7th May 2024
09:07 GMT
Atom Eve's eyes open for a moment, scanning her environment. I get a half-second longer than the physicians, but nothing more.
"Well. Here you go." Dr. David Evesham shrugs dejectedly. "She won't be fully alert just yet, but she can hear you."
I nod. "Could you..? Could all of you take a break?" Oh. "Do you have a break room, or are you all stuck in here-."
"He took over this whole facility. We've got space… For whatever good it does us." He breathes out, glancing at Atom Eve's monitors. "We can, but-" A couple of the others look like they're about to object, but quieten down as he makes eye contact with them. "-you need to know what you need to do if there's some kind of problem. And obviously, if anything happens to her, we're all dead… And you are too."
"Don't worry." I wave my right hand. "I can rearrange matter. I'm gong to fix everything except her spinal column. And I can monitor everything in real time, so I'll see any problems faster than the monitors will."
"You can-?" He breathes out slowly, shaking his head. "Don't do this to me."
"Don't..?"
"Don't give me hope. If you do that, half of us aren't needed. He might let us go. Or he might kill us, I guess, but I don't think he'd kill our families at least. Either way…"
"Um." I stare blankly at him. "I don't-." Okay, these people… Plenty of food being produced in the world outside, not counting that nutrient paste which appears to be what viltrumites feed their auxiliaries. I reach into subspace while feeling out their canteen area. A decent meal is the least I can do. "Anything… Anything else I need to know?"
"We don't exactly know how her power works. She hasn't used it since she's been here, and she hasn't been drugged the whole time. It could be she needs to move her hands…" He shrugs. "She doesn't have extra organs or anything, but if you heal her, she might just blast her way out."
I nod. I've seen recordings of her firing energy pulses from her hands and feet and creating simple constructs. For a while I thought that she might have a power ring, but… No flight aura.
"I'll bear that in mind. Now take a break."
He regards me for a moment, several of his colleagues heading out immediately. Then he looks down, nodding to himself before following them out.
Alright.
Sound baffle and scan.
Ekh.
Yes, she's been in the wars alright. And laying in bed all day isn't doing her much good ether. I start patching-.
Alert!
What?
The aura I had forming around Atom Eve… Fractures!
Don't you dare.
Shield and scan!
Construct armour appears around me and-. And there's no one here. That was the ring-. Usually, whatever it translates is making some sort of noise, but given the state of her neck…
"Didn't you hear?" I drop my armour. "He might let some of your physicians go. There's a lot of work for doctors outside."
Let me die.
"I'm not doing that. It would get a lot of people in trouble."
Her eyes open slightly, assessing me. Telepath.
"No, I've just got a really good translator. Look, whatever you've got planned, most of your injuries can't kill you. They're just crippling you and causing you pain."
No.
"Alright." I pull out one of the chairs standing against the wall and move it into a position where it's easy for her to see me. "Now-."
He sent you.
I nod. "He did."
Her eyes harden further. Traitor.
"They hardly needed my help."
You could have fought-.
"I'm not that strong, not that fast, and I have no training. I've learned how to slowly rearrange matter. That's not something that can really hurt a viltrumite."
She snorts, and turns her eyes to the ceiling.
Right. "Do you know who General Franco was?" She doesn't look at me. "Fascist ruler of Spain for a good chunk of the twentieth century. Didn't join in the Second World War because after the civil war Spain was in too much of a mess to really do anything except send Germany a few volunteers, which is why he lasted so long. But as he neared the end of his life he wanted a successor. And having done the traditional fascist dictator thing of playing his subordinates against each other and only promoting people who couldn't challenge him, he didn't have anyone available who could do the job."
"But he'd been a monarchist in his youth and… The son of the deposed king seemed to be his sort of person. Young Juan Carlos made all the right dictatorial nationalist noises so… Franco nominated him his successor, Juan Carlos became head of state and then king once Franco died… And then revealed his true colours, abolished the fascist dictatorship and transitioned the country to democracy."
"Then there's the Book of Esther. Haman persuaded King Ahasuerus to have all the Jews in Persia executed… Until the king's wife Esther persuades him not to, saving tens of thousands of lives without killing anyone."
Oh, she's looking at me now. No.
Yeah, she worked that out quickly enough.
I shrug. "And of course if the king didn't care about her, they'd all be dead. And if she'd let the fact that he was about to have her entire ethnicity exterminated stop her from 'persuading' him, they'd all be dead." I sit back a little. "I did.. hear about Omniman and Invincible finding your resistance group. Aside from one guy who teleported out, they all died. So I'm going to ask. You're clearly happy to sacrifice your life. Are you willing to sacrifice your pride?"
Tears leak from her eyes, and she squeezes them closed to try and keep them clear.
"I was wondering how it would work, being conquered by an alien empire. I mean, Omniman acting as a scout and then destroying resistance once he realised that we couldn't beat him… Okay, that's efficient. No sense wasting resources when what's on site can do the job. But one man can't run a planet. All he's really done since then is destroy potential sources of resistance. Invincible's the one who made the broadcasts. I don't… I don't think he knows how to run a world. And clearly the Viltrumite Empire didn't have a team ready to go when it happened. In my role as a toady I've been asking for the reconstruction plan, and I don't think there is one. Omniman kills without hesitation, but I… Got hold of some of the Global Defence Agency's recordings. In the early fights, before he… Internalised the victim-blaming, Invincible looked at his father for… Approval? Before killing his opponents."
You disgust me.
"Yeah, that's fair. But having not fought them, and played the part of willing collaborator, I've been able to give millions shelter, food and sanitation. How many people did you help by resisting? After we lost at our strongest, how many did you think you could help by fighting at our weakest?"
You do it, then.
"We went bowling last week. I think he's trying to make a friend, but he's gotten so far into his alien overlord persona that he keeps being inadvertently terrifying… Then deciding that it was intentional." I shake my head. "I couldn't pretend to be you well enough. Couldn't hold your shape or match your power."
I sigh, then get up.
"Think it over."