Fid's Crusade

by David Reiss

  (Whisper informed me that the communications from the lunar prison colony and mining colony were all within normal parameters; no evidence at all of a high-profile escape or even a visit from a group of heroes. Whatever threat had enticed a gathering of the Earth’s most powerful ostensible ‘protectors’ away, it had not been a prison break. No matter. The Mk 36 would be completed ahead of schedule.)

  ◊◊◊

  “Terry?” Bobby is playing with his Bronze action figure, miming a running battle against Imperator Rex and Majesty. A city made of wooden blocks is slowly falling to waste in the resulting carnage.

  I am bent over my desk, ignoring the crick in my neck as I work feverishly at a new proof. Formulae are developing instinctively, more rapidly even than I could breathe, as I near completion of a model to map interdimensional instability. Expanding ripples in space-time contorted by shifting origin points…brane collisions reverberating forward and backward in time. The maths are elegant, a complicated but thought-provoking series of extrapolations upon existing frameworks. There is a connection here, a universal flow that is begging for future exploration.

  “Terrrrrrrry!” Bobby whines irritably.

  I’m typing calculations into my laptop with my left hand while the other is jotting notes upon a pad of lined paper. The pencil dances fluidly, spilling secret truths about the universe onto the page.

  There is a sharp poke at my side and I withdraw from my fugue state sufficiently to glare at my younger brother. “I’m working, Bobby!”

  “No!”

  “No?” My pencil’s movements trail to a halt.

  “You said you were almost done hours ago and I’m hungry!”

  “What?” I look at the clock and a wave of guilt threatens to overwhelm me. “Damn. I’m sorry, kiddo…Hold on, let me just finish this and we can go.”

  “C’mon, Terr. It’s late!”

  “Yeah.” I stare at the page and sigh. The work will be completed another time. “Ok, yeah. Let’s get some grub!”

  “Pizza?”

  “That’ll work.” My office-chair scrapes along the tile floor as I push away from the desk and stand; one of the rollers is locked again. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Bobby leaves Imperator Rex and Majesty behind but is carrying his favorite hero’s action figure with him as we leave.

  “Terry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think Bronze owns an airplane?”

  “I have no idea.” I chuckle. “Why do you ask?”

  “He had a team-up with the Paragons last Thursday, then was in Texas on Saturday,” Bobby explains. Online fan-forums keep an updated timeline for the famed superhero’s appearances. “That’s a lot of driving!”

  “Yeah, it is. Hm. Maybe he does have a plane.” Or, maybe not. Private jets are expensive, and a small prop plane wouldn’t be appropriate for the kind of travel Bronze regularly performs. Perhaps he simply travels by commercial airline…? In any case, I know that travel leaves traces and I’m beginning to have an idea as to what I want to give Bobby for his upcoming birthday.

  ◊◊◊

  Ensconced within the Mk 36, I soared through the night sky towards Medford, northwest of Boston. It was a pleasant evening with few clouds to mar the spectacular view of the heavens. The new moon left the evening dark, the air was clear, and it was sufficiently late that most of the city's lights had been dimmed.

  It was a glorious moment in which to maiden the new suit of powered armor! I would have enjoyed hours among the few wispy clouds but for an unexpected errand that had attracted my attention. A few weeks past, the Red Ghost had returned from his heroic journeys and life had settled to its usual (for those in our line of work, at least) patterns. Progress had been made towards producing what would eventually become the first batch of commercial inertial dampening devices. This afternoon, however, one of our dead-drop locations had seen use.

  “What's wrong?” I landed silently next to a familiar concrete and four-by-six-stud park bench. “Your message said that you needed to meet in person?”

  The Red Ghost made no response save to clench his jaw. Somewhat unnerved by the man's silence, I launched a small swarm of microdrones to begin a more detailed surveillance.

  I found little amiss, save that my occasional nemesis was perspiring despite the pleasant cool breeze. Had he run here, rushed to meet me at the appointed time? If so, that choice would have been unusual. If significant haste had been warranted, I would have expected him to utilize his mist form (which could travel more swiftly than could easily be managed on foot). The Red Ghost shifted slightly, the gauss cannon that was slung over his shoulders swaying with the motion.

  His hands were trembling. I'd seen him stare down certain doom and unspeakable horrors with naught but grim determination. Whatever had inspired his missive, I guessed that it must have been significant.

  “Was there a problem with the prototypes?” I asked hesitantly. The units had been put through significant testing before they'd been delivered, but I was struck by the sudden worry that some danger had slipped past my notice. If something had gone seriously wrong at a customer site, our strange partnership could be delayed or even ended before it had truly begun. “Were there any injuries?”

  “I'm sorry,” he grit out, and something in his body language tore at my memory.

  I was already uneasy, with sensors deployed and the world's most advanced close-quarters-combat software running within the recently completed armor's on-board computer. Even so, the inhuman speed which which the Ghost shouldered and fired his rifle took me by surprise.

  (“I told you Triumph wouldn’t just run off!” Shrike’s eyes were wet with unshed tears. “I told you and none of you believed me…He said they were trying to get back in his head...Kept shaking, apologizing, sweating like he was sick...you said he was crazy!”)

  The phenomenal impact took me full in the face-mask and I was temporarily struck deaf and blind. The sudden stab of pain in my extremities was welcome; a badly pinched nerve was far preferable to paralysis. Given how painfully my neck had jerked backwards, the more debilitating injury had been a significant concern.

  Sensors fed data directly into my neural tap but I was too groggy to make sense of the information. The Mk 36 reacted autonomously while I struggled to catch my bearings.

  If I'd been wearing the Mk 34 or even the Mk 33, the armor's autopilot would have done its best to eliminate any trace evidence and then piloted my headless corpse back to a lab to be entombed before my final contingencies were enacted. In the new Mk 36, my bell had been thoroughly rung and my tongue half-bitten through...but I was alive.

  (“I'm sorry,” A sweating and shaking Jerry Stross murmured, reaching elbow deep into a high energy reactor housing. A blue glow suffused the room for a fraction of a second, and there was a moment of chaotic movement. The video flashed white.)

  Oh, hell.

  The Red Ghost fired again but my armor was moving now, jerking painfully to the left to avoid the blast. The rifle he bore had been modified from one of mine that he'd reverse-engineered ages ago, but I'd apparently underestimated how much tinkering he'd performed over the years. The yield had been increased dramatically. Damn, but the man could aim and fire quickly; his training regimen must be remarkable. I'd faced the superhero Haste and not been as hard pressed! The Red Ghost's eye for strategy and analysis more than made up for the difference in the two heroes' speeds.

  Sphinx's horrific acts, I'd hypothesized, had been intended to conceal the danger of a possible Legion invasion. I’d thought that she had ordered the death of nearly a thousand refugees simply to keep her knowledge and fears from the public eye! The truth, however, was far worse. The Legion was already here on Earth and the Sphinx had kept this intelligence to herself. One of the Legion's telepathic officers had sunk its mental talons into the Ghost…and (most likely) piloted poor Jerry Stross to cause the explosion that had taken Starnyx's life as well.

  I swallowed a mouthful of
blood and launched a few low-powered particle blasts as I dodged subsequent shots, slipping in and out of the Red Ghost's expertly guided line of fire. Another shot from the gauss cannon tagged my shoulder but this time I was barely staggered.

  “Others have fought this!” I roared. Unfortunately, I knew that the Ghost's crimson body armor and cowl had been proofed against my sonic attacks; I wasn't certain that I could subdue him without causing serious damage. He was, quite simply, too great a threat for me to choose gentle attacks. “Break free, damn you!”

  “I'm sorry,” the Red Ghost wept, taking partial cover behind a tree and continuing to lay down fire.

  For a moment, I despaired...but the next three blasts went increasingly wide. He was resisting! Sweating, shaking from the effort, but I could sense the change in body language and action. Knowing that others had thrown off this attack had, I hoped, brought him renewed focus.

  I let my focus shift from desperate evasion to increase the radius of my surveillance. The alien mind-controller's range could not be infinite.

  The Red Ghost screamed. I'd witnessed the man endure injury with uncanny stoic reserve, but he wailed 'til his throat went raw and then fell to his knees. Skull gripped between his hands, his rifle fell forgotten to his side.

  “Are you well?” I was at his side in an instant. I hadn't doubted his will; If Shrike's friend Triumph could overcome this attack, then I’d been certain the Red Ghost could do the same. The Ghost had, after all, stood against Doctor Fid for nearly a decade.

  “No,” he shivered, and I felt strangely certain that it was Miguel Espinoza rather than the Red Ghost that was looking up at Doctor Fid's implacable faceplate. He grit his teeth and clenched his eyes tight. “It has my measure. It will take me again. Tell Elaine...

  “Tell her I'm sorry,” he apologized one final time then burst into his mist-like state.

  The hero did not re-corporealize.

  I stared, unwilling to comprehend, as the familiar crimson fog dissipated. The Red Ghost had been mine! My respected enemy, my trusted foe, my nemesis. Given time, I’d rather hoped that he might have become my friend.

  Damn the man!

  Microdrones sped outwards at full thrust. The minimal swarm that had been brought on this errand was already strained to its limits; these models were best at short-range but detailed scanning. As the area being covered increased, the level of detail degraded rapidly. Still, I scoured the readings for any sign of my enemy.

  I found the Legion operative at the same moment that he found me.

  As suddenly as if a switch had been flicked, I was light headed, dizzy and drifting, and my chest ached as I struggled to catch my breath. My hands tried to tremble as I otherwise floated, still and helpless, as something inhumanly hungry tore at my mind. It wasn't painful, not exactly. It was warm and sticky, like sinking into an endless pit of tar. I was miles below the surface already; the heavy muck kept getting hotter and the pressure squeezed the last gasp from my lungs. I couldn't move, couldn't fight, couldn't even blink. My eyes were open, staring into nothingness as the sun and fresh air stretched further and further out of reach.

  Whatever it was, it had swallowed me whole. There was nothing of me left but a small piece, a crazed and desperate animal screeching in the dark as the monster drank my thoughts and reflected the worst memories back upon me.

  (“Ow.” Bobby looks bewildered, holding his chest. For the first time in my entire life I can't think. I can't calculate the angles, can't figure out what I did wrong. I'm holding my brother, shouting for help and feeling helpless and small. There is so much blood.)

  No!

  (“Ow.” Bobby looks bewildered, holding his chest. For the first time in my entire life I can't think. I can't calculate the angles, can't figure out what I did wrong. I'm holding my brother, shouting for help and feeling helpless and small. There is so much blood.)

  ...please...

  (“Ow.” Bobby looks bewildered, holding his chest. For the first time in my entire life I can't think. I can't calculate the angles, can't figure out what I did wrong. I'm holding my brother, shouting for help and feeling helpless and small. There is so much blood.)

  ...I'm sorry. Bobby, I'm so, so sorry...

  **Noooo!** Whisper cried, and my teeth clicked together as I was struck by a different misery, a migraine so intense that I would have curled up in a ball had the Mk 36 allowed for it. Momentarily, the pain was my entire world. There was nothing else, not anger nor fear nor even mourning. There was only agony and Whisper's pleading voice, louder in my head than I would have believed possible: **LEAVE MY BIG BROTHER ALONE!!**

  And then my body was my own. A great gasp shook my body, lungs aching as though the pasty darkness had been physical rather than psychosomatic, and it took a moment longer to remember who and where I was.

  I wanted nothing more than to run, to hide, to find someplace brightly lit and cower away from the darkness...but I could see the Red Ghost's gauss cannon lay where it had fallen; the part of me that was solely Fid knew what need be done.

  I murmured my gratitude to Whisper and shot towards the coordinates where my sensors had located the now-stunned alien. There could be no mercy. I'd felt that alien mind; there would be no questioning it, no reasoning with it, and every moment that creature breathed represented too grave a threat to endure.

  That had not been an attack that could be resisted by human will. The Shrike's information had offered false hope; given time, that alien power would have prevailed. It had been a long time since I'd been truly helpless; against the Legion's telepaths my own mental fortitude had been nothing. Even the Red Ghost had been able to win only a few seconds of freedom! If not for Whisper's intervention I would have been lost.

  Something must be different between this dimension and the one from which the Knights hailed. Some shift, some minor alteration of power or biology that had made this incarnation of the Legion more powerful, or else made humans more susceptible. And yet, the Legion had not simply arrived in force to conquer. More mysteries to solve! But first, an execution.

  I'd found my quarry.

  The Legion officer looked to be the same (or at least superficially similar) species as Joan the Glassblower. This alien was stockier and the frills at his throat were more pronounced, and his coloration was a maelstrom of dark blues and grays. Clothes of human design hung loosely upon his figure: black-colored jeans and a slightly over-sized hoodie that could likely have concealed his alien distinctive features from a distance. By pure appearance, he did not seem to be so serious a threat...but I'd felt the horror that was his will. This creature was humanity's enemy.

  He was staggering to his feet as I neared, glaring hatefully as he renewed his telepathic assault. I couldn't begin to analyze what Whisper had done to me but I immediately knew it to be effective. The alien's mental attack poured off of me like water off of a duck's feathers.

  My scepter was in my hands and, for the first time in more than a decade, I unlocked the last of the device's safeties. With a cacophonous roar, the scepter's emitters unleashed a green-hued torrent of force and heat so formidable that it boiled solid rock into plasma.

  The Legion officer did not have sufficient time even to yell in defiance.

  This wasn't a battle; it wasn't even a murder. It was annihilation, an apocalyptic flood of energy and hate that threatened to tear the very Earth asunder. It was retribution! Trees shook and alarms blared and super-heated air whipped in chaotic spirals. A crater, Olympic-pool-sized and glass-smooth, was carved by the impact, glowing so bright that it cast shadows upon the wispy clouds overhead.

  The attack only ceased when my scepter sputtered and burned itself to slag within my grip.

  I took a deep, unsteady breath.

  There would be repercussions; destruction like this would already have been detected, and there were many who could identify Doctor Fid's handiwork. At the river's edge, there was a wealth of evidence of my battle against the Red Ghost; even if I called forth
a larger fleet of drones, there was insufficient time to erase said evidence before investigators arrived. The conclusion that most would jump to was quite obvious: that Doctor Fid and the Red Ghost had crossed paths, and that the Ghost had been killed in the resulting combat.

  Angry and heartbroken, I shot into the sky and enabled the Mk 36's enhanced stealth capabilities. Repairs and preparations would need be made. All too soon, the entire superhero community would declare war upon Doctor Fid. Their edict would be too late; the war was already upon us.

  The Legion was here.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Whisper was already waiting for me when I made my stealthy drop through the roof-top entrance of one of my more well-equipped secret facilities; I triggered the command that allowed me to step out of Fid, and she was in my arms in an instant.

  “Are you all right?” she mumbled, muffled against the synthetic protective shirt I usually wore under my armors.

  “I am,” I replied softly, hugging her close. Behind us, automatons gathered up the Mk 36 and carried it to a work area. “Thanks to you.”

  “Mm.” The little android trembled. “I was so scared.”

  “As was I.” My eyes closed.

  I was unpracticed at fear. Objectively, I couldn't say that my coping mechanisms for dealing with more common emotions were particularly healthy but at least I did not lack for experience. Fear, however, had largely been burnt from my repertoire. Systems within my armors dispensed psychoactive drugs as needed to manage anxiety and maintain focus, and Doctor Fid was generally a creature stuffed too full of rage to allow other sentiments to surface. That mental assault had been a master class; the alien had been my instructor and I was now an expert at being afraid.

  Even the memory of that Legion telepath's touch made my heart race and tension crawl up my spine.