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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 220: Cooper 70
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 362
Winded from singing as loudly as he could, and hiking through the night, and empowering himself with the Sword, Brian took the last of the thanks, pointed the direction to the escape through the fence, and began to hike back. One foot after another he went. He had used the Sword’s empowerment function longer than at any previous time, and his arms and muscles shook as he climbed back up the river bank.
Pushing his way through the grass, he found a trail that the Dobermans had made, and took it with gratitude. He hoped the erstwhile guard dogs were doing well, and not causing any problems in Yellowstone City. The spaceship hangar blocked out most of his view of downtown Yellowstone in the distance, but the little light that came past the huge silhouette of a building was a help, a beacon, as he kept pushing onward. His legs and arms had stopped shaking, but he still rode the edge of exhaustion as he hiked as fast as he mortally could.
It occurred to him to try to move with the Spirit as he had before, but he was not sure where to land, and he certainly did not want to land in front of Doctor Mordenslice, who had to be around here somewhere. Instead, he pushed harder. Eight minutes after he had started back, he came to the building where the main computer resided.
The back door was open, and two men in white labcoats were standing on the low concrete porch. One was furiously smoking, and the other was energetically waving his arms, and speaking.
“Duval, the memory tapes are rewinding. We cannot move forward until they are ready.”
“Tell that to Mordenslice,” the smoker rebutted.
“It's your job. You’re the lead programmer,” the gesticulating man whined.
“Ames was last week. He told Mordenslice that we needed more tape machines for memory. Also that our punch card system needed replacing, and we were thus a month behind. Mordenslice chopped the man in half. I am not telling Mordenslice ‘no’ on anything. If he says this flies as is, I say ‘yes, sir, of course, sir.’”
“But--”
“What do we do?”
“I’ll help you both out,” Mister Justice said as he sprang forward and slashed left, and then right. Both men collapsed. Thoughtfully, he turned back, and stamped out the cigarette. Like Smokey the Bear said, only you can stop forest fires.
Entering the four story tall building, he looked up to see a mound created by a mad genius. Studying the vents and water flow channels, the fans everywhere anyone could conceivably stick one, and the several dozen repeated banks of whirring memory tape boxes (each the size of a refrigerator), he began to get a feel for the device.
If he was right, Mordenslice deserved his title as a supergenius. He had overcome the limitations imposed by transistors by combining and recombining information storage in a twisted jungle of vacuum tubes. Some of the tubes were the size of Mason jars, and he wondered why on Earth you would do such a thing--and then lights blinked on in front of the machine in time with each other, and his mouth fell open. Mordenslice had invented an optical computer--well, a partially optical computer--in the early Fifties.
Pieces of data were separated, and abstracted, and stored, and re-stored in cooler areas to keep the room from overheating, and information was sent to other banks which held guesses, and all that was needed to send the data was a small blip which would choose the correct guess. Brian did not have a whole lot of experience being in awe of another man’s pure genius, but here he did.
However, even as the air conditioning roared above him, he almost sadly knew the solution. This device, this computer, was pushing up to the very edge of the Possible within the available technology. It had ten frantic men working on it to keep it in tune, and already one of them was yelling for the boss, who was unconscious outside. The device was at its good moments about a minute and a half from exploding. This was not a good moment.
“Like it?” He heard a voice above him. Arrogant yes, but there was a certain understanding in that voice. Brian looked up, and saw ten feet above him a man floating in the air in a silver metal body suit. His head was overlarge and his legs normal, but Brian was not fooled. No doubt Doctor Mordenslice had made his body suit, his power armor, as close to normal in the legs to disguise his damaged stems.
The man was evil, a murderer multiple times over. He had killed TC III. At the same time, though, this device was worthy of respect.
“It is amazing, Doctor Mordenslice.”
“Thank you, Mister Justice. Unlike your previous incarnation, I do think that you understand.”
“What I don’t understand is why you killed him.”
“I was in my secret identity one day, and he came around the corner as I was changing to my powersuit. He saw me.”
“I don’t think he did. He thought you did it for another reason.”
“Hmmm,” Doctor Mordenslice seemed to be thinking carefully. “Huh. It is possible that he was blinded by that flash of light around the corner, and he was simply bluffing when he said ‘the eyes of Justice see all’. He did not know who I was--but regardless, he should not have stood in the way of my plans.”
“Plans?”
“You expect me to tell you my plans?”
“Yes. I’m one of the few on this planet who can recognize just how astonishing your computer is. I’d say you have at least one megabyte.”
“One point two four. Very well, Mister Justice. You’re right. There are very few who can even begin to grasp the edge of my genius. The magma powers a magma drill, which is controlled by the computer. As the magma flows down tunnels I made, it will accelerate, and give off heat. The now-powered magma drill turbine will push it even faster. The steam from the tunnel to the river, collected in a million gallon tank a hundred feet down, will flow into the hose I’ve made, and as it extrudes it will push up the spaceship. Ringjets pushed by steam will activate, and the tube will then rise on its own pushing the spaceship up to orbit.
“Once I’m there, I can use my disintegrator ray to zap anyone in America who does not obey me. I had considered conquering the world, and I might, but I’m going to start with America.”
“If your water system breaks its foundation, the water will fall into the Yellowstone Caldera, and cause a very rapid expansion followed by a catastrophic explosion.”
“I’m impressed yet again, Mister Justice. The odds of my foundation as you so crudely call it leaking are less than four percent. The damage from the resulting volcano will devastate Yellowstone City and damage Berkeley, but Denver should be fine.”
“I think it will be closer to a supervolcano, and nowhere in America will be fine, and to truly be untouched, you’d have to already be in New Zealand,” Mister Justice replied levelly. Doctor Mordenslice scoffed.
“You’re serious aren’t you? Wait. Green Hawk. His dreams are not certain.”
“Its not just that. The Yellowstone Caldera is the largest in the world.” Beyond them, the programmers were scrambling with more than one sparing a second to glance at Doctor Mordenslice hoping for some help, but not daring to ask for it. The towering device, nearly three stories tall, continued to groan and wheeze and flicker.
“It’s not.”
“I,” Mister Justice felt the push to lie, but he hated that. Besides, Doctor Mordenslice was focused on him, and would probably pick up on that. “Am from another world, a timeline. In our timeline, much like this, it is. Have you checked it to be sure?”
“A dimension traveller, a gatesman--no, a being who can travel the multiverse.” Doctor Mordenslice’s face looked worried, and then he shrugged. “Less than four percent chance, even if you’re right. I’ll take those odds. I was born to rule, and rule I shall.” He turned his head, and began to snap out specific orders to the programmers on how to put things right.
“Stop,” Mister Justice said, and Doctor Mordenslice snarled back.
“Make me.”
Justice pulled out his Sword and lit it with an act of will. Mordenslice unsnapped part of one leg that unfolded into a giant F shape of silvery metal nearly eight feet long. From each end of the horizontal bars of the F shape, on the farthest to the right, sprang a turquoise line of energy connecting the two points.
“I cut Shieldarm with this, my MegaScalpel. I can cut through a V8 engine block with one swing. You’re going to be the second Mister Justice I kill.” In his eyes, all the collegial respect that had been there when Justice was showering him with praise was gone. Now there was the killer with the impatient hate who glared out and down with his axe-like weapon ready to end Brian’s life in this world.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
