Cars rattled down the road, people hurried along the streets, and vendors called out their services. This was your ordinary day in Neo Utopia. A city built as a dream to bring cultures together. Don’t be fooled by its name. Neo Utopia was filled with crime, and plenty of heroes to keep the scum at bay.
One such hero walked about the city just now. An unassuming man in a simple business suit strolled down main street, observing the passersby. In his right hand he held a steaming hotdog smothered in mustard and dill relish, his typical Thursday lunch from Tim’s Street Food.
Pausing before the First National Bank of Utopia, he marveled at the amazing Gothic design and accents. He finished his hotdog as he considered the gargoyles on the corners and the five story tall columns.
BOOM! Screaming!
“What the?” The detective felt the road rock, the air shake, the entire city become instantly uneasy. Someone had just set off an explosion in the bank. However, when he reached inside his sport coat for his cellphone, he found an empty pocket. Pulling his hand out, there was no color on his skin. In fact, his coat had gone grey-toned, so had the street, the cars, and even the sky.
Women changed from jogging clothes and slacks to long dresses and loads of curls in their hair. The cars zooming by changed to roadsters and towncars. Phone booths popped up here and there. Even a police box appeared right next to him.
More screaming!
A gaggle of gangsters rushed out of the bank, several holding Tommy guns while the rest held bulging bags of loot. A line of Cadillacs waited for the getaway just as the sirens of the old cop cars raced toward the scene.
“Rutkowsky.” the name growled out like yesterday’s coffee...whatever that means.
Slamming open the police box, the detective dialed an extremely long number and then waited. “Yes, operator, reverse the charges.”
***
Nova sported a heavy boot on his right leg, still mending after a terrible break. With a step, then stamp, then step, then stamp, he made his way out of the elevator and down to the front of operations. Robots worked as usual, and Chase stood in command for the morning.
“Sir, did Dr. Henderson say you should be back at work?”
“What does that woman know? I’m not sitting around and waiting for things to heal. My brain is fine and I’m going to do my job. I’ve worked through worse than this.”
Chase gave him a snide grin, “so, that would be a ‘no’. Oh, well. I certainly don’t outrank you. I don’t see how standing around here all day could be worse than sitting in your quarters.”
“Who said I’d be standing! Get me a chair.” He motioned with his hand.
She retrieved a chair from the corner and he sat down with a lot of old-man noises. “Better, sir?”
Nova nodded, “yes. I may defy her orders to do nothing, but I sure as hell won’t make things worse by standing on this broken leg all day. Now, anything to report?”
“I’m not sure. We had an alarm, but it went silent before I could check on it.”
“Alarm? Where?”
She gestured toward one robot that put a map of the world on the main screen. A circle blinked around Neo Utopia with small bits of data rolling by.
Chase said, “our sensors detected a surge in morphonic power and there was an alarm set off from the bank...but it went silent before we could check. I sent a standard request for information, and they haven’t gotten back to us. I suspect it was an accident or a false alarm. Nothing else is showing up on sensors there.”
“Are you sure? What about that morphon surge?”
Chase shrugged, “nothing too worrisome. With all the heroes in and around Neo Utopia, I suspect the morphon levels in the area are on the high side anyway.”
“Lets check it out, just to be certain.”
Chase picked up a control pad from the robot and checked through the sensors. “See. The levels are high, but nothing to worry about. No singular spike anywhere.”
“Something doesn’t feel right.” Nova said. “Those numbers are too even across the whole city. And, look at that other sensor. The digital data traffic leaving Neo Utopia has bottomed out. A city that large and no digital traffic.”
Chase frowned. “I didn’t notice that. No internet signals, no wireless transmissions. That’s weird.”
“Do we have any drones around there?”
Chase checked through sensors. “Yes, we have several in the vicinity. What the hell?” She had just flicked on an image that was miles above the city. Green hills and splotches of suburbs surrounded a gray zone.
Just then, Gar came rushing into the operations center. “Director, something just happened.” He held an old dial telephone in his hands, a cord dangling from the back of it, unattached to anything.
Nova let out a hard sigh, “let me guess, it was ringing.”
“Yes. And I punched every button on it and it wouldn’t stop. So, I brought it in here, it has stopped.” He held up the old telephone.
Nova had a hand to his face. “That was our only basic telephone on the station, and you ripped it out of the wall.”
“This is not a telephone. Telephones have screens.” Gar stated.
Chase shook with a deep chuckle. “I forget how young you really are, Gar. That’s a telephone.”
“I’m over seven hundred.” Gar said.
Nova said, “There is only one person who would use a phone to call me. And, by the looks of things, I just know it was him.”
“Who?” Chase asked.
Nova spit the name out like it was a bad piece of steak. “Peyton!”
“Peyton?”
Nova spent a moment mulling this over. He looked up at that image of a gray town, the countryside slowly losing color as this anomaly expanded. “Chase, Gar, I have a mission for you. Both of you head to Neo Utopia. Check out the First National Bank and see what happened. Then get back here quickly. If this is what I think it is, you shouldn’t stick around for too long.”
“What about this Peyton?” Chase asked.
Nova almost growled for a moment as he simmered on that name. Finally he said, “don’t worry about him, just get back here.”
Chase turned to leave with Gar, but Nova stopped them.
“Wait.” He pulled out an old business card. “Here. If, by some horrible chance, you need help. Look him up.”
Chase took the card and left for their, hopefully brief, mission.
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