The other: “I wish to survey the base.  Captains, as you were.”

So we’ve got one reality where the captains are at the entrance, and one where they aren’t. One where Coil’s holding off on the strikes against the two E44s for a bit, and one where he’s starting that process.

Two groups traveling in separate directions.  One of his selves traveled with the troops, down the metal staircase to the lower level, the other moving in the other direction, across the metal walkway, the two employees hurrying to keep up with his long strides.

I feel like this chapter is going to take some mental gymnastics to keep things straight at a couple points. So far, though, Wildbow’s doing a good job of making it clear.

Also, I just thought of the first episode of season 2 of Rick and Morty, in which a single timeline fractures and Rick has to try to reunite the pieces. That’s represented by a split screen. I think if Worm were in a visual medium, that would be a good way to handle this chapter.

He eyed the base as it was developing.  The massive quantities of crates and boxes were being unpacked, bunk beds for soldiers on call, a fully equipped medical bay, stocks and facilities for the kitchens, innumerable weapons.  It was taking shape, fine details emerging where there had been only right angles and neatly organized stacks boxes.

Nice.

He owned the company that had built the underground shelters in Brockton Bay and neighboring cities.

Oh, huh. Well, that explains why the shelter Taylor visited reminded me of this base.

Hiding the details on his base in construction was a matter of intercepting information at the right time and place, paying with his own money rather than the city’s, controlling what was reported and to whom.  His pet’s powers had assured him that nobody would be noticing any disparity anytime soon. 

Pretty handy, that certainty.

“Good girl,” he spoke.

With that, he collapsed that world where he had stayed up all night, studying the news, following international business trends, tracking the details on his troops’ most minor operations – he helped ensure the success of the major ones with his power.

Oh… that’s pretty clever. Using a world without consequences to stay up and learn things (that should stay true to the other timeline for the most part) while getting plenty of rest in the timeline he intends to make the alpha. I love it.

The reality swiftly faded, leaving only the world where he had a full night’s sleep, ate a hearty breakfast, drove to the base with Creep.  Only the memories and knowledge remained.

If he does this regularly, he can stay about as caught up on things as he’d be if he was awake 24/7 as Coil. Sleep only keeps him from meaningfully acting on those things immediately unless necessary enough to sacrifice the night’s rest and risk questions about his whereabouts from his civilian family.

Standing before his employees and soldiers, he divided realities once more, leaving only a heartbeat between the erasure of one existence and the creation of another.

If I was onto something re: pseudo-immortality, this is probably a good habit to be in.

He often wondered if he really was creating the realities, or if it was solely in his perception, foretelling futures to the extent that they hinged on his actions.

I mean, it’s possible that the timelines happen anyway whenever he makes a choice, and he just has the power of essentially having his consciousness cover two of the timelines until he chooses not to. Dinah’s power implies a few things along this line, though it’s unclear whether the timelines she sees are actual realities or projections in her mind.

He’d asked his Tattletale, and she hadn’t had an answer for him.

Coil has a nasty habit of viewing people as his property, doesn’t he.

Creep directed the vehicle down the ramp and into the parking garage.  He stayed behind with the van as Coil departed.

Coil entered a doorway in the lowest, most secluded corner of the parking garage, entering a room with an electrical system behind a metal cage.  Opening the door to step into the cage, passing around behind the electrical box and passing through the concealed doorway there, he reached the heavy vault door that marked the entrance to his underground base.

Welcome home.

Even after he was inside, with two employees waiting to greet him, a contingent of his squad captains standing at the ready, he remained careful.  Back in the other reality, he stood from his computer, traveled into the room beside his own.

What’s he being careful about, though? Is he expecting that he might be attacked in here?

He paused in the doorway, staring at the girl who lay on the cot.  She was dressed in white, unmoving but for the rise and fall of her ribcage, her eyes open.

Dinah… you don’t sound like you’re doing so good. What’s up?

“It’s morning, pet.  You know what questions I ask you.”

“It’s morning?” she asked, head rising.  “I feel like I just had dinner.  Candy?”

She’s losing track of time… relatable, honestly, though I don’t think the reasons are anywhere near the same.

“No, pet.  It’s too early.  Now please answer my question.”

Petulant, she replied, “Zero point two five two percent chance there’s any problems here in the next hour.  Three point seven four four one percent chance there’s any problems before lunchtime.”

I suppose the second best alarm system is one that tells you the chances ahead of time.

(The best one is less probabilistic.)

He was spending less and less time in his civilian identity, these days, to the point that he was pondering dropping it altogether.  He could be Coil full-time, when the base was fully set up.

So what about the family? Is that completely fake too? Are your wife and children employees?

No, that doesn’t mesh with what Coil just said about Creep.

For now, though, so long as he needed a bed, and a place to get away from the noise of construction, the ruse was necessary.  He seated himself in the one chair at the back of the vehicle.

I guess he just doesn’t care about them, then.

Things like this are part of why I don’t refer to civilian names as “real names”. It’s not the only reason – I just generally don’t like the idea of a name someone chose for themself being less real than the one they were given at birth – but it’s definitely a good illustration.

To outside observers, Creep was an ordinary laborer driving an electrician’s van to the construction site.  Coil’s underground base had fallen just beyond the scope of the massive lake in the middle of downtown.

I seem to recall the above-ground construction site being damaged, but I’m not sure.

Had the crater extended another forty or fifty feet, it might have done more than crack the interior walls, cost Coil months of time rather than days, hundreds of thousands rather than thousands.

Lucky break, that.

Or did that perhaps happen in an alternate timeline? I could see him using his power on the Endbringer situation and, after both timelines turned out to successfully run Levvy off to the horizon, pick the one that suited him best personally.

Although he’d have to make a choice that would actually impact that.

Wealth would have to suffice for anyone and everyone else.

In other words, he’ll provide them with the thing they so desperately need, but only if they’re also particularly useful.

Fair enough.

Creep remained the one individual that had the opportunity to discover Coil with the mask off, so it was worth buying his loyalty.

Ah, yeah, makes sense.

The man waited in the front seat of the white van, eyes forward, until he heard the three knocks on the back door of the vehicle.  He pressed a button, opening the door to allow Coil to enter.

Once inside the back of the van, hidden from Creep’s view by a barrier between the seats, Coil removed his clothes, folding them neatly.

t r a n s f o r m a t i o n   s e q u e n c e   g o !

He donned his costume, his second skin.  A zipper was hidden in the image of the long white snake that weaved up around the body of the costume to the head.

Hah! Reminds me of my pencil case, which is pretty much just one long zipper.

This is cool, but I have a hard time imagining it being practical to get into in any way, shape or form.

He drew it together around himself, tucked the metal tab of the zipper into a flap at his ankle. The fabric of the costume allowed him to see and breathe through it, but was an opaque black-gray to outside observers in all but the brightest light.

Sounds like going up against Purity could get awkward.

Coil held firmly to the philosophy that one couldn’t be too paranoid.

Well, there goes the “checking in on the heroes” theory.

Hi, Coil. I suppose it makes a lot of sense to check in on you right after the reveal of how your power actually works.

Every moment of every day was a delicate balancing act, anticipating any number of unseen threats from every possible angle, whether he was speaking with his subordinates or simply rising to meet the day.

One of the last few asks got me thinking – though I didn’t mention it then, sorry – about the idea of the interaction between Coil’s power and death. If one timeline’s Coil dies, can the other one still pick his own timeline? Does that mean Coil is practically immortal unless he dies at just about the same time in both timelines, or dies when he doesn’t have a fork active? Or does he keel over, dead, if the Coil in the other timeline dies?

Which timeline becomes the alpha if Coil dies in both before he can pick one? Would both timelines just continue to exists as parallel realities like the Wormverse and Earth-Aleph? Could you make a hole between them?

Even after the explanation, there continue to be a lot of questions surrounding Coil’s power.

In one reality, he was safely ensconced in his underground base, costumed, with no less than twenty armed soldiers between himself and the multiple sets of heavy metal doors.   He had spent his night reading, following the news and checking his stocks.  His location was known only to those who worked for him, individuals paid well enough that even if they did have reason to attack him, their ‘coworkers’ would have incentive to stop them.

Nice.

I’m guessing the other reality’s Coil isn’t quite as safe. Are we actually going into what I was just talking about here?