9.7.2021

Doc Masterson and the Prisoner of Time, Chapter 5

Doc Masterson’s been in the superhero game for most of his life. But his powers are more dependable than his mental health. Lured out of retirement by telepath Paul Drake and the mysterious Apparatus, Masterson’s first mission is to investigate the crash of an extra dimensional ship in Tokyo, Japan…Chapter 5: The Ship

Don’t be fooled – I can’t fly, but I can control my density, and thus, my descent. As a force of habit and training, my mind went blank, and I fall, listening to the wind around me, staring at the ground thousands of feet down.  I could see the long wreckage of the crash below me.  I couldn’t believe that something like this had happened.  

As I fell closer I could see the mess of blue smoke obscuring the ship.  The smoke looked much larger in real life than it did on the TV.  

I couldn’t see Isabel.  I floated into the blue smoke.  Once I had entered it I realized it wasn’t smoke at all, but some sort of airborne dust. It washed over my gas mask.  I could feel it in my bare hands as it battered and blew around. 

I hit what was left of the street.  I couldn’t see anything. “Isabel!”  I cried out.  “Isabel are you here?”

“I’m here!” she yelled out.  I still couldn’t see her.  

“Come towards my voice!”  I yelled back.  

“Okay, Doc,” she said.  

I peered into the blue clouds of dust.  After a moment she came walking through the dust to a place where I could see her.

“Hi, Doc,” she said.  

“Stay near me,” I scolded.  “Now which way is the –“

A white light flashed through the dust like a strobe light.  I could hear electricity gathering all around me.  

“Quick!” I shouted.  “Out of the dust!”

We ran.  Only God knows which way.  We escaped the clouds of dust.  The light flashed faster and faster.  I could hear the deep rumble of electricity rubbing against itself.  

“Keep on going!”  I told Isabel.  

Some alien technology was about to set fire to us.  Isabel tripped over her boots and crashed into the ground.  

“Isabel!” I came to her and grabbed her right arm, dragging her up.

“It’s okay, Doc!”

I looked down at her knees.  They had been torn to shreds by the pavement.  Blood ran down her legs.  I hadn’t realized before that her legs were bare.  She was wearing goddamned short-shorts beneath her coat, which she now pulled off. Beneath it she was wearing a flak jacket, the short-shorts, and some kind of long pistol in a holster on her waist.  “It’s okay, Doc, I have this,” Isabel said.  She pulled the gun out.  

I’d actually seen one before. But not in the field.

“Well,”  I said.  “That’s nifty.”

The explosion hit.  

It knocked us both over. The blue dust cleared, into god knows where.  We could see the ship at the center of the crash site; it was clear as day now.  We were both ready for green aliens to pop out of it and attack us with their mind rays or some shit, but it didn’t happen.  Instead, the ship seemed to just emit a low, creaking noise like metal dying.   

“Now what?” Isabel asked.  

“Now we check it out.”

Somewhere in the din going on I could hear the helicopters above us, the distant cries of the wounded and dying. We were at the center of attention now,  the whole world watched their news channels in fearful disbelief.  

It was okay, right?  We were superheroes there to save the day.

We crept across the rubble.  There was steel, glass, and concrete everywhere; ruined bodies littered the ground. Thousand of life stories torn to shreds.    We found no one alive.  

The ship grew closer and closer as we stepped across the uneven ground, avoiding the piles of sidewalk and street, dodging past shredded steel beams, and crushing glass powder beneath our feet. The ship itself was nearly three stories tall, bulbous, impenetrable, but showing signs of distress from the impact. There were no doors or windows anywhere.  You couldn’t tell what was front or back, top or bottom.

“This is where we part,” I told Isabel.

“What?  You can’t leave me here!”

“I just did.”  I made myself incorporeal and passed through the metal of the ship.  It was easy. Most technology is defenseless against me. 

Inside was surprisingly mundane.  I was in some kind of hall with doors leading to other chambers.  The interior of the ship was covered in holographic read-outs in English – still no aliens, this ship was human. Everything seemed to point in one direction, one focal point, so I followed it.  

The ship was silent except for the buzzing creaking, which was muffled in the interior.  Strange.  I made my way slowly, wondering suddenly what Isabel was doing, what Paul was doing, what the whole damn world was doing while I was in there.  

I passed lots of machinery that looked advanced, but not very exotic.  There were computers with English keyboards. Where had this ship come from?  

An airlock led to the bridge. It was small, and military in its design – form followed function. There was a big viewing screen like Star Trek. But this screen was real and broken. In front of the screen were two command consoles, with chairs, and humanoid pilot in a space suit slumped over one of them. 

If I had a tricorder, I would know if this person was dead or if they had diabetes. There was no one else here, only me. It was a crime scene. The whole world was enrapt over one question: Who had done this?

I laid my hand on the pilot’s shoulder and pulled him back from the console. He was heavy. I looked at his face through the glass – human, African-American, mid-fifties maybe, great looking mustache. 

There was moisture on the inside of the pilot’s helmet. It pulsed. He was alive.

I had seen enough. And I was not really a doctor. All I had to give to the world after this mission was more questions. I walked back to where I had entered, and dematerialized again and passed through the bulkhead.  I did not see Isabel when I reached the outside.  

“Isabel!” I shouted,“Where are you?”

The helicopters still hovered, sirens still screamed, and the world still waited.  

I caught sight of her about 100 yards away from the ship.  She was lifting a huge hunk of concrete.  I ran over to her, but she clearly did not need my help.  This girl had some strength. Under the slab of concrete was a dead woman holding a baby protectively. What was so absurd and sad, was that the baby was crying.

Isabel clung to the baby and was waving for Japanese first responders.

“It’s a miracle, Doc!” Isabel shouted.  “What did you find in the ship?”

I stared at her and the baby. I could not reply.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 69/7/2021

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Take care, everyone! I’ll see you tomorrow!

—Matt