Last one! Yay! - Tales of the Parodyverse

Post By Fin Fang Foom Mon Aug 15, 2005 at 11:51:37 pm EDT	Subject Last one! Yay! Originally God help me, there's more.	In Reply To Fin Fang Foom Mon Aug 15, 2005 at 11:50:15 pm EDT

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Most people worked their entire lives to understand how things worked, or how to make something work--a relationship, a skill, a legal or political system, a career, a scientific or cultural phenomenon, a personality. Marcus Cross had the opposite problem...he commanded more perception than a human’s brain or soul was safely equipped to handle, and it had created a storm in both his own mind and reality itself.

There were many foundations on which a nation could be built: a shared territory; a particular ethnicity or religion; a certain set of ideas; common goals and/or a common good. Though several of those applied to America, it also had a far more unusual ingredient in the mix--it was a society that, to an extent, had been created because of antisocial urges. Prehistoric humans had traveled with mammoths and ground-sloths east across the Land Bridge, wanting to get away from human predators and go to this safe, supposedly-unpopulated land that their shamans had prophesied, while pilgrims from Britain and Europe desired privacy and seclusion so much that they wanted nothing less than the Atlantic to separate them from the old world and its ways. After briefly settling down in the cool, coastal wilderness, a civilization sprouted up (as they tend to do), and this restless spirit continued keeping one step ahead of the domestication that threatened to tame it. Gradually, it moved down the East Coast, into the then-remote forests and mountains of the Southeast and the eastern Midwest, and exploding Westwards until it hit the edge of the continent, temporarily frustrated by the Pacific (until Hawaii and Alaska), and then stymied by the fact that it had simply run out of world. (Or at least the mostly-uninhabited world it sought.)

Though the frontier vanished from the American reality, it still existed within the American imagination--in fact, there were two different strains of it. One had gone northwards, and it was more strongly reclusive than the other. They were people that, when given the choice of being around wild animals or other people, decided to take their chances with the ones that were at least honest about their intentions. This batch was traditional and standoffish, wanting to get away from an increasingly-modern world that contradicted their beliefs, just as the pilgrims had. The other type had pushed towards the sunny, southern coast, wanting to exchange old lifestyles for a blank slate that they could change radically. They had big dreams in their heads--worldly thoughts of gold and prosperity, and visionary thoughts about personal freedoms and the future. The former kept pushing their culture west along the border, and the latter kept pushing their culture north up the coast. Naturally, the result was the strange hyrbid known as the Pacific Northwest, two separate fringes of America joining as one. They were anti-authoritarian, but optimistic. Culturally progressive, but reasonably conservative about it. The vague political issue of “privacy” usually determined their elections, making them surprisingly libertarian, a blend of both of the extremes that had journeyed hundreds of years and thousands of miles.

(Making things even more complex, the Northwest wasn’t the end of their respective journeys, it was merely the crossroads; the middle of a strangely-shaped X, where the two paths collided and ricocheted off each other, overshooting the mainland and inadvertantly resuming their original directions in the process, with the Pacificas bouncing west to the hedonistic paradise known as Hawaii, while the Winterites bounced north to the harsh refuge known as Alaska.)

Some things were so terrible that they were covered up for more than a hundred years--that was the case of the strange epidemic of Shanghaiing, which went on in Portland, Oregon in the 1870s. People were actually drugged, tricked into standing or sitting on trapdoors, tied up and transported through an underground series of tunnels, and then forced into servitude on commercial sailing ships. The city didn’t officially acknowledge that such a thing had ever happened until 1992. Though it mainly happened to men (it was dangerous, low-paying work, and stout bodies were needed, willing or not), it also happened to women, who were threatened into doing jobs that were equally unhealthy. Towards the end of that decade, there was a multi-ship mutiny in one such fleet, which had just left the harbor a day earlier. The slaves had been men and women alike, white and black and Asian and Mexican. They were all equal in their lack of freedom. Though they escaped, they couldn’t go back to their old lives, as they feared retribution from the wealthy company that had owned the fleet. (Portland was incredibly corrupt, during that period.) One of them had an idea, however…

The legend had been born during the 1500s: a belief that the river of forgetfulness found in Greek mythology, Lethe, was actually based on something that existed in the New World. An official search for the Fountain of Youth (it was rumored to be in what would later be called Florida) was going on around the same time, so the idea seemed plausible enough. The natives, who knew this land like the back of their chalk-tattooed hands, claimed that a strange region existed clear on the other side of the continent, in a northern landscape of winter trees and giant cats. They’d heard about it from travelers from far-off tribes, who claimed that a scout could go past a certain river and find himself in a leafy paradise--only to be unable to find his way back, after he left, or to remember much about what he’d actually seen. The conquistadors that tried to journey inland to find it died before they got anywhere near the Pacific. Lewis and Clark briefly wandered into it…but without realizing the truth. The area it was allegedly in was said to be haunted, so it was avoided by Native-Americans and immigrant Americans alike. And its legend was becoming more and more obscure each day, as if people were simply forgetting that such an idea had ever existed. Surely, in such a place, those who’d been Shanghaied would be safe from their former captors.

It took only a year to find it--it was actually two separate rivers (neither of which were on any map) that came down from opposite sides of the same giant mountain, presumably from the same source. There was easily a hundred miles between the two rivers. The new settlers quickly found that, so long as they didn’t stray from where the rivers reached, no-one would find them. At first, they thought it was a coincidence…but no government people ever came to set up a post-office or make them pay taxes. (They took care of that on their own.) No mercenaries sent by their captors came to kill them. The decades passed, and they simply relied on themselves and hid from the world as best they could. United by their powerless experience, an egalitarian social system was set up--it was democracy and capitalism, except with civil rights and lifestyle freedoms that wouldn’t exist in mainstream America until the ‘60s--but they were very paranoid and cautious. A few new people would trickle in every year; individuals from all over the globe who just wanted to get away from it all, and were shocked that Lethe (as they’d named the town) actually existed. Outside, the idea of Lethe became as obsolete as the Fountain of Youth (which, ironically, also existed, except in Africa), and only the hardcore hermits were desperate enough to search it out.

Over time, its population grew to that of a small city, and it was finally discovered by superhuman adventurers after WWII. The scientist of the group postulated that the city was fluctuating between dimensions, never anchored in one for long--and that the energies involved somehow affected human memory. They (very) reluctantly accepted the partnership of the United States government, in exchange for modern conveniences that they hadn’t had, like telephones and cars and new medicines. (But no airport, for safety’s sake…with all the Multiverse flickering, it would have been easy for a plane to fly out into some strange dimension and then be abandoned when Lethe jumped to the next one.) They were as conventional a city as they could be, though they’d often cycle away from the Parodyverse for years or decades at a time, only to return and suddenly be remembered by everyone else, who couldn’t understand what all of these yellowing articles concerning “Lethe” were about. Naturally, they were never hooked up to any sort of freeway; their roads curved back inwards where the rivers ended, and you only went that far to look at the scenery. They were uniquely insulated from interstate commerce and globalization, as it was impossible for them to depend on anyone beyond their own city-limits--instead of shipping things in, they had their own farms and factories and everything else.

It was a surprisingly normal place, all things considered. Other humans and animals alike seemed to instinctively avoid the region, so they were safe, while they only went to inhabitable dimensions whose environmental differences were minor--green skies, binary suns, sparkling air. And, just as the rest of the world forgot about them through some quantum means, they forgot about the rest of the world. TV and satellite reception was spotty at best (sometimes you had talking dinosaurs on every station, other times everyone was naked), so people didn’t really bother with it, for the most part. Which reality had they originally been from, again? Who really cared? It all seemed like ancient history. People minded their own business and enjoyed their solitude, not needing or wanting to be part of the world. (Admittedly, some did go exploring; they were rarely seen again.) They received new citizens and technological and cultural updates from their periodic stops in the Parodyverse, which seemed to be the only realm that was capable of acknowledging their existence. The federal government had no stake in Lethe--their taxes went exclusively to the city (it was logistically impossible to do anything else), and local government ran services that were usually nationally-coordinated. But they soon encountered a problem…

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the old guard of the mob had been all but eradicated by the FBI, who spent years on cases that involved wiretaps and 24/7 surveillance and endless evidence-building. When small crime organizations started around the same time in Lethe (most of them hadn’t even known what a “mob” was, until one of their cultural exchanges, so its birth was delayed), the cops were stretched thin doing not only their own jobs, but also the day-to-day jobs that would normally be done by the ATF, FBI, DEA (admittedly, they only had pot, as trafficking anything in was insanely difficult), etc. They didn’t have the manpower, time, or money required for the decade-long investigation required to bring down a mob. With less resistance, the mob thrived…it was more than easy to take advantage of Lethe’s cut-off-from-help nature. And as this new era dawned, they secretly added superhuman enforcers to the mix, an element that came from the Parodyverse. Terrified that the populace would blame them, the city’s government covered it all up as best they could--but it was obvious that Lethe was getting poorer and more dangerous. They didn’t have any state or federal power they could call in for backup. Even in a worst-case scenario, they had no ability to call in the military. They were quickly corrupted and infiltrated by organized crime.

As Lethe stood on the precipice of destruction, a man from the Parodyverse was hitchhiking into the city, with nothing but a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Just as there was a wise man, there was also a seer. Just as there was one to enlighten, there was also one to hunt. Just as there was a violet shade in the Spectrum bloodlines (violet representing power, royalty, and the esoteric--the end of the spectrum, the hazy bridge between darkness and dawn), there was also an indigo shade (indigo representing seriousness, integrity, and knowledge--the next-to-last color and deepest of night, in which necessary labors are done without ever being seen or appreciated). Marcus Cross, then a devoted disciple of the Crescent Key, and part of the superhuman system of checks-and-balances alongside the HV of that period (though his masters were much more enthused about the child-prodigy HV they had in seclusion), had come to restore Lethe to its former glory.

Cross had an advantage that his opponents couldn’t even imagine: though technically blind, he saw the world on a higher plane, in terms of information, functionality, and connections, in what the Crescent Key had come to call the “lifeweb”. Just by looking at you, he could tell what your current emotional state and overall personality were like, what you’d come from doing and what you were likely to do next, if you had any incriminating evidence on or in your clothes or body, and what details were hidden in your DNA and background. When he looked at anything with structure--everyday physics, technology, plans, things like business and politics--he immediately understood the intrinsic dynamics that drove and defined their workings, enabling him to be a brilliant scientist and a master of strategy. And throughout all of this, he saw how everyone and everything was connected, knowing that if you said this to that person that it was likely to make this certain thing happen. He knew the nature and history of your connections to other people, ideologies, organizations, and events. All of this helped make him one of the two greatest detectives on the planet. The world he saw was like the Internet, but without computers--a dark dimension where color-coded data was alive and moving around and able to be easily read. He was capable of a focus and insight that forensic science and research never would have been able to match.

Like Hadrian, he’d spent his entire life training for this. He had the fighting ability, he’d designed his own weaponry and gear (an advanced, fireproof kevlar-esque bodysuit and a high-tech harness that tied into his alter-ego’s theme, among other things), and he had a plan. As he entered Lethe in 1992, the same year that Portland finally admitted the truth about Shanghaiing, he knew he’d need only two other things to complete his mission--money and information--and he could get both easily enough.

What happened next was etched in urban legend and underground history. There was a basement in the central headquarters of the Lethe Police Department, where various precincts sent their cold case files to be stored. Ever since the rise of organized crime in the city, they’d had more and more of these, many of which were labeled with a round, red sticker--the “reds” were cases that they simply weren’t supposed to bother trying to solve, as they involved the superhuman enforcers that secretly roamed the city. One morning, the bored, underpaid clerk walked in, only to find half of the room cleared out…someone had stolen all of the reds. While the LPD and their overlords reacted to this, someone started working their way up the food-chain. He wasn’t even bothering to interrogate people, but somehow, after interacting with them, he knew where to go and what to do next. They sent hit-squads and super-enforcers, all of whom were hospitalized or died in the process of attacking or escaping. Someone broke into their lawyers’s offices and their accountants’s offices, rifling through files and learning the secret blueprint of the coalition of criminal organizations that ruled the city. Their most profitable and important fronts were sabotaged, or destroyed, or repeatedly robbed. Their control over city officials, police, and journalists was weakened, as vital blackmail evidence was stolen.

At the same time, a young entepreneur named Marcus Cross (who, coincidentally, now had a ton of cash) had made some good investments with local businesses (the few that weren’t mobbed-up), and he bought them out and gathered them into a corporation that he called Twin Rivers, Inc. He was Owner and CEO. They bought and managed real estate, they supplied various kinds of electronics and communications technology, they managed nearby agribusiness, they manufactured pharmaceutical products and clothes and even some cars (no out-of-city suppliers of anything, remember, thanks to their weird dimensional nature), and most importantly, they provided untouchable, military-level security for other legit companies, be they big or small. Cross easily outmaneuvered the mob in terms of turning private sector power into public policy. They’d taken over the media; he took it back. He found the people they’d bought off and brought them under his own control. The inner-city was repaired and renewed via charity. They soon found themselves in the situation that Lethe had originally been in…they couldn’t call on their out-of-state brethren for help, nor could they leave the city, unless they wanted to face the unknown dangers of bizarre universes. And Twin Rivers was helping the economy improve, giving them a smaller pool of desperate, unemployed people to force into being lackeys.

Cross had attracted protégés and converted some of the people they’d sent to kill him to his own side. Yes, they did get lucky, sometimes--they killed an amateur that had been helping him in an unsanctioned way, and they killed one of his sanctioned assistants--but they paid for that dearly. All the still-corrupt portions of the government could do was take credit for the drop in crime (the LPD was covering up his existence, which he didn’t want public, anyway) and wait for this new individual to tell them what to do. It took six years of urban warfare for him to fully dismantle every last trace of (major) organized crime in the city. Then, the modern superhuman age had publicly begun, with the debut of the League of Regulars and assorted others. (As they learned via satellite during one of their regular trips to the Parodyverse.) The populace knew that the old mob had been defeated, but they feared that a new one had been the one to finish them off…wanting to allay their fears, and against his better judgment, Cross allowed his alter-ego’s existence to be “revealed” by a journalist who wrote for a paper he owned. The public was so insanely grateful that they actually changed the name of the city to honor him, which he was extremely uncomfortable with. And he kept the city firmly under his control.

That was late 1998 and early 1999. The city formerly known as Lethe had almost ended up like Gothametropolis York, but Cross had managed to restore physical safety, economic safety, and personal safety. (Cross himself was a recluse who wasn’t a people person, and in any other place, that wouldn’t have played well, but given how antisocial the city itself was, he fit right in.) What looked like the beginning of a golden age for their burgeoning metropolis (between reproduction and swaths of arrivals from the Parodyverse, they’d grown to five million people since 1880, comfortably jammed between the rivers) was anything but, of course. Cross saw that, between the proliferation of genetically-enhanced DNA, advanced technology, and magic, things were getting more and more complex in the outside world, and while he rejoiced in complexity, this breed of it was extremely dangerous and uncontrollable. He knew it’d only be a matter of time until something major and horrible happened--so, he planned accordingly. The Crescent Key wanted him to move onto the next city (presumably GMY) and continue his work, but he didn’t want to leave…

When the Swarm had attempted to obliterate humanity, the renamed Lethe had been in the Parodyverse, at the time. And in the first few moments, Cross knew that he’d been right to stay. Unbeknownst to anyone outside of his inner-circle and the elite levels of his corporation, he’d built a heavily-guarded plant in the area that the two rivers originated from, finding a way to control the city’s dimension-hopping and memory-effects. When the Swarm targeted them, he simply made their region vanish and reappear in the same place in a baseline universe. But the populace (who’d heard about it via the media) was panicking, and Cross could tell that their fear was going to lead to some very bad things. As such, he once again used his plant, only this time, it mindwiped the entire city, making them forget about not only the attack, but the existence of superheroes (and their related phenomena) and the city’s strange nature. As far as they knew, they were simply self-reliant and had no need to interact with the outside world…that was how it had always been, after all, so the instinct was natural. He meant this to be a temporary measure, until he figured out a way that mainstream humanity could psychologically handle living in the Parodyverse. The Crescent Key thought he’d lost his mind and/or gone insane with power.

It was dusk in the city once again known as Lethe--a thriving, normal, safe place that hardly ever thought about its dark past. Exhausted-looking professionals that had stayed late were trickling out of their office buildings and into cabs, while energized, casually-dressed people were leaving restaurants and heading for the club district. The citizens tended to be polite, if not outright friendly, since they all believed in minding one’s own business. There was a shockingly small number of bumper stickers and “message” t-shirts…there was no need to be loud about one’s beliefs. At times, it felt like an extension of San Francisco--vibrant block parties and exotic cultural events--while it could also feel like an extension of Montana, with pickups and cowboy hats and an unflinching, “We don’t need anybody else” nature. The police were competent but unobtrusive; it often looked like they felt useless. A good portion of the city worked for Twin Rivers, which enjoyed a benevolent, beneficial monopoly that no-one ever seemed concerned about breaking up. Its tower was the tallest building around, rising from the middle of Lethe. It was a ridged, cylindrical, grey affair, with stripes of segmented black windows.

To someone just getting off the elevator, the top floor of the Twin Rivers building looked like nothing but a cavernous lobby--though the vast majority of the floorspace was empty, the round area was ringed with display cases that were built into the wall, containing paintings, statues, and other similar items. (It was a series of squares; one would be a deep window, the next would be a display case, and so on.) Aside from that, there was nothing but a few plush, expensive-looking sofas for waiting and a modern-art-style secretary’s desk that was ten feet away from the tall, mahogany double-doors that led to Marcus Cross’s office. His secretary (though calling her that was really sort of demaning, as she did far more than merely answer phones) was a brown-haired twentysomething in glasses, sandals, a pink top, and black slacks. Her hair was done up in a floppy ponytail that bounced as she moved around. Generally speaking, her shift went from one in the afternoon until eight at night, as Mr. Cross wasn’t much of a morning person, and she had law school classes before noon, anyway.

Across the mostly-empty room, one of the elevators dinged, and a man that was about her own age, with dark red hair and a goatee, stepped out. He wore a grey suit (with no tie) and a black button-down shirt. Most visitors and employees paused before continuing, amazed by the room’s size and luxury, as very few people (even within the company) had ever seen it--but he charged right up to her desk, unfazed. Zane Drazinski worked for the company’s Security branch, high-tech private police that protected both their own corporate holdings (including property they rented or leased) and the holdings of their associates. They had far more power than the LPD.

“Is Mr. Cross in?”

“One moment, please.” She pushed a button on the phone, which activated her minimalistic, wireless headset. “Mr. Cross, Mr. Drazinski is here to see you.” She listened and nodded. “I’ll tell him.” Taking off the headset, she said, “He’s in a meeting with Ms. Casta, he’ll be ready for you in just a minute.”

They remained quiet for a moment. Then: “Did we get the muni contract?”

“He had the Mayor in for the pitch, it only took twenty minutes--just a handshake deal, so far, but it looks like we’ll be building the next wave of public transport for the city. I was on the phone all afternoon with Human Resources and Real Estate, we need to steal some R&D people from Technology and find a place for them to set up shop. Cindy’s thinking we can convert one of those old steel plants down in the industrial district.”

“Which means we’ll need more guards, since we’ll have a new place to secure.”

“…which means more late-night calls interrupting our dates?”

“Look, like I said, I’m really, really sorry about that. It just can’t be avoided.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What was the Mayor like, after the deal?”

“Oh, way to change the subject.”

“Seriously.”

“I don’t know. Kind of…resigned? She was acting like it was just a formality or something. But I guess she’s usually that way, around Mr. Cross.”

“Hmm. Anyway, I’ll make it up to you tomorrow night, I swear.”

“Not tonight?”

“No, I have, uh--I have a thing.”

“For a TR Security flunkie with all of, what, four years under his belt, they sure do like to page you at night a lot. To me, it seems like they’d want to avoid bugging the kid that Mr. Cross helped out, instead of--”

“How about Portini’s?”

“I wish. I have to babysit my niece, tomorrow night--you can make macaroni and cheese, right?”

“Just barely.”

“And how do you feel about a Powerpuff Girls marathon?”

“Will you be sitting on my lap?”

“Not around the puritan’s daughter. But make sure to bring what you’re wearing the next day, anyway. We’ve only got her until ten.”

“Will do.”

“Did anybody pronounce your name right, today?”

“Yeah, but they thought I was Russian.”

Her phone buzzed, and she listened. “Ms. Casta says you can come on in.”

“Tomorrow night?”

“I’m getting off early. They’re going out for their anniversary at six-thirty--be there a half-hour before that, so you can help me with dinner.”

“A three-and-a-half hour meal?”

“You forgot the ‘wild screaming no-children-in-the-house sex’ part of their evening.”

Zane squeezed her hand as he walked by, then swinging the doors open and instinctively closing them as he went through, entering his boss’s massive office. It dwarfed the lobby. Since it was a corner office, two walls were nothing but ceiling-high glass (no-one could see in), while the other two had a minibar, a massive bookcase, a painting of a Middle Eastern desert vista, cabinets, TV screens, and doors that led to various off-limits places, respectively. His desk was at the far end, and you had to go up a small, wide set of stairs to reach it, while you could also go down a set of stairs to an indented living-room-esque area with a glass table in the middle of the furniture. The floor was all marble. Mr. Cross himself was a British-born black man, in his mid-thirties, with somewhat light skin and a dark, thin layer of stubble on his scalp and face, giving him a rugged, spartan look. He preferred wearing bluish-grey suits. His longtime companion Genevieve Casta (formerly one of his archenemies, a femme-fatale costumed con-artist who was now his PR director) had a more vague European accent, relatively short black hair that hung down to her neck, and at the moment, she wore a sweater that came down to her belly-button and nothing else, showing off her toned, tanned rear and long legs.

Blinking, Zane said, “Uh, was I not supposed to come in?”

“Yeah, like you haven’t been waiting for this moment since you were a teenager.” Vieve rolled her eyes. “I’ve been running around naked on beaches since I was fifteen. You can walk into a gory, multiple-victim crime-scene without thinking twice, but you see nudity and--”

Marcus Cross cleared his throat. “Vieve needs to finish getting dressed, so she can work on tomorrow’s press release for the muni project. You know about that, right?”

“Yeah, Staci just told me.”

“Do you need tonight off? If you want, I can put Rob on the Patterson case stakeout.”

“No, we set something up for tomorrow night. I can’t believe that case is still live--you mean to tell me Williams still hasn’t shown up?”

“Yeah, and with everything else that’s going on, I don’t have time to go looking for him.”

“If you want me to suit up and discreetly hit some of his friends’s places, I--”

“We’ve talked about this. Until further notice, there’s a moratorium on alter-egos for everyone but me…there are too many psychological variables involved, and I’m still trying to figure out a way to deal with the super-complexity issue. Until then, no other selves, and the city stays in a safe, baseline dimension.”

“I know, I just--I mean, we have no idea what’s going on back home. It’s been months since you’ve gone on recon there, maybe that ‘New America’ stuff is over.”

“We can all get together and have a discussion about this…but not tonight, please. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“How did the raid go?”

“Pretty good--the guy didn’t embezzle as much money as we’d thought. Only five million.”

“And he didn’t take any TR tech?”

“No, he thought it’d be too risky, on top of what he was already doing.”

“Did Grange take point when you went in?”

“Yeah, we did the usual scam…the others kicked the door down, Johnny and I supposedly covered the back alley, and I got on a roof and waited to see which window he’d crawl out of. He got about twenty paces before I flying-tackled him.”

“Use your weapon?”

“Two punches were all it took. He wasn’t in the best of shape, I was afraid he was gonna have a heart-attack or something.”

“Did you have you have a storming helmet on, and did anybody see you jump down from the roof?”

“Yes and no.”

“That’s my boy. Did you hand him over to the LPD or send him to our private facility?”

“Private. He knows a few things, we don’t want him having a trial.”

“And Johnny took credit for the capture?”

“Yeah--nobody saw anything to suggest otherwise. And, you know, you don’t have to ask me questions when you already know the answers…I’m not Rob, I’m used to your powers.”

“Sorry. That is a force of habit that comes from maintaining the secret--but this time, I was actually asking so she’d know, too.” He glanced towards the still-bottomless Vieve, who was flipping through the newspaper.

“We have any reds on the loose?”

“Sledgehammer is still MIA, but after how badly he was hurt in our last fight…if he shows up before another two or three weeks have passed, he’s just being stupid and self-destructive.”

Vieve--finally jumping into a pair of pants--couldn’t stop laughing. “That whole plan of his was hilarious. Calling the media to warn them about this ‘massive conspiracy to cover up the truth about the city’, not knowing that we own the local media. Yeah, let’s just call or e-mail those reporters…except we have the local ones’s phones tapped, and we have their e-mails intercepted, and we’ve bugged their homes and offices, and we scan it all for keywords. The national ones will never even hear about it, because we own the ISPs and the cell phone towers, and we can monitor it and make him think he’s getting a busy-signal or bounce his e-mails all the time. I’m sorry, that just--it’s so sad, he thinks he’s being all brilliant and he has no idea.” (Lethe had no landlines or cable TV, it had cell phones and satellite TV, instead; dimension-hopping had made such physical connections to the outside world impossible.)

“Well, he’s the only red left that knows the whole story, so that’s progress.” The rest all thought that it was like the “old days”, in which they were urban legends that the mainstream media didn’t talk about.

Cross nodded. “If I’d had time, I’d have designed it to make them forget that they had powers, too, but…”

“So, I’m on the Patterson stakeout?”

“Yeah--remember, Williams has a lot of mates, so he might send one of them to pick up his stuff, something like that.”

Vieve said her goodbyes and took the private elevator down to the PR department. Her departure wasn’t paid that much attention by Marcus, which annoyed her…he’d been acting weirder than usual all day. Sometimes, she just felt like she wasn’t the most important person in his life.

“What’ll the others be on?”

“Robbie’s in plainclothes and a plasmask in the club district, trying to spot that serial rapist that’s using it as a hunting-ground, and Nicole is working in the chem lab until she goes out to find new blackmail info for Councilman Rogers. His wife left him, and he’s outing himself, so we need something fresh.”

“LPD Major Case doesn’t have anything they need help with?”

“They haven’t caught any homicides since the Patterson girl.”

His phone buzzed, and he answered it. Zane went over to a cabinet, opened it, pulled out his odd-looking gun, removed its clip, and quickly cleaned it with supplies from the cabinet. He was Cross’s very first protégé, starting back in ’95, when he’d been seventeen. His father had actually been one of the reds back in the ‘70s, and his mother had been a prostitute that he’d impregnated--after being raised in a foster home, he was targeted in an extortion scheme involving his father, and Cross had stepped in and saved him. Over time, they’d become like father and son. After the events of 1999, he worried about his mentor’s mental health, but he had faith that this possibly-overreacting plan would work out in the end. That said, he was glad that Lethe was having a chance to be normal, however brief it would end up being: they were in a conventional world where they could pipe in satellite TV and radio and Internet data that reinforced that everything was baseline (i.e., devoid of weirdness), and they’d used the memory tech to make this world remember that Lethe existed, and that it was best to just avoid it.

Cross put the phone down. “We’ve got a red. The Sledgehammer case is jumping off--some ‘strange individual’ just tore up a bar down on Central, it’s the one his late brother worked at. We own it, so Grange had TR Security take jurisdiction and send in reports on a secure frequency. He thinks it’s Sledgehammer.”

“Did you have him send out dummy reports on the standard radios?”

“Naturally. As far as the police-scanner-voyeurs are concerned, it turned out to be a punk-rock transvestite who had a little too much bourbon. They let him/her go with a warning, so, no paper trail. No sober witnesses, thank god.”

“You want me to come with you?”

“No, you stay on the Patterson case, and I’ll deal with this. If he doesn’t show up after a few hours, put some remote-cams on his building and check in on Robbie…he might need help tracking this rapist down. But make sure to bring one of the cars with you, in case the cams spot Williams, and you need to get back there in a hurry. Speaking of which.” Cross briefly picked up the phone and punched a few buttons. “It’s me--I need the main car prepared. Yes. Yes. Of course it’ll be in civilian mode, why--nevermind. Just get it ready, okay?” He hung up.

“I’m going as TR Security?”

“Yeah…if you end up taking him down, you know the cover-story.”

“I was driving home from a training session--Grange and Johnny as my alibis--and I saw the guy whose picture the LPD passed around, the other week. He was about to flee, so I had to detain him.”

“Happens all the time.”

Cross stripped down to his boxers and an odd metal band that was around his upper-arm--he was rock-hard and cut like an NFL running back; he had an interesting tattoo on one shoulder, a crescent that was smooth on one side and key-ridged on the other--and pulled a briefcase out from under his desk, opening it to reveal a midnight-blue bodysuit (including gloves and mask), which he proceeded to put on. No skin showed. Oddly, when he pulled the shirt part on, the band was still on his upper-arm, like it had gone right through the durable fabric.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you--does the name Susan Albrecht sound familiar?”

Zane shook his head. “No, should it?”

“I don’t know…I’ve been having dreams about her.”

“Wh--you never have dreams!!”

“I know. If they’re true, she died back in our home dimension. I think she knew something about--well, about him.”

“Whoa.”

“Specifically, about what he has planned.”

“What makes you think he has something planned?”

“Just a hunch. I always wondered why he didn’t come after me when we activated our armageddon contingency--the Crescent Key definitely wanted him to. Maybe he thought he was doing me a favor, to keep me from coming after him, when he does something just as radical. And since his aura blocks my perception….”

The armband techno-shapeshifted, expanding into a skeletal, silver harness that covered his chest and back--it had a flat plate shaped like a spider on its front, and a sleek backpack on the other side, with the “legs” reaching around his torso and over his shoulders, connecting to the pack. Eight metal tentacles came out of it. They could fire lasers, explosives, acid, grappling-cords, and had superstrength and the ability to electrocute, among other things. Smaller tendrils snaked down his legs and arms, giving him high-tech gloves and boots, while some went up his neck and created goggles. Marcus Cross, the man whom Lethe had been briefly renamed after--the hero known as Arachknight--stepped towards a blank space on his wall, which slid open, revealing an empty shaft.

His voice was now distorted and Americanized, thanks to tech in the mask. “When we all get back, we can talk about this ‘New America’ situation. It might be worth it to do some more recon and maybe find who this Albrecht person was.”

“I think that’d be a good idea. You never know, it could be important.”

“But if we have work to do here, that has to come first.”

“Yeah…”

Arachknight leapt down the shaft, and Zane listened to him echo until the secret panel closed. He’d just have to hope that nothing else major happened, tonight, so they could focus on the bigger picture, for a change.

---------------------------

The strange thing was, despite being obsessed with doomsdays and dark things, Dr. Christopher Price had never really lost or suffered, before. Though he’d had guilt in his younger days--in regards to what stimulated him--that had been entirely self-inflicted. He’d done very well academically, he’d manipulated the sexiest girls into sleeping with him, he’d mastered a science (psychology) and given it an innovative new application (politics), and then he’d helped them win election after election, finally given the privilege of grooming the idiotic boy-king that was eventually going to be their Presidential candidate. Admittedly, Price hadn’t won every campaign he’d managed, but in those cases, it was clearly someone else’s fault, and they hadn’t held him responsible. His demotion had only ended up making him even more powerful. He was rich, he was famous, he was a genius, and he had an “interest” (though he thought of it as a calling) that was more powerful and sustaining than anyone else could ever understand. Price had always thought that he knew what the opposite of that interest was…creation seemed to be the converse of the end of the world. He’d never liked children or the arts, so that seemed to prove him right.

But what had been perpetrated on him today--what those pilgrims had seen--had been the true opposite of apocalypse. It wasn’t creation, and calling it “hope” would have been far too simplistic. He didn’t think that a word for it actually existed. All he knew for sure was that superheroes were the bringers of an idea that was just as powerful as the one that burned in his own soul, mighty and wondrous and transfixing to the human imagination. It had very nearly destroyed him.

Because of his cybernetic connection to his technology, Price knew and felt his armor and secret headquarters as if they were his own body. (Which had made his hovercycle’s destruction quite painful.) As such, before he’d fully regained consciousness, it was easy for him to mistake them for himself. He was warm on the inside and very cold on the outside, with winter winds battering the hill that his controlled-environment bunker was hidden under. There was an emptiness and a lack of activity. His breathing consisted of thin ventilation shafts, blinking lights, and electronic pulses that verified that unused consoles were still working fine. Through the indoor security sensors, everything looked sterile and motionless. The clock told him that about fifteen hours had passed since the battle. It seemed that part of him was okay, while another part was still trying to diagnose itself, rerouting commands around dead circuits and performing triage on damage that he’d received from some unknown source. As his mind stirred, he slowly began to differentiate between the extension of his identity that was a place and the extension of his identity that was a human-shaped suit. The latter was struggling to stay alive, low on power and in horrible condition, it seemed impossible to make it move.

The Pale Horseman laid on a high-tech metal slab in a barely-lit room. His armor was cracked, charred, and ridiculously dirty. He honestly wasn’t sure how he’d gotten back. The last thing he remembered was his hovercycle blowing up, the resulting cyber-shockwave setting his mind on fire, and then being overwhelmed by a flood of green energy. Had he fallen? Yes, he seemed to remember falling forever, like in a dream--and hitting a hard floor. But he’d been outside when he was attacked. Price then remembered the teleport-beacon that he’d built; though he couldn’t teleport anywhere he wanted, he could be teleported back to the location of the beacon, which he kept in his new home. He remembered reappearing right below the ceiling of his (now empty) garage and falling onto the cement. Lying facedown in that unheated room for hours and hours, until he managed to crawl into the main part of the complex. Why hadn’t his armor kept him warm? There was no HUD, and the other standard functions were dead. They were all dead. Wait, how was the suit getting oxygen to him? He panicked, unable to think straight…but he was breathing, so that was good.

Suddenly, he was looking at himself from the outside. He saw that the cracks in his armor pierced even its inner layers, which was why he felt so cold and why he was able to breathe--air was getting through. (The suit was normally airtight and operating on an oxygen-supply, to prevent against biological attacks and allow him to function in airless or hazardous environments.) It hurt whenever he tried to move. Now realizing that he was tapping into the complex’s datafeed, he assumed that he was seeing himself through the security sensors, but no, this was the plain spectrum that biological vision was limited to. He had no idea what was going on. Experimentally, he tried to move a finger or a foot, but he didn’t see anything happen. Then, the back of his thighs felt even colder. Forgetting that he wasn’t able to move, he reached down to feel them--and experienced skin-on-skin contact. He looked down. The suit was lying there without him in it, while he was sitting on an identical slab right across from it, wearing boxer-briefs and a robe that had drooped off. He was shaking from the trauma of what he’d gone through.

It was warm in there, he just couldn’t feel it, as he was numb all over. Price walked across the floor, though it felt like walking on air. He opened a medkit and went to work on himself. Pain-patches for the bruises, pills for the headache, bio-rebooter nanotech to clear the shock out of his system. But his most important salve was avoidance: not thinking about the battle, not thinking about the mindmirror’s death, not thinking about the fact that evidence of his experiments was out there, walking around unknowingly knowing about secret New America contingencies. He thought about the meaningful fear he’d inflicted on the globe, trying to make himself feel more powerful…but it just wasn’t the same. He’d always thought of so-called “superheroes” as merely a national security threat, but now, he feared that they could undo the effects of his psychological warfare. Despite what had just happened, he had to find a way to kill all of them. He could improve the armor and the hovercycle, and maybe weaponize his nanotech, instead of just using it for illusions. But he knew he couldn’t do it alone. Robots were an intriguing possibility--still, it wasn’t a good idea to put all of his eggs in one basket. He needed something else, too, something extra…

It didn’t come to him immediately. Over the next few hours, he looked over the damage done to his armor, checked in on what his hologram nanotech was up to overseas, and read the latest auto-generated transcripts from the bugs he’d planted in the Octagonal Office and other portions of the Presidential Compound, back in ’99. (He’d made sure that the frequency between the two places could punch through the static.) Calling up his engineering program, he brainstormed some initial designs for potential robot warriors. He also hacked into the computers that contained the Project: Helios progress reports. Keeping himself busy was a far better option than thinking about the stiffness, exhaustion, and agony that regularly crawled through his body. Then, while re-reading one of the transcripts, it came to him--it was so obvious that he chided himself for not thinking of it sooner. Price cybernetically accessed a database that he hadn’t used in years. Then, he actually picked up a cordless phone, the base of which was a weird motherboard-looking thing. He flipped on the voice-scrambler and dialed a number he’d gotten from the database.

After three rings, someone answered. “Is this Dr. Clay? No, don’t worry about who I am, worry about who you are--you’re the one that hasn’t been able to come up with any decent supersoldiers. You’re the one that only has the job because you and the President got high together back in the ‘70s. I wouldn’t advise pushing that button. Don’t sound so surprised, of course I’m watching you, I--calm down, doctor. Calm down. What? No, don’t be stupid. Your designs are getting rejected because they’re unoriginal and god-awful, not because--watch your tone, doctor. I’m the only one that can help you keep your job, and maybe your life. Of course you know what I mean…like you’ve never seen them execute someone for failure, before. What do you think would happen to your daughter, if you died? They’d send her off to a Labor Initiative camp, and unless you’re a complete idiot, you know what happens to teenage girls, there. Are we ready to act like an intelligent adult, now? Okay. You’ll be thanking me for this, trust me. The deal is simple--I’ll design supersoldier DNA and weaponry for you, and you can take credit for it, but you’ll be working for me. I care about New America far more than Wertham, so don’t worry about that part.”

Though he was technically near-death (the advanced meds kept him going), Price had already come up with a list of what he needed to do: upgrade the armor and hovercycle. Design a robot army of his own. Find out who his non-insurgent attackers had been. Ensure that Project: Helios would be either unknowing of his larger plan or a willing accomplice. Make the government dependent on advanced supersoldiers that would actually be under his control. And return to Washington, DC as a miraculously-alive Dr. Christopher Price, to keep that ex-CIA whore from undoing all the work he’d invested in Wertham and Jarvis, and maybe get a little revenge in the process.

As he talked on the phone and stared at his true self, laying there on that slab, he knew that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to come up with something to keep her busy, while he put things together. Which meant making another phone call, after this one…

--------------------------------

Every President ended up being defined by one certain thing, for good or ill: a program, a war, a statement, a decision, a secret. In the case of President Wertham, his contribution (meant in the value-neutral sense) was adding a key phrase to the American lexicon, one that he’d have had trouble spelling. “Cognitive dissonance” was the unique ability to be immune to facts and/or reality. Thanks to Mary and Jarvis, the bubble he lived in wasn’t as cut off from the real world as some might have thought (or as he would have preferred), and he wasn’t as simple-minded as many people assumed, either--his mind was a complex web of rationalizations, denials, and unsupported, optimistic theories that he took as gospel, all three ready to launch pre-emptive strikes on any ugly truths that came his way. In fact, one of his advisors had talked about how they weren’t part of the “reality-based community”; that empires invented new realities or something along those lines. He acted on the assumption--in his view, knowledge--that he was always right, and that everyone who disagreed was either misguided or evil. If reality didn’t line up with his view of events, well, reality had to be wrong. In that case, it was just a matter of ignoring what was happening and waiting to be proven right.

Wertham sat at his desk in the Octagonal Office, wearing his usual suit--black, with a white shirt and a red tie. He looked slightly more downbeat than usual. It was ten in the morning, and aides weren’t allowed in before noon, thank god, so he was alone. This part of the day always sucked; they wanted him to pay attention to the datamonitors so he’d be ready for the afternoon briefings, Mary was busy with her daily Joint Chiefs meeting, and lunch was still two hours away. (Killing five chefs in a row hadn’t improved the pudding.) His computer only had solitaire, minesweeper, and some insanely difficult pinball game that took up his entire screen and he couldn’t quite figure out how to X out of, so when he’d be in a meeting and they’d send info to his screen, he’d have to pretend to read and nod vigorously. His bottom drawer had a paperclip chain that he added a foot to every day, the other ones he’d made were stashed under the sink in the executive washroom. (Right next to his extra condoms and a photo that proved he had the highest score on at least one Q-Bert arcade game.)

While he was trying to decide on whether to have a chocolate or strawberry milkshake with his lunch, he was surprised to see Mary walk right in, wearing her favorite green and black outfit. As the door was open, she gave him an official nod and a curt greeting. “Mr. President.”

After closing the door, he rushed over to her and kissed her. “Thank god, I’m bored out of my mind. Just grab the desk and bend over real quick…”

“I’m here about yesterday’s incident in Tulsa, sir.” She pushed him away politely.

He sighed…being President was hard work. “Right, that thing. How many people did we lose this time?”

“Well, none, but--”

“We won!?”

“No, Safe America wasn’t involved.”

“Then why do I need to hear about it?”

“Because an unknown army staged an operation on New American soil and nearly stole a top-secret military asset?”

Wertham sulked and resumed his seat, acting as if that were a minor thing that happened all the time.

“And there were unknown superhumans involved, too.”

“Wait, don’t tell me, I know this. Some white robot guy riding a flying motorcycle, and a freaky mirror-looking dude?”

“Good job, sir.”

“And they weren’t insurgents?”

“As far as we can tell, no.” Jarvis had told her about the mindmirror, and they’d decided it was best to let everyone think that it was just another super.

“Maybe they had something to settle with that HIV guy and his buddies.”

“Could be, sir. The bad news is, the remains of the robots and their vehicles dissolved on us--so we can’t reverse-engineer any of it. Apparently, they were made of a special metal, and a molecular-virus was unleashed after they lost.”

“What about Project: Horus?”

“According to Jarvis, it was atomized when it hit the moon.”

“And we believe him?”

“Well, it’s not like we can send a team up to the moon and find out for ourselves. We’re still a few years away from building anything that can leave the atmosphere. And since Zelner’s people blew up the aerospace plant after they hijacked Horus, that’ll set us back even more.”

“We’re doing just fine without any of that stuff, it’s not like we need it or anything,” Wertham said.

“I don’t agree, sir.”

“We can agree to disagree--except I’m President, so, I win.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whether Jarvis screwed up and let someone hijack Project: Horus--twice--or whether he’s lying about it being destroyed and planning on doing something with it, either way, we have to make sure that Project: Helios is ready to go ASAP. He’s either incompetent or plotting against us, so we need his replacement.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“As for the robots that hijacked Horus the second time…I don’t know, maybe it was the Europeans. I heard they were going the robot route.”

“That reminds me, there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“…really?” She was shocked to see him taking an interest in things.

“Yeah, I, uh--well, I got an idea.”

Mary blinked.

“I was thinking, since Canada is a problem, maybe we should do something about it.”

“We’ve been trying for years, sir--but diplomacy hasn’t done much.”

“I’m not talking about that kinda stuff. I mean, like, war.”

“With all the wars we have going on already, it’d be hard to justify another one. Why would we even--”

“I checked, and it turns out they have tons of oil. Plus, they have staging bases near those North Pole vikings we’re fighting, right? And we could put their citizens in the Labor Initiative. As for why we’d do it, well, that’s my idea: what if it turned out that Canada was in league with the Swarm all this time, and that the Swarm gave them, I don’t know, alien weapons of mass destruction or something? Maybe that’s why they haven’t been helping us with these invas--occup--um, liberations!”

“Do we have any evidence about that that I don’t know of?”

“It’s all top-secret. If we revealed it, it’d put agents’s lives at stake. Or something.”

“…that’s a really good idea, sir. We could use the oil, and the workers, too.” She was horrified by this, naturally…how could they fight not only another war, but one with a country they bordered? It’d be much more dangerous than the other ones. How in god’s name had he come up with something that devious? It was almost like something that--no. No, that was impossible. Her mind was racing. Was it just her, or was Wertham acting a little more distant than usual, today? He was coming up with the kind of savvy moves that you-know-who came up with, and he was acting weird around her, which he’d only do if he knew, and the only way he could know was if…no. That was stupid. It was just as stupid as how she kept thinking about how Sabrina’s consciousness had evaporated after she’d dragged her to see Anvil Man’s corpse, which coincidentally came to life and escaped the next day. Talk about crazy. She, and New America, were destroying enemies, not creating them. Focus. Focus. Buy time. “Maybe--maybe--maybe we should put this off until we identify whoever sent those robots into the country.”

“We’re New America, we can do both at the same time.”

She needed something to distract him. Anything. Mary flipped through the intel updates she had on her, looking for such a thing. “By the way, sir, I forgot to tell you--we’ve been having some weird reports from fishing ships and Safe America ships in both oceans. They talk about lights under the water, things like that.”

“Sounds like hallucinations, like those Swarm ships they keep seeing in the sky.”

“Well, just to be safe--”

“We’re busy enough as it is.”

“I don’t think it’d hurt to keep those two things in mind, sir. I don’t know about you, but, I hate loose ends, and we have robot ground-troops and lights under the sea.”

“Robots and lights. Right.”

“Anyway, I should get back to the Joint Chiefs, they’re still going postal about the Horus fiasco…”

Wertham repeated “robots and lights” under his breath, adding a “Pffh” at the end. He was about to let her leave when a moment of realization flashed across his features. “Wait!”

She turned around, hoping he’d bought one of her distractions. “What is it, sir??”

“I just figured it out--you can tell the chef, I’m definitely going with a strawberrry milkshake.”

------------------------

There was a class of ideas and phenomena that were so special that they were ascribed their own deities, institutions, genres, ideologies, and even religions. Representatives of war, love, and wisdom could be found in most pantheons, for instance, and were key in most mainstream religions, while also enjoying importance placed on them by secular society. And then there were the parts of life that got the short shrift, being ignored when it came to such things. An example: was there a god of growth that had a planet named after it, or a god of growth at all? Were there thinktanks or magazines devoted to exploring the concept of growth? Everything grew, after all, whether in good ways or bad. It was arguably more of a constant than change. Even regression and death were merely different kinds of growth, in the same way that chaos was order restructuring itself. Creation and destruction were simultaneously growing everywhere. And though the attacks had destroyed most of what had grown, they’d also planted the seeds of what was to come. Loss was the best stimulus for growth, so new and strange things were appearing all over the world--in response to both the attacks and what had happened since then. More would come. Together, they’d decide whether the human story was ended or continued.

Amazingly, there were fields, under the earth: rolling hills that sat a mere fifty feet below a ceiling made of black stone. They contained crops that looked like they were from Picasso’s subconscious, strange fruits and vegetables that were radically different from their counterparts that existed on the surface, or even in life itself. Purple, blue-spotted things that were shaped like springs; lumpy tubes that glowed neon orange and tasted as fresh and cool as water that had never seen the sun; blasts of some strange form of sweetness that were trapped in multicolored, striped vines, each color representing a particular flavor. Instead of greenery, it was a perpetual fall, with rich orange and brown hues. Each fruit-tree was oddly symmetrical. The normally-stale air of the underground was made scented and luxurious by this foodstuff, the smell was so intoxicating and heady that Lilith’s farmers often had to step out into the border-chasm that separated the farm from the more furnished part of their home, just to catch their breath. The stretch was too large for good lighting, so they just had a few parking-lot-style streetlights, though they also carried around electric torches on poles--there were stands that they could put the poles in, while gathering food. These plants were from the afterlife; they didn’t need sunlight or water, somehow growing on their own.

Lilith stood on what amounted to a hill, overseeing the work. She wore tight black overalls and a red-patterned top that exposed a good six inches of marble midriff. Outside of the bed she shared with Hadrian, this was the one place in the world that felt right…where she could see her designs take three-dimensional shape. (She loved tinkering with the seeds, altering the food’s appearance.) There were distant globes of light bounding through the fields, as people picked and used giant straw baskets or the lightweight, plastic wheelbarrows the scroungers had found in an Ace Hardware warehouse in the eastern part of Kansas City. This was the warmest part of their home, for some reason. And you could actually hear and feel a gentle breeze. There were times when she closed her eyes and imagined that she was alive before the attacks, knowing that this must have been what it was like. (She’d learned quite a bit through taped TV shows and books, but it just wasn’t the same--she wanted to be able to feel something, not just know it.) Couples of all ages found a good excuse to strip out of their regular winter jackets and wear what was underneath, going into the dark fields for hours at a time and coming out with sweat, smiles, and baskets full of food. The race that had created her was healing, however slowly…she could sense it. Maybe bringing that about was her purpose in life.

While watching them from the dark, she suddenly felt someone behind her, reaching into her overalls and rubbing her breasts, while kissing the back of her neck. “Gahh!”

“Sorry, babe, it’s just me.”

“Don’t do that! You’re lucky I didn’t throw you into the ceiling…”

“Well, surprising you was the point. Happy to see me down here?”

She smiled. “Yeah, of course I am--but it’s been here for years, why did you choose today to show up? You always had your mysterious reasons for not liking farms.”

“I just, uh…well, I actually came down because I have some bad news.”

“What is it??”

“Don’t worry, it isn’t anything too serious, it’s just kind of annoying.”

“Okay…”

“Messenger called a few minutes ago, and he said that they need to move the meeting up--the one with the other LL branch heads. So, we’d need to leave today.”

“Dammit! I changed my schedule thinking it wasn’t until next week.”

“So did I, honey. But, I was wondering…well, would you do me a favor?”

“It’s only been three hours since our shower, you can wait until lunch.”

“No, I mean--I don’t feel right leaving the three of them alone, especially when we don’t know why those robots attacked the pilgrims. For all we know, they could show up, again.”

“I’ll stay behind, if that’s what you were getting ready to ask.”

“Really?”

“I don’t wanna be in charge while you’re gone, though. I have enough headaches just trying to manage the farm and my art classes. Hey, I didn’t say you could stop rubbing…a little to the right on the left one. No, your other left.”

“Akiko’ll be in charge, yeah. I really wish you could come, it’s just a tactical thing--having only one person with superstrength, well, it makes me nervous. I know Akiko has a little, but it’s just safer if you and Anvil Man are both here. We can take a trip another time.”

“That sounds good to me. How are the newbies adjusting?”

“Pretty well, all things considered. They were really hoping to get off-planet with that fake Lairjet, so, they’re obviously disappointed…but Zelner has managed to keep them from getting too depressed. I told him that they could stay here as long as they wanted, and that we’d help them get out of the country, if we could figure out how to pull it off.”

“Would’ve been nice to have a Lairjet like that for ourselves.”

“I’d be willing to bet that there are a few more vehicles like that, hidden out there. Finding them’s the hard part.”

“You aren’t gonna believe this, but--you know Zelner’s daughter, right?”

“Sure. I heard she made that mirror-monster fall flat on his face, actually, right before we showed up.”

“Really? Wow. Anyway, I guess that she really impressed Glasser…she just walked into one of the marksman training sessions and showed ‘em how it’s done. He wants her to be part of that ‘Discovery Corps’ they’re putting together, to help out the scroungers. The funny thing is, that really tall girl--you know, the one that had a crush on Anvil Man?--she’s been joined at the hip with Zelner’s kid ever since she showed up. I’m thinking that she had a crush on him because he was safely unavailable, while she got used to the fact that she’s, y’know.”

“What makes Anvil Man unavailable?”

“Um…he’s gay, he can’t communicate, and he doesn’t have any plumbing?”

“…”

“He’s all smooth down there. That’s not a suit he’s wearing, it’s his actual ‘skin’. So, I’m assuming--”

“Let’s not get into that again.”

“I’m just saying, if the tall girl joins the Corps, too, they could be like Lewis and Clark. Except with oral sex.”

“Teenage lesbian assassin frontierwomen…that has to be a good foundation for rebuilding America.”

“Now you sound like Harmonic. No fair, you stopped rubbing, again. You can unhook the straps to get ‘em out of the way, but don’t get any ideas, this is only--what are you looking at?”

“Wait, you can see?”

“I’m down here all the time, my eyes are used to it. Now answer the question, or you’ll be keeping your hands to yourself, mister.”

“This is gonna be embarrassing…”

“Juicy. Spill it!”

“I’m trying not to look, believe me. The reason I hate coming down here is because, well, there are quite a few people having sex out there, and with my senses…”

“Ooooh. That explains a lot. Well, so long as you aren’t taking pictures, I don’t think it’s a problem.”

After simply standing there and touching her for a while, he said, “Let me tell you…I was really, really tempted to have Harmonic just teleport the rest of you away, so I could take on Jarvis by myself.”

She turned to face him, holding his upper arms and looking into his eyes. “You know I love you, but, are you out of your mind? That’s just stupid, baby. You know that.”

“Yeah…”

“You wanted it to be over, with him?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask--have you made a decision?”

That caught him off-guard. “Uhh, in, in regards to what?”

She gave him an odd look, but thought nothing of it. “About what you’ll do if they ask you to take over Hatman’s old job--leading the whole movement.”

“I have no idea.”

“I think you’d make a great leader…”

“Thanks, I really appreciate that.”

“And, like I said the other night, I would want to come with you, if you did that. Just for the record.”

“I know. Believe me, I wouldn’t go without you.”

She rewarded him for saying that by turning back around and pressing against him, letting him resume his rubbing. “I think I could teach some of the others how to grow this stuff. And two LLers from another branch could take our place--one would have to have superstrength, of course. Think we’d end up in GMY?”

“That’s where it started, but it might be better to have the headquarters somewhere else. I hadn’t thought about that…”

“Less thinking, more touching. Since I’ve actually got you down here, for once, I might as well take advantage of it. It’s my farm, and I’m probably the only one that hasn’t--”

“Shouldn’t you be working?”

“We kicked the crap out of an army, a giant mirror thingie, the most powerful spaceship that humanity ever built, and an armored psycho, yesterday. I think we’ve earned at least one break. And you have to go pretty soon, right?”

“Yeah, unfortunately.”

She unhooked her overalls, stepping out of them.“Well, since it’ll be a week or two until we see each other, again, I’d better give you something to remember me b--”

At that moment, of course, white light illuminated the subterranean farm, and Harmonic, Akiko, and Anvil Man appeared a few hills over.

“--hit!!” Lilith reluctantly pulled her pants back up. “That’s like the fourth time this week. We need to teach him how to knock…not that there’s a door, out here, but, you know what I mean.”

Both groups walked over to each other, ending up in a valley that was full of topheavy trees whose branches were covered with low-hanging, green things that were shaped like an upside-down letter V. “They’re screwing with your schedule, again, “Akiko informed them.

“What’s going on?”

“Safe America is doing an illegals sweep in GMY, and Messenger said he wouldn’t complain at all if you showed up a few hours early, to help ‘em out with that. With Hatman and Goldeneyed gone, they’re a little undermanned.”

Hadrian looked at his watch, and then at Akiko. “Yeah, I can make that. Can you cover my meeting with the squad leaders? I was gonna prep them on next month’s training schedule.”

“No problem. It’s the one we talked about?”

“Yeah, in the blue file. And, there’s been a change of plans, Lilith will be staying with you guys.”

The other three all exchanged glances.

“Oh, for--we’re getting along fine, it’s just safer if I hang around here. Actually, right before you showed up, we were getting ready to--”

“Anything you want to ask me, before I go?” Hadrian quickly addressed this to Akiko.

“How often do you meet with the council?”

“Officially, only once a day, but Anne and I talk every few hours, just to catch each other up.”

“Mmm.” Akiko didn’t sound pleased. Though she was happy to help them organize things, she preferred to avoid interacting with others.

Grinning in an evil fashion, Hadrian said, “I’m sure that, say, Harmonic would be glad to help you with that. You could make him your official liason.”

“Harmonic would love to have a title!”

Logically, Akiko knew that he was very charismatic and popular with the people (he could draw massive crowds just sitting around and talking about his “American parables”), so she put aside the fact that he drove her up the wall and agreed to it.

Wanting to include Anvil Man (who, as ever, couldn’t really participate in their discussions), Harmonic said, “Harmonic would need an assistant, though. Any volunteers?”

Naturally, Anvil Man’s arm rocketed into the air.

“That settles that.”

Lilith got Akiko’s attention. “Did you set up the trap with that microchip?”

“Yeah, we put it in a locked steel barn about ten miles north, in a barrel that’s hidden under the floor and rigged with explosives. You’d need superstrength to break into the secret compartment, so we don’t need to worry about some random person wandering in and setting it off.”

“Will the hovercycle guy’s scanners be able to see the explosives?”

“No, I coated the barrel with that masking chemical we stole, last year. But his homing signal can still get through, so he should be able to find it--and hopefully get his head blown off when he tries to remove the lid.”

“Perfect. You guys don’t need me at all,” Hadrian said, happily.

“But you are coming back,” Akiko replied, phrasing it somewhere between a statement and a question.

“Of course I am.”

Akiko crossed her arms. Having run an effective organization for many years, she knew how promotion worked…and though he hadn’t told her what he’d told Lilith, she knew that Hadrian had to be a prime candidate. But she didn’t want to be in charge of this branch, by any means. Second-in-command, yes; temporarily the leader, yes; but she didn’t trust herself to do it for the long-term. She still had too much anger in her, too much of her old self.

Hadrian went through a mental laundry-list of things that Akiko might need to know. “Security has been pretty weak by the east entrance, you’ll want to check on that at least twice a day--a lot of young women live around there, and the guards have been known to get distracted. Rotate female guards over there whenever you can. Make sure to keep track of how much reserve power we have, it isn’t fair to make Anvil Man do that all by himself. If they need any of my alchemicals, they’re all labeled down in the lab…Lilith knows the basics of how to use them, and so do the Thompkins cousins. Don’t let them take the skycarrier anywhere without either one of you or Glasser going with them. If the scroungers make a run, we’re low on wheelbarrows, ingredients for bombs, decent maternity clothing--should you be writing this down?”

“I’ve got it.”

“Antibiotics and snowboots, too. That’s about it.”

Lilith squeezed his arm. “You should get going.”

“Yeah, you’re right…”

Goodbyes were exchanged: a hearty handshake with Harmonic, a surprising and awkward hug from Akiko, an overenthusiastic hug from Anvil Man, and, of course, very nearly making out with Lilith, again.

“I forgot--Harmonic, could you get my luggage, it’s--” The luggage blinked into existence. “--right there, actually. Thanks. One more thing, and I’ll be ready to go.” He took Lilith aside.

“What?”

“I love you. I just--do you have a preference, if they ask me to be leader? I still think it’s pretty unlikely, but…”

“I love you too, baby. You should do whatever feels right. I have faith in you, I know you’ll make the right decision.”

It shocked her, but, that statement actually made him tear up, and she held him for a few more moments, while he couldn’t seem to make himself let go…

-------------------------

No matter what kind of society you found yourself in, or what kind of world you found yourself on, when it came to the matter of power, there were three common denominators: identities, bloodlines, and legacies. The masses had constantly rebelled against them, and scores of legal and political restraints had been created to limit their power, but, century after century, they prevailed. You had to be born with a personality that would prove valuable or meaningful, or you had to be born into a powerful family, or someone had to extend their self to you, giving you a rebirth of sorts. Was it any surprise that these three things factored heavily into the nature of superhumans? This basic fact of reality had created an insider versus outsider situation, where who one was (or knew) was the deciding factor in how far one went in life, thus creating a powerful breed of apathy. You could work all your life and never have as much as someone else had started out with. To compensate, individuals tried to hitch their selves to something that they hoped would prove strengthening and protective--a corporation, a skill, a religion, an ideology, another person. (In the case of Dr. Price, the concept of apocalypse.) And while the man with the power of The Name had all three things, for him, self was less a philosophical question than it was a painfully tangible reality...

It had happened at some point in the 19th century. The culprit remained unknown, even today…some speculated that the Crescent Key had done it, or perhaps their European counterpart, the Observing Eye. Could some monarchy-hating individual in another universe have unleashed it? Someone with a grudge against one of the royals in our own reality? The bottom line was this: someone had gotten tired of waiting for the inevitable. Psychologically speaking, individual families just weren’t strong enough to hold power over an entire country or empire, and the damage done by this strain was obvious. Naturally, they kept trying to make it work. Someone needed to give them a little push in the opposite direction. So, an anonymous party had unleashed what could only be called a quantum curse--an energy virus that spread throughout the multiverse, infecting monarchs everywhere. Their physical health was now tied to the well-being of their country. Inflicting suffering on their own people would result in a sharp, burning pain for themselves. They soon found that the best way to lessen this effect was to lessen their control over their respective nations, which most gradually did, though many mistook the pain for their own conscience or a higher being.

Over time, however, the curse evolved, and as it had fewer people to affect, it became more potent. After the destruction of the last few monarchies, thanks to the Swarm, it now resided in one man and one man alone.

There were legends, and then there were anti-legends--people who, logically, should have been household names, but had managed to avoid the spotlight. For instance, the man that America was named after--Amerigo Vespucci--was glossed over in history texts and rarely mentioned in the same sentence with his more famous contemporaries. He was an Italian merchant and cartographer who voyaged to the West, around 1500. While Columbus beat him there, Vespucci was the first to realize that this wasn’t India…it was two entire continents that the rest of the world didn’t know about, and that there the globe had not just one ocean, but two. He coined the phrase “The New World”, and his letters publicized its existence, which, amazingly, wasn’t that well-known, even after Columbus. Like the country that would later take his first name--his second was fairly common--he was boastful and shady (some of his claims were clearly fradulent), but amazing nonetheless. After his initial realization, he went on secret voyages and saw things in the Americas that history would never know about. Because of both his main accomplishment and the ones that followed it, his already-rich family became even richer, and they made a carefully-planned slip into obscurity.

As species went, humanity loved making promises that it knew it wouldn’t have to keep, involving hypothetical situations that would surely never exist--and one of these, which was quite popular in its day, had been made extinct by the discovery of the Americas. Long ago, people loudly said how, if only there were a place they could go to, to get away from the way things were, they could build a far better civilization than the one they currently lived in. Wasn’t it horribly boring, how the entire world had been discovered? There was no excitement left! But if some massive wilderness were found, tomorrow, then they’d show you. These would-be adventurers and nation-builders tutted away, safe in the assumption that they’d never have to put up or shut up. After all, Earth had been around for quite a while, and they were reasonably certain that they knew everything about it. The seemingly-crazy idea of a new world was something they used to empower their drama queen nature: it was just awful, how they were stuck in their messed-up countries, since there wasn’t a distant paradise that they could escape to. But they’d muddle through and make it work, somehow. They were sure that such a blank slate would give them an opportunity to prove their inherent nobility and wisdom. After it became a reality, things unfolded quite differently, of course.

There were two main secrets of America--Harmonic knew one, and the man with the power of The Name (he’d taken his ancestor’s more well-known first name and made it his last) knew the other. Ignoring for the moment that America was technically real, it was easy to see it as social sci-fi…a previously-impossible thing happened, and proceeded to have all sorts of crazy cultural effects. When viewed through that lens, the country was much easier to understand, as it was nothing but many high-concepts jammed into the same borders.

He knew that America was a combination of two big ideas: the very notion of a New World, and the imagination-powered country of America itself. Together, they’d attracted many other big ideas, which, at the time of the New World’s discovery by outsiders, had only existed in the minds of creative visionaries. There were gargantuan, record-breaking cities that spanned as far as the eye could see, borne of complex planning and advanced technology. There was an upper-class whose power and influence put them in the economic stratosphere, a level of wealth never before seen. There was a military-industrial complex that had shattered the atom, launched invisible, winged bringers of death, and put its foot down on at least one other heavenly body. There was a strange, epic mutation of one of the world’s most powerful religions, which thrived like never before, within the Americas. There were human gods that clashed in the streets and skies, battling over issues that mainstream mortals couldn’t even conceive of. There was a culture that held freedom as sacrosanct, spawning all sorts of interesting lifestyles and philosophies, which was having gloriously insane effects on society. Didn’t that seem like too much, for just one country, or just one story? America was both a farm and a magnet for radical innovations and possibilities, as it possessed the perfect conditions for growing them.

But the man known as Victor Amerigo believed that it would have been better off to keep such a thing an innocent idea, in which it wouldn’t be tainted by reality, as his family had been enslaved to this country for far longer than he cared to recall.

Because America had become the ultimate superpower, and because the last few monarchies had been destroyed in the attacks, the quantum curse’s altered energy had been pushed to new levels. All of the country’s strength and weaknesses (historically, not just at the moment) were contained and magnified in Victor. The idols they’d worshipped for so long became manifest in him--the power of their military, the knowledge of their scientists, the invulnerability of their spirit. Though it had essentially turned him into a deity, it was also killing him. Slavery, persecution, deceit, the violence they were needlessly (and often accidentally) inflicting on others…the burning that had existed in the monarchs of old (in addition to his own ancestors) had literally set him on fire, after Wertham’s rise to power. Though he had no control over the country’s government, there was no escaping the consequences of what they were doing in his name. And, like his ancestors, he refused to bow to what was essentially extortion. He’d survive the pain. They wouldn’t make him nursemaid a country that had long ago escaped from his family’s grasp, becoming meaningless to them. His family had offered to guide them, and they’d been rejected--what was happening now was America’s own fault, as far as he was concerned.

He’d stopped the pilgrims from creating another America, which surely would have ended up the same way. And now, he was going to destroy the current one, no matter what the cost--killing America meant killing himself, thanks to the quantum curse. But at least his own children wouldn’t be chained to such an existence, as he was. The curse hadn’t affected them, yet…they could still be free.

After their rejection, his family had gone underground--or rather, underwater. They’d hidden in an aquatic colony for centuries, discreetly managing their considerable investments and holdings from it. Then, when the attacks made his life even more unbearable, Victor knew what he had to do. Using the newfound physical and intellectual power that the curse had given him, he’d conquered other armies and made them his own, while building high-tech crafts and weapons. Those were his fleets, in the Atlantic and Pacific. He knew that there was no point in “saving” America…eventually, it’d become corrupt, again, and his family would be trapped in the same old Gordion knot. Best to finish them off while they were weak; while their military was diminished and spread thin. He planned to give humanity back its most important myth: the idea of a new world, which they could always speculate and fantasize about, while never having to make any real decisions. The human race would be healthier if it were a sci-fi dream, rather than a messy reality. And his bloodline would go back to being safely unimportant.

There was nothing but darkness and a large window revealing an underwater vista, in Victor’s flagship throneroom. Since the Atlantic coast was more well-defended, he planned on helping his ships attack it, evening the odds. It would all be over within a few weeks, with any luck. A voice sounded over the intercom: “Sir, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“Sir, we have a situation…one of the subs lost power, and it’s sinking into the ravine. It’ll be back online in about thirty seconds, and the ravine is deep enough that they won’t be hitting the bottom anytime soon, but, they aren’t sure if they’ll be able to overcome the momentum…”

“I’ll handle it.”

“I thought you’d want to, sir. Thank you.”

Victor stood up, walking over to the special chamber that adjoined his throneroom. It opened and closed automatically. After hitting a button, water began to flood into it. What he had to do next…he hated it. He preferred to avoid that part of himself altogether. But realistically, he knew he didn’t have a choice. It was time to call on that power once again, to reconnect himself to the identity he’d tried to escape from for so long--the power of his name, and what it meant, and what it was connected to.

The water was now waist-deep. With a voice that could shake a planet, he screamed, “AMERIGO!!”

Crimson, navy, and blinding white streams of fire leapt out of the higher realms, swirling around him and blasting into him. (The curse had a sigil nature that tapped into symbols.) He was literally on fire. The water around him turned to steam, and he rose off the floor. This was the last thing that he needed to accomplish, before he could get on with ending his family’s nightmare and ending his own life. The Amerigo family would survive the country that had been named after them…that was the way it had to be. He thought of the coming days in which America would be thought of as a utopian fantasy that could never be proven to have actually existed, and he smiled. Anyone could destroy something, but blasting it all the way back to fiction was far more magnificent, if also far more difficult. The chamber opened, accessing the ocean--he blasted out of it, leaving a tunnel of boiling water behind him.

For as long as humanity had existed, there had been mirage apocalypses…in fact, there were two different kinds of them. One was perpetually far-off, which always stayed at the same distance, except for when they surprised you and suddenly jumped into your path. But the other was the breed that only looked like an apocalypse, at first--until humanity survived, and it was then defined as merely a tragedy or attack. Yesterday’s armageddon was today’s war. The definition of the concept kept getting bigger and bigger. Very few religions preached a true end-of-the-world situation; existence would keep going, whether as life or something else. It was now a race to see how powerful these apocalypses could become: if the murder of most of the human species wasn’t the end, but merely a horrible thing, and if an entire country being erased from scientific history wasn’t the end, either, then what was? As humanity faced an infinite string of violent non-endings, they could only wonder what death was going to evolve into…

-----------------------

Of all the promises
Is this one that we can keep?
Of all the dreams
Is this one still out of reach?

--U2, “The Hands That Built America”

----------------------

Fin Fang Foom
*flies away*

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Follow-Ups:

* Great stuff. Here's hoping for a sequel, spiritually if not chronologically.... (no text) - Nitz the Bloody - Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 09:25:36 pm EDT
* This seriously just made my year. I'll get right on this. - anonymous - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 11:28:21 am EDT
- * You do that, slacker. (no text) - Finny - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:34:57 pm EDT
* And, if you want to reply, you can reply to this post, just for simplicity's sake... (no text) - Finny - Mon Aug 15, 2005 at 11:53:14 pm EDT
- * Hey, what a cute surprise!!!... (no text) - Yo - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 05:39:38 pm EDT
  - * Alas, it's not as cute as you, Yo. (no text) - Finny - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 06:02:23 pm EDT
    - * You forgot to mention sexy. - anonymous - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 06:26:22 pm EDT
- * Give me some time to print this out and digest this. And I hope this means you're sticking around. :) (no text) - CrazySugarFreakBoy! - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 04:28:24 am EDT
  - * I'll be sticking around if the tree-spirits don't kill me for causing everyone to waste all that paper... (no text) - Finny - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 06:00:27 pm EDT
- * I'm afraid if I start to read, I will be unable to stop, and thus miss my plane, so shall wait to read this when I return home. (no text) - Al B. - Thu Aug 18, 2005 at 06:37:05 pm EDT
  - * Very good. (no text) - Finny - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 05:58:00 pm EDT
- * So, FALL. - anonymous - Wed Aug 17, 2005 at 04:20:18 pm EDT
  - * Thanks, of course. (no text) - Finny - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 05:57:01 pm EDT
- * It'll take me seven years to read all this, but it's good to see 'ya in any regard. ;) (no text) - G-Eyed - Wed Aug 17, 2005 at 03:09:29 pm EDT
  - * *cracks whip!* (no text) - Finny - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 05:52:42 pm EDT
- * This board does have an Edit feature you know. :) (no text) - Anime Jason - Wed Aug 17, 2005 at 09:35:40 am EDT
  - * Compared to the amount of words, I think I had relatively few typos...granted, I don't use spellcheck, as it doesn't like my various made-up words. (no text) - Finny - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 05:48:52 pm EDT
- * Welcome back, Finster. Stick around. (no text) - Dancer - Wed Aug 17, 2005 at 08:45:20 am EDT
  - * My favorite cheerleader! *ducks, runs away* *nt* (no text) - Finny - Fri Aug 19, 2005 at 05:45:35 pm EDT
- * I detected some slight political satire in the first two parts of this story. (no text) - killer shrike will finish the rest tomorrow - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 09:28:30 pm EDT
  - * *looks around innocently* (no text) - Finny - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 09:42:37 pm EDT
- * It's good to have you posting again! Welcome back! (no text) - ag - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 07:52:19 am EDT
  - * It's good to be back. (no text) - Finny - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:32:50 pm EDT
- * First Impressions - HH - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 06:53:55 am EDT
  - * Re: First Impressions - Finny - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:29:19 pm EDT
- * Yeah, okay. So where's FALL? - Nats - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:08:22 am EDT
  - * Four times the nipplage, I say! (no text) - Finny - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:15:02 am EDT
- * That's very, very, very, very, very long. (no text) - Visionary - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:07:12 am EDT
  - * It's quite short, really. Only 160some pages in Word. For me, that's a short story. (no text) - Finny - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:16:08 am EDT
    - * So long as you're pacing yourself. Anyway, an interesting tale... - Visionary - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 10:53:13 am EDT
      - * I could describe that scene too, dammit! (no text) - Finny - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:30:57 pm EDT
- * Holy crap, I'm a bum right now and I don't know if I have time to read this! :) I'll get to it tomorrow...sometime (no text) - Hatman - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:05:08 am EDT
  - * No rush, obviously--I don't expect anyone to be as obsessive as I am and get through it quickly. (no text) - Finny - Tue Aug 16, 2005 at 12:17:11 am EDT