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?