Unity 1: The Reality Drive - Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Hooo. This quarantine stuff continues to hit hard. Unfortunately it's really starting to impact how much I can write - I may have to cut down how many stories I put out next month to give myself some time to recover. Hopefully not, but I'm giving a heads up just in case.

For now, I have a continuation of a story I started last week for you! And the other story will be along either later today or within the next few days. Apologies, like I said, this quarantine stuff is *really* screwing with me. I hope it's going better for everyone else out there ^^

(As before, this is still me experimenting with fully original fiction, so I super appreciate any feedback that you have to give - it's really useful, and helps me become a better writer!)

-

I didn’t have much to go on. My only source had just dried up completely. Linda Hayel just blinked at me with the most vapid look you’d ever seen when I asked her if she remembered anything about the ‘Reality Drive’ she’d been talking about. Actually, that was pretty much her response to any question I tried to ask her. That and trying to get my skirt off. Not helpful.

I carried her out of there, of course. I wasn’t just going to abandon someone who’d just been changed before my eyes, that would have been monstrous. Plus I was also green enough that the thought of what happened to her possibly being contagious never crossed my mind, which… Hoo. Well, if it had been this would be a very different story. But no, whoever had done this had used, I assumed, the Reality Drive to make a single change. Just… turned a Professor into a bimbo from afar.

At the hospital they didn’t know what to make of her. Hell, I don’t think they could decide if I was joking or not. ‘Lindy’ was perfectly healthy as near as they could tell – she was just an idiot more obsessed with getting laid than… well, anything. It was horrifying, in a low key and confusing way. There was no sign of anything that could have done this – though, honestly, at the time we had no idea what on earth could do something like this.

Look, magic was a lot more low key in those days, and we’d definitely never seen tech capable of doing this sort of thing. At the time, this was all new to us. That would change – we were only a month or two away from the Chicago event, which would blow the lid on magical secrecy forever, and numerous technological breakthroughs were about to propel mad science into new, horrifying dimensions of danger. But none of that had happened yet. In retrospect, we were in the dying days of an era. Should have enjoyed it while we had the chance.

Anyway, yeah. There were no clues – and honestly, anyone I spoke to thought I was making the whole thing up. I didn’t push my luck. I gave them as much as I could – and the fact that she didn’t remember anything about herself would have to do the rest. I hoped they’d be able to help her, but I had to get moving. I had a Reality Drive to find.

Which was all very nice to say, but where could I even start? The drive was gone, and all sign of the theft had been covered up by the fire. Although… I did have a few suspects, didn’t I? The other people in Hayel’s lab. Her lab assistants. Surely the culprit behind the theft and the fire had to be one of them, right? But which? And where could they be?

Well, I had a decent idea of who from browsing the Professor’s email. There were four of them. Toby Johnson, Rose Riley, Sophie Acher, and James Golf. I didn’t know much more than their names and email addresses, but that could quickly turn into more. And a quick browse of the initial police report for the fire – yeah, super speed is great for getting to read private files – revealed three corpses had been found, too badly burned to be identified immediately. Yeah, that matched with my memory – I hadn’t… I hadn’t actually counted at the time, what with the way just a glance had made me empty my stomach.

So. One survivor. Almost definitely the thief then, right? Okay, if the Reality Drive was as powerful as Hayel had said then any evidence I found at all would be suspect, but, you know… I really didn’t have much to go off as it was. Besides, if they’d been thinking about covering themselves like that, then why not just leave a fake body behind? That wasn’t beyond the power of the Drive, was it? It didn’t sound like it would be. So maybe I wasn’t dealing with some big criminal genius here. Just someone who’d been tempted by power and made a grab for it.

But while that was all well and good, it still didn’t lead me anywhere. A quick browse of their online profiles and a little hunting through the university found me their offices, and a little more speedy snooping – because, you know, as a hero I have no sense of respect for other people’s property or privacy – got me their home addresses. And there the trail went cold. All four homes were… Well, not all of them were empty, some had very openly grieving families in them, but none of them had a trace of the missing lab assistant.

Walking around a woman crying at the kitchen table did bring it home to me that this was a full on murder investigation though. That people had been killed. I don’t know. It’s weird. Somehow that felt much, much more serious than the idea that the world was in danger, that someone had the power to rewrite the stars in their grasp. Perhaps it was just a more grounded idea.

Either way, I tried to push past my urge to stop to comfort her. It… A strange armoured woman appearing in your kitchen to pat you on the back and say “There there” doesn’t really improve anyone’s day. It wouldn’t have helped. The only thing I could do to help was catch the one responsible. That was my task. My mission. And I’d see it through.

How, though? The trail, such as it was, had already run cold. I had nothing. Somewhere, out there, there was a murderer armed with the most dangerous device in the world, and I had no way of finding them. Their identity was a mystery. The Drive’s capabilities were unknown. They could be anywhere, doing anything, and I had no way of knowing. It was only a matter of time before something utterly, irreversibly disastrous happened.

It felt like every second that passed was a failure on my part. And it was. I needed to act… But I didn’t know how.

I’m not going to tell you how long it took me, in speedster time, to think of something - because quite frankly it’s embarrassing – but I did, eventually, come up with an idea. I realised that I needed to know more about what I was dealing with. And with the research the Professor had done burned in the lab, the only place where any information could still exist was…

… King Industries.

Hoo boy.

At least I had a name to chase.

-

S. Alexander turned out to stand for Susan Alexander – head of the R&D division for King Industries. A pretty busy woman – so I didn’t bother wasting her time with an appointment. I just showed up in her office. Looking back, I can’t decide if that was dumb or brilliant. It was certainly risky – like I said, King was involved with some seriously shady stuff, and I didn’t know the half of it back then – but I think it made an impression, none the less.

And credit to Susie, she didn’t flinch. For a moment I wasn’t sure she’d even noticed me coming to a stop in front of her desk. She just kept typing away. She was a dark haired, serious professional dressed in a blue clipped suit and black spectacles, her fingers racing across the keys.

“Which end of the spectrum do you fall on?” She asked, in the most exasperated voice I’d ever heard. I almost jumped out of my skin.

“Huh?”

“The irritating super spectrum, as the media insists on calling it.” Her eyes flicked over to me for a moment, and she pushed up her glasses. “Super hero, or super villain? Knowing will make expediting this pointless encounter much easier.”

“Oh.” My bantering skills were abysmal. Back then I hadn’t learned the key art of sassing people, so figures like this stomped all over me like a mime playing the part of a flop rug. I mean, there was a reason I wasn’t a big name back then – I dealt with disasters and left the scene as quickly as possible, and for me that’s pretty quick! Socializing with anyone was something I tended to do as a civilian, not as a blatant metahuman. “Uh. Hero?”

“Oh good.” She resumed typing. “Then you’re trespassing. Please remove yourself from our facility before I’m forced to call security.”

I could tell this wasn’t going well. “No, no, wait, this is important.” I tried raising my hands to show they were empty – be all calm and placating, you know the drill.

It didn’t work. “Please lower your hands,” she said, her eyes flicking to me once again before returning to her work. “If you don’t I will assume you’re making a direct threat and I will respond appropriately.”

“Ah, I don’t- wait, why?”

It wasn’t a good time to be confused. I didn’t lower my hands. Susie sighed and tapped a button on her keyboard. Things went to hell.

As a speedster, I often see things in slow motion, compared to everyone else. So I got a lovely, if confusing, drift down to the floor, my face shoved into the carpet. I couldn’t understand what had happened – one second I had been standing normally, and the next it was like there was a thousand ton weight pushing me down into the ground. I couldn’t move – I could barely raise my head.

“Because as an unidentified metahuman, you could have any number of dangerous abilities stored in your palms. 65% of known metas hold some kind of hand or finger based ability. I’m in no mood to deal with pointer lasers.” Susie explained herself calmly. I couldn’t see her from my now spot down on the floor, but I was pretty sure I could hear her typing away. She had totally just gone back to her work like nothing had happened.

My thoughts turned very uncomplimentary for a few moments.

“Ssssstop this!” I managed to groan, trying to push myself back up. It was much, much harder than it should have been.

“Oh, now that’s interesting.” She really did sound surprised. I saw her poke her head over the edge of the desk and look down at me. “Most people can’t move at all under the gravity folder. You must be quite resilient. Hm.” Her head bobbed as though she shrugged. “Well, please try not to hurt yourself. Security will be along shortly to remove you – they’ll inform you as to whether King Industries would like to press charges against you for your trespass. Thank you.”

Susie was an odd woman. My uncomplimentary thoughts grew louder as she vanished back over the desk.

“I don’t…” Every word felt like it was going to make my lungs burst. “Have time… For this!” I tried to push myself up, managing to get to my hands and knees. “You need… to tell me…” I raised a hand and grabbed onto the edge of the desk. I heard her gasp. The uncomplimentary part of me enjoyed it immensely. “About… The Reality Drive!”

I’ve said before – at high enough speeds, gravity becomes kinda optional. This is… not always as accurate as I would like, but there’s truth to it. In this case, she’d made a mistake when she told me what was crushing me into the floor. As soon as I heard the big G word I started accelerating, drawing myself into faster and faster speeds until I felt the strain of my muscles start to equal – and then steadily overcome the pull of the ground.

Sophie stared at me, jaw hanging open as I managed to finally hoist myself back into a standing position. I was clearly not at my best. My body was still hunched, my hair pulling down like I’d just run a thousand marathons, my arms swinging like I was holding heavy weights. But I like to think that it all added to the power of my glare.

Granted, I don’t know if she was stunned by the glare, the fact that I was standing, or if she was on the back foot because I’d just name dropped a very important project. Didn’t really matter. If she didn’t start talking I was going to show her all of the civility she’d just shown me.

Well… Okay, no, I probably wouldn’t have. She was right that I was trespassing, after all. I mean, I would have really liked to – this gravity thing hurt. But no. Heroes don’t act like that. And either way, I didn’t get the chance. Before either of us could act, someone started clapping.

We both turned – me with significantly more difficulty than she – to find a smiling man in an expensive looking business suit applauding the show. We both recognised him immediately. After all, Reginald King is a rather distinctive figure. His smooth black hair and deep purple eyes had been the subject of any number of magazine covers, TV interviews and internet essays. He was one of the most infamous men on the planet.

And, you know, one of the richest, but that should go without saying.

“Excellent, excellent. Very impressive, Miss. You know, I think there are only perhaps ten people in the world who could be standing upright in front of me right now.” He smiled charmingly as he stepped into the room – not quite coming in far enough to step under the gravity… beam, or whatever it was they were using on me. “Not that we don’t have other security measures here to keep you from getting rowdy, but still – I can see you’re not to be taken lightly. I don’t suppose you’re looking for a job?”

“… Not especially.” Obviously.

“A shame.” He shrugged. “You know, I’d heard rumours of a red-haired speedster heroine who made her home in the city. I wondered if I’d ever get to meet her, and what do you know? In the end, you came to me. Well. Since you’ve come all of this way – what can King do for you?”

It was funny. The man was perfectly cordial, even friendly, in the way he spoke. But there was something about his eyes… It wasn’t that his smile never reached them – it was more like his smile never left them. They had the look of a man who was always smiling, always enjoying a joke you didn’t see, one at your expense. A kind of sharp, hidden disdain, watching at me from behind a disarming mask.

You know, when I was a teenager, I’d often dreamed of being rich. A million, or maybe even billionaire. I hadn’t exactly come from a poor family, but we were never wealthy, either, and what kid doesn’t want the money to solve all of their problems forever? And then when I’d gotten older and realised that that would never, ever happen, I started dreaming of having the chance to talk to someone that rich – of maybe being able to convince them to do something for me. Like, maybe bring back an old TV show I’d liked, or helping me achieve some unrealistic life goal – stuff that could only be done with ludicrous amounts of money. Nothing bit, just, one favour. Like, it’s a pretty standard idea, right? What’s the one thing you would do if you could do any one thing.

I felt those dreams draining out of me as I looked at this man, this multibillionaire, and realised that he’d never once even considered telling Sophia to turn off the gravity beam. Every ounce of my being ached – and he could tell. More than that - he was content to leave me there. Content to watch my pain with a smile on his face.

This man was not my friend.

“The Reality Drive.” I did my best to straighten up, using speed in the place of strength. “It’s been stolen. I need to know how to find it before it’s too late.”

Speed is handy. It lets you see people’s micro-expressions in the split second before they get control of themselves. I saw the way Sophia’s lips tightened, the way she looked over her boss. Alarm and uncertainty. She knew what I was talking about – and wanted to see how Reginald answered before she reacted.

Reginald, though, he didn’t even blink. “Reality drive? I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with that term. Is that some new software I should be aware of?”

Liar. I could see it, and he knew I could see it. He just didn’t care.

“This isn’t the time to be playing games,” I said, gravity giving my glare a harder edge. “You had the artefact being worked on at the University-“

He hmmed and rubbed his chin. “Oh, we do have any number of projects that we loan out to the local institutions, along with a generous donation package – we’re big believers in giving back to the community. And I was very upset to hear about the fire that broke out – all those lost lives – along with so much research. A true tragedy.” Reginald sighed and bowed his head.

I didn’t buy it for a second. “Yeah, especially since the only reason it happened was someone stealing your super artefact. Give me a break – we need to find this thing before whoever took it works out how to use it!” For once I got to talk without interruption. “I know Hayel sent you the files – they’re the only copies left. I need to see them so I can figure out what the hell I have to search for!”

That was my mistake, I think. I’d just revealed my full hand – and how little it was that I actually knew. My name dropping had gotten me this far, but even that had limits. King now had all the information he needed to assess me as a threat to his plans.

And the rich bastard just played it as cool as ice. “Are you suggesting that the fire was a deliberate attack on one of our projects? What a disturbing idea. But I’m afraid any research Dr. Hayel might have sent us is quite private – it would be terrible business practice to give out our files to anyone who just shows up at our offices. But I can assure you, I’ve reviewed everything she has sent us personally, and there’s no reason for you to think you should involve yourself. We’re taking this quite seriously here and King Industries. In fact, we have a unit of our own in-house investigators assisting the police as we speak. If you believe you have information that might help their investigation, then I’d be delighted to have you provide it to them. But you can rest easy,” he said, a smirk in his eyes, if not on his mouth. “We will find the culprit behind this business – if, indeed, there is a culprit – and put the matter to bed. That’s the King way.”

“We don’t have time for-“ But he just cut me off with a raised hand.

“I understand,” he said, not a single drop of sincerity in his voice. “Heroes live… action packed lives. You go from one crime to the next punching your way through every problem. Every situation an emergency, every second not spent fighting is spent in vain. And surely, it must be even worse for a speedster. But this kind of situation requires… delicacy. Precision. Patience. It’s… our area, not yours. Do not worry – the case is in safe hands.”

I should thank Reggie, actually. If he had never said that I might never have developed my investigative skills out of sheer spite for him. Asshole. Well obviously, he was telling me to butt out – and just as obviously, I wasn’t going to. It left us at something of an impasse.

One which he broke with a casual shrug. “Alas, I’m afraid I’m a busy man, and I need my head of R&D. Miss Alexander, shall we? And I trust you can see yourself out, Miss Hero.”

And then he was gone. And Sophia with him – leaving her computer password locked and turned off for good measure. No ‘speed hacking’ here. I wasn’t going to find anything. This dead end had branched into another dead end, and I was still no closer to finding the Reality Drive. And unless I had a way of breaking into King’s computers and finding the files myself, I had no way forward.

But just as I was thinking that, I realised that it didn’t necessarily have to be me who did the breaking in. And that, actually, if it was King who was causing you problems… Then there was really only one hero you could call…

-

You know, on reflection, I’m growing more and more certain that the only reason King hadn’t killed me, or had me locked up in some fashion, was because I managed to stand up under his gravity field. He wasn’t sure what I was capable of – like I said, I was pretty unknown back them – and he didn’t want to try his luck just in case I was capable of more. I didn’t know much, anyway. Lucky me – if he’d actually tried something I was toast. And that probably saved my life, because the King I know now is far, far more dangerous than I gave him credit for that day.

And there was no one on earth who knew that better than Doctor Meredith Braun – otherwise known as Metal Knuckle, the cybernetic genius. Or, as some less than kind media insisted on calling her, the madwoman with bolts for brains. She was something of a polarizing figure. Rich, influential, a pioneer in the field of cybernetics - and she was probably King’s most outspoken critic.

Merry was a public superhero – by which I mean she didn’t have a secret identity, she was just out there as someone using her tech to save lives and fight crime. The idea… still seems absurd to me. People like us make enemies by the boatload on a daily basis. One of the key protections, not only for us but for the people around us, is the fact that people don’t know who we are.

To which she would almost certainly counter that that lack of accountability coupled with an above average access to power was far more dangerous to society than being known and simply protecting our individual interests was to us. Plus she was big on the leading by example thing, you’ll see what I mean in a bit. So I mean it’s not like I can’t see her point, but still…

I mean the fact that I was able to infiltrate her lab and find her hovering over some robotic creation, welding parts together with the eager glee of a mad scientist, without any difficulty makes my case for me, doesn’t it? There’s a lot of threats that come for heroes on the world stage, as we were all about to learn.

Also I’m only just now realising how much of this story is about me breaking into places uninvited. That is how superheroing works, really – very few supervillains are stopped by the hero politely knocking on their front door, but you know it feels kind of weird now that I’m saying it out loud.

Anyway. I coughed, she yelped, and the burning hot welder went flying into the air. I caught it, naturally, but the dynamic had clearly been established – we were going for pure awkwardness. “Uh, sorry,” I said, handing it back carefully. “I’m Lightning Strike. Can we talk?”

She turned to stare at me, lifting a pair of welding goggles – or, goggles of some kind anyway, you can never be too sure with her – to get a better look. She was a woman of pretty average height, maybe a little taller, with short blonde hair and shocking blue-grey eyes. And under her lab coat she was wearing a black bodysuit which I recognised as her superhero costume. Did she seriously just stick a lab coat over it when she was doing work?

Yes. Yes she did.

“I’m busy,” she pointed out, rather reasonably. “Can this wait until I’ve finished my calibrations?”

“It’s about King,” I said, going straight for the throat. “And possibly saving the world. I think.”

“Oh.” She blinked at me. “I guess it can’t then.” She switched the welder off and tossed it behind her. “Alright then Lightning, you have my attention. Uh, I think I have somewhere we can sit over there – under the, ah… The pile of legs.”

She meant metal prosthetic legs, before you worry. Honestly, her lab was… Not a mess, exactly, so much as it was carefully and precisely organised chaos. Mechanical whatsits and sparking circuitry boards were set up everywhere, it all had a very Mad Science feel to it. I got the feeling that Merry didn’t invite many guests in there.

I pushed the prosthetics out of the way and sat down. “Okay, so… I know this is going to sound crazy…”

The hero had found a cup of tea somewhere, and was sipping on it. “Hero business usually does, if it’s being brought to me. Trust me, it’s nothing compared to debugging software code – that’s crazy. Just start from the beginning and we’ll work our way through.”

So I did. I started with the fire, the investigation, my chat with the Professor…

And, credit to the good Doctor, she didn’t react too badly until I told her that I’d gone to visit King in person, which was when she sprayed tea in my face. “You what? Strike, are you insane?!”

“I thought they’d help! I mean, the situation is so serious…”

You guys thought I was kidding when I said I was a moron, didn’t you?

“If everything you’ve been saying is true, then you’re lucky you got out of there with your life,” she said, setting her cup aside and standing up. ”If King’s after a literal god machine, you even knowing that it exists is a threat to him.”

“W-well, it is true, so… yay?” I wasn’t really sure how to take that.

“Mmm. We’ll see.” She crossed the room over to a desk covered in computer monitors, all displaying different screens of data. “Fortunately I have an idea about how to prove it, one way or another. If King really does have that research, the files will be on his company’s network – and I’ve got a few tricks to find them, if they exist.”

I blinked. “You’re a hacker?”

But she just snorted. “I wouldn’t call myself a hacker. Just… someone with a vested interest in following what that jackass gets up to. Someone has to keep an eye on him – might as well be me.” She put a palm onto the desk, and the main screen started flashing, words starting to fly up, code executing in rapid succession.

“Uh?”

“Impressed?” The Queen of cybernetics grinned at me – and I’d soon learn that whatever else Meredith Braun was, she would always be eager to brag. “It’s the latest tech! Implants in the base of my neck channel my thoughts out into my suit, and allow to directly control any machine that’s set up to receive the signal with my brain!”

I mean, I’d seen weirder. Superheroes were always using advanced tech to do their supering – not every hero was a metahuman, after all. But I nodded and smiled because I really, really needed this woman’s help. “That’s pretty cool! Is it, uh, is it helping us break into King’s severs or whatever?”

At least I think I said something like that. Hanging around Merry has taught me a lot about computers – back then all I had to go off were old movies. Actually, now that I think about it, if I remember the look she gave me at the time I must have said something really embarrassing. Probably about the Matrix.

“Well sort of. It’s letting me tell the computer what to do without messing around with a keyboard, at the very least. Now hold on, let me see if any of my backdoors still work…” There was a lot of bleeping and flying code that I couldn’t hope to translate. “Mmm, not that one… Awh, did he find that one at last? Pity, that was rather clever. And that’s been patched out as well… Hmm…”

I also didn’t understand her computer lingo, but I got the impression that it wasn’t going great. “A-any luck?” I asked tentatively, after about five minutes of “Hmms” and “Oh really nows”. She blinked and looked up at me as though she’d forgotten I was there. Which, having gotten to know her now, she definitely, definitely had.

“Huh? Oh, yes, I’m in, don’t worry. Reggie’s always being cute, but you can’t stop a genius.” She smirked and adjusted her goggles. “I’m taking a poke around his network now. Just trying to decide where I’d hide the really important stuff if I was a megarich asshole. What do you think, the charity records?”

“… I mean, maybe wherever security is the highest?” Movies always made hacking seem so much more fun and exciting than it really was.

“Oh, well, sure, probably.” She turned back to her computer. “Let’s see what he has hiding on the Reggie only no girls allowed server~” There were more bleeps and code and the whirring of cooling fans. “Hmm… Damn, still boring. Reggie never keeps anything fun on here. Way too cautious about the digital paper trail. No, this is all just… normal itinerary stuff.” She sighed. “Doesn’t look like he’s got anything.”

Hell. I needed this to work. Think, Strike, think! “What about his… lady, uh, Alexander. Susan Alexander. She was the one in touch with the Professor.”

“Susie?” Merry thought for a moment, and then the screen started to flicker again. “Sure, let’s see what she’s- Oh hello! What do we have here?” Suddenly, the monitors filled with pages and pages of some kind of scientific report – a report about an ‘Unknown Artefact’ that exhibited anomalous properties… This was it!

I read the entire thing in a second. “You found it!” My heart was hammering. Honestly, the entire experience had been so strange I’d half convinced myself it hadn’t happened, but here it was, detailed in full – the Reality Drive, with all of its horrifying capabilities laid bare. “Thank god. Do they have anything else?”

“No…” Merry shook her head, frowning as she read the screens herself. “Susie just wasn’t as careful as Reggie when it came to cleaning up her files. But looking at this… Hold on.” There was more virtual typing and other screens popped up, showing a list of names and times. “Mmm. Okay, phew. King doesn’t have it. He scrambled a retrieval team the instant he realised what they had in that lab…” She tapped a small block of names and forgot to explain how she knew these names were any different from the others, but she was on a roll so I didn’t interrupt, “but there’s no way they made it to the University before the fire. They probably arrived to see the flames. So we’re definitely looking for another thief…”

“Yeah…” Well that all fit. “One of the lab assistants. But I’ve looked into all of them and there isn’t a trace. Whoever did this, they’re hiding… somewhere. And I don’t know where. Is there anything here that could help us locate them?”

“Hm.” The Doctor flicked back to the report, browsing through. “There are some readings this things seems to give off when it’s doing its thing… Looks like they’re pretty unique, we should be able to track those… But they only come up when its active, and it needs to be making pretty big changes to generate a lot of them…”

“So… No go?” It didn’t sound good. After all, if we just waited for the thief to start making changes to the world it would be too late, right?

“Well, it’s something,” Merry sighed. “Shouldn’t be too hard to set up a detector, either…”

There was a rumble, and I turned to see cybernetic limbs descending from the roof, grabbing components from around the lab, starting to assemble… something. Some kind of stick? I must have looked pretty stunned, because the blonde just giggled.

“Wireless thought control has its uses, right?” Then her expression turned serious. “But listen, if it’s this easy for me to make a detector, it’ll be even easier for King. He’s going to be ahead of us on this. If our thief’s been playing with fire, he’ll already be after them – and whatever terrible things they’ve been up to with it, he will be worse, understand?”

“…” Well, I wasn’t really convinced of that. This thief had already burned three people to death and turned an innocent woman into a bimbo. But still, I needed her help, so I just nodded.

“Good. Now, if we’re lucky then they’ve been playing it quiet. The only shift we’re aware of was what happened to Professor Hayel, and a localised effect on a single woman might not have been enough to get a proper location. So there’s every chance King’s still looking – which means we have a chance. After all, you’re a speedster, right? Pretty uncommon – I know Reggie doesn’t have one on staff. So hopefully…”

There was another beep, and the ‘staff’ was placed down next to us. It was a long metal pole, gold in colour, that came up to about my waist, with a tripod like base and a round, blue glass head. It glowed slightly.

“This is our detector, huh? You had all the parts for this just laying around?” I poked at it. It wobbled, and Merry snatched it, giving me a warning look.

“Of course. What kind of a scientist would I be without supplies?” She huffed, setting it down carefully on her desk. “It’s fragile, so be careful with it. And of course…” She flashed a grin. “Fully wireless.”

I rolled my eyes.

“So, it’s not perfect – needs further research. Calibrations. Hm.” She grumbled and a few diagnostics sprang open on the monitor bay. “But it should function and give us a lead on where to look. I can handle that part, at least. All you need to know is that when this,” she tapped the staff head, “glows blue then something major is… Is…”

We stared. The staff head glowed bright blue.

“Oh shit.”

Alarms started blaring, which I can only assume Merry did for dramatic effect, and the monitors filled with a map of the city, scanning for the source of the signal. The blue light was growing brighter.

“Something’s happening,” she muttered, numbers cycling at the edge of the screens. “A major reality alteration!”

“Where?!” I leaned forward, my hands gripping the edge of the desk tightly. If she could give me a location I could get there and put a stop to this before it really got started.

But her response quashed that hope quickly. “Everywhere! Something’s happening across the globe! This is bad – hundreds of shift points across the world. Give me a moment, I’m trying to work out what they’re trying to-“

Her chest suddenly burst out of her lab coat, her breasts pushing up against the edge of her desk. She looked down at them in confusion, her lips forming a small ‘o’ of surprise. “Oh.”

“Oh no.” A hand of ice seized my heart. It was happening again. “Doctor Braun, fight it! You can’t let this happen again!”

I don’t know what I expected her to fight, exactly. I just couldn’t think of anything else to say. Fortunately, she was more on the ball than I was.

“Ngh…” She reached for her computers. “Heroes! Those signals, I recognise the locations! They’re all known hero patrols, worldwide! This thing is… Ah!” Her hair was growing longer, down to her ass, which was rounding out as well. Merry had been a pretty scrawny woman, if I’m honest, but now she was starting to look like a pinup model. She didn’t have long. “They’re taking out the heroes now! They’re ready to make their big move!”

I blinked, unsure what to do or where to even look. “Heroes? But I’m…” I didn’t feel anything – I certainly wasn’t turning into a blonde knockout.

“You’re unknown! Like…” She gasped for breath, holding her head as her lab coat and bodysuit turning into a tight red bustier and black stockings. “You’re totally just a rumour! They must’ve, y’know, missed you or some junk…” Her voice was steadily rising in pitch. “It’s up to you. Strike, you have to… have to… Mmmm, like, you hav’ta fuck me~”

She burst out giggling, her hands reaching up to grope her newly huge breasts, and I saw the light in her eyes go dim. Just like with the Professor. Doctor Braun… The great genius of cybernetics, the heroine Metal Knuckle, was a bimbo.

And I was alone again.

“Fuck…” I muttered, rolling the former Doctor away from her desk – she didn’t notice, far too captivated with her new body, which she was exploring with gusto and happy moans. The detector had gone dim – the reality shift had ended. I was, apparently, safe. There were advantages to not being well known, apparently. But that didn’t give me much. I didn’t know where the shift had originated – or where I should be heading. My only hope there had been Merry – and she wasn’t going to be helping any more. “The hell do I do now?”

I mean, I would have looked through her computers but yeah she really didn’t have any keyboards or interfaces or anything. Wireless security – pretty good way to beat a speedster, as it turns out!

“Well…” The voice made me jump. “You could stop moping and help me fix this.”

I looked up. There, on the screen, was Meredith, standing with her arms folded in full hero getup. I blinked, and looked behind me. Yep. There was Meredith. Still playing with her- uh, never mind. I looked back quickly.

“How…?”

She just grinned. “Why settle for a wireless detector when you can have a wireless hero instead? Now quit standing around – we have a reality to save!”

On reflection, it was a really weird day.