Zoë lay on the bed, unconscious. The miniature thunderclap that had accompanied her getting blown across the room had startled Misto awake, and now he muscled his way into the small crowd surrounding her. Gadget, Mystikite, Misto, Jetta, Elphion, Naruto, and Phineas all jockeyed for space around the bed, with Mystikite and Gadget sitting on either side of her. Misto had lifted her onto the bed, and after the general atmosphere of “Whoa! What the fuck!” had dissipated, nobody had said anything. An uncomfortable silence hung over the room. The Dr. Manhatten Helmet sat on the table beside the bed, an uneasy reminder of what had just transpired. Gadget didn’t like looking at it; God, if it had fucked up his friend — if it had damaged Zoë — he would never be able to use it again. Ever.
She is probably going to die, said the Beast, and it’s your fault. YOUR fault. YOU did this. YOU created the instrument that lead to her undoing. YOU.
“If we’re leaving,” said Jetta, breaking the gloom, and looking toward Mystikite, “we should do so now, while she’s out. I know it sounds horrible. But it’ll be easier on her this way.”
Mystikite opened his mouth to speak, but Gadget spoke for him. He glared at Mystikite. “Don’t you dare,” he said. He had never spoken to Mystikite like this, in all the years they’d been friends. His heart hammered in his chest, even more than it had while they had been fighting Ravenkroft and the Cybermechazoids. “Don’t you dare walk out of here while she’s unconscious and can’t argue with you!”
You see? said the Beast. Eventually you’ll drive everyone away from you, because you’re a worthless human being. You’re pathetic. You’re a fuck-up. You’re not worth sticking around for. He doesn’t care about you because you’re not worthy of giving a shit about.
“Dude,” said Mystikite, “you don’t understand. Neither of you do. I can’t be allowed near you — or anyone else I care about — anymore. Don’t you get it? Vampires are Humans’ natural predators. It’d be the same thing as letting a tiger into the house and expecting it to not just eat you one night. No. I’m leaving with Jetta and her gang, here. I’m sorry it has to be this way, but it does.”
He’s not sorry in the least; he’ll be glad to be rid of you, whispered the Beast. Who wouldn’t be. You’re a stone around their necks. They’d be better off without you, both of them.
“Goddammit,” said Gadget, shaking his head, “just go then. Go on. Leave. Do whatever the hell you want to do.”
Yes, just let him go, said the Beast. It’ll be easier that way, if you don’t resist.
Mystikite put a gentle hand on Gadget’s shoulder. “I’m — I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry you can’t understand.” He sighed. “C’mon, Jetta. Guys. We’re leaving.”
Pretty soon it’ll just be you and me, alone together, snickered the Beast. And oh, what fun we’ll have.
Gadget didn’t look Mystikite in the eye. He couldn’t. He simply couldn’t. He felt a single tear roll down his cheek, and he shrugged Mystikite's hand off of his shoulder. He felt his breath hitch as he deliberately avoided watching Mystikite turn to leave. He tried to keep his eyes focused on Zoë as Mystikite got up off the bed, and walked around the other side. The air shifted in the room and around him as Jetta, Elphion, Phineas, and Naruto all quietly moved away from the bed and toward the door, Mystikite moving with them, every step he took away another crack in Gadget’s heart. Finally, he heard the door open. He could almost feel Mystikite's last backward glance at him and Zoë as he and the others filed out the door, and were gone. The door slammed shut behind them, and Gadget couldn’t hold it back anymore. He broke down sobbing.
“Uhn . . . ugh . . . Gadget? Hon?” muttered Zoë, stirring from her slumber, her speech slurred. She blinked open her eyes, and then frowned. “Gadget? Hon? Why are you crying?”
“He left,” said Gadget, sniffling and wiping his nose with his sleeve. “Just . . . left. He’s gone, Zoë.” He paused, the realization of the obvious hitting him. “Oh, you’re awake!” He bent down and hugged her tightly. “Thank God you’re awake! And alive! Oh, thank God!” A small laugh, despite everything else, escaped him, surprising even him. A bubble of joy, in a swamp of sadness.
You got so lucky, said the Beast. Next time, maybe not so much.
“Oh Gadget,” she said, sitting up and hugging him back. “I guess it’s just us, now, bud. Me and you.”
He let go of her, their hug becoming just a little too comfortable for his taste. After all they’d been through, there was still that strange, built-in proscription against the two of them getting a little too familiar. It had been that way for years, now. He had accepted the Platonic nature of their relationship so completely, that thinking of her any other way was just . . . well, it was just plain weird. And besides that, dammit, Mystikite might not be here right now, but he would be back. Yeah, he would be back.
Keep telling yourself that, said the Beast.
“And what am I, a scruffy nerf-herder?” said Misto. He grinned a literally wolfish grin at them. “I count, too.”
“Of course you do, Misto,” said Zoë. She wiped a tear from her eye. “How’s your leg?” She wasn’t about to let Mystikite's departure get to her again; he could see that. He allowed her her dignity, just as she had allowed him his.
“The leg will heal. Rapidly, if I know my Wolf-Form,” said Misto. “The question is, are you alright?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Gadget. “You took quite a jolt, Z. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah I’m — ” And then, all three of them saw it, perhaps all at the same time they smelled it. Something was burning. Gadget’s eyes went to it first. Zoë’s hand . . . lying on the bedspread . . . was engulfed in a hazy aura of flickering, blue-glowing flame, and where that flame met the bedspread, the bedspread was burning, turning to yellowy and orange cinders, and a thin column of smoke rose into the air from the spot. “Whoa, holy shit!” exclaimed Zoë. She scrambled up off of the bed, as did Gadget. Misto rose to his feet, grabbed a melty champaign bucket from beside the bed, and doused the flaming bedspread with melted ice and water. Zoë stood beside Gadget, staring at her hands.
“Whoa!” said Gadget.
“What the actual fuck!” cried Zoë, holding up her hand and examining it. Then, her other hand caught ablaze, as well. Now both hands glowed blue, and were both ensconced in that same flickering aura of azure fire that didn’t seem to burn her skin or, remarkably her clothes; the flames instead appeared to be hovering about an inch away from her skin and clothing, floating out away from her body, a nimbus-like, sapphire conflagration. She stood there gaping at her own hands for a moment, turning them this way and that, looking them and the aura of flame over, breathing heavily, her eyes wide with wonder and fear. Then, the flames spread to the rest of her, engulfing her entire body and costume from head to toe. She shuddered, and looked left and right, clearly panicked.“Whoa Jesus, guys, help me — ! What the fuck is going on!”
Beneath the soles of her leather boots, the carpet began to smolder and burn, twin tendrils of acrid-smelling smoke rising from her heels and toes.
“Zoë, just calm down! We’ll figure this out!” said Gadget. He didn’t know what else to say. “Just breathe. That’s what my therapist always tells me to do when I’m having a panic attack. Relax, and breathe. In, out. Slow, deep breaths. Fill your belly with air, in through the nose, then breathe it out through your mouth. Slowly.”
Zoë did as he instructed, once, then a second time, then a third. She closed her eyes, and continued the deep breaths for a minute or two longer. The blue-glowing flames dimmed a bit.
“Good,” said Gadget. “That’s good. I think — I think it’s dying down. Keep going.”
She continued breathing deeply, in . . . and out . . . in . . . and out . . . calming herself, her brow furrowed, as though concentrating on each breath. And then, five full minutes of doing this later, and the flames died out completely. The blue-glowing aura winked out of existence at last.
“Okay,” said Misto. “It’s gone. It’s over Zoë; you did it.”
“Thank freaking God,” she said, with a sigh of relief. “What the hell was that?”
“I think,” said Gadget, “I’m not sure, but . . . I think the Dr. Manhatten Helmet has . . . sort of . . . turned you into a pyrokinetic.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “You can’t just ‘turn’ someone into a pyrokinetic, Gadget. There isn’t even such a real thing as pyrokinesis. Stephen King made that up for his book Firestarter.”
“Well have you got a better explanation? Look at what just happened. Here, let’s do an experiment. Think of something really upsetting. Something that makes you really mad inside. I know. Think of Mystikite leaving us. The way he just did. The way it hurts inside, and the way it burns and — ”
“Gadget, don’t — ”
“The way it hurts — ”
“Please — ”
“The way it breaks your heart in pieces, and — ”
“I said stop — ”
“And how it makes you just want to fucking cry your — ”
“I SAID QUIT IT!” she yelled, and poked him in the chest with her finger. And suddenly, the sapphire-colored aura of flame winked into existence again around her, enveloping her in its embrace once more, submerging her in blue fire. The carpet beneath her caught fire, and Misto quickly poured the rest of the champaign bucket’s contents onto it to douse the flames. And then, something else happened. From out of her poking-finger, as she drew it back from Gadget’s chest, a serpent of orange fire — thus, “actual,” burning fire — emerged, and writhed through the air.
“Whoa!” Now that was unexpected! What the hell was that thing? Gadget felt the heat baking off of the twisting snake made of flame and took a step back. It moved through the air sinuously, seeking him out, and then looped around his torso loosely, like a lasso, but did not tighten enough to actually make contact with him and thus burn him or his clothes. Then, it simply vanished . . . along with the flickering aura of blue fire around Zoë. She looked as surprised as he was. Damn, what had that been all about?
“Um . . . okay then,” she said, nodding. “So there’s that to consider.”
“Er, yeeeaaaah,” said Gadget. “Note to self — do not make Zoë angry.”
“Riiiight,” said Misto. “Duly noted.”
You see what you’ve wrought? said the Beast. You’ve done this to your friend. Cursed her for the rest of her life. You and your damn scientific curiosity have irreparably damaged her. Good going.
“God,” she said, sitting down on the bed, “I guess I am a pyrokinetic. Of sorts. Or of some kind. Maybe more of a . . . oh I don’t know what the term would be . . . Mystikite would know . . . Maybe, pyromancer?”
“Yeah, pyromancer sounds more accurate,” said Misto. “And hey — it sounds cooler, too!”
“Definitely cooler,” said Gadget, sitting down next to her and smiling.
“So,” she said, with a sigh, “it’s just the three of us. A seven-foot-tall, super-strong werewolf, a pyromancer, and a . . . a psionic warrior.” She smiled at him, and his heart lifted a little. “The question is — what the hell do we do now?”
“We go after Dizzy,” said Misto, clenching a fist. “We have to. She’s my adopted niece and I’m sworn to take care of her, whatever that takes or whatever that means.”
“Oh shit,” said Gadget, and oh shit was right: Because all of a sudden, like a rubber band snapping, back — it hit him. Ravenkroft! The scan he’d taken! In all the excitement over Mystikite dying and then leaving . . . in the heat of the aftermath of the battle . . . he’d completely forgotten the most important goddamn shit in the world! He opened his mouth to speak, and it all fell out at once: “Guys. During the fight with Ravenkroft, I scanned his thoughts. And not just his. They weren’t . . . I don’t know how to say this . . . but they weren’t entirely . . . or exactly . . . Human? I don’t know. There was something in there . . . with him. It was like scanning . . . four people at once. I got one set of thoughts from Ravenkroft, and his were hard to miss because he’s so . . . well, he’s so egotistical that his identity is hard to mistake for anyone else’s. He was focused on the fight, and on abducting — or torturing — Dizzy, and on something called the Eidolon, and on this ‘Transcendence Engine,’ whatever that is. And I got a set of thoughts that I knew were Viktor Arkenvalen’s, because he was thinking about his own identity getting lost, and struggling to hold onto it, and panicking over it. And for some reason, he was focused on the TARDIS, from Doctor Who. And then, mingled with Ravenkroft’s thoughts, I picked up . . . I don’t know . . . it was like a sub-channel . . . modulated, like a side-chain polarization . . . another set of thoughts that were . . . God, I don’t even have words for them, because they don’t fit into words. At least, not human words. And then, I got a fourth stream that was . . . all of these, all meshed together, all . . . intermixed, all combined, all flowing in one stream like somebody had put them all in a blender and hit ‘frappe.’ And this was the most powerful of the streams. This was the one in charge, so to speak. This was the one I got the information from.”
“Wait a second,” said Misto, leaning forward. “What . . . ‘information?’”
“I got lots of images, and sounds . . . and impressions. Emotions, and ideas. Concepts and dreams. And some sentences in English. And then there were Ravenkroft’s . . . other thoughts that related to all this. It was all streamed into my head in one big ‘download,’ sort of, when Ravenkroft was choking Dizzy. His defenses were down because he got overconfident, and I took advantage.”
“Well?” said Zoë. “What did you find out?”
“It’s . . .” He thought, concentrating. Damn. Where to begin with it all? It was all so damn fuzzy in his head. So many freakin’ puzzle pieces. It was like looking at a stereoscopic painting of a jigsaw puzzle in reverse through a cracked mirror while wearing 3D glasses. He heaved a sigh.
Alright. Start at the beginning, he figured.
“Okay, here’s what I got. And bear with me here, because this is about to get really freakin’ weird, okay?
“Ravenkroft . . . was in league with an alien from another planet. A planet called Zarctur. The aliens from that planet are called the Zarcturean. They’re planning to invade Earth and turn Humanity into a slave race, right? They worship another, more ancient and powerful race of aliens, and they’re called the Eidolon, and they live in another dimension and are made of a mixture between some sort of exotic matter and pure energy. With me so far? Good. The Eidolon used to be at war with another ‘transcended’ race of pure energy and exotic matter called the Alethiaeon, thirty thousand years ago. That’s when the Alethiaeon decided to try and hide the secret of their technology — the technology that allowed them to transcend their material existence, right? — right here on Earth. But the ship carrying the tech that makes that possible crashed in the Arctic. The Transcendence Engine itself was later recovered, as was the ship carrying it, thirty thousand years later, by Dizzy’s dad, Walter Weatherspark, in the year 2001. And Dizzy calls it the Tesseract Reactor. The Eidolon want the Reactor because it will allow them to destroy what’s left of the Alethiaeon, who they’re still at war with. The Zarcturean want the Reactor, ostensibly so they can hand it over to the Eidolon, but covertly, they want it so they can rise up and destroy the Eidolon and the Alethiaeon, and take over the entire universe for themselves. And Ravenkroft wants it so he can use it to bring the Eidolon into our dimension and somehow ‘control’ them, and use their might and power to conquer the planet — and maybe the whole damn universe — and do his bidding for him. He’s crazy as a shit-house womp-rat for thinking he can control beings who are basically freakin’ gods, but yeah, there it is. And oh yeah. He wants to try and somehow . . . channel . . . one of the Eidolon into . . .” He gulped. “Into Dizzy. Just to see if it will work. The guy is Loony Tunes.”
“Fuck that,” breathed Zoë. “The guy is Animaniacs!”
“We have to stop him,” said Misto. “Do you realize the importance of what you’ve discovered? The tactical implications? And the implications of what we’ve all just been through?”
“Well,” began Gadget, “not exactly, no. I mean, we know what he’s planning, but — ”
“It means,” began Misto, standing up and beginning to pace back and forth as he spoke, “that Ravenkroft has somehow managed to merge with one of these ‘Zarcturean.’ I don’t know exactly how, but he has managed to fuse his biological and psychological essence and identity with one of these creatures. That’s apparent from your telepathic scan of him. He has also radically improved the design, metallurgy, and tactical capabilities of his Evangeliojaeger, to a degree that outmatches anything Dizzy has ever designed or put together. And, he has created an army of monsters that will do his bidding and readily march into death and hell for him at his slightest whim. We know he is planning an experiment, which will require advanced laboratory equipment currently beyond anything on this planet. Which means he will need alien technology — so the experiment will most likely take place in an alien laboratory facility. We know he is on the move, which means the facility must be mobile. I conclude that he will use the alien’s ship as the lab in which to conduct this experiment. He will no doubt have defenses in place, though; not only his army of monsters, but also, tactical devices and weapons systems of alien origin. So we need to match that capability with some alien-originated tech of our own. And, we will need to know where the ship is currently located, which means we will need to know where the Ravenkroft-Alien Hybrid is currently located. Luckily, we possess a means of finding that out.”
“We do?” asked Gadget.
“Indeed,” said Misto. “You.”
Gadget blinked in surprise. “Me? But — how?”
“My boy, you have your Dr. Manhatten Helmet. And whether you realize it or not, I think you just used it to Neuralize the entire city — or at least a large cross-section of its public servants — Men-In-Black style. And, you’ve already used it to get inside Ravenkroft’s head once. So zeroing in on his thought-patterns should be no problem for you, wherever he is now. And once you’ve done that, you can read his thoughts . . . and among them, you’ll find his knowledge of his own current location. Do you think you can handle that?”
Gadget gulped. Hmm, risky. He’d gotten into Ravenkroft’s head before simply because the bastard had been so focused on fighting and choking out Dizzy that he’d let his guard down and he’d been able to “slip in” through the back door, as it were . . . and he’d gotten the sneaking sensation, while in there, that there was this . . . presence lurking there with him, ready to seize his mind and tear it to shreds, ready to rip his sanity apart . . . it had only been by the grace of whatever gods there were that he hadn’t been caught. This time would be different. This time, Ravenkroft would be ready for him. And the alien’s mind . . . its weird thought-waves, written in glyphs he couldn’t decipher and images seen through its odd eyes . . . They had felt so cold, so . . . and so very hateful. And so very, very inhuman. And the way they had been intermixed with Ravenkroft’s mind, the way the two had danced together in a spiral helix of madness, and depravity; the almost sexual mixture of the two . . . it had made him want to barf. Man oh man did he not want to face that again. But Misto was right. This was the only way they were going to get Dizzy back. So that meant that they had no other options. They to try it. He had to try it. He’d just have to put Mystikite leaving — Jesus that stung; his heart ached, and ached, and ached — behind him for now, and get down to business.
“Yeah,” he said. “I can.”
You’ll fail, said the Beast. You’ll just let them down, because you’re too distracted whining over your best friend leaving. You’ll just let everybody down, and your friend Dizzy will die. And it’ll be your fault, just like Zoë being cursed with whatever you’ve cursed her with is your fault, too.
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He swallowed a hard lump in his throat, and went to the table by the bed. He picked up the Dr. Manhatten Helmet, and put it on. Zoë eyed it warily.
“Gadget,” she said, in a warning tone, “be careful.”
“I will,” he said. Well, to be honest, he was a little scared, after what had just happened.
Nevertheless, he switched it on the Helm. The vacuum tubes lit up, and began warming. His scalp began to tingle, just like it always did. He closed his eyes, and then came the rush of all the voices. He shut them out, just like always, and visualized the glistening rope of his own consciousness, grabbed onto it and held on for dear life as the voices subsided and he shoved them back behind the familiar mental Wall he had constructed. He opened his eyes.
“Okay,” he said. “Let me just . . . think for a minute of how to do this.”
He sat down on the bed, Indian-style, his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes again. He sucked in a deep breath, and let it out. Okay. Ravenkroft. He pictured the bastard in his mind, and tried not to think about how much he hated him. How much he wanted to tear the asshole limb from limb, how much he wanted to destroy him utterly for what he’d done. How much he wanted to . . . Okay, this wasn’t helping. Calmness. Centeredness. Relaxation. Breathe; in, and out. In, and out. Just like he’d told Zoë to do. There, that was better. Hmm. He concentrated on Ravenkroft’s image, bringing every detail into crystal clarity. The way the light reflected off the metal of his Evangeliojaeger. The way his tentacles moved; the segmented metal pieces that made them up; the armor plating; the glow of the holographics in his suit’s semitransparent faceplate. The weird anatomical features of his face. That hateful look of satisfaction he’d worn when Dizzy had passed out in the embrace of his tentacles. Yes . . . it was all coming into focus now . . . all just as clear as the moment he had seen it in the Grand Hall below. He concentrated on the memory of reading Ravenkroft’s and the alien’s thoughts. And that weird, fourth stream of thoughts, the intermix. He recalled being caught up in its flow, like whitewater rafting only without the damn raft. And then . . .
Whoa shit!
Gadget felt himself yanked upwards. His stomach heaved and lurched as his mind was ripped out of his body, and he reeled with vertigo and dizziness as his mind went spiraling upwards, through the ceiling, penetrating the air ducts, plumbing, and wiring, his only sense that of sight. He saw two con-goers — a Lieutenant Worf and a General Leia Organa — making love in the suit above him, the Klingon’s hips gyrating and smacking against Leia’s buttocks as she moaned with ecstatic pleasure. He passed upwards through their ceiling as well, and up through more air ducts, wiring, and pipes and hoses, and into a room where five more con-goers — these dressed as Captain Mal Reynolds, Captain Archer (of the Enterprise NX-01), Captain America, Alice from Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and Dark Willow of the Buffyverse — partook in a late-night game of Pathfinder, gathered around two tables that had been shoved together. He passed through their room, an unseen ghost, and whisked through their ceiling too, onward and upward. He passed through more ceilings, more rooms, headed onward and upward, passing through a Furry yiffing and scritching orgy, a few games of D&D, Magic, Vampire, Fluxx, Chrononauts, Dresden Files, Mage, Star Trek: The Role Playing Game, Yu Gi Oh, and a few people gathered around their rooms’ TV screens watching movies and playing video games — one group was watching Total Recall (the good one, with Arnold Schwarzenegger), and another was watching Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, and another took turns playing Metal Gear 4 — and still more, and more, and more rooms, until finally, he popped into the last room below the roof of the building, where two people were actually sleeping. And then, finally, he exited the building itself, and emerged on the flat, graveled rooftop, out into the night air. And there, he saw it. The alien’s ship.
It was an awesome sight. Yeah, he knew the aliens meant the Earth harm. And yeah, he knew they weren’t friendly little E.T.-like critters; instead, they were brutal monsters hellbent on the enslavement of humanity. But still. Wow, man. Just wow. Pure wonder. He had laid awake so many night as a kid and dreamed about this moment . . . the moment that humanity would discover it wasn’t alone in the cosmos. The day that mankind would make contact with another race from the stars. He had laid there in his bed, his eyes wide and staring at the ceiling, picturing what an alien ship would look like, what color its metal would be, how its landing gear would operate, how its engines would work . . . and here, right here in front of him, were the answers to those questions. It was stunning. Beautiful. Gorgeous. He wanted to fall to his knees — well, he didn’t have any knees, at the moment, so that was kinda outta the question — and weep with joy. (And, well, he didn’t have any tear-ducts at the moment either, so that was kinda outta the question, too.) The craft was just as he’d pictured an alien ship looking many times in his youth . . . and just as so very many pulp sci-fi cover artists and authors had pictured them in the heady Golden Age of sci-fi back in the 1950’s and ’60’s: A curved, saucer-shaped ovoid disc, about thirty meters across, and eight meters deep in the center — it tapered on either end to just one meter in thickness — with hemispherical domes protruding from the top and bottom in the center, each about three meters in diameter, and each glowing with sinuous arcs of plasma-like rainbow-colored light that writhed and danced within them. Incredibly, amazingly, painfully beautiful.
Hey. Wait a second. He had stopped moving. This must be it, he thought. Misto was right. Ravenkroft is in the ship.
As he thought this, the metal on the lower half of the ship’s hull began to vibrate and glimmer in one spot, and then began to . . . ripple, like water. And then, spiraling open, a portal of shimmering light appeared, like a camera shutter opening and letting bright white glow spill out onto the hotel rooftop. No one came or went; the portal simply stood open, and waiting. What the hell? Was this . . . an invitation? If it was, then oh holy shit, Ravenkroft knew he was here. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Quickly, he tried to will himself back down to his body. But his mind wouldn’t obey. It steadfastly refused to float back down the way it had come. Oh shit, shit! What the fuck did he do now?
Suddenly, and without warning, his vision blurred, and he felt himself slam back into his body. The shock was overwhelming. He reeled with vertigo and dizziness and nearly stumbled and lost his balance and his grip on the . . .
What was this thing in his hands?
A stick? A staff? No . . . it was a . . .
. . . a fighting pike?
No . . . it was a . . . lirpa?
Since when was he holding a goddamn ceremonial Vulcan fighting lirpa? Wait — was this a lirpa? Yes, it was. A lirpa: The weapon that Spock had used in the mating ceremony on Vulcan, in the Star Trek original series episode Amok Time. “A wooden staff a little over a meter in length, with a semicircular blade at one end and a metal bludgeon on the other,” to quote the Wikipedia entry on Star Trek weapons (because he had edited that article, once).
He blinked his eyes and staggered, and almost tripped. He found his footing, and straightened up, still holding the lirpa in his hands. He looked around as he stood up from almost falling, his mouth agape with shock and awe. He was standing on hard-packed, dry red earth, his black boots dusty and scuffed. He was dressed in a Starfleet uniform. Old school, Original Series: black slacks, black boots, and a blue tunic (so, Science Officer, going by the Original Series color scheme), with a Federation insignia sewn on the left breast. He instantly recognized his surroundings. He was not on Earth. No. He was on Vulcan. He was standing on Captain Spock’s home planet . . . in the Star Trek universe (but what the dog-fuck — ? How in the hell — ?) in the “place of koon-ut-kal-if-fee”: A giant, Stonehenge-like arrangement of tan-orange megaliths and stone pillars upholding a large ring of rock, circumscribing a great circle surrounding a large arid patch of dry, smooth red paving rock, with a smaller — but still considerably-sized — raised and beveled dais made of tanned stone set in the center, upon which he now stood, holding the lirpa. And across from him, on the other side of the dais . . . stood Ravenkroft. Also holding a lirpa. He was not wearing his Evangeliojaeger . . . but from the sight of him, oh how Gadget wished he had been. It wasn’t pretty a pretty picture.
Ravenkroft no longer anything that resembled the term “Human.” His face was barely recognizable as the face that Gadget had glimpsed behind the faceplate of his Evangeliojaeger earlier; that was how he knew it was him. And he still stood on two legs, and had two arms. But there the similarities to Humankind ended. He wore body armor that covered only parts of his flesh, but that left a great deal of him exposed, because of the weird nature of his new anatomy. He had no body hair. His head was misshapen; his enlarged cranium sat upon a thick neck, and was elongated in the back, stretched out into a teardrop-like, hammer-like shape that swooped back in a curve. His overlarge eyes — which had golden, star-shaped irises — blinked sideways. He had no nose, and mandibles on either side of his mouth. Yet the basic facial features were there underneath. His skin was a soft bluish color, almost sea-green. From out of his back there grew what seemed like almost another creature entirely, with vestigial arms at its sides, and sprouting from it, eight large, fleshy tentacles, each easily two meters long . . . They waved and lashed at the air, muscular and sinewy, another set of limbs entirely. And, in his muscular forearms — which only had four fingers on each hand — he held the Vulcan lirpa, and grinned at Gadget.
“You’ve made a grave mistake, boy,” he said. “A grave mistake indeed.” His voice sounded strange, as though it had been passed through some type of digital signal processor, or guitar amplifier. “Trespassing is a serious offense, you know. And a dangerous one, too. One never knows if one might have to face the wrath of the rightful owner of the property one has trespassed upon! You want inside my mind? Well, we’ll just see about that.”
Oh fuck. Gadget raised his lirpa just in time to parry an attack from Ravenkroft, who came at him in a flash with a flurry of quick, precise movements. Gadget stumbled backward — whoa shit! — as Ravenkroft withdrew, and then thrust out his lirpa again just in time to block another attack — hey, he was good at this — this time coming from the opposite direction; their lirpas locked together for a moment, criss-crossed at their centers, and then Ravenkroft quickly withdrew and then swung his lirpa at Gadget. Gadget leapt backward out of the way just as the blade swept through the space his stomach had just occupied. Well, Ravenkroft was fast on his feet, he had to give him that. His heart raced, and thundered in his ears. Jesus his pulse was racing. If he didn’t calm down he was going to have a fucking heart attack.
He staggered backward and — whoa holy shit! — almost fell of the dais. But if he did that, he’d die instantly; he didn’t know how he knew this; it was simply intuitive knowledge. So, he flailed his arms and tried to keep his balance. Ravenkroft grinned malevolently — the son of a bitch — and came at him again, swinging his lirpa wide at him. Gadget danced rather unartfully out of the way, and swung his own lirpa at Ravenkroft, who skillfully parried the attack — well, okay, maybe he wasn’t so good at this — blocking Gadget’s blade from cutting his head off, then rebounded from the stance, spun in place, and brought his blade around low and sweeping under, straight toward Gadget’s legs. Gadget thought for a split second, then jumped, leaping up into the air, and Ravenkroft’s blade swung clean under him. Whew! Gadget landed back on solid ground, and then swung his own lirpa at Ravenkroft, who once more parried the attack. Well, fuck. Their lirpas criss-crossed at the ends near the blades in a contest of strength, each pushing against the other hard.
Jesus the guy was strong! Gadget fought and shoved against Ravenkroft with all his might. He was losing. Goddammit, he was losing! But he couldn’t push any harder.
Ravenkroft pulled back at the last second and then with one forceful shove, he knocked Gadget down. Gadget hit the stone dais ass-first, sending a sharp shot of pain up his tailbone and into his spine. He cried out in agony, and in a heartbeat, Ravenkroft was upon him. He grabbed Gadget by the throat, kneeling over him, straddling him.
“No means no, dear boy,” said Ravenkroft, tightening his grip. “It’s about time you learned to respect peoples’ privacy!”
He couldn’t breathe. Bastard was choking him! He clawed at Ravenkroft’s powerful arm, but it was no use. He was the stronger of them, and his grip was like iron. Couldn’t breathe . . . Couldn’t breathe! Dear God, no! It couldn’t end like this! It couldn’t — !
Hey. Wait a second . . .
This was a content of mental strength, right? Yes, his mind was manifested here as a physical body . . . but that meant that his body here was purely a mental construct, a thing to be manipulated via pure thought. A psychic projection. An astral form. So if he just concentrated . . . Or perhaps . . . was it possible to . . . cheat?
“Astrid!” he choked out. “Activate . . . augmented . . . reality mode!”
And whispered on the wind, he heard the distant echo of a female voice say, “You got it, sweetheart.”
The scene flashed with blue-white light, Ravenkroft too becoming a photographic negative of himself for a second — and with a look of utter surprise on his face, too — and Gadget suddenly felt a sharp pain as his bones creaked and grew; felt his muscles strengthen and enlarge, his chest expand and his shoulders broaden; felt his legs grow taller and his face change and shift; felt his spine extending, new vertebrae growing, sliding, and locking into place. The transformation took only a few seconds, his clothes changing too, as he felt his shirt transmogrify into black leather along with his slacks, his feet sprouting leather cowboy boots and the long black duster unfolding into existence around him and stitching itself into place around his now-more-powerful arms. Ravenkroft, above him, still wore a look of shock and disbelief on his face, as Gadget reached up with Gadgorak Prime’s much stronger arms, and grabbed Ravenkroft’s wrists, and forced his hands away from his neck, breaking his hold on him.
“Now,” he rasped, “we’re on a little more even terrain, Ravenkroft!”
With all the force he could muster, Gadget rose up and head-butted him. Slightly dazed, Ravenkroft rolled off of him, and Gadget used the opportunity to roll over and spring to his feet, as Ravenkroft, with his tentacles to aid him by pushing him up, got to his. Gadget reached for his discarded lirpa, grabbed it, and held it before him, turning it this way and that, wary of Ravenkroft, who, with one of his tentacles, reached down and grabbed his lirpa. He grasped it in his hands and advanced on Gadget, whirling the lirpa around and swinging it at him. Gadget parried the blow and shoved, knocking Ravenkroft back a few paces, and then attacked himself — he swung his lirpa at Ravenkroft, blade-end first, but Ravenkroft parried, and the blades crashed into one another, making a loud clanging noise. They wrestled for control of the fight, their arms almost above their heads . . . but that was when — ah, fuck! — Ravenkroft brought his tentacles into the mix.
Goddammit, no! Ravenkroft wrapped one of his tentacles around Gadget’s midsection, the slimy, fleshy thing curling around his stomach and tightening . . . and then lifting him off his feet. He dropped the lirpa; it went clattering to the surface of the stone dais below. Well, shit. This was not good. How the hell was he going to get out of —
Wait.
His Ray Gun! Of course!
“Never bring a lirpa to a gun fight, asshole!” he said, reached down to the holster on his hip, and pulled out Gadgorak Prime’s multifunction Ray Gun. He set the dial to Avada Kedavra — the setting which had one purpose and one purpose only — and aimed it straight at Ravenkroft’s head. He hesitated only a moment — he knew this was only a psychic projection; he didn’t think this would actually kill Ravenkroft, or the alien inside him; but still, he hesitated — and then pulled the trigger.
The bright green blast of energy flared between them, but . . . it slammed straight into a soap-bubbly wall that appeared suddenly right in front of Ravenkroft’s face, blocking its passage. The bastard had somehow conjured a force-field around himself. But, how — ?
Ah, okay. Now he got it. Of course. This was — all of it — a shared mental construct. Even the pain he felt in his abdomen as Ravenkroft squeezed him tighter with his tentacles — he now had three of the fucking things wrapped around his midsection, and oh God did it hurt like hell — was an illusion cast upon his nervous system by the psionic interface between their two minds. And if Ravenkroft could do it . . .
He closed his eyes, and concentrated. Hard. And then suddenly, he felt Ravenkroft’s grip on him loosen, and he fell, onto the hard surface of the dais below. Right back on his ass again, which hurt like fucking hell as well. He looked up, and Ravenkroft loomed over him. Quickly, his mind raced . . . he concentrated again, and imagined a gun. Not a Ray Gun, just a gun — like Mystikite's .38 special, the one he had almost committed suicide with. Imagined the cool feel of the metal in his hand, imagined the shine of light on its grey metal surface. Imagined the click of the bullets as he loaded them into the chamber. And suddenly —
Bang — there it was, in his hand. He swung his arm up, aimed the gun at Ravenkroft, and fired. Ravenkroft gasped, and stumbled backward a dozen paces or more, a bleeding, gaping hole in his left shoulder. He staggered back away from Gadget, a look of shock and fury on his reddening face. Gadget fired three more times, and hit Ravenkroft twice, both times in his left left. But then Ravenkroft, limping, whirled around . . . and in his hands, he held an Israeli submachine gun. He opened fire.
Gadget quickly conjured a wall of thick, bullet-proof glass in front of him, and a force-field to boot. The hail of bullets slammed into and cracked the glass in a sideways hailstorm of hot metal. Then he concentrated again, and . . .
In his hands he held a remote control unit. There appeared next to him an M4A3E2 Sherman tank, in all its Army-green, diesel-chugging glory, its engine loudly rumbling and roaring within its immense steel carcass, its treads cracking and crushing the stone dais to rubble as it rolled over them and trundled towards Ravenkroft. Gadget worked the controls on the remote, and the tank’s Howitzer swiveled around on its turret and faced its target.
Gadget grinned. He couldn’t help it.
“Live long and prosper, buttwipe,” he said, and fired the tank’s Howitzer.
Just before the 90 caliber round hit him, Ravenkroft exploded into a cloud of smoke, becoming a vaporous cloud of gas. The cloud had a life of its own . . . it enveloped the Howitzer round, which sped through it and exploded and demolished part of the Stonehenge-like circle of megaliths surrounding the dais, and then sped across the dais, floating through the air . . . right toward Gadget.
Oh shit.
The cloud enveloped him, surrounding him, and suddenly, he found he couldn’t breathe again. It filled his nostrils, became every breath. He fell to his knees, choking and gasping for air — God, anything for clean air! Holy shit, what would happen to his mind here if he sucked “Ravenkroft’s essence” into his psionic lungs? What? The vaporous cloud of Ravenkroft stung his eyes and burned his skin. He continued to cough and sniffle, unable to breathe. His eyes watered, and he could barely see. And that was when he heard the growling and snarling.
He looked left, then right. Then he saw their eyes. Yellow and aglow, and low to the ground, like him.
Whoa shit.
Wolves. Four or five of them, closing in from every direction. And growling in their throats, hungry, and keenly aware of his presence. Stalking him. Closing in on him. He had to do something. Had to get out of here. Had to —
“Here!” cried a voice. “Take my hand!”
Someone was reaching for him. He looked in the direction of the voice, and saw a face . . . No, it couldn’t be . . . But it was . . . It was Ravenkroft. Or Ravenkroft, as he might’ve been had he still been Human, and a little younger. But here, none of the mutations had taken hold. And his face looked . . . kinder. Softer. With none of the malice or hatred in it, none of the evil burning in his eyes. And he was reaching out to him with his hand, parting the fog of the noxious cloud, and dressed in a tweed coat and trousers. And reaching out to him, beckoning him. This wasn’t Ravenkroft. It was Viktor. Viktor Arkenvalen; Ravenkroft’s other personality, imprisoned within Ravenkroft’s mind, and now, reaching for him, reaching out to help him. And vaguely, on either side of him, within the noxious cloud’s folds, Gadget could make out the outline of a blue box . . .
“Quickly!” said Viktor, leaning toward him from out of the cloud’s billowing tendrils. “Come with me!”
Gadget grabbed his hand and stood up, and Viktor pulled him along, out of the cloud and into . . .
. . . the TARDIS? From Doctor Who? This was getting weirder all the time.
He stumbled through the wooden doors with square windows in their top sections and instinctively slammed them behind him, sucking in a deep breath of — thank God! — sweet, clean air. The vaporous, noxious Ravenkroft couldn’t get inside. He coughed a few more times as his lungs cleared, and staggered forward, catching himself on the steel hand-rail that protruded from the wall, and then chanced a look at his surroundings.
Yep, it was the TARDIS, alright. Big, cylindrical room; lots of control panels everywhere; the octagonal control console in the center, with the big cylindrical tube sticking up out of it, reaching toward the ceiling with the concentric wheels surrounding its top. But it all seemed to have been taken over by lots of snaking, curling vines, almost like tentacles themselves, as though somebody had let an Audrey II plant grow wildly out of control somewhere in the bowels of the TARDIS. Gadget was careful not to step on any of them . . . They looked dangerous. He walked toward the main control console, where Viktor was hurriedly pushing buttons and cranking knobs.
“I’m going to get us out of here,” said Viktor. “Or try to. Transport us somewhere else inside his mind.”
“You — you can do that?” said Gadget. “How?”
“I’ve managed to regain a little bit of control from in here,” said Viktor. “Not much, but a little. I take it you know who I am, yes?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Gadget. “I’ve — I’ve figured out that much. You’re Viktor. Viktor Arkenvalen.”
“Good,” he said. “I know he has Weatherspark. I saw. Through his eyes. The whole thing. You need to let Michaelson — she calls him ‘Misto’ — you need to let him know what he’s planning. He plans to turn her into one of those . . . those creatures, the Eidolon.”
“Yeah, I figured that part out already,” said Gadget.
The whole room suddenly shook and rumbled, and Gadget had to grab onto the control console to keep his balance, as did Viktor.
“They’re trying to get in!” said Viktor, turning one last dial. “Here, hold on, here we go!”
He yanked back on the main time-trust lever, and the whole room seemed to lurch upward. The TARDIS had launched. The neon-lit pistons in the central shaft moved up and down, and the concentric wheels at the shaft’s apex turned and whirled.
“Whew,” said Gadget, wiping the sweat from his brow. That had been a close one. God, he had never been more glad to be anywhere else than he was to be right here, right now. “Thanks,” he said to Viktor. “For saving my ass.”
“It’s nothing,” said Viktor, somewhat shamefaced. “It’s the least I can do to make up for the evil that Ravenkroft has done.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Gadget. And in that moment, he saw Viktor for what he was. A fellow mental patient, struggling with an illness he couldn’t control. “I mean — I don’t think it is. You can’t help that you’re sick.”
“Yes,” said Viktor, refusing to look at him. “But I could . . . I suppose . . . try harder.”
“It’s not a matter of trying,” said Gadget, earnestly. Man, did he ever mean that. God, how he meant it. He knew. “It really isn’t. You do the best you can, day by day.”
“Anyway,” said Viktor, shaking his head, “About Weatherspark. And Ravenkroft. What you don’t know,” said Viktor, as he worked the controls, “is what I know, and what I’ve figured out. Listen to me. It will take him time to construct his machine, a machine capable of doing what he needs it to do . . . and he will need parts from my — his — laboratory at our home And he will need to cannibalize the engines of his spacecraft. But. If he does what he plans to do — if he manages to put one of the Eidolon inside Weatherspark — then the Human race is doomed. I am doomed, you are doomed, we all are doomed. Because as soon as one of those creatures has control of a Human body . . . it will destroy Ravenkroft. And thus, me as well. And then it will use the Tesseract Reactor to open the floodgates, dear boy. The Eidolon will stream back into our world, our dimension . . . and lay waste to this planet. And they won’t just enslave the Human race, as the Zarcturean plan to do. Oh no. They will destroy the Human race. And they’ll destroy their own cosmic children, the Zarcturean, as well. All physical, biological life in the universe will be at risk, do you understand? Because once the Eidolon come back, they won’t just stop at Earth, I don’t think. No, they will most likely destroy all life on whatever planets their ancient enemies ‘the Alethiaeon’ have ever touched or safeguarded or guided through the evolutionary process . . . and that’s quite a lot of worlds, from what I gather. They will seek to ‘cleanse’ the universe of the Alethiaeon’ handiwork forever . . . and that means destroying any race they have touched with their wisdom or their counsel or their evolutionary interference . . . starting with Earth. So, you have to stop him. Stop him from doing what he plans to do, at any cost!”
“Jeez. No pressure, though, right?” said Gadget. There was a tangible “WHUMP” felt throughout the room as the TARDIS landed somewhere. Gadget looked at Viktor. “Well, where the hell are we?”
“We’re here,” said Viktor, “wherever ‘here’ is. I’ve brought you to . . . somewhere safe . . . at least, I hope so. Somewhere in your mind, not his.”
“Thanks again. I . . . appreciate the assist. You know, you’re not a half bad guy. And Jetta says ‘hi,’ by the way.”
At this, Viktor seemed to frown, and he blinked a few times, a tear spurting from one eye and rolling down his cheek.
“You tell her I said ‘hi’ back,” he croaked, and managed a forced smile. “Alright?”
“I will,” said Gadget. He put a hand on Viktor’s shoulder, squeezed, and patted him there as he walked toward the TARDIS’ double doors. “Bye Viktor.”
“Goodbye, Gadget,” said Viktor.
He walked toward the doors of the TARDIS, opened them, and walked out . . .