FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1986
Our new success got us better cases but sometimes they seemed more like punishment. Paddy and I were assigned to stake out Spark & Dormer Pharmaceuticals not far outside the city. The research facility had been burglarized several times over the past month. The facility had been manufacturing experimental Cancer drugs, Commander Olpere thought the thefts might be related to the cancer treatments that Jayson Roberts had received before his mutation. Janet and I going out on our own to hunt for the parasites was a sore spot for our Commander. When Janet and I turned in our report on Jayson Roberts, Commander Olpere was not at all pleased that she had to clean up our mess in Jersey.
Apparently the Passaic cops gave Olpere the run around and by the time Jayson turned up it was too late. Janet and I had given the local police strict instructions to take Jayson Roberts to lock up. They thought it best to take him to the hospital. It took a few days but needless to say the doctors figured out a way to drain the energy that was holding Jayson prisoner in his own body. Jayson Roberts escaped killing two nurses and four policemen. Olpere forbid us to cross the state line again to pursue him. Janet really didn’t care, as far as she was concerned he was no longer a parasite threat.
Janet treated me differently after that, more as a threat than an ally. She never mentioned what she saw me do or my apparent relationship to Jayson Roberts to anyone. I felt as though she had as much to lose as I did. It was clear to me that she was not from Earth now, that she was some kind of hunter sent to find these space parasites. I was sure she was still hunting them under wraps but no longer out of the squad room.
Commander Olpere was not keen on sending Janet and me out together again the way things ended with the case in Jersey. The Commander thought Paddy would be able to keep me more in line this time. I had the feeling he was meant to be more of my babysitter than partner. I felt uncomfortable as we sat in the car back in uniform, staking out the research building. Or maybe it was because Paddy and I hadn’t had our talks over beers and TV for a while. It had been nearly a month since the incident with Janet in my bedroom and Paddy had never asked once about what was going on between us.
After an hour I finally broke the ice, “You know Janet and I aren’t sleeping together.”
“None of my business,” Paddy replied. “Never gave it a thought.”
“Yeah right,” I said. “I saw the look on your face when you walked in.”
“I was just surprised,” Paddy confesses. “All the sounds coming from your room the night before and then seeing Janet there topless.”
“You might say I was sick, for the first time in my life,” I explained to him. “Janet and I were hunting a parasite that infected me without me even knowing it.” “Janet had to trick me to force it out of my body.”
“Like I said it is none of my business,” Paddy insisted again.
“I just want to make it clear to you,” I told him. “I feel like you are angry about something that never happened between Janet and me.”
We sat in the unmarked car for another hour without speaking before he chimed up again. “Look you’re a young guy, you should be out getting laid, not sitting around with your old widower roommate.” “It is nothing you need to lie about to me.”
“That is not what I have been doing,” I told him. “I’ve been hanging out with my friends because I can’t go out getting laid.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, look at you, you could have a different woman every night!” Paddy insisted.
“No, I can’t, there is a drawback to my Zeni-human powers,” I told him. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell him everything about myself. “My… uhm, powers cause a problem with casual sex,” I told him trying to be delicate. We fell silent again for a time watching the dark surroundings for any sign of movement.
Paddy was using night vision binoculars when he asked the question, “Are you a virgin?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question. Months ago I had decided to be honest with my partner but saying the truth out loud made me feel a little embarrassed. Then I just blurted it out, “Yes!”
It was about 2 am that I spotted a human form scaling the outer wall of the complex. We had been watching the ground not the walls. Grabbing Paddy’s night vision binoculars I could see the man was not using climbing equipment.
Paddy called for backup, but I had a feeling that we had no time to wait. I jumped out of the car and sprinted across the parking lot in double record time.
When I reached the ground below the climbing suspect I drew my gun shouting, “Police stop where you are!” It was a stupid thing to do, because he knew there was nothing I could do to him from the ground. Or was there? I looked to my gun, I hated to do it but I fired a shot and shout again at the climber, “Last warning, stop where you are!”
The climber did stop on a window ledge. He turned pointing his arm and fist down at me. My danger sense flared as he fired a dart at me. My eyes caught sight of it in the dark in time to dodge it easily.
When I looked back up at the building again, the suspect had already slipped inside. I knew that by the time anyone reached the suspect from inside he could be anywhere. I had to pursue him directly, it was a tenth story window that was open. I was taking a big risk, I was sure there must have been cameras all over the property. No one knew how the burglar was getting in or out so it was a safe guess that the cameras had somehow been disabled. Backing up a couple of feet I got a running start to make the ten stories leap up to the window.
I landed on the ledge quickly jumping inside the corridor. I am sure I caught the burglar off guard when ordering him, “Turn around and drops the dart gun.” I have to admit I was startled at first by the thief’s strange appearance. His body seemed to be coated with a hard polymer shell, forming a kind of body armor.
The intruder did as he was told. He peered at me with dark glasslike eyes, his face a knarred crusty shell that shifted when he spoke, “Who the hell are you?” Swinging his arm around the thing pitched a glob of the polymer at me, coating my gun and hand in a cement hard shell. “I wouldn’t try firing that if I were you,” he chuckled.
“What are you?” I questioned. I looked to my hand the glop was hardening fast. Then I looked back to the intruder’s crusty face. The stuff on my hand was the same thing that coated his body. Under it he was human.
He reached out his arm swinging his razor sharp fingers at me, slicing onto my coat. “You can call me Claw!” he told me before turning to flee.
I pursued Claw down to the end of the corridor where he quickly disappeared. Looking for the elevators to find more security guards. Three of them had been dispatched to investigate the lost camera feeds.
I identified myself and we split up into teams of two spreading out to cover the floor. My hand and gun were still useless as the guard and I found Claw in a private laboratory ripping into a wall safe. The guard fired three shots at Claw that bounced off his polymer-coated skin. Claw turned throwing another wad of the polymer at the guard. I quickly grabbed a metal tray from a counter to block the mass. The unexpected force of the pitch slammed the tray into the guard’s face, knocking him unconscious.
By now the coating on my hand was hard enough to allow me to slam it on the marble countertop. I think Claw was shocked as his polymer crumbled from the force of the blow along with breaking my gun. Planting my hand on the counter, I boosted myself up over it catching Claw off guard with a flying drop kick to his chest that sent him into a wall.
Claw was partially embedded him in the wall and a bit groggy. Trying to escape Claw spread the polymer out over the wall, I could only guess he intended to drop it down me. I didn’t give him the chance as I continued my attack with another drop kick. This time knocking Claw through the steel reinforced wall to the next room. All the noise brought the other guards and Paddy, as my punches rendered the Claw unconscious. Once unconscious the polymer dissolved away and the former Spark & Dormer employee was revealed. “That’s Dr. Cabaria!” one of the guards exclaimed. “He was fired a little over a month ago for misusing the lab.”
“I guess it is pretty clear what he was up to now,” I said as I rolled the unconscious underwear clad man over to handcuff him. “We’ll take him from here.” One of the guards was checked on the guard that was with me and he was fine, just a blood nose.
Before Paddy and I carried the unconscious man out of the building, I picked up the pieces of my gun. I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain the broken gun, but I was sure I would think of something. Once outside, away from prying eyes, Paddy said, “You can handle him on your own, can’t you?” “My back is killing me.” I smiled at him hoisting the suspect up onto my shoulder to carry him to our car. Locking him up in the back seat we started the drive back to the city and the Elite Squad lock up.
“What was the deal with this guy?,” Paddy asked.
“It would seem he created some kind of polymer to make an armor and weapons from,” I explained. “Guess he needed things from the Lab to keep making it.” “We will find out more after we get him back to the precinct.”
We headed up the blue route when our situation suddenly changed. It was like the moment he regained consciousness the polymer returned. It was clear that he was producing it directly from his body. He was a Zeni-human! I looked over the seat at him as Paddy drove, the polymer was not stopping at just coating his skin. It continued to expand. “Paddy, pull over fast!” I shouted. “We need to get out!” I knew we didn’t want to be sealed in that stuff. We would suffocate before I could break us free. Paddy skidded to the side of the road as the polymer began to push against the back of the seat. “Get out, get out!” I exclaimed.
“What the hell is going on?” Paddy asked as he glanced in the rearview mirror. We scrambled out of the unmarked patrol car. We stood at the side of the road watching as the polymer expanded breaking loose the front seat and pushing it into the dashboard.
When the polymer pressed tight to the windshield, I knew we would also need a shield. I jumped forward digging my fingers into the car hood grabbing it. “Holy Shit!” Paddy exclaimed as I tore the car hood free. The windshield began to crack as I moved back to Paddy.
“Get down behind this!” I shouted at him as I braced the metal plate on the ground at the side of the road. I was prepared for the force of the polymer’s blast this time and it was massive. From behind our safe cover we could hear the squeal of brakes and honking of horns as the polymer flew into the traffic.
It was over, the force of globs of polymer hitting the detached car hood stopped. I didn’t even have to hold the sheet of metal anymore it was welded to the ground in a perpendicular position. Paddy and I stood up from our hiding spot. “Jesus Christ, Olpere is going to love this explanation!” he announced at the sight of the multi-car pile up. The polymer was everywhere, it pinned cars to the road and each other, it hung in the trees like snot from a three year old’s nose. There were only a few places that were free of the mess in a twenty foot radius of what was once our car.
Paddy moved to step from behind our shield and I stopped him, “You can’t step on that stuff it is still soft, it will trap you!” I looked to the wreck of our car. The doors and roof were gone, but I couldn’t see if Claw was still in the back seat.
“We can’t just stand here!” “We’re cops we need to help those people!” Paddy said pointing at the pile up.
I looked out at the road where people had gotten out of their cars and touched the polymer, becoming stuck like mice in a glue trap. “Stop that!” I shouted at the people gathering at the edge of the accident. “Don’t touch the polymer!” Most likely they couldn’t hear me over all the noise.
Then I looked to our car again and spied Claw sitting up from the back seat. “Give me your gun!” I told Paddy.
“What?” he replied.
“I need your gun mine was broken,” I reminded my partner. I figured that the polymer was still soft on Claw’s body. I took Paddy’s gun and aimed over the goopy car hood at Claw. A shot to the shoulder should be enough to take him down again, until we can get to him. I fired hitting him on target, taking him down. He fell back onto the glop covered trunk of the car. It made sense that he could control the polymer to some extent making it possible for him to not be stuck in it like everyone else. But he didn’t get up, that was a good sign for us.
“Good shot!” “What now?” Paddy asked.
“I’m not sure,” I replied handing Paddy back his gun.
“No one is looking, do something super,” my partner suggested.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Paddy looked to the trees at the side of the road. “Knock one of them down across the road so we can walk on it.”
I had to admit it was a good idea. I just hoped he was right that no one was paying attention to us as I leapt for the tree line at the side of the road. I landed fifty feet away at the edge of the goop getting my left foot in the polymer. It would seem that body heat made the stuff harden faster. When I went to step my leg was caught. I pulled harder, freeing my foot, losing my shoe and tearing my pant leg. I paced along the tree line looking for the best tree to down. I needed one that would create the bridge without causing more damage. One of the taller trees whose limbs were dripping with goop was the obvious victim. I aimed and gave it a hard shove, ripping up the roots from the ground. The tree crashed down across the road to the median causing a clap of thunder that drew everyone’s attention. I made a run for it along the trees to avoid discovery.
The downed tree was close enough for Paddy to jump up onto it. “Everyone stay where you are, this gunk is dangerous!” he shouted to the victims of the pile up. By now there was a helicopter circling and other cop cars were arriving at the scene.
I managed to find another way around Claw’s mess back to the street. The news helicopter overhead made it important that I keep my actions on the down low. Then Claw stood up from the back of the car again. I could see a blood red spot on his right shoulder from the gunshot. He had somehow used the shell to seal his wound. I could tell he was still in pain but he was mobile again. He too looked to the circling news helicopter in the early morning sun. Using his left hand he whipped a glob of polymer at the camera wielding spy. As it turned out, that was a good thing because he took out the camera that would had been filming us. But then he took a second shot before I could get to him. The amount of this polymer he could produce seemed endless.
I would have to make my way to him not stepping in any of the soft, sticky polymer, not an easy task. Then it struck me, I took off my coat and held it up in front of me. I leapt at Claw, using my coat as a barrier between us. Even with his Zeni-human power I was sure he wasn’t stronger than me it would be easy to restrain him. I landed on my one shoed foot on the trunk of what was left of our car. Reaching out to grabbed Claw from behind, in my coat. I had him, “Stop struggling you are under arrest!” I told him. Holding him in my arms I could feel his reparation. From the way he was breathing I could tell that even if his shell had sealed to stop the bleeding he was not healing underneath. “You need a doctor, let us help you,” I pleaded with him. I wasn’t sure but he seemed to be in shock, reacting out of instinct and not logic.
Next thing I knew I was sailing back through the air. Landing hard on the side of the road, I was pinned to the ground under a chunk of glop. Somehow my head, feet and hands were still outside the mass. The polymer was hardening fast as I moved to free myself. I spotted Claw jump down from the car and Paddy pursue him into the trees. “Shit!” I cussed as I strained to break free of Claw’s trap. I was lucky my coat over my torso protected the core of my uniform. The legs of my pants and sleeves of my shirt were torn off as I escaped my confinement. I kicked off my one remaining shoe and ran after Paddy. I knew he could not escape such a trap, I wasn’t even sure he could survive it.
I caught up to Paddy and Claw in no time. Claw was showing signs of distress as Paddy held his gun on him. “Paddy don’t shoot him again!” I called out. Claw was like a wounded animal if my partner was to shoot him again he would lash out again perhaps killing both of them in the process. As I got closer, Claw started to react to the gun pointed at him. My shirt sleeves gone my gauntlets were in clear view as I arrived on the scene. “Shoot me!” I yelled to Paddy.
“Have you lost your mind?” he called to me only a few feet away from him.
I held up my hands to show him my gauntlet, “I’ll be fine, unload your gun on me!” I wasn’t sure if he had any idea what I had in mind but he knew my gauntlets were special. Claw began to stand up and Paddy turned to me firing six bullets at close range. My gauntlets did their job absorbing the momentum of each of the projectiles sending them to the ground. Before Claw could react again I turned to face him banging my gauntlets together.
The concussive force released from my wrist was enough to blast away the coating on Claw’s body. He tumbled back onto the ground, his human body revealed again. Claw wasn’t moving as I rushed forward to tend him.
“Holy Shit!” Paddy exclaimed following after me. “What was that?”
“The combined momentum of six bullets,” I said moving down to check our prisoner for a pulse. “He’s alive, but I would say down for the count.” I looked to his gunshot wound it was still capped by the polymer so I figured he wouldn’t be bleeding out.
“That was amazing!” my partner replied. “I’m beginning to agree that this job isn’t the right place for you.” “I think you need a different kind of uniform, Wonder Man.” “Maybe a bathing suit with some stars and stripes?”
“Shut up you jerk,” I snipped. “Like that wouldn’t draw undue attention.”
“We need to call this in to Olpere!” Paddy told me. “Keep it under wraps.”
“You do that, I’ll stay here to keep an eye on him,” I told Paddy. “Before you go, give me your shirt?”
“What?” Paddy asked giving me a confused look.
“I can let these things out in the open,” I said holding up my gauntlets.
“Where did you get those things anyway?” Paddy asked unzipping his coat to take off his shirt for me. It was lucky that we both wore the same size shirt after an event like this one. Paddy took off his shirt and put on my torn one.
I made sure that the sleeves covered my gauntlets again. “Now keep everyone else out of here while you find a radio,” I instructed Paddy.
“I’ll do my best,” He told me as he ran for the road. How would any of this be explained to the public without revealing the existence of Zeni-humans? A question whose answer would amaze even me on the news later that night.
I waited in the woods with Claw for about an hour getting worried that he might not survive this attack if someone didn’t come soon. Then I heard voices as I spotted Paddy and Commander Olpere walking through the trees toward me. A few other plain clothed men came with them rolling a coffin sized device on a gurney. “Roberts, report,” Commander Olpere demanded as they approached my location.
“Our prisoner is Dr. Richard Cabaria, he is a Zeni-human with the power to create the polymer that is all over the road,” I explained. “He can use it as both to create armor and projectiles.” “We were able to take him into custody when he was knocked unconscious at the lab.” “In the car he regained consciousness and explodes our car, for lack of a better description.” “I was forced to shoot him in an attempt to slow him down.” “We were able to rendered him unconscious again to end his rampage.”
“Roberts, why are you wearing Berger’s shirt?” Olpere asked point blank looking at Paddy’s name monogram on my chest.
“Ahhh,” I stammered.
“You know chief, two single guys living together, laundry gets mixed up,” Paddy said zipping up his coat to hide my shirt. The other two men with Commander Olpere went right to work loading Claw into the oversized incubator they brought with them.
“What is that thing, anyway?” I asked not trusting it.
“It is the newest device in the nullification of Zeni-human powers,” Commander Olpere explained. “It was designed and built by Bleu Inc. to help with the increase of Zeni-humans population.” That was the first time I heard of Bleu Inc. but it would not be the last. That company would become one of the main contractors in Zeni-human containment business.
It had been a long exhausting night and day by the time Paddy and I got home around 4 pm. “Well Wonder Man that was quite a day,” Paddy said getting a beer from the refrigerator.
“Please stop calling me that,” I told him as I stripped off his borrowed shirt and threw it at him. I headed for my room where I took off my torn uniform pants to climb into a pair of sweats. Returning to the living room pulling an old tank top over my head I found Paddy in his boxers and robe reclined in his chair. It was a good thing, I felt like things were back to normal as he clicked on the TV. I went to the kitchen to grab a beer for myself before flopping down on the sofa.
“So tell me about this parasite thing,” Paddy said.
“Not much to tell, it fed off of the chemicals in people’s brains,” I told him. “With everyone else it was the chemicals produced when they did narcotics.” “That is why Janet was looking for overdoses of people who previously had no drug history.” “We raided a bunch of people with the parasites and one got inside me without my even knowing it.”
“Didn’t you feel different?” Paddy asked as he flipped to ESPN.
“Looking back on it I did,” I replied. “At the time I just felt good, really good.” “Then it needed to feed and it had a different effect on me than normal people.”
“What do you mean?” “How different?” Paddy quizzed.
“Drugs really don’t affect me too much, my metabolism processes them almost instantly,” I explained. “So the parasite found another way to make my brain produce its food.” “I ended up taking a fifty mile run to Quakertown.” I told him trying to avoid the other thing I was doing to feed the beast.
“That explains why you smelled like a sewer when you came home.” “But what about all that noise in your bedroom that night?” He asked what I hoped he wouldn’t but deep down I knew he would.
“Let’s just say that I did some stuff to myself that excited the chemicals in my body enough to feed the parasite,” I told him staring at a crack in the ceiling.
“All that yelling was you alone?” Paddy asked.
“I wasn’t really thinking as myself,” I told him, hoping he would stop this line of questioning. He was quiet for a few minutes watching Sports Central until a commercial came on.
“It was good being back in uniform and working together again,” he said smiling. “Have to admit I’m surprised at how easily you went for the gun play.”
“What do you mean?” I asked sitting up to finish my beer.
“Usually you go for your nightstick before your gun.” he replied handing me his empty. “Sure I’ll have another.” As I walked to the kitchen for the beer I thought about what he said. He was right I didn’t even think about my baton, it was almost like I forgot I had it.
As I returned to the living room the doorbell rang. “Here you go,” I said to Paddy, “Don’t get up I’ll get it.” It had been a long day and I couldn’t imagine who would be showing up. I turned the doorknob to discover Janet standing outside holding two pizzas.
“I heard about the day you guys had, thought you might need something to eat,” Janet said pushing her way past me.
“What is this all about?” I asked closing the door and following her into the kitchen.
“What do you mean?” she replied naively. “Can’t a co-worker bring over dinner after you’ve had a hard day?” “You haven’t already eaten have you?”
“No, but when that coworker has given me the cold shoulder for weeks, it isn’t expected,” I told her as she served up three slices onto paper plates.
“I got your favorite and Paddy’s too,” Janet said handing me a slice of meat lover’s pizza and walking past me to carry a slice of mushroom and onion to the living room. I followed her back to where we discovered Paddy passed out in his chair his near full bottle of beer in his lap. “More for me I guess,” Janet said sitting down on the sofa to take a bite of the mushroom and onion pizza.
I had no interest in playing along with whatever it was she was up to, so I walked back to the dinette to sit alone. But I have to admit I was curious. It took only a few minutes for Janet to come over and sit with me at the table. She was the consummate actress having become a different person than the one I had been working with for the past four months. It seemed clear to me that she wanted something from me.
“You wear those all the time now?” Janet asked of the gauntlets still on my forearms. I had been wearing my gauntlets a lot of late, there had been many times I had just forgotten to take them off because there were near weightless to me. There was no need to hide them from Janet she had seen them before today.
“They have been coming in handy of late,” A answered getting up to get two more slices of pizza. “You’re not fooling me, I know you are here for some other reason than to bring us pizza.”
“I have been studying you since our little adventure,” Janet told me.
“You mean spying on me,” I retorted. I thought I spotted one of your drones in the trees today when I was waiting for backup.”
“Then I might as well come clean so to speak,” Janet told me making me want to trust her less. “Those gauntlets of yours are they alien in nature?” “Whatever they are made of is like nothing else on this planet.”
“And how many planets have you been on?” I asked expecting her usual obfuscation.
“Ten or twelve,” she replied to my surprise. “This one by far has been the most interesting.” “The whole Zeni-human phenomena is like nothing else in the galaxy.” I suddenly felt like Janet was being honest with me for the first time but I couldn’t begin to guess why.
“So you are flat out telling me you are from outer space?” I questioned.
“I thought your cousin already convinced you of that?” Janet replies referring to the things Jayson Roberts said a few weeks back.
“He is my cousin in blood only, I never met the guy before that day,” I assured her again.
“I know that, but he is proof that your Zeni-human nature does come from your father’s side of the family,” Janet told me. I almost laughed out loud. She had no idea what she was talking about. “Or that is what I thought, until I did a little more research into your lineage.” “Did you know that up until two years before your parents were married your mother didn’t exist?”
“Don’t be ridiculous of course my mother existed before that,” I said in disbelief that I was now protecting my mother’s secrets and not my own.
“On paper maybe, but all that paperwork has its origin with a man named Juri Segreti,” Janet informed me something I didn’t think anyone could ever find out. “Segreti was a Greek billionaire who died a few years back.” “Upon his death all of his money vanished from the face of the Earth.” “Something unusual to this world, unless he was a Colonizer.”
“A Colonize, what?” I questioned the word I had never heard before.
“A Colonizer is a broker who helps people from other worlds settle on alien planets, blend in with the native people,” Janet explained. “I used one to become Janet Redmayne.” “Colonizers will live on a world for long periods of time to blend in themselves and then leave when they retire, taking their wealth with them.”
“So you are saying my mother is an alien from another planet?” I scoffed.
“My guess would be Cript, that race is very prone to mutation, that is what triggered your father’s Zeni-human gene in you,” Janet informed me. “Criptians have incredible stamina and are nearly indestructible.” “Their society is one of science that have been known to create devices like your gauntlets.”
“So what do you hope to gain by uncovering my half-alien origins?” I asked fighting back the laughter as I finished up my pizza.
“I’ve seen weapons like those Gauntlets of yours before, they would be helpful in my search for parasites,” Janet told me. “My guess is your mother gave them to you.”
“And you want me to give them to you?” I surmised taking a drink of my beer to wash down the pizza. “You should know my Gauntlets only work for me, they are tuned to my genetic makeup.”
“No, not at all, I want you to help me get a set of my own,” Janet suggested. “I would guess that there is a weapons storehouse hidden here on Earth somewhere.”
“And is that common?” I asked eager to hear her next wrong hypothesis.
“Many alien races have hidden their weapons on Earth over the eons, this backwater world makes a good hiding spot!” she told me with an air of superiority. “Seeing as Segreti was based in Greece it only makes sense to start my search there.” Janet’s detective work was flawed by oddly finding the right answers to the wrong questions.
“So these hidden weapons you want my help to find them?” I suggested.
“No, I sent a drone to Greece about a week ago and it found much more than a weapons stockpile, it found a hidden city,” Janet told me. Oh my god she found the Amazon homeland, I tried to keep a straight face at the thought of it. “It is hidden behind an advanced cloaking field.”
“If there is a city don’t you think it is hidden for a reason?” I said to her, hoping she would give this a rest. “That place is most likely very dangerous and should be left alone.”
“I thought you might say that,” Janet smiled. “That is why I did what I did.”
I looked at the empty plate on the table in front of me. “What did you do?” I asked. “If you really believe I am an alien you can’t believe that you could drug me.”
“Not drugs, Cripts are immune to most Earth drugs, but nanotechnology is something else,” Janet said holding up what looked like a TV remote. Before I could ask another question everything went black.
As I slept I dreamt of a strange man, he appeared to me to be an albino with white hair and empty eyes. He spoke to me in an ancient Greek dialect that I hadn’t heard in years. His voice was calm, emotionless tone even though I felt as though the situation was desperate. He explained to me that he was different to the others we had encountered. He was self-sufficient not an automaton like the other plant soldiers. He was the last line of defense that was activated after it was too late for the people of Celeario who created him. Although his body was plant in nature he also had technology inside him. He was a different kind of Fluoro cyborg, half machine, half plant.
I opened my eyes to look up into the night sky. I recognized the dead treetops immediately. I was back to that awful place my Mom took me years ago, Themyscira. I sat up looking around it was even a bigger shithole at night. Janet was standing over me. “How the HELL did you get me here?!” I exclaimed.
“Matter transportation between two of my drones,” Janet answered coolly.
“On what world is kidnapping a device of law enforcement?” I shouted at her.
“I asked nicely for your help, you refused, what other option did I have?” Janet said with a straight face.
“Let’s see,” I smirked. “How about taking NO, for an answer?” I shouted in her face.
“No was not an option,” Janet told me coolly as she always seemed to be.
“Guess again, take me the hell home right now!” I yelled at her. “I want no part of this place!” I shouted walking for the moonlit shore like over the black sand.
“So you have been here before?” she asked ignoring my protests.
“Yes!” I shouted from the water’s edge. “I have been here before and I almost got killed!” “Now get me the hell out of here!”
“No,” she said simply to me. “I need your to help me find the armory.”
“Why would I help you do that?” I said furiously. “I’m more likely to call Commander Olpere and have you locked up for kidnapping!” “I thought we were friends, why would you do this to me?” Then I remembered what she said about Nanotechnology. She put something on my pizza! “You poisoned me!” I shouted stomping back up the beach toward her.
“Don’t be foolish, I didn’t poison you,” Janet grinned at me showing her first sign of true emotion through all of this drama. “You will pass the Nano drones in a day or so.” “Remember the effect the parasite had on Jayson Roberts, it changed him gave him powers.” I didn’t reply to her, I just glared. “That isn’t the only time the parasites have done that to a possible Zeni-human.” “Olpere suspected that Spark & Dormer did something to him with the cancer treatment,” “We both know that isn’t true.” “I do know that Spark & Dormer had access to a parasite.”
“What?” I exclaimed.
“I believe that Dr. Richard Cabaria was working with the parasite specimens when he was transformed into Claw.” “My weapons do not work on these Zeni-humans, but your gauntlets do.” “I need to have that advantage as much as you do.”
Now I was conflicted I didn’t know what to do. Did I want to help her get a Celeario weapons? The last time I was here I nearly got eaten by a shark creature. I had no idea what other horrors lurked inside the invisible barrier. And I wasn’t too eager to find out either. There wasn’t even a guarantee that she would find a weapon for her to use.
“Do you at least have a flashlight?” I asked.
“Better!” Janet replied as she worked the remote in her hand again. One of her drones glided forward for the trees. It was larger than the one I encountered weeks ago, by about twice the size. It sprayed two spot lights onto the ground at our feet.
“Okay come on,” I said reluctantly. The drone followed my lead jumping ahead of us to light the path. As I lead her into the dead forest I explained, “Some of the city’s defense are still active so be on your toes.” “There are other things living inside the dome that you could never imagine as well.” “Most of all, I have no idea what to expect at night,” I warned.
“I’m sure there is nothing we can’t handle,” Janet said sounding cocky. I didn’t feel as confident. The last time I was here I had my Mom and Juri to help me. Little Janet Redmayne was not even close to their equal. The walk to the edge of the barrier didn’t seem as long this time, I knew we had arrived when I saw the change in the movement of the plant life. After my first trip here Mom explained that the dome acts like a mirror to reflect its surroundings. Although it didn’t reflect the light from the drone it did reverse the angel of the small sad plants at its base.
“Okay stop, we are at the edge of the dome,” I told her. “When we pass through it we can take nothing in with us.” “Everything from the outside world will be stripped away.”
“Then why don’t we try this?” Janet said working the remote again. The drone spun around shining its light on the barrier. The shade and color of the light moving back and forth along the visible spectrum until an opening in the barrier appeared. “How about a door?” Janet asked as the drone opened access for us to the city.
We stepped through the portal retaining everything we had with us. I must admit I was relieved that I wouldn’t be nude in front of Janet again. But I had been curious to see what she had going on, once her true self was revealed. The drone slipped in behind us closing the portal before moving to light our path again. I looked around the dark city, it looked different at night, not as futuristic. I gazed upward to find the tower spindle that I smashed into and slid down years ago. Finding its position told me that we had entered the city in an area I hadn’t been in last time.
“This does not look like Criptian architecture,” Janet commented as we walked down the street. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was wrong just yet. I figured if she was so smart she could figure it out herself. As we walked my feet began to hurt slightly. I looked down and realized that I was wearing boots for the first time. Back at the apartment I was in my sock feet after changing my clothes.
“Did you put these boots on me?” I asked.
“No you did,” Janet replied tearing her eyes away from the sights of the gloomy night glancing at my feet.
“I don’t remember doing that, besides these are Paddy’s boots?” I said.
“They were handy,” she told me.
“They are too small,” I said, it was only by a half a size but she didn’t need to know that fact. “Now stay close,” I said taking her hand as my Mom did when we first entered the city last time, but I was a teenager and too old to hold Mommy�s hand. It was a hard lesson to learn. Janet tried to pull away but I held tight. “We can not get separated here!” I insisted. There is too much that is unknown.”
“So where are we going?” she asked as we walked on holding hands. “Which way to the arsenal?”
“I don’t even know if there is and arsenal,” I told her. Reluctantly I said, “My mother’s people believed if you were meant to find a weapon it would find you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she questioned.
“I have no idea but that is how I got my gauntlets,” I told her as we continued to walk the deserted street. I thought that we should head for the historical archives where I found my gauntlets. It seemed like the best place to find what Janet wanted.
“This city is huge, but I see no signs of life at all,” Janet commented.
“That is because there is no life here!” I told her bluntly. Then I spotted something in the light cast by the drone. A discolored tile in the road, like the one I fell through years ago. I pulled Janet to the left away from it. “We can’t step on those,” I told her. “They are traps that dump into a place I would rather not go again.” When I looked up to the road in front of us I spied that there were many such colored tiles ahead of us that we would have to avoid. We began to hop from tile to tile making our way down the road.
Then suddenly I felt that tingle at the back of my skull. “Wait!” “Stop!” I shouted pulling Janet back from hopping to the next stone. “The scheme has changed,” I told her.
“How could you possibly know that?” she asked in disbelief.
“Tell you what, can you get your drone to land on that tile?” I suggested. She retrieved the remote from her pocket and commanded the drone to land where I instructed. The moment it touched down the stone underneath dropped away, tumbling into the dark shaft. The drone zipped back up out of the shoot to rejoin us. “Told ya,” I remarked. “Now try the other colors.” Janet glared at me in amazement. We found the new path to follow forward and around the corner into a city square.
Suddenly flood lights poured down on us synthesizing the midday sun. {You are not welcome here!} a voice speaking it ancient Greek announced to us, blinded by the light its location was unknown.
“Where is that coming from and what is it saying?” Janet asked as our eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden burst of light.
“It is and ancient Greek dialect, it is saying, We are not welcome here!” I translated for her.
“You know ancient Greek?” Janet quizzed.
“I’m good with languages,” I told her, “and pinpointing locations.” I pointed up to a balcony where a single shadowed figure stood.
{Leave now or your fate is sealed!} the figure announced to us.
“It is telling us to leave or our fate is sealed,” I translated.
“I don’t think so!” Janet said pulling her space gun from under her jacket. She fired at the figure on the balcony. The beam of energy never reached the figure as it was deflected by an invisible barrier.
{So be it!} the figure decreed. The street in front of us began to tremble and then erupt. Soldiers sprouted up from the ground to form an army blocking out path in the street.
“Holy shit!” Janet exclaimed.
“Holy shit indeed,” I repeated.
“Those are not Cript soldiers!” she expressed. “Their armor is all wrong and their weapons too primitive, plus they are green!”
“Enough with the space aliens on Earth shit!” I shouted at her as the army slowly moved toward us. “This has nothing to do with the planet Cript!” I stood there in sweatpants and a tank top, my only weapons were my gauntlets and they were useless without something to charge them. The long abandoned city street was barren of anything to use as a weapon. I could really use a sword right about now. That left me with only the weapons the members of the army carried.
“We’re going to get slaughtered!” Janet yelled as she fumbled with the drone remote to put the machine on the defensive. The pyramid shaped drone began firing beams like the ship in asteroids. The blasts were the same as the ones from Janet’s blaster. The approaching soldiers took the hits from the drone in stride as it swooped and dodged over them. The army only continued to march forward at us, unaffected by the drone’s attack. There was no denying that we were going to have to go hand to hand with the army. As they closed in, Janet began firing her blaster.
I took a deep breath and charged forward at the horde. I was not the scared teen I was the last time I was here. I swung with a right fist and blocked with my left gauntlet trying to take down the soldiers and steal a weapon. Close up I soon realized that the weapons were not made of metal but a very strong wood that was just as lethal as steel. All the same I could still break their wooden weapons much easier than any steel sword. Disarming the soldiers became my goal. That was harder than I initially thought, because as I broke their swords and lances the hilts sprouted new blades. In the heat of battle it took a few minutes for me to realized that the soldiers did not carry their weapons but were one with them. The armor they wore was made of bark and their green faces revealed to me the most amazing thing. “They are plants!” I shouted to Janet who was struggling a few feet away from me to fight them off. “They are not humans at all!”
I took a new offense stance with this knowledge. I was no longer breaking off blades but hands and arms to use as my own weapons. I fought on using their own limbs against them more effectively than they did against me. Janet also changed course, adjusting her blaster to fire a beam of force rather than energy. Her blasts now shattered the wooden and pulp soldier’s bodies. When she got clear enough she did the same to the drone increasing the speed at which we brought down the army of plant soldiers.
“Great way to spend a Saturday morning, huh?” I shouted as the sun began to rise over the city square littered with plant soldier carcasses that could no longer regenerate. “I could really use an ax to make quick work of this firewood!” Large globs of sap that was the soldier’s blood began to splatter onto me as I fought on across the city square toward the building where the leader stood. By the time we had defeated the army of plant soldiers my clothes and skin were caked with the sticky, gooey sap.
I turned to look back for Janet and found that she had something else on her leg. A large slice over a gash that was bleeding blue blood onto her pants at mid-thigh. “Jeez, what is with that?” I asked rushing to attend her wound.
“It’s fine,” she said as I watched her treat her injury. She smeared some of the sap into the cut and used her ray gun to heat and harden the thick sticky sap. “That should hold it until I can get it looked at professionally,” Janet told me.
“Who are you going to have look at that when you are bleeding blue?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said clenching her teeth as she started to walk.
“Here let me help you,” I offered to hold her up and help her to walk. Janet pushed me away. Something looked different about her now. Her pallor was more of a blue tint now like that of her blood. “You are too stubborn for your own good!” I told her. I watched Janet limp forward in front of me. There was no question that Janet was an alien now.
I had been up for over twenty-four hours and it was starting to wear on me. I knew I had more stamina than most people but I wasn’t sure how long I could keep going. After defeating the army, the defenses set up by the mystery man seemed to be nonexistent. Mom had told me there was no one living in the city. Either she was wrong or someone had moved in. The city defenses seemed to be set up in phases. We had gotten past the first two, which was one phase deeper than I had gotten last time. There was no way of telling what came next.
“These buildings appear to have no entry passage,” Janet commented about the structures on either side of the street. “How do we get in?”
“I’m not sure,” I told her, mainly because I wasn’t. I crashed down through the roof of the history building. It was Mom that knew how to get into these buildings.
“If everything I thought is wrong, isn’t it time you told me what you know?” Janet asked leaning up against a building.
“I know we could still leave this place before anyone else gets hurt,” I said, hoping to persuade her to take me home.
“Too late for that!” she replied gesturing to her leg. “I am not leaving here without what I came for!”
“Too stubborn!” was all I could say. Problem is I most likely would have felt the same way if I was her. “This is a city of advanced beings from another dimension, to put it simply.” “They were conquered over two thousand years ago.” “Since then this place has stood empty, with only a few people even knowing it exists.”
“You being one of them,” Janet assumed.
“Yes, I have only been here once when I was fifteen,” I told Janet. “I was brought here by Juri and my mother as a kind of test.” “My mother had hoped that I would find a Celearian weapon.” “I found these and they saved my life from the city defenses that are still active after all this time.”
“It would seem that the defense system is not unmanned,” Janet suggested. As she leaned against the wall, I could tell she was not doing good. The wound on her leg was taking a bigger toll than she was willing to admit. “We need to take that guy down!”
“What we need is for you to rest,” I told her. “This quest you are on for a weapon to use in your fight, is not worth your life!”
“You have no idea what my quest is about!” Janet affirmed as she stepped away from the wall. She began to limp away as I followed.
“So why don’t you explain it to me?” I suggested. Janet didn’t respond to my question causing me to reach my limit in this adventure. “You know this is your problem!” I shouted after her. “You are unwilling to work together and that makes you impossible to work with!” I turned and started to head back out of the city the way we came. “I would rather swim back though that filthy sea to the mainland than go one step further with you!” I didn’t even look back at her as I marched away. Then it happened again! I had forgotten about the nanotechnology that Janet spoke of that she used to get me here. I was returned to the darkness and then my dreams.
The first dream I had earlier had almost slipped my mind with all that Janet had done to me in the past few hours. I was back with albino man but this time I could see that we were not alone, Janet was there too. We were standing in a strange futuristic control center similar to the History center. He continued to explain in his ancient Greek dialect, how he had triggered a self-destruct on the island, that only he could stop. But only after we left. Janet acted irrationally not giving me time to explain what he had said. She threatened the fluoric cyborg with her blaster. All she seemed to care about was wanting to get herself a weapon. It was all I could do to calm her down. There was a twenty minute countdown on the wall. Our only choice was to leave to prevent the destruction of the island which would no doubt extend beyond its shores.
It was then that I woke up I was not longer in the street. I stood in the middle of a control center of some kind like the one in my dream. The room looked like a china shop after a bull went through it. My body felt like I had taken a bath in glue, I was coated in even more of the blood sap as well as my own blood. My fist and arms were covered with cuts and abrasions. My tank top was slashed and torn with blood stains. What the hell had happened to me? This Nanotechnology that Janet told me I ate in the pizza, was it more than just a knockout, could she control my body too? The room was littered with more of the plant soldiers, but where was Janet? I had several large wooden thorns in my forearm I clenched my teeth as I pulled them out. Then I began to search for my “partner?” The cuts on my body stung keeping me from thinking about how angry I was at what had must have just happened here.
I stopped in the center of the room to listen for a minute. I could hear the faint sound of breathing. I turned searching for its origin. Scrambling to a console I found Janet laying on the floor behind it. She too had more injuries than before I lost consciousness. I leaped over the counter to land on the floor next to her. “What the hell have you been playing at?” I shouted at the wounded woman on the floor.
“I need the Nano drones back,” she gasped at me. Her hand was fiddling with that damn remote that had started all of this shit. I grabbed it from her grasp.
“What are you talking about?” I said leaning closer to examine the remote that had only a touch pad on its face.
“The Nano drones inside of you didn’t work as I had planned,” she whispered. “I could use them to control your body but not your skill at using your body.” “You need to release them so I can save myself.”
“How?” I asked as she struggled to breathe. “You said I would crap them out in a few days.”
“I ….can quicken that process if you give me the controller back,” Janet struggled to tell me.
“You really don’t think I’m going to trust you with this again do you?” I asked holding up the device. “Tell me what to do and I will do it.” “If you try to control me again I will crush the remote!” In a weak voice Janet gave me a basic understanding of how the remote worked and what I needed to do to get the Nano drones out of my body. I did as she said and for the first time I could feel the tiny machines moving inside of me. I got a sharp pain in my spine at the base of my ribcage as the nano drones released their control of me. I could feel as the alien drones moved back into my digestive tract from all over my body. I imagined what I was feeling was like what friends would call pins and needles all over inside my body. When the drones reach the place from which they had escaped my gut I felt a moment of relief. That moment was short lived as my gut was racked with pain. The controller slipped from my hand onto the floor as I doubled over in agony. Is this what dysentery feels like I wondered as I felt my intestine swelled full to capacity. I could feel the massing of drones growing inside me as it move down. Down through my gut to the obvious exit.
Without a thought, panicked and in pain I shoved my sweatpants down to copped a squat. I groaned as the coil of drones punched out of me it felt like I was passing broken glass. My eyes teared up as I passed the longest minutes of my life.
“Hurry,” Janet coached falling on her side reaching out for the controller on the floor.
“Screw you!” I groaned as I tried pulling at myself trying to relieve some of the pain. When the last of the drones dropped out of me to the floor I sighed in relief. I stood up to look at the coil of metal in the floor as I pulled up my sweat pants. I was shocked by how small it was laying there. I felt like a log coming out of me, but it was about three feet long and the size of a hot dog in diameter.
Janet worked the remote bringing the drones to life. The thousands of tiny Nanotech broke apart lifting up from the small amount of feces that had come out of me with them. I couldn’t believe I ate all of those things and they were inside me. The Nano Drones swarm up onto Janet settling on her many wounds. My pain was already beginning to fade as the tiny drones went to work on Janet.
I looked around the room some more trying to make sense of what had happened and what Janet had made me do. I felt so used and violated by the whole situation. How could I ever trust or even work with her again. It was then that I looked up at the wall to spot the countdown clock at ten minutes. “Shit!” I exclaimed. “What did you do?” I turned back to Janet who was almost completely healed by the mini-drones. “Where is the Guardian?” Janet was still unable or not willing to respond to me. I searched my memory of the dream trying to put the room back the way I remembered it. The Guardian would have been standing in the far corner when we entered the room. I sprinted across the room to find the Guardian laying on the floor his body battered and broken. “You stupid selfish bitch!” I shouted. “He was the only one who could stop the countdown!” “We will never be able to get away from this island in time!” It was strange, before I had always had premonitions of things that went wrong that I had to fix. This time I saw a future with the right outcome when in reality everything would go wrong.
Janet stood up the Nano drones swarming around her. “I know that, I’m not the only one that can be healed,” she told me as she directed the mini-drones from her body to the damaged Fluoro-cyborg on the floor. “And this time he will be more cooperative.” By now I just wanted to be done with this whole fiasco. Something I didn’t have to say out loud again as Janet’s larger drone approached me. “Your usefulness is at an end here Steve, I am sorry.” A beam of green light bathed me, it was like every atom in my body was being ripped apart. It was happening so fast I didn’t even have time to scream.
SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 1986
It was still dark when I woke up early Sunday morning. I lay on the end of my bed in the darkness to glance up at my alarm clock. It was 1 am. For a minute I thought it had all been a dream. Then I panicked thinking what if it had all been a premonition of things to come. I scrambled to turn on a light. I was still dressed in my torn tank top and sweatpants. I was also still coated in the sappy blood from the plant soldiers. It was no dream it really did happen, but I had no idea how it ended. Was Themyscira destroyed? Was Janet gone from my life at the cost of her own?
Hours later on the morning news I would find no reports of the explosion of the Greek island. Paddy would be pissed at me about his boots being ruined even after I told him the fantastic events of my Saturday that were out of my control. I wanted to call Janet and give her hell over all of it, but decided it was best to cool down some before acting rashly.