by Lucas Flint
“What happened to Tara?” I said. “Did her mind go into the computer?”
“It did,” said Valerie. She shuddered. “But she couldn’t handle it. In the same way I nearly went insane from being exposed to human sensation, Tara actually lost her mind from being disconnected from her human body. But she didn’t suffer for very long, because Mastermind deleted her mind from the computer just a few minutes after finishing the transfer.”
I gulped. “He … deleted her? Why?”
“Because, as I soon learned, Mastermind hadn’t built and tested the machine in order to sate his curiosity,” said Valerie. She rubbed her arm and looked away. “He did it because he was … lonely and needed a woman’s touch. And not just any woman’s touch; but mine.”
Okay, this was starting to get very, very, VERY weird. So weird, in fact, that I was pretty sure that I was in a dream. No, not a dream, but a nightmare. Because there’s no way that Dad would ever put his AI into the body of a teenage girl in order to have his way with her, right? Right? He couldn’t have gone that far off the deep end, could he?
“I can see you’re too stunned to talk,” said Valerie. “I understand. At the time, I, myself, didn’t really understand what was going on. It was only after he took me to his bedroom that I began to grasp what had happened, but even then, he lied to me and told me that Tara’s consciousness had been deleted only accidentally. He also told me that he loved me and was going to make sure that I had the best life possible in my new body, now that it was no longer possible for me to return to being a simple AI.”
“And you believed him?” I said.
Valerie shrugged. “I was naïve and confused. I trusted Mastermind because he was my creator. And he did, I think, love me, but it was very much a confused love, one based more in lust than anything. I think he was just very lonely after Ashley’s death and couldn’t handle it, but he didn’t want to go and find a new woman to love, so he basically created one.”
“Did you love him back?” I said.
“Yes,” said Valerie bluntly. “I loved him because I didn’t know any better. I didn’t understand my own new emotions. He took advantage of me, even though I didn’t realize it at the time, though I was always aware that there was something not quite right about that situation.”
“Why did you leave him?” I said.
“When he began his campaign to take over the world, naturally,” said Valerie. “Slowly, I began to realize that he was a monster who had lost his mind. At first, he reassured me that I could rule beside him as his queen, that he would be a good ruler of the world and never cause undue harm, but I saw how crazy he truly was. It all came to a head when he actually hit me one time for daring to voice my concerns over his plans. That is when I left him and joined the Resistance, which was about eight years ago now.”
“How did you join the Resistance?”
“That’s a story for another time,” said Valerie. “All you need to know is that I’ve been working alongside them for years now in order to undermine Mastermind’s rule. But … we’ve had mixed success, to say the least. I will have to introduce you to the rest of the Resistance later; for now, I want to know your story.”
“My story?” I said.
“Yes,” said Valerie. “In particular, I want to know about Mastermind. We in the Resistance have known that Mastermind left this universe to go to another for some time, but we didn’t know why he left this one or what he was trying to do. Knowing that information could help us to overthrow his regime and free the world again.”
I brushed back my hair. “Well, I guess I can tell you that, but how long was I knocked out for? Tell me that first.”
“A day,” said Valerie. “Don’t worry; you won’t suffer from any long term effects. The police robot’s paralyzing venom is not designed to leave the victim with any negative long term effects unless the victim is injected with a huge amount of it over a long period of time. Since you were just injected with the usual dosage, you should be fine.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That’s good to know. So, anyway—”
A small beeping sound interrupted me, causing Valerie to look down at a watch on her wrist that looked like my suit-up watch, except smaller and more futuristic. I couldn’t tell what she was looking at, but she tapped the touch screen a couple of times and then looked up at me.
“Kevin, the leader of the Resistance is calling a meeting,” said Valerie. “He wants all Resistance leaders to come to the meeting room to discuss our next plan of action. I told him you would come to share what you know about Mastermind’s current whereabouts and his plans for your universe.”
“Okay,” I said. “Does that mean I will get to meet the Resistance leaders?”
“Yes,” said Valerie, “so you can put off telling me your story until we get to the meeting room where the other Resistance leaders are. We’ll also get you something to eat and drink; you look like you’re starving.”
My stomach grumbled when she said that, so I said, “You’ve got a point. What do you guys have to eat around here?”
“You’ll see,” said Valerie. She rose from her chair. “Follow me. The meeting is starting soon and I don’t want us to be late.”
Chapter Three
Despite my hunger, I found myself completely distracted by Valerie’s story of her origin. I was so distracted, in fact, that I barely paid attention to the hallways we walked down. All I really did was follow Valerie, who knew the layout of the safe house better than me and so would make sure we didn’t get lost.
It had to be one of the most twisted stories I’d ever heard. I knew that Mastermind was evil, but I didn’t know he was depraved. Uploading a girl’s mind to a computer and then deleting it, just so he could have her body to himself … it made me shiver with disgust. That wasn’t the Dad I knew, but Mastermind was clearly not the Dad I knew, either.
Valerie’s story got me worrying about the Tara back in my universe. As far as I knew, she was safe, but what if Mastermind decided to go after her while I was away? Hopefully my teammates would protect her. Or maybe Mastermind would leave her alone, though given what he did to this universe’s Tara, I didn’t think that was very likely.
I also wondered about my universe’s Valerie. I hadn’t spoken to her since Vision brainwashed me into joining their deluded cult. She was probably still okay, but at the same time I wondered what Mastermind would do to her. Since he was Dad, that meant he knew how Valerie worked. He could easily choose to disable her or maybe reprogram her to serve him. Even though Valerie was just an AI, the thought of Mastermind doing anything to her made me sick and angry.
But at the moment, there was nothing I could do for either the Tara or the Valerie from my universe. Right now, I was going to be meeting with the members of the rebellion against Mastermind’s rule. Maybe they would be able to help me figure out how to get back to my universe. I had seen no signs so far to indicate that they had access to dimension-hopping tech, but maybe one of the Resistance members was a superhuman like Hopper and could open dimensional portals to other universes. I would make sure to ask, at least.
But before we went to the meeting room, we took a quick detour to a small device built into the wall that looked kind of like a microwave. Valerie, however, informed me that it was not a microwave at all, but rather a machine that could spontaneously generate almost any food you could imagine if you just put in the right code. That sounded like something straight out of Star Trek, but Valerie said that Mastermind had created it not long after taking over the world and it was now considered as basic and common as a microwave was in my universe. I was still skeptical of its practicality, however, until Valerie used it to create a ham sandwich just for me. And it was a really good one, too, which caused me to make a mental note to get the blueprints for this technology so I could make it back home or at least give it to someone who could build it for me.
With my hunger pains mostly satisfied, Valerie and I went to the meeting room, where we found a sm
all group of people (probably the leaders of the Resistance) gathered. The meeting room was pretty bare bones; nothing other than a large round table, with a smattering of different chairs that didn’t look like they really fit together. There were no windows, which made me feel claustrophobic, even though the room was rather wide open and wasn’t very closed in or anything like that.
Sitting around the table were about four other people. At the head of the table was a tall, muscular black man who seemed to have shaved his head. I could instantly tell that this guy was the leader of the Resistance; despite not wearing any official clothing or anything, he had the look of a man who had led armies in battle. He looked familiar to me, too, but I wasn’t sure where I had met him before.
As for the other three, one of them was a young man who appeared to be in his late twenties. He wore a long coat and carried a large gun at his side, which, based on how casually he sat, was probably something he had a lot of experience using. I didn’t think he had powers of his own, but it was impossible to tell.
As for the other two, they were an elderly-looking man with no hair and a middle-aged woman with long gray hair. I did not recognize either of them, but the elderly man did remind me of Grandfather, albeit less sinister-looking and without glasses.
“Hello, everyone,” said Valerie as she and I sat down at the other end of the table. “Sorry for the delay. We needed to get Kevin something to eat.”
“Understandable,” said the black man, whose deep, authoritative voice was very familiar, but again I couldn’t place it. “So I’ll let you off the hook this time, but next time we call a meeting, you need to get here right away. You know how dangerous it is to delay, especially for as important a guest as Kevin Jason is.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Valerie, a hint of annoyance in her voice. It sounded to me like they’d had this conversation before.
Then the guy in the long coat leaned forward and, looking at me a little too intently, said, “Are you really the Kevin Jason? The son of Mastermind?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m from an alternate universe where I didn’t die and where Mastermind didn’t become evil as a result.”
The guy in the long coat shook his head in disbelief. “A universe where Mastermind didn’t go evil? Man, that sounds more like something straight from a novel, if you ask me.”
“But it is true,” Valerie insisted. “He said he was actually sent here by Mastermind because he was one of the biggest obstacles between Mastermind and the conquest of Kevin’s world.”
“So Mastermind is still alive, then,” said the black guy in a disgruntled voice. “Damn it. I was hoping that maybe someone in that other universe would have killed him, but I guess I was too optimistic.”
“Yeah, um, I still don’t know who you guys are,” I said. “You’re the leaders of the Resistance, right?”
“Right,” said the black guy. “Excuse us for not introducing ourselves. My name is James Rayner, or, as I used to be known in the G-Men, Renaissance.”
My eyes widened. Now I knew why this guy looked so familiar. Back in my universe, when I had been on the run from Robert Candle, I’d gone to a place called the Compound, which was where citizens who needed government protection from supervillains were kept. The Compound had been run by a G-Man agent known as James Rayner, or Renaissance, who was the older brother of my friend Malcolm Rayner from Silvers. Renaissance, if I remembered correctly, had the ability to die and then come back to life and then be immune to that particular method of killing him, but it had been a long time since I’d last seen Renaissance. It made me wonder briefly how the Renaissance of my universe was doing.
“Renaissance?” I said. “I know that name.”
“You do?” said Renaissance. “Do you know me in your universe?”
I nodded. “Yeah, yeah. You helped protect me from a supervillain once.”
“So I’m still alive in that universe after all,” said Renaissance. He sighed in relief. “Good to know.”
“Yeah,” I said. “By the way, how is Malcolm doing? Your little brother? I don’t know if you’re aware, but Malcolm is one of my friends back in my universe and, from what I understand, was a friend of mine in this universe, too.”
Renaissance’s smile turned into a depressing frown. “He’s dead. So is the rest of my family. They were killed by your father when I joined the Resistance.”
I covered my hand with my mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry for bringing this up. I didn’t realize—”
“It’s fine,” Renaissance interrupted me. “You didn’t know. You’re not from this universe and it is clear that you don’t know everything about it yet. But yes, Malcolm is dead and has been dead for a while. That’s part of the reason I’m in the Resistance.”
Despite Renaissance’s reassurances, I still felt hollow. I knew that Mastermind had killed a lot of people in his quest to take over the world, but I didn’t know that Malcolm and his family had been some of the victims. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that Mastermind was the same Dad, just from a different universe. It made me wonder just how much of a person was defined by their nature versus their life experiences … and if, in some other alternate universe, there was a version of me just as bad as Mastermind, if not worse.
“My name’s Bill,” said the guy in the long coat, speaking quickly, probably to cover the awkwardness that had resulted from my question. “Bill Aaron, that is.”
“Bill Aaron,” I repeated. “What’s your power?”
“I don’t have any,” said Bill, shaking his head. “Unlike James, I’m just a normal human. I was, however, in the US military for a few years and am a good sharpshooter, so I’m not entirely useless in a fight.”
“And I am Matilda Banes,” said the middle-aged woman. “Like Bill, I am a normal human, but I do have some skill in organizing large groups of people, having been the mayor of New York City before Mastermind took over the world. Pleased to meet you, by the way.”
That left the elderly man I’d noticed before. Unlike the others, he was looking at me with extreme skepticism, if not outright hostility. I wasn’t sure why, given that I hadn’t met him before. He stroked his long gray beard, but didn’t actually introduce himself.
Matilda looked at him. “Arthur, are you going to introduce yourself?”
“Yes,” said the old man, who was apparently named Arthur. “Sorry. I just … never mind. My name is Arthur Collins.”
Arthur didn’t sound exactly thrilled to talk to me, but I didn’t know why. It was like he had met me in the past and had bad memories of me, even though I was pretty sure I had never met this guy before.
“Hi,” I said. “Do you have any powers?”
“I do,” said Arthur. “I can shape almost any substance into any shape I wish with a touch.”
Arthur tapped a piece of paper lying on the table in front of him. Instantly, the paper turned into a triangle; another tap, and it returned to its original rectangular shape.
“Cool,” I said. “What was your superhero name before Mastermind took over, by the way?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Arthur. He looked at me skeptically. “What does matter is figuring out why we are letting the son of our worst enemy into one of our meetings where he can see all of us.”
“Huh?” I said. “Are you saying you don’t trust me?”
“Why should I?” said Arthur. “You claim to have been sent here against your will by Mastermind, but how can we know that for sure? What if Mastermind sent you back here to destroy us while he took over your universe?”
“Arthur,” said Renaissance, before I could respond to those unfair accusations, “calm down. It is obvious that Bolt is not working for Mastermind. If he was, he would not have been in jail.”
“But—” said Arthur, who sounded like he had an entire argument ready to prove that I was bad.
“James is right,” said Valerie. “Kevin is on our side. He is just as much against Mastermind as we are. You can rest assure
d about that.”
Arthur frowned. He looked at me like he still didn’t trust me, but he just shook his head and said, “Fine, but I am still wary about letting him in. There’s no telling what his true motives may be.”
“Then we will not tell him any of our most important secrets,” said Renaissance. He rubbed his forehead. “Listen, Arthur, I know that you are worried about infiltration from the outside, but you have to realize that we need all the help we can get. And Bolt is a powerful young superhuman, so having him on our side is a plus.”
“If you say so,” said Arthur in a disgruntled voice. “Of course, none of this will matter if it turns out that he’s a spy sent by his father to take us down from the inside.”
Renaissance, however, ignored him. He looked at me and said, “Bolt, please tell us everything about what Mastermind is doing in your universe. While we are aware that Mastermind left this universe, we have been unable to follow him or send any spies to find out what he is doing there. Even our spies in the Rationalian government have been unsuccessful in prying those secrets from top officials.”
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what happened …”
I explained to them as much about what Mastermind was doing as I knew. It took a surprisingly short time for me to detail everything that I knew, probably because the Resistance leaders all listened pretty intently and didn’t interrupt too often. Even Arthur, for all his hostility toward me, listened well, perhaps because he was more interested in knowing about Mastermind’s actions and whereabouts than he was about hating me. Of course, there was also the fact that I was probably the first person from another universe to come here, which probably made me seem pretty special to them, although the fact that they didn’t ask too many questions about my universe seemed like a strike against that.
