The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Posted 09-21-21
Revised 09-22-21
Revised 09-23-21

Edited by Christopher Leeson
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Chapter 15

CHAOS AND CONSPIRACY

"The villain at the gallows tree
When he is doomed to die
To assuage his misery
In Virtue's praise does cry."

William Blake
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"It's hard to believe that Strike could be involved," I said slowly. "He's always been wild, but never a criminal or terrorist. And what’s up with Strike anyway? There hasn’t been any report citing him in quite a while. The last confirmed incident was something about a fight inside a church."

"Yes, it was a cathedral, a little before Christmas," said Wrath. "Now he suddenly turns up running with a bad outfit -- mass murderers."

I knew more about Strike than I was pretending.

Back on my own Earth, Warstrike had been mixing things up with an ultra called Blind Faith, in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. After that fight, he was whisked off to the Godwheel where he, me, and a lot of others were forced into a grueling adventure involving godlike beings. It was a damned hard experience for all of us, but Warstrike had an actual emotional breakdown at the end of it.

When returned to Earth, he’d taken a long ocean cruise to recuperate. He'd remained inactive around his home until the end of June, when I got in touch with him. That’s when we discovered an Aladdin treason plot and worked together to smash it. Naturally, “the Company” made sure that the operation didn’t get into the official records.

"Do I have this straight?” I asked. “Have we got anything against Strike except a single sighting putting him in the wrong place at the wrong time? Can we be sure that the National Guard didn’t see an impersonator? Or, maybe he just showed up to check things out, just as the soldiers were doing. The Company has to investigate, but we can’t go jumping to conclusions."

"I tell you, lady, the more I learn about what ultras do, the less I understand them."

I thought it best to drop the subject, but Tunney wasn't finished.

"Mrs. -- Eden, did you ever notice how many of the ultras are just kids?"

That was an odd question. I regarded the man keenly. "Yes. An awful lot of them seem to be surprisingly young. Some are actual children."

"How are grade schoolers supposed to figure into the 'vast ultra conspiracy,' like they’re always talking about on CCN and MSDNC?"

I grimaced. "It’s not very likely. My son was no conspirator. When he got disfigured, he went into an emotional shell, thinking himself as too ugly to ever be loved again. Then he suddenly got ultra powers and started taking his anger out on everyone around him."

"Anyone with too much power is dangerous, and I guess that would include me."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Aladdin’s science division took me beyond the level that they’d taken Thomas Hunter,” Wrath explained. “I can work myself up into a kind of 'berserker' mode.' It multiplies my strength and my toughness, but I always go nuttier than I want to. My emotions get hyper-charged and I can veer off track and demolish more than just the target."

"'Wrath' is the perfect code name for you, then," I lamely jested.

Tunney’s return smile seemed forced. "That may be. You know, Eden, there's always been this theory in high places that the ultras are all part of some master plan. Maybe the Illuminati are behind them, maybe it's the neo-Nazis. The trouble is, whenever I’ve met an ultra ‘in the wild,' it’s never been any kind of Nazis-type.”

“Yes, that’s how I’ve seen things, too.” I agreed. Well, not really, but I wanted to encourage the new kid on the block to start thinking for himself, and not be a sucker for the Deep State's party line.

“There are a lot of youngsters out there,” he said. “What am I supposed to do? Kill wet-behind-the-ears kids or lock them up because they've started to take the comic books they read too seriously?" He shook his head. "It'll be a long time before I can stop thinking about that dead girl. I spoke to her a little and she didn't seem bad. She talked like any kid would on her way to a Halloween party. A girl her age should be grounded for pulling bone-headed, dangerous stunts, not --"

"I can't argue with that!" I put in abruptly. The less I needed to think about Lauren's death, the better. "It's going to be hard sleeping for the next few nights, I'm afraid. I should have stayed behind my CRT. Data analysis is dull but it doesn't put blood on a person's hands."

Wrath shook his head. "At least you've got a few technical skills to fall back on. I'm just a fighter. That's all I'm good at. I never minded picking off those ISIS killers, but this! I was better off chasing around the sand dunes than I am in L.A."

At that moment, a female staffer poked her head into the lounge and called my name. "Mrs. Blake, Colonel Smekes is ready to see you now."

Well, this was it. Whatever the newly-promoted Aladdin grand poobah was going to throw at me, I had to face it. I muttered a goodbye to Wrath and followed her out.

#

For more than a quarter of an hour, I was required to recount everything I saw, heard, and did at the Mall. I tried to make it seem like I wasn’t holding anything back, when I was actually dodging around the truth like a circus tumbler.

"There's something you're not saying," Smekes suddenly remarked.

Oops, I thought. Maybe I’ve been underestimating this professional paranoid.

I nodded. "I know. It's that girl's death. I've got children of my own; that young ultra must have had parents, too. Kids grow up accepting that someday they're going to have to bury their mom and dad. But when a parent has to bury a child...." I shook my head. "Well, that's...that's something else."

"Yes, Mrs. Blake, I understand," he commiserated without letting any sincerity creep in. "Both your son and daughter were placed in grave danger only recently."

I just looked soulful, not wanting to encourage him to continue on with the topic.

"We discovered less than an hour ago that you had a personal connection with this short-lived new Mantra."

Oh, God! Here comes the body blow.

I feigned incomprehension. The next few minutes would be pivotal. I could almost see myself in a cell next to Blythe Ashwin, with Sarn asking nut ball questions and laying it on hard with the pain button.

Step One. Feign ignorance.

"I don't understand, Colonel Smekes. Personal?"

"We've identified her as Lauren Sherwood, a sixteen year old neighbor of yours. She was also your most frequently used baby sitter. That's very suspicious, wouldn’t you agree?"

Step Two is incredulity. Make it good, Lukasz

"Lauren? Are you m--? Are you serious? An ultra?"

“I’m serious. When you saw her at the mall, didn’t you recognize her?”

“Well, no. That girl was battered, bloody. And she was wearing that crazy costume, and a mask, too.”

"Well, I don't think it's any coincidence that she's been a frequent visitor at your home."

You don't, huh? I wish to hell you did!

"What do you mean, sir?" I saw no use in panicking. Panache serves as grease in a tight spot; panic is like sand.

"You're an Aladdin agent. Because of your interest in ultras, you have to expect that ultras are going to be interested in you, too. If the ultras had a chance to plant one of their own people inside your home, don't you think they’d take it?"

I blinked. So far he wasn’t making any direct accusation. Was he on the level with his theory, or was he setting me up?

Step Three: Encourage an interrogator to go down the wrong road.

Any road he took would be fine, so long as it didn’t leave me as road kill.

"Lauren was a spy? Are you sure?"

"Maybe you can help us become more sure, Mrs. Blake. How did you first meet Lauren Sherwood?"

I took a deep breath. "Well, sir, back about two years ago, I was engaging Kelly Cantrell, a neighborhood girl, to sit with the kids. After she found a new job at one of the strip malls, she introduced me to a friend of hers from high school. It was Lauren Sherwood, who had just begun babysitting and needed more work."

"And this girl did not appear suspicious?"

"Not really. She gave me a list of families that she was already sitting for and they seemed to agree that she was a sensible and responsible young person. Her family had been living in our neighborhood all along, though I only knew them slightly. When I gave Lauren a tryout, both of the kids liked her. She followed instructions and didn't cause any problems."

Actually, as I’ve said, the young lady once went seriously Dark Side and nearly killed me, but Smekes didn't need to know that.

The officer frowned thoughtfully. "I’ve already asked some people to check out the Sherwoods."

Sheesh! Lauren's body probably hadn't even reached room temperature as yet and Aladdin was already treating her folks as criminals.

"Do you expect a report soon?" I asked.

"One strange thing shows up almost immediately. Pictures from her school show that she has changed remarkably in just a single year. She hardly looks like the same girl. Didn't you think that such an extreme transformation happening before your eyes seemed strange?"

"Well, of course I did, to a degree. But kids grow up and fill out fast. Anyway, I've was seeing her quite often and any gradual change wouldn't come off as noteworthy."

In fact, I had previously given some serious thought to her metamorphosis. Lauren was flat-chested, plain-faced, and skinny when I'd met her. By age sixteen, she'd filled out strikingly.

But I also knew that Lauren had Mantra potential. Eden Freeman Blake had herself not been a particularly attractive grade-schooler and yet she had blossomed into a stunner. It had crossed my mind that magic might have been involved in both cases. Maybe having a Mantra potential can gradually change a person, evolving her into some sort of idealized self image, even before their more active powers kicked in.

Smekes was still talking. "What you say disappoints me, Mrs. Blake. Your work demands that you be more observant than most people. But I will grant that you didn’t undergo agent training until this year. But, that aside, it’s possible that Miss Sherwood made a deal with the devil."

"The devil, sir?" That sounded crazy, even coming from an Aladdin bigwig.

"Figuratively speaking, of course. It may be that there is an ultra out there who is able to bestow beauty. It's the opposite of turning a princess into a frog. Ultras can do so many different things, why can’t they do that, too? To offer an ugly duckling like Lauren Sherwood the chance to be beautiful might have encouraged her to fall in with their sinister plans."

"I guess anything is possible,” I remarked.

"Small levers move huge objects, Mrs. Blake. Think how well-placed a babysitter can be for spying. She's very often in her target's home – and she’s alone much of the time with the children asleep."

"And you're supposing that she could have been working with a conspiracy of ultras, sir?"

He didn't really answer. "What do you know about the girl's parents?" the soldier asked instead.

"Not very much, I'm afraid. I think her father is in accounting. He and his wife separated last year. Lauren hasn’t said much about why their marriage got into trouble."

“What connections does her mother have?” he asked.

"I think her mom is in advertising. Lauren lives with her father but, as far as I could see, her relations with her mother are very good."

Then I had an idea. I could tell Smekes a thing that he would soon be finding out anyway, but by bringing it out early I could make myself seem helpful. "There does seem to be a Mantra connection involved, sir."

"What’s that?"

"Lauren was a tremendous fan of Mantra. She said that she’d even met Mantra once!"

He chewed on that crumb for a few seconds. "It fits. Miss Sherwood was calling herself 'Mantra' at the Mall Friday night and, according to Tunney, she also told your daughter that she was Mantra. The ultras might have been preparing her as a back-up for Mantra for some while.”

“What could their bigger plan be?” I asked.

“It can't be a coincidence that Lauren Sherwood stepped into the original Mantra's shoes only a month after we captured the real item. Someone must be controlling her. And I'd even speculate that the Sherwoods might not be her real parents. It’s possible that Lauren is actually related to Blythe Ashwin -- maybe even her daughter."

"I wouldn't know about that," I said. He was really on the wrong track now and I wanted to keep him there. "But I do know a little about Mantra fan activity in Canoga Park. There's one registered group and it has four steady members."

"Was Lauren a member?"

"No. I got the idea that she didn't get along with the other fan girls."

"An alienated loner? A troubled, anti-social type?"

"I can’t say that for sure. She just seemed to be more reserved and studious than the average girl her age."

I was prettying up the picture. When I first met Lauren, she was a low-self-esteem, bookish nerd with hardly any friends other than Kelly.

Smekes typed a couple words into his adjacent desktop. Then he looked up, smirking with satisfaction.

"I just searched our data base for the name 'Kelly Cantrell.' It came up with some very suspicious facts. She's had the distinction of being observed in multiple contacts with the ultra Prime. I'll have to order that the entire Cantrell family be put under observation and have their phone records checked. The young lady’s movements and communications might lead us to a nest of ultra conspirators."

What next? This country had gone so wrong! A nice, ordinary teen like Kelly had no justifiable place in any black-ops database. It seemed inconceivable that this kind of investigative abuse should be permitted in any free country.

If I could have avoided it, I never would have brought up Kelly's name. Unfortunately, they would have found out about it regardless. Everyone in the neighborhood knew about the Blake-Cantrell-Sherwood connection. The worst part of it was that Aladdin could play rough even with children, Gus being a case in point. Now I had to worry about Kelly being taken into custody for questioning. She could potentially compromise Prime, infatuated teenage boys being so indiscreet.

Smekes’ imagination was only just getting into high gear. "Mantra has known associations with Strike and Prime also. Strike was at the site of the disaster, and it’s noteworthy that Prime had been frequently seen in New York City before that. Might Prime not have been studying the area to do the early preparatory work for the New York disaster? It seems to me that we can’t just be looking at Strike; we need to look at Prime, too. But Mantra has been close to both of these rogues. Why couldn't she have been in on the early planning stages before we caught her? Miss Ashwin absolutely has to be interrogated on the subject!"

For pity’s sake! Blythe Ashwin was going to be tortured again, all because she wouldn’t be able answer a lot of stupid new questions!

"But let's stick to the matter at hand," the director hurried on. "It's possible that Kelly was the original spy whom the ultras planted in your home, with Prime acted as her controller. When Miss Cantrell gained sufficient information about your links to the Company, she was nudged aside and a more capable agent, young Sherwood -- an actual ultra -- was assigned to take her place. Whether Kelly Cantrell is still associated with a conspiracy group is a definite possibility that we have to investigate. Who knows? She might turn out to be a secret ultra herself."

Ohhh, Lord. This whole thing was spiraling out of control.

TO BE CONTINUED in CHAPTER 16