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A Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: 64
🕑 Added 2024-02-20 16:55:38 +0000 UTCA Perfectly Logical Guide to a Superhuman Apocalypse: 64
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Wordcount: 2500
Commissioned by Arksoul
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“So, how’d it all go?”
After the party was over, I dropped Qin and Bao off back to their ship, and went back to help cleaning up after the party. After I did that, I went ahead and gone over the Clancy to get the details on the latest happenings.
“Great, except we’re not exclusive.” Clancy was nursing a tall bottle of moonshine. It smelled like it could strip paint. However, he barely made a face after drinking from it. With his constitution, it may as well be beer for him. He’d need a dozen of the bottles to get himself drunk. I couldn’t spy any around him beside the one in his hand, so he was just doing it to feel miserable. “I fucked up.”
“Yeah, but not irreparably. Let her have her fair share of fucking around, then bring up go exclusive.” Clancy grimaced at my suggestion, but nodded. “Honestly, it’s a good deal, given the fact you only cared about it once you realized she can give you kids. I mean, I get it, but it’s kinda iffy, you know?”
Clancy nodded again but didn’t offer any words, instead taking another gulp of paint thinner.
After a while, I took a look around.
Past the walls of his bunker complex, Clancy controlled a lot of arable land. Fields of potatoes, grains, and peanuts were growing from where we were right to the horizon. The land was flat to the point that in the distance it looked like the land just seamlessly joined with the sky. It felt weird to look at, since I’d lived around mountains most of my life.
There a few settlements here and there the last time I’d checked. Small towns of a thousand or so making the most of things. Clancy kept the region secure and stable, but everyone else did the heavy lifting in terms of producing goods and foodstuffs. Lots of people in this region were farmers or farming stock, which meant they knew how to get through tough times… and that there were a lot of kids doing work on family plots.
Seeing all these families around, while he couldn’t have one no matter how hard he tried, must’ve gotten to the guy.
“Well, Bao likes you at least.”
“That makes it worse. She likes me, even after I did.”
“Ah, you didn’t hide anything.”
“I’m won’t like to my kid, Egress.”
“No comment. I’m not a dad.” And, I certainly wasn’t comparing anyone to my own father. “Still, it’s a chance to get better. You’re at your lowest now. Just work hard and win them over and get your family.”
Clancy paused in his drinking for a moment to glare at me.
“You’re shit at consoling someone, Egress.”
“I work on and move past my problems. Otherwise, I’d just get miserable and spiral. If you’ve got a healthy way of dealing with your problems, use that.”
“I’m not you. I’m sensitive.”
“I’m plenty sensitive, that’s why I deal with my own problems or pay people to help me through them.” If I can’t handle something, then I go to professionals for help. I wouldn’t ask someone I know how to fix a car engine if they’re not qualified to do so. Why would I ask someone to help me with my mental health if they’re not qualified to do so? The latter’s so ridiculously complex in comparison, too. I’m pretty messed up now, but I was even worse when I was younger and fresh from my home life. “Now, let’s talk through this. You’ve got issues with your daughter thinking you’re an upstanding gentleman despite being a tyrant and the woman you want to be with doesn’t think she should be exclusive with you. How do you overcome these challenges?”
“…talk to Bao and make things clear with her. Then, do the same with Qin? I won’t tell her to back off on having more partners for now, but maybe in a year or two?”
“It should at least be as many years you spent having a harem, my guy.”
Clancy grimaced, but he understood the basic concept of fairness, and finally he shook his head and held his face in his hands.
“But… but it feels emasculating, Egress. She’s going to hold having more women over me forever. At this rate, she’ll be the man of the house!” Ah, right. Almost forgot since I saw Bao that Qin’s usually with other women. Don’t know how didn’t pop up in my head, really. Though, I suppose I can give a point to myself for not batting an eye at the thought of Qin being with many male lovers. Go me! Clancy looked up after holding his face in his hands for a bit and a full-on blush was on him. “She’s been keeping score ever since our first time at the brothel! I’ve only got a ten person head-start on her. She’ll break that over her knee in a month!”
Mhmm, yep.
I know exactly what to say to this sudden change in conversation.
“Yep, I’m not dealing with this part of your relationship. The two of you figure that shit out yourselves.” From not wanting to be together, to going back to competing on who can get the most bodies. These two are just perfect for each other. Dumb in their own ways outside of anything concerning violence. You’d never think Clancy’s a human wrecking ball and Qin’s a living murder-blunder. “Can’t the two of you dial it back? You’re going to be raising a kid. How are you going to feel if your kid takes after you?”
Clancy froze at my statement, and I was pretty sure Qin would’ve done the same if she’d heard those words.
All those dalliances and hedonism they’ve partaken in being done by their baby girl?
Yeah, Qin and Clancy are going to be sweating bullets in a few years.
“Egress, how much do I need to pay you to never tell Bao about what Qin and I did back while we were mercenaries?”
Drunken sprees through bars and into brothels side-by-side while singing off key. Making rounds through one brothel, getting a bite to eat, and then calling me up to get them to another city for another round. Whole weeks with my only contact with them with me dropping them into other cities’ red light districts, before we get together for work with the two of them broke as hell.
Yeah.
I’m not telling a kid any of that shit.
“If I tell a kid that, Maelstrom will kill me herself. I’ll do it for free.”
“Please, give me a price, so that I can get some piece of mind.”
“Fine. Get me some fresh bread everyday and you can consider us even.”
I’m a merciless jerk when it comes to trading and commerce, but blackmailing two people with the threat of spilling their wild, debauched history to their kid?
That’s too low for even me to sink to.
…
After speaking with Clancy, with Qin working on getting her ship back to China, I decided to pop over and meet with Parvati after giving the AI a call.
The usual meeting room we met at received some upgrades.
“Making use of the new materials you’re getting, huh?” Parvati and Maelstrom came up with a transport route. They paid me to transport whatever they put in a warehouse and I transported everything once a week between the two of them. For the most part, Parvati was providing semiconductors and other things that it could manufacture within its base that Maelstrom’s people could. “Looks good.”
The old suite had a few decorations on the walls to distract the eye from the sterile metal it was composed in. Now, though, there were rich wood furnishings in the suite along with other decorations. Rich mahogany chairs and tables, a nice, deep-red rug, and some vases with fresh flowers. If I didn’t know better, I’d thought I was in a high-class lounge to pass the time, and not at one of the tallest mountains in the world.
That wasn’t all, though.
The influx of organic materials came with dyes and fabrics made from hemp and cotton, so the Parvati flexed its ability to dress up its different bodies in various outfits and styles. The semi-plastics it once used were now replaced by actual cloth and I was sure that it’s infiltration efforts around the world was going to be more successful here on out. The servant bodies tending to me, serving food, were in an eclectic mix of uniforms raging from butler suits, maid dresses, and kimonos.
Just like back in the industrial age, Parvati probably planned on taking in raw materials, processing them, and selling clothes and other things for massive profits across the world. Hell, given how nice the room looked, the AI was probably going to go beyond just clothes and provide furniture, too.
Hm?
Why am I not worried about the AI controlling massive amounts of the manufacturing industry?
Are you saying that AI can replace everything in manufacturing besides the role of CEO and management?
Hah.
Yeah, I’m fine with every product being produced by an intellect that has more than quarterly profits in mind.
“Designation: Egress. It’s been a while.”
“We were at the same party just last night. I mean, you were off doing your own thing, but that was literally just last night.” Parvati served some light, fresh flatbread with some stews and hot tea. I didn’t recall the name for the sauce-like stews I was eating. Chutney? Dhal? Whatever it was, it was earthy, had tender beans and vegetables, and warmly spiced. With the fresh bread giving it texture, the stewed legumes and the other thing tasted great. After all the meat and grilled vegetables the previous night, I found it a great change of pace. “You get any luck getting to Clancy after pulling the old honey trap technique?”
“Thankfully, I was able to secure a deal similar to what I have with Maelstrom, before his attitude for such proclivities changed.” Off the top of my head, I reviewed what Clancy could give the AI. Most of it was lots of grains and vegetables. Some would question what an AI would do with that, but Parvati had a perpetual frozen climate around its base. Some carved out silos and doors will be all it would need to make massive storages of food that it can use to influence the rest of the world… and put that world under its thumb. “It will be a Monday delivery. Same day as Maelstrom’s.”
“I’ll take the same pay, then. I need some new things. How’s the production on my backup base off-planet going?” The primary reason I was working with Parvati was to get something off of Earth. After a lot of talk, I’d decided on a spot on Mars with water and ice available for harvesting. It was a complex project even for the AI, since to create my bunker, it’d need a base of its own on the red planet. “Or, rather, how’s your manufacturing center there going?”
“My presence on Mars reports significant progress. The metal deposits found were richer than anticipated and work is underway to create a sizeable fabricator. I have multiple shipping containers ready filled with materials they cannot yet source from the planet.” Parvati hovered across from me in its typical quadrotor chassis with massive orb-like eye on its back. After it learned I was less creeped out by it when it looks like a machine, it started to use the machine body. Typical negotiation method. Make the client feel at ease with how you look. “Here is a picture.”
A picture from Mars regarding construction of an industrial and agricultural base.
You’d think it’s sci-fi fantasy or something, but Parvati had the tech and I was able to send several tons of materials over there a day with just a bit of rest between each go, as well as plenty to eat. I mean, I need a lot of really, really good food to stomach eating so much, but I could eat thousands of dollars’ worth of food every hour and still be a fraction of the cost it would take to send actual rockets to Mars with their cargo.
Anyway, Parvati was sending bodies meant for manual labor over there and with additional armor to protect against radiation, since the place had a weaker field. They were brutal looking machines with mechanical tendrils to use for walking and manipulation. They reminded me more of the squid machines from that one movie with augmented reality, but without the antigravity technology and more for manual labor than bringing down massive ships that had weapons that could knock itself out.
The site in question was being tended to by hundreds of the bodies. They were excavating massive amounts of rock from the underground on Mars. Those rocks were crushed and processed by the machines in question, until they fit into stone crushers. With concrete mix and mortar from earth, the crushed stone was used as additional insulation… and armor for the underground structures being built. What was one a flat land of red rock was now looking close to a strip mine, if a bit smaller than most, with small factories surrounding it.
Parvati could go faster, involve more high-tech stuff above ground, but it restrained itself.
It was trying to keep a low profile, because we weren’t alone up there.
Several groups of super scientists and the wealthy elite took off of Earth.
Two groups with vastly different ideologies and beliefs regarding humanity’s future as a people.
Alright, I’ll go ahead and say it.
The ultra extremists of both wings with lots of money, hired a lot of superhumans and took to the stars and are now rehashing the war between fascism and communism.
In space.
Because things can never be easy.
Thankfully, they seem to have picked Mercury as their conflict spot since its proximity to the sun and all the radiation powered everything that they had, but they were looking to expand and exploit more of the solar system to get what they needed to win.
And, after one of them one, I presumed they’d take their fleets and other bullshit to take over Earth.
Space fascists or space communists returning to rule over Earth after defeating one or the other.
Honestly, I wanted to ask of Maelstrom was interested in dealing with it and going up there to just punch enough people to make them listen.
But the chances of some superscientist having something messed up that could deal with her was too high.
Better to facilitate Parvati’s expansion plans and have the AI deal with the planetary threats.
Comments
Valerian
Of course this setting has Space Nazis. Wouldn't be a comic book superhero kitchen sink without it.
