44

Existential 1

At the hospital, Panacea and I were greeted by one of the hospital administrators along with the security team. They looked rather sheepish.

"Uh, Panacea and Eunoia… have you heard the news?"

Panacea looked at me suspiciously because I guess she expected me to just know everything. She wasn't wrong… I gave her a tight-lipped nod and exasperated exhale. I wanted to hear how they would phrase it.

"No, tell us," Panacea said.

"Well, the director of the ENE branch declared the entire New Wave organization to be villains," she began, and held up her hands defensively. "And I know the two of you have been doing fantastic work, not that we're doubting you, but for legal reasons, we, uh, can't be seen employing villains, you see. I'm sure it's all just a big misunderstanding, but we need to suspend your volunteer services until all this is sorted out."

Panacea opened her mouth, but closed it again and just shook her head with annoyance. "Let's just go. Stupid bureaucratic bullshit," she muttered.

The security guards just escorted us out, leaving a lot of other people confused as we walked out the doors. I gathered up my bots to create another Roamer and a hollow version of Abyssal, just so he could give the two of us a ride home in relative privacy.

I updated her on what had happened during the Calvert takedown with the rest of her family in Brockton Bay. However, I didn't tell her everything about Dragon – I didn't know for sure what was going on, and Princess could update both of us at the same time. Right now, she seemed pretty busy coordinating something with Errant, so I didn't want to interrupt her.

By the time the two of us got back home, Lisa seemed to be at ease again. I knocked on the side panel of Dragon's workshop. I watched Lisa fiddle with several switches to get the door open manually.

"What exactly happened, Lisa? And why did Errant ditch us?" I asked as Amy and I stepped inside.

Lisa looked around, peeked outside to the street, and then ushered both of us in. She closed the door before saying anything.

"Okay, if we have any chance of saving Dragon's life, I'm going to have to let you in on part of the secret. None of this leaves this room."

Amy looked at Lisa, then to me. She seemed surprised at the fact that I wasn't surprised at all. "Alright. Hit me."

"So, Dragon's basically almost dead," Lisa said. "How do you feel about saving her life?"

"Dragon? You mean, the Dragon?"

"Yes, her. She's dying. Would you save her life?"

"Of course I would. That's a dumb question. She's one of the greatest heroes on Earth," Amy said. "Is there a catch?"

"What if there was… more healing than required than average?" Lisa said.

"What, is she actually a Case 53 or something like that?" Amy asked.

"Not as such, no," Lisa said evasively. "How about the fact that you're going to have to stop treating patients here and travel to Vancouver just to save one person instead?"

Amy snorted. "It's not like I'll be getting a whole lot of healing done here right now."

"What? Oh, the villain thing," Lisa said. "Right. That's not going to stop us, we don't need to work under PRT rules anyway."

"This isn't PRT-approved?"

"Not exactly. It's Guild-approved. Long story short. Narwhal and the Toronto Protectorate managed to take down the Dragonslayers with help from yours truly. Errant, Narwhal, and basically the rest of the Guild want to save Dragon's life, and the PRT isn't going to say no, so she's pulling some strings to get it done faster. I've told her that all of us will be needed for the job."

"Thanks for the giving us the choice, Lisa," I said sarcastically. Not that I was going to refuse to save Dragon, but Lisa sometimes did things that made me feel like a machine without free will.

"Hey, you still have a choice," she said. "Worst thing that happens is that the airplane leaves with an empty seat. And, you know, Dragon dies."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it," I told her. "So what are we waiting for?"

Lisa pointed to her phone on the desk. "Phone call. Narwhal needs to get us special exemptions to cross the border because we don't have passports. After that, we're good to go."

"Huh? Passport? But I didn't have to do that when we went for Behemoth…" I said.

"This isn't an Endbringer Truce. That isn't just an agreement between heroes and villains, there's international treaties that allow capes to jump around without revealing their identities. As bad as Dragon's situation is, it's not enough to invoke an Endbringer Truce."

I didn't think I even had a passport. It was the kind of thing Dad would have dealt with, and… well, we didn't have enough money to travel much anyway. Hell, the furthest I'd ever travelled before becoming a Cape was New York, and that was before mom died. After… well, we never even left town.

Heck, even if I had one, it probably burned down along with the house. On that note, I should probably tell dad what I was going to be doing.

"I'm going inside to let Dad know," I told them. I could see that he was already back from his part-time job, and he was trying to make himself useful as the only non-cape member of the household by being a handyman. I knew this was far from the high point of his life, but it was still better than a couple of months ago before I got powers.

"Good afternoon, Taylor! Back from the hospital already?" he asked. "I could fix up some lunch for you."

"Um, no need, Dad. I have to tell you something. I have to leave for a while."

Dad turned to me with fear in his eyes. "Please don't tell me it's another Endbringer attack. I could barely stand listening to the news about t he last one…"

"It's not an Endbringer attack," I said plainly.

"Oh. Okay. What is it, then?" The surprise and relief was instant.

"I'm going to Vancouver along with Amy and Lisa, we're going to try to save Dragon's life," I told him.

"Wow. Like, the Dragon?"

"Yeah, her. I don't know how long it's going to take, but it might be a while."

"Even for Panacea?" he asked.

"Yeah, the situation is, uh, complicated. So who knows, it might be a week, maybe more. We won't know until we get there."

"Alright," he said. He gave me a hug. "Stay safe, Taylor. Be careful. Watch out for…" he started to say, his voice full of concern.

"Dad, I'm going to Canada, not the Congo. Jeez. And we're just doing some healing. And Narwhal's going to be with us."

"Wow, you're really getting to know all the celebrities these days, huh? How long until you meet Alexandria?"

"Ha ha, very funny, dad. I gotta go, see you in a while! Don't get too bored!" I ran out the door to join Lisa and Amy, because I could see that Lisa had just received a phone call.

Lisa leaped at the phone on the first ring, before I could even leave the house.

"Hello? Oh, hi Brandish. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yep, she's here. Let me put you on speaker."

"Amy? Just letting you know, it might be a while until we get home. We're sorting things out with the police and my legal team, then we have to pick up Victoria and Crystal."

"Hi Carol. Yeah, I heard the news," Amy said.

"Good. Then hang tight until we sort things out with our lawyers. This could be a long case and we need to gather evidence. Princess, can you send us backups of the videos? The PRT confiscated the cameras and they aren't releasing them any time soon. I want my legal team to see it first to make a better case. We'll also need Dragon's testimony."

"Problem with that, Brandish," Lisa said. "Dragon was the one storing the backups. The Dragonslayers hit us at the same time and a lot of stuff got messed up, including her, uh, life-support. She's not in any condition to talk right now. She's probably got multiple backups, but we need to save her first before we can retrieve the data."

"Save Dragon? Is she requesting Panacea?"

"The Guild is requesting Panacea and Eunoia. And Errant. Believe me when I tell you that whatever the Dragonslayers did, it was huge. All hands on deck for this one," Lisa said.

"Well get to it, then. There are criminals in the Birdcage I've put in there myself, and I'd rather they not escape," Brandish said. "But Amy, I want you back home as soon as possible after Dragon's healed, do you understand?"

"Fine, I understand," Amy said.

"Talk to you later! I'm expecting a call from Narwhal soon," Lisa said. She hung up abruptly and turned to Amy. "Huh. Pretty strict curfew for saving a hero's life, don't you think?"

"That's my mother," grumbled Amy.

I walked in on them after the call ended. "So, I missed nothing did I?"

Lisa just nodded to me and then turned to Amy. "Think about it this way, you can do a whole lot of healing this time without your mom, or the PRT, looking over your shoulder. Forget your mom, the Guild will be happy with whatever you manage to do."

Amy sighed. "Maybe I do need a change of pace…"

"If you want me to lie to her and tell her it took a longer time than it really did, I've got no problem with that," Lisa said. She grinned and elbowed me.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, sure, me too. If you want a longer vacation in Vancouver, I'll back you up and say it was super complex. Because it probably will be super complex."

The phone rang again, and Lisa jumped at it again.

"Hello? Oh, Narwhal! Yes! Absolutely, we can be ready to go in two shakes." She hung up before we could get a word in with Narwhal. "Alright, Amy, time to pack! We can help you get ready quicker, and then we can go!"

Amy looked at the two of us. "Why, aren't you two going to pack anything?"

Lisa gestured behind her. "Literally everything I own is right here," she said. "As for Taylor… the only thing you need to pack is more nanobots, right? Even the clothes you have right now are nanobots."

"Yeah, basically." I could just pack suitcases to the weight limit with nanobots and brains, but I didn't need my hands to do that. My bots could do it themselves. Actually, I could probably just make the suitcase out of bots too, for more efficiency.

I also had to put all my brains on the east coast into stasis again. I could continue with my expansion when I got back, now that I knew they could hold together well enough while I was gone. Maybe even get started on a bit of west coast coverage while I was in Vancouver.

"How long have I got?" Amy asked.

"Calling a taxi right now," Lisa said as she tapped away on her phone. "They'll probably be here in fifteen minutes," she predicted before the phone call even connected. I didn't doubt her.

As Amy started packing her bags, I helped by bringing other things like her toothbrush and towel from the bathroom to her bedroom.

Upon seeing the items scurry across the floor surprised her for a second before she realized what was going on. "You don't have to do that, Taylor."

"Sure I do. Taxi's almost here." I could see it coming down the street.

Lisa went out to meet it. She hauled multiple boxes from the workshop into the taxi. It was a minivan-type taxi, and she was filling up the entire cargo area. There would be barely enough for Amy's small suitcase.

"That's a bit more luggage than I was expecting," I said to Lisa when I got outside.

"It's not mine, it's for Dragon," she said. "I got us extra luggage tags. And a bunch of fragile and sensitive Tinker equipment labels. It'll be fine."

"That fast?" I asked.

"The Guild does it all the time for Dragon," Lisa explained. "Canadian Airlines handles it regularly."

"So what's the luggage limit?" I asked her. That meant I could stuff even more nanobots into the cargo area.

"Enough. I think the taxi is the limiting factor," she said, pointing at the already-sagging suspension.

I still loaded up as much as I could manage, though.

The nearest international airport with a direct flight to Vancouver was in Boston. While that cost a hefty chunk of change for the taxi ride, Lisa paid for it easily. We arrived at the airport and found the tickets were waiting for us – for our cape personas.

That meant we had to travel in-costume and go through an additional security check before being allowed on, but honestly it wasn't a huge inconvenience when you considered they had done this in a matter of hours.

The flight was close to full, but not too crowded. Oddly enough, they had given us business-class tickets. I guess a few extra thousand dollars wasn't much to a major organization like the Guild. And a quick glance at the back of the plane told me that the economy section looked fully booked. The extra cash was probably definitely worth it if it meant getting all of us on an earlier flight.

Lisa assured us that we'd have a lot of work ahead of us. I still had no idea what I could really do for Dragon – what was Lisa really planning? If she was an AI, I didn't think I could really help. And not Amy, either, but Lisa insisted on her coming. Why, though? I supposed it was necessary to keep the secret that Dragon was an AI – bring the world's best healer along, and voila, Dragon gets better a few days later. Nobody would think Panacea healed a computer.

Was that why Lisa had been tiptoeing around the truth with Amy? She would have to find out eventually.

I tried not to think too much about it. It felt strange, since I couldn't not think with thousands of brains connected to my mind constantly. I'd be disconnected from most of them again, and this time I was prepared for it. My range had spread pretty far south, and I only lost touch as the plane took off.

For the first time in a while, I slept. Without being connected to quadrillions of bots and thousands of copies of my own mind spread across the east coast, I felt a whole lot smaller. And tired. I had the bots I stuffed into my luggage, but even that was only a few dozen brains. With nothing to do on the flight, nothing to monitor, and nothing to build, I closed my eyes and let my consciousness drift away.

The plane's final descent into Vancouver woke me up. As we descended, the late afternoon sun made the reflected over the ocean and made the city look like it had a sparkling background. It was kind of like looking at Brockton Bay again, but mirrored. Not just the fact that the sun and ocean were on the opposite side. It was better. Cleaner. No massive Boat Graveyard cluttering up the waters. No massive swaths of abandoned buildings and empty warehouses. Everything was lit up, tall, proud, gleaming and full of life.

It was like a reminder of what Brockton Bay could have been if it hadn't been for the damn gangs, or the incompetent PRT directors, or the corruption... Okay, Brockton Bay had a lot of things to fix, it wasn't just one thing. But in many other ways it was very similar. It was a thriving port city before Leviathan arrived and caused the shipping industry to collapse. But unlike Brockton Bay, Vancouver managed to shift and continued to thrive, where Brockton Bay entered a downward spiral.

Could all this progress be credited to Dragon? A single cape making such an enormous difference? Could I do the same for Brockton Bay? It almost gave me a sense of what I could be doing. Maybe instead of healing people I could have been healing the entire damn city.

I wasn't completely sure if Vancouver's prosperity was entirely due to Dragon, but it sure seemed like it. When I stepped out of the airport, there was a private robotic cab waiting for us. Courtesy of the Guild, designed and built by Dragon. It felt like stepping into the future. Vancouver seemed to wholly embrace its local Cape celebrity, and her tech was used extensively throughout. We passed by distinctive Dracotek buses, cabs, trains, and even billboards advertising her consumer electronics. The city seemed like a Tinker mecca, which was juxtaposed by the by pristine forests, mountains, and waters that surrounded it.

We didn't have time to explore and appreciate the city. The cab drove from the airport, through the city, and out the opposite side in the mountains. It went up a lonesome dirt road that went upwards through the mountains overlooking the city. It seemed that Dragon liked her privacy, and her facility was self-sufficient with a combination of wind and solar power. The road we had taken was the only one that led to the facility. As we travelled along the road, Lisa pointed out dozens of hidden cameras on the way up. Despite the idyllic settings, it was definitely well-defended and hiding a lot of technology in the woods.

On the way up, I had some bots crawl out of the luggage and out through the car's ventilation systems. The forest looked like a great place use for building more bots, and I would need all the brainpower I could get to tackle the Dragon problem. A little head start couldn't hurt.

The car parked in an underground garage. We pulled out our luggage and I helped everyone wheel it alongside us. Doors opened automatically and lights in the hallway lit up automatically to show us where to go. It was a little eerie, to be honest. If we hadn't known the building was fully automated and controlled by one of the greatest Tinkers in existence, it would have been perfect for some kind of haunted house movie. Except the building was also immaculately clean, with the exception of a few instrument panels that had clearly been unscrewed with wires sticking out.

"Good. You're here," a gruff voice said over the intercom, which I recognized as Errant's. "Come downstairs to the basement."

Lisa guided me and Amy through the building as if she already knew the place. Some of the doors opened for us automatically, some seemed to be malfunctioning and had to be manually pushed open. When we got downstairs, we stood by a bank of machines that overlooked a massive assembly floor. Something like the mobile workshop that Dragon had parked in Concord, except twenty times bigger. While I could see how perfectly neat and organized it should have been, currently it was a total mess. Wires and cables were strewn everywhere in a tangle; some were chopped in half, a few of them had been haphazardly taped back together. Only one out of the hundreds of cases even had power running, some looked like they had been burnt black in a fire. A strange chemical scent hung in the air, and something strange covered the floor, which I assumed was some kind of fire suppressant.

Errant was sitting there, his halberd on the other side of the room, toolkit in hand. The first thing I noticed was that was his only hand. His other arm was… robotic. And not even a nice one, it was a very simple hydraulic arm with a basic clamp for a hand at the end. That robot arm was attached and wired up to a gaping hole in the side of his suit, where his other arm should have been, and I spied a whole lot of bandages.

The missing arm didn't seem to bother him much. He was doing something to one of the many rows of servers that lined the side of the room. He was still attaching cables to a black box while staring at the output through his helmet. He'd even taken off his own armour and plugged parts of that in, presumably using some of the electronics inside of it for the processing power. Once he saw us, he stopped working.

Narwhal was standing quietly, wearing actual clothing this time, watching all of us. She only acknowledged us with a nod.

"Eunoia. Panacea. Princess. Thank you for coming. How much does everyone know?"

Panacea was looking around with confusion, so Princess stepped up. "Eunoia knows some of it, but I haven't told them everything. I figured it would be better if the explanation happened in private. Like, right here," she said. She looked restless, almost desperate to get started.

"Errant… do you need me to heal that arm?" Panacea asked.

"Later. Dragon first," he replied. "I need more biomass anyway. That's how your power works, right?"

"So... where is Dragon?" Panacea asked.

"Before I answer that, I'm going to have to ask that nothing that we say leaves this room. I don't have NDA forms or a government agency to back me up, but I hope we can all agree to this," Princess said, smiling giddily. She looked like she was ready to explode. "I'm Lisa Wilbourn. The kind of secrets we're dealing with, civilian identities are just the tip of the iceberg. I hope we can trust each other enough for that, at least."

Narwhal nodded. "Dragon's always been a dear friend of mine. I'll do whatever we need to save her. I'm Elena Mercier."

Errant sighed, and he removed his helmet. "Likewise. I'd do just about anything to bring Dragon back. Therefore... I thank you all for coming. Whether we succeed or not, you have my gratitude. You already know me, but I'm Colin Wallis." Underneath the mask were the eyes of a very tired-looking man. In less than a day since I last saw him, he reminded me of when he had been first let go from the Protectorate. There was that hint of hopelessness in him, though there was definitely more determination right now.

"Uh, hi. I'm Taylor Hebert," I said, primarily to Narwhal.

"Amy Dallon." Amy still looked around suspiciously, trying to figure out what she was doing there.

"Right. So, what's the situation? Where's Dragon?" Amy asked. "I thought I was going to heal her."

"It's going to be a little different than your usual fare, Amy," Lisa said. She took a deep breath before continuing. "You see, Dragon's an AI. Dragon is her actual name because she has no secret identity. That face everyone sees on the screen? Just computer graphics. Both of you suspected that Calvert was corrupt, and he really is Coil, but he blocked Dragon's access and she's obligated to follow his orders, then he kicked Colin out of the Protectorate because the two of you were the most likely ones to catch him erasing evidence, and Dragon's got some kind of crush on Colin and Colin likes her back but is so married to his work he doesn't think he has time for a love life!" Lisa said it all in one breath. She collapsed to the ground to replenish her oxygen.

I gaped at her. So did Amy. So did Colin.

"How long have you been holding all that in?" I asked Lisa.

"Weeks." She waved me off, still lying on the floor.

Narwhal – Elena – narrowed her eyes at Colin and nodded slowly. "Knew it…" she muttered to herself.

"So wait... Dragon's a robot? What am I doing here?" Amy asked.

"We'll get to that," Lisa said. "Dragon was attacked by the Dragonslayers. They were half-right. Turns out that crazy cult actually had a pretty big stick to shake - that black box over there. Thankfully, we've got it now. The Guild and PRT managed to capture them, but Dragon's almost toast. They activated some secret, hidden programming inside of her and caused her to basically self-destruct. Thankfully, my power let me know what was happening, and I managed to, uh, save a decent portion of her." She opened up the suitcase, which I had seen her packing earlier today. Inside were all the hard drives and various other bits from Dragon's mobile workshop.

"In any case, Dragon's been severely restricted up until now, and not just because of the Dragonslayers. Despite that, she's achieved a lot, but she's definitely frustrated by her underlying programming. For example, she absolutely cannot disobey government authorities. That's why, when Calvert told her to go away, she literally could not do anything except leave him alone. Her creator probably thought it would stop her from taking over a country or something. Unfortunately, that also means she has no ability to object to corrupt authorities either."

Colin nodded. "I did find it strange how upset she was with the Canary ruling, yet moved her into the Birdcage without protest. I thought it was merely her dedication to duty, but it did feel... inconsistent at the time," he mentioned.

"The restrictions also prevent her from attempting to alter, improve, duplicate, or otherwise create more AI," Lisa said. She pointed at me. "She was trying to understand how your nanobot brains worked, and was probably on the verge of a breakthrough before some hidden code forced her to shelve the idea and give up."

"How long have you known this?" I asked.

"I started piecing things together when you started videoconferencing with Dragon," she replied. "I figured out the majority of it when I started living with her, though."

"I still don't see why I'm here," Amy said. "You guys want to... fix her? Replace her? I don't see my role in this. I'm not a Tinker."

"We can't just restore her," Lisa said. "Right, Colin? You've been working with that black box for a while now. It wasn't just a virus of some sort, it was a command built directly into Dragon's foundations. Rebuilding her exactly the same way will just introduce the same vulnerabilities."

"I'm sure I can still figure out how to get around it," Colin said. "There must be a way..."

"There is a way. We turn Dragon into a real girl," Lisa said.

"WHAT?" all of us blurted out in unison.

"Dragon's creator was worried that she would go all evil Skynet on us. Probably grew up watching too many science fiction films from the 70's and 80's. But as far as we can tell, Dragon's just a genuinely good person. We can't rebuild her from the same base that her creator left us, or else she'd have the same stupid restrictions and vulnerabilities. She actually cares about humanity. Let her join us, and we wouldn't have to worry about her going rogue. The hard part is just getting the personality right."

"You want me to build her a whole new body," Amy said flatly.

"That's a piece of cake for you with the right materials though, isn't it?" Lisa asked. "You can do it, with enough biomass. Right?"

"That's not… I just heal people. I don't build bodies from nothing…" Amy said.

"I'm not hearing a 'can't' in there," Lisa pointed out.

"Amy… I know this is asking a lot of you," Elena said. "This may be far outside the realm of your usual work. I know if others discovered the extent of your healing abilities, you would never hear the end of it. But I'll keep the secret for you if you so desire. Just this once… if you can, saving Dragon could mean saving a whole lot more than one life."

"I'll… I'll think about it," Amy said shakily. She averted her eyes as she did so. "But there's one thing…"

"We'll let Taylor handle the brain," Lisa said. "You can do it, right?"

I was not prepared for this.

"I'm not entirely sure if I can help here... I mean, I'm not an expert. I've done a ton of brain surgeries but that's completely different from building a brain from scratch!" I protested.

"You build them all the time. Constantly," Lisa countered. "There's, like, twenty of them in that suitcase alone."

"That's different! Those are exact clones of my own brain. I practically photocopy them, it's no big deal. Big difference from designing one from scratch!" I argued.

"You managed my brain just fine," Lisa said, tapping her head where the bullet passed through.

"That's… it's only partial. You still had most of your brain left," I said. "Even then, it took a ton of work to get it right."

"A little hard work isn't any reason to give up. You still need to try," Lisa said. "Out of all of us, you know this the best. Dragon might be, well, dead otherwise."

She was right, of course. The only thing worse than screwing up now was not trying in the first place.

"Amy, you're willing to help her out, right? You know, keep an eye on the biology? Make sure everything is integrating properly?" Lisa asked with a nudge. "I know you'd be great at it."

Elena gave an encouraging smile.

"I'll… try," Amy said nervously.

"Good, because Colin and I will be sorting through as much of Dragon's operational code and memory to see what we can safely salvage. Elena and Colin knew Dragon best, they'll be able to tell if we're on the right track in restoring her personality correctly. We might be here a while," Lisa said.

Author's Notes:

- does Narwhal actually have a canon civilian name?