by David Reiss
“No problem at all.” I beamed, then schooled my expression to a more serious one. “I told you: Anything you need for this...It's yours.”
“Two construction 'bots ought to do for now.” Eric rubbed one hand through his hair, scratching at his scalp. “You said you needed a favor?”
“Ah, yes. I'm going to be in a medically-induced coma for the second week in April. I was hoping that you could come up here and keep an eye on Whisper?”
“A coma?” His smile faded. “You all right?”
“Mm? Oh, I'm fine. I'm just replacing a few of my organs with smaller, more efficient models...I want to free up some space within my rib cage to store some other tech.”
Nyx stared at me for a few moments before shaking his head in amused disbelief. “It's amazing to me that some people think that the armor is what makes Fid dangerous.”
“I actually did want to talk to you about the procedure,” I said, hopefully. “I had some interesting thoughts, wanted to bounce ideas around...”
“Sounds like fun, but I think that I need to do some background research first.” He laughed, “Send me a couple of papers. Oh, and of course I'll come by to spend time with Whisper. Starnyx's Supervillain Babysitting Service is at your disposal.”
(“I'm not a baby!” Whisper called plaintively from another room, thus confirming that I really ought to have spent more time upgrading the encryption protocols for my vid-chat program.)
“Excellent.” I paused. “You’re welcome to come by any time, you know. Not only when I need a favor.”
“I know, Doc.” Eric laughed softly, visibly touched. “Things are just a bit hectic here, is all. This is probably going to be the FTW’s biggest broadcast, ever.”
“A fitting tribute for Kenta.”
“Damned right,” he growled righteously.
“I can have the drones to you by tomorrow evening. The textile factory in Staten Island, you still keep your workshop there?”
“There are a few other members of the collective squatting there now.” He nodded. “I’ll tell ’em to expect delivery.”
“Let me know what you think of the new cloaking device.” The resolution for the directional visual-chameleon effect had been improved. Most effective at a distance, true, but still useful to avoid unwanted attention.
“Will do, Doc,” he shifted and looked off-screen, probably to check another window. “Hey, I gotta bounce. Talk to you again soon, ’kay?”
“Of course,” I nodded. “Good luck.”
“Thanks. And tell the shell-script that I have some more books for her!”
(“I’m not a shell script!” Whisper objected from her room.)
The complaint must have been loud enough that ‘Nyx could hear it over the chat, because his smile brightened mischievously as he closed the chat session.
Being on the sidelines felt oddly relaxing. Nyx had been sparing in offering details about the upcoming broadcast, but I had faith in his abilities and in the strength of his convictions. He’d riled up his collective of hackers and activists into a focused rage and directed them with laser-like precision upon the New York Shield. If there were skeletons to be found in in any closets, the FTW would expose them in as loud and entertaining a manner as possible.
Doctor Fid always chose a more visceral (and pugilistic) method of holding heroes to account for their flaws. Perhaps Nyx’s methods might be more effective? Time would tell. In either case, it felt good to know that there were others working towards a similar goal. Fid’s crusade no longer seemed so lonely a quest.
Ignoring the minor headache that had started sometime during the video-chat, I set myself towards writing an operator’s manual for the construction drones and touching up their programming. By the time that the thoroughly encrypted document was ready to be sent off to Starnyx, the last of the coffee had gone cold and the sun was warming the horizon.
I could hear Whisper singing softly to herself when I staggered back to my room to sleep.
◊◊◊
Two blackboards are completely covered and a third is already half-filled with diagrams and loosely scrawled equations. The maths are elegant, beautiful. Incandescent. Formulae crystallize in my imagination, flashing like lightning three steps faster than I can write. There are applications, too, variations that my fingers itch to explore. My lips are painfully dry, but the idea of stopping for a sip of water, of pausing the flow of creation for mere personal comfort, seems almost heretical. A moment of discovery this pure is a sacred thing. The world tastes of gypsum and dust and aging books.
A small, warm grasp snakes into my left hand. I’d heard Bobby arrive two sticks of chalk prior, taking his customary place near my desk and quietly playing or reading or doing his homework. His fingers feel of wax and I can smell stearic acid; he’s been drawing with crayons.
His grip is gentle. Bobby isn’t trying to distract me, he just wants to share this moment. He sees that I’m happy and he wants to enjoy that with me, wants to offer his support. Grateful, I clasp his hand more firmly.
Sometime later I retrieve my hand. I’m breathing hard, as though I have just finished a marathon. I pick up Bobby and hug him and he beams at me like we’re both victorious explorers who’ve reached the peak of a great mountain. I realize that I put a white hand print on the side of his shirt, but right now neither of us cares in the least.
“What’s this do?” He reaches to touch the blackboard, careful not to smudge any of my chalk marks.
“This will help figure out why superpowers exist.”
“Cooooool.”
“There are so many different types of powers from so many different sources…this ties them all together. One physical constant, a change at the quantum level which makes them all possible. It started in space, a long way away, but the effect spread at a rate of more than a hundred twenty times the speed of light. That’s why all the heroes and villains started showing up at around the same time—the edge of the bubble passed over our solar system.”
“So you can make me a superhero, now?”
“I’m not that kind of doctor!” I laugh. “Besides, you’re already a hero. Make a muscle!”
He flexes his biceps.
“So strong!” I lift him over my head. “And you’re flying!”
“Am not!” He giggles and squirms but I can still hold him aloft. “You’re carrying me!”
“Flyyying!” I insist, making an airplane noise and swooping him through the air. I step on a crayon and my foot slips. The laughter stops. I’m falling. Bobby is falling! Reflexively, I pull him close to my chest and twist so that I land flat on my back. The impact drives the breath from my lungs, and my head hits tile with a disturbingly loud clunk.
I’m lying on my back, coughing and wheezing and I’m not holding my brother anymore.
“Terry?” Bobby is kneeling next to me with wide, concerned eyes.
“Bobby?” I blink away stars. “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine. You caught me!” he exclaims, voice full of wonder. “You’re a superhero!”
“I’m no hero,” I insist, hands shaking from belated panic. My brother looks unconvinced, so I force an unsteady smile to comfort him. “A hero wouldn't have let you fall.”
“We both fell,” Bobby notes.
“Well, I couldn't let you fall alone.” I sit up and am, surprisingly, feeling reasonably well. No headache or nausea, and any aches or pains from the impact seem vanishingly minor. My little brother is uninjured and that's all that matters. “We should go home and get something to eat.”
“Are you finished with your math stuff?”
“It'll wait. What do you want for dinner?”
“Macaroni and cheese!”
“With broccoli?” I tease, standing up and taking his hand.
“Noooooo.”
“With spinach?” We start walking.
“No!”
“How about...with cut up hot dogs?”
“Yes!”
◊◊◊
When I woke up, I imagined that I could still taste the salt and artificial cheddar flavoring.
CHAPTER SIX
“Are you insane,” I demanded incredulously, “or just legitimately stupid?”
Sparks and debris rained from above and shrapnel pinged off the surface of my armor. Ignoring a jet of flame pouring from an unearthed natural gas pipe, I stepped through molten slag and shattered marble to face my foe. “I'd had suspicions regarding the latter, but it's disappointing to have those notions confirmed so dramatically.”
The once-magnificent atrium was illuminated more by the surrounding conflagration than the shattered skylight or the flickering emergency lighting. Smoke billowed from surrounding buildings and visibility was limited to a single block of apocalyptic destruction. Alarms blared, brief bursts of automatic weapons barked in the distance, and the desperate cries of wounded victims echoed throughout the courtyard.
Titan did not answer; he dared not attack but would not let himself retreat. Pure hatred radiated from his glowing eyes as he glared across the wreckage.
“You did this.” I gestured abruptly, straitening to the Mk 29's twelve-foot height and raising my voice until Doctor Fids deep baritone struck like a physical force. “THIS WAS YOUR DOING!”
It seemed to me that the shouting and gunfire stopped; even the sirens and roaring winds went quiet. Chaos stilled. As Titan and I stared each other down across the courtyard, the rest of the world faded, unimportant.
“Tonight...when the fighting’s done, when I’ve escaped and you and yours are licking your wounds...Watch the news and listen to the vultures as they count the butcher's bill. It should be your name on the check! You threw chum in the waters to summon predators from the depths, you drew the sharks here. You can't blame a fish if someone gets bitten.
“That’s just what sharks do.”
I advanced.
◊◊◊
Over the years, I've tried many methods of manipulating Doctor Fid's emotional state: pharmacological drugs and biological treatments, nootropic supplement programs, self-hypnosis and meditation, bio- and neurofeedback of various flavors, and even invasive surgery. The goal was to make Fid a more effective villain: a creature without Terry Markham's flaws. The program started soon after that famous bank robbery (with young Melissa Halden's cries haunting my dreams) and my early efforts were crudely effective. Possibly too effective; in the years since, I'd worked to eliminate the system's addictive qualities and minimize any of Doctor Fid's artificially-induced excesses.
Like a topiarist approaching a new bush, I’d pruned and shaped myself to fill Fid's armor. Becoming a villain had not been an easy transition; it had required extensive training. I trained myself to accept discomfort, I trained myself to find pleasure in victory and well-executed schemes, and I trained myself to monologue in a manner that evoked a desired response. In my youth, I'd been an introverted academic; I'd possessed few of the talents or abilities that would later be relied upon.
I did not, however, need to train myself to love fighting. That came naturally.
From the very first embarrassingly unskilled punch, battles filled me with a wild, visceral joy. Every emotional injury that I'd ever carried, every lonely day of school in which not even a teacher had spoken to me, every moment of hateful jealousy, every scintilla of mourning: in that strike, I’d found an almost magical means to transform emotional pain into the physical. Physical pain fades or can be inflicted upon someone else. Battle was cathartic in a way that I hadn't even known possible, but indulging that passion came at a dangerous cost. When Fid discovered that he could punch someone until he (at least temporarily) stopped hating himself, a slew of broken heroes had been left scattered in the Doctor's wake.
In retrospect, only a few had truly earned such brutality. Ah, well...it's like the old adage says: if you want to make an omelet, you have to crack a few legs. The reputation that Doctor Fid earned during that time certainly proved useful.
Case in point: all of New England was understood to be the Doctor's territory.
There were other villains in the area, certainly. Bank robbers and jewel thieves and costumed miscreants of all flavors. Local heroes such as the Guardians certainly did not fall prey to boredom when Doctor Fid was otherwise engaged. The big-name villains, however—the A-listers who attracted nationwide attention...they steered clear of the New England region unless an agreement had been made. Outlaws that would spit in the eye of any costumed vigilante or armed-forces general would approach Doctor Fid and be polite. When even Imperator Rex had come, hat in hand...it was easy to imagine that one's reputation had been cemented for all time.
It's easy for one to become complacent.
◊◊◊
I stared at the screen in disbelief.
“Terry?” Whisper nudged at my elbow. “Are you ok?”
“I'm fine,” I reassured her absently, idly tapping one finger next to my keyboard. One of the many upgrades that I'd performed upon myself during the week-long medically induced coma was to add a control interface and direct quantum-communication neural link. Terry Markham was now able to covertly perform research as deftly as could Doctor Fid. Sitting at the computer desk and using a monitor was still, however, a comfortable habit. “I just think that someone has made a mistake. This can't be right.”
“Mmm? What happened?”
“The CSE placed an order for a large titanium-vanadium alloy sphere, internally polished to less than two hundredths of a micrometer surface roughness.” Purchases of this nature were rare; I have programs in place to periodically hack the relevant servers and notify me of unusual activity. This particular commission had raised a remarkable series of red flags.
“Why is that a mistake?” Whisper asked curiously.
“Well, machining something that large, to that level of accuracy...that's expensive,” I explained. “You wouldn't want to spend that kind of capital unless you were building a device that absolutely required a surface that smooth.”
“Mm.” Whisper tilted her head, her glowing blue eyes seeming to lose focus for a moment. “The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory bought something similar, last year. From the same manufacturer, even.”
“The most likely use is a containment sphere for high-energy physics experiments. That particular configuration, though...I've seen it before.” I showed her my screen.
“They're building a Westler-Gray reactor?” She looked charmed. “Can we go see it?”
“They could be building something else,” I admitted. “Their vacuum furnaces consume a fair amount of power, but even a small WG reactor would be excessive.”
“But if they do build a WG reactor, can we go see it?” she asked again, smiling hopefully. “I've never seen one in person.”
“CSE is based in Cambridge, only a few dozen miles from here,” I laughed. “If they build a Westler-Gray reactor, I'm going to steal it.”
No one would be so unreasonable as to build a WG Reactor in Doctor Fid's backyard, not without first securing a thirty-seven-million-dollar bunker like the one SLAC built in Menlo Park. The very idea was laughable! The purchase order was obviously a mistake, nothing more.
◊◊◊
The transition from introverted academic to high-powered CEO had required that Terry Markham be changed as well. Had I chosen to found AH Biotech (officially named in memory of Albert Hess, one of my early mentors who succumbed to liver cancer only days before I was awarded my Nobel Prize) as a privately held company, the changes would likely have been limited to intellectual endeavors: gathering the skills and knowledge necessary to build and manage a company. That school of study was alien to me and required a significant shift in mindset from that which I applied to the pure sciences, but I did persevere. My goals for the company, however, were grand: AH Biotech would serve to develop technologies to benefit humanity. To prove that the so-called heroes were unnecessary in order that the world be saved!
Wooing investors and incorporating had
been the fastest method of building a company sufficiently large to accomplish such a feat. As such...the modifications required for Terry Markham were more dramatic. A chief executive officer is a figurehead as much as he or she is a manager. The appearance of confidence and success matter more than mere capability.
After that fateful conversation with Hideki Ichiro, Terrance Markham endured a painful late growth spurt. The average CEO stood a good five inches taller than my original adult height, after all, and the chief executive of AH Biotech needed to fulfill the image of a commanding leader! Surreptitious surgical and chemical enhancements were applied side-by-side to diet changes and vigorous exercise so that Doctor Terrance Markham would appear strong and capable. Lifestyle coaches and actors were consulted as I learned to meet people's eyes, to shake hands firmly and to mimic a sincere smile. Minor genetic alterations and cosmetic surgical improvements were applied to subtly augment facial symmetry.
After nearly a year of gradual transformation, the man who welcomed speculative investors into the lobby of what would become AHBT headquarters looked very much unlike the awkward but intense scholar that I'd once been. In comparison, the process of building and concealing the massive technological infrastructure necessary to construct Doctor Fid's terror-inducing armors felt straightforward.
◊◊◊
“It has to be a mistake,” I complained to Starnyx for the umpteenth time, holding my cell phone uncomfortably tight against my ear as I paced and gesticulated wildly. “Whisper inserted herself into the CSE's servers and downloaded copies of their blueprints.”
“And what did you find this time?” Over the telephone, my friend sounded tired but amused.
“They built a new cooling system next to their factory floor.” Irritably, I waved my hand in the air. “The plans don't include any work to tie the new system to external power, but there’s enough empty floor space for a properly modified containment sphere...”
“That’s pretty suggestive,” Nyx said. “Sounds like electricity is going to get cheaper in the New England area once CSE starts selling power back to the utilities.”
