by Mia Archer
She’d been the old Selena. Not the new murdery take over the world Selena. And I’d blown it.
Okay then. Mental note for the future. If she started talking like the old her then I needed to milk that. Maybe she was still in there. Maybe the worm didn't have total control.
Only it looked like the worm was back in control now as she scowled at me.
"No more games, Night Terror," she said, her eyes starting to glow just a little.
Whoa. I wasn't aware that she could pull something like that. It was pants-shittingly terrifying.
“Come on Selena,” I said. “You don’t have to do this. Look at me. Look at my face without the mask. Do you really want to hurt me?”
Fialux took a step forward. Opened her mouth. For the briefest of moments she looked like my Selena, then she put a hand to her forehead. She squeezed her
"I don't like you getting in my head," she shouted.
"Then you should really have a problem with that fucking worm that's making you would do this," I said. "Fight it, Selena!"
Okay then. This wasn’t quite distracting her so I could get in a cheap shot with the teleporter gun and grab that weapon out of her hands, the original plan I was now abandoning, but maybe this could work! Maybe I could pull a Kirk and talk that damned worm out of there!
She shook her head. That glow in her eyes got more and more pronounced. She seemed to be having one hell of a breakdown.
I knew being near a superpowered being like her when she was having a breakdown wasn’t the safest place to be. I itched to activate my site to site transporter to get myself the hell out of here.
But if there was even a chance I could get Selena back, my Selena, the Selena I'd fallen in love with after one hell of a rocky start, then I had to take that chance. Some people were worth risking your life.
Or sort of risking my life. I was pretty confident that my systems would stand up to her now the same as they had back when we were fighting each other the first time around, after all.
She was still in in there somewhere. I knew it. At the risk of sounding all Return of the Jedi, I could sense good in her, and I was going to drag that good out of her kicking and screaming.
"If I might mistress," CORVAC said, totally interrupting my moment.
"You might not," I snapped back at him.
"As you wish mistress," he said. "But can I have your digital copy of the complete Simpsons when you go?"
I ignored the jab. That was CORVAC’s not-so-subtle way of reminding me that I was in a life and death scenario where death was a very real possibility. I was already aware of that, though, and willing to take that risk for my girl.
Fialux tossed her head from side to side. Her body jerked and twitched, and it brought something to mind. Those cats. They twitched and hissed and pawed at the air in much the same way when they’d been startled to the point of rejecting the worms taking them over. And it made me wonder…
Unfortunately she brought it under control very quickly. Before I could finish that thought, even. She stood up straight. Stared at me. It was an astonishing change. I’d never known those cats to get it under control like that so quickly, and…
I sensed a presence in the room. Turned and narrowed my eyes.
"That's it," Sabine said, stepping into the armory. “You stay nice and calm, Selene.”
"What the fuck is she doing here?" I growled.
3
Nemeses
"I apologize mistress," CORVAC said. "She got free from me a moment ago. I was trying to tell you that when you got involved in your life and death showdown with Fialux, and I thought asking for your complete Simpsons would be more productive than warning you of Sabine’s escape.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence in my survival chances,” I growled.
I looked between Fialux and Sabine. Sabine stared back at me with a curious and odd stare. Fialux as well, for that matter. They looked like they thought I'd gone insane or something.
"Who the hell are you talking to?"
Right. Fialux had never been around me when I was working with CORVAC, and she’d been away while my old megalomaniacal computer and I got reacquainted. Which, of course, meant she’d never seen me talking to nothing.
Unless we were in the middle of a fight and I was monologuing or contemplating life, but everyone knows talking is a free action in superhero and supervillain fights.
I wasn’t going to let on that I had a computer helping me out. Not while the evacuation protocol was going on under CORVAC’s supervision. Let them think I was working alone so all their surprises would be nasty ones when they did eventually discover CORVAC was around and lending me a hand.
“I’m cracking under the stress of my impending defeat,” I said. “What else does it look like?”
“Whatever,” Sabine said. She looked to Fialux. Arched an eyebrow at the weapon she held in her hands.
"That's the weapon that can take your powers?" she asked.
"Yes," Fialux said, her voice suddenly a monotone.
“Then what are you waiting for?" Sabine snapped.
Fialux’s eyes glossed over. The worm controlling her subconscious was finally reasserting control. Damn it. It was enough to make me want to put permanent shields inside my ears and over every other orifice of my body just to make sure I didn't have in H.R. Giger moment of my own with these things.
I was pretty sure I’d destroyed every other worm from the other collective that’d hitched a ride on one of those giant irradiated lizards, but I couldn't be completely sure. Either way I now had something new to give me nightmares and keep me up at night wondering if one of them was crawling towards my brain while I slept.
I suppose I could take some solace in the fact that I wouldn't have to worry about any that were left behind in my lab considering it was about to be blown to smithereens.
"Destroy it!" Sabine snapped.
Fialux snapped the weapon in two. Then she threw it on the ground and stomped on it. Little pieces of the thing flew off in every direction, several struck glancing blows against me at high enough speed that the shields designed to protect me from bullets activated, and by the time she was done there was nothing but useless chunks left over.
There was no coming back from that. No recreating a new design based on the old gun, let alone using it against Fialux to save my bacon.
"Motherfucker!" I shouted. "Can't I catch a fucking break?"
“There are power cells in the warehouse where you were fighting Fialux that are starting to spark mistress,” CORVAC said. “Consider this your five minute warning before things start to really go bad.”
"No you can't, Night Terror," Sabine said. "And now we’re going to kill you. I guess depending on the context you could consider that a break, couldn't you?"
My mind raced. It’d been racing ever since Sabine stepped into the room.
I just didn't have the time to come up with a good plan. Usually when I fought off an alien invasion it was from the comfort of the heliopause. Out where I was so far from the sun that it looked like just another star in the night sky. Sure it was a brighter star than some of the others, but it still looked like a star and not a large life giving orb of nuclear fire.
And then it hit me. I might not be able to take them out, but I could at least buy myself some time. Honestly I was surprised I hadn't thought of something like this when I was fighting Fialux the first time around.
I turned on Sabine and fired. She went wide-eyed as I fired, and that wide-eyed look stayed as she disintegrated.
It was nice to see that look on her face. To see a look that said she thought she’d finally been defeated. Completely and irrevocably. No villain ever expects their nemesis to up and shoot them. Defeating an enemy always had to be needlessly convoluted and complicated in this business.
As she disappeared I gave a little wave.
"No!" Fialux shouted, putting her hands to her head. "What did you do? The screaming!"
I wheele
d on her. Screaming? I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Talk about being melodramatic, but then again this was Starlight City. Melodrama was the name of the game on the heroic side of things. Just like giving truth and justice the middle finger on the regular was the name of the game on the villainous side.
I raised my wrist blaster. Shook my head.
"I'm sorry," I said. "But at least the screaming isn't going to last for long."
"It won't stop! What did you do to her?"
Talk about interesting. She was losing it, and if I wasn’t on a deadline that involved a bunch of power cells blowing and taking a good chunk of the lab with them then I might’ve taken the time to do more with that experiment.
Alas, I didn’t have time. I pointed my wrist blaster at her. Made sure the teleportation setting was on. Pointed it at her as she went down to her knees.
At least I couldn’t miss. This would be a heck of a lot easier than if she was jumping around using her powers.
She looked up at me, realized I had my wrist blaster pointed at her, and smiled. As well she should. All of her experience had taught her that my wrist blaster wasn't going to do a damn thing to her.
I shook my head and fired with the teleportation setting which had totally worked on her before.
So you can imagine my confusion when the thing didn't work at all this time around. The blast hit her and seemed to shimmer for a moment, as though the whole teleporter thing was trying to work, but nothing happened.
Okay. Not what I was expecting. I looked down at my wrist blaster. Banged it with my free hand a couple of times.
Hey, I wasn't above a little bit of percussive maintenance on something that obviously wasn't working correctly.
I raised the thing again. Pointed it at Fialux. Fired.
More shimmering. As though she was doing something with her powers.
I thought back to the first time I'd seen her flying. Back when she’d defeated me outside a bank I’d been trying to rob fair and square and she flew me to a police station.
There'd been a slight shimmering back then. Almost as though she was manipulating the molecules in the air around her to provide her power of flight.
And the last time I’d successfully used the teleporter gun on her had been when she was without her powers. Fuck.
"What the…”
"Oh I'm sorry," Fialux said. "Is your little toy not working like it's supposed to?"
She flew across the room. So fast that I didn't have time to react before she had her hand on my wrist blaster and slammed her fist down.
Pain shot through my body as my arm snapped along with my wrist computer and wrist blaster. Cool warmth washed through me almost immediately after the impact as my spinal inserts, a tool of last resort if things got really bad and all my other tech toys failed me, filled my body with a friendly dose of medications designed to prevent me from feeling too much pain on the extremely unlikely chance that somebody managed to break through my shields, armor, inertial dampeners, and everything else.
Only now I was facing someone who’d managed to do exactly that.
"That hurt you bitch!" I shouted, cradling my now broken arm with my free hand. Of course I could think of something better to do with that free hand.
I brought it up. Slammed my free fist into her chest and sent her flying. She slammed against the wall, but I knew it wasn't going to do much to hurt her. Not in the long run. It wouldn’t even do much to stop her. There was no stopping her. Already she was climbing up out of the dust and debris she’d kicked up when I punched her into that wall.
I looked down in horror at my wrist computer. The thing sparked and made angry noises. The screen bloomed with a rainbow color where the LED had been busted. Things were well and truly fucked up, and that wasn't even counting the damage to my arm below.
That hurt like a motherfucker. The sensors in my heads up display told me my arm was broken in several places, and the real bitch of it was I didn't have a medbay I could go to.
I mean sure, I could use one of the many medbays that were available to me in my lair, but the problem with that was I was pretty sure the moment I stepped into one of those things Fialux would be there. She knew where they were because I’d used them on her before.
I wasn’t going to turn myself into a sitting duck. Not to mention I didn’t have much time before those power cells went off and turned this whole place into a radioactive pyre. That explosion would be big enough to reach the reactor, and there was a chance things would go nice and nuclear from there.
I just hoped the shields I’d put up would be enough to contain the nuclear fire. I guess I was about to find out firsthand just how good some of my failsafes were.
Meanwhile Fialux was shimmering around the edges. Like she was getting ready to dart across the room and introduce me to an all new world of hurt.
Well I had no intention of being there when she did that.
The only problem was I had no way of teleporting out of here. My wrist computer was busted. Which meant all the usual ways I had of activating the teleporter were…
Wait. No. There was one option left.
“Get me the hell out of here CORVAC!” I shouted.
"Affirmative, mistress," CORVAC's comforting voice said in my ear as the world disappeared around me.
Not before I saw Fialux darting for me though. I had a moment to smile. She’d go darting through the air where I no longer was. Maybe she’d even stay confused long enough for the lab to go up all around her.
Not that I thought that had a chance of stopping her.
4
Evacuation
I rematerialized on the tallest structure at the edge of the suburban neighborhood where I made my secret lair home. Which, in this case, was a four floor microbrewery that had taken over from some bookstore that had gone out of business as paper books became less and less of a thing.
I shook my arm as I tested it and moved it around. The thing didn’t feel broken at all.
“I too the liberty of using the teleportation to rearrange the molecules in your arm to a more healthy state,” CORVAC said. “And there are numbing agents pumping in there to avoid the pain you are no doubt feeling.”
“Thanks,” I said.
One of the reasons I didn’t use the teleporter as a cure-all and went with the medbays instead was I’d discovered, the very hard way, that using the teleporter for things like setting bones caused a hell of a lot of pain.
Not that I had any choice now. I took a look around at my surroundings.
CORVAC had moved me to the same spot he’d teleported everyone else who’d been moved out of the neighborhood as part of the emergency protocol. This shopping center was far enough from my lab that it gave a good view of everything while being safe enough from the impending explosion.
"How close are we?" I asked.
"The power cells have exploded and the shockwave knocked loose the cooling system in the reactor,” he said. “I am attempting to maintain some semblance of control, but we never anticipated attempting to do a rapid shutdown of the reactor while most of the lab was severely damaged from a super powered individual ripping it to pieces.”
“Right,” I said. “Seems like a bit of an oversight now seeing as how we live in a city that’s regularly beat to hell and back by those super powered individuals.”
“I passed no judgment mistress,” CORVAC said. “I anticipate the reactor should be going critical any moment now.”
I didn't even bother to ask him if he'd bothered to move his consciousness to an off-site backup. That was a stupid question. He always had his mind in an off-site backup somewhere.
"Don't think this means I'm not going to stop looking for your backup locations," I said.
"I wouldn't dream of it mistress," CORVAC said.
"Good," I said. "Because I'd hate for something to happen to the AWS center in Tulsa."
"The point is taken mistress," CORVAC said. “Besides. There was a deliberate
method to my madness, as you say, in putting one of my backups in Tulsa.”
“Really? What’s that?” I asked.
“No self-respecting hero or villain would ever be interested in overthrowing Tulsa,” he said. “So I anticipate it to be one of the safest locations in the country.”
“Whatever. Just making sure you stay on your toes," I replied. "Did we get everyone out of there?"
"Affirmative," CORVAC said. "Every living creature has been moved away from the explosion zone.”
"Even the pets?” I asked.
"I had some trouble with a couple of expensive aquariums," CORVAC said. "I ultimately elected to transport them via relay to their nearest convenient natural habitat.”
"Good man," I said.
"I suppose," CORVAC said, though he didn't sound too sure of himself. "Assuming you can call sending a living creature to that plastic ridden cesspool that your species has created in the ocean an upgrade over living in a fish tank. Though there was one where it looked like the owner hadn't bothered to scrape out the algae or do a water change and at least a year and…"
Thankfully CORVAC pontificating on the nature of fish ownership in modern suburbia was interrupted by a rumbling. It started low, like an earthquake. All the people down below who'd been transported from their houses in the middle of the day, including at least two people who seemed like they’d been caught mid-coitus and one woman who'd clearly been in the shower and was frantically borrowing clothes from other people to cover up, all turned in the direction of that rumbling.
I did feel bad for them. I imagined it had to be a hell of a confusing moment. One moment they were minding their own business. Getting up to the mundane boring living that was life in suburbia for the kind of people who didn’t go into the city to work, telecommuting was a popular option in Starlight City thanks to the tendency for downtown to get leveled in giant monster attacks on the regular, and the next moment they found themselves being transported out their safe and sound location and into the parking lot of the nearest cookie-cutter shopping center.