Behind Distant Stars Read online

  Ouch.

  “It’s an act,” I admitted. “A temporary diversion to manipulate public opinion. I…don’t expect to ever again become the creature I was two decades ago, but I’m still Doctor Fid.”

  “Why?” The heroine didn’t seem surprised, and she didn’t seem annoyed. I’d been expecting at least a judgmental glare, but instead the only expression that I could read on her face was acceptance….as though I’d merely confirmed her prediction.

  “There were several reasons.” Behind my opaque faceplate, I was smiling wryly. “But if I’m being truly honest with myself? Because I thought it would drive Titan mad.”

  “Excellent,” Regrowth’s smile was delightfully wicked. “How can I help?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Whatever his faults, Skullface was an experienced villain and thus did not skimp when it came to outfitting even a temporary lair. Somehow, he’d acquired a ranch on the western edge of Brockton; this was, I felt certain, where CEO Terrance Markham would have been brought instead of the obvious decoy location that the Guardians had raided after the ‘rescue’. The building was well-shielded from casual scans, but a drone-based visual inspection through a cellar window showed a room well-appointed for torture and interrogation. There were two outbuildings housing well-armed mercenaries, and there was every indication that the main ranch-house contained some sort of advanced power generator. Doctor Chaise’s doing, I presumed.

  It had taken hours for my new microdrones to walk on-site. Flight might have tripped sensors hidden on the property; the anti-gravitics normally used in my drones were difficult to detect but not impossible—and Skullface certainly had cause to be paranoid. He was operating only an hour south of Doctor Fid’s city.

  The estate’s means of defeating remote surveillance were subtle and wholly unlike my own stealth technologies. Effective, as well; for the first time in a very long while, I was limited solely to the drone’s visible spectrum cameras when attempting to gather information. I looked forward to studying whatever remnants of the technology remained undamaged once this operation concluded.

  Floating two-hundred-thousand feet above, the Mk 35 Heavy Combat armor’s onboard cameras lacked the resolution to do better than count the number of cars present.

  “Are you ready?” I queried via a very secure tight-beam laser radio connection.

  “Whenever you are.” Regrowth sounded calm, focused and professional. Capturing a high-profile supervillain had been her idea, a way to create a news cycle certain to drive Titan insane. I’d been reluctant, at first; I did not intend to play-act at being a hero forever, after all, and it would be inefficient to create enemies on both sides of the costumed divide. Serendipitously, I’d unearthed evidence of Skullface’s location. I may have been hesitant to cause unnecessary friction within the villainous community, but Skullface had thoroughly earned my ire. The last of my objections drifted away like smoke, and the heroine’s plan moved forward.

  “I’m on my way.” I performed final calculations and then cut my flight systems. With a low-powered forcefield configured to create a near-frictionless cocoon around me, the acceleration was remarkably smooth. I estimated slightly less than two minutes until impact.

  It was a moment of perfect beauty. The highest clouds—wispy chaotic white puffs strung in lines from the collision of warm and cool fronts along the coast, or gray intimidating masses gathered by the mountains to the west—were miles beneath my feet, and the Earth’s gentle curve was framed by a thin cloak of blue. I could see vast swaths of untouched wilderness and interconnected hives of humanity along the eastern seaboard, and the grand celestial expanse stretched overhead in fathomless black broken by countless flecks of delicate brilliance.

  There was ugliness down there, too: scars from industry and greed, stains of sprawling inequality, sullied regions of blight and decay. Descending from the stratosphere, however, those blemishes seemed small and manageable. The flaws were tiny compared to the surrounding grandeur.

  This world deserved saving.

  “How are your efforts proceeding?” I asked via radio. At just under thirty-five seconds, gravity had accelerated my fall past the speed of sound.

  “On schedule,” she replied, though she sounded distracted. From what I understood, exercising her power in the current manner required intense concentration. Controlling existing plants was relatively simple; causing large-scale growth took time, and a significant array of tree-roots would need to extend under the expected battleground for the heroine to be most effective. Much of the work had been done the prior evening, but the critical last few dozen feet might have caused enough disruption below the surface to cause damage to the sidewalk or driveway.

  So…She toiled while I dropped, and we both trusted that any sudden crack appearing in the pavement would not be noticed during the remaining minute of my fall.

  The ground was getting closer; the air was less thin, and cotton-like high-altitude clouds passed so swiftly that I barely had time to identify them before they were gone. I was nearer to humanity now, no longer separate from the Earth…I was coming home.

  This world deserved heroes; real ones rather than frauds like Titan! Someday, perhaps Whisper would take on that role. She would be extraordinary. For now, though, a monster could do a hero’s work.

  “Incoming,” I warned, “In ten, nine, eight…”

  I pulsed a massive amount of energy into my defenses: structural integrity, inertial displacement and force fields all operating at such intensity that I imagined that I could see the haze. Alarms would be tripped by Doctor Chaise’s sensors, I was certain, but my speed was too rapid for the alert to be useful. I struck the ground directly in front of the ranch house at nearly three times the speed of sound.

  The resulting explosion and shock-wave was glorious.

  The protections that Doctor Chaise had placed on the house were instantaneously overwhelmed. Kinetic energy equivalent to more than two tons of TNT shattered wood and stone and glass into scrap, the front of the structure blown backwards as though punched by a giant fist. Even smoke and dust were thrust from the point of impact, leaving me standing in a shallow thirty-some-odd foot wide crater of perfect destruction.

  The Mk 35 heavy-combat armor towered fourteen feet tall with an intimidatingly broad frame. As with all of Doctor Fid’s armors, the surface did not reflect light; if not for the traces of angry red that leaked from the suit’s seams, it would appear a giant, man-shaped hole in reality that led into deep space. The night sky, shaped into a deadly and fearsome threat. In this orichalcum-framed armor, I’d faced Valiant in hand to hand combat for more than twenty minutes. In this armor, I was invincible.

  “SKULLFACE!” The armor’s vocoder made my shout into a roar, a shriek promising unimaginable violence. I imagined that what remained of the foundations shook from my voice alone. “You trespassed in my domain. Face me, if you dare!”

  Seconds passed. Sensitive micro-parabolic microphones detected shouting and the sound of movement within the building, but no movement was visible.

  “Oh, for the love of God,” Regrowth groaned over our communicator link. “Please tell me that we got the right house.”

  “The anti-surveillance measures are still in place, and the protections were definitely Doctor Chaise’s work,” I replied tersely. My explosive entrance would have leveled an unmodified house rather than simply damaging the face of it. “I can hear movement insi-“

  And that’s when an eldritch blast from somewhere inside the damaged building put a three-inch hole straight through the Mk 35’s faceless helm.

  ◊◊◊

  “You’re a freak,” Louis whispers over my shoulder, but he doesn’t hit me. I made sure that he got caught last time, and the time before. The second event had occurred in Mr. Phalen’s class; I like the temp teacher that is replacing him, sort of. She doesn’t talk to me, but she doesn’t turn a blind eye to bullying, either. That’s not until fourth period, though, still hours away.
/>   I’m winning.

  On my left, Missy avoids looking me in the eyes as she takes her seat. Of all the students that participate in this class, she’s the most studious. I tried offering help with her homework once, but Kenny overheard and made a joke. Everyone laughed, and Missy doesn’t acknowledge me anymore. Wayne—on my right—waves to her as though I’m invisible.

  “Good morning, class.” Ms. McSorrel greets us. “Did everyone have a nice weekend?”

  “Yes, Ms. McSorrel,” some of us reply. Chairs scrape across ceramic tile as the last students take their seats.

  “That’s wonderful to hear!” She smiles pleasantly. “Did anyone have any questions about the project due on Thursday?”

  I do, but I don’t raise my hand; Ms. McSorrel doesn’t like it when I take classroom time away from the other students. Some primary documentation I found conflicts with the information in our history texts; it’s not even important stuff, just differing accounts about who was in a room while a treaty was being signed. But the assigned book might be wrong. Maybe. First-hand accounts can lie, too. Or be misremembered. I don’t know what to do.

  Maybe Mom will help. Ms. McSorrel looks busy; she’s answering Ian’s questions now about how to format an in-text citation, and it sounds as though that discussion is going to take a while.

  “Freeeeak,” Louis murmurs softly, and someone else smothers a laugh. I don’t turn to see who. It doesn’t matter. Technically, I suppose that he’s correct—I exhibit traits that are abnormal. Historically, though, the word was usually employed to refer to individuals with unusual physical features. I don’t like the person I see when I look in a mirror, but I don’t think that my appearance is outside of statistical norms.

  I wonder what my brain looks like. If I open up my skull, would I appear human? Perhaps I’m only monstrous on the inside. A neural malformity might explain why I’m the only person who can’t see what everyone else sees. It must be hereditary; Mom and Dad don’t seem to be able to see it, either.

  I’m winning. This is what winning feels like.

  No one has hit me for weeks; instead, an invisible and impermeable barrier has sprung up around me. Everyone knows that it’s my fault that Kenny moved away. Everyone knows that it’s my fault that Louis was suspended for a week and that Mr. Phalen was fired. Crowds of students part like the red sea when I move down the hall; no one wants to get too close lest they be next.

  Ms. McSorrel smiles, “Are there any more questions?”

  Why am I like this, I don’t ask. What’s wrong with me? If someone would just tell me, I could fix it!

  I open my textbook to the appropriate page and prepare to take notes. This isn’t math; I actually need to study history to make sense of it.

  Ms. McSorrel begins her lecture.

  ◊◊◊

  In a heartbeat, my warstaff was summoned to my hands and I was pouring plasma-blast after plasma-blast into the house’s wreckage. There must have been a hardened bunker somewhere within, beyond my drones’ field of view. I tasked my robots to explore while I darted to one side to seek out cover.

  “Are you okay?” Regrowth called over the radio, sounding worried.

  “I’m fine,” I gritted out, frantically remodulating my forcefields in real-time as additional magical attacks were emitted from within what remained of the ranch house. I’d originally calculated that the orichalcum alloy invented by Whisper’s creator would be defense enough against even strong magical attacks; apparently, I’d been incorrect. “Keep an eye on the outbuildings, I hear movement.”

  “I’m on it,” she replied, and thick tree-roots uprooted themselves to wrap around the first armed mercenary that ran out one of the doors. “How are you fine? There’s a hole in your head!”

  “The Mk 35 is fourteen feet tall. I’m not.”

  “So your real head isn’t in the armor’s head. Good. Whew!” Four more mercenaries followed the first, training their fire in my direction before being swept back in a wave of wood and bark. “Why put a humanoid head on the armor at all?”

  “So that someone like Skullface has an obvious target to waste his first shot on,” I laughed harshly, aiming a few kinetic energy blasts at the ground between myself and my attacker to throw up an instantaneous cloud of dust behind which to hide.

  “Fair point.”

  In an organized effort to avoid a bottleneck at the outbuilding’s doors, a dozen mercenaries in beige body-armor had simultaneously dived out the windows and broken into teams of three. Another wave swiftly followed. How many employees had Skullface kept on site? There’d only been four cars on the property.

  Less than a third of the fire-teams directed their weapons towards me…the rest sprinted east, toward’s Regrowth’s hiding spot.

  I blamed Doctor Chaise. He must have set sensors around the property that had evaded my detection.

  “Incoming!” I warned.

  “I see them. Don’t worry about me,” I could hear her smug smile over the radio. “I’ve had twelve hours to grow defenses under that field.”

  “Have fun,” I grunted, gathering myself for an assault. “I’m going to go kill Skullface.”

  “You mispronounced ‘capture’. Again.” There was steel in her voice.

  During the process of re-engineering Terry Markham into a creature that could fill Doctor Fid’s armor, no small amount of training was put towards training my dramatic skills. Fulfilling expectations drove public response: an intimidating monologue was more likely to be replayed on the evening news, and menacing laughter from the shadows was more effective at demoralizing one’s victims than any simple display of power. Creating a persona that fulfilled many of the expected tropes had been a useful tool when clawing my way to power.

  “Oh, right.” Banter was a less frequently used skill, but it was disturbing how easily I fell into the rhythm. “I forgot that I’m supposed to be a hero now. We’ll call it an accidental decapitation when the suspect resisted arrest.”

  “Doctor…”

  “My body camera mysteriously stopped functioning just before the suspect reached for my weapon…”

  “You’re less amusing than you think you are.” She sounded distracted, coordinating plant-based attacks upon dozens of mercenaries at once.

  I just triggered my maniacal laughter generator and dove into the breach, accelerating so hard that my inertial displacement devices made an audible whine. A series of magical attacks launched towards me, but I was prepared; two blasts were dodged, and the third swatted from the air by a swing of my staff.

  As I passed over the threshold, the world twisted and stretched; the walls faded into the distance, hidden by a dull mustard-colored haze and syrupy red light that oozed from glowing noxious pools. The ceiling fled completely, and I could see the night sky but the stars were wrong. I could feel their hatred as they glared down upon me. And every breath I took scorched at my throat, tasting painfully of blood and sulfur.

  It was that latter effect that impressed me the most; the Mk 35’s air supply was wholly self-contained. Despite any damage that the suit had suffered, I knew that only pure and clean air was reaching my lungs. But still, each wheezing gasp through clenched teeth ached.

  Magic. Bah.

  “Can you hear me, Regrowth?”

  There was no response.

  **Whisper?**

  Nothing.

  The neural link communicated via quantum tunnel; mere distance would not have cut off communication so completely. I hadn’t been teleported, nor was this an illusion. Fortunately, the scenario did seem to resemble something that I’d read once. The reprehensible Ancient had—more than two decades ago—written a monograph on projected realities of sorcerous origin. In order to dispel the working, I would need to find and destroy a series of runes and I would need to render the caster unconscious.

  The former task seemed as though it would be tedious without access to my normal sensor capabilities, but I found myself very much looking forward to the latter.
>
  Time and space twisted vertiginously, and Skullface was excreted into visibility. In this place—this world of his making—he stood thirty feet tall and blazed with power; a hideously gothic gun-metal gray armor surrounded his skeletal form, and magic symbols that hurt to look at were etched into the suit’s surface.

  “Well, thank Tesla,” I boomed, my lips pulled back into a feral grin. “I worried that this fight was going to be boring!”

  The abomination roared in challenge, and hellfire poured from its bleached-bone jaws and empty eye sockets; my own wild laughter was projected loud enough to compete. There were no more words between us—only hatred and anticipated violence.

  As though triggered by some unheard signal, we both charged.

  ◊◊◊

  Exhausted and sore, I stumbled through the ruins in front of the ranch house. Skullface had fled, but I could not count his retreat as a victory.

  In that strange, magically-created sub-dimension, he’d had near as much raw strength as Valiant as well as access to mystical attacks that my force-fields were ill-equipped to defend against. If Skullface had also owned the skill to judge the level of damage my technological protections had suffered, the battle would have ended in his favor.

  I’d bluffed ’til the end and he’d withdrawn to see to the many wounds I’d left upon his person. Skullface, perhaps, would see the conflict as a draw. I knew better; I’d been unprepared for this particular opponent and nearly paid a permanent price.

  The realization rankled.

  Ideas and designs for numerous improvements warred for my attention, ranging from boosts in efficiency to strategically-placed increases in armor thickness. For now, though, the idea of lab-work held limited appeal. A warm shower and a comfortable bed were much more enticing.

  A quick ping of GPS satellites confirmed that some time-dilation shenanigans had occurred; we’d traded blows for nearly half an hour…but atomic clocks confirmed that only a few minutes had passed in the real world.