by Mia Archer
“You’re never going to win Night Terror,” Dr. Lana said after she’d had a moment to regain her composure. “I’ll keep coming back and…”
I held one finger up, then went back to manipulating the controls on my wrist computer. The lights in the various cylinders all through the place went from a pleasing and calming blue to a very angry red. The latest Dr. Lana turned to stare at those cylinders and her mouth fell open.
“What did you do?” she shrieked.
“Activated the self-destruct on your cylinders, duh,” I said.
“But those things don’t have a self-destruct setting on them!” she said.
“Well they don’t, strictly speaking,” I said. “But they have a power supply with localized backups in case of a grid failure, and I imagine overloading those will be more than enough to blow up the cylinder and whatever’s inside.”
“But that’s cold-blooded murder!” Dr. Lana said, turning on me with pleading in her eyes. “You’re going to kill clones who haven’t done anything to you in order to get back at me?”
I rolled my eyes as the floor rumbled under me and reminded me we were in a very precarious situation here. Fialux could find us at any moment, and something told me it wasn’t going to be the most pleasant of experiences when that happened.
“Don’t hit me with that bullshit,” I said. “If you’re back on the scene and coming at me then that means I’m killing these clones one way or another. I’d rather it be here where they’re all sitting ducks than wait for you, or one of them, to come up with another plan to kill my ass.”
She jutted her lip out in a pout, then screamed and ran at me with her claws out. Not that her fingernails were going to do much good against me, but it was all she had.
I’d finally hit a nerve with the good doctor, and that was just fine with me. Fuck her and everything about her plans to fuck me over.
Especially if it involved the joy of blowing up a bunch of her clones.
27
Super Bigot
This was one of those moments when things could’ve gone really bad for Dr. Lana. I mean more bad than having her entire clone army she was clearly using to try for functional immortality blown up right in front of her.
I was in the kind of bad mood where I might do something stupid like kill the last remaining copy of my archnemesis. Talk about a “careful what you wish for” type moment. I’d spent so long thinking about how all I really wanted was Dr. Lana alive so I could torture her indefinitely, but now that I’d had a chance to kill a few copies of her? I found myself in a place where I was seriously wondering if it would really be all that bad to kill the last copy of her as well.
Only before she could reach me there was a loud thud. Cracks appeared in the ceiling above us, and a moment later the entire ceiling seemed to cave in just a little.
It didn’t come apart. No, it was far more dramatic than that. Like there was something trying to bust through, and the ceiling was made of some sort of material that made it very difficult for that something to break through.
I could hazard a few guesses as to exactly what was going on here. Fialux was probably on the other side of that armored ceiling that looked like it was going to collapse any time now.
Great. Just fucking great.
“I’d suggest we get the hell out of here before Fialux arrives,” I said. “Nancy, would you take care of Dr. Lana for me?”
Nancy manhandled Dr. Lana like it was nothing. I mean I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised that she could take the woman out easily enough. She had been making a living running a secret underground supervillain fighting ring, after all, and she did seem to be ridiculously strong.
She deftly put Dr. Lana in a chokehold. I figured she would drag her along behind us, probably kicking and screaming, but she surprised me by putting her hands to Dr. Lana’s neck. Holy shit. I wasn’t going to get a chance to off Dr. Lana because Nancy was going to do it for me!
“Wait!” I shouted.
She paused in the process of twisting Dr. Lana’s neck at an angle that would’ve severed a couple of very important information superhighways between the brain and the rest of her body. We’re talking almost instant death.
“Something wrong?” she said. “I thought we were killing this bitch?”
“I’m surprised and just a little intrigued by this sudden bloodthirsty streak in you,” I said. “But no. We should keep her alive for the moment. She might have some information that could be useful before this is all said and done.”
“Damn. One minute you want to kill her and the next you want to save her,” Nancy muttered. “You need to make up your mind.”
“My mind is made up,” I said. “For now we save her.”
Nancy shrugged as though it wasn’t any problem one way or another and threw Dr. Lana over her shoulder like the woman was a sack of potatoes. It was made just a little awkward by the fact that Dr. Lana was still as naked as the day she was born, though I guess from a certain point of view today was the day that particular clone version of Dr. Lana was born.
“CORVAC,” I said. “Could you be a dear and put some clothes on the good doctor? That’s going to get really distracting if it keeps up.”
“Affirmative, mistress,” CORVAC said.
Light shimmered around Dr. Lana’s naked form, and a moment later she was clothed in what looked like something taken from the disguise bin in the lab. CORVAC must’ve been able to save that bit before the rest of the main lab went up in a mushroom cloud.
That or he’d simply sourced the costume from a local thrift shop that’d managed to mostly survive intact with an alien invasion going down all around us.
“Okay then,” I said. “Everything’s in order here. Now let’s get the hell out of here before the superpowered bitch trying to take over the world gets in here and fucks our shit up.”
I glanced at all the pods filled with Dr. Lanas. They were still an angry red, and a glance at my wrist computer told me it wasn’t going to be long before they went up in a spectacular explosion.
“We also need to get out of here before those go,” I said. “Gonna be a lot of glass flying around when they do.”
“The good news is I think I have what you need,” Technomancer said, reaching out and touching my wrist.
I liked that touch, but now wasn’t the time or the place. I smiled a goofy smile at her, then realized what I was doing and hardened myself. I needed to concentrate on getting the hell out of here first. I could worry about other stuff later. After we survived this clusterfuck.
The screen on my wrist computer went all funky for a minute, then it was back to normal mostly. There was something that seemed off about it, but I didn’t have time to mess with that right now.
“I think you just might,” I said with a smile of my own.
I wasn’t sure if she picked up on the double meaning there, but she hit me with another smile that was downright radiant.
“Can we can the flirting long enough to survive this thing?” Nancy asked.
“Right,” I said. “CORVAC, can you get us out of here?”
I looked around at our surroundings. Up above Fialux was still doing her best to get into the room, and there was also the sound of all the glass cylinders featuring various Dr. Lanas going into self destruct mode. Dr. Lana, meanwhile, was glaring at me as those cylinders heated up in front of us.
Oh well. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And so far everyone who’d gone up against Night Terror had won the prize of an ignominious defeat. Sure Fialux was sort of ahead of the game right now, but if Technomancer really had figured out how to get this gun to work then I was optimistic about our chances in this fight.
“There is a room beneath us that is even larger than the current one Dr. Lana is operating,” CORVAC said. “That might be a more advisable place for your final showdown than trying to make it to the surface where we will be surrounded by the invading alien force.”
“Good idea,” I said.
“Of course it is a good idea, mistress,” CORVAC said. “I came up with it, after all.”
“CORVAC, would you be a dear and close that door behind us?”
“Affirmative, mistress,” CORVAC said as the thing that looked like Dr. Lana picked it up at a rummage sale outside Cheyenne Mountain closed with a thud and several thunks as it locked up.
Not a moment too soon, either. There was a loud crash as though the world was ending coming from the other side of the door. I figured that meant Fialux had finally broken through, but all she was going to find in there were a bunch of Dr. Lana tanks.
Speaking of. There was another world ending rumbling from the other side, followed by a bunch of loud thunks of something hitting armor at high velocities on the other side of the wall.
“Glad she armored that whole room,” I said. “Though I doubt she intended that armor to keep the destruction in the room.”
That would’ve been a gruesome surprise for Fialux as she busted in, but whatever. I held no illusions that the explosions wouldn’t be enough to stop her, either.
“Are you sure we should fight her down here underground?” Nancy asked as we bolted down the halls.
“Why wouldn’t we?” I asked.
“Well it seems to me that if we’re going to have a fight with someone who’s basically a living goddess then it might not be a good idea to do it in close quarters like this,” she said. “If we’re up on the surface we have those aliens to deal with, sure, but we also have everyone out there who’s carrying on the fight.”
“Yeah, not doing that,” I said. “I have plenty of experience fighting her when she’s at her full strength, and believe me that’s not something you want to be fighting out in the open where she has a whole city to throw on you.”
“You say so,” Nancy said with a shrug.
“We good to go on that gun?” I asked, turning to Technomancer.
“We should be,” she said, hefting the thing.
“Good,” I said. “With a little bit of luck we won’t even have to worry about fighting her with all her powers. I’ve seen that thing take her out once, and with a little luck it’s going to do the job again.”
We moved to an elevator which, for a relief, didn’t try to kill us. I got the impression that with no more Dr. Lana standing at her panel fighting CORVAC and his attempts to take over her systems we didn’t have to worry about any more attempts on our lives.
At least not from the computers around here.
“So can you tell us anything about this room we’re heading for?” I asked.
“I am afraid not, mistress,” CORVAC said.
“Not talking to you,” I said. “I figured if you had anything to offer you already would’ve told us.”
“I’m not telling you anything,” Dr. Lana said. “You can go fuck yourself.”
I rolled my eyes. My wrist blaster started humming, and I realized I’d activated the thing without thinking about what I was doing.
Oops. I was going to have to be careful about that. Though I figured I could at least ask a couple of questions that’d been rattling around in my head ever since this whole debacle with Fialux and Sabine started.
Which brought up another grudge I had to settle with this bitch.
“So do you want to tell me why you put a mind control block in my head about Sabine?” I asked.
I phrased it that way on purpose. I wanted her to think I knew a lot more than I actually did. In my experience making people think you knew more than you did was always a good way to get them to go ahead and give up a whole lot of information themselves.
“It was the least you deserved,” Dr. Lana said.
I wheeled on her, and this time it was difficult for me not to raise my wrist blaster and relieve this final copy of her of her head. At least I figured it was the final copy, but again this was Starlight City. I was well aware that killing her here probably wouldn’t mean killing her for good, so better to have her here and alive slung over Nancy’s shoulder rather than encouraging another version of her to sneak up on me when I least suspected it.
“Put her down Nancy,” I growled.
“You sure about that?” she asked, eyeing my wrist blaster. “Something tells me the only thing keeping her alive right now is you being afraid you might hit me.”
“Do it,” I said.
Nancy glanced at Dr. Lana, then shrugged. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “Her funeral, not mine. Can’t say it’s been nice knowing you.”
“Y’know you’ve done some despicable shit over the years, but I think this one takes the cake. Going into someone’s mind and rearranging things so I don’t remember a relationship? Letting someone be stranded on some strange alien world? Who does that?”
Dr. Lana sniffed. “I’m sorry, but you insisted on living your sick alternative lifestyle and you wouldn’t listen to reason. If a mind block was what it took to get you to stop…”
Everyone glared at Dr. Lana. I think she’d realized, a little too late, that she was maybe saying that sort of thing in front of three women who’d decided that “sick alternative lifestyle” was the life for them.
At least I was pretty sure both Nancy and Technomancer swung that way. That or my ability to sense that “sick alternative lifestyle” was just as terrible as my own sense of my sexuality had been before I ran into Fialux and she flew right through that mental block with an outstretched fist.
“Are you fucking serious?” Nancy said.
“That is not cool,” Technomancer said, surprising me by breaking through her usual disconnected sense of coolness. No, that look was sharp, and it had me wondering if the whole disconnected thing was an act.
Not that I had time to figure it out right now. I had other problems.
“I don’t care what you think,” Dr. Lana said. “What you two were doing was wrong, and I’m not going to allow that in my Applied Sciences Department!”
A chill ran through me. I wondered how many other poor gay college kids trying to find themselves had instead found themselves on the wrong end of Dr. Lana and her mind control technology because she’d been moralizing. I was also surprised that something like that would be her motivation.
I guess it was a shock to see someone who felt that way in Starlight City in modern times. Weird.
Again I was tempted to relieve her of her head. Again I didn’t do it. No, we still needed her until we were out of the Applied Sciences Department, at least, and after everything I’d learned from her today I totally planned on doing a very long and painful debrief when this was all said and done.
“I’m not done with you,” I said. “But we have a goddess to take out right now. Don’t think you’re going to get away with this.”
Dr. Lana rolled her eyes, but she was smiling too. Like she knew something I didn’t.
“Suit yourself.”
I almost gave her the satisfaction of asking why she was grinning like an idiot, but decided I wasn’t going there.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get to that big room and see what there is to see since the good doctor here isn’t going to tell us jack shit.”
28
Chamber of Supers
“What do you mean you can’t get the thing open?” I asked.
“I apologize mistress,” CORVAC said. “But it would appear that whatever security measures are in place for this room have been rendered completely independent of any other systems in the Applied Sciences Department.”
I held my wrist blaster up to Dr. Lana’s head and made sure the hum was nice and loud. She’d worked with my stolen designs often enough that she had to have a pretty good idea of what my stuff could do to her when it was humming on overdrive like that.
Only she didn’t seem overly concerned. No, she was still staring at me with that weird smile. Like she still knew something I didn’t. I recognized that smile because it was a look I’d used plenty of times myself when I was fighting off various heroes and villains.
“Why should I do anything for you when you’re just going to kill me when this is all done?” she asked.
“That one’s pretty simple,” I said. “If you don’t tell me the password then I’m going to do my best to make your death as painful as possible. If you do tell me the password then I’m going to make it quick and painless.”
“I seriously doubt that,” she groused, then turned to the door. “Still, I want to see the look on your face before you kill me, so since I’m dead either way…”
She took a deep breath and spoke.
“One, two, three, four, five.”
Everyone turned to stare at her. She turned back and shrugged.
“I mean come on. If someone has already gotten this deep into the Applied Sciences Department they’re the kind of person who’s going to get through whatever password I have protecting this room,” she said. “Might as well throw in a good joke.”
I only barely managed to keep from laughing. Just barely. I could appreciate a good reference as much as the next geek, but this woman was supposed to be my archenemy and I was not going to act amused at her antics.
“Better change the password on your luggage,” Nancy muttered. Technomancer snorted, but for the most part the girls were able to keep it together. Barely.
The massive blast doors in front of us started to open. Meanwhile the earthquake that caused the whole place to shudder and shake around us was getting more intense. Which made sense. Fialux was lurking just above us, after all, in the room full of exploding Dr. Lana clones. From the sounds of things she was beating against the walls up there and finding the armor all around the thing.
I figured it wouldn’t be long before she made her way through that armor and came through the floor in there which was the ceiling for wherever we were trying to go now.
The door finished opening and we were bathed in an eerie pink light. It was a light that was reminiscent of the light from all those portals that’d been opened up all around the city.