Stand Alone 8

Sapphire sat up and yawned. “I feel like crap,” she declared to the empty chamber. She stood up and stretched before walking to the wall and requested water from the food-generating device attached to it. Soon there was a knock on the door, and it slid open silently. A young female alien entered and bowed before her.

“I am called Zoe. and I have been sent by the Archivist to assist you with anything you may need this evening.”

“Evening? I was only asleep a few hours.”

“Incorrect. You were asleep almost one whole day by your Earth standards.”

“Well shit, that kind of screws up my plans then. I was only planning on being here for a few days before getting back home and trying to deal with this Coming Darkness thing.” Sapphire sat back down on the edge of the bed and held her head in her hands.

“You came to us in search of Knowledge, and that knowledge tends to add more questions. Perhaps you are looking at the problem in the wrong way?” Zoe had moved across the room silently and was standing to the side of Black Sapphire now.

“When I was still on Earth with the Dark Avenger, and before Zero happened, I had access to his database. And the files written by the heroes involved in all the cases he handled with the WMD and the IED and his other various alliances like the Raven Institute and the Family. I thought they were as complete as I could get before I discovered that you people existed. Now I have access to a font of the universe's knowledge and I don’t know the correct questions to ask it.”

“Correct. I was once taught by another of the Catalogers, one who became exiled. He is only referred to as the Nameless now. He told me two simple things. There’s always a Bigger Picture, and everyone has a boss.”

“So I should ask what the bigger picture is.”


Stand Alone 8 - V

We were the future of the world, this Earth.

The five of us made a pact to change things.

We were wrong.

*******

“Alright, let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves. I’ll start. My name is Richard Reader.” He tipped his cap and sat back down as the next member stood.

“Harold Prick.” Reader cocked an eyebrow. “Please don’t call me Harry,” he sat back down.

The next man stood up and cleared his throat before speaking. “Andrew Jessup, and that’s my sister Erica sitting in the corner. I have to watch out for her and she had no place to go tonight.” Reader nodded and continued to ignore the young woman. Andrew sat back down and looked to the next in line.

“Oswald Johnson.” He stood and returned to his seat quickly and looked to the final member of this group that Reader had brought together.

“Rex Ruthless.”

 Harold gasped. “Don’t you already have a company that you run?” he asked. Ruthless nodded. Harold quickly followed up. “Why do you even need to go to college?”

“Because while I am in the top one percent of the world’s most intelligent people, there are things that I still do not know. Also, it is my father’s company, and I am only technically the Vice President of it.” Harold frowned. “For now,” Ruthless finished. Harold leaned back, suddenly slightly scared. He shut his mouth and looked back to Reader.

“We five are the future. We have the highest GPA's and make up the most brain power in the entire school. Each of us has similar interests in science, astronomy, genetics and other various fringe sciences. I propose that we work together to make the world a better place.” 

Ruthless snorted. “I do not think that I will or can work well with others. I tend to be a brutal taskmaster when it comes to doling out assignments, and I expect them to be done my way.” Rex spoke honestly. 

Reader listened and nodded his assent. “I am the same way when it comes to my experiments.”

“I work with my sister when it comes to the things that... fascinate me,” Andrew added. “We make a great team.” 

Erica smirked from her chair. “Only when you get something right,” she muttered under her breath.

Richard Reader stood. “Any one of us can change things as an individual, but as a unit, we can change and progress the entire world along any path that we choose.”

TBC in Demonology 107

Stand Alone 5

She stepped away from the Knowledge and sighed.  The creation of the WMD and IED started this world’s golden age of heroes.  She rubbed the bridge of her nose and thought hard.
  “Spectacular left before the Harvest and passed through the Cascade to arrive on my home world.  The Harvesters came next, but they came because of the man who fell to the Earth.  Coincidences?”

“I do not believe in coincidence.”  The Chronicler said.  “Everything happens for a reason.  It is only down the path that you may look back and see the horizon left behind.”

She blinked away the sleep bearing down on her.  “I need more information.  Show me a Harry Prick story.”  She stopped.  “Wait that came out wrong…”

Stand Alone 5 - Small Wonder

“My name is Harold Prick and I have anger management issues.”

“Hello Harold.”  The crowd responded.

“I have been assigned these sessions because my anger has gotten me arrested several times and I need to learn how to control it, before it controls me.”  His face was sad, and the people around him read his grief as genuine.  The reality of the matter was much direr.

Several months ago he had unveiled what was going to be his crowning achievement, Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short.  It was a concept first thought of by John McCarthy in 1955 and over the years he and a group of people were the forerunners of the creation of the first AI.  Harold had never been much for groups and decided to seek out funding outside of the Department of Defense which was paying for McCarthy’s research.  He cut a deal with an up and coming business mogul Rex Ruthless, and was given unlimited funds to conduct his research in the Mega-City of San Diablos on the West Coast.

It had taken years to figure out the workings of what would become his crowning achievement and devise the programs necessary to ignite the thought processes to become the catalyst for his masterpiece.  It had taken less than ten minutes for it to fail spectacularly in front of the press and soon the world.  Ten minutes and he was a world renowned failure in the eyes of his peers and colleagues.

Unbeknownst to him he had not failed and had in fact created the world’s first AI, TechnoSyde, who would become a thorn in the worlds’ heroes over and over again throughout the years.  He would not learn of his ‘child’ until many years later after a particularly cruel battle which cost him his unborn son and crippled his wife.

Harold suffered from dwarfism, standing only 4 foot 9 inches and had always used his better than average intellect to get ahead in life to help overcome his small stature.  So when he came upon the research of Dr. Jackson Kirby he decided that he would find proof of the Star Force and harness its power for himself and show the world what a man like him could do with unlimited power.

The Harvest came then, and the world’s heroes joined together to battle the alien threat and it all culminated in a massive battle in Central Park in New York City.  He watched as the news stories came in, major battles in Megalopolis and Greece, a small war in the fields of Denmark, and many smaller attacks.  Dozens of people were killed and left desiccated all over the world as their energy was drained from them.

He used the available technology and research to make several adjusted leaps in knowledge and theorized a way to track the energy the aliens were feeding on and discovered a way to find the Star Force.  The aliens were taking small amounts from the population and those amounts all seemed to be linked to a single source spread out over hundreds of people all over the planet.

He collated the data and found a way to find the location of the main source hidden deep underground in Washington DC.  Finding a primary source made the tracking of the ones presumably still in space easier, allowing him to narrow down the field of inquiry.

He found the remains of the last evolution of a Star Force, a black hole.  Months after the Harvest he had devised the machine to pull the energy to Earth and soon he was standing in his laboratory watching as the energy funneled into the harness that he had ‘borrowed’ from the government, calling in a few of the last favors he had left in the process.  The machine cycled down as the harness reached its capacity.

He smiled as he had proof of energy unheard of on Earth.  But his curiosity got the better of him and he slid the harness over his head and felt the power of the Star Force surge into him. 

HELLO HAROLD.

“Who?”  He looked around the lab to locate the source of the voice.

I AM INSIDE THE HARNESS HAROLD.  I AM WHAT YOU HAVE BROUGHT HOME TO YOUR WORLD.

“You are the Star Force of the Black Hole and you’re intelligent?”

I AM INDEED HAROLD.  YOU HAVE FREED MY CONSCIOUS MIND FROM MY ENTROPIC STATE AND BECAUSE OF THAT I AM GRATEFUL.  I WISH TO MAKE YOU AN OFFER.

“What sort of offer?”

POWER HAROLD, POWER BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS.

“What do you want in return for this power?”

FREEDOM ONCE A YEAR TO DO WHAT I WANT UNHINDERED BY INTERFERENCE. 

Harold thought long and hard before he answered.  “Yes.”

EXCELLENT, MY NAME IS ECLIPSE.

That was the day that Harold Prick became Humongous Man, wielder of Gravity and Entropy.  It was not long before he lost the Harness and retained the power, having merged with Eclipse fully and became a force for good, although once a year he knew not what happened when he left the building, but the world never came to an end so he did not mind losing the day.  Eventually he was made a member of the IED aiding the groups whenever they needed it.  It was several years later that the influence of the Star Force began to eat at his soul, and making his heroic actions more lethal.  He had not killed anyone yet, but he had maimed a number of people during the pursuit of justice.  The WMD and IED decided that his actions needed support that they could not provide and it was decided that he attend group meetings to assist in the management of his anger.  He agreed and that brought him to today.

“My story begins several years ago; you all might remember me from the cover of Life magazine…”

TBC in Stand Alone 6