“Wait,” I cocked my head at Alice, “you’re saying that I could make this a tropical beach?”
Alice shrugged, “It’s possible, but you will be exhausted mentally and he can change it back a whole lot easier than you did making it summer again.” I willed a mask to cover my mouth and nose. Holy cow, it’s cold. Have you ever been outside and your car won’t warm up no matter how high you have the heat on? It felt like that.
“The temperature f-feels like it keeps dropping.”
Alice nodded, “It probably will.”
“Why winter?”
She shrugged, “It’s his winter.” I tripped over a stick and it took me a couple of seconds to find my balance.
I looked over at Alice, “Last night…”
She shook her head, “It was nice, Markus.”
“Well, yes, I mean, I thought so too. I was trying to-”
“Let’s not do this right now.” I nodded. It hurt, but she was probably right. We couldn’t afford for him to jump out and kill us while we were surprised and having a deeply personal connection. Neither one of us had had a lover since- no, I can’t get distracted. My eyes felt wet. I wasn’t going to cry. I’ve cried more in the last couple of weeks than I have any other time.
“Alice?”
“Hmm?”
“Why are we walking?”
Alice opened her mouth and then laughed. A world war two era tank crushed the trees in front of us. I smiled and turned to Alice. She frowned. There was a white open sleigh behind her with ruby red seats. Six stags were looking at the two of us before they turned back to pawing at the ground.
“We can take your-”
Alice shook her head, “No, yours is more practical.”
“Okay, come here I’ll help you up.” I boosted her up and into the tank. She dropped down inside in one leap and landed with a clang that reverberated outside. I smiled and shook my head. I climbed in after her and closed the hatch. Old switches and dials covered everything. Alice looked at me and bit her lip.
“I don’t know how to make it move.”
I shrugged, “Me either.” I closed my eyes and willed the tank to move. Forward, closer to the citadel that we could just barely see over the trees. The engine roared and we took off. There was no path through the forests, so the tank made one. In the case of trees versus my ten-ton death machine, I’m gonna pick the latter. Trees splintered and we lurched over them.
I smirked, “This has to be more fun than a real tank.”
Alice smiled and nodded, “It probably is. The tank seems accurate though, I don’t know if that’s because I think it should be like this, or because either you or Elias is a tank expert.” That wiped the smirk off of my face.
“Wait, his mind influences what we create here?”
Alice cocked an eyebrow at me, “Of course it does. It’s his mind. We’re playing by his rules.” I hmphed and opened the hatch. Alice cursed below me. I squinted and imagined a plane, a giant cargo plane full of TNT. Then I imagined that it was on and making a beeline for the citadel. I whistled and dropped back into the cabin.
Alice folded her arms across her chest and stared at me, “What did you just do?” I nodded towards the viewport. I craned my neck to watch. The plane exploded on impact. The explosion blasted open the citadel and as the rest of the fuel exploded. It flew forward into the fiery hole that my plane had made. I turned to Alice and shook my head, “Should have filled it with nukes.”
Alice’s eyes flashed and she grinned, “I knew I brought you for a reason.” I willed the tank to go faster. The dial that read our speed said we were going ninety. I don’t claim to be an expert on tanks, but as far as I know the old ones definitely couldn’t go ninety miles an hour. Cars couldn’t go half that fast back then.
“What’s the plan?”
I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it quickly, “Well, I’m not completely sure, I figured you’d help with the fine details.”
“While you blow stuff up?”
I nodded, “While I blow stuff up.”
Alice smirked and nodded, “Well, he’s probably gonna have guards and-” I stopped listening as I willed a biplane into existence that was carrying a hydrogen bomb inside of it. Physics can go suck it. The tiny plane crashed into the base of the tower and went off. The ground shook and I flew back and slammed my head into the back wall of our little tank.
A plume of fire rose up and obscured the entire citadel. I willed the explosion and the radiation to dissipate. I didn’t know what damage it would cause, but we were probably close enough to the blast to get cancer. The plume vanished and the radiation vanished with it. I howled and pulled my head away from the back of the tank. My skin had burned against the hot metal. Alice muttered something. The tank was cool like it had been before.
She turned to me and placed her hands on her hips, “That was stupid!” I didn’t have the energy to argue with her at the moment, so I nodded. “If we die here then we don’t go back to our bodies, Markus. Try to not set off thermonuclear warheads in our immediate vicinity.” I frowned. I didn’t know much about this place.
“Why haven’t we seen Elias yet?”
Alice shrugged, “No clue, do you have any idea?”
“I have a few.”
Elias.
My shotgun snapped into existence in my hand. It was a double-barreled shotgun that carried some pretty big shells. I felt the air ripple, Alice had wished for something. I ignored whatever she did and fired both shots at him. I was awfully tired of hearing the ringing noise that signified that I had tinnitus, so I made it go away.
Elias held out his hand and caught them on a metallic shield. The bullets bounced around and I ducked. One of them ripped through the skin on the side of my leg. He picked up his foot to kick my head. I willed the tank to not exist and I started rolling. Elias swore as he hit the ground. We were now going ninety-nine an hour. Elias hit a tree and it dissolved after he bounced off. I smiled, that had to hurt. A branch caught me and sliced my cheek open. Yep, it definitely hurt.
I willed the trees in front of Alice and me to disappear while making the trees reappear just a few feet behind us in a solid wall of oak. One of the trees splintered and Elias howled from the other side of the imaginary tree wall. Alice and I rolled to our feet and slid back, killing the rest of our momentum. I felt my ribs popping back into place and skin sewing itself back together. The dermis healed and even the epidermis of my skin healed.
The tree wall in front of us dissipated. I grabbed Alice’s arm and felt our wills merge. I created a ten-foot thick snow pile in front of the two of us. Splinters hissed and slammed into the snowbank. After a few seconds the splinters stopped flying. Only one of them made it through the snowbank I had created. I made a shushing motion towards Alice and closed my eyes.
We were encased in a gigantic snowman. The bottom snowball was hollow so we could move around and breathe. The physics in Elias’ brain was way cooler than real-life physics. I used our joined wills to make giant snowmen, all over the forest. Then I made the snowbank dissipate. I un-joined our wills by stepping away from Alice and smiling. I created a plasma screen TV that showed us what was happening through the eyes of our snowman. It flickered on just in time to see him howl in frustration.
He held out his arm and I felt a tingling sensation that gradually escalated up the pain spectrum. This was what Alice meant. I had suffered pain all my life. I had felt loss and been cut up and sliced more times than Elias could count. I’d felt more pain than he could ever understand, and I was not about to give up now. I held on.
“I’m gonna kill you, Markus.” It is possible that four or five additional snowmen may or may not have appeared while Elias was making his little speech. Elias spun around and smiled. His smile twitched and he seemed to have a real difficulty keeping it from twitching.
I leaned over to Alice, “I love this place.” Elias screeched and a wave of fire spewed out from him and around to all of the snowmen. I grabbed Alice.
We created a mountain of snow that burned the fire out and may or may not have launched several dozen snowballs at Elias from okay all directions.
“You said he has guards?”
Alice nodded, “Most people’s mental defenses have little pieces of their personality and subconscious.”
“Can we create them?”
Alice cocked her head at me and then her eyes widened and she got a big smile on her face, “Oh, I love the way you think.” I grinned and we joined hands and concentrated. Our creations wouldn’t actually be able to create anything, but they could screw with Elias and they could do the one thing Elias wanted to see us do more than anything. The copies of us lay in the snow with their limbs skewed around every which way.
I bent over and rested my hands on them, “When he finds us you, run.” I tried to communicate the way Alice and our team did back in the real world. My copy stood up and grabbed Alice. They stood up and stared blankly at the snow wall. I grunted. It was good enough to buy us a few seconds at least. Alice waved her hand and we ran out of the back of the snowman and sealed it up behind us. I looked down and pointed at Alice.
She leaned over and put her mouth by my ear, “You take care of the footprints and I’ll watch for him.” I nodded and ran after Alice. I ran and focused on soft, undisturbed snow, no footprints. The closest snowman deformed into a pile of snow, dang it, if Elias was paying attention, he might have seen that. I ducked my head and Alice and I ran faster and faster. Weird, warbling voices that sounded almost like Alice’s reached us. They were screaming. . . in pain.
“He found them.”
“On it.” I closed my eyes and focused on creating the best escape vehicle ever.
Alice looked at me out of the corner of her eye, “Star Wars is centuries older than you are.”
“It’s a classic and it will always be a classic.” We jumped in. I barely got the cockpit window down before we flew forward. I turned the fighter towards Elias’ tower which was still standing somehow and made a beeline for it. Laser blasts splat out of the side cannons and headed straight ahead of us towards our destination.
“You are gonna miss this, aren’t you?”
I looked back at Alice and grinned, “Most definitely.”
Alice smirked, “We need to disarm him, if I can wrestle control of him from here then we’ll be able to get everything we need.”
I nodded, “Will he be stronger at the citadel?”
Alice nodded, “Yes, but… we’ve weakened it a lot. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like this, it’s almost like he had help building his defenses, most dream worlds are a lot more. . . random and chaotic unless the person is exerting direct control.”
“A simple yes would’ve been good enough.”
“Smart aleck.” I felt Alice roll her eyes and I felt myself smiling. “Wipe that smile off your face.”
I nodded, “Yes, ma’am.” Smoke billowed up from under the edges of the gaping black hole in the side of Elias’ mental fortifications. We landed and walked over to it. We both almost instinctively summoned gas masks to us. We weren’t going to die now.
“He definitely knows we’re still here by now.”
Alice cocked her head at me, “Markus he’s probably almost here.”
“Thanks Alice, you beautiful ray of sunshine.” I shook my head and walked into the crater. Power cords ran everywhere like gigantic snakes. They wound their way around the room and plugged into ginormous panels covered in tiny lines and bumps the size of my fist. It looked like… snowshoes clicked behind me and turned into heels. Alice gasped.
“This looked like a computer,” she gasped. I fell to my knees. Pictures of this. Pictures of advanced electronics were criminal to have. Ever since the event. I heard an echo ring back in my head of Elias looking at me just a few hours earlier and saying, “You’re messing with things you don’t understand.”
“Alice… is he still alive?” She walked up next to me and ran her head over one of the panels. She signed and rested her head against it.
“He’s still alive, Markus. He loves power. He’s seen this, what real power looks like.” Stairs led down in a spiral against the wall of the tower. I ran down them.
“Alice!” I dimly noticed that I was screaming. She flew down the stairs after me.
“Okay, he’s seen. . . them.”
I swallowed. The room had massive spiraling power cables that ran across the ceiling and floor towards the center of the room. A glass cylinder filled up the center of the room and all of the power cables plugged into it. Lights flickered on the outside and along control panels. Elias’ core was made up of a quantum computer, a very, very illegal device. It was the only thing powerful enough to run the deep learning programs that were developed far beyond what was intended. They created life. They made Alice and they made me. They were demons that had tried to kill us by giving us gifts. My heart lurched. Elias was here.
21
Chapter 21
I spun around and threw out my hand. I imagined a bowling ball flying through the air and towards Elias’ chest. It sailed towards him and Elias threw out his hand. The bowling ball disappeared when it touched his fingers. Elias threw back his head and laughed.
Alice screamed and fire billowed out of her mouth like a dragon in a fantasy movie. The white light left colored splotches on my vision even as it singed the hair off of my arms. Alice closed her mouth and the white light hissed out. I vomited. Elias was completely covered in third degree burns.
“Get him!” I screamed. Alice ran over and grabbed Elias. She held him with her thumbs pressed against his temples. Elias howled and thrashed on the ground. I winced, that had to make his third-degree burns feel better. I know that they’re not real, but right now, in this moment, he felt them. He felt all of the pain. His eyes snapped open and he turned and looked around.
“Markus,” Alice gasped, “something’s wrong.” Elias smiled. It was completely unhinged.
“Maybe I wasn’t the only one who thought of duplicates.” Oh no. Elias’ mouth opened in a silent roar, and he faded away. It looked like when the sun hits a plume of dust and it sparkles as it flows on the tiny currents of air in the room. The white noise in the room became even louder. I grabbed Alice’s shoulders and spun her around.
The quantum computer in the center of the room was alive with control lights and fans. We were staring at the real Elias, the way he saw himself. The fact that he’d dared to get involved with AI made him only more dead to me that he had been. He was a monster and he needed to die.
I flung my hands out in front of me. A rail-gun like they had in the military, but smaller appeared in my hand. I fired as fast as I could at the glass dome surrounding the computer. In order to break Elias, I didn’t need to destroy the computer. I only needed to break into the glass dome. The air in here would mess up the delicate machinery that housed his mind. A small hole bore slowly into the dome. I fired and reloaded again and again until I was flung to my side.
A wolf growled and laid on top of me, “Lackeys.” Alice spun around and threw out her hand, the dog flew backwards and hit the wall with a crunch. It bounced off of the ground and left a splatter of blood on the wall. I shook my head and fired again and reloaded. I was almost halfway through the shell.
“Markus?” Alice whispered. We were surrounded by dozens of Elias look-alike’s, wolfhounds, and robots.
“Wow, no hellhounds huh?” I smirked. Flames flicked out from the wolfhounds, and they turned into hellhounds in front of us. They shook their mangy fur and set up tendrils of smoke like when you blow out a candle and the smoke curled upwards.
“You and your big mouth, Markus,” Alice muttered. For once I didn’t have a comeback, this was my fault. However, I did know how to fix it. I fell back and sat on the missile. Everything in the room froze, except for me. I started whistling, with one arm cradled under my head. I held the other arm out as a remote control dropped into my hand.
Elias folded his arms and smiled, �
�You wouldn’t dare.”
I shrugged, “I very much do dare. I’m getting Tanya, and if you won’t help, then I have no problem in ending the two of us.”
Elias nodded towards Alice, “True, but you won’t sacrifice her.” I nodded and tried my best to look thoughtful. I flung my other hand out and created a portal. It slurped open just like Britany’s portals had opened. I closed my eyes and imagined a feather pillow that was being swung by a giant. My eyes snapped open, and I closed the portal. Alice was gone and the giant was now carrying a war mace from ancient Europe. I laid back down on the missile and did my best to look casual.
“Your move,” I sighed. Elias laughed, it sounded cold and hungry. It would’ve unnerved anyone who wasn’t used to his cruel streak. I shifted on the missile and pressed a button on my remote. After the third beep, Elias’ laughter faded.
“You think you can defeat me in my own mind?” He asked. I exhaled and pursed my lips together. I looked pointedly from Elias to the missile and back.
I shrugged, “Yeah, kinda.”
“Get him.”
Luckily for me, Elias wasn’t all knowing even in his own mind. I’d created a second portal on the far side of the missile. I rolled over and fell through to the snow. I flung my hand out and closed the portal. It started sliding shut and when it was just about as wide as a dinner plate, I hit the button.
The ground rocked and fell away. I flew back and into a tree. I crashed and imagined that my back was okay now. I stood up and the bones finished cracking into place. It was surprisingly painless. I really would miss this. I wouldn’t have been able to get in here without Alice’s help. Methods of interrogation like this weren’t going to be available to me in the future and honestly, this was way more fun.
A mushroom cloud billowed out from the citadel. I opened another portal and got closer. I imagined that there were somehow anti-radiation meds and stabbed myself with them. I wouldn’t get a residual problem from being here, but the real Elias would.
I walked back into the hole. All of the lights were gone. I willed a bunch of lights into existence, and they flitted around and filled the room I was in perfectly with light. The glass dome that covered Elias’ quantum computer was shattered. Sparks flew. I frowned, apparently a nuke didn’t do anywhere near as much damage as it would in our world.
Ex Supervillain Page 15