by Mathy, Scott
Ellis went limp, her hands dropping to the cold floor. Her uninjured eye stared blankly up at the ceiling.
Dwight struggled to think, his mind racing through his military training.
Bernard rushed over as Dwight tried to check her breathing. Finding none, with panic setting in, he began to administer CPR as he’d been taught so long ago. After a few chest compressions, he gave the lifeless woman a set of breaths.
“Come on,” he pleaded while Bernard stood by silently. He resumed the rapid presses, trying to restart her heart. Each set became increasingly frantic as he grew more desperate. Finally, Bernard put a hand on his shoulder.
“D…” the giant said softly, “She’s gone.”
Dwight pushed his ex-partner away, his emotions overtaking him, “Fuck you!” he shouted, resuming mouth-to-mouth. He shouted at the body as he came up for air, “Doctor Elizabeth-goddamned-Ellis is too good to die in some hellhole bullshit other universe! Come back!”
Another series of hurried chest presses yielded no response, “No, Doc, no.” At the end of his wits, he sparked the pads one more time and forced them against the dead woman’s heart.
Ellis shot upward and began furiously coughing, her eye bloodshot and weak from the trauma. She fell back into Dwight’s arms.
Bernard wiped a tear from his face, “Welcome back, Doc. ‘Ow was the other side?”
She propped herself up, the two men helping her to her feet, “What other side? Some asshole zapped the shit out of me – twice.” She chuckled, then winced. The floor beneath them began to shake.
Below, the reactor went critical, blowing a gaping crater into the moon where the facility had once stood. The blast wave struck the station a moment later, rocking the entire platform. Instantly, it became clear that the station’s gravity was failing. The huge cargo containers rose from the ground.
“Run,” the Doc commanded weakly.
The two men raced for the portal through the quaking station. Cradled in Bernard’s arms, Ellis retrieved the remote from her pocket and tapped it. As they made it to the final chamber, the portal hung open before them, its violet edges slicing through every surface it came in contact with as the clutter of the room was tossed about in the chaos.
Stepping up to the cusp of the vortex, Dwight cast one look back at the dead universe. As he fell into the nothingness between worlds, he swore that this wouldn’t be the fate of his own.
Fourteen
Dwight pulled his chair up to the bank of monitors and took a deep breath. It had been nearly a week since his return through the portal; a long, irritating, hectic week, even by his standards. He cracked his knuckles and put his hands on the console. At the center of the main screen, a single button labeled “Connect” awaited his command. He moused over the icon and pressed it.
Instantly, the numerous side displays filed with strings of self-executing scripts. Dwight would never have been able to write the code needed to complete this task; instead, he had allies – friends – who wanted this just as much as he did. The Doc, Ian, and the AIs had worked themselves to exhaustion to produce the programs running all around him. For now, Dwight waited patiently, knowing that he was doing something necessary for all of their suffering to have meant something.
Ellis watched from behind as the scrawling text raced by, her right eye covered with a purple patch. The color contrasted the green of her remaining eye. Despite the program’s speed, Dwight felt confident that she was carefully monitoring the processes at work.
Suddenly, the center console filled with a bird’s-eye view of the city. The camera soared over the streets, panning occasionally to take in the view of New Haven’s glorious skyscrapers in the afternoon sun, the clouds light and puffy in the surrounding sky. From his best guess, the Crusader armor was roughly six hundred feet above the ground and accelerating quickly. The view banked around the former Uni-Comm Building, the construction cranes working tirelessly to rebuild the demolished peak to Lawrence Adams’s specifications.
“Do it,” Dwight said, putting a headset over his ears.
Alice’s voice filled the speakers, “Assuming control, locking out pilot input.” He glanced back to see Ellis smile.
The scenic video stuttered briefly, a sudden influx of static and distorted colors. When the feed returned, it was the same landscape, but now numerous readings accompanied it: everything from useful data like speed and altitude, to the Alpha Corporation’s stock prices – even the lyrics to the currently playing decades-old rock music lined the edges of the panoramic view. The song blared in Dwight’s earpiece, his face twisting in disgust.
“Really?” he asked no one in particular. “Alice, cut the shitty power ballad.”
The AI did as he asked, and immediately the head of the person wearing the high-tech armor began searching for the source of the voice.
Lawrence Adams may have thought his armor to be unhackable, but he obviously hadn’t considered the consequences of pissing off a mad scientist and her friends. “What the hell?” the billionaire asked.
“Oh good, you can hear me,” Dwight remarked, leaning back in his chair, “They were worried we’d only be able to take control of certain systems. Glad you put speakers in your helmet so we can have a chat.”
The Crusader held out an arm to check a wrist-mounted panel, “Mr. Knolls?” From his seat, Dwight could see that Adams was trying to run a trace on his location.
“You can stop; I’ve seen to it that you won’t find me again.” He tapped a few keys, causing the sequence Adams was typing through his gauntlet’s virtual display to be replaced with an animated line of dancing phalluses.
“Call Hamelin,” the CEO commanded his suit. An icon of a ringing phone appeared on the corner of the screen.
Dwight snickered, “You can cancel that, Alice. Your psychic won’t be getting you out of this.” The icon vanished. “I dealt with him this morning. I imagine if he’s smart, he’ll be halfway to spending the rest of his life hiding in some remote frozen hole. I may have let it slip that I hated my recent trip to the Arctic while Bernard and I were kicking his teeth in.”
From the frantic shifts of the view on the main screen, Dwight figured Adams was finally starting to panic, “Mr. Knolls, please, let’s be reasonable here.”
“No. We’re done with reasonable, Adams. You tried to have me killed because I turned you down. You’re just as bad as the rest of them, and your power play got a lot of people hurt.” Dwight launched a secondary set of commands that Alice and Ian had prepared for him. He lifted a flight stick from the floor and set it in his lap.
“There is no future for this city while Wulf is in charge. He’s toying with all of you, making you into his puppets. I couldn’t let you run loose as his pawn.” Adams argued, trying to regain control of his armor through the gauntlet.
“Let me show you something about puppets.” Using the controller, Dwight banked the suit into one of the heavy girders lining what would be the exterior of the skyscraper. “Yeah, not buying it. I find it more likely that I hurt your feelings when I turned down your offer, and you thought killing me would be easier.”
The Crusader prototype recoiled from the impact, but remained airborne. Adams shook off the collision, trapped inside the hijacked armor. “Please, Mr. Knolls, don’t kill me. Not like this.”
Dwight chuckled into the headset, “I’m not planning on killing you; I’ve got something much better. You listening, buddy?”
Digitized laughter filled both men’s ears, “Good morning, Mr. Adams. I see that I will be handling the remainder of this flight, and providing appropriate entertainment for the duration of your journey.” The voice materialized into a wireframe construct at the center of the suit’s view, “My name is Nemo. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Dwight cut the audio transmission to the remote-controlled battle armor and its captive occupant. “Nemo, remember our deal?”
The AI responded happily to Dwight, “Yes, sir.”
I
ts voice continued speaking to the terrified Adams as it took control of the suit and banked toward the west, engaging its supersonic boosters. “My employer has instructed me to use my considerable intelligence to make the next seventy-two hours as uncomfortable for you as possible. Allow me to start by transferring the entirety of your amassed fortune to several charities dedicated to the victims of metahuman-related disasters.”
Adams screamed helplessly as he watched an unreasonably large amount of money plummet to zero in the corner of his facemask; the stock prices next to it fell a few seconds later.
“I have also found records of some of your more questionable dealings over the past six months on your private servers. I took the liberty of transferring those to the following list of credible news outlets.”
Dwight had to give it to the vindictive AI: for its limited interactions with them, it really knew how to piss off organic life. He almost felt bad for the CEO, given that he’d instructed Nemo to fly him to Sierra Grande and leave him there, naked and alone to find his own way back. The construct had assured him that it could return to the city and transfer itself into the Guild’s network before dumping the Crusader armor in the McKean River.
Nemo went on, “Based on my understanding of human hearing, I have prepared several hours of human infants crying for you to listen to during your flight.”
Tapping a single key, Dwight cut the signal to his station, leaving Adams alone with only Nemo’s torment for company. He pushed himself away from the console, turning to face the giggling Ellis.
“Are you sure Adams deserves all that?” she asked, trying to hold herself together. “Even with Alice’s safeties added to him, Nemo seems to be enjoying himself a bit too much.”
Dwight stood, taking his jacket from the back of the seat and throwing it over his shoulders, “He’s getting exactly what he deserves. Come on, you lost an eye for what that asshole did.”
“I lost an eye saving a friend and protecting my world,” she corrected him. She walked with him back to her work area. Under the lights, the robotic body currently inhabited by Alice sat upon the metallic table, making final tweaks to her own limbs. She paused periodically to sweep the room with her new eyes, taking in the world as a physical being for the first time. Ellis passed a screwdriver to the machine.
“You could get a cybernetic one.” Dwight pointed out.
Ellis shook her head, paying more attention to the android’s self-maintenance, “Replacements are a young person’s desire. I’ll bear my scars and learn to work with them.” She sounded at peace with her decision.
Dwight headed for the exterior door without another word, already late for the appointment he’d made. On his way out, he noticed an olive green steel briefcase resting near the door. The yellow note stuck to its side had his name on it. He picked up the container out of reflex and took it with him. At the center of the lab, Ellis proudly studied her creation, only faintly registering his exit.
Fifteen
Glitch slammed back her fourth drink and put the glass down hard on the antique counter. Around her, the crowd of formally dressed patrons clashed with her tracksuit. She ignored them; they weren’t her people, and she was as uncomfortable with them as they were with her. On the television hanging at the corner of the bar, the evening news highlighted the repairs underway at the Guild’s headquarters.
“Can you fucking change that?” she bluntly asked the irritated bartender. He did as she asked, regretfully obliging the cyborg pounding round after round despite the disdainful attention of his normal clientele.
“Does that actually do anything for you?” Dwight asked, taking a seat next to the blonde woman.
She jumped with a start, surprised by the sudden appearance of the Referee. Glitch stood up, unsure whether to fight or run for her life.
“You can sit,” Dwight reassured her, trying ineffectively to flag down the staff. “I wouldn’t announce myself if I was here to kill you. How bad do you people think I am at my job?”
Glitch returned to her chair, “I’m not sure. Some people say you’re a stone-cold killer, others that you’re the city’s worst joke.” They both sat in silence for a time, completely ignored by the annoyed bartender and the patrons dining behind them.
The woman broke the stillness, “It doesn’t really do anything for me, just lets me remember what it used to be like. My body filters out all the alcohol before it gets anywhere near my brain. I can barely even taste it.” She went quiet again, considering her next words carefully, “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Tell me about it,” Dwight answered as he reached over the bar and grabbed one of the well bottles. The way his last few weeks had gone, the world’s least attentive bartender wasn’t going to stop him from drinking. To his regret, there were only a few ounces left in the bottle. He refilled the woman’s glass first.
Glitch stared solemnly into the brown liquid, “It was the bastard’s assistant, the thin one. He made me tell them everything: where you lived, the recruits, your serum. I was an open book to them.”
He recalled the revolting touch of Hamelin’s power, “Makes sense.” He took a swig of the whiskey. “We don’t all have the benefit of a god-like psychic watching our backs.”
“I wanted to warn you, but he wouldn’t let me. His voice would stop me anytime I thought about it. He made me plant the bomb.” She looked like she was about to cry. Dwight wondered if the android was physically capable of shedding tears.
Dwight leaned forward, his elbows spreading over the bar. “You tell the Guild what happened? That you did it, even if you were under his control?”
“How can I?” she answered quietly, “It doesn’t matter to them. To the Guild, I’ve always been just another item on the budget, an expense that some of them want to cut. This will be the reason they’ve been looking for. They’ll kick me out, or worse, have me killed by someone like you.”
Dwight tilted back the rest of the bottle, bitterly digesting her words, “Tell you what; I’ll make a deal with you.”
Her focus never left the glass, “What’s that?”
“I’ll keep this our little secret, but I’ve got some work for you. I have friends in town that could use your services. You can start with Ian, my roommate. Keep an eye on him, guard the apartment, and while you’re at it, help him fix the place up.”
Glitch looked up at her new boss, “You’d trust me with that?”
Dwight shrugged, “Sure; the psychic prick’s not going to be around to try it again. Besides, Ian needs company or he forgets to bathe regularly. What do you know about patching drywall?”
The cyborg eyed him suspiciously, “Next to nothing.”
He tapped his metallic fingers on the wood countertop, “I’ll need you to learn. Ian got startled by some unexpected guests and may have blown a fifteen-inch hole through three apartments. The landlord is threatening to double our rent if it doesn’t get repaired before next week.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, finally swallowing the drink.
Dwight got up, dropping a few bills on the bar. “I have some things I need to look into outside of this universe. I’ll be back as soon as I work it out.
Her confused cybernetic eyes followed him out of the bar.
Dwight knew the isolation and remorse that Glitch was living with, even if he wasn’t more machine than man. The Capes would never accept her, and even if they never found out about her manipulation, the guilt would always be there. She wouldn’t find redemption at the bar; she’d need to find it in herself. As much as he wished he could tell her that, it wouldn’t help.
He stepped out of the restaurant into the brisk spring air. Around him, the evening crowds were beginning to disperse among the endless options of New Haven’s nightlife.
Evan Zhu was making his way toward Dwight through the thinning mass, stopping a few feet away. He still wore the same dark trench coat and tactical gear he had on when they last parted ways. The gray marks of age streaking through his
hair stood out against the much younger pedestrians. “I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you so soon. This is an odd place to meet; you planning on asking me to dinner?”
“Hardly. I found something you might be interested in,” Dwight held up the photograph he’d taken from the captain’s quarters on Acheron. “Who’s she?”
Zhu stepped closer, snatching the photo from his hand, “Where did you get this?”
“I took a little trip to another world a few days ago,” he replied casually.
Zhu grew even more stern than usual, “You idiot! Do you realize you could have killed us all?”
Dwight predicted this argument when he requested the meeting, “Me? You’re the one who left a portal to a dead world open in the middle of nowhere. It was only a matter of time before someone found that shit and went through. Your nightmare dimension made for one hell of a prison.”
Void calmed himself, sighing as he looked thoughtfully skyward, “I imagined I might go back someday. Either when I found a cure, or when I was ready to be done with it all.” He looked back at Dwight as the fear set in, “Did you go to the surface?”
“No, we visited the prison some assholes called the Council started on the moon. They were throwing exiles from this world through – they’re the ones that went exploring. There was an outbreak, lots of people died, the lunar colony was destroyed. I completely sealed access to the portal before catching a flight back here. You’re welcome, by the way. Care to explain what those things were?” he asked, gesturing for Zhu to follow.
The senior Cape complied, the two men traveling the sidewalk together, “It came from the sky: an advanced, self-replicating nanite swarm from somewhere beyond our solar system – like a thick, gray cloud of tiny blue sparks. The first Power that went to investigate the disturbance was taken over immediately. A hundred of us were gone before we realized something was wrong. Within hours, we lost the first city; days, the planet.”
