by David Reiss
No language could suffice save for math. Fortunately, mathematics was a language at which I excelled.
I lacked the inborn ability to sense the forces that the Ancient had studied, and no machine could mimic the effect that the gestalt of mind and body and spirit had upon the ephemeral membranes between dimensions. There was, provably, something unique about the fields created by a complex brain. Something beyond the electrical impulses and chemical reactions. Some took this as evidence of the existence of a soul, but I preferred the label that the Ancient had settled upon: akashic identity. A pattern that was distinct and unique for every higher organism in the multiverse.
Superhuman powers were tied to individuals by some quirk of interdimensional forces, localized alterations of the laws of physics. A nigh-infinite array of influences somehow molded to shape when filtered from foreign worlds through an akashic field and into our reality. It was marvelous. It was extraordinary.
It was something that could be quantified. And—with the benefit of access to the Ancient’s meticulous notes and exhaustive observations—there were certain effects that I could emulate.
In the future, I had many avenues of study to look forward to. For now, though, there was only one effect that required immediate attention. And with that effort completed, it would be time to lure Skullface into a final confrontation.
◊◊◊
“Welcome to KNN CapeWatch, I’m Stanley Morrow.”
“And I’m Pamela Green.”
“Today, we have interesting news regarding one of the more enigmatic figures in the superpowered community: Doctor Fid.”
“As our regular viewers will remember, Stanley and I interviewed the notorious supervillain not so very long ago. And I, for one, ended that interview with more new questions than I’d received in answers.”
“As did I, Pam. As did I.”
“In that interview, we touched upon the Doctor’s long and violent history…and also upon the recent change in his behavior. In the time since, Doctor Fid has traveled the world rescuing people in need.”
“Most visible, of course, was his cooperative effort alongside Valiant.”
“More quietly, Doctor Fid has been providing robotic assistance in the efforts to rebuild the Museum of Fine Arts in his hometown of Boston.”
“It’s hard to believe that this is the same man who terrorized the eastern seaboard for more than a decade.”
“Very true, Stanley. It seems almost as though he’s a different person.”
“Still frighteningly powerful, of course.”
“Of course.”
“The museum is reopening in two weeks, and Doctor Fid has announced that he’s going to donate a new exhibit consisting of art and artifacts gathered from another villain’s lair.”
“The Ancient!”
“Our younger viewers may not recall how horrifying a villain the Ancient had been. He’d kidnapped hundreds for his vile, inhuman experiments…and very few of that number were ever rescued.”
“Disgusting.”
“Very much so. Still, the Ancient had acquired a large quantity of expensive and historically significant artifacts.”
“It should be a beautiful exhibit.”
“I expect that it will be.”
“And that’s not all. As a gesture of good faith—and to make sure that no one will ever misuse the knowledge that the Ancient had tortured so many to acquire—Doctor Fid intends to publicly cremate the Ancient’s laboratory notebooks.”
“It will be a private ceremony at a Rhode Island lighthouse on the cliffs, with only a few witnesses. A memorial to those taken and abused by the Ancient.”
“Hopefully, the families of those who were lost will rest easy knowing that the Ancient’s legacy has finally been destroyed.”
“We can only hope, Pam. In other news, Blueshift was injured while battling Don Voudon in New Orleans today…”
◊◊◊
If Skullface wanted to rescue the Ancient’s writings, he now had precise knowledge of when and where the books would be present. He would (rightfully) assume the event to be a trap but didn’t have the option of letting the opportunity pass by. He’d invested too much in this scavenger hunt. It wasn’t merely a question of losing resources…it was a matter of losing face. If he intended to maintain his position among the supervillainous elite, he dared not allow my actions to go unchallenged. His reputation would be irredeemably marred.
And besides…he coveted those laboratory journals. I wasn’t a sorcerer, but even I could tell that the information contained within those leatherbound books would be a powerful boon to a worker of so-called ‘magic’. Burning those tomes was going to feel delicious.
(I would keep my own digital scans, of course. There was still science to be done.)
◊◊◊
**Terry?** Whisper sent to me across the neural tap. **Are you coming home tonight?**
**I was planning to,** I admitted softly. Floating mid-air in the Mk 38, I was busy repairing a western-Pennsylvania bridge that had begun to fail; maintaining the fiction of heroism was still feasible. For now, at least.**If you prefer that I stay away for a few more days—**
**No!** Whisper objected. **I want you to come home.**
**I thought that you might want more time to yourself.** My heavy-combat drones—twelve feet of soaring destructive potential, reflection-less black pillars bristling with energy emitters and sensors—were a poor substitute for my construction automatons, but the latter devices were otherwise engaged. Still, the damaged section massed less than a thousand tons; the combat drones could stabilize that much weight while I restrung cables and welded replacement brackets into place.
**Mm.** she disagreed, and then shyly added: **Nyx misses you when you’re not here.**
**Oh, does she?** I couldn’t help but smile. **I miss Nyx, too. I’ll come home soon.**
There were still sixteen cars stranded on the bridge; local heroes with the ability of flight were ferrying civilians to safety one at a time while I ensured that the structure did not collapse. My work would need to be re-evaluated and reinforced before traffic would be able to resume but this would, at least, buy sufficient time that no further lives would be lost.
**I didn’t mean to make you leave,** Whisper said, sadly.
**I know, sweetheart.** I reconfigured my gauntlets’ energy blasters to emit carefully regulated plasma, allowing me to spot weld thick i-beams with my grasp. There was a cacophony of screams and honking horns, but the bridge’s shifting was minor. **It’s not your fault.**
**It kind-of is.**
**It absolutely is not,** I countered. **You were being honest with me. You don’t ever have to apologize for that.**
**It’s not your fault either. You were doing what I asked you to. What I told you was all right!** Whisper insisted.
**Then it’s nobody’s fault.** The bridge still swayed, but there was no danger of further collapse. Ignoring the applause and cheers that I was unworthy of, I lifted further into the night sky. **Sometimes, life is cruel that way.**
**Life isn’t all that bad. Sometimes you get puppies!**
**And sometimes you get the best little sister in the world,** I smiled, rocketing eastward with seven heavy-combat drones trailing behind me. **Who’s going to grow up and be so good that the world won’t need Doctor Fid anymore.**
**Little sisters will always need their big brothers.**
I wasn’t certain that I could be the big brother that Whisper wanted. But I was grateful, nonetheless.
**I’m on my way home,** I told her. **Pick out a book!**
There was still so much to do. Deadlines loomed, and with them the chest-pounding hunger for resolution. Skullface would come! In days, our contest would be over. But an evening spent reading aloud to my android little sister would not be a night mis-spent.
**Mm!** she agreed cheerfully. **Oh, can we read the one about the porpoise named Ech—**
**Echo?** I finished, amused; we’d r
ead that book twice already, but it remained one of her favorites. **Sure, we can read that one. Pull it from the shelf.**
There was no response, and my skull felt emptier than it had since I’d first allowed the adorable little A.I. access to my neural tap.
**Whisper? Sweetheart, are you okay?**
Silence.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I didn't figure it out until later. That the weapons Skullface’s mercenaries had stockpiled had been a misdirection; that the real danger had been their tendency to travel the city in pairs, seemingly without purpose or discernible pattern. I should have seen it! Once I’d started reading through the Ancient’s texts, I should have made the connection. But my focus had been elsewhere, and all of my monitoring had failed to recognize the importance of the small ritual components that the mercenaries had placed around the city.
I’d been watching for hints of a physical attack. Body language, weapon usage, aggressive behavior; any of those would have raised alarms. A tendency to litter hadn’t raised a red flag. Tiny leather bags of unsavory materials hidden within fast-food wrappers or crumpled tin cans had been surreptitiously dropped in precise locations…In flower pots, under mailboxes, hidden in tree stumps.
The significance had eluded me, even after I’d glossed over the Ancient’s diagrams depicting the ornate magical circles that were used for the most powerful of sorceries. I understood the multidimensional math more thoroughly even then had the venerable supervillain, but still I’d failed to observe.
Every sentient being within that circle—within the greater Boston metropolitan area—was simply gone. According to the demands left burning in the night sky, they’d been taken by Skullface and held hostage against my good behavior. The scale of the abduction was astounding.
The ‘spell’ shouldn’t have had any effect on Whisper. Her brain wasn’t kept inside her skull! She was an artificial intelligence operating on a network of supercomputer connected via quantum tunnels. Half the world could have been consumed in thermonuclear fire and there should have been sufficient redundancy for her servers to maintain her identity. Her body (while adorable) was only supposed to be a remotely operated shell for her glorious, extraordinary psyche.
I’d always known that she was more than mere hardware. Whisper may have been born of technology, but she’d evolved into something far more magnificent. Why hadn’t I checked to see how her akashic identity—her animus, her soul—had manifested? Self-identity was certain to have an effect, and she always thought of herself as a little girl first.
Whisper’s core program was still operating on her server farms but had reverted to a pre-infantile state: a mindless and emotionless nucleus of vast potential, with no trace of the child who’d made faces at the fish through aquarium glass, or fell over in giggles the first time her friend Dinah’s puppy licked at her nose. My sister was gone.
An alarm triggered in my skull and an autonomic-function algorithm forced me to start breathing again.
Whisper lay, doll-like and unresponsive, at the foot of a bookshelf so I carried her to her bed and tucked her under her covers and quietly read the first chapter of Echo the Porpoise. Nyx jumped up to curl up at her mistress’ side, whimpering nervously with her tail curled right between her legs. I stroked at the puppy’s back with trembling hands but had no reassurance for the little canine. I was hollow.
I’d been here before—
“Ow.” Bobby looks bewildered, holding his chest. For the first time in my entire life I can’t think. I can’t calculate the angles, can’t figure out what I did wrong. I’m holding my brother, shouting for help and feeling helpless and small. There is so much blood.
—but this was different. Whisper wasn’t dead. She wasn’t! She’d been taken, and I knew who had taken her. I would get her back.
(A small, screaming part of my mind recalled that the city had been empty as I’d rocketed overhead; there’d been no other bodies left behind, but Whisper was unique: a new form of life. Whatever Skullface had done, it had affected the little android differently than everyone else…and all the theory gleaned from the Ancient’s tomes was of no use in understanding the consequences. I ended that thought-process with vicious fervor.)
There was no part of this that wasn’t my fault. If I hadn’t been playing at heroism, Skullface wouldn’t have been so brazen. If I hadn’t spent so much time and effort protecting AH Biotech and my civilian identity, I could have focused on ending the threat earlier. I could have done so much more if only I’d cared more about my little sister and less about keeping my humanity.
That wasn’t a mistake I would make again.
It was Terry Markham who ensured that Nyx had food and water and was settled in Whisper’s room, and it was Terry Markham who kissed his little sister’s hairless brow goodnight. It was Doctor Fid who made his way to the teleportation platform hidden in my home office.
There was murder to be done and little to be gained by wasting time.
◊◊◊
Skullface fancied himself a sorcerer, a mage of such prowess that he deserved to become heir to the Ancient’s legacy. It was true that the skeletal menace had acquired an enviable level of power, but he didn’t have a scientist’s mind. He lacked sufficient imagination. As such, I imagined that he was completely nonplussed when Doctor Fid, encased within the recently upgraded Mk 35 heavy combat armor, burst into his artificially created subdimension. The Mk 38 and Mk 37, operated by automated systems, trailed behind. Reality screamed from the intrusion and the sky wept blood-red ichor that faded into mist before falling to the heat-scarred ground below.
“SKULLFACE!” I boomed, “I am here, and I have the books! Show yourself!”
All three of my armors released their payload of microdrones; the strange physics here neutralized much of my scanning technology but every little bit of information would be of use.
As had been the case in my prior visit to one of Skullface’s subdimensions, the space was vast and sickly. Yellow-brown atmosphere hung like a putrid fog and the dark sky above beat down upon me with pulses of cool malevolence. There were structures in the distance, barely visible through the haze; I accepted a metal-shod crate that the Mk 38 had been carrying and drifted in that direction. The Mk 37 and 38 initiated their cloaking systems and took different paths.
Last time, the area had been uninhabited save by Skullface and myself. This time, however, the world’s pustulant surface seethed with alien life. Twisted creatures swam in glowing red pools and horrors wandered the wastelands. I paid them no mind.
There was only one monster here in dire need of slaying.
I floated on, pausing occasionally to roar my challenge. Here, in this place, I was certain that Skullface could hear my words. His delay in response was a show of power, a demonstration that he did not answer to an interloper! I understood his impulse to wait, to force me to stew in my own rage and helplessness…but it was the wrong choice. My drones were gathering more information with every unhindered second.
I’d yet to find any evidence of human presence. Nearly five million people had disappeared from the Boston area; whatever Skullface had done to them, it was reassuring to know that he hadn’t simply left them to their own devices in this vicious landscape. The death toll would have been horrific.
The worry, of course, was that the skeletal villain’s alternate choice was even worse.
A column of shadow erupted amongst the distant buildings; the air positively thrummed with power, and tendrils of darkness spat through the air like ink-black lightning. The spectacle could only be a summons, and I increased my speed towards the display.
The great ebony pillar of energy had erupted at the center of an immense coliseum carved from a gray stone with the luster of marble. There were things watching from the stands, an eager audience with ill intent. I couldn’t see them and my sensors revealed nothing; there was only movement and twisting mists. I could only feel the hateful audience’s hunger, piercing my armor and stabbing at
my heart.
But I was Doctor Fid and the cocktail of psychoactive drugs coursing through my system was a mix that I hadn’t indulged in for more than twenty years. My heart was stone and I was calm as I settled to the ground, waiting patiently.
The pillar of eldritch forces guttered and died, revealing a fifteen-foot-tall skeletal monster settled upon a menacing throne of iron and rust: Skullface, wrapped in the power of his domain. When last we’d fought, he’d augmented his height to twice that of the mighty Mk 35. The villain had been monstrously strong and durable but the greater bulk had cost him speed, a fact that I’d capitalized upon throughout the battle. This time, he’d chosen to match the Mk 35’s approximate dimensions. He’d upgraded his armor, too, since our last conflict; it was still a grotesque spike-laden gothic horror constructed of an unknown gray metal, but it looked thicker and the runes etched upon its surface blazed like a dying star.
Behind his throne was a giant purple crystal, pulsing like a great heart. In this place, Skullface was an entity of power, but the crystal’s presence dwarfed him. Though it glowed only dimly, it was painful to look upon.
Microdrones immediately began ultrasonic scans.
“Doctor Fid,” Skullface graveled, “You were foolish to come here.”
“Your attack on my home was an invitation. It would have been impolite to stay away.”
“You’ve brought my books?” He gestured at the crate that I’d carried with me.
“I came prepared to bargain. But first, a gift. This was the second time that you waited until I was gone before moving upon my territory.” A trophy was withdrawn from a smaller secondary storage compartment in one of the Mk 35’s thighs—a human spinal column, still covered in gore—and tossed to the ground at his feet; it landed with an unpleasant, wet clatter. “I thought you might be lacking one of these.”