Dr. Johnson’s Lair, Santa Cruz
Looking at the device on his desk, Doctor Johnson smiled in satisfaction. With a few more tweaks, the device would work wonders. He was doing much better than the foolish researcher who’d come up with the basic concept, but that was only to be expected. Based on the journals written by Doctor Pierson, Johnson suspected that the man was nearly four years away from managing a functional cellular regenerator that someone could lay under, let alone a portable unit like this one. Still, the doctor had managed to refine the concepts to the point that someone competent could make proper use of them.
“Still, it’s possible that the man could always pull his head out of his arse,” Johnson murmured, shaking his head. The incompetence of lesser minds couldn’t be overestimated, but every so often they managed to surprise him and manage something marvelous, if only by accident. A prime example of that was Omega Code, who was brilliant despite his insanity.
Thinking of Omega Code, Johnson turned to admire the energy condenser that had been on the cargo ship. The large piece of hardware was a brilliant piece of engineering, supposedly a state secret of Russia and created by one of their inventors. Unfortunately for the country, there were a few people in their government who were willing to sell even a device like that, just as there were in all governments. At least, they were willing to sell if someone decided to pay the right price. Letting Omega Code buy the condenser, then stealing it himself had just been icing on the cake. Johnson had even reverse-engineered the condenser, which should give him the energy levels the regenerator would need. Now he just needed a few more things.
“Doctor, if you aren’t busy I have news for you.” A beautiful voice distracted him from the innards of the regenerator, and he turned to the speaker.
Eve stood politely, his android secretary looking almost perfectly like an attractive, airheaded blonde. She’d distracted many people over the years as his assistant, which was why he replaced and updated the robot each time she was destroyed. By this point she was virtually indistinguishable from a human, though she didn’t pretend to be one in front of him. It wasn’t part of her programming.
“Yes, Eve? What do you have for me?” Johnson asked, leaning forward in his chair to try to work the kinks out of his back. He was getting old, and the long work sessions were starting to take their toll on him. He was looking forward to getting the regenerator working right.
“Doctor Gavin Juran is on the verge of completely eliminating rejection of cybernetics in the majority of subjects, rather than only in rare circumstances. He’s locked down the information for the moment, and no backups currently exist outside the building. Their off-site backup is recovering from an AI attack, and will be online at the end of the year,” Eve explained, causing excitement to surge through Johnson. He suppressed his urge to interrupt, allowing Eve to continue. “Black Harbinger is preparing to plant explosives throughout downtown San Francisco. Estimates show even odds of one of the explosives successfully going off, with equal chances that they’ll be disabled first. Blue Impulse is continuing his attempt to capture and brainwash Warden, with excellent odds of success based on Ebon Dragon’s reports. Chances of his being captured in the aftermath with dramatic consequences are… moderate, and the ritual has significant risks of backlash if broken.”
“Let me think… Doctor Juran? He’s the one running the secret military R&D hospital in San Mateo, correct?” Johnson asked, raising an eyebrow at Eve.
Eve nodded. “Yes, Doctor.”
“Security?” he asked, tapping his fingers on the desk hopefully.
Eve paused before replying, her eyes briefly distant. “Four cyber-enhanced soldiers and six normal soldiers at all times. There are twelve staff members and ten subjects at present. The building has extensive cameras and a laser grid, as well as magical warding against extra-planar intrusion.”
“Excellent, I’ll have to arrange for making a data withdrawal,” Johnson said happily, nodding to himself. “I’d like you to have Dreamer and Ebon Dragon meet with me as soon as it’s convenient for them, and continue monitoring Black Harbinger. If he plans anything more destructive than his current plans, inform me immediately. Inform Blue Impulse that while he’s allowed to continue his schemes, he’s not allowed to perform any of them in any of my facilities. He’s to use his own assets for Warden, and any risks are his alone.”
“Acknowledged, Doctor,” Eve agreed, pausing before asking, “Do you require anything else?”
“Have my usual coffee delivered. I have a lot of work to finish,” Doctor Johnson replied, turning back to his project as the android left. Looking over the readings, he pulled out a few tools to continue tweaking the device, a smile on his face.
Chapter 19
Monday, December 16th, 2030
Lilith’s Condo, San Francisco
Lilith didn’t really even see the bay as she looked out the window, a hint of melancholy washing over her. It wasn’t as if she’d stopped seeing what was outside, but she wasn’t paying attention to where the boat that crossed her line of vision had gone, or what the wind surfer had been doing. It just didn’t seem that important.
“It’s only been a week, but why do I feel so hollow? Like something important has vanished?” Lilith asked aloud, shaking her head in confusion. While the grief at Gina and Rachel’s departure had faded somewhat with the passing week, things just didn’t feel the same yet.
She’d had one difficult conversation with Gina over the phone, and another far less stressful one with Rachel. Neither conversation had been what she’d consider good, but she did have an appointment at the local SuperNet office in four days. The woman she was meeting, Allison Gambry, was supposed to be one of their specialists, and Lilith didn’t really expect the meeting to go well. Nothing else had gone well lately, but she doubted she’d get any real surprises when she met with the woman.
What Lilith was feeling was the loneliness that she hadn’t really understood before she’d met and started to see the other two women. Circe hadn’t ever been company, not really. The AI had been little more than a helpful voice, and that was it. Lilith hadn’t realized that until after she’d listened to Circe go on and on about various statistics for several hours the night that Gina and Rachel had left. It also brought home something else that she hadn’t realized in the city, part of why she had such a hard time relating to other people.
Other people had goals. They had hopes and dreams. Lilith didn’t have any of that. She was an artificial construct, created with the express purpose of seeing what was possible.
“No, even that isn’t right. I wasn’t created to see if it was possible. Amber created me to be a replacement body, but even she had a crisis of conscience, or curiosity. I was never intended to be alive, or to even be me,” Lilith corrected aloud, shaking her head as she scowled, finally identifying what had been bothering her. It had never occurred to her that she was slowly sinking deeper into depression. To her, she was simply incredibly unhappy.
Tuesday, December 17th, 2030
Downtown, Oakland
“Almost there… come on, Warden, come out where I can get you…” Blue Impulse murmured, sitting in his car impatiently. He didn’t need to be here, but he couldn’t resist the urge to be in the area.
The heroine was inside an art supply store, shopping for something or another, and Blue Impulse could barely suppress the anticipation and glee he felt. He’d seen how stunning Warden was out of her suit a few weeks earlier, and at that point both his anticipation and plans had kicked into high gear. Before this he’d thought she probably was attractive, since most superhumans were, but now he knew she was absolutely stunning. In fact, Warden was one of those women that he doubted he’d ever get without a literal boatload of money, and he wanted her more than he dared express to anyone, even to Megawatt.
A slight damper had been thrown on his mood three days before, when Doctor Johnson had called him into a meeting. The conversation had been direct, and the older
villain had been smiling coldly the entire time. “Impulse, I’m well aware of what you’ve been paying Ebon Dragon for, and I have no objections to what you plan. If you’re going to do it, I recommend you do so in less than a week, though. Both Black Harbinger and I will be making moves of our own, and I’m going to be making things difficult for Ocean Shield. After that I expect they’ll heighten security, thus my recommendation. No matter what, though, I expect you to keep any knowledge of our relationship to yourself. Is that clear?”
Blue Impulse had quickly agreed, and gotten to work preparing to move up his plans. It hadn’t taken much work, fortunately. Now all he needed was for Gina to finish up in the shop and head to her car. He had thugs up in the parking garage, and without her powers she wouldn’t have much of a chance. The entire reason he was here was to watch her walk into the ambush cluelessly, and to prevent any interference.
Catching sight of her hair bobbing, Impulse’s smile widened. She was carrying a large bag of purchases, frowning unhappily. He snorted at the sight, figuring it was probably the price of something. It didn’t matter, though, she’d have other worries soon enough, followed by despair.
“Despair and pleasure. My pleasure,” Impulse reminded himself, smiling once more as he sat back and watched.
Walking toward the garage, Gina found herself frowning and unhappy, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the supplies she’d gotten. In fact, the selection had been particularly good compared to normal, and she’d found a particular shade of green that had been out of stock for over two weeks as well, one which she’d wanted for some of the paintings she was working on. Her unhappiness wasn’t because of that, it was because her feelings for Lilith hadn’t faded one bit. If anything, they’d gotten stronger, and Gina had to keep herself from calling Lilith frequently. The one call she had made hadn’t gone well, and it hadn’t helped that she was a mess due to disturbed dreams that had gotten really dark.
It also didn’t help that the investigations into Lilith’s past may as well have hit a brick wall, the details were so deeply hidden. As much as Gina desperately wanted to trust Lilith, there were too many pieces missing at the moment. She hoped that the power examination would dispel some of those fears, but Gina was scared. She wasn’t sure what she was afraid of, and her mind was a mess, at least partially because unlike any other time since puberty, she couldn’t just go out and do something to make a difference.
Gina wasn’t paying too much attention as she started up the stairwell, heading for her car. She was just a few spaces from the stairwell, which was part of why she went to higher floors to begin with. They tended to be less populated in her experience. She just had to shake herself out of her funk and finish the painting of Morgan sometime in the next day or so. Even if she wasn’t talking to Lilith, it didn’t mean that Gina was going to stop working on her commissions, and it was a good distraction. She was going to go out with Rachel for dinner on Thursday, too, and then—
As Gina stepped out of the stairwell, she paused as she spotted a pair of men on either side of her, each holding a large, high-powered stun gun. As a sense of déjà vu washed over her, she tried to jump back, but they were already moving. Desperation and shock washed through her right before the blasts of electricity knocked her out, her scream dying before it even began.
Rachel couldn’t help but feel skittish about something. There were a few reports from the police that had her on edge, as there was word that Black Harbinger had gotten his hands on a lot of explosives. He seemed to be planning on blowing up something in the next few days, and no one knew what. She was on call, and desperately wished that Gina’s powers were back and available to help. Warden’s shields were one of the few things that could actually stop Black Harbinger’s attacks. With her their chances of stopping him would be much better, while without her, they were in severe danger.
It didn’t make her feel any better that everyone else on the team wished that Warden was back on the job, either. Crimson Bull had been short-tempered for weeks, while Galvanic Action and Ocean Spirit were constantly on edge due to the variety of nebulous threats around the city. Black Comet had been running himself ragged trying to cover the rest of the team, seeming to blame himself for not protecting the others. As for everyone else, Morgan had lost track of what they were up to. She knew that many of them were worried about her and Gina, but especially Gina.
When she’d told the others about Lilith knowing who they were, it’d caused yet another uproar in the team, too. Crimson Bull had practically wanted to break in Lilith’s door and threaten her, while most of the others had simply been concerned. That concern had grown as they found how little information there was about Lilith.
Rachel knew that Gina wasn’t happy with how things had gone with Lilith, and privately Rachel fully agreed with her friend. The ache of what they’d done frequently came to mind, and she was finding it incredibly difficult to believe that it was merely because of Lilith’s powers. Still, every passing day gave her more hope. The longer it went on, the less likely it was that it was some power of Lilith’s, and the power assessment should shed some light on things. Rachel simply had to make it another week, then she could apologize.
Chapter 20
Tuesday, December 17th, 2030
Warehouse, Hayward
Grinning broadly, Blue Impulse couldn’t help himself and gave a loud, maniacal laugh. He knew that no one outside the warehouse would hear, with the soundproofing he’d set up and all of his minions being elsewhere. Admiring his setup, he watched Warden struggling against her restraints uselessly, panic in her eyes as she squirmed and her mouth worked against the gag. He’d be removing the gag shortly, but for the moment he enjoyed the silence.
While the warehouse was on the small side, it still was several thousand square feet and served his purposes nicely, since it was currently empty. A few scattered tools made Blue Impulse think that it’d once held gardening equipment, but he had no way of knowing for sure, and honestly didn’t care that much. To keep anyone from noticing, he’d set up sound dampeners in the corners of the main room, and a small cold fusion generator powered the building to keep the power company from investigating what was going on.
In the center of the room was a large steel frame, heavily reinforced and with numerous rings attached to it, to which were hooked a series of sturdy cables. The cables in turn were attached to the restraints that Warden had been locked into, and the heroine couldn’t move more than an inch or two due to how the cables were arranged. The frame and cables were specially designed to be able to hold most superhumans, so long as their primary power wasn’t strength.
A few days before, Ebon Dragon had come into the room and carved a large pentacle into the floor around the frame, with a hole at each point and hundreds of sigils around the periphery. He’d set a ten-foot wooden pillar into each hole, the polished wood carved heavily with arcane symbols. Blue Impulse hoped they’d do their job properly. If they didn’t, he was going to be pissed off and up shit creek. Still, he should have time to run, if it went badly.
Warden’s car and purchases, along with most of her things, had been ditched in the middle of a busy parking lot near her home. The only exception was her phone, which was currently off and the battery removed to keep it from being tracked. No one would find the vehicle for quite some time, and it should give him plenty of time. It would work. It had to work, with as much time and money as Impulse had spent on it.
With that thought in mind, Blue Impulse swaggered forward, grinning at Warden nastily. “I told you I’d see you again, Warden, and I said you’d look good beneath me. I think it’s time I made good on my promise. I’ve been looking forward to this for months.”
Struggling against the restraints holding her in place, Gina could barely move, and panic was almost completely overwhelming her sense of reason. It was understandable, considering the situation she was in, but there was something else, too. She could feel her magic twisting within her, not at her comman
d but in response to something else, and that worried her even more. The cables were barely shivering under her efforts, and she chewed at the large, round gag in an effort to get it out of her mouth, but it didn’t move either.
As the villain grinned at her, Gina couldn’t help but shiver in terror at the lust in his eyes. Blue Impulse was wearing the same suit that he always did, and she couldn’t help but think about how sleazy he looked. He’d always reminded her of one of those rail-thin drug addicts she’d seen in parts of the city, and that, in addition to his penchant for robbing nearly anyone he could manage, disgusted her. In fact, she couldn’t imagine anyone being attracted to the man.
Yet even with that, the way her magic was writhing and the way she was restrained caused some elements of her dreams to surface again. Something was terribly wrong with her, which terrified Gina. There was a tiny part of her mind that whispered that she should listen to Blue Impulse, that his words were reasonable, and that made absolutely no sense. So she looked at the pillars, trying to figure out what was being done to her.
What little she could understand of the pillars worried Gina. The dense runes across their surface identified them as magical tools of some variety, but Gina didn’t study magic in the way that Rachel did. Her friend taught classes on magical theory at the university, so she might be able to identify what these were designed to do, but Gina couldn’t. The few runes she could identify included body-alteration magic and something to do with mental control, but she wasn’t entirely certain, and being in the center of the circle was foreboding.
When the villain spoke, though, she glared at him defiantly, trying to ignore the way her body felt, resisting the whispering voice in the back of her mind. She wouldn’t give the man the satisfaction of surrendering to his taunts or magic. He only laughed, reaching over to remove the gag. “I guess it isn’t much fun to gloat when all you can do is glare at me. So, what do you have to say for yourself, Warden?”
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