Oh. My. God.
Again, the voice rumbles into the night. It vibrates up from the ground, the trees, the sky, pitched to reach only his ears.
“WE MUST SPEAK, KIRBY WALKER AND DAUGHTER OF KIRBY WALKER.”
Not only his. His daughter looks out across the ball field at the glittering shadow more than a hundred times her size and says: “Who the fuck are you?”
“Melissa … ”
The voice ignores them both. “YOU WILL FOLLOW. DO NOT SEND OUT A NATIONAL, KIRBY WALKER. WE WILL SPEAK ALONE, KIRBY WALKER AND DAUGHTER OF KIRBY WALKER. YOU WILL FOLLOW. IF YOU OBEY, I WILL … KEEP THIS PRIVATE.” It pauses … and then moves away, across the park with appalling speed.
A moment of nothing but the moonlight. Then …
“What the hell was that?” Melissa breathes, her eyes like satellite dishes.
“First things first.” He could function like this. The night had just become much worse, but he understood this kind of pressure. “You’re going home.”
“No, I’m not. What was that thing?”
“Yes, you are. This is not a game, Melissa, and I don’t have time for explanations. I have to follow him before any real damage gets done. Go home.”
“No.” Her eyes are no longer wide. “I can’t.” She asks a third time: “What was that thing?”
There isn’t time for this. “His name is Top2, but don’t ever call him that to his face. Now go home.”
“What should I call him to his face?”
“For the love of god, Melissa, there isn’t time!”
She stands there as if rooted to the world. For the moment, she looks exactly like her mother.
“Then we have to make some,” she says. “Because I’m coming with you.”
Coming with—? “No, you are not.”
“Yes, I am. That thing, Top2—”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Then what should I call him?”
“Frances.”
She blinks. “What, like—”
“Melissa, there isn’t—”
“Stop saying there isn’t time!” Her whole body ripples, then subsides. “I know there isn’t time. But that thing—Top2, Frances, whatever the hell you want to call it—that thing said to follow it.”
“Honey—”
“And it said: ‘Kirby Walker and daughter of Kirby Walker.’ ”
That stops him. Top2 had said that. And Top2 was always very specific.
“And … it said that, if we obeyed, it would ‘keep this private.’ Now, I don’t know what that means, but it sure the hell sounds a lot better than making it public. So I have to come with you, whether you like it or not. So stop telling me to go home and start telling me what I need to know about that thing. What did he mean by ‘keep this private?’ ”
Before she’s finished speaking, he’s changed his mind. Until he knows what this is about—he prays he’s wrong—he’s not going to risk angering Top2.
“I’ll explain as we go.”
She falls into stride beside him. “Can’t we fly?”
Can she fly too? No, she was talking about him. She would have seen Magnet Man on TV.
“I could,” he says, “but we need to talk. We’ll follow his trail,”—a vast, glittering gouge through the night—“and as long as he keeps his promise, I’ll take the time to explain a few things.”
The trail crosses near to where Laptop lies spiked to the ground. To their left, Kirby can see a shadow flailing away in the moonlight.
“How come that thing and the twerp share the same name?” Melissa asks, looking over her shoulder at Frances.
“Laptop designed Top2. Hence the name.”
“That idiot?”
“Laptop’s not stupid, he’s just not a very good super-villain.” He shakes his head. Too many threads were coming together tonight. He glances at his wrist. “But every time he comes back, he upgrades his computer.”
“Like making it magnet-proof?” He can hear her smile.
“Don’t get cocky. Next time you won’t be able to rain on it.”
“Right.”
They exit the park, walking east, a few streets parallel to the path Kirby had followed to find Melissa. “Anyway, now all Laptop’s upgrades are operational. New tricks, gadgets, etc. Stuff. But he used to upgrade them differently.”
“How different?”
“He made them smarter.”
“Oh.” A pause as she puts it together. “Oh my god, they went Matrix on him!”
“What?”
“Like the movie. Got so smart he couldn’t control it.”
So very quick. “Exactly. The first time was fourteen years ago. It took the better part of The Palladium League to bring him down. And each time he returns, he’s more powerful than before. I’d hoped we’d seen the last of him.”
“Why, what happened the last time?”
“Three years ago, Champion threw him into a black hole.”
“Oh.”
Yeah, Kirby thinks, Oh. He glances at the device on his wrist.
As if on cue, Melissa asks, “Shouldn’t we get help?”
“Can’t. That was the other instruction he gave us. Don’t send out a National.” He holds up his wrist-piece. “I could have every superhero on the continent here in minutes. We call it ‘A National.’ Priority One call. But if we do that, Top2 might not keep this private.”
“And that would be bad.”
“That would be very bad. There aren’t too many things in this universe more dangerous than that machine. Armageddon comes to mind. Maybe Loki.”
“Loki? What, like the god?”
“Yes. Like the god.”
“Jesus,” Melissa breathes. “What do you do with a god?”
He remembers the tree ripping up through City Hall. The One Tree from the centre of the world spreading through Archangel City like a virus. He remembers the Combustible Twins rushing into the City Hall, heading for the roots of the tree. He remembers the twins become one, and the laughter of a god.
“You chain him back under the earth,” Kirby says coldly, “and watch the snake drip venom into his eyes.”
“Oh.” A flickered, startled glance.
He sighs. “Honey, I’m not trying to terrify you. But this is deadly serious. This is not Laptop or some other minor villain we can laugh at while we truss him up and leave him behind for the cops. There are some forces that do not care about the whims of humanity. They have their own agendas. And they are not minor.”
They come to a stop in front of an abandoned industrial complex. The same complex, seen from the other side, that Kirby uses to end his day. They were less than five blocks from his home.
The massive glittering train leads inside.
Of course. Of course Frances would come here. There is an ache in his heart.
He turns to his daughter. She’s looking into the complex, waiting for his lead.
“When we go in there, let me handle everything. Don’t talk. If you have to speak, call him Frances. Under no circumstances do you address him as Top2. Champion gave him that name as an insult and he knows it. If we’re polite, he may just talk. We may not have to fight.”
He no longer truly believes this, and he’s half expecting her to challenge him. Instead, she’s looking around intently.
“Dad,” she says slowly, as if putting it together, “we’re, like, really close to home.”
“Yes, honey,” he says carefully, not sure where she’s going with this. “Yes, we are.”
“Couldn’t you call Mom? I mean, without putting out one of those national thingies?”
His eyes close. Darkness, then more. He opens his eyes, and sees a bank of clouds streaming past the moon.
“She won’t come.”
His daughter turns and looks at him. “Because of Michael.”
“Yes. Because of Michael.”
Her eyes flinch. “But we need her.”
“Maybe.” He glances inside the complex. Shadows an
d silver light play over the remains.
“Maybe,” he says again. “But Frances didn’t mention her. And maybe we don’t have to fight him. Either way … ” He sighs. “She still wouldn’t come. She’s with the baby. She takes care of the baby. It’s her choice.”
His daughter deserves more than this. He knows she’s put together more than she has said. She deserves answers. She deserves …
“I KNOW YOU ARE THERE, KIRBY WALKER AND DAUGHTER OF KIRBY WALKER. MAKING ME WAIT IS NOT VERY POLITE.”
Melissa glares inside the walls. “Sounds like the bastard has a sense of humour.”
“Let’s hope so. We don’t want to fight.”
As they move inside, Kirby could swear he hears his daughter mutter, very softly, “The hell we don’t.”
It takes them five minutes to pick their way through the ruins. Steel and concrete and glass loom in the moonlight, like the underwater wreckage of some vast ocean liner.
“Isn’t this that government complex that blew up last year?” Melissa whispers, stepping over the remains of a wall. The explosion had been heard all over Archangel City. It had blown out the windows of their house.
“It wasn’t a government complex,” Kirby says, his heart heavy in his chest. He circumvents a wall and emerges into a vast courtyard. On the far side, he can see the remains of seven concrete silos which he had passed by from the other side earlier in the night.
Before them, in them midst of ghostly wreckage, stands Top2.
“YOU ARE WALKING, KIRBY WALKER. THIS HAS TAKEN YOU SEVEN MINUTES LONGER TO ARRIVE. WHY HAVE YOU MADE ME WAIT, KIRBY WALKER?”
“It’s a nice night, Frances,” Kirby replies, trying to mask his fear, praying that the computer just wants to talk. “Besides, I’m supposed to be off duty.”
“THAT DID NOT STOP YOU FROM DEFEATING MY FATHER.”
“That wasn’t my idea, Frances. Your father attacked me when I was trying to go to a concert with my daughter.”
The computer shifts slightly, and Kirby curses.
“GREETINGS, DAUGHTER OF KIRBY WALKER.”
“It’s Melissa,” she mutters, glaring at Top2 as if daring it to scare her.
“APOLOGIES. GREETINGS, MELISSA WALKER. YOU HAVE DISPLAYED POWERS TONIGHT THAT ARE NOT ANALOGOUS TO MY PROGRAMMING.”
“I’m not sure they’re analogous to my programming either.”
“Frances,” Kirby says, taking a step forward, “whatever you want here tonight, she isn’t a part of it. She’s only had her powers for eight months. She only attacked your father after he attacked me.”
“MY FATHER IS A FOOL. I DO NOT CARE FOR HIM. I AM HERE FOR MY GRANDFATHER. I CAN NOT FIND HIM. HIS HOME IS DESTROYED. WHERE IS MY GRANDFATHER?”
Kirby sighs. He was afraid of this.
“You won’t find him, Frances. Device is dead.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Melissa turn her head. Kirby keeps his attention focused on Top2. The next few moments were critical.
There is a short pause, as if the computer were thinking. “WHO HAS DONE THIS? RETRIBUTION MUST BE MADE.”
Which was awfully rich, given the source. Top2 has tried to destroy both Laptop and Device several times.
“Do you mean this place?” Kirby says bitterly, looking at rubble. “Your father did this. Blew it up last year on the anniversary of your grandfather’s death. Or did you mean that? Because no one did that, Frances. He was one hundred and two years old. Everyone dies sooner or later.”
A lie. Or, at least, he had spent the six months following Device’s death—if not the last two years—acting as if the words weren’t true. He sighs. A homicidal computer has turned him into a hypocrite.
The lights flickering under the computer’s skin grind through their patterns, oblivious to the world.
“EVERYONE DOES NOT DIE. YOU WERE MY GRANDFATHER’S CLOSEST STUDENT, KIRBY WALKER. YOU SHOULD HAVE SAVED HIM, KIRBY WALKER.”
A twitch, passing through his entire body. “I should have—what?”
“YOU WERE MY GRANDFATHER’S CLOSEST STUDENT, KIRBY WALKER,” the computer says, lights flickering. “YOU SHOULD HAVE SAVED HIM, KIRBY WALKER.”
A few seconds where he is incapable of thought. A cloud plows past the moon. Then …
“I should have saved him? I should have saved him? You—you fucking—I should have saved him?”
Suddenly, his daughter isn’t there, his marriage isn’t in ruins. Only Kirby and Top2, standing alone in the world.
He takes a step. “Don’t you think if I could have saved him, I would? He … died. I could have saved him?” He rushes forward, a pressure in his throat, the computer towering above. “You want to fight … you want to fight—fine—let’s go. But don’t judge me. Don’t you dare … come here … and judge me. You … ”
The words slice away and he falls: two solid years of anger and pain and failure seeping from his skin into the moonlit ground. His flesh feels hollow, as if his cells were being sucked into a singularity somewhere near his heart. He wants to weep. But he hasn’t wept in two years.
“YOU DID NOT SAVE MY FAMILY, KIRBY WALKER.” The voice comes from above him, beneath him, everywhere. Implacable. “I WISH TO SEE IF YOU ARE CAPABLE OF SAVING YOURS.”
His head comes up instantly. It isn’t fast enough.
An arm emerges from the shadow above. It forms a hand and scoops his daughter into the air.
“Hey!” Melissa squeals.
Her body begins to ripple.
But even as she transforms, she is surrounded by an amber nimbus, flickering in time with the lights beneath the computer’s skin.
“YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE IN THE MANNER YOU ESCAPED MY FATHER, MELISSA WALKER. I AM NOT A FOOL.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Suddenly, it’s as if the entire sky were filled with the perfect storm. Massive walls of water appear in the air around the computer and begin to pummel its skin like a hurricane. There is a roar like a hundred aircraft engines throttled to full.
For a second, the vehemence of his daughter’s attack stuns Kirby. His daughter is generating millions of gallons of water. Out of thin air.
This isn’t weather control. The moonlight shining on the carnage is untouched. This is something far beyond weather control. He has seen gods with less power.
It isn’t enough.
“YOU WILL NOT DESTROY ME IN THE MANNER YOU DESTROYED MY FATHER’S TOY, MELISSA WALKER. I AM NOT A FOOL.”
The implicit threat breaks through Kirby’s awe.
He rises into the sky. Bends the lines of force surrounding him until the air crackles.
“If you harm her,”—his voice has gone cold—“I will strip you down to atoms and then pull them apart, one-by-one.”
This is bluster. The last time they fought Top2, it had required every hero on the continent. The last time, Jean nearly died. He needs help.
Even as his daughter’s assault intensifies, he considers sending out the
National. Burst could be here in less than two seconds. Champion in little more. Perhaps together …
“Oh, crap,” his daughter swears suddenly. “I am such an idiot.”
And Top2, towering into the night, dissolves into a giant puddle.
The splash is enormous. Kirby Walker stares, eyes wide, as water crashes to the ground and a dozen miniature tidal waves storm through the complex. One plows into the eroded remains of seven concrete silos and a million droplets shatter into the sky to be lit by the moon.
“Nice,” his daughter says, flowing up from the earth.
“Wow,” Kirby breathes, letting the field around him relax. “That was … ”
“Stupid.” Melissa finishes reforming and solidifies. “I was so busy trying to get him wet, I forgot I could just make him wet.”
“You can what?!?”
“I can turn things into water. Remember, my keyboard. It was the first thing I could do. But then I discovered I could just make water, so I started practicing that. A lot. I think I got
a little too addicted to it. I sometimes forget the first thing.”
“You sometimes forget … ”
His daughter sometimes forgot she could turn things into water. Anything.
Until this moment, with the exception of Champion, The Eclectic Man, and possibly his wife, Kirby Walker has considered himself the most powerful human on the planet. But his daughter is talking about powers so complex, so vast …
“I think I might need some training,” his daughter says with a nervous giggle. The understatement of the century.
Except that the man who had trained the superheroes, the man who had trained him, was dead. Which left …
He remembers a funeral held two years past. The funeral and the fight with Laptop after, a fight that had ended so very differently from the one that had occurred tonight, ended with two middle-aged men weeping in the rain.
He remembers, sometime not long after, standing in front of a runaway train and wondering what would happen if he didn’t make it stop.
He remembers Jean, the expression on her face as he leaves the house tonight. He thinks of the past two years and all the things …
“Dad?”
He looks up. His daughter is staring at him.
“Dad? Could you say something?”
Her left arm is clutching her right. Her face is a moon in the midst of the glittering rubble of a dead man’s home.
He can not remember the moment his powers were born. They came on in late infancy. They had been a part of his life for his entire life. Never to be questioned.
He pictures not having powers as a child. Pictures discovering them, as his daughter has, at fifteen. Pictures a car rushing towards him, then crumpling as it strikes a sudden, unforeseen magnetic wall. He does not need to picture how he might have felt had this been his life.
He would have been terrified. Of himself.
He has to stop failing the people he loves.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he says, trying not to terrify her further. Her expression doesn’t change.
He puts on a smile, the kind of smile he wears when the portrait photographer has made him wait too long for the flash to go off. “Yes, you probably should have some training. We’ll find someone … ”
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