Nuklear Age (93 page)

Just Nuke there cast against a clear sky and bigger than God. It was an icon we could all rally behind. Hell, it was a scene most of us probably saw variations of ourselves that day. And that headline. Those giant black letters proclaiming “He Saved Us!” Dr. Genius knew how to make news.

That was another reason why I got this paper. I had to be familiar with the Official Story behind Nihel’s arrival and defeat. It mentions nothing about Nuke’s past, nothing about Arel, or his connection with Nihel. It was all about some sort of alien invasion. Dr. Genius says nothing can unite a world of disparate and desperate people like the threat of an invasion from the unknown. The story goes on to talk about the valiant sacrifices of our heroes, my friends; Nuke’s final confrontation in space and his return to quell the flames of chaos that had enveloped his world. His homeworld.

I wasn’t comfortable about this revisionist version of what went on that day. But Dr. Genius explained that I was being too emotional about it all. The public has to maintain a certain level of reverence toward us Heroes, especially in these times, and most especially to Nuke. They’ve lost faith in their governments, their societies, their God. Maybe even themselves. We’ve got to give them their hope back. If they got scared of us, lost their faith in us, then we wouldn’t be able to help them. If we’ve got to tell a lie for the sake of their trust, then that’s what we’ve got to do.

I know she’s right. She always is. It’s just, it feels wrong somehow.

__________

Überdyne Headquarters Sub-Basement 5.

Scientific: Special Containment Block.

11:14 AM.

I walk amongst devils here. Luckily, they’re all in cages. I try not to think of what might have happened during Nihel’s rampage if not for Überdyne’s own mini-nuclear generators. What destruction would these devils have loosed on a burning world?

Superion. Locked in a matrix of Negaflux fields forever paralyzing him with his own insurmountable power. Without need for food or drink, he has been alone with his thoughts for over a year. I have been testing him off and on lately. I reduced the power to his imprisoning Negaflux field by a fraction. His whole body jerked with anticipation from that one moment of weakness. Oh, how the madness and rage must burn inside of him.

Mechanikill. A top secret technological beast made entirely of Nanobots and bristling with weaponry. It is functionally invincible. So long as a single Nanobot survives, it can rebuild itself in a matter of days. After Nuklear Man defeated it, I realized it was redesigning itself based on the encounter. It was a fascinating discovery, but not a process it was supposed to undertake. Mechanikill has been in a state of suspended animation ever since. I recently noticed the Nanobots never actually stopped. Their progress has simply been slowed incredibly.

Shimura Yuriko. She’s little more than a mindless body, a coma victim with no hope for recovery. I cannot tell if she is the most harmless here, or if she is simply a symbol of the greatest threat one could conceive of. Looking at her, I am reminded of finding a snake’s cast off skin. One does not fear it, but rather the threat of what left it behind.

Three experiments. Three failures. And why?

Chaos.

The natural state of the universe is chaos. I know this now. We are nothing but a temporary reprieve in the chaos, a gathering of slightly less chaotic particles jumbling around waiting for the siren call of chaos to take us back into the cull. Entropy. Everything falls apart. All order degrades. All systems collapse. I know this now.

My every plan for humanity fell apart. It wasn’t my fault. How could I have foreseen the intrusion of mythical beings and their philosophies into my finely tuned and precise equations? Everything I’d done was shattered in the course of a single day. All my machinations have returned to chaos.

But it is these set backs that bring out the best in us. The world is a very different place now. Full of chaos. Full of fear. Full of people who need leadership. I am that leadership. I have put a hold on most of Überdyne’s projects in favor of the Reconstruction. I’ve already rebuilt a media web throughout Metroville and its surrounding areas print, television, and radio. It’s all mostly news and reruns of old entertainment shows. We haven’t the time or manpower to create new sitcoms. A society has to reach a certain level of idle malaise before it’s ready for that.

There are only three major cities still standing on the face of the Earth. Metroville, America; Mechapolis, Japan; Avalondon, England. Most other cities were burnt to cinders or decimated. Smaller communities evaded Nihel’s attentions, but that only left them vulnerable to be ravaged by the rest of us. But the Prime Three, as I’ve come to calling them, they were left largely intact. Originally, we were to divide the world into thirds, take care of our respective corners of the globe, and agree not to interfere with one another. I couldn’t agree to that. Without my network of KI satellite, how could I possibly make sure they weren’t working against me? I proposed a better plan.

We would coordinate our efforts to rebuild civilization. However, due to Überdyne’s expansive international status that managed to survive, in part, the cataclysm of Nihel, it would be in the best position to organize and pool the resources and talent needed to rebuild the infrastructure of the world. As a consequence, I am unofficially ruling the world once again.

My plan: Connect these three cities through communication. Civilize them at any cost. Give them back the conveniences of the twenty-first century, then let teams into the lost and broken cities, towns, and villages that are scattered throughout the countryside. We will give them a taste of the splendor they themselves once knew, and they will then be at our beck and call. We will tell them that they too may once again enjoy the fruits of modern living, given they meet certain conditions, and they will become civilized and productive members of society. My society. Brilliantly simple. I can’t take credit for it. I got the idea from the Roman Empire’s expansion. Yet my empire shall span the globe and I won’t need a single soldier. I will take over the world with nothing more than the promise of comfort.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that our most valuable resources and talents are under my direct influence as well. One of the conditions for an area to be classified as Civilized is, among other factors, a working press. And the front page of the first printed paper always features what I’ve come to call The Icon: the picture of Nuklear Man saving, who knows, but someone who had a camera on them at the time. To the people, it is a symbol of hope. To their leaders, it is a message that they are powerless before me.

Not that they could’ve posed any real threat. No, the only thing that’s ever come close to true opposition to me has always been Veronica and she’s been silent this past year. It never ceases to amaze me how brilliant she proved to be. And yet so short sighted. She would put the rights of the individual over the rights of the masses. Such a waste.

But soon, very soon, all my work will come to fruition. And then, my dear Norman, you will no longer need this Scientific: Suspension Chamber. Nothing will keep us apart.

__________

Stephenson Avenue.

The Repair Doctor shop.

12:02 PM.

Life in Metroville is slowly returning to normal. There are enough distractions to keep the populace content and enough work yet to keep them occupied. Ima’s working toward a global dictatorship of information. Again. And, of course, I’m working to dismantle it. Again. But there are other matters to attend to first. Without an industrial base, there isn’t anyone producing or designing new electronics or machines. And due to a certain, shall we say, deficit in the population there are a scant few individuals who are able to repair the computers, the cars, the appliances, the machines of the world. Those of us who are skilled in these matters are in tremendous demand.

This affords me a number of advantages. The foremost among these is that I have access to dozens of pieces of electronics every week. To the average person, this may not seem terribly important on its own, but that is because the average person does not have the foresight and genius that I possess. Every device that employs electricity that comes into my shop leaves it with an undetectable addition. What I have dubbed a Negabug.

It’s fantastically simple, really. I got the idea from nature itself. A single cell is harmless, powerless, practically nothing on its own. But interconnect enough of them and the whole becomes far greater than the sum of its microscopic parts. Each Negabug adds to the over all web, a Negabeing of kinds. Once enough of them are dispersed throughout the Metroville area, I shall activate them.

All of Metroville will be in my clutches.

And then the world.

It may take years to develop a complex enough matrix to unfurl my scheme, but I can be patient. Besides, in the meantime, I’m making more money than I know what to do with. I’ll have to invest in a tertiary scheme to back up my secondary scheme which, by the way, is also already in the works. It involves using the incredible strength of electromagnetic—blast it! A customer. Ahem. “May I be of zervice?”

“Yeah. I brought my digital clock radio here a couple days ago.”

“Ah yez. We wouldn’t want to go without that piece of electronicz for too long, now would we?”

“Nope.”

“Your name?”

“Harold Greene.”

“One moment, Mizter Greene.”

I turn to my office computer, though I don’t see how it earns the name “computer.” No dials, no levers, no joysticks, no liquid hydrogen cooling system, no remote controls, no voice command protocols, no elaborate security measures like unlabeled buttons that make the terminal inaccessible to anyone who hasn’t memorized its arcane layout which changes every few hours according to a unique algorithm I’ve never so much as written down. And the monitor. It’s barely fifteen inches. You can’t even
begin
to consider yourself a computer unless your screen is measured in feet. How do people use these pathetic things?

“Ah yez, Mr. Greene. I’ll be right back with your clock radio.” I turn to go into the back room.

“Digital clock radio.”

“…Yez, of courze.”

Bin 19, Bin 19. One clock radio. Digital. It took me all of five minutes to fix it. I believe I told him the CPU was broken and it would require some “serious work.” Whatever that means.

“Here you go, Mr. Greene.”

“Oh, thanks. What do I owe ya?”

“I believe seventy five dollarz ought to cover it.”

“Man, for that price, I could’ve bought a new one.”

“Perhapz if they were making clock radioz nowadayz. You muzt remember how preciouz our limited materialz, and mozt importantly, our zkilled workerz, are in theze timez.”

“Oh, I know.” I take his money without listening to whatever else he says. Something about these hard times and the weather I believe.

These hard times, eh? We may live in a new world under new rules, but the players are still the same. Except for that accursed Nuklear Clod. All those pictures of him on TV and in newspapers, Ima’s so good to remind us all that he does her bidding. But they tell me something else. Ever since that first picture of him towering over the camera like a mountain, he’s haunted me with those eyes. They’re much more intent than the eyes of any Nuklear Man I ever battled. It is undeniable that he changed that day. But to what depths? That is what I must learn before my brilliant plans can ever see the light of day.

__________

The Sahara. Fifteen thousand feet above sea level.

12:47 PM.

From this height, everything looks so small. Little animals wandering through broken woodlands, little waves pounding against sandy beaches. Little mountains reaching into an infinite sky.

So many problems.

Take for instance deforestation. But I’m working at it.

The first day was the worst. Half the world was dead and the other half was in ruin. At first, I merely quelled problems as I came upon them. It became clear that I had to prioritize when a plane that must’ve been in the air since the beginning finally ran out of fuel and crashed into the Metroville Airport as I was lifting a tour bus off its passengers.

In a flash I knew that one man could only do so much.

Looking back, I think it was a camera flash.

I didn’t have time to check, every second was more valuable than the last. I’d have to step back and take in the big picture. Get a sense of perspective.

I was in orbit almost as quickly as the idea of being there occurred to me. From space it seemed overwhelming. An entire planet in flames. Then I heard it. The heavens roared. Rage, lament, and a vow of vengeance all shrieked through to the very core of my being. It was the wail of the giants. Suddenly, the world was infinitesimal; a fragile porcelain orb in the hands of these vicious beasts. They could crush it effortlessly.One thought raced through my mind as I hovered over the globe.

“I cannot allow that to happen.”

But there was a moment’s hesitation. I have destroyed worlds far more noble than this one. There is nothing of these Earthim, these humans, that makes them any more worthy of life than the civilizations I have razed in the flames of my wrath. So why? Why was I so intent upon protecting this petty little rock and so quick to obliterate the others?

Sparky.

Norman.

Ima.

Angus.

Shiro.

Rachel.

Even Menace.

Yes, that’s why. It became personal. It would seem that indiscriminate killing is so much easier when you don’t know the victims. But at the time, as far as I knew, everyone I cared about was dead. I suppose I felt like I had to make their deaths mean something, like I had to protect the world that they couldn’t.

But the giants were not the problem. At least not in that moment. I’d gone into orbit for focus. I scanned the globe in a matter of seconds. I could sense every flame, every gunshot, every bolt of lightning, the very sparks of life coursing through the veins of every living creature. It was a terrifying myriad of being. I could feel my mind coming to terms with it, remembering how to cope with the sensory inundation. Everything became clear.