In The Darkness

Another day. Another terrible, terrible day. I don't know what time they woke me up. My mental clock isn't working anymore. But I do know that some time this morning, two robots came into my room, shot me up with that horrible, horrible drug, and offered me some bread with butter on it, and a bottle of orange juice. I would have thrown it in their face, but I was starving. I ate it all up, as I felt my mind slip under the influence of Quionizine C.
I imagined the food traveling through my stomach, slowly being degraded, digested by the toxic environment. It felt almost autobiographical. I thought about the robotic guards. I wondered how they kept balance. They seemed very top-heavy.
My hands were trembling. Why? Was it simply fear? Was it a side effect of the Quionizine? Was the issue localize in my brain, or some other part of my nervous system? I stumbled along, as the two robots guided me to my torture chamber. I passed what looked to be a laser. I wanted to touch it, to take it apart and see how it worked. The terminators held me back.
I saw other strange chambers, filled with experiment I didn't even understand. But how I wanted to understand them! I struggled against the terminators. I wasn't struggling for freedom. I wasn't struggling to save every single MAD from annihilation by a terrifying virus. I was struggling because I wanted to see what that satellite-looking thing was for.

I was in a laboratory. I was under Dalton's control. Working on his problem, doing his will. I tried to stop. I wanted to think about something else. Anything else. I tried. I designed elevators, and tried to derive an equation for heat flow in the sun's corona. But I was always drawn back to studying a virus that would only affect MADs.
I was so frustrated. I hated Dalton so much. I wanted him to suffer for what he had done to me. I wanted to hurt him. But I couldn't. He was in Brazil, probably surrounded by a secret service detail. I was in a basement in Silicon Valley.
But my brain had found a problem, and it demanded a solution. Maybe I couldn't hurt Dalton himself. Could I hurt something he valued? No, I was locked in a room with nothing but a bunch of interacting white-boards.
Could I hurt the terminators? No. The walls, the ceiling? Pointless. Slowly, of course, it dawned on me that there was something in that room that Dalton cared about. Something he needed. Me.
When did I realize that I wanted to die? I don't know. I don't remember. But the more I thought about it, the more desirable death seemed. I could leave this hell, and be free of Dalton forever. I might stymie Dalton permanently, or I might delay him. But I would certainly be better than being will unwilling tool for however long it would take him the complete his virus.
I would be saving millions. With one death, with the end of one useless, pathetic, miserable life, I could be a hero.
I had made up my mind. I would do it. It was merely a matter of how. Could I smash my head against a table. I pictured it cracking like an eggshell, my overgrown brain pulverized. But I calculated how hard I would need to hit my head to provide a quick painless death. Impossible.
It is anatomically impossible to strangle ones self. I needed a knife. What if I could smash open one of the terminators. They were made out of steel, so it would take a lot of force. What sort of machine could do that? How could you calculate the force needed to break a metal bone? Or a real bone? With a real bone, you could use a virus. How would you make a virus to only affect MADs? I walked up to a whiteboard, only to catch myself. I began to cry. Was I this far gone? That I couldn't even focus on committing suicide. I felt the tears running down my cheeks, warm. I tasted them. Salty, but I knew there were other chemicals. Tears contain immunoglobulin, a protein that my virus would need to get past. Perhaps if it degrades immunoglobulin, catalyzed by chemicals only found in the brains of MADs. An impractical idea, to be sure, but worth investigating. I began to work it out. Then, I came up with a better idea. And another one. Then, I started working on two more ideas. My head hurt as I tried to switch back and forth. I don't know how long I worked on Dalton's problem before I realized what I was doing.
I took a step back. My hands were shaking. My senses of time and space, once so reliable, were now gone. My vision was blurring, and my memory was fading. Dalton had tested Quionizine C before. He knew what affect it would have on me. And yet he was willing to drive me into the ground for a chance at his bioweapon.
A robot brought me lunch. A sandwich. Not a useful tool. Unless I could find away to unbind the proteins. Then I could make so many things. A poison would be easy. I could make steroids. I could probably rearrange the sandwich's component to make a small animal. Although it would probably be dead.
Could I make a virus? Of course. What about a virus specifically designed to NOOOOOO.
I needed to focus. Could I hang myself? I had clothing. Would it support my weight? Probably, but what would I hang myself from? And the machines would notice me turning my shirt into a noose.
I could refuse food and drink, and try to starve myself. But that would take a long time, and I would be detected and foiled.
How closely monitored was I? Was Dalton watching me 24/7? Of course not, he needed to sleep. Or did he? The right mixture of chemicals could remove the need for sleep entirely. Dalton could probably accomplish that. And maybe he did decide to always tune in to the Allegra Complex show. Have a live video feed, showing faintly in his glasses. Or maybe he just receives up-to-minute notifications. Or did rely on his AI terminators to monitor me? Or some combination of the above?
I pictured all that data flowing around the world. How, exactly, does the internet work? How much would it cost to replace all that copper wire with fiber optics? Could fiber optics be made more efficient if they moved to a higher frequency of light? You would need a different medium to transfer them. And such a medium would need to fit so many other criteria. I started imagining it. But I also wanted to know how you could treat cancer with a specialized virus to attack tumor cells. I tried to think about the two complex problems, but it made my head hurt so much. I just wanted it all to end.

Eventually, the drug wore off once again. I could have fallen to sleep in the laboratory, but the robots moved me back to my room. One of them offered me my diary and a pen. And an idea struck me.
I've been writing this entry, diary, trying to work up the courage. The willpower, to drive that pen into my eyeball, to lacerate my brain and to end my life.
My fingers are tightening around the pen. I feel the anticipation. Any word I write might be my last. I will put an end to Dalton's madness.
But I know I can't. If I were going to kill myself, I would have done it by now. I'm not strong enough. I'm not strong enough to fight Dalton's influence. I'm not strong enough to end Dalton's influence. I wonder how he would react if he knew what I'm thinking. He would probably tell me that everything that has happened to me, all my suffering these last two days, has been necessary. He would tell me that if I were to simply cooperate with him, there would be no need for these horrible, horrible drugs.
Should I give in? Should I raise the white flag, and tell Dalton that I'll work for him of my own volition? No. No. I need to fight him! I need to see my family, and tell the world what Dalton is doing. I need to stop this! I need to escape!

What was I thinking? I did better than I thought I would. I rammed into one of the robots. We struggled briefly. It was much stronger than me, and much faster. But eventually, it was on the ground. I returned  to my feet. As the machine tried to get up, I turned around, to face the other robot. It grabbed my arm, vicelike. I struggled against it, but my adrenaline was already gone. The machine barely registered my movement. "Alexander Dalton has said that if you try to escape more than once, you legs will be broken." The machine spoke in a Dalton's voice. I hate that man so much. "This has been registered as you first attempt."
The machine lifted me up, and dragged me into my bed. "Stay put," it ordered. It then turned and helped its partner to its feet.
The other machine disappeared briefly, returning with a zip tie. My arms were bound to the bedframe. I barely bothered to struggle. I am tired, and defeated, and Dalton isn't going to use a zip tie unless he is sure it will hold me.
I'm writing this part of the diary by dictation. I'm speaking out loud, stuttering, struggling for words, while a metal man writes it down. I don't know why. I guess I just want part of today's entry to be written by a steady hand, a sure hand.      

The Worst Day of My Life

I hate you! I hate you, diary! And I hate Alexander Dalton, and Thomas Markovitz, and Oberon, and President Walsh. I hate every person is this stupid, fucked-up world. But most of all, I hate myself. I hate how weak I am. I hate how powerless I am. I have never felt like this. The moment I learned I was MAD- ecstasy compared to how I feel now. My trial, where I saw the families of the people I had killed- I'd rather spend a year there than go through today again. But I will go through today again. And again and again and again until Dalton has what he wants and everyone is dead. I hate Dalton. I hate myself.

I didn't sleep last night. I was too scared. Too busy thinking of all the ways Dalton might try to convince me, or force me, to work for him. But I never imagined what would happen.

At 7:45, I heard my door unlock. It opened, and Dalton entered, a terminator on either side. "Hello, Allegra."

"Hello, Dalton." That was my witty comeback.

"Have you seen reason? Will you help me make the world safe for humanity?"
"I will never work with you."

Dalton seemed saddened. But only for a brief moment. "I am sorry to hear that. I am not, however, surprised." He reached into his pocket, withdrawing a syringe. "This is called Quionizine C. I created it in the hopes of alleviated the symptoms of M.A.D.N.E.S.S. You, however, will find it actually has quite the opposite effect." The machines grabbed me, holding me in place. Dalton injected the strange substance into my arm.

I began to feel its effects. The voices in my head, the ones which speak night and day of science, began to grow louder. Was there some way to quantify the effect the Quionizine was having on me? Perhaps by measuring the volume of sodium flow through the broci channels? No, that wouldn't work.

"How do you feel," Dalton asked.

He sounded almost mechanical. Was Dalton a robot? How would you go about trying to make a Dalton-like robot? You would likely need human flesh over a robotic endoskeleton. But that barely counts. So you would want some sort of synthetic material that behaves like human skin. Permeability, sensitivity. It would need to regenerate when cut.

"How do you feel," Dalton repeated.

"I feel fiiiiine. The compound, or mixture of compounds isn't having any effect. How does it work? It must be a complicated molecule. How does it enter the brain so quickly? Does it have proteins facilitating it? Did you inject me with nanobots? How long is the shelf life? It must degrade pretty quickly. If it contains any collodinoids, those would become poisonous. You checked for those right?"

Dalton smiles. "It seems that the Quionizine had the desired impact. Don't worry, Allegra. Very soon, nobody will feel like this."

The robots dragged me along. I calculated the energy required to do that while I wondered about what would happen if you gave Quionizine to a neurotypical. Meanwhile, another part of my brain was thinking about alkaline batteries, and a fourth part was screaming in frustration.

"Now Allegra," Dalton said. I calculated how much of an echo would be bouncing off each of the walls. "I still don't know how to regulate that virus. And I admit you are more talented in that area than I am. So, how do I get you to work on that problem?" How indeed. I started coming up with ideas.

Dalton gestured to the whiteboards that filled the room. "These will display the progress you have made so far. I have several speakers rigged to repeated ask you about the subject. I think there is a seventy percent chance this will work. If not, I will come up with something better."

It worked. I didn't want to help Dalton. I knew what I was doing. But the question he was asking would just build in my head. They would build and build and build until they split my skull and I just had to go to a board, I just had to try to solve them.

I wanted to think of something, anything else. I thought about how the robots must work. I tried to deduce the workings of Quionizine C. I devised the horrible ways I will kill Alexander Dalton when this is all over.

I was his puppet. Off the top of his head, he had thought of a way to make me do the thing I least wanted to do. I was his puppet. He had me tied up in strings and was exerting forces on them to move my arms. I thought about puppets. It must be hard to control them accurately. How would you go about making a marionette capable of complex motion? You would- How do those whiteboards work? How far apart are the pixels? How could I measure that? And those speakers! How small could you make a speaker and still have it be audible? What was the relation between size and power?

I was on the floor, weeping, trying to ignore the stimuli around me. I couldn't. I tried to focus on the pattern of tiles on the floor. I thought about the symmetries it had, and how it was like a crystal. You could bounce x-ray off a crystal and figure out its structure. Maybe you could bounce microwaves off the floor? What would be the symmetry group of the floor in higher dimensions. What effect would the floor patter have if I spilled water? What about oil? Blood? What would be a good way to figure out my red cell count. Could I do it by watching how blood spread over the floor. What about measuring the rate of mutation of a virus? I could make a virus that only affects MADs. NO! No, I could modify bird flu. A virus. Could I make a virus that only affects MADs? It would need to tune into our brain chemistry. But how? A complicated problem. I would need to work it out on one of those boards. But I knew I shouldn't. But I needed to know. But I couldn't. But I had too.

I got up. It wasn't to work on Dalton's problem, though. No, I would do something else. I would work out the melting point of every element on the period table. That would take forever! It would keep me occupied.

Halfway though lithium, I got bored. I needed to do something else. I could write a program to play chess. I started, but I really wanted to think about viruses. Maybe I could design a virus that would only affect MADs. I jotted down some ideas. NOOOO! I tried to erase them, but the computer had already taken note. Soon Dalton would see it, and add it to his list of facts to torment me with.

I tried to clear my mind. I could do it. Just keep my mind empty. Like the vacuum of space. Nothing but one particle per cubic centimeter. And the photons from background radiation. The Cosmic Microwave Background. Not quite isotropic, but is it uniform? Hard to tell. We could look at its reflection off- no that would be silly. We would need to determine it theoretically. A quantum relativistic model of the early universe would need at least four terms in the Lagrangian- NO! Quiet! Quiet like the absence of sound. No, because then I could Dalton's voice, his evil little voice, asking me to betray myself and everything I care about. And I gave in. I hate myself.

The machines brought me food. Bags of chips and dried fruit. I opened them. I tried to think about them. I read the nutrition facts, and wondered if I could make a Dorito out of its constituent elements. I thought about the chemistry in my apple juice. But it was all to no avail. I soon found myself returning to Dalton's problem with a renewed vigor.
I tried everything. I wanted nothing more than to silence my mind, to be free of Dalton's influence. But I couldn't.
I wanted to take a blood sample. To try to analyze this Quionizine C. But I didn't have any of the tools I needed. I was alone with interactive whiteboards and terminators.
I wondered if I could cut the power to the whiteboards. I looked at them, but I didn't see where they were plugged in. I guess that meant they ran on battery. I briefly wondered what sort of battery, and how they were recharged, before I tried to smash one. Immediately, I was dogpiled by my two terminator guards. I tried to figure out how they worked. How had they been programmed? I started wondering about a virus that could only affect MADs.

Eventually, it began to wear off. I began to enjoy some piece and quiet in my head. I was escorted back to my makeshift bedroom. One of the robots spoke to me, in Dalton's voice. "Please understand that it gives me no pleasure to do this. I want nothing more than for you to cooperate. But also understand I will have you down here drugged up to your eyeballs for a decade if that is what it takes. We made valuable progress today, but not enough. I am sorry I could not be here for you in person, but I have a rather pressing engagement in Brazil."
I hated that thought. Alexander Dalton was probably sitting on a beach in Brazil, splitting a piña colada with the President. He was probably smiling, laughing at me. I hate him. I hate him so much. But not as much as I hate myself.
I'm his tool. His puppet. Right now, my strings are slack, but tomorrow, a machine will come, and grab me, and fill my veins with a chemical I don't even understand. And I will sing and dance for my puppeteer, and he will laugh as he sets the world on fire. I hate him. I hate myself.     

The Betrayal

Diary, I have to be completely honest with you. I've left some things out. There are some things I couldn't tell you about. Some suspicions I had that I didn't mention, for fear that I was being monitored. But after today, I don't need to worry about that. So here is a candid explanation of what has been going on.
I thought that Alexander Dalton and Thomas Markovitz were up to something. My first hint was all of the bizarre suggestions Dalton has been giving me regarding my mutated superflu. They kept dancing around the same central theme. He wanted a virus that would infect and kill people who aren't MAD.
I grew more suspicious when I heard about Tom buying a pharmaceutical company. Medizi was known for being able to synthesize complex organic structures from a genomic blueprint. They have dozens of such facilities around the world. Perfect for starting a pandemic. The disappearances of Joanne and Camille were the final straws. They were test subjects, so Dalton or Markovitz could test that MADs were indeed immune.
I knew this was crazy. I knew it was ridiculous. But today, when I entered Dalton's lab, I had my eyes open.
The screens changed as I opened the door. When I looked again, they said something innocuous about Alzheimers. But just for a brief flash... they had said something different. I tried to reconstruct it as I talked to Dalton. It seemed to be talking about a virus that was only active for precise ration's of neurotransmitters. Very suspicious, and made even more frightening by that fact that he felt the need to cover it up. I grew nervous as I spoke to him. "Wh-what are you planning to do this weekend?" Build a bioweapon?
"I will likely be flying to Brazil on Sunday. The president will need me."
"He trusts you a lot, doesn't he?" I bet he doesn't know what you're cooking up down here.
"I have earned it. More than ten years of loyal service, for the betterment of all mankind."
Until now, huh? "W-Well... see you later."
"Indeed."

I was suspicious. Extremely suspicious, at this point. But it was still possible that Alexander was working on some secret project to use a virus to treat some mental disorder. Unlikely, but possible. This would require some snooping.
It was a simple matter to sabotage one of the terminators. I felt like Sarah Connor as I opened its skull up and melted on of its connections with a blowtorch. Next, I visited Dalton. "One of the terminators is broken, and I haven't been able to fix it?
Dalton sighed. "Those contraptions can be quite a bit of trouble. But still, I suppose I had better take a look. Quite likely some silly mistake Tom made while constructing them." He left.
I watched him walk away. As soon as I knew I wasn't being watched, I pulled a small camera out of my pocket. It would transmit to my laptop, and I could watch Dalton as he did his work. After I has ascertained what he planned to do, I could go to the police, no the FBI, with my evidence. Would they believe me? Dalton was a powerful man. My best bet would probably be to go public with the information. Then, there would have to be an investigation.
Eventually, Dalton returned to his office. He pulled up some notes on his screen. He jotted down some diagrams on his touchscreen whiteboard. I tried to follow along. It did look like he was designed a virus. It certainly looked like it could be lethal. It also looked like he was incorporating a lot of my work without telling me.
I began working out the best way to go public with this information. I could email a few hundred reporters simultaneously. I would post the information online, probably in several places. Actually, I could probably ask Tom for money, and the pay for a big banner ad on the front page of some important website. I was compiling a mailing list of reporters when I heard a knock on my door.
My heart froze. Had I been found out? I walked slowly, and opened the door.
And saw Dalton standing outside with two terminators.

 "I am the greatest scientific mind on the planet," Dalton said. "Did you think I would fail to notice your clumsy blowtorching?"
I opened my mouth, but didn't trust myself to speak.
"Oh, I know you bugged my office. Pretty easy to pick up on it when you send the information over Wi-Fi."
"It... it was encrypted," I sputtered. No idea why I felt such a need to explain that. He must have already known.
"Yes, but it still looked like video. And it wasn't hard to figure out where it was coming from. Of course, I also saw you put it there. You aren't the only one with a camera in my office. Which prompts me to ask. How much do you know?"
"I know everything," I said. "And I already went public with it."
"You did no such thing," Dalton said. "Now tell me what you know, and I will explain the rest."
"I know that you are working, using my research, to create a disease that will kill everyone in the world except MADs."
Dalton cracked a smile. He began to laugh. It was the first time I had ever seen any levity from him. "No. In fact, quite the opposite. I am working on a virus that will kill all MADs. Kill you and me and all the dangerous maniacs who threaten the world with nuclear annihilation. That is my plan."

I was confused. "You want to die?"
"I am willing to sacrifice my life for what I believe in, yes."
"How long have you been working on this?"
"In broad strokes, for about three years. If I cannot cure MADs of M.A.D.N.E.S.S., I will cure the world of MADs. I first came across your work on the subject a year ago. For you information, soon after your arrival in Poughkeepsie, you would have found yourself here."
"And what exactly is your plan?"
"I will release the virus using Tom's recently purchased Medizi facilities, as well as several other similar facilities I have constructed. It will be a modified form of the London Virus, in fact. It will infect the brain, and replicate. It will cause only a slight headache in neurotypicals, but will be fatal to MADs in less than eight hours. It will be contagious enough to kill ninety-nine percent of MADs within one week. Air- and waterborn."
"You're insane."
"I am. So are you. So is Tom, and so is Gabe, and so is Oberon. And any one of us could wake up tomorrow and kill a million people. We could turn New York or Los Angeles into the next Topeka. The next London might not be a city. It might be a whole country, or the world."
"But, you're becoming the very thing you hate. You said yourself that you're modifying the London Virus."
"If you're worried about its affect on neurotypicals, don't worry, I have already begun to test the virus, although there is still tweaking to do."
"But even if it works, you will kill thousands."
"Millions, more likely. But it will still be smaller than London. Did you know Oberon once tried to destroy Washington? Or that Xingxi Yu tried to knock out the European power grid? MADs are the greatest threat- the only threat- to human survival, and I will eliminate them."
"Are you going to kill me?"
"I thought I made it clear-"
"No, are you going to kill me now?"
"I am not. I was hoping you would join me."
"Why on Earth would I do that?"
"Because you agree with me. Allegra, soon after you discovered your sickness, you killed six people. I read the reports, I watched the trial. I know how you feel. I know that you will do everything in your power to ensure that no one ever does what you did."
"You're trying to do the same thing but millions of times worse! And MADs do good things as well. Think of everything we've accomplished here!"
Dalton sighed. "Yes. Every now and then, we give the world a little toy. But none of it can balance out the threat of species-wide extinction that every one of us represents."
"But-"
"I hope you understand I am not a villain. I am giving a great gift to the world, and I need you help. I will let you sleep on it. One of my machines will bring you dinner. Tomorrow, you will see reason. Or I will make other arrangements."

Well, the choice seems pretty clear to me. Killing that many people is wrong. But... Dalton knows a lot more about MADs than I do. Could he be right about this?
I mean... he has some valid points. We are dangerous. MADs kill people every day. Right now, there are only five thousand in the United States, but we are still one of the dominant issues in the country. What the rate of M.A.D.N.E.S.S. continues to increase? One of us will eventually kill everyone with a virus, or nanobots, or a black hole, or nuclear war.
But... I can't kill myself. I can't kill Gabe. I'm not even sure if I can kill Daniel. MADs are people. We are living, thinking people, who don't want to hurt anyone. We save lives. We do more good than harm, don't we? I can't work with Dalton on this. I can't.

Diary? I'm scared. I don't know what Dalton will do to me, when I tell him I can't work with him. Will he torture me? Will he threaten Gabe? Or my parents? I can only imagine the sort of pain a MAD like him could inflict on someone. He has an expert knowledge of the human brain, and unlimited resources. And I am held captive by his army of terminators. I am scared.

A Busy Day

Today, during lunch, Tom walked up to me. "I was searching through our database to see what Team Basement had figured out about skin grafts. I saw that you had some notes. Could I ask for your help."
"First of all, Team Basement is a terrible name. Second of all, I'd be happy to help. Do you know someone in need."
"Yes. Although you might not be his biggest fan."
I thought of people I knew with severe burns. "Spectrum?" Was he The Basement's newest recruit?

"No. The reason Spectrum still has those burns is that he is proud of them. I was thinking about Samuel R. Barton."
"The human trafficker who kidnapped me?" I don't know why I asked that. It's not like I knew a lot of other people named Samuel R. Barton.

Anyways, I was still willing to help. Tom explained that he was keeping Sam for information. Sam had moved a lot of MADs over the course of his career. "Which means had can point us in the direction of a lot of MADs who might need help. We can free them, and bring them here."
"Who is 'we'? You might think your wealth is unlimited, but even your can't force the government of Iran to part with all of their nuclear engineers."

"Well, needless to say, some of the MADs may be slightly beyond our reach at the moment. But between Dalton and myself, we have a rather large ability to either buy or seize many of the world's captive MADs."

Tom showed me the body of my former captor. He was unconscious, and wrapped almost entirely in bandages. "I can do this," I said. "But I am going to need a sample of his skin. He has some left, I assume. Otherwise, I'd have to clone his DNA into someone else's, which would be a pain."

"No," Tom said, "no need for that. He still has skin. And some hair, I believe."
"Excellent. He may well look like a guy from a spaghetti western yet again."

I got to work. First I cataloged the damage. Then I made scaffolds to grow the artificial skin. I was entering his room to collect a sample, and I found him awake.

I didn't know how to act. He had kidnapped my brother and me, but he had sustained these injuries defending us. Plus, I sort feel obligated to be nice to sick people. Was I his doctor? Did I need to have a good bedside manner? 

"Allegra," he said. I could tell that speaking was difficult for him.

"You shouldn't be talking," I said. "It is bad for you, and it will continue to be bad for you until I fix up your mouth. If you feel the need to communicate, you can move you eyes in Morse code. Do you know Morse code?"

Y-E-S.

"Excellent. Do you have something to say."

T-H-A-N-K-Y-O-G

"U is dot-dot-dash, not dash-dash-dot, and I am not doing this for you. I am doing this because Tom Markovitz wants you to tell him the name and location of every single MAD you sold, and that requires getting you at least well enough to talk. If you make him happy, I might even get you to the point where children won't scream at the sight of you." Immediately after I said that, I felt bad. "Sorry. I guess some part of me still hates you for kidnapping Gabe. But another part of me doesn't hate you, because you did sacrifice quite a lot fighting Spectrum. Thank you for that."

Y-O-G-A-R-E-W-E-L-C-O-M-E

"Dot-dot-dash, remember?"

U-U-U-U

"There yog go. Now, if yog will exc-g-se me, I have to regrow yo-g-r skin." I shouldn't have done that. He smiled, which made his whole face hurt. "I'll administer something that should numb that. Sorry."

A few hours later, Dalton came into my lab. "Allegra," he said. "You seem to be focusing your energies on regrowing the skin of this Samuel Barton. Could you please redivert it back to the influenza project."

Well, that was awkward. My two bosses wanted me to do different things. "Tom asked me to deal with Barton's skin grafts."

"I understand. Tom is a very intelligent man, but you may have noticed that his sense of priorities is somewhat lacking. Just yesterday, he took time off building a quantum computer in order to teach a robot to play hopskotch. A year ago, he spent some time watching a children's cartoon. Now all of his cars can transform into large humanoid robots." Dalton sighed. "What I am trying to say is that right now, Samuel Barton is Tom's new toy, and Tom wants to play with him. That does not necessarily mean that helping Samuel is in fact the optimal use of our time. That being said, how close are you to being finished with this particular task?"
"I really just need to wait for the skin to mature, and later today I'll operate on him."
Dalton gave a flicker of a smile. "Excellent. And if you need any guidance with either project, feel free to ask me."

You know, diary, I never really discussed clothes. I guess it's not the sort of thing I usually consider important. But I have noticed some things, so why not write it down?

I myself am a t-shirt and jeans type (Gabe jokes that I'm a t-shirt and genes type), but of course I wear a lab coat when I'm on the job. Tom's wardrobe seems to consist of a bunch of brightly colored shirts with references to old TV shows (you know, typical billionaire clothes), and he has lent those clothes out to Daniel and Gabe. Joanne usually wears normal, clothes. How do I describe them? She dresses like my mom,  I guess. A decently normal set of clothes.

But Dalton... he wears a suit in the laboratory. What's up with that? I asked him about that, and he said that you can never know when the president will call. I've never known him to make a joke, so I guess that means he was serious? I don't know.

So, I didn't notice Joanne during dinner. I asked if anyone had seen her. Nobody had talked to her since breakfast, it seemed. "I'll send someone to check her room tonight," Tom said. "I'm not terribly worried. She probably just got absorbed by some problem. It's not like there was anywhere for her to go." I hope he's right.

Tom, Gabe, Daniel and I played Scrabble over dinner. When was the last time I played that game? It must have been in high school, back when I was still living at home. It tonight was anything to go by, Gabe must have creamed everybody. That kid knows how to Scrabble. We all had to admit that. "But I could totally write a computer program to play this," Tom said.

"Of course," Daniel added. "Which algorithm would you use? Recursive?"
"Not worth it. You don't know the other player's letters, your best bet is to run MEX regression on a large sample database and just optimize based off of that."

"You would need an absurd database."

Tom got out his phone. "I own a social networking site where people can challenge their friends to Scrabble games. I can start collecting data right now."

"That ought to do it," I said.

"Well," Gabe challenged, "I bet I can still beat it."

After fighting words like those, Tom and Daniel got to work. "We have twenty-four hours to write this program," Tom said. "We are allowed access to every sort of dictionary, every pre-made artificial intelligences I already have, et cetera."

Gabe was suspicious. "I get the feeling I'm being hustled. Are there any AIs I should know about before I agree to this?"
"The most germane one is for chess. When we defeat you, when our computer program leaves you weeping in humiliation, you will have nothing to blame except for your own hubris."
"Okay," Gabe smiled. "Deal. If I win, can I have a billion dollars?"

"No, but I'll buy you ice cream."

They shook hands, and then immediately started arguing about whether quantum computers are allowed. They reached the compromise of yes they are allowed but it doesn't matter since Tom's computer wasn't actually powerful enough to be useful.

I spent the evening talking with Gabe. "You know," he said. "I never asked. When did you first realize you were a MAD?"

"Well," I said, "it wasn't an abrupt realization, like you had."

Gabe laughed.

"I began to suspect over the course of a few weeks. At first, it was great. My classes were easier, I was never bored, I could always get my computer to work. But it quickly became distracting, the voices in my head asking me questions. The changes in my personality. I drove my friends away when I needed them most. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't M.A.D.N.E.S.S. I said that I was just discovering an interest in science. But eventually, I learned the truth. I came out to you guys a few weeks after I was sure. And the rest is history."

Gabe gave me a hug. Surprised, I hugged back.

"I am so lucky," he said. "To have you around for this transition. To have Daniel and Tom and everyone. It must have been so scary for you. When things got out of control... when you were shipped off to that horrible place."

It was scary. It was terrifying, discovering the power of my ideas. Discovering how weak my will really was in the face of the urge to do science. But at the end of the day... "I did what I did. I killed six people, I was locked up for two years, and now two of the most important men in the country have taken us under their wing. Life has been more than fair to me."

Gabe gave me another hug.         

Another Day at the Basement

I woke up at five thirty-three today, eager to return to my work. I went to the cafeteria to get breakfast. Have I mentioned the meals here? They're exquisite. From a scientific standpoint, I mean. Not a culinary one.

Tom spends a lot of time at fancy dinners. At most of the dinners, the conversation isn't nearly complex enough to occupy his mind. So he thinks about food. He wrote a program that can read cookbooks. He says that even getting to program to follow written directions was difficult, because there are so many things left unsaid. The example he used was that his machine wouldn't know to crack eggs before putting them in a cake. He rectified this bug, only to watch in disgust a few days later as the machine made hard-boiled egg yolk.
But today, his robots nearly always create edible food. After every meal, there is a survey soliciting constructive criticism. My reviews have mostly been positive, but Camille said that she had to explain that icing on a cake did not mean literal ice.
Anyways, I got to eat some bacon, which seemed to have been made right. I left a note saying job well done, although it was slightly burnt. And I descended into the depths of The Basement to do my actual work.

Today was another good day. It was wonderful, doing science, knowing I was helping the world, with Tom's resources behind me and Dalton on call to bounce ideas off of. At one point, upon walking into his office, I saw four different brain scans on his computer screen, along with what seemed to be a lot of data I didn't understand. "What are you doing here," I asked.
"Studying Alzheimer's. The human brain has long been an interest of mine. I have had several successes combating other neurological diseases. Although none of my plans have been implemented."
That got me curious. It got me thinking about a question that would bug me all day. Not a science question, at least not directly. But I didn't ask him. I explained my progress on the flu, and my latest roadblock. Dalton responded with some suggestions. Some were great, others were entirely unproductive. I went through them all. Dalton is clearly a brilliant man, and even his failed ideas are learning experiences.
Anyways. I did a lot of science today. All of it is meticulously detailed in more formal notebooks, and it seems a waste to write it here. So I'll just skip to the next time I saw Dalton. It was the last time I saw him today, six thirty. I asked him for help writing a computer program to simulate a bunch of compounds interacting. He saw through the problem immediately, and handed me a solution like it was the easiest thing he'd ever done. "There was one other thing I wanted to ask you."
"What is it?"
"You seem to have done an incredible amount of research on the human brain. Have you ever tried to cure M.A.D.N.E.S.S?"
"Yes," he said. "I have."
"Did you make any progress."
"I identified a promising class of compounds, called quionizines. Unfortunately, M.A.D.N.E.S.S. only occurs in humans, which precluded animal testing. I tested three different variants on three different groups of MADs. One group developed permanent schizophrenia, with only a slight reduction in their scientific abilities. One group experienced internal bleeding. And one group actually say their M.A.D.N.E.S.S. temporarily get worse, to the extent where they were unable to sleep, unable to speak, even, unable to do anything except science, until the dosage wore off several days later. At that point, given the harm I had done to over fifty different volunteer subjects, and given my lack of progress, I moved on to other tasks. Why? Would you like to take up the project after you are finished studying influenza?"
I thought about that. Three weeks ago, I would have given anything to have my M.A.D.N.E.S.S. cured. It would have meant leaving J. S. Greenberg, and returning to my family. It would have meant freedom from constantly policing my own thoughts, and from painful spasms off scientific inquiry. It would have ended the fear of my out-of-control research harming someone, and it would have assuaged the guilt over my past mistakes.
Now, I don't know what I want. I've learned more about control, about focus, in two weeks outside than in two years in the asylum. I've found purpose for my abilities. It doesn't hurt to think anymore, it gives me a rush of excitement. And now, safe within the technological fairyland that Tom and Dalton have created, I don't need to worry about endangering others. So I don't know. If I could reverse the disease, and return to my neurotypical state, would I? I didn't know. I don't know. But the fact that my answer is anything other than an immediate yes is surprising to me.

I ate my dinner, still thinking about my changing taste in psychological disorders. I ate with Gabe and Tom. "Do either of you know where Joanne is?"
They said they didn't.
Eventually, a MAD named Chris Mercer showed up. Of all the MADs working in The Basement, he was the one I knew the least. For instance, he was the only one I hadn't yet talked about in my journal.
Chris seemed to be in his late thirties. He was tall, and had skin the color of chocolate. Where by chocolate, I mean a black person. He spoke with a deep voice. I might almost describe it as chocolaty. "Even if the group structures are isomorphic, and even if the underlying objects have the same dimensionality, that still doesn't mean that the objects themselves are the same."
"We can devise a map between them based upon the isomorphism. But any such map must preserve the centroid."
"Of course."
"What are they talking about," I asked Gabe.
"Something to do with the symmetry group of asymptotically flat manifolds."
I nodded. I listened briefly. "Okay," I said. "Let me just see if I understand the conjecture you are debating, because it seems to me that it is pretty clearly false." I stated it. Daniel said that he was aware of the obvious exception but said that there weren't any others. I was suspicious, but couldn't think of another counterexample.
We bickered some more. Eventually, Camille showed up, and struck up a separate conversation with Gabe. I think they were talking politics.
Eventually Tom showed up. Chris filled him in on the problem. "Huh," Tom said. "I've never thought about that. Okay... so Daniel's reasoning is wrong, but here is why his theorem is right." Tom spoke rapid-fire math for ten minutes, explaining the proof he had thought of in ten seconds. Daniel and Chris seemed to understand it. I got the gist of it, but I don't think I could have explained it.
"Hey," Gabe said, "I think they're done talking about math!"
"Cool," Camille said, "now it's a party." She turned to Tom. "Why doesn't Dalton ever eat here?"
"Alexander and I are both powerful men. But, while my power sits quietly in a bank account and a corporate trust fund, Alexander's requires him to fly around the world advising the president and solving problems. He usually eats on the go. Right now, for instance, he is eating while on the go to Washington. After that, he has a trip to... where is the president going again?"
"Brazil," Gabe said.
"Right, there."
"Such a shame," I said. "Dalton might never get to enjoy your robots' fabulous cooking."
"They get better every day. At this rate of improvement, based on some rudimentary analysis, they could surpass top human chefs in just four years."
"Impressive," Camille said. "I can't wait to see them on one of those cooking shows."
"They can have a segment on icing," Gabe joked. "Quick quiz, is icing made out of actual ice?"
"Hey," Tom laughed. "They will never make that mistake again. Probably."
"Are you just using normal ingredients," I asked, "because I have some notes on genetically engineered crops."
"Cool," Tom said. "I'm not sure about the large-scale implementation about that. People have trouble with engineered crops even when they aren't designed by MADs." Tom sighed. "It's so frustrating. I had to offer Thailand a third of a billion dollars before they would accept the antibiotics Dalton designed. How does that make sense? Who demands money when I literally offer to cure their diseases? I mean, I don't need the cash, but still."
"That would represent over 0.23952% of your wealth," Daniel commented.
"No it wouldn't," Tom said. "Don't believe what you read in Forbes. For most practical purposes, my wealth is unlimited. For instance, I have a fusion reactor. How much do you think that would be worth, if I wanted to extract as much money from the invention as possible."
"You could easily make a few trillion dollars," I estimated.
"Of course, I would be found out, and put behind bars. So I would probably just sell everyone better laptop batteries. Or a better waterproof watch. Or gourmet food made by machines. How much do you think those are worth."
"In order? Billions, millions, worthless," Gabe said.
"Exactly. For a MAD like me, constantly inventing things- most of which aren't even scary- my brain is a goldmine. If I ever need money, I can just find a nice uncontroversial invention and sell it for a billion dollars." Tom grinned. "Or I could just ask Daniel for a loan. Mr. Stock Market."
"You can have Buttercup if you want."
"That's what he calls it," Gabe quipped. "Named after his mother."
"You can have Buttercup," Daniel started again. "Wealth has never suited me, and you seem to use it rather well."
"Wow," Tom said. "A chance to peek inside that machine? Don't mind if I do. I've had a lot of ideas on the subject, and I want to know if they are right."
Daniel was already pulling out his laptop. "This is the overall algorithm?"
"I see," Tom said. "Why are we squaring here? Shouldn't it be-"
"Fourth power would be more accurate," Daniel agreed. "But a nightmare for the computers."
"Nonsense. Just treat it perturbatively. Nothing the supercomputers downstairs couldn't handle. Ohohohohoh! The quantum computer I was working on! Let me show you. It could totally do this, for small stock market at least."
"The Johannesburg Stock Exchange has small volume, but quite a few high-frequency traders."
"Let's go!"
The two of them rushed off, trying to see how much money they could extract from South Africa. Did I mention I love this place?       

Down Below

Hey diary. You know how the last time I neglected to write in you it was because nothing much was happening? Well, yesterday was the complete opposite of that. I spent the day exploring The Basement, and its wealth of technology and knowledge. I learned so much. I was so productive. Among other things, I came up with an awesome new treatment for Parkinson's disease and a way to imbue a whale with near-human intelligence. I also began growing skin grafts infused with carbon nanotubes. They would be impenetrable to a knife or even a low caliber bullet (which would make operating on such a person a pain, of course).

Anyways, I went through like three lab notebooks, it doesn't seem necessary to write the details here too. Suffice to say that it was really, really fun.

Today, I met Alexander Dalton. He was an interesting man, but how do I describe him?

Serious. He was serious. He had a long face and graying hair, as if he had been aged by the serious tasks he carried out. He never made jokes, and I knew better to makes jokes around him. I don't think I ever saw him smile. He was too preoccupied with the serious business of doing whatever it was he did. He was serious.

He approached me while I ate in Tom's little underground cafeteria. It was manned by a few mechanized workers, and served The Basement's very small population.
"My name is Alexander Dalton." He offered his hand.

"I'm Allegra Complex," I said, shaking it.

"You are to report to me, in basement level forty-five. I expect you'll be there in twenty-two minutes."
A mental timer popped into my head automatically, counting down the seconds until my appointment with this slightly unnerving man. "Very well. I will see you then."
Dalton left. He had already eaten, and had no other business in that room. And he had serious matters to attend to.

My elevator passed through basement level forty-four. I began to worry. It took the elevator exactly three seconds to go down one floor. So why was this last floor taking two minutes. I began to panic. Finally, the doors opened, and I found myself face to face with a robot from my nightmares.
Literally. When I was seven years old, my dad showed me Terminator. And that robotic skeleton... it had haunted me for days. And now I was staring at it.
"Apologies," Dalton called from across the room. "It seems that Tom has a rather foolish streak. He enjoys watching old science fiction films, and, upon watching them, feels the need to create the machines depicted. I use his Terminators as security."
I wanted to ask if Tom had built a Death Star. But I knew better than to make that joke around Dalton. But I did start wondering if I could use those skin grafts to make the machine look more like Arnold Schwarzenegger and less like a killer robot.
"So, what are we doing down here," I asked.
"Do you where down here is," Dalton asked.
Was this a test? If so, he had picked the right subject. "We are forty-two miles from San Francisco. We are underground, basement level forty-five. Given how long that last stop on the elevator took, I would guess that we are some six hundred feet below basement level forty-four, which is itself approximately nine hundred feet below ground. Or do you want it in metric?"
"That will not be necessary. Do you know why we are so deep?"
I looked at the walls. It seemed that basement level forty-five was a large cylinder. The surfaces were airtight stainless steel. The elevator too was confined behind an airtight containment. "This is where we deal with infectious diseases," I said. "Where we can make new viruses and bacteria, without fear of global contamination."
"Indeed. Today's task is to study the influenza virus. As you know, there are many strains, too diverse to vaccinate against them all. I am working to change that." As I followed Dalton through the labyrinthine laboratory, I noticed several Terminators, as well as racks of chemicals, enough genetics equipment for a small university, and probably half a dozen freezers with biohazard signs. "The goal is to create a sufficiently generic flu virus that it will inoculate the body against all forms of influenza. I succeeded, synthesizing a virus that would mutate into millions of different strains within the body, while still retaining its essential qualities. Unfortunately, the virus has the negative side-effect of killing the host one hundred percent of the time."
An interesting definition of success. "What do you want me to do? See if I can improve upon your work?"
"A more specific task. In order to accomplish its goal, the synthetic pathogen must be able to survive in the body for some time. But we cannot have it multiplying out of control. I was thinking that your work in moderating viruses might be of use. Specifically, as the virus has the effect of raising blood salinity, a modification to keep the virus from breeding if salinity passes a certain level would serve to regulate the viruses proliferation."
It was an interesting idea. "I trust you have a detailed explanation of how this virus works."
Dalton handed me a flash drive. "This has everything from a complete transcript of the virus' DNA to an explanation of its physiological effects to data on its efficacy at different temperatures."
"I'll get to work."

I made some progress. It's all explained in my notes to a frankly intimate level of detail, so I won't talk about it here. I definitely felt like I made strides towards solving the problem, but I there is absolutely still work to do tomorrow. No, honestly, it will probably take me at least three days. Permanently ending the flu is hard work.
At six nineteen, Dalton paid me a visit. He asked me to explain some of what I had done. He made some suggestions. Some of them were good. Some were strange, but he asked me to work through them regardless. Even after doing so, I still had no idea where he was going. Eventually, at eight sixteen, my day was done. I took a very thorough shower, then took an elevator ride to basement level forty, where I took another shower. On the plus side, this facility has very warm showers. A benefit of the owner having more fusion power plants than he knows what to do with.
After that, I got to eat dinner with my friends. Gabe, Daniel, and Joanne were all there. So was another MAD named Camille Liu. She seemed to be about my age.
"So, Camille," I said. "What have you been working on?"
"I've been studying the Lightning in a Bottle."
Curse Tom for stealing my awesome name! Just because his underground thunderstorm was somewhat larger than my creation, and just because he had been using the name several years longer didn't give him a right to it!
Camille continued. "I'm studying the formation and growth of eddies. It actually obeys a lot of the same laws as the formation of hurricanes."
"What is there to play an analogous role to the Coriolis force," I asked.
"Well, it isn't exactly analogous," she said. The then proceeded to spout equation for twenty minutes straight.
"Oh," I said. "That makes sense. Surprised I didn't see it."
"Don't be hard on yourself," Daniel said. "Plenty of people might have missed it."
Gabe and Joanne shot each other confused looks.
"So what did you do today, Gabe?"
My brother laughed. "I followed Daniel around, and asked him dumb questions."
"Many of your questions were not dumb," Daniel said.
"And what was Daniel doing?"
"You are aware, of course, that Tom is buying the German pharmaceutical company Medizi."
"I wasn't," I admitted. "Is that allowed? Isn't Medizi another MAD company?"
"It is," Daniel said. "And such a merger would usually be under a prohibitive amount of scrutiny. In order to secure the right to acquire the company, Tom had to promise the Germans a high-speed rail and a superconducting power grid. I just designed that power grid."
"Cool," I said. I turned to Camille. "Where are you from?"
"Wuhan," she said. "It's a city in China."
"Oh," Gabe said. "Anybody want to take a bet as to whether or not Allegra knows where that is?"
Nobody did.
"Thirty degrees north, one-fourteen degrees east," I said.
Camille was impressed.
"She can do time, too," Gabe said. "What time is it, to the nearest second?"
"It was 9:01:22 when you finished asking the question. I could probably have done it more precisely if I'd known you were going to ask that."
Gabe grinned.
"I have an eidetic memory," Camille said.
"Both Allegra and myself have that ability," Daniel countered.
"Not like I do." She covered her bowl of noodles. "Could you draw it? Every noodle in the right place?"
"No," we admitted.
We swapped talents for a while. We mentioned the interesting problems we had encountered. Eventually, Tom walked in. "Hey," he said. "Glad to see the five of you are getting along. Is there anything that you need? Any equipment you want that we don't have? I'd be happy to get it for you." Tom leaned in an whispered conspiratorially. "I happen to have quite a lot of money."
"I may have depleted our store of thallium," Daniel admitted. "Although I suspect you have a machine that logs that sort of things automatically."
"We do," Tom said.
"I was thinking it would be useful if I had a high-speed microwave-radio imager," Camille said. "I could probably whip one up myself, if I need to."
"No, no," Tom said. "Three years ago I made just the thing. A single device capable of everything from radar to x-ray imaging. I have a few dozen of them lying around. I'll have one sent down to the bottle. Or would you like more than one?"
"I could probably use three or four," Camille said.
"And you, Allegra? I assume Alexander has already gotten you everything you could possibly need."
"You are right."
Tom laughed. "I checked in with Alexander earlier today. You two are doing some excellent work. I have to say, the influenza thing is a bit of a priority to me. I think it could really help the whole MAD situation the world over, as well as saving millions of lives." Tom's pupils began to dilate. "Hold on,, I just that this incredible idea. Yes. Yesyesyesyes. YES!!!" He turned to us. "If you'll excuse me, I have a quantum computer to build."
That's the sort of place this is. One where people invent quantum computers over dinner. This place may be called The Basement, but to me it is more like heaven.           

Interlude: Oberon

Antarctica has more scientists per capita than any other continent. Nearly every person is, in some capacity, involved in studying something at the bottom of the world. Some go Antarctica to study its frozen ecology. Some go to conduct sensitive physics experiments far from the interference of cell phones and the power grid. And some make their way to Antarctica to build spaceships beneath a frozen volcano.
Oberon tested his latest armor, which he had dubbed the Explorer III. This one wasn't built for stealth. It was build for navigating the vastness of space. It could withstand micrometeorite impacts, wild temperature variations, and could block out most types of radiation. It was airtight, and capable of up to five g's of acceleration for sustained periods. No less than four different fusion reactors powered the device, although they could also be used to power a medium sized town. In a few days, Oberon would probably take a trip to the moon. One small step for MAD...

Oberon entered his lair and shed his armor. He caught a glimpse of himself in his machine's reflective surface. He saw a man who appeared to be in his early thirties, with a mechanical eye and his famous gas mask. Most people thought he wore the mask because chemical fumes had burned his lungs. That had once been the case, but Oberon had learned how to regrow lungs years ago. Now, Oberon wore the mask because it was the most effective way to get the oxygen he needed. He simply required a purer source of the stuff after removing his most of his jaw, mouth, esophagus and windpipe in order to make room for the computers that interfaced with his brain. Other people found the change disgusting. They thought Oberon was maiming himself. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Oberon was improving himself. Making himself greater.
The MAD sent a mental order demanding a place to sit, and, within seconds, a robotic chair had wheeled up behind him. He sat down, closed his eyes, and opened his mind.
It wasn't exactly easy to get internet for his secret base. And it was getting harder every year. Dalton was brilliant, and he devoted far too much of his time to keeping his nemesis in check. So whatever Oberon did, it would need to be discrete. No satellite, no radio link to an Antarctic research station. Instead, Oberon had needed to lay thousands of kilometers of undersea cables.
Fortunately for him, three years ago an Australian company had needed technical help laying cables of their own. When one of Oberon's agents had offered to help, the Australians hadn't looked too closely. Neither did they look too closely when a five thousand kilometer spool of their prototype had disappeared. In the end, Oberon had gotten a very fast connection, and had been paid over a hundred million dollars in the process
And now, megabytes of data were being summoned from across the world, beneath the South Pacific, across much of a continent, into the side of a mountain, and then, wirelessly, directly into Oberon's brain. He read through an article a second, catching up on scientific developments, and current events. And then, it stopped. The constant feed of information ceased. It was replaced by a simple message. Hello, Oliver.
It didn't take much speculation to determine who was doing this. There was only a very small number of people with the capability to interfere with Oberon's connection. And an even smaller number of people who knew his birthname.
I see you've chosen to sell rocket technology to the Chinese. This is a clear violation of the terms of our agreement.
Oberon felt foolish. Of course he couldn't hide his actions from Dalton.
Until now, I have considered you a necessary evil, one too difficult to remove to warrant the effort. But if you violate your boundaries again, I will act swiftly. Do not expect lenience.
The world returned, shooting into Oberon's brain. But the MAD couldn't focus on it. Dalton knew where he lived. Dalton was monitoring his communications, and was able to send signals directly into Oberon's brain. The genius did a quick check to ensure that Dalton could never control his mind. The answer, of course, was 'no'.
Oberon couldn't sit still. He couldn't sit by passively, waiting for Dalton to kill him. He needed to do something. He scanned the world for inspiration. Something caught his mind's eye.
Spectrum, his old student, was to appear before a grand jury. What swift justice. Oberon might have to interfere. He decided to take Explorer III. It could bring him from the Antarctic to Boston in less than twenty minutes. Of course, Oberon would need to bring Spectrum with him for the return trip. Oberon's second faster armor was Explorer I, which would take almost twice as long as the newer version. Explorer II would have been faster, it just had a nasty propensity to explode.
Oberon launched himself through the air, charting a course to Spectrum's location. During his brief flight, Oberon alternated between designs for a new supercomputer and planning how he would stall white waiting for the Explorer I to arrive.

The neurotypical judge banged his gavel upon that thing you bang gavels on. "By the power vested in me by that State of Massachusetts-"
"What power," Oberon queried as he descended from the courthouse's very new skylight. "What power has the State of Massachusetts vested in you, that you may give orders to minds so much greater than your own?"
People began to panic. Some started making for the door-
But Oberon beat them to it, traveling across the room with fusion-powered rockets. He used one of his thrusters to weld the door shut. Oberon had a captive audience.
Oberon removed his armor. He was now standing in a courtroom in nothing but his civilian clothing. And his trademark gas mask.
"Don't move." A neurotypical security guard thought he could scare Oberon by threatening to fire some lead slugs at a few hundred meters per second.
Another neurotypical guard joined in, raising his weapon.
"Oh, you found my weakness," Oberon said. "A gun. In all my years, nobody has every thought to point a gun at me. Until now. Truly, you are possessed of vast and keen intellects. I beg you for mercy."
The guards fired. The bullets bounced off of Oberon's body, leaving bleeding gashes. The mad scientist was briefly knocked off balance, but his body contained the most advanced robotics in the world, and he was able to regain it before taking a rather undignified fall. He smiled as, in front of hundreds of people and dozens of cameras, his wounds began to fester. The began to bubble. And they began to close.
"Impressive, isn't it? Sometimes I'm amazed at my own brilliance. A bit of nanotechnology. Would you believe I tried to make this publicly available?" He strode towards the men who had shot him. "A tumor inside my body would melt like an ice cube inside a nuclear reactor. I can change my cholesterol levels by thinking about it, and every injury I've had in the past four years has been healed in under a minute. I wanted this to be publicly available. But your government would not allow me to distribute it. They didn't trust my technology. They didn't think it was well enough tested."
"So," Oberon said, as he grabbed the gun from its terrified owner. "Let us remedy that." He pointed the gun against his skull. "Let us test my technology." He fired. His would bled. Briefly. But it had closed even before everyone had realized what had happened.
"What a surprise," Oberon said. "It worked. But do you think that even after this very public demonstration that my technology works, your government will let you have it? I don't." Oberon shot himself in his leg. "Think of that as your wife dies of cancer." He shot himself in his non-mechanical eye. The bullet fell out of his skull, the eye reassembling itself. "Think of that as you watch footage of your soldiers bleeding to death on a battlefield." Oberon snapped the arm off a chair, and stabbed it into his chest. It was expelled in moments.
"I'll be the first to admit this isn't perfect. It took my months to get the technology to properly reassemble eyes. But medicine is full of risks. Let us see how much you trust my nanomachines." Oberon willed a few million of them to leave his hand. "You there! Your ridiculous robes indicate that you are a man of exceptional judgment. In one minute, I will shoot you in the spine. It is your choice whether you wish to recover with the aid of my machines, or trust more conventional medicine. Choose carefully, if you make the wrong choice it is likely you will never walk again. So, your honor, what is you decision?"
"Please, please don't shoot me." The neurotypical judge was weeping with fear.
"Don't worry, it will actually be rather painless. Make your choice."
"I, I want your machines. And Sally, I love you!"
"Excellent decision. And don't worry Sally, your boyfriend will be fine." Oberon shot the man, and then tapped the wound with his finger. The judge healed much more slowly than Oberon had. But he healed.
"Congratulations. Not only have you recovered from a bullet wound, not only will you be invulnerable for the next few days, but you will also find you now have a lower blood cholesterol, better vision, and my machines caught a growth in your epidermis that may have been a nascent tumor. Don't worry, it's gone now."
And, after Oberon's dramatic finale, the Explorer I finally arrived. "If you'll excuse me, Spectrum and myself will need to leave now. Please enjoy the pitifully short lives your technologies allow you."

"It has been a while," Spectrum said, as the two MADs sat together in a frozen mountain in the bottom of the world.
"It has," Oberon responded.
"You know, I would have gotten out on my own."
"Yes, yes. But I had some questions I believe you can answer."
Spectrum seemed surprised. He was not used to answering Oberon's questions. So Oberon explained himself. "Twenty-two days ago, I noticed that there was extensive communication between Alexander Dalton and a physician at the J. S. Greenberg Hospital for the Mentally Unstable. I suspected that it was in relation to one of the MADs housed there, and noticed that three of Greenberg's most notable MADs were scheduled for a transfer. So, I decided to liberate them. I believe you have met two of the three: Allegra Complex and Daniel O'Connor."
Spectrum seemed apologetic. "I'm sorry, I had no idea they were under your-"
"No, no, I understand that recruiting can be difficult. Tell me, is it true that Markovitz himself came to bail them out?"
"It is. We had a brief chat."
"Well, if Dalton has sent his most loyal servant to fetch them, they must be valuable."
"The O'Connor one was a multi--millionaire."
Oberon sighed. "Thomas Markovitz is hardly in need of more money. And O'Connor's skills are largely a subset of Tom's own. It is my suspicion that it was the Complex girl they were after."
"Well," Spectrum said, "I doubt you've spent all of your time monitoring this Allegra Complex. What else have you been doing."
Oberon stood up. "You have witnessed my Explorer armors," he said, as he let Spectrum out of the room, "but those are just the beginning. They'll get to the moon, or even Mars if you're in a pinch, but they're still pretty limited. So I've been working on something a bit more... advanced."
"To what end," Spectrum asked, struggling to keep up with Oberon's near-superhuman gait.
"It seems we MADs have grown rather unpopular on Earth. I was thinking we could make a new home among the rings of Saturn. I have plans for habitats, although I expect others to improve upon them. This mission will lay the groundwork for later installations."
"What mission," Spectrum gasped, as he raced after his old teacher.
Oberon came to a stop in front of a blank-looking wall. With a thought, he ordered it to become transparent.
Spectrum gasped, but not from exhaustion. He gasped at the sheer magnificence of what he saw. It must have been a hundred meters tall. Robotic arms were still welding its hull together, and even the skeleton didn't seem to go all the way to the top, but it was still the most remarkable thing Spectrum had ever seen.
"I call her Titania. She is powered by proton-proton fusions, and can make the trip to Saturn in just six days. This is just the first, I plan to build at least a dozen more. I will create a new world, one where MADs are free to exert their minds. We shall live forever as gods, with all the power of our unlimited technology."
"And the neurotypicals?"
"You saw my demonstration today. And you know that even still there is no chance that they will accept my findings. Here I shoot myself offering them a panacea, and they reject it. Let them suffocate in their own ignorance. The meek shall inherit the Earth, while the bold conquer the stars."