Thrusts of Justice (Chooseomatic Books), page 17
▶ If you split into two teams, click here for page 108.
▶ If you take a unified force and hit the poles one at a time, click here for page 282.
196
“No,” you say. And it takes all of your strength just to say it. “It has to be Dale.” As soon as you’ve made up your mind, the suit leaps off the floor, reconfiguring from suitcase to space armor in midair and wrapping itself around your friend. He gives you a quick salute and takes flight, bursting through his apartment’s front window in the process.
“Wow,” Melah says. “Listen, I’ve got to round up some other heroes to meet Nightwatchman and Maggie at the pole…” She trails off, suddenly realizing that you aren’t a part of this any more. “Hey, I’ll check back in when it’s over. Wish me luck, okay?” Then she’s gone. You putter around for a while, and eventually head home to make yourself some lunch. The world doesn’t end, so that’s good news at least.
It’s another week before you see either of them again — Dale did destroy the second tower, but then had the entire Cosmic Guard to battle, and a whole mess of garden-variety villains and heroes as well. The thing is, while stopping the invasion, he somehow managed to graft himself genetically to the battlesuit, merging with it to become a single organism.
There’s no getting it back from him now.
Melah goes on to take over for a retiring Nightwatchman, and Dale becomes the mightiest of Earth’s new generation of heroes — a malleable, amorphous blob inside a robotic exoskeleton that instantly reshapes itself to any form he stretches himself into.
And you go back to unemployment. You would have sacrificed your life to save the world, and in a way you did. That makes you the real hero, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it?
THE END
197
Half by instinct and half by blind panic, your entire body melts from bone and flesh to purple supergoo. Everything changes. It’s as if time slows down, and you find that you have complete control of every molecule in your squishy body. Your senses are amplified tenfold, even without proper eyes or ears, and your awareness is distributed equally in every molecule. You form yourself into a streamlined shell around the battlesuit — a living, purple skin over a half-alive mechanical one, over a very dead, charred organic lump — and watch in awe as you break into orbit and approach an enormous spacecraft, easily the size of downtown Cleveland. From giant hangar doors, two cylindrical structures are being prepared for launch by miscellaneously-shaped figures in Guardian armor. You realize that this equipment can have only one purpose: the terraforming of Earth is about to begin.
Somehow, you have to stop it. At the rear of the vessel you spot several mammoth exhaust vents big enough to house office buildings. If exhaust can get out, perhaps you can get in. If those vents lead to an engine room, maybe you could get to it and blow the entire craft to smithereens, stopping the invasion in one fell swoop.
As final acts of desperation go, it’s not a bad plan. You can’t help wondering, though, if you might be able to come up with something a little less, you know, suicidal.
▶ If you embrace the kamikaze thing and head for the exhaust ports, click here for page 82.
▶ If you go toward the hangar bays instead, hoping to formulate a plan that involves marginally less risk of personal explosion, click here for page 241.
198
Moretti ushers you into an elevator, taking you on a lengthy and incredibly dull tour of Crexidyne’s top-secret basement levels. You begin to suspect that he’s stalling for time. Fortunately, you’re doing the same thing — you just hope that diverting Moretti’s attention constitutes a big enough distraction to keep any heat off Nightwatch. After ten minutes, a message from her pops up on your display: GOT WHAT I NEED. MEET YOU BACK IN CLEVELAND.
Whew! The tour, however, just keeps going on and on. You eventually wind up in a big conference room with a huge flat-panel TV that covers one entire wall, and Moretti gets down to business. “I’ve been focused chiefly on one initiative during my time here at Crexidyne,” he says, clicking a tiny remote control. The screen flickers on to show schematics of what appears to be a satellite with a giant cannon attached to it.
“Well, two initiatives, really, but the other’s not important right now. This is something we like to call the orbital death laser,” he says, beaming. “Instant disintegration of any human being on the planet at the flick of a switch. Its only limitation is that we need to plant a tracking device in the target beforehand in order to aim it properly.
“You mean they need to plant a tracking device,” you say.
“Sure, whatever.”
Yeah, he’s definitely lying about the government mole business. “So what is it that you need from me?” you ask carefully.
“Nothing,” Moretti replies with a grin. “Just that you putter around with me for a bit while we plant the device in your glowy-eyed little friend.”
You tense up, balls of blue energy immediately forming in the palms of your hands. “Oh, it’s too late for all that,” Moretti says, pulling a small metal cylinder with a button from his jacket pocket. “One of my operatives is a member of your little superpowered fraternity, and he planted the tracker inside her cranium half an hour ago. Then he caught a ride to her rendezvous with that horrible newslady. She’s been a pain in Mr. Thorpe’s ass for decades, and our man is placing a second device in her brain as we speak. Not that it really matters — your friends are currently together in the same room, so if I push this button, they’ll both fry.”
You fire blasts from both gauntlets at Moretti, but the energy hits some kind of invisible shield two feet in front of him and dissipates. So you lunge at him, but you bounce right off the force field as well. “Please,” he says. “I have 300 aliens in suits like that doing manual labor on my roof. You don’t think we’ve worked out defenses already?” He flips open the safety on his trigger mechanism.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to give up the armor. All you need to do is make the decision to disengage, and the telepathic control system will break its bond with your consciousness and release itself from your control.” Now he’s gently rubbing the button with his thumb, his eyes a bit wild. “Do it now. And don’t bluff me on this, either. I’ll know if you’re lying.”
He means it. Also, you officially suck at diversions. “Okay, I’ll do it!” you say. “Just don’t kill them.”
▶ If you’re telling the truth, click here for page 287.
▶ If you’re just trying to buy a little time until you can figure something else out, click here for page 52.
200
Remember yesterday, when climbing a ladder to follow the Nightwatchman in Cleveland was almost too much physical exertion for one day? If you think the sedentary life of a newspaper reporter has done anything to prepare you for unarmed combat with a pair of supervillains, you’re sadly mistaken. You had hoped to use your superior cunning to outwit them, but Jekyll and Hyde only have orders to bring in Nancy. That makes you collateral damage, and Hyde gleefully rips your throat out with one clawed hand the moment you utter a single defiant peep.
In the meantime, Nancy knees her attacker in the groin and uses the inertia of his collapsing frame to throw him over her shoulder and back through the dimensional portal in one deft move. Wow — Nancy North is kind of a badass. If you’d known her at all, there would have been a third option just to back away from the villains and let her rescue herself. You were caught up in the whole damsel in distress thing, though. Don’t blame yourself — blame the persistent gender bias ubiquitous in traditional media.
It only takes Nancy a moment to incapacitate her second attacker, but you’re a pretty fast bleeder. She’s too late to save you.
THE END
201
“Oh, there was this costume party thing tonight,” you say. “I don’t usually dress like this. Also, that guy over there forgot his bike.”
“Of course he did,” Magnifico says. He looks like he’s about to pat you on the head, but takes a closer look at the texture of your outfit and has second thoughts. “Here, why don’t I sign you an autograph? Got a pen?”
You don’t, and to be honest you’d just as soon end what has turned into a fairly humiliating experience. “That’s all right,” you say. “I know you’re busy — you probably need to go help those Cosmic Guardians beat up Lightning Queen.”
He pauses. “Oh, you saw that, did you?”
“Yeah, two Guardians! Exciting stuff. Listen, though, I gotta go… .
“That’s unfortunate,” Magnifico says. Then he casually reaches out with both hands and squishes your head into mush. The head in question dissolves into purple goop, which, frankly, freaks him the hell out. So he keeps squishing and pounding until your entire body is paste. Then he surveys the various purple puddles of you and quickly gathers them up into individual containers. Then he takes those containers back to Squadron headquarters and evaporates each of them with his heat vision.
It turns out Magnifico is a pretty paranoid guy. And he didn’t become the world’s most famous superhero by doing stuff half-assed.
THE END
202
You haul ass back the way you came, rocketing through the corridors and out the front gate. It wasn’t your fault! And besides, how much do you even know about the Cosmic Guard? All you can say for sure is that right now they’re freaking you out.
For good reason, too. A blast of white-hot plasma glances off you, fusing some of the plates on your left arm together. They’re in pursuit! Get me to safety! you think. Evasive maneuvers aren’t really your strong point, but maybe your suit’s automated systems can do better? The ground beneath you turns to a brown and black blur, replaced by a blue and green one as you plunge into a deep body of water. You dive for a few moments, but then another plasma bolt hits you square in the back. Safer than that! you think.
With a pop everything goes white, and you feel nothing at all for several minutes. When your senses return, you find yourself floating above a vast, ringed planet that must be Saturn. For a moment you’re mesmerized by its beauty, but suddenly the other Guardians start popping out of hyperspace all around you, weapons blazing. Safer! you think. Just keep running! The white nothingness returns, and this time it doesn’t abate at all. You slowly drift into a deep slumber.
You sleep for a very, very, very long time.
* * * * *
Welcome back, a cheerful voice says inside your head. I’ve been waiting for this day. You know the muddled, groggy feeling you get when you’ve slept too much? You have that, like, times a hundred. You open your eyes and see nothing but the vast, star-speckled expanse of space. Where are you?
The Andromeda Galaxy, the voice answers. Two and a half million years from home at the speed of light. The invasion that conquered Earth was just one tendril of a much larger threat spreading throughout the Milky Way. This was the only way you’d be truly safe.
Two and a half million years. To put that in perspective, when you left Earth modern humans had only been on it for a tenth of that time. There’s no going back. Whatever happened back there happened without you.
If your battlesuit seems oddly chipper, you have to remember that it’s had a whole lot longer to mourn humanity than you have. It’s had ample time to plumb the depths of your consciousness and perfect your psychic bond as well. So what should we do now? it thinks, almost giddy. Chart out this new galaxy? Search for an inhabitable planet?
What indeed? You’re still trying to wrap your mind around this. Oh, and one other thing, the voice says. I’d like to introduce you to someone. This will take a little getting used to, but meet your most recent clone.
“ ’Sup,” says a shockingly familiar voice, this time through the speaker in your helmet.
The good news is, whatever you decide to do next, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you to do it. And at least you won’t be doing it alone.
THE END
204
Whatever is in that computer, it’s not worth losing your life over. “Let’s get out of here,” you say.
Magnifica grabs hold of you, and after another horrifying flight sets you down on top of a two story building in some chilly, rural town. “Where are we?” you ask.
“I dunno — somewhere in the middle of Manitoba, Canada,” she says. “It was the most remote craphole I could think of. Whatever’s going on, it’s a lot bigger than I thought. I gotta go check on some friends — will you be okay by yourself for a little while?”
“Sure,” you say. Hmm. They don’t speak French in Manitoba, do they? “I’ve got plenty of research I can do from here. I’ll be fine — there’s no way anyone could find me all the way out in the middle of nowhere, anyway.”
Actually, they can. And they do. Soon after Magnifica leaves, you’re trying to find a way down from your rooftop perch when a shadow falls over you. A flock of something is flying overhead that’s so dense it blocks out the sun. Is it a big-ass gang of Canada Geese? As the formation gets closer, you realize they’re much too large to be birds. There’s no way they could be aircraft, though — not flying that close together. Wait a minute. They couldn’t possibly be—
They all open fire on you simultaneously, whatever they are. Which is kind of overkill, since the very first blue energy bolt that strikes you is enough to wipe you off the face of the Earth.
THE END
205
Okay, killing Mrs. Pinkett isn’t an option. You try to interrupt her call, but she’s already reached an operator. She clearly has the Cleveland Police Department on speed dial. “I’d like to report that my neighbor has a giant robot suit. Yes, it’s Clara Pinkett. It is too an emergency!”
You go back inside, shut the door behind you, and try to tune out her breathless efforts to reach various network news channels. You decide that Mrs. Pinkett isn’t going to convince anyone of anything other than a questionable grip on sanity, and get back to your research. Before long, though, a new reference to the Cosmic Guardian pops up on some gossip blog. Sure enough, the post is about a woman in Cleveland who insists that her next-door-neighbor has been flying around in a suit that fits the description of the long-vanished hero.
It goes viral. Within minutes it’s all over the internet, and one site even publishes your address and apartment number. You’re staring in disbelief at a picture of yourself on the screen from your middle school yearbook when you hear another knock. Crap! You holler something about being right there and hurry to get out of your armor. It takes what feels like forever, but you finally get the suit stuffed into a closet and answer the door, half expecting to find a television news crew outside.
What you find instead are more than a hundred alien beings, decked out in full Cosmic Guardian armor, waiting patiently. You gasp. Before your mind can even process what you’re seeing, they each raise a hand (or, in several cases, a weird alien appendage) and burn you to a crisp with a blast of energy.
Good job keeping it secret, champ.
THE END
206
Tinker has Suong open up one portal to Earth and another to deep space — the vacuum pulls poison gas out into the void and sucks in clean air to replace it. The ship is so massive that it will take months to clear it with this method, but you’re able to seal off various sections and take it one chamber at a time. After that, a large collection of potted plants should keep the carbon dioxide-to-oxygen ratio steady.
Through the foggy portal to Earth, you find you have a different sort of vacuum to contend with. Most of the planet’s superpowered beings have been recruited by Crexidyne, but they seem to have had some sudden vacancies within their upper management, so various factions within the organization are struggling to assert control.
Meanwhile, an odd assortment of heroes and villains has come together under Nightwatchman to keep the peace, and what’s left of the Cosmic Guard is being led by the Earth’s Cosmic Guardian, theoretically to further the greater good, but in practice often to disastrous ends. Without strict orders from their alien overlords, it turns out those things are nuts. It all means that power structures have been upended, leaving room for someone with a little imagination, a group of willing minions, and an iron will to swoop in and take charge.
Wait ’til they get a load of you.
THE END
207
You switch on your equipment, activate your glider, and throw up your cloaking device for good measure — Moretti literally doesn’t know what hits him when you charge and break through his office window, dragging him out over the building’s ledge. You sail effortlessly over the New York City streets to your meeting place with Nancy. Touchdown is a bit rougher than you intended, but you try to play it off like landing on top of Moretti in a big tangle was your intention all along.
“That’s right,” he says as you shut down your gear and stumble to your feet. “They’ll be looking for you now. Turn your suit back on, just for one second. I dare you. You’ll be dead in a heartbeat.”
