Incarnation

by Kevin Hardman

  We both laughed at that, and then I added, “Seriously, thanks for showing me this.”

  “No problem,” she assured me. “As I said, there’s always something, although I really did think it was going to be the ex.”

  I frowned as I considered her words. “So, since you pulled this out of my head, does that mean you’re a telepath?”

  “Not really,” she confessed, shaking her head. “Typically, if I’m initiating it, I have to have contact with the person, and I need them to sort of lead me where I need to go — the way I had to talk you into letting me see things. I can’t just dive into their heads and start digging up info. However, if the other person is a telepath and they open the mental door, so to speak, I’m not as restrained.”

  I nodded, completely understanding, as Ursula’s telepathic limitations mimicked my own to a certain extent.

  “But since we’re on the subject of abilities,” she said, “I couldn’t help but hear that you’ve got a number of them.”

  “I suppose,” I muttered sheepishly.

  “Like what?”

  I was silent for a moment. I really hated reciting a list of my powers — it always felt like bragging. That said, it was clear that Ursula was waiting on me to say something.

  “Invisibility,” I said. “Flight. Super speed.”

  I stopped there. It wasn’t a list of all my powers by any means, but it felt like enough. (Not to mention the fact that one of my powers — the ability to heal people — wasn’t something I fully controlled yet and thus shouldn’t be tallied up with the rest of my talents.) Ursula just stood there, quietly looking at me until it became evident that I had nothing more to say on the subject.

  “Well, don’t be shy,” she suddenly urged. “Let’s see what you can do.”

  “Uh, okay,” I said, caught flat-footed by her request for a demonstration.

  I turned invisible. Ursula, seemingly taken by surprise, swiveled her head back and forth, looking for me.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  Rather than respond, I quickly stepped over to where she had gotten the receptacle earlier. Picking it up, I coughed softly to get her attention, then came walking back toward her with the container in my hand.

  Ursula’s mouth fell open, and then she clapped her hands in glee. From her perspective, it must have looked like the container was just floating in midair.

  Feeling eyes on me, I glanced in the direction of Rune and Endow; the two Incarnates were staring at me intently.

  I marched around Ursula once with the box in my hands, then placed it back where I’d gotten it. As I began walking back to Ursula, I noticed Rune and Endow continuing to watch me. No, not just watch me — track me. With a start, I suddenly realized that they could see me, even though I was still invisible.

  I filed that information away for future reference as I came abreast of Ursula and made myself visible again.

  “Impressive,” she noted. “Show me something else.”

  I nodded, and then rose a few feet into the air. I hovered there for maybe five seconds, then came back down. Ursula, smiling broadly, seemed absolutely delighted. Next, I made a duplicate of myself — another Jim — but only for a few seconds. (The ability to duplicate myself was a completely new power that I wasn’t fully comfortable with yet, mostly because of some objectionable side effects, so exhibiting it for Ursula was actually impetuous and impulsive.) Now getting in the swing of things, I was about to shift into super speed when a familiar voice sounded.

  “Okay,” Rune bellowed. “Jim showing off to impress a pretty girl means it’s obviously time for us to go.”

  “Hey!” I blurted out. “I wasn’t showing off.”

  Ignoring me, Rune turned to Endow and said something I didn’t catch; she simply nodded in response. Seemingly satisfied, Rune looked in my direction.

  “You ready, hotshot?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I muttered, noting that Ursula giggled at his comment. She then quickly lifted a hand up to her face, with her thumb and little finger extended toward her ear and lips, respectively, imitating a phone.

  “Call me,” she mouthed silently and winked.

  Chapter 13

  We reappeared in our suite, with me laughing at the absurdity of Ursula’s last gesture. I seriously doubted that this place even had phones.

  Ignoring my giddiness, Rune took a seat in the chair he’d occupied earlier and asked, “So what are your impressions so far?”

  “About what?” I shot back, switching my vision back to normal as I sat down on the couch.

  “Endow. Mariner. That’s two Incarnates you’ve met. Do you think either of them could be a killer?”

  “I’ve spent practically zero time with them,” I admonished. “You guys keep hoisting me off on laamuffals while you go off and talk about matters above my pay grade.”

  “I’m sorry if it seems that way,” Rune said sincerely. “We’re actually trying to determine the best way to help you figure this thing out.”

  I sat up. “What do you mean?”

  Rune sighed. “Everyone’s promised to cooperate, but you have to understand something. These are some pretty powerful individuals, and they’re not used to being questioned about their comings and goings. So, despite pledges to the contrary, it’s possible that several of them may bristle at being treated like suspects.”

  “So what, I’ve got to be an iron hand in a velvet glove now?”

  Rune shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt. Plus, you have to remember that we were all coming here for other reasons, which have nothing to do with the murder.”

  “Can you expound on that?”

  Rune seemed to consider for a moment how best to answer. “I think I mentioned before that Incarnates are required to come here — to Permovren — regularly, and during those mandatory visits, we check most of our powers at the door, as you put it.”

  “I remember,” I confirmed with a nod.

  “Part of the reason for that is to intentionally make us vulnerable, so that we remember that not everyone is like us. Not everyone can do what we do. Not everyone is power incarnate.”

  “So this is basically an exercise to keep Incarnates humble — to make you mindful of where you come from. Remember your roots.”

  “Something like that,” Rune acknowledged with a chuckle. “But it’s also an opportunity to mete out justice.”

  I gave him a curious look. “How’s that?”

  “If an Incarnate abuses the trust placed in them, if they use their powers irresponsibly, coming here during times like these presents the rest of us with an opportunity to deal with them.”

  “Couldn’t you do that anyway — without having to come here?”

  Rune shook his head. “You don’t fully comprehend the might we possess. An Incarnate wielding his full array of powers is impossible to bring down — even by the combined might of all his fellows. Trying to do it outside of a place like Permovren would be cataclysmic on a cosmic scale. Being stripped of the bulk of our sivrrut is the only way it can be accomplished, and even then it would probably take at least two of us to get the job done.”

  “I think I understand,” I said. “Inside Permovren, a rogue Incarnate is like a guy with a revolver. Outside, he’s more like a man with his finger on the launch button of a nuclear bomb.”

  “Try a supernova,” Rune suggested, “because that’s the comparative level of damage we’re talking about.”

  “Wait a minute,” I blurted out as a new thought occurred to me. “Why are we jerking around talking about the best way to bring down an Incarnate? We already have a way to do that.”

  Rune nodded, a downcast expression on his face. “The Kroten Yoso Va.”

  “Exactly,” I said, feeling pleased with myself.

  The Kroten Yoso Va was an ancient artifact that could be used to siphon power from one object and transfer it to something else. In our previous adventure together, it had been used to subdue Rune and transfer his sivrrut to a second-r
ate magician called Diabolist Mage (and as a result had made the Diabolist capable of extraordinary feats.) Ultimately, we’d been able to prevail against the Diabolist, and Rune had taken possession of the Kroten Yoso Va (which was ideal, since, when I touched the darn thing, it had responded by roasting my hands).

  “Unfortunately, we can’t use it,” Rune remarked with a grimace.

  “Why not?” I demanded. “I mean, this is what it’s for. It was specifically created to keep Incarnates in check. Those are your exact words. Situations like those are the entire reason why the damn thing exists! Why wouldn’t you use it?”

  “Well for starters, it’s not here,” Rune explained. “I left it on Earth.”

  “Go get it,” I said flatly.

  “I can’t,” he said a bit timidly. “We’re, uh… We’re stuck here.”

  “What?” I barked.

  “We’ve sealed Permovren off — me and the other Incarnates, that is. No one gets in, no one gets out until we find the murderer.”

  Chapter 14

  I stared at Rune in shock, and then bellowed, “When were you going to tell me this?!”

  “I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret,” he insisted. “It just didn’t come up.”

  “Why would it?” I demanded. “Why would I asked if I’ve been kidnapped?”

  “Kidnapped?” Rune repeated. “You’re laying it on kind of thick, don’t you think?”

  “What I’m thinking is that I should have asked a lot more questions before agreeing to help you. I’m also trying to figure out which is worse: that no one can leave until the killer is caught, or that you left the only weapon capable of stopping said killer.”

  Rune shook his head dismissively. “Even if I’d brought the Kroten Yoso Va, we couldn’t have used it.”

  “Sure we could have,” I countered. “We could use it to siphon off the power of the other Incarnates, then simply read their minds to figure out who’s the murderer.”

  “That’s a might-makes-right argument, Jim. It’s equivalent to you holding a bunch of your friends at gunpoint and saying, ‘One of us is a murderer, so I’m going to tie all of you up and interrogate you one by one until I find out who the killer is.’ Does that sound okay to you?”

  I frowned in distaste at the imagery his words had invoked and admitted, “Not really.”

  “Plus,” he went on, “I’ve heard it said that for supers to lose their powers is like losing a limb.”

  I nodded. “That’s true. For supers, your powers are a central part of who you are. Losing them is akin to being maimed.”

  “Well, it’s a million times worse for Incarnates. So in my scenario, in addition to hogtying and interrogating your friends, you also hack off body parts until you find out what you want to know. And when it’s over — even if you get the bad guy — all you can say to the innocent ones is, ‘Sorry about that, but I’ll sew these arms and legs back on and you’ll be good as new.’”

  “Okay, I get it,” I said, rubbing my temples.

  “They’d never trust you again,” Rune continued. “Likewise, if I used the Kroten Yoso Va like you suggest, the other Incarnates would never trust me again. And I have to deal with these people for eons — maybe even eternity.”

  “I said I get it,” I stressed. “So we can’t use the Kroten Yoso Va.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying,” he announced with a self-satisfied air.

  “What are you looking so smug about?” I asked. “You’ve trapped us inside with a murderer, kept the guy you brought on board to investigate in the dark, and intentionally discarded the only weapon that could stop the killer.”

  “Geez, Pollyanna,” he muttered. “You’re just all rainbows and unicorns.”

  “Funny,” I said sarcastically. “What are you going to say if the murderer kills you?”

  Rune seem to ponder this for a second, then shrugged and offered, “Avenge me?”

  Chapter 15

  According to Rune, the next item on the agenda was for me to meet with his fellow Incarnates. However, that was slated for a little later, so we had some time to kill. Leaving Rune in the living room, I headed to my quarters.

  Once inside, I dashed around the place at super speed to get a better feel for the layout. (Although I had been in here earlier with Sayo, I hadn’t had an opportunity to look around.) Ultimately, I ended up in the bedroom, where I stretched out on the bed.

  One of the benefits of being in a place like Permovren was that physical needs were practically nonexistent. Being outside of space and time, you didn’t get tired, hungry, thirsty, or the like. That said, even though I didn’t have any physical fatigue, mentally, I was exhausted; it felt like the first time I’d been alone in days.

  Relishing the quiet and the solitude, I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, thinking I would just lie there and rest for a few minutes…

  *****

  I woke to a thunderous booming noise, like two wooden bowling pins being rammed together repetitively. After a few seconds, I realized that it was coming from the front of the apartment. More to the point, I recognized it as someone knocking (or rather, banging) on my door.

  There was a bathroom connected to my bedroom, and I dashed inside at super speed to make sure I was presentable and then headed to the door. I yanked it open and stood there, dumbfounded; directly in front of me was a giant hand there, at least as tall as me (and which had apparently been doing the knocking). A moment later, the hand vanished, leaving me with an unobstructed view of the main living area, where Rune was sitting on the couch.

  “Oh great, you’re awake,” he said, coming to his feet. “And just in time. The others are waiting for us.”

  “What others?” I asked.

  Rune gestured with his hand, and the room furnishings altered. Gone were the items in the middle of the room, like the couch and easy chair. In their stead was a decent-sized conference room table at which six people were seated, three to a side.

  Three of them I knew: Rune, who took a seat on the right side at one end; Endow, who sat across from him; and Mariner, who sat next to Endow. The other three were all men (and presumably Incarnates), but I had never seen any of them before. To my great surprise, however, they all had nametags in front of them.

  The one seated next to Mariner appeared to be in his late thirties and sported a short, neatly-trimmed beard. He was dressed in what looked like a full-length black leather duster, under which he wore a formal white shirt with a jabot. On his left forearm he wore an odd mechanical contraption that seemed to have a lot of moving parts — gears, springs, and so on — all of which were completely exposed. On his head sat a black top hat with a clock in its center. Finally, running clockwise around the brim of the hat was a bronze-colored metal gear or cog about two inches in diameter. The nametag in front of him said “Pinion.”

  Across from Pinion sat a man wearing a long-sleeved blue T-shirt and black pants whose nametag read “Reverb.” Based on his frame, it looked like he worked out regularly, but he was an Incarnate, so who knew? On his head was a shock of white hair that normally would have made me think of someone in their senior years, despite the contrast with his physique. However, I found it impossible to even estimate an age based on appearance, because his entire face beneath the eyes was covered by a metallic mask. In fact, the mask didn’t just cover his face — it appeared to be bolted onto it, with rivets running along the edge of his jawline.

  Finally, between Rune and Reverb was a fairly heavyset man dressed in what I took to be monk’s robes. He had short, iron-gray hair and appeared to be in his early forties, and — like his colleagues — seemed to have one distinctive and notable attribute: he was surrounded by something like a soft, blue-white glow. No; upon closer inspection, it was actually more like an electrical charge that pulsed along his exterior. His nametag said “Static.”

  I took all of this in over the course of a few seconds. There was a chair at the end of the table near Rune and Endow that I presumed was int
ended for me. Without waiting for an invitation, I came forward and sat down.

  I spent a moment looking around the table, not sure what was expected or where to start. Then I mentally shrugged and decided that it probably didn’t matter.

  “I’ve already met some of you,” I began, “but for those I haven’t, my name’s Jim. I’m here to help with the incident that occurred.”

  “You mean Gamma’s murder?” asked Pinion, speaking with a crisp British accent. “There’s no need to be circumspect. You can say it: murder.”

  “The murder, then,” I said, acquiescing. “Did Gamma have any enemies?”

  Mariner chuckled. “There’s an old saying among our kind: Incarnates don’t have enemies.”

  I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Enemy implies an adversary,” Endow explained. “Someone or something capable of competing with you or doing you harm. Gamma was an Incarnate.”

  “And because almost nothing can harm an Incarnate, you don’t have enemies,” I concluded. “There’s a fallacy in that logic, but we’ll come back to that. For now, though, I’ll phrase the question a little differently: who didn’t like her?”

  “She wielded almost limitless power for eons,” said an odd, almost robotic voice. “There would be many who did not like her.”

  I looked around in bewilderment. I hadn’t seen anyone speak. In addition, the voice had seemed to come from all around us.

  I reached out to Rune telepathically.

  he responded.

  I surmised.

 

  I kept my face passive, but found myself shocked by Rune’s statement. Thankfully, telepathic conversation occurs much faster than verbal communication, so no more than a second or two had passed since Reverb had spoken.