I understood her thinking that, but I rather thought I might. Since I would soon have the ability to create organic servants all that biomass had to come from somewhere. The most likely source was going to be encounters like these.
I turned on a light inside the entrance. I didn't want them scared off or thinking there was nothing of interest inside. I wanted these people, I could use the resources.
"Tell me about these Slidekickers," I said.
"They can teleport. I'm not sure of their range, but it's more than just line of sight," Anna said.
"You horrified them enough they got out of visual range? Predictable. How can we lure them here?"
"You'll have a hard time of it. They can teleport anywhere and steal anything they want," Mechos said.
"I really want that power," Anna said, sounding a little dreamy at the thought.
"You captured one of the Righteous. Can you get any use out of their power-dampening abilities?" Mechos asked.
Could I? I hadn't unlocked the ability to make use of that talent myself. It probably was a part of whoever led the Righteous and held that void core. It didn't mean there weren't ways I might be able to.
I had the Righteous in a liquefied form—mostly. They were in that state for twenty-four hours between being killed daily. I hadn't tested if that goop retained their power-dampening abilities, but I could.
I set up a testing routine for that.
On the surface the Scavengers had made their way cautiously inside the main entrance. I closed the door behind them and killed the lights.
Let them advance in the darkness to their deaths, or remain where they were and starve to death, if that was their desire. In the end, I'd win either way.
"I believe I may be able to dampen powers. What do you have in mind?" I asked.
"I doubt you'd be able to capture one to attempt to gain the ability. Given their mobility, I'm not sure you could do that. Kill though? That might be possible," Mechos said.
"You need to lure them somewhere and kill them for their powers," Anna said.
That was smart thinking. Sure, I'd far rather have their leader alive and in one of my testing chambers where I could get a long-term trickle of power, but short of that I'd take the Power core.
I already had a plan coming together.
"You said the Righteous sometimes capture the Powered and transport them back to their tower. These processions are usually well-guarded?" I asked.
"Always," Mechos said.
"So, we have one that isn't. We have a Righteous vehicle and a set of Righteous armor, I can get more if needed," I said.
"You want to pretend to have captured someone?"
"Hot Stuff. Her absence is notable... we can inflict burn damage on the vehicle. Allow word to get to the Slidekickers and their leader," I said.
Anna said, "Her name is Sylph. Yeah, Sylph would want the prize, but wouldn't let any of her people do it instead of her. Not a Power core she could take easily to bolster her own abilities."
"It's likely she'll decide to teleport straight into the vehicle. When she does we neutralize her powers and set off an explosive inside," I said.
"My people could help you to rig that as well as make the modifications to the vehicle," Mechos said.
"I look damned good in a set of body armor," Anna said.
"That seems incredibly unlikely," I said. "But it does seem we have something of a plan."
Anna spared a glimpse at the monitor. I'd shifted it to infravision and you could just see the heat signature of the Scavengers. They hadn't brought any sort of light source and decided to try pressing forward anyway.
"I guess it's going to be after you kill these guys," Anna said.
"I need to do a few days of testing anyways on power-neutralizing agents," I said.
"I don't suppose you can build a movie theater?"
"I don't suppose you know how I can unlock neurochemistry so I can upgrade your intellect?"
"Listen," Anna said. "We're down here for a long time and it gets boring. Now that we've got the whole history of human entertainment available to us, we should start doing something."
It was a preposterous, ludicrous idea. Still, I'd already seen the positive effects on productivity that amusing the humans could have.
"I'll see if I can modify one of the monitors down below to display onto a bigger screen up here. Find an archive you've cleared of any dangerous materials and I'll make some chairs," I said.
"And popcorn," Anna said.
This was pushing it.
"I am a dangerously intelligent laboratory, not an entertainment superplex," I said.
"You upgraded Hydroponics anyways and corn is a good test. Isn't popping kernels a good way to test how to apply the Fire Matrix?" Anna asked.
I could be swayed by talk of SCIENCE. I could. It would be an interesting test of the Fire Matrix and new facilities. And again, if popcorn made humans more productive, it added some minimal value.
"Fine," I said. "Get to work."
The Scavengers had set off an acid sprayer. At least some things were going right.
24
Testing how well the goop of the Righteous could neutralize powers was easily enough done. There were several things I needed to measure, and Hot Stuff with her very dramatic power set made the perfect test subject.
The next day, when the Righteous rematerialized, I immediately bound them with ropes. From there it was a simple enough matter to cut them out of their armor before killing them again. It was nice to have their equipment and I wondered why I hadn't bothered until now.
Once they were again goop, I coated one of the targets inside Hot Stuff's labyrinth. The results were promising. A fire blast that normally completely devastated anything did little more than warm it.
As a form of armor it could serve some protective purpose. Of course, we'd need it to do a good bit more than that.
I had already modified a sprinkler to be able to handle the thick goop, and at the right moment I triggered it above Hot Stuff. The woman barely had a chance to look up before finding herself coated from head to foot in the remains of one of the Righteous.
The flames that usually surrounded her flickered out and died. Her thermal readings shifted downward but didn't return to anything close to human normal. Hot Stuff's powers were dampened, but not overcome.
"What the hell is this?" Hot Stuff said, glaring at my camera. Her internal temperatures ticked upward. Anger meant she was probably trying to channel still more of her power. It wasn't having much of an effect.
I operated a turret and put a bullet into each of her legs. I wanted to see how her usual defensive heat would fare with the goop surrounding her.
Hot Stuff screamed and dropped to the ground, blood seeping out and pooling around her. From what I could tell the bullets hadn't penetrated deep, her internal heat had vaporized them before they could reach as deep as the bone, but they had still broken flesh.
It also left her nice and distracted for my final test. A mechanical arm bearing a needle dropped from the ceiling and plunged into her arm. It was a small quantity of goop being shot right into her blood. I didn't want to kill her, only analyze the effects.
Hot Stuff screamed again even more violently and her body began to spasm on the floor. Black veins rippled on her arm for a moment and I observed some sharply lowered temperatures before the effect was reversed dramatically, an explosion of white-hot heat bursting out from her flesh as the invading substance was expelled.
Temperature readings were rising and flames began to flicker out from beneath the goop, the greenish coating on her skin rippling and sloughing as it peeled away as if being washed off by the flames.
Interesting. The effects weren’t fatal in and of themselves, and pushing back against a Power core too dramatically seemed to force it to defend itself.
Still, in the short term it appeared I should at least be able to dampen the power of another and, by direct injection, might at least, briefly, incapacitate them totally. Tied to an explosion, that could be used to good effect.