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re: Crystal Shards - Log 01: Lost and Found
 by Gatkowski on Thu May 19, 2016 9:06 am
Hmmm... I had to realize once more that spending my time with awesome people tends to fuel creativity. And I have JG / Saga / JGD to thank for that.
So I'm trying to make use of the fire while it still burns. I took a step away from the stuff I've produced so far and instead of continuing it (for which I admittedly have little inspiration), I started writing what I wanted to pen down afterwards anyway. Mostly because Lilly deserves it. She's one of the closest to my heart out of all the characters I've ever created. This is her story. Well, it's technically not only about her but she takes point as the plot progresses.
Perhaps this one is less cluttered and convoluted and a bit more interesting. I decided to write it in separate logs which simplifies following it and I've always been better at writing episodically than a continuous epic. I'll do my best to provide more action scenes as well, not just pseudo-philosophic and / or moralizing stuff. :P
As usual, I borrowed half of Cara's characters who will appear after one another throughout the story and some of them will play quite significant parts. I just hope I can do them justice (no pun intended), lest Cara slaps me across the Watchtower. <.<
So, more as it comes, I suppose.
Have fun reading!
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Kirsten Stomper's Apartment
Maggie took a deep breath. She wasn't particularly sure how to phrase what she was about to say. She wasn't sure even a telepathic read would convey a clear message.
Anyway, here goes...she thought as she raised a hand and after a brief moment of hesitation, knocked on the door twice.
'Coming!' came a voice, muffled from the other side, followed by the thumping noise of footsteps, then a rattle as the knob was turned. The door slid open, and Maggie's gaze shifted upwards to look the tall, robust woman with amber crystalline skin who appeared there in the eye.
'Maggie?' Kirsten said with a tinge of surprise. 'Hey, what can I do for you? Want to come in?' She said, waving a hand at the apartment behind her.
Maggie offered a modest but somewhat unsure smile and shook her head. 'Thank you, Ms. Stomper, I didn't plan on staying. In fact, I'm here to... take you someplace.'
Kirsten's eyebrow crept upwards. Something was off about Maggie's demeanor. Usually, she was full of energy and determination, easily taking control of whatever situation she was in. It looked like she had found one she wasn't exactly sure how to handle.
She just didn't say what.
'You look like something's troubling you. What's going on?' Kirsten asked.
Maggie shook her head again. 'Not exactly troubling, I'd just... like to ask you to... uh, verify something for me. It's a little difficult to explain, so I thought it would be best if you saw it for yourself.'
Kirsten studied her with a look. 'This isn't some dumb prank IB put you up to, is it?'
'No, no. That would be less complicated...'
Kirsten chewed on her lower lip. She wasn't one to use her extraordinary abilities to pry into other people's minds but allowed herself a telepathic surface scan and discovered no sign of Maggie lying or hiding something. There was some genuine confusion seeping from her mind that she had difficulties putting into words.
'All right,' Kirsten said, picked her jacket up from the hanger and put it on. A dark olive bomber style with a clover leaf on the back. It had been a gift from Cara Lace. Kirsten hadn't been able to figure out why Lace would give anyone clothes of all things. Nevertheless, she liked wearing it. 'And where exactly is this something you want to show me?'
'Just over at Star Labs.' Maggie jabbed a thumb behind her back. Kirsten's apartment was in a block just three streets away from the most well-known research facility in Metropolis. 'And it's actually not so much something as someone. Dr. Charles and I have been conducting an experiment involving my quantum abilities and... we came upon her.'
'Her?' Kirsten stopped for a moment as she was pulling up the zipper on her jacket.
'Yes. It's a her.'
'And who is this “her”?'
'That's... the curious part. We don't know. But I think you should see her,' Maggie scratched the back of her head.
'Maggie, you're not making much sense, you know that?' Kirsten said, visibly confused but doing her best not to sound irritated.
'I know,' Maggie replied. That was all she said. Kirsten was staring at her for a few long moments. Then she just inclined her head in resignation.
'Okay, okay, I'm not going to ask anything else,' she stepped outside and closed the door behind her. 'I just hope it's as important as you make it sound.'
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STAR Labs
Star Labs was still gigantic and staggering. The epitome of what human perseverance, determination and creativity could achieve, if handed free reign in the field of science. That and a substantial amount of government and private grants.
As she and Maggie were walking down one of the immaculately clean, white-walled corridors, Kirsten found herself distracted by all the smooth-framed machinery, flickering lights, energy projections behind safety glasses and the scuttling-scooting maintenance droids and robots. She couldn't even begin to fathom the purpose of what she was seeing, let alone understand their workings. Whenever she visited the labs, she felt like a child, amazed and fascinated in a playground.
Staff was scarce, milling about and carrying out their tasks and didn't pay them much mind. Probably because in recent years, individuals with supernatural abilities were a lot more frequently seen at places like this and because night shift – when everything slowed down and turned monotonous – was already starting.
Maggie appeared far more focused, perhaps she had been spending more time in in these environs and got used to it by now. She led Kirsten a good way inside the facility, to a huge slide door that looked like it could withstand quite extreme physical effects.
Maggie pressed a button on a communicator panel on the wall by the side of the door. 'I've brought her. Let us in please.'
A brief surge of static, then a series of hisses and the blast door slid open. They stepped into a room at least thirty feet tall, machines and computer panels sitting atop one another in arranged blocks by the walls, leaving the central space open. That central pace was occupied by a gigantic construct that reminded Kirsten of a gyroscope. It was motionless, but was clearly designed to have parts that were capable of moving around at speed.
Next to it sat a transparent spherical container about the size of a car, resting on a machinery case with a screen display and a set of control buttons and switches. There was a blue glow emanating from inside the tank that obscured it before the eye.
But Kirsten realized someone was in that sphere, floating in the haze.
'Ah, good of you to come,' said one of the staff as he approached them. A regular Star Labs employee in a white coat and glasses. His name tag hung sloppily from the edge of his chest pocket.
Maggie offered a slight smile in return. She seemed to already know him, most likely from that experiment she had mentioned.
Kirsten nodded a greeting herself but found herself distracted by a scratching sensation coming from the back of her head.
'Magnificent, isn't it? We call it, the Spatial Hyper-Envelope Recreation Engine. SpHERE for short. It's a mechanism based on and powered by quantum particles and it's purpose is...,' the scientist began talking about the gyroscope-like construct but his sentences quickly became filled with words the meaning of which Kirsten had idea.
Not that she had any particular inclination to listen in the first place. She was trying to pinpoint that scratching, nagging sensation she felt. It was coming from the container, drawing her attention away.
'Excuse me, doctor...' she told the enthusiastic employee who never seemed to want to stop with the detailed description and glorification of the equipment in the room and spared the man's name tag a quick glance, '...Kerr. What's over there in that tank?'
The interruption startled the scientist. Then he set his glasses right and turned to look at where Kirsten pointed.
'That,' he said, matter of factly. He walked over to the container, beckoning Kirsten and Maggie to follow him. 'It's a most fortuitous discovery, thanks in no small part to our Comanderette America there.'
Kirsten took a step closer. The haze inside the the tank seemed to clear up a bit.
'She did us the favor of starting up the SpHERE and while we were testing spatial overlaps...,' Kerr went on. How he could talk so much without taking a breath, Kirsten would never figure out. '...we picked up an anomaly. Well, not an anomaly per se, but a convergence of quantum energy and matter that originated from outside the spatial plane which contained it, so...'
Kirsten put a hand on the container. On the other side, a hand appeared and pressed against the polyglass right where hers did. A blue hand. Kirsten's mind was throbbing now.
'...we were able to retrieve and transfer it into this tank. And...'
Just as Kirsten reached out with her telepathy a face swam clear of the glow that swirled around inside the container. A face of a girl just as blue as the hand pressed against the polyglass, framed by fiery red hair. It was her letting off the obscuring glow. Her gaze seemed distant and cloudy even though she was looking directly at Kirsten. Bizarre in a way but the features so, so familiar on a subconscious level.
Almost as if looking in... a mirror?
'...the Comanderette believes this find has something to do with you, Ms... umm, Stomper, was it? So she asked for you to be brought here to...'
Maggie was silent the whole time, standing still and focused, tense in anticipation for Kirsten's reaction.
Which, when it all fell together and the subconscious scratching turned into comprehension in the crystalline woman's mind, was an astonished, single word.
'Lilly...?'
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Dr. Sarah Charles wasn't in the best of moods as she was riding down the elevator. That call she had just taken from Vic in her office had been a tough, heated conversation and would definitely have an effect on their relationship.
The other staff in the lift cabin visibly tried to stand clear of her. Which usually wasn't the case since she did carry a quite attractive streak. They must have picked up on how tense she was.
Okay, I'll follow up with Vic tomorrow or the day after and try to find a solution, she thought as she tried to loosen up. That's how we got this far after all, isn't it?
The next floor was hers. The elevator let out a ringing sound as it stopped.
'Floor 23. Sections accessible from this floor: applied sciences, quantum containment and experimental research,' came a calm and pleasant female voice from the speakers. Not that Sarah needed any reminders by now, she knew the facility like the back of her hand.
Let's get back to work. She said, gently, rubbing her face with both hands, trying to steer her thoughts away from her personal troubles. There was something Kerr wanted, I should go see what it is.
She made her way to the opposite end of the section, following the colored signs on the floor. She waved and offered smiles to colleagues on the way. No wonder she was generally liked. Sarah always had a moment of understanding or an encouraging word for everyone.
She reached the blast doors leading to the quantum containment cell. One swipe of her keycard on the panel and the doors hissed as if greeting an old friend, then began to slide open.
And as they did, Sarah's ears were assailed by some blaring commotion coming from the inside. Shouting, thumping, confused speech.
Now, Sarah Charles was a generally liked and generally kind person. Unless suitably angered. The tension of that call from Vic still lingering didn't help much in that regard and one thing that always grated on her nerves was clamor and disorder in a workspace.
'What in the blazes is going on here?!' she exploded, her voice resonating inside the room. The scene froze, everything fell into abrupt silence, only the background hum and sizzles of working machinery remained.
In front of her were three people, two of whom she recognized immediately. One of them was Alan Kerr, a somewhat nerdy but very professional colleague of hers. What was off about him in this particular situation was that his feet weren't touching the ground.
The other one Sarah recognized was a blonde young woman – very charismatic for her age – clad in a star and stripe adorned uniform. Comanderette America. They had worked together a few times in the past, mostly because she had been able to lend her quantum powers to a number of experiments. She was clinging with both hands onto an arm that was reaching to Kerr's collar and was holding him aloft by it.
And that arm led back to a woman a good head taller than anyone else in the chamber. Her amber skin glinted whenever light fell on it, as if made of crystal. Her eyes were narrowed in anger and confusion. Sarah thought she had a faint recollection of meeting her sometime before but she wasn't sure.
So many metas these days.
Others of the staff were milling in the background, peering in but uncertain if they should come closer or not. It was clear to them getting in the way of the crystalline woman right now would be a regrettable idea.
'Well?!' Sarah demanded again and paced closer, hands on her hips.
'Ms. Stomper, please, put the doctor down,' Maggie said, aiming to seize the opportunity Dr. Charles' sudden appearance provided to control the conflict.
Kirsten gave Kerr a stare, then grunted and put him down on the floor.
'I'm beginning to think this was a bad idea, Comanderette,' the affronted doctor said indignantly as he righted his clothing. 'This woman is a menace and is a danger to-'
'Alan. Care to explain?' Sarah interrupted him.
'Yes. Yes, of course,' Kerr said, now visibly making an effort to compose himself. 'I was trying to explain to the... lady here that I cannot release the test subject into her custo-'
'That's not a friggin' test subject!' Kirsten exclaimed and took a step towards the doctor who stumbled backwards. With one swift motion, Maggie stood between them. 'That's my daughter in that goddamn tank, not some lab rat for you to poke with needles!'
Surprise sat out on Sarah's face. She held up a hand before tempers could flare again while she gave a quick look to the containment tank with the blue-skinned, red haired girl drifting in a glowing haze inside it. 'I take it this has something to do with the SpHERE test run I authorized this morning?'
Alan nodded, but still eyed Kirsten with alarm.
'All right,' Sarah sighed. 'Why don't we all sit down and go over what happened?'
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Sitting down, as it were, meant pulling a few office chairs from some of the workstations in the chamber over to the containment tank. Kirsten, visibly stirred by the last couple of minutes and unwilling to sit down, refused to move away from the girl she believed to be her daughter, so the others gathered around her.
Sarah had sent the rest of the staff home, seeing as their work was interrupted and wouldn't be continued in any meaningful way for the night.
Kirsten began to outline the details of how her daughter had died – or so she had believed – three years ago, along with her husband, Roger, and how she herself had been spared the same fate only because of her transformation to her current physiology.
'So you believe this girl is... Lilly, your daughter, right?' Sarah asked the tall crystalline woman. The doctor folded her legs as she was sitting. She took one of the steaming cups of coffee Maggie had hurried down to the mess area vending machine to get and was handing to her. In any normal case, food and drinks on the work floor would have irked Dr. Charles to quite the extent but apparently, normal had walked out the door right when the SpHERE had been booted up in the morning, so what harm could it do?
Maggie gave the other cup she was holding to Kerr and sat down between them.
'I am,' Kirsten nodded. One of her hands rested on the polyglass of the tank.
'Can you be sure?' Sarah asked and sipped her coffee. Standard instant stuff, tasted a bit plastic but she could feel her head starting to clear.
Kirsten gave her a tired look. 'Do you have children, Dr. Charles?'
Sarah thought of Vic. She suppressed a sigh. 'No, unfortunately not.'
'It's not something you can just mix up or mistake...,' Kirsten said. 'She's different now. The last time I saw her, she was five and now she's... well, she's clearly older than that. Her mind is... it's like it's in a flux. And I don't really have a basis for comparison on a telepathic level because I only got that ability after... after I lost her. But it's her. It's definitely her, no question.'
Sarah nodded, then turned to Kerr and Maggie. 'Tell me how you found her.'
The other doctor rubbed at his forehead.
'After you gave the OK for the SpHERE startup, I asked Styger Industries if they had anyone on the roster who could provide some assistance with the runs. They sent the Comanderette,' he inclined his head at Maggie. 'So we initiated the spatial field expansion routine and gradually increased the particle infusion percentage to-'
'Alan,' Sarah smiled at him, 'try to keep it simple.'
'Yes, okay. Okay,' Kerr chuckled, a little embarrassed. 'Point is, we... uh, we opened space to examine and collect data about the quantum flow. The SpHERE is able to maintain and manipulate quantum fields but it needs a source and a safety... lock, so to speak. That is what the Comanderette provided with her abilities.'
Maggie nodded. She had essentially been the battery for the machine. Kirsten wasn't sure she understood any of that but kept listening nonetheless.
'A good... how much was it, half an hour maybe?' Kerr went on, 'So, about a half an hour into the experiment, the Comanderette discovered an... well, for the lack of a better word, anomaly. An external matter convergence. That is... something was there that was not supposed to be there. In the open quantum field, I mean.'
He looked at the container.
'It took us almost four hours to separate the sub... uh, L-lilly from the plane of space we found her on, extract her into our own quantum zone and place her in that tank. It was an arduous task and required extremely sophisticated quantum field manipulation to avoid damaging her or the space plane we had opened up. The data from that maneuver alone is priceless research material and...'
Sarah cleared her throat and sipped her coffee. Kerr stopped and did the same.
'...but, back on topic, after the extrication was complete, the Comanderette insisted that Ms. Stomper be brought here to verify... the identity of the girl,' the doctor finished.
'Why didn't you tell me right away?' Kirsten asked Maggie. Not accusing but strained.
'I had... two reasons,' Maggie began carefully. 'The first is that I simply wasn't completely sure. I just picked up some of the familiarity between her and you. The second, what if I was wrong? What if you had believed me and I turned out to be wrong? That would've been a very bad, cruel mistake. Or would you have believed me at all?'
The crystalline woman pondered for a few moments. 'You're right. You did what you thought was best. And I can only thank you for it,' she then conceded gratefully.
Maggie let out a sigh of relief, slowly so that no one would notice. When Kirsten had thought the young heroine had stumbled upon a situation she hadn't been sure how to handle, she had been right. But eventually, Maggie took the obstacle flawlessly.
A brief silence hung in the air.
'So... you said, Ms. Stomper, that her mind resembles a... flux?' Kerr steered the conversation back in the original direction and directed a question at Kirsten. He was still hesitant to look her directly in the eye.
'Yes. I tried to form a psychic link and I got... only fragments. Fragments I can recognize her by but I seem unable to grasp her mind as a whole,' Kirsten explained.
Kerr nodded. 'That would make sense. It's the same reason I cannot release her from the tank yet.'
'What do you mean?' Kirsten felt her heart thump suddenly.
'You see that haze she's drifting in?' Kerr indicated by pointing. 'That's quantum particles and energies she's releasing. Apparently, it's involuntary and constant while spiking and falling in intensity.'
Kirsten looked inside the tank, worried. Her hand was still resting on the polyglass surface.
'I assume that's... not good?' She asked.
'It means your daughter is... oozing quantum imprints so strongly she can alter space and time planes she enters. Think of it as... never being here completely while being present on numerous other planes at once,' Kerr tried to describe the phenomenon, gesturing with his hands for emphasis.
'It can cause dangerous alterations in what is casually referred to as “the fabric of reality”,' Sarah added in all seriousness.
'So what can we do about it?' Kirsten said.
'We'll have to find a way to control and alleviate the effect,' Kerr responded matter of factly. 'But until then, I'm sorry to say she'll need to stay here in Star Labs.'
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Somewhere above Metropolis
Nights in Metropolis were usually calm and undisturbed. Bright stars sparkled across the deep, dark blue, almost black skyscape, the moon casting the city in a luminescent hue. Unlike Gotham, Metropolis was a jewel that shone during the night just as beautifully as it did during the day.
If one were to look closely enough, however, they might have noticed a spark of red darting through the sky, the only thing out of place. An aura slightly blurry from the effects of speed, hiding a single human shape gliding purposefully toward its destination.
As transmission waves found their mark, static crackled from a communicator. It was installed inside a red signet-looking ring the individual in transit wore on the right hand. The ring had a symbol on its face. It was then raised to its owner's mouth and flipped into receive mode.
'Well, well, well... unless my scanners are deceiving me – and they sure aren't – some welcome back cheers seem to be in order for the Big Bad Red, am I right?' the voice of the person and virtual entity known as Calculator came through, unmistakable in spite of the long-distance distortion.
'Ah. It's you. The useful man,' said another voice in return. A woman's rather unpleasant voice. 'Perhaps I should be surprised you found me so fast but I'm not. If I had the habit of it, I would commend you on your skills.'
'Coming from you, that's more than enough. Where exactly have you been this past year, anyway?' Calculator inquired.
'Useful you may be, comrade, but you are also far more curious than is good for your health.' There was a warning of aggression in that remark.
'It's not curiosity,' Calculator countered unabashed. 'Contacts and information. I like to know things. It's my trade as you may recall. And you're free not to answer. I'll find it out anyway.'
'Your smugness hasn't diminished at all, I see. But very well,' the woman relented. 'I've been off quadrant, away with the corps, disciplining unwilling populaces on distant planets. The phrase “educational genocide” sums it up well. The experience was greatly to my liking,' the woman described without the faintest hint of remorse or perturbation. In fact, a slight smile curled at the edge of her mouth.
'Oooh, sounds deliciously bad. Maybe you could tell me over dinner?'
Long silence. Then a laugh. A crude, raspy laugh.
'I don't appreciate this sort of humor but just now you succeeded in making it entertaining,' came the response. 'Still, no. And if you ask me that again, I'll kill you.'
'Hey, can't blame me for trying. Even guys like me need to get out every now and then, don't they?' One could hear him blink on the other end of the line. 'And since you're being so nice to me, I'll let you in on a little secret.'
'Which is?'
'Lex Luthor is aware of your return. And he's still... I'm trying to put this diplomatically, cross with you after you botched the last job he gave you.'
'Botched?' The raspy voice became strained. Angry.
'Styger Industries, remember? Jenny Styger survived.'
'That sounds not very plausible. I brought down the entire building on her. Or to be more precise, she brought it down on herself.'
'You know we have these wonders of civilization here in the West called television networks. Information flow and all that. You may have been out for a year but if you watch a newsreel for five minutes, you'll most probably see her make an appearance, all alive and well.'
A deep growl sent static through the line.
'And you're telling me this because...?'
'You're one big badass bitch. Whenever I tell a big badass bitch stuff like that, they get mad, go on a rampage and smash the heads of people I don't like. Heads of the heroic-y sort of loser people. I grab popcorn and just watch live news for a bit. That's a summer blockbuster for me!'
The growl intensified.
'Also,' Calculator went on, utterly unfazed by the growing anger of his partner in the conversation, 'I've managed to deck it out in this business for so long because I know it never hurts to get on the good side of big badass bitches. So, consider it a warning. Or a word of advice. And don't forget who you got it from.'
The growl took on a different edge and turned into another raspy laugh. The sort of laugh that would make the hair on your back prickle when you heard it.
'You are one of a kind, tovarisch,' the woman said. 'But I see your point. How about we go this way: you patch me through to comrade Luthor. I will discuss the matter with him, offer to finish the job before he has to attempt coercing me into it and mention it was your idea. He will believe you took it upon yourself to steer a useful asset – me – in his direction, entirely of your own accord. You would score a few points with him that way, da?'
'Almost sounds too good to be true. So it probably is. Here's the hick-up, what do you get out of all this?'
'You wound me comrade,' the woman said with acted indignation. Calculator was surprised she was capable of acting. Or indignation. 'First of all, I indeed not like to leave a job unfinished. Styger's head on a pike in a newsreel would make one spectacular sight, don't you think?'
'Ooooh, that, it would,' Calculator said approvingly. 'I'd have chili popcorn for that one.'
'Second, if comrade Luthor dispatches me again, I get to kill a few dozens of miserable wretches. Bystanders and all the useless sheep that just gets in the way. It's good for my... professional standards as it were. And it provides a clear picture of the Society's... how do you Americans say this? Public relations? I'm sure it would put certain elements in place.'
'Like I said, you're one big badass bitch. Sure there's no calendar poster of you posing in a red, sickle and hammer themed bikini lying around somewhere? Y'know, the Red Army motivational sort. With the beret on, of course. The beret just turn-'
'Don't push your luck, comrade,' the woman's voice turned menacing, threatening again. 'Just get me Luthor, will you?'
'Right away, comrade. A deal's a deal,' Calculator chuckled but his tone suggested his thoughts were entirely elsewhere already.
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'A bold move, Natasha,' Luthor said with something approaching respect. He was sitting comfortably in a leather seat in the back of his personal limousine, elbows resting on his knees, hands folded under his chin. 'It certainly is a gesture, you voluntarily stepping up to rectify this... loose end. I pondered what punitive measure would be suitable in this case whenever you may return but I'll put that on hold for now. You see, I don't appreciate it when I hand out a job and it's left unfinished.'
'Neither do I like to leave one as such, comrade Luthor,' Natasha's voice crackled through the comm. 'I was unaware she survived the ordeal. Seeing as she has, I will complete this assignment and smear her remains across Glenmorgan Square.'
'Sounds good. Styger's been an ever-growing thorn in my side and the world will be a better place when she's gone,' Luthor said, his voice carrying a grudge that had bored quite deep. 'However, vendettas must not blind us to present opportunities. Styger, obnoxious she may be to the extreme, can wait for the time being.'
'You have something urgent in mind?' Natasha sounded almost disappointed.
'I do. I need something acquired,' Luthor replied with determination and a small hint of impatience in his voice. 'From Star Labs.'
'Casualties?' Natasha asked, this time with anticipation. She knew full well Luthor would understand what she meant by the question.
'You're free to... eliminate anyone posing an obstacle to the task as long as the... item remains intact. But the retrieval comes first, not your playtime,' Luthor stressed.
'I don't see a problem with that,' Natasha said with glee.
'Just to up the enjoyment factor, I'll pair you up with another. An old acquaintance of yours.' Luthor smirked to himself.
Natasha thought for a moment. 'If it's who I think it is, she is quite welcome,' she then said, her delight undiminished.
There weren't many in the universe, let alone on Earth whom she would willingly accept as a partner. But now, in her mind, memories of red and yellow flashes surfaced. Memories of violence and destruction.
Returning to the planet and to her own personal agenda may not have been a bad idea, after all.
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