Doc Masterson and the Prisoner of Time, Chapter 8
Chapter 8: CRUSHIt all seemed too predictable – the heroes returning just when they were needed most. Nevertheless, the next day I got my car out of the garage and headed Northwest out of the city. I was going to see Harry Park. I did not tell him I was coming.
It was good for my mind to stare at the road for a few hours. The driving and the music clear me out. I avoided the news. All anyone could talk about these days were The Ship, Isabel, and me. Every media outlet had a different take on the fact that something out there that just simply hadn’t existed before certainly existed now, and it was insanely dangerous. The Apparatus was not longer writing the future. The future was writing itself.
But mostly, I was nervous about seeing Harry. Sure, we messaged each other occasionally, but we hadn’t met face-to-face since Jenny’s “funeral.” I really liked Harry, he was a great guy. I felt sorry for him though because he didn’t like having his powers – he got them by making a dreadful mistake, and he has never been the same – or quite human – since.
Harry had been a scientist working for the Apparatus – specifically nano-weapons, managed by advanced, autonomous artificial intelligences. He had typed a miscalculation into his computer, and suddenly the A.I.’s attacked him.
First, they had burned through his skin, incinerating nerves like a laser incinerating ants; then through his muscle and fat (using both for fuel); before settling deeply, and permanently, in his bones. He had been able to hear this terror. They had talked to him. The legend goes, a deal was made between Harry and the nano-weapons so that they could both coexist as one being. The nano-weapon A.I.s and Harry became a collective personality, and they even had a name: CRUSH.
CRUSH became one of America’s (i.e. the Apparatus’s) most powerful weapons in the various proxy wars – between the West and rogue states, arch-supervillains, and various other nefarious organizations and actors that had flourished since the Mirror Man had vaporized the Twin Towers in all-destroying, living radiation back on 9/11. They had been sent into hell zones all across the world, fighting terrorists, fighting M.A.N.T.I.S., killing everything in sight. CRUSH had been deadly on a massive scale.
CRUSH may have been killers, but Harry Park wasn’t. And he was still, sort of, human. He had a nervous breakdown. He quit. Like a lot of us (temporarily) do.
But Harry would never be free of CRUSH. A second compromise was made – Harry told the Apparatus that if they left him alone, he would leave them alone. Take it or leave it.
All parties accepted the deal.
Now, I’m not going to sit here and describe CRUSH’s powers. All I can say is they were noisy, bright, and merciless. One time CRUSH even had battled against Violet (when her mind had been taken over by a demonic slime mold), and managed to hold her off. Jenny could have burned him to a crisp in under five seconds, so he certainly wasn’t as powerful as her or her equals. I always figured I could take him too if I had to.
Underneath it all, Harry was a simple guy. He just wanted to live a normal life. His parents had immigrated from Korea after the war. He had worked in their restaurant. Now he could shoot missiles out of his eyeballs.
Every so often you heard rumors of CRUSH appearing here or there, saving the day with his smart lasers and living bullets. Then he would fade back. He was too ashamed to do nothing. He saved others, but said nothing. He became a silent superhero. He became reclusive. He grew tired of the world and his place in it, but still was helpless against his own conscience.
Harry found a woman to marry and had a child. The child of immigrants was rich, world-famous, and dangerously powerful. He bought a farm upstate of uncountable acres.
I knew that Harry would say yes to me, despite all of his hangups, despite his wife and his child. He was more machine-collective than human now, capable of bold feats of heroics and war, but – even though so much of him was machine, there was still some humanity inside him. He had told me two months ago he had cancerous cells – everywhere.
I knew because of all these things, he would say yes. He felt responsible. For who? For the world. All of us had it, at one point or another. But Harry was something more. He was the most honorable man I had ever met.
Four hours of driving, stinking of candy bars, I pulled up to the gate of his farm. I pressed the button for the intercom and a minute later I could hear his thick, subtly electronic voice.
“Who is it?”
“It’s John. John Masterson.”
“Doc?” He sounded surprised. “What are you doing here?”
I took a deep breath. “I just wanted to come by,” I said.
“Sure,” he mechanically growled. “I’ve seen you on the news. What a darn mess.”
“I didn’t come here alone,” I said. “I have the Apparatus with me.”
“I know you do. I knew you’d come. I knew they would want me to be a part of this. I can’t believe you are working for them.”
“I’m not,” I argued. “I’m just helping. What the hell else should I do?”
“I knew you’d come,” he said again.
The was a moment of silence.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
“Yeah, you can.” He buzzed the gate open.
I drove through and followed the private road down to his house. It was a beautiful piece of property.
He opened the front door as I was walking up the front porch steps.
“Been a long time, Doc.” He put his hand out. I reached and gripped it. Already I could smell the nano-machines, like rotten vegetables and methane. I knew Harry had lost his sense of smell years ago, so he had no idea how rank the stench was. I wondered how Jan and his kid could stand it. He was like a walking refinery, all to provide energy to CRUSH.
“I missed you, Harry.”
“Come in, come in,” he said.
I entered the house. I had never been inside before. The walls were colorful. There were shelves of books and photographs, a dog barking somewhere. A nice family home.
I noticed Jan Park down the hallway, glaring at me.
“Mommy!” A child’s voice rang out. Their daughter ran into the room and hugged Jan’s legs.
I could feel pin pricks on my skin. I looked towards Harry. It was the nano-tech, microscopic and communicable — extending from him and now exploring me.
“I need fresh air,” I gasped. I stumbled out the front door and down the front steps. I could feel the nano-tech receding from me; Harry had gotten control of them now.
“I’m so sorry, John,” Harry said, following me out the door. “CRUSH can be aggressive sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” I repeated. Oxygen rushed back into me. I could still feel a… residue from the A.I.’s on my skin. I couldn’t shake the feeling.
“Please, Harry back off!”
I could feel the last of them pulled from my body and I felt like myself again. My God, how dangerous he was! And I hadn’t even thought to use my powers – not around Harry.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “We haven’t had any strangers around recently.”
“How do you live like this?” I asked him. “I can’t breathe.”
“It seems natural to us,” Harry replied. He was speaking about both CRUSH and himself. Or was he speaking for Jan and his daughter as well?
“I came here because I need your help.”
“I’m not going to work for the Apparatus again.”
“You’ll be working with me.” I smiled.
“What was in the spaceship, John?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t understand it.” I looked deep into Harry’s eyes.
Suddenly he was angry, “Don’t lie to me, John.”
“I’m not lying.” He would never believe me. Did I believe me?
“It doesn’t matter!” He gestured towards his wife and kid, watching from behind the screen door. “That matters. Not you, not the Apparatus, not your dead, villainous girlfriend – but every father and mother and child on the planet!”
I was nearly speechless. I had never seen him so incensed. Something new was happening under the surface.
“So – will you come?” I had nothing else to say.
“Give me a day,” he replied. “And I’ll come to New York.”
I forced a smile. Harry Park, mechanical death-machine gestalt, was on my side.
“I knew you would come, John. I knew it was just a matter of time.”
“I thank you, Harry. I really do.”
I turned and left, and started the long drive back to the city.
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 9…
