Nightshadow peered up at Danny and, for the first time, saw him as an adult, man, and equal.
“
I look at all this, Night,” Danny said, “and I want to vomit and hide from the world. This is killing! This is madness! We can’t add to it, no matter what! We need to be better. I need to be better. I…I still miss Carly. It hurts me just to think about her, but we have to do things the right way to make all our losses and tragedies mean something. Otherwise, we’re just piling up more losses and tragedies. We’re going to make mistakes, sure. With our line of work, it’s inevitable. There’s always going to be a lot of questions, but we can’t just give in if it becomes too hard. We have to face tragedy and pain…and…and death and grief! We do it so other people don’t have to and we all need help, Night, even you. So let me help you now and then you can help me again on something else like you always have.”
Nightshadow closed his eyes and took a breath. After having a moment, he reached down with his fingers and closed Piper’s eyes. He gently picked her up off his lap and set her cold, stiffening body down to the floor for the S.I.L.E.N.T. agents to swarm over and examine. Taking Danny’s hand, he mounted shakily back up to his feet and let his friend guide him out of the room. Though tempted, he refused to look back.
Out in the trashed corridor, agents photographed and analyzed the blood, dirt, and dust. Several stopped to gape at them, but Danny walked Nightshadow down past them to the elevators, which seemed to be working again. He hit the button, and the elevator dinged before its doors split open. Danny and Nightshadow stepped inside.
“
My lair,” Nightshadow said as the elevator car descended. “Can you get me to my Triangle Park lair?”
“
Sure,” Danny replied. “In fact, I think it’s a good idea for you to get out of here. Wrath’s people have it covered here anyway.”
“
Yes, they do, but we need to talk about the MorsWorld heist. We need to have it done sooner rather than later. We don’t know when Hyperman will come back. Hell, he might already be back, so we need to be ready. Did you start your training for the job yet?”
“
Yeah, I don’t have much else to do all day. It’s actually pretty intense.”
“
Good. I’ll put together a list of MorsWorld locations you, the Answer, and the other S.I.L.E.N.T. agents need to hit. You’ll need your strike force teams to sweep in and out like you were never there. We’ll probably need to set up a few distractions too, so nobody realizes what’s actually going on. Maybe we could cause some stock market trouble, a fire, a power outage, or have Gilgamesh wrestle a golem. We’ll think of something else. No matter what it is, MorsWorld won’t report any of the thefts. They won’t want to go public about what they’re missing and what they were doing with it.”
“
Are…are you coming along on the missions too?”
“
No, you and the Answer have just the right skills and powers for this. I’d only slow you down, but that doesn’t mean I can’t plan the whole thing out for you.”
“
Wait,” Danny said. “Hang on one minute. Don’t you need some time after what you’ve just been through?”
Nightshadow straightened up and felt much more like himself. “We might not have time,” he said, “and I can get by. I always do.”
Chapter 17: HYPERWORLD
Hyperman stood in another enormous MorsWorld lab. This installation lurked within the underwater caverns off the New Daedalus coast. Pristine mirror-chrome coated the walls, floor, and ceiling. Thick ultra-glass partitions separated different chambers that piled high with different synthesized types of Diatomite-x. Golden, glittering bricks stacked up. Black, shiny muck slopped down into a mess. Lava-red liquid steamed up a set of beakers. Acidic-yellow fogged up a vat.
Long ago, the gold would have poisoned and killed Hyperman. Black would have made him comatose. Red took his powers. Yellow gave him a heart attack. Every new color and flavor of Diatomite-x presented another deadly possibility.
But that was then. This was now.
“
You’re not feeling anything at all?” Mors asked.
Wearing an expensive blackish-blue suit with a lab coat thrown over it, he drifted back and forth from each Diatomite-x sample, checking the readings on the instruments. He’d shaved his chin and tied back his hair, and looked much cleaner and neater than he had in days. Throwing himself into some work had done a lot of good for him.
“
I told you,” Hyperman said. “I can feel the Diatomite-x trying to affect me, but it’s not doing much. It feels like an itch or sunburn, and, yes, I had to look up what they feel like since I’ve never experienced either. Whatever the Diatomite-x is doing, I can take it. My body’s adapted. Granted, this is all synthesized and not as powerful or unpredictable as natural Diatomite-x, but that hasn’t really affected me in years either.”
“
Even all these different samples together in one place doesn’t bother you in any way?” Mors asked.
Hyperman shrugged. “Maybe an even more massive amount in one place would do something to me, but I don’t think anyone putting all that together is very likely.”
Though he’d studied Diatomite-x for years because of its effects on him, Hyperman had needed Mors’s research to at last understand why it held such power over him. He’d been able to see what it was truly made from. It came from the ship, his ship, his home and mother.
The ship had lived for so long by cutting away its cancerous parts and re-growing them. Those discarded cancerous bits floated and flared up all throughout space, mutating into different kinds of Diatomite-x. Some of that Diatomite-x eventually found its way to Earth, which was no coincidence. No; Hyperman, Mors, and Diatomite-x had all been interconnected for years and the great work before them now was why. This was the destiny the universe needed them to fulfill.
Having performed all the necessary calculations, Hyperman and Mors knew which areas of the world to coat with what combinations of Diatomite-x to produce the best results. Hyperman himself would plant the Diatomite-x bombs all over and set off the explosions with his eye-blasts all at once. He insisted on doing all that personally to ensure everything went smoothly.
He imagined the explosions causing a strange, rainbow-hued haze to cover the world, and everyone would react in shock and panic, but have no choice but to breathe it all in. Over the course of the next few hours, they’d mutate gracefully and soon develop a variety of super-powers.
No matter what kinds of powers they had, Hyperman intended to be there to help people adjust to their new abilities. Should anyone try abusing their new powers, he’d step in to admonish and correct them. He was counting on the world’s other superheroes to lend a hand doing this too. Even if they disagreed with his decisions at first, they’d come around once they saw the wonderful new world he’d created. If they didn’t agree after that, they wouldn’t have much choice. The world would be what it was, and they’d have to make do.
Of course, he couldn’t expose any of the world’s other super-beings to the Diatomite-x. The fact that they already had powers would make the results too unpredictable and potentially combustible. They could become even more powerful, nuclear, and dangerous than they already were. Even someone like Mutagen who had lost their powers couldn’t be exposed. He still had altered genetics, and more Diatomite-x might turn him into something far, far worse than what he was before. Therefore, Hyperman needed to carry them and all the super-villains in the world (Mors actually kept track of them) off to the isolated, impenetrable cells MorsWorld had been building underground and off-world for years. Being confined would keep them safe and out of the way for the duration of the transformation.
However, before all that, the synthesized Diatomite-x required more testing. Hyperman and Mors had to be certain it’d strengthen and empower people and not sicken and even kill them. They couldn’t risk turning even one person into another Mutagen.
“
How much more additional testing do you think we’ll need?” Hyperman asked Mors, staring down into all the Diatomite-x’s atoms and watching their electrons swirl.
“
Give me another week,” Mors replied, adjusting a temperature dial for the yellow Diatomite-x fog. “Then I want you to run through all the tests again on your own. Between the two of us, I think we’ll catch everything that could go wrong.”
“
Without doubt.” Hyperman paused and chuckled. “I suppose I’ll have to find something to do with myself for a week then.”
Mors irked up an eyebrow. “What would you normally do?” he asked. “Fight crime, save lives, and protect the world, right?”
Hyperman smirked. “Of course.”
***
He looped the globe, moving far too fast for S.I.L.E.N.T. or anyone else to detect him. From city to city, he barreled through gangs of robbers, arsonists, and murderers, leaving them dizzied and tied up for the police. Catching super-villains in the act, he hit them before they even knew what was happening.
He ripped a hole through Sky Terror’s airship and sent it crashing down into the Atlantic before its mad crew could bomb the New England coast or escape to their lifeboats. A single breath froze Mordred Murdock in place before he finished casting a spell that would have caused the ocean to swallow up all of England. Hyperman even hurled the Horror Doctor’s giant robotic Griffin-Man out into deep space and burned down the Costa Rican weapons factory from where it had been launched.
After that, he perked his ears up, hoping to hear about some trouble somewhere in the world that he could help with. He picked up chatter from a few S.I.L.E.N.T. communications channels, discussing the reaper children search. His ears perked right up with interest. According to reports, they had actually found one a few weeks back not long after Phoenix Bright had been stopped. And the reaper child had been…Nightshadow’s girlfriend?
Hyperman bolted to Salome City.
***
Unmasked, Nightshadow sat alone in his Triangle Park lair. His supercomputer hummed and pulsed with a strange blue glow. Encoded calculations and data rolled down the screen before him. He wore a new wing-suit with extra padding and equipment pouches. Tired black pitted the edges of his eyes and more lines than usual creased his face, making him look far older than he was. A gray stubbly beard even coated his chin. As he tapped at the keyboard, a slight, nearly unnoticeable tremor ran through his hands. Hyperman thought probably only he could see it, due to his hyper-senses. Whatever had happened with Night’s girlfriend had shaken him up badly if he was trembling like that.
Pausing, Nightshadow spun around in his seat.
“
I know you’re there, Cal,” he said in a soft, raspy voice.
After a glaring silver flash, Hyperman appeared at the back of the lair. “How did you know?” he asked.
“
Gut feeling,” Nightshadow replied and frowned. He steepled his hands together in his lap, and his face set like steel. “What do you want, Cal?” he asked.
“
To see you!” Hyperman answered, alarmed by Night’s tone. “To check on you! I just got back from space and heard about what happened with that reaper child!”
“
I’m fine.”
“
Are you? I can see your aura, Night. It’s black and red and bleeding. I can see how tense you are too. Did you even have a chance to grieve? To process everything that happened and let it all out?”
“
So you’d like to see me weeping and unable to get out of bed? Drinking? Self-medicating? Taking it all out on some hoods and thrashing them to death? It happened. It was horrible, but it wasn’t the only horrible thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m coping.”
“
You’re shutting out the world and burying yourself in your work.”
“
And I’m still going strong.”
“
I can see,” Hyperman said, scanning the entire lair again. “And what are you working on, Night? What requires such massive amounts of Diatomite-x? Or do I need to ask, given you rigged that Diatomite-x gas up with your security? Did you think I couldn’t get past that?”
“
I set that up as a test,” Nightshadow coolly replied. “I wanted to know if it could stop you, but it didn’t. In fact, you’re utterly unaffected by even by the Diatomite-x here in close proximity to you in such large amounts. Your powers have been evolving over the years then, and it takes even more massive amounts of Diatomite-x to affect you now. I had my suspicions.”
“
Where did you get the Diatomite-x, Night?”