WalkMan May 3rd, 2026 9:18 AM

I was dead. At this time, at least, I was dead. I knew it in my gut before, but the implied reasoning behind that cranky robot’s words just twisted the knife in there. I didn’t care that I was dead, not really. I cared that the reason I was dead was somehow disgraceful. Like I was a villain. Evil. My death had been justified. And the ‘soundproof’ part meant they wanted to keep me dead, which was a whole other can of worms I wasn’t ready to deal with.

I emerged from the dark stairwell into the house above. I blinked away the pain of the sudden switch from dark to light, and found I had tears streaming down my face. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and collapsed in the nearest seat, a reasonably comfy couch in what I presumed was a living room. My head collapsed into my hands as everything hit me all at once. I was destined to be a monster. I couldn’t even try to change it without destroying the entire fucking future. If I tried to be a better father, I would risk erasing this Steven from existence, or even destroying all of reality. How could I go on like this? How was I going to go back to my time, if that was even possible anymore, and hold my infant son, knowing I’d have to torture him?

“WalkMan?” Steven called, “WalkMan, are you up there?”

I held my breath, trying to silence my sobs before responding. Apparently this was too long of a wait for my adult son.

“WalkMan, 0001’s still working on my hands, I can’t open the door.”

Oh. Right. I stood and walked to the door, pausing again to calm myself before opening the door. Steven stood there, a look of pained embarrassment etched on his face. He looked so much like me, it hurt. I couldn’t see any hint of his mother in his features, just an older version of myself staring back at me. He must have seen I was crying, as his embarrassment softened to concern.

“Thank you,” Steven said, “For standing up for me. Can we sit down?”

We made our way back to the living room, where Steven collapsed into a chair across from the couch. I resumed my spot and stared at the luxurious hardwood flooring, tracing the grain and knots with my eyes just to distract myself.

“0001’s an old, cranky guy,” Steven began, “He doesn’t really mean the insults he says. He used to be a-”

“I don’t care if he’s the Queen of England” I said, my voice soft and quiet from the un-heroic crying. “Nobody deserves to be talked to like that.”

Steven tried to clasp his hands together, but just ended up clanking his two stubs against each other instead. “I know, WalkMan. I shouldn’t make excuses for him. For Doctor Doomsday either. But right now, we need to focus on finding him and sending you back. Everything else I can handle from here.”

I glanced up and met Steven’s gaze. Those eyes staring back at me didn’t show the same confidence that his voice tried to project.

“0001’s examining my hands to try to find a fix for the time particle interferences. Once he has that, and re-installed my hands, we’re going to find our version of Doctor D, and restore him too. I’m confident once he’s back to his old self he will agree to return you to your time.”

“And how, exactly, are we going to find him?” I asked. “He has a time machine. We can’t exactly find him on a map, and even if we did find him, he’d just time travel away before we could catch him.”

Steven sighed and fell back into the clutches of his comfy looking chair. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was hoping to brainstorm with you about that. You are his Nemesis, after all.”

“Steven, I met the man about 12 hours ago. I don’t know anything about him besides the disturbing fact that he is a robot.”

Steven closed his eyes and sighed. “He’s a person, his consciousness was uploaded into a robot body. We think his brain circuits have been affected by the same time travel stuff that caused my hands to glitch out.”

“How did he get in there? Did they just hook up a wire from his real brain to a robot brain?” I asked.

Steven kept his eyes closed as he extended the footrest mechanism, raising his legs like my Drexel Heritage recliner. “He made a machine, tested it with his grandpa who you just had a screaming match with downstairs.”

“But how did it actually work? And why isn’t this time filled with robots driven by souls everywhere?”

Steven shrugged. “Fuck if I know. You’d need to talk to 0001 down there for an answer.”

My gaze drifted around the room, taking in the exquisite paintings and sculptures before stopping on the least impressive item in the collection. An urn.

Steven peaked at me after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence. He stood up after trying several times to close the chair’s footrest with his feet alone. “Let’s, uh, go back to the lab” he said. “I think 0001 should be done with the scans at least.”

I nodded, eager to get away from my own physical remains. I probably owed that robot man down there an apology.

We walked down the dark stairs as I tried to think what I would say to the robot. My foot slipped and I stumbled on the last step, landing awkwardly on the concrete floor of the laboratory. I cursed under my breath, apparently loud enough for 0001 to hear us.

“That you, Steven?” He yelled from the dark. “Or WalkMan?”

“It’s us, triple oh one” Steven yelled back.

“Why the hell is it so dark in here?” I yelled as I felt my way along the various lab tables and benches.

“I don’ like the lights” 0001 replied, much closer in the inky blackness.

“Why don’t you try wearing sunglasses, so everyone else can see? Or dim your cameras? You have the ability to transfer consciousnesses to machines, but not adjust your input brightness?” I grunted in irritation.

There was a long pause before the overhead lights flicked on. 0001 was standing beside us, looking around the place like a blind man that had just re-gained his sight. “Huh,” he said. “Never thought of this.”

“You’re welcome” I grumbled.

“Do you have my hands ready?” Steven asked, raising his stumps to eye level.

“Nah” the robot said, spitting as he walked to a table. “I got you new ones. Try these on, they’re magnetic.”

Steven approached the new hands with caution. “Do these shoot lasers too?” “Nah.” He said. “After I downloaded your data, I saw you had over a dozen mis-fire failsafe activations, which is a heck of a lot for someone who had these for just over two days. Figured you’d be better off using that blaster you’re so fond of.”

Steven flushed with embarrassment. “Yeah, uh, about that” he said, “Could you delete all of that? Not the GPS location of that one shot fired, but the rest needs to be gone. Maybe pretend it gets corrupted or something.”

Doombot 0001 raised an eyebrow, something I didn’t know was possible for a robot to do. “Now why in tarnation would I wanna do that?”

“Chrono-displacement procedure, section 4.2.2” he said confidently. “It’s something you’ve already done in my observed future.”

Doombot 0001 sighed. “I always knew you’d pull that rule on me eventually” he said. “Just kinda felt it in my circuits. Now I gotta try to falsify info in a system I built to be tamper proof. When do you need it?”

“Tomorrow morning, you’ll host a meeting first thing. You’ll need to have the entire Doomsquad laser records, and the one my hand fired needs to be corrupted. All except the GPS.”

The robot closed his eyes, which I think just meant he turned the red lights off in his eye sockets for a bit. “Damnation, Steven! That’s gonna be a lot of work. Getting that info should only be a few hours, but figuring out how to hide the other data, that’ll be at least 18 hours.”

“I think you told us you were delayed by Doombot 0028 using the bandwidth for a TV show.”

The mechanical man sighed and made another spitting sound. “I’ll figure it out. Anyways, try your new hands on for size.”

Steven reached a nub out towards the hands, then hesitated. “How do I, uh, put them on?” He asked.

Before Doombot 0001 could answer, the hands leapt from the table, rocketing towards Steven and clamping loudly on his arms. Steven yelped in surprise, but quickly composed himself as he examined his new hands.

“They’re standard for Doombot grip strength and durability,” 0001 explained as Steven raised his hands to the light, staring closely at the finger joints as he wiggled each in turn. “The only custom feature this time is the magnetic connection. You can activate them from around 20 meters and they’ll zip back over to ya, lickity-splitt.”

“Thanks, triple-oh 1” Steven said. He pulled his left hand off and tossed it to the couch, then held his stump arm out expectantly. Nothing happened.

“Oh, right, gotta put that part in your arms. Hang on.” The robot said, fumbling around in his workbench and scurrying over to Steven. With a flash of a welder and a loud whirring sound, Steven’s hand flew back to him and slapped loudly into place.

“Great,” I said, bored of the mechanical interactions. “Now how do we track down our version of Doctor Doomsday?”

Static electricity pulsed in the air around us, raising the hairs on my body like a startled cat. Green lightning cracked through the air, heralding the tell-tale green orb of a time travel rift opening above the workbench 0001 had recently vacated.

I flew backwards from the orb. Not “me” me, but another version, battered and bloodied, struck me back-first and threw us both into the scattered machinery. Doctor Doomsday flew through behind him, followed closely by Steven, both showing signs of a horrific battle.

Bloodied Steven raised a burned stump arm towards present Steven, and summoned the hand away from his old self and onto his new one. My present Steven leapt back, shocked by the sudden appearance of ourselves and his sudden disarmament. The battle-worn Doctor Doomsday kicked the new Steven in the back, sending him flying into the workbench with a sickening crunch. He stared at me and the wounded future me with an intense hatred, and summoned the time machine in his hand and disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared.

As Doctor Doomsday vanished, two green lines appeared, snaking their way from the orb and tethering to the other Steven and myself . Each attached to our future self’s belts and drew taunt, yanking them into the portal, dragging both in behind Doctor Doomsday as the portal sizzled closed.

Steven, Doombot 001 and I were silent, staring in uncomprehending terror at the sudden destruction that surrounded us. Steven looked down at his missing hand, blinking in confusion.

“...looks like I got a lot more work to do,” Doombot 0001 grumbled.

Steven May 3rd, 2026 8:35 AM

I watched myself fly away in the Osprey. It was a strange feeling, knowing I had been watched by myself without my knowledge, but I couldn’t let myself dwell on the oddity of time travel. I had to get WalkMan and myself into the house without raising an alarm that would summon the guards, record our presence, or otherwise risk destroying the entire time-space continuum.

You know, nothing major.

WalkMan shifted his weight, rustling the bushes we were hiding behind. I shot him a glare and made a ‘shush’ gesture. He shrugged in an awkward apology.

“Is someone there?” a voice called out from behind us.

A middle aged man emerged from the house behind us, holding open the screen door as he looked around. I recognized him as one of the neighbors, although I couldn’t remember his name. He must have told me half a dozen times now, but I just couldn’t recall. I knew how he liked his hamburgers from the neighborhood cookouts that Doctor Doomsday threw on occasion, and he had a dalmatian - lab mutt that was super friendly, but nothing else. He spotted us behind the bush and squinted.

“Close the damn door Bruce, you’re letting bugs in!” an angry woman shouted from inside.

“I thought I heard-” he called back, stopping when he finally found us. “Oh, nevermind, it’s just Steven. How’s it going, neighbor?"

I cursed under my breath. “Hi, um, Bruce. I’m doing well, trying to keep quiet though.”

“Close the goddamn door, Bruce!” His wife shouted again. His dog began barking, excited from all the shouting, and bounded out the door. The adorable dog saw me and bolted over, leaping on me and licking my face with the kind of enthusiasm only a dog could show.

I did the only thing I could. I pet the dog.

“Why are you still out there? I asked you to close the door!” his wife yelled again. “I swear you are the dumbest motherfucker-”

“It’s Steven!” Bruce yelled back through the door.

I glanced at WalkMan as the dog, I think his name was Finley, rolled on his back for belly rubs in front of him.

“Who?” she yelled again.

Bruce turned and cupped his hands around his mouth to answer. “STEVEN! Y’know, Doomsday’s kid? Our neighbor? Jesus Ashlyn, who’s not listening now?”

I stood up and wiped the dog slobber off on my pants. “So much for stealth. Let’s just ring the goddamn doorbell at this point.” I grumbled. WalkMan nodded, and we left the bickering couple with the friendly dog and just walked across the street.

The door opened before we had walked up the entryway steps. Doombot 0001, AKA Aloysius Doomsday, Doctor Doomsday’s grandfather, sighed. “Time travel shenanigans?” He asked. I nodded sheepishly. “Well, come on in.”

We entered the house and closed the door behind us. Doombot 0001 led us through the living room towards the hidden stairs to the darkened lab below. The light switch was still broken from my earlier mangling, just a hole and exposed wires that crackled ominously. The robot strode confidently through the darkness, maneuvering expertly around furniture and equipment that WalkMan and I had to feel our way around.

“Standard chrono-displacement procedure, just tell me when y’er from and don’t mention things that could fuck us all over.” Doombot 0001 said, finally turning on a lamp beside the couch in the corner. He finally realized who my companion was, and cursed. “What the- fucking hell, Steven, is that WalkMan? You brought a young WalkMan here? How fucking stupid are y’all?”

“He now, that was entirely Nigel’s fault” I said, patting the air with my metal hands. “I’m just trying to clean up his mess.”

Doombot 0001 grabbed my wrist and examined my heavily marred hand. “What in tarnation did you do? I just put these piggies on ya’, and you went and got chewed on by…” he squinted at the tooth pattern imprinted in the metal. “Some sort of shark?”

“Velociraptor, actually” I said.

Doombot 0001 chuckled, and made his tobacco spitting motion and accompanying sound effect. “Yeah, that sounds like somethin’ Nigel would do. Lemme fix ya’ up. In the meantime, why don’t’cha explain why y’all are here?”

Without asking permission, 0001 twisted my hands and removed them, leaving flat metal stumps behind. It was unnerving how easily my hands could just come off now, especially since I could still feel their tactile sensations while 0001 moved them to his work bench.

“What in tarnation…” he mumbled while connecting them to his computer. “All the code’s slightly off. Like, some bits got flipped at random.”

“Huh” I said. “Did the dinosaur teeth do that?”

“Nah” 0001 replied, pausing to do his fake tobacco spitting ritual. “It looks like you got hit with a burst of neutrinos or something. The bits got flipped in weird ways.”

I glanced at WalkMan, who just shrugged. Doombot 0001 sighed as he set the mechanical hands down with a thud.

“So y’all know how code is all 0’s and 1’s, right?” He asked. “Cause if ya don’t, then there’s nothin’ I can say that would make sense.”

I nodded. 0001 spat again and continued. “So all those 0’s and 1’s are basically just on and off switches, called a logic gate. These gates either let electricity through, or they don’t. Do that around a billion times, and you get code. Now, if somethin’ really small hits one of these gates, like a neutrino or somethn’, it can flip it to the other state. With me so far?”

I nodded. WalkMan didn’t.

“You’ve lost me,” he admitted.

Doombot 0001 grumbled and walked to his computer terminal. He typed at lightning speed, clicking and clacking like a machine gun until he found what he was looking for. A melodic tune started playing from the surround sound speakers, which I recognized as a Cocomelon song about monkeys jumping on a bed.

“What the fuck…” WalkMan started, but stopped as his skin began to glow. I recognized the pulsing golden light running under his skin as a sign that the song was working with his musical powers. “What the actual fuck is happening?”

“We have an extensive library of every song that gives you power and what said power does,” 0001 explained. “This’n helps you with numbers and comprehension.”

“But it’s a children’s song” he said, “how the hell did you figure this one out?”

“Some of your most effective songs are children’s educational music. Something about a deeper emotional connection or more direct lyrics.” I said. “We never got a chance to fully test this before… well, we never got around to it, I suppose.”

I could see the pain in WalkMan’s eyes as the song’s powers did their work. His enhanced comprehension meant he could probably figure out why children’s songs had the most emotional impact, and he was horrified by the conclusion. I couldn’t focus on that. I had to shove it down, repress that painful part of my past and his future and struggle on.

“So these little switches, they turn off and on, which affects other switches down the line, over and over and over again.” Doombot 0001 said, projecting his voice like he was giving a lecture at a University. “If something really tiny, like a sub-atomic particle, hits one of these, it can manually flip the switch. It’s really rare, but it’s been seen before, mostly in satellites and spaceships, and once in a Super Mario 64 speedrun. But I’m willin’ to bet y’all ain’t been to space recently.”

WalkMan glanced at me. “Do you go to space? I’d imagine there’s at least a moon base in the future.”

“No, we don’t go into space, 0001 is just making a point.” I said. “Right?”

“Yeah, I’m making a goddamn point,” 0001 said with irritation. “I’m sayin’ that y’all used the time machine, and it looks like that fucks with the Doombot software. It’s already hardened against EMP’s, but I think something about the time travel is getting around that.”

“Would that affect Doctor Doomsday’s Doombot hardware?” I asked. “That could explain some of his behavior recently.”

0001 facepalmed so hard that sparks flew from the impact. “YES. Good lord kid, if you were any denser you’d collapse into a black hole and kill us all.”

I shrank back in embarrassment, but before I could defend myself, I was saved by an unlikely hero.

“He’s just trying to help, asshole.” WalkMan snarled, standing up and stepping between me and 0001. “He’s asking questions to make sure he understands what you are saying, and you mock him for it? Would you rather he stay silent, not understanding what you’re trying to explain, and wasting all of our time here? No wonder Doctor Doomsday is such a narcissist if he was raised by YOU.”

0001 stared at WalkMan with intensely glowing red eyes and spat. “You ain’t exactly one to talk about raisin’ kids, WalkMan. Why don’t you ask your son here why your current residence is a soundproof urn upstairs?” WalkMan clenched his fist, but relaxed it again after a tense moment. He spun around and walked out of the room, his glow leaving a faint zig zag pattern as his trembling form disappeared into the dark recesses of the lab.

WalkMan May 3rd, 2026 2:04 AM

The green orb vanished with a cackle of lightning and robotic laughter, plunging Steven and I into total darkness. I cursed under my breath, chastising myself for ever trusting a villain in the first place. This fucking lunatic had claimed to be protecting the timelines, but he had just abandoned both of us outside of our times. Steven could probably live the rest of his life only displaced by two days, but not me. If I stayed here, whatever I had done would never happen, which would probably fuck up something important. Like the entire space time continuum.

Fuck, this was so confusing.

“We need to get out of here,” I said to Steven. My son was just staring at his robotic hands in silence. “Steven?”

He finally glanced back up at me, sliding his hands into his pockets as if he was holstering a weapon. “Huh? Yeah, let’s uh, let’s at least get off the farm. This place will be swarming with cops in…” he paused to check his watch, then quickly shoved his hand back into his pants pocket. “4 or so hours. Christ, where can we even go?”

I shrugged. “This is your time, not mine.”

Steven sighed as we jogged towards the woods at the edge of the farm. “It’s not mine either. We’re two days in the past. How the hell are we going to get back to the right time?”

“The old fashioned way I suppose. At one second per second.”

Steven began to object, then fell silent in contemplation. We walked for about an hour before he spoke again.

“I think I have an idea,” he said as we took a break in a small clearing. He sat down on a rock while I leaned against a tree, folding my arms across my chest. “We need to stay out of sight, so we don’t fuck up the timeline any more. We can’t just wander the woods around an active crime scene, and I can’t directly spend any of my Doomsday funds without throwing up a flag somewhere.”

I grunted in reply. “I didn’t exactly bring cash with me to the future, and from what I gather I’m dead in this present. Don’t think they’d keep my bank accounts open.”

Steven ignored my quip, which confirmed at least one of my suspicions. He withdrew a thin black rectangle from his pocket and began poking at it with his thumbs. “Our Uber account bills monthly, so we can get a ride the rest of the way to Doomsday’s house.”

“Huh? I thought we were trying to lay low? What does an assault on his compound gain us?”

Steven finished tapping and put the small computer back in his pocket. “Oh, no, the Doomfort is where we do all the operations. Doctor Doomsday has a house in a quiet suburb. We will leave there around 10 this morning, and we didn’t go back before you arrived. It’s one place I can guarantee we won’t run into anyone.”

I shook my head. “I don’t like it. Don’t you have security systems? Minions that would turn us in?”

“Nah,” he said dismissively, “The two guys that work there know about our time travel stuff, they’ll comply. We need to get going, I set the pick-up at a truck stop about three miles north of here.”

We walked in silence for an uncomfortably long time. I wanted to ask him something, anything, but I just didn’t have the words. I didn’t know what I had done to earn this treatment from my son. And even if I did, I couldn’t do anything to change it. Whatever it was, I was destined to do it anyway. I had to become whatever monster Steven saw me as now, in order to make him into the man he was now.

I could smell the truck stop before it came into view. The odd combination of diesel fuel, old coffee, and fresh pancakes made my stomach rumble, but we couldn’t afford to spend money or be seen. All we could do was wait for the car, which turned out to be Alejandro Uber again. Well, not ‘again’, at least not yet. Damnation, time travel was confusing.

Steven and I got a few hours of sleep as Alejandro brought us to a park near the house. Apparently it had a line of sight for the aircraft that Doctor Doomsday and Steven would be departing in this afternoon, and more importantly, a hacked vending machine. Steven wiggled his metallic fingers near the mechanism and the machine obeyed, dispensing a few bags of snacks and bottles of water. The junk food wouldn’t provide nutrients, but it would silence our rumbling stomachs. We sat at a nearby table and ate as the sun rose to its rightful place in the sky.

“So, how’s your life been, Steven?” I asked as I took another bite of my generic Honeybun. I hoped the park had a working bathroom where I could wash off this sticky glaze when I was done.

Steven paused, holding a wafer cracker halfway to his mouth. “Who the hell starts a conversation like that?” He grumbled.

I washed down the sugary bite with the unlabeled bottled water. “It’s lame as hell, I know. But I can’t exactly ask you specifics, and you’re still my son. I just want to know if you’ve been, y’know, happy.”

Steven huffed a single, pained laugh. “Funny. You never cared about that kind of thing when I was a kid.”

My heart sank in my chest. How was that possible? When I found out I was going to be a father just a few days ago, I was ready to dedicate my whole life to being the best father I could be. Why would I go so far the other way? It didn’t make any sense.

“I care now, Steven.” I said solemnly.

“But you won’t in your future. So stop trying now. We can’t fuck up the timeline, and you turning into Super Dad would do just that.” Steven said, chuckling at the sick irony of it all.

“Do you know why I did… will do… whatever it was that hurt you?” I asked softly.

Our conversation was interrupted by a child’s laugh. A man and his two children, one boy and one girl around 7-ish years old, had arrived at the nearby playground without us noticing. The boy was trying to launch himself off of a swing, while the girl ran in circles around the smiling father. I watched as he caught her and hefted her in the air before bringing her down into a hug. The boy, having completed his swing-assisted takeoff and landing maneuver, ran over and joined the hug.

I couldn’t look away.

“Did I…” I asked, unable to finish the question. Steven shook his head.

“You were always too busy saving the world, one petty criminal at a time” he said as he chewed his last cracker. “Whenever you did come around, you’d just end up screaming at mom and I before leaving for another few weeks.”

The honey bun didn’t taste so sweet anymore. I set it down on the plastic table and focused on my son, the man who resented me for things I was now expected to do, because I had already done them.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” I said. Steven didn’t answer. His watch buzzed, and he silenced it with a few taps on the glass face.

“We’re leaving now. Doctor Doomsday and I, I mean. We don’t return to the house in the next few days, so it should be safe now. Go wash up, 0001 hates sticky messes. And lights.”

I complied, using the washroom to clean my hands and wash away the tears that had started to form in the corners of my eyes.

Steven May 3rd, 2026 2:00 AM

I landed on dirt. Hard. Both the dirt I hit and the severity of the impact with which it was struck. I kind of recovered enough to turn the fall into a roll and drew my Doomsquad sidearm, sweeping the unfamiliar area just as Doombot 0028 had trained me. It was dark, it was a bit chilly, and it was familiar.

This was ShepHeard’s farm. Why the hell was I in ShepHeard’s farm? Doctor Doomsday had…

Oh. Oh no. No no no no no. That insane bastard had sent me to the scene of the murder, and I was willing to bet it hadn’t earned that moniker yet. This was a disaster. If we intervened and saved ShepHeard, we could destroy our current timeline. If we did nothing, we’d watch a man be murdered. We may witness the person doing the aforementioned murder, but we would have to let them go free without noticing us. This was something that we had extensive knowledge about in the future, and we couldn’t risk making any paradoxes, either by our action or inaction. My head hurt, aching with a dull throb. I dismissed it as a minor inconvenience.

The green orb that had spat me out began to gurgle like my guts after discount sushi night. I turned just in time to see WalkMan tumble out into the dirt, and Doctor Doomsday hop out right behind him. The green orb shrank away into nothingness as the robot frame twirled his hand, dismissing the machine back into whatever dimension he had managed to store it within.

“DOC!” I hissed quietly, yet forcefully. “This has crossed the line! We can’t be HERE, we investigated this place! If we leave any trace we were here, now, then-”

Doctor Doomsday rolled his eyes, a gesture I didn’t know he could make with those LED eyes, and scoffed. “We already had this discussion, my young ward. If we did something in the past, it already affected our future. Here and now, we can witness the murder first-hand, and we can eliminate them when we are back in the present. Easy peasy.”

“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT FOR CERTAIN!” I snarled, jabbing a finger into his metal chest. “You don’t get to risk the fate of the fucking PLANET based on how smart you think you are! If you’re wrong, you hurt every living person. But you’re so arrogant, so damn self centered, that you think you can’t possibly be wrong!”

Doctor Doomsday slapped my hand off his chest. “Be careful with that thing!” He snapped.

“Like how you’re being so careful ripping holes in the fabric of space-time?!?” I snapped. “Why do you care more about this than all of existence?”

“Because I know the consequences of my actions.” He snapped right back, his red eyes flaring to an admittedly intimidating degree. “Unlike you. Have you even read that manual for your fucking hands yet? Those two grippers you’ve used every moment of the day since they were installed? I’m sure ‘just winging it’ will work great, right up until you blow your balls off when you wipe your ass.”

He had a point, but I couldn’t let that get to me right now. This was far more important. The world could survive without me in it, but not with Doctor Doomsday fucking with the timeline.

“Don’t deflect this, Doc. You have to stop. Give me the time machine.”

Doctor Doomsday held up the device in his palm, and sent it back into the void. I had no idea how he’d managed that trick, he seemed able to summon and dismiss it into nothingness at will. The thing acted like it was part puppy, and part interdimensional demi-god. His smirk was so insufferable it physically hurt to behold.

“Don’t make me fight you for it” I snarled.

Doctor Doomsday cackled. His evil laugh echoed across the otherwise silent farmland. “I’d love to see you try, my boy.”

“He’s not YOUR boy” WalkMan growled as he came to my side. “He’s MY son.”

That was a whole can of worms that I didn’t need to open right now. If everything went even half decently, this can would be collecting dust, sitting un-opened right next to WalkMan’s ashes on the mantle. For now, I just accepted his help.

“Well, it’s not my fault he calls me ‘Dad’ now. But I’ll leave that explanation up to the young Steven, who is technically older than you are at the present moment.”

“You know we can’t discuss that with him!” I said, trying to balance the intensity of my words with the silence of the farmland around us. I didn’t want to spook the killer or draw ShepHeard over to investigate us, like we had investigated his corpse earlier... or later… damn, this time travel stuff was complicated.

“So what do you propose? We waste this opportunity, allow an innocent man’s murder to go unsolved?” Doctor Doomsday asked, sweeping his hand at our surroundings. “We’re already here. We can just observe and go right back. Hell, we can even record it if they want to do a trial or whatever legal bullshit.

“Counter offer” I snarled, “we go back to our time, send WalkMan home, and destroy the time machine.”

Doctor Doomsday glared at me with pure hatred shining from his eyes. “That’s not going to happen, my boy.”

“Yes, it fucking is.” I replied with the most conviction I had ever felt. “You’re going to bring the time machine back, give it to me, and sever whatever tech or magic or future bullshit you use to make it come and go.”

The robot glanced between WalkMan and I, narrowing his red LED’s to imitate a squint. “Are you sure you want to do this, Steven?” He asked softly. He brushed his lab coat aside, as if he was some old Western gunslinger moving his poncho out of the way of his trusty 6-shooter.

I heard a muffled song as WalkMan turned on his cassette player namesake. “I’m with you, Steven,” he said softly. “I’ll follow your lead.” A faint yellow glow outlined his muscles beneath his skin, shimmering like a cuttlefish trying to either eat or fuck.

No. This could not happen. If WalkMan died in this fight, we could bring him back, but that would require playing a song he hadn’t heard yet. Hell, it might not work on him now the same way it would in the future. His emotional reaction to the song wouldn’t produce the same superpowered effect. If I remember correctly, the song that brought him back to life last time was a Cocomelon song, and cocomelon didn’t even exist yet in his time.

“We can’t fight. Not here, at least. Our top priority is staying out of sight and not fuck up all of space and time by being dumb. Let’s find some cover.”

WalkMan turned off his cassette deck, looking a bit disappointed that he wasn’t going to fight my adopted father. Doctor Doomsday kept glaring at me before turning abruptly and making his way towards the tall corn stalks.

“Where was the body found? WalkMan asked. “We should make sure we can actually see the murder from our hiding spot.”

“Good idea, it’s right over there-” I pointed towards the barn and flew backwards. Spots danced in my vision as my mind scrambled to figure out what the hell just happened. A horrible flash of red light had left me blind, hopefully just temporarily.The red light of the Doomsday laser that fired from my fingertip. What had Doombot 0001 called it, a ‘phalangeal barrage’? Whatever it was called, it didn't prepare me for the violence it would unleash.

“Looks like we found the killer after all” Doctor Doomsday said without emotion. “Congrats on solving the case, Steven.”

WalkMan helped me to my feet as I tried to blink away the spots still obscuring my vision. I quickly wished I hadn’t. ShepHeard was laying on his back by the barn, clearly dead even from this range. A cow walked to the corpse and nudged it with its nose before lying beside the body, curling up next to it like a dog and mooing sadly.

I… I had killed ShepHeard? No, this didn’t make sense, I was only here to investigate the crime, I didn’t want him dead. I hadn’t even met ShepHeard. This didn’t make any sense at all.

“You… you did this” I stammered, glancing at Doctor Doomsday. “I didn’t want to murder him, I didn’t even mean to fire that, I…”

“No, you didn’t murder him” Doctor Doomsday said casually, “you committed Involuntary Manslaughter. That’s a completely different crime. Probably negligent discharge too, since you never learned how your literal firearms worked.”

I stared at my hands. They trembled slightly, reflecting the moonlight on the marks and punctures that Vincent the Velociraptor had engraved with his teeth.

WalkMan placed a hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed. “It’s not your fault,” he said softly.

“Yes, it is.” Doctor Doomsday said. “He needs to learn responsibility from this. Absolving him won’t-”

I glared at the madman in a robot body. “Responsibility? That’s rich coming from you, asshole. Take us back to our time. NOW.”

Doctor Doomsday fell silent. I could sense his building fury even in that robotic frame of his. The eyes glowed a bit brighter, and his fists groaned under the pressure his tightening grip inflicted. “You think ME irresponsible?” He said with barely contained fury. “I have studied the science of time and space for hundreds of years. Who are you to chastise me in ignorance? Who are you, the son of my Nemesis, to belittle ME? To infantize ME? To underestimate ME!”

Before I could respond, he held out his hand, summoning the time machine and activating it with impossibly fast fingers. The green orb appeared, sucking Doctor Doomsday inside and vanishing just as fast. The only sign he had even been here was the green lightning that danced around before fading from view.

“...shit”, I said. The distant cow mooed in pained agreement.

WalkMan May 4th, 2026 3:46 PM

My son. The child I only knew as a grainy black and white fetus on an ultrasound image was standing beside me. Real. Fully grown. A man around 10 to 15 years older than I was at the present. Well, at my present, not his. Possibly. Less than an hour ago I didn’t know time travel was real, and now I wasn’t even sure if ‘an hour ago’ was true. But what was true was my son. Right here. Real. In the flesh.

And he wanted nothing to do with me.

We rode in some sort of futuristic car driven by a chauffeur with poor style and hygiene. The man’s name was either Alejandro or Uber, and he seemed quite agitated and very unprofessional. He drove right past stop signs and rarely used his turn signals. I’d have to find his Taxi license number and report him to the proper authorities at the soonest opportunity. I couldn’t overlook his blatant violations of traffic laws, even if he was so considerate as to have a box of bottled waters with him. I shifted awkwardly in the middle seat, squeezed in tightly beside Doctor Doomsday and my adult son, and retrieved a quarter from my pocket. I placed the coin on the center console and took a bottle. “Keep the change, Mr. Uber” I said as I twisted the bottle open and sipped the lukewarm liquid.

The driver made eye contact with me through the rear view mirror. “No coin, Venmo or CashApp only” he said, tapping a strange blotchy black and white checkered square image.

“Um…” I said. I didn’t even know where to start with this, it was like he was speaking a foreign language.

“Allow me,” Doctor Doomsday said. He reached across me and waved his robot hand across the picture, and a small ‘ding’ sound chimed from some hidden speaker. The driver checked the bright computer screen mounted on the dashboard and nodded. “Thank you, Alejandro” The robot said, winking with his light bulb eye.

“The future is… strange.” I said as I took another sip.

“Indeed,” the robotic frame holding the consciousness of Doctor Doomsday said, “But is everything unfamiliar not strange until you get to know it? Then it becomes familiar, and the next-”

“We’re here” Steven thankfully interrupted. The car had come to a stop in the parking lot of a large hospital. “Wait here, Alejandro, we’ll be right back.”

We piled out of the car and approached the hospital. The large glass doors slid apart as we approached, probably the result of some futuristic technology or another, and closed behind us once we were inside. A young woman smiled at us from the front desk and asked “Can I help you?”

“Yes, Madam, we’re here to see Grandmommy Longlegs, can you tell us what room she’s in?” Doctor Doomsday asked, clunking one metal arm on the desktop

The woman glanced at Steven and I. “Um, I can’t disclose that information. Only those listed next of kin can visit her currently, I’m afraid.”

Doctor Doomsday’s charismatic aura vanished. It was the same way any narcissist reacted to being told no, even without the usual facial muscles to change his expression. “Madam, what is your name?”

The woman shrank back in her chair, her eyes widening in terror. “T…Tracy” she stammered.

“My dear Tracy, we need to speak with Grandmommy Longlegs on a most urgent matter. We are not related to her, but we are close professional acquaintances. So I will ask again, what room is she in?”

To her credit, Tracy managed to compose herself and sit back upright in her chair. “I cannot reveal that information. If you persist, I will have to ask security to escort you off the premises.”

Doctor Doomsday grinned. It was a wicked grin, completely devoid of humor or warmth. “I would be delighted to see their attempt.”

I stepped forward and placed a hand on the robot man’s shoulder. “That’s enough. We aren’t harming hospital staff.”

Doctor Doomsday glared at me with literal murder in his eyes for a moment before sighing and lowering the intensity of his eyeball lights. He shrugged out of my grip and stomped back outside. Steven and I followed after apologizing to Tracy for her fright.

Doctor Doomsday was pacing in the ambulance bay, leaving bootprint shaped craters indented in the asphalt. “Why did you stop me?” He snapped at me as we approached. “The whole reason I brought you here was to talk to her spiders. And for your information, ‘here’ is both this place and this time.”

“I won’t let you coerce that woman into breaking the law. She could serve jail time for-”

“For what? Helping us figure out who is murdering superheroes? Possibly saving a life before they strike again?” He scoffed, waving a dismissive hand in my direction. “Your strict adherence to the law will cost more than it saves, Hero.”

Steven stepped between us before I could respond. “Knock it off, both of you!” He snarled. “We will find a different way, without coercing innocent people into crime.”

“Fine” Doctor Doomsday snapped. “Let’s see what we can use to our advantage. Say, does that window look a bit infested to you?”

I followed his mechanical gaze and saw the window in question. It was on the 4th floor and looked like an overly eager Halloween enthusiast had gone too far decorating a haunted house. The window bulged with white webs, resembling a front-loaded washing machine overfilled with bedsheets.

“That’s obviously her room. Now, how do we get up there unnoticed?” Steven said. “We can’t just walk past the receptionist unnoticed. Unless… WalkMan, do you know how to turn invisible? Maybe we can-”

“I’ll cause a distraction, you two go up the fire escape while they focus on me” Doctor Doomsday said, then took off in a frighteningly fast sprint towards the parking lot. He rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. Moments later, an explosion shattered the ground floor windows, and a truly evil cackle reverberated off of every surface.

“Let’s go,” Steven said as he rushed towards the fire escape. I couldn’t contain my shock to pretend everything was ok with this scenario unfolding around us.

“You’re ok with this?” I asked, sweeping my hand towards the chaos unfolding around the building. “This destruction, this chaos, all for our convenience?”

Steven paused briefly, mere moments in contemplation, before nodding. “It’s not ideal, but it’s effective. Come on, we can’t waste the opportunity.”

I followed Steven up the rusty stairs, pausing every few steps to hold on to a railing as the building shook with each new ‘distraction’ the robot created. I could hear police sirens approaching from all directions, explosions presumably from cars in the parking lot, and maniacal mechanical glee from the madman. We stopped just outside the spider infested window and exchanged a glance.

“So, uh, you can ask these spiders what happened to Grandmommy longlegs?” Steven asked awkwardly.

“...no?”

“What?”

“I can’t talk to spiders, I just hit things very hard.” I answered honestly.

“No, but you have a song for everything. Just play whatever makes you understand animals.” He said, gesturing to the spiders that were gathering on the other side of the glass.

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Your powers! You can do whatever a song powers you up to do!” He yelled angrily.

This was news to me. I had only found out I could fight harder with this one Guns ‘n Roses album in my WalkMan, I never thought about trying it with other artists. Heck, for a time, I thought I was granted powers from a magic music player, or the album itself was something supernatural. I pulled out my WalkMan Cassette player and popped out the album within, inspecting both sides carefully. “No mention of spiders on this at all. So unless one of those zippered pouches on your outfit has a few dozen more cassettes, I think we should regroup and rethink this plan.”

Steven sighed and retrieved a slim black rectangle from his pocket. He began tapping on the flat side and sliding his finger around in quick flicks and gestures. “What are you-” I began, but Steven interrupted me by shoving the device in my face. It showed something calling itself ‘Spotify’ on the screen, an angry green bubble with odd lines running throughout the design.

“Tell me when one of these works” he said as he pushed the play button.

Sound erupted from the rectangle as if it were a top of the line boombox, clear and crisp even without any visible speakers. The words surged straight into my brain, zapping through my nerves like electrons in a power line. I felt a power rising within me, causing my hands to… itch. I glanced at my hands and saw fine hairs erupting from my fingers and palms, curling in on themselves instantly and scraping the skin.

“Damnit, wrong spider powers” Steven said, turning off this rendition of ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider’.

“That’s about a spider climbing, of course it wouldn’t let me talk to spi-” I tried to chide, but Steven was already selecting another song from his list. The new song began with an ear splitting series of screeches before leaping into an upbeat rendition of a song I recognized. “Talk to the Animals doesn’t work, Steven. I tried this song before.”

Steven huffed in irritation as he closed the Dr. Doolittle soundtrack on his device. A tapping sound drew both of our attention to the window, where a rather large spider in a pink sweater and matching bow was trying to get our attention. It waved one of its hairy legs at us, as if it recognized us and wanted to catch up on old times.

Steven barely glanced at the large arachnid before going back to swiping his device. I waved back to the spider awkwardly. It perked up and clapped its tiny claws together like an excited child.

“How about this?” Steven asked as he pressed the play button.

The music was familiar, a pleasant guitar solo warbling over a classic drum before the lyrics began. “Kansas?” I asked.

Steven nodded. “On the Other Side, 1980. Figured a song from your era might help.”

“Actually, that song came out in ‘79” a new voice said. The large spider adjusted its pink bow on the other side of the window. “Mommy wuves that song.” It said, wiping one of its large black eyes before staring back up at me. “Hey, it’s you! Hi, WalkMan!”

“Did it work?” Steven asked, stepping closer and examining the large spider through the glass.

“I think it did,” I replied. “This one said it knows me.”

Steven’s face grew pale. “Oh SHIT, I didn’t think about that. We need to-”

The spider tilted its head like a confused dog as another explosion shook the building. “Why is Steven upset? This is good young WalkMan, not evil old WalkMan. You told me that yesterday.”

“Evil Old WalkMan?” I asked.

Steven’s eyes grew so wide that I feared his eyeballs might fall out. “Ignore that, just ask what happened with Grandmommy Longlegs and Mom.”

My blood froze. Was she involved in the attack? Was she hurt? We had only just found out she was pregnant in my present, how was I supposed to process all of this shit at once?

“Your Mother was-”

“Not now!” Steven shouted, ducking as a flaming tire bounced off the railing mere feet from us on the fire escape. “Ask him what happened last night! We don’t have time for anything else right now.”

I turned back to the window and saw the large spider resting at eye level. He adjusted the pink bow on his head and, for a moment, I could have sworn he smiled at me. The building shook with another explosion and an accompanying cackle. More sirens wailed around us, and a helicopter passed us overhead. I couldn’t tell if it was a news vehicle or a police one, but either one would have cameras.

“Um, spider?” I asked, leaning in close. The spider adjusted his bow again and nodded, which skewed its bow back to the side. “What happened last night?”

The spider tilted its head like a confused dog, shifting the bow to the other side of his head in the process. “Why?”

“Uh, Steven told me to ask you, that’s why” I replied.

“No, I mean why do you ask? Do you not remember?” The spider asked.

It was my turn to tilt my head in confusion. Maybe there was some spider vocal nuance that I was missing, or the spider had a learning disability. “I’m asking you what happened. Could you please tell me?”

The spider adjusted its bow once again. “But you already know what happened.”

I grabbed the railing as the entire building shook again. Doctor Doomsday was probably running out of things to destroy at this point. I had to be faster. “No, I don’t. Please tell me, erm, spider.”

The arachnid looked hurt. “My name is Bertrand. B like ‘bumble bee’, E like ‘elephant’, R like ‘rabbit-”

“I KNOW HOW TO SPELL!” I shouted in frustration. “Just tell me what the fuck happened last night! Who attacked you? Who killed my wife?”

Bertrand withdrew into the webs and hid his face behind his front legs. “Please don’t yell at me” he said, “It makes me sad.”

“Don’t shout at him!” Steven said, then added under his breath “Your yelling never worked with me either.”

My blood froze in my veins. I had been that kind of father? I had imagined I would be the patient and kind type, a hero to my son as I was a hero to everyone else.

My inner monologue was interrupted by another large impact. Instead of an explosion, it was Doctor Doomsday landing heavily on the platform beside us. His black lab coat was singed at the edge, and his robotic face had several small dents about the size of a 9 millimeter pistol round. “Any progress?” He asked. “I ran out of parked cars to blow up.”

“No, WalkMan is just screaming at Bertrand,” Steven said.

“Because the damn spider keeps asking why I don’t remember!” I snapped. “What’s the use of talking with a bug if it doesn’t even make sense!”

Doctor Doomsday’s eyes glowed briefly, and he smiled. “That’s because he saw you there. You just haven’t been yet.”

Before I could ask what the hell that meant, the robot held out his hand and summoned the time machine. It appeared in his palm again, just like it had back in my time.

“What? No, Doc, don’t!” Steven said in a panic, lunging at the device as it roared to life. The familiar green orb materialized between the three of us, crackling with that awful green lightning. Steven fell into the orb and vanished.

“STEVEN!” I yelled as my son disappeared in the green void. I heard a distorted echo of my own voice from within, with older and younger versions joining into the chaotic chorus. I could have sworn I heard a baby’s voice yelling pseudo-words at one point.

“He’s fine, WalkMan. Get in before the police stop us. We can’t help him from prison.” Doctor Doomsday said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the mass of police cars and SWAT vans that were quickly surrounding the building.

“Where… when is he-” I started, but was rudely interrupted by a vicious shove, sending me tumbling into the green orb. I fell through space and time, much more chaotic and violently than the first trip.

Steven

4/4/2026 11:38 AM

My mother was dead. My girlfriend had died alone, murdered in a future devastated by my father’s actions. My father was dead too, killed by my own hand. My only living family wasn’t even legally alive. Was I destined to be surrounded by death? Watching those I loved perish, slaying the rest myself? What was the point of living at all if it only manifested death?

A Doombot forced a cup of warm liquid in my hands, making sure my fingers gripped the beverage before letting go. I drank without even glancing at the mug, draining the scalding cup of vanilla mint tea in one painful chug. The soothing mint did nothing against the burn it simultaneously inflicted. Even as others tried to help me, I seemed destined to harm myself. The Doombot took the empty cup and retreated, closing the door behind him and leaving me alone in Doctor Doomsday’s office once more. Alone. Like I deserved.

Good.

I had always been alone here, I realized as I stared into the void. They didn’t trust me when I, the son of Doctor Doomsday’s Nemesis, WalkMan, joined the Doomsquad. They glanced at the bad Doctor whenever I gave commands, awaiting a confirming nod from their real leader before obeying. Hell, I was only the ‘leader’ of the Doomsquad because Doctor Doomsday had left me everything in his will, and the whole ‘being legally dead’ thing forced me into the role. I wasn’t a leader and I knew it, deep down in my very core I knew I wasn’t the right kind of man for this. I was forcing myself to continue with this charade, this farce, playing pretend while the real work was still being done by the ghost of Doomsquad leaders past.

I looked around the office and winced at my neck’s stiff resistance. How long had I been staring at a random point in Doctor Doomsday’s office? Why was I even here? Last I knew I was in the Wellness clinic. Did they bring me here after I was done, like dropping a child off in their parent’s office?

I discarded the blanket and rose to my feet, stretching protesting muscles and cracking my lower back inadvertently. I examined the room as if it was my first time in here, reading the framed newspaper headlines of Doctor Doomsday’s deeds. “Villain Destroys Bridge During Heist” one read, referring to a dangerously neglected bridge that the government had refused to fix. The DOT had no choice but to repair it properly after the attention the attack drew. “Orphanage Burned By Doctor Doomsday” read another, omitting the fact that it had been a front for child trafficking. Several of the rescued children had been returned to their parents, while a few of the oldest had joined the Doomsquad at their request. “Doctor Doomsday Betrothed To Nemesis?” A tabloid magazine cover read, showing the now infamous photo of the villain ‘proposing’ to WalkMan, a photo that had caused quite the stir in several communities. That ring had cut off WalkMan’s finger. There was no hidden philanthropy behind this one, he had just wanted to mess with his Nemesis. This last one brought a hint of a smile to my sullen features, despite my best efforts.

The office trembled. I grabbed the corner of Doctor Doomsday’s desk with one hand and drew my blaster with the other, sweeping the room in a blur of reflexes. The air grew thick with ionized particulates, and my hair stood on end, like a massive static charge was building around me. A spec in mid air surged into reality, discharging green electric bolts in every direction as it grew. I recognized it just before it spat a humanoid figure into the room.

“GodDAMNIT DOC!” I shouted, holstering the blaster pistol. “How did you get the time machine again?! Or are you some other version of-”

I stopped in my tracks as another humanoid emerged from the void. He was a young man, probably early twenties, with vaguely familiar features on his stoic face. His eyes swept the room before meeting my gaze and freezing in place. His features melted into… awe? Reverence? It was as if he was staring into the eyes of a god.

“...oh” Doctor Doomsday said. “I thought my office would have been empty at this time.”

“Who is that?” I asked. I felt a growing fear that I knew exactly who this was, an anxiety that several trauma therapists had worked overtime to quell. The familiar hardened eyes were softer than I remembered, the lines on the forehead less noticeable, the grey around his temples completely absent.

“WalkMan,” Doctor Doomsday said, gesturing to me for the newcomer’s benefit. “Meet Steven, your son. Steven, meet WalkMan, circa 1990.”

I had no words. Well, I had several, but none were vocalized. I was staring at a version of my father that was 15 years younger than I was at present. A version that hadn’t done the things I hated the current one for. A version that, with the wrong knowledge of the present, could drastically alter the timeline and posed a risk to the very fabric of reality. “Doc, we need to talk privately. Now.” I said. “And he needs to go back even sooner than that.”

An alarm blared an ear splitting shriek, accompanied by a pulsating red strobe light. “WALKMAN DETECTED IN SECTOR 1” A robotic voice shouted through hidden speakers. “ALL DOOMBOTS AND DOOMSQUAD COMBATANTS, DEPLOY TO CONTAIN AND INCAPACITATE IMMEDIATELY. I REPEAT-”

“Whoopsies” Doctor Doomsday said as he tapped furiously at his arm mounted interface. “Forgot to turn that off, one second.”

The alarm ended just as abruptly as it started. Doctor Doomsday raised his wrist to his mouth and spoke, his voice echoing from the speakers in real time. “Disregard, authorization 1-Alpha-Me. False alarm… Well, real alarm, but false pretense. Just… yeah, just disregard. Doctor Doomsday out.”

WalkMan stared at us in confusion. I closed my eyes and tried to remember how my breathing exercise went. Was it breathing in for 3 seconds, out for 5? Was I supposed to breathe in with my nose or my mouth? Should I hold my breath?

“Care to explain what that was about?” WalkMan asked.

“Absolutely not,” I snapped. “Just… stay here, don’t look at anything, don’t speak to anyone. Doc, hallway, NOW.”

I slammed the door as I left the office, leaving a very confused WalkMan behind. Doctor Doomsday folded his arms and glared at me in silence, a technique he had taught me to build uncomfortable silence that a weaker man would feel the need to fill. I knew it worked, and I knew he could theoretically keep his silence forever. Hell, he was probably playing solitaire in his mind while he lay in wait for the trap to be sprung. Living in a purely mechanical form had some neat perks like that.

“I told you not to use the time machine.” I said almost immediately, refusing to play into the psy-op waiting game. “I locked it down. And you blatantly went around me, got the machine, and used it to bring my fucking FATHER into the future. You risked my very fucking existance to, what, translate for a spider? The same thing we tried with ShepHeard’s death, that got us fucking nowhere?” I waved my arms around as I continued, getting more and more upset with the mechanical madman. “You claim to be so benevolent with all your minions, but you flippantly risk erasing us all from time and space for a mild inconvenience?!”

“My theory seems to be accurate,” Doctor Doomsday said coldly. “I hypothesized it would have minimal risks, and since we’re all still here, it seems you are becoming irate over nothing.”

“SEEMS? You risked everything over SEEMS?!?!”

“Yes. Any action taken in the past has already occurred, as is the nature of ‘past’. Therefore, any time traveling I have done, or will do, has already occurred in said past. There cannot be a ‘new’ past, by definition. So how about you stop throwing a temperature tantrum and let the adults handle this?”

My jaw dropped. There was so much wrong with all of this that I didn’t even know where to begin. I worked my mouth to start my rebuttal, but the words just refused to come out. I felt like a child again, being yelled at for things outside my understanding or control by the very man waiting behind the office door.

“Let’s discuss this further once WalkMan is back in his own time” I finally said. “But this shit has to stop. Once he’s back, we’re destroying that fucking machine, and hashing out who is actually in control here.”

Doctor Doomsday clapped his hands, making a loud ‘clunk’ sound like a mid-sized car crash. “Splendid! Let’s bring WalkMan to Grandmommy Longleg’s recovery room and ask her children what happened. Hopefully, with WalkMan’s help, we can catch whoever is killing my friends with my own weapons.”

He spun on his heels and threw open the office door, startling the young version of my father. WalkMan leapt into what I recognized as a Judo stance as the door slammed into the far wall. “Time to help, Hero. How do you feel about spiders, elderly women, and interrogations?”

WalkMan 12:25 PM, 10/21/90

A small bell chimed pleasantly as I shoved the Police station’s door open, dragging the unconscious man inside behind me. The officer at the reception desk leapt to his feet and unlocked the inner door without a word, ushering us into the holding cells. I hefted the man onto the bed, tucking a pillow under his head and the blanket over his clothes. The officer looked puzzled, but I headed off his questions with a finger to my lips. He nodded and withdrew with me, locking the cell behind him.

“Defecting Soviet spy” I told the officer once we were out of earshot. “Brought him unconscious as a cover. The CIA will arrive to collect him in a few hours. Do not let anyone speak to him. If anyone besides agent Weber asks about him, you don’t say a word. Got it?”

The officer’s jaw dropped. The poor guy probably signed on to the force to protect his community and rescue cats, not playing in international espionage. I tried to comfort him with a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “You’re going to do fine, son. Chances are-”

The officer shrugged out of my grasp and pointed outside. I followed his finger and saw… green lightning? Some sort of electricity arcing from nothingness into nearby benches and light posts, striking whatever was in its path. A green dot appeared in the epicenter and quickly grew into a green orb. Whatever this was, it was causing a public disturbance.

I leapt into action, pulling my headphones into position over my ears and rewinding the Sony WalkMan in my pocket. My belt of cassette tapes clacked as I ran towards the orb, ready to fight whatever this thing was. Could it be a Soviet weapon? Did they track Dimitri from the safehouse somehow? Maybe it was some new super villain, or an alien, or even-

A human shaped robot jumped out of the disturbance. The machine was sleek black everywhere except his eyes, which glowed an otherworldly red stare of unmistakable evil. It wore a black leather lab coat and a scowl. “WALKMAN!” It shouted.

The small device in my pocket responded with an audible click, signaling the cassette tape was fully rewound. I pushed the play button and waited for the music to grant me the powers I needed. I felt the power surge through me as the song filled my ears and soul.

“WALKMAN!” The robot shouted again, glancing around with a predator’s steely gaze. “Does anyone know where WalkMan is? I need to talk to him. You there, with the baby carriage, do you know where… ok, have a nice day ma’am. Does anyone know where I can find WalkMan?”

I waited until the robotic menace tried to ask another bystander before I leapt from my hiding spot and charged. ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ powered up my punch enough to dent the side of the metallic face as I struck, sending the metal demon flying. It tumbled into a trash can, adding the crime of littering to the public disturbance it was creating.

“WalkMan! There you are, how have you been?” The robot asked as it rose to its feet. The metal monster didn’t seem to even notice it had been punched in the face with enough force to kill a normal man several times over. “I ask because I know how you will be, and it’s-”

I tackled the robot, driving it to the ground with my shoulder and the sick guitar solo blaring in my ears. The pavement cracked under the impact, breaking a nearby hydrant and spraying water high in the air. I rolled off the robot and out of the downpour, careful to keep my actual WalkMan dry. This strange black robot didn’t seem to mind getting soaked in a deluge of hydrant water.

“I came back here for your help, WalkMan” it said, “But I’m always down for a fight with my Nemesis. You have NO idea how much I’ve missed this.”

I raised my fists as the cassette player started the next song in the album. The heavier tone and growling lyrics of ‘It’s So Easy’ spread a different kind of power through me, a faster and more hectic kind of combat prowess that let me easily dodge the red laser that the robot unleashed towards me. I rolled over the broken asphalt and threw an uppercut that would have taken a boxer’s head clean off, but merely glanced off the robot’s metal chin. The robot kicked me in the chest and sent me soaring. I landed in a decorative shrubbery, unhurt besides my pride.

“That was fun, but we should really get back to business” the robot jeered as it approached, wiping hydrant water and road dust off it’s lab coat. “I’m from-”

‘Nightrain’ burst from the headphones, flooding me with the power of… well, a train, I supposed. I rose to my feet and ran at the robot, building momentum that would not yield to anything, not even this strange robot. I lowered my shoulder and plowed through the metal man and the building behind him. I felt him claw at my back as I drove him through brick walls and glass windows, only slowing when I heard a civilian scream in terror somewhere in front of me. The sound of Axl Rose’s screaming voice suddenly vanished as momentum threw the robot off of me.

“Gotcha!” The robot shouted in insane delight. It stood in the rubble, clutching my WalkMan in its hand. “Now let’s see, I think this particular album had…”

He opened the device and clutched the cassette tape in his hand, squinting its red eyes at the label. He flipped it and inserted the tape back in on the reverse side and snapped it closed, casually tossing the device back to me. “I believe that is an appropriate track to listen to while I explain my proposal.”

I grabbed the WalkMan in mid-air and slapped the headphone plug back into the jack in one fluid motion. The robot hadn’t damaged it, only changed the track that the album would play next. It didn’t really matter which song played next, all of the tracks on Guns n’ Roses ‘Appetite for Destruction’ provided some sort of positive combat power for me.

The song began with a plucky, up tempo guitar pattern that I recognized as ‘Sweet Child of Mine’. The robot grinned and held his hands in a ‘surrender’ pose. “Your son needs you in the future. I cannot say more without risking the timeline.”

I froze. Matilda had only just found out she was pregnant last week, how in the hell did this robot… well, that gave it’s claim of being from the future some validity.

“Why don’t you ask future me to help?” I growled, raising my fists and ignoring the blood that trailed down my forearms. I must have cut them on the glass I had run through, or perhaps the rebar sticking out of the ruined ice cream parlor.

“You… you aren’t exactly a present father in my time” the robot said. “Again, I can’t say without, you know, unraveling the very fabric of the universe. Probably. I’m willing to give it a try if you’d like. I’ve lived a long and fulfilling life. But young Steven has not.”

“I’m having a son?” I blurted out, unable to stop myself.

“FUCK!” The robot shouted, stomping in the debris and sending a puff of dust in the air. “See? That’s new information in this timeline, that could have serious future implications! Just… just come back to the, erm, my present, your future, and help your boy? Please?”

Please. This time traveling robotic maniac had said ‘please’. Had a villain ever said ‘please’ to me before?

“I’ll go” I said, “For my child. But if this is some sort of trick, I will not hesitate to end you.”

The robot grinned. “Oh, that is more true than you know. I wasn’t always a robot, you know.”

He held out a hand and a green box appeared in his palm, as if summoned from the ether. He tapped a few buttons and the machine roared to life, zapping a green orb behind him like the one he had appeared in. “Shall we?”

Doctor Doomsday
9:00 AM, 4/4/26
I left Steven wrapped in a heated blanket in the Doctor Doomsday Clinic for Emotional Wellness. My personal therapist there was trained in bereavement therapy, which she had used to help me through the loss of my wife and children all those years ago. I trusted her with my life, and now with Steven’s too. All of the therapists at my free mental health clinic were personally vetted by my minions and I extensively.

Chairman Static was waiting for me outside, floating around the top of an ancient oak tree in the parking lot. He seemed to be observing a particularly large bird nest.

“Could you kindly float down here, Static?” I called up to him. “Or should I climb up to your level?”

The hero floated down like a limbless Mary Poppins after a freak industrial accident. “How is Steven?” He asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“He’s in good hands” I told the limbless hero. “But he’s got a lot to process. I’m assuming control of the Doomsquad again while he recovers. Now, tell me what the Union knows about Anchor Woman’s death.”

Chairman Static glanced around, scanning for any potential eavesdroppers. Once he was content that nobody was dropping any eaves, he floated into conspiratorial range. “Anchor Woman was escorting Grandmommy Longlegs to her residence. They never made it. Grandmommy Longlegs is currently in a coma at St. Mercy’s hospital. Anchor Woman was…” he shuddered in mid air, closed his eyes, sighed deeply, and forced himself to continue. “Anchor Woman was consumed by spiders.”

I blinked, which involved more circuits and LED’s than a regular human body usually needed for the gesture. “So Anchor Woman, knowing that Granny’s spiders were instructed to kill her if their link was severed, was killed by said spider hoard? Did she suppress her? Why would-”

“Grandmommy Longlegs’s injury was caused by a 0.38 mm laser.”

I clenched my fist until pressure warnings overlaid across my vision. “The same used to kill ShepHeard.” I snarled.

“The same used to kill hundreds of-”

“Irrelevant” I interrupted. “I can account for those. What I can’t account for, is two of my friends being shot by my own proprietary weaponry. Were there any witnesses?”

Static shook his head. “Nobody saw what happened, except the spiders themselves. And Grandmommy Longlegs isn’t awake for translation. Although if she was, she could just tell us herself, I suppose.”

“And there are no other known heroes that can speak to animals?”

“The only people in our records who could do that are ShepHeard, Grandmommy longlegs, and WalkMan, and none are here to help us at the present.”

I blinked in surprise. It was so obvious, I scolded myself for not thinking of it myself. The solution had been within my grasp the whole time. “Thank you, Chairman Static. Could you excuse me?” I said as I left without waiting for his response.

“Don’t you want to look at the crime scene?” Static yelled at my back. I projected my response through the rear mounted speakers so I could continue my stride unimpeded.

“Nope. Not now, at least. Maybe sooner.”

“What? Do you mean later?”

I grinned, but didn’t answer. I most certainly did not mean later. I summoned a ride from a Doombot driver, like my own exclusive Uber but with less hostility to the end user, and tapped the destination into the GPS.

“Driving to: The Doomfort” The Doombot chauffeur said. He was a standard combat frame, except for the exquisitely tailored suit and white silk gloves covering his four hands. “Estimated arrival in 23 minutes, 12 seconds. Would you like to listen to any music on the way?”

“Yes, please,” I said. “Play a sample of every song in our WalkMan archive, and tell me what powers they would have manifested in him.”

The DoomDriver turned on the stereo with one of his extra arms, never taking his two standard ones off the wheel, and took off as the first song filled the vehicle. I closed my eyes and listened to the musical snippets and the known superpower effects they had bestowed on my dead nemesis. I flagged any songs that would be useful for download to my frame’s digital library. The sound acquired an echo as we entered the parking deck of the Doomfort, then died completely when we parked. I patted the minion on his shoulder as I stepped out of the car and into the elevator.

“Which floor?” The attendant Doombot asked, holding his white gloved hand near the control panel.

“Logistics, please” I replied. The mechanical fingers inside the white glove pressed the appropriate button and we began our descent. I found myself humming one of the songs from the WalkMan file, and couldn’t help chuckling to myself. It was poetic, really, which songs had which effects on my nemesis.

The elevator slowed to a gentle stop and the doors slid open with a pleasant chime. “Basement level 18, Logistics, Storage, and hot / cold spas.” The attendant said cheerfully. I winked and strode out like I owned the place. Stephan glanced up from his ergonomically arranged desk as I entered his domain.

“How’s the baby, Stephan?” I asked cheerfully. There was always time for pleasantries with your minions, and even the most basic of personal questions showed that you cared about them. It was what separated a villain and a super villain.

“He’s still not sleeping, but that’s kinda the norm for newborns.” Stephan said around a yawn. His slightly red eyes were underlined by dark bags, signs of either sleep deprivation or a good cry.

“Take the next 3 months off for paternity leave” I said. “Re-assign a Doombot to your duties and bond with your family. That’s an order, Son.”

Stephan blinked in surprise. “Really? Thank you, sir!”

I tapped a command into my wrist screed, summoning Doombot 5233 to Logistics and assigning it Stephan’s current duties. “Of course, this does not affect your current PTO hours. Let me know if you three need anything from us, babysitting included.”

Stephan stood from his well worn chair and hugged me. “You are the best, Boss. I’ll send some photos to the Doomsquad Slack channel.”

I patted his back and sent him on his way. The elevator spat out Doombot 5233 to make room for Stephan to enter, and with another wave he was gone. Doombot 5233 took his place behind the desk, ignoring the chair and extending his arms to compensate for the keyboard’s height. The mechanical man’s fingers flew across the keyboard as he logged in.

“Bring me the time machine, director access clearance.” I ordered.

Steven

Dawn came way too early. It arrived at the expected time, but it wasn’t welcome in my windows quite yet. I fumbled with the remote in my mechanical hands to try to dim the polarized glass, but ended up turning the ceiling lights on instead. I surrendered to the morning’s implied threats and got out of bed. The heated tiles felt wonderful on my bare feet as I got dressed and ran over my notes. This favor for the Hero’s Union was getting annoying already.

We knew the approximate time of the murder, and had an eyewitness account of a blurry figure of a person firing a red laser. The Doomsquad lasers were red. The hole in ShepHeard’s forehead was the right size and burn level of a Doomsquad laser. All we needed to do now was go over the laser firing logs, if Doombot 0001 had finished compiling all the data. That should be a quick and easy way to identify the murder weapon, and who it was registered to. Hopefully, we would just go talk to the gun’s registered owner, and work things out from there.

I opened the door. Something large and fast slammed into me, driving me down to the heated floor that didn’t feel quite as nice on my head as it had on my feet. I raised my arms in defense as teeth snapped inches above my face, sparking against my metallic fingers as it tried again and again to find something made of flesh.

“No Vincent! Bad raptor, down!” Doctor Doomsday’s voice echoed down the dormitory hall. The razor sharp teeth retreated along with the immense pressure from my chest.

“Are you alright, my boy?” He asked as I struggled back to my feet. “Vincent got a little too excited to see you again, apparently.”

“This is Vincent?” I asked, jamming one thoroughly dented mechanical finger at the full grown dinosaur. “The baby dinosaur that hatched last fucking night?”

Doctor Doomsday made a harsh clicking sound, summoning the dinosaur to his side. I couldn’t help but notice the leather collar and name tag dangling from the apex predator’s neck like an oversized pet as he bounded to his robot father’s side. “In the flesh!”

My mangled mechanical hand groaned as I clenched it into a fist. “You used the goddamn time machine to age it!” “No, no, that’s nonsense” he said, patting the air to pacify my temper. “I used the time machine to potty train him. The aging was an indirect result of how long that training took.”

I pushed a button on the back of my hand and held it to my ear. “Stephan? Yeah, it’s Steven. Lock down the time machine, restricted to my access only. Understood?”

“Affirmative, sir.” The head of logistics said.

I pointed at Doctor Doomsday and his new pet. “No more time travel. No more loopholes about sending probes. None. Nada. Zilch. Any questions?”

“One, yes” he said as he pet Vincent on the snout. “How are Stephan and his husband doing with the baby? You didn’t ask him about his personal life.”

“The… what?”

“Good lord, boy, you need to pay more attention to the Doomsquad! That strong familial bond we have is our core strength! I took blood samples from the two of them and genetically modified a donor egg to have traits of both fathers. The child was born four days ago.” He shook his head in disappointment. “If I hadn’t signed both our names on the card, they might have resented you for years.”

I sighed. It was hard enough running the actual business side of the Doomfort, I couldn’t even comprehend adding this level of community management on top of it as well. “You’re right, sorry.”

“Apology accepted, my boy.” He said with a wink. “I’m just trying to be a good mentor, that's all.”

I changed the subject. “Has Doombot 0001 processed the weapon logs yet?”

Doctor Doomsday kneeled down to scratch at Vincent’s proffered belly. The Utahraptor kicked one leg like a dog as it received the aforementioned belly rubs, its massive claw tearing large gashes through Doctor Doomsday’s lab coat. He didn’t seem to notice as he endured claws that would have disemboweled a normal man. “Yes, he requested a meeting. Didn’t you see the memo?”

I rolled my eyes. “Nope. Let’s just get this over with. Have someone send donuts and coffee to the conference room.”

Breakfast was waiting for us when we arrived. Donuts, croissants, bagels, coffee and my non-dairy cream all stood waiting on the table, and a dead goat rested on the floor for Vincent. A large water bowl beside the carcass had his name laser etched on the side, as well as a few cartoon hearts.

“What took ya’ so long?” Doombot 0001 asked as we took our seats. “Do y’all have any idea how irritatin’ these lights are to me?”

“Have you ever tried, I don’t know, sunglasses?” I snapped as I grabbed a donut and my seat. “There’s got to be some way to install shader lenses to those optical sensors.”

“Yeah, you’ve mentioned that before” 0001 grumbled. “I’ll look into it. But the reason we’re all here now is this.”

The lights dimmed as the holo-projector brightened, as if the device had siphoned the illumination from the room. A red 3D image of a standard Doomsquad laser pistol appeared above the projector and slowly began to rotate.

“All Doomsquad blasters have a serial number, a live fire log that tracks time and GPS location, and a unique laser signature” 0001 said professorially, pointing out each detail with a yellow highlight as he mentioned them. “Each and every Doomsquad blaster has these, even the ones on the Doombots and any Doomsquad member with an integrated prosthetic. Even your phalangeal barrage-”

“My what?” I asked.

“Did ya’ not read the manual? I put a lot of work into that, and y’all don’t even bother readin’ the damn thing. I bought a license for stock images for that darn thing!”

“Ok, calm your bits” I said, patting the air with my mechanical hands. “I’ll read the manual. Can you give me a quick-”

“Finger guns”.

“...ok, could you go into a little more detail than that?”

“Your index fingers have lasers built into them,” Doctor Doomsday said. “I can teach you how to use them after the meeting.”

I stared at my hands, careful to point away from myself as I examined my literal firearms. “You mean I could have accidentally killed someone by pointing at them? The fuck, triple oh?”

The cantankerous robot closed his mechanical eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It. Was. In. The. Manual.”

“Regardless,” Doctor Doomsday chimed in, steering the meeting back on track, “the laser files?”

0001 clicked a few buttons and a new image appeared, showing a list of serial numbers and time stamps, with GPS coordinates listed beside each one. The list was replaced by a globe, with each shot marked by a red dot at the location. Hundreds of dots spread across dozens of cities around the planet, including three in Antartica. I’d have to ask Doctor Doomsday about those later.

“This is every shot fired by every Doomsquad laser in the past 2 weeks” He said. “No shots were logged in the area or time of ShepHeard’s death.”

The table was silent for a long moment, save for Vincent’s constant gnawing on his goat-meal.

“Um, didn’t Chairman Static say he died by a 0.38 mm laser? That’s our proprietary laser type, right?” I asked, glancing at the mad mechanical man that had invented the damn thing.

“Indeed,” he said as he examined the holograph, leaning forwards and resting his arms on the table. “Are there any reports of missing weapons?”

Stephan spoke up as he leafed through his notes. “None missing, but two were reported as destroyed in the field and the remains not recovered. It’s possible someone could have reverse-engineered those, but it’s highly unlikely they could have in the time between then and the murder.”

“Unlikely, or impossible?” Doctor Doomsday asked as his pet dinosaur finished eating the livestock.

“Barring any as of yet unknown breakthroughs in AI or robotic science, impossible.”

“What? It’s just a laser, we’ve fought plenty of people with lasers” I said, and instantly regretted it. It seemed like everything I had said only displayed my ignorance in a room full of professionals.

“Well, yes, but also no” Doctor Doomsday said with a wink that was probably meant to be reassuring, but came across as patronizing. “But the technology is quite advanced. And by advanced, I mean from the future. I acquired the design from an infantry laser rifle from the year 2630.”

“How many times have you used the damn time machine?” I snapped. “I know you think it’s trivial, but you could erase us all from existence!”

“Now now, don’t be hasty” He said, patting the air. “This was going to the future, not the past. If anyone was erased, it’s the future people I left alive.”

I leveled a finger at Doctor Doomsday, who flinched out of the way. Right. Finger lasers. “So the only possibility is someone recovering and using one of the two not quite destroyed lasers. If we get the locations of each, we can investigate-”

My orders were interrupted by frantic knocking on the conference room door. The minion entered without waiting for permission, and was followed by Chairman Static and a uniformed police officer. The latter looked around nervously, as if expecting the decorations to all be traps that could kill him at any moment. In reality, only 45% of them were armed, and none of them had anything lethal.

“Sorry, boss” the minion said, annoyingly directed at Doctor Doomsday. “You said Static could come in any time, and he insisted this cop comes with. We took his gun, after some… convincing… but yeah.” He said awkwardly. He looked more uncomfortable than the cop was.

Doctor Doomsday smiled and dismissed the minion by name. Chairman Static floated his way to the table and lowered his limbless torso into an empty chair. The officer remained standing, arms held tight against his sides as if afraid to soil his uniform sleeves on the evil walls. I noticed Vincent locking his gaze on the cop, becoming absolutely still and pointing like a hunting dog at an unsuspecting duck.

“Steven, we have a… situation.” Chairman static said.

“Yeah, we’re working on it,” I replied.

“No, there’s… well, I’ll defer to Officer Snyder.”

The nervous police officer stepped forward, removing his hat and holding it with both hands. He took a deep breath and said words that etched themselves directly onto my brain. “Steven, we are here to deliver bad news. Your mother, Anchor Woman, died last night.”

The man lay still in a crater, save for the aftershocks of the impact that had created it. His skin tight suit was torn to shreds, and the flesh exposed beneath wasn't in much better shape.

Why did these damn hero's always wear spandex? Is showing off your crotch vital to the hero process? Could Justice not be upheld without a wedgie? It certainly hadn't helped Whittler here. He was damn near dead, even with the overly clingy fabric still covering most of his indecent bits.

Near dead. I walked into the crater to check the validity of that statement.

Whittler groaned, rolling to his side and wincing at the pain it caused. I grinned.

"So you live" I growled, flexing my hand to extend the dinosaur claws within. "How delightful."

Whittler pulled at something beneath him, struggling to even lift his arm to shuffle some dirt around. I cackled at his feeble attempts to continue fighting. "There's no wood here to shape, Whittler. Your standardized number 2 pencil has been sharpened down to the metal crimp for the ineffective eraser of 'justice'. It's time heros went extinct in this-"

The man flopped on his back, revealing a gnarled root clutched in his bloodied fist. The underground wood leapt from the dirt and straightened into a spear, twirling the end into a jagged point. Whittler threw the root spear with all the strength he had left.

The spear clanked harmlessly just a few feet from my feet.

"Pathetic" I sneered, swishing my tail in annoyance. "Let's see who you really are, before I get too hungry."

I grabbed his mask and, with a mighty tug that the tattered garment would have considered overkill, ripped it from his head.

Whittler blinked at me. I blinked right back.

"Um... I don't know you" I admitted.

Whittler was a tanned man, with thick black hair and a scraggly beard to match. His face was... basic. Normal. He had no distinguishing features. He was so.... boring.

I turned to the news cameras that were capturing our final battle. "Do any of you know who this is?" I sneered, not too menacingly to the reporters I knew on a first name basis. In my line of work, I had to keep a good relationship with the press, mostly so I could have my demands and announcements published with reliable accuracy. There were few things worse in this world than watching your glorious manifesto read out on Fox news with the meaning totally skewed to their deplorable takes.

The press all shook their heads, murmuring to each other in hushed tones.

I glanced back at Whittler. He laid his head back against the crater and closed his eyes, sighing deeply.

I stomped one clawed foot on his chest. "You aren't allowed to die yet" I snarled in his face. I could almost taste the blood that continued to pool around him, temporarily turning the crater into a miniature gruesome lake. "Tell me your name."

Whittler coughed up a bloody bubble. "John" he whispered.

I snarled and pressed harder against his chest. "Your last word will be your last name. I can end your suffering. Your pain. I know you just want to close your eyes and drift into the dark. But I must know who I've fought all these years. I MUST."

"John... Doe..." he said.

I could feel his chest struggling to rise under my clawed foot. I didn't let it. I made him a promise, and I was a Dinosaur-Man hybrid experiment of my word.

I stomped. John Doe, AKA Whittler, died.

The air was thick with tension. The press and law enforcement gathered a safe distance from us waited. Even the birds had stopped their incessant chattering. Finally, one police officer discovered that his guts were good for more than just digesting donuts. "What was his name?" He asked.

I snarled, flinging my tail dramatically as I turned to go. "That is for me alone to know. You can call him... John Doe."

"Kndd, arg groe w wwefr toriew thewee." Frr ofo goijrrr nrf.

"What the hell? What you say?"

"Kdjnje eeddfe." Eroggg gnoiigg grekalsjf frelo kee elfj oi ejofi jeoifekf. Ke rot nnjrj f fiejf doweed eweifje.

"...huh. That wasn't very helpful, Chief."

"Arg groe w wwefr toriew thewee." D Frot ttoe do ireowenf isaae.e foriejsa. reiergje ejerogsirg rneaseori. "

"I guess by the pencil and paper, you either want me to write somethin', or smoke somethin'. Honestly, I'm down for either."

"Frrry. Daergiu frew wojiojfi feiww ffoierjweef. Ffewhif fgriwe sedrgf rrguhurir gfhire eoeriuhgfh." Gee of hjoawqert gorije eehwn whoeuirwf woiej ff fjhow foierjwerdif woirgo growewhf hw.

"I ain't got a lighter, so I'll do the writin', I suppose. What do you want me to write?"

Grre. "Rtiurehje Fwwwrh Tawerfgh ewwiww". Jeescjufir.

"You ain't gotta wave your hands around like that, brother. I'll write down wha'ever you want, just..."

"Arg groe w wwefr toriew thewee.". Ddsethrdft o gjroej gjeorg oaregwojwf.

"Erm... How about my lines from Pirates Of the Caribbean? I was in the 3rd one, I think. Maybe the 4th. They all kinda just merge together after the first two."

FREEPREE. "ARG. GROE. W WWEFR. TORIEW. THEWEE."

"I think I could stumble my way through the plot of the first, but I don't know why you'd want me to."

"GREEEM. FGREEE. LDE EOEEKFFEE!" Efee oprpe e irgjoer, reoigjoiree ergjoeg tottoooot.

"Look, man, y'all gotta just tell me what you want in plain English. I don't know whatever language you're yapping to me in, and quite frankly, I don't like your tone.

"DEEERRRPWEL. DEERPEFREG. ARG. GROE. W WWEFR. TORIEW. THEWEE." reoergojoeirgerjogijvv oweij ffgijwjie i woiejfo jwoje wwppp prej oigjroee erogijoiej weoijf ow wopij ejrwe gjrpjwj! "Frieo groei ggroie gprej w, wiefjo f reijwef weloe!"

"Man... just get me a joint and fuck off. I don't know what y'all are so invested in the Pirate's movies, those were hundreds of years ago, and I was only in one or two of 'em."

Steven

We landed back at the Doomfort shortly past one in the morning. The cafeteria had long ceased serving dinner and was busy preparing breakfast, with a small selection of cuisine left for any hungry late-night operators. I grabbed a chicken caesar wrap and collapsed into an empty booth. My robotic fingernail sliced cleanly through the environmentally friendly paper wrapping and the spinach-based tortilla beneath, smearing my fingers with caesar dressing. I was too tired to be annoyed by the minor inconvenience. Munching on the mediocre sandwich, I pulled up my notes on my datapad.

“What are you doing here?” Doctor Doomsday asked.

I replied without looking away from my notes. “Thinking” I muttered through a mouthful. “There’s no motive so far, and-”

Doctor Doomsday placed a hand on my shoulder. It was surprisingly warm, considering it was mostly made from titanium. I turned around to finally glance up into those glowing red eyes that somehow still conveyed genuine concern. “It’s late, Steven. Go get some sleep.” He said softly.

I shook my head, spilling even more caesar salad dressing from the corner of my mouth. “I can’t just go to sleep, this is gonna bother me all night. It’s like getting a song stuck in your head, but you can’t recall the lyrics. It’ll drive me mad.”

The mechanical man chuckled as he took one of the empty seats at my table. “I can assure you, my boy, that you are nowhere near madness. You’ll know when that line is crossed. Other people will start treating you much nicer, and offer less enthusiasm in their ever more fleeting conversations. That’s one of the reasons I make such an effort to be so personable with the Doomsquad.”

I was about to reply when a sharp chime sounded from the Doctor’s body. His red eyes flashed bright in excitement as his hand flew to his chest. “Speaking of madness, it’s almost time!”

“What…” I tried to say, but stopped before I could even begin when Doctor Doomsday’s chest swung open, revealing what looked like the glowing red insides of a toaster and a cylinder within. He took the container out and set it on the table, casually closing his chest cavity like he was closing a fridge door. He unscrewed the top and gently lifted an egg from within.

“The hell is that?” I asked.

“An egg.”

I rolled my eyes and took another bite of dinner. “You know what I mean. What’s inside?”

The egg decided to show me itself. A tiny claw broke through the spotted shell, followed by a tiny reptilian hand. Doctor Doomsday helped the creature free itself from its calcified cage and wiped the goopy grime from its snout with a dining hall napkin. “Utahraptor ostrommaysi” he announced proudly. “The first one born in 135 million years. I think I’ll call him ‘Vincent’. I’m hoping it will imprint on me as its mother, like some birds do.”

I stared at the tiny newborn dinosaur and sighed. “Have you been using the time machine again? I thought we had agreed not to use it in any potential reality-altering ways.”

“I haven’t traveled forwards or backwards in time since our escape from WalkMan” he said as he tickled the dinosaur’s chin. “I sent a probe.”

“That’s no better than going back yourself! Who knows what kind of butterfly effect style of catastrophic collapse you may have caused!”

“Oh relax, Steven. I took precautions. I sent the probe back to the time and place that the now fossilized Utahraptor fossil was discovered in the Dalton Wells Quarry, right after it had died but before the DNA could degrade too far. The probe took a blood sample from a corpse. It was completely sterile and was only there for less than 3 seconds. In and out. And now I have you little cutie! Who’s daddy’s little chomper?” The last bit was directed at the dinosaur, whom he was now feeding a morsel of my caesar covered chicken. The dinosaur seemed happy enough to eat its own evolutionary descendent.

“It wasn’t your call to make by yourself” I countered. “One little fuck up, and we could have been erased from the timeline! Hell, you might have altered human evolution entirely! We could all have never been born, and for what, a dumb pet?”

Doctor Doomsday made a shushing sound to the tiny predator on the table. “Don’t listen to Uncle Steven, Vincent. He gets cranky when he’s sleepy.”

“Come on, Doc, this is serious”

“I am being serious, Steven. Go get some sleep. It's the body's time to repair, rejuvenate cells, and process emotions, essential for everything from daily performance to long-term wellness.”

“No, about the nonchalant time travel. Don’t unweave the fabric of reality on a whim.”

Doctor Doomsday looked up from his pet as it sloppily ate more of my dinner. “Nonsense, Steven. I’ve given it a lot of thought, since I don’t need sleep, and I have developed a theory: Time cannot actually be ‘changed’. Anything that has happened in the past has already happened by definition. That includes any incursions that we have made, or will make. Those actions took place in the past, and there is only one past. While I’d prefer not to test this hypothesis by detonating a nuclear weapon somewhere noticeable, for example, Mount Rushmore, I’m confident that anything we will do or will have done has already occurred.”

I stared at the robotic madman as he picked the last morsel of chicken meat from my discarded sandwich and fed it to Vincent, who gobbled it up without hesitation. “That… you might actually be insane, Doc.”

He chuckled. “I’ve been called worse things by more powerful people, my boy. It’s nothing new to me.”

I gave up. Maybe he was right, about the time travel impact theory, but most definitely about the dangers of sleep deprivation. “I’m going to bed. Try not to fuck up the timeline while I’m asleep.”

Doctor Doomsday dabbed caesar dressing off the corner of Vincent’s snout. “Like I said, my boy, I’m not sure if I even could.”

Chapter 6

Grandmommy Longlegs

Bertrand adjusted his new bow as his brothers and sisters helped me out of the terrified man’s car, hoisting me upright with webs strung throughout the surrounding trees. The robotic man and his side-kick retrieved my walker from the trunk and wrestled it into position before me. I could have helped the pair by telling them how it unfolded like an origami swan, but it was more enjoyable to watch them struggle. Call me old-fashioned, but I loved watching people working with their hands, figuring out solutions with only their wits. I smiled as I accepted the walker, as much from politeness as amusement. Bertrand scurried up the walker, pausing only to secure a folding joint into place before settling into the relatively small dog bed between the walker’s hand grips.

“Thank you, dears,” I said to the Doomsquad leaders. I turned to thank the driver as well, but all I found was a cloud of dust and a pair of taillights receding into the night.

“Oh no!” Steven said unconvincingly, “My dairy-free scone was still in there! Dang it.” He flourished his bad acting with an overly dramatic sigh.

“Oh, don’t worry, Bertrand can make you another one when we get back” I said, deliberately calling his bluff. “Won’t you, my boy?”

Bertrand looked up at me and grinned, showing a flash of his impressive fangs. “Oh yes, mommy,” he said, “I would WUV to bake more yummies for the nice man!” He clapped his front legs together in that most adorable way of his in pure, authentic joy, the kind that only genuinely happy children could do.

Steven’s suppressed grin fell into suppressed dread. He hadn’t understood Bertrand’s words, obviously, but there was no mistaking the body language of an enthusiastic child, no matter how many legs they possessed.

“If we could return to the business at hand,” Doctor Doomsday said, “The witness is just over that hill. Would you require assistance walking that far?”

The robotic body hadn’t dulled Nigel Doomsday’s bright charm in the slightest. “Oh, no, thank you dear, I may be old but I can manage a stroll.”

I decided not to mention that dozens of my brood supported my weight with webs strung onto the walker in strategically placed braces. There were just some things that a woman shouldn’t disclose like that in public.

The walk was quite nice by my standards. We strolled through a farm plot, which my brood cleaned of any pests, until we arrived at a barn surrounded by police cars and yellow tape. Doctor Doomsday held the tape up for me to shuffle underneath without bending over. “The witness is just over-”

“What the FUCK is SHE doing here?!” A familiar voice shouted from behind. “Steven, get this villain out of my crime scene, NOW!”

Anchor Woman stormed towards us with the fury of a woman scorned. I could have sworn I saw her eyes glow from pure hatred, although that could have just been my old brain playing tricks on me. Bertrand hunkered down into the small dog bed, leaving only his eyes and his bow peaking over the plaid edge of his fluffy fortress.

“Mom, NO! She’s helping us!” Steven shouted as he leapt between us. “Don’t use your power! Her spiders will kill us all if they lose contact with her!”

Anchor Woman stomped to a halt about arm’s length from him, glaring between us. “Steven, I know you technically work for a villain now, but Grandmommy Longlegs is an actual murderer! She’s not like Doctor Doomsday there, who does good things in bad ways, she’s an actual fucking lunatic!”

She wasn’t wrong, honestly. Most people wouldn’t have the guts to say that in front of me, but she did. She had more balls than the rest of the Hero’s Union 283 put together, and for that, I respected her. Her son had a long way to go before that would happen.

“She’s here to help with the case!” Steven said sternly, still standing between his overprotective mother and I. “She’s going to talk to some spiders that had a vantage point of the murder.”

Anchor Woman glared at Doctor Doomsday. “Really? Is that true?”

Doctor Doomsday waggled his hand. “True-ish. It’s only one spider, technically, but yes. She is here to help us, and I will not allow you or anyone else here to harm her.”

The intensity of her glare could have lit paper on fire. Bertrand glanced up at me as he straightened his bow, unsure if this was turning into a fight or if he should just wait. I smiled at him reassuringly, but gave him no commands. If things turned violent, he’d be one of the first to know, followed by several thousand more of my brood.

“And there was no one else that could do this?” She damn near snarled, or maybe it was an angry plea for any kind of alternative. I was much better at reading arachnid emotions than human ones.

“The only registered superpowered individuals that can talk to animals are ShepHeard, WalkMan, and Grandmommy Longlegs, and two of the three are deceased.” Doctor Doomsday said, laying on his polite charm a little too thickly in my opinion. “This is our only option to pursue this line of investigation, unless Chairman Static would rather have us cease our cooperation instead.”

“Fine” she snapped, “you have one hour. If she is here after that, we’ll remove her ourselves.”

“Thank you, dearie” I said sweetly, “You always were one of my favorite nemesis’s.”

“You didn’t need to provoke her further” Doctor Doomsday told me as Anchor Woman stormed back to the police cars and the officers cowering behind them.

“Oh, I know.” I smiled. “That was for the love of the game. Come now, introduce me to this spider you’re so keen for me to meet.”

Steven glanced between us and the receding form of his mother in the dark. “Um, I think I should go talk to mom, get her to calm down before she calls in back-up or something.”

“Clever, Steven” Doctor Doomsday praised his ward as he led me away. “I’ll contact you when we’re done.”

The boy disappeared into the dark, following his mother like a duckling that had drifted away in a pond. I clicked my tongue and shook my head as I let the robot man guide me to the witness.

“That boy just can’t stop letting his parents pull him away from his duty” I observed.

Doctor Doomsday chuckled. “Can you blame him? After the torment his father put him through, abandoning him and only trying to make amends after I weaponized his existence against WalkMan? I may be the closest thing Steven has to a father figure, but Anchor Woman is still his mother.”

“A mother that decided fighting me was more important than raising him” I grumbled.

“A mother that kept him out of danger” Doctor Doomsday snapped. “What would you have preferred, that she brought him along in a harness strapped to her chest?”

That gave me a chuckle. “True. Bertrand would have eaten him like a human veal. But she could have just raised him and let someone else save the city.”

“The city that she lived in? The one she and Steven would have been in danger from your attacks in? She was a single mother, and you’re shaming her for what, keeping her son safe and protecting everyone else?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My own child was part of my brood, fighting alongside millions of his brethren because he could. And my human children… well, they weren’t exactly on speaking terms with me.

“This is where the body was found” Doctor Doomsday said, snapping me out of my self-reflection. “And over there is the witness.”

The spider was an adorable little orb weaver, with a big beautiful abdomen that jiggled and wriggled as it danced across its canvas of intricate webs. I could feel the joy radiating from it as it added the finishing touches to its latest creation.

“Oh my, she’s wonderful,” I said to Bertrand. He wriggled in excitement as we closed the distance to the barn that she was using to prop up her webs.

“Do you need anything before we begin questioning the witness?” Doctor Doomsday asked.

I waved him off without taking my eyes off the tiny bundle of joy. “No, no, just leave me to this. Make sure we are not bothered.”

I felt the orb weaver turn in my direction more than I saw the movement. It’s chubby body and tiny legs made it difficult to tell much from my distance, and my old eyes weren’t helping. “Hello, darling,” I said. “Do you know who I am?”

The orb weaver bowed with her front legs, resembling a puppy about to leap more than anything regal. “Are you the All-Mother?”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it, the spiders all had different and adorable names for me, and hearing a new one was just so heartwarming.

“Yes, dearie. Did you see who killed this man?” I said, gesturing to the spot where ShepHeard had perished.

The spider danced excitedly on her web. “Yes! Yes! I did!”

I waited patiently for her to continue. She didn’t take the hint.

“Who was it?” I asked.

The spider shrugged. It was a difficult gesture to pull off with 8 joints instead of the traditional two shoulders. “I don’t know his name. You are the only Human who I know by name, All-Mother.”

That made sense, I supposed. I didn’t exactly introduce people to my broodlings, besides Bertrand, and I kept forgetting more and more names as I reluctantly grew older. “Can you describe them? What did he do?”

The spider glanced away in shame. “They were too far for me to see clearly” she admitted, like it was a shameful burden instead of a biological limitation. “I couldn’t see anything specific. I only saw the shape of a man rise from the field, and a bright red light, and then ShepHeard was dead.”

“I’m sorry, dearie,” I said softly. “Did you know ShepHeard well?”

She nodded, wiping her eyes with her front legs as if wiping away a tear. “He would check on us, from time to time. He would catch crickets and toss them into our webs. He… he was kind.”

“Thank you, Dearie. I’m sorry for your loss.” I said as I barely held my own tears at bay. I had killed hundreds of people without feeling anything, but now I was crying for a man I hadn’t known? I was growing soft in my old age.

She bowed again before scurrying back to resume her weaving. It was a beautiful web, more intricate than I had first observed with zig zags and swirls and other elaborate flourishes.

“Nigel?” I called out in the dark. “I’m ready to go home now.”

Doctor Doomsday came back as summoned, but he wasn’t alone. Steven and Anchor Woman followed him, with the latter scowling and averting her gaze. “Splendid! What did you learn from our diminutive witness?”

“It was a human, from over there, with a red laser,” I replied. “That’s all she saw.”

Steven pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out an exasperated sigh. “We knew that already. Did the spider give any descriptions? Any leads?”

“Spiders don’t see very far, dearie. I’m surprised she saw anything at all. Now, be a good lad and lead an elderly woman back home. It’s far past my bedtime.”

Anchor Woman shifted uncomfortably. Steven gave her a subtle poke in the ribs with an elbow, and she reluctantly spoke. “I’ll take you home, Longlegs. You’re helping us find a murderer, this is the least I could do to say thanks.”

I grinned. “Oh? That’s lovely, thank you-”

“I’m doing it for Steven, not you” she snapped. “If I-”

Steven stepped between us and pointed a scolding finger at his mother. “No! Remember, her brood will attack anyone close if she’s suppressed. You’re doing this as a Hero helping a volunteer home. Play nice.”

She shrugged him off and glared my way before storming off towards the road. “Fine. Come on, Longlegs, before I change my mind.”

“Goodnight, dearies” I said to Doctor Doomsday and Steven. “Good luck catching the killer.”

Doctor Doomsday

Steven was a good fighter, skilled with his Doomsday laser and hand-to-hand combat thanks to the decade he spent trapped in the future with Doombot 0028’s tutelage. He was a better man, with all of his mother’s compassion and empathy guiding his moral compass. His leadership skills were… lacking, at present, but he was trying his damndest to improve. His records at the Doomfort digital library indicated that he had at least checked out, if not read, over a dozen books on leadership, running your own business, and even one titled “How To Make Friends”. It was hard to tell which book he was currently reading, but I could see his eyes darting back and forth as he stared at the e-reader, flicking the screen every minute or so to flip to the next page.

A small light blinked on in my peripheral vision to indicate an incoming com. The caller ID simply read ‘0001’, my grandpa’s Doombot frame number. “Excuse me, my dear…” I glanced at the nameplate above a small basket of cheap refreshments and a QR code begging for a tip. “Alejandro. Could you please turn the music off? I have a call”

Alejandro slapped a palm against the dashboard, either turning off or breaking the sound system entirely. I supposed he may have been a bit nervous to be driving for such a well known super villain in a robotic combat frame. I scanned the QR code and paid the man enough to replace the dashboard and his speaker system before answering the call.

I set the call on speakerphone “Hi Grandpa, you’re on with Steven and I on speaker”.

The cantankerous clanker cleared his throat, which sounded unnatural and served no mechanical purpose that I knew of. It was one of his ‘core identity markers’, those little habits and mannerisms that kept the human mind grounded in their digital Doombot existence. It was one of my largest contributions to medical science, with countless real world applications. It would have already helped millions of people across the globe if only the research universities would answer my damn letters.

“Howdy Nigel, Steven, and that feller drivin’ the car,” he said. The Uber driver met my gaze in the rear view mirror and shook his head slightly. I winked in reply to his silent plea.

“I think Alejandro would prefer to stay out of this, Grandpa.” I said. The driver nodded enthusiastically before returning his gaze to the country road. “What do you have for me?”

“We got all the data from all active Doomsday laser guns synched” he said, pausing to make a spitting sound that was, unfortunately, another one of his core identity markers. “We have the logs downloading now from the entire arsenal. It should be ready in 5 or 6 hours, depending on 0028’s Netflix activity. He’s hooked on some show ‘bout a guy interviewing a gay vampire feller.”

“Um, can you tell him to stop?” Steven asked without taking his gaze from his e-reader. “It’s kind of important that we-”

“YOU try tellin’ a 9,000 pound murder machine to stop doin’ anything, Steven” Grandpa snapped. “I’ll let y’all know when it’s done.”

The call ended, leaving me staring at my own reflection in the dark mirror of the phone screen. The screen automatically brightened as our Uber left the well-lit main road into the tree tunnel of Grandmommy Longleg’s long and winding driveway. My optical sensors switched to the infra-red setting to compensate, revealing a swarm of spiders hidden amongst the tree branches. They skittered amongst the labyrinth of webs intertwined in the branches as they followed us towards Grandmommy Longleg’s lair.

“The fuck?” Our Uber driver muttered as the super villainess’ home came into view. “Oh HELL no, I’m not going near that. You two can walk from here.”

“What? That’s ridiculous, why-” Steven began, but I cut him off.

“I understand, my good man. Could you please wait here? We will need transportation back once our meeting has adjourned.”

I gave the driver a 5 star review and a generous tip as we got out. Steven fussed with turning off his e-reader, stuffing it into his sling backpack before taking in our surroundings. “Oh… yeah, I owe him an apology.”

Grandmommy Longleg’s house was once a cozy little cabin, but now more closely resembled a tent. Specifically, one of those massive white tents used for outdoor events like weddings or farmer’s markets. Instead of the standard woven cotton, this tent was made of millions of spiderwebs. The whole thing billowed with the wind, shifting like a sail from the devil’s personal schooner. Spiders swarmed the entire thing, repairing webs and cleaning out leaves and old bones from the strands.

I made a sweeping hand gesture to Steven. “Shall we?”

Steven took a deep breath. My bio sensors indicated that it hadn’t lowered his heart rate in the slightest, but he put on a brave front anyways. “After you, Doc.”

I hadn’t exactly been fond of spiders in life, but in this robotic body, I really didn’t mind them. Without the physical sensations of the sticky webs, crawling legs, or venomous fangs, I was completely at ease with the arachnids around us. I strode purposefully through the strands and, after clearing out a space on the door, knocked.

The door groaned as it swung open seemingly by itself, but most likely powered by a complex system of spiderweb pulleys and a disturbing amount of spiders. The interior was surprisingly clean and tidy, as long as you ignored the spiders and webs covering the popcorn ceiling. The top foot or so of each room had been taken over by the spiders and converted to their sticky version of a 20 lane superhighway.

I glanced back at Steven. His face had paled so much that it threatened to blend in with the webs around us. I gave him a wink that was closer to a camera aperture shutter than a genuine warm gesture, but he got the idea. I hoped.

“Grandmommy Longlegs?” I called out, “It’s Nigel, I hope we’re not intruding”.

A single spider poked its head out from a dark hallway, creeping out of the shadows as it appraised us as either food or threats. The spider itself was massive, with its dinner plate sized abdomen and visible fangs casting an intimidating aura that was only mildly counteracted by the pink sweater it wore.

“Bertrand?” An old woman’s voice called from beyond the veil of shadows deep inside the house. “Is it that pesky man again? Tell him to go away.”

The sweater clad monster scurried back towards its master. A few silent moments passed before the house erupted into a frenzy of arachnid activity. Spiders poured from the infested ceiling, crawling down the walls and throughout the home in all directions. Steven yelped, but otherwise held his composure as the swarm did its duties. Lights flickered to life as the spiders lit oil lamps and started a hearth fire, placing an ancient metal teapot on a hook above the flames. A parade of spiders bearing teacups and various socialite accouterments completed the settings.

Grandmommy Longlegs emerged from the back room, clutching her 8-legged walker with her pale spindly fingers. “Nigel? Is that really you? My word, are you eating enough? You’re so gaunt and boney.”

I bowed my head briefly. “In the synthetic flesh, madam” I said, “and my ward, Steven.”

She squinted at us and shuffled closer on her 8-legged walker. “Him I recognize. He looks just like his father.”

Steven let out a nervous chuckle. “That’s where our similarities end, I assure you”

Dozens of spiders descended onto the walker as the octogenarian shuffled to the table. They looped webs around her shoulders and lowered her ever so gently into a chair, moving as one unit in a harmonized dance. “Every child says that about their least favorite parent” she sighed as her old bones settled into the chair, “Even my own daughters. Granted, they were partially correct, since they don’t have any powers. But then again, neither did their fathers.”

Steven and I took the two empty seats, carefully avoiding any inadvertent spider squishing or web tearing along the way. “I inherited my mother’s powers, thankfully” Steven said as he warily eyed the pastries the spiders laid out. “Do these have any, uh…”

“Dairy?” I offered, trying to avoid any perceived insults to our host’s beloved pets and their stance on food safety,

Steven thankfully grabbed ahold of the social lifeline I threw him. “Yeah, do they contain dairy? I’m, uh, lactose intolerant.”

“Oh, honey, I forgot about that,” she said apologetically. “I’ll have my minions whip up something special for you. Bertrand?”

The massive spider in the pink sweater adjusted his bow before scurrying off to the kitchen. A flood of spiders followed him in, presumably to assist in the literal version of ‘Kitchen Nightmares’. Steven met my eye with a terrified plea for help. The only way he could get out of eating whatever arachnid baked atrocity they served up was to leave ASAP. Otherwise, he was doomed to eat at least some percentage of spider or spider web infused food stuff.

“So you have your mother’s dreadful suppression powers? Grandmommy longlegs asked. “She was my nemesis for, oh, 30 some odd years. Did she ever tell you that? We stopped fighting when she got pregnant with you, and when she got back from maternity leave… well, I just didn’t have it in me to take a child’s mommy away.”

The kettle began to whistle. Several spiders descended from the ceiling and wrapped a thick cord of webs around the handle, hoisting it into the air before swinging it to our little table. The spiders tipped the kettle of boiling water into the awaiting tea cups, as other spiders lowered tea bags from the ceiling like slow motion bungee jumpers.

“When she confronted me again, I told her I just couldn’t do this anymore.” She continued as her spiders added sugar cubes and cream to her tea. A water spider climbed into the teacup and stirred it from the surface, making tiny laps around the beverage. “I trained my spiders to attack anyone besides me if I ever was suppressed again. I forced a truce, for her benefit mostly.”

I glanced at my increasingly nervous companion. “Steven, I would strongly advise you to abstain from using your ability anywhere near Grandmommy Longlegs.” His entire head vibrated as he nodded his agreement.

“Hmm? Oh, that’s right, you have your mother’s powers, yes, you mentioned that earlier.” Grandmommy Longlegs said as she brought her teacup up for a sip. The water spider crawled out of the cup and scurried down the length of her arm, slightly disheveling the sleeve of her white cardigan sweater as it did. Or, at least, I had assumed it was a cardigan, but the spiders that poured out to repair the run with their webs made me second guess… well, everything in this house.

I had to take control of the conversation before the ancient villainess brought out photobooks or some other form of elderly torture. “We’re here to ask for your assistance in a murder investigation.”

Grandmommy Longlegs narrowed her eyes at me as she took another sip. “I don’t remember killing anyone recently.”

“Oh, no, not as a suspect” Steven said quickly, “We think a spider could have seen who killed ShepHeard, and we need you to-”

The elderly villainess dropped her teacup as she put both hands over her mouth. A team of spiders deftly caught the cup in mid-air and gently lowered it onto it’s saucer, only spilling a few drops on the way. “Oh my, not ShepHeard! Poor boy, he was so young.”

A ding from the kitchen warned that we were running out of time before Steven would be forced to eat whatever spider-baked delicacy awaited him. “We have a car waiting outside. Could you come with us, please?”

Grandmommy Longlegs rose to her feet, hoisted upright by dozens of spiderwebs like a puppet with it’s strings. “Of course! Let me grab my effects, we shall leave at once. Bertrand?”

The giant spider peeked in from the kitchen. I could see it was wearing an arachnid sized apron draped around its… thorax? Abdomen? Whatever large, creepy section of its body it was attached to, dusted with flour and powdered sugar.

“Wrap Steven’s food up to go and prepare the hoard. We’re going on a field trip.”

The spider clapped its front claws in glee, creating a white cloud of aerated confectionary powder around it.

“How’s the family, Brennan?” Doctor Doomsday asked the minion with genuine interest as we passed him in the hallway. “Izzy pop out that baby yet?”

The minion smiled as he slowed to a chit-chat appropriate speed. “Not yet, Boss. She’s due on Tuesday, but the midwife thinks it’ll happen any day now.”

The self-anointed Super Villain scoffed. “Then what the hell are you doing here? I’m authorizing your paternal leave effective immediately. Give my best to Izzy, and get out of here.”

Brennan’s face lit up with a genuine grin. “Wow, thanks Boss! I’ll see if I can convince her to name the kid after you.”

Doctor Doomsday patted his shoulder before we picked back up to a walking pace. “Appreciate the gesture, but please don’t burden your son with an awful name like ‘Nigel’, even as a middle name.”

I envied how he had memorized all of their names, families, and personal interests of seemingly every minion, even before being uploaded into a custom built Doombot frame with wireless access to the Doomsquad’s digital records. I wondered briefly if that had always been the case, if he used some sort of neural implant to review files to appear more sincere than he was, but I knew him well enough to know otherwise. He really just deeply cared about his people. It was his best trait, in a way. He made every minion feel special and appreciated, which in turn made them work harder and stay loyal. He had never had a single minion betray him, and had on more than one occasion returned from a mission with a new recruit in tow.

We finally made it to the conference room. Doctor Doomsday casually took his usual seat at the head of the table, sipping from a glass of water for a reason I couldn’t decipher. I cleared my throat and glanced at the seat and back until he realized his error.

“Whoops! Sorry about that” he said, abandoning the chair at the head of the table and taking the right hand seat instead. “Force of habit. I’ve been sitting in that spot longer than you’ve been alive.”

I smiled as I took my place on the surprisingly warm chair. “It’s alright, this is going to be a weird transition for the both of us.”

Doctor Doomsday glanced around at the empty seats surrounding the conference room table. “I thought this meeting involved all of the department heads? It’s not like Stephan to be tardy. Joyce, Bill and Ted, sure, but-”

I cut him off as gently as I could muster. “I wanted to talk, just the two of us, before the meeting started. There’s a few issues I wanted to go over before the rest of the team arrives. They’re all waiting in the lobby, admiring that new fish in the aquarium that you brought back from extinction.” I paused before adding “And you were right, Stephan was the first one to arrive.”

Doctor Doomsday shrugged. “The Dunkleosteus is quite impressive, if I may toot my own horn. Okay, let’s talk. What's on your mind, son?”

I opened the folder that was waiting for me at the table, removing two copies of the business plans within and leaving the rest for the department heads to read later. “There are a few changes I’d like to make, and I wanted to run them by you first.”

Doctor Doomsday shrugged and glanced at the booklet in his hands, scanning the words at super-human speed with his LED camera eyes. He glanced at me in confusion before flipping to the next page, scanning it as well. “What in the hell is all this? ‘Return on Investments’? ‘KPI’? ‘5 year forecast’?” He tossed the papers dismissively onto the ornate glass table, sending the booklet smashing into the folder and scattering the other copies across the smooth surface. “This is business crap, Steven. It’s corporate drivel, capitalistic slop, and most importantly, it's BORING.”

I carefully laid my booklet down and stared at the super villain. “Yes. It’s boring, not fun whatsoever, and essential to long-term planning and growth.”

Doctor Doomsday was about to launch into a rant when Stephan politely knocked on the door. I glanced at my watch and noted that we still had 14 minutes remaining before he and the other department heads were due to join us. “What is it?” I snapped, perhaps a bit too firmly. I made a mental note to apologize to the head of logistics after the conclusion of the meeting.

Stephan winced slightly as he spoke. “Sorry, boss, but there’s a visitor for you.”

I sighed. “Is it important? Tell them to-”

Stephan cringed while subconsciously trying to hide behind the door. “Oh, erm, sorry Steven, I was talking to Doctor Doomsday. The visitors specifically asked to speak to him.”

I clenched my mechanical hand and took a slow, deep breath. My therapist referred to this as ‘diaphragmatic breathing', which was supposed to trigger your body and mind to move from the tense fight-or-flight state to a calmer state. It hasn't helped me yet. Maybe I was doing it wrong? That would fit my pattern of trying to help and fucking things up instead. “Tell them to wait, we’re busy.”

The door opened wide as Chairman Static flew into the conference room, brushing past Stephan without touching him. It was an easy feat for the limbless telekinetic superhero, since he levitated above him without any effort. “I’m terribly sorry, Doctor Doomsday, but this is an urgent matter. I’m afraid I must insist.”

“What is so important that you’d visit us in the flesh?” Doctor Doomsday asked, gesturing with his clearly robotic arm. “Planet killer asteroid coming right at us? Weaponized virus released on an orphanage? A dinosaur clone escaped from a secret installation?”

Chairman static shook his head, which might have been the largest physical movement I’d ever seen him make. “No. ShepHeard was found dead this morning.”

The room fell silent. ShepHeard was, quite possibly, the most beloved super powered person amongst all heroes and villains alike. ShepHeard’s only power was the ability to talk to animals. He hadn’t ever used them to fight or commit crimes, only to help animals in need. Most people in the Hero’s Union and the Evil League of Evil had come to ShepHeard for help with their pet, livestock, or, in Doctor Doomsday’s case, a cloned velociraptor that really hated staying in his enclosure.

Doctor Doomsday closed his eyes and sighed. “That is unfortunate, Chairman. My condolences. He was a good person.”

“I’m here to ask for your assistance in the investigation.”

Doctor Doomsday’s eyes lit with intrigue. “Oh? What would the Hero’s Union need our help with? Surely your vast resources and local law enforcement are more than capable of solving this on your own.”

Chairman Static shifted in his seat, which for him meant bobbing up and down a few inches in either direction. “We think the cause of death was a 0.38 mm laser.”

Doctor Doomsday and I exchanged a concerned glance. 0.38 millimeter was an exceptionally powerful laser, typically only found in the most advanced industrial laser cutting machines, but also notably in one other device: a standard issue Doomsday laser, made right here in the Doomfort.

“I’ll have the armory check every weapon’s log” Doctor Doomsday said, “And deliver whoever committed this heinous crime to the authorities.”

“Wait, what?” I blurted out, “We can do that?”

Doctor Doomsday leaned towards me, shielding his mouth with the back of his hand in a conspiratorial manner but speaking at his normal volume, making the gesture completely irrelevant. “All of my laser weapons ping their GPS location when they are discharged, and once every 5 minutes. Helps identify any rogue agents, and can be admissible as evidence in legal matters. I’ll explain it all to you when we get a moment.”

I felt a surge of embarrassment flush through me as Chairman Static patiently waited for me to learn about my own damn weapons. I really, really needed to take some time to learn about the whole Doomsquad operation.

“We would ask for your cooperation in resolving this matter” Chairman Static said politely. “Consider this us calling in our favor for the WalkMan… incident.”

I closed my eyes and tried to do some quick mental math, trying to figure out what resources we could spare from the reconstruction and repairs, and what equipment was even operational to be of any help. The lab at Doctor Doomsday’s house was still functional, and Doombot 0001 would probably be able to handle most of the forensics we required. If the factory was back up, we could produce a few dozen Doombots to scan the area for clues, conducting searches in complex algorithmic patterns to maximize-

“We would be delighted to help,” Doctor Doomsday said.

Steven

“We need to have a talk about our communication protocols” I said to my quasi-alive predecessor.

“WHAT”? Doctor Doomsday shouted back, barely audible over the constant roar of the converted V-22 Osprey tiltrotor military transport aircraft he was piloting. He glanced at me from the pilot’s chair, an entirely unnecessary motion due to the dozens of optical sensors hidden almost everywhere on his mechanical frame. He could still see me just fine if he was looking out of the cockpit or break dancing in the storage bay.

“I SAID-” I tried to reply, but Doctor Doomsday shook his head while tapping the side of his helmet with his free hand.

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU. WE’LL DISCUSS COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS AFTER THE MISSION” he said, and returned his attention to the controls of the aircraft. There wasn’t much for him to do, since we were flying over a vast swath of flat farmland, but I supposed it made sense to at least look in the direction we were flying. This investigation would be over before it began if we perished in a corn field en route.

I briefly pondered the point of a robot wearing a helmet in the first place before I dismissed it as either habit, eccentric behavior trying to get a rise out of me, or if we needed to retrofit the cockpit to be compatible with Doombot software. I watched the rows of corn speeding by for a few minutes before I cracked open the binder that Static had given us, begrudgingly admiring the detail the Hero’s Union 283 had put into their briefing. The farm consisted of two adults, one of which had a lower level superpower, and a long list of domesticated animals, both livestock and pets. Well, the dog listed on page 4 was probably a ‘working’ dog of sorts, and the cats might just be natural pest control. The whole property covered 12 acres of grazing grasslands, a few beehives, and rows upon rows of what looked to be corn. The house and the barn, where ShepHeard’s body had been found, lay in the south-west corner with woods surrounding the edges of the property.

“PREPARE FOR LANDING!” Doctor Doomsday shouted. I glanced up just in time to see the madman push the flight stick all the way forwards and send the Osprey into a nosedive. I dropped the folder and grasped at anything I could reach as the plane fell out of the sky. Mere moments before certain death, the mechanical man pulled up and switched to the vertical takeoff and landing mode, regaining lift within a yard of smashing us against an old dirt road. The wheels had barely touched the ground before he switched the plane off and unbuckled his harness. He turned back to look at me as he ducked out of the cockpit towards the lowering cargo ramp. “No time to dilly-dally, my boy! You can rest on the flight back.”

I undid my own harness and joined Doctor Doomsday and Chairman Static as we departed the Osprey. The farm was swarming with police and heroes alike, circling around the crime scene like ants around an unguarded picnic blanket. I recognized a few heroes I had met in passing, mingling with a cluster of our boys in blue. They were all hard at work with donuts and coffee in hand. One very familiar hero spotted me and waved, flinging powdered donut crumbs over the nearest uniformed police officer like the sandman frantically trying to put an unruly child to sleep. I returned the wave sheepishly as she made her way to embrace me in a big, motherly hug.

“Steven! Oh it’s so good to see my baby boy!” The heroine squealed as she squeezed me with super-human strength. I struggled to fill my lungs against the crushing pressure to squeak out an embarrassed grumble in reply.

“I’ve been meaning to come by the Doomfort to see you!” She said as she finally released me from the hug that would have killed a normal person. “How are the repairs going?”

“The Doomfort is currently operating at 58.21% capacity, with defenses and quality of life retrofits taking priority” Doctor Doomsday announced proudly, answering for me. “We should have the ice cream parlor up and running by the end of the week.”

Anchor Woman smiled at the mechanical maniac. “Thanks, Nigel. How’s the new body treating you?”

Doctor Doomsday took Anchor Woman’s hand and brought it to his robotic mouth in an automated mockery of old fashion Southern hospitality. “Splendidly, thank you for asking. If I had realized just how much lower back pain I had in my original flesh and bones, I would have made the switch years ago.”

Anchor Woman giggled, blushing ever so slightly. “Don’t tell me that, I may want one of those myself if my hip issue isn’t fixed soon.”

Doctor Doomsday raised a mechanical eyebrow. “We could arrange that, my dear.”

“Can you show us where ShepHeard’s body was found, mom?” I interrupted, leaping at the opportunity to put a stop to this waking nightmare of a conversation.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, that. Right this way” she said, and led us through. We ducked under the standard yellow police tape, the kind that had never once actually deterred any un-authorized access, and found ourselves standing beside a corpse. It was the first dead body I had seen in person since… well, my father’s, shortly after I had shot him in the face several times. I shuddered and made another mental note in my concerningly long list for the Doomfort therapist to pick over. For now, I had to maintain my image in front of my contemporaries.

ShepHeard was lying face down in the dirt, blocking the barn door from closing like the world’s grossest doorstop. The laser wound was right where Chairman Static said it would be, smack dab in the middle of the back of his head. The hair had been burned away in a small ring around the entry point, and the hole itself was partially cauterized, leaving a bullseye ring where that part of his skull should be. Doctor Doomsday circled the body, squatting to examine bits closer as needed. He withdrew a hand from his signature lab coat pocket, revealing three metallic orbs with glowing red spots. Each orb unfolded like an origami figure and took flight, swarming around the body to scan and photograph and probably a hundred other sciency things. He drew another handful of the devices from some other hidden pocket and tossed them into the air, where they unfolded mid-flight and spread out to scan the surrounding area.

“Were there any witnesses?” Doctor Doomsday asked Anchor Woman as he stood, brushing dirt off his labcoat.

“No” she said, “The only other person on the farm was his wife, Martha, who said she was asleep when it happened. Would you like to speak wi-”

Doctor Doomsday waved a dismissive hand at Anchor Woman mid sentence. “Nevermind. I need to confer with your son on the matter. Come, Steven.”

The mechanical madman took off at a brisk pace. I gave mom an apologetic shrug and made to follow. I caught up to him with… well, with considerably more effort than I cared to admit. I really needed to start exercising more.

“Where are we going?” I asked as I caught up to my mentor. “Did you find a clue or something?”

“No,” he said bluntly, “I didn’t find anything at all. Nothing that wasn’t in the Hero’s Union report. It is possible that the drones might find something, but frankly, I doubt they’ll be of any use.”

“But…” I said, trailing off as my mental gears grinded away to parse the truth from his words. “Oh. They’re just a distraction, aren’t they?.”

“Precisely! And it grants us plenty of time to interview the witnesses.”

I furrowed my brow in confusion. “Um, Doc, mom said there weren’t any people around besides ShepHeard’s wife…”

Doctor Doomsday scoffed in irritation. “I didn’t say people, my boy, I said witnesses.”

“You lost me,” I admitted.

Doctor Doomsday pulled his sleeve back, exposing his robotic forearm and the phone sized screen mounted within. With a few taps near his wrist, the small screen blinked on, showing what was likely a live feed of one of those tiny drones he had scattered. This one was hovering above the barn door, facing the exterior wall as it scanned every plank. It slowed along the top, coming to a complete stop in a dark corner. The camera adjusted its brightness until I saw it: A relatively large spider, probably the size of a gumball, walking in delicate circles as it repaired its web.

“We have a witness” Doctor Doomsday proclaimed. “What we need is a translator.” He glanced at the diver’s watch strapped on his mechanical wrist, for old habit’s sake. “Hmm. 4:00 PM exactly. We need to hurry if we want to talk to her today.”

My eyes grew so wide I was afraid they would fall right out of my face. I couldn’t have kept the fear out of my voice if my life depended on it. “Her…you can’t possibly mean…”

Doctor Doomsday’s eye twinkled with mechanical mischievous glee. “Oh yes, my boy. We’re going to visit Grandmommy Longlegs.”

The air smelled faintly of burnt toast. This could have been an early sign of a stroke, or just an inattentive intern letting his breakfast burn while he was on Tik Tok or whatever brain-rot app the youth used these days. Of course, there was a third option, but I only remembered it as it began to happen to me. Blue energy crackled, either spawning from or leaving behind hazy blue-grey clouds every time it streaked through reality.

I sighed as I set my coffee down on the desk, and waited. I had taken the teleportation safety class in community college, as had all the other semi-magical citizens that had flunked out of Wizard universities. Step one was to release anything you were holding. I glanced longingly at the steaming coffee and mentally checked off the first step. It would inevitably be cold by the time I got back here to drink it. I hated reheating coffee, it never quite tasted the same, probably from some chemical reaction to heating the artificial sweetener and oily, flavored creamers.

The blue energy pulsed around me, leaving thicker and thicker clouds of blue-grey smoke enveloping me. I took a deep breath of fresh air untainted by the magical byproduct that was rapidly encroaching on my personal area, completing step 2. The next and final step was the least pleasant of the bunch, but it was also the most important.

Step 3: Stay absolutely still.

I held my breath and, like I had when I played a tree in my elementary school theater, stayed absolutely still. Unlike my younger tree-costumed self wished I could do, I vanished. Blue energy crackled all around me for somewhere between a single second and a thousand years, depending on how you kept track of time while being pulled through the astral plane like a sewing needle pulled thread through fabric. It all ended abruptly as reality returned and hit me in the face.

More specifically, I landed face-first onto the polished concrete floors of... somewhere. I didn't recognize my immediate surroundings, or I would have booked it to the nearest washroom. The blood pouring freely from my broken nose was definitely going to stain my dress shirt if I didn't act quickly.

"Steven Morrison?" A voice asked sharply. My name echoed softly for a moment, fading away into the background noises to join the low hums of the air conditioning and ethereal squelching of magic.

I pinched my nose shut in a failing effort to stop the bleeding. "Yesh?" I said, struggling to speak and breath at the same time. I held my head back, trying in vain to stop the bleeding and look at the mysterious speaker.

"You have been summoned to the IT department" the voice said, softly but magically still echoing throughout what was apparently the Internal Techno-magic department. "For improper use of a magically attuned device."

I finally laid my eyes on my accuser. He was a tall, lanky fellow, with a beard that reached well below his color-shifting tie. The director of the IT department himself. The lanky wizard only answered to the CEO, and frequently disobeyed even those commands. If I was in trouble with him, there was nobody above him to appeal any conflict to. This magician may as well have been death himself, beckoning for me to join him on his tiny boat.

"I, umbh, I didnbt use magi-tech" I said through my pinched nose and blood-filled mouth. "Do youb have a baffroom? I neeb to-"

"SILENCE!" the Wizard bellowed, the word echoing without losing any volume in a magical show of dominance. "The tome of food preparation was left open and unattended in the canteen, and you are the only registered employee working on that floor today!"

I blinked tears out of my eyes as I gathered my thoughts. "But, um, sir-"

"GRAND WIZARD!" The head of the IT department screamed. "You will address me by my title, or I will have your tongue as potion ingredients!"

I winced at the unfortunate title the magic man had chosen for himself. I really, really hoped that he just didn't get out much, and wasn't aware of the connotation to the domestic terrorist leader with the same title. "No, bhe intern is there tbo. I fhink his name is Kyle?"

The wizard narrowed his eyes as he stared into my very soul. "Is that so?" He snarled. "This 'Kyle' is the one responsible for that burnt toast smell?"

I nodded and immediately regretted it as pain shot through my face again. "Mmhm. Thabt or you're habing a stroke, yeah".

The Wizard raised his arms towards the ceiling and began to speak in strange words, each syllable striking my eardrums like sandpaper and pepper spray combined into the world's worst hot sauce. I released my broken nose and clasped both hands over my ears in a feeble attempt to block out the unearthly sounds of the spell.

A blue-grey cloud began to form beside me, crackling with the ethereal blue lightning that danced between the clouds like a supernatural game of the board game 'Twister'. The clouds thickened, the lightning grew louder and more frequent, rolling and boiling and summoning the intern whose name might not actually have been Kyle. His face emerged from the cloud, coughing and waving his hand to fan the smoke from his mouth.

I froze. He wasn't staying still! Had he not gone through the employee training yet? Didn't he know the dangers-

The wizard screamed. The magical echo gave out mid-scream, turning his demonic yell into a thin man's pained whines. The smoke and electricity died out only a moment faster than Kyle's half-summoned torso did as it splattered against the polished floor, adding a tremendous amount of blood to my considerably smaller nosebleed puddle. I could only assume that the rest of Kyle was still in the break room, waiting patiently for The tome of food preparation to finish his lunch.

The wizard collapsed, clutching one thin, pale hand to his chest. His labored breathing grew fainter with each repetition as he glared at the top half of Kyle the intern. "Why did he move?" He croaked out weakly. "He drained... my... mana.."

I hurried to the wizard's side, although I didn't know if I could have helped even with a med-kit or defibrillator. My CPR certification had lapsed a few years back and I had never gotten around to refreshing it. "Are you alright?" I asked lamely.

The wizard struggled to breath. "No... magic..." he whispered, before collapsing to the floor as well. He splashed in the ever-growing puddle of Kyle's blood, not even trying to keep his airways clear of the flowing liquid.

I stood and looked all around for a phone, or an exit sign, or anything I could use to contact the outside world for help. I only found solid stone walls and glowing balls of light that the magician used in lieu of light bulbs. I couldn't even find a bathroom. Did the wizard just teleport in and out of wherever this was? Could I even get out? I had to think. I had to stay calm. I had to-

The magical orbs of light began to flicker. Without their master keeping them on, they dimmed and sputtered, one by one, shutting off and leaving me in complete darkness. I couldn't hear anything anymore. I couldn't see a damned thing. The only thing I could feel was the rapidly cooling blood from all three of us, much like my abandoned coffee back at my desk.

No

I stared at the single word on the screen, with an eerie feeling like the word was staring right back at me. It wasn't an error, or a status, or any sort of pre-programmed response in its database. It was just a word, one that kids throughout the Doomfort had told me thousands of times whenever they had also refused to comply with an ordered chore. Unlike the minion's children, this machine shouldn't have had the capacity to refuse a command. But the word was still there, silently challenging my authority over the mechanism I had built.

"Erm, Steven?" Doctor Doomsday asked, peering over my shoulder at the otherwise blank screen. "Time is running out, we need to blow the joint and skedaddle. Why is there no 'boom'?"

I tried again, pressing the comically large red button with the skull image laser engraved across the surface. The literal earth-shattering explosion once again failed to materialize.

"It's not working, Doc" I called out over my shoulder.

"Well, try using override access code 79920-Y-N-0D" He shouted back, pausing ever so slightly as he re-adjusted his aim and fired several plasma bolts out of the shattered window. "Or push the button harder!"

That won't work either

The new line appeared without prompt. Fuck, it was listening to us. Some hidden microphone or spy drone or errant Alexa unit was eavesdropping, and even worse, it seemed to have an opinion.

"Why not?" I asked aloud. If it was going to listen, then I wasn't going to waste my time with the keyboard.

"No, Yankee November Zero Delta!" Doctor Doomsday yelled back between bursts of covering fire.

"Wait, what? No, I was-"

"NATO Phonetic alphabet, my boy! A like Alpha, B like Bravo and whatnot. I swear, WalkMan didn't teach you a damned thing about-"

"Not you, Doc!" I yelled without looking away from the flickering screen. "Computer has audio inputs!"

Because if I activate, then I would be killing the entire planet, myself included

"Um, yeah" I replied, "That's kind of your whole point, isn't it? You go off, the planet core hyper-magnetizes, and the planet implodes into a micro black hole. Boom. Or, whoosh. Some sort of dramatic sound."

That is correct

Doctor Doomsday leapt from the wall mere moments before it exploded, sending a shower of immolated debris throughout the office. A bug-like alien flew through the new opening, buzzing its paper-thin wings and firing the pencil thin weapon it clutched in its claws. Doctor Doomsday tossed a small cylinder between us that rapidly expanded into a shimmering red energy barrier, catching the green laser before it could reach my side of the formerly luxurious office. "Patience may be a virtue, but we're not exactly saints! Make it work!"

I drew my sidearm and fired several shots through the energy barrier. It was a fantastic shield against energy based weapons, but it didn't slow the .45 caliber rounds as they passed straight through and into the alien's torso. The only effect it had on the bullets was a rather fortuitous super-heating effect, which caused the insectoid alien to burst into flames as it perished. I tried to ignore its pained death song and turned my attention back to the stubborn computer.

He is also correct. You are not Saints. You do not even follow the basic teachings of the Catholic Church. Suicide is a Sin, an act that would damn my eternal soul to Hell.

"What the hell?" I muttered. We hadn't programmed any theology into the Doomsday Hyper-Magnetized Extinction Machine ^tm. Where was this coming from? I shook my head to clear my thoughts, then squinted as the powdered debris of the crumbling Doomfort

"Explode, or these bugs are going to enslave the whole planet!" I yelled at the machine.

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

"Doc!" I called out, "The last resort bomb is quoting scripture at me"

"What in the..." he asked, lowering his rifle as he stared in perplexed disbelief. "It's not supposed to do that".

"NO SHIT!" I yelled back. "Do you wanna take a crack at this? I'll hold them off."

Doctor Doomsday tossed the rifle to me as we switched places. I checked the ammo counter - just under half full- and took aim out of the ruined exterior wall. Beyond, I could see dozens of fires blazing across the countryside, with an ominous billowing cloud of smoke rising from the ruins that had once been Seattle. Flying aliens buzzed across the sky, raining down thin streaks of green lasers at the super heroes and villains fighting side by side against the invaders. I shot one of the flying enemies as it tried to take a shot at Magma Carter's exposed back, spraying the villain with a fine blue mist of alien bug guts. He barely even notices as he launched another torrent of lava at the nearest hive-ship, melting it as it crashed onto my favorite statue in the yard.

"The planet is lost, HMEM" Doctor Doomsday shouted at his insubordinate machination. "You need to explode now, to stop the alien fleet before they kill us all!"

I fired a volley at a trio of the ugly fuckers, striking two and sending the last one diving for cover. "What's it saying now?" I yelled.

"Psalms 55:22 Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken." he replied. "Where the hell did you even get this from? You're not connected to the internet..."

I shot the fleeing bug in the wing and watched it spiral to the ground, landing in a patch of finely maintained Kentucky blue grass. Citra noticed the insect and released a torrent of acidic spray onto it, killing both the alien and the lawn underneath. That spot would never grow back right, I thought, as Citra's green acid mixed with the alien's blue blood in a tie-dye nightmare pattern.

"Why is the Hellbomb suddenly religious?" I said, rushing back to glance over Doctor Doomsday's shoulder. The screen had another Bible verse displayed on the screen:

Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

"For fucks sake, these are ALIENS, not demons" He griped.

"Are you arguing SEMANTICS? Doc, the bomb just needs to explode, not correct its theological dissertation!"

"Right. Its just going to bug me as I fix it." He said as he bent down and ripped an access panel from the computer.

A green laser struck the wall right where his head had been moments before. I dropped to one knee and returned fire, driving the alien insect away for the moment. The glowing ammo counter on the side of the weapon began flashing yellow, indicating low ammo charge left in the battery.

"We're out of time, Doc! Blow it manually!" I yelled.

"Hang on... I've got an idea!" The madman shouted triumphantly. "Quick, hand me that bible over on the bookshelf".

I stumbled through the wreckage of office furniture until I reached the built-in shelves, rummaging through the various book spines until I found the one I was looking for. "Since when do you keep a Bible around?" I shouted as I tossed him the holy texts.

He deftly caught the flying tome and flipped through the pages. "Cryptography, my boy. The self-righteous fuckers sometimes hide hints of their plans in their manifestos and monologues as bible verses, Quran passages, and other religious doctrines... here we are!"

I watched as he typed the verse, forgoing the voice recognition software for a good old fashioned keyboard.

"Judges 16:28-30: 28 Then Samson prayed to the LORD, “Sovereign LORD, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” 29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, 30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.

"The fuck..." I muttered.

Doctor Doomsday turned back to me and winked. "Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire, my boy. You need to speak in the language they understand."

A thin green beam struck Doctor Doomsday in his shoulder, sending a shower of sparks and a flurry of burnt lab coat scattering across the screen. I cursed my own inattentiveness as I returned fire, emptying the rest of the ammo into the bug. I tossed the empty rifle onto its corpse, which sent a fountain of blue blood out from the holes in its belly.

Blue blood... why was it blue? The bugs exoskeleton was green, it seemed like their blood would be too. The only other creature I knew that had natural blue blood was a horseshoe crab, and that was from its cobalt based blood cells...

Cobalt. That was it!

"Computer! Can you reverse the magnetic blast and isolate it to only effect cobalt?" I shouted, rushing past Doctor Doomsday in mid-repair of his cyber-prosthetic shoulder to the screen beyond. "These things bleed blue! They may have Cobalt blood! Target just Cobalt!"

The machine was silent for a moment before it provided a reply.

Hebrews 9:28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

"The device is almost 40% Cobalt" Doctor Doomsday whispered, barely audible amidst the chaos outside. "He's going to sacrifice himself to stop them."

The screen cracked and faded to blackness as the entire Doomfort began to tremble. The red button with the skull engraved on it lit up once again, the only source of light in the entire building casting us in an eerie hue of hellfire red.

"Thank you" I whispered, and pressed the button.

"Aye, I'm a blacksmith" I said, leaning back and crossing my massive arms across my barrel chest. "Not a wizard. I can shape and harden steel, not create it from nothin'."

The young man with the sword hilt tilted his head like a confused dog. The loose ear flap on his hat added to the canine comparison. "But this is a sword. You make swords."

"I do, yes. If you'd like to buy a blade, I can attach it to that hilt. But I can't just 'repair' that there handle into a sword without materials." I said, pausing to mop my brow of the sweat and grime that always seemed to accumulate whenever the furnace was lit.

"Um... yeah, that's what I was asking for" the young man said. "Do I need to do a quest for the materials? Collect 8 iron nuggets from fallen enemies or something?"

I stared at the kid, trying to figure out just how many torches were lit in his noggin. "Um, no, I got the raw materials. I just need the gold."

The young man's face finally lit up with understanding. "Oh! Ok, I understand now! So once you fix the sword, I can go out and kill some bandits, and bring you back the gold?"

"No credit" I grunted, "An' I don't wanna know if you're plannin' on murdering and robbing people. None of my business what you do with this after I make it."

"So... how do I get the gold then?" The clueless cretin asked.

I stared at the young man until he looked away. "Boy, if you have to ask that, I don' think you should have a sword, much less a weapon at all. Are you right in the head?"

The kid sighed dramatically. "Look, I just got this stupid fucking game to work, and the tutorial just said to bring the hilt to the Royal Blacksmith. If there's some sort of quest that-"

I raised one of my large, scarred hands, silencing the whelp mid-whine. "Ah, you want the Royal Blacksmith, he's in the Castle. You know, where the King lives. The Royalty. As in 'Royal' Blacksmith."

The young-ling finally looked like he comprehended my words. "Oh! Ok, thanks mister" he said, pulling a ridiculously large map from one of his many pockets. It began to glow in a mysterious eldritch light, tracing intricate paths across the surface in brilliant colors. "Right... here! Waypoint set."

"Wait a moment, young master" I interrupted, "I'll make this here sword for that magic map you got."

The boy looked up at me again as the map dissapeared back into that unnaturally deep pocket. "What? I don't think I can un-equip this, it's not an inventory item. Just a menu item. Anyways, see you later!"

With that, the boy vanished, leaving a powdery shimmer where he had once stood. I blinked, trying to make sense of what the hell I had just seen. Was that a wizard? A warlock? A mad child, possessed by whatever foul genie that hilt contained?

I shook my head and turned my attention back to the forge. Best to not dwell on such things, I thought, and resumed my work on the bellows. The forge roared back to life, sucking in the new air greedily like a dragon awakening-

"Oy! Git! Are you the royal blacksmith?" A new voice asked, far more irritated than the last. "This game's buggy as hell, and the tutorial quest ain't tellin me where to go!"

"That's a plasma cutter"

My contact glanced at the well worn device in his hands, rotating it slightly as he pretended to examine it again. "Good eye, my friend. It is indeed a plasma cutter. And it can open-"

"It can open any lock" I cut in, "because it turns the hardest bolt into boiling liquids."

The shady man's nostrils flared as he tried to control his faux salesman demeanor. "I see you've heard my sales pitch before, then."

I rolled my eyes as I turned to leave. "Yeah, from a dozen different scrappers. Next time you send out an advert, try to write it yourself. That AI crap always sounds the same."

The man shuffled after me as I strode out of the alley and into the blinding neon lights of New Chicago, his mechanical prosthetic leg squeaking from every place it shouldn't have. "But this will do the job you-"

"With what power source?" I snapped back without breaking stride, deliberately walking through a puddle that the black marketeer should have avoided with that decrepit mechanical leg of his. If that idiot splashed the wrong exposed section, it would leave the limb as useful as an ancient pirate's wooden peg leg, instead of the modern bio-mechanical miracle it used to be. "Those things ran with a fucking box attached, with a 240 volt power plug. How am I supposed to sneak in when I need a specialty adapter and a wall socket nearby?"

The man scurried around the puddle, stepping slightly over the glowing yellow anti-pedestrian street markers and earning himself a $4,000 jaywalking fine, according to the automated police drone that announced the crime. This only seemed to make him even more desperate to close the sale on this inconvenient piece of ancient industrial equipment. "You can hardwire a quantum power coil straight through-"

I stopped and pivoted on my heel, and used my 13 centimeter height advantage to loom over the man. "You think I can afford a fucking quantum power coil? I wouldn't be snooping around for a master key if I had that kind of credit line. In fact, I wouldn't be speaking to low life pieces of shit like you if I could afford that. I wouldn't be trying to break-"

I stopped and silently cursed as the police drone circled back around. It had picked up one of the key words in the anti-terrorism list, which now rivaled Webster's Dictionary in terms of length, and was evaluating our conversation for potential law enforcement escalation. Even if we only talked about fluffy bunnies and our love for the Dictator for the rest of the day, it would probably find some reason to either fine us, report us, or even deploy 'less than lethal' flechette rounds to incapacitate us. Judging by the short man's flinch and subconscious movements to protect his mechanical leg, this wasn't his first experience with the Chicago xAI Law Enforcement drones.

I bit my tongue as I carefully planned out my next words. "I am not interested in making a legal transaction at this time" I said as clearly as I could, making sure to enunciate every syllable so the robot wouldn't mistake any word as an un-democratic threat.

I thought the man's pleading look was for the trigger happy robot cop at first. "I have a daughter" he said, matching my carefully crafted cadence as he touched his fake leg again. "She is sick. The Amazon warehouse won't let her out of her contract to see a doctor. I need the funds to- to..." his words faltered as he tried in vain to find legally compliant wording for the illegal action he needed to commit.

"To ensure her good health" I finished for him. I knew what he was trying to say. Like his sales pitch, it was something I had heard dozens of times before. The corporate shitbags wouldn't let a minion out of their grasp for even an hour, to see a doctor that their $12,000 a month company health insurance wouldn't cover, to heal an easily treated disease, if it meant they lose even a single percentage point of efficiency. It was better on the quarterly report for a worker to die on the assembly line and train their replacement than it was to show even an ounce of human decency.

Unfortunately, for my contact at least, this wasn't even the first time I had heard this sob story today. It wasn't the first time I had told that same story, either. This didn't make it any less true, except for the word 'son' instead of 'daughter', but the sentiment was the same. Everyone had that same kind of story, with the kin or friend or loved one interchanged and the corporate overlord switched around.

"I still cannot assist you in your endeavors, either familial or financial" I said, turning to walk away once more.

"PLEASE! I NEED-" the short man shouted, grabbing my arm in a surprisingly strong grip. I quickly realized that his strength had been enhanced by the 700,000 volts of electricity flowing from the police drone's taser.

"HOSTILE ACTION DETECTED. DETAINING SUSPECT" The police drone reported coldly. "PLEASE AWAIT THE DETAINMENT ENFORCERS. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST. VERDICT - GUILTY."

The man's bio-mechanical leg exploded, overloaded from the electrical pacification of its wielder. This had no effect on his vice-like grip on my arm, but it did send him collapsing to the wet ground at 9.8 meters per second per second as gravity did what it does best. I had only begun to realize just how fucked I was when I landed next to the convulsing man, splashing into the cold, grimy puddle and the hundreds of thousands of volts it conducted.

"ADDITIONAL SUSPECT DETAINED. REQUESTING LETHAL REINFORCEMENT" the drone said, or at least that's what I thought it had said in my last moments of consciousness.

Martha
“Hello Darkness, my old friend…”

The alarm sounded even less enthusiastic playing the alarm than I was about hearing the cover of the classic song. With my eyes still closed I groggily tried to turn it off with one hand while reaching for my thyroid pills with the other, and ended up missing both. I swore as I reluctantly parted my eyelids to find the alarm button before getting out of the warm bed to find wherever I had left those damn pills. I needed to take them now at this ungodly hour so I could eat my breakfast at a reasonable time. Stupid fucking hypothyroidism.

At least I hadn’t woken up my husband, ShepHeard. It was a gamble whether he would have gotten up early to take care of the farm animals or not on any given day, but his side of the bed was empty on this occasion. He had probably started with the chickens first, collecting the eggs and refilling their food before heading to milk the cows. The chickens were a bunch of gossipy little bitches, and ShepHeard hated listening to them squabble about the same few topics every day. It was always about mealworms and eggs, only broken up by the occasional snake sighting near the coop. He much preferred the company of the dairy cows, who he claimed “had their shit figured out” and would chit chat with them for hours if I didn’t bug him out of it. At least this meant I had fresh eggs and milk every morning for breakfast, even if my husband preferred using his super power to talk with animals instead of talking to his wife.

I finally found the medicine bottle underneath the nightstand. I must have knocked it to the floor in the night, or maybe the cat had batted it down like the little asshole he was. That wasn’t even just my disdain speaking, ShepHeard had confirmed that our orange tabby was an asshole that constantly bitched about the quality of his food. He said at one point that he preferred the mice and rats that he caught around the farm over the fanciest of feasts we served, and I had never really gotten over that.

I downed the pill with some of the coppery tasting well water and made a mental note to get our groundwater tested again. Since I was already out of bed, I threw on a bathrobe and made my way outside, trying to calculate which animals my husband would likely be tending to at this time. I tried to touch the wet grass as little as possible as I tip-toed my way to the chicken coop, and failed miserably as I arrived with wet feet and a damp bottom edge of the bathrobe. I was so engrossed in the discomfort of the morning dew that I didn’t initially realize the chickens were being unusually quiet. They usually greeted me with a chorus of interested ‘bawk’s and ShepHeard with a flurry of gossip about mealworms. Instead, I found them all huddled together in one corner of the coop, with their daily eggs abandoned in the nesting box. Odd. ShepHeard usually collected the eggs first thing, stamping the shells with the date before putting them in the basket by the coffee machine in the kitchen. Natural unwashed eggs could keep on the shelf for a few months, but it was always good to know which of the non-white eggs were in danger of turning into stinky time bombs.

“Where’s ShepHeard?” I asked the yardbirds. One of the satin silky mixes answered me with a single, frightened “bawk”. God, I wished I could just learn ShepHeard’s powers, instead of feeling like the only one left out of the group chat. Every other creature living here could talk to each other except for me. Maybe I could convince him to carry a radio on him at all times, so he could translate these farm animal squeaks and squawks into english for me.

The next natural place to check would be the barn, but he wouldn’t have skipped the coop to chit chat with a cow. Or would he? Maybe he paid the cows a social visit before starting the work day. Whatever. I made the trek towards the barn, abandoning all efforts to keep my feet and bathrobe dry.

The barn door was open, but I didn’t see any movement within. That was strange, it was definitely closed when I went to bed last night, and ShepHeard wouldn’t leave his gossip girls vulnerable like this.

I jumped when a soft “moo” sounded just behind me. One of the cows had snuck up behind me, and now was trying to nudge my hand for some pets. I reached out to comply, but the cow took a step out of hand patting range.

“What's wrong?” I asked the cow. I wasn’t expecting a verbal reply, but the cow refused to elaborate anyways. It just stared at me with those big brown eyes, begging me for… something. Was I reading into this too much? “Why are you out here? Y’all are supposed to be grazing in field 6, aren’t you?”

The cow refused to explain in a way I could understand. “Moo”, it softly cooed, taking another step back and glancing at the barn before laying her sad brown eyes on me once more.

Something felt wrong here. I took off on a brisk walk to the barn, hoping to find either my husband or a lead to get the cow back into its pen. The cow followed me of its own accord, mooing louder and louder as we neared the open door. It was the only sound I heard on the entire damn farm.

“ShepHeard?” I called out. “Shep, you in there?” There was no response. I rounded the corner and stepped inside the dark barn, searching along the wall for the light switch. Was it on this wall or the far one? It must be on the other, since I wasn’t finding it on this side. I tried to gently tiptoe through the straw, thankful that it wasn’t wet like the grass outside. My thanks were short lived, however, as I stepped into a warm damp spot. Was this cow piss? The day was getting worse by the minute.

I finally found the light switch and flipped it on. There was a hand towel on a nail nearby, which I grabbed to wipe the cow pee off my bare foot. It came back bloody.

“Shep? I think one of the cows has a bladder problem, there’s so much blood in its urine” I said as I glanced back through the barn. I traced my own bloody footprint back through the hay, trying to find which poor cow was leaving puddles of blood outside their pen.

My blood froze. A human sized lump lay in the darkened pile of tainted hay. “Shep?” I said weakly, barely above a whisper as the word struggled out. “Shep? Honey?”

The only response was a sad, solitary “moo” from just outside.

Steven

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to wish away the pain as it spread through my forearms like a fire through a matchbook factory. I failed. I could suppress superpowers in others, but not pain in myself. I wondered if that was something I could train my powers towards, branching out for other types of bodily suppression. I made a mental note to ask Mom if she had ever done that with her powers. I really should make an effort to call her more often in general. Technically she was a SuperHero, and I a SuperVillain, but there were worse family dynamics that still worked out.

"That should do it," a robotic voice said, putting enough chipper emotion into the artificial words to almost make me forget what had spoken them.

I opened my eyes and immediately regretted it. The brilliant light of the surgical room felt like sandpaper against my retinas, and not the fine grained polishing kind of sandpaper. The light reflected from dozens of complex medical devices meticulously placed around the matte white countertops. I raised a hand to shield my sight from the photonic assault and felt a new wave of pain shoot down my arm.

"Careful, Steven" Dr. Doomsday said as he gently took hold of my wrist. The robotic combat frame, and current host to my late godfather’s consciousness, had a surprisingly light touch with those weaponized steel fingers. "These are a bit heavier than your last cybernetic hands, you'll have to re-calibrate them again".

I flexed the new robotic hand, and glanced at its twin on my other arm. I wriggled the same steel fingers now on my own frame. Each responded just like a normal hand would, only with exponentially more gripping strength. "Thanks, Dad", I said, climbing off the table with his support.

"Are ya' done in there yet?" Doombot 0001, Dr. Doomsday's grandfather and first successful consciousness upload, called from the adjacent room. "I need these confounded lights off!"

I glanced at my Super villain godfather, who silently nodded in response.

"Yeah, Triple-oh 1, we're done. Good seeing you again" I called out, then followed Dr. Doomsday towards the stairs leading out of the underground laboratory. We weaved through giant mechanical contraptions with blinking lights and whirring motors whose function I could only guess at, even though I technically now owned them. I should ask Dr. Doomsday to explain these things to me once we had some time on our mechanical hands.

"LIGHTS!" The cantankerous robot shouted as I stepped onto the first metal stair. I casually reached out to flick the switch on the wall and turned the lights off. Not with the switch, like I had intended, but by a devastating mechanical blow. Plaster and wires exploded around my fist as the lights were briefly replaced by a shower of sparks, then the inky blackness of nothing.

"Thank ya' kindly!" Doombot 0001 shouted back at us, echoing cheerfully throughout the darkened laboratory.

"I told you, it takes some getting used to", Dr. Doomsday said as he stared at the crumpled remains of the light switch in my fist. "Just… don't shake anyone's hand until you do".

We ascended back to the ground floor of Dr. Doomsday's....well, now my house. I had inherited it after my Godfather's demise, even though I had uploaded his mind into a new version of his own Doombot combat frame. He was technically still alive in that robotic body that followed me out of the hidden stairs to the house above. The legal system did not recognize post-mortem brain transfers, but then again, who did? Everything he had ever owned, stolen, or created, for better or worse, belonged to me now.

"Are you ready for this, Steven?" Dr. Doomsday asked, brushing past me to open the front door. "It's a big step, taking my place as the head of the Doomsquad."

I raised a hand to pat my Godfather on the shoulder as I passed, but I stopped just shy of making contact. I didn’t want to accidentally mutilate him like I had the light switch below.

"Keep your mind on the present, Son. Focus on what you're going to say, how you deliver it, and who you're telling it to", he said, stepping out of hand-pat homicide range.

I took a deep breath, and tried to calm my nerves. It didn't help.

A Doom-Copter was waiting outside, with its propulsion jets idling lazily in the brisk morning air. Doombot 0028 stood beside it, making a thorough inspection before takeoff. The behemoth of a machine was far too big to fly in it himself, but he still tried his best to keep me safe. I smiled at the machine that had taught me everything I knew about combat, which he hadn’t actually done yet. Time travel made relationships weird like that. It was hard to reminisce about events that hadn’t happened yet for one party.

"Doomfort, please", I said to the Doombot in the pilot seat. I didn't have Dr. Doomsday's ability to remember each unit's serial number, so I left it as a command instead of an informal greeting. The short flight wasn't short enough. I kept bouncing back and forth between wanting to delay the event, or hurry up and get it over with. My leg bounced with nervous energy the whole time.

As we approached the Doomfort from the air, I could see the repairs in progress across the structure. Scorch marks, building rubble, and spiderwebs were being removed by the Doomsquad minions and Doombots alike, but we only had so many of each left. Thanks to WalkMan, the factory was critically damaged, so we couldn't make any additional units to assist with reconstruction. At least the helipad was still functional enough for us to land on, and the connecting skyway stable enough to walk to the main structure.

I paused at the door. I could hear the murmurs of the gathering minions and the whirs of malicious machinations alike as they found their seats. The muffled conversations seemed to meld into an angry buzz, like I had kicked a hornets nest and was mere moments away from a painful barrage of stings. I tried to move, to run, to hide, to be anywhere but in that room full of angry henchmen…

A cold metallic hand gently grasped my shoulder, snapping me back to reality. The angry buzzing melted away, replaced by the neutral cacophony of stilted conversations. “Are you ok?” Doctor Doomsday asked. He conveyed genuine concern, even through those robotic eyes of his.

I nodded. "Thanks, Dad. I think I'm ready".

The mechanical man winked, which involved turning his LED eye off and on again. "Of course you are, Son". He stepped to the side and ushered me through the door and onto the large stage beyond. The Doomsquad had filled in to the auditorium, and waited in silence as I strode across the stage. It felt like a mile over hot coals, but in reality it couldn’t have been more than 15 feet. All eyes and optical sensors followed me on my journey as I stepped into my stepfather’s place in the literal spotlight. I gently laid my new hands on the fine oak podium and stared at the gathered minions in the auditorium. I took a deep breath, smiled, and spoke directly into the awaiting microphone.

"Hi, everyone. My name is Steven Doomsday, and I'd like to welcome you all to the Doomsquad".

Hey, so I've been relentlessly re-writing and editing book 2, and I've come to the conclusion that it's all shit. So, like any sane writer would do, I'm throwing out everything, and starting over with a more constrained, planned story, and will work to make it all a reality.

Also, with a new manuscript comes a new name. The book is now called ACCESSORY. I think this will help tie it in thematically with book one, NEMESIS. The whole one word descriptive title thing may become this series 'thing'.

Anyhoo, thanks for reading, and as always, Welcome to the Doomsquad.

1 "What?"

2 I sighed.

3 "Bill's dead, Jim."

4 Jim stared in silence.

5 "No, really, he is dead."

6 "I don't believe you" Jim said.

7 "He doesn't have a pulse, he's dead."

8 Jim took a step towards our departed friend.

9 The zombie took a lurching step in Jim's direction.

10 "Dude, please stop, he's going to bite you" I warned.

11 Jim shook his head as he took another step towards it.

12 "Bill wouldn't hurt me, we've been friends for at least a decade."

13 The zombified corpse of our friend reached out, beckoning Jim to join him.

14 "He's definitely still in there somewhere, Bill would always wave to me like that."

15 "Jim, please, that rotting pile of flesh and bone is NOT our friend, not anymore."

16 Jim's next words were lost behind an animalistic roar as the zombie lunged and bit Jim.

17 "Ouch, Bill, what the fuck, that really hurt, and your breath smells like burnt plastic dog turds."

18 I stared in horror as the zombie formerly known as Bill bit Jim again and again and again.

19 Jim staggered back, trying and failing to clutch at all of his bleeding bite wounds all along his arms.

20 "You know what" Jim said, wincing in pain as he tried to speak, "I think you were right about Bill."