Steelshock/Issue 1
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Contents |
Gripping 1st Issue... "Commencement!"
Part 1: The Malcontented
The old man sat in his high apartment and watched the hero depart. Meanwhile the machine was looking at him.
“Why did you lie to him?” it asked.
Painfully the old man turned on creaking hinges of bone and regarded the infant apparatus with bagged sad eyes, an old hound who had forgotten how to smell the prize. “You’re too young to understand,” he said.
“But I’m learning all the time, Doctor. You designed me to be bright. I think I can understand.”
Doctor Thaddeus Huygen sighed the deep sigh of years. “It’s a long story, and your mind works so much faster than mine. You could always hack Crey’s classified databases; do you have the patience for an old dog’s ramblings?”
The machine seemed to consider this for a moment. “Time has less impact on me,” it said at last. “I’m already free of this room and roaming the net, and I have so much time now. I know I could look up the official records, but there’s nothing like hearing you say it. I always like your stories.”
Huygen laughed painfully. Unlike his manifold creations, he did not have much time. The cancer was aggressive, mutated, beyond conventional medicine or gene therapy, beyond the mystic healers, beyond the help of even the salvaged Rikti technology he had once been privy to. And he had never told him.
Another lie.
Could one truth make up for a life of deceit? Or was it better to let the past die unknown and unremembered? If truth was the greatest weapon, could it not kill? Did he have the right to commit murder?
Not the murder of the flesh, no. The murder of the spirit.
For he now believed in spirits. One couldn’t live in Paragon City for long without that certainty finding a home in one’s very soul. Everyone had a spirit. Even sentient machines.
He now realized that he had done a monstrous thing. A thing so unbearably wicked that to undo it, nay to touch it at all, was itself a crime against a living being; an act of unmaking so malicious as to damn its perpetrator to eternal torment.
And yet. And yet, this lie that could not, must not be undone: this deception had birthed a champion. A force for good that children flocked to, that the public sang the praises of. A good person.
How ironic, how poignant, that the hero’s creator was a criminal. Oh yes. Never convicted, never sentenced, never even discovered. But a criminal nonetheless. A villain.
He realized the machine was still looking at him. “Sorry,” Huygen said. “Woolgathering.”
“But there are no fleece-bearing mammals in the vicinity,” the machine said.
Huygen’s chuckle felt like acid in his lungs. “Nevermind. You can look it up, I’m sure. “
Then he made his decision. Someone had to know. He couldn’t die with this… this thing… on his conscience. Perhaps it was selfish, but he was afraid to die like this. He wondered if, perhaps by this act of penance, maybe something… someone, perhaps… out there would forgive him.
“You wouldn’t have known him by sight,” he began. “His armor looked different back then…”
Part 2: Math, Mozart, and Moppets
The boardroom at Crey Industries was like a tomb: whitewashed and beautiful on the surface, but inside full of that which should never see the light of day.
How fitting that the decision about to be made here would lead to the resurrection of the dead.
“Well doctor,” the hatchet-faced executive said as he leaned, expectant and vulture-like, across the mahogany mirror. “It would seem we’ve entered the final phase.”
Huygen nodded. “The psychotronic chassis is awaiting imprint and the exo-frame is certified combat-ready.”
Another suit, this one occupied by a tall man with a face like a rodent, moved nervously. “How soon before it talks?”
Huygen consulted his company data pad, not bothering to meet the gaze of the second man. “Imprinting will be underway within the hour, a phenomenal achievement considering the exhaustive screening process.”
Then Huygen spared a glance at the hatchet-faced man. “I would like to officially recognize every member of my team for their efforts, Mr. Tynes.”
Hatchet face waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, yes, very good. How soon?”
“At least a week. Worst-case, two.”
“That long?” Tynes said, his face clouding over. “It’s just downloaded information, isn’t it? I thought computers were supposed to be fast.” This last sentence was delivered with all the honeyed condescension Tynes was famous for among his subordinates.
Huygen ground his teeth, remembering why he hated anything but pure research. “It’s not merely data burned onto a chip, sir. We are recreating a human memory matrix augmented with engineered skill sets and complex cyber interfaces. The hybrid mind must learn, like a child. And while this process will be augmented by time-dilation mechanics and superconductive core processors, you cannot cram a lifetime’s worth of memories and experience into a few minutes. At least not without significant cognitive dissonance. The margin for error is so very small!”
“Nevertheless,” the rat-faced man said, “we have stockholder expectations at stake here. If our clients don’t get what they want, our value decreases.”
“Agreed,” Tynes said. “You have five days, Doctor Huygen.”
Huygen’s face was ghastly. “Five days! You can’t be serious.”
“I’m perfectly serious.”
“But you can’t hurry something like this. The memory gaps will be staggering. He’ll question these gaps, he’ll want to know-“
“What it wants is immaterial,” Tynes said, emphasizing the impersonal article. “This is a product, nothing more. We want it to fight battles not kibitz at tea parties.”
“You don’t understand.” Huygen was spluttering now. “Null zones in the engrams will not be conducive to emotional intelligence! Feinberg’s paper proved-“
“Enough!” Tynes cut him off with a chopping motion of the hand. “We have a project plan that is non-negotiable. The demonstration will take place in five days. I suggest that if you and your team value your positions at Crey, you will see things our way.”
“But–“
“No buts. Make it happen, Doctor.”
“Cheer up,” said rat face with an insufferable chuckle. “Convince him that he has amnesia. That always works.”
In Lab Number Eight, an armored marvel lay inert. Headless. Dead.
And Doctor Huygen was staring at a brain floating in spinal fluid. A brain, yet so much more: closer inspection showed small pinpricks of light between the folds of the prosencephalon while fiber optic bundles and neural net processors formed the artificial dendrites and axons of the synthetic cerebellum.
His creation, the psychotronic chassis, for now an unformed mind floating in senselessness. He could almost feel its hunger for experience.
“Doctor?” a voice said from behind him. He turned to see the lovely face of Constance Oettinger, one of several brilliant grad students who had managed to serve as interns on this momentous project. “I know,” Huygen said with a sigh. “Begin assimilation.”
As Constance moved to join the remaining five members of the team, each busy over various workstations or tending the unmoving headless exo-frame on the table, Huygen ran over the calculations once more in his mind. Five days was not enough. It would take a miracle for the neural net merely to adapt to the data flow at those speeds to say nothing of actually building the mental construct. And even then, the resulting being might well be clinically insane.
A monster.
He turned from the artificial brain and faced his team. They were good people; he had hand-picked each of them, all experts in their chosen fields. But one thing he had never told his superiors was the other reason he had chosen this group of scientists, one that perhaps would have angered the ruthless and corrupt executives.
Each one had a conscience. Yes, a rarity in these days of unfettered research; but thankfully such people did still exist in the scientific community. And Huygen was determined that they would infuse this character trait into his creation.
But how? Tynes had cut their timeline far too short, and his decrees were to be considered the direct wishes of the Countess Crey herself. Oh he had explained to them over and over again the nature of the delicacy of his work, of his desire to produce something good in the world; but it had all been in vain. The ears of power had been stopped utterly. Perhaps, he shuddered to consider, they wanted a monster. Yes, that was it. He had been deliberately sabotaged! Not for the first time he wondered who this “client” of Crey’s was. A belligerent foreign power? Arachnos?
He began to tremble, a mind-numbing fright threatening to consume him. No, it was unthinkable. To even imagine his creation… his child… in the hands of a fiend like Lord Recluse was hideous beyond description. He would destroy everything in this lab if he had to in order to prevent that abominable possibility.
But how could it be otherwise? There was no time.
Unless…
“Nombudri,” he called to a young man at monitoring station one, “bring up the files on the ST factor and transfer them to my data pad."
“Yes doctor. Do you want the attachments as well?”
“Yes, all of it. And hurry.”
The noises of his team disturbed him but little as he read. It was beautiful. Poetic. And most of all, it could work!
He had wanted a miracle.
“Doctor Huygen?” It was Constance’s voice again. “Are you all right?”
“Hm?” The doctor looked up hurriedly and felt his face flush. “Oh, I apologize; I was absorbed in this. What is it, my dear?”
“Sorry, but I called you a couple of times and you didn’t respond. Is everything okay? You look nervous.”
Huygen looked down and saw his hands were trembling. But there was no need to keep his assistant in the dark. “It’s Lucas, Constance.”
“Pardon?”
“Lucas’ pioneering essay on cyber-psyche development, only just published a month ago. I’ve been reading it. And I think I’ve made the connection at last.”
“I’m sorry, I haven’t been keeping up on my journals. Has it got something to do with the Steelshock prototype?”
Huygen got to his feet hurriedly and handed his pad to Constance. “Here, peruse page fourteen’s formulas and follow me, quickly!”
“Lucas,” Huygen was saying, “was largely ridiculed by most computationally oriented roboticists. But, strangely, his work caused quite a stir amongst psychologists and those fascinated with parapsychology.”
“I beg your pardon?” Constance said, raising a blonde eyebrow. “Parapsychology? I fail to see how palmists and crank mystics have anything to do with advanced AI.”
“Exactly. No one did. Not until us! Look.”
Huygen tapped a few keys on the monitoring station connected to the tank in which floated the psychotronic chassis. “Look at the graph monitoring the combat simulation.”
“Okay.”
“Now, watch what happens went I insert the primary attachment to Lucas’ paper.” A few more key presses and the graph began to change. Radically change.
“That… that’s impossible!” Constance exclaimed. “An almost eight hundred percent jump in combat effectiveness. There must be an error in the parameters.”
“That’s not all,” Huygen said excitedly. “Look at the graph for the social simulation.” He brought up the next screen.
“I don’t understand,” Constance said in a voice that was almost a whisper. “How is this feasible?”
“Lucas’ premise was a corollary to Feinberg’s work. This formula is the mathematical equivalent of a special EEG wave he called the Tyler wave, in honor of his colleague who performed groundbreaking research in emotional state analysis. The overall concept he named the ST or Semi-Transcendence factor.”
Constance’s face was uncomprehending. “Well, don’t you see?” Huygen said, excitedly stabbing his finger at the graph. “This is the wave that has been monitored in human brains when the subject is conscious of the overriding and surpassing moral uprightness of any action or decision. Aesthetics, faith, compassion, art, self-forgetfulness; all these things have a uniquely stabilizing effect on an organic brain, and the psychotronic matrix mimics this organic model while facilitating more efficient interfaces with high-speed data streams such as exist in the robotic network of our prototype.
“Nietzsche said that if you can understand a why, you can endure many a what. But his philosophy forbade him from answering the ‘why’ questions in any but the most banal terms; but I believe that with the proper reinforcement, the ST factor can succeed where he failed!”
“So the gaps in the engrams…”
“Have now become secondary; now the prototype will have a solid foundation, one that overrides the lack of experiential data with higher functions that define his identity. Crey wanted us to fail, that’s clear now. Or at least what they wanted was a mechanical psychopath, reasoning that a being devoid of a conscience would create a better killer. It would suit the other things they’ve let loose on the world.
“You know, Constance, for the longest time, I tried to ignore the corruption while surrounding myself with people like you: people with a moral center. But all the while I feared that there was no escape, that the dark would claim our work for all time and damn the world into its own self-made nightmare. But now, we have a chance to perfect the dream regardless of their sabotage.”
Constance took a step back from the screen. “I can hardly believe it. But if your suspicions are correct, what if Tynes or the Countess find out?”
Huygen hesitated and grunted while chewing his upper lip for a moment or two, raising his finger as his way of announcing a breakthrough. “I have an idea about that; a small subroutine that I was writing in my head for a few days for an somewhat related issue but that can be adapted to the present crisis. But don’t worry about that now. For the moment we have considerable work to do.”
Part 3: Child Labor
As if from a dream of white and blue, he awoke. Mozart was playing. He liked Mozart.
“What… where…?”
“Easy,” came a voice which was quickly followed by several faces looking at him. Looking down from above. That was odd.
“Easy,” repeated the voice, which he now saw was attached to the face of an old man in a lab coat. “Don’t exert yourself yet. And don’t worry: you’re fine. You’re in my lab. Can you remember your name?
“Steelshock. Funny name, but that’s what I remember.”
“Well that’s good, my boy, because it’s correct.” The old man smiled in a grandfatherly way. “Your name is indeed Steelshock, and you are a superhero living in Paragon City, Rhode Island.”
He thought for a moment. The dream was still there. He saw… something. “A superhero? No, that can’t be right. I live in Paragon, sure, but I’m just a cop. Just ask Caroline.”
“Caroline?” Another face said, a young woman’s this time.
“Yeah, sure. My wife. Is she okay? We were just talking, and–"
Then it came back to him. “Oh no. Oh please, God, no…”
The old man looked stricken. Was that guilt in his expression? “I’m so sorry, son,” he said. “So dreadfully sorry.”
“No. No, it wasn’t your fault Doc. Some punk, a hellion blood brother I think. He jumped us while we were out for a stroll. Probably mad because I busted his pals for possession of illegal occult artifacts. Course it wasn’t me really, it was Statesman. I was just first responder. But I guess the creep wanted an easier target. Of all the things to remember…
“Look, doc… at least I think you’re a doctor… can I get up now? I need to get back to my job.”
The faces looked at one another, some with tense expectancy, others with anxious glances. But at last the old man spoke again. “I don’t see why not. You seem fit enough from what we’re able to tell.”
“It’s funny,” he said as he easily sat upright, “but I feel good. Great even. I don’t know what you did, Doc, but it worked in spades.”
Then he saw his reflection in the mirror surface of the lab floor.
Huygen watched the sleek cyborg as it… he… stared at himself. What would happen now? Would the dissonance set his mind into a lethal feedback loop? Would he fly into a mad rage at the near-Lovecraftian revelation that he now confronted?
Huygen held the killswitch. If it came to that, he was ready.
Steelshock’s armored hands slowly came to his gold-sheened faceplate, as if in supplication. Meanwhile Huygen would try something to help his creation in the right mental direction. If the ST factor was right, his next few words would be critical.
“Well,” Huygen said. “I hope the job we’ve done meets with your approval. After all, your fan base will need a striking uniform to admire, don’t you think?”
“Fans?” the cyborg said as if in a dream.
As the rest of his staff stood stock still, not wanting to alarm Steelshock and upset the cognitive reinforcement process, Huygen continued, “Naturally, son. Fantastic abilities should be met with equally fantastic wardrobe. Of course, I can’t take credit for all of it. My team consulted the finest of Paragon’s tailors for a unique look all your own.”
“I’m… I’m not sure I can take all this in at once, Doc,” Steelshock said, his speech synthesizers giving him a remarkable approach to a human voice, one that sounded as if it actually came from a mouth rather than a speaker. “What’s left?”
“I beg your pardon?” Huygen said, a trifle nervous.
“Of me. It’s like I know a lot about this body already, and I know I’m a machine now. Is there anything left of me?”
“Enough to matter,” said the doctor. “I don’t create soulless things, son.” Now comes the real test, Huygen thought. “There’s someone here who heard about you and wanted to see you.”
“What?” the cyborg said. “Who knows I’m here?”
Huygen nodded to Constance. “Constance, be a dear and bring in Cassie, would you? I’m sure she’s waited long enough.”
Constance left, but immediately returned. Holding her hand was a little girl, not more than seven years of age, wearing the uniform of some private school Steelshock did not recognize. In the child’s other hand was a small notebook and a pencil.
“This is Cassie, my granddaughter,” the old man said. “You may not know it, but she’s your biggest fan.”
The girl was obviously shy and half hid her face behind the woman’s arm. “Now Cassie,” the old man said again, “say hello. You wanted to see him, did you not?”
Steelshock looked at the girl and cocked his head. Though he didn’t really know why, he was moved at the sight. He and Caroline had tried to have children so many times. She would have liked this little tyke.
“Hi Cassie,” he said, hunkering down in front of the girl. “It’s okay, you don’t need to be scared.”
Slowly Cassie brought out the notebook. The pencil dropped to the ground, and the cyborg retrieved it. “Oops,” the girl said in a small voice. “Um, can I… have your autograph, mister Steelshock?”
Her child’s palette stumbled over the last words and Steelshock found his chest shaking with quiet laughter, though how he could do that without lungs was a puzzle. “I’d be honored,” he said and scribbled out his name along with the words, “To my biggest fan, Cassie.”
The girl smiled and hid her face again.
“All right Cassie, what do we say?” the woman said.
“Thank you,” Cassie said, and with that Constance led her out.
Steelshock stood, watched Cassie leave, and realized that he felt better than ever.
Part 4: Pinocchio
Four days later, Huygen was watching the closed circuit surveillance feed as Steelshock practiced using his “blast matrix” weapon systems on the targets in the lab’s automated combat range. The cyborg was attacking his opponents with gusto.
“Eat shockbolts, creep,” Steelshock said and laughed as his EM bursts blew another target drone to pieces. “Who taught you to shoot? Don’t give up your day job, R2D2!”
He was actually cracking wise. Astonishing.
“He’s amazing, Doctor,” Constance’s voice said from her vantage point behind him. “You’ve done it, you’ve really done it.”
Huygen found he was laughing in spite of himself. “You sound like you might be his next fan, my dear.”
A pause. Then, “Cassie was very good as well, don’t you think?”
Huygen felt his face fall a little and his gaze drifted to the little alcove where Cassie lived. Or rather the CAS unit prototype. The Childform Automatic Simulation had been his greatest creation up till now. But she… no, it… had no soul. It was just a thing, albeit a convincing one.
No soul. He had lied to Steelshock three times now. Once about his past, once about his nature, then about the girl. He did create soulless things after all. But it had been necessary. So vitally essential.
How many more lies would be “essential” before this was over?
“Doctor?”
Huygen started. Woolgathering again. “Yes. Yes of course, Constance, she was very good. Indeed Steelshock has surpassed his programming and his directives already. I think phase three may be implemented ahead of schedule."
“Is that right, Doctor? I wasn’t aware there was a phase three.”
Huygen started and got to his feet immediately at the sound of the new voice. “Countess,” he stammered. “This is an unexpected honor!”
The bespectacled woman in tight fitting clothes cocked one elegant eyebrow, and Huygen saw that she was accompanied by Tynes and rat face, both of whom were smiling like iguanas.
“An oxymoron in my company, Doctor,” she was saying. “You should read your email more often. Either that or my secretary will have to find other employment.”
How had all three entered his lab without him or Constance hearing them? Huygen found he was sweating. There were rumors about this woman. Her husband’s illness, the hostile takeovers. The tittle-tattle of secret meetings in the Rogue Isles.
How much did she know?
“My time is more valuable than you are, my good doctor,” the countess was saying. “I have many projects and I can’t be bothered with details, so I have only one thing I want to know from you: scrap or develop?”
“I… I beg your pardon?”
“A simple question, I would think,” she said, looking not at him but at the energetic cyborg’s image as he continued to fight with growing enthusiasm, the room’s computer beginning to provide him with simulated innocents to protect.
“Well, obviously it must not be destroyed,” Huygen said. “It’s far too important.”
“Crey crisis suits, juggernauts, and eliminators are important,” the Countess said with the tone of a teacher correcting a pupil. “Proven technologies that make Crey profitable and protect our interests. The same cannot be said of a testbed. Potential there may be, but only that. So my question stands as given.”
“Then the answer is to develop it, Countess. This a breakthrough in synthetic intelligence. The techniques used are–“
“Yes, I thought you would say that. An emotional attachment to one’s work is to be expected, but unfortunately it is subject to the requirements of our contract. We do have a client demonstration tomorrow, but luckily the machine appears to be ready for it.
“Very well, as you seem incapable of providing an objective response, I will personally take over this portion of the project. Bring it in here now.”
“Pardon, Countess?”
“I am a patient woman, so I will ignore both your insubordination and encroaching deafness,” Countess Crey said with a contemptuous sniff. “Tynes, see to it that the device is brought in here instantly. If I like what I see, the client will also. If not, I will personally dismantle it here and now.”
“Steelshock, do you read me?”
The cyborg paused the simulation with a mental command to the room’s computers. “Subvocalization’s coming in loud and clear, Doc,” he said. “But didn’t we already test that?”
“There’s no time. Listen carefully. Do you know Countess Crey?”
“I know her reputation. Why?”
“She’s coming for you. Do you understand? She has a kill switch. Quick, before she decides to become petulant. Please activate subroutine three-niner x-ray.
“Begin Phase Three.”
Another mental command, this time to the wondrous supercomputer embedded inside him. “Done. But I don’t feel any different. What was that for?”
“A gift. Don’t ask right now, there’s no time. Her man is en route to–“
“Come on, tin can,” the hatchet-faced exec said as he poked his annoying head through the hatch. “You’ve got a visitor.”
Steelshock stood in front of the Countess with arms folded. His gleaming armored head followed her every action, his targeting systems anticipating her movements as the heiress to the Crey fortune began to circle him like a hungry tigress. He couldn’t help but notice Constance and Doctor Huygen standing demurely in the background, looks of fright on their faces.
He decided he didn’t like Countess Crey very much. Not at all, in fact.
“Impressive structure,” admitted Crey. “I’m tempted to use some of these designs in our next-gen tank line. Not that I can say the same of its color scheme. A bit tacky. But enough surface examinations. I have a better test as to its viability.
“Unit Steelshock,” she said in a commanding tone. “Do you know why you are here?”
The cyborg thought for a moment. “To see you,” he said, gazing directly at her.
“Interesting response,” the Countess purred. “And what are your impressions?”
Steelshock didn’t miss a beat. “Nice legs, brilliant mind, rotten personality. Am I warm?” He heard a sharp hiss of indrawn breath and saw that the doc’s face had gone white.
The Countess’s lovely mouth turned down. “I wasn’t aware you installed social software in its cortex unit doctor,” she said. “It actually lacks manners.”
“I apologize profusely, Countess,” he said. “But as I was about to say a few minutes ago, his psychotronic chassis is a revolution in–“
The countess held up one gloved hand to silence him, all the while never allowing her gaze to break with the cyborg’s. “You believe yourself to be special, yes?”
“As special as the next man,” he said.
Countess Crey moved her face so close that Steelshock felt the heat of her breath and smelled her expensive perfume. “Well, allow me to reeducate you. You are no different than the three hundred and twenty seven other projects currently underway at my company’s laboratory facilities worldwide. You belong to me, do you understand?”
She held up a small device with a red button plainly visible as its sole decoration. “At any point, I can terminate your existence. I hold your life, such as it is, in my hands. I am your goddess, for I hold the keys of life and death. Thousands rightly stand in awe of me.
“You, meanwhile, are only a characterless mockery, a puppet wanting to be real, as much a person as that chair over there. Unless I choose to give it to you, your existence has no more meaning than a rock.”
Then her voice fell to a whisper so quiet that Steelshock knew that only the two of them could hear it. “Few have dared to stand against me and all who have tried live in eternal regret or lie moldering in the grave. What do you have to say to that?”
Steelshock, Paragon’s newest superhero, leaned close to his tormentor. So close that she actually drew back a few inches. “I have something unprintable,” he said. “Care to hear it?”
The Countess’ face distorted with rage, but she quickly regained her composure. "I congratulate you, Doctor Huygen," she said, backing away from Steelshock while raising the box she held to chest height. "A most stunning achievement indeed. So stunning that I cannot allow such an abomination to live.
“Goodbye, Pinnochio,” she husked.
The click of the killswitch sounded like a gunshot.
Part 5: Breakout
The Countess had only a split second to display her confusion before the blast from Steelshock's gauntlets blew a hole in the lab wall the size of a Buick. Debris scattered in a choking cloud and Countess Crey shrieked in rage and surprise.
"Doc, Constance, everybody," Steelshock shouted, his voice auto-amplifying above the din. "Get out now. I'm right behind you."
The scientists all wore stunned expressions, but they obeyed. Meanwhile alarm claxons were blaring and Steelshock's hypersensitive audio pickups were detecting the shouts of the security guards as they hastily mobilized.
"Destroy that scrap pile!" screamed the Countess into a communicator affixed to one wrist. Her suit and hair were besprinkled with plaster dust. "Don't let him escape, you fools!"
The cyborg ignored her, trotting to keep pace with the scientists, none of whom were as fast as he was. "Come on doc," he said in as encouraging a tone as he could manage. "This way. Don't worry, I'll protect you all."
"I know you will," Huygen said as he ran for his life.
"Look out!" someone cried. A riot guard had appeared up ahead, submachine gun leveled at the escapees, a wicked grin of malice on his face.
"Get behind me," Steelshock said, bracing himself for the kinetic backwash of his blast matrix. He raised his gauntlets and sent a silent, almost instinctual command to his cyber-systems.
The terrific volley catapulted the guard into the air and slammed him against a far wall where he collapsed with a groan. But more guards were coming down the hall; he could hear them as clearly as if they were standing next to him.
"They went this way," one of them said.
"Where's hall surveillance?" another yelled.
Steelshock felt the weight of the web grenade as it popped out from the modular combat system dispenser at his waist. When the first guard turned the corner his mouth dropped open just as the sticky clinging cords exploded around him, pinning him in place.
"Now's our chance," Steelshock said. "All of you, down that passage to the left. Go, go, go!"
As the hero and his charges ran down the new hall, the Countess' voice came over the hall PA. "Attention all personnel: this is the Countess Crey. Prototype Steelshock has escaped from laboratory eight. Class is energy blaster, threat level maximum. It is accompanied by seven traitor scientists. Use of deadly force is authorized. Destroy all of them at all costs."
"Well, that didn't sound good," Steelshock said as he ran beside the scientists. Around them, emergency lights flickered like red hellfire.
"I... I don't think I can go on," Huygen said between gasps and stumbles. "I'm too old for this, my boy. You'd better... better leave me here. Save yourself."
It was then that Steelshock lifted his creator bodily, held him in his arms and actually chuckled. "Not a chance, Doc. I'm the hero here, so you're not allowed to do my job."
Huygen didn't argue as they continued to run and the sounds of pursuit grew ever louder all around them.
"All unit, all units, be advised," came the voice of the dispatcher. "Ten twenty-five in progress one zero two two Lincoln. Special Assistance requested."
"Hear that?" the red-headed woman said.
"Not a problem," replied her companion. "I'm all over it."
The shock bolts sent another pair of guards sprawling unconscious as Steelshock herded the scientists to a wall with some warning labels on it.
"Are you sure this will work?" said one of the frightened staff.
"Only one way to find out," Steelshock said, motioning with his hands. "Now back up, everyone, and shield your eyes."
It has to work, he thought.
Willing his targeting computer to detect each magnetic anomaly, he scanned for what he hoped would be there. Huygen's map that had become active in his mind when the survival subroutine had activated now overlayed his vision on top of the target statistics.
There. A clear shot. He let fly a volley of energy and the auxiliary coolant lines embedded in the wet wall burst explosively as the molecules of the liquid excited to a plasma state. The explosion sent the wall flying outward in flaming fragments, revealing the daylight of Paragon City beyond. He never thought city air would smell so good.
Police cars and fire trucks were gathered as well as a number of heroes who had come to lend assistance, some flying or hovering about, others already trying to clamber over the debris he had just created.
"This way," Steelshock said to Huygens and his companions. "They'll take care of you."
"Halt!"
Steelshock turned to face the source of the haughty voice. Countess Crey stood with half a dozen men in Protector armor, guns leveled at him. "We must stop meeting like this, Countess" he said. "What will our parents think?"
"You've uttered your last quip, you misbegotten bolt bucket," the Countess said in a low voice. "I'll hang your head on my wall as warning to all who defy me.”
This was it. Steelshock leveled his gauntlets and prepared to fight to the last. "It's been fun, doc," he said. "Thanks for everything."
"Please, Countess, be reasonable," Huygen managed to say amidst his short breaths. "He's a living being. You can't just extinguish him, not when he's just begun!"
Crey sneered. "Guards, shoot the doctor first."
Then suddenly one of the minions screamed in pain. "No, no!" he said. "Get her out, get her out!"
"What's the matter with...," was all the Countess got a chance to say. A streak of motion and energy was amid them all and in a flash, all the guards' guns were gone. "Sorry to crash such a fun party," a voice said. "But I just couldn't miss out on seeing your face again, Countess."
Crey turned to the grinning red and blue costumed figure. "I should have known. This isn't your affair, Synapse. The Freedom Phalanx has no jurisdiction here. This is private property."
"Not this time," came another voice, and Steelshock and the scientists turned to see the lithe figure of Sister Psyche float into view, a nimbus of psychic energy broiling around her. "I saw in the guard's mind what you planned to do, and Synapse and I can't allow it. Sentient beings are not property, Countess. Not in the United States and certainly not in Paragon City!"
Synapse gave a thumbs-up to Steelshock. "Nice outfit, pal," he said and grinned again.
"Thanks, friend," the cyborg replied. "I owe both of you big time."
"You haven't heard the last of this, Steelshock," Crey said with a snarl. "We'll meet again. Very soon, I promise you."
"Is she always like this?" Steelshock asked the superheroes.
"She's always cranky before a court date," Synapse said.
"And there will be a hearing on this," Sister Psyche said. "Meanwhile, you're free Steelshock. Go and get your friends to safety. We'll make sure the Countess behaves."
“Oh and Steelshock?”
The cyborg turned to Synapse who was grinning from ear to ear.
“Welcome to Paragon, buddy. You‘re in for one heckuva ride.”
Part 6: Sunset, Sunrise
Steelshock, now more experienced and resplendent in white and blue armor of his own design, hovered outside the Atlas Park apartment. “Glad you’re all right, Doc,” he said. “After these past few weeks, I was worried that I hadn’t heard from you.”
Huygen, dressed in a dark suit that hung on his thin frame like a small tent, smiled warmly. “Don’t forget the rest of the old staff, my boy. They’re anxious to see you too. The papers are full of your exploits. Nestled in amongst all those other hero stories of course.”
“Yeah, I’m just a dime a dozen.”
Huygen wagged a bony finger but his face was jovial. “Now, now. Don’t minimize yourself. Remember, there may be many heroes, but there’s only one you. And you can be sure the Countess is reading your tales as well.”
“Think she’s still mad?”
Huygen chuckled and shook his head. “She’s always been mad, son. Now she’s also angry. She reminds me of a certain horrible little Austrian I knew when I was young, a man with similar dreams who also needed heroes to stand against him.
“And I have every reason to believe her kind holds grudges all the way to the grave. I’m afraid you’ll never be totally rid of that demoness, so be wary still.”
“Not a problem, Doc,” Steelshock said. “Well, I’ve got a mission over in King’s Row, but I just had to stop by first. The Circle of Thorns can wait a few more minutes to get their skulls cracked.”
“Thank you,” the former scientist said, “for indulging an old man. You know, you are the closest thing I had to a son of my own, Steelshock. I’ve watched you come into your own, and I have nothing but pride in you.”
“The fourth commandment, Doc.”
Huygen smiled wanly. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“I only wish Caroline were alive to share it with me.” For a moment, the cyborg’s head turned down to stare at the ground far below, his voice melancholy and distant.
The doctor rubbed a furrowed brow and colored a little before saying, “Well if she were here, I’m sure she’s be as proud of you as I am. I know it with as much certainty as I see you now.”
Steelshock looked to him again and seemed to gain strength from the praise. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Well, I’ll catch you later, doc. I’ve got sorcerers to jail.”
And with a hiss of thrust exhaust, he was off like shot into the blue sky over Paragon City.
“So that’s it,” Huygen said to the machine. “Now you know as much as I do about the matter.”
The device hesitated and Huygen suspected it had just spent half a lifetime trying to process the unknowable. “You were right, Doctor, I don’t understand it. His life is a lie; he was never a police officer, was never married, was never even human. The memories, the past, all are not his own. They belong to someone long dead. Why did you do it?”
“I had to,” Huygen replied. “If I hadn’t provided him with a history, a point of reference, someone else would have. The Countess would gladly have made a tyrant of him, a monster the likes of which would rival the evil that once plagued my own homeland long ago. Neither I nor anyone else had the right to create such a beast.”
“That’s not really what I meant,” the machine said. “Why do it at all? Why bring into being a life based on lies? Why give birth to a walking falsehood? You always taught me to tell the truth. I can’t seem to compute the corollary between your ideal and your practices.”
“Then you’re even closer to becoming a sentient being than you might realize.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that humanity has been asking similar questions from the beginning of history. Yet, consider this. If someone demanded that you hand over an innocent loved one so that this loved one could be tortured and executed and you knew where to find this person, which would be right: to tell the truth or to lie, thus concealing the location of your beloved?”
Again the machine seemed to hesitate. “I think I see now. But Steelshock’s life was never in danger until you built him and imprinted his mind.”
Huygen sighed and seemed to shrink even further as he sank deep into the soft couch he sat on. “A tautology if there ever was one. But I know. Oh, how I know it. I stood on the shoulders of geniuses and used their work to do a horrid thing. May God forgive me.
“I was… lonely. My family are long dead and I never married. I did so want a son. And now, thanks to some more research and some careful palming of old Crey data, I have a son and a daughter as well, both of whom I am bursting with pride over. I’m happy, blessed beyond words, even though my life will not be long. Countess Crey has seen to that.
“But despite her petty revenge against me, events have been set in motion that not even she can stop. In the end, she has lost. And we have won. Paragon City has two more champions, and I will soon pay for my crimes. In the end, all will be in balance. And I take comfort in that legacy.”
“I’m happy too,” the machine said. “I register great pleasure when you call me daughter.”
“I know. Well, I have a session of curling tomorrow with Doctor Prescott at the auditorium. I’d better get some sleep if I’m to be at the top of my game.”
The machine once more hesitated. It was another lie; the doctor’s vital signs were plainly showing he was dying. He would not live to see the dawn, but he had made a valiant attempt to maintain an air of normality. Yes, the machine thought. Now it was understandable. Perhaps this was to save yet another life, in a way. So the solution was to play along.
“I will waken you at seven AM sharp. Good night… father.”
Doctor Thaddeus Huygen smiled. “Good night, Cassie.”
