“We ask that all citizens report to the designated zones (located here) so that they may be transported to wide-scale quarantine zones. Please be alert: you WILL be screened for the virus, and you WILL be tested for the OH gene (specific instructions for the OverHuman population can be found here).” Can you believe they actually sent this out? Most of the Q zones have already been overwhelmed! Don’t go, stay inside, be safe! The only person who can look out for you is you.
-Viral social media post.
Roxanne had entered the hallway cautiously, it was eerily quiet, and she didn’t like it. Outside these walls, people screamed, and fires raged, making the silence stick out. Chris had lagged behind her, even more on high alert and feeding off Roxanne’s nervous body language. Further down the hallway was the apartment entrance; Captain Steel’s thick frame, easily seen, blocked it. A loud crunch forced her to pick up her pace, and she was hanging at the doorway seconds later.
“Captain Steel?” She let out. His body language was strange, haggard. Captain Steel spun around suddenly, his eyes glowing a white-hot blue. Roxanne’s hackles got up instinctively, and she raised a hand. Seconds later, Captain Steel had relaxed, the blue light dimmed in his eyes, and suddenly he was that person in all the vids.
She asked him if he was alright.
“Just fine,” he replied confidently; she almost believed it. She scanned the room and noted the crushed terminal and the general state of disarray everything was in. In front of him, in a chair, was Spydalow—she recognized the look on his face; he was sick too. She felt uncomfortable. A few feet behind her, Chris hung back, fiddling with their left ring. Roxanne had explained multiple times that they were safe as long as the rings were on, but Chris found it hard to stay focused regardless.
“What happened?” Roxanne asked, jutting her chin forward to indicate the smashed terminal behind Cap. His head turned slightly toward his right shoulder as if not quite sure what she meant, but for once, she could tell it was for show. The back of her neck tingled, and each hair root twitched in the climate-controlled cold.
“I don’t know,” he offered. “He may have done it himself, perhaps in a fit of delirium brought on by the virus.”
That was a lie. It had to be. Roxanne heard it being destroyed from the hallway…didn’t she? Absent any reason for such a lie, Roxanne was left to question her senses which left her frustrated. She pushed the thought out of her mind, opting to follow up with it some other time. She glanced down at the body seated in front of him and asked:
“Did he say anything?”
“We should take him to the hospital Lady Steel is staying at,” he replied, ignoring her. “He can be kept in custody, and if they synthesize a cure from her, he’d be able to receive it faster. Are you safe to take him?”
“I mean, yeah, but,” she began but quickly stopped. The entire building had shaken. All three froze in place, breaths held in, silently wondering if it would happen again. It did, but harder this time. Cap glanced around as if he heard something. He walked past Roxanne and Chris out into the hallway. He was muttering to himself.
“People are screaming,” Roxanne heard him say. “All this trouble and for what? To distract?” She looked over at Chris, who looked equally as confused. They arched a brow at Roxanne, who could only manage a shrug as a response.
“Are…are you talking to me, Cap?” Roxanne spat out, but the building shook again. Cap floated upward and then glided down the stairwell; she followed with Chris dutifully behind. They continued fiddling with their left ring, feeling exposed and wanting in the face of two bonafide heroes. Chris winced immediately, and Ordlach let them know just what he thought about Roxanne’s so-called hero-ness.
“Shut up,” Chris whispered, though loud enough that Roxanne had glanced back. Chris blushed and pointed at their head, shifting quickly to opening and closing their hand like a mouth; Roxanne smiled. She turned back only for Captain Steel's back muscles to collide with her face.
“Ow!” She let out. “What the heck?”
Cap had paused just outside the building entrance, almost frozen. His head tilted upward, and Roxanne followed his gaze. Something massive had emerged from the Bay and towered over the buildings. It had a wide frame and rust-colored metallic plating; the lower half was obscured by the buildings but jutted out wider than its top half like they were tank treads.
The head swiveled unnaturally with some skin-colored synthetic material stretched over it and pinned to the back of its head. Telescoping coil-like arms, black in color, protruded from its torso, with one ending at a prominent point and the other appearing like a hollowed-out tube.
And it was loud. The piercing whine filled the atmosphere and made Roxanne’s skin crawl. In her HUD, various indicators floated over the atrocity and highlighted different parts of the creature…if it could be called such.
Roxanne, I estimate it to be 60 meters tall. It’s also giving off a metric ton of heat. I suspect the slots on the side are venting dangerous levels of radiation.
“What am I looking at?” She asked out loud. “Is that skin stretched across its face??”
Unknown. Though it appears to be synthetic in nature, we’d have to get closer.
“Done,” Roxanne’s rings sparked brightly, and her hard-light aura crystalized around her. “Let's go bust this thing up, Cap!” She floated a few feet in seconds but stopped short when she saw she was alone. Captain Steel had not moved. His eyes were still fixated upward at the beast. Roxanne again followed his gaze, and she wondered if he was seeing something that she wasn’t.
There was nothing.
She looked back. Cap floated upward, turning around as he did so. Roxanne was dumbfounded at the sight. Was he…? Yes, he was leaving! Her brain rebuilt itself just enough for her to shout:
“What the f…” Another piercing whine traveled through the air and caught her attention. A bright blue glow pulsed inside the hollowed-out tube before belching out intense blue light. The energy crossed the sky and enveloped the fleeing Captain Steel in total. Both body and energy collided with a building meters away and sent the structure downward in a heap of ash and smoke. The city shook and cried in the face of the display.
“CAAAP!” Roxanne and Chris helplessly watched the strongest of them all utterly taken out like wet tissue. Alternate universe or not, Captain Steel was the most powerful human in existence; Roxanne suddenly felt frightened. Above her, the mechanical giant trudged on and began firing its cannon indiscriminately. The pair's eyes shot up; Chris’s aura crystalized around their body, and the voice in their head was finally silent. They looked toward Roxanne, who continued to stare upward.
“Rox, call it! I’m with you!”
“No!” Roxanne spun around to face them. “I’ll handle this! Get back in there, grab Spyda, and get him to the hospital!”
“But-”
“Go! Now!” Roxanne pulsed upward; now wasn’t the time for tutoring or instruction. She circled the monster and studied it in her HUD. Her light was bright and caught the creature's attention; Roxanne thought back to the brief time she had a cat as a child. A cat and a red dot. She smiled at the memory; they caused a lot of trouble.
She banked upward and glided millimeters from the face. Confirming for her that it was synthetic skin, skin stretched so tight the moving parts underneath became apparent and unnerving. Roxanne’s own skin felt like pinpricks as she doubled back and made another sweep.
“That’s right,” she said. “Follow the yellow dot.” Concrete and asphalt buckled and smashed under the colossal weight as the machine began to turn. In full view, the bottom half of the creature was akin to a skirt, and underneath it were multiple coiled legs that pumped up and down like a marching millipede.
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Scanning for the power source.
“Take your time,” Roxanne said while she spun to dodge a telescoping limb; that would have pierced her aura at the speed it was traveling. Deftly, Roxanne spun to her left to avoid an incoming energy blast, then dipped below another swipe from the other arm before turning around and cutting loose with a massive plasma burst from her right hand. It ejected from her ring like out-of-control water from a hose and splashed against the robot's hull just as uselessly. An unholy noise rose from the machine, something like a scream if the one doing it had no concept of vocal cords or sounds. Roxanne’s skin rippled under her uniform.
“Running out of ide—UGH!” The head telescoped upward violently and collided with Roxanne; she cleared two city blocks before bursting through a 10-story high rise on her way to making a relatively small crater in the ground just beside it. Again, the creature screamed.
Roxanne, the dome on the chest. Carve it off to expose the power source.
She groaned and lifted her head slightly before she sat up. She patted the dust from her shoulders and chest and breathed outwardly through her mouth.
“Can’t I just blast a hole through it?”
You’ve seen how well that worked. You’ll need to peel the shell off.
“On it,” and with that, Roxanne hit the sky like a rocket. From on high, the creature, all flailing arms and neck, wallered around the mile-high piles of debris like a satisfied pig. It ejected blue energy from its arm cannon haphazardly as if it had no control over it. From the nearby rubble rose a rocket; Roxanne tracked it in her HUD. It was a phoenix.
It was Captain Steel.
He screamed, and reality shook. It carried on for light years and was felt by billions. A second later, he had blasted forward. From this distance, it was just a fast-moving dot, and Roxanne had lost track of it. But the monster's chest imploded a second later, followed by yellow viscous fluid that flowed outward and flooded the bombed-out streets below. Roxanne stared in awe as the machine collapsed. Like an external plug had suddenly been pulled, the creature’s frame sunk into the ground pathetically.
She cut the distance between them and landed where she had estimated Captain Steel had to have landed. The area was smokey, forcing Roxanne to switch to the infrared spectrum so that she could see. Localized fires were everywhere, but his frame and aura stood out. An average person from this universe would be red, with maybe some orange; he was neon purple. In his hand was a small reddish-yellow shape.
“Cap…?” the letters sputtered out of her mouth. He was staring at the shape. Closer now, Roxanne switched back to the visible spectrum. The small mass was pink and fleshy; she recoiled. Cap continued to stare at the tiny body, yellow strands of gloopy fluid sliding off soft and slick flesh.
“I’ve had enough,” he whispered and dropped it. His body clenched, and he shouted it again:
“I’VE HAD ENOUGH!” The air around him bent slightly before contracting upon his propulsion from the ground. Instinctively Roxanne made chase, teeth gritted and using every ounce of power she could muster. He was so fast and already had 50 miles on her. In her peripheral, emergency calls scream out unanswered. People were trapped and injured; most were near death. She thought about the destruction she had just witnessed and slowed down.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
His trajectory suggests his destination is Saint Century. Shall I notify Central One?
“Yeah,” she replied. “Tell them I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Roxanne made her way back to Millerton and didn’t even need to set a flight plan. She’d need only to follow the smoke.
----------------------------------------
The ICG board of directors only seldom meets in person. The most pressing business typically got done remotely since most shares were controlled by just a handful of people, which turned the minority vote into a needle tossed against a tsunami. Still, who could resist a gathering? Called together by Shaw to discuss what a post-pandemic Izanami might look like, he promised food and entertainment, and he delivered on both.
On a vid screen was news footage from Millerton Bay; the colossal monster had just blasted Captain Steel. There was excitement from those gathered.
“Is that one of ours?” One member said and held his hands up to his lips like a newborn baby. He was young, only serving for the past ten years, with no concept of tact or humility—the perfect Shaw disciple. Jaime was there, of course, and John Gibson too.
“The one thing that’ll always capture the public eyeballs: big fights!” Shaw had shouted. He sat at the head of a long wood table. With a piled-high plate of boneless wings before him and a white bib tucked into his collar, Jackson was very much enjoying himself. He did not need the food, of course. He had a massive pile of it simply because he could; he sucked down a straw full of nutrient paste and smirked. Jaime sat to his right while john to the left; the remaining board members, ten in total, took places down the line.
“We’re already trending!” One of them shouted; Shaw took another large slurp and smiled big as tiny droplets dribbled off his lips. Jaime noticed this and mimed dusting off her lips with a napkin for Jackson’s benefit, which he dutifully ignored.
“Still behind ‘Pandemic Fail,’” John deadpanned. Shaw shot him an icy glare that he ignored, thoughts more focused on his son and if he was safe in lockdown and supposedly isolated. He could rest easy if he knew Wes was away from…all this.
“What a nasty thing to say,” Shaw said; he dabbed at the corners of his mouth with the bib. “Very Nasty, John.” A hush fell over the table as—on TV—Captain Steel rises from the rubble and runs the monster through. Captain Steel’s scream was heard faintly, even from this distance; the building shuddered.
“BOOM! Ha-ha,” one member shouted.
“That’s certainly not going to keep it trending,” John said. “The quick fights never do.”
“It’s enough,” Shaw replied. “The plan was always just to distract. We found out what the streamer knew, blocked the upload, and no doubt the Captain will be preoccupied with the clean-up. Win, win, win.”
“Where’s he going?” Someone asked. The cam bot filming the footage had moved closer toward the epicenter just in time to catch a glimpse of Captain Steel blipping upward. It panned up to track, but he was lost instantly, with only the faint glow from Roxanne visible as she gave chase.
“So much for win number 3,” Jaime let out. Shaw lowered his head, the blatant disdain getting to him easier than ever. He smiled with closed lips but gritted his teeth hard to keep from exploding. Then he laughed, using it as an outlet for the tension he felt within.
“It doesn’t matter,” A loud shockwave stopped the sentence in its tracks. A far wall had exploded inward, and large debris careened within the room. The force sent chairs, people, and even the giant, heavy table flying.
It was Captain Steel.
Dust and smoke swirled around his legs. His eyes grew bright and pulsated energy. Papers wafted about on currents of air; Captain Steel’s head made a note of every figure within the room until he locked on to Shaw. He pointed.
“Who are you?”
Shaw held his hands up, sweat slid down his back, and he stumbled into a wall. He blinked, and Cap appeared in front of him in the microsecond between opening and closing. Cap's arm snapped forward and grabbed a handful of Shaw’s clothes, lifting the thin, gangly man's feet off the ground.
“WHO ARE YOU?” he bellowed. His fist tightened; he hissed: “Release me.”
Shaw’s brain felt foggy, and his feet dangled like a marionette. He tried looking beyond the powerful arm holding him aloft and saw his sister pinned under the wood table with three other board members. Those still standing in the room made for the nearest exit and found it locked. John Gibson pushed his way to the front of the pile and slammed his fist against the door.
Shaw swallowed hard, and somehow, a sentence fell out of his mouth:
“Cap, what are you talking about?!” The fist tightened even more.
“I don’t know who you are,” Cap spit. “ Or how you know exactly how to push my buttons….” Blue ozone-like smoke escaped from the edges of his eyes. “Our babies as a power source! Grown for your sick experiments!
“Release. Me.” Each letter cut through gaps in his gritted teeth. “I’m through playing this game.”
“Cap, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you alright, buddy? Put me down, man; let's talk.”
He didn’t. Captain Steel curled his arm and brought shaw closer to him.
“My children, my wife, my sister, all alive...I was almost satisfied to stay like this forever. But I couldn’t. Everywhere I looked, I saw rot. I saw a world falling apart in a way I’d never allow. So much misery and suffering, the bodies piling up.
“You didn’t drop me into fantasy. You dropped me into a nightmare that ate and ate away at me. Giving this Corina Kyle the virus was a step too far. I knew then that if I allowed this to continue further likely, I’d be faced with the crisis of my children dying all over again, and I refuse!
“Your alternate reality scenario was clever but ultimately flawed. And to what end? A test? Are you a God? A trickster? Tell me!”
“I-I don't understand, Cap; alternate reality?” Shaw tried to use Cap’s arm as leverage to lift himself some and ease the tightness around his neck. “Please, I just want to understand…do you think none of this is real?” Briefly, Cap seemed hesitant.
Shaw saw this as an opening.
“We’re all real here, Cap,” He said. “Put me down, buddy, pal; you’re not in any kind of prison. Certainly not by my making….” Shaw felt some slack present itself in Cap's outstretched arm. He felt he needed to push further.
“Captain…what did you mean by an alternate reality?” Shaw probed and tried to watch Cap's eyes. There was hesitation, a flick of confusion that would have passed unnoticed had Shaw not been desperate for it.
“Unless you…you’re not really him are you?” He whispered. “I suspected Lady Steel wasn’t being truthful about the nature of your resurrection, but I’m right, aren’t I? You’re not the real Captain Steel.”
“NO,” The hesitation had gone as quickly as it came. Captain Steel’s eyes were fire again. “NO MORE LIES, NO MORE TRICKS,” Cap loosened his grip and dropped Shaw to the ground. “NOTHING IS REAL HERE!” Cap spun around, his eyes primed and on fire. Plasma vision flashed and exploded out, first connecting with the group huddled by the exit and then on to the rest.
Ash, every last one of them.
“I GAVE YOU THE CHANCE TO END THIS,” Cap screamed while smoke wafted from his eye sockets. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air. Cap knelt and palmed Shaw’s head with both hands like a ball. He lifted the chairman again in the air. “SO I’LL END IT MY WAY.”
It did not take much force.