Super World

by Lawrence Ambrose

  "People are always trying to pry the latest news about what's happening on Earth even though we're supposed to be beyond worldly concerns here. Anyway, thank you for your service. I still care about my country, and I'm not alone."

  "Yassuree," said Thomas. "They sure be good at keeping the people down."

  "So says the would-be dictator who wanted to make us all his personal slaves," Jake growled.

  "I'd make you my bitch, that's for sure."

  "Why don't you try that now, cocksucker?"

  Jake started to rise. Jamie was surprised when Hulk grabbed him by the shoulder and planted his butt firmly back on the grass.

  "Wait another second," said Rick, eyeing Thomas. "Are you the guy – Thomas Mayes - who took control of President Morgan and tried to bulldoze his legislation through Congress?"

  "Just had a few helpful suggestions for making the country a better place."

  "Riiight," said Jake. "By making the U.S. into your personal Third World banana republic."

  "And he's working with you on your operation here?" Rick asked Jamie, his voice thick with disbelief.

  She smiled at him. "We're all working together for the common good. Also, he and Steven Jackson" – she nodded to the slim intellectual – "worked out a plea deal with DARE to help us. We believe Steven's a mental augment. We brought Mr. Mayes along because his voice control power might work on our enemy."

  "Total fucking waste of space," Jake muttered on cue.

  "I'm just wondering what you plan to do now," said Rick, still speaking to Jamie. "Other than these two gentlemen" – he nodded to Horner and Culler – "do you have anyone with military experience? Apart from using superpowers, I mean."

  "Super powers we no longer have," said Jay mournfully.

  Jamie followed Rick's gaze over her motley crew. Jay was maybe five-ten and one-fifty – not exactly frail, but not especially muscular, either. Kyle Hunt, Sandman, was about the same height and build. Jeremy was about her height of fight-seven, but more stout and fairly fit. She doubted Terry Mayes was much over five-eight and one-forty – mostly sticks and bones – and Steven Jackson was cut from the same mold. Joy Kamada and Kim-Ly Stein, without their mental-projection and clairvoyance, were just two slim college girls. Belinda looked like she might play volleyball or something with her somewhat athletic build, but there was nothing rugged about her. Tildie was her usual skinny self. And Jamie herself wasn't any great shakes either, physically. Any strong man could break any of them in half. Aside from Horner, Culler, and Thomas Mayes, they made a sorry sight as soldiers.

  "I'm open to suggestions," said Jamie.

  Rick frowned as strains of "Holy, Holy, Holy" wafted up from the town.

  "If your theory is right," he said, "I can't think of anything other than to try to wake up. And I have no clue about how you'd do that."

  "If my theory is correct," said Steven, "they have either suppressed or eliminated our physical augment capabilities. I say 'physical' because my cognitive abilities appear to remain intact. Perhaps because suppressing my cognitive abilities would unavoidably compromise my personality.

  "If they've eliminated your physical abilities, we most likely would be unable to wake up, and even if we did would be unable to change our circumstances. Therefore, the only reasonable course of action is to act on the assumption they've merely suppressed our abilities."

  "And then what?" asked Tildie.

  "They would need to maintain a strict balance of physical and mental functions in order to maintain this reality. Altering that balance could trigger a breakdown in our perception of this reality. That might be achieved by extreme physical or mental stimulus – perhaps either great pain or great pleasure. I'm not sure how to achieve the latter, but great pain seems quite possible here."

  "Maybe we should all hang ourselves like that dimwit lady?" Belinda suggested.

  "I wonder what would happen if someone just didn't accept being here," said Jamie. "If they kept trying to commit suicide?"

  "They probably would not let that state of mind persist," said Steven. "But if you generated enough of an imbalance to even momentarily confuse the machinery holding you in this world you might have an opportunity to exert your powers in the real world."

  "I'm curious," said Rick. "How do you visualize this? While we're here talking to each other we're really floating in little pools like in the Matrix?"

  "Possibly."

  "Why?" asked Tildie. "I don't even remember what they were supposed to be harvesting from people."

  "Energy?" Jay said.

  "Yes," said Steven. "But that's highly implausible. The energy required to maintain our bodies and minds is vastly greater than any return. More probable: we're being utilized for computational or recreational purposes. It's also possible that the Last Days claims about a future extinction event are truthful and this is part of a mission to preserve our species. Or some combination of the above."

  They fell silent through one whole chorus of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" rising faintly from the church below. Jamie was tempted to ask Thomas's brilliant aide to explain more about "computational" and "recreational," but wasn't sure she saw the point.

  "How would we test out your idea of 'confusing' the machinery that's supposedly keeping us here?" she asked. "And please, no complicated theories. Just something practical we could do."

  "What happens when you attempt to exercise your augment powers?" asked Steven.

  "I get a headache."

  "Me, too," said Tildie. They turned to the others, who nodded or muttered confirmations.

  "That implies we're being discouraged from exercising them."

  "What if we kept trying?" Horner asked. "Just pushed through the pain?"

  "I would recommend you attempt precisely that," said Steven.

  Rick watched with a worried expression as Jamie and the team closed their eyes and hunched over in concentration and muted grunts of pain rose swiftly into a crescendo of groans. Jamie felt as if an ice-cold pick was being driven into her head an excruciating centimeter at a time. But then, just when she thought her brain would explode, a rumbling tide of pure euphoria rolled over her and her body relaxed in a warm afterglow. She lay back in the grass, gazing up at the evening stars and – yes – a gleaming sliver of Earth's beloved moon. She felt she could lie there in perfect contentment for the rest of eternity.

  "What just happened there?" Rick sounded concerned.

  "What do you mean?" Jamie murmured.

  "One minute you're all grimacing in obvious pain, and the next you're all looking like you inhaled the world's greatest doobie. Not that I'd know anything about that as a good clean Midwestern country boy."

  "Whatever," Tildie giggled.

  Steven was walking among them, his eyes flicking from person to person as if making mathematical tabulations.

  "Interesting," he said. "You're experiencing countermeasures. That logically implies your powers are intact."

  "How?" asked Rick.

  "There would be no need for penalizing the attempt to exercise their powers if the powers did not represent a threat."

  The greatest endorphin rush Jamie had ever experienced – an intense sexual afterglow combined with runner's high – leisurely dissipated, and the clear-thinking part of her brain eased back on line. Her first thought was that she would never repeat that head-splitting experiment; her second was that it might be worthwhile enduring that again just to reach that endorphin nirvana once more. Her third thought was that Steven was right. The sense of being resisted had been powerfully present from the start of their little experiment. That was big. She forced herself to sit up.

  "How carefully do you think they're monitoring us? Could our behavior trigger some kind of alarm?"

  "A substantial percentage of these people possess telekinetic and other powers, though after initial attempts they would probably not try again. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that such attempts would trigger special attention unless they were noteworthy in terms o
f their power. The number of captives nearly precludes monitoring by any means other than mechanistic, such as artificial intelligence."

  "Any other bright ideas?" Jake muttered.

  "Find a stronger stimulus," said Steven. "Something that causes a stronger and more enduring pain."

  "Gee," said Tildie, "that sounds like fun."

  Chapter 27

  JAMIE AWOKE TO THE worst hangover of her life. The first sound out of her mouth was a heartfelt moan. Sunlight glared in her eyes. For a moment, blinking up at the sun peeking out between giant fluffy cumulus clouds, Jamie thought she'd fallen asleep in the yard back home after drinking way too much. But looking around, seeing her fellow travelers also stretched out on the grassy meadow, she knew she wasn't home. Not even as close as Kansas.

  It didn't feel much like heaven, either, as she sat up, rubbing her head and groaning as a steel spike was driven into her brain. At least the spike wasn't icy cold or red-hot. Punished for my transgressions?

  The others were rubbing their heads and groaning, too – a grating atonal symphony that amplified her own malaise.

  The murmur of discontent extended up from the meadow to a small congregation of men and women gathered around Rick Lambert. Steven was there, too, and words were being exchanged. Steven appeared calm and collected as always, but his dour-faced audience was not buying whatever he was selling.

  Rick noticed she and the others were awake and broke free of the gathering to walk down to them.

  "Is that the vanguard of the lynch mob?" Tildie asked.

  "Not quite." Rick gave her a tight smile. "But the people of Eden want a meeting with you. Someone noticed you walking out of town with me yesterday – my dad, actually" - he nodded to a large, grizzled-looking man up by his house – "and took a guess where to find you."

  "That might not be a bad idea," said Jamie. "Where would we meet?"

  "The town hall, at noon. The good news is that there'll be free food. Oh, and did I mention that my father is the mayor?"

  "No, you didn't." Jamie permitted herself a few small daggers in her look.

  "Count me in," said Jake, squeezing the back of his neck. "You wouldn't happen to have any aspirin, by any chance?"

  Noon turned out to be only an hour away. Jamie tried not to entertain images of walking into the lion's den as they headed back to town. Mayor Tom Lambert and his council - along with Sheriff Dan Simmons and his deputy, Val Wessler – seemed nice if wary. Both Rick's father and Sheriff Simmons expressed appreciation for what they'd done in San Francisco. Rick's dad was one of the few people she'd seen here who looked like a perfectly ordinary middle-aged guy, not a young Clint Eastwood or Brad Pitt.

  It seemed that most if not all of Eden's 1,237 "souls" had gathered around a stately building and well-manicured lawn just off Main Street. It was impressive, Jamie thought, what a thousand people working together with boundless energy and determination and perfect health could accomplish in two or three short months. Unless this and other buildings had already been there.

  The people weren't carrying pitch forks and appeared relatively friendly through their somewhat apprehensive expressions, maintaining a polite distance as Tom Lambert led them to the Eden Courthouse's front steps. Jamie reminded herself that this was the twenty-first century, not seventeenth century Salem, Massachusetts. These were former American citizens, not the Taliban. And the sweet smell of barbecue scented the air.

  Mayor Lambert paused at the top of the stairs and faced the crowd. He raised his hands until there was relative quiet.

  "Folks," he said, "too many of us to fit inside, so we're going to conduct this business out here. I know you're all troubled by what you've been hearing about our guests, but I expect you'll remember that they are our guests and will treat them as such. We have nothing to fear from those who challenge our faith. God is our almighty protector."

  As he spoke, Brian Loving made his way up the steps to join them, smiling and nodding to the crowd while ignoring hostile stares from the team.

  "I would like to introduce you now to Jamie Shepherd," Mayor Lambert announced, "Commander of DARE's elite Interdiction and Enforcement Team One, which so bravely defended our beloved former country on one recent October weekend in the Bay Area. She tells us that she and her team, presently with us up here, crossed over in the same way we all have, through a gateway to Heaven opened by a chosen servant of our Lord. But as you all know by now, they did not come here for the same reasons you and I came here. Jamie will speak to us now, without interruptions, until she's finished. After that, I will select those who wish to ask questions – one at a time in a civil and respectful manner – just as I expect you to behave while she addresses us."

  Mayor Lambert bowed away from the center of the top step and motioned Jamie forward. She filled his spot and faced the multitude. An hour and a half ago, she'd been dead-asleep. She'd had less than an hour to think of what to say, and hadn't had a lot of luck assembling her thoughts through the painful static of a headache - which still lingered. The cool gazes of her audience – more than a few downright frigid – didn't encourage her to relax and let her hair down. She decided to keep it as simple and straightforward as she could.

  "Hi," she greeted them. "A few days ago while serving an arrest warrant for Brian Loving in a Las Vegas church" – she paused as a murmur that fell just short of booing rose from the crowd – "we witnessed Mr. Loving open what appeared to be a doorway to another world. To be fair, he did that on our request to save one of our agents, who had been severely injured. We believe she survived in here and may have passed through this town. For that, we're grateful to Mr. Loving. And I'll also say that I don't believe, from everything I've seen and what I know, that Brian Loving is a bad person. He sincerely believes, or believed, that he was serving a holy purpose in sending people over here. Still, he was violating the law of the land, and we had the legal right to arrest him."

  This time boos clearly joined the disgruntled noises rising from audience.

  "Brian's real crime," Jamie continued in a louder voice, "is being a tool of a foreign power. In this case, an extraterrestrial power. The power that created the world you find yourself in, and the power which I am here to defeat."

  Tom Lambert had to step up and wave down the growing outcry. "That power is the power of God!" some woman shouted from the front row. "I'm from the government, I'm here to help you!" a man yelled sarcastically, drawing a round of laughter. Mayor Lambert continued to make calming motions with his hands with the air of a world-weary principal trying to still rowdy students.

  "Okay, okay," Lambert said, speaking just above the rumble of the crowd. "I know this is disturbing, but remember what I said about being respectful and letting Commander Shepherd speak her piece. Let's hear her out and then open the floor to discussion."

  The people quieted to an annoyed murmur, and Lambert gestured for Jamie to continue.

  "Thank you, um, Mayor Lambert," she said. "You know, a few months ago I was just a high school science teacher when an object crashed down in my property. I was one of the first to feel its effects. I was dying of pancreatic cancer...." She hadn't planned to say any of this, but suddenly it seemed important for these people to see her as a person, not an agent of the U.S. Government.

  Her improvised approach appeared to have worked. The crowd was now silent, watching her with rapt eyes. Some of those eyes were even sympathetic.

  "I was one of those people," she continued, "who was affected strongly by the virus. I became what we now call an 'apex class' augment. Because of my new abilities, I was asked to apply for a position in the newly formed Department of Augment Regulation and Enforcement. I really didn't have much idea of what I was getting into. I think people had some legitimate questions about the kind of authority this new agency had. I had a few questions myself. But I believe we had to do something to maintain stability in a society of super-people.

  "On top of the enforcement part, DARE has a team of scientists that has
been working around the clock to solve the various mysteries of the Object and augment powers. One thing you and the general population on Earth aren't aware of is that the Object contained a warning about an alien attack. It portrayed what appeared to be an alien craft attacking humanity and the superpowers as the antidote. A few weeks ago, NASA photographed a massive space ship near Mars which matches the craft portrayed by the Object. I flew to Mars myself to check it out, and did make contact. It attempted to capture me, but I managed to escape."

  The crowd ooohed and aaahed. Her approach, regardless of how unscripted and clumsy it was, was working, she thought. Being aware of the Object's message and the space craft sighting had to introduce some new notions to whoever heard it.

  "The Morgan Administration decided not to reveal these things to the public," Jamie continued. "I now think that was a big mistake, even though it's understandable they didn't want to cause widespread panic. We believe this giant space craft – the alien civilization it represents – to be responsible for the Last Days movement and the transport of millions of people worldwide to this virtual world."

  The oooohing devolved into a low chorus of boos and even some hisses. A sea of shaking heads.

  "You call this virtual?" a man shouted, hoisting his pregnant wife up for everyone to see. The crowd cheered and jeered.

  "I don't know," said Jamie. "You're real, maybe your baby is real, too. We don't know what they're capable of, but their technology is so far beyond ours it's almost unimaginable. Look, I'll be honest. I don't know if there's a God or an afterlife, but I'm pretty sure that if there is a heaven, you have to die before entering it. And if only the faithful are supposed to be here, how did my team and I get here? Does it make sense that you get to choose Door Number One and walk through while you're alive? And what about all the people who are still on Earth? Some of them are surely your friends or family. Won't they get a chance to live forever? Does that seem fair?"

  Hundreds of conversations sprang up among the gathering, some of them arguments. She wasn't as good at persuasion as Zachary. What he'd done persuading Brian Loving to doubt himself, if only briefly, was masterful. But she was getting through to them. It really was just commonsense.