Starfall Page 6
Now that I was aware of the threat, I could launch an interdiction field before the singularity could be formed. Sadly, Professor Paradigm changed tactics.
The exterior forcefields dissipated, trailing into nothingness like vapor off the surface of a still pond at sunrise. A cascade of neutron beams poured into the building; the remains of the exterior smoked-glass windows splattered across the room’s wreckage in glowing molten globules, but I was already moving. My armor’s automated combat algorithms seized control and guided me to dance—laughing mockingly—between the energy beams.
Elegant, gorgeously curved floating remote-controlled tanks had gathered around the parking lot; they shimmered in the light, somehow creating the impression of unearthly power and intent. I was reluctantly forced to admit that Professor Paradigm’s aesthetic sense far outstripped my own.
But I was Doctor Fid. These pretty toys could not stand against the Mk 39’s full power, and I was in no mood to be gentle.
I launched through the gaping remnants of what had once been a pleasant building entrance into the open sky, clenched fists flowing with gathered power, and streamed plasma blast after plasma blast upon my attackers. The air itself roared in complaint, billowing smoke twisting around torrents of energy as I rained desolation from above.
A warning blared across my consciousness as my sensors detected additional threats; further energy weapon emplacements were being deployed from atop other buildings in the campus. I darted low to grab one of the tanks’ neutron-cannon barrels, tore it away from its turret, and hurled it at the largest of the weapon platforms; the resulting explosion was glorious.
The rooftop weaponry, I realized, had been a decoy. Emitters hidden beneath the now-devastated parking lot asphalt erected a fiery dome above the battleground: a mountain’s worth of simulated mass hanging overhead, flickering and dancing like roiling flame.
I was still analyzing the sheer volume of the creation when the emitters shifted polarity with a bone-shaking crack. Instantly, the twisting mass of simulated weight was tugged downward with the force of a hundred gravities, a Pyrrhic apocalypse pulled down upon themselves that sandwiched the remaining tanks and me amidst the carnage.
The impact was phenomenal; breath was crushed from my lungs in a choked and bloody gasp, and a litany of alerts indicated that my medical nanites would be kept busy for hours to come…but the Mk 39’s orichalcum sub-frame held strong. Any other material would have buckled, disrupting the protective inertial dampening field that protected my body from fatal harm, but the remarkable orichalcum—that alloy created by Whisper’s deceased father, that remarkable material that only she could create—was all but indestructible.
(I could steal the secret from her now. It would take a few hours, but I could pry open the sections of her still-operating memory banks that connected her to her creator’s foundry. With a ready source of orichalcum I would have been able to build new armors, new drones, new weapons…and all that it would cost would be the ultimate violation of my sister’s trust. No.)
My armor was the only operable technology remaining in the affected area; of my attackers, nothing survived. Shedding the ruined remnants of what had once been an automated tank, I floated regally to my feet.
“End this!” I roared, shaped forcefields vibrating the very air to enhance the volume of my armor’s external speakers. Smoke and dust trembled in the wake of my shouted demand, and for a moment all was eerily silent. “This can only end in your tears, Paradigm!”
If this battle continued then the destruction would surely spread; whatever reason Professor Paradigm had had for initiating conflict, it apparently wasn’t worth his employees’ lives. The remaining weapons platforms powered down with an audible hum.
“I’m coming out!” Professor Paradigm sounded defeated, his voice was emitted from a tinny loudspeaker atop one of the unharmed buildings.
I hovered silently, idly programming invisible forcefield pseudopods to snuff grassfires that had sprung up along the parking lot’s periphery. In a handful of minutes, millions of dollars’ worth of damage had been done here; there were no employee cars that remained intact, the road and parking lot was beyond salvaging, and several of the surrounding buildings would need significant repair.
For what? I’d threatened no one! The sense of smug satisfaction for having defeated the superheroic inventor on his own turf, at least, was enjoyable enough to offset any sense of annoyance that arose when I considered the amount of labor that would need to be put towards repairing the Mk 39 before it could once more operate at full capabilities.
“Terry…I can’t access your current project files,” Whisper accuses, blue eyes glowing fiercely.
This android body—her second since I adopted her as my ward slash little sister— is not so elfin as was her previous form, but she is still a slim, small-framed creature. Even with all the advancements that I’d instructed a team at AH Biotech to make in creating human-like artificial flesh, Whisper still chose a form that echoes the design ethos her father had granted her: high cheekbones and delicate features made otherworldly by her pale, too-smooth skin, and completely hairless from the tip of her toes to the top of her bare skull. The nuanced way she moves, the way she smiles…she doesn’t look artificial. She looks alien. A strange angel missing its wings.
The attempt to intimidate me with the force of her glare is, quite frankly, adorable.
“It’s still in the experimental phase,” I explain, coughing and covering my lips to hide my amused smile. “The Ancient was a brilliant researcher, but his grasp of quantum mechanics was perfunctory at best.”
Recently, I’d acquired an entire library’s worth of notes from a long-deceased supervillain; he’d been a powerful sorcerer with the heart of a scientist and had spent years (and, admittedly committed no small number of atrocities) while attempting to make logical sense of his talents. I do not have the Ancient’s innate ability to sense and manipulate so-called ‘magical’ energies, but I am beginning to believe that I can construct a model to offset that lack.
It is, I suppose, a good thing that the Ancient hadn’t had a proper grounding in applied mathematics. Even among villains, the Ancient had been a horror; a deeper understanding of the concepts that his journals explore could have made him a nigh unstoppable monster.
Nigh unstoppable was not the same as being actually unstoppable, of course. Science would have eventually prevailed.
“I can help run simulations,” Whisper offers hopefully.
“I’ll need your help later,” I promise. “I want to test and verify a few theories before I’m ready to throw you at this.”
“Okay,” she smiles, then lowers her eyes. “It’s just…you’ve never locked me out of your files before. I thought I must have done something wrong.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.” I scoop the little android up into a gentle hug. “That isn’t what I meant at all.”
“Then why be all secret-y?”
“Some of the experiments the Ancient performed were…ugly. I want this to be clean science before you get to look at it.”
“I’ve read every case-file from the Ancient’s trials,” Whisper says softly. “I know what he did.”
“The investigators didn’t uncover even half of the experiments he performed. He kidnapped kids, Whisper—little boys and girls, the same age as you and Dinah—and he did bad things to them.”
The little android shivers. The relatively-recent changes that we’d made to her programming allow for her to emulate sleep and dreaming; nightmares are still a new and frightening experience for my little sister. “Then why are you using his research?”
“After reading all this, I’m glad that the Ancient is dead and I wish someone had stopped him earlier,” I sigh, “but knowledge isn’t inherently good or evil; it can be used for either cause. I think I can use this knowledge to do good.”
“Yay!” she cheered.
Created by one supervillain and adopted by another…
I often wonder how such a tremendously gentle creature managed to thrive with such role-models. But then, perhaps it’s no mystery at all: Whisper is smart enough to see our flaws and to learn from our mistakes. She’ll grow into the kind of person we failed to become…better than us in every way.
“So,” I say, blatantly changing the subject, “I may not be ready to ask for your help on this project, but I can at least explain what I’m working on. If you’re still curious?”
“Mm!”
“The Ancient spent years studying Akashic records…” I began, and the little android tilted her head and listened attentively. I couldn’t help but smile.
It’s going to be heartbreaking when she eventually outgrows me.
The subject of my ire appeared, emerging from somewhere deeper inside the laboratory building and hobbling carefully through the broken glass and rubble. Professor Paradigm had aged since the last promotional photos that I’d seen; he was stooped and unhealthily slender, his wispy hair bleached to the color of snow and his skin pale and wrinkled. The former hero’s steel-blue eyes were clear, however, and his gaze hinted at a fierce intellect that missed nothing.
“This was wasteful,” I stated scornfully as he approached.
“I’m insured,” was his dry reply.
“If you initiated all of this violence as part of an insurance fraud attempt, you should know that this armor records all of my conversations.” To the best of my knowledge, there was only one company that offered a policy against ‘acts of Fid’ and they performed a significant amount of research before issuing payment…but they did pay well. “I’ll want a cut, donated to the charity of my choice.”
“I don’t commit fraud,” he shook his head, seeming somewhat bemused even by the suggestion.
“Then, why?”
“The only new technology for you to steal was in those hovertank drones,” he waved at the shiny twisted piles of scrap spread across what had once been his laboratory’s parking lot. “Nothing left for you to take now, is there?”
“Technically true,” I began. His willingness to see his work destroyed rather than taken was admirable and drawing me outside into the cross-hairs of his means of destruction had been a well-considered strategy. Even so, I was unable to withhold my exasperation, “except that I wasn’t here to steal anything!”
The older man stared up at my faceless mask. “What?”
“I hadn’t even been aware of your new tanks’ existence.” I crossed my arms. “I came here to talk.”
He snorted, “What makes you think that I’d be willing to talk to a murderer?”
“We’re talking right now,” I replied dryly.
“We both know that I’m just stalling until the Paragons arrive,” Professor Paradigm smirked. “Appeasement to draw out the conversation while looking for opportunities, right?”
I refused to flinch as my own words to Cherenkov were thrown back in my face. Still, satellite footage showed that the San Francisco-based team’s shuttle was only just leaving their headquarters. Really, their reaction time was embarrassing; it was tempting to offer Professor Paradigm my teleportation platform technology purely for charitable purposes.
“They are still minutes away,” I sighed. “I’d hoped for a longer discussion, but I suppose that a few minutes will have to do.”
“I’ll give you nothing,” the old man lifted his chin defiantly, and given the intensity of his gaze I could not help but believe in his commitment. Eventually, I was certain that I could find a chip in his moral defenses, some bribe or threat that would break his will…but such an effort would take time. I did not possess an abundance of that particular resource.
“Then why send me an invitation, if you weren’t willing to talk?”
“… what?” He looked honestly gobsmacked.
“An e-mail! Telling me to meet you at this location!”
“I never sent you a damned thing,” he spat as though annoyed even at the concept. “Not a damned thing.”
I used a holographic projector mounted on my shoulder to display the message in question. He read it twice, shook his head in disbelief.
“That’s an auto-response message I send to members of my physics think-tank,” the former leader of the San Francisco Paragons chuckled darkly. “We don’t invite murderers to our weekly coffee.”
“Oh, for the love of Tesla,” I sighed. “Let me guess: Cuboid is responsible for aspects of your network infrastructure, and some communications have gone awry while his attention is focused upon building a new body?”
“You destroyed his old one.” Scorn dripped from his voice like a viscous ichor.
“That was more than a year ago,” I scowled, though he couldn’t see my face behind the Mk 39’s faceplate. “And I was busy saving the world at the time.”
“You may have saved the world,” the old inventor turned to stare across the wreckage that had once been the entrance to his workplace, “but you’ve left a lot of destruction in your wake. You’ve hurt people I care about. And your time is almost up.”
I could have stayed. Could have fought the Paragons, could have attempted to subdue them without doing any permanent injury and then continued my attempts to wheedle information from the recalcitrant Paradigm…but the odds were not in my favor. Already, hours had been wasted in traveling. How much more time was I willing to spend, chasing after what might well be another dead end?
My hand closed into a fist and I fired a modified stunner blast into the slender man’s chest; blue energies crackled and danced across his frame and he collapsed with a strangled gurgle.
Standing in vigilance over his convulsing form, I found myself musing whether or not I should feel guilty for his obvious pain. Foam formed at the corners of his lips and tears were squeezed from eyes clenched tight; Professor Paradigm had attacked without provocation and that last self-destructive high-gravity energy-dome collapse could easily have been fatal if not for the Mk 39’s orichalcum sub-frame. Surely such excessive aggression should be punished! And yet…He didn’t look like a proud, stubborn hero any longer; pale skin was scraped raw against the rubble, and the only sounds he could manage were pitiful wheezes.
His thrashing began to wane, so I tagged him again while I considered. Finally—unable to come to a decision—I engaged my flight systems and lifted a few feet from the ground.
“Tell your tin-plated tech-support to get back to work,” I sneered. “That’s the second time his failings have inconvenienced me. If it happens again, someone might be harmed.”
I left the moaning inventor behind and launched towards the heavens.
5
Cuboid (Android)
From the Online Encyclopedia
Cuboid is a superhumanly strong artificially-sentient gun-metal gray android created by the reclusive inventor Christopher Perry and is a member of the Department of Metahuman Affairs licensed superhero team, the New York Shield. There is some controversy over Cuboid’s date of origin. Cuboid’s first public appearance was on December 11, 2006, but it has been suggested that Dr. Perry began construction more than three decades earlier. Although early press releases implied that Cuboid’s android body was self-contained, it has since been confirmed that Cuboid’s brain is located in a secure server farm and that his body has been controlled remotely.
Although all who worked alongside Cuboid were convinced that the android was a unique individual, for legal purposes Cuboid was initially considered to be Christopher Perry’s property, and it was Dr. Perry who applied for (and received) license to operate as a hero in January of 2007.
Between January 2007 and June 2009, Cuboid was deployed only to assist in major superhero battles. In July 2009, Dr. Perry was offered membership in the New York Shield with the stipulation that Cuboid would act in Dr. Perry’s stead. Cuboid has remained a staple of the New York Shield ever since. In addition, Cuboid has been employed to administrate the communications and data systems maintained by several superhero and government organizations.
Cuboid’s body was completely destroyed by Doctor Fid during the Battle at Mercer-Tallon on January 24, 2018 and has not appeared in physical form since. Even without a body, Cuboid’s autonomy was legally recognized with the passage of the Synthetic Americans’ Rights act and all his contracts re-written, which led to team-leader Cloner joking that Cuboid was ‘both the newest and the longest continuously-active member’ of the team.
Contents
1 Personal Life
2 Career
2.1 First appearance
2.2 Notable Battles
3 Physical capabilities
4 Awards
5 Legal Controversies
6 Notes
7 External links
Personal Life
Although the android has no physical gender, Cuboid has always claimed to identify as male and prefers the use of the masculine pronoun.
Cuboid has been described as being gentle and infinitely patient but difficult to draw into social contact. Cuboid rarely speaks publicly or makes public appearances, instead choosing to release statements directly to the media or publishing essays that convey his opinions. Despite this general reserve, he is known to have formed a few well-documented friendships.
Even before joining the N.Y. Shield, Cuboid had initiated a long-running friendship with then-team-leader (and now disgraced ex-heroine) Sphinx. In addition, Cuboid is known to have maintained relationships with several well-known scientists, philosophers, and writers.
According to Dr. Christopher Perry’s memoir, Cuboid expressed a curiosity about (and reverence for) biological life even before being given a physical body. He has often demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of insect, animal, and plant species and is known to be a strident supporter of environmentalist campaigns. Although no images or footage has ever been released to the public, several of Cuboid’s peers have stated that the android designs and maintains elaborate self-sustaining ecospheres as a hobby.