Starfall Read online

  I could not know for certain. In any case, the leader of the New York Shield may not have violated the word of our agreement, but he had certainly violated its spirit. There would be no further negotiations between us, no deals and no forgiveness.

  I’d never claimed to be a hero, so I would (of course) be the better man. The letter of the law would be my guide, and someday I’d find an entertaining loophole…for now, though, Cloner was the least of my concerns.

  “It’s all right,” I reassured Nyx again. I could feel the psychoactive drugs streaming throughout my system working. “I have an idea. C’mon, let’s go to my lab.”

  Whisper’s puppy followed at my heels as I headed to the teleportation platform hidden in my home office.

  3

  Nyx was settled comfortably in makeshift bedding thrown together from old towels and I donned the Mk 39 once more. The medical devices hidden beneath my ribcage and the nanites flowing through my veins were effective at certain tasks, but their resources were limited; the systems built into my armors would be more effective for long-term usage. The Brooklyn Knights’ exploits had cost me time, and I did not intend to lose any more to inconsequentials like sleep. Psychoactive compounds poured into my brain and I immersed myself fully into my studies.

  I hadn’t been able to complete my evaluation of the Dimension Bomb’s fragments, but what concepts I’d been able to unearth were intriguing and I had to admit that the math was elegant. It was surprising that a hack like Chaise had stumbled across so exceptional a theory. The practical application relied upon universal constants that had been shifted due to the Legion’s tampering more than a century past, and the echoes of the interstellar event that had created their own telepaths…and the emergence of superpowers on this planet.

  Using a variation of this discovery, I could predict other regions of the universe in which superpowered beings might also have come to exist. They were distant, certainly, but the existence of the Legion’s space-faring armada indicated that distant entities could still be a threat. I made a note to study the implications in greater detail another time. For now, my attention was riveted upon a very specific problem: dramatically expanding the range of my akashic identification sensors.

  I poked and prodded at the formulas for hours, heart racing and mind swirling with the possibilities. After a time, I stepped out of the Mk 39 armor to do my work by hand; even though my neural tap made interfacing with my computers intuitive and simple, for some things an array of blackboards was still superior.

  In a strange way, my time in academia—as a student and later as a professor—was likely the happiest period of my life. I was a lonely outcast, of course, but I had my studies. My world was pure math and pure science then. The feel of chalk in my fingers, the dry taste of dust upon my lips…it felt like coming home.

  I paused occasionally, using my neural tap to route calculations to remote computer systems, to confirm results or to run simulations based upon quickly jotted estimates…but the greater part of the work was struck in white scribbles upon slate while I wandered from board to board. It was magnificent. Every quirk was compared against existing data, whether from previous experiments or from the decades of compiled sensor readings either gathered myself or stolen from researchers around the world. That one simple finding could be applied to the study of physics in so many ways…it was magnificent. It was rapturous.

  It was useless.

  I stood, as still as a statue, as I re-ran the calculations in my head. Programs checked and re-checked my results, and each outcome was the same: this new discovery could not be used for the purpose that I desired. My civilian identity could, perhaps, squeeze another Nobel prize from these findings, but it would not help me locate Whisper.

  Energy and enthusiasm fled.

  The chalk was put away and a towel dampened to clean the blackboards. The work was done at a slow, deliberate pace, and when it was completed I picked up a sleeping puppy and activated the teleportation platform.

  If I’d stayed in the lab with the Mk 39 only feet away, I was reasonably certain that the evening would have ended in murder. I was not yet so far gone that such a choice seemed an appealing option, so I returned home and laid the little black Labrador next to her unmoving mistress.

  “I’ll bring her home.” I was careful not to wake the puppy as I stroked her sable fur, “I don’t know how, but I will.”

  Numb and listless, I stumbled back to my room; there was no plan, no next step in mind, so the use of psychoactive chemical stimulants to stay awake would have served no purpose. Instead, I decided to allow myself a few hours of rest and embark upon a new approach the following day. This was a setback, not an ending. Violence was painfully tempting…though in the end, unnecessary.

  But I tasked a few search programs to locate the Brooklyn Knights civilian identities’ homes just in case I changed my mind.

  That it was the doorbell that awakened me was testament to how exhausted I’d allowed my new body to become; layers upon layers of alerts had been transmitted directly into my sleeping brain via my neural tap…one when a familiar vehicle approached my estate’s driveway, another when attempts were made to contact me via the intercom at the gate, and still another when the appropriate code was entered to bypass the gate’s security. I hadn’t stirred, not until the insistent chime startled me from my slumber.

  I used my neural tap to review streamed security footage and groaned. There wasn’t anything on my schedule, and I didn’t recall making plans to meet…but I couldn’t simply pretend not to be home. My visitor would know better.

  Pulling on loose-fitting clothes was the work of a few seconds, then I half-stumbled half-jogged to the door.

  “Aaron,” I forced a shaky approximation of a smile. “It’s good to see you.”

  As I spoke the words aloud, I was surprised to find that they felt true.

  Aaron Schwartz was the closest thing that Terry Markham—my civilian persona—had to a friend. He knew nothing of my dual identity, of course, but he’d worked alongside me for the better part of a decade and his daughter had been Whisper’s closest companion.

  I gripped his offered hand gratefully and then stepped aside and gestured for him to enter. “How’s Dinah doing?”

  “Not great. Not terrible. She’s sad, but she’s coping. She misses her friend.” He paused, then smiled sadly as though he already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask. “How’s Whisper?”

  I couldn’t answer aloud, so I just shook my head; Aaron blinked away tears and awkwardly gripped at my shoulder in silent sympathy.

  My status as a respected CEO had been used to lobby for the bill that had allowed AIs to be accepted as United States citizens; as the first completely artificial being to be recognized under the Synthetic Americans Rights act, my ward/sister had become something of a minor celebrity. Aaron and Dinah’s support and acceptance had helped Whisper through a confusing, stressful time. After Skullface’s spell, I’d told him that I needed time away from our company to try and save Whisper, to wake her up; he’d had no understanding of the technical aspects of my quest but had simply offered whatever support he could provide.

  (The public aspect of Whisper’s connection to Dr. Terrance Markham complicated Doctor Fid’s conduct; if the actions I took when behind my starfield mask were too overt—if it became obvious that the armored villain were searching for a means to help a little android girl—then my secret identity would be revealed. Fortunately, I knew of no one who might make that connection.)

  “Do you want something to drink?” I asked when I could speak again.

  “No, thank you,” he shook his head. “I just wanted to check in on you and see how you were doing.”

  “I’ve…had a few setbacks,” I looked away, avoiding his sympathetic gaze. “But I’m still hopeful.”

  “It’s been more than two months,” he noted. “And you don’t look well.”

  “I’m…not,” I admitted.

  “
I know. I wouldn’t be, either. But if there’s anything I can do…”

  “Just take good care of our company,” I managed a half-smile.

  He winced. “It’s not as easy as you made it look.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Frank Tierney put in his two weeks’ notice today,” my friend sighed.

  Thoughts swirled. “Is another company poaching from our employee list?”

  “No, he’s retiring.” Aaron shrugged helplessly.

  Dr. Tierney was passionate about his work; retirement wasn’t going to be a comfortable fit. I imagined that he’d be seeking a new berth within six months, and Frank was smart enough to know it. If he was leaving, then something had gone terribly wrong with the company that I’d founded. And that implied that Aaron’s visit had a secondary purpose beyond merely to offer sympathy.

  “I can’t come back,” I told AH Biotech’s current CEO in a desperate rush. “I can’t. I’m needed here, you have no idea how complicated this is. Whisper needs me.”

  “Just come in and shake some hands, see if you can figure out why the researcher groups are so unhappy,” Aaron cajoled. “Everyone would love to see you.”

  “I can’t, Aaron.”

  “We’re hemorrhaging talent and I have no idea why!” He waved a hand irritably, “I may be warming your seat, but it’s still your company. You’re the largest individual shareholder. Just…come in. Help me get a handle on things.”

  “You want help? Tell Frank he’s funded for the kelp carbon sequestration project, he’ll show up to work on Monday like nothing happened. It’ll lose money for a few years, but it’ll keep him around and that means keeping Annette and Xing. Qiangguo will want in on the project but make sure he stays on radiation cleanup, he’s close to a breakthrough. Have Natalie replace Reyansh on plastic-metabolizing plankton and put Reyansh on Frank’s project. And tell William in Microbiology that he’s doing a great job but if he talks to a reporter again, he’s fired.”

  “What the hell?” Aaron stared at me. “Were you just sitting on that and watching me fail? If you knew how to fix this, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I trusted you to figure it out on your-”

  “How the hell am I supposed to figure it out if you don’t tell me anything?” Aaron gestured expressively, “Damnit, Terry, the people who’re still alive need your help too!”

  I stared, and Aaron recoiled from whatever he saw in my gaze.

  “I…I didn’t mean that Whisper is dea-” he backtracked.

  “Get out of my house.”

  “I’m sorry,” he begged. “Please, Terry, you have to know I wouldn’t-”

  “Wouldn’t try and blame me for your failures just because you forgot how to pick up a phone when you got my job? Wouldn’t show up on my doorstep begging for my help while my ward is sick?” I glared, “Please, tell me what you wouldn’t do!”

  “I’m your friend, Terry.”

  “Right now, it doesn’t feel like it. Get out!”

  “Yeah. Okay, fine.” His earlier annoyance had faded, leaving only weary sadness. “Any other last bits of wisdom you care to offer before I leave?”

  I considered. “Get Theo back. I know he quit…call him, give him whatever he wants, just get him back and make him Chief Strategy Officer. He’s as good as I am at identifying promising projects, and the folks in R&D will respect his opinion if he shoots them down.”

  “The Board will need to approve any new executive positions…” Aaron noted quietly.

  “I’ll take care of it. Just get out and leave me alone!”

  “All right.” He paused by the door and his sad sincerity was painful to look upon. “I am your friend. And I’m sorry.”

  Dr. Terrance Markham: Mean ex-CEO person, I thought to myself miserably, watching Aaron walk to his car. But I didn’t call him back.

  There was still work to be done.

  Annoyingly, I was beginning to believe that the Brooklyn Knights had been correct in their desire to keep the Dimension Bomb’s workings hidden. With fresh, well-rested eyes, I’d returned to examine the prior night’s data. Thus far, six separate means to use the discoveries to construct doomsday devices had been posited and not a single method which would help in my quest to locate Whisper.

  And that suggested another avenue of investigation.

  The Brooklyn Knights were straightforward and heroic. They worked well as a team. None of them, however, were experts in high-energy interdimensional physics. Why had they been so certain that the wreckage held dangerous clues? The device that Dr. Chaise and Skullface had used in their ill-fated assault upon the United Nations building had caused some level of destruction, but not so much that a casual observer would be aware of the existential threat that this technology represented.

  Someone else must have analyzed the device and informed them of the dangers.

  There weren’t a great many people in the world who were mentally equipped and sufficiently educated to have understood the physics involved. The lion’s share of those who could were academics and thus not particularly well-trained in the practical skills of weapons design. Some others were villains: inventors or geniuses looking to use their talents for grand goals or self-enrichment. Finally, a much smaller number were heroes. I doubted that the Knights had any contacts among the first group nor would they have taken advice from the second, so it was likely a member of the last group who had provided analysis of the Bomb that had cracked interdimensional barriers and brought the Brooklyn Knights from their own post alien-invasion apocalyptic universe to this one.

  I suspected that the Knights had consulted with Professor Paradigm.

  Paradigm was a west-coast based inventor/hero who’d been one of the founding members of San Francisco’s premier superhero team; I suspected that he just liked the alliteration when introducing himself as Professor Paradigm of the Paragons. Although he’d long since retired from active duty, he was still well connected to the cape-and-cowl community. His fortune was maintained by providing non-lethal weapons, protective gear and transportation for superheroes around the world.

  Several of his designs were adequate and he was rumored to be a thorough researcher. It was entirely possible—given that he’d had longer to study the device—that he’d uncovered some aspect of its workings that eluded me. If I could gain access to his research, I might find a hint at what I was missing.

  The Professor’s security was legendary; Rumor had it that the Gray Cat, one of the world’s most talented burglars, had tried and failed to break into Paradigm’s sanctum, and Whisper and I working together had been unable to find a flaw in his computer system’s security. Furthermore, he put as much effort as I did to ensure that his work could not be reverse engineered.

  After my dealings with Cloner, the idea of negotiating with a hero left a bitter taste in my mouth. If any better option was available to me, however, I did not see it. And so, I swallowed my pride and sent a carefully worded e-mail. And then, there was nothing to do but to wait for a response.

  And, perhaps, to respond to requests made by others.

  There was no subtlety to my landing; the crash echoed in the dimly lit abandoned warehouse and debris and dust scattered in a chaotic haze around me. The impact was no strain upon the Mk 39’s frame and the cacophony was useful in alerting my quarry of my presence.

  The Red Ghost’s scarlet cowl hid the majority of his face, but my sensors were able to reveal a cautious frown that touched the corners of his lips and that his brows were furrowed in intense observation. His hands were close to (but not quite touching) the high-tech batons that hung at his hips.

  The Mk 39 had been designed to withstand battle against powerhouses like Titan or Majestic, but it would have been beyond foolish to ignore the threat. The crimson-clad hero’s raw offensive capabilities were not nearly so potent, but his quick mind (and tendency to repurpose weapons confiscated from villains) made him a dangerous adversary. Mentally, I ran a quick diagnostic to ensure
that my predictive combat algorithms were operating at peak efficiency.

  “What?” I growled. The armor’s vocoder usually stripped emotion from my voice but this time lost its battle to disguise my impatience.

  “I didn’t think that you’d arrive so soon,” the Red Ghost replied guardedly. “My invitation was sent less than a half hour ago.”

  “You summoned me and I came.” I gestured with both hands to our surroundings. “What do you need?”

  To arrest you for nearly killing the Brooklyn Knights, his expression said. But his voice was calm: “A shipment of control boards arrived damaged. I thought that I should get your input first rather than reaching out to my supplier.”

  So. We were going to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room, then. No matter.

  More than a year ago, the Ghost and I had agreed to work together to bring some of my life-saving technologies to the world-at-large; the public narrative was that the crimson cloak-wearing hero had reverse engineered a device that he’d captured after one of our many battles. In actuality, my condition had been that I maintained control of manufacturing key components in order to keep the technology from being stolen and mis-used. In the wrong hands, many of my inventions could be used to catastrophic effect.

  (Some would argue that my hands already were the wrong hands. The sentiment is understandable…but given that I’ve never accidentally torn cities off the face of the earth by mis-calibrating a forcefield, I maintained that the safest hands were still my own.)

  The first mechanism we’d conspired to deploy had been a modified inertial displacement system to be installed in motor vehicles. At first, the devices had been so expensive to produce that only high-end luxury cars could afford them; with mass production, the cost was coming down.

  When last I’d checked, there’d only been a single fatality caused by impact in one of the vehicles thus equipped: a small sportscar struck by a freight train; the inertial displacement field had been overwhelmed then disrupted when the frame buckled. My armor would have survived such a blow, but the level of power, layered protections, and frame augmentation necessary to create such a level of safety was well beyond the capability of anything that could be mass produced.