Heroes Rising Fiction: The Delta Paradox Part 1

 Thousands of heroes fill every available space of the BADGE space station. Teams huddle together, but seem to mingle well with other teams. Former enemies in the arena are talking over tea while serious rivals joke with one another.

“Excuse me.” Chase pushes past a group who are watching a news monitor near the main mess hall.

Gar sidles along, his large wings making it extra hard to get around such a crowded space. He smiles as he says to Chase, “look, Darkwrath and Mr. Stupendous are eating lunch together. I thought they hated each other.”

“They did. At least after Faction Wars, they were bitter. But, I suppose getting shoved together in here has made them put aside grudges.”

“So, there is something good about this,” said Gar.

“Sure.” Chase muttered and found her way into the lift for the operations center.

She and Gar stepped out of the lift into the command center and found it too had a lot of extra people here. Heroes sat among the robots at the operation stations. Some helped do work, while others looked positively bored.

Santa met her at the front of the room. “Angela! Good, the call is about to start.”

“Incoming communications on secure channels.” A robot announced.

“Put it through.” She glanced back at a tech hero sitting among the robots. “Charlie, I want you to monitor all the tech and be certain no one hacks this signal.”

Two screens opened, one with Prime Minister Shizue and one with Mayor Christopher of Neo Utopia.

“Prime Minister, Mayor Christopher.” She greeted them.

Shizue asked, in a tone like a mother, “how are you, Chase?”

“As well as I can be under the circumstances. How are the heroes under your care?”

Shizue gave a soft nod. “We have over five thousand refugees in our borders right now. Most of them are unregistered supers that are too young or too old to be fighting anyone with their powers. No BADGE leagues made it inside before we were forced to seal the barrier. But we have a lot of amateur meta-humans helping protect us.”

Chase asked the Mayor, “what about Neo Utopia?”

“We don’t have any leagues present, either. Our focus was to get children and unregistered metas here. We have over ten thousand refugees in this city. I’m afraid some are sleeping in tents in the parks. Strangely enough, Rutkowski’s men have been seeing to security both on our border and on the streets. This city has never been safer. However, the combined forces of the World Corps and the UN are standing watch for any crack in our defenses.”

Shizue said, “the same here. We have a massive army standing just outside my barrier wall. The moment they see a crack, they will invade. I do not want war in our streets, but I won’t back down to their threats, either. My people have had enough bullies.”

Mayor Christopher asked, “what did Nova say is the next move? All the legitimate heroes of Earth are on standby, but for how long?”

“I...I don’t know. Director Nova never told me his plans. He simply didn’t want BADGE going to war against the nations. Any action against the World Corps would be viewed as an attack against all the nations. It would be civil war across the entire planet.”

Christopher said, “we must consider the next action. Without a plan from Nova, it’s up to us.”

“I concur,” Shizue said. “We cannot stand idle forever. My people will starve. We can barely support ourselves.”

Chase waited for someone else to pipe in with an idea or comment, but everyone simply looked at her. She recognized those eyes. It was the same look people gave Nova when it was time for a new plan. “I...I will...we...I will have to consider what to do and get back to you. All I can say is to be vigilant and don’t let harm come to those people. BADGE out.” She cut off the signal.

Santa kindly said, “that was well done, Angela.”

Chase put her face in her hand and whispered, “oh, God, what do I do? I’m not ready for this.”

***

Gamma sat in the command center of the secret base for the World Corps. On a screen was a view into
the temporary HQ set up near the United Nations. Judge Alpha and Beta sat in that room talking to other people on other monitors.

“Judge Alpha, the situation in the streets of Cairo is drastic. The Dust Devil gang is wreaking havoc. They are meta humans and known villains. My people cannot fight them with the regular police. We need your heroes to do something.” An ambassador from Egypt complained.

Alpha smiled at him with all the diplomacy she had. “I understand. Our heroes were only recently trained and assigned. I’m sure something will be done soon.”

A woman said, “just this week, two meta humans destroyed three banks and carried off the vaults. They are flaunting their actions in the face of our constabulary, knowing they can’t be stopped without heroes present. Tell your people to do something!”

Beta said, “we hear your concerns and I’ll address the UN soon about this. I’m sure our Commander Gamma will deal with this. I’m afraid our search for BADGE and their villains taxed our resources more than expected. Tell your people we will have the matter in hand.”

The screens to the UN cut off, and both Alpha and Beta turned to the secret monitor and looked at Gamma with severe eyes. Alpha demanded, “what’s going on, Gamma! We just gained the public’s trust. We can’t violate it now.”

Gamma shrugged with a loud huff, “tell that to our mighty leader. He said I would have command over the augments, and yet all I have been able to do is coordinate our mercs with the UN forces. The augments are only worried about finding BADGE and obeying Delta.”

“Where is Delta?” Beta craned his head to look around Gamma.

“Didn’t show up. Still back in the lab researching something.”

“Go and tell him what’s going on. I don’t care how much he threatens us, even he must realize we must do something,” commanded Alpha.

Gamma left his seat and walked back to the labs. Pushing the doors open, he found Delta glued to a complex computer terminal. Dr. Osteen was at another station, working on some genetic research. The fat doctor gave Gamma a shrug. Even he knew everyone was unhappy with Delta right now.

“Hey Delta, we have a growing problem.”

Delta ran several calculations and watched a map of the Earth. “It is out there, the time particles are fluctuating at the precise frequencies and 2200 hours. I will find you.”

Gamma stepped closer, “aren’t you listening to me?”

The map had a red marker show up and beeped wildly. Delta burst out with joy, “there! There he is! That is the temporal vortex that opened for seven point nine seconds. That must be how and when he got here. Now, I just need to find him.” He grabbed a tablet and walked away, just as focused on this new device as he had been on the computer.

“Delta!” Gamma watched him walk out of the room.

Delta casually waved a hand behind him, “yes, yes. Don’t bother me.”