Heroes Rising Fiction: The Delta Paradox Part 2

 Gamma stood in the laboratory, frustrated and at a loss for what action to take. The bays that were formally filled with the augmented people were vacant. The testing facilities were offline. Only a few computers remained operational. The only other living soul here was Dr. Osteen, and he had his nose buried in his own computer.

“Osteen!”

“It’s Doctor Osteen. I didn’t suffer twelve years of college and a painful dissertation to leave that part out.” Osteen declared and then continued working.

Gamma stomped over to him. “Fine, Doctor Osteen. Do you have any idea why Delta is acting so...strange lately?”

Osteen shrugged, “who knows? That dude has been a bundle of nerves since the day he broke me outta prison. He has been more up tight lately.”

“Can you show me what he has been working on in here?”

Osteen sat back and said, “everything he works on is locked out to everyone, including me. He keeps his secrets. However...” Osteen gained a devilish smile. “I can hack into just about anything. One of the many reasons I’m the most wanted scientist in the world.”

“Prove it.”

Osteen shoved off against his own station and wheeled across the lab in his chair, landing in front of Delta’s station. In a show of pure theater, he cracked his knuckles, wiggled his fingers, and then went to town on the keyboard. “Lets see...simple firewalls, password check points, some basic diversionary programs...and....here...we...go. Eleven seconds and I’m in. Not my personal best, but pretty good.”

“So, what do you see?” Gamma leaned in and was met by a blindingly confusing array of numbers, graphs, and simulations.

“Interesting, very interesting. Looks like Delta has been using this lab to track disturbances in time. Wow, would you look at that? Time is fracturing all over the world. This is really odd and seriously bad.”

“Fracturing?” Gamma asked.

“It’s like that episode of Star Trek Voyager when the ship is broken up into different time periods. It was a Chakotay heavy episode, but still good.”

“In non-nerdspeak please.”

“Basically, the theoretical fabric of time in this solar system has small cracks in it. They’re all pretty tiny, hardly enough to cause any significant problems. But, for a moment, a crack opened that was huge, but then sealed itself. That’s what Delta was looking at.”

Gamma paced behind the doctor. “I guess something like this could be concerning. Although, why is he keeping it to himself? If there’s a problem like this, we should all know. Do you have any more info on the time situation?”

“No. It looks like he found the big fracture and stopped testing the time problem.” Osteen scrolled through screens of data, which included DNA mapping, diagrams of the morphon crystals, and more.

“What’s all that?” Gamma asked.

“This is my work, but he has...I don’t know...changed it. No, wait, he didn’t do this, I did. Fascinating.” Osteen leaned in closer to read a report.

“You did something?” Gamma was still lost.

“Delta’s strange additions he had me design during the development of the augments have a purpose. I can’t tell what it is, but it’s more important than anything else. I think these alterations are the crux of all his plans, but I can’t tell what they do.”

“What did Delta have you do? Aren’t the augments just programmed to follow orders for the Word Corps?”

Osteen shook his head. “On the surface, yes. But there’s something more. Do me a huge favor and keep an eye out. I’m going to sort this out and I don’t want Delta vaporizing me for digging through his files.”

Gamma said, “I’m no computer expert, but wouldn’t he already be alerted to you digging round top secret folders?”

“Seriously, you are a real noob at this stuff. I didn’t just barge into his files and start poking around. I cloned his info and am looking at an independent system. As far as he is concerned, his files are still locked down and secure. However, if he sees me looking at this, I’ll have a hole in my chest, you know that.”

“True. Keep reading. I’ll go make sure you aren’t bothered.”

Gamma strolled into the command center as casual as any other day. To his great relief, Delta was focused on the comm screen, so he hadn’t noticed the intrusion to his private files.

Judge Alpha spoke to him from her location near the UN, “we can’t just sit around and wait while villains attack cities. The world is counting on our heroes to replace BADGE.”

“Tell them, once we have Nova, then our heroes will keep their people secure. Not before.”

“We can’t do that!” Alpha yelled in reply. “The Australian Prime Minister just said that Kangaroo Killer has already taken a whole town. His minions have all the city’s leadership tied up in the middle of the street. We have to do something.”

Delta huffed, “put the Prime Minister through to me.”

“But...”

“NOW!”

Alpha slammed a control and her screen changed to the office of the Australian Prime Minister, who was more than shocked at the sudden appearance.

“Hello, to whom am I speaking?” She asked.

Delta cooled off. “I’m Delta, a member of the ruling counsel for the World Corps.”

“I have never heard of you. I was speaking with your superior, Judge Alpha. Please...”

“You’re speaking with me now. When I have Director Nova in my hands, then my heroes will help protect your people. His capture is far more important than petty criminals.”

“I would hardly call Kangaroo Killer petty. He was threatening to kill all the city officials just for fun, on live streaming. Fortunately for the both of us, someone else stepped up and put a stop to the crime spree in that city moments ago. Kangaroo Killer and his cohorts are currently in custody.”

“What!? Who did this? Was it Nova?”

“Doubtful, Mr. Delta. Some mechanical heroes arrived and saved the city. I do not believe they are superheroes, but they are certainly heroes to my people. The lack of hero support from the World Corps has severely tarnished my opinion of you and your actions. I will be filing a request for an inquiry with the United Nations.”

“You do that.” Delta cut the communication off.

Gamma asked, “who stepped up to save that city? I thought all heroes were currently in hiding.”

Delta casually commanded, “computer, scan Australia for any rise in morphonic activity.” A map appeared, and the country was scanned ten times.

“Negative: no heightened morphonic activity registered in the area of Australia.”

Delta brushed this off. “Must be some jokers who decided to play hero. Not our concern.” He slapped the comm button and Alpha was called up again. “Tell Beta we’re about to call on the UN for an emergency meeting, now.”

“But...”

“Now!”