The Mighty Doc Stalwart #256

The Heart of the Matter

Adapted from The Mighty Doc Stalwart #256 (July 1984)

By Dr. Mike Desing

      As was her usual routine, Amanda Meadows punched the buttons for level D-13. She sipped her coffee. They put too much sugar in again. Ugh. She fumbled in her purse for her key card. If she left it on the kitchen table… no. Here it is.

      The door pinged open. Two guards. “Morning, Ms. Meadows.”

      She showed the first one her card. He scanned it. Nodded to the other.

      The second guard held up a white plastic gun-shaped device. She leaned forward as he pointed it into her eye. 

      “Identity confirmed. Amanda Meadows. Clearance 7.”

      The guards nodded. “Have a good day, Ms. Meadows.”

      She nodded, sipping coffee. Ugh. She has to remind them tomorrow: less sugar.

      She walked past another security checkpoint, and over the biometric scanner, “Morning Ms. Meadows”. And past another, through the neurological stability analytic processor. “Morning, Ms. Meadows.”

      She was really thinking about just dumping this coffee and starting over. It was a lot of sugar.

      She turned left, then left again. Two rights. Then left again. Clean, white hallways. It would be easy to get lost in here. That is, if she didn’t do the same thing every day, for the last 1,742 days.

      She swiped the card one more time, and she was into the small, sparse office that she called home. Okay, she didn’t really call it home, except ironically. There was nothing homey about it. A clean, white computer on a clean, white counter, in a clean, white room. A class 3200 Verinax microscope. Her seven binders of copious, hand-written notes. And the two vials of blood she’d spend her day with.

      Except...

      She tapped the button next to the computer. A voice came on, “Ms. Meadows?”

      “Why is the sample not complete today? I only have one vial.”

      A checking of notes and mumbling on the other end. A crackle.

      “Negative. Two vials were drawn at 1435 hours. Delivered there. Scanned and signed off on.”

      Son. Of. A…

      Suddenly, sugar did not seem like such a big deal.

***

      Mikah paced. This was not normal for him. He remembered reading in stories about how people paced back and forth when they were nervous or anxious, and that always seemed trite. Like, nobody really paces. That’s just stupid.

      And then he paced some more.

      This was a bad idea. Terrible. It wasn’t going to work. This was reckless. This wasn’t what Doc would do. Doc didn’t take stupid risks. That is, if Doc could do anything right now.

      But Doc was still sedated. He’d had his third operation, and it had gone poorly. Their laser had a hard time cutting through his bone, since it was even denser than they’d expected. None of the muscles in his arm and hand were cooperating with their poking and prodding. Putting the shattered hand back together was proving even more difficult than expected.

      The whole medical team had been popping antacids like candy. Mikah was about ready to join them.

      And then Zirah appeared, climbing up through the solid floor. Mikah immediately picked up the silver sword he had at the ready and handed it to her. She was silently coughing up blood. Maybe. It was reddish, but it was also semi-transparent, like her.

      She kneeled in front of him for a long minute, holding the sword with both hands and seeming to breathe deeply. He wanted to ask, but he knew that she couldn’t hear him.

      He had realized (okay, her file had told him - same difference, right?) that she actually cannot hear anything, because she lives in absolute silence. However, she is able to read surface-level thoughts of those trying to communicate with her - so as you talk to her, she reads your intentions. He thought it was kind of cool but also really super weird. He didn’t know if she was too tired to communicate yet, but he had to know. “Zirah… were you able to-”

      She held forth the vial. Purple liquid splashed around inside.

      He carefully took it from her. Immediately, he saw it in his mind’s eye. Zirah lifting it from the lab table. How difficult it was for her to phase into the walls; the pain she endured forcing herself through structures that had Eutonium lining - lining put there to defy exactly her sort of powers. 

      Or maybe, Mikah was starting to believe, exactly her powers.

      He could see how she had to go through seven different walls, and a duct complex system, lined with the same incredibly valuable (and rare) element. He saw how meticulously that research floor had been hidden, and how hard they had worked to keep her out.

      But the vial told him more; who it came from; what it was for. 

      And it confirmed everything.

      “Thank you.” Mikah wanted to touch her shoulder, but it was not solid yet. She was working on it.

      She might have nodded. 

***

      Doc was still in the recovery room, still sedated. A nurse was checking his vitals. Mikah walked up and stood for a second, waiting for the routine to finish. The nurse smiled at him, “I’m sure he’ll be just fine.”

      Mikah could tell she didn’t believe it.

      “I’ll give you some time.” She left, pulling the curtain behind her.

      Mikah put his hand on Doc’s arm. There was nothing to read. No, that wasn’t true. There was something, something dark and hidden. 

      “You’re next,” Mikah said, with a resolve that he didn’t know he had, to a something he wasn’t sure could hear him.

      He had gone through the directions several times, but still wasn’t comfortable doing this. Clamp the hose. Disconnect the IV. Attach the end to the vial. Turn the vial over.

      He watched the purple liquid make its way down the line, inching its way, until it met Doc’s arm. Then, it disappeared beneath a thick bandage. 

      One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Three-one-thousand.

      Doc coughed.

      “Doc, it’s Mikah, can you--”

      Doc coughed again and sat up, yanking the cables from his arms and chest, ripping the bandages off his hand.

      He tested his hand. It was fully recovered. He looked around, struggling to get his bearings.

      “Doc, listen. We have to move.”

      Alarms were already sounding.

      By the time the crash team arrived, they found only a disheveled bed, a room in disarray, and an empty vial on the ground. 

***

      Mikah pushed the button on the console, and it produced a cup of tea. Mikah handed it to Doc Stalwart. He was Doc Stalwart again. Completely.

      “Very clever,” Doc said, “preparing the Beetle like this. Why did you think to--”

      “The Beetle has a reflective shell of alien make. Resists all scanning systems currently in use. I estimate that it will take them maybe twenty minutes to start looking here for us on foot.”

      “Fourteen minutes and five seconds is most likely. But good job. Excellent. I presume that Mr. Silvers told you.”

      “About being the next Chronicle? Yes.”

      “And how do you feel about that?”

      “Do I have a choice?”

      Doc smiled his big smile. “You always have a choice, son.”

      Mikah nodded. He took in a breath, “There’s something I need to tell you.”

      “Well, you’ve got thirteen minutes and forty-five seconds.”

      Mikah looked at the clock, “Then I’ll get to it. It’s a lie. What you believe about yourself. Your history. All a lie.”

      Doc paused. He wasn’t a man given to denial. “Go on.”

      “When did you meet your wife?”

      Doc seemed surprised by the question, “I was twelve. We were in the program together. She was a very powerful mentalist. We were friends long before we had romantic ideas about each other.”

      Mikah shook his head, “No. You met at ten. The day you used the Freedom Formula.”

      Doc thought about this for a moment. “My memory is at twelve. The playground. She wanted me to push her on the swings.”

      Mikah shook his head again, “No. The day you re-created the Freedom Formula, you met her. She was forced to implant false memories. To make you believe something about yourself that wasn’t true.”

      Doc shook his head. Again, he wasn’t given to denial, but this was a stretch, “But why? I was sharing the Freedom Formula. I mean, yes, I had tried it on myself first, but then was willing to share with others.”

      “That’s the thing,” Mikah corrected, “You didn’t make it for yourself. You made it for your dying twin brother. To save him.”

      Doc choked on the words, “Wait. Brother? But… Did it work? Did I save him?”

      “I don’t know for sure what happened. That’s not in the files yet. But I know he’s downstairs.”  

      Doc was no longer smiling. “Where?”

***

      Mikah was suddenly feeling much better abut himself. He knew that his previous plan had been foolhardy, reckless, and almost doomed to failure. Doc had just topped him, by several miles.

      Doc was busy throwing switches and punching buttons, hooking a shoebox-sized device covered in wires and diodes and who knows what else to the Beetle’s main console in several places. 

      Jynx was roaming about the cabin, fetching things as Doc called for them; calipers, a pair of grips, three blue cables, and an inverse void processor had all been requested and delivered in short order from a huge storage compartment in the floor.

      “Let me get this straight…” Mikah was shaking his head, “we are going to teleport into the lab?”

      “No,” Doc corrected, “we are going to do an enhanced blink. Teleport moves through a compressed, parallel reality to arrive at a fixed point. We are going to be bending this reality to shorten the distance between two points. Completely different.”

      Uh huh.

      Doc continued, “I’ve been working on this blink platform for about a year now, and we’re going to totally burn it out in one effort. That is, unless we bend ourselves into a solid wall or floor.”

      Mikah gulped, “how do you know where to go?”

      “I don’t,” Doc was smiling again, “but Zirah does. She was there, so she’s driving.”

      Zirah nodded at Mikah and she took the controls. Mikah sat down and strapped himself in.

      Jynx had found a flat spot on the bulkhead and was using duct tape to strap himself to it. He might have been smiling. 

      Doc offered forth a mouth guard, “you should probably bite down on this as we go. It’s going to be rough.”

      Zirah activated the controls, and Doc sat down, hooking his seat belt with one hand while operating his improvised blink controller (if that’s what it was - Mikah still wasn’t quite sure) with the other. On the far side of the hangar bay, a purplish light came to life on the floor.

      “That’s it, Zirah. Set her down right in the middle of that platform. Think of exactly where you want to go. Try to pick a place where the Beetle will fit.”

      Guards ran into the hangar bay, shouting and waving their hands. They thought about drawing weapons, but this was Doc Stalwart after all. They may have been experiencing some man vs. self conflict.

      Mikah checked the clock. Dang. Thirteen minutes and forty-seven seconds. Zirah was carefully hovering the ship, nudging it towards the platform. Doc pushed buttons and adjusted knobs and tinkered with cables.

      The guards shouted for them to stop. One of them pulled out his pistol and prepared to fire on the Beetle. Its lower hull brushed against the purple platform.

      And then it was gone.