Behind Distant Stars Page 3

  As I neared the trapped firemen, my drones deployed their spider-like walking legs and dropped to the forest floor and I landed among them; the thermal-redirection field was fiddly; anti-gravity and flight capabilities would have interfered with the new feature's functionality.

  Beyond the circle formed by the combat-drones, the world was aflame. Tendrils of every conceivable shade of yellow and orange swirled, crackling and rumbling, devouring everything in its path and rendering the ground barely visible through the churning blaze. The canopy carried the flames higher, towering more than a hundred feet into the air and making the thick smoke glow. It was an illusion, I knew, but the inferno seemed alive...seductively beautiful and yet terribly hungry.

  Within the circle, the flames perished; charred husks cast smoke only for a moment before settling into a chilled and silent tableau. This was a forest's gravesite, grim and still. I marched forward, carrying an island of cool and forbidding safety with me as I moved.

  I found them, a twenty-man crew, huddled in emergency fire shelters: a line of side-by-side silvered cocoons. With chainsaw, adze, and shovel, they had hewn a circular firebreak around their makeshift camp, but the roaring flames had lit the canopy above and cast embers among them. The flames were too close, too hot, and oxygen was being sucked away to feed the greedy blaze. The shelters' mirrored surface did much to reflect radiant heat and to trap at least a little bit of breathable air within, but the unfortunate firefighters would not have survived much longer without assistance.

  My approach was inaudible over the wildfire's crackling roar; the sudden chill, however, would have been immediately noticeable when the drones encircled the camp. Even so, it was nearly thirty seconds before they began to stir. The delay was a reasonable precaution; opening one of those emergency shelters too soon could be a deadly mistake. With the metallic-skinned pods still enclosed, they began to talk among themselves.

  (“Is it over?” “What the hell…” “Quiet, everyone! Count off! Barton, you ok?” “I’m fine.” “Eric?” “All good.” The foreman continued asking after his men, and the relief in their voices was plain as it became clear that none were injured.)

  I cleared my throat; the Mk 35’s vocoder made the sound loud enough to pierce the roar of flames that still surged beyond the circle of cold my drones provided. “We are in no real rush, but the fire continues to advance,” I commented evenly. “I was hoping to create a firebreak before the Grey Mountain Vineyards are consumed.”

  Emergency shelters exploded open with the frenzied efforts of the men trapped within, soot-covered and weary firefighters emerging like pupae from a chrysalis. The foreman stilled and grabbed the man next to him by one shoulder, but the others swore and scrambled away. One or two looked towards the flames, eyes wide as they considered trying their luck within the conflagration rather than confronting the notorious villain that somehow stood among them.

  I couldn’t help but feel a moment of vindication; the media's ongoing attempts to paint me as a hero had not yet been so successful that those who met me were unafraid. Even brave men would risk the pyre rather than face Doctor Fid! Twenty years of villainy was not so easily erased from hearts and minds. Sadly, today's plan was to scratch away at that reputation rather than to reinforce it.

  “Do not be alarmed!” I ordered. “I'm here to help.”

  They didn't look at all reassured, but the foreman was quickest to realize that their options were limited.

  “Thank you,” he smiled unsteadily. “It was getting a bit toasty.”

  “I have water for you.” A panel opened on one of my drones, displaying a supply of sealed water-pouches. “You can drink as we walk.”

  “Where are you taking us?” One of the other men (Barton?) asked.

  “Due West, to a region that's already been burned and starting to cool. Your rescue crews can meet you there.”

  They looked at each other helplessly, then moved to quickly distribute the water pouches. I approved of their pragmatism.

  “Let's be off.” I took the lead, near the edge of the circle created by my drones; their odd, frighteningly insect-like gait gathered many a nervous look from the rescued workers, but the drones were able to keep pace as the group began to march through the conflagration. Wherever we traveled, flames guttered and died.

  At first the firemen were reluctant, but (when it became apparent that no immediate harm was awaiting them) they began to pick up their pace. Fear was beginning to fade, replaced instead by a mix of confusion and gratitude. We walked in silence, a grim mobile island of blackened chill in the midst of a roiling blaze.

  It was a hard hike for those who were not wearing powered armor; the ground was uneven, but we forged ahead as fast as we were able. I had further plans, and the workers were as eager to be free of me as they were to be free of the wildfire. It would have been easier (and faster) to have my drones go airborne and lift them to safety...but I hadn't thought to rig any safe method to carry so many. A broad, horizontal force-field, perhaps, that passengers could stand on like an invisible platform? The drones could already create fields of that size and shape, but the current implementation was frictionless. That could lead to tragic consequences when accelerating at height. A project for another time!

  We pushed on. The flames became sparse - most vegetation here had already been consumed - and heat-driven winds didn't howl quite so loud. Eventually, we reached a safe zone and my drones turned off their heat-redirection field.

  “I've kept your rescuers apprised of your current location,” I told the bewildered firefighters as I lifted off the ground. “Good luck.”

  And then I was soaring east, back towards the wild roar and boiling haze and hellish glow. Behind my faceless mask, I could feel my lips pull up in a mad grin as my warstaff was summoned into the Mk 35’s massive hands. Visual data was useless as I dove into the smoke; sonar, radar, and global-positioning-satellite data guided me as I arced south towards the inferno’s border. Through fire and chaos, I was untouched.

  Escaping the riotous wildfire felt like entering into another world: behind me was a hellish inferno, and before me an open forest, untouched and green. The sudden transition was jarring, and I had half a mind to swim back into the blaze simply to repeat the experience. I chose against indulging; I was here for a purpose.

  I climbed higher while my drones descended towards the ground. A hundred feet aloft, I aimed the warstaff and unleashed a slim cone of white-hot plasma. Lesser vegetation was instantly carburized under the onslaught, and trees detonated thunderously as the moisture in their trunks flashed to steam. There was nothing left within the beam’s path, not a blade of grass or even a twig; the superheated, highly ionized gas had left only charred, slightly-shimmering earth in its wake. My drones hastened to extinguish any blazes started on the edge facing away from the wildfire.

  I soared forward, carving a fifty-foot wide path of empty devastation to serve as a firebreak.

  ◊◊◊

  The second conflagration was in western Indiana, about eighty miles south of Lafayette; technically speaking, this fire was not endangering any of the cross-country routes that Aaron had been considering, but it was threatening residential areas of the state. Creating the narrative for Doctor Fid’s supposed ‘redemption’ was at least of equal importance to saving a friend’s road trip. Saving farms and houses and towns was a worthy diversion. And besides…attending to emergencies outside of my CIO’s path would further limit any chance that these acts be identified to benefit a specific journey.

  Years prior, I’d been driving a moving truck full of munitions along Interstate 70 and taken a detour through this region. Sadly, the campsite in which I’d enjoyed a pleasant evening under the stars had now been turned to ash.

  I hadn’t thought about that trip in a long while; it had been intended as a staging mission while preparing an attack upon the Denver-based hero Windstormer…but then Gamma had done something egregiously stupid, and I’d decided that the giant Atl
anta-based ‘hero’ was more deserving of Doctor Fid’s attentions. Again.

  (It occurred to me that I still had a few million dollars’ worth of high-energy weaponry stashed in the Mile-High-City. Those arms were hopelessly outdated now, of course, but I made a note to retrieve them anyway. Perhaps they could be disassembled for useful components.)

  When I arrived near the wildfire’s front, local news-station camera-drones were waiting for me. Some, no doubt, had already been tasked with gathering footage of the uncontrolled blaze that was greedily devouring the Owen-Putnam State Forest; more cameras had been dispatched, I was certain, upon the spreading news that Doctor Fid had contained the Allegheny wildfire.

  It was only four AM but the flames lit up the horizon like a bloody, crimson-tinged sunrise; I circled once to evaluate where the firefighters were currently working to fight back the blaze, and where my assistance would be useful.

  A known hero, invited by the local authorities, would have taken the time to consult with the workers below to coordinate efforts and raise morale. That option was made more complicated by my historic villainous reputation; without the immediate threat of immolation to spur on cooperation, the sudden appearance of Doctor Fid could create more distress than the approaching inferno.

  With planning, effort, and many more sleepless nights like this one, that effect would be mitigated. My socio-statistical projections indicated that I would soon be able to interact with disaster-relief crews without causing unnecessary friction. For a while, at least…until some ‘hero’ did something so foolish as to require Doctor Fid’s more malicious attentions, and the wheel of public opinion turned against me once more. As it should! I was as unworthy of accolades as those I punished. In a better world, the beaten throngs would join me among the scorned; instead, they merely acquired a hospital stay at my hands. It wasn’t much, but it was something. My own simple effort to improve the pool of superheroes that children might look up to.

  Speaking of which…my sensors indicated a man-sized object flying from the direction of nearby Spencer. The omnipresent smoke limited the effectiveness of long-distance visual enhancement, but I quickly realized that ‘woman-sized’ was a more appropriate label for the approaching superheroine. She was wearing a black and tan costume with an abbreviated dark cape; her tawny mask wrapped around her head and was shaped to offer a distinctly feline impression. I didn’t recognize the outfit.

  She was flying straight towards me, so I decided to wait rather than begin creating the firebreak. Unless this newcomer was secretly more powerful than the mighty Valiant, I had little to fear while wearing the Mk 35 and was surrounded by a dozen heavy-combat drones.

  Her speed wasn’t particularly impressive; I had time to run two separate simulations of the wildfire’s progress before she arrived.

  “Doctor Fid,” she acknowledged. The woman looked tense and haggard; from the soot that marred her costume, I imagined that she’d been running herself ragged aiding the work crews all day. “I’ve been watching the news. Are you here to help?”

  “I am,” I replied simply.

  “Well, thank God.” She exhaled slowly, and her apprehension faded into weary hope. “What can I do?”

  It took a moment to calibrate my response. There’d been a calculated risk that the men I’d rescued earlier would have required additional persuasion before accepting my assistance, but my career has included a great deal of practice at disrupting civilian resistance; long experience, however, had led me to expect more stubborn recalcitrance from anyone wearing a mask. It was disappointing to realize that the intimidating monologue that I’d prepared would go unspoken.

  “Liaise with the firefighting teams; they know you, I assume?”

  “I can do that. You going to do the same thing you did in Pennsylvania?”

  “Similar.” I brought up a holographic map with several locations marked off. “There are work crews currently active here, here and here. I don’t want to get too close to them.”

  “I’ll talk to them, see how they want to split the labor.”

  I nodded to indicate agreement and she floated towards what I assumed to be the firefighters’ mobile headquarters. It occurred to me that I hadn’t gotten her name, but it didn’t seem particularly relevant. So long as the work proceeded safely (and I wasn’t required to subdue the feline-themed newcomer), I supposed that exchanging pleasantries was unnecessary.

  I had time to optimize one of the sub-unit interfaces within my warstaff before the heroine returned, carrying a map.

  “Skip these areas for now, then come back and finish off the work.” She pointed at areas clearly delineated on the unfolded paper. “I’ll be running messages and making sure that everyone is evacuated safely.”

  “I understand,” I stated gravely, then turned my back on the heroine to fly towards my soon-to-exist trench’s origin point.

  “Hey,” she said, interrupting my departure. “I don’t know why you’re doing this, but…thank you.”

  I didn’t respond verbally…I simply nodded in acknowledgment and then accelerated to maximum speed so abruptly that my inertial-dampeners were barely able to keep up.

  The tan-and-black clad heroine’s identity was still a mystery to me and an image search performed upon the relevant authorities’ databases had offered no clue; she wasn’t contracted through any of the local government that I could find and was not insured by any of the major companies. An amateur, then.

  I had no idea if she were one of the few genuinely good heroes, or if she was one of the selfish, dangerously arrogant lot who made up the bulk of Doctor Fid’s victims. If she were within the latter category, accepting her gratitude now might make future beatings awkward.

  I summoned my warstaff and began the process of carving my mark into the earth. The constantly-flowing stream of white plasma lit the forest like day, and my drones settled into the laborious task of making sure that no smaller fires were set when a tree exploded during the moment of incineration.

  ◊◊◊

  By the time that I returned home, the sun was high in the sky and even the impressive regimen of neurochemical and pharmacological alterants within my system was having a difficult time keeping me awake; I’d stashed the Mk 35 in the deep-sea lab and (after making sure that Whisper did not have any guests) used the teleportation platform to travel back to my house.

  “Hi, Terry,” my android sister called cheerfully, then her glowing blue eyes widened. “You look exhausted.”

  “I am exhausted,” I chuckled. “I’m going to get some rest; I’m hoping to go back out in a few hours.”

  “Mm!” she agreed.

  “Anything interesting going on?” I trudged towards my room.

  “Not really. The internet’s going insane about Doctor Fid’s ‘heroism’, of course, but we expected that.” She skipped along beside me. “Villains on the dark web are nervous.”

  “Anything worth mentioning?”

  “Mm. Not really. Skullface called you mean things, but he always does whenever Doctor Fid is headline news. The FTW and a few people from Lassiter’s are defending you.”

  I wasn’t worried about the opinions of the members of the FTW; that organization—created by my unfortunately deceased friend Starnyx—was a collection of non-violent hackers and social activists, and I was on decent social terms with several prominent members. They would not think less of me for the ruse that I was undertaking. The villains who socialized at Lassiter’s Den, however, were a more complicated issue. It is true that none among them were close friends, but I’d spent a long time cultivating my reputation in those circles. These next few months were likely to be uncomfortable for those with whom Doctor Fid had shared drinks.

  No matter. When the plan was done, I would be welcomed back like a king.

  “Oh!” Whisper perked up, “Phantom Puma wrote nice things about you on social media.”

  “Who?”

  “The heroine you helped in Indiana!”

  “Tha
t’s an odd choice in names,” I commented tiredly. “Mountain lions aren’t even native to that region.”

  “She has kitty powers!” Whisper seemed far too cheerful for this hour. “Maybe she was bitten by a radioactive cougar?”

  A Chesapeake-based heroine named Lynx used to joke that she got her powers after being bitten by a glowing eponymous feline; I suspected that she’d actually made a deal with an extradimensional entity, a cat-god from another world. Who could know for certain? Heroes led odd lives.

  “Well, keep an eye on the news. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to wake me up.” I was tired, but not so tired that I was willing to let my sister down.

  “Okay. Sleep well!”

  I dreamed about deep water, rain, lush greenery, the sounds of waterfalls, and a world untouched by flame.

  CHAPTER THREE

  By monday morning, weariness had become my boon companion. I wanted nothing more than to bury myself in blankets and hide from the world; sadly, Terrance Markham was expected to appear at his day job. I considered calling in ill but demurred; due to the very many modifications that I’d made to my body, I’d never actually taken a sick day because I felt unwell. Faking a cough to pursue Doctor Fid’s villainous tasks had occurred more than once, but allowing actual physical weakness to control my actions? Never. My level of exhaustion made that pride more difficult to justify; nevertheless, I struggled on. Greeting coworkers with a professionally-friendly smile took all of my focus, but I managed to successfully navigate to my office.

  From AH Biotech’s origin, I had established myself as the sort of CEO who arrived early and stayed late; given that my neural interface allowed me to digest information at high-speed, and also given the existence of the very many programs that I’d written to assist in the day-to-day tasks of a chief executive officer…only a fraction of my time at the office was spent upon work-related efforts. A more significant percentage of my day-time hours were secretly spent upon Doctor Fid’s research and simulations. With a quantum-tunnel mental link to the computers in my labs, I did not even need to touch my work-computer to accomplish the tasks; I could control the test equipment or robotic drones in any of my lairs from half a planet away to continue working to uncover the mysteries of the universe.