by Adam Oster
“You wouldn't know how to use it if you tried.” Jeff, now looking like something between a wolf and a man crossed with a bear, stood face to face with his father. Arthur laughed at the monster that stood before him. “Having power does not mean to use force at every opportunity. One must delicately tread the road of diplomacy and terror. You, the one who would pretend to be my son, only know terror. And even that you do horribly.”
Jeff howled in anger as he swung at his father, sending the old man across the room. “You damned fool!”
Arthur stood slowly, still laughing.
“How dare you laugh at me?”
“Now?” Alexa asked, looking at Buddy in concern.
“Not yet.”
Arthur continued laughing as Jeff approached him once again. His form morphed back into his normal shape, his face red with rage. He spit as he yelled, “You think this is funny old man? You think I won't hurt you? I'll tear you apart!”
“Jeffrey,” Arthur continued his crazed laughter, “you couldn't hurt me if you tried. I, on the other hand, as always, hold all the cards.”
Jeff lunged at his father, who disappeared at that precise moment, causing Jeff to fall to the ground. Just as he hit the cement, four rods appeared from the ceiling and pierced through him to the ground. As soon as they made contact, Jeff's body began convulsing, his shape shifting to something new with each shudder.
Oscar stood from where he had fallen earlier and looked at the man now screaming in pain. “We have to do something,” he yelled as he ran to the door. “D.A.W.N.!”
Buddy, Ryan, Alexa, and Talmadge followed quickly behind.
“Donna worry. I’ll soon free your friend here,” Salachar said as they disappeared inside the complex.
Oscar was already on the other side of the foyer when the rest of the crew entered. “Oscar!” Buddy's voice echoed off the walls as he ran after his friend.
Oscar turned as he pressed the button to the elevator. “This ends now, Buddy,” he said as his helmet's mask slid down over his face.
Alexa appeared at Oscar's side. “Dad,” she said softly. “What are you doing? You're in no shape to be fighting against Artie. Especially not with him as crazy as he is right now.”
“I started all this, Lexi. I have to finish it.”
“Not alone you don't,” Ryan said as the rest of them made it to his side. “You're a Defender, Dad. Defenders fight as a team.”
“You don't understand, son. I had the chance to stop him. Stop him before he had the chance to do any of this.”
“What do you mean?” Alexa asked, her eyes hazy with tears.
“Where the hell's this damned elevator,” Oscar yelled, attempting to change the subject. He pounded on the button rapidly.
Buddy grabbed Oscar's hand and turned his old friend to face him. “What are you talking about, Oscar? What could you have stopped?”
“Everything,” Oscar said, his head drooped. “The meta-human army, the mafia thing. The,” he paused, “the Great Redaction... Dominion.”
“I'm sorry, guys,” Talmadge joined in, “but I really have no clue what you're talking about.”
“What are you talking about, Dad?” Alexa burst out. “You could have stopped The Mind Wipe? How?”
“How?” Oscar laughed. “How? Because I knew what was happening. I saw this darkness growing within Arthur. This anger. He became so discouraged by everything, by how much work we did as these protectors of the city, and how little we actually got in return for it. We fought many times about how to use the little bit of money we did get from the city. He saw it as something we were owed, and he saw it as being nowhere near enough. It was him who convinced me to make The Bunker so damned extravagant. At first, I thought we shouldn't have even accepted the money, but he convinced me, just like he convinces everyone. And then suddenly we were building this giant monstrosity. But at least it served a purpose. Then he started getting weird.”
“In a world of super-heroes, aliens, and monsters, I have a hard time envisioning what you would consider weird,” Buddy laughed.
“This isn't funny, Buddy,” Oscar reprimanded.
“Sorry, go on.”
“Arthur wanted more. He saw how much power we had, how much the city relied on us. He talked about how we should charge for our services; how we should ensure that we continue to get an income. I understood where he was coming from and, although I wasn't really completely behind the idea, he talked me into it. But as soon as I started backing him, he would take it one step further. He always takes it one step further. He took it upon himself to start creating problems that only we could solve. That's when I should have stepped in and done something, but it seemed so harmless at first. He'd get little kids who had special powers to accidentally flare up in situations that could be incredibly dangerous, like kids with fire abilities sparking up on a hayride.
“There was never any chance of anyone getting hurt, I made sure of that. And invariably we would get some sort of reward from the city for swooping in and saving the day. But it was never enough. We had successfully managed to clear the city of all major crime and, well, we were little more than watchdogs, waiting for something to happen that never would.
“I started seeing my research money dry up and decided to dedicate my efforts to other things. But I never told anyone that Arthur had been responsible for all of this, never tried to stop him from continuing, either. It must have been then that he got his great idea.”
“You don't mean?” Buddy asked, remembering the memories he had taken from Damon.
“Yes, I do. You see, we were only receiving funds from Sun City back then. Arthur had bigger plans. Global plans.”
“Dad,” Alexa said slowly, “you didn't...”
“Look, we were young, we needed money. It's not like these gadgets I was inventing were cheap to produce, not to mention how expensive it was to develop D.A.W.N. and everything else I put into The Bunker. And it seemed like we were constantly embroiled in legal matters. Oh, and do you have any clue how much bad press we got whenever we got involved in foreign affairs? The world was in bad shape and we were helpless to do anything against it.
“In fact, every time we did go overseas to deal with terrorists or dictators or whatever, we ran the risk of creating an even larger global catastrophe as everyone was ready to leap down each other’s throats. And, of course, we couldn’t even consider actually picking a side in any actual official war. In the face of these much larger threats than just carjackers and muggers, we were finding ourselves becoming irrelevant and Arthur got scared.
“So he developed a plan to create a menace that only we could resolve. That's when he gained access to the documents on people who seemed to have inert meta-human abilities, people who were probably completely unaware of their powers altogether. That's when he found a man who could be manipulated in just the right ways to become a severe threat. A threat that only we could remove.”
“Dominion,” Ryan concluded.
“Yep,” Oscar replied. “I didn't know it at the time and if I did, I would have stopped things right then and there. I would have let everyone know what Arthur was up to before he even talked to Damon the first time. I didn't find out until it was way too late, until after we had shipped Dominion and Zero off to the middle of the galaxy. And when I did, I immediately went to let everyone know. Little did I know that Arthur had already accounted for this possibility, always having a Plan B.
“He had already planted the seed for The Great Redaction. As soon as he knew I was going to out him, he put that plan into action. I barely had time to get my family safe. And then that was it. Arthur took over his part of the world, found himself a perfect little situation here in Sun City, and I couldn't do anything about it, without risking being tossed into the MHDT's detention cells for the rest of my life. I could have stopped everything; instead I've had to sit helplessly watching for years as this man has ruined everything he touches, everything that I--that we, worked so hard to build up
.”
“But Oscar,” Buddy consoled, “there was no way you could have known what Arthur was really up to. Plus, even if you had done something, that crafty bastard would have just found some other way around it, wouldn't he?”
“That's what I'm afraid of, Buddy,” Oscar continued. “Don't you think it's odd that Arthur called for you the second he thinks Damon is back? He created Dominion, surely he could have gotten rid of him, right? Arthur could never have been content to just sit and run a local police force, that’s nothing like the Arthur I know, the Arthur who created Dominion. I think his Plan B is still in action, not yet complete. The only question I still have is, what is his end game? And why the hell does his son seem so hell-bent on killing him?
“I had allowed myself to feel confident that I had stopped this huge threat by forcing Arthur’s hand with The Great Redaction, but maybe all I really did was give him the time he needed to build up his forces once again, to enact his final measure. I mean, he did have my very own daughter working as his second-in-command, right?”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Alexa asked indignantly.
“I'm sorry, honey, but I find it very hard to believe that Arthur wasn't just using you to feed me misinformation, to make me think that everything he was up to down there was relatively harmless, considering the alternative option.”
“But I hadn't even talked to you for ages, how could you--” Alexa cut herself off as she realized what had been happening. “Ryan! You've been helping Dad keep tabs on me?”
“Of course I have, sis. He was worried about you. Well, at least that's what I thought at the time.”
“I was worried about you, sweetheart. But even more than that, I was worried about Arthur, and what he might have been up to down here. How could I have been so stupid?”
“But that still doesn't really answer the question of what's going on here, does it?” Talmadge asked. “Arthur doesn’t look sane enough right now to be in control of anything. Dominion is out in space, right? Arthur Flores seems more like Howard Hughes right now than Adolf Hitler.”
“Maybe,” Oscar replied slowly, “but don’t you find it odd that he was prepared for our arrival?”
“We can talk about this all day,” Buddy jumped in, “or we can just go find Arthur and figure it out for ourselves.”
“That's precisely what I intended to do before you all stopped me,” Oscar replied.
“Hey, we didn't stop you,” Ryan joined, “we just wanted to come along.”
The group looked at the elevator questioningly, realizing that it still had not opened.
“D.A.W.N.!” Alexa yelled.
Ryan and Oscar ran to the desk in the middle of the foyer and looked at the screens situated behind it. The rest of the group followed shortly behind. The screens burst to life just as they all arrived.
“So you're finally ready to know the truth,” Arthur laughed as his face appeared on each of the seven screens. “Finally ready to know what it's all about, what this has all been for?”
“D.A.W.N.!” Oscar yelled again, “open up the damned elevator!”
“Oh, she won't hear you,” Arthur laughed again. “She’s gone,” he said as the lights went out, “and I’m in charge now.”
The screens were the only light left in the room, showing the crazed visage of Arthur Flores as he typed away maniacally on a keyboard in front of him.
“Arthur...” Oscar said slowly, “what are you doing?”
“You know, Oscar, you really did develop some amazing technology in here. The things I can do with the push of a button from this very console, well, it's just plain fantastic. Did you know that we have found a way to use your teleportation technology to be able to transport anything to any location? Like,” he grinned as he looked at the camera, “perhaps bringing an old friend home in the blink of an eye?”
The room glowed blue for just a moment, and then filled with glaring light, followed shortly thereafter with a brilliant heat which burned like the sun.
“Um, Buddy,” Alexa said anxiously. “Is that--”
“Oh yes, Miss Rose,” Arthur cackled. “It's your old friend Dominion, or is it Agent Murphy now? I can never seem to keep these things straight. Looks like he's about to go supernova.” Arthur's laughter filled the room over the sound of the burning foyer.
“Buddy,” Alexa continued anxiously, “I don't have a way of protecting myself from fire like the rest of you.”
“Neither do I!” Talmadge yelled.
“Right, so, um, do you have any ideas on what you can do to--”
A loud crashing sound came from the doorway just as the walls crumbled down around it, followed by the entrance of a large tank-like vehicle skidding into the room.
“D.A.W.N.!” Ryan yelled.
“What?” Oscar questioned.
“It's D.A.W.N.'s mobile unit,” Ryan answered.
“Carl designed it,” Alexa added.
“Hold please for another available teller,” D.A.W.N. said as a blue light enveloped the form of Damon and he disappeared once again. The room went dark momentarily before D.A.W.N. switched on her headlights and drove slowly forward.
“Stop!” Oscar yelled at the moving vehicle. “The structure integrity of the floor could be compromised from Damon's fire. We don't want to risk collapsing the entire complex here.”
“Don't we?” Buddy asked. “That would at least take care of Arthur.”
“Yeah,” Oscar agreed, “and also get rid of our only possible chance of stopping his army.”
“Good point,” Buddy agreed. Then, not sure why he agreed, followed up with, “Wait, is it?”
“Don’t worry, boys,” D.A.W.N. spoke gently, “I believe I may have a solution to your troubles.”
“At this point, darlin',” Oscar smiled, “I'd be happy if you could just get us out of this hole in the ground.”
“I could most definitely do that, Oscar, dear. However, I believe you were right before when you stated Arthur should be our first order of business.”
“Well, yeah, but he seems to have gotten control of the base,” Oscar said dejectedly. “I mean, unless you have some way of regaining control.”
“Unfortunately I do not,” D.A.W.N. said matter-of-factly. “Arthur attempted to delete my program altogether, as his paranoia is reaching an all-time-high. He was certain I was assisting you in your attempts to get in through the back door.”
“Well, weren't you?” Alexa asked.
“I wish I could have, Alexa, honey. But your father had locked me out of those systems years ago.”
“So,” Oscar continued, “if Arthur tried to delete your program, how is it that you're still around.”
“Well, he actually succeeded in deleting me. However, it would appear that he was unaware that Carl had inserted a back-up version of my system within the XM1202, which activated as soon as Zero turned me on.”
“Zero?” Buddy yelled in surprise. “He’s still alive?”
“Alive and safe within my tank here,” D.A.W.N. answered. “Although he’s definitely seen some better days.”
“So, you're mobile now?” Oscar asked.
“Oh, yes dear, and loving it!”
“I'm sorry folks,” Buddy cut in once again, “but I'm really not digging the whole hanging out in the dark within a collapsing underground cavern vibe we have going on here. Could we get to D.A.W.N.'s plan on dealing with the situation?” The ground creaked beneath them. “And could we do it quickly?”
“Of course, Buddy,” D.A.W.N. replied. “As you probably already know, I have access to a full arsenal of weaponry within my mobile unit, including missiles, flame-throwers, Gatling guns--”
Another loud creak. “I've read your specs, D.A.W.N., get to the point!” Ryan said agitatedly.
“Right, well, in addition, I also have the ability to use Oscar's teleportation technology to transport people from--”
“Yeah, we saw that with Damon already,” Alexa cut D.A.W.N. off. “We don't have m
uch time left.”
D.A.W.N. huffed, “My word. Have all of your lost your manners? This is no way to ask for someone's--”
“D.A.W.N.,” Buddy said clearly and slowly, “please help us get out of here. Now!”
The room filled with a blue light and morphed instantly into a room walled with concrete blocks and gray as far as the eye could see.
CHAPTER 26
“There,” D.A.W.N. said quickly. “Was that so hard?”
“Where are we?” Talmadge asked, looking off into the dark distance. The only light in the room came from the headlights of the XM1202, which showed just far enough to see a boxing ring in the distance.
“We're in the heart of The Bunker,” Oscar answered. “The proving grounds, the gym, the barracks, whatever you want to call it. This, down here, is where all of the true work happened. This is where we would train, where we would sleep. We didn't need any of that extra flowery crap down here, just space.”
“But, why are we down here?” Talmadge continued as a faint creaking sounded from above them. “Shouldn't we be back above-ground, away from the collapsing building?”
“We should be safe, for now,” Oscar responded. “The structural damage is quite a ways up and should take a while before it causes us any trouble. We should have enough time to find Arthur, at least.”
“Per my biorhythm scanner, Arthur is immediately in front of us,” D.A.W.N. added.
“Dammit,” Oscar scowled. “That bastard's probably shrunk himself down to the sub-atomic level. Maybe we won’t be able to find him in time.”
“So, what do we do now?” Buddy asked. “Just sit around until Arthur gets bored and jumps out at us?”
“Arthur will never show his face, not as long as he doesn't have to. No, we have to do something much more drastic. D.A.W.N., do you think you can access The Bunker's operating system and take back control?”