by Mia Archer
That was probably part of what kept Fialux hidden for so long too, damn it. Some started to look longingly towards the exits and a couple near the back quietly started gathering their things and moving out those doors.
I scrunched up my face and made a show of inspecting the remote. I even smacked it a couple of times as though it was an unruly animal and not a piece of highly advanced technology.
Why people thought beating a piece of highly advanced technology would make it work was beyond me, but I’d use the old stereotype for this demonstration.
The actual shut off command was keyed to my voice anyways. I wasn’t going to leave anything up to chance. Including the chance one of the idiots in this class might do something stupid like grab the remote out of my hands and try to turn the thing off of themselves leaving all of us screwed.
Time to lay it on thick. I smacked it one last time. “Weird, they told me the button could stick but it always came undone after a few smacks…”
That was enough to set off screaming near the front of the room. People started scrambling over chairs and panic was definitely setting in. I would’ve laughed if I didn’t know it would give away the game.
Instead I continued staring at the remote as though it was an interesting puzzle and not the key to a device that was very shortly going to annihilate all life in this room, excepting perhaps Fialux since I wasn’t exactly sure how this particular weapon would work against her.
Oh and me. I wouldn’t step foot into a room without wearing my molecular descrambler scrambler. I was serious when I said these things could kill a person and they’d never know it, so I figured it was safer to have safeties built in just the same as I had safeties to guard against mind control and random bullets flying at me or making the laws of physics my bitch when I suffered rapid deceleration or took a heavy hit.
I put my hands on my hips as though I was more exasperated than scared. I glared at the matter dispersal bomb. I glanced up into the seats where Selena was tapping a pencil against her desk and looking down at me with the corner of her mouth turned up in a half smile.
Definitely not the panicked reaction I saw from everyone else in the room. Whether that was because she knew this was a put on or because she thought I wasn’t serious like every other time was beyond me, but it was infuriating how she was sitting there acting exactly how I’d expect Fialux to act.
I knew what she was doing. Trying to psych me out acting like she didn’t care about a bomb that would off mere mortals. Annoying me by not giving away that she was Fialux by flying the bomb away from everyone else.
She was a cool customer. I hated it.
30
Blink
I sighed. My shoulders slumped. It looked like once again Fialux had won. Just like she’d won every round so far, assuming that Fialux and Selena Solare were the same person.
I’d really hate to go up against her in a game of poker.
I threw the remote to the ground and it shattered into pieces. People cried out at that, but it’s not like it mattered since the thing was keyed to my voice and the remote was just a hunk of plastic with a big shiny red button in the middle.
I’ve already mentioned how much I loved big shiny red buttons.
“Damn Applied Sciences Department and their useless crap!” I screamed.
The rotating red light, almost a solid bar, immediately stopped and the thing floated down into my outstretched hand. That’s right, come to mommy.
Everybody stared. Some breathed sighs of relief. Some put away various religious talismans they’d brought out. Others looked like they’d finally gotten around to soiling their pants and were trying to figure out a way to get the hell out of the room without letting everybody else know about the situation downstairs.
And if I didn’t miss my guess there was at least one couple in the back of the room bouncing away. Apparently they’d decided if they were going out then they were going to go out with a bang, as it were. Their sudden deliverance didn’t stop their enthusiasm or the bouncing, not that anyone else was paying attention since they were so busy coming to their own realizations that they weren’t about to die.
Only one person was sitting looking completely and utterly calm.
Selena Solare.
Damn her.
“Well, that was fun. Now we should probably talk about your midterm paper!”
A couple of people near the back of the room fainted outright. I smiled. I still had it.
The stress of thinking they were about to die was bad enough. Thinking they were about to die and bringing up a massive midterm paper that was worth a healthy chunk of their grade?
Well it was no wonder that overwhelmed a few unfortunate souls.
The ones who didn’t faint didn’t do much better. A collective groan rose from the class but I held up a hand with a smile.
"You'll be happy to hear that we won't be doing a test for your midterms," I said.
Immediately the angry muttering turned to more upbeat muttering.
"Instead, you will write a ten page paper elaborating on a situation where there would have been far less destruction if the hero hadn't intervened in whatever the alleged villain was planning."
The muttering turned angry again. I remembered well from my time in college that the only thing worse than having to study for an exam was being forced to write a paper. And ten pages was pretty long as far as undergrad intro level courses went.
Even if this was an undergrad course mostly populated by lazy upperclassmen who hadn’t bothered to get this out of the way until they were on their way out.
"If you have any questions you know what my office hours are," I said. I sat down at my desk and pretended to work while students filed out.
It was such a familiar ritual at this point that I didn’t even have to look up to tell whose shadow was crossing my desk after most students had filed out.
There was still a slight lingering smell in the room left behind by those unfortunate enough to actually have little accidents when they thought they were on death’s door. The custodial staff was going to have a field day with this lecture hall. I just hoped they’d be able to take care of the smell before the next class shuffled in.
“You almost had me there,” she said.
I looked up and smiled. She smiled back, and it was radiant. “I did?”
She shook a finger at me as she grinned. “You did! For a minute there I really believed you’d lost control of that thing!”
I returned the grin. “Who’s to say I didn’t?”
“You didn’t,” she said. “I have complete and utter confidence in you and your abilities when it comes to this stuff.”
Well that answered one question at least. She still thought I was a hyper competent university professor rather than an increasingly incompetent super villain in disguise.
That was good I guess?
“So to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit today?”
She bit her lip. God did she look so hot when she bit her lip like that. I was surprised her eyeglasses weren’t fogging up from the heat she was radiating. And it was getting late enough in the spring semester that she was starting to wear some outfits that radiated some serious heat, if you catch my meaning.
She looked me up and down and a shiver ran down my spine. “Well it’s not for the usual reasons today.”
“Oh? What is the reason?” I asked.
I raised an eyebrow. This was interesting. I also felt butterflies dancing in my stomach. Was she going to say something? Was there finally going to be an end to the tension that had been building over the semester?
“I have serious reservations about the midterm assignment you gave us.”
Oh. So much for resolving tension. At least she bit her lip as she said it. That was something. I’d never get tired of her biting her lip like that.
“Well I’d certainly be happy to discuss…”
Her phone started ringing. Of course her phone started ringing. T
hat damned phone started ringing every time things started to get good.
Damn her boyfriend for monopolizing her time. I wanted to pull out my blaster and vaporize the thing, only that would definitely give me away.
“Let me guess? Your boyfriend?”
Selena looked at the screen and her face fell. She seemed to do that more and more every time she was interrupted.
I was starting to have serious questions about this guy. Who was he that he could draw the attention of a living goddess away like that? Only she picked up the phone and swiped at the screen. Of course she was going to accept the call.
She looked up to me and mouthed “sorry,” but I was having none of it this time. I leaned back in my chair, put my arms together behind my head. “Well if you have a problem with the assignment then now’s the time to talk about it. Just get rid of the person on the other end of that phone call.”
It was a test more than anything. A test to see if she’d actually put the phone down.
Like most people from her generation, heck, like most people from my generation considering I was only a few years older than her at best, she had an unbreakable attachment to her phone. Only with most people in class that unbreakable attachment manifested itself in the form of texting under their desk or browsing the Internet since it was a big lecture class and they probably figured it’s not like I was going to remember exactly who they were and dock their grade for it.
Of course those students hadn’t counted on me recording every session and using facial recognition software to figure out exactly who was texting in class and by what percentage their grade should be docked. There were going to be some big surprises when the participation part of grades was added in.
But I was getting distracted from what was important. Fialux, Selena, Miss Solare, whatever the hell her name was, was the only person I knew who was constantly distracted by the video function on her telephone. I opened my mouth to say something, to try and get her away, but she already had that vapid empty stare on her face. The one that told me she was deep in conversation with whoever this guy was on the other end.
I sighed and leaned back into my chair. There was no helping it now. She was firmly in the thrall of her electronic god and nothing I could do would stop her. Nothing would get through to her.
Noise off in the distance pulled my attention away from Selena and towards the massive windows that ran along one side of the lecture hall.
Sirens. Coming from downtown which could be seen through those aforementioned massive windows. As I watched a massive explosion went off in the distance. Big enough that it rattled the windows.
I briefly considered opening a feed to one of my drones but decided against it with Selena still in the room.
She was acting odd now as well. I looked over to her and she’d stopped talking. She was looking out the window too, and as the sirens kept up their wail that blank stare started to disappear. Her face started to harden with resolve. Her arm dropped to her side, the phone still glowed but the call was forgotten.
I sat forward. Now this was interesting. Finally something was breaking through whatever haze came over her when she took a phone call from this guy. I peered at the phone to try and get a closer look at his name but her thigh was blocking the screen. Damn it.
Selena glanced at me and she was back entirely. A look of regret passed across her face, then the resolve was back.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” she said.
I grinned despite myself. That was exactly the sort of thing I’d expect Fialux to say. Off to save the city and all that.
Inside I was dancing with glee. I’d found a way to pull her attention away from that damned phone and all but proved that she was Fialux.
She was moving towards the exit at top speed, faster even than the people scrambling away from the matter dispersal bomb earlier. Too fast for me to try the stasis field on her without alerting her that something was up, and there was still the pesky problem that I wasn’t absolutely certain she was Fialux. I needed to think fast.
“Stop by my office hours if you want to talk about that paper!” I shouted.
I didn’t know if she heard me or not. She was out the door and I was left alone in a massive lecture hall that was starting to smell more and more as the unfortunate aftereffects of my earlier demonstration wafted through the room.
I hit a button and there was a bright flash as I teleported up to my office. I figured I could watch the show downtown from one of the drones while I waited for Fialux to take care of business there and hopefully head to office hours.
I could only hope she’d heard me. Then maybe we’d finally get some one-on-one time with each other without her phone and this mysterious boyfriend interrupting.
A girl could hope.
31
Wannabes
"Office hours" for me usually involved leaving behind a small transmitter tied to my wrist computer that I could use to determine whether or not someone was knocking on my door. From there it was a matter of quickly teleporting back to the university where I could impart my knowledge on the eagerly awaiting student.
Only today I didn’t bother with any of that crap. I didn’t even bother going back to the lab. As soon as the door was shut behind me I flipped up the 3D display on my wrist computer and got ready to watch the show.
My only regret was the university’s policy against popping popcorn in faculty lounges, because I had a feeling I was going to want some in a minute.
“Do you have any drones up CORVAC?”
“Of course mistress. I always have the drones up now when there is a high probability of Fialux making an appearance. Not that you would notice.”
I decided to ignore that. Someone sounded like he was a little testy. He was probably annoyed that I’d been spending most of my time at the university rather than back in the lab working on his stupid giant death robot project.
Well that could wait just a little longer. It’s not like a giant death robot chassis would do him any good as long as Fialux was a going concern anyways.
The holodisplay resolved in place just in time for me to make out a caped figure hovering over the Thomas building. At first I thought it was Fialux, but upon zooming in I realized that couldn’t be the case.
There was no way Fialux would be floating in that particular pose, as though she was looking down at an anthill she was about to smash, and there was definitely no way she’d be carrying a massive gun like that.
“Could you zoom in on the piece CORVAC?”
“Already identified it mistress,” CORVAC said. “It looks like a crude modification of one of your early designs. From the BFG9K series I believe.”
“I thought it looked familiar, now the real question is how the hell did some random wannabe get ahold of that?”
I thought back to that little scuffle in front of the Applied Sciences building. Particularly to all the potentially stolen tech that had been on display that night. Stuff that looked suspiciously like it had been lifted from some of my early designs.
That couldn’t possibly be…
No. It wouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t dare pull something like that, would she?
The figure wavered and dropped about ten feet before reasserting themselves. I squinted again. That almost looked like the wild flailing of someone getting used to flying with antigravity units for the first time.
That figure was definitely a she. She had a ponytail trailing out behind her and no cape. Also, she was totally having trouble floating in the air and dealing with her massive gun.
See an example of one of the many reasons why I didn’t bother with massive guns. They might look impressive, but why bother when I could put the kind of of firepower that would have military appropriations spending in the billions to achieve into a miniaturized wrist blaster?
It took a few tries to perfect it, and it definitely wasn’t the same sort of flying as the stuff the rocket jockeys used. Actually, this was the first villain o
ther than me to use the antigrav stuff that I was aware of.
No one else out there even knew the telltale signs. The news people were all talking about this newbie as though she was a knockoff of yours truly.
My eyes narrowed at that. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like it one bit. The usual punishment for infringement on intellectual property was a nasty worded letter from some one of the rare liberal arts idiots who made something of themselves by selling their souls to become an attorney, but I preferred to deal with IP infringement by leveling a penalty of one vaporization for each instance of infringement.
Seeing this person, woman now that I looked closer, out there in an obvious Night Terror knockoff was enough to make me want to fly out there myself and get started on the vaporizing.
“Is that antigrav another copy of my stuff?” I asked.
Best to be sure before I went and did something hasty I might regret later.
“Hard to tell mistress,” CORVAC said. “I cannot get a clear reading on that tech in the same way I can the gun.”
“But I’m the only one who’s supposed to have that tech,” I said.
“Up until now I would have agreed with you,” CORVAC said.
I tapped a finger against my lips. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. If someone was showing up using tech that only I had that meant either there was someone else out there who was as inventive as I was and who was capable of pulling together the resources needed to fund an operation similar to my own…
Or somebody, somehow, was stealing my stuff. I’d like to say it was ego that told me that was the case, but honestly I just knew there was no one else out there who could come up with the stuff I came up with.
My bad blood with the assholes over in the Applied Sciences department here at Starlight University was proof of that, and that bad blood was enough to give me a few ideas as to who was doing the stealing.
The bastards. The real question was how the hell did this obviously incompetent bag of slop get her hands on my stuff? Because looking at them the description “incompetent bag of slop” was starting to seem downright charitable.
