Deep Dark (an Origin Story)

[HEROID]

   “So, little brother how goes the project?”

   Howie smiled as I wheeled my chair into his lab. It was rare to see him smile – he was always absorbed in his work, and science was his work.  The kid was a genius and we had used most of my settlement money to fund this project. If he was successful (which I was 100% certain he would be) then I would get my money back a hundred times over. Working for himself, anything he created would be entirely owned by him and no one else with which to cut the profits. Just him and me.

   “It’s going great, Danny! Let me tell you what I discovered today –“

   And he launched into a detailed explanation about things that I have no idea of what he’s talking about – nanotubes aligned along multiple axis simultaneously, quaternion disambiguation, quantum matrices, multi-spectra assimilation, and other words that I can’t pronounce even in my head, which it was, all of it way, way over.

   At the end of it he said, “It absorbs more visible light even than Vantablack, and – get this – it displays properties that shouldn’t be possible according to our understanding of physics. I have barely begun to catalog all of the frequencies of light and energy it absorbs. I’m going to patent it under the name, ‘Deep Dark’. I’ve already applied on proof-of-concept based on peer-reviewed micro-quantities.”

   “That’s great, Howie! It sounds like we’re almost rich!”

   “Almost. I have a few more goals to make and then we can proceed with all the legal stuff with the patent office.” The smile faded as he looked at the three whiteboards that were filled with his equations. “It’s just…”

   “Just what?” I asked. It was probably nothing. Howie always did this; it was part of his success in his field – he always double-checking himself. This was probably just another case of his second-guessing.

   “I’m having trouble recreating the stability of the substance in larger quantities. Small, nano-batches work just the way I expect them to, but in larger batches, it gets… weird.” He stared at his numbers as he spoke.

   I tapped his elbow and he looked back at me like I had just awakened him from a nap.

   “You can get this figured out, Bro’.” I said. “You’re the smartest person I know.”

    “Yeah, but…” He got behind my chair and pushed me to the window looking into his clean room. “Look in there.”

   I looked. I had seen it before. The air-tight, thickly-insulated, reinforced room was full of tubes and equipment. To enter the room, Howie always wore special gear, partly to protect his experiments, but also to protect himself. We peered through the big window at the large containment vault in the center of the room.

   The vault was a pill-shaped white box, six feet long by four feet wide with a hatch at the top and wires and tubes attached on the sides and bottom. Today, instead of being white, it was black. More than black. It was like a black hole had been punched in reality. The entire unit was dark and the tubes and wires were also, where they connected to it.

   “Um… did we spring a leak?” I asked.

   “No. It—it seems to be replacing the atomic substance of the vault with Deep Dark particles, keeping the properties of the original substance. And that’s not all. Watch this – “

   Howie grabbed the joystick for the robotic arms that he used to maneuver hazardous substances in the clean room. The arms swung toward the now-black vault with their skeletal fingers reaching toward the unit. When they touched the vault, there was a small explosion of strange energy that shot the robotic hands away from it.

   “Is it supposed to do that?”

   “No, not any of it.”

   “Is that going to be a problem?”

   Before he answered, the lab’s security monitor chimed to let us know that someone was at the front door. The monitor showed a young woman in a black business suit waiting on the stoop. She carried a large leather briefcase and a small black leather purse. Howie said, “I’ll get it,” and got on the elevator to take him up from the basement.

   I watched on the monitor as he opened the door and when the woman started talking, I turned on the mic so that I could hear.

   “… representing Crey Industries in the matter of patent application number 00U81, ‘Deep Dark’, patent-pending.” She held out a business card for him to see and when he glanced up at the security camera, she held it up for me to see also: Boyd, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, Attorneys at Law.

   But why would Crey Industries be sending a lawyer to see Howie? What business did they have with him? He had worked an apprenticeship with them when he was going for his Masters degrees, but that was years ago.

   “You can talk to my lawyer,” Howie said and started to close the door in her face.

   That’s when a couple more people stepped onto the screen – two big men, also in black suits, but unlike the woman, they didn’t look anything like lawyers. One of them stuck his fist out and stopped the door from closing, and then they pushed their way into the house. I wheeled as fast as I could to the elevator and started hitting the button to call it down. Howie needed help!

   The elevator took its time coming down. I could hear thudding sounds and shouting above me, but when the lift’s motor kicked into gear, the commotion stopped. When the door opened, I looked in horror at my brother’s unmoving body lying on the floor. The two big men and the woman stepped over him and shoved my chair out of their way as they began searching the lab. It was like I was beneath their notice.

   “Who are you?” I demanded. “Whoever you are, you’re no lawyer!”

   The woman stopped as the two men took the whiteboards off of the wall and tore into Howie’s computer to steal the hard drives.

   “You have no right to do this!” I shouted, then picked up a glass beaker and threw at the woman.

   That got her attention.

   She knelt in front of me and said, “Ah, Danny Collins, the elder-but-lesser of the Collins Brothers. Danny Collins – career minor-leaguer, former Major League coach, and now a paraplegic. What a sad accident that was. The settlement was quite generous, I understand. Enough to fund Howard’s research and development.”

   “You’ve done some homework,” I said.

   “C.I. has been following Howard – and therefore you also – for a long time now. You know he refused the opportunity to work for Crey? Poor decision on his part.”

   “I think we got it all,” one of the big men said.

   “We’re finished then,” the woman said. “Goodbye, Danny. Don’t bother to call the police. I think you will find them as unresponsive as your brother.”

   One of the big men pulled Howie off of the elevator and she stepped in.

   “This isn’t over,” I said.

   She paused. “You’re right. We almost forgot the working sample.”

   One of the goons tore the actual freaking door off of the clean room then walked in and reached into the darkness of the containment vault. The hatch on the top was impossible to see, blended in with the rest of the unit, so he punched the outer wall like he was trying to knock a hole through it. The vault hit back and sent him flying.

   “Oh. My. God. You can’t find good help these days,” the woman said then picked up a long-handled ladle from the lab supplies and stepped into the clean room. She gently felt with her hand around the top until she found the latch for the hatch. She opened it with slow, careful movements and dipped the ladle into the dark. Then she stepped out and put the sample in a jar.

   “Let’s go,” she said.

   “What about these two?” one of the big men asked.

   I wheeled my chair to block the elevator and tried to sound as threatening as an unarmed man in a wheelchair could, and said, “No. No way are you leaving here with that.”

   The woman smiled and said, “Put him in the tank.”

   The goon was superhumanly strong but I struggled until he stuffed me through that hatch and then the world went black.

   I heard the woman say, “And for your edification – I am so a lawyer.”

   The hatch closed on me and I was drowning in Deep Dark. It filled my mouth, my nose, and my lungs. It itched like a billion ants crawling all over me. It burned my eyes and tasted like pure acid on my tongue. It was torture. It was overwhelming. I tried to not give in but I felt myself slipping into the dark. Sensations faded and then there was nothing—no awareness until I was pulled out of the tank.

   I don’t know how long I was in the containment chamber but after some time I felt cold, robotic hands poke me and grab at me until they took hold and lifted me out of there. It took a moment for me to remember what had happened.

   Someone said my name as the robot put me down. Then I felt another set of hands – human hands this time— clamp around my wrists and pull me across the floor. I opened my eyes but the lights were out and I could barely see. “Danny?” someone said again and I recognized my brother’s voice.

   “Come on,” Howie said, “We’ve got to get this stuff off of you now.”

   Again, I was pulled across the room, this time to the emergency shower in the corner. Howie shoved me in like a heavy sack of potatoes and turned on the water. It was cold and shocked me nearly as much as had hearing his voice.

   “Come on… come on dammit…” he said.

   “What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to make him out in the dim light. He had some sort of hard-bristled brush scrubbing me.

   There was panic in his voice as he said, “It’s not coming off!”

   The brush was hurting and I was afraid he would scrub the skin right off of my face. “Howie—stop. Tell me what happened. I thought they killed you.” I put out my hand and pushed the brush away.

   “No. They just zapped me with a taser and that put me out. I’m not as tough as you, I guess. They stole my notes, my hard drives… anything they thought might have my research on Deep Dark. I thought they had stolen you too when I couldn’t find you. Then I saw the door to the clean room and figured out where you were. I—I was worried you were dead too. ”

   “We should call the police.”

   “I already did. They told me I sounded like a crazy person… called me a “Doc Brown”, laughed, and hung up on me. It seems that Ms. Boyd-Dewey-Cheatham-and-Howe bought the entire Latveriaville police department.”

   I sat there, the spray chilly but calming at the same time. It could have all been much worse. At least we were both alive.

   “At least turn on the lights,” I said, “so we can see how bad this stuff is stuck on me.”

   “Um… Danny? The lights are already on.”

   “What”

   “You can’t see?”

   “Oh God— I’m blind!”

   “No! No! It has to be the Deep Dark.” Howie grabbed my head and lifted my chin, turning my face into the spray. “It has to come out— keep your eyes open! Keep flushing them!”

   “It’s not helping! Do something!”

   “I’m trying!” he said and I smelled some sort of solvent and felt it splash over my skin.

   “Don’t get that in my eyes!” I said.

   “I’m trying not to!”

   I could see him like a shadow in the dark, running around the lab looking for something— anything— to get the Deep Dark off of me. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and I stood up and grabbed him, shaking him and begging for him to fix this.

   “Danny!” he shouted.

   I stood there flailing my arms and yelling in his face, panicked.

   “Danny, Stop!”

   I didn’t so he shoved me and I fell back several steps but managed to keep my feet.

   “Danny—you’re on your legs! You’re standing!”

   I nearly fell over when I realized what he was saying. I quit shouting. I was no longer panicked, but instead I was stunned and completely confused.

[HEROID]

((Sorry it's been so long between posts. I will do better.))

 

  You have to pick your battles.

  I knew that when I was an 18-year-old minor-league outfielder and facing 30-year-old major-league pitcher, Clayton Kerwin, who was on a rehab assignment against my team at AA Reading. Kerwin was pitching changeup, circle change, curve— all off-speed stuff that you don’t see much below triple-A—then he would blow by you with a fastball or a really nasty slider. I was supposed to be a power threat, but I couldn’t adjust to his pitches—heck most Major Leaguers can’t hit his stuff— so after whiffing twice, in my third at-bat against him, I bunted. I was out at first, but it moved the runner up. The next batter blooped a single and we managed to score our single run against him.

  The crowd had booed my bunt. They wanted a showdown between a slugging prospect and one of the best pitchers in the Major Leagues and didn’t get it. But I knew I couldn’t hit Kerwin’s pitches and I was wanting to beat him any way I could. The next inning I was taken out of the game and the skipper put in a better defender. We lost 2-1.

  Point is you have to know when you’re outmatched.

  Howie and I couldn’t find a lawyer who would touch our case against Crey Industries. At least not one we could afford. So we decided to make it personal and use what we had to get even. For Howie, it was about losing what was sure to be a fortune. For me…

  Deep Dark absorbs and adapts. Radiation, kinetic energy, light. We don’t really know its limitations and capabilities yet. But that’s what it does—absorbs and adapts. In my case, it absorbed and adapted me.  I was no longer myself. I was… something else.

  Which brings us to today’s battle.

  Howie knew there was no way he could take down Crey Industries. He wasn’t even sure he could take down the law firm, Boyd, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. But he knew that he could get at junior associate Amanda Bunstingler.

  There’s a white 2024 Contrara 100ZS2 SUV parked on the curb in front of the jewelry store near the university in Steel Canyon. It belongs to the law firm, Boyd, Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. Not the kind of ride a lowly associate should be able to afford. I can see why she likes it though. It can seat six strong-arm thugs comfortably, along with heavy armor and a sizable weapons cache.

  She goes into the store and I jump down from the rooftop and slip underneath the SUV.  I press my body against the bottom of the vehicle and the Deep Dark forms an attachment. Hidden in the under-shadows, I go unnoticed when she returns and climbs into the driver’s seat. The motor roars to life and off we go. 

  Me and little brother have had her under surveillance for weeks. It turns out that Howie is great at spy gadgets and I’m even better at installing them. It’s a cinch to break into places when you have the right equipment. It also helps that, for some reason, I’m invisible to CCTV cameras and motion detectors.

  We still don’t know the full extent of my abilities, even after over a year of trials and training, but the abilities that we have discovered, I know how to use well. The Deep Dark is infused in my very cell structure. I am almost as much the dark substance as I am human. It was a no-brainer when we found out that Amanda’s firm had sent her to Paragon City to work as a full-time legal hired-gun for Crey, that Howie and I should come here too. In Paragon, you’re not a freak, you’re a superhero.

  Amanda’s stereo is playing some crappy pop song as she drives across the city. The visual readout in my goggles shows me that we are on our way to Talos, and my gut tells me that from there we will take the ferry to Peregrine Island. P.I. is a crazy place. It’s a borough where the main industry is knowledge, full of secret labs and underground lairs and portals to other realities. (That last, I have only heard about second-hand – so far I haven’t had the courage to explore any of that. The thought of multiple realities just blows my mind, although Howie is working on getting clearance to work at Portal Corp.)

  And just as I expected, Amanda drives onto the ferry and after a quick trip across the bay and then a short drive, she has pulled into a space in a parking deck on the northside of P.I. She opens her door and puts her feet outside so that she can slip on a pair of expensive looking strappies. (Say what you want about her, but she has nice ankles.) I hear the “clack-clack” of her heels pounding the concrete as she walks away, and the sound of another vehicle approaching. I slide from under the Contrara, keeping low and out of sight, just in time to see a black limo pull up and Amanda get in it. I focus the stored energy in my body to my feet, and just as the limo pulls away, I jettison myself across the floor and underneath the limo. Surely this ride is going to take her to whoever is calling the shots and ordered the attack on Howie’s lab. I focus on my hands and tendrils form from them, reaching to the underside of the limo, forming an attachment so that – oops! No time!

  I grab onto anything I can reach to hold on as the limo burns rubber and shoots off like a cat with its tail on fire. I’m barely holding on when the brakes lock down and the vehicle screeches to a halt, slinging me from under it several yards and into a concrete wall. I hurt, but I know that the black coating on my body has protected me from serious injury. Still, my head is spinning and I’m slow to move. Then I hear the “clack-clack” of Amanda’s heels as she walks up to me.

  “If you wanted a date, you could have just called the number on my business card.”

  “You’re not my type,” I said. It was a lie. With her slender figure, long dark hair, and brown eyes framed by black framed glasses, she was exactly my type.

  “Aww, too bad. We could have had a good time together,” she replied, “Or did the accident that restored the use of  your legs not also restore the use of other things?”

  Changing the subject, I asked, “What gave me away? How did you know I was stalking you?”

  “Do you think that Crey Industries would not know the chemical signature of their own intellectual property? You think you did anything of which they’re not aware? We’ve known about you spying on me for weeks.”

  “It’s ‘stolen property’ from my brother’s intellect.”

  “Semantics. We have it, we own it. Legally, we own all of it, even the Deep Dark that has infused your body. You’re making quite a name for yourself as a superhero.” She squats beside me and looks into my goggles as if she can see through them into my eyes. “Keep on fighting Skulls, Warriors and the other gangs. Make the city safer for people like me. Don’t try to fight a corporation that provides so many jobs and community works in Paragon. It will only make you look bad. And if you look bad, Deep Dark looks bad, so when Crey starts to market it, we look bad. Understand?”

  I don’t reply, so she stands up, and as she turns away, she says, “I believe you understand.” 

  Before she is out of reach I grab her ankle to get her attention. “This isn’t the end of this,” I promise her, and squeeze hard enough to hurt. She jerks her foot out of my grasp and spits in my face.  

  I watch her walk back to the limo with a freshly installed subdermal tracker in her foot.

Edited July 21 by HEROID