by Lee, Tristan
“What kind of work do you do in this field?”
Dr. Pryce shrugs, “We make prosthesis and research artificial intelligence, most of the time.”
“And have you managed to create an intelligent being?”
“Any capable male paired with a capable female should be able to create an intelligent being. Whether they should is another matter entirely.”
“Have you created a sentient robot?”
Dr. Pryce laughs, “A sentient robot? We’re still centuries away from a breakthrough like that.”
“But have you tried?”
“Of course I have. Who hasn’t dreamed of seeing a Mechanical Man walking around as you do, or as I did?”
“What is the closest you have come to true artificial intelligence?”
“Project Arsenal. It’s supposed to be a hyper-intelligent program that can instantly pull up information from anything it is installed on, and the program can be installed on a virtually limitless amount of devices. Arsenal is . . . problematic, though. He’s prone to sulking when he doesn’t get his way.”
“It failed?”
“Arsenal’s the most advanced intelligence on the planet, far surpassing humans. He doesn’t fail, it’s just that sometimes he doesn’t cooperate.”
“All that aside, I came here to ask you, could you make a new body for someone?”
Uncertainty flashes in Dr. Pryce’s eyes, “As in, replacing body parts with prosthesis? That’s been possible for a long time.”
“No, as in, building a new, robotic body and inputting one’s mind into it.”
“Like a possession.”
“I suppose. A possession where when the possessor’s first body is destroyed, it can find a permanent place in its host.”
“An interesting concept. I’m admittedly unsure about whether or not there has been any development in that field.”
Dr. Pryce is an exceptionally good actor, but the uncertainty that Sandor saw assures him that he has come to the right place and is speaking to the right man.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Sandor says. “I know who you are, Dr. Pryce.”
“I’d hope so. One does expect some recognition after receiving a doctorate and two Nobel prizes.”
“Not that, I know that you’re Dr. Invictus.”
Dr. Pryce goes limp in his wheelchair, eyes closed. Sandor thinks that he has fainted until he hears the clanking footsteps. Looking down on him from about six feet high is the blank face of a chrome-colored humanoid robot. The robot’s body is molded to look like a muscular man’s and is just as mobile as a flesh-and-blood man. It points one of its hands at Sandor, the glowing circle on its palm facing Sandor’s head. The circle glows with orange light and Sandor feels the heat given off by it.
“What do you want from me?” Dr. Invictus asks. Now his voice has a distinct mechanical sound to it, like someone speaking through a synthesizer.
“It would be nice if you lower your weapon,” Sandor says.
“I’ll keep it up.”
“Fair enough. I need you to lead a strike team of superheroes against an army of aliens.”
“What?”
“A couple of nights ago, an alien fleet entered Earth’s orbit, shot down our ambassador and decimated Hong Kong. I need you to lead five other superheroes against the aliens.”
“That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.”
“You can send your mind into a nearly-indestructible android, you personally know an alien prince and his feisty psionic wife, and this is the most insane thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Who is on my team?”
“So far you’ve got Defender, Demoness, and Titan. I’m going to try and recruit Nightshade tomorrow and Ronin the day after.”
“Defender is out of retirement? Since when?”
“Since yesterday. Out of curiosity, what happens if one of your bodies gets destroyed?”
“My conscience flows into whichever body remains. If this body is destroyed, once I flow into my human form I can sync with another android form.”
“You have multiple androids?”
“Sixty-three, eight are the same model as this one, the others are specialized for a specific goal.”
“Amazing. But are you with us or not?”
Dr. Invictus cocks his head slightly in thought, “From what you’ve told me, our chances of success are close to zero.”
“Your team’s chances are higher than you think.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“You’re quite the optimist.”
“I try.”
“Dad? Who’s that?” a new voice asks. The voice seems to come from the walls and sounds like a pre-pubescent boy.
“He’s a friend, son,” Dr. Invictus says.
“I’m Sandor Burns,” Sandor says. “Who are you?”
“I’m Arsenal,” the boyish voice says.
“Where are you?” Sandor asks.
“I don’t have a physical body,” Arsenal says gloomily. “I’m just a program.”
“I told you, Arsenal, I’m working on a body for you,” Dr. Invictus says.
“I know, Dad, but it’s weird not being tangible.”
“Go on, now, Arsenal,” Dr. Invictus says. “I need a moment with Sandor.”
“Alright,” Arsenal says. After that, he goes silent and the faint hum Sandor heard upon Arsenal’s arrival is gone.
“So, what do you think of my son?” Dr. Invictus asks.
“He’s . . . he’s incredible,” Sandor says, awestruck. “If you hadn’t told me earlier that Arsenal was a program, I would have thought that I was talking to a person.”
“He still has a few bugs, but once I work those out, he’ll be ready for a physical body.”
“What bugs? He seems perfect to me.”
“As I said earlier, he’s prone to sulking when he doesn’t his way. The biggest bug is his rage.”
“Rage?”
“As you’ve seen, Arsenal was designed to grow into maturity like a person. For each X-number of devices he downloads himself into, he ages a year. His maximum age is fifty-one even though he can continue to program himself into devices after that. To enhance his experience as a near-human A.I., I gave him emotions. Most of them are relatively tame, but his rage is uncontrollable. Not just anger, when he’s angry he sulks. When he’s truly enraged, however, he gets dangerous.”
“In what way?”
“Most of the time he just starts to shut off things that I’m using, or tries to trip me up by sending little remote-controlled cars at my feet. One time, though, he did something that scared me a little. I don’t even remember what we fought about, but I was in my android body and he took control of another one of my bodies, the heavy ordnance model, I think. He attacked me with it. Stopping him wasn’t hard, I still haven’t taught him how to fight yet and he was clumsy since he had never had a physical form like that before, but the fact that he attacked me was a wake-up call.”
“What did you do to prevent it happening again?”
“I purged him from my androids and put in firewalls to prevent him from downloading himself inside one again. My monitoring system shows that he hasn’t tried to possess one since.”
Dr. Invictus shrugs, “Or he’s found some way to bypass all of my countermeasures and he can control any one of my androids at will. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s somewhere in my programming right now, in this body. Arsenal’s a resourceful boy.”
“And he has the potential to be the most devastating weapon the world has ever seen.”
“I admit that Arsenal can be problematic sometimes, but ninety-nine percent of the time he’s a good kid.”
“There will come a day when some very powerful people may want Arsenal turned over to them, or even destroyed.”
Dr. Invictus looks at Sandor, and somehow Sandor can feel his gaze staring through his soul even though his face is completely blank.
“If that day ever comes, Mr. Burns,” Dr.
Invictus says. “I will fight for him with everything I’ve got and more. And I will lead your team.”
Sandor nods, “We meet in the Gideon bunker in Skyline on the eighth. Good day, Dr. Invictus.”
Dr. Invictus nods, but does not return the sentiment.
The Dragon’s Bane
August 3rd
Anna Barnes’ base of operations is a dingy strip club next to a highway in the middle of nowhere. The closest city is Carlsbad, New Mexico, but that is three hours away. It takes Sandor a good seven hours to find the place, so he does not arrive until eleven at night. Even though Sandor figures that the vast majority of sane people would be heading home by now, the Starlet Gentlemen’s Club is still packed. The inside of the club stinks of perfume and the additional stench of urine makes the club seems like a subway station. The only lights inside the club are either pink, flashing or pink and flashing, so navigating the club is an exercise in frustration for Sandor. He looks around for Anna Barnes, but the crowd is too dense for that. After another hour of searching and the denying of several drinks from inappropriately clad women, Sandor sees the only female patron in the entire club sitting at the bar with her back to him.
He sits next to her and judges from her profile that this is the woman he is looking for. Sandor opens his mouth to start speaking, but before he can say a single word, she grabs the hair on the back of his head and uses it as a grip to repeatedly slam his face into the surface of the bar until he is unconscious.
Sandor wakes up duct taped to one of the outer walls of the club with Anna standing over him. She has her signature crossbow pointed at his head.
“Who the hell are you?” Anna asks in the same accent as her brother.
“Sandor Burns,” he answers.
“You here to kill me?” she asks. “Don’t even bother trying to lie.”
“I’m not here to kill you,” Sandor says. “I’m getting really sick of everyone thinking that I’m trying to kill them.”
“How can I be sure?”
“You’re the one with the crossbow.”
Anna lowers it, “You’re too stupid to be an assassin.”
“I take offense to that.”
She slides a knife out of her boot and cuts him free. Sandor stands up and gets his first good look at the vigilante Nightshade. Anna is almost as tall as her brother and has the same watchful eyes as him. Her nose is more pointed than his and her hair is darker, but that might be dye. She has her hair in a ponytail that reaches about six inches past her shoulders and is held by a jade ring near the base of the ponytail and a metal ring with a spike attached to it on the end. Her crossbow is black, just like her boiled leather armor and is as long as a hunting rifle. The bolts are about sixteen inches long and end in razor-sharp steel bodkins. From what Sandor has heard, the crossbow sends each one of those bolts flying with more than two-hundred pounds of force behind each one. The bow has a self-cocking mechanism, so to reload it all Anna has to do is slide in another bolt from either the quiver over her shoulder or the one at her hip.
“So what do you want?” Anna asks. “I’m a busy girl.”
“I’m from S.A.B.R.E.,” Sandor begins, which makes Anna level her crossbow with his head again.
“I don’t like S.A.B.R.E.,” Anna says. “Don’t trust you, but go on.”
“There’s a fleet orbiting Earth, the likes of which we have never seen before,” Sandor continues.
“How many of them?”
“Seventy thousand fighters and a capital ship.”
“Who’re they with? The Russians?”
“That’s where things get strange. They’re aliens.”
“You what?”
“Yes, aliens. They’ve already declared war on us by shooting our ambassador’s transport out of the sky and by utterly destroying Hong Kong.”
“Aren’t there militaries for this sort of thing?”
“The armies of the world won’t be able to stop them. S.A.B.R.E. might have been able to, but now in the post-S.P.E.A.R. era S.A.B.R.E.’s armies have been decommissioned and forming them again would pit the entire planet against us; something we just can’t afford right now.”
“So your metaphorical balls got cut off and you need me.”
“You won’t be alone, Anna. You’ll be part of a strike team.”
“Strike team? Sounds fancy, but it doesn’t exactly roll off of the tongue.”
“It serves its purpose.”
“If I did join the team, which I’m not saying I will, who would be supporting me?”
“The greatest heroes this planet has ever seen.”
“The Olympians are dead and buried, Burns.”
“I think that you and your teammates might have the potential to be even more powerful than the Olympians.”
“To be more powerful than the Olympians we better have some gods or something.”
“You’ll be joined by plenty of gods. A Mechanical Man, a supersoldier, a Living Star, a prince, and a swordsman.”
“I’m a smart girl, but some names would be nice.”
Sandor sighs, “I’m talking about Dr. Invictus, Defender, Demoness, Titan, and Ronin.”
“Is this a hypothetical team or are they actually together?”
“We’ve got everyone but you and Ronin.”
“You’re going to put a blind man on a team to stop an alien invasion?”
“He’s the best there is at what he does.”
“I think Marvel has a copyright on that saying.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Are you in?”
Anna raises an eyebrow, “You said something about Defender. What’s my little brother doing out of retirement?”
“Little brother?”
“I’m fourteen minutes older, now answer the question.”
Sandor shrugs, “We need him. He’s going to be a crucial part of the team.”
“How so?”
“Dick was a soldier, he knows how to take orders and how to work with others to accomplish an objective,” Sandor says. “Something you could learn.”
Anna raises her hands in mock surrender, “Sorry I’m not a team player, boss man. As far as I know, there are plenty of lone wolves on your squad.”
Sandor folds his arms across his chest, “Asides from you, name one.”
“Well, there’s Ronin.”
“He’s got a sidekick.”
“Bullshit, blind guys don’t like people.”
“She calls herself Kunai and she’s already proved to be quite formidable.”
“Stupid girl. Naming herself after a knife that was intentionally kept blunt just doesn’t reflect on her intelligence very well.”
“You won’t have to be meeting her,” Sandor says. “The job offer is only for her mentor.”
“Doesn’t matter to me,” Anna says as she pops a piece of bubblegum into her mouth and starts chewing.
“Good. So you’ll join.”
“Didn’t say that,” Anna says in a singsong voice.
“You won’t help save the planet?” Sandor asks incredulously.
“Didn’t say that either,” Anna says before blowing a bubble.
“Are you with us or not?”
“I’ll think about it,” Anna says as she slings her crossbow over her shoulder. “The Skyline Gideon bunker on the eighth, right?”
Sandor’s mouth drops open in shock, “That’s classified information, how did you-“
“I have my ways,” Anna says. “You don’t avoid the Black Dragon for as long as I have without some skills.”
“About the Black Dragon,” Sandor says. “I’ve been meaning to bring that up.”
“What about them?”
“If you can save the world, S.A.B.R.E. will deal with the Dragon.”
“Nihon-Ja doesn’t take bribes.”
“He will when he sees this one.”
Anna looks away, “No, he won’t,” she says sadly. “But I appreciate it.”
&nb
sp; And somehow, she disappears into the barren and empty landscape.
The Blind Swordsman
August 4th
It is raining in Godfall City, Pennsylvania again. Sandor sits in his car and the address he found on his dashboard after he recruited Nightshade, an old and abandoned warehouse by the docks. He checks his watch, three o’clock a.m., just like the note specified. Only thing left for Sandor to do is wait until he makes his appearance.
As he waits, Sandor goes over his notes on his final subject for recruiting. Franklin Butler, born to an American mother and a Japanese father, but once his father left he took his mother’s last name. At the age of fourteen, he witnessed his mother’s brutal murder when the city’s biggest gang mistook her for a drug dealer who would not play ball with them. Once they realized their mistake, it was too late and she was dead. Young Franklin was blinded when he looked directly at one of the flashbangs the gangsters threw in when it detonated. The mobsters did not want to kill a child and assumed that he wouldn’t be a threat to them without the use of his eyes. Unfortunately for them, Frank Butler survived and spent five years tracking his father to a monastery in the Himalayas. There he spent twelve years being trained on how to fight without being able to see by the monastery’s ancient order of warrior monks. He then received his family’s sword, an ancient talisman that allows him to teleport and channel his powerful telekinetic and telepathic powers. When Frank Butler returned to his home in Godfall, he did so as the vigilante Ronin, sworn to destroy the crime that took his mother from him.
Something smashes heavily onto the hood of his car. Sandor opens the door and hurriedly rushes out into the rain to see what just put a dent in his Mercedes S-Class. It is a body.
“Shit,” Sandor mutters as he rolls the body over to see its face. It does not have a face, seeing as it is missing its head.
“Shit,” Sandor repeats.
Someone lands behind Sandor from the roof of the warehouse. Sandor turns around slowly and finds a sword pointed at his throat. The man holding it is a little over six feet with short, salt-and-pepper hair, pale skin, and a well-muscled physique for anyone, especially a man who is reaching the age of forty-six. He wears a dark grey biometal bodysuit (Biometal is a revolutionary material that seems just like regular clothing, but becomes harder than steel upon impact) with red Japanese calligraphy running diagonally from his left shoulder to under his right armpit. Sandor cannot see his eyes because he has a red strip of cloth tied around his eyes as a blindfold. His katana is five feet in length, four feet for the blade, one foot for the hilt. The blade, although seemingly normal, has a faint blue glow to it.