Sparring Match, Part 2
[ I originally intended this fill-in as a short vignette while I work on resolving some problems with The Maker’s Ark, but it kept expanding. It takes place during The Maker’s Ark, between Chapter 30 and Chapter 32. The most recent regular chapter is here, links to my other work here. I’m shooting for two weeks for the third (and hopefully final) installment.]
Previous: Part 1
A young man stood in the ruins of a house. He looked alert, healthy, and more than competent, but several parts of his body–the outer edges of his hands, both temples, and an area in the center of his chest–appeared to made out of some kind of green metal.
The house had once been much larger, with side rooms fallen in turn to disrepair and collapse over many years. The last, central part had recently burned, and the ashes still emitted grey tendrils that were smoke one moment, ghostly fragments of old smiles and laughter the next.
The ruins were alone in deserted wasteland that stretched to the horizon in all directions, under a pitiless sun. There were a few mountains, and distant lines of green and grey that might be oases or cities, but they wavered, mirage-like.
Breakpoint’s self-image turned to look at Yiskah with a faint smile.
“So. This is my place. Not much, but it’s where I’m at.”
Yiskah met his eyes. "Looks like long-standing recurrent major depression to me. That you’ve been very good at hiding, even considering your danger sense. Probably because of that.“ She pointed at his chest. "Which is worrying for a different reason.”
He frowned. "What are you pointing at?“
"The green metal on your chest.”
“What green metal?”
There were no mirrors for telepathic self-images, so it was quite possible for people to be unaware of how they projected until Yiskah told them.
“Never mind,” she said. "If you’re unaware of it, it’s almost certainly part of your problem, but I want to learn more before I try any kind of mind probe. Let’s go back out.“
"All right.”
A shift in view, and they were sitting together on the couch in the isolation room Yiskah had selected for assessment. Her hand rested on his back. Physical contact made some kinds of telepathic work easier for her, and it could also make it less disturbing for the subject.
Breakpoint looked up and smiled more normally. "Expected that to trigger danger, but it didn’t. You’re good at this.“
"Not as good or as experienced as I’d like to be. I think you didn’t trigger because the consequence you feared has already happened–Jumping Spider dropped you as her partner, and won’t even consider working with you until you’ve dealt with your problems properly. She suspected your danger sense was keeping you from getting help because of her.”
“Reasonable.” He looked down. "And if you think it’s possible, too, then she was right that it was a risk–and one my danger sense couldn’t help with. I know what I’d do for her, so I understand. No matter how much it shook me.“
Yiskah leaned back. "Your Database bio was rather lacking, presumably at your request. So I have some background questions. What age were you when your powers first started to become noticeable?”
“That’s hard to answer, because it was gradual. It wasn’t so much discovering what I could do as realizing what other people couldn’t. By the time I was ten or eleven, I’d figured out that I was good at breaking things and getting away with it.” He smiled. "And that this wasn’t a talent I particularly wanted to use or tell anyone else about. But I thought it was just a knack, not anything extraordinary.
“Then one summer when I was twelve, I had a couple spikes of panic out of the blue, and a feeling that things had sort of shifted. Something was different. I started paying more attention after that, and realized that I had something special. And that it was really important not to reveal it, because the backlash from the Lost Years open recruiting program mess was in the news. I didn’t want to get ‘recruited’.”
Yiskah frowned and tapped at her handcomp. "Could it have been June 21st?“
"It might well have been. Why?”
“A lot happened that day. Golden Valkyrie created Kyrjaheim, she and Doc gave it an ecosystem, and the portal zones to Xelia and Grs'thnk closed, among other things. Are those events that might have set off a reaction from your danger sense?”
“I really don’t know. Power, wide effect, and sudden change are all necessary, if it isn’t something specific to me, but–”
“Oh, and Flicker was conceived.”
“That would do it.”
Yiskah raised an eyebrow. "Is Flicker a common source of false alarms for you?“
"Yeah. She’s the loudest source on the frequencies I pick up. But it’s not fair to call them all false alarms. If something is dangerous for the whole world, it’s dangerous to me. And she’s so fast that I’ll often get an immediate threat spike–one I can’t do anything about, but I can’t just ignore, because it might mask something else.”
“I see.”
Breakpoint studied her for a moment. "I think you more than see–I think you deliberately used Flicker for masking when you were ready to contact Jumping Spider, just before I told you to stop.“
"Guilty.” Yiskah smiled wryly. "I knew I couldn’t deceive your danger sense, but I could overload it. You have a bandwidth problem.“
"Yeah, I do.” He looked thoughtful. "That’s fair. I knew I had some kind of problem, and I wanted help finding my limits and vulnerabilities. I didn’t expect it to be easy. And your mind trap thing seems to keep my danger sense from picking up anything from you until you act or are about to.“
"That still leaves it quite effective. I can slip by if you’re distracted–but not fool you. And I still don’t have anything other than guesses at why a full probe is so dangerous. At least talking isn’t.”
“Not yet.” He smiled. "I spent most of my teen years training in martial arts when I wasn’t in school. I also did a few things that made me look different than I do now, because I already knew that if I ever become a superhero, I’d have to do a clean break from my old life. No way I wanted anyone tracking down my family–that’s why I’ve been vague about a lot of stuff, and used the cover identity Doc put together for me. I saw what happened to family and friends of superheroes who weren’t careful enough, or were just unlucky.“
"Sounds like the Lost Years shaped you pretty strongly.”
“Oh yeah. I didn’t try to start until they ended. Then I went to Doc, and–”
“That part was in the Database. But back up a minute.”
“Okay.”
“Did you form any close personal relationships outside of your family?”
Breakpoint shook his head. "Not really. My danger sense warned me away from a lot of people. I found it kind of annoying at first. Especially when it was a pretty girl who seemed interested in me. I tried to find a way around it once. I thought I could handle whatever happened–but she was the one who got in trouble. I paid attention after that.“
"Were you lonely?”
“When I stopped to think about it. But I kept busy. I finally tried looking for interesting people who weren’t dangerous, and that worked better.” A half-smile. "I think I was getting warned away from people I might reveal my powers to.“
Yiskah nodded. "Which would tend to rule out anything close, at that age.”
“Yeah. There were a couple of my martial arts teachers who figured out I had something, just from what I could do. But they didn’t push. The best one told me something that really stuck with me, though. He said that an important part of growing up for most people was learning from mistakes. And that if I wasn’t making mistakes, I’d have to find some other way to get that part.”
“Ahh. And did you?”
“For some things, yes. For others, I still don’t really know. I read biographies and watched shows about people I admired. I learned meditation and a few other tricks. Some of them were a waste of time, but my danger sense steered me away from anything really harmful. And I’ve never been all that hot at studying, but practice is different.”
He met her eyes again. "After everything I saw and heard about during the Lost Years, I wanted to be the best superhero I could be.“
Yiskah drew in a breath. "I have a terrible feeling I know where this is going.”
“Oh?”
“The green metal. I know what it represents. Did you think your danger sense would be enough to let you safely self-modify your mind?”
“No. But my weakness detection works on myself, too.”
Yiskah bit back the urge to yell–because the person she most wanted to yell at was herself at sixteen, in her old body, falling prey to the same arrogance.
“You went after your own mind,” she said, choosing her words with care, “Chipping away at anything that wasn’t 'perfect superhero’ with the equivalent of a chisel. You didn’t have a good model, or any theory, but you thought that wouldn’t matter, because you’d always know the best place to hit next. Do I have that right?”
He frowned. "Yeah, that’s about it. But–“
"Couldn’t you feel how dangerous that was? Didn’t it hurt?”
“Yes, it was dangerous.” He looked bleak for a moment. "And yes. It hurt. But it sure felt like it worked.“
"Doc and I both thought so too, when we made similar mistakes. I found out I was wrong and nearly died very quickly. And both of us had a lot more theory and practice. That’s what was ultimately responsible for his coma.”
Breakpoint looked surprised. "I thought it was from an outside attack.“
"It was. The form it took was sabotage of mental self-modification. Which was very easy because it’s full of subtle, lethal pitfalls. Some can take a long time before their final bite–it was twenty-four years for Doc.”
“Ouch. Looks like I did find a mistake to make.” Breakpoint looked down. "And it’s hard to learn from something if you haven’t realized it was a mistake yet.“
"Yup. Who did you use for your perfect superhero template?”
“The Volunteer.”
“Understandable. He’s a good moral example. But he’s not human, and there’s so much you couldn’t possibly have known about him.” She shook her head. "I’ll say this for your danger sense. It was good enough to let you fool everyone for a while–as long as they didn’t get close. And it’s kept you alive for twelve years, despite everything. But it makes it much trickier for anyone to help you out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself.“
He nodded slowly. "I can see that.”
“You’ve clearly been having trouble for quite a while. When did it start?”
“Well, everything went fine for a while. I was making a difference. Putting supervillains away, helping root out police corruption, taking apart a giant killer robot–”
“I remember that.”
“Everyone who knows about me at all seems to. Taking apart a hundred foot tall robot with just a crowbar–on live TV–sticks in people’s minds. But there was only the one. I sure wouldn’t wish for more–but I still had to find some other way to make myself useful. The cops learned to avoid me, the villains I put in prison mostly stayed there, and the superhero vocation started to change.”
“What do you mean?” asked Yiskah.
“Well, there’s Doc’s crisis tracking system, alert rosters, and the rest. They work really well. They’ve cut down the average time from the start of an event until the first superhero gets there by a lot.” Breakpoint smiled. "Which is good. It’s what we all want. But it means the first superhero who gets there–isn’t me.“
"Ah.”
“I can’t fly, or teleport, or anything like that, and I don’t work with anyone who does. So the faster superheroes usually have everything taken care of by the time I could get there, unless I’m already nearby. Which means in practice that I have to be in the same city. And I’ve always moved around, so I didn’t have the local connections anywhere to dig below the surface and catch things before they happen, the way Nighthaunt does.”
He looked up again. "And without that–there wasn’t enough in any one city for me to help with. To make enough of a difference. Which was my other problem. I can’t stop an auto accident, or put out a big fire, or… so many other things. All I’m good at is breaking things and beating people up. And guarding. I’m great at guarding–but that’s seldom vital.“
Yiskah raised an eyebrow. "Well, now I’m sure about another problem. You have a severe case of imposter syndrome.”
Another surprised look. "Me? How can a superhero possibly…have…“ He stopped talking and his eyes unfocused as he looked inwards. "Okay. I guess it is possible. Not sure why I didn’t see it before.”
“Probably because you didn’t consider that constantly striving towards impossible goals might create a problem–because it was part of your ideal. For what it’s worth, it helped me to know you were on guard when I worked on Doc.”
Breakpoint smiled. "Good to know. But I’ve always wanted to do more. And eventually I realized another thing I could be good at–backup. I didn’t care about attention, or being in the spotlight, or any of that. I just wanted to make a difference.“
"So you decided to find a partner. Did you have some special reason for picking Jumping Spider?”
“Well, I knew some of what she’d done, and could guess more. I knew there would always be secrets, things she couldn’t tell me. And it would be hard to gain her trust. But I thought someone reliable with danger sense would be about as close to a perfect partner as she could get. I just ended up not quite close enough.”
Yiskah considered what she was picking up from her mind scan. "All right, you’re not in a place for further questioning to be productive yet. How are you feeling about the full probe? Still dangerous?“
He had already tensed. "Yeah.”
“Okay. I have another idea. I can do an emotional memory context probe. That’s less intrusive and more impressionistic–I’ll get images of memory groupings, filtered through your perceptions, then mine. I can get an overview, then look at a few samples, and back off if I sense you triggering. How does that sound?”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "More unsettling. Less dangerous. Which means better. Right?“
"Yep. Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be. Go ahead.”
*****
Breakpoint’s self-image had been about how he projected his identity. What Yiskah saw now was how he organized his memories. There were a few common themes, but the overall impression was quite different.
There was a multi-story building, well designed and solidly built, by someone who had thought hard about earthquakes and hurricanes. But the inside was odd. There were several levels of humming machinery–procedural memory and trained reflexes. Those looked fine.
The top stories were devoted to Breakpoint’s memories of being a superhero. There was a multi-level library full of case studies, after action analyses, and cautionary lessons. It looked complete to the point of obsession. She glanced at a few–even the tiniest errors and perceived imperfections were the subject of merciless dissection. It confirmed some of what she’d already determined.
The top level was more telling. It held his successes and accomplishments. But it was organized like a museum rather than a trophy hall–and it was conspicuously more than two-thirds empty. It was sized for what he thought he should have done, diminishing his real attainments.
Yiskah moved on. Where was the all the rest? His childhood and everything else?
She finally found an inconspicuous door leading to a basement. It was unpainted, and stuck when she first tried to open it–it wasn’t locked, but it didn’t quite fit the frame. That was jarring, compared to the rest of the building. Yiskah went down the dimly lit stairs–there was a lightbulb, but it was undersized–and entered the small room at the bottom.
It was unfinished, with walls of bare concrete and no windows, and was stuffed with rows of utility shelves holding boxes. There was dust, and many of the older boxes looked like never-unpacked leftovers from a move.
Yiskah ran her fingers over a few boxes, collecting impressions, and realized she was looking at how Breakpoint treated the entire rest of his life–everything before he became a superhero except training, and everything personal, ever.
A few boxes were isolated against one wall and swathed in multiple layers of heavy tape, and Yiskah could feel a strong sense of tension when she approached them. She backed off; she didn’t want to trigger his danger sense, and learning their exact content wasn’t essential.
One shelf looked recently disturbed. It was at a slight angle to the others and the boxes were newer. Several of them were still open or had been reopened. Yiskah stopped in front of one and paused. No sense of tension. These weren’t dangerous to him–at least not now.
They were memories of his time with Jumping Spider–everything other than fieldwork and operations. Yiskah touched the edge of one and got a vivid impression and a visceral shock. Not from Breakpoint, but herself.
And not from the memory, or the context, or even Breakpoint’s reaction–it was touching, and hinted at much more–but at where he kept it, and how little he valued his own part.
Why didn’t you keep this close? It should have been on the top floor, not hidden away in a box in the basement.
It was time to go back out. She could see some of his problems much more clearly now.
She just didn’t know how to help. It was time to bring in someone who might.
*****
“Breakpoint, this is Osk. She’s a healer.”
Osk was one of the three Choosers in the group that had come to Flicker to secure her help in fixing the magical mess she’d unintentionally left behind in the Nine Worlds after killing the Wanderer.
Yiskah had alerted Osk as soon as the seriousness of Breakpoint’s difficulties had become clear. She was a strong empath, and had hundreds of years experience healing the physical and mental wounds of a hall full of warriors who spent much of their time killing each other for practice. Yiskah had kept her updated, and Osk already had strong opinions on what was necessary.
Yiskah was less certain. The warriors looked human, but they weren’t–and neither was Osk. How useful her experience would be was still an open question.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Breakpoint, and they clasped forearms. "I was busy at the time, but I know you healed Jetgirl after the Xelian attack. I also heard about your visit to Tokyo. You took the time to teach as soon as the battles were over. I respect that.“
Osk smiled. "Some tasks cannot justly be delayed.” She nodded to Yiskah, conveying a load of meaning, and turned back to Breakpoint. "It is an honor to finally meet Earth’s Battle Seer.“
"Battle Seer? I am unfamiliar with the term.”
“I will gladly explain at length, if your time allows it. It does not, yet. I would say, trust that I know them well. But trust is at issue, is it not? So look at me. What do you See? Do I endanger your honor or chosen path?”
Breakpoint hesitated. Osk was honest and direct, but if she triggered his danger sense…
Yiskah cleared her throat. "That may not be the best–“
"Caution will not serve,” said Osk, not looking away from Breakpoint. "His Sight will not allow you to learn what you wish from him without a promise you would be unwilling to make blindly. Or perhaps at all.“
"But–”
Breakpoint interrupted. "Can you bring the dead back to life?“ he asked Osk.
"Yes,” she responded. "Though not unconditionally. Do you fear that? Would you not wish to live again, given the choice?“
"Not unconditionally.”
“I understand. I would not bring you back from your chosen end. But you are already deep in the Seer’s madness, in a way I have seen before. You are closer to the edge than you think.”
Breakpoint raised an eyebrow. "My danger sense is working fine. Maybe too well. My problem–“
"You See the slippery ledge clearly, where others see only fog. But you have lost track of your own feet. You are already standing on that ledge, dwelling on your lost rope, now gone into the abyss. Your problem is finding a way to accept a hand up, with none to trust and your Sight entranced by the fall.”
Breakpoint’s eyes narrowed, and he straightened slightly. Even without a probe, Yiskah could feel the taste of his mind change. It was like…
It was like the einherjar flying their mechs into the fleet battle, knowing they were going to die, and deciding whether it was time to start singing their death songs yet.
Breakpoint thought he was going to die. Right here, in this room. Soon. He was struggling to accept it–but his danger sense wasn’t going off. Which was dicey enough if it was just his self-identity as a superhero in question, but if–
Now Yiskah picked up a strong pulse from his danger sense, and he turned his head to look at her.
“Yiskah, please,” he said. "You have been kind. I don’t want to hurt you when I go.“
"You can’t–”
“He can,” said Osk. "You have been reckless, thinking he wished to live.“ She smiled. "But there is no need for you to interfere–I will speak to him, and we will see if there is a path for him that ends in life. He is more einherjar than any human I’ve met. He reminds me of Hrothgar, before the Trickster poisoned his mind and the madness fully took him, so there is hope.”
So many questions–but Breakpoint was listening.
“Osk? Are you tantalizing him deliberately?” she sent.
“Yes. He hungers to know of anyone like him–and curiosity may serve long enough for hope to return.”
Yiskah paused. “How can I help?”
“Go to his partner. She will be key, if he is to live. Speak frankly to her. Dig, as only you can. She may resent you, but she will care for him more. We will bring him back, if his path allows. And do not berate yourself–your strength and compassion have helped. Everyone makes mistakes when young.”
“Even Choosers?”
“Hrothgar was the first einherjar Lif pulled from the Void. He was not a mistake–but bringing him into a world with the Trickster was.”
“I see. All right, I’ll be in touch.”
*****
“Come on in,” said Jumping Spider over the external com, and Yiskah entered the secure guest room, closing the door behind her.
Jumping Spider was leaning back in the chair at the main workstation, hands laced behind her head. She’d changed out of her costume, jump boots, and wig, so few people would have guessed her identity from her appearance–but she wasn’t in disguise, either, so she still looked dangerous. A lot had happened since the last time she’d had safe, convenient Database access, and she’d been bringing herself up to date on the implications for her work.
Yiskah sat down on the edge of the bed, and Jumping Spider spun the chair to face her.
“How bad?” she asked.
Yiskah took a breath. "I did all I could, then called in Osk. She told me to talk to you. She’s keeping him breathing and curious enough to keep listening. But he doesn’t believe he’s going to walk out of the isolation room alive.“
Jumping Spider narrowed her eyes. "What the hell happened? I pulled the rug out from under him so he’d stop pretending he could patch things while we kept doing field work. You said you were ready. Did you botch something?”
“I don’t think so–at least nothing that would affect anything I’d try to do. But I don’t know for sure. I never did a full probe–his danger sense never allowed it.”
“Oh, that’s just peachy. So you don’t even know what’s wrong?”
“I know enough to get us started. Here is the root of it–he was traumatized by the Lost Years before his powers manifested, and he was determined to protect his family. He spent years disconnecting himself from his old life before he became a superhero, then tossed it all into the basement of his mind and used his weakness detection to try to remake himself in the image of the Volunteer. Without any private life–because he didn’t think the Volunteer had one.”
“Oh hell.”
“He doesn’t seem to realize what he’s missing anymore. All that work to protect his family and he barely remembers he had one. I couldn’t even get names or faces from a mind scan. He got rid of his old life and didn’t think he needed a new one, except as a superhero. He can fake one, and he has acquaintances. But no friends. He has no one at all.”
“Except me.”
“Except you. And I know what you’re going to say. He can’t depend on just you. And you’re right. But if he’s going to live, we need to start from where he is, not where he should be.”
Jumping Spider’s real hairstyle was a dark brown buzzcut, with a touch of gray at the sides. She ran her hand over it and stared at the wall as she thought.
“Damn,” she said. "I knew he was a good actor, I knew. I saw it. I pushed him hard before I was willing to accept him as a partner. I even double-checked the Database to make sure he wasn’t an alien or a demon. I thought he was hiding his life–for a good reason. But he was hiding his no life. And then… he started to have one, because of me.“
"There has to be more,” said Yiskah. "Osk told me to dig–at you. And something bad has to have happened, recently. I can’t see how he’d be in this much trouble, otherwise.“
"I’m going to have to run you through the whole mess, I suppose.”
“If you want to help him, yes.”
A snorted laugh. "I do. Oh, I do.“
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