"Oh. I'm disappointed. I thought you said this guy was building your whole…" He moves a few more parts, then waves his sensor at the artefact. "Fleet."
"No, we're not stupid enough to let a Weaponer just build whatever he likes. He was part of the design team, but we checked everything thoroughly before building anything. And if there's something broken or incomplete in here, then I'd assume that he's storing it here until the mood strikes him to work on it some more." I frown. "Are you at all familiar with Qwardian technology?"
Very sensible. I wonder if Kalmin feels slighted by that caution?
Probably not, I suppose, since he'd have personally
challenged the project leads if he had any complaints...
"I wouldn't say familiar. Father always said that copying other people's work was lazy, so we never really prioritised that sort of theft."
"Alright, but why didn't you pick something up while he was in the far future?"
Because he'd probably realised any significant change to their designs would have come from
somewhere. Of course, there's a difference between copying.. and
inspiration.
"Because he's right. That would be lazy."
"But you're looking at it now."
Inspiration, OL. Seeing a slightly different way of doing.. whatever it does.. should give him a few
ideas.
"Yes?"
"Isn't that just as lazy?"
"Of course not. Georgia and I had to create a novel form of faster than light travel to come and look at this. Breaking into the sorts of places that the Air Force stores recovered alien technology is far more simple."
...Invent novel FTL? You made protective cages to allow you to ride along on someone else's method.
"It still counts!"
…
"Thaddeus, given that you don't want to break in there and that you're nominally obeying the law now that you've been pardoned, would-?"
You
know he almost certainly
has. No need to dance around the question...
"Actually, only Father got pardoned. I'm still wanted in seventeen countries."
"Oh. Alright then. In the interest of getting a pardon, would you be willing-?"
He says it like it's a point of
pride. I don't think he's interested...
"Who says I'm interested in getting a pardon?" He prods again. "Oh, heh, I see."
"Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult your villainous pride. I just assumed that since you were still working with your father you were planning on following the same trajectory. Are there crimes you feel that you want to perform?"
Unless he's going for some manner of achievement checklist, I doubt he plans that far ahead...
"No, I'm just keeping my options open. I don't like being told what to do."
"I'm not sure that I follow."
"Laws. I've never followed them and I don't think I could learn to do so now."
To be fair, some laws
are a little...
odd. Mostly the little local laws that get put down on the books for one specific case, and no-one ever bother to enforce. But I get the feeling Tad doesn't mean
those sort of laws...
"You… Are aware that most people don't consider whether or not they're breaking the law on a moment by moment basis, aren't you?"
He stops, then turns to look at me.
"Well, that sounds like a
boring way to live."
"How does it work, then?"
"Well, most people -not you, obviously, but most people- have certain intuitions about the way people should behave in society. Not intentionally causing harm to others, not taking things that don't belong to them, trying to deal with disagreements calmly and rationally… Things like that. And they assume that the law provides an expensive brute force way to resolve disagreements that can't be resolved by the parties involved. Mostly, that's good enough, though in the case of peculiar laws it doesn't always work." I frown. "Didn't you go to a public school?"
Unfortunately, some people just aren't
wired that way... The social outcasts, the habitual offenders, the oddballs and freaks that everyone else just find 'wrong'...
"Yes, Mother insisted, and Father said that even a really good private school wouldn't be able to challenge us."
"But surely you-."
"Intruders!"
Hmm? Has Kalmin turned up? Brace for
explosions, lads, ladies and everyone in-between.
I turn around as The Test Subject Formerly Known As Daciya walks it, cybernetic arm glowing with golden light. I take a half-step back, but she's focusing her attention on Thaddeus.
Behind her, Nauca awkwardly raises his right hand in greeting. I nod back.
Ah, the graduates Kalmin and OL picked up during that little 'heresy' breakout a couple of episodes back. I see they're settling on fine.
"Get your filthy hands off my-"
"It doesn't even-"
...Oh, boy. I can already get an idea of where this is going...
"-work, you defective-"
"-work right, see-" He uses his construct to pick the device up and turn it around. "-you got this-"
They're either going to fall in love at first sight...
"-imbecile!"
"-turned." Thaddeus blinks three times rapidly behind his glasses. "Excuse me?"
...Or try to kill each other. Then again, Who knows
how Qwardian romance works?
Oh, don't worry, OL. I'm sure they'll be
fine.
Her mechanical hand twitches and a bolt of golden energy leaps at Thaddeus! I generate a construct shield-.
The bolt stops in mid-air about two thirds of the way to its target. Then a… The rectangle of space containing it changes to… Two dimensions, and rotates through 180 degrees before snapping back into three-.
...I can't even picture how that would
work. I can't imagine how seeing it in person must be. It sounds like God's own Photoshop toolset...
The bolt strikes its mistress in the chest, sending her flying backwards with shredded robes and cracked armour. She strikes the side wall with a flare from her kinetic shield and attaches herself to it like a monkey, eyes flickering as she takes the time to scan Thaddeus Sivana Junior properly.
Who's looking at me in a decidedly disgruntled manner.
"Please don't tell me
this is 'Kalmin'? I was expecting
better..."
"I told you I had defensive equipment."
"I'm sorry, but I haven't seen you in the field before. I wasn't sure what you thought counted."
To be fair, when most of your friends on Earth consider tight faux-leather materials in bright colours to be 'defensive equipment', your scale can get a
little skewed. At least until they get smacked around by a bad guy and accept the upgrades offered.
"Warn me if I run into someone more dangerous than Captain Marvel."
I look over to where Daciya arm is reconfiguring itself.
Handy. A whole armoury at her fingertips? And
in the fingertips too.
"Captain Marvel doesn't try and kill you."
"Captain Marvel fights us in our laboratories. Solomon might have been wise, but he didn't have a PHD. That's how Father ended up in the future, remember."
To be fair, I doubt even Solomon could
recognise some of the crimes against science that fill your labs. Even
if he'd done some reading on modern discoveries.
"Who are you?"
Thaddeus pulls himself up slightly, plasma scalpel dissipating as he fiddles with his personal computer.
"I am Doctor Thaddeus Sivana, the most intelligent man on this planet."
...How
old are you, again? Also, being the smartest human doesn't count for much when you're one of
three present.
Not true, assuming that the male Controllers are still male enough to count as male. But Dox is in orbit, and… Thaddeus probably has a greater range than Kalmin.
"And your machine doesn't work. Why did you even put it here?"
"So that in a few years I could look back at it and laugh."
True, that is a sensible idea. After all, you might feel nostalgic, or have a moment of realisation about some
other conundrum while poking at it. I mean, even Kalmin
might have moments when he's stuck on some new death ray, goes to have a think about it while fiddling with an old fancy and goes, "Ah-
ha!"
Also, as a wargaming enthusiast, I still have my oldest painted models in a box. Stuff painted without undercoat, or sprayed from a chrome rattle-can because teen me though it 'looked cool'...
Thaddeus smiles.
"Yes, I used to do that too, when I was six. Years. Old."
What, and these days, you
recycle failures? Admirable, but where's the sense of
history?
This time she fires two bolts. Thaddeus gets enough time to shake his head, space fracturing around them-. They explode, the energy consuming-.
Space fractures around Thaddeus, twisting around and depositing him across the room and out of the blast radius, a faintly crimson shield dealing with the remaining radiation.
Well, at least we're getting Explosions.
He smiles.
"Interesting. Here's my retort."
Oh, stop flirting and kiss, you too! Honestly,
children!
