Published at 17th of September 2024 7:28 am

Chapter 276: Goal Number One

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Perry didn’t think he could get exhausted from a simple all-nighter anymore, being seven-hundred times more resistant to the after-effects.

Apparently he just needed the proper amount of stress.

Perry stifled a yawn as he drove the lead truck through the portal into the center of Franklin City, the robotic mac trucks following suit.

In the corner of his eye was a live feed of his family, which Perry had used as something of a barometer for how unnoticed his little changes had been.

If they turned to ash, that meant Solaris had noticed something, and Perry abandoned that particular Probability Dodge.

Playing with fire here.

Something Perry had done had infected the primary timeline. His skin had gone ice cold when one of the copies in his Control Group had seen his family killed before going blank. The Control Group was the group of versions of himself that didn’t try to surreptitiously design weapons to kill Solaris, and logically, should be the safest from getting insta-killed by the mad super.

Who knew what had caused that version of Solaris to kill one of his Control Groups? Perry sure as hell didn’t.

Which implied that there was some thread, some overlooked hint of Perry’s impending double-cross floating around out there, unnoticed except by this one version of Solaris, who had no tangible differences from any of the others.

Or maybe he’s just that far gone, Perry thought. That thought did not fill him with confidence either. It was the not knowing that bothered him.

It was just a reminder that at any second, everything he loved could be reduced to so much ash. All it would take is for whatever had occurred in that one branch to happen to all of the versions…

The result didn’t bear thinking about.

The trucks he was driving had millions of vials of his patented Mimic test, but the trucks themselves were also massive light-traps, which, when activated, could trap Solaris in his light-form for several hours.

Others had actual tons of Paradox-designed batteries woven into them, which could absorb thousands of nukes. Hopefully enough to give Perry a chance at a riposte.

Perry was also experimenting with batteries that could store intangibles. He’d like to design a battery which stored ‘intent to kill’, which would allow him to avoid direct conflict for a time, but he hadn’t been able to pull it off, because it sent him into the Tinker Twitch, and Solaris always noticed.

Maybe his tons of batteries and massive, city-sized light trap would work, and keep him busy for hours. Maybe Solaris would get out in a matter of seconds, but seconds were all he needed to teleport his family somewhere safe.

Once that was done, goal #1 was complete, and Perry could die happy, having achieved marginal success against the most terrifying super in existence.

HISSSS

The truck’s breaks hissed, releasing their stored-up pressure and Perry climbed out. His T-shirt had become a stained wife-beater of its own accord. All he needed now were intense sideburns, bad teeth and a ragged baseball cap.

The morning sun hadn’t reached above The Wall yet, with only the tallest skyscrapers showing any sign of the dawn, glittering faint reflected sunlight down on him from above.

The air was cold. The streets were empty and quiet. No life or traffic as far as the eye could see.

Not a bad morning to die, Perry mused, watching his breath escape from his mouth.

“Good morning, Paradox.” Solaris said, arriving in front of Perry in a flicker of light. The aging super glanced down at Perry’s outfit but didn’t comment.

Here we go, Perry thought, hairs on his neck rising.

Paradox’s Probability Dodge.exe (256)

Perry made a control group of 16, and began triggering the trap midway through his response, staggering the remaining 240 one after the other as he responded.

“Mornin’,” Perry responded as hundreds of copies of himself kicked off the battle, each a few fractions of a second apart.

They died. Some of them stayed alive longer than other, but all of their points of view eventually went white as they ceased to exist.

“Show me the goods.” Solaris said to the control group, motioning to the back of the mac truck.

Perry’s control group followed along, while his Attack Group continuing to fire off the traps, hoping for an instant of inattention from Solaris.

They died.

Once they’d been exhausted, Perry collapsed down to one of the sixteen controls, then recast The Dodge, starting over again as they walked towards the back of the truck.

“Here we go,” Perry said, turning his back on Solaris and opening the back of the truck to reveal the rows of massive cases.

Each case had ten thousand doses, separated by brittle plastic packaging that kept each tiny syringe a fingernail’s width apart from each other.

Solaris was already standing in the center of the truck’s storage space by the time Perry climbed up.

“Well done getting these done in a day,” Solaris mused, rolling one of the tiny syringes between his fingers. “I half thought you were lying to save your ass.”

“I thought I was,” Perry said with a shrug. “But I surprised myself.”

“People can do…surprising things when they’re backed into a corner.” Solaris said, glancing at Perry askance.

Well, Shit. He’s gonna kill me.

Solaris strongly suspected Perry of trying something…he just didn’t know what.

“And your pet demon knows how to operate the factory?” Solaris asked, turning towards Perry, his presence suffocating.

Yep, definitely gonna kill me and replace me with Gna’kis of all people. Now that he’s got the test, and a potential supply of it, he doesn’t need me anymore.

I gotta do something NOW.

“Would you believe me if I told you the factory won’t operate without me?” Perry hedged as he desperately searched for a way to throw Solaris off his game long enough to trap him.

In truth, making his factory on a dead-man’s switch might’ve been a good way to buy some time, but it was never an option that would eke out a win, it was simply a delaying tactic, and so Perry had forgone that precaution entirely in favor of designing more effective countermeasures.

Which had all failed thus far.

“...”

Solaris’s eyes narrowed.

In that instant, Perry knew he was screwed. Every single version of him was going to get vaporized in the next fraction of a second. He could feel Solaris’s intent to kill him build up, cold and calculating.

His usefulness had run its course.

Adrenaline dumped into his body, as if he’d been dunked in an ice bath.

Perry’s copies tried two hundred and fifty-six last-ditch tactics, from pointing and saying ‘hey, what’s that!?” to simply trying to escape via a portal.

All but one of them died in the next fraction of a second.

“Did you enjoy killing your granddaughter?” One lucky Paradox asked.

Solaris snarled and stalked forward, his rage causing his body to give off blistering heat.

That snarl, that extra fraction of a second, gave Perry just enough time to flinch, reflexively raising his hands to guard his face, despite how pointless that would be.

FWOOM!

In an instant, two hundred and fifty-five possibilities, Perry’s right hand, and most of the fingers on his left were ash.

But he was still there.

Solaris stumbled backwards, clutching his jaw, which had a ring-shaped indent on the side of it…As if he’d run face-first into an immoveable object.

Perry glanced down at the solid-light wedding ring on his partially ashen finger. The time spent gawking almost caused him to miss his chance.

Oh, shit! If ever there was a need to act RIGHT NOW!

Perry triggered the light-trap and the sequence that would see his family removed from Earth simultaneously.

glue-trap.exe

Forced Vacation.exe

Somehow, in that fraction of a second that Solaris was stumbling backwards in confusion, the trap managed to get him.

The world tore like a video game screen before it turned black as all light was suddenly cut out, held in place by the magical fractal mirror that kept light bouncing in place in tighter and tighter spirals keyed to an irrational number.

Blinded, Perry stumbled back, moments before something grabbed his leg.

Paradox kicked the offending limb while concentrating on re-growing his hands with Seraphine’s ouchie corrector at full blast.

Once again, Perry thanked his modern understanding of genetics as his hand exploded back out of the ashen stump, cracking the air as it created a tiny sonic boom.

A moment later, Solaris was on top of him.

Neither of them could see, but Perry knew if he portalled out, Solaris would escape with him, and his entire suite of powers would come back online…so he stayed where he was.

He had to buy enough time. Both to allow his family to escape, and to think of a solution…Which was difficult as the super’s fingers locked around his neck with incalculable strength.

Then things got weird.

“Fuckin’ mimics,” Solaris’s voice seemed to pass through gritted teeth, as the supers hands began to…change, morphing into something else around Perry’s neck.

OH…FUCK!

This wasn’t just a Solaris being crazy problem.

Solaris was dead.

This was an…end of the world sort of thing.

Then why the hell did Mimic Solaris want the mimic test?

Perry’s brain, with its rapidly dwindling oxygen, remembered what Mimic Guile had said. something along the lines of ‘he’s crazy! He’s working against us!’

That wasn’t mimic Guile staying in character.

That was the Mimic trying to tell Perry that their copy of Solaris was working against them because he had severe alzheimers, extreme ambition, and deep-seated suspicion of everyone else.

After they’d assimilated Solaris, very little had changed. If Solaris was going to be a mimic, he’d be King Mimic, and to hell with the Prime mimic.

The test not only revealed who was a mimic. It revealed who wasn’t. with that kind of information, Mimic Solaris could decide who lived and who died. Who was his direct spawn and who wasn’t.

Perry would laugh if he wasn’t getting choked out by an insane mimic with enough power to destroy the planet.

“Everyone’s a mimic, trying to kill me,” Solaris muttered as he squeezed down on Perry’s neck, his growing tentacles seeking Perry’s nose and mouth.

Dragor’s Kinesis.exe.

Perry tried to use the immense gravitational force of the spell to push the morphing hands away from his neck, but the pressure barely lifted.

How is he so STRONG!?

From this short exchange with Solaris, Perry had discovered that the man passed through his enemies to vaporize them, which was why his jaw had impacted against Perry’s ring.

He turns his whole body into a beam of light and passes through his target.

He seems to be able to convert mass directly into energy and then back again.

Is he converting microscopic amounts of internal tissues into energy to buttress his physical strength?

Normally Perry would be impressed by the masterful use of a Catalyst power, but in this case it was choking him out while filling his ears with paranoid ramblings.

“Every. Single. one of you. Even May! Are there even any people left? If there are, you can bet your slimy ass I’ll find them.”

The tentacle found Perry’s nostril and began working it’s way up.

MM, no, nuh-uh. Do not like.

If you can’t overpower them…

Perry turned off the trap.

The lights came back on.

Solaris’s feral scowl was revealed above him, halfway converted into the slavering fangs of a mimic.

The aging super’s expression flickered for a brief moment as he saw the state of his own hands, which had converted into inhuman, spiderlike protrusions wrapped around perry’s neck, with talon-tipped tentacles emerging from his wrists and heading for Perry’s brain.

The irresistible strength faltered.

“Gah!” Perry grunted as he got a foot under Solaris and shoved him up and away, adding power with Dragor’s Kinesis.

The confused super was flung away from him, bursting through the ceiling of the truck and the sound barrier at roughly the same time.

Mark Ten.exe.

In the blink of an eye, the Mark Ten portaled in around him, enclosing Perry in his newest Anti-Solaris armor.

An instant later, Perry was on an express trip to the center of the Earth under a beam of light with Solaris’s snarling face

They passed through layer after layer of rock like so much Styrofoam.

“What did you do to me!?” Solaris shouted, a blistering beam of light disappearing into Perry’s void-colored armor, creating a bubble of gas around them which rapidly cooled into a stone cavern.

“I’m pretty sure a mimic did something to you,” Perry said, shaking off cooled stone flakes from his armor.

“You’d like me to think that, wouldn’t you!?” Solaris shouted.

“…Yes. I would like you to think that,” Perry admitted.

Solaris reached out and scooped a fist-sized chunk of rock from the rapidly cooling bubble around them.

Here it comes. That’s a hell of a lot more than a penny.

“I’m gonna exterminate every single one of you.” Solaris said, his fist tightening around the red-hot stone, causing it to turn orange, then white.

“Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, but…is that going to blow the city up?” Perry asked, motioning to the rock.

“Not if you did your homework,” Solaris murmured, eyes ice cold in the rapidly dimming light of the melted stone bubble.

Solaris disappeared as a beam of nuclear fusion caught Perry in the chest, which was immediately shunted into the 18-wheeler-sized batteries a quarter mile above them.

That didn’t mean 100% of it was captured.

Perry was blown backwards through the softening rock around him before a pair of feet caught him in the back faster than he could process, sending him back up, bursting out of the ground in the middle of an abandoned shopping mall.

He impacted one of the building’s reinforced support struts and came to a halt between two rows of women’s clothing.

Perry coughed.

Ow.

As far as defense was concerned, Perry could (barely) make something durable enough to withstand a few shots from Solaris…but hitting something that moved at the speed of light was still a challenge.

Forget about dodging.

Perry glanced over at the rack of women’s blouses.

Oh, hey, it’s Heather’s brand.Good for her.

Forced Vacation.exe complete.

In the few seconds they’d been fighting, Perry’s family had gotten off Earth.

Goal #1 complete.

Goal #2: Don’t Die.

Solaris flickered into existence above him.

It’s a stretch goal.

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