1999: A Superhero Novel

by Hodden, TE

  Matthew folded his arms. “You can wear his image, but you will never be the man he was.”

  “No?” Laurence flicked open the case for the Master Control, and activated the holographic display. A globe shimmered into being over the dancefloor. “Zero Vector?”

  “My Master,” an electronic voice answered, in a distorted monotone. “Are my children safe?”

  “Every Millennium Bunker was used in the drill. I have now sealed the bunkers.”

  Icons flashed on the globe, over the United States.

  “Good!” Laurence nodded. “Show us the satellites.”

  The icons representing the Broadsword Network shimmered into being.

  The choir whispered their warnings in Summers’ mind. She gritted her teeth, as adrenaline rushed through her veins.

  Laurence ran his hand through the hologram. “Move the satellites into position, and prepare to unleash the wraithrose. Make humanity extinct.”

  Targeting displays moved about the hologram, clustering in Africa, India, China, Russia, and the United States.

  “No!” Summers hissed. “You can not do this!”

  The satellites began inching slowly towards their targets.

  Matthew glanced at Summers. She nodded.

  “I wouldn’t,” Laurence warned them.

  The fungal blossoms on the dead bodies opened, ready to exhale their spores.

  “Or Paris,” Laurence sneered, “will die too.”

  Padmaja stared at the hologram, tapping her lip in thought. “That wasn’t an AI, was it? You have somebody wired into the computer, thinking and reacting, as part of the programme?”

  “How very astute,” Laurence sneered.

  “Like you did with Charlie?” Padmaja asked.

  Summers understood. She flexed her finger on her staff.

  The choir prepared to act.

  10010

  "Rock!” Melisa shouted, as she threw herself around another corner of the Labyrinth. “I need your help, Rock! I can’t fight the Nightmare for you. You have to do that. I can help you, but you have to fight him!”

  The Nightare’s monstrous form crashed around a corner ahead of Melisa. It snapped its beak and charged at her. “I will flay your mind, and eat your flesh!”

  “Harris!” Melisa screamed, turning on her heels and sprinting as fast as her feet could carry her.

  The creature pounced.

  Melisa ducked into a roll, as it flew overhead, and slammed into the wall.

  “Harris!” Melisa roared. “Don’t leave me to fight this alone!”

  A hand touched her shoulder. Charlie’s!

  He was exactly how he had been the first time they kissed. All rangy, curls, and a skew-whiff smile, but carrying himself every bit the Yeoman. “Go and pull Harris out of his fugue. I’ll hold him off.”

  Melisa felt the cold of the grave rush through her veins. “Charlie. You can’t.”

  The Nightmare peeled himself from the wall, and loomed over Charlie. “She’s right little boy. I don’t know what you think you look like to her, but all I see is sickness and struggle. You are no fight.”

  Charlie held out his hand, showing the beast a fork-like device. “Your sister made that mistake too.” He closed his hand, and his armour phased around him. Now he held a long, weighted chain. “Melisa. Go.”

  The Nightmare lunged, slashing at Charlie with its claws. Charlie swung the chain, swatting the claws away, then smacking the monster in the face with the chain, over and over again. He moved in a dance, raining blows upon the Nightmare, too quickly for it to resist.

  Melisa made herself run. Leaving Charlie to fight alone tore at her heart. She found her way back at the door, and hauled it open. Harris was anchored on his chain, with the rest of the sleepers.

  “Harris!” She held out her hand. “Come on, man, it’s time to go home!”

  He stared at her, sorrow and pain in his eyes.

  “Take my hand!” Melisa said plunging it into the ocean.

  He turned and stared at one of the shadows bobbing in darkness.

  “Phoebe?” Melisa asked. “Harris. I’m sorry. We don’t have time for long goodbyes.”

  He closed his eyes, and took her hand. The chain released him. She pulled him through the door, and he landed on his knees, wearing his Scimitar armour.

  He drew his crossbow. “Where is he?”

  “Fighting Charlie,” Melisa said.

  He laughed. “Charlie made it?”

  Melisa gave him a sorry look.

  “Okay…” Harris marched on, into the labyrinth. He opened a door and stepped through.

  Charlie and the towering, hulking Nightmare were brawling in the corridor, slamming each other into the wall.

  Harris fired his crossbow. The bolt hit the Nightmare in the head.

  It roared in pain.

  Harris shot it again. “You got in my head.”

  The beast roared in pain.

  “You twisted my thoughts!” He fired again.

  The beast backed away.

  “You made me murder! You made me betray! You made me… like you!” He fired again.

  The Nightmare fell to the floor, and cowered.

  Harris put the crossbow to its forehead. “You used her.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  The Nightmare vanished, screaming.

  Harris lowered his crossbow. “Is it dead?”

  Charlie walked over. “It’s lost its grip here, and has returned to where the rest of it dwelt.” He phased away his armour. “If somebody gives it a foothold here, it will take time to return.” He looked at Melisa. “Tell Cathy I’m sorry. I tried to hold on.”

  Melisa took his hands. “Charlie…”

  He stroked her cheek. “I’m sorry. Misrule has the others pinned down at a stalemate. You don’t have time for long goodbyes.”

  “But…” Melisa whispered. “It is goodbye.”

  He nodded. “Mel. I alwa¬”

  Charlie froze. His colour drained to a cold monochrome, and he faded away into dust.

  Melisa snapped back to reality and stepped away from Harris.

  “Mel?” Angel asked.

  “It’s me,” Harris said.

  “It’s him,” Melisa whispered.

  Angel released Harris, and put a hand on Melisa’s shoulder. “Melisa?”

  Melisa stared into the veil. “We have to go. We don’t have time for long goodbyes.”

  10011

  Catherine ran to the sofa, and crouched down. Charlie was laying still. His breath had stopped, and his face sagged. Something about the way his head lolled, and the way his eyes stared blankly, confirmed her fears, even before she touched his neck in search of a pulse.

  Elois watched from the bar.

  Catherine lifted the blanket over his face, placed her hand over his heart.

  The silence of the meadow was suddenly ominous and haunted.

  10100

  Summers glanced up at the tactical display. The seconds were ticking away.

  Matthew risked another step forward. He gave Laurence (no, Summers chided herself, Misrule, not Laurence) a hard stare. “So, this is it? You unleash the wraithrose, start culling the humans, and the ghouls come to mop up the survivors then what?”

  “Then,” Misrule said, “the Necrex will bless this world with his presence. A small cadre of survivors will be chosen as his servants, and their descendants will serve him until the heart of this world is consumed, and he moves on. Those who resist will be his entertainment, their blood spilt for his amusement.”

  Harris marched in through the shattered door, carrying an Ether converter.

  Misrule stared at him. “Report.”

  Harris slid the converter across the floor, into the middle of the room. The converter whined.

  In the next few seconds everything happened at once.

  Misrule snarled. “Oh, very clever.”

  The fungal blooms on the dead bodies puffed their spores into the air.

  A
ngel charged into the room, and threw out a force projection, that tossed Misrule and the converter into the corner of the room, against the ceiling.

  Matthew reached out with aura, scooped up the dead bodies, and the puffs of spores, and shoved them away from the delegates.

  Melisa was at the door, herding the delegates away.

  Summers ran to the Master Control unit and touched her staff to it. She reached into the machine, and felt the code. The Chorus scanned the system, learned its language, and peeled back the security. She could feel the living presence within the machine. Zero Vector, her mind written through the network of satellites, feeling and seeing through their sensors as though they were her own body. She could feel the code changing organically.

  Who are you? Zero Vector demanded. What are you?

  Summers answered her with the screeching howl of a signal. The same one she had used on Charlie.

  She felt Zero Vector trying to withdraw and defend herself too late. The pain. The confusion. The digital nausea.

  Summers pushed a command onto the satellites. Self Destruct.

  No! Zero Vector was in pain, but she dug her claws in, and clung to the target command.

  Summers sent the disruption signal again. “She’s fighting me! I can hurt her, but she’s trying block me out!”

  Padmaja put her hand on Summer’s. “Where is she?”

  Summers felt the flow of data. “I don’t know! She’s bou¬”

  The ether converter detonated with a silver blue flash. Summer’s armour reacted to the flash, tinting her visor. She could see Matthew containing the explosion with his aura, the spores burning, the bodies reduced to their skeletons for a blink of an eye, then to cinders. She saw Misrule cry out, then steel himself and laugh, his flesh knitting back together.

  Angel bolstered Matthew’s efforts with her force projection.

  Summers shook her head. “She’s bouncing the signal off multiple locations. I can’t target them all.”

  “It’s moving,” Padmaja said.

  “It could be four of them,” Summers whispered.

  “It’s a ship,” Harris said. “South Pacific.”

  “Got it!” Summers reported, identifying the target. She targeted her efforts on one satellite, on the Phased Energy Projector, wresting it from Zero-Vector’s grasp and opening fire.

  There was a flash of terror in the system.

  And then Zero Vector was gone.

  Summers felt numbed. Her fingers trembled and everything tasted of ash.

  It had been too easy. Far too easy. She had always thought, had always hoped, there would have been a hesitation.

  She always thought there would have been another choice.

  The Choir didn’t wait for her to suggest the response. They had the satellites fall into decaying orbits, then detonated the self-destruct, at angles that would incinerate the wreckage against the atmosphere, in a destructive re-entry.

  “Nice!” Padmaja said, with a grin. “I was about to suggest that.”

  Matthew nodded up at Misrule. “We can’t hold him forever. What do we do?”

  Angel took a deep breath. “Summers used her staff as a transportation platform before.”

  “Yes,” Summers said, “but I needed the spear to stabilise the signal. Humans are too delicate.”

  “He’ll survive,” Angel said. “And so will we. Matthew and I are not human.”

  “And where,” Adam asked, “are we going?”

  “Jupiter,” Angel whispered. “He’s anchored here? Good. Let’s give some other civilisations a few centuries of peace. And if the sleep pod fails? Then his mortal flesh dies and he returns to his realm.” She smiled. “Win win.”

  “No!” Misrule screamed. “I will not be caged. I will¬”

  Summers focussed her thoughts through the staff, and transported herself, Misrule, Angel and Matthew away.

  10101

  Harris avoided Christmas by taking the Bumblebee on a shakedown cruise.

  The wrecked spaceship drifted in its orbit of Jupiter.

  Harris stood on the quiet deck, staring at the frosted over sarcophagus. Misrule floated, suspended in the cryogenic fluid.

  Matthew put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Satisfied?”

  Harris nodded. “I wanted to be sure. I don’t think I was ever going to sleep easy until I was sure.”

  Matthew smiled. “Do you ever sleep easy?”

  Harris shrugged. “I like the ship. The one back home, not here… It isn’t like the HQ, but it’s peaceful. I sometimes sleep.” He chuckled to himself, hoping it would plaster over all the stuff just beneath the surface. “Sometimes I even have nice dreams, rather than…”

  Matthew nodded. “It wasn’t you. You never would have injected that stuff in you. Whatever it was, it was in your head, as soon as you saw Phoebe.”

  “It wasn’t me.” Harris stared at Matthew. “People say that, like it’s an explanation, an excuse. They don’t get it’s what scares me the most.”

  Matthew checked the readings on the sarcophagus. “Well, he’s still ticking over in there, trying to be awake, and aware, but… his psychic potential is muted.”

  “Huh.” Harris rubbed the back of his neck. “Matthew…”

  Matthew stared into his eyes. “It good to have you back.”

  “If I’m compromised, if I’m no longer an Honour Guard, I will still¬”

  “Rock,” Matthew said, gently, “it’s good to have you back.”

  That was the first time, in a long time, that Harris smiled.

  10110

  Melisa was home.

  Night in Pelham was lit by the multi-coloured fairy lights hung between the trees. They painted the drifting snow in every colour. The sounds of distant merry making and celebration drifted on the evening air.

  In their absence from the HQ, the statues and plaques in the walled garden had been vandalised and graffitied, with accusations of treason, and vile slurs. Only the new memorials were untouched.

  Phoebe’s was a plinth, crowned by a vase of roses carved from white marble veined with silver and blue.

  Barney’s plinth carried a statue of the Osprey emblem. Old colleagues had drifted by to lay bunches of flowers and bottles of beer at the foot of the plinth.

  Harper and Flintlock’s plinths were crowned by mercurial representations of their tattoos, wrought in metal that glistened in the moonlights.

  Melisa paused at the last of the new plinths. The Yeoman’s emblem was carved in wood, that already looked faded and aged.

  A chain lay coiled at the foot of the plinth.

  “He didn’t make it home,” a tart, English voice, said behind her.

  Melisa tensed. “I’m sorry. These are private gardens, and…” She trailed off as she turned around. “Do I know you?”

  The woman who sat on the bench was dressed in a black dress, decades out of style, and a black velvet jacket. She was feline and poised, with deeply intense eyes, that carried far more years of pain and sorrow, than her apparent youth should have allowed. She patted the seat beside her. “Yes. I’m sorry. I sought his grave, but… I can not even feel that.”

  Melisa reached out. The woman was… disconnected from the world around her. Her appearance was entirely an illusion, with no substance. There was no warmth, or weight to her body. She was a mirage.

  A ghost.

  “Who are you?” Melisa asked.

  The ghost sighed. “My name is Tilda. I am his grandmother.”

  There was no deception to her words. The truth of them was saturated in regrets.

  Melisa sat on the bench. “Melisa. I was his…”

  “Yes.” Tilda nodded. “He was utterly in love with you.”

  “I know,” Melisa agreed. “And… I know things were difficult for you, but…”

  “Yes,” Tilda whispered. “Very much more than I think I deserved.”

  “Ah.” Melisa laughed. “So… that’s a family habit is it?”

  Tilda looked away.
“I released him from the promise. He was due to join us, his brothers and sisters of the Yeomen, for his retirement. I… looked forwards to it. Oh, not so soon, of course. Not by a long time. But… We felt his loss, but he never arrived.”

  Melisa stared at the ghost. “Why would you tell me that?”

  Tilda gave her a sad look. “Because I have to know you understand what I will ask of you.”

  Melisa closed her eyes. “Why… why didn’t he…reach you?”

  Tilda’s presence was a heady cocktail of fear and sadness. “They destroyed too much of what makes him… him. When he passed he slipped down, into his sleep, to dream of eternity.”

  For a terrible instant, Melisa remembered what she had seen of the afterlife, of the sleepers tethered in their chains, drifting in the sea,

  “And what,” she asked quietly, “are you to ask of me?”

  “His dreams are restless and painful. He is haunted.” Tilda shook her head. “He deserves peace.” She straightened. “And besides, by rights it should be his duty to train the next Yeoman. She should probably help us too.”

  Melisa snapped her eyes open, and stared at Tilda. “Who?”

  Tilda smiled, and put her hand on Melisa’s. It felt like a cold fog, colder than the winter’s bite, but soft, and gentle. She lay a metal stud on Melisa’s hand. “That… is the other favour I must ask. Charlie knew the perfect woman for the job, but I can not reach her.”

  Melisa closed her hand over the stud. “And… how do we…?”

  Tilda smiled. “When you are decided, go to a place in Scotland called¬”

  “Lock Wulven?”

  Tilda frowned. “Now, how would you know that?”

  Melisa looked away. “He is buried in a forest there, full of bluebells, surrounded by an endless meadow.”