this is crazy

[from_scratch]

Cam is watching a new recording of Atriama, tail swishing in the gap in his couch, and doesn't stop to pause the show when he feels a summons go by.

Comments

[from_scratch]

Make make make make.

[wormcan]

And there are copies. Lots of copies, as there are a lot of Protectorate teams and everyone wants to be at least a little prepared for a firepower-requiring emergency. Often that involves tinkers.

Thus armed, the capes and their PRT backup form a firing squad. "Anything else you wanted to try?"

[from_scratch]

"Exploding him. You want me to do it simultaneously with this?"

[wormcan]

"Try that first. That sounds like if it works it might work completely, and it's easier to get you a clear shot than to get everyone a clear shot."

[from_scratch]

"Okay. Stand back, you don't want bits to hit you in the face."

When everyone's out of the way Cam fits a truly uncomfortable quantity of compressed air in Crawler's various interior cavities, not interpolating, just filling to bursting.

[wormcan]

Pressure, even from the inside, is apparently something Crawler has experienced before. The air whooshes out, and the mindless copy doesn't seem to care.

[from_scratch]

Well, caring wasn't what Cam was after.

"I could take it into space and chuck it into a black hole but I'm not willing to do that on a planet and don't have a great way to get the real one of him to space. You guys are up."

[wormcan]

"All right. Three...two...one..."

No one knows in any detail what the weapons they're holding do, but they do know how to make them do it. The Crawler copy goes up in a flash of everything. It ranges from white flash to gray blur. It can be seen regenerating, but by the time the copy can adapt to everything it's already almost gone.

"It...seems like it worked. No margin of error, though. How well can you hold Crawler down?"

[from_scratch]

"I didn't get video footage, but I held him in a block of impact gel and concrete for a couple of seconds, longer when I was adding layers but it's now occurred to him to burrow so a couple seconds is probably what we've got."

[wormcan]

"If it fails, we just made him immune to tinkers around the country. But all this, plus what you tried the first time, we've got a good shot."

[from_scratch]

"I assume if you had any telekinetics who could get him into space they'd have done it already."

[wormcan]

"Right. Unfortunately."

[from_scratch]

"And I honestly don't know what to do about the Siberian but as long as we're here I might as well make one of her too?"

[wormcan]

"If anything we have here works, I think we'll all be surprised. But may as well test it."

[from_scratch]

"Okay -"

...

......

"...Is there any chance the Siberian is made of antimatter or possibly magic?"

[wormcan]

"Honestly? She may as well be. Immune to everything. Your copying didn't work on her either?"

[from_scratch]

"Nope. I can't do antimatter or magic, those are my known limits."

[wormcan]

"Antimatter, magic, and whatever the Siberian's made of.

I'd ask about the magic, but we've got a Crawler to kill and one chance to do it."

[from_scratch]

"Just means I can't make a fountain of youth or anything. Anything else to cover before we go? Useful swag you want replaced that had glass in it, anything like that?"

[wormcan]

"Nothing time-sensitive."

They head back toward Crawler, or at least to where the tracking device says he still is.

[from_scratch]

The tracking device is unlikely to have gone anywhere, since to extract it something would have had to get through Crawler.

[wormcan]

And he's still there.

"We can get him to come out, then hit him? If he thinks the goal is to fight him instead of restrain him he probably won't start by trying to escape."

[from_scratch]

"Sure. I can try stuff that definitely won't work like dousing him in plasma, pretend I'm slow on the uptake?"

[wormcan]

"Ideally he wouldn't even know it was you, but plasma is pretty non-distinctive. Everyone ready?
Go."

[from_scratch]

Plasma! Plasma all over you, Crawler! (And a protective layer of liquid nitrogen mist so it doesn't set other things on fire.)