THEY TUMBLE BLINDLY AS THEY MAKE THEIR WAY

By Dale Glaser

Near the end of the Phoenix Corridor of the Hollow stood a modest and little-used examination room, equidistant from the workshop of Dr. Martin Livingston and the porticus of Dr. Helene Althea, intended to serve as neutral ground in which A.R.M.O.R.’s foremost experts on technology and magic might productively pool their talents. Occasions for such collaboration were rare, however, and therefore the room contained neither the softening decorative touches of Dr. Althea’s research space nor the chaotic proliferation of half-investigated curiosities of Dr. Livingston’s lab. The inner walls of the shared exam room were the same patterned panels of lustrous metal as the corridor it adjoined, interrupted only by two nondescript equipment cabinets. A reinforced steel table bolted to the floor was the lone furnishing, a large flat surface eight feet long and three feet wide set on sturdy adjustable legs, with two armatures connected to opposite corners, one bearing an intensely bright lamp, the other a series of graduated clamps for holding samples steady.

Neither armature was necessary at the moment, as the steel tabletop was dominated by a massive cylinder of magnalium, the temple-buster bomb retrieved by Team Raido from Earth Z-1.1.5.8. The weapon left only a small lip of the table’s surface exposed around its perimeter, on which perched a gray Bonobos chimp. In front of the table, which had been ratcheted to its tallest height to accommodate her centauroid stature, stood Dr. Althea. She peered between two of the rods comprising the bomb’s outer cage and pointed at the detonation matrix within. “Now, what do you make of this cluster of tubes running from the second cucurbit to the third?” she asked.

The chimp nimbly swung around to the same side of the temple-buster Dr. Althea was observing, looked for himself, and gave a sharp bark in reply.

“Nine tubes for redundancy?” Dr. Althea asked skeptically. “That seems overly pessimistic as well as wildly inefficient.”

Josef the Bonobos hooted argumentatively for a few moments before falling abruptly silent, as if losing interest in the subject at hand, and turning his eyes toward the floor. “Yes, I understand that the prospect of fighting against deities would not exactly inspire optimism,” Dr. Althea conceded. “But to counter omnipotence with identical backups and failsafes …” she trailed off, considering. “That must be it. They can’t all be identical. Josef, would you hand me my trephinator?”

The chimp nodded mutely, and telekinetically reached out for a slender shaft of pointed iron resting at the far end of the exam table. The tool floated smoothly through the air into Dr. Althea’s waiting hand. She glanced at the iron tool, then at Josef, who continued to gaze unwaveringly downward.

“Josef,” Dr. Althea said quietly. “This is a regulator. It is made of highly conductive alloy which I am loathe to jab into the heart of a thermobaric bomb. My trephinator is made of whitewood. Much better suited to the task, don’t you agree?”

Josef looked up and yelped apologetically.

“You’re not upset that Dr. Livingston asked you to assist me in this while he spent time with the Futurist, are you?”

Josef shook his furred head emphatically.

Dr. Althea considered him a moment longer. Soothingly, she asked, “Is it Stanislav?”

The chimp said nothing, which conveyed an answer in and of itself.

Dr. Althea sighed. “I know you miss him …”

Josef made a guttural noise.

“Of course, of course you miss Izolda, too,” Dr. Althea agreed, remembering the female member of the trio of Super-Apes led by Earth 1A9.6’s Red Ghost in a doomed cross-reality invasion. Red Ghost and Izolda had perished; Josef and Stanislav had been integrated into A.R.M.O.R.’s staff after due rehabilitation. “But unlike Izolda, Stanislav may yet return to us. In fact I’m quite sure he will. It’s only been a week, and you know as well as I how many dimensions experience hyper-relativistic time dilation. I believe he’s on his way even now.”

Josef whined piteously, a heartbreakingly bestial sound; for all the chimp’s hyperevolved mutate intellect, he was still a creature of animal instincts in constant struggle with his human socialization. Nevertheless, he telekinetically grasped the trephinator and wafted it to Dr. Althea. She accepted the tool silently and began to test each tube in the cluster.

Ibrahim al-Bazzaz walked down the Tortoise Corridor as nonchalantly as he could, despite feeling as though a rioting mob of neuroses had overrun his thoughts. He concentrated on keeping his facial expression neutral as he made collegial eye contact with two other uniformed A.R.M.O.R. operatives walking past him in the opposite direction. One was a woman with skin so pale it was almost colorless, slightly taller than Ibrahim even discounting the beehive-shaped pile of hair adding to her height, hair which seemed to be made of blue-green vinyl. Her aura contained the seeping swirls of secondary colors which indicated exposure to Terrigen mists and marked her as an Inhuman. The other woman was significantly shorter and much heavier-set, human to all appearances including Ibrahim’s mutant senses, but adorned with facial tattoos belonging to a culture not present on the Earth which Ibrahim called home. Both of the women returned Ibrahim’s silent acknowledgement with small, deferential nods of their own, a gesture Ibrahim was growing more and more accustomed to as word spread throughout the Hollow about his privileged position as Director Little Sky’s aide-de-camp.

Ibrahim continued along the corridor, scanning the room numbers embossed on panels beside each entrance, not allowing himself to be distracted by the occasional errant burst of readable energy leaking out around a door’s seams. He came within range of the room number he had looked up in the staff directory and stopped to take a deep breath, automatically starting one of the meditative mantras he had learned at Xavier’s school. The mantra was intended to quiet and focus his thoughts when particularly intense external stimuli threatened to overwhelm him. He didn’t know how effective it would be in managing his own emotions, which were technically internal stimuli, but reasoned it couldn’t hurt.

He had done a great deal of thinking since the conversation he had shared with Joshua Speer and his cohorts over drinks at the café had turned to Ibrahim’s own interpersonal history, or lack thereof. The thinking had led inexorably to a resolve to get to know other people within A.R.M.O.R. and forge his own friendships, and ultimately he had concluded that his best chance might be the other young mutant he had met on his first day in the Hollow, Elizha Galdakas. In addition to both being mutants, which Ibrahim knew from experience was no guarantee of bonding, and hailing from the same planet in the same dimension and same point in the timestream, Ibrahim and Elizha were both among the youngest employees of the organization, which he decided was as good a place to start as any. That decision had been followed, over subsequent days when his job duties had prevented any extra socializing, by intense doubt, second-guessing and insecurity. He had become convinced that Elizha would blow him off with no small amount of scorn, and he did not relish the thought of rejection. Neither could Ibrahim deny that the sting would only be increased by the fact that Elizha was a pretty girl, any more than he could dispute that some part of him was curious not only to see if he could make a new friend but to find out if any more intense connection might blossom from there.

The urge to turn around, walk away from Elizha’s quarters, and simply get an early start on his workday was almost unbearably intense, but Ibrahim stepped forward and knocked confidently on the door before he might allow himself to be completely unnerved. The door slid open a few inches, and immediately the roar of speed metal pounded into the corridor. Ibrahim pushed the door further into its recessed housing but remained on the corridor side of the threshold, unsure if he had been extended a proper invitation to enter.

Ibrahim had spent scant time in his own quarters since they had been assigned to him, and had not yet undertaken any efforts to personalize the space. Therefore his room was essentially the standard-issue template: a bed, a dresser, a desk and chair, light fixtures bolted to the walls, all the furnishings composed of gray steel and white composite polymer, the bed made up with nondescript pale blue linens. He had been informed that he could request additional furnishings if he so desired. The only items indicating that the room was in use at all were Ibrahim’s suitcase, standing at the foot of his bed not yet fully unpacked, and the book he was currently reading resting on the desk.

Elizha’s room was the diametric opposite of Ibrahim’s, its topography a near-perfect match for the screaming assault of the music filling the air. The floor was not completely covered with scattered objects, but large piles originating in each corner crept outward and threatened to bury the existing walking paths. The floor cover was an erratic mixture of unfolded clothing, loose papers, tools, rags, and what looked like a diverse array of electronics and appliances which had been systematically turned inside out. Elizha’s bed was piled high with disheveled sheets, rumpled blankets and quilts, extra pillows, more clothing, and more tools and machine parts. Her desk was completely subsumed by assorted components which might have been multiple discrete projects or possibly one super-object awaiting final assembly. Elizha had further brought in three slightly mismatched bookcases which overflowed with notebooks, well-worn technical manuals, and various mementos. The visible portions of the walls and most of the ceiling were covered with framed photos, art reproductions, and huge movie posters, as well as a large Lithuanian flag hung above the head of her bed.

Ibrahim took in all of the decorations and randomly strewn clutter in one sweeping glance, and noted as well the myriad energy patterns coursing through the various gadgets, from simple battery-powered electricity to a form of neutron harmonics he had previously believed to be utilized only in Galadorian weaponry. Within a few moments he met Elizha’s eyes, as she backed out of her closet on hands and knees and stood up. She had divested herself of her massive toolbelt but still wore her sleeveless coveralls; her blonde hair was piled in a messy bun atop her head. She smiled and waved at Ibrahim, then worked her jaw rapidly. Ibrahim could not hear anything she said, but the volume of the music in the room immediately decreased to mere background noise, and Ibrahim suspected Elizha had not been speaking to him at all, but rather using her mutant mechanoglot powers to turn down her stereo. Along with the decrease in decibels, Ibrahim noticed movement on the opposite side of the room, where robotic arms were retracting against the wall. The ligatures resembled oversized lengths of bicycle chain, each terminating in convex circles of mesh, which Ibrahim supposed must be stereo speakers capable of repositioning themselves to always aim directly at Elizha, wherever she was in the room.

All in all the room reminded Ibrahim of Dr. Livingston’s workshop, with its disordered profusion of technical implements and material investigations and experiments, except that Dr. Livingston’s workshop was only that, a space in which work was conducted. Elizha’s quarters were both worksite and living space, organically intermingled.

“Laba diena, Operative al-Bazzaz,” Elizha said pleasantly. “What can be done for you?”

“You can call me Ibrahim,” he answered, hoping that he sounded friendly and not creepy.

“Ibrahim,” Elizha nodded, then raised her eyebrows in silent expectation.

“I, ah … I just wanted to stop by, to …” Ibrahim continued on falteringly. Unable to sustain eye contact any longer, he glanced around the room, his vision scrambling to find a comfortable resting place for longer than a second or two. “I haven’t had a chance to decorate my own room yet and I was, you know … looking for some suggestions …”

“Ha! You lie!” Elizha shook her head, but her voice was devoid of malice. “Is no secret to me I have reputation as bad housekeeper. Is no one taking decorating ideas from me.”

“Well, I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to recreate … all of this,” Ibrahim admitted. “But parts of it are cool.” He edged toward the wall, dominated by a sequence of movie posters all with similarly lurid paintings of large machines and bloodied bodies against black backgrounds. “Where’d you get these?” he asked.

“Earth 1B7.7.3,” Elizha answered immediately. “Souvenirs from first trip away from home universe.”

“Big horror movie fan?” Ibrahim inquired.

Elizha grinned. “Big Killdozer fan,” she corrected. She joined him at the wall and began pointing to each of the posters in turn. “Killdozer, very good movie. Killdozer 2: Beware of Screamroller, very very good movie. Killdozer 3: Revenge of Attackhoe, not bad. Killdozer 4: Curse of Cerement Mixer, very very bad.”

“But you gotta take the good with the bad, huh?” Ibrahim asked, increasingly aware of how very close together he and Elizha were standing. She looked up at him and smiled, but even to Ibrahim it was clear that most if not all of her pleasure stemmed from thinking about a film series devoted to homicidal construction equipment. “So … are we all just allowed to buy things elsewhere and bring them back and forth from one universe to the other?” he asked.

“With the exceptions,” Elizha admitted. “Is contraband list, but not very long.”

“And movie posters aren’t on it,” Ibrahim concluded. “Even ones for very very bad movies.”

Elizha laughed. “Is lucky for me, no.”

“Did I interrupt you at something when I knocked?” Ibrahim asked.

Elizha rolled her eyes. “Only trying to find why kompiuteris is not talking to me,” she sighed, twirling a short, fat-handled screwdriver between her thumb and forefinger; red and green diodes blinked in a running pattern around the tool’s collar. “Was looking for this in closet but is not so sure to be helping.” Elizha turned toward her desk, put one hand on a dictionary-sized brick which looked like free-floating lines of circuitry encased in solid Lucite, and pressed the tip of the screwdriver into various contact points on the brick’s surface. She emitted a few distorted waveforms from her lips before shaking her head. “Is so frustrating!”

“Can I see it?” Ibrahim asked.

Elizha raised her eyebrows bemusedly, but willingly stepped aside and gestured to the brick. Ibrahim took it in both hands and began tilting it at different angles. It was surprisingly heavy, and as he examined it more closely he could see that the outer surfaces had been etched with intricate patterns and designs, the meaning of which, if any, was lost on him. “If it’s not talking to you, could it be because it’s somehow locked down?” he suggested.

“Was locked,” Elizha confirmed. “Disabling lock was first thing to try.”

“What if there’s more than one lock?” Ibrahim returned. “I can see low-oscillating electricity throughout the whole block, but down here,” he tipped one corner up toward Elizha, “there’s a pretty tight kaon-flow loop. If you took off the electric lock, but not the kaonic one …”

Elizha narrowed her eyes in concentration and bent over the raised corner of the brick. She uttered a series of high-pitched, querying beeps and then resumed the distorted wave-speaking she had attempted earlier. The entire brick glowed visibly from within and Ibrahim could feel a gentle thrumming from within.

“Yes!” Elizha exulted, beaming. “Many thanks!”

“Happy to help,” Ibrahim smiled, setting the brick down flat on the desk. “I should probably get going, though. Duty calls and all.”

Elizha once again had her illuminated screwdriver at the ready, obviously eager to get back to close examination of the device, but made a noticeable effort to look directly at Ibrahim. “Ever you are needing my help, only ask,” she offered genuinely. Then she was absorbed in the work at hand.

Ibrahim let himself out, and as the door slid shut, a triumphant speed metal crescendo rose behind him.

Abigail Dunton lay in an infirmary bed, unconscious. A nasal cannula snaked across her face to provide supplemental oxygen, an IV drip feeding into her inner elbow was held in place by surgical tape, and a lightweight white sheet was draped across her, chest-high, but otherwise she was unattired as her severely burned flesh slowly healed. Her bare shoulders looked small and delicate against the bottom edge of her pillow, the erythemic wounds all the more horrid for running rampant across such fragile flesh.

Don Remming sat in a chair at Abigail’s bedside, one fist wrapped tightly in his opposite hand, both pressed against his lips as he concentrated on the unmoving girl in the bed. An orderly entered the small room, a nearly nine-foot-tall heavily muscled creature covered in uniformly cerise flesh and a planar hexagonal head; its flat face was suffused with roiling blue-black energy patterns. Remming remained motionless as the orderly silently and efficiently went about its business, checking Abigail’s oxygen tank and IV bag, and then departed.

A minute later a scorpionoid figure leaned into the doorway. “How you holding up, Don?” the creature asked.

“No change,” the seated man replied, in a defeated tone which failed to fully explicate whether he was referring to himself or his comatose teammate.

“Hang in there,” the scorpionoid replied. “Abby’s gonna pull through. You’ll see.” He turned to go.

“Stefan?” Remming called after him.

“Yeah?” Stefan leaned his lapis lazuli exoskeletal bulk through the doorway again, resting one sizable chela against the frame.

“I’m not in love with her, you know,” Remming said quietly.

“What?”

“I know that’s the rumor,” Remming explained. “and I have to imagine the bedside vigil routine isn’t doing anything to dispel the notion. I just … I just wanted to tell someone. Abby’s my best friend, I love her … but I’m not in love with her, and I’m not hanging on some schoolboy hope that she’s going to fall in love with me.”

“Yeah, OK,” Stefan answered.

“Not that I blame anybody for drawing conclusions,” Remming went on, lost in his train of thought. “I bought into that whole ‘men and women can’t be friends’ logic too, until I met Abby. People are gonna think what they’re gonna think, but I still want to set the record straight sometimes, you know?”

“You … want me to spread the word?” Stefan asked, his mouthparts grinding nervously.

“Hm?” Remming grunted, looking up at Stefan for the first time. He shook his head, “No, no, I just …” His eyes drifted back to Abigail’s face and his hands returned to their brace against his chin. Stefan waited a few moments more, then exited.

“I think I just needed to say it out loud,” Remming finally finished in a murmur.

On the outer periphery of the Hollow, Ibrahim al-Bazzaz entered the data center of the A.R.M.O.R. complex. He had no sooner crossed the threshold of the immense room than a jovial baritone boomed “Welcome to the info-domain, Operative al-Bazzaz,” in greeting.

Ibrahim crossed the room toward the speaker, the Kree Supreme Intelligence from a parallel universe. Not for the first time, Ibrahim idly wondered what tragic series of events could have caused the self-aware computerized collective intellect of a star-spanning empire to leave its homeworld and dimension behind and serve Director Little Sky’s organization. Also not for the first time, Ibrahim realized that now was not the time and place for such curiosity. “Hello, Supremor,” Ibrahim hailed the colossal disembodied alien head floating in an imposing hardwired tank. “I was hoping I could get a quick background primer for an assignment the director’s given me.”

“Certainly,” Supremor assented, bobbing in the semi-translucent suspension fluid. “What is the subject matter?”

“The Odium,” Ibrahim supplied.

“Ah, yes, of course,” Supremor said. “Compilations and cross-references of diminished malignant psionic activity in thirty-one-point-nine percent of monitored spheres have been accumulating on our servers for some time now. I have proposed a detestation indexing which could track negative DMILS …”

“Sorry, sorry,” Ibrahim raised both his hands defensively. “I meant a basic primer. Really basic. Starting from the beginning?”

“Very well,” Supremor conceded affably. “The Odium. Paradimensional plane characterized as the material manifestation of the fundamental sentient psychological state known as hatred, also demesne of class-Omega entity known as Master Hate. Coterminous border with the Ardor, demesne of Hate’s functional inverse, class-Omega entity Mistress Love.”

“So, this is the source of all the hate in the universe?” Ibrahim asked.

“It is both less and more than that,” Supremor corrected. “The exact origins of the Odium are in fact impossible to determine. It may pre-date the emergence of sentient life, or sentient life may have given rise to the Odium. Without question, the dimension and its ruling entity have served as a well-spring of powerful destructive emotional energies for billions of years, but direct access to the Odium is rare. Sentient minds may experience hate without primary influence from the dimension.”

“Fair enough,” Ibrahim nodded.

“On the other hand,” Supremor continued, “the Odium and the Ardor are a unique binary manifestation in the schema of the multiverse. There are no parallel or alternate Odiums or Ardors, only the primary planes which may intersect with any of the various proliferations of worldlines.”

“Anything that happens to the Odium is hardly inconsequential, got it,” Ibrahim said. “And something has been happening.”

“Observable elements of both the paradimensional plane and its more prominent cross-dimensional effects have shown variances beyond all previously known parameters,” Supremor confirmed. “The Odium is being diminished and losing concretion, presumably due to outside interference.”

“Presumably?” Ibrahim asked. “It couldn’t be something happening naturally, like … multiversal enlightenment?”

“Numerous datapoints would contradict such a conclusion,” Supremor answered. “Foremost among them, the fact that the Ardor has thus far remained unchanged, despite the ostensible equilibrium extant between it and the Odium. Coupled with …”

The pontification of the Supreme Intelligence was interrupted by blaring klaxons, echoing up and down the corridors of the Hollow. Ibrahim looked around uncertainly for a few seconds before inquiring, “What … is something wrong?”

“A breach,” Supremor stated simply. “Unauthorized transdimensional abridgement.”

“Like the Undying Ones?” Ibrahim asked. “There weren’t any audio alarms going off when the Undying Ones came through …”

“This may not be the most opportune moment for a full instructional module on the Hollow’s transdimensional defensive fortifications,” Supremor interjected. “But suffice to say that numerous superstring baffle-sluices exist in interstices 7-D through 12-D co-terminous with the root manifestation …”

“Just to be clear,” Ibrahim cut in, “this is not the full instructional?”

Supremor chuckled. “Ru, would you calculate the probabilities of any transdimensionally originating entity successfully breaching the Hollow’s interior via ingress which bypasses the teleportation failsafes?”

Across the room, the giant mainframe unit Ru, a computerized behemoth resembling an anthropomorphic red, yellow and green pre-Columbian temple, whirred audibly as its parallel processors ran trillion-integer statistical analysis. As Ru cycled through the necessary formulas, two large monitor screens descended from overhead recesses and dominated the wall opposite the data center’s entryway. The monitor on the left showed an interior span of lustrous metallic hallway, labeled on-screen as Tiger Corridor Segment 3. A jagged slash of magenta light, suspended in mid-air, pulsed and twisted erratically as if fighting for dominance against competing frequencies. The right-hand monitor contained multiple datafeeds rendered as tabulated columns of numbers and scrolling linegraphs. A quadrant of the data monitor began to blink: PROBABILITY OF FORCED FAILSAFE BYPASS = 0.00279%.

“Should we …” Ibrahim looked back and forth between the two oversized and stationary occupants of the data center and adjusted his thought accordingly, “Should I go? Lend a hand?”

“By doing what?” Supremor asked. “I am aware of your involvement during the Undying Ones’ incursion, but that scenario involved advanced warning and standard failsafe utilization. You were also armed accordingly. I would advise in this case allowing the security officers to discharge their duties free from interference. However, I have deployed the observation screens to allow you to make your own determination as the situation unfolds.”

Ibrahim said nothing more, and turned his attention to the lefthand monitor. The magenta rending in the air had established itself as a roughly diamond-shaped aperture, and a bizarre figure emerged from its glowing opaque face. His legs, torso and arms were proportional to one another within normal human parameters, all clad in form-fitting scarlet, accessorized by luxuriant gold fur covering most of his calves and shins, a wide golden belt with a skull-shaped buckle, and a majestic gold cape. His head, however, was a macroencephalitic grotesquerie, at least three times taller and wider than any normal human skull, dominated by unblinking eyes which themselves were triple the dimensions evinced in the other facial features. The flesh of his head, as well as his exposed hands, was dull green and knobby with wart-like protrusions, and his teeth were snaggled and yellowed. As the invader looked around the corridor with an appraisingly twitchy sneer, it was apparent that his monstrous visage was not a mask but an organic part of him.

Two A.R.M.O.R. security agents charged into the hallway, weapons drawn. Both wore the white and bronze uniforms of their station; one also wore a dark brown tagelmust covering his entire head except his eyes, while his counterpart, taller and thinner, had a bald, orange-skinned and ovoid-shaped cranium. The agents took up positions ten feet away from the invader with their weapons aimed and the turbaned operative commanded, “Hands up, no sudden movements, no powers. You are to be conducted to quarantine immed—”

The agent never finished speaking, instead arching his back rigidly and falling stiffly to the floor, utterly immobilized, as the freakish invader leaned forward and inclined his scabrous forehead toward the security operative. A moment later the invader, black veins throbbing in the corners of his enormous eyes, turned his attention to the non-human agent and repeated the process; with the invader’s attention momentarily diverted, the agent in the tagelmust passed from insensate paralysis to a thrashing, screaming fury of agony.

Ibrahim found it somewhat disconcerting to watch the events unfolding on the screen, not only because the two security agents were suffering but because he had no idea what forces were manifesting in the Tiger Corridor. His mutant ability to read energy patterns was rendered useless across remote video feeds, which consisted only of electrons and photons. With none of his usual insight into the invisible workings of potential and power, Ibrahim felt alarmingly stifled. “That does not look like things are going well,” he understated.

“A non-optimal first response,” Supremor conceded. “However, security communications relays indicate a highly specialized countermeasure is about to be deployed.”

Ibrahim kept his eyes trained on the screen, where the name King Cadaver had been graphically superimposed over the invader’s large, misshapen head, along with a presumptive point of origin, Earth 1C8.4.4.9. King Cadaver walked slowly between the two security agents, both of whom writhed on the floor in relentless paroxysms, and peered around as if trying to orient himself better within the corridor.

Dr. Livingston entered the field of the surveillance camera’s lens, accompanied by two more A.R.M.O.R. security officers, a red-haired man and a brunette woman who both appeared human, as well as an alien companion, whose long, slender and somewhat androgynous frame was sheathed in a metallic purple singlet, and whose enlarged and hairless braincase was his most distinguishing feature. Compared to Dr. Livingston, whose wispy white hair and white beard were as unkempt as his machine lubricant speckled lab coat was rumpled, the alien seemed even more surreal. Between Dr. Livingston and the alien, a hover platform carried an upright cylinder with an angled top.

“The Futurist and Dr. Livingston have brought one of their pet projects out of the laboratory,” Supremor observed, sounding strangely excited.

On screen, King Cadaver stopped in the middle of the corridor and snarled toward the newcomers. “I am here for Little Sky,” the malformed ogre growled. “But I will be only too happy to put every person in this facility through excruciating psychic torment to get to him, if I must.”

“No,” the Futurist spoke in the implacably calm tones of chanting meditation, “You will in fact go no further.”

“Isn’t it funny,” Ibrahim mused, “how the more advanced the intelligence or mental powers, the more closely a being resembles a very standard template? King Cadaver and the Futurist, they both have those great big domes compared to the rest of their head, especially their mouths, and the whole head is huge compared to their body … and it’s always like that, across species, dimensions, everywhere.”

“Ahem,” Supremor responded. Ibrahim glanced toward the Supreme Intelligence, who had no body whatsoever connected to his pale blue globular head, a head which tapered to a tentacle-sprouting point just above his intense yellow eyes and spread outward into an adipose mass of folds below, dominated by a cavernous mouth.

“Oh. Right. No offense,” Ibrahim winced.

“Indeed,” Supremor answered with a blubbery smirk.

Ibrahim returned his attention to the monitor, where the Futurist was opening the top hatch of the cylinder as Dr. Livingston retrieved a control device from the pocket of his lab coat. An incandescent orb floated out of the cylinder, gaining size and changing shape as it approached the ceiling of the corridor. The orb became oblong, dividing into two lobes, convoluting into furrows and folds as its radiance intensified.

“What is that?” Ibrahim asked.

“It is a synthetic bioplasm-energy matrix,” Supremor explained. “It operates according to similar principles as the phenomenon occasionally manifested by the Eternals and other proto-races resulting from Celestial experimentation, the Uni-Mind. However, the constituent components are non-living and only serve as a substrate for the generation and conduction of psiforms. Dr. Althea refers to Dr. Livingston’s version by a rather droll nickname, what was it …? Ah, yes,” the Supreme Intelligence recalled, “The Tofuni-Mind.”

Dr. Livingston aimed his control device at the floating synthetic brain-shape and thumbed a toggle switch. The artificial Uni-Mind’s radiant aura blazed and surged forward, channeling into a psionic force blast which struck King Cadaver directly between his goggling eyes. King Cadaver was thrown backwards bodily by the blast, coming to rest several yards farther up the corridor and lying splayed, perfectly limp and almost lifelessly still on the floor.

The female security operative who had arrived with Dr. Livingston slid a pair of restraint cuffs from her belt and approached King Cadaver, while the male agent checked the two fallen operatives to determine the extent of their injuries. Dr. Livingston and the Futurist exchanged a look; the cerebral alien’s white-eyed expression was inscrutable, but Dr. Livingston’s face conveyed a state of mind approaching satisfaction while acknowledging room for improvement. The screens drew upward into the ceiling once again.

Ibrahim was about to resume his questioning of Supremor when the notification alert of his personal tablet sounded. He glanced at the screen and saw the now familiar summons from Director Little Sky. “I have to head to the director’s office,” Ibrahim explained to the Supreme Intelligence, “but thanks for the Odium info. I’ll be back if I have any more questions.”

“By all means,” Supremor invited. Ibrahim departed, semi-consciously keeping an eye out for anomalous pink spacetime fissures as he traversed the corridors.

Jillian Marie Woods opened her eyes and saw indigo-tinged skies overhead while feeling the grit of sand beneath her palms and against the back of her head. For a moment she believed she was still on Earth Z-1.1.5.8, in the arid eroded wastes that had once been Central Park, until she realized that the omni-present grainy clouds of that world could never have afforded her such a view. The skies of that dead Earth were dun-strewn by day and pitch black at night, never the soft color painted across the heavens here, wherever she was.

Slowly she remembered the confrontation with the Demogorge and their scramble to evade the entity through the tertiary extraction portal. She sat up and looked around. Firat lay barely more than an arm’s length away to her left, while Dragon Man was sprawled several yards away on her right. Jillian rose to her feet to better survey the entire area. She and her teammates were in the foothills of a forbidding mountain range which soared dramatically behind them to needle-like peaks. In the low lands before them, the ground was mostly bare rock of deep carmine red, divided by a river some distance to the right and dotted by stands of large plants which resembled no earthly vegetation Jillian could name.

As Jillian took in the sweeping view from atop the mesa promontory on which she found herself, Firat roused from unconsciousness and moved beside her. The Polemachian visually scouted their environs and noted, “We escaped.”

“Uh-huh,” she confirmed.

“But not to the Hollow,” Firat continued.

“Doesn’t appear so, does it?” Jillian replied.

“Only the three of us?” he asked.

“Unless someone else woke up before either you or me, and went gallivanting off,” she speculated. “But our unit’s not exactly known for gallivanting, are we? More likely we got split up by whatever diverted us from the Hollow in the first place.”

“Then we must hope the others can find their own way back,” Firat insisted. “As we must find ours.”

“We’d best get DM upright and get moving, then,” Jillian sighed. “Because I don’t know how much of this wilderness we’ll have to cross before we find someplace civilized enough to own a working transdimensional teleportation node. If it’s out there to be found at all.”

Firat was about to answer when he held up a hand for quiet and cocked his head slightly. He looked skyward, and Jillian followed his line of sight. A shape was moving through the air toward them at great speed, too hard-edged to be a living creature.

“OK, flying vehicles, that’s a good sign,” Jillian granted.

Soon the engines of the craft were audible, the high-pitched whine of turbines echoing over the rocky terrain. A pair of sharp, explosive cracks cut through the drone, and smaller capsules shot ahead of the flying craft; as they dived toward Firat and Jillian, the capsules blossomed into spinning nets woven from an opalescent material.

“Less of a good sign,” Jillian revised her assessment as she jumped backwards, only to be struck by the full weight of the net and pinned to the mesa surface in the next instant.

Charles Little Sky looked across his desk at Ibrahim al-Bazzaz. “So you were in the data center during the breach,” the director of A.R.M.O.R. noted. “Did Supremor give you an idea of the implications of this kind of thing?”

“He tried in his own way,” Ibrahim said. “If I understood him correctly, over 99% of the time that someone tries to enter the Hollow from another dimension, even forcibly, they’re automatically routed through the teleportation room, and all the standard protocols are oriented that way. For anyone to pry their way into any other part of the Hollow, they’d have to overcome the countermeasures.”

“You understood all right,” Little Sky nodded. “Someone clearly has designs on A.R.M.O.R. The Undying Ones were just a preliminary test to get a sense of our defenses. King Cadaver was another dry run at going around our defenses. Sooner or later, whoever is behind all of this is going to stop testing and come at us guns blazing.”

“Who is behind it?” Ibrahim asked. “Who could be?”

“I don’t know,” Little Sky admitted. “The possibilities are literally infinite. But fortunately, we can pool resources with some allies of our own.”

“Of course,” Ibrahim responded.

“That means sharing everything we know,” Little Sky went on. “Every shred of information at our disposal. Do you follow?”

“Sir?”

“King Cadaver’s in quarantine now,” Little Sky said. “I want you to evaluate any energy signatures attached to him that you can, anything that might identify who sent him our way and guided him past our defenses.”

“Understood,” Ibrahim nodded. “When do you want my report?”

“Check with Prithita, after she sets up the conference call,” Little Sky answered. “You can give your findings to me at the same time as the directors of the other A.R.M.O.R.s.”

TO BE CONTINUED…