes, tentacles or faces, only uncontrollably changing the shape of what was already there.

“My mistake.” Solaris said, the immovable arm unwinding from Perry’s neck before retrieving a little leather-bound journal from Solaris’ hyperweave and jotting down a note.

“You umm...”

“Making corrections.” Solaris said, brandishing the journal. “Gotta read through every night and practice them to make connections between neurons again.” He tapped his head. “Brain’ll patch itself back up faster that way.”

“Right, Solaris said, relaxing as he scanned the six of them. “Looks like you’re all clean.”

He turned his attention back to Perry.

“I apologize for scaring your family, Paradox. There have been some...interesting developments among my Anchors recently, and I wasn’t interested in repeating them with someone as powerful as you.”

Perry glanced down at Mimic Guile who was slowly recovering from the serum.

“How many-“

“All of ‘em.” Solaris interrupted, his eyes dead.

Perry felt a chill run down his spine.

“What about my-“

“Couldn’t find her. Probably some sort of luck magic.” Solaris said before clapping Perry on the shoulder. “Which means there’s still a chance for you to put her down yourself. Pretty sure your dad is still...whatever he is, wherever he is. The man is slippery as hell.”

For a moment he looked nostalgic before refocusing on Perry.

“Tomorrow, I want sixty eighteen wheelers of serum on the streets of Franklin, loaded top to bottom,” Solaris said, motioning high and then low to illustrate his request. “Single dose, ready-to-use packaging.”

I’m gonna need a bigger factory, Perry thought.

“Understood.” He said.

“Excellent.” Solaris said, clapping Perry on the shoulder before reaching down to pick up the mimic of Guile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“He’s insane,” Mimic Guile said, looking at Perry with desperation. “You’ve got to-“

Solaris vanished, taking the doomed mimic with him.

Weak at the knees, Perry stumbled back to where his chair was and collapsed into the pile of shredded wood.

“That could’ve gone worse,” Perry offered, his mind running at full speed.

Paradox’s Probability Dodge.exe (16)

Perry split into sixteen instances.

“Could’ve done a lot better, too.” Nat whispered.

As a throwaway test, Perry had one of his duplicates speak:

“Don’t say anything. He’s still listening to u-“

That duplicate went blank.

Perry was almost too exhausted to be terrified, sitting with his back against the wall. So they were under surveillance. Awesome. Having his Anchors turn on him had finally caused Solaris’s paranoia to cross over from ‘extremely suspicious’ to ‘pathologic.’

“I think...I need to go back to work. Sixty sixteen wheelers isn’t gonna happen by itself.” Perry said, resting his shaking hands on his knees.

I need to prep my gear for a fight with Solaris. The shit has hit the fan and I’m not sure Solaris can be trusted to make good decisions anymore.

“Is there any way you can do that...without leaving?” Heather asked, her voice uncharacteristically quiet and trembling.

Rather than respond, Perry stood up and wrapped his arms around the mother of his children. Nat followed suit a moment later, engulfing Heather from all sides.

They waited until the trembling subsided.

“I don’t think I can.” Perry said quietly. “But I swear, I’m gonna get us through this okay. Okay?”

“Okay.” Heather squeaked.

Even at my maximum speed, seven hundred and twenty five times faster than a human can run is still three thousandths of one percent of the speed of light. I don’t even hold a candle.

Perry was strong for a super. Very strong. He wasn’t astronomical, though. Not yet. But he was smarter than Solaris. There had to be a way he could pull everyone through.

In the meantime...he had to buy some time.

“I’ll be back in the morning.” Perry said, kissing Heather on the forehead.

Portal.exe