True Dark

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘What about Russia and China?’ Fleet asked.

  ‘The Russians have their own programme and weren’t interested in ours. China is a hot mess at the moment, politically speaking, so we haven’t been able to find anyone to join from there. They probably would’ve declined anyway if they had an effective government.’

  They walked down the corridor from the warp rooms toward the main base in silence until Zap spoke up again. ‘Uh, thanks for setting this up,’ he said, keeping his voice down. ‘And thanks for, y’know, saving me and my family that time.’

  ‘Well, it was really Twilight who got this ball rolling,’ Cygnus replied. ‘I picked it up when she went missing. And, as I recall, you saved your family first. I just took the trash out.’

  ‘You saved your family? When?’ Fleet asked.

  Zap’s cheeks coloured. Not quite keeping the smile off her face, Cygnus went on. ‘When the aliens attacked New Millennium. One of them broke into Zap’s house. Zap stopped the alien’s blaster from firing.’

  ‘He still had a sword,’ Zap countered. ‘If Cygnus hadn’t been there to get rid of the guy… Not much I can do against a sword. I, uh, I can sense and control electric fields, so I just stopped the power getting to the circuits in his gun.’

  ‘That is kind of cool,’ Fleet said.

  ‘I, uh, I can fire these big bolts of electricity too, but… Well, that’s why I’m here. They arc out around the target and I need to learn to use them safely. Like, if I’d used one in the house, I could’ve hurt my family.’

  ‘Huh, I know that feeling.’

  ‘Y-you do?’

  ‘Oh, sure. I can run really fast, yeah? I can run at almost four times the speed of sound.’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Yeah, and momentum is my bitch, if you’ll pardon the expression. I can accelerate from a standing start to full speed in less than a second and I can turn on a pinhead. The acceleration never bothers me. Great, huh?’

  ‘It sounds great.’ There was a wary quality in Zap’s voice which suggested he was waiting to hear where the really big problem was.

  ‘Yeah. Well, when I kick in the boost, I can’t go slower than about six hundred and fifty miles per hour. So, even if I go my slowest, I pull about thirty Gs as soon as I start and my protection against acceleration doesn’t extend to what I’m carrying.’ Zap grimaced and Fleet flashed him a grin. ‘Exactly. Luckily, I worked this out when I was on an errand to buy eggs for my mom. I mean, sure, a human can survive that kind of acceleration if it’s no longer than a couple of seconds, but, well, basically, I can’t carry anyone with me. I need to use a special backpack to carry things with me.’

  ‘But,’ Cygnus said, since Fleet was apparently not going to blow her own trumpet, ‘with that backpack, Fleet was very helpful in DC after the bombing. She ran messages and medical supplies all over the place. I’m quite sure that she saved a few lives too.’

  Now it was Fleet’s turn to blush. ‘My parents are both doctors. I may not have the brains to follow in their footsteps, but you have to help where you can, right?’

  ‘That’s always been my philosophy.’ Cygnus looked up at the sign over the door they were approaching. ‘We’re here.’

  The room beyond the door was huge. It seemed to be a vast cavern with a domed ceiling which arched high over their heads. It was pretty much featureless and uniformly grey. The only things in it were the people, eight of them including Viviane and Cassandra. Viviane was in her new costume and June had to restrain herself from rushing over to check that she had a satisfied customer.

  The raven-haired sorceress was wearing layers. Viviane had wanted to appear more ‘serious’ than the barely-there tabard dress she had worn since she was a villain, and June had finally decided that the answer was layers of fabric which were, on their own, quite translucent, but together hid everything beneath. The outfit covered more of Viviane’s body, but in places where there was no overlap, it showed the shadows of legs and cleavage, giving the impression of being risqué without showing as much skin. The base dress was purple with yellow flame patterns working up from the bottom hem. It was quite form-fitting, but it flared from the knees to make movement easier. Over that was a looser dress in green with leaf patterns woven into the very thin cloth. It had a cowl which could be drawn up over Viviane’s head and it split into four pieces at her hips. The side panels were attached to Viviane’s wrists by bangles which also supported two scarves in different shades of blue. The colour schemes were meant to represent both the seasons and the elements since Viviane’s magic was based around witchcraft. Of course, June had seen it on her client when she had fitted it, but this was the first time she had seen it used ‘in anger.’

  ‘Alright,’ Brightstar said, walking around the group, ‘let’s get things going. Does everyone who needs one have a translation earbud?’ There were a few nods: the group contained a couple of people for whom English was not their first language so Doctor Ultimate had provided a technological solution. ‘Perfect. Welcome to the inaugural meeting of the International Ultrahuman Training Programme. I prefer to call it “Hero School,” so that’s what I’ll be doing. It’s shorter. Doctor Ultimate did suggest INULTPROG, but I’m sticking with my idea. We have a real mix of people here. Different nationalities, different cultures, different ages. Some of you have had your powers for a while, but you haven’t been practising the hero lifestyle for whatever reason. Some of you came into your powers recently. The range of powers in the room is quite wide. We have most of the classes represented.’

  She paused for a second, appearing to consider her words. ‘Let me get one thing out of the way now. We will do what we can to help you learn to use your powers, but every Ultra is different and we would find it almost impossible to train you in the use of the abilities you have. Oh, if you can fly, then I, or Cygnus, can give you pointers on aerobatics. If you have super-strength, Adamantium, or Cygnus, can give you tips on how to use it effectively. But our main focus is going to be learning to use what you have safely. We will also be giving all of you a course in martial arts of one form or another because, even if you can fire lightning bolts from your eyes, sometimes you need to engage in close combat, but mostly because Master Niigaki will teach you more than you ever wanted to know about situational awareness. If you are going to act safely, even out of combat, you need to know what’s happening around you.’

  Brightstar smiled. ‘But we’ll be having some fun too. This is General Practice Room A. This is where the Union’s regulars come to hone their skills. We can simulate all sorts of things here using a combination of robots and holograms, so what we’re going to start out with is all of you demonstrating what you can do. Let’s start with… Fleet.’

  ‘Okay,’ Fleet said, moving out of the group. ‘Here goes.’ And then she was moving. It seemed like there was a sort of bow wave of energy just ahead of her as she took off toward the edge of the room and then began to circle. A little over ten seconds later, she was back where she started and starting her second lap.

  ‘It’s about two miles around the walls in this room,’ Brightstar said, ‘so she isn’t really showing off.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cygnus agreed. She raised her voice. ‘Hey, Fleet. Crank it up.’

  Fleet accelerated, though that was not really the right word. Suddenly she was faster and her laps were taking less than three seconds.

  ‘Can you go that fast?’ Zap asked Cygnus.

  ‘Oh, I can go faster. On the other hand, if I tried to do it in here, I’d probably end up making a big hole in the wall.’ Cygnus pursed her lips. ‘I really will have to study how she does that. Could be useful.’ Then Fleet came to a sudden stop beside them, grinning. ‘And there’s the other thing,’ Cygnus commented. ‘It takes me nearly half an hour to reach top speed or decelerate safely. She does it in an instant. That’d be really useful.’

  ‘You’ll figure it out,’ June said, grinning. ‘You always do when you can see a point to it.’

  ‘Yeah.
Never met a problem I couldn’t fix so far.’

  ~~~

  That was not entirely true, of course. Cygnus had been able to duplicate more or less any power she had seen used. She had come up with things she could not see by having enough imagination to envision how they might work. Making her reserve of power do as she wished was something she could manage. But she could not find Twilight.

  She checked in with Doctor Ultimate while Master Niigaki was talking to the students about exercises they could use to get fitter and what kinds of martial arts training they needed. Ultimate was in his lab, tinkering with something. He blinked at her as she walked in. ‘Cygnus? Did we have a meeting?’

  ‘No. No, I just wanted to check in. See if there was anything new on the Twilight front.’

  Ultimate frowned. ‘Chinese whispers.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You know the game? Chinese whispers. Someone comes up with a phrase and whispers it to someone else, who whispers it to another person, and so it goes until the end where you see how twisted the original phrase has become. I fear that is what we are getting. Stories about shadowy figures are getting twisted and expanded. As it happens, many of them are coming out of China which makes them especially hard to verify. As soon as we have anything more solid than a ghost, we’ll pass it on.’

  Cygnus nodded, even though her heart was sinking a little more. ‘I know I say this every time, but thanks.’

  ‘It’s not entirely altruistic, my dear. Viviane was quite clear on the danger presented by a Twilight consumed by her darkness. I’m rather pleased that we haven’t had a major catastrophe to tell us where she is.’ He paused. ‘I understand that Captain Freedom has resurfaced.’

  ‘Yes. Pretty amazing.’

  ‘Quite remarkable. I understand that he remembers nothing of his time underground?’

  Cygnus frowned. ‘That’s what he said, but June thinks he was lying. Apparently, one of her powers is an ability to spot lies. Well, she said he might just be in denial.’

  ‘Whatever the case, he may need watching. Being trapped like that for almost three decades…’

  ‘It’d drive me mad. He looked pretty stable.’

  ‘Ah yes, but the worst kinds of madmen often do, my dear.’

  Hong Kong, China, 28th June.

  The view through the windows of Kuàng Lěi’s apartment in Kennedy Town was fairly spectacular. Well, some of the views were. Others were a little more prosaic. The one out to one of the container ports was hardly something to die for, but you got a fairly good panorama of the lights of Hong Kong if you looked out one side. Thankfully, Kuàng’s penthouse was at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Kennedy Town, so there was little to block the view of the early-morning lights.

  Midnight watched those lights for a few seconds, scowling. She wanted this done with by first light and the sky would begin shading toward daylight in less than an hour. Not that the light would stop her, but there was the principle of the thing. Turning, she started off across the lush carpet Kuàng had had put down in the lounge. The decorative scheme here was fairly modern. There were a lot of pastel shades, bland colours, but it worked with the modernistic furniture. It would do, though she reminded herself to look into the ease of getting bloodstains out of cream leather.

  Kuàng was an arrogant one. By now he had to have heard at least some reports of Midnight’s activities tonight. Leung had proven useful enough to keep around and was currently hiding until he found out who was coming out of this on top. He was a wise man; she knew he had not warned any of his colleagues because the imp she had sent to watch him had not come back to tell her he was dead. None of the other upper management of the triad had survived, but a few bodyguards had run. They had to have called up the command chain, but Kuàng had not increased his guard and was asleep in bed. Confident. Overconfident. Stupidly overconfident.

  Of course, there was a reason for Kuàng’s bravery. He had not risen to the head of the 8G without breaking a few heads, though in Kuàng’s case it was minds which had broken. He was the only telepathic member of the original eight Ultras who founded the triad and he had nastier tricks up his sleeve than reading minds.

  Midnight pulled the shadows closer around herself and stepped silently through the bedroom door. Kuàng was alone in his bed: he had two ex-wives and three children, his reputation for cheating on his partners well-deserved, but it appeared that he had decided to eliminate the possibility of hostages tonight. His sleeping mind probably detected the new mind in the room because Midnight saw his shoulder shift and a second later three rounds from an automatic were passing uselessly through her. Annoying. She was going to have to get the door repaired.

  ‘That is going to do you no good, Mister Kuàng,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d have learned that by now.’ She allowed her shadows to shrink away as he reached out and turned on his bedside light.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You were foolish coming here, woman. Sticking to the shadows was working for you. It made you hard to kill. It was… rational. Had you learned more about me, you would not have come where I can see you.’

  ‘Why? What do you plan to do? Enter my mind and discover my most primal fears? Make me see them?’ Kuàng frowned. Midnight had done her background reading and the primal terror attack was one of his favourites. ‘I am the thing that people are scared of when the lights go out. But I’m feeling magnanimous. Let’s see you try.’

  She felt him press against the wall of darkness around her mind and allowed him in. That he uncovered her ‘greatest fear’ was hardly important and might even be instructive. To him. He gasped. ‘Y-you. You are the thing you fear most.’

  ‘Damn right. Let me show you why.’ Her shadows crawled up from under his bed, sucking away the light from the lamp as they rose up around him. He let out a shriek as the darkness enveloped him and then fell into a dead faint. That worked fine for Midnight: she could drag him to the bathroom to kill him without spraying blood all over the bedroom.

  She smiled. She had reached the end of the beginning. With Kuàng out of the way, she would install Billy as the new Dragon Head and the 8G would be hers and then… And then she could really do whatever she wanted. Grabbing Kuàng by the front of his pyjamas, she started to drag him out of bed and paused. What was she going to do next? That was going to take a little thought. Slipping her pistol from its holster, she started off toward the bathroom. She had plenty of time to think. Nothing could stop her. Nothing at all.

  Interlude: Ashes

  The sand beneath her was black. Andrea curled her fingers into the rough material and tried to work out how she had ended up on a beach of volcanic sand.

  She had…

  She had been…

  Nothing. She could remember almost nothing before waking up on the beach. She knew there had been something before the beach and now, but not what it was. She knew she was Andrea, but nothing more.

  She climbed to her feet, feeling the sharp sand against her soles, and looked around her. The world looked… wrong. Even if she could not quite remember what the world should look like, this was not right. Above her, thick black clouds moved too quickly across the sky. Behind her there was a vast ocean, dark and forbidding. The waves moving up and down the sand seemed to move too slowly. The sand ended in a cliff, a vast wall of black, glassy rock which stretched out as far as she could see in either direction. Something told her that she needed to get to the top of that cliff, but it would be impossible to climb.

  Looking both ways along the beach, Andrea shrugged and turned right. She started walking. Maybe, somewhere along the cliff, she could find a way up.

  ~~~

  She had no idea how long she had been walking. She did not seem to get hungry or thirsty. The light never seemed to change, but she had slept three times because she had felt tired. The cliff remained as tall and smooth as before and the beach continued on ahead of her as though it would never end. She had nothing to wear, but the only reason that bothered her was that he
r feet were sore from the sand. No one else was on the beach except for her.

  Her failure to find any way to get up the cliff was becoming a little more than an annoyance. Pausing in her walk, she marched up the beach to take a closer look at the glass wall. It did sort of look more like glass than rock. Obsidian. Volcanic glass. But obsidian did not usually form as vast cliffs. She knew that, but not how she knew it.

  It was as smooth as she thought, impossible to climb. She needed to get to the top. She needed to– Her fist slammed into the rock face in front of her. ‘I need to get up!’ she yelled, her fist hammering against the rock. And that was when it cracked. A split opened from the sand up to the top of the cliff, widening as she watched until she could easily climb inside. Surprised and gleeful, Andrea clambered into the crack, wedged herself between the walls, and began to work her way up.

  ~~~

  The landscape at the top of the cliff was, if anything, worse than the black beach. Andrea found herself standing in what had probably been a forest. Now it was a sculpture of a forest. Black tree trunks decorated a plain desolate of life. The trees had been carbonised right down to their cores.

  At first, she thought it was snowing, but the snow was not right for snow. It felt wrong somehow and it was grey. It was not until some of it fell on her that she realised what she was seeing: ash. Ash was falling on the black land and the source of it was obvious when she looked into the distance. Out there, dark under the nearly black sky, a mountain rose toward the clouds. Its peak glowed a dull red: a volcano, belching black clouds of ash into the air.

  It was menacing, frightening, but something about it drew Andrea’s attention. That was where she needed to go. To the mountain burning in the distance. It looked like it was going to be a long walk, but every journey began with the first step.