A Ghost of a Chance Chapter 6 - A Whiter Shade of Pale: A Comics Retcon Tale by Maggie Finson

My visit with Kyle had helped. A lot. I still wasn’t all that sure that I could be human, or even come close to that, but at least I knew the possibility was there now. If I could simply sit in someone’s living room, or studio as that case was, and talk with someone on a one to one basis maybe I hadn’t lost as much as I feared.

Okay, so that person was the artist and writer who was doing those Specter comics. What do you want me to say here? I’d made a connection with humanity with him. One I was hesitant to think about but that made me feel good regardless.

I actually allowed myself to just bask in that glow for awhile. I hadn’t realized how starved I was for real human contact until I’d visited Kyle. And knew I couldn’t do without it in the future without losing the tattered bits of humanity I still possessed.

“One needs to remember where they came from.” The Voice interrupted my thoughts without a care for how violated that made me feel. “It is good that you are doing that. But it is time to move on, Diana Spectre. You are not human any longer and have a purpose.”

“But if I lose that connection to being human how can I know if I’m doing the right thing, the wrong thing, or just something that no one can understand?” I shot back without thinking about it. “Moving on is one thing, but forgetting what I was seems to be a liability there.”

“You may well be right, Diana.” Voice answered. “This is something I must consider. Yet it still doesn’t change what you are, or your purpose.”

“No.” I answered with a mental shrug. “It wouldn’t. But I’m not some mindless instrument of yours. I’ll do what is needed, you know that. I know that. But I won’t just bow down and tell you that you’re right all the time. I can’t do that.”

“I know that, Diana.” The Voice answered. “That is one of the reasons I chose you.”

That one set me back a little.

“You want me to argue with you?”

“If that is what it takes, Diana.” The Voice answered with what nearly seemed to be a sigh. “I don’t need a mindless instrument, but one who thinks for herself. If you choose to argue, then that is how this relationship will work. I actually welcome different ideas, so do continue to argue. It is good for both of us.”

How, exactly, do you describe ‘gobsmacked’?

I set the text book I’d been studying aside with a little sigh. As Deena I was actively working to improve my situation, the position in society I held. I connected with people and really did care about them even if I was reluctant to let that show or even admit it to myself.

As Diana, I craved that kind of connection, the caring, and had no real clue about how to go about finding it, other than my visit with Kyle Raynor. Weird. We were the same person weren’t we? Just with different aspects. But we were still one person, one being, one thing. Yet we weren’t and I didn’t know how to even start fixing that one.

It was clear enough that the root of the problem was the division of selves. I considered that and almost felt the walls built up between Deena and Diana as if they were real, physical constructs. Was it just a means of protection for each of my new personalities, or was it a manner of denial that was so messed up I couldn’t see all of it?

This was serious shrink territory. But again, given my situation, I couldn’t let anyone else know what I was going through. That would give me, both of me, away and leave my dual personas vulnerable to things neither one wished to confront.

Oh, the answer was clear enough. I needed to integrate both sides of who I now was into one personality. But there were problems with that. Big problems.

The me that was Deena was genuinely afraid of the me that was Diana. What kind of human being wouldn’t be? Diana Spectre was like a ghost, a screaming, vengeful ghost and was capable of doing things that made the gentler self that was Deena shudder just thinking about them.

But the Diana part of me was equally frightened of Deena. How could the unforgiving, violent and terrible avenger that The Spectre was even contemplate actually caring about people? Wouldn’t that dull her razor sharp edge? Wouldn’t it make her weak when she was about nothing but implacable strength of purpose? Couldn’t something like that make her less effective, more vulnerable?

One thing the seemingly disparate parts of my personality agreed on was that neither wished to appear vulnerable. Not to anyone. Especially not to themselves.

I was sitting atop the Gateway Arch just watching things, traffic, city lights, the river, when I felt her approaching. I’d been expecting something of the sort for awhile, but had started to think I’d managed to avoid this coming confrontation. So much for dreams better left in the smoke of a pipe filled with something other than tobacco.

“I was wondering when you’d show up.” I greeted the newcomer.

“You haven’t been easy to locate.” Jade, hovering in front of me and in a defensive mode, answered simply. “I’ve tried several times and you just seemed to drop completely off the face of the Earth.”

“One of my many dubious talents.” I shrugged. “I suppose this is where you try to arrest me now?”

“I don’t arrest people.” Shaking her head she watched me for any sign of hostility. Something I was very careful not to show even if there had been any in me towards her. “I do round some up and hand them over to the authorities, though.”

“And is that what is this going to be?” I questioned almost idly.

“Could I hold you if I tried?” She asked while listening to something I couldn’t hear and nodding. “You don’t seem to obey some of the basic laws of nature you know.”

“That might be because I’m dead.” I told her with a halfway bitter laugh. “Things don’t operate for me like they would with normal people, you know. As for being able to hold me, I couldn’t tell you. Probably not, but I don’t know enough about your powers to say that with any certainty.”

“What you’re doing, what you’ve been doing is against the law.” Jade tilted her head and gave me a long, searching look but didn’t seem all that surprised by my claim of being dead. “It isn’t legal to just kill bad guys even if they do deserve it. That isn’t our call to make, you know.”

“It seems to be mine.” Standing I let the breeze flap the edges of my cloak and gave another shrug. “Modern legalities and niceties don’t seem to be something that the force driving me pays much attention to. Justice, however, is important to it, and to me.”

“The system in place isn’t perfect.” She told me while moving a bit closer. “But it usually works well enough.”

“No it doesn’t.” I spat out, almost shocked at my own vehemence in the answer. “I was murdered, the woman I loved was too, by a man who should have never been allowed back on the streets after the first time he was jailed. The system let him walk. More than once. There is no justice in that kind of thing. Slaps on the wrist and telling someone they’ve been a bad boy just don’t work with that kind of person. There is no such thing as justice when that type is involved other than what we as individuals mete out. And when it does happen it’s usually too late for some people who didn’t deserve the kind of thing I stop. The innocents suffer thanks to the system and the way it works these days. Not the criminals.”

“That still doesn’t give you the right to do the things you’ve been doing.” She answered simply, firmly.

“A power beyond me, or anything I’ve ever seen gave me that right.” I shot back. “No, it more or less forced it on me. I do what I do because there is no other way for me to do this. Not now. It’s too late for that with me. I don’t have much in the way of choices any longer. I was brought back from the dead to do what I do. I can’t change that.”

“You could refuse.” Jade pointed out. “You still have enough humanity to make that choice.”

“How would you know that?” I questioned acidly. “Can you read my mind? See what’s left of my soul? Give me answers that aren’t there? Can you?”

“No.” With a shrug she raised her hand towards me. “But I can feel your anguish, your pain. Let it go. You’ll never know peace if you don’t.”

“Peace isn’t something I ever knew.” I softly replied, feeling the heat of tears forming behind my eyes and hating that weakness in myself. I had no room for self pity, none. “I don’t even know what that is. I thought I’d find if when I died, but that was denied me, along with other things. Now I just do what I was brought back for. That’s all.”

She nodded and what I saw in her face, her eyes, hurt while raising the familiar rage I had fought before. It wasn’t hate, or fear I was seeing in those deep, intelligent eyes. It was sorrow, and, worse, pity. “I wish I had an answer for you Spectre, but I don’t. I had hoped we could reach some kind of agreement, at least enough that you’d stop all the killing, but I can see that isn’t likely to happen right now.”

“Which leaves us where, exactly?” I questioned while preparing to dodge whatever she planned on throwing at me.

“I’ll have to take you in and then we’ll let the real authorities decide what to do with and about you.” As she said that a green glow surrounded me, forming into a globe that I was pretty sure would be impenetrable to most mortals. But to me?

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” I answered from thirty feet to the side, outside of her prisoning globe thanks to my ability to just appear in other spots without physically moving myself. “But I just can’t let you take me in. Besides, I don’t think a regular jail would hold me, and I know that the force that brought me back from the dead, orders me, wouldn’t allow it. Not for long, anyway.”

To her credit, Jade didn’t gape in stunned amazement once I’d done that. She set blocks around me, at a distance and shook her head. “It would be easier all around if you just came in on your own. I don’t like using force if I don’t really need to.”

I avoided those, too. And the slamming impact of a huge green fist, sidestepped a grasping hand — if you can call what I do sidestepping, floated through a very clever cage that would have contained an insubstantial being if I hadn’t just turned into some kind of smoke or fog then worked my way through the chinks in it, and just did my best to avoid capture without actually fighting her.

“I’m not going to fight you, Jade.” I did manage to tell her between all the dodging around, and noted a couple of news helicopters in the area filming the confrontation. “You aren’t a candidate for my particular talents and I refuse to use those to harm people who don’t deserve it from me.”

“Commendable of you.” She had stopped trying to capture me for at least a few seconds, and gave me an unhappy look. “But what you do is outside the law, and I have to uphold that law.”

“I didn’t expect you to welcome me with open arms.” I quietly said into her ear after appearing right beside her. “But I’m not your enemy, Jade.”

“I know.” She nodded slowly, almost sadly. “But I have to do this.”

“I know that.” I told her. “You’re as bound to what you are as I am to what I’ve become. Goodbye for now. Maybe we can arrange a truce later, I don’t know. I hope so.”

Then I found yet another ability I have. Suddenly we were surrounded in a very thick, but localized fog, though at our altitude I suppose it was more of a cloud, and I just went away.

Back at the apartment, in my Deena form, I morosely watched the footage of my confrontation with Jade on television while trying to reconcile myself to the fact that even the good guys thought I was a menace.

The videos showed me just blinking in and out of space while Jade attempted to corral me, and that saddened me, too. I hadn’t wished to make her appear ineffective, or whatever it was. Though I had to admit that the expression on her face when my fog suddenly cleared and I wasn’t there was priceless.

“What are you, Diana Spectre?” I whispered. “Or more to the point, what am I?”

On the one hand I appeared to be an almost unstoppable force, but one that wanted to care about people and couldn’t quite figure out how to do it. On the other I was an equally determined human girl who was fearful of letting people know she really did care. Such disparity in what was essentially one being even if we did show different aspects to the world. But both personalities were nothing other than different sides of the same coin, so to speak.

All I was sure of just then, really sure of, was that each part of me had to stop distancing herself from the other. Because that path led to true insanity. And the thought of a truely insane Spectre filled me with more dread than I can describe.

Looking at the carnage spread out below me, I had to literally fight down the rage I felt as if was a living thing that clawed, bit, and yowled in my face like a furious beast. Which it was, come to think of it, just not a corporeal one.

The Necromancer had made another appearance. This time in a shopping mall on the outskirts of town. He’d disappeared by the time I arrived, but had left me some tokens of his interest in me.

I sidestepped one of those, a shambling, mindless thing that had been a young man not long before and reached out to cut the connection that kept his corpse animated. The emptiness I encountered inside the poor creature was more horrible than death had been for me, all this thing could do was try and harm the living, which I was putting a stop to when the police arrived.

“Get up, and get away from here.” I quietly told a teen aged girl who had been that one’s target. “You’re safe from them now.”

“Yu — you KILLED him!” She almost screamed at me, and was as terrified of me as she had been of the one time boy at our feet.

“No.” I shook my head. “He was dead before I got here. I just let his body die as it should have earlier. Go on, get away from here now, I won’t harm you.”

She scuttled away like a crab, never once turning away from me until she’d gotten around a corner and could run without me watching. I noticed something white clutched in the hand of the ‘zombie’ I’d just finished off and was reaching down to pull it loose when a loud voice demanded. “Hands on your head, and turn to face the wall. NOW!”

Looking up, I saw a ring of police with weapons drawn and aimed at me. I stood slowly, with the paper wadded in one hand and simply looked at them for a few seconds. “I didn’t cause this.”

“That’s for a judge to decide.” The one who’d ordered me to put my hands on my head replied. “From here it looks like you just killed that poor kid, so do what I told you or we’ll open fire.”

I was angry, not at the police, but at what had happened, the death and destruction caused by a being who cared about life no more than I cared about the criminals I hunted down. But the rage filled me and I wanted to lash out at something, anything just then.

“I can’t do that.” I answered with a shake of my head while fighting that unreasoning need to strike at something down. “The one who really did this is still running around loose and I’m afraid the police won’t be able to do anything about him.”

“Have it your way.”

“If you open fire on me, innocents are liable to be harmed.” I told him. “I’d have to do something to stop that. Something you probably wouldn’t like very much.”

He didn’t listen and started to fire. I was beside him and had him down in less time than it takes to tell about it. With a hand at his throat and the other removing the weapon from his own, I looked into his eyes and shook my head.

“Remember this. I could have killed you, or just hurt you. I don’t harm innocents or people doing their jobs like you are, but I won’t endanger people unnecessarily and if that means I do have to hurt someone to prevent that, I will.” I placed his pistol back in its holster and drew back a bit. “I’m going now, just to make sure I don’t hurt anyone here. The damage, the killing, was done in this place by the time I got here. Check the security tapes if you don’t want to believe me.”

So I vanished from that spot, to find myself back in my private no space. With some kind of note still crumpled in my hand.

What I read on that note would have had me going white if I wasn’t already that shade.

Diana Spectre,

Yes, I know your name, what we are lets me know that about you. I had hoped that you would appreciate my talents for what they are and make use of my little gifts. Since you have chosen not to do that, I will resort to other measures to bring you into my influence.
I will be seeing you, Diana Spectre.
N

The note went up in smoke once I’d read it and I just looked at my empty hand for a few seconds before letting out a held in breath. “Oh, no you don’t, you bastard.”

“This one knows who you are, and what you are, Diana.” The Voice, notably absent up to then, informed me.

“Oh, that’s information I didn’t have.” I shot back. “Thanks so much for sharing it. It would have been nice to know this, oh, you know, yesterday.”

“I understand your anger, Daughter.” Voice told me almost gently. “But you must understand that there are others who work through the dead besides me. Those are not nearly so — beneficent -- as I am. You must guard against your anger with this one, he uses it against you and will continue to do so until you conquer it. It is a weakness this one will exploit if you allow it. Do not let that happen.”

“The police, and regular people think I killed those poor husks.” I barely whispered. “He set me up for that. He’s made me look like a common murderer.”

“Will you become what he has tried portraying you as being?”

“No.” I grimly answered, not only for the Voice, but for myself. “I won’t.”

“Good.” Voice approved. “This Necromancer knows your name, but nothing else. But be aware he will try to call you to him with that. This unreasoning rage you feel is his work in more ways than one, my child. Be patient, be strong, be vigilant.”

“Easy for you to say.” I muttered while returning to my apartment and somewhat less complicated life as Deena.

Life gets very complicated at times, even if you're dead.

I had a LOT of thinking to do.