Blood Sisters
Chapter 21

The Terrible Trio stepped out intoa dimly lit room deep under the mountain. The Dead Man walked over tothe wall to a power box and pulled the lever down. Florescent lightshigh above flickered on one at a time. All around them, covered inthin nylon tarps were the old machines of Dr. Daedalus. “Finally”Victor said. With Michaela's strong arms and The Silhouette's shadowytentacles he had the equipment he needed moved into place. Then, onemachine at a time he connected cables and powered them up. The roombegan to fill with a low-frequency hum as the old equipment woke fromtheir long sleep.

Victor was like a kid atChristmas “Ahh, my dear Dark Lady”. He gave her a squeeze and afond look. “I have been waiting a long time for today”. She gavehim a forced smile, he still made her uncomfortable. Victor noticedthis and spoke quietly to her in Spanish “Don't worry, once thisis over, we can take some time together, Candelaria. I only kill whenI must, please believe that”The Silhouette looked straight at him with her moonlight eyes “Don'tfeed Allison Ashton to that monster. If Miss Liberty dies today, Iwill not be with you tomorrow”. Victornodded in understanding. Michaela looked over at the pairsuspiciously. The vampire started to pace, anticipating her kill.

Victor then busied himself withsyncing up the machines. Looking over their operation from the mastercontrol panel he set up. He gave a frown and tapped his foot “notenough power... I need more power”. From up above the sounds of thebattle echoed down through several floors. He got an idea.“Silhouette, please have one of your tendrils move that machineover here” he pointed as he asked.

The Midnight Mistress complied,and Victor again hooked up cables. He started to make some quickmodifications. Above, a loud pounding was heard. “Such is the follyof the Gods” Victor quoted.

Several minutes passed. As themachines heated up the room started to get uncomfortably warm. Victortook a minute to replace the ventilation system and the sound of largefans above joined with the loud humming below. The room began tosound like a factory, filled with the noise of metal and power. TheDead Man double checked his settings and the status displays. Then helooked over at his dark lover “let's go get her”. With a longlast look of silent warning at Victor, The Silhouette reached out herhand and they dropped into her shadow.

***

Goldstar stood his ground as therevenant charged him. He could sense all the signals that the agentswere transmitting to the synthoid zombies but they were a tangle, andhe did not have time to figure out which one was controlling the oneabout to hit him. Raising his hands in front of himself, Goldstarcharged up a massive energy wave. His formidable force-field dimmedas he drew on more and more of his energy reserves. A crackling blastthat heated the air in the room pulsed out of Goldstar's hands. Itburned right through the revenant, which disintegrated into ash, thenkept right on going until in melted through all sixteen inches of thearmored wall, destroying some of the electrical conduits that fedpower into the control room. Half of the computers and all the lightsin the room went dark. Goldstar, who's force-field now lit the roomwent down on one knee as he recovered from the revenants blow, andthe huge expenditure of energy he used to destroy it.

As the shining man of theseventies stood back up, many of the technicians in the roomsurrendered. The agents who were no longer controlling a revenantstood and leveled their weapons at Goldstar. He ignored them andsimply raised his hands. Thin rays of energy shot from his fingersstriking each of the agents, the ones pointing guns, then the onescontrolling synthoids. One by one they all grunted and slumped asGoldstar's restrained energies shocked them into unconsciousness.

Jennyappeared above the mountain, a gold orb rising in the sky, her whitebody-suit was still smoldering from the damage done by herforce-field, and she was in a lot of pain. Miracle heard a loudwhop-whop-whop aboveher and saw an Army helicopter that had been patrolling above theprison below. Miracle managed a smile. She waited until her ascentinto the sky slowed to a manageable speed, then did a quick port tobelow the copter and grabbed hold of its landing struts. Jenny hungthere for several long moments as she caught her breath and shook offthe blow that almost finished her. “Whew” she whistled.

Below, in the ground floor of theR&D facility Agent David cursed. The remaining revenants were nowrogue as their handlers lost control. He reached into his suit andpulled out his PDA, quickly tapping in a code so he could get atleast one under control. He sent it after 1-8-7.

Cricket suddenly realized thatshe was on her own. The girl was still struggling in a pile ofbloodsisters, Broadsword and Wildfire were each getting their asskicked by a revenant, and the last one was heading right for her. Totop it off, Allison and Jen had disappeared and Goldstar was nowhereto be found. Her resolve wavered and she felt a panic start to gripher. There was a loud clank behind her and Cricket looked towards thehuge open doors which were slowly closing, locking her in themountain. “No!” she cried, her heart sinking.

***

Miss Liberty fell on her knees,her strength was ebbing out of her like water from a burst dam andwaves of nausea were crashing through her. She looked up and saw TheSilhouette and The Dead Man standing over her. Allison felt heavy,her own body becoming too much to lift. “What... what are you doingDavos?” she said. The Dead Man, bent down closer to her and said “Ihave enhanced the function of your power bracers, Miss Liberty. Theyare now drawing your bio-mutant energy out of you, faster then youcan generate it.” “I have to get you plugged in over here, beforethey overload, if you don't mind.” She glared at him.

Like a viper Michaela was onAllison, her claws raked across her chest, tearing through Allison'sbeta-cloth easily. Blood splattered from Miss Liberty, she groaned asshe fell over on her side and clenched at her chest. It was pain likeshe had never felt before. Allison looked at her hand, covered inblood. She had never bled before from a wound.

Victorsnapped at Michaela. “Not yet! We still need her dammit!”Silhouette pulled the vampiress off of Miss Liberty, wrapping severalshadow tentacles around her. “RELEASE ME!” Michaela spat at TheSilhouette. The Dead Man cursed “Michaela, you will controlyourself or I swear, you will not get your vengeance today”. Thevampire snarled at Victor and The Silhouette. “Very well, but knowthat you are both dead. When this is done, I will feast on yourmarrow”. The Dead Man smirked “you need to replace some new lines,Michaela. Those are getting old”. He looked at The Silhouette “lether go, we have work to do”. The Dark Lady looked scornfully at thevampiress, but did as Victor bid. Michaela growled at Allison, butkept her distance.

The Dead Man hoisted Miss Libertyup and carried her over to the machine he had modified earlier,strapping her down and wrapping several bands of electrodes aroundher body. He spoke quietly to her “Allison, it is somewhat ironic,but I need to use you as the power source for the machines behindme”. He whispered to her “the same machines that are going to ridyou, and every New Human on this Earth of our powers forever”.

Miss Liberty moaned, she feltsick and the pain from her wound was like fire on her chest.“Victor... please, my daughter... my family...” the sound ofbattle above still thundered down into the room. Davos said “Itwill all be over soon, Allison.” Victor looked over at TheSilhouette and gestured to a machine with a large nine foot steelband, like a huge ring resting vertical on the floor “Stand thereand open a door into shadow”. With a puzzled look, Silhouette didas he asked. Davos went to his master control panel, throwing aswitch. Miss Liberty yelled in pain as bio-mutant energy was pulledout of her through her bracers, which started to glow hot. The largemachine before the Silhouette flared to life, and she felt her ownessence flowing into the inky black rift forming in its ring.“Muerte! What are you doing?!” The Silhouette cried inalarm.“Patience, Candelaria. Trust me.” The Dark Lady tried topull back, tried to close the growing vortex into shadow, but she wascaught as if in a current, swept along out of control. Michaelagrowled in alarm, snarling at Davos “What is this, Dead Man?!”

***

As the massive doors were nearlyclosed, North Star skated in the room, a shower of ice spreading outin front of her as she skid to a stop. She looked over at Cricketthen quickly scanned the rest of the room. Wildfire was in a smokingheap unconscious against the wall, one of his arms hanging at anunnatural angle, A revenant looming over him. Broadsword was barelystanding, his steel flesh taking a pounding from another revenant, hesaw North Star and called out “Winter...” but before he couldfinish his statement the revenant on him got in a blow into hisabdomen. Broadsword's gasped for air as his diaphragm spasmed. Hisheavy metal body crashed across the floor and he hit the wall with asickening clang. His head dropped against his body and he slid to thefloor.

The revenant controlled by Davidreached Cricket and grabbed a hold of the girl, pulling her from thecrowd of bloodsisters. Cricket struggled against the gray flesh ofthe synthoid, but it was stronger then her. She got a hand free andpunched it in the face, tearing open its skin. Sickly green energyflowed out. The revenant clutched Cricket around the neck with a gripof steel. The girl struggled for breath. The synthoid drew back afist and punched Cricket in the head once, twice... Crickets necksnapped back violently and her vision blackened. The agent had therevenant carry the semi-conscious girl towards a device that lookedlike a large x-ray machine, table and all. Agent David moved over tomeet it.

North Star slid into action,there was a revenant bearing down on Broadsword to finish the job.She poured a deluge of water over it and froze it in thick ice. “Thatwon't hold it for long” she muttered. Winter then sent a flow ofwater at the revenant carrying Cricket, freezing its feet to thefloor.

It was a desperate move, but allshe could do was buy time and hope. Looking over her shoulder she sawthe remaining bloodsister synthoid's coming at her, she sprayed out awave towards them and froze it into an ice wall, catching some of thebloodsisters within it. “Where the hell is everybody?!” sheyelled. Winter paled as she saw the revenant that had been poundingWildfire start towards her.

***

Allison was moaning, fighting tokeep conscious. The deep rends in her flesh from Michaela's clawsburned. Worse, whatever The Dead Man had her strapped to that waspowering his mad devices felt like it was ripping her guts out with abarbed wire net. The scalding heat from the bracers had overcome theability of beta-cloth under them to insulate, and Allison's wristsstarted to burn.

TheSilhouette was clenching her teeth, trying to fight against themachine that was tearing out her own energies, opening an everdeeper, ever wider gap into the shadows. Michaela had started towardsDavos, but stopped, looking at Miss Liberty and The Silhouettestruggling and in pain. She smiled wickedly “I underestimated youDead Man. This torture is delightful”. Davos ignored her and keptworking Deed's machines from the master control panel “Muerte,please! Stop this!”Candelaria pleaded in Spanish. Davos called back “It'sgoing to be okay, stop fighting it, I promise you will be fine, justhang on, keep that shadow door open”.She scowled “you should have told me, bastardo!”

Victor completed his adjustments,then turned around to watch his plan unfold. He paced and smiled. Hisvanity overcame his better judgment and he began speaking, raisinghis voice to be heard over the cacophony around him. “You know, Ialways admired Aristotle.” he smiled, he had been waiting a longtime for this. “Aristotle was not a scientist, he was a man ofreason. He thought about the world he observed and surmised muchabout the nature of things that, while not scientifically accurateper se still established many essentially correct paradigms thatshaped much of the science that followed him.” Silhouette, stillstruggling, looked at Davos like he had gone mad. He continuedunabated “To that end, while I am not a scientist, I have had morethen a century to observe and think about things, and what a centuryit was, the scientific advances have been logarithmic. I have foundagain and again that my guesses about the nature of the universe havebeen largely confirmed by those that do have the mathematical andscientific training as time has passed.”

Allison turned her head weaklytowards The Dead Man. “Are you really going to do this?” Victorsmiled “Yes”. She strained against her bonds “Dead Man, you'reno Aristotle, your just a madman”. Liberty gritted her teethagainst the pain. Suddenly there was a loud crash from far above, Victor looked up with satisfaction “Perhaps, Allison. I guess we'llsee”. Looking back down at her, then glancing at the consolereadouts, He continued. “I was not able to replicate these devicesthat William Deeds built, but I can use what I do understand aboutthem to implement new applications for his technology.” Davosgestured around him to illustrate the point. “Deeds himself was nota trained scientist, he did not understand how these machines hebuilt worked, just that they did. All he ever used them for reallywas failed experiments in time travel, and to transport the All Starsacross the globe”. Victor shook his head at some private memory,then said loudly “honestly, I don't know how these devices workeither, but I do know -what- they do”. Michaela stepped over toAllison, savoring her discomfort and looming despair. She dipped herfingers into the wounds she had made in her chest, prompting a yelpfrom Miss Liberty. The vampire licked Allison's blood from herfingers.

The Dead Man droned on “AsSilhouette's ability as shown us, there are other dimensions that caninteract with our universe”. He smiled coldly as the ringcontaining the rift to shadow whined louder as its power ramped up.Allison wailed as more energy was pulled from her. “Imagine for amoment that we were just two dimensional beings, there would be no upthat we could sense. However, it is here, in the same universe,effecting all the matter and energy that exists in ourtwo-dimensional world. That is, there might be something aboveus, who's existence, or who's mass we could only detect indirectly byhow it effects the space-time we can observe”. Miss Liberty moanedin pain, she was drenched in sweat, fading in and out as she foughtto stay conscious.

“Stay with me Allison, youdon't want to miss this” Victor was the side of her table, and hepatted her cheek. The noise from the battle above began to fade.Victor glanced up, then over at his control panel. Satisfied hecontinued his lecture. “It is the same for our existence as threedimensional beings. We cannot detect most of the mass that must be inour universe, when we add up all the mass in the universe that we canobserve, it is not enough to create the gravity needed to hold ouruniverse together. The science of the day describes this phenomena asdark matter. The Silhouette is able to show us exactly whatdark matter might be; it is shadow-stuff”. He smiled. “Victor...just shut the hell up!” Allison moaned. Her husband was aphysicist, this was getting absurd. She didn't understand him either.

The ring machine was vibratingloudly, a deep resonance issuing from it like a huge tuning fork.Candelaria dropped to her knees, wincing in pain, trying vainly topull herself away from the tendrils that had formed, chaining her tothe portal. Victor continued “In other words, the shadow worldthat The Silhouette can access, is not a different universe, butrather it is a part of this universe that is above usand thus we cannot observe it with our three-dimensionalperceptions”. The Silhouette spat “Victor!” she looked over ather apologetically “soon”. He turned back to Allison.

Victorstarted to pace as he spoke “I believe that when a shadow falls onmatter, the mass of the shadow is essentially undetectable as itsmass for all practical purposes becomes part of the mass of theobject on which the shadow falls. However, if a shadow falls onnothing if you will,say like in the emptiness of deep space, its mass can be detectedindependently, but indirectly in the way that its mass effects thespace-time we observe. Obviously the shadow footprint of a smallobject like a person, is infinitely smaller then the shadow footprintof say, a galaxy, but the shadow of a galaxy falls largely in emptyspace... and we detect the mass of this shadow as dark matter.” Hecocked his head, as if having a new thought “put another way, ashadow is always there, or at least the effect of its mass is, itsjust that we can only see whats not there, since it would betransparent to photons... hm” he muttered to himself “no EMinteraction, shadow only normally interacts with gravity... yes”.He glanced over at Candelaria “normally”.

Allison gritted her teeth andshot a fiery look at Davos, her pain reviving her. “I don't carewhat your doing, Victor, get on with it, I am sick of hearing yourvoice”. Allison strained against her restraints, glaring at him,and at Michaela who was giving her a ghoulish grin. Allison winced,the beta-cloth under her bracers was smoldering now, and she couldfeel her wrists getting seared.

Victor nodded “wait, MissLiberty, we are getting to the good part” he smiled. Allison rolledher eyes, The Silhouette stared daggers at her lover. “As we haveseen” he gestured at The Dark Lady “the distance traveled in theshadow dimension does not correlate with distance in regularspace-time, Silhouette can take what seems to be only a few steps andtravel miles of distance before stepping out of another shadow. Tothat end, shadow must not follow the normal curvature of space-time,even though its mass creates curvature, you can bypass space-timecurvature by entering it, replaceing a straight line between any twopoints. Further, it seems shadow connects everyone, independent ofdistance, because everyone casts a shadow”. He smiled a sharksmile, speaking low so only Allison would hear “Which is exactlywhat I need, because it is through these connections to shadow that Iintend to draw out all the bio-mutant energy, just like yoursAllison, leaving you all powerless.”

The rift machine flared now, andtendrils of darkness started to spread out into the room, Michaelawas enraptured by the shadow, feeling the power flowing around her.Allison started to glow with the bio-energy flowing from her. Shegritted her teeth against the pain, pitting her remaining strengthagainst the bonds at her wrists. The Silhouette was bowed low, herhead bobbing as she began to fade.

Victor leaned in closer toAllison as he continued “You know, you are likely going to survivethis, and the world will need to know what happened. Only you willknow the answer, so make sure your hearing me. Don't worry if youdon't get it, your husband will, just remember” Allison ignoredhim, fighting to get free. He spoke to her as quietly as he could,just over the machines that roared around them. “String theorytells us that there should be many more dimensions, which as I havesaid are part of this universe in ways that we cannot necessarilymeasure directly, but effect the universe as a whole just as anyother aspect of it. Like shadow, I suspect what we call bio-mutantenergy is also a part of the universe that for reasons I have yet tofathom we have only recently started to interact with.” The DeadMan took a moment to glace around, everything seemed to befunctioning as planned. There was no noise from far above. Hecontinued “Nearly everything we can observe about New Human powersdoes not make sense within the physics of the universe that we know,it is this bio-mutant energy flowing from its dimension into oursthat allows these things to happen, once the process we are beginninghere with this device draws enough bio-mutant energy into shadow, theprocess should reach a point where it will self-perpetuate,bio-energy will enter the world, only to be drawn immediately intoshadow” Allison wailed and turned her face towards The Dead Man,sweat running down her hot skin “Fine, so what! Is this how yourgoing to get rid of New Human abilities? Your one too, Davos! If youlose your powers, you'll die!”

Michaela looked at the Dead Man,suddenly suspicious. Victor glanced at Michaela, then continued tospeak to Allison “Yes I will grow old and die like everything else.To be honest, immortality is not all you might think, when the timecomes, I welcome my death. It is a small price to pay in order tosave Mankind as we know it”. Allison was shocked “WHAT?!”

Victorsmiled and spoke directly into Allison's ear, his breath brushing herskin. She cringed. “Have you noticed that there are no trees, orbacteria, or mammals with powers? There are no flowers wearingspandex suits battling the forces of evil. No super-dolphins orsuper-chimps either, so it is not just a question of intelligence.Therefore it must be a function of natural selection. The abilitiesthat New Humans display have been increasing in power so long as wehave been keeping track, at first there was no betas, then there wasthe first gamma... and now, since about 1975, starting with you,Allison; we have been seeing omegas. Every generation has more andmore people that display powers. That genotype, our genotype, willeventually be the dominant genotype, and the other strains willbecome extinct, I don't want this to come to pass, I don't wishhumanity as we know it to become extinct, so as you can see, I amsaving the world.” Victor heard a loud tone start to beep from hisconsole. He sighed “Finally” he looked around him at thedarkness, churning all around them like a black hole, sucking inbio-mutant energy through Miss Liberty. “Okay folks, here we go”.He pulled out his PDA and pressed a button, then grabbed the tableMiss Liberty was restrained on as he braced himself for theinevitable.