Starfall Page 3

  “Aaron’s a great guy,” commented one AH Biotech employee who spoke of Dr. Markham’s replacement under the condition of anonymity. “He’s been with the company forever and he’ll keep the lights on, for sure. He just doesn’t know the science is all.”

  And a culture of scientific innovation is what top employees had come to expect. Two department heads have left AH Biotech in the last month, and whispers spread that a further exodus is inevitable.

  Says current CEO Aaron Schwartz, “Some teething pains are inevitable, but I have every confidence that we’ll endure, heal and grow. Goal one hasn’t changed!”

  Bold, optimistic words, but many fear that the lack of scientific savvy at the executive level will hamper innovation. At a recent earnings call, investors pressed Mr. Schwartz for details on (cont’d page 18)

  Cloner had been true to his word. The waterfront warehouse was secured but unguarded, and the remnants of the Dimension Bomb designed by the late Dr. Chaise (weapons designer and second-in-command to the sorcerous criminal, Skullface) were packed in crates, ready for transport. With the Mk 39’s stealth systems enabled and a swarm of microdrones providing sensory data, I explored carefully before entering to examine my prize.

  I should have simply left. My larger utility drones would have easily been able to carry the crates aloft and flown them to the site of my choosing where I might have been able to study their workings at my leisure. The truth, however, was that I didn’t really need the majority of materials. The power supply and interfaces were inferior to my own, and the field augmentation module was of a design that I’d long since abandoned.

  There was, however, a spark of genius buried amongst the dross. Dr. Chaise had used a massive energy dump to create space-time ripples, carefully modulated to increase the area affected by his weapon. It was a brilliant innovation; he and his employer would have truly become a force to be reckoned with had he recognized some of the other ways in which the method could have been utilized. But in the end…he’d primarily been a weapons designer rather than a scientist. What a terrible waste of skill and intellect.

  Yet another reason why I, in retrospect, felt justified in tearing his spine from his body.

  (In truth, it had been pure rage that had guided me; that, and the need to take something irreplaceable from Skullface. I’d found Chaise only hours after laying Whisper’s empty body in her bed and placing her favorite doll in her arms. The brutality had been…unnecessary. Someday—when my sister was home safe and all this was behind us—I would come to regret that act, I was sure. Remorse was a luxury in which I had no time to indulge, hence the neurosurgery and chemical treatment intended to focus my attention appropriately.)

  Given sufficient time and energy, I was certain that I could have mimicked Dr. Chaise’s accomplishment without seeing the remnants in person. Time was not, however, a resource that I had in abundance. So…I opened crates and carefully sifted through the wreckage, sorting through components until I could isolate pieces of the puzzle that would aid in the next device that I needed to craft: an expanded sensor array that would be able to detect disembodied akashic fields at range.

  I was just beginning to develop a theory as to how the mechanism functioned when a blast of iridescent purple energy struck me in the back; my crates exploded into kindling as I plowed through them. The armor’s forcefields and other automated defensive capabilities responded automatically, however, long before I hit the far wall.

  That energy attack was familiar to me, and I supposed that I should have expected this interruption. This warehouse was located in Brooklyn, and Brooklyn’s local heroes were actually refugees from an alternate dimension. They’d been brought here by the effects of this very device: an inter-dimensional rift that had torn them from an Earth in ruins and carried them here instead.

  Fate has an odd sense of humor; I’ve done the statistical analysis to demonstrate it.

  “Psion!” I roared, relaying my digitally altered voice through the microdrones’ external speakers so that my anger echoed throughout the structure. “This is not a good time. Leave me to my work and you and yours can escape unharmed!”

  The leader of the Brooklyn Knights, Psion was a slender woman of Korean descent whose energy blasts were characterized by their vivid purple coloration. Her costume consisted of a burnt-orange bodysuit with dull yellow accents, but I could not see her now. None of my sensors were able to locate the source of the attack.

  Another member of their team—Wildcard—had an extraordinary array of powers available to him but could only manifest three at a time; he must have sacrificed one of his combat-related abilities to generate an invisibility field so thorough that even the radar, lidar and sonar modes of my threat-detectors had been fooled.

  I floated a few inches above the ground, waiting, hopeful that perhaps the Brooklyn Knights had heeded my warning. Hopeful, but not optimistic; I’d fought them before, after all.

  And then my wait was at an end. White Tigress—a nine-foot-tall humanoid feline behemoth—snarled a challenge, seeming to blink into existence only inches from connecting with a vicious swipe of her claws to the side of my head. She was powerful and brutal, but my forcefields were more than sufficient to resist cutting damage and I’d been punched by heroes far stronger than she; while I was rocked back from the force of the blow, my inertial displacement field minimized any significant trauma.

  “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone,” the unseen Psion accused as her teammate set upon me in murderous frenzy. Impressively, Wildcard’s invisibility was thorough enough that I could not pinpoint her location by the location of her voice. “That weapon is too dangerous for anyone to use ever again. Even you!”

  Hm. If the Brooklyn Knights were aware of the crates’ contents, then their presence here was not an improbable coincidence after all. Annoyingly, neither was it betrayal: the contract that I’d offered Cloner stated only that the New York Shield would not interfere when I came to collect my prize.

  The smirking annoyance had found a loophole and sent another team in his stead.

  The Brooklyn Knights were a good choice; given their connection to the device in question, it was more likely that they would be willing to risk battle against the notorious Doctor Fid. And it was well-known that I’d spared the Knights any serious injury in our prior conflicts. After I’d saved this world from the menace that had ravaged their own, they’d made a point of carrying a chilled six-pack on their patrols, on the off chance that they might run into me so they could offer a bottle in gratitude.

  That had been a good beer.

  A good choice, but poor strategy on Cloner’s part. I was in no mood to be gentle.

  “I’m not making a weapon,” I grunted, floating a few feet off the ground so that I was eye level with the White Tigress as we fought. “I need this for personal research only.”

  The felinoid heroine was fast and agile. She kept close and battered at me with strike after strike, attempting to keep me occupied while her teammates repositioned. I allowed my armor’s combat algorithms to fight with minimal piloting input on my own part. Focused martial arts training and decades of battle had honed my own combat skills but the Mk 39’s automated systems had quicker reflexes. My own focus was directed upon re-programming sensors to detect air movement, unexpected energy signatures…no cloaking method I’d ever encountered had been absolute and Wildcard’s would be no exception.

  “We can’t trust you.” Shrike called, a hint of hurt betrayal creeping into his voice. “Not after you started killing again.”

  Shrike and I had come to an accord on more than one occasion and I supposed that he’d believed in (and supported) my short-lived attempt at rehabilitation. The efforts had been honest at the time, but Skullface’s excesses had forced me to loosen the chains holding back the more monstrous portions of my soul. The kinder, gentler Fid could not have done what had been necessary to save the city of Boston. The kinder, gentler Fid might balk at what might be necessary
to rescue Whisper. Unacceptable.

  Tail lashing, the massive anthropomorphic tigress roared and flipped and leapt about, and I blocked and countered as though we were partners in a smooth, violent dance. I kept close; several of White Tigress’ teammates had ranged attacks but any barrage that might be capable of damaging my armor would do far worse to the furred fighter if she were accidentally struck. It was a race to see which would occur first: the Brooklyn Knights setting up what they believed might be an overwhelming assault, or my technology unveiling their precise locations.

  “I had cause,” I graveled in belated reply to Shrike’s accusation. “Chaise and Skullface needed to die.”

  “Not your place to judge,” White Tigress yowled, eyes glowing fiercely.

  “I don’t enjoy taking on that responsibility,” I replied seriously, “but I will if I must.”

  Given that White Tigress’ response consisted of an attempt to bite my face off, I supposed that my argument had been unconvincing.

  Of the Brooklyn Knights, only Shrike and Wildcard were serious threats. The former, because the yellow-white spikes and planes of force that he could summon were impossibly hard, immovable, and sharp (Shrike had accidentally cut my arm off, once), and the latter because I could never quite be certain what powerset I was facing when Wildcard was on the field (surprises were always dangerous.) Psion, Blizzard and the White Tigress were fine heroes. Against a lesser opponent they would be quite a formidable team.

  Doctor Fid was no lesser opponent.

  I laughed, loud and mocking, and shifted to a more aggressive stance, adding kinetic energy blasts to my repertoire and pummeling White Tigress with powerful physical attacks. I had the Brooklyn Knights’ measure now; spectral chromatography was able to detect the carbon dioxide the hidden heroes exhaled, and I could see that they’d spread out to box me in.

  The Tigress reared back reflexively when a backfist bloodied her muzzle and I shot forward to grab her massive wrist in one hand. My other fist slammed into her elbow with a resounding crack.

  “No!” shouted an unseen Blizzard and a massive cone of superchilled air and sleet poured towards me. The thick sheet of ice that had instantaneously encased my upper body shrieked and crackled as I shrugged it away, and I replied with a subsonic pulse that shook the soft tissue of Blizzard’s lungs so thoroughly that it would be half a minute before he could draw a breath.

  Two down and three to go. Unfortunately, the White Tigress had taken advantage of the brief moment when I’d been slowed by ice to leap away and nurse her broken arm. Without a hostage, there was nothing staying the remainder of the knights’ attacks.

  Psion and Shrike launched their assault: dozens of yellow-white needles of impenetrable force sprung up from the ground as Shrike tried to pierce my armor (or perhaps merely to entrap me). I swiveled and danced through the increasingly dense, dangerous maze while Psion poured energy blast after vivid purple energy blast upon me. I retaliated with weak energy blasts of my own, intended more to keep them moving than to inflict injury. I had no objections to breaking a few of their bones, but they hadn’t earned any more permanent damage.

  Wildcard also revealed the second of his currently-available powers: a localized electro-magnetic pulse to disable electronic devices. Unfortunately for him, the Mk 39 was very well shielded. His choice had been tactically sound, but in the end he’d chosen a power that would be of no use.

  It’s rare, but sometimes chance does actually work in my favor.

  “It didn’t work!” Wildcard called, voice rising with the first hints of fear. I’d left him unconscious in all of our prior battles, and that was before my more recent violent excesses had become public knowledge.

  “Get ready for a retreat,” Psion ordered grimly.

  I laughed louder, victorious. Wildcard’s final power must be transportation-based! Teleportation, perhaps? In any case, it seemed likely that I could dismiss him as a threat. Whatever Cloner had planned by sending the Brooklyn Knights to interfere, his plot had failed.

  Another bright purple stream of energy splattered off my helm, but my shields were operating at full capacity. So long as I was able to weave through the maelstrom of pillars and spikes that Shrike was calling forth in an attempt to cage me, there was nothing to fear. I sent carefully-controlled bursts of plasma in Shrike and Psion’s direction, but was careful to allow White Tigress time to pick up the fallen Blizzard, to hasten their inevitable ‘escape’.

  “Wall him off!” Psion ordered, and Shrike summoned a wall of impenetrable force between myself and the gathering heroes.

  And then Psion aimed one final blast, more powerful than any she’d thrown thus far. Despite the intensity, my forcefields would have easily withstood the flood of purple energies…had the attack been aimed at me.

  “No!” I howled, jerking sideways and unleashing a torrent of emerald-hued gyrating energies at the retreating heroes. A deluge of pulsing force-field needles sprayed forth.

  For a moment, it seemed as though time itself had stopped and I stared at my own outstretched hand, disbelieving.

  And then the bodies fell and blood began to flow. Shrike’s guttural rasp as he collapsed was going to haunt me, I knew.

  A desperate, plaintive mewling filled the air and the White Tigress stepped protectively in front of her companions. She could barely stand; that particular weapon had never been intended for use against any but those with the most powerful regenerative capabilities.

  It was an ugly tool.

  “They’re alive,” I told her. “For now. Take them and go.”

  The giant humanoid tigress kept wary eyes upon me as she quickly gathered her injured and groaning friends and brought them closer to Wildcard. I watched impassively; I should have moved to help, but I couldn’t find the will to step forward.

  There were puncture wounds all along Wildcard’s left side and one that looked to have pierced his jawbone, but his expression was fiercely focused even as he struggled to breathe. He closed his eyes in concentration, and all five critically wounded heroes disappeared in a flash.

  “Damn it all,” I whispered, hands shaking. Some of the Knights’ blood had aerosoled from the initial impact; even as I watched, the gory mist was settling into uneven, messy splotches on the warehouse floor.

  They’d live, I told myself, and wished that I felt more certain of that judgement. It would take only a handful of minutes for Wildcard to shift his powerset to regeneration and healing; in a half hour’s time the Brooklyn Knights’ pain would be only a memory, while mine was only beginning.

  The crates of components—the last remnants of technology that I’d hoped would locate Whisper—had been rendered into unusable scrap in one tsunami of vivid purple power.

  “It’s all right,” I told Nyx, my hands shaking from the effort of restraining my rage. I tried to pet the puppy, but she squirmed away and licked at my fingers. To comfort me, I imagined. “I can still bring her home. I have partial scans, that will be enough.”

  There was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to declare war upon Cloner. To gather up my most powerful combat drones and every scrap of offensive weaponry I’d ever designed and to rain destruction upon the New York Shield headquarters. But I could slaughter them all and salt the Earth and the effort would not get me one second closer to finding my sister.

  My internal medical systems were quickly reprogrammed to synthesize benzodiazepines and anti-psychotics; I needed to calm down and I needed to work. I needed to concentrate.

  It was not, I decided, the Brookyn Knights’ fault. There was further punishment in store whenever we next crossed paths, of course, but I recognized that they were simply obeying their nature. They were heroes, and letting children suffer was what heroes did. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident…they couldn’t help themselves. If the so-called ‘heroes’ were actually a positive force within society, there never would have been a need for Doctor Fid.

  I’d forgotten that; I’d treated the K
nights as though they were worthy of respect simply because they were honest, noble, and dedicated to their ideals. That wasn’t a mistake I would make again.

  The superhero named Bronze had let Bobby die, a conscious choice to protect his own secret identity rather than to protect the innocent. The Knights’ crime was not so severe; their self-righteous refusal to let me finish my research in peace may have slowed my progress but I would persevere. Whisper was strong and she’d be able to wait the extra time.

  (According to intercepted radio communications, none of the Brooklyn Knights had perished; Wildcard had teleported the group to a hospital where all team members were stabilized until superpowered healing could be applied. Damn them all.)

  It was Cloner who I didn’t understand. I’d reached out to him and offered far more than had been required of him in return. He had to suspect that my motivations were personal. He had to suspect that I was desperate. Was he actively attempting to incite me to further violence?

  If so, I would need to be wary. Cloner’s joking, irreverent mien was a facade; there was a fiendishly devious mind hiding behind that annoying smile. If he thought to provoke me then calm evaluation would be the safer choice. Unless, of course, this had been stage one of a risky double bluff…an attempt to force me to second guess my future interactions with him.