The Wounded World, a story of Mantra, Chapter 6

By Aladdin 

Edited by Christopher Leeson

The Wounded World

Originally written 2006

Revised and posted Feb. 21, 2019 

Chapter 6

WHAT ARE LITTLE GIRLS MADE OF?



"Every house a den, every man bound;
The shadows are filled with specters,
And the windows wove over with curses of iron..." 
 
William Blake

As soon as we got back to Penny's digs, I spread out on the couch to rest. Such a day!

Pinnacle crossed into the kitchen, and when she reappeared, she was balancing coffee cups on a tray. The scientist offered me one, saying, "From all you've said, you're carrying quite a load of trouble. What do you need to fix first?"

I sat up and tasted the beverage before answering. "If I'm ever going to get back to my real home, I'll need to recover my Mantra powers."

She set the tray aside and occupied the chair across from me. "Okay. Do you have any fresh ideas about how they were lost?"

I shrugged. "I wasn't the one who lost them. What Evie said makes me think that Mantra still had her powers even after Gus got his. She was probably taken by surprise by his attack. Maybe Evie is right. Maybe Mantra got hurt fighting with her brother."

"What kind of an attack did Gus make?"

"Search me. Evie used the word 'zapped.' The boy probably released some sort of magical blast. I know how that works. On my first night in Eden Blake's body, I incinerated a street creep who came at me. I wasn't trying to draw up magic; it came up automatically in self-defense.”

“You're tied emotionally to your abilities?”

“I guess so. They're at their strongest when I'm furious.” I took a mouthful of coffee and set down my cup. “Where do ultra powers arise from anyway?”

"There's been a theory, rising in popularity, that ultra powers come from the so-called 'junk DNA' that everyone possesses. It makes up about ninety-seven percent of the whole.”

I cocked my eye. "It comes out of the DNA? Then how does that jive with what I learned on the moon? There was an artificial brain on the moon that had been sending out energy bursts for thousands of years. It created ultras from ordinary human beings. Remember that sky blast that hit that San Francisco trolley? Most of the fifty-nine people inside the vehicle got ultra powers. That was the AI brain – the Entity – that did that."

Pinnacle nodded. "That case has been intensely studied. One of the people on the trolley who didn't seem to get powers was my old boss – my old slave master -- J.D. Hunt. He happened to be on that that streetcar at the faithful moment.”

“A trillionaire riding a public trolley?”

“That's J.D. He likes to go slumming incognito, finding out what real people think – so he can make up new ways to trick them and screw them over. I never saw him use an ultra power, but sometimes, when he was near, I could sense an odd energy field. I couldn't make any sense of it, but when it powered up it made my hair stand on end.”

"Does everyone have the potential to become an ultra? If so, what, exactly, is an ultra?"

“A lot of people who've studied the matter think that an ultra is a person who is able to draw from genetically-granted capabilities beyond what's normal for most people. There are some people who seem to be born with powers. From what you've told me, Eden Blake might have been that kind of ultra. But if that streetcar phenomenon was able empowered a random sample of people, it's clear that the ultra potential can be artificially stimulated. Possibly, most of the people on Earth has some sort of ultra capability. I'm wondering if the ancient gods weren't actually...."

"Ultras?"

She gave me a sort of “not quite” look. "Hercules might have been a sort of B.C. Hardcase, but I think a god-like being is something extra. Our genetic configuration provides us with many different traits. Possibly, the 'higher DNA' that can produce ultras could also provide us with many different abilities all at the same time. The more abilities one displays, the more godlike he seems.”

"I've met a few gods in my day. In ancient times, the Godwheel was crawling with them.”

“That super-sized artificial solar system in deep space?”

I nodded. “The toughest one I ran into was Loki. He could do almost anything, and loved doing it! I'm still not sure why that nut-case let Primeval and me get away with our lives.”

She shook her head. “From the way you live your life, I don't know how you manage to stay alive from day to day.”

“It's not the way I want to live. I died hundreds of times in Archimage's cause, but the next time it happens I'm afraid that it's going to be for keeps.” Suddenly I got a flash. "Wait a minute! How can DNA be responsible for an ultra like Electro-Cute? She's an artificial life form, but still the Entity's energy burst was able to empower her.

"That dicey question has come up in most of the scientific studies. We don't know exactly how Electro-Cute was put together. Possibly UltraTech used human DNA in her construction. Let's consider her case an unanswered question."

"Okay, but if there's a jump-start, can't there be an 'anti-jump-start'? Could something have switched off the power-genes inside this body?"

"I'll know more if you allow me to examine you intimately.”

“I'm game, but just don't get too intimate about it.”

The scientist smiled. “If I looked like Rosie O'Donnell, I could understand such reluctance, but....” she made a casual gesture to call my attention to her figure. Then, abruptly, she changed the subject. “How do you fix a malfunctioning computer?”

I blinked. “If you don't know, don't ask me. Remember, I'm from the days before stirrups were invented.”

“I mean, if there's a bad chip, a computer tech doesn't look for the one pinpoint that needs fixing. Instead, he pulls out the board that fails the testing and slots in a factory-certified replacement. Lauren is a witch who's extremely similar to Mantra, isn't she?"

"She seems to be."

"Good. Studying her might let us map a paradigm for how a healthy witch should check out. Wherever we find that you're different from her, that could be the source of your problem. I hope she hero-worships you enough to put up with what could turn into a series of long tests."

I shrugged. "I think she might. She's quite a fan."

"That would be a break. But what about 'Strike -- ah, Warstrike, as you call him? In the car, you said you helped him when his precognitive abilities started to fail."

“I tried transferring a little healing energy into him. It worked like a charm. Afterwards he seemed to be bake in form.”

She eyed me narrowly. “Could his problem have been psychosomatic?”

“I don't know. Maybe. He sure cured easily.”

“Is it possible that Mantra could be suffering from psychosomatic symptoms herself?”

“The other one? How can I know that. I think I've got my own head on pretty straight."

Pinnacle stroked her chin with a thumb. "So you think. But the mind is more powerful than muscle. Thoughts behave like computer programs inside the body. A bad mental attitude can make a person sick. The trauma of what happened on Friday might have thrown some mental switch inside Mantra's head."

"And I have to take the consequences of that hit? Hell! Where does that leave us?"
"Now that the conflicted mind of your double have been removed, your powers might reset on their own. It may take some time. After all, you haven't been in that body for very long.”

"Are you saying that Mantra lost her powers because she thought they did more harm than good?”

"I didn't say that. The hysterically blind don't set out wanting to be sightless. But the subconscious mind may interpret our deep-seated desperation in strange ways."

"So, you're recommending that we wait to see what happens? What next? 'Take two aspirins and call you in the morning?'”

Penny's brows drew together. "If your problem fixes itself, we're home free. But there has been work on how to switch on ultra powers, based on the DNA theory. For instance, the Theta Virus seems to induce ultra powers into people. What if it is not a natural disease, but the infecting microbes are really artificial nanites? ”

“Could be. The records I hacked suggested that the disease may have come from outer space. But the Theta Virus is dangerous. What Aladdin was trying to do in its own ham-handed way killed every person they'd treated.”

“If its tender-loving care, never go to a government black ops outfit. Fortunately, I have a much simplier idea.”

I looked up. “Simple is good.”