The Gold Corps: Gold Justice, Chapter 13: Conversations

Megan was becoming concerned. Ragnar had taken to keeping to himself a lot lately, coming out of his room only for training sessions and meetings. And those times she had seen him, he'd had the look of one obsessed with something he'd really rather not think about.

Enough is enough, she thought, standing there at the door to his room, signaling for entrance. "Come," said a voice from within.

She opened the door and entered. "Ragnar, look. We need to talk." He was poring over something that looked like blueprints. "What are you doing?"

Again, that abstracted look. "I am…studying ways to make my ship fully functional again."

"What? Why?"

"It's…just a project." But she could tell he was attempting to deflect her.

"Ragnar, look. This hermit philosophy you seemed to've developed in the last few days…don't you think it's time to stop it?"

"I'm…sure I don't know what you mean." With a guilty look on his face.

"What you're trying to do, here, is known on Earth as the 'brush off.' Now come on." She paused. "Is it something…between us?"

"No! I mean, no, it's nothing to do with, with, I mean…"

She came up and took his arm. "Look, Ragnar. I can sorta see what's going on here, even without telepathy." Which never worked very well with you, anyway. "Ever since you learned about…things…this gene mod your parents put in you, you've been decidedly nonpresent whenever you could. You wouldn't, by some chance, be planning on flying off and challenging the thing on your own, were you?"

"I…no…well…I mean…"

"Thaaat's what I was afraid of. Ragnar, you can't be the Lone Ranger here." She saw his puzzled look. "What I mean by that is, you can't, and in fact, you shouldn't take on all this responsibility for yourself. The whole purpose of being a member of a team means you don't do these things all by yourself. Some things are too big for any one person. Even Superman has the Justice League to back him up. So…what's had you so distracted, lately?"

He leaned against the table, and hung his head. "It's just…Megan, I, I feel this terrible sense of responsibility. It's almost as though I were the monster, out there, doing all these terrible things."

"Well, you're not. Here, come over here." And she led him to the small couch in his room. She sat down, and drew him down beside her. "Now. Sit back, and breathe deeply. In and out."

"Megan, I-*"

"No buts! Just do it!" she commanded. He sighed, leaned back against the couch, and complied. After a few minutes, he relaxed somewhat, closing his eyes. "Alright now. Now tell me what's got you so upset that you'd close me out? I mean, I thought we were a, you know."

He looked up, honestly puzzled. "What's a 'you know'?"

She dithered. "Well, you know, sorta…"

Blank look. "No. What…what do you mean?"

Finally, she acquiesced. "I thought we were on our way to becoming… more than just friends."

"Oh. Oh, yes. I, I believe I see what you mean." Even if I don't fully understand it, his expression said. "I, I hope you, uh, aren't referring to some sort of reproductive procedure." It might have been her imagination, but he seemed to tense suddenly.

"No! I mean, not…quite…that. Not…not yet, anyway." He relaxed somewhat; so did she. "I…it's just… Look. Let's start from the beginning, okay? What's got you so upset?" She drew her legs up underneath her, there on the couch beside him. Ragnar noted that she really had quite attractive legs, what he could see of them. They were indeed pleasant to look at. He wondered why that thought had never occurred to him before.

"Megan, it's just…you've said this is too big a responsibility for one person. But my parents put something in me that they thought could destroy this monster." He got up suddenly, and began pacing. "So I feel like…it's my responsibility to, to do something. Every hour, every minute I wait, means that creature is out there, hurting or killing people." He stopped and turned to her. "How can I not see that as my responsibility? I've even had dreams about this, before I knew about it, even." And he told her again about his dreams, about being somehow responsible for the death of worlds. "I don't want anyone else to die because I did not take action." He abruptly sat down beside her, and ran his fingers through his hair, a gesture that was almost an exact duplicate for the gesture his father had used, in the video file they'd uncovered, back on his ship. "But the problem is, I don't know what to do. Nightwing is right when he says that, no matter how powerful my ring is, such power rings don't seem to be able to stop this creature. Mine may have certain properties, qualities that the green ones don't, but I'm fairly sure it's not enough. Plus, as Ganthet said, my parents couldn't have known about the ring; that only happened long after they were both dead." He stopped, abruptly, as though simply running out of anything to say.

"So," she began, "What's with trying to get your ship running?"

"I don't know. It just…seemed like a place to start."

"But, Ragnar…you've been at this for days now. You haven't slept, you've barely eaten anything…you can't go on pushing yourself like this!"

He sighed and leaned back against the couch. It was…good that his friend was here, with him, and he regretted avoiding her. But how could he make her understand? "I can't sleep. Something, something in the back of my mind keeps running and running, like a computer program on an infinite loop. I can't rest, food has no taste…" He leaned back, closing his eyes, trying to shut out the images his subconscious kept bringing up: the bodies, piled high, the screams…

…and what looked so very much like himself, laughing with diabolical glee, at the wanton carnage.

Megan sat there, beside him, not really knowing what to say. Part of her, a small part, but a part, was wishing they'd never found that message from the past. But they had, and now her friend (?) was feeling a call to duty. A duty that would set him on a collision course with the most dangerous creature anyone had ever heard of.

A call to a certain and final darkness.

So she drew him back, to where he was leaning on her shoulder. "Just…stay with me here, a moment, will you, Ragnar? Just…lie with me here. Just for a little bit." Exhausted in spite of his driving need to stop the monster, he leaned back against her.

And she very carefully, very subtly insinuated her mind into his, not actually penetrating his mind, but just brushing around the edges, calming him, soothing him, in a manner that Martian females had instinctively utilized for thousands, tens of thousands of years, to calm the males of the species in times like these. His head rested back against her shoulder, and his breathing became deeper and more regular. Soon he was fast asleep.

She studied him, while he slept. In sleep, his face took on a softer, much younger look, and she realized she was seeing the face of the child he'd never had the luxury of being. She shook her head slightly, a few strands of her auburn hair interspersing with his own night-black thatch. Ragnar had never played with other boys, never known the simple joy of a new toy, or a holiday with family. All he'd ever had was the hardscrabble need to survive…and it had left its mark on him. Megan had had her own woes…but she had, at least, family. She'd had someone.

And, shortly thereafter, she herself fell asleep, her head resting on his.

…

It looked like the ruins of a mighty temple, the columns supporting the roof ascending endlessly up into the sky. The air was murky; not polluted, but somehow foggy, and she couldn't see very far in any direction. Something was out there, something huge, something she couldn't see, something crashing around outside her field of view. All around her were revolving mirrors, but for some reason, she could not see herself reflected in them. It was as if she didn't exist.

Of course, she knew where she had to be. Being a telepath, she was more accustomed to this sort of thing than one who was not. She'd fallen asleep in contact with Ragnar, and this had to be a construct of his mind. In a sense, she was inside his mind, maybe his soul, even. She couldn't see very far in any direction because he couldn't see very far in any direction. The mirrors…they were a problem.

For some reason, it seemed extremely important that she look into them, that she see what was being reflected, if not herself. But as she approached the nearest one, a sense of dread gripped her, a fear she'd never felt before, even facing terrible foes. For within these mirrors was something monstrous, something so terrible that calling it "evil" was like candy-coating it. Something she found she couldn't bear to look at, let alone identify. She felt ashamed of herself; quite by accident, she'd stumbled into Ragnar's mind, and, by all rights, should be doing something to help him with his dilemma, but she found she couldn't face the being within those mirrors.

She couldn't possibly be the being in the mirrors. Could she?

Like the people of Earth, the people of Mars had, at various times in their histories, had many gods and one God, depending upon which epoch one focused on. But she found herself wondering how any god or God could tolerate the awfulness in the mirrors, the terribleness that haunted and mocked her from every corner. "Sarah?" she asked. This was Ragnar's mind, after all; it made sense that the entity known as Sarah Marshall should….

….should what? Be here? Be in communication with him?

Was Sarah the being in the mirrors?

She looked up, watching the columns ascend into the infinite vaguery that was the sky here in this strange place, wanting to scream out of sheer frustration, but knowing it would do no good, anyway. There was nowhere to scream to. The awfulness was there, it was everywhere, and there was no getting away from it, just as there was no defining it. She felt like she was drowning in horror…

"Well," said a voice behind her. "Took you long enough."

…..

The waking world: Megan lay with her head against Ragnar's, as they both slept. The clock radio chimed; 11:30 pm. Her communicator buzzed once, twice, three times. On they both slept.

Within the dreamworld…

Megan faced a woman of literally unearthly beauty. Dressed in a white lab coat, the woman had blue skin, like Ragnar's own, and was a few inches taller than Megan herself, with wavy black hair cascading down her back, a full heart-shaped face that came to a pointed chin, large dark eyes ever so slightly almond-shaped, and wearing a somewhat amused look on a face that Megan could easily believe would never need any makeup. "You…you've got to be his mother. I mean, you must be. We're, we're inside his mind. But…I don't understand," she faltered.

The woman smiled a little crooked smile. So familiar... "What you're seeing is an autonomous interactive recording, I suppose you'd say, preprogrammed into my son's genetic code. My husband and I calculated that there was a small but significant chance that, in his lifetime, he'd encounter at least one being or entity with telepathic powers. If that person, being or entity had been male, that person would be seeing an image of my husband. As it is, you are seeing me. I have some things to tell you, seeing that you are his friend."

"How do you know I'm a friend? Do you have access to Ragnar's mind, his memories?"

"Only in part. But if you were not a friend, but an enemy, there is a built-in backlash effect that would have erased every thought, every memory, even every emotion, from your mind, leaving you in a permanent coma. That didn't happen, obviously, so you must be a friend. That's why it's very difficult to read his mind without his consent; he has to permit you entry. It's a failsafe program we devised and implanted within him, to guard against just such possibilities.

"And because you're here, and we're having this conversation, I can tell three things: one, you are, of course, telepathic. Two, you two are, at the very least, friends. And three, as of right now, you are touching each other, skin-on-skin contact. Oh, one other thing: you are most probably asleep. That enables the link to be better, more easily established.

"Whether or not you two are a sexually intimate couple, I cannot say, but the odds favor it."

"Ah, uhm." Megan stammered, at a loss for words momentarily. Change the subject, Megan. "But what did you two place in him, in his genes, to defeat Doomsday?"

"Telling you outright would handicap the weapon itself. So I cannot. But one thing I can say: whatever he does, you will be a part of it."

"What? What do you mean?"

"Nothing acts totally alone. Even the monster you call 'Doomsday' responds to his environment. So, too, will my son. And, for better or for worse, to whatever degree you are joined to him, you are a part of that environment. So you will have an influence on him. One way or another.

" And…he will only have one chance to use this weapon. One chance only.

"So…a better question would be: what do you want him to do?

"What action or actions would you support him in doing? And to what degree?"

….

The waking world: Megan slept on, though she fidgeted in her sleep, as though from a nightmare. Ragnar slept on, her arm around him.

Nightwing paused outside the door to Ragnar's room. Megan's transponder had located her as being within, even as it had Ragnar himself. He really didn't want to interrupt what could easily be an embarrassingly intimate moment.

But neither of them was answering their comm. units, and he was beginning to be a little concerned. With anyone else, it might not have been such a concern for him, but too little was known about Ragnar and his gold ring for him to be truly comfortable. He signaled for entrance.

No response.

…..

In the dreamworld of Ragnar's mind: Megan was trying to formulate an answer for the question she'd been asked. What, exactly, did she want him to do?

In every situation, everyone has at least two choices: do something, or do nothing. If one does something, then it begs the question as to what to do, but choosing to do nothing is, by itself, a choice.

What would she have him do? Fly off and face down this monster, this destroyer of worlds, and very probably get killed? Do nothing, and allow untold how many beings to suffer a terrible death? "I…I don't know. Why can't you just tell me about this gene-mod you put in him? What is he supposed to do with it?" she pleaded.

The image of Ragnar's mother shook her head. "I have already told you as much as I can. More information would negate the plan. It comes down to what you would have him do, and what you would help him do." She paused. "Surely, you don't think that doesn't matter to him?"

"It, it shouldn't, I mean, we're just good friends…."

"Who happen to be sleeping together even as we speak. Does this truly say nothing to you?

"And it may well be…that more than one option is open to him. I cannot know. But he must act soon, before any more lives are lost. Before the monster adapts beyond the range of the primary weapon. And it may already have done so."

To be continued…