June, 2168 CE – Nevos
Despite deciding who they were going to Summon next, and Rylia actually having enough Karma from her still going side-channels on her stream to have done them immediately, they’d held off. In truth, the day they’d debated and hashed things out had been a preliminary step. The Assault Shuttle and Commando Droids still hadn’t been fully tested yet at that point, and they’d still been gathering bits and pieces they would need before feeling comfortable taking out the Shadow Broker.
Then too, of course, they’d also needed to prepare false IDs, data packets, and all the other bits and bobs required for their two new Summons. Both of which were going to be a bit more involved than Momo and Kara’s had needed to be. Bruce Wayne was old enough that, even if he accepted their rejuvenation treatments, they’d needed to carefully create a proper trail for him back on Earth itself.
The first human extra-solar colony, Demeter, hadn’t been founded until 2152 CE. Just sixteen years previously. Momo and Kara were young enough that they’d been able to muddle things a bit, creating only digital records on Earth and relying on humanity’s crazed enthusiasm to spread out and explore everything to account for them getting off Earth quickly in that first expansion wave. Bruce, on the other hand, would be expected to have lived a major chunk of his adult life on either Earth or a small Mars colony. With the more detailed records that implied.
With some elbow grease and a short mission to Earth by Momo and Kara, they’d been able to make a more complete job of it, but they honestly weren’t completely happy with the depth they’d managed. Something that they hoped they could use the very network they were planning to take over, plus Bruce and Lucy’s skills, to fix in due time. The most critical issue had been not having a great idea what he’d end up looking like, if he used the rejuvenation treatment, and thus having to fudge anything with images of him more than ideal.
Lucy had presented an entirely different problem, but one that was honestly the harder of the two to sort out. After all, the girl had extensive cybernetics that would not match anything anyone had ever seen before. Cyberarms, complete with monowire weapons, EMP Threading, Neruoport, Cyberdeck, secondary Deep Net Dive Processor, multiple Personal Links, a subdermal neural processor, and even some Midnight Lady mods. Though not a full cyberization on the last bit. Just birth control, hormone regulation, and some…personal entertainment enhancements.
Rylia was very interested in recreating those last options, but that wasn’t the point.
The point was that Lucy would very much not pass close inspection by scanners without triggering all the flags. Thankfully, she was even younger than Momo and Maiden’s Mercy was studying cybernetics tech. In fact, Rylia was fairly sure that their Head Minion over there and Miranda were both suspicious of how much she’d been able to pass on about cybernetics. Even if she hadn’t given them outright designs, it was absolutely too much data for mere untested theories.
Which meant that Lucy’s identify problems and a bit of her past would actually work nicely as a cover.
They’d already had Momo’s identity as having been working for unnamed groups out in the Terminus Systems, which Rylia had carefully implied had been wiped out. Planting clues for those already looking into Momo’s background that one of those ‘unnamed groups’ had been a corp doing illegal cybernetics research was more than doable. It had been a little time consuming, since they’d needed to maneuver around those very searchers to plant the data, but they’d gotten it done.
The result should be worth the effort, as what they’d planted painted a picture of Momo taking exception to some of that group’s unethical practices and helping destroy them. That Lucy, a heavily cyberized girl who could absolutely tell you all sorts of details about horrifying cybernetic research without the slightest bit of struggle, turned up after Momo got properly established? Well, obviously, she was just someone Momo had helped flee and hide from the group. Bonus points that they could claim it was Lucy who’d been sitting on the cybernetics research data, passing it along through Momo prior to coming out of hiding herself.
It was a bit convoluted, and they were stacking story on top of story here. Something that always ran the risk of someone fumbling the story and creating a chink in their narrative. Yet, all of those involved so far, save possibly Kara who didn’t interact much with anyone but Rylia, Momo, and Doctor Dalisir, were the types that could easily keep the narrative straight. Hopefully, by the time any of them slipped up, they’d be well past the point that it even mattered they did.
At any rate, it had taken them a bit over a month and a half to fully get everything lined up for the two they were summoning. They’d also managed initial tests of the Stealth Assault Shuttle and Commando Droids, though both would need more updates based on those tests before serious use. Which was perfectly fine, since they’d need to give Bruce and Lucy at least a few weeks, possibly as much as a couple of months, to fully adjust and get up to date. Even with a Kara-improved rapid-learning device to help, they would both need and deserve a chance to adjust and acclimate. Trying to do that and take over from the Shadow Broker at the same time would be stupidity in the extreme.
Still, the time had come, and after some debate they’d decided to do the two Summons simultaneously. There had been an argument for doing them one at a time, but in the end they’d decided that keeping them together through the adjustment process was more likely to pay off the way they’d hoped. Which is why they were sitting in front of a pair of doors with a countdown timer on them. Timers that were just hitting zero.
Both doors opened, with very different people walking out of them, though both shared a very suspicious look at their surroundings. Not unexpected, honestly, given the pasts these two were coming from. Rylia waved energetically from where she was sitting on a loveseat with Momo. Fully in ‘bouncy charisma’ mode. Something even Batman would read as genuine…since it was, at least to the original Rylia.
“Hello, you two! I’m Rylia, your friendly local summoner! Given how little the Marketplace usually tells people, I bet you have lots of questions! Take a seat and I’ll happily answer them. Oh, and before I forget, introductions!”
Rylia gestured to Momo first.
“This is Momo Yaoyorozu! She was my very first Summons from the system, and is currently acting as CEO of the companies I’m using to fund our whole ‘save the galaxy’ thing!”
Another gesture toward Kara had Bruce’s eyes narrowing, and Rylia grinned.
“Not your Kara, Mr. Wayne. Though she is part of why I know a fair bit about a version of you. Kryptonian, but no powers due to unfortunate Gold Kryptonite exposure. Ah, for your benefit Lucy, her name is Kara Zor’el, currently going by Kara Danvers. She comes from the same cluster of multi-verses as Mr. Bruce Wayne here, so they’ve met versions of each other. Mr. Wayne, your new fellow summons is Lucyna Kushinada, who I think prefers just Lucy? Sorry if I got that wrong?”
Lucy responded with a kurt shake of her head.
“You got it right. Just Lucy, please.”
“Right! So…lots both of you are going to need to know, but we aren’t in a huge rush or at a crisis point or anything. So we’ll start with the basics, which are going to be pretty different for both of you! First, surprise Lucy! Aliens are real! Well, at least they are in this reality.”
They were using a Room with a View, much like she’d used with Momo, and Rylia tapped the control to turn one wall transparent. The new window looked out over the alien ocean of Nevos, one that notably showed far more vibrant colors than Earth’s did, one of the features that made it a popular tourist destination.
“You’re on a planet called Nevos, a colony world of my race, called the Asari. Earth does exist in this reality, though it’s fairly new to the galactic community. Nevos itself, and most worlds in the largest galactic polity, called Citadel Space, is quite a bit more peaceful than either of your worlds were. Unfortunately, every organic race is on a bit of a countdown timer, with an invasion by a race of ancient AIs that harvest the galaxy on a Cycle due to show up in a bit over a decade. Our job is to prepare the galaxy to handle that invasion…”
Bruce was looking like this was just another Tuesday, while poor Lucy looked like she might be racking up multiple existential crisis to have later. Trying to back down a bit from the enormity of the situation for her sake, Rylia grinned.
“That’s the huuuugggeee picture though. In the shorter-term, after you adjust, we’re hoping you two will be a good fit for running a galactic scale information broker network! Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of information packets, the operation to take over that network won’t happen for at least a month, and we’re happy to answer all sorts of questions! Including any you might have about how the whole Marketplace thing works. Though to be honest I can only tell you what little I know, as I’ve only had access to it for a bit over a year…”
Bruce Wayne, speaking for the first time, surprised her with what he had to say. Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise, given this was Batman, but it still was.
“Then I probably know more than you do, girl. The user of the Omniversal Marketplace I made a deal through had been making use of it for decades, and I made sure to grill him for everything I could. How much do you even know about it?”
Taken aback that this was the direction he was going in first, Rylia hesitated for a moment, before shrugging and starting to explain what little she did know…
… … …
Three Weeks Later – Nevos
Bruce stared at the reflection in the mirror. Looking back at him was a version of himself in his early fifties, only with less scars and pains. A lot less scars and pains than he’d actually had at that age. To be honest, he hadn’t really even realized how much of his own will was being tied up suppressing a lifetime of breaking his body, forcing it to go on despite all he’d done to it. His mind felt clearer than it had since possibly his thirties, even if the rejuvenation treatments hadn’t taken him that far.
He’d gone over the tech with a fine-toothed comb before allowing it to be used on him, of course.
To her credit, Rylia T’aani hadn’t hesitated to give him the complete, comprehensive database on exactly how to rejuvenation technology worked. Complete with the parts for a brand-new unit that he could individually examine, understand, and assemble himself. She’d very obviously fully expected his paranoia, and simply…not had anything to hide. Not with this at least.
Honestly, he was beginning to suspect she didn’t have a lot to hide period. At least not in the ways he cared about. She had plenty of secrets and plans he only half approved of, but even in those she’d been completely blunt. Telling him outright that she suspected he’d want to find a way to deal with the Reapers short of open warfare. Informing him in no uncertain terms that he was welcome to try and find such a method, so long as he obeyed certain rules about the attempt.
He’d been ready for her to chain unreasonable rules about him for that, to fetter the attempt and justify her conquest plan. Only for her to give him nothing but insanely practical limitations. She’d explained, in as much detail as she could, how the Reaper’s worked to create fifth columns inside every Cycle by trapping their tech with an indoctrination effect. That the Reapers, having done this a thousand times before, already knew that someone would try clever solutions, and trapped the routes to attempting to find those solutions.
Yet she hadn’t outright forbidden attempting to research such.
Instead, she’d merely highlighted the dangers and set limits. No in-person experimentation, no AIs that the Reapers could potentially corrupt. Study only remotely, filter everything through someone else you could monitor for behavioral changes, and focus first and foremost on a way to detect indoctrination effects. She’d even told him that the ‘Protheans’ had found a way to do so, and a copy of the method should be available on the lost planet of Ilos. Which she’d given him everything she knew about, even if that didn’t include any hard data on its location.
It wasn’t a lot, but once he was in charge of the Broker Network, it was a genuine lead he could chase down.
It was after that detailed briefing, along with another one about a scouting effort she was making to create sanctuaries to hide populations of each race, that he’d really understood. Rylia wasn’t preparing for war out of a desire for that to be the solution, or any lack of imagination about other possible methods. She was preparing for the Total War option only because that was the method that took the longest.
She was being methodical, in a way that had Batman, not just Bruce Wayne, reevaluating her with genuine respect. Yes, her choice of methods were a little chaotic, but even that was calculated to hide the depth and layers of preparation. Rylia was building the means to do things the hard way first and foremost, simply because that way took the largest degree of time. In reality, she was actually planning to examine every possible method. To look to the past for what had almost worked, to look for a golden BB or silver bullet in alternate tech, to try and find weaknesses to exploit. To fight only if required in the end, and to hide enough remnants to rebuild afterward if even that failed.
Stages of redundancy, as many eggs in as many different baskets as she could beg, borrow, browbeat, bend reality, or steal from the very heavens into existence.
It reminded him of the only other user of the Omniveral Marketplace he’d met so far, and he suddenly suspected rather strongly that all of those chosen to use it were the same way. That the Marketplace itself always picked the sort of person who could and would look at the hopeless and inevitable and say:
‘No. Fuck you. I reject your reality, and will defy your inevitability not just until my last breath, but until the heat death of the universe. In fact, if the heat death of the universe happens first, I’ll find a way to beat that, even if I have to find a way to mug God for the answers.’
It had taken Bruce a while to see it, even with all his years of experience. Now that he had, though…he could work with her. Maybe not for her, but she’d obviously already realized and expected that from the start. He snorted to himself as he thought of the bait she’d blatantly laid out for him too. The girl had even predicted that his personality would practically force him to reach out to Lucyna to try and help her. Much like he had Jason, after… This story is hosted at g.com.
Bruce shook that dark memory off and shifted away from the mirror.
The point was, he’d discovered his Deal with the Marketplace had brought him somewhere he could, perhaps, do even more good than he’d done with the Justice League. The methods weren’t entirely to his taste, but he understood them, and Rylia had covered her bases in making sure there was someone working with him that could and would handle the things he would refuse to touch with anything but a torch.
He had a feeling this new reality was going to be just as interesting as the last one had been. Though hopefully with slightly fewer eldritch monstrosities waiting to crawl out of the woodwork. Truly, he appreciated deeply that Magic didn’t seem to be a thing here, at least so far as Rylia knew. He wasn’t going to take that as fact, not until he’d been able to look into it far more deeply himself. But it would certainly make things a lot simpler if it were true. Dealing with the ‘moonlit world,’ the gods and monsters, had always been the worst part of being Batman.
Humans, aliens, and ancient, murderous, renegade AIs were so much easier to deal with…
… … …
Lucy was still honestly a little disbelieving.
Even after weeks, she was still kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop. This new world…reality? Reality she supposed. This new reality she’d ended up in wasn’t a utopia. She’d really have struggled to believe it was all real if it had been. Even ignoring the threat in the distance (easy to do, it was over a decade away, that might as well be a lifetime to someone like her), there were places in this reality that would have fit in all too well in Night City. Omega, for certain, just as one example. Parts of Illum too, if you compared it to the nicer corpo sections of Night City, where dirty deeds done in the dark were all signed for on contracts.
That was the thing though. Almost all of the really horrible places were in the Terminus Systems, not Citadel Space where she currently found herself. Not that there wasn’t crime in Citadel Space. There was plenty of that to go around. Yet, for the most part, it was still the governments in control of their worlds, not the unfeeling or outright malicious megacorps. Laws still actually mattered and there was something at least vaguely resembling real justice and rule of law.
It was like something from before the Corpo Wars and extended to hundreds of worlds.
Frankly, to Lucy it felt a lot like she’d found some sort of paradise. Which didn’t even get into her new employer(s). It had taken a while for her to get used to the idea, but Rylia seemed genuinely nice. A super-flirty pervert, sure. But that was honestly harmless and she was legit low-key compared to people she’d known in Night City. Like Becca or half the Mox. Momo was, if anything, even nicer, and somehow made you actually believe that Heroes were a thing. Which the Lucy of a month ago would have derisively laughed at you for believing. Kara was pretty similar, but held a seed of bitterness that Lucy could recognize. Honestly, that seed of bitterness actually made her relate more easily to the apparently alien girl.
Which, yeah, somehow the fact that aliens existed was less weird than the fact that some of them were nice.
Then there was Bruce. He was…he was like a gruffer Kiwi, yet it somehow didn’t grate the way it should, after Kiwi’s betrayal. He was just as paranoid as her first mentor had been, possibly even more so, honestly. Yet he wasn’t even a fraction as bitter as Kiwi had been. Heck, he was less bitter than Kara. In some ways he was the one that reminded her the most of her old home, yet in others he was the most alien. Someone who, somehow, she knew wouldn’t have bent a single inch even in Night City.
She also genuinely wasn’t sure if the city would have broke him, or if he would have broken the city.
Something about him was comforting, in a way that she’d never expected to feel. Almost like the little girl she’d once been had believed her father to be, before she’d hacked that terminal and seen what a monster he truly was. Bruce was too good to exist, yet was grounded in a way that you believed he existed anyway. Gruff, even surly and abrasive at times, yet…
She didn’t properly understand him, but she thought she could work with him. More seamlessly even than she had with her old team, save maybe David. Which was saying a lot, given that she hadn’t been at all sure she’d ever be anything but a loner again. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the job actual sounded pretty interesting. This Shadow Broker was a Fixer, as she understood it. The idea of just replacing a Fixer, then slowly using their network to make things better instead of more fucked up?
Lucy was surprised to find that she believed it might work. She was even more surprised to find she was looking forward to it. The idea of her being able to somehow make things right? That had been a dream bigger than even her child self could have imagined. She didn’t think she was fit to be a hero, but maybe she could be something else. What was it that Rylia had said that struck a cord with her? Right…
‘Ideally, evil would be fought by good. But sometimes, well, what you really need to fight evil is another kind of evil.’
She’d never heard a better way to distill the best Night City could ever manage into a single sentence. Given that her new boss was putting it in context of using those evils to wipe each other out, while also creating good to replace them? Or, if not good, at least something less bad? Lucy might just believe that things could get a little better. Even if she thought the energetic alien was probably being overly optimistic…
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A/N 1: So, Bruce served as a really good way to underline something about Rylia that has likely gone (intentionally) unnoticed by a lot of readers. I sort of hid WHY she was the one that got picked by the Marketplace under the slight Crack! of her Sex Toy Empire and general personality. But it was always present. The Marketplace chose her because she's exactly the sort of stubborn fool to look at the impossible and, instead of despairing, immediately start looking for leverage to make the impossible possible. Something that Bruce can recognized, as he's seen that personality in the mirror for decades. A fact that should add a neat extra layer to their interactions as, despite her absurd methods, he has legitimate reason to RESPECT her, in ways he rarely does even with people like Diana and Clark.
A/N 2: So you can always just be patient ;-).