[This story is a prequel, set several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16. Links to some of my other work are here. Planning to update this at least once a week until it’s done–next update is set to be up by November 2nd.]

Previous: Part 2



Time crawled by over the Tiber. Flicker was staying under the speed of sound, but she had to keep her subjective mental speed high in order to counter any efforts by Hermes to escape or create shockwaves with his arms. He’d tried each once and gotten his head bounced off the water surface for his trouble. A number of bystanders along the river ended up soaked and with ringing ears, despite Flicker’s earlier care. And the cacophonous passage of what probably sounded like a demonic helicopter was unlikely to reassure people. At least there were no boats.

Finally they emerged from the river mouth into the Tyrrhenian. Flicker waited until they were a few kilometers out, then glided to a halt five meters up, still holding Hermes upside down by the ankle.

“Hermes. Pay attention,” she said to his inverted glare, before he could speak. "I’m speeding up. I know you’ve gone Mach 3. I’m going much faster. You’ll need to use your air resistance reduction to avoid damage. Can you manage centripetal force over water?“

"Centripetal what?” said Hermes.

Did he know any physics at all?

“Pulling down, like to keep from going airborne off the top of a hill.”

“There are no hills on the sea!”

“Everything is a hill over orbital speed,” said Flicker. "But I’ll take that as a no. Do you have any active heat reduction other than sweating? Radiation and conduction depend on temperature, and you’re going to dehydrate pretty quickly.“

"I am Hermes the Swift! No fire can harm me!”

“Did I mention fire? But fine. You’re about to learn about ablative cooling. It isn’t fun. I’m going to speed up until you start losing mass to it, then slow down a little. If you start to struggle or otherwise cause trouble, I speed up again. Stop and I slow down. That will get us to the Box the quickest without permanently harming you. You can rehydrate when we arrive.”

“Fool! Free me and–”

“Enough,” said Flicker wearily. "You think sound is fast, diamond is hard, fire is hot, and steel is strong. They aren’t. Not to me. You are slow, weak, and fragile. But you can heal. You can heal even if you arrive at the Box as a charred cinder of a head and torso. Do you understand?“

Hermes stared for a moment, his eyes wide. "I know who you are! Free me and I will tell you who your parents are!”

“You have no clue who I am if you think I’m that stupid. Now cover your ears and eyes with your hands and arms if you don’t want to arrive deaf and blind.”

She started west without waiting for a reply. They were supersonic in under a second, and over orbital speed in ten.

Hermes was radiating at 2800 K when ablative mass loss started.

Flicker slowed down. A little.

Hermes made no further attempts to escape.

*****

Fifteen minutes out from Rome and several hundred kilometers short of the island where the Box was located, Flicker slowed down further. It was raining, which was a hazard to Hermes, though it did ease his cooling problem. And the steady stream of Database updates had taken a discouraging turn. The head warden of the Box was unavailable, the duty warden was stalling, and the shift security head was being an aggressively obstructive idiot. Doc had been yelling at people on the phone since five seconds after Flicker left Rome. DASI’s judgment was that Doc could probably get the idiot fired, but not in time to make a difference.

Flicker had planned to take Hermes all the way into his old cell, which was empty and ready for use. But the idiot was refusing to allow anyone to open doors for her, and at least one on every possible path was purely mechanical, locked, and guarded, so remote overrides wouldn’t help. The stated reason for the refusal was that her plan was an unacceptable security and damage risk. A far more likely explanation was that Flicker–and the camera in her visor–would see and document security, safety, procedural, or legal violations by Box personnel that they would have no time to hide.

The emergency intake team which should have been at the cell was instead outside in the rain with a transfer container. And a helpful warning in the corner of her visor display was flashing; DASI was giving her a 90%+ chance of going to Red status for social interaction as soon as she slowed down.

And she’d thought the hard part was over.

The container was open with a tarp in front of it. A handling team in biohazard gear stood nearby, with another more varied group a little farther away. They all had eye and ear protection, so at least they’d listened to their safety guy. There was an argument in progress. Flicker set her visor to record it for review while she took care of something pressing.

She lowered Hermes–who looked like something that had been left on a grill for too long–to the tarp, said “Stay here,” replaced her glove, and glided over to the EMT in the farther group.

“Oral rehydration?” she said, and watched his eyes.

He started to reply and point, but she’d identified the correct container before he could get a word out, extracted several bottles, and returned to Hermes, who was still lying on his back but had opened his mouth to the rain. She lifted him to a sitting position and gave him an open bottle.

“Drink.”

He needed no encouragement. He’d lost more than 20 kilos of water mass on the way. And rehydration would keep him safely occupied for a bit. She replayed the argument on her visor then focused on the far group again. Doc had authorized the Database to override com gear as needed and it was telling most of them what not to do. The team commander was muttering angrily into his helmet microphone, the EMT was tapping at his handcomp, and several others were listening with varying degrees of apprehension while they looked back and forth between Flicker and Hermes.

Flicker read the Database summary for one of the arguers, then glided over to stand in front of him. He was a middle-aged man with puffy eyes and the resigned expression of someone who was expecting a bad day to get worse.

“You,” she said. "Magician. Why are you worried Hermes will ‘boomerang’ and what does that mean?“

"Means he might get sent back to wherever he came from. Was he summoned?”

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

“Then there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“If you were doing your job–!” yelled the commander.

“Hush,” said Flicker from just in front of his face. "Competent people are talking. Interrupt again and you get duct-taped.“

She moved back to the magician. "Go on. Is there anything that can stop it?”

He raised an eyebrow. "Sure. The anchors in his cell. And I should be able to handle anything he tries, as long as you leave him inside the circle in the transfer container. But he’s not the problem. A boomerang is usually insurance set up by the summoner. Like a timer running down, or a bungee cord pulling something back.“

"I could have him in his cell in under a second with no damage and less risk than moving him in your container,” said Flicker. "He could already be there. But your management won’t unlock the doors. So if he gets away, that’s on you.“

The magician looked over at the commander and shrugged. The commander looked apoplectic but said nothing.

Flicker picked up Hermes much more gently than before, with one arm under his back and another behind his knees. He clutched the rehydration bottles protectively as she placed him carefully inside the circle and emerged from the container.

"Custody transfer complete,” she said. "Records time-stamped and filed. I’ll watch for a bit, just in case.“

A technician monitored the sensor feed from the container as the handlers closed the hatch. Flicker’s last view of Hermes was of him hunched over in the circle, drinking from one of the bottles. The light grey patch where she’d held his ankle was prominently visible against the darkened crust of the rest of his body.

One of the handlers used a forklift to pick up the container and began driving slowly towards the entrance while the sensor tech walked beside and the others followed. Flicker frowned at the latest Database update from Rome.

A paramilitary response team appears to have located the summoning magician. Identification is still uncertain. They are approaching with non-optimal gear and protocols; they were dispatched to counter Hermes, not the magician, but shifted targets after you removed him.

Am I going to have to go back there? she replied.

Contraindicated. Your status is red. The team has opened fire with anti-tank rocket launchers.

"Shit!” said the technician. The forklift stopped and the commander started yelling.

The crisis response team’s target is dead. Several team members are dead or injured from a misfire or malfunction of as yet unclear origin.

Wonderful. Flicker replayed her visor record and watched the container bounce slightly just before the technician’s exclamation, then checked her own sensors. So she wasn’t surprised when the handlers reopened the container.

It was empty.

Next: Part 4

