[Worm — 04.01.2011 — Tuesday]
It took me about half an hour to fully accept what was going on.Sudden waking in an unfamiliar bed and apartment?An old CRT TV with local news about parahumans?A selective loss of memories, about family, friends, and familiar places, but nothing else?All of this could still be explained by a sophisticated experiment.But a definitely younger body, along with a floating interactive interface in front of me?"If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. I'm in the fucking Worm," I muttered, looking at the window with a view of the dirty street. Mercifully for my stressed ass, without any noticeable gang graffiti.Soon, I turned away and began to examine my new apartment again, now paying attention to the small details.My "new home" consisted of one small room — with a bed, a table, a TV stand with an old TV on it, and one wardrobe — a small kitchen, a bathroom, and a hallway. All with quite old but clean and well-maintained furniture, and an absolute minimum of electronics: TV, refrigerator, microwave, and nothing else.Inside the TV stand drawer, I found a pencil and a notepad, where I began writing down items found in the apartment and important facts.The most interesting discovery, of course, was a passport and driver's license in the name of Max Wade, a 20-year-old European-looking man. And a rental agreement for the apartment, paid for until February 4th, 2011. Exactly for one month.'I'll have to ask the landlord how the rental process happened,' I thought and wrote it down in a notepad, despite being highly skeptical about such inquiries. But who knows what Easter Eggs were left behind for multidimensional entities' amusement.Among the other things that clearly belonged to me, I found a decent-quality winter outerwear set, and things that at first I mistook for four mint candy rolls, but after further inspection turned out to be plastic packages filled with 25-dollar coins. A total of 1000 dollars.Everything else in the apartment was at the bare minimum of household items and appliances. Including an absolutely empty and turned-off refrigerator.'Not a lot, but at the same time "almost everything" relative to the classic dirty alley and empty pockets,' I thought, and sighed.'Yes! No flying quasi-angel or burning chunks of the Moon outside the window. No sudden screech of Squealer's isekai-wagon. Not even gunfire! It's almost the same as waking up in Gotham, but at the wall of Wayne Manor!' I tried to suppress my rising panic by even more optimistic arguments, and lowered my eyes to the bottom of the notepad page, with the string "7:45 AM. January 4th, 2011. Tuesday."'Almost certainly, exactly one day after Taylor's trigger... The "locker question" solved itself.'Not that the "locker question" was really a question.Both because of the connection to the fate of literally trillions of human lives. And because of Taylor's very obvious answer to the question: "Hey, would you rather get superpowers after a few hours of suffering, or do you want to continue being a nobody?"Her goal-oriented, responsible mindset wouldn't have allowed her to choose anything other than the "most righteous" option.Which, in many ways, was tragically wrong... but this is fucking Worm, "tragically wrong" is the essence of the setting.I lowered my eyes to the very bottom of the notepad page to the address of my apartment and the name of the city.'Hickory Street 19. Brockton Bay.1.5 months until Simurgh.4.5 months until Leviathan.According to canon, 2 years of relative safety until Golden Morning.Of course, very soon my existence will butterfly away a lot of things. But this doesn't mean that such changes will necessarily be fast and radical. After all, aside from what could change, there are plenty of things that resist change, or that just cannot be quickly changed.People's characters, personal beliefs, and goals; cultural, economic, political, long-term plans and inertia. Such a stabilizing force as Contessa.Especially Contessa. Who ensured that in the near future, existential risks will be limited to "just":
Simurgh's attack on Brockton Bay instead of Canberra.
Contessa's blunder related to the absorption of Eidolon by Echidna, with risk of subsequent absorption of Panacea and/or Butcher.
Contessa's blunder related to the unscheduled Jack Slash's meeting with Scion.
And, of course, the risk of just an accidental Contessa's fuckup.Why did she allow the Hero's death?Perhaps 10 seconds before the Siberian's jump, there was another trigger nearby; perhaps because of the light reflections off of Eidolon's shiny ass; perhaps during the jump she just slept or was named or following "Patch to hug teddy bear"; perhaps at that time her inaction was indeed the best way for victory over Scion, but only just for that one hour.Path to Victory isn't a real "path to victory," it's just the name of a powerful but still very imperfect superpower in the hands of an imperfect human.Even so, Fedora Mom may cause frustration for readers. But from the perspective of a transmigrator?Her existence is a HUGE, Astronomican-sized, emotional relief.She is essentially the main reason why such a volatile setting as Worm can function as the most popular fanfiction sandbox, despite having somewhere around 500,000 agents of conflict and chaos.Just how many times Coil, Echidna, Butcher, PRT should have used Panacea's potential, but instead — somehow realistically from a Doylist and Watsonian/multiverse perspective — received from The Path only shiny Idiot Balls?'⸻⸻x⸻⸻After finishing the survey of my humble surroundings and rationalizing my short-term survival, I willed the interface I intuitively knew how to summon to open, and, for the second time, inspected the list of my golden fingers.Each has its own explanatory tooltip that appears when I concentrate on it.
Home Universe:
Worm (moderate fanon).
Derail: unpowered Oliver.
Merge: Mass Effect (first contact in 2013).
Powers:
[Inspired Inventor]
Available charges: [ 5 ]
Charges per week: 5
[Gates]
Active gates: -
Material relocation: [ 1 ] kg per day
In Worm and other universes, all female Named Characters are ≥18 years old.
[ID]
[Adaptive Blank]
[Mental Barrier]
Inspired Inventor
My main golden finger was an Inspired Inventor. The ability to purchase any field of knowledge or its branches. Hard science ones, like "biology," or from any fiction universes, including about magic, which my munchkin's reflexes checked first.However, unlike the original superpower, mine was a watered-down version of it:
Every Monday in Worm universe, and only there, I receive 5 charges.
All knowledge is divided into tiers. The wider and more complex the field of knowledge, the more tiers it has, each costing twice as much charges as the previous one: 1, 2, 4, and so on.
Knowledge can only be purchased if I already have a significant portion of the corresponding fundamental knowledge. So no, I cannot just buy the first level of "Necron Tech" and gain an understanding of dozens of fields, from material science to cosmology. But this harsh limitation is softened by the ability to purchase individual subcategories. Like "Necron Tech: Gauss Weapons" or "Marvel Comics: Erskine's Super Soldier Serum formula."
Purchased knowledge only gives me knowledge, not anything else. In other words, the more unconventional the purchased knowledge, the higher the chance that it wouldn't work due to the absence in my universe of the necessary physical laws, energies, or resources it needs to function. Yep, with all the inherent implications... which right now I didn't even dare to think about.
And for some sick — I mean, entertainment, dear R.O.B. benefactors! — reasons, no, I cannot just purchase "Anti-Entities," "Anti-Endbringers," "Shards," "Reapers" technologies.
Gates
My second golden finger was an extremely restricted version of Kaleidoscope.
From different resources and scraps, I can create Gates to other worlds. The lower the danger level of the world, and the better the materials - the easier it is to create a Gate.
The total time I can spend visiting other worlds can't exceed the time I've spent in Worm world.
In inactive worlds, I can freeze time or speed it up by up to 2 times.
Exiting a universe is possible from any place, but it requires 5 minutes of inactivity.
There are three entry-point possibilities: the starting location, the last exit location, and the option to create one of my own "internal Gate."
Sounds cool, right? Just let's go into the Xenaverse, drink Ambrosia, then grab Aladdin's lamp, the Omnitrix, Keyblade, and so on, and Win the Multiverse!Well... no.
All available to me universes are "derail" ones - universes where something already went differently, or soon will go differently. Not necessarily wrong, but still making the canonical timeline — typically the best possible timeline, or at least a bittersweet one — impossible. Fortunately, Gates superpower will let me know the derail information when I first visit that universe.
Each universe has a color indicator that shows its "current state" (mix of Name Characters and environment metrics) relative to what it would be without my interference:
The Red state means that things are worse and gives random inconvenient effects upon the Gates use.
The Yellow state indicates that the situation is unstable.
The Green state indicates that everything is better than it should be. And gives me the possibility of relocating a little bit of stuff from that universe.
Overall, between universes, I can relocate only:
Things I brought from Worm universe.
"A total of 1 kg of raw unenergized resources per day." Yeah, from all universes and perhaps just simple things like fossils or chemical elements. Also, only if such resources are compatible with Worm universe's physical laws.
When I return from a universe, on the other side of a gate, all the acquired empowerments just do POOF! and I revert to my entering capabilities.
I had two theories about why the apparent "past me" chose such Gates in apparent CYOA.
The first theory was obviously about its good synergy with the Inspired Inventor.
1 kg of gold per day from the Walking Dead universe; or 1 kg of raw naquadah per day from the Stargate-verse is a Great Deal.
Possibility of having a stable supply of any pure resources for tinkering, and with almost instantaneous delivery, also very convenient additions to any tinker powers.
Twice as much time for experiments is also nothing to sneeze at.
Access to expert analysis from all sorts of geniuses. Potentially, even in the form of mail correspondence between them, and with abuse of time-stops and x2 time speed-ups!
Enormous potential to save on Inspired Inventor charges. Why buy a knowledge branch for the sake of one technology, when I can just create a portal and study the corresponding materials, blueprints, DNA, and so on, by myself? For example, about NZT-48 super nootropic.
A backup plan in case of Flechette and Marsh deaths, and impossibility of reverse-engineering of Hero's Stilling - opportunity to travel to another version of Worm universe.
And that was just what I could come up with, no more than an hour after transmigration! A lot of not game-changing, but still very useful possibilities.The second theory I derived from the profile's line "In Worm and other universes all female Named Characters are ≥18 years old."Water can be moved in many ways, but the most natural method is through gravity.A similar gravitational pull for male attention toward strangers is sexual interest.Now, humans are social animals and have many motivations for social contact: curiosity, empathy, habit, hierarchical self-assertion, control, and responsibility. Companionship and mutual cooperation, including at its highest form of ideal Love: hormonally-motivated friendship with maximal mutual understanding and synergy, up to a sort of "two-character RPG party."However, from an anthropological perspective—Since the times when sexual desire became a primary factor of hominin survival on the savanna (by motivating males to more often feed females and offspring, who had lost easy access to foliage), evolutionary trait, and driver of social development.—almost all social motivators were derived from sexual and parental instincts.It's no coincidence that in myths, fairy tales, and popular stories, men most often risk their lives exactly for the sake of beautiful women. Or that SFW content, especially songs, is overflowing with romantic narratives. Or that the most popular characters in fiction, specifically in death worlds settings, Worm included, are young people with absurd health and "genetic potential."No, it's not a coincidence, nor some genre quirk, or even a cultural trait. But the first and primary function of socialization itself. And, sort of, the meaning of life: the search for the most promising mate for procreation, and the typical but optional subsequent mental and physical bonding.Almost everything else, except for things related to survival, comes after that.Especially things created by human imagination and for human imagination. Which, despite the much greater processing power of the neocortex, rarely receive full feedback from the real depths of human subconsciousness and nature. One of the biggest losers of the 20th century, Citizen Kane, can reaffirm."Past me" probably asked himself: "What compensation could there possibly be for the loss of personal memory and comfort, and imprisonment in such a shithole as Worm universe?"And almost certainly, answered: "The one and only thing that could help satisfy all levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, most efficiently soothes stress, and fills up postmodern existential voids."And if so, he was fully right.Right now, my transmigration experience has come down to one fundamental question: "FOR WHAT?!"Which — outside typical shortsighted miscalculations about: importance of consciousness relatively to subconscious; abstract gains and potentials; consequences of atypical power balances; role of powerful and consistent stressors — had only two natural and solid answers.And I was smart enough not to make the full bet on the second answer. Repeat the path that rose and fell the greatest hunters, traders, clans and cults leaders, generals, emperors, CEO, politicians, ideologists, and so on.Even non-empowered and non-immortal people rarely withstand losing reasons for empathy in favor of the most efficient, systematic, survivalistic approach and its mythos. And I was not so arrogant as to think that I would succeed in much more detrimental circumstances.Anyway. Whatever my "past self" planned about Gates, all this could become relevant only after many weeks from now.The Gates power gave me a sense of material value. And according to the pings I received from the surrounding items, even the simplest Gates required many thousands of dollars' worth of materials and machine tools.
Localization
My third superpower was capable of:
Giving knowledge of local languages.
Giving control over cosmetic changes to better resemble locals and over fertility.
Lowering attention to unusual clothing and mannerisms.
Retroactively creating a legal identity and documents for each new universe I will visit. Including a driver's license and basic knowledge of local means of transportation.
Where it was logically possible, of course.
Adaptive Blank
The Classic Blank was a passive protection against precogs. But not sense thinkers.My Adaptive Blank was a much more universal active version of it. Capable of automatically analyzing threats and feeding them the most advantageous for me information.My past self perhaps chose it as protection from the typical Worm fanfiction situations where Blank's interference with Coil's, Contessa's, and Tattletale's powers not so much protects against them as, on the contrary, attracts their attention...Adaptive Blank... Tattletale...I took a notepad and made a note for the future:
"IMPORTANT! Create a one-time PHO account. Write to Tattletale that people didn't domesticate foxes and very rarely take them as pets because they constantly whine, gnaw on everything, and have unbearably smelly urine. IMPORTANT!
Expand "The Zelretch's training course" project.
Analyze the similarities between potential anti-R.O.B.otification measures, popular in fiction R.O.B. archetypes, and their need for "Entertainment". Stabilizer? Optimal evolutionary path? Nash Equilibrium for sub-personalities and their motivations? Something else?
Analyze and plan ratios for "fun" and other motivations and needs. Mixing? Separation of vectors? Delegation? How do you kill a dragon without becoming one?"
Anyway. Despite the obvious enormous usefulness against Tattletale and Coil, the description of Adaptive Blank revealed an even greater boon - spreading of its effect to everything I will create.Thus, removing the risk that after the creation of the first molecules of something useful against Scion, I would be met with flying-out-of-a-portal bullets (C). Or with classical for fanfiction Eidolon's temper tantrum about "another blind spot."
Mental Barrier
My fifth superpower was the same classic as Blank - a defense against any form of mind control.
Drawbacks
In addition to that very nice set of golden fingers, my profile also contained two obvious drawbacks associated with my new "home universe."The first drawback was "Derail: unpowered Oliver." And gave me conflicting feelings.Yeah, the fact that the canonical way to defeat Scion is impossible was distressing. But wasn't the creation of the "Balance vial" rather simple for Cauldron?The second drawback - "Merge: Mass Effect (first contact in 2013)," was also rather bizarre.On the one hand, it essentially gave me two full years to create the Pluto planetary defense near the Charon Relay. Task with relatively reasonable complexity.On the other hand, planetary defense against WHAT?According to my knowledge of Mass Effect lore, first contact occurred sometime in the 2150s in a completely different solar system. So, who exactly will visit my solar system?An exploration probe? A few pirate corvettes? A fleet of Batarian slavers? Reapers? Which is very unlikely, but still theoretically possible.Also, what about OTHER Entities and their potential access to the Citadel and intergalactic Internet? What about their possible cooperation with Reapers?These were terrifying possibilities.Despite such cons, there were also some pros: the existence in my universe of Element Zero and, with it, FTL travel, Biotics science-magic, and a lot of very useful human technologies, although largely functioning via nanites, to which the local authorities had... some prejudices.In other words, theoretically, I had two relatively mild drawbacks. But only theoretically. When in reality, the second drawback, de facto, pushed me to solve the "Scion problem" within a two-year span, and the first made it even more complicated than it was in the canonical timeline.Which was already on fucking "Extreme Hard Mode!"For example, Scion's main weapon was an annihilation-light attack. To counter it, I required either an anti-annihilation effect or methods of response and personal relocation at least at the speed of light.While both of such possibilities weren't very astounding for pseudo-magic bullshit of Superhero fiction, they were very close to the upper technological limit of science fiction.And this is only about a few shards out of literally "trillions upon trillions upon trillions" available, or potentially available, to Scion! Including things like instantaneous travel between universes, powerful dimension locks, knowledge derived from over 3000 alien races, the Path to Victory, and other things that made my golden fingers look rather lackluster in comparison.⸻⸻x⸻⸻To clear my mind, I turned on the TV and started flipping through channels.At first, I expected to see something like My Hero Academia pro-Heros indoctrination, but to my surprise, mentions of parahumans came up only in the news. Everything else was... just normal. Which somehow made my attempt to clear my mind even harder.Made me feel even further from the supposedly common among transmigrators idea that everything, at least a little, wasn't fully real and therefore important.But nothing in my situation felt like that.I turned off the TV, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to collect my thoughts."Focus, Max. What do I need to do right now?" I said aloud."Obviously, buy food. And hygiene products. At least a smartphone... no, first information. Before I spend any money or charges, I should at least figure out what the fuck the NEPEA-5 bill is.So... library? Yes, then, perhaps, to the electronics store. And at last, a grocery store."I opened my eyes, took the notepad, and began writing down the questions for the library.⸻⸻x⸻⸻After writing down a few dozen questions, I put on thermals, insulated jeans, a sweater, and an all-weather jacket. And began to spread small sheets of paper among my clothes.Two with my home address. And three addressed to Emily Piggot, Rebecca Costa-Brown, and Contessa respectively. Containing canonical formula against the "Golden Fool": "Panacea + Taylor + Doormaker + Clairvoyant + Oliver + Flechette + cooperation of triggered neurodivergent people = second round with Simurgh and titanification.'Fucking Worm.'⸻⸻x⸻⸻Fully dressed, I spent a few moments examining my face in the bathroom mirror.As it was with the body, my face was definitely above average, yet, rather from some "standard transmigration package" than the result of an unlisted Beauty perk.Soon, I descended from the third floor, down the dirty staircase to an even dirtier street with surprisingly numerous people and cars.Carefully memorizing my surroundings and occasionally asking people for directions, I eventually made my way to a bus stop, where I was writing down my route and quickly sketched a partially torn map of the city. Which informed me that my home was in the northern part of town, nestled between the northern Trainyard, eastern Docks, and the western Winslow High.
Due to my location's proximity to industrial zones, I was obviously in a blue-collar neighborhood.'Too white for ABB, too poor for Empire, and too educated for Merchants?' I wondered at the absence of any gang graffiti, enforcers, and other "Brockton-Bay-ish characteristics.⸻⸻x⸻⸻When I asked a standing nearby middle-aged man about the central city library, he told me I needed to catch the bus on the opposite side of the road. So, I crossed over, and at an identical bus stop shelter, I noticed not only an even more torn map but also metal framing covered in swastikas.I let out a heavy sigh.I was an avid reader of classic sci-fi, so Nazi symbols on the streets of an American city seemed to me even more fantastical than anything involving Entities or Reapers, essentially another type of parasites.But this? This was a shitty immunity against the worst manifestations of humanity. Autoimmune disease.After a few minutes, I boarded a bus, bought a travel card from the driver, and sat down near the door.Somewhat bored, somewhat in awe, and somewhat fearful, I looked at the 2011 city infested by superpowered Nazis and billboards featuring government superheroes.On the planet with a real non-pedophilic shadow cabal, a stable portal into another universe, genocidal Kaijus, and an almost all-powerful alien.In the universe with even more sexy, not sexy, and genocidal aliens.In the multiverse with ANY aliens, and everything imaginable and unimaginable.'Focus, Max!Think about what's important!Turians...Female Turians...Why the fuck don't I remember what female Turians look like?'