Strangers and Shadows (25 page)

“So what’d he say?” Jack asked impatiently.

“I was getting to that when you arrived,” Wizard explained.  “He said they had been developing a new kind of weapon
, s
pecifically designed for the people of the Sixth.”

“
That’s it?
  Nothing else? 
How the hell do we make her better then!?
”  Jack slammed his fist down on the railing at the side of the bed.

Desmond stepped closer
. 
“Right now, there’s nothing we can do for her, Jack.”  Desmond’s voice was strong and calm, like a man who has been through terrible loss before.  “The best thing we can do is find Kid, and find out what Julia is up to.  Whatever it is, I’m sure it won’t be pretty.”  He paused and then brushed past Jack
. 
“Excuse me.”

“Where are
you
going?” Jack demanded.  

“To figure out how we’re going to fix this.”  And with that Desmond was gone.  The three men could hear the door of his office being closed
down the hall
.

Jack felt his eyes watering as he slid down the wall, sitting on the floor next to Celia’s bed.  Angry, frustrated, and hopeless, he tried to blink the tears away.

Weeks Later

“I’ve had just about all I can take of this waiting,” Jack said as he walked into the room where Asher and Wizard were eating breakfast.  It had been almost two weeks since anyone had seen or heard from Desmond.  He had just vanished without a trace.

“Well, what do you suppose we do, Jack?” Wizard asked, cocking one eyebrow higher than the other.

“I’m working on it,” Jack replied as he paced back and forth.  

Asher and Wizard watched him walk back and forth like a caged lion.

“We’ve been over this a hundred times,” Asher said.  “Desmond wouldn’t have left us to figure this out on our own.”

“Quite right, my boy,” Wizard said.  “So… Either he
was
planning, or
is
planning to return and illuminate us with a brilliant solution, or he thought he had a way to solve the situation himself and something went terribly wrong.”

“Okay, let’s start there,” Jack said.
 
“What could keep Desmond, the most powerful being in the MultiVerse, from returning to his only beloved and in-a-coma daughter?”

“Well, aside from a battalion of agents…”  

“What about one of those EMF things?  The one that Celia had to take out so we could escape from the Third?” Asher asked.

“The only place they have enough of those to stop Desmond would be the Seventh, and he would never be stupid enough to go there alone,” Wizard said.

“Are you sure?” Asher asked.  He immediately received dirty looks from the other two.  “All I’m saying is, if it was someone
I
loved, I would do whatever it was that I thought might save them, stupid or not.”

“Well, we’re not talking about you, are we, boy?” Wizard replied.

“But if I…”

“That’s it!” Jack interrupted.  

“What’s it?”
b
oth Wizard and Asher asked in unison.

“That’s got to be what it is.”

“What on Earth are you talking about, Jack?”

Jack’s face was beaming.  “I think I know what’s wrong with Celia.”

Asher and Wizard looked confused.  “We were talking about Desmond—”

“I know, I know.  Now, just hear me out,” Jack said.  He was still pacing as he explained.  “Wizard, what do we know about these nanites that the agents in the Seventh use?”

Unsure where Jack was heading with the question, he answered as simply as possible.  “Well, they are tiny, microscopic robots that perform a variety of tasks.  They regenerate cell damage from within, are self-replicating, and boost mental and physical abilities.”

“So, in short, they make these agents supermen, right?”

“Pretty close to it.  The nanites can even form a metal shield over an agent’s skin, acting as armor if it’s needed.  Granted, it’s not the strongest armor, but sometimes it can make the difference between a killing blow and a flesh wound.”

“What are the mental benefits?”

“Well, they improve memory, giving the agent perfect recall.  They also have built in communications, giving the agent, for all intents and purposes, artificial telepathy.  They can talk to any other agent or comm unit without needing a physical device.  Provided, of course, that there is a network to connect to.  Some of the verses can be a little lacking in that department.”

Jack was almost positive of his assumption now, but he needed to know one more thing.  “How do the agents receive the nanites?”

“They can be transmitted any number of ways.  Usually it’s by injection, but my son, Dorian, has told me stories about nanites jumping from one body to another and replicating there too.  Although such a thing is not supposed to happen.  The nanites are coded specifically to their host’s DNA.”

Jack shivered, thinking about little metal bugs replicating inside him.  “So, essentially, these things are an infection, right?”

“Well, I’ve never thought about it like that before, but I guess you could say that.”

“What does any of this have to do with Celia?” Asher asked.  “She would never have allowed her body to be taken over with nanites.”

“Under normal circumstances, no,” Jack said. “But what’s the only thing that can prevent a Shadow from using their powers?”

“I think I see where you’re headed with this, Jack,” Wizard said, his face lighting up.  

“That’s what it’s gotta be, right?  I mean, there isn’t any other thing that she couldn’t fight off internally.”

Asher waved his hands wildly.  “Anybody want to fill me in here?”

Wizard gladly did so.  “I believe Jack has hit it right on the nose.  An EM field is the only thing that could prevent a Shadow from healing themselves.  But for that to occur, you would need an EMF generator.  However, if you were to somehow manipulate the nanites to put off an EM field—well then, you would have a portable Shadow-sized EMF generator.”

“Wouldn’t the electro-magnetic field shut down the nanites as well?” Asher asked.

“You’re thinking of an EM pulse,” Jack said
,
“something used as a weapon to shut down computers and electrical devices.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t it shut down the nanites?” Asher asked.

“They fixed that problem long ago,” Wizard said.  “The technology from the Seventh is shielded from pulses of any kind.  And besides, the frequency of the EM field that blocks a Shadow’s powers is nowhere close to the range that would interfere with a computer or nanite.”

“So how do we turn off these EMF nanites?” Asher asked.

Jack turned to Wizard.  “Well,
you’re
the expert here, no?”

“Expert is hardly the word I’d use, but I suppose I do know more than either of you simpletons on the subject.”  

“Great! What do we do, old man?” Jack asked.

“There is one device that I can think of that might suit our needs.  The problem with it is that it’s ancient by our standards, and it’s too large to move, so we’ll have to take Celia to it.”

“It, being where?” Asher asked.

“The Third.”

Jack clapped Asher on the back.  “Ready for a field trip, kiddo?”

“
Woo-hoo,
” Asher replied flatly.

“Wait a second…  How are we going to get all of us to the Third?  We only have one key, remember?”

Wizard reached into his left sleeve and pulled out the key.  “I thought we might have the need, so I arranged for my contact to get me a spare.”  He reached into his other sleeve and produced a jump-watch, which he held up for Jack and Asher to see.

“This is the next-generation version of the key.  It’s more functional and easier to reprogram destinations on.  I believe you’ve both already seen one?”

“Yeah.  As I recall, pretty boy here and his girlfriend tried to blow me up with one,” Jack said.

Asher winced.  “Sorry about that.  Again.”

Jack shook his head as Wizard continued.  “Anyway, I can slave the old key to this and allow all four of us to jump together.”  

“Ain’t science neat?” Jack joked.  No one laughed.

“Wait a minute,” Asher said. 
“So, you’re telling me that the key I brought to the Third has to be programmed to change its destination?”

“Yes.  Otherwise, it’s essentially a one-way ticket.”

“Then someone deliberately wanted me to end up at the Overlap?”

“Yes.  They knew you wouldn’t be going anywhere else, and they knew that Desmond would be looking for any suspicious activity.  The only people from the Seventh who use those old DNA keys anymore are the suspicious type—criminals, rogue agents, and the like.”

Asher let the new information sink in.  Apparently, there was no end to how much he had been used.  

Jack nudged his shoulder.  “Don’t worry about it.  It’s not your fault
.
”
  H
e turned to Wizard. 
“So, how are we gonna do this?”

Wizard gave it a moment’s thought before replying. 
“Celia will need to be carried…”

“I got it,” Jack said.

“Actually, I think Asher should carry her,” Wizard said.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing, Jack.  It’s just that you are the only one among us with any sort of combat training, and I’m not entirely sure what we will run into.  It would be best to have your hands free.  And besides, Asher is a strong young man, aren’t you, son?”

Asher didn’t respond, he merely looked on.

“Great! That’s settled then.  I’ll just grab my guns and we’ll be off,” Jack said.  He headed down the hall to his apartment.

Wizard put the watch around his wrist and gave the other key to Asher.  “I’ve slaved the two keys together so you won’t have to activate it.  You can just put it in your pocket, that way you’ll have both arms free to carry Celia.”

Asher nodded as Jack returned.  Jack checked the power clips on both blasters before holstering them in a shoulder harness underneath his jacket.

“Shall we then, boys?” Wizard
asked
.

“I’m game,” Jack replied.  Jack stood next to Wizard as Asher went to Celia’s bed and picked her up in his arms.

“You don’t drop her, you understand?” Jack told him.

“Don’t worry about me,” Asher said, matching Jack’s tone. 

“Alright, old man
.
”  Jack grabbed Wizard’s forearm. 
“Hit the button.”

Wizard activated the jump-watch, and they walked through the door of Celia’s room, back into the Third Verse.

Chicago Hope

Frank Oberdeen was having his usual hectic day.  He woke up early, got the kids ready for school, kissed his
ex-therapist
, Jody, goodbye, and headed off to work.
 

Work sucked.  It always did. 

Frank worked for an insurance company, doing things that he hated doing for people he hated doing things for.

Lucky for Frank, he had put in his two weeks notice, two weeks ago.  Today was his last day.  He had finally had enough and decided it was time to be a writer.  After all, with Jody’s salary, and his working nights part-time at the hospital to pick up the slack, he would have plenty of time during the day to write that novel he’d had tumbling around in his brain since he was twenty.

The hours slowly ticked by, and more than once, Frank thought about just leaving and going home.  Truth be told, he didn’t really have anything else to do, so he just waited it out, playing
Tetris
on his computer and avoiding awkward conversation with any of his co-workers.

One of the office ladies brought in a cake, and over lunch hour they had a small going away party for Frank.

Frank, however, was having a huge fuck-you party in his head.  The cake was good, though, chocolate with fudge frosting.  Frank knew maybe four of the fifteen people who showed up to the party.  He hadn’t even known there were that many people working in the entire office.  Thankfully, Steve, Frank’s soon-to-be-ex-boss, was not in attendance.

After lunch, Frank decided to go out for some coffee.  There was a fancy coffee shop down the street, and it was a pleasant day.  He got a plain-jane cup of coffee and a copy of the
Chicago Tribune
and returned to his desk to sit out the rest of the day.

The
Tribune
had little of interest to say, so with three hours left, Frank was again playing games on his computer.

Five o’clock finally came.  Frank grabbed his briefcase and his coat and headed for the elevator.  His boss, Steve, stood in the hall blocking his way.