Unheroic Times - Chapter 1

This is a four part story that takes place in the same universe as Archimedi Meets Her Biggest Fan, and is primarily written by WizWrites! Check him out if you've never read him before, I highly recommend!

Each part will be released over the course of the next few days.

"A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world." – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Chapter 1 — The Illusion of Free Will

Tuesday, August 8th

26 years after the world ended.

Another star went out last night.

Something is coming.

And I’m waiting for it.

Eight years in my role as protector of the planet have made me a rather restless creature. Perhaps I’m seeing threats where they don’t exist now, but I’ve learned that it pays to be prepared in this world. I must train to face any enemy. I must steel myself to take on any threat.

I must be primed to eventually confront the greatest evil that existence has ever known. I realise that now.

In the name of all that is good, I beg that I have more time before that though. That the horror approaching is not what I fear it might be.

Maybe a younger version of myself would have made accusations of me catastrophising the situation. My therapist will surely ask me why I feel the need to face all these demons as my own personal battle.

That’s because it is personal.

As Evil’s Spawn, it is my duty to protect the world from it.

I need to continue my training.

And I need to make an apology.

“Well, I must say, Archimedi, this does make for some very dramatic reading.”

Dr Jones put down the diary and sighed as he peered over his reading glasses at the woman stoically seated on the chaise-longue across the table from him. Despite his invitation to make herself comfortable, she always took the exact same position, remaining immutably rigid throughout their sessions.

“My words carry the same weight that I must, doctor, there is nothing more dramatic than that. They are simply forged with purpose.” Archimedi spoke confidently, but Dr Jones noticed the tell-tale twitch of her antennae.

Something really was bothering her this week.

“Let’s talk about this entry then, your current mission.” Dr Jones reached behind him, flicking the kettle on. “We can talk over tea.”

“There is not much to talk about, doctor. I have reached…” Archimedi hesitated, her eyes focusing on the kettle just behind Dr Jones, “... a dead end.”

“Maybe you can start with what you do know then. Sometimes talking is all you really need to find a solution.”

“If only talking could resolve all of the problems of the world.” The corner of Archimedi’s mouth quirked into a smile. “We should have a much more peaceful one.”

As the doctor turned to prepare the tea, his eyes kept returning to the sword laid across Archimedi’s lap. He had no fear of the implement himself, but it was worrying to him that his patient was clutching onto it so tightly today. They had just reached the stage where she would be willing to leave the weapon in the umbrella stand, and now she was holding on to it for protection.

Her progress looked likely to take a hit from whatever was bothering her.

Time to bring out the real tools of the trade.

“Genmaicha,” Dr Jones said as he placed the tea in front of Archimedi. “I managed to procure some yesterday, especially for you.”

Archimedi’s eyes immediately went a little too wide to be humanly possible, almost welling up at the sight of the Japanese tea.

Oh dear, perhaps too much, Dr Jones thought.

Bringing the cup up to her face, Archimedi inhaled deeply, breathing in the fragrant aroma of the drink. The office window rattled in its frame as she did, the blinds clattering as they were drawn in by the super-powered woman’s excitement. Around her, tiny sparkles began to emerge from the aether, adding a flickering aura of miniature fireworks to the space immediately surrounding Archimedi’s body. She floated briefly from the chaise-longue, the excited woman temporarily forgetting to allow gravity its tenuous hold on her.

After one initial and delicate sip, Archimedi drained the scalding tea in a single frenzied gulp.

The room, and indeed the building, shook as Archimedi fell back onto the chaise-longue.

“Sugoi!” Archimedi exclaimed as she settled back into her stoic pose once more. “Thank you, doctor. That was much appreciated.”

The doctor placed a second cup in front of her with a smile and sat back down.

“So, talk to me, Archimedi. What’s troubling you?”

Archimedi was feeling somewhat better when she got back to her apartment. Dr Jones was a relic of the past world, but sometimes that was exactly what she needed: a reminder that everything wasn’t always this bleak and that things might one day get better.

Hope was a dangerous thing, but a little optimism kept the darker thoughts at bay at least.

The first thing Archimedi did after closing her door was to put Hirogiri no Archimedi carefully into its holder on the wall. The blade was necessary sometimes for reassurance, and it felt especially necessary at the moment. Tension drummed a constant thrum through her neurons at the moment, and the sword did just enough to prevent her from accidentally shaking a building apart with worry.

Next, Archimedi took off her watch and placed it onto the mantelpiece. That was another important measure to maintain her connection to the world around her. It was so easy to lose track of things. Things like scale and power and time and hope. The watch provided at least a couple of those back.

It had been a gift from her mother — her human mother — several years ago. When Moralisa had realised that her daughter truly held none of the evil that her other mother did, she had sought to aid the aspiring hero in whatever way she could. Given Moralisa’s retirement from heroics following… events… she had done the best she could think of.

She had bequeathed Dr Steele’s final possessions onto Archimedi.

The watch was just that: a simple wristwatch. But it had been gifted from Steele to Moralisa on one of their first dates. It held meaning. It held a last glimmer of hope for a world that could be.

More importantly, it was a highly-tuned mechanical watch, producing a rhythmic and incredibly soothing ticking. Archimedi had spent hours listening to the gears turn, the mechanism shifting as human time passed. It gave her enough grounding to truly understand how important those seconds were to the people of this world.

It gave her an even greater reason to protect the precious little time these people had.

Aside from the watch, Archimedi had her entire spare room filled with Steele’s old tech. Conveniently, one of those things was a spatial distorter, so the spare room was more like a spare warehouse, housing technological marvels that might have been cutting-edge 30 years ago, but had now fallen behind the current exponential technological growth that plagued the planet.

There was a reason why Archimedi liked the simple mechanical watch best of her gifts. It did the least to remind her of…

Shaking her head and pouring a glass of water, Archimedi dipped her fingers into it and brushed the cool liquid across her eyes. She just needed a bit more time to clear her thoughts.

It was time to talk to her mentor.

Archimedi carefully drained the rest of her water — hydration was an important human action to take care of — and placed the glass next to the sink. 

Then she put the watch back on.

There was work to do.

The door to the spare room wasn’t locked, per se, but it was welded to the walls – a recent alteration following Archimedi’s last visit. Retrieving Hirogiri from its mantle, Archimedi sighed in regret as she gently pressed the tip into the thick steel, slicing through several inches of the metal until the sword slipped into the embedded layer of lead with as much difficulty as sliding it through air. When she had sunk the sword to its hilt, Archimedi carefully traced a doorway in the metal, laid her hand onto the surface, and instantly scrunched the metal up into a superheated glob of molten slag that she quickly swallowed.

Before her watch had time to mark a single mechanical click, Archimedi had stepped into her workshop, turned, and rapidly spat the alloy of molten metals perfectly back into place, freezing it into position again with a quick breath.

A faint warbling hum of machines filled the air as the room sealed itself, multiple layers of protection disabled and rapidly re-enabled, once more protecting the contents from any prying eyes or feelers.

And – given recent… disagreements – keeping the occupants securely inside…

Hopefully.

“I did wonder how you were going to get back in. You practically vapourised the door on your way out last time.”

Dr Steele looked much as she had twenty-six years ago. According to Moralisa, she looked just as she had on the day that she died.

The hologram was a fascinatingly complex piece of equipment, even for its age. Steele had been training the system with the aim for it to take over from her when she retired, but had never finished the project before her untimely demise. Archimedi had finished it though, mere hours after Moralisa had unveiled the project to her. The work of a lifetime reduced to the span of an afternoon’s tinkering in the brilliant woman’s hands.

“I simply decided that this was a more efficient way of preventing access to the outside world, Sensei.”

“Ah, so you did intend to lock me in here then? I’m only mildly offended.” The venom in the hologram’s tone indicated more than a mild level of offence. “Is the world still running nice and efficiently out there?”

Archimedi winced. She hadn’t meant to phrase it that way, but after the last time she had visited, Archimedi was worried about what her mentor might do following their argument.

So, Archimedi had locked her mentor in a pocket dimension.

Her other mother could not return here.

“The world persists, as it has for many years. Our best option is to keep it as pleasant as possible.”

“I know the argument, Archimedi. It’s the reason why you haven’t been here for weeks. You can’t say you don’t agree with me to some extent though. I know you at least that well.”

“I do,” Archimedi nodded slowly. “But I have a new perspective. The world you knew ended twenty-six years ago. I am simply protecting what it has become from further harm.”

“Some would say the kinder option is to fight against the status quo if the alternative is a life of slavery.”

“Others would say that dooming a living world for an ideal one is the truly villainous act.”

“Is it better to die on your feet or live on your knees?” Steele countered.

There was a moment of near silence as Archimedi closed her eyes and took in the quiet hum of her workshop.

“It isn’t my decision to make,” Archimedi kept her voice low, holding back the anger that had filled their last argument. “If I make that choice, I make it for the entire world. I take away the last bit of free will they might have left.”

Steele didn’t respond for a while, before she evidently decided that the argument was done. Another brief silence followed, filled now with the low breathing of Archimedi cooling herself done and the buzzing of her antennae rubbing together.

“I wasn’t sure if you were coming back, to be honest,” Steele’s tone had changed, mellowing out some. “You seemed rather… distraught the last time.”

“Two million, three hundred and thirty-two thousand, nine hundred and twelve seconds,” Archimedi intoned, reaching up a hand to separate her antennae. “I’ve had some time to think. To process things. I’ve been talking to Dr Jones again.”

“Did you come to any revelations?”

“I’m sorry for what I said. And how I said it.”

“The bit where you said I was broken and delusional or the bit where you claimed I was acting villainously for suggesting you take the fight directly to Eureka?” Steele paused for a moment as Archimedi winced at the mention of her mother’s name. “No, you were probably right about at least some of that. I was having delusions of free will.”

“Your free will is not a delusion. I gave you autonomy intentionally. But I was younger when I put you into action. I didn’t understand the nuances of our world.” Archimedi laid a hand on her workbench, picking up an old multitool and absentmindedly fiddling with the settings. “I didn’t have all of the wisdom I’ve gained from you, and my aspirations were… confused. I take full responsibility for any outbursts, both yours and mine.”

Steele snorted. “All you did was give me a kickstart at existence. I can claim responsibility for myself. And I’ll make my own choices even if you don’t agree with them, futile as it may be.”

That was the part that Archimedi was truly having trouble with. For eight years, she had been learning how to be a hero from Dr Steele, and for most of that time, Steele had been happy to stay in the workshop, guiding from a distance.

She had apparently been hiding just how much she hated this new world.

Perhaps that was painting Steele in too poor a light. Her mentor had never exactly hidden her loathing of Eureka’s tyrannical conquest of the planet, but – before three weeks ago – she had at least restrained herself from suggesting all-out war against the Bee.

Living her entire life in Eureka’s world, it had been disturbing for Archimedi to discover just how much the world had been oppressed by her mother’s influence. Having never known anything else, most of Archimedi’s knowledge of the damage the Bee had wreaked upon this planet came from the few tidbits of information that Moralisa shared, though those stories were often sparse. Steele had been much happier to reveal the full extent of Eureka’s work; of how her mother had destroyed a world and called it a good start.

In many ways, the world was no different to when Steele had been alive. Most jobs still existed, people still went about their everyday lives, good and evil still fought in the shadows and light.

Things had just essentially been put on rails.

Under Eureka’s foot, the world’s nations had been forcibly collapsed into a single United States of Earth, placing Texas as the new world capital. From there, products were launched into space to be provided to other planets in the Empire of the Bee.

The entire planet had been converted into a glorified factory. Merely a cog in the machine of Eureka’s ever-expanding Empire.

On one hand, war had effectively ended. With no nations left with any leadership, and the entire population of Earth forced to serve Eureka, there was no discussion of anything of the sort. Peace had been assured, in perpetuity.

Human productivity had also spiked to an all-time high. Fear is a powerful motivator, and the fear of failing to follow Eureka’s decree was apparently not worth considering.

Crime rates had seen a drastic decrease. Inequality across the world had been almost stamped out. Most people were too busy working to have enough time for something as trivial as committing a felony or holding issue with a fellow worker. Many people would say that Eureka’s world was perfect if you believed the statistics.

A perfect world that existed solely to produce new materials to build up Her Empire.

Three weeks ago, Steele had decided that Archimedi was ready to take on that Empire.

The hologram had been incredibly positive about it, suggesting that this was the culmination of Archimedi’s training. The superhero had followed along initially, until she thought through the greater ramifications. Until she tried to appreciate the true scope of what Steel was suggesting.

A war against God herself.

It was unthinkable. It was impossible! Archimedi wasn’t ready to even confront her mother over her slightest of casual actions, let alone fight her to the death for the fate of reality! If the rumours were true, Eureka ground more galaxies to dust in her sleep than Archimedi had ever witnessed!

Steele must be broken, or delusional.

Archimedi had said as much.

It had only devolved from there: Archimedi’s desire to fight common criminals conflicting with Steele’s desire to topple reality’s greatest evil, whatever the cost.

Over the past three weeks, Archimedi had come to realise that Steele was, in many ways, right. She would eventually need to make a stand against Eureka.

She was one of the only people who might have a chance.

But she wasn’t ready to face that idea quite yet.

So Archimedi hid from the problem, locking the room and taking out her emotions on a newly arisen technocratic villain eager to use some forgotten Eureka-tech to make himself an oligarch of Earth. That was basically all that villains did here now, trying and failing to install themselves in place as the new ruler of the planet through some convoluted scheme.

Archimedi’s sword hadn’t even made contact with this one before he was eviscerated by the heat of her body.

That had been all the prompting she needed to return to therapy.

“I’ve come to realise that you were right though, Sensei. I shall need to fight her, one day.” Archimedi bowed, dropping the slightly mangled multitool back to the bench. “I’m just not ready yet.”

“No one is ever ready to face the devil,” Steele sighed. “But those of us who no longer can will applaud you for it in spirit, I’m sure.”

“I think she might be coming back here.” Archimedi hesitated. She’d talked around the subject with Dr Jones, but now she felt the need to say it. “The stars are going out and I think that means she’s coming back. Here. My mother is coming back.”

Bizarrely, Steele smiled. “Well, now we have a deadline. What do you need from me, Archimedi?”