Harlan removed his finger from the keyboard and watched as the complex alien code, too fast for human eyes to read, flashed across the large screen. After a moment the screen divided into four frames, each containing a live feed from the thousands of remote cameras located throughout Wonder Base. Harlan could now see through the eyes of the Wonder Computer, and there was no area considered too private or off limits. He could see and hear each of his fellow Wonder Heroes, in real time.
Harlan saw Matt and Susan in the sickbay, and heard them discussing, of all things, him.
“That’s not it,” said Susan, answering some question from Matt, “It’s about Theodore. I’m really starting to worry about him.”
Matt returned Susan’s frown. “I’m glad you brought that up,” he said, “I’ve been feeling the same way. It’s Harlan all over again.”
Harlan smiled at that, as the program he created initiated the next phase of his plan.
The defensive systems of the Wonder Base Computer went into overdrive, immediately identifying the Wonder Heroes as unauthorized intruders located throughout the complex. Emergency protocols were engaged and the Computer locked onto the intruders with its emergency teleportation systems. In an instant the Wonder Heroes were projected into the middle of the New Mexican desert, just outside the forcefield that protected the Wonder Base.
Cameras shifted to an outdoor view. Harlan smiled at the confusion on the faces of his teammates. Kalomo had been in bed next to his fiancé Linnea when the teleporter dropped him into the desert sand.
Kalomo looked around in the dark stupidly. “What the heck?”
Jay was standing nearby, naked and soaking wet, shampoo in his hair. “What the hell was that?” Jay asked, as steam rose from his body in the cool air of the desert at night.
“Dude,” said Kalomo, “you're naked.”
“Yeah I’m naked. I was in the shower, and the next thing I know I’m teleported out here.” Jay punched his fist into his palm, instantly summoning his Wonder Armor, minus the helmet. “I hate that.”
“Thanks for covering up,” said Kalomo, dragging himself to his feet and wiping sand from his legs. He was wearing the white tee shirt and briefs left behind when the Wonder Armor was dismissed. “I was just getting into bed with Linnea.”
Kalomo checked his gauntlet. “That’s weird,” he said, “I’m not getting any readings from the Wonder Base.”
A look of worry crossed Kalomo’s face, and he quickly suited up, including his helmet. Jay hastily followed suit and his helmet appeared around his head. “I don’t like this,” said Kalomo, “something is seriously wrong.”
Jay agreed with a nod, and then pointed to the sky. He and Kalomo watched as Wonder Hero Ultra streaked towards the Wonder Base. To their shock, but to Harlan’s infinite amusement as he watched the live feed, Matt bounced off the forcefield, rebounded high into the sky, and fell to earth about a quarter of a mile away. Jay and Kalomo activated the jump in their Wonder Boots and flew to where Matt had landed, dead center in a human shaped crater.
Matt was sitting up when they arrived, looking shaken but otherwise unharmed. Jay moved forward to help him, but Matt brushed him off. “I’m fine.”
Susan landed nearby. “Matt, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Matt repeated, “I just bounced off our own forcefield.”
Back at Wonder Base, Harlan picked up a small mirror, looked at his face, and smiled. The nanobots that were pumping through his system courtesy of the Wonder Gauntlet were working fast, restructuring his features, getting rid of Theodore’s ridiculous nose in favor of Harlan’s more aristocratic and upturned look. His new body was being rewritten on a genetic level, the nanobots re-sequencing Theodore’s DNA molecule by molecule into an copy of Harlan Flicker’s. As Harlan watched, his face suddenly transformed, and for the first time in nine months he was looking at his own reflection.
He wondered absently if this is what joy felt like.
The confused discussion of the Wonder Heroes outside the forcefield was music to Harlan’s ears as his genetic transformation was completed. They had no idea what was happening. Harlan scowled. Matt was an idiot. He had all the clues, but was unable to see what was so plainly happening right in front of him.
“Computer,” said Harlan, wrapping a red cape around himself and striking a dramatic pose, “Phase Two.”
“Commencing Phase Two,” said the Wonder Computer obediently.
Lasers scanned Harlan and his image was beamed to the location of the Wonder Heroes. Now Harlan could view the confused Wonder Heroes from the point of view of his hologrammatic projection. As his glowing image floated four feet off the ground before them, Harlan imagined that he must appear as would a god to primitive cave dwellers. His face hidden by the Wonder Helmet, Harlan smiled.
“Hello Matt,” said Harlan.
Harlan imagined Matt, a chill down his spine, not wanting to believe his ears.
“It’s a hologram,” whispered Jay.
“Of course it’s a hologram you idiot,” said Harlan, his voice thick with disdain. Matt would certainly recognize his voice now.
“What’s going on Theodore?” asked Susan, not getting it yet, “Are you responsible for this?”
“Not Theodore,” said Matt, “That’s not Theodore.”
Harlan raised his arms as Susan looked up at him. He wished he could see their faces behind their helmets, but satisfied himself with imagining the slowly dawning realization of horror each must be experiencing. The time for games over, Harlan dismissed his Wonder Helmet, revealing his newly formed and smiling face. “I’m back.”
“Harlan,” said Matt, his voice thick with emotion.
“That’s not possible,” said Susan, “It’s a hologram. It’s a trick.”
“No Susan, not a trick. I’m back. I’ve been working for over nine months to take control of Theodore’s mind and body.” Harlan checked the chronometer on his Wonder Gauntlet, “And as of two minutes ago, Theodore Studebaker is gone, completely erased, finished. I’ve even taken the liberty of rewriting his genetic structure, cell by cell, into mine.”
“Uh, guys?” Kalomo tried to get everyone’s attention. Harlan watched Kalomo’s confusion as he tried to make sense of his gauntlet’s readings, but the Wonder Computer was intentionally scrambling the team’s readouts.
Susan’s voice sounded strained and choked with emotion. “There has to be something of Theodore in there,” she said, “Theodore! If you can hear me, fight him!”
Harlan frowned, feigning sympathy. “I don’t think you get it Susan. Theodore’s dead. Kaput.” Harlan glanced at his Wonder Gauntlet almost absently, “Oh, and Jay?”
Jay looked at the hologram, and met Harlan’s gaze. He shook slightly as terror gripped him, but stood his ground. He said nothing, waiting for Harlan’s next words.
“Bye,” said Harlan.
The sky lit up as a column of blood red light stretched from on high to the Earth in an instant, focusing on the spot where Jay silently stood his ground. The energy discharge was so great that the remaining three Wonder Heroes were scattered in every direction.
Harlan watched through hologrammatic eyes as Susan was first to recover. She stood up on shaky feet and peered into a crater of blackened glass. She saw the charred dead body of Jay Parker, little more than a heap of steaming bones and scraps of Wonder Armor. Even the Wonder Gauntlet was cracked and melted and dead. Harlan floated above the carnage, a beatific smile on his face.
“Oops.”
Susan was furious. “I’m going to kill you for this, Harlan.”
“Then I’ve taught you something, Susan,” said Harlan in a mocking tone, “I’ve taught you to hate.”
Susan seemed paralyzed with rage, but before another word could be said, Kalomo was by her side, picking her up, and streaking across the desert at supersonic speeds. Behind her was another column of blood red energy, and it was beginning to move and follow them.
“What is it?” Susan asked Kalomo as she freed herself from his arms and flew beside him.
“It’s the Wonder Moons,” said Kalomo, “the orbiting space defense laser system. Harlan’s taken control of them.” Kalomo and Susan shifted course over a mountain range. “Those things are meant to take out entire star fleets with a single shot. Jay didn’t stand a chance…”
Susan was quiet. In his room at the Wonder Base, Harlan listened in on the communications, his smile replaced with the grim look of a hunter stalking his prey.
“Jay’s dead,” said Kalomo, as if to process the reality. He and Susan took a long loop around and tried to make their way back to the Wonder Base.
“Yes,” said Susan.
“You know, in the end, he wasn’t so bad,” said Kalomo, “I think the fact that he was so afraid made him all the braver for fighting with us.”
“We’ll eulogize our dead later,” said Susan, her voice filled with venom, “after we kill Harlan.”
Harlan smiled a little at that.
Suddenly Kalomo’s Wonder Gauntlet flashed a warning and at the Wonder Base, Harlan cursed. The Wonder Computer was working to overwrite Harlan’s reprogramming and reset itself. In the midst of the Wonder Computer’s confusion it had just managed to warn Kalomo. For the briefest instant the readings on Kalomo’s gauntlet were clear, before being scrambled again.
Kalomo reacted as quick as his off-the-charts reflexes could and altered his flight path, careening into Susan with as much force as he could muster.
“Hey!” said Susan, ricocheting off Kalomo like a billiard ball, but could say nothing else before another intense beam of blood red light filled the sky where she had been flying an instant before. Kalomo was not so fortunate. In saving Susan he had sacrificed his own life as he was caught in the center of the blast and incinerated in mid air.
Suddenly Susan was suddenly flying through the desert sky alone.
Harlan’s voice came over Susan’s communicator. “Hey Susan, I know we agreed to eulogize the team after I’m dead, but how’s this: Kalomo was a great guy, but not a great thinker. What do you think?”
“I think,” said Susan carefully, finding the right words, “I think that while you were tracking me and Kalomo, Matt has been working to find a way back inside Wonder Base.”
Harlan cut communications with Susan. He stared at his screens intently, but Matt was not on any of them. “Computer! Locate Wonder Hero Ultra!”
The Wonder Computer responded immediately. “Wonder Hero Ultra cannot be located.”
“Damnit!” said Harlan, checking his elaborate programming. The Wonder Computer was fighting back faster than he had anticipated, and was restoring systems faster than his programming could corrupt them. Harlan cursed himself for toying with the Wonder Heroes rather than just killing them quickly. Still, it was not over yet.
Harlan used the teleporter and had himself projected one floor down, into a room he seldom had cause to visit. This was the room where the Wonder Gauntlets were kept when there was no one alive to wield them. Here there was the small hexagonal table, each side a triangle of a different color corresponding to a specific Wonder Hero. Harlan entered the room and saw on the table the gauntlets of Wonder Heroes Ghost and Jet, fresh and new.
A minute later Harlan strode through Wonder Base like the God he imagined himself to be. Alarms were sounding throughout the Wonder Base, and a general evacuation was under way. Harlan ignored the little people, the scientists, technicians and office workers, as they ran from him or dove out of his way. A minute later Harlan saw no one, as though a path had been cleared for him, and he knew what that meant. Matt and Susan were now inside Wonder Base, and they were planning something.
Harlan could not wait to reveal his surprise.
An elevator door slid silently open, revealing an empty cab. Harlan had not summoned it, and knew that this was Matt and Susan, inviting him to battle. Harlan did not hesitate. He walked confidently onto the elevator and patiently waited for whatever his teammates had in store for him.
The elevator opened on the roof, under the starry sky. Across the way he saw the two surviving Wonder Heroes, Ultra and Crimson, Matt and Susan. Harlan stepped from the elevator, and heard Susan gasp. Matt took half a step back.
“Hello Matt. Susan. Like the new look?”
Harlan was wearing his golden Wonder Gauntlet on his right arm. On his left arm he wore Jay’s jet-black Wonder Gauntlet, shiny and new, and attached on top of that, Lego-style, was Kalomo’s ghost-white gauntlet, also brand new. Harlan’s armor was a hodgepodge of gold, black and white, with shades of darker and lighter yellows and all manners of gray swirling throughout.
Harlan raised his left arm, where the Jet and Ghost Wonder Gauntlets were locked together. “I learned this trick from you, Matt, remember? When you killed me?”
“Those gauntlets were destroyed,” said Susan, rather stupidly in Harlan’s opinion.
Harlan nodded. “When a gauntlet’s destroyed, rather than lost or damaged, the Wonder Base creates a brand new duplicate in the locker room. It wasn’t that hard to crack the selection process, especially with Theodore’s brain. That kid was a hell of a hacker.”
The mention of Theodore’s name was apparently too much for Susan to hear. She rocketed across the roof and leapt into the air. Harlan responded by firing swirling bands of colored energy from all three of his Gauntlets simultaneously, but Susan had foreseen this. She was already arching her back, allowing Harlan’s blasts to pass over her. She bent her legs and drove her knees into Harlan’s stomach Muay Thai style.
Harlan folded in half and landed on the roof hard. Susan followed him down, and drove her glowing right fist into his helmet so fast and so powerfully there was a sound like a whip crack, a miniature sonic boom. She added as much energy to the punch as her Wonder Armor could deliver. Harlan’s faceplate shattered, destroying his eyes, and his helmet cracked across his left ear. The whip crack sonic boom shattered his unprotected eardrums as Susan’s fist flattened his aristocratic nose in a splash of blood.
In all his lives Harlan Flicker had never delivered or received such a perfectly executed blow. Susan’s form was almost supernaturally perfect, which was a fine epitaph for her.
Blind and deaf, Harlan panicked. Susan was already in the midst of delivering her next blow, as Harlan grabbed her midsection with his hands and discharged the combined energies of three Wonder Gauntlets into her. One instant Susan was there, screaming with anger and fury, and the next instant she was gone, replaced with a rapidly expanding cloud of red gas and energy as she vanished from existence.
Harlan flipped to his feet and stood in the fine red mist that used to be Susan Daystrom.
Harlan’s Wonder Helmet seamlessly and instantly repaired itself. His blinded eyes had already been regrown in their sockets and his nose was popping back into place at triple speed as the nanobots in his system worked to repair him. Harlan knew without looking what was coming next, and dropped into a low horse stance. As if on cue Matt stormed through the swirling red cloud of Susan, bent on violence. Harlan shifted gears and decided to try some of that aikido Susan had been kind enough to show him when he and Theodore had shared this body.
Harlan grabbed Matt, circled out of his way, and guided him face down into the tarmac on the roof of Wonder Base. Matt went through the roof and landed on the floor below. Before Matt could recover Harlan was through the hole and landing on Matt’s back, feet first, hard. As Matt was again pummeled through the floor and into the second level, his spine collapsed, and he lost all feeling below the waist. Matt’s nanobots went to work repairing him. He used his arms to roll over and summoned his forcefield just as Harlan unleashed the full and deadly blast of all three of his gauntlets. Matt’s shield held for half an instant, failed, and he was blasted through the floor again, coming to rest on level three. Matt started crawling, using only his hands, but he could hear Harlan behind him.
“Matt, Matt, Matt,” said Harlan as he grabbed Wonder Hero Ultra by the right foot and pulled hard. Matt scratched his fingers into the floor, to no avail. Harlan’s sensors told him that Matt’s spine, so recently broken and tentatively stitched together by the nanobots in his bloodstream, tore apart again as Harlan swung him over his head and smashed him onto the floor.
Harlan swung Matt repeatedly, until the floor began to crack and Matt, inside his armor, was a bloodied mess. When he was tired of beating Matt to death in this way, Harlan tossed Matt across the hallway, and through the door. Then Harlan realized he had made a mistake.
He hurried after Matt, and entered the Locker Room. Matt had crawled across the floor and was reaching up onto the hexagonal table for the Crimson Wonder Gauntlet, rebuilt here after Susan had been destroyed on the roof. As Matt reached for the gauntlet Harlan scowled and discharged an energy blast that completely disintegrated Matt’s left hand. Matt wailed in pain and collapsed at the base of the hexagonal table.
Harlan walked across the room, and grabbed the crimson gauntlet from the table. He attached it, Lego-style, to the top of the golden Wonder Gauntlet on his right arm. Streaks of red, orange and pink swirled through Harlan’s armor. Harlan kicked the ultramarine Wonder Hero over onto his back, so that he could look Matt in the face while he died.
“Hey Matt,” said Harlan, leaning in close, “You remember, nine months ago, when our positions were reversed?”
Matt said nothing.
“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?”
Harlan Flicker fired the combined energies of the four Wonder Gauntlets into Matthew O’Dette, atomizing him instantly. There was nothing, not even a cloud of debris, to mark where Matt had died. Harlan looked at the hexagonal table, and an instant later, Matt’s Wonder Gauntlet materialized there.
Elation filled Harlan as he reached out and picked up the ultramarine Wonder Gauntlet, considering his next move.
“Maybe you could wear that one on your leg,” said a voice, “Too bad Danielle Walker’s gone MIA, or you could have collected the entire set.”
Harlan’s heart skipped a beat as he tried to control his fear. He had never expected to hear that voice again. “I have an idea where she might be,” said Harlan carefully. He looked up and saw Wonder Hero Gold standing in the room with him.
“I know you know where she is, Harlan,” said Wonder Hero Gold, “and I know where she is, too.”
“You can’t be inside my mind, Theodore,” said Harlan, with a hint of pleading in his voice. “I erased you. I killed you.”
Theodore dismissed his Wonder Helmet and scratched his head absently. “Yeah, about that.”
The room shifted, and Harlan found himself back in his quarters, in front of the computer console. Theodore had traveled with him. “You’re not real Harlan. You’re a computer virus, nothing more.”
“No,” said Harlan, “I’m Harlan Flicker! Back from the dead! I killed you! I killed all the Wonder Heroes!”
“It was a trick, Harlan,” said Theodore. “I programmed the collaborative circuits in the Wonder Gauntlets to feed you back your own fantasies of power and murder. I needed you distracted.”
Tears came to Harlan’s eyes. “I erased you! It took months, but I did it! I came back from the dead!”
Theodore nodded. “I needed you to think that, Harlan, but actually I was erasing you. Purging you from the Wonder Gauntlet and my mind.”
“No, I did it. I won…”
“Look at the chronometer, Harlan,” said Theodore shaking his head and not without some kindness.
Harlan read the chronometer built into his gauntlet. The other gauntlets had disappeared, as though they were never there. He watched as the final moment required for the purging of all that was Theodore Studebaker to be erased, counted down and in that instant, Harlan understood. The countdown was not for Theodore, it was for him. All Harlan had seen and done since pressing that button on the console had been an elaborate drama, played out to distract him from reality.
“But…” said the mnemonic ghost of Harlan Flicker, and then he was gone.
Alone in his room, truly alone for the first time in over nine months, Theodore Studebaker sighed deeply, and fell to his knees, exhausted. Then the tears came, great hulking sobs of cathartic tears that doubled him over and caused him to curl up into a little ball on the floor of his quarters. Theodore’s nightmare was over, and he was finally, terribly, alone.
Susan opened her eyes in bed and stared at the ceiling of her room, the dream she had just experienced fresh in her mind. It had seemed so vivid, so real...
There was the sound of someone pounding on her door. She slipped out of bed and summoned her Wonder Armor sans helmet. From the other side of the door she could hear the muffled voice of Jay, but could not make out the words. Why wasn’t Jay using the coms, she wondered.
At her command the door opened, revealing Wonder Hero Jet, fully armored. “I just had the worst dream,” said Jay, “Harlan Flicker came back from the dead and killed me.”
Despite the absurdity of Jay’s statement, Susan had expected this. The comms chirped and Matt’s voice said, “Susan? Are you awake?”
“Yes, Matt, and to answer your next question, I had the same dream.”
There was a moment of silence and then Matt said, “Conference room?”
As the Wonder Heroes filed into the conference room they noted Theodore was seated at the end of the table, wearing a yellow tee shirt and briefs, wrapped in a yellow robe. He looked tired and guilty but wore a serious look on his face.
Kalomo was the last to arrive. Susan said nothing but it was obvious he had been crying. Susan saw Linnea, Kalomo’s fiancé, in the corridor outside the conference room, a look of concern on her face. Susan flashed her a tight, reassuring smile as the door closed.
No one spoke, so Susan finally said, “I assume everyone had the same dream?”
“You mean the one where Harlan Flicker came back from the dead and killed us?” asked Jay with undisguised sarcasm, “What the hell?”
Matt Stood across the table from Theodore. “Computer,” he said, “locate Harlan Flicker.”
“Harlan Flicker is dead.”
“Who’s that?” asked Matt, pointing at Theodore.
“Theodore Studebaker, Wonder Hero Gold.”
“I can explain,” said Theodore, “nine months ago I put on the golden Wonder Gauntlet and it was broken, remember? It was repairing itself, using bits of me to repair itself, but the damage to the gauntlet went deep, very deep. Harlan Flicker, in the instant before he died, downloaded his consciousness into the gauntlet. For the last nine months he and I have been in a constant battle to take control of my thoughts, my body, and the power of Wonder Hero Gold.”
Matt sat down, silently cursing himself for not seeing it sooner.
Susan’s eyes widened with shock. “Oh my god,” said Susan, “You should have told us…”
Theodore shook his head. “I couldn’t. Harlan wouldn’t let me do that. If he suspected anyone knew, even for an instant, he would have tried to kill them, and I wasn’t sure I could stop him.”
“Who have I been hanging out with for the last nine months, Theodore?” asked Jay, “You are Harlan?”
“Harlan,” said Theodore, “pretending to be me.”
“This could be a trick,” said Jay, “Harlan might still be in there.”
“It’s not a trick,” said Theodore, “the Wonder Computer can verify it. It monitored the process and helped me purge Harlan.”
Matt immediately patched his gauntlet into the Wonder Computer and began pulling down the data. His eyes watered as he began to understand the full extent of what Theodore had been going through these past nine months.
“Where is he now?” asked Kalomo, “Harlan, I mean.”
“He’s gone,” said Theodore. “Earlier tonight, with your help, I finally purged the last of him from my mind and from the gauntlet.” Theodore accessed a panel on the side of his Wonder Gauntlet and opened a small compartment. “In fact,” said Theodore, removing a dull yellow porous stone from the gauntlet and putting it on the conference table, “here he is.”
“That’s Harlan?” asked Jay, reaching for the stone, then thinking better of it and retracting his hand.
“That’s the compacted impurities that the Wonder Gauntlet and I have been removing for the last nine months. It’s all that’s left of Harlan’s big grab for a second life.” Theodore smiled wanly.
“I still don’t understand,” said Susan, “What about the dream? What was that all about?”
“My mind was under psychic assault, Susan. To fully purge Harlan I needed more power than my frankly exhausted psyche could muster. The Wonder Computer engaged the cooperative systems we utilize for the Wonder Giant to link us together. With your help I was able to wrest back control of my own mind and eradicate Harlan for good.”
No one knew what to say. The room was silent as everyone reevaluated everything they had gone through as a team since the day they were first chosen as Wonder Heroes.
Theodore said, “Harlan was inside the gauntlet, rejecting every candidate until I came along. He chose me because I was a computer hacker, and he needed a mind like mine to hack through the Wonder Gauntlet’s security systems and even into the Wonder Computer’s systems. He didn’t want to just come back; he wanted to kill everyone here, but to do what he wanted, he had to kill me first. He set up a program to slowly purge those part of me he didn’t want.”
“That’s awful,” said Susan, not knowing what else to say.
“It wasn’t so bad,” said Theodore, “I early on figured out how to stop him, I just knew it was going to take a long time, maybe a year to do it. I partitioned the Wonder Gauntlet, and copied my mind into it. Then I pointed all of Harlan’s efforts at my duplicate mind, while I worked to shut him out of all of my higher functions.”
“I understood about none of that,” said Jay.
“I set up a fake me for Harlan to kill, so that the real me could kill Harlan,” said Theodore.
“Oh,” said Jay, “Got it.”
“The biggest problem was that I needed to give Harlan complete control over my body.” Theodore continued, “He didn’t want to be revealed, so he acted the way he thought I would act, and said what he thought I would say. He was constantly referring to the duplicate me for pointers.” Theodore looked at his hands and said. “If I ever stepped in to try to take control, Harlan would know he was being fooled, and then I would have had to really fight him for control, and the Wonder Computer gave less than stellar odds on the outcome of that move.”
“So I bided my time and could only watch, quietly, as Harlan continued to alienate every one of you.” Theodore looked at Susan, “He didn’t want anyone to get close, because he was afraid that they might see through his deception. That’s why he planted the evidence that I hacked my way onto the list of Wonder Hero candidates.”
Susan inhaled sharply.
“I was on the list because Harlan put me there,” said Theodore, “He feared that a legitimate candidate might purge him from the gauntlet, so he scanned databases until he found someone with the requisite computer skills. Me.”
The room was quiet. Any response seemed too small.
“As Harlan thought he was moving closer to his goal,” said Theodore, “he started to act more like Harlan. In the end, he was hardly pretending to be me at all.”
Susan closed her eyes. Overwhelmed with shame and a sense of failing her friend, she could not bring herself to look at Theodore.
“Harlan formulated some terrible plan to kill you all,” continued Theodore, “It required reprogramming the Wonder Computer and taking control of the orbiting satellites, the Wonder Moons. Harlan set up a Wonder Computer access port in his, I mean my, quarters. Of course nothing he did had any real effect on the Wonder Computer. Tonight, when he decided to execute his plan, we fed him back his own power fantasies, until the final moment when he was completely purged.”
Theodore reached out with his hand and flicked the porous stone that used to be Harlan Flicker across the table towards Matt. “It’s over now.”
Matt picked up the small stone in his hand and regarded it a moment. With a thought he summoned the energies of his Wonder Gauntlet and vaporized it.
“That’s it, then,” said Matt, “Harlan’s finally and irrevocably dead and gone.” Matt looked at Theodore with something Theodore had never seen there before. Respect. “Welcome to the team, Theodore.”
Theodore smiled, as Jay clapped him on the back. “Good job, man.”
Kalomo gave Theodore a thumb’s up.
Theodore looked over at Susan, who smiled, but could not meet his eyes. She seemed shell shocked and emotionally exhausted.
“Thanks everyone. I appreciate that. I really do, but there’s one more thing.” The moment felt frozen in time, like a baseball at the top of its arc, as everyone waited for Theodore’s next revelation. “I think I know where Danielle Walker is,” said Theodore, “and we might be able to rescue her.”
The meeting broke up an hour later. The team decided to brief General Rumpole the next morning after a good night’s sleep, and retired to their quarters. Rescuing Danielle Walker was going to require at least some of the Wonder Heroes to be off world for perhaps as long as a week and that would require some planning.
Susan lay in bed, staring at the ceiling for almost an hour before deciding that all efforts at sleep were useless. She rolled out of bed, grabbed a red robe and made her way to the roof of Wonder Base. It was just after four in the morning, and the sky was full of stars. When she was a little girl the stars had seemed so beautiful and distant, so full of wonder and possibility. Now they seemed ominous, each star a potential source of death and destruction for everything and everyone she loved. Up in the heavens was an infinity of stars, and an infinite amount of danger.
She felt very alone.
“Susan? If you’d rather be alone, I can leave.”
Susan turned and saw Theodore standing on the roof. The elevator door had opened silently, as all the doors of Wonder Base did, and she had not heard him or known he was there until he spoke.
“I couldn’t sleep either,” said Theodore.
“No, it’s fine,” Susan said, “I was just thinking.”
“It’s a beautiful night,” said Theodore, “I’ve always loved the stars.”
“I was just thinking that,” lied Susan.
“You know,” said Theodore, “this is the first time we’ve been able to talk since we got the gauntlets. I want you to know how sorry I am about Walter’s death. I couldn’t tell you before, and I know you loved him very much.”
Susan nodded. “It must have been terrible for you, sharing a body with Harlan Flicker, not having control over what you could do or say…”
Theodore gave up a weak smile. “It was bad,” he admitted, “but not as bad as you might think. From the very beginning I knew that I could beat him, I just knew it was going to take months to do it. The worst part was the time I lost. The friendships I never really made with Matt, Jay, Kalomo,” Theodore paused and looked Susan in the eyes, “and you.”
Susan stepped towards Theodore and took his hand in hers. “I lied to you, Theodore.”
Theodore said nothing.
“When I told you about the stars,” Susan said, “I wasn’t thinking about how beautiful they were. I was thinking about how dangerous they were. How frightened I feel whenever I look at them.”
Theodore’s eyes went wide. “Susan,” he said, his voice filled with wonder, “the stars are full of death and danger. That’s what makes them so beautiful. You never know what’s out there, and it never ends.” Theodore ran to the edge of the roof and teetered there as he regained his balance. Susan followed.
“You know what I’ve never done?” said Theodore, turning towards Susan suddenly.
“What?” asked Susan. Looking at Theodore now she saw again the man she had met all those months ago in the waiting room, the man who had somehow persuaded her to become a Wonder Hero.
“I’ve never flown,” said Theodore, “alone I mean. Harlan’s always been there, hogging my mind.” Theodore raised his hands. “Look at that sky!”
Susan smiled a real smile for the first time in weeks. “You should do it then,” she said, “Fly.”
Theodore summoned his Wonder Armor in a sudden flash of golden energy. He leapt into the air and hovered over the edge of the roof, but turned and said to Susan, “Come with me.”
“I thought you wanted to fly alone,” said Susan.
Theodore shook his head. “Not exactly what I meant.”
Her fear forgotten, in a flash of crimson energy Susan summoned her Wonder Armor and followed Theodore into a dangerous sky full of beautiful stars.