But Pandora’s box had been opened. World War II jump-started a dozen new technologies and set off the widespread ransacking of the Old World. People changed. Some of them were servicemen, the outcome of super-soldier programs on both sides. A few stranger and more terrible things came out of the devastation of Europe and the Far East, things formed in that crucible or driven from hiding as whole cities were flattened and populations relocated.
There hadn’t been anything like the Super Squadron before. Pharaoh, the first one, an archaeologist turned crusader. Lightwave, an energy being, barely human after being translated into radiant information. Stormcloud, the all-American athlete turned living tornado, and Regina, mystic powerhouse. Go-Man, the fastest man alive, and Paragon the Living Flame. They were hastily repackaged as an all-American team, and sent out to defend the American way of life.
As the 1960s took off and their powers matured, they became larger than life. These were men picked for loyalty, men without a lot of imagination, but they couldn’t help but be changed by the things they’d seen. You could see it in their faces. Laughing sorcerers from kaleidoscopic dimensions, seductive alien princesses, far-future civilizations…their training was eroding. They seemed eternal, archetypal, cosmic. It was like watching the Beatles go from Revolver to Let It Be. They were seen less and less in public; by 1976, nothing less than a full-scale threat to reality could draw them out.
Seeing Stormcloud is just another reminder of how far down the power scale I really am. He’s impervious to any scan I can perform, his body registering solid white to X rays, like a black hole or a force field. Nothing I carry could even scratch him. The best efforts of twentieth-century biotechnology are nothing to him, mere cleverness, a gadget, gewgaw, half woman, half cuckoo clock. He’s practically a god.
Behind him, Doctor Impossible’s face looks down at us from three view screens, a close-up shot that must have been taken during one of his public tirades, his dark hair swept up and back.
“You’ve really done it this time. Wherever Doctor Impossible is, he’s a menace to everyone and everything on this planet.”
He goes on and on in his immaculate news anchor’s baritone, citing patterns of attack, points of origin. Blackwolf talks back to him a few times, defending our efforts, and there’s something a little gallant about it—this must be worst for Damsel. Lily slouches next to me in the back, arms crossed. Stormcloud doesn’t look at her at all.
The room strobes and shimmers as I slide my vision up and down the spectra. In the higher spectra Stormcloud gives contradictory readings, ultradense but radiating energy, coruscating, celestial.
Outside, the sky shifts from black to a brilliant white, banded with red and blue.
I look around the room, and for the first time I notice something: Lily isn’t truly transparent to all wavelengths of light. I know lasers go through her, and even microwaves, but my sensory range is very wide. No one’s paying attention to me, so I scroll up and up into the higher bands until she stands out, opaque and solid, like anyone else.
I’m one of the only people who’s ever gotten a good look at her face. With her transparent features, she’s a glittering, half-seen menace. But in my altered vision, she’s actually a rather ordinary, not unpleasant-looking woman, with a pretty, roundish face. I take a picture and save it.
When the lecture’s done, we file out. Damsel heads to the roof, Blackwolf to the gym. We’ve all got some thinking to do. If we’re going to be a real team at all.
It’s 12:19 a.m. at the Champions Building, but I guess superheroes are supposed to stay up late. It’s resident members only, plus Mister Mystic, who is favoring us with his absurdly dignified presence; apparently, he keeps odd hours as well. It’s not a real meeting; everyone just ended up in the kitchen and started talking.
And this is how I pictured it, you know, a few brave souls staying awake to rescue the world from disaster. The overhead lights make the room look warmer. Lily and I are on stools; Mystic stands. Damsel’s perched on the counter eating ramen noodles, talking fast. It’s close in here; the steam from Damsel’s noodles condenses down the side of Lily’s arm. Lily’s opened a bottle of wine.
“God, that was grueling.” Blackwolf balances one of the steak knives on the end of his finger before testing it for throwing balance.
Damsel shrugs. “At least you don’t get it at Christmas.”
“He always hated me. He’s a powers snob.”
“Let it go, hon.”
“Do you think he’s right?” I ask.
“If he is, what can we do about it? He’s too good at losing himself. He’s out there somewhere, probably half a kilometer underground. Laughing his freaky laugh. Talking to his robots.”
Feral looks up. “This was a revenge scenario. Villains aren’t that complicated.”
“I disagree.” Damsel waves her chopsticks expansively. “He hasn’t been sitting still. He’s clearing the ground for something.”
Lily says quietly, “If it’s him, he’s doing something new. He has to be. Otherwise, he couldn’t have…you know.”
“This is ridiculous. He’s an evil genius. We’re not going to second-guess him. Remember the space monster? No one saw that thing coming. Remember the fungus army?”
“He is indeed a most puissant foe. He seeks power, does he not? Land and serfs.” Elphin perches on the counter like an oversized cockatoo. Silence falls.
“Elphin, what exactly do you think Doctor Impossible is?” Blackwolf asks.
“A magician? A villainous king, or…Fine. I do not know.”
“There’s gonna be a theme. Frogs. Hats. I don’t know.”
Lily raises a hand. “I hate to be the one to say this, but there’s still no proof Doctor Impossible is involved.”
Blackwolf stands. “This wasn’t some purse snatcher; this takes genius.” Lily’s on her feet, and Blackwolf is, too, that knife suddenly back in his hand in a fancy three-fingered grip.
“Well, um, he was in jail the whole time. How do you explain that?” I jump in, not wanting to be part of a Lily-Blackwolf throw-down, not in the kitchen anyway.
“He might have left a trap for CoreFire,” Damsel observes. “That’s not out of character, is it?”
“And CoreFire just, you know, walked right into it?” Lily’s pacing now.
“Well, he wasn’t exactly Doctor Mind,” Damsel says, and almost manages a smile. “But you still haven’t told us how he did it.”
“All right,” I say. “Let’s assume we’re him, just for a minute. How would we do it? Take down CoreFire.” I steal a look at Blackwolf. If anyone has an answer for this, it’s him.
Blackwolf’s almost too eager to tackle this one. “The autopsy gave us nothing, right? I had half the powered community in to scan it. We went over X rays, microscopic traces, iridium—nothing.”
Damsel starts ticking off options. “You couldn’t burn him. You couldn’t crush him, cut him. He was too tough. I could have taken him down. Maybe.”
“I did it once.” Blackwolf says it quietly. It’s not a boast.
“And you’re lucky you have an alibi.”
“What about the Enderri?” I ask.
“They don’t come into this system. If they do, we know about it.”
“What if he’s hiding in the past? Killing our grandparents?” Feral muses, staring at the ceiling.
“We should be so lucky,” Blackwolf mutters.
Damsel snorts. “Time travel makes me throw up,” she notes.
“Everything makes you throw up,” Blackwolf says, getting to his feet. “No, Impossible would want it face-to-face. He’s nothing if not predictable. Besides, that wouldn’t leave a body. I saw Jason’s, and there was no mark. Nothing. CoreFire’s the toughest thing this side of a black hole. It’s provable.”
“Well actually, I have some bad news for you on that score.”
“Psychics? Something with his mind?” I’m trying to treat this like a murder, any murder.
“T
he guy was immune,” Feral says. At least they’re taking me seriously.
“But he managed it,” Blackwolf goes on. “He did the impossible.”
“And now with CoreFire out of the way, he’s going for the whole thing.”
Blackwolf’s looking at me, holding my gaze. “I know the science as well as anyone. He’s trying to solve conventionally impossible problems by unconventional means. What does that point to?”
Then he glances sideways toward the corner by the sink. Mister Mystic steeples his hands. He’s been standing there this whole time, watching us and listening, waiting for us to get this far.
“You know what it means.”
Even though it’s late when we break up, I can’t sleep. Blackwolf and Mister Mystic and Damsel and Elphin talked for an hour about magical artifacts, demons from other planes, demigods they have fought or had drinks with.
In the end, we made a list on a napkin. There are only so many items lying around that give the level of magical kick we’re talking about and can still be carried around: Durandal, the Nightstar, Fortuna’s Eye, the Flux Emerald, the Scepter of Elfland. The ones so powerful that with the right eyes, you can see them from orbit. What you’d have to have to kill CoreFire. We thought we knew where they were, but one of them must have gotten loose.
Find the artifact and we find Impossible and put him out of commission. Elphin and Mystic seem right at home with this new development, but for me it’s a complete unknown. Mutants and machines and aliens may be weird, but they’re still science. You can deal with them without upsetting anyone’s belief systems too badly. But I fundamentally don’t belong in the same room with something Guinevere is supposed to have touched.
I pace in my room awhile, then out in the corridors, data unfolding across my vision—maps, spreadsheets, case files, dates of last sighting, and lots of numbers, estimates of their capabilities, supernatural auras spelled out in ergs and kilowatts. A couple are grayed out, presumed lost or destroyed; a few others are colored red or blue, indicating curses, or, in a few cases, sentience. I let my machine brain assimilate it all—it’s better at it, and the knowledge will be there when I need it.
Blackwolf is waiting for the elevator, kitted out for one of his nighttime patrols, canisters of nerve gas or whatever slung from his belt. We haven’t really spoken since the funeral.
“Hi, Fatale. I have a couple of things I need you to crunch the numbers on later.”
“Fine. I mean, that’s fine, but…I just wanted to say I’m sorry. About CoreFire. All of this. I wish there was something I could do.” I stumble over it, even though I’d been rehearsing it a moment earlier.
I reach out to touch his shoulder but then stop. He’s Blackwolf, after all. Scourge of crime. The stylized wolf mask looks back, snarling like always.
“You didn’t know him,” he says, looking away.
“I’m sorry,” I say after a moment.
“I appreciate it, but…you didn’t know CoreFire.”
“I know. And I know I can’t really know what you’re going through, but…” But what?
“It’s really okay,” he says, which is about the worst thing possible, and I actually start to get angry.
“No, it’s not okay. Look, I’m not Galatea. I’m not a robot, is that clear? In spite of what everyone seems to think. I’m your teammate.”
“I…No.” Blackwolf’s voice is frigid, angry.
“No, what?” I wait for him to go on.
“What I meant was, CoreFire was a jerk.”
The elevator doors open and he steps inside.
“Blackwolf, I…”
“It’s okay. Leave it,” he mutters as the doors close between us.
I go upstairs to the Crisis Room and go back through CoreFire’s records. Somehow, it can’t be as simple as this. I think about what Lily said, that maybe it isn’t Doctor Impossible. In fact, if there’s anything we know about Doctor Impossible, it’s that he hasn’t had any luck against CoreFire. From that perspective, he’s practically the last person on Earth you could suspect.
CoreFire emerged from a laboratory accident with his full slate of powers; accident unrepeatable, of course. Problem is, you could accuse practically any villain out there of wanting him out of the picture. And, just as problematic, none of them had a way of doing it. If you look up his powers, you get “invincible,” a word that occurs a spare handful of times among over fifteen hundred cataloged metahumans. Granted, there’s an asterisk there for the iridium, but that approach hasn’t led us anywhere so far.
Invincible. It’s what everyone wants to claim they are. Not just tough, but downright invulnerable. Damsel is, nearly, and Lily’s about equal, but either of them would fall after enough pounding. It’s happened before. I’m well armored, but where I’m not metal I’m an ordinary woman.
They’ve got practically everything ever written about him. No way to go through it all, even for a machine like me. I run a computer search for the word—who else in the powers database qualifies for that ultimate accolade? Only one—the Pharaoh, a one-joke supervillain with a silly hat. I go back to CoreFire’s file, looking again for anything unusual. The man was so damned uncomplicated. That bland, big-chinned countenance. Life had dealt him such a good hand, you couldn’t even suspect him of cheating.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NEVER SURRENDER
I sit in a coffee shop in my funeral suit, my briefcase at my side. A risk to be out here, but information security is one of my fortes. My face isn’t well known, and I’ve got my trusty sunglasses. No one knows my name. I watch the pedestrians go by—old people, homeless people, other people in suits, people with jobs. Paper cups and candy wrappers, and the sidewalk spotted with old chewing gum. It just seems unbelievable.
I close my eyes, for a moment. There are days when you just don’t feel all that evil.
“Hey. Um. Honey? I think that guy over there is Doctor Impossible.”
Shit.
This is how a superfight starts. Everybody has them, and you have to be ready. For a lot of people, these fights are the main thing, the main point of the exercise. Smashing things—this is what their powers are for. It’s what I built the staff for, but to tell the truth I’m more about the science. If the science goes right, no one should ever get near me.
I stand up too quickly, knocking over the latte in front of me. It’s nearly full, and the sound it makes as it slops over the table edge and onto the floor is unnaturally distinct. A little of it splashes onto my new slacks.
Blackwolf is standing in the doorway and staring right at me, talking rapidly into the communicator on his wrist, keeping one eye on me. A few civilians near me are picking up on what’s happening. Shit shit shit. Obviously he knows who I am now. This will mean the Champions, and here I am, out of uniform. Lucky day, for them. I’m going to get pounded. These are the times when I wish I could fly.
“Who was the first person to hit you?” That was one of Steve the therapist’s questions. But I don’t know who he was. I was on my way out of a bank, calling for my escape helicopter; then I was picking myself up half a block away, and the side of my head was numb. Looking back, I saw where I’d skidded across the snowy sidewalk, hit the edge of a pillar on the front of the bank, broken off a section of the marble plate. My ears were ringing a little. Passersby were pointing; my cape was torn and muddy along one side. I’d gotten punched.
He was coming toward me, joking to somebody over the shortwave, getting ready to wrap this one up. A weekend hero in a home-brew exoskeleton cased in dirty yellow industrial plastic. The hydraulics whined as he trotted forward, a fancy long-barreled rifle slung across his back.
He stopped when he saw me getting up off the sidewalk. I can’t describe the next few seconds too well because I don’t remember much except that I was on him before he got the rifle up, and then he was flying backward through the bank window and into the lobby. Thinking back I must have already hit him a few times, because I could smell insulation bur
ning, and the armor was having trouble righting itself. I’m strong, remember.
He tried for a roundhouse and connected a little, but he obviously didn’t have full power. I could see his eyes and a bit of his face through the plastic helmet. He knew he was out of his depth. I knew it, too.
I braced a hand on his shoulder, got a few fingers under the rim of his helmet, and tore it off. He looked about forty-five years old, dark brown hair and a mustache, some firefighter on his weekend hobby. He looked terrified, and angry. I could hear sirens, but I stayed on him, held him down with one foot while I tore the armor off him piece by piece, taking my time, feeling the straps part, tearing wires out. So this is a hero, I thought. I told him what I thought of the workmanship on his armor, because I could tell he had built it himself, and then I left.
But that guy was an amateur, a fading sports hero with an engineering degree. These are the Champions, or what’s left of them. They’re world-class. They have communicators and a headquarters and VTOL jets. I wish Psychic Prime were here, and sober. Or Lily. Lily was so good at this part. Well, I’m a professional, too, or so the newspapers claim. I grab a napkin out of the dispenser and keep it over my nose and mouth while the civilians clear out. Always protect your identity.
No need to stand on ceremony. I snatch a mug from the table next to me, and with no windup throw it as hard as I can at Blackwolf’s head. He sees it coming, of course, and it shatters harmlessly on the wall next to him. At least it gets him out of the doorway.
Christ. Okay. They must have been nearby, beating up on a small-timer, maybe, or just out shopping for more leotards. Police are probably already stopping traffic for them, setting the stage for my demolition. I have sixty seconds at most. I’m trying not to panic. Villains are supposed to be able to improvise. For a mask, I stick the napkin to my face with a roll of tape from behind the counter, then kick out a clear area in the middle of the tables.
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