Dr Jack Wolfe: Time after Time

[JackWolfe]

(Been a long time, probably since Virture closed, but here goes. Guess having the character back does mean something. Dr Jack Wolfe was my beta INV/SS tanker  I played him the entire run of  CoH. I've actually been surprised to run into a few people who knew him in the day [Was surprised to see the VirtueVerse Wiki still up and has Jack's entry.  Wish the CoH guru boards still had some of the stories for him.

 

Doc Wolfe  is  a tech MM bots/gadgets  that I created when we could blue side MM.  He was supposed to fill out Jack's career in the 50s and before. Never had a chance to flesh out the connection between the two, why they were in Paragon at the same time )

 

Jack always hated that flaw, a small gravtiton valve in the MkII design hissed when the flight pack was on-line but in standby mode. It wasn’t in the human audible range, but it was there none the less.  Opening what passed for his eyes, he looked around  the bedroom  of his place above “Uncle Jack’s Surf Shop and Taco Stand.”  Then he looked through the walls,  Talos bay was calm, the boardwalk no more frighting than usual, and in his living area Moe, Larry, and Shemp at the ready.  In his kitchen, the other him, the past him, stood making coffee.

 

“Karen will do that if you ask her.” He said as he got out of bed.  A moments concentration caused space to warp around him and, suddenly he was in the white and purple costume with a split cape most people would recognize.

 

The other him rumbled, “That thing is not our wife, it’s a damned abomination.”

 

“Yeah, the surviving kids thought that too. For the first couple years.” Stepping through the door into the great living area, he tightened his vision to the visible spectrum and there sat the Wolfetec Mark1 and Mark 2 battlebots he used nearly 50 years ago.  In the kitchen,  drinking fresh coffee, he stood dressed as he had 50 years ago on the day he died.

 

“What can I do for you, Jack?”

 

“Fix your locks; the security system didn’t even blink when I came in, sloppy.”  the time slipped version of him said.

 

“We do have the same DNA Jack, sorta, and you don't have access to all our buildings.  Just the ones you knew about before that day and some of the others.  Hell we've lived here since '65 you should have access to the loft and the apartment in the canyon,  but   I sure don’t want you see what happened to them before you’re ready” pointing to the stooges.

 "Why are you here?  We’ve had this conversation; I won’t tell anything you can’t find out through public means.  I’m certainly not going to tell you how ‘this’ came about,”  he said gesturing at his body.

 

“I know dammit, it’s just, I’ve read the histories I’ve been ‘here’ a lot longer than 47 minutes and still have no idea how to get back. I’ve got to get back and save her, save them.  Why won’t you help? You…we have the power to save them.  Save all of them…Help Me!”

 

Dr. Jack Wolfe closed his eyes and looked at the floor, then looked of back up at the time tossed version of himself.  The superdine enhanced body of a 70 year-old still sharp as any youngster.  So much pain behind him, so much to go.  Life was just starting to make sense when it happened. “I can’t, Jack; you know that I just can’t. The timeline…”

 

“Fuck the timeline.  You’re not me, I don’t know what you are, but you ARE NOT ME!  I wouldn’t have let this happen, to the world, to the kids, to HER, I’d have never let this happen! You souless bastard. You'er just another god damn thing I made, not alive.”

 

Jack heard the valve in the MKII open as the jetpack came to life. the other him flew off.  Not burning fuel, but focusing gravitons to push against the Earth’s gravity field.  Moe, Larry, and Shemp, their early AI looking at him  for just a second, gave chase.  Jack watched himself streak off across the Talos sky.

 

“It has to be this way, Jack,  you know that.” the AI that spoke in his wife’s voice said, “he….you can’t go back until he's ready. Until he understands.  The consequences.”

 

“I know, I know, still.”  He watched the younger  (but not really) him sweep into the  tunnel through  war wall and wondered, as he often did, just how much of a soul he had left.

Edited December 11, 2020 by JackWolfe