1999: A Superhero Novel

by Hodden, TE

  Melisa nodded. “What if somebody sent a warning back to me, and I saw… stuff. Could I change it? Or would that be a… Maelstrom?”

  “That,” Saketha said, quietly, “would depend on a lot of factors. Has somebody contacted you?”

  Melisa nodded.

  Saketha tapped her lips in thought. “What happened? Who contacted you?”

  “My future reached back to my friend, and then we were through a Schism door, and his future self was there to talk to me, and…” She closed her eyes. “I saw my future self with him. We were… I think in the future we are… close.”

  Saketha shrugged. “Well, I guess that wasn’t the mistake I expected you to be worried about.”

  Melisa shook her head. “The warning was about somebody or something called Misrule.”

  Saketha rubbed her head. “Misrule?”

  Melisa stared into the Professor’s dark eyes. “You know the name?”

  “I…” Saketha frowned. “I feel I should. It…” She gestured at her head. “It is there, somewhere, but I can’t…” She sighed. “I am sorry, my friend. If I remember, I will tell you.”

  Melisa patted the cyborg hand. “It’s okay. It’s trouble. They said that in their timeline we didn’t know about it, until… everything else that was happening was done, and that was too late. In… in their future, I held the Spear. I have been searching for answers, but can’t find anything, and… Lately I’ve been thinking of the stories Mom told me, and wondering if I even could change the future. If I should. If…”

  Saketha chewed her lip. “Wait… you met… him, and he met you? Why… didn’t you contact yourself.”

  Melisa stared at the ceiling. “Because magic isn’t allowed to work in any way that would make the slightest bit of sense.”

  Saketha smiled. “Ah. Well… magic might be a good sign. Magic is… the wriggle room in the laws of physics. It slightly adjusts the rules to keep history more or less on the same path, but… There are still limits.” She gestured to Melisa. “Do you know what your mother would ask?”

  Melisa shook her head.

  Saketha leant forwards. “She would ask if doing something was the right thing to do, and if you were capable of standing by and doing nothing.”

  Tears burned Melisa’s cheeks. “Thank you.”

  Saketha brushed the tears away with her good hand. “You are not one who could ever stand by and do nothing. If you ever need me, I will be here.”

  00110

  The leech heaved itself down, broke through the cavern ceiling, and spat Charlie Gull out.

  Charlie’s screams echoed around him as he fell, through the deep darkness of the cavern. He bounced off one of the stalagmites and landed awkwardly in the carpet of dust and grit.

  Tentacles slithered from the feeder of the leech, delicately delivering Robin and Tilda to the sloping beach where the lapping waves swallowed the floor.

  Charlie sat up, and tried to clear the fog of pain from his head.

  The cave went on forever, over the horizon without ending.

  The walls of the cave glowed a dull volcanic red, threaded with veins of amber and gold, that shone bright. The air was a muggy and suffocating kind of hot. The forest of stalagmites gave way to a restless subterranean sea.

  Robin took Charlie by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him to his feet. “There we go…”

  “Thank you,” Charlie grunted.

  Robin smiled, and stroked his cheek. “Nothing broken?”

  “It’s a dream,” Tilda muttered. “He can’t do himself any damage.”

  Robin tutted. “It looked painful!”

  “Oh, the pain is real,” Tilda promised, “but it wont hurt him. Not in the long run. Get over here boy.”

  Charlie walked over to the beach.

  Tilda smiled, and gestured at the waves. “The Twilight Sea, where the Dead sleep, and dream through eternity. What you seek is found here.”

  “Misrule?” Charlie asked.

  “No.” Tilda shook her head. “That which will tell you what Misrule is. You must call a boatman to ferry us. It will… demand a cost.”

  Robin looked uncomfortable. “What kind of cost.”

  “He will see,” Tilda whispered.

  Robin hefted her poleaxe. Her jaw set. “What kind of a cost?”

  Tilda flared her nostrils, and turned away from Robin, drawing one of her sickles from under her cloak. She snatched Charlie’s wrist and ran the curved blade over his palm.

  A million miles away, his palm sliced open, and his blood welled from the wound, and dribbled over the sheets of his hospital bed.

  In the dream, Tilda held Charlie’s hand over the waves, and let the blood dribble into the froth of the waves.

  “Boatman!” Tilda screamed, the word echoing through the cavern. “Taste the blood of the living, and answer his call!”

  A light flared in the far distance, rising over the horizon. The long, narrow, boat creaked and groaned, as the skeletal boatman, dressed in a threadbare smock and patchwork robes, leant on the rudder. The rickety boat ground up against the beach. The light was from a candle in a lantern, hooked on a pole in the prow of the boat.

  The boatman’s eyes were hollow voids, n which points of cold blue lights swirled and pulsed, with the rasping, airless, breaths of the walking corpse. It stared at Charlie. “What do you offer?”

  Charlie swallowed. “What do you ask?”

  “Memories,” the boatman whispered. “Memories of life.”

  Tilda stepped into the boat. “He will pay. The memories of his mother, and his father. Their faces. Their voices. Their words.”

  Robin seethed. “No. That is not fair!”

  Charlie stared at Tilda, anger knotting in his chest, and making his whole body shake. He felt suddenly light headed and nauseous. “Why?”

  Tilda glowered at him. “You would not avenge them. You do not deserve them.”

  “I accept,” the boatman whispered, in his grating voice.

  The boatman held out a hand, and closed it to a fist.

  Charlie howled, as the memories were torn from him, in a white flash of pain behind his eyes. The world span, and his knees buckled. He fell face first into the ocean.

  *

  Charlie woke slowly from his fog of pain.

  He lay in the bilge of the rickety boat, as it snaked across the waves. The wood was ancient and splintered, stained and splintering. There was a puddle of mouldering water in the foot of the boat.

  Sharp pain burned in his head, around his eyes, and behind his nose. His mouth was dray and tasted of blood. His thoughts hurt. Tilda had spoken about paying for the trip with his memories, but... he did not feel as though he had forgotten anything of them.

  The memory of that winter night, when he was fifteen was burned into his memory. He could remember coming home, and slipping in the backdoor, preparing himself for explaining why he had been out so long. He could still smell the blood, and taste the decay on the air. He could still see their bodies, broken and bloody… Except…

  He couldn’t picture his parents. He could remember the sickening ways that they had been beaten and broken, sliced and slashed, their necks chewed open… but he couldn’t remember their faces, their hair, their size and shape. Every time he tried, they blurred out of focus.

  He could remember rainy Saturday mornings laying in front of the TV, watching old films, and he knew his Dad was in the front chair, with his book, but he couldn’t picture his father. He suddenly didn’t know if his dad was happy, indifferent, or annoyed by the film. The harder he tried to remember the more things blurred. Did his father sip tea or coffee? How did he dress? What did he say? How did his voice sound?

  Desperately he reached for the memory of the Christmas stuck in the car with his mum, when he was ten. He could remember being in the car, watching the road blur past, the snow blotting out the evening. There was a void in the driver’s seat. The conversation, that had lasted the whole drive, all her stories, were gone.


  Had they been stories? Or were they jokes?

  It all blurred away.

  Tilda kicked him. “Are you awake?”

  “They’re gone,” Charlie whispered.

  Tilda stared at him. “Yes. It takes a while, but soon every detail will be a nice painful void. A persistent little itch, so you are always aware that something is missing. Just to keep it raw and painful.”

  “Enough.” Robin leant forwards, and helped Charlie sit up. “How do you feel?”

  “Like something was ripped out of me.” Charlie looked around.

  They were so far out onto the subterranean sea, that he could no longer see the shore. The roof of the cave replaced the sky, with the volcanic red glow and the burning orange veins.

  Charlie tried not to look down. He tried not to see the sleeping figures bobbing and floating under the waves, tethered in place by thick chains. The Dead were lost in the dreams of the ocean.

  Charlie tried not to see the eels the size of polar bears that swam between the dreamers.

  The boatman stared into the distance, his eyes flickering like candlelight.

  Charlie cradled his head. “How far is it?”

  The boatman wheezed a dry breath. “As long as it takes.”

  The boat went on, towards the horizon.

  “Tell her,” Tilda whispered. “Tell friend Robin what you did.”

  Charlie swallowed. His throat was parched and dry, his lips like sandpaper. “My parents were murdered, by… an alchemist, who calls himself Scratch Wormwood. I never knew his true name. I agreed to become the Yeoman to bring him to justice.”

  Tilda stared at him. “No. You promised to avenge their deaths. To put him in a grave.”

  “I caged him!” Charlie stared at his grandmother. “I found him. I defeated him. He is going to spend the rest of his immortal life in a high security Federal Prison, in Texas.”

  Robin looked helpless. “Is that a dungeon? So… the law is satisfied.”

  “He’s immortal!” Tilda growled. “A lifetime with free food and a television is not a punishment to him, and sooner or later he will be free to kill again. This little worm was supposed to end his threat, and avenge his parents. A life for their lives. Blood for Blood. Dust for Dust. He broke that oath. When he had the chance to feed his weapon, he refused.”

  Robin’s eyes widened. “He refused to… do what? Murder a bested foe?”

  “Not murder!” Tilda’s eyes widened. “No. Not for an animal like that. It would have been… an execution.”

  Robin’s grip tightened on her poleaxe. “Charlie is still young. That long ago…he could barely have been more than…”

  “Fifteen,” Charlie said, quietly. “And… I couldn’t. I just… couldn’t. It was… wrong.”

  Tilda sniffed. “His being alive is wrong! His drawing breath, while my daughter can not, is wrong! His… being, is wrong! It’s not just! It’s not fair! It’s…”

  Robin stared at Tilda. “Would the execution have been right?”

  Tilda’s jaw set. “It was necessary.”

  “Fair?” Robin asked.

  “What,” Tilda whispered, “could be a fair tithe on the life of my beloved?”

  “Just?” Robin demanded.

  Tilda breathed out. “He failed them. He doesn’t deserve their memories.”

  Robin shook her head. “That was not our way.”

  “Not our way?” Tilda snapped. “Not our way? We are extinct, my precious! We are reduced to nothing. I was the Yeomen! My way was the way of the Yeoman, because we had nothing else! Was Charlie my first choice? No. He was nobody’s first choice! Or second! He was my last resort! I thought maybe he would be good for one thing, for what I needed! And he failed!” She put her head in her hands. “I failed us. And he…” She shook her head. “Just sod off! He could have made something right, and he didn’t even try. At least I tried!”

  Robin shook her head. “Oh Tilda, what have you done?”

  Tilda had no answer.

  Charlie scooped a bag of mint cakes from his pocket. He broke off a square for himself and offered the bag to Robin. She tried it with a tentative look.

  Tilda cleared her throat.

  He did not offer her the bag.

  00111

  Brandi Summers phased back into reality, with a lurch. She staggered drunkenly, through the terrible cold, and fell to her knees, in a bank of snow.

  She threw up.

  The world stopped spinning off kilter, and the pressure in her stomach eased. She rose to her knees, wrapping her arms around herself.

  She knelt at the foot of a transport platform, in the middle of a gargantuan, circular chamber, with cloister-like buttresses running around the outer edge, and a half collapsed domed ceiling, through which the snow had poured in, to settle over the rubble and ruin. The walls and ceilings were dark stone, decorated with a lace-like mesh of sculpted metal, green with age and corrosion.

  The sky above was a blue so pale it was almost white.

  She had seen that sky before.

  Antarctica.

  “No…” Summers whispered, shuddering against the bitter cold. It grasped at her heart, and squeezed the air from her lungs. Her heartbeat went wild, as her skin crawled with constant shivers. Somewhere in the back of her mind those mandatory safety courses reminded her how bad an idea it was to be in the Antarctic cold, without adequate protection.

  “Brandi!” Jeff Warner emerged from the shadows of the cloisters and ran to her, with a heavy coat. He draped it over her shoulders, and gently guided her up to her feet. “Here. You have to come with me. You can’t stay here. Sorry.”

  He was still gaunt, and handsome, with the same intense yes. He wore a black sweater beneath a charcoal suit, and a thick wool overcoat. His smile was the same old Professor.

  She grabbed him in a hug. “Oh! Professor!”

  “Easy now!” He lifted her away, and guided her into the cloisters. An iris like door twisted open as they approached, and they stepped through into a vaulted tunnel. This too was ancient dark stone, rich with fossils, decorated with a fine mesh of patterned metal. The mesh here glowed amber, and warmed the air.

  “Better?” Warner asked, lifting the coat from her shoulders.

  Summer stared at him. She threw her arms around the older man, and crushed him in a bearhug. She buried her head in his shoulder. “It’s really you? I thought… You were… But…”

  “I know,” he said, softly in her ear. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my choice.”

  “What…” She stammered, as her shivers faded, and the warmth saturated her. “What happened to you?”

  “That,” Warner admitted, “is going to take some explaining. Maybe… would you like a cup of tea? It helps settle your stomach, after the… er…”

  “Are we at the dig site?”

  “No.” Warner kissed her forehead. “We are at the Overseer Palace, up at the crown of the mountains.” He took her arm and guided her through the tunnel.

  Another of the iris doors opened and they stepped out into a long, cathedral like hall, built on a grand scale. Camping equipment and computers were set up in the arched alcoves.

  Summers took her camera out, and snapped two photographs. She popped out the disc, and loaded another.

  Warner stared at the discs. “You still… use those?”

  Summers nodded. “I still have the disc from New Year’s Eve on my desk at work.”

  His smile thinned. For a moment it was haunted and full of sadness. Then it reverted back to his superior confidence. “I see.”

  Summers stepped past him. “Oh! Wow!”

  At the far end of the hall was a throne on a dais, four or five times bigger than human, set against a circle inlaid with a spiderweb of psionic circuitry. The mummified skeleton that filled the throne was the size of an elephant, and vaguely humanoid, but with something of the triceratops about it. Its fragile, mouldering bones, were held together by a skin of cybernetic circuitry, and glowing crysta
l devices. The skull was fanned, and studded with horns on its beaked snout.

  A half dozen men in boiler suits and silver balaclavas with body armour and machine guns.

  Summer’s heart stopped. Her jaw clenched. “Those…dead… things… They are…”

  “Husks,” Warner said, gently. “They wont hurt you unless you give their master a reason.”

  “Their Master?” Summer whispered.

  Warner hopped down the steps and waved for Summers to follow him. He put a kettle on the camp stove and loaded a tea pot. “What do you think of our friend on the throne?”

  Summers chewed her lip. “Is it… Angel called them Wyverns? Powerful psychics?”

  “Oh yes,” Warner agreed. “Very powerful. They bound an entire empire together across many solar systems.”

  Summers smiled. “The Eibba.”

  Warner’s eyes widened. “You… know that?”

  Summer smiled. “I’ve learned a little more about it since you vanished. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  Warner pointed at the skeleton. “Does it remind you of anything? The armoured fan, the snout…”

  “Yeah, I played with dinosaur toys as a kid,” Summer said.

  Warner shook his head. “That wasn’t what I meant. Look again…” He walked to the foot of the throne, and touched the bones. “Think Brandi! This being was more powerful than you can imagine. It was part of a psychic web that strung the stars together, the chorus of the universe. When the Cataclysm hit, it only survived because it was so far out it had time to break free, and shield itself. It… saw its colony, its city, die, and… it was alone, for… so very long. Eventually it sensed the potential of the primitive tribes on Mars, the hunters and gatherers. It guided them, it led them, and it showed them how to be so very much more. They called the Wyvern the Orphan. To them he was unto a God.”

  Summers felt a knot of unease in her chest tighten at the way he said those last two words. Whatever he had been through, these last few years had changed something in Warren. Her heart ached for him. “Professor, what happened to you?”

  Warner turned and looked at her. “Eventually the Martians learned too much from the Orphan. Their psychic powers developed, and some began to believe that they were his equal. There was a civil war, for dominance of their world. It grew brutal and bloody. The weapons burned away the atmosphere of the planet, and left it… too thin and cold to sustain life. A handful of the Loyalists came to Earth, seeking sanctuary at their outposts, but… they withered and died in generations.” He touched the skeleton, and the crystals in its implants glowed. “Remember when you asked me what was burning out the needles in the dig? It was the Orphan. It’s body died, but the spirit still lingered. It called to us… To me…” He rubbed his head. “I found a transport pad in the ruins. It brought me here, to heed its last wishes.”