1.17: Changing Faces

The urgent chirping from the earring Hekate had given Pandora was her cue to leave.  Pandora was a Titan - strong and resilient as any average member of their race - but she couldn't fight her way out of a camp full of trained soldiers with steel weapons. Fortunately, she was also one of the few free Legacy Bearers left in the northern Mediterranean.


Like all Legacy Bearers, she possessed powers, abilities, and skills beyond the normal scope of her race. The prime host of her Legacy, Lauma, had been a quantum statistician on their home world and a social psychologist without parallel. Her incredible gifts with mathematics allowed her to see patterns no one else could see, and even - to a limited extent - see some of the infinite alternate timelines that preceded every moment. Pandora couldn't always predict what an individual would do in any given instance, but she could estimate the actions of populations reasonably well and - thanks to her peculiar form of foresight - she could see... opportunities. The treachery of an enemy or the spontaneity of a friend were difficult to see coming, but the flip of a coin, the roll of a die, or the draw of a card were always known to her the moment someone began to flip, roll, or shuffle. Most days it made for an entertaining parlor trick, but sometimes it was a lifesaver.

Right now, it allowed her to slip through the gaps in the seemingly unpredictable movement of a crowd. To step right where and when no one was looking, until she found a secluded spot to take advantage of her more spectacular abilities.

On the Tartarus, Lauma had applied her skills to quantum engineering, hoping to find a way to achieve faster-than-light travel with the ship. In that regard, she never succeeded - the ship was simply too big. Her knowledge, through means she didn't entirely understand, allowed her Legacy A.I. to manufacture the remarkable ability to move a much, much smaller object almost instantaneously over long distances. With time, Lauma's successors had improved on that ability, increasing the size of what could be moved and how far. Pandora was able to move herself and any items in her possession to any place or person she could visualize within about a thousand miles. Her inherent ability to teleport herself was the corner stone of the orbital relay technology that Hekate had been using.

Of course, that feat did require some focus - hence the need for seclusion. In this instance, Pandora didn't know where she was going, only that Hekate had summoned her, so she reached out with her mind to find her ally. When at last she did, Pandora found that Hekate's aura was... weak, dimming like a candle that has reached the end of its wick. Pandora performed the motions that helped her to focus her powers, and created a hole in space to step through. Within an instant, she was by Hekate's side.

And Hekate appeared to be quite dead.

Pandora took a moment to orient herself - she was on one of the Tartarus's suspended animation decks, one of the secured ones that mostly held prisoners from their homeworld. Macaria, of all people, was hurriedly stashing Hekate's body into one of the pods and connecting it to regenerative life support systems. When Macaria saw Pandora seemingly appear out of nowhere, she actually screamed and hopped back from the pod a little, before being compelled to resume her task. She closed the pod and began programming an automated medical intervention.

"So, Macaria..." Pandora wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation, "How are you?"

Macaria continued typing frantically.

"Macaria, what happened to Hekate," Pandora asked.

"She killed her during the battle," Macaria finally answered.

"Who killed her?"

"I did," Macaria said, "It needed to be done; the whore was the reason Thanatos died."

"But... you're trying to save her now?"

"She saved her," Macaria answered.

"Who did she save?"

"Me."

"Macaria, you seem a little... dissociated."

"She knows... I know... it's confusing, I don't... I don't know what's going on. I don't even know how I got here. For some reason I took one of Hekate's bracelets, tapped some of the gemstones, and suddenly I was here, with her body."

"Macaria, were you close to Hekate's body immediately after she died?"

"Within a few feet, yes."

"I see. So I'm guessing it was Morgania who summoned me then."

"Yes," Macaria said, "I had the woman send the signal when I compelled her to use the orbital relay. What? Morgania? What are you talking about? Morgania was Hekate's Legacy; I was host to Alakhthon."

"You were," Pandora said, "But you gave up Alakhthon years ago, remember?"

"That's right, that's right... but I can feel someone in my head..."

"That would be Morgania," Pandora said, "She probably jumped into you when Hekate neared death. In the midst of the battle it would have been easy to miss a little dust floating in the air."

"Why does it feel so different though?" Macaria asked, "Because I'm not trying to bond with you. What? Sorry, did I hurt your feelings? This is a temporary relationship, you can call it a hijacking if you want. I only need you until we can find a way to put me into the box."

"You want to be back in the box?" Pandora was surprised.

"We're onto Plan C now, and for Plan C Kronos needs to think I'm dead," Macaria patted the lid of the suspended animation pod holding Hekate, "Both of us. I need to lay low for a while, and where else would be better than your Box?"

"Which we already know from Prometheus's predictions, that Kronos's children will probably open," Pandora recalled.

"Giving me the opportunity to find a new host with no one the wiser," Morgania answered through Macaria's voice.

"And Hekate?" Pandora asked, "If you're just going to move onto another host, why save her?"

"Insurance; she was a good body, I may have need of her in the future. But also... sentiment."

"Really?"

Macaria stopped working, "If you knew... She was happy, Pandora. The plan was so close to coming together; we would have had the power to make the world right, to save our civilization. I would have had Mbomxolodur and she would have had Prometheus. Almost everything we wanted was within our grasp. But Hekate saved me. She stabbed me first, but then she saved my life rather than leaving me to die. And because of that, because she compelled me to do the right thing, I killed her."

Macaria-Morgania's inconsistent pronoun use was fascinating to hear, but it was also giving Pandora a headache.

"Well I don't care," Macaria said, "You stabbed me, and let loose the monster that killed my husband. Why on Earth should I help y-y-y-?"

Macaria couldn't get the last word out - her body was suddenly growing stiff, rigid bark growing over her skin, sprouting branches and leaves. She convulsed for a moment, fighting the transformation as tears ran down her face and sap dripped from the corners of her mouth. In a moment, the painful half-transformation passed, and Macaria was back in her humanoid form.

"I control your abilities now," Morgania-Macaria said, "You will do exactly what I say, or I'll root you to the ground ten paces from a lumber-mill and find a new host next to whatever hearth your remains end up in."