by James Maxey
She took a deep breath. Think. First, since she hadn’t started believing in magic, Nathan and the others weren’t possessed. She knew a thing or two about making people do things against their will. Since her father had been able to take over people’s minds, perhaps a telepath was to blame. As for the magically appearing and disappearing swords, her own sister had been a ferrokinetic with the ability to pull raw iron atoms out of the quantum froth that undergirded reality.
If they were dealing with a telepath, how could she shield the brains of the dervishes? Physical objects had never been a barrier for her father. Distance, on the other hand, had provided some limitations. The further his powers stretched, the more people his power touched, and the harder it became for him to filter signal from noise.
“Are the dervishes still contained?” she asked, as her mind raced. If she started grabbing them, how far away could she get them in the minutes they had left?
“I don’t know that mine is going to survive his injuries,” said Steam-Dragon.
“I’ve had to hamstring one of my opponents,” said Chimpion. “I’m counting on the medical nanites that saved you to save him, assuming they don’t all die of heart attacks. Their frenzy seems to be growing!”
Sarah snapped her fingers. “Nanites!”
“You think they can cure them?” asked Servant.
“Nope,” said Sarah, zooming to the armory. “But nanites can help us get these people to the other side of the planet.”
She flew to a supply cabinet and jerked on the door. The whole cabinet moved. “Goddammit, it’s locked!”
“What’s locked?” asked Servant.
“The cabinet where they keep the nanites they inject us with so that the space machine can track our locations.”
“I can get in,” App’s voice said over the coms.
“I thought you were dead!” said Chimpion.
“Yeah,” said App. “Been that kind of day.”
Sarah said, “Hurry up and get into the—”
“I’m already here,” App said as he drifted through the wall beside her in his ghost mode. He turned his feet toward the ground and said, “Acid mode.”
Sarah stepped back as his dripping hands grasped the sides of the cabinet. He tore off chunks of metal like they were tissue paper, and in second had exposed the trays full of syringes within. He stepped away and said, “Reset.”
Sarah lunged forward, sticking her hand into the jagged hole he’d made, grabbing a fistful of syringes. She handed them to App and said, “Get these into the dervishes! Go!”
“Where are we sending them?” asked App.
“Go!” she said. She didn’t have any seconds to spare to explain her plan. She flew back to the command hub and landed in the chair where Nathan had been sitting when all this started. He was still logged in. She wasn’t an expert in using the space machine, but she’d sat through a few training sessions. While she didn’t have the skill to program a new destination, she remembered how to pull up a list of saved coordinates. When they’d fought Pit Geek and Sundancer, their final battle had taken place on Midway Atoll. That wasn’t the exact opposite side of the globe, but it wasn’t off by much. If they were up against a telepath, there would be a world full of minds preventing his control.
The computers were state of the art, but time crawled as she waited for past destinations to load. Then she had to scroll through mission dates, seconds ticking as she scanned the list of dates and times. On the day they’d gone to Midway they’d hit nearly 100 other destinations while trying to stop explosive clones of Sundancer. “Come on, come on,” she whispered as she clicked on the different GPS coordinates, bringing up maps showing what they corresponded to. Why couldn’t they sort these things by names people actually used? Who the hell memorized the GPS coordinates of places they’d been?
“Yes!” she cried as a map revealed a tiny triangle of an island in the middle of an ocean. She was certain this was Midway, since the western end was a plain of smooth black glass, a remnant of Sundancer losing control of her powers.
By now, App would have had at least a minute to inject the dervishes with the tracking nanites. “Damn it!” she said, exasperated. “How the hell do I load a new target form into the system?”
“Control F8 brings up the load menu,” said Chimpion, startling Sarah since she was standing right behind her.
“How did you—”
“I’ve got all my dervishes tied up now,” said Chimpion, nudging Sarah aside. “Here, let me do it.”
Sarah gave up her seat and Chimpion’s long, nimble fingers flew over the keys. In seconds, she’d loaded the dervish nanite maps into the system. She selected them, then pasted them onto the map of Midway. A few more keystrokes, and she sent the rest of the team after them, then with one last keystroke sent herself.
Sarah arrived to find the dervish victims laying naked on the black glass, gasping and groaning, their doppelgangers vanished. Chimpion apparently hadn’t fine-tuned the grab to also bring along their clothes, or, she noted, their swords.
“Katya,” she said, flying to her side. She dropped to her side and grabbed her by the arms. “Katya, are you okay?”
“Why did you do that to me?” Katya said, her voice sobbing. “Why? Why?”
“We had to cut and paste you out of the range of whoever was controlling you.”
“Whoever…? It was you! You made me attack!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sarah asked, wondering if Katya had gone mad.
“It was your voice. Your voice inside my head. It told me to do terrible things. But… it made me so happy! So happy to kill for you! I couldn’t control myself!”
“I never told you to kill anyone!” Sarah protested.
“It was your voice!” said Katya. “You’re old voice! You told me to attack, and I felt such pleasure I couldn’t control myself!”
App was helping Nathan to his feet. “She’s right,” Nathan said, his voice trembling. His body looked emaciated, bathed in sweat, his face haggard. “I also heard a woman’s voice. Didn’t sound like you, exactly. And it told me to attack you. So it couldn’t be you. Could it?”
“It’s not me,” said Sarah.
“You forget that I’ve been on the receiving end of your powers, years ago,” said Katya, still looking at Sarah with suspicion. “The experience was so similar. I could feel my whole mind instantly flood with endorphins and adrenaline. I felt as if I was unstoppable. I felt… thrilled.”
“There something else you need to tell us, Skyrider?” asked Steam-Dragon. “Some evil twin we need to know about?”
“It was my dad who had the evil twin. I’ve honestly got no idea…” she didn’t finish the sentence. Suddenly, everything was plain. “Oh my god. To make a dervish, all you need is to recreate my father’s telepathy, my sister’s ability to pull iron blades from thin air, and my voice.”
“So you are involved in this?” asked Steam-Dragon.
“Of course not,” said Sarah. “But my father had analyzed my powers. He knew how my voice activated the pleasure centers of the brain. He’d written out complicated formulas explaining my sister’s ability to create iron from seemingly thin air. While he never told me he’d analyzed his own powers, it’s impossible to believe he didn’t. What if the secrets of his telepathy are stored somewhere in the Knowbokov Foundation databases? What if someone has hacked in and learned to simulate our powers?”
“None of you had the kind of accelerated metabolisms displayed by the dervishes,” said Servant. “None of you could split into multiple bodies.”
“We already know that you can use a time machine to create multiple selves. Dad once built a time machine. As for the manic speed and strength, when I was the Thrill if I’d told someone to run as far and fast as they can until their heart burst, they would have done so with a smile on their face.”
“Then it all makes sense,” said Steam-Dragon. “Apparently the villain behind all this is your father’s ghost
.”
“That’s stupid,” said Sarah.
“Don’t believe in ghosts?” asked Steam-Dragon.
“Actually, I used to date one,” said Sarah. “No, the idea is stupid because, while my father had his failings, he wasn’t a terrorist. On his worst day, he’d never dream of creating something like a dervish.”
“But he put part of his mind into the brains of murderers who could dream of such things,” said Servant.
“Fuck,” said Sarah, grabbing her forehead as it if were about to split in two. “You’re right! Somehow, the prisoners have gotten Dad’s memories, and maybe his powers, then reverted back to their murderous ways.” She glanced at Servant, who stared at her sternly. “This would be a bad time to preach to me about my fucking language.”
“If there really are over a dozen serial killers with your father’s genius lurking out there, I may be tempted to use a few bad words myself,” said Servant.
Chapter Sixteen
Wild Goose
“What the hell just happened?” asked Simpson, one of the technicians still at the base, his voice crackling over the radio.
“Katya, Nathan, Lacy, Ty, and Frank were all converted into dervishes,” Sarah answered. “We moved them to the other side of the planet to get them out of range of whoever was controlling them.”
“Did it work?” asked Simpson.
“Yes, but all five are need of medical attention, especially Ty. But if we cut and paste them back home, I’m worried they’ll turn into dervishes again.”
“At least they won’t have their swords,” said Simpson. “They were left behind when you snatched them. Their, um, clothes too.”
“They can pull new swords out of thin air,” said Sarah.
“Transport me back with Ty,” said Servant. “He got chewed up pretty badly by Steam-Dragon and is going into shock. I’ll be able to hold him if he does change back into dervish mode. If he doesn’t change, we can bring the others back one by one.”
“Good plan,” said Sarah. “Simpson, make it so.”
It was made so. The team was given updates as Ty returned, showing no signs of reversion. Two minutes later, he was in the medical unit, receiving a transfusion of medical nanites.
“I think it’s safe to bring back another one,” said Servant. “Let’s do Lacy.”
“You heard him, Simpson,” said Sarah. “Bring her back, and App to watch over her.”
The process was repeated, until finally Sarah and Katya were left alone. Katya’s eyes looked haunted.
“It really wasn’t me,” said Sarah.
“I know,” said Katya. “I’m just rattled. It wasn’t… it wasn’t like I was being controlled. It was like I was being given permission. Like this violent monster was hiding in me the whole time just waiting to be invited to jump out. I… I was laughing. As I was attacking you, I… I… oh God. What if it happens again?”
“I won’t happen again,” said Sarah. “I promise, we’re going to stop this.”
“What if you can’t?” asked Katya. “What if… what if somehow, you’re causing it?”
“Katya, we’ve known each other a long time—”
“Yes,” said Katya. “And I remember how you used to abuse your powers. I remember how undisciplined you were. What if… what if there’s some part of you that’s inherited your father’s telepathy? What if you’re subconsciously controlling others?”
“There’s nothing in my subconscious that would make me turn other people into terrorists. I’m a good person. You know this.”
Katya nodded. “Your sister was a good person. Then, Jerusalem.”
Simpson’s voice came through the coms. “Ready to come back?”
“More than I can say,” said Sarah.
“Simpson!” Sarah said the second they were pasted into back into headquarters. “You said we’d captured the dervish swords. Where are they?”
“Ah,” said Simpson. “About that…”
“What?” she asked.
“Watch this,” he said, pulling out his tablet and tapping it a few times. “Here’s the camera inside the evidence locker. We tossed the swords inside to keep them safe until we could analyze them.”
“Good,” she said. “I know they won’t have fingerprints or any of the typical forensic evidence we’d look for, but—.”
“Watch,” he said, pointing toward the screen.
Sarah blinked. The swords had been replaced by a pile of brown dust.
“Son of a bitch,” she said.
“Instantaneous oxidation, just like all the previous swords. Still, we do have some data we didn’t have before. There was a definite electromagnetic pulse when the swords materialized, and a corresponding one when they vanished. It’s identical to the magnetic signatures we have on file for when Rail Blade would create and dismiss her blades.”
“So we’ve been overlooking an obvious suspect,” said Chimpion, immediately behind Sarah.
Sarah looked down at her. “You really need to stop sneaking up on me.”
“She’s like a short, hairy Batman,” said App as he approached, with Servant and Steam-Dragon close behind.
“Spit it out, Chimpion,” said Sarah. “You obviously have a theory about who’s responsible.”
“Your sister. Killing people with blades is her MO.”
“Random mass murder isn’t her thing,” said Sarah.
“She destroyed an entire city!” said Steam-Dragon.
“She evacuated people before she did so,” said Sarah.
“And killed a lot of them from strokes and heart attacks when she grabbed them by their blood,” said Chimpion.
“Look, my sister isn’t a problem anymore,” said Sarah.
“Is she dead?” asked Servant. “After Jerusalem, she issued a threat to destroy more cities, then no one knows what happened to her.”
“She’s not dead. At least, I don’t think she is. I haven’t had any contact with her in years.”
“So a known mass murderer with at least one of the necessary powers to pull of this attack is still alive and in hiding,” said Steam-Dragon. “Why hasn’t she been a suspect before now?”
“Because it’s a dumb theory,” said Sarah.
App scratched the back of his neck. “Why, exactly, is it dumb?”
“Amelia was never mean or cruel. She only used lethal force when absolutely necessary to save innocent lives.”
“Until Jerusalem,” said Servant.
“Look, I was there. It was… it was a bad day for everyone. There was all out war that day. Amelia—Rail Blade—used her powers to destroy all the guns and knives people were fighting with, and they just picked up cobblestones and kept fighting. Then this kid committed suicide trying to kill us and… Amelia snapped. Anyone would have.”
“Only when ordinary people snap, they can’t flatten cities with their minds,” said Steam-Dragon.
“Let’s grant that she was a person with good intentions,” said Chimpion. “The trauma of being responsible for so many deaths would have changed her. If you haven’t spoken to her in years, how do you know her insanity hasn’t progressed?”
“Even if she’s bat shit crazy now, she couldn’t be behind this. She didn’t have my voice powers, or Dad’s telepathy.”
“But she had firsthand knowledge of these powers,” said Chimpion. “She probably had access to your father’s computers with the data explaining how your powers worked.”
Sarah shook her head. “It’s not her.”
“You know her best,” said Servant. “But what could it hurt to ask her a few questions?”
“Good luck with that,” said Sarah.
“We won’t need luck,” said Chimpion. “I’ll put the Pangean research team on the case. I’m betting we’ll know where she is by morning.”
“Oh, I know where she is,” said Sarah.
“Then tell us,” said Chimpion.
“She lives in a really remote location,” said Sarah.
“Why is that a
problem?” said App. “With the space machine, we can go anywhere on earth.”
Sarah gave a slight smile.
“Oh my god, she’s on Mars,” said App.
“What?” asked Servant. “How did you jump to that conclusion?”
“I can’t be the only one here that follows the news,” said App. “The Mars enigma? The magnetic field?”
“Oooh,” said Steam-Dragon. “That does make sense.”
“Care to enlighten us?” asked Servant.
“Seriously, you haven’t heard about the Mars enigma?” said App. “The satellites we’ve got in orbit around Mars have been sending back photos of things that look a lot like structures, big faces, pyramids, domes, large tubes. Conspiracy buffs have whole websites devoted to proving that Mars once hosted a civilization whose remains you can literally see from space. Of course, NASA always comes along and explains how the objects match up with comparable natural formations on Earth. They also explain sharp angles and straight lines in the original photo data as digital artifacts. Of course, the more NASA explains away the structures, the more people think there’s a cover up.”
“Put me in the cover up camp,” said Steam-Dragon.
“I’m not as convinced,” said App. “I mean, some people are building whole histories of an ancient Martian civilization based on blurry photos. That said, there’s a site in the Valles Marineris that sure as hell looks like a big glass dome, and it only shows up in photos starting seven years ago. Earlier photos don’t show it, though, of course, earlier satellites had a lot less resolution, and scientists point out that dust storms bury and uncover rock formations all the time.”
“I’ve studied those photos,” said Steam-Dragon. “The dome definitely looks manmade. Martian made. Whatever.”
“And then there’s the magnetic field. That’s what’s really known as the Mars Enigma,” said App. “When we first sent probes there, Mars essentially had no magnetosphere. Then, boom, seven years ago, satellites started detecting magnetic fluctuations, faint at first, but getting stronger. Now it’s almost powerful enough to shield the planet from the solar wind, which means, if it persists, Mars could one day hold onto a dense atmosphere again. Scientist have no idea where the magnetic field is coming from, but what if—”