CHAPTER 5: Doc Sawyer vs. The Metal Menace from Mars

Kevin awoke ten hours later. He didn't feel any better. He pushed himself out of bed, careful not to jar his body too much. He took a long, hot shower and hoped the scalding water would help ease the pain in his muscles. At least he didn't hurt all over anymore. After drying off, he put on a flannel robe and flip-flops. He looked prepared to do absolutely nothing all day. His brain, and every other bodily system, was craving caffeine.

He went downstairs to the kitchen to make a steaming pot of delicious-in-a-cup. Vivian was already there.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," Kevin said upon seeing her perched on a stool. "The neighbors will start to think you're my housekeeper."

"You can't afford me," she said.

She handed him a coffee mug. It was sky blue with the phrase "E=mcHAMMER" painted on it with red letters. Kevin poured himself a cup and added gobs and gobs of cream and sugar.

After taking a long, delightful sip he sighed blissfully and said: "God bless you, you sweet English nanny."

"And for my next miracle..." Vivian pushed a plate towards him. Scrambled eggs, a grapefruit half and two strips of lean bacon.

In less than two minutes the plate was clean.

"You look a little better," she said.

"Yea. It only hurts when I move, now," he said. "But don't fret. I'll be ready to take on Rampage Jackson as soon as the sugar and caffeine hit the bloodstream." He poured himself a second cup of coffee and added even more milk and sugar than before.

"So," he said, "I suppose you'll want to hear the rest of my little adventure."

"You may have piqued my curiosity," Vivian replied.

Kevin insisted they move back into the living room. This time, he took the recliner and Vivian took a corner of the couch.

"Where was I?"

"The love scene," she said.

"Uhh...yea. That."

"There's no use in getting embarrassed, Kevin," Vivian said. "I lived through the 60's, you know."

"Right. Anyway, the next morning things went totally crazy. Again."


Violet was gone when I woke up. I was kind of grateful for that. It let me skip past the awkward "morning after" stage and get right to work. As I dressed, I made a mental list of what needed to be done. Getting the teleportation device working was obviously priority number one because with it, I could go anywhere in the system instantly without having to trek through the different game realities. As soon as that was done, I'd have to go get Dot and bring her back here so we could go to the Principal Office together and activate the system restore. Before I did any of that, though, I'd need to recon the Principal Office and see how to get to the core room. According to Welman, the teleporter in his lab was a hit-or-miss machine without a fixed landing site. Someone would have to actually 'port into the building, search for the core room and tag it with a radioactive marker.

I already had some ideas about how to fix the machine that I wanted to run by Welman, but I needed to eat before my stomach tore itself to pieces. I went out into the hallway and found the kitchen. I made a few PB&Js and took the elevator upstairs to Welman's lab. I saw no sign of Mouse or the others until I heard a crash somewhere toward the back. I ran in the direction of the commotion and ducked as Ray came flying overhead and crashed into the wall behind me. He was smoldering, and his silver skin was scorched.

"Better run, mate," he said, getting up. "She's on fire."

"Mercuryyyy!"

I turned and saw Mouse come flying through a semicircular passage. She sounded angry, and she was literally on fire. Every inch of her body was covered in orange flame, flowing over her body like a fluid.

I turned back to Ray. "What did you do?"

"It was just a joke," he said.

"How's this for a punch line?" Mouse said. She drew her arm back like she was going to throw a baseball. What came out of her hand was a superheated ball of plasma that streaked right by my face and narrowly missed Ray.

His board swooped down and he hopped on it, keeping me in between him and Mouse. They were circling each other while I kept spinning around, my sandwich still in my hand, trying to keep track of them.

"Hell hath no fury, eh?" he said tauntingly.

"You should probably stop antagonizing her," I said.

"It's not my fault the minx doesn't have a sense of humor."

"Oh, I got it," Mouse said. "Invisible suit. That was a good one. Only he neglected to mention the person wearing it doesn't turn invisible with it!"

"Oh," I said, "so it just..."

"Vanished! And good 'ole Martin here got a nice little gander of everything underneath."

"Yikes. And the pyrokinesis?"

"The superpower suit does more than just turn invisible," said Enzo. He suddenly appeared through the same corridor Mouse had come. "I'm sorry about Martin's practical joke, miss. This isn't the first time he's exploited the glitch in the invisibility cloak for his own amusement. And as much as I'd love to see the karma kicked out of him, I'm afraid I can't risk you destroying my father's lab in the process." He tapped a touch key on his armband, and the flames disappeared.

Mouse, no longer supported by the electromagnetic field from the plasma, landed on her feet like a cat. The superpower suit was a slate gray jumpsuit with a series of chords and flashing electrodes woven into it. It looked about as safe as an electric chair.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd put that suit back where you found it," Enzo said. "Don't worry about Martin. I'll deal with him."

"Don't bother," Mouse said, turning back toward the tunnel. "I'll get him next time."

Once she was gone, Enzo sighed. "You're worse than a teenager," he said to Ray.

"She's not the first woman to spit fire at me," Ray said.

"Right. She only has to be the last. Honestly, Martin, you need to learn when 'no' really means 'no'. Contrary to popular belief, you are not the center of the universe. Now promise me you'll keep your hands to yourself, at least until we straighten this mess out. Dad thinks the whole world might be in danger, and I need you to focus."

Ray hung his head and nodded. "Fine. You win this time, Captain Killjoy."

"Thank you," Enzo said. "Now, the sensors picked up an atmospheric disturbance moving toward the city. We're not sure if its natural or if it's got something to do with these energy fields. Could you check it out? I've already sent coordinates to your Blackberry."

"I'm on it," said Ray. "I'll be there and back in no time."

Enzo tossed him a PDA, and he soared out of the room, passing through the nearest wall like a ghost.

"You're actually who I was looking for," Enzo said. "My father's on the other side of the lab. He needs to speak with you."

I followed him through the spacious laboratory that occupied the entirety of this floor. We wove our way past numerous worktables as well as many a wondrous and bizarre machine who's purpose I could only guess.

"I owe you an apology," said Enzo.

"For what?"

"Martin was right yesterday. When the Homo reptilians attacked, you fought back the best way you could. I jumped down your throat for all the wrong reasons."

"We're good," I said. "I wasn't in the best mood either, so let's just call it even."

"Swell. I'm glad there's no hard feelings."

Wow. Next thing we'll be hanging out at the malt shop in matching letterman jackets. It'll be swell. "I'm curious about a few things, Rex," I said. "Your dad and I have been out of touch for a while. In fact, I was shocked when I first saw him here. Did you inherit your powers from him?"

"Not exactly," he said. "I nearly died from a blood disease when I was a little kid. My dad created a cure by splicing my DNA with genetic material from alien cells he discovered on another planet. My body started metabolizing solar radiation, kind of like how a plant absorbs sunlight for photosynthesis. Anyway, I make a complete recovery only to find out my bones and muscles have become as dense as uranium, and I can control my own gravitational field. The rest is history."

"And Martin? Where's he from?"

"He was a volunteer in one of my father's first experiments with the teleporter," Enzo said. "The machine worked insofar as transporting him across a hundred feet of empty space, but it altered his phase space in the process. His body has all the properties of a quantum fluid."

"Like supercooled helium-2?"

"It's almost exactly like helium-2, except his body temperature never varies. He's a constant 98.6 degrees all the time, even when he's using his powers. We don't quite know how he's still alive."

We finally found Welman tinkering with a piece of machinery meant for the teleporter.

"Ah, Kevin, I see Rex found you after all," said Welman. "Did you sleep well?"

"Very well, thank you. Listen I have few ideas for fixing the teleporter. It seems to me you're having the same trouble my team had when we first built our own digitization platform. The molecules suspended within the laser beams keep causing the particle streams to lose coherence."

"That's right," said Welman. "I can't get the energy patterns to reintegrate properly without causing a shift in phase space. I thought I could compensate by using gold nanofibres in the waveguide."

"It's a step in the right direction," I said, "but you're going to need more. The reason you keep shifting phase spaces is because you don't have a quantum computer to properly collapse all the undesired wave functions, leaving the original phase space as the only outcome."

"Sounds excitin'," Mouse said as she sauntered our way. She was back in her turquoise catsuit. "Sorry about back there. I wasn't aimin' for you."

"Just make sure I'm not in the same room next time you decide to flame on," I said.

She raised an eyebrow and smirked. "You didn't complain last night."

I heard Enzo snicker. I chanced a glance at Welman. He was looking at me curiously, but he said nothing. Luckily, Mouse saved me from an embarrassing explanation.

"So, what are you boys workin' on back here?" she asked.

"We're trying to fix this machine," Enzo said pointing to the teleporter. "It's a teleportation device. With it, we can transport ourselves anywhere instantly. Unfortunately, it's got some bugs. Dr. Sawyer thinks he knows how to fix it."

"It all has to do with Schrodinger's wave equation," I said. "In the 1920s, Erwin Schrodinger developed a mathematical tool called the wave function. It was a quantum mechanical way to describe objects-everything from individual atoms to the universe itself-as waveforms."

"I'm familiar with this," said Welman. "Quantum physics shows us that matter has a dual nature; it can behave as both particles and waves."

"Exactly," I continued. "Schrodinger believed that when a particle wasn't being observed, it behaved like a statistical wave; it occupied a series of physical states simultaneously. He called this state superposition. Only when an observation was made, like during an experiment, did the waveform collapse into a particle, no longer in a state of multiple probabilities but a state of absolute certainty. The wave equation allowed scientists to compute all possible states of an electron during superposition and what its probable state would be when the wave collapsed. It solved the electron orbital problem associated with the classical Bohr model of the atom by incorporating the concept of wave-particle duality."

"I see why we would need a quantum computer," said Enzo. "The calculations needed to eliminate all the unwanted probabilities associated with reintegration would be astronomical. Without it, we'd all go through superposition with no way of choosing our correct physical state, and we'd all end up in a different phase space like Martin."

"Can you build one of these quantum computers?" asked Mouse.

"It took a team of over a hundred people a year and a half to build one," I said. "Luckily, I have something that might work just as well and it'll only take a few hours to build, provided I have all the materials."

"What are you thinking, Kevin?" asked Welman.

"A reverse waveguide," I said. "Two intersecting waves will interfere with each other, and depending on their frequencies they'll either strengthen each other or cancel one another out. We need to build a reverse waveguide into the primary waveguide assembly. It'll split the beam in two and reflect it back on itself, collapsing every other phase state probability and force the original to remain intact."

"Have you done this before?" asked Enzo.

"No. Nanomaterials where I came from are too unreliable. The heat from the lasers can actually alter the chemical properties of the waveguides and melt the machine. I'm hoping the materials here will work better."

"We have to at least try," said Welman. "Kevin, you get started drawing up the schematics. I'll finish disassembling the waveguide assembly. Rex, you work on preparing the nanomaterials."

I wrote down a list of all the materials we'd need and their exact dimensions on a piece of note paper and handed it to Enzo. He nodded diligently and retreated into the inner sanctum of the laboratory. With a protractor and compass, I set to work drawing up a schematic of the reverse waveguide. Violet remained quiet but kept close to me while Welman and I worked.

"That's what's happened to the world, isn't it?" asked Violet.

"What?" I asked.

"What you were talking about before, about objects having certain states of being, that they can exist in different states at the same time when no one's watching. The world's been split into these different phase spaces, and we can't remember anything except those spaces we got trapped in. That's what you were trying to tell me."

I stopped working and turned to her. "Violet, I want to try something. I'm going to say a word, and I want you to say the first thing that comes to your mind."

"Alright."

"Okay. Algorithm."

"Function," she replied promptly.

"Program."

"Software."

"Firmware," I said.

"City."

"Hacking."

"Fun."

I sat back and crossed my arms, thinking. I could tell she was curious.

"Why did I say those things?" she finally asked.

"Why do you think you said them?"

"I don't know. I don't even know what an al-go-rhythm is." She was wringing her hands in her lap. I'd never seen Mouse look so vulnerable. I reached out and took her hands.

"I'm going to fix this," I said. I held her gaze for a few seconds then got up. "Welman, I need to talk to you."

I took him aside and out of earshot.

"Welman," I said, "just how much of Mouse is still in there? I mean, am I talking with a completely different person, or is it Mouse I'm talking to, she just doesn't know who she really is?"

"It's hard for me to say," Welman said. "Nothing like this has ever happened before. From what I can tell it's like they've all rebooted inside a game. Automatically, that means they've assimilated skills and knowledge that helps them survive while the game is running, but their personalities, the core of who they are, have been warped to fit whatever environment they got trapped in."

"So would it be reasonable to say that these characters would react to certain situations the same way their real counterparts would?" I asked.

"Again, it's difficult to know for sure. We're all capable of anything given the right circumstances. Does this have anything to do with that quip Mouse made earlier?"

"It...has to do with a lot of things," I said. "But mainly that."

Welman seemed to ponder this for a few seconds. "It's none of my business, but that might not have been the best idea."

"Part of me wants to agree," I said. "What'll happen to her after the system restore?"

"It's not a fix-all," Welman said. "The people who were affected might retain some memory of their alternate personas, but for the most part it will be like resetting the system to its settings at the last restore checkpoint. There might be some déjà vu, perhaps, but for the majority it will be like waking up from a dream."

It was appealing and disappointing at the same time; appealing because it meant Mouse wouldn't remember what she'd done as Violet; disappointing because I wasn't sure if I wanted Mouse to forget being Violet.

"I'd like to give you some advice," Welman said. "Unfortunately, my expertise with women begins and ends with: 'Your bunsen burner or mine?'"

"Did that really work?" I asked amusedly.

"More often than it statistically should have."

I laughed. It was a good, hearty laugh and I was grateful for it. All I'd done that week it seemed was frown and grimace.

"Kevin, there's something else we need to discuss about the machine," he said. "I don't think I have a suitable power source. I've looked at the numbers, and with the addition of the reverse waveguide, power requirements have tripled."

"How much more energy do we need?"

"On the order of 1.21 gigawatts of electricity," he said.

I think I blinked a few times. "1.21 gigawatts?" I asked. "You're serious?"

"Yes. Why, is something funny?"

"No, no. Well, yes. Let's just say I've given up trying to figure this place out." The building started to shake. "Another quake."

"No," Welman said. "This is different. The vibration's all wrong."

I followed him to the nearest row of windows. Mouse was already there, looking out over the horizon. There was a glowing shape coming down through the clouds, spreading them apart like a plow through a field.

"Dad!" Enzo called. "It's Martin. He's on the com!"

We rushed to a large computer console with a wide, transparent screen that showed three-dimensional images. Ray's face was on the screen, but it was distorted. He was saying something, but static was drowning out his voice.

"...not an...mospheric disturb...alien sp...ce vehicle...read me...coming...over city...send backup..."

The transmission cut off abruptly.

"Never a dull moment," I said.

"I've triangulated Martin's position," said Enzo. "He's ahead of the spacecraft, but it's gaining on him. Whatever it is it's big. Satellite telemetry indicates it's almost as big as The Citadel."

"I'll call the authorities and have the mayor issue an evacuation of the immediate area," said Welman. "En...Rex." Welman sighed. "Be careful, son."

Enzo smiled confidently. "I'm always careful, dad." He ran over to a window and pushed it opened. "Stay frosty." Then he jumped out and soared into the sky Superman-style, zooming to meet the alien menace.

"I can't believe I'm letting my son go off like this," Welman said. "It's bad enough he upgraded into a teenager right in front of me, but he has to go flying away to fight games."

"Maybe we can help," Violet said. "There's gotta be something in here we can use to fight with. Like that fancy light gun Sawyer had yesterday. Got any of those lying around?"

"I'm sure there is," Welman said. "But this isn't my real laboratory, and I don't know what half these things are for."

"Does the hypersaucer have weapons?" I asked.

"I...wait. Yes! Great Scott, I'd forgotten all about it! It has laser cannons, rail guns and sidewinder missiles armed with antimatter warheads."

"Perfect," I said. "I'll need a way to get on board, too."

"What?" asked Violet. "What for?"

"How much you wanna bet that ship's got an energy source big enough to power the teleporter?"

"But, Kevin," said Welman, "it's practically suicide."

"Then give me something to work with," I said. "That ray gun will do for a start."

Welman took us to another workbench and picked it up. "I replaced the battery with a kinetic energy power cell. It shouldn't run out on you."

On the same table I saw a cylindrical device that resembled a metal wand. It had a telescoping head with a circular crystal on top. "What's this?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," said Welman. "I think it's a sonic servo. It's not quite as good as a keytool, but the principle is the same and it can unlock almost anything."

I put it in my pocket. "Anything else?"

Welman pulled out a watch from his lab coat. "There's this. It's a control unit for a weapon system hidden somewhere in the city, but I don't know how to activate it."

"What do you mean you don't know how to activate it?" I asked.

"It's keyed to respond to a voice code, but I don't know what the code is."

I put it on my wrist. I handed the ray gun to Violet, but she shook her head. "I've got it covered," she said. She pulled out two metallic handles like the hilts of samurai swords. "I found these next to the superpower suit," she said. She pressed the buttons on their surfaces and beams of orange light shot out from their tops.

"Lightsabers," I said in awe. "Now we're talking."

Mouse could pilot the hypersaucer better than I could. She steered the craft toward the parting layer of clouds over the city. A beam of light sliced across the sky and we finally saw the monstrous shape break through. It was like a black dandelion with the flowering head turned downward toward the city. The underside was made up of millions of pointed spires and antennas spreading out from the center.

"My, God," whispered Violet.

I consulted the saucer's sensors. "We're being pinged."

"What does that mean?"

"It's scanning us with radio waves," I said. "The saucer's shape naturally allows the waves to pass right over us without reflecting them back, so we're practically invisible to their instruments."

Welman's voice came in over the com system. "Kevin, I'm looking at the satellite telemetry right now. There appears to be some sort of hatch on top of the ship. Looking at it, I'd say it's your best bet for an entrance."

Mouse received the coordinates and started gaining altitude.

"Where's Rex and Mercury?" asked Violet. "They should have already headed this thing off."

"Kevin," said Welman, "I'm receiving a transmission. It's coming in on all frequencies. It's the aliens."

"Let's hear what they have to say, then," I said. I isolated one of their frequencies and put it through.

"People of Earth, we are the Modular Men. Your attempts to halt our incursion into your atmosphere have failed." An image appeared on the screen in front of me. It was Enzo and Ray. They had their arms and legs locked inside restraints, and their bodied were frozen inside some kind of force field. "Your superhuman defense system has been neutralized. Your defeat is imminent. Lay down your arms and prepare to be assimilated into the Overmind. You will adapt to serve the superior lifeforms of Mars. Resistance will result in your immediate extermination."

The message started to repeat and I closed the channel. Welman was silent.

"Enzo's still alive, Welman," I said. "We'll get him and Ray back, I promise."

"I...I know," he said. He didn't sound very sure. "Be careful. The both of you."

We were above the ship now. Violet turned the controls over to the autopilot.

"It's eerie," she said. "I feel like I've done this before."

"Try not to think about it," I said. "Let's just get in and out."

She nodded. We used the gravity lift to lower ourselves down onto the surface of the ship. We each had a Bluetooth earpiece that allowed us to communicate.

"The hatch should be somewhere around here," I said, looking at the hull.

The ship was made of millions of tiny pieces of metal chips. It was mostly flat, which allowed us to move around easily.

"I'm not seeing anything," Violet said. "Professor, are you sure there's a door here?"

I heard Welman's response through the earpiece. "Positive. I can see you on thermal imaging. You're close, within fifteen feet. Turn to your left and move straight ahead."

While Violet followed his instructions, I noticed a peculiar ripple effect happening to the hull. It looked like the metal was warping, as if something were moving underneath the surface.

"Kevin, you've got trouble," Welman said. "I'm picking up other heat signatures headed your way."

"I see them," I said, pulling out my ray gun.

The ripples stopped, and I watched as a hand reachd up through the warping metal, like something was climbing out of a pool of water. It was black, like the rest of the ship, and its limbs were clearly mechanical. Its head, when it appeared, was faceless, but I saw a menacing red eye bounce back and forth along a horizontal slit in its forehead. It's hands were sharp titanium claws-again with the claws!-and its legs were powered by hydraulic pistons. There were several of these attack drones.

"We've been made!" I shouted.

"Hiiiyaaa!" Violet was already slicing through two of them with her dual lightsabers. "Thanks for the warning, sugah."

I didn't waste any more time. I drew a bead on the two closest targets and blasted them with one shot a piece. The white ray literally reduced them to bits. Violet unleashed an array of acrobatics, flipping and kicking and disabling multiple drones as elegantly as if she were swaying to a silent rhythm. I didn't let up for a second; I kept blasting away until all the drones near me were vanquished. For a moment, I thought we'd won.

"That was a little too easy," I said.

"I thought so, too," Violet said.

Just like that, the drones reappeared, building themselves back up from their shattered remains. For some reason the one's I'd destroyed with my ray gun didn't regenerate; instead, the ship seemed to create new ones to replace them.

One took a swing at me with its claw. I managed to dodge around it and fire a blast directly into its head. Another seized me by the shoulder and spun me around. It held me firmly while its other hand transformed into an oversized drill. Violet beheaded it with a swipe from her lightsaber.

"We need to find this door," she shouted.

Two more came toward us; Violet twirled her lightsabers and engaged them.

"You're both right by it," said Welman through the earpiece.

I looked around. The metal was seamless. I remembered the sonic servo and took it out of my pocket. After examining it, I found a rotating ring that served as the mode selector switch. I rotated it until the arrow pointed to the figure of an open lock. I extended the telescoping head and, while holding the activator button, waved it over the hull in a zig-zag pattern.

"..."

A small separation appeared in the metal and the door sprung open.

I turned just in time to blast one of the drones creeping up behind Violet.

"Time to go!" I shouted.

I grabbed her hand and helped her into the hole. The entrance sealed on top of us as we descended into the ship. We used a series of hand-holds to make our way down through the shaft. The bottom opened into a curving hallway. The interior walls were the same as the outer hull, a jumbled conjoining of metal pieces that formed an ovular tube running through the spacecraft. Emerald light reflected off every surface, casting us in an ominous, infectious green cloak.

"I don't think I like the look of this," Violet said.

"Me either. Welman, can you read us?"

"I can," he responded. "I've still got your thermal signatures on sensors. It looks clear in your immediate area."

"Have you found Ray and Enzo?" I asked.

"I think so," said Welman. "They're in a room not far from where you dropped in. I should be able to guide you to them."

"What about anything that looks like a power source? Fuel cells, fission reactors, anything."

"The ship's central power source seems to be a closed-loop negative energy vacuum emboitment."

"A wormhole?" I asked.

"Apparently one that's been turned back on itself to generate an inexhaustible supply of virtual particles."

"How am I supposed to get something like a wormhole off this ship?" I asked.

"It should be inside a containment cell, like a cube or a cylinder," he said.

"Fine," I said. I turned to Violet. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather stick together. Once we release Ray and Enzo they can create a distraction on the outside and give us the opportunity to make our move on the power core."

"Sounds like a plan," she said. "Lead the way, Mr. Science Officer."

Welman guided us through the ship. We didn't run into any more of those drones, which worried me.

"I'm not picking up any more heat signatures," said Welman. "Not like I did before when those robots attacked you."

"Welman, could these Modular Men be part of a von Neumann machine? A self-replicating machine intelligence?"

"It would certainly explain why I'm not showing any lifesigns on that ship," he said. "If the ship itself is some kind of organism then those robots that attacked you must have been part of its architecture; it created them spontaneously as a defensive measure."

"Why isn't it attacking us now?" asked Violet.

"It doesn't want to cause damage to itself," Welman said. "Outside its hull you weren't a threat, but inside it's vulnerable. It doesn't want you to start blasting away at its guts."

"Maybe that's what we should be doing," Violet said.

"Not until we free Enzo and Ray," I said. "I have a feeling once we turn those two loose, there's going to be all kinds of hell for us to deal with."

We entered a wide chamber. Enzo and Ray were suspended above us inside a force field, their arms and legs encased in the same metal as the rest of the ship.

"We've got them," I said. "They're in a force field. I can't tell what kind, but I'd say it's keeping them in a state of suspended animation."

"Your ray gun should disable it," Welman said. "The metal around you seems to exploit the weak nuclear force to hold itself together. The ray is powerful enough to disrupt the exchange of weak bosons between the metal fragments."

"Alright," I said. "Here's goes nothing."

I pointed the ray up at the force field and pulled the trigger. The white ray lit up the room like a camera flash. The field vanished and Enzo and Ray came crashing down to the floor, their bonds having been disintegrated.

"Blimey, mate," moaned Ray. "Couldn't you be more gentle with that thing?"

"I'll take that as a 'thank you'."

"What happened?" asked Enzo as he picked himself up off the floor.

"You two got captured," Violet said. "We're the rescue mission."

The lights in the room dimmed and flickered. Somewhere I heard something like a great engine rev up.

"I think we've made it mad," I said.

"What is it exactly?" asked Enzo.

"We think it's a von Neumann machine," I said. "Which means as soon as this thing touches down it'll start eating and converting whatever raw material it can find to increase its own mass."

"So pummeling it to pieces won't work," Enzo said.

"No, but my ray gun will," I said. I handed it to him. "The light beam does something to the metal that interrupts the flow of W and Z particles between the individual fragments. See if you can modify the weapons on the hypersaucer to do the same."

"You've got it?"

"Violet will take you through the hatch we found," I said. "Once outside, attack it anyway that you can."

"What are you gonna do?" asked Ray.

"I've got to get to its energy source. We need this ship's core to power the teleporter."

"How are you going to get off the ship?" asked Violet.

"Let me worry about that," I said. Again, the lights flickered and we felt the ship rattle. "Get going."

We exited into the hall. Violet gave me one last long look before turning and running down the corridor with Ray and Enzo following behind.

"Alright, Welman," I said, "take me to the core."


Vivian was on the edge of her seat, literally. She had been perched on the ledge of the sofa cushion for the last five minutes, her hands in her lap and her knees bouncing up and down as she rocked on her toes.

"How did you plan on getting off that ship?" she asked.

"That's the best part of the story," Kevin said. "Well, maybe not the best overall, but it's still pretty cool."

"I'm having trouble believing all of it," she said. "I mean, it's all so... cliché."

"You're telling me," replied Kevin. "Then again, I'm not the one who designed these games."

"Just think, all this happens in their world almost on a regular basis," Vivian said. "Every time someone loads a computer game, they get to reinvent themselves."

"It's not too fun for them," said Kevin. "Remember, if they loose, an entire sector gets nullified along with the people inside."

"I don't understand that," Vivian said. "Why should it matter if they win or loose. It's just a game."

"I don't know why it happens," Kevin said. "I have an idea, but I can't prove it, of course."

"Why not?"

"Because it would take a computer larger than the universe itself to prove me right."

"Ah. That infospace idea of Simon Deacon's," said Vivian. "I wonder what your old professor would say if he knew about what you've been doing."

"He'd probably go stark raving mad if he hasn't already," Kevin said. "Deacon always thought cyberspace was just the first level of a much deeper reality. Given what I've seen, I'm starting to think he was on to something."

"Whatever happened to him?" asked Vivian. "The last paper I saw that he published was dated 1993."

Kevin shrugged. "I haven't heard anything about him since I was a post-doc at MIT. I just assumed he retired. Anyway, where were we? Right, the ship. I was about to steal its power core."


I followed Welman's guidance and found the central core. Like its name implied, it was in the center of the spacecraft. It was a circular room whose walls curved upwards and formed a ring with two terminals that met in the center. In between the two points was a spinning cube, except it wasn't a cube; it was a tesseract; the four-dimensional equivalent of a cube.

It's hard to describe what I was seeing. It didn't rotate like a normal cube would. Instead, the inside and outside dimensions continuously replaced one another, as if it were being turned inside out, only to form the same cube shape over and over again. It occurred to me that I should really be afraid of the thing, but as I approached it I felt a series of vibrations shake the ship. They must have started their attack.

I pulled out the sonic servo and twisted the mode selector switch to the 'off' symbol. Hopefully, it would turn the power system off long enough for me to remove the tesseract.

"Identify yourself."

The ship was speaking to me.

"Just call me the doctor," I said. "Now, hold still because I'm about to perform some surgery."

"Removal of the vacuum emboitment will result in termination of all primary systems."

"Well, that's just too bad," I said. "You should have picked a different planet to eat."

I waved the servo over the tesseract, looking for any reaction. Meanwhile, the ship continued to roll and rumble.

"The knowledge and culture of this world will be preserved forever in the Overmind."

"Aren't you just a regular brainiac."

All the lights on the first terminal went out. The servo was working. I continued to wave it over the second one.

"You are not just killing this vessel, human. You are destroying every world it has assimilated. You are committing genocide."

"No, I'm playing a game. You, my friend, are just a preprogrammed character in a computer simulation with absolutely no independent thought. Which is why I will sleep just fine when I get home after all this is over."

The second terminal powered down. The tesseract stopped spinning and came to rest in a solid cube shape. I grabbed it and turned to leave.

"You have stopped nothing. This planet...is...ours."

After that the whole ship seemed to just die. Everything, all the lights, all the noise, everything just quit working. It was at that moment I felt the effect of free fall.

"Sawyer!" Violet said through my earpiece. "Get out of there! The whole thing is falling apart!"

Using the glowing light of the cube, I navigated my way back toward the escape hatch. I didn't make it. The ship made a sickening lurch and I was tossed against a wall. I heard a ripping sound all around me and suddenly I was exposed to open air. The whole damn ship had split in two, tearing itself apart under its own weight.

I was plummeting towards the Earth, spinning in all directions. I held on to the cube, knowing it was the only thing that mattered right now. The air was rushing past me. I kept my eyes shut. I couldn't breathe. It was like being in a wind tunnel. I reached under my shirt, felt the dial on the suit underneath and pressed it.

I'd donned the superpower suit as a last minute thought, to use just in case something like this happened. It was still set to the flame power function from earlier, and I suddenly found myself covered in orange flames. I felt my descent slow gradually until I came to a stop in midair. I took a few seconds to just look at myself and get used to the feeling of flying, to say nothing of how I was breathing when I was covered from head to toe in plasma. It was moments like this that really made all the crap I'd gone through completely worth it.

Then the broken remains of the space ship came crashing down around me, and I snapped out of it. I accidentally dropped the cube in my haste.

"Snap!" I dove after it, leaving a fire trail in my wake.

I finally caught it, but my achievement was overshadowed when a piece of debris smacked into me, causing me to loose my concentration. I lost the cube again, dove for it again and caught it a second time before it hit the pavement.

After making a landing, I turned the suit off. My regular clothes were gone, having been incinerated by the heat. It was raining little metal chips. The ship was breaking up into its tinniest components before they got close enough to the ground to cause any real damage. It was like getting showered with pennies.

"Sawyer!" I heard Violet shout into the earpiece. "Sawyer! Did you make it?"

"I made it," I said.

"Thank God," she breathed. "Where are you?"

"I'm on the ground."

"What? How did you...?"

"I had the superpower suit on under my clothes," I said.

I heard her laugh triumphantly. "You sly devil. I was wondering what kind of ace you had up your sleeve."

"The good news is: the ship is breaking up into its smallest pieces before they hit the ground," I said. "The better news is: I've got the power source."

"That's great Kevin," said Welman. "Unfortunately, there is some bad news."

I frowned. "There's always something."

"Remember how we compared that ship to an organism? Well, just before its power levels terminated, something detached from the ship. I think it was the nucleus or whatever the equivalent is for a von Neumann device."

"Where did it land?" asked Enzo.

"About a block from Kevin's location," Welman said.

"We're on our way, mate," Ray said. "Just sit tight."

I heard a great thud behind me and I turned. "That's going to be tough," I said.

In front of me was an oily blob of viscous material that must have been over twenty feet high. It slowly formed into a bipedal shape with the head and limbs of a human but with the mechanical components of a robot showing through from beneath. Two large, round holes formed blue-glowing pupiless eyes. The mouth was a horizontal slit that tried to stick together when it opened to utter an ear piercing screech.

"Kevin, hang on!" Violet said. "We're on our way to get you."

"Get here quick!" I said as I turned to run.

The thing was already coming after me. I knew I couldn't outrun it, so I switched to a different superpower. I didn't see which one it was. Before I could stop to figure it out, the von Neumann monster swatted me with its powerful hydraulic arm. I went spinning through the air and hit the wall of a nearby building. What should have been a spine-shattering impact felt like walking to a swinging door. I looked at the dial and saw I'd activated the indestructible power.

I got up and noticed I'd dropped the cube in the middle of the street. The von Neumann monster scooped it up and swallowed it like it was eating a grape. I watched in horror as it began to grow taller and more massive until its shadow reached the end of the boulevard. It was now fifteen or sixteen stories high and twice as scary.

"Welman," I said, "that weapon system you were talking about? It would be really handy right now."

"I told you I don't know the voice code," he said.

"What about the ray gun? Can the lasers on the hypersaucer be modified to fire the white ray?"

"I'm still working on it," said Enzo, "but I'm going to need more time."

"We're outta time!" I yelled.

The creature noticed me again and moved like he was going to step on me. I ran out of the way and felt the ground shake as his massive foot caved in the pavement.

As I was running, I tried speaking into the watch, saying phrases at random.

"Activate...uhhh...target...terminate...fire..."

I realized that if it was voice activated then it would probably be a phrase that wasn't likely to come up during a normal conversation. Then I thought of the watch itself and thought it might have some significance other than being the actuator. On the dial were words I'd originally thought were the maker and watch model.

Big Jack. Showtime!

I stopped and turned to face the von Neumann menace, ready to make my stand. I raised the watch to my face and yelled: "Big Jack, it's showtime!"

The watch lit up. Almost immediately the ground started to shake. Every manhole cover along the street popped off one after another until the ground under my feet cracked open and I was swept up into the hands of a giant black robot.

Yes, I know how it sounds, but it's the truth. A giant black robot, taller than the von Neumann monster, rose out of the ground and scooped me up in its hands. A section of the chest opened up and I jumped in. I was inside a control room with a chair surrounded by flashing lights and numerous controls. I sat in the seat; a mechanical arm placed a helmet on my head. A Heads-Up-Display gave me visuals of the outside while three circular screens in front showed me technical information on the robot.

When I moved my arms and hands, I saw the arms and hands of the robot do the same thing through the HUD. Whatever I did or thought, it mimicked.

"Ok, Big Jack, what kind of firepower are you packing?"

One of the screens had a wireframe diagram of the robot. A highlighted portion of the chest cavity flashed.

"Whatever it is let 'em have it!"

Shutters on the chest cavity opened and fired a compliment of missiles at the monster. The multiple detonations sent it stumbling backwards, screaming wildly. It fired bolts of lightning from its eyes, striking Big Jack and shorting some circuits. The room filled with the smell of burning electronics.

"Fine. Let's get physical," I said.

I thought about walking up and punching it square in the face. Big Jack did just that. The robot's giant metal fist delivered a blow powerful enough to level a skyscraper, but the creature just shrugged it off and tried electrocuting me again. Alarms started going off and indicators flashed red.

"C'mon, Big Jack, keep it together. Give me some real firepower."

The diagram highlighted the portion of the robot's head above the brow. Before I could activate it, the creature was bombarded with a series of crimson energy bursts. Ray was with me now, soaring through the air on his board and trying to get the monster off me.

"Couldn't wait to start the party, could'ja?" he said.

It worked. The von Neumann monster let go of Big Jack and tried to hit Ray with its bolts of eye lightning. Enzo flew in and rammed directly into its chest, knocking it backwards. He delivered a super uppercut to its face and kept up with a series of left and right hooks; he never let the beast have a moment to react.

"Rex, move out of the way!" I said. "Now, Big Jack, let's finish this!"

The robot's skull opened up revealing a three-mirror laser. A beam of violet light cut through the air and sliced right through the von Neumann monster. It bellowed like a wounded animal as it fell on its back. Almost immediately it started to regenerate.

"I can't believe it," I said. "It's still alive."

"Not for much longer," Violet said. The hypersaucer came in low and slow. "Head's up, cutie pie!" The saucer fired a beam of white ray energy from its underside. It hit the von Neumann creature dead center.

It roared in pain as it started to disintegrate. Slowly, but surely, the creature from Mars fell to pieces.

I exited the robot through an elevator which took me to a hatch in its foot. Before me were the smoldering remains of the metal menace from Mars. Ray and Enzo landed next to me.

"Nice going, Doc," said Enzo. "That idea for the white ray was genius."

"Thanks for bailing us out back there," Ray said. "We owe you big time."

"I had help." I looked up and watched as Mouse slowly descended via the saucer's gravity lift.

"I gotta hand it to you, Sawyer," she said, "you know how to show a girl a good time."

I laughed. "If this constitutes a first date, I'd hate to see what you call a quiet evening."

I turned my attention back to the remains of the creature and started searching through the debris.

"Is it just me," I heard Ray say, "or is there something going on between those two?"

"You're figuring that out now?" Enzo asked.

"Ah, ha!" I held up the cube. It was still glowing, and it appeared undamaged. "Let's get this back to The Citadel. We've still got to save the rest of the world."

Between me, Welman and Enzo, it only took a few hours-or microseconds in Mainframe parlance-to complete the reverse waveguide and adapt the cube to power the teleporter. Welman fired it up and a shimmering column of light rose out of the circular base of the machine like a searchlight.

"Ok, Kevin, I've locked the teleporter on the Principal Office," he said. "I'm not sure where inside you'll end up, but I've put you as close to the core control chamber as I can. I've programmed your sonic servo to emit a low level gamma radiation burst which will allow the teleporter to lock precisely on that location."

"What's to stop it from turning into something else like a squirt gun or a set of keys?" I asked.

"It very well may, but it will perform the same function regardless of its shape," he said.

"I'd wish you'd let me and Martin come with you," said Enzo. "From the looks of things, you'll need backup if it gets ugly in there."

"Your father and I may be the only two people here who can cross between realities safely," I said. "If you go through, you may loose your powers, and you could get hurt. It's best if I go it alone."

"I've also modified the earpiece," Welman said. "We'll be able to stay in constant contact as long as I can keep the teleporter stable. The earpiece is also equipped with a sensor array, so I'll be able to take readings of your environment and guide you in the right direction."

I put the bud in my ear and thanked them all. I looked at Violet, expecting some witty remark or snappy quip about charging in all gung-ho like Captain America. Instead she just looked at me like it was the last time we would ever see each other. Maybe she was right. The next time I saw her, she wouldn't be Violet anymore. She'd be Mouse again.

I pushed the thought out of my mind, knowing that's the way things had to be. I stepped up to the teleporter. Then I looked back one last time.

"I'll be seeing you around...Professor Matrix."

And then I stepped through.