Class Fives: Origins (48 page)

Jones actually seemed to hesitate, some kind of inner struggle briefly raging, then visibly relaxed slightly.

“I’m under orders to inform you of the consequences of non-compliance to these directives, but I think you already know what I’m supposed to say.”

Dan stared at him, momentarily puzzled, then a dry sense of calm came over him.

“No,” he said, quietly, “You don’t have to tell us. In fact, I wish you wouldn’t. I’d like to remember you as something other than… whatever I think you are right now.”

Jones seemed to take this in, and slowly nodded.

“I understand,” he said quietly. “I am sorry.”

Dan eyed him a long moment, trying to come up with some stinging thought to spit at this bureaucratic automaton, but finally just felt a wave of weariness roll over him.

“It that all?” he said.

Jones looked from Dan to Jim and back, then nodded once more.

“Yes. That’s all. Thank you. Goodbye, Officers.”

He turned and moved away across the parking lot.

“Hey,” Dan called after him, “What about Roger and John? Are they gonna be all right?”

Jones stopped, turned back, his expression blank.

“There are no Roger and John,” he said flatly. “They don’t exist. I would advise you to accept that and forget any of this ever happened. Best for everyone. Good night.”

He turned and stepped off once more, receding among the tightly parked cars.

Dan and Jim watched him go until he faded into the gloom of the gathering evening, and turned to one another.

“Shit,” Jim said, quietly.

Dan nodded slowly, feeling suddenly very much alone, staring into a swiftly falling night.

“Come on,” Jim said, “I need a drink.”

Jim turned and stalked to the door, yanking it open and plunging inside.

Dan stood in the lot a long while before turning and moving, slowly, thoughtfully, to follow.

Dr. Marvin Henry sat before the banks of computer screens, his eyes occasionally flicking from one to the other, but finding nothing to capture his attention in any of them. It was all so calm and routine, he thought. The bits and pieces wheeling slowly through the emptiness above his head, following their well-worn courses in an endless dance through space.

Even asteroid KL4440R, well on its way to the close pass that would, in less than a month, provide a spectacular wealth of data to the already-upturned telescopes and sensors that eagerly awaited its arrival no more than seventy thousand miles from where they stared up at it, didn’t seem all that interesting to him now. It was, after all, just another big rock floating around in space. It wasn’t, he realized, particularly special.

There were other things out there in the universe that were much more amazing, much more worth his attention.

Hell, he thought. He’d even met two of them.

And what they implied, about how the universe functioned, stunned him.

The phone tucked in the corner of the wide table jangled and he lazily reached over to pluck up the handset.

“Dr. Henry,” he said with a bored sigh.

“Dr. Henry, this is Crawford.”

Instantly a jolt of something caused Marvin’s back to straighten instinctively.

“Hello, Mr. Crawford,” he said slowly. “What can I do for you?”

“Dr. Henry, I’m in need of your expertise. On a long-term basis.”

Marvin absorbed the words and examined them carefully before responding.

“I see,” he said quietly. “I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be,” Crawford said, almost dismissively, “I don’t flatter. Would you be interested?”

Marvin felt a flutter of something cool and exciting grip his diaphragm, but directly behind it came a wave of alertness, like an animal that has sensed, rather than heard, something approaching.

“And if I weren’t?” Marvin responded.

“Wouldn’t make much difference,” Crawford answered, evenly.

No, Marvin thought. It wouldn’t. Because he was into something now, something he hadn’t even suspected existed, and once you went in, you were in, like it or not. But, he considered, he did want in. Wanted in very badly.

“Then we should talk,” he said quietly.

Marvin sagged back into the chair, his mind whirling.

Crawford hung up the phone, taking a long moment to analyze the tone he’d heard in the younger man’s voice, and thinking of a child at Christmas.

Marvin wouldn’t have been his first choice, all things being equal, but he was already conversant with the circumstances, and he did have some expertise that would be useful. For the rest, he could be trained. He was young, imaginative and with that passionate curiosity that would allow him to think well out of the box, which was where a great deal of what they would now be facing would be coming from. And he was without the taint of politics or personal ambition. He would do.

So, another small hole had been filled. Many more slots had to be sealed with the correct personnel, but he needed to do so carefully. The very act of recruiting would be bothersome, considering the restrictions on what any candidate could be told about their prospective employment. But it would only slow down, not stop, what had to be done. He would see to that.

He leaned back in the large chair and directed his gaze over the desk toward where the old man sat, half slumped in the opposite seat, looking like a lazy spider, all limbs and angles, but with hot, piercing eyes orbiting the edge of insanity.

“So, Dr. Montgomery,” Crawford said, favoring the other man with a warm smile. “Tell me more about your work. I find it… fascinating.”

Jerry Hampton stood in front of the large display window, the tiny clusters of light reflecting up under the small, cleverly placed spotlights, intended to strike the collection of rings, bracelets and other delicate items and reflect dazzlingly.

The traffic was thinning out now, he realized. The mall was going to close soon and the seemingly endless herd of shoppers were drifting lazily toward the main exits. Just a few minutes to go, he told himself.

He glanced at his watch, a Rolex, naturally. Six more minutes before the doors closed, sealing this incredible wealth of products inside the hundred and more stores for another night.

He considered once more just wandering to the nearest rest room and waiting until everything was still and deserted throughout the massive space, but knew he didn’t have that kind of time. Not tonight. He had a date. A special date. This was the night he would ask her. Maybe. He still wasn’t completely sure. But the idea certainly felt right. Well, he told himself, he would see. But for right now…

He took a long, slow sweep of the corner where the jewelry store sat, hoping to catch customers as they came down the short hallway from the parking lot into the vast inner track down the length of the huge building. Almost, he thought.

He swung his gaze to scan the inner boulevard that was this end of the vast building, and watched the last figure step briskly out of sight, heading toward the distant exit at the other end of the structure.

Now, he told himself.

He turned, his eyes locking on the ring, nestled in its little satin crevice on the plush shelf behind the inch thick window, its myriad diamonds gleaming enticingly around the cool, violet ruby.  His arm was already raising, moving.

It plunged into the thick glass of the display window, passing through it as if it didn’t exist, his fingers opening and closing around the glistening ring and sealing it tightly in the palm, completely shrouded in his skin. Just as quickly the arm withdrew, causing only a momentary stinging sensation against his palm as the ring passed through the glass.

He was already turning away, the arm sliding into his jacket pocket, the ring nestling there among the few pieces of change.

By the time he had pushed through the exit door into the cool, night air, he was already gritting his teeth hard against the growing pain of the burning that was creeping up from his palm, where the small square of skin had been ripped away in the theft, to his wrist, and would most likely make it as far as his elbow before it began to abate. But it was worth it, he told himself. She was worth it.

The manager of the jewelry store stepped out into the mall, the key for the thick, metal grate that would pull over and protect the display window overnight already gripped between his fingers. He slipped it into the small slot at the edge of the window, turned it and began to draw the metal screen out and across the vulnerable sheet of glass.

His eyes swept across the display and he suddenly froze. The centerpiece of the display, the large, exquisite ruby and diamond ring, was gone.

His mind stumbled in a burst of confusion. The large window display was sealed off from the store itself. Nobody could have possibly gotten within ten feet of it without throwing themselves over the counter and unlocking the large door in its back wall. And it couldn’t have been any of his employees. And the store had been attended every second since it had opened that morning.

Had it been sold? But how could that have happened without him knowing? It was a ruinously expensive piece and only he could approve its sale.

He let his attention fix on the window glass, wanting to quickly dismiss the possibility of it having been breached, and at first glance his eyes told him that was indeed the case. But something caught his attention and he squinted, slowly leaning down to fix on the strange irregularity that seemed to float within the thick glass, just opposite where the ring had been nestled.

He leaned in close, his brows furrowing in confusion and concern.

It was something strange, about an inch across, that seemed to be embedded in the glass.

He leaned even closer, his mind unable to grasp what he was looking at. Then it struck him and his mind rebelled against what his eyes were telling him.

Inside the glass, like an insect trapped in amber, was what looked like a small patch of human skin. But that couldn’t be right, could it?

Such things simply didn’t happen. In fact, they were, as far as he knew, impossible.

Author’s Notes

Comic book superheroes are the mythic and legendary champions of our time. They have taken the place of the gods and demigods of Greek and Roman myth and, to a certain extent, those of Christian personalities, saints and biblical figures as well.

Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, spoke often of the psychological, perhaps even biological and organic, impact of such myths. They strike chords deep within us and provide lessons on how to deal with various challenges presented to us by life. They teach moral lessons and help us deal with extreme circumstances and the transitions of life and death.

The difference between the classic myths and current superhero fantasies is that earlier mythic stories were closely tied to spiritual belief systems, whereas modern superheroes are strictly secular and generally intended purely as entertainment, not instruction or guidance.

This story is my attempt to explore an aspect of the mythic I have seldom seen; the connection of the mysterious and miraculous, such as the powers of superheroes, and the actual universe in which we all live.

Audiences, through repetition and experience, come to understand and accept the conditions and circumstances in which stories take place and suspend their disbelief in the worlds of the story based upon events taking place within them.

There are stories set in the “real” world, a universe identical to the one in which we all exist, and subject to all the same natural and physical laws. There are other stories that generally appear
like
the “real” world, but where certain of the basic universal laws, such as gravity, thermodynamics and the natural flow of energies, are bent, twisted, altered or ignored and yet the inhabitants of those worlds accept these oddities with calm equanimity.

When Superman leaps into the sky, the citizens of Metropolis are generally impressed and amazed, but take it all in stride. The idea that a human being can achieve flight without any mechanisms, engines or wings never seems to bother them much. In the “real” world even a single instance of a human being flying without having to obey the laws of aerodynamics or gravity would easily constitute a significant historical event, producing mass shock worldwide, because it would call into question our understanding of the very basic laws of nature.

Therefore most superhero stories take place in a similar-but-not-quite-real universe where the laws of nature and physics are highly cooperative and malleable, and where people’s certainty about their own lives don’t seem to depend on an unshakable understanding that what goes up must always, always come down. In their universe a flying man might be amazing, but it never seems to be the cause of pure, global shock, as it would be in the world in which we all actually live.

My interest was in placing this story in as “real” a universe as possible, where the fantastic truly is fantastic and is reacted to as such. Toward that end, it becomes necessary to try and provide some sort of pseudo-scientific but apparently logical background for the reader, so that they can accept the wondrous events as relating to that ever mysterious realm of science usually fathomable only to physicists, cosmologists and other highly specialized levels of  scientific understanding. Hopefully the reader will be able to tell himself, “I don’t understand exactly how this concept works, but then I don’t understand how Black Holes work either, so perhaps it is equally possible.”

If the reader can accept that the fantastic events are, indeed, possible in the “real” world, based on some natural quirk comprehensible only to scientific experts, then I would be able to focus on my primary interest – what would the life of a superhero
really
be like? What trials and burdens would they have to deal with? How would they make the moral and ethical choices required of them when thrust into a dangerous or challenging situation? And how would they be treated by others?