“I will not betray my Lord Sakave,” The ball said firmly.
“I can be very persuasive,” I said.
The ball began pulsing orange. This was new. “My lord will not allow me to be interrogated,” the ball said. “I go to join those who have gone before me.”
“Kinsale, get down!” I hollered, throwing a telekinetic bubble around both of us, while encasing the ball inside its own bubble. Stars erupted in my vision as an explosion shattered my telekinetic shields. I don’t remember falling down, but the next thing I knew, Kinsale was kneeling over me, pulling open one of my eyelids.
“Can ye hear me, Vinnie?” she asked. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Sixteen,” I replied as my vision swam.
“Hold still, sweetheart,” she said, and pressed something to my lips. I drank on instinct. Liquid fire raced down my throat, burning my stomach like acid. I sat up, coughing and retching.
“Good God, what the hell was that?”
“An old family recipe,” Kinsale replied with a wink. “How do you feel?”
“I—huh. I actually feel pretty good.”
She winked at me again. I got to my feet and looked around. My telekinetic bubble had kept the damage to the room to a minimum, and Kinsale’s hexes had protected the casks and bottles. I used my telekinesis to push myself up through the hole in the ceiling, back to my table, where I found Esther’s enchantment was still intact, and had masked the sounds of our encounter with the envikan. The bar’s patrons were completely oblivious to what had just happened. Kinsale drifted up to me, her dress fluttering as she flew.
“Ye’ve left me a mess to clean up, for sure, Vincent Corinthos.”
“Kinsale, I’m sorry—”
“Oh, ye daft man, I’m teasing you. I can fix this in a jiff, for sure. But will there be more of these envikan things?”
I stretched out with extradimensional energy feeling at the spot where the envikan had come through. There was a faint residue of a portal of sorts, but it felt… stale. Like the creature had just barely managed to push its way through. I looked back to the clurichaun. “I don’t think there will be any more, Kinsale,” I said. “But if any do show up, send a runner to Cather’s place. The kobolds there know how to contact me in case of an emergency.”
“Or we could just call yer cell phone,” Kinsale replied.
I blinked. “Yeah, that works, too.”
Kinsale winked at me and then waggled her fingers again. The floorboards began creaking, and new wood materialized from thin air, repairing the damage. I stepped out of the privacy enchantment and headed up to the bar.
“Any joy, Vinnie?” Esther asked.
“Some,” I said. “Though at the moment, I seem to have more questions than when I came in.” I rubbed my forehead. I really wished I could talk to Commander Courageous. I had so many questions not just about Sakave, but about these new abilities that the tachyon granted me, too.
“Can I get you anything, laddie?”
“I need the strongest Pepsi you’ve got,” I said.
She smiled and another bottle materialized in front of me. “Thanks,” I said after I took a sip. The soda washed away the aftertaste of Kinsale’s foul brew. That stuff had tasted nearly as bad as the kobolds’ Astral.
Astral.
Holy crap.
Esther smiled at me. “You have the look of a man who’s just had an epiphany, Vinnie me boyo.”
I nodded and tossed a five on the bar. “Keep the change, Esther. I’ve gotta go.”
She didn’t even have time to protest the money before I portaled right from the bar into my bedroom. I went to the dresser, pulled out the other vial of Astral, popped off its cap and downed it. The taste was just as god-awful as I remembered, but the flavor quickly faded as I collapsed onto my bed before being astrally projected from my body.
I shot straight up, phasing through the ceiling of my apartment and a few others. I did my best not to peek at anything the neighbors were doing, people are entitled to their privacy, after all. Once I’d phased through the roof and was hovering in the night sky, I used my Glimpse to guide me back along the path I’d taken the other night with Commander Courageous. I sailed through the air and felt the shuddering sensation as I crossed that dimensional barrier.
I hovered over the jungle landscape, looking out at Courage Point. I was taking a pretty big chance here, but Commander Courageous was me. If I was planning on getting into a fight with the Tempus, I’d probably assume that there was a chance I wasn’t going to come back. Which meant I’d take precautions for that. Precautions that might include leaving instructions with an AI. I glided toward the balcony and stood before the giant door. I tried to Open it again, but it didn’t budge. How did that work? I’d need to think on it later.
“Apertus energy detected,” came Alexis’s voice from a hidden speaker. “Identity scan initiated.”
A beam of blue light flashed from the door and went up and down my body a couple of times. “Vincent Corinthos, identity confirmed. Access granted.” The door slid open and I hustled in and stood before the massive computer.
“Alexis,” I said. “I need information.”
“My facilities have been placed at your disposal, Vincent Corinthos.”
Okay, first things first. “How much time do I have before the Astral runs out?”
“Fifteen minutes, eleven seconds. Shall I put a timer onscreen for you?”
“Yes.” The timer appeared in the lower left corner of the screen. “Next, I need any information Commander Courageous had regarding the tachyon field that surrounds me.” A document appeared onscreen, hundreds of pages long. I tapped the down arrow on the keyboard, not reading anything, just seeing it. I could go back and Glimpse it later.
“Did Courageous have any information on a being called Sakave?”
“I did extensive information gathering on Sakave for the Commander,” Alexis replied.
“Great. I know Sakave’s mother and aunt were killed in front of him. What else can you tell me?”
“That event was formative for Sakave. He dedicated his life to ridding his home world of crime. He began as a vigilante, striking out against criminals and protecting the weak. Over time, the people of his city came to view him as a hero, one who could take on the corruption and not be corrupted himself. He was the first non-politician to ever become the mayor of his home city, and his methods were so effective that other cities sought out his advice.”
“How’d he manage that?” I asked.
“Sakave executed all criminals immediately. The people quickly learned that the only way to survive was to not break the law. Under Sakave, the people prospered. Crime dropped by nearly 100%, and the crime that remained was dealt with brutally and efficiently.
“Over time, Sakave’s success led him to becoming the ruler of his nation, and ultimately, his planet.”
Alexis displayed a video, what looked like Sakave giving a speech. “Our world will be a world free of crime,” Sakave said. “It will be a world of simple, yet effective laws. A world of order and efficiency.” Sakave spread his hands, his tone confident, warm, as if he were explaining a basic concept to a group of novices. Not in a condescending way, but in the way a good teacher would reassure a classroom of nervous students. “Obeying the law is not hard. And those who obey my laws will live successful, prosperous lives. Those who break the law will be dealt with quickly and publicly, to serve as an example to those who would engage in crime. This will be a world where no man, woman, or child ever need live in fear.”
The video cut out. I rubbed my chin and glanced at the timer. Ten minutes and change left. I stared at the image of Sakave onscreen. If I was being honest with myself, what he was saying didn’t sound bad. Heck, I’d made a similar speech to the Urisk at one po
int. I hadn’t said the part about dealing with lawbreakers quickly and publicly, but I agreed that adhering to laws, so long as they were clear and fair, was the right way to go. Executing all criminals, though, not giving people a chance to change their ways, that seemed a bit extreme.
“Alexis, how did Sakave go from ruler of a planet to an interdimensional warlord?”
“An alien people made contact with Sakave’s world a year after he came to power. Sakave welcomed them, with the understanding that while they were on his world, they fell under his laws. The aliens, the Shinvolans, had no issue with this. However, a delegation of traders sent from Sakave’s world to the Shinvolans’ was brutally assaulted by Shinvolan extremists who did not believe their people should be out exploring the stars when there were so many problems on their own world.
“Sakave, angry at the loss of his people’s lives, raised an army and invaded the Shinvolan home world. The Shinvolans were unprepared and unable to organize against Sakave’s forces. It only took him eighteen months to take the entire planet and subject them to his own laws. The Shinvolan home world had other races living on it as well, from other worlds.”
“So let me guess. He followed those races back to their worlds and imposed his own laws there, too. And then he repeated the process for any other worlds he encountered.”
“Exactly,” Alexis replied. “He has been moving through the universe, systematically conquering planets and forcing them under his rule.”
“And now he’s got Earth in his sights,” I said. “Because we’re lawless?”
“Yes,” Alexis said. “There is no crime on any of the worlds Sakave has conquered, and he feels Earth would do well under his law.”
“And I’m guessing he’d use the same methods here? Execute all lawbreakers, make everything a capital offense, from murder to jaywalking?”
“I estimate that outcome at 99.999999998% probability.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s a bit extreme.” I glanced at the timer. Five minutes. “All right, Alexis, what can this guy do, power-wise?”
“Sakave has undergone numerous surgical procedures to make his body more resilient. Synthetic nanotechnological skin has been grafted to his body, effectively making him bulletproof. A unique breed of nanobots circulate through his blood, repairing damage to his tissues almost as quickly as it happens. This results in his lifespan being extended as well.”
“Anything else?” I asked. “Does he breathe fire, shoot lasers from his eyes, charge playing cards with kinetic energy, anything like that?”
“No,” Alexis replied. “He is a charismatic speaker and has the full loyalty of his home world. The weapons they produce are effective at wiping out adversaries and cowing any survivors.”
So I wasn’t dealing with an evil that was on par with a deity, I was essentially up against a nigh-invulnerable politician with an army of lizard men and crystal soldiers. “He’s trying to break through into the realm of Earth,” I said. “I just encountered him a little while ago.”
“The wards against his presence that the Caulborn created still hold.”
“One of his envikan was able to break through,” I said. “It happened just a few minutes ago.”
“The wards prevent Sakave from personally entering, and from large numbers of his forces from gaining entry. However, statistical analysis indicates that it would be possible to slip one or two soldiers through at various points across the globe. What you saw was likely a probing tactic to see what manner of resistance they would meet. I have detected several extradimensional anomalies in the last eighteen hours that would coincide with such a strategy.” A map of the world appeared on the screen, pulsing red dots scattered all over the planet.
“What sort of resistance have they encountered?” I asked.
“A few of them were destroyed moments later, depending on what environment they entered. Most only remained on the planet for a few minutes. I believe they were gathering intelligence to report back to Sakave.”
“Okay, what sort of weaknesses does this guy have?”
“My analysis has not yielded any weaknesses.” Alexis replied.
I rubbed my face. “Everyone has a weakness, Alexis. You said he was long-lived. Is he immortal?”
“Negative.”
“How many years does he have left, then?”
“I do not have precise data for this request.”
I’d read this line dozens of times in the comics. Alexis never gave Courageous an imprecise answer unless he asked for it. So I replied with the line Courageous always used. “Best guess, Alexis.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “Using extrapolated data, I estimate Sakave’s life expectancy to be 1.3 million Earth years.”
I put my head in my hands. There had to be a way to stop this guy.
“Astral duration, two minutes. Final message from Commander Courageous will take one minute fifty-five seconds to play. Would you like me to play it now?”
“Final message? Hell yes, play it now.” I didn’t ask the obvious question, why didn’t you tell me about this sooner? The writers back in the Silver Age did that hundreds of times, and the answer Alexis gave was always the same: “You didn’t ask.” I decided not to be part of that overdone punch line and watched as a holographic projection of Courageous appeared in front of me.
“If you’re watching this, then things went about as well as I figured they would.” He shook his head. “I know you’ve got a ton of questions, but I think you know I can’t answer most of them. I know what I did is going to fracture time and reality, possibly pretty badly, but I know you can find a way to save the Urisk and keep reality from unraveling, if you just have enough time to think it through.”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “If you haven’t asked for it already, here’re all my notes on the tachyon field that’s surrounding you. It’s worth reading.” The document appeared onscreen again. Courageous’s shoulders slumped. “If I’m right, the Tempus probably pulled some time trick to take me out. Don’t be angry with him, Vincent. What I did was very dangerous. But it wasn’t reckless. This was a very calculated risk. You’re going to realize that I could have stopped the Tempus from killing me, but the long and short of it is that if I had resisted, if I had teleported away or used tachyon to prevent him from doing whatever he did, things would be much worse.
“See, once you saved the Urisk from Treggen, time’s path shifted. That means the events that led to me becoming the person I am didn’t happen. Wheatson would probably give me some overcomplicated label like ‘orphaned temporal revenant’ or something equally ridiculous. Understand, though, that a person who can’t exist according to the time stream is toxic to the time stream. By living on, I would undoubtedly continue to fracture time and reality, just by being here. The Tempus killing me was a necessary step in my plan.
“And if you’re wondering why I wasn’t toxic to the time stream in the first place, well, you need to understand something about our nature. Time and reality can adapt to minor changes pretty easily; if you were supposed to do something, and you wound up doing it a bit sooner than you should have, time can handle that. But this, well, this was on a whole different scale.”
He spread his hands. “So now, you’re on your own. Once the Astral wears off and you leave, I’ve left instructions for Alexis to self-destruct. This place is a temporal revenant itself, and if someone else were to find it, well, that’d be bad.”
He removed the mask that blanked out his eyes and looked at me. I was staring at my own face, maybe fifteen years from now. The mask had hidden the lines around his eyes and the hollows beneath them. He looked exhausted, worn out. His voice changed, all superhero-ness fading from it. “One other thing. Always remember to tell Petra that you love her. Every chance you get. Don’t forget that, okay?” His eyes were misty as he replaced the mask.
Then he slipped into his trademark grin. “And Vincent,” he said, his voice returning to normal as he put his fists on his hips, assuming his “I’m a hero, dammit” pose one last time. “Never let fear get the better of you.”
He vanished then, having spoken the tagline that ended numerous comic books and cartoons.
“Astral duration five seconds,” Alexis said.
“So long, Commander. So long, Alexis,” I said.
As the Astral wore off and I was tugged back toward my body, I heard the sounds of explosions as Courage Point went up in flames.
Chapter 9
Croatoan’s metal shell should be able to sustain my essence, if only I could displace his own. This will require me to physically touch the shell, then initiate a soul transference. The equipment Laras gave me is long gone, but this transference is much simpler. Given that the shell is not Croatoan’s natural body, ejecting his spirit should only take a few moments. No idea what will happen to Croatoan once he’s been ousted, but I doubt he’ll want to get back into the ball. It may be worth attempting communication with him and proposing a deal. Either way, it will be good to be out of that Caulborn’s body.
—From Treggen’s personal journal
I groaned as I rolled off of my bed and fell to the floor. Returning from astral trips definitely left a lot to be desired. I hauled myself into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face. I looked in the mirror and was relieved to see that no new gray hair had appeared. I let out a breath and gave myself a nod. Time to get back to work. I had some ideas on how I could use tachyon to fix the situation with Sakave. I portaled to the alley behind HQ. Maybe I could—
My high-tops squished on the boggy earth. My head snapped up. There’s some nasty stuff on the streets of Boston, but the sidewalks never squish. The city was gone, and I was in another extradimensional bubble. Its mist hung in the air for a minute before dropping to the ground. This time, there was only a tiny bit of Boston sidewalk beneath my feet. The rest of the place was swamp. Hazy blue energy shimmered behind me, but I couldn’t see the other side of the bubble; dead trees and marshland stretched out before me.
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