Signals pierced my senses like never before. Inside the boundaries of the Council there were trillions of lines of communication stretching its web across thousands of light-years. The inundation was merely an unbearable white noise that permeated the background. I came here to escape it. But this new signal? This solitary light in the darkness. Its singularity focused my awareness of it into a razor sharp blade. And it was a blade forged by the very masters of mundanity themselves. There was no mistaking it. This was the work of the legendary Earthim.
“…Get your news first with Channel 6.…”
“To find out more, call.…”
“…Don’t go there, girlfriend.…”
“…Clearance sale! This weekend only!”
“This season, a new, original, strikingly different drama series for the whole family to watch!”
Is there no escape from this banality! No, there is none. Save for the obliteration of its source. These Earthim would die in my flames with the rest of the galaxy eventually, what does it matter if their death comes a few scant years before the rest of their mortal brothers? Is it too much to ask for peace as I wait for my father’s signal? What damage could it do? No one would miss them here in this desolate, unpopulated corner of the galaxy. I’d be more concerned about their timelessness, but they have already played their part in the Symphony. They have outlived their usefulness and now they find my ire.
I become light. The universe freezes in place, my mass is infinity converted to energy. A tiny blue-white orb speaks from a thousand babbling mouths. These Earthim. They pervade my world. The noise. Great Odin’s beard, the noise.
And it all started here.
I am Arel, Harbinger of the Flame. I am no mere god or giant. I am the Unfated. I am change. This world annoys me. I shall destroy it. My body flares with starfire. It courses through my veins. Spheres of Nova energy swirl around my hands…and evaporate away.
No, this is too good for them. Too impersonal, too cosmic. These Earthim deserve more. They deserve to know the face of their killer. They need to know the face of horror. They need to know that they are powerless against me. They need to know what it is to fear. They need to know their death. I dive through the Earth’s thin veil of life. An ocean stretches to my right. It’s splotched with pollutants along the coastline below. The landmass next to it is splotched with purity. Everything else is crawling with them. I arc down from their dirty skies into a city, it should be their Metroville from what I remember of the Earthim Disk. It is the center of their societal world. I cannot think of a better place to begin my purge. Above their steel towers I can see a collection of, “Live, on the spot eyewitness action news,” teams concentrated outside the city limits. I detect a crude fission process near them. I swerve into it without slowing.
A brilliant flash from everywhere.
I am floating.
Like a dream of God.
I remember a room so white it hurt my eyes. It was a cube that was completely featureless except for a rectangular sliver of glass set in the wall in front of me. Two faces stare out from behind it. Veronica Menace and Ima Genius, scientific prodigies. Each one had several Ph.D.s in some of the most impossible fields of science and I don’t know if they’re even old enough to vote.
“Are you ready, Nuklear Man?” Ima asks through the intercom thingie we’ve got going.
“Uh. Sure.”
“Power up the generators, Veronica.”
“I do not see the point of thiz experiment.”
“I want to gauge Designate Nu’s strength compared to the data we gathered from Designate Mu earlier this year.”
“They have namez, Ima,” Veronica says.
I wonder who they’re talking about. Eh, if it ain’t me, who cares? I can see Genius working diligently at a computer or something. I can feel an electricity in the air around me.
“Yes, yes. Of course they do. Nuklear Man. Magno. These are media friendly. Catchy.”
“That’z not what I mean.”
“Nuklear Man,” Ima says. “How are you feeling?”
“It’s a bit tingly in here. And not in a good way.”
“Er, thank you.”
“But not necessarily in a bad way either.”
“Uh, yes. That’s enough. Thank you. Veronica, Increase the Negaflux field intensity.”
“Fine. But we will not take the field beyond the parameters I zet for John.”
“We will take the field as far as he or your generators can take it. Whichever goes first.”
The walls begin to glow purple. I feel heavier somehow.
“Nuklear Man,” Ima says. “I want you to throw a punch.”
“Gee, I don’t know if I should, Doc. I’m really strong. If I go around carelessly wielding that kind of power, well, I’d probably break some of your expensive, shiny, confusing equipment.”
“Um. Yes. How about you just punch at the air anyway?”
“Hm. I don’t know. Sounds pretty risky.”
“Why don’t you hold back a little?”
“Only a little? Are you sure that’ll be enough? I’m damn mighty, y’know.”
“Fine. Hold back a lot then.”
“Now you’re thinkin’!” I pull back my fist. The muscles in my arm tighten. I punch at the air, not nearly at full power mind you. Even so, I am strength in motion, I am vitality incarnate. Damn. I’m pretty.
My fist hits something. Which is odd because I’m pretty sure air feels a lot more like air, but this feels like a wall and those aren’t usually made of air unless it’s a really useless wall built by really stupid people or maybe an extremely effective imaginary wall erected by a hyper-intelligent race of psychic invaders from beyond the moon! Good gad, they’ve probably been monitoring planet Earth for some time using their Psychatronic Arrays. They must’ve reasoned, and rightfully so, that I am the most powerful thing in the world and they imprisoned me in this psychic box so they can begin their invasion to enslave the people of Earth in their Vganqy Crystal mines on Xy’kor VII!
“Excellent,” Dr. Menace says.
She doesn’t know! Or does she…?
“Could you punch a little harder this time?” Dr. Genius asks.
She has no idea either. If the aliens have already taken over their minds then it’s most likely that the rest of the planet is in their clutches too. They chose to capture me because my mind is so far advanced that their mental powers couldn’t hope to hold sway over me. Oh, they’re cunning, I’ll give them that. But I’m betting that they have underestimated my power since it’s doubtful any society would have need of understanding or the means to express the truly cosmic scale of my phenomenal strength because the only need to name it would come from experiencing it which would have lead to their demise long before a nomenclature for it was devised! Thus, logically, this capturing field thingie of theirs should surely crack if I just punch it hard enough.
So I do.
My fist hits their invisible force wall, only this time weird purple geometric shapes ripple out from the impact.
“Whoa,” I hear Dr. Genius say. “Not that hard!”
It’s proof that they have control over her mind! They don’t want me to escape. They must’ve realized I can shatter their pathetic cage and they’re hoping that the pleas of my trusted friends will persuade me to stop. Ha! Little do they know my policy about listening to others. I don’t! The fools!
“I told you we have to be careful. The Negaflux field generatorz are only prototypez. I have yet to determine their capacitiez for force negation and redirection.”
Ah-ha! Just as I suspected. Their psychic alien shield cannot even begin to contain my power. These aliens ain’t so tough. And not so psychic either. They shoulda seen this comin’ a mile away.
I charge up the ol’ Plazma Aura. That’s what I like to call it. Dr. Genius says my energy is 98% identical with the sun’s plasma but then it sometimes sounds like we’re talking about blood which is really gross so I decided to spell it with a
Z which makes it different even though it’s still pronounced the same but when I see the word in my head it’s PLAZMA in all caps, just like that, and it’s cool. It makes you think of Zap, Zoom, Zot and Zowie and I think those do a good job of describing me. As a person, you know? So any way I charge it up with a little low growl so the aliens know they’re messin’ with the wrong guy. I pull my fist back again and channel all my Plazma Power into it and punch. The force wall begins to give way.
“The field iz beginning to collapze!” Dr. Menace yells.
She’s panicking. She’s afraid I’ll escape. I only hope her mind can recover from when I punch these aliens in their heads a lot and they lose their mental grasp on the people on Earth.
“He’s still applying pressure to it!” Dr. Genius says. “Nuklear Man, stop pushing against the field. It’s not designed for this kind of treatment!”
“Heh. You’re tellin’ me!”
“I’m attempting to compenzate. Increasing the Re-vectoring Coefficient.”
“Like big fancy words can stop fists! Ha!”
“He’s pushing harder now!”
I can feel the wall begin to break. I am so good at this.
“Thiz izn’t right. The field can’t withztand thiz much power!”
“Perhaps. But think of all the data we’re getting. If we can hold on just a little longer.”
“But the field iz collapzing into an Inversion Loop around Nuklear Man’z fizt. We muzt cut power before there iz a backlash.”
“Just a little longer.”
“No!” Menace said. “What?! The shut off command won’t go through.”
“Of course not, Veronica. This is my experiment after all, so I’m in charge of all the overrides.”
“But there’z no way to know how zevere the backlash will be. We could vaporize thiz whole building az the Negaforce and reality bounze back into equilibrium!”
“Spouting incomprehensible technobabble won’t make your pathetic little field any stronger!” I tell them.
“Nuklear Man! You’re not zuppozed to break it!”
“I know! Don’t you see, that’s the whole point!”
I’m looking right at my fist, staring more power into it as it pushes against the weird wall of purply lights that ripple in squares and triangles from my hand. All of a sudden this bajillion-sided figure pops out of the others and something weird happens. My bones feel like they’re jelly as the freaky shifting shape thingie explodes all around me. The force throws me back and I feel the reinforced wall crumble as I’m hurled through it. An ordinary man would have been liquefied, but not me. I’m that good.
And then it gets weirder. Blood colored flames kick me around for a few seconds. It’s like a bomb blast every time one of them touches me. Another alien attack no doubt. It’s more aggressive than their cage, but I’m sure it will prove just as futile in the end. I snatch up a few flames in my grasp. This must be what it’s like to hold lightning. Yow! The crimson storm frenzies at my touch. It lashes out at me with a thousand swords. I don’t know what the deal is with these aliens, but they have got some messed up weapons. Time to show ‘em who’s boss. And it’s me. The boss that is. Of them.
I yank at the flames with my hands like I’m pulling on the reins of a horse. There’s resistance and I do it again, only this time like I’m pulling on the reins of a tank.
The fire dissolves. I’m hovering in another painfully white room. The walls seem to hum with their sterile whiteness. Below me, huddled in a corner, is a little boy. His eyes are shut tight and I can hear him sobbing. His clothes are ragged and wrinkled, like he’d been wearing them for weeks and spent at least part of that time in the woods or something. I float down and land in front of him. He looks up with bloodshot eyes.
“All that red stuff, that was yours wasn’t it?”
He nods.
“Hm, I see. Are you currently, or have you ever been, a Psychic Radioactive Vampire Zombie Invader from Beyond the Moon?”
He almost smiles.
“Well, are ya!”
“No,” and a full smile.
“Ah-ha! Your refusal proves that you are indeed a Radioactive Psychic Zombie…Moon Invader…Vampire. Guy. Because only, uh, one of those would deny it when asked right out! So ah-ha once more, foul creature, for I have found you out using my advanced intelligence and good looks.”
Now he’s giggling. It must be his plan to disarm my suspicions about his true identity as a Zombie…Psychic Invading Monster Vampire. Beast…Moon Thingie.
“You leave me with no other choice, demonspawn vermin thing!” I toss my cape to one side to make sure he knows how cool I am before I defeat him. And then it all goes black.
“Ah! Come out and face me, coward! How dare you attack me like some sort of, um, coward!”
“You’re funny,” the boy says between laughs.
“Mocking me, eh? Does your evil know any bounds?!”
There’s a tugging at the end of my cape and then light once more. The boy is standing up now. He’s in front of me with tears still on his dirty cheeks, a smile on his face, and my cape in his hands. “You flung it around your face.”
“Er. No I didn’t.”
Laughter. “Did so. I saw it.”
“Ah. Yes. Um, yes, you did see me do it. Yes. It was part of my…oh, what’s the word?”
He shrugs.
“You know, the one that’s a general name for when you plan stuff out ahead of time?”
“Strategy?”
“Yeah! That’s it. It was all part of my strategy. ‘Cause I’m so smart.”
“You sure?”
“…Drat your cunning, boy!”
“Nuklear Man!” Dr. Genius says from right behind me.
“Gah! Don’t do that. You’re lucky you’re not a pile of Plazma Beamed goo right now.”
“Sorry, but this couldn’t wait.”
Her right cheek is all red. Odd.
“Hey, where’s ol’ Doc Menace?”
“I wouldn’t worry about her right now,” Genius says. “She has…some other business to attend to. I want to talk about you two.
“But mostly me, I’m sure.”She kneels down to the boy so she misses out entirely on my poses. Her loss.
“Hello, John.”
He’s looking at her but doesn’t answer. He’s still got my cape in his hands.
“Do you know who this is?” she asks him.
She motions to me. Time to make a good impression. A quick pose, not too fancy, just enough to show off the muscles. That’s right. Hero material right here. Oh yeah.
“This is Nuklear Man.”
“Hi,” he says.
“Ha-ho.”
Hm, the boy laughs. Must be laughing with me, though I’m not sure about what specifically. That happens a lot, I’ve found.
“He’s going to be a Hero,” she says, still gesturing to me. “He’s going to help people. Isn’t that nice?”
He nods.
“Wouldn’t you like to help people too?”
He nods again.
“Good. You’ll have to come with me,” she reaches out for his hand.
His eyes go wide with terror and flash red, the universal sign that something bad is about to happen. I step between them and there’s an explosion of blood red fire. Dr. Genius is on the floor in front of me. The boy stands behind me wrapped in jagged angry fire.
“Whoa there, Sparky. You gotta be careful with that thing. I read somewhere ‘With great power comes great something, something, yadda yadda yadda, don’t bite the hand that feeds you.’”
“Hm. Sparky,” Genius says as she stands up. “Yes. Somewhat fitting. Friendly. Fits on a T-shirt. Nuklear Man and Sparky. I think that will do quite nicely.”
“Whazat, Doc?”
“Oh, nothing. Why don’t you take ‘Sparky’ here down to the Scientific: Equipment offices and get him a nice colorful outfit like your own? Something with red in it to go along with that power of his. Maybe some blue to off-set it, m
ake it look more approachable and less demonic.”
“Sure thing. C’mon, Sparky. I’ll race ya.”
“Okay,” he says. “On your mark, get set—hey! You cheated! Come back here!”
“Hero Lesson Number One: The rules are for other people!”
We run through the hole I made in his wall, through a door now open in the room where they were testing me, down a corridor, and into dreams.
No.This isn’t real. It’s only memories. Yes. I’m traveling under the universe. I had forgotten how strange time is here. The only way to describe it is that time works sideways but even that doesn’t make any real sense. You’d just have to be here to get it. It’s like a dream. It’s like the universe dreaming of everything that isn’t. I may be here for a day, a year, maybe forever if I’m not careful. But when I emerge into my universe no time will have passed. It’s a dangerous way to travel. I’d forgotten how to focus my thoughts onto my destination. My home. My Earth.
He fell from the dream and felt the suffocating pressure of reality swallow him up. A world was suspended below him in the claustrophobia of existence. Black clouds and red-orange flames covered its surface in swirling patches.
It is Earth.
It is a hundred other worlds.
It is the work of Nihel.
__________
Nihel swept down into the chaotic parody that had once been Metroville. Echoes of screams and gunshots washed over the monster as he sank between the steel towers of this echo of a city. No traffic, no laughter, no daily bustle. Everywhere below him violence and confusion reigned. “What a creature, Earthim. Take away their endless babbling, their inane toys, all their little distractions, and what do you have? A terrified little thing that simultaneously covets and despises that which it does not have. So they kill and rape and destroy everything they touch. Their denial is all that let’s them live with themselves and each other. Their denial and their words. Now that I’ve taken that from them, they must admit, every last one of them, that they are nothing but pathetic petty creatures. Look at you, Earthim! I disrupt your little world and in a matter of hours you’re reduced to murdering your own neighbor out of blind fear. Oh, how I shall revel in this. Your legacy has been a thorn in my side for thousands upon thousands of years. I shall take great pleasure in watching you die. One. By. One.”
Nuklear Age Page 72