In Love's Image

The Nightstalker started its descent over the Flash Desert of Bestos, a severe and lasting glassy surface left when Corporate forces flattened the last Reyll fortress-city with a brace of antimatter bombs. Even fifty years later, the shiny desert resisted the encroachment of the equatorial jungle.

The First Mate sat in the command chair. Jolt stood to the left of him, looking a little uncomfortable. The Eye was at the helm, busy monitoring the re-entry sequence.

The First Mate turned and looked at Jolt. "Are you all right?"

"All right? I'm great."

Jolt was lying. She looked terrible, like she had been crying instead of sleeping.

A mountain range rushed past below the ship as it levelled out and decelerated, followed shortly thereafter by a blink of sandy coast and a stretch of glassy green sea dotted with brown froth -- an algal salt plain, an example of the kind of undersea habitat that produced most of the planet's native oxygen and sequestered most of the ocean's minerals.

The silence on the bridge was oppressive. Jolt paced next to the command chair.

The water turned deep blue as the continental shelf fell away. The Nightstalker slowed to subsonic speed as it made its final approach to the lonely volcanic island where Drazen East had his estate.

"Prepare for landing." The First Mate was tense. Landings always made him nervous, and water landings were particularly nerve-wracking.

"Deploying pontoons," Thresher stated as he braced himself.

Jolt continued pacing, oblivious to what was happening around her.

The Eye counted down. "Planet-fall in 4... 3... 2... 1..."

There was a slight shudder as the Nightstalker touched down on the freshwater ocean's surface, supported by two bright orange inflatable cylinders. It approached a dock built on a black sand beach that disappeared into a lush green jungle.

Jolt had stopped pacing. She was staring at the view-screen.

A tiny figure stood at the end of the docks, standing next to a trunk and waving.

"Father."

She said the word with no apparent feeling.

The star-ship slowed as it approached the dock. The First Mate cleared his throat to get Jolt's attention.

"Here's the warrant." He gave her a thin sheet of programmable paper. "It looks like he'll come quietly."

Jolt didn't say anything. She took the display with a quick snapping gesture and no change of expression, turned on her heel, and left the bridge along with Thresher and the Eye.

They disembarked through the dorsal port airlock on the spade-shaped hull of the star-ship. It was a short walk to the wood and plastic dock from there.

Jolt went first, walking slowly and deliberately to the short, gesticulating figure waiting at the end of the pier. Behind her, the Eye's compact, muscular form was a contrast with Thresher's lumbering cyborg body.

"No mooks," the Eye whispered.

"What?" Thresher replied.

"They said there would be mooks." The Eye seemed disappointed.

Jolt said nothing.

"Sweetie! Just look at you!" Drazen East was a short, pudgy male with dark gray fur and coppery eyes. He was a stark contrast to his statuesque, red-furred daughter. He beamed with pride.

She looked at him coldly. With a sweeping gesture, she held the warrant in front of his face.

He looked at it for a moment and grinned. "Oh, dear. You know the Committee on Cloning Ethics is little more than a glorified trade association, right?" Drazen turned to look at his heavy trunk. "I packed my things for that?"

He tried to meet his daughter's gaze, but only saw her unsmiling face. He hesitated for a moment, and finally thought to take the paper from her hand.

Chastised, he looked up at her and pleaded, "At least come with me and have a cup of coffee before you take me away. We haven't talked in so long..."

He got no response. Jolt seemed to look through him.

"Please."

"Father." Her gaze finally turned to him. "What exactly does regret mean?"

He looked puzzled and thought for a moment.

"I-- I don't know. Why are you asking?"

Jolt blinked. She did not know what to say next.

Drazen took the initiative. "Please. Come with me." He led Jolt, Thresher, and the Eye to a small wooden house next to the beach.

The interior was simple. A few glossy black gadgets to cook food and clean dishes sat on the wooden counter inside the hut, next to a shiny pot and an extra-large refrigerator. A beaded curtain led to an underground passage buried in the steep hillside. Four chairs made of palm-wood and carefully process preserved fronds stood around a simple hardwood table made from a tree that grew two light-years from here.

A careful arrangement of orchids decorated the table.

Drazen pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He placed the paper on the table and clapped his hands. A shiny bipedal robot stepped through the curtain to fetch the coffee.

Jolt took the chair across from her father without saying a word. The robot's actuators whirred as it took a set of plastic cups and saucers from cupboards concealed in the walls of the hut.

Thresher and the Eye stood behind Jolt. The Eye crossed her arms.

"I'll bet you were expecting a clone servant," Drazen burbled, "but I have to deal with enough of that in my line of work."

The robot brought four cups of coffee, and placed them on the table. Drazen took a sip from his cup. Jolt ignored hers.

"Well, look at you! My daughter, the superheroine!"

Jolt waited for a moment. "They had to put me in a containment suit when I was twelve. My body generated electricity, uncontrollably. It started the year after Mom was terminated."

Drazen waved his hand. "Oh, it can be controlled. It's quite simple, really..."

Jolt didn't answer. The robot left the way it came.

Jolt spoke again. "You knew we were coming."

Drazen smiled. "Yes, I have my connections."

Jolt looked at him coldly. "So do we."

For all of the awkwardness of the situation thus far, Drazen had maintained a composed air. For the first time, worry crept into his face.

"Yes. I suppose you do."

Jolt continued. "Leviathan talked. He shot the Arcana hit. The Grays know everything."

"Wait--" Worry became fear.

"It was a trap. The Corporation's not ready for war."

"But-- the Chairman's wife, she was--"

"The Grays don't trust the Blacks. They knew the Blacks would see weaponized superheroes as a chance to gain influence, get their hands on some military budget. They let the Blacks set up Graves, and watched where the money went."

Drazen became agitated, and reached for the paper.

Instead of the text of the warrant, he saw a picture of himself, looking confused.

"What? You're filming this?"

He looked up, and a second image appeared on the paper, showing him from the side.

"What is this supposed to be? Extra-judicial executions as light family entertainment?"

"Well, things sure got dramatic," the Eye remarked laconically. "See? They changed camera angles!"

Jolt crossed her arms. "That's up to you. But you're not getting away with this one. They caught you with your hand in the till."

Drazen looked like someone had hit him in the face. He leaned back in his chair, slack-jawed.

His hand reached for a spray canister beneath his seat.

"Watch it!" The Eye moved, but Drazen was faster. He flipped a trigger on the canister, releasing a cloud of liquid droplets into Jolt's face.

The reaction was immediate. Jolt grabbed for her throat and fell from the chair, wheezing. The Eye and Thresher gathered around her.

Drazen bolted for the curtain, turned back, and said, "She's going into shock. Please don't let her die." He then darted away into the underground tunnel.

Thresher plugged himself into Jolt's containment suit's monitors.

"She's discharged. Rapid pulse, low blood pressure."

The Eye was agitated. "What did he do to her?"

"He shut down her powers. All the metabolic processes that charge her up have been disrupted."

Jolt began to convulse. "Cardiac arrhythmia. She's losing it." Thresher began carefully opening Jolt's suit. "I'm gonna have to use the defibrillator."

The cyborg looked up at the Eye. "Get the bastard. I'll stabilize her and get her to the ship."

The Eye nodded, and pursued through the beaded curtain.

The corridor was dark, but her amulet could see in the dark, the future, and into people's minds. She drew one of her diamond knives from her hip holster, and sensed Drazen running in the darkness down a flight of stairs.

She pursued, coming to a large open room. It looked like a child's imagining of a super-villain's lair. An empty vat with transparent walls was in the middle of the room -- perhaps to view the merchandise? -- and the walls were covered in machines and indicator lights.

A drawer was pulled out of a console. Drazen had pulled something out quickly.

That meant he was armed.

A passage led to the staircase down.

The hallway was lined with smaller translucent tubes filled with turbid glowing yellow liquid. As she rushed after Drazen, a hand pressed on the inside of one of the cylinders.

She continued her pursuit, into a large rectangular chamber filled with pumps and tanks. Ducts and cable runs hung form the ceiling. Glowing yellow liquid was pulled from siphon tubes into a huge translucent-walled vat on the other end of the room.

Drazen had taken cover behind a recirculation pump next to the base of the vat. He swept the targeting beam of his civilian-grade laser disruptor, looking for some reflection that might betray the Eye's presence.

The Eye paused for a moment. Drazen had a clear line of fire once she left the cover of the tanks. She looked up at a duct that ran gently downwards to the top of the vat, right above Drazen's position, and took a flash-bang from her belt.

Drazen heard the click as she armed the grenade, and fired into the darkness. Twin laser tubes pulsed out of sync, and sparks exploded from a metal pipe.

The gun recharged with a high-pitched whine.

"You don't have to murder me. I'll work with the Grays. Make them body doubles, infiltrators -- anything they want." He shifted his grip. The gun became unpleasantly warm as the energy store reached the tripping point. "Anything they want."

The Eye somersaulted over a tank with a knife in her hand. Drazen raised his handgun and prepared to fire again. The Eye closed the distance with a back-flip. Drazen drew a bead --

The flash-bang grenade rolled off the duct and detonated just above Drazen's head.

The gun clattered to the floor.

The Eye was on her feet, lunging forwards.

The diamond knife rammed into Drazen East's chest, lifting him off his feet and pinning him to the vat.

Blinded and bleeding out, Drazen lifted his right hand. In his last moments of consciousness, he noticed that it was wet with blood.

"...is that mine?..."

His last breath followed shortly thereafter.

The Eye turned and slowly walked back to her colleagues.