Catherine Woodall, the vigilante known as Diamond, broke into the K-HAN studios and attacked without a word. Reporter Alison Argyle was publicly murdered right after recording the nightly news. And it was all caught on film.
You can only imagine what went through the real Catherine’s head when she watched her evil twin commit those gruesome crimes. She must be frantically trying to find the truth, because her public sightings have gone up since the mayor called for her head.
Well, now you’re going to tell her the truth.
Just ahead, a barrage of gunfire echoes through the downtown skyscrapers. You follow the sounds, but soon see what can only be Catherine. From your vantage point in the sky, the people of Mercury City look like insects. The one that leaps past the rest like a grasshopper, that’s who you’re looking for.
Catherine sprints away from the police cruiser with inhuman speed. She’s able to leap onto overpasses from the roads beneath, and soon loses her pursuers. You take the opportunity to fly down and cut her off.
“You?” she says, skidding to a halt.
“I know who set you up,” you say. “It’s Nick, and I can prove it. Meet me at the Mercury Bay Aquarium by the wobbegong shark exhibit. But don’t come in costume.”
Not waiting for a response, you soar back into the sky. She’ll be there.
* * *
The massive tanks of the Mercury Bay Aquarium give an ethereal blue glow to the viewing area, where you presently wait, watching the fish swim past. The whole structure is underground, so as to better serve the shallow seas and Bay Life exhibit, which uses a cordoned-off section of Mercury Bay to teach visiting schoolchildren about the natural wonders of their city.
“Okay, I’m here,” Catherine says, her voice echoing in the subterranean environment. She speaks quietly, wary of a nearby janitor.
You nod. “Each of us got a different power in the experiment, yeah? Well, Nick’s frightened by you most of all. He’s setting you up.”
“If he’s frightened by me, why go to such lengths to piss me off? All he did was sic the cops on me, but they can’t stop me.”
“He wants to be a hero by making you a villain.”
“But how? How is he mimicking me?”
You pause for a moment. “I said I had proof. Well, here it is. Doomsday, come on out.”
The janitor, a hunched old man, suddenly shifts into Catherine in her Diamond costume before shifting once more to reveal the gunmetal humanoid-robot form.
“How is that possible?” Catherine balks, backing toward the shark tank. “How did you get a hold of—of that thing? And how do you know all this?”
It looks like it’s all finally dawning on her.
“Because Nick and I are partners,” you say with a devious grin.
Something inside Catherine snaps and she charges at you. Expecting this, you leap into the air and watch from above as Doomsday slams into her. She pummels the robot, but it keeps her busy long enough for you to fly through the halls of the aquarium toward the Bay Life exhibit.
When you look back, you see Doomsday pick up Catherine and throw her through the glass of the wobbegong tank. A dull boom ripples through the cavern when the glass breaks, as the exhibition area repressurizes and water sprays the aquarium.
You remove the remote detonator that Nick gave you the night before and, just as you fly out and up into the sky, you push the red button.
Simultaneously, all the tanks explode, filling the whole aquarium with several thousand tons of water. All Doomsday has to do is hold onto Catherine long enough for her to drown. The aquarium’s upper offices collapse into the slush of marine life and concrete, further sealing Catherine into her watery grave.
Time to head back to the casino, watch the footage of Catherine’s death recorded through Doomsday’s eyes, and celebrate with Nick. Then you’ll publicly take credit for bringing her down, with Mercury City forever in your debt. Megalomania, for the win.
Through your darkness, the future looks bright.
Click to continue….
Defender of Peace and Justice
The streets seem different. Still dirty and smelly and loud, but now there’s…a quality you can’t place. As you pass the homeless of Mercury City’s skid row, the drunks, the drug addicts, and the grifters, it hits you. What’s different? You’re not afraid, that’s what. Not in the least.
“You holdin’ out on me, bitch?” a man says. He holds a woman against a wall at knifepoint and she sobs in terror, babbling incoherently. “You took in more, I know it. How many dicks you suck, huh? This ain’t a fuckin’ charity, honey.”
It’s a pimp and his whore. You quickly glance around; the few people on the street in the early morning quickly leave—ducking into shops or turning onto other streets. Not their problem.
Across the street is a budget Halloween store, most likely where the pimp got his leopard robe and the whore got her feather boa. A mannequin out front is dressed like The Phantom of the Opera.
• Maybe you can change his mind using yours? Jedi mind-trick!
• Get the mask first. We’re going anonymous.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Dense
Remember that part of your training where you learned you couldn’t lift more than a couple hundred pounds? Well, apparently you don’t remember, because you just tried to catch a car.
You put your hands out and focus your mind, but the car crushes you into hero-sauce on the pavement. Ick.
THE END
Diamond in the Rough
“I’ve put her address in this smart-phone’s navigation system. The only number programmed into the contacts will call directly to my computer system…”
“Very happy to use our equipment, I see,” Droakam interrupts. “Even if you don’t want to help in the mission.”
Nick cocks his head. “You’d rather us not have a woman on our team who can rip cars in half?”
The agent flushes red, then storms off into the main office and slams the door shut.
“Good luck,” Nick says. “I’ll try to smooth things over with Agent Touchy-pants and keep scanning the net for activity. Tread lightly. If she’s not willing to come tonight, leave her the phone. Remember—she might be dangerous.”
Taking the smart-phone, you dart out of the building and leap into the sky, flying high above the warehouse district.
Wind whips at you from Mercury Bay, but you’re completely in control. The sunset is beautiful up here. Sirens wail in the distance. From this vantage point you can see the billowing smoke from the warehouse fire only a few blocks away. You fly in the opposite direction.
* * *
The phone’s GPS system rerouted seven times as you flew toward the destination in a straight line. The navigation software was severely confused that you didn’t need to follow the streets, but eventually you arrive at Catherine’s residence—which happens to be an old, white, double-wide trailer.
One of her neighbors watches as you slowly land and settle down on terra firma. He’s gaunt, stringy-haired, and shirtless, with tattooed skin that’s tanned like leather. He blinks twice, lowers the fifth of whiskey he was nursing and tosses it off the porch. Shaking his head, he turns and walks back inside his mobile home.
You knock lightly on the door to Catherine’s home. In response, the door falls off the trailer, but you jump back out of the way just in time. Catherine stands at the entry with her arms folded. She looks thinner, and more muscular. Taller even. The weariness from the other day is gone completely.
“Hey, Scissors, c’mon in,” she says.
Stepping over the door, you follow her inside. She moves into the kitchen and pulls up a barstool for you. When you sit, she pulls out two mugs from a cabinet and sets them on the counter.
“Sorry about the door. I accidentally pulled it off the other day. Can I get you some coffee?”
She follows your gaze around the trailer, and notices when it lands on an ATM in the corner. The machine is peeled open like
a banana, with mounds of cash overflowing the sides. Catherine steps between you and money, blocking it from view.
“I figured it’d be only a matter of time before you or that college kid showed up. Let me guess, you’re feeling ‘different’ since the experiment, right?”
You turn back to the kitchen. Using your telekinesis, you take the carafe from the coffee maker and pour the steaming liquid into the two mugs. One floats over to you while the other offers itself to Catherine. It’s too hot to drink, so you blow on the lip of the mug.
“That’s cute,” she says.
She gulps the scalding liquid, shows off her undamaged tongue, then brings the empty coffee cup up to her mouth, takes a bite out of the ceramic mug, and chews the piece before she swallows it whole.
She smiles through clean, unblemished teeth.
“My kid says I have Diamond Skin, like in one of the games he plays. War of the Worlds, Warcraft—something like that. Diamond skin, it has a ring to it. Maybe I’ll start going by ‘Diamond,’ get a costume and everything. Whaddaya think?”
After a moment you say:
• “Nick and I stayed and talked with the cops. Now we have a lab, part of a secret government project. I’m here to get you to join us and bring you in.”
• “You’re helping people, and that’s great, but it doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. You just can’t steal money like this.”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Dimension Ex
As you open a purple gate that reaches across the heavens, you figure that will be the coolest thing you see today. Not even close.
When you step through the portal and into an alternate universe, you’re met by a flying wraith—a man-shaped outline of energy as bright and brilliant as looking at the sun. He floats in the center of the nuclear reactor, and raw power floats from his form to the reactor walls, making the facility operational.
I almost closed your portal when you opened it, but curiosity got the better of me, he says, though it’s more of a buzzing sound. You don’t hear it so much as you feel it in your teeth. Now state your business.
Of all the questions racing through your mind, only one of them comes out as a formed sentence. You say, “Were you created by the Experi-mentor?”
The glowing head portion cocks to the side. You know the boss?
“The pods exist in my universe too.”
Well, that’s a horse of a different color. C’mon, I’ll take you to him.
* * *
In what could be a joke, the wraith tells you, the invisible jet is getting waxed and detailed. Then he calls a cab to take you to the Human Infinite Technologies headquarters. Of course, you ride alone, following the transient being like a ship sailing by starlight.
Have fun meeting the wizard, he buzzes before flying off into the sky.
You’re escorted into the inner sanctum by a pair of bruisers who look like rhinoceros hybrids. Once you get to the main office, a hydrokinetic secretary pours a cup of water from her fingertips and offers it while you wait.
This is too weird. Maybe you should re-name your staff the Twilight Zonifier.
“A trans-dimensional traveler! My, my, come in, come in!” the Experi-mentor cries by way of greeting. He looks exactly like he did in your world on the day of the experiment, though he appears not to recognize you.
After you fill him in on the explosion in your world and your miraculous genius, he catches you up to speed on the events of this dimension. He finishes with, “So you see, Special Agent Droakam of the FBI and I are working closely to integrate superhuman public servants into the American way of life.”
“And you say you’ve been doing this for months now?”
The Experi-mentor nods.
“When I set the staff’s parameters to search for a universe where your inventions didn’t explode….there must have been an earlier failure I didn’t know about that didn’t occur in this dimension. Thus, you’ve been free to create superhumans all this time.”
“As good a postulation as any,” the scientist agrees.
“Will you show me around?” you ask.
“I have an offer for you,” he says. “I hadn’t yet created a super-genius here, and I think you could be a great asset to our staff. You could help with the research and answer only to me. It would require putting that device of yours somewhere safe, but why not make this your new home?”
“You…you want to take my staff?”
“To secure it, yes. Surely you must realize how dangerous your new plaything truly is. Why, given the infinite possibilities, who knows how dangerous such a device would be in the wrong hands? You put not just our worlds in jeopardy, but existence as we know it. Is it really that hard to imagine a Hitler or a Bin Laden as a superhuman doomsday device?”
Why do all rational arguments eventually turn to a comparison to the Nazis? Hmmm, he may be right, but never go home? Never visit another world again?
• How do you know he isn’t a new Hitler? If superhumans are his Arians, you’d better hightail it out of here—with your staff in hand!
• Why would I want to? This is where I belong. Stay here and accept his offer.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Don of a New Era
“So where do we meet?” you ask. “Some kind of quarry? Junkyard? Back room in a bar?”
“Bowling alley,” Su Young informs.
“Seriously?”
She nods. “Where else can a dozen hardened criminals sit in a circle and not look suspicious? Cosmic bowling starts at two p.m. I’ll put the word out.”
* * *
Befitting of a boss, you show up half an hour late. Though it’s not co-located, the lanes are owned by Planet Mercury. It shares the “interstellar” motif, and the arcade games have been upgraded (or downgraded, depending on your perspective) to slots and keno.
Split between lanes six and seven, a dozen hard men wait for you, the kind who climb the ranks of crime by intimidation and violence. They look at you intently.
You sit in the center seat—the one with the computer where you input bowlers’ names and scores—and stare down the men gathered in a horseshoe around you.
“So you killed Nelson,” one of the men finally says.
“And you’re calling yourself ‘The Sheriff,’” another adds.
“What makes you think you can just barge in and take over?” a third demands.
The natives are getting restless! Time for a show of strength. You rise from the seat and the men shift, ready for a fight. Calmly, you go to the ball rack and place a hand on a custom job—it’s completely see-through and houses an oversized six-sided-die inside.
“This was the boss’s, right? Here, first person to pick it up is in charge.”
Then you step aside. At first, nothing happens. Knives, pistols, brass-knuckles, and blackjacks all come out with the speed of a switchblade, but you don’t move.
Their de facto boss calmly walks over, claims the ball by its finger holds, and lifts. But it doesn’t budge. With the power of mind, you hold the ball firmly in place. He tugs as hard as he can, but no such luck.
The largest of the men, a real bruiser in his day, pushes his friend aside. With all his might, he pulls at the ball, but your mental force is stronger. The rest of the balls, even the rack itself, shudder from his effort, but it’s all for naught. Every single man gives it a go, but none prevail.
They look to you with hateful glares. Returning a smug grin, you easily claim the ball, and toss it up and down. They grit their teeth and step toward you with their weapons, so you pitch the ball in a combined physical and telekinetic move. The men duck and the ball soars down the lane and into the pins—a perfect strike. Now they look to you with awe.
“We good?”
They all nod, weapons lowered.
• Head back to your penthouse to relax and unwind.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Doomsday
The next morning, Nick invites you into the security con
trol room for a champagne brunch.
“Cheers to you,” he says, raising his stemware. “You’ve proven a useful ally beyond my wildest expectations. Killing that FBI agent and the Experi-mentor? Wonderful. Once we’ve dealt with Catherine, truly no one will be able to stand in my way. Our way. Sorry, bad habit.”
“Cheers.”
“Now then, I wanted to show you what I’ve been working on.”
Up on the main television monitor, security footage expands to full screen. It shows the casino doors explode inwards, then Catherine rushes in wearing her Diamond costume. She immediately sets out on a rampage, destroying property and killing any bystanders unlucky enough to try their luck at 7 a.m. on a Thursday. She hurls one man up over her head and rips him in half.
“That looks so real….” you say.
“Compare to the original,” he says, tapping a few keys at the computer. “Meet the Doomsday Device.”
“Doomsday?”
The scene plays again, except instead of Catherine, an enormous humanoid robot rampages through the casino and indiscriminately murders your customer base.
“Wait, you’re actually killing people?” you say.
Nick shrugs. “There had to be casualties or no one would believe it.
“But what about the people escaping? Won’t they say a robot attacked?”
Nick taps the screen. “See, this is called evidence,” he says like he’s talking to a child. “It’s irrefutable. They’ll seem like conspiracy nuts. We can call them Casino Truthers.
“Besides, Doomsday Device is almost done in there, and the police are on their way. Which means Diamond will follow shortly. We’ll show them this footage and they’ll attack her as soon as she arrives. She’ll defend herself, of course, thus making the footage only a footnote to the truth.”
SUPERPOWERED: Are YOU a Superhero or Supervillain? (Click Your Poison Book 3) Page 10