I leaned against the wall. “For sure. Not even Lab. Lay it on me.”
William walked to the tree and plucked a single flower. “What would you say if I told you that I was much older than I seem?”
I nodded. “It would make some level of sense. You seem to have an answer for almost everything, you have some seriously ancient stuff in your office, and you have a book that was supposed to have been burned by the Nazis.” I raised an eyebrow. “So how old are you, William?”
William sighed, and I could see the weight of time press down on him. “I’m nearly eight hundred years old.”
My stomach flipped and I felt my jaw go slack. “You…” I started to laugh, but the serious look in his eyes gave me pause. “Wait. You’re serious? You’re eight hundred years old?”
He held my eyes with an unreadable expression. “I grew up with my father telling me about the time he was saved by Paladin.” He shook his head slowly. “Nobody ever believes me.”
I watched him for a moment. Could he be telling the truth? At any rate, he believed his words. “Let’s say I believe you,” I started, holding up a hand. “Which I’m not sure I do. But let’s say I do. Why tell me?”
“Because I think your power is the key to finally discovering where the source for all powers originate.”
“Hah?”
He sighed and wiped a hand down his face. “Think, Jackson. The flowers. The fruit you ate. The effect it all had on you. Think.”
I let my memories play out about the fruit and flowers. How the fruit I’d eaten in the dream world perfectly matched the drawings in the book William had shown me. I looked up at the sapling on the other end of the garden, bees hovering around its rich source of nectar. Slowly, it dawned on me. “You think our powers come from that other world, don’t you? Some sort of something there has influenced us here. And you want me to get stronger so I can open a door in my waking life to that place. That’s why you want me to do all the extra work, isn’t it? So you can go there.”
“Guilty as charged, Jackson. I’ve been popping into and out of the mundane world for centuries. Come in, take some books or building materials, kidnap the odd expert and learn from them, all to hone and build my skills so that one day, one day, I’d be able to figure all this out. Why do we have our powers? Why only some people? Why do they seem to evolve with our technology? Jackson,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “With you, I finally have the answers to these problems within my reach. All you have to do is get stronger.”
I crossed my arms and leveled a hard stare at the man. “And there’s the truth. I’m just a tool to you.”
“I…” he dropped hand. “Yes. I want to…use you. At this moment, at this point in time, it's the only way I see us -The Grey Cloud- moving forward in a world that is more and more becoming a world that will eventually tear itself apart. Look around us, Jackson! In Chicago alone, you guys are chasing down thieves who’ve been knocking over restaurants. Restaurants! Now, I have no idea why they’re doing it, but come on! Surely you would think of a better target than a restaurant.” He sighed, and I could see true exhaustion in his face. When was the last time he had slept? “Imagine watching centuries slip by, kingdoms fall, and the world shift around you—all while the answer stays just out of reach. I’m running out of time, Jackson.”
I nodded. “That’s true. I would choose a bank. Then again, I can do that and not get caught. Or even suspected.” I thought for a moment, mind whirling a million miles an hour. “Even so, Will. Why me?”
“Because, Jackson. You have the kind of temperament and drive to make this happen. Plus, with your memory, you’ll always be certain to go exactly where you want.” His eyes darted around the garden. “Can I show you something? It might help you understand a few things.”
“I don’t like being used, William. You have one chance. If I don’t like what I see and hear, I’m going to cut my losses with you. I can tell you that No-Face has made me an exceptional offer.”
“Fair. One chance, huh?” I nodded. “Aside from being nearly eight hundred, I’ve been expecting you -or more accurately, your power- for the past two hundred years,” he said, extending a hand to me.
“Two hundred?” I asked incredulously as I took his hand. “What do you mean you’ve been waiting?”
William pulled me down the hallway, and with each step, the air grew heavier, thicker, until it felt like I was walking through water. Shadows stretched and swirled, their edges shimmering like heat haze, and the walls dissolved into the now-familiar endless, starless void of his Shadow Realm. “Exactly what I said. Powers follow patterns. As new technology arises, and new ideas enter the world, the powers themselves change. Or, more precisely, new ones emerge. When the steam engine was built, that generation saw more supers with the ability to harness heat, and the budding electricity. Now? In the Digital Age? We see more technopaths and people who can play in the World Wide Web. It’s like the powers grow to match our tools.”
We walked for another fifteen minutes, until I saw a vast building in the distance. “What the hell is that?”
“That, my friend, is my Shadow Archive. Over the last five hundred years, I’ve been… acquiring, shall we say, certain items and artifacts. About a third of what you’ll find in there are treatises on powers and their bearers, along with detailed notes made by yours truly. The rest is my collection of artifacts from various supers. Plus” -he opened the door- “my notes and web detailing how I predicted your specific power would manifest.”
I stopped, unsure of what I just heard. “You mean to tell me that you expected me?”
“Well, not you, but your power. Eventually, at any rate. Come on. Check this stuff out.” He motioned with his head and walked in. I heard a click, and light billowed from the entrance.
I followed, momentarily unsure of my place in the world. If my power had been expected, then what was I? Just a vessel? Just a potato chip for the dip? Unwilling to follow that thread any farther, I tried to clear my mind; focusing instead on the sheer amount of books and odd trinkets in this space.
The building was lit by what looked like braziers, casting a pallid glow on the walls. As I examined them, I saw no smoke, but did see cleverly hidden wires running throughout the ceiling. The walls were covered floor to ceiling with a veritable library of books. Everywhere I looked, there were books. Most had English titles, but there were a few in other languages, some I couldn’t even make heads or tails of. There were also pedestals scattered through the building. Each one held an item. A glove here, a shard of metal there, that one over by a section of books in what looked like Greek had a severed hand.
William continued through the building, stopping for nothing, until he reached an ancient-looking wooden door. Producing an iron key from his pocket, he slipped it into the lock and turned it twice, before a solid thunk reverberated in the halls.
“There we go. I stole this from the Cathedral de Notre Dame back in, oh… somewhere in the late thirteen hundreds. Can’t really remember exactly. I tried my hardest to stay out of the public view during those times.” He stepped through the door, beckoning me to follow.
“Why?”
“Black Death.” William shrugged as he lit a small candle, heading down a low hallway.
“Oh. That makes sense,” I said, following him.
Eventually, we emerged into what looked like a large, tidy bedroom. Tacked to the walls were notes, pictures and timelines of various sorts. Different colored string connected various items, each culminating in the center of one wall. A placard that read “True Teleportation”. I studied everything I could see, burning it all into my memory.
“Yes. Please memorize all of it. I need another mind to pick at this puzzle. I’m wondering if you truly Bear the skill in the center. Your movement ability is by far the most advanced I’ve seen, but is it the true pinnacle? Has it reached the level of actual teleportation?”
I shook my head. These notes were so meticulous. “You really have been obsessing over this, haven’t you?” I murmured.
He gestured around us. “About five hundred years of research are on these walls. I’ve stolen books, kidnapped and tortured people for their knowledge and understanding, bribed and assassinated for data, and this is where I’m at. It’s why I agreed to the exchange with No-Face. If he has data that I don’t, I can add it to this.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Did you do this for other abilities?”
“Not to this extent, no. There have been many astral travelers and remote viewers, but relatively few who can move anything like what you do, Jackson. All of them reported -at some point or another- seeing flowers like the one you brought back or fruits like the one you ate. I have that data somewhere in here, too.”
“Ever think about digitizing all of this?”
“Once or twice. Although, the task is daunting, to say the least. Maybe when a Super is born with an ability to create a disk or something with the data. Running all these books through a scanner isn’t exactly economical. Nor could it be time-saving. I’d need to bring everything out of here into a clean room, have specific technology built, train people to run it all… I just don’t have the wherewithal to do it.”
“I noticed you didn’t mention costs, William.” I smirked at him.
“Ah… You noticed.” He sighed. “I have gained -and lost- fortunes several times over, man. I have multiple bank accounts across the world, and I could easily finance the operation.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. “But I’m tired. I want to find the root of it all and see what we are capable of. And I truly think you hold the key.”
I looked at him then. Really looked at him. He didn’t seem to be very old, but he had this weight to him. Something I couldn’t quite define. Authority, perhaps? No. That didn’t quite fit. Whatever it was, it had me thinking that he may well be right. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“I do. And I really want to see the place you go in your dreams.”
I nodded. “Tell you what. Build the facility to house this archive in the mundane world. You aren’t immortal, and there’s no telling when or if another Super will be born with a power like this. We can’t let this knowledge potentially be erased from history. I know it’ll take time, but it can be done. In the meantime, I’ll keep working to get stronger. Last night’s exercise was promising, so I’ll keep that momentum going. Deal?”
“Deal.” He stuck out his hand, and I shook it.
“What will you do when you find what you’re looking for?”
“See if I can’t use whatever power that gives us our powers to make things more equitable. You know how corrupt the Guild is.”
“And what if you can’t?”
“Then I’ll destroy it. All of it. No more powers. No more supers. Just regular folks doing regular things.”
I stared at him, unsure I heard him correctly. “Destroy it?”
He nodded and began walking back to the main room. “Absolutely. These powers we have are becoming more and more just another tool to hurt people with. Far better without them if we can’t level the field somehow.”
I followed him back. “Just how do you plan on “leveling the field”?”
“Augment the worthy powers. Give more people powers. Implement some sort of safety protocol to either keep powers out of the hands of the unwell or plain evil, or cause them to be lost if someone persistently acts in a manner that is against humanity’s best interes. I dunno, yet. If we ever get there, we’ll have to see what kind of options we have.”
“Who would decide these things, William?”
He snorted. “Not me, that’s for damn sure. No, it’d have to be decided on by multiple people. Supers and not.”
That was a relief, at least. The last thing I wanted to do was distrust him. He’d already come close to it once already. “Makes sense. So now what?” We walked back through his archive, and I couldn’t help but stop to examine the hand.
“Now we- oh.” Noticing that I wasn’t at his heels, he had turned to look at me. “His hand, huh? Know who’s that is?”
I shrugged. It was creepy, but seeing the hand on the pedestal was kind of neat, to be honest. “Not a clue. Paladin’s? Can’t be Lich. He was mostly skeletal, if the stories are true.”
“Oh they are. Also, they aren’t quite accurate. He wasn’t mostly skeletal, he was totally skeletal. There wasn’t any flesh to him at all. No, that hand belonged to The Loco Motive. I took it after he died.”
“What? You were there? That dude was crazy, William!”
He laughed softly. “Craziest I ever met, Jackson. It was some time after his final battle with Thunderclap. Arron was in the hospital and I’d gone to visit him. His spine had been broken at his pelvis, and his spleen had been shattered. Poor guy was more broken than whole. In more ways than one. Couldn’t move anymore.” He picked up the hand fondly, gently clasping it.
“I remember him telling me that he wanted me to have a piece of him after he died. The doctors were shocked, but I thought it was a weighty gesture. I’d tried to help him, you know? Back then, I popped in on the Cloud once or twice a week for a few hours, then back here to do more studying and to stay away from people. Just so happened that I popped in a couple days after their final battle. Thunderclap had just left, so it was just me, Arron, a doctor and a cop. When he said that, I checked with the doc, and he gave me and Arron a bunch of forms to fill out. Six hours later, my friend was dead and I had a hand in my possession. I gave it to a mortician, who preserved it for me, and now it sits here.” He reverently laid the hand back onto its pedestal and motioned for me to follow him.
“Let’s get back to the gym. I’ve shown you and told you what you need to know. Will you work with me?”
I shook my head. “I dunno, man. I… this is all so… so damn big. You want me to open a door from Chicago to wherever it is I’m dreaming of, all so you can manipulate our powers? That sounds pretty suspicious, William.”
He flicked a switch, and the lights went off in the Archive. “I know. I can’t help that fact, but I want you to know that I have nothing but the best of intentions when it comes to that. Humans are corrupt, and we corrupt nearly everything we touch. Especially power. I’ve seen far too many good people fall to that type of corruption over the last few hundred years.”
We walked out and he took my hand once more. “Hang on a second. I want to try something.”
William stopped and faced me, a curious look in his eyes. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“How far away are we, distance-wise, from your Sanctuary, or the office?”
“Distance? Uh… Whoo…” He exhaled sharply and thought for a moment. “I honestly don’t know. What’s cooking in your brain?”
I created a door to the inside of his Archive, near where the light switch was. It was only fifty feet or so. When I opened it, a gust of wind pulled the door open wide. That was new. “Is this the inside of your Archive?”
William straightened. “Did you just…?” He shook his head with a smile and reached in, feeling the wall. A moment later, I saw the Archive light up in the distance, just as light spilled out of the doorway. “Well, shit. I didn’t think of that. Think you could open one to the office?” He turned off the light and crossed his arms, smiling at me.
I let the doors dissolve and did as he asked. The moment the door popped into existence, a blinding pain stabbed through my skull. It wasn’t much worse than making a door to Japan, so I was able to keep it summoned. Barely.
“There we go,” I panted. “One door to your office.”
William opened the door, finding the office dark. “Sure looks like it.” He extended a hand to me and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go.”
Once we exited into his office, I let the doors vanish. “That shit hurt.” I rubbed my head gently, the headache slowly subsiding.
“I bet. I think my Shadow Realm is another dimension entirely. I don’t know much about it, and there isn’t much of a way I can find out, either.” He walked with me to the desk, where I sat down. “You gonna be alright?”
I nodded, the headache nearly gone. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
“Good,” he said. “I think you should head downstairs to the gym. Get a workout in. Will you do what I’ve asked, Jackson? Will you help me find answers?”
I leveled my gaze into his eyes. “You gonna help No-Face?”
He sighed and nodded. “I think so. Since he doesn’t want to know the Bearers, I can assume he already has a list. I’ll set Tekky on doing the same.” He huffed a laugh. “If the little bastard hasn’t done so already, that is. Tell him we’ll do it, and also tell him I have a gift for him, as well.”
“What kind of gift? You know he’s going to ask.”
“A history database. Far greater than any he’s ever seen.”
Understanding dawned on me. “I see. How long will it take for this database to be ready?”
“I think I can have it built, staffed and online in six months. I already have a location in my possession. Just needs power and water. As long as you’re willing to help me, that is.”
I didn’t relish the headache that would give me. “I’ll do it. You give the word, and I’ll open the doors. I’ll leave the details to you, but I’ll trust that the people you hire will be able to keep their mouths shut.”
“Of course. I’ll let you know when it’s done. Go on, then. Call him, then go see Jennifer.”
I nodded and dialed the number.
“Portal? I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, sir. Everything is just fine here. I wanted to let you know that Shade has agreed to your proposal, and he has a gift in mind for you.”
“A gift? How thoughtful of him. Might I ask what kind? It isn’t Yule, nor is it my birthday. I don’t think, anyway.”
I chuckled. “No, sir. It’s a history database. Far greater than any we have ever seen. It’ll take some time for it to be built, however, but he wants to give you access to it, as well.”
“Oh my. That is a gift.” The line was silent for a moment. “Give him my number, Portal. Tell him he is free to call upon my services at any time. Once only, mind you. I don’t extend that boon to many.”
“I will, sir. Thank you.”
“Have a good day, my friend.”
“You too, sir.” The line went silent as he hung up.
I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the desk. Huh. William liked fountain pens. After a moment of fiddling with it, I wrote down No-Face’s number. Handing the paper to William, I smiled. “He says he owes you a favor. You may call upon his services one time. I hope we don’t regret this.”
“We won’t. I assure you. Go. Get stronger.”
“Yes, sir.” I turned and walked out of the office just as Bethany and Anna walked into the gym.