Super World Two

by Lawrence Ambrose

  "He has a girlfriend," Jamie said.

  "And if he didn't?"

  Atypically frank for Dennis, she thought. He was normally one of the least confrontational people she'd ever known. And least jealous. He'd always known he had her – that no other guy stood a chance against their love.

  "I don't know what's going to happen, Dennis," she said, her voice a near-groan. "Not with the world, not with you. A lot of it depends on you – on what you choose. Remember that I came here because of you and Kylee, that I left everything else behind. My friends, my career...everything."

  "I know. Don't think I don't appreciate that." He reached over and rested a hand on her shoulder. "But you've changed, Jamie. In more ways than one."

  "So have you. You're not exactly the Dennis I knew, either." Jamie made a vague gesture at the gathering beyond the window. "No one here is exactly the same. Zachary worked for the DHS – now, the EPA. Thomas Mayes was a megalomaniac. Here he runs a landscaping business. You're dating a redhead. You always told me you didn't like redheads."

  Dennis let out an awkward laugh. "You always told me you don't like pretty boys."

  "My point is we're all different. Except maybe my friend, Tildie." Jamie laughed. "No, I take that back. She's crazier here, less reserved. In my world, she was always anguishing about being a superhero, saying she just wanted to be normal. Now she wants to don a cape and fly around zapping bad guys."

  "That doesn’t seem to be in the cards. Too bad. I was kind of looking forward to being able to fly or move things with my mind or lift heavy stuff. Sure would save a lot of work on that barn I want to build this summer."

  "Maybe I can help you with that." Her smile slipped. "If the world is still around."

  They had an after-dinner conference in the front yard where Jamie brought everyone up to date on her meeting with President Tomlinson and the latest plan to counter the Elementals. No one rated it as likely to succeed, but then no one had any better proposals. The most optimistic sentiment was that Jamie would find a way, just as she and her team had before. Granny Mayes had grudgingly accepted that Jamie was merely a supped-up human from another world, but she still held out hope that she qualified as some form of angel. "Not all angels know they're servants of God," she said with a knowing laugh.

  The Mayes and Clarksons retired to their homes, leaving a core group of Jamie, Tildie, Dennis, Zach, Nathan, and her dad and daughter. Kylee had been sitting at Jamie's side, holding her hand as if she sensed her mom needed her support.

  "Honey," Dennis addressed her, "why don't you go inside and do some homework or something."

  "I already finished my homework, Dad."

  "Well, why don't you go take a walk or something?"

  "You're afraid to talk in front of me? Don't you think I know what's happening?"

  "Still..."

  Kylee released Jamie's hand and retreated to the house with a dramatic rolling of eyes. Cal released a soft laugh.

  "Reminds me of someone else when she was her age," he said, with a warm glance at Jamie.

  "What don't you want her to hear, Dennis?" she asked.

  "How about the truth about you'll be doing? Shoving an antimatter bomb through an alien portal. Sounds like a suicide mission to me, even with your powers."

  "We haven't even worked out the mechanics of that yet," she said. "And I can tell you I won't be agreeing to any suicide mission. I came here to be with you" – she gave Zachary an involuntary glance – "to be a mom to Kylee, not get myself killed."

  "I wonder how the mechanics of that proposed mission would work," said Zachary, drawing a cool gaze from Dennis.

  "Good question." Jamie turned to face Nathan. "Any word from on high?"

  "The only thing I'm hearing right now is the sounds of silence," said Nathan. "And I doubt I'll hear anything else until they want to see you. I'm just a glorified messenger boy. Minus the glory."

  "Sure you're not here to spy on us, Nate, old buddy?"

  Zach was smiling when he asked, but his eyes were not. Nathan uncrossed and crossed his legs as if he had suddenly lost a comfortable spot in his patio chair. He stared out at the now-droneless blue skies, his jaw set. After a few seconds, he shook his head.

  "Yeah," he murmured. "I mean, yeah, I am spying on you. At least I was told to keep my ears open while maintaining a sympathetic front. But then it's not as if they assigned me to stay close to you. The 'keeping my ears open' was more like a second thought once they knew I'd been invited here, Jamie."

  "Sounds like an assignment to me," said Cal, half-scowling at him.

  "True, but I don't think they care much about it one way or the other. I think they believe they have Jamie under control and really, the rest of us don't matter much."

  "Of course, you just betrayed them by telling us that," said Zach. "You must be on the side of the angels."

  "I'm not sure Grandma Mayes isn't half-right about that." Nathan gave Jamie a shy smile. "But yeah, for what it's worth, I trust Jamie more than my employers. It's not that I think they're not trying to do the right thing, but they have more, uh, mixed motives. President Tomlinson and the others want to end the alien threat, but they also want to preserve the status quo."

  "My daughter doesn't fit too well with their status quo," said Cal.

  "No. Not really. They find her level of power pretty threatening. Maybe not as much as the aliens, but it's definitely a concern."

  "In other words, they have a contingency plan to deal with her."

  "Uh..." Nathan scratched the back of his neck, half-grimacing as if he couldn't quite locate the itch. "I honestly don't know. But I would expect that's true."

  "Just what I'd expect from this government," Cal grumbled. "Tomlinson probably starts her day by peeking under her bed searching for domestic terrorists."

  Nate and Zach shared a polite chuckle while Dennis shifted uneasily in his seat.

  "Well, I'm not going to worry about that for now," said Jamie. "First, we stop the aliens. Then..." She shrugged. "We'll see."

  THE BOMB was built.

  Five days after her meeting with President Tomlinson and her inner circle, the first stage of Operation Archangel - dubbed thus by ARD Director Kushner – was underway. The bomb was the smallest and most powerful MAME ever assembled: a cylinder 74.6 inches long and 43.4 inches in diameter, weighing a lean eleven hundred and twenty-two pounds. The yield was estimated to be 13.446 gigatons.

  Jamie felt not even the remotest satisfaction in the tiny but monstrous bomb's creation. There was no satisfaction to be had in killing thousands if not millions of individuals. It was something that had to be done. She'd been working hard to keep images of the residents of the Elementals' virtual heaven out of her head – half-believing the day would never come to enact their farfetched scheme – but that nightmarish reality was now upon her. And it was her job to make it all work by convincing Brian Loving to play along.

  It would of course be impossible to persuade Brian to admit a 13 gigaton antimatter bomb into the gates of his heaven. The government had settled a plan: Brian's mansion would be raided and everyone, including Brian Loving, arrested and removed on some pretext. It wasn't as if raids like that were unusual in this version of the U.S. The MAME would be smuggled inside in the guise of a large cherry wood hutch. Jamie hadn't seen it but was assured it would make a beautiful, if highly explosive, addition to the mansion's décor. It would be placed in the basement, which Jamie believed to be the most likely site of the teleportation gateway.

  While in custody, they would try to convince Brian that his religious deities were in fact members of an advanced alien race, much as Jamie and her people did in her world. No mention would be made of the MAME. The hope was that even if Brian wasn't convinced – something Jamie considered likely – they could soften him up enough to at least let Jamie in for a trial visit of the Last Days' heaven. If Brian resisted, they would convince him "by all means necessary" – including powerful hypnagogic drugs and brainwashing –
to open a gateway.

  Piece of cake, Jamie thought, shaking her head at the improbability of the plan. But then she'd made improbable plans work before. All they – and she – could do was take their best shot.

  The raid took place promptly at 5 A.M. on Tuesday, two days after Jamie's last meeting with President Tomlinson and Cabinet. The entire staff, including Brian Loving, was removed from the premise under the excuse that someone had called in a bomb threat. None of the staff believed it, but anyone who resisted was promptly handcuffed and dragged out at gunpoint.

  Brian Loving ended up in an interrogation room in the Denver FBI headquarters, sipping tea that contained a mild hypnagogic sedative, when Jamie entered alone.

  "I should've known," he groaned. "You're a federal agent."

  "Hardly," said Jamie. "But we're working for a common cause." She dropped down across the table facing him. "Can I tell you a story?"

  "Do I have a choice?"

  "Not so much about hearing it. But it will be your choice whether to believe it or not."

  It was a story Jamie had told so many times she could recite in her sleep, yet each time, depending on the audience, it unfolded a little differently and with a different emphasis. This time, she emphasized her meetings with her world's Brian and what had happened in the alien's virtual heaven. The President and her people had not been enthusiastic about her revealing her superpowers – they considered the Elementals' ignorance about that to be one of the "aces" up their sleeves – but there was no way to tell the story while leaving that part out. And Jamie was convinced, even if the government officials weren't, that her account was crucial in convincing Brian about their cause.

  Brian sat spellbound, perhaps aided by the drug in his tea. But when she finished he startled her with a long, drawn-out cynical laugh.

  "What do you take me for? You haven't offered a shred of evidence! Where's the proof of what you say? Why would I believe any of your crazy science fiction story?"

  "But..." Jamie was taken aback by his response. "What happened to faith? What proof did your angels give you?"

  "I've been to Heaven." Brian crossed his arms and settled back with a smug, defiant smile. "I've seen God's paradise with my own eyes."

  "I thought you said no one had ever gone there and come back?"

  "I mean, no petitioner." He looked slightly chagrined.

  Jamie nodded. She'd forgotten that her Brian had been given a tour by Amelrina/Gabrielle.

  "I've been there, too, as I said. At one point, I was burned at the stake. I left that part out."

  "That's a lie. No one would do that there."

  "Why not? You have said yourself that people choose for themselves how to live there."

  Brian's uncomfortable frown told her that she was getting to him, just as they had on her Earth.

  "People can make heaven into hell," said Jamie. "Nice irony."

  "You still haven't offered any hard evidence for your tales."

  "How about the fact that I knew Gabrielle's name? You've never said anything about her publicly."

  "I don't know. Maybe the government's been eavesdropping in my room and overheard me say her name in my sleep or something."

  "And then there's this."

  Jamie took a moment. Once she'd demonstrated a superpower, there was no going back. If they couldn't win him over, he'd take that tidbit back to his new alien contact, Michael, and they'd know they were up against a super-powered person from a parallel universe. Not only would the element of surprise be lost, but who knew how the aliens would react? It might just be game over.

  Still, what choice did she have? She had the feeling Brian was teetering on the fence and one final push was needed to convince him.

  She and Brian both rose out of their chairs, the tea cup floating in the air before Brian's shocked eyes.

  "I'm hallucinating!" he gasped. "You put something in the tea!"

  Jamie sighed. For a person of faith, Brian was awfully skeptical. She lowered them both back to the floor, then tapped the nearest table leg.

  "What's this leg made of?"

  Brian bent over and grasped it. "Steel, I'd say."

  The table tilted as she tore the leg free and bent it into a U shape. Brian stared at it, frowning and blinking. He held out his hands and she gave it to him. He tried to straighten it, veins popping in his forehead, but it didn't budge.

  "It still could be the drugs," he grunted.

  It was time, Jamie decided, to kick it up a notch. "I'm going to take you for a ride."

  "To where?"

  "I'm not sure yet." She smiled at him. "But I promise it will be eye-opening."

  She stood up and motioned him to follow her. Out in the hallway, two agents standing guard frowned as she and Brian made their way past them. One of them spoke urgently on his radio, and the local FBI agent in charge – Chuck Cunningham – came running in with three other agents and stood in their path.

  "Where are you going with the prisoner, Miss Shepherd?" he demanded.

  "Out for a drive. I'll bring him back in a bit."

  "That isn't authorized."

  "I just authorized it."

  Cunningham and his accompanying agents stumbled back against the wall with a mild thought from Jamie, clearing the hallway for them to pass. One of the agents reached for his sidearm.

  "Keep it in your trousers, Agent Thomas," Cunningham barked. To Jamie he said, "You sure you know what you're doing?"

  "Not really."

  Outside, they stopped at the first government-issue SUV. Though one of the pursuing agents handed her a key, she popped the locks telekinetically. Brian climbed in beside her with a wondering half-smile. They drove out of the parking lot and headed west, out of town.

  "They've given you a lot of authority," he said.

  "They need me. At least for now."

  "You really are some kind of superhero?"

  "Super powers, anyway. The hero part remains to be seen."

  The traffic cleared, and they were on a country road rolling between sagebrush-festooned hills. Brian peered up at a typical June sun-baked sky, a bead of sweat sprouting between his eyes. Jamie turned on the air conditioner.

  Brian gasped as the car rose off the road, grasping the grab-handle with both hands as they accelerated upward just enough to push them gently down in their seats. Jamie wasn't sure where they were going, but the sparse clouds overhead were enticing.

  Noticing that Brian was shivering – from cold or the altitude itself – Jamie switched on the heat and directed the SUV northward at a two or three hundred miles per hour.

  "Are you okay?" she asked.

  "I don't know. And I thought my life was already strange."

  "Mine's so strange that I sometimes think normal is strange," Jamie said with a soft laugh. "Try to relax. I have things under control."

  "Have you decided where we're going?"

  "Somewhere that might give you the right perspective." A perfect blue lake ringed by pine appeared far below. She pointed to it. "Maybe there."

  They descended. A light wind caressed the lake, raising waves that appeared frozen from a quarter-mile up. The waters were unblemished by boats or any obvious human presence.

  "Emerald Lake," Brian breathed out. "I've been here before. One of my favorite places on this planet."

  "Just as beautiful as anywhere in your fake heaven."

  "What do you want from me?"

  "I want you to trust me. To believe what I told you."

  "I'll never believe God would let a bunch of alien devils destroy the human race!"

  "God lets lots of bad things happen. Haven't you noticed?"

  "Not this bad. Not the extinction of His people."

  "Ever hear the saying that God helps those who help themselves?"

  Brian shoved the palms of his hands into his eyes, blanking out the world for a few seconds before releasing an exasperated hiss through his taut lips. "What do you want me to do?"

  "Let me into Heav
en," said Jamie. "Just as another you did before."

  "What for? You want to get burned at the stake again?"

  "I just want to check out something."

  Jamie wondered if she could offer Brian Loving anything lamer, but he seemed too caught up in his personal torture chamber to notice. Jamie decided to give him a break and take a much-needed mini-break herself. She watched a wispy cloud drift by and a red-tailed hawk circle high beneath their feet. When was the last time she'd simply enjoyed a day without worrying about a life-ending event? She'd come close a few times recently with Kylee, but the Elementals and the government always hung over head – often literally in the case of the government drones.

  "I'm only supposed to let in the righteous," Brian said. "The true believers."

  Brian appeared to waken from an unpleasant dream as he lifted his eyes to meet hers. Jamie shook back her blond hair and gave him her best smile, which he answered with a small smile of his own.

  "If I'm wrong," he said, "I guess God will forgive me."

  Chapter 10

  THE GATEWAY TO HEAVEN was in the basement, as Jamie had predicted, only twenty feet from the beautiful cherry wood hutch that housed the 13 gigaton MAME. The plan was for Jamie to contact Operation Archangel and provide the location of the teleportation portal when and if she learned it, but that was no longer necessary. Brian had revealed its location to her in the skies above Emerald Lake.

  The teleportation gateway was centered on a big screen television on one wall. When Brian wished to open it he merely turned on the TV and switched it to the Praise the Lord channel – channel 27 in Las Vegas. The TV's controls were set only to respond to Brian's touch. No psychokinetic power required.

  They stood in front of the big screen TV. Brian extended his hands.

  "Will you pray with me?"

  Jamie grasped his hands, as lightly as she would hold a moth. Brian bowed his head.

  "Lord, I humbly ask that you shine your blessings on Jamie Shepherd and help her to smite our oppressors and save your people. And please forgive me in your boundless mercy if I am wrong in my pathetic human understanding and what I am about to do directly opposes your will. Amen."