by Tom Andry
I smiled. Maybe much later.
I glanced back at the super, once again fully restrained. Perhaps I could figure out a way to hang him on the wall for a few hours. An original Bob Moore: Super in Angry Repose. I laughed as the door hissed open.
I walked back up to my office and had Mind dim all the lights. I brought out my decanter and a glass and set them on my desk. It was early, but I needed to think. I sat in silence for a good half an hour, weighing the pros and cons, nothing but the sound of the liquid pouring as company. But really, I'd already made up my mind. There was only one option.
"Mind, get the Vice President. Looks like I'm going to be the next ambassador."
* * *
Chapter 6
The shuttle I was in resembled, from the inside, a large passenger van with carpet on the walls and no windows. There were five rows of seats in the center of the shuttle, two seats in each row, with aisles flanking the sides and at the front near the pilot's cabin. The seats had armrests and swiveled. Disconcertingly, there were no seatbelts.
We'd been waiting on our last passenger for some time. I was seated at the back with my attaché next to me. Portly and bald, Chris Smalls was looking through the newspaper, reading, I noted with a smile, a piece written by Alan. Just before I'd left, Leon had called, saying he was going to be late. I didn't question him as to why. The last time I'd seen him, he'd made a pretty good recovery from the cat incident, though he hadn't been able to get rid of the ears. Still a bit furry around the face and with slightly enlarged canines, he almost looked human again. The shuttle pilot said he'd wait as long as he could, but if Leon didn't show, he'd have to take the next transport, which didn't leave until tomorrow.
The Vice President had been adamant that I could bring whomever I wanted as my staff as long as it wasn't Alan. He couldn't chance, so he said, any sort of controversy. And Alan had nearly as many enemies in the Super City as I did. I'd added Leon at the last minute on Mind's insistence. He wasn't needed at the office, and Mind thought I could use the help. I didn't see how. I guess they must have phones up there too.
The door slid open on the side of the shuttle, and a short man in a polo shirt and khakis hopped in. His sandy hair was mussed from the wind and I saw what looked to be a spot of mustard on his collar. He had a long, thin indentation on his forehead running above his left eyebrow and across, stopping somewhere above his hairline. He smiled timidly, his lips tight above his pointed chin. I'd have bet he'd need a good week to grow a beard. If he could even manage one.
"Sorry, folks." His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. He sat in the first row and a large man in blue and white spandex entered after him and sat by his side. The super shifted in his seat, the metal groaning in protest.
"Geesh, Crush. Just...go! Ride on the roof or something!" The small man started pushing on the shoulder of the oversized super, "Seriously, what's going to happen in here? Just, get out!"
The large super grunted and scanned the interior of the shuttle. I waved, but Chris didn't so much as look up from his paper in return for Crush's scowl. Crush looked at the smaller man and nodded. The shuttle bobbed as he exited. The door shut and a moment later, the entire shuttle started shaking.
"Is he really going to ride on the roof?" I mumbled.
"Oh, hey," the blonde man put a hand through his hair, "I don't know. Probably. Oaf."
"What's his deal?"
The man's hair adamantly refused to lie down. The more he fought with it, the worse it looked. I couldn't help but smile at his efforts.
He swiveled his chair around and smiled at me, "Crush? Sentry. It's like a bodyguard. They insist on them. Anyone with any sort of important position that they deem to be too powerless to protect themselves gets one."
"Really? And by 'they' you mean..."
"The Bulwark. The Super State leaders. Whatever they are calling themselves these days."
I laughed, "They do like to change their names, don't they."
"Who can keep them straight?" The man touched a spot on the wall that I thought was just some sort of stain on the carpet, and a shelf folded out. "Would you like a drink?"
"I assume that's a rhetorical question."
"Poison?"
"Scotch."
Chris waved the offer of a drink away and the small man pulled out a small microphone from the wall and spoke into it quickly. A second later, two scotches materialized on the shelf. He walked mine back to me before he returned to his seat for his own. I raised my glass in thanks before I took a sip. A very smooth single malt.
"Nice. I'm Bob by the way."
"Doe," the man waved from the front of the cabin.
"Doe, huh? Just Doe?"
"Yeah. Just Doe."
I looked the man over. He was positively plain. Other than the indentation on his forehead, there was nothing remarkable about him at all. His khakis and polo shirt looked off-the-shelf, his sneakers were well worn and slightly dirty, and his eyes were the sort of dusty brown found on just about every tippy on the planet.
"What are you looking at, Bob?"
I smiled, "Sorry, just trying to figure you out. With a single name, I'd have pegged you for a super, but you don't look like one."
The man sighed, almost regrettably, "I know. I get that a lot." He pointed to his head, "See the dent? I woke up at the scene of a Raven attack with a huge gash and a fractured skull and no memory of how it happened. I can't remember anything from my past at all. But I can figure things out now. Like how to build stuff."
"Memory loss? Amnesia? Seriously?"
"Yeah, I know. Trite, right? But it is what it is."
"So you're a super genius."
He sipped his drink, scowling at it. "It would seem so."
"But that's not how people get powers. That's comic book stuff. You are either born a super, or not. You don't get powers by being bitten by radioactive hamsters, falling into toxic waste, or getting struck by lightning while using a metal chopstick."
He shrugged, placing the drink back on the shelf, "I know. Believe me, I know." He stood and motioned to the chair in front of me, "Do you mind?"
I shook my head and he approached, flopping down in the chair and swiveling it back and forth absently as he spoke.
"Where was I? Oh yes, my powers. I've done everything I can to find out where I came from, anything about my past, but so far I've come up dry."
"Hmm..." I sipped my scotch as his glass and scotch disappeared.
He sat back, his arms crossed, "So, Bob, what's your deal? Your first trip to the Super City?"
"Yeah. Looks like I'm to fill in for the US Ambassador until they find someone better."
"Or qualified," Chris muttered next to me.
I ignored him. "Seems we've been having problems keeping track of them."
"Wait. Are you Bob Moore? The Bob Moore?" Doe was practically bouncing in his seat.
"Um...I'm a Bob Moore..."
"You used to be married to Gale? Until the thing with your daughter?"
I cringed, but managed to hide it behind a tight smile, "Yep. That's me."
"Oh, golly! Bob Moore! I've heard so much about you!"
I found myself sweating, "Oh, really? I wouldn't guess..."
"I've actually thought of stopping by your office, but I couldn't figure out what to say. You're one of the only tippys to survive The Raven. Just like me."
"Well, I didn't get away with just a scar and a new super power."
"No, yeah, I heard about that. The leg. Can I see it?"
"Um...sure." I pulled up my pant leg and showed him the metal underneath.
He whistled, "Wow. That's interesting work. Tinkerer did that, right?"
"Yeah." I tried to keep the anger out of my voice.
"Tinkerer...man, that guy is one of the best," there was a faraway sound to his voice. He sighed and then continued, "Too bad Doc Arts wasn't still around, though. He probably could have fixed you up. "
I swallowed. Doc Arts was the doctor wh
o promised that my daughter, the product of a super and tippy, would survive the birthing process. She hadn't, and neither had my marriage. Later, I watched as one of his inventions, a swarm of tiny, confetti-looking, flying microbots had consumed him.
Well, watched might not be the right word. It was more like I'd tricked him into telling them to attack him. And then took my time figuring out how to stop them.
"Yeah. Too bad." I needed to change the subject. I hadn't thought of Doc Arts much in the last months and I didn't want to start again. I had to focus on Nineteen. I was so close. If I didn't find the information on the Super City, I would at least have a favor from the VP in my back pocket. I rubbed the door to the compartment in my leg that contained my earpiece and the Multikey. Mind had insisted I hide them inside my leg so that they'd be harder to detect if they decided to scan me.
The shuttle jerked once, drawing Doe's attention to the front of the vehicle. Across my lap, a belt appeared and secured my waist tightly, but comfortably.
Doe turned back to me and smiled, "Looks like we're taking off."
A moment later, the walls and floor of the van shimmered and slowly started to fade. After about thirty seconds, I could see through the floor and the walls like I was looking through a reflection of myself in a window. If I wanted to, I could see the walls and floor, but mostly I could see the city moving away from the bottom of the shuttle at an alarming speed.
"Whoa," I gasped.
"Yeah, impressive, huh? I placed cameras all around the outside of the shuttle so that we could project the outside in here. The carpet fibers are actually little TV tubes."
Next to me, Chris whimpered, his eyes closed. Doe followed my gaze.
"Not a fan," I smiled.
"Yeah, not everyone likes it. But I suppose flying around with Gale probably made you immune to such things."
At her name, my heart skipped a beat. She'd been thinking of me, "I haven't flown with Gale in a long time."
"Yeah. Sorry, I don't mean to pry. But when you don't have a past, you tend of latch on to the stories of other people."
I nodded, happy for the opportunity to change the subject, "So, you built this shuttle?"
"Yeah, it's one of mine. It's how I got my bump up to Level 2."
"So, what were you doing down in the city?"
He rolled his eyes, "Recruiting." He shook his head, "I went down with Saint and Fire Arc. They did a couple of rounds with the tippy groups and I went looking for supers that haven't relocated to the Super City yet."
"Really?" I raised my eyebrow, "Why? Why would you care?"
He shrugged, "I don't really know. Gale and the others seem to think it is important to have the supers all in one place. You know, after The Raven and all."
I shook my head, "But having the supers all in one place is what made The Raven's attack so successful. If the Tournament of Supers hadn't taken place, drawing most of the world's most powerful supers, he'd have had to seek them out one by one. So many more would have lived."
"I know. But they don't think something like that can happen again. And they want to maximize the influence the supers have, now that there aren't so many of them."
I supposed it made a kind of sense. But why? Why all in one place?
"But I think the real reason is much more practical."
"Really? What?"
"Sex."
I choked on my drink, "Come again?" I sputtered.
He winked conspiratorially, "Easiest way to get more supers is to put them in the same place and let them fight. All that spandex and violence? It's practically an aphrodisiac to a super. And supers are much more likely to have super children than tippys." Doe nodded at the wall, "Here it comes."
I turned and saw, in the distance, the Super City. I'd seen pictures and videos of it on TV, but in person, it was so much more impressive. While the bottom resembled a featureless stainless steel dinner plate, the top really was a floating city. The edge was ringed with large homes, mini-mansions really, side by side. They were packed in so tightly, there didn't seem to be any space between. Behind were what looked to be skyscrapers of various shapes and sizes. Unlike the skyscrapers on the ground, these were of designs that weren't even remotely possible with conventional building materials. Dozens if not hundreds of stories tall, they rotated, they undulated, they shifted shape as I watched. Colors merged and changed in the blink of an eye. Some looked to be hewn from solid rock, others barely more than wireframe representations of actual buildings. I spied one that folded in on itself, winking momentarily out of existence, before reappearing a second later. A few minutes later, the process repeated.
"I've asked the pilot to take us around once so you can get a good look at it."
I hadn't noticed Doe making the call. I turned and saw that Chris was just as flabbergasted as I. I turned back to the view. We were circling the City a bit higher now. I noticed not one, but two bubbles of energy. The first encompassed the entire city from top to bottom in a huge, blue, pointed oval, giving the entire city a sort of egg shape. From the ground, I had never noticed the shield covering the bottom, but it was clearly visible from this distance. Within the blue bubble, a second, red bubble arose from the center of the city and shone brighter. This one was a true half-sphere and only extended about a third of the way up to the pointed top of the blue bubble. Still, it was higher than most of the skyscrapers.
"What's the deal with the fields?" I nodded at the Super City.
Doe smiled, "The bigger, exterior field is for protection. It keeps the air pressure inside constant while keeping out unauthorized visitors."
"And missiles, I suppose," I muttered.
"Of course. No conventional weapon can enter. No known super-designed weapon either. We're constantly updating."
"And the red one?"
He sighed and shook his head, "That's Proving Ground."
"Huh?"
"You'll see. It's sort of a super playground."
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of movement. Almost before I could turn my head, a super flew past.
Doe cursed, "Damn fliers. They know they aren't supposed to buzz incoming aircraft."
The super continued on toward the city and passed through the field.
"I thought you said that field kept everything out."
"Once you are in the system, it remembers you. You're scanned as you approach and as long as you aren't carrying any contraband, it lets you in."
I turned back to the sight of the Super City. As the buildings got closer, I noted that the mini-mansions lining the outside were all identical and fairly standard. They could have been in any gated community.
"They are all the same."
Doe looked over my shoulder, "Oh, the Level 5 housing. Yeah, we had to do that."
When a super was accepted into the ranks of the Super State citizenry, they were granted Level 1 status. This gave them access to some of the Super State resources and a stipend that would support a middle-class family. Level 5's were the crème de la crème of the Super State. They ran the government and were often members of the Earth defense force named the Bulwark, which was led by my ex-wife. The one that had mentioned me to the Vice President. I exhaled slowly.
"Why? I would have figured they would want something a bit more..."
"Obnoxious?"
I laughed, "Yeah, actually."
Doe joined in on the laughter, "Gee, you should have seen some of the designs. You think those skyscrapers are ostentatious?"
"That's not the word I'd use, no."
"Well, these were ten times worse. If not more. They were horrible. And then they started fighting about who should have a larger front yard, a pool, heck, even room size and roof material. It was a disaster. So Gale decreed that all housing would be standardized across all citizen levels. The Level 5's get the big houses with the view. Everyone else lives in one of the skyscrapers."
"Ah. I guess that makes sense."
"Not really," he muttered. "We ha
ve about ten times more Level 5 houses than we have Level 5 citizens."
"So," Chris' gruff voice cracked from non-use, "you seem to know a lot about the Super City."
Doe smiled, "Well I should. I designed it."
My mouth fell open. "You?" I swallowed and looked back out the window at the City that Doe built. "Wow."
Doe shook his head, "I hate telling people. It's like I gave birth to the thing. People don't know how stuff like this works. I get some idea and it's like an itch in my brain. So I have to sit down and start writing. Half the time, I don't even know what I'm designing. I just know that I need a line here or a measurement there. And it is just so tedious. Just drawing without knowing what I'm doing for hours on end. Sometimes I can't sleep for days. Believe me, Bob, it isn't all that impressive. I can tell you how the whole City works, but I can't tell you how I know."
I shook my head, "Wow, that's weird."
"You know the funny thing? I picked up an advanced physics textbook one time. I was on a campus on a recruitment trip. This kid was doing his homework and I asked to borrow it. I could tell you every answer for all the end of chapter tests, but I couldn't tell you how I knew. I read parts of it and, believe me, it was just as Greek to me as it was to that kid."
"So, you don't control it?"
He sighed and put a thumbnail in between his teeth, "I can direct it, sort of. If I want to design something specific, like this shuttle for instance, I sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and I concentrate. When the itch comes, I start to write. About a quarter of the time I get something remotely close to what I wanted. Mostly, though, I don't."
"So, what? You end up with a toaster when you wanted a motorcycle?"
"More like I end up with a deathray instead of a hospital." He shook his head sadly, "I don't get that. The weapons that pop out of my head. I've thrown so many of those designs away."
"Thrown them away? I'd think the Bulwark would want them."
He chuckled, "I'm sure they would, but I'll tell you the same thing I told them: they've got plenty of living weapons, they don't need me making them more. I don't know what my past was like, but I'm not an ironmonger. At least not anymore."