Starfall Page 8

  Jackson wasn’t one of the big brains, but he wasn’t a dumb grunt either. There was too much at stake for the Council to trust a lesser soldier for the job. He’d need to think on his feet, to investigate and make entirely new plans based on whatever he found on the other side. He’d need to study, to learn, to mimic accents and blend in, to make executive decisions. Taking on this mission meant shouldering a heavy responsibility, and Jackson was as prepared as the entirety of the Center’s resources could make him.

  He’d be happier if it was only one name. One name was easy to justify: travel back in time and cross the name off, save billions of lives. Kill one man before he became an immortal monster, and with that death bring back the golden age of civilization.

  Three names on the list meant that two were probably innocent. Jackson wasn’t one of the big brains but that math, at least, seemed fairly simple. If the mission were successful, Jackson would never know which two; he’d just cross off the names and know that humanity had been saved. Centuries of music and culture and literature, rescued. And technology, of course. So much had been lost to the Long Dark.

  To Fid’s Revenge.

  It was going to be a one-way trip—a sacrifice of everything he’d ever known—but Jackson Pierce was going to be a hero. A hero with blood on his hands, true, but a hero nonetheless.

  The soldier shook the researcher’s hand then took off at a jog to report for duty.

  “So that what I did,” Blueshift continued in a flat monotone, his voice devoid of emotion even as silent tears spilled below his mask. “I got here ‘n somethin’ ‘bout the trip give me powers. I cross off the names and I hid, got a job, live a quiet life. My entire world mighta been lost t’ me, but I knew my sacrifice wasn’t in vain. I built a better world, saved billions of lives ‘n all it cost was a piece a my soul. Didn’t mind making that trade, not a bit.

  “But all three names was wrong.

  “I didn’t know, not for a long time. I ain’t immortal like you, but I age slow; lived here nine years afore you show up. Spent more ’n a bit o’ time hatin’ myself after that, but eventually I decide t’ soldier on. I hid here ‘cause history say you never come to New Awlins, but I use my powers, become a hero proper. Reach out to other heroes, see if maybe I find someone who stop you afore the Long Dark.”

  “But now maybe I have a chance to stop you myself, because I tell you this story: according to what we piece together, Doctor Fid was searching for something ’n the world’s heroes stopped him. And Doctor Fid went mad.

  “He built a machine that undid whatever th’ Legion did hundreds years back, ‘n superpowers suddenly stop working. Did something else, ‘cause electronics stop working too. Planes fall out of the sky, satellites go dark, cars ‘n trucks ‘n trains stop movin’. All th’ infrastructure what keeps th’ world spinning, gone at the press of a button. Only person knew how ta build modern tech wit the new laws o’ physics was Doctor Fid, ‘n he kept punishing my world for more ‘n a century. No one could stop him.

  “But eventually he stopped bein’ crazy. He wrote science books for our eggheads so they start rebuilding what was lost, and then Doctor Fid die real ugly by his own hand.

  “So I let you look at my ship, but I need you t’ know: if you do this thing, if you start the Long Dark, you end up hatin’ yourself. F’true.”

  Blueshift fell silent, and I said nothing for a long time. Thoughts swirled, mathematical models exploding into my mind as I contemplated the enormity of what the faux time-traveler described: the sheer volume of death and destruction that his world’s Doctor Fid had caused. It was mind-boggling. But (if my calculations were correct) I was fairly certain that I knew how he’d done it.

  The so-called hero before me had more innocent blood on his hands than I did. The list of dead I’d compiled over the course of my violent career might have been longer, but the names I’d chosen to cross off were monsters and villains! The other Fid—the other Terrance Markham, my otherworldly analogue—had chosen to shatter that ratio, to pile so heavy a weight of horrors upon his soul that the ground must have shaken when he walked. And yet, I understood.

  I remembered the hot, slick feel of Bobby’s lifeblood between my fingers, the stench of smoke and gore, and my baby brother’s expression of bewildered disillusionment as he realized his favorite superhero, Bronze, had chosen not to come to the rescue. I remembered that moment, that infinitely stretched nanosecond when the light left his eyes, and I remembered how incredibly heavy Bobby had felt in my arms as he finally fell limp.

  I remembered guilt and I remembered rage. I remembered hate. And then I imagined feeling all that over again as the world’s ‘heroes’, the brightly clad champions that this world practically worshipped, standing against me as my adopted little sister slipped beyond my reach.

  I imagined the public cheering for them and could not fathom why my counterpart had been so merciful.

  “I’m searching for something,” I finally stated, the intensity of my purpose burning cold. “It is, in fact, very possible that I’m on a similar quest to the one your world’s Fid was engaged in. As such, the power to stop a Long Dark is in your hands: convince them all to stand aside. You tell them the truth of what you’ve done and you make them believe it. Because if I fail, I’ll already hate myself and…well…billions of lives and the tattered remains of my soul doesn’t seem like a trade I would mind making, either.”

  “Everyone here scared of you,” Blueshift whispered, eyes wide with horror. “But no one scared enough.”

  I was terrified too, but Whisper’s need was greater than my own need for sanity.

  “Show me to your ship,” I ordered. Troubled and silent, the hero complied.

  6

  My creation bore little resemblance to the one Blueshift had displayed. His craft had been a sleek airship with an admittedly-impressive stealth field in addition to its supposed ‘time-travel’ capabilities. It had been outfitted as a platform from which to embark upon a covert mission: quick and silent. The ship’s workings had been easy to reverse engineer; his world’s Doctor Fid had written the texts that had been the basis of much of the technology. There had been more than a few new innovations to explore and the programming for the interdimensional energy sequencer would have been the work of years to reproduce on my own…but I recognized the design ethos and found it simple to unravel.

  My own transport was no elegant aircraft. It was, instead, constructed from an oversized armored tank that I’d liberated from the now-incarcerated supervillain named Technos.

  Improving upon the vehicle’s offensive and defensive capabilities had been a hobby that I’d dabbled in over the last year or so. If ever I’d had the opportunity to talk Whisper into adding orichalcum frame supports and armor, the tank would have been impregnable. Even in its current state, it was a fortress. The exterior had been modified to match my armor’s aesthetic—an unearthly star-field silhouette given an intimidating three-dimensional form by an angry red glowing wireframe—and the machine’s profile bristled with weapons and sensors and other field-manipulation tools.

  It was the latter aspect which made this vehicle trivially easy to modify to my purposes.

  Technos’ original design had included a quantum-ripple emitter that he’d used to disrupt my flight systems. The created field interfered with many devices, including several that were integral to the workings of this very tank. The core structure, therefor, had been cleverly designed to isolate the interior from the effects of its own weapon. The shielding had been integral to the entire structure, and I could use that sheath to shape the required energies for interdimensional transit.

  I’d already had most of the components available in my laboratories; a simpler transportation device had once been built for the Red Ghost when it had become plain that his own superhuman ability to transform into a red mist could be strained until he slipped from this dimension altogether, and the prototypes I’d kept in storage could be employed with almost no modificat
ions required. It was only a question of fabricating the final pieces and putting them all together. Automated construction drones made quick work of it; my neural interface had allowed me to begin directing their labor before I’d even left New Orleans. And so it was only hours before I was ready to embark.

  But I hadn’t flown to the laboratory where my interdimensional transportation device was homed; I’d had another destination in mind, someplace I needed to be first.

  Upon arriving via teleportation platform hidden in my office, I was seared by the overwhelming quiet; it cut deep, twisting through my innards like an ice-cold blade. Gone were the sounds of a puppy’s claws scraping at the floor as the little creature scrambled in to investigate my arrival. Gone were the sounds of laughter, of children playing, of gentle song.

  My home was devoid of life; the rooms formed a cavernous crypt and I was only one more ghost wandering its halls.

  Whisper’s room was…orderly. That had been my doing, putting her belongings back in their theoretical place to await her return. She had such an extraordinary mind—the most elegant artificial intelligence ever conceived—but she was also a child. When she’d fallen, books and toys had been strewn about haphazardly, a blanket surrounded by chew toys thrown in the corner for Nyx to lay upon, dolls and statues and other nicknacks arrayed haphazardly on the shelves in a system that made sense only to her.

  I wished I hadn’t tidied; the room no longer looked lived-in, and the thought tore at my heart.

  When I’d met her, there had been one doll in particular that Whisper had treasured. She never let me see her play with dolls anymore—she was too old now, she always said—but somehow that particular doll had always been moved to another location whenever I visited this room. Every time but this one: it remained where I’d left it. My hands barely shook at all as I took the doll from its place and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed.

  Whisper remained where I’d left her, too. Silent and terribly still.

  “I have Amelia here for you,” I said, throat tight. “I thought she could keep you company while I’m away.”

  I placed the doll in Whisper’s arms as though it were the most precious thing in the world.

  “I’m going on a trip. I need Professor Paradigm’s help to…to save you. There are certain things that he’s better at than I am. Things he’s studied at length that I’ve only begun to explore, but with our history there’s no way he’ll ever help me.

  “So I’m going to another dimension to find an alternate version of Professor Paradigm…a Professor Paradigm who’s never heard of Doctor Fid. With the tech I borrowed from Blueshift, I can find the dimension that the Red Ghost visited…” I turned away, unable even to look at Whisper’s still form lest I break down. “Please wait for me. Be safe.”

  I stood up and risked one last glance at my adopted little sister’s android body; it was easy to imagine that she was only sleeping. And then I straightened my back and took a deep breath.

  It was time.

  (Cont’d from page 7) at Stanford Memorial Medical Center where Professor Paradigm is recovering. A spokesman for Paradigm Labs issued a brief prepared statement:

  “Yesterday, our place of business was subject to a vicious and unprovoked attack from the notorious criminal, Doctor Fid. Fortunately, due to our founder’s foresight and quick thinking, we were able to escape with minimal injuries. The damage to our primary campus is significant, but our greatest assets—our employees—remain intact. Repairs will begin within seven days, and the majority of our fabrication has already been offloaded to other facilites. We do not expect any significant delay in delivering outstanding orders.

  “Unfortunately, our founder was injured in Doctor Fid’s assault and remains in critical care. His prognosis is good and we remain hopeful that he will make a quick and complete recovery. I spoke to him briefly before he was returned to surgery, and he asked me to convey his deepest gratitude for the outpouring of support and sympathy that he has received.”

  Several well-known heroes have been to the Medical Center to pay their respects to the injured Professor Paradigm.

  “It’s a shame,” said Valiant. The world’s most powerful superhero looked visibly shaken as he was leaving the hospital. “My battles against Doctor Fid have been well-documented, but I’d truly come to believe that he was changing his ways. Doctor Fid single-handedly saved the world from alien invasion, and he helped me save dozens of schoolchildren in Chile. This doesn’t seem like the same person that I talked to, only a few months ago.”

  “He’s gone off the deep end.” The leader of the Boston Guardians, Titan, was less forgiving. “He’s always been dangerous, but something’s changed. Doctor Fid’s become more violent and more aggressive, and he’s appearing with a frequency that we’ve never seen from this particular villain. Of course I’m grateful that he saved the Earth, and I’m grateful that he more recently saved my home city…but that gratitude is not without limits. Once again, he has demonstrated that he is a clear and present danger to the public. Now more than ever, we heroes need to come together as a community and work to capture Doctor Fid once and for all. I’ve already received written approval from the Department of Metahuman Affairs to establish a strike force. I’ll be announcing details within the next few days.”

  “Doctor Fid saved my life,” commented the heroine Regrowth, another member of the Boston Guardians. “I was badly injured and buried under several tons of dirt and rock, and he dug me out and made sure my injuries were treated. He wasn’t cruel, and I think that the person he was that day would be horrified by how he’s acting now. Something happened during his fight against Skullface three months ago, and I agree with Titan’s assessment. Doctor Fid has gone mad and must be stopped, for the public’s sake and for his own.”

  The devastation at Paradigm Labs is beyond belief. A broad swathe of the property has been rendered into rubble; standing at the edge of the effected region, one can’t help but be reminded how fragile our lives can be, and how brave our costumed protectors must be in order to stand against so terrible a menace.

  Doctor Fid remains at large.

  The transition was dizzying.

  There was an odd hum of building energies and a moment of strange pressure before activation, and then there was a cacophonous crackle of ionized plasma pouring off the transport’s surface as I arrived. The period between those two instants was indescribable, a synesthetic deluge of flickering colors and shapes that flooded every one of my senses. Even within the Mk 39—with all the recording and analysis tools even my own technology could cram into my neural interface—I could make no real sense of it.

  As the last of the rumbling faded, I imagined that I could still taste the platonic ideal of ‘sphere’ on the tip of my tongue. And then it was gone and I was someplace new.

  The wrong place.

  Dozens of alarms flickered, planted directly into my awareness via neural interface. Reflexively, I triggered my transdimensional battle-tank’s cloaking field and raised forcefields to full power. For the space of several carefully-slowed breaths, I could only wait and hope that my arrival hadn’t gathered undue attention.

  A massive low-floating starship continued on its original course, slicing through the dingy clouds overhead and heading east towards the rising sun. It hadn’t been optimized for travel inside an atmosphere, all sharp edges and unsymmetrical protuberances. The dark ship was an ugly thing, brutally utilitarian.

  I recognized the craft’s make; in my own dimension, a similar ship—laden with desperate alien refugees—had crash-landed in Colorado a few years back. That analogue had been stolen by rebels and damaged in a daring escape for freedom, barely functional before its unfortunate tumble into the Earth’s atmosphere. According to my readings, however, this vessel was in excellent repair and bristled with weapons. A battlecarrier.

  These were no refugees. This was the Legion.

  I dared not risk aggressive scanning before I’d developed a better handle
on the alien invaders’ technology, so I relied upon visual observation as the great starship trudged across the sky. Turbulent anti-grav fields quivered below the ship’s mass, twisting and compacting the heavy plumes of ash that polluted the air and gathering them into clods that fell like black snow.

  This was a world in ruin.

  Given that I’d limited my journey’s possible destination to alternate universes which had had recent contact with my own, I could only surmise that this had been the world the Brooklyn Knights had fled.

  It was no wonder that they’d never made any attempt to return.

  I’d arrived near the edge of a city; it was unrecognizable now. Many structures had been rendered into rubble, and others twisted into dilapidated wrecks. Every building in line of sight was scarred by fire and neglect.

  Once, this region had been green. Sensors displayed the savaged skeletons of what had once been a forest, and the murky sludge where a pond had lay. This Earth was faring as poorly as its inhabitants.

  The atmosphere was breathable—if only barely; I doubted that I would have cause to step outside of my own vessel without my wholly self-sufficient environmentally-controlled armor but it was good to know that the option existed. Finding naturally-potable water would be more difficult. Fortunately, there were materials on board that could be used to build a simple desalinization and purification rig. The interdimensional ripples caused by my arrival would only take twelve hours to fade so that my next jump could be safely managed; perhaps I could use some of that time to resupply.

  Ash had formed a blanket upon the ground, and in it I could identify trails of footprints. There were survivors nearby; scavengers, most likely…desperate men and women, struggling to survive the end of humanity. It seemed probable that Legion had been patrolling the region specifically looking for even so minor a remaining pocket of civilization.