Chapter 52: The World is Spookier Than You Think

Chapter 52: The World is Spookier Than You Think

The sensation of the void outside my senses reached a peak when I opened the door, once again revealing the glowing cosmic dust of infinity beyond the doorway, where there should have been a simple bathroom.

I could feel something out there, an almost magnetic attraction that drew me to take a step forward into the emptiness.

The void supported me, and I found myself standing in an ocean of nothing, staring up at...nothing. There was nothing there, but the emptiness drew my attention all the same, radiating strange concepts that I could feel reorienting my perception of reality in real time.

A gurgling noise to my right caught my attention, and when I turned my head, I saw innumerable doorways, with innumerable people standing in them, staring at the same spot that I had been.

Some of the doorways didn’t even have people, containing strange inhuman creatures, although most of them were human.

Curious, I turned my head to the left, studying the doors that receded into infinity. There were no humans there. Only alien creatures of various shapes and sizes.

A thought occurred to me.

Did my placement in the chain of doors indicate that I was the first human to experience this phenomena...or the last?

-Excerpt From the notes of Professor John Stevens

***Three years ago***

“Magneton,” Solaris said in the calmest voice he could muster, “I need you to step away from the magnetic infuser.”

“I can feel it just outside of my vision, Solaris. There’s nothing outside this room but it. Behind every door.” Magneton said, shivering in delight, his eyes, ears and nose bleeding profusely. “It’s too big for us to interact with as we are now. it’s on another plane of existence, the human to our ants. You think it’s distant, when distance has no meaning to it. The gravitation isn’t its body, but its attention.”

“O...kay,” Solaris said, wincing as his head began to throb. “Magneton, your wife is afraid you’re gonna hurt yourself. You remember your wife?”

Solaris hoped the strong bonds could pull Magneton out of the spiral he seemed to be in.

“In order to communicate with it, we have to become higher dimensional beings ourselves,” Magneton said. “That’s what the magnetic infuser will do. I’ll become an entity that surpasses human understanding, composed entirely of thought and living, self-replicating magnetic waves. I’ll leave this reality behind and commune with The Tide in person.”

“Jerry.” Solaris said slowly, “You have to come back to your wife. What you’re doing is going to hurt her.”

Magneton paused and glanced back at Solaris, looking him in the eye for the first time since Solaris had arrived to check on him at the behest of his wife.

Magneton had always been a petty, jealous cape, obsessed with honing his modest Tinker abilities, and furious at anyone who surpassed him. Solaris should have guessed he’d try to find a way to expand his powers.

His gaze now, held none of Jerry’s spiteful joie de vivre. It was almost sad.

“I’ll miss her.”

Magneton turned around and walked towards the ominously humming machine, his arms spread wide to fit into the depression that matched his form perfectly.

“NO!” Solaris unleashed a beam of scouring light. He couldn’t allow Magneton to do...whatever the hell he was doing.

When the light faded, all that was left of Magneton was a human-shaped lump in the machine, rendered into solid metal fused with the machine itself.

Did I...miss?

Magneton should’ve been turned to ash, not iron.

Solaris called an all-hands on deck emergency and waited a few days for the other shoe to drop. But nothing came of it. Eventually Solaris just chalked it up to a Tinker hopped up on Tide-madness that forgot to carry the one, turning himself to iron instead of a being of pure magnetic waves.

Or maybe he succeeded, and that’s all that’s left of his former body.

Either way, the status quo had been maintained.

***Paradox***The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.

“So from a picture of Magneton walking out of a bank after stopping a robbery, we’ve got a fairly accurate estimate of the man’s height and dimensions,” Hardcase said, studying the humanoid lump in the massive contraption.

“That’s him, isn’t it?”

“All the proportions are identical, is all I’m saying,” she said with a shrug.

Perry pursed his lips and glanced between the disabled gramophone and the dead guy in the big engine.

“Why did his wiki say he was killed in battle when he obviously went insane and tried to...I don’t know, romance a machine of dubious origin?” Perry wondered to himself.

“Propaganda, probably.” Heather said with a shrug. “If he’s dead, he’s dead. The higher ups didn’t need to freak the public out with the real story of how it went down.”

“Man, tinkers are a crazy bunch,” Jetset said, “I mean, why make a trap that only targets people fluent in binary?”

“It wasn’t a trap,” Perry and Hardcase said simultaneously.

“If it walks like a duck,” Jetset said, shrugging.

“It’s LESS!” Hardcase squealed with joy and tapped his chest while she spoke.

“They actually use less power than typical motors and it takes almost none to maintain their position!” she said as she stepped away. “My newest mechsuit is gonna kick some serious butt!”

“Awesome!” Perry gave her a thumbs up as she moonwalked through the lab.

RIIING!The tiny girl’s pants started ringing, prompting her to fish out her phone.

“Yeah?” Hardcase answered her cell phone. “Alright, I can be there in half an hour.” She hung up and turned back to Perry “Titan says there’s gonna be a turf war tonight. We’re gonna do damage control.”

“Good luck. Stay safe.” Perry said nodding. If Paradox and Wraith weren’t explicitly requested to come it would be very rude to show up anyway.

They weren’t on the same team, after all.

Hardcase waved goodbye and started trotting up the stairs, heading to where her mechsuit was parked out back of the motel.

Perry shrugged and turned back to his project.

He had taken Areonite, divvied it up and mixed it with several dozen kinds of contaminants to modify its conductivity, and extruded each of them into a wire. He was now attempting to make a tiny circuit-board that could do some simple calculations. If he could make that happen, then he could turn it into a floating armament and maybe create a magical computer connected to his mind.

Which would be awesome and a great starting point towards making completely magically controlled armor.

Once he found a combination that worked, he could streamline the process with CAD and 3-D printing.

Perry flipped the magnifying goggles back down and picked up where he left off with the soldering tool.

***Natalie AKA Hardcase***

Natalie slumped inside the staircase, leaning against the wall, her heart pounding in her chest.

I can’t believe I touched him!

Something was off with her recently. There was this turbulent sensation in her body that bubbled to the surface and forced her to act.

Sometimes, she felt like she was going to trip and fall off the side of the earth if she didn’t steady herself on someone. This was solved by resting her fingertips on them for a moment, but this presented difficulties, obviously.

Natalie didn’t want to lose the respect of Wraith and Paradox, but she kept touching them, and sometimes, it felt like the words bubbling up from inside weren’t under her control.

She was finding it difficult to keep quiet when that was the appropriate thing to do. It just bubbled up from inside and she had to say something.

Is this love...or am I losing my mind?

There it is again, Natalie thought as she climbed the stairs, the bubbling sensation filled her lungs and threatening to drive her crazy if she didn’t say something.

She gripped the door for support as she exited Paradox’s lair.

“They’re out of my league,” she sighed, letting the bubbling sensation out in a carthartic moment that felt like stretching out a cramp.

“I don’t really think that’s the case, you’re at least as cool as Perry and Heather.” Brendon said, giving her a thumbs up from the reception desk where he and Sophie were going over the list of jobs for the day.

Oh god. My life is over.

“I’m not a slut!” Natalie blurted.

Brendon frowned, cocking a brow. “I...don’t think you are?”

“Brendon, would you mind taking care of the pool?” Sophie asked, eyeballing Natalie as she hyperventilated.

“Sure, ma’am,” The oversized teen cheerfully grabbed the bucket of cleaning supplies and pool net, heading out with a bounce in his step.

“Now,” Sophie said once Brendon was gone. “You wanna tell me where all...this, is coming from?”

Natalie shook her head vigorously.

“Okay,” Sophie pulled out a business card and tucked it in Natalie’s pocket. “My cell phone number’s on the bottom if you want to talk. I’ve got thousands of years of experience in counselling.”

“Aren’t you an angel?” Natalie asked, steadying herself against Sophie. “Where did you get a cell phone?”

“The same place as everyone else?” Sophie said with a hint of a smile.

“Oh.” Natalie said, her heartbeat gradually calming down as she realized that Brendon didn’t understand and Sophie would never use it against her.

“I...I gotta go do the crime-fighting thing,” she said, heading for the parking lot.

“Good luck, stay safe!” Sophie waved, her business card burning against Natalie’s thigh through her pocket.