Off The Pages
Chapter Nineteen

Everything went fucking haywire.

Jennifer had responded to no less than eight bombings. Across the U.S., eight different holy sites of various non-Christian denominations had been bombed by supers and non-supers alike. The police were overwhelmed. Jericho flew into action, knocking out supers who attacked anyone they perceived as not a follower of Christ. Annie and Edward had taken to the streets as well, aided by teleportation powers they discovered they could stack on top of their existing characters’ abilities.

Raymond and John retreated to a new lab to rush whatever they could using Raymond’s super intelligence and John’s sci-fi impossible genius. At first, it became a clusterfuck of a triage situation, flying blindly to solve one problem after another, but after the first twenty minutes, they got coordinated. Cell phones might not be Star Trek communicators, but they sure as hell made figuring out where to go next easier.

Annie smashed a huge fist into an eight-foot bruiser trying to smash a synagogue. Despite his bigger size and mass, the man crumpled like an accordion. After slamming him into an expanding crater in the concrete, she turned her gaze to the small crowd of non-super men and women with torches. She pounded her fists together and they scattered. She took to the sky, using the goddess’s combat sense to locate the next act of terror. Before that, she flew over to where she’d deposited her phone, and called. “Annie here,” she said. “This is the nineteenth church bombing I’ve dealt with, and just a minute ago, I rescued some Jews before a crowd could burn them at the stake.”

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Jericho said, using a combination of the evening news and his sensory powers. “The bad news is, we’ve still got work to do. The good news is, we’re making a huge dent. I believe we’ve already responded to the vast majority of the situations.”

“How big a dent we talking?” she asked.

“Edward just took out a super-powered Klan meeting,” the billionaire responded, “and that was the last incident in the state of Kentucky.”

“A lot of these guys are too powerful to be kept in police custody when we ain’t around!” Annie said. “What about that?”

“Ray and John said they’re on that,” he said.

“Alright,” John said, cutting in on the conversation. “Deal with the last few problems and then meet us at the hideout.”

“Gotcha,” they both said in unison.

Annie hung up, then flew a hundred miles to deal with the last California incident, a series of mosque fires started by an electrical super.

Jennifer stepped into the hideout. A few moments later, a portal opened, and the others stepped out. Annie and Edward took a seat on the couch. Both had black soot marks on their durable skin and scratches on their clothes from close combat.

“So,” Raymond began, “it’s a disaster.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “But, it’s also Christmas.”

“Hey, holy shit guys,” John said, his safety glasses dangling. “Gotta love nineteen eighties sci-fi. Ray and I have put together a bunch of cool shit already. You saw the portals we can make, but also,” he pulled out a nasty looking collar, glowing red at the front. “suppression collars.”

“Jesus Christ!” Jennifer swore. “It’s been what, four hours?”

Raymond let out a whistle. “Yeah,” he acknowledged, “but at the same time, Doctor Anti is one of the most resourceful characters in the history of science fiction literature.”

“I’m, uh,” Jericho cut in, “interested in these portals.”

“Way ahead of ya,” John replied. “Ray’s right. I’ve been on a roll here. Turns out, I can portal anywhere in the world with the right amount of power, and Ray figured out the power problem. Not as fast as teleportation, but we’ve got other dimensional stuff.” He gestured behind him. “We’ve got the perfect hideout: other dimensions!”

“You’re shitting me,” Edward shouted, looking at the room past them. “Where is that?”

“There, uh,” Raymond said, pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts, “there are other Earths out there, and we found one with no intelligent life on it.”

Jennifer had to push her jaw upward. “Uh, wait,” she uttered. “Wait wait wait. Hold the phone.” She let out a mild chuckle of disbelief. “Did you just, um, fucking drop multiverse on me as if you were telling me about a meal you ate?”

John smacked his head. “Hello? Excuse me?” he interjected. “You do realize I’m the character whose whole schtick was inventing crap that no one could believe he invented, right?”

Annie clapped her hands together. “I don’t normally say this,” she yelled, “but goddammit John, you are fucking amazing!”

“Uh,” John cut in, “and Ray.”

“No,” Raymond replied, “I’ll let the guy who’s not normally that smart bask in his glory.”

“Anyway,” John stated, “some bad news. We’re not going to be turning any more villains over to the police.”

“Oh, fuck,” Jennifer said, as the news washed over everyone. “Let me guess.”

“You guessed right,” Davis said, stepping out of a portal.

“The United States government has reached a deal,” Sam cut in, “the false messiah has agreed to curb his followers’ violence in exchange for the government surrendering to him and Jack Hurst.”

“How very Christ-like,” Edward snarked.

“The good news is,” Jericho said, “Jennifer and I didn’t turn very many supers over to the government to hand back to Jack and his fake Jesus. We’ve built a series of complexes on this other Earth and we’re storing them there for the time being.”

“Isn’t that a bit…” Annie began.

Jennifer raised an eyebrow. “Authoritarian?” she asked. “Yeah, but they’re in stasis. No time is passing for them right now.” She saw the expressions. “And yes, that’s another sci-fi thing John and Ray just dropped on us.”

“I’ve got a working theory,” Raymond said, “and once this whole shebang is over, I expect to get it published.” He saw everyone’s looks. “Oh, sorry for changing the subject. The gist is this. There are new types of interactions other than particles and waves in this wavefunction we exist in.”

“I thought…” Jennifer said. “I thought the interactions were particles only at our macro scale. I thought everything was waves.”

Raymond thought about it. “Here’s the way I see it,” he explained. “Imagine you had some aliens who couldn’t see or detect fire.”

Everyone looked at each other. “Okay,” Jericho replied.

Raymond grabbed a napkin and a marker out of a drawer and began writing a diagram. “They know,” he continued, “that if they have meat, and certain kinds of substances, like wood, and enough oxygen, and a spark, they can cause meat to cook if they hold it over this…thing they can’t describe.”

“Okay,” Annie said.

“They can’t see it, they can’t feel it, they know if they stick their hand in it, it hurts, but they can’t otherwise detect it at all,” Raymond said. “How do they go about even describing it, much less detecting it?”

Everyone pondered for a few moments. “That would be a problem,” Edward stated.

“We don’t know how to describe it,” John explained, “other than to say that whatever these things are that streamed into our universe from a hole in space, they cause selective changes to the laws of physics, and we’ve had to completely upend our way of thinking in order to get half of these ideas.”

“It’s how,” Jennifer stated, “a person can turn to stone and still have their biochemistry work.”

“Exactly!” Raymond replied. “It behaves like a science; we just don’t know all the details yet.”

“That’s amazing,” Jericho said. “Anyway, I hate to sound rude, but what’s our plan, going forward?”

“I suggest,” Annie said, “we should keep working on our tech.” She gestured. “After all, I’d like something more useful than just…this outfit I’m wearing.”

“We’re working on that,” John said. “Not just that, but everyone is going to get something.” He snapped his fingers. “That reminds me! Jericho.”

The billionaire turned. “Yes?”

John approached and pulled out a syringe from a small plastic case. “I found out that one of your powers in particular can be enhanced with technology.”

“Really?” Jericho said, sticking out his arm. “How does that work?”

“Let’s save the world,” Raymond cut in, “and then we’ll figure out how to explain it. Right now, just accept it.”

“So, how’d you figure it out?”

“Well,” John said, injecting the contents. “we found out how to tap into the…stuff that all powers come from.”

After the nanoscopic device entered his bloodstream, the billionaire immediately felt his mental switch for the teleportation power change color. When he activated it, he saw that his range included the entire Earth. “Holy shit!” he swore.

“How the hell did you have time for all this?” Jennifer asked.

“It was the first thing we did after figuring out how to put people in stasis,” Raymond said. “You know, related technology. It gave us ten times as much time. We can only go that far on a lab-size scale.”

“I have a hunch,” John cut in, “that it works on the same principle as one of your speed powers, Jennifer.”

“You know, guys,” she said, “I’m not trying to tell anyone what to do, but how about we duck out of here for a while and let them study our powers directly, and that might give them a better idea of what to do.”

“But,” Edward protested, “what about all the people that will die in the meantime?”

Jennifer took a harsh breath and gave his words serious thought. “I suspect Jack can’t end the world without fighting us,” she explained, “and his monster seems more interested in gathering allies right now for a fight that comes later.”

“So,” Annie said, folding her arms, “people are going to die in the meantime and his forces are going to get stronger, but there’s not much we can do beyond triaging the situation.”

“Ed, you’re perfectly right,” Jericho cut in, “but honestly, I think if we just keep plugging away like we’ve done in the past few hours, we lose precious ground.” He gestured at the two scientists. “Brains beat brawn, I have to believe.”

“Alright,” Ed replied. “I’m in. Let’s bring our families and friends into this other dimension so we can be sure they’re safe.”

“Got it,” Raymond said. “You guys get them ready and we’ll be there waiting.”

Inside a sprawling compound on another Earth, a portal opened and over a dozen people stepped out. Everyone had been briefed on what was going on, and none of them liked it. At the front, stood the combatants who would take the fight to Jack Hurst and his summoned monster masquerading as the Lord.

“So,” John said, eyeing the new arrival. “Your brother’s finally coming into battle?”

Luther stepped forward. “I’m not much of a combat guy,” he admitted, “but I’m not taking this lying down.” He looked at his brother, confused. “We never shared my memories with everyone, did we?”

“Can’t hurt,” Jericho said, gesturing for everyone to form a circle. “This way, we’re absolutely sure we’re ready.”

With a bit of effort, they went into Luther’s memories.