Post by dans on Jun 23, 2017 14:03:42 GMT
Part 1: American Odyssey
Chapter 1
‘Well, that was predictable, if anti-climactic,’ Victoria Waltyngfeld thought to herself with mixed emotions - though mostly, she realized, relief. ‘And not the barney I’d expected it to be. I’m glad it went that way.’ It had started with a few simple, triumphant words from Bill, her fiancé (‘Oops – ex-fiancé,’ she reminded herself).
“Honey, they’ve asked me to lead an expedition – and when I get back, they’ll offer me tenure!”
“Smashing! When do we leave?” she’d asked eagerly. She’d been at the end of her tether with the boring life in the academic community at Smallton State University, Smallton, Indiana. Even being Lady Waltyngfeld back at Silverhall Manor, her father’s ancestral home in North York, England, hadn’t been this dull.
Like her father, Lord H. Alton Waltyngfeld, Baron Silverhall, her (ex) fiancé Bill was a professor of archaeology. Unlike H. Alton, who had retired a few years ago as the Dunsworth Lecturer on Vedic Civilizations at Oxford University, Bill was still a tenure-track adjunct. When Vicki had been growing up, Lord Waltyngfeld’s life had been a constant string of archaeological expeditions covering 6 continents and more than 20 different foreign countries, always accompanied by Victoria (and Saroop, her mother, until her mother had died of a rare disease released from a sealed tomb). In fact, she’d met Bill, who had been doing his graduate work at Oxford, on one of Alton’s expeditions, and he’d proposed to her among the ancient ruins of a Vedic temple on another. And, when Alton had retired, the engaged couple had moved to the States, to Smallton, where Bill had accepted his adjunct professorship.
‘Gads, but life here has been dull as ditchwater!’ she thought with disgust. ‘The most exciting event in years was the night I popped round the pub on euchre night and taught the lads…’ (the adjunct professors) ‘to play craps instead. And we all ended up in the clink! That was a right royal time, it was!’
Vicki’s education was eclectic, to say the least – Alton and Saroop had always retained superb tutors for her, and she had the equivalent of a good British education in the classics, and she knew more about several different ancient civilizations than all but a handful of experts in the world. And she knew all the routines and procedures of planning and conducting an archaeological expedition – and staples of an expedition always including drinking and shooting craps.
But a single young woman spending almost the entire night with a half dozen young men, drinking heavily and playing craps, had offended the strait-laced academic community, and she and her new mates had been rounded up and spent over a day doing porridge in the clink. Even before that incident, everyone had assumed that she wasn’t really Bill’s fiancé at all but instead his kept mistress, since he was 15 years older than she.
Now they all assumed she was nothing better than a working tart, paid entertainment for the college staff for anyone who could afford her, even if they had to pool their money. Almost nobody dared to associate with her, as her reputation could only taint theirs as well. The only jobs she could get were nothing but noddy work. She’d started having doubts about her future life with Bill that night, doubts which had only grown over time.
Being able to accompany Bill on a few expeditions might have assuaged these doubts, but his next words were the spanner in the works: “I’m really sorry, but the sponsors won’t allow me bring you along.”
They’d presented Bill with a list of reasons, and though he said he’d argued, in the end, he’d agreed to leave her behind. Vicki didn’t care what those reasons were. In the end, the important things were: Bill was going, and she wasn’t, and Bill had once again put his job ahead of their engagement.
Like a super-saturated chemical solution, everything crystallized in her mind at that instant. She’d been pretending she wasn’t miserable, and had long since fallen out of love with Bill – and she’d been riding on inertia since then. Enough was finally enough. She’d asked him to leave, and he’d gone meekly, and they both knew Vicki would be somewhere else when he got back. It was time to get on with her life!
Vicki felt much lighter, as if an elephant sitting on her shoulders had just climbed off. If she’d made other choices 5 years ago, her life would have been vastly different – now she hoped fervently that it wasn’t too late!
In a small park near her flat, surrounded by some well-tended hedges, she looked around to make sure she was alone. Then, as she’d done thousands of times in the last 5 years, she lifted her hand to her forehead and flipped her hair back. But this time was different. Before she rubbed her hand across the invisible, intangible gem set into her forehead, she hesitated – she could tell the gem was still there, but would it still work? There was only one way to find out.
“Tally ho!” she said aloud. “Yoiks and away!” She rubbed the intangible gem and put every bit of confidence and pride she could into her next phrase: “I become perfection!”
Something like a miniature comet materialized in the air above her head, and moved around her in a spiral, descending to her feet. It moved too fast for the eye to follow, and left behind it, for a fleeting instant, a glowing tail that encompassed all the colors of the rainbow, almost as if painting the air. In another fleeting instant, the rainbow cocoon was gone - and Victoria was gone, replaced by the majestic figure of Zenith!
Over 6’6” tall, wearing a red and black Shalwar kameez, with long, straight hair swept back from her face revealing the mystic third eye in her forehead, a gray, blue and black dupatta in her hand. Nearby, four silken scarves, two red and two black, floated in the air and swirled sinuously around her as she moved. She distractedly wished all the writhing scarves would stop distracting her… and they vanished.
“It worked,” she sighed happily. She’d only made the change to Zenith a couple of times, over five years ago, and then she'd decided against a life as a super powered mystery hero with all that implied. Of course, she’d expected a continuation of the exciting expedition life she was used to, not kicking her heels in the bland, barely tolerable existence she’d settled into. Well, that boring life was over forever!
She spent some time thinking – she’d dreamed for years of Zenith, imagining all sorts of fantastic powers and abilities her alter ego might have. And she’d always sighed and gone on with Victoria’s life instead. Now was the time to see which of her dreams was real, and which only wishes. Some were easy, the powers she’d exhibited before: “Up!” she thought, and up she went, lifting easily away from the ground. “Down” and she was back. She lifted a cement bench with no problems. She experimented cautiously and discovered that she was invulnerable, as far as she cared to test. She closed her normal eyes and concentrated on her forehead, and the world came back into view – with some interesting changes. She could see through the hedges nearby, and through the walls of her building. She could still see 'that which was hidden' – though she was going to test the limits of that vision later!
Now, some of the wishes: “Take me home!” she commanded, while picturing Silverhall Manor in her mind. Nothing. She concentrated harder, and just in case, she clicked her heels together: “I want to go home!” Still nothing, but... wait! Through her third eye, she could SEE Silverhall Manor. She seemed to be high in the sky, a mile or so away, and as she continued to concentrate, her view zoomed closer. It was late at night in North Yorkshire, and most of the lights were out. Her point of view drifted through the front door; there was a fire in the big fireplace in the main hall. Could this be a memory, or was she actually seeing her home as it was right now? She guessed the latter – she didn’t recognize the carpet. When her concentration wavered, the vision vanished, and she was back in the park. This must be another manifestation of her ability to ‘see that which is hidden’ – in this case, hidden by distance.
She catalogued some of her other wishes: Turn things to gold – No. Diamonds – likewise, No. Lightning or Energy beams – No. Lift and move things with her thoughts – No. Read minds – she wasn’t sure. She thought she could maybe ‘hear’ thoughts from the nearby building, but they were faint. Maybe if she got closer, but she’d experiment with this one again later.
She couldn’t grow or shrink or change her shape – ‘Looks like I’m stuck being the tallest girl around,’ she thought ruefully. Predict the future? She saw some vague shadows in her mind – ‘I’ll get back to this one, too.’
She couldn’t get the vision of Silverhall Manor out of her head. She’d always been treated like a princess at home, by her parents and the servants, and the people in Droverham, the town where Silverhall was located, and on an expedition, and at first, by Bill. She didn’t mind (much) being ‘just another girl’, but she did miss the special treatment she’d grown up with. A few days at home would be just the thing!
‘Right lucky for me they don’t allow pets or plants in the apartments,’ she thought to herself. ‘I can pay the rent for a month, and just take off!’
Tomorrow, after she’d studied the atlas and notified her landlady, she’d find out just how fast she could fly.
Chapter 2
Vicki had discovered that whatever she was wearing or carrying when she changed to her heroic form, she was wearing or carrying when she changed back. So, well before dawn, she put on her best outfit, dropped her passport and some cash in a small purse, said her magic words, and willed herself to fly as fast as possible. She left behind a small sonic boom and a finger of vapor pointing to the northeast. She figured a few hours of flight time and she’d reach Lake Erie, and then she’d follow the southern shoreline to Buffalo, then break due East until she spotted the Atlantic Coast, then turn left until she reached Boston. Where she had already made reservations in a fancy hotel. Tomorrow, she’d figure out the rest of her path across the Atlantic.
She flew higher and faster than she’d ever done before - and at her altitude, it didn’t take a long time long before she spotted the lake. Turning east, she was on her way! Shortly afterward, she spotted something unusual.
The River is on Fire?!
As she approached a city that must be Cleveland, she saw a thick column of black, oily smoke, rising from a pool of flame which seemed to originate from… a river? As weird as it seemed, a small patch of the river was on fire! And that small patch was growing rapidly!
'As good a time as any to start Lady Zenith's heroic career,' she thought excitedly and swooped downward. She could now see that the surface of the river was covered in an ugly, grundgy sludge, and the sludge was what was really on fire.
When she was young, Vicki had always followed the news about mystery heroes closely, and after she had first changed to Zenith, it had become almost a minor obsession – almost as if in the back of her mind, she knew that someday, she would unleash her own inner mystery hero. 'Flux is famous for using vortexes to douse oil well fires...' She was currently flying faster than sound – ‘Can I create my own vortex to snuff this fire? Might as well give it a go!’ she told herself – and away she went!
It took a little experimentation to learn to fly fast in a curved path, but in only seconds she was racing in a giant circle across the face of the river, having isolated the fire inside her circle. She made the circle smaller, squeezing the sludge floating on the river into the shrinking noose. The fire burned brighter and hotter, and for several seconds, the vortex acted like the nozzle of the jet engine of the First Creator’s own Stratofortress, producing a geyser of flame a mile high, and a thunderous roar that rattled windows throughout the city, and then the fire was gone. And there was a big circle of water, now rapidly shrinking, clear of sludge…
By now, the city’s emergency responders were in action, converging on what could have been the site of a major disaster – but which now only required some minor cleanup. Satisfied that these everyday heroes could now handle the situation, Zenith continued on her way, rocketing east above the shoreline of the lake.
Rocky Reception
It wasn’t long before the shore of Lake Erie started curving to the north. Soon she could see Buffalo, and not far past the city, the gigantic cloud of mist that the Native Americans of this region had considered to be magical, visible for many miles on a clear day, created as millions of tonnes of water thundered over Niagara Falls every second. At the speed she was traveling, it was only a short detour to Niagara – why not do some sightseeing, to go along with her heroics? As she sped closer, a faint dim background rumble grew into the thunderous roaring voice of Niagara Falls.
In legend, this roar had been believed to be the voice of Hinon, the God of Thunder who lived ‘behind the falls’. She slowed as she approached, and soon was hovering over one of the most spectacular natural wonders of North America.
Zenith felt a special affinity for waterfalls. The mystical Temple of the First Creator where she’d been given her mighty abilities was only accessible from the ‘real world’ through the mist created by a part-time waterfall in the north of India. Those falls only ran after storms in the rainy season, which had helped keep the Temple concealed for thousands of years. ‘I wonder if these mists conceal anything magical?’ she asked herself whimsically, with a self-conscious chuckle. After all, Hinon was only a legend. ‘Silly lass, wasn’t the Temple of the First Creator only a legend, too, until you discovered it? Maybe Hinon actually does have a house somewhere behind the Falls!’
Zenith concentrated on the view through her third eye. As her ‘normal’ eyes closed, the mists cleared and she began to make out things that were hidden in the physical world. Water streamed over cliffs, in clear sheets near the top, separating into strands like thousands of giant twisting cables, then becoming even more jumbled and foamy before finally exploding on the rocks and the surface of the river below. Her gaze started to slip from the physical plane into the ‘metaphysical’ plane where the Temple of the First Creator existed, and she was excited that she could see something that looked like it might resolve into a structure with closer examination. But then her mystical vision picked up something much more urgent – signs of an imminent disaster on the physical plane!
Suddenly she was watching thousands of tons of rubble collapsing from the face of the gorge onto a powerplant below. What she saw wasn’t really there in front of her – and yet, she knew where it was. Without a nanosecond’s hesitation, she was flashing along the southern, American wall of the gorge, and almost instantly she was directly in front of the giant electrical generating plant built into the cliff side. Slabs of rock were just starting to split from the wall and fall toward the river, starting an avalanche that would crush the generating plant and probably kill everyone inside.
A super speed approach and some mighty blows, and the falling slabs were transformed into a rain of much smaller rocks, gravel and dust. Her enhanced vision showed trouble in the giant turbine room on the lowest level of the plant, as sections of the ceiling were caving, and water was already rushing through a growing split in the rear wall, which had been carved from native rock. A dozen men stood in the rising water, and nearby were some of the largest electrical generating turbines in the world, pumping out enough electricity to light much of New York State. If that current were somehow shunted into the rising water, it would be like they had been struck by super-powerful lightning!
Before an outside observer could have blinked, Zenith burst through the river-facing wall of the turbine room, creating a channel for the rising waters to rush out into the river. She then flashed through the room at super speed, gathering the workers and depositing them in the elevator car. Finally, she broke through the top of the car, grabbed the cable, and carried the elevator to the top of the shaft, where she released the cable. The automated brake stopped the car from falling. She had been moving too fast for the workers to focus on, and without really knowing that they had been rescued, the dazed men stumbled out into the plant grounds on top the gorge wall.
Meanwhile, Zenith figured she had one more task to accomplish. Each row of turbines was fed rushing water through a conduit from a reservoir at the top of the gorge, and one of these conduits had broken in the split and was now pouring water through the turbine room. Each individual conduit had a gate, and those three gates needed to be closed. She dove into the reservoir and forced closed the gate to the broken conduit. In the turbine room below, a row of giant turbines quickly spun down, and the output of the plant was cut by a third. There were electrical ‘brownouts’ throughout lower New York State and New York City, but once the conduit was repaired, those turbines could quickly be put back online – much sooner than if the whole plant had been destroyed in a catastrophic collapse of the cliff!
Satisfied that this situation was now controllable by the power company, she resumed her interrupted flight home.
‘That’s really enough excitement for one day. I’ll come back and check out Hinon’s home later,’ she thought. The glimpses she’d seen had been a bit dodgy – to her skilled eye, they looked more like metaphysical archaeological ruins than a current metaphysical residence. ‘I hope the rest of the flight to Boston is uneventful!’
Twistin' the Flight Away
“I wonder what people will make of my anonymous rescues?” she rhetorically asked a passing cloud. “And why didn’t I reveal myself?” she suddenly wondered. She hadn’t even thought of hanging around to introduce herself after her two adventures. “It’s not like I’m shy or something!”
As she flew, she mused on her internal mystery. ‘I guess I’m still not sure I want to have adventuring take over my whole life and not leave me any time for myself.’ She chuckled. ‘I’m really looking forward to the news stories, though. It will probably cause an international sensation, as everyone tries to figure out who is the mystery hero who saved Cleveland and Niagara Falls. I wonder who will take credit for it all?’
About an hour almost due East from Buffalo, she was approaching a city she later found out was Worcester, MA, just in time for another disaster!
“Hello, what’s this? I say, is there a disaster _everywhere_ I go?” She had been greatly concerned about accidentally creating a tornado in Cleveland, but here was a natural tornado, the funnel just about to touch down southwest of the city. She flew into the vortex, opposing the natural winds. Opposing a vortex was MUCH harder than creating one. “This must be Billy Wind himself! I’ll need to give it some stick!” Not only was she constantly being buffeted by the tremendous winds, but there was so much dirt and grit slamming into her face that she was blinded!
Still, she had mystical vision. She closed her eyes and concentrated on what was in front of her – that was better! She could see the curve of the wind, and she could sense an instant in advance when a large piece of debris was going to hit her – which allowed her to brace herself and sometimes shatter the large piece into smaller, less dangerous fragments. She could sense that her effort was starting to pay off, and she strained harder. She noticed something strange – the winds that were passing over her were being lifted higher and the winds that were being forced below her were actually being snuffed out when they hit the ground. She angled her path just a little upward, and concentrated on actually lifting the tornado. As she battered through the winds, she could feel them being tattered and broken up. It wasn’t long before she could tell that the tornado was tattered beyond recovery.
Using her mystical vision, Zenith was able to determine that there was nobody who needed her help, so once again she resumed her interrupted flight to the coast. “Smashing that no one was hurt. Even with my new powers, I’m bloody knackered! If every day as a mystery heroine is _anything _like this, maybe I made the right decision 5 years ago!”