[It’s been a while, and I apologize for that. Have a new chapter. It’s from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call. The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books. I try to post new chapters about every two weeks, and the next one is planned for around June 20th.]

Previous: Chapter 22



“You’re doing really well at working through the fear,” said Jetgirl to Flicker, hovering beside her. "Lots of folks are afraid of flying, and you have good reason.“ She smiled. "You’re just more enthusiastic about hitting the ground. Practice will help with the panic. But you’re starting to look pretty grim, and I just got a warning from Yiskah. Remember we don’t need to cover everything in the first lesson.”

They were up in the air. Somewhere. Flicker was concentrating on not thinking about that too much. They were using the com because Flicker’s inertial damping field shredded external sounds, and she wasn’t about to turn it off when she had so little stability and momentum she’d have to worry about wind.

“Yeah,” said Flicker. "You’re right. I think… I need to get back to the ground now.“

"Okay. I’ll stay on overwatch. Good luck!” Knowing which way was up wasn’t nearly as important to Flicker as knowing which way was down.

Flicker always needed to know which way was down. Earth gravity was so weak it was barely detectable at the speeds she usually moved. So she had to run down, accelerate down. Otherwise she’d go flying off into the sky, forever.

That was her real fear. One bad mistake, and she was gone.

It was a bone-deep reflexive fear, like fear of fire or the dark, gifted to her by her mother, who had known Flicker would have the power to run off into space accidentally long before she was old enough to know better.

The fear wasn’t just in her human brain. Other fears she could at least temporarily avoid by speeding up–but that would have defeated the purpose for this one. It was part of her high speed mind too.

And far from the ground, with no significant vector, she felt a constant background hum of wrongness from her hazard detection reflexes. An itchy, distracting set of signals that had probably originally meant things like ‘operating outside accepted parameters’, 'calibration data missing’, and 'inadequate dynamic feedback’.

Flicker didn’t use her inner ear for balance when she moved, and wasn’t limited to seeing with her eyes–her high speed nervous system detected mass and obstacles by the changes in the feel of space. She could use General Relativity to see.

But for it to work well, she had to either be very close or moving fast. Way over orbital speed. And that didn’t go with being very far from the ground, not if she ever wanted to come back. So up in the air, she felt either blind or helpless. Or both.

Unless she was already on course for a different large mass, with enough momentum to keep anything from stopping her. That was how she’d managed her jumps to the Moon.

Right now she was far from anything massive, had no momentum, and her top acceleration was… four g’s.

Instead of her usual ten billion.

That wasn’t snail slow, that was going upstairs by climbing into a tree under the window and waiting for it to grow slow. It was barely faster than falling.

Flicker took a deep breath and started her long journey back to Earth. She wasn’t going to be able to keep her mind at human speed the whole way, so this part would be both stressful and tedious. But not unexpected.

*****

“Not what I expected,” said Donner, looking at the screen in front of Ernie. "Did you go ahead and send a good quality practice recording?“

"Yeah,” said Ernie. "Earlier today, while you and Luis were arguing with the record company people.“

"So what did Osk sing that freaked people out?” asked Dan. "The news reports didn’t mention the singing at all, and we’re helping, so don’t keep us in suspense.“

"Well,” said Donner, doing exactly that, “From what I’d heard of her voice, I figured she might do something by Annie Lennox or Whitney Houston. Or maybe Aretha Franklin. But she had to pick by title from a bunch of songs she’d never heard before on a karaoke machine in Tokyo. And I was being too limited in my thinking.”

“Not a female vocalist,” guessed Wendy.

“No.”

“Dude,” said Pete. "Stop being a dick. What act? What song?“

Donner grinned. "The Stranglers. No More Heroes.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah. To a bunch of teen and tween Japanese superheroes. After they’d beaten the crap out a couple of Kaiju together. And she made it work.”

Pete frowned. "Isn’t that really against type?“

"Hey, it’s a great song,” said Wendy.

“You just love it for the retro keyboard solo.”

“We’ll find out pretty soon,” said Donner. "DASI says she’ll be here in five minutes.“

*****

It would take seconds, not minutes, for her to get to the ground. Flicker didn’t have to worry about terminal velocity. But it still seemed like forever.

So she remembered. Memories, any memories, were better than contemplating her agonizing return.

Jetgirl didn’t always understand Flicker, but she understood flying enough to ask the right questions, before they’d started the long delayed lesson.

"So when you say you can’t fly,” said Jetgirl, “You mean–”

“The same thing people mean when they say they can’t swim. I have no practice, it terrifies me, and I’m life-threateningly bad at it.”

“Aren’t you always flying, just near the ground? What do you use the ground for?”

“Mass,” said Flicker. "Mass for entropy dumping, reference, and balance. I use the ground like you would the railing on a curved stairway in the dark–to keep steady, and be sure I’m going the right way.“

Another question: "If you’re so scared of heights and flying, how did you manage to jump to the Moon without panicking?”

Flicker had struggled to answer that one. She’d finally come up with “It was scary. But I changed my frame of reference. I wasn’t jumping up from the Earth, even while I was still on it. I was jumping down to the Moon. And down is always safe.”

Safe, but so slow right now. She finally passed Mach one, and started trailing mild shockwaves.

*****

Osk made waves. The ones from her Tokyo visit were still reverberating.

Though whatever problems her singing had caused, she’d handled them well enough that they hadn’t even been noticed. And her reason for being in Tokyo in the first place–returning the Japanese superhero Firefist home after he’d been duped into an abortive attempt to assassinate Black Swan–was being quietly ignored.

But maybe that wasn’t so hard to understand–when Osk showed up, it was easy to forget about whatever you’d been doing before.

She laughed at something Luther said, and Donner considered her. She had presence. That best described the effect she had on people.

Donner could project a presence as strong as hers was right now–but he’d have to work at it, and it would be a real effort except during a concert. If she was making any special effort, he sure couldn’t tell.

He looked over at Ernie, behind his mixing board, and got a thumbs up. The rest of the band had their headphones on for safety, just like they did when he recorded raw vocals with them–Ernie would be managing the filter levels. Donner wouldn’t be playing or singing. He would just listen, and assess.

“So, you ready to do this?” he asked.

“Indeed,” Osk replied with a smile, and he couldn’t help grinning back.

He nodded to the band, they launched into the intro, and Osk started to sing.

*****

The air sang around Flicker, flowing past the edges of her damping field as she passed Mach two on her way down.

Flicker didn’t actually dislike air, even though it got in her way a lot. She needed it to breathe, after all. But it was almost useless for propulsion.

It was only about a thousand times less dense than water–but she couldn’t use it for stabilization, like she could with a solid or liquid. And that stabilization was what let her power push her whole body in the same direction at the same time. Without it, she’d get tiny misaligments as the molecules in her body moved around. Those would quickly add up, and leave her with heat instead of speed.

And it would be almost impossible to keep her vector aimed exactly through her center of mass. Which would mean torque, and spin. So with nothing around her but air, it was easiest to just ignore it, and accelerate in tiny pulses, with long waits in between to assess and adjust. Like pushing a sailboat by waving a feather at the sail every five minutes. Which was where the four g’s came from.

But she was finally getting close to the ground, and oh was that welcome.

The farthest reach of her stabilization ability was about fifty meters. Maybe fifty-five if she pushed.

She pushed. Reached out for the Earth, her home. And exulted as she felt the first touch, and could finally apply her power.

*****

Osk had the power. The Voice. Any doubts Donner had were gone. She sang with a crackling growl, making the song about all the einherjar who had died forever–in the fleet battle and before. And her own anger about it. It was easy to get into trouble when you made a song personal. Donner knew that from experience.

The band was having a great time, and Wendy had gone nuts embellishing the keyboard solo. Osk finished her vocals, leading into the instrumental finale. Donner glanced over at Ernie to see what he thought.

Ernie’s face was white. He mutely pointed at Wendy, whose eyes were closed as her fingers danced over her keyboards and when had she taken her headphones off?

Donner felt the chill of fear and the heat of anger, together.

*****

Twenty g’s. Fifty. Two hundred.

Flicker felt a flush of heat as she increased her acceleration; she couldn’t entropy dump quite yet. She was using all her concentration to stretch her mass reach to the limit. That was fine–she’d cool down later.

Eight hundred. Two thousand. Five thousand.

She sped her mind up to maximum speed and pulled herself toward the ground, increasing her acceleration microsecond by microsecond with the barest minimum of stabilization.

Twenty thousand g’s. Eighty thousand. Four hundred thousand. Two million.

She wasn’t going completely straight down, and the balance wasn’t perfect–but it was good enough.

Twelve million. Sixty million. Three hundred million.

She was starting to glow. The air molecules next to her skin and costume were turning to plasma from proximity to the rapid change in acceleration, despite her damping.

One billion. Four billion. Eight billion. And then ten.

Ten billion g’s. Seventeen microseconds after she’d managed first stabilization contact with the ground, she was up to her maximum safe acceleration of ten to the eleventh meters per second squared.

But her velocity was only up to about two hundred thousand meters per second. Six hundred times the speed of sound, which might seem like a lot–but it was still less than a tenth of a percent of the speed of light. And Flicker generally found it more useful to measure herself against light, not sound. She’d only had time to travel about another five centimeters–so she was still almost fifty-five meters above the ground, her connection tenuous.

Flicker wanted down now. But she also didn’t want to start flooding her body and surroundings with Hawking radiation, which was what tended to happen when she added kinetic energy at more than ten billion g’s. At least she could finally move properly. She practiced patience, and continued to accelerate.

She was about ten meters above the welcome ground, traveling down at just over one percent of c, when she realized two things.

First, she’d pulled so hard when she’d first made contact that residual momentum transfer had brought some of the ground up to meet her.

And second… It was time to start thinking about energy release–and blast radius–when she stopped.

*****

The music had stopped, to whoops from the band and a smile from Osk.

Donner was not smiling. He should not have done this with the band in the same room as Osk. He’d been reckless.

“Good work, everyone,” he said, choosing his words carefully. "Sit down and we’ll talk in a minute,“ he said to Osk, who frowned.

"Wendy,” he continued, “you took off your headphones. You broke Safety Rule One.”

Wendy went from exultant to outraged. "Yeah I did! Ernie turned them down so far I could barely hear her voice–and I couldn’t play right without it. I–“

"Oh shit. Oh Wendy, no,” said Pete, looking sick. "No, you don’t wanna do that. You don’t. That’s how Milo started, and it killed him.“

"Milo? Donner’s first keyboardist? I thought he died of a drug overdose.”

“He didn’t start with drugs,” said Pete.

“It can’t be that bad! It’s not like–”

“It’s exactly that bad,” interjected Donner. "Pete, Becky? Can you take care of Wendy? Maybe help her get a cold shower or something? She’s going to be–“

"Donner, what the fuck?” said Wendy. "I just played like my best set ever and this is how you react?“

"Wendy, please,” said Pete. "If you’re gonna go that way you might as well start with heroin. It’s not as good, but it’s easier to kick and less likely to kill you.“

Wendy glanced at Donner incredulously, then back at Pete. "You’re serious.”

“We can talk after you come down,” said Pete. "Please?“

Wendy looked down at her keyboards, over at Osk, at Donner again, and finally back to Pete. "Okay. But I still think you’re all way overreacting.”

Donner let his breath out partway. "We’ll talk about it later. Clear out for now–the rest of you, too. I need to talk to Osk privately.“

"I can–” began Ernie.

“You can go with the others. And turn your board off. I don’t want any 'accidental’ recordings.”

“I am not turning DASI’s safety monitor off.”

“Fine, yeah, you can leave that on. Now out.”

Ernie closed the door after him, and Donner was alone with Osk, who was still standing.

“Sit down, and we’ll talk,” he said, trying to hold on to his last bit of patience.

“I will stand, thank you.”

“Sit down!”

Osk stared back at him, unflinching.

“With your best song,

And a crowd ten thousand strong,

You might turn my will with yours.

But not today. Not this way.

I shall stand.”

*****

Flicker stood by the edge of the north berm, breathing the air and appreciating the ground more than usual while she watched the mushroom cloud climb skyward.

It wasn’t anything to worry about. She’d hit the ground coming up to greet her near the center of her own test field, the berms had directed the shockwaves up, the fireball had been less than a tenth of a kiloton and wasn’t radioactive, the neighbors weren’t allowed to complain about the noise, and the dandelions would grow back. They always did.

There were voices on the com, some talking about her, but she didn’t reply just yet. She handled recovery from emotional stress a lot easier if she let her body chemistry catch up a bit before she started trying to talk.

“Didn’t bother me,” said Jetgirl with a laugh. "You don’t hang around Flicker long without learning to deal with shockwaves.“

"Can you tell if she’s stopped moving yet?” That was Journeyman, to someone else.

“She’s stopped somewhere nearby,” said Yiskah. "Not sure exactly where, and she’s not verbal, but I’m not getting panic.“

"She’ll be okay then,” said Journeyman. "Stopped means she’s done, the fireball and shockwaves are leftovers, and if nobody else got hurt, she’ll recover.“

"I’m fine,” Flicker replied, then coughed. The plume had kicked up a lot of dust.

“Great!” said Journeyman. He appeared briefly at the top of the berm, and said “Don’t move for a sec, I’ll be right back.”

“Why?” she asked, but he’d ported out again.

A few seconds later he was back, right in front of her, holding a large white square of cardboard with '9.8’ printed on it. She stared at it, puzzled for a moment, then got it and laughed.

“Hey, I stuck the landing,” she said. "That’s the important part.“

"You bet. You’d lose two-tenths for deafening the judges, but that’s not much out of ten.”

She put her arms around him, appreciating both the joke and the thought behind it, as they listened to the echoes off the low clouds. They sounded like distant thunder.

*****

Donner had learned a long time ago that nothing brought out the stupid in people like the combination of fear and anger. He was no exception. Not five minutes after finding out Osk had a voice like his and he tried to use it on her in a particularly insulting way? In a fit of pique?

Her response had combined poetry with the power of a strong backhand–he was still reeling a little. If she was truly offended…

“Well?” Osk said with a faint smile. "I expected a stronger opening if you wished to spar. Were you feigning weakness?“

Relief, along with a healthy dose of embarrassment. "No, I, ah, didn’t intend to start a fight. I was just really worried about Wendy.”

Osk’s expression softened. "Yes. What drives your fear and anger does you credit, even when your answer does not. But you can put your fear for her to rest. She is unharmed.“

"And how can you be sure of that, when you came to me for advice?”

“On custom, and the power of crowds. Humans are not einherjar, and the echoes from a hundred minds would surely differ from the dozen I calmed. Who knows how? You do.”

Osk gestured to Wendy’s keyboards as she continued. "A single lapse, in the heat of performance, will not change her. It was my voice she played to, not yours, and I know now the hazard. And do not overlook how the song moved you. I sang of loss, and fruitless anger, as I did the first time–is it any wonder your lost friend leapt to mind?“

"Ah. Yeah, there’s that. You have the power, and I’m not completely immune. Pete would feel it too–he knew Milo pretty well.” He sighed. "Well, we can sure go over the dangers, along with my own screw-ups, so you can try to avoid them.“

Osk moved closer and looked into his face with concern. "There are other matters. You are a healer, you are yourself wounded, and you hide both well. I have wished to raise this with you for some time, but you have avoided me.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to make Flicker nervous.”

A gentle smile. "You will not. She and I have moved past that–though we have spoken plainly of you in ways that may discomfit.“

Donner snorted. "Possibly. But she never messed me up too bad, and my broken arm healed soon enough, so–”

“I meant earlier, older wounds. I know the source of some–Lif confirmed the threads.”

“Oh? You’ve talked to Flicker about it?”

“No. That is not my place, unless you wish it. But was there a time, perhaps fifteen summers ago, or sixteen, when misfortune came to you thick and unexpected?”

“You mean when everyone seemed to decide I was an evil villain, if not the Antichrist, all at once, just when I was starting to use my singing to do a little good in the world? When there were a bunch of attempts to kill me, including a bomb at a concert? When I had to stop doing big concerts and tone down my recordings, because Doc told me he couldn’t keep protecting me from assassination otherwise, and sooner or later, someone would get me? And I lost more than half my fans because they thought I’d sold out? When Milo went over the edge, and Pete almost did?”

The anger was trying to come back. Donner pushed it down. "Yeah. Yeah, there was.“

"That was the Trickster. He was ever best at stirring petty fear and anger into a whirlpool, to overwhelm his target.”

“That sounds… possible. By why would he have it in for me?”

“He did not. But the Wanderer did, because you were drawing power he wished to have flow to another, someone he needed. So he sent the Trickster to arrange your death or diminishment. The Trickster settled for the second–but you need not fear him any more.”

Osk touched him on the shoulder. "You should visit the Nine Worlds, bring your music and power there. Your reception would be warm and personal, and might go a long way toward healing you.“

"Why?”

“We had to put up with that drunken, posturing thug for so long, the true bearer of your name would be very welcome.”

She smiled. "Thunderer.“

Next: Chapter 24

