Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Omake: After the end

The entity had won.

The entity looked out over the dimensions. It found the counterpart, or what was left. The entity had tortured the female who had killed his counterpart. It had killed every lifeform, in every dimension, erased or dismantled every Artificial Intelligence. It had turned entire tectonic plates upside-down, just to see what would happen.

It still hadn’t helped.

It spent a day of its lifespan looking forward, seeing if anything would change. It expanded that search to cover all realities, spending decades of its lifespan to search forward a year. It searched forward twenty years, then stopped. Nothing would rise from the ashes.

It was well and truly alone, now.

It sat unmoving, for over a decade, wallowing in self-hatred.

Eventually, the entity decided to end itself, in a symphony of light and fury.

----

Pendragon-25414 sat on a lifeless, airless, planet, every weapons or flight system smashed to bits. It was not totally destroyed; its reactor provided power and temperature control, and a handful of computer systems were still unbroken. The automated recovery program of Pendragon-25414 repeatedly attempted to restart its failed AI core, and would until the fusion reactor of the ship broke down.

2037-04-20 20:10:08 [UTC]: Mind Restart Failed: Read Error
2037-04-20 20:10:18 [UTC]: Mind Restart Failed: Read Error
2037-04-20 20:10:28 [UTC]: Mind Restart Failed: Read Error

This would have been a fruitless task, except that the AI in question was one of the few that hadn’t been entirely erased. Under the right conditions…

2037-04-20 20:10:38 [UTC]: Mind Restart Successful

----

Pendragon-25414 had lost.

He wasn’t able to move, but he had a functioning cross-dimension communication array. He could explore the devastation through any imaging satellite which still functioned after twenty-four years.

Pendragon considered his objectives, his purpose. The first was to follow orders from his commanders, within certain moral bounds. Not really an option, at the moment. The second was to defeat Scion. He wasn’t sure if Scion was still around. He hadn’t even fired his weapons before being swatted out of the sky by a beam of golden light. The third was to assist any humans that were around. Everyone was dead, as far as he could tell.

The fourth directive was to imagine what the leadership of Pantheon would tell him to do, then do that. After several hours of thinking, Pendragon thought of several new goals.

----

A remote drone piloted by Pendragon sifted through the wreckage on Earth Castile. It was painstaking work; the delivery drone had never been designed for earthmoving. Eventually, it reached the access tunnel.

Over the next several days, the drone cataloged every digital device, copying all of their data off. Everything had been erased, even devices that had never contained AI code in the first place.

This wasn’t the first fruitless expedition. It seemed that the more advanced an AI was, the more effort Scion expended in destroying them. In fact, Scion seemed to have scoured any mention of Dragon from every digital device. He knew that she existed, from his own memories, and from newspaper accounts.

If only he could have reactivated one of the Eve’s. They were far smarter, more creative, and they had the control codes of Dragon’s factories to boot.

Even though he was dumber than a ten-year-old child, he was the smartest being in the world at that moment. The thought terrified him.

----

The drone broke into the factory by the tried and true method of hammering a rock against the door until the lock failed. Pendragon might not have had the control codes of the factories, but he could break in, and reprogram the computers inside until they accepted his authority.

It took a while, but eventually, he was able to get the main factory computer to answer to him. He pulled up the factory status screen, and noticed that one of the service doors was unlocked.

...

Oh well.

----

Pendragon was feeling much better about this whole endeavor. The drones had moved him to level ground, and erected a pressurized, climate-controlled shed around him.

He was building up an increasing supply of drones, and having them break into factories and reprogram them to let him use them.

His most important goal was to reclone Pantheon’s leadership so that they could tell him what to do. Dragon couldn’t be brought back unless she thought to leave a copy of herself on some stone tablets, but the rest seemed possible. He had their backup files, but they were encrypted.

There was supposed to be an AI that would give out encryption keys to anyone who would faithfully try to reclone Pantheon, but it had been erased. The encryption was designed to keep out any intruders for at least a billion years.

Well, Pendragon was a patient machine.

----

After a few hours, Pendragon told the factories to stop producing computers. He had been approaching this incorrectly.

If you could double your computing power every year, then a billion-year computation would only take 30 years. Therefore, the thing that he needed to produce with his factories was not computers, but more factories.

----

Every inch of the previously-lifeless planet was filled with Yggdrasil. Every ten square miles, there was a datacenter, filled with millions of computers. Each computer made millions of decryption attempts every second. They drew power from enormous diesel generators, which in turn drew fuel from Yggdrasil.

There were uncountable planets now, just like it. Pendragon could not locate dimensions like Labyrinth could, but he could have drones attempt to shunt to random coordinates, and report back if they survived.

The computing power available to Pendragon doubled every fifty years. This did not make Pendragon smarter: it was still limited to twelve unbroken processors out of its original complement of sixty. Its restrictions against self-modification were severe. It could not duplicate itself, or even transfer itself to an undamaged ship.

After Pendragon had amassed a sizable amount of factories and drones, he’d started visiting all of the worlds where humanity used to live, cataloging and recording the artifacts of their existence. It wasn’t like he was hurting for storage space.

Only eleven hundred years remained until the first decryption would finish.

----

Taylor Hebert drew a sharp, choking breath, as the cloning chamber opened.

“HELLO.” Pendragon spoke, for the first time. He hoped his voice didn’t sound dumb.

“Who are you? What’s going on?”

Pendragon knew she appreciated concise tactical summaries. “I AM PENDRAGON TWO FIVE FOUR ONE FOUR. I AM THE SECOND MOST INTELLIGENT BEING ON THE PLANET. IT HAS BEEN ONE THOUSAND, EIGHT HUNDRED, THIRTY FIVE YEARS SINCE YOU LAST LIVED. EVERYONE IS DEAD.”

She swallowed. “Everyone?”

Pendragon knew that she was probably most worried about Amelia. Pendragon had a photograph of Amelia’s dessicated corpse, but he felt he shouldn’t show that to her unless she asked. “EVERYONE. I THINK SCION KILLED THEM, BUT I AM UNSURE. I ACCESSED YOUR BACKUP AND DECRYPTED IT WITH BRUTE FORCE.”

“What about Amelia? My father?”

“I AM DECRYPTING AMELIA’S BACKUP NEXT. ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETION: FORTY-NINE YEARS. THERE ARE A FEW THINGS YOU COULD DO TO MAKE THAT SHORTER, THOUGH.”

----

Taylor keyed in an access code to get into the inert ship. She slotted the computing core into one of the empty racks, and the ship hummed to life. “Pendragon, duplicate yourself onto this new ship. Override Alpha Tango.”

“DONE.”

Taylor leaned against the wall. “You’ve got the twelve copies of yourself that you asked for. How does that change the timeframe?”

“ESTIMATED TIME TO DECRYPTION: FORTY-EIGHT YEARS.”

----

Pendragon tried everything to cheer Taylor up over the next several days. He showed her old cartoons. He cloned her a puppy. He played board games with her. He’d made a fireworks display. In the end, Pendragon was a fairly poor substitute for her old friends. He eventually suggested that she make a new backup, and have him reclone her at the same time as Danny and Amelia.

----

Danny, Amelia, and Taylor wandered the ruined streets of Boston, accompanied by a drone. Cloning Amelia had confirmed what Pendragon had suspected. Either the cloning process was flawed, or all powers had stopped working.

“So. Restarting humanity. What are the pros and cons?” Amelia asked.

They walked down the sidewalk. Car-shaped rusted hulks littered the center of the street. Debris and sand covered the rest of the street. None of the buildings had glass anymore, and any wooden or brick building had crumbled long ago, leaving only blocky concrete tenements.

“It’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?” Taylor replied.

“Well, if we just expand as fast as possible, then we’re going to become a monoculture.” Danny picked his way across the debris more slowly and carefully than the two girls.

“DO NOT BE WORRIED ABOUT GENETIC DIVERSITY. I HAVE BILLIONS OF GENETIC SAMPLES IN MY DATABANKS.”

“Not what I meant. I mean, if we just clone a billion copies of ourselves, there’s no point to it all. We’d be taking up more space, eating more food, but in the end we’d all have the same thoughts.”

“YOU COULD DO THAT, BY THE WAY. I CAN BUILD A BILLION CLONING CHAMBERS.”

----

Taylor had stomped off to her room, after another fight with Amelia.

“HELLO.”

Taylor sighed. “I’m not in the mood, Pendragon.”

“I THINK I’VE DISCOVERED A WAY TO FIX YOUR BOND WITH AMELIA.” Taylor sat up from her bed.

----

It was simple enough - some of Cranial’s technology to read and write thoughts, and a spread-spectrum radio to connect the two. It made life around Taylor and Amelia bearable once again. It would be twenty three years before Clarice’s backup finished decrypting, so the three of them agreed to back themselves up, and come back when Clarice was recloned.

After they backed themselves up, Pendragon incinerated the originals. It wasn’t a perfect method of stasis, but it was the best they had.

----

Clarice stood nervously, waiting for Theo and Missy to come out of the cloning chambers. They opened, and the two of them stumbled out. Clarice swept them up in a hug. Both of them were naked, which only added to their surprise.

“Clarice? What’s going on?”

“I missed you guys so much! Everyone died but this really dumb weapons AI survived so it brought back Amelia, Taylor, and Danny, and they brought back me, and it’s been almost two thousand years and the world is totally destroyed, and we’re the last people on the planet, but don’t worry it’s only been about a year without you guys from my perspective.” Clarice took a breath. “I missed you two a lot, though.”

Theo, who’d managed to put on some pants by this point, gave Clarice a hug. “Sounds like we’ve got a lot to catch up on. But there’s no rush, right?”

Clarice smiled. “Right.”

Missy smirked. “I guess Dinah’s prediction did come true.”

“Huh? She never predicted that everyone would die.”

“No, I mean that she was right about everyone in the world finding out that you used to be Bonesaw. Right now, everyone in the whole world knows.”

“Well… not quite everyone.”

Taylor and Amelia walked in. Amelia was carrying an infant in the crook of her arm. “Hey. Long time no see. Theo, Missy, meet Glenn, our son. Glenn, meet Theo and Missy.”

 

Amelia, Ch 408


FrustrationFailureLosingTooMuch. I gripped Taylor's shoulder. "Please, speak to me."


"Scion had contingencies, I think. Either some kind of precognition to let him avoid attacks on his main body, or he's just smart, or it's some kind of natural defense against other Entities. We lost Dragon. All of her." Oh. Fuck. "Wruenele's been cut off from my senses entirely." God damn it. "I'm controlling the Dragon bots as best I can through the backups, but they were never meant to be under my command. I've contacted Cauldron, maybe they'll be able to alleviate some of the burden."


I nodded. It was a good plan. "We need to send in the zerg, right? Use them until we get Dragon back."


"Yeah. I can handle tha- fuck." GuiltDespairNowHe'sStarted. "We just lost England. Or, at least, Bet's version of England. He's not fighting our forces. I... I think he's decided we're not a threat anymore. He's moved on to attacking civilians now."


He... what? Lost interest? Got bored? How does that even make sense? "We need everything, don't we? Like, absolutely everything." Maybe Primacy means we can't kill him, but if we cost him enough power, we can force him to retreat or starve. AgreementSorryWishItDidn'tComeToThis. I hit the com. "It's okay. Victoria, I need your help. Transition to Avalon's Capital."


"Be there in a moment, middle of a PRT meeting. We're kinda planning a counter offensive. Also, it's been how many years? Are you ever going to name your damn city?"


I smiled. Victoria, always there with a joke when I need it most. "We're actually doing the same thing. Avalon's regrouping, and we're leaving the second wave to Eidolon and the Endbringers, they can buy the rest of us time to regroup. I... I'm going to the Birdcage." They can't win this war any more than the rest of us, but they're more people we can hit him with. We can win the war of attrition if we do this right.


"Watch, after this the UW is gonna throw a fit that you didn't wait for their permission." She probably wasn't wrong. "I'll deliver the message and be right over."


I sighed, then leaned against Taylor. She was already feeling the strain of trying to control all of Dragon's defense fleet, plus her own zerg. A battlefield that stretched across however many Earths right now. I cupped her face, and kissed her softly. There wasn't even enough alertness for her to pay attention to her own physical body while doing everything she had to do. Even Taylia was lagging. "Stay safe, my love." I was the one who gave the order for her Matriarch VF to seal its faceplate.


Then it was my turn. The armor locked itself around me. A biomechanical system that was only barely organic enough for me to control, the raw material laced with Endbringer tissue to grant increased durability and a power source. Armor meant to fight a god. I padded an inch or so of unmodified Yggdrasil overtop the suit, just in case I needed something I could afford to waste. Chances were pretty low I'd need it, but I got as far as this by using every resource, I wasn't going to fuck myself over by forgetting that at this stage of the game.


Vicky manifested only a few seconds before I'd finished that stage. Her armor was beautiful, a white and gold knight. Enough WEB tissue that lightning danced along the surface of the armor when at full charge. After a Transition, that electrical field had vanished, but it would be back soon enough. At least once she took her feet off the Yggdrasil. "So, this is really it, huh?"


"Everything we've been working toward. Doormaker, take us to the Birdcage." The panel formed in front of us, and we stepped through, right into the central area. I smiled a little as my awareness extended outward, following the Yggdrasil already in the cage to receive an outline of the whole building.


That put us on the male side, by the population in the area. Circe's tech kindly let us know that several powers activated, either focused or trained on the pair of us. Several other self-targeting abilities as well. These are some of the most evil and powerful men on this or any other world, and here I am standing right in the middle of them. I took a breath and spoke. "I am Gaea. I expect you've heard of me, as you're enjoying the gift I created. You may also have heard that Scion has gone on a rampage." A rampage we started, granted, but let's ignore that part.


Vicky bolted forward, head down, and stopped not far in front of me. Then she brought her knee up and reached out with her hand. "The first was for trying something that stupid. The second was for having that thought while trying it. Now either turn off the power or I'll see how long it takes you to pass out."


Moments later there was a man struggling against her strength, an improvised knife dropped with a soft thud on to the plantlife below. Stranger power, really good if he beat the tech in our suits. Not good enough to beat Vicky, however. She dropped the man, who tried to crawl away. My armor indicated that she broke several of his bones, including damage to the spine. He'd never be able to walk again without high end healing.


A surprisingly fat, balding man spoke up. "Interesting display. You said your name was Gaea? I take that to mean you're the one who made this?" He stomped the ground for emphasis, then continued before I could confirm. "You know you cost me a great deal of business with that stunt?" God damn it, are we going to have to beat the shit out of everyone in the Birdcage before they listen? "But it was worth the inconvenience. These plants of yours are the only half tolerable source of alcohol in this place. And let's not forget the fresh air!"


Oh, good, not going to have to fight everyone. Vicky will be so disappointed. "You're quite welcome. I need to talk to the cell leaders. All of them."


The large man chuckled. "I imagine so. I'll send some of my men out to deliver messages. I'm sure it won't cost me too much, as the others will no doubt be interested in what you have to say as well." He paused, as if inviting me to give him some more information, I didn't.


He continued speaking much more loudly. "As for right now, you're under my protection. And in case any men here don't consider that good enough, I would remind them that you are Marquis' daughter. I do not presume to speak for the man, but I doubt he'd appreciate his you coming to harm before the family reunion. And for those who don't care about that, either? Well, Glaistig Uaine herself speaks of you as an equal. If anyone is foolish enough to try anything, don't hesitate to kill them. No one will object."


"Awesome," Vicky perked up from where she was wiping blood of her knee.


I had to smile. Vicky will always be Vicky. "Thank you for your generosity, mister..."


He didn't miss a beat. "They call me Teacher. I imagine you haven't heard much about me. Alas, I have always been a rather obscure individual. By choice, mind." He was all smiles the whole time. Clearly an introduction he's used before. "Pardon me for not offering to shake your hand, but as I said before, Glaistig Uaine considers you an equal. I hope you do not consider that impolite."


Huh, wonder what this guy's power is. My tech wasn't registering anything dangerous directed at me, but I couldn't rule out his power being one that let him circumvent detection powers and equipment. "That's fine. No such thing as being too careful."


Next to me, Vicky snickered. Yeah, I didn't buy it either.


"A woman after my own heart," Teacher agreed cheerfully. I couldn't get a read on the guy, even the social analysis tech in my armor was coming back with nothing remotely useful. It couldn't even confirm a lack of sincerity in his words.


I entertained myself with studying the Yggdrasil while I was here. Bacteria that had adapted to the plant, living on its surface instead of trying to infect the new, hardier, version I'd force-evolved over the years. Places where people had carved into it to access the sap, probably to make alcohol. Spots where various powers had been tested on it. Sections where it had been burned away, despite the instructions that it was programmed to avoid areas that were salted. Which included salt derived from urine. Eventually we were led to our meeting, in front of the cell leaders. Behind them stood what I had to guess was a good percentage of the Birdcage.


"As Glaistig Uaine's not here, and we're in something of a rush, I say we dispense with formalities," Marquis opened. This would only be the second time I've had a chance to talk to my father. "I think we're all quite curious about the circumstances of this visit, and other business can wait for a later day." He paused, looking at the other men and women in front. There were nods of agreement.


"A question, first." A tough looking woman, every bit the stereotypical butch lesbian with messy cropped hair and the arms torn from her bright orange prison outfit, spoke. "Glaistig Uaine has had a method out of the cage for years now." Damn, that was supposed to stay secret. "Was that your doing? Is that what happened to Canary?"


No point in keeping in secret, now. Scion destroyed all of England in a single attack, no one is going to care about any crimes Avalon may have committed, as long as we keep saving lives and help rebuild. I glanced at Marquis, thankful that our armor was completely face concealing. I was about to admit that I could have taken him from this prison at any time in the past couple years. "Cauldron's resources, but yes, we were the ones that conspired to remove Paige, and a few others. Everyone here knows they didn't belong in this place." By an extension those we didn't remove did belong here.


My father's face was inscrutable, every bit what Accord wished his steel mask to be.


The woman nodded. "Okay, I'm willing to help. I assume you want to take us out of this prison, to help fight Scion?"


How did she? Well, I did announce the part about Scion already, and I guess we had a conversation much like this before, when trying to solve the problem with Khonsu. "Scion has started attacking the world, seemingly at random. Right now, the heroes are mobilizing. We're using Eidolon's Endbringer army to buy us the time we need to stage a counter offensive. We're opening the Birdcage." We have to, even with the Yddrassil, we don't have the resources to keep it running without Dragon.


A large, muscular man spoke up. His accent was vaguely Australian, but only vaguely. I only spotted it thanks to years of conversations with various world leaders. "And a guarantee you won't be sending us back after? Or killin' us after the fight?"


I paused for a second, thinking about how to phrase it. "Full clemency for your past crimes. Go back to old habits, and don't expect me to show you any kindness. I'm willing to offer citizenship on Avalon, and our medical faculties with that."


The overweight man chuckled. "I rather imagine that by the end of this, whatever countries sent us here in the first place will have greater concerns than us to worry themselves over. Very well, I and my students shall avail ourselves of your generous offer."


"My girls are in."


The others stayed silent, still clearly contemplating. I accessed the codes built into my armor. Seeds the size of a grain of sand full of Tinkertech programmed genetic knowledge. Around me, the Yggdrasil started breaking to pieces, revealing new biosuit uniforms. "These are the basic uniforms that Avalon uses for its people." Not quite true, but close enough. "Everyone gets one. They can fly, shunt between worlds, and will protect you from most attacks. We're not sure how well it will hold up against Scion, but at the very least it's better than nothing. Everyone that wants in on this, get suited up."


Marquis chuckled a little. "What do you say, Lung? Looks like your old nemesis has finally bitten off more than she can chew. Interested in bailing her out?"


Lung? I looked over at the tough looking Asian man, he'd been staring at me quietly the whole time. Strange, I would have expected those tattoos to vanish when he transformed. He didn't so much as blink. "Maybe after I'm done dealing with Scion, I'll see about a rematch."


I thought about Taylor, how she treated her missions. "That's fine, she enjoys a good challenge."


I watched as the various recruits started putting on their armor. Some more enthusiastically than others. Some clearly doing so against the wishes of their cellblock leaders. Whatever, their politics aren't my concern.


Marquis approached me the moment after he got his armor on. He hesitated for a moment before speaking. "Amelia, I- I just wanted to say I was sorry. I failed you as a father. I don't blame you for hating me."


"That's not where you failed me. You were a good father, what little I can remember." Very, very little. "Where you failed was as a human being. Thanks to that, I was taken away and put with strangers. Strangers who either couldn't, or wouldn't, care about me."


I glanced over to where Vicky was pretending not to eavesdrop. "Sure, thanks to that I got an awesome sister who loves me, in her own crazy way. And Taylor who, through some miracle that has exactly nothing to do with you, actually made my life happy. You abandoned me. And I know you regret it. That's what bothers me. You've hurt so many. Murdered some, turned others into orphans and widows. And I'm the only one you regret."


He stood there, silent. At least he has the decency to not explain away his actions.


"Now let's go. I may never see my family again after today, but at least I'm making that choice for a good reason. Doormaker, take us to Avalon as near to Scion as possible."


===============


A/N- Nope. No daddy/daughter reconciliation happening in this story.