The Philadelphia Experiment: Square Root of Time, #3

By Leroy Nichols and Susan Young

A madman with a lust for power. Strange refugees from distant lands. Hackers. Collusion. Russian entaglements and divided loyalties. The multiverse may have shattered, but George Washington is discovering that America's problems haven't changed all that much—they've just gotten bigger.

It's a bad time to be president. Something terrible happened to time and space; now, dreams and nightmares are as tangible as the ground beneath Washington's feet, and the world is full of impossibilities made reality. Ordinary men like George can find themselves rubbing shoulders with someone out of legend, like Merlin, or watching as the super-powered hero known as Alien flies through the sky above the streets of Philadelphia. As Washington and his fellow Founders labor to create an America that can truly be a beacon of safety and liberty in this strange new world, dark undercurrents threaten to topple the young republic before it is fully formed. Not everyone is pleased with the idea of liberty for all, and some will stop at nothing to keep it from happening.

Before the Day of Lights and Music, Moonbeam was all too happy to live and let live; the trouble is, this new reality won't cooperate. Between the strange new mental powers everyone has acquired, the herds of dinosaurs and other terrifying wildlife roaming the land, and random things popping into existence from time to time, staying alive isn't as easy as it used to be. Desperate to reach civilization, he and his fiesty traveling companion, Eren, seem to stumble from one strange and deadly situation to the next. And there's no guarantee the city won't prove to be just as deadly for the pair of accidental adventurers ...

Book 3 in the Square Root of Time series. Approximately 175,000 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leroy Nichols
• Release date: Dec 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386931379

Leroy Nichols

Suffice it to say, I have had a variety of jobs, some longer than others. Among the ones I most enjoyed was being a sports writer for the local newspaper, The Washington Daily News, and working in a computer tech-support role for an Internet company back in the dark ages of “dial-up is pretty much it” days. I am a life-long reader, since learning how by reading the comics every Sunday with my father as a little bitty fella. Being as that was around age four, it was six decades ago. My first real book that I read all on my own at the tender age of seven was “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne. The school librarian really didn’t want to let me check it out but finally gave in. When I brought the book back the next day, she asked, “A bit too hard for you, wasn’t it?” To which I replied, “Oh no ma’am, I finished it and I want another one like it.” And I have never looked back since.

Book preview

Prologue

IN PHILADELPHIA, THE first Day of the Music saw a miracle. The men and women who made America the greatest land ever recorded, spanning over four centuries of the republic beginning with the colonial period onward, all awoke in the same square mile of area around Philadelphia’s famed Independence Hall.

The mystery man, Poison, also known as Jason Boyd—the richest man to ever live before the Music, worth more than a quarter-trillion dollars and rising—brought order to the crowd and chaired the impromptu election of George Washington as the President of the Combined Continental Congress, with Benjamin Franklin as the Vice-President.

This is the story of the rebirth of the United States of America—bigger and better than ever before—and of the role that the newly reborn United States plays in the fate of the world.

Chapter 1:

Xe’Poran

Day 7

*SHIP QUEEN MOTHER, THE PSIONIC Detonator is ready for use at your order.*

The Ship Queen Mother twitched an eyestalk towards the princess reporting, giving her great honor in doing so. *Has there been thought yet from the invasion fleet?*

*No, not a single thought has been projected this way from any ship of the fleet, nor from the Colony fleet behind them.*

The Ship Queen Mother considered this. It was unheard-of for a psionic attack team to be abandoned. Yet, not a one of her projectors or readers or telepaths or teleporters had managed any contact since the flash of light and screeching sound seven days ago. Their landing hadn’t been a full-on crash, but it had been a near-run thing, with the levitators only awakening in time to soften the landing to a minimal amount of destruction.

Nodding her head and swinging her forearms was all the motion available to the Ship Mother without assistance. Not wanting to move from her egg-laying duty, she twisted the four eyestalks toward the princess, bringing all four to bear on the youngest of her many progeny princesses. *Call in everyone. It is time for a full melding of the colony to decide what to do; it is beyond my ability by myself.*

*Yes, Ship Mother, I will do so directly upon your dismissal of me*

*Then you are dismissed.*

The oldest Xe’Poran on the ship rubbed her forearms together as the princess left the room, a sure sign of nervousness. Neither the invasion fleet nor the colony fleet could possibly be destroyed. We were in contact with them right up to the point that light and sound ripped us—then not a thought since. Obviously, we weren’t destroyed either, but the place we are invading does not look like the description given to us before setting out. Something happened; something strange happened. And that storm; it started as simple rainfall but so quickly turned into a disaster. We lost five Warrior-Scouts in the bitter cold. And while we fare badly in the snow and ice, the winds after the snow and ice melted were even more terrifying. At least twice, I know, the wind moved the ship enough to rock it. This is supposed to be a tropical paradise, and since the storm settled, today it would seem to be so, but the weather was so wild before.

As she pondered the last days, the Ship Mind-Meld began to form. She became aware of various consciousnesses attaching themselves to her perimeter access patterns. Quicker and quicker the connections came, more workers, warriors, princesses and even some of the princes as well as her current Consort, all tied into her neural net.

As she felt the last consciousness adding itself to her mind, she initiated the ritual, *Begin the count through*

*Worker, Sanitation, 17 of 20,* came the first response.

*Worker, Sanitation, 7 of 20*

And on and on the entire crew logged in to become part of the Ship Mother’s Mind-Meld, ending with, *Prince Consort, 192 of 199*  and thereby completing the full Melding for all who had survived the past days since the crash.

*We...*

*We are...*

*We are the...*

*WE ARE THE HIVE.*

*We are the mind of the Hive, all combined to strive for accurate concluding.*

*Fact: the fleets are not in communication with us nor us with them.*

*Fact: the Psionic Detonator was made operational today following damage during our near crash-landing.*

*Fact: The planetary weather system is not behaving like the scouting reports said it would.*

*Fact: Hive Empire law requires us to use our Psionic Detonator to facilitate any pre-invasion softening but forbids using it randomly, as the cost is too high in ship personnel.*

*Fact: we are part of the invasion fleet.*

*Fact: our ship was too badly damaged in landing to ever be used in space again.*

*Fact: our ship may be restorable to in-atmosphere flight, but the Worker-Engineers will need approximately one planetary revolution around the star to do so, provided we can find all the raw resources we need.*

*Fact: using the Psionic Detonator will cost us ten percent of the crew, including nearly all but one of the princes, half the princesses and the Prince Consort or some equivalent number of intellects.*

*Discuss.*

A flood of thoughts engulfed the Ship Mother. Her intellect, bolstered by the Mind-Meld, quickly sorted the incoming wave of thoughts, separating the pattern into varied threads that co-mingled similar ideas. Not using the Psionic Detonator never once entered the thoughts of any of the Xe’Poran in the Mind-Meld. The question instead was one of when. Some thoughts ran to hold the use until contact was re-established with the invasion fleet. Others said use it now and start the invasion with what was at hand, as after all, every ship in the fleet was Hive society in total, from the newest worker to the Ship Mother herself. Conquest would take longer, as the Hive would have to replace workers, warriors, princesses, princes and even the Consort. Yet, ultimately, the planet would become another Hive World, other species extinguished if they possessed any intellect at all.

Careful querying of the Princess for Steerage revealed the star pattern was wrong for the world they were to invade. Panic rippled throughout the Mind-Meld. Unheard of—such a thing was not possible. Only days ago, they were descending to the planetary surface when the light and noise ripped through the ship and stunned every single Xe'Poran aboard.

Some one-third of the ship complement was missing—simply gone—when the return of consciousness occurred. That swift return to consciousness saved the ship from a disaster, as Levitators strove mightily to keep the crash from occurring. If the full crew had been on the ship, then maybe that disaster could have been avoided altogether. No one had found any sign of where the missing crew had gone. That memory stirred even more panic into the Mind-Meld—the mystery of the missing.

An aggressive species, the Xe’Poran used their psionic abilities as their main weapon of war, though more than a few of the warriors were also trained in mandible combat and stinger spray. For an untold number of years, the Xe’Poran had been expanding their society throughout a major portion of the galaxy. Hundreds of thousands of worlds had been brought into the Hive Society, their native species of sentients destroyed to a being.

Only once, long ago at the dawn of Hive Society, had an alien race actually contacted the Xe’Poran first, visiting Nest back when that planet was the only world in the galaxy with Xe’Poran upon it. The visitors were not psionic themselves and therefore never could hear the thoughts that the Xe’Poran of that time tried using to communicate. The visitors treated the individual Xe'Poran as animals, as experimental beasts. Then more visitor ships landed, many more, and the Xe’Poran race was nearly wiped out by chemical attacks.

When it looked the worst for the Hive, one of the Princesses of Study found a way to create a new device, the one now called the Psionic Detonator. A full tenth of the remaining Xe’Poran race was given into the machine to power the weapon—a far overkill, but then at the time, no one realized it. In essence, the subjects’ Xe’Poran mental abilities were Mind-Melded into a coherent whole that raced around and through Nest, giving every invader visitor brand-new psionic powers while draining all life from the Xe’Porans powering the weapon.

Brand-new psionic abilities were not the boon for the invaders that part of the Great Hive Society Mind-Meld had feared. Instead, as the Princess of Study had correctly estimated, it made the invading visitors vulnerable to the experienced psionic-wielders of the Xe’Poran, which was the whole of the Xe’Poran race. Within a single planetary solar revolution, the invaders were all dead, their massive ships controlled by the Princess of Study whose six legs scurried from one end to the other of each ship as she brought her considerable intellect onto the problem of learning to use—and more importantly, to build—the starships.

By the time the Princess of Study became the Hive Queen Mother of Nest, the Xe’Poran were able to launch ships they had constructed themselves, modified heavily to use their psionic abilities in lieu of the electricity that had originally powered many of the ship’s functions. And that had begun the Great Conquest to annex all inhabitable worlds into the Hive Society.

With her review of history completed, with the Psionic Detonator completed, with the full likely chance of no immediate relief as both fleets were not in contact realized, with simply the goal of the Great Conquest in mind—in the end, there was no other real choice but to launch the invasion with only the Psionic Attack Team. The Ship Queen Mother knew that the most fertile of the Princesses would have to be the one to take her place, as the Ship Mother herself would have to lead the fuel-team for the Psionic Detonator.

*Princess of Eggs will become Hive Queen Mother as well as the new Ship Queen Mother upon the use of the Psionic Detonator. Ship Queen Mother current will be the first in the chamber and will hold the Mind-Meld for the Psionic Detonator.*

The current Ship Queen Mother continued her explanation for each and every Xe'Poran and what each would do, either in the chamber or afterwards following the weapon use.

*... so the plan is relatively simple; following the psionic detonation, fully occupy and burrow into this island and camouflage it and then fill the island up with an army of Xe’Poran. When our numbers are right, go on the attack. Even though they will be used to the idea of psionics long before we can have numbers enough to engage, there is no way that a race only recently given psionics can match us with it in warfare. Hive Society for all. End the Meld.*

With her command to disengage, the ship crew returned to work, but instead of all going back to their former employment, many—thirteen percent—of the crew followed the Ship Queen Mother to the Psionic Detonator chamber. There she entered first, the rest of the fuel following one at a time. She hooked them to the Psionic Detonator, dropping eyestalk sheaths over every single eyestalk in the chamber until finally, two watches later, she moved to the internal controller and placed her own eyestalks into their sheaths.

This time there was no easy gathering into her mind. Instead, her mind went to each of the concentric rows of Xe'Poran, traveling up and down the psionic links, grabbing one mind after another and absorbing it into her own. All six legs locked, the dead Xe'Poran stood with the living as the former quickly became the fate of the latter. When at last her mind held all the energy of every dead Xe'Poran in the chamber within her, the former-to-be Ship Queen Mother leaned forward and felt for the left rod first, her short arm finally finding it, and then with the right, she completed the circuit.

Her exoskeletal shell cracked open, her internal ribs breaking, and as her body fell apart, her mind and all the volunteered/commanded psionic energy flowed into the Psionic Detonator. The cunning design of the Princess of Study once again amplified the power of the psionic energy, doubling repeatedly until upon the two hundred and fifty-sixth doubling, it blew the detonator apart and flowed into the planet itself, moving at the speed of thought to the very center of the planet. There at the very core of the planet, the psionic energy-ball stabilized for one second, for another, and then pulsed once, twice, and then on the third pulsing, exploded outward, dousing every living creature on the planet with psionic energy.

And so it was that on the seventh day, the Xe’Poran, in full ignorance of the meaning of the day of Light and Music, gave the world the gift of psionics.

THE WAVE OF PSIONIC energy blew out from the core of the planet, irradiating everything and everyone. By the time it finally engulfed the entire world, only moments had passed. For most of the creatures on Earth, it resulted in only a momentary shudder; their intellect was not enough to trigger any psionic ability. But every person, regardless of race, every sentient being excepting only Dragons and Undead, was affected.

A tiny percentage of the newly-reborn Earth’s inhabitants felt nothing at all. A much smaller percentage proved to be psionic dampers who would, with time, mostly learn to switch their ability on and off. For most, it connected the neural links needed to complete the basic functioning of mind-to-mind speech and the shielding one’s own mind, both of which were mastered very rapidly—though not without massive world-wide headaches, ranging from severe to near-deadly migraines.

But for that first hour—oh, but the world was in chaos.

IN PHILADELPHIA, THE Combined Continental Congress was in the seventh day prayer meeting before the reopening of the emergency-driven session. Ben Franklin kept stealing glances at the Kindle Fire in his lap, rapidly reading each page and twitching his thumb to move the wondrous device to the next page. The thing was a true marvel to him as he read more on the history that would never be, now. Around him, more devout members had their heads lowered in actual prayer, though some, such as Jefferson and Hamilton, likely were counting in their heads ways to make mischief in the upcoming procedures.

Next to him, George Washington, in a voice imperceptible to others, muttered, Ben, not now; you have to be seen more seriously.

Sighing to himself, but not aloud, Franklin hit the off button and watched as his great-great-great-grandbaby went dark. A mere lark of fantasy of course, but it was his curiosity, as much as anything else, which had led to his new love.

Suddenly, Franklin—along with all the others in the room—let out a gasp as his head seemed to explode. Sharp stabbing pains rolled throughout his brain, leaving no doubt that the brain was the epicenter of the worst blindingly-bad migraine headache possible. Franklin clutched his hands to his temples, the joy of his life slipping from his lap to land on the floor—but thankfully not shattering on the wooden flooring as it did so. Tears welled up in Franklin’s eyes as the pain rebounded back and forth, seeming to tear through his brain. Then, in what he at first took to be madness, the thoughts of the others in the room, nay, in the city itself begin to babble in pain together. Frustration with agony lessened gradually over the next hour, and finally ended in general when nearly all folks began to instinctively erect mind-shields to keep others out.

Franklin sat back in his chair, his face sheened with sweat even in the air-conditioned room of the prayer service. Warily, he looked around the room, seeing the same sense of wonderment at this latest disruption. He was sure each of the others had gained this new mental power. Tentatively, he lowered his mind-shield and did not immediately get mobbed with all the thoughts from earlier. Glancing at Washington, Franklin mentally said in the softest tone he could imagine using, *George, can you hear me in your head?*

Washington raised his head slowly from his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. He turned and looked at Franklin, his eyes widening. Very carefully, he diminished his shield just enough to project to the fellow founder, *Ben, did you just tap on my shield?*

*You did hear me asking a question!*

*No, no, not at all; rather much more like a rat-a-tat-tat, far distant and faint, but I knew it was you knocking before I ever raised my head.*

NO. UP. POINT ALWAYS up.

Moonbeam sighed. There truly was no justice in the world. It seemed as if Eren hadn’t stopped criticizing him since he began teaching her English. Now, to be perfectly fair, the criticism was all in the spirit of helping him stay alive, but still. There were so many English words that could come from those perfect lips of hers, but no was the one he had to hear over and over again.

Eren corrected his posture and stance, turning him a bit more sideways, adjusting his shoulder, getting him to loosen up at the elbow and raise the tip of his no-longer-rusty sword. Elbow strong, but you must not lock. Always up with point, she repeated. Easy knocking away when point down. Thrust no good, not— she struggled to find the right word, the right pronunciation. Her hands fluttered to help move her thoughts along. Not solid. Not kill.

Well now, I wouldn’t want my thrusts to be less than killer, he muttered as she resumed her position opposite him. It hurt his dignity that Eren was fighting him with a stick. It also stung his pride that she was worried about accidentally hurting him—with the stick in question—but didn’t seem particularly concerned that he might hurt her with his freshly-sharpened sword. He gritted his teeth, mentally steeling himself to do his best to disembowel her. Here we go now, Bright Eyes, prepare to d—gahhhhhd!

White-hot pain blossomed inside his head, so intense and unexpected that he dropped the sword and grabbed his head in agony. Moonbeam was semi-aware that he cried out and fell to his knees, but those actions seemed very distant, and the pain seemed so very near. Tears formed and began to flow and his nose started to run. Cold sweat and gooseflesh popped out all over his body. Panic clutched him; he wondered if he were having a stroke or suffering an aneurysm.

He tried to form words, to speak to Eren, to beg her to help him, but he couldn’t seem to utter any sounds that made sense. Moonbeam spent quite some time struggling with speech until he finally gave it up. He resigned himself to panting and tried not to vomit. He opened his eyes and saw that Eren was also on her knees in the mud, holding her hands to her head and making soft whimpering noises. That was not what he’d been hoping to see.

Then something truly psychedelic happened: Moonbeam could hear Eren’s misery in his head. The sounds didn’t quite form words per se, but he could definitely feel her struggle—almost like mental mutters and groans. His eyes grew wide. He wondered if the ‘shrooms he’d tried back in April were paying off, finally. He tried to touch Eren’s mind with his own and make contact.

Lowering her hands, Eren looked at him in fear and confusion.

*Bright Eyes?* Moonbeam’s probe was as gentle as he could make it—sort of like a first kiss.

Her eyes grew round, and he felt her mind open up to him. *Moonbeam? Are you—what has happened to us? Are you thinking inside my head, somehow?*

Moonbeam’s jaw dropped. *Holy shit, baby! I think we just got superpowers!*

IT WAS BILLED AS THE first state dinner of the new Kingdom of Russia, with King Peter, the First of his Name, acclaimed by all the factions in Moscow as the true and rightful monarch of the new kingdom. Allam smiled as the kegs of vodka were officially tapped to be consumed freely by any and all in Red Square. It looked a lot like all of Moscow was in the square. Even so, Allam Liamal hung back to the edges nearest the Kremlin wall, where the official party of the king and his top followers were engaging in toasts to the new kingdom.

No drinking for him tonight though, no, not with his new role as a Special Agent of the throne. Once the joke had been explained to him, he became inordinately fond of his newly-crafted silver and gold Special Agent of the Kingdom of Russia 008 badge.

Must keep an open eye to this crowd and on the king’s party, too; good thing Benjamin put Daniel’s Freehold troops as the center of the guard detail. Even better, Daniel brought nearly all of his household troops with him.

Allam continued to watch the crowded square as original Russians from before the Day of the Music greeted new Russians—as proclaimed by the king in the founding statement—with open arms in a beginning-to-be drunken revelry.

Good to see. Folks who will drink together like this will stand together on the battlefield. It will take time, but we really will forge a new nation. By all the gods, I have stumbled into the grandest adventure of all time! The future does not yet exist; we are only seven days into the world. All of the future, save for a single week, lies before us.

The Red Square crowd, numbering in the thousands, and practically the entire population of the new Kingdom of Russia, danced, laughed, drank, and toasted the bravery of the masses who had descended on Red Square to deny Stalin. Only hours earlier, Peter had accepted the throne and crown and sword of the role of king, following a mass endorsement by acclamation in the great Square.

Things will go well for us. ARRRGGHHHH!

Allam fell to his knees, clutching his head, and all but a few of the many thousands in Red Square did likewise. Pain rocked his world, zipping across previously unconnected neural paths; the brain endured it like a fiery meteor plunging through the gray space of the brain.

Others fared better, others fared far worse, falling to the ground in convulsions in the worst cases. Then, the beginning of the first mental babble. Allam was one of the first to hear it, voices intruding into his head, terror rocking people whose pain was too great for any real actions from panic. Frightened at first, just as nearly all the crowd was, Allam quickly realized what it was he was hearing in his head and began trying to construct a mental shield to keep the voices out.

Others did the same, and the babble of minds began to cease. It seemed that the sentient mind, once awakened to psionic power, automatically forced one to learn the basic mind-shield to have privacy in its own thoughts. It was simply a trick of mentally ignoring outside mentalism.

*Jon, Jon Der, can you hear me?*

*Allam?*

*Yes, yes, you can hear me in your mind!*

*Now I can; the first time though, I just sort of thought I heard you knocking gently on a door far away.*

DANIKA AND DIRRENAL chatted companionably as they walked eastward along the forest path.

If you don’t mind my saying, you speak excellent Dwarven for someone who is most obviously not a Dwarf. Most of the other folk complain ‘tis a difficult tongue to master. Have you spent much time among my kin?

Danika smiled. A fair amount. You Dwarfs have your share of superstitions, but you are more open-minded than Humans or Elves in many ways. By the Maker, Dirrenal, Humans are quite jealous when it comes to showing age! Look too well-preserved for too long, and one can find herself being burned out of her home in the middle of the night the first time the cows go a few days without giving milk. She grinned. "Although the look on their faces when I walked out none the worse for wear almost made it worthwhile.

"And the Elves—well, the Elves seem uncomfortable when I am near. Perhaps they know whose bastard I am and are too embarrassed to speak of it, or perhaps wondering if I am secretly their sister or niece or whatever makes them uneasy. I do not know; I was never able to come by an explanation that made sense to me.

Dwarfs, however, do not worry about such things. Your folk do not care who my parents are or are not, and it does not bother them that I look pretty century after century. So, I have found the occasional Dwarven hall a pleasant enough place to spend the odd decade, here and there.

Hmpf, Dirrenal grunted. Not sure I like that label; being open-minded doesn’t seem properly Dwarf-like, you understand. I have it on good authority—if you consider an Elf a good authority on anything—that we are hard-headed and intractable. He frowned. He could’ve been referring to me personally, I reckon. He was kind o’ vague on that detail.

She grinned, hearing the humor in his voice. Then your secret shall remain safe with—mmmnggh! A sensation much like someone twisting a dagger around inside her skull shot through her head. Pain blinded her, made her dizzy. She staggered and went to one knee, dropping her apple.

Pain was something Danika understood; she’d experienced enough of it over the centuries. She took a long slow breath, held it for a count of five, and exhaled slowly. A few of these cycles, and she was able to blink the tears from her eyes well enough to see Dirrenal kneeling beside her, cradling his head in his hands. She laid a hand on his shoulder so that he would know she was still near and looked all around them. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary; there was no assailant that she could see.

She gradually became aware of a sort of hum, not quite a sound, but more like a vibration before it became a sound. She frowned and tried to focus. The sound wriggled and vibrated against her mind. Beyond all of that, she could almost hear a voice, indistinct. It felt nearby, but sounded faint. She realized of a sudden that the almost-vibration was similar to the way some magical items felt when they were trying to insinuate their will over her own. She threw up the walls that she used to keep such things at bay. The hum went silent.

Puzzled, she observed Dirrenal. The Dwarf groaned and rubbed his temples, seemingly struggling against the same thing that had just hammered her own mind. What can be affecting both of us? Danika wondered. Nothing unusual happened before the pain, and Elven minds are notoriously difficult to affect with magic. Her head still throbbed.

A gentle tapping sensation against her awareness startled her; for some reason, she was certain it was Dirrenal. She lowered her wall cautiously.

*What in the seven hells just happened to my mind?* Dirrenal’s irritation colored his mental voice.

*That is a good question, and one I do not have the answer to* she replied, pushing her thoughts out carefully so as not to hurt him, if such a thing were possible. *I thought for a moment that perhaps it was some magical assault upon our minds, but it did not have the feel of magic. I’ve never been able to do this before, except by casting a spell beforehand. And even then, it felt different.*

*I believe this must be psionics, like the old half-breed Vonede used. Huh. Now how, by all the bearded devils and their equally-hairy wives, did that happen?*

*Psionics? Well, Dirrenal, you would know more of that than I do. This ‘psionics’ as you call it did not exist on my world. As I said, powerful enough magic will enable mind-to-mind speech, though it is rare, being tricky to cast and easy to go awry. That being said ... didn’t you say this foul being, this Alimnazer, was supposed to be a powerful psionicist?*

*Oh, aye* Dirrenal acknowledged. *Both Vonede and that Heartless bastard allowed that Alimnazer was a mentalist of legendary prodigiousness or some such—you know how those over-learned types get when they start gabbing over a bit o’ lore.*

Danika laughed, having gabbed over a detail of lore a time or twelve herself. *Indeed I do. But a psionic blast, coming so close on the heels of a catastrophe caused by a madman known for powerful psionics, seems like quite the coincidence. It’s enough to make me rather suspicious.*

*It does make a feller’ raise an eyebrow, for a fact. But speakin’ of coincidences ..." Dirrenal looked back in the direction from which they had just come and then stared down at the apple core he’d dropped on the ground. He turned to look at Danika again. His blue eyes narrowed. *I don’t think I’ll be eating any more of those apples the Pixies gave us.*

*REMEMBER, YOU OWE ME loyalty, and I have given mine to the new Prince of Prussia, Wilelm and to his wife, the Princess Ambre. What was the world a week ago, is now gone forever. Old ties have been rent asunder for much of the world, but where they can be held to, they must be held. I hold you to me even yet.* Baron Josanin let his most formal face show, a look he usually reserved for court—not that he had ever been a part of Anjul’s court all that often. I need to be a part of this court, though. Alimnazer is out there. Where, I know not, but there somewhere, he plots even now. We must build a power here to counter him and to spread the word wide and far of what happened, and why, and who to look for.

Bastar Vetch looked up the hallway to where the prince and princess were holding court, the old dining hall having been converted into a Prince’s Court. A number of the local shopkeepers and merchants were discussing trade matters. Once the prince finished with them, he was next. Do I want to do this? It is Baron Josanin, of that I have no doubt, but I do doubt my understanding of how he wants me to behave. It is so contrary to his very nature. He is the master and ... hmm; maybe he seeks to control the prince and princess and rule through them.

*Yes, Baron, I will swear to keep the peace and to accept the prince and princess as my liege lord and lady for as long as you wish me to do so; but do understand that I will stay as your bodyguard, and my loyalty is always first to you.*

Josanin considered his henchman’s thoughts, wondering what thought process brought such ready agreement. He knew why he was doing what he was doing: preparing for a war. A war against Alimnazer ... his mind-shield slammed into place, quickly followed by a mental fortress that saved him the pain that nearly all others in the room were suddenly suffering. Even Vetch, a man born with a fairly strong psionic ability, looked pale and strained, though he obviously was not as afflicted as everyone else in the room.

Josanin looked around the room. The prince and princess were both suffering as badly as anyone else. Opening a sally gate in his mental fortress, the Baron sent a tendril of thought towards Ambre, making a slight grazing touch upon newly-activated psionic neural pathways and bringing up her mind-shield. He shifted his attention to the prince next, finding a mental warrior hacking away the thicket of thoughts that pounded at the prince’s brain. Josanin deftly touched the right places, and suddenly Prince Wilelm had a mind-shield.

Thinking of an adaptation of his mental tendril, he increased the number of strands from one to a dozen and sent them out to the rest of the room’s occupants, who were quickly saved from further attempts at acquiring migraine headaches.

In a general area use, Prince Wilelm thought, *What has happened? Why do I know you are all able to hear me as if I were speaking aloud? Why can I sense you all?*

Josanin replied, *Good questions all, but in short, all of you have suddenly developed psionic—that is, mental or psychical—abilities. Now, why that has come to be, I have not a clue. I have never heard of such, but then again, a week ago, I was in Atlantis on the steps of Alimnazer’s Tomb awaiting you and the princess. This world reformed in a fashion most odd, so everyone suddenly gaining mental abilities—why not? It makes as much sense as aught else that has happened to us. Just from scanning this room, I can tell only a few of you are going to be strong in psionic ability, but all of you will be able to communicate mind to mind, to generally broadcast thoughts as I am doing now and to defend your mind and privacy with a mind-shield. I know not who did this, nor why, but I think they have given Mankind, in all of its varied branches, a gift for overcoming the great language barrier the Day of the Music and Lights created.*

Chapter 2:

A Week In Review

Day 1 - 7

JASON ALEXANDER BOYD woke up beside his work-station. All around him, his electronics began stirring back to life. The mystery man shook his head once to make sure he was awake, really and truly, as he climbed to his feet. He had just been in his mansion’s secret garage. That was his last memory before ... before the Music and Lights and ...? What had happened?

Poison, as he thought of himself when in costume, like now, opened a comm-link to the AI that ran his mansion. The reception was instantaneous or so close as to be indistinguishable. The AI on the other end, however, was not familiar to Poison, though it was familiar with Poison.

Arin, what is the status of news reports on this mass unconsciousness?

To which the AI replied, Sir, do you want me to limit my answer to my Arin configuration? Or do you want to use my full capacity?

Helpfully, because weird things happened to metahumans and mystery folk, the AI added, This is Arin3 speaking with you. Arin and Arin2 are both working on the cases you assigned them. They both went back to work immediately after the reboot.

Poison said slowly, No ... just tell me of any and all news reports, of any sort, from any source. He tapped on the local keyboard, bringing up a remote view of Philadelphia through various remote cameras throughout the city. Most were blurry screens of static—no connection—but a few worked, ones that had their own individual power sources. The camera that faced Independence Hall was one of the operational cameras.

Poison stared at the faces, one in particular. That is George Washington or his exact duplicate ... no, that is the one and only George Washington. And that pair of U.S. Army Captains are the spitting image of Robert E. Lee and U.S. Sam Grant. Poison darted his glance from person to person, recognizing face after face. That is Lincoln, Franklin, the Roosevelt cousins as young men, Reagan, Tom Jefferson, Madison maybe?

Others were stirring, either sitting up or standing up, and people besides Poison were seeing faces they recognized but should not be able to see. More than one face bore the look of fear, of uncertainty. More than one set of lips asked, What the hell just happened?

Arin3 reported back just then, Sir, there are no news reports. There are no electronic communications at all. I could not even ping a satellite. It is as if they are not there. The AI, if it was similar to the one Poison had built, was incapable of feeling fear or other emotions, yet the last sentence had the warbling tenor of fear in it.

Is there any local chatter on the police bands? Or any other civilian bands?

None. But Alien just landed outside your front door.

THOUGH NOT COUNTED at the time, on the Day of the Music and Lights, the day of The Event, some one hundred thousand plus peoples, mostly Human, were awakened in the new existence in and around Philadelphia. Among those thousands were all the members of the various Continental Congress delegations and the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, along with nearly four centuries worth of other leaders, including most of the Presidents as younger, fitter men than when they served as the nation’s chief executive.

The mystery man known as Poison had been the unlikely organizer of the first day, setting in motion the new government of the United States. George Washington had been elected the President of the Combined Continental Congress. His Vice-President was Benjamin Franklin. Poison had selected three hundred twenty-four men and women from all ages as the voters to choose between the pair. His list had included every mature leader in the crowd, skipping past the twenty and thirty-year-old Presidents and generals and so on.

Even more importantly, the very beginning of a Federal Government was being outlined by those same men and women. The appearance of several superheroes in the Philadelphia area had given the Combined Continental Congress a legitimate force to work with for storm disaster relief, and from that came Washington’s idea of the United States Army Super Marshal Squad. A totally new phenomenon for most of the members of the CCC, the idea of superheroes was well-received due to both Poison and Alien and their initial efforts on days one and two.

By the end of the third day, following Alien’s report and under the leadership of Washington, Franklin, and a half-dozen others, the CCC had appointed a committee to rewrite the Constitution, using the amendments up through the thirty-first to modify the original writing. James Madison was the chair of the committee, and he estimated he would deliver the rewritten document to the CCC within a couple of weeks.

Starflower Brown was one of the metahumans who appeared in the Philadelphia area. Her career as a super had barely begun at the time she experienced the Light and Music. Even so, she could hit Mach one while flying, and she had super-strength and could project energy beams or bursts from her hands. Defensively, she could shift into a living diamond form, becoming virtually indestructible. When she had seen Alien float out of Independence Hall, Starflower had used her own flying ability to catch the woman’s attention.

Dressed in her tie-dyed tee-shirt, cut off denim short-shorts, and her cheap tennis shoes, she made quite a contrast with the costumed superhero she was vigorously waving her hand towards. Hey! Can I talk with you? Ms. Johnson!

Alien looked at the woman floating in the air opposite her. I hope this is a hero and not a villain. I can’t say I recognize her, so she is most likely from a different time than me. Still, hear her out; she may be a friend I have not yet met.

Yes? How may I help you, Ms.?

Starflower floated some twenty feet above the ground and held her place as Alien approached. Alien was world-famous, but not in the world that Starflower came from. She had listened to the mystery man, Poison, when he spoke her true name, or at least her Human name. So, the Ms. Johnson salutation had been the natural result of her upbringing.

Even so, Starflower said, Oh, my name is Brown, but just call me by my given name of Starflower. My parents were hippies back in the seventies, and well, that’s how I got my rather unusual first name. In fact, I think their drug use is why I was born this way. I was not the only one to develop powers in the eighties. We didn’t have any other-worldly visitors though, so when that guy in black—uh, Poison, right? Anyway, when he said you were from another world, it blew my mind. Are you really an Alien adventurer, come to Earth to right wrongs and seed the good, like in the comics? You are a really tall woman up-close, but I guess you knew that already. Anyhoo; just call me Starflower. I use my first name as my sobriquet for fighting villains and other public work.

Obviously we are not from the same time line, said Alien. In my Earth’s history, the Age of Supers did not begin until 1999; superheroes were certainly not known as early as the eighties. Even so, what powers beside flight do you have? Heh, and please, no Ms. Johnson—either call me Beth or Alien.

Fair enough, Beth. I will use Alien when it is appropriate, but otherwise, Beth it is. As to my powers, well, I am stronger than most—able to lift heavy equipment, subway cars, that sort of thing. I can barely break the sound barrier when flying, so I am no better than a Mach one flier. On my Earth, that put me just over the middle of the pack for fliers, but how I will rate here, I have no idea. I can shoot bursts of bio-energy from my hands or send a steady stream of the same bio-energy at a lesser intensity. And I can do this, too.

The woman inside the tie-dyed t-shirt changed form, going from warm Human flesh to solid, living diamond that was semi-translucent.

Oh, you are so beautiful like that! exclaimed Alien. "Even if I only had a normal set of eyes, I would nearly be able to see through you. All your internal flesh is crystalline; the very veins in your body are made of crystal, locked in a nearly unbreakable connection. I guess that not much can harm you in this form.

Anyway, you called to me for what reason?

I want to help. I know you and I are not yet friends, but ever since I heard of you, I have wanted to meet you and to help save the world. Lord knows, it sure seems to be in right bad shape. As one of Dad’s friends would say, ‘it’s as fucked-up as a can of worms’; I was never sure exactly how badly fucked-up that was, but it sounded just awful. So, yeah, I want to be of help. It kind of is what I do. Just like you. Or am I wrong?

No, you are correct, of course, Beth said with a smile on her face. Come on then, let us get on our way to Boston, and I will explain the situation as we fly. First though, we need to stop by Poison’s mansion and pick up some com units, otherwise you and I will have a tough time speaking at racing speeds. By the way, thank you.

Starflower, flying alongside Alien, said, Huh? Why the thanks? I haven’t done anything yet.

Oh yes, you have. You choose the good over selfish greed; you volunteered to go into the most dangerous storm I have ever heard of, and for no other reason than a chance to help save people.

Ha! You make me sound like some saint, and though Daddy called me his little angel when I started flying at three years old, I got the impression he sometimes meant a fallen angel for all the unintended mischief I got into, and for the intended mischief, too. Man, I am going to be missing that old hippie. Starflower let out a small sigh as she reminisced about her father.

After equipping the earbud com units, the two flew swiftly just above the speed of sound on track to Boston. The winds were moving the clouds rapidly, forcing the pair to fly not too much above tree level. It quickly became apparent to Starflower that the first days after the Music had not been kind to New England. Evidence of repeated tornado strikes abounded along the landscape of Connecticut, trees felled and twisted into sharp fragments, driven willy-nilly into one random spot after another. Most had been harmless in effect, as the population had sought shelter early on before the worst of the tornado swarms had hit. Even so, not all had survived; they witnessed more than one body lying on the ground, lifeless, and in all too many cases, torn into scraps barely recognizable as having once been Human.

Here and there, one or two or sometimes as many as three individuals were seen, making their way wherever they thought best at the time. Starflower sincerely hoped they all were heading towards shelter, but there was no time to stop and try to rescue all the individuals. Alien had given a lowball estimate of thirty thousand people living in Boston after the Day.

It may be as many as four times that many in Boston. I only did a very hurried aerial survey.

As the pair hurried through the sky, the storm kept washing across them as rain band after rain band swept over the area. Thunder rolled and lightning crackled, a high note that rumbled through the noise of the wind. Debris flew, mostly below them, though some of the smaller pieces were reaching higher, some even above the height they flew. Occasionally, the piece of debris was large enough to warrant dodging, but mostly both the women flew straight on through. Alien simply batted away any smaller pieces, usually shattering the piece of debris into rapidly dispersed dust. After a few dodges, Starflower simply shifted to her diamond form and battered her way through all the remaining debris in flight.

As the pair descended over storm-torn Boston, Alien tapped Starflower on the arm and pointed out a storage yard adjacent to the ultra-modern waste facility. It was full of eight-wide by twenty-feet-long trash dumpsters. Clustered around a repair building adjacent to the storage lot were a couple of bulldozers with blades and several other earth-moving machines in various states of repair.

Okay, I see what I can use down there. Thanks. You go take care of the waterspouts. I got this, said Starflower.

Alien nodded, then flew on over Boston, out into the harsh high winds and rains, looking for any waterspouts nearing landfall, or tornados forming on land for that matter. She immediately found her first target, a huge waterspout approaching Boston harbor about five miles out. Hmm, an F5, or near enough; this will be a hard one to unwind.

Diving into the tornado, she created a tight clockwise flight path inside the funnel of the waterspout, increasing her speed and her orbit until she was directly conflicting with the rotation of the waterspout. Then she began varying her height, going higher and lower but always in the same clockwise pattern, creating a counterforce that wore away the power of the waterspout, causing the twisting funnel to collapse back into just another part of the general storm within a matter of minutes.

That was not as hard as I feared it might be. I wonder how many more I will find today? Even as she speculated, her long-range eyesight spotted another waterspout to the north, and so she was off.

As her new friend flew off to do her job, Starflower rapidly dropped to the equipment maintenance yard and examined the various blades and scoops on the machines. A couple of shop workers came running out when they saw the strange-looking woman drop from the sky.

What are you?

ARE YOU AN ALIEN?

Starflower, still in her diamond form, laughed long and hard as she kept considering how she could best use the gear at hand.

"No, I am just a country gal from eastern North Carolina, who maybe has a few extra abilities most folks don’t. Don’t worry, me and the other woman are here to help. She is out there in the ocean unwinding waterspouts to keep them from ever reaching landfall. New England is tore up bad enough as it is, don’t need no more, and Alien is the girl to keep it from happening or I miss my bet.

Now gentlemen, I would appreciate your advice on which one of these blades will be easiest to detach. And I am going to need to use the big bucket off that oversize backhoe. I’m going to dig a big drainage ditch and use the material to fill up all those dumpsters over there. Then I’m going to use them to build a temporary surge barrier, a seawall more or less, that will cut off the harbor till the flooding is over.

Both men looked stunned, and neither replied. Starflower sighed, Gents, the biggest, baddest hurricane ever was is coming straight to New England, and we two superheroes can’t stop it, but we can cut down on the damage somewhat, and that we aim to do.

Seeing neither of the men were able to contribute anything meaningful as they were apparently in a state of shock, Starflower simply walked over to the nearest bulldozer, a Cat D7. Taking hold of the arm attaching the blade to the machine properly, she pulled hard and fast, separating the metal connection. Jumping over the machine to the other side, she repeated her act, removing the blade from the main body of the tractor. Then she bent both its arms closer together, so she could easily hold the blade in both hands. Then she went to the backhoe-like machine and proceeded to remove the bucket, again by brute force.

I ... I saw ... did you ... oh my GOD! What are you? one of the men stammered.

Guys, go take shelter. This storm is going to be a doozy. I’ll take care of preventing the flooding. Saying that, Starflower picked up the bucket in her right hand and walked over to the blade, which she grabbed with her left hand, flexed her knees and leapt up into the sky to go to her chosen part of the area. Dropping the pair of oversize tools she had made herself, she flew back to the storage yard, grabbed a pair of dumpsters and returned.

She continued transporting dumpsters till she had a couple of dozen lined up on her chosen dig site, an island whose name she didn’t know and didn’t care to learn. It would serve as the first foundation for her dike. Using the blade from the Cat D7, she began to push up the land into piles, working from the backside of the island, pushing the land into the gaps between the low hills that provided a crest to the land. Starflower scraped up a layer of dirt ten feet deep on her first pass through the harbor side of the island area. Once the gaps were filled to the same height as the hills, she scraped up more dirt and clay, going deeper with her scraper blade.

Changing tools, she scooped up the material from her dump points and flying back and forth rapidly, she filled the twenty-four dumpsters to over the edges, tamped it down with the bucket and refilled it until the tamped down material was full to the top of the edge of the dumpster. The newly-filled containers were lined up at the base of the area she had just filled in, reinforced with clay on both top and bottom.

With her first line of barriers in place, Starflower retrieved another twenty-four dumpsters and repeated her earlier action. Working as rapidly as she could, she turned the hundreds of dumpsters into oversized sandbags. A very brief meeting with Samuel Adams and a few other notables had led to a city-wide effort at gathering everyone into the securest shelters possible.

All throughout the day, the hurricane-force winds increased and then increased again, until finally the eye of the storm passed over Maine and began to move onward towards Hudson Bay. It was the longest day of Starflower’s life. Her barrier worked to some extent, but the power of the storm continually threatened to overwhelm the hastily arranged barrier, especially in the open channel areas where she’d had to pile so many dumpsters to achieve her dike. Again and again, Starflower had to use brute force to