by David Reiss
The ferocious dance continued; my staff spun like the world’s deadliest windmill to ward away grasping claws or splatters of venom. The sinuous creatures crawled over each other, long fangs bared eagerly as they sought to catch at me, to finally take me down. I used brief blasts of plasma or kinetic energy or sonic attacks to take them down, but dared not unleash too great a force within these hallowed halls; from what I’d read, geomancy was a tricky art to master and I had no desire to bring these walls down atop my conquest. And so I allowed the monstrous tide to push me back, until the tunnel ended in a great chamber with still water at its center, no doubt leading to an underwater tunnel that led to the open ocean.
With anti-grav enabled, I shot back so that I floated above the dark waters. With no solid ground upon which to stand, the creatures crowded at the stone floor’s edge and I was able to strike at them with impunity. The warstaff was dismissed once more, and I summoned blasts of raw kinetic energy through my gauntlets. The hissing lizard-creatures were felled in waves, thrown back as though pounded by a giant, invisible fist. Their broken bodies piled along the large cavern’s wall; my exhilarating, bloody task was nearing completion and I was victorious.
Once more, my sensors failed to offer any warning; there was only a hint of movement, a shifting shadow, and then pain. Purple-gray tentacles as thick as tree-trunks shot up from the depths and I was instantly engulfed. It was only instinct and clever programming that managed to reinforce the Mk 38 armor’s structural integrity fields fast enough to prevent my leg from being twisted clean off my body.
◊◊◊
“Professor Markham?”
“Hm?” I don’t look away from my blackboard. The formulae are correct but the proof is unfinished. The solution is near, though…I can feel it. The variables are sliding into place.
“Your office hours started at two, right?”
A quick brush with the eraser raises a cloud of chalk dust and I scribble notes; this one section will need further support, but for now it can be skipped. Another section has intriguing implications and will be relevant to other studies. And this can be simplified.
“Professor Markham…?”
Reluctantly, I set down the chalk and turn to face my visitor. “Yes?”
“I’m having trouble with a concept from yesterday’s lecture. You spoke about high energy physics and multidimensional theory…?”
“Ah! Yes, I remember.” My face heats with embarrassment; there had been many puzzled expressions in that room. The lecture had been intended to cover a different subject entirely, but an interesting theory had distracted me. I can only hope that I’d spent enough time on the actual course material before striking off on my unplanned tangent. It is nice to know that at least one student was more intrigued than confused. “Um. How can I help?”
“Some of the math was above my head, but you talked about probability distributions in and random outcomes, and I’m having trouble wrapping my head around how that matches to the actual examples we’ve seen.”
“How so?”
“Well, um, y’know a bunch of heroes have traveled to different dimensions, right? And Professor Paradigm has that viewscreen?”
“Yes.”
“Well, all the dimensions we’ve seen are pretty similar to this one. If everything’s random, that doesn’t make sense to me.”
“That’s an excellent point, and I definitely should’ve addressed it in class,” I grin sheepishly. “The answer is that—even though there are an infinite number of possibilities—the dimensions aren’t distributed randomly.”
He looks befuddled rather than enlightened.
“Imagine that there’s a beach covered in colored sand, spread out in all the colors of the rainbow,” I suggest. “Red all the way on the north side of the beach, then orange, then yellow…all the way to violet on the south end of the beach.”
“…Okay?”
“After a year of wind and tides and volleyball practice, some of the sand will get kicked around. The edges will be blurred, and some colored grains have probably been tracked into completely different areas…but for the most part, the north section of the beach will still look red.”
“Okay, yeah, I think I get it.”
“Since the beginning of time,” I intone, feeling oddly melodramatic, “every single particle in the Universe has undergone a massive number of interactions, guided by chance and natural forces. The probability of every particle moving in just the right way to end up where we are now is incalculable.”
“But it’s an infinitely large beach,” my student laughs in return, “and our dimension is a small blue grain of sand.”
“Exactly!” I clap reflexively, then cough as I’m engulfed in another cloud of chalk.“We know that the beach should theoretically have all the colors in the rainbow, but if we look around? All we’re likely to find is shades of blue.”
When I was first offered a tenured position, I’d thought teaching to be a necessary evil: an unwanted chore to be endured if I wanted to stay at the University and continue my research. I’m certain that my early students had been just as miserable as I was. Pupils like this one had changed my mind.
Successfully imparting a lesson was intensely gratifying.
◊◊◊
I floated towards the antechamber, feeling smug in my triumph. Sadly, it seemed as though my right leg would be unsalvageable; a prosthetic would need to be jury-rigged to serve while a proper replacement was being cloned.
The giant squid, on the other hand, had certainly learned its lesson.
The central room was the size of a small warehouse and was filled with well-organized shelves and display cabinets. The collection of precious metals and gems was astounding, as well as a remarkable array of eastern and western historical artifacts. Taking a proper inventory of this trove would, however, be an effort left to another time. For now, I summoned more drones to bring a shipping container or two on-site and to begin packing my plunder away for storage.
A greater treasure captured my attention: a bookshelf filled with leather-bound laboratory notebooks. These, too, would need to be bundled and transported to a secure location for future perusal…but there was no resisting the urge to open the first book, to explore the Ancient’s early theories and methodologies. These books were all handwritten, careful and thoughtful and professional as only a rigorous academic could manage. The knowledge hidden within these tomes would, no doubt, prove invaluable…but more than that, these books represented a window into the Ancient’s mind.
I’d kept such journals, once; they’d infested my shelves during my time at MIT. More than a mere recounting of my studies, those notebooks had been a log of my intellectual growth, of my thought process as new discoveries coalesced. I often regretted those books’ immolation. I hadn’t been precisely sane so soon after Bobby’s death, and I’d believed that becoming Fid would require destroying Terry.
Terry Markham and Doctor Fid had eventually formed an easy alliance, but that had been much later: after Bronze’s death, after Terry Markham’s shadow had returned to academia for five years, and after a chance conversation with a fellow professor’s son had kindled my desire to reclaim Doctor Fid’s mask.
I hadn’t prevaricated when answering Stanley Morrow and Pamela Green’s questions on KNN CapeWatch. The Doctor Fid of those first few horrifically violent years may as well have been a different creature from the Doctor Fid who’d emerged from half a decade’s hibernation. The armor’s grim motif—a reflection-less starscape, so perfectly rendered that I looked to be a man-shaped portal into deep space, with three-dimensional form hinted at only by the angry red glow that bled from the armor’s seems—remained the same, but the man within the armor had been reshaped: molded by time and choice into something new.
Some aspects of the old Fid remained, such as the grim pleasure I took in knowing what would come next. With this library as bait, I needn’t spend another moment seeking out Skullface. He would come to me.
> I pored through the Ancient’s first journal, enjoying the afterglow of my victory.
A decision would also need to be made as to the disposition of the Ancient’s corpse, but that choice didn’t seem particularly pressing; the villain had been dead by his own hand for at least two decades. The botulinum toxin in his wine-glass was still detectable by my sensors. By means unknown, this section of the cave system had been kept cool, dry and vermin free; the Ancient’s remains were desiccated but otherwise undamaged.
The laboratory notebook was proving to be a riveting read; this was the work of a focused, passionate young man who was working to reconcile the strict logic of science with the erratic behavior of observed supernatural phenomena. The initial experiments had been simple but rigorously applied, with notes in the margins describing even the most minute discrepancies between test cycles.
There were patterns here, interesting sequences whose implications could not possibly have been understood by someone who didn’t have a high understanding of the mathematics that model interdimensional instability. Already, ideas for experimentation were beginning to percolate through my consciousness.
I paused; one of my exploring microdrones had made a discovery that had eluded my own cursory examination. The Ancient’s almost-mummified corpse was holding a hand-written letter. The laboratory notebook was set aside so that I could take up the Ancient’s last testament.
“There is no magic,” the letter read.
Behind my starfield mask, I smiled.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As expected, the Ancient had been a genius of the highest caliber. His early work was rigorously well-supported, and his insights clever and innovative. The first few laboratory journals went into excruciating detail covering not only what experiments were being performed, but to also defend each decision and explain why certain investigations were prioritized. Most interesting was that they also spent a significant amount of page-space discussing the ethics of certain practices, and actively forgoing any questionable research.
The man who’d penned these first journals had not been a villain; he’d been an academic who had discovered a natural talent for sorcery by mere accident. A chance reading of an ancient text for an anthropology class had resulted in unexpected phenomena, and the young scientist had dedicated himself towards discovering more. He’d been filled with lofty goals and excitement at the challenge that lay before him.
I kept reading, intrigued.
The shift in demeanor was subtle, but it was simple to determine when the change began: several years into his study, the Ancient had begun experimenting with summoning rituals. His original intent had merely been to study the ripples in the interdimensional boundaries when contact was made, but the Ancient’s curiosity had exceeded his wisdom. Deals had been struck, and the slow drift towards amorality had begun. Either the extradimensional entities had a directly corrosive effect upon the Ancient’s principles, or else he’d sold some part of himself that no human should do without.
If I’d kept up my own journals, I imagined that the same pattern would have been present during the period in which I’d begun performing self-induced brain surgeries. With every slice, it had become easier to justify the next operation, to cut away at parts of my brain that interfered with my chosen avocation. A tiny burn here to keep me from hesitating before attacking a downed opponent, a minor excision there to eliminate empathetic response. I’d reversed much of the damage when Bronze had died and before I’d boxed Doctor Fid into storage, but neural scarring remained. It was not until relatively recently—when I’d stolen medical nanites from A.H. Biotech and suffused my body with the reprogrammed microscopic machines—that the gray haze in my brain had truly receded.
I was still uncertain if anything resembling redemption could ever be attained by a creature like myself, but it was objectively true that my current moral state was improved. I’d saved Whisper. I’d saved dozens of planets from the Legion.
I’d saved a kitten named Mason.
Would only one more surgery have been the tipping point? One more course of psychoactive narcotics? How close had I come to the precipice? Never before had I actually felt grateful for the alcoholism-induced liver-damage that had taken Bronze’s life. I still occasionally had pleasant dreams that involved my hands about his throat, but I supposed that, in the end, his premature passing had served a purpose. Doctor Fid slumbered for five years and then was resurrected as a new creature.
I read on.
Making a complete study of these journals would take years, but there was much to be gleaned from even a superficial examination. The Ancient had been obsessed with the study of akashic identity—the ephemeral gestalt of body and brain and spirit that marked a creature as being unique. The Ancient had hypothesized that this marker represented an individual’s soul but had (at least as far as I’d read so far) been unable to establish a conclusive proof. He had, however, experimentally verified that there was some strange tie between akashic records and the membrane that separated dimensions. Much of the information within the manuals was useless to me—a man with no native talent for magecraft. But the Ancient had been studying the intersection of science and magic, and even the more mundane theories were intriguing. Already I was beginning to see opportunities for experimentation.
Ethical experimentation, with pre-programmed safeguards to incinerate me if ever I began following the path that led to the studies in laboratory journal number twenty-one.
◊◊◊
Whisper had found her way into my office, a tiny black labrador trailing behind like an obedient duckling. She’d sat down on the floor to play with Nyx, whispering soft affirmations while I devoured the laboratory journals, occasionally pausing to take notes or perform complex calculations. The Ancient had been brilliant and his knowledge of the biological sciences far outstripped my own…but my scientific focuses were different. He’d faithfully recorded his observations but had failed to identify patterns that only a premier-level mathematician or physicist would notice. My heart was racing with exhilaration and, if I’d had a mirror, I was certain that I’d have been embarrassed by my giddy expression. But Whisper looked heartbreakingly sad. Pensive.
With journal and notes set aside, I moved to kneel at her side and my temporary prosthetic clicked loudly. She didn’t look up to meet my eyes so I waited and reached towards Nyx. The little black dog sniffed at my hand and wagged uncertainly; I’d never been unkind to him and I fed him as often as not…but he was Whisper’s puppy. In his little canine brain, I supposed that I must have been the biggest and scariest dog in his pack; what a perceptive little creature! His body language fairly screamed eager hopefulness.
I used my neural link to make a note in my virtual calendar: increase playtime with Whisper and Nyx, and pat the dog gently atop his head.
“I don’t want to be a bad girl,” Whisper volunteered suddenly.
“We’ve had this conversation before,” I answered, surprised. “I don’t want you to be a bad girl. You’re a good girl, and I love you the way you are.”
“I know.” She fidgeted, one hand resting on Nyx’s neck as though for support. “But it’s more complicated than that.”
“How so?”
“You ask me to help you. And I do.”
“Oh, sweetheart-”
“It makes me happy! I love you, and it makes me happy.” The little android nibbled at her lower lip nervously. “But sometimes it makes me scared, too.”
“I don’t want you to be scared.”
“I got to help you save the planet! Lots of planets!” She grinned briefly up at me briefly then again lowered her gaze. “I helped you find information about people.”
“Bad people, for the most part,” I commented.
“Mm! But not always. And…um…an artificially intelligent android like me might have supplied armor plates and parts for use in the armor and weapons for a person like you.”
She had to speak in hypotheticals in order to
avoid triggering safeguards installed by her supervillain father/creator; Whisper had inherited sole control over the orichalcum foundry left behind by Apotheosis but was also obligated to protect it. So long as we spoke as though discussing imaginary scenarios, the young AI could do as she wished. If, on the other hand, ever we directly confirmed that I knew that the foundry was operational…Whisper would be forced to conceal that knowledge by any means at her disposal. In the past, she’d done so by hacking my brain via my neural link and interrupting my short-term memory.
“A man like me would probably be very grateful to his adorable little sister,” I replied; given a choice, I preferred sophistry over neural disruption.
“You’ve been doing good things with your armor. You stopped all those fires and saved lots of people from accidents and things. And that makes me happy,” she trailed off.
“…but you’re afraid of what Doctor Fid may do with the armor in the future,” I finished sadly. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’ll disassemble the Mk 35, the Mk 36 and the Mk 38 immediately.”
“No!” Whisper looked up at me and I was certain that (had the capability been installed) her eyes would have been filled with tears. “Then you’d get hurt and it’d be my fault. That would be even worse!”
“Then what can I do?” I asked, helplessly.
“You told me you could be a bad man who does good things.”
“I did, yes.” The corners of my lips quirked upwards, hesitantly. Continuing my philanthropic activities would be no hardship at all! If that was all she needed, then I was confident that I could erase the worry from her heart.
“I thought that’d be enough,” she said, and her troubled expression soured my optimism. “But there’s something you didn’t say.”