Rise of the Supervillains

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  Spook rested his hand on Lucy's shoulder and whispered very calmly, “Retina? We don't have much time. You need to find him. Now.”

  Every one of her visionary styles was fairly easy for her to switch between, but attempting to focus two at once, at this extreme, was pushing her to her limits. As soon as she squinted her eyes, an immense headache pierced her mind, as if someone was driving a railroad spike between one eyeball to the next. Her eyes began to water, her eyelids shaking, threatening to blink, but if she allowed that, she would lose her focus. The slightest alteration and she could be looking at something miles to the north of the temple.

  She held up her hand and made the signal to Spook, who had practiced the ritual many times. He held up the eye dropper and moistened her eyeballs with the tiniest drops. She held fast, no matter how badly her eyes wanted to react. And then came the surge of intensity as she not only zoomed her vision in tighter, but continued to use the x-ray spectrum.

  She looked past the entryway, through the grand dining hall, past the guest rooms, the study, and the library. She rushed down a long hallway and through an arched opening, only relaxing her vision when she saw the golden throne sitting at the end of the red carpet. The gigantic Neo-Nippon flag hung above the throne, its symbolic red sun eclipsing the earth, and the flag itself casting a shadow over the entire room.

  Lucy's mind relaxed as her vision settled into a static state, but her stomach fell when she saw no Dominus in the room. A few servants waited by the throne in silence as a small team of men adjusted a camera.

  “Link? Are you on-mind?”

  “Just connected,” the voice in her mind replied. “But I'm seeing no signs of Katsu.”

  “But they're setting up for the broadcast. Can't we send someone through now? We're being attacked here and running out of time.”

  “We can't risk it,” Link said back.

  “That's smart,” Spook said back softly. “We need to make sure the first shot we fire is the deathblow.”

  Lucy hated the way he spoke sometimes. He was far too calm about murder and death. He could be as nonchalant as he wanted to about the death of a Dominus, but she wasn't going to put their lives on the line.

  “We don't have time for this!” She yelled out loud and mentally. “Send one of the Zharkovs through and let them tear the whole domain to the ground.”

  There was a long pause. Too long. Finally, Link spoke into her mind, and apparently into Spook's as well.

  “Do you want to explain this one to her?”

  “What is she talking about, Spook?”

  He let out a long sigh and she felt him sit down next to her. He was still calm and collected, even as the storm of energy beams and rockets exploding over their heads encroached even closer.

  “No one can see the Zharkovs do this. They need to be blameless in this act. Perhaps this was just a random act of violence. Perhaps even terrorism. There are a thousand options for the media to blame, depending on the world's reaction.”

  Lucy was dumbfounded for a moment, unable to make sense of what he was saying, but when she was able to push past the surrounding chaos, the meaning became clear.

  “You're telling me they aren't even going to own up to this? We're murdering someone, ending the war, but the Empire won't even admit that was the decision they made?”

  “Don't be such a child. Everything we're doing has a thousand sides to it. You're still ending the war. You're still stopping the march of those death-dealing machinations rolling across the eastern seaboard. We're being smart about it. We're taking every advantage we can, for the present and the future.”

  “And what if all your advantages get us killed?”

  “She's making sense, sir,” Stonewall said. “I'm getting tired over here.”

  “You keep that shield up, soldier!” Spook shouted, taking a very different tone with him. “Blackout, can you summon some darkness above her?”

  Lucy couldn't see him, but she figured he must have nodded or something because Spook followed it with, “Good. Just make sure to keep it out of her line of sight.”

  “Wait!” Lucy yelled, out loud and into her mind. “They're coming in!”

  The door opened near the back of the throne room and a parade of servants entered, followed by the wife of Katsu Oshiro, Izumi. She wore a flowing white robe, looser than the normal kimono the family was always seen in. It blew around her as she walked, but when she came to a stop next to the throne, it fell across her pregnant belly.

  “No...”

  “What is it?” Spook mentally asked, unable to see what Lucy and Link were seeing.

  “There's no Dominus,” Link explained. “No Katsu. But we might have something just as good.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “It's his wife,” Lucy said. “But... but she's pregnant.”

  “An heir?” Spook asked in nothing more than a mental whisper. “The heir to the Oshiro dynasty?”

  There was a silence that hung in the air, drowning out the devastation of warfare that shook above them. It was as if they were all tasting the moment, rolling it around on their tongues. But it was Spook that reacted.

  “Send him through, but make sure he acts before she can go intangible.”

  “What?” Lucy blurted out. “We can't-”

  The door behind the throne lit up with the shine of a portal. A figure stepped through. For a brief second, Lucy saw something strapped around his chest. The explosion that followed blinded her. She fell to the floor of the torn apart aircraft, her stomach launching its contents across the metal. She felt Spook's grip lift her off the ground, but she fought against him, slapping his disgusting hands away from her body.

  “Get away from me!”

  “Retina, we need to get out of here.”

  “You murdered that mother and her child!”

  Spook grabbed on hard, his fingers digging into her arms. “I did what I had to do so you could live. So the world could live. If you want to feel guilty, do it on your own time. Your squad needs you right now.”

  Lucy blinked her eyes, trying to let the burning light fade from her view so she could focus on her surroundings, but she saw little else besides the shadows of men. They strapped something around her mouth, buckling it behind her head. She inhaled the taste of oxygen as they slipped her arms through the straps of a diving tank.

  “Atlantis, we need evac.”

  One-by-one they rolled over the side of the aircraft and dove below the surface of the water. She reached the edge of the globe-shaped shield as Stonewall made it evaporate. Blackout's hand gripped onto hers and led her deeper and deeper into the ocean as energy beams skimmed through the water past them.

  As her eyes readjusted to the darkness of the underwater scenery, a figure shot toward them. At first, based on the speed it was moving, she was sure it was a torpedo. She was shocked at the lack of fear she felt as she saw it approach, as if it was a fitting end. But as it neared them, it slowed, and she saw it for what it truly was, a scale-covered man, breathing underwater.

  He moved through the ocean like it was air, skimming over to them with the slightest adjustment of his body. He made them all lock arms, then gripped onto Stonewall's armor. There was a sudden surge as the entire group was yanked across the ocean at a speed that threatened to tear Lucy's arms from her sockets. She closed her eyes and fell into the pain, trying to focus on it rather than the memories that she knew would plague her mind forever: The look on the mother's face as she embraced the belly that held her unborn child, pride shining in her eyes as she readied herself to tell the people of her domain about its existence. The fact that Lucy would never understand what that woman had experienced was yet another blessing she knew she didn't deserve.

  “I know what you just witnessed was hard,” Spook said, still on-mind. “But you're a hero, Retina. Don't forget that. What we do is harder than the rest of the heroes. There are no parades. There are no interviews. There are no congratulations from the citizens of the
American Republic. But that's what makes what we do so important. We do the things that the public wouldn't understand... the things they can't understand. And do you know why?”

  Lucy was silent, unable to form coherent, linear thoughts. But Spook answered for her.

  “We live in the shadows, so the rest of the world can live in the light.”

  Her stomach boiled, no longer twisting with nerves or turning with disgust. It was anger. It was rage. Because she knew, somewhere deep down, Spook was right.

  17

  WESLEY

  His mind reached out and grasped onto the small rock, his eyes squinting, his brow furrowed. It was like any other muscle. He flexed it as hard as he could in order to lift the weight. Slowly the rock began to shake, then rise. It wobbled in the air, unbalanced. He strained more and more, trying to focus his thoughts, trying to harden his mental grasp on the object, but it only wobbled and shook more the harder he tried. With a final groan of effort, the rock fell to the ground.

  Zola plucked the tiny rock from the floor, tossed it into the air, and smacked it across the room. “You can barely lift a pebble.”

  “I'm trying!” Wesley yelled, angrier with himself than her judgment.

  “That's the problem!” Zola yelled back. “This is an effortless task. You try too hard. You're trying to wrestle with the object when you should be caressing it. You fight it, when you should embrace it.”

  Wesley shook his head. “I don't know what that means. You're telling me I'll succeed if I don't try as hard?”

  “You must try in a different way.”

  Zola walked over to the shelf of items that sat against one wall of their training dojo. A few dusty books, some jars full of different colored liquids, and a random assortment of trinkets. Sitting upon one shelf, was a bird cage. She opened the door and let the tiny sparrow flutter out. It flapped around the room a few times until Zola held out a single finger, where the bird came to rest, flapping its wings a few times, then letting out a single chirp.

  “How did I catch this bird?”

  Wesley shook his head, still breathing heavy from the exertion of lifting the rock, and said, “You didn't.”

  “Yet here it is, in my hand.”

  “That's different,” Wesley argued. “The bird has a mind of its own. It's tame. It knows where to land.”

  Zola leaned down and said, “The bird has a mind of its own. It is tame. You are correct. But I tamed it. I told it where to land. I have control over something that can think for itself. You are only trying to control a rock. It has no mind. It does not fight against you. Tell it where to go, and it will.”

  Wesley pushed the palms of his hands into the dirt floor and stared across the room at the stone. He squinted his eyes and clenched his jaw, reaching out with his mind. Zola's hand touched the top of his head.

  “Breathe.”

  He inhaled through his nose, just as she had taught him, becoming aware of the air that filled his lungs. When he released the breath from his mouth, his jaw unclenched. His muscles relaxed. His body drifted from his thoughts, no longer a part of the exercise. He reached out with only his mind, only his thoughts.

  “There is no strength in this. There is no power. Only movement. Only flow.”

  His thoughts cupped the stone, lifting it slowly, carefully. It rose from the floor, hovering in mid-air. There was a steadiness to it this time, but it was not firm, nor was it solid. It just was. He set the stone back down gently, without fighting against its natural inclination. He simply allowed gravity to accompany his effort.

  “Well done,” Zola said.

  Wesley blinked a few times, as if he were waking from a dream, looking around the room to make sure what he had done actually happened.

  “How do you feel?” Zola asked.

  “I feel... nothing. No, wait. Not 'nothing.' I feel... at peace. Like the rock is...”

  Wesley stopped, unable to put it into words.

  “You feel connected to the rock.”

  “Yes!” Wesley said, excited by what was flowing through his body.

  “And that is why you feel nothing. You feel lifeless. You are the rock.”

  Wesley nodded his head, accepting her words. It was true. He felt still. He felt like the sand and the dirt and the stone. Steady and solid. At peace with where he had been placed.

  “This is good,” Zola said, petting the top of the sparrow's head with her finger. “You are feeling something I will never feel. Your relationship with the psionic realm is the other side from my own.”

  Wesley folded his legs under him, sitting in the pose she had taught him for ideal breathing, and asked, “What do you mean by that? What's the other side from your own?”

  Zola lifted her finger so she was looking into the sparrow's eyes. “There are two sides to the psionic realm. Life and death. Or to be more specific... life, and the lack there of. You are connected to the latter. The world of that which does not contain life.”

  “Like rocks,” Wesley said, glancing across the room at the stone he had lifted with his mind.

  “Exactly. This is why you cannot move a person, or even a plant.”

  “But you can. That's how you carried me inside the temple.”

  She nodded and then looked down at the sparrow. Its body lifted from her finger without flapping its wings. It floated in the air as if it were still perched upon her, letting out a single chirp.

  “So no one can control both?”

  The sparrow floated back into its cage, and Zola closed the door. “Only the God-King Kgosi has power over both sides of the realm.”

  “Is that why you worship him?”

  Zola paused, considering the question for a moment. She grabbed onto the teapot sitting on a table next to the shelf of trinkets and poured two cups. She carried one over to Wesley, then sat down in front of him.

  “The God-King Kgosi is like the sun. If you get too close, you will burn. If you go too far, you will freeze. This is beyond worship. This is beyond religion. This is beyond life.”

  “Beyond life?”

  Zola only nodded her head, as if her words were enough.

  “Does everyone here believe like you do?”

  Zola took a sip, then tilted her head back and forth. “Some more. Some less. But there is no contest. There is no evaluation of your faith. Your ability will speak for you.”

  Wesley frowned, uncomfortable with his psionic power being all that he would be judged for. “Are you saying that if I believe in Kgosi's teachings, if I have faith in him as some kind of god, then I'll be able to lift more than rocks?”

  “We are not bartering. There is no reward for your faith. There is no payout at the end of the day. You either believe you can move mountains, or you don't. I promise you nothing.”

  Wesley sipped his tea. It was bitter and made his teeth tingle. He had already deduced the fact that they were lacing it with some kind of hallucinogen. Mushrooms or peyote maybe. Most likely to make him more susceptible to their teachings. He would normally reject it as some kind of brainwashing technique, but he had experimented with drugs when Andre and Victor and Mickey got into them, so he was used to their effects. He could tell that whatever they were dosing him with was a very small amount. He figured he could handle it. And if a little inebriation helped him develop his abilities, so be it.

  “How many people here have psionic abilities?”

  “There are only two others with abilities. Twin brothers. But they are far more powerful than you.”

  “There's only four of us?”

  “Besides the God-King Kgosi, yes,” Zola said as she lifted her cup to her lips, and mumbled into it, “four adults.”

  “There are children?”

  Zola nodded again, though her eyes stared into her cup as she swirled the tea around. “There are many children.”

  “And they all have psionic abilities?”

  Zola set her cup down. “No. Very few. But they are welcome additions to our family.”

&n
bsp; Wesley gulped the last bit of his tea, feeling the effects begin to tingle across his scalp. His tongue felt dry, even after the cup of tea. His thoughts felt loose, and he began to understand why that might help him to stop wrestling with his mental ability.

  “Isn't Kgosi worried about what he's doing here? If the Imperator found out he was running a religion, he'd be putting all of you at risk. Including the children. I've heard the stories of what happens to those that cling to the old gods.”

  Zola's eyes flashed at him, anger and venom stinging him. “Kgosi isn't an old god. He isn't a myth. He is flesh and blood and brain. He is the mental absolute. He is the-”

  “Prime Mind. The Thought Perfection. I know. But he also calls himself a god. I don't think the Imperator makes a distinction between old and new gods.”

  He could see that Zola was uncomfortable with the line of thinking, but it was as if she were prepared for it, like she knew it was coming. But she had to be. He couldn't have been the first person to wonder these things.

  “We provide a service to the Empire. A service that provides us with a certain amount of slack when it comes to the Imperator's rules and regulations.”

  “What kind of service?”

  Zola rose up, mentally lifting her body to a standing position. She took his empty cup of tea, and returned it to the tray with the teapot sitting on it.

  “Do you know how many people died in the Super Power War?”

  Wesley frowned with confusion. He had studied the war, reading as much as he could about it, but the death toll was an incalculable number. When you're speaking about billions of lives lost, trying to reach something close to accurate was foolish.

  “Too many to count,” Wesley answered.

  “That's correct. Too many lives were lost for any empire to thrive afterward. The death and destruction and depression left in the aftermath of so many dead does not lead to an increase in the birth rate either. The Empire was going to die out. No babies meant no citizens, which meant no workers. Within a few generations, we would have fallen apart.”

  Wesley was lost in her logic, unable to fathom how a small group of psionics could help with the birth rate.