Chapter 103
October 25. Fifth pull. The result surprised me again, though not because of its rarity. This wasn't an info package. It was an Item.
[Item (Common) received: Interdimensional Goggles (Rick and Morty). Item duration: 24 hours!]
This was a sensory device with the form factor of a virtual reality headset, giving the Host passive visual and auditory access to infinite alternate realities. It functioned as a window, allowing the user to see and hear other dimensions.
Function: Intelligence Gathering
The primary function of the goggles was observation. The Host could tune into random frequencies, or specific ones with sufficient practice. This allowed real-time viewing of events in other universes, making them invaluable for gathering intelligence, studying alternate technologies, or tracking interdimensional threats without risking exposure.
Function: Entertainment
The device could also intercept broadcast signals from other realities, providing direct access to the so-called Interdimensional Cable. This opened up a virtually infinite stream of unique entertainment from other cultures.
Critical Limitation
This gadget was exclusively observational. It gave the Host no way to physically travel between worlds, interact with them, or transfer matter. It was a passive scanner, not a transport.
The goggles appeared immediately in that single System slot. Without hesitation, I manifested them into reality right here in the cold darkness of the cave. This was the first test. If they couldn't exist in a vacuum, even a sealed one, they were worthless. It would also let me test my most unpleasant hypothesis.
The goggles settled comfortably into my hand. I couldn't see them, but I could feel them. They felt warm, but only barely (a neutral temperature). I tried bending them, but they didn't yield. I tried scratching them with a fingernail, but no mark appeared.
They were completely monolithic, as if cast from a single piece of metal. Not a seam or joint to be found. Then I deployed the nanobots, instructing them to find a screw, a charging port, any point of entry. The nanobots, which could theoretically break almost anything down to the atomic level, simply slid across the surface. They couldn't find a way in.
My hypothesis was confirmed. This wasn't a physical object in any real sense. It was a conceptual projection. It was temporary. The System wasn't giving me things. It was lending me their essence, which meant no reverse-engineering, no copying, and no disassembly. Fine. An unpleasant truth was better than a false hope. It was time to move on to practical use.
The goggles went back into the slot. Then I mentally donned them. They appeared, fitting snugly against my nano-skin. At my command, the nanobots wove themselves into a perfect hermetic seal between the frame and my face. Now it was a closed system. But between the lenses and my eyes, there was still a vacuum. If I removed the nanobots from my eyes, the eyeballs would rupture from internal pressure. I had to create a micro-atmosphere. I rerouted a tiny fraction of oxygen from my recirculator and injected it into the sealed space inside the goggles.
Very carefully, as I had when I first arrived in this unstable world, I began pulling the nanobots back. First, I pulled them from one eye. There was no boiling. There was mild discomfort from the dryness and cold, but Extremis neutralized it immediately. I blinked and saw the inner surface of a dark lens. I pulled the nanobots from the second eye. This was workable. Better yet, I had an entire day of Interdimensional Cable ahead of me. Even in this frozen dead-end of the universe, I could find upsides.
Now I needed to figure out how this thing worked. I instinctively touched the arm of the goggles, and an image immediately appeared in the lenses. Right. Swiping left or right on the right arm cycled through realities featuring alternate versions of John Thompson. The same gestures on the left arm cycled through Interdimensional Cable channels. Sound was delivered by bone conduction. Convenient.
I lay back on the ice floor of the cave with my hands behind my head. For the first time, I didn't feel like a survivor. I felt like someone actually resting. I started watching John from the first reality the goggles had settled on. He was an ordinary John Thompson, not a displaced soul. Frail, thin, and pale. He lived in the same Hell's Kitchen apartment where I'd arrived, except he was in a wheelchair.
I didn't know why, but I spent a solid hour watching his daily life. Actually, it wasn't an hour in real time. Holding the arm let me fast-forward like a video. I watched five hours of his life in one hour of mine.
It was gray, dreary, and profoundly depressing. His life had no color whatsoever. He lived on a meager disability benefit. He ate the cheapest delivery food he could reach from his doorway. He spent most of his time watching shows on an old television.
This was the John I could have become if I'd arrived in this body without the System, if the first mugger in the neighborhood had stabbed me in the back and severed my spine before I could do anything. The only difference between him and me was meta-knowledge and the System. Right now, my meta-knowledge meant nothing on this asteroid, and the System was crippled. How far had I actually come from him?
He was the young man whose body I'd taken, whose life I'd stolen. The mood that had lifted when I found entertainment was plummeting fast. I switched channels. That was enough.
Watching what I might or might not have become was crushing. It was the uncanny valley effect, or just mirror neurons doing their thing. Either way, it didn't matter.
I switched to a random Interdimensional Cable channel. Let's see what's on.
"Who is the Collector, and why is he so dangerous?"
The host's voice caught my attention immediately. She was a pretty young humanoid woman with indigo-colored skin and short, unnaturally silver-white hair. Two thin antennae peeked out from beneath it, like an ant's, or maybe Mantis's.
"His real name is Taneleer Tivan. Do not ask how our editorial team found that out." She winked at the camera. "And do not ask about his species," genuine fear crossing her face, "if you do not want to become part of his Collection."
One more thing I had only just noticed. I understood her language perfectly. The goggles had a built-in auto-translator. That answered one more question about how Rick and Morty watched alien television.
The host continued describing exactly what the Collector was, and she even showed footage of cosmic battles and strange vivariums.
He was one of the Marvel cosmic characters, and I knew almost nothing about it, to my current regret. I thought he'd made a brief appearance in one of the Thor films. That was the extent of it. Yet here, judging by the host's tone, people were genuinely terrified of him, and apparently with good reason.
He was ancient. According to the host's estimates, he had existed as long as the universe itself. He was one of the Elders of the Universe.
He was powerful. He was an eccentric entity obsessed with collecting and cataloging the rarest objects, artifacts, living species, and entire civilizations.
He believed he was preserving the universe's legacy against coming catastrophes.
His power level was immense. He was immortal, obviously. The upper limit of his strength was unknown, but a Kree military fleet foolish enough to attempt to arrest him had been destroyed effortlessly.
Part of that fleet, though, had been lucky enough, or perhaps unlucky depending on how you looked at it, to become part of his Collection.
His true form was unknown, but he most often appeared as a short-cropped, silver-haired man of about forty-five. He spent most of his time on his station-planet, Knowhere. That was also the location of the largest gladiatorial arena in the universe, according to the host, an arena grandly called the Arena of Gods. I did not know how well that name reflected reality, but something told me the combatants in a place like that were not lightweights. Wasn't that similar to the planet where Thor fought the Hulk in one of the films? I was fuzzy on the details.
I had memory problems without the NMT. That would be the first thing I'd fix upon returning to Earth. I couldn't afford to keep losing my primary advantage: my meta-knowledge.
The final takeaway from this documentary, which I'd watched at only 2x speed to make sure I didn't miss anything, was to stay away from him: he'd consume you. If the Collector had already taken an interest in you, he'd consume you regardless. Great. Another cosmic eldritch entity was out there in the multiverse. I didn't know which universe this broadcast originated from, but I was confident the Collector was alive and well in my reality too.
After the documentary, some idiotic talent show featuring Xorian jugglers started up. I changed the channel. The goal was to keep finding useful information like this: the balance of power in the universe, descriptions of different races, cosmic coalitions, galactic geopolitics, anything that might come in handy later.
Over the next twenty-two hours, lying in my ice cave, I became something of a specialist in cosmic threats. I learned the rough layout of the playing field in at least one universe. Whether it had anything in common with my own was uncertain, but information was information.
To start with, the universe held many, many races and civilizations, but three Great Empires dominated the political landscape.
First, there was the Kree Empire. They were a militaristic, technologically advanced, and brutal race from their homeworld, Hala. Most Kree had blue skin, which marked the aristocracy, while pink-skinned variants comprised the lower class. They were obsessed with genetic purity and expansion.
Second, there was the Skrull Empire. They were a race from the Andromeda galaxy known for their shapeshifting abilities. They were locked in a permanent, thousand-year war with the Kree. They frequently infiltrated other civilizations, causing conflict and paranoia, though more often they dismantled those civilizations completely from within. That trick never worked on the Kree; they were too xenophobic and paranoid by nature.
Third, there was the Shi'ar Empire. They were birdlike humanoids. Of the three, they were paradoxically the most powerful, stable, and relatively rational empire, governed by an Emperor or Empress.
I kept absorbing it all. Among other notable races, I found mention of the Asgardians. The description was brief but pointed. It described them as a supreme warrior race and advised against antagonizing them. Even on Interdimensional Cable, their reputation apparently spoke for itself.
There were the Xandarians: a highly advanced civilization that was, unusually, peaceful. They lived on Xandar, capital of the Nova Corps. The Corps itself functioned like an intergalactic police force. Their power came from the Nova Force, an infinite energy source shared by all members. Those who wielded it possessed superhuman strength and speed, could fly faster than light, and could discharge energy blasts.
They were essentially the Green Lanterns from DC, but each one had Superman's power set.
Once again, I felt, with perfect clarity, just how weak I was. No, not weak. I was nothing. A speck of dust. Everything I'd accomplished on Earth, all my scheming against Hydra, and my Extremis project were like children playing in a sandbox. In a universe where things like this existed, I was less than nothing.
Among the other interesting races were the Badoon. I snorted at the information. Yes, they behaved exactly as their name implies. They were a reptilian species, highly aggressive, with militaristic ambitions and at war with practically everyone.
The Zenn-Lavians, by contrast, were the complete opposite: a race of philosophers and pacifists whose planet had been slated for destruction by Galactus, only to somehow escape that fate. It was that fact, not their philosophy, that had caused a sensation across the universe, drawing disproportionate attention to this small civilization.
Galactus. Yes. He was mentioned too. He wasn't described as an enemy you could defeat, but as a natural disaster you could do absolutely nothing about. Absolute, inevitable entropy in humanoid form. The best course of action was evacuation, if a civilization was advanced enough. The worst was to attempt to oppose him in any way.
From the sheer volume of critical and non-critical information, my amputated brain, unaccustomed to this kind of workload, was literally aching. But the information was valuable, and most importantly, it was now mine.
It wasn't a System info package that could be deleted or converted. It was personal knowledge, loaded directly into my mind. This was the first glimmer of hope regarding my amputation. I was still capable of learning. Naturally, some of it would fade and details would drift away, but for that I had the NMT waiting back on Earth. Even if this information was useless right now, it would serve its purpose eventually.
I disconnected the Cable. The nanobots flowed back across my eyes, and the goggles vanished into my inventory slot. Only a few seconds remained on the timer. Time for one final test.
I pulled the goggles out again and squeezed. My Extremis-enhanced hands could crush steel ingots, but the goggles didn't budge. I heated my palms to several thousand degrees, yet the goggles didn't even grow warm. I commanded the nanobots to form an ultra-high-temperature plasma cutter. The flame struck the lens. Nothing.
They weren't part of this physical reality. They were a conceptual projection. I was completely certain now. The goggles vanished silently from my hand as the timer completed its daily countdown.
Sixth pull. October 26. I swept my invisible gaze across the cave. It was packed with resources floating in the vacuum, remnants from the Minecraft world. Stone, wood, coal, and unidentified ores and crystals filled the space. Useless scrap without the tools to process them. Maybe now I'd get something for crafting, I pleaded silently.
Whether the god of Randomness heard my prayer, or whether that was simply the nature of Randomness itself, I couldn't say. But I was more than merely pleased. I spent several seconds in a stunned daze reading the description. It suited my current circumstances so perfectly that it couldn't have been a coincidence.
[Information Package (Uncommon) received: Scrapper's Philosophy. Package duration: 24 hours!]
The Host had mastered not merely a set of instructions, but an entire philosophy. This skill allowed the Host to intuitively recognize the hidden potential in any junk, debris, or non-functional objects, and to combine them with exceptional efficiency, especially under conditions of limited time and resources.
Key Effects:
Conceptual Vision: The Host passively perceived surrounding junk not as trash, but as components. Broken electronics, scraps of pipe, and rusted parts were instantly analyzed for hidden potential, and the Host instinctively knew how to combine them.
Material Transformation: The skill allowed the Host to ignore the inherent flaws of source materials. During scrapper assembly, factors such as rust, brittleness, wear, or poor conductivity were temporarily nullified. The finished product inherited only the useful properties of its components.
Guaranteed Effectiveness and Reliability: Any item created using this skill, whether a weapon, tool, or shelter, would possess abnormally high reliability and effectiveness, far exceeding anything one could reasonably expect from its junk components. A pipe gun would not explode in the user's hands, and a water filter made from dirty rags would perform as well as industrial equivalents.
Extreme Conditions Bonus: This philosophy thrived under pressure. The skill functioned most effectively when the user was in a stressful or dangerous situation, in combat, or in survival mode. Under such conditions, scrapper assembly became significantly faster and more intuitive.
[Fury POV]
Five days had passed. One hundred and twenty hours. In that time, S.H.I.E.L.D. could have found anyone, anywhere. Surveillance technology, intelligence networks, satellites, and financial monitoring could have dug a dead man out from under three layers of concrete.
But Thompson had simply vanished.
Despite every effort Fury had made and every available resource thrown into the search, the young man had not been found. It was a complete failure, and that was only one of his problems.
Some mysterious individual had somehow bypassed the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. cordon and quietly extracted the table holding the Hood's boots from Thompson's lab. Parker's instincts had not helped there either. He had only said that the boots had stopped radiating. And Xavier, in whom Fury had invested valuable political capital, had simply sent a short, infuriating message to his encrypted inbox. The message read, "John Thompson is most likely not on Earth."
The pacifist telepath had naturally not bothered to explain what exactly those words meant. Most likely. Fury despised that phrase.
What was he supposed to do with it? He already understood that the universe was considerably larger than he had assumed. The existence of Hyperion and Maveth, which they had learned of from Malick, said as much. Was it space? Had Thompson been abducted by aliens, the same ones who had created the artifact boots? But why had they not taken the boots immediately? Or had they in fact returned to the scene? Or was this the work of some extraordinarily powerful meta or mutant, one of those for whom Earth was merely a sandbox?
All Fury could do was build theories. Some were foolish, and some were reasonably logical, but they all amounted to mental exercise. The fact remained that Thompson had disappeared, and the chance of finding him was shrinking by the hour.
And the world was not waiting. The chaos triggered by Thompson's disappearance, combined with the deaths and escape of the Hydra Heads, had forced Fury to postpone Rogers' thawing. But pressure from above had intensified, and there was no holding it off any longer. Cap had already been brought out of the ice.
Fury stared at the tablet screen. It was broadcasting live footage from a hospital room decorated in the style of the 1940s. A radio on the nightstand murmured softly about baseball. The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. could not help thinking that it was probably time to stop searching for Thompson. It was time to declare him a loss and redirect focus to the asset that was here and now.
At that moment, Steve Rogers opened his eyes. Fury brought his full attention to the screen. It became clear almost immediately that something had gone off-script.
Rogers did not bolt upright. He did not look disoriented. He analyzed. He slowly and carefully swept the room with a sharp, attentive gaze, and his eyes kept pausing on the ventilation grate, on the frame of the painting above the bed, and on the shade of the bedside lamp. He was looking at precisely the locations where the listening devices and hidden cameras were placed. He was finding every single one of them.
That ability wasn't in Rogers' file. Fury noted this, rising heavily from his desk. He was leaving the office to speak with the super-soldier in person. The cards were on the table anyway, which meant the carefully considered plan for the gentle and gradual integration of Captain America into the twenty-first century had just gone out the window.
Well. Why couldn't he go even a single damn day without another wretched problem turning up?
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2.Marvel: Cosmic Forger of Infinity = CHAPTER 169
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4.Harry Potter: Reborn as Draco Black = CHAPTER 96
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