by John Jr. Yeo
Sens’r looked at the fake hand. His eyes widened. I had scared him at last. Every single pain I was feeling was worth this moment.
“Lower the shield!” he screamed. “Evacuate! Evacuate!”
But there was no one in the room to obey his orders, I had scared them all away with my fire. As for Sens’r, I was using the last bit of my strength to hold him in place.
You know, I told you at the beginning of my tale, that this was the story of the world’s greatest heroine, and how her death would go on to change the entire world. Well, not to kiss my own ass, but God damn it, I am the world’s greatest heroine. I never wanted that honor, but I for damn sure know I’ve earned it.
The bubble of lithium tachyons, pulsating with all the power that makes the array do what it does, had rolled out of the hollow cavity of my fake hand. Nearly two hours ago, right after I left the Dome, I removed it from the safety of the array, and stored it into my prosthesis. Exposed to oxygen and free from the array, it had been slowly building to its critical mass the entire time I had flown to meet Sens’r.
I was terrified that the clones would have taken the array away before they scanned it. It’s why I threatened to burn it until they gave me proof that my son was still alive. It’s why I held the array with both hands. As I had hoped, they scanned the empty array as well as my prosthesis with the chronal bubble, and they were completely fooled by the result. They let me take it aboard the ship. They didn’t know the lithium tachyons had been removed until they tried to use it to power the cloning chambers.
The entire room was filled with a blinding white energy that very nearly blinded me. I saw Dr. Progeriat, laughing and hooting wildly, even as his body aged quickly. I saw his body reduced to a skeleton, before finally blowing apart like dust, and then the man that had been the world’s greatest hero finally departed us.
Sens’r finally broke free of my grip and stumbled backwards, his hand crushing a metallic table that had now become ancient, rusty and as thin as tinfoil. His skin, once a rich blue shade, was becoming pale and weak.
I could feel my own body aging as the ravages of time began to consume me, and Sens’r, and everyone else within the ship. Emmeline Watts was going, going, going as the cruelty of the years transformed me from the woman I was into a shade of lost laughter and tears and memories.
But in the end, at the very least, I saw that smug smile finally get erased off of the alien’s face. I did what Dr. Progeriat failed to do so many years ago. I brought down final punishment to the men that betrayed their own race to this cruel dictator. I saved my child, and thereby gave him a chance to grow up in a safer world.
So there’s no question about it. I would do it all again, without hesitation. My life to save the world? Wouldn’t you, if you had to?
I hope I did the right thing. I hope the world is saved, and my family is safe. I hope my son gets to grow up, fall in love, and have children of his own. And I hope my father is proud of me.
A little plaque of my own in the park though, all in all, wouldn’t be a bad thing either. Hopefully, that’s not asking too much.
Good night, everyone. Good night. And, you’re welcome…
29
The New Director
Tuesday, July 9 – 9:45 a.m.
I’m not really good at telling stories, but I’ll give it my best shot. My name is Cassiopeia Atwood. My mother was the original Submission, and although a number of replacements tried to take her place on the team since an alien killed her years ago, it ultimately fell to me to be her final replacement.
For the last few years, I’ve been trying to live up to her name as one of the world’s greatest heroines. She died trying to save the world from an alien madman, even though she was never given a proper tribute until just a few weeks ago.
Despite what Dr. Progeriat had feared, the world really did go on just fine without Ambassador, Andromeda, DeathTek, Necromancer and myself to guard their nights.
There was a period of mourning, of course. Tributes continue to pop up all over the world. It’s extremely disconcerting to see memorial websites and tributes with my name, while knowing that I’m actually the only survivor of the team. They’re for my mom, I tell myself. For my mom, and the other women who took on the identity of Submission.
But I’m not bitter. The time had definitely come to put some distance between my old identity as Submission, and to adopt a new one. Part of me wonders if I should be getting out of this game now. But I’m only twenty-three years old. Truthfully, I think I’m just getting started.
The military has been all over what remained of the alien starship. Just as Emily planned, the lithium tachyons detonated right on schedule. Fortunately for the heroes running interference on the outside, the powerful force shield that Sens’r kept bragging about actually contained the full force of the explosion. The effects of the bomb were contained inside the shield, and then the whole thing crashed to Earth. After the bomb detonated and the shield deteriorated, there wasn’t much left but scrap and dust. The scientists figured that the blast aged everything over five centuries.
The starship had been the most impressive piece of alien technology on Earth, and the bomb reduced it to a massive hunk of corroded metal. Every living body inside the ship, including my friend, had been reduced to dust. Even their clothing had been reduced to scrap. The bands that had been sewn to her arms were nothing but warped leather and frayed straps, probably incapable of ever bestowing those powers to anyone else.
By now, a month later, the Dome had been completely demilitarized. It was actually converted into a new lab not unlike the CERN lab in Switzerland, where the excess power that once fueled the Chronal Dampening Array would now be used to provide clean power to the surrounding communities. The best use of the place, in my opinion.
So here I am, standing in the lobby of the Philadelphia branch of the Department of Superhuman Activities, waiting for the newly appointed director to arrive. My past as the super-hero Submission is a highly classified government secret. It seems that the higher ups are content in letting the Infinite League finally die, but they don’t want to admit about the cover up over the real League’s death seven years ago. I suppose I can live with that compromise.
But it means that I have to register all over again, with an entirely new identity. It’s just a formality, the DSA knows who I really am. But I wish the new director would get here soon. The appointment was for 9:00, and it’s almost ten. I already don’t like this new guy, whoever he is. I hate waiting.
I was just about to walk out the door and find a bar to grab a drink, when the entrance finally opened and two men walked in, greeting me with a wave. Major John Baltrin, and his trusted ally Captain Eric Quincy. It was wonderful to see some friends, given that nearly every other friend I had in the world was dead.
I bounced over to them, hugging them both tightly. “I wasn’t expecting you guys! Congratulations, Eric!”
“Sorry?” He seemed a little confused, but he returned my hug with a warm embrace and a kiss on the cheek. “For what?”
“Come on, why else would you be here? You got promoted to direct this new branch, right?”
“Oh, God, no,” he laughed. “I’m working on the development team for a new tactical assault project in Houston. I just came out here to wish the new director good luck.”
I looked at Baltrin, and my heart just broke. After everything he’d been through, after everything he’d done to prevent Dr. Progeriat’s insane plan from actually working, I can’t believe he’d been tossed down to the relatively lesser position of pushing papers and registering enhanced people. “They demoted you?”
“This isn’t my office either,” Baltrin explained with a humble smile. “I got a promotion, too.”
He tapped the silver oak leaf resting on his collar, and I realized that he was now wearing the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
“Oh my, that is pretty,” I remarked.
“I was instrumental in helping to prevent an
alien menace from raising an army of superhuman clones, and forcing the world’s superhuman population into a slave army. If that doesn’t earn you a promotion, nothing will.”
“You wouldn’t have done it without Emily’s sacrifice,” I reminded him. “I hope you know that.”
“I know that she specifically disobeyed my orders,” he replied gruffly. “I also know that you helped her get the array out of the Dome. And I know that the world is in your debt.”
“Does that mean I get a promotion, too?” I laughed.
“I’ll make sure you get a raise,” he promised me. “They gave me Colonel Bridge’s assignment.”
“You’re looking at the new Director of the Department of Superhuman Activities,” Eric smiled proudly. “Lt. Colonel Baltrin here will be overseeing all activities from now on.”
“And we won’t be doing any of the nonsense that Progeriat got away with for so long,” Baltrin promised. “No more lying to the public. The League should have been officially retired years ago when your mother and the original team died.”
“Well, Sens’r went on television and took credit for killing the team,” I pointed out. “And he was really the one responsible for killing them back then. In a roundabout sort of way, we didn’t lie to anyone.”
“Are you sure you want to keep being a super hero?” asked Eric. “Are you sure you don’t want to pursue a career in politics?”
“And give up beating the hell out of bad guys? Not a chance. So if neither of you are moving into the offices, where’s this new director? He was supposed to be here at 9:00.”
“She is walking in right now,” Baltrin corrected me, pointing at the entrance.
As if on cue, the door opened, and someone just a shade over four feet tall charged in at high speed. Whoever this woman was, she was incredibly short.
But after finally getting a good look, I realized that it wasn’t a woman at all. It was a child, a young boy. And when he locked eyes with me, he was beaming.
“Cass!”
I didn’t have any real family, and I never hung around with children. In fact, the last kid I spent any amount of time with recently was…
“Caleb?”
It was Emily’s son, and he jumped into my arms to give me a warm hug. I spent a day with him and his aunt following the rescue operation, but I never expected to see him again.
Strolling behind him, wearing a set of beautiful clothes that I had picked out a few months ago, was a woman I definitely never thought I’d see again. I lived in a world where people flew, could summon electricity from their hands, lift trains over their heads, and all other manner of amazing feats. But this was something I never expected to see.
“Hey, girlfriend,” she said with a very warm, happy and familiar voice. “Pick your jaw up off the floor, you’re supposed to be used to stuff like this.”
“What the shit?”
30
Final Sentiments
Tuesday, July 9th – 10:00 a.m.
Okay, yeah, I’m sorry if I just screwed with your heads a little there. Chalk it up to my need for keeping a little dramatic suspense going here, but you probably knew I was going to be fine.
Yes, I’m fine. I know it seems unbelievable, but I’m fine. Better than fine, in fact. And even more importantly, I got the love and respect of my son back.
I’ll bet your wondering how the hell I’m standing here. You’re probably scratching your head like Cass is, which I’m frankly just enjoying the hell out of. Or maybe you’re a smart ass who’s already figured it all out, if you were paying attention to the clues that were left along the way.
Major….excuse me, Lieutenant Colonel Baltrin was smiling. He was far more pleased with the moment than he should have been. So was Eric. Even Caleb was getting a juvenile thrill out of the moment.
“Mom, I think you just broke her brain,” he cracked.
“Yeah, it’ll kick back in after a few moments,” I replied.
Wordlessly, Cass stood there and stared at me for a few more moments. I did a little twirl for her to prove that I was real.
“So, are you a ghost?” she finally asked.
“Of course not,” I replied a little hesitantly. “I mean, maybe a little. Not quite, though. I suppose I might as well be.”
“Okay, that made zero sense.”
“Hey, Caleb,” Eric interrupted, tapping my son on his shoulder. “Do you want to see an actual proton assault rifle being tested?”
“Umm, yeah!”
“Do not let my son hold that, Eric,” I warned him a tight smile. “I will make your life a living hell, do you hear me?”
With a warm grin, he gave me a mock salute before ushering my son down the hall towards the armory.
Baltrin took another look at Cass’s confused expression, before walking past us both. He put his hand on my shoulder, and squeezed it in a fatherly way. “We’ll start the morning briefing in fifteen minutes,” he reminded me. “I need to catch a flight back to Washington at noon.”
“Be right there, boss,” I promised him, not taking my eyes off of my friends’ tearing eyes. Baltrin vanished around the corner, leaving the two of us alone in my modest, yet wonderful new office.
She looked at my hands. The mystical gauntlets of Huitzilopochtli were no longer laced into my skin, and there were no trace of injuries or scars. Both hands were present, as if the brutal trauma I had endured had never happened.
“Are you a shape changer I wasn’t aware of?” she asked.
“Not even close.”
“Did our speedster save you?”
“The shield was up,” I reminded her, shooting down that theory as well. “The shield didn’t go down until the time widget detonated.”
“Cosmic manipulation? Sorcery? Oh, I know…we have a time traveler, don’t we?”
“Oh my God,” I exploded with a laugh. “I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out yet!”
“Are you going to make me wait for the book or are you going to tell me?”
I turned around and lifted up my hair, revealing the back of my neck. There was a familiar surgical scar visible there. It was the only actual scar or blemish I had on my entire body, in fact. Underneath the scar, clearly visible, was a small oval shaped mass just beneath the skin.
“But…Baltrin removed the chip,” she whispered.
“And then he put it back in. I mean, there’s no explosive device in it now, and there’s none of those pesky behavioral deterrents that’ll hurt me if I don’t do what I’m supposed to,” I explained. “But it does everything else it was designed to do. A lifetime of memories recorded and saved, just waiting to be downloaded into a new body.”
The light bulb slowly began to turn on in her head, and she finally jumped to the only possible explanation that remained. “The Genome Lab?”
“Keep going, girl.”
“The array that Necromancer and I drained? It had enough juice to rapidly age one more clone before it finally died out. But we would need some of your DNA.”
I wiggled my fingers, helping her to work out the rest. “After Arctic Annie cut my hand off, they cleaned up the damage at the Dome. A few chunks of my skin and bones were removed so they could close some of the flaps of skin around the removed area. They had plenty of DNA lying around.”
“And the chip in your neck,” she continued. “When it was in your body, it downloaded all of your life’s experiences into its memory banks.”
“Now you’re getting it,” I smiled. “Every time an Ambassador died, they would download his chipped memories into a new model. These chips were developed on a planet where the birth rate had dropped down so low that cloning was the only way to maintain the species. It helped them to nearly achieve immortality, transferring their memories from one body to another.”
“It had never been done to a human before,” she gasped.
“Until now. And unlike our dear old Dr. Progeriat, my genetic sample was relatively young and healthy. This body won’t wear out
after some strenuous cardio, and I’ll age normally from now on.”
“Baltrin brought you back to life with the last chronal boost left in the array,” she said, still shaking her head in disbelief.
“Damn right he did, I saved the world. Of course, I have to stay away from electro-magnetic pulses. If the chip in my neck shorts out, I’ll be a brain dead vegetable.”
“He cloned you,” she said in amazement. “He brought you back.”
“Yes. He brought me back,” I nodded. “All the memories downloaded on that chip before he pulled it out of my body….they were transferred to this new body.”
And then the awkward hugging resumed, but I allowed her to get it out of her system. She’d been through as much as I had, and she needed it. We might not have started off on the best of terms, but I’d kind of grown fond of the girl.
“So what happened on the ship?” she asked, wiping her eyes while still trying to wrap her ahead around my miraculous recovery. “I wish I could have seen the look on that bastard’s face when he knew he was going to die.”
“Me too,” I admitted with a shrug. “I don’t remember anything about it.”
“Nothing?”
“The last thing I remember was going into Baltrin’s mobile truck with Chidike, after we found out that Progeriat was the traitor in the organization all along. My memories stop at the point where Baltrin removed the chip from my neck, remember?”
“So you don’t remember anything between the time we rescued you from the Dome and…”
“…and the moment I died saving the world, right,” I replied. “All that shit that happened between then and now? The fight in Switzerland? Facing off with the alien in West Virginia? All that good stuff, I had to get briefed on over the last few weeks as I was getting reacquainted with my life and my family.”
“Holy shit. But you remember using the gauntlets? Joining the team? You remember me?”
“My whole life got downloaded into the memory chip, but only up to the point where it was removed. Think of a computer with a toasted hard drive, but functioning purely off an external drive, and you’ll understand how my brain is working now.”