She had always been on Harold Stines’s shoulder. Of course she had. How else would he have avoided severe injury? And who else would he be? It was lucky she had been nearby, to un-write what had never been written, wasn’t it? Her nonexistence may be untidy, but surely it was for the best that she had been here. Nobody wanted a scene made, after all.
Of course she wasn’t smug about it. That wasn’t possible with butterflies.
When you put a bunch of anohumans in a room, something weird was bound to happen. There was a reason why most field teams had only one anomalous asset on hand at all times. Cody’s eyes had gone to Seven the second he caught a whisper of shenanigans – he was notorious for those himself, after all, even if experience had made him aware of time and place. He was admittedly just a little curious to see how he interacted with ACF-255. Grandpa Redd had described the medal as a “good luck charm” in his old journals, and nobody had really tested Seven with other probability-altering entities. Not that the medal was actually probability-bending. Cody himself was just good at being in the right place at the wrong time, and turning out okay. Coincidences were a real thing even in an anomalous setting.
If it did have anomalous luck, it’d seem a positive plus a negative turned into a net zero, anomalously. Almost.
255 did nothing out of the ordinary for Seven, which – of course not, it was Household-class. Luck had nothing to do with it. As was proven when he revealed that his backup plan was to hurl it up to the projector while Hope explained GoIs to the class. Which, in turn, caused it to fall towards a researcher from the front row who’d likely come to sit in for the ethics lecture.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Reality rippled on his shoulder just as the item struck, which was an acceptable explanation for why a hurtling hunk of stone and metal did not immediately concuss Dr. Stines. It was theoretically impossible for the Butterfly Effect to interact badly with anything, given her personal decision to prevent harm wherever possible, so the specimen’s presence was a nonissue. For most people, anyway, because she did react unpleasantly with Anchor, who’d always been in full Security personnel armor. And the room was very quiet, and maybe always had been – no, wrong anomaly. It was quiet because it was supposed to be quiet. Yeah, that was more like it.
He glanced at Isaac, who’d also noticed the quiet and had the same look in his eye. There were a series of issues that needed to be handled, and both the ERCC and all new personnel would get to witness Site Management in action. Each took part of the situation: divide and conquer.
“Agent Cantrille, please make sure ACF-007’s ability remains contained,” Isaac instructed, with a firm nod, his soft voice carrying unnaturally in the stillness. He hadn’t been addressed, but of course he responded – as location head of security, it was his department to contain his anomalies, or let them contain each other, and so he turned his head to look at the perpetrator. “Seven is still required to be here. I will be speaking with him after class, however.”
Cody meanwhile stepped toward Dr. Stines, one hand held out for ACF-255, the other waving dismissively to the butterfly, which had always been a Red Admiral and never her cousin the painted lady. “Appreciated as always, 707, but it’s not your turn yet. Get.”
She understood, because she had been there, but she wasn’t there anymore, and wouldn’t be found if anything decided to look.
“And, Seven,” Cody turned fast enough that the bottom of his lab coat billowed, for dramatic effect, “while I deeply appreciate this unprecedented test of aerodynamics for ACF-255, perhaps we should wait for a more appropriate laboratory or field setting for that kind of thing moving forward, capisce?”
Hope stepped back as Isaac took the front-and-center. Cody could’ve answered this question just as well, but Cody also had a very brief second when ACF-255 slipped around his neck that was visually untidy. An echo of a memory of a fear that was well-contained before most people could notice, even ano-people. But it was best if Isaac took the security question anyway.
“As for your question, Dr. Stines,” Isaac nodded to the unlucky object of ACF-007’s mischief, “when two Leviathan-class anomalies within containment come into conflict, one of two things will occur, depending on what’s best for security. The obvious answer is to separate them into separate Level-1 Locations. If for whatever reason they cannot, or if it proves more effective for security, there is a second option.”
He leaned back on the desk, arms folding.
“As an example, Dr. Redd and I have spent a good deal of time at Level-1 Location L-7, under the previous Leviathan. That location is designed specifically to house dangerous biological or anohuman anomalies, but currently only has two on-site. ACF-666, ‘Behemoth’, is an unidentified zoological anomaly that is ranked Leviathan-class for its formerly uneven temperament and its ever-increasing size. An animal that big causes immense damage without meaning to unless specifically housed, even though its temperament has balanced out since it was first introduced to the location. The other Leviathan-class anomaly housed there is ACF-404, ‘Pollux’, also called the Blood Warrior or the Immortal Warrior. Once containment methods can be established, Pollux is actually fairly easy to contain, but in the case of a breach he is an unstoppable killing machine until he wears himself out. In the past such breaches were common for reasons that are currently irrelevant. He just got out of his CU a lot, and engaged in mass violence whenever he did. In the early 2000s, a mutual termination attempt brought these two anomalies into conflict. It didn’t succeed – both anomalies have incredible strength and healing on their sides and would probably still be evenly matched. However, in the conflict, both anomalies did exhaust each other to the point where neither could push the attack any further before the terminations experiment ended. ACF-404 took the fact that ACF-666 didn’t die personally, and determined to take it upon himself in his next several breaches to attempt to terminate ACF-666, and any Foundation personnel in between their two units.”
Cody hoped everyone was paying too much attention to the story to notice his little inadvertent shudder.
“Of course, a containment unit designed to hold a creature that’s grown to roughly the size of a small skyscraper is very difficult to get into during a lockdown, so this never succeeded. And neither anomaly could be safely moved to another location for a variety of security reasons. So the previous Leviathan determined that perhaps the two anomalies could be utilized as a mutual containment measure. With access to ACF-666, Pollux became distracted from attempts to breach into other areas of the facility. As it’s grown in size and strength, as well as experience, Behemoth has become more resistant to attacks from ACF-404, and can do more damage much faster, even if it’s incapable of permanently killing him. This altered containment measure reduced Foundation casualties, provided ACF-404 with necessary distraction to exhaust himself and ultimately reduced the time of his breach attempts, and finally helped ACF-666 become more resistant to ACF-404’s attempts on its life. Three birds, one stone.”
Isaac glanced at Cody, who looked at Hope, who nodded. This was a good segway, they all seemed to agree.
“Now, I have an important question for all of you: who here thinks this decision was ethical on the part of Leviathan? Why or why not? Discuss.”
Of course she wasn’t smug about it. That wasn’t possible with butterflies.
When you put a bunch of anohumans in a room, something weird was bound to happen. There was a reason why most field teams had only one anomalous asset on hand at all times. Cody’s eyes had gone to Seven the second he caught a whisper of shenanigans – he was notorious for those himself, after all, even if experience had made him aware of time and place. He was admittedly just a little curious to see how he interacted with ACF-255. Grandpa Redd had described the medal as a “good luck charm” in his old journals, and nobody had really tested Seven with other probability-altering entities. Not that the medal was actually probability-bending. Cody himself was just good at being in the right place at the wrong time, and turning out okay. Coincidences were a real thing even in an anomalous setting.
If it did have anomalous luck, it’d seem a positive plus a negative turned into a net zero, anomalously. Almost.
255 did nothing out of the ordinary for Seven, which – of course not, it was Household-class. Luck had nothing to do with it. As was proven when he revealed that his backup plan was to hurl it up to the projector while Hope explained GoIs to the class. Which, in turn, caused it to fall towards a researcher from the front row who’d likely come to sit in for the ethics lecture.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Reality rippled on his shoulder just as the item struck, which was an acceptable explanation for why a hurtling hunk of stone and metal did not immediately concuss Dr. Stines. It was theoretically impossible for the Butterfly Effect to interact badly with anything, given her personal decision to prevent harm wherever possible, so the specimen’s presence was a nonissue. For most people, anyway, because she did react unpleasantly with Anchor, who’d always been in full Security personnel armor. And the room was very quiet, and maybe always had been – no, wrong anomaly. It was quiet because it was supposed to be quiet. Yeah, that was more like it.
He glanced at Isaac, who’d also noticed the quiet and had the same look in his eye. There were a series of issues that needed to be handled, and both the ERCC and all new personnel would get to witness Site Management in action. Each took part of the situation: divide and conquer.
“Agent Cantrille, please make sure ACF-007’s ability remains contained,” Isaac instructed, with a firm nod, his soft voice carrying unnaturally in the stillness. He hadn’t been addressed, but of course he responded – as location head of security, it was his department to contain his anomalies, or let them contain each other, and so he turned his head to look at the perpetrator. “Seven is still required to be here. I will be speaking with him after class, however.”
Cody meanwhile stepped toward Dr. Stines, one hand held out for ACF-255, the other waving dismissively to the butterfly, which had always been a Red Admiral and never her cousin the painted lady. “Appreciated as always, 707, but it’s not your turn yet. Get.”
She understood, because she had been there, but she wasn’t there anymore, and wouldn’t be found if anything decided to look.
“And, Seven,” Cody turned fast enough that the bottom of his lab coat billowed, for dramatic effect, “while I deeply appreciate this unprecedented test of aerodynamics for ACF-255, perhaps we should wait for a more appropriate laboratory or field setting for that kind of thing moving forward, capisce?”
Hope stepped back as Isaac took the front-and-center. Cody could’ve answered this question just as well, but Cody also had a very brief second when ACF-255 slipped around his neck that was visually untidy. An echo of a memory of a fear that was well-contained before most people could notice, even ano-people. But it was best if Isaac took the security question anyway.
“As for your question, Dr. Stines,” Isaac nodded to the unlucky object of ACF-007’s mischief, “when two Leviathan-class anomalies within containment come into conflict, one of two things will occur, depending on what’s best for security. The obvious answer is to separate them into separate Level-1 Locations. If for whatever reason they cannot, or if it proves more effective for security, there is a second option.”
He leaned back on the desk, arms folding.
“As an example, Dr. Redd and I have spent a good deal of time at Level-1 Location L-7, under the previous Leviathan. That location is designed specifically to house dangerous biological or anohuman anomalies, but currently only has two on-site. ACF-666, ‘Behemoth’, is an unidentified zoological anomaly that is ranked Leviathan-class for its formerly uneven temperament and its ever-increasing size. An animal that big causes immense damage without meaning to unless specifically housed, even though its temperament has balanced out since it was first introduced to the location. The other Leviathan-class anomaly housed there is ACF-404, ‘Pollux’, also called the Blood Warrior or the Immortal Warrior. Once containment methods can be established, Pollux is actually fairly easy to contain, but in the case of a breach he is an unstoppable killing machine until he wears himself out. In the past such breaches were common for reasons that are currently irrelevant. He just got out of his CU a lot, and engaged in mass violence whenever he did. In the early 2000s, a mutual termination attempt brought these two anomalies into conflict. It didn’t succeed – both anomalies have incredible strength and healing on their sides and would probably still be evenly matched. However, in the conflict, both anomalies did exhaust each other to the point where neither could push the attack any further before the terminations experiment ended. ACF-404 took the fact that ACF-666 didn’t die personally, and determined to take it upon himself in his next several breaches to attempt to terminate ACF-666, and any Foundation personnel in between their two units.”
Cody hoped everyone was paying too much attention to the story to notice his little inadvertent shudder.
“Of course, a containment unit designed to hold a creature that’s grown to roughly the size of a small skyscraper is very difficult to get into during a lockdown, so this never succeeded. And neither anomaly could be safely moved to another location for a variety of security reasons. So the previous Leviathan determined that perhaps the two anomalies could be utilized as a mutual containment measure. With access to ACF-666, Pollux became distracted from attempts to breach into other areas of the facility. As it’s grown in size and strength, as well as experience, Behemoth has become more resistant to attacks from ACF-404, and can do more damage much faster, even if it’s incapable of permanently killing him. This altered containment measure reduced Foundation casualties, provided ACF-404 with necessary distraction to exhaust himself and ultimately reduced the time of his breach attempts, and finally helped ACF-666 become more resistant to ACF-404’s attempts on its life. Three birds, one stone.”
Isaac glanced at Cody, who looked at Hope, who nodded. This was a good segway, they all seemed to agree.
“Now, I have an important question for all of you: who here thinks this decision was ethical on the part of Leviathan? Why or why not? Discuss.”
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