Attention, this is not a test.
A “Shelter in Place” order has been issued for the settlement of Johhansonstown.
Repeat, this is not a test.
All travel to and from the settlement is prohibited.
All citizens of Johansontown are to remain in their homes until further notice.
-Blast from the ICG Emergency Broadcast System.
Two hours ago, Captain Steel woke up in the med bay of Bubba One One. Here, alive and seemingly well, 17 years after his death at the hands of Gray Grimm, it was a strange notion to parse for Roxanne, but her life was often strange. Fearing a panic, she and Corina contacted B11 and asked for secure and discreet transport back to the colony. Once there, they asked for a small med crew and temporarily emptied the entire bay. The Vaad they had met earlier was the first to know; to say he was shocked would be an understatement.
Roxanne and Corina studied this Captain Steel through a two-way glass panel that fed into his medical room. He was on a white cot connected to machines that measured his vitals. Corina said almost nothing, constantly biting at her lip. He looked only somewhat older in the same way that Corina did, imperceptibly. He had a full scruffy beard, wore a red and white jacket with his symbol on either shoulder, and a yellow scarf wrapped around his neck.
He had woken up almost instantly after being brought in, but he has only dealt with doctors and nurses so far. He was personable and cheerful when appropriate. Cool as a cucumber, as if this were just yet another ordinary day in his life. Corina finally broke the silence first:
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Where has he been? Is this even actually him??”
“Maybe I should go talk to him,” Roxanne offered. Corina glanced in her direction.
“You? Shouldn’t it be me?”
“Well, let's be honest with ourselves here,” Roxanne said. “You don’t really look like you could handle such a convo, no offense.”
“None taken. I mean, you aren’t wrong.” Corina laughed, a hollow, empty laugh. “I’m just a ball of conflicting emotions right now.”
“Right,” Roxanne said softly. “Dead for 17 years and yet…I’d like to see how he reacts to me. Maybe he gives something away, and maybe The Sight can tell me something.” Maybe. Roxanne had her theories but needed to know more. Corina mulled it over some more but ultimately agreed. She also wanted to see how this person reacted too.
Roxanne left the observation room and made her way next door. Guards kept watch at the entryway but let her pass without fuss. Roxanne waited for the door to slide open, and she stepped inside. Cap lifted his head at the sound of her arrival and sat up.
“And who might you be?” He asked. Roxanne smiled at him. He let one leg hang off the bed near the floor and lifted the knee of his other so he could rest an arm on it. His beard was 3 feet long, jutted forward, and was peppered with white hairs haphazardly. He looked even older from this distance; the creases under his eyes were prominent. Without taking her eyes off him, she grabbed a stubby metal char and dragged it toward the center of the room. The sound was obnoxious and made her skin ripple.
“I’m Roxanne,” she said as she sat down, put her hand palms down, and crossed her legs. She wasn’t going to draw attention to the racket.
“Hello, Roxanne; why are you dressed like my friend Azonne?” Roxanne blinked at this. The question completely caught her by surprise. She held a hand to her chest.
“I’m her successor,” she replied.
“Ah. She didn’t seem ready last time I spoke with her.”
“How long ago was that?”
Cap leaned back thoughtfully; then: “6 months?” He posited. “She spoke of it often. Just surprised that this is how I found out, I suppose.” Roxanne nodded. She studied him under different wavelengths; it was off. Sure, it looked normal at a glance, but it wasn’t. It pulsated differently, almost as if it were alive—agitated.
“Whats…what’s the last thing you remember?” She asked him. Now he paused and looked to the two-way window. He seemed tense, yet, just as quickly as a person breathing, he relaxed and smirked. Just like in the archives, Roxanne got goosebumps.
“I’d gotten a distress call from the colony here,” he said. “Something about a strange anomaly. I’m entering the system from The Bleed; suddenly, I’m here.”
“What year is it?”
“3134,” he replied. The current year, Roxanne hid her shock.
“Do you remember a fight with Gray Grimm?”
His facial change was instant. His eyes narrowed, his brow lowered, mouth tightened. Roxanne felt frozen.
“What’s going on here?” He asked, his voice calm. “Why would you bring that up?” Roxanne tried a nice but tight smile.
“Captain, these are just standard cognitive questions to determine whether you made it out of that…‘cosmic storm’ intact, neurotypically speaking.” She smiled again, confident she had nailed it. Captain Steel sighed heavily and leaned forward on his knee.
“Of course, I remember,” He spit.
“Did…did you win?”
“The first time.”
“Captain, you’ll have to indulge me a bit here.” Roxanne offered a warm smile. “I know it may hurt.” He glanced up at her from under his eyelids. He breathed out through his nose heavily.
“I killed Gray Grimm. But he came back. He went to my home. I wasn’t there for him to take revenge on..but my family…Corina,” three loud bangs came in from the other side of the 2-way glass. Roxanne grimaced and stood up.
“I’ll be back; thank you for answering my questions.”
Captain Steel nodded and tracked her as she left the room. Roxanne headed back to the little office she had left Corina in. Corina had her arms crossed tight while her eyes were wide.
“Breathe…” Roxanne told her friend.
“What the hell is this, Roxanne??” She replied quickly. “That’s not my brother, right? You’re supposed to know everything!”
“Okay, let's not be ridiculous,” Roxanne said while she held her hands out in front of her like she was pantomiming how to calm down a rabid elephant. “I mean, let's think about what we got here, okay?” Corina pursed her lips and finally released the grip on her torso to let her arms fall.
“Fine,” she breathed heavily. “I’m okay.”
“Okay, so…no, he’s clearly not your brother, right?” Roxanne said, and Corina nodded. “But I think he is your brother all the same.”
“You don’t mean like…a clone or something?” Corina asked. “Maybe implanted with false memories with a win over Grimm and me being dead?” Roxanne shook her head.
“No, I think it’s stranger than that,” She said. “This guy's aura gave off weird vibes in The Sight. Like he’s not of this universe, and just being here is messing with our particular rules of physics.”
“Not of this universe?”
“Right, like a…parallel one,” Roxanne replied. “Exactly like ours but with minute differences, such as Azonne still being alive, him still living to today…but this colony? My rings? He knows them, and they exist to him. Supposedly, there are an infinite number of parallel universes out there, and The Bleed exists to keep them all apart. Keeps them from crossing and destroying each other.”
“You don’t know that for sure?” Corina asked. Roxanne thought for a moment.
“…no,” she finally said. “Certain things, even the exact nature of the universe's origins, are a mystery even to me, it seems.” She shrugged; it was a futile attempt to shake off the fact that that notion bothered her.
“Anyway,” She continued. “I think that caused the storm—Captain Steel and his ship somehow breaching The Bleed between two separate universes. Since it didn’t belong here…,” Roxanne mimed an explosion with her hands. Corina shook her head and looked back at the 2-way glass. He was up and staring back at her as well.
“Why would this happen?” Corina asked. She glanced back at Roxanne. “Why here, why now? Everything happens for a reason, right?” Roxanne looked away.
“You know I don’t believe in that,” she said softly. She took her braid into her hand and started to mess with it; it felt heavy, like a snake in her arms. “You don’t want to know what I think about the whys. I’m not even sure I want to know.”
“What…?”
The wall exploded from inside, landing on both Corina and Roxanne and burying them under a pile of rubble. Captain Steel stepped forward and dusted his hands.
“Okay, I’ve had about enough of this game,” He said. “If you think you can trick me, then—” He grinned his biggest grin and glanced down. His skin went pale; their eyes locked instantly, and he recognized Corina as his sister. He took a step backward and stumbled. His face went tight, and he floated and rocketed out of the building through another wall. Corina shrugged the debris off her moments later, reached into the pile, and pulled out Roxanne. Without hesitation, Corina flew off and followed the smoke trail.
“Captain Steel!” Corina shouted; the craziness of those two words coming out of her mouth hit her like a ton of bricks. He landed among a crowd of people who instantly lost their minds. They screamed; they snapped pictures; they mauled him. Over and over, these people tell him he is supposed to be dead. The panic hit him at once, and he screamed. The crowd dispersed due to the sheer force of the scream; reality whinged. Corina approached him hesitantly; he looked up at her.
“I just connected to The Bleednet,” he said. “I’m dead? Is it really you, Cor? What’s happening?”
“I've been there. I might still be there,” Corina said and forced a smirk. Her eyes were screaming this is your brother like a big flashing truck stop sign while her brain kept trying to be analytical about it. Even that faltered as they exchanged words; it was like putting on an old glove.
“Why don’t you come inside so we can all talk?” She asked him. Captain Steel hung his head briefly and stared at the ground. Finally, he nodded and took her outstretched hand.
----------------------------------------
It took them a few hours to secure transport, but Spydalow and The Running Man touched down in Millerton bay during The Long Morning's waning hours. They stopped off at Spyda’s charitably called apartment so he could quick-charge spydacam and restock on his glue bombs—although he preferred you called them web bombs.
Stolen story; please report.
“I’m big on branding,” he said to Sam when questioned. Sam could understand that but ultimately didn’t care. He let Jessika handle that usually. It was less stressful on him and allowed her to make some pocket change for herself. Spyda spent most of the time appearing offline in his chat room so he could see what they were saying.
There was still some mean-spirited joking around, but most of his ardent fans had self-policed and got it toned down. They ran interference for him since most of them knew he was taking a break for a few days; he appreciated it.
Jumanga: You guys hear about Johansontown?
SIXERNIXER: When is spyda back???
Big45c: @Jumanga ya my cousin is from there, she got out just before they shut it all down.
Jumanga: …Is she visiting u rn? @Big45c
Big45c: Ya.
Salami: SPYDA IS NEVER COMING BACK
Salami has left the chat!
Sam and Spyda hung around the apartment complex until mid-Long Morning; they had food delivered and stuffed that down ferociously while discussing their plans. Firstly they figured that, due to Spyda’s little misadventure, security would be generally beefed up, especially while the sun was down. Much of this plan hinged on the assumption that security expected another nighttime break-in. Sam wasn’t really concerned; he was comfortable that with his abilities, no one would see them unless he wanted them to. Spyda was less convinced.
“You’re sure you can have your, ah, ‘stuff’ affect more than just yourself?” Spyda asked him. Sam seemed offended.
“I’m not some rookie here.”
“Look, alls I know is that I can’t hold someone's hand, and all the sudden, they can stick to walls with me.”
“Okay, that’s you,” Sam said. “Listen, I’ve done this. Many times.”
“Okay,” Spyda shrugged. “Whatever you say, bro.” Spyda was so inherently charismatic that, for just the briefest of microseconds, Sam almost second-guessed whether he could do it as well. He found that entirely annoying. The two continued getting ready in the small space, often awkwardly colliding with one another.
Having enough, with 7 hours of daylight left until the Long Evening, both got ready to head to the warehouse complexes. Spyda had never taken off his outfit during the downtime, but Sam spent seconds in Stoptime putting his on. It was a modified version of his spacesuit, colored red, blue, and white, with a yellow electrical impulse symbol across his chest. It was bulky, but being aerodynamic had no bearing on how his abilities worked, plus it allowed him to stay longer in Stoptime by regulating his adrenalin output. He slipped the black sock hood over his head and returned to real-time.
“Good to go,” he said; Spyda nodded. To cut off any fuss, Sam scooped up Sypdalow and activated Stoptime. To Spyda, the entire world glowed; bathed in a hazy purplish aura, every object formally in motion now crawled at less than a snail's pace. The chat, usually flying at millions of miles per hour, froze dead. On the street moments later, pedestrians and vehicles were similarly inert.
“This is weird,” he said. “And awkward. Do you have to carry me?”
“Keep a hand on my shoulder while I put you down,” Sam said, and Spyda did as instructed. Everything remained as is even though both of them were standing still now.
“Impressive,” Spyda uttered. “What happens if I let go?”
“Try it and find out.” After some hesitation, Spyda took his hand off Sam’s shoulder, and he was suddenly jerked out of Stoptime. Spyda rolled backward on the ground as if he had been kicked out of a moving vehicle. Sam appeared next to him and leaned down, trying not to laugh.
“Guess you found out,” Sam said and held his hand out for Spyda to grab. “You alright?” Spyda groaned and reached up.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Suits good against road rash.”
“Dope. So, since you don’t want to be carried, why don’t you hang on to my back?”
“Know what? I’m perfectly able to get there on my own, thanks.”
“We can get there in seconds; come on!” Sam pleaded. He tried not to be impatient; it was such a cliché. But they set a schedule, the clock was ticking, and every second counted. Spyda finally relented and climbed on his back. Sam was about a foot taller than him, so it made things less cumbersome. Spyda wrapped his arms around Sam’s neck and did a small prayer under his breath.
Sam took off.
In real-time, Sam vanished with a small boom that sent debris flying; afterimages of his movement stuttered in the wake. In Stoptime, he was jogging and using relative momentum to parkour off of surfaces and weave around buildings and cars. Most people he passed got the vague sense something had nearly collided with them, but confusion abounded when they looked for the source. In Stoptime, everything felt personally ordinary. Spyda counted the tics of seconds off a stopwatch he had started; they had been moving for almost 10 minutes.
He thought-clicked to look at the actual time; it had not moved beyond a second. Sam reached a building a block away from the complex and stopped. Suddenly all that momentum hit Spyda like a ton of bricks, and he jumped off Sam's back to start puking.
“I’m sorry, dude!” Sam said, patting his back as he was bent over. “I forget how tough it is for first-timers.” Instead of responding, Spyda just hacked some more and waved him off.
“I’m fine, it’s fine,” he told him, then stood up straight and adjusted his suit. He looked off into the distance and realized that the entire complex looked so different with the sun still up. He tapped his lenses again to zoom in. An enormous military truck was at the main gate and getting inspected by a security bot. After a few minutes, it drove off, and the robot resumed its patrols.
“So where is this building 5?” Sam asked.
“It’s cloaked, but it's in the middle of that cluster of buildings there,” and he pointed. Sam pretended he precisely knew where Spyda was pointing to and nodded silently.
“Okay, well, are you finally cool with my version of the plan now that you’ve seen my ish in action firsthand?” Sam asked. “Or do you still wanna do it the slow way?” Spyda momentarily bristled at this. His way wasn’t slow. Slower than seconds, sure, but he felt he didn’t deserve such disrespect. He shook it off, nodded to Sam, and reluctantly climbed back onto Sam’s back.
“Okay,” Spyda said while he ensured he had a good grip. “Past the fence and then…I want to say 50 feet north, and then we’ll be at building 3. You can get us to the roof, right?”
Sam smirked.
“You’re not the only person who can run up walls,” and the world became hazy and purple as soon as the words left his mouth. The momentum and kinetic energy Sam generated via Stoptime allowed him to defy gravity, even if only briefly. He ran down the side of the building they were on and made a beeline straight for the complex. He jogged past the fence, only slowing to look at the security drone standing by, ultimately none the wiser.
[https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/939246405011251231/1074014461096112260/spydarunner.png?width=670&height=670]
He jogged past the post and weaved between the buildings before Spyda pointed upwards. Sam took a brief look and saw the number 3 plastered on the side of this; he ran up it. Static electricity built up around them, bounced off them, off the building, and then back again. Once they reached the roof, Stoptime had ended. Spyda slid off his back and was surprised that he immediately didn’t want to hurl chunks. Sam, perhaps having sensed this, said:
“Everyone gets used to it.”
Spyda ignored this and adjusted his clothes; things had bunched up in places.
“So, where is this place?” He heard Sam ask. Spyda smiled and jumped off the roof; Sam almost had a heart attack. Spyda’s boots landed with a thud on the surface of what looked like nothing.
“Like I said….” He told him. “It’s a cloaked building.” Not one to be shown up, Sam entered Stoptime and ran up the building himself. The building appeared, albeit hazy, within the field, as if it were both there and not there simultaneously. Spyda standing on the side of the building helped anchor his perspective, and Sam instantly appeared at the top.
“Show off,” Spyda said under his breath. He walked up the remaining distance and joined Sam at the top. Sam felt utterly naked and blind, standing on nothing, but Spyda kept moving as if he had been here before, which was technically accurate. Spyda jutted out his index finger and waved it around a small area in front of him.
Confused at first, Sam realized Spyda was inputting the codes they had found together earlier that day; he smirked when a small doorway slid open, blocking a portion of the backdrop. Spyda motioned for him to follow, and Sam did so; once he stepped past spyda, he realized he was in a small stairwell. Finally, something that wasn’t invisible, an actual tangible area.
“Jeez, you weren’t kidding,” Sam said.
“Just come on,” Spyda replied emphatically. The two of them walked down the stairs toward a door at the bottom. Knowing this was safe, Spyda pushed it open, and they were in the big expansive room he had been in earlier. Sam looked over the railing and saw that the space was empty.
“I thought you said there were bodies here?” He asked. Spyda looked over the edge in a panic.
“There was a shit ton here earlier,” he said before hopping over the railing and landing at the bottom. The floor was devoid of anything at all but had plenty of stains on the steel floor. He crouched down low and rubbed his fingers against the surface before raising them to his face. Afterimages of Sam appeared next to him suddenly with a gust of wind, having used his Stoptime to get there.
“For lack of a better term, there are body juice stains here,” Spyda said while he brought his fingertips to his nose. The smell of decomposition was unmistakable to him.
“Maybe you forced them to move,” Sam said.
“Maybe,” Spyda agreed. He continued studying the floor while Sam looked around.
“There’s a door over here,” Sam said. Spyda looked over and saw a door leading off the floor a few feet away. He got up from kneeling and walked over to the door. Sam joined by his side while he tried the handle. Since they had gotten in here via a legit code, they were still considered legal to be here, so Spyda just turned the handle and opened the door.
There was no alarm, so they both entered.
Beyond the door was a hallway with two different doorways leading to separate rooms on either side and further, beyond that, the hallway had just ended, littered with junk. The first door, on the right, had no visible markings and to the left was a glass window with the opacity turned way up so you couldn’t see inside. Across from this diagonally was the other door. This one had no window, but the door was marked “LAB.”
“Split up?” Sam asked.
“That’s stupid; this door’s locked anyway.”
“Kick it in.”
“Let’s try the unlocked door first, okay?”
Spyda walked a bit down the hallway and approached the door. Spyda opened the door and got hit with two things: The first, a god-awful stench; the second, a thick swarm of senatas. The sound of their multitude of wings fluttering grated against the nerves, hitting him as hard as the smell did. The aroma had hit Sam just as quickly, and he gagged.
“Greshing Hell,” Spyda said as he slapped the bugs away, thankful he and Sam were practically fully covered. Sam saw the swarm head in his direction and had entered Stoptime to deftly and delicately move each individual bug out of his way while he walked through it. Upon resummation in real-time, the swarm entered the main warehouse. Some stuck around in the hallway and the room Spyda had just opened, where he now stood, mouth agape. Sam walked up behind him to see what he was looking at.
Four bodies were on the floor, looking like they had been haphazardly thrown like trash or—more likely—simply forgotten. The rest of the room was barren; it was barely a room. It was a freezer, powered down. More bodies had been here, long gone. Those remaining had dried blood caked all over them and looked deflated—less mass than you’d expect from a decomposing corpse.
“Go live,” Spydalow said, and the tiny camera bot rose out of his collar. “No, no intro. Just go, bud.” The robot fluttered around the room and broadcasted as much as possible.
“Let’s kick that other door in,” Sam said. Spyda smirked and nodded affirmatively. The two walked over to the other door, counted to 3, and kicked. The door dented but didn’t give, so they did it again until it collapsed inward on itself. Spyda stomped the rest of the door down so they’d have the clearance to step over it.
Beyond that was an office, wide enough to fit a car in. 4 desks were at the center of the room, each with a miniature desktop computer, wide curved floating monitor, and holographic keyboard. With no power, however, the monitors crashed on the desks, and the keyboard was non-existent. The opposite of practical, physical filing cabinets, sleek and white, looked picked through.
“They really left in a hurry, huh?” Spyda asked aloud. Half for the streaming audience at home, half for Sam to chime in if he wanted. Spyda stopped at one of the desks and ran his finger across the surface. He picked up one of the computers still sitting there. It was a 3x3 cube with optical ports on the underside. The manufacturer's logo, Sentek, was etched into the side obnoxiously.
“Do you think they left these behind because they were in such a hurry that they also forgot to wipe them?” Spyda again asked the air. Sam, for his part, shrugged. He was walking around the cabinets, perhaps thinking they also left something tangible behind. In a bottom drawer, a slip of paper caught Sam’s eye. He took it between his fingertips and examined it: a shipping label addressed to a location in Johansontown.
Spyda had connected spydacam to the desktop cube and watched the booting sequence on his lenses. In his peripheral vision, the chat sat muted, and all his focus was on the data. The cube immediately booted into the commercial OS that had been installed on it; Spyda smirked.
“They really didn’t,” he snorted.
“I doubt they have sensitive materials on them,” Sam mused.
“You’d be surprised,” Spyda replied. “Dummies admit to crimes in personal communication all the time. Most of the time, it’s really just a matter of if they’re rich enough to fight it.”
Sam couldn’t argue with that. Spyda logged in under a guest account, figuring it’d have the same access as the primary account because they weren’t smart enough to add any restrictions manually; he was right. He thought-clicked through the file system, not looking for anything specific but just for something to jump out at him.
He found a shortcut to the default mail client and clicked on that next. It asked him: Would you like to import your account from the other desktop? He had to smile. He clicked yes and watched the inbox fill with messages, communications, and even appointments. He opened the last sent:
Bro,
Between the absolute shit show at Johansontown and that streamer dork breaking in, Tom is gonna have my ASS. The freashest ones were shipped over to Saint Century for further study. Make sure you burn the rest dude and wipe this thing after you read this. I’m not kidding, don’t pull your bullshit on me because NOW is NOT the TIME.
J
“I need to get this to my apartment,” Spyda disconnected from the computer and held the cube up to his face; he looked at Sam:
“You should probably get back to Saint Century,” he said.
“Why, what did you find?”
“What used to be here is now there. Hang on—” Spyda paused and lowered his head as if he perceived something mentally. “I think The Bleednet literally just crashed for a second. The stream was down, but it's back...”
“What…?” Sam pulled up a mental browser himself and was inundated by so much information. It was as if every being and person connected to the net simultaneously shared the same news at the exact same second—an instantly viral explosion.
CAPTAIN STEEL BACK FROM THE DEAD.