Super World

by Lawrence Ambrose

  Her severe indigestion ceased. But she'd drifted down within reach of the unadoring masses, and a dozen hands raked and tore at her, ripping her nice outfit. She imagined a force field around her, expanding like a balloon being filled, pushing the people back – gently, gently - and away from the door. She turned back to Thomas Mayes, but couldn't see him. The nerdish young man was missing, too.

  "Let me go!" President Morgan snarled in her ear. "Or I swear before God I will put you in a place that makes Guantanamo Bay seem like a summer retreat!"

  "Will I at least get a view of the ocean?"

  She popped the doors open and flew into the hall. People scattered at first, and then rallied as they saw the President. Some Secret Service agents drew their guns, but President Morgan waved them off.

  "Put those down, you idiots," he snapped.

  Jamie pushed open the final door, splintering wood, and headed for the broken window. Congressmen Phillips was shaking his head in helpless frustration at his commanding officer but made no move to interfere as they glided across the room. The young staff member, Judy Garfunkle, nodded approval to her – and then Jamie was through, breathing cool, clean air.

  The helicopters spotted them immediately. With the President clinging to her, and not daring to fly fast, Jamie felt like a sitting – well, flying – duck in the air. Two insectile craft swooped in toward her, which she stopped with a fairly gentle thought. She eased them down to the grass while she moved in the opposite direction, picking up speed.

  "Tell me if it's too fast," she said to the President.

  "It's too fast."

  She laughed but she wasn't sure he was joking. "Sorry about that."

  She guessed they were going a bit over one hundred miles an hour. Frustratingly slow. At this rate it might take them an hour to reach somewhere safely beyond the city. She knew nothing about the area.

  "Can you suggest somewhere private we can go where we won't be bothered?" Jamie felt ridiculous asking the President for kidnapping advice, but she couldn't think of anything better. Her plan, evolving not so fluidly from the start, was even bumpier now. The idea was to get him alone long enough to "deprogram" him, assuming that was possible. What if it wasn't? Then what?

  "Camp David," said President Morgan, the wind ripping away his words. "...only sixty miles north."

  "Seriously?" She pulled him in closer, her lips near his ears. "Isn't it crawling with Marines and security?"

  "I'll tell them to leave us alone. And you're squeezing too hard."

  "Sorry. Where else?" When he didn't reply, she added: "Please, Mr. President. Don't try to trap me or whatever. I don't want to hurt your men or you."

  President Morgan closed his eyes. She wasn't sure if it was against the wind or he was concentrating or just trying to shut everything out.

  "There's a cabin a few miles from Camp David. No one's there. No keys, but I doubt that would be a problem."

  After a minute or two of orienting himself, President Morgan directed her to a highway north. Soon they were flying over a tree-studded state park.

  "There." He pointed to the north end of the forested area. "By the clearing."

  They dropped down in front of a cabin that looked to Jamie like it was built near the turn of the century. President Morgan stepped out of her grasp and walked on wobbly legs to the front door.

  "I used to come here sometimes as a kid," he said. He felt around the door. "They used to keep a key here. No such luck now."

  Jamie gave the door a light push and it splintered open. The late-afternoon sunlight from two windows crisscrossed the room in dusty beams. She tried a light switch but got no response. He turned a faucet knob and chuckled when nothing came out.

  "It's been a while," he said. "Too ugly to be a landmark, too many memories to tear it down. But everything worked when my dad took me fishing here."

  Jamie knew his father had been a well-respected Presidential advisor before she was born, but that was all she could remember. President Morgan dropped down at a table surrounded by plain hardwood chairs.

  "Damn," he breathed out wearily, "I could use a stiff drink."

  "You don't seem particularly afraid of me now."

  "You could've killed me a hundred times over. Obviously, that's not your plan." He placed his hands on the table. "Look, Ms. Shepherd, I get it. You honestly believe you're saving the country by abducting me. You believe you're doing the right thing. You're in the grips of some kind of powerful delusion. Perhaps your new extraordinary powers have overwhelmed your rational mind. I don't know. But if you think you can bend the United States to your will by abducting me, holding me ransom – whatever it is you're planning – that's just plain crazy. My administration's policy of non-negotiation with terrorists is absolute."

  "That's what you think I am? A terrorist?"

  He held up his hands. "As I said, I believe you sincerely believe you're doing the right thing. But yes, when someone tears through the halls of Congress and abducts the President of the United States, I think that qualifies as an act of domestic terrorism. And you would see that, too, if you were your true self."

  Jamie was at a severe loss for words. It was as if she'd entered some Alice In Wonderland world where logic was flipped on its head. The sane were crazy and the crazy were sane. To hear President Morgan lecture her about being "in the grips" of some delusion while he mindlessly followed the commands of a power-mad lunatic...sent shivers of painful irony through her.

  "Mr. President." She cleared her throat. "You're saying almost exactly what I planned to say to you. You're the one who's being controlled by something – someone – the one who's acting out of a delusion. You're the one who is not your true self."

  President Morgan chuckled. "It doesn't surprise me that you see it that way."

  "The difference is that the way I see it is logical."

  "Everyone thinks their beliefs, no matter how nuts, are logical."

  "Is it logical that a President elected on his strong anti-Islam extremism platform would favor legislating Sharia law?"

  A small shadow of doubt crossed the President's face. "Only a small portion. We're hardly becoming a theocracy. But some changes need to be made for the good of our country."

  "Why?"

  "Because they make sense."

  "Imprisoning or executing women who betray their boyfriends make sense?"

  President Morgan frowned.

  "How about a $25 minimum wage, or a guaranteed income and free college for Afro-Americans only? What sense could that make to a conservative who has advocated privatizing social security and reducing college aid to minorities?"

  "It's always possible to change one's beliefs. Lord Thomas made a compelling case – we all thought that."

  "What were his arguments that were so compelling? And by the way, why would you call him 'lord'?"

  President Morgan scowled. Dust motes floated in the shafts of sunlight striking the table.

  "The only reason they seemed compelling," Jamie continued, "was that Thomas Mayes has the power to make people obey his commands – to think what he tells them to think - which he got from the alien device. A power which Zach Walters told me you already knew about."

  "If that's true, why didn't he make you believe as well?"

  "He did, when we first met. This time I was wearing earplugs. That might've made the difference – or I've developed a sort of immunity to him."

  President Morgan moved his hands out into the light on the table. He appeared to be watching specks of dust drift over or settle on his fingers, his face set in deep thought. Jamie walked to the back window and peered out on a forest of oak trees.

  "It's true," he said slowly, measuring his words, "that we knew about someone's ability to control people with his voice. We didn't know it was Lord..." He made a gravelly sound. "Thomas. Assuming what you say is true."

  "If someone did have that power, and they wanted more power – the power to change the country - what could be better th
an to take control of the President of the United States and Congress?"

  "You're saying that's what Thomas Mayes did?"

  "That's exactly what he did. His legislation goes against the grain of everything you believe, as far as I know. Against what most Americans believe. Do you honestly think businesses would accept paying a $25 minimum wage? That people would stand for black Americans having the kinds of privileges he was calling for? That women in this country would accept a law punishing them with imprisonment or worse for infidelity?"

  "It would be a difficult sell, that's for certain."

  "More than difficult. You'd have a full-scale rebellion on your hands. You'd have to wage war on the American people to make them obey these kinds of rules. Government is unpopular enough these days, without adding Thomas Mayes' crazy laws onto the mess its already dealing with."

  "You don't have a sunny view of your government, do you?"

  "No, but that doesn't make me a 'domestic terrorist.' Just a normal dissatisfied American."

  President shook his head and expelled another weary breath. "You people...the average citizens...have no clue what it's like to run a government. The compromises you're forced into in order to get anything done. The enemies within and without you have to battle and monitor on a constant basis. The pressures and temptations never end. Sometimes I think Jesus Christ himself would be corrupted to some degree if he were in politics."

  "Sounds like a convenient excuse for being corrupted."

  "As I said, people on the outside don't get it."

  A distant thrumming penetrated the cabin's thin walls. Jamie stepped to the window facing out on the clearing. Small objects loomed over the trees. The sound soon resolved into the vintage thump-thump-thump of helicopters, joined by revving engines filtering through the forest.

  "I hear the cavalry has arrived," said President Morgan.

  Despite knowing she could probably stop them all with no more effort than a quick thought, Jamie felt her heart – or whatever was beating in her chest – start racing while dread fingered the back of her skull.

  "You could destroy them all if you wanted, couldn't you?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Are you going to?"

  "No." Jamie turned back to him. "Did anything I say get through to you?"

  "I'm thinking on it. I'm wondering what you'll do if I'm not convinced."

  "Leave, and go find Thomas Mayes."

  "And kill him?"

  "I don't see any choice. He must be stopped, for the sake of our country."

  The President frowned down at his hands. Through the front window, Jamie watched a large contingent of troops gather on the perimeter of the clearing while the whump-whump of helicopters shook the ceiling.

  "Good luck, Mr. President," she said, reaching for the door.

  "Hold up, Ms. Shepherd." President Morgan rose from his chair. "In all honesty, I'm getting mixed messages from the voices in my head. Also mixed feelings. I believe Thomas is a great leader, but I know I have no evidence at all for that. I have powerful feelings of loyalty to him, yet my intuition is saying that has no rational basis."

  Jamie faced him, riding a swell of hope – but also afraid to surrender to it.

  "One thing I've become convinced of," he said. "We need you on our side. I don't know if anyone out there does or will have your strength, but if someone does, we need a line of defense. And we need good, patriotic Augmented Americans to form it."

  Jamie had to smile at his coined term. "Are you asking me to join the government?"

  "Yes, I am – in some capacity to be determined. Your country needs you, Jamie Shepherd."

  Chapter 13

  AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES, President Morgan thought. That's what the growing number of 'augmented' had become. And he was the latest of many casualties.

  "You've got a nice crop of them in your body, sir," said Dr. Locke, pointing to the computer screen, where a host of tiny colorless hexagonal shapes that made the President think more of crystals or snowflakes than of a virus or machine. "You haven't noticed any symptoms other than the ability to penetrate objects?"

  President Morgan shook his head. He was as uncomfortable with how Dr. Locke characterized his power as he was with the power itself. "Penetrating" things had an untoward sound to his ears. But there was no better way to describe how he could slip his fingers into solid objects given a certain mindset. He'd first noticed reaching for a drink the evening after his unscheduled flight with Jamie Shepherd: an absentminded reach for the glass and his shock of disbelief as his fingers encountered liquid. A few experimental probings of the glass and then the wall and other objects in his bedroom had confirmed his ability wasn't the product of too much drink.

  Subsequent tests had confirmed that President Morgan was somehow able to "disassociate" his molecular structure in parts of his body. Dr. Hayashi guessed that he might be capable of disassociating his entire body and walking through a wall, but both he and the President were leery of attempting that just yet.

  Not as though I don't have enough to explain to the American people as it is, President Morgan thought. The debacle at the Capitol three days before had left the nation stunned and every news agency scrambling for answers. Fortunately, the mainstream news media were team players. They'd accepted without much protest the story that a terrorist group tied to Al Qaeda had used "aerosolized hypnogogic drugs" to rob the President and many members of Congress of their own will, and had helped sell that story to the public.

  Yes, some reports had escaped about a "flying woman" and people with bizarre powers, but they'd been quickly quashed by a tide of ridicule from smirking public officials and media talking heads. Tales contrary to the mainstream media were just crazy conspiracy theories, even if a growing number of people on the Beltway knew better.

  But unlike most subjects the government wished to downplay or hide, the spreading "super virus" couldn't be kept under wraps for long. No matter how draconian the measures, President Morgan's science advisors left no doubt they'd have to inform the American public sooner or later. At this point, the Morgan Administration was opting for postponing that revelation until they had a definite answer for it in place.

  The scientists still were unclear about how and when the nanovirus – what they were now calling it – infected others and how it altered them. Hypotheses abounded, but confirming or falsifying them was proving problematic. One conjecture was that people's own psychology or will played a role; another suggested that people's physical state molded the nanovirus's genetic alterations. A less popular hypothesis held the viruses altered people randomly; a flip of some nano-switch and you could fly or break walls with your fists or thoughts or read minds. The powers the nanovirus conferred were too wildly variable to be predictable or even classifiable. The one constant seemed to be enhanced strength and vitality. Everyone reported having two or three times their previous energy, and lingering health issues had spontaneously cleared up.

  The investigative project now officially dubbed "Project Black Pill," led by Drs. Kelvin Hayashi and Andrew Locke, continued to chip away at the mystery of the Object and its nanite minions. The running joke was that they were waiting on the Object to give one of them super-intelligence so they could finally understand it.

  For his own part, Dr. Locke could imprint images from his mind onto objects. He discovered that ability when he was visualizing a diagram of a cell infected by the nanovirus while staring at a wall, and the diagram had appeared on the wall in a fuzzy form. He found that with some concentration he could rearrange and sharpen the image, and so far every material he'd tried, including stainless steel, had accepted his "renderings."

  Dr. Hayashi could discharge electricity. Not enough for Zeus-like thunderbolts, but he could power small devices and deliver a nasty if not lethal shock – as Dr. Locke could personally attest. The other scientists on the team manifested various powers on a similar scale: microscopic vision, some form of penetrating vision of unknown functi
on (neither X-ray nor magnetic), extreme heat generation, weak telekinesis, levitation, perfect recall – fascinating but seemingly underwhelming versus the monumental range and power of Jamie Shepherd's "augmentations."

  President Morgan walked with Dr. Locke through the vast underground facility toward the chamber where the Object was being stored. Housed within Peters Mountain northwest of Charlottesville, Virginia, the Advanced Research Complex (ARC) comprised more than a square mile of labs, hardened chambers, testing and developing facilities for a variety of secret weapons-related technologies and projects.

  Morgan didn't know many details of what was going on down here. There were so many layers of compartmentalization and endless acronyms to go with them, he reflected, that you'd need a diagram to trace all of them and their affiliations. He had had advisors who theoretically kept him apprised of the gist of what was going on. But he had a feeling they didn't know everything, either.

  Today, aside from the President of the United States being officially confirmed as an "Augmented American" (he was secretly proud of coining that phrase, which had quickly become the norm), was an unusually exciting day, even by the standards of these bizarre times. The Object was in the process of being probed in ways no one had attempted before: first, by Eileen Hui, the young woman whose advanced degrees in bioengineering and material science were now complemented by some exotic form of X-ray vision, and second, by Jamie Shepherd, who would, under careful supervision, employ her formidable powers to test its composition. To this point, Morgan had been told, no one had been able to scrape off even a microscopic sample from the Object's surface. "Would it be able to resist the tender caresses of someone who can crush coal into diamonds?" Dr. Hayashi had mused.

  The chamber where the Object was being stored was really a chamber within a chamber. Full contamination procedures, including Level One Hazmat suits, pressurized airlock, thorough chemical and radiant wash – plus a blood test - had been observed from the beginning, but they hadn't prevented the spread of the nanovirus. People who didn't check out positive after exposure showed its presence in their blood later. It wasn't known if it penetrated the chamber's double walls or simply wasn't detectable through conventional means in blood vessels right away. The consensus was that the nanocytes hid out in the nerves or lymph system much in the way some retroviruses did. With most of the project staff infected, and the number of the infected outside growing by the hour, the elaborate safeguards struck President Morgan and more than a few of the scientists he'd spoken with as largely symbolic. But they'd continue to go through the motions until someone decided otherwise.