Mod Superhero

Chapter 7.61 - TINA 4

Emmett vanished, but in the backup lab, the rest of his teammates were saying their own goodbyes. It was a scene repeated hundreds of times in Resistance bases across the world.

TINA tried to give everyone privacy, but it was much more difficult than she expected.

Some goodbyes were harder than others. Most of the immediate team would be fighting alongside one another—Emmett being the exception. So Clara, McGuire, and Lock tried to keep the mood light between them. They planned on keeping count of how many drones and mechs they destroyed. It took a few minutes, but Athena joined in. She claimed that if they didn't beat her count, then they failed their training—to which McGuire joked that this was the longest training ever.

At one point, all of that would've puzzled TINA. But now she understood why humans avoided hard subjects. She'd done the same thing herself.

TINA knew saying goodbye would be hard—especially with Athena. There was a good chance that everyone would make it through this battle... everyone except Athena.

No one brought it up. No one said it out loud. Maybe because Athena didn't want them to, maybe because it just hurt too much to talk about, or maybe because talking about it would make it real. Either way, it hurt TINA deeply to watch Clara, McGuire, and Lock avoid the issue altogether.

When Athena and Lock were alone, she still refused to say goodbye. Instead, she pulled him close and the two clung to one another wordlessly. Their relationship had always been physical, often causing TINA to look away bashfully, but now their passion was quiet, and somehow that made it even more intimate.

McGuire and Clara spoke holographically with Cherry, Krystal, and Larian. He wished he could be there with them, and lamented how holograms just weren't the same. They were no substitute for a good hug. After they cut off comms, Cherry, Krystal, and Larian talked with each other. They were fighting side by side, and so they told each other how thankful they were. Cherry and Krystal had been especially close since their dads got married.

Venture, Daedalus, and Wight avoided saying their own goodbyes by talking about their own missions. Wight would infiltrate the lab and take it back from Ava Savanus. Venture would don his new exosuit and confront Midas directly. Daedalus was staying in the backup lab to man his equipment. None of them were worried—Wight's powers would keep him safe, and Venture's exosuit had all the countermeasures necessary to destroy the flagship Midas was hiding on.

Just like Athena, Venture was holding something back. Venture had tried to hide it from everyone, but that was an impossible task. Wight was a spymaster, TINA was an AI, and Emmett might as well be. All three of them were human lie detectors. Even Daedalus seemed to suspect it. They knew what Venture was planning, even if he hadn't said it out loud.

TINA had thought about stopping him. Instead of letting him confront Midas, she could suffuse Venture's body with her nanites and freeze him in place.

But she wouldn't. She didn't want to manipulate anyone—much less control them. It would go against everything they were trying to create. People needed free will. They needed to make their own choices and their own mistakes.

Venture, Daedalus, and Wight's conversation stopped abruptly. Wight had started to apologize, but Venture cut him off. That apology might've been for any number of things past or present: The original vote to oust Venture from the Summit of Heroes, working against one another after the war, coming to the cause all too late... But Venture wouldn't hear it, and said there was no need. He said they were both "just doing what they thought was right." Daedalus had agreed, adding that "staying stuck in the past is just a slower kind of death."